#the real yearning was the friends we made along the way | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thesilmarillionblog · 2 months ago

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𝐖𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄 ── Part 4

Click here to read the first part.

Summary: In the hopes that things would improve between you, you choose to lose your virginity to your friend Dean Winchester because you have been in love with him madly for a long time. However, he doesn't feel the same about you.

Pairing: Dean Winchester x F!Reader

Warnings: +18! (Minors DNI), SMUT! Halloween Party, sensitive topics, discussions, unprotected sex, jealousy, sexual tension, heavy angst, insecure and confused reader, angst, painful

Word Count: 11.1K

A/N: English is not my first language.

🎃🕸️── Halloween Special Part ──🕸️🎃 Song: 'Honeythief' by Halou.

“Can we talk properly?” Upon hearing that you wished to return home, Dean implied he regretted what he said earlier. What is done was done though.

You cut him off abruptly, saying, “I really don't want to,” and indicated the need to stop talking to Dean about the depth of your friendship with Robb. What he asked wasn’t appropriate and though he knew it, he had asked a second time with a more rude manner. “I am really exhausted. A lot.”

To change your opinion, Dean replied, “Sam invited you,” as if telling you that Sam's suggestion was any better. Your wish to return home was overwhelming.

This time, you spoke out with a firm tone. “Really, Dean,” avoiding his gaze with a turn to face the road. “The next day I'll be working too. I should definitely get some sleep. It was a very busy day. I can’t feel my legs.”

“Alright.”

Dean shut his mouth, not wanting to annoy you any longer, and considered the bond you have with Robb. Dean wondered if the son of a bitch had already made a move on you since he was quite sure he was up to something. He found it disturbing that he would have to work together with you at the hospital in the days to come.

Sighing, he took a quick glance at you and seeing that you were staring at the road while lost in thoughts. It was only a simple question; maybe he shouldn't have asked it that way, but he did not like the thought of getting on your nerves. Maybe you were simply too exhausted for a brief discussion. He didn't mean to hurt your feelings. But he felt bizarrely pleased that you and that man hadn't shared any intimate past. He wasn't your type anyway. Too tall and too skinny for your taste. Dean was sure of that.

You knew you arrived when Dean pulled over. He should have been aware of the boundaries; it wasn't that you wanted to part ways with him that way and watch him leave. You hated seeing him leave. Your mind and heart yearned for intimacy.

Dean responded, “I'll pick you up tomorrow morning,” just as you were about to get out.

“Alright, good night. Tell Sammy that I'm sorry and also worn out.”

Even if you didn't get the finest sleep of your life, at least Dean showed your home sooner than you anticipated and brought coffee. You kindly turned down his offer to have breakfast together because you would be late for work. In reality, it was primarily due to his strangely impolite behavior recently. You made every effort to remain normal and behave as though nothing had occurred between you and him. But even though you tried your best and talked to him very normally, he had been acting like a jerk, as though it was your fault all along.

That's why you made the decision to set a few boundaries despite what your heart felt. If not, Dean would end up hurting you much more. Love was an awful type of disease.

“Will you be coming tonight?” Dean asked as you turned to face him and opened the door.

You just stated, “I don't want to.” Although your anger had subsided from yesterday, you still felt uncomfortable and needed some alone time.

“Why not?” Dean softly inquired, clearly taken aback by your answer. After all, you never used to reject him for anything.

Fuck, you didn't even say no when he approached you for your first quick sexual experience. When Dean spoke, you had to learn to say no. For real. Otherwise, you had no idea what to do, even if he dragged your head between his legs right away. Your face turned red. You felt pathetic.

“Robb and I will be having our dinner tonight. Outaide. We haven't spent much time together lately,” you stated while looking at your watch. You still had some more time.

Dean's hands tightened around the steering wheel. There was no doubt that Robert would be a pain in the ass. Deal was becoming increasingly irritated by knowing that you would be spending the entire night with him; in fact, it was making him want to break Robert's face.

“I'll make dinner. You are welcome to bring Robb, your buddy,” Dean said. Before he could stop himself, he spoke. After all, he was never particularly good at thinking twice. “He's new here after all, and he can get to know his friend's friends by himself.”

Although Dean's offer seemed sweet and generous, you still raised an eyebrow and were ready to say no. You asked naively, “Really?”

“Yeah.” Dean smiled a bit at you, seeing that you were already thinking about accepting his offer. That wasn't too difficult, he guessed. “Making new friends and having dinner together would be awesome.”

When you eventually said, “Okay,” you looked at your watch and said, “But I have to ask Robb first, then I'll give you a call. I have to go right now.”

Dean picked up your bag and handed it to you when he noticed you had forgotten it. “Okay. After you speak with him, give me a call. Take care.”

Because you were restless and kept yawning, you continued receiving warnings; thus, the rest of the day didn't go as smoothly as you had planned. You could get some relaxation at the end of the week which was two days late. It was Halloween Week after all. You had no plans though. Remembering that you had spent it in your own house doing nothing, your heart clenched with sorrow.

You didn't have enough time to chat with Robert because the emergency was so busy. In the meantime, he was consumed with his own work. When lunchtime rolled around, you managed to get his attention and told him that Dean offered an invitation for dinner. You awaited Robert's rejection. In fact, you would feel better if you avoided seeing Dean for a day at the very least. You needed some time alone for yourself. God, what made you say "yes" in the first place?

Robb, much to your surprise, accepted the offer with enthusiasm and stated that you all should spend time all together. He had also wanted to know who your pals were. If he found out that you and the Winchester brothers were ghost hunters, you wondered what kind of reaction he would have. He would suggest that you see a doctor. You'd die because of embarrassment.

You were going to tell him that you knew Dean from when he helped you a year or so ago and was skilled at fixing cars. That would be enough as an explanation. Of course, you had to warn Dean first. Your face reddened as you thought back to when he had mentioned how good you were about using your hands. God knew what exactly he meant. He was an asshole. Sometimes.

Sam shot Dean a strange glance when he placed everything he bought from the grocery store.

“What are these for?”

Dean revealed, “We have a special guest for dinner tonight.”

The fact that he had asked your friend to come to the dinner made him uncomfortable. He was an absolute stranger. Still, it was preferable to letting you and him share a night together. He believed that you two were growing more and more apart every day, and you two had too much to talk about. It seemed like Robert would be an obstable.

The more time you spend with Robert, the more boundaries you build between you and him. That wasn't right. You were, after all, a long-time member of the family. A year of hunting wasn't an exaggeration.

“Who?” Sam inquired, puzzled by Dean's peculiar behavior.

“Y/N and her friend, Robb.”

“Is she in a relationship already? I can't believe she would act that quickly.” Sam laughed out loud, enjoying the memory of his conversation with you. He was unaware that you would meet a man so quickly. Would that make him a friend or a good manipulator? As long as the result was beneficial for you, Sam was okay with both.

Dean nearly threw the tomato at Sam's big head, but he restrained himself.

“She's not in a relationship,” Dean stated calmly. “And what you mean you didn't think she would act so fast?”

Sam grinned triumphantly, assuming from his previous words of encouragement that you were already in a relationship. After all, you needed a break from your job and the anxiety it caused. You have the right to pursue your own pleasure.

“Remember the night that she spent here the day before? We had been watching TV, and I asked Y/N whether she was seeing someone. Jo and you were enjoying your little fun. Remember now? You know, we are spending time together and going hunting, but for gods sake, I've never seen her with anyone,” Sam remarked, trying to think back on every minute of your conversation.

As Dean chopped the tomatoes, he frowned, remembering the terrible night he had spent with Jo. He was still tormenting himself over the time he liked fucking her while he thought of your body throughout that moment. When he thought back on these times, Dean felt uneasy. He didn't know what had overcome him to do something that shouldn't have been done in the first place.

“And?” Dean remarked, pushing Sam to continue. Regarding the other subjects Sam had brought up, he remained silent.

“And I asked her whether she's into someone already or if she simply doesn't let people into her life. To be honest, I still don't know the answer, but I told her to see someone at least,” Sam said, beaming with pride at having offered you some helpful guidance. “I mean, she's been lonely for a long time, and her job is already too stressful,” he added. Actually, he wasn't all that excellent at managing his own life, but he was wonderful at offering advice and listening.

Dean felt a bit better when he heard that Sam hadn't seen you with anybody before, but he wasn't pleased about Sam's attempts to give you dumb advice that seemed totally useless. “She's not alone. She is one of us. And why would you fill her troubled head with such stupid ideas? Her work requires a lot of effort and energy already,” Dean said, annoyed with his brother's jerky behavior.

You were handling too many things at once; therefore, it was helpful to avoid relationships and to quit doing meaningless things like dating. It was too much for you to handle. Dean was aware of how demanding and time-consuming nursing was. In short, relationships took a lot of time. Right now, you were too vulnerable and too soft to handle a man.

Bewildered by Dean's comments, Sam tried to defend himself. “What even are you saying, Dean? She won't be living alone for very long. Her entire family is gone. She is, of course, one of us, but it's very reasonable that she would desire to start her own family as a form of escape. She is not a child to protect; she is an adult.”

Dean scowled at Sam and rolled his eyes. It seems as though his brother would never stop bombarding you with his rubbish thoughts. Dean was sure that you would listen to his brother's idiotic words and, worse, that you would take them seriously because you were too naive.

“You had to be kidding me. Why on earth are you giving her such crap ideas? She shouldn't spend her little spare time with a man for just that reason. Dealing with a man's shit is more difficult than her job, which is already tough enough. Ask your partner. She will probably whine about how annoying you are occasionally. I'm sure she has much to tell.”

“Takes one to know one, huh?” Having no idea about Dean's behavior, Sam raised an eyebrow. His brother was behaving strangely these days, for sure. Particularly about you. One of Dean's specialties was being overly protective and acting oddly tough. “Have you met her friend yet?”

“Yeah.”

“And? Is he working in the same hospital with her or?” Sam asked curiously.

Dean answered, “Yes, he's a doctor.” To observe how he was treating you while at work, perhaps he should get himself a fake identity and pretend to be a doctor for a day. Dean wondered if Robert treated you well.

“They would make a great couple, huh? A nurse and a doctor. Sounds lovely enough and a bit...kinky.”

Lovely my ass.

“Why don't you help me, my lovely brother, instead of just sitting on your ass there uttering bullshit? She is your friend too,” Dean bitterly said, “I can't do the entire work by myself.” It seemed as though Sam had made it his mission to irritate Dean today. He wasn't sure if Sam was doing it on purpose. His brother was always a hopeless romantic bitch, but he never knew the ideal partner for himself and neither for you.

“Will you invite Jo?” Sam inquired, uninterested about Dean's plea for assistance. He was not even fond of kitchen stuff. It was something he never liked.

“Fuck, no. Not that we are in a relationship. We're not seeing each other anymore.”

“Friends with benefits then?” Sam seemed to find the concept disgusting. How someone could fuck another every day without feeling anything at all was beyond his comprehension. Perhaps that was the reason for your prolonged single status. But for Dean, if he was in the mood for fuck, it didn't matter if he felt anything as long as the person had a pussy.

“Fine. Good.” Sighing, Sam noticed Dean's sharp gaze as he cut the tomatoes, as if he wanted to throw the knife at him.

When you saw Robert outside after he had to wait an hour for your shift to end, you felt awkward and apologized for something that wasn't your fault. He was polite and understanding enough to accept Dean's invitation, and he also waited for you in his car.

Following you, he drove his own car to Dean's house. You tried to calm Dean down over the phone after your small argument so that he wouldn't treat you like a child and rebuke just because you were talking on the phone while driving. He was the one to call you. In an attempt to avoid ruining the night, you made an effort to settle down beforehand.

It was annoying that when you told Dean what to tell Robb about how you met him and Sam since he didn't sound pleased. It was a story about Dean helping you with your car a year ago. It wouldn't be a lie; he was skilled at repairing after all. You couldn't tell if he liked Robb. It was insignificant, though. He should treat your friends with the same politeness that you showed him, along with his hookups and everyone else, even Jo. If not, you would have to really set a few boundaries.

You were clueless about how to make an impression on him during the last several days, or even if you could win him over at all. Almost everything made him angry.

Soon after Robb and you parked, you nervously knocked on the door. He was standing next to you, and you prayed he hadn't noticed your nervousness. It was soothing that he always had an infectious smile on his face. It was nice to see someone at ease and easygoing.

You briefly forgot how to breathe as Dean opened the door. You could smell his fresh fragrance from a distance, as if you were some animal. You couldn't tell if he had recently taken a shower or had simply changed his clothing. You blinked as your eyes met, and you forced yourself to look away from the tight, dark blue t-shirt that was revealing his enormous arms. You both awkwardly stood there, staring at one another without moving. You smelled like sweat and tiredness, most probably.

All of your fury at him vanished the instant you laid eyes on him, took in his piercing look, and smelled his clean scent. When your heart was beating wildly the moment you laid eyes on him, how were you going to set boundaries? Was there any chance for it?

Sam grinned broadly and said, “Hey,” reaching out to give you a hug as Robb walked in.

Sam gave you a tight embrace and said, “Welcome home,” as Dean and Robb exchanged strange looks.

Dean was staring at him as though he hadn't even invited him in the first place.

When Sam eventually quit holding you, Robet and Sam shook hands, and Dean tried to embrace you too, grabbing you by your belly, but you just murmured, “Hi, Dean,” smiling shyly, stroked his arm briefly, and hurried inside as you literally escaped from the hug though your heart craved for touching.

You didn't think you could resist melting in his arms and forgetting all he said if he gave you a hug right then. You weren't the god's strongest soldier. Plus, you were positive you smelled awful.

Dean's fingers burnt as soon as he touched you to pull to himself to give you a hug. He tried to make things normal and wanted you to comfortable with him just like you were comfortable with Sam. However, watching you escape from his hug with a simple greeting and a light touch, Dean's body tensed. He was consumed by your timid and icy behaviour as if you hadn't talked him about how you wanted things to be normal.

It didn't calm him up to see you being touchy with Robb and Sam. Moreover, Dean was already becoming irritated. It was a bad idea to invite a complete stranger. God. He should have considered his words wisely before speaking.

You sat at the table and looked around to see whether Jo was present, but she was nowhere to be seen. When you gave Dean a questioning glance, he said nothing. He assumed you were exhausting. You moved so slowly and heavily that it was simple to understand.

Robb interrupted, “Everything looks delicious,” while Dean continued to give you serious eye contact. “Thanks for having me.”

Dean smirked widely and continued, “Don't mention it.” You exhaled a sigh of relief. "So how was your day?"

While you were fiddling with your food, Dean continued to eat, and you began to eat as well, though you weren't sure if you were truly hungry or not. You just felt a little anxious. Trying to unwind a little while, you watched Sam enjoy his food and listened to Dean and Robb. You hoped that your earlier action of trying to run away from Dean's touch hadn't offended him in any way.

Robert responded shyly, “It was exhausting enough. But there weren't any deaths today, fortunately, which is not very common nowadays.”

“I bet. It's undeniable that these are crazy times,” Dean said while his mouth was full. Dear God. “But in emergencies, I'm sure things are much more crazier. There's no denying that the staff there deserve far more respect. Especially nurses.”

You nervously smiled and said, “Thanks, Dean,” acknowledging his sincere admiration for the work you were doing. “Robb is also quite deserving of respect. It's not easy to save someone's life and to see someone else lose their life at your hands. To be honest, I deal with broken bones and bandages on people's cut bodies mostly.”

“Well, I'm grateful. When it comes to medical problems and saving lives, there is no such thing as a little or huge job.” Robert sipped on his wine and stated, “I assure you, honey, you're very good at your job. That's sufficient.”

Dean rolled his eyes, carried on with his dinner, and gave Sam a quick glance. Rather than eating in solitude and messaging his girlfriend, his brother should have supported him in interrogating the doctor. In an attempt to get to know your friend, Dean felt as though he was battling alone.

“Would you also save the life of a terrorist? or that of a rapist?” Dean inquired abruptly, and you gave him a stern look to let him know he was pushing things a little too far.

When he invited you and Robert for dinner, you expected him to act nice and fix the complicated situation with you. However, he was determined to make you annoyed with his unpredictable behaviour. If only you could find a time to be alone with him right now, you could ask him to behave. You hoped he got the message when you frowned at his face.

Sam stated calmly, “Of course he is supposed to save people's lives no matter what,” and Dean briefly closed his eyes while smiling angrily. Even if his brother interrupted in this way, how in the world was he to question the morality of this dumb? He was doomed. Sam should have shut up instead of standing up for a stranger over Dean's face.

“I would and that’s what I’m doing,” Robb said in a tone as cold as was to be expected. “Even if some of these people are terrible and don't deserve to live, I made a vow to save their lives, not take them. Although I must admit that I don't enjoy it sometimes, I still do my best to help them. It is not my responsibility to judge them, put them in jail, or have them put to execution.”

You felt the air getting heavier, so you timidly put your hand on Robb's shoulder and patted him to express your sympathy and help him feel calmer. “And that's the right thing to do even if it doesn't feel right,” you mumbled. It was the kind of thing you had to answer every day, so you hoped Robb wouldn't take offense at Dean's question and that he wouldn't take it personally.

“I don't think I would do it though,” Dean stated, fiddling with his meal at the moment. It was ridiculous to watch how he toyed with his fork now.

With a broad smile, Robb said, “That's why I'm the doctor here and you are not,” seemingly trying to enrage Dean. As he thought he was being challenged as well, he didn't back down. They attempted to turn the talk into an ego battle, so you just rolled your eyes.

Aware of Dean's short temper, you gave Robb a hint by kicking him under the table. You then apologized and asked Dean for more wine.

“Dean had also questioned me with the same questions, which I'm sure were purely out of curiosity. After all, we all receive quite similar questions every day,” you remarked softly, hoping Dean wouldn't respond negatively this time and exacerbate the situation.

“Obviously. It is all curiosity. Don't take it personal.”

His remorse overcame him at seeing your timid and anxious appearance. It wasn't as though he invited your buddy and you to hurt feelings and spoil your evening again. It felt like a challenge, though, the way Robert called you nicknames while grinning slyly at Dean. If that guy stopped acting like he was more attractive, Dean might try to be more respectful. That guy was an asshole, though. He simply knew that being around you must make Robb feel more intelligent.

He had such a punchable face, especially when he smiled.

“How did you meet?” At last, Robb asked. If nothing else, you hoped he would help you ease the situation and stop getting on Dean's nerves.

You didn't trust Dean and cut him off as soon as he opened his lips. “He helped me with my car. It was a dreadful, rainy day that included a small accident. As you are aware, Dean is excellent at fixing cars,” you made and attempt to praise him. It was true. “And I am not very good at driving in the rain as you know. In fact, he's the best.” He gave you a hand with your vehicle on many different occasions. Those were beautiful, memorable times.

“His and Sam's girlfriends are also good friends of mine.” Now that was a complete lie. However, you didn't want Robb to make any comments about romance when they were seated at the table. You were not very good at hiding your feelings, and Robert had an innate ability for reading people.

But Dean was blind.

“That's right,” Dean remarked with a cold whisper, “I'm very good at fixing things and breaking things.” He gave you a stern look.

Sam smiled and nodded nervously, for it was true that you and Ruby were close enough. You had the impression that everything was going well for him. But Dean instantly entwined, saying, “Jo and I weren't a thing.” When he used the past tense, you scowled, and he saw the look of perplexity on your face. You stopped asking questions after that. He would soon find another partner. You were surprised he dated with her that long.

You asked Robert, “Do you have any plans for Halloween?” to change the topic.

You were wondering whether Robb had any plans for Halloween because you had never spent the holiday with Sam and Dean before. He loved cosplaying and was always coming up with the funniest and most original outfits compared to other people. To him, it was much like a hobby. You were better than him at thinking of the worst possible ideas, but it was still an enjoyable activity.

“Yes, without a doubt.” Robb swallowed the piece and took a drink of wine. “My costume is ready,” he declared with excitement. “By the way, I met an old friend of mine yesterday, and he informed me that he would be throwing a party this week. God, he told me some strange things.”

“Like what?” Sam cut him off. He sounded both interested and suspicious.

“I'm going to tell you what he told me, and I really hope you guys don't laugh at me. In any case, he told me that his house is definitely haunted. Not that I buy this garbage, but in the previous three years, there have been three murders that have all occurred in the same room during Halloween.”

Your eyes met Dean's, and Robert laughed shamefacedly, as if he were having trouble believing what he was saying since he has never believed in the supernatural events. Dean's excitement-filled eyes and altered posture suggested that he was missing hunting. You two hadn't spent any time together in a while.

“It may be a serial killing,” Sam guessed. “Who has been arrested for the murders? Any witnesses or suspects?”

“That's the unusual part,” Robb stated. “Neither witnesses nor suspects are there. If a killer exists, there was not a single piece of evidence that may lead the police to them. All guests over the past three years have been thoroughly investigated, but not a single person has been identified as a suspect. Given the killings, my buddy Jordan purchased the house a year ago for a rather low price. Although they haven't had any events in a while, it appears that the owners have made the decision to get rid of it.”

Before you could say a thing, Dean inquired, “How did those people die? Has your friend provided you with any details?”

“Yeah, it is sick. Every year, the victims had been discovered in the same room, nude on the bed. There's a high chance they were killed while having sex. Perhaps it's a one-person job, but for heaven's sake, I can't say a damn thing until I analyze the victims' bodies and determine just how they were killed. He informed me that a woman had been killed in the same room years before. I suppose this is the reason why people believe the house is certainly haunted. I don’t know man.”

“And your friend wants to organize a Halloween party in the same house?” Dean asked, surprised. He was still shocked that people were so keen on doing all the wrong things.

“Indeed,” Robb replied. “But we're not going to use that room. He'll exercise caution with this. All he wants to do this week is plan an awesome Halloween party. If it's okay with you, I'd want to invite the rest of you as well. No pressure.”

“We'll be there, of course,” Dean said immediately. He was thrilled that Sam and he got the invitation.

You give Dean a nod as he looks at you to see whether you're comfortable with it. This mysterious situation, including ghosts, might strengthen your relationship with Dean and help you two become as you once were. You were desperate for it, and the thought of acting like someone else excited you. It had been a long time.

It was pleasant enough for the rest of the evening. Dean stopped being hostile toward Robert and didn't say anything to make you feel uncomfortable. While Robb and Sam were deep in conversation, he continued to stare at you. You were full, yet you continued to fiddle with your meal as you frequently glanced at Dean. That being said, you didn't know why he was staring at you weirdly. You couldn't help but imagine your fingertips lingering over his pointed jaw as you saw how wonderful he looked in his tight t-shirt and freshly shaven face. Your cheeks were hot from the strange ideas that were running through your mind.

You wished that you had also changed into new clothing. Damn. You smelled like a hospital; that much was certain. No one liked the hospital smell. Dean has often told you how much he despised that smell. Just like he made you feel exciting, you desperately wanted him to feel the same about yourself. However, one thing he didn't enjoy was the scent of your hospital.

Dean stared at you with anticipation, just after Robert had told Sam and Dean that he had to go and thanked them for their hospitality. You got the message. Undoubtedly, you had to bring up that Halloween party Robb brought up. There were things that had to be discussed beforehand.

“I guess I'll stay here for the night,” you said to Robb. “I'm too tired to move right now.”

He thanked Dean again, didn't ask any questions, shook hands with both of them, and departed the home, leaving you and the Winchester Brothers by alone. Before he went away, you gestured that you would give him a call soon.

You took a big breath once the door closed, satisfied that the dinner had gone well enough. At that point, you needed to sleep and recharge since your feet and back were starting to hurt. To get rid of your overwhelming scent, though, you had to take a quick shower first.

Sam said, “I will not be coming to the party with you guys,” before you could say anything. “I wish I could. But I promised Ruby that I would be hanging out with her and her pals that day. I cannot change the plans now.”

"It's okay." It surprised you both when Dean smiled at him and said, “You don't have to change your plans.” Sam joining him on hunting was something he was usually quite obsessed with, but this time he didn't even argue with him.

“Really?” inquired Sam. He shared your shock.

“Yes. I'm certain Y/N and I can handle this crap. It will be simple. You shouldn't disappoint your girlfriend.”

You looked at Dean's face, and you arched an eyebrow. He appeared quite serious. Sam gave him a skeptical glance. He was about to leave the room after saying good night to both of you and realizing that Dean was truly being thoughtful and kind, but you stopped him.

“Could you please give me one of your t-shirts, Sam?” You asked shyly as you assisted Dean in clearing the table, “I think I need to take a shower.” You didn't want to wait to take a shower for another minute because you were afraid Dean would smell your sweat and the hospital fragrance while he was that close.

Dean said, “I could give you—” but Sam intervened.

“Sure. I’ll put it on your bed. Alright?”

“Thanks, Sam,” you said, casting him a friendly glance.

You reasoned that asking Dean for anything to wear would be strange given what had transpired between you and him. Whether or not he broke up with Jo didn't matter. You had to establish some limits if you both wished to keep your friendship healthy. You had, after all, stepped over a pretty fragile line. It could be harmless to wear his t-shirt, but there was no reason to get your hopes up and think delusional things. You were normal before you had sex, even though you occasionally wore his clothing. So much had changed by now.

Even though Dean told you to sit down and rest after Sam left the room, you persisted in helping him clean the table. Robb occasionally attempted to get under Dean's nerves, and Dean responded with the same ferocity, but he unexpectedly played well. He didn't usually say pleasant things of people he didn't like, but he even cooked for him and did his best.

He broke the silence as soon as he noticed you carrying the last glass and handing it to him, shortly after he began to slowly wash the dishes. You were fascinated with his physique and thick wrists, yet you attempted to divert your attention to something else before he could see you staring at his body.

His abrupt question, “So, are you satisfied?” made you tense up in shame.

You naively said, “What?” not realizing what he was getting at.

When Dean turned to face you and saw your confusion, he had to force himself not to chuckle. “The dinner. I think I did well there, huh?”

You ignored the dirty thoughts that were running through your head, focusing solely on the conversation as you picked up on the arrogance in his tone. You suppressed your nervousness as you wondered whether he was intentionally attempting to make you feel shy.

“Yes. Dean, it was wonderful. Thanks for inviting Robb. I'm glad we had such an enjoyable time together,” you said genuine, smiling a little at him.

Instead of looking him in the eye as you hurriedly watched him wash the dishes, you continued to see his rough hands soaked in water. Your mind was contemplating things you'd be embarrassed to admit, even though you were trying to focus on the talk. You bit your lips out of tension and eventually turned away from him, folding your arms over your chest when he curled his fingers around a glass. As quickly as you could, you had to wash your dirty mind of filthy ideas.

“Yeah?” he murmured, surprised by the praise, which didn't appear to have enough impression. “You didn't care to give the generous hug there, though.”

Without intending to offend, Dean had to bring it up. He kept his mind occupied during the dinner with the way you left him feeling as though you were far more distant than before. He couldn't keep wondering why you were acting the way you were, even if it wasn't really that important.

Surprised by the way of the embrace you ran from he mentioned, you opened your mouth to say something, but nothing came out. The cause of it was not something that could be easily explained, almost as if discussing it was forbidden. To clear your head and avoid saying anything absurd, you took a deep breath.

“I just smelled bad. I didn't want to bother you with it,” you eventually said. Although you weren't being quite honest with him, it was accurate enough.

“What smell?” With a perplexed tone, Dean inquired about as he quickly wiped dry his hands with a towel.

You tried to say it an amused way to cover your shyness, “Sweat and hospital smell, you know,” but you were embarrassed to admit it. “You always say it makes you throw up.”

The way he complained about the hospital and its stench didn't bother you months ago when you first met him, and he brought it up immediately, but by the time you fell in love with him, you could see how much he hated it and the way he portrayed it. When your shift finished and he was around, you tried your best to be cautious and avoid physical contact. However, you arrived at the house without having had time to change into new clothing or take a shower this evening. It was one of your insecurities.

Not that you held him responsible for it. After all, everyone disliked things for various reasons. You didn't take it personally.

“What? I-” Dean questioned in a hushed voice, as if that were the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. While he remembered the things he had said to you while you were close to him immediately following the end of your shift, his heart felt heavy. He didn't mean to offend you. Never.

He moved in your direction, holding the towel in one hand. You could not have merely run away from him this time since your legs did not receive any signals from your brain on how to move as he drew closer. “It's just... I didn't mean to hurt you. I would never.”

He stopped in front of you, and you felt caged, your back touching the kitchen sink. To meet his gaze, you had to raise your head. Your hands, not knowing where to rest, began to linger on the surface of the kitchen sink, where Dean had placed the towel. You knew you would touch him if you could only get your hands to move a bit. A little gasp was visible between your hands. But you could never have the guts to approach him in that way. Your hands paused there so as not to make the wrong action.

Dean smelled you now, but he didn't take a deep breath so as not to disturb you. You did smell like a hospital, but it was in a nice, fresh way. It was just sweet somehow. He didn't care whether you smelled blood and sweat. Your hair had become messy due to your job, and your overall scent made you appear...nicer. Perhaps in order to make a wise decision, he needed to have gotten a bit closer.

Stating that “I didn't say this to bother you.” To soften the air, you gave him a kind smile. “Do you want to talk about that Halloween party?” You asked to change the subject in order to break the distance a little between you and Dean; otherwise, your heart could burst because of anxiety and excitement anytime.

Dean didn't say anything as he saw you feeling uncomfortable, but his face fell. “I suppose we should first decide what to wear,” he commented, folding his arms over his broad chest.

“I have an idea for what to wear already.”

This time, you were unable to help but smile genuinely. Even if you lacked creativity, at least you had a sense of humor. That was also remarkable.

“Oh, yeah?” Curious about what you were up to, Dean chuckled. “What's your idea?”

“You'll see,” and you chuckled along with him. He was happy to see your former attitude returning. This was something he had missed.

You kept talking to Dean about what to do as Halloween Week drew nearer so you wouldn't make a mistake and ruin everything. It would place you both in a very difficult situation. For your sake as much as his own, Dean took great care to hunt down ghosts and to look after his car.

As you adjusted your costume and red lingerie, you took one final glance at yourself in the mirror. It had enough fake blood on it. While you and Dean attempted to find the ghost, you prayed that you wouldn't fall on your ass wearing the red high heels. Of course, if there was one at all. You also had to be careful when moving in the outfit because it was barely covering your legs. You were unsure whether your choice of a seductive, bleeding nurse costume was a mistake.

You knew Dean had come when he called. As you got into the front seat, your heart was racing crazily. He muttered something behind his mask, but you were too busy fighting to keep your costume from baring off too much of your flesh to understand it.

“What are you wearing?” you said, perplexed as you peered at his black cloak and mask. It was almost invisible in the darkness.

“I am Batman,” he responded in a rather aggressive manner, his hands motionless on the driving wheel as he continued to study your lace and revealing clothing. “It is expected of us to pretend like someone else. It's the concept. How are you even expected to move in this, by the way?”

Arms crossed across your chest, and you felt like you had to defend yourself. “I am pretending that I'm a sexy killer nurse, Dean.”

Sighing, Dean stopped from mentioning that you'd move more easily in a Catwoman outfit. He only said, trying not to look at your naked legs and lingerie, “Alright, sexy killer nurse. Let's go.”

Upon arriving in the house, you couldn't help but gawk at the people enjoying themselves by the pool and around the house; they were drinking, dancing, and sharing kisses everywhere they were. You could only see Dean's long cloak and mask, which covered half of his face, in the dim lighting. Whether it was anxiousness or anything else, he was biting his lips invitingly.

You said, “So,” as you glanced around the house and the entire people. Because of the loud music, it was difficult to hear your own speaking. “What are we going to do now?”

Nobody welcomed Dean or you when you entered the home. Everyone seemed to be going about their business as usual. Turning your face away, you watched other people taking cracks. Oh god.

The mood was gloomy, and the music was loud. You saw that the majority of people had frightening symbols painted on their faces. Even though ghost hunting was plainly meant to be more frightening, watching people continue to use drugs and drink made you feel nervous. The majority of their costumes were gorgeous, though, and you selected a few as your favorites. The ones you loved most were the ones with Princess Leia, the Shrek and Fiona pair, the Tree costume, the Hamburger one, Gimli, and Legolas costumes. They were exceptionally good.

Dean said, “Come with me,” gesturing for you to follow him upstairs. “We need to find that room.”

“This house is quite big though.” You took his cape in your hands and helped him move more easily. “There must be a lot of room,” you said.

As you climbed upstairs, the number of people in the corridor decreased, and Dean appeared to be looking for something. Even though you had no acknowledgment of what he was doing, you continued to follow him. You said nothing about how his cape made him appear a little funny.

Dean went past the rooms and opened each door one by one. Fortunately, though, there weren't many. “What are you doing?” you eventually said, not completely comprehending his reasons for doing so.

Dean explained, “We need to lock the door or do something else to prevent those teens from trying something funny.”

Those people trying to fuck each other in the same room where someone was murdered wouldn't be unexpected. As soon as Dean opened the doors, every person in the room complained, and he instantly apologized not to make a scene. While some of them were becoming drunk, others were acting in ways that instantly made you look away.

When one of the doors Dean attempted to get open was locked, you exchanged meaningful glances. “This room has to be it,” Dean stated with confidence.

“All right,” he said, reaching into his pockets to get a tool to unlock the door. “A little bit of coverage would work fine.”

As Dean began working on the door, you turned to face the hallway. When he eventually unlocked it, you hurried to get into the room with him before he slammed the door behind you and turned on the lights. You gave Dean an inquiring look when he locked it again.

“To avoid being disturbed,” clarified Dean, clearing his throat.

As you realized the music wasn't playing too loudly in the room, you breathed deeply. There were too many things to dwell on, making it difficult to concentrate on anything.

When you realized that you and Dean were now in an awkward situation, you just touched the room's furnishings randomly to soften the mood. While attempting to avoid staring at your body and touching any objects in the room, Dean cleared his throat nerveously.

With a silent prayer that he wouldn't break anything significant, you said, “What are we going to do now?” You could feel the tenseness and need between your legs as you remembered Rob's words.

Robb informed you that every single one of the people mentioned died during coupling. It had to have a backstory, but for now it was insignificant. While you placed your hands on the shelf, you awaited Dean's reaction, which came when he removed his mask and placed it in his pants pocket. In his Batman outfit, he looked extraordinarily good. The silence grew, and your heart began to beat.

You finally had the guts to stand beside him so as to avoid adding to the awkward matter. You both turned to face the bed and said, “Do you think we can... fake it until we make it? I mean until the ghost appears?” He was clearly uncomfortable as well.

He reluctantly answered, "I guess that's what we are going to do," which hurt your feelings. It wasn't like you had planned to risk everything to that extent in search of a ghost. Even if you thought you were exposed a bit, you avoided saying anything that might have made things worse.

With a shaky voice, you said, “What should I do?” as your heels began to hurt.

With a grunt, Dean clenched his jaw and glared at the bed. You had no idea if he felt powerless due to the situation or whether it was because he would need to set boundaries with you after this once again. After all, he had been making an effort to maintain your friendship strong and ongoing. If you were less in love with him, you may agree to let him do it with someone else if it would make him feel better, even though you didn't have the strength to do it.

Disappointed, all you could do was sit on the bed and wait for Dean to come to help you so that, when you'd dealt with the ghost, you could either go back home or join the party.

You gasped in surprise as Dean finally moved and pushed you further on the bed while holding you by the hips. You raised your head to see his eyes. Your hands went straight to his shoulders for assistance. Dean slid his body between your legs, but he was extremely cautious not to put his weight on you. You let him take control. But your legs were spread wide apart due to how you were dressed, and you could feel the chill causing your thighs to shiver with cold. He could see your underwear and your lower body if he looked at them.

In your first time, there was no electricity in the room, so you couldn't even see each other properly. However, now that there was light, you could see each other so clearly that your heart was racing. You could spend as much time as you pleased studying each line and spot on his face. He appeared much more handsome.

The room suddenly felt cold while Dean waited on top of you, staring at you as well. It was difficult not to give him a clear sign by not glancing at his lips. It was impossible to resist the temptation to moisten your dry lips.

You broke the stillness with a whisper, “Do you think the ghost will appear?” Waiting there with nothing to do but stare at each other felt uneasy.

Dean only said, “I don't know,” while eyeing your lips. “I guess we have to act a little to trigger it.”

“It's okay,” you said, quickly nodding to him. You were instantly ashamed by how eager you sounded. Hope that he didn't cringe.

As you waited underneath him, almost half nude, Dean appeared rather serious and used both of his hands to steady himself. You prayed your heartbeat was not audible to him. You were going to melt beneath his body and go completely insane.

You gasped in anticipation as Dean's head began to draw closer to yours before you could ask him another question. You fought the urge to shut your eyes. That would have made it obvious what you needed, but you carried on to focus on his green eyes. He paused and put one hand on your legs as he felt his hot breath on your skin. His fingers gently made their way under your clothing and contacted the skin beneath them. Your hips were pleading with you to lift them and give the signal, but you pressed your lips shut to avoid making an excited sound. Dean was not placing himself between your legs; he was supporting his body with his hands, but you needed to feel his weight on you again.

His cloak touched your legs as your hands moved to each side of his belly, wrapping your body. You could taste his lips if you moved slightly since there wasn't much space between your lips. You kept your lips shut and tried to concentrate on your surroundings to feel if the ghost was around. There was nothing. Even if it wasn't helping the ghost, you were definitely wasted from the start. You pleaded with the ghost deep within not to show up and ruin your night until Dean took care of you. It was only one innocent prayer.

It was uncertain to you if Dean was having as much fun as you were. He appeared dead serious.

You hardly made any motion when Dean's lips touched yours, causing you to stay still beneath him. You hesitantly opened your mouth since your lips felt dry. You had to moisten them, but there was nothing you could do. It seemed as though your brain had given up working. You were waiting for Dean to take action, not realizing that you had already closed your eyes and were uninterested in the ghost or anybody else. You inhaled deeply as your heart raced with excitement, and when his lips brushed yours, your hands gripped his back even more firmly. Instead of moistening them in an attempt to torture you, Dean was simply rubbing your lips. He seemed to be testing your patience while waiting for you to take the lead.

Without thinking twice, you lifted your head and put your lips to Dean's, parting them wildly when they were too dry.

Once your lips were parted, Dean captured them wildly with his burning lips by delicately sucking the upper lip between his, giving soft bites. He bit your lower lip the same way again. With the same intensity, he followed your lead as you grabbed his upper lip and sucked like you were starving. On his lips, it was evident that your red lipstick was ruined. It appeared as though Dean was trying to get rid of the red color on your lips by sucking and biting them.

You let out a low moan as he finally put his tongue in your mouth with such force. His tongue was slowly but firmly invading your mouth, like if he meant to ruin you under him. Your hands, unable to think clearly any more, released his back and found his neck to draw him in closer than before.

Raising your hips of expressing to Dean that you were feeling desperate for anything to calm you down as you let him take control of the situation. Dean's touches were all that you needed. You hadn't touched him since the night you spent together. Your heart clenched with pain and desires.

Your moans were silent, and Dean's torment lingered on your lips. There were wet sounds all across the room, as if your tongues were striving for supremacy over one another. Your cheeks turned red as you focused on the obscene noises that your mouth made.

You were aware that the more he touched you, the more your emotions would consume you, and that you were never going to be able to get a response from him. But you tried to concentrate on the here and now, blocking off the past and future. To feel Dean a little bit longer was all that was necessary.

Dean got the message, and with a single move, his tongue was more dominant in your mouth the moment he pressed his hardness between your legs, finally making you feel him. His fingers were pulling your underwear rather aggressively now. It seemed as though you two lost control.

Although Dean knew he should have stopped and gathered himself, he wasn't finding it any easier when he sensed you were unintentionally attempting to find the pleasure. He was going wild by your tiny nursing dress and scarlet underwear. His body was yelling for him to have the much-needed relief. Ever since he fucked Jo that terrible night, he'd craved this. His body was wildly yearning for yours. It was hard for Dean to pull away. It didn't matter at that time why they had joined the party or why they were going to kill the ghost. It was difficult to stop his body from reacting to you while he was touching you in this way and seeing how ready you were to surrender to him.

Dean drew back, his tongue finding your neck and taking delicate bites that left your lips burning. You had to moan aloud this time as he sucked the delicate spot on your neck. When Dean suddenly pressed himself on you, you both moaned and felt your pussy throbbing.

He bit and sucked the most sensitive parts of your neck before glancing at your burning lips. He was harder than ever because your lipstick had been ruined and you were still holding out hope for him to continue.

Dean carefully put his fingers into your underwear while studying your response. All you did was gaze at him needily and passionately, yet he would stop at any moment if he sensed any hesitation on your part. There was no hesitation in your eyes, though. That was plenty to push Dean over the edge.

You both let out a gasp when he pushed his fingers into your panties. Just by kissing, you were shamefully wrecked, but you hoped it wasn't wrong.

“Dean,” you murmured quietly. He was too blind to notice your love for him, but your voice was nervous and full of love that you couldn't or wouldn't put into words. You wanted him to be nearer. You needed to know that he truly noticed you.

Without uttering a word, he kept rubbing you through your wet underwear while staring straight into your eyes and driving you insane. Placing your hands on his back, you recklessly widened your legs to give him a little extra space. You needed to give him more of what was left of you to feel him more. You would never, ever turn him down. He had to know that.

Dean inhaled deeply and then, unable to contain his throbbing cock any longer, slipped your moist panties aside to check your level of wetness, exposing you while he moved your body slightly to take up a better position. After having fucked you for the first time, he was in desperate need of that. His thoughts wanted you, and until he fucked Jo, he had no idea how wonderful it truly felt. Denying his surroundings and the place you were, Dean began to unzip himself with aggressive motions. Indeed, nothing matters. That was something you both needed. Right now.

He lowered your underwear just enough to expose your pussy, just enough to make your heart fall apart. Your body was shaking from excitement, nervousness, and cold. You waited for Dean to release his hardened cock while placing your unsteady hands on his broad shoulders. You inhaled deeply and made an effort to reduce your stress. You kept your eyes on him the entire time. Considering that he didn't use his fingers this time, you assumed it would happen quickly. Perhaps it was because you got used to his size.

With a swift motion, Dean lowered his pants to allow him to properly move on top of you and free his cock. He gave himself two or three strong strokes and moved your body somewhat further on the bed. He was getting ready himself as you were trying to regain your breath and admiring his attractive features. You would provide him with anything he needed or desired from you.

It didn't matter why you had come to this house or what your purpose was. Just the you and him. He saw you already becoming lost in the moment without closing his eyes. There was no need for words.

After giving you one more glance, Dean gently put his lips to yours, but this time he didn't kiss you. You gasped at the sensation of the cock's head on your entrance. Although you were no longer a virgin, your body felt stiffened. After all, you had only had sex once in your life. You have no prior knowledge of what to do or exactly what is expected.

When you tightened up even more, Dean scowled and sighed. He could see you had become soaked and practically pouring there, and your body was pleading with him to get in, but you were refusing to allow him. He pulled back his cock's head, and then he slightly pushed harder once again. You nailed his shoulders in a panic. He immediately pulled back upon noticing your distressed expression.

“Come on, you're wet enough,” Dean pressed his lips to yours. “Relax a little. Let me in.”

Your eyes got teary a little, but you weren't sure if it was from fear of disappointing him or of doing poorly. This seemed a little more distant than the first time, for some reason. You felt vulnerable. Sighing, you pressed your head into his neck to keep your face hidden and concentrated on calming down the way Dean asked. Your hands were shaking on his back.

He praised you, “Good girl,” and carefully pushed his cock inside your pussy once more. You were overcome with emotions, even though his movements were considerate and gentle to put you at ease. Dean kept praising you and said, “You're doing so good,” when he noticed that you were beginning to loosen up and let him in. “Almost there. Just a little bit more.”

“How come you're so tight?” When he finally managed to push himself fully inside of you, Dean asked with a groan and a tinge of disbelief and confusion in his tone. He pulled back, then gave it a single shove to get his cock within. You put your lips to his neck and pressed in your moans.

Dean waited inside for a while after he completely pushed his cock to allow you some time to catch your breath. Dean was certain he wouldn't last long because of how tightly you were clenching around him. He inhaled deeply and buried his head on your neck to avoid coming too soon. He had to make sure you got what you needed.

“You okay?” When you eventually start to calm down, Dean asked softly. He held back, even though he was going crazy to move already.

You silently nodded "yes," waiting for him to continue.

Your body was hot and yearning for pleasure, but unlike the previous time, you were unable to stop sorrow from taking over your heart and making you feel nearly awful. You didn't understand what was wrong with you. Dean was all you needed, and he was right here, inside of you, kissing you the way you wanted. You were touching each other like you had always wanted. But you had a feeling that it wasn't what you had hoped for or expected.

Dean took a moment to draw back slightly before pushing again, just to make sure you were ready. Instead of closing his eyes, he made every effort to focus on his surroundings and the sounds that surrounded him. He wanted to see your lovely and flushed face the entire time and watch your desire, but he had to keep his eyes on the surroundings and not lose himself watching you since there was a strong chance that he might be stopped at any moment by a ghost. As much as possible, he had to maintain his composure and act responsibly.

You heard Dean moan in a low voice as he began to move on top of you, as if he wanted to maintain his composure and not get carried away with what was happening. You were facing his neck as he shifted on top of you, so you gently pushed your lips there as he pounded his hard cock inside of you.

Your bodies created loud noises, and Dean's hands waited on your cheeks as if he were doing his hardest to please you. His cloak concealed your bodies as your legs were wrapped around his back. You were clenching around him constantly and getting wetter by the second, but you were not able to experience the intimacy you so much craved. With desperation and affection, your shaky hands found his jaw and caressed him. Eventually, you worked up the strength to try to bring his face toward you so you could kiss him.

Dean resisted your touch, gently pushing your hands away as he accelerated his pace inside of you.

Your mind raced with ideas as sadness shattered your mind and soul; you let go hands away with shame, with a heavy heart. You stopped kissing his neck since you didn't know where to place your hands anymore and waited beneath him so that he could at least enjoy himself. You were unsure about what to do. If he led you, it would be better. He began to groan as his rhythm intensified, but you forced yourself not to touch him. Your soul was wrecked by rejection.

Even though your body enjoyed being with him and the image of his enjoying himself on your body thrilled you, you were unable to stop those awful thoughts from racing through your head. It seemed as though your soul was being torn apart. This seemed less intimate than the first time. Your eyes uncontrollably started to well up with tears as your heart began to hurt so much. Being in Dean's arms and caressing him was something you had craved, but every time you felt like you were slipping further away.

You got consumed in your own thoughts and found it difficult to get the bravery to look into Dean's face. You wanted him to feel good. You needed him to enjoy you and what you were doing.

You found yourself sobbing aloud, just when Dean's motions inside of you became sloppy and his hands tightened around yours.

Dean froze on you the instant he heard your sobbing and cautiously pulled off his cock. Dean muttered, “Fuck!” upon seeing your face. His tone and the way he was staring at you made it clear that he was terrified and concerned.

You wept, trying to draw him back with trembling hands, but he resisted. “I'm sorry,” you said. You were embarrassed to let your vulnerability ruin the long-awaited situation.

“Hey, calm down,” Dean mumbled as he hastily tucked himself in his pants to take good care of you and figure out what was happening.

Even if you stated, “I'm alright. I swear, Dean,” he just regretfully fixed your clothes and underwear carefully. He shouldn't have let things get out of hand. He was unable to remember if he hurt you by moving too quickly or too roughly. His heart was heavy with regret at seeing your teary cheeks and hurt face. He had messed up badly this time.

You felt like a spoilt child getting help from him. Your legs were shaking from anxiety and cold, and you simply felt horrible. You couldn't contain your emotions and kept crying longer since he didn't even finish, and you made him feel bad rather than satisfying him. You weren't sure if you were actually ill or just lovesick. You just ruined a chance to spend good time with Dean, something you can no longer afford.

You sobbed more because you knew he would probably not touch you again.

He said in agony, “You're trembling,” and helped you sit on the bed.

Not even your bed, nor his.

Just as you were going to persuade him, you felt so bad that you had no energy left to utter any more lies. You were sick.

Dean waited silently, contemplating the events that had transpired five minutes ago and unsure of how to respond to handle it. He was as confused about what was happening. It was possible that Dean was being harsh with you, even if he didn't think so. He glared and sighed with regret at the thought of perhaps physically harming you. All he knew was that something was wrong. He didn't speak or touch you to avoid making you feel worse.

He was lost in thought and simply waited alongside you. Then someone knocked the door.

Next Chapter

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A/N: That was a looong-ass chapter huhh.. I thought about rewriting many times, but here we are. Please, let me know what you think about this one. Comments and reblogs are very appreciated! Remember writers have a praise kink, haha. ^^

Taglist: @faiirynyaa @deangirl96 @steelthespooder @t1asstuff @slut-for-evans-stan @esposamultifandom @rebecca-hvnstn @monkey-d-hoshizora98 @sammyxorae @filmologetica @stoneyggirl2 @hhiggs @neptua @yuckqr @steelthespooder @jaredpadonlyyyy @robynn9436-blog @x3zerochanx3 @lilbloggs @chriszgirl92 @ninii-winchester @monshirev @saturogojosgirl @necrobab3 @simpingfortoomanypeople

@midnightpearlaurora @procrastination20 @zaratahir @opheliadynah @spxideyver @n-o-p-e-never

@jeysbae @shanimallina87 @anyisaravia2001 @chirazsstuff @mango-munchies

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officialaemondtargaryen · 3 months ago

Text

Never Gonna Be Alone - Part Two

Summary: When a friend from college contacts you about renting out your empty, spare bedroom to her brother, you aren't really sure what to expect.

Pairing: Modern!Aegon Targaryen x Reader

Warnings for the entire series: language, drug & alcohol use, sex, possible angst, pining & yearning, miscommunication, bit of a slow burn, and a lot of fluff, plus me attempting to be a comedian.

Masterlist | Playlist

Originally, you had made a bet with yourself that your silly little crush on Aegon wouldn’t last more than a week– then it was two, and suddenly a month had passed. Your feelings, much to your chagrin, had remained persistent.

It wasn’t for a lack of trying, either.

You had done anything and everything you could to stop thinking about him– kept your distance by taking extra shifts at work, joined an improv club, read approximately eleven new books, and even learned how to crochet so that you had an excuse to stay in your room 24/7. Worst of all was downloading that stupid dating app, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and they don’t say that the fastest way to get over someone is by getting under someone else for nothing.

The truth was a hard pill to swallow, however. No matter how many guys slid into your DMs and then ghosted after a couple of days of texting, no matter how many miniature cows you crocheted or books you read, you liked him. And not in the fleeting, passing kind of way that you’d originally expected. No, these feelings had taken a hold of you– rooting into you in the way that a stubborn weed roots into concrete.

Anyways, back to that dating app…

It had been a joke with yourself at first; a half-hearted swipe-fest with no real intent behind it. You weren’t actually looking for someone, more like waiting for someone to miraculously appear and make you forget about Aegon Targaryen. You were smart enough to know that Mr. Right wasn’t lurking on Hinge, but you figured there had to be someone out there who could temporarily distract you from his stupid, not-at-all beautiful smile, or the way he belly-laughed at your jokes that weren’t even funny.

The first guy to make it out of the 72-hour ‘Only-Talk-On-The-Hinge-App’ phase, and into the ‘We-Can-Start-Texting-And-Maybe-Plan-A-Date’ phase was a guy named Criston. Yes, you should have known by the name that it wasn’t going to work out, but he was dark and handsome– the complete opposite of the person you were actively trying to forget existed– and seemed interested enough in you to ask you out on a proper date. Sure, he was a bit boring via text, but you figured that not everyone can be as clever and witty as you, and you owed it to yourself not to write him off yet.

Aegon was sitting on the couch playing video games when you walked down the hallway and into the living room. You had been listening to him chatter with his online friends for the past hour and a half as you got ready for your date; his voice carrying through the thin walls of your shared apartment, hurling profane insults at random children and laughing along with his friends at the crude jokes they’d tell each other (their mother’s would be ashamed). You didn’t look at him when you entered the room, but you could feel his attention immediately shift.

He paused the game mid-action, pulling his headset loosely around his neck, and turned to look at you. The sudden silence of the room made you hyper-aware of his eyes on you as you made your way into the kitchen to grab your purse from the counter. When you finally turned back to the living room, you finally caught his stare.

His mouth was slightly agape and he swallowed hard before saying, “Where you off to?”

Without waiting for you to answer, he turned back to his game, pulling his headset back up over one ear so that he could still hear your response. Your shoulders fell just slightly as he turned his back towards you as if he didn’t care to hear the answer at all, as if your sudden appearance hadn't just thrown him completely for a loop and rendered him nearly speechless.

You straightened up and smoothed your dress and walked over to check yourself in the mirror one last time; delicately fixing a few fly away hairs and ensuring there wasn’t lipstick smeared on your teeth. “I am going on a date,” you told him with more confidence than you actually felt.

There was a brief pause and then he muttered, “A date, huh? Good luck with that.”

You caught his eyes in the reflection of the mirror and turned to look at him, quirking an eyebrow at the sarcasm in his tone. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say he was jealous, but that would mean that he actually cared, and you didn’t want to get your hopes up more than they already were. Before you could think too much about it, Aegon quickly looked away, dismissing you as he immersed himself back into his game, seemingly ending the conversation.

Not sure how to feel, you turned on your heels towards the front door without another word. You had half-hoped that you would have elicited more of a reaction from him by choosing this particular outfit, and couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed by the interaction; chalking it up to him just being a typical, clueless guy who probably didn’t even notice how much effort you had put into looking like that— because none of them ever did.

“Hey!” Aegon called out just as you stepped into the foyer. You stopped in your tracks, leaning back against the doorframe and cocked your head to the side to see what it was he wanted. “You, uh– you look really nice,” he added, the words tumbling out awkwardly.

You blinked, caught off guard by the sudden compliment.

"Uh, thanks," you replied bashfully, not knowing what else to say as you tried to ignore the warmth that bloomed in your cheeks.

The moment that you left your apartment you realized that this date was surely pointless, and that was made crystal clear from the second that this Criston guy had slid into the booth across from you more than fifteen minutes late. Despite the fact that he was the one to initiate the date, you were the one who chose the place and time; deciding on a comfortable hole-in-the-wall Italian joint that you enjoyed but didn’t get the chance to frequent often. They had a live jazz band that played on Friday evenings, which was perfect for a first date– intimate enough to set the mood with enough distractions to fill any conversational gaps.

And unfortunately for you, there were plenty.

Turns out that Criston was just as dull– if not more so– in person as he was over text. He only spoke when spoken to, answering your questions with stiff, one-word responses that made you feel like you were conducting a job interview rather than enjoying a nice dinner with someone that you were trying to get to know. You did what you could to steer the conversation toward more lighthearted and fun topics, like movies and music– the typical things two people would discuss on a first date– but every attempt was met with a flat, almost disinterested tone.

By the time the entrees had arrived, you had resigned yourself to the fact that this was a dud, and in doing so, you found yourself retreating to the very thoughts you had set out to avoid– Aegon.

As hard as you tried to stay present, unlike your date, the comparison was unavoidable. Criston’s lackluster personality and quiet brooding left you too much space to think; to imagine Aegon’s laugh, the way he teased you without a filter, making even the most boring moments feel like they had spark. The jazz band was a saving grace– offering you an excuse to zone out during Criston’s long, awkward pauses. But even then, the music seemed to remind you of the nights you'd spent in your shared apartment, secretly listening to Aegon strum his guitar in the other room, filling the air with a familiarity that always made you feel… at home.

Halfway through dinner and long after the conversation had fully flatlined, your date decided that it was time to make his move. He pushed back his chair and stood up, and for a split-second you were expecting that he was going to ask you for a dance, but then he mumbled something about needing to go to the restroom and grabbed his phone and keys before leaving.

At first, he was headed for the general direction of the restrooms, but quickly- and without hesitation- pivoted towards the entrance; practically jogging out the door, without so much as a glance back in your direction. Instead of feeling the least bit shocked or upset, you just sat there, fork hovering over your plate, staring at the door, thinking to yourself, “well, that tracks.”

Honestly, him leaving mid-meal was probably the best thing that could’ve happened.

You were off the hook from having to finish this awkward, disaster of a date, and wouldn't have to pretend that you were interested in seeing each other again only to be ghosted later on. You didn’t even mind getting stuck with the bill, knowing that this was the universe doing you a solid, and that you no longer had to waste any more of your evening trying to make small-talk with a guy who clearly had the personality of a brick wall.

Aegon was in his room when you got home, the soft strumming of his guitar coming to a halt the moment that the door clicked shut behind you. Silence replaced the gentle melody, and you could suddenly feel the weight of the evening's disappointment pressing down on your shoulders. Just as you slipped off your shoes and took a deep breath, Aegon appeared in the hallway, his hair slightly tousled, a hint of curiosity dancing in his eyes.

“You took a to-go box?” He asked, following you into the kitchen. You sighed in response, not wanting to talk about it. “Inn’t that like the Cardinal Rule of datin’ that you shouldn’t take a box home on the first date?”

“Considering that I had to pay for both my meal and his as he ghosted me in the middle of dinner, you best believe I brought my leftovers home,” your tone was laced with exhaustion and annoyance, not wanting to be interrogated or lectured. “Just mine though, not his, Alfredo?”

You shoved the box into his hands and grabbed a wine glass out of the cupboard.

“Here, let me,” he said softly, setting down the styrofoam box and taking the wine glass out of your hands. “There’s a freshly rolled joint on the livin’ room table, go, put your feet up. I’ll be right behind you.”

You wanted to protest but Aegon silenced you with one look, gently nudging you towards the living room with his elbow. As you settled into the couch, you could hear him shuffling around the kitchen, the soft clinking of glasses and the low hum of the fridge opening. You stretched your legs, sinking deeper into the cushions, and let out a long, steady breath; shutting your eyes for a moment and allowing yourself to be comforted by the space– the safety of it. This was home. Not the walls or the furniture, but the feeling of it. Strange how it never felt like this until Aegon moved in, at least not that you could remember. And now, he belonged here just as much as you did, his presence somehow made the air feel warmer, more settled.

“Here you are, m’lady,” he said smiling, as he handed you a generous serving of Pinot.

“Mm, thank you,” you smiled as you took the glass and indulged yourself with a long sip.

Aegon nudged your legs gently, signaling for you to move them, and you obliged with a soft sigh, letting him sit down beside you. As soon as he was settled, he pulled your legs back into his lap, his fingers absentmindedly tracing small circles on your calf. It was a small gesture– simple and unspoken– but it sent an explosion of warmth throughout your body, spreading from where his fingertips grazed your skin and settling deep in your chest. His touch was suddenly all that you could think about, and why is it so warm in here?

You weren’t used to this, not from him—this quiet, effortless closeness. You had never been this physically intimate before, and yet, it didn’t feel awkward or out of place. Instead, it felt... natural. Like some unspoken shift had occurred between you both, and this was just how it was now; the air instantaneously buzzing with a different type of energy. His touch was no longer just a fleeting moment as you moved around each other in the kitchen in the mornings as you fixed your breakfasts before work; it lingered, deliberate, almost soothing. Every soft stroke of his fingers made you acutely aware of how intimate this moment really was.

“So,” he said, turning slightly towards you, draping one arm across the back of the sofa– the other was still placed gingerly on your calf. “You met this guy where? Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, Fetish.com?”

You gave him an immediate side-eye and he smirked. “We met on Hinge.”

“Interestin’, I thought that one was the more superior app,” he shrugged and took a drink from his glass. “What happened?”

“Other than the fact that he had the personality of a wet napkin?” You sighed, leaning your head back against the cushion. “Honestly, Aegon, I should’ve seen it coming. He was a shit texter, but I kept telling myself maybe he’s just better in person. Nope! Still shit! Truth be told, the most interesting thing he did all night was ghosting me in the middle of dinner.”

You chuckled softly, shaking your head in disbelief.

“That’s low, even for the sad state of modern dating,” he muttered as his soft smile was replaced with a frown. “I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m sure it was humiliating.”

You replied with a nod, taking another sip of wine. His fingers continued their gentle tracing along your calf and you felt another wave of warmth roll through you, but convinced yourself that it was just the wine.

“I’m just... over it, you know?”

He only nodded in understanding, allowing a comfortable silence to settle in between the two of you. The sounds of the city drifted in through the open window; the faint murmur of traffic, the distant laughter of a passerby talking on their phone, a warm, late summer breeze stirring the curtains– it all just faded into the background as you became consumed by your thoughts.

Aegon shifted slightly, his hand still resting on your leg as he set his glass down and reached for the joint on the table. With a flick of his lighter, he lit it and took a slow drag before passing it to you without a word. Your fingers brushed his as you took it from him, the contact lingering longer than it should have, and nearly sending you into cardiac arrest. You brought the joint to your lips, hoping that it would help you calm down before you did something to ruin the moment, and exhaled the smoke with a tiny cough.

His eyes lingered on you as you took another hit before passing it back to him. You were desperate to know what he was thinking, but you were terrified that if you opened your mouth to ask, every pathetic thought you had about him would come spilling out.

“Do me a favor, yeah? No more dating apps.” His voice cut through the haze, fingers tracing delicately along the outside of your ankle now. “Those twats online only want one thing and you deserve so much more n’that.”

“Oh, it’s already been deleted,” you grinned, sneaking a glance at him.

“Good,” he smiled and moved to get up off of the couch, you immediately mourned the loss of his touch. “Now if you’ll excuse me, my lovely roommate was nice enough to bring home her leftover Alfredo and I’ve got a serious case of the munchies.”

You sighed, leaning back against the couch as the harsh reality sank in.

This wasn’t just a silly little crush anymore– no, there was a reason why every attempt you made to push him away only resulted in him reeling you further in. It was sickening, really, once you realized it and how you suddenly wanted to scream it from every open window. The sensation made your stomach churn and simultaneously gave you butterflies, and goddamnit.

You were so in love with him.

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maxwell-grant · 1 month ago

Text

The Penguin: Episode 8 "Great or Little Thing" Series Finale Breakdown

So first and foremost I need to give a shout-out to everyone who's been following this with me and helped me week after week process and articulate this show, this brilliant Penguin Braintrust without which I would be incredibly lost on how to even begin breaking this thing down this way: @davidmann95, @wil4x, @book--wyrm and my friend Lucas who is not on Tumblr.

And so we're here at last, in the end of the show. This took forever. I need a goddamn break. This isn't enough and will never be enough but it'll have to do. So let's get to the episode that has had the world joining hands in the unanimous urge to see the absolute shit kicked out of Oswald, and has made the character at last earn this:

(Episode 1) (Episode 2) (Episode 3) (Episode 4) (Episode 5) (Episode 6) (Episode 7)

So who would have guessed that cartoon dirtbag Rex Calabrese was still gonna turn out to be less of a cartoon dirtbag than Oz the moment we stop seeing him through Oz's eyes. Still a terrible person by every metric, but terrible in the same way a lot of Sopranos characters are terrible: this is, at the end of the day, a job, and you can talk to them, you can sit at a table to get down to business with them, and you probably know people in your life like them, and maybe you can even count of them to get real and even help you when the chips are down, even if it doesn't mitigate everything else that they are or do. At the very end, he was neither the benevolent god-king that Oz saw him as, nor was he the absurd dirtbag gangster we had him pegged as - there was never anything exceptional about Rex Calabrese, he's just a real criminal. Maybe the realest in the show.

I said in the last post that Francis burned with hate at everyone in the world except the person who most ruined her life and haha WOW was I wrong, because it turns she's known the entire goddamn time, and quite possibly no one has ever hated him more than Francis.

Most people in the show who hate Oz do so because he's a destructive bastard who craps on their lives directly, or because he's a lying sneaky fuck who does nothing while their lives are ruined, and Francis has had to deal with both longer than anyone else. I can't possibly count every single way this wildly recontextualizes every single interaction, every moment, everything that Francis has shown us and done since the first episode, because I'd have to recap EVERY scene and line of dialogue she has and we still have so much else to get through.

Why was Francis was so effectively able to withhold affection and hold his feet to the fire and give him that bottomless pit of yearning in his stomach that's driven him to move mountains in pursuit of it? Because Francis wouldn't have loved him even if he gave her the entire world at age 12. She never had any affection or love left for him. Oz was always chasing nothing.

And all along it was Rex who shaped the entire course of Oswald's life, as well as prefiguring his dynamic with Victor, with a single conversation. Oswald spend his childhood wanting for Rex Calabrese to notice and like him and be his friend, and he has no idea how much Rex actually affected his life.

That fateful night at Monroe's was never the feel-good story about his Ma summoning the willpower to live by dancing away the grief, and it was never even just the night of the eternal promise that Oz thinks back to, it was a fucking trap to kill Oz. Nothing he has in his life is real, nothing he says is true, he has never not lived in complete total delusion.

The sheer disgust in Deirdre O'Connell's face at the "I do too". How much of her personality we completely understand was born from this absolute resentment she's nursed for decades towards Oz.

And this rotten little turd comes at her with a perfect speech that hits her every insecurity and bitterness and spite and situation and convinces her to give him another chance. The nature versus nurture thing again - Oswald was shaped by hardship, by decades of hard work and neglect, by the total absence of his mother's love while in turn being forced to live in stunted childhood dedicating himself to always taking care of her, and maybe what we're seeing here is heavily distorted by Francis's POV - or maybe he was always a little monster, because this guy talking to her is The Penguin, the same guy doing the same things in the same way, either way it doesn't matter. Again, born fucking ready.

So now we see our three major supporting characters - Sofia, Victor and Francis - all of them have shown that they had a chance to walk away from Oz, to not let him ruin their lives further. All of them could have left Oswald behind, and all of them should have left Oswald behind, but they had to come back and justify the choice to do so, they had to get satisfaction, it couldn't have been for nothing. Victor had his car and a girlfriend in a bus waiting for him, Sofia had a jet to take her to Italy, and Francis had Rex Calabrese ready and waiting to put him down without a word. All of them had a chance to get out of the show and never look back, but like Oz, they had to rectify and overcorrect for an insult.

Sofia can't walk away from Gotham without punishing Oz for turning her in, for killing Alberto and further lying to her, she can't accept that this man, this embodiment of Carmine's legacy and hold over her, is still out there unpunished getting away with what he's done. Victor can't walk away from Gotham knowing that his parents did everything right and still died for nothing, that every hurtful thing Oz said was right, he can't let "They don't give out awards for dying in the projects" be the last word in his and their lives. And Francis can't walk away from Oz, who killed her two sons and keeps lying about it, who ruined her life and now keeps promising he will take care of her and acting like everything will be fine, she can't let this pass even if she can't kill him either, and so she'll make him give her the world and die trying.

The tragedy of what happened is what hurt/broke them - the added insult of what Oz said or did is what they just can't live with. It can't be for nothing.

Goddamnit it, it was really just too telegraphed for it to not happen the way it did.

I fucking knew it the moment the episode started and we got the grungy boss orchestral take on the funny Penguin chords that we were in for some calamitous shit.

We see at first that, in spite of seemingly failing, Vic has graduated to the point he can give his own speeches, gain his own allies, run his own cons - he's not just Oz's proxy, but will manage to convince the others to become such as well, and he's coming at this from a place of complete sincere belief in everything that Oz says, all of the man of the people rhetoric he will so thoroughly pervert and then sell to the people actually responsible for everything he told Victor he was fighting against.

Zeke walks up to him nearly crying about how Sofia blew it all up and Vic instantly asks back where's Oz - not because he doesn't care about Crown Point, but he's already processed it and has already learned with Oz how to just barrel forward regardless, now it's time to get to work. Victor who so readily throws himself into rescuing Oz again and again. Victor who's lost everything - he doesn't have his family, he doesn't have Graciela, he doesn't have the other mobs backing him up, and right now he doesn't even have Crown Point anymore, all he has is Oz.

The man in red who reads the Law Gave him three weeks of life, Three little weeks in which to heal His soul of his soul's strife, And cleanse from every blot of blood The hand that held the knife - The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Sofia dressed in two thematically appropriate outfits - the red scarf echoing both the first outfit we see her in, back to covering her neck but in control of her own collar, and the outfit we see her the farthest back in time with at the start of Episode 4, and with her final crimson fur coat outfit accompanying her final greatest triumph and ultimate defeat in the show. Not only that, but in this episode she also gets to perform characteristically appropriate stylized torture - holding a family intervention and therapy session with mafioso torture tactics to try and wrench the truth out of her victimizer, enacting calculated sadistic yet righteous justice via psychological breakdown, and ultimately allowing the woman he victimized and wronged to take her killshot at him.

See, it's not just that Sofia Gigante is a Batman Villain, or that she's well passed the threshold of supervillain. Cristin Milioti doesn't play Sofia like she's a new character, which she basically is, and she isn't just playing a tortured gangster lady protagonist dipping into camp villain territory, which she also is - she plays Sofia Gigante like she's been a Batman Rogues headliner for decades now stepping into the spotlight once again, like she's the dark modern revamp of someone Adam West would have thought and she's just always been around showing up in stuff along with The Penguin, like she's only not fighting or teaming up with Two-Face in this because he's not here yet. It is crucially important that Sofia passes every standard of Batman Villain imaginable with flying colors, in part because it helps to reinforce that The Penguin is a monster all his own.

Even here, with as much power as she's ever possibly held over him, reduced him to a whimpering begging mess to be killed off in a second, she is so shocked at the sheer brazen selfishness and delusion and level of bullshit on display, that even now he won't break character and think about his actions and admit to what he's done not even to save his own mother from mutilation, that she just loses the script entirely. Her entire show of power collapses and she physically recoils from sheer disgust at just how low Oswald is, at just how much he lacks the ability to even suffer for what he's done. Realizing that there is simply not enough of a soul in this filthy beast to even torture, and that however much she hates Oswald for ruining her life, someone had a prior claim all along.

Eve - Sofia - Francis in the end united in, however much they may dislike each other, however different their circumstances may be, there is nothing they could possibly do to each other that would be worse than what Oswald has done to all of them, joined in silent agreement that their rage ultimately belongs in a bullet fired at Oz's head and that they deserve their kill shot at this man.

"I had enough to give, Oswald".

This really is gonna be the high point of Francis's life from this point on.

Aw man, I liked Sofia's scruffy dirtbag detective, I wanted him to stick around as one of the reocurring characters like the movie cops

Oh Victor, sweet kind Victor, you couldn't possibly ask for anything worse in the entire world.

Oz feebly already beginning to lie and spin his new version of the events, that Sofia stabbed him and fucked up with Ma, and here comes Victor with the reversal of their dynamic, seeing this guy who's been brought low by the oppressive force looming over his life that he must defeat (because all that Victor knows about Sofia at this point is that she used to be Oz's boss and is now out to kill them, that she is scary as hell, and regardless of whether or not she was the Hangman, she just bombed his fucking neighborhood) and reaching out to him with a speech about solidarity and dignity and self-worth and picking yourself up by your fucking bootstraps to save the day. And Oz responds by coaching him on how to be a better bullshitter. Because to Oz, he knows the playbook by heart, but Victor meant it all.

Victor rebuilds Oz from basically nothing by providing him with the validation that he so desperately always craved and never got, saying all the things he always wanted to hear, poised so they can finish this together, poised to give him not only the army he asked for, but a full-blown revolution, and he never once asks for anything in return. Just, goddamnit this isn't hurting any less.

"She, sh-she'll never look at me again, all right?....unless I get this done. Got a promise to keep." Maybe the one and only time his mask ever fully cracks. For a second. He rebuilds it right back up and gets to work, but it cracked. He knows what he's doing, up until the moment he doesn't. It's that simple.

A lot of what drives Oz is acceptance, and a lot of what drives him is his desire to be accepted in worlds that have been declared, by how they run themselves and by the people that inhabit these worlds, as worlds that he was never going to be included in. And one of those worlds is the hierarchy and the hoi polloi of the political realm and the power within the political realm because he understands that all politics are corrupt essentially, and the damage that he could do then in being part of a political infrastructure of Gotham interests him. I thought it would be nice if, in that time jump, he had been invited to maybe a gala or two, you know what I mean? It'd be awkward. He'd be slurping out of the fucking teacup, there'd be stains on the table, he wouldn't really fit in, but he’d fucking love being there. - Colin Farrell

Mirroring the scene in Episode 01 where he adjusts himself next to the car, scuffing himself up to look like the sleazy funnyman the Falcones keep around for kicks, now he's dressing up as much as he can and asking Victor for input, because he truly values what the kid thinks and, goddamnit.

"C'mahn, I don't bite", pfft yeah, not in this movie universe anyway. And to the same guy you did the nose-gushing-blood bit to, even.

Minutes inside of City Hall and he already parks his ass right on Bella Real's seat - not as any kind of intentional slight against her, it's just naturally where he goes to, even before the scene ends and we see his new plans start to come to fruition.

Guy who takes offense at Viti calling Sofia a psycho and then goes up to Councilman Hady talking about the unhinged loony bin broad who went "full psycho" that he's handing to him on a platter, pointedly calling her Falcone.

At first I thought it was funny that Sal Maroni was getting blamed here for Bliss and the underground lab, but then I remembered that he was actually the one who introduced Drops to Gotham and the whole epidemic that became, so if anything it is an extremely easy part of the story to sell, even without his body being down there and all.

"You're gonna have some trouble, Oz" - pointedly smiling and calling him Oz instead of Oswald as he had up to this point, because by that point he's already a crony and already willing to work with this guy handing him all these miracles.

"You wanna be welcome? You gotta look, clean" Yes Father Pal, I Shall Become A Capitalist Caricature

You can see in the walk around, in his look at Bella Real and the mayor's office high up above and the steps, how little Ozzie's gears turn once again and rebuild his life after losing the streets and everything that happened with Ma - This is the next nest, this is the next throne, this is next schmuck I gotta cozy up to, this is the next boss looking down on me that I gotta destroy, there's the reward waiting for me if I do. This is the one that matters, I did everything in the shit and now I'm gonna get me sum goddamn respeck, Feh Ma of course.

And before all of this we see Sofia's next move, showing the ways in which she is good at this, the ways in which she truly is something outside of the worldview of what these gangsters are used to, and why she is going to lose. "Because I can". She is good at commanding a room and promising rewards beyond the wildest dreams of these street crimelords because she can offer everything they want and lose nothing she cares about for it, she will hand them everything and dip because she can, and she is going to lose because she can lose. Because she still thinks there is an end in sight for her, she thinks she will get to walk away from this universe and go meet a happy ending at a cafe in Florence.

It's not just that Sofia was born into privilege and never really lived in Gotham and could just hop onto a plane out of here anytime, it's also that she has room in her life for introspection, self-awareness, consideration towards others, and all those things that come easier when you're "born full", and not when you're the starving hustler for whom leaving the city was never an option even if he had all the money in the world, the hungry animal who wants this, wants everything, harder than anyone has ever wanted anything. The guy who has no room for anything else in his brain other than a perpetual bullshit generator set to a 24/7 chorus of "I GOTTA WIIIIIIN"

Another element to her that I really love is, she's good at this. She knows she's good at this, she was supposed to take over the family. She may not know the ins and outs of the game as it currently stands, but she is good at this. Some of it is, I think that's the only world she knows, and some of it is there's something in there, that's always been there, and she believes it is rightfully hers. There's an element of, "I need to have made it worth it for something", and if that means power, then okay. - Cristin Milioti

There’s a level for both of them that they enjoy each other’s suffering, and that sort of leads to Sofia’s downfall. If she didn’t need to see Oz suffer she might have been free. And she really gets in her own way in that regard and largely because Oz is this crutch that she just cannot let go of. - Lauren LeFranc

And here we get to the end of season 1 of HBO's The Sofia Show, the bittersweet in hindsight but extremely cathartic torching of the set as a last hard-earned spiritual victory by our hard-done-by lady protagonist. All of her family is dead, the city is out for her blood, she gathered all the remaining criminals for One Last Job with everything on the line, and she is having a very fun time with her montage destroying her home and family name beyond recovery. She is going to finish her character arc, get to finally kill her former comedy sidekick turned mortal nemesis, and hop on a plane to The White Lotus resort straight away into greener (if only marginally less fucked up) genre territory away from this ugly nightmare city. Alas, this is not The Sofia Show, and it's time for her theme suite to catch up to her once again and tell us of how very badly this is all going to go for her.

And she can't even be that shocked, when the high of burning it all down goes away, when she sees that old Ozzie Cobb wriggled his way out of this jam regardless and is now coming at her with a speech, she can't even react to it. Deep down she knows how the rest of the night is going to go. She may not have expected Arkham outright, but she was braced for a loathsome fate.

It rules so much they give him a big fat fight the power speech with a bloody revolution montage, and we can only sit there aghast with Sofia at the sheer audacity of him to act like this, like a man of the people, thinking he truly has the right to be talking like this and to her of all people.

And now we see how Oz won the gang war, and the next domino to fall on the downfall of Gotham City, and the first effect of his own rise to power: like The Riddler, he has toppled the order of things and he has turned people into extensions of himself, Victor being the first and the one who gave him this revolution, of all the little mini Penguins out there devouring the social structure of Gotham crime forever. You kill the boss, you become the boss now. Everyone can bleed and everyone can be killed and everyone must be killed in the quest to the top, no handrails or codes, they wouldn't invite him and so he crashed. After he unified the criminal underdogs, Victor rallied the underdogs beneath the underdogs, and now the streets are a jungle where there will never be an end to the wars over who gets to be atop the food chain, because they are all fighting to see who gets to be the next Penguin.

For decades people have written Oswald Cobblepot as a creep and a sleaze and an incel who hurts/kills women for rejecting him, or who is chronically insecure about them and I can very confidently say nobody ever did anything half as horrible and half as truthful and half as meaningful as LeFranc did here. We see the other reason why it was so imperative to her that Oswald not be a misogynist, and it has nothing to do with just making him more likeable or sympathetic or honorable. We get in this episode the pay off to the thoughtline: okay, he's actually a gangster who respects women, he does not act like every other prestige drama gangster who ever lived, we are going to center women in this show and he will treat them with respect - now let's watch how he HORRIBLY screws them over in the name of this respectful gentleman persona he lives by, let's watch how he betrays them in the ways that matter most, how he even makes them wish they were dead without personally ever lifting a finger to harm them, let's do some grown-up feminist commentary in Batman for a change and highlight the ways in which men profit from belittling and oppressing and destroying women even when they're pointedly not misogynistic and even self-professed genuine allies to them.

And so it is that the only Falcone mobster who isn't misogynistic towards Sofia is the one who screws her the most horribly. He will murder every man he comes across, he will murder every man he could have been and every man who is even marginally better than him in any way, he will push all of his brothers out of the nest and not tolerate any other big shot in town bigger than him and not even the only man, the only person, in town who loves him will be spared. But he is a gentleman, so he leaves the women alive (well, except for Nadia Maroni, but she was a rival big shot and worse, his boss for a day or two, so she obviously had to go eventually).

I thought about his greatest fear, and it made a lot of sense to me that his greatest fear would be that love is transactional. That if he does not achieve a level of power and give Francis certain types of things that he’s promised her she might not love him. And that informs every relationship he has on the show It was always important to me, and this was always part of my initial pitch, that if Oz was to achieve a level of power—and that is something that was not up for discussion, that was my job that I was tasked with for the season—that he has to lose something emotionally. It can’t come without a cost. - Lauren LeFranc

"the crooked politics that have allowed wealthy elites like Sofia Falcone to wreak havoc". Oz has weaponized the status quo against her so throughly that she is going away under the exact same image that she did it the first time, as a privileged serial killer and Falcone. She doesn't even get to have her new name anymore, and the rest of Gotham does not see her as the new and strange and horrific new threat that she embodied in Oz's life - she is going away as just another upper-class monster like her dad.

The triumph that Oswald has fought his entire life for, the Big One that he's scraped and fought and hoped his entire life would happen and he'd get to show his Ma at the end, the thing that he's going to throw a party for at this moment, is just a politician on tv saying things that Oswald claims he told him to say.

All of our 3 major supporting characters will thus reach the high point of their lives, on the moment before it is ripped away and they are destroyed forever. Francis gets to finally spit all of her hatred back to Oz and take her revenge on him, and her babies appear before her alive and unharmed. Sofia gets to burn down her father and his legacy once and for all, and is on her way to kill her nemesis and finally be free of it all. Victor succeeds in helping Oz win, they have revolutionized the gangs and defeated the big bad Falcone and he's done right by his new family what he couldn't do with his old one.

And of course, Oswald finally wins - he is the last man standing, he's defeated his greatest enemy, he is the big shot of Gotham and his victory is, so he claims, right there on the tv for his Ma to see, he can finally get what he's always wanted now - and then he doesn't, and then his soul crumbles, before he finishes the job by murdering his heart.

Oz didn’t need to do that, like it wasn’t actually necessary. In that moment, Victor did not betray him. He did nothing wrong. In fact, the thing that he did “wrong” in Oz’s eyes is that he loves him and that he cares about him and Oz actually cares about Victor. I think by the end Oz sees that as a really big problem because he loves his mother so deeply and Sofia took advantage of that love, and then it became sort of a weakness in his eyes. Victor saw him at his most vulnerable and for Oz to achieve the power that he thinks he needs, he can’t have that level of humanity. He can’t have that heart with him anymore. So he stifles his own heart. He kills it. - Lauren LeFranc

When he said to Vic in the sewer, “They'll tell stories about us one day, kid,” he meant it. At that stage, he actually saw that he could rise and Vic could come with him. It's only when the vulnerability and the shock of his mother being taken from him, and the place of vulnerability and danger that puts him in, that he realizes there's no more love, there's no more affection, there's no one else I'm going to have in my life that can lead me to such vulnerability as my mother has led me to or as this kid could potentially lead me to. - Colin Farrell

He's not relishing being horrible. When he realizes, "Oh God, Victor makes me vulnerable. I can't have that shit anymore." The way that Lauren wrote it, and the way Colin played, there's such sadness under the horror. You're like, oh my God, how fucked up do you have to be that the one person who you feel you have any connection with now, you have to snuff out because it makes you weak. What happened to you? - Matt Reeves

"You think she forgives me?" Once again, the mask cracks. Only around Victor. Only because of Victor. And he can't have that again.

And thus we get to the final parallel between our 3 side characters - that in the end, all they did was serve Oz's own rise to power, and hand him the world in exchange for their lives. All they were to him were additional steps in the ladder that began with his brothers. Francis gave him his life, his drive, his motivation and eternal justification, the insatiable pit in his gut driving him to do this forever. Sofia got him his promotion to Falcone lackey, and then she got him another promotion by handing him the tools with which he could become an underground boss and rally them, and then she got him another promotion by handing him the keys to his political career on a silver platter. And Victor saved his life, more than once. He helped him, provided the justification he has craved for a lifetime, rebuilt him, gave him his revolution, gave him the streets, and showed him the last thing he needed to kill to make it to the top.

Wow man let me tell my good friend, The Family Butcherer, who butchers every family he gets his hands on whether a crime family or a literal one, how much I think of him as family.

"They don't give out awards for dying in the projects"

Just like with Squid, Vic's emotional intelligence dooms him. He sees this man whom is like family to him brought to his lowest point, crushed beyond measure, in what he assumes was just a phenomenally terrible stroke of fate and not something he had any blame whatsoever for, and reaches out to pat him in the back, emotionally reassure him that it wasn't all for nothing, that his family would surely be proud of him, and that there's things to look forward to.

Vic threw away his chance to walk away into the sunset with Graciela and he just had to come back to save Oz (AND Sofia, the one who'd bomb his neighborhood) from the Maronis, the least of all possible evils in his life and his city and who never even noticed him. Victor only narrowly missed out in 2 situations that Oz would have absolutely left him to die in, so there just had to be a third where he'd die in the absolute worst way possible. Not with Sofia's gunshot to the head, not bombed to rubble along with his neighborhood, no, Mr. Carmine 2 had to make it as painful and intimate as possible.

Vic the only Number Two in town who couldn't kill his boss and in fact never even considered doing so, and so he dies - there is just no room for him anymore, not in Oz's life, nor in the new Gotham that the two built together.

LEFRANC: "You see Oz become this next level monster, I remember the take too. Jennifer and I look at each other, Colin transforms his face in this really remarkable way, that I don't think any of us fully anticipated could be achieved in that way." - The Penguin Podcast Episode 8

I knew that the general sentiment was that, by the end, they kind of wanted to, in a way, kill the Oz that we met in the film. I felt that there was a sense of creative responsibility that leaned towards, “We cannot have this man as a likable character,” which is hard I think they wanted that in the earth by the end of the eight hours. They wanted that RIP. That's gone. I hated that scene. I really did. I was fucking so pissed off. It felt in performing it as — guess what? — you would like it to feel in viewing it. It felt gross, it felt cruel, it felt absolutely insane, and it felt like Oz was reaching a point of no return. - Colin Farrell

So the day after I watched this episode, my friend Lucas messaged me in the afternoon sending me audio messages, "Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch! He stole his identity, he didn't even die with his fucking name! They'll never find him! Fuck, goddamnit!" "ELE MORREU COMO INDIGENTE, PORRA" and, yeah. Yeah. That gets to the heart of it.

If Vic was just a guy taking his money, if Vic was purely transactional, if he was just another Link, he'd have made it. Oz wouldn't have given a shit about him, Oz would have died on the sidewalk when the Maronis hit at minimum. All this piece of shit wants is love, and when he gets it, when it's finally non-transactional, from the ONLY person in the entire show who loved him, he has to kill it, he doesn't know how to deal with it, he has to smother his heart.

He has to become Carmine Falcone 2, strangling the poor and vulnerable of Gotham while pinning all of his crimes on Sofia.

Vic just wanted his family back, man. He just wanted a family again, to at least show his family that they didn't die for nothing. The thing that Oz spits in his face as he dies. It wasn't for nothin.

This show has so many dozen little variations of Penguin getting his heart broken and retaliating cruelly, but this one hurts the most partially because it has no basis whatsoever on any pre-existing insult or cruelty, there was nothing that warranted this, and you still get why Oz felt that he had to do it. The lowest, weakest moment of his life, and he can never permit anything like it ever again.

Victor was his heart, and The Penguin remembered that his heart only exists to be broken.

Victor punctures the illusion, and he cannot have that. Everything about The Penguin hinges on that singular fact of his life: he cannot and will not break character. He cannot break character, otherwise he dies, otherwise Gotham City will eat him alive, otherwise he has done it all for nothing. That is the ultimate threat Sofia posed to him, and why his ultimate victory comes only from creating a perfect delusion and spinning everything that happened in service of it. Because all those things said at Monroe's? They weren't true - his Ma, y'know, it was just her disease acting up, that psycho did something to her, she wasn't thinkin straight, and it was really Sofia that stabbed him and did all that fucked up shit, and his Ma is really happy that she got the penthouse in the end and that he didn't put her down, look, she's crying tears of joy even, I gotta keep doing everything for her.

Everything and everyone in his life, he can spin in service of the delusion, they can all play dress-up with him forever, except Victor. Victor may not have the slightest clue as to what Oz actually did, but he's seen too much, he knows he has vulnerabilities, he knows the thing that Oz needs to bury far, far more than all the horrible things he's done. Killing Victor is maybe the one thing that he absolutely cannot in the slightest spin a decent delusion out of, that he did it for him or did it for noble reasons or anything other than out of disgusting self-serving weakness.

But who's Victor? Some kid who died in the projects and didn't even have a name? Someone with nobody left to mourn him, not even a street to get back to, nothing but a guy who's already forgot him?

That Victor Aguilar? Never heard of him

“I will never think my mother doesn't love me. She was having a bad day when she stuck that bottle in me. She was under a lot of pressure. She nearly lost her finger. She stuck a bottle in my belly. It was a bad day. She didn't get a good night's sleep the night before.” It's that kind of thing. He'll make up fucking whatever. He's already lying when he goes, and he's stitching up his belly, and Vic says, “What happened?” And he says, “Sofia, she stuck me with a bottle.” He's already beginning to bury the truth. - Colin Farrell

He needed your love, and then you didn't give it to him, and you didn't obey, and you didn't do those things that he needed, and then you mentally aren't there for him in the way that he needs, but he's got to physically keep you around because he's too weak to not do that. He can't give you the gift that he promised you in Episode Six, he's too weak of a man to do that. And so he needs to hold onto you, but under his terms. - Lauren LeFranc

There's a thing that happened on that last day that made my blood run cold, which was I felt Oz not love me anymore. I felt his coldness, and I think that Francis felt it too, and she always had so much of his attention and so much of his love. I don't even think she realized how much she had until he withdrew it. And when he withdrew it, it was utter and… slightly terrified. I was just lying in that bed, I just felt the love leave the room. It's a real thing, and it's gone, yeah, and I think Francis feels it, too. - Deirdre O'Connell

He's this man who is clawing his way to the top, and I knew he wanted power, but what what does that mean for him? That's where I started to conceive of like, he wants his mother's love, and he wants people's affection. He wants to be revered. That was like the main thrust for me of what defines power for Oz, and then by the end you realize that, when he doesn't get those things, he doesn't get his mother's acceptance, he still gets it. He makes sure he gets it. - Lauren LeFranc

So bowled over and miserable I was that I didn't even notice until later that he was wearing a version of the classic Bronze Age/Triumphant get-up.

If the pattern of his life is unjustifiably cruel retribution for slights and insults, perceived or not, by the end Francis had done it to him as well. That she never loved him and in fact always hated him more than anything and anyone else is the biggest insult of all, and so he punishes her the most cruelly, knowingly or not.

"You are who you are, and you couldn't change if you tried."

He will never stop telling Rex Calabrese stories, he will never stop bringing up his brothers and mom as a sympathy ploy, and even if he will never truly love her again, he will never stop ruining the world in her name, he will never stop, he will never stop, he will never stop.

You had to sit through 8 hours chipping away at all of his fun and charm and wacko comedy antics and motivations and all the scruples and principles that he turns out to have less and less of, until he butchers them all in the very end along with the heart of the show. Penguin burning through all of his lovable quirks and charm, everything that we loved about him in the movie, until he comes through as a black-hearted bastard of unlimited malice who will never stop growing and getting worse and putting more lives in danger. Not only as much of a lowlife backstabber as we initially assumed him to be in the movie, but far worse than what we could have imagined.

I said as much that the first episode marks the transition from The Batman to The Penguin with the titlecard, and this brings it back around. The show dies with Victor, we get Sofia's post-credits Nick Fury Tease with Selina's letter and with Selina's theme playing and a final grace note of hope for Sofia, and thus the only character in the show to end with anything resembling positive, and then we get the first scene of The Batman Part 2. showing us the horrible thing in this world that Batman will have to defeat for us.

RIP Bella Real, we all know this asshole is gonna become mayor, and he's not waiting for the next election.

Credit to @book--wyrm for pointing out one more horrible fucking thing, that at the final dance, his hands are covered in scratches, much like the hands of Carmine Falcone when he comforted Sofia.

“One of the very early things that Lauren pitched was that ending with Eve where she looks like Francis,” said Reeves. “He can’t get what he needed from his mother because she’s no longer in that state because of the dark events and what he’s done, so he recreates it in this other way with Eve, and it’s very disturbing,” said Reeves. “That was something we thought was a great idea and was so emblematic of this guy’s internal state. It’s like, even as he now seems to have gotten that first major step toward being the kingpin, you know that some part of him will never be filled. - Matt Reeves

When I read that, I was like, “Oh my god, we're going full Bates Motel here.” But again, it speaks to what has become a pathological inability to accept the world that he has played such a heavy hand in creating. As far as he's concerned, he's just doing what he needs to do to live the life of a good son. And look, his mother can't talk anymore, so he needs a surrogate. I mean, it would be kept out of the sexual realm — it wasn't about that. It was about the intimacy and the tenderness and the pride that Oz always so deeply needed to feel his mother had for him, and pride in him, that he never really got from her. The one time when he finally can say to her, can go to her bedside and say, “It's done. Everything you said that I was capable of, everything you said that I should aspire to, it's done. I am now the boss. I took it from everyone else.” And he gets nothing back. His mother's already gone. That's just too horrific for him, so he needs a surrogate. He would say to Eve, “Look, I'm grieving. I'm finding it hard to deal with the fact that my mother's alive, but she's not here. She's gone, but she's fully present at the same time, physically, but she's nowhere there. She doesn't recognize me. I don't recognize the woman she's become. Do me a favor. We used to dance together and talk at the end of the night. Would you put on her dress and just let me pretend?” But it was twisted. It was twisted, but I dug it. He needs it from his mom so much. And again, his imagination is so potent that he just cast her as that figure, that most prominent and most powerful figurehead in his life, which has always been his mother. She's got to stay alive. He's got to hear that he did well from her. He's got to hear that she's proud. Look, by the end, he's bananas, as they say in the film. Good cop, batshit cop. At the end, he's batshit. - Colin Farrell

Remember when this show had fun Dolly Parton end credits, remember when this almost looked like it was gonna be fun and light-hearted compared to the movie and The Riddler: Year One

So turns out all along they actually had something real twisted planned with the name Karlo, and the Clayface concept that evokes. Asking his prostitute girlfriend to shapeshift into his crying comatose mom in the room upstairs so he can finally get the dance with her atop the world that he craved his entire life and have her tell him how proud she is that he ruined everything forever.

It is not a good ending, but it is his happy ending. He achieved everything he wanted in the smallest possible amount and at the highest cost imaginable, and thus he burns more than ever to take more and more in the name of a satisfaction he will never, ever have. He ended his arch-nemesis, and he didn't have to kill her, that's not what a gentleman does. He got the streets, and he's poised to take political power, and there is nobody left to care about, nobody except the only person who's ever mattered. He can still keep taking care of Ma as a justification for all the shit he will do now and forever, but he doesn't actually have to take care of her anymore, he doesn't even have to love her or grovel her for validation anymore: He has a Ma who will tell him everything he wants to hear, forever.

Of course, he may not have his three dance partners anymore - his Ma is in a vegetative state, Sofia has been locked away once again, and that kid, what was his name again, ain't around. But then, he will simply move on to new ones: He didn't actually lose his first dance partner, his Ma is fine, look at her telling him how proud she is of him and everything he's done and how unstoppable he is now. And he has a new partner in City Hall who is all too eager to play along to everything he says and does, who will receive and spit back his rhetoric just as Vic did to the streets of Gotham. And if he's defeated his nemesis and dance partner, well, not for long. There's a new one waiting for him. He never wins without losing. He will never again live without his next dance partner there to hound and foil him at every turn. There will always be something in the way.

It was exciting to me, the idea that we’re going to meet Oz as a mobster, and to play him as just a man. There’s nothing fantastical about him. There’s so many people like Oz in our world who hold a lot of power, who also connect with people because they speak, on some level, the truth. They can be charming and engaging, but also really terrifying and calculated, and not necessarily doing what they say that they will do or caring for people in the way that they say that they will. It felt so timely and so important to really engage with a guy like Oz and not turn away from him, but actually turn towards him so we can start to unpack, in our own society, what makes a man like Oz so appealing, and what makes him equally appalling. - Lauren LeFranc

I think Oz has always been someone who believes that everything he’s saying in the moment is true, and he creates worlds and illusions for himself to merit his actions. He does it sometimes very briefly in impulsive moments, and then sometimes more methodically, and in the end the fact that he didn’t get from his mother what he’s always desired isn’t good enough for him. So he has to create this strange fantasy live in this delusion of his own making, and pay Eve to dress as his mother and force her to tell him he she’s proud of him. So mentally, emotionally, Oz is embracing his own delusion. I think, for the audience, I hope they more deeply understand him psychologically and realize that there is a deeply broken man inside. He is violent and problematic and and very emotional. And that’s really the man that will carry into the next film. - Lauren LeFranc

And it has to end in a total reversal of the movie ending - The Batman ends with showing there is a light in the darkness, that this tortured broken man can fix his mistakes and lead us into something better. The Penguin ends by grabbing your face and desperately yelling at you SOMEBODY FUCKING SAVE US, HE WILL ONLY GET WORSE. The Batman ends with telling us Batman can save us all, and The Penguin ends with telling us Penguin will kill every last one of us in real life if he hasn't already, if nobody stops him.

And so I'll leave these last partings words to the Penguin Braintrust as we close off this series - see you all in therapy and in theaters when The Batman: Part 2 drives us all completely insane once more.

@wil4x

I don't think this Penguin is someone Batman can tolerate, I don't think Bruce can ever save Gotham's soul with a force of corruption as big as Penguin taking root in the seats of power. No amount of informant work can justify letting a monster like Penguin stay "King of Gotham". I think there's an argument to be made that Oz is a bigger threat to Batman's overall long-term mission than guys like Joker or Riddler. Those are huge immediate threats, but Penguin does a lot more long-term damage to the very soul of Gotham and its people. As long as The Penguin is on top, there's no hope, Gotham will never not be the most corrupt and nightmarish place on earth with him in charge

@book--wyrm

He will truly climb anything no loss so great it can't be flipped into an asseet A nuke Francis armed out of pain and grief and desperation and despair And poor vic Only wanting to do good And instead he saves gotham’s own typhoid mary of misery

@davidmann95

so the thing is Oz kills hope for Gotham forever in this

he's replacing the mayor who stands for hope at the end of The Batman with a corrupt comics rando built on a lie so he can install himself as the power behind the power forever Batman can't be alluded to in the slightest until the very end because it can't be until there's no lingering 'aw, I don't want my boy to get Batman'ed' it can't be until we understand truly and completely why this man proves the necessity of someone out there to stop him

The other stabs at this with Oswald, from what I’ve seen, are trying to make him low-down and dirty and vile enough to be a ‘proper’ Batman villain. But this already made him low-down and dirty and vile. And made us love him for it. This isn’t about ‘fixing him’, this is about taking him all the way to the top He’d accept no less

This is about making him operatically nightmarish enough to be a guy Batman is going to fight forever

Lucas

VENGEANCE, GET OUT RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

#dc comics #the penguin #the penguin hbo #hbo max #max #oswald cobb #oswald cobblepot #sofia falcone #sofia gigante #victor aguilar #francis cobb #colin farrell #cristin milioti #rhenzy feliz #deirdre o'connell #matt reeves #lauren lefranc

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krishna-sangini · 3 months ago

Text

That Midnight (Pt.2)

The temple courtyard buzzed with excited squeals and soft giggles as the girls rose to their feet, anticipation shimmering in their eyes. They stood before the idol, some clutching puja ghantis, their hearts brimming with devotion. Their beloved Keshav gazed back at them, his flute poised as if he might play a divine tune at any moment, drawing them closer to his enchanting presence.

Manyataa carefully lifted the puja thali, her movements slow and reverent. “Ready, y’all?” she asked, her voice a gentle whisper as she glanced back. Her friends, eyes gleaming, nodded eagerly, their hearts beating in unison.

Turning back to face the idol, Manyataa began circling the thali with steady hands. As the sacred flames flickered, the girls' voices rose in unison, filling the temple with a melody that transcended time.

"कृष्ण, मनमोहना, मोरे कान्हा, मोरे कृष्ण..."

"कृष्ण, मनमोहना, मोरे प्रियवर, मोरे कृष्ण..."

The temple echoed with their devotion, the sound of the ghantis and the rhythmic claps of the girls weaving through the air, adding a scent of spiritual love to the moment. Love that knew no limit, love that transcended every boundary. Each note they sang was a prayer, each word a wish from the depths of their souls.

Manyataa set the thali aside, her heart swelling with emotion. She took a handful of flowers, and her friends followed, their hands trembling with the intensity of their devotion. Together, they showered the idol with fragrant petals, their faces glowing with pure, unfiltered joy. Tears welled up in their eyes, blurring their vision, but in that haze, only the idol remained vivid, alive. For a fleeting second, they wondered—had he moved?

“जैसी मन में छवि, तुम वैसे मोरे कृष्ण...”

Their voices cracked with emotion, yet they sang on, driven by a love that knew no bounds. Then, as if answering their call, a melodious flute joined their song, intertwining with their voices and the tinkle of the ghantis, elevating the moment to something beyond the earthly realm.

The girls froze in place, their voices silenced, eyes wide with disbelief. Tears streamed down their cheeks, but they made no move to wipe them away. This had to be a dream—a figment of their deepest desires—yet it felt so achingly real. Before each of them, in the soft glow of the temple mashaals, stood their beloved, their Kanha.

He was everything they had ever imagined Him to be. For some, He appeared as the naughty teen, a playful smile dancing on His lips, eyes twinkling with that familiar, endearing mischief. For others, He was the youthful lover, mature and serene yet still carrying a glint of divine playfulness that made their hearts flutter. And for some, He stood as the majestic King of Dwarka, resplendent in all His glory, His aura commanding reverence and awe.

Each girl saw Him just as she had always held Him in her heart, a perfect reflection of her soul’s deepest yearning. It was as if the divine had stepped out of their prayers, their dreams, their songs, and taken form before them—just as they had sung moments ago: “The way we picture you in our heart, you’re the exact same way.”

The girls stood in disbelief, some staggering back a step while some taking a step forward. The ethereal tune of the flute never left them. He stood before them, not as a distant deity but as the Kanha who knew them intimately, who had been with them all along. The veil between the divine and the mortal had lifted, and from that very moment, they were each alone, with nobody around them except their eternal love, their Krishna.

“Ke-Keshav… is it truly… you?” Baanhi’s voice quivered, barely a whisper, as her breath caught in her throat. Her hand instinctively flew to her lips as if to stifle the overwhelming emotions rising within her. The other reached out, trembling, toward the figure before her—her Keshav. But the temple had melted away, and in its place, they now stood by the riverbank. The cool breeze danced with the fragrance of blossoms, their petals strewn like lost dreams across the soft meadow. Moonlight draped everything in a gentle, silvery glow as if even the heavens had paused, holding their breath to witness this fragile reunion.

Tears brimmed in her wide, astonished eyes, sparkling with disbelief, joy, and a love so deep it ached in her chest. They slipped silently down her flushed cheeks, each tear reflecting the longing that had devoured her heart through endless nights and restless dreams. And then… that smile. That breathtaking, familiar curve of His lips, the very one she had searched for in every corner of her soul, in every whispered prayer. It shattered the boundaries of time and space.

Without a word, He stepped closer. His warmth enveloped her as His hand found hers, soft and strong, grounding her to this delicate reality that still felt like a dream. His thumb gently caressed the back of her hand, sending shivers through her as their fingers entwined.

“And why, Baanhi,” He murmured, His voice a deep, velvet whisper, the sound resonating through her very soul, “would you ever doubt that it is me?”

Meanwhile, across the tranquil beach, where the ocean's waves whispered softly against the shore and the moonlight bathed the sands in a shimmering silver glow, Dhruvi collapsed to her knees. Her body trembled as a sob broke free, raw and filled with longing. “My Lord…” The words escaped her lips like a broken plea, fragile and aching, as she stared up at Him—the Dwarkadhish—her Dwarkadhish. His form, majestic and timeless, stood bathed in moonlight, a vision both familiar and distant.

With a tenderness that pierced through her despair, His hand extended toward hers, the touch light yet unwavering, steady as the tides that kissed the shore. Her heart stilled when their hands met, His fingers warm against her cold, trembling ones. His eyes—deep and endless—locked with hers, filled with a love so tender it seemed to encompass all of time and space. It was the kind of love that transcended words.

“Yes, it’s me,” He said softly, His voice wrapping around her heart like a balm, mending the fractures of her soul. But then, the corners of His lips curved into that teasing smile, the one that had always undone her. “Only, I’m not your Lord. I’m your sakha.”

His words washed over her, breaking through the dam of disbelief that had held her in place. Dhruvi blinked, her breath catching as she felt the weight of her doubts dissolve into nothingness. Slowly, almost as if in a dream, He bent down and took her hand, pulling her gently to her feet. His touch lingered, firm yet delicate, grounding her to this moment—this reunion—while making her feel like she was floating, her feet barely brushing the cool, moonlit sand.

Their fingers intertwined, His thumb tracing soft circles over her knuckles, a silent reassurance that He was here, real and near. As they walked, side by side along the shore, she felt the warmth of His presence seep into her, cradling her heart in a serenity she hadn’t known in what felt like lifetimes. Her head dipped slightly toward Him, and without thinking, she leaned against His shoulder, the closeness bringing a peace she never knew she needed.

At the same time, in a garden that seemed to breathe with the sweet scent of flowers and sandalwood wafting through the air, Saanjh walked beside Him. Her hand rested securely in His, their fingers intertwined. The vibrant blossoms swayed in the evening breeze as if bowing to the very Lord of the universe. Yet, her heart raced, a storm of disbelief and wonder churning inside her. Her fingers tightened slightly around His, still unsure, reeling from the impossibility of it all.

She stole a glance at Him, the breathtaking face she had only dared to see in dreams—dreams that had blinded her in the quiet of the night, where the line between reverence and yearning blurred. How could He be here, beside her, as if this moment was plucked straight from those sacred imaginings?

Her voice was a soft whisper, trembling with the weight of a thousand unsaid questions. “Was it really you… who tugged my hair back then in the temple?” The words slipped from her lips like a half-forgotten secret, the incredulity in her heart too great to contain.

He turned, glancing over His shoulder with that familiar, playful smile—the one that had always undone her, the one that held galaxies of mischief and affection all at once. His eyes sparkled with knowing mirth. “And what’s so hard to believe about that?” He teased, His voice light and melodic, a soft chuckle woven into each word.

Saanjh’s heart stuttered, her breath catching as she looked up at Him, her gaze searching His face for answers that her mind still couldn’t comprehend. The darling of Vrindavan. The one who had stolen the hearts of millions, now standing by her side as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

After strolling a bit more, the Manmohan settled beside her after Madanmohini got comfortable on the swing, her fingers tracing the jute rope. Without a word, He gently pushed the swing into a soft, soothing rhythm. The familiar creak of the wood intertwined with the rustling leaves and the distant hum of night creatures, creating a melody only nature could compose. Her gaze drifted toward Him, lingering longer than it should have. There was something almost paradoxical about His simplicity—how could someone who held the entire cosmos in His hands appear so unassuming? Yet, the magic He wove was undeniable, pulling at her in ways words failed to describe. He was her enchanter, her safe harbour, the one whose mere presence could still be the tempest in her mind.

His chuckle broke the silence, soft yet brimming with mischief. "Sakhi," He teased, eyes glimmering with a knowing spark, "you're going to make me blush with all those thoughts."

His voice snapped her out of the trance she hadn’t realised she’d slipped into. Her heart skipped a beat as warmth rushed to her cheeks. Hastily, she tore her gaze away and fixed it on the ground. She swallowed hard, her hands suddenly too aware of themselves as one of them nervously gripped the swing’s rope, and the other lay on her lap.

A beat of hesitation passed, the words catching in her throat before she found the courage to speak. "Kanha," she whispered, her voice barely louder than the breeze playing through the trees. "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything," He replied, without missing a beat. His voice, soft and velvety, seemed to wrap around her like a warm blanket, coaxing her closer. And before she knew it, His arm slid effortlessly around her shoulders, drawing her nearer. The swing creaked in gentle protest as the space between them disappeared, and her heart thudded against her chest, loud enough she was certain He could hear it.

Samridhi took a slow, deliberate breath as she finally voiced the question that had haunted her for what seemed like lifetimes. “Why… why did you choose me? What have I done to deserve the honour of being in your presence? I’m just a mere mortal…”

Her voice faltered as she finished. Krishna, ever serene, responded with that familiar smile that seemed to hold the universe within it, His eyes twinkling with a hint of amusement.

“You’ve always been in my presence, sakhi,” He replied, His tone light and teasing, as though the answer was the most obvious thing in the world. “Don’t you remember all those conversations we’ve had in your room?” He chuckled softly, His gaze soft yet playful. “We talked just yesterday.”

Samridhi’s eyes widened as a wave of heat rose, and memories of her private, unfiltered ramblings to His little idol flashed before her. The soft breeze toyed with two strands of hair, brushing them across her face, but in her flustered state, she made no move to brush them away.

“So… you hear everything I say to you?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper, a mixture of wonder and mortification colouring her tone.

Krishna’s lips curled into a knowing smirk, His eyes gleaming with playful mischief. “Everything.” He said, the single word laced with warmth, as if He cherished every awkward confession, every tearful prayer, every laugh she’d shared with His idol. His hand moved gently, almost lazily, as He reached out and tucked the loose strands behind her ear, His touch light as a feather yet sending a shiver coursing through her spine.

“But…” she started, her voice wavering. She forced herself to continue, even as her gaze dropped to the ground, unable to hold His anymore. “What have I ever done to deserve this? To see you like this, so divine… yet standing before me as though we’re equals?” Her voice cracked, soft and broken. “I’m just… just a sinner. Materialistic and flawed.”

The Murari paused mid-swing, his gentle laughter fading as He gracefully dismounted. Standing before Garima, who now seemed more uncertain and apprehensive, He took her trembling hands in His, urging her with a soft nudge to lift her gaze and meet His eyes.

“Love,” He said, His voice as soothing as a summer breeze. Garima’s brows furrowed in confusion. The Girivar chuckled softly. Helping her off the swing, He led her to the nearby lake, its surface shimmering with the moon’s delicate reflection. They settled on the grass, Garima instinctively keeping a respectful distance.

But before she could retreat too far, He sighed and pulled her gently closer, His touch warm and reassuring.

“You love me, sakhi,” He began. “You love me as if I am your everything. Despite being part of this material world, you never fail to include me—whether in your pain or your joy. And yes, you may stumble," He smiled, "but it’s in those very moments that I walk beside you.”

The Natwar wrapped His arm around her shoulders, drawing her into the comfort of His presence. Together, they stared at the moonlit water, the ripples gently distorting the silver reflection, mirroring the complexities of Garima’s emotions.

“But…” Garima’s voice wavered, barely more than a whisper, as she cowered beneath His touch. “You’re the Lord of the Universe, not my friend… I shouldn’t be treating you as I do, with such familiarity…”

Krishna's smile grew tender, brimming with warmth that seemed to wrap Agrata in an invisible embrace. His head tilted slightly, and with a soft glance, He caught her gaze. His eyes, bright as the stars mirrored in the calm waters, sparkled with an understanding beyond mortal grasp. “Why shouldn’t you, hmm? Have I ever asked for anything more than your heart?”

The girl opened her mouth, her voice barely a whisper, “But…”

“Ssh,” Krishna’s gentle voice cut through her hesitation. “No ‘but’s, sakhi. Hear me.”

His words, soft but unyielding, silenced her doubts.

“Love today is tossed around like it's something ordinary. People have forgotten its sanctity. They barter it and use it as a label for fleeting passions or selfish desires. But love… love is sacred, rare, untouched by the ego or the world’s expectations.” His eyes softened even more, overflowing with affection as He gently took her trembling hand in His. “You, sakhi, have loved me like my gopis did, with a heart pure and full��”

Agrata’s chest tightened, her emotions swirling between disbelief and the depth of His love. She shook her head, blinking back the tears that welled up in her eyes. “You’re… you’re exaggerating…” Her voice broke as she glanced up, meeting His gaze, deep and eternal like the vast universe holding her fragile heart.

The Murlidhar's smile deepened, and with a playful shake of His head, He reclined back, propping His head on one hand, laying comfortably on the soft earth. With the other, He gently patted the space beside Him, beckoning her closer. Agrata hesitated, a soft blush creeping up her cheeks, but under His knowing gaze, she slowly settled down beside Him.

For a moment, the world was wrapped in a quiet stillness. Above them, the night sky stretched out, vast and starry. Then, with exaggerated seriousness, Krishna sighed, His eyes sparkling with mischief. “You girls… all of you,” He began, shaking His head as if bearing the weight of their endless insecurities. “Always so unsure, always doubting yourselves.”

Manyataa gave a sheepish shrug, her gaze wandering up to the stars, a small, guilty smile tugging at her lips.

The silence hung between them, lingering like a heartbeat. Then, His rich, velvety voice filled the air again. “Tell me,” He said, His body shifting. With a graceful movement, He turned onto His side, propping His head up with one hand, His gaze now locked onto hers. Full of warmth and affection, his eyes sought hers like a beacon. “Why do you think you don’t deserve me?”

The sudden closeness caught her off guard. Her heart skipped a beat, her breath faltering as she stared back at Him, startled by the intensity of His gaze. She hadn’t expected Him to face her like this—so direct, so tender. Her heart raced as if trying to keep pace with the moment.

“Dear God…” she muttered under her breath, her voice barely a whisper.

Krishna’s lips curled into a playful smirk. “Yes?” He teased, eyes gleaming with boyish charm.

Her face flushed a deep red, heat rising to her cheeks as she stammered, flustered by both His teasing and His nearness. “I-I mean…” she struggled, her words caught in her throat. She took a shaky breath, trying to steady the storm of emotions swirling inside her chest. “So, uh… what did you ask again?”

Krishna’s laughter, soft and deep, rumbled through the still night. He leaned in slightly, the amusement in His eyes never fading.

“I asked,” He repeated slowly, savouring each word as if giving her time to settle, “Why do you think you don’t deserve me?”

Kesar pushed herself up to sit straight; her hands fumbled with the delicate hem of her lehenga. She exhaled shakily, trying to gather her words. “Well… there are so many reasons…” Her voice was soft but strained. “You do so much for me. You’re there with me in every step of my life; you lull me to sleep when I’m spiralling into darkness; you calm me down when I’m on the verge of breaking. You remind me that you’re there when I'm lost and hopeless, even when I can’t feel you.”

She paused, eyes downcast, her fingers tightening their grip on her lehenga. “But I… I haven’t done anything for you… nothing worthy. I haven’t ever given you proper offerings like other sincere devotees. I try to tell myself that my love is enough, that it can compensate… but even then, I don’t know if I love you the right way. What if it’s not enough? What if my love doesn’t even reach you—”

Before she could finish, His warm hand pressed gently over her mouth. Her heart skipped as she looked up at him, startled by the sudden gesture.

Her Kanha’s eyes gleamed with unshed tears, and his lips pressed into a thin smile. He leaned in as he spoke in a playful reprimand. “Don’t you dare doubt my sakhi like that ever again, okay?”

Kesar’s face fell, her gaze dropping as she gave a faint, unconvincing nod. Kanha cupped her chin gently, tilting her face upward until her eyes met His.

“Okay?” he repeated, his voice filled with quiet insistence.

Kesar’s breath hitched, her throat tightening as she looked into his gaze—endless pools of love and reassurance, with no room for doubt. “Okay…” she whispered, her voice small, but the hint of belief slowly creeping in, as if his presence could make her start believing again.

The Natwar got up, pulling the Soni after Him. He then started leading her by her hand, and the girl followed behind Him wordlessly.

“Is our love supposed to be transactional?” came His question as He glanced down at her.

“No, but I should at least-”

“No ‘but’s,” He interrupted, a playful firmness in His tone. He pulled her hand gently, coaxing her to walk beside Him, their steps falling in rhythm. “I don’t love my devotees because of their offerings. It’s not the jewellery or the fine clothes they bring that make me care. I love them because they carry love in their hearts and have made space for me there. My affection doesn’t hinge on gold or gems—it thrives in the simplicity of a heart that loves freely.”

“I care about every soul, but I can’t help but be a little biased toward those who simply love me. That’s where the magic is. Old, familiar love, effortless and easy.” He paused, casting a sideways glance at her. “I’ve seen the way your eyes light up just thinking of me. I’ve felt the flutter in your heart when you speak to me. I’ve known, felt, and cherished your love forever, sakhi. I couldn’t ask for more. Your love is all I need to love you and do everything I do for you.”

As Krishna finished speaking, He turned to glance at the girl walking beside Him, only to find her cheeks flushed red and her eyes shimmering with tears. As a few droplets escaped, streaking down her cheeks, she tried to hide them, hurriedly bringing her dupatta to her face, dabbing at the tears.

Krishna’s lips curved into a knowing smile, warm and full of affection. A deep, melodic chuckle escaped Him. Soni’s breath hitched as she fought to regain control, but Krishna’s laughter only deepened, not out of amusement but out of pure, unfiltered joy. His hand, still holding hers, gave a gentle squeeze—a silent reassurance, a reminder that her tears, her love, her emotions were all safe with Him.

“Well, well, well,” said the Manohar in His usual playful demeanour, “it’s time.”

Time for what, Kanha?” questioned a confused Soni.

His eyes shone with that familiar playfulness as he muttered, “Maharaas.”

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

And they were all back in the temple premises, in the majestic courtyard, which was now fragrant with elegant blossoms that shone under the moonlight. Their lehengas sparkled brighter than before; their anklets jingled more melodiously than ever. Their hearts raced in a rhythm they had never known, each beat louder, more desperate as if their souls were on the verge of breaking free from the confines of their bodies. A sense of bliss, raw and overwhelming, enveloped them, making them feel both weightless and anchored at the same time.

And there He stood, amid it all—His eyes tender, filled with a love so deep it seemed to engulf the entire universe. He gazed at each of them, not as individuals, but as His entire world. Every doubt, every question they had harboured vanished at that moment. It was true. He was there, as real as the moonlight that caressed their faces, and the immense love they felt for Him paled to the boundless love He reflected at them. It was infinite, eternal—so much more than they had ever dreamed possible.

The girls were lost—completely oblivious to the world around them. They did not notice the moonlight casting its silver veil over the temple courtyard, nor the gentle breeze whispering through the trees, nor even the sweet perfume of midnight blooms that filled the air. Nothing mattered except Him. He ruled their senses with an overwhelming presence, pulling them into a realm where only He existed. His yellow attire glowed like the morning sun, His sandalwood scent wrapped around them like a promise, and His touch, soft yet commanding, spoke of an eternal bond beyond comprehension.

He was everything. To Baanhi, He was her Keshav. To Dhruvi, He was Dwarkadhish. To Manyataa, He was Krishn, the anchor of her heart. Samridhi’s Only One, Soni’s beloved Kanhu, Madanmohini’s Enchanter—each girl saw in Him the embodiment of their deepest devotion. Garima’s Supreme Lord, Saanjh’s Kanhaiya, Agrata’s Beloved, Kesar’s Manmohan—He stood before each of them, uniquely theirs, yet timelessly the same.

The girls didn't realise when a hauntingly beautiful flute melody floated into the air, like a song from another world. It wove through the wind, mingling with the rustling leaves, the distant murmur of the river, and the soft chime of temple bells. Nature itself seemed to bow to Him, joining in a symphony that pulled the girls out of the confines of the physical world. And without even realizing it, they began to move—lifting their hands, twirling in slow, graceful arcs around Him, their Universe. Their souls danced in perfect harmony with the melody, as if they were not merely mortals, but celestial beings orbiting their Krishna.

And then, as if the very Earth called them back, He reached out, His strong hands gently pulling them toward Him. Each girl was grounded only by His touch—yet even then, it felt as though He held not just their hands, but their very souls.

Though they stood in a circle, Saanjh could not see Baanhi’s Keshav. Garima couldn’t see Manyataa’s Krishn, nor could Madanmohini see Dhruvi’s Dwarkadhish. Each could only see their own Krishna, who now gazed into their eyes with a look so captivating, so full of divine love, that it took their breath away. With a smile that promised eternity, He twirled them again, one by one, each spinning deeper into His embrace, deeper into the overwhelming bliss of being His.

The ten girls danced in perfect harmony, hand-in-hand with their Universe, their feet moving as one in an effortless rhythm. They were no longer aware of themselves or the world around them, lost entirely to the bliss of His presence. Yet, despite being beyond their senses, their movements were flawlessly in sync. Each twirl, each graceful pose, blended seamlessly into the next, as if guided by a force greater than any of them—a divine choreography written in their souls.

They danced not just with their bodies, but with their hearts, their spirits. Every step was an expression of their boundless love for Him—the One who held them, who spun them into an eternal dance where time ceased to exist. His presence bound them together, the invisible thread that linked their hearts in perfect unison. They were no longer individuals, but a single entity, moving as one, their devotion and surrender reflected in every movement.

Each girl felt Him with them, His hand gently leading hers, His eyes locking with hers, and in that moment, she knew she was His. Their feet glided over the ground as though it were air, their bodies weightless, carried by the power of their love. And though they danced together, each girl knew her bond with Him was sacred, unique. They spun through the night, their lehengas flowing like liquid light, merging with the moonlight and the music of the flute that still filled the air.

It wasn’t just a dance—it was a communion, a moment where the veil between the mortal and the divine had lifted, and they, hand-in-hand with their Krishna, had become a part of something eternal, something pure and infinite. The Universe moved with them, within them, and for this brief, beautiful moment, they were no longer bound by anything but their love for Him.

How long they danced, they couldn’t say. Time had ceased to exist in that sacred moment. It felt like an eternity, yet passed in the blink of an eye. At the end of their divine dance, the Murlidhar stopped in front of each girl, His hand warm around theirs, pulling them close. His eyes, deep and all-knowing, locked with theirs, and He smiled—each smile uniquely meant for the girl before Him. The world fell away as the girls stared back, their hearts overflowing with bliss. Tears of pure joy slipped down their flushed cheeks, but they didn’t care. Nothing mattered now, except their Govind.

Then, in a moment so intimate, so unexpected, He drew each of His partners into a divine embrace. The girls were stunned—could this be real? The Lord of the Universe, their Krishna, holding them as if they were His own, as if they had always belonged to Him. Disbelief filled their hearts for a breathless second, but then, as His warmth wrapped around them, realization dawned. The truth they had always known deep inside surfaced—this was no dream. He was theirs, and they were His. Completely, eternally. In His arms, they weren’t Samridhi, Agrata, or Kesar—they were simply His sakhis. His beloved companions who existed for no one but Him.

“I love you, sakhi,” He whispered softly into each girl’s ear, His voice like a soothing melody only they could hear. “Just as you have claimed me with your love, I have claimed you today. You are mine, and mine only.” His words were more than promises—they were the very foundation of their souls, binding them to Him forever. “I will be with you always, in every second of your life,” He continued, His arms tightening as if He never wanted to let go.

The girls, overwhelmed, melted deeper into His embrace, surrendering completely to the moment, eyes pressed shut. His presence filled them, every doubt, every longing vanished. His voice became a whisper, barely audible now, as He leaned in closer, His breath warm against their skin. “This isn’t goodbye,” He murmured. “We will meet again, just like this. Until then, speak to me through the little idol in your room. I am always with you.”

The girls could barely breathe, their hearts beating in rhythm with His words. They were no longer bound by time, space, or the limitations of the world. In that hug, they had found their eternity. They had found their everything in Him—their Krishna, their forever.

As they opened their eyes, the warmth of His embrace faded, replaced by a new, yet familiar sensation. They were no longer in their Kanha’s arms—but in each other’s. Slowly, reality settled in, though the glow of His love lingered in their hearts. Kesar gently released her hold on Dhruvi, and Madanmohini let go of Soni, their fingers still trembling from the divine touch. A soft, joyful sob escaped Manyataa as she reached for Baanhi, their hands tenderly wiping away each other’s tears, a silent acknowledgment of the love that had just enveloped them.

Samridhi and Agrata, eyes brimming with unshed tears, exchanged a knowing look. There was no need for words—their smiles spoke volumes. Saanjh and Garima, still holding hands, turned to the others, their faces radiant with the same unspoken truth.

As they stood there, the ten of them, surrounded by the remnants of that divine moment, they didn’t need to say anything. Their souls were already communicating, speaking a language they had never learned but had always known—the language of His Love. It was a bond deeper than words, stronger than any earthly connection. Each girl could see it reflected in the other’s eyes—the same love, the same devotion, the same feeling of having been chosen by Him.

They never thought it was possible to fall deeper in love with a being they already cherished so profoundly. Yet here they were, standing in that sacred space, lost in His love, tangled in it, freed by it, and ascended through it. Every breath they took felt lighter, every heartbeat a reminder that they belonged to Him now and He to them. His presence had intertwined their hearts, leaving them forever bound to one another through the love of their Krishna.

They had been touched by the infinite, and in that touch, they had found something eternal. Together, they had transcended, their spirits united in the only truth that mattered—His love, which was endless, unshakeable, and all-encompassing. And as they looked around at one another, tears mingling with smiles, they knew they would carry this love for the rest of their lives, forever tethered to the One who made their souls dance.

************************************

IT'S DONE! IT'S FINALLY DONE! Sorry for taking so long T_T

@saanjh-ki-dulhan @krsnaradhika @chaliyaaa @saanjhghafa @krishnaaradhika @ramayantika @tumharisakhi @sumiyxx @vishnavishivaa @rantingabtmyman @willbedecided @braj-raj

#I SWEAR TO GOD #I HAVEN'T BLUSHED THIS MUCH IN MY ENTIRE LIFE THE WAY I DID WHILE WRITING THIS FIC #LIKE SIR YOU KNOW YOU HAVE ME WHIPPED #GIVE YOUR SAKHI A MOMENT TO BREATH PLEASE #okay I'm done #krishnablr #gopiblr #fiction

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maybege · 7 months ago

Text

Drunken Words Are Sober Thoughts - FBI 11

Summary: The birthday celebration continues but the morning after does not look as fun.

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x fem!Reader

Wordcount: 2.7k | Rating: E (18+ only!)

Warnings: alcohol consumption, hopeless yearning, Josh is annoying af and so are “your” parents

I am not dead and neither is my Hotch obsession, so I am slowly (very slowly!!!) trying to get back into this fic. Let me know what you think, your comments these past months were always an absolute joy to read 🥺

masterlist | crossposted on AO3

You did not know how many cocktails you already had thrown back, each one more colourful than the last.

What had started with a Kiwi Splash had turned into a Sex On The Beach and something else that Emily had pushed into your hand with a grin and a wink. It was hot pink and tasted like sour candy on your tongue. Delicious.

The night went on, the music got louder and you did not know a lot of people in this karaoke bar that the group had chosen but with Penelope and JJ on the dancefloor, you were certainly in good company.

Someone was blaring an offkey rendition of Britney Spears’ Toxic but you could not care less. Your dress was twirling around you, you screamed along with your friends and the rest of the bar for a moment you finally felt like you had found your people. Like you had settled in this strange city away from home with a group of colleagues with whom you had always wanted to fit in.

And how could you not feel welcomed when Penelope threw her arms around your neck and professed her undying love to your dangly earrings?

“Let the birthday girl breathe, Pep,” JJ joked, rocking her hips to the beginning tunes of Get Busy.

“I just think you are beautiful, darling!” Penelope shouted over the music, “Inside and out and you are so lovely and nice and you deserve the best things and I hate to think that you think you don’t deserve the good things this life has to offer you.”

Trying to hide how close her words hit home, you swallowed back the heavy feeling in your chest.

“All right, Garcia,” Emily interjected, taking your blonde friend into her arms, “I think that is enough drinks for tonight. How about we go looking for your hunk somewhere, huh?”

You grinned, pressing a wet kiss to Penelope’s cheek before making your way back to the table the rest of the group was occupying. While drinking all night may be a fun distraction from your usually so boring life, you knew yourself enough to know you needed to drink lots of water if you wanted to function tomorrow.

Though “function” might be too big a word.

The glass of cool tap water – condensation pearling off at the sides – was calling your name and you fought your way through the crowd. It had not seemed this packed with people when you were dancing with your friends but the moment you tried to get to a specific place, your way was blocked by dozens of people just as (if not more) drunk than you.

You were about to squeeze your way between two people (the last hurdle to your table) when they suddenly stepped away from each other. You almost toppled over, squeaking in surprise when your heel got caught in a gap in the creaky floorboards.

It would have made for a nasty fall if it had not been for two strong arms catching you around your waist, gently helping you into your chair.

“There,” Aaron Hotchner's amused smirk greeted you as you looked up, “Drank a little too much, did we?”

“Me?” you asked, finding yourself in the mood to joke, “Never!”

A real, genuine laugh escaped the man before you and you were sure you had never seen anything more beautiful than him laughing. His entire face lit up and the crinkles next to his eyes deepened. You grabbed the fabric of your dress, keeping yourself from tracing the lines of his face with your finger.

Not appropriate, you reminded yourself, So not appropriate.

“Pretty sure you are, though,” he teased back, pushing the glass of water towards you. You smiled in thanks, quickly gulping down a few sips. “You are laughing more than usual, entertaining Reid’s monologues on aviation in the early twentieth century and I am pretty sure,” he looked down between you, “Just like I thought. You are wearing the heels I only ever saw you wear when we celebrated Emily’s birthday at that high-end sushi place.”

“Are – are you drunk profiling me, Agent Hotchner?” you gasped in shock, unable to hide your smile.

“What happened to Sir?”

Hoping he did not notice the heat spreading through your face, you fiddled with the neckline of your dress, trying to get some air on your body. “Don’t tease me!”

He looked … relaxed. Open. A slow smile spread on his lips as he turned the half-empty glass of scotch in his hand. He was the epitome of confidence and relaxation with how he was leaning back in his chair. You tried to remember the last time you had seen him so … not on edge. No moment came to mind.

You crossed your legs, trying to satiate the pulsing need that had formed in your core. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you tried to remind yourself to not give him anything to read you by. Which seemed impossible considering the man could read you like an open book.

You just hoped you could hide at least a few essential chapters.

The dark-haired man leaned forward then, resulting in his head hovering right next to yours. The proximity was dizzying and intimate and you could not help but breathe him in. He smelled of the scotch and something so masculine it made you daydream about burying your head in the crook of his neck.

��You sure?” he mumbled, his lips dangerously close to your ear and you audibly gasped for breath, the back of your neck feeling warm as you stared up at him, “Because I have the feeling you rather like me teasing you.” He was so close, looking down at you as his nose almost touched yours and shit you wanted nothing more than to –

“Whatcha doin’?”

“Pen!” you gasped in shock, plastering a big grin on your face in the hopes that she would not see the sheer need written all over your face.

Luckily, your friend seemed to focus on your lack of dancing to notice anything else. She did not even spare a glance at Hotch when he slowly pulled away from you. “Oh, don’t tell me you are getting tired,” she whined, grabbing your hand and dragging you up, “C’mon, let's go back to dancing! Swing those hips, sweetie, we have all night!”

You followed her with a laugh, happy to have the distraction, but not without looking back at Hotch.

And seeing that he still looked at you with a smile.

Waking up with a headache was not normally a cause for joy but the morning after your birthday, you still woke up with a smile on your face.

Never in your wildest dreams had you expected the night to turn out the way it did.

The team had shown up with you, not once but twice and even then, continued to make you feel celebrated the entire evening. Hell, Rossi had insisted on covering your tab on the condition that you brought your self-made banana bread to work again. Emily and Derek (and a very drunk Penelope) had sung you the loudest rendition of Happy Birthday you ever heard with Reid and JJ acting as backup dancers/singers.

And Hotch had been the one to see you to your cab when the night had come to an end, making sure you were before nodding at you with a small smile.

A smile that was now on your face as you made your way to the kitchen. You caught a glimpse of the chaos in the living room. Chaos that had not existed when you had left last night. Empty bottles and glasses stacked on top of plates that were not quite as empty and the remnants of the pizzas Josh seemed to have ordered yesterday.

The smell of stale leftovers hung in the air and you hoped that a few slices were left over so you did not have to meal prep for the week.

The kitchen greeted you with much of the same sight and you took a deep breath when you saw your roommate already sitting at the table, a few slices of pizza before him. It wasn’t that you were unhappy to see him, really. You had just hoped to have a few more moments to yourself before being confronted with the events of last night.

“Morning,” he greeted you, chipper as ever.

“Hey,” you greeted back, browsing through the tea drawer. Peppermint? Berries? Earl Grey? You settled on a ginger and lemon brew, hoping that it would help you to wake up.

“That was one hell of a night, huh?”

“It was,” you agreed, “The bar we went to had like three birthday parties at the same time, it was a lot of fun.”

A moment of silence followed and you did not need to look at him to know he did not know what you were talking about. “Oh good,” was what he finally settled on and you closed your eyes, trying to hide your annoyance.

How could it be that the person you had long considered to be your best friend suddenly just … wasn’t the person you knew?

Remembering Derek’s comment from the night before, you decided to take another deep breath and do something you had avoided for a long time: Confront your best friend.

“Josh,” you started carefully, turning around and leaning your hip against the counter, “Can we talk about last night?”

“Sure,” he took another bite of his toast, “What about it?”

“The comment you made in front of my colleagues … That was not okay.”

“What comment?”

For a moment you could feel the doubt creeping up. Was this the right path to go down? Was this worth a conflict with not only your best friend but also your roommate? Was it really as bad as you thought it was? What if he had meant well?

My experience is that the people we need to clarify that about usually don’t care if they mean well or not.

Derek's words echoed in your head and you knew you were right.

“The comment where you implied that I was bad at my job. In front of your friends, my colleagues and my boss,” you recalled, feeling, “That was humiliating and hurtful, Josh.”

A frown formed between his brows. “Why are you so angry? Yeah, so I made a misplaced comment, I am sorry, but didn’t we talk about this already? Besides, it was at a party I organized for you, I think I am allowed to have some leeway here.”

You could feel your eyes bulge out of your head. Was he for real?

“I really appreciate what you were trying to do,” you said calmly, wrapping your hands around the mug and focusing on how the ceramic was warming against your skin, “Really, I do. But did it not occur to you that the only people you invited were your friends?”

“You know them too.”

“I do and they are very nice, I'm sure. But you could have asked if I would have liked someone to join. I left before midnight to celebrate somewhere else with people that I invited.”

He scoffed. “Look, I'm sorry you feel that way,” he threw his hands up, “I was just trying to do something nice and apparently that backfired.”

It did not escape you that the language he used was manipulative as fuck and you bit your tongue from throwing words in his face you would not be able to take back.

“I don’t think this is very productive,” you finally said, “I am going to take a shower and I would really appreciate it if we could talk about this sometime when we are both more clear-headed.”

Though as you made your way to the bathroom, the steaming mug still in your hands, you had the sinking feeling that any following conversation would not bring the closure you hoped it would.

As if your day could not get any better, your phone rang just as you stepped out of the shower and into your bedroom.

Recognizing the picture on the screen, you accepted the video call, wrapping your bathrobe a little tighter.

“Hi.”

“Happy birthday, honey!” your mom appeared on the small screen. The living room wall behind her looked just like it had done your entire childhood and you spotted the variety of family pictures she took great care of dusting every week.

“Thank you.”

“Did you have fun?” she asked, “Did you get to go out with Josh and your friends?”

“Yeah, uh,” you hesitated for a moment, “Josh organized a little party here but I ended up going out with the team later. We went for karaoke and it was awesome.”

“You certainly look like you had an awesome night,” she teased and you bit your lip to keep from grinning.

“So … how are you feeling?” she asked and you immediately grew suspicious. You knew that tone and you knew when she was worried.

“Good,” you replied carefully, “Like I said, I had a fun night.”

She hummed and avoided looking at you for a moment and you knew what was about to happen when you saw your father sitting down next to her. Even hundreds of miles apart, you still felt like a child when your parents sat together on the sofa like that one time when you accidentally put a dent in the family car.

“Remember our conversation from a few weeks ago?”

You nodded. “Yeah, I am feeling a lot better now.”

“And I am so glad to hear it,” she smiled and you could tell the genuine worry from where the crease never quite left her forehead, “I talked with your father and we – we think it might be best if you come visit us for a while. Come back home, check

“Just because you don’t think I can't make it as an agent –“

“Hey,” your dad interrupted you gently, “No one is prouder of you than we are, sweetheart, and we know you make for one hell of an agent. But the fact remains that you were miserable for the last couple of months and it might not be a bad idea to try and get to the root of things.”

And by the root of things they meant that you re-discover your passion to become an English teacher at your local middle school.

“I am an adult woman,” you tried again, “I love you and I love that you worry about me. But we need to keep in mind that I made a big move for a job that I was not wholly prepared for. The adjustment period was … longer than I wanted, for sure. But I finally feel like things are moving for the better and this makes me feel like you do not believe in me.”

“We do love you, honey,” your mum assured you, “And I apologize for making you feel like we don’t trust your decisions. I know you are incredibly proud of the work you do and you should be! But I am worried and I would feel better if you took some time off and came to visit us. Allow yourself the grace to breathe, you have been working non-stop since you moved away. There is no way that is healthy.”

You ran your hand over your face, trying to get yourself some time to think over your answer. The horrible thing was you knew your mother was right. Even if you did not want to admit it, you knew that you had been overworking yourself, that ever since Dr Johnson had voiced her doubts, your brain had been on edge and that a break might not be the worst idea.

Especially considering you had not taken any time off since you started your position.

“I hear you,” you started, feeling your eyes sting with tears. But you refused to cry in front of your parents lest they thought they were right and insisted that you come home as soon as possible. The last thing you wanted was to worry them.

“Can you just give me some time to think it over?” you asked, “Taking time off is not as easy as it sounds and I want to make sure that I don’t miss anything important at work.”

“Of course, darling,” your mother agreed, “Let us know anytime.”

But you knew that her anytime meant that your time was running out.

#maybege writes #aaron hotch x reader #aaron hotchner x reader

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xserpx · 1 month ago

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morse for the ask game?

How I feel about this character?

(Caveating this with the fact I haven't yet watched Inspector Morse, so this is only about Endeavour.)

Normally I'm not at all a fan of whump and I don't like feeling sad for well-meaning characters who are hurt repeatedly through (mostly) no fault of their own, but I really love Morse's brand of melancholia. The way he struggles to deal with change is too damn real, I'm a sucker for characters who struggle to voice their feelings and whose anxiety causes them to say nothing, because bitch me too. I also like that he's shy but it's kind of a selective shyness? Like if you catch him at the right moment or say a certain thing, he can be very snappish and outspoken and even funny, but then in those (incredibly important!) moments where he feels truly vulnerable, he just clams up, and it's heartbreaking and delicious to watch.

It's also undeniable that he is a massive prick sometimes. His treatment of women, his pretentiousness, there are moments when I want to slap him upside the head and I'm like you deserve this shit buddy! Monica my beloved, she deserved so much better from him. As much as he craves deeper connections with people and as much as I really want him to find a place to belong and settle down, it's so clear why he can't, why he shouldn't, and it's so deep rooted that in a way if he actually made a more concerted to change and do better he'd pretty much be a different person. And I like that the show never compromises on providing answers or catharsis for his struggles. Change happens, that's life, and there's often no way to deal with it that doesn't hurt.

I also love his dark academia style and the way it's grounded in finding meaning/belonging. It's not that it doesn't give him a sense of superiority at times, but like... that was his rebellion in the face of anti-intellectualism and abuse at home, and in a way I feel like he's earned the right to that pretentiousness. I think it dilutes some of the intimidating effect that opera and classics and poetry can have - some people listen to the Beatles, he listens to Wagner, one thing isn't "better" than another - but without binning it off entirely so that we still get to enjoy the commentary on classism. Plus watching him school the Oxford dons is always fun :P.

All the people I ship romantically with this character?

Romantically, hmm... The trouble is I end up feeling sorry for either Morse himself or whatever woman he's got his eye on at the time!

I love Joan and Morse, and I'd love for them to work things out, but the more time passes the less and less suited they seem to be. It's one of those relationships that's more about yearning than it is about getting together. They struggle to communicate and they're constantly miserable. He puts her on a pedestal because of her family, and Joan likes him because he's an enigma, and they can't move past that. But at the same time, fanfic exists for a reason, and I still love the yearning despite it all.

I'm not sure if I ship it romantically per se, but Max is another one where I feel like they could be more than friends, they're very Sherlock and Watson (and this fic by gaytobymeres is so good I love it). That scene with Morse and Max having tea in Max's garden is one of my favourites in the series, and I want that life for Morse so badly! Literalllyyy at the end of Exeunt I was like dude just move in with Max!! He'll never leave Oxford! He'll come along to your choral recitals! You have way more interests in common than any of your girlfriends have thus far! And he's lonely too, bless him ;w;.

My non-romantic OTP for this character?

I don't think there's a single character I don't ship Morse with platonically?? All I want in the world is a pub quiz fic featuring all of Cowley CID (and Trewlove) but I'm not clever or patient enough to write it. I wish we had more teamwork episodes tbh, and I think that's the best thing about seasons 5 & 6 (as dissipated as CID is at the start, that just makes them coming back together all the more heartwarming).

Morse & Thursday are of course the freaking bedrock of the show, they're just insanely good and I genuinely want them to be together forever. As much as he misses Joan at the end, I really want a happy ending where Thursday and Morse can stay together. At the same time, what with the whole men in the 60s reinforcing one another's emotional repression, I kind of wonder what would've happened if Thursday had been able to steer Morse in a different direction, and if it would have had a knock-on effect with helping Morse express his feelings for Joan and maybe end up somewhere better. But their characters are so intertwined it's hard to separate out the what-ifs. I do think Thursday had more of an impact on Morse than Morse did on Thursday, but you could maybe chalk that up to age. Leopards don't change their spots, etc. Still... lamenting lost potential is what grief is.

I'm also a huge fan of Morse & Trewlove tbh, he's so relaxed around her?? He tells her stuff he never tells anyone else?? They fake marry?? Ridiculously sweet. They share the trait of being incredibly dedicated and detailed in their work, and it bleeds over into a genuine appreciation for one another that they don't really have with any of their other colleagues (save for maybe Trewlove & Bright, another fantastic platonic OTP in my book). I also can see them being friends w bennies but I def don't ship them romantically.

My unpopular opinion about this character?

Not sure if I have one tbh. I haven't been here long but I generally think the wider fandom has it right about most things. Maybe not including Jakes as some brand of OTP? I feel bad because I love Peter, I just don't see him and Morse being particular friends any more than Morse and Jim are tbh.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Um, happiness. Just, all the happiness. I wish he could communicate better. I wish he'd had a better childhood. I wish his house hadn't been burgled and that he could still listen to Rosalind Calloway without taking emotional damage. I wish he hadn't been beaten down and that he could feel secure and safe, and have a fulfilled life outside of work. Great tragedies always keep the happy ending in sight, and Endeavour does that incredibly, painfully, well.

If I had to choose something specific to have happened in the show, I guess I would have liked to see more of Joyce. I'm fascinated by their relationship and I really loved every cameo from Morse's past that we saw, plus episodes like Cartouche with cousin Carol. Tbf I have heard that Joyce shows up more in Inspector Morse, so... 👀

#endeavour #itv endeavour #endeavour morse #oop this got long

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petriwriting · 1 year ago

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Memories - Sirius Black X Reader

Summary: Harry finds an old notebook that belonged to Sirius during his Hogwarts days. In his scruffy handwriting, in an old dusty journal found in Sirius's bedroom is the story of Sirius' first real love.

A/N: Fluff, nostalgia, a little bit of angst if you look too hard. The reader is feminine, using she/her pronouns. Oneshot - blurb is very short but very sweet.

I made a friend today on the train to Hogwarts. She is very sweet and seems very nice. She had a ribbon in her hair, I thought that she looked nice. we talked and she said that she liked my hair too. I also made some new friends. I got sorted into Gryffindor house, it's crazy since my family is all from Slytherin house. I'm sure Mother will be so upset. She is always upset about something.

Harry read aloud to his curious friends, Hermione leaned over his shoulder curiously to look at the small dark grey journal, it was tatted beaten-down bound with leather, covered in dust, but well used.

"Keep reading, Harry," Hermione said gently, knowing that he wasn't reading it with malicious intent, but instead in an attempt to feel closer to his godfather. he turned a few pages until a page caught his eye, and began reading once more.

Reg and I got into a quarrel over some things that didn't really matter. he says I should be more concerned with our family. Reg and I used to be close, but after my third year, he became cold. I love my brother, but I hate to see him hanging around those gits. Malfoy in particular, but I know he is happy now as he has joined the Slytherin team. he's their seeker, but he's no match for Gryffindor this year.

This entry made Harry smile slightly, and chuckle. he continued to flip pages, it was heartwarming. He turned the pages, looking through some messy potions class notes and annotations, and an entry about the marauders map, and how he saw Peter Pettigrew (Wormtail.) sneaking out every night to sneak food from the kitchens. One page, in particular, caught his eye.

I Love Her.

I have loved her every day I've known her. She is brilliant, her eyes sparkle when she speaks, her smile is so bright it lights up the room as if you'd cast Lumos. She's incredibly intelligent, but kind. She's always been gentle with me. I've never met another like her.

I wish that I could make this all go away. All the secrets, the war, the hatred. I wish we could start a family one day, live in a little cottage, and raise children far away from here. We'd visit James and Lily every Christmas, and Remus on halloween. I could give her my mother's ring. I doubt Regulus would mind. We could be so happy. I remember the first day we met. I think i knew then that she was special. She has been unconditionally devoted to me. The night my mother burned my name off our family tree she held me in her arms as i cried and i finally felt what home is supposed to feel like. I wrote her a letter, expressing my yearning for her. I plan to give it to her very soon, along with a locket I picked out. Lily insisted on the dainty silver chain with a locket of our picture from our first year together, she even helped me enchant to image to capture y/n's smile as she sat next to me. she say's it's sentimental, and that girls like this sort of thing.

I never had a home, truly. just four walls surrounding me. My own mother disgraced my name, Regulus has been absent in my life. I'm thankful for my friends but my love for y/n is like no other. i just wish want her to feel the way i do, i hope she does. With everything, she can not get involved it's too dangerous. But I will love her anyway. The kind of love that could break the most heinous curse.

Harry stood for a moment, looking over his godfather's handwriting. it was sentimental. "I wonder if we could find her," Harry offered hopefully. "There's no mention of a last name." Ron pointed out. "I'm sure we could ask someone, if she knew the black family she can't be too terribly hard to find," Hermione said, offering a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder. "I think Sirius would love that."

#my writing #reader insert #hp x reader #x reader #slytherin x reader #hp #sirius black #sirius black x reader #sirius black x you #sirius black x y/n #sirius and regulus #sirius orion black #sirius being sirius #padfoot #james potter #remus lupin #remus x sirius #sirius x remus

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millie-multifics · 9 months ago

Text

Though I Yearn • Part 4

Masters of the Air

Secret Admirer x Reader

A string of anonymous letters causes a stir at Thorpe Abbotts. Who could be the author of the tender correspondence you have been receiving?

Warnings: Love Letters, mentions of stalking and cheating.

Word Count: ~1k

Masterlist Previous Next

x x x

“Though we face a perilous fight in the sky, I am most afflicted by you when my feet are on solid ground. Try as I might to evade your presence, I am only a man plagued by my jealousy and affections.”

His knuckles cramped as he gripped the pen, the words pouring onto the page, this time his printing was messy less concise. It obviously hadn’t worked the first time, writing a letter to relieve his thoughts, they still overwhelmed him. He was sure no one else had noticed you had been acting strange lately, maybe your friend but none of the men you interacted with. There was a curiosity in your gaze, as if you were always trying to decipher if they were him. He had left his last letter on your pillow, nearly getting trapped in the cabin as your group returned to base, being in there felt wrong, he would find other ways to leave any future letters. The letter he currently wrote would never be met by your eyes at all.

He knew he was being foolish, he could not feel such jealousy while he hid himself behind paper and ink. Yet, there you were in the window, simple but ever so captivating and unknowingly fuelling the growing fire. The letter he had tucked in his jacket pocket in a rush now felt like it was burning the skin underneath. You were distracted by the coffee, he tucked the paper beneath the ledge without you or anyone else around noticing.

Another party was in full swing, their mission had been successful- they had lost only one plane but they had made it to Scotland for Curt and his crew to land safely. You sat in an armchair in the corner, once again alone. Half of your job was to converse and boost morale so sometimes it was nice to have a little serenity; the girl wouldn’t let you stay alone in the billet, you had tried that. You had not noticed that Major Cleven was seated in the armchair beside you until you heard him chuckling along to the boisterous, out of tune ‘singing’ of John Egan.

“How does does a stoic man like you befriend someone like Major Egan?” You genuinely questioned, their difference more apparent than any similarities besides both men were talented pilots and great leaders.

Cleven glanced over to you, never really having an interaction unless he was getting a coffee in the morning. “He didn’t really give me the choice.”

“He is very social, especially with women yet you sit here alone. Are you married?” You knew that you were potentially overstepping but your curiosity had bested you.

“Not yet.”

The small longing smile and his tone told that he was thinking of someone back home fondly. “So there is a lucky lady awaiting you back home?”

“Marge.” He handed you the small photograph that he kept in his breast pocket. You studied her beauty, clear skin, perfect curls and joyous smile.

“She’s real pretty Major.” You returned the photograph, “And lucky to have someone so dedicated to her. I’m betting you that most of these men dancing around here tonight all have unsuspecting sweethearts waiting for them at home.”

The Major nodded, his eyes meeting those of his approaching friend, “I am not a betting man.”

Egan occupied the empty armchair on the other side of Cleven, wiping the sheen of sweat from his brow with a handkerchief, “Your bombardier is one of those men if I do recall.”

“Dougie and I are merely friends, sir.” You once again defended yourself, feeling less embarrassed and more adamant.

“No fella waiting at home?” Egan asked, having overheard your previous comments about the ever so lovely Marge.

“Not at home,” Suddenly the men’s gazes felt heavy on you, or maybe it was your heart in your chest that felt heavy. “I believe he’s across the continent now, and I am no longer his to consider.”

“Just means you can dance with any man here.” Egan shrugged it off, sensing the tenderness of the subject. “Say Brady, why don’t you take our girl for a spin around the floor?”

John Brady looked up with his wide eyes upon being volunteered.

“Oh, You don’t have to John, I am perfectly capable of finding my own dance partner.” You assured him but he was already tucking away his pipe but then you were interrupted by a frantic Douglass.

“Helen was telling me about some letters?” His voice was low but not quite a whisper, attracting the curiosity of the men around you.

“Please, excuse us.” You sent the group a tense smile before dragging the bombardier by his elbow into the quiet night air.

It seems like he’s trying to give you a stern look but it comes off more as concerned. “Why haven’t you told anyone?”

You scoffed, folding your arms across your chest. “They are just letters of admiration.”

“Are you positive about that?”

“Dougie, they’re just from some harmless airman who had nothing better to do.” You simply brushed off his concern over the matter.

“They are clearly depraved, watching you like that, taunting you.” He insisted, his voice lowering to a whisper as a small group approached to enter the hall. You led him further away from the entrance to keep anymore of your conversation away from prying ears.

“And when you were gonna tell me that you have a sweetheart at home?”

It was his turn to sigh, fidgeting uncomfortably at the topic. “That is complicated.”

He was not expecting your heel to harshly slam against his booted toe, pain exploding throughout his foot. “Ouch. What the hell was that for?”

“Stop being an idiot.”

“This isn’t about me, it is about these letters.”

“Which everyone knows about now, thanks to you.” Your voiced raised louder than you had heard it in months, your frustration with the situation reaching its limit. “Good night, Dougie.”

You left no room for the conversation to continue as you wandered off into the darkness. Your night had been ruined and no one could stop you from your serenity now.

x x x

Tags: @canyousmelltheflowers @jointherebellion215 @gretagerwigsmuse

#masters of the air #mota fanfic #mota #mota spoilers #bucky egan #james douglass #major gale cleven #john brady #everett blakely #major john bucky egan #curtis biddick #apple tv #austin butler #callum turner #benny demarco #mota x reader

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justoneofthoseghosts · 7 months ago

Text

Back from the dead to scream into the void about Bridgerton because the Polin brain rot is real. I've watched the episodes twice now and have some thoughts nobody asked for:

Colin with all that new found swagger after his hot boy summer just makes me cringe. That whole montage with the ladies - er, no, thanks. Give me back my sensitive Colin please.

Nicola Coughlan is amazing, truly a superstar. She embodies the role so well, in all the bits - comedy, romance, intimate scenes. Ugh. I hope she gets more leading roles!!

Love that Colin drops all pretenses when he senses Penelope's distress at the first ball - sensitive Colin is still there folks!

Also, I think we moved on too quickly from his apology. "There is nothing more I want than to earn back the favor of the one person who has always truly made me feel appreciated." Luke said in an interview that the best version of Colin was the one when he was with Penelope (or something like that) and it does ring true in the first half of the season even if he comes up with this disastrous and misguided plan to help her find a husband. He's always himself when he's with her - there's no postering, no swagger.

I am a huge rom com nerd so I truly appreciated all the rom com elements in this. Nicola just ate that all up. She was amazing in all the awkward moments in the second and third episodes and Luke did a good job too. You could really see their chemistry and how they fed off each other!

They talk about how they first met. Please 🥺 it's the same meeting as in the book and the way they reminisce about it while walking in the market was so cute, straight out of a rom com!

Kinda cringed at Colin's journals because they were about girls 🤡 should have kept them as they were in the book where they were more about his travels.

"We shall gallop along" is this season's "I oiled my way right in" 😂

The first kiss scene was incredible. I think I prefer it to the book because there is much more emotional connection between them - they've been lifelong friends as opposed to acquittances in the book (even if Colin was starting to see Pen in a new light by then). The connection between them is undeniable but they each get something different from it. To Pen, it's the ending. The last thing she would ask from him before she let him go. To Colin, it's the awakening, the shift of his feelings, the beginning of its growth.

Pining, yearning Colin is not as unhinged and chaotic as in the book but I think he might get there in the second half. At least I hope because chaotic, unhinged Colin in the book was pretty great. I mean, interrupting a dance was kind of unhinged of him to do.

But I do like how down bad he becomes after that one kiss 😂 Luke really portrayed it well in the first few minutes of the third episode.

I quite like Francesca and John even though I know how that will end. Curious to see if they'll take front and center in season 4 or if the show is renewed, it'll be in season 5.

I know it is an ensemble show but there seems to be a lot more subplots this season?

lol at Portia trying to get her daughters pregnant when one of them hasn't even done it yet since getting married 💀

Penelope and Eloise ❤️‍🩹 they miss each other ☹️ also, I do not care for Cressida.

I've always liked Violet's talks with her children and how in tuned she is with each of them.

Can't lie, I loved the carriage scene - Colin's confession, the momentary disappointment that he was getting friend zoned, the intimacy but most especially towards the end where they could just laugh together because at the heart of it, they were very, very good friends first.

Also, that look Colin gets when he realizes he's going to marry Penelope? Chef's kiss, 10/10, no notes. Luke really delivered and I think it helps that a lot of the Bridgerton actors are theater actors because they have a distinct way of showcasing little nuisances in their facial expressions.

Needless to say, I enjoyed it. Even if there were some key departures from the book, I think it was a fairly good job. I can't fault them for bringing in an external force (another suitor) to help Colin realize his feelings even more. In the book, a lot of it happens in his head, which can be hard to translate to a show. At least we got rid of the suitor early and it didn't become a legitimate love triangle.

I do need a Lady Danbury and Penelope alliance though. I loved that in the book and I hope they don't drop it!

#bridgerton spoilers #polin #bridgerton

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fandomfluffandfuck · 6 months ago

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I was scrolling through your tags and links last night and i will never stop being SHOOKT of the way you right Steve and Bucky JAHFOWJDORJEI

So I present to you- fresh faced Steve x twunk Sebastian x WS!Bucky

During endgame, they made a joke about the hot tub time machine movie and that implies the existence of one Sebastian Stan in the marvel universe and I'm reminded of that discovery when I read your selfcest drabbles/fics Nghhhhhh

So like, imagine a movie night with the avengers and Steve's all chilling when he suddenly sees the younger face of his dead best friend (ehem lover ehem) on the screen. He loses his shit, quietly, and Steve's captivated, he can't take his eyes off the man in front of the screen, animatedly talking and playing his character

Natasha's the first to notice of course and she quietly tells him that he's just an actor that happened to have an uncanny resemblance with the late sergeant. Steve nods along, heart aching behind where he's squeezing the pillow to his chest. When the movie ends, he returns to his floor and googles Sebastian Stan and basically spends the rest of the night stalking him

Do you see the potential angst!? The 'he doesn't want me as me but because I look like someone he loved' trope on Sebby who falls in love with Steve but can't really act on his feelings bcs he knows he only reminds Steve of his lost love???? Or.... STALKER STEVE AJDBWKRBWOHFIE

as an actor, being stalked is nothing new for Seb but good lord he's never been stalked by a 6'2, blonde man built like a brick houseeeeeeeeee; and his stalkers' weirdly polite and charming too, flowers and chocolate and lots of other gifts-

Then we get the events of the winter soldier and maybe instead of leaving, Bucky stays around stalking Steve and he discovers Steve's massive obsession with this actor who looks exactly like him. Another identity crisis for Bucky because is he even real? Or just another version? What if he was just modelled after this man? He needs to know more about this man

It ends with the two of them stalking Seb, watching from afar, leading to possible dub-con EHEM AHSIWHEUWHIEJRJF

I WANT TO WRITE THE PORN PART BUT I FEEL LIKE IVE GONE LONG ENOUGH ABIUT THIS UGHHHHHH bcs can you imagine poor regular Human Sebastian trying to keep up with two ravenous super soldiers who are nearly twice his size!!? Overstimulation and marathon sex would go crazy!!!!

That's all 😘 hope u have a good day Sir S!!

-🫠🫠

Aw, thank you!! I'm touched 😘

Oh yeah, I always forget about that. Timeline shenanigans are fun, aren't they?

Oh. Oh. But that's devastating. Can you imagine how wrecked fresh-from-the-ice Steve would be? Seeing his lover's face on another man? It would be like being jostled from his sleep by an explosion on TV--his heart races the same. Shit.

The stalking that would go down. Holy fuck. Yeah. Stalking and pining. I can only imagine the hours Steve would spent staring at his laptop screen, longing to reach out and touch his face. He looks so, so similar!

OH I FEEL THE ANGST. But I wasn't thinking about it like that! Oh my fucking god, Sebastian falling for Steve--who wouldn't?--but knowing the whole time that it's not him that Steve wants. Oof. And while Steve's heart is big, maybe he could learn to love Sebastian for Sebastian... that's not going to happen when he's so locked up with grief. He can't move on from Bucky by being with someone who is his twin. All he can do is yearn for Sebastian, who looks so much like Bucky that he can't resist, but doesn't act like him. He isn't Bucky. It hurts. But it's all he has.

Oh my GOD, there's something darkly comedic about Steve becoming a stalker because while my immediate inclination is a stalker in the traditional dangerous, threatening way and not an unwanted, too-intensely-earnest infatuation. Huh. That would be so interesting! And how would Sebastian react to that because Steve is very handsome and sweet but... boundaries. Jesus Christ. They need to establish boundaries.

Oof. A stalking triangle? A love triangle? We're getting wild, lmao. The identity crisis would fucking TAKE BUCKY OUT. Yeah. What the fuck. Who is he? Who is this man? Has Steve entirely replaced him with this lookalike? Does Steve not want him? Does he not need him? Who is that, and what's happening? I feel like it would probably make Bucky crazy jealous, right? He's unsteady at that time, and so I feel more than stalking he would turn to threatening poor Sebastian.

And maybe it all ends up with Steve explaining himself, standing between them, physically buffering them with his arms spread and his hands up. Then, well... why turn down an opportunity like this? Steve has forced his way into their lives (back into Bucky's life), so, he deserves what he gets--two lookalikes, two loves of his life, taking it out on him. Using him. 😏

This would go hard as a long form fic!! You're so fucking right 💥 💳💥💳

And thank you so, so much for sharing!! I enjoyed reading and thinking about this!

#asks #🫠🫠 anon #steve rogers #sebastian stan #bucky barnes #stucky #selfcest #kinda #not really #anon provided writing #tw stalking #tw dubcon

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underforeversgrace · 2 years ago

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the monster I hide

DannyMay 2023 Day 13: Monster

title: the monster I hide

words: 1922

Complete

Warnings: None!

AO3

Summary: It's been two weeks since the Accident and Danny is struggling to come to terms with some of the less desirable side effects of dying - and he feels like a monster for it.

~~~~~~

Of all of his abilities and the side effects of his accident two weeks ago, this was probably his least favorite. He hadn’t noticed it at first, the pressure that nearly felt suffocating against his face. When he realized it, what it was he was feeling, he hated it.

He hated what he had become, what he was. Sam and Tucker kept trying to insist it was cool, what he could do. At the least, it was nothing bad. Sam liked to talk about how unique it made him, Tucker about all the shenanigans he could get up to once (if, in Danny’s opinion) he managed to get control of his powers.

But this? This was too much. It felt wrong, it felt invasive.

It felt intoxicating, it felt like a siren he couldn’t resist the call of. Which just made it even worse - feeling like he was giving into a yearning his ghost half was calling for, leaving him simply a monster without control.

Danny was tired of feeling like a freak. Even more so, though, he was tired of feeling everyone’s feelings. He hated the hunger it stirred up in his stomach that refused to be sated no matter how much real food he ate, no matter how much ectoplasm he stole from the purifier and forced down his throat with a gag.

But it was hurting him, too. His continual denial of what his ghost demanded was making him so tired, so hungry, so irritable.

It had taken him a few days to realize what the discomfort was, especially since those first days had been painful. Every nerve in his body had felt hypersensitive. The pencil in his hands felt like fire against his flesh, everywhere it touched. His fingertips, his palm, the space between his thumb and forefinger. Wearing clothes hurt, fire ants biting into his skin with every soft brush, especially along the scars he had to hide, scars that forced him into long sleeves and a jacket despite it being August.

He would forever be grateful flight had been the first thing to come to him with ease, so at least he had been able to slightly hover over his seat, over his bed, over the ground, the pressure of putting his weight down and subject to gravity was akin to walking through hot embers the first few days.

So he thinks he can be forgiven for not noticing the hunger pains at first when literally just his existence hurt.

It had been at Tucker’s house, playing video games with him for the first time since the accident - his hands had finally stopped hurting - while Sam read behind them, that he first realized it. The pressure in the air had begun to taste good, he hadn’t even realized he’d opened his mouth and was inhaling whatever it was from around him.

“Dude, are you panting or something?” Tucker had asked.

Danny, though, had been… he imagined it was what drunk felt like. He felt a little dazed, the world felt a little slow. And he wanted more.

“Danny?” Tucker asked again, throwing a pen at Sam to get her attention. Danny hadn’t responded. His head felt… float-y. Pleasant. Peaceful.

“Hey, you okay?” Sam asked, moving to stand behind him, glancing at him worriedly as she placed a hand on his shoulder.

As their moods had shifted from contentment and happiness to worry and concern, Danny had shifted as well. His chest constricted painfully, pulling his attention to the so-slow-it-was-nearly-nonexistent heart beat, something he very much tried not to think about. A taste like expired milk settled on his tongue.

“Something’s wrong.” He’d said, clutching at his chest. The fear they’d felt next had made his heart race and burnt his mouth with the taste of cinnamon.

It had taken several minutes and a lot of circular emotions to figure out what was going on. Guess having a best friend who was a goth and way too into anything and everything creepy and weird was a helpful thing to have after dying and coming back as a half-dead freak. She’d realized he was eating their emotions, his ghostly side half starved after a week without sustenance. He’d quite literally gotten drunk with happiness, unable to control his hunger on an empty stomach.

Despite their reassurances that it was fine, that it didn’t hurt them and they just wanted him safe, Danny had felt gross. He was stealing people’s emotions, eating something other humans made.

He had been determined to never eat feelings again. He would not give in to his ghost side. He was human.

He. Was. Human.

And he was in control of the ghost. Not the other way around.

So he forced down the urge to let the pressure absorb into his skin, kept his mouth closed tightly whenever he was around other humans (because he was human, they were other humans!). Now a week since the discovery and two weeks since the accident, his stomach felt like an endless pit, clenching painfully as it begged for anything. Danny tried to give it food, ate so much even his dad noticed, but the hunger did not stop. Physically, he felt full. But it was like he had a second stomach now, one made of something more metaphysical than physical. But the pain, the stabbing hunger, felt no different.

Apparently, being a starving half human with some ghostly… needs… was quite difficult in a high school, though. Especially right now - during the first major test of the year - panic, worry, exasperation, cluelessness, delight, confusion. The pressure around him was so strong he couldn’t even see the paper in front of him. All he could focus on was the need to eat.

The need to be a monster.

He felt a poke to his side and looked over, seeing Tucker subtly holding out a note while Lancer’s back was turned. Danny accepted it, likewise eyeing the teacher while he read the note, in Tucker’s handwriting.

Have you eaten? Not normal food. The special kind.

Danny wanted to swear. Was it that obvious? Could everyone see the boy they called a freak was worse than they could ever imagine? Internally, he sighed as he shook his head. There was no use lying. They’d known each other since they were children, of course Tucker - and probably Sam - knew he was off.

He saw Tucker and Sam glance at each other before frowning at him, Sam quickly scribbling a note and passing it to Tucker. Tucker read it, nodded to Sam, then handed it over to Danny without adding anything to it.

Please eat, Danny. We don’t mind. It hurts us more to see you in pain than you eating does.

Danny just shook his head fiercely. He wouldn’t. He would not give into the monster inside him.

They looked at him pityingly but didn’t push. By the time the final bell rang and the teacher grabbed his test, Danny still hadn’t written anything on it, unable to focus on anything other than hunger and pain.

“Meet me after school, Mr. Fenton,” the teacher said before walking away. The taste of exasperation tried to edge its way against the edge of his mind but he forced it away, focusing on getting out of his seat, a task harder than it should be.

Seeing him struggle, Sam and Tucker propped him up and helped him out of class. He’d assumed they were going to their next class and let them pull and push him along, zoning out slightly. Danny was thoroughly surprised, then, when he heard a door being pushed open and was unceremoniously dropped onto the ground in the dark, the door immediately shut behind them.

A light being flicked on temporarily blinded Danny and he covered his eyes with his hands, groaning as his budding headache flared.

“Eat. Now.” Sam said, sitting beside him.

“No.” Danny managed, keeping his eyes covered.

“Why won’t you eat, dude? You’re not actually hurting us or taking anything from us. You’re just hurting yourself.” Tucker agreed, squatting in front of Danny.

“Humans don’t eat emotion. I am human.” Danny responded.

“We know. We know it’s hard but -“ Sam started.

“You don’t know what it’s like being a monster!” Danny snapped back, glaring at her, barely noticed the odd look on her face. Even he could feel the chill as the temperature in the room dropped, which just caused anger and irritation to further increase within him.

“You’re not a monster, Danny. It was an accident and now you need nutritional supplements. That’s it. Just because your parents think ghosts are bad doesn’t mean it's true.” Tucker said, reaching forward and placing his hand on Danny’s knee. Danny turned to him, still glaring. “What -“ Tucker continued, suddenly falling backwards away from him.

Danny immediately reached for him and grasped his arm to keep him from fully toppling over. “Tuck -!” As soon as his bare hand touched Tucker’s arm, though, Danny’s breath caught as emotion surged at the contact.

In an instant, Danny began feeling better. While Tucker’s emotions were tinged with panic, loving concern was the main thing Danny could sense. Sam, apparently seeing the way Danny paused and relaxed, grabbed his other hand. He relaxed further and Tucker tightened his grip, settling down and sitting as well.

Affection, worry, care assaulted his senses but not in an unpleasant way. The biting hunger began to abate and control over himself returned. “Wait, no,” he said, trying to pull away from them. Simultaneously, they both used their free hands to grab his arms, increasing the physical contact.

He’d be willing to bet his model rockets collection that they were specifically channeling certain emotions to him - love, joy, hope the top among them.

“Let us help, Danny.” Sam said softly at his side as he clenched his eyes closed, warring with himself over how good it finally felt to eat versus how wrong it felt to be doing something so inhuman. “We helped you end up like this, Danny. You’re not a monster and if you were then Tuck and I are just as bad for encouraging you into that portal. Worse, even, at least for me. If you’re a monster for being different, what am I for making you into one?”

Danny could feel the sincerity in her words, felt it warming his very being. And finally, he stopped resisting. He let his friends shower him in emotion, let them feed his starving soul. They grinned as he relaxed, sitting closer to him, each keeping both of their hands on him.

“I don’t like feeling like I’m not in control of it. Of my ghost.” Danny admitted. “I don’t like it.”

“There’s nothing wrong with not being in control. No one controls hunger, Danny. Just look at Tucker!” Sam said, smirking at Tuck.

“Hey!” He said, an over exaggerated look of shock on his face. “I have control! It’s just that I’m not exactly opposed to not being in control all of the time!”

The three fell into laughter and for the first time since the portal had set his very being on fire, he felt content. He was safe here, he was accepted here. Whatever had happened to him, whatever he had become, whatever other form he hadn’t slipped back into yet, he was loved. And he needed to let the ones he loved help him.

“So, did you know your eyes turn green when you’re upset?” Tucker asked after several minutes.

“They what?!”

#grace writes #danny phantom #dannymay2023 #Dannymay #danny fenton #sam manson #tucker foley #Everlasting trio if u squint

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harlowsbby · 2 years ago

Text

Sorrows

"You don't miss me Jack, I don't know why you're trying to convince me that.”

You were out and having fun with your friends Chloe and Halle they had invited you to tag along with them for the Grammy's after party and you knew there was going to be a 50/50 chance that you'd run into Jack and gosh you wished you hadn't.

Instead you were trapped in a corner with your newly ex trying his best to win you back.

The love both of you had for one another was very strong but there was so much troublesome in your relationship with Jack. He acted as if he reciprocated the same energy as you but he did and there was so much unfaithfulness that you knew you had to end it.

You were lying if you said you weren't yearning for his touch some nights.

"Come on Y/N stop acting like that. You know you miss me just as much as I miss you, let's stop playing this cat and dog game and just kiss and makeup."

He slurred his words, you scrunch your nose up in disgust. Jack was never a drinker but the smell of beer and tequila reeked all over him.

"Jack just move so I can go home we're done and we've been over this many times." You tried to squeeze past him but he was budging.

The two of you were so deeply and madly in love you had a strong relationship and connection right from the start but somewhere in there things started to crumble and end badly on

Jack's end of course. You were lying if you didn't say there was still some underlying love there.

"Please Y/N one more chance that's all l'm asking for and if I don't prove you wrong then WIlleave you alone." You sighed heavily, looking up at him you smiled faintly as he smirked down at you. You hated the way he had you wrapped around his finger.

"Fine, but this is your last chance Jack and if you fuck this up l'm don-.?

"Done with me for good I know I know, I'll text you later baby, I love youuuu." He song sang before removing himself from you and walking away. You watched as he walked away and sighed. Things could either be changing for the better or for the worse.

The next day

“Wait hold up so you took him back? Y/N I thought we were leaving all these weirdo dudes behind this year.” It was the following morning you had spent the night at Chloe’s and of course she was nagging and going on and on about Jack.

“What was I supposed to do Chloe? He had me cornered and I mean I sort of kinda miss him.” You mumbled.

“Are you being serious? Are you hearing everything that’s coming out of your mouth right now. He played you like a violin and you’re taking him back like nothing.” Chloe had a point Jack made you look like a fool on the internet he played you many many times but you went back to him every time.

“It is what it is Chloe just please be nice when he comes to pick me up later please. For my sake at least.” Chloe thought about it for a second with a stone cold look on her face before giving you a half smile.

“For you I’ll let it go but if he acts weird or if I catch him doing something shady I’ll kill him myself.” She joked and went back to stuffing her mouth with pancakes. “Oh I know you will Chloe.”

Later that night

You honestly didn’t even feel like going out tonight all you wanted to do was stay inside and stay warm, winter just started in Louisville and you hated how cold it always got. But staying inside wasn’t an option when it came to Chloe.

You got up and started getting ready for the party is wasn’t anything fancy just a little gathering so you decided on some leggings and a pink hoodie, Jack had gifted you awhile back. After you finished you sat in-front of your vanity and started on your makeup.

You were about to apply your lashes when you got a message. Looking down you noticed it was Jack. You quickly opened the message and rolled your eyes when you read it.

Jack 💗

- sorry baby I can’t make it tonight.. I’m stuck in the studio but I promise I’ll make it up to you tomorrow 💕

You were about to give him shit because it was always something when it came to him but you realized he was getting more popular now and hanging out with you came came second to everything.

You had a gut feeling that he wasn’t telling the truth but you couldn’t help it. He was a liar and a damn good one at that. You always questioned everything that came out of his mouth nowadays.

You quickly texted him back saying it was fine and you’d love to meet up with him tomorrow to which he responded by leaving you on read.

“Figures.” You mumbled but you weren’t about to let this bring you down.

“Who are you over there texting?” “It’s Y/N.” Urban spit out his drink he never thought in a million years he’d be hearing your name coming out of Jack’s mouth again.

“Wait you two are back together or something?! when did this happen.” Jack put his phone down before giving his attention to Urban.

“Yesterday, I followed her to the bathroom and basically cornered her and asked if she’d take me back.”

“So you’re together again?” Jack shrugged his shoulders “I mean I wouldn’t exactly say that but whatever floats your boat.” Urban was confused now and wasn’t understanding anything Jack was saying.

“What does that mean exactly?” Jack sighed. “I mean come on Urban I’m Jack Harlow you know how many girls will die to have a night with me.”

Urban didn’t wanna hear anything else Jack even had to say mainly because he knew a bunch of bullshit was about to come out his mouth.

“Y/N is a good fuck and that’s all.”

Urban didn’t like that one bit even though Urban was use to Jack using girls he didn’t think Jack would ever talk about you that way. You were one in a million and ever dude in Louisville knew that.

Instead of arguing with Jack, Urban suggested they go check out the party you were going to tonight.

“We can’t go there Y/N is going to be there.” The last thing Jack wanted to do was run into you especially after he told you he’d be in the studio. “We can go to Sunni’s party then?” “Yeah that sounds good.”

“Y/N are you almost ready? I hope not because plans got changed we’re going to Sunni’s party. So you might wanna dress down a bit.” Chloe yelled from downstairs.

“What? for what? I was excited for the little get together.” You pouted and put on you all white new balances.

“I guess Ella got sick last minute so Sunni’s party it is.” Your nose scrunched up to the sound of Sunni’s name it isn’t that you didn’t like Sunni he was just one of the main reasons for Jack’s not so loyal ways.

On the way to Sunni’s house Jack was the only thing on your mind you twiddled and turned the ring he had gifted you on your anniversary and smiled weakly at it. It was a promise ring with your birthstone in the middle.

“You know I lied I’m glad you’re back with lover boy I guess.” Chloe joked making you smile at her. “What happened to wanting to kill him earlier?”

“I know you really love him Y/N, I can see how happy he makes you.” Jack made you very happy you just really wished this time around was really different.

Once you pulled up to Sunni’s house you noticed the familiar black Range Rover parked in the driveway.

“Is that Jack’s car? Or am I delusional.” “I’m not sure but didn’t you say he was at the studio?” Chloe said.

You looked back at the car one last time before shrugging your shoulders and letting it go, maybe it was someone else’s car.

The minute you entered Sunni’s house you wish you hadn’t. There was people making out on the couch a few people throwing up outside but what caught your eye was a familiar long haired kentuckian on the couch.

“Urban is that you?” Urban cursed when he heard your voice but he couldn’t let it show that something was up. “Y/N? What are you doing here.” He said with a tight smile, Urban wasn’t that great when under pressure.

“The other party got canceled so we decided to tag along here, I’m surprised you’re here I thought you would’ve been at the studio with Jack.” He furrowed his eyebrows.

“At the studio?” “Yeah that’s where Jack said he’d be tonight.” You watched him intensely as he fiddled with his fingers.

“Oh right yeah no I didn’t wanna go you know I’m always with Jack I just needed some me time.” Urban laughed nervously before turning his attention to anything other than you.

“Are you okay Urban? You seem a bit off.” You noticed the way his chest started to rise and fall and the way his hands clenched around the shot.

“I’m good Y/N, I just need some air so if you don’t mind I’m just gonna step outside for a bit.” He quickly got up and stepped around you. Before you could say anything he was dashing through the crowd of sweaty bodies.

“Well that wasn’t weird at all.” You flopped on the couch and just leaned back watching everyone dance and sing. Man how you wished Jack was here or something you missed him so much being in his arms was some place you’d rather be.

Eventually the many shots of tequila got to you and the only thing calling your name was the nearest bathroom.

“Where are you going?” Chloe removed herself from the guy she was making out with.

“I gotta go pee or else I’m gonna go right here and right now.” You squealed as you did the potty dance. “You want me to come with? I don’t want you to go alone.” By the look of the guys facial expression he didn’t want Chloe going with you.

“No, I’ll be real quick.” She was hesitant but let you go.

Urban eventually came back inside and that’s when he noticed you weren’t on the black leather couch anymore. His eyes widened as he scanned the room, that’s when he saw the back of Chloe’s head.

“Where is Y/N?” Urban asked Chloe, the guy groaned as Chloe pulled away again. “In the bathroom.” Urban’s eyes widened. He knew Jack was upstairs probably deep in some random chick.

Chloe raised her eyebrows. “What’s that face for? Is she not allowed to use the bathroom.”

“I mean she is like she can I just fuck I’ll be back.” Urban quickly dashed up the stairs and after you.

“Hello?! Is somebody in there I have to use the bathroom.” You sighed and banged on the door all you wanted to do was pee.

“Just a minute.” Some girl yelled from behind the door. “Please hurry I have a really weak bladder and I have to go.” You cried out as you began to shift from one leg to another.

“Y/N.” You turned around seeing it was Urban. “Hey Urban.” “Whatcha doing? You know there’s another bathroom downstairs.” Urban knew he had to try and get you downstairs before Jack came out of the bathroom.

“I don’t think I’ll make it downstairs besides she’s almost done.” His eyes grew twice the size. “She?!” Urban yelled which startled you because you weren’t sure what his issue was or why he was yelling. “Yeah she? As in a girl.” You said slowly trying to make sure he understands.

“Well I’m sure if you just run you’d make it.” He tried taking your hand and leading you to the other bathroom but you weren’t nudging.

“Urban can you stop what’s your issue? You’ve been acting weird ever since I got here.” You placed your hands on your hips.

“Are you hiding something from me? If you are tell me what it is.”

“What?” He huffed and laughed.

“You know I’d never hide anything from you Y/N.” You weren’t falling for it and just as you were about to press him to tell you more the bathroom door opened revealing the girl.

“That was so much fun I’m definitely giving you my number so we can have a round two or three, thank you again Jack.” She giggled and placed a big sloppy kiss to his freckled nose.

“Jack?” You said and turned around slowly watching as some red haired chick gave you a look of disgust before brushing past Urban and You.

Jack’s smirk was quickly gone once he saw you standing there.

“Y/N?! What are you doing here.” He said nervously. “I could ask you the same thing Jack, this definitely doesn’t seem like the studio.” You mumbled.

“Uh I got out early and I ended up just coming here to kick it for a bit.”

“Right you just came here to kick it but it seems like the hickey on your neck says otherwise.”

You felt like a fool because once again he had played you but there wasn’t going to be any second chances this time.

“I’m done with you Jack all you do is play in my face I’ve given you chances after chances and you just love to make me look like a fool.” He watched how your eyes begun to get teary. “I hate you so much Jack and I mean that.”

He went to step closer to you but you stepped back. “Please let’s talk about this somewhere else.”

“There isn’t anything to talk about we’re over with Jack.” He tried to grab you but you pulled away and quickly ran away.

Urban clapped his hands slowly which gained Jack’s attention. “I hope you’re happy Jack.”

“Oh fuck off Urban you know she’ll come running back.” Urban chucked. “I don’t think so Jack but if you don’t mind I have a friend to find.”

Jack watched as Urban ran after you, Jack didn’t feel any type of sorrow at first until it finally hit him maybe you were really done with him but he didn’t just lose you that night he also lost his best friend.

“Y/N! Stop running please.” Urban cried out. He sighed in relief when you finally stopped running and leaned against his cry. When he was close enough you just cried in his chest and Urban just let you cry it out.

“Let me take you home please?” You sniffled and nodded and got into the car. You were exhausted mentally and physically.

The entire ride home Jack was the only thing on your mind. Maybe this was how things were supposed to be all along maybe he wasn’t the one for you. Maybe things were never going to be the way you painted them out to be. But something in you so badly wanted things to be different this way but boy were you wrong.

taglist

@hoodharlow @heavyhitterheaux

@jackmans-poison @jackharloww

@lcandothisallday @mortirolo

@a-moment-captured @jacksmoviestar

@nattinatalia @pianoisland

#jack harlow #jack harlow concepts #jack harlow imagine #jack harlow x reader #jack harlow x y/n #jack harlow blurbs

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