#then punctuated it with an amen

[kiwikoopa]

Fun fact about me, I have never lost a security deposit on an apartment.

[writing-for-marvel]

Day 4: Overstimulation

Mob!Bucky's Kinktober Honeymoon

Mob!Bucky Barnes × Wife!Reader

Summary: Bucky’s determined to give you an orgasm in every room of your private villa.

Warnings: strictly 18+, smut, fingering, oral (fem receiving), unprotected vaginal sex, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, squirting, spanking

Word count: 1.8k

A/N: dividers by me, please do not use. Banners by @vase-of-lilies

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The villa Bucky chose for the first week of your honeymoon is absolutely stunning - views directly out onto a white sandy beach from a large infinity pool, a built-in spa and sauna you are already eager to try out as well as being completely fitted out with the most lush furnishings and extravagant amenities.

But he doesn’t give you time to enjoy any of it, for as soon as you walk over the threshold, Bucky bends you over the substantial kitchen island, pushes your skirt up around your waist, pulls your panties down to your ankles and licks a stripe up your slit, paying no mind to the two bodyguards following you into the residence.

He starts out eagerly, pushing his warm, wet tongue into your pussy as his thick fingers spread your folds bare for him. His name falls from your lips in a low moan, but this only spurs him on, wanting to hear his wife repeat his name like the God the majority of New York believe him to be.

As he relentlessly devours you, your orgasm builds, the band in your lower stomach tightening with every flick of his tongue, lapping up the arousal flooding from your core that Bucky himself is responsible for.

“Fuck Buck, right there, don’t stop.” If it weren’t your beloved husband spreading your ass cheeks wide and nose deep in your pussy, you might be embarrassed by how quickly you are hurtling towards your release.

But James Barnes knows every inch of your body with exact precision, he has memorised the map of how to navigate to the height of your pleasure and has the uncanny ability to bring you right to the edge with a single touch. Something he prides himself on.

Your first orgasm comes when his thumb toys with your puckered asshole and his plump lips suckle on your clit. The smooth marble underneath your fingertips provides no grip, no traction to pull yourself away from Bucky’s onslaught.

Before you can even take a breath to stabilise yourself after your high, Bucky picks you up bridal style and walks your limp body over to the couch of the connecting lounge room.

He places you on all fours on the leather couch, and after ridding himself of all nuisance clothing, he drives himself inside your sopping entrance without any notice. Your velvety walls burn deliciously as you stretch to accommodate him - a stretch that you will crave for the rest of your life.

“Good girl, take it all.” Bucky commands. He starts out at a brutal pace, but somehow with each thrust he seems to both accelerate the movement of his hips and plunge deeper within you, filling you completely and kissing your cervix.

Wet, salacious sounds fill the grand room, along with your strained voice chanting Bucky’s name like a prayer. You bury your face in the top of the backrest of the couch in an attempt to muffle the obscene moans falling from your lips as Bucky grips your hips tighter and continues fucking into you relentlessly.

You feel him press an affectionate kiss between your shoulder blades before his domineering hand grasps your neck and pulls you back into him, the warm length of his body pressing against yours.

“Be a good wife and take everything your husband gives you. Every. Fucking. Inch.” His words are growled into your ear and a shiver runs down your spine. He punctuates each word with a hard slap to your ass.

He reaches around your body, his hand finding your clit with the ease of magnets attracting one another. As he begins teasing your sensitive bundle of nerves, you feel like you’re floating, unable to come down from the pure bliss Bucky has fucked you into, every collision of his hips against yours bringing you closer to your inevitable end.

“This fat cock feels good, doesn’t it?” Luckily it’s a rhetorical question because in your current euphoric state you can’t find any words to express how good your husband is making you feel. “Be a good little slut and cum on it for me.”

You don’t even realise tears are leaking from your eyes when your next orgasm slams into you like a train, thighs quivering, inadvertently trying to crawl to the other side of the couch to find some relief from the spasming pleasure, even though you know Bucky will never let you go until you’ve ridden out your entire high.

The next room you find yourself in is the adjacent dining room. The table had been set for your arrival, but Bucky soon sweeps the settings at one end crashing onto the floor as he lays your back gently on the mahogany tabletop.

“God damn, I’ll never get enough of this tight pussy.” Bucky exclaims as he pushes inside you again. You gasp at the sudden intrusion of his thick length, every part of your body twitching with heightened awareness.

His thrusts are more languid this time, longer and deeper, but you’re so sensitive from your previous orgasms that you’re already right on the edge with just a few pumps.

“You’re so beautiful when you cum, my love.” His voice is softer in tone, words soothing as he shifts the position of your legs so they instead rest on his shoulders. His eye contact is just as intense as the momentum of his hips slapping yours. “Need you to do it again for me. Want you looking in my eyes when I make you cum.” Bucky urges, his hand migrating down to where your bodies meet, his thumb rubbing tight circles over your puffy and oversensitive clit.

The pressure building within your core borders on agonising, you’re sure that this impending orgasm will be larger than any else of your married life thus far, and with how he’s hitting every spot inside you that engages an electric current surging up your spine, you know you’re so close.

It only takes another flick of your clit and you’re there, falling over a cliff and plunging into a deep ocean of pure pleasure.

“Fuck, I’m cumming again!” You announce as your back arches off the dinning table, eyes rolling to the back of your head as your entire body convulses by the sheer magnitude of your orgasm.

“That’s it baby, keep ‘em coming.” Bucky doesn’t let up, smirking as you writhe in front of him. “Soak me sweetheart.”

And you do just that.

Before you even realise what’s happening, your release gushes out of you, soaking Bucky’s stomach and thighs, the force of your squirt pushing him out of you. He rubs his bulbous tip frantically over your clit, prolonging your high and milking every last drop of arousal from you.

You sense him pick you up again, a soft kiss placed to your hairline as you move throughout the house again.

Much later in the night, you’ve lost count of how many times you’ve cum, the line between each orgasm blurring, waves of pleasure melding into one huge tsunami. You can’t even remember which room you last came in, mind in a complete daze, all you can perceive is Bucky’s looming presence over you and the way he’s playing your body like a fiddle, each stroke, strum and nip brings you closer to your next high like a symphony orchestra playing to a crescendo.

“Too much.” You attempt to mumble, unsure if you’re even articulating the words correctly, feebly pushing at his veiny arm to give yourself a semblance of a break from the overwhelming sensations your husband is subjecting you to.

It feels like your entire body is trembling on the king sized bed you get to call yours for the next week as you attempt to steady your breathing, trying to focus on anything other than the violently intense sensations Bucky is responsible for between your legs.

“Just one more, darling. I know you can give me another. You’re doing so well for me.” He coos before his lips latch onto your breast, the tip of his tongue lightly circling your areola before suckling your hardened nipple.

“I can’t.” A sob bubbles up your throat, understanding if you really wanted to stop you could use your prearranged safeword. It isn’t that you want to stop - it just feels too good, the pleasure so earth shatteringly intense that it borders on pain.

“Yes you can. I know you can, baby.” He praises, planting a sweet kiss to your sweaty forehead as you mewl, Bucky’s nimble fingers continuing to move in and out of you at a damaging pace. “Do it for me.”

All it takes is those four short words. Do it for him, do it for your husband, and you’re coming undone again for him. You whine his name as the most immense pleasure fires from the base of your spine, spreading like exploding fireworks through the rest of your body.

You don’t feel Bucky pull his fingers from you, nor do you discern his weight drop beside you in bed. It takes a couple minutes before your mind becomes a clear stream of thoughts and you can decidedly feel your extremities again.

“My perfect wife.” Bucky mumbles into your neck as you work to catch your breath and bring yourself assuredly back to earth after your visit to the heavens.

You turn your head to meet his gaze, and if you weren’t already breathless from the numerous orgasms he’s pulled from your body, the pure love and affection swirling in his stunning blue eyes you’ve fallen in love with would punch all the air from your lungs.

Warmth blooms in your chest at the soft, devoted smile painted on his features. He places a sweet kiss to your nose and then to your sweaty hairline.

“You still with me, darling?”

“Just barely.” You chuckle, finding enough energy to lift your arm up and draw along his sharp jaw with your index finger. Bucky takes your hand in his, kissing your knuckles and adjusting your extravagant wedding ring so that the scintillating diamond sits perfectly centred on your finger, before pulling your body into him so there is no space remaining between you.

“How about we run you a warm bath?” Bucky offers in a low tone, lifting your chin with a single bent finger so he can slot his supple lips against your own in a tender kiss. “We didn’t quite make it to the ensuite, so if we’re to complete the set, you still owe me one more orgasm.”

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[sigweiner]

Saccharine Dreams P.2

Pairing: Billie Eilish/ Fem!reader

Word Count: 1746

Summary: You’re awakened from a deep sleep by your very needy {horny} girlfriend.

Warnings!: Smut, swearing and very explicit content.

a/n: Here is part 2, hope you like it! English is not my first language, sorry for the weird punctuation and sentences.

Part 1 here

The room was bathed in blue shadows when she called your name warmly, turning all that is hard around you tender. You respond with a kiss on her shoulder. A looming reluctance seems to be growing in her with the way she holds your hand over her swift beating heart. As if you could say no to any of her requests. As if you wouldn't be the water to quench her thirst or the fire to illuminate her path.

She turns around and kisses you sweetly. You are magnetically pulled by her delectable nature once more, complacent in her willingness to desire you. She flushes her naked lower body against yours and you can't resist the urge to buck your hips against hers, suddenly feeling like you need your skin to fuse with hers. She cups your face and kisses you harder, pushing you to lay on your back.

Billie straddles your legs and you take the opportunity to admire her bare lower half without reticence, your hands finding their familiar spot on her toned thighs. She makes a show of slowly lifting your shirt up past your chest, massaging your breasts while grinding down on your hips. A soft moan slips from your lips and Billie can't help but grin at you with ulterior intent.

“You're so gorgeous.” She tells you warmly as you start to squirm underneath her. “I really want to taste you… can I?” You blush at her words and your eyes flutter at the thought of her head between your thighs. It doesn’t matter how many times you have been completely vulnerable and naked with each other, her authenticity always manages to get a reaction out of you.

“Y-you don’t have to… if you’re tired or something.” You bite at your lower lip worried this might have gone too far already. You remember she has a big day tomorrow, traveling around the world, doing interviews and promoting her newly released music. She should be resting. Billie chuckles and leans in to kiss the worries out of you, taking her sweet time exploring the soft parts of your mouth with the tip of her tongue.

“I want to. Let me please…” She says quietly when you two part to catch some air. There’s a pause while you try to gather your thoughts again but Billie seems more interested in distracting you with her aventurine gaze. You feel like a deer caught in the headlights.

“I- yeah, okay…” You manage to finally say after she bites her lower lip. She smiles at you sweetly but there’s a devious glint in her eyes which usually means she’s planning on doing very filthy things to you. You hold your breath in anticipation.

A tension grows between you so palpable it could cut through the air. Billie takes your hands from her thighs and guides them above your head, stretching your arms until you can feel the headboard. She hovers above you, still staring into your eyes acutely before resuming a reverential osculation of your body. She starts moving down, dragging her hands down your arms, across your chest and stomach until she reaches the hem of your pajama bottoms. Her lengthy dark hair drapes over you, leaving a feather-like impression on your skin.

Billie kisses your hip bones and hooks her fingers on the edge of the silky cloth to start dragging them down your legs casually. She moves slightly out of the way so you can lift your hips to get rid of your shorts. Then you’re automatically opening your legs for her, amenable to her every wish. She smirks at your eagerness and moves between your legs, sprawling her entire body on the bed, looking like she’s about to eat her favorite food.

The brunette kisses your inner thighs nonchalantly as if time was a deity under her spell. And maybe she is in control of all of nature's forces right at that moment, when she is about to unravel your whole existence. A tiny god all in herself. Billie licks a long stripe through your slit and you swear your soul leaves your body. She moans at the taste of you and you can feel it reverberating throughout your existence.

“Fuck, you taste so good.” Her warm breath licks your skin when she speaks and you can't help but buck your hips slightly in the absence of her silky tongue. You whine impatiently.

“Billie…” You start saying but the rest of your words abandon you when your eyes meet hers. The sight of your half naked girlfriend laying on her belly and leaving chaste kisses on your aching center was a surreal vision.

“Yes, pretty girl?” She replies with faked innocence, her eyes never leaving you.

“Please… I thought you wanted to taste me.” You plead with her. Her eyes darken slightly but she manages to maintain composure.

“But I want this to last.” Billie is testing you as usual, trying to control the situation and to get things done her way, even if in the end she'll give you what you want. But then again you have no interest in winning. You are utterly pliant to her ambitions.

“Alright. I'm all yours.” You tell her lovingly. You reach out to caress her cheek and she turns her head to kiss the palm of your hand. You tuck a strand of hair behind her ear as she stares at you intensely, the tenderness of the moment in high contrast with your mutual desire.

“I love you Y/N.” she declares before parting your folds with two fingers and lavishing your straining clit with attention.

“Oh fuck…” Is all you manage to initially say when your girlfriend is finally going down on you. “I- I love you too Billie.” you reciprocate her affection.

Billie smiles lazily at you, licking your aching pussy before turning to rest her cheek on your thigh while sucking on your throbbing bud with half lidded eyes. You almost reach your peak at the sight. She continues her relentless movements only stopping to slide a finger inside of you before resuming the motions with her mouth. You moan loudly not being able to contain your pleasure.

“Didn't you - want this- to last.” You tell her past the haze of your mind. “I won't be able to hold it if you keep up like that.” You try to confess in one breath.

She slows her movements slightly and lifts herself up on her elbow, resting her head on her hand. “I changed my mind… I want to make you come now.” She rasps before thrusting two fingers into your core without warning. You throw your head back, unable to make any sounds. However Billie wastes no time in covering your pussy with her mouth to lick the fire out of you.

With her fluttering gaze never leaving you she kneads at one of your breasts while pumping her deft fingers inside you, alternating between rapid strokes of her tongue and suckling your clit until your legs start trembling uncontrollably. Only then she slows down and halts your impending climax. You are a complete disheveled mess by the fourth time she edges you on and you're pretty sure you can't take it anymore but you do not beg. You will take anything she gives you gladly.

Billie finally takes pity on you and decides she wants to make you come after all. You have no choice but to let yourself be taken to oblivion by the curl of your girl's fingers and the swirl of her velvety tongue. The whole world starts shaking and you're pretty sure the bed has disappeared from underneath you. You contort your entire body when your orgasm strikes you but Billie is able to hold your lower body down with her free arm. She doesn't slow down, determined to make you come over and over again.

A second wave of white heat travels from your cervix to the back of your head and you let out a strangled scream from the intensity of it. You feel your thighs and legs getting soaked as Billie relentlessly pumps her fingers into you. The sheets now ruined by your frenzy, you instinctively try to push her away from your overstimulated core. She seems to be thinking in the opposite direction though so you try to vocalize your protest.

“Baby. I can't anymore… Please.” You're breathing heavily and are not entirely sure she's heard you until she lets go of you. You bury your face on the mattress completely exhausted, closing your legs tightly, turning on your side.

You can barely register Billie's lips ghosting the skin of your legs with tender smooches, your overstimulated senses in overdrive. She kisses a path up your body until she reaches your face, tucking some of your hair behind your ear and kissing away the tears pulled on the outer corner of your eye. You turn to look at her and there's a concerned frown between her eyebrows.

“You okay baby girl?” She asks, hovering above you. You lift your hands to cup her face and bring her in towards your lips. You can taste yourself on her tongue and you hum satisfyingly. “Was I too much?” She ponders.

“I'm okay, t’was just intense.” You finally let out looking at her adoringly. Billie lays down close to you, resting her head on your shoulder and you bring your hand up to stroke her satiny hair. “That was pretty fucking amazing to be honest.” she chuckles at your words. You start to feel your eyelids getting heavy.

“Will you come visit me again? In my dreams I mean…” Billie requests in a small voice. She feels really fragile in your arms at that very moment, holding her doesn't feel enough. You have yet to discover what will ever suffice.

“For sure, anything to spend more time with you…” You promise already slurring your words at the prospect of another unconscious rendezvous.

“Sorry I woke you up…” She whispers drowsily, draping her arm over your bare body. You shake your head slightly.

“You can wake me up like that any time, love.” You tell her half jokingly then you kiss her forehead. Billie's eyes are already closed but she has a smile on her lips and as you watch her seraphic features peacefully back in slumber you slowly start slipping away as well, hoping to find her in the dream helm once more and forever.

[sophaeros]

arctic monkeys for q magazine, june 2011 (x) (x)

ARCTIC MONKEYS: Inside Alex Turner's Head

Words Sylvia Patterson Portrait John Wright

The day Arctic Monkeys moved into their six bedroom, Spanish-style villa in the Hollywood Hills, where the first-floor balcony looked over the patio swimming pool, they knew exactly what to do.

"From the balcony, you could get on t'roof and jump in't pool," chirps the Monkeys' most gregarious member, drummer Matt Helders, in his homely Yorkshire way. "We looked at it and said, That's definitely gonna happen. So by the end, we did a couple of 'em. Somersaults in t'pool, from the roof. At night time."

In January 2011, as Sheffield and the rest of Britain endured its bitterest winter in a century, Arctic Monkeys capered among the palm trees, eschewing hotels for a millionaire's Hollywood homestead as they recorded and mixed their fourth studio album, Suck It and See.

The four Monkeys, alongside producer James Ford and engineer James Brown, lived what they called the "American man thing": watched Super Bowl on giant TVs, played ping-pong, hired two Mustangs, cooked cartoon Tom And Jerry-sized steaks on barbecues on Sundays, had girlfriends over to visit, all cooking and drinking around the colossal outdoor kitchen area featuring a fridge and two dishwashers. Living atop the Hills, they could see the Pacific Ocean beyond by day, the infinite glittering lights of downtown LA by night.

Every day, en route to Sound City Studios, they'd travel in a seven-seater four-by-four through the mountains, via bohemian 60s enclave Laurel Canyon, blaring out the tunes: The Stones Roses, The Cramps, the Misfits' Hollywood Babylon. For the sometime teenage art-punk renegades whose guitarist, Jamie Cook, was once ejected from London's Met Bar for refusing to pay €22 for two beers, the comedy rock'n'roll life still feels, however, absolutely nothing like reality.

NICK O'MALLEY: "It were really as if we were on holiday. When we came back it's the most post-holiday blues I've ever had!"

JAMIE COOK: "It's hard to comment on that. It were just really good fun."

MATT HELDERS: "We always said, As soon as things like that feel normal, we're in trouble. But it's just funny. You might think it would get more and more serious as you get older but it's getting funnier. We've done four albums now and I'm still only 24, I'm still immature to an extent. So who cares?"

Alex? Al? Are you there?

ALEX TURNER: "Yeah, it were good times. But we were in the studio most of the time. So there's no real wild Hollywood stories. Hmn. Yeah."

Wednesday, 16 March 2011, Strongroom Bar, Shoreditch, East London, 11am. Alex Turner, 25, slips entirely alone into an empty art-crowd brasserie looking like an indie girl's indie dream boy: mop-top bouffant hair which coils, in curlicues, directly into his cheekbones, army-green waist-length jacket, baggy-arsed skinny jeans, black cord zip-up cardigan, simple gold chain, supermoon sized chocolate-brown eyes.

Almost six years after I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor became the indie-punk anthem of a generation (from the first of Arctic Monkeys' three Number 1 albums), and nothing prepares you for the curious phenomenon of Alex Turner "in conversation". Unlike so many of the Monkeys frenetic early songs, he operates in slow motion, seemingly underwater, carrying a protective shell on his back, perhaps indie rock's very own diamond-backed terrapin. The most celebrated young wordsmith in rock'n roll today talks fulsomely, in fact, only in shapeless, curling sentences punctuated with "maybe... hmn.. yeah", an anecdotal wilderness sketching pictures as vague as a cloud. He is, though, simultaneously adorable: amenable, gentle, graceful, and as Northern as a 70s grandpa who literally greets you with "ey oop?".

"People think I'm a miserable bastard," he notes, cheerfully, "but it's just the way me face falls." Still profoundly private, if not as hermetically sealed as a vacuum-packed length of Frankfurter, his fante-shy reticence extends not only to his personal life (his four-year relationship with It-girl/TV presenter Alexa Chung, whom he never mentions) but to insider details generally. Take the Monkeys’ Hollywood high jinks documented above: not one word of it was described by Turner. Before Q was informed by his other Monkey bandmates, Turner’s anecdotal aversion unfolded like this:

Describe the lovely villa you were in. AT: "Well... we certainly had a... good view."

Of what? AT: "Well, we were up quite high."

The downtown LA lights going on forever? AT: "I dunno. It was definitely that thing of getting a bit of sort of sunshine. Is it vitamin D? If you can get vitamin D on your record, you've got a bit of a head start. So we'd get up and drive to the studio."

What were you driving? AT: "Nothing... spectacular. But yeah, we'd drive up the studio, spend all day there and sort of, y know, get back. To be honest... we had limited time. So we spent as much time as possible kind of getting into it, like, in the studio.

So your favourite adventures were what? AT: "Well, they were really… minimal. We were working out there!"

Any nightclubs or anything, perhaps? AT: "You really want the goss 'ere, don't you?"

Yes, please. AT: "I could make some up. Nah!"

And this was on the second time of asking. It's perhaps obvious: Alex Turner, one of the most prolific songwriters of his generation (four Monkeys albums and two EPs in five years, The Last Shadow Puppets side-project, a bewitching acoustic soundtrack for his actor/video director friend Richard Ayoade's feature-length debut Submarine), is dedicated only to the cause – of being the best he can possibly be. He simply remembers the songs much more than the somersaults.

Throughout 2009, Arctic Monkeys toured third album Humbug – the record mostly made in the Californian desert with Queens Of The Stone Age man-monolith Josh Homme – across the planet. While hardly some cranium-blistering opus, its heavier sonic meanderings considerably slowed the Arctic Monkeys' live sets and on 23 August 2009, Q watched them headline the Lowlands Festival, Holland and witnessed a hitherto unthinkable sight – swathes of perplexed Monkeys fans trudging away from the stage. With the sludge rock mood matching their cascading dude-rock hair it seemed obvious: they'd smoked way too much outrageously strong weed in the desert.

"Heheheh, yeah," responds Turner, unperturbed. "That's your theory. You probably weren't alone."

Back in the Strongroom Bar, Turner's arm is now nonchalantly draped along the back of a beaten-up brown leather sofa. He ponders his band's somewhat contrary reputation…

"I think starting the headline set at Reading with a cover of a Nick Cave tune perhaps was a bit contrary. D'youknowhat Imean?! But to be honest, that summer, at those festivals, we had a great time. And I know some fans enjoyed those sets 10 times more. And you can't just do, y’know, another Mardy Bum or whatever. Because how could you, really?"

With Humbug, notes Turner, "I went into corners I hadn't before, because I needed to see what were there," but by spring 2010 he wanted their fourth album to be "more song-based" and less lyrically "removed". He was "organised this time", studied "the good songwriters" (from Nick Cave, The Byrds and Leonard Cohen to country colossi Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline), discovered "the other three strings" on his guitar, and wrote 12 songs through the spring and summer of 2010, mostly in the fourth-floor New York flat he shared with Chung before the couple moved back to London late last summer (the New York MTV show It's On With Alexa Chung was cancelled after two seasons). The result: major-key melodies, harmonised singing and classic song structures.

At the same time he revisited the opposite extreme: bands such as Black Sabbath and The Stooges ("we wanted a few wig-outs as well"); he was also still heavily influenced by the oil-thick grinder rock of Josh Homme, who is clearly now a permanent Monkeys hero. After four months' rehearsals in London, on 8 January the Monkeys relocated to LA for five swift weeks of production and Homme came to visit, singing backing vocals on All My Own Stunts. Tequila was involved.

"Tequila is probably me favourite," manages Turner, by way of an anecdote. "But it takes a certain climate... It's not the same... in the rain. Yeah. [Looks to be contemplating a lyric] Tequila in the rain."

Vocally, he developed the caramel richness first unveiled on The Last Shadow Puppets' Scott Walker-esque The Age Of The Understatement, finding a crooner's vibrato. "Everything before was so tight,” he notes, clutching his neck. "Probably just through nerves. That's just not there any more." Suck It and See contains at least four of the most glittering, sing-along, world-class pop songs (and obvious singles) of Arctic Monkeys' career: the towering, clanging She's Thunderstorms, the summertime stunner The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala, the heavenly harmonised title track and the Echo & The Bunnymen-esque jangly pop of closer That's Where You're Wrong.

Elsewhere, in typically contrary "fashion", there's preposterous head-banger bedlam (Brick By Brick, the rollicking faux-heavy rock download they released in March "just for fun", featuring vocals by Helders; Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair, and Library Pictures). News arrives that the first single proper will be Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair. Q is perplexed. Brilliantly titled, certainly, but arriving after Brick By Brick, the new album will appear to the planet as some comedy pastiche metal album for 12-year-old boys.

You've got all these colossal, summery, indie-pop classics and you've gone for... The Chair? AT: [Laughing uproariously] "The Chair! I'm now calling it The Chair, that's cool. Well for once it weren't even our suggestion. It was Laurence's (Bell, Domino label boss). And I were, Fucking too right! He's awesome. It'd be good to get a bit of fucking rock'n'roll out there, won't it? It's riffs. It's loud. It's funny."

If you don't release The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala as a single I'm going round Domino to kick Laurence's "awesome" butt. AT: "I think it'll be the next one!"

The record's title, meanwhile, could've been more enigmatically original than the un-loved phrase Suck It and See. The band, struggling with ideas due to the opposing sonic moods, invented an inspiration-conjuring ruse: to think of new names for effects pedals in the style of Tom Wolfe, Turner being long enamoured with the American author's legendarily psychedelic books The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, "cos that just sounds awesome".

"There's the Big Muff pedal," he elaborates, "That’s the classic. I've got the Valve Slapper. And there's the Tube Screamer. So we came up with the Thunder Suckle Fuzz Canyon. And… wait till I assemble it in me mind… em… it'll come to me… The Blonde-O-Sonic Shimmer Trap. So we were going for summat like that."

A wasted opportunity?

"Nah. Because some of those things ended up in the lyrics anyway. Suck It and See was just easier."

Alex Turner, rock'n'roll's premier descriptive art-poet, still writes his lyrics long-hand in spiral-bound notebooks. "Writing lyrics is a craft that I've practised a bit now," he avers. "In me notebook it looks like sums. Theories. There's words and arrows going everywhere. There's always a few possibilities and I write the word 'OR' in a square."

For our most celebrated colloquial sketch-writer of the everyday observation (all betting pencils, boy slags and ice-cream van aggravations) the more successful he becomes, the less he orbits the ordinary. "I'm not struggling with that, to be honest," he decides. "In fact I'm enjoying writing lyrics much more than I did. Stories. Describing a picture. Um. There's quite a bit of weather and time in this one. Which is probably not reassuring. 'Oh God, he's writing about the weather.' Maybe leave that out!"

There are also some direct, funny, romantic observations: "That's not a skirt, girl, that's a sawn-off shotgun/And I only hope you've got it aimed at me..." (from the title track).

Some of your romantic quips, now, must be about Alexa. AT: "Right. Yeah. Definitely. Well... there's always been that side to our songs, when we weren't writing about... the fucking taxi rank. It's kind of inevitably... people you're with." [At the mention of Chung's name, Turner is visibly aggrieved, head sliding into his neck, terrapin-esque indeed.]

It must have been very grounding being in a proper relationship through all this madness. Because if you weren't, girls would be jumping all over your head. AT: "Em. Hmn. Well, of course that helps you to... I don't really know.. what the other way would be."

Does Alexa wonder if the lyrics are about her? AT: "Oh there's none of that. Yeah, no, there's no looking over the shoulder."

She must be curious, at least. "Maybe."

Did you ever watch Popworld? AT: [Nervous laughter] "Em! Now and again."

Did you ever see the episode where she helps Paul McCartney write a song about shoes? AT: "Ah, yeah I think so, maybe I did see that."

Well, if I was you, I'd have been thinking, "She's the one for me." AT: "Well. Yeah... maybe that would've... sealed the deal! Hmn. But maybe that wasn't when i got the ray of light. When was? Nah [buries head in hands]. I might have to go for a cigarette..."

Q can't torture him any more and joins him for a snout. Turner smokes Camels from a crumpled, sad, soft-pack and resembles a teenager again. As early song You Probably Couldn't See For The Lights But You Were Staring Straight At Me says, "Never tenser/Could all go a bit Frank Spencer…”

In January 2006, when Arctic Monkeys' Number 1 album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not became the fastest-selling debut in UK history, inadvertently redefining the concept of autonomy and further imploding the decimated music industry (& wasn't their idea to be "the MySpace band", it was their fans': the Monkeys merely kick-started viral marketing by giving away demos at gigs), the 19- and 20-year-old Monkeys were terrible at fame. They weren't so much insurrectionary teenage upstarts as teenage innocents culturally traumatised by the peak-era fame democracy.

To their generation (born in the mid-'80s) fame was now synonymous with some-twat-off-the-telly a world of foaming tabloid hysteria where renown and celebrity meant, in fact, you were talentless. Hence their interview diffidence and receiving awards via videos dressed up as the Wizard OfOz and the Village People. Which only, ironically, made them even more celebrated and famous. (“That were a product of us just trying to hold onto the reins," thinks Turner today. "Being uncooperative.")

Q meets The Other Three one morning at 11am, in the well-appointed, empty bar of the Bethnal Green, Bast London hotel they're staying in (all three live in Sheffield, with their girlfriends, in their own homes). First to arrive is the industrious, sensible and cheerful Helders, crunching into a hangover-curing green apple. He has recovered from last year's boxing accident at the gym, which left his broken arm requiring a fitted plate. Now impressively purple-scarred, the break felt "interesting" and the doctor couldn't resist the one-armed drummer jest: "D'you like Def Leppard?"

Currently enjoying an enduring bromance with Diddy, he still doesn't feel famous, "it just doesn't feel that real, there's no paparazzi waiting for me to trip up." He and Turner, during the four-month rehearsals last year, became an accomplished roast dinner cooking duo for the band. "I reckon we could have us our own cookbook," he beams. "Pictures of us stirring, with a whisk."

O'Malley, an agreeable, twinkly-eyed 25-year-old with a strikingly deep voice and a winningly huge smile, is still coyly embarrassed by the interview process. A replacement for the departed original bass player Andy Nicholson in May 2006, he went from Asda shelf-filler to Glastonbury headliner in 13 months and still finds the Monkeys "a massive adventure". His life in Sheffield is profoundly normal – he's delighted that his new home since last October has an open-hearth fireplace: "Me parents had electric bars." He has also discovered cooking. “I’m just a pretty shit-hot housewife, most of the time," he smiles. "I cook stews, fish combinations, curries, chillies. I made a beef pho noodle soup the other day, Vietnamese, I surprised meself, had some mates round for that."

Recently, at his dad's 50th birthday bash, the party band, made up of family and friends, insisted he join them onstage "for ...The Dancefloor. So I were up there [mimes playing bass, all sheepish] and it were the wrong pitch, they didn't know the words or 'owt, going, Makin eyes... er..." He has no extra-curricular musical ambitions. "I'm happy just playing bass," he smiles. "I've never had the skill of doing songs meself. It'd be shit!"

Cook, 25, is still spectacularly embarrassed by the interview process. He perches upright, with a fixed nervous smile, newly shorn of the beard and ponytail he sported in LA: "Rockin' a pone, yeah, because I could get away with it." With his classic preppy haircut and dapper green military coat (from London's swish department store, Liberty), he looks like a handsome '40s film star. (Turner deems Cook "the band heartbreaker" and had a word with him post-LA: "I said to him, Come on, mate, you've got to get that beard shaved off. Get the girls back into us. Shift some posters.")

His life in Sheffield is also profoundly normal. He still plays Sunday League football with his local pub team, The Pack Horse FC (position, left back), remains in his long-term relationship with page-three-model-turned-make-up-artist Katie Downes and "potters about" at home, refusing to describe said home, "cos I'll get burgled".

A tiler by trade, he always vowed, should the Monkeys sign a deal, that he'd throw his trowel in a Sheffield river on his last day of work. "I never did fling me trowel," he confirms. "Probably still in me shed." He's never considered what his band represents to his generation. "I'd go insane thinking about it, I'm pretty good at not thinking about it… Oh God. I'm terrible at this!"

Back in the Strongroom Bar, Alex Turner is cloudily describing his everyday life. "I just keep meself to meself," he confounds. He mostly stays indoors and his perfect night in with Alexa is "watching loads of Sopranos. And doing roast dinners".

No longer spindle-limbed, he attends a gym and has handsomely well-defined arms – "You have to look after yourself."

Suddenly, Crying Lightning from Humbug rumbles over the bar stereo. "Wow. How about that? I was quite happy the other morning cos Brick By Brick were on the round-up goals on Soccer AM. It's still exciting when that happens. It was like Brick By Brick is real."

He spends his days writing music, "listening to records", and recommends Blues Run The Game by doomed '60s minstrel Jackson C Frank ("who's that lass?... Laura Marling, she did a cover recently), a simple, acoustic, deep and regretful stunner about missing someone on the road.

Lyrically, he cites as an example of greatness the Nick Cave B-side Little Empty Boat [from ‘97 single Into My Arms ], a comically sinister paean to a sexual power struggle: "Your knowledge is impressive and your argument is good/But I am the resurrection babe and you're standing on my foot."

"I need a hobby," he suddenly decides. "I'd like to learn another language." Since his mum is a German teacher (his dad teaches music), surely he can speak some German? "I know how to ask somebody if they've had fun at Christmas." Go on, then. "Nah!"

Where Turner's creative gifts stem from remains a contemporary rock'n'roll mystery; he became a fledgling songwriter at 16, after the gift of a guitar at Christmas from his parents. An only child, did his folks, perhaps, foresee artistic greatness? "I doubt it!" he balks. "Cos I didn't. I wasn't... a show kid." Like the others, he doesn't analyse the past, or the future.

"You can't constantly be thinking about what's happened," he reasons, "it's just about getting on with it." The elaborate pinky ring he now constantly wears, however, a silver, gold and ruby metal-goth corker featuring the words DEATH RAMPS is a permanent reminder of he and his best friends’ past. The Death Ramps is not only a Monkeys pseudonym and B-side to Teddy Picker, but a place they used to ride their bikes in Sheffield as kids.

"Up in the woods near where we lived," he nods. "Just little hills. But when you're eight years old they're death ramps." The ring was custom made by a friend of his, who runs top-end rock'n'roll jewellery emporium The Great Frog near London's Carnaby Street. Ask Turner why he thinks the chase between his writing and speaking eloquence is quite so mesmerisingly vast and he attempts a theory.

"Well, writing isn't the same as speaking," he muses. "Not for me. I seem to struggle more and more with... conversation. Talking onstage... I can't do it any more. Hmn. I'll have to work on that."

The ever-helpful Helders has a better theory.

"Since he's been writing songs," he ponders, “It seems like he’s always thinking about that. So even when he’s talking to you now, he’s thinking about the next thing that rhymes with a word. Even when he’s driving. We joke he’s a bad driver, his focus is never 100 per cent on what he’s doing. Which is good for us cos it means he’s got another 12 songs up his sleeve. I think music must be the easiest way for him to be concise and get everything out. Otherwise his head would explode.”

The Shoreditch.com photo studios, 18 March. Alex Turner, today, is more ethereally distracted than ever, transfixed by the studio iPod, playing Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, a version of I’d Rather Go Blind. Occasionally, he’ll completely lose his conversational thread, “Um. I’ve dropped a stitch.”

The first to arrive for Q’s photoshoot, he greets his incoming bandmates with enormous hugs (and also hugs them goodbye). Today, Q feels it’s pointless poking its pickaxe of serious enquiry further into Turner’s vacuum-packed soul and wonders if he’ll play, instead, a daft game. It’s called Popworld Questions, as first posed by someone he knows rather well.

“Oh, OK. Let’s do it,” he blinks, now perched in an empty dressing room. He then vigorously shakes his head, “Um…I’ve gotta snap back into it.”

Here, then, are some genuine “Alexa Chung on Popworld” questions (2006-2007), as originally posed to Matt Willis, Amy Winehouse, Robbie Williams, Pussycat Dolls, Kaiser Chiefs and Diddy.

Why do indie bands wear such tight jeans? AT: “Um. I supposed they do. They haven’t always. When we first were playing I was definitely in flares. You need to be quite tall to get the full effect, though. So, that's why this indie band wears such tight jeans, cos we've not got the legs for flares."

What makes you tick in the sexy department? AT: "Wow. Pass. What do I find most attractive in a woman? Something in the head? That's definitely a requirement. Well... Hmn. I'm struggling."

Tell us about all the lovely groupies. AT: "No!"

If dogs had human hands instead of paws, would you consider trying to teach them to play the piano? AT: "Absolutely. I'd teach Hey Jude."

How many plums d'you think you can comfortably fit in one hand? AT: "They're not very big. [Holds small, pale, girly hand up for inspection] It's a shame. Probably three. Diddy only managed two? Maybe not then. I can carry a lot of glasses at once, though. If they're small ones I can do four."

Are you cool? AT: "Not as much as I'd like to be. There's this clip where Clint Eastwood is on a talkshow and he gets asked, Everybody thinks of you as defining cool, what d'you think about that? And he gets his cigs out, takes one out, flicks it into his mouth, lights it and says, I have no idea what you're talking about."

Here, Turner locates his Camels soft-pack and attempts to do a Clint Eastwood. He flicks one upwards towards his mouth. And misses. Flicks another. And misses. "Third time lucky?" He misses. "I'll get it the next time." And succeeds. "Hey. Fourth time. Don't put that in! So there you go. I'm four steps away from where I wanna be."

Thank you very much for joining me here on Popworld, here's my clammy hand again. There it is, let it slip, hmmn. You can let go now. AT: "OK! Were you a Popworld fan, then? It was funny. Cool. What were we talking about, before?"

Blimey, Alex. What must you be like when you're completely stoned out of your head? AT: "Stoned? What d'you mean, cos I seem like that anyway? Yeah. A lot of people... tell me I'm a bit... dreamy. But I like the idea of that. Of being somewhere else."

Two days earlier, Turner had contemplated what he wanted from all this, in the end. Many seconds later he gave his deceptively ambitious answer.

"I just wanna write better songs," he decided. "And better lyrics. I just definitely wanna be good at it. Hmn. Yeah.”

—

RUFUS BLACK: AKA Matt Helders, on his ongoing bromance with Diddy

Matt Helders has known preposterous rap titan Diddy since they met in Miami in 2008. “He goes, Arctic Monkeys! Then he said summat about a B-side and I was like, He's not lying! I just thought, This is funny, I'm gonna go with this for a while." Last October Diddy texted Helders, suggesting he play drums with his Diddy Dirty Money band on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, to give his own drummer a day off. “I were bowling with me girifriend at the time. In Sheffield, on a Sunday." On the day of recording, says Helder, "We had a musical director. That were one of the maddest times of my life. Next day Diddy said, Why don't you just stay? Come along with me. So I went everywhere with him." Diddy had "a convoy of cars" and made sure Helders was always in his. "He'd stop his car and go, Where's Matt? You're coming with me! So I'd get in his car. Just me, him, his security, driver." Diddy, by now, had given him a pseudonym - Rufus Black. "He kept saying, I don't wanna fuck up your image. And I'm, I don't think it's gonna do me any harm!" He stayed in Diddy's spectacularly expensive hotel. Some weeks later, Helders almost returned to the Dirty Money drumstool for a gig in Glasgow. "But we were rehearsing in London. I were like, I might come, how are you getting there? And he were like, Jet. Jump on t’jet with me. But I had to stay in Bethnal Green instead.”

Love’s young dream: Diddy (left) with Helders

[saltsicklover]

Title: Fated to Run - Fated to Fly ꨄ︎ Part Four (The final part!)

This is the final part of this little story! Thank you all so much for reading, and thank you for the request! I really enjoyed writing this one! Cheers to finally meeting Bob!

Read Part One and Two and Three

Prompt from THIS ASK

Pairing: Robert "Bob" Floyd x Fem!Reader SOULMATE AU

Word Count: 9700+

Rating: T

Warnings: Swearing, Crying, Gentle Jake, Mention of throwing up, mention of a rank kink, lots of apologies, Bob kinda ruining things at first but things get better I promise!!

---

I want to rip my arm away from Jake's gentle grasp. I hate how he still holds me so kindly after how I treated him. After I ran. Tolerant fingertips against stilted skin. The area feels exposed. I feel exposed, too. Jake's hand is still on my elbow, warmth trickling into streams of amenity. There is no nettle of anxiety and that fact makes me want to cry. Fuck. I don't really want to cry, not again. But the gentleness of this almost perfect stranger tempts the fate of my tear ducts. 

The breeze sends an achily dry feeling over my tear chapped skin. I grimace lightly at the feeling.  It's nothing but mere distraction. It's nature's own fingertips grazing against my skin.

"You ran," Jake starts, his eyes darting over my face but never settling exactly on my eyes. His tone holds no accusation, thought it should be dripping in it. Instead, Jake remains soft spoken. He drops his hold on my elbow. I miss it as soon as it's gone, worried that now, I may float into space with nothing to tether me down. Nothing to tether me to this: here and now. 

"I did," It's a confirmation that pains me as it leaves my lips. 

"I'm sorry I scared you," The apology catches me off guard. So does the way Jake looks broken up about it. God, that makes me feel worse. And then I'm surging forward to wrap my arms around him. For a moment, it's just like it was in the airport, awkward and clunky. Then he relaxes a bit, wrapping his arms loosely around my shoulders. 

Maybe this is what our relationship is bound to be, not written by the universe, but instead untangling from the bonds that came before. Maybe that's what friendship is. The unabated way we fold each other into embraces. My aplomb tendencies when it comes to the truth and the way it meets Jake's largess fits together like patchwork. Stitches made of brazen conversation hold us together, felicific. 

"It wasn't you that scared me, it was the fucking words!" I explain, though it comes out all mumbled, though urgent, into the fabric of his flight suit. I turn my head, pressing my ear into his chest.

His heart beats in my ears, off rhythm with my own. Thump, thump, thuthumpump, thumpthump. Thump thumpthump, thump, thump. 

"I have carried these words around for so long, and I've always hated what I thought they meant. I always understood it as a negative, and I never understood that it could be so gentle. And I know that you didn't pick them out to mean more than just simply what they do. But, Oh, it's just Bob, seriously?" I'm somewhere between laughing and crying by the end. Jake rubs a hand up and down the length of my back, right over my spine. It's warm and comforting. 

"Still, I'm sorry," Jake mumble, his chin resting atop my head. 

"Well, even though you don't need to apologize, apology accepted," I squeeze him around the middle, punctuating my words. Thump thumpthump thump.

"Thanks, Birdie," Jake hums, his hand never stilling. We stand like that for a few moments, the wind blowing past us. It's barely lukewarm and cooling under the slow dying sun. Jake's hands are torrid in their place around my body, an even heat exchange. 

"I wanted to punch you," I admit, not even feigning sympathy. "Not today- but, a long time ago... Somewhere around fourteen I got fed up with the way people reacted to the "just " in my sentence. Everyone always saw it in a bad light, and it made me want to punch whoever said it, or would say it."

"Do you still want to punch me?" Jake's laugher rumbles over the beat of his heart. 

My laugh rumbles over mine too. "No. I just... I decided that Bob is my everything so long ago, and so at the time it felt right to throw hands over him."

Jake's laughter doesn't stop, instead the rumbling in my ear gets louder and louder. He mumbles something about how Bob would turn bright red if he'd heard that but I think it was meant more for himself than for me. Silence overtakes us, save for the usual bustle of the airfield and the ever present sound of our heartbeats. Thump, thump, thump. Still, Jake keeps up his ministrations against my spine. 

"What's he like?" The question breaks the silence. A jet takes off somewhere in the distance, neither of us comment on it. 

"Bob?" Jake inquires, his hand stilling. 

"No, Jay Leno," I gaze up at him with one of those seriously looks on my face, the best one I can muster, "Yes, Bob," 

"Well..." Jake takes a deep breath in, swishing his words around in his mouth like a sip of expensive wine, "You've got a good one, Birdie, truly. He's one of the best men I know. Smart as a whip, quiet, observant to the point where never misses a damn thing, it drives us all nuts," 

Jake's laughter thunders. 

My heart stutters, still I'm quick to quip back a response. 

"Everyone or just you?" 

"Oh, shut it," The words are all playful. 

"He looks just like Rhett," I mumble. I take my bottom lip between my teeth, rolling over the fullness of it. Jake erupts in heavier laugher. 

"Yeah, twins usually do," 

"Shut up," I retaliate quickly, releasing my lip to make sure he hears me. "How is Rhett? I feel so bad for running. Fuck, I haven't even apologized to you. I am sorry, Jake, I really am," 

"You don't have to apologize. I was there, remember? I know how it went down. I probably would've run too," Jake admits, resuming his motions up and down my spine. 

"I don't think that makes me feel any better," I hide my laugher in his chest, my barely wet skin almost squeaking against the material of his flight suit. "But thanks anyway," 

"You bet," Jake hums, "Rhett is alright, worried. We... We didn't really get a chance to talk about the airport thing because Bob picked us up. I think Rhett was avoiding saying anything so he didn't say the wrong thing," 

"I don't think you can say the wrong thing," I pull away from the warmth of his embrace to look up at him, "It's all predestined, you know. And if they are close, wouldn't Rhett know what Bob's sentence is anyway?" 

"You would think," Jake chuckles. 

"Do you know what his says?" My voice wavers at the question. I probably shouldn't have asked. Fuck my curiosity for getting the better of me. Another jet takes off, loud and unbothered by our conversation. 

"I do," 

"And?" 

"I'm not going to say as it's not mine to share... But..." A few beats pass between us, a jet soaring overhead. It buys Jake nothing more than a few seconds.  "I think I'm the one who's supposed to say it," There's only a sliver of apprehension in his tone. 

"How do you figure?" 

"Because I know the words, and I know that we are standing here right now having this conversation and by now I'm sure everyone else is in that hanger waiting on me to show up to start the hop," Jake brings his hands up to my shoulders, pushing me back far enough to look at me without having to crane his neck. "And I know that we could wrap this up right now and walk back to the hanger and I could say those words and everything would go from there, just as it should."

"Right now?" 

"Right now," I can barely hear him over the sound of blood rushing in my ears. I swear, if it wasn't for his hands on my shoulders, I would be vibrating away from how hard my heart is hitting my ribcage. 

"It's not too fast?" I ask, finally deciding on some sort of sentence that doesn't really capture what I'm trying to say. 

"Bridie, people wait their whole lives for this. They fight wars and move across the world for this. They take the same bus to work everyday. They run for political offices. They develop apps and services for this sort of thing and right now, Bob is sitting in that hanger right there," Jake thrusts a pointed finger towards the hanger, his tone getting a bit louder with each sentence, "And you are standing here asking me if it's too soon?" 

"I guess I just-"

"Bob already talks about you," Jake interjects, not caring for my excuses. 

"He doesn't even know me," I retort, once again defensive. There is a part of me that wishes I'd stayed hidden away in my father's office, staring out his too big windows and allowing myself to bargain over the importance of this situation. Instead, Jake is like a reflector for excuses and bullshit, cutting through all of the excess and highlighting the point with less than eloquence.  My heart still pounds, I can feel it in my fingertips as they graze over my thighs. I try and push the incessant thumping sound out of my ears in a better attempt to hear what Jake is saying. 

"It doesn't matter. Bob's a quiet guy, but when he is talking, it's often about his soulmate. He wonders, usually out loud, about what you will be like. He worries too, about if you'll care he's in the Navy, or that he's a Wizzo. He worries that you'll hate moving all the time, or won't want to be with him because there's the risk of deployments and all the other bullshit we go through. At the bar, he wonders about what your signature drink is, and if you like to play pool or if you prefer darts, or dancing. He hopes that you'll be beautiful, but not in the face or body, but in the soul. I'm telling you Birdie, he wants to know everything, and he's not very good at waiting for it," 

I can only stand there, still as stone with Jake's hands cupped over the caps of my shoulders. I can't even flounder over words. There are none stuck in my throat, in fact, for the first time in a long time I am speechless. 

So Jake continues, "Birdie, Robert Floyd is head over heels for you already. My Mama always used to say that there is no difference between a wise man and a fool when it comes to love, and looking at Baby on Board I can say that, and I mean this as kindly as I can, there is no telling if he's wise," There is a chuckle stirring somewhere deep in his chest at the notion. 

"That's a lot to live up to," I mumble, hoping Jake misses the words over the jets racing over us. He doesn't. Of course he doesn't. 

"You're not living up to anything, Birdie, that's the thing. Bob hasn't even met you yet and you're everything. I already know it," Jake's admission is brazenly honest in a way that has me teetering over the precipice of my own self conscious mind. "And think about it this way, with as much time as he spends talking about ya, think about how much time he spends thinking aboutcha,"

Jake has a point, as hard as it is to admit. 

"Can I be honest about something?" Jake's shoes are the most interesting thing in the world, with the way my eyes are locked onto the dark leather. I trace the eyelets with my eyes, up the wrapping of the laces to where the legs of his flight suit are bloused into his boots. 

Jake's hands slide from my shoulders, hitting his thighs with a low smack. "Have we not been?" 

Glancing up, I take in the sight of Jake's crimped expression, how his eyes glint in the lowness of the sun. His shoulders dip. A deep sigh escapes from the prison of his chest, edged with more concern than hostility. It's met with my own, the lukewarm air swirling in my lungs only to mingle with the wind again, now a few degrees hotter. Everything feels hotter now. 

"Brutally," The word is overwhelmingly correct, cutting the tip of my tongue as it passes. "But I think I have more to say before I reach a consensus or a breakdown."

 I chuckle out a dry laugh. Jake nods, squaring his shoulders just a little bit. It's an urge to continue, not that I needed one at this point. 

"Up until this point, I don't think I ever thought past wanting Bob. I decided that Bob was it for me so long ago that I never found a need to think past it," I shove my hands as deep into my pockets as they will go to keep myself from picking at my nails. 

"I've never been focused on finding him. Never focused on if he would like me, or if I would like him because I knew that it was in the hands of the universe, you know? And maybe if I believed in a God or something it would be in their handsand then I really wouldn't have to think about it. I mean, the universe picked me for Bob and him for me, so why would there be anything to worry about? But..."

My gaze finds itself just over Jake's shoulder, fixated on the hanger. The hanger that Bob is probably standing in waiting for the hop to start. Maybe he's cursing out Jake for being late. Or sitting next to that beautiful brunette laughing like there isn't a care in the world. Perhaps he's worried about being late, the hop in the forefront of his mind. It could be what he's going home to after work. Maybe he has a cat, an entire collection of Lego flowers, or an alcoholic roommate. 

Standing here for just a few moments longer keeps that information at bay, along with all the questions I'm too afraid to ask myself. 

And even though Jake swears six ways to Sunday that Bob wants me, maybe it's just because he thinks he has to. What if Bob only likes me because the universe told him to? Or what if he doesn't like me at all- the whole thing just an overexaggerated front to keep those he's closest to from asking questions. 

There are so many questions. 

Jake sways into the forefront of my now glassy vision, his face just a little out of focus. His brows are furrowed, tightening as I blink a few times to refocus everything. 

"But what? What is it?" Concern. There is so much concern in the gravel of his voice. 

"I... I think..." Another deep, slow breathe of air that smells thick of jet fuel. It burns my lungs as it passes, more now than it has before. Everything burns more now. I can feel my skin glazing at the heat, like I'm more glass than paint. More sugar than starch. More myself than destiny. 

"No, I know," I meet Jake's eyes, ignoring how they burn too, "I don't want Bob to like me out of obligation. I don't want a relationship born out of a feeling of moral imperative, or because he's being backed into it. I don't want him to fall in love with me, I-"

Jake looks addled, and maybe...  marred? There is something unreadable in his expression, his eyes ever fixated. I only stutter for a second, over my words, over that look, over the glazing of my own flesh. 

"I want Bob to walk into love with me," There's a scuff of realization the moment the words are said, something akin to a record scratch. I am more than a predestined prediction, a proportional kind of perfect. "I can't have the same retronym love story of duty with no real choice. Soulmates or not, Bob needs to choose me or I'm not the one for him."

The conclusion is finite and final. That's all it needs to be.

Jake is all slack jaw and flashbulb eyes.  His hand make's it's way slowly through the air until it's stoking back his hair. He follows around the top of his head until he's at the nape. Scratching at the back of his neck, Jake still looks my way. I can't see anything in his face other than astonishment bordering on incredulous. A small part of myself, a part that I didn't know existed past the pedant preteen years that bled into formalist youth, begs for a sort of validation. But I stay quiet. I don't need Jake to dignify this. Not when I know in my bones that it's true. 

We stand just like this for a few minutes. I count the number of deep, slow breaths he takes. Three thousand three hundred sixty miles the Earth has rotated in the time it took Jake to take just under forty five deep breathes. 

My heart beats hard against my ribs, and for the first time today I spend a moment calculating my heart beat. It's more than thumps thrown against the backside of my ribs. In times like this I break the world down into numbers, into something tangible and bite sized- easily digested. Somewhere around beat eighty five a jet pulls my attention away. 

Jake's eyes are locked on the ground in front of his toes. I can just barely see the way his eyes trace the hairline fractures of the concrete. They mirror the fractures of this conversation, though words go unsaid the concrete beneath out feet seems more like ice. We are drifting. 

"You've made me reevaluate this entire thing," The words are a mess of mumbled whispers feathering off his tongue. Then he laughs, one of those thick honeyed laughs that rattles your entire being. I didn't bring this point up to have Jake question his entire reality and from the sound of his laugh all slick and marred he may be doing just that. 

"Let me ask you something," My words are somewhere between a peace offering and a threat of war. An olive branch paired with cocklebur and thistle; a fucked up bouquet. "Do you love Bradley?"

"Of course I do," There is no hesitation, just conviction, "He's my everything," 

"Are you in love with him?" The words are like chem trails hanging visible between us. Jake's tongue laves over the corner of his mouth for a second. Our eyes meet and he cocks a small smile. 

"Honestly, he's the only person I've ever been in love with. I think I was in love with him before we even got together. Somewhere between butting heads over work shit to the time we hauled each other into that filthy bathroom stall while on shore leave, I fell for him. We uhh..." There's another moment of hesitation, heavier than the one before, "Rooster wasn't looking for his soulmate. Too much tragedy and loss when he was growin' up. He didn't want to lose anyone else. I on the other hand have one of those sentences,"  

Jake fumbles with the zipper on his flight suit, his fingers shaking just a tad. The zipper pulls with a metallic buzz all the way down to his waist, far enough for Jake to pull his left arm free of the fabric. With a twist of his arm, I can read the fragile script inked into the soft underside of his bicep, I just hope he's okay.

Two beats and a breath. 

"Is he?"

"Not all the time, but, things with Mav are getting better everyday. He still struggles but that's life," It's all warmly honest and sweet coming off of Jake's tongue. I share a smile with him. Jake traces over the words with his thumb, pulling gently at the skin. The air between us is lighter now. I am no longer counting heart beats. Instead, I let them pass through my chest without a second thought. The seconds pass, the Earth rotates and I breathe without fraction.

"But enough about us," Jake waves his hand in dismissal, "Are you ready?" He pulls his flight suit back over his shoulder, threading his arm though. The zipper hums that metallic zip again as I chew on the inside of my cheek. Am I ready? I don't know, but standing here under the slow setting sun makes me feel like I could be.

"How long does the beginning last?" I meet his eyes with question. His jaw ticks but the corner of his smile ticks up too. There is so much knowing in that look. 

I've always been more at home in endings. With autumn, dying flowers in vases, and sunsets. Last words, whispered goodbyes, and the feeling of fingertips grazing palms after handshakes; those make sense to me. 

Beginnings and I are strangers sharing fleeting glances. We are curtesy smiles across crowded rooms when our eyes meet on accident. Business cards and for sale posters pinned to public bulletin boards and the passing of cigarettes at concerts. Beginnings haze past me and if I don't move, don't breathe, don't blink, I can coast into the now, the middle of moments, what's left between the beginning and the end.   

"Only a second," 

Jake takes my hand in his own. He rubs his thumb reassuringly over the joint of my thumb, our palms pressed together. Gently, he's guiding me back to the hanger. The whole ordeal is regulated by his kind touches. My skin burns under his hands, but it's not that romantic kind of burning. Instead, Jake's fingertips pressing into my skin are a smoke signal; I follow it diligently. 

The walk to the hanger is quiet. No words spoken between us. The only sounds come from the base itself and the way our shoes hit the pavement. I wish there was a sort of de rigueur for situations like this. A handbook outlining exactly what you're supposed to say in the limbo moment between past and future. It's that moment where the word present doesn't quite fit. It's too liminal, a sort of aberration. Jake's soothing touch is pithy in the same way it is integral. 

The sound of our shoes against the pavement changes as we pass through the threshold. It's far less crunch and a bit more scuff, now. Jake's boots are louder than the soft rubber of my sneakers. They give me a little bit more height, in turn I feel harder to miss. As if the only civilian in a hanger full of flight suit clad aviators would be difficult to miss in the first place.

We only make it about half way into the hanger, just about the point where the chilled breeze warms over when Jake stops me. I go to take another step but his hand tightening around my own. It's a quiet plea to stay put. There's more to unfold, and for a moment I wonder if the beginning has past yet or if I'm on the cusp of it. Jake separates his hand from mine, the warmth of his palm sticking for a few fleeting seconds. 

Maybe that's how much time the universe spent connecting souls together in friendship. The few fleeting moments in the flick of a pen, ink still drying on the parchment of the universe. 

The aviators all sit facing the board at the front, a couple to a table. There's only six aviators sitting, but that accounts for the main team, save for Hangman walking up the aisle. My father, Tom and Pete are at the front of the room, similar to the way I left them. Now, though, Pete is leaning against the table with his husband rather than taking up residence on the floor. My father is still sat in a chair at the front, but he's now facing the group of young aviators. His eyes catch mine from across the room, a small reassuring grin taking it's place on his lips. It keeps me from wavering, then it disappears as fast as it came. 

I catch Tom's eyes next. From this far away, the usual stark blue of his eyes are less icy. Now, they're more soft, welcoming like a clear sky. He places a hand on Pete's knee, the younger man agog with excitement to the point where he's almost buzzing. He must've spotted Jake and I when we walked in, but the famous Maverick is good at keeping people's attention where he wants it. Everyone's eyes are still focused forward on him as he natters on.  I will my ears to hear over the newfound sound of blood thrashing through my ears. 

But it's not Pete's voice I catch, instead it belongs to a woman.

"Why are you two sharing this story now? I know that Payback and Coyote have been asking about this for months and you're finally talking? Something doesn't add up, if you ask me," 

Pete goes to open his mouth again, but Tom squeezes his knee again. His grip looks a little too hard. Mav doesn't seem to acknowledge the uniform wrinkling grip his husband has on his knee, but he keeps his mouth shut. 

"I was thinking the same thing," Bradley pipes up, his chin resting against his closed fist, elbow propped up on the table in front of him. "Even though I've heard this story about a thousand times, I know Jake wanted to hear it-" 

"Where is Bagman? I thought he came in with you, Bradshaw," The woman counters back. 

"I'm right here, Phoenix," Jake pipes up, his tone more smug than I've ever heard it, as he's walking right past the empty seats to stand next to my father. "I was working on something for the Air Boss, is that alright with you lot?" 

There are murmurs, nothing intelligible. The usual glower on my father's features when he's in front of his subordinates is no where to be seen. Instead, his features are schooled into neutral disinterest. Jake leans towards him to whisper into his ear- my father's expression remains still. Then Jake is moving towards Pete. He leans in between Mav and his husband, letting them both listen to what he has to say. With a clap of his hands, Pete is interrupting whatever Jake is telling him. I am a bit taken aback by Pete's sudden command but it seems no one else is surprised. Tom shakes his head a bit but does nothing to hold back his husband. 

"Alright team, change of plans!" The words are met with a groan. "Our lovely COMPACFLT is going to take you guys for a little trip across the air field, I'll be there to join you shortly. Lt. Floyd, could you hang back for a moment, Admiral Simpson and I would like to have a word with you. Same goes for you as well, Lt. Seresin," 

"That's a lot of formality there, old man," Jake jests over the sound of scooching chairs and boots against the cement. I watch as the small group files out of a door at the back of the hanger, diligently following after Tom. 

It's only then that it really hits me. 

The only people left standing in this hanger with me are my father, Pete, Jake and Robert Floyd. My Robert Floyd, the man I have spent so long imagining. When I was a child, I used to talk to the moon about him. The habit started after my teacher told us the story about the man in the moon. He served as my confidant, my secret keeper, and my light for the future. It wasn't uncommon to commune with the milky light of the moon as it shown through the sheer curtains of my childhood bedroom.  

I suppose it's fitting that my soulmate, too, has a love for the sky. I wonder if he's friends with the moon in that same way. Childlike innocence held over with white knuckles while tucked under blankets, anything to fend off the monsters turned Sunday scaries. 

I let my eyes trail over his frame, though I can't make out much. Only the back of his head, with his clean, Navy regulation hair cut. He is that dishwater blond that Rhett is, hair shining with a slick coat of gel to keep his bangs out of his eyes. Bob wears his flight suit, which gives me absolutely no clue into his world of personal style. But, I like the way it stretches over the expanse of his shoulders and down the broadness of his back. The slick-ish green material pulling taught over the the caps of his shoulders as he slumps forward a bit. 

Sitting alone like he is almost makes him look like a little kid who got into trouble at recess. He keeps his hands tucked in front of him, the picture of polite as he waits for his next instruction. Maybe it's instinct, maybe it's Navy issued, either way he's all patience and clean corners tucked into a military grade flight suit. 

The sight of my father leaning down in front of Bob pulls me back to reality. He wears a kind smile, that same one he used to wear at father-daughter dances and parent-teacher conferences. That smile belongs wholly to my father- Cyclone: the Admiral is no where to be seen. It's strange, for a moment he almost looks out of place in his uniform, but I don't have time to dwell on that fact. 

Pete is pulling Jake towards me, a hand on his collar. 

"I'm telling you right now, Jake," Maverick punctuates his seriousness with the use of Jake's first name, "You are going to go easy on Bob, alright?" 

"I think he's a lot stronger than you give him credit for," Jake shoots back, nudging Pete in the ribs with his elbow. "I know we all joke around and treat Bob like he's the kid of the group, but he's worked just as hard as the rest of the team to be here. He deserves it. There's no doubt in my mind that he won't take this in stride," 

"This isn't like you, Hangman," Pete chuckles, punching him playfully in the chest, "If I didn't know any better I'd think there's a heart in there somewhere," 

"You're forgetting I'm practically engaged to your son, you know," Jake is all jest and shinning eyes as he looks down at the shorter man. 

"The word practically gives me pause," 

The moment between the men is as sweet as it is endearing, but my heartbeat threatens to take over my senses again. Anxiety swirls like thick smoke, overtaking my lungs and burning my eyes. I can feel myself tearing up. 

"I can appreciate the father-in-law son-in-law bonding that's happening right now, but in case you two have forgotten I am this fucking close to losing it," I hold my fingers up for emphasis, my pointer dangerously close to my thumb, "Watching y'all, I feel like the lunatics are running the asylum," 

"Dangerously accurate," Pete laughs, earning a scowl from me. I turn to Jake for some sort of help. Standing here, the seconds ticking down, I feel myself wavering. 

"So, this is it?" 

"This is it," Pete echoes, unhelpfully, "You've got this, Little Bird," 

Pete uses that as his exit, patting Jake on the arm as he leaves. I don't turn to watch him walk away. My eyes are somewhere on the center of Jake's chest, but the images are all muddled and glassy. He takes my hand in his own, thumbing over the ridges of my fingers. 

"Walking into love, eyes wide open, I promise," Jake's susurrus voice barely audible over the blood rushing through my ears. Gently, he guides me down the aisle between the tables. It seems a million miles from here to there, a sentiment I've only ever heard brides use. Then, he's stopping me a row back from where Bob is seated, still talking to my father. Jake himself does not stop, instead going to stand next to my father. 

"You got it from here, Lieutenant?" My father asks, turning his quirked eyebrow Jake's direction. 

"I do," Jake confirms confidently, his hands coming down to rest palm down on the tabletop in front of Bob. 

"Alright then," My father straightens up, "I'll see you in a few minutes, Lt. Seresin. Have a good night, Lt. Floyd," 

From my new vantage point, I can see a sliver of Bob's side profile. A clean shaven jaw gives way to a long, pale neck. He wears glasses, that little fact feels more concrete than anything else up unto this moment. Robert Floyd wears glasses- those Navy issued, Birth Control Goggles that I've always had an affinity for.  

Once when I was a kid, I had asked my father why the Navy glasses were hated. I liked them, truly. They reminded me of the vintage models in my mother's old magazines- and that look was the height of fashion circa 1976. My mother had a love for all things vintage fashion, and I developed a love for a well dressed man whilst looking over her shoulder. My father's response to the question was nothing that made sense until I understood exactly how cruel people could be. 

"What's going on, Hangman?" There's a round quality to Bob's accent, though it is decidedly more formal than Rhett's. 

"I'm getting to that, Baby on Board," Jake chuckles, leaning closer to Bob effectively keeping the other man's eyes on him, "Close your eyes," 

"Close my eyes? Yeah, right," Bob scoffs, "I think I learned better when it comes to you, all the way back when we were kids. Nice try. Now, tell me, what's goin' on?" 

I watch Jake's smile bloom larger on his face, but he doesn't spare a glance my direction. I shove my hands into the pockets of my jeans, nervous energy threatening to boil over. Even though energy buzzes under my skin, I want nothing more than to hear Bob speak again. 

"Seriously Robby," The nickname makes me almost laugh. It's said with just a dash of sweetness, something closer to fond. Bob lets out a slightly exasperated sigh. "Close'em up,"

"I swear to god, Seresin, if this is some sort of overdue hazing or some other bullshit I am going to kick your ass," Bob grumbles, but must closes his eyes by the pleased look reflecting on Jake's features. 

"It's not, honest," Jake swears, a hand placed over his heart. I watch the pair as I rock back and fourth. It's a gentle movement, anything to keep myself from crawling out of my skin. "And you and I both know that you couldn't kick my ass if you tried," Bob looks like he's going to retort, but instead he sinks down a little further in his seat with a roll of his eyes. 

"Well, get on with it," Bob mumbles, his shoulders dipping a bit. 

"Will you take this seriously, please, Robby," There's that nickname again. Jake's words are met with a low grumble about how he really is taking something absolutely ridiculous as seriously as he can. "Let me ask you somethin'"

"Alright," Bob shrugs his shoulders, his uniform wrinkling under his movement. Bob is so apprehensive, rightfully so. Jake is still looking down at him, hands pressed to the table. The look Jake has painted across his face is nothing short of mischievous, a look that I would not want to be on the receiving end of, for fear of trouble. 

"Now, no matter what I ask, you've gotta keep your eyes closed, alright?" 

"Okay, alright, Jake. I get it, eyes are to remain closed," 

Then Jake is waving me over with a flick of his wrist. There is still a wide smile across his cheeks which makes it a fraction harder to say no. Still, I shake my head, eyes wide, trying to deny his request. He huffs out a sigh when I manage to scoot myself less than two steps closer. A second later he is crossing over to me, taking my hand in his again. He guides me back to where he was standing before, in front of Bob. 

I can see his whole face now.

From the tender slope of his nose to his dusty brown lashes, the first thing that strikes me is just how kind he looks. I take in the gentle wave of his hair and the way it's pushed back from his eyes. I wonder what is would look like without all the product. Would it slope down onto his forehead, the obvious wave more prominent? From here, though his features are so similar to Rhett's, he looks so incredibly different. There is a softness to Bob that I wouldn't have expected. The points where Rhett is hard lines and calloused skin, Bob is undisturbed water, crystal clear and inviting. 

Robert Floyd looks nothing like the idea of men I have come to picture in my head: the ideal man outlined for me since childhood. Those men were all beefy hands and square jaws, sharp lines that lead to a commanding presence. Instead, Bob is lean muscle and something so unbelievably oneiric. He is soft in the way the best things are, seafoam and clouds, the feeling of coming home. It's strange, really, the settled feeling that makes a home near my diaphragm. It's all delicate revelation.

The anxiety still lingers in my extremities, dancing through my thighs and down to my toes just to accompany the pulsing feeling in my fingertips. 

And suddenly, I want to know everything. The dam breaks, cracks running through the concrete that held back my terse reaction and adjunct feeling of crumbling resolve.  

The tears come fast and unexpected, the only thing keeping in a surprised gasp is my hands cupped over my mouth. Get it together, get it together, get it together! Those are the only words going through my head, accompanied by the sound of blood rushing though my ears.  Jake grazes his knuckles over the exposed skin of my arm, his expression still as kind as ever. He doesn't take his eyes off me when he addresses Bob again. 

"I had a point brought up to me today, about the whole soulmate thing," It's a start. Jake looks like he's hunting for the words, "And I'm embarrassed about it. I mean, it makes so much sense and I can't have you looking at me when I admit this," 

Jake is really hamming it up, leaning into this whole bit. I'm not sure if it's to ease my anxiety or if it's to mess with Bob, but either way I don't care. I am stuck standing here, in front of my person and will listen to every word that leaves Jake's lips if it means I get to look at Bob unbothered for a few more moments. 

God, he's pretty. His lips look soft, even though they are lightly sun kissed. Or maybe that's just their natural color. His cheeks match, though. A stained sort of blush that looks like crushed berries. I want to trace the ridge of his cupids bow with the tip of my nose, a precursor to a kiss that is a long time coming. I want to wear that raspberry stain on my skin, too. 

"Okay..." Bob's tone is nothing short of patient. "My eyes are still closed, I promise. Go on when you're ready," 

"The thought is this: people begin a life with their soulmate with their eyes closed, blinders on. They jump into something purely because something in the universe deemed it that way. I wonder what would happen if we walked into the whole thing with our eyes open instead of falling blindly, or out of obligation," Jake is summing up the sentiment well. He hits each detail in a way that threatens to make my head spin to hear them out in the open like that. It's one thing to admit those things out loud, but hearing them fall from someone else's lips is dizzying. 

"That's the thing, Jake, I don't think it's all out of obligation," I suck in a deep breath at those words, holding it hard within my lungs. Jake looks at me with a knowing sort of look that doesn't make holding in this breath any less of a necessity. It's a few more seconds before I finally let go, the breath escaping my lungs slowly. 

"What do you mean?" Jake probes further, doing his best to hide the joy in his tone. If Bob notices, he doesn't say anything. 

"Just because we've got these words doesn't mean it dictates our future. Anyone who tells you different is drinking the Kool-Aid. I mean, I hope more than anything that my person wants me just as much as I want them, but the words don't make it so. It also doesn't mean shit the other way. Things can work out even if your words don't match up, because that's not what love is, Jake," Bob's tone has turned soft now, a care laced into his words. He takes his glasses from his face, setting them down onto the tabletop so he can rub at his still closed eyes. His expression is still soft, though he moves to rub his temples. 

"Love is a choice. Plain and simple. I mean, look at my parents. You know they don't have each other's words, but they are the most in-love people I've ever seen. The universe didn't do that, they did. It was a choice they made every single day, to wake up and love each other and build that life together. And so, if you're worried about everything with Rooster, you don't have to be. Not as long as you wake up every day, love each other and build a life together, whatever that looks like for you," 

"So," Jake's words are interrupted by the smile growing on his face. His cheeks are red from the force it takes to smile so big, but he doesn't seem to mind. "Great love is walking in to it with eyes wide open?" 

"That's exactly what it means," Bob confirms, bringing his hands back to his lap. At his confirmation, the world seems to slow. Each second lasts longer than the previous, the beating of my heart the only thing out of sync now. Tick, tick, ti-thump thump tick. Jake squeezes my shoulder, keeping his eyes firmly on me once again. 

"There's something else I have to tell you, Robby," The joy in Jake's voice is palpable, warm like sunshine on skin. The ever-present burning feeling mellows to this. That static burn of the sun shinning from high in the sky, enough to turn skin hot with blush. "Birdie's here," 

The room goes almost silent, save for the sounds of Bob's deep, uncertain breathes. A moment passes. Then another. I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans. For the first moment I consider my attire, a white t-shirt and jeans. Could've been worse. At least it's something else to think about other than counting moments, minutes, heartbeats or breathes. 

"Excuse me?" The words are taught, leaving an equally tight throat. Bob sounds almost pained, somewhere in the rigidness of his tone. Bob cracks his eyes open, reaching for his glasses. He slots them back into place on his nose, adjusting them with his long fingers. 

That's something else concrete; the cleanliness of Bob's nails. I bite my lip to keep from laughing at the thought, after all, I'm taking comfort in something so silly. Anything to distract from the pulsing of anxiety. 

Bob looks up, his pupils dilating as he refocuses to the light of the hanger. His eyes focus on Jake first, his expression something I can't quite read. Then his eyes flick to me. The best thing I can offer him is a sheepish smile but it makes Bob cock is head to the side like a confused animal. Like things will make more sense at forty-five degrees. 

"Robert Floyd, Birdie Simpson," Jake introduces us as easy as if he were introducing two friends. "Birdie, this is Just Bob," That part is accompanied by wink and a hint of a chuckle. 

"I shoulda hit you," I grumble, dashing a glace over to Jake. His laughter fills the room, bastard. Bob doesn't move, his head still cocked to the side as if he's trying to make sense of it all, dot the I's, cross the T's, but his mental pen's out of ink. I watch his gaze bounce between Jake and I a couple times as he flounders. His eyes are a notch wider than what I would consider normal, the delicate blue of them shining like ocean baubles under the florescence of the hanger. 

"Well, say somethin' to 'er Robby!" Jake's drawl sneaks out with his desperation. He holds his hands out, almost like he's trying to display me to Bob, the only thing that's missing is the jazz hands. I am clutching the material of my jeans in tight, sweaty fists. This whole thing is going somehow worse than I had anticipated, even through Jake's good natured exchange and I can't help feeling exposed. 

Jake mumbles out a "See, no tellin' if he's wise," just barely loud enough for me to hear. It's supposed to be a comfort, I suppose, but the limbo look I find myself locked in keeps my nerves from settling. 

A sound akin to scrambled vowels escapes Bob's lips. His eyes widen impossibly further, his cheeks going crimson . That same color accompanies the skin around his collar. It would be an endearing sight if he didn't look so totally mortified. His expression isn't at all comfortable, mirroring the exact feeling zinging underneath my skin. This wasn't how this was supposed to go... God, this is so much worse. 

The universe could have delt us better cards. All happy smiles and those movie reel, airport hugs that knock the wind out of you. Those Hollywood kisses with hands cupping faces accompanied by breathless words. I've been waiting for you. You look beautiful. I can't believe you're finally here in my arms. But that's not this. After all, the only hand the universe has wields a pen. The moment the words are wrote, we are on our own, ink stained and pleading. 

"I don't think you were ready for this- either of us," I correct myself, "So, I uh... I think I'm just going to go," I start backing up slowly, heading for the back door of the hanger. I can't place the look Bob gives me, but it makes my stomach twist. "I'm sorry, again. To all three of you," 

"Birdie, please don't-" The door slams behind me, cutting Jake's words off. The chill of the outside air rapidly cools my heated skin. It's still California, but with the sun barely visible over the horizon, the air is cool. 

Tears are rapidly forming in my eyes, though I don't exactly feel like crying. Instead, its the feeling of insurmountable stress weighing on my nervous system. Out of everything I am feeling, I can only name the things I don't want to experience because of the emotions wrecking through my body. 

Though I don't want to cry, my body doesn't seem to be getting the message as fat tears dribble onto my cheeks. I don't feel like running, which in itself makes me chuckle. Usually, when things get hard I want to disappear, take time to figure out exactly what's going on. It's why I've been away from my father for so long to begin with, and why I ran from Rhett and Jake at the airport. What has always taken me distance to see is coming through remarkable clear this close up. 

Maybe I should be broken hearted, or maybe I already am and whatever this fucking feeling buzzing in my chest is only serves as temporary cover. I can't hold back the laughter that vibrates through me. After all of the stock I put into meeting my soulmate, my person, and it having gone down just like a sinking ship only serves to make one thing so perfectly crystal clear. The realization hits me like a ton of bricks. It has me turning on my heel and headed right back through that door. 

Jake and Rhett haven't moved too far in the minute or so I've been gone. Jake is still standing in front of the table, looking down at Bob who now has his head buried in his hands. His glasses are pushed up his face, balancing oddly over his forehead. 

"Birdie?" Jake questions, voice louder than necessary. Bob lifts his face from his hands, his glasses falling back crookedly over his nose. I ignore Jake's question along with his gaze, my sights firmly squared on Bob.

"Could that have gone worse?" 

Bob still wears that deer in the headlights look, eyes like flashbulbs, but he finds his voice. "Statistically? Yes," 

Jake mumbles an oh, for Christ's sake to himself but doesn't say anything forthcoming. My hands cup my own face, palms cool against my still hot skin as I cross the concrete to stand in front of the table. Bob watches my each and every move until he is looking up at me from his seat wearing a mimic furrowed brow. My hands make homes of my jean pockets once more. 

"For us I mean," I offer more criteria, "I mean, we really didn't say much to each other, so it's not like we could have said something to offend one another. There hasn't been time to make an impression besides the minute or so of blatant staring. No body threw up, or fainted, or cried. I didn't dump a cup of hot coffee on your lap or anything. Hell, I even had a friend meet her soulmate after they got into a car accident. So really, Bobby, could this have gone worse? 

There's a sort of dry chuckle to my words, a humor that's been left out in the wind too long. We've officially made it past the beginning now, that much I know to be true, and there is already so much comfort in that fact.  

Bob looks to be pondering over my words for a moment before a small, cheeky smirk makes a home on his lips. I can't help but mirror that smile. 

"Well, when you put it that way," Bob places his hands on the tabletop, pushing himself to his feet, "I think that was probably the worst we could have managed. Considering the circumstances, what do you think?" 

"I think we faired alright," I offer, "Could have been better, but life's good at hitting you right in the kneecaps," 

Bob smiles widely at me, and this time it's me who's looking up. Bob is tall, just like Rhett, but looking up at the man in front of me is so much sweeter. He thrusts his hand out, offering it to me, "Robert Floyd," 

I wrap my hand around his, squeezing, "Birdie Simpson," 

"You two do know that I did this already, right?" Jake interjects. Neither Bob nor I turn to look at the blond, his presence all but forgotten. 

"It's wonderful to finally meet you, Birdie," Bob's voice is smooth, anxiety hidden in the upturn of his smile. God, he's got a nice smile. 

"Likewise, Lieutenant," I stick my tongue out at him playfully, nose scrunched. 

"No, absolutely not," Bob still holds my hand in his, "If this is going to be anything other than friendly acquaintances, you don't get to call me that here," 

"Here?"  The question belongs solely to Jake. 

"Then what can I call you?" It's all mischief. 

"Let's start with Bobby, I quite liked that," He admits, his cheeks flushing again, this time it's gentle. The blush that overtakes his skin isn't out of embarrassment, instead it's out of a new found fondness. I can feel it creeping up on my own skin. 

"Alright, Bobby," 

"It's Robby..." Jake interjects once more, this time earning a glance from Bob.

"Maybe to you and the family, but to Birdie here, it's Bobby," Bob explains, as if he hasn't just decided that fact for himself. "Don't you have to go meet up with the squad and Admiral Kazansky?" 

Its more of a get out of here than it is an actual question. Jake seems to miss the scram message hidden in the kindness of Bob's tone. 

"Uh... Not technically. Everyone is actually going to the Hard Deck. Pops called off the hop. Figured you wouldn't want to be flyin' after this and we couldn't let Phoenix without her back seater," 

At the explanation, I finally pull my eyes from Bob to look at Jake with an unimpressed expression. "What I think Bob's trying to say is get lost," 

"Well, yes. But nicer than that," Bob tries to offer at Jake's open mouthed surprise. 

"I know he talked me down today," I gesture to Jake, "But, I don't think he deserves nice. Have you ever sat next to that man on a plane? God, he bounced his leg the whole time! I thought he was going to buzz right out of his skin," 

"You should hear him over coms while he's actually the only piloting," Bob laughs under his breath, "He's sort of insufferable,"

 "That's not a surprise, but at least Rhett's not up there with you. I was stuck in between the of of 'em the whole damn trip," 

"Oh god, both of them?" Bob asks, his thumb stroking over my own. He still holds my hand, slightly awkwardly over the table but I don't care. In fact, he is so warm and I want him to hold me closer. 

"Both of them," I confirm with a wry smile. 

"In that case, scram Bagman," Bob laughs, hooking his thumb over his shoulder. 

He holds his hands up in defense, "You don't have to tell me twice. I know when I'm not wanted," We watch Jake walk away for a moment before turning back to look at each other once again. 

"I can't believe you grew up with him," I laugh. Bob laughs too, almost like he's in agreement. After the laughter dies down, we stand there in silence for a few moments. In times like this I would usually be counting down the tick of the clock but for once I am totally wrapped up in the present. That's when Bob clears his throat. 

"I owe you an apology," Bob leaves no room for me to brush off his words, "I'm sorry I handled that as poorly as I did. I was caught off guard and then made a fool of myself. I'm not trying to make excuses, I really am sorry, Birdie," At the end of his apology, Bob's eyes slip from my face, a blush taking over his own. 

"Oh Bobby," I squeeze his hand, pulling his gaze back to my own. "You don't need to apologize. That's not how I was expecting things to happen. Jake make the choice and I just let it happen. I think I should be apologizing to you. So, I'm sorry,"

"Apology accepted," Bob smiles.

"Apology accepted," I return. In that moment we settle into the quiet again, but it doesn't last very long. 

"So," Bob starts again, a bit unsure of his words. 

"So?" 

"Do you think we've got a chance at this? The crash and burn beginning behind us?" Bob looks so damn hopeful. I can't help but swoon the second that look it turned down to meet my eyes.

"Let's look at the facts. You're a WSO, so you're already trusting, brilliant, a hard worker. I grew up a Navy brat, so I know what this life looks like. I'm not a stranger to the deployments or the work that has to happen for something like this to work out. I've got no where I have to be, nothing committed to. Hell, I was coming home, technically, the home being where your family is or whatever. And you already know my father, so there's no awkward introduction there. I already know Rhett, and Jake, not to mention I'm just a few members short of having met your whole team. I live out of a fucking duffle bag of fucks sake," The words spill from my mouth with no abandon. Bob just listens, a dopey smile drawn over his lips. "All things considered, I think we've got a good chance. I hear it's all about making the choice to make it all work,"

Its not totally clear if Bob picks up the little joke because the smile on his face hasn't faltered. Neither has his hand, still holding my own, even through my little speech. Carefully, Bob uses his free hand to adjust his frames over his nose so they sit a little bit straighter. 

"What do you say we get out of here? Dinner maybe?" He offers, eyebrows raised. He looks a little nervous. I offer him my nicest smile. "And then we can talk more about all this," 

"That depends, Lieutenant, are you going to wear the flight suit?" I flirt shamelessly. It's met with that confused look that I've already come to recognize, though his head only tilts about fifteen degrees this time. 

"Uh, no? I was going to change before we left," Oh sweet, sweet Bobby. 

"I know," I giggle, "I was flirting with you,"

"Oh," The blush crawls across his skin again. I want to kiss every bit it colors. 

"I can't believe you outed the fact that you have a rank kink in front of your friend and wingman, but you can't pick up when I'm flirting with you," I pull my hand from his, only to hit him playfully in the chest. 

Bob's eyes go wide again, "Oh my god, did I?" 

"You did," I confirm through laughter, watching Bob go from pink to red. "Now go get changed, I've gotta hear more about that," 

"Okay, okay," Bob holds his hands up in defense, walking himself out into the aisle between the tables. "One thing, first," 

"What's that?" Bob just holds his hand out to me, beckoning me into the aisle with him. I take it, rounding around the table to stand in front of him. He is taller now, this close. He looks down at me over the bottom wire of his glasses, a cheeky smile on his features. 

"I'd like to kiss you first, if that's alright," He leans closer and closer with each whispered word. The last thing I see before my eyes slip closed is the still pink tint to Bob's cheeks, the same tint that matches the gentle blush of his sun kissed lips. 

"You better," I mumble, our lips meeting a moment after. Bob's hands snake around my body, fingers threading through the beltloops at the the back of my hips. I wrap my fingers around his collar, clutching onto the fabric, holding him close. The kiss is all gentle, though there is so much warmth taking over my skin from his touch. It burns like new flame, the kind that gives light to the future. To our future, together, tangled in each other's embrace. 

That first kiss is a brand new beginning taking flight. The first beginning I don't want to end. 

TAGLIST

@kmc1989 @inky-sun @harperdoodle @possiblyexisting @eloquentdreamer @ravenwtfbro @jessicab1991 @muddwheelz123

[ontherocks21]

Someday I'll Write It:

Lady Vader Part XII

The Organa-Skywalker administration serves for two full terms, yet the galaxy still begs for a third.

But democracy doesn’t work that way.

Besides, she’s played almost every role she can - Queen, Senator, “Empress In Waiting”, center of a scandal, wife, traitor, rebel, Vice Chancellor -; there’s only one she still wants to.

“Mom, Daaaad!  Luke’s hogging the droid charger!”

Padmé laughs when Anakin slumps over the controls, pretending to die in his pilot's chair when yet another whine echoes through the cockpit.  “How much longer until we drop them off?” he groans.

“Only a few more hours,” she replies.  He increases his decibel for dramatic effect.

“We spend our entire careers securing peace and quiet - well, mostly…” he shrugs considering the validity of his words before continuing with his lamentation. “…for this galaxy, and we don’t even get to enjoy it in retirement.”

Standing and stretching, Padmé reaches over, soothingly patting her husband’s hair.  “At ease, Hero-With-No-Energy.  I’ll get this one.”

Her offer seemingly revives him.  Anakin jumps to his feet, ensnaring her waist and stealing a grateful kiss.  “You’re an angel,” he mumbles against her mouth.

“Mmmmm,” she whispers back.  “So you’ve told me.”

“NO, Lei-uhhhhhhh!” comes the escalating protest from the ship’s lower deck.

Sighing, Padmé backs out of his captive embrace.  “Duty calls.”

“Sounds like you’re in for some aggressive negotiations,” Anakin says, releasing her with a wink.

Padmé pushes onto her toes, pressing her mouth to his once more.  “Good thing I learned from the best.”

******

“I can’t believe we’re finally doing this!”

“I can’t believe we’re twin free for the next few days!”  Despite his contagious exuberance, Anakin hesitates before powering up their speeder, glancing back at the Naberrie’s front door wistfully.

Her heart swells, and she almost glances back herself.  But they didn’t come to Naboo just to visit this time.  Knowing she’ll have to be the strong one, she touches Anakin’s cheek.  “Come on, Ani.  This house won’t find itself.”

The realty droid shows them five residences in and around Theed before Padmé’s eyes light up in the doorstep of the sixth. 

“I have a good feeling about this,” she breathes, threading her fingers through Anakin’s and all but hauling him inside.  His amused chuckle fades into a long, low whistle, punctuated by a soft “Wow.”  Padmé only removes her eyes from the dazzling home to beam at her husband.

And it is indeed a home.

Charming details and cozy corners hide throughout the expanse.  Instead of the usual marble and stone found in most Nabooian designs, dark wood floors and doorways provide anchors for the rest of the trim that runs throughout.  Padmé gasps at the natural light, marvels at the kitchen, and fawns over the patio and courtyard out back.

“Look, Ani!  There’s even space for you to have a workshop!” 

Anakin grins as she babbles on, listing all the amenities present on their wish list until RL-T1 interrupts with something that sounds uncannily like regret.

“This listing has several offers already.  The seller’s request best and finals be made by this evening.”

Furiously, Padmé works the news into their strategy when Anakin steps forward, a dangerous tone in the timbre of his voice.  “Any chance the sellers would like to meet… Oof!”  A swift elbow to his side cuts off the tired threat.

“What is the list price?” she asks calmly.

“One and a half.”

Still rubbing his aching ribs, Anakin glances over at her though she isn’t waiting for his permission.

“Double it,” Padmé says.  “That’s our offer.”

******

Three million credits and three hours later, the Skywalkers celebrate with blesswine on their new patio, lounging on the sandstone as if it was as comfortable as meadow grass.

The sun sinks low on the horizon, but Padmé doesn’t shy away as darkness encroaches on their perfect evening.  She’s come to terms with the black fabrics in their past, cherishes the gloom where they first hid from their passion from the galaxy then hid their rebellion from necessity, has loved in shadow.  It may only be the alcohol warming her veins, but as night descends and the last few rays linger on her husband, Padmé has never seen the son of Tatooine look more stunning than as a father on Naboo.

She hums contentedly, drawing an expression from her husband that has nothing to do with vexation.  “Would my lord care to disturb the peace and quiet of the upstairs in our new home?” she purrs, folding herself into his lap and giggling when Anakin scoops her up, knocking over their tumblers on his way to comply.

“As you wish, M’Lady.”

Image Credit: Eli Hyder

The saga is now complete. Posted on AO3 and FFN in its entirety.

[venus-haze]

I’m On Fire (Yandere!Austin!Elvis x Reader)

Summary: As soon as you moved into the apartment across from the Presleys in Lauderdale Courts, Elvis knew it was love at first sight—or it would have been, if not for your husband. Elvis clings to every interaction with you, finding indications that you’re unhappy with your marriage in anything he can. As his career takes off, he sees less of you, though you’re always on his mind. Just before he and his family move into Graceland, he figures it’s the perfect opportunity to convince you that he can be more than just the guy next door.

Note: This is somewhat based on an anonymous request and Bruce Springsteen’s infamous song I’m On Fire (if you listen to any of the songs I recommend with my fics, please listen to this one). I know some people have been wanting to see a yandere fic from Elvis’ perspective, so this is my attempt at that. Reader is a woman and implied to be the same age as or a little older than Elvis who’s in his 20s in this, but no other descriptors are used. You can imagine any DILF you want for the husband. Please look at the warnings before considering whether or not to read this fic. Do not interact if you are under 18 or post thinspo/ED content.

Word count: 4.5k

Warnings: This is a yandere fic, so expect dark themes such as delusional and obsessive behavior, emotional manipulation, and stalking. Sexually explicit content that involves coercion. Significant age gap, but not between Elvis and Reader. Elvis is a charming, homewrecking creep. Do not interact if you are under 18.

Elvis told himself it was the summer heat that made the sweat drip from his brow when the preacher gave his sermon on the seventh and tenth commandments the Sunday after you and your husband, almost twenty years your senior, moved into the apartment across the hall. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s—but you were perfect, heaven sent, surely the Lord could make an exception. 

His head spun as the preacher continued, shouts of “amen” punctuating every word: Fornication. Adultery. Lust. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee—and never see your perfect face, your dazzling smile, your captivating eyes again. He jolted when a woman behind him yelled, “That’s right, preacher!” Normally he loved going to church, but today, the service couldn’t end soon enough. 

He returned home from church without his mama, who went to get lunch with some of the other ladies from the congregation instead. As soon as he pulled up to Lauderdale Courts, he made a beeline for his apartment, hoping to run into you. Just his luck, your front door was wide open, and you walked out upon hearing him approach. 

“Hi, Elvis,” you smiled, leaning against the doorframe and fanning yourself with the funny pages of Saturday morning’s paper. “How was church?”

“Great,” he lied. “You should come sometime.”

“Oh, I would, but I’ve got so much to do while he’s home on the weekends,” you said, nodding toward your living room, where your exhausted husband was lounging on the couch, looking as if he were about to fall asleep. “His health isn’t always good, him working nights and all.”

Your husband was in his late forties and worked the night shift at a nearby factory, the two of you moving into Lauderdale Courts from a two-room house just outside of Memphis after being on the waiting list for nearly a year. At least, that’s what his mama told him when he came home from work on Thursday, informing him to his chagrin that she’d invited you over during the afternoon, talking for a whole two hours. You were in his home for two hours, and he wasn’t even there.

From the three times Elvis had seen him, including then, your husband looked at least a decade older than he actually was. His worn appearance, with his crow’s feet and graying hair made him look more like your father, which was what he originally assumed when he saw you moving in, nearly falling over when you said that he was your husband of almost a year. 

He wondered what you could see in such a man, surely you couldn’t be happy with him. Your husband had the hands of someone who’d been working his whole life, calloused and rough, while you were so soft and sweet, it made Elvis almost sick to think about that man’s hands on your skin. 

As the next three years went by, Elvis only fell harder for you. While you never expressed so directly, he knew your marriage was strained. You and his mama were close, to his delight, and he’d listen attentively as she’d divulge whatever gossip and updates she had on you. In that time he learned that you had met your husband in New York, a boxing star in his prime and your estranged brother’s former coach, who you naively married in hopes of an exciting life. Instead, his health and finances took a downturn not long after you married him, the two of you moving to Memphis for the lower cost of living. Elvis admired that you stuck by your husband, truly in sickness and health, for rich or for poor, but he didn’t deserve that kind of devotion from you, not when Elvis could treat you so much better. Your husband still worked nights since it paid more, and Elvis’ mama would rant how it wasn’t right for a wife to see so little of her husband. 

Some weeknights, they’d invite you over for dinner, since you were usually alone, and Elvis relished every second of it. You’d sit right next to him, where he caught the scent of your perfume every time you moved. He tested the waters with small gestures, his fingers brushing yours, his hand ‘accidentally’ grazing your knee and then your thigh under the table, pretending you had something on your mouth that he’d wipe away with his thumb, resisting the urge to slip it between your lips. You never objected to any of this, which he took to mean you wanted it, welcomed it even.

One night, around nine, there was a knock at the door, and Elvis got up to answer it. He thought he was dreaming, he had to be. There you were, standing in his doorway in your satin nightgown, your robe hanging off of one shoulder, revealing one of the straps. His breath hitched in his throat when he noticed your nipples poking through the tauntingly thin fabric.

“Elvis, thank goodness, I’m so sorry to bother you this late,” you said bashfully.

“No, you’re no bother, Y/N. Never,” he said, clearing his throat as he tried to keep his gaze on your face.

“Well, I think there’s something wrong with one of the wall sockets in the bedroom. At first I thought it was the lamp, but I replaced the bulb and plugged it in somewhere else and—“

“I’ll take a look at it for ya.”

“Thank you, I know it’s late,” you repeated. “I’d ask my husband to take a look at it, but he’s obviously working.”

So you turned to him. Your husband wasn’t home, and the first person you thought to ask was him. His chest filled with pride at this, at being the provider for you, the man in your life you’d go to when things went wrong. You returned to your place across the hall as he got his toolbox, hastily informing his mama that he had to help you with an electrical problem. 

Your apartment was similar to his, except it had one bedroom instead of two, which you led him to. He got a dirty feeling when he stepped into your bedroom, seeing where you and your husband undoubtedly shared your intimate moments. He stared at the unmade bed, imagining what it’d be like to take you in it, fulfill his husbandly duties to you, his beautiful, devoted wife. 

His attention was soon drawn to you bending over to point out the socket next to the nightstand that was giving you issues, his focus on how good your ass looked even covered by your robe. It took all his willpower to keep his hands balled up in fists at his side instead of reaching out to slap your ass and throw you onto the bed. He’d never felt an urge so primal before, and for the first time in his life, he understood why lust was considered a deadly sin.

“Think you can handle it?” you asked, looking back at him as you were still bent over.

Good Lord. “Yeah,” he nodded, fumbling with his toolbox as he set it on the dresser.

“Alright, I’ll be in the living room,” you said, standing back up. “Let me know if you need anything.”

He mumbled to himself as you left, taking deep breaths to pull himself together. It wasn’t fair, you were perfect, his dream woman, never more than a few feet away but always out of reach. As if your looks weren’t enough, you had similar taste in music and books as him, got along great with his mama, and knew how to keep up a home. 

He could hear the radio playing from the living room and got to work on checking the outlet by the nightstand. It was a simple fix that just required him tinkering with a few wires, nothing he hadn’t done at work before. Still, he had this once in a lifetime opportunity to be in your bedroom, and he knew he had to make it count. 

Biting his lip, his gaze landed on your dresser. He made his way over and grabbed the handle of one of the drawers, opening it slowly, his eyes on the door in case you suddenly came back in. The radio was too loud for you to hear anything, though, as you didn’t notice when he opened a second drawer that squeaked as he pulled it. To his disappointment, the top drawers were mostly filled with junk, but when he opened one of the middle drawers, he hit the jackpot, finding it full of your neatly organized panties. 

The longer he stared at the variety of fabrics and colors in the drawer, the more shallow his breathing became until he reached out, grabbing a pink satin pair and shoving them in his pocket. His fingers grazed the other pairs of panties as he made the drawer look as undisturbed as possible before shutting it. You did it on purpose, you had to have–leaving him to his own devices in your bedroom, subtly dropping the hint that you wanted him too.

He double-checked the socket before gathering his tools, making his way into your living room.

“How’d it go?” you asked, getting up from the couch.

“Building’s old, is all,” he said. “Wires short out sometimes, but you might wanna call the super and get that replaced.”

You nodded. “I don’t have any kids sticking their fingers in sockets to worry about, but I just wanted to be safe.”

“You got plans for any? Kids, I mean?”

You smiled ruefully. “He doesn’t have the energy for that.”

“Havin’ kids?”

“Trying for them.”

Elvis couldn’t come up with a response to your confession. Anger and disbelief blinded him at how ungrateful your husband was. If you were Elvis’ wife, you’d hardly leave the bedroom, he was sure of that much. 

“I’m sorry,” you said in response to his silence. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It’s alright, Y/N.”

“Um, how much do I owe you for fixing the socket?”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Please, I can’t let you leave empty-handed.”

Your panties practically burned through his pocket as he gave you a boyish smile, “Really, Y/N, I’m just glad I was here to help.”

“Okay, well, good night, Elvis. Thank you again.”

You stood on your toes to give him a gentle kiss on the cheek, and he practically floated across the hall to his apartment. As soon as he set his toolbox down, Grandma Dodger asked what the issue at your apartment was that he spent so long over there, but she seemed satisfied enough with his answer. 

He quickly retreated to his bedroom, shoving your panties under his pillow for safekeeping until he went to bed later that night. Of course you never objected to the small touches he gave you, your husband never gave you the attention you needed, emotionally or physically. The next hour or so, all he could think about was you and getting his hands on those panties again. It seemed to drag by until it was late enough for him to not raise suspicion when he bid everyone good night and locked himself in his room.

Grabbing your panties from their hiding place, he sat on his bed, allowing himself to really feel them since he grabbed them from your drawer–silky, smooth, the satin catching the dim light from his window. Did you wear them often? Would you notice they were missing? He spent the rest of the night chewing on his bottom lip or biting his fist, doing anything he could to keep his whimpers soft and low as he came with one hand pumping his hard cock, your stolen panties in the other.

If anyone noticed that he’d been making strange noises all night or had bruised his lower lip, they didn’t say anything when he sat down for breakfast the next morning, thankful he had the day off.  

“That was good of you, helpin’ Y/N out last night, Bewbie. Lord knows she’s got a lot on her hands,” his mama praised as she dished out breakfast. “I don’t know how she does it.”

“Her husband’s a hardworkin’ man,” his daddy said over the morning paper. “Got a lot on his plate too.”

“He leaves the poor thing by her lonesome all the time. It ain’t safe,” his mama insisted. “Lucky I raised my boy right. What if it was some pervert livin’ across the hall over here instead? I don’t even wanna think about it.”

Just then, there was a knock at the door, and his mama walked over to answer it, her demeanor brightening upon seeing you standing there with a covered dish.

“I hope I’m not intruding,” you said.

“Not at all. You hungry? I was just finishin’ cookin’ up breakfast for everyone.”

“Thank you, but my husband should be home in a few minutes. I just wanted to bring these over to thank Elvis for helping me last night.”

“Bewbie!” his mama shouted, making him cringe as he’d requested multiple times for her to not call him that in front of you. “Y/N’s at the door for you!”

He got up from the table, making his way over to the front door. You smiled brightly at him, handing him the plate.

“These just came out of the oven. I hope you like them,” you said as he lifted the tea towel you’d placed on top of the pile of heart-shaped cookies.

“You didn’t have to, Y/N. I’m happy to help.”

You giggled, and he nearly melted. “I wanted to.”

You wanted to make him heart-shaped cookies, even after he stole a pair of your panties. Surely it was a sign that you felt the same way. He just needed to make a move. His elation was crushed when your husband shuffled in from work, muttering a greeting to Elvis and his mama before retreating into the apartment across the hall. You gave them both apologetic smiles, following your husband inside.

When he got signed to Sun Records, you were one of his biggest supporters, buying a copy of ‘That’s Alright’ and asking him to sign it as if he were a big star, and not some small town celebrity. Since your husband worked nights, you were free to accompany his family to his shows, or even attend them on your own. He always made sure you were sitting as close to the stage as possible when he performed, wanting it clear that every love song, every croon, every thrust was for you. Of course, as he recorded more for Sun Records and his songs started to become more popular, he viewed your early support for him as yet more evidence of the love you were secretly harboring for him. 

Things changed when his single became a hit, and suddenly a man who called himself a Colonel had Elvis zig-zagging across the country to play back to back shows for his growing fanbase. It was an exciting time, he had more money than he ever could have dreamed of, got to travel to places he’d only ever read about, he just wished he could share it all with you. Instead, you were back in Memphis with your husband. He could never come up with enough nerve to call you directly, but if you were at his place when he’d call his mama, she’d often put you on the phone with him for a few minutes. Hearing your voice was comforting, but it only made his desire for you that much stronger.

As Elvis’ career continued to ascend, he was only more sure that he could be the husband you deserved. He wanted nothing less than to be your lover who could satisfy every need, scratch every itch, and fulfill every desire. So he’d bed the women who lingered after shows and outside of his motel rooms, all the while pretending they were you. He always promptly kicked them out afterward, not wanting to give any impression that he actually cared about them, not when he had you. Well, it was only a matter of time anyway.

Still, most nights, even if he did have a one night stand earlier in the evening, he’d lie in bed, imagining your soft lips on his cheek again, picturing how perfect you’d look laid out beneath him, crying out in pleasure as he’d take you as his own. He moaned your name, baby, sweetheart, darlin’–anything he could think of as he’d praise your fucked out fantasy self for being so good and taking him so well. He never came as hard with any of the women he’d slept with as he did when he’d get off to the thought of you.

The following mornings, he’d inevitably wake up to his sheets soaking wet and a freight train running through the middle of his head. It was never enough to cool his desire. Despite the release he’d get at the thought of you, he knew it could only hold him over for so long. He needed the real thing. He needed you. From what you’d revealed to him that night he fixed the socket in your bedroom, you needed him too.

When he bought Graceland with the money that was pouring in from his first album sales, one of his first thoughts was getting you inside the place and making it your home, together–after christening every available surface, of course. He excitedly presented the mansion to his family members, who had varying degrees of enthusiasm on their faces, which frustrated him because it was for them too, but he knew you would love it, clearly picturing the excited smile you’d have on your face when you saw Graceland.

He arrived back at Lauderdale Courts to help pack for the move, the first time he’d been home in what felt like years. Though Graceland was ready to be moved in, his family still needed time to get everything in order, and figured they’d be ready by the end of the week to join him there. You were leaning against the doorframe of your apartment, a smile on your face as you watched him approach.

“Hey Mr. Bigshot,” you greeted him teasingly, causing a blush to creep across his cheeks. At least the blood rushed to his face and not his—

“Hi Y/N,” he said. “How’ve you been?”

“The same as usual. I’ve missed you. How long are you in town for?” you asked.

You missed him. He tried not to let his mind race at how you probably spent your lonely, restless nights in a similar state of longing and desperation as him. “I missed you too, Y/N,” he said. “I’ll be here for a few weeks, but uh, we’re actually movin’ soon. I bought a place.”

“Congratulations,” you smiled, but he noticed the sadness in your eyes, surely it matched his when he told you that he’d be moving. “Hopefully you’ll invite me over when you get settled. I’d love to see it.”

“You’ll be the first person I bring over,” he promised.

“I only hope whoever moves in are half as nice as you and your family have been,” you sighed. “It won’t be the same without you.”

“Yeah,” he agreed softly, “it won’t be the same without you.”

Later that night, as his mama fussed over packing up the apartment, directing his daddy on what to put where, Elvis sat on the couch, his stomach in knots. He should be excited to move into the home of his dreams, the house his family deserved, but without you, would it ever feel like home? He weakly brushed off Grandma Dodger’s concerns, asking him what was wrong. Immediately, his mama turned to look at him, and he said that he was just tired from the trip back to Memphis and would head to bed early.

It was one thing being on the road and not seeing you every day, but at least you were in close enough proximity to his family to keep his mind at ease. Now you’d be a few miles away instead of across the hall. He felt his heart lurch at the thought of slowly but surely losing touch with you, as so often happened among families that moved out of Lauderdale Courts. As he ran through the conversation he’d just had with you over and over in his head, ‘hoping to visit’ turned into ‘please take me with you.’ 

You were practically begging him to make his move, and now he finally had the leverage to. He could provide for you the way your husband couldn’t, spoil and appreciate you the way you should be. You wanted him to take you away from all of this, he was more sure of that than ever. Sure, spiriting away a married woman to his shiny new mansion wouldn’t do much to bolster his already dubious reputation, but what was bad press to finally having you all to himself?

Later that night, when everyone else was asleep, he snuck out, taking a few steps across the hall to your apartment door. He banged his fist against it, surely waking you up if you had already fallen asleep. He noticed the light turn on from the crack under the door, and you opened it, looking a bit dazed.

“I have to talk to you, Y/N,” he said, before you could say anything. “Can I come in?”

You nodded, moving out of the way for him to enter your apartment. Closing the door behind you, he caught you in his intense gaze. 

“Is everything okay, Elvis?” you asked softly.

“No, it’s not,” he answered. “We’ve been dancin’ around this for three and a half years now, but we don’t gotta pretend anymore.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I love you, Y/N. I know you feel the same way about me, but we can be together now. I got Graceland ready for us, you can pack your things, and we can leave tomorrow, even.”

You looked at him with a bewilderment he expected, since you’d probably repressed your feelings for him so much. “I—Elvis, I’m married. My husband—“

“Ain’t providin’ the life you deserve. Ain’t lovin’ you how you should be loved,” he whispered, his lips hovering over yours. “When was the last time he made you feel good, baby?”

Your soft moan when his hands ghosted over your breasts was enough of an answer for him.

“Such a shame, a perfect body like yours don’t get worshiped night and day,” he purred, pleased as to how receptive you were when his hands drifted lower, like he’d only ever imagined before. When he pressed his lips to yours, it was like a wildfire spread across his body. How was your husband not addicted to the feeling of your lips? 

“He don’t deserve you, darlin’.”

“He needs me,” you weakly protested.

He played with the hem of your nightgown, his fingertips brushing your thighs. He had you almost exactly where he wanted you, he couldn’t give up yet. “Tell me what you need, baby.”

You whimpered, shame laced in your voice as you answered. “I need you to touch me. It’s been so long since I—“

His lips were on yours with more fervor than before as the two of you stumbled down the hall into your bedroom. Shedding clothes every few steps until you were in just your panties–lavender satin–by the time you were actually in the bedroom. Suddenly, you became shy, a bit hesitant again, until he hooked his fingers in the waistband of your panties, causing you to gasp as he pulled them down slowly.

“Lord have mercy,” he mumbled upon seeing your naked body in all its glory. Just as he suspected for all this time, his fantasies didn’t do you justice. 

He took his time with you, fondling your breasts and kissing your face and neck. He supposed he had underestimated how desperate you really were, because you tugged at his hair, which made him groan in pleasure at the feeling.

“Elvis, please,” you whined. “Do something, anything.”

“I got you, baby. I’ll take care of you,” he whispered, kissing you once more before pressing kisses down your body, his fingers playing with your clit as he bit and sucked on your skin until, finally, his face was between your legs.

You threw your head back as he licked a stripe up your wet pussy, a moan coming from deep within you at the feeling. “Oh my god, whatever you’re doing, don’t stop.”

Goddamn, the old man had never even gone down on you. Elvis flicked his tongue against your clit, slipping his fingers inside you. He swore he’d never heard a sound as pretty as you crying in pleasure in his life, especially as his name fell from your lips. You reached down, grabbing a fistful of his hair and pressing his face closer against your aching cunt. A groan rumbled from his chest at the sensation, making you buck your hips involuntarily. 

Using his free hand to hold down your hips, he took a moment to look up at you, your face overcome with pleasure, eyes screwed shut as tears rolled down your cheeks. You were so, so close. As much as Elvis admired the view, he’d promised to take care of you, and after another minute or so of him playing with your clit and pumping his fingers in and out of you, you came with a moan so loud it could have been easily mistaken for a scream. It made him drunk on pride as everyone would know he was the one who made you feel that way. No one else.

He lifted his head from your pussy, and you nearly choked as you watched him lick your juices off of his lips. Leaning over you, he studied your face, while you took deep, shaky breaths as you looked at him with blown-out eyes. He wished he had a camera with him to capture the moment, but there’d be so many more. 

“Is he good to you? Can he do to you the things that I do?” he asked, caressing your cheek.

You whimpered, leaning into his touch. “No, only you.”

Elvis grinned, knowing he’d be calling you a divorce lawyer and moving you into Graceland in the morning. 

Taglist: @eliseinmemphis @kittenlittle24 @crash-and-cure @im-lame-irl​ @loudwombatmugkid​ @rxsesss​ @roseymary04​ @queendelrey​ @jovialladyaurora​ @positivitylane112​ @moonknightswif3​ @holy-minseok​ @datsavageavenger​ @21bruhs​ @luckyevansstan​ @djsjs13949 @butlerslut​ @ash-omalley​ @powerofelvis​ @sad-bisexual-bitch​ @peachy-deaths​ @kibumslatina​ @adoreyouusugar​ @raefoxiegirl​ 

[finnpeach]

Dude kneel was my favorite fic on the face of the earth. If you don’t want anything to do with it it totally respect that but I hope someday you’ll rewrite or repost it. I read it so much I nearly had it memorized

Hey do you wanna get married or something? Because this is the best compliment ever and I never stopped thinking about it. Sorry, I know you sent me this months ago but I finally got the motivation to dig through my docs and hit copy and paste. FIND KNEEL BELOW! JUST FOR YOU!

Kneel

Please enjoy my fleabag-inspired Vashwood AU, where Wolfwood is a disillusioned priest with the kink and Vash is a secret angel. Something about having a cold tears down his defences that he’s not just a normal human, and Wolfwood starts to catch on.

The church is remarkably cold today, Wolfwood thinks, as he walks towards the pulpit.  The air has a chilly bite to it and sends a shiver down his spine. He will have to ask Milly to distribute blankets to the parishioners for the next time, lest they start getting complaints.

Fifty pairs of eyes follow him from the pews, holding their stare as the entrance song rings across the stone walls. Nobody is excited to see him delivering the mass today. 

“Father Wolfwood? He’s all right, a bit rough around the edges. He seems dissuaded by the spirit these days. Maybe he needs to go on a religious sabbatical.”

It is true that he has been a bit, well, bored, lately. He delivers the same Mass every Sunday. Receives the same sort of confessionals every day. Baptises the same type of wriggling babies. Attends the same standard of funerals. He has completely lost his motivation, his provocation, for the spirit. Maybe he is in the wrong line of work.

 His black robe sweeps around his ankles. Were it not for the organ and the singing, he would hear it, swish swish swishing beneath him like its own prayer.

The entrance song comes to a close as he places his bible on the pulpit. He prefers his own, rather than the church’s large scripture. He can make notes this way and scribble drawings of a burning bush, or a ridiculously large boat with two of every animal. 

With careless fingers, he opens the bible and clears his throat. His earthy brown eyes lazily scan the crowd, the forthcoming speech stirring in his mind like old bones coming to life. 

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Wolfwood’s voice echoes throughout the church. He opens his palms towards the ceiling, as he always does.

“Amen,” the church replies.

Wolfwood delivers the greeting speech with practised boredom. He wishes something would happen. Please God, if you are even out there, save me from this mundanity.

His tongue forms the final words. “The Lord be with you.”

“And also with you,” comes the echo of the crowd.

“Please be seated.” Wolfwood nearly yawns. He closes his eyes, feigning spiritual enlightenment.

“And also with you.” One singular voice breaks the silence within the church.

Wolfwood’s eyes shoot open. He hadn’t expected his joke of a prayer, to be saved from this mundanity, to be answered so soon. Forty nine other pairs of eyes turn to see who has just spoken up. 

He pinpoints him immediately. Spikey blonde hair. Undercut. His cheeks are pink with embarrassment. His nose, too. Tall, red coat. Glasses. Sheepishly grinning and sitting down to escape everyone’s gaze. 

Also an idiot, apparently.

Wolfwood has never seen him here before. A surprised smile twitches at the corner of his lips, taken aback, the sluggish boredom replaced with renewed vigour. 

He continues with the rest of the sermon, his heart suddenly beating in tandem with the rhythm of his words. Something about this blonde man’s eyes watching him (they’re blue, even from behind the pulpit, Wolfwood can see that they shine like sapphires) lights a fire in him. He has not felt like this since he first started studying scripture.

At some point, towards the end of Mass, he hears someone sniffling. Thick, wet sniffs that punctuate the silence around his speech. This was to be expected, though, considering how cold the church is. Wolfwood is not able to tell who it is until his eyes land, once again, on the blonde stranger. 

He is the one sniffling. His nose is pink, like an English rose, and he keeps rubbing at it. He should just blow his nose and get it all over with. 

Considering the sniffling, it was also only a matter of time until the sneezing commenced.

“...all the glory and honour is yours, forever and ever,” Wolfwood concludes.

“Amen,” the crowd replies.

“H’ihZTSHsHh’UE!” 

The sneeze echoes off the stone walls of the church. Luckily, the organist begins playing, muffling the sound of the next sharp, wet sneeze.

“-- eh’TDhSHhh’ieW!” 

Wolfwood searches the parishioners to see where the sneezes came from. The likeliest suspect is the same spikey, sniffly stranger from earlier, and Wolfwood is correct in his assumption. 

Warm, liquid heat fills his veins like syrup. The man is bent forward in the pew with elbows on his knees. He tends to his dripping nose with a pathetic piece of tissue and looks absolutely miserable. Does he have a cold? Why is Wolfwood’s heart beating so fast, just from looking at him? It is as though he is looking at an angel, something holy, even though the man is just suffering through a cold. Maybe Wolfwood should–

“Father? Wolfwood?” Milly’s voice pulls him out of his thoughts. The young woman is standing next to him with the box of wafers and wine in her hand. 

“Are you okay? I’ve been trying to get your attention. We’re ready to start the communion rite.”

“Ah.” Wolfwood shakes his head, hoping it will rid his mind of the man’s pink nose. He needs to focus. “Right. Sorry. Let’s go.”

He takes the box of wafers from her hand, or the body of Christ. How can Christ’s body be in these pathetic little wafers? He should at least be in a 12 ounce wagyu steak, that would be more fitting. Wolfwood thinks. He does not suppose the church could write off wagyu beef for expenses, though.

He stands in front of the pulpit as people begin to line up to receive the body and blood of Christ. Milly pours the wine while Wolfwood hands them the wafers with practised apathy. The Body of Christ, Amen. The Body of Christ, Amen. The Body of Christ–

His indifference is dispelled when the man in the red coat suddenly appears before him. 

Wolfwood swallows. His throat is tight against his priest’s collar. They are probably the same height, yet the blonde appears a little shorter because he’s tucking his chin down slightly. The position allows him to gaze up at Wolfwood with sparkling blue eyes.

“Father,” the man says courteously, his tongue grazing against his bottom lip. It leaves his lips wet, similar to his nose, which, now that Wolfwood is closer, is actually an irritated shade of red. 

Wolfwood ignores the shiver that electrifies his body as he repeats the word like a chant in his head. Father. Father. Father.

“The Body of Christ,” Wolfwood says, his tongue thick in his mouth as he raises the wafer.

“Amen,” the other replies softly, never once breaking eye contact.

He expects the blonde man to hold out his hand and take the wafer, like everyone else has, but instead he drops open his mouth slightly and allows his pink tongue to slide out of his mouth, resting against his pillowy bottom lip.

He continues to gaze up at Wolfwood expectantly.

Gritting his teeth, the priest places the wafer on the tip of the believer’s tongue. He feels like he is buzzing with electricity. The man lifts his tongue, slightly, so slightly, so that it touches the tip of Wolfwood’s finger as he places the wafer.

Shocked, Wolfwood draws his hand back as quickly as one does when they touch a hot stove. The moisture settles into his skin like venom.

Warmth stirs in his abdomen. The man draws his tongue back into his mouth, letting the wafer disintegrate on his tongue. He gives Wolfwood a small smile and a wink. 

Wolfwood cannot seem to break eye contact with the stranger as he exits the line and the next parishioner steps forward. He has to remind himself to look away, to focus on the person in front of him.

He flexes his hand that had been touched by the man’s tongue and ignores the heat bubbling inside him. The priest readies the next wafer.

“The Body of Christ.”

“Amen,” the woman replies and holds out her hand.

***

After the service, Wolfwood walks behind the church to smoke. It is a quiet spot and overlooks the cemetery, and few parishioners tend to bother him back here.

That is, until today.

He lights the cigarette between his lips and leans his head back against the freezing stone wall. He lets his eyes slip shut as he battles with his own detachment for this place. At least it is quiet and peaceful out here– 

“Hi.”

Wolfwood jolts at the sound, his heart ricocheting around his chest like a bullet. To his right is the blonde parishioner with the pink nose, the same from earlier. How did he know about his hiding spot?!

He bites his cigarette and glares at him as he tries to slow the hammering in his chest.

“Fucking hell, you almost gave me a heart attack! Do you just sneak up on everyone like that?!”

“Oh, sorry.” The stranger looks genuinely surprised and apologetic, and maybe a little shocked to hear a priest swearing. He gives Wolfwood a gentle smile, the kind that would make anyone trust him immediately. Wolfwood feels himself grow even more on edge. 

“I thought you heard me coming. I just wanted to say that your service was really great.”

Wolfwood huffs a laugh. “Don’t usually get compliments like that these days. Thanks.”

The man cocks his head to the side and lifts an eyebrow. He looks a bit like a puppy tilting its head.

“Why not?”

“Mmm,” Wolfwoof hums. “It’s not important.” He waves his hand at him, as if to shake away the topic. “Anyway, is this your first time here, blondie?”

The man does not seem bothered by the nickname. In fact, it makes his smile grow.

“Yes, I just moved here. I volunteered a lot at my previous church and wanted to do the same here. I thought I’d come find you to ask about any help you may need.”

Wolfwood snorts. “Really? We usually only get delinquent kids that need community service time comin’ around here to help out.” He takes a long drag of his cigarette and angles the smoke away from the man.

“You got a name?”

“Vash.”

Vash. “Wolfwood. Nice to meet ya.” Wolfwood puts his cigarette between his lips and offers his hand, which Vash kindly refuses, holding his hands up to his chest with his palms facing the priest. 

“Ahh, you probably don’t want to shake hands with me. I have a bit of a cold,” he says, grinning abashedly. “Sorry if my sneezing messed up your sermon today. I didn’t want to get anyone else sick, so I sat in the back.”

Yeah, so Vash could sneeze all over everyone in front of him? He really is a bit of a moron. But Wolfwood is lucky he was not sitting up front, sneezing as he was, otherwise he would have had a boner for the whole church to see. 

“Hm. Are you an angel, or somethin’? Like actually.” Wolfwood tucks his chin forward and looks at him from over the rim of his glasses. This man is far too nice for his own good.

“What do you mean?” Vash has not stopped smiling since they started talking, and his smile has only stretched, as if he is surprised by being called an angel. The question clearly makes him nervous even though Wolfwood was just teasing.

“I mean – you’re sick as hell, and came to Mass just so you could ask about volunteering, and you’re at least considerate about being sick. What’s the catch? You hiding something?”

“N-no! I just like helping my community, thahh…”

Wolfwoof watches as Vash’s hands steeple over his nose, anticipating the inevitable. Fuck, stop staring.

But he cannot. Vash’s pretty blue eyes pinch shut and his golden eyelashes catch in the sun like a flame. His lips draw back over his teeth to reveal sharp canines as his pale hands rise up to tent his nose. 

“H’ahDZSh’hue!-- huh.. h’uhDThSCH’ue!” He stays bent forward for a millisecond, eyes shut, as if expecting another. When a third does not come, he rights himself and looks at Wolfwood again with a sharp sniffle. 

The priest watches as one of Vash’s pink, damp nostrils closes with the sniff but the other does not. Ah, so he’s congested. 

Wolfwood cannot pinpoint it, but the atmosphere seems brighter, lighter, now. He could have sworn he saw a little golden halo of light flash around Vash’s head when he sneezed, but maybe the sun is just playing tricks on him.

Once again, the priest’s collar is tight around his throat as he swallows. He is suddenly grateful for the extra fabric in his robe and he just hopes that it is covering the emerging hard on.

“God bless you.” 

“Snff!.. Thangks.” Vash smiles brightly again, like the blessing has just renewed him. Maybe he is just a religious weirdo. “Might be a while udntil I can volunteer, though.” He laughs a little and Wolfwood swears he hears wind chimes rustle on a nearby tree. Which is odd, because there is not a single breeze in the air. 

“No kidding.” Wolfwood kicks his foot up against the wall of the church. “We don’t have anything going on yet, but we’ll do a winter clothing drive soon. Milly’s setting it up, though, so I’d talk to her.”

“A winter clothing drive… Perfect, I’ll go talk to her about it then. I also wondered—“ Vash steps closer so that they are only a foot apart. Wolfwood’s skin shivers as he comes closer, as if someone has just placed a cold hand on his back. The blonde lowers his voice even though they are alone.

“— is there someone I could talk to? I’ve been… I suppose, going through a difficult time, but—“

Wolfwood holds up his hand to stop him. “We offer confessionals and counselling sessions at specified times, and I’m on break right now.”

“Oh, I’m very sorry—“ His smile breaks for the first time. Did a cloud just cover the sun?

“But—” Wolfwood keeps his hand up but places his fingers down so only his index remains up. “You are welcome by my office at any time. Or in my hiding spot. If you bring a few beers, we can have a proper chat.” 

Vash grins again, and suddenly the cloud passes. Light floods around them like a shining beacon. Wolfwood thinks it must be a coincidence.

“That would be great.”

“No wine coolers. I don’t drink that sissy shit.” Wolfwood puts his cigarette out on the stone wall of the church and pinches the butt between his fingers. Milly has told him off for cursing around the parishioners before, apparently it’s not very “professional”.

“Oh, so you’re a cool, swear-y priest, are you?” Vash’s voice is teasing, light, and airy. Wolfwood could have this back and forth for hours.

“All the best are.” Wolfwood cannot help but grin. Finally, some appreciation around here.

“Thank you, Father. I’ll come by sometime.” Vash gives him a small wave goodbye and walks away.

The last thing Wolfwood sees is the end of his red coat gliding around the corner. Why does he feel so good right now, after just a short conversation with Vash? Something inside him feels light again, as if he could walk on air and watch the world below. 

Father, Father, Father. 

*** 

Vash rounded the corner as calmly as he possibly could, until he was out of sight from Wolfwood. Then he broke out into a sprint and ran far and fast, away from the church and away from anyone who might have seen his drop in disguise. He probably looked quite insane, running in jeans and combat boots and a red coat, and many humans stopped to give him a strange look.

His legs carried him as far as a secluded park. His cold, this silly thing that humans caught and were weakened by, made it difficult for him to catch his breath,

That had been close. Too close, Nai would say, you’re going to compromise your true nature if you keep it up.

And to that, Vash would say, It’s okay! Why does it matter if they find out that we’re angels? Aren’t we supposed to be helping them, anyway? Maybe knowing who we are will help them understand!

Nai would roll his eyes, and he would either leave it at that, or lecture him on how helpless humans were, how exposing their true divinity would ruin the humans, how their entire world could be undone if he so much as stuck a wing out of line.

Deep down, Vash knew his brother was a little bit right, but he was a little bit wrong, too. Wolfwood understood, and he was not helpless.

He had been assigned to this particular priest by Nai. Another priest who’s lost his way, Vash. Just go down there and perform a few miracles and he’ll be back on track.

Most priests were not particularly beautiful, or fun to be around. They were often old, or too serious. But Wolfwood was a different story entirely. He was tall, and very handsome. He had had an interesting childhood, based on the report Nai had given him, and had lived in an orphanage for most of his life. According to his profile, he tends to be blasphemous, unruly, prideful, lazy, and even lustful. Vash, as his assigned angel, would have to set him on the path towards holy righteousness again. 

It seemed he had become disillusioned with religion in the previous years, and needed divine intervention to get back on track. Easy enough. Vash would swoop in there, perform a few miracles, and then leave. It should be simple.

Except, it was not. Vash’s heart had hammered in his chest like a rabbit beneath a hawk’s shadow when he first laid eyes on Wolfwood. The priest’s robe was tight against his chest, the black and white collar wrapped around his throat, and a small silver cross hanging by a silver chain around his neck. 

Despite his immediate attraction for the priest, the visit had still gone (somewhat) according to plan. Wolfwood sensed Vash’s presence and felt the spirit during his service, and as such, the Mass improved. At the end, he had heard snippets of other parishioners gossiping about how much better the service had been, how much more enigmatic Wolfwood had been.

The only hiccup was this cold. He had caught it in the days leading up to his visit with Wolfwood. It is unusual for angels to catch colds, but certainly not unheard of. Being on Earth, surrounded by unholiness and sin, made him more susceptible to illnesses. When Vash woke up the morning of his visit with an ache in his throat and a stuffiness in his sinuses, he was not the least bit surprised.

Now that he’s in the park, he can stretch out a bit. He wanders deeper into the woods until he arrives at a clearing. The hills extend for miles, with trees dotting the perimeter. No one will see, and if they do, he can just fly away.

Vash removes his coat and allows his wings to stretch out, a pleasurable shiver running down his spine as they extend from between his shoulder blades. Ah, much better. 

He lays down in the grass and stares up at the sky. Wolfwood knew he was hiding something. He had even called him an angel. 

The opportunity to think further about it is interrupted by the same spark in his sinuses as earlier. His nose scrunches in retaliation, lips drawing back over his teeth to reveal sharp canines, and he twists to the side.

“H’ddYZSHhue! ‘ihHTSCHhhyiewhh!” The contagious mist catches in the sunlight, a clear testament to how wet the sneezes were. He sniffles pathetically and rubs harshly at his nose with the heel of his hand. 

That had been another thing Vash had noticed about Wolfwood’s lust. He liked this particular bodily sensation, and had paid special attention when Vash did it in the church. How funny, that he likes something so delicate and simple. Vash thinks.

The angel rolls back on his spine and sighs. He feels like he knows so much, yet so little at the same time. 

***

Four days later, and the mundanity of his line of work has returned. Vash has not been seen in the church since the last Mass, and Wolfwood has to admit that he misses his presence. 

This particular priest hates confessionals most of all. He is not interested in hearing about people’s sins, nor does he particularly care to comfort them, but it is sometimes interesting to hear the latest bit of church gossip. For example, when someone with a recognisable voice comes in and confesses they stole something from their neighbour, who also happens to be a church member, and now Wolfwood knows about the old lady thievery drama between Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Downy. Or, when a certain (Mrs. Downy, of course) hardly anonymous churchgoer confesses that she slept with a married man (Mr. Jones), and the wife (Mrs. Jones) doesn’t know. Those days are the most interesting.

He has a feeling, though, that today will be a slow day, full of people who actually want to confess their boring sins and feel better about themselves when he tells them they’re forgiven.

Beside him, the curtain swishes on the other confessional box as someone steps through it. 

It begins. Wolfwood yawns. The confessional sits down.

Wolfwood continues slouching, bored. He tugs on his priest’s collar and hopes this will be done quickly. It only takes the sound of a familiar voice to suddenly make him sit upright and at attention.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

Blondie.

“It has been… um…” Vash trails off, and Wolfwood swears he can see him counting on his fingers through the screened partition. Seriously?

“It has been, um… Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever confessed, actually. So I guess that’s the first sin. But here are my sins.” He sniffles a couple times. Is something bothering his nose? Is he still sick?

Wolfwood’s throat is tight. What could this goody two shoes possibly have to confess about? Did he hug someone too hard and give them a bad back? Did he give some crying child an ice cream, and then that kid turned out to be diabetic?

“I’ve fallen in love. And it’s a bit unconventional.”

Wolfwood rolls his eyes. He gets about a hundred “I’m gay” confessionals every week. And he didn’t have to guess that Vash was, either. 

This is a waste of a confessional. Though, maybe he’ll get some more intel on who Vash is in love with. Wolfwood was really hoping that he was single. Not that he should, though, since his like of work forbids it.

“Well, the Lord loves all his children, regardless of their preferences. Despite what you may have heard.” He leans his head against the wooden wall, aching for a cigarette. He really does not care to reassure people about their sexuality. A hole is a hole. What is even more annoying is the combination of these confessionals and finding out his new love interest is already in love with another. 

Vash gives a small chuckle. “No, no, it’s not that. It’s unconventional because of his… line of work, I suppose.”

Wolfwood pauses. Line of work. “Could you elaborate?”

Vash is quiet for a moment. The silence hangs delicately in the air.

“He’s a priest.”

Something inside Wolfwood shatters like glass.  

Wolfwoof says nothing for an instant. He hears Vash’s congested, snuffly breathing, which has started getting louder. Is he nervous?

“I’m sorry. That was stupid. Forget I said anything.”

Wolfwood stares at the floor ahead of him. 

“Wolfwood? Are you there? Please say something.” His voice cracks, desperate.

Wolfwood closes his eyes and leans his head back. Some sort of feeling takes over him again, filling him with the same magnetic spirituality as it did in Mass when Vash had his eyes on him. He relinquishes himself. 

“Kneel,” he says, softly. He should not be doing this.

“What?”

“Kneel.” He should not be doing this.

Wolfwood waits to hear Vash sink down to the floor before he rises from his seat. He silently slips out of his own side, then stands outside of Vash’s curtain for a beat. His heart hammers in his chest like a drum. Do not open the curtain. Do not open the curtain.

He tugs back the curtain and they meet each other’s gaze. Vash is kneeled on the floor, hands pathetically folded in his lap, eyes wet. His nose is still pink, a sure sign he has not shaken his cold yet. His eyes, fuck, his big blue eyes, look up at him so softly.

Vash staring up at him like this, like he is an answered prayer, makes him feel alive. Perhaps what he is about to do is acceptable in God’s eyes, if Vash is looking at him so religiously.

Wolfwood takes a knee and allows his hand to glide over Vash’s jaw, his thumb resting against the base of his ear. His skin is warm. Vash breathes through his mouth, lips slightly parted. His eyes search Wolfwood’s, darting from his lips, to his eyes, to his hand resting against his face. He looks angelic.

Vash is the first to break the spell, when he sees Wolfwood struggling too. He leans forward and kisses Wolfwood, careful at first, light. Much too cautious for Wolfwood’s taste. A match strikes within the priest at the taste of his lips and he deepens the pressure in turn. 

He pulls Vash to his feet as their lips strike against each other. Pushing and pulling. It is all Wolfwood, at first, on the offence, with Vash pathetically accepting. At the feel of Wolfwood’s hand on his hip, his fingers digging into his skin, he presses forward, parrying each of Wolfwood’s kisses with his own. 

They stop suddenly when Vash presses his hand to Wolfwood’s chest.

“Wait,” he says. He is breathing hard. “I still have a cold.”

“Like I give a fucking shit about that. Come here.” 

Wolfwood is not going to stop now. He steps into the confessional box and closes the curtain behind them, then wraps his hands around the back of Vash’s thighs to pick him up. Vash yelps a bit in surprise but is quickly placated when he finds himself on Wolfwood’s lap, seated in the confessional booth.

“This… Kissing a priest, in a church. Won’t he get mad?” Vash asks between kisses. His hand is warm against Wolfwood’s neck, the other is knotted in his black hair.

“Who?” Shut up and just keep kissing me, he thinks. Vash’s lips taste like golden honey, and each time they drift away, Wolfwood is left wanting more.

“God.”

Wolfwood snickers. “What’re you, his secretary?” 

Something about that causes Vash to pause, and he takes a second to come up with something clever to get Wolfwood off his trail.

“Aren’t you, technically?”

“Touché.” He presses a soft kiss to Vash’s lips. “If you don’t tell on me, I won’t tell on you. It’ll be our little secret.”

Wolfwood is growing harder with Vash in his lap, and the way he keeps pulling away to sniffle and rub at his nose is not helping. He is too far gone to care anymore. Each time he turns his head away, Wolfwood gives him a moment to recover before gripping his fingers in Vash’s blonde hair and tugging him back. He is impatient, restless. It is a combination of breaking his vows as a priest in the holiest place he could possibly break them, and the sensation of Vash sitting atop his cock.

His lips find Wolfwood’s neck and begin making deep, dark bruises above the collar. A gentle moan unwillingly escapes him at the sensation. He does not think it can get much better until Vash’s breath starts to hitch. His breath staggers against Wolfwood’s lips, and he almost mistakes it for pleasure, until Vash is pitching forward against Wolfwood’s shoulder, sneezing right against the collar of his robe.

“Hih’DHhSHHh’YUE!” The mist coats half of Wolfwood’s throat. He grits his teeth to avoid moaning.

“Suhh.. Sorry…” Vash breaths, then– “--eh’IDTSHhhyIEW!” His pink, twitching nose presses against the crook of Wolfwood’s neck again, and Wolfwood swears he saw a halo around his head again.

“What was that?”

“What?” Vash asks, leaning back to wipe at his nose with the side of his index finger.

“That thing you just did. The light. What was it? Where’d it go?”

Vash looks stunned. “I… I don’t–”

The sound of footsteps echoing against the tiled floor of the church causes them both to freeze. Wolfwood clamps his palm over Vash’s mouth, his other hand steadying the other’s lower back.

The other curtain draws back and someone steps in and sits down. Fuck.

“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.”

Wolfwood stays silent, lost for words, until Vash pokes him in the ribs.

“Pl-please continue.” Wolfwood’s throat is as dry as sandpaper. Vash watches him like a hawk.

“It has been two years since my last confession. Since then I have lied, cheated on my wife, and…”

Wolfwood feels Vash’s lips part against his palm and his breath hitches. Oh, fuck no. He glares up at Vash and sees his nose twitching against the side of his fingers.

‘Don’t you dare.’ Wolfwood mouths, baring his teeth at him.

Vash shakes his head and pinches his eyes shut. His hands grab onto Wolfwood’s shoulders.

“... I have used drugs, and alcohol, and been blasphemous…”

Jesus, this guy needs to wrap it up. Wolfwood can only focus on Vash right now, the way he feels against his cock, how he so desperately needs to sneeze. 

The man keeps droning on and Wolfwood feels like he is in hell. He presses his hand tighter around Vash’s mouth. If this guy catches them, he is definitely going to lose his job. 

“H’ih…”

‘Blondie!’ Wolfwood mouths, but it is useless. He removes his hand from Vash’s mouth and wraps it around the back of Vash’s head, tugging him forward just as Vash’s chest expands one last time.

“Heh’idZSHhh’yue!” Wolfwood presses Vash’s face against the crook of his neck, but not quickly enough to muffle the first sneeze. They echo around the confession box and the church.

“ih-CHSHhh’ue! ihGKTSHhhIEW!” Each sneeze bursts a mist of successive spray against Wolfwood’s neck. This, he thinks, must be some sort of baptism.

Once Vash has finally stopped sneezing, he rests his forehead against Wolfwood’s shoulder and sniffles thickly, making little congested sounds that do not help their situation.

“Uh… Bless you, Father Wolfwood,” the man says, pausing his confession. Wolfwood is about to open his mouth, deliver the prayer of Absolution and get him out of here, when Vash decides to speak up instead.

“Thank you!” Vash chirps, and his stupid voice is so remarkably different from Wolfwood’s that the man goes silent. If Wolfwood could see the man, he’d imagine that his jaw would be hanging open.

Wolfwood will beat Vash’s ass later, most certainly. For now, he just wraps his hand around Vash’s jaw to shut him up before turning back to the confessionary.

“Apologies, I caught a cold and my voice is going. God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son…”

He finishes the prayer of Absolution and sends the man on his way. When he’s gone, Wolfwood all but kicks Vash out of the confessional booth.

“‘Thank you’?!”

“He blessed me!” Vash rubs his ass as he stands up. Ouch, the church tiles are painful to land on.

“No, he blessed me, you dumbass. You’re lucky he’s only marginally dumber than you so he won’t tell the whole church I was fucking the blonde in the confessional box!”

“I’m sorry, I had to sneeze,” Vash whines as he dusts off his jeans. He stares at Wolfwood with those big, dumb, blue puppy eyes again, and it makes Wolfwood groan and pinch the bridge of his nose.

“I’m going to hell. Get out of my church.” He is too mad to remember the golden ring of light around Vash’s head when he sneezed. He just wants Vash out of here so he can forget this ever happened.

“I’ll be in Mass tomorrow.”

“Oh, no, you are never allowed in here again.” Wolfwood shakes his head at him and points towards the door. 

“Why not?”

“Because–” I’ll fall in love with you, I’ll break my faith, I’ll do worse things to you than just kiss you in a confessional booth. “Because. Just go.”

Vash gives him a parting look, as if he has something he wants to say, but he says nothing. He just nods and sulks out of the church. 

Unfortunately everything seems a bit dimmer once he is gone. Wolfwood sighs and rubs the back of his neck as he walks toward his office, feeling listless again. Somehow, though, he knows deep in his heart that Vash will come back, and they will both make the same mistake all over again.

[frownyalfred]

hi res,, im a huge, huge fan of your fics and i've been scrolling through your tumblr for the last hours/day while falling in and out of a weird stomach pain that is totally ruining my winter break! i also don't really know how tumblr works but i had to express my love for you, I feel so much better reading your stuff 😍 your tumblr posts are also amazing, thank you so so much for all your contributions to this fandom AND to ao3/fandom culture in general!! (wow that was a lot of exclamation marks, i swear i know how to end a sentence with other punctuation 😃 namely emojis 😃😃)

I had a question about your opinions on some ships, IF YOU'RE AMENABLE, feel free to ignore; i know you're a super busy person and this is going to be a long message, I'm overwhelmed looking at it myself 😅

Firstly, shipping the batkids together??? I've seen a few fics like that, especially the robins (e.g. dick/jason, jason/tim??) but I generally avoid them bc they make me feel uncomfy personally, even if they're not characterized as brothers/sisters in that particular fic - cuz i cant kid myself into thinking that i'll ever see them as anything but siblings 🥹

then there's also the stephanie/tim thing?? my understanding of stephanie's dynamic in the batfamily is limited since i got into the dc fandom mainly through fic, but i'm under the impression that some canons have that, and stephanie is not totally considered part of the batfamily (as in bruce's daughter). while other times it's tim/kon, and I'm very supportive of the increasing inclusion of queer representation in the "dc canon", but i guess it's just that the batkids all feel like children, like babies even 🥺🥺

yea so that was a pretty long winded explanation for a quick question😭 my bad

and finally, my otp, ghostbat 🥹🥰 i've never really seen you post anything about them, it is definitely a much rarer ship, but i'd love to know your opinion 💙 i would absolutely recommend taking a look into it if you haven't already, their dynamic is so unique (imo) and heart-wrenching! i havent found that much content about them, so if there are any suggestions for content for them, i will take literally anything 🥺

yeah so thanks for looking through all of this mess, i love you and your beautiful brain so much, sending positive vibes and well wishes your way <3

Hi anon! Thank you so much, and sorry you're not feeling well. Some quick answers to your questions below:

People do ship the batkids together, in a variety of related/not related scenarios. It's not everyone's cup of tea. Some people like it. Some people get very squicked by it. All reactions are valid. I am a big proponent of ship and let ship -- people are going to write what they're going to write. If you don't like to read that, hit the back button. Like you said, you have already identified that you don't like it, and now you avoid it. That's awesome!

Tim/Steph vs Tim/Kon can also be a touchy subject in fandom. Steph's inclusion in the batfamily depends on the fanon and/or canon. People have strong opinions about this. My reaction is always, teens have relationships. Messy relationships. Tim and Steph and Tim and Kon can all happen and it doesn't make anyone more or less deserving of love or a relationship. They're kids figuring themselves out -- it makes sense that it's messy.

I like ghostbat! I will admit I'm not as familiar with the ship as I could be. I mostly consume secondhand info here on tumblr. @allgremlinart's blog is a great place to start if you haven't already.

Hope that helps! Feel better soon, anon.

[kata4a]

hot take poetry is actually a form of music

I like this ask because it reads like something I would say, but by sending it as an ask you invite me to push back on it, forcing me to refine my own views

the easiest object I can think to make to this is to bring up poetry that is clearly not meant to or even cannot be recited orally. ee cummings is a classic example of this (consider poems like "l(a"), but even without invoking the avant-garde, poets often make use of punctuation and stanzaic organization that I'm not confident can always be clearly expressed orally. consider the parenthetical remarks in robert frost's directive, or the choice of line breaks in millay's plaid dress

(of course there are to my mind a quite interesting counterpoint to be made here by asking how much of the information on a piece of music's score can or is even meant to be accurately heard aurally)

but considering the poem only as a recited, oral artform: while I am quite sympathetic to the appeal of analyzing poetry from a musical perspective, I think that for a lot of poetry this has to be understood as somewhat metaphorical: the conventional tools we use to analyze music are not really adequate for much poetry

poetry lacks harmony and melody, and the rhythm of unaccompanied spoken language is quite unlike musical rhythm

(people like to compare rap to poetry, but I think even very cursory listening reveals that they are doing actually very different things rhythmically)

in particular, conventional musical rhythm involves the perception of an implicit and regular continuous beat underlying the audible structure of a piece, whereas this is dubiously possible even in the quite metrically regular verse of shakespeare

now you can of course object that, while the aesthetic properties of conventional tonal music don't apply to poetry, this is not because poetry is not music, but because poetry is an especially unconventional genre of music, akin to musique concrète

but at this point you're just asking whether "music" means "all sound art" or just that which is specifically amenable to amenable to conventional harmonic, melodic, rhythmic understanding, which is not a particularly interesting question to me

[mashpoll]

Welcome! This blog is running a poll bracket between every single episode of M*A*S*H (excluding Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen). You can view the entire bracket here!

(other info below)

The Method

Each match in the first round has been randomly generated. I did it this way to have more of a variety between the episodes competing, instead of having episodes from the same season compete for a lot of the bracket. I could have also traditionally seeded it (so the "best" episode competes against the "worst"), but while I was up for running this bracket, I was not up for making a theoretical ranking of every single episode of MASH based on how popular it is on Tumblr. lol. That's what this poll is for.

Due to the sheer amount of matches in Round 1 (118 to be exact) I will be splitting it up into 4 groups of around 30 polls. I will also be splitting Round 2 into two halves.

Also, 10 episodes (again, random) will not appear in Round 1 and will instead be inserted into Round 2. This is due to the number of matches in Round 1 not splitting up completely evenly. (i'm glad there was the Challonge website to set up the bracket for me, it would have broke my brain otherwise)

Most episode descriptions are from Hulu. Some are from Wikipedia or IMDB if I didn't think the Hulu description was very good.

Why I'm Not Including GFA

I feel like GFA is on another level compared the regular episodes of the show, since it's basically a movie and does the task of wrapping up 11 seasons of one of the most popular shows ever made. And to be honest, I think it would be the obvious winner and be unfair to the rest of the competition. The point of this tournament to me is to determine what people's favorite regular episodes of MASH are.

Navigating the Blog

Every poll is tagged with the episode names (no punctuation except for apostrophes), the seasons of both episodes, and the round number. If you want to vote for a specific episode, theoretically you should be able to search the episode name, but if Tumblr's search function is being... itself, you can use this url: https://mashpoll.tumblr.com/tagged/episode name

Sending Propaganda

As you've probably seen in other tournaments, feel free to send "propaganda" supporting your favorite episodes. I'll be posting them without a response/commentary to try and keep it unbiased. I'll also tag it with "propaganda" so you can filter it if you just want to see the polls.

What's my main?

I'd like to try to remain semi-anonymous. I say semi-anonymous because I have posted about this poll on my main, so you can probably figure it out pretty easily if you're already following me.

[contremineur]

You are silent, like prophecies, and sad, like those that are fulfilled, calm, like the calmness afterward.

Yehuda Amichai, opening lines to Majestic love song

in Amen (tr. Ted Hughes, Oxford University Press 1978)

I'm not sure I have the correct punctuation for this particular translation – happy to be set straight...

[pluviophile-imagines]

Give ✋🏻✋🏻✋🏻✋🏻

Extended argument from this drabble, which i cut for length; reader is gn but implied to be shorter than alhaitham (tho not smaller or by any significant amount)

“You stole my book.”

Your voice echoes in the vast, airy private room Alhaitham has squirreled himself away within. He remains silent where he sits in a plush chair, piles of similar books around him, and your footsteps are sharp as you approach.

“Nothing to say for yourself?” You cross your arms as you finally get close.

He doesn’t look up from the scroll he’s reading. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re not even reading it, asshole.” You wave towards where the one you’re searching for lays, unopened, atop a stack nearly to your waist. His gaze follows your hand and he gives a little grunt of acknowledgement when he sees what you’re talking about, as if he hasn’t been acutely aware of what you wanted the moment you walked in.

“And when will you return to your actual research, then, instead of this little sidetrack?”

You pause. “I’ve been researching.”

Eyes sliding back to you, he tilts his head just barely, and you can see on his face that you won’t be getting the book—no, he’s decided to pick a fight. “Nothing of importance to your thesis.”

“Celestia’s sake, Alhaitham, I’m not doing this with you today. Give me the book.”

“How many times must I tell you that the Akademiya does not exist for your selfish, ever-changing whi—“

You lunge for it, entirely certain you’ll fail, and you do—he’s launching himself out of the chair faster than you can blink, grabbing you by the waist to slow you down just enough for him to snatch your book from the top of his pile before you can. His touch has your breath hitching, your mind acutely aware of how thick his arms feel around you and the warmth of his broad chest against your back.

Just as quickly, though, he’s gone. Those arms yank away from the hold on you like they’ve been burned as he raises to his full height behind you. Whatever lingering fluster you’d still been feeling is replaced swiftly by rage.

“You’re so childish,” you hiss, spinning around to face him. “Just give it to me.”

“Unfortunately I need it for my own research, which is why the librarians released it despite you hoarding it from others.“

“Hoarding it? That’s rich coming from the man who used his title to steal the book I asked them to hold for me just to piss me off.”

Those eyes narrow at you. “I would never abuse my authority as Scribe of the Akademiya in such a way.”

“Bite me,” you snarl, and instead of snapping back he casts his gaze aside. His jaw flexes, mouth pursed with a suppressed something you dare not think about.

“If you truly need this book so desperately,” Alhaitham begins, slow like he’s only just thought about it, “perhaps I would be more amenable if you asked politely.”

“I asked politely in the first place, you picked this fight.”

“I’d hardly call storming into my study room and making demands polite.”

Huffing, even less convinced you could possibly succeed, you make another attempt at grabbing your necessary research material that fails entirely when he just lifts his arm above his head and behind him. You end up stumbling into him instead, all but falling onto him, and pull back to save yourself the embarrassment of him having to catch you.

Though you don’t put too much distance between the pair of you. You remain close enough to lift a hand and poke your finger against his chest.

“Give. Me. The book.” You punctuate each word with a prod, rising further up on your toes every time. He stares down at where you’re touching him, then lifts his chin as he meets your eye and raises the book even higher, the corner of his mouth curling up just slightly in the hint of a smirk.

“I might consider it if you begged.”

“Wh— you—” You sputter for a moment before using the hand already at his chest to shove him away, acutely aware of the heat blooming on your face, not entirely registering how he uses the momentum of your push to fall back into the chair you’d found him in. “You’re impossible.”

And with that you turn to storm off.

[goatcheesecak3]

HI DO YOU WRITE FOR MATT FROM DYING BREED????

if so...... can you do a fic where him and reader (m!reader preferred but thats up to u :3) take a bath together???? it doesnt have to be smutty, just... some silly fluff???

Trip to Scotland

Matt x GN!Reader

fic type: fluff

warnings: none

summary: You and your boyfriend Matt enjoy a nice day out on your holiday, followed by a cosy evening sharing a bath

A/N hello! thank you so so so so much for requesting a Matt fic! He's so pretty i love himb. also!! i wrote this with the intention of making it x m!reader, but like halfway through i realised that i hadn't actually used any pronouns for the reader, so i just stuck with that, hope that's okay!

It had been a year since you and matt had visited rural Tasmania and suffered a terrible ordeal. Somehow, despite all the turmoil you’d gone through, not only had you and Matt stayed together, but you hadn’t let the events of that trip ruin travelling for you. Deciding that the pair of you wanted a change of setting, you had taken a trip to the beautiful Scottish highlands. A whole two weeks on a quaint little peninsular, surrounded by rolling hills and luxurious green fields spread across the land like velvet bedsheets. Having an aversion to camping, after your last trip, the pair of you had opted to stay in a gorgeous renovated mill house, with all it’s original architecture still in tact. This was most definitely a smart move on your part, taking advantage of the amenities of a house was by far preferable to a dirty tent.

This getaway consisted of long days hiking, visiting out of the way historical landmarks, and cosy evenings curled up by the fireplace. However, on one particularly rainy day, the two of you had decided against braving the treacherous conditions, and instead opted to visit a distillery.

“Babe, look!” Matt exclaimed excitedly, pointing towards a kiosk in the gift shop. A little sign read “free samples.”

“Knock yourself out, babe” you smiled. You were driving that day, so you couldn’t exactly sit around tasting whisky, so instead you had a little gander around the rest of the shop.

You found an adorable beanie, navy blue with an embroidered wild boar on it – it was the perfect gift for Matt, you always thought that blue brought out his eyes. After checking out, you found Matt back at the kiosk, having just purchased a pretty fancy bottle of whisky.

“For us tonight” He grinned, shaking the bottle by the neck, before slipping it into his bag.

“Now that is an idea I can get behind” you grinned, as the two of you left the distillery, “come on, you” you giggled, pulling him into your car.

The rain persisted throughout the rest of the day as the two of you browsed local knick-knack and gift shops. Matt looked cute enough to put in your pocket in his new beanie, which he was incredibly grateful for by the evening when the temperature began to drop. But soon enough, not even knitwear could keep either of you warm, so you decided to call it a day and head back to the mill house.

The crackling fire punctuated the sweet silence of the living room, as you snuggled up in an armchair to catch up on some reading. The reading was going to have to wait, however, when Matt burst into the room, an excited look on his face.

“Y/n, come with me” he beamed, his cheeks rosy from the warmth of the fire hitting his face.

“May I ask what exactly I’m giving up my precious reading time for?” you chortled.

“Just come onnnn” he whinged needily, holding out a hand for you to take.

It took no more persuasion for you to follow Matt and his longing green eyes upstairs, as he lead you to the bathroom.

He’d run a bath and set two tumblers and the bottle of whisky on a stool next to the tub. Matt stood proudly in the doorway.

“Now, I’m no genius, but I think drinking fancy scotch in a bath with your boyfriend is a lot more fun than drinking it alone with a book” He winked.

“I don’t know… books are pretty great” you teased sarcastically, already getting undressed.

…

Leaning back into Matt’s chest, you sipped your drink and closed your eyes, letting the hot water run all over you. Matt’s soft hands tenderly rubbed up and down your arms, his chin resting in the crook of your shoulder.

“Better than a book now?” He whispered

“yeah, something like that” you smirked, turning to look at him.

He pressed a delicate kiss onto your cheek, his arms weaving their way around your waist and holding you close.

“You’re gorgeous, you know that?” he mumbled, the alcohol rendering him a soppy and affectionate mess – not that you minded.

“you’re not so bad yourself” you smirked.

“I’m serious, Y/N, look at you. I can’t believe I’m in a beautiful country, drinking the fanciest bloody whisky I’ve ever had, in a bath with the sexiest person I’ve ever seen.”

It usually took a lot to render you speechless, in fact more often than not, you had an answer for everything. But when the love of your life looked at you with those mesmerising eyes, so full of love and admiration, you almost forgot how to speak. You knew that no words could ever do justice for the way you felt about him, so instead you turned your body to face him, cupped his face and kissed him.

“Love you so fuckin much” you mumbled against his lips, earning a giggle and a squeeze around your waist from Matt.

“I love you too, baby” he replied.

[majorbaby]

u know, u dont have to answer this but u keep mentioning a sidney post you made that you're not satisfied with bc u wrote it much earlier in ur mash analysis, and i have to wonder what you'd say about him now, as a character, as a narrative device, etc?

Sidney is so much a tool for storytelling that I would liken him to punctuation. He exists to draw out the inner thoughts, fears and desires of our more three-dimensional characters, most notably Hawkeye but also Margaret, Klinger, Charles and the patients he treats on the show. Their psychoses are so often based in their fears, their denial, their disbelief, their unwillingness to take personal responsibility for their circumstances – which is not usually how real mental illnesses work, but still makes for good television. 

I’ve also used to term “Sidney ex machina” to describe his function:

Deus ex machina; plural: dei ex machina; English "god from the machine" is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly or abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence.

The 4077th will hit a wall with a patient (sometimes the patient is Hawkeye) that they cannot overcome, because they’re experiencing an illness of the mind and they don’t specialize in that type of illness - although you could make an argument for Hawkeye “therapizing” his friends (Margaret in Images, Radar in Hepatitis, BJ in Period of Adjustment) but he’s still not trained. When this happens, someone will go “get Sidney on the line” and every time without fail, Sidney successfully fixes the problem. This wouldn’t land so well if he was a recurring character on the show. 

Hawkeye is so in touch with the inner workings of his own mind and heart I wouldn’t necessarily put it past him to be able to monologue his way through his problems, coming to the solutions on his own (maybe with the exception of GFA or Bless you Hawkeye) but you still get the sense that he already knows the answer, he just needs someone to help draw it out of him. That’s Sidney’s role. He’s really just there for Hawkeye’s voice to have something to bounce off of so it becomes audible to himself and us, the audience. 

There’s one brief exception to Sidney being used this way and lol, it’s no surprise to me its in the Written-by-Alan-Alda Dear Sigmund. Alda’s episodes do tend to deal more with character drama, and I imagine he couldn’t resist taking a stab at Sidney. We learn that Sidney’s struggling with the loss of a patient – but only after Hawkeye and BJ read his private letters, really his journal, which is rude as fuck btw, but to me unintentionally emphasizes how much of a barrier there is between the audience and Sidney’s thoughts/feelings/fears/desires. But I can’t think of any other occasion where we get to see what’s beneath his calm, cool, professional exterior. 

There’s other times I was curious about that.. In War of Nerves he’s supposed to be at the 4077th as a patient, but he leaves the mess tent because he has a head injury that no one is considerate of, and he ends up treating people when he’s the one who’s supposed to be recovering. 

If you choose to see Hawkeye as getting progressively worse as the war wears on him (and idk if I do personally because the show is so episodic but that’s another post) then I have to wonder what it feels like for Sidney to have to keep treating him, especially in Goodbye Farewell Amen, where we finally see a crack in Sidney’s normally neutral expression, his consummate professionalism, as Hawkeye comes clean about what really happened on the bus. Like… they’re friends, it’s already ethically questionable to have Sidney treat him, and then we see exactly why that shouldn’t happen when Hawkeye is understandably upset that Sidney has decided to send him back to the 4077th. There is a moment of forgiveness and gratitude that passes between them in Sidney’s final scene in the series when Hawkeye thanks him, not insignificantly while he (Hawkeye) is performing surgery (to me it feels like a nice callback to OR), which he’d previously wondered aloud to Sidney whether or not he’d ever be able to return to. 

And here I am again saying that “flat” characters, of which Sidney is MASH’s best example, aren’t poorly written when they’re fulfilling their intended purpose, which Sidney does very well almost every time we see him. He’s so good at his job that it even feels weird for me to talk about his thoughts and feelings in fic, I want to get him in there, have him draw out the interiority of whichever character he’s in conversation with and then be like “glad we had this chat, peace” and actually that is how I see him being used pretty regularly in fic. 

Btw this is the Sidney post that gets on my nerves, not because I disagree now with what I said… actually that post is just this post stated too simply for my liking and it got way more traction than I ever imagined it would, so obviously it appeals to something that people feel, but I didn’t state what it was. It’s so vague it reads like a fandom in-joke. So thank you for giving me the push to show my work. 

[absentmindedadmirer]

How the ES!! boys text~ {StarPro Edition}

fine

Eichi most likely speaks in full sentences with proper punctuation. He proofreads all of his texts of course. He would never send out a message with a typo, however he might mess up on grammar occasionally. purposefully messes up his punctuation when around keito and sends him a lot of cat videos

꧁༒☬ 💐𝓘𝓽 𝓲𝓼 𝔂𝓸𝓾𝓻 𝓿𝓮𝓻𝔂 𝓸𝔀𝓷 ,𝓗𝓲𝓫𝓲𝓴𝓲 𝓦𝓪𝓽𝓪𝓻𝓾~! 💐☬༒꧂

Wataru has his own own intro font everytime he makes an entrance ✨ Very fond of throwing roses and bouquet emojis around as well as the sparkles 🌹 Of course, adds a star after every 𝓐𝓶𝓪𝔃𝓲𝓷𝓰~! ☆ 💐

tori attepmts to make full sentences to sound proper. His messgaes aren't very long. but often makes tpos. Often on larger words. and forgets to capitailse. too eager to go back and profread.

Yuzuru uses proper grammar and sentence structure. He also tends to correct Tori's typos immediately when he sees them and when he catches Eichi slip up on grammar, he will add that as well.

Trickstar

Subaru lets autocorrect capitals every text he makes but he uses basic capitalisation no punctuation ☆ He also likes adding the star symbols to most of his messages ☆ Likes adding ~ to his nicknames such as Gami-San~ or sound effects as well as random comments~ ☆ Likes adding exclamation marks when greeting someone but dislikes using too many because it reminds him of a certain Ryusei red...

Hokuto writes very professionally and forks through each and every message to make sure there are no inaccuracies. Normally, he writes very long sentences to tell his fellow members off, mostly Subaru. However. If he really wanted. To be snarky. His responses. Would be. Very short.

makoto obviously uses gamerspeak Outside of the Trickstar groupchat, he would probably be a lot more formal but not that much. inside the chat he would not bother to capitalise and shortens some words he definitely says gg after every live

Mao uses punctuation but doesn't bother with grammar or periods He is very likely to add !??????! to the end of a sentence when approached with something absurd He does ocassionally keysmash whaskjjdjg Would not use all caps bc he does not want to seem like he is yelling at anyone

Alkaloid

Aira types out the sound effects he makes So ravely~ Most of his messages are really short he has a tendecny to freak otu and spam seveeral short messages after someone sends him a fancam Sends out !! first before messages when he either is about to yell at somene or geek out

hiiro doesnt know wht hes doing :D he sends basic texts to his unitmates but has been obssessed with emoticons :0 and kaomoji because oh my god aira look im making a face ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶ he will also use these faces whenever meaning that sometimes it definitely isnt appropriate but ＼(≧▽≦)／

Tatsumi texts in normal sentences without periods Is probably the most composed out of the four Does not tend to use all caps Would use a ~ when greeting everyone with May God Bless Everyone but HiMERU~ or Amen~

Mayoi utilises ,,,, a lot,,, in between his texts,,,,,,,, he also,, uses !?!!?/ a lot but doesnt,, tend to keysmash that frequently A lurker,,,in most text convos , even DMs,,,,

RYUSETTAI

CHIAKI ONLY EVER TALKS IN CAPS IN GCS!! AND ADDS A LOT OF EXCLAMATION MARKS!!! HE HAS A LOT OF EXCITEMENT AND NEEDS TO SHOW IT!!! Private convos might call for normal text but he will not let go of the exclamation marks!!!

tetora does not always talk in all caps like his captain but often uses exclamation marks!! he is a very excited guy!! ossu!!!

kanata never uses capitals ever puka puka~ often writes short messages and will add a ~ to names and the ends of sentences

Midori... is very done... and breaks off his sentences a lot... Also simply responds with "..." at moments... Very quick to mute the gc...

Shinobu often uses two exclamations at the ends of his sentences!! More tends to be added if he's talking about ninjas!!!!!

|| Based off of this post I made on Reddit. Someone made a NEWDI version in the replies and I really encourage you check it out :D!!