#these blonde twinks have consumed my life | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

pappydaddy · 3 years ago

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Enchanted ii (j.m)

a/n: hello lovelies ! whew! this blog has had a busy couple of weeks. with the makeover and editing going on, it's been insane. but it's not as insane as all the love and support i've been getting from you lovelies! ! i am absolutely loving all the interaction and energy you lovelies are giving me ! i also appreciate how you guys have stuck around with all the construction the blogs been going through, fear not though, the maintenance on my blog is finished !

anyway, to the fic. this is the highly requested second part to my jj fic enchanted ! you guys gave enchanted so much love and i honestly was going to do a part two anyway, but i am so glad you guys wanted a part two ! anywho, i hope you like it lovelies, i tried to keep it close to the energy of the first part as i could! ps: i also based a teeny tiny scene off favourite crime by olivia rodrigo :)!

pairing: jj maybank x fem!kook!reader

tv show/movie: outer banks

requested

taglist: @rottenstyx |

asked to be tagged in this fic: @skyfallgazingstar

part i | part ii - you're here!

au where the treasure hunt did not turn into what it is in the show. no bahamas, no ward/rafe psychopathy, etc. just a harmless, fun little adventure that brought sarah and kie together again.

warnings: very angsty, some negative thoughts, throw-up, fluff, happy-ending!

masterlist | taglist | wips | navigation

- not my gif - * this gif has no correlation to the plot, but for some reason, tumblr won't show me any jj gifs so this is the only one i found that i haven't already used*

For yet another night, Y/N found her blinking up at the cloth of her canopy that draped over the top of her bed. All that was on her mind was the same thing that she thought of since the Cameron’s party a week ago - JJ Maybank. The blonde flirt seemed to infiltrate every crevice of her mind, body and soul; totally consuming her in just one night. She couldn’t help but wonder if he knew she had fallen madly in love with him. If he knew her entire night was bathed in twinking and sparkling fairy dust because of him. If he knew that she was up every night wishing that she also weighed heavy on his mind - keeping him awake.

No matter how many questions and thoughts she pondered, there were always two that stumped her - making her continuously circle back to them day-in and day-out. These were the questions that kept her up. Sure, she found herself contemplating if she even crossed JJ’s mind after that night, but these questions were the biggest of all. The ones that made her stomach churn and her brain want to bury itself into the world's biggest and darkest hole out of embarrassment and foolishness. Who does he love? Does he have someone else? She couldn’t help but imagine that he was lying in a bed not far from Y/N, his arms holding someone else close just like he held her that night. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Y/N found herself in that situation before. She just hoped JJ wasn’t just another taken boy flirting with her out of boredom and that he didn’t already have someone waiting on him to get home.

With a frustrated groan that sounded a bit more like a scream, Y/N flopped over aggressively, now laying on her side as she stared at the wall darkened by shadows. She felt so foolish thinking that JJ would ever make an appearance in her life again. What was she thinking? Her life wasn’t a movie or a book. Things like that never happen to her. She was destined for a life of perpetual sadness and loneliness - to be alone forever. Her self-pity didn’t last long until JJ had crept back into her mind, making her think of him instead of her doomed fate. His name echoed in her head, something she believed would happen forever until they are reunited once again. Almost like he was in the room, she could see him appear, standing by the wall she faced.

A knock on her door sounding through the deadly silent house startled her. Sitting up in her bed, she paused for a moment. It was almost midnight on a night her parents were out of town, nobody should be knocking on her door. Throwing her blankets off herself, she slid out of bed, pulling on a random sweater draped over the chair in her room. The house was dark and empty, making a fearful chill roll up her spine. The air-conditioner chilled the hardwood floors to feel like ice beneath her bare feet as she carried herself along the banister overlooking the grand living room.

She found herself stilling halfway down the spiral staircase, freezing at a thought. “What if it’s JJ?” She thought, her hand tightening around the oak banister. Hope blooming in her chest, she finally felt something other than dread and despair for the first time since the morning after the party. Rushing down the rest of the staircase, she stopped as the grand, solid oak doors loomed over her - blocking her from either a blissful dream or a doomed fate. Eying the peephole, she almost didn’t want to look through in case it wasn’t JJ. She wanted to believe he stood on the other side of the door, ready to pronounce his love for her, but she knew how unlikely it was. With her nails flying between her teeth, she chewed upon the nicely done manicure, not even realizing she was doing it as she paced.

If she didn’t open it and it was JJ, he would think she didn’t like him like she did, but if she opened it and it wasn’t JJ, she would be forever disappointed - spiralling into a bigger pit of anguish than she already was in. Taking a heaving breath in, she expelled the air out in a huge gust, turning to the door again. Letting her hand fall from her mouth, she stood there. She hoped with every fibre of her being that her and JJ’s story will continue and that night last week was not the end of everything. Her hand grasped the cold metal of the fancy door handle, the cold-shooting through her like an electric shock, making goosebumps rise all over her body, her skin uncomfortably tight. Ignoring it, she yanked the door open, letting the silver moonlight pour in like a flood. It was as if a huge stamp landed upon the world with the ink spelling out the words “the end” oozing into everything around her as it stamped her fate, marking the end of her fairytale night.

“Oh, hey Sarah and Kiara,” She greeted, disappointed to find the two girls instead of the boy she so desperately craved to see again. Her hand slid down off the handle in disappointment as she stepped aside, letting the two girls in. Softly closing the door with a click, she twisted the lock, bathing them in almost complete darkness, the light from the windows just barely missing them. “What are you guys doing here so late and in your pyjamas?” She asked, crossing her arms over her chest, trying to protect her body from the blasting cold of the air-conditioning.

“We were having an impromptu sleepover and I know that Rose and Ward are off on that realtor retreat so I assumed your parents went too,” Sarah started to explain, peeling off the light sweater she had thrown on over her tank top. The nights now fell with the slightest bit of an autumn chill, marking the start of the end of summer. “So, we thought you could use some company!” She concluded, hanging her sweater on the coat rack by the door as Kiara worked on her jean jacket.

Y/N nodded, rolling her lips as she leaned against the door. She couldn’t help but feel majorly disappointed. It didn’t matter if she was glad that Sarah and Kiara were actually trying to maintain the friendship developed that night. She was glad to have two new friends (the only friends she has made so far), but she had built this image up in her head and she found herself not being able to cope with the crushing realization that she did not live in a fairytale. “I hope you don’t mind, Y/N.” Kiara spoke up, noting Y/N’s gloom-covered face and silence.

Looking up at the two girls who hovered by the coat rack, she was shocked and slightly embarrassed they had picked up on her pity party. “No, I don’t mind at all,” She clarified. “I just have something weighing on my mind, that’s all.” She shrugged, gesturing her pointer finger to her head as she lifted herself off the door.

“Oh, well, maybe we could talk about it! We could help you with whatever it is!” Sarah suggested eagerly, clapping her hands, the sound echoing throughout the darkened house. Y/N gulped, her eyes widening as she panicked - hoping the two girls didn’t notice it.

“We don’t have to do that,” Y/N waved her off in what she hoped was a nonchalant way. “I don’t want to worry you guys with what happens in my mind. It’s way too much for anyone to deal with.” She internally cringed, not wanting them to think she was crazy. Pulling a face, she took a second to question why she was the way she was.

“It’s no problem, we all have our fair share of issues to deal with.” Kiara reassured her as Y/N brushed past them, leading them up the stairs.

“I just don’t want you guys to worry about something I can figure out on my own,” She tried again, cursing the universe. All she wanted was for them not to figure out she was secretly pining for their friend for a week, completely obsessing over him as she imagined him as her prince or troubled bad boy with amazing dance skills (or wealthy gentry who professes his love in the pouring rain). “Besides, this is a sleepover and they are supposed to be fun.” She pressed.

She didn’t want to tell them how she imagined JJ striding across a vast field in a blouse and breeches, his open travelling cloak billowing in the breeze behind him as his blue eyes set on her frame and only her frame - determined to reach her. She would be absolutely mortified if they went back to JJ, telling him about how in love she was with him only to ask who they were talking about. She had to come to terms with the fact that JJ just didn’t remember her. He didn’t see her as his Elizabeth Bennet. She was just another stranger on the sidewalk to him, not the person he had full conversations with across the room with just his eyes. “Well, if you’re one-hundred percent sure.”

“I am, Kiara,” She confirmed as they reached her door that stood slightly ajar. “It’s nothing you guys should worry about. It’s not even that big of a deal,” She lied, tears stinging her eyes as the hammer fell on her delicate heart - effectively shattering it finally. “I was just wrapped up in my head about my silly little romance novels and fairytales.” She added in, trying to remind herself of the fact that those things were just that: silly. She wasn’t going to meet someone under the glow of the artificial light surrounding them and fall in love - well, she could, but the person sure as hell wouldn’t fall in love with her, that much was just proven.

“Call me Kie.” Kiara corrected the girl, sensing a change in subject was in order as she shared a look with Sarah. Y/N figured she hadn’t done a good enough job hiding what had made her so upset, but as long as she hadn’t actually told them point-blank, it was all conjecture and they couldn’t take it to JJ.

____

“I told you to make sure your no-good assistant sent her information to the right school,” She heard her mother boom from downstairs, pulling her from the world of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. She couldn’t even immerse herself into the actual novel without it being ruined in some way. Groaning, she stood from the fancy velvet chair positioned by the french doors leading to the terrace. She had lounged there for hours, reading as the sunbeams warmed her skin, protecting her from the air-conditioning. However, the slamming of the front door and her mother’s yelling destroyed her little bubble away from reality. “Honestly! I have no idea why you keep that assistant! She cannot make a simple appointment! She asked me to make an appointment to have lunch with you yesterday!” Ah, the infamous assistant argument - a classic in her house.

This was the same assistant who her father insisted had to be moved to Outer Banks with them. The same assistant who fails to transfer any calls from her or her mother to her father and the same one who apparently didn’t send Y/N’s papers to the right school. “I don’t see why we can’t just get her old school to fax this school her papers, then she can go to the Academy.” Her father defended, his deep voice vibrating through the floor as they argued in the living room, their voices echoing.

“Because the Academy doesn’t have any space left for her!” Her mother cried out in frustration, the sound of her heels clicking against the hardwood floor. Throwing her book on the couch, Y/N stumbled through her room, her bare feet thumping as she tripped over a curled-up corner of her rug.

“How was I supposed to know that?” Her father asked defensively as Y/N opened her door, trying her hardest not to let it squeak.

“Because we were in the same meeting, Todd,” Her mother exclaimed before heaving a sigh. “It’s fine. It will all be fine. She’ll do a semester at the public school then we’ll try to get her transferred to the Academy. I am sure with her marks they’ll accept her,” She mostly talked to herself, Y/N could tell by the way she was muttering and the sound of her heels pacing across the floor. “She’s already all set to go to the public school next week so that’s good, but I want that assistant fired!” She demanded, storming off, the sound of her heels clicking getting quieter and quieter as she walked into another room.

Y/N blinked, her head poking around her door, her hands gripping one of the double white doors, the tips of her fingers pressing against the expensive wood as she spotted her father sitting in the armchair in the far corner of the room her mother reserved for tea with Rose, his large hand thrown over his eyes as he sighed, deflating into the light pink cushion. Rolling her lips together, she doubted his stress from the fight with her mother. The stress was from having to let his assistant go. Nothing was a shock to her when it came to her parents. Infidelity was just another example of their paper-thin morals. The continuation of their marriage was just another ploy to get ahead in the hierarchical society.

A small, unmistakable pin sounded from her room, resounding through the silent house like a bullhorn. Jumping, she hid behind the one door she kept closed during her snooping to avoid her father catching her eavesdropping. Pressing her back flat against the door, she eyed her phone, the screen still bright from the text she had just received. The one time her phone wasn’t just on vibrate. Trying to make herself as light as she could, she glided over the polished floors, grabbing her phone from where it sat on top of her comforter. Looking at the notification from Kiara, she read the words ‘call me’. The two words made her feel like she was just struck with a mallet in the stomach.

“Call her,” She muttered in confusion, clutching her phone tighter as she made her way to the french doors she sat in front of earlier, slipping out into the much warmer air. As the clock struck noon, the temperatures seemed to rise only to plummet at night, classic August weather, the most perfect weather in Y/N’s opinion. “Why would she need me to call her?” She questioned, her mind whirling as it spit out the worst-case scenarios - a nasty habit of hers.

Clicking Kiara’s contact information, she lifted the phone to her ear, shutting the french door softly behind her before her fingernails fell between her teeth. Pacing along her terrace, she listened to the ring of the call going through, anxiously waiting for Kiara to pick up. “Y/N!” Her cheerful voice sounded as if it was feet away from her phone, telling her Kiara had put her on speaker.

“Kie! You scared me, I thought something happened!” Y/N scolded, happy that nothing horrible had happened, but still not happy that her friend made her think someone had been seriously injured.

“Sorry, I probably could have worded that better,” She apologized as some people muttered in the background of the call, whispering. “Anyway, I wanted to ask you if you wanted to come out on John B’s boat with us! It’s one of the last nice days we can go swimming before school starts, it’s kind of a tradition of ours to go out around this time.” She explained the reason for the near heart attack.

Sitting down on the outdoor couch she had on her terrace, she gazed out into her yard, the marsh sparkling in the August sun. “I don’t know Kie,” She shrugged, knowing full well Kiara can’t see the gesture. “I only really know you and Sarah.” She reminded her. She didn’t want to impose on their friendship tradition. They were a close-knit group, squeezing someone else in could disturb the balance, creating ripples in the group that turned into waves.

“Nonsense,” She cried over the phone and Y/N could visualize her waving her off with a flick of her hand. “John B and Pope would love to meet you, and JJ is going to be there! I’m pretty sure I saw you two talking at the Cameron’s party the other week.” At the mention of JJ’s name, both butterflies and doom swirled in her stomach. Sitting up straighter, she pressed her hand to her stomach, feeling slightly nauseous from the news. Going somewhere with JJ could go either way. He could look at her and not know her. He could look at her and immediately grab her, kissing her senseless before telling her he had imagined doing that since the party. If there was some way she could tell, she wouldn’t mind this position, but there was no way to tell. They had no other interactions. It was as if that night had never happened.

“Uh-” She tried to speak, but Kiara cut her off.

“Nope, I’ve decided for you, you’re coming.” With that, Kiara hung up, leaving Y/N sitting there, a looming sense of a grim fate hanging over her like her own personal storm cloud. Standing, her feet carried her stunned body back into her room. She was either marching herself to her funeral or to the best day of her life - either way, she only came too when she was walking to the end of her driveway with her bag of sunscreen, a towel, and a bathing suit - Sarah sitting in one of her dad’s cars, waiting to take her.

“I am so excited you’re coming out on the boat with us, you’re gonna love it,” Sarah gushed as she drove down the road. Y/N hummed half-mindedly, too wrapped up in her head to pay attention to Sarah. Instead, she was memorizing the way back to her house in case she needed a quick escape. Sarah continued to talk, the words floating in one of Y/N’s ears and out the other like a smooth stream. “And we’re here! Unfortunately, while you were daydreaming, Kiara texted me telling me JJ had to leave,” She told her, gathering her stuff from the cupholders. “Wonder where he had to go on such an important day.”

“Maybe he’s going to hang out with his girlfriend?” Y/N suggested, trying to hide the pain in her voice, hoping the slamming of her car door drowned it out enough for Sarah not to notice. She seemed not to as she scoffed, laughing as she closed her own door.

“JJ, a girlfriend,” She repeated, still laughing. “Not a chance, JJ has to be really wooed to settle down.” She informed her, making her heart sink as if tied to a cinder block and dropped into the ocean. Nodding, she swallowed thickly, muttering out a quick ‘good to know’ as she tried not to vomit.

“Y/N! You actually came, I’m glad my plan worked,” Kiara exclaimed, seeing the two girls walking to the dock the others stood on. “JJ had to leave, but he seemed really disappointed. He said, and I quote ‘it’s a shame, I would have liked to meet her’ which is weird because, a, it’s JJ, and b, I’m pretty sure I saw you guys talking at the party.” Kiara rambled before going back to digging in the cooler, making sure everything was in there.

“Must have been someone else, I never caught their name anyway.” She lied, regretting actually coming to this excursion as she was thrown back into her circle of angst and sadness. Of course, JJ didn’t remember her. What was memorable about her? Absolutely nothing apparently.

____

Burning. That was all she felt as she stood there, mostly hidden behind the display of roses. It was as if someone stabbed a scolding hot iron rod through her entire chest, her entire body burning as a repercussion. It was as if her world was on fire, melting around her, the flames licking at her skin. There he was. The first time she was seeing him outside of the classroom, he stood there with some other girl. The pair of them standing at the counter, talking lowly, their heads bowed towards each other as they browsed the booklet.

She couldn’t seem to swallow, a blockage forming in her throat as her eyes felt like they were ignited into flames. Maybe everyone was wrong. Maybe JJ was the type to settle down easily. Or maybe she had wooed him. Wooed him more than he had wooed Y/N. Maybe she had swept him off his feet. Y/N felt sick as she watched them, their hands brushing together ever so slightly. It was almost as if their fingers itched to hold each other just like Y/N’s itched to hold JJ’s again.

Forcing the bile back down her throat, she rushed towards the door of the florist, leaving her mother who didn’t even realize she was leaving, too worried about what flower she should get for the centrepiece of the table. Was that night all a lie? Did he really have someone waiting for him as he danced with her? Did he come to her knowing that he could easily get her to love him? Did he even know she loved him? Part of her wished he did know she loved him so horribly it hurt her. Maybe that was his plan all along. Go home to his girlfriend and tell her he had danced with someone, making her fall head over heels as a sick joke for them to laugh at. Maybe it was payback and Y/N was his willing accomplice.

She hunched over, her hands on her knees as she waited for the bile she couldn’t keep down to come up. Groaning, her stomach twisted more as she thought about it. She was ashamed to say that she hoped she was his favourite crime if that was his girlfriend. She hoped that he would look back at all the girls he flirted with only to laugh about on the way home to her and he found the night spent with her was the best. It made her sick. She was hoping that even if that was his girlfriend, he found himself longing for another crime committed with her. She hoped that he found himself thinking about her instead of that girl.

Finally, the bile came up, burning her throat as it splattered into the dirt of the alley between the florist and a clothing shop. Gasping, she stared down at the greenish-brown liquid, trying to keep the rest down as she breathed. “Oh my god,” She whispered, tears leaking down her face as she realized more. She wasn’t the princess in this story. She was the dirty, evil girl created to ruin the happy couple. She was the villain. She was never the main character. She was never Mr. Darcy, she wasn’t even Elizabeth. She was Mr. Collins or even Mr. Wickham. The nuisance who almost got in the way of the marriage. “Oh my god!” She exclaimed, her hands flying to cover her face as she leaned against the brick wall of the clothing shop behind her. The worst part of it all was that she would do it all again knowing full well he had a girlfriend. She would gladly commit the crime again as long as it was JJ she was doing it with. As long as it was his cerulean eyes were the ones staring back at her.

“Y/N? What are you doing in the alley-” Her mother trailed off, looking at the puddle of alkaline fluid her daughter had just thrown up then back at her. “You were sick,” She noted, walking over to Y/N, setting the basket of flowers she held on the ground by their feet, her hand feeling Y/N’s forehead. “You’re not warm,” She hummed, peering down at Y/N with furrowed brows. “This is about romantic things, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Y/N whispered, her eyes closing shamefully. She wasn’t sure how her mother knew that, but she didn’t question it.

“Well, don’t worry dear, I can help you with that, trust me.” Her mother reassured her, her arm wrapping around Y/N’s shoulders, her other hand grabbing the basket, leading her out of the alley and to the car. Y/N feet seemed to drag along the ground as her mother supported most of her weight, the world spinning as she battled the bile threatening to rise once again. As her mother shoved her limp body into the passenger seat of the SUV, she was hit by the realization that she had been wrong earlier. The end of their storyline wasn’t when she opened the door to reveal Sarah and Kiara; the end was now. He had his happy ending and she was stuck with the shitty ending. She most likely won’t even get to have her new friends, how could she hang out with them when all they did was hang around the blue-eyed boy who managed to both light her heart up like a Christmas tree and smash it into a million pieces - all within three weeks.

____

Sniffling, Y/N rubbed her nose furiously with a kleenex as she angrily watched Johnny and Baby dance in his cabin, her lips tracing along his strong neck, his hands on her hips, pulling her flush against him. “Oh come on, like that would ever happen in real life,” She complained, tossing the crumpled-up tissue on the coffee table with the rest of them. “This sucks!” She cried, uncovering the remote from the pile of tissues as Johnny pulled Baby’s shirt off, his hands skimming over her smooth skin. The scene was cut off as Y/N slammed her thumb into the stop button, making the blue DVD screen glow into the darkened living room.

“Dirty Dancing didn’t even cheer you up,” Her mother asked, walking into the living room from the kitchen. Y/N huffed, looking over her shoulder at her mother as she gathered things. “That’s odd, it always worked in the past with this sort of thing,” She remarked, pausing her movements as she ruffled through the drawer of the writing desk that was filled with takeout menus. “It’s also one of your favourites.”

“Yeah, well it’s stupid. I don’t see why I loved it so much before,” Y/N grumbled, kicking her feet, messing up the blanket she had balled herself up in. Groaning, she regretted doing that now that she had to fix the blanket yet again. Her mother simply ignored her, grabbing the menu she was looking for and walking over to her. “In real life, Johnny isn’t going to come back and Baby will be stuck in the corner forever. Baby will live her entire life in the corner watching everyone else find someone because she is only destined for unhappy endings-”

“You think you’re going to live your life in the corner because that Waiter Boy from the party hasn’t come to pull you out,” Her mother theorized with a sigh, her hand falling onto Y/N’s blanket-covered knee. Raising an eyebrow at the hand, Y/N lifted her eyes to look at her mother - confused on how she managed to figure that out and why she was comforting her. She would assume her mother wouldn’t want her dating someone who had to cater parties. “Hun, believe me when I say this isn’t the end. You will find your Johnny-”

“I’ve been comparing him to Elizabeth Bennet in my head,” She sniffled out a correction, making her mother give her an odd look. “He bewitched me mind, body, and soul just like Elizabeth did to Mr. Darcy.” She explained with another sniffle.

Letting out a sigh of understanding, her mother nodded, patting her knee. “Then you’ll find your Johnny who is also your Elizabeth,” She corrected herself. “But never give up on them before they can come back. Don’t you think Baby was thinking she would never see Johnny again,” She posed the question, earning an odd look from her daughter. Brushing off the judging eyes, she continued. “But look, Johnny came back to her. And Elizabeth turned Mr. Darcy down the first time he professed his love for her, but he came back too.”

“So you’re saying, I might still have a chance with JJ?” Y/N asked, confused as to what her mother was trying to convey to her.

“If JJ is that waiter from the party, yeah, I guess. He did look at you like you were Baby or Elizabeth,” She agreed, blinking rapidly as she called her daughter Mr. Darcy in this situation. She never imagined herself having to call her daughter a stuffy rich man who was as grumpy as he was anti-social, but here she was. “But my main point was that sometimes you think your story is over with someone, but it’s not. You owe it to yourself not to give up on your Johnny. Believe me, you’ll regret it your whole life.”

“How do you know-” Y/N tried to ask, but her mother stood up, effectively cutting off the conversation.

“Well, I’m going to go order this pizza for us and you watch the rest of Dirty Dancing, then we’ll load up Pride & Prejudice next, maybe that will give you enough of a push to go after him for a change.” She remarked, her heels clicking as she strode off elsewhere in the house. Letting her mother’s words sink into her mind, Y/N licked her lips, softly pushing the play button once again, letting the scene from earlier play on.

Just as Baby and Johnny’s lips meet for a sweet, overdue kiss, a knock sounded over the soft music of the scene. Not even bothering to pause the movie, Y/N stood. The soft blanket fell from her shoulders, pooling on the couch behind her as her slippers scuffed against the hardwood. Humming to the music, she pulled the door open roughly, the shine of the sun that still stood tall in the sky burned her eyes, making her squint. She had just spent hours in the living room with all the blinds pulled shut and the lights off, the only light coming from the TV and now she was being bombarded by full-on sunlight.

Slowly, her eyes relaxed, the burning subsiding, allowing her to get a look at who stood on the other side of the door. Eyes widening and jaw-dropping, she swore her heart had stopped for a second before jumping with joy. “JJ?” She whispered, not believing her eyes. Sure, she saw the tall blonde standing there with a bouquet of flowers in his hands, but was it really him or an insanely realistic daydream fuelled by the influence of Dirty Dancing? She had no way to tell other than to ask.

“Uh, hi,” JJ smiled nervously making Y/N swoon, her knees nearly giving out on her. If this wasn’t a daydream and he really was there being all nervous, that means she had bewitched the flirtatious JJ. All Kiara and Sarah can talk about when discussing JJ was how much of a flirt and a womanizer he was. But yet, here he stood (in a possible reality) with his hand clutching the stems of twelve of her favourite fall flowers and a nervous smile on his face. He cleared his throat as she continued to gawk at him, too shocked to say anything. “So, watching some Dirty Dancing, huh?” He asked, looking into the house at the TV, seeing Johnny and Baby press their lips together as the scene changed.

“Yeah, yeah, um,” She trailed off, taking in his appearance. With furrowed brows, she looked down at his feet. “Are those Sperry Boat Shoes?” She questioned, looking closer at the light-coloured boat shoes before looking at the rest of his outfit. Clad in capris and a button-down, she almost felt like laughing at him. He looked so uncomfortable and awkward that it was almost as if he were a stereotypical high school poindexter.

“Yeah, they are, Sarah stole them from Rafe for me,” He confirmed, looking down at his shoes himself. “Turns out, he has way more than ten pairs of Sperrys in his closet.” He commented, looking back up at her as he referenced the night they last saw each other. Giving him another once over with a shake of her head, she eyed his gelled hair. It looked rock solid, even more tamed than what it was the night they met.

“Why are you dressed like this on my porch, JJ?” She asked, not understanding what was going on. Bashful, JJ looked at the flowers in his hand, pretending to smell them as he avoided answering the question. Flicking his eyes up without lifting his head, he hoped to see her distracted, forgetting about her question. Instead, he saw her crossing her arms over her chest, her slipper-covered toe tapping impatiently. Swallowing thickly, he lifted himself back to his full height, rolling his shoulders back as he prepared himself to lay it all on the line for her.

“I wanted to impress you. I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed that night at the Cameron’s party-”

She interrupted him softly, her shoulders dancing as she shifted her arms, wrapping herself up as if to protect herself from being insecure and fragile. “The time to do that would have been a week after the party, not three, JJ.” She informed him, making his head slump shamefully.

“I know, I know, but you have to understand, Y/N,” He sympathized. “You’re this amazing girl who has this bright future ahead of you, you live in something I can only describe as a freaking palace. But all I am is a piece of trailer trash that managed to be completely and utterly enchanted by you and your effortless beauty,” He paused, his chest sinking into him as he stared into her eyes, hoping he was conveying everything adequately. “You’re like a literal princess and I’m just some court jester who wishes he could be a prince so he could be enough for her,” He licked his lips as he prepared himself to continue on. Y/N blinked, watching as he worked himself up. “I knew I couldn’t show up like myself if I wanted to have even the slightest chance with you. You deserve someone who knows all the fancy crap like what kind of flowers to get in the fall or what kind of pants go with what shirt. But most importantly, you deserve someone who can get you flowers without having to pick up extra shifts.” He added the last bit shamefully, gesturing to the bunch of purple asters he held, the light pink wrap around them wrinkling as he hit it by accident.

The corner of Y/N’s mouth twitched slightly as a smile grew on her face. “I enchanted you?” She asked quietly, looking up at him bashfully.

“Mind and soul.” He breathed out with a nod, extending the flowers to her. She took them, gazing down at the bouquet in her hand. The vibrant purple shot out at her as she took in the flowers’ beauty. She was in awe of his words. Maybe she was Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy.

“But, there are some things I don’t quite understand,” She paused, realizing something. “First of all, when I was invited to go out on the boat, you suddenly had to leave and you said that you would have loved to meet me, why did you lie and why did you leave?” She questioned, letting the flowers fall lightly against her chest, neither one of them noticing as Dirty Dancing continued to play in the background loudly.

“The Country Club had called me after Kiara had invited you, someone didn’t show for their shift and they offered it to me since I had asked for extra shifts. It was a double and I knew every penny counted if I wanted to make a good second impression with you.” He informed her. She suddenly felt bad for thinking he hadn’t remembered her. She never thought for a second that he could have just had to go to work.

“Okay, I can understand that, but what about the girl you were with in the flower shop today? You looked really close to her and not in a friendly way.” She brought up the scene she had witnessed earlier. The same scene that made her hurl in an alleyway. JJ furrowed his brows, glancing down at the flowers she held then back up at her, hoping she would understand what he was saying, Though she did, she still wanted an explanation, prompting her to quirk an eyebrow in response.

“That was Ashlynn, she used to be my lab partner last year. I asked her for help planning all this since she’s a hopeless romantic too,” He explained. “We’ve been meeting in our spare time with her girlfriend, Kiara, and Sarah to plan this,” He continued, pausing as he looked towards the hedge that separated the Cameron’s yard from Y/N’s. “In fact, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if they were spying on us from Sarah’s house right now.” He laughed as the hedge rustled unnaturally. Y/N found herself laughing as well. She felt stupid and ridiculous for jumping to conclusions about JJ.

Lifting the top of the flowers off her chest, she dipped her nose into them, buying her time as she tried to wrap her mind around everything. She had believed JJ was never going to show up, but yet, here he was - pulling her from the corner of self-pity and desperation she had shoved herself in, just like Johnny. “You know, you didn’t have to do all of this to have a chance with me, JJ,” She informed him, lifting her face from the fragrant flowers, gesturing to his getup and the flowers. “You had a chance with me all along. You captivated me that night and never let me go. Day in and day out, you were the only thing on my mind. I wanted you to show up at my doorstep and tell me that I had enchanted you as much as you enchanted me. I wanted to know that you were walking home that night in a world of clouds and fairy dust too,” She paused, rolling her lips together as she took in his outfit once more. “I don’t need someone who cares more about appearances than actual feelings, I don’t want someone like Rafe Cameron. Most importantly, I just want you, JJ.” She concluded, practically opening her chest up and offering him her delicate heart.

“Man, I feel stupid now-” He laughed, shaking his head as he looked down at himself. “I look like some nerd off a Disney show!” He exclaimed, gesturing to himself wildly. Y/N snorted out a laugh making her cheeks burn uncomfortably, her hand covering her mouth in shock. Even now, she was managing to embarrass herself horribly in front of this poor boy. But, just like that night, JJ’s smile grew at the sound, his eyes gleaming in adoration as he gazed down at her. Looking at her with her red cheeks, messy hair, and pyjamas.

“You think you’re stupid,” She asked, trying to recover from her embarrassment. “I thought Ashlynn was your girlfriend when I saw you guys in the flower shop! I also convinced myself you didn’t remember me at all!” She cried out, her eyes wide as she questioned how she could ever believe that someone would just forget someone they spent a whole night with.

“I convinced myself I had to work myself into the ground and completely change myself when all I had to do was talk to you,” He argued, almost frustrated with himself that he had gotten all up in his head about talking to a girl - something he claimed to be an expert on. “I think it’s safe to say that I’m the stupid one here. You were just trying to make sense of the signals I was giving off.”

“Okay, okay,” Y/N surrendered, smiling shyly as she prepared to ask the next question. “Would you like to come in while I get these in a vase?” She nearly whispered, stepping to the side, creating space for him to walk through the open door.

“I thought you would never ask,” He smiled that damn smile, almost making her fall over as he passed her, walking into the house, looking amazed as he took in the interior. “Could you maybe text Sarah to bring my clothes and stuff over? I really cannot stand these shoes or pants. I would do it, but she took my phone when I tried to put it in these pockets-” He gestured to the tight pockets on his capri pants. “Apparently these pockets aren’t functional.” He pried his thumb into it, trying to pull the pocket out, but there was no give whatsoever.

Y/N laughed, nodding as she grabbed her phone from the suddenly cleaned coffee table. “Of course, JJ, I figured you would be itching to get out of those.” She agreed, clicking her home button. She furrowed her brows when she saw a notification from her mom. ‘I snuck out the backdoor, the pizza is on its way and money is on the island in the kitchen. Enjoy life out of the corner hun ;).’ The text read. Pressing her lips together, she couldn’t help but let the smile take over her face. It seemed to her that the enchanting tale of JJ and Y/N didn’t have an ending in sight and her mother knew that from the start - way before either one of them.

"Hang on, I forgot something," JJ told her, catching her off guard as she started to type out a text to Sarah. Turning to face him, she opened her mouth to ask him, but his hand gripping her biceps firmly and his lips flattening against hers cut her off. Blinking in shock, it took her a second to melt into him, her body practically laying against him as their lips moulded together. Pulling away slightly, JJ whispered against her lips. "This." He answered her unspoken question before pressing his lips against hers rougher this time, his hands sliding up to cup her jaw. Angling her head up as her hands gripped the back of his restricting button up - once again feeling his back muscles tightening as he guided her jaw in the kiss with his thumbs and his own jaw, setting the pace.

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epicstuckyficrecs · 5 years ago

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Weekly Recap | March 9-22

Didn’t even realize but I completely forgot the recap for the week of March 9th to March 15th because I was too busy trying to find a flight home from Scotland (fuck coronavirus and bojo!!!) So now you get two weeks worth of fics!

Complete

good on my own (needed me) by mcwho (Modern AU, Teacher Bucky | 12K | Explicit): There are some mistakes that could be made by anybody. Anybody. Bucky taught high school pretty much his whole life, and that was fine, those were kids, and he knew all of them anyway, which meant there was very little chance of him accidentally fucking any of his students during an impulsive post-marital-breakdown Grindr hook-up. Which is exactly what he had done with Steve.

💙 The Conservation of a 17th Century Painting by birdjay/ @bird-jay (Modern AU, Artist Steve | 13K | Explicit): Well. He does live alone, and it’s not like anyone would find out. He could safely stick his hand down his pants right now and not have to worry about it. He’s jerked off loads of times in his own apartment. It’s...healthy to let stress out this way...right? And the fact that it’s to a doctor of art history isn’t weird. Or at least, not super weird. People have masturbated to weirder things. Steve knows that for sure. And it’s not like Dr. Barnes is rough on the eyes or anything, either. He’s quite possibly the most handsome man Steve’s looked at in months. And, well, there’s the whole art side to things, as well. (Part 1 of The Met: Art Conservation Studies)

Re-framing the Canvas by birdjay/ @bird-jay (Modern AU | 4K | Explicit): Steve and Dr. Barnes's first date. (Part 2 of The Met: Art Conservation Studies)

Perfectly Mad by ClaraxBarton/ @claraxbarton (PWP, Shrunkyclunks | 2,2K | Explicit): Whoever had decided to seat Steve beside Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes - eldest son of President Winifred Barnes, war hero, recently returned from a three month stay as a hostage of an offshoot of the same terrorist group that had once held Tony Stark - was clearly an idiot. Actually, in Steve’s opinion, whoever had thought Barnes attending the dinner at all was an idiot. Whoever had thought inviting Steve to the dinner was an idiot.

own me, i'll let you play the role (i'll be your animal) by voxofthevoid/ @voxofthevoid (Werewolf Steve, PWP | 6,7K | Explicit): He wanders into a clearing, the same one where he stood, almost three months ago, watching the Quinjet while waiting for Steve to come running to him. It was the start of something…educational. It’s one thing to take Steve as he is, another to love it the way Bucky did. He has no regrets. He’s been worse things than a monster-fucker. - Bucky’s not wearing red, but he’s got a big, bad wolf on his tail. (Part 3 of 💙in this story, you have claws)

i look like all you need by howdoyousleep/ @howdoyousleep3 (PWP, Daddy Bucky | 4,9K | Explicit): “Steve,” James starts, voice so low and so deep, a shiver running down Steve’s spine, “Baby, you can either come here and stand in front of me…or I’ll drag you by your fucking hair and put you there. Choose.” (Part 1 of Daddy James Bucky Barnes/Twink Steve)

i'm seein' the pain, seein' the pleasure by howdoyousleep/ @howdoyousleep3 (PWP, Daddy Bucky | 1,8K | Explicit): Steve had barely been able to keep up, gasping and trying to ask what James was doing, his thigh pulled up and hiked around a thick waist, a filthy roll of James’ hips. James had whispered low in his ear, “Wouldn’t be a good Daddy if I didn’t make sure my sweet boy got to bed…” (Part 2 of Daddy James Bucky Barnes/Twink Steve)

💙 No One Else by howdoyousleep/ @howdoyousleep3 (Sugar Daddy Steve | 12K | Explicit): And now here he is, walking up the steps to Steve’s brownstone at 12:03 in the morning on a Thursday night. He’s standing there like a fucking idiot with his tail between his legs, his hand coming up to ring the doorbell and falling back to his side maybe 8 times, and he lets out a shaky sigh. What if Steve wasn’t awake? Was this out of line? Showing up to his house in the middle of the fucking night? Fuck. (Part 1 of Modern Daddy Steve Rogers/Young Bucky Barnes)

Never Before by howdoyousleep/ @howdoyousleep3 (PWP | 5,6K | Explicit): Before Steve, Bucky enjoyed sex, engaging in it frequently with various partners, enjoying himself and the pleasure he could bring others. But when Steve came along his world was flipped upside-fucking-down. Bucky had never felt so desperate, so needy, so pathetic for someone. He had never once been brought to tears during sex or because of sex but Steve brought them out of him almost every time, whether it be from the sex itself or for begging for it. He had no idea what his body and what his mind were capable of during sex until he came along. It was like Bucky had never had sex before Steve entered his life. (Part 2 of Modern Daddy Steve Rogers/Young Bucky Barnes)

Slumber by howdoyousleep/ @howdoyousleep3 (PWP, Daddy Steve | 4,1K | Explicit): “Bucky, honey. Can’t get enough even when you’re sleepin’, huh?” (Part 3 of Modern Daddy Steve Rogers/Young Bucky Barnes)

Mad With It by howdoyousleep/ @howdoyousleep3 (PWP | 3,9K | Explicit): “Bucky, come here.” Fuck that. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t move and he finds himself gritting out, “Make me.” He knows he’s being a brat, knows he has been all damn day. He knows Steve is being as sweet as can be, trying to be supportive, but he can only take so much. (Part 5 of Modern Daddy Steve Rogers/Young Bucky Barnes)

Cyclone by howdoyousleep/ @howdoyousleep3 (PWP | 4,9K | Explicit): “Listen to those manners, baby, so good. You can have all of Daddy’s cock you want but you better fucking work for it.” (Part 6 of Modern Daddy Steve Rogers/Young Bucky Barnes)

Delirious by howdoyousleep/ @howdoyousleep3 (PWP | 2,8K | Explicit): “Fuck, honey you look so good takin’ it for me. That little cock has come twice already and look how hard it is for Daddy. Said you couldn’t come and look at you about to come all over my cock.” (Part 7 of Modern Daddy Steve Rogers/Young Bucky Barnes)

I Just Wanna Tell You Somethin' by howdoyousleep/ @howdoyousleep3 (PWP | 1,4K | Explicit): Bucky had been so preoccupied at the library studying with Natasha that he hadn’t even realized his phone had been ringing. Or that he had missed quite a handful of text messages. Luckily it was only one missed call, but his stomach clenched nervously when he saw that there was a voicemail. A long voicemail. (Part 8 of Modern Daddy Steve Rogers/Young Bucky Barnes)

Lately You've Been on my Mind by howdoyousleep/ @howdoyousleep3 (PWP | 1,8K | Explicit): As soon as Steve’s office door is closed behind him, he lets out an incredibly deep sigh, his tense shoulders slumping, his eyes falling shut. Meeting after meeting after meeting had consumed his day and most of them had unfortunately been arduous with difficult clients and a test of patience. Steve needed to go home for the weekend and it felt like he needed it more than he needed to breathe. He slips his phone from his pocket and immediately curses. He missed a call from Bucky. (Part 9 of Modern Daddy Steve Rogers/Young Bucky Barnes)

💙 Gym Day by howdoyousleep/ @howdoyousleep3 (PWP | 19K | Explicit): He sits up and rolls his neck, hands planted on either side of his hips on the wooden bench beneath him, focusing on his posture, and looks over at the man sitting with him. Oh shit. (Part 1 of Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Solider Bucky Barnes| Shrinkyclinks)

Easy Like Sunday Mornin' by howdoyousleep/ @howdoyousleep3 (PWP | 3,2K | Explicit): Today is a Sunday and the universally-accepted laziness of the day may be why Steve finds himself wanting it slow and sweaty and deep. Bucky didn’t ask questions. (Part 2 of Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Solider Bucky Barnes| Shrinkyclinks)

💙 Right in my Space by howdoyousleep/ @howdoyousleep3 (PWP | 9K | Explicit): Fuck. Steve’s head falls against the door with a gentle thump that he knows Bucky has to hear from the other side. Bucky was the absolute best and the absolute worst thing he could have seen on the other side of his door, especially with his slightly muddled red-wine-filled brain. He has worked so hard to avoid this moment, has hurt himself over and over again, and here he is feeling vulnerable standing at his door at midnight while the guy he definitely doesn’t want to date and definitely might not be in love with stands on the other side. (Part 3 of Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Solider Bucky Barnes| Shrinkyclinks)

life is but a dream by howdoyousleep/ @howdoyousleep3 (PWP | 2,3K | Explicit): “Beg for it.” The phrase bounces around in Bucky’s brain like a pinball, off different sides, rolling around the curvature of his skull. His eyes are open, but his vision is a little hazy, can make out Steve’s slim backside as it hovers over Bucky’s angry erection, his amused but hot facial expression. Steve lets go of Bucky’s dick, smacks his hand down hard on his stomach instead, “Gone on me already, honey?” (Part 4 of Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Solider Bucky Barnes| Shrinkyclinks)

Edging Closer by leveragehunters (Monkeygreen)/ @leveragehunters (Modern AU | 1,4K | Teen): Bucky had an apartment of his very own (okay, technically he co-owned it with the bank) and a neighbour of his very own: Steve Rogers, tall, blond, built and ridiculously kind. Sure, Bucky had accused said neighbour of being a butt-pic snapping pervert, but amazingly enough he'd been forgiven. In fact, he'd been more than forgiven, but even after dating Steve for not-quite-a-year, Bucky's eyebrows shot up when Steve dropped down next to him on the couch and casually asked, "Do you want to try edging this weekend?" (Part 2 of Two Men and a Single Entendre)

WIP

💙 Like it's the Only Thing I'll Ever Do by howdoyousleep/ @howdoyousleep3 (ABO AU | 3/4 | 22K | Explicit): When Steve opens the door, Bucky feels like he’s been living in clouds for the past few days, maybe even his entire life. Steve is life, Steve is happiness, Steve is the sun. He has such a visceral reaction to seeing the Alpha that he feels his knees go weak, feels his body draw tight towards the other man, pulled in. Or big Alpha Steve moves into sweet little Omega Bucky's apartment building and a roller-coaster build of a romance ensues.

💙 the reverie was not of me, you never saw nothing (so good for you and good for me) by voxofthevoid/ @voxofthevoid (Canon divergent | 2/? | 15K | Explicit): S.H.I.E.L.D and the Red Room throw Captain America and the Winter Soldier together for yet another mission. Serendipity is a tricky thing. (Part 2 of lay your heart into my perfect machine)

The Mnemosyne Project by onymousann (Post-WS | 2/? | 4,5K | Explicit): Someone's trying to talk to the Winter Soldier. Steve intends to find out who. (Part 2 of ocean eyes)

Paradise Lost (& Found) by JJK/ @trenchcoatsandtimetravel (Modern AU | 28/? | 62K | Mature): Meeting at a tropical resort AU where Steve is there on a 2-week honeymoon package after his fiancee left him at the altar, and Bucky is there for his sister’s destination wedding but doesn’t have a room because there was a mix up with the reservations in the system.

💙 Whip Crack by Quarra/ @quarra (Tentacles AU | 109K | 13/? | Explicit): Tentacle Monster Steve is captured by Hydra. They send in the Winter Soldier with a bull whip to break him, but as far as Steve's concerned the most beautiful creature he's ever seen walked in to his cell and started waving a sexy black tentacle at him. It's love at first sight.

Re-read

wild at heart by spacebuck/ @spacebuck (Shrunkyclunks, Soulmates AU | 11K | Explicit): Steve's volunteering when he meets his soulmate, and the cheetahs Bucky's responsible for make pretty good matchmakers, too.

#stucky #stucky fic #stucky fanfic #stucky fanfiction #stucky fic rec #weekly recap

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lupinwritings · 5 years ago

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My giant fic rec list

Here is my ongoing list of fic recs! More added as I read.

* unfinished

Featuring peterick, hankcon, erasermic, leopika, and ineffable husbands

Peterick

With The Moon In His Arms

Pete is a merman who saves Patrick’s life.

A Little Infamy

Patrick is a solo artist who's sunk his heart and soul into a second album that's failing to chart. Obviously what he needs to bump up sales and dirty up his nice guy image is a sex scandal. His music label hire amateur porn star and aspiring poet Pete to pose as Patrick's boyfriend and together they make one intimate video destined for infamy on the internet.

Patrick falling for Pete isn't part of the plan.

The Truth About Patrick

Pete Wentz is a fashion mogul with a brand new music label who gets an earful of struggling artist Patrick Stump's demo and wants to sign him. Except when he asks to see a photo of Patrick, Patrick sends him a picture of his hot roommate Mikey Way instead.

An AU based on the movie The Truth About Cats and Dogs.

Anything by SnitchesAndTalkers

Seriously they have so many good fics so I just linked their AO3 but some of my favourites they’ve written are Christmastime In The City, Dead and Dreaming, Pretty In Punk, and The Pros and Cons of Craigslist

I Could Crush You With My Voice

Pete was in an accident at an Arma show that left him totally blind. After four months of moping around his apartment, totally depressed, he opens his window and hears Patrick singing. It's love at first listen.

I Have Forgiven Jesus

In June 1952, Father Patrick Stump is involved in a scandal so great that the Diocese of Chicago has no choice but to send him away in disgrace. He finds himself in the town of Clark, Mississippi, a town not known for its tolerance of anything other than the All American Dream.

Pete never wanted to make the move to Clark but found himself forced by lack of opportunities and the death of his father during the war. Out of work and close to out of hope, he stumbles across a card in the general store, neither he, not the writer of the card aware that what follows will alter the course of their lives irrevocably.

But the smallest towns often have the darkest secrets...

You Know, I Only Wanted Fun

It’s a Hogwarts AU

But There’s No Preparing for This

Out of absolutely everything in the Central Chicago Public Library that Patrick was proud of, the number one thing was the erotica section. Was that a weird thing to be proud of? Possibly. But everyone knows librarians are the weirdest people on the planet.

On the other hand, the one thing Patrick absolutely hated about his job was difficult patrons. And the most difficult patron in the existence of difficult patrons was Pete Wentz, a man who had a big mouth and bad opinions about Patrick’s erotica section. Patrick could happily go the rest of his career without seeing Pete Wentz ever again. Like, ever. He had a loud voice and grating jokes and Patrick hoped he’d stay far, far away this weekend when Central Chicago Public Library played host to Kingston Lewis, the best erotica writer this century.

Hankcon

All The Beds I’ve Made *

Connor, co-owner of a popular coffee shop in Detroit, has been content to bury himself in his business instead of putting himself out there.

Things change when a cantankerous lieutenant becomes a regular.

(Modern Coffee Shop AU)

Bound

Hank is the sole owner, and worker, of a quaint little cafe nestled in a quite coastal village in the far north of the UK. Nine times out of ten the weather is utterly abysmal, rolling grey clouds and rain showers most days, and his shop is hidden down a narrow cobbled back alley, but he’s somewhat of a local legend for his comfort food.

It’s during one such grim, dreary day when Connor stumbles into his cafe, and his life.

Eighteen Wheels on an Uphill Climb

Hank is going to die. He’s going to die right here in Kentucky, 53 years old, halfway to broke, and tragically sober. Survived only by a nine-year-old St. Bernard and the 31-year-old twink who delivered the fatal blow.

Erasermic

How To Take Care Of A Mummy? *

Present Mic is being a personal nurse for an injured Aizawa.

Guess the rest...

Dragon Fruit

Being a dragon slayer is certainly a lonely and dangerous job, but someone has to do it, and Shouta Aizawa is that someone. He is a member of the Aizawa clan, after all. The job was supposed to be routine, just another dragon to kill to protect a nearby village, but the slayer's life changes forever when he meets Hizashi Yamada, a bard cursed to turn into a dragon whenever the sun rises. Really, there's only one glaring issue: Aizawa can't stand bards.

Hizashi doesn't deserve this curse - at least he thinks he doesn't. How's he supposed to live out a normal life of playing music and seducing women when he has horns and a tail? And that's only during the night! Nevertheless, he's survived with this curse for three years now, but his time's running out. Mating season is fast approaching and if he isn't cured by spring, he'll be completely consumed by the curse. His only hope is Shouta Aizawa, the same man who has promised to destroy him should they fail. Can the two really work together and find the cure when they can't even get along, or is Hizashi doomed to succumb to the dragon's curse?

Leopika

Event Horizons series *

Living in New York City is tough for anyone, and it’s no different for Leorio Paladiknight. He’s a medical school dropout, he’s up to his ears in debt, and his best friend Pietro has been in the hospital for months. But when he meets a feisty blond barista named Kurapika on a beautiful spring afternoon, his life takes an unexpected turn.

It’s Gonna Be a Bumpy Ride *

Leorio hated his cousin, Ging. He was a failure of a dad and couldn’t be bothered to watch his own kid for more than three minutes. It was Leorio’s turn to watch the kid now and it wasn’t like he was going to say no. Gon had no where else to go. He could at least let the teen bum on his couch for a few days.

He did not anticipate Gon’s incredible ability to talk to anyone, including his strange and stoic neighbor with the creepy quiet kid. He could have done with out the crazy clown and the gang drama but, hey, anything for family. (Plus that neighbor is cute when he’s not contemplating murderous revenge.)

The Odd Job

Amateur ghost hunter, Leorio Paladiknight, seems to put himself in quite a lot of spiritual predicaments. This leaves him at the mercy of a surly occult shop owner who might have more than just a few tricks up his sleeve.

Ineffable Husbands

Break my Cage and Spread my Wings *

Everyone called the Titanic the 'Ship of Dreams', but for Aziraphale, it was the ship of nightmares, carrying her away from her home in England, and her dreams of freedom, and towards the bleak future of her arranged marriage in America. The only spark of light in the darkness is her new and tentative friendship with the boldly intimate Crowley.

#peterick #hankcon #erasermic #leopika #Ineffable Husbands

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kittenfemme27 · 4 years ago

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Genshin Impact

Breath of the Wild was a game I wanted to love. I love the Zelda games, always have, and I eat up open world games like candy. Yet, BoTW has sat on my digital shelf collecting digital dust for ages. Why is that? Well, to put it simply, I don't want to play as Link. BoTW has a beautiful world, rich combat and game play puzzles, tons to see and do and experience, it's a sandbox for the ages. But it's hampered so heavily for me by the fact that I have to play this very boring and to be honest kind of forgettable boy named Link during the game play. That may sound petty, but if I'm in an open world game I want to fully immerse myself into that and video games are where we all go to escape anyway. If I wanted to be misgendered, I'd simply forget to shave and go outside.

I don't mind playing other Zelda games because in those, Link is a self contained character in the world and they're relatively short and self contained games. But BoTW is a sandbox. And for a large majority of it, you're not going to be doing the story or being addressed as link. The size of the world and the sheer amount of hours you're going to put into it mean that for almost all intents and purposes, Link isn't Link, he's a faceless avatar that you're supposed to put yourself into. The game offers so much freedom in so many avenues and yet, in your choice of how to explore the world as someone you'd actually like to be, you're not allowed. You have to be a skinny blonde twink.

So, in late 2019, in comes a trailer for Genshin Impact. It's making its rounds on the Internet as a "PC Free to Play Gacha Breath of the Wild Clone" which, while a mouthful, was something I initially wrote off. Didn't see a point in checking it out, as I really don't like Gacha games very much. But in late September 2020, MiHoYo the developers released the public 1.0 build of the game to everyone. Multi-platform, too. iOS/Android, PC, PS4, and even a switch release down the line. And maybe its the pandemic, or maybe the Internet was simply too lured in by the cute anime girls, but it took the many by storm. It took me personally over 12+ hours to download the 11 gigs of the game because the servers were so swamped with people.

Now I do want to be clear: Genshin Impact borrows many things from BoTW, but it isn't a clone. It's not a sandbox in the same way BoTW is and aside from some general game play things such as gliders, stamina/wall climbing system, and general aesthetic, the games are massively different. Still, though, playing it has highlighted to me why I never felt quite right playing BoTW, and its that lack of freedom. That lack of ability to play the game on my own terms and explore the beautiful handcrafted world the way I want to.

Despite appearances, Genshin Impact is a lot more like a single player MMO than it is anything else. Requiring tons of farming and grinding to create high level powerful characters in a world that gets increasingly more powerful and hostile as you do. The core game play loop of Genshin Impact is pretty phenomenal, essentially giving you a massive world to explore with literally thousands upon thousands of chests and rewards to find. Either by clearing out enemies, doing random in world puzzles, or even just sitting around. Being inside of and exploring the world of Teyvat is as rewarding as it is beautiful. The art and animation design of the game are stellar and do a lot to make you forget how much time has passed since you booted up the game in the first place. There's tons of different lore books to find, NPC's to talk to, quests to complete, the world is chock-full of lore and world building even down to simple weapon and material descriptions. Teyvat is a wonderful place to be and the developers MiHoYo deserve a pat on the back for how good the world of Genshin Impact is. The other side of game play is a simple system of Character Progression where you farm materials to make your characters/weapons/abilities better so that you can farm even more materials from harder enemies, much like an MMO, and you also acquire gear called Artifacts with randomly rolled stats much like an ARPG. In that regard, Genshin Impact is highly addictive. There are a myriad of weapons, talents, artifacts, and characters all to level up and build up over the course of your play, and every character can be made viable very very easily. The game also lets you keep a party of 4 characters that you can swap between at any point, as well as each character being attuned to a specific Elemental Type that reacts to other Elements. This causes the end-game to be centered around doing some of the hardest dungeons the game has to offer by theory crafting incredibly powerful teams that work off of each other and cause Elemental Reactions in enemies. It’s some of the most fun i’ve had in a game in ages.

All of that is fantastic but unfortunately its all also held back by one simple, huge problem: Original Resin. The game uses a currency called Original Resin that you use to challenge the harder content in the game. Dungeons, World Bosses, Elite Weekly Bosses, you name it and if its end-game content, it likely costs Resin. And not in insignificant amounts either. Dungeons are 20, Bosses are 40, and Weekly Bosses are 60. So, how do you obtain this material? Time. You start with, and are capped, at 120(Later 160 in patch 1.1). 1 resin takes 8 minutes to get back. If you spend it all, it takes 16 hours to get back. Given the rates you spend it, you can go from 120 to 0 in roughly 10-15 minutes. With no way to increase the resin cap, and the incredibly slow acquisition rate, that frequently means you only have about that much playtime a day of the game in the endgame. And that's, needless to say, incredibly frustrating. Thankfully its not an entire stamina system that means you can't play the game at all when you're out of resin, but it does mean that character progression itself is gated as all upgrade/progression materials are locked behind these dungeons and bosses that you must use Original Resin to face. Effecitvely, this means single characters will become weeks and weeks of work, with weapons and artifacts being only slightly less time consuming. I can only hope MiHoYo is looking to change this system in a way that isn't just increasing the cap as the feedback they've received has been very negative regarding it, but only time will tell.

Unfortunately, this isn't the games only problem with its players either. The game is a Gacha, there is no getting around that, but despite the fact that pretty much any character can become massively overpowered and viable in the endgame, people are going to want the rarest characters that exist. This is by design and unfortunately is more or less a glorified gambling system. And while the game is quite nice with its premium currency and how often it gives it, what isn't nice is that the rarest “5-star”characters cost a minimum of 200$ to get through money. With no guarantee you're getting the one you want.

Worse still, outside of a guaranteed 5-star drop at 90 rolls on the gacha wheel, the chance for a 5-star weapon or character is 0.6%. Not even a whole rounded up 1%. This is frankly ridiculous, as is the cost of real money to premium currency. For reference, most other popular Gacha’s doing well offer their rarest characters at anywhere between a 1-6% rate. In general, gacha's aren't known to be kind in their rates. That’s the point, they want you to gamble with real money. Genshin Impact, however, is so unkind and unfair that even other regular players of gacha gamers are very, very vocally upset. If it wasn't for the game play loop and the world, I'm not sure this would fly. And its certainly not flying in the west with the crowd that doesn't play Gacha's nearly as much. Neither is the resin system, as gamers in the west typically want to play for hours and hours at a time.

I’d be remiss if i didn’t bring up the story in Genshin Impact, as it’s genuinely fantastic. As previously stated, the world has a metric tonne of hidden lore in books, weapon/item/artifact descriptions, character stories you unlock as you use a playable character, etc. But the main story you can currently play from start to finish in the 1.0 release is the prologue.

This prologue stars very simply: Your character, the “Traveler” is an alien from another world. Not much is known about them so far, other than that the Traveler and their sibling were people with the ability to hop between worlds at will. In the opening moments of the game this power, along with your sibling, are stolen from you by an unnamed assailant. Thus trapping you in Teyvat and leaving you to begin a journey to find the Seven Gods of Teyvat, simply known as “The Seven” and seek their power and wisdom to find your sibling and potentially leave. This journey is how you meet Venti, one of the Seven in disguise as a simple human bard, and his best friend Dvalin. The events that follow have you help this strange bard, as well as the people of Mondstat, defeat the dragon Dvalin. Previously, he protected the lands of Mondstat for hundreds of years. However, as you meet both Dvalin and Venti, he has had his mind corrupted and been lied to by an order of evil mages known as the Abyss Order, and its caused him to go on the offensive against Mondstat and her people.

It's a fair bit emotional, humorous at times thanks to Venti, and overall very engaging. Mondstat is a city built on freedom, to the point that its own god Barbatos(Venti) refuses to rule over it and allows himself to be the weakest of the seven gods, as that would take away some of the cities freedom. Within this prologue, there is a huge focus on Mondstat being a city of Freedom, the prologue quite literally ends with Venti telling Dvalin after you have saved him from the corruption that even though he is "meant" to be the protector of Mondstat, he hopes Dvalin chooses whatever life he wants, even if that's not Mondstats protector, and that Venti simply wants him to be happy. Venti's own personal story quest goes further in depth about the foundation of Mondstat and its origins as a rebel city founded after the citizens overthrew the oppressive rule of an awful tyrant God and killed him. In a very pretty hand drawn "cathedral window" style cutscene, you get to see the end of this war and why Barbatos chose the form he currently inhabits and took up being a bard, which was to honor a dead friend from this very same war. This explains why Mondstat and Barbatos value its freedom so highly. I cried at this moment both times I played it.

For a free game, the storytelling here is off the charts. As i said before, Venti and many other characters have personal stories that both introduce you to a trial version of the playable character, thus letting you see how they work and play, and also giving you either more info on the world or an introduction to the character in question, or both. They're fantastic little stories and are up there with the main story in quality. One of my favorite parts of the game and something that will only be expanded with time. Each one takes you on a journey of discovery or even simple fun with a character and it all feels very personal and touching, as all of the main stories and character quests are very well voice acted.

The prologue being so focused on freedom makes it all the more awkward, then, that MiHoYo is a game developer based out of China, and as such has to follow China's censorship rules. Taiwan and Hong Kong both are censored in-game chat and if you're reported for saying them, you'll be banned for daring to speak the words. These aren't the only censorship decisions in the game, but they're by far the ones that struck me the most. I understand that the company is based out of China and thus has to follow the censorship rules, as they are the actual law of the land and they could be fined or even shut down if they refused. But the disconnect of knowing there are actual human rights atrocities being committed in China with the Uygher Genocide and Re-Education camps, the human rights violations in Hong Kong, the breakdown of democracy and the treatment of Taiwan, while this game that comes out of China boasts on and on about Freedom and the Human right to self actualize and choose their future is... troubling. It's one that I don't really know how to reconcile, if it can be reconciled at all. I'd like to believe that the developers really believe in their own story and secretly oppose those sorts of atrocities. But at the same time, banning players who mention Hong Kong or Taiwan isn't in the law. That’s a decision MiHoYo is making. Right now, China doesn’t have the freedom that Venti and Mondstat and Genshin Impact try to instill in you so hard as important and a human right. And knowing that and knowing the censorship is in the game make it very difficult to get a read on what the game actually wants you to feel.

Overall,i think Genshin Impact is a fantastic game. Its updates plan to bring in not only more story, as there are meant to be 7 Acts and currently the game features the Prologue and half of Act 1, but in those acts it plans to explain the playable areas and bring in new Events, Characters, Weapons, etc. And that makes me excited for the future of Genshin Impact! It’s a beautiful game of genuinely Triple AAA quality completely for free. But. Its also a Gacha game and by far one of the least rewarding Gachas you could play right now. Maybe that will change with time. I certainly hope it does. But it feels hard to recommend something that, once you beat it, disrespects your time so much and so badly. I hope Genshin Impact has a bright future, I really do, and I’m definitely going to continue playing it. But right now, I can’t say for certain that I feel confident in the developers to make it the game it clearly wants to be if it wasn’t shackled down by its Gacha.

#Genshin Impact #Review #Played on: PC #Played on: iOS

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bellakitse · 5 years ago

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33/malex

I got you, deep in the heart of me

# 33- “Sometimes I just can’t control myself when around you.” ( I slightly changed the wording.)

If there is one truth that Michael Guerin knows abouthimself is that self-control, and Alex Manes are not things that go hand inhand for him. Before he ever tasted Alex’s lips back when they were just kids,he always had an urge to know him, deep under his skin like an itch hecouldn’t get to no matter how much he scratched. When he stole his guitar fromthe music room, it was as much about the music and the quiet it provided asmuch as about the boy with kohl-lined eyes. After all, there were other guitarsin the music room; he didn’t have to take Alex’s.

After their first kiss and now first-hand knowledge of Alex’staste, of the softness of his lips, and even softer sounds he makes, his flimsygrasp on his control was all but gone. For the next ten years, he would provethat his self-control is nonexistent when it comes to Alex Manes, always caving,always craving whatever small amount of time Alex was able to give him when heblew through town on leave.

When he decides to move on, that all he and Alex do is hurteach other. He tries, he tries so hard, for his sake, for Maria’s and even forAlex’s. Love shouldn’t hurt so much he tells himself. He’s always loved Alex,he’ll always love Alex, but he’s tired of all the pain. He pushes awaythe constant buzzing under his skin that urges him to reach out and touch theAirman whenever he’s in the same room; he ignores his body screaming at him thatby Alex’s side is where he belongs, fused to him until he can’t tell where onebegins and where the other ends. He focuses that energy on being a goodboyfriend to Maria and tells himself that sooner or later, he’ll feel that wayabout her. He likes her, he cares about her, and it doesn’t hurt when he looksat her, but it also doesn’t feel like a magnet is pulling him to her when they’retogether either. He tells himself it will come with time and that if by somechance it never does, well not all loves are meant to be all-consuming andencompassing.

He keeps telling himself this while hoping his face doesn’tshow the battle inside him. He smiles when he goes on dates with Maria. He worksat being friends with Alex like he asks after one last tiring fight. He makes aconscious effort not to clench his jaw when Alex starts dating some twink withblonde highlights, and to not sigh a breath of relief when the relationshiponly lasts a couple of weeks.

He ignores it all; he has self-control for once in his life,and it’s not bad, he tells himself.

But it’s not livewire under his skin.

Maria breaks up with him on a Tuesday as he sits in herempty bar.

He doesn’t say much; he just listens to her talk; he supposeshe owes her that much. He listens as she tells him that a relationship isn’t arelationship if only one person is in it. She tells him that she wants someonewho is passionate about her and that she knows that he will never be.

“You already have that with someone else, Guerin,” she says witha rueful smile. “There’s never going to be room for me in that head of yours,so let’s stop this before we make things worse.”

He wants to want to argue; he wishes so desperately fora moment that he could tell her that she’s wrong, that he’s moved on. Shesmiles again, this time more amused the way she does when he’s done somethingdumb but endearing to her.

“Can’t lie to a psychic,” she says softly. “I see it every timehe walks into a room, the way you want him,” she sighs. “No one has ever wantedme like that. I deserve that.”

Michael nods. “I’m sorry. I tried, Maria, really I did.”

“I know, Guerin,” Maria rolls her eyes, but there is softness in them. “You should go.”

Michael nods once more, picking up his hat as he gets up, hegives her one final apologetic look and starts to leave.

“He deserves to know, Guerin,” she calls out as he reachesthe door. He turns around to look at her as she continues. “He’s convincedhimself that you don’t feel that way anymore. Where you didn’t fool me, youfooled him.”

She gives him a searching look. “But you’re never going tostop feeling the way you feel, are you?”

Michael shakes his head, can’t lie to a psychic after all. Shelets a tear escape her eyes, and he thinks it’s for all three of them. Shewipes it away and gives him a challenging look.

“Then why are you wasting time, Michael?”

He leaves without answering her; he doesn’t have one anyway.Or more like he has one, and it comes down to fear.

He’s scared of getting hurt again; he scared of hurting Alexagain the way he knows he has. They’re finally friends, and it actually worksfor them, and he’s afraid of messing it up and losing him completely.

No, better to just keep ignoring the humming under his skin,he’s finally gotten good at it.

Of course, there is only so much ignoring he can do when thereason for the humming shows up at his place. He watches as Alex drives up tohis airstream a week later. He stays seated in his lawn chair, gripping the armreststo keep from launching himself out of it to cross the distance between them andpress Alex onto the hood of his car.

Alex fidgets under his gaze; it’s as surprising as always.Alex is usually so in control around everyone else; it eases something in hischest to know he’s not the only one lacking control.

“You can tell me to butt out,” he starts after a moment,putting his hands in his jacket pockets, before taking them out again. He has startedwearing rings again, and Michael watches as he plays with one. “But Mariacalled me, told me what happened and said you could use a friend.”

Michael raises an eyebrow at that. “That’s what she said?”

Alex looks away from him, and he catches a faint hint of pinkaround his neck. “It was a weird-ass conversation,” Alex tells him with a drysmile. “Me, trying to be a good friend to her as she goes through a break-up. Her,bluntly telling me to get off my ass and tell her now ex-boyfriend that I stilllove him.”

Michael inhales sharply at the confession, marveled by theman in front of him, ashamed that he’s ever thought of him even once as notbrave when he’s the bravest person he knows.

“Feeling like absolute shit at how happy I was when she toldme you guys were over,” Alex says, taking a few steps closer.

Michael stands, taking a step closer of his own.

“Hating how I was filled with hope,” Alex continues quietly,his dark eyes staring into Michael’s. “When she told me that there was a reasonto be hopeful. Is there a reason, Michael?”

Michael swallows hard, the humming in his skin, making itsing. “When you broke up with Forest, I wanted to throw a party,” Michael admits,half a smile on his face when Alex lets out a chuckle, his eyes shining. “Itried very hard not to be happy about it, but sometimes I just can’t controlmyself when it comes to you, no matter how much I try.”

“So stop trying,” Alex says desperately. “Stop trying, Michael,and I’ll stop too.”

Michael looks at him, at the hopeful love he sees on Alex’sface and knows his face is echoing it back by the gasp Alex lets out. They bothmove towards each other, hands gripping at clothes, foreheads pressed againsteach other as they hold on to one another.

“I’m scared,” Michael whispers, his mouth inches away fromAlex’s.

“Me too,” Alex confesses. “I’m scared we’ll screw it up.”

“Yeah.”

Alex pulls back, his hands cupping Michael’s face. “But I’mmore scared of going through life never feeling like this again.”

“You’re under myskin,” he whispers. “You’ve always been there even when I tried to pull you out.”

Alex drops his hands, but Michael holds on to him, makingsure Alex’s eyes are on him. “Turns out the reason I couldn’t pull you out was thatI didn’t want to,” he says, touching Alex’s face, his thumb at the corner ofAlex’s mouth. “I have you deep in the heart of me, Alex, because my heart belongsto you.”

When Alex kisses him, years of love and longing between thempouring out of them, the humming under his skin finally settles.

#roswell nm #malex fic #malex #michael x alex #my writing #brief miluca #mentions of brief alex/forest #anon #ask #Anonymous #fill

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gascon-en-exil · 5 years ago

Text

Lords and their Knights: When FE Chivalry Goes Gay

@mwritesink prompted me to write about my favorite tropes in FE and how they evolved over the course of the series. I already crossed a few others off in an earlier post, but this one is a particular favorite of mine where M/M romance in this series is concerned and one I felt had enough examples to constitute a piece of its own. Let it not be said that this is merely the gay variation on the well-worn heterosexual romance trope of a lady and her knight (ex. Eirika/Seth), because negotiating the fundamental power imbalance in this type of relationship takes on different dimensions when both parties are male. I draw a closer comparison to courtly love, which in the traditional sense is also socially transgressive (being adulterous) and not consummated via marriage or other public means...which in FE terms means an S support and possibly a eugenics baby. A vassal in love with his lord rather than his lord’s wife is not only cutting the female intermediary out of what can already be a very homoromatic scenario, but it’s directly tangling together a kind of martial romantic love and ideas about what knighthood/vassalage even is or ought to be - two topics FE loves to explore. I’ve therefore compiled a few of the most notable examples of this trope across the series to talk about in more detail, because if one is willing to be liberal with subtext there’s surprisingly quite a few to pick from.

(And yeah, this is also in part because I like hot rich men who take orders, and this series already has plenty of gay or otherwise ambiguously non-straight mages, thieves, archers, and their ilk without my help.)

The Sad Gay Knight: Quan/Finn

This one I’ve talked about before in a fair amount of depth, from my hopes for how a Genealogy remake will treat Finn to speculation on just what Quan got out of this relationship besides a devoted retainer and (we may assume) a nice piece of ass. The summary here is that Finn’s love for Quan supersedes anything he’s shown to feel for any of the various women he can hook up with and quite frankly astonishes in its ramifications for the future of Leonster and Thracia as a whole. It’s poignant, adulterous (but Ethlyn’s probably ok with it?), and messy as all hell once you factor in whatever’s up with Glade and whatever Lachesis wasn’t feeling about the whole situation. It is also, naturally, very sad; Finn loses his lord when he’s only around eighteen, and with their kingdom collapsing around him and the entire continent consumed by war he dedicates the next twenty years of his life to raising Quan’s son to be the king Quan himself had wanted to be. And for all his labor he apparently derives no lasting satisfaction, spending his epilogue wandering around the Yied desert and at last returning only to (possibly) pen the history he’s helped to make.

Finn is the embodiment of knighthood loyal unto and beyond death, and that paired with all the romantic and erotic subtext surrounding the two of them - Finn as Quan’s treasured favorite, his catatonia after Yied, the obsessive polishing of the brave lance that Quan gave to him, his inability to satisfy women in some vague way - makes them the defining example of this trope in Fire Emblem. I look forward to seeing how remakes will handle them; Finn’s presentation in Heroes is definitely cause for hope there. As for the issue of yet another story in media of gay men beset by tragedy and death, I did draw up a long headcanon on the technically crack pairing of Diarmuid/Tristan that specifically plays into the lord and knight trope while also allowing Finn a chance to pass his experiences on to a later, happier generation. IS is free to take notes, just saying.

Pretty Blond Twinks and the Men Who Love Them: Perceval/Elffin and their lasting influence

Moving on from Jugdral, I’ve got to say that I’ve really been sleeping on the original gay Elibean duo. Before Raven and Lucius (but chronologically after, because these games are out of order) there was another feminine young man with long blond hair beloved of a severe-looking warrior. Binding Blade gives us the bard Elffin, who in another life was Etruria’s Prince Mildain and Perceval’s liege. The Knight General takes Mildain’s alleged accidental death about as well as Finn takes the death of his lord and lady; he turns grim and humorless, and without a dying dream to guide him he follows the command of the corrupt revolutionary faction of Etruria with little protest. It takes learning that Mildain is alive and in Roy’s army for Perceval to drop the halfhearted Camus routine and switch sides, and the strength of his fealty not to his nation or even to his king but to the prince he’d thought dead is absolutely touching in the moment not to mention incredibly useful since the guy is one of FE6′s best units.

Binding Blade doesn’t give anyone but Roy and his harem paired endings, but there’s still a fair bit to be gleaned from their support lines, both what is in them and what isn’t. Perceval and Elffin each have supports with women, but nothing remotely romantic - Perceval’s support with Larum is particularly amusing since he clarifies that her, ahem, dancing does nothing for him. Also worth noting is that neither of them can support with Clarine, even though one would think they’d make fine romantic choices for her given their statuses and physical resemblances to her beloved brother. Their own support line is quietly intimate. Elffin has changed since his near-death experience, and Perceval is still struggling to accept that their relationship can’t be as it was, that in fact for the time being they can’t now be a knight and his prince. Perceval also frets over Elffin’s refusal to see his father the king, and he later extracts a promise from Elffin to come home to Etruria after he’s done traveling the world as a bard, in one of the series’s several instances of writing what sounds like a marriage proposal in ambiguous terms. Per Elffin’s ending, he’s only gone for a few months after the war, so their promised reunion isn’t long delayed. I’m interested to see what a remake would add to their relationship, because as it stands Perceval/Elffin has an established romance arc that deserves a paired ending or at the very least more suggestive epilogues.

Further compounding their underrated signficance, it’s not too difficult to trace a line from Perceval/Elffin to a number of other M/M pairings in the two later GBA games and in Tellius that present some variation on this theme:

As mentioned above, Raven/Lucius is physically similar and performs a nearly identical gameplay function, with the pretty blond waif again responsible for recruiting his surly but protective boyfriend from the ranks of the enemy.

Gerik/Joshua meanwhile borrows the character of the end of their support line and turns it into a genuine paired ending, with a prince incognito recruiting a swordsman to come work for him. They being who they are however, it’s all handled a bit rougher, with Gerik being impressed by Joshua’s “swagger.” Take that as you will.

Ike/Soren may be the defining seme/uke dynamic in Tellius’s overflowing fount of queer subtext, but Tibarn/Reyson smashes that trope together with this one and FE’s power couple unit archetype plus a dash of whatever the avian equivalent of furries is for wholly unique results. Although both of them are technically royalty, only Reyson is a prince by heredity whereas Tibarn presumably became king of Phoenicis by beating the crap out of any rival contenders as most laguz prefer to do. One can therefore read shades of a courtly relationship in Tibarn’s decision to zealously take up the cause of justice for the Serenes massacre in Reyson’s place. Combine this with Reyson’s characteristic edge that even Tibarn is forced to rein in at times and their relationship comes off as surprisingly more egalitarian than the sum of its parts. Oh yeah, and blond waif dancer + premade OP unit with ludicrous physical stats and movement again.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the conflict of the Tellius games Zelgius -> Sephiran explores what would happen if a gay Camus archetype chose instead to dedicate himself to an antagonistic lord. Sure, you can still recruit Sephiran via a convoluted and unintuitive process, but Zelgius is doomed no matter what.

They Can Say It, But They Can’t Do It: Awakening and Fates

Ugh. If I must....

I’ve made no secret of my ambivalence toward FE13 dragging the series into open acknowledgement that same-sex attraction is a thing that exists, handled as it was with a lot of explicit homoerotic denial and an assortment of cheap gay panic jokes and...whatever the hell Victor and Vincent are supposed to be. Chrom/Frederick, hot though it may potentially be in fanon, is one of those jokes, making a parody out of a knight enamored of his lord and leaving it to mean absolutely nothing since Awakening’s relationship endgame is invariably S supports for time traveling eugenics babies. FE has taken cracks at the overly dedicated knight before - see just about everything involving Kieran from Tellius, up to and including his overzealous devotion to his superior officer - but Awakening plumbs the depths of Frederick expecting Chrom’s nude image to raise the army’s morale. Just..what do you even say to that, apart from the awkward sputtering that comprises most of their support line?

FE14, for all its stumbling steps toward something less completely offensive, fares little better in this particular regard. Leo/Niles is a deeply troubled albeit thought-provoking callback to the subtextual lord/knight relationship, one where it’s hard to imagine them finding a healthy way to navigate the power differential. Then there’s Ryoma/Saizo. It’s nothing special in localization, but the never-localized festival DLC involves Saizo’s ardent desire to warm Ryoma’s clothing in his cleavage. That sounds like absolutely normal behavior for a servant and not a rehash of Frederick’s shenanigans, uh huh. Fates may indeed be said to be slightly better about playing palpable homoerotic tension for drama rather than comedy...but only slightly.

Paving the Way for an OT3: The Deliverance

This is, incidentally, yet another reason to appreciate Echoes for doing so much to redeem the 3DS games in the realm of (male) queer content. Yes, there’s a large and unaddressed divide between the openly gay and very modern Leon and the heavily subtextual faux-historical queerness of the Deliverance, but taken independently the two presentations work for what they’re each separately aiming to be. Among Clive’s gay entourage are not one but two men who’d dearly love to be the knight to his lord, and Forsyth’s strong desire to put Clive on a pedestal evokes the earlier spoofs of this kind of relationship precisely because Forsyth is that kind of vassal, the kind that would read Ribald Tales of the Faith War and cry like a heavily erect virgin bottom getting his first taste of dick at the brief interludes of tender manly love between Quan and Finn. He’s played for comedy just as much as Kieran or Frederick are, and yet Echoes comes across as less down on the concept as a whole for several reasons, being that

1) Python’s snark over Forsyth’s attraction to both Clive and Lukas is genuinely funny, much more so than when it’s the object of these affections quietly groaning his way through them,

2) Lukas is also there, and his desire to be Clive’s beloved knight is not played for comedy at all but is allowed to be unrealistic and unsatisfying because Clive will never get it,

3) everyone wants to screw Clive for some reason, not just his subordinates but also his sister and the estranged BFF who dies in his arms...and the guy is shown to be unworthy of all of them, and

4) all the characters involved are allowed other avenues for romantic attraction outside of a lord who’s just not that into them. Forsyth has Python, Lukas has both of them as friends and possibly more later, Clair has Gray (...at least he’s not her brother?), and Fernand has a bad rebound that goes to hell in the manner of Zelgius and Sephiran but at least ends with him getting to reconcile with his former friend before he dies.

The setup for the Deliverance’s overarching queerness is a bit strange as it rests on all these characters somehow finding Clive attractive, but nonetheless it makes for an unexpected and refreshing critique of the lord and knight trope, given a situation where the lord just isn’t that into it and in fact doesn’t seem to realize that he can be into it. It’s a good reminder that this isn’t a particularly good dynamic for a stable and lasting relationship, and that as hot as it can be it takes more than impassioned one-way devotion to make it work in the long term.

The good news if you’re into this kind of relationship like I am is that it’s a trope with some life in it yet. Echoes came at it strong, and prerelease information on Three Houses suggests a few possibilities for this dynamic in that game. I’m especially keeping my eye on Dimitri and Dedue, whose relationship appears to contain echoes of the original duo of Quan and Finn. I highly doubt there will be anything on the level of S supports acknowledging this type of attraction, but I’ll settle for some suggestive A supports.

#Fire Emblem

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thejovianmute · 7 years ago

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A Different Way Home, Ch 1 (FMA, Roy/Ed)

Title: A Different Way Home

Author: TheJovianMute

Rating: Explicit (in later chapters, this first one's pretty mild)

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist (any, since it's AU)

Pairing: Ed Elric/Roy Mustang

Tags: Alternate Universe, Prostitution, Hooker Roy, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Rape, Violence, PTSD, Eventual Happy Ending

Summary: Roy's standing on a freezing street corner, his body for sale and his pride long-since-gone, when the boy in the red coat approaches him.

Author's Notes:

A long while ago, in a brief burst of confidence, I posted my first fic. Since then my confidence tanked, and I haven't managed to convince myself to do it again. Then Ed and Roy Week popped up on my dash, and I remembered I'd started a RoyEd fic which would pretty much fit the bill. So I pushed myself to finish the first chapter properly, and here I am, posting it with an hour to spare - go me! I'm determined to keep going with this one - I'm not a fast writer, but I'll get there eventually.

This is set in a modern-day, alchemy-less Amestria. Roy's a little more broken than the one we know, and has fallen a lot further down. I've come across a few hooker-Ed fics but haven't yet found one with Roy on that side of the fence, so decided to flip the tables. There's some dark stuff in later chapters, but the payoff will hopefully be worth it - hurt/comfort is pretty much my favourite thing <3

Chapter 1:

Roy shivers in the freezing night air, the chill of the bricks he's leaning against seeping through the worn cotton of his t-shirt. He'd kill for a jacket, but he gets more attention without it; the t-shirt a size too small to show off the lines of his body. He no longer has the definition he once did, knows he's skirting the edge between slender and 'too thin' these days, but that seems to appeal to a certain sort of customer.

Not that he's having much luck tonight. He's been standing on this frigid corner for half an hour already without a hint of interest. Business is always slow on a Monday night, he knows, but hopefully it will pick up - not only does he need the money, but even just five or ten minutes in a heated car would give him a chance to warm up a little. He rubs his hands together, trying to create a little heat with the friction. It's times like this that he almost - almost - misses the desert heat.

Roy's scanning for potential marks when he catches sight of the figure in red walking his way. He squints a little to try and make out more detail; his vision is particularly poor at night, faces little more than shadowed blurs until they get within a couple of feet and he can make out actual features. The figure's small, though, and has what he assumes is a spill of long golden hair over one shoulder. Roy spares a moment to wonder whether the girl knows what kind of risk she's taking, walking through this part of the city alone at night. It's none of his business, of course - and considering where he's ended up it'd be a little hypocritical for him to be giving advice on poor life choices. The girl slides from his thoughts quickly enough as he goes back to looking out for tricks, occasionally stamping his feet, trying to restore circulation to his icy toes.

But the figure in red stops in front of him instead of continuing on past, and - despite what is indeed a long blond ponytail - the flat chest and angled jawline he can finally make out reveal the error in his assumption: this isn't a girl at all, it's a teenaged boy. The boy has his hands shoved into his pockets, feet planted solidly, his expression a mix of curiosity, determination and defiance as he stares at Roy intently.

"Can I help you?" Roy asks mildly.

The boy's eyes are a bright, almost luminescent amber beneath the sodium glow of the streetlights, matching the fall of golden hair. It's a striking look, especially paired with the black pants and shirt, topped by the blood-red coat.

The kid continues to stare at him, and Roy is just about to let loose a sarcastic comment when the kid abruptly finds his tongue, blurting: "How much?" The words seem to startle the boy as much as they startle Roy, if his mortified expression is anything to go by.

Roy raises an eyebrow, and then makes a show of looking the boy up and down. He's not the best judge of age, but he doubts this guy is older than fifteen or sixteen. "I don't fuck kids," he says bluntly. The boy is cute, but even if underage was his thing - which it isn't - he wouldn't risk that kind of pick-up out in the open like this.

The boy's expression darkens, his face flushing with a sudden anger, but he makes a visible attempt to rein himself in before replying. "I'm not a kid."

Roy raises both eyebrows this time in blatant disbelief.

The kid scowls at him. "I'm eighteen. I'm a goddamn university student."

It's possible, Roy muses, looking the guy over again. He has something of an ageless face himself, able to pass for twenty as easily as thirty - another thing that draws his clientele to him. The kid is short, only a scant inch or two above the five foot mark, but his build is solid enough, his shoulders square.

Still, it's better to be paranoid than arrested. "ID?" Roy asks.

"Seriously!?" The kid explodes, muttering dire invectives under his breath. "I'm being IDed by a hooker? What the fuck is my life?"

"You're welcome to try a hooker with a more flexible moral code if you so desire," Roy says, gesturing further down the street to where he knows some of the other guys work this time of night. There's a small group of them that band together for protection, but Roy's always been a loner.

The boy glances in the direction Roy indicates, but quickly shakes his head. "No. No, I want you." His cheeks flush pink with embarrassment as he says it, but his mouth presses into a determined line, as if daring Roy to doubt his resolve.

And that is interesting. Roy wonders what exactly it is about him that's drawn this particular kid. He knows that his mixed-race features are a draw for some men: the raven hair and dark eyes of his mother, combined with the pale Amestrian skin of his father. But generally it's the bigger guys that go for the Xingese look; the ones who get off on having someone smaller and lighter to manhandle and dominate. It's not something Roy particularly enjoys, but he's not in a position to turn down anyone willing to pay for his time.

Speaking of which. The kid is reaching into his pocket now, still scowling, pulling out his wallet and flipping it open, sliding out a small rectangle of plastic. He holds it up for Roy to inspect with a defiant expression. It's unexpectedly appealing, the stubborn little V between his brows, the determined jut of his jaw. So many of the men he encounters are jaded and emotionally numb, using him to try desperately to feel something, that this kid's spirit burns magnesium-bright in comparison.

Roy looks down at the card, making out the colour and layout of a local driver's licence, but in the dim lighting he hasn't got a hope of reading the text, and he curses his deficient vision yet again. Still, it makes little sense for the kid to show him a licence which proves him to be under-age, so odds are it backs up his claim. It could be a fake, of course, but these days the fakes are so good he probably couldn't make out the difference even if he could see.

"All right," Roy allows, deciding to go with it for now.

The kid puts the card back in his wallet and shoves it back in his pocket with apparent satisfaction. "So, how much?" He asks, repeating his original question.

Roy is somewhat nonplussed by the kid's stubborn determination. The guy's gorgeous and seems personable enough, if a little forthright, and Roy wonders what the hell he's doing picking up a hooker. The kid could walk into any gay bar or club and would draw men like flies to honey -

Roy knows exactly how popular young-looking twinks are with the gay crowd.

Still, it's not Roy's place to question the motivations of his clients, he's just here to do his job and get paid.

"Four thousand cenz for a hand, six for my mouth, ten if you want to fuck me. I don't fuck without protection, and anything kinky costs extra." The spiel is rote by now, and Roy rattles it off without even an internal flinch - unlike his first few days on the job, when every crude word had bruised his sense of self to the core.

The kid considers this for a moment. "What about if I want you to, uh, fuck me?"

Roy manages to keep his expression bland despite the unexpectedness of the question. It's not something he's been asked for before - which is fortunate, because he's not the sort who can get an erection on command. He's not sure he could get into it enough to be able to fuck a client; he can't recall many previous tricks who have genuinely turned him on. And it's been a long time - longer than he wants to think about - since he last had sex because he wanted to.

His first instinct is to reject the request, tell the kid that that particular activity isn't on the menu, but something makes him hesitate. There's a long-buried part of him that's flickering to life, tentative embers glowing faintly in the darkness. The kid is gorgeous, there's no denying that, but Roy's had good-looking customers before and looks have never been enough to jump-start his engine alone. It's a combination of everything about this particular kid - his earnest eyes, his stubborn, determined mouth, and the bright, aggressive flare of life inside of him - that draws Roy like a moth to a flame.

He thinks, to his surprise, that maybe it's something he could do with this kid. With him, rather than to him. It's a dangerous way to think - he learnt a long time ago that trust and hope in other people only ever leads to pain - and moths are all-too-often consumed by the flames they seek. But still, that faint, tentative flicker of desire is there inside of him, and he thinks that perhaps it could be fanned into flames of genuine - and perhaps mutual - want.

"Fucking's ten thousand, either way," he says, hoping it comes out more casually than he feels.

The boy nods acknowledgement, seemingly unaware of Roy's inner turmoil. "So, where do you, uh… usually go, to do… it?" He asks, wincing at the awkwardness of the words.

"Car or hotel, generally," Roy answers, resisting the way his mouth wants to curl into a smile. The kid's naivety is amusing, but Roy can't quite help finding it adorable as well.

"Would it be all right to go to my place?"

Roy shrugs. "If you'd prefer. It doesn't make any difference to me." He usually ends up in cars or hotel rooms because his clients don't want a whore sullying their their own beds - even if they don't have wives or girlfriends to hide him from. But Roy has no issue with the idea itself - a home is likely to mean heating, and a reasonably comfortable bed.

The kid hesitates, and then asks boldly: "What about if I wanted you to stay all night?"

"The entire night?" Roy raises an eyebrow, and the kid nods confirmation.

On a slow night he makes a couple of hundred. On a good night, he can take home a hundred thousand, although those are the nights he ends up crawling into bed at dawn, feeling scoured and hollow and used. But to be out of the cold for the entire evening is pretty appealing; tempting enough for him to apply a discount on what he'd otherwise be tempted to charge.

"Sixty thousand," Roy says. "Payment up front."

Roy wonders whether the price will be enough to scare the kid off. He hardly looks like the sort who has hundreds to burn on hookers whenever he feels like it. Nothing about him indicates wealth: his boots are worn and scuffed and the tears in his canvas satchel have obviously been mended by hand. Nothing he's wearing is designer or labelled. He looks like any other university student, with enough cash to scrape by, even if the last few meals each month are instant noodles.

But the kid doesn't so much as wince, nodding as if the amount is entirely reasonable.

"All right, then," the kid says with satisfaction. "It's a deal."

"Agreed."

There is silence for a few moments as the kid's expression transforms into something uncomfortable, his gaze sliding off to the side and his weight shifting from one foot to the other. It's the sort of awkwardness he usually sees when somebody is working themselves up to ask for something particularly kinky or degrading. Roy has a moment to start worrying about what exactly the boy wants to do to him, before the kid seems to come to some kind of conclusion, raises his chin defiantly, and pulls the glove off his right hand to reveal a fairly high-tech prosthesis.

"Will this be a problem?" The kid asks, holding the hand out towards Roy and curling each of the metal fingers closed and then open again. With his other hand in a fist, he reaches down to knock on his left thigh, which echoes hollowly. "Leg, too."

And that is not at all what Roy expected; he actually has to work to keep the surprise from his expression this time. The boy walks and moves so naturally that Roy would never have suspected two of his limbs weren't natural if he hadn't been told. The mechanics and joints visible in the flexing right hand are more advanced than anything he's seen before, and the boy's obviously had them long enough to make controlling them second nature.

Still, he imagines that two missing limbs could potentially make things awkward when it comes to intimate relations, and for the first time he has some inkling of why the kid is approaching him rather than going out to a club to pick up. He can only imagine the kinds of reactions the kid might receive from random hook-ups, especially in the gay scene, which tends towards the worship of bodily perfection.

But Roy has no issues with damaged bodies, not after the kinds of physical trauma he's seen, and the damage inflicted upon his own. If anything, he finds himself feeling an odd kind of brotherhood with this boy and his imperfect body, and he has a sudden desire to show the boy that desirability has nothing to do with being physically whole or perfect. Maybe that's something he'll get a chance to do tonight.

"They're not a problem for me," Roy says, letting his expression speak his sincerity.

The kid's discomfort evaporates, his grin blooming fierce and radiant. "Great!" He declares. "Let's do it!"

Roy lets himself smile this time - the boy's awkward enthusiasm is ridiculously endearing.

The kid winces as he twigs to the accidental double entendre, but he recovers quickly and holds out his hand. "Oh, hey - I'm Ed."

Yet another surprise - most of his tricks remain deliberately anonymous, and those who give him a name use obvious aliases. Roy never asks, and never offers his own in return. But he has no doubt that Ed has just handed him his actual given name without a second thought, and something in Roy warms at this small display of openness and trust. It also compels him to offer the same in return, despite his better judgement urging him to remain safely behind the shield of anonymity.

"Roy." The name sounds almost foreign to himself, it's so rare that he has reason to use it these days.

Roy reaches to shake the outstretched hand, realising at the last moment that he's reached out with his right while the kid's offered his left. There's an awkward moment where he's forced to switch hands before grasping the one offered. For a moment he just assumes the kid must be left-handed, and then it hits him - of course the kid prefers to shake with his natural hand rather than the prosthesis. He wonders what other adaptations the kid's had to make to fit into a two-handed world.

The kid - Ed - doesn't seem ruffled by the moment of awkwardness, his grip firm and sure. Roy doesn't think he's ever shaken the hand of a trick, either; apparently it's to be a day of firsts. So far Ed isn't so much bending the rules of convention as shattering them, and Roy's usual ability to keep himself at a distance along with them. He has to remind himself that no matter how friendly and sincere the kid is, he's still just a client. It's one night's work, and then he'll probably never see the kid again.

"Shall we?" Roy asks, as Ed continues to simply stand and grin at him.

"Oh! Oh, yeah, hell yeah! Let's go." Ed gestures for Roy to follow him, and Roy obediently falls into step beside him as they continue on down the street together.

Ed has no fucking idea what he's doing.

And Al is going to kill him.

He certainly hadn't set out to hire a hooker tonight. He'd been fed up and frustrated as he'd left campus this evening, bored of the same rut his life has been stuck in lately, sick of the same paths he's been treading and retreading day by day. The afternoon had dragged interminably and he'd grown more and more antsy and irritable, even snapping at Al when he'd called to let Ed know he wouldn't be home that night. By the time he'd shoved his books into his satchel at the end of the last lecture, he knew he had to do something to try and break himself out of the petulant, pigheaded mood he'd sunk into. He'd decided to start with something simple and take a different route home - he'd figured that maybe he'd stumble across a new take-away place, or a comic book shop he hadn't come across before.

Instead, he'd found Roy.

The guy had caught his attention from a distance: a slender figure with his back temptingly arched, shoulders pressed against the bricks behind him, one knee bent with his foot flat on the wall. He was only wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and Ed shivered sympathetically - the guy must be freezing his ass off. All the same, the t-shirt did offer a nice view of his flat chest and belly, and the long, toned muscles of his arms.

As he'd got closer Ed had filled in more details: straight black hair that fell to the tops of his ears, the shine of it a silver halo lit by the streetlight above, a stark contrast to the paleness of his skin. His eyes were dark and alert, flickering to each of the evening travellers as they passed him by, assessing them intently. He was the sort of good-looking that Ed found most attractive - sharp, lean and confident, with just a hint of danger about him. The heat of want flared in the pit of his belly, startling him with its intensity - it was rare that Ed felt so attracted to anyone on first sight.

It had taken Ed an embarrassingly long time to realise that the guy was a hooker. He'd already passed several men loitering along the street who had watched him go by with the same contemplative gaze, but he hadn't really thought anything of it. It wasn't until he found himself in front of the guy that all the pieces fell into place. A few moments later he realised he was standing there staring like an imbecile, and was receiving an assessing look in return.

"Can I help you?" The guy had asked in a rich, smooth tenor. He was well-spoken, his accent precise and refined - not what Ed had expected from a street worker, and for a few moments he was taken aback.

And then, without any actual input from his brain, he'd blurted: "How much?"

Ed was caught somewhere between horrified and aghast at his own impulsiveness. Of all the stupid, impetuous things he'd ever done, this had to rank up there with the best of them. What the hell was he thinking? Had his dick somehow taken total control of his brain? He'd never even had sex before, much less with a guy, and now he was suddenly deciding to proposition a gay hooker?

But the desire was still there, bright and hot and growing as he stood transfixed by the guy's dark, astute gaze. Ed wanted him, wanted to feel the warmth of his mouth and solidness of his body against Ed's own. So why the hell shouldn't he hire a hooker, if he wanted? It wasn't a crime. It wouldn't hurt anybody. It's what the guy did for a living - there shouldn't be any shame in it, for either of them. Ed had to lose his virginity some time, so he might as well do it in a way that let him call the shots.

And he had the money, sitting in the bank account he and Al jointly shared. The legacy of their absent father, he and Al had sworn never to resort to it out of need - and they'd fucking stuck to it, supported themselves without any help from the asshole's pity cash. But that meant the money was still just sitting there, and Ed felt a satisfying sense of pleasure at the thought of how displeased the bastard would be to know his son was contemplating using it to hire a gay hooker.

Meanwhile, said hooker was giving him the once over - and calling him a goddamn fucking kid. Well, if Ed hadn't been resolved to go through with this before, he certainly was now. If there was one thing he was good at, it was pushing back against assholes who thought he was too young to do something. He was old enough to drink, drive, and hire a goddamn hooker if he wanted, and he'd damn well prove it if he had to, despite the indignity of being carded by a sex worker.

Once they'd sorted the details, Ed had a moment of sobering realisation - having sex with this guy was going to mean getting naked. Which - yes, ok - should have been obvious from the outset, but forward thinking had never been Ed's strong suit. He had no idea how the guy was going to react to his prostheses. It wasn't like he was ashamed of his artificial limbs; they were hella useful, and he'd have a much fucking harder time managing without them. But the looks and comments and questions got damn tiresome after a while, so he typically went gloved simply to avoid the hassle. It wasn't something he'd could avoid if he was going to fuck this guy, though, and he had no idea how the guy was going to react to a double amputee.

But Ed wasn't a coward, and he wasn't going to let fear get in the way of something he wanted. He took a deep breath, lifted his head, and pulled off the glove - putting it all out there for the guy to see, even as he braced for the reaction.

But none of the expressions he expected - distaste, awkwardness, or worst of all, pity - materialised. The guy looked thoughtful for a moment, and then met his gaze evenly and said it wasn't a problem. Ed wasn't always the best at reading people, but he knew a genuine reaction when he saw one. The guy had seen his disability, acknowledged it, and accepted it - without any kind of judgement.

That's when Ed realised that he was kinda gone on the guy. It was entirely ridiculous - it wasn't as if he really knew anything about him: they'd spent five minutes together and barely exchanged a handful of words. But even the little he'd seen made Ed think that Roy was someone worth getting to know, and he'd found himself wanting to, just as much as he wanted to fuck the guy.

It wasn't a smart thing to want, not from a hooker he was paying to spend the night with and then would probably never see again. He tried to resign himself to the fact that Roy would be gone come morning - all they'd ever have, most likely, would be this one too-short night.

But then again, he thought, his irrepressible optimism twisting it back around - they had this night. Even if they never had anything beyond tonight, he was still going to be able to talk to Roy, touch him, connect their bodies in the closest way possible and get to know him as well as anyone could in a span of only hours. This night was his and he wasn't going to squander it, or waste time wishing it was something more than what it was.

He was going to spend the night with Roy, and that was pretty fucking awesome, no matter what happened afterwards.

"Shall we?" Roy asks, breaking him from his reverie, and they set off down the street together.

So that's how Ed finds himself escorting a hooker back to his apartment one freezing Monday evening. It might not be the most well-thought-out plan he's embarked on, but he doesn't think he's going to regret it. He darts a glance at Roy, and finds Roy looking back at him - Ed flushes with nervous embarrassment and Roy gives him a knowing smirk that gets him flushing for an entirely different reason. Ed's not sure how even just the curve of Roy's lips can be so damn sexy.

Even if Al does kill him, Ed thinks this might be worth it.

#royedweek #royed #fma fanfic #my fic #hooker fic #a different way home

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theofficialcunt · 7 years ago

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Gimmie some witney please lol... the prompt: it turns out Single AF was just a fraud but Courtney thought it was legit. Willam (unwillingly at first but eventually softens up and means it) comforts her

This is probably garbage, especially because I’ve never written them as a pair exclusivley as the main focus (at least not in a fluffy way) - but here you go!

“I’m sorry Ms. Act, but if you ever believed that you were going to have a successful relationship from this show, then you were highly mistaken.” The producer apologized, with a monotone voice that stated he could really care less about her well being. He got his footage, and his B list star. There was nothing else that he needed from her.

“Thank you for the opportunity.” Courtney responded, a tone of resentment tainting her voice as she stood up from the table.

Single AF had turned out to be a complete fraud. They hired specific people to play the parts of the casts various hookups, and allowed them to pick their final choice in the end. But all of the paid actors had partners, so it was really just a publicity stunt and a way to boost viewership for the network. Courtney was led to believe that it was going to be a more raw experience - almost like a documentary. Unfortunately she had figured it out the hard way, after the camera’s had turned off she poured her heart out to her final choice Lucas - who then humiliated her by laughing in her face.

“This isn’t real Courtney,” Lucas had mocked. “It was all just for show. Surely you knew that going in? You’re great though, and I’d love to keep in touch.”

Courtney, still in drag - muttered a rare string of curse words and stomped on his perfectly pedicured foot with her brand new Louboutins before stomping away, never looking back.

She felt led on, humiliated, and played all at once. She wasn’t familiar with such a string of negative emotions consuming her every thought- but she couldn’t help but feel sorry for herself. She had been single for a very long time now, and the one time she let her guard down - she ended up getting her heart broken.

As she walked out of the studio, she really wanted to call someone to help cheer her up. Bianca was on tour, thousands of miles away so that was a no go. Adore wasn’t the best choice, mostly because she would just enable her to go smoke and drink with her - which was all fine and dandy, but not what she needed at this moment.

Who she really needed was Willam. She smiledfaintly, clicking on his name in her phone and pressing the green button awaiting his answer.

Her and Willam had a weird dynamic. They played this game of cat and mouse. Willam loved to tease her, and she secretly loved all of the attention he gave her. But he had never wanted a serious relationship, or anything with her as far as she knew. They were strictly friends, at least that’s what she would tell herself.

The phone rang twice before he answered.

“Well look who’s back from their romantic getaway! Who’s the poor unfortunate soul that gets to end up with you? Is it that Lucas guy, cuz fuck he’s some good looking trade-”

“It was all a fraud.” Courtney croaked, feeling the emotions bubble up out of her unexpectedly. “I get to end up alone as usual!”

“Oh.” Willam said suddenly, taken aback.

There was an awkward silence between the two of them. Willam had warned Courtney before she left to film the show that it might not be what she thinks it is. She clearly didn’t listen,

He was somewhat relieved that the show was all just a stunt, but still annoyed that Courtney shoved the whole experience in everyone’s faces. Every goddamn day, he’d wake up to new updates on her instagram story with other men and women. Much prettier men and women then him. Models, with perfectly styled outfits and hair, and sculpted muscles and-

“Can I come over?” Courtney sniffled, trying to pull herself together. She knew Willam wasn’t the best with tears, but he was literally all she had right now.

“Meet me at the studio in 20 minutes.” Willam responded, hitting end quickly. He sighed heavily to himself, putting his head in his hands exasperated. Courtney had been so excited about the stupid show, and all he had wanted to do was tell her not to go on it and to just be with him. But he went against his gut, and now look at what happened.

He felt like this was his fault.

—————-

When the knock on his studio door finally came, he opened the door to a clearly distraught Courtney Act. Her long blonde hair was frizzy, almost as if she had fallen asleep on it, and her eyes looked bloodshot from crying.

She was pathetically beautiful.

“Can I come in?” Courtney asked shyly, green eyes sparkling against the late afternoon sun.

Willam fought back the urge to say anything rash, and let her in effortlessly. He escorted her to the upstairs loft where his couch was, and they sat down on the leather love seat together in silence.He wasn’t going to press her to talk about anything if she didn’t want to. Feelings exhausted him.

“Is there something wrong with me?” Courtney asked, voice still soft. Broken sounding almost.

“You’re a 35 year old twink, what do you think?” Willam joked, shooting his million dollar smile in her face.

Courtney had always found Willam’s appearance striking, especially his smile. When he was in drag, his makeup was a mess but he made it work with his beachy looking blonde wigs. He looked gorgeous no matter what, and had a rocking bod to top it all off.

“I’m serious.” Courtney frowned, her lips trembling. “Why can’t I find someone to share my life with?”

“You aren’t looking hard enough.” Willam shrugged.

It was true. All she had to do was look right in front of her.

Since he wasn’t so great with feelings, Willam didn’t know how to tell Courtney that he liked her without feeling stupid. He had been waiting for the right moment, but he didn’t know what the right moment was exactly.

Feelings made everything so much more complicated. Which is why he did everything he could to avoid them at all costs.

“Is there a guy just waiting around for me in West Hollywood? Like am I missing something?” Courtney shrieked, laughing lightheartedly.

Willam smiled at her sad attempt to make the situation easier on herself. He wished he could be that positive in times of turmoil.

“Let me give you some advice. No one waits for anyone Court. You have to make your own reality. You’re in charge of your relationships and of going out and getting your trade.” Willam laughed, then straightened up holding her hand softly. This was as good of a moment as ever, he thought before he began. “You came to America from across the globe, if they weren’t in Australia, maybe they’re here. Maybe they’re..” Willam trailed off, trying not to laugh at how stupid and cliche he sounded. This was ridiculous.

“Maybe they’re?” Courtney asked confused, studying Willam’s face for any indication of where this mystery person could be.

“I’m sorry,” Willam began, sitting there cackling to himself. Was Courtney really this oblivious? Did they just get transported into a cheesy rom-com? “I can’t do it. I hate feelings so much!” He threw his hands up in the air exasperated, cursing himselfinternally for even beginning the stupid conversation to begin with.

Courtney jumped back at his sudden outburst, confused. Yes, everyone within a 200 mile radius knew Willam was not one for expressing emotion. Where was this going? Was this a joke? She looked around the corner for any sign ofcameras but there were none.

“I know this already.” Courtney said perplexed, eyes narrowing. “What’s gotten into you?”

“These stupid feelings that’s what!” Willam shouted, standing up. “Court, I’m just gonna say it. I can’t keep it in anymore. I’m in love with you!”

Courtney felt her stomach twist with a surprise at his confession. Her eyes grew big as she stared at a visibly frustrated Willam, shoving his hands in the pocket of his jeans as he paced back and forth.

Willam was in love with her? Her?

Her heart skipped a beat as Willam ran a hand through his perfectly poised curls, clearly upset at the whole interaction but looking like a tanned god. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from him.

“If you’re not in love with me too can you just tell me?” Willam murmured, his eyes sparkling with the fear of being rejected. He felt vulnerable, like he could be stabbed in the heart at any second.. “We can pretend this never fucking happened ifthat’s the case.”

“You idiot.” Courtney shrieked standing up, grabbing Willam by the shoulders. “Why couldn’t you tell me this before I wasted my time on that show?”

Willam bit his lip as he looked into Courtney’s blue-green eyes.

“I didn’t want to ruin your chances with someone who could give every ounce of their life to you.”

“I don’t need all of that Will. I just need someone to love me.” Courtney squeezed his hands, intertwining them. “I just want someone who’s serious about me.”

“Well I’ve been here all along you bitch!” Willam roared, picking Courtney up suddenly and throwing her over his shoulders. She screamed, kicking her legs playfully as he ran down the stairs with her. They were laughing hysterically as he set her down in front of his makeup station and he laid down next to her on the floor of his dressing room.

“You’re serious about me though?” Courtney asked, turning towards him smiling.

“Yes you dumb broad.” Willam smiled toothily, but his eyes showed he was being sincere.

The pair stared into each others eyes, and without a word - their lips met for the first time on the cold laminate floor. Words couldn’t release the two years of pent up sexual tension between the pair, only actions. They held each other on the floor as they kissed, Willam surprised Courtney with his gentle touch. And Courtney surprised Willam with her eagerness to dominate, and the small growls she let out as she ran her teeth along his neck marking him as hers as she left small bruises.

Some feelings didn’t need words. Some feelings just needed to be acted upon.

#witney #prompts #requests #prompt

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