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halcyone-of-the-sea · 1 year ago

Note

Ahhhh I've been waiting for your requests to open, I've been following you since your first Price fic and never had an idea to request until like 2 weeks ago 😫 so, I've been thinking, what about being in a relationship with Keegan but getting separated when ODIN hits the earth and not meeting again until about 5 years later? 👀 Love your writing, hope you have a great day 🩵 :)

For The Weak And Weary

PAIRING: Keegan P. Russ x F!Reader

SYNOPSIS: When ODIN struck you had thought he had died, sky alight with fire. It had taken years to accept it, much less live with it. But after Dallas falls, would you get a glimpse of your Lover's phantom again?

WORDCOUNT: 6.2k

WARNINGS: Angst, depressive thoughts, PTSD insinuations, gore, wounds, blood, death, canon-typical violence, (1) suggestive joke, alcohol, hallucinations, fluffy reunion, tears, verbal arguments, etc.

A/N: Just because I'm a sucker for sticking to the game timeline I made it ten years, lol. Enjoy, Anon! Very fun prompt.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

You could never make sense of what Keegan went through in 2005 during Operation Sand Viper. It would be pointless to try and wrap your head around it from what little you knew. All that mattered was that when he came back on leave, something in his eyes was…damaged. Hell, he’d only been sixteen—the both of you had known each other since you were kids, you knew when something was wrong.

And this was entirely new to you.

He smiled less and snapped more; got spooked when you dropped something in his family's kitchen like a grenade had gone off. Maybe, you reasoned, he thought one actually had.

But through it all, you could still see how much he cared about you. When you were old enough you’d both moved into a nice place in the suburbs and started a relationship—a life shared between the two of you.

You knew he loved you from the way he’d grip you close at night and breathe into your scalp. How when you were sick from the take-out dinner he’d brought home, Keegan would hold back your hair and rub circles into your spine as you threw up. He never shied away from telling you how beautiful you were; prided himself on it. Keegan loved to show you off.

But there were times back then when you wondered if the same Keegan that had been so fulfilled to join Ghosts had died, and, in fact, a phantom was instead puppeting his skin. He was so quiet now.

If you’d known that the world was going to end on July 10th, 2017, you’d have never let him walk out that door angry. You would have grabbed his hand and pressed your lips to his, whispered affirmations into his flesh and sobbed at the cruelty of it all.

“I can’t keep pretending that you’re okay!” You yell, tears in your eyes, at the man standing tense in the kitchen doorway. Blank blue eyes stare lifelessly. “Keegan—this is killing you.”

It was early morning by then, and the neighborhood was quiet. The house that the both of you had moved into years ago was littered with the remnants of a happy home. Pictures on the walls, dishes in the sink, and freshly baked bread on the counter. All you’d tried to do was give Keegan a hug, slipping your hands around his waist when you’d entered.

He’d balked back, jerking to the side and nearly elbowed you in the gut before he saw your wide eyes and stopped himself. The way he’d looked at you…how could eyes be so dead?

“You need to talk to someone,” you put your foot down, shaking your head. “I-I don’t know a therapist or…or someone who can get you proper help because I can’t keep acting like I can live like this.”

Every mission, every time he went away, it always got worse.

Keegan’s eyes get sharp, hands at his sides clenching. He speaks in a low growl. “I don’t need to talk to a shrink, alright? I’m fine, you just startled me.”

“Bullshit,” your mouth hisses, glaring. “You thought you were back in ‘05.”

The man points at you, strong jaw clenching, “Don’t.”

“Keegan,” you plead, “please, I love you! I don’t care about this, I just want you to be alright. To be able to live your life—”

“What you want is to try and change me!” The black-haired man barks. Your eyes blink in shock. Keegan rarely yelled. “I already told you I was fine, why don’t you get off my back all the time?” His eyes flash, pupils going to slits as his hands shake at his sides. Why did he look scared? Your breath stills, lips slightly open, with tears dripping to the tile. “Fuck, it’s like I can’t come home without you pesterin’ me ‘bout something!”

A stiff silence falls.

“Kee—” He snaps a hand to his mouth and rubs at his stubble, suddenly unable to look at you.

“...Forget it.” It’s low and shaky how he says it, eyes wide, before he darts into the foyer and slips into his boots. You listen to the sounds of panicked shuffling before the man wrenches open the front door and slams it shut behind him. One of the picture frames falls and hits the ground with a shattering of glass.

You flinch and tense, taking down a terse breath and sniffling tightly. Trying to get your lungs to work properly, your feet take you over to the picture as they feel weak and uneven; a stuttering mess of steps before you bend down. Your fingers bleed as they shift the glass away, taking out the image of you and Keegan on your hike through the mountains.

Smiling faces mock you, and you break at the bright and open affection Keegan wears as he looks down at you—eyebrows curved up and smirk like a knife to the chest.

You loved him so much it hurt to breathe when he was away.

He had needed time, you knew, but what you didn’t know was that time wouldn’t be available. Around noon the world had opened into a ball of fire and death. 27 million dead. Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Houston, and Miami…all gone…at least, that was what everyone in Dallas was telling you.

When Keegan had been away taking a walk to calm himself, you’d been home alone. The earth caved, the ground shook; houses burst like balloons. By the time you’d crawled from the rubble of your home, all you had was the picture and the clothes on your back. People were screaming—you were screaming. But you knew that you couldn’t stay here if you wanted to survive.

And then you’d made it to Dallas by sheer luck and the few tricks Keegan had taught you; had thought that he had died in that first strike by the Federation. You carried that guilt and self-hatred for not holding your tongue for a few more hours.

So much could have been different in these ten years. Better. You never got over him for even a second.

But the reality was that you couldn’t think about all of that now, because if you didn’t focus on holding your breath you would be dead in the next three seconds.

Your hand is anchored to the body of your sniper rifle, finger hovering over the trigger as you hide behind the outcropping of rubble in the decimated cityscape; the air is hot and humid despite the weight of the night. It sticks to your skin in a sheen of violent sweat. Yet it’s still not as potent as the blood.

Teeth gritted, you hold back whimpers as Federation soldiers stalk the grounds, scores of them—legions. An entire army that had breached the walls and executed everyone insight, soldiers, civilians, if it once moved it didn’t anymore. The burning in your shoulder was agonizing, head smashing itself back to the rubble in an attempt to stifle your own ragged need to scream into the night as layers had peeled back to allow a bullet to pass through.

In the ten years you’d been here, you’d taken up the mantle of quite the sharpshooter; pulling on Keegan’s lessons when he was on leave and wanted to bring you to the firing range. You had even picked a rifle similar to the one back in your destroyed home—held in a plastic case and treated like royalty by your long-deceased lover. It wasn’t the same, but the jet-black Lynx made you steady like the picture in your breast pocket did.

A reminder of what was lost and why you had picked the knock-off up in the first place.

Footsteps get closer as the sweep of a flashlight cards above your skull, if possible you go even more still, lips pulled in and heart rampaging. There were barked orders and yelling, but no more screaming.

How long had you been unconscious after taking that shot to the shoulder? Fear was breeding with horror—was…was everyone dead?

Spanish is loudly called not five feet away, and the flashlight leaves as your breath does. You let off a quiet gasp and suck down air greedily. Eyes flashing from one shadow to another, you look for any opportunity to slip away from the city. In the wind, you could smell fire, and taste it on your tongue as you licked your lips.

All around you can see the limp shadows of bodies and the apartments, large skyscrapers were on fire deep in their frames. The city was entirely lost.

How the federation got into the walls you would never know, though there was concern about the enemy soldiers rounding up civilians outside the walls and executing them. Maybe one cracked before the bullet entered their skull.

You bite hard into your lip to force back your pain. Trying to shoot a rifle would be useless at this point, you might as well have lost the limb. Slinging the gun’s strap over your head, you look back and forth along your visible perimeter, checking for hostiles as you unsheathe your combat knife and cradle your limp arm to your chest.

If only Keegan could see you now.

Rounds of gunfire make the air burn with urgency, and you take the time to peek out behind as sweat makes a trail down your dirty face, dripping off of your chin as you breathe like a wheezing dog. Your wound needed tending, and you had the med pack on your vest with the supplies, but you can’t do it here.

Where’s safe? If Dallas has fallen…is there anywhere that’s still standing? A location hits your brain as your gaze darts from one abandoned street to another. You take a deep breath and whine as you force your legs to stand and move quickly, feet shifting as quietly as you’re able to make them.

“Fort Santa Monica.” Now a stronghold, you’d heard US soldiers here talking about the large presence of military power out in California—numbers so great they rivaled those that had lived in Dallas.

You stumble over a spasming body and slam your uninjured shoulder into the bulk of the building’s wall, groaning loudly like a wounded boar.

“Fuck!” If you made it out of the city, that would be where you would have to go; to warn them of what was coming. The Federation had found a way inside the Dallas wall, and that meant if they had enough tenacity, they could do it to them too.

Everything would be done if another city fell.

Holding your knife tighter, you push off the wall and grit your teeth harder, mind running on that edge of hysteria and forced calm. It’s in these moments where you have to pull on old memories to keep you going—even if they end up hurting more than the open wounds you carry.

Keegan had his bad moments, but you always got through them together. Years and years of knowing each other inside and out; memorizing bodies and thoughts like they were second nature. He would want you to keep fighting, tell you to get your ass in gear and go…and you would never let him down.

You owed him that much even if some days you wanted more than anything to join him.

Blade in hand, you hear muttered speech from up the alleyway and pause, feet splayed but still swaying as you come to a slow stop. Your ears ring at garbled sentences, foreign words spilling into one another.

Panting, you listen closely, limbs vibrating. More gunfire echoes over the air, screams and death that get ingrained into your head like a brand into sizzling flesh. Skyscrapers burned and buildings fell with great earthquake booms. Everything is under a sheen of distance.

Get out of the city. Get to Fort Santa Monica.

“Kill who I have to,” you slur out, itching at your neck as you leave a trail of blood behind you. A single pair of footsteps walk quickly forward near your corner and you hold your breath, bringing up your knife as pain pounds in your arm.

Deep blue eyes sit in the back of your mind, counting you down as they always did.

Keep your arm steady for me, Doll, a phantom tells you. Breathe...

When the first shadow of a Fed soldier graces your eyes, you strike.

—

It’s roughly nineteen days from Dallas to Santa Monica, and that was if you kept up at a steady walking pace. If the crude sling you’d fashioned from bandages found in your med pack was any indicator, it would be double that.

On the first day, you had hiked half-dead over the destroyed landscape of what remained of the USA, licking your wounds and counting your losses. You’d had your pick of abandoned houses, taking a red brick one just because it looked nice and you were about to pass out from blood loss. The only reason you’d made it this far was that the bullet had thankfully passed right through you, making sure that if you moved too suddenly no more damage was being done internally. You packed it with a sterile rag.

Sitting in the home, pictures gathering dust on the fireplace mantle, you tipped back a bottle of whisky you’d found in one of the bedrooms, grimacing at the sting. It was better to be drunk for what you were about to do.

Heating up your combat knife in the fire you had started in the hearth, you watched the metal grow an eye-flinching white as you stared off into nothingness.

“You remember when you showed me that scar, Keegan?” You always talked to him. Others had given you shit for it, but they knew the purpose. If you didn’t talk to someone, even a ghost, you would give up.

The guilt was eating you alive, and it would overtake you eventually. Hadn’t in ten years, but it would…you knew it, everyone did.

Keegan was everything, and nothing looked the same when you lost him.

“The one on your thigh?” Pulling the knife back, you turn to the leaking flesh of your shoulder, gushing blood as black desecrates the sides of your eyes. You’d taken off your vest and shirt. If you tried hard enough you could imagine Keegan standing in the corner, watching. Always watching. “You said you had to dig a bullet out and cauterize the wound—when I asked you said you barely felt it over all the adrenaline.”

The ghost tilts its head, eyes sad and lips pulling taunt. Your lungs take in a shaky inhale and your hand quivers; only you feel how your eyes burn with unshed tears.

“I never thought about it before,” right as you growl and shove the knife into your skin, you bark out in fear, “But I think you were fucking lying!”

On day two, you knew you had to avoid the remains of Fort Worth, so you decided to increase your distance and cut that landmark out entirely—too many remnants of Federation. They were everywhere now, and you needed to keep low; get out of Texas. You scavenged properties and took stock.

Four magazines for your Lynx, a pouch with five protein bars, one bottle of water attached to your belt, and your knife. Normally you’d have a pistol at your thigh, but you’d used it up in the firefight back home. When you’d woken back up, it had been gone.

And, of course, you had the picture. You kissed Keegan’s face and placed it back in your breast pocket, caressing the material softly before clearing your throat and addressing the obvious.

With what you had getting to California was a pipe dream.

You’d been on the radio all day, clicking through channels and pleading for anyone alive to reach out. Nothing. Static.

I’m the only one left. The thought was intoxicating, pounding in your skull like your hangover. Everyone is dead.

While you had become somewhat of a loner in the last ten years, especially with the few months you’d been by yourself in the beginning, Dallas had given you a chance to build bonds again. Ten years, and in an instant it was all wiped out.

It rang a devastating bell.

Somehow, you had cheated death where so many others had failed—not only in Texas, but back with ODIN too. You had survived, but somehow Keegan hadn’t.

Keegan, the one who never spoke about ‘05 and jerked awake from nightmares years later because of it. Keegan, who wanted nothing more than to stay at your side when he was home and keep you on his chest when watching movies. Keegan, the love of your life.

The only love of your life.

“I really wish you were here,” you mutter, grimacing as your arm gets jostled as you stumble over a piece of rusted metal in the empty street. “Who gave you the right to go away before me, huh? We were supposed to grow old together, Russ. You promised me that.”

Garbage gets blown over the road when a hot breeze shifts the air, bringing the scent of dirt and the noise of rustling trees. Nature has reclaimed the towns and suburbs—great patches of ivy and long grass that rise to your hips. But the silence was a curse.

The only thing keeping you going is the thought of delivering your warning to Santa Monica, from there…

Your lips thinned. What even was there left? How many times could you go from one place to another, starting over with stories of your past and having to brush the pitying looks off as you fake a smile?

Shaking your head, you recall memories from the better days as the light gets low in the sky.

“You’re doin’ too much, Sweet Thing,” Keegan mutters, and you turn from the stove top with a bright smile to face him.

He had just gotten out of the shower, towel ruffling through his dark hair as he stands in the kitchen entrance and watches you cook for him. The shirt hangs off of his wide shoulders, and gray sweatpants are loose over his formed hips—his strong brow line raises in a casual expression.

“Oh, don’t act like you don’t like it,” you tease, hearing his low chuckles as you turn back to your pan. “You look good, y’know.”

“Oh, yeah?” Keegan grunts, smirking, and his feet pad over to you, tossing the towel to the counter as his presence looms over your back. Large hands grab onto your hips and a nose burrows into your hair; inhaling deeply before gradually melting to the curve of your spine.

You smile and hum, pushing back so you can rest on his chest. A chin sets itself on your head, deep massaging fingers making you pur as they bunch your sleep shorts.

It was late—nearly two in the morning. Keegan had only gotten home a short while ago, but sleep wasn’t going to stop you from spoiling him. A wine bottle was on the island counter, two glasses, and the food was nearly done from what you could scrounge up on short notice.

“...Good to be back,” the man grumbles into you, kissing your head and slowly sweeping his arms around your waist as you sighed softly at the contact.

Your face gains heat.

“Well, I’d sure hope so, or else this would be awkward.” You huff to hide the bright smile in your voice. But like a moth to flame, you hear, as well as feel, Keegan chuckle against your spine. His grip squeezes you for a moment.

“How was it when I was away?” He asks as you move around the contents in the pan, nose brushing your neck as his lips travel to kiss behind your ear. He breathes against the flesh as his low rasp makes you shiver. “Any trouble?”

“Negative, Sergeant,” you raise a brow and smirk over your shoulder at him, seeing his blues spark as he gazes hard into your eyes. A faint twitch to his lips is what you get before his hand captures your cheek; anchoring your face as he descends to connect his mouth to yours.

He sighs into it, arm still around your waist—tight as if you were a pillow.

“Keep talkin’ like that and we won’t have to wait long for dessert, will we?”

Days three through seven were uneventful beyond the constant agony of your arm and tired legs, but on day eight amid a waterless walk in the sweltering heat was when the hallucinations began.

Keegan walks beside you, his footsteps mirroring your own as sweat pools down your forehead and drips off your nose. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t look at you—he just walks, looking exactly like he did the day he died.

At first, you’d flinched back and blinked wildly at the sight, panting, but then he’d disappeared and your heart had shattered. It worried you with what you were seeing, but it was also a strange comfort to be able to ramble to…something, even if it wasn’t real. Hungry and with a dry tongue, you were on the verge of calling it quits.

So on day eleven, without a wild animal in sight to give you a proper food source and all the water having to be purified, you started talking to him while licking the inside wrapper of your last protein bar.

“But I never understood why you hated sleeping in shirts,” you licked your lips to get the remnants of granola off of your flesh, pushing away the greasy sheen from your cheeks. Your arm was burning up—every heartbeat was felt as it moved the skin around red and infected flesh up and down. Puss was leaking out from the crude stitches you had made of embroidery thread from that first house you’d found.

“And you always kept the room freezing.” Continuing, you drop the wrapper to the ground and then take the meat of your fingers and get what little flavor you can off of them, grunting through realization. “That was a ploy to have me use you for heat, wasn’t it? Jesus.”

The man in the corner of your vision smirks, tilting his head and chuckling from where he leans against a tree trunk.

“Yeah, that’s right. Knew it.” Glaring at nothing, you stand from your overturned stump and nearly fall right back over, stomach yelling at you as your vision swirls.

You dig a hand into your hair and grip at the strands, pulling and groaning. “...God.”

Keegan comes over and stands above you, your eyes staring down at his feet as you get light-headed. You focus on his shoelaces, counting the Xs and taking down shaky breaths. When you blink like a cat with dirt on its face, the shoes are gone entirely and you stand back up to your full height.

“...Keegan?” You ask after a moment, the words disappearing into the trees, but no one’s around.

Your sight goes to your wound and your jaw tightens, moments of clarity slipping in as a knife would into your consciousness before the curtain settles once more.

You bend over and vomit what little nutrients you had, spending day twelve sleeping through a fit of nightmares and fever-induced delirium.

Nothing about the remainder of the time you can recall to memory—bits and pieces always flash through on long nights, but they’re only walking montages. Dragging feet, looking at your hand as if it was a foreign object as you turned it back and forth; everything in a sheen of sickness. Days and days and days. Little food. Less water.

More than one-thousand miles.

But somehow, the Wall peels out in front of you as you crash through the foliage, your body giving out and collapsing down a large decline. Bouncing and getting jostled by rocks, you come to a stop without the strength to get back up, staring blankly ahead as your head connects with concrete. Your mouth is open in broken inhales, pain not even registering.

Shouts echo, the pound of rapid feet.

Green eyes meet yours, a youthful face with a beanie and stubble. He’s saying something to you, glancing over your gear and your obvious near-death situation—his hand jostles the side of your face. But your eyes shift behind him gradually, attention falling to someone more important.

Before you finally let yourself rest, you stare at the smiling face of your steadfast phantom.

—

The doctors and nurses at Fort Santa Monica were nice, if a bit secretive about the entire operation. Seeing as you weren’t an official soldier, no dog tags or patches—no name in the database—everyone was a bit hesitant to tell you anything.

Until you said you were from Dallas, of course.

But no one was eager to rush you in your state, even if the information was dire. You had been hooked up to an IV and bedridden for a week straight; talking to nothing on account of the dehydration and electrolyte imbalances. Some days you spend unconscious.

But what really pissed you off when you got back into it, was the fact that they had taken your Lynx and your gear—your picture.

You’d almost grappled onto the first nurse you’d seen when you’d woken without it. It was a beacon, your prized possession of damaged corners and taped tears. Water damage that may or may not have been from sobbing fits in the first five years.

In fact, that was the entire reason you had snuck out so late in the first place.

Stalking down the hallway in the white shirt and camo pants that had been given to you on the fifth morning you had woken up here, you pad along with no shoes, only plain gray socks. You limp with bandaged flesh all along your healing shoulder and your feet.

The doctor had explained that you’d entirely skinned the bottoms and your heels were a mess of blisters and open wounds.

“Take my property,” you grumble under your breath, shuffling along and rubbing at the back of your neck. “What gives them the right?”

You weren’t going to stop until you found it.

Reading the name tags on the walls, you silently wonder where they would have taken your stuff as you slip out of the medical ward, listening to the buzzing of the lights and frowning. As you’re limping along the next hallway, a man suddenly turns the corner on nearly silent feet.

“Woah!” You halt immediately, heart jumping in your chest. A hand catches your shoulder before you run headlong into him.

Green eyes lock with your own, wide and blinking quickly. Brows furrow and you’re quickly looked over before a slow, teasing remark enters the air, you listen with a growing heat on your neck.

“Y’know, I could have sworn you were supposed to be in bed, Ma’am. I miss something here?” The man who had found you.

“Wouldn’t know,” you say blandly, blinking up at him and taking a careful step back. This brunette had a casual air to him—still in his gear despite the time. He folds his arms and tilts his head at you, smirking. “If you’ll excuse me.”

You begin to walk forward, slipping past him and hoping you won’t get snitched on. Except it seems you’ll be having a shadow, as not a few seconds later a smooth chuckle meets your ears and the man walks beside you.

“I think I’ll be taggin’ along if you don’t mind. Security and all.” He turns to face you, sticking out his opposite hand. “Hesh.”

“That supposed to be some kind of nickname, Kid?” You raise a stiff brow but participate in the handshake nonetheless. His grip is firm but not hard.

Hesh blinks at you, eyes swimming with amusement before he shrugs in a boyish way and shakes his head with a laugh. “Hell, you remind me of someone, Ma’am.” A moment passes in silence as you study the area. The man huffs, “Where exactly are we off to?”

“Wonderland,” your lips grumble, tired and wanting to sleep but not until you find your picture. Hesh sighs but you can still hear the hilarity inside of it.

“Alright then…don’t know if you’re going to be finding a shrinking potion anytime soon, though. We’re in low stock.”

“Very funny,” your eyes send a dry look, but you relent when he prods you with his eyes, taking a corner. “I’m looking for my vest.” Hesh blinks at you in curiosity, letting you elaborate as you motion to your upper shoulder. “My pouch has some of my personal belongings. I don’t like being away from it.”

“Oh,” the brunette nods a few times, his beanie jerking along. “Yeah, that’s no problem.” A hand is waved and you stare in confusion as he pivots. “C’mon, I’ll get you there.”

Your eyes burn into his back before you immediately speed after.

“Why so eager to help?” Hesh smirks at your question.

“As I see it, if you went over nineteen days of hard hiking just to get to us, you should at least be able to keep your stuff on you, Ma’am.” Your lips flicker in a smile.

“You’d be the first.” You tell him your name and miss the slight emotion it provokes in his eyes, head lightly pulling to the side but ultimately saying nothing. Hesh shrugs with a grunt, leading you to a meeting room on the opposite side of the building.

Yelling is on the other side.

“Elias, how long has this been kept from me?!” The voice makes your head perk, evoking something inside of your chest. Hesh seems taken aback too, holding up a hand to you for momentary silence—not that you had to be told.

“Keegan, I can’t have that happen. She needs to recover and you being there could jeopardize that. We need what she knows about Dallas.” Your body stills to a near-frozen state, and it’s comedic how your entire face falls to a blank slate. Wait a second.

…Keegan?

“She belongs with me—I thought she fucking died and she’s been here for who knows how long?! Why wasn’t I informed?” Rampaging feet suddenly sound off, going to the door at break-neck speed.

“Son, that’s not a good idea. This is what I was worried would happen if you found out.”

“I didn’t exactly ask, did I? As far as I’m concerned, nothing else matters besides getting back to my Girl,” the bark is ferocious and violent, more of an animal’s than a man’s. “Now where the hell did you put her before I tear this damn fort apart and—” You shove at the door before Hesh can grab you, throwing it open and letting it hit the opposite wall with a great boom of wood.

Your wild eyes instantaneously lock into sharp blues, pulse pounding in your ears. It’s like all the air is taken from your lungs in a great punch.

Oh, he’s so similar to how you remembered him to be ten years ago.

Keegan stands only a few feet away, turned in your direction with his eyes so wide and small you might faint. There’s black face paint in his sockets, making the cerulean all the more bright and shocking to the senses. He’s still tall, still built, if only a bit more rugged than when ODIN struck—there are lines on his forehead and his scars are more faded. Small differences in the way he holds himself like the difference between a rabbit and a hare. Keegan’s black locks are shorter now, but still…his.

Lips part in silent shock, an entire halt of your nervous system.

The entire universe holds its tongue as you two stare at each other; walls and rooms blur into a mess of matter and reality—this couldn’t be real.

Keegan’s feet shift for a moment as if to steady himself as his fingers twitch. In his hand, he holds your picture, his body covered in gear and weapons. He blinks as you tell yourself he’s a phantom, simply that same ghost come back to haunt you as tears sting the backs of your eyes. But then he speaks, and it’s the same voice you had slowly lost the ability to remember in year three.

“...Sweetheart?”

His ghost never spoke. His ghost could not imitate the phonics of his speech or the rhythm of his throat. His ghost could not make you recall the memories you’d long since boxed up.

You jerk forward just as he does, bodies colliding into a feral grip of flesh and fabric, hands latching and faces burying. Sobs rip from you as Keegan’s shaky breath echoes right next to your ear—his chest hitching and arms snatching your waist and lifting you up as easily as he always had. He holds you up without any thought of putting you down, legging your legs dangle as Elias slowly exits the room and corrals a highly confused Hesh with him.

The door shuts, but neither of you notices.

“Keegan—” Your voice is high with emotion, hardly believing what you're seeing—what you’re touching. “Oh, my God.”

He had been alive all this time? Ten whole years and you’d thought he was dead. But by the way he was barely letting you breathe from in his iron clutch, you imagined Keegan had thought the same about you. It was…incomprehensible.

“Shh,” he whispers, his shushes cracking and flinching between broken gasps of your name. “Shh.” He sets you down on the floor only to have his firm hands travel to your cheeks, turning your head to each side in a desperate need to understand if you were really there.

Keegan’s eyes are wet, but no tears let themselves fall quite yet.

“I’m so sorry!” You hiccup and the man kisses your cheeks—your browline and nose. Every piece of you he can as you both stay so intimate you might melt into one another. “I thought you were gone, I-I should have stayed and looked for you, I didn’t—”

“You’re alive?” Keegan’s hands rub across your body, gripping and tugging you closer and closer. “My Girl’s alive?”

His tears drip to your face as he hovers above you, and you both shake with the weight of years.

“Me?” Your chuckle through sobs—you want to scream and wail at the same time. Blue eyes flutter and ragged breaths puff on your forehead. “What about you, you asshole?”

Keegan shakes his head, and you stare deeply into him, hands coming up to cup his cheeks as he sags forward. He had stubble now, spreading out to grate your flesh.

The man forces a weak huff.

“Christ,” is all he mutters before he presses his lips to yours in a kiss so unyielding you expect to have your air stolen. Ten years to feel him kissing you again—to feel his warm flesh under your hands and his heart rampage into you.

You’d do it all over if it still amounted to this.

Your body shivers and you reciprocate with just as much fervor; this emotion of relief is so overwhelming and all-consuming that it makes your head light. You suck down quick breaths between the sensation of your lips meeting, Keegan doing the same.

Unconsciousness was better than letting him leave again, your lover sharing that sentiment as chests slid against one another. Soft hair slips through your fingers as you grip Keegan’s hair, cascading through locks as he groans into your lips and tries to hide his tears from you.

He pulls away and immensely shoves his head into your neck.

“You’re here,” he whispers quickly. A hand quivers at the back of your head as your tears wet his gear. “You’re right here. You came back to me, didn’t you, Doll?”

You cry, “I’m here, Keegan.” The man sobs when he hears you say his name, his knees giving out as you both fall to the floor and not letting the other move beyond the caress of skin and lips.

“I missed you,” Keegan gasps, “so much. Don’t you understand? I was nothing without you. You took it all from me, everything. Every damn thing.”

You press kisses to his neck and racing pulse, healing him inside and out without even realizing it; it was only fair, he was doing the same back to you.

The picture lays long forgotten on the floor.

“Never let me go,” your voice forces out, as he rocks you back and forth like a child. “Never again, Keegan. Please, I love you too much to go through that again.”

“Never,” he immediately promises, pulling back and kissing your lips again—neither can stop themselves from this. Blues eyes blink quickly, cataloging your face and every little blemish he’d have to relearn and study; to find the story behind. Keegan had never been happier. He felt like he might break from it. “Over my dead body, I’m never lettin’ you out of my sight. You’re stuck with me.”

You laugh genuinely for the first time in ten years and say you’d like nothing better as he pulls you back in and plants his mouth to yours in reverent worship. His arms trapping you to him as yours do just the same.

Not to leave again anytime soon.

TAGS:

@luuvbuzz, @emerald-valkyrie, @anna-banana27, @blueoorchid, @cryingnotcrying, @writeforfandoms, @homicidal-slvt, @jade-jax, @frazie99, @elmoees, @littlemisstrouble, @alpineswinter, @phoenixhalliwell, @idocarealot, @lavalleon, @facelessmemories, @h-leigh, @20forty9, @glitter-anon-asks, @emily-who-killed-a-man, @neelehksttr, @aeneanc, @escapefromrealitysm, @i-d-1-0-t, @pparcxysm, @hawkscanendme, @caramlizedtomatos, @konigsleftkidney, @sanfransolomitatm, @maelstrom007, @jemandderkeinenusernamenfindet, @pheobees, @glitterypirateduck, @uselsshuman, @fan-of-encouragement, @halfmoth-halfman, @ghostlythunderbird, @I-inkage, @pukbadger, @kopatych11, @0nceinabluem00n, @cocrorapop, @knightofsexyness, @abnormalgeil, @smallseastone, @jacegons, @330bpm-whiplash, @simon-rileys-housewife, @4-atsu, @tiredmetalenthusiast

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buckets-and-trees · 4 months ago

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When He First Got Me

Title: When He First Got Me Characters/Pairings: soft!dark and rough Nomad!Steve Rogers x Female!Reader Word Count: 2200 Summary: Prequel in the Exiled Nomad Series. July 3, 2017. Steve sees you at a city festival for the Fourth of July, but he's not content with only seeing...

Content/Warnings: explicit smut, vaginal fingering, kissing, rough sex, emotional unavailability, a broken Nomad who thinks he's fine but definitely is not

Author Notes: IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO READ ANY OF THE REST OF THIS SERIES. True stand-alone prequel. A little something for Steve's birthday weekend... This will be a bit of a darker indulgence for @the-slumberparty's Sundae Bar challenge: mint chocolate chip (involving a loner), sprinkles (birthday and 4th of July), cherries (meet-cute), and we'll even say some caramel (because Steve is not quite in a great headspace if we're being honest). AND I'm entering this for @witchywithwhiskey's Slasher Summer writing challenge: carnival/fair, slight stalker (but not fully), and I bolded the dialogue prompt that I used.

Steve didn’t feel like he could breathe easily, but he did feel like he could breathe here. Nothing like New York or DC. A place small enough not to be noticed but big enough to blend in without drawing attention as a stranger.

Being invisible somewhere had been easier than carving out the opportunity to do so solo over the 4th of July – less because it was America’s Birthday and more because it was his. Steve had suggested Wanda finally reconnect with Vision (they’d been on the run long enough, it should be safe for her to reach out and discreetly stay off the grid). The case he made to Sam was that he’d been on the run for over a year, and the 4th was less expected for a sentimental return to stop in on family but would still afford a holiday’s community celebrations and to give him reasonable cover to slip in and out. Nat hadn’t needed convincing. She saw, asked if he was sure, but understood without him needing to explain, and said she had things of her own that she’d take care of.

He just didn’t want any of the fuss of them trying to make him feel better on his birthday.

Steve was sitting on a shaded grassy knoll in the city park, hundreds of people around him, all weaving in and out of booths with games, vendors, and food, a vibrant temporary set up for a few days around the 4th, and on the far side of the park the sounds of carnival rides underscored it all.

He hadn’t come to this place to find someone.

But the moment he first noticed you, the plans started forming in his head before he could stop them.

And why should he stop them?

As he alternated between sketching in his notebook and people-watching, people watching turned into watching only you – you wandering this place clearly alone. Must be on your own in this city.

It would be so easy to harmlessly bump into you.

So he did.

When you recognized him, he could easily use the moment to draw you into keeping his presence in such a public place secret, getting you to trust him by him “trusting you” with his secret.

And he did.

He could easily ask if there were any good places to eat in town, then ask if you would join him.

He did, and you did.

After walking you home, it would be so easy to get you to invite him in, an afternoon and evening of conversation, compounding moments, and more and more casual touches on your arm, your shoulder, the small of your back, the back of your hand, having your body attune to him.

And it worked.

You hesitated, but invite him in you did.

And he tried for a moment to convince himself that being invited in had been all he wanted – to be someplace that wasn’t a stolen moment or a hotel room or a safe house that itself wasn’t very safe, just to be someplace private, someplace normal, someplace that felt like home.

But that was not the only thing he wanted.

And why shouldn’t he take the rest of what he wanted? After everything, didn’t he deserve it?

You didn’t notice that he locked the door behind him. You’d been apologizing for the state of your place, though after a quick glance around, he assured you it only looked lived in, not a mess.

Not like the mess he was so eager to make you into beneath him.

After insisting you didn’t need to get anything for him, he sat on your couch. He told you how nice it was just to sit there, nowhere to be, no reason to hide, how tired he was of running. You listened; you soothed him. He leaned in and kissed you.

You kissed him back.

All he did was kiss you until you leaned back on the couch and urged him along with you.

He let his chest press into your deliciously soft body. He groaned into the kiss, and you opened your mouth to his. This kisss grew in fervor, tongues exploring and tangling with each other. His hand ran up and down your thigh, slowly coaxing you to hitch it up around his waist. You moaned when he ground gently against your core – gentle only to test the waters. His need was mounting exponentially, and he knew the damn would break soon. He intended to let it.

He moved his lips from your mouth to your shoulder, kissing there before teasing his lips and teeth and tongue along your collar bone to the sensitive point of your neck. You sighed in bliss, and he moved his hand back up your thigh, over your hip, across your stomach, undid the top button he found there, and started to reach into your jeans.

Your breath hitched, and your hands flew to his.

“Steve, wait,” you said.

But you didn’t say stop.

He waited.

He could hear the wild racing of your heart beneath him.

The pressure of your hands on his body didn’t change, no part of you shifted to move away. Your eyes closed, the only sign of your reticence were your teeth worrying your bottom lip.

Steve slid his hand down to cup your pussy and his fingers found the wetness growing there that he expected. You let out a shuddering breath as his fingers worked your labia, but he didn’t linger there. He pulled his fingers out and then pushed them into your mouth.

“Neither of us wants to wait,” he snarled as you licked your slick from the pads of his fingers. “And it’s summer, we’re supposed to be having fun.”

Super soldier serum running through his veins, Steve picked you up with ease, and you wrapped your arms around his neck, legs around his waist, while he held one of your thighs and pressed his other hand at the base of your spine, pinning you securely to him while he captured your lips to kiss you again.

He easily found your bedroom, and he lowered you to the bed in a kneeling position. He didn’t relent in his kissing, devouring you, demanding your supplication. He only broke off the kiss once you were breathless, moaning, and pulling at his clothes. Then he stepped back and told you to undress. Steve quicky removed all his own clothing while keeping his eyes on you. You only removed your shirt and jeans, leaving you in your underwear, but he could work with that for now. He’d have you willing to shed the rest soon enough.

Steve got up on the bed with you, pleased that he could see your eyes darkening with the lust and the want. He recognized exactly the kind of want he was dealing with – it was how he imagined he would have behaved before living the harsh life of denial he’d lived while exiled and on the run for the past year. The old him would have wanted but been hesitant, gone slow, paid attention to more of the dance before even getting into bed.

He didn’t have the luxury of time or the patience for that.

He only had an insatiable need that he’d pushed down and ignored – ignored for years even before becoming Nomad. He’d denied himself so many things, sacrificed for others, for missions, too many legitimate and imagined reasons holding him back.

He wouldn’t hold back now.

But he would coax you into needing him as much as he needed you.

You only glanced at his naked groin with a moment of hesitance as he pulled you into his lap, but you still let him. He resumed your kissing, and you were quick to continue making out with him. He allowed you take the reins to steer the kissing, letting you lap up at the pace you wanted. He let his hands roam over your back as he eased you along, seemingly unhurried. But his hands soon made their way to your hips, and he secured his grip there and began grinding you down against his hard cock. He moaned unabashedly into your mouth as he adjusted the angle of your hips and continued rocking your core against him.

He was insistent on torturing you where your most intimate parts met until, clinging to his shoulders, you threw your head back, gasped for air.

“Steve,” you keened his name, clearly in the early stages of sweet ruin that he wanted.

He smirked against your neck and laid you down on your back with deceptive sweetness. He kissed slowly down your chest, between your breasts, down over your belly button. His fingers hooked into the top of your panties just as his lips arrived at the top of that fabric, and he peeled them down and fully off your legs. Your fingers worked anxiously over the sheets beneath you as he made you wait for him to touch you more.

His hands opened your legs back up, pushing at your knees to splay you open like a butterfly beneath his attention.

He worked both of his thumbs up and down over your labia, smearing your cunt with your juices, studying what he was about to claim and ruin. Then he looked up at your face and said, “This is mine now, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” your voice was soft, nervous, but also eager.

It hadn’t actually been a question, but he wanted you to say it out loud.

The only question was how he wanted to take you first.

Since he planned on taking you in every way, he went with the most convenient first, easing his cock into you slowly, but with no apologies for how thick he was, pressing into you despite the resistance – not that of a virgin, but of a cunt that had never taken a cock so big before. You cried out – but he knew the tone of it was pain drenched with bliss, he could hear it. What’s more, when he was fully sheathed inside you, he waited, unmoving. He watched your chest rise and fall with a few breaths. When you finally shifted your hips against his, he knew he had won. You wanted more. The beast inside of him surged in satisfaction, and then he began to aggressively thrust in and out of your tight channel.

He leaned forward, and your knees hitched up around his waist to urge him on. You clawed at his back, and when he reached between your bodies and found your swollen clit, he rubbed furious circles over it until he was rewarded with the clenching of your cunt around him, the seizing up of every muscle in your body, as he delivered your first orgasm of the night.

He continued pumping in and out of your spasming cunt until he was right at the edge, then pulled out and fisted his cock with only two more strokes before releasing hot ribbons of cum over your stomach.

Your fingers inched hesitantly toward the mess, and he put his hand over yours and pushed your fingers and his through the mess, pressing it into your skin. Then he moved your hands away and lowered his body down onto yours, the sticky spend between your skin and his there.

“I…” you started, but then paused.

He slipped his other hand beneath your head, cradling it in his palm. “Mmm?” he hummed against the spot behind your ear.

“I’m clean and have an IUD.”

He groaned and nipped at your neck. “You want me to continue to fuck you more. You want me to cum inside you.”

“Yes, Steve,” you simpered.

“Mmm, such a good girl,” he pressed a hot kiss against your neck, then rolled off being on top of you, and to his side next to you. “Best give you what we both want, then,” he said as he turned you onto your side, back pressed to his chest, and felt below to press his dick into your hole again.

Hours later when its far past midnight, you’ve passed out from exhaustion.

Or at least that’s what he thought.

But when he slipped back onto your bed after taking a piss, you scooted your body in next to him, put your hand on his chest, and muttered the sleepiest, “Happy birthday,” to him he’d ever heard. He almost wondered how you knew switching from the third to the fourth meant it was his day, but then he remembered the time when seemingly everyone knew it was Cap’s birthday.

While he wasn’t Cap anymore, it still struck something in him and made his chest warm.

But he didn’t feel like you would make a big deal out of it or make him feel bad and that maybe it would be nice to be with someone on his birthday, so he decided to stay. He told himself it was to be distracted chasing more bliss with your body. He ignored the other thoughts working through his mind. He only wanted – only needed – the distraction. Nothing else.

↠ Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

NEXT: July 4, 2017. read more Exiled Nomad Series

I'M GLAD Steve's POV won in the poll I ran earlier this week... clearly since I made the poll my muse was leaning heavy towards it anyway, but this was certainly illuminating to see more of where Steve's head is at in this ... situationship.

#steve rogers #steve rogers smut #nomad steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #nomad steve x reader #slashersummerwc #sundae bar #female reader #aspen wrote something #exiled nomad series

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months ago

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What the fuck is a PBM?

TOMORROW (Sept 24), I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

Terminal-stage capitalism owes its long senescence to its many defensive mechanisms, and it's only by defeating these that we can put it out of its misery. "The Shield of Boringness" is one of the necrocapitalist's most effective defenses, so it behooves us to attack it head-on.

The Shield of Boringness is Dana Claire's extremely useful term for anything so dull that you simply can't hold any conception of it in your mind for any length of time. In the finance sector, they call this "MEGO," which stands for "My Eyes Glaze Over," a term of art for financial arrangements made so performatively complex that only the most exquisitely melted brain-geniuses can hope to unravel their spaghetti logic. The rest of us are meant to simply heft those thick, dense prospectuses in two hands, shrug, and assume, "a pile of shit this big must have a pony under it."

MEGO and its Shield of Boringness are key to all of terminal-stage capitalism's stupidest scams. Cloaking obvious swindles in a lot of complex language and Byzantine payment schemes can make them seem respectable just long enough for the scammers to relieve you of all your inconvenient cash and assets, though, eventually, you're bound to notice that something is missing.

If you spent the years leading up to the Great Financial Crisis baffled by "CDOs," "synthetic CDOs," "ARMs" and other swindler nonsense, you experienced the Shield of Boringness. If you bet your house and/or your retirement savings on these things, you experienced MEGO. If, after the bubble popped, you finally came to understand that these "exotic financial instruments" were just scams, you experienced Stein's Law ("anything that can't go forever eventually stops"). If today you no longer remember what a CDO is, you are once again experiencing the Shield of Boringness.

As bad as 2008 was, it wasn't even close to the end of terminal stage capitalism. The market has soldiered on, with complex swindles like carbon offset trading, metaverse, cryptocurrency, financialized solar installation, and (of course) AI. In addition to these new swindles, we're still playing the hits, finding new ways to make the worst scams of the 2000s even worse.

That brings me to the American health industry, and the absurdly complex, ridiculously corrupt Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), a pathology that has only metastasized since 2008.

On at least 20 separate occasions, I have taken it upon myself to figure out how the PBM swindle works, and nevertheless, every time they come up, I have to go back and figure it out again, because PBMs have the most powerful Shield of Boringness out of the whole Monster Manual of terminal-stage capitalism's trash mobs.

PBMs are back in the news because the FTC is now suing the largest of these for their role in ripping off diabetics with sky-high insulin prices. This has kicked off a fresh round of "what the fuck is a PBM, anyway?" explainers of extremely variable quality. Unsurprisingly, the best of these comes from Matt Stoller:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-lina-khan-pharma

Stoller starts by pointing out that Americans have a proud tradition of getting phucked by pharma companies. As far back as the 1950s, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver was holding hearings on the scams that pharma companies were using to ensure that Americans paid more for their pills than virtually anyone else in the world.

But since the 2010s, Americans have found themselves paying eye-popping, sky-high, ridiculous drug prices. Eli Lilly's Humolog insulin sold for $21 in 1999; by 2017, the price was $274 – a 1,200% increase! This isn't your grampa's price gouging!

Where do these absurd prices come from? The story starts in the 2000s, when the GW Bush administration encouraged health insurers to create "high deductible" plans, where patients were expected to pay out of pocket for receiving care, until they hit a multi-thousand-dollar threshold, and then their insurance would kick in. Along with "co-pays" and other junk fees, these deductibles were called "cost sharing," and they were sold as a way to prevent the "abuse" of the health care system.

The economists who crafted terminal-stage capitalism's intellectual rationalizations claimed the reason Americans paid so much more for health care than their socialized-medicine using cousins in the rest of the world had nothing to do with the fact that America treats health as a source of profits, while the rest of the world treats health as a human right.

No, the actual root of America's health industry's problems was the moral defects of Americans. Because insured Americans could just go see the doctor whenever they felt like it, they had no incentive to minimize their use of the system. Any time one of these unhinged hypochondriacs got a little sniffle, they could treat themselves to a doctor's visit, enjoying those waiting-room magazines and the pleasure of arranging a sick day with HR, without bearing any of the true costs:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/27/the-doctrine-of-moral-hazard/

"Cost sharing" was supposed to create "skin in the game" for every insured American, creating a little pain-point that stung you every time you thought about treating yourself to a luxurious doctor's visit. Now, these payments bit hardest on the poorest workers, because if you're making minimum wage, at $10 co-pay hurts a lot more than it does if you're making six figures. What's more, VPs and the C-suite were offered "gold-plated" plans with low/no deductibles or co-pays, because executives understand the value of a dollar in the way that mere working slobs can't ever hope to comprehend. They can be trusted to only use the doctor when it's truly warranted.

So now you have these high-deductible plans creeping into every workplace. Then along comes Obama and the Affordable Care Act, a compromise that maintains health care as a for-profit enterprise (still not a human right!) but seeks to create universal coverage by requiring every American to buy a plan, requiring insurers to offer plans to every American, and uses public money to subsidize the for-profit health industry to glue it together.

Predictably, the cheapest insurance offered on the Obamacare exchanges – and ultimately, by employers – had sky-high deductibles and co-pays. That way, insurers could pocket a fat public subsidy, offer an "insurance" plan that was cheap enough for even the most marginally employed people to afford, but still offer no coverage until their customers had spent thousands of dollars out-of-pocket in a given year.

That's the background: GWB created high-deductible plans, Obama supercharged them. Keep that in your mind as we go through the MEGO procedures of the PBM sector.

Your insurer has a list of drugs they'll cover, called the "formulary." The formulary also specifies how much the insurance company is willing to pay your pharmacist for these drugs. Creating the formulary and paying pharmacies for dispensing drugs is a lot of tedious work, and insurance outsources this to third parties, called – wait for it – Pharmacy Benefits Managers.

The prices in the formulary the PBM prepares for your insurance company are called the "list prices." These are meant to represent the "sticker price" of the drug, what a pharmacist would charge you if you wandered in off the street with no insurance, but somehow in possession of a valid prescription.

But, as Stoller writes, these "list prices" aren't actually ever charged to anyone. The list price is like the "full price" on the pricetags at a discount furniture place where everything is always "on sale" at 50% off – and whose semi-disposable sofas and balsa-wood dining room chairs are never actually sold at full price.

One theoretical advantage of a PBM is that it can get lower prices because it bargains for all the people in a given insurer's plan. If you're the pharma giant Sanofi and you want your Lantus insulin to be available to any of the people who must use OptumRX's formulary, you have to convince OptumRX to include you in that formulary.

OptumRX – like all PBMs – demands "rebates" from pharma companies if they want to be included in the formulary. On its face, this is similar to the practices of, say, NICE – the UK agency that bargains for medicine on behalf of the NHS, which also bargains with pharma companies for access to everyone in the UK and gets very good deals as a result.

But OptumRX doesn't bargain for a lower list price. They bargain for a bigger rebate. That means that the "price" is still very high, but OptumRX ends up paying a tiny fraction of it, thanks to that rebate. In the OptumRX formulary, Lantus insulin lists for $403. But Sanofi, who make Lantus, rebate $339 of that to OptumRX, leaving just $64 for Lantus.

Here's where the scam hits. Your insurer charges you a deductible based on the list price – $404 – not on the $64 that OptumRX actually pays for your insulin. If you're in a high-deductible plan and you haven't met your cap yet, you're going to pay $404 for your insulin, even though the actual price for it is $64.

Now, you'd think that your insurer would put a stop to this. They chose the PBM, the PBM is ripping off their customers, so it's their job to smack the PBM around and make it cut this shit out. So why would the insurers tolerate this nonsense?

Here's why: the PBMs are divisions of the big health insurance companies. Unitedhealth owns OptumRx; Aetna owns Caremark, and Cigna owns Expressscripts. So it's not the PBM that's ripping you off, it's your own insurance company. They're not just making you pay for drugs that you're supposedly covered for – they're pocketing the deductible you pay for those drugs.

Now, there's one more entity with power over the PBM that you'd hope would step in on your behalf: your boss. After all, your employer is the entity that actually chooses the insurer and negotiates with them on your behalf. Your boss is in the driver's seat; you're just along for the ride.

It would be pretty funny if the answer to this was that the health insurance company bought your employer, too, and so your boss, the PBM and the insurer were all the same guy, busily swapping hats, paying for a call center full of tormented drones who each have three phones on their desks: one labeled "insurer"; the second, "PBM" and the final one "HR."

But no, the insurers haven't bought out the company you work for (yet). Rather, they've bought off your boss – they're sharing kickbacks with your employer for all the deductibles and co-pays you're being suckered into paying. There's so much money (your money) sloshing around in the PBM scamoverse that anytime someone might get in the way of you being ripped off, they just get cut in for a share of the loot.

That is how the PBM scam works: they're fronts for health insurers who exploit the existence of high-deductible plans in order to get huge kickbacks from pharma makers, and massive fees from you. They split the loot with your boss, whose payout goes up when you get screwed harder.

But wait, there's more! After all, Big Pharma isn't some kind of easily pushed-around weakling. They're big. Why don't they push back against these massive rebates? Because they can afford to pay bribes and smaller companies making cheaper drugs can't. Whether it's a little biotech upstart with a cheaper molecule, or a generics maker who's producing drugs at a fraction of the list price, they just don't have the giant cash reserves it takes to buy their way into the PBMs' formularies. Doubtless, the Big Pharma companies would prefer to pay smaller kickbacks, but from Big Pharma's perspective, the optimum amount of bribes extracted by a PBM isn't zero – far from it. For Big Pharma, the optimal number is one cent higher than "the maximum amount of bribes that a smaller company can afford."

The purpose of a system is what it does. The PBM system makes sure that Americans only have access to the most expensive drugs, and that they pay the highest possible prices for them, and this enriches both insurance companies and employers, while protecting the Big Pharma cartel from upstarts.

Which is why the FTC is suing the PBMs for price-fixing. As Stoller points out, they're using their powers under Section 5 of the FTC Act here, which allows them to shut down "unfair methods of competition":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

The case will be adjudicated by an administrative law judge, in a process that's much faster than a federal court case. Once the FTC proves that the PBM scam is illegal when applied to insulin, they'll have a much easier time attacking the scam when it comes to every other drug (the insulin scam has just about run its course, with federally mandated $35 insulin coming online, just as a generation of post-insulin diabetes treatments hit the market).

Obviously the PBMs aren't taking this lying down. Cigna/Expressscripts has actually sued the FTC for libel over the market study it conducted, in which the agency described in pitiless, factual detail how Cigna was ripping us all off. The case is being fought by a low-level Reagan-era monster named Rick Rule, whom Stoller characterizes as a guy who "hangs around in bars and picks up lonely multi-national corporations" (!!).

The libel claim is a nonstarter, but it's still wild. It's like one of those movies where they want to show you how bad the cockroaches are, so there's a bit where the exterminator shows up and the roaches form a chorus line and do a kind of Busby Berkeley number:

https://www.46brooklyn.com/news/2024-09-20-the-carlton-report

So here we are: the FTC has set out to euthanize some rentiers, ridding the world of a layer of useless economic middlemen whose sole reason for existing is to make pharmaceuticals as expensive as possible, by colluding with the pharma cartel, the insurance cartel and your boss. This conspiracy exists in plain sight, hidden by the Shield of Boringness. If I've done my job, you now understand how this MEGO scam works – and if you forget all that ten minutes later (as is likely, given the nature of MEGO), that's OK: just remember that this thing is a giant fucking scam, and if you ever need to refresh yourself on the details, you can always re-read this post.

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/23/shield-of-boringness/#some-men-rob-you-with-a-fountain-pen

Image: Flying Logos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Over_$1,000,000_dollars_in_USD_$100_bill_stacks.png

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

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eloquentlytired · 2 months ago

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— when the time comes

pairing: old man!logan howlett x gn! reader

word count: no idea but this one isn't very long.

part two is out!

tags: major character death — angst — reader is logan’s sunshine — mention of blood & wounds — logan low-key proposing 5 seconds before he dies — non established relationship

author's note: this has been on my mind since 2 days ago so I had to do it now.. I hope you guys enjoy reading this heartbreak! and yes I wrote this after watching Logan (2017) again. just a bit of an alternative type of ending so I can write abt logan x reader! as always reblogs & likes & conversations are sooo welcome ^_^

god stood me up

and I don't know why

lights are on

but nobody's home

you find him leaning against a tree trunk, a chunk of wood piercing his sides open as blood soaks through his shirt. that isn't the only wound he's sporting but it's the most evident one; the one that'll possibly lead him to his demise.

logan blinks upon noticing you as if he's just seeing things or dreaming. when you crouch down beside him and place your hand on his arm, he realizes exactly just how real you are. “logan?” there are tears in your eyes and he hates that you're crying because of him again. you had been living with him, charles and caliban way before it all turned to shit. and somehow the only ones left standing were laura and you. and the kids that logan had managed to save; he truly had saved so many lives.

there's a silence aside from his heavy breathing before your shaky hands cup his face. the blood flows out of his wound and mouth like a river. in some way you're bleeding too — inside your heart. “hey sunshine.” logan whispers with a soft smile and you feel something tear your chest apart from the inside. “I made you cry again.” you see the way his hand twitches by his side. he wants to touch you but he's old and tired and wounded. there's no energy left in him to move anymore. “the kids are okay, laura is okay— I have the car and..and there's still time— the hospital—” your voice trails off when logan closed his eyes.

“you know what makes me angry, sunshine?” logan asks and you simply stare at him, shaking your head. when he opens his eyes again, they are full of unshed tears. “gonna miss my daughter’s first birthday with me—” logan mutters brokenly and the vision of laura swims beneath his half-opened eyelids. and after laura there is you; smiling. at the beach. you've always wanted to go to the beach with him but he never took you since he was working day and night to take care of everything. of everyone. “and i’m also gonna miss my sunshine.” his eyes fall on you, on your crying face. the tears sliding down your cheeks are plenty and there is so much emotion pooling in those orbs of yours. logan wants to kiss you, tell you it'll be alright. but he can’t even move.

he coughs, some blood spluttering on his white shirt and you flinch. your fingers shake as you slide them through his messy hair, stroking them in the way he’s always loved. “logan, I'm sorry...I— I'm so sorry logan..” you keep chanting and logan feels the frustration in his bones when he tries to move his arms. he can't, he's too weak now, and he's angry with himself that he's unable to comfort you the way he wants. the way he once could but never did. “not you nor the entire world could ever prevent this, sunshine. it was meant to be like this.” he says before coughing again, more blood trickling down his beard.

you crawl by his side, on the dirty ground, and press against his ‘good’ side while leaning your head on his shoulder. you tilt your head back enough for your eyes to reach his exhausted face. logan maintains a smile you haven't seen in forever. in damn years to be precise. “charles spoke to me of other timelines and some shit about— multiverse was it?” he pauses, taking a deep breath. “I don't fucking know. I just wanted him to take the damn pills.” his sentence makes both of you laugh although logan is holding back with that — it'll only cause more physical pain after all. “point is..if it's true then—”

“—we gotta find each other yeah? and laura.” his eyes aren't on you anymore but they're in the sky. it's bluer than ever and the clouds part to show him the sun. logan doesn't look away even if it makes his eyes ache. you stare. “wanna make it right, sunshine.” he tells you as you sniffle by him. his fingers flinch again between your bodies and you slide a single hand down to hold his own, to intertwine your fingers in a gentle mess. “but for now I want to rest.” logan whispers and your grip tightens around his hand. if he had the strength, he'd squeeze back. you knew this.

“you did excellent.” you finally manage to say, a little steadier this time. logan averts his gaze to you as you continue. “you did a good job. you did such a good job.” you repeat with a smile so soft that logan starts yearning for you already. his faint chuckle turns into a rough cough and he takes some time to recover before speaking again.

“maybe after I rest, I'll open my eyes and..” you watch as logan’s eyes begin closing and how the heaving of his chest slows. he's deathly pale by now, the veins underneath his eyes are prominent, but your grip never slackens. you crawl closer until your foreheads touch. logan draws one last breath and you swallow down your cry. “and I'll see my daughter. and my... spouse.” your eyes shoot open wide but logan’s remain fallen shut. your chest heaves up and down intensely but logan’s remains still.

when the time comes, your feet are forcefully dragging you away towards your old car while logan lies beneath the ground.

#logan howlett #logan howlett x reader #logan howlett x you #logan howlett angst #major character death #logan 2017 #wolverine #wolverine x reader #wolverine x you #marvel #hugh jackman #hugh jackman x reader #Spotify #old man logan #old man logan x reader #old logan #old!logan howlett

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moonxknightx · 3 months ago

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♡˗ˏ✎*ೃ˚ : STAY WITH ME (PT.4) : :;

╰┈➤ ❝ [PAIRING] ❞ 2017!Logan Howlett x F!Reader

・❥・GENRE: Fluff and angst :))

˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆FANDOM: X-Men

ੈ✩‧₊˚ WARNINGS: Violence/Abuse, mention of death, emotional distress, strong language, mental anguish

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥SUMMARY: You, Logan and Charles process the shocking revelation from a video that reveals the horrific experiments on mutant children, including Laura, who is Logan's daughter. Logan struggles with guilt and fear, but you comfort him, assuring him that you're by his side. After arriving in Oklahoma City, you check into a hotel, buy new clothes, and try to rest. Logan opens up about his fears, and you share a special moment, promising to stay with him through the challenges ahead.

Previous Part | Next Part

WHEN YOU LEFT THE STORE OF THE GAS STATION, you saw Laura sitting on the small pony machine while also noticing that Logan had taken a seat in the back of the car next to Charles while looking at a phone.

You flashed Laura a smile before walking back to the car. “Hi.” You said as you also got into the backseat.

Logan immediately looked up at you and gave you a warm smile as he scooted closer to Charles to give you more space to sit.

You also started smiling while looking at Logan. You tried your best to hide it, but you failed miserably. The two of you did kiss a few minutes ago!

“What are we watching?” You asked as you sat down next to Logan.

“I found this phone in the motel room of Gabriela.” Logan explained as he showed you the phone.

Suddenly your smile disappeared. You were so busy with fighting Pierce’s men and escaping, that you totally forgot about Gabriela.

“Did she…?” You started but stopped once you saw Logan nodding.

“I found her dead in her motel room this morning.” Logan said quietly while you cursed under your breath.

“Poor Laura…” You sighed as you turned to the window to look at the girl.

Logan cleared his throat while turning on Gabriela’s phone. “We found a video on her phone. Wanna watch it?”

You sighed as you gave a small nod. You moved closer to Logan and put your chin on his shoulder so you could look at the screen.

“Okay let’s see.” Said Logan, putting on his glasses before playing the video.

You saw how Gabriela appeared on the small screen, introducing herself before taking about Alkali Transigen Research, the company where she worked for then years in Mexico City. Then she said. “What i’m about to show you is illegal in the U.S. and Canada.”

You watched how the video switched to Children walking through a hallway while being escorted by guards.

“What is this?” You asked as you watched intensely. Gabriela started explaining how her and her colleagues were told that they were part of a pharmaceutical study, which was a big lie.

She explained how the children that were showed in the video, were born at the Transigen facility and that they never left. She told that the children were raised in the bellies of Mexican girls before they got experienced on. They told them that the Children were made from “special seeds in bottles”.

While Gabriela explained everything, the video showed camera footage of the children and how they were treated. It was inhuman.

She explained that the children were being trained as soldiers and killers. Then the video cut to an image of Laura lying on a hospital bed while doctors operated on her. Her claws were out and there was blood all over her.

“These are babies of mutants.” Were the last words of Gabriela before the phone turned off.

All three of you, Charles Logan and you were speechless for a moment. You watched how Logan took off his glasses while looking away.

“North Dakota.” Said Charles quietly. Logan hummed. “You took the woman’s money. You said you would take the child there.” Charles continued.

Logan kept quiet as he looked at Laura who was struggling as the Pony stopped moving.

You could feel Logan’s emotions through your telepathic powers. You could feel his anger, sadness and frustration. You wanted to hug him. Tell him that everything was going to be alright, but even you couldn’t say that after seeing the video.

“What is she?” Asked Logan after a while.

“She’s your daughter, Logan.” Answered Charles. Your breath was caught in your throat as you heard Charles’ words. And you were sure Logan’s breath was too.

You watched how Logan reached for the door of the car, wanting to get out.

“Alkali has your genetic code.” Charles went on as Logan turned back to him. “Not just mine.” He said before opening the door.

“Logan..” Said Charles softly. “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t wanna hear about it anymore.” Sighed Logan as he closed his eyes and got out of the car.

“Logan.” Said Charles again. “Just stop!” Logan said while raising his voice. “I have to pee…” Smiled Charles slightly.

“Oh for fucks sake!” Groaned Logan as he rolled his eyes.

“Logan calm down.” You said as you got out of the car as well. Logan looked at you with furrowed eyebrows, but once his eyes met yours, they immediately softened as he let out a deep breath.

“Okay old man, let’s get you to the bathroom then.” Said Logan calmly.

You watched for a moment how Logan helped Charles out of the car before heading towards Laura while pulling a few coins out of your pocket.

“Here you go.” You smiled as you handed her the new coins. You watched how she put them into the machine, and in no time the pony was back to moving again.

For a moment you just stared at Laura. You felt so bad for her. She must’ve went through some very traumatizing things. That’s why you sensed so much anger every time you were near her.

You stayed with Laura until Logan and Charles came back from the restroom. “Let’s go.” Said Logan as he motioned for you and Lauro to follow him.

Once you were all back in the car, Logan started the engine and drove off. A few hours passed as you drove towards Oklahoma City, the sky already dark as the moon appeared on the horizon.

“Let’s stop here for a few hours. You have to rest Lo.” You said softly while pointing to the side of the road. Logan nodded and turned to the right, slowly stopping next to the highway.

You watched how Logan turned off the car before looking over your shoulder to see that Charles and Laura were already asleep.

“Are you okay?” You asked, breaking the silence. Logan shrugged. “I don’t know.” He sighed while pulling out a phone charger.

“Where did you get that?” You asked. “At the gas station. I need to see the rest of the video.” Said Logan as he put the charger in the charging hole in the car before connecting it to the phone of Gabriela.

“Do you want to get out for a while?” You offered quietly. Logan nodded and got out of the car. You quickly followed after him and watched how he leaned against the car bumper.

“Talk to me Logan.” You whispered as you moved closer to him. Logan spread his legs slightly to let you stand between them.

He watched how you placed your hands on his thighs while looking up at him.

“I don’t know what to say…” Sighed Logan while looking down at you. You nodded, understanding the situation.

“That’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it right now. Just whenever you’re ready, okay?” You smiled softly.

Logan nodded before suddenly wrapping his arms around you, pulling you close to his chest.

You immediately hugged back as you wrapped your arms around his neck.

“Thank you for being here.” He whispered in your ear. “You don’t have to thank me Logan.” You chuckled while playing with his hair.

“No i do.” Said Logan sternly as he slightly pulled away. “I was a complete asshole to you while you were just trying to be there for me the whole time. You didn’t deserve that. I’m sorry.” Logan repeated.

“It’s okay Lo.” You smiled before slowly placing your lips on his. Logan immediately kissed back while one of his hands moved to your hair. He tightened his hold on you while pulling you closer if that was even possible.

“We have to get her to North Dakota, Logan.” You breathed against his lips as you slowly pulled away after a moment.

“I know bub.” Logan said quietly as he cupped your cheek. You closed your eyes at his touch as you leaned closer into him.

“I can’t believe i have a daughter.” Logan spoke after a moment of silence. “I know.” You sighed softly.

“The things they did to her and the other children…it’s horrible.” Logan said slowly. You could feel anger rise in him as he spoke. You kept quiet as you let Logan think about it all for a moment.

“And now they got Caliban too.” Logan sighed while you pulled away from him. You totally forgot about Caliban.

Logan saw your worried expression and immediately grabbed your hand. “We will get him back, i promise.”

You gave Logan a small nod before suddenly yawning. Logan chuckled at the sight before motioning towards the car with his head.

“Go and get some sleep, i’ll be right behind you.” Logan said. You raised one of your eyebrows while looking at Logan. “I promise.” He smiled. “I hope so.” You said quietly while getting back into the car, closing your eyes to get some sleep.

Logan stayed outside for a few minutes longer before getting back in the car as well. You were already deep asleep as Logan carefully reached for Gabriela’s phone.

He turned on the device, put on his glasses and continued with watching the video. He saw some horrible imagines as Gabriela talked about how the children wouldn’t listen. They grew restless but they still didn’t want to fight. That’s why Alkali started working on something new, something they believed to be better than the children. Gabriela explained it all.

The video showed how some of the children were put to sleep or got killed. Gabriela told how she and her colleagues tried their best to help some of the children. She started talking about a place up north. A place for mutants. Eden.

The video ended with Gabriela begging in the camera to take Laura to Eden. to safety.

Logan sighed as he turned off the phone and took off his glasses. He turned towards your sleeping form and carefully reached for your face. Then he turned around so he could look at Laura and Charles.

“Are we going to take her to that so called Eden place?” Your sleepy voice sounded from Logan’s right.

Logan immediately turned back to you and saw how you had one eye open to look at him. Logan’s lips curled up in a small smile while nodding.

“Yeah we are.” He said softly. You started smiling too before closing your eye again. “Good.” You sighed contently.

“Go back to sleep bub, you need your rest too.” Logan said while taking off his jacket, carefully placing it over your body.

Soon you were fast asleep again while Logan kept looking ahead of him, thinking about everything that happened in the past 24 hours.

When you woke up a few hours later, you were driving through Oklahoma City. You were enchanted by the many lights of the city. Laura seemed to be as well as she was sitting in front of the backseat window, staring with an open mouth at all the buildings and lights.

“Is this where we’re hiding out?” Asked Charles as he was also looking around.

“We’re not hiding out. We’re gonna get a couple of hours’ sleep, clean up, get some new clothes, get a new ride and get out of here.” Logan said as he looked at Charles through the front mirror before glancing at you.

“Sounds good.” You said softly while smiling at Logan.

Soon you and the others arrived at a big hotel with a casino in it. Logan drove the car in front of the hotel and got out of the car. You and Laura followed after him and watched as Logan helped Charles get out as well.

When Charles was seated in his wheelchair, Logan gave the keys to the valet before pushing Charles towards the entrance of the hotel, you and Laura following.

When you entered the building you couldn’t help but be in awe of what you were seeing. “This is huge.” You said while looking around.

You watched how Laura sped up so she could walk next to Charles as he placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey are you okay?” You asked Logan as you grabbed his hand gently. Logan looked down at you and gave you a small smile. “I’m okay.” He answered.

“Can you stay here with Laura and Charles while i’m going to get us a room?” Asked Logan as he stilled. “Yes of course.” You said as you watched how Logan headed into the direction of the reception.

“How are you feeling Charles?” You asked as you looked down at your old friend. “Tired.” He answered with a small smile. “I know. Soon you will be able to get a good couple of hours sleep in a comfortable bed.” You smiled. “Thank God.” Charles chuckled.

“What about you Laura? Are you okay?” You asked as you kneeled down in front of her. She gave you a slight nod before turning away and looking around.

Logan returned shortly after with a key. “Let’s go.” He said as he grabbed Charles’ wheelchair and headed for the elevators.

“Laura let’s go.” Logan said as he looked at the girl. You turned around as well and saw how Laura was standing in front of a store while looking at two mannequins dressed in clothes.

Charles also noticed and chuckled. “We do need some new clothes.” He smirked while looking up at Logan.

“Oh fuck…” Groaned Logan before pushing Charles towards the store with the mannequins.

“Come on it will be fun.” You joked as you slightly bumped shoulders with Logan. “Can’t wait.” Said Logan, his voice laced with sarcasm as you all entered the store.

You watched how Laura immediately went to the children’s section to pick out a new outfit while Charles did the same with the men’s section, rolling himself towards it.

“Wanna help me pick something out?” You asked Logan while tugging on his sleeve. “Yes.” Smiled Logan slightly as he followed you towards the women’s section.

Logan followed you around like a puppy. He watched how you picked up various items, asking him what he thought before putting them back and continuing looking around.

He liked seeing you like this. You looked so adorable as you skipped around the store, trying to pick out an outfit.

“What about this?” You asked Logan as you held up a white tanktop, a black zip up hoodie and black jeans. “Don’t want to draw too much attention right?” You added.

Logan chuckled before nodding. “I’m sure it will look great on you.” Your lips curled up into a smile as your cheeks started to warm up. “Thank you.” You said before walking towards the men’s section.

“Your turn now.” You grinned. Logan rolled his eyes while pointing ahead of him. “You pick something.” You frowned. “You sure?” Logan nodded. “Okay let’s see.” You said as you started skipping around the store once more.

After a few moments you returned to Logan with a whole new outfit.

“What do you think?” You asked while holding up a pair of black jeans, a black t shirt, a blue flannel and a light brown orange jacket.

“Looks good.” Logan approved before taking the clothes from you. “Thank you sweetheart.” He smiled.

Soon the four of you were in the elevator with bags full of clothes and some other things. When you arrived at the room, Logan opened the door and let Charles, Laura and you get in first before following after you.

“We have two bedrooms.” Logan announced as he put all of the shopping bags down on the floor.

“Laura and me can take one room so you and Logan can take the other one.” Charles smiled while looking at you. He probably noticed something changed between you and Logan.

“Thank you Charles.” You said as you felt your cheeks getting warm again. Logan awkwardly cleared his throat as he walked over to Charles. “Let’s get you ready for bed then.”

“I’m going to take a shower okay?” You said while looking at Logan. “Yeah sure take your time.” He said gently as he turned his head to look at you.

You watched how Laura climbed onto the bed while turning on the tv. You gave her a smile which she returned before heading into the bathroom.

You turned the shower on and started to undress yourself. Being extra careful with taking off your shirt because of your stitches. When you were fully naked, you stepped into the shower and washed everything off of you from the last day.

You tried to clear your mind, but found it difficult after witnessing everything in the last 24 hours. You felt sorrow for Laura. How scared she must’ve been all those years. You also felt for Logan whose whole world was collapsing step by step. And then there was Caliban. Captured by Pierce. He was probably dead already or being tortured mercilessly.

“Just take a deep breath.” You told yourself as you started washing your hair and body.

After being in the shower for twenty minutes, you turned it off and wrapped yourself in a towel before exiting the bathroom. You immediately went to the room you shared with Logan to find him sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Hey.” He said softly as his eyes met yours. “Hey.” You said back as you walked over to him. You sat down next to him and took his hand in yours.

Logan looked at your intertwined fingers before speaking up. “I’m afraid.” You could barely hear him as his voice broke.

“Logan…” You sighed as you squeezed his hand.

“Please stay with me.” He said as he looked into your eyes. Your heart broke when your eyes met his. You could see that Logan was trying to hold back tears from falling, which pained you.

“Lo…” You breathed as you gently placed your hand on his right cheek.

“Stay with me.” He repeated. “I will. I will stay Logan, i promise.” You said immediately before pulling him into a tight embrace.

Logan immediately buried his face in the crook of your neck as small tears slipped from his eyes.

“It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m right here.” You whispered into his ear as you pulled him closer if that was even possible.

In your embrace, Logan's trembling form melted into your warmth as he softly cried, the tears a cathartic release after the turmoil of the past 24 hours.

The events that had unfolded left him shaken, and the uncertainty of what lay ahead filled him with a deep, gnawing fear. Yet, in your arms, he found a sanctuary, a place where he could finally let go.

The gentle rhythm of your heartbeat reassured him, providing a momentary shield against his anxieties. As he clung to you, his sobs slowly subsiding, Logan knew that despite the chaos, he wasn’t facing it alone, with you, he finally felt a fragile but precious hope.

“I promise i will stay with you.” You said quietly as Logan slowly pulled away from you.

“Here.” You spoke softly as you gently wiped Logan’s tears away from his face.

“Thank you.” Sighed Logan, feeling a little better after being able to let it all out with you by his side.

“You don’t need to thank me, you know that.” You said while placing a kiss on his forehead before getting up.

Logan watched how you went over to the bag with new clothes and pulled out a simple black t shirt you bought as well to sleep in. You also grabbed a pair of panties and carefully put them on without dropping your towel.

You could feel Logan’s gaze on your back the whole time. Slowly you let your towel drop to the ground, revealing your naked back to Logan before putting on your new shirt.

Logan quickly looked away when you turned around. You couldn’t help but smile.

“Are you going to take a shower?” You asked. Logan nodded and got up from the bed. “I’ll be right back.” He said as he left a kiss on your lips before disappearing into the bathroom.

You walked over to the left side of the bed and climbed onto it. You quickly covered yourself under the sheets while waiting for Logan.

After about fifteen minutes, Logan emerged from the bathroom in nothing but a towel which hung low on his hips.

You couldn’t help but stare at the man in front of you. Even with all the bruises on his torso, arms and shoulders, he still looked absolutely beautiful.

“Take a picture, it will last longer.” Logan said with a slight smirk as he grabbed a fresh pair of boxers out of the bag.

You rolled your eyes at his comment and watched how it was now your turn to stare at him as he dropped his towel to put on his boxers.

When he was done, he walked over to you and got into bed as well. “Can i hold you?” He asked softly as he turned to look at you.

You chuckled at the switch in his behavior before nodding. “Of course.” You smiled before letting yourself fall into his arms.

Logan immediately wrapped his arms around you while kissing your shoulder.

“Thank you for staying with me.” He whispered before closing his eyes.

“I’ll always stay with you.” You whispered back before closing your eyes as well, letting sleep fall over you as you snuggled closer to Logan.

🏷️: @twinky-wink @fidgetingbee @astarions-girl-dinner @layladestiny8 @captain039 @spideybv28 @littledebbieinabigworld @itsjenna2u @landlockedmermaid77 @hooomansstuff @strawberriezsweetie @littlemissoblivious @cherrybonbonss @allmyn1ghts @bluetimeombre @persiar9 @sometimesminsan @atrxidxs @evanpetersmood @reidsworld @batrensworld @believeyourgalaxy

If you want to be added to the taglist, let me know🫶

Also, i’ve seen a few people commenting things like predicting the ending, so now i have a question for all of you, i’ve already wrote every chapter except the last one, because i wasn’t sure of how to end it😭

We all know how it really ends for Logan but i was thinking of maybe changing that, what would you prefer? A happy ending or a sad ending? IF we go for the sad ending, i will write an epilogue with a sort of happy ending… Let me know in the comments what you prefer!

#logan howlett x reader #logan howlett fluff #wolverine x reader #deadpool and wolverine #hugh jackman x reader #hugh jackman

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cupidbedsy · 4 months ago

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𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 | 𝘲𝘩43 ♔

➪ summary: follow quinn and y/n through their journey of going from best friends to lovers

➪ warnings: reader has a shitty day, mentions of parents fighting, hate comments, that's all i think?

➪ word count: 5.1k

➪ file type: song based fic - reupload

➪ sunny's notes: i forgot how much this tugs at my heart. i'm sorry this took a little longer than i hoped it would but it's finally out again. i hope you guys enjoy it again - blog maintenance is happening tomorrow if i can get my computer to work :)

qh43 masterlist || nhl masterlist || taglist || navigation

i'm like the water when your ship rolled in that night rough on the surface but you cut through like a knife

˚₊· senior year of high school (2016-2017)

She was having a tough time, school, finals, graduation, work, everything and anything that she did seemed like it was ganging up on her. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason for her stress, but there were many things she could blame it on. On top of it, her parents had been fighting nonstop for the past month. It wasn’t like they hadn’t before but this time it was worse because she felt like she was the cause of it.

Quinn had invited her over for some dinner, hoping to at least relieve some of the stress from his best friend’s shoulders. When she arrived he could see the stress on her face, she looked as if she didn’t want to come in the first place.

He stepped aside and let the girl in, “Hey, y/n/n.”

“Hey Quinner,” She gave him a tired smile.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, just tired.” She ran a hand through her hair before following Quinn to his room, saying hi to Ellen on the way. Ellen looked at the girl strangely, “Hi, y/n.”

“Hi, Mrs. Hughes.”

“How many times do I have to tell you to call me Ellen, hon.” She pressed a kiss to her head, “Are you okay? You look-”

Bad? Drained? Stressed? Annoyed? Tired? All of the above? Is what she wanted to say, but didn’t, “I’m just a little tired right now.” Ellen nodded but looked unconvinced, shooting her oldest a look who shook his head.

He lightly took the girl’s arm and took her to his room, offering her to sit on his bed which she took gratefully. She looked around his room and at the posters on his wall before looking over at where he now sat at his desk. He was already looking at her with a small smile on his face, concern still lingering in his eyes.

The two stared at each other for a moment before a knock was heard on the door, “Hi.”

The two looked over to see his brothers standing there, “Hi Jack, Luke.”

Quinn didn’t reciprocate his best friend’s kindness, “What do you two want?”

“We just wanted to give y/n this.” Luke pulled out one of his bear stuffed animals from behind his back, “You looked sad.” Jack stood there, slightly out of place, mostly because this was Luke’s idea instead of his, but he liked y/n enough to go with him.

“Awe, thanks, you guys.” Tears made their way to the corners of her eyes but she refused to let them fall in front of the two.

Noticing her expression, Jack waved goodbye and dragged the eighth grader behind him. Y/n held the bear in her lap, arms wrapping around it tightly as she tried not to think of the events that happened before she got here.

“Y/n/n? Are you sure you're okay, because if not-” Quinn’s overwhelming concern for her made the tears bubble over in her eyes and a sob ripped from her throat, “I can’t do it anymore, Quinny.”

Quinn was quick to get up from his desk chair and stumble over to his bed to wrap the girl in a hug. He knew he didn’t have to do anything but hold her tight as she dug her head into his chest, the stuffed animal still clutched tightly to her chest.

It took her about ten minutes to calm down, tear after tear, and for her it felt like it would never stop. Quinn did what he always did and waited for her to stop so he, or she, could talk about it. He knew if he tried to talk to her while she was crying, she wouldn’t listen, nothing got through to her when she was crying this hard.

When she pulled away to wipe away her tear-stained face, Quinn opened his mouth to talk, “You know you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but you can, I’ll always listen.” He reached his hand out to wipe away one tear that she missed, one blackened by her mascara, leaving a trail of the makeup it held behind it.

She held a weak smile on her face at the warmth his hand brought to her cheek and looked at him, “Just finals and other shit like that, the usual. Plus, my parents were fighting again, I think that was my final straw.”

Quinn nodded his head, recognizing the tone in her voice that said she didn’t want to talk. Her face looked more tired after crying and he sighed, scooting back to rest his back against the headboard. Y/n looked at him confusedly but smiled when he opened his arms. She was quick to lay against his front, laying her head on his chest once more, still holding the bear in her grasp.

Ellen walked by twenty minutes later to tell them that dinner was ready, but when she peaked into her son’s room and saw both of them with their eyes closed she smiled, closed the door, and walked away telling the rest of the family to be quiet as they slept.

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

and if it was an open-shut case i never would've known from that look on your face lost in your current like a priceless wine

˚₊· end of senior year/graduation (2017)

Both of them knew the feelings that they harbored for each other but were both unsure of how the other felt. Neither one of them wanted to mess up their current friendship, they had been best friends since freshman year.

It had never been that simple between them, their friends saying how they looked like a couple everywhere they went. She would always wear his jerseys to his games or one of his shirts and he would always show up to her events with unwavering support.

Whenever someone saw Quinn, y/n wasn’t too far behind and vice versa, whenever y/n was asked what she was doing that night, she would say hanging out with Quinn and vice versa. They would always be caught holding hands or leaning up against one another or literally any other way that looked like they were dating.

They never said anything though, and they wouldn’t until graduation. Quinn and y/n stood side by side taking a picture with each other as they waited for their parents to find them. Y/n knew Quinn was good at hockey, good enough to get drafted, good enough to make the NHL, it was no secret. But because of Quinn’s birthday that wouldn’t happen for at least another year.

She was worried, she didn’t want to lose him. She didn’t want him to become this big-shot hockey player and forget about her, she didn’t want him to become a self-absorbed player with an ego bigger than himself. Though deep down she knew he would never let his ego get that big, but the forgetting part? As much as she told herself he wouldn’t and knew that he wouldn’t she couldn’t get past the ‘what if?’

Quinn waved a hand in front of her face, snapping a couple of times to gain her attention, “Y/n. Y/n. Y/n.” He dragged out the last syllable of her name.

She looked at him, her eyes getting rid of the glassed-over look by blinking, “What?”

“I’ve been talking for the past couple of minutes and you, my dear sweet y/n, have not responded. You have just been-” Quinn looked over to where her focus had landed when she spaced out, “staring at that tree.”

“Oh sorry.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“What’s going to happen?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we’re going to go to school for one year and then you’re going to get drafted. You’re going to go away somewhere and play professional hockey for a living and you’re going to forget about me.”

“Who said I was going to forget about you?”

“No one, just me and my thoughts.”

“Well, you and your thoughts are wrong, because I could never forget about you.” He tilted her head down to kiss the top of her head.

“That’s what you say now.”

“I’ll you fly out to wherever I’m playing, Nashville, Toronto, Vancouver, anywhere, and I’ll let you punch me if I forget about you because you are the best fucking thing that has ever happened to me. Since freshman orientation, I knew you were the one.”

“Are you just saying that because I was the only one who would talk about hockey with you?”

Quinn, being bold, slid his hands underneath y/n’s graduation gown, grabbing onto her waist through the fabric of her dress and pulling her close to him. She stumbled at the unexpected action, causing the boy to apologize before placing his index finger underneath her chin and lifting it so her eyes would meet his, “Look at me.”

She sighed when the two made contact. Quinn noticed the fear in her eyes, she truly didn’t want to lose him and he didn’t either, “I know you’re worried and so am I, but I promise you this-”

She didn’t want to hear what he had to say, the whole bullshit of the promises not to forget about her, she’s read it plenty of times in books, “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Quinn.” She averted her eyes away again, directing them to the other families around them.

“Hey.” Quinn once again moved her head so her eyes had no choice but to look into his own, “I love you.”

“I love you too, Quinn but that doesn’t really change-”

“Just shut up for one minute, will you? I love you, y/n. And I don’t mean the typical I love you that you give to the girls. I love you and I was too afraid to tell you because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship and I didn’t know how you felt but I thought if there was a time to tell you this, it would be now.”

Y/n looked at him in shock, the words she had been waiting for since she walked into the auditorium for orientation. This wasn’t real life, was it?

Quinn stared at her blank face as she opened and closed her mount a couple of times, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

The boy went to walk away but she placed a hand on his arm, “No! No, I’m sorry I just didn’t know what to say. I love you too, Quinn.”

“You do?”

She nodded and Quinn wasted no time placing his lips onto hers.

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

life was a willow and it bent right to your wind head on the pillow, i could feel you sneaking in

˚₊· fall of 2021

She loved Quinn, she truly did, but not that much that she was willing to stay up into the early hours of the morning/late hours of the night for him after a game. She texted him saying that she was going to bed and that she was proud of him for his game.

It was the first time since they moved in together that Quinn had a night home game. Getting used to the rhythm that was going to be for the rest of Quinn’s hockey career was starting slow. She wasn’t used to him coming home at late hours of the night or leaving in the early hours of the morning before the sun was up to go to practice.

She didn’t mind it that much though, just knowing that he was coming home to her was good enough for the both of them. She laid in bed, hoping that she would be able to stay awake until he got home but she fell asleep within moments of her placing her ends down on the pillow.

When Quinn got the text, he had just finished putting on his suit jacket and he wanted nothing more than to go home to his girl and lay next to her in their newly shared bed. But, his teammates were not going to let that happen.

They dragged him to a bar to have one or two drinks before heading home. He thinks he’s never detested his teammates this much before this moment. When he finished his first drink, he said goodbye, practically running out of the doors of the bar.

He unlocked the car and practically sped home and crept into the apartment, just in case y/n was already sleeping. He set his things down and walked into the bedroom and smiled when he saw her curled up in the sheets, a shirt of his adorning her body much like in college when he’d go to away games.

He took a quick shower, not wanting to prolong the duration of not having her in his arms. He put a pair of sweatpants on before carefully lifting the covers and sliding into bed. Y/n, who had been awake since he walked in the apartment doors, turned over, “Hey Quinner.”

Quinn’s eyes snapped to his girlfriend’s, “Hi sweetheart. I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

“No, I was just a little cold and then I heard the front door click open.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were awake?”

“Because then I would’ve had to wait even longer for you to come to bed.”

Quinn smiled, kissing her, “I love you.”

“I love you.”

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

life was a willow and it bent right to your wind they count me out time and time again

˚₊· 2022

𓆩ᥫ᭡𓆪 『 instagram 』

_quinnhughes

liked by yourusername, jackhughes, lhughes_06, and 58,527 others

_quinnhughes happy fifth anniversary to this gorgeous girl. and while we both know that five should really be a nine, i'm glad i've been able to call you mine for the five of them. i love you, y/n <3

tagged: yourusername

view 309 comments

yourusername: quinn... i love you so much 💙

⤷ _quinnhughes: i love you too pretty girl 💚

⤷ user: the canucks colors 🥹

jackhughes: proud of you for putting up with him for so many years @/yourusername

⤷ yourusername: my pleasure

lhughes_06: congrats you two!

*liked by _quinnhughes & yourusername*

user: five years? hah, that's humorus

user: can't believe she's kept him for that long, thought quinn would've dumped her when he made the nhl

user: she's not even that pretty, i don't see the appeal

user: probably just using him

user: don't see this lasting any longer

_eliaspetterson: congrats guys! happy five years

*liked by yourusername & _quinnhughes*

bboeser: my besties!

⤷ _quinnhughes: please do not ever use that word again

⤷ yourusername: i think it's sweet, quintin

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

life was a willow and it bent right to your wind but i come back stronger than a 90's trend

˚₊· 2022

𓆩ᥫ᭡𓆪 『 instagram 』

nhlwags

liked by yourusername, _quinnhughes, canucks, and 8,432 others

nhlwags as we ring in the holiday season, y/n is back with her famous gift bags! we heard cookies were the hit thing this year.

also wishing these two a (very) belated fifth anniversary, hope quinn and y/n have many more years to come (maybe a ring soon 👀)

tagged: yourusername, _quinnhughes, canucks

view 98 comments

yourusername: my favorite time of year! always glad when i get to make the team things. (and yes, i'm hoping for a ring too 😔)

⤷ user: if you don't get a ring, it's rigged. wya @/_quinnhughes??

⤷ yourusername: fr

_eliaspetterson: cookies were amazing as always, treating us well over here

bboeser: our little baker!

jackhughes: this is preposterous! we never got any cookies :(

⤷ yourusername: you know what that word means?

⤷ jackhughes: when did you start becoming a bully to me

⤷ yourusername: when i started hanging out with you too much

user: gagged them fr

user: well... she shut them up

user: me looking for all the hate comments to defend my girl

user: i really wanna know what the famous y/n cookies taste like

⤷ j.tmiller9 heaven

⤷ colemcward: the greatest thing on this planet

⤷ conor.garland8: amazing

⤷ jackhughes: perfect

⤷ lhughes_06: everything you would want them to taste like

⤷ _quinnhughes: i'm starting to get the sense you guys only come to my house to taste her food

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

wait for the signal and I'll meet you after dark show me the places where the others gave you scars

˚₊· summer of ‘19

“Meet me at the dock after everyone goes to bed” was the text y/n got at ten o’clock. She smiled to herself when she read it and patiently waited for everyone to go to bed before sneaking out of the house and running down to the dock. Quinn sat with his feet dangling over the wood into the water waiting for his girlfriend. When he heard footsteps behind him, he turned around and grinned when he saw her running towards him.

They hadn’t had a moment alone together in almost three months. When Quinn had to fly to Vancouver to make his debut, she couldn’t come with him, having to finish her classes. Then she was staying with her parents for the majority of May and into June and she wasn’t allowed to go anywhere. Quinn had been finishing up some things with the team and he ended up spending some much-needed time with his family.

Ever since y/n had gotten to the lake house, she had been helping Ellen with things and spending time with Luke and Jack because they wanted her to. They played Mario Kart and other video games, and the two made her go out on the boat with them and made her watch as they did tricks and flipped into the water.

Quinn patted the space next to him but instead, y/n took her spot right on his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. His eyes widened at the sudden contact but happily wrapped his arms around her waist, snuggling into one another.

Y/n looked at him, “So, I guess I’m dating a big-shot NHL player now, huh?”

Quinn merely shrugged, “I guess you are, aren’t you?”

“Yes, unfortunately, because he’s living in a totally different country than me and in the opposite direction.”

“Aw, that sucks. I’m sorry to hear that. He must feel terrible.”

“Oh I don’t know, he gets to be a free man.”

“I wouldn’t say free, more sad.”

That comment made her perk up, “What’s wrong?”

“I just, miss you.” His voice ever so slightly cracked and she could see the tears starting to form in his eyes, “Honey. Hey, hey, it’s okay.”

At the nickname, Quinn immediately started crying, he had missed her so much, much more than he ever imagined he would. He never really thought about the fact that his best friend, his girlfriend, his everything would be in Michigan while he was in Vancouver.

“No, it’s not okay. I get to live out my dream but my dream isn’t complete without you there. We’re going to be 2,368.82 miles apart for at least the next two years. I don’t think I can do it.”

Y/n hated it when he cried, it broke her heart into a million pieces when she saw the tears trickling down his face. Much like he always did with her, she reached up and cupped his face, wiping his tears off his face, “Listen to me. We are Quinn and y/n, y/n and Quinn, when has anything ever stopped us from being apart? Where's Quinn from when we graduated, huh? The Quinn who promised me that he would never forget me and that everything was going to be okay? Just because we’re however many miles you said apart doesn’t mean anything. So now it’s my turn to promise you something. I promise you that we are going to find a way to make this work.”

Quinn nodded his head, still a little unconvinced about her words. In a way to distract him from the thoughts that he never thought he would be able to escape, she looked at the scars on his body and started asking him questions about them.

Some were from his childhood when he, Jack, and Luke would be playing a game or messing around and one of them would throw something at him or he was pushed over. Some were from when he played hockey when he was younger, getting shoved into the boards or shoving someone else into the boards. Some were from the games he played in the spring, his first games in the NHL. Those were y/n’s favorites and least favorites. Favorites because it was from his dream, and the stories behind them would last forever, least favorites because they reminded her of how much he could get hurt doing this. But that wasn’t something she wanted to worry about right now.

All she wanted to do was think about this moment, the moment they were living in as the stars illuminated where they sat on the dock, in each other’s arms, talking about random stories from each other’s childhood.

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

now this is an open-shut case guess i should've known from the look on your face every bait and switch was a work of art

˚₊· fall/winter of 2023

“You guys would never guess what I found when I was cleaning the other day.” Y/n came walking in from the room she had been in.

Jack and Luke sat at the table with Quinn and Ellen and Jim sat near their sons, one of the days leading up to the Hughes v Hughes game. They all smiled as the girl came bounding in, Quinn had just placed down his tiles when she spoke and he raised his eyebrows, “What’d you find, hon?”

Y/n placed a fluffy object down on the wood surface, “Luke’s bear that he and Jack gave me when we were in high school.”

“Paulie?”

“You still remember its name?” Jack laughed loudly and Ellen got up to hit the middle child on the back of his head, “Don’t make fun of you brother.”

“Oh, come on. You have to admit, it's a little funny.”

Luke blushed heavily and Quinn quirked an eyebrow, “Why do you still have that is my question.” He took the bear into his grasp and started fiddling with its arms, “Because.”

She shrugged and all five of the Hughes’ looked intrigued, “Y/n, you have to tell us.” Jack insisted as he leaned forward, messing up the game that had previously been going on. Quinn and Luke groaned at their brother’s actions.

“Because,” She ripped the bear from her boyfriend’s grasp and held it to her chest, “Because it reminds me of that day when I was sad and you guys cheered me up. It was the first day I felt a part of the family.”

“I remember that day.” Luke spoke up, looking between everyone in the room, “Jack and I were sitting on the couch when Quinn opened the door for you and you came in and you looked all…”

“Dead?”

“I was gonna say sad but I guess that works too. Anyway, when you two went up I told Jack my plan and he hesitated about it but I knew he had a soft spot for you so he caved in easily. I ran to my room to get the bear and give it to you.”

“It was a stupid, plan.” Jack laughed again but he knew how much it meant to y/n.

The girl shrugged and hugged Luke from behind, resting her arms on his shoulders as they wrapped around him, clasping her hands together, “It’s okay, Luke. I loved it.”

Ellen smiled, “And following, you’ve always been a part of the family. Ever since Quinn came back from freshman orientation just bragging about the girl he met.”

“Mom.” Quinn threw his head back in annoyance and y/n giggled, “You talked to your mom about me? From freshman orientation? Ew, I was just a dork back then.”

“If I remember correctly, Quinn couldn’t stop talking about the girl that wore a Patrick Sharp Blackhawks jersey one or two sizes too big, with her hair in braids who talked about hockey with him for the duration of orientation.” Jim patted his son on his shoulder as Quinn continued to clench his eyes in embarrassment.

“Do we really have to relive this moment?”

“Maybe not now but Ellen and I are definitely going to talk about this when you aren’t around.”

“Hey look at that, she called me Ellen! It only took her ten years.” The woman teased as she wrapped her in a hug.

“Hey! I thought I was being respectful, and it’s a force of habit.” Y/n blushed as she smiled and gasped when all of a sudden an armed wrap around her and Quinn pulled her into his lap.

“Quinn!” Quinn hid his face in the crook of her neck and breathed deeply, “I’m never going to live this down.

“Probably not.” Looking at her watch, y/n realized the time, placing a kiss on Quinn’s forehead.

“I should be going to bed, I got work in the morning. Night everyone!”

The four let out their goodnights and Quinn whispered an ‘I love you’ and y/n repeated the words to him before heading into their shared bedroom. The five Hughes’ sat in the kitchen for a couple of minutes in silence until Jack spoke, “So, when are you going to ask her?”

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

the more that you say the less i know

˚₊· freshman year of college (2017-2018)

Sitting at one of the tables in the student center, y/n sat across from Quinn as he talked about whatever was going on in the hockey world. She understood hockey, enough to be able to watch the game when it was happening and she knew some of the stats, but anything past that, not a clue in the world.

She loved it when Quinn talked about hockey though. His eyes lit up and held this glint in them, he talked really fast, just spewing out nonsense. It was the highlight of her day when it happened, it was at least once a day if not more. He would always show up outside her dorm room or offer to take her to dinner.

Every time he did, it always took Quinn a while to notice that his girlfriend wasn’t responding and this was the same. Quinn was rambling about Ohio State’s hockey team and the upcoming game against them and she just sat there, amused by his voice and his facial expressions.

Quinn was halfway through his ramble when he finally made eye contact with her, “You’re not paying any attention to this are you?”

“I’m sorry, babe, but it’s really hard to when you look like that when you talk.”

“Look like what? An idiot for not knowing my girlfriend is not listening to any word I say?”

“No, hot.” Quinn’s cheeks reddened as he looked at her, “You never fail to make me blush do you”

“Absolutely not, and anyway, you know I never understand hockey. I try but it’s all in one ear and out the other.”

“I think one time we need to set up something so you can learn everything you need to know. Get you a book or make you a slide show or something.”

“Sure, Quinny. Whatever you say.”

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

wherever you stray i follow

˚₊· september of 2021

“You can just put that box over there.”

Jack placed down the box where y/n said, “How much stuff do you have?”

“Wow, Jack. Can’t believe you’d be so mean to me. This is why Luke is my favorite.” Y/n placed her arm around Luke as he walked into the apartment, “What?”

“Nothing, you poor innocent little man.” Y/n walked away to start unpacking the box Jack had placed down not too long ago.

“Do you guys need any help?” Luke asked politely, following after his brother’s girlfriend.

“Nah, I’m okay. Thanks you guys, just chill out for a little bit before we go out for dinner.” The two nodded, sitting on Quinn’s, and now y/n’s, couch.

Just at that moment, Ellen walked in from the hallway and Quinn followed her, “It would be nice of you two to actually help y/n instead of just sitting there.”

Jack threw his arms up, “We offered to help her and she said no!”

“Actually, I offered but yes, she said it was okay.”

Y/n nodded her head, “I did.”

『••✎••』

Later that night, y/n and Quinn were standing in the living room, looking out the window. Quinn was standing behind the girl with his arms wrapped around her waist, “I can’t believe this is real.”

“I know, the lights are beautiful.”

“Not that.”

“Then what?” She looked up at him to see a lovesick expression on his face.

“You here, in Vancouver.”

“Hey, you didn’t want me to be here in the first place.”

“Yeah well, I wanted you to do what was best for you. I didn’t want you to move all the way out here just because I was here.”

“How dumb are you?”

“Very, apparently.”

She smiled again and rocked the two of them side to side, “Whatcha wanna do?”

Quinn just winked at her eliciting a giggle from her.

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

i'm begging for you to take my hand wreck my plans that's my man

˚₊· july/august of 2021 + november 7, 2021

“Quinn please!”

“Y/n, I’m not letting you do this. You had it all planned out since the moment we both got our acceptance letters.”

“I know that Quinn, but things change, plans change. I want to be with you, forever. I want to be wherever you are, please just let me come to Vancouver with you.”

The two stared at each other, eyes locked. They had been arguing for the past hour, ever since y/n brought it up. She had just graduated college and with Quinn having been in the NHL for the past two years she got a taste of what it would be like to do long distance, and it was horrible for both of them.

“You know what it's like. These past two years have been horrible, Quinn, and not just for me and you know it.” Her voice cracked, “I would rather wreck everything I have planned for my future just to move to Vancouver for you. I can find a job there.”

“Are you sure, like 100% sure about this?” Y/n placed her hands on his cheeks, “Of course, I’m sure.”

Quinn nodded his head, “When do you want to move in?”

『••✎••』

It was November when y/n was able to go to Quinn’s first home game. It was a Sunday and they were playing the Stars. She was extremely excited as she threw on her jersey and drove to Rogers Arena. She met up with some of the wags that were going to the game as well and they sat in the suite waiting for their husbands to start playing.

When they all came out, they cheered in unison watching them skate. They conversed slightly, giving y/n teasing comments and glances every time the announcers would mention Quinn or he had done something even remotely good for the team. It was worse when he got sent to the penalty box for cross-checking in the first period.

Most of them gave her cheeky grins when they showed him in the box, some giving her nudges. She blushed deeply as they made their comments. She didn’t know what was up with him tonight, he got three primary assists and a penalty.

After the game, the wags excitedly took the girl down to the tunnel to wait for Quinn, “Hey, there’s your man.”

Y/n looked up and smiled, “That is my man.”

Quinn smiled brightly, picking the girl up and spinning her around, “I can’t believe you’re here! You’re actually here!”

“Alrighty, Quinny, calm down. You’re causing a scene.”

“Sorry, babe. I’m just really excited that you’re here.” He smiled down at her, his hands on her lower biceps, just above her elbow, “I can tell.”

“What do you say, you guys want to go out for dinner?”

“Quinn, I got work in the morning. I need some sleep. Maybe another time though?” The girls nodded their heads at y/n and let the young couple wander off out of the arena and to their car.

“I’m really glad you’re here. I don’t know if I would’ve survived another minute without knowing you weren’t waiting at home for me.”

“Well, you never have to survive another minute without me again. Unless you’re on a road trip then, yes, but you know what I mean.”

Quinn and y/n were so in love it was actually kind of annoying to some people, but they had to admit that they were absolutely adorable.

#: ̗̀➛ sunny’s writing 📓 !#nhl #nhl imagine #nhl fic #nhl hockey #hockey fic #hockey imagine #quinn hughes #qh43 #quinn hughes fic #quinn hughes imagine #quinn hughes x reader #vancouver canucks

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13uswntimagines · 3 months ago

Text

Eras of Us- Era 3: Ugh Oh, I'm Falling in Love (Taylor Swift X Morgan!Reader)

Eras of Us master list

This is the Era where they're falling in love, learning more about each other, and how to navigate their relationships with their friends and families.

warning- Sexual content in this chapter.

Author's note: Hey everyone, i'm so sorry this took so long. theres just a lot of stuff in this chapter that i really wanted to get right. I hope you enjoy it! let me know what you think. comments are literally my favorite thing.

February 2017 'Cause you could be the one that I love I could be the one that you dream of

As it turned out, being Taylor’s girlfriend was far easier than you imagined it would be. It wasn’t all that much different than when the two of you were just friends, actually.

You two still texted continuously, now each message was dotted with a heart or a little kiss. You two still talked on the phone all of the time, though you had developed a bad habit of falling asleep on late-night calls with her.

The only thing that had really changed was that now the photos you sent her were slightly more… suggestive on purpose.

And now you actually got to kiss her, which was fun, except you had barely seen her since you two started dating.

Between the holidays and dealing with your shitty agent about yet another fucked up trade, you hadn’t had time to fly to her, and she had been tied up with her family and recording her new album to fly to you. But the two of you made due (ie falling asleep on the phone with her nearly every night).

It still sucked you wouldn’t get to see her until after January camp. At least you only had 1 more game to play in.

“Hurry up you two,” Rose called over her shoulder, idly swinging Emily’s hand next to her.

You groaned, adjusting your grip on Mal’s legs as her arms squeezed more tightly around your neck. “It’s not my fault this koala demanded a piggyback ride,”

Mal had been insanely clingy since the start of camp, draping herself all over you at every opportunity. It wasn’t something you noticed at first, but it had become so constant, that it was beginning to grate on your patience.

Especially after she interrupted you every time you tried to talk to Taylor. The only moment you had gotten alone was at 3 am, and you had been too drowsy to do more than stare at her.

“I’m not that heavy ducky,” Mal hugged, pinching your ear.

“No, but it’s been like 2 miles,” You huffed, tilting your head away from her, and picking up your pace so you were even with Rose and Emily.

Emily rolled her eyes at you. “And whose fault is that?”

You shrugged as much as you could with Mal on your back. “Cheney said they have the best mochas,”

“And it’ll make it very hard for Alex to beat you this week,” Rose snorted, gesturing towards the shiny watch on your wrist. “If you’re gonna make us take a hike to a coffee shop, you should at least be honest with why we’re taking it,”

“She should be more active in her rest time,” You said, earning another eye roll as the four of you finally made it to the cafe Cheney had mentioned when you talked to her over the holidays.

It was just a bonus that Alex would need to find 4 extra exercise miles to match you in her stupid little app. It’s what she had done to you with Kelley’s family’s stupid 10 mile Christmas morning hike after all. You had to go on a beach run to make up for it.

“Or maybe you should be less competitive,” Emily grumbled, holding the door open for you and Mal to walk through. Her gaze stayed glued out the door even after you stepped through.

You rolled your eyes. “And what fun would that be?”

You dropped Mal’s legs as you got in line next to Rose, and she landed on her feet, but she didn’t let go of your neck like you had hoped she would.

“We would be behind in the practice scrimmages against the vets too,” You added as you turned your attention to the menu above the cashier.

There weren’t any… normal drinks. They all had fancy names, so you had to read the description to figure out what the fuck it was. You sighed internally, deciding that you absolutely shouldn’t have listened to Cheney, because long complicated descriptions like delectable dark roast, mixed with Dutch hand-made chocolate ganache, and essence of citrus aurantium topped with creamy dreamy whipped cream and powdered orange blossoms: written out in small, tight together cursive was going to take you forever to decipher.

Especially with the way all the L’s and E’s kept flipping places, and how Mal kept shifting your entire body each time she moved.

You were going to have a headache by the time you actually made it through the menu.

“Ok, those guys are totally following us,”

You blinked in the direction of Emily’s voice, and away from the migraine-inducing menu. You followed her hand to where she was pointing at two men wearing aviators sitting at a stable near the back of the café.

The one facing you was older, with dark salt and pepper hair, wearing a leather jacket, while the other was younger and blonde with his back to you.

It made you roll your eyes again.

Tony and Zach had been your shadows since you and Taylor started dating. You saw them outside your apartment building in Chicago, and ran into them everywhere you went, even when you attended a Bears game against the Chiefs.

You could tell that they were trying to be discrete since you had brought up the issue with Taylor the first week you noticed them, but it was still annoying that she wouldn’t budge on her stance.

“I’ll take care of it,” You grumbled, carefully untangling yourself from Mal’s grasp, ignoring the high-pitched whine she let out at being displaced. “Just order me the closest thing to a mocha please,”

At least now you didn’t have to read the menu.

You ignored the feeling of their eyes on your back as you walked up to the table your two bodyguards were sitting at, knocking on the wood when you were close enough. “I thought I made it clear that I don’t need a babysitter,”

“I prefer the term watchman,” Tony hummed, barely even looking at you.

Zach nodded. “Watchmen is a much better term,”

You glared at the blonde man, before turning back to Tony. “I prefer that you don’t follow me around and creep out my friends,”

Tony paused, lifting a finger to shift his aviators down to the end of his nose so he could peer at you over the rim of them. “We’ll try to be more discreet,”

You shook your head. “No. You will stop following me,”

“Can’t. Bosses orders,” Tony shrugged, readjusting his aviators back over his eyes. “And frankly, the team doesn’t have enough security,”

Your glare deepened. “Because no one knows who the fuck we are,”

“Still, I shouldn’t have been able to get your room number from the front desk receptionist,” He countered. “or have Zach get into the changing room at the practice field,”

“Normal people don’t do that shit,” You grit back.

His point proved nothing.

No fan was trying to sneak into your locker room to leave notes in your cubby and no other people had interest in your room number.

Sure, the note and the peanut butter cookies Taylor had delivered to your room were cool, but two men staking out every place you went certainly was not. Not when Emily wouldn’t shut up about your mysterious friend being in the mob because now you had people following you.

She couldn’t give up on the angle, going so far that even Mal was annoyed with her.

You had been annoyed 5 weeks ago when she brought the idea up for the first time during New Year's when she spotted them after you came out of a fried chicken place in Atlanta.

Tony sighed, fixing his leather jacket.“If you're really insistent about this, you know who you need to take it up with. Otherwise, I think Ms. Sonnett, Ms. Pugh, and Ms. Lavelle have finished ordering,”

It irritated you that he always referred to your friends so formally, even if he had never met them.

“I will,” You grit out, already pulling your phone out of your pocket. “Because you two are ridiculous,”

Tony made a face, dipping his aviators to peer at you again. “And Taylor is ridiculous for caring about your safety?”

You opened and closed your mouth several times. That wasn’t fair.

Tony slid his glasses back into place as a waitress brought them 2 coffees.

Your jaw clenched and you didn’t your best not to glare at the smug way he sipped the steaming glass. You hadn’t even seen them order.

“Your friends have chosen a table,” He hummed, tilting his head to where Emily, Mal, and Rose were all staring at you with wide eyes.

“This isn’t the end of this conversation,” You muttered, grabbing one of the 3 chocolate chip cookies that had been delivered with their coffee.

“We will try to be more discreet,” Zach said, passing you a napkin.

You took a bite of your cookie. “You better,”

“We’ll do our best,” Tony chuckled, gesturing towards your friends with his chin again. “Go enjoy your overly fancy coffee,”

You made a low noise, turning on your heel and heading back over to your friends, who were overtly staring at the men now.

“You’re in the mob right?” Emily asked before you were even fully seated in the chair next to Mal.

You didn’t reply, instead breaking the cookie into 3 and passing the larger part to Rose for her and Emily to share and the other to Mal, who was already wrapping herself around you again.

“Emily stop,” The forward whined loudly in your ear as she took the cookie.

“Oh come on, just answer the question,” Emily said, her lips pulling into a teasing grin. “it’s totally obvious,”

“I’m not in the mob,” You grumbled, taking a sip of your coffee and frowning.

You liked mochas, they were your go-to order, but this one had caramel in it, and was far too sweet. You would drink it anyway though, because one of your friends had paid for it.

Rose leaned forward in her chair, resting crossed arms on the table in front of her conspiratorially. “Then why was our coffee already paid for?”

You frowned, your cup hitting the table with a low thud. “What?”

“I gave them my name and she said someone had already paid for us,” Rose said, her voice low.

Your eyebrows pulled more tightly together. “Who?”

“Someone named Athena,” Rose wiggled her eyebrows at you, and you rolled your eyes.

It had been Taylor. Of course, it was her, she had even sent the goons she had following you coffees and an extra cookie.

Of course that was the name Taylor used.

She had been making fun of her nickname since she found out that it was her contact name in her phone, and you blushed through your explanation that she was a goddess and the smartest person you knew.

“See, totally a mob boss name,” Emily said accusingly, gesturing wildly with her hands. “who else would call themselves Athena,”

You were afraid that if you rolled your eyes again they would fall out of your head, so you refrained.

No matter how good it would have felt.

You pulled away from Mal and wrestled your phone out of your pocket. You flipped to your messages, ignoring the one aptly named Athena for now, opening the thread you shared with Alex to get it to stop buzzing.

Alexandria🐬: Did you have to walk to a coffee shop across the city? Haven’t you ever heard of an Uber?

MiniMorgs: Wanted to get some fresh air, and Cheney recommended it

Alexandria🐬: More like you wanted to win this week’s challenge. Was it worth the walk?

MiniMorgs: I didn’t have to read the overly complicated menu, so yes. #dyslexic problems

Alexandria🐬: LoL. Maybe we should get you yellow-tinted glasses to help with that

MiniMorgs: Whatever. Good luck catching up on miles

Alexandria🐬:🖕🏻

Another coffee cup landed in front of you with a clink, and you blinked up from your phone at the waitress.

You frowned up at her. “Ugh, thanks?”

You hadn’t ordered another coffee.

“The person who paid for your order also asked us to make an extra mocha, no caramel, no whipped cream, and no sweetening syrup,” The young girl explained quickly, her hands fidgeting in front of her. “it also comes with a heart and a little winky face,”

“Oh, thanks,” You sent her a genuine smile, the dimple on your left cheek poking out just a bit.

She blushed.

“No problem,” she said, turning away from you and your friends very quickly before practically running back to the counter.

You didn’t watch her as she left, instead sipping your new coffee and sighing in content.

It was exactly what you wanted. The perfect cup of coffee if you did say so yourself.

You glanced back down at your phone, flipping through your messages to the one labeled Athena👸🏼

Thanks for the coffee. It’s much better than the sugary shit Emily ordered.

“Do you have to flirt with every woman you see?” Mal scoffed, placing more of her weight on you as she draped her arms over your shoulders.

You grunted, slipping your phone in your pocket and adjusting in your seat so she didn’t knock you over. “I wasn’t flirting, I was just being nice,”

You practically felt her roll her eyes as Emily snorted across from you.

“What? I was!” You bit out, your voice dripping in incredulity.

“You used the smile you use when you’re trying to get into someone’s pants,” Mal hummed, her lips caressing the shell of your ear as her hand dipped its way under the hem of your Alexia Putellas Barça jersey. “I would know,”

You jerked away from her, nearly spilling your coffee. Your chair squeaked as you pushed away, creating space between the two of you.

You didn’t want her touching you.

Not like you had in the past.

There was a time when you craved her touch. Where you twisted yourself into knots to be worthy of her affection.

You allowed yourself to get closer to her than you had to anyone else, and in the end she had decided that you still weren’t good enough.

She decided that you would never be good enough for her. Not like Dansby was. But even after that you had pined after every little scrap of care she sent you, and you allowed yourself to believe that it was all you deserved.

That it was real.

Even in your short time with Taylor, you knew that real was something very different. She didn’t make you feel like you were always making up for something. Like you had to earn her care.

She made you feel worthy and had butterflies flapping in your chest. She made you feel seen, even before you were together, and you wouldn’t do anything to put that in jeopardy.

“Whoa, easy there,” Emily chuckled. “Didn't think you were so sensitive to the mention of your history,”

You shifted uncomfortably, fixing the edge of your jersey.

“Just tickled me,” You muttered, taking another sip of your coffee as Mal didn’t even hesitate to wrapped herself around you again.

You ignored the knowing look Rose sent you, and cleared your throat. “We should probably head back though. Think you can walk on your own this time?”

You gently elbowed Mal, sending Emily a cheeky grin when she wiggled her eyebrows.

Mal sighed heavily, her lips returning to near your ear. “I don’t think so. I think I still need a piggyback,”

You huffed at her pouted words, shoving your extra coffee cup into her hands as you stood. “You have to carry the cups though,”

“Deal!” She cheered, already trying to climb on your back.

You didn’t have the heart (or the stomach) to tell her that you didn’t want to carry her back. You couldn’t when it made her light up so much.

“You’re such a pushover,” Rose muttered as she held the café door open for you.

You shrugged as much as you could with Mal on your back.

You were a people pleaser to your core, and you couldn’t help that. Mal was your friend and you liked to make her happy.

Taylor would understand.

*****

You were sweating your ass off by the time you made it back to the team hotel, and your legs felt like you had just played 90 minutes.

You supposed walking 4 miles with a fully grown forward on your back would do that to you, and the detours Emily kept taking because of the “Mob Guys” following you made the journey more like 6. Dawn was not going to be pleased, and you felt like you needed a recovery day to recover from your recovery day.

You dropped Mal’s legs as you stepped into the welcome AC of the lobby, ignoring her yelp at the move.

“I’m done being your pack Mule,” You muttered, breathing hard. “Use your own damn legs,”

“Not a mule. A graceful stallion,” Mal hummed, leaning in and placing a kiss on your cheek before she skipped off. “Thanks for the ride,”

She missed your eye roll. But Kelley didn’t. “Coming on a bit strong, isn't she?”

You blinked at Kelley, pulling your sunglasses up to rest in your wavy curls, taking in the way she was shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. “Don’t they always?”

“You didn't have a friends-with-benefits relationship with most of the people who hit on you,” Kelley shrugged.

You made a sound low in your throat, scratching the back of your neck. “I’m not interested in continuing that,”

You didn’t know she knew about that.

“I know,” Kelley nodded, her hand landing warm and grounding on your shoulder. “You’re interested in burrito girl,”

You hummed.

You were more than just interested in Taylor, and Kelley knew that. She had been getting regular updates after she talked you off the ledge the morning after, and it was kinda nice to get to share with someone.

Kelley shifted again, and you scratched harder at the back of your neck as a very uncomfortable silence settled over you.

“I didn’t bring you coffee,” You said, finally looking at her.

Your eyebrows pulled tightly together. She was spinning the ring on her forefinger more rapidly than you had ever seen, and shifting like she was… nervous.

“I know,” She said, her eyes flicking up to meet your blue before rapidly looking away. “Can we chat though?”

You frowned. “What’s up?”

Kelley bit her lip and led you over to an isolated meeting room, closing the door behind you.

She took a steadying breath like she was stealing herself as she turned to look at you. “I’m going to ask your sister to marry me,”

You stared at her, your mouth dropping open at her words.

She was going to ask your sister to marry her.

Her and Alex were going to get married.

But weren’t they practically married already? They had been together since you were 10. They lived together, had 2 dogs and were actively looking for a team to transfer to together.

You shouldn’t have been surprised, but you were. So you did what you always did when you were caught off guard.

You painted a playful smirk on your face, wiggling your eyebrows. “Alex right? Because I don’t think Jen or Jerry will react well,”

Kelley sighed. “I’m being serious. We’ve been together for almost 7 years. I love her,”

You raised an eyebrow at her, your smirk melting a little. “Ok, and?”

She spun her ring a little faster. “I’m not asking your permission, but-“

“You want my blessing or some shit?” You cut her off, your eyebrows furrowing impossibly deeper. “Jesus Kell, her and I haven’t had a proper conversation since I was like 12. My opinion doesn’t matter,”

You actively avoided conversations with your sister. She barely knew anything about the adult version of yourself.

There was no way she could care what you thought about her marrying Kelley.

Kelley shook her head, closing the distance between you and catching your hand. “I think your opinion is one of the only ones she cares about,”

Her voice went very soft, and you swallowed hard. You weren’t at a place to consider what she meant. You couldn't deal with all of the baggage that came with the implications.

Yes, you were fairly content to interact with her through the stupid app the two of you competed on, but that was nothing deeper than just that. A competition.

It didn’t mean anything. Not like Kelley was assuming it meant.

You shook your head, swallowing down your feelings and locking them into a little box in the center of your chest.

“She might be my sister, but I’ll kick her ass if she hurts you. Or says no, even though she’s not going to say no. She loves you. I guess I’ll kick your ass too if you hurt her so don’t,” You said softly, drawing up the courage to meet Kelley’s eyes again.

A brilliant smile broke across her face, and her eyes lit up like the two of you had just won the World Cup. “I promise I won’t kid,”

“Good,” You ran a hand through your hair, sucking in a long breath through your nose. “Is there anything else?”

“Don’t you want to know how I’m going to do it?” Kelley asked, her eyebrows furrowing.

Your shoulders lifted and fell.

Maybe a part of you cared about whatever romantic thing Kelley had planned for her, but the larger part just… wasn’t interested. It wasn’t like you were involved in Alex’s life. You didn’t get to see the ins and outs of her relationship with Kelley, and that was your own choice. If you got too close, you knew you would get hurt.

You had before anyway.

“As long as it’s not during or directly after sex, I think it’ll be fine,” You huffed out, covering your wavering curiosity.

Kelley rolled her eyes. “I’m going to do it when we go to New York. I have a reservation for the top of the Empire State Building,”

“That’ll be pretty,” You hummed, your voice going soft.

You knew how much your older sister loved city lights. It was nearly as much as she loved to look at the stars.

When the two of you were young, you would sit on the roof outside of her window for hours staring at the sky, naming the constellations. It was what got you so into Greek mythology after all. You wondered if she still remembered all of the stories.

“She loves the lights,” Kelley agreed, watching you carefully. “We’re going to have dinner after. Jen and Jerrie will be there,”

You nodded. “I’ll be there too,”

“Excellent,” Kelley’s smile just got wider.

“Yeah,” You said, trailing off and looking towards the door. “I told Alyssa I’d watch film with her before the game tomorrow, so are we done?”

Kelley chuckled, not at all surprised that you wanted to escape this conversation. “Wouldn’t want to keep the head of the Department of Defense waiting,”

You always pulled away when your family was mentioned, and that habit was only magnified when emotions were also involved.

“Nope,” You muttered, practically running towards the door.

She wished things were different.

Alex was making the steps to bridge the gap in your relationship, and for the first time in a long time, you seemed willing to meet her halfway. Neither of them were sure exactly what had caused the rift, or why you had always been so… reluctant to let her fix it. Or to talk about it in general.

She hoped that the little steps would actually lead to something this time. She hoped that you would let your walls down. She hoped that you would actually let yourself be happy.

*****

Rain pounded down around you as you tracked the ball across midfield.

Games like this were your favorite.

The USWNT was up by 4 and there was only 30 seconds of stoppage time left. You had a goal and 2 assists and you had played incredibly well. It was 75 degrees so the rain was like the mist from a shower, warm and comfortable.

It let you take your mind off of the stupid phone call that had come just before you loaded up the bus to head to the stadium. It drowned out Roary Dame’s voice explaining that you were a great play, just not what they needed.

Explaining that he had put your name in the trading block for the highest draft pick they could get. So they could finally have their star striker because you were the wrong Morgan for that.

This game made you feel… good. It made you feel powerful.

You smiled at Sam as she came to a stop beside you.

Alex and Mal were getting ready to take a time-wasting corner to end the game, and you and Sam were just there in case Jamaica got a counter opportunity.

“Emily says you’re in the mob now,” She said conversationally. “And that you have two huge dudes following you around,”

You rolled your eyes. “I’m not in the mob,”

“But you do have 2 dudes following you,” She asked, tilting her head to the mouth of the tunnel where Zach and Tony were huddled under an umbrella.

They were right, it was kinda scary how far they could get without any real security clearance. They shouldn’t have been able to get into the stadium, much less on the field, but here they were.

“I have a very overprotective friend,” You muttered as the ref blew the signature three whistles to signal the end of the game. You paused before you ran off.

Taylor wasn’t your friend, she was something much much more. You didn’t feel right calling her a friend.

You turned back to Sam, scratching the wet hairs off the back of your neck. “Well, a very protective more than a friend,”

A smile broke across her features, and you couldn’t help but match it. “Don’t mention that to anyone though,” You added, suddenly nervous that she would tell the team, and then the rumor mill would start.

You weren’t ready to answer questions about Taylor yet. Or to listen to your teammates tease you. You also didn’t want to share her yet.

Sam winked at you. “Your secret is safe with me,”

“Thanks,” You said, heading towards the tunnel, pausing at a young girl waving a soaked-through Morgan sign a few feet away from the tunnel.

You could see a big 13 painted on the sign, so you knew it wasn’t meant for you, but still it was your name too.

“Hey, I like your sign,” You hummed, flashing the girl a million-dollar smile, ignoring the phones pointed in your direction. “Even if it has the wrong number on it,”

The girl blushed deeply. “I like you too. I just wasn’t sure what number you would be wearing,”

It was a good excuse, you thought. Or it would have been over a year ago before you made the switch to number 12.

You hated when they pretended to give a shit about you just because you were the one standing in front of them. You knew the only Morgan they really cared about was your sister, and you wished they would just own it.

“Well thank ya,” You winked, ignoring her little lie. “I know it’s just because she’s a striker. Everyone loves a good goal scorer,”

The red in the girl's cheeks got even more pronounced, and your grin turned slightly wolfish. She didn’t hear the bitter note in your voice.

Everyone wanted the star striker, something you would never be.

“Do you have something you want me to sign?”

The girl shook her head, looking at her friend who also shook her head. The girl looked back at you, biting her lip.

“Can I get your jersey?” She asked hesitantly, and your smirk only got wider.

“I think I can do one better,” You said, turning back towards the field. Your eyes roved over the players until you found the one you were looking for.

“Hey Al,” You called out, cupping your hands over your face to amplify the sound.

Her head snapped in your direction, and you waved her over. You tried not to let it bother you that the girl's squeals got so much louder as she jogged over, a questioning smile on her face.

“What’s up?” She asked as soon as she was close enough, and you could hear the slight surprise in her voice. It was one of the first times you had actually spoken to her since last camp.

You tilted your head towards the fans beside you. “You’ve got a fan and you owe me because I beat you 5 weeks in a row,”

“And?” She raised an eyebrow at you.

“I’m cashing in,” You said, again tilting your head towards the fans. “She would like your jersey,”

Alex never took her eyes off of you as she stripped off her soaked-through jersey, and passed it to the girl. It was like she was trying to figure out what you were thinking. But she had lost the ability to read your mind years ago.

“Thanks,” You said, flashing her a grin and turning back towards the girl. “Now you’ve got the jersey you actually want,”

Alex’s lips pulled downward at the sarcasm in your tone, hidden by false cheeriness. It was the same tone you used when something was annoying you, but you didn’t know how (or have the courage) to vocalize it.

“Oh my god, thank you!” The girl cheered, looking at Alex instead of at you.

“Both of you,” She added quickly when Alex raised an eyebrow at her.

You waved her off, throwing a “No worries,” over your shoulder as you headed towards the tunnel to get out of the rain.

Alex waved at the girls too, sending them a smile before jogging off after you. There was something so… off about that interaction, and she wasn’t willing to let it go anymore.

Her and Kelley had discussed it, and while she understood the defender's advice to not push you. To let you come to her, she was tired of waiting.

The texting was nice, but it didn’t carry over to your real-life interactions and that was… frustrating. It wasn’t getting her anywhere.

She caught your arm as you rounded the corner to the locker room, spinning you on the spot and stepping into your space so you were pinned against the cold concrete wall of the tunnel, unable to run away this time.

“What the fuck was that all about?” She asked, keeping her voice level, even though the two of you were nose to nose.

Your eyes flashed up to meet hers, identical blue boring into yours. It made you feel like she could see into your soul. Like you were naked in front of her. You so badly wanted to look away but you couldn’t.

“She had a Morgan sign with a huge 13 on it, so I went to say hello,” You shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant, but Alex saw through it. “And they asked for a jersey, but I knew it wasn’t mine they wanted,”

There was something in your voice, in your posture that she couldn’t place.

“But they asked you for it?” She pressed, and your eyes flicked away from her as you gave her a barely perceptible nod.

“It would have been a consolation prize. They wanted yours,” You said, twisting your arm free and finally squeezing out from where you were trapped. “Everyone always wants yours,”

You muttered the last part under your breath as you tried to make your way down the hallway, but Alex heard you anyway.

She again caught your arm before you could walk away, again spinning you around to face her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing Alex,” You grumbled, shaking your head and again breaking her hold on you. “Just drop it,”

“No. I will not drop it,” She bit back, not letting you walk away from her. “I’ve been dropping it since you were 10 and look where it’s gotten us. I can’t fix something if I don’t understand what’s wrong,”

It was as if she let you leave. If she let you go before she understood you would be gone for good. You would lose the progress you had made.

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Fix it?”

What did Alex mean that she wanted to fix it? She didn’t have a Time Machine.

“Yes. Fix it,” She said, fighting to keep her volume low and her tone even. You didn’t respond well to exasperation. “We were so close and now it’s like we can’t even stand each other. I don’t want us to be this tense for the rest of our lives,”

You stared at her like she had 3 heads. There was nothing that she could do. No magic wand she could wave to change it.

The world preferred her over you, and they probably always would. You had learned from the time you were small that you weren’t worth as much as Alex was. You were invisible when she was there. You accepted it. The only person who didn’t make you feel that way was Taylor.

You shook your head. “There is nothing to fix Alex. You can’t do anything. Now let me go,”

Her face fell, and something broke in her eyes. It made your heart hurt, but it was the truth.

You twisted your arm out of her grasp and turned on your heel heading into the locker room. Alex stared after you, something you said gnawing in her brain.

Everyone always wants yours

It was nearly as bad as the “Now that everyone is watching you care. Now when it’s convenient” you gave her on the practice field in November.

She wasn’t sure what had happened between the two of you, or why you were so… frustratingly stubborn about allowing her to build a bridge over the mile-wide gap between you.

Your attitude shifting was also giving her whiplash. You seemed so… open over text. So willing to interact. She didn’t know how to navigate it all, and it seemed that you weren’t at all willing to help her.

“You good?”

Alex jumped at Kelley’s voice in her ear and gentle hands on her shoulders.

“No,” she shook her head, relaxing back into the defender's grasp.

Kelley hummed, and placed a kiss just below her ear, soothing her. “What happened?”

“Y/n called me over to give a girl my jersey, and then told her that she had the one she actually wanted,” Alex explained, frustration evident in her voice. “and when I asked, she told me that everyone always wants mine,”

“Al, we talked about this,” Kelley sighed, as your sister pulled away from her.

“I know,” Alex grumbled running a frustrated hand through her soaked hair.

They had many conversations about it. They both agreed that the best move was to take it slow. To let you dictate the pace, but neither of them expected you to be so… passive-aggressive.

Not when you let people push you too far because you didn’t know how to set limits, or you just pretended like they didn’t exist.

She didn’t know how to act when you went out of your way to interact with her and then tried to run away.

“But we never accounted for this,” She gestured wildly towards the locker room door. “She called me over,”

“And then you chased after her,” Kelley countered. “Because she told you a snippet of what’s bothering her that is supposed to make sense, but it doesn’t because you don’t have context. And you need to understand. I know,”

“She said I can’t fix it, Kell,” Alex’s voice finally broke, and Kelley was quick to pull the striker into her chest as her shoulders shook. “What am I supposed to do?”

Kelley closed her eyes, resting her cheek on the top of Alex’s head, holding her tightly.

She could see it from your side.

Alex had spent years unsure of how to bridge the ever-widening gap between you. You had spent years being compared to her, being crucified by the media for not being her, so it made sense for you to be wary. For you to try and protect yourself. What didn’t make sense was the hot and cold way you were going about it.

“I’ll talk to her,” Kelley said, holding your sister together as she crumbled. “But we need to take this at her pace. And that means one step at a time,”

*****

Slipping out of the locker room undetected was far easier than you expected it to be, but then again you had retreated to the showers long before most of the team was even off of the field. You hadn’t been planning to escape, but when the text came through on your phone, it was a no-brainer.

You smiled widely as you made the final turn down the tunnel, revealing Taylor leaning up against the large Visitors sign texting. “Fancy meeting you here, I thought you had album stuff,”

“Heard you didn’t like my henchmen,” She smirked, pushing herself off the wall and meeting you halfway. “So I thought I’d come to check on you myself,”

You nearly fell with the force of the hug, burying your face in her neck and squeezing her tightly to you. “I don’t like the henchmen. I don’t need babysitters,”

She hummed, leaning back just enough to look you in the eyes and brushing your wet curls out of your eyes. “You don’t need babysitters, but you do need protection. Let me be a little overprotective of you,”

You could feel her breath on your lips, and you couldn’t help but lean in and connect your mouths. Your hands slipped into the back pocket of her jeans and you squeezed lightly.

It was slightly scary how addicted to her you were. How you craved her touch.

She made a low sound in the back of her throat. One of her hands hooked into the hem of your sweats, and the other wove into the short curls at the back of your neck, pulling you tighter to her.

You stumbled forward molding yourself to her, as the kiss changed. Her tongue slipped into your mouth, running against yours, and you could feel her desire.

It didn’t surprise you. You knew what she wanted. What she expected. It was the same thing that every girl expected from you, so you just let it happen.

You let her pull you into the closet (unsure of how it appeared out of thin air, or where her shirt had suddenly disappeared to), pushing her against the only wall not covered in athletic equipment, and pinning her there with your hips.

Your lips dragged across her neck, and you longed to pull the velvety skin into your mouth. To place a mark, a claim out in the open where everyone could see. But you didn’t.

You trailed down to her collarbone, skimming your teeth along it as your hand slid into her pants, past her underwear, and through her warm wetness.

You couldn’t help the smirk that graced your features. “Is this all for me?”

“You’re hot when you play,” She keened as you teased at her entrance, gathering her slick on your middle finger. “And even hotter when you’re drenched and you kept pulling your shirt off to wipe the rain out of your eyes,”

You hummed, tracing her lower lips and brushing your middle finger across her clit. Her hips jolted, knocking into your thigh and it reminded you of how players always fought you for ball possession.

How they would press back into you while you tried to tap it through their legs. How they always bucked back to keep you from picking their pocket.

Taylor’s head hit the wall, and you worked your lips back up her neck, lingering on the underside of her jaw. “Please y/n,”

You hummed, dragging your teeth along her chin, and slipping your finger inside. She was warm and tight, squeezing your fingers as you dragged them against her walls.

Her hand tightened in the short curls at the base of your neck, while the other clawed at the bare skin of your shoulders.

She tasted like sweat and rain, and something just so Taylor.

It was like the sun on your face during the perfect practice, using your arm to wipe the sweat off your upper lip after you sank a ball past one of the keepers. It was like your teammates pulling you into tight hugs, running their fingers through your hair after you scored on a scorching summer day, their hands slipping through yours as they headed back to their starting positions.

She shuddered against you as you curled your fingers, finding the spongy patch inside of her, and you carefully ran your teeth across the special spot right below her ear.

It made you feel… powerful to have her so on edge already. Nearly as powerful as when you were 5 goals up on a team, or when a player couldn’t make it past you in midfield.

“Y/n,”

It was like playing with Mal, and how you knew where she was going to be before she moved, so you could pull the opposing players and set her up for a goal.

Except it was better. It was what you imagined scoring in the World Cup would feel like. Or assisting in a goal.

“Y/n,” Taylor panted, using the hand in your hair to tug you away from her neck.

“What baby?” you asked, glassy eyes blinking blearily up at her as you again curled your fingers.

Her head fell back and hit the wall with a thump. “Oh my god,” She moaned low in her throat, fighting to get out whatever she was saying. She swallowed hard, her hands keeping you from continuing your ministrations. “The door,”

As if on cue, three loud rasps sounded from the door just to your left. “I know you’re in there Y/n. We need to talk. Now,”

Your head fell forward and landed heavily on Taylor’s shoulder as you let out a groan at Kelley’s voice. “One second,”

Why did she always have to pick the wrong moment?

You pulled back, meeting Taylor’s eyes. “Just stay here,”

She nodded, sucking in a deep breath as you removed yourself from her, and ran your hand through your hair, trying to straighten your ever-messy curls. Your other hand fixed your rumpled shirt, and she frowned. She could have sworn you took yours off when you devested her of hers.

You opened the door just a crack, pushing your head out and glaring at Kelley. “What? I’m busy,”

Her eyebrows were pulled tightly together, a frown firmly set in her features. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

You felt Taylor’s hand on the top of your back, warm and heavy, comforting in a way you weren’t sure you would ever really deserve.

“A lot of things,” You grumbled, shifting so Kelley couldn’t get a good look inside the closet. “I’ll need more information to give you a more defined answer,”

Her eyes narrowed. “You told Alex that she couldn’t fix it between you,”

“She can’t,” You shrugged. “Are we done?”

“No,” Kelley bit back, her hand finding the door to prevent you from slamming it closed. “Not until you talk to your sister and fix this shit,”

You were already shaking your head. “Talking is not something that Alex and I do,”

Kelley snorted. “But you’ll text,”

You shrank a little at her tone.

The texting was different. It was safer, more controlled. She wasn’t close enough to hurt you. You needed that distance.

You felt a hand on your back, rubbing gentle circles at the point that always grew so tense when you were stressed.

You let out a breath. “That’s different. We only text when one of us is winning,”

“Is it?” Kelley pressed, unwilling to let it go. “Because from the outside, it looks like you share more than just your exercise routine,”

The hand grew more insistent, and you closed your eyes. “I don’t want to argue with you,”

You could understand why Kelley was upset. She was protective over the people she loved, and while you knew she cared for you, it was nothing compared to how much she loved your sister. She would always choose Alex over you.

And that was ok. It would be weird if it wasn’t that way.

“No, you just want to get back to your quick fuck,”

Kelley's mouth twisted around the words, and it felt like a knife slipping into your chest.

You flushed red, and a hand caught the back of your collar as you jerked forward. “Don’t call her that,”

You knew what your reputation was, but you never expected Kelley to try and use it against you. Taylor was far more than a quick fuck. You cared about her more than you cared about nearly anyone.

his was why you hadn’t told Kelley yet.

Kelley took a step back, sucking in a calming breath through her nose. “Look, all I’m saying is that you need to cut Alex some slack. It’s not fair for her with your hot and cold routine. You at least have to meet her halfway,”

“I’m trying,” You sighed, running a hand through your wild curls. “What else do you want from me when my own team is fucking trading me because I’ll never be the striker that she is,”

Kelley frowned. “What?”

“Those kids said they didn’t know my number because it was new. I changed it over a year ago. They didn’t have anything for me to sign, because they didn’t want my signature. They wanted Alex. Everyone always wants Alex, and that’s not something she can fix,” You explained, your voice going soft and… honest. “I wasn’t being cruel. I was being honest,”

“Oh,” Kelley’s frown deepened, as your comment to Alex suddenly made sense.

The fans had lied to you when you were already hurt from the trade. They made you feel more unwanted.

“Yeah oh,” You said, running another hand through your hair. “We text when one of us is winning. That’s our relationship, so just leave it. Is there anything else?”

Kelley shook her head and cleared her throat. “Bus leaves in 30,”

You painted a smirk across your features.

“Cool, I’ll see you in 29 then,” You said, as you slammed the door, and turned to lean against it. You slid down until you were seated, drawing your knees to your chest and letting your head fall against it with a low thump. “Fuck me,”

Why did Kelley always have to make things difficult?

Sure she was kinda right, but why did she have to remind you of that and get you to admit why you were upset? It was so infuriating that she wouldn’t let you keep her at arm's length.

“I would but I don’t think that’ll help,” Taylor chuckled, settling down beside you, resting a hand on your knee.

You groaned, blinking at her. You had nearly forgotten she was there. And that she was shirtless…“You’d be surprised. There’s something very… freeing about losing yourself in someone else,”

There was something freeing in having all of a woman’s attention. Of you just being enough for them even if it was only for a moment. Of having something Alex never had, and of being in the only situation where you couldn’t be compared to her (though a few girls had mused about it afterward, it’s why you started skipping the after-cuddling).

Taylor made a low noise, shaking her head. “I think talking will help you more in the long run,”

You shrugged. You didn’t want to argue with her.

“I’m sorry Kelley interrupted before you could…you know…” You blushed deeply, rubbing harder at the back of your neck. You couldn’t say the word orgasm.

Taylor frowned, her thumb pausing on the inside of your knee. “Y/n,”

You didn’t stop though. You didn’t let her ask you the hard question.

“I’m surprised the goon squad didn’t stop them, especially since your goons are here too,” You said, scratching your neck, and tugging off your sweatshirt by the hood. “Here,”

You passed her the item, watching with rapt attention as she pulled it on, and her abs flexed.

“Jason is getting the car, and Tony is at the end of the hall,” She hummed, doing the button on her pants once your hoodie was on. “I don’t really like having an audience,”

You wiggled your eyebrows, painting a charming smile back on your face, even though it took too much effort. “And you assumed I’d jump you?”

It was slightly alarming how easily you locked your emotions away. How you could pretend like there wasn’t something bothering you when it had been so obvious just seconds before?

It set off red flags in her brain because a talent like that wasn’t inherent. It was learned.

“No,” She shook her head, deciding not to comment on how easily you flipped that switch. “I just knew how much I missed you,”

Your mask fell slightly. “I missed you too,”

You meant it. Being away from Taylor was harder than your pride would let you admit.

You had never been so… taken with someone. So addicted to them. But she made you feel seen and safe. It made you want to spend every second with her, wrapped around her.

“Can I take you to dinner?” She asked, squeezing your knee.

You shrugged. “I have to go back to the team hotel first to do cool down and check-in,”

“I can pick you up afterward,” Taylor suggested.

“That sounds agreeable,” You nodded, your lips twisting into a devilish smirk. “But what are we going to do in the,” You looked at the time on your phone. “25 minutes we have before the bus leaves?”

Taylor matched your smirk, catching the front of your shirt and pulling you closer. “I can think of a few things,”

OoOoOoO

March 2017

I, I loved you in spite of Deep fears that the world would divide us So, baby, can we dance Oh, through an avalanche?

You didn’t particularly enjoy fancy restaurants. You didn’t particularly like most restaurants to begin with, but ones with a dress code always made you uncomfortable. Their menus always had a small font, and the white tablecloths never stayed white.

The stuffy atmosphere usually lent itself to stuffy conversations, and it reminded you too much of business lunches or dinners with your parents to ever really enjoy yourself.

You had learned over the years that your opinion didn’t really matter. That everything wasn’t about you. So you were fairly adept at painting a charming smile on and acting normal.

It has worked for most of the night with your sisters and Kelley anyway.

It was easy when Jen and Jerri were gushing over the new diamond ring on Alex’s finger. When they kept asking for every little detail of how Kelley proposed on top of the Empire State Building.

And you played along, never speaking directly to Alex, but not being weird enough that anyone would notice. You wouldn’t ruin this for her, or for Kelley.

“You alright over there space cadet?” Jerri asked, nudging your shoulder and pulling your brain from where you were trying to decipher the tiny writing on the menu.

You blinked up at the four women, realizing that they (and the waiter) were staring expectantly at you. “What?”

“Kell asked if you were ready to order,” Jen supplied patiently.

You were just grateful that no one giggled, but you blushed anyway.

You tried to cover it by snapping your menu closed. “Oh, yeah,”

Kelley blinked at you, gesturing towards the waitress. “What are you going to order?”

You felt the heat in your cheeks travel up to your ears, but still, you tried to play it off. “Oh, you guys can go first,”

Jerri shook her head, placing her hand gently on your arm. “We already have sweetheart,”

You frowned, squinting down at your closed menu. You had missed them ordering, and now you didn’t have time to try and decipher the hieroglyphic font the restaurant had chosen. Not that you would have been able to.

The letters tended to go more haywire when you were stressed, and you would be damned before you asked someone to help you. Your jaw worked as you thought of what to say. What could you say?

“You love chicken parm, and I heard it’s good here,” Alex said casually like it was normal to suggest food items after everyone else had already ordered. “or they have a very good salmon in pink sauce if you’re feeling something lighter,”

Your eyes darted to her for the first time since you had sat down at the stable, and your jaw hung open.

Alex intervening so seamlessly when you were struggling wasn’t something that had happened since she moved to Berkeley (you couldn’t help how you sneered the word in your head).

Jerri nudged you again, and you cleared your throat, your eyes still glued to Alex.

“The salmon sounds good actually,” You mumbled, finally getting your voice to work.

The waitress hummed, and you heard her little ticket book close. “I’ll go put that in,”

You were sure that Kelley or Jen responded to the girl, but you didn’t look away from Alex.

It was just so…not Alex of her. For her to have options ready and waiting meant that she had to have thought that you might have trouble. She had to have consciously decided to look for options that you would like too, and to have more than one so you actually got to choose.

It meant that she cared.

You swallowed very hard. That thought was too overwhelming.

Now, at the dinner, after she just got engaged was not the time to contemplate if Alex even had the capability to care about you. It would again make the evening about you when it most certainly was not.

You could feel the eyes of Kelley and your sisters, despite the way they restarted their conversation. It was like they were watching a car crash or a roller coaster derail.

You felt like a spectacle. Like you were drawing attention when you absolutely should not be. It had alarm bells ringing in your ears.

What would your parents say when they heard you had ruined your sister’s engagement dinner?

It was like the walls were closing in, as the conversation at the table blended with the noise from the restaurant around you. It was suffocating.

You didn’t think before you pushed yourself to your feet, nearly knocking over the chair behind you.

“I’m gonna take a bathroom break,” You said, turning on your heel without waiting for a response, not that you would have registered it through the pounding in your ears.

You needed to get away.

To leave.

To put space between you and this version of Alex that somehow gave a fuck about you.

You bypassed the hallway that led to the restroom, knowing that someone would eventually find you there. You turned right, brushing past the hostess and out the glass doors into the city.

The chilly air hit you like a gasping breath after being underwater for too long. Like water after a practice in Houston in July.

You paused just outside the crystal doors, filling your lungs like you had been drowning.

You knew you couldn’t stand there forever, blocking the entrance to Osteria Carlina, so you headed left, in the direction of your favorite hole-in-the-wall pizza place between Canal and Broadway.

You didn't plan to eat there, but you thought that maybe the walk would help you clear your head, and you could be back in time to eat your overpriced salmon. Something about the smell of fresh sauce and baked cheese always made your thoughts clearer.

It reminded you of when you were tiny and Alex would take you for pizza after your u6 games. It reminded you of riding on her shoulders on top of the world, even if none of the goals actually mattered.

Even if you lost.

You just needed a minute to not think, so you could go back and pretend like everything was fine. Like you didn’t feel entirely out of place with your sisters and Kelley. And you knew that the sounds of the city and the familiar comfort would do that.

You could already feel your airway opening, but you reached up and undid the top two buttons of your shirt anyway as though it would help. It was all in your head anyway.

It was always all in your head.

You ran a hand through your hair, your nose scrunching involuntarily at the sticky gel you had used to keep your curls in place. You had forgotten your normal wax in Chicago, and the CVS near your hotel wanted 15$ for it.

You wanted to look nice for Alex and Kelley, but 15$ wax was not in your budget. Still, you couldn’t not do anything with your hair. Wild curls would draw attention to you, and you couldn’t do that.

You couldn’t make this night about you and ruin it for them.

God, you probably already had.

“If you’re going to ditch us can you please slow down? It’s the least you could do,”

Your heart stopped at Alex’s voice, and your feet paused before you consciously decided to listen. You had to swallow down a groan.

Of course, she had come after you.

It was such an Alex thing to do.

You ran another hand through your hair and turned to face her. “What are you doing?”

Her eyebrows pulled together as she finally caught up with you. “I’m making sure you’re okay,”

She said it like it was obvious. Like it was normal. Like she wasn’t sure why you would ask.

“I’m fine,” You mumbled, your hand dragging through your curls to the back of your neck. “Go back to dinner and I’ll rejoin you in a bit,”

Her eyebrow arched. “I think running out of the restaurant constitutes just about anything other than fine,”

You couldn’t help how your nose scrunched.

This was the part of your relationship that you had forgotten about. The one that had been masked by annoying persistence since she moved out for college.

The one where she actually cared enough to force you to admit when something was wrong.

She was pushing you, but it didn’t feel like it was for her benefit. It was for you.

Your hand fell. “I just needed some air,” Your voice came out horse, strained.

Alex hummed, stepping closer to you. “You got overwhelmed.”

It was a statement, not a question, and it struck you how well she knew you, even though the two of you hadn’t had a real conversation in nearly a decade.

You stared at her, trying to understand her game. Trying to figure out why she was pretending to care. Trying to dissect how this would benefit her and her perfect image.

“What do you want from me?” You were thrown off by how small you sounded. How young and… terrified the words that left your lips were.

Alex caught your arm pulling you into her, closing the little space left between you. “I want you to talk to me,”

“No,” You instantly pulled away from her, tangling your fingers in your messy curls yet again. “I will not be a distraction,”

“What?” Her eyebrows pulled more tightly together.

Your fingers caught in a curl at the back of your head, the one that always seemed to tangle no matter what you did. You harshly tugged at it, the little pinpricks of pain helping you stay grounded.

Except this time it didn't help.

It didn’t give you enough to focus on to crack some smart-ass remark or shove your feelings into a tiny box.

It was too much.

“It’s all I’ve ever been,” The words spilled from your lips before you could stop them, like blood gushing from an open wound that you had tried and failed to stitch together too many times before.

Alex softened, and she took a step towards you, gently catching your arm and pulling it towards her, effectively stopping your from ripping your hair out.

“Monkey,” She said softly.

You jerked away, like a wounded animal. You would not let her pretend that she didn’t think that. That she didn’t hate how you followed after her when you were young, that she didn’t despise how you distracted from her.

“No! I heard you. I’m just the spare Morgan chasing after you, taking people’s attention off of you, and joining in uninvited on your opportunities. This will not be like that. I won’t fuck this up for you. You need to go back, and I’ll be there in a few minutes,”

The words forced themselves out of your lips like they had been waiting to leave for forever. They broke you apart as you choked trying to hold in your emotions. As you fought to close the lid back on Pandora’s box.

Alex caught you again, pulling you into her, and you quaked against her chest, sucking in strangled breaths. Her arms wrapped around you, squeezing you tightly, just like she did when you were little after a busy trip to the mall when the crowds had made your tummy flutter.

You didn’t fight her, instead burying your face in her neck, curling into her like you hadn’t since she left for college.

She held you like the two of you had all the time in the world. Like you weren't on a random sidewalk with random people walking around you.

She didn’t pull back until your trembling had slowed and your breathing had evened out, and she very gently ran her thumb under your eyes.

You hadn’t even realized you were crying.

“What the hell are you talking about?” She asked when your eyes met her identical blue.

“You said it,” You mumbled, sniffing lightly.

Alex’s eyes scrunched and a crinkle appeared between them. “When?”

“I was trying to surprise you at Berkley. Mom thought I had practice, and I took the bus. I heard you,” You said, your eyes closing as that day played back through your head.

It had taken some serious convincing from Jen that Alex missed you, and that she was desperate to see you since you had gone radio silent on her. You had been so excited as you waited near the Berkeley bleachers for their practice to finish.

She had been walking with one of her teammates, and they were talking about someone Coach McGuire was going to invite to practice.

“It just makes no sense, why would he extend that kind of an offer to a kid?” The girl you didn’t recognize said, nudging your sister as they stepped off the field. “Like fuck, it has to suck to always have your younger sister getting opportunities off of your hard work,”

Alex hummed, shifting her bag over her shoulder, and you moved to be more hidden under the bleachers.

The little sound was like a knife in your chest, deflating the balloon of excitement that had been there since you snuck out this morning.

Alex didn’t want to see you. She thought you were getting things off of her hard work.

“Don’t they understand that you want something that’s yours?” The girl continued, and you bit down hard on your lip to stop the tears from leaking down your cheeks. “You should have to deal with her being a distraction from your greatness,”

You would never cry for Alex again.

You shook your head and refocused on Alex in front of you, shoving away the cracking feeling in your stomach.

“Go back to your dinner. I’ll be there in a bit,” You said, forcing your voice steady. Emotionless. In control. “I promise Alex. I just needed some air,”

“No,” Alex said sternly, her arm tightening around you so you couldn’t pull away. “Don’t do that. Don’t shut down on me. I'm not going anywhere,”

You blinked at her, fighting to swallow the warmth that spread through you. It couldn’t be real. She couldn’t be honest about this.

You had already resolved that she didn’t actually care about you. That she loathed the responsibility of you from when you were younger. You couldn’t wrap your head around anything else.

And before you could stop it the strangled “Why?” Fell from your lips.

She chuckled, running her thumb under your eyes again and wiping away the tears that would not stop. “Because I fucking love you, and I can’t read your fucking mind, no matter how many times I told you I could when you were little,”

You knew the comment was meant to draw a chuckle or a smile, but it didn’t.

Alex ducked her head when you tried to look away, not letting you break eye contact. Not letting you bury your emotions and draw back into yourself. Making sure you heard her. “I want to fix our relationship. I’ve wanted to fix it since you stopped talking to me when I moved out. I don’t understand what happened, even though I probably should, and I can’t if you don’t tell me,”

You sniffled, unable to stop yourself from leaning into her touch as her thumb ran circles under your eyes, clearing away the tears as they continued to fall. It warmed your cheeks, and traveled down to your tummy. It made you feel… safe. Something you hadn’t really felt that way (aside from when you were with Taylor) since you were 12.

The two of you stood like that for a long minute, stuck in your own bubble, uncaring of the crowds rushing around you.

It took you another moment to realize Alex’s eyebrow was raised, and that she was looking at you like she always had when she expected a response.

You swallowed hard. “Ok,”

The word was simple but held a weight not lost on either of you. What you were agreeing to wasn’t lost, and neither was the vulnerability it took to let it out.

Alex’s head tilted, a smile tugging at her lips. “Ok.”

You nodded, finally pulling yourself out of her grasp and wiping your face with your arm. “I’ll try. Old habits die hard,”

“I know,” Alex hummed, and you knew she was saying more.

She was saying that she knew how hard it was for you to voice your feelings sometimes. How difficult it was for you to be open.

She was saying that she knew you.

And it had a warm feeling filtering deep in your tummy.

You looked away, clearing your throat. “We should go back. It’s your night and you should get to enjoy it,”

Alex sighed.“ This doesn’t change my ability to enjoy my night. If you need more time, we have plenty,”

Your shoulders rolled, and your back straightened. Your fingers tangled in the baby hairs at the back of your neck.

It was something Alex had seen a million times. The way you pieced yourself back together, even when you didn’t necessarily have to. Even when you weren’t ready to.

It was unsettling, how little this part of you had changed.

“The only bad thing about the city lights is that you can’t see the stars,” She said, watching how the abrupt change in subject took an immediate effect.

You blinked at her, your eyes instinctively glancing upward towards the sky, and your shoulders relaxing.

Bingo she thought.

You might not have had a conversation with her in years, but she still knew you. And your obsession with astronomy… well more like your obsession with Greek mythology and stars… hadn’t changed.

You hadn’t changed all that much. Well, most of you, no matter how much you wanted to pretend otherwise.

“Canis Minor is there,” You mumbled, pointing up at the sky barely visible surrounded by the neon lights of the city. “And Vela and Volans are there. It’s hard, but you can make them out,”

She hummed, not at all surprised that you could pick out the constellations even when you could only see a small part of them. But that wasn’t the point.

The point was how you relaxed.

You looked back towards her, your hand dropping as you let out a shaky breath.

“Let’s go back,” You said. “I don’t want your food to get cold,”

Alex nodded. “As long as you’re ready,”

You made a low sound in the back of your throat and turned back towards the restaurant. “Let’s go,”

She signed, reminding herself that everything wouldn’t be fixed in a day. You wouldn’t be fixed in a day. It would take baby steps, and you had given her more today than you had in years.

“Ok,” She agreed, letting you lead her back towards the restaurant, and your family.

*****

“You sure you don’t want a ride kid?” Kelley asked, wrapping an arm around your shoulder.

You nodded, forcing a smile across your lips. “Oh yeah, I’m good,”

The end of dinner had actually been nice.

No one had said a thing when you and Alex returned to the table, just before your food arrived. The conversation had been light, focused on the proposal, and no one had tried to force you to join in.

They hadn’t even batted an eyelash when you pulled out your phone to text your girlfriend about where you would be sleeping, and made eye contact with the two men who had taken up a table in the back corner of the restaurant.

Desert had been… almost pain-free, which set you on edge.

Nothing in your family came without a cost, and you wondered what it would be. Especially since Alex had come after you.

But everyone said their goodbyes and headed to their cars with very little fanfare.

All except for Kelley who was worried when you lingered near the entrance of the restaurant.

“You don’t have to stand here with me,” you said, glancing down the street, looking for the familiar black Escalade you assumed Taylor would be sending to retrieve you. You figured Tony was driving, since he had disappeared, leaving Zach to linger a few feet away from you. “I'm just waiting for my Uber,”

Kelley made a low noise. “And while I’m sure your new mob friends could take care of you, Alex would kill me if I left you here without knowing your plan,”

You blew out a breath, a strange warmth in your stomach at the thought that Alex would care. “My ride should be just around the corner. You can go, and I’ll be fine,”

It didn’t even bug you that Emily had apparently convinced her you were in the mob too.

“Burrito girl?” She asked, her features softening.

You nodded, glancing sideways toward where Alex was standing. “Satisfied now?”

You weren’t ready for your older sister to know yet. You weren’t ready to hear about how you weren’t mature enough. Or how your reputation would impact your relationship.

You didn’t want to be lectured about how much older Taylor was.

Kelley wiggled her eyebrows as a black Escalade pulled around the corner. “Very,”

“You’re far too smug about this,” You huffed, again glancing towards your sister, who still seemed oblivious to your conversation.

Kelley followed your eyes, and her smirk softened. “You know she wouldn’t be upset that you’re seeing someone right? She just wants you to be happy,”

“I know,” You mumbled, feeling the kid you had forced over your emotions rattle in your chest. You had already been too vulnerable tonight. “I just… I’m still figuring it all out, and I don’t want the pressure yet,”

Kelley made a low noise of agreement in the back of her throat. Like she wanted to argue with you, but knew you weren’t in a place to listen.

You wondered how much she knew about your earlier moment with Alex. How she knew so well not to push.

The black Escalade came to a smooth stop in front of you, and Zach stepped up from behind you to stand near the rear passenger door.

You appreciated that he didn’t say anything.

“Tell your burrito mob boss hello,” Kelley said, patting your back. “And I’ll take care of your sister,”

You rolled your eyes goodnaturedly at her before Zach opened the door for you and you slid into the backseat of the car.

Zach closed the door behind you and was in the passenger seat before you could think too hard about what Kelley had said.

“To Taylor’s apartment?” Tony asked you, glancing at you in the rearview mirror. “Or did you want to make a pitstop first?”

You blinked at him, not expecting to have a choice in where he was taking you. You figured Taylor had given him instructions already. That he would do whatever she told him to because she was the one paying his (probably incomprehensibly expensive) salary.

You cleared your throat, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “Taylor’s apartment is fine, thanks,”

“No problem kid,” He winked, his eyes returning to the street ahead of him.

Zach reached forward and flicked the radio, letting quiet pop fill the car, and you relaxed back into the leather seats.

It was weird. This was weird. You felt so… off balance after your moment with Alex. It made you feel so vulnerable.

You needed to get rid of the raw feeling in your chest. You needed control.

You swallowed hard and looked out the window as the lights of the city passed.

*****

One thing you absolutely loved about Taylor’s apartment was that it was always stocked with sweets. And since you had started dating, your favorites seemed to appear alongside the treats that she enjoyed.

“How was dinner?” She asked you, passing you the container of chocolate frosting as you sat on her kitchen counter.

She was dressed in short shorts and an old Philadelphia Eagles shirt, her feet bare. She was relaxed and comfortable. Which felt like a stark contrast to needles prickling in your stomach. The pins tingling the back of your neck.

She had been waiting for you near the elevator when the SUV pulled into her private garage, and she welcomed you with a hug that was so… warm that it almost made you forget how raw you felt.

She held you as you ascended to her apartment, and all the way into her kitchen, asking if you were up for a bit of dessert.

You were surprised she hadn’t immediately tried to get you to talk about dinner with your sisters and Kelley. That she didn’t pry into it the second she had the chance like Mal would have.

Now you found that you didn’t mind the question.

“Fine,” You shrugged, sticking a spoon in the frosting and twisting it around, lifting it to examine the scoop you had made. “They mostly gushed over the ring Kelley picked, and how romantic it was to propose on the Empire State Building,”

You licked your spoon, pulling it into your mouth, and your eyes closed at the taste.

It was silky and smooth, much better than the cheap frosting you always brought.

“You don’t think it’s gush-worthy?” Taylor asked when your eyes fluttered back open.

You paused, thinking about it for a long second as you got another scoop of frosting.

You actually thought Kelley’s proposal was sweet. It combined some of your sister’s favorite things and one of her favorite places. It made sense.

But it was so cliché.

“For Alex it is,” You shrugged, sticking the spoon in your mouth, swirling your tongue around the ridges to get all of the delicious chocolate.

Taylor hummed, stepping up between your legs, her hands running gently over the dark denim of our jeans. “But it’s not what you would want?”

You shook your head, scooping a bit more frosting on your spoon.

“I think I’d want something more creative,” You said, your lips quirked up, as you held the spoon out for her. “You know, like under the Eiffel Tower,”

“So original,” She rolled her eyes, letting you slip the spoon past her lips.

Sharing food with her was a habit you had picked up. Something that settled the nagging feeling in the back of your mind that she was too skinny. That there was something… wrong with her relationship to food.

Her fingers tightened around your thighs and you tilted the spoon up and her chin tilted to follow, exposing the long lines of her neck. You traced them with your eyes, swallowing hard.

It had want bubbling in your stomach alongside the needles. It had you leaning into where you knew this evening was heading. Into the coping mechanism that hadn’t failed you yet, even though you so desperately wanted things with Taylor to be different.

But maybe tonight they didn’t have to be.

You hummed, pulling the spoon away.

She let her tongue trail along it, her eyes fluttering open to make eye contact with you. “That’s good,”

“You bought it, so I would hope you like it,”

You dipped the spoon back into the container, pulling up a glob of frosting and bringing it to your lips.

She watched you intently, waiting for the spoon to leave your mouth with a little pop before very slowly leaning in. It gave you enough time to pull away if you wanted to, but you didn’t want to.

You needed this. To feel in control.

You leaned forward, connecting your lips in a languid kiss. Her tongue gently pressed against your lips, and you opened your mouth to grant her access.

It carefully explored around your mouth, dancing with your tongue in a slow waltz, licking the residual frosting from every surface it touched.

She let out a low noise in the back of her throat as she pulled away. “That one tasted better,”

You wiggled your eyebrows, dropping the spoon back into the container. “Did it now?”

“It did,” She nodded, her thumbs running up and down your thighs.

You leaned forward, connecting your lips again and slowly sliding off the counter. Your hands landed heavily on her hips and her arms draped across your shoulders, pulling you closer, her fingers playing with the baby hairs at the back of your neck.

It was easy for you to snatch control of the kiss, Taylor gave it to you willingly.

It should have smoothed over the frayed edges of your nerves. It should have quieted your thoughts and made you more present.

Instead, you slipped farther into your head.

You replayed the feelings of Alex’s hand in your hair, the weight of her arm around you. How you had made a promise you weren’t sure you really wanted to keep.

Your lips never left her as she took a step back towards the hallway that led to her room, and you slipped your fingers under the hem of her shirt, skating along the waistband of her shorts.

You loved the smooth skin there, and the goosebumps that trailed after your light touch. They distracted you so much that you didn’t notice her turning down the hallway until you were stumbling over your feet to keep up.

Her lips tilted into a smirk as she used her newfound leverage to switch your position.

Your back hit the wall with a low thump. Her lips reattached to yours, one hand tangling in the hair at the base of your skull, and the other cupped your chin as she pressed you into the wall, her thigh landing heavily between your legs.

It was more demanding, more needy, more in control.

It jarred you out of your head. Out of the rabbit hole of how being honest with Alex would help you link the back line to the front line better. Of how it would allow more line breaking balls through towards the edge where your sister always danced to stay onside.

“You didn’t think I was a pillow princess did you?” She asked, winking at your surprised eyes.

You let out a sigh at the pressure against your core, doing everything in your power to prevent your hips from pulling back when she rocked against you.

This you weren’t used to. This you had never done with anyone besides Mal.

You sucked in a breath through your nose, deciding to focus on the things that you enjoyed. You leaned into the kiss.

You liked the way her tongue explored your mouth. You liked how her fingers twitched against your jaw before they made their way to your collar.

Your head tilted to give her more room as she began trailing warm, wet kisses down your neck.

A shiver ran down your spine when she hit the spot just below your right ear, and you let out another low sigh. She echoed the sound, her fingers deft as they undid the first button of your shirt.

She let the blunt nail of her pointer finger graze your collarbone, trailing after her as she moved to the next button, leaving flames in its wake.

Goosebumps erupted on the newly exposed skin, and you felt her smirk against your neck.

Her long fingers splayed across your abs, tapping out a rhythm you couldn’t define.

“Do you know how amazing these are?” She asked, her warm breath hitting the damp skin of your neck and sending a shiver down your spine as her fingers tapped you a bit harder. “I think about them all the time. It’s not fair that I’ve only gotten glimpses of them, especially with how much you show them off,”

“You were a bit distracted,” You smirked, projecting confidence that you didn’t feel, your fingers closing around her hips, trying to maintain a sliver of control.

She flexed her thigh again to prevent you from flipping your positions though.

“Hmm,” She hummed, a devilish smile cracking across her lips as she dropped to her knees. Your breath caught in your throat, and you splayed your hands on the wall behind you, trying to hide how much they were shaking.

You didn’t know how to handle this. How to do this.

“Well I’m not distracted now, and I’m going to give them the attention they deserve,” She said, her hands moving the edges of your shirt out of the way.

You raised an eyebrow at her. “Are you now?”

Your voice barely wobbled as you spoke, and you took it as a win.

“I am,” she nodded, determination glinting in her eyes. She leaned forward, placing an open mouth kiss on the abb right above your left hip. Her tongue followed the ridge of the muscle to the other side.

you bit your bottom lip and allowed your head to fall back against the wall with a low thump.

You liked this touch. More than any touch you had ever had before. You had never let anyone get this far before, not even Mal really.

Things had been quick with her, like touching you was an unpleasant chore. One neither of you had ever been fond of.

This. This was different.

Taylor took her time, lavishing each individual muscle as her warm mouth traveled around your stomach. A chill trailed after her lips, the air landing on your wet skin sending goosebumps across your flesh, stoking a foreign fire in your belly that was almost enough to quiet the growing dread.

Almost.

She made her way up your stomach, placing a line of kisses up your chest and collarbone before she again landed on the special spot on your neck.

“Let’s get you out of these pants,”

You sucked in a harsh breath through your nose, forcing yourself to remain relaxed. You tried to enjoy the feeling of her hands tracing the residue left on your stomach. Tried to focus on the softness of her lips on your neck and the scent of her perfume.

Tried to let it drive away ghosts of calloused fingers and gruff voices.

It almost worked.

Then her thumb flicked open the button of your jeans, and you couldn’t temper your reaction. You couldn’t quell the growing anxiety in your chest. You froze, every muscle in your body going rigid for a split second before you could force them to relax again.

You hoped that Taylor wouldn’t notice, but she did.

“Y/n?” She said softly as she pulled back, her hands retreating from their position at your waist to cup your cheek, and her leg falling from between yours.

Your eyes slowly fluttered open and met very worried blue. You could see the questions forming. The concern dripped from her form.

But you knew you couldn’t answer. You weren’t ready to unlock Pandora's box yet. Not when you knew you would never be able to shut it again. You only knew one way to stop her from asking. One way to regain control.

You surged forward, your hands on her hips giving you the leverage to push her back against the wall opposite of you. Your mouth landed hot against her neck, lavishing the soft skin with open-mouthed kisses, and your thigh slotted between her legs pressing into her core with the perfect amount of pressure to distract her.

“I’m ok,” You muttered hotly into her ear, pressing more firmly into her center. “Let me make you feel good,”

She sucked in a breath, her hips stuttering like they wanted to grind against you, but she wouldn’t let them.

You dragged your tongue down her neck, letting your teeth just barely graze her sensitive skin, and rocked your hips. Your thumbs scared along the sliver of skin just above her shorts trying to convince her to just go with it.

To let her let you distract her.

You thought for a second that it had worked, as a low groan left her lips. You thought that maybe you had… derailed her enough to forget about your momentary lapse in the hold you had on your emotions. But just as you went to slip your hand into her pants she stopped you.

Her palm pressed firmly into your chest, insistent until you pulled away enough to make eye contact with her.

“I want us to both feel good,” she said sternly.

You swallowed at the comment, fighting to keep your face neutral.

“Making you feel good will make me feel good,” You said, trying to lean back in, but the hand on your chest stopped you.

“Y/n you tensed,” She said, her blue eyes burning into yours, looking for answers, the charge between you melting away.

You sighed as you pulled away from her until your back hit the wall opposite of her. You ran a hand through your messy curls and glared up at her ceiling, unable to look at her.

You were afraid that if you did, she would be able to read your mind. She would see the… brokenness you fought so hard to hide. But you had never been able to hide from Taylor.

Even before you were dating, you had let her closer to you than anyone had ever gotten before. She was scarily perceptive and had been able to read you from the beginning of your friendship even better than Mal could (and that was saying something). Her abilities only seemed to get more acute as you got closer.

This was the only area she hadn’t seemed to pick up on.

You let yourself slide down the wall, your eyes closing as you sucked in another breath. You still felt so raw from your talk with Alex. Too… vulnerable. Like opening up again would finally crack your chest in half.

“I’m,” You started and stopped, unsure of what you were actually going to say. “I’m not good at receiving,”

You settled on the phrase, drawing up the courage to finally open your eyes, pulling your knees close to your chest and resting your chin on them.

You were surprised that Taylor had slid down her own wall so she was sitting across from you and mirroring your posture.

She made a low sound in the back of her throat, and her eyebrows furrowed. “You’re not good at it?”

There was no judgment in her voice. None of the disgust you expected.

“I can’t ever get out of my head enough to… enjoy it I guess,” You cleared your throat and looked away from her, ignoring the heat in your cheeks. “No one’s ever noticed before”

It was a semi-truth. In your slew of hookups, no one had ever cared. No one had pushed back when you stopped them. No one had ever not let you distract them.

But then again, Taylor was nothing like your hookups.

You actually had feelings for her that stretched beyond self-loathing and the need to be in control of something. To be good enough. There was nothing quite like the rush that came from making a beautiful woman fall apart under you. It was irrefutable evidence that you were capable.

Taylor’s eyes tightened. It physically hurt her that none of your past partners (if she could call them that) had cared enough beyond their own needs to see the obvious. And that you were willing to bypass your own comfort so someone else could feel good.

She wanted to kick herself for not noticing that something was wrong sooner.

“You’ve never talked through limits or likes and dislikes with any of the people you’ve slept with?”

You ran another hand through your hair (making it impossibly more messy) and let out a very long breath.

You shrugged. “We were never doing anything beyond vanilla and it never progressed past a few one-sided orgasms,”

You had never let any of them touch you. Hell, you hadn’t even gotten undressed for most of them. The thought of doing anything… kinky sent a shiver down your spine so you hadn’t. It was just easier to keep distance from the people you slept with. It was safer that way.

Taylor shifted, very slowly scooting towards you, reaching out to place a gentle hand on your foot like she thought you would freak out if she moved too fast.

“Well, I think there’s a need now,” Taylor said, watching your every movement.

Your eyes were scarily hollow, accented by the red that rimmed them from the time you had made it to her apartment. She had wanted to ask about it. Pushed just a little to find out if you had been crying, and why. But you didn’t seem to want to talk about it.

You had pivoted to sex almost as soon as she tried to bring it up. It sent red flags up in her mind. Red flags that only got brighter.

She couldn’t help but replay every interaction the two of you had had in her mind. There would be time to agonize over every little detail later, but even now, your… reluctance to undress, or allow her to touch you was glaringly obvious. How the moment she flipped your typical script, you couldn’t hide it anymore.

She was slightly ashamed she hadn’t noticed it before. That she had ignored the signs of your discomfort, even if they were well masked.

Have you ever wanted to have sex? Had she put you in a position where you didn’t feel like you could refuse?

She never wanted you to feel forced, whether that was about talking about how you were feeling or having sex. She wanted you to feel comfortable enough to tell her when you weren’t ok with something.

Your nose dipped behind your thighs, your forehead pressed into your knees, and you squeezed your arms more tightly around them like you were literally trying to hold yourself together.

Her heart broke a little more at the barely audible “ok” that left your lips.

She scooted closer to you, her hand carefully drawing up your shin and weaving in your curls. Her nails scratched gently on your scalp, and you practically melted.

Your shoulders relaxed and you let out a long breath before you shifted to look up at her, your chin balanced on your knees.

She brushed a curl from in front of your eyes. “When did you start to feel uncomfortable?”

You scrunched your nose. It was a hard question.

You weren’t sure how you were supposed to explain that your mind went to soccer as soon as anything remotely intimate started. How were you supposed to explain that you were just defective?

But maybe you didn’t have to.

She didn’t ask you that. All she asked was when you started to feel uncomfortable, and that answer was easy.

It was the moment your back hit the wall. The moment you were jarred out of the safe space in your head.

The moment she forced you to be present, unlike every other girl you had ever been with.

But you weren’t entirely uncomfortable. Maybe at the start, but you had enjoyed parts of being with her. You wanted to enjoy being with her. But you were just… incapable. Defectives

You settled for a shrug, curling tighter into yourself. You didn’t want her to see how… fucked up you were. It would only push her away.

That’s what pushed Mal away. And Alex. And your parents.

You would never be good enough, and you had just wanted to pretend as long as you could. You weren’t ready to lose Taylor yet.

“Ok. It’s ok,” Taylor’s voice was gentle, and her hand trailed to tangle in the baby curls at the back of your neck. “Let’s try something else. Can you tell me what you liked?”

Your eyebrows furrowed. “This time?”

“Any of the times,” She said soothingly, her fingers never stopping their gentle scratches at the back of your neck.

You closed your eyes, leaning back into her hand. “I like it when you do this,”

She hummed, and you could hear a smile in it. “Anything else?”

“I like kissing you,” You mumbled, feeling the red flair in your cheeks.

Her lips always tasted like coffee, and something so… Taylor. They were addictive in the best way.

“And I like holding you,” You added. There was something comforting about having her in your arms. Something that made you feel safe. “And I like it when you hold me,”

“But the rest?” She asked you gently.

Your shoulders lifted and fell. You did what was expected of you. What you knew worked.��

You went with the flow just like Emily told you too, and then had been too caught in your head to savor the moment. To take in all of the little details that you wanted to remember. No matter how hard you fought, you just… couldn’t.

You quite liked touching her too, but you knew there was something wrong with your inability to remain in the moment when you did. You knew that she deserved for you to be present.

“I’m just not good at receiving,” You repeated, misery leaking into your tone.

It was the only response you could come up with. The only explanation that remotely made sense. This was when she would realize you were… defective. This was when she would leave. But she didn’t.

She gently squeezed the back of your neck. A silent request for you to look at her and a comforting touch that told you that it was ok. It took you a second to gain the courage to look up, but when you did, you didn’t see the disgust you expected.

Her eyes were soft, sad, and they held another emotion you couldn’t quite put your finger on. “I like holding and kissing you too,”

She shifted a little closer to you, so her knee was touching yours. “And I’ll hold and kiss you for as long as you’ll let me, at whatever pace makes you feel comfortable,”

You made a low noise.

It was strange. Conceptually, you could understand what she was saying, but you had never been with someone who didn’t judge you based on your ability to give them an orgasm. You wondered how long her patience would last. How long would she stay when she realized how deeply you were fucked up.

“How about we go cuddle on the couch and watch a movie?” She asked, squeezing the back of your neck gently.

Your nose scrunched as she pulled away, pushing herself to her feet and holding her hand out to you. “You know I don’t like movies,”

You didn’t have the attention span for them, and you would inevitably get bored halfway through.

She hummed, wiggling her fingers so you would take her hand. “How about survivor then?”

Your tension melted at the mention of your favorite show, and your easy smile returned to your features.

“Yes! We have to watch Heroes vs Villains so you can see Russel at his finest,” You said, allowing her to pull you into her side.

“Whatever you want sunshine,” She kissed your forehead and guided you back towards her living room.

It felt like going to her bedroom was too much, too fast. She didn’t want you to think she had some… expectations despite the clear signs that you were not ready to progress past cuddling. Not while you would so easily compromise your limits.

Not while your limits still felt so unclear.

She knew that it would take time to work through that, and she was willing to wait and help you for as long as it took.

*****

Soft morning light filtered into your consciousness, waking you gently. You breathed in deeply, shifting on a bed that you knew wasn’t yours.

It smelled like lilacs and Taylor’s perfume, sweet and inviting and safe. You could hear soft music from somewhere else in the apartment and felt cool sheets next to you.

You frowned, pushing yourself to a sitting position with a yawn. It was rare you woke up after Taylor. That you slept in in general.

But it shouldn’t have surprised you with what had happened last night. Sure, the two of you had fallen asleep together just after Pavarti and Russel had schemed to take down the Hero’s tribe during the merge. Taylor held you just like she promised, but you should have known it wouldn’t last.

A good nights sleep had opened her eyes. She had reflected and decided you were too… broken to be worth it.

“Fuck,” You mumbled, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes with the palms of your hands.

You should have stopped her before she got to your pants. You should have been more subtle and slipped your position instead of tensing.

You should have been prepared to lose hold on the iron box that held your emotions. You should have had more control.

But you didn’t, and now you were most likely going to lose your girlfriend.

She would break up with you in the sweetest way possible. She would say that it was her. That she was the problem, and you would accept that.

You would nod along, and make it easy for her. Just like you had with Mal when she told you that Dansby was her soulmate. That he was so good and perfect.

You dragged your hands up your face, and into your hair, ruffling your messy curls as you pushed yourself out of bed. There was no point in drawing this out longer than it needed to be.

You stretched, pulling your shirt down over your boxers as you padded out of Taylor’s room towards the sound of the music. You could also make out soft voices as you got closer. Your eyebrows furrowed. Who was Taylor talking to?

You peeked your head around the corner, your frown deepening when you saw a redhead sitting at the island across from Taylor, a large stack of papers sitting to the right of her, drinking a cup of coffee and humming to a song you had never heard before.

Why was she here?

Taylor turned from the stove, catching sight of you before you could hide back behind the wall. “Hey babe, good morning,” She said brightly, smiling widely at you.

“Morning,” You said slowly, stepping out from behind the hallway wall.

She gestured to the woman across from her. “This is Tree,”

“Hello,” You waved awkwardly at the redhead.

“She just swang by to hear a bit of the new album,” Taylor explained easily, turning back towards the cabinets. “Do you want some coffee?”

Tree smiled brilliantly at you, showing off perfectly white teeth in a way that surprisingly didn’t feel forced.

But you could sense the lie in Taylor’s explanation of why her publicist was there. Of why the woman who handled all of Taylor’s outward appearances appeared with a massive contract right after you had shown her how defective you were?

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” She said, pushing out the stool next to her, a clear invitation to sit.

You shifted awkwardly from foot to foot and dragged a hand through your hair.

Neither of them seemed… angry. Or like they were plotting the fastest way to get you out of the apartment. But you didn’t trust it. All of your instincts told you not to.

“Nice to meet you too,” You said slowly, stepping towards the stool and gesturing to the stack of papers. “Listen, I’ll sign whatever you want me to sign. Can I just take a shower before you kick me out?”

“What?” Taylor and Tree said in unison, Taylor nearly dropping the mug she was holding and Tree’s eyes tightening.

“I just hate to put on clean clothes without showering,” You scratched more insistently at the back of your neck, your fingers tangling in the tight curls at the base of your skull. “And Alex and Kelley would think it’s weird if I show up to their house in what I wore last night, and I won’t be able to accurately answer their questions,”

Taylor’s eyebrows pulled tightly together and she set the mug down, stepping closer to the island. “Y/n, slow down,”

You ignored her. You knew you were rambling at this point but you couldn’t stop yourself. “I promise I’ll be in and out in like 5 minutes. I won’t even do my hair,”

“Y/n stop,” Taylor moved around the island, catching your hand as it began to tug at the roots of your curls.

“What are you talking about?” She asked you softly, ducking to catch your eye.

“You’re going to break up with me because of what happened,” You rushed out, catching her frown and immediately backtracking. “Which is totally fine. I understand that you want someone… with less baggage. I just want to take a shower before you make me leave,”

“I’m not breaking up with you,”

You blinked at her. What was that supposed to mean?

Was she going to make you do it so she could be the good guy? Was her publicist there to witness it so they could write a story about it?

“Do you want me to break up with you then?” You asked, softly. You hated the fragility in your voice.

Taylor’s head cocked to the side and she raised an eyebrow at you. “No,”

It was your turn to frown. “I don’t understand what’s happening,”

“I’m not breaking up with you. You’re not breaking up with me,” She said like it was simple, tugging you towards the stools. “You’re going to sit down and drink your coffee while I make breakfast. You can talk to Tree if you like, or just listen to some of the tracks from my new album. But no one is getting kicked out or leaving,”

“Oh,” You breathed out, your shoulders dropping. “I don’t like eggs,”

“I know,” Taylor rolled her eyes, an amused smirk on her lips as she turned back towards the counter. “I’m making pancakes,”

“With chocolate chips?” You asked, watching her warily as you took the seat next to Tree slowly.

You felt like you were in a stupid rom-com that Alex would like. Like you were the idiot boyfriend who was lost.

“Of course,” Taylor hummed, sliding you a mug. “Drink your coffee,”

“So I heard you’re going to be playing for Washington this season,” Tree said, and you really looked at her for the first time.

Her eyes were kind, and she actually seemed… interested.

“If they ever get me a place to live,” You shrugged, clearing your throat. “Their manager keeps giving me the runaround and preseason starts in like 2 weeks,”

Her eyebrows pulled tightly together and she tapped her perfectly manicured nail on the edge of her mug, just beside the tea bag string. “They haven’t figured that out yet?”

“No. The only option they sent me doesn’t allow pets, which is a serious problem for my 3 huskies,” You sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose.

To be honest, your move to DC was nearly as painful as the one from North Carolina to Chicago. You just hoped that this time there wouldn’t be a dismembered toe in whatever apartment they put you up in. And hopefully, you had working AC…

The redhead's frown deepened. “Don’t you have a manager that takes care of that?”

Your nose scrunched. “He’s not helpful,”

Your manager, Travis, had never been… involved. You were one of his 70 clients, and he preferred to do nothing besides collect his paycheck while teams fucked you this way and that. He rarely ever answered your calls, and when he did, he acted like a total slimeball. One more than one occasion he had insisted that he could turn you straight.

Taylor turned away from the stove, meeting Tree’s frown. You could tell there was a question on the tip of her tongue, one you probably didn’t want to answer just as much as you didn’t want to talk about what had happened last night.

Tree shook her head slightly, a movement just barely perceptible, making a low sound in the back of her throat and pulling out her phone. “I’ll take care of it,”

You blanched as Taylor turned back to the stove, flipping a pancake.

You reached for Tree’s arm before she could fully stand from her stool. “No, that's ok. I can figure it out,”

You didn’t need anyone else to get involved. You didn’t need to make a big deal out of this. You were sure it would only make it worse for you when you arrived.

You’d heard that the Washington coach Richie was no better than Paul or Rory, and you knew the only way to deal with it was by not making waves. By gritting your teeth and keeping your head down.

Tree smiled, squeezing your arm and grabbing her phone as she stepped towards the back balcony. “I’ll be right back,”

You sighed when she disappeared through the glass doors, sinking into the stool, looping your hand through the mug handle, and taking a long drag of your coffee.

It was perfect. Sweet and light exactly how you liked it, and the soft music playing in the background only made it better. You had never heard this song before. It was just a guitar track, with Taylor’s voice and you found yourself entranced by it.

I know that it’s delicate, delicate.

You pressed your fingers into the side of your mug as you took another long sip, your eyes following Taylor as she hummed along to the song while flipping the pancakes onto a plate.

She turned back towards you, sliding the plate across the marble island, and leaning against it. She waited for you to take a bite of your favorite breakfast, smiling when your eyes practically rolled back into your head at the taste.

Her new music wasn’t the only reason Tree had visited. But she knew she had to explain that very… carefully. She didn't want to set you off, especially when you still seemed so frazzled from the night before. When you thought she would kick you out for tensing.

She had her suspicions about why your reaction had been so strong, suspicions she had briefly discussed with Tree, but she knew she had to tread carefully. She had the feeling that if you felt too vulnerable, you would shut down entirely.

But considering the pictures the news media had tried to splash across the headlines, she wasn’t surprised that you had tried to use sex as a distraction (or something else she couldn’t quite put her finger on). It seemed like it was your go-to method, and explained why you had been so content to leave a trail of bodies in the wake of your reputation.

She also wasn’t surprised that it had ended… the way it did. You had already been emotionally vulnerable. Too vulnerable to have the kind of sex that was deeper than just movements and orgasms.

She sighed. She would have to tell you why Tree was there, preferably before Tree herself told you.

“Paparazzi got pictures of you and Alex last night,” She said, trying to stay casual. Trying to make it seem like no big deal.

You paused, fork full of pancake freezing midair in its trajectory to your mouth for a brief second before you dropped it with a clatter back onto the plate.

“Fuck me,” You groaned, dragging your palms over your face and through your hair. “Fuck me hard,”

It was another problem. Another thing for you to deal with. When honestly, you just wanted to pretend like last night had never happened.

All you needed was for the fans to get ahold of a photo of you crying.

She suppressed a chuckle. “It’s ok, Tree already took care of it,”

You paused, your fingers scrunching in your hair before you dragged them back down your face and picked up your fork.

Your eyes stayed closed for a long second before they opened slowly and you resumed eating like nothing had ever happened.

It was like watching an actor pull on a mask, how you folded all of your emotions up neatly and pushed them inside. It was… incredible and sent alarm bells blazing in Taylor’s mind.

“Oh. Um. Thanks,”

You could feel her eyes appraising you.

“It’s no problem,” She said with a little shrug, bringing her own mug to her lips.

You went back to your pancakes, the only sound between you the scraping of your fork on her plate and the song playing again in the background. Your mind wandered through the chorus, enjoying the way the beat drop tickled the little spot in the back of your head. Your eyes swept across the kitchen landing on the giant stack of papers in front of Tree’s empty stool.

“What are the papers?” You asked after a moment, pointing to it with your fork when the music died down and the song restarted.

Taylor reached for it, placing it between you and spinning it so you could read it. You didn’t. The print was small and close together, and you didn’t want to give yourself a headache.

“You said that no one has ever discussed limits and boundaries with you, so I thought it might be nice to do that,” Taylor explained carefully.

You raised an eyebrow at her. “So you printed a packet?”

“Well, no,” She shook her head. “I know you said that you had never done anything beyond vanilla, but I have, and I think it’s important to thoroughly know my partners limits,”

You let a teasing smirk play across your lips, sinking into the teasing to cover how… off kilter you felt.

You had never discussed limits. With anyone. And it scared you what she could discover. What if something you said turned her off? What if she didn’t want you after you filled out her packet?

“I didn’t know you were kinky Miss Swift,” You said, wiggling your eyebrows. “Or is there some other title you prefer?”

A bright red blush spread across her cheeks, traveling down her neck, and she looked away from you.

Before you could follow up, to make the gorgeous red color travel further, the sound of the glass door opening echoed through the kitchen, and Tree stepped back inside.

“Ok. I’ve got your housing settled, and I ordered a moving crew to help you,” Tree said as she sat back down beside you, seemingly oblivious to the tension between you and Taylor.

Or maybe she was just better at ignoring Taylor’s reactions.,

You blinked owlishly at her. “I’m sorry, what?”

“All you have to do is text this number with the date you want to move and they’ll help you get all of your belongings down to DC,” She said, handing you a sticky note with a number on it.

You had no idea where she had gotten it, but you were thankful for it.

“Oh, uh, thanks,”

She nodded. “If you have any more issues, call me and I’ll take care of it until we can get you a good manager,”

You swallowed your surprise. You weren’t even sure how to go about finding a new manager, and you doubted you could afford one. You weren’t entirely sure how the whole thing worked actually. But Tree seemed to know exactly what to do.

You turned back to your plate, taking another bite of your pancakes. They were like heaven, second only to the Pancakes Kelley made. But something nagged at the back of your mind. Taylor didn’t have a plate in front of her, and there wasn’t one in the sink. You supposed she could have placed it in the dishwasher.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” You asked, your fork pausing midair.

She shook her head. “I’m not hungry,”

A frown pulled at your lips. Now that you thought about it, Taylor was not hungry a lot. She rarely ate snacks when you did, and you were pretty sure she had never finished a meal with you.

“Then I'm not hungry,” You responded, already pushing the half-finished plate away from you, despite the way your mouth watered for more. “Unless you want to share these?”

She sighed heavily, but took your fork nonetheless, stabbing a tiny piece of pancake not drowned in syrup and bringing it to her lips.

“Happy?” She asked you, and your smirk turned real.

“I’m always happy when I’m with you,”

*****

“I don’t understand what that means,” You muttered, reading number 372 of Taylor’s limit questionnaire.

Touching while under sense deprivation

Most of the list had been easy. Things you knew you liked (like kissing), and things you knew you would never want (impact play with a cane). The rating system had also been easy to understand: things you liked and had done, things you wanted to try, things you would only try with lengthy discussion, and things you never wanted to try.

Taylor highlighted her preference in green Sharpie and you did yours in orange as the two of you worked through her packet cuddled on her couch. She had been insistent that the two of you fill out the packet after lunch, and Tree left to give the two of you some privacy.

“It means the use of a blindfold or headphones that cut off one of your senses,” She explained, already highlighting a would like to try in her green highlighter. “It can be fun. When one sense is taken away, others tend to heighten,”

You swallowed hard, biting your lip as the red in your cheeks got impossibly darker.

“I,” you swallowed hard and looked away from her. “I don’t want to do anything where I can’t see you,”

You had enough problems remaining in the moment with her. The idea that you wouldn’t be able to see her terrified you.

It scared you to think about where your brain might take you.

“Ok,” She agreed easily, placing a perfect orange swipe over never try, already moving on to the next one.

It made your head spin how… comfortable with this she was.

It was like she had done this before. She said she liked to know her partner's limits, so maybe she had. You had never asked about past relationships before.

“This isn’t your first time going through this list, is it?” you asked, but the question was more of a statement than an actual question.

She paused, halfway through reading hands restrained while partner touches- giving and looked at you.

“No, it’s not,” She admitted gently. “I… I would rather be over prepared than cross a line that I didn’t know was there,”

Your head tilted, and you raised an eyebrow at her. “And you were doing kinky shit like touching your partner while their hands were restrained?”

“Sometimes,” She shrugged, her eyes narrowing. “But I feel like that wasn’t the question you actually wanted to ask me,”

It was slightly scary how well she could read you sometimes.

You bit your lip. Your questions weren’t polite, but then again you were discussing allowing her to restrain you while you had sex. It was more… intimate than anything you had done with any of your partners, but Taylor seemed… comfortable.

She had done this before, and you wondered… how many others had been in your position.

“You’ve had relationships before?” You asked slowly, picking your cuticle and looking away from her.

“Yes?” She asked back, using a finger under your chin to gently get you to meet her eyes again, as she raised her eyebrow.

“I was wondering if you would tell me a little bit more about them,”

“I’ve had a few, some vanilla, some not so vanilla. A few with men, but the serious ones have only been with women,” She said, her voice soft, like she knew you were insecure about asking. “Is there anything specific you would like to know?”

Your fingers picked more instantly at your thumb. “Were you-… did they-…”

Her thumb ran over your elbow. “Relax and take a deep breath,”

You did, except it didn’t help you. You felt like a fish gaping out of water. You forced your mouth to close, dragging in a deep breath through your nose.

“You said you weren’t a pillow princess,” You mumbled, and a rye smile crossed her lips.

“You want to know if I was tying people up or if they were tying me up?”

You gulped but nodded. That had indeed been your question.

“Well. The dynamic I had with my partners changed with each partner,” She explained thoughtfully. “I found early on that I preferred to give rather than receive, but sometimes it’s nice to just let go and let someone else take care of you,”

You made a low sound as you took in the information. Really, it should have been obvious with the way she already took care of you. She waited for you to ask a follow-up, as the silence stretched between you. When it became clear that you weren’t going to ask, she asked a question of her own.

“Can I ask you a question?” Her head tilted, and she waited for you to nod. “The situationship?”

Your nose involuntarily scrunched. “What about it?”

“I was wondering if you would tell me a little bit more about it,” she mimicked your phrasing gently.

You pulled your chin from her hand and looked away from her again. It was… hard for you to talk about what happened with Mal. It still stung in a way you didn’t expect, even though you didn’t… want her anymore. Not like you had.

“It was a teammate. We were under a lot of pressure, and it just kinda… happened,” You mumbled. “I got hooked and she didn’t, so she chose someone else,”

Taylor made a low noise of understanding in the back of her throat. “But not before stringing you along,”

Your lips pressed into a thin line and you shook your head. “No,”

You didn’t want to give her more details, to let yourself remember the agony of how it all devolved. How it felt like she was running you over broken glass every time you interacted. Giving you hope just to swipe it away at the last second.

“For how long?” Taylor asked softly, drawing your eyes back to her.

“Almost 4 years,” You sighed, running your hand through your hair and massaging the back of your neck. “The last time we hooked up was like 3 months after you and I became friends,”

Her eyes tightened as she did the math in her head. That would make you 13 or 14 when it started. A shiver went down her spine. “So young,”

You shrugged, your fingers digging more deeply into the skin on your neck. “Weird things happen at youth camp,”

“Apparently,” She muttered.

Your reaction to her trying to touch you was starting to make sense. If you had started young, and had a… bad experience…

You cleared your throat. “How long was your last relationship?”

She blinked at you, pulling out of her thoughts. “5 years and some change,”

“Do you talk to any of your exes?” You asked. “Like the serious ones?”

“No, those bridges went down in flames, but I keep up with a few of the less serious ones,” She shook her head. “I’m assuming you still talk to your ex situationship?”

“She’s one of my best friends,” Your shoulders lifted and fell, and your lips formed a very thin line at calling Mal a friend. You disliked how she UNC all over you, and things were… weird when you interacted, but you couldn’t exactly do anything about it. She was an integral part of your friend group and of the team. “Does it bother you?”

“No,” She said thoughtfully, reaching over to catch your hand as it again ran through your hair. “Because I trust you,”

“I trust you too,” You said back, and you meant it with everything in you. You trusted Taylor more than you trusted nearly anyone.

She smiled gently at you. “Do you want to continue this list?”

You nodded slowly. “Let’s do this,”

You glanced back down at the stack of papers between you. Yes, it was uncomfortable, but you trusted Taylor.

OoOoOoO May 2017 You come around and the armor falls Pierce the room like a cannonball Now all we know is don't let go

“You are too fast for your own good,” Ali Krieger sighed, settling down on the bench beside you as you squirted more water into your mouth.

You shrugged. “You and Dydasco keep leaving a gap for me to split, and Mal is good at finding space,”

The Washington Spirit captain hummed, sipping her own bottle.

The defender had taken you under her wing as soon as you stepped foot in DC. She had shown up at your apartment ready to help you unpack, only to find it immaculately set up. She had taken you to lunch instead and introduced you to the rest of the team.

They were wary at first given your reputation, but they were slowly finding out that you weren’t what everyone claimed you were.

“Dude, that little through ball is sick!” Mal said before Ali could respond, throwing her arm around you and sitting on the bench practically in your lap. “We can totally use that against Sky Blue,”

You shuffled away from her as far as you could without being obvious, taking another long sip of your drink. “Kelley will be looking for it. She’s seen us do it too much,”

Ali had noticed that there was something… odd about the way you interacted with Mal.

The two of you were inseparable, and your chemistry on the field was entirely unmatched. But there was just something she couldn’t quite put her finger on that bothered her about how Mal was with you.

How you tried to squirm away from her without drawing attention to it, and how Mal would only move closer. How there was a depth to your relationship with the forward, a history, that Ali hadn’t been aware of before.

Mal grabbed your water and squirted some into her own mouth while squeezing your shoulder. “Maybe we can discuss a new game plan over drinks?”

Ali raised her eyebrow. “You’re both underage,”

“Hasn’t stopped Y/n before,” Mal shrugged, nudging you with a giggle. “She can take down a case of beer all on her own,”

You scrunched your nose, and brought your free hand to the back of your neck, pressing deeply into the skin.

“Um, no thanks,” You said. “I have plans,”

Mal froze, dropping the water bottle into your lap, and inadvertently getting your pants wet.

“Plans?” Mal’s eyes narrowed at you, and the edge in her voice made you shiver. “Which one of our teammates are you fucking tonight?”

A grimace crossed your features, but you smothered it under a mask of indifference, as you brought your shoulders up to touch your ears. “None of them,”

Mal relaxed, ever so slightly. “Ah, so you finally got the app Lindsey suggested?”

“No. I don’t use straight dating apps,” You huffed, righting the water bottle. “I don’t need the internet to pick up interested parties, but I’m not seeing some rando either. Not that it’s any of your business,”

“Who was in your pants used to be entirely my business,” Mal mumbled, pressing a finger into the spot right below your ear, dragging it down the curve of your chin, and using it to tilt your head to make eye contact with her. “You liked it being my business,”

You stared her down, something passing between you that Ali didn’t understand.

“And you made sure that it wasn’t anymore,” You said, your voice cold as ice as you pushed her hand away, and squirted more water into your mouth.

“Ok,” Ali said, breaking the tension between you and the forward. “So Kelley will be wise to the through ball, what do you suggest?”

She had never seen you be so… direct.

You put more space between you and Mal, your lip caught between your teeth for a long moment before you shrugged. “I’m sure Richie has a plan. He’s the master strategist isn’t he?”

“You’ve had enough film sessions with him, so you tell me,” Ali countered.

A dark look crossed your features, there for a split second before it was gone. Replaced by an easy smirk that Ali was learning wasn’t so easy. It was the face you made every time something made you uncomfortable and you didn’t want to talk about it.

You took another sip from your water before you squirted it at Mal. “I’m sure he’s got a plan for his superstar,”

You pushed yourself off the bench and ran off towards the midfield coach before either of them could stop you, and Mal went tearing off after you.

Ali shook her head. If only she had as much energy as you two. But still, there was something… nagging in the back of her mind. Red flags she couldn’t quite place.

*****

You hummed quietly to yourself as you lit the final candle on your dining room table.

The table was set. The dinner was in the oven set to the exact temperature Kelley recommended (after she walked you through how to turn it on), removed from its take-out containers and placed in glass dishes, and the trash had been removed taking with it any evidence that your meal hadn’t been created in your kitchen well before Taylor arrived at your apartment (and you had sworn Tony and Zach to secrecy).

You had cleared off the counter in your kitchen, save for a thick off-white envelope, and a bottle of the red wine you knew Taylor preferred. It would be the perfect date night.

Taylor had flown in from Nashville to spend the midweek break with you, and you were fucking stoked. The two of you had seen each other in passing, but getting really quality time together during the season was rough. Nothing would stop you this weekend.

“This is gorgeous,” Taylor hummed as she stepped into the kitchen area. “And it smells amazing,”

You smiled widely at her, pulling out a chair. “Thanks. I was just about to pull it out of the oven if you wanna sit?”

“Such a gentlewoman,” She said, as she sat, and you felt a bit of red color your cheeks.

You had been called many things, but a gentleman (woman- whatever) was never one of them. People tended to believe your reputation and take you at face value.

You were pretty sure Taylor was the only person to ever look past it.

You turned away from her, moving towards the oven. “Only for you,”

She hummed, and you felt her eyes as you got the food out of the oven, and turned off the device before you brought it over to her.

“It looks amazing,” She said as you placed the cookware on the table, and more red bloomed across your cheeks.

“Thanks,” You mumbled, joining her at the table. “It’s coconut curry with chicken, broccoli and rice. It’s got a lot of good fats and protein,”

It was a habit you had started in March, listing out the good parts of your meal. You noticed that she never saw food as fuel or something to be enjoyed. It always seemed like a chore she dreaded or a part of her day she just omitted entirely. You worried and you hoped that your little talks might change her view. So far you had been (mildly) successful.

Taylor hummed and spooned herself a good portion. “I like coconut curry. I have it a lot after shows,”

“Good,” You smiled as the red bled up your cheeks towards your ears. “It’s one of my favorites during the season because it meets all of my macros and is filling,”

Taylor hummed again. “What’s the envelope on your counter?”

You rolled your eyes at the thought of the off-white envelope, with your address written in perfect cursive. “A wedding invitation,”

Taylor’s eyebrows pulled tightly together. “I thought they got engaged in March? They’re already setting a date?”

“We have to plan around tournaments, so they picked the only time everyone will be available,” You mumbled, chewing your too-large mouthful. “Spring of 2018”

“Still seems like a fast turnaround,” Taylor said thoughtfully.

You shrugged. “They’ve been together for like 10 years. Alex has probably been planning this for years. She can read minds, and she’s a control freak so she probably knew Kelley was going to propose as soon as Kelley started looking at rings,”

“Ah, I see,”

You fidgeted in your chair, your fork aimlessly scraping your plate. “Do you want to be my date?”

It nigged in the back of your mind that the two of you might not even be together in a year and a half, and that you were probably asking her to be your date way too far in advance.

“Unless you hate me by then,” You added, forcing a playful smirk across your lips.

She rolled her eyes at you, swallowing her bite. “I won’t hate you by then, and I would love to be your date,”

You nodded. “I’ll talk to Alex and Kelley about getting a plus one,”

Taylor hummed and took another bite, chewing slowly. “I also wanted to talk to you about maybe trying something new,”

You raised your eyebrow at her. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well,” She started. “When we filled out the limits sheet you mentioned that you didn’t like all touches, so I thought we could maybe walk through those boundaries, and I’ve never seen you naked, which is kinda criminal,”

“So? You want to what?” You asked, watching her carefully.

“Shower together,” She said, meeting your eyes. “This way it’s something we’ve done, just-“

“I’ll actually take my clothes off this time?” You asked, meeting her eyes.

“And you can show me where you’re comfortable being touched and where you’re not,” Taylor continued gently. “I think it might be a good exercise in intimacy without expectations,”

You nodded, taking a shaky breath. “Ok,”

“Ok,”

*****

Water cascaded down your body in ripples, rolling over the goosebumps that littered your skin. Your fingers tapped against your hips, as you tried to force yourself to relax.

“We don’t have to do this Y/n,” Taylor said from behind the shower curtain.

You thought that this would be… easier if you get into the water first. That it would ease the bubbling anxiety in your chest.

It didn’t. But you weren’t ready to give up yet. You wanted to trust her.

“No,” You said, your voice more shaky than you would have liked it to be. “It’s ok. You can get in,”

You turned towards the water, letting the spray hit your face, as you heard the distinct crinkle of the shower curtain.

You felt her warm presence behind you, though she didn’t reach out to touch you.

You took a deep breath, steeling yourself before you turned back to face her.

“I want to do this,” You mumbled, meeting her eyes, trying not to scan down her body. You appreciated that her blue orbs remained steadfastly locked with yours.

“As long as you’re sure,” Taylor said softly. “You can tell me to stop at any point, and we will. Red, yellow and green still apply,”

Your lip disappeared between your teeth and you nodded.

You understood the stoplight system that the two of you had discussed. Red for stop, yellow for slow down or discuss first and green for good. You swore you would try for her, so you would.

“Remember that I need a verbal?” Taylor asked you.

“Yes. I’m ok. Green,” You said, your voice shaking more than you wanted it to. “Just…”

You looked away from her, finding a spot on the wall above her head. “Just go slow,”

“Of course,” Taylor promised you. “We’ll go at your pace. Even if today we just stand there, that’s ok,”

You nodded again.

You didn’t like how… vulnerable you felt without your top on.

It was too close. Too intimate and that’s part of the reason you had never done this with anyone before.

But Taylor wasn’t just anyone.

You wanted to give Taylor this.

You closed your eyes and let out a long breath. It shook as it left your lungs, disappearing into the steam building between you.

You reached out slowly, catching her hands. “Let me show you where my boundaries are,”

You went to tug her hands forward, but she resisted.

“Can you look at me while we do this?” She asked, her voice gentle. “I want you to be present, here with me,”

It took you a very long second for you to open your eyes, and another for them to drag down her forehead and meet her blue.

She smiled softly at you. “Thank you,”

Your head bobbed briefly, and you squeezed her hands. It shouldn’t be this hard for you to let someone touch you.

The two of you stood there for several minutes before you gained the courage to pull her forward again. She went with you this time, letting you bring her hands to the hard lines of your stomach just below your belly button.

“Here is ok,” You said, trailing her fingers up the center of your abs to your diaphragm before you moved them out to your sides and back down to the original level.

“My whole back is ok too,” You murmured, feeling her nails dragging across your lower back, meeting at your spine.

Your eyes slipped closed at the feeling. At how you could feel the body heat rolling off of her because of how close she was to you.

“Color?” She asked, and you could feel the words on your lips.

Your eyes blinked open, meeting the fire burning in hers. “Green,”

“Good,” She said. “Stay with me, ok?”

“Ok,” You breathed back, as her fingers moved up your spine like she was counting each of them.

You did your best to remind yourself that it was her hands on you as they finally reached your shoulders. They outlined your collarbone, and her thumbs brushed against your neck.

It felt like a warm flame traveling from the point of her touch up to your cheeks, and down in your chest.

“Will you let me wash your hair?” She asked, and her thumb swiped around your cheek.

“Yeah,” You breathed out, making no move to grab your shampoo. You were afraid that if you’d turned, you would forget it was her.

Her head tilted to the side. “Color?”

“Green, right now,” You murmured, more red flooding into your cheeks. “I just… I need to be able to see you when your hands are on me. When we’re… like this,”

“Ok,” Taylor agreed easily like it wasn’t a big ask at all. “I’ll stay where you can see me,”

You nodded, swallowing hard again. “Maybe we just do this today,”

“That’s ok too,” Taylor hummed, her thumb running over your cheek to the sensitive skin behind your ear. “We’re doing this all at your pace,”

You swallowed hard again. “Thank you,”

Her lips tilted upwards. “Anything for you. I want you to enjoy our time together too. We’ll work up to the rest. My main concern is your comfort, and maintaining your boundaries. We’ll take it one step at a time,”

You could do that. You could do this. One step at a time.

#woso x reader #woso imagines #uswnt x reader #taylor swift imagine #taylor swift x reader #alex morgan x reader #alex morgan imagine #13 eras of us

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disneyprincemuke · 11 months ago

Text

triple threat * fem!driver

it’s always the three of them against everybody else

pairings: oscar piastri x fem!driver, logan sargeant x fem!driver

warnings: swearing

notes: i’m such a crybaby for all those long live edits on tiktok so here i am crying over a fictionAL SERIES THAT I CREATED ALL ON MY OWNNNN

(series masterlist) | (📂 pre-formula 1)

-> 2016

“i can’t believe it,” oscar says, appearing behind her. she turns around and meets the two pairs of eyes she’s been looking for. “you finally beat me.”

her eyes are teary, cheeks flushed as her hair stuck out from her ponytail. “did you let me win?”

“of course not!” oscar pulls her in, wrapping his arms around her. “you did it all on your own. good job, mate.”

“finally,” logan appears from behind oscar, replacing him for another tight and comforting hug. “congratulations on the win. you did amazing today.”

“thank you. i can’t believe it,” she giggles, a hand covering her lips. “i finally won a race. i might actually have a shot at this.”

oscar raises his eyebrow, tilting his head slightly. “you’ve always had a chance. you’re wonderful on the track.”

“yeah, but i’m a girl,” she mutters, sighing as she watches the crowd build up for the podium announcement. “it’s not very often someone like me is accepted around here. you guys are my only friends.”

logan smacks her shoulder. “we don’t care if you’re a girl. i’d beat you at any competition any day.”

“i will continue putting up a fight, though,” oscar grumbles in a frown, giving her a side eye. but upon meeting her eyes, his lips spread into a proud smile. “but not today. today is all yours. embrace it.”

she sighs, closing her eyes as the sun shines brightly above them. “it’s not every day i get to beat you on the track.”

-> 2017

“i can’t believe it! i’m so happy for you!” she shrieks, arms thrown around oscar’s shoulders as she sways their bodies. “another win in your pocket.”

“i’m sorry you crashed out,” oscar frowns as he pulls away. “you would’ve caught up with me and won if you hadn’t.”

truthfully, crashing out in a karting race dropped her morale by a lot. walking back to where her parents were, she had to hold back her tears and bite her quivering lips to hide disappointment.

but she can’t do that with all these eyes on her. so while her two friends made it on the podium that day, she forces a smile to her face and opened her arms wide to congratulate them.

“doesn’t matter. i’m proud of you,” she smiles. she turns, noticing logan walking towards them. “and you!”

“thank you! it was a good race, don’t you think?” logan beams. “i’m sorry for your crash, though. was it bad?”

she shrugs as she scrunches up her nose. “doesn’t really matter. today is about you guys! you made the podium again!”

“it’s not a podium i consider successful if you’re not on it with us,” logan drops his head with a frown. oscar nods in agreement, giving her a small smile. “you’ll come back next race.”

“of course!” she smiles, taking the hug logan is offering her. “go on the podium. i’ll wait for you guys right here.”

“ice cream still on for after?” oscar grins as he takes a step away. “take my good side, okay?”

“and mine,” logan adds. “i know you’re not a photographer often. but please, i beg you to take good pictures for once.”

she rolls her eyes, pushing logan towards the direction oscar is already walking. “i promise you will look good in your pictures today. blythe’s here to take pictures — she’s good at taking pictures of you.”

-> 2018

glancing through the small gap between the makeshift wall and the curtain, logan towers over her smaller frame as they watch the crowd gather beneath the elevated stage.

“this is a sight to remember,” she says excitedly, turning to meet his eyes. “this is so fucking cool.”

“i know. you think anybody important is down there?” logan mutters, raising his eyebrow. “where is oscar?”

“i’m here,” oscar giggles from behind them, prompting the two to turn around stiffly to look at him. “i was in the bathroom.” he raises his eyebrow as he realises where they are. “the hell are you guys looking at there?”

“the crowd for the podium,” logan smiles, beckoning him to come forward. “look, dude. it looks amazing.”

“i would hope so,” oscar grins, hopping over to them to peek through the gap they were looking at.

his smile drops, developing into a stare of awe and shock. the crowd has developed since he last glanced at it on his way to the bathroom.

“oh,” he says as he breathes out. “you’re right.”

she squeezes herself between oscar and the curtain, phone held out between the gap to snap a quick picture. “i’m remembering this moment for life. first of many.”

-> 2019

oscar rips his helmet off his head, running over to crowd that’s formed behind the barrier ahead of him.

“i did it! i won in formula 3!” he cheers, pumping his fist in the air as he runs over to where his team is gathered. he jumps into the crowd, choosing specifically where she stands, just slightly taller than the barrier that separated them.

“bitch!” she shrieks, falling backwards as his weight falls on her. “i’m proud of you, but god, oscar!”

“i won! i won!” he cheers as his feet meets the concrete floor once more. he jumps on the spot, grabbing her wrists. “did you see me on the track?”

she jumps, grabbing his wrists tightly. “i did! you raced an amazing race today!”

“dude, you won!” logan’s voice approaches them, joining the jumping huddle they’ve formed. “i can’t believe it!”

“i did!” oscar screams, one of his hands smacking logan’s shoulder. “i’m sorry for pushing you off track, though.”

“doesn’t matter! you won, you won!” logan cheers. he turns to the girl behind the barrier. “today, we eat a meal. not ice cream. i’m starving.”

“dude, same,” oscar says calmly. he turns to her. “you choose where we eat.”

“what?” she cries incredulously as she throws her head back. “you guys raced today. you choose where we go after the race.”

“no, you’re always here during our races to support us. this time, we give you a choice,” logan grins, leaning on the barrier towards her. “our way of giving back to you, of course.”

“i’m here because i want to be here,” she smiles. “i want to be able to support you from the sidelines! i’m your biggest fan.”

watching her friends progress to be in a league higher than her hurt, of course. but there are some facts she’s come to terms with and it’s that they will never have the same opportunities.

all she can do is swallow back the bitterness of it all and look at the brighter side. if racing doesn’t work out for her, there will be other opportunities for her. surely, somewhere else if it’s not here.

oscar hums, raising an eyebrow at her. “fine.”

logan sighs, shaking his head. “stubborn. let dalton choose, then.”

“i can’t believe it!” she drops her helmet onto the cushioned chair. her hands are quick to cover her eyes, catching the tears that fell as she heaves with every breath. “i could’ve won that race!”

logan and oscar, stood behind her, are speechless as they follow her to a spot without cameras. the race was brilliant, overtaking countless cars and climbing her way to a good spot.

but then she made a mistake and stalled, causing her to lose out on a couple of positions. realistically, she could have won the race.

“everyone makes mistakes,” logan says softly. “it’s okay.”

“no! i raced like it was my first time in a stupid car! i’ve never stalled before!” she cries.

logan quickly pulls her into his arms, rubbing her back as they try their hardest to comfort her. “this was the race! this should’ve been the race that did it for me!”

“there will be more races, you know,” oscar tries his luck at saying something.

despite growing around many women in his life, comforting any of them is a feat he has yet to meet. he never know the right words to say to them.

she breaks free from logan’s grasps, falling into a squat as she continues to cry. “i’m never making it to f1.”

“hey, don’t say that!” oscar scolds her, tapping her shoulder softly. “i stalled the other day in an f3 car. it could happen to anybody.”

“it shouldn’t be happening to me! i’ve got a lot more to prove than you guys,” she sobs, rubbing her tears all over her face. “you know that. i’m never making it out of this league after that. i fucking-“

logan squats right next to her, rubbing circles on her back. “you’re too hard on yourself. one race doesn’t define you.”

she frowns, rubbing her eyes. “it’s over for me.”

-> 2020

she takes a deep breath as her name is called, tears filling her eyes. she walks past the wall and out onto the elevated stage as the crowd erupts in cheers.

in the crowd below her, she spots her parents standing against the barriers with oscar and logan behind them.

a smile stretches her lips as she catches their eyes, phones held up to document yet another achievement from her in the sport.

logan gives her a thumbs up, while oscar gives her a simple smile and a nod. but it tells her more than it needs to.

her parents are in tears once more, watching their eldest achieve things people never thought she could and would.

after the podium celebration, she pulls her hair out of her ponytail as she approaches the two boys that’s come out to support her. “hey! thank you for coming to watch my race!”

“i wouldn’t have missed it for the world, stupid,” oscar smiles, turning immediately at the sound of her voice. “that overtake you did in the last corner? masterclass.”

“dude, i thought you were gonna crash out with that move,” logan says through gritted teeth, shoving her back slightly. “you were so good!”

she flips her hair over her shoulder and bats her eyelashes. “i learn from the best.”

“you’re very much welcome,” oscar grins. “how was it up on that podium? hearing your national anthem and all? cool, right?”

“amazing, actually,” she says exasperatedly, throwing her arms in the air. “okay, let me be a good daughter. i’ll find my parents, let me get changed and we’ll head out to dinner like we planned.”

oscar nods. “be pretty. you’re going to be all over our snapchat and instagram, mate.”

-> 2021

she taps her card onto the reader, the gantry opening up for her. when she crosses that line, oscar appears next to her with a smile.

“the f1 paddocks look so much better than i remember,” she whispers to oscar as they start walking. “this is so cool.”

“oh, look who finally made it,” logan sasses them, approaching them with his hands on his hips. “never changing out of being tardy, i see.”

“you were early for marketing, stupid,” she scowls, walking further in with them.

her lips part as she looks around in awe, a smile spreading her face. “i want to be here every weekend someday.”

“we’ll get there,” oscar grins, nudging her slightly his his elbow. “but this is fun, isn’t it?”

“i could get used to this,” she nods, folding her arms over her chest. “but it’s unrealistic. i will stay in my lane, actually. maybe f2 is the furthest i’ll get?”

“i’m not making it to f1 without you.”

-> 2022

she frowns, looking at her phone screen as chaos ensues in her living room. dalton and oscar are battling it out over a game of just dance, screams passing their lips as they continuously miss dance cues.

her team has just announced her entry on their socials, and the comments are less than ideal. there were a few supportive ones, but they are all from known figures in the sport who are technically obligated to put a positive word in.

“hey, you’re awfully quiet,” ciara says softly, crawling towards her end of the couch.

which is true, because a couple of minutes ago, she was hurling insults at oscar’s ability to deliver a convincing performance to beat dalton at a game of just dance.

she locks her phone, resting it on her stomach as she forces a grin to her face. “nothing. just looking at something.”

“no, something’s bothering you,” ciara frowns, sitting on her feet.

logan pops up behind the couch, leaning on the backrest. “is it the instagram post for your announcement?”

she smiles weakly, nodding. “did you read the comments they had on there? i’m a good driver,” she says softly, slightly discouraged by the comments she was unlucky enough to have read. “i worked hard to be considered for f1.”

“they will never care about that,” ciara says.

her eyes snap up to her younger sister. how naive can she be to think that ciara would have toned down her harsh words for once?

but ciara slumps her shoulders and continues to speak. “you know that,” ciara says, resting an elbow on the back of the couch. “but you were chosen to be in f1. it’s now up to you to prove them wrong.”

logan smiles, poking her cheek. “she’s right.”

“i know, but it’s just unfair. all this hate because i’m a girl? like i haven’t had enough of that since i started karting.”

“they’re always going to say the same things,” logan sighs. “but now you made it to the big league. you’re going to be amazing.”

she doesn’t notice the game is over. immediately, dalton tackles ciara and oscar is sitting on her feet.

“what ‘cha talking ‘bout?” oscar asks, grinning at them. upon meeting her downturned lips and sad eyes, he drops his smile immediately. almost as if he already knew.

and he actually does, suddenly remembering that she mentioned her team will announce her transition some time today. “oh. i’m sorry. they already posted it, haven’t they?”

she nods, pressing her lips together.

he pats her knee. “they’re not in f1. don’t let it get to you, mate.”

-> 2023

“look at me!” she shrieks, jogging out of her racing home, jumping in front of oscar and logan. sebastian follows shortly behind her with a small smile and a phone held up.

“oh, purple is your colour,” logan agrees as she twirls with her arms out to show off her racing suit. “look at mine.”

he copies her actions, twirling around for them. “oh, let’s go, williams driver!”

oscar laughs, covering his mouth before stopping abruptly when they stare at him blankly. “what?”

“show off your race suit, duh,” she says, giving him a knowing look. “it’s your first year as a racing driver! do it!”

“no. i was here last year,” oscar smiles, trying to wave off her request. but their stares gives him the impression that they will not let him pass without doing it.

so he slumps his shoulders with a sigh. he twirls around slowly, arms out to show off his race suit halfheartedly and sebastian’s laughter prominent above his friends’.

“cute friends,” sebastian laughs. he puts the phone down, handing it to the younger girl all suited up for the test session. “welcome to f1, guys.”

taglist: @wcnorris @treehouse-mouse @laura-naruto-fan1998 @mindless-rock @inejismywife @vellicora @leilanixx @meadhgbcavanagh @2bormaybenot @ironmaiden1313 @angsthology @cherry-piee @christianpulisic10 @elliegrey2803 @cashtons-wife @love4lando @sadg3 @bborra @a10vely-yutazen @mellowarcadefun @glitterf1

#oscar piastri x reader #logan sargeant x reader #f1 x reader #oscar piastri x you #logan sargeant x you #f1 fem!driver #female driver #f1 female driver #formula 1 #formula 1 female driver #disneyprincemuke #disneyprincemuke imagine #disneyprincemuke imagines #disneyprincemuke f1 #disneyprincemuke vr #vettel reincarnate

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lowpolynpixelated · 6 months ago

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Bloodborne PSX One of the best fanworks on the web

Though the PS4 boasted and still boasts an impressive library of releases, for many (myself included) the system served to be bought for initially one purpose, to be the Bloodborne Machine. Most of the people in my life who had a PS4 during its generation either bought one exclusively to play Fromsoftware’s Nightmare Hunting Adventure or had initially got one solely to play the game and ended up getting more games afterward. It’s a phenomenon the game industry sees time and time again, with previous generations having swathes of fans buying entire consoles for one or two games. As far as games go though, Bloodborne is at the very least worth the price of entry. At the time, it was heralded as Fromsoftware’s most cutting-edge and impressive game to date. A gorgeous gothic world filled with creatures ripped straight out of H.P Lovecraft’s nightmares, a haunting soundtrack showcasing beautifully composed choral scores and a combat system that incentivized aggression and speed to achieve brutal and bloody efficiency. It’s no wonder then why Bloodborne still has such a large following behind it. Fans of Fromsoftware have hoped for a sequel or PC port year after year to largely disappointing results. But where the community shines is in its fanworks.

From fanart, comics, music, animations, and even fan-made video game spinoffs, the game has been shown a monumental amount of love since its debut in 2015. One of these fanworks was released back in 2022 and has since become one of the most famous pieces of fan-made content surrounding the game, this of course, being BloodbornePSX by LWMedia. An incredibly impressive feat of coding and art direction, the game serves as a “Demake” of Bloodborne’s first Yharnam segment, made to look like and play as if it were made on the very first PlayStation console. With some custom-made areas and an entirely unique boss to boot the perfectly paced experience is both a treat to fans who have been orbiting the game since its earliest days and new fans looking for the best and brightest fanworks to interact with.

The game has since gone on to be covered by a variety of news outlets all over the web, along with its creator receiving much-deserved attention for her efforts. One Lilith Walther (AKA b0tster on social media) holds the title of developer for the project. A long-time video game enthusiast and FromSoftware fan herself, she’s had quite an impact on the community I’m sure she’s very proud to be a part of. Later in the article, we’ve got an interview with Lilith herself about both Bloodborne PSX and her current project, “Bloodborne Kart”, but first, let’s talk a bit more in-depth about BBPSX.

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(Official launch trailer for Bloodborne PSX, uploaded January 31, 2022 by LWMedia on Youtube)

Bloodborne PSX:

So, what exactly is Bloodborne PSX? To start, let’s answer what precisely a “Demake” is first. Demakes often have the goal of remaking the likeness of a game either stylistically, mechanically, or both, as if it was developed on retro/outdated hardware. Famous examples of Demakes include “The Mummy Demastered” developed by Wayforward as a sort of tie-in to the 2017 film “The Mummy” in the stylings of a 16-bit run and gun adventure against armies of the undead, and “Pixel Force Halo” by Eric Ruth games which take the prolific XBOX franchise and shrinks it down to a Mega Man-esque platformer reminiscent of the NES’ 8-bit days. Demakes are intensely attractive looking, not only into the past of video games and their developments but just how creative developers can be with games that they love and appreciate. Bloodborne PSX hits as hard as a Demake can in my opinion, blending masterfully recreated graphics with perfectly clunky early PSX gameplay quirks that go above and beyond to make the game not only LOOK like it belongs on the nearly 30-year-old console but feel right at home on it as well.

(A screenshot depicting the player character “The Hunter” facing off against two fearsome Werewolf enemies. Screenshot sourced from the Bloodborne PSX Official itch.io page)

Gameplay:

Starting off with the masterfully recreated clunk in the gameplay, Bloodborne PSX “shows its age” by hearkening back to a time when being seamless just wasn’t an option. Much like adventure action games of the past (and much UNLIKE its modern inspiration), you’ll be cycling through your inventory delightfully more than you’d expect. Equipping keys, checking items, and even the trademark weapon transformations are all done through the wonderfully nostalgic menu and inventory screens. Taking one of the foundational parts of Bloodborne’s combat system and making it such a more encumbering mechanic is nothing short of sheer genius when it comes to ways to really make you feel like it’s 1994 again. On top of this, the Hunter’s movement itself has been made reminiscent of classic action titles. Somehow, both stiff enough to feel dated and fluid enough to make combat that same rush of bestial fun found in the original, it goes a long way towards the total immersion into that retro vibe the game sets out to give the player. Anyone who grew up with Fromsoftware’s earlier titles like Armored Core and the King’s Field series will be very familiar with this unique brand of “well-tuned clunk”.

(A delightfully dated looking diagram showing off the controller layout for Bloodborne PSX’s controls. Image sourced from the Bloodborne PSX Official itch.io page)

Graphics:

Speaking of old Fromsoftware games, though, let’s talk about the absolutely bit-crushingly beautiful graphical work on display. As I’m sure you’ve seen from the videos and screenshots included in the article, BBPSX’s art style and direction are nothing short of perfect for what it aims to be. While playing, I couldn’t help but notice every little detail (or lack thereof) in the environments meant to emulate the experience of a game made on 30-year-old hardware. Low render distances, chunky textures, blocky polygonal models, just the right amount of texture warp, it all blends together to create an atmosphere that I can 100% picture being shown off on the back of a jewel CD case with a T for Teen rating slapped into the lower corner. While playing, something rather specific that called out to me was the new way enemy names and health bars were displayed in the bottom right corner of the screen while fighting. As a big fan of the King’s Field games, this small detail went (probably too much of) a long way toward my love of how everything’s meant to feel older. Other games trying to match the more specific feel of King’s Field, like “Lunacid” created by KIRA LLC, also include this delightful little detail, a personal favorite for sure.

(A screenshot depicting the second phase of Father Gascoigne’s boss fight, showing off the game’s perfectly retro art style. Image sourced from the Bloodborne PSX Official itch.io page)

Sound design/Soundtrack:

But where would a game be without its sound and score? No need to fear, however, because Bloodborne PSX comes complete with a chunky soundscape that will make you want to check and see if your TV is set to channel 3. A haunting set of tracks played by fittingly digital-sounding MIDIs ran through filters to sound just as crackly as you remember backs up crunchy sounds of spilling blood with low-poly weaponry. Original sounds from Bloodborne have been used for an authentic sounding experience, but have also been given the CRT speaker treatment and sound like something you remember playing on Halloween 20 years ago. If you watched the launch trailer featured above then you know exactly what I’m talking about. The Cleric Beast’s trademark screech and Gascoine’s signature howl after his beastly transformation have never sounded so beautifully dated, and I’m here for every bit of it. Even the horrific boss themes we know and love from the original Bloodborne have been brought through this portal to the past. One of my favourite tracks, the Cleric Beast boss theme, might just sound even better when played on a 16-bit sound chip. It really cannot be understated just how much weight the sound design of the game is pulling. In my opinion, the only thing missing is that sweet sweet PSX startup sound before the game starts crackling through the speakers of a TV in the computer room.

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(The Bloodborne PSX rendition of the Cleric Beast’s boss theme. Created by and uploaded to Youtube by The Noble Demon on March 20, 2021)

Interview with the developer:

Before writing this article, I had the absolute pleasure and privilege of talking with Lilith Walther about some developmental notes and personal feelings about inspirations and challenges that can come with the daunting task of being a developer. Below are the nine (initially ten, but unfortunately, a bit of the interview was lost due to my recording software bugging out) questions I posed to Miss Lilith, along with her answers transcribed directly from the interview.

I’d like to start this section of the article by saying Lilith was an absolute joy to talk to. During the interview, I really felt like she and I shared some common ground on some topics regarding how media can have an impact on you and what sorts of things come with video games as an art form. After some minor technical difficulties (and by that, I mean my video drivers crashed), I started off with something simple. The first question posited was: “What got you into video games initially?” Lilith’s response was as follows: “When I was a kid, the family member of a friend had a SNES lying around. I turned it on and didn’t really understand. I was a guy on top of a pyramid, I walked down the pyramid, and some big ogre killed me. Later I learned that was A Link to the past.�� and after a brief laugh continued, “A couple years later my parents got a Nintendo 64 with Mario64 and Ocarina of Time and that was it. Never put the controller down since then.”

She then went on to describe what precisely about Nintendo’s first foray into 3D Zelda had hooked her. “I’ve heard this story so many times. It’s like you’re not even playing the game. You’re just in the world hanging out in Kokiri forest collecting rupees to get the Deku shield, and the game expects you to! It was just, ‘run around this world and explore,’ and that really hooked me.” I couldn’t agree more with her statement about her experience. Not just with a game as prolific as Ocarina of Time but many experiences from older console generations that could be considered “the first of their kind”, or at the very least some of the earliest. Lilith also described her first experience with a PlayStation console, stating: “Later on I got a PS2 which played PS1 games. I didn’t end up getting a PS1 until around the PS3 era, so I guess I’m a poser. I remember my sister bringing home Final Fantasy 9 when it was a relatively new game. If it wasn’t my first PS1 game it was definitely my first Final Fantasy game. Of course I went back and played 8 and 7 afterwards.” A solid answer to a simple question.

The second question I asked was one starting to move toward the topic of Bloodborne PSX and its namesake/inspiration. Or at least the family of systems it was released on: “What PlayStation console was your favorite and why?” Lilith’s answer surprised me a bit. Not because I disagreed, quite the opposite, actually. But with such a big inspiration for her work being games from the PSX-PS2 generations, what followed was a pleasant bit of insight into one of her favourite eras of gaming, to quote: “I can give you two answers here.” To which I assured her she was more than welcome to, but she was set on having something definitive. “No no I’m only going to give you one answer. I can give you the correct answer that I don’t want to admit, but it was the PlayStation 3. It’s so embarrassing but I genuinely was hooked into the marketing of the whole ‘The cell processor is the smartest thing in the world’ and all that. It really seemed like the future of gaming and I was all about it. I think I owned an XBOX360 before but I did eventually get it and really enjoyed it. It took a couple years for some of the best games to come out but I really did.” A few examples she cited as being some of her most memorable experiences on the console were Uncharted 2, Journey, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Warhawk. All games I’ve seen on several top 5 and top 10 lists throughout my life within the gaming space. A delightful show of affection for a generation personally very dear to me as well, in which she ended the segment by declaring “Hell yeag”, a bit of a catchphrase she’s coined online.

Getting into the topic proper, my third question was one about her personal relationship with Bloodborne: “How did Bloodborne impact/appeal to your interests?” A question that received perhaps my favourite answer of the whole interview. From her response: ”Oh that’s a big one. Going to the opposite end of the poser spectrum, I was a Fromsoftware fan before it was cool. One of the games I played religiously on my PS2 was Armored Core.” A statement which made more sense than perhaps anything else said during my time with her. “Then later in the PS3 era everyone was talking about Dark Souls, this was when I was in college. I finally caved and got it and saw the Fromsoftware logo and thought ‘Oh it’s the Armored Core people!’ I played and beat it, really enjoyed my time with it. I skipped Dark Souls 2 because everyone told me to hate it, I still need to go back to that one.”

It’s something I would recommend anyone who hasn’t played Dark Souls 2 to go and do. “Then Bloodborne came out and I thought ‘Alright this is the new one, gotta play this one’ and I was a huge fan of all the gothic stuff in the aesthetic. And how do I explain this, I do really like Bloodborne. I like the design, and the mechanical suite of gameplay, as a video-gamey video game it’s very good.” The tone shifted here to something a bit more personal. “But as well, I was playing it at a specific time in my life. I came out in 2019, I know Bloodborne came out in 2015 but I was obviously just playing it non-stop. It was just one of my ‘coming out games’, you know?” For those who maybe don’t understand the statement there, “coming out” is a very common term used within the Queer community to describe the experience of revealing your identity to those around you. Whether it be to family, friends, or co-workers, almost every queer person has some sort of coming out story to tell. Lilith is speaking in reference to her coming out as a trans woman. She elaborated: “Obviously I can only speak for myself, but I just feel like when you make a decision like that, that part of my life just ended up seared into my brain, you know? Bloodborne was there, so now it’s just a part of me. And it definitely influenced some things about me. It was there because I was working on Bloodborne PSX at the time, but it had an impact on something I’ve heard a lot of other Trans people describe.” She went on to describe the concept of “Coming out a second time” as sort of “finding yourself more within your identity” and becoming more affirmed in it. She described both Bloodborne and her development on Bloodborne PSX influencing large parts of her life, a good example being how she dresses and presents. As a trans woman myself, this answer delighted me to no end. I, for one, can absolutely 100% relate to the notion of media you experience during such a radical turning point in your life sticking with you. There are plenty of games, shows, music, and books that I still hold very near and dear to me because, as Lilith stated, they were there. All the right things at the right time.

Halfway through our questions, we’ve finally arrived at one pertaining specifically to the development of Bloodborne PSX: “What are some unique challenges you’ve faced developing a game meant to look/play like something made on retro hardware?”

Lilith answers: “So there’s two things, two big things. One is rolling back all of the quality of life improvements we’ve gotten over the years in gaming. Not automatically using keys is always my go-to example.” Something as well I mentioned in my short talk about the game’s gloriously dated feeling gameplay above. “That was definitely very very intentional. Because it’s not just the graphics, right? It was the design sensibilities of the 90s. Bringing that to the surface was very challenging but very fun. Another big part was, since it was one of the first 3D consoles, I wanted to recreate the hype around the fact that ‘ITS IN 3D NOW!’ So if you go into your inventory you’ll see all the objects rendered in beautiful 3D while they slowly spin as you scroll through them.” This is a feature I very much miss seeing in modern video games.

She continued, “I think the biggest one was the weapon changes. Bloodborne’s whole thing was the weapon transformations. Like, you could seamlessly change your weapons and work them into your combo and do a bunch of crazy stuff, and I kind of said ‘that needs to go immediately.’ So now you have to pause and go to your weapon and press L1 to transform it, that was extremely intentional. So once I had those three big things down it all just sort of fell into place. Like the clunky UI and the janky controls. You need jank and clunk, and I think that’s why Fromsoft games scale down so nicely, because they are jank and clunk.”

A point I couldn’t agree with more. Despite all the modern streamlining and improvements to gameplay, Fromsoft’s ever-growing catalog of impressive experiences still contains some of that old-school video game stiffness we’ve (hopefully) come to appreciate. She went on to make a point I was very excited to share here in the article, “It was just a lot of trying to nail the feel of the games and not just the look, right? Like I’m not trying to recreate a screenshot; I’m trying to recreate the feeling of playing this weird game that’s barely holding together because the devs didn’t know what they were doing.” In my humble opinion, something she did an excellent job with.

Fifth on the list was a question relating to her current project, Bloodborne Kart, a concept initially drawn from a popular meme shared around social media sites like Tumblr when the buzz of a Bloodborne sequel was keeping the talking spaces around Fromsoft alight: “Anything to say about the development of Bloodborne Kart or its inspiration?”

Lilith answers: “So first off Bloodborne Kart is less trying to be a simulation of a PS1 game and more just an indie game. It’s not trying to be a PS1 game, I just want it to be a fun kart racer first. Starting off of course is Mario Kart 64, that’s the one I played back in the day. But I looked at other games like Crash Team Racing and Diddy Kong Racing, but also stuff like Twisted Metal of course. I always used those as a template to sort of look at for design stuff like ‘how did they handle what happens to racers after player 1 crosses the finish line.” The next portion of her answer was initially a bit confusing but comes across better when you consider certain elements present in BBK’s battle mode. “And also Halo, like for the battle mode. I had to do a battle mode and it kind of just bubbled to the surface. Split Screen with my sister was such a big part of my childhood. Thinking about Halo multiplayer while I was making the battle mode stuff.”

Her answer to the previous question began to dip into the topic of our sixth question: “Are there any unique challenges or enjoyable creative points that go into making something like Bloodborne Kart?”

As she continued from her previous answer: “One of the biggest quirks of the battle mode I had to figure out was how to tell what team you were on at a glance, and that came back to Halo again. I started thinking about how you could tell in that game and it hit me that the arms of your suit change to the color of whatever team you’re on. It was just something I never even thought of because it’s so seamless. So that gave me the idea to change the kart colours, and that’s the most recent example of me pulling directly from Halo. It’s wild how a small change like that can turn your game from something unplayable to something fun.” I would agree. Tons of small details and things you don’t think about go into making seamless multiplayer experiences. Some of which we take for granted nowadays. She then made a point about one of the most challenging aspects of BBK’s development, “The most challenging thing was definitely the Kart AI. AI is just my worst skill when it comes to game development among the massive array of skills you need to make a game. It’s really hard to find examples of people coding kart driving AI, You know? You need to make a biped walk around you can find a million tutorials online but if you need to make something drive a kart, not really. I was really on my own there. A lot of the examples out there are very simulation oriented. Like cars using suspension and whatnot, but I’m making a kart racer. So I started simple, I put a navpoint down and if it needs to turn left, turn left, if it needs to turn right, turn right. And I just kept adding features from there.”

Moving onto our last three questions, we started to get a little more personal. Question seven being: “What’s your favorite part of Bloodborne Kart so far?”

Her answer was concise in what she was excited about most, quote: “The boss fights.” Short and sweet but she did elaborate. “Translating a big part of Bloodborne is the boss fights. So I made a short linear campaign which is basically AI battles and races strung together. Some of those stages are just boss fights which are unique to the rest of the game. When you make a video game you sit down and you make all your different modes of interactions, and then you make a multi-hour experience mixing and matching all those different modes in more complicated ways. I think the most interesting part is when that style tends to fall away and it ends up building something entirely unique to that experience.” An example she gave was the infamous “Eventide Island” in Breath of the wild, it being a unique experience where the game’s usual modes of interaction are stripped or limited, forcing you into a more structured experience that ends up being a majorly positive one. “That’s what the boss fights are in Bloodborne Kart. They do multiple game mechanics like a chase that ends in a battle mode. Like Father Gascoine’s fight where he chases you, and after you blow up his kart he turns into a beast and picks up a minigun.” That sounds absolutely incredible. It’s very easy to see why she’d pick the boss fights as her favorite element when they’re clearly intended to be such unique and memorable experiences.

Our last two questions veer away from the topics of development proper and focus more on our dear dev’s personal thoughts on the matter. Question eight posits: “What’s your personal favorite part of being a game developer?”

After some thought, she gave a very impassioned talk about something she considers to be the best part of the experience: “When people who aren’t game developers think about game development they think of things like ‘oh well you just get to play video games all day and have fun’ but it’s not! Except for the 2% that is, and it’s near the end of development. When all the pieces fall into place and you start actually ‘making the game.’ Game development, especially solo, you’re so zoomed in on specific parts. Because you’re not making a game you’re programming software that’s what making a game is. You spend months working on different systems and then you actually sit down and make a level, and you hit play and it you go ‘Oh my god, I just made a game’. That part is what sustains me. It’s magical. That’s the best part when it comes to true appreciation of the craft aside from the reception.” An answer that I don’t think I could’ve put better if I tried.

My last question is one that I consider to be the question when it comes to interviewing anyone who works on video games. Perhaps a bit basic, but heartfelt nonetheless: “Anything to say to anyone aspiring to be a game developer?”

Lilith’s answer: “Yes. Just do it. For real. This is what I did and it always felt wrong until I looked at more established devs echoing the sentiment. You cannot plan a game before you’ve started making one. The example I always bring up is the team behind Deus Ex wrote a 500 page design document for the game and almost immediately threw it out when they started development. Just start! You’re going to have unanswered questions and I think that trips people up. Don’t start with your magnum opus idea, start with something simple and achievable. I feel like a lot of people set out with the goal of making a triple-A game, and that’s good! But it can’t be your first game. Game development is creating art, just like any other form of art, and it’s like saying ‘my first drawing is going to be the Mona Lisa’ and it just doesn’t work like that. You need practice and development, and it’s difficult to see that because games take so long and so much, so it’s definitely seen as a bigger undertaking. But it’s still art. You’re still making mistakes and learning from them for your first project. Your next game will be better. View your career as a game developer as a series of games you want to make, and not just one big game.” A perfect response to an otherwise unassuming question.

Lilith’s passion and love for video games were reflected very clearly in every response she gave during my time with her. Her dedication and appreciation for the art form can be seen in every pixel of Bloodborne PSX, as well as the development logs and test builds of Bloodborne Kart. I really do think that the way she answered my final question speaks volumes to the type of attitude someone should take up when endeavoring to make art as intensive as a video game. Whether it’s fanwork of a game that’s important to you or an entirely new concept, do it.

(developer of Bloodborne PSX Lilith Walther, image provided by Lilith Walther via Twitter)

Closing:

If you’d like to check out the positively phenomenal experience that is Bloodborne PSX I’ve included a link to the official itch.io page below the article, as well as a link to the official LWMedia Youtube page where you can check out Lilith’s dev logs, test videos, and animations about her work and other art. Thank you so much for reading, and another very special thank you to Lilith for setting aside some of her time to talk to me about this article. Now get out there and cleanse those foul streets!

Links:

Bloodborne PSX official itch.io page: https://b0tster.itch.io/bbpsx

LWMedia Official Youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/@b0tster

Lilith Walther Twitter page: https://twitter.com/b0tster

#my writing #my stuff #writing #video games #bloodborne #bloodborne psx #demake #article #b0tster #bbpsx #Youtube

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