#tv ads paid for “free” tv

[elfwreck]

Micropayments have been tried, several times, and the end result is: It's really hard to have payments less than a dollar at a time.

There are costs in moving money around, because, if nothing else, someone has to move the data around - has to deduct a dollar from your bank account and throw it in someone else's account, and that action requires

The site of sale to register the sale

Your bank to deduct money from your account

The recipient's bank to add money to their account

(We'll pretend that's all, but some transactions involve more steps than this.)

EVERYONE HAS TAXES that need to account for all this money-movement.

And sure, that's only a few seconds for each person involved in each transaction, only a few cents to pay them, but... that adds up. A few cents times three people, call it 10 cents taken out of that dollar.

("They can automate those transactions!" They can, and they do, but there are still people involved in checking the statements, making sure the numbers add up correctly at the end of the month, setting up the systems that can do the transfers at all, and so on.)

Hhheeeyyy, you wanted those banks to have good data security, right? To be very difficult to hack? That cost just went up.

So it's really really hard to just give someone 5 cents or a quarter online.

So instead you get a zillion sites with separate funding accounts, like Steam - you put in your $5 one time, and then you can use it to buy 3¢ digital trading cards, little bits at a time. But that's still "have an account at each site where you might want to buy a thing."

(aaaand we're back to, "and how good is their data security?")

News orgs are scrambling so hard, trying to figure out how to make money from an activity that has never been profitable.

(News was the loss-leader that got people to stay on the channel for the prime-time shows with the expensive ads. Newspapers got their operating money from ads, not subscribers; subscriptions paid for printing & distribution costs.)

Okay, how about this: in stead a subscription model, news websites just initiate a feature whereby reading any article costs you some small, token fee like five or ten cents. You press the button, you pay a one-time fee of 10 cents, and can read it without issue.

I can't stress enough how much I hate have to subscribe to everything.

[sagesolsticewrites]

Hi! I’d like to request a John “Bucky” Egan fic where he tries several times to flirt with the reader, but the reader is super oblivious about it and just thinks he’s being nice. It becomes something everyone on base talks about and gets invested in. Maybe other people set up a scheme to get them together or make the reader realize how he feels. Idk, just something funny and cute like that ig 😁

Thank you so much for requesting, Nonnie, I’ve been having so much fun with these Masters of the Air requests! I loved getting to write for our best boy Bucky 🥰 Shoutout to @blurredcolour’s Trust fic (an absolute masterpiece, check it out y’all!) for helping with the writers block on this one 😅 (Reminder that requests are open! Feel free to check out some of my favorite prompt lists in my pinned post 😊)

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction based off the portrayal by the actors in the Apple TV+ series. I hold nothing but respect for the real life individuals referenced within.

Oblivious

“There’s my favorite nurse!”

You rolled your eyes at the phrase that announced John “Bucky” Egan’s every visit to sickbay.

“Hello, Major,” you said, turning to greet him with a mock-exasperated smile.

Bucky clutched a hand to his heart as if wounded, a hurt expression on his face. “How many times do I gotta tell you to call me Bucky, sweetheart?”

“At least a few more times, Major,” you reply, unable to hide a smile at the usual volley of friendly banter.

Major John Egan had been unusually friendly to you since the first moment he’d sauntered in to introduce himself to the medical staff as Air Exec. Your colleagues had blushed afterward and playfully insisted that he had paid you more attention than the others, but you just laughed and shook your head, insisting that he was just being nice.

This visit was simply another instance of Bucky being friendly to you; well, that and Harry Crosby’s airsickness had gotten the better of him again and he was checking up on the navigator.

You stepped aside as Bucky approached Harry’s cot, ready to update him on the goings-on since the last mission had returned.

He threw you a kind smile before perching on the stool next to Harry.

“How’s my girl treatin’ you, Crosby?”

Harry happily told him how the base had gotten a new shipment of airsickness pills and you had slipped him a spare box for his own personal use, and Bucky’s smile grew wider and wider.

You were glad to see how happy he was at the news that his friend was feeling better, and you quietly excused yourself to tend to the other patients.

Bucky sighed as you walked away.

“She still hasn’t picked up on it, huh?”

“No, Croz, she hasn’t.” sighed Bucky, “She thinks I’m just bein’… nice or friendly or something. Which I am!” He added hurriedly, “But I just…I like her so much. I wish she’d notice.”

“She will, buddy,” Harry replied, with a comforting pat on his friend’s hand, “She will.”

Bucky headed out after a few more minutes of conversation, giving you a wink and a smile as he walked past your station.

“Bucky visited again, huh?” Rebecca, one of your fellow nurses, sidled up next to you with a teasing grin.

“Yes, Major Egan came by to visit Lieutenant Crosby,” you replied, putting emphasis on their ranks.

“You’re sure that’s all he was here for? Somehow he never shows up here without an excuse to see you…”

“He’s just being nice, Becca,” you insisted, “You know how these soldier boys are.”

“But he’s always—”

“Becca,” you cut her off as gently as you can, “I really don’t wanna talk about this anymore.”

“Alright, alright,” she held her hands up in surrender, “Bucky is an off-limits topic, gotcha.”

The conversation turned to the current hot gossip, and you idly chimed in when it seemed appropriate, losing yourself in your routine tasks.

Rebecca broke off to check on Harry again, narrowing her eyes as she noticed Harry watching you.

“Something Nurse L/N can help you with, Crosby?”

He jumped, gaze darting to Rebecca as she approached.

“No ma’am, I just…”

He scrambled to think of some excuse, but all he could come up with was: “I’m trying to think of some way to get Y/N to notice Bucky!”

Rebecca blinked in surprise, then plopped down onto the stool next to his bed, leaning in conspiratorially.

“Oh thank goodness it’s not just me! He’s been at it for months but the poor girl’s just so oblivious…”

“I keep telling him to just talk to her like a normal person, but he insists on dancing around it!” Harry instantly agreed, glad to have someone besides Jean to talk to about this. “He’s been so distracted lately. If he doesn’t do something soon, I’m worried it might start to affect his flying.”

Rebecca pressed her lips into a thin line, twisting a strand of hair worriedly.

After a few moments of quiet, she spoke up again, green eyes sparkling with mischief.

“I’ve got an idea.”

———

“Hey Bucky,” Harry said at breakfast the next morning, “I’m gonna pop down to the infirmary to visit Winks, wanna come with?”

Bucky quickly agreed— he’d been meaning to check on Winks yesterday as well as Croz, but got caught up in… well, you.

As they entered, Bucky made a beeline for Winks while Harry caught Rebecca’s eye and gave a subtle nod, which she returned, signaling her part of the plan was complete.

She had removed the step stool you always used from one of the supply closets, now hidden under one of the cots nearby. When you weren’t able to reach something on one of the higher shelves, well…

Good thing Bucky was so tall.

“Y/N, would you mind grabbing some more bandages for me? My station’s running low.”

“Sure thing, Becca!” You called, stepping away from your current station to check the supply closet.

“Becca…” your confused voice called from the closet, “Do you know where the stepstool went?”

“It’s not there?” She called back, sounding equally confused. “Let’s see, um…”

She scanned the room, putting on a good show of looking for someone who could help.

“Oh, Bucky! Would you mind helping Nurse L/N grab something from the supply closet for me?”

“No problem, Becca,” came his reply, accompanied with his trademark winning smile as he nodded to Winks and made his way over to the supply closet.

It was much smaller than he’d anticipated, and barely half a foot was all that separated you as he asked, “Alright, what do ya need, sweethea—”

The pet name was cut off by the sound of the supply closet door closing.

And locking.

You lunged for the handle as Bucky reached up to turn on the single lightbulb, both of you calling out in confusion.

“Becca! What?”

“C’mon, guys, this isn’t funny!”

Harry’s voice came through the door, clear and determined.

“Just tell her how you feel, Bucky! Your tactic clearly isn’t working!”

“I— what?” You turned to Bucky, hoping he knew what in the world they were talking about.

Bucky hesitated, but seeing as it seemed he had no choice…

“Well this isn’t… exactly how I wanted to do it, but…” He took a deep breath, twisting his fingers together in an uncharacteristic display of anxiety, “I really like you, doll. I’ve liked you since I first laid eyes on you. And I’ve tried every way I know how to tell you, but nothin’ worked, so…” He gestured around at the supply closet, “I guess it came to this? Which wasn’t my idea, by the way. Just for the record. I would never…”

His voice faltered, and you realized just how close you were to him. You didn’t remember moving forward. You were just suddenly there, so close the two of you were almost breathing each other’s air.

“You… you like me?”

Bucky couldn’t help but laugh at that.

“Doll, you think I call every pretty girl workin’ here my favorite nurse?”

You flushed at the compliment.

“I thought you were just being nice, I didn’t…”

“I mean, I was bein’ nice,” He said with a shrug, grinning, “Just not quite in the way you were thinking.”

Bucky’s eyes flicked down to your mouth, and being this close to you, he couldn’t hide the bob of his throat as he swallowed nervously.

“I’d, uh. I’d really like to kiss you right now, if that’s alright with you, sweetheart.”

You nodded slowly, “I think I’d really like that, Major Egan.”

“It’s Bucky, sweetheart,” he murmured softly as he leaned in, capturing your lips.

You may or may not have spent more than a few lonely nights in your bunk imagining what it would be like to kiss Major John Egan.

Your imaginings were nothing compared to reality.

This was magic unlike anything you could have dreamed.

Your arms wound around his neck as his wrapped around your waist, pulling you flush against him. You toyed with the dark curls at the nape of his neck as he slanted his mouth against yours, deepening the kiss. Needing to be closer, you tried to step towards him, but merely succeeded in pressing him back against the shelves.

Ordinarily you would apologize, but something like a thrill ran up your spine when you felt him grin into the kiss as his back hit the shelves, knocking rolls of bandages and boxes of gauze onto the floor.

His right hand moved to cup your cheek, keeping your lips connected as his other hand splayed across your back, pulling you impossibly closer as you arched into him.

You could still feel him grinning as he murmured against your lips, “Knew you were feisty under that good girl act.”

“Bucky,” you whined softly as he pulled away from you, chest heaving.

“Oh, now she uses my name,” he teased breathlessly, bumping his nose playfully against yours.

The two of you flinched as sunlight spilled into the dim closet, a harsh change from the dingy yellow lightbulb you had become accustomed to.

Harry and Rebecca stood in the doorway, wearing twin smug grins.

“Looks like our work here is done,” Becca said, shooting you a wink as she bid farewell to Harry with a two-fingered salute, “Pleasure working with you, Lieutenant Crosby.”

“Same to you, Nurse Carter,” Harry replied, and he turned back to the two of you, a genuine smile on his face.

“About time, Bucky.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky waved off his friend’s I told you so, “You gonna congratulate me or what?”

“Congratulations,” came Harry’s mock-put-out reply, accompanied by a genuinely congratulatory clap on his arm. “You got a good one. And it only took months of unsuccessful flirting—”

“Hey, I got her in the end, didn’t I?” He squeezed you closer, grinning down at you.

Your lipstick was all over his mouth, and you’re sure the Victory Red on your own lips was in no better shape.

You couldn’t bring yourself to care, however, as he pulled you in for a tender kiss.

Which you broke for a moment to point out, “He isn’t wrong, you know, it was months of unsuccessful—”

Your teasing was promptly cut off with a “shush” mumbled against your lips as Bucky silenced you with a kiss.

[ashleyisartsy]

Problems (objective and personal) I'm not seeing discussed a lot w this new WatcherTV thing, in no particular order:

-Alienates people internationally who literally CANNOT GET the streaming service!

-Alienates casual fans who don't watch or want to watch all of their shows. Putting down 60 bucks a year to watch just one or two shows is kind of insane, at least for me.

-The volume of content Watcher has produced historically hasn't been enough to justify a separate streamer. I understand there's no way a small team could compete with something like Netflix, obviously, but that's what you're trying to do by putting yourself in the streamer market.

-Will this streamer be secure? What steps are in place to protect your viewers info? ESPECIALLY payment info.

-Will it be easily watchable on multiple devices? I watch YouTube videos on my phone at work 90% of the time, or at home on my TV thru my switch. Is this a browser only deal?

-What are the internet requirements for this? Believe it or not most streaming services won't run on my internet personally. I don't have any for that reason. I can watch YouTube on 360p, or on my 2-bar-reception phone data. Not everywhere has stable reliable internet.

-The suddenness and totality of the move was going to be jarring no matter what, if the idea had been introduced gradually or started as a hybrid model to test audience interest there wouldn't be nearly this amount of pushback.

-I understand the people saying "pay artists!!" Bc I am one, and I get that their quality is expensive and they have a whole company's worth of people to support. I do actually think their work is worth paying for! Everyone's is! But convincing anyone to pay for something they previously got for free is going to be a hard sell. They were still getting paid before, they're now just asking us to pay instead of the advertisers. Idk about you, but that's a way bigger hit to my pocketbook than a multimillion dollar company's bank account.

-I get that YouTube can be a really shitty place to be a creator sometimes, and that being beholden to advertisers is something they don't want to be. It's why they left Buzzfeed! They already have a patreon and merch and it's clearly not been enough for their ambitions. But shooting yourself in the foot because your running shoes are wearing out isn't going to make you a better marathon runner. They had to know that there was going to be a not small portion of their audience unwilling to make this move with them (and again, lots literally aren't able to!)

-If they had a free w/ ads option, or even did a hybrid model with whole shows behind the pay wall, or even just ran a fucking crowd funding campaign to help cover costs of new seasons of shows, any of those things could have worked. They don't even have YouTube memberships turned on, which I've personally seen many many channels do even when they already have a patreon. It really doesn't seem like they've exhausted other options, at least from an outside perspective, which is all we have as viewers!

-I get that this has been in the works for a long time, and that there probably isn't a way for them to back out now. But I hope they can find a way to make this more accessible if they want it to work at all. I truly am not wishing for their downfall, but the whole situation is an awful mess.

Idk, rant over. As a lot of you are I'm feeling very disappointed and upset with this one, and I'm not paying for it either. Hope the boys can salvage this one for their and their crew's sake. Would really hate for this to be the end.

[silk-stocking-soil]

First Year Group Headcanon #1

Most absolutely inspired by that one Twst art by @cheekinpermission (Sorry dude didnt knnow if you wanted me to tag you-) of Adeuce, Grim and her Yuusona, as well as me bullying my friends in PE (Im not active for shit)

As the school year goes on, so should sports events. Game events like Bean fest, and other mentioned sports, like basketball, spell drive, track and field, and horse-riding. According to the wiki and game, majority of first years are in a sports club (excluding Yuu, Grim and Ortho. )

In the 🗣️HONOUR🗣️ of 🗣️FIRST🗣️YEAR🗣️GANG🗣️, why don't they attend each other's sports games?

Starting off with Ace and basketball.

Then Deuce and Jack and their track and field club.

Epel and Spelldrive

finally Sebek the equestrian.

Club Practice not letting them hang out? The group watch the victims players huff and puff while enjoying cold water and rest, with shitty encouragement and added commentary.

Big Game or Playoffs coming up? Yelling like those football coaches on TV, Signs and facepaint for the shits and giggles. Everyone stares, secondhand embarrassment for the yellers, the player and the audience, but its also the famous first years of NRC what are you gonna do about it? Pick a fight with overblot survivors and see how it works out.

(has anyone seen the irish 'lizzie in a box' chant. please god do you see the vision with RSA and NRC)

As the first year group grows, so does the sports events they attend, and in turn more supporters for the participant. Ofc, Sports support = Aggressive insulting Cheering, and Betting.

They can deal with pissed dormheads after the game, rn its encouragement time. The trouble makers need enrichment and tecnhically its teamwork so staff and the headmage cant get angry.

another plus, Ortho and Yuu get a life outside of tending to others and studies, instead they can participate in NRC school culture of being a prick. Grim already succeeds in it.

Also Epel force feeds the First year gang apples during the game and the player apples before and after the game. they dont get a choice, no free will in this friendship.

No criticism taken unless im paid (jkjk, unless 🤨)

add onto it pretty please i look forward to the brainrot i need smth to get me through physics 11

[soul-controller]

Going All-American

When Arthur Harris first made his way out of his flat to go check his mailbox, the man had solely been expecting to come across unexciting yet expensive content like bills. Upon gripping onto the solid stack of envelopes and beginning to filter through them, the man’s assumptions were mostly proven to be correct. However, it was the very last envelope that Arthur saw that caught his eye. From just the envelope itself, Arthur’s attention was further pulled in by the fact that his name and address were handwritten onto it along with the several stamps running along the top left corner displaying an American flag. Clearly, this was a personal and international piece of postage that he received, but the fact that there was no return address listed immediately piqued the man’s interest even further.

Upon making his way back up to his flat and hastily tearing open the envelope, the man’s mind was running rampant in the possible content of the postage as he pulled open the letter to figure out its contents. To his surprise, Arthur found a piece of paper that was chock-full of text that he cautiously skimmed through. While reading through the first letter, a slight grin emerged on his face as he found himself coming across a professional-looking note that stated that he had won a trip to California. Although he had no real recollection about applying for a contest or sweepstakes, that didn’t matter once he discovered what he would be doing there.

Congratulations, You (Arthur Harris) are the grand prize winner of the sweepstakes to win an all-expense paid trip to Los Angeles! While you are here, you’ll be shuttled to the set of the hit television show All-American, where you will be able to explore the sets and meet all of your favorite actors. Please be ready on the date listed as a car will be waiting for you to take you to the airport for your departure to Los Angeles. We look forward to giving you an “All-American” experience in more ways than one! Sincerely, S-C Productions

“Holy shit!” Arthur said, the letter slipping from his hand as his entire body began to buzz with excitement. Although he wanted so badly to jump up and down in glee and loudly cry out for his excitement, his respect and care for his flatmates caused him to hold back and conceal his emotions as best as he could. Getting a free trip to LA was exciting enough, but the added bonus of getting to travel to the set of All-American was a dream come true. Certainly it would be interesting for the man to witness the entire process of filming given his own interest in film and cinematography, but even more so when one of his biggest crushes was in frame.

Ever since Arthur had first watched Cody Christian arrive on his television screen as Theo in the Teen Wolf TV show, the man was instantly smitten with him. Not only did Cody perfectly play the role of a cocky and self-assured asshole, but he was also incredibly hot while doing so! Every time Arthur watched an episode of the show, Cody was one of the main reasons behind his continued viewing despite the show’s consistent dip in quality. Unfortunately, Cody’s role as a side character that bumped heads with Tyler Posey’s Scott McCall wasn’t enough to keep Arthur engaged though as Arthur ultimately dropped the show before it even finished airing.

As such, Arthur’s thirst for the actor lessened for a bit as he only focused on seeing the hunky man via social media or Tumblr via gif-sets. Luckily though, a renewed interest emerged when Cody landed the role of Asher on the TV show All-American. Not only did the show catch Arthur’s interest because it caused him to fall back in love with Cody, but it also perfectly meshed with his own interests as it was a show about football players… especially since Cody was playing a cocky and materialistic football player named Asher.

Given how much this was a dream come true, Arthur still found himself quite unsure whether this was really happening or if he had somehow fallen asleep accidentally and was thus having the best possible dream. After a painful pinch informed him that this was truly reality, the man tilted his head back down towards the floor to look for the letter once more. Upon doing so though, he saw that the letter was flipped onto its backside after falling to the floor. While this wasn’t anything to write home about, glancing at the piece of paper revealed that there was more important information included onto the back.

Reading through, Arthur quickly skimmed through an itinerary that listed what Arthur would experience throughout his trip. The trip to the All-American set was seemingly meant to take up most of the day according to the list, but Arthur didn’t mind when he read about how the set would provide several meals throughout along with getting to watch several scenes get filmed along with a meet and greet with several of the actors.

As his hands continued to travel down the sheet as he read, his attention soon was caught by the firm slip of paper affixed to the bottom of the paper. Upon looking down, Arthur’s eyes widened as he saw that an airline ticket was already ready to go for him. While it was a relief that the studio had seemingly already worked ahead to get everything ready for the trip, the man was understandably confused about how they knew where he was located and concerned about when he was going to go on this trip. While seeing that the date was on November 22nd, Arthur was quite caught off-guard when he checked his work schedule and realized that he had somehow requested that day off. He had no idea why he would have done that, but he wasn’t going to fret about it too much when it benefited him.

Regardless of how the date aligned so well, Arthur was quite relieved to find that there would be no hassle in terms of getting in trouble at his job. It was a miracle that he had even received this surprise trip in the first place, so Arthur opted to not ask too many questions. In this quick acceptance of his surprise gift, Arthur failed to notice that the ticket was a one-way ticket rather than a round-trip, which would have given him a clue about the fact that his trip would end up becoming permanent. Instead, he quickly made his way back into his bedroom and began filling his suitcase with clothing that would work well with the humid LA weather he would soon be experiencing…

* * * * *

When the morning of the 22nd finally arrived and the alarm of his phone rang out, Arthur woke up with a smile on his face rather than his usual routine of groaning and hitting the snooze button. Excited for the impending trip, the man quickly got out of bed and dragged himself into the bathroom to shower. Upon getting done and tying a towel around his waist, Arthur made his way back into the bedroom. Just as he began to pull the towel off and change into clothes though, a loud pounding against his door caused Arthur to gasp and scream in shock. While trying to catch his breath from the real life jump-scare he had just experienced, Arthur slowly made his way towards the door of his room and took a look through the peephole.

While looking through, Arthur’s eyes caught sight of a burly yet well-dressed man who stood firm with his thick hands at his hips while looking at the door with an intimidating yet stoic expression.

“Uh hello, can I help you?” Arthur inquired, checking for a moment to confirm that the deadbolt and chain on his door were both fully locked. While this was certainly a realistic reaction to seeing the stranger outside his door, the British man let out a deep breath of relief and mentally scolded himself when the man stated that he was from S-C Productions and he was the driver to take him to the airport for his LA trip. Upon telling him that he was in the middle of getting dressed, the driver sternly told him that he had ten minutes before he was leaving - regardless of whether Arthur was in tow or not.

After apologizing and saying he’ll be done as soon as he can, Arthur rushed away from the door and began to change. Given the fact that he would be spending several hours in the cramped seating of a plane, he opted to dress in loose garments that would provide some much needed comfort throughout the hours-long trip. After quickly devouring a small bowl of cereal, Arthur grabbed onto his suitcases and made his way towards the door.

Before turning the knob and exiting though, Arthur stopped in front of the large full-body mirror on the backside of the room’s door to verify that he looked presentable given his haste. As he looked at himself and gave a slight smile to see how others would perceive him, the man was relieved to see that his biceps looked rather impressive given how much skin the tank top revealed. While the rest of his torso wasn’t nearly as buff as his biceps, the man still recognized the fact that he looked better than most people given his semi-regular gym routine. However, the continued staring at his mirror caused him to traverse down a dark mental rabbit hole of self-doubt considering that he would soon be in LA where it seemed like practically everyone would be a 10/10 with gorgeous physiques and perfect visages galore.

Shaking his head in hopes of pushing those intrusive thoughts away, the man finally took a deep breath and turned the handle to begin his journey to Los Angeles. Upon awkwardly introducing himself to the burly driver, Arthur followed the man as he led him down to the ground floor. Throughout the journey from exiting his flat and putting his luggage into the car, Arthur couldn’t help but stare at the impressively-built man. The man, who introduced himself as Wes, had a physique that was filling out the stylish black suit to the brink of having the fabric tear. Following behind Wes was a blessing in disguise for the British man as he got to watch the man’s perky yet firm ass fill out the seat of his pants and bounce with each footfall he took.

Throughout the drive to the airport, Arthur tried his best to make small talk with the intimidating man. Unfortunately, conversations quickly stalled when Wes told Arthur that he needed to focus on traffic to get him to the airport as quickly and safely as possible. Upon arriving at the airport, where Wes quickly told him to get out before speeding off to do another job, Arthur momentarily mourned for the missed connection he had with the man.

But as he grabbed his luggage and began to walk through security and towards his departure gate, Arthur’s mind shifted focus away from Wes and back onto his thirst for Cody. Due to just how excited yet exhausted he was from the early morning wake-up call, Arthur found himself soon falling asleep upon putting his luggage away and taking his seat. As he quickly fell into a state of slumber though, the continued thoughts of Cody Christian and his thirst for the man soon led to a rather erotic sex dream that involved Arthur worshipping the hunk’s muscular body and easily helped the hours-long flight fly by as he felt no desire to wake up no matter how much turbulence he felt.

Upon the plane landing and a young female attendant softly shaking him awake, Arthur moved in a dazed state as he exited the plane. Given his total discombobulation about the new area along with not knowing where to go to pick up the luggage, he opted to just follow the crowd through the terminal towards the correct area. Luckily, Arthur’s luggage was one of the first few pieces to arrive, so he was able to escape the large crowd and make his way towards the taxi area of the airport where the letter stated that someone from the studio would be there to pick him up.

After a bit of getting lost and having to ask for directions, Arthur finally made his way to the correct area where he looked through the long aisle of drivers holding signs with their intended client’s name. At first annoyed that it took two rounds of searching through the crowd of drivers to find the one holding his name, Arthur quickly began to recognize why when he walked up to the hand extended through the crowd and discovered that his driver was a rail-thin man cramped between two chubby drivers.

Upon asking for the men to move, Arthur pulled the mousy man through and revealed himself. “Hey there, I’m Arthur. Are you the driver from S-C Productions?” he inquired, trying to make sure he wasn’t taking the wrong Arthur’s ride.

While he awaited a response, the British man quickly took a look up and down to observe the man he’d seemingly be working with throughout the entire trip. The man was rather tiny, with a height that just barely reached 5’5” and a weight that refused to go past 95 pounds. The man’s face looked rather impressive with the angular jawline, high cheekbones, and bright blue eyes, but Peter’s thick black-rimmed glasses and low weight counteracted those features and instead made him look nerdy and rather malnourished.

“Hey there, I’m not a driver but I am here to pick you up and take you to the studio though. I’m Peter,” he began, stopping to extend a hand out, which Arthur quickly accepted as they did a quick handshake. “I’m an intern at the studio, they needed someone to pick you up and I volunteered. It certainly beats doing coffee runs and dealing with difficult actors, am I right?” he said, his high-pitched and whiny voice shifting into a deep and wheezy chuckle that understandably took Arthur off-guard.

“Oh ok, uh, it’s nice to meet you then Peter,” Arthur responded, returning the chuckle to help the dorky-looking man not feel self-conscious before pulling his lips into a light smile. Although Peter tried his best to appear official by offering to take Arthur’s luggage, the British man feared possibly injuring the man due to how hefty his bags were and thus declined the offer and said he’d carry them himself. At first, Peter seemed a bit caught off-guard by the kind behavior, but when his expression turned appreciative with a wide smile, it was clear that the young intern appreciated not being treated as the help for once.

So upon leading the way to the black Escalade that the studio had told Peter to use to pick him up, Arthur deposited his bags into the backseat before hopping into the passenger seat. As Peter finally put the car into motion and drove out of the airport, Arthur’s eyes widened as the intern surprised the retail cashier with a quick little tour of LA as they made their way towards the studio. It was incredibly exciting for a cinephile like Arthur to get a quick glimpse of famous locales like the Hollywood sign or the Griffith Observatory. Despite the slight intimidation those locales provided in terms of realizing the impact and level of celebrity he was going to be around as a result, Arthur found himself remaining calm as Peter finally made his way towards the studio entrance.

After making a moment of small talk with the security guards out front, Peter showed off an ID badge that allowed the gates to open and for the intern to continue driving. As he made his way through the busy backlot, Arthur’s eyes couldn’t help but wildly dart in hopes of seeing any famous celebrities in the midst of walking to set or coming out of any of the trailers that lined the outer edges of the road. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to see anyone of note beyond what appeared to be some stunt actors decked out in some recognizable costumes.

While he continued to search around, Arthur’s frantic attempts were suddenly interrupted as Peter put the car into park and caused you to violently lurch forward from the fast braking. Upon looking over towards the meek man, who apologized for the abrupt stop, Arthur decided to ignore the whiplash and unbuckle his seatbelt. Before exiting though, Peter quickly ran through the itinerary to remind him of the schedule for the day. First, Peter would give Arthur an in-depth tour of the All-American sets that weren’t currently in use. Then after getting some lunch, Arthur would be ushered to the current filming locations where he’d be able to watch some takes and meet the actors of the show. Upon finishing that, he’d be led to the writers room, where he could discuss screenwriting with them, before heading to get some dinner courtesy of the studio’s lavish buffet. After this was finished then, Peter would drive Arthur to the hotel that the contest had purchased for the night.

With the itinerary for the day repeated to him by Peter, Arthur eagerly smiled before getting out of the car so the tour could finally begin. Luckily, the tour was fairly impressive to Arthur, as evident by the wide smile on his face as he saw the sets of the show and began to recall countless scenes (and gifs from Tumblr) where Cody was involved. Although there were many interesting sets that Peter led him through, Arthur was by far the most captivated by the set of the college gym. The mental images of several workout gifs that he had seen (and even jerked off to) continued to play in his mind as his hands grazed along the freshly cleaned equipment.

In all honesty, it was a bit of a bummer that it was so freshly cleaned because Arthur would have wanted nothing more than to get remnants of Cody’s sweat onto his fingers and catch a whiff of the surely alluring scent. Was it a bit creepy to think about getting off to an unsuspecting actor’s sweat? Sure, but Arthur knew that it was the wholehearted truth and felt no shame as a result.

Upon finishing up with that standout set, Peter followed it up by announcing that it was time for lunch given how hungry the Brit must be after the flight and drive to the studio. Although Arthur didn’t originally think about his appetite due to his excitement about eventually meeting Cody, the sudden gurgle deep in his gut was so loud that it echoed through the empty set and caused him to agree with Peter’s assumption. After following him through the seemingly empty studio, Arthur soon picked up on the sound of several distant voices that grew increasingly more prominent with each step he took. Peter pulled back a black curtain and motioned for Arthur to enter first, which caused him to quickly find himself in the middle of a craft services room. As the intern returned to the front to lead Arthur through the crowd of confused and curious low-tier members of the cast and crew, Peter took a moment to introduce Arthur to everyone and explain the reason behind his inclusion on set.

After Peter led him to the table to get a plate of food, which ended up being a filling yet basic meal of a sub sandwich and some chips, Arthur took the time to walk around and network with the crew members in between bites of his food. Given his own interest in film and the lesson plans that he’s had to do in the past involving cinematography, the man had a decent time talking with the lighting and camera operators to learn directly from them about their job and how they work to create the best possible show.

Although Arthur could have spent much longer chatting with people, the alarm of a clock rang out to signal that the end of lunch had arrived. While several of the crew members had their expressions sour as they returned to their job, Arthur stood out as he grinned in joy due to the realization that it was finally time to move onto his most anticipated part of the set visit - it was time to watch filming commence and meet some of the cast of the show.

As Peter led him through a door, Arthur was caught off-guard when the dense California air hit him. Looking around, the man soon discovered that not only was the set they were filming on was outside but it was a scene being filmed on a replica football field. Although the football field wasn’t completely legit given the fact that size constraints meant that they were shooting on a small plot of land rather than a 100 yard long area, the illusion was certainly still realistic to Arthur while seeing all of these actors decked out in football gear. In fact, the cameras were currently rolling as they filmed an actor sprinting before turning behind him to catch a football. Stunned at just how realistic the play felt, Arthur was utterly transfixed as the director called cut and the football player dropped the ball before sauntering out of the frame and gruffly demanding for someone to get him water.

Given Arthur’s own thirst for cocky and dominant men, his eyes remained trained on the mystery actor while admiring the man’s physique. From just that single take that Arthur observed, he was able to immediately pick up on how buff the man was. While watching that take as it occurred, his attention was instantly caught by the moderately firm set of quad muscles and the sizable ass that tightly bounced against the athletic shorts that he was wearing. Although the man wasn’t a real football player, he certainly could have been one with such an impressive build!

While Arthur watched the still-helmeted actor move to the side and get crowded by a bunch of assistants (where one of them handed him a styrofoam cup full of water), he couldn’t force himself to direct his attention elsewhere. Even as Peter basically dragged Arthur closer towards some of the cast and crew, Arthur remained utterly transfixed by the man’s sweat-soaked skin that glimmered in the sunlight and only showcased an impressive set of biceps that caused the fabric around his arms to bunch up. As such, Arthur endured an incredible shock when the mystery man finally pulled off the helmet and revealed that the man was none other than Cody Christian himself.

“Ho- holy shit,” Arthur said under his breath, although his panic and shock caused it to be a bit louder than he intended as he saw several people turn to look at him confused. Now that’s one way to make an entrance, Arthur thought to himself, instantly replaying the scene he witnessed in his head over and over. Of course, the reveal that Cody was practically next to him elicited a physical response in the form of a sizable bulge that pressed out against his shorts. After moving his hands down to try and conceal the untimely boner that he had sprung, Arthur’s thirsting session was interrupted as Peter caught his attention and told him that it was time to meet some of the cast while they took a break from filming.

Although he meant no disrespect to the other cast members that Peter introduced him to, Arthur couldn’t help but make quick small talk with the people before using his peripheral vision to see what Cody was up to. Based on the few glances he had taken throughout, it seemed as though the man’s personality wasn’t too far from the characters that he often played. From what he could see and partially hear, it seemed as though Cody was having a tantrum and yelling at his assistants and other crew members due to how hot the conditions were outside and how they didn’t respect him enough to keep him hydrated by having water ready for him.

As previously mentioned, Arthur loved himself a bad boy, so while this would be a turn-off to some people, it only made the actor more desirable in his eyes. While the cashier certainly didn’t like how Cody was treated the staff, his mind twisted the man’s behavior and speech into a more sexual context as he envisioned himself intimate with the hunky actor. It wasn’t often that the asexual had vivid sex dreams, but something about Cody just unlocked something deep in him that left him yearning for any kind of physical intimacy imaginable.

This sexual daydream was quickly interrupted by Peter, who tapped Arthur on his shoulder and broke up out of that daze. “Hey Arthur, was there anyone here on set that you were specifically wanting to meet today? If so, I can try to see if I can get a meeting with them. If they’re not here on set today, I could always try to pull some strings by contacting their agent or manager and arranging a FaceTime session with them,” he inquired, giving a reassuring smile that caused Arthur to lean in and whisper Cody’s name. “Ah I see, well let’s see what I can do about that then huh,” Peter continued, smiling and patting Arthur on the back before using that arm to push him forward towards his celebrity crush.

Even though the journey was only a few feet, it felt like an eternity for Arthur as he watched his body traveling closer and closer to Cody. Once he was two feet away from the actor’s group surrounding him, Arthur couldn’t help but gasp as Peter loudly spoke to gain their attention. “Excuse me, excuse me,” he began, smiling as his voice was able to break through the small group and get everyone (including Cody) to turn and look at Peter and Arthur’s direction. “Hey there, this is Arthur Harris, he won a contest through the studio for a special set tour and meet and greet with the cast of All-American. According to Arthur, he’s a big fan of yours Mr. Christian, so I thought it would be nice to properly introduce you two,” he said, keeping a chipper smile on his face even though Cody’s expression remained cold and quite clearly rageful.

“Uh hi there, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Arthur stammered out, which caused a few people in Cody’s posse to pause upon hearing the British accent he was speaking with. “I’ve been a big fan for years, so it’s really awesome to get this-,” he continued, suddenly interrupted when Cody huffed loudly and began to speak.

“Hey dude, it’s great that you won this random contest or whatever, but I’m like really not in the mood for a meet and greet. Plus, I’m like, really in the zone with my acting right now. So even if I wanted to spend my precious time chatting with some obsessed British fan, I really don’t have the right mentality for this right now,” he coldly said, which immediately provided a soul-crushing blow to Arthur given how direct and biting his words were.

Even though the man had never met the British man before, his phrasing was so direct it seemed as though they had been enemies for years! Although he wasn’t the most vocal person around, the cruel words had struck a chord with Arthur and thus he felt a desire to make his opinion heard by the cocky actor. But just as he began to take a breath to speak, Arthur was interrupted as Cody angrily cursed and caused everyone on set to look at the interaction going on.

“Bro, I really don’t give a shit about what you have to say. Like, you’re a nobody and I’m Cody Christian. Everything about you pales in comparison to me. So how about this, why don’t you get the fuck off my set so we can finish our scenes and I can go home. The sooner I can forget about you and your dumbass fanboy behavior, the better!”

Throughout the entire experience, Arthur could feel tears starting to well up in his eyes as he looked around and found that everyone there bore witness to his humiliation at the hands of the actor. Although he wanted so badly to tell the actor off and give him a taste of his own medicine, the fear of further punishment and potentially causing the actor to snap and get violent towards him caused him to back down. Instead, he allowed Peter to lead the way as the intern led the embarrassed man away from set to somewhere more secluded.

This location ended up being a small crew trailer that was quite a bit away from the liveliness of the active film crews. Upon entering, Arthur finally allowed his emotions to show as he began to actively tear up and try to release the pent-up emotions that he was feeling. Throughout, Peter found himself trying his best to console the man and lift his spirits, but it seemed to be no use. Then a light bulb suddenly flicked on in Peter’s head and caused him to smile and look down towards Arthur.

“Hey, don’t get upset about that asshole. What would you say if I potentially had a way to get some revenge on Cody?” Peter inquired, which immediately caused Arthur to stop his sniffling and look up.

“Wha- what do you mean?” he said, taking a deep breath in between his words as he tried to calm himself back down.

“Let’s just say that I have… something special that could teach Cody a lesson and make him regret treating you like that. What would you say to that?”

“Say no more then, I’m interested. That asshole has no right to treat people like that just because he’s an actor. I want him to pay for what he’s done, I want him to feel the same intense sense of humiliation and shame that I feel right now…”

In response, Peter reached into the pocket of his pants and searched around for a moment. Upon pulling it out and extending his hand outwards, the nerdy intern dropped his clenched fist and allowed a necklace to unfurl out in front of Arthur’s face. “Well, I think I have something in mind that can do just that…”

Looking at it, Arthur saw that the necklace itself seemed rather simple and basic given the fact that it was a silver key with a small silver chain looped through it. But as he grabbed it with his hands to inspect it, a full body shiver coursed through Arthur’s body, which was seemingly enough to get him to go along with whatever plan Peter had in mind.

“Ok, tell me what’s going to happen then and what I need to do…”

* * * * *

At first, Arthur was quite worried that he wouldn’t be able to find Cody’s trailer despite Peter’s directions, but it seemed as though Cody’s ego made sure that that was impossible. While walking through the backlot, Arthur eventually stumbled in front of a trailer that proudly had Cody’s headshot taped to the front door along with a bold and unmissable text that displayed his full name. According to Peter, Cody often took breaks alone in the trailer around this time to “unwind” and “get in character”, so the duo figured that this would be the perfect opportunity for Arthur to enact his revenge against his tormentor. So after having a moment to take a deep breath and steady himself, Arthur gave himself an encouraging nod as he pulled open the trailer door and quickly walked into the premises.

Of course, as Arthur entered up the steps and made eye contact with the hunky actor as he sat back in a leather recliner, the man’s expression quickly changed from the lax and seemingly happy expression he was displaying. Bizarrely though, the expression it became wasn’t of rage but rather total confusion.

“Wha- who the fuck are you?” Cody inquired, which only furthered Arthur’s annoyance and dedication to his current plan. The asshole didn’t even recognize him even though the interaction just occurred less than an hour ago!

Feeling emboldened by the power that Peter had seemingly gifted him, Arthur found himself standing strong and angrily responding to the actor’s questions. “I’m the wrong guy to mess with, you fucking asshole,” he cried out, taking a few steps closer to Cody and crossing his arms.

“Wait, you’re that fucking obsessed fan from earlier,” Cody sneered, getting a bit uncomfortable being stuck with who he assumed to be a total creep. “How did you find my goddamn trailer? What, did you think you were going to just come in here and try to see me naked or something? Get the fuck out before I call security and get your pervy ass put in jail!”

“Yeah, that’s not happening Cody. You’ve been an asshole to the wrong people, it’s about time you pay for all of the bullshit you’ve put me and this crew through. Luckily, I have the perfect way to make sure that you learn your lesson,” he began, stopping before revealing the answer and thus causing Cody to get a rare shiver of panic to course through his body.

“What, are you going to try and hurt me because I wouldn’t say hi and take a fucking selfie with you? Grow the fuck up! I was working, I don’t have the time for such worthless bullshit!”

“I’m not going to hurt you, but I am going to make you regret the way you not only treated me but those poor assistants of yours. There’s no reason for you to be so stuck up and rude to people. I was a big fan of yours and I just wanted to get the ability to properly say hi and tell you how much I appreciated your work. Instead, you brushed me off and made me feel worthless like those poor assistants of yours.”

“Oh, so you’re making threats now huh?” Cody retorted, immediately pushing himself up from the recliner and sauntering his way over towards Arthur. With each step, the actor tried to make himself appear even more intimidating by clenching his fists and cracking his knuckles, allowing the noise of the popping to fill the empty trailer until he was face-to-face with the fan. “I don’t take threats lightly, so I don’t think you know who you’re messing with. I don’t think you thought this plan through bro…”

“You think so? Actually, you’re exactly where I need you to be,” Arthur responded, a wide grin emerging onto his face as a sudden tingle emerged from his chest.

Looking down at it caused Cody’s eyes to follow suit, which caused him to discover the gem on the necklace that Arthur was now wearing violently shaking against his firm chest. While this originally could have been explained by the jock actor as some cheap gimmick or gag gift, the sudden levitation of the necklace was unexplainable.

“Holy shit,” Cody exclaimed, watching as the key rose up until it was no longer hanging around Arthur’s neck but rather extended straight out towards Cody’s own neck. “Wha, what is that shit? Are you a goddamn witch?”

Before Arthur could offer up a response to the hilarious assumption though, the key suddenly jerked forward and caused Arthur to be dragged along for the ride. Given the fact that there wasn’t much free space for the man to move given Cody standing in front of him, Arthur instinctively closed his eyes and braced for impact as it tugged him directly towards the confused actor. Despite the lack of any physical impact of their two bodies, the tugging seemingly had an unintended side effect as Arthur found himself quickly drifting off into unconsciousness as his newly comatose body remained stuck in place. If he had been awake and looked down at the necklace though, Arthur would have seen that the key had somehow plunged itself deep into the center of Cody’s neck and caused his gasps of shock to become muted.

Although it was painless for Cody, it was still quite terrifying to endure finding himself no longer able to speak as his throat was stabbed by the key. So while his mind originally focused on the fear of no longer being able to speak or deliver lines, a new fear began to emerge as he opened his eyes and watched as the crazed fan was going through an indescribable sight. The longer it looked, it seemed as though pieces of Arthur’s body were seemingly being pulled off of Arthur’s body and turning into particles that were sucked into the thick silver key like a vacuum. It was quite a horrific sight to watch as the man lost limbs and several pieces of his body until only his head and neck remained levitating in front of him. But soon enough, this too dispersed into particles that were also transferred into the mysterious yet magical key in front of him.

Even without a neck wrapped around it, this key remained stuck in place lodged into Cody’s neck. Cody could only gasp in shock and allow tears to fall down his face as he could feel motion emerging with the key. Looking down, he watched as the key somehow turned itself sideways into his flesh and made it appear as though it was unlocking a doorway.

In reality though, the necklace itself was a magical item that promised the ability to transfer souls. Upon getting in close contact of an intended target, the necklace would go into action by inserting itself into the subject’s neck and allowing the wearer’s body to evaporate as their soul was transferred into the necklace as a sort of holding chamber. Upon having the necklace turned, it unlocked the usually impenetrable soul of the human body and allowed for the wearer’s soul to invade.

So as this unlocking occurred, the entirety of Arthur’s soul traversed into Cody’s neck and began to disperse itself throughout all of Cody’s body. With each additional second after this invasion, Cody found himself growing fainter and fainter as he lost all of his motor control and senses. Once every piece of this was taken from Cody and traded to its new host, Cody’s soul lost consciousness and caused the body of the hunky actor to suddenly collapse and fall to the floor. Upon making an impact, the key suddenly popped out of Cody’s throat and bounced across the wood floors of the trailer a few times before finally settling.

Out of nowhere, Arthur suddenly gasped as he was slingshot back into the realm of reality. Upon finding himself on the floor of the trailer, the man grimaced and groaned as he reached onto the end of the leather recliner and pushed himself back up to his feet. Looking around for a moment, Arthur’s eyes widened as he looked around and realized that he was alone now. As he took a look down at himself and saw the firm physique stretched out in the same clothes that he had previously seen Cody wearing, it didn’t take many more context clues for him to figure out what had occurred. “Holy shit, I’m Cody Christian,” he said, chuckling as his cock began to immediately harden at the thought of being in the body of his celebrity crush.

Eager to get a better look at himself, Arthur quickly grabbed onto the necklace on the floor and put it on before pacing through the small yet spacious trailer in search of a mirror. Upon finding a bathroom door and heading inside, the man flicked the light on and smiled gleefully as he saw Cody Christian staring back at his reflection. What soon followed was a rather intimate and erotic session of feeling up his body and admiring the gorgeous physique. As he lifted up his arms and flexed, the man’s cock throbbed and began leaking pre-cum due to just how erotic this all was. He was already a fan of transformation content, but the concept of actually experiencing a transformation of his own into one of his celebrity crushes was truly a dream come true.

“Serves you right you fucking asshole,” Arthur remarked, chuckling while hearing the sound of Cody’s voice saying his words now. “Yeah, I know you’re still down there deep down. A little perk of using this trusty necklace made it so you’re still able to witness and feel everything that I do while I’m in control. You made me feel extreme amounts of shame and embarrassment from just simply saying hello, so I’m going to make every day of your life a living hell now.”

Before Arthur could continue explaining how exactly he was going to go about torturing the real soul of Cody Christian, a knock on the actor’s trailer door caused him to stop. Upon taking a moment to calm down and try his best to adopt Cody’s talking style, Arthur took a deep inhale and exhaled before making his way out towards the door. Pulling it open though, the man smiled widely as he saw Peter standing on Cody’s doorstep.

“Did it work?” the intern asked, trying his best to play it cool in case the real Cody was still around.

While he at first tried to play it cool and pretend as though he was really Cody, Arthur couldn’t keep the charade up long and thus broke character by curling his lips into a devious smirk. “Oh yeah, it worked,” Arthur said with a chuckle. “The Cody Christian that you know is now no longer in control…”

Opening the door wide to allow Peter inside, Arthur quickly slammed the trailer door shut and locked it as he prepared to get a crash course on acting and get a head start learning Cody’s lines before he’s required to head back to set in 20 minutes. Although it was certainly a struggle at first trying to comprehend the intricacies of acting and learning what Asher’s plotlines have been so far this season, it was totally worth it when it was finally time to change into the clothing necessary for the next scenes. When Arthur was handed a hanger that contained Asher’s football uniform, the man was buzzing with excitement as he headed into the bathroom and changed into his clothing. Despite wanting so badly to spend time checking out his new body nude and admiring every inch of his godly new muscles, Arthur was adamant about the fact that the new Cody Christian wouldn’t be tardy or a drama queen in any regard. As such, he pushed aside his erotic urges and instead pulled the uniform on.

While doing so, Arthur still had a blast as he was able to find his two favorite things colliding together into one thing. Not only was he now in the body of his celebrity crush but he was also getting dressed in an accurate football that was quite similar to those that the NFL players he thirsted for wore. It was an absolute dream come true! This was especially true taking a moment to check himself out in the mirror and seeing how the padded football pants helped his thighs and ass look impeccable while the skintight compression shirt fully showcased the strong arms, modest pecs, and broad shoulders that he could now call his own.

Upon pulling on the shoulder pads and then putting on the jersey, Arthur’s cock, which was now a few inches longer, was consistently throbbing as the look was completed and he saw his reflection. He truly looked and felt like a football star! With this much needed boost of confidence from Cody’s previous taunting, Arthur was most certainly in high spirits. This was especially apparent as he looked into the mirror and gave himself a pep talk. “You’ve fucking got this, you’re Cody Christian and you’re even better than that shitty imposter!”

With this pep talk completed while also riding on the high of further tormenting the real Cody trapped deep down inside, Arthur gave an elated grin towards his reflection before exiting the bathroom and allowing Peter to lead him to set.

* * * * *

As shooting for the day was called, Arthur Harris was quite relieved to know how well his first day as an actor went. While remembering lines was one of his biggest worries, it seemed to be seamless for him as if he had gained Cody’s own ability to act and recall lines. The biggest issue actually came in the form of having to do the full-on football scenes that required him to actually run plays and catch the ball while in the role of Cody’s wide-receiver character. Luckily though, a quick refresher from some crew on the show was able to help Arthur fully grasp the plays and successfully nail the scene by rushing down the fake field and scoring the game-winning touchdown. Although it was obviously fake given the field and the numerous takes it took to get it right, Arthur still felt like a star football player when he “scored” and clenched the win for his character’s team.

While his time watching the shooting of some scenes was relatively brief, it was quite apparent that things were dense due to Cody’s diva behavior. But given the fact that the real Cody was no longer around and Arthur was on a mission of turning Cody into a more respectful and calm person, things began to feel a bit less restrained as the crew and cast began to interact more and thus started to create a sense of harmony on set.

This continued into the night until filming was finally finished after doing a workout scene in the college gym that Arthur had often seen hot clips of Cody working out in. It was quite mind boggling to find himself in Cody’s body while in the area that had led him to have plenty of wanking material. Even more wild was the fact that the scene called for Cody to be working out shirtless (something that the crew told him was due to feedback from focus groups that were aiming to appeal to more female viewers). Given the fact that Arthur hadn’t really gotten a great chance to check out his shirtless body, he was more than willing to go along with such a concept and eagerly peeled off his shirt.

While the crew offered to mist his skin to make him appear like he had been sweating, Arthur was quick the shut the idea down. “Nah, I’d like to go method for this scene,” he cockily remarked, giving a wide smile to the director which seemingly convinced him to agree. With permission granted, Arthur spent a few minutes working out on several machines until he was dewy enough for the camera to pick up on it. 

Once the scene was shot and filming concluded for the day, Arthur opted to stay back and spend a little bit extra time in the gym set. After saying goodbye and thanking the crew for their hard work, Arthur watched as everyone slowly filtered out and went home for the day besides himself and Peter. Upon waiting a few minutes to verify that there were no stragglers that could return in case they forgot something, the duo finally began to speak and discuss the events of the day.

After Peter gave high praise to Arthur for his performance as Cody Christian, the duo shifted gears to discuss some other elements to their deal. Obviously, given the fact that Peter was able to provide the unbelievable reality of possessing Cody, there would be a requirement to reward Peter for the gift he had bestowed upon Arthur. Although there could have been a sizable monetary requirement for such a priceless gift, Peter’s ask was quite simple. All he wanted in return for giving Arthur Cody’s body was the chance to admire the actor’s physique and achieve his fantasy of getting Cody Christian off however he desired.

Given the fact that Arthur knew that he would surely be horny in the aftermath of possessing Cody, it was a no-brainer for him to accept such a proposition. Not only did he get someone else willing to worship his body, but he also got to cum in the process! With the agreement out of the way, Arthur wasted no time pulling off his clothing and revealing to the both of them for the first time the nude physique of Cody Christian. 

As Arthur lifted his arms up and flexed his biceps, Peter was quick to jump into action by peppering kisses along his firm upper arms and running his tongue along the musky pits of the freshly sweaty actor. All through the experience, Arthur had a look of pure elation on his face as he savored the sensation of feeling incredibly strong and masculine. Although he had gained a rather impressive physique from his years of working out, the man was still rather meek and thus didn’t really use those muscles for much when it came to any romance and intimacy. With Cody though, that would all change since he felt like the total package.

To make matters even erotic, Peter was desperate to add more humiliation for the real Cody by moaning his name as he ran his arms along Arthur’s back and firmly used a hand to squeeze each perky ass cheek that he now had. While his hands then traversed back up Cody’s broad back and moved to the front, Arthur even chimed in talking about how great it was to have his body felt up by someone smaller than him. This tit-for-tat continued between the duo as Peter cupped Arthur’s pecs and ran his tongue along the man’s washboard abs while Arthur continued on the slight taunting towards the thinner man.

The idea seemed to be rather effective, as both men were soon rock hard and begging for release. Luckily, Peter recognized this fact for both of them and opted to do something about it. As he got down onto his knees and began to focus on toying with Arthur’s new cock, the former British man fell back onto the seat of the bench press and lifted his arms up while gasping. Despite seeming like a total novice when it came to sex, it appeared as though Peter was an expert as he sensually ran his tongue along Arthur’s new 9.5” shaft and even took a moment run his hands underneath Cody’s sweat-stained shorts to play with the straight actor’s tight asshole. Luckily though, the main event finally arrived as Peter opened his mouth and put his lips around Arthur’s cock. Before long, the two of them were loudly moaning (although Peter’s was muffled due to just how wide his mouth was spread attempting to wrap around the girthy manhood) as they both pushed desperately towards completion. Within seconds, the inevitable finally arrived as the duo came in unison, with Arthur’s thick load taking a quick journey down the back of Peter’s throat while Peter’s own cum splattered against his underwear in an intense fashion.

After Peter finished sucking and pulled his mouth off of Cody’s cock, the duo both laid down for a few minutes to catch their breath from such an erotic and unbelievable experience. When Arthur first received the invitation for the trip from Nate, he had no idea of just how life-changing it would be. Not only did he get to teach a cocky asshole a much-needed lesson, but Arthur also got a new body and life out of it… and the body of his idol no less! It was a dream come true, so much so that Arthur quickly said as much as he logged into his Discord account to send a message to Nate saying exactly that. While he promised to explain more later, Arthur ended the message by saying that the gift was the best thing he could have received.

Now eager to get out of the studio and explore what this new life has in store for him, Arthur said his goodbyes to Peter while talking about how he was excited to see him tomorrow. Although there was certainly no real attraction that Arthur felt for the meek nerd, it was safe to say that they would be friends forever due to the kindness that Peter had done for him. As he finally made his return to Cody’s trailer, Arthur rifled through the rather grand closet that had countless designer brands hung up. Feeling rather proud of himself for such a great performance as Cody Christian, Arthur opted to pull out a luxury suit and put it on. It was quite erotic to see the final result as he looked into the reflection in his bathroom mirror, especially given how form-fitting it was with his muscular build!

“Let’s go see what the life of Cody Christian has to offer huh?” He said to his reflection, lifting his arms up and giving a cocky flex that was punctuated with a wink to just further the humiliation towards the soul stuck powerless in his own body.  After grabbing Cody’s phone and wallet, a quick search through the trailer provided a set of car keys. Making his way out of the trailer, the man was quite amused to click the lock button of his key fob and see the lights of a brand new sports car light up.

Upon unlocking it and getting into the driver’s seat, the man oohed and ahhed at the leather seats he had as he turned the car over and felt the car purr to life. As he took a moment to press his foot onto the gas pedal and feel the engine powerfully rev up to the point where his body was shivering, a cocky smirk emerged on Arthur’s face as he felt drunk on unbridled power. Not only was he in a powerful car, but he was also now the proud owner of an even powerful body and life. All of those years of thirsting and blindly stanning the actor had paid off as Arthur was now for all intents and purposes Cody Christian through and through. With a body like this, he could get any man or woman he desired along with any role given his Prince Charming level good looks.

Even though he didn’t have a license or a car back in the UK, the brand new Cody Christian still felt no worries as he sped off into the night. He was a lucky man after all, and there was no way that he’d end up losing when he looked and felt this good!

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

This is your brain on fraud apologetics

In 1998, two Stanford students published a paper in Computer Networks entitled “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine,” in which they wrote, “Advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers.”

https://research.google/pubs/pub334/

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/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

The co-authors were Lawrence Page and Sergey Brin, and the “large-scale hypertextual web search-engine” they were describing was their new project, which they called “Google.” They were 100% correct — prescient, even!

On Wednesday night, a friend came over to watch some TV with us. We ordered out. We got scammed. We searched for a great local Thai place we like called Kiin and clicked a sponsored link for a Wix site called “Kiinthaila.com.” We should have clicked the third link down (kiinthaiburbank.com).

We got scammed. The Wix site was a lookalike for Kiin Thai, which marked up their prices by 15% and relayed the order to our local, mom-and-pop, one-branch restaurant. The restaurant knew it, too — they called us and told us they were canceling the order, and said we could still come get our food, but we’d have to call Amex to reverse the charge.

As it turned out, the scammers double-billed us for our order. I called Amex, who advised us to call back in a couple days when the charge posted to cancel it — in other words, they were treating it as a regular customer dispute, and not a systemic, widespread fraud (there’s no way this scammer is just doing this for one restaurant).

In the grand scheme of things, this is a minor hassle, but boy, it’s haunting to watch the quarter-century old prophecy of Brin and Page coming true. Search Google for carpenters, plumbers, gas-stations, locksmiths, concert tickets, entry visas, jobs at the US Post Office or (not making this up) tech support for Google products, and the top result will be a paid ad for a scam. Sometimes it’s several of the top ads.

This kind of “intermediation” business is actually revered in business-schools. As Douglas Rushkoff has written, the modern business wisdom reveres “going meta” — not doing anything useful, but rather, creating a chokepoint between people who do useful things and people who want to pay for those things, and squatting there, collecting rent:

https://rushkoff.medium.com/going-meta-d42c6a09225e

It’s the ultimate passive income/rise and grind side-hustle: It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to discover a whole festering nest of creeps on Tiktok talking about how they pay Mechanical Turks to produce these lookalike sites at scale.

This mindset is so pervasive that people running companies with billions in revenue and massive hoards of venture capital run exactly the same scam. During lockdown, companies like Doordash, Grubhub and Uber Eats stood up predatory lookalike websites for local restaurants, without their consent, and played monster-in-the-middle, tricking diners into ordering through them:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/19/we-are-beautiful/#man-in-the-middle

These delivery app companies were playing a classic enshittification game: first they directed surpluses to customers to lock them in (heavily discounting food), then they directed surplus to restaurants (preferential search results, free delivery, low commissions) — then, having locked in both consumers and producers, they harvested the surplus for themselves.

Today, delivery apps charge massive premiums to both eaters and restaurants, load up every order with junk fees, and clone the most successful restaurants out of ghost kitchens — shipping containers in parking lots crammed with low-waged workers cranking out orders for 15 different fake “virtual restaurants”:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/01/autophagic-buckeyes/#subsidized-autophagia

Delivery apps speedran the enshittification cycle, but Google took a slower path to get there. The company has locked in billions of users (e.g. by paying billions to be the default search on Safari and Firefox and using legal bullying to block third party Android device-makers from pre-installing browsers other than Chrome). For years, it’s been leveraging our lock-in to prey on small businesses, getting them to set up Google Business Profiles.

These profiles are supposed to help Google distinguish between real sellers and scammers. But Kiin Thai has a Google Business Profile, and searching for “kiin thai burbank” brings up a “Knowledge Panel” with the correct website address — on a page that is headed with a link to a scam website for the same business. Google, in other words, has everything it needs to flag lookalike sites and confirm them with their registered owners. It would cost Google money to do this — engineer-time to build and maintain the system, content moderator time to manually check flagged listings, and lost ad-revenue from scammers — but letting the scams flourish makes Google money, at the expense of Google users and Google business customers.

Now, Google has an answer for this: they tell merchants who are being impersonated by ad-buying scammers that all they need to do is outbid them for the top ad-spot. This is a common approach — Amazon has a $31b/year “ad business” that’s mostly its own platform sellers bidding against each other to show you fake results for your query. The first five screens of Amazon search results are 50% ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

This is “going meta,” so naturally, Meta is doing it too: Facebook and Instagram have announced a $12/month “verification” badge that will let you report impersonation and tweak the algorithm to make it more likely that the posts you make are shown to the people who explicitly asked to see them:

https://www.vox.com/recode/2023/2/21/23609375/meta-verified-twitter-blue-checkmark-badge-instagram-facebook

The corollary of this, of course, is that if you don’t pay, they won’t police your impersonators, and they won’t show your posts to the people who asked to see them. This is pure enshittification — the surplus from users and business customers is harvested for the benefit of the platform owners:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

The idea that merchants should master the platforms as a means of keeping us safe from their impersonators is a hollow joke. For one thing, the rules change all the time, as the platforms endlessly twiddle the knobs that determine what gets shown to whom:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

And they refuse to tell anyone what the rules are, because if they told you what the rules were, you’d be able to bypass them. Content moderation is the only infosec domain where “security through obscurity” doesn’t get laughed out of the room:

https://doctorow.medium.com/como-is-infosec-307f87004563

Worse: the one thing the platforms do hunt down and exterminate with extreme prejudice is anything that users or business-customers use to twiddle back — add-ons and plugins and jailbreaks that override their poor choices with better ones:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/29/23378541/the-og-app-instagram-clone-pulled-from-app-store

As I was submitting complaints about the fake Kiin scam-site (and Amex’s handling of my fraud call) to the FTC, the California Attorney General, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and Wix, I wrote a little Twitter thread about what a gross scam this is:

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1628948906657878016

The thread got more than two million reads and got picked up by Hacker News and other sites. While most of the responses evinced solidarity and frustration and recounted similar incidents in other domains, a significant plurality of the replies were scam apologetics — messages from people who wanted to explain why this wasn’t a problem after all.

The most common of these was victim-blaming: “you should have used an adblocker” or “never click the sponsored link.” Of course, I do use an ad-blocker — but this order was placed with a mobile browser, after an absentminded query into the Google search-box permanently placed on the home screen, which opens results in Chrome (where I don’t have an ad-blocker, so I can see material behind an ad-blocker-blocker), not Firefox (which does have an ad-blocker).

Now, I also have a PiHole on my home LAN, which blocks most ads even in a default browser — but earlier this day, I’d been on a public wifi network that was erroneously blocking a website (the always excellent superpunch.net) so I’d turned my wifi off, which meant the connection came over my phone’s 5G connection, bypassing the PiHole:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/28/shut-yer-pi-hole/

“Don’t click a sponsored link” — well, the irony here is that if you habitually use a browser with an ad-blocker, and you backstop it with a PiHole, you never see sponsored links, so it’s easy to miss the tiny “Sponsored” notification beside the search result. That goes double if you’re relaxing with a dinner guest on the sofa and ordering dinner while chatting.

There’s a name for this kind of security failure: the Swiss Cheese Model. We all have multiple defenses (in my case: foreknowledge of Google’s ad-scam problem, an ad-blocker in my browser, LAN-wide ad sinkholing). We also have multiple vulnerabilities (in my case: forgetting I was on 5G, being distracted by conversation, using a mobile device with a permanent insecure search bar on the homescreen, and being so accustomed to ad-blocked results that I got out of the habit of checking whether a result was an ad).

If you think you aren’t vulnerable to scams, you’re wrong — and your confidence in your invulnerability actually increases your risk. This isn’t the first time I’ve been scammed, and it won’t be the last — and every time, it’s been a Swiss Cheese failure, where all the holes in all my defenses lined up for a brief instant and left me vulnerable:

https://locusmag.com/2010/05/cory-doctorow-persistence-pays-parasites/

Other apologetics: “just call the restaurant rather than using its website.” Look, I know the people who say this don’t think I have a time-machine I can use to travel back to the 1980s and retrieve a Yellow Pages, but it’s hard not to snark at them, just the same. Scammers don’t just set up fake websites for your local businesses — they staff them with fake call-centers, too. The same search that takes you to a fake website will also take you to a fake phone number.

Finally, there’s “What do you expect Google to do? They can’t possibly detect this kind of scam.” But they can. Indeed, they are better situated to discover these scams than anyone else, because they have their business profiles, with verified contact information for the merchants being impersonated. When they get an ad that seems to be for the same business but to a different website, they could interrupt the ad process to confirm it with their verified contact info.

Instead, they choose to avoid the expense, and pocket the ad revenue. If a company promises to “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” I think we have the right to demand these kinds of basic countermeasures:

https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/our-approach/

The same goes for Amex: when a merchant is scamming customers, they shouldn’t treat complaints as “chargebacks” — they should treat them as reports of a crime in progress. Amex has the bird’s eye view of their transaction flow and when a customer reports a scam, they can backtrack it to see if the same scammer is doing this with other merchants — but the credit card companies make money by not chasing down fraud:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosalindadams/mastercard-visa-fraud

Wix also has platform-scale analytics that they could use to detect and interdict this kind of fraud — when a scammer creates a hundred lookalike websites for restaurants and uses Wix’s merchant services to process payments for them, that could trigger human review — but it didn’t.

Where do all of these apologetics come from? Why are people so eager to leap to the defense of scammers and their adtech and fintech enablers? Why is there such an impulse to victim-blame?

I think it’s fear: in their hearts, people — especially techies — know that they, too, are vulnerable to these ripoffs, but they don’t want to admit it. They want to convince themselves that the person who got scammed made an easily avoidable mistake, and that they themselves will never make a similar mistake.

This is doubly true for readerships on tech-heavy forums like Twitter or (especially) Hacker News. These readers know just how many vulnerabilities there are — how many holes are in their Swiss cheese — and they are also overexposed to rise-and-grind/passive income rhetoric.

This produces a powerful cognitive dissonance: “If all the ‘entrepreneurs’ I worship are just laying traps for the unwary, and if I am sometimes unwary, then I’m cheering on the authors of my future enduring misery.” The only way to resolve this dissonance — short of re-evaluating your view of platform capitalism or questioning your own immunity to scams — is to blame the victim.

The median Hacker News reader has to somehow resolve the tension between “just install an adblocker” and “Chrome’s extension sandbox is a dumpster fire and it’s basically impossible to know whether any add-on you install can steal every keystroke and all your other data”:

https://mattfrisbie.substack.com/p/spy-chrome-extension

In my Twitter thread, I called this “the worst of all possible timelines.” Everything we do is mediated by gigantic, surveillant monopolists that spy on us comprehensively from asshole to appetite — but none of them, not a 20th century payment giant nor a 21st century search giant — can bestir itself to use that data to keep us safe from scams.

Next Thu (Mar 2) I'll be in Brussels for Antitrust, Regulation and the Political Economy, along with a who's-who of European and US trustbusters. It's livestreamed, and both in-person and virtual attendance are free:

https://www.brusselsconference.com/registration

On Fri (Mar 3), I'll be in Graz for the Elevate Festival:

https://elevate.at/diskurs/programm/event/e23doctorow/

[Image ID: A modified version of Hieronymus Bosch's painting 'The Conjurer,' which depicts a scam artist playing a shell-game for a group of gawking rubes. The image has been modified so that the scam artist's table has a Google logo and the pea he is triumphantly holding aloft bears the 'Sponsored' wordmark that appears alongside Google search results.]

[cat-clawz]

As far as walkback/apology videos go, I think that this one was really solid in terms of how it handled everything! Here's why I think that:

1. They were straight to the point, no beating around the bush. It was a 4 minute video, and they started addressing stuff right out of the gate.

2. They actually apologized. Not an "ohhh I'm sorry you all didn't understand our vision" but an actual "we messed up" and "we're sorry for the way we handled this as well as the way we communicated it" (those last two are actual quotes)

3. They addressed many of the specific concerns we've been having (although not all of them; I'm sure some need a little more planning) which shows that they were actively listening to us. They addressed:

-Us feeling like our current support was not appreciated by them/that they were shunning their youtube audience

-The poor delivery of the original video (I think they probably could have said a little more about this one but I digress, they still addressed it)

-their statement about how anyone could afford 5.99 a month

-how they kinda screwed over their Patreon when they did this

-Exactly why they decided to do this, clarifying more than just saying "we wanted higher/more tv-quality content"

4. They gave a plan of DIRECT ACTION as to how to fix the problems:

-they gave their patrons free access to watcher TV

-they changed the model of watcher TV so that videos are placed on YouTube, with ads, 1 month after they're released on watcher TV without ads

-they've offered refunds for anyone who already paid for watcher TV who isn't down with the new model.

Overall, while I'm still a little wary of them given their initial release of this, this is a really big and honestly well-done step in setting it to rights.

[rederiswrites]

Look, I think if you're a US citizen you should go on Youtube and watch the debate, or at least some of the chunks of it where the topic matters most to you. You can't counter the arguments if you don't know what arguments they're making. And no, I don't mean arguing with your aunt that drank the conspiracy koolaid. I mean that there are genuinely a lot of people out there hearing what Trump is saying and thinking, "I don't know. That sounds really scary."

So know what he said, and know not just THAT he lied, but HOW he lied.

Sometimes, it's easy. There are no "abortions" after a baby is born. That would be uhhh let's see MURDER and it's already pretty illegal everywhere and absolutely no one is trying to change that. The comment Trump attributed to former VA governor Ralph Northam is completely misrepresented. Northam (whom I am not defending as a person, by the way) was commenting on the subject of *non-viable* pregnancies that represented a health risk to the mother. Nobody was talking about killing babies. Nobody. Not even Mr. Blackface.

Sometimes it's so addled that I'll leave someone else to unpack, for example, what the FUCK he was on about with the giving illegal aliens in prison forced "trangender surgery". Personally I'm assuming he just used the random word generator in his head to say something that sounded scary to him.

There is NO credible evidence that anyone, much less Haitian immigrants, is eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. Both government officials and the police say there's nothing to it. Springfield has had a huge influx of Haitian immigrants, and this is causing infrastructure strain and racial tensions. But again, people who would rather believe that a) legal immigrants are okay with *stealing your pets and eating them* and b) the entire police and gov't infrastructure of a town and the surrounding county want to cover this up, are not worth our energy. It's the people who don't know the truth and are worried that we want to reach.

And my guy, my man, Cheeto Benito, that is not how tariffs work. Tariffs are not magical free money that other countries just HAVE to give you. They're...they're not that at all. Look, I'm lazy so I'm just gonna quote CNN:

Here’s how tariffs work: When the US puts a tariff on an imported good, the cost of the tariff usually comes directly out of the bank account of an American buyer. “It’s fair to call a tariff a tax because that’s exactly what it is,” said Erica York, a senior economist at the right-leaning Tax Foundation. “There’s no way around it. It is a tax on people who buy things from foreign businesses,” she added. Trump has said that if elected, he would impose tariffs of up to 20% on every foreign import coming into the US, as well as another tariff upward of 60% on all Chinese imports. He also said he would impose a “100% tariff” on countries that shift away from using the US dollar. These duties would add to the tariffs he put on foreign steel and aluminum, washing machines, and many Chinese-made goods including baseball hats, luggage, bicycles, TVs and sneakers. President Joe Biden has left many of the Trump-era tariffs in place. It’s possible that a foreign company chooses to pay the tariff or to lower its prices to stay competitive with US-made goods that aren’t impacted by the duty. But study after study, including one from the federal government’s bipartisan US International Trade Commission, have found that Americans have borne almost the entire cost of Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products. To date, Americans have paid more than $242 billion to the US Treasury for tariffs that Trump imposed on imported solar panels, steel and aluminum, and Chinese-made goods, according to US Customs and Border Protection. [link]

Also though you should watch the debate because Harris was an absolute savage and it was genuinely HUGELY entertaining to watch her mercilessly bait Trump in every answer she gave, and watch him take the bait every. fucking. time.

[huhmiya]

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST | nick sturniolo

pairing: bsf!nick x f!reader

summary: where you and nick have been spending the whole day together and tried to find a film but at the end, the two of you decided to listen to the playlist that you both created.

warning: fluff (??), use of y/n, swearing.

a/n: not my photos, on pinterest. this is short and simple but I wanted to make a nick one.

WORDS: 0.9k

huhmiya on wattpad

you - pink | nick - purple

-

You and Nick spent the whole day shopping because he needed to find a new shirt after Chris spilled a drink on him since he would find it funny.

Now though you were in Nick's room, he was eating the pizza he picked up on the way home so the two of you could share, while you were going through the items you had purchased.

You didn't buy much because you didn't find many things you liked, which may have been because you had money with you. It always seems that whenever you don't have money, you come across the best shops.

"Do you want another slice?" Nick asked, as he was on his second slice while you had only eaten one. You nodded, folded the clothes you had bought, and put them in the bag.

"Yeah," you smiled before taking a slice. You were pleased with the toppings he chose since you enjoyed them, and so did he.

While eating, Nick scrolled through some movies on his laptop, as neither of you knew where the TV remote was. "These movies are so fucking boring. I swear on my life I've seen them all," he complained.

You chuckled and playfully rolled your eyes slightly before meeting his gaze, then shifting your attention back to the laptop he was using.

"Not all of these are boring, you know?" you remarked upon coming across some films you'd seen before but found amazing. He simply shook his head and glanced at you.

"If you don't find these boring, you're boring," he teased before switching to a different app for movies, yet they seemed to be more of the same, with a few extra films that were rather lackluster.

As rain began to patter against the window, you were so engrossed in the food and his movie choices that you hadn't even noticed.

"You've skipped over some really good films," you noted, to which he chuckled, acknowledging that he had, but expressing a desire to find something new and promising.

"Well, y/n, I'm trying to find a great movie we haven't seen yet," he declared, grabbing another slice of pizza from the box and munching on it while using his free hand to browse through the movie options on his laptop.

You had a feeling you would be staying here for years, so you tried to come up with some ideas before sitting up suddenly, which prompted him to look at you in confusion at your swift movement.

"Why don’t we create a Spotify playlist?" you suggested to your friend. He simply looked at you, then closed his laptop to avoid looking through films.

He smiled and nodded, then sat up from his bed, not as quickly as you did, and opened Spotify.

You both shared some similar music tastes, but also had some differences. There were songs you both enjoyed and others that only one of you liked.

"Okay, but what should we name it and which songs should we include?" he inquired, while you both took a moment to think and decide.

As the minutes passed and turned into hours, the rain continued to fall, steadily increasing in intensity, providing a comforting backdrop for your collaboration.

You added a mix of both your favorite songs, as well some that were more to your liking than his but he did the same, reflecting your diverse music preferences.

The playlist was over three hours long, but neither of you really paid much attention as you both just kept adding more and more songs you both liked.

As you both finished, the sky had turned dark blue, signaling that night was approaching. You leaned back on the pillows and glanced at the empty pizza box, reflecting on how much you had both eaten, until he broke the silence.

“That’s all I can think of, how about you?” he asked. You just looked at the playlist, scrolling through the songs before speaking. “Yeah.. can’t think of anything else”

He seemed pleased too. You used to have a playlist, but it was filled with songs that now seemed cringeworthy or overplayed. Creating a new one, one that he could enjoy listening to now, made him happy, and it did the same for you.

You rested your head on Nick's shoulder once he lay down on his bed and he wrapped his arm around you, then reached into his drawer to grab his AirPods instead of headphones.

“Should we give it a listen?” he asked with a grin, handing you an AirPod. You chuckled and nodded before taking it just in time for him to start playing the playlist you had spent hours creating together.

masterlist! guidelines & information! wattpad! socials!

[olderthannetfic]

https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/755884216959516672/someone-whose-fanfic-i-left-a-comment-on-is-angry

I'm just throwing out a slight assumption based on another fic that got added to TV tropes: The author mentioned getting a lot more hate and negativity after their fic was added to the TVT in the comment, like noticeably.

They explained in one of the comments to another why they had to mod lock the comments and the fic, and it was in an author's note in a new chapter they later removed. People who didn't like some of the side ships, and people who didn't like the main ships dynamic, started complaining and demanding random shit of the author. I think the AN explicitly mentioned threats and other explicitly threatening comments. It's not really a new that people coming from third parties to look at a fanfic seem to act like they're entitled to demand the author write exactly what they want or change parts of the fic, while they're consuming a story written for free.

Like, sure, you are publishing your story for any readers. But you can't deny that most fics never reach the popularity to become known outside their tag range, so most people aren't prepared nor do they expect to suddenly have to deal with people with absolutely zero interest in their writing, who're just there to insult you and your work coming in through third parties. It's kinda the same deal like with the Goodreads, you're writing for the fandom and for free, not to be put next to original works with much bigger audiences behind them and who're actually getting paid for their writing. And then recieving criticism as if the person had actually paid you.

As a fic writer the expectation is you write for fellow fans, your audience is a small part of fandom people who have interests at least partially aligning with your own. If you write original works, you write for anyone interested in what you have to offer and try to get a wider audience to get more sales and attention.

Side note: It often feels like people give writers a lot less breathing room when it comes to harassment, or having their works plastered into spaces they didn't agree to. Like, any writer complaining is told it's their own fault, and to shut up, and if they didn't want random people with no connection to the fandom or even ship to read it they shouldn't ever dare publish a fanfic ever. A writer mentioning being uncomfortable having their fanfiction plastered into spaces for professional works and with a high rate of unwanted criticism and some times really entitled trolls are expected to just "Suck it up, you knew the risk when you published your work." When they really didn't. How are you supposed to expect that amongst millions of fanfics, your little passion project is going to be shoved onto Goodreads as if it was some kinda professional publication? It also doesn't give the fanfic writers any benefits, AO3 is an archive, stats mean nothing, they're a bit of a vanity boost, but at large you don't get anything from having your work put into professional spaces, no recognition, no money, and you're forcibly held up to the standards or original fiction by entitled people. 🤷‍♀️ -Btw I know I'm a bit dramatic, and all that, but I still think it's weird how fanfic writers are some times held to standards of published original authors.

--

TV tropes is full of clowns from parts of fandom where a lot more so-called concrit of the "U suck" variety is the norm on top of the overall pattern of more eyeballs meaning more wankers.

[amnevitahwritesstuff]

The Pretty Woman AU no one asked for.

Fandom: A Court of Thorns and Roses

Pairing: Feyre/Rhysand

Rating: Explicit

Triggers: Prostitution, Older Man/Younger Woman

Chapters: 1, 2, 4 (WIP)

AO3 Link

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Chapter Three: Always Sunny In The Rich Man’s World

Her night was…surprisingly nice. 

Which felt like a strange thing to say about spending time with a man who had paid twenty thousand fucking dollars for…what had he called it? The pleasure of her company? It seemed absurd and yet, that’s exactly what happened. 

Upon her return, he had welcomed her back into his suite to the smell of something delicious and the sight of half a dozen covered platters laid out on the dining room table. 

He was ever the gentleman, pulling out a chair for her before sitting down himself. Serving her before adding anything to his own plate. Asking her how her day had gone. He acted like…like this were something they had always done. 

As if this were a real relationship. 

Afterwards, he tucked her into bed with the kind of care and attentiveness that Feyre hadn’t experienced since childhood. 

“But…” she whispered, as he pulled the coverlet up to her chin. “Aren’t you going to…” 

“Not tonight,” Rhys said gently as he kissed her forehead. “You’ve had a long day. Just sleep.” 

She blinked up at him curiously. Confused. 

“But…what about you?”

He smiled softly. He looked at her the way she would a puppy. Or a baby rabbit. 

“I have some work to finish up. I tend to stay up late anyway.”

And then he had just…left. 

She was so confused that she honestly wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed by this outcome. 

Did I do something wrong? She thought, staring after him long after he’d closed the door. 

Feyre didn’t understand him. 

She didn’t understand him at all. 

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Feyre awoke to the image of Rhys clasping on his wristwatch by the bedside table. Behind him, she spied the the still dark sky through the window and wondered what time it was. 

“I have an early meeting,” he explained to her softly. She blinked blearily up at him as he smoothed a warm hand over her hair. “Feel free to sleep in. Order some room service. Relax. I’ll be back in the afternoon. I have a gala I’d like you to attend with me this evening.”

“Okay,” she said, still half asleep. 

“Good girl. Now go back to sleep.”

And who was Feyre to argue?

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She felt immensely out of place. 

While Feyre had seen galas on tv before, the reality of one was something else entirely. Never before had she been surrounded by so much wealth. Everyone around her looked as if they had stepped straight off of a red carpet. They had the kind of bodies and faces that spoke of the best surgeons, the best dermatologists, and the best personal trainers money could buy. 

It was enough to make Feyre, even dressed in a designer gown (and crowned with more diamonds than she’d ever seen in her life) feel like a bit of a fraud. A toddler playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes. It felt so very obvious that she didn’t belong here. She lacked the confidence so many of these people seemed to have. A kind of arrogance and self-assuredness that came from a lifetime of financial security and rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous. 

“You look ready to bolt,” Rhys commented amusedly. 

“Don’t you have a work friend or something you could’ve brought to this?” Feyre sniped through her teeth as she smiled nervously at yet another celebrity glancing their way. 

“Afraid not,” he said unapologetically. “Besides, I don’t think they would’ve worn that dress quite as well as you.” 

Quite against her will, Feyre felt her face flush hot and red. 

Thank God she was wearing a pound of makeup. 

Luckily, she was saved from coming up with a reply when a couple of men appeared to greet them. 

“Rhys!” The first man exclaimed congenially. He was solidly middle aged unlike his companion who looked like he’d just stepped out of a haircare commercial. “So good to see you!” 

“Gareth” Rhys replied with the same smooth charm before nodding to the younger man. “Tamlin. How is business?”

While the three made small talk about stock prices Feyre couldn’t help but stare at the second man curiously. 

Tamlin. 

Why was that name so familiar?

It took her a moment but eventually an image came to mind, of an overly serious teen boy leading ten year-old Feyre around after her father had kicked them out of his office while he entertained a client. 

Oh. 

Oh no. 

The man stared back. 

Feyre looked back at him with slowly dawning horror. 

“Ah, forgive me,” Rhys’s voice cut through her internal crisis as she felt him gesture towards her. “This is my friend Vivian.” 

“Vivian?” Tamlin said with a frown. 

He knew. 

She knew he knew. 

Fuck, how was she supposed to wiggle her way out of this one?

“Yes,” she said cheerily, plastering a wide, fake smile onto her face. “Vivian.” 

It couldn’t have been more clear she was lying through her teeth. Thankfully, Tamlin seemed to understand that now was not the time to press the issue and backed down immediately. However, she felt his eyes boring into her skill for the rest of the conversation. 

She should’ve known he was just biding his time until he found a way to corner her. 

Alone. 

Well, she thought bitterly when she spied him loitering outside the women’s restroom a half hour later. That didn’t take long. 

“Oh hi Tamlin. Are you looking for the men’s room? I think it’s actually further down the hall-”

“Why are you here?” He interrupted her, green eyes daring her to lie to him. 

“At the moment? Going to the bathroom-”

He made a frustrated noise. “Not in this building, I mean with him. With Rhysand.”

“He asked me to come.” In more ways than one…

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. 

“But why?” Okay, now he was just insulting her. 

(Even if, not so deep down, she agreed with him.)

“The pleasure of my company?” She bit out. It wasn’t even a lie. Those were Rhys’s words exactly when they’d made this strange bargain. 

“Listen,” Tamlin said placatingly, seeming to realize that he was upsetting her. “I know your name’s not Vivian.”

Here we go, she thought. 

“You’re Feyre right? Feyre Archeron? Our fathers used to work together?” 

Fuck. He did remember. 

Feyre felt like a whole hive of bees was skittering across her skin. Would it be too rude to just start running? No, no, she couldn’t do that. She could barely walk in heels, let alone run in them. Maybe she could throw them at him as a distraction? 

Unaware of her current escape plans, Tamlin moved closer and touched her arm. 

She jolted. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. 

Feyre wondered if this was what cornered animals felt like. 

“I just,” he said, softer. “You’re not in trouble are you?” 

She stared at him. 

What?

“Because I know your father lost everything back then. I just worry that someone might be taking advantage of you.” 

In an instant, Feyre felt her face heat with embarrassment. 

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just…he’s not paying you to be here is he?”

Cold, humiliating horror settled deep in her gut. The answer must’ve been written all over her face because she suddenly felt Tamlin grab ahold of her hands and try to catch her eye. 

“He is isn’t he? Jesus, I’m sorry, I can’t believe you’re being forced to do this.”

Wait…forced?

“No,” she tried to argue, lips still numb with shame. “It’s not like that-”

“If I’d known you’d needed money I would’ve given it to you. I’m sorry we lost touch after the market crash. But I’m here now! I could help you!” 

Feyre felt like she was watching this entire interaction from afar. A curious bystander watching this strange, horrifying moment in her life play out while she could do nothing to stop it. 

The worst part about this whole thing was that this should’ve been ideal. Rhys was a stranger. She didn’t know him. She had no guarantee he would continue to treat her well whereas Tamlin was a known quantity. She had known him since childhood. She would’ve been safer taking his money over Rhys’s. 

And yet…

Rhys had been nothing but kind to her since the start of their arrangement. Really he’d…he’d taken care of her. 

Like she mattered. 

And maybe, selfishly, she wanted to drag that feeling out a little longer. Before the week was up and she was forced to go back to her life of abusive bosses and neglectful sisters.

“How much is he giving you?”

The words slipped out of her mouth faster than she could catch them. “Twenty thousand dollars.”

Tamlin startled. 

“Twenty thousand?” He repeated, as if he had heard incorrectly. 

Feyre shrugged. 

“Jesus, what are you doing for him?” He said it in such a way that implied that whatever it was she was doing…it was dirty. Shameful. 

Feyre tore her hands away from his. 

What the fuck, she thought. What the fuck. 

“That’s none of your business,” she said frostily. Am I so unlovable? She wondered. So poor and pitiful that all Tamlin could imagine Rhys would want from her was something horrible and sordid? 

“Feyre-”

“Thanks for your offer, but I really must decline. Excuse me.” 

Fuck him, she thought angrily as she walked away. I’ll show him. 

I’ll fucking show him. 

• $ • $ • $ • $ • $ • $ • $ • $ • $ • $ • $ • $ •

Her anger followed her all the way back to Rhys. 

“Are you alright?” He had asked her, real concern laced through his words. 

And Feyre had replied, not fine at all, “I’m fine.”

She fought hard to be as pleasant and accommodating as possible for the rest of the night, but it truly felt like she had a roiling little stormcloud hanging over her head the entire time. She just couldn’t stop thinking about Tamlin’s words. 

What are you doing for him?

Nothing. 

She was doing…nothing. 

Had been doing nothing for the last three fucking days. 

It made her feel…bad. Antsy. Like she wasn’t earning her keep. 

The feeling followed her all the way into the car when they finally decided to leave. And it was that very same feeling, those same words, that compelled her to slip down onto the floor of the car. 

Between Rhys’s legs. 

She struggled a bit to situate herself, seeing as how the space wasn’t exactly made with blowjobs in mind, but Feyre was nothing if not stubborn and determined. 

Rhys, however, seemed wholly confused by her sudden awkward positioning. 

“What are you doing?” He asked, brows furrowed. 

“Earning my keep,” she chirped before putting her fingers to the front of his pants, looking for his zipper. 

Rhys sucked in a sharp breath before quickly halting her hands with his own. 

“You don’t need to do that.”

She pursed her lips. 

“Don’t I?” Her words were harsh but inside she was reeling. If he didn’t want to fuck her then how was she supposed to earn her money? Why even keep her around then? Had Tamlin been right? 

“You really don’t,” he insisted, pulling her up off the floor and back onto the seat beside him. 

“What’s the point of this then?” Feyre asked, staring at her shoes, unable to look him in the eye. “If I’m not here for that then why am I here at all?” 

Rhys was quiet then. For a few excruciating moments she was sure then that this was where he finally kicked her out of the car and put an end to their arrangement. 

Instead, she felt him move. 

Onto the floor. 

He was kneeling in nearly the same spot she had been just moments before. Even on his knees, he still towered over her. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly bone dry. 

“Have I not been taking care of you enough?” He murmured quietly. 

Feyre stared at him, dazed by their sudden role reversal. 

“Does my sweet girl need tending to?” 

“What?” Now Feyre was sure her brain was short-circuiting. 

Rhys chuckled and slid his hands up under her dress and along her thighs. 

“Don’t worry, I know what you need.” 

She sucked in air through her nose as her panties were quickly pulled down her legs and tucked away into Rhys’s pocket. He looked down upon her bare cunt with a pleased expression and then carefully, gently, she felt the lips of it pulled apart with his thumbs to reveal the dusty pink flesh underneath. 

“You’re so pretty here,” he said conversationally. And then she watched as he bowed his head, as if in prayer, before she spied a flash of a pink tongue and then—

Oh, she thought, in shock. Oh. 

In her admittedly short sexual career, no one had ever gone down on her. Feyre had always been led to believe that it was just something men didn’t enjoy. 

It was quickly apparent that Rhys was not one of those men. 

The noises he made as he licked her cunt could only be described as enthusiastic. He sounded like a starving man devouring a steak dinner, not a man swirling his tongue around her clitoris because she had the audacity to try to give him a blowjob. 

He’d barely been at it for sixty seconds before she was ready to squirm out of her skin. Her skin felt hot and tight. Her pulse kicked hard in her veins. Her nipples had hardened to stiff little points that rubbed against the silk of her dress. She felt…overwhelmed. Like she simultaneously wanted to wiggle away and pull him closer. 

“Fuck,” she said deliriously. “Fuck.” 

Her hips writhed in her seat but Rhys just placed a large, muscular arm over them, locking her in place. He glanced up at her like a scolding parent. 

“None of that. Be a good girl and take what you’re given.” 

There were those magic words again. Good girl. They rang through her ears and into her brain like a siren song. Like a sedative. 

Her muscles went lax. 

Rhys smiled. 

And then he peeled back the little hood of her clitoris and blew gently on it. 

Feyre gasped. 

His laugh was almost mean. Carnivorous. And the vibrations and heat from his breath against her cunt made her shiver. 

“Oh yes. I think I’ve been quite remiss in my duties towards you.” He didn’t direct his words at her, but towards the shiny swollen clitoris he now rubbed softly with his thumb. 

She felt like a fish caught on a line. Desperately jerking and wiggling but unable to escape the man who had caught her. 

“Oh God,” she gasped. “On my God!” 

“Just Rhys is fine,” he said cheekily. And then her eyes crossed as the velvety feel of lips and tongue latching back onto her clitoris had her spine bending back at an angle that was sure to give her back problems later. 

Liquid heat pounded in her cunt. She was sure, at this point, that all the blood in her body had fled there because she could barely form a single coherent thought outside of…

“Oh! Oh! Oh!”

“That’s it. Let go pretty girl.” 

Feyre wasn’t sure what finally pushed her over the edge, his sugary sweet words or the fluttering of his tongue against the underside of her clit but regardless she felt her whole body seize and shake into a mind-numbing orgasm. 

She felt herself pulled into strong, warm arms as Rhys settled back beside her as she came down. 

“Shhhhh,” he murmured sweetly into her hair. “You should’ve told me you needed this. Next time you’ll tell me when you’re worked up hmm?”

Feyre nodded into his neck, still sleepy and drugged from the endorphins flooding through her brain. 

Yes, she thought. 

That sounded good to her. 

[lieutenantfloyd]

i LOVE the iceman dating headcannons - can we have cyclone dating headcannons pls 🙏🙏🙏 i am in such a cyclone mood atm it’s unbelievable

Dating headcanons — Beau "Cyclone" Simpson

Pairing: Beau "Cyclone" Simpson x reader

Warnings: Slight mentions of insecurities and trauma.

a/n: Hello and thank you! I really enjoyed writing this!

If you haven't already, please check out the general Cyclone headcanons I posted a while back, as there are more than a few references to them in this post!

The first several months of your relationship will be the toughest.

He's terribly guarded and has all but forgotten how to let anyone in.

You'll honestly just have to wait him out. Meeting him where he is and proving to him that you're in it for the long haul.

When he finally starts to let you in is when your relationship gets very serious.

He's quite traditional in how he views his (and only his!) role in a relationship.

On the flip side, he expects next to nothing from you and is wholly grateful for you even just being with him.

I headcanon that he's had to look after himself since a pretty early age, and is used to just kind of... getting by?

Like he's extremely put together on a professional front, but on a personal one, he's an "eating a shitty frozen microwave meal in front of the TV on a Friday night" kinda man.

Not that he couldn't take better care of himself, he just found putting all that effort in for one person a bit depressing.

Now given the opportunity, he's an absolute dream to date

He's paying all the bills, doing the home repairs/improvements, taking your car to the shop, etc.

If you protest this, he will sit you down and quite literally tell you that "your money is your money, and my money is also your money."

And like I said, he expects nothing in return.

However, if you do want to do something to make his life easier, like pack his lunch or iron his uniform, he'd be a goner.

It's also in these small gestures that he best shows his love.

Doing the tasks you dislike, knowing your preferences, anticipating the things you'll need to complete, and making your life just a bit easier is where he shines.

At each restaurant and cafe you go to he has your order memorized.

He is the best cook and will cook for you whenever he has time

He's totally the breakfast-in-bed type too!

Will probably have stayed up late the night before to bake a loaf of brioche for french toast, and will serve it to you on a fancy wooden breakfast tray (that he handmade) with a fresh flower from the garden because that's just the kind of man he is.

If you offer him any he'll refuse, instead preferring to have you fuss over him and his habit of having nothing but a single cup of black coffee for breakfast.

He will, however, accept bacon. Thick cut, cherry smoked.

His desk both on base and at home is covered in pictures of you.

Like Iceman, he isn't jealous, but very protective.

This is also the only point of contention in your relationship.

He has some insecurities and would be absolutely devastated If you were to vie for others' attention or flirt back with them.

Ironically, he absolutely loves to show you off; and will use any such occasion to spoil you.

Will tell you stories from his various deployments.

And cherishes the way you squeeze his hand when the tougher memories come back.

Very nearly worked himself into a worry the first time you were going to stay at his place.

Now he struggles to sleep without you beside him.

Loves nothing more than to cuddle up with you in bed or on the couch.

More often than not, you'll end your day just like that.

With the added bonus of him reading whatever book he's been reading aloud to you.

Will 100% take you on bookstore dates!

He'll order himself a coffee in the cafe before happily setting you free with his wallet.

Will happily carry and/or guard the stacks of books you pick out.

If you happen to pick out a book or two for him, he'll get almost bashful??

Knowing you not only cared enough but paid enough attention to his interests to know just what he'd like hits him directly in his soft spot.

Each year he takes you back home to Alaska.

It's one of the few times you get to see his personality shine in private and in public.

The trips are only a few weeks long at the most.

Although as the days pass, you both secretly hope to get snowed in for the whole winter.

These trips have spawned not only some of your favorite memories as a couple, but moving back there with you in tow has become his retirement plan.

! taglist !

@marchingicenotes7, @bayisdying, @princessofglitterland, @bella-law, @austin-butlers-gf, @callsignaries, @katesmadness, @dannyramirezwife, @oliviah-25, @luckyladycreator2, @shakira-sasha, @xoxabs88xox, @Criminalmindsandmarvel, @fanboyluvr, @alexxavicry, @madamemelancholysstuff, @paola-carter, @barbiewritesstuff, @dozcan123, @withakindheartx, @nyx2021, @teti-menchon0604

[prismaticpichu]

Miscellaneous FF7 Floofcanons To Heal Me From Rebirth 💕

• Zack, unsure of how to properly use chopsticks just sticks them in his mouth and pretends to be a walrus. Angeal tells him to have some respect just before Sephiroth picks up his own chopsticks and imitates Zack

• Genesis, quietly reciting Loveless lines to Sephiroth as the man lays ill in bed. There’s a steaming bowl of soup on the nightstand that Angeal just brought in. Gradually, Sephiroth begins to fall asleep in the presence of his two treasured friends. Friends who had been gone all week on a mission, all the way across the continent, and now were back safe and sound by his side.

• Zack, bringing Aerith a handmade Cactuar plushie for her birthday and then proceeding to do the Dance™️

• Zack and Cloud, having claimed a table in the mess hall that they eat at every day together. Zack is often invited to sit with his posse of other SOLDIER buddies, but always chooses to stay right there with Cloud. The two share a bucket of french fries every Friday.

• Lazard, having access to the files, sending out a mass email to everyone in ShinRa informing people that it’s Sephiroth’s birthday; everyone chips in to throw a surprise party for their general—all orchestrated by Genesis and Angeal, who keep Sephiroth out of the base by taking him on a picnic

• Sephiroth and Zack, devising a plan where Seph secretly stitches Zack’s clothes back together every time he rips something on a mission. He always makes sure to mend the uniform before Angeal ever finds out.

• Cloud, writing anonymous appreciation letters to Sephiroth that he asks Zack to deliver; Zack delivers them personally, and Sephiroth always writes back thank you notes for Zack to deliver back

• Angeal and Genesis, getting Sephiroth a little fish to brighten up his office. Sephiroth names the animal “Yūjō”, which translates to “friendship.”

• Angeal and Genesis and Sephiroth, rotating between their apartments each Saturday for movie night. When Angeal invites Zack into the friend group, he added the tradition of bringing candy and soda.

• Angeal and Genesis, always making sure their schedule is clear on Mother’s Day so they can stay by Sephiroth’s side. The first time Genesis and Angeal used their permission to deny a mission as a First was so they could be with their friend that day.

• Angeal, always making sure to have Zack’s favorite dinner prepared for whenever he returns from missions. Genesis always makes sure the TV remote is free while Sephiroth greets Zack in the hallway. He asks for his usual “secret Zack hug”, and the two only go inside once it’s been given.

• Angeal and Sephiroth & Genesis, all tutoring Zack to give Zack the education he missed out on when he ran away from home at age 13. Genesis focuses on art and literature, Angeal focuses on history, and Sephiroth focuses on math and science.

• Tseng, delivering Zack a hefty check on his birthday with a little note that reads “SOLDIERs really should be paid equal”

• Zack, putting up a bulletin board over his bed that reads “Home”. Over his time at ShinRa, the sparse photos of his parents and childhood are gradually joined by photos from missions and his fondest memories with Genesis, Angeal, Sephiroth, Cloud, Kunsel, the Turks, and all his other treasured friends

• Zack and Sephiroth, cocooned in each other’s arms as they lie in bed together. Their heads are touching, their eyes are closed. And in that delicate moment Zack mumbles, “you and me, Seph…” To which Sephiroth softly completes with, “forever.”

This has been your friendly dose of Pichu. Hope you have a wonderful night! <3

[docholligay]

I Saw the TV Glow

I’m essentially always up for a weird horror movie, so when I saw the ads for I Saw the TV Glow, I knew I was in. I don’t generally look up anything about a movie before I go, and in truth, prefer when a trailer doesn’t tell me all that much about what’s going to happen in a movie. This fit the bill!

Non-spoilery: Go in as blind as possible to this movie. There were a lot of things I thought this movie was going to be about, and it was not any of them. What it ended up being about was fantastic. This movie is really really going to resonate with some people my age and the ages around it. I don’t know if it will be as effective for younger people for a variety of reasons. 

Bear in mind I saw this once several months ago, with spoilers below the cut. 

OKAY. We’re in spoiler zone now, so let’s get into this: This movie is about the experience of being gay or trans, specifically in the late 90s to early aughts. We’ll get more into that later, but I want to put it on the table right now. This movie is horror in a Twilight Zone sense. That is in fact my favorite kind of horror! But if you’re seeing it billed as a horror movie, you may not get out of it what you are expecting. 

The Pink Opaque is absolutely Buffy. So much so that Jetty felt called out multiple times: They use the Buffy font, there’s a cameo from a Buffy actress, etc. The movie is not trying to hide this very well. And the Pink Opaque is not a great show! It’s more of a carriage device for these two teenagers that have something in common, something that sparks a realization between them of who they actually are. 

Throughout the show, as Owen gets more and more involved in wanting to watch the show with Maddy, we start seeing quotes in the background that could absolutely be on a high school board, but also…are very much about what is needed inm order to decide to unbury yourself, and live in the Pink Opaque. The one I remember the most, is because it’s one of my favorite quotes. “Without courage, all other virtues are meaningless.” I think about this quote all the time, because I think it is true. You can be kind, you can be intelligent, you can be loyal, but if you are a coward, those virtues mean nothing at the close of business. 

It’s impossible for me to explain to people even 7 to 10 years younger tha  me how different the world was then. I made the choice Maddy made and decided to live in The Pink Opaque as myself, but I love that it isn’t shown as consequence-free either. There are a lot of entanglements and difficulties and fights that came with that decision. You choose to live that way, in 2004, and you get to be the hero, but the hero has to constantly be on guard for the monsters around every corner. And this isn’t even me going, ‘poor pitiful me’--my life was leaps and bounds easier than 10 years before me--but it is a very very different landscape. Fucking no one bats an eye at me being gay now, realistically. 

When Maddy comes back as Tara, and says this is who she always has been, and she had to dig herself out of a fucking grave to be that, I was there, baby! I am not going to get too much into my personal life, but the process of becoming Doc was not a bloodless one. Her coming back and telling him he can have it all, he just has to be willing to die for it--fucking loved that. I have so many memories of having the same conversations with people. We couldn’t have everything. My peers had to decide between having college paid for, having a place to live, and being out, and not everyone had the brass ones to go my way. I made an impulsive, insane decision, and I have never ever regretted it. My parents couldn’t have paid for college anyhow, so fuck it. But it was a choice other people had same as I did, and again, sitting in that dark school ‘planetarium” telling Owen he can live a harder but more real life, fuck. Again, without courage, ALL OTHER VIRTUES ARE MEANINGLESS. I do genuinely feel like this movie might be a miss for a generation whose parents and social circles were simply awkward about it at worst. 

Not scary in the usual sense, but I think a great psychological horror about the costs of doing business, in this life. 

You’re poisoned, you’re buried alive, and that line about, “And you’ll never even know you’re dying.” I mean, sometimes I feel like I was a near miss from living my entire life closeted, as bizarre as that sounds for someone who left home over the matter. I am a person who just makes decisions, and what if I had made the decision to shut that part of myself off, as Owen did? 

My favorite part of this movie is when Owen shuts that part of himself off, and we see him living his life, and he has a family but we NEVER SEE THEM. Because they aren’t a real part of him either, they are all a part of the set dressing of the life he has convinced himself he wants. He is going to be a man, he is going to live as a man and tell himself that’s what he really wants. And then to end up in the bathroom, to end up vomiting all that moon juice and knowing that he has been dying inside the whole time? I thought it was such a beautifully sad ending. 

IF I had a criticism of this movie, there would be a couple handfuls: 

It can be a little on the nose, now and again. I think Maddy-as-Tara’s monologue goes on a little long and loses some of its punch. 

It doesn’t lean quite as hard into the unreliable narrator that is Owen as it could, and so I could see people going, “Oh, Tara was completely right, and Owen made the wrong choice” when even within the narrative, it is telling us that to live in the Pink Opaque is to kill who you are now. That is…not nothing. Owen has, for example, a real relationship with his mother. That’s something that can be lost. Because both me and the author made the same choice, its easy for us to write it as ‘correct’, and honestly it was only on stepping back for a bit that I’m like, “Hm, while this does a better job than 90% of the movies about this I’ve seen, i wish it would have outlaid the cost a little more” but I would want to rewatch it before I made that a HARD criticism instead of a soft one. I was still figuring out everything about the movie, and so didn’t have a chance to really analyze it in this lens. 

I had another criticism, but I actually do want to watch it again before I commit to it, upon reflection. 

[icedsodapop]

It should go without saying that race plays a huge factor in all of this, but to state the unspoken: Being white means having systemic advantages people of color can only dream of. Not everyone with the skills to make delicious food will advance their career on merit alone.

It would be ridiculous to claim that people can’t cook whatever they want, and people criticizing cultural appropriation rarely make this point. But perhaps a better starting point is to question who gets to profit off of ethnic cuisines.

(...)

This creates a free-for-all situation where anyone who can manage to make money off of a type of cuisine may do so. We’d like to think that whoever makes the best food rises to the top, but there’s ample data suggesting that white people in the US have a much better chance compared to POC for things like accessing small business loans to start a restaurant or getting a ethnic cookbook publishing deal. 

(...)

At the end of the day, respecting and practicing authentic ethnic culinary arts may put a smile on the faces of POC. But materially, this branding benefits white food creators as they grow their businesses. @logagm has 2.7 million TikTok followers, enough to land lucrative brand sponsorships, attract TV deals, publishing opportunities, or investment in any Korean cooking business endeavor he may pursue in the future. While he cooks just like a Korean ajumma, a Korean ajumma making japchae on TikTok would likely not get the number of views — and the business opportunities they may help secure — he does.

“When a white chef profits off of the cultural capital of someone else’s culture, they should surrender some of that capital,” Adrian De Leon, assistant professor of history at the University of Southern California, told me in a phone call. 

We accept that when white food creators take the time to seriously study ethnic cooking, they are “paying their dues,” but what if white food creators literally paid their dues with money? Or hired and mentored POC to thrive in the industry? Or used their industry influence to lift up POC food creators from the same tradition? Or involved themselves in working with the communities that taught them how to make the delicious food making them rich?

Emphasis added by me

[webslingingslasher]

Tells Me We're Not Done

Part 2 to Something in the Orange.

this is so long tumblr is making me put it in two parts, adding part 3 after this!

Genre: Angst/Fluffy

Warnings: depictions of sex, stay safe, kiddos!

Word Count: 15k between here and part 3

Summary: Peter does his best to win you back after he dumps you.

The Parker household could be eerily quiet. 

Funny how you never noticed it before, usually the giggles escaping your mouth as Peter pinched lightly anywhere he could reach would fill the empty spaces. Or you could hear the whisper of Mays TV in her room, maybe even Peter as he danced around in the kitchen making grilled cheeses or grabbing you stashed soda. 

But right now in Peter’s room all you hear is the hum of the AC, and the drips coming from his bathroom sink, he needs to turn it off all the way. You hear the slow whoosh of cars passing by several floors down, you hear Peter’s fingers tapping on the kitchen counter, you can’t help but wonder if it’s because he’s looking for something or he’s trying to think of something to say, anything to break the silence. 

You hadn’t looked at Peter since you got here, you didn’t even speak to him. 

“Hey! I’m glad you could still find the place.” He tried to joke. Tried. 

You nodded your head and swerved around him into his room, you set your bag higher on your shoulders, and then you felt very aware of your surroundings. It’s been a while since you’ve been in his room, it was almost comedic, this was always where you felt the most safe but you have never been more on edge than right now. 

Where did you sit? 

On his bed? Too many memories, the way he fit over your body perfectly. The bed where he made you feel loved and protected and safe and treasured? No, you can’t sit there. 

At his desk? The same one you would sit across his lap on, the one that you had begged a time or two to get off his game so he could get on you? The same desk he’s bent you over? No, you can’t sit there. 

Peter watches you move your head around his space before your shoulders slump with defeat and you throw your backpack off and drop to the floor sitting crisscross. 

The floor was safe, nothing happened on the floor. 

“Want anything to eat? Something to drink?” 

The carefulness in his voice, the comforting gesture made the hair on your neck raise, you didn’t say a word. 

You didn’t want to be here, that was well known. 

Peter sighed and made himself absent, it didn’t feel good to him either. Knowing that this is your worst nightmare and you were currently experiencing it made him feel pretty shitty, it doesn’t help that you won’t give him anything to work with either. 

You stared at the carpet long enough to see swirls and shapes, tracing with your hands. Your brain made a pattern with the sink drips, pause, pause, pause, drip. Pause, pause, pause, drip. It began moving in sync with Peter’s finger tapping in the kitchen, pause, pause, pause, drip, tap. Pause, pause, pause, drip, tap. 

What deity did you piss off to put you in this position? 

The words echo as your hand pushes the carpet one way, darker, the other way, lighter. 

“Y/N and Peter. Y/N and Peter. Y/N and Peter.” 

It happened Wednesday, and now it was Saturday. 

“I have some news. We are breaking down points in history and colliding them with story acts. You have all been assigned a partner and will have two weeks to complete it. We finish next Wednesday, but you’ll be getting your partners today and you can start working on it now. Get an idea, I’ll be passing out sheets with different points in history you can pull from.” 

She rolled her eyes when the class groaned, “Yeah, yeah. If you want to let the creativity flow feel free to pull a moment on your own. I’m letting you guys take the rein on this, have fun! Express yourselves!” 

You blew a heavy breath, you haven’t paid attention in months and now you were being thrown into a massive assignment. Mrs. Bender approached the front of the room and grabbed a stack of papers. “Y/N, Tonya, please pass these out to your classmates.” 

The stack was split and she handed you each one and you both went to separate sides of the room. You started in front and worked towards the back, the fourth table was MJ and Peter. You gave one to MJ and met her eyes, “Hi.” She smiled back, “Hey.” 

You let one fall to the middle of the desk, the paper sweeping the air before sliding across the slick black table and falling to the ground. You shrugged at the paper on the floor and shrugged, “Oops.” You stepped on the front of the page and made your way to the table behind them. 

Peter watched MJ smirk, he turned his gaze to the ground and picked up his paper stamped with your shoe print. 

“These will be your partners, no exchanges or substitutions allowed. Tonya and Brent. MJ and Kate. Yousif and Rusty. Drea and Drake. Cory and Becca. Y/N and Peter.” 

Your eyes shot up to the room, your heart was racing. This couldn’t be happening, not him. Not your ex, you literally begged him to hook up and he left. You told him everything was a front, that you still lo- No. Don’t think about that. 

This was a nightmare. Your cheeks burst with heat, your heart hit your rib cage with each thump, your palms become sweaty on the tabletop. You had to keep swallowing the saliva building in your mouth, scared that you’d puke if you stopped. 

The teacher just kept going like she didn’t end your world. 

“Dustin and Vanessa. Forrest an-“ You cut her off and shoved a hand in the air before speaking. 

“No! No, No, Absolutely not!” Peter’s head shot to yours. The other students were already moving around matching up with their partners. 

“What was that?” The teacher stopped her rambles. 

“Please. Anyone else, I’ll do anything. I’ll clean your car, I’ll do Saturday school until the end of year! I’ll even stay late and grade your last classes work! Please, anything!” You pleaded. 

“No exceptions, it’s not fair to everyone else.” She shrugged her shoulders and tried to continue. 

“What if I work alone?” You stood at your desk. 

“No.” She flipped her grade book. 

You huffed and swore under your breath. 

“Fine! I won’t do it then!” You threatened no one but yourself. 

“Ms. Y/N do I need to remind you of your circumstance? You don’t do this project, you’re out of here. Permanently.” She raised an eyebrow and taunted you, she wanted to see how you would react. 

You threw your hands up and slumped back on your seat. “Yeah! I know! I know!” 

Even being paired with Peter wouldn’t make you talk to him, and bless his heart for trying. He’s tried cornering you in school, he’s tried calling (and was ignored immediately), he even showed up at your window but all he received was an unwavering middle finger until he slowly crept away. 

His last ditch was a text, ‘Hey. I know you don’t want to talk to me, but we need to get this done. Come to mine tonight?’ 

He wasn’t expecting a response, and you didn’t give one. You just showed up. 

“Water?” 

He held out a bottle and you sniffed, dragging your knee to your chin you turned the other way. Peter placed it next to you anyways. 

“You sure you don’t wanna sit up here?” Peter tapped the space next to him on the bed. 

“I’m fine where I am.” The first words you spoke to him all week and they were just as distant and cold as when you told him you hated him. He never really believed that, but now he was. 

“I can pull my desk chair over, or I can get one from the kitchen-” 

“I said I’m fine.” You cut him off and listened to the empty space, you relied on the drips like a metronome. Then the hum of the AC, and new to the mix was Peter breathing. It wasn’t loud but it was steady, something to build off of. If you tried really, really hard maybe you could hear the blood pumping in and out of his heart. 

“What do you smell right now?” The carpet was leaving an almost itchy feeling on your fingertip but you kept swirling it, scared if you stopped they would shake. 

“Uh, I don’t know. I can smell your perfume, and I think Mr. Denison next door is making cookies or banana bread.” Confused. He was confused. 

“Not like that. Me.” 

Peter’s eyes widened.  It was very rare for you to ask him to use his senses on you, it’s not like he had a choice, it would happen regardless. But he respected that you didn’t want to know, or didn’t care to, so unless you asked he never brought it up. 

He breathed out slowly and took an inhale at the same rate, he looked at you and frowned slightly. You wouldn’t look at him still, you were turned from him and curled inwards trying to get as far away from him as possible. 

“Scared. Nervous. Anxious. Upset. Sad. Hurt.” 

You let out a small laugh. 

“Was that Spidey, or was that your intuition?” 

“A little of both.” 

Drip, pause, pause, pause, drip. 

“I’m sorry, by the way. I don’t think I ever told you that, but I am.” 

You looked at him for the first time in a week, you actually recognized him as a human. 

“For what?” 

“Hurting you. Breaking up with you, making you hate me. Fuck, I don’t know, Y/N. Can I just give you an umbrella apology?” 

You nodded at him. 

Drip. 

“How would we move past this?” 

“What do you mean?” Peter can’t help his spirits get slightly lifted at that. 

“I don’t know how to look at you and not be overwhelmed with sadness, Peter. You were my entire fucking life and it was smashed in one night. And I know you’re trying to fix it, and I really want you to. I want to go back like nothing ever happened but it did. It did happen, and you really, really hurt me. So how do we get past this?” 

“How can I give you that kind of power again?” You added with a whisper, you laid a cheek on your knee and closed your eyes. 

Drip. Pause, pause, pause. Drip. 

Peter breathes once, twice, three times, drip. Peter rubs his pant leg against the bed, the comforter ruffles, he breathes, drip, drip, drip. 

You can’t stand it anymore, now you understand why Chinese water torture is mind exploding. 

“I don’t know, but it’s not up to me anymore.” Peter’s turn to keep his sight from you. 

“What does that mean?” You nearly wince at your voice. Why did you sound so sad? 

Peter looks you in the eye, it wasn’t his decision anymore. That much was clear. 

“I hurt you, I broke your trust. I did the worst thing to you I could’ve ever done. It’s up to you now, what do you want? Do you want to be friends, never speak to me again, or maybe somewhere in the middle?” 

You chew your bottom lip and look his face over. 

Drip. 

You think of each time you’ve kissed his cheeks, each time you’ve counted his freckles while he’s slept, each time you traced over his features, every moment of him being yours came in a flash. 

Drip. 

More than anything in the world, you missed loving him like you could lose him. There was nothing so delicate and private in the world. 

Drip. 

“I know what I want.” The words were a whisper, scared to say them aloud, scared to whisper them into admission. 

“Tell me.” His tone matched yours, he was just as scared to hear it as you were to say it. 

Drip. 

“I want you to win me back.” 

You can’t remember the last time you’ve seen Peter smile like that, not since he was yours. 

His teeth sunk into his bottom lip failing to catch the growing grin. 

“I can do that.” He nods. 

 “I can do that.” 

—-------------------

Flowers everyday. 

That’s how it started. 

On Monday they were purple Hyacinths, left outside your front door with a small handwritten note: Sorrow, please forgive me. 

You’re reminded of every time Peter’s tried to get your attention with a wave or a smile or even tried to offer an olive branch by walking you home. 

Tuesday they were red Tulips with a similar note attached: Believe me, my feelings are true. 

You know he’s sorry, he’s made that much clear. 

Wednesday they were Violets: I’ll always be there.

Even when you haven’t wanted him. 

Before the presentation in class Hydrangeas were left in your locker: Good luck and fortune.

Thursday were mixed Zinnias: Thinking in memory of an absent friend and lasting affection.

He’s missed you just as much as you’ve missed him. 

Friday was a Gladioli: Give me a break, I am really sincere.

He’s asking you to trust him one more time. 

Saturday morning there were several flowers and notes outside of your window. 

A Coreopsis: Always cheerful.

You’ve made him so happy.

A Lily of the Valley: A return to happiness, you’ve made my life complete. 

You give him something to look forward to.

A Dandelion: Faithfulness and happiness.

Something he can rely on. 

A Lavender stem: Admiration. 

He doesn’t know how someone could be so perfect.

A red Carnation: My heart aches for you. 

He hasn’t ever known pain that ebbs so deep into him.

A Sweet-Pea: Thank you for a lovely time. 

You gave him a true meaning in life, not Spider-Man, Peter. You gave Peter a meaning.

A Forget-Me-Not: True love and memories. 

It really was true love, there was nothing more pure about it.

A Narcissus: Stay as sweet as you are. 

He can only hope he hasn’t damaged that.

A Petunia: Your presence soothes me. 

You have a presence that calms him, it’s a talent only you and Aunt May possess. 

A Camellia: I’m longing for you. 

He’s thought of you everyday since he ended it. 

A Daffodil: You’re the only one, the sun is only shining when I’m with you. 

Everything's better when you’re around.

Finally a Primrose: I can’t live without you. 

Because he really can’t.

On Sunday you caught him in the act. 

Dressed in dark tan khakis, a blue plaid button down and a dark gray jacket. His Nike shoes matched the hints of dark blues in his shirt, his hair looked extra fluffy today. You always begged him to grow it longer, sometimes he would appease you and wait an extra week or two before he chopped it but the past month he’s let it grow, long curls framed his face and all you wanted to do was tangle them around your fingers. 

“Careful, another bouquet and I’ll have to start my own nursery.” You chided him and grinned when his cheeks flushed briefly after he slightly jumped unaware of your lurking presence. 

“Were you waiting for me?” His hand was behind his back, you were eager to see the flower of the day. 

“Maybe. It’s impressive how you’ve dropped them all week without me seeing you. Are you using your stealth secrets on me?” 

“I could be, It’s better to see your reaction when I’m not in front of you. It seems more authentic.” 

“Oh, when you’re not in front of me? Does that mean you’re lurking around watching me like some kind of stalker?” You grinned at his caught look, he didn’t mean to let that slip, but he was going to lean into it. 

“I just want to make sure you get them, I don’t want some sorry guy coming by stealing my tactics.” 

“Have you watched me before? Cause I swear I’ve got the feeling someone is just out of sight on a roof I can’t see.” You hinted at his alter ego and watched him nonchalantly shrug. 

“Sometimes. Mostly at night when you were alone, I used to walk you home, you know. What if some guy from Ryker's got out and thought you were an ex that locked them up and you got stabbed to death?” 

Your eyes widened. “Is that the stuff you worried about when we broke up?” 

We. No, ‘when you’, it was we. 

“Like a mantra.” 

A frown crossed your face. “Here I was worried you weren’t going to know how to put your own band-aids on, nice to know you are still obsessed over me.” 

“Always have, always will.” He smiled and remembered why he was here. 

“I have something for you.” 

You grinned and made grabby hands, “Lemme see it!” 

“It’s not a flower.” 

You pouted and booed. 

“Let me give you mine first then.” 

Peter’s eyebrows raised, “You have something for me?” 

“Yeah, hold on.” You dipped back into your room for a moment and emerged with a small pot, three short green stalks were bunched together. You held it out for him to grab, one hand was kept behind his back. 

He looked at you and waited for the explanation. 

“It’s a lucky bamboo. It symbolizes growth and renewal, something for a new life stage. I thought it was fitting.” 

He hugged it tight to his chest, “Thank you. I love it, I am gonna nurture the fuck out of this. His name is gonna be Groot, thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

You both just smiled at each other for a moment too long, almost forgetting why you were both here. You think Peter lent in for a second before jumping slightly, he remembered why he came. 

“Here’s yours.” 

Peter passed you a folded up paper, you looked confused but grabbed it from him. You looked up to catch him grinning at his branches and he whispered something to the green before nodding at you to unfold the paper. 

Inside were two printed tickets to the Planetarium, you gasped and dropped your jaw. You looked towards him and he was already smiling at your reaction. 

“Oh my god, Peter!” 

You rushed forward with a squeal and crushed him in a hug, both of your arms wrapped around his, he let out a ‘oof’ and pulled one arm from under yours to wrap it around you. You pushed forward just a little closer, resting your cheek against his chest, he felt warm and sturdy. No matter how much time passed you missed this the most, just feeling him, and feeling like nothing could harm you. 

“Did I do good?” His words felt like vibrations in your cheek. 

“Amazing!” You grinned up at him and pushed yourself to your tiptoes to place a kiss on the corner of his mouth. 

He paused for a second, shock in his system. You kissed him. Well, not a full on kiss, but it was a hint of one. 

“Well then, would you like to go on a date with me?” 

You smiled so wide you bit your bottom lip trying to rein it in. 

“I would love to.” 

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

A date it was. 

Peter pulled out all the stops, he took you to a nice dinner, one where they had a candle on the table and ketchup wasn’t available. He even looked over the menu beforehand and let you know what he thinks you would like, not that you can’t make your own choices but new restaurants always give you a little anxiety. You were unsure what you would like and felt like you were wasting time looking over the menu rereading the same summaries hoping one would jump out at you. 

Then after dinner he gave you his jacket, walking down the street you were confused when he didn’t call for a taxi but followed him anyway. You looked down at his hand next to yours and grabbed it, then he intertwined them and pulled you to the side of a building. You looked up at the sign and then him. 

“Chocolatier?” 

He pulled an eyebrow up, “You didn’t think I forgot about dessert did you? 

“I’m getting two slices of cake.” You moved to pull him inside, he followed behind and you both paused at the door inhaling the sweet scent blowing in your faces. 

“As long as I can get a bite.” 

“We’ll see.” 

After dessert he took you to the planetarium and you gazed up in awe at the constellations. The seats were recliners and lent all the way back so you had undivided attention at the ceiling. 

“Which one is that?” You pointed up at a stack of stars, they almost made the shape of a person. Peter followed your finger up, “That one?” He pointed at the same star, you nod. 

“Andromeda. A Greek princess.” 

“Ooh. Wait, where is the big bear and little bear?” You moved your head but couldn’t place it, those were your favorites. 

Peter grabbed your hand and pointed up at them, he traced the stars with your finger, “Big bear,” then lowered your hand, moved it slightly and traced again, “Little bear.” A soft smile crossed your face, you always thought of those as you and Peter, you followed him around mimicking his antidotes and sidekicking every bit of the way. 

You moved in closer to Peter and turned halfway to rest your head on his shoulder, looking up at him from your eyes you shuffled in deeper. 

“Tell me all about the ones you know.” 

And he did, he took you through each one slowly, sometimes picking your hand up to point at them and trace the lines so you knew exactly what he was talking about. Peter spoke quietly and calmly, you were the only ones in the room but it still felt extremely private, this was a moment for you and him only. 

“This one is Apus, the bird of paradise. This one is supposed to be the beak, and this one is the tail. And this one is Ara, it’s an altar that was used by Gods before battle with the Titans to vow their allegiance.” He traced the outline and you stared in awe. 

“And this one here is Aquila,” 

“It looks like an eagle.” 

“It is! Look at you, smartie.” 

“He was the retriever of Zeus’s thunderbolts.” 

“Oh! And look at this one here, this one is really cool. It’s Antlia, and it’s my favorite because it literally translates to-” 

You stopped him with a kiss. 

It was slow, you moved against each other for a minute or two. You weren’t all over each other, it wasn’t full of passion and heat. It was a kiss that meant more than that, it was trust, it was giving, it was kind. It was love, you both felt it. 

“Air pump. It translates to air pump.” 

His first words when you broke away, his eyes blinked open slowly and he looked towards you. You couldn’t help yourself and lent in for one more, it was shorter. Just a little longer than a peck. 

“What was that for?” Peter was breathless, he wasn’t expecting that. He wasn’t expecting anything like that for a while. 

“Because I think you’re lovely.” 

“That's funny, because I think you’re lovelier.” 

You frowned for a moment, you didn’t feel lovely. 

The past week you’ve done a lot of reflecting. You hadn’t been kind, or nice, or patient with Peter like he’s been with you. Instead you’ve been bitter, mean, and miserable. It wasn’t right, if you love someone you don’t treat them like that. 

“I’m not. Or at least I haven’t been. And, I’m sorry too, by the way.” 

“Sorry for what?” 

“Being the worst. I was so caught up in being hurt and mad at you I forgot you were hurting too. I think I forgot that even though you might have ended it, it hurt you too. And I’m sure I made it worse for you because I took all my hurt and anger out on you, I never should’ve said all those things. I should’ve never said I hate you, that was low and dirty of me. I don’t hate you, at all. I don’t think I ever could, actually. I just wanted to make you hurt like I did, but it made me feel worse because you didn’t deserve that. So, I’m sorry.” 

You blinked back tears, it was a good night so far and you didn’t want to ruin it with waterworks. 

“Oh, baby. C’mere.” Peter held you into him and kissed the top of your head. 

“It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean it, and it sucked but I get why you did it. You just wanted to make it even, doesn’t make it right but you needed to work through it. Just promise me you’ll never say it again, I don’t know if I can handle that again.” He pinched at your side and smiled when he made you giggle. 

“Deal.” You kissed his cheek and breathed in his neck, you missed his smell. 

“I missed you calling me that.” Your words were muffled, a vulnerable admission. 

“What, baby?” You nodded in his neck. 

“I can start doing it again, it’s yours anyways.” 

“I’d like that, Petey.” You smile pulling away.

Peter slapped a hand over his chest. “Be still, my heart.” 

“I thought you hated that nickname?” 

“I did. Until I didn’t hear it for four months.” 

You giggled and looked at the stars once more. It was a perfect night, but you couldn’t help but think about how many nights like this you’ve missed out on since things ended. 

“Can I ask you a question?” 

Peter picked your hand up and kissed the back of it. 

“Anything.” 

“Why did you end it?” 

Lips froze on your hand. It was obvious he wasn’t expecting that. 

“Baby, listen to me. Tonight was a good night, right?” 

You nodded. “The best.” 

“I don’t want to ruin tonight, and I’m not saying you are. I would be. We’ll talk about it, I promise. But I don’t want to tonight, is that okay?” 

“You would ruin the night?” 

“It’s hard for me to talk about it. No one knows the full story, and you’ll be the only one who gets it. I just don’t want to open that door tonight. Is that okay?” 

You wanted to ask why it was hard for him to talk about it, and why he never told anyone the real reason, but that would defeat the purpose of him not wanting to talk about it. 

“That’s okay. We’ve got nothing but time.” 

Peter looked at you for a second soaking your words in. 

“You sure?” 

You kissed him once more, a promise. 

“Positive. Now tell me which one that is.”

—————————————————

The next two weeks went by slowly, you never did get that reasoning. It wasn't an omission on Peter’s part but you’ve both been busy doing other things and it hasn’t really crossed your mind, and the times it did it didn’t feel like the right time to bring it up again. 

You slowly started to integrate your life back with Peter’s. 

It started with sitting with him, Ned and MJ at lunch, Betty too when she wasn’t in the TV room piecing together her next segment for the morning announcements. Then Peter started walking to class with you holding your books or backpack when it got too heavy, and then finally you let him sit next to you in shared classes again. 

“Psst. Peter.” 

He kept his eyes on the board trying to copy down the words from the slide before they disappeared, this teacher changed slides too quickly. You were trying to copy the last slide from his paper but his arm blocked off part of what you needed. 

“Peter.” You whispered again but he kept going, to be fair he did have a headphone in. He was having a bad sense day, everything was just a bit too much for him, which is why he’s been clinging to you all day. For whatever reason you always calmed it down for him, sometimes you made it worse when things were getting a bit too physical, but usually you calmed him. 

“Babe?” 

His head whipped to yours, that's the first time you’ve dropped that line on him. 

“Yes?” 

You pointed at your sheet where it dropped off and pouted, “Help.” 

He immediately moved his arm and pushed his paper towards you a bit more and watched as you scratched down his notes, someone coughed and his ears rang, then again, and again. He started to shake his leg, then someone started to sniffle, it felt like it was in his head. Without pausing you wrapped your left arm around his elbow and scribbled a bit faster, if he was focusing on something it made it a little easier. His foot stopped instantly, and the noises became more muffled. 

“All done. Thanks.” You pushed it back his way but kept your arm around his, he wouldn’t ask for it but you knew he needed it. 

“Anytime.” You know he means it. 

After the bell rang he stood pushing things in his backpack, you did the same and lingered for a moment, he grabbed your hand and walked with you out the classroom. 

“Would you like to go on a date tonight?” 

It was a Friday and last week he had taken you to the Zoo, it was becoming a weekly habit. Part of him trying to win you back, not that you would tell him but you think he already has. The point of this was to take it slow, you both know how this is going to end so there’s no rush. 

“What are you thinking?” 

“I don’t know, I was thinking I’d leave it up to you. Your turn to choose.” 

“Your house? We can have a sleepover and do movies, maybe you’ll let me do a face mask with you to put you back in my good graces.” You teased him lightly, he always gave pushback when you tried to do spa nights, but he would always give in without much of a fight. 

“Shh, be quiet. I don’t need people thinking I’m a softie doing spa nights with my girl.” He teased back, as if he would care if people thought he was softie. He was the biggest softie around you and that’s one of the things you loved most. 

“Your girl? Who, me?” You looked around and smiled when he wrapped his arm around your shoulder and tucked you into his side. 

“Of course, you. Who else could I want?” 

Later that evening you found yourself at the Parker household but it wasn’t so quiet this time, May was humming in the kitchen and upon you walking in she screamed and pushed Peter to the side. 

“Hugs, hugs! Peter move, let me at her!” 

May wrapped her arms around you in a vice grip scared you’d run away if she let go, she missed having you around the house. Peter had a pep in his step when he was with you but since things ended he’s been more melancholy and quiet, it doesn’t help that May has been berating him too. 

When he walked in after ended it with you she knew immediately something was wrong. She asked him outright, “What happened? What did you do, Peter? Please don’t tell me you did something stupid.” He did. He did do something stupid and admitted to it after sobbing into his aunt's arm for an hour.  

She waited two weeks before she started in on him, like at the store, “I have a feeling I need to get strawberry ice cream, but I can’t remember who for. Was it that girl that came around before you broke her heart?” And Peter would heavily sigh, “Yes, May. That’s her.” 

She just missed having you around, and seeing Peter so happy. 

“What are you doing here? Oh my gosh!” May was beaming looking between you and her nephew. 

“Well,” You looked to Peter and rested your hand on your stomach.

May let out a gasp, “Peter, I swear to god if you got her pregnant!” Even though Peter knows that's not the case he takes a step back for extra measure. 

“Ew! God no. I wouldn’t let him touch me like that, May. He’s gross.” 

“Hey!” A whine.

“We were paired for a project at school and started hanging out again.” You smiled at May, you missed her as much as she did you. 

“And you’re hanging out here?” May pointed at the floor, she can’t believe after a school project things were fine. 

You nod. “Yes. Peter is trying to win me back, it’s date night. He let me choose and I wanted to have a sleepover, I even talked him into a spa night!” 

Peter’s eyes lit up, you were letting him put the pieces back into place.

“Date night? Since when is there a designated date night?” May was sputtering. 

You look at Peter and think back, his face helping you form an answer. “Three weeks?” 

Peter nods. 

May’s jaw dropped, her nephew mentioned nothing of this. At all. 

“Peter! What the fuck!” 

He jumped, “What?” 

“What is right! You’ve been taking her out without me knowing? Why?!” May was in shock, she knows Peter knows how much she’s missed you, she bullies him every chance she gets. 

“I don’t know,” Peter shrugged but did know why, and May knew that too. She just stared at him with that mom look and he looked at the ground and continued before looking at you. 

“I know you missed her, May. I wasn’t sure how this would go, I still don’t. It’s not my decision at the end, I didn’t want to get you all excited just to tell you I failed.” 

‘Peter.’ You mouthed the words, he shook his head subtly. You caught it, it meant ‘not now.’

May let out a breath and slapped her hands on her pants. “Okay, that’s fair. You should’ve given me a warning before you let her in though, I nearly had a heart attack.” 

“And you my dear,” She spun to you and wiggled in joy once more, still amazed you were truly in the room, here for a rekindling. 

“Are more than welcome to stay the night! Do you have dinner plans, or any plans at all? I’m about to leave for work, is there anything either of you need?” 

“Thanks, May! Peter’s cooking for me tonight, he said he got a new recipe.” 

Peter cut off May’s impressed look, “It’s just a restaurant copycat, May. I’ve just never made it for her before.” 

“Is that why you got so many tomatoes at the store? Are you making your own tomato sauce!” 

“Oh my god, Peter.” You whined out at him, he cut his gaze towards you and grinned. He was down bad. 

“You’re making homemade sauce? That is so cute, c’mere.” You tugged at him for a side hug, not missing the way May’s eyes gleamed. 

“Well, I just cleaned the kitchen so it’s up to the chef now.” She throws a wink at her nephew, “It is so nice having some sunshine back in the apartment, I’ll see you both in the morning. Good night!” May placed a kiss to each of your foreheads and made a final goodbye at the door, you heard the click where she locked it on the outside. 

You were alone and excited, you didn’t plan on anything happening tonight and sure, you definitely missed Peter in that way, but seeing him so domestic you wanted to lay him down flat and make him a mess. 

He had changed into sweatpants, baby yoda printed socks poked out, and his white tee. You think he did it on purpose, he didn’t act like he did but he has to know what he’s doing. It seemed just a bit too tight, like he hadn’t worn it in a while and it just came out the dryer, it was snug across his chest and constricted around his biceps that flexed at every subtle movement of him mixing a pot of red. 

“I regret my choice for date night.” 

“Oh?” He looked sad, “We can do something else, what did you have in mind?” 

“Oh no, I am very much enjoying what I’m seeing. That’s the issue, Mr. Parker.” 

“That doesn’t seem like much of an issue to me, dear.” 

His back was turned to you again, he spoke a little louder to make up for his echo towards the stove. You were sitting on the kitchen counter next to the sink, feet swaying and slightly kicking the cabinet, if it was a few months ago Peter would scold you for kicking them. He would tell you May would beat you up and then he would have to beat May up for doing so, and then he would grab at your knees and stop them while he squeezed and you would laugh trying to peel his hands off. 

Tonight he was letting you get away with it, he’s been letting you do that recently. Small things that would’ve pushed him in the past didn’t get to him, or he was allowing it to happen so he didn’t push you too far with scolding. You chewed your bottom lip and watched him, he had a white rag thrown over his shoulder. You peered down to your right and saw the cheese grater and plate, he even was grating fresh cheese, he was going all out for you tonight. 

“I think it needs more oregano, or pepper. It’s missing something, what do you think?” He licked the corner of his mouth for any extra tomato sauce, his face scrunched in concentration. Peter held his hand under the wooden spoon lightly blowing on it before raising it to your mouth, you smacked your lips a few times getting a taste, “Add a little salt, then let me try again.” 

He nodded and you watched him add more of the flaked salt, then returned with another cooled mouthful. “Mm, I think you were right. It’s really yummy though.” Peter smiled and patted your knee, “Thank you, baby.” Your heart gushed and you yearned for a kiss, the rules were weird. You weren’t together yet, choosing to really make sure you can trust him. But, you also weren’t not together, he was taking you on dates, and doting, and really, really trying. 

You were dating, that was clear. And people who go on regular dates kiss, right? Not to mention you were dating for almost two years, you’ve kissed before. It wouldn’t be weird at all, and it hasn’t been. Each peck you’ve given had a hidden layer of lust, each time you met it was harder to pull away. Part of you was nervous for tonight, you were scared you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself. 

Especially when sharing a bed.

Gathering courage you slid to your feet feather light, you stood behind him for a moment before leaning in, sticking your nose in the crease of his armpit. “Hi,” He turned his neck to glance at you for a moment before turning his head back, “Hi, baby.” You moved to lay your cheek on his shoulder blade, hands coming around his chest and pressing into him, “You’re warm,” your words were slightly muffled from a squished cheek. 

“You light a fire in me, what can I say?” 

“Gross, you’re cheesy.” You moved to pull away but he caught your hands and held his against yours to hold them there, he was asking for an extra cuddle. You gave in, bear hugging his back, you squeezed tight, “Can we go out for ice cream after dinner?” 

“Anything you want.” 

“Anything I want, huh?” 

He hummed. 

“Can I ask a question?” 

“Shoot.” 

“Kiss?” 

Peter turned in your hold, “Pretty girl, you never have to ask for a kiss. Now, c’mere.” 

He leant to kiss you, his thumb rubbing at your cheek made you dizzy. It was luring you into a trap, you didn’t care. Peter broke first, “Good?” You blinked your eyes open slowly, “Another,” He gave you one more, you held on for a moment longer, he broke away again, he leaned away trying to find space, he needed to stir his sauce, it was almost at a simmer. 

You followed his mouth, a peck, “Baby,” another peck, “I gotta stir,” another, “Baby,” he laughed and drew his head back, you kissed his chin. “One more for good measure,” He rolled his eyes, but did it regardless, both hands cupping your face he squashed your lips in a playful kiss, pulling back with an animated pucker sound. 

“Now get back, menace.” 

Peter was finally able to focus on the main part of the dish, he flattened the protein with a tenderizer and started to grate the cheese. You wondered if it would be the wrong time to bring it up again, the ‘why’ question. 

“Is it a bad time to bring it up?” 

He paused for a split second, his focus reminded on the sharp grater. You watched the parmesan fall like snow. 

“You won’t be my girlfriend until I tell you.” 

It wasn’t a question, it was rhetorical. 

“No, I don’t think I will.” It was a sad smile. 

“The thing I’m scared of is,” He rolled the wrapping on the cheese down a bit further then started to grate again, “ that you won’t want to be my girlfriend once I tell you.” 

“Will I be mad?” 

“I think it’s more disappointment.” 

“Is it worse than breaking up with me?” 

“I,” He paused and knocked the extra cheese off the grater and leveled the bowl. He started once more, “I don’t know.” He looked at you and sighed. “I don’t want you to hate me.” 

“Is it that bad?” You can’t think of something that extreme, something only you and him would share. It was obviously extremely personal. 

Peter stopped and moved to his left to stand between your thighs, one hand resting above your knee. He tapped his thumb and thought of his words, how he would tell the story looking at you. 

“I uh, I got in a fight?”

He sounded unsure, you don’t think it was a lie but you question the choice of words.  

“When?” 

“A week before I ended it.” 

“Why?” A whisper. 

Peter bent his bottom lip with a nibble, he looked to the side and you saw moisture prick at the edges of his eyes. He shrugged, his voice cracked when he looked back at you. 

“You.” 

“Me?” 

“I, uh. It was, well I don’t. I just, I can’t right now. I can’t, I’m sorry.” 

You knew it was a bad time, and you get what he meant at the planetarium, it was a mood killer.  

“We don’t have to talk about it anymore tonight, Petey. Let’s drop it and forget it for now, we can unpack this later. Right now I just want to eat your yummy dinner and cuddle on the couch with a movie, is that alright with you?” 

“You sure?” 

“Positive. Give me a kiss, chef.” 

After dinner, which was delicious, you even ate scraps off Peter’s plate and then shoved yours into his chest and requested seconds that had him hopping to his own beat to the kitchen. Then dessert, which ended up with both of you choosing to swap ice cream for homemade cookies. 

Then you forced him to lay his head back into your lap while you applied a goopy paste that covered his face gray. 

“It’s cold” He whined  

“Cold is good, it shrinks your pores.” 

“My what?” 

You rolled your eyes, “it makes you look younger.” 

“I’m already baby faced, get it off!” 

When his phone timer went off you both tread into his bathroom to remove it, the space was slightly too small for two, both of you constantly bumping hips. 

“Get away from me, stinky.” Peter pulled into the corner while giving his chin circular motions after you scolded him for dragging his skin down. 

“If you want to shower with me just say so.” You winked at him in the mirror, you patted a towel on your face to remove any leftover moisture then waited to hand it off to Peter once he rinsed his own off.  

“That’s gross.” He still tore it from your hands and patted his own, softer after you screamed “Gentle!” 

“What is, the face mask?” 

“No, sharing a towel.” 

You pulled a neutral face, “Wait until you find out about all the other things we’ve shared.” 

“Is that a sexual innuendo? I’m calling HR.” 

A yawn exchange was currently in place, you started it. Then Peter gave one, then you copied, and because you yawned he did, you opened your mouth to rinse and repeat when he pushed your face to the side with his hand. 

“Stop it, go to bed.” His voice was teasing, “You stuffed me! I’m being lulled to sleep in the comfort of your arms.” 

You had both started on opposite sides of the couch, then you shifted to the middle, then stretched your legs out on his lap and he lightly scratched at your shins. Then halfway through the first movie you swapped so his fingers were scratching at your scalp. And somewhere between a bathroom break and the start of the second movie you sauntered back over to the couch but on Peter’s half. 

“Open sesame.” You made a parting motion at his crossed arms. 

He opened and dropped his arms like dead weight and watched as you pulled them in whatever position you liked, you finally settled on laying with your butt against his hip, one arm was crossed under your head as a pillow and the other was thrown over your chest. 

“Finished fluffing me?” 

“This pillow talks too much.” 

You both stayed like that for a movie and a half, Peter had to pee so bad his eyes were watering but he refused to break the cuddles. He never, ever wanted to leave your side again. 

“Go to bed, it’s okay.” He watched you wiggle up with a stretch. You picked up the soft throw blanket to follow in with you, you blinked at Peter and waited for him to rise. When he didn’t move you poked his shin with a toe, “Are you coming or staying up?” His eyebrows stretched, “You want me to come? I was prepared to crash in May’s.” 

“You think I chose a sleepover to sleep alone? Rude.” 

“No! I just didn’t expect to share a bed. I know we’re in this inbetween stage, I didn’t want to rush anything.” 

“Well, I want to share a bed. So, share a bed we may.” 

Peter rose in an instant, clicking the TV off with the remote, darkness enveloped the room, you blinked to adjust Peter’s frame. He rested a hand on your lower back to guide you into his room. 

“Yes ma’am.” 

He sunk into bed and reset the pillows, his jaw dropped when you raised your shirt above your head and ripped off a sports bra. 

“Oh my god, boobs.” 

“What? These old things?” 

“Boobs. I see boobs right now.” 

You giggled and gave your chest a little shake, his head darted back and forth with the movement. It was like shaking a treat at a dog. 

“Last time you saw them you wanted nothing to do with em!” 

He shook his head, “That’s because you were drunk, someone had to make a good decision.” 

“I wasn’t that drunk, I still remember that whole night and gag when I think about it.” 

Peter kept trying to go between your face and chest, he was doing his best at looking at you, but you saw the subtle drop down and back up. 

“Wanna touch them?” 

He gasped and his face lit up. 

“For real?” 

“For real.” 

Peter made grabby hands, and kissing sounds. You laughed at his childish demeanor and kneeled on his bed, chest in his face. 

“This is so much better than Christmas.” 

He chewed his bottom lip. 

“I’m gonna touch them.” 

“Go ahead.” You pushed your chest forward. 

“Like right now.” 

“I’m wondering why you haven’t.” 

“I’m waiting for you to say, “just kidding, you’re a perv.””

“Not gonna happen.” 

“Okay then, I’m grabbing them yiddies.” 

And he did, he grabbed one in each hand and jiggled, then giggled when they danced in his face.

You slapped his hands away, “oh my god, I didn’t think you would actually do it, you perv!” 

His face dropped with his hands, until he saw your smile. “Menace.” He grabbed them again, then couldn’t help himself. 

Mesmerized, his words were filled with filth despite the innocence of his words.

“So pretty, baby.” So soft, so quiet. 

Only for your ears.  

“Says you, handsome.” Just as private as his, he shook his head, almost disappointed that you didn’t get it. 

“Are you sure you wanna cover these back up?” He moved his hands to watch them bounce one more time before you slapped them off, pushing off the bed to slide your shirt back over.

Crawling back into bed next to him you moved to cuddle him, leg thrown over his hip, hand tracing his chest while your head rested on his quick heartbeat. 

“Can I ask you a question?” 

“Uh oh.” He twirled his finger around your hair. 

“It’s nothing bad! I swear.” 

This is pillowtalk. Peter loves and misses pillowtalk. 

“Alright, run it by me.” 

“Sex. Thoughts, opinions, ideology?” 

“Sex good.” 

“So insightful, that will be quoted in years to come.” 

“Why are you asking me about sex?” 

“This isn’t asking me things, time, it’s me asking you things, time.” 

He stayed silent, he wouldn’t respond to you without an answer. When he acted dominating it was always a rush. 

“Uh! I guess I mean, ya know.” 

He truly didn’t know, but if he knows you, and he does, he had to take a guess. 

“You want to know if I want to have sex with you?” 

“You don’t have to say it like that.” You muffled the words in his shirt. 

Why were you so coy? 

He laughed, “Baby, I don’t think there’s another way to say that.” 

You waited, he didn’t answer. 

“Well?” 

“Hm.” He poked your side, “You first.” 

You turned to his face with an open mouth, “No way! I asked you first.” 

He rolled his eyes. “No you didn’t, I had to guess what you were trying to ask.” 

“Same thing! You always know what I mean, that’s why you’re my boyfriend!” 

A pause, no one moved or said anything. 

“I mean, before you totally ruined everything and dumped me and now caused yourself to be in this period of space and time due to the choices you’ve made up to this point in life, which is why you are not my current boyfriend, but you were in a past timeline and a possible future timeline. Speaking of which, when you told May getting back together may fail what did you mean by that? You think I may not take you back, or this will end with us officially, officially ending it?”

Peter blinked slowly, that was so much at once.

“That was so much at once.” 

You looked around the room, word vomit was always a bad habit of yours. And usually with Peter, he had a way of getting you to spill your guts. 

“I appreciate the clarification on the boyfriend status, but you didn’t have to be so brutal, damn.” He took a breath, “Second, I am trying to win you back, not the other way around. You already have me, so when I say this may fail, I mean it. At the end of the day, you have final say and I really may have ruined this for real.” 

“I panicked.” You didn’t mean to sound so harsh.

“I know you did.” 

“I know what I can say back to that.” 

“What’s that?” 

“You’re not my boyfriend.” 

“I know, sweetheart.” 

“Yet.” 

“Oh, word?” He held up his hand for a fist bump.

“Word.” You tapped knuckles. 

“Now, what was that about wanting to rattle my bones?” 

You rolled your eyes, “Oh my god, just say fuck.” 

“I have never said fuck in that context, it’s dirty.” 

“Peter! Sex is dirty, and that’s okay. Just say it, c’mon.” 

“Not happening, it makes me feel weird. I feel like I got a pass from my parents to cuss one time, and it doesn’t feel right.” 

“Peter if you don’t say you want to fuck me right now, I will give you a purple nurple.” 

“I would love to, fu- Nope, not happening, it’s wrong.” 

“Of course it’s wrong, don’t be nice!” 

“I am nice! That's all I have, unlike you! Menace.” 

“That’s toxic, now say it with your chest. “I wanna fuck you.” Just like that.” 

“I wanna… you.” He turned his head and mumbled the middle part.

“You wanna do what?”

“Fu..” He mumbled the rest and coughed in his fist, cheeks pink. 

“One more time, I know you’ve got it in you.” 

He groaned and tugged at his curls, “Nope, moment is over. Not happening, not my fault you couldn’t hear me.” 

“Ugh, fine.” You pulled away from him to get one last bathroom trip in, then jumped into bed and laughed when Peter held his arms out like he could steady the bed. 

That’s something he would’ve scolded you for, he stayed silent. 

On the brink of total slumber Peter whispered in your ear, he was currently holding you from behind, his arms wrapped around you and he was pressed against you. 

“Can I be little spoon?” 

You throw his arm off you and turn around, his face right in yours. 

“Of course I can jetpack!” 

Then you press a chaste kiss to his mouth, you pull back before he can register. 

“Goodnight, Petey.” 

—---------------------------------------------

Why was everyone looking at you?

It felt like a movie, walking into school everyone had turned their head and watched you. 

It was a dream, it had to be. Maybe you forgot pants, nope, you have pants on. Maybe someone buzzed your hair off, nope, every hair was still there. Maybe it was someone behind you, nope, just you. 

You were beginning to feel self conscious, the pressure was on for no reason. 

Why was everyone looking at you? 

Oh. That’s why. 

Every single locker in the senior hall had a post it note.

Each square is a different color. 

Each had the same words. 

“Peter loves Y/N.” 

You slowly walked the halls in awe, looping around to see that he had actually put one on each cage of blue metal. 

Every locker had his declaration of his love, except for yours. 

No, your’s was an entire collage, canary yellow post its covered the entire thing, only your combination lock was visabile. In bright red, boldly written across, “I LOVE YOU.” Over, and over, and over again. 

MJ approached your locker and nodded her head impressed, she always told Peter actions speak louder than words, looks like he finally listened. 

Unable to break your gaze away for more than two seconds you glance at her and look back at what you consider an art piece. 

“Be honest,” You look at her once more, “Do you think he loves me?” 

And she laughs, a rare full body shake laugh. You can’t help but laugh with MJ, it was contagious. 

“If he does, he doesn't show it well.” 

You sigh and look around the hallway once more. 

“Yeah, it’s really hard to tell.” 

———————————————

“There’s my little artist!” You kiss your fingers at Peter. 

“Is that a short joke? You know I’m sensitive.” 

“And you know you’re a short king.” 

You set your backpack on the lunch table before sitting next to him, and stare in awe. It was the most beautiful thing you’ve ever experienced, you would be reliving this moment forever. 

How could you not make him yours right now? 

“So you noticed?” 

You laugh, “I’m pretty sure everyone did. I think Mrs. Bender was jealous.” 

“Okay, you need to stop with the Mrs. Bender isn’t getting laid.” 

“Well, she shouldn’t act like she’s not getting dick.” 

“But it’s okay when you do?” 

“That is so mean, you have no idea, you are so toxic to me.” 

“Am I wrong?” 

“Yes! I get dick!” 

“Oh yeah, from where?”

“I have hoes!” 

“Name five.” 

“Well, I have you.” 

Peter makes a buzz noise, “It’s been almost five months, plus that was when we were dating. I can’t be a hoe if we’re dating.” 

“You can absolutely be a hoe while dating.” 

“Sure. Four more names, I’m waiting.” 

“I mean, there was this one guy.” You look to the side, oh, you were being truthful. 

Peter thinks it was that guy you talked about at the party with your friends. 

“Nathan?” 

“How did you know?” You look back at his face, nothing really happened and you felt the need to tell him that. Even though you were broken up you didn’t want him to think of you like that. 

“Lucky guess.” He winked. 

If he was bothered he was playing it off good. 

“It wasn’t what you think.” 

“What do you think, I think?” 

“That I fucked him.” 

Peter winced, he hated the word. So vulgar.

“I didn’t say that.” 

“Would it bother you if I did?” 

Why did you want him to be bothered by that? 

“I don’t know, which is why I don’t think about it. We were broken up, I can’t hold that over your head. But it doesn’t feel nice knowing someone else got to see and feel the same parts I did.” 

“Have you hooked up with someone else?” Sure, try and level the playing field. 

“Nope. I am untainted, I was a good little boy.” He grinned at you proudly. 

“Can I tell you about it? It isn’t super bad, but I will throw in a PG-13 warning, depictions of sex.” 

Peter grumbled. 

“If you gotta.” 

“I just don’t want you to think I’m a whore.” You nibbled on your lip. 

“Pause. I would never, and if that’s why you want to tell me, don’t. If you want to tell me to share that information with me, because you want to, then please do.” 

“He sucked. I swear.” 

Peter nods, but it still feels like you’re trying to make him feel better. 

“I was a little too drunk and he was all over me, and I really missed you and he was there. He didn’t even kiss me, he asked me to suck him off and I refused, then he said he would go down on me so I would suck his dick, then I don’t know what he was doing down there but I swear he was just pretending, Peter. I felt nothing.” 

“Then what?” He waited for you to continue after he took a bite from his turkey and wheat.

“I got up and left. I was so pissed at my friends for letting me go into that room with him.” 

“I should get you an ‘I survived’ medal.” 

You laughed and rested your forehead on his shoulder, nodding before looking at him. 

“Question?” 

“Whatcha what?” 

You blinked and looked at his mouth. He deserved a kiss, he made you the school’s star for the day, every one knew how much Peter Parker loved you. 

“Kissy?” 

He shook his head lightly. 

“What did I say about asking?” 

You shrug, innocence taking front place. You always got so shy when you confessed something to him. 

“I like it, it feels special.” 

“Okay then, ask me anytime you want a kiss.” 

“I want a kiss.” 

“Well, that’s more of a statement than a question, but I appreciate the enthusiasm, so come closer.” 

And you did, where he met you with a kiss. This one felt normal, it felt like home. It felt like every kiss you had before the break up, it was beginning to feel like it never happened and you weren’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. 

It sure did feel like a good thing though. 

“Hi cuties! Are we dating yet or still feeling it out?” Betty Brant broke up the kiss, Ned trailing in behind her with two lunch trays. 

“That line was so long, I am never doing Friday fish tacos again.” Ned sat down and wiped fake sweat from his forehead, his girlfriend sank next to him and pouted, “But I love Friday fish tacos.” 

Ned nods sternly. “I will be doing Friday fish tacos again.” 

Betty smiles and straightens her posture. 

“Dating?” 

Ned nods to you two turned into each other. 

“You look like a couple.” 

You wrap your hand around Peter’s arm. 

“Yeah, a couple of besties!” 

“Not the friendzone.” Peter’s voice is panicked. 

“Not dating?” Betty frowns, she is more invested in this than you thought. 

You smile at her for caring. “Not yet. I’m waiting for Peter to ask.” You bump your shoulder with his. 

Peter raises his head from his carrots, he crunches on one. 

“I don’t think I will.” You think he’s joking, but you quickly realize he’s not. 

“What do you mean?” 

He shrugs, “I think it would make more sense for you to ask me. I’m the one trying to win you back.” 

“Then ask?” You’re confused. 

“I feel like I already have, I’m just waiting on the yes.” 

Betty looks between you two frantically, Ned is busy assembling tacos. He’s used to these conversations between you two, he’s seen more than he can count. 

“But you haven’t asked since we started this.” 

“Okay, if I asked now would you say yes?” 

You chewed your lip. 

“I don’t know.” 

Peter raised his hand. 

“That is exactly why you should ask me.” 

“But that’s scary!” 

“You can do it, I believe in you.” 

“How about I tell you when I want you to ask me.” 

It’s almost the same thing. 

“No, I want you to ask me. I asked the first time.” 

“I don’t know how to ask you!” 

“Find a way, make it your way. There is no wrong or right way, just make sure you’re clear.” 

“Do you mean don’t accidentally say it like last weekend?” 

“There was a hint, yes.” 

You looked at Betty and winked. 

“What if I get down on one knee and ask?” 

“Okay. There is one wrong way.” 

“Super public too, maybe I’ll slide a twenty to the jumbotron camera guy at the Mets.” 

“Nightmare fuel.” Peter shuddered. 

Both you and Betty cracked up. 

—————————————-

May was shocked to see your face, yet again Peter has yet to fail to announce your presence. 

“Hi! What a surprise to see you again!” 

You melted into a hug, you spoke into her neck. 

“It’s a surprise for Peter too, I’m hoping for a surprise sleepover, I missed him a little too much tonight.” You whispered the last part, a little too much confession. 

“Always. Always, always welcome.” She placed a kiss on your temple and pulled you in. 

“Peter! Your girlfriends here!” 

“Yeah, Peter! Your girlfriends here!” You mimicked May’s words and shared a giggle. 

Peter emerged from his room, tugging up the zipper on his hoodie. His face went from shock to excitement, bouncing over to you. 

“Hi, handsome!” You held your hands out for a hug, his arms wrapping around your middle and squeezing tight, he rocked you back and forth. You weren’t the only one missing him more than usual. 

He pulled back and tilted his head, before he could ask a question you beat him to the punch. May watched in silence, happy to see the moment take place. The moment you fell back in love, truly and fully. 

“Kiss?” You puckered and waited. 

“Course.” He leant in, you settled for the quick pecks. 

Peter looked over your outfit and put the pieces together.

“Sleepover?”

You nod with a grin, “Sleepover!” 

Your eyes widened, you whipped your head at May. 

“Please, please tell me you got more popcorn.” 

“Ultimate butter. And, strawberry ice cream.” She smiled at your immediate grin. 

“I’m home,” you wipe a fake tear from under your eye.

You turned your head back to Peter with a puppy dog look, batting your eyelashes and clasped your hands and twisted.  

“Petey,” You drew out the name. 

“Baby,” He tilted his tone. 

“Can you please make me some popcorn, pretty please.” 

“Be honest, did you come here for the popcorn?” It was supposed to be a joke. 

You scoff, “Don’t be ridiculous, I only came for you. I missed you, best friend.” 

“That’s cute.” Peter grinned at you and looked towards May who was currently melting. 

“You’re cute,” You turned your head to May, “Close your eyes, May. Peter’s gonna lay one on me.” 

You made grabby hands for his neck to bring him closer, “It better be a juicy one, May isn’t looking.” And she wasn't, she chose to walk away for a moment, leaving you both for a joyful reunion, even if it’s only been a few hours. 

You asked, Peter delivered. His kiss left your head spinning, you always wondered if he felt the same. He sometimes would leave you in such a head high you felt like you were in a daze. 

“Do you feel like that after a kiss?” You were so loopy you forgot to share what you were thinking.

“Like there’s nothing else like that feeling, it feels so warm and comforting. Like, it really feels like total love, and I swear you make me feel high sometimes, it’s like time stops.” 

“I know what you mean, it’s like no one else but us matters.” 

“You are the only thing that exists for me in that moment, and there is nowhere else I’d ever want to be.” 

Peter groaned, “Come on now, how am I supposed to follow that one up?” 

You grinned, “You can start with making me some popcorn.” 

—————————————

It was only a matter of time. 

Peter was already yours, all you had to do was ask. The only thing holding you back was the why. 

It had to happen soon, you would slip and you swore to yourself you wouldn’t be his girlfriend again until he tells you why you have to ask him to be yours once more. 

Winter break was taking place, and you were currently on Peter Parker's lap grinding down on fleece pajama pants while he was gripping at a breast kissing down your neck while you groaned and tug at his hair. 

There was absolutely nothing wrong with sharing personal wants with a person you desire. 

“Is that what you say to make yourself feel better about sucking my dick?”  

“Oh, so you can say that but not ‘I want to fuck you?’” 

“Yes.” 

“Oh my god, Peter.” 

Sex started a week or two after that last sleepover, it was getting cold and you begged for more warmth even when tucked into his side, and so you backed up into him, butt against his groin, that was normal. 

Except his hand was squashed down in the middle, so you dug one hand behind you trying to lift it out the way as you scooch, back, and back, and back, and oh, there it was. 

It was pressing harder into your back, you wondered if you should pull away, wake Peter up or see how far it would go if you fell into it casually. 

You rub, you grind, you feel Peter’s hand grab tightly at your hip to hold it steady. 

“Baby?” It was warning, his voice was dull and rough, you were the first thing out his mouth. 

“Yes?” It was a whisper, you knew what you were doing. He could hear that too. 

“Do you know what you’re doing?” His grip faltered under a hard pressed grind, he groaned and pressed your hip away. 

“Yes.” You grabbed at the hand on your waist and pulled it up your shirt, his cool hand sent chills up your chest. 

“You want me to take care of you?” The switch, from innocence to dominant, playful to serious. This was your Peter. 

“Please,” It was a whimper. 

“Just lay right there, I know what you want.” 

He started to press kisses down your neck disappearing below the sheets, kisses never stopped. 

And he did know what you wanted, he always did. 

Always, always, always. 

At that moment you only had one question. 

‘What’s the point of asking? He’s already mine anyways.’ 

Now, it was bleeding into day three of living at the Parkers, it had been like this accidently since winter break started. May had gone away for a work trip and Peter’s place became a crash pad, it was just one night, and then one more and it’s probably going to be one more tonight too. 

“Peter…” You sighed off the words, his kisses coming to a stop. 

He grinned up at you, and as lovely as this was you didn’t want to miss the parade down a couple blocks. 

“I want you to do something for me.”

His eyes widened, his voice in a soft hush. 

“Anything.” 

“Say, say you wanna fuck me,” 

Peter groaned and tossed you off his lap. 

“You could’ve just said you didn’t want to be late to the parade, but no.” 

“God you are so in tune with me, it’s such a turn on.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Butter me up now so I’ll give in and spend twelve bucks on a churro for you.” He waved you off and stood swapping pajamas for denim. 

“But they’re filled with chocolate, Peter!” 

“You’re lucky I love you.” He kissed your forehead and moved past you to look for a warmer jacket, his words lit a fire in you. 

It’s obvious he loves you and while you haven’t said the words back you know he knows you do too. He’s been more giving with the words of affection, each time felt like a secret. Like, of course he does but, he doesn’t have to share that with you. 

“Again,” He turns and tilts his head. 

“Kiss?” He approaches to peck at your forehead, you go to step back but let him place one more. 

“No.” 

“No?” 

“Again.” You repeat the words. 

“Kiss?” You step back this time, “No, again.” 

His eyes brighten, “Oh, I love you.” 

You bite your bottom lip, “One more time?” 

“I love you!” He cheers the words and pulls a beanie on. 

“Peter,” You pause, you weren’t sure what he thought it would mean if you said it back. 

“I know, I know you do.” 

—--------------------------------

The parade was packed, there were rows of people pressed into the barricade. 

Mostly families, moms and dads and grandmas had babies and toddlers rested on shoulders or a hip so they could get a good glance at Santa when he rode by. Rows of streets were blocked off, each street off the main parade route was filled with food trucks and popup booths of home-made crafts. 

Peter and you strode hand in hand down each street, on one he bought you hot chocolate, which you shared. The next you got your churro, which you shared. One of the streets you passed a small canopy with homemade christmas tree ornaments, there was one in decorated ceramic. A delicate Lily of the Valley decorated the front and the year was painted in black and circled. 

It felt like the breath was knocked from you, you remembered the meaning when Peter gave you one, a return to happiness. There was no clearer message from the universe. 

“Babe?” You called out for your other half, who had slipped away looking for anything May would find special. 

“Yeah?” He was calling from the otherside, his head was stuck in a bin shuffling through miniature stuffed bears.

“C’mere. I found something.” 

You felt his hand press against your lower back, his chin sunk to your shoulder. 

“Look.” You raised the string and watched as it slowly twisted in the wind, his eyes staring until they lit with recognition. 

“Holy shit!” Peter reached his hand out to grab it, he had to feel it. It was real. 

“We have to get it, right?” Both of you spoke at the same time. 

You flushed pink, Peter grinned and poked your side. 

“Hey, man! How much is this one?” 

You watched and played with Peter’s gloves while he interacted with the man. He approached with a proud smile and a small black bag, he waved the receipt in his hand and stuck his hand out to yours. 

“Can I ask a question?” 

“You know, one of these days I’m going to ask that back.” 

“And I’ll answer just like you do.” 

“Yes, dear?” 

“Can I have a kiss?” 

“Oh, you.” He grumbled and pulled you in regardless, his nose was cold on your cheek, when you pulled away you rubbed your face against it to help warm it up some. 

“Can I tell you something?” 

“Anything,” He was walking you forward, looking for the best view that didn’t take away from any kid's sight. You were enthralled with his hand in yours, scooting you by other strangers. 

“I know how I’m going to ask.” 

He turned his head back at you in question, pulling you to the side after checking it was a good spot. 

“Ask what, baby?” 

“How I’m going to ask you to be my boyfriend.” 

“If it includes you getting on one knee I’m gonna say no.” 

“What if I get on both?” 

Peter pointed to the church both of your backs were resting against, your grin dropped shyfully. 

“I didn’t mean it,” You mumbled to the building. 

“Yes she did.” Peter whispered back, you slapped him on the arm. 

“Okay then, how?” 

“I can’t tell you that!” You sputtered at him, it was like telling him his birthday present. 

“What? Then why would you tell me that?” 

“Because I wanted to let you know I knew how I was going to do it.” 

“Oh I see, you were too excited to keep it a true surprise but you also want it to be surprising enough you won’t give me any true details.” 

“Remember what I said about what a big turn on that is?” 

Peter looked back at the church and rolled his eyes. 

“Told you she wasn’t kidding.” 

—------------------------------------

“Okay, let’s get it out of the way so this can really get started.” 

Peter looked around confused, your voice came from nowhere. Where were you? 

“Over here, nerd.” 

You poked your head out from behind a street sign, and watched as Peter threw his head left and right until he spotted you, the whites on his mask widening then dropping, you knew he was full of smiles. 

“Hi, baby!” Peter looked behind him once more before dropping to the ground below him, you ran into an alleyway behind him, and checked to see him slowly creep in behind you. 

“Kiss?” When he finally approached, he turned his head to check behind him and shook his head solemnly. 

“I don’t think so, baby.” 

You frown. Peter never refused a kiss request, in the suit or out. And, if you were far from the street, a quick kiss wouldn’t be the end of the world. 

“Why not? My lips are so cold, I forgot my boyfriend’s jacket.” You winked then corrected yourself, “I mean, my friend that is a boy.” 

“I, uh,” He looked around once more then quickly stepped up to you, he pulled his mask just barely above his nose then leaned in. You were unable to even press back into the kiss before he stepped away and returned his mask to a normal position, then he looked above him quickly. 

“Is everything okay?” You follow his eyesight and look around with him. 

“Yeah! Are you okay?” 

“I’m okay, are you sure you’re okay?” 

You watched as he kept looking around, he was almost acting like he was about to get caught doing something he shouldn’t. 

“Are you cheating on me?” He missed the tilt in your voice, just teasing. 

Peter whipped his head back at you, he started to pull at his mask but stopped himself and sunk it tightly back on his face. 

“What? No, not at all.” 

“You look like you’re about to get caught with me,” You poke at his chest and he steps back some, he doesn’t miss the flash of hurt in your eyes. 

This was the first time you’ve approached him as Spider-Man since the break up, Peter has tried everything possible to keep you away as the masked hero, and you hadn't noticed. Until now, because now you begin to wonder if this was why. 

Peter was acting awkward, and he never did around you. Around you, Peter was methodical, confident, suave and in love. Right now it seemed like he wanted you gone. 

“I mean, maybe. You never know who’s watching, I don’t need the media on the case of Spider-Man’s secret girlfriend.” 

You frown once more, you can’t press on it now. He would try and back himself into a corner where nothing was wrong, then that would cause him anxiety because he’s lying and you know how much he hates backtracking after a lie. 

“Do you want me to leave? We can talk later.” You question him and go to place your hands around his biceps but pull back halfway through, you caught the hint, he didn’t want you all over him right now. 

Peter caught your hands and pulled him then to rest on his chest. 

“You can touch me, baby.” He chuckled slightly, but you caught the nerves in his voice. 

“Give me a kiss and I’ll leave?” You blinked at your boy, he shook his head lightly. 

“You said you wanted to talk about something, what’s up?” 

“It’s okay, it doesn’t seem like you want me here right now.” Really, it was okay.

You know Peter is frowning behind his mask. 

“Of course I want you here, tell me what’s going on?” 

You moved your hands to his shoulders and gave a squeeze, then moved your head to look around. You didn’t get why he was on edge, but you respected it. 

Upon realizing no one was in the area you stepped in for a hug, immediately filled with warmth the shocking breeze seemed to dull outside. Winter break was ending soon and coming back to school with ‘I got a boyfriend for Christmas, what about you?’ seemed like the biggest flex imaginable. 

Instantly, Peter had his hands wrapped around your back. You felt the slight groove of his gloves running up and down your back, he leant his head into yours and you know if his mask was off he would be pressing kisses to the top of your head. 

After squeezing tightly one last time you pulled away and smiled brightly at him. 

“How much longer will you be out here?” 

“Probably a few more hours, I’ll be home around dinner.” He starts to slightly scratch down your arms. 

“Wanna go out?” 

You hum, “We can, I wanna talk to you first, though.” 

“Everything good?” He was asking if he was in trouble. 

“Yeah! Kiss?” 

“Tell me what’s up first.” He was bartering, he was on edge now. 

“Hm, nope. I’ll see you later, babe. Kiss?” 

“Are you mad?” He meant because you caught onto him not wanting you here. 

“Not at all, if it’s okay with you I was gonna head to yours and get a nap in before I see you later.” 

“Course it is. Need a key?” You gave yours back after the break up. 

“May’s not home still?” 

He shook his head, “Weather pushed back the flight, because of the ice she’s not sure when she’ll be back.” 

“Boo, key please.” You held out your hand and opened and closed it quickly, begging for the key. 

“Hold on, baby.” Peter stepped away and jumped halfway up the wall peeling off his backpack from behind a ledge, then turned to make sure you were looking. He started to lightly swing it your way letting you know he was about to toss it down, you readed your hands and yelled “Hut!” before he dropped it at you. 

You caught it with a grunt, then unzipped the small outer pocket and stuck your hand in searching for the key, startled you kept your hand in the same position as it was before Peter, quite literally ripped it from your hands. 

“Sorry! I have something in here you can’t see yet.”

He pushed the key in your hand and closed your fist around it. 

“Here, sorry again, baby.” 

You narrowed your eyes, “You’re lucky you’re cute.” 

“You’re cuter, otherwise I wouldn’t put up with that attitude.” You caught a wink through the mask. 

“Toxic. Give me a kiss, and make it a real one.” 

“As opposed to a fake one?” 

“You didn’t give me a good kiss earlier and you know it.” 

“Every kiss with you is a good kiss.” 

You whine at his flirting. 

“Please, Petey.” You pout, you know you’ve got him cornered. 

“Alright, c’mere.” He calls you closer with his hands and turns with his back to the street. 

“You wanna lift it or me?” 

You stare in awe, you missed pulling the mask off. 

“Me!” You tug it up past his lips, then roll it over his nose. But, at this point you might as well just take the whole thing off, right? Worth a try at least, you wrap your hands around his neck and pull him in for a kiss. His own hands wrap around your waist and pull you in tighter, you pull back slightly. 

“It’s rubbing my nose, hold on.” You tug it higher, and place one more kiss. 

Then you pull back again and slowly push it up, he tightens his grip but says nothing. 

This was one of those moments where he would scold you but was letting you get away with it, at this point you know it’s because he doesn’t want to mess anything up. You can’t help but wonder how long you can drag this out. 

In one movement you tug the entire thing off, “Hi, handsome.” 

“Hi,” He whispers. 

His curls framed his forehead nicely, you’ve been begging every week for him not to cut it. Your requests would soon be ignored, you knew Peter could only handle it so long before he chopped it. If you took a guess he would get it cut before school restarted, you only had one more week of his long hair. 

“I love your curls so much, please never cut them.” 

“I will absolutely cut them.” 

“One more week?” 

“You’re pushing it.” 

“For me?” 

“In that case, one more week.” 

“Thank you, babe.” 

You press a delicate kiss to his cheek and shiver slightly. 

“Can I have a kiss before I go?” 

He gives in, and it’s a nice kiss. You both lean in for a while before a sharp chill runs up your spine, you then decide it’s time to curl under his sheets and wait for him to come warm you up entirely. 

“I’m leaving, it’s cold.” 

You press his mask into his chest and lean in for one more kiss. 

“See you later.” 

“Wait! Can you take my bag?” He holds it out with a pleading smile, you tug it into your chest and contemplate tugging out his jacket and wrapping it around you. You could take the subway but despite the nips of cold you felt like walking, maybe so Peter knows you’ve gotten home safe. 

“Can I open it for your coat?” 

He said there was something in it you weren’t supposed to see yet, you would respect that. 

“Yeah, just please don’t go poking around the outside zipper.” 

“Got it, see you later!” 

You turned to leave, he called after you. 

“Bye, baby! Love you.” 

You didn’t think, it was automatic.

“Love you too!” 

You didn’t process what you said, it felt like second nature. 

Peter felt like he couldn’t breathe, he felt warm from inside out. From this point on nothing would get him down, the girl he loved with all his heart, the same girl that was hurt by him still loves him. He assumes he’s done it right, he finally thinks he may have won you back. 

You told Peter you wanted to talk, then said you loved him. 

Peter thinks he’s going to be a boyfriend before midnight hits. 

—------------------------

Time was ticking, you and Peter had been getting back into normal behavior, it felt as real as it did before the break up. And honestly, you kind of see it as a blessing. You don’t think you would’ve realized how much you mean to yourself if that’s all you didn’t have after he ended it. 

It hurt, alot. No one talks about how physical break ups can feel, you feel them in your gut. Stomach twisting at every end, like a small man is twisting knots in your intestines.  Then in your chest, the worst kind of heartburn alive eats at you, red searing hot pain that bleeds down through your body. It feels like every heart string is being pulled and snapped with each release. It affects your senses too, nothing sounds or tastes good anymore, at least not when Peter didn’t make or suggest it. Your eyes felt like there was nothing to focus on, your ears felt clogged, no one's words meant anything unless they were coming from Peter. You felt numb to the touch, so cold all the time, no one to warm you.

Heartbreak is something you would truly never wish on your worst enemy. 

But now, everything tastes just a little bit better. And your heart still hurts some, but it’s because it beats a bit faster when Peter’s around. And your stomach wasn’t filled with knots but flutters, not nerves but excitement. Your ears came attuned to listen for Peter’s hums or muffled songs under his breath, you listen for his late night whispers about what the writer’s should’ve done for that episode, or you listen to him lightly snore in the quiet hum of his room in the middle of the night because he’s there, and you’re there. And you’re not so cold anymore, chills still happen but it’s no longer a to the bone chill. It’s a, this is chilly, but I have someone to warm me backup at home. 

Peter felt like a constant hug. 

You’re pretty sure that’s love.

And if you loved him he should be your boyfriend, but to be your boyfriend again he needs to explain why it ended. You were slowly breaking down that wall, you’ve asked yourself for weeks now if it was that important, but you know it is. Because, why else have you held out so long?  

You don’t think in your heart everything could be forgiven without the why. 

That’s why you were here tonight. 

Peter came in around eight, for a moment you think he forgot you were here. He entered through the window, because you had his key. Then immediately ripped his mask off, slammed the button on his chest and kicked the suit away before groaning and stretched to the ceiling. 

“Hello, Clarise.” 

He jumped then smiled, “Hi, baby!” 

Peter looked over at you swaddled in his bed, now sitting his dark blue comforter swarming your body. Cheeks tinted due to the warmth but you refused to move, choosing to instead take sips of water from the bottle on his nightstand. 

“Good nap?” 

You hum and copy his stretch, “So good, did I get you those boxers?” You think they were a just thinking of you gift, they had little calculators on them. 

He looks down, “I think so, what did you do today, little miss?” 

You yawn, still blinking the sleep away. “I used your laptop for Netflix.” 

“Please don’t tell me you used my account.” 

“Of course I did, what’s yours is mine.” 

“You always mess up my recommendations, I just got it off of reality tv.” 

“And now it’s back.” 

Peter just blinked blankly at you. 

“I think it’s cute that you still had the passcode set to my birthday.” 

“Of course I did, they’re the only numbers burned into my brain.” 

“If you changed it I think I would’ve lost it, I mean full blown cry.” 

“Nope, if I got a new girlfriend I would have to come up with some cover story for that.” 

“You would let other girls use your Netflix?” You pout and wobble your lip. 

“I let you, don’t I?” Peter walks around the room and grabs his towel hanging on the other side of his closet door. 

“Well, yeah. But I’m special.” 

“If it makes you feel better, you would always be the one that got away. No girl could live up to that.” He shrugs and throws his towel over his shoulder. 

“And you would have to die alone?” 

“I would have to die alone.” 

“No other option?” 

“None.” 

You turn your head and nod, he’s great at winning the boyfriend tests. 

“Shower?” You nod at the towel, he starts to make his way to the bedroom door. 

“We can get food after, you decide.” 

“Cook, take out, or dine in?” 

“You choose.” He grins at you and turns to head to the bathroom.

“My choice?” You call after. 

“Yours.” 

You wait until you hear the shower start, then throw off the blankets and race down the hallway.

“I’m choosing a shower with Peter!” 

—-------------------------------------------

I wish it didn't make me cut it off here, don't worry, final part is coming!