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blackwidow-bby · 3 years ago

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Positions - Marvel Ladies x Fem!Sub!Reader

Summary: You're a sex worker and you've been hired by a new client for a "group activity".

genre: smut(18+)

pairings: Maria Hill x fem!reader, Wanda Maximoff x fem!reader, Natasha Romanoff x fem!reader, Carol Danvers x fem!reader, Yelena Belova x fem!reader

warnings: D/S dynamics, face slapping, spanking, strap on use, degradation, orgy, big ole lesbian train, oral, throat f*cking, name calling, degradation, thigh riding, fingering

AN: I am...well not a pro at writing dirty things especially not with multiple people but I hope you all enjoy regardless!

I don't own any marvel characters!!

Your assistant had just called you into her room. Your week had been slow but fruitful. Normally, it would be a regular client for the month, nothing to sweat over. Your thoughts started to run over who it could be. Maybe Mr. Dean, he usually calls on a Friday but you could've sworn you saw him two weeks ago. That didn't leave a lot of your regulars left to be requesting you as you knew their schedules like the back of your hand.

As if she could read your mind upon entering her space, she spoke, "Y/N, you have a call for a new client. Something about a friend requesting your services? The only thing is..." She hesitated almost thinking if she should tell you the rest of the details before she proceeded. "Well, it's for a group. You don't have to take up the offer if you're uncomfortable with that. I can call her back and let her know you declined."

To tell the truth, the thought of it being a group of strangers did make you uncomfortable, but your assistant wouldn't put you into a situation without going through the proper protocols first. She knew a head count of how many, roughly where they all worked, and several phone numbers. It always helped to be extra safe in these situations where you could be overpowered.

"Who inquired?" you asked interestedly. "She goes by N.R., gave me a headcount of all of her friends that would be attending. There's not going to be any men there, but I guess 'more power in numbers' is still 'more power in numbers'." In all honesty, women gave you way less shit about certain things than men did. Hopefully they'd be way more understanding if you didn't want to do specific activities.

"Call her back and tell her I'll take the offer. Do you know how much she's paying?" Your assistant slid a little sticky note over to you as she dialed the number of one 'N.R.'. You swear you almost choked when you saw how much she offered for you. That was a lot of zeros compared to usual. You walked away to get a water from the mini-fridge while you vaguely listened in to your assistant's phone conversation.

Good.

Perfect.

Okay, I'll tell her to meet you there at 6:30.

Extra clothes, yes ma'am. Have a nice day.

"Hey Y/N, I've written down the address, floor, and room number. It's uh...a really high end hotel in New York City. She also said to bring an extra change of--" you interrupted her, "Extra clothes? I overheard." you started wondering what for? Dinner? Go out? "Uhm, yes, she said extra comfy clothes." Comfy? Was she expecting you to spend the night? You looked down at your watch to see how much time you had to get ready. 2 hours. It wasn't enough but you could make it work. "Alright then, I should go freshen up."

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An hour and a half later had found you briskly walking toward the extremely tall and very expensive looking hotel in the Upper East Side. You lived in Queens and while the distance wasn't very far, paired with the traffic, the feeling of unsettlement about being late to such a client was enough to make you almost hurl.

You made your way inside the lobby, barely looking at your surroundings. You wanted to get up to the room as quickly as possible without being noticed. "Excuse me," Could you ever be so lucky? "Are you here for Ms. Romanoff?" Who? That must be your clients last name. "She said she was expecting a guest soon." The lady was being extra kind to you, she had an inviting smile. You almost wanted to never lie to her. "Yes, I'm here to see Ms. Romanoff." you replied quietly. It felt like your voice would echo too hard around the warmly lit lobby. You thought it would break you to hear your own voice shrill around such a pristine room.

"Very well, I'll show you to her room." Your nerves began to spike more the higher up you went. It was as if every floor number on the elevator was the level of anxiety you started to feel. Your palms were sweating and you could've sworn your back was too. The lady just kept her eyes forward with a meek little smile. It took every fiber of your body to not explode your feelings all over that elevator.

Ding

The elevator stopped, of course she was in a penthouse suite. You rolled your eyes as how predictable this situation was playing out. The kind lady, who's name you definitely forgot to get, remained in the elevator as you walked out. "There's a number for room service if you ladies need anything." She sung out. "Thank you."

The walk to her door seemed to never end. Your feet were dragging like gravity was doing everything in its power to keep them on the ground. The air was getting hotter as time slowed in the short distance it took to reach her door. You rang the little buzzer and a melodic voice called beyond the frame.

"Coming!"

You could hear the light patter of a single set of feet. The knob then turned and revealed a stunning short redhead with bright eyes. You were certainly gawking at the sight of her but there was nothing you could do to pull your own attention away. She had a smirk on her face when she saw you staring but not saying anything. "You must be Y/N, it's very nice to meet you. Come in and lets get you introduced to everyone."

She reached out her hand to you and you took it gently. her palms were much colder than yours and her fingers were long and slender. her hair was shoulder length and fire-y. The room was massive, and clean. She had all of the blinds closed to keep any natural light and eyes from entering the den. Scanning the room some more you noticed a couple items around the room. Non-traditional furniture. It was going to be one of those events. There were also four other heads aside from the host's. She turned around once reaching the main room and faced you. "My name is Natasha, over there is Wanda," another read-head standing behind everyone else with a glass of wine in her hands, she lightly nodded, "...that is Carol in the middle," a blonde woman with a bright and bubbly smile. She seemed taller than the rest but she was also sitting down on a piece of equipment that will no doubt be used in a different way by you. Natasha gestured to a brunette, "...this is Maria," another tall and slender woman, didn't offer a smile but a simple wave to your direction. You were scared of her the most. "...and this is Yelena." A second blonde who's face was much more stoic than Maria's. You take it back, she scared you the most.

Natasha's hand unhooked from yours and made its way up your back to settle on the back of your neck. The pads of her fingers added slight pressure to the muscles there as if she could feel all of your tension in waves. You felt her lean in closer, her hot breath fanning your ear. "There's a bathroom in the hall to the right. I got a cute little outfit waiting for you." You could feel her soft lips smiling against the curve of your ear. the feeling made you shiver. You managed to follow her eyes and swiftly walk to the bathroom, closing the door behind you.

You looked around and found the outfit in question. It was sleek all black leather body suit with a halter neck. You lifted it up in your hands and rubbed the material under your fingers. Next to it sat a bottle of lubricant no doubt to get the body suit on. You got to work shedding the current clothes you had on and began to slide on the little leather number. It wasn't too tight but certainly snug against your frame. The only thing out of the ordinary besides the material was, you noticed, a tiny little zipper in between your legs. If unzipped would reveal your very private essence. The thought made you blush a little to yourself. After cleaning up, you made your way back to the room where the women had sat prior.

Since you calmed down a little, you took the opportunity to fully take in your surroundings. The hall was adorned in art more than likely as expensive as this room. Everything seemed darker than when you arrived. To your surprise when you entered the living room area, the room lighting was red as opposed to the normal LED lighting.

Natasha held her hand out to you again for you to take. You obliged her and she pulled you close into her side. Natasha's deft fingers traveled up and down your ribs before finding purchase on your backside. "You look like the most delicious treat. None of us can wait to eat you. Would you like a drink before we start?"

The other women started moving closer almost circling you like sharks. "Yes please." Natasha poured you a glass as she went on, "We should go over some rules before we start. If at any point you feel overwhelmed, anxious, or hurt, the safe word is 'Heart'. We all stop what we're doing and will help you. If at any point you are gagged, two taps to the closest person will get all of us to cease as well. Because of those rules you will not be bound and gagged simultaneously...at least not this session." She ends her rules with a wink toward you. All of these women truly were stunning and it piqued your interest to know what they could possibly be capable of.

Wanda came closest to you first, she pulled the wine glass away from your lips and replaced it with her own lips. Holding your hand with the glass close to her chest and cupping your cheek with the other. Her lips were sinfully soft as was her kiss. She felt delicate and gentle against you, she almost seemed to not match any of this situation. Natasha took your wine glass away while you continued to make out with Wanda, who let her hands roam lower down your body. Your own hands moved behind her neck. Another set of arms wrapped around you from behind. "You're such a pretty kitten." They nibbled on your ear making you separate from Wanda to see who it was. Carol smiled down at you and found the very lips that left Wanda. You moaned into her mouth at feeling how she controlled and dominated the kiss, very different from Wanda's passion. Wanda moved down to kissing your neck and shoulder.

You could hear other giggles in the back. Natasha kept her eyes trained on you as Yelena and Maria began to touch each other in the mean time waiting for you. After a few minutes of watching her friends have all of the fun, Natasha made her way over to you, Carol, and Wanda. She pulled the other red-head back by her locks and pressed her lips to hers in a searing kiss. You heard Wanda moan out into the other woman's mouth next to you causing you to release your own into Carol. This made the blonde swiftly lift you up and wrap your legs around her waist. She brought you over to a nearby bench and kissed you harder. All of the sounds you were making began to rile her up.

"I'm not sure which one of us is more excited to have you here, pretty girl. All I know is I can't wait to ruin that pretty pussy of yours." You moaned at her words and yanked her back down into another kiss. Her words went straight to your core igniting a fire that had been waiting to burn. You made a mental note to find whoever recommended you to these ladies and thank them heavenly. Carol sunk her hips between your legs and began grinding against you seeking the friction she wanted so badly.

Even though the leather was a new material to you, you could still feel the faux member that rested in her pants; Carol was packing. This caused you to move your hands down to her pants to tear the buttons away. The tall blonde grabbed your hands and smirked, "Allow me." She stood to her full height and slowly removed the black jeans she was wearing and revealed her long, girthy strap she had been hiding. Your eyes widened which made Carol giggle. She sunk to her knees where she seductively pulled the zipper on your suit down. She held your eye contact until you saw them shift to behind you. Natasha and Wanda had pulled away long enough to see what Carol was doing and decided to join again. The two red-heads began to undress themselves where Natasha also sported a rather large strap but not Wanda.

In your distraction upon noticing the other women join in, Carol took to opportunity to shove he face into your pussy. You moaned out loud at the contact. Her tongue quickly lapping at your clit and sinking lower to curl inside you. Her ministrations were making you squirm on the bench. She reached up to hold your hips down. "Stay still kitten. Gotta get you ready for our cocks." Eating you out was an art to her. Every move she made, made you more and more wet. Natasha slid her fingers into your open mouth. You sucked on them harshly slipping your own tongue in-between her fingers and coating them in your saliva. Nat removed her fingers and started to rub them between Wanda's folds.

"Eat her out for me, malysh." Natasha requested. You looked up at Wanda as she slowly lowered herself over your wanting mouth. Your head went fuzzy upon seeing all of the quiet red-head's intimacy. Your tongue immediately poked out to welcome her to you. She let out a soft moan and slowly began to grind herself against your mouth. Carol was growing impatient watching you eat out the other woman and feeling you grow more aroused in her mouth. The blonde stood to position the tip at your entrance rubbing the head up and down your slit before she slammed her length in all at once. You yelped against Wanda's soaked cunt sending vibrations straight to her clit.

The whole scene was turning Natasha on more and more so she began stroking her own member, hoping to find some friction. The other two women walked over to join the rest of the group partially feeling left out. Carol continued to slam into you at a rather fast and rough pace. The tip of her strap hitting that blissful spot inside of you with every thrust. All of your moans and whines brought Wanda closer to her orgasm. She came hard in your mouth before she got up and was replaced by Natasha's own cock.

"Suck kotenok. Mommy's getting restless." Carol did not stop chasing not only her own high but yours. You could hear her grunting from below you. All of this attention was turning you on more than you think you've ever been in your life. Even though one hand wrapped around Natasha's strap and the other gripped Carol's wrist on your hips, you were finding it hard to keep blowing Nat. Carol moved her other hand down to your clit. "You better cum for me you little slut."

And you did; hard.

Carol continued her pace and upon watching you come undone, did so herself. Three quick thrusts and she was spent. She released the most guttural moan before her body was replaced by another blonde. Yelena had this look in her eyes like she wanted to make you pay for every wrong you never committed. She removed her clothing and sat right on your bent leg. At this point Natasha was fucking your mouth deeper and deeper. Needing to ground yourself you wrapped your hands around her thighs. Yelena began to rub herself against your thigh. You could feel how wet and warm she was, her hand sliding up and down your slit collecting your cum to rub your clit in tight circles. Your whines didn't stop especially when you were already beginning to feel another orgasm approaching. Yelena slipped her fingers inside you, finding your g-spot with accuracy. With every thrust of her fingers she hit that same spot over and over. tears started to run down your face with the feeling of Natasha in your mouth and Yelena in your core. Natasha gave one last thrust before she pulled out.

Maria shoved three of her fingers to the back of your throat. She giggled when you gagged around them. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head at being finger fucked by the two women. "You're not allowed to cum before I do, else Natty here give you a nice punishment while I ride your face." Yelena only made the threat to turn you on more, but part of you was hoping it was true. It was hard, Yelena knew exactly what she was doing with her fingers but you could feel her slick slide down the sides of your thigh. God you hope she was close because you certainly were. Maria replaced her fingers with her lips and she kissed you hard sliding her tongue along yours. The brunette smiled against your lips when she felt your whimpers in her mouth. Yelena just kept slamming her fingers harder inside of you and rubbing herself quicker. Her breaths got faster and more shallow and as she came, a couple seconds later so did you. Your body shook with the most intense tremors, but Yelena couldn't fault you. She did cum before you, and something about it being in close tandem with hers turned her on a lot more than she would admit. You let out a soft whine when the coolness of the air hit your soaked thigh.

Maria left your mouth and moved between your legs. She put one leg over your left and the other under your right and brought your centers together. "You're a pretty little slut. I want to ruin you so bad." Maria started out ruthless. Her grinding was fast and hard as if she had been waiting to cum for weeks. You felt her in her entirety sliding against your own. The feeling started to overwhelm you. Carol took your face in her hand and rubbed her thumb along your bottom lip. "Open up you little slut."

You obeyed her and opened your mouth sticking your tongue out. At this point you were a blubbering mess and all the ladies were loving it. Carol spit into your mouth before shoving her cock in. "I saw you taking Nat like a pro, so I know you can take me." At least her pace wasn't rough but it certainly was quick. Your gags around Carol was making Maria closer to her release. She leaned forward to angle herself differently against you and put her hand around her throat. She could practically feel Carol's cock fucking your face. Sweat was running down your forehead and your hair clung to every part of your body it could touch. You were close to being spent and you never looked more beautiful this way. Maria's hand tightened, her grunts were heavy. "Such a good little fuck toy. I'm so close baby." You didn't think it was possible for Maria to go any harder but she did. She came with a loud cry and slowed her hips down to ride out her orgasm. You felt her wetness mix with yours. Maria's hand stayed for a couple more minutes, entranced by feeling Carol deep in your throat. The tall blonde slapped your face a couple times before she pulled out. You were too busy catching your breath, you didn't see Natasha move by your feet. She lifted you up and turned you over on your stomach with your legs and arms hanging off the bench. Just when you were hoping it was over, you forgot that Natasha never officially had her turn with you. She rested her strap on your lower back as she ran her cool hands in an attempt to soothe your burning skin. Almost mocking you for being the one to give you the final blow. Wanda walked up to you again. She ran her soft fingers in your hair and moved the stuck strands out of your face. Your breathing was heavy and your body was trembling. Wanda's fingers moved down to cup your jaw and she lifted your head. Tapping the side with her pointer finger, you got the silent request to open your mouth for her. In unison, as Wanda brought her cunt to your mouth, Natasha slid her strap inside you completely bottoming out. Nothing but incoherent noises left your mouth at being filled so sinfully. Wanda gripped your jaw harder as she rubbed her intimacy against your mouth for a second time. You lazily kept your tongue out to try your best to accommodate Wanda's wanting. Natasha on the other hand, had been waiting very patiently for her time and now that she got it she was going to make the best of it. She grabbed your hands in her own and pulled them behind your back to make it easier for her to pound deep into your cunt. When you felt her hit somehow deeper your eyes rolled back. Wanda picked up her pace just as Natasha did, both red-heads moving in perfect synch at opposite ends of your being. A jolt of paint hit your right asscheek igniting a new spark and effectively waking you up even if only for a minute. With every thrust administered, Natasha rained a hand alternating each side of your ass. All of this was sending more and more feelings to your core. You will not be lasting long if these two kept going the way they were. You could feel Wanda fumbling, she was about to come for the second time tonight. Natasha continued to get more rough inside of you until you felt the knot inside of you burst. You came hard around Natasha groaning against Wanda's own cunt. The sight caused Wanda herself to not be able to keep her composure and she came with a scream against your tongue. You felt her pussy pulsing with her orgasm on your mouth. As soon as Wanda backed away from your face, Nat yanked your arms back harder to push herself deeper than you thought was possible. You were screaming, a sweaty broken mess, absolutely spent in this five star hotel. Every thrust pushed harder against that spongey spot inside you. You could feel another earth shattering orgasm approach hoping it would be the last. Natasha's thrusting didn't let up, she was desperate to cum. She was moaning over you with every hit. You yelled her name as you came harder than you had before that whole session. Watching you absolutely spent around her

member, Natasha came just as hard with her final thrust. She stayed inside you to ride out the rest of her high before she carefully pulled out. Looking down she could see wetness all over the bench and her legs. Nat smiled to herself at being the one to make you squirt everywhere like a silent victory. Allowing you to lay and collect your bearings, the red-head began to clean up the room.

There wasn't much you could make out in your state, but you could partially hear Natasha thanking all of the women for coming over before hearing the door open and close through the ringing in your ears. Your were shaking, your whole body felt blissfully weak. The red-head padded over softly to your spent and soaked body and picked you up carefully to place you in her arms bridal style. Your mind was in a war with yourself between wanting just a little bit more or to just go to sleep. You couldn't even open your eyes at this point.

Natasha had brought you to the bathroom to help you clean up and as she moved about, she kept you in her arms. She made sure to hold you as she turned on the faucet and sit on the edge of the tub. As the water filled the tub, Nat moved between rubbing your back and gently caressing your cheek. Once the tub was filled up enough for the both of you, she picked you up again and cautiously lowered the both of you into the hot relaxing water. You couldn't do anything but mumble and cursed yourself for the state you were in even though it wasn't your fault. You desperately wanted to think your gracious host for a life changing night but nothing could come out. Natasha shushed you sweetly. Her time wasn't done until you were well taken care of in her company.

You don't know how long you were in the bathroom, hell you don't even know when you fell asleep as Natasha washed the night away from both of your bodies. Clearly still in no position to be able to make it back to your home, the red-head dried both of you off and brought you to the large bedroom. You had come back into partial consciousness long enough to feel the soft sheets and the plush comforter of this heavenly bed you were being gifted to rest on.

Natasha lowered you down and climbed on the other side before pulling you into her. She lifted your head to lay on her chest so she could easily hold you and play with your hair. She stayed awake until she heard your breathing even out again, signaling that you had fallen asleep again since the bath. She placed a soft kiss to your hairline before succumbing to sleep herself with a blissed smile on her face.

She'd definitely be requesting you again.

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AN: Not sure how I feel about this but yeah this is my wack attempt at something extra dirty.

#natasha romanoff x reader #maria hill x reader #wanda maximoff x reader #Carol danvers x reader #yelena belova x reader #reader insert #my fic #multi character x reader #fem!reader insert

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void-inked-pen · 4 years ago

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The Mandolin

ROTTMNT Fantasy Fic Collab Between: Me and @undercoverwizardfanfiction

Above art by: @imaginashon

Inspired by: @thehandleisjammed

Characters: Mikey and Donnie

Pairings: holds charmy back if you know what’s good for you, you’ll know the answer is never (or do you want this one at your throat?)

Summary: in so many ways they are still strangers to one another but if they keep a open heart to one another they might someday call each other brothers

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He is the master of focus.

Were words no one had ever spoken about Mikey ever. But right now, his eyes were focused (well, cross eyed) on a large red beetle situation on an even larger flower. He is only vaguely aware of Raph calling after him before he leaps out from his hiding spot like a chimera pouncing on its prey. His hands are only about to close around the bug when the beetle takes off in surprise (Mikey is only mildly sure he heard the bug ‘meep’ as it went) before he landed in the flower bush. After a few moments, and after a few of Infinity’s concerned coos, he pops his head back out of the bushes.

“I almost got him that time!” Mikey says with a wide grin. Raph and Leo both give him a look that’s between two degrees of confusion but Donnie, under his hood, shakes his head with a tremble to his shoulders in what was probably suppressed laughter.

“Mikey” Raph calls tiredly, “we’re almost to town, can you please keep up?”

“Yeah on it!” He jumps out of the bushes and hurries over with a skip to his step.

Donnie watched his younger brother skip up to them with mild amusement. He had only known his youngest brother for a few months now and his upbeat attitude and absolutely innocent curiosity was both endearing and only slightly envious. When was the last time I was like that? The thought came out of nowhere and almost completely wiped his decent mood. But the answer that came bothered him more than the initial question; he couldn’t remember.

Trying to return to the present and not follow that train of thought any further, Donnie rubbed his tired eyes and continued following his brothers into town. Leo and Mikey were chatting away about the differences between some sort of bird, while Raph remained vigilant like some sort of escort.

“You know,” he said walking up beside the oldest. His sudden appearance startling the larger turtle. “This trip would be more enjoyable if you relaxed a bit, big guy.” Don smirked as Raph just huffed in response.

Mikey tries his best not to to smile at Raph’s tired expression that clearly says ‘how the hell can I relax with three loose hyperactive hooligans to look after’ but is grateful when Raph doesn’t say anything (except for sighing with the exhaustion of someone three times his age and on their deathbed).

Donnie and Raph walked in comfortable silence for a while before they both realized they couldn’t hear chattering behind them anymore and turned around to see the two youngest entranced by an expensive stall of goods.

Mikey turns back to is conversation partner after watching the oldest pair ahead of them settle into a calm stride. What had he been talking about again? “The Waxing Owl!” Mikey exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air suddenly returning to his train of thought, “the Waxing Owl is totally cool! You have no idea!”

“And….it’s different from a Full Moon Owl?” Leo asks. Though his expression is confused and only borderline condescending it’s a massive improvement to just a few days ago, “I mean i just wanted to know the difference between a african swallow and a european swallow-“

“Yeah yeah! Cause Moon Owls can tell the future! And if you see one during a certain moon phase that’s the kind of luck you’re supposed to get! I’ve heard entire groups of people scouring the Mist Forest trying to see one during a Waxing Moon! Its so cool and- and if you see a Waxing Owl AND a Sun Burst flower in the same month then-“ and just as it was a moment ago, Mikey loses his train of thought as his mouth drops open. Normally it would be a weird dessert he had never seen before or an extra snuggly puppy that would get his attention. But what has him now is a large storefront, he barely notices the elaborate lettering or the shopkeeper out front shining up his new door. Mikey is already standing in front of the glass with both hands pressed against it. Through the now misting up glass he can see a wooden box with a long neck and strings , “Woooooooooooow” He says “What’s that thing?”

“Hey!” the store keeper snaps hard enough at Mikey he flinched away “Off my window cretin, I just had those refinished. “

Mikey stumbles back and bumps Donnie, who nearly loses his balance as he tries to use his bad leg to keep from falling, “So-sorry Dee.” He says quietly, shoulders hunched and sad. But he looks back towards the window , “I-I've never seen anything like that before.”

Donnie steadied himself before looking up at the store window.

“You… Mean the mandolin?” He looked back at his brother for confirmation and could have sworn he saw twinkles in his eyes. “It’s an instrument you strum with your fingers and part of the lute family. I heard a famous musician used one to serenade a rich maiden into marrying him.” Donnie left out the part about how the musician was actually the family's hired fool, mainly because the story also didn't end well.

Mikey appeared to practically be vibrating in excitement as he stared at the string instrument. “I’ve always wanted to play something like that, Todd used to tell me stories about a caravan that performed music as they traveled but he didn't have an instrument of his own to teach me.”

Donnie looked at him thoughtfully before glancing back up at the mandolin again and almost balking at the base price. He subtly looked back at the store owner who appeared to be getting more and more annoyed with the four yokai’s presence. Ever so gently, Donnie grabbed the smaller turtle by the shoulders and shifted him away from the storefront.

“I think... we’re gonna have to pass on this one Mike.” He said, observing the store with a critical eye.

The younger turtle gave off a disappointed whimper and looked away sadly before hopping back into a conversation with Leo. Don could have sworn when they were leaving the storefront, the blue turtle also seemed unhappy with the price of such a simple instrument. With one more glance back at the snooty storekeeper, Donnie made a decision.

After some discussion, they (Raph) decided that staying in town was far too expensive on their already limited funds. Mikey wasn’t entirely sure why Raph was suddenly so eager to leave, especially since they hadn't visited the library yet. But it probably had to do with the wary look that the large turtle was giving Donnie, who had stayed silent after their run in with the shopkeep.

What Raph DID allow, however, was for Mikey to pick out some sweets at a baking booth that they could enjoy after dinner. It wasn’t long after that that the four of them left the town behind them. Not far enough to be gone from its sight but far enough for Raph to give a sigh of relief.

“Ok boys, let's get camp set up and dinner ready.”

“You know, if I was in proper attire, I probably could have talked that man into giving us his entire store and thanking us for it.” Said Leo with a stiff upper lip as he gathered the smallest branches humanly possible.

“yes, and attract every bounty hunter and well meaning lawman in town.” Donnie made a show of reaching over and pulling up Leos’ hood. The red slider pouts at him before readjusting his hood to allow him to see better. “Rude.” He scoffs.

Don smirks in turn before going over to where Mikey was pouring over a pot of vegetables.

“Here,” he hands over the herbs he had gotten earlier, “Keep it up. I’m going to go see if I can find any more in the forest.” Donnie says. He’s grateful when Mikey only gives him a beam in response before going back to his cooking.

Donnie makes sure to glance and ensure he hadn’t gotten Leo and Raph’s attention (Raph was too busy brushing Buddy to babysit him) as he stepped back in the direction of the town they had come from, and in a blink, disappeared…

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“Hey, has anyone seen Donnie?” Mikey looked up from his ministrations after hearing the slight panic from the blue turtle. Leo was looking around with a worried look, one he’d been expressing a lot more lately after they had met back up after the ‘missing ring’ incident.

“OH! He just went to gather some more herbs for me in the forest. Don’t worry, he said he’d be right back~” He said in order to calm down Leo, but somehow agitated his other brother instead.

“Wait, he said what?” Raph looked up from brushing Buddy with alarm. “Son of a- okay, here’s the deal. Leo, you stay here an watch Mikey and I’ll go after Donnie before he does something stupid!” Raph stood up quickly, dropping the brush as he spoke his orders.

“I’m sorry, but whomst are you calling stupid?” Everyone jumped as the purple turtle in question, hopped down from a tree.

“Seriously Dee, you gotta stop doing that.” Leo breathed in relief. Donnie only raised an eyebrow in confusion before walking over to Mikey.

“Okay, then explain. Where were you?” Raph crossed his arms with a knowing look.

“Gathering these,” Donnie turned around and held up a small cluster of herbs, “like I said I was.”

The two oldest glared at each other for a few seconds in silence before Raph grumbled away in defeat. Donnie, feeling victorious, turned back towards his younger brother only to see something he wasn't expecting. Mikey was looking at him with a blank expression.

“...What?” “... Why did you lie?” Mikey asked in concern. Donnie tensed up.

“I...” Don paused, looking back to where Raph had returned to his chore before putting the herbs down in Mikey's hand, “I didn’t-”

“Yes you did.” In a way, Donnie hates that Mikey can usually see right through him. And he happens to be looking through him with those eyes that still held the softness of a child far younger than Mikey. Somehow it feels harder and harder to lie to him by the day.

Donnie manages a sigh, before sitting down by the fire to give his leg, and the new stinging wound on his side, a break. “For the record, I technically didn’t lie. I did get more herbs.” Again those eyes bore into him like a truth telling light, “But, I didn’t like the way that shopkeep talked to you earlier.” He reaches into his bag and pulls out the mandolin that Mikey had been admiring.

The youngest lets out a soft gasp, hands over his mouth for a moment before he reaches out as though to take it before drawing his hands back, “W-why did you steal it thought?” Mikey asked quietly.

“I just told you, you wanted it and that shopkeep was a–”

“No-I...” Mikey pauses again, “I mean why do you steal? At all?”

Donnie felt something in his chest tighten. He had to look away in order to calm his breathing and stop the dust around him from shifting. Why do you steal? The question rang in his head so loudly it was beginning to get harder and harder to hear the crackling of the fire.

A hand gently placed itself onto his shoulder and he couldn’t stop himself from flinching and tensing up hard at the touch. But the hand didn’t move away.

“...I… I’m sorry I didn’t mean to upset you I just… I wanted to know” Mikey said softly.

It took a few more calming breaths for him to finally look back into those kind eyes.

“... You could say… it was the family business that helped me become the thief I am now,” Don sniffled, “but truthfully… It's how I managed to survive so long. Mike, not everyone has the option to follow a path of honest work. If I had tried to follow any number of opportunities towards something I was passionate about… I wouldn’t last long.” Donnie said that last line almost too quietly to hear.

“What do you mean?” Mikey’s face scrunched up in confusion.

With another deep breath Donnie prepared himself. “If i tried to follow a path academically, like I had always wanted… She would find me.” He shivered as he continued, “If I had tried to make ends meet as a crafter, I would have failed due to my magic limitations… Mike, I never had the option for much else.”

“B-but.” Mikey tries to start back up again even as he interlocks his fingers and lowers his head, “That’s not fair.”

When he looks up again he’s surprised to see Donnie giving him a soft smile. His eyes could easily be mistaken for either pity or some other emotion that Mikey doesn’t understand. But the thief reaches out and places a rough but soft hand on Mikey’s scalp, rubbing it in the same way one might ruffle someone’s hair.

“Just please enjoy it? If Raph asks where it came from you can blame me. He blames me for everything else.” Which wasn’t entirely true, but often days he felt Jupiter James’s words spoke through Raph more then Raph’s own sense of morals. And, considering Raph was one of the kindest people Donnie had ever met, made his heart ache. But as he does with everything else, Don smiles.

For a moment Mikey feels the hand on his scalp twitch like he’s considering tapping their foreheads together but instead he hands over the earned prize that Mikey takes, unable to hide the excited smile on his face, already strumming the strings with giggles in his throat. Testing them to see what noises it’ll make. It won't be long before Mikey teaches himself how to play.

Donnie has to wait until the middle of the night before he finally sees the arrow wound in his side (It was a cheap, extremely lucky shot). But as he tends to the wound, he still smiles.

To steal for himself was just for survival.

But to steal for his brother, to make him smile was an act he’d never regret.

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

Thanks for reading!

also thank you Ash for the beautiful art for this fic~ all of this was kinda spur of the moment and im glad this turned out so fun!

we had fun writing this together~ The fantasy AU is one of my personal all time fav au’s and I highly recommend reading more in the ao3 collection

- Pen

#rottmnt #riseofthetmnt #tmnt mikey #tmnt donnie #fanfic #collab #rottmnt fantasy au #the messenger the hunter the prince and the thief #fantasy au #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt mikey

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alienaiver · 3 years ago

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Some Seijoh boys and their first kiss (with you); pt. 2!

PREV. with nekoma!

Oikawa, Iwaizumi and Matsukawa!

warnings: none

wordcount: 1,123

content: first kisses part two!, FLUFF, gender-neutral reader, pre-timeskip, high school

notes: the other one ended up really popular i think so im… here again hehe! This time with the aoba johsai boiiis!!! I didnt have as much time as I liked so theres only three boys this time :’( tho I think these are a tad longer than the previous one! I hope you enjoy <3

Iwaizumi Hajime

Iwaizumi and you had been dating for several months now, and he was still overwhelmed by the fact that you even liked him back. He had to admit that he really wanted to try and kiss you, since your lips always looked so soft and plush and he’d spent an ungodly amount of time thinking about it – way harder than any other guy would. Last week he had almost kissed you but panicked a few seconds before his lips met yours, raising a hand to your hair and coughing, “uh, there was a horn beetle in your hair, I just removed it…” he’d explained in the lamest way possible and you had looked at him with a puzzled look and said, “so you leaned down… with your eyes closed… to remove it? Also, Hajime, a horn beetle?” to which he ever so politely had replied “shut up” and turned to walk next to you again on the way home. You didn’t miss how brightly red his ears were burning however, having an inkling as to what it was your boyfriend had truly been trying to do. Today they had a practice match against Karasuno and you had promised to be there for support, always enjoying watching him on the field, with his big strong arms and determined look.

It had been a tough match, Karasuno fighting tooth and neck so when Aoba Johsai ended up winning, everyone was in a shocked kind of state, not really processing it yet but you and the rest of the team members on the sidelines noticed and ran towards them to congratulate them. Iwaizumi immediately spotted you after realizing what happened and picked you up and spun you around, to which you couldn’t help but squeal. As you look around you spot Oikawa giving you a thumbs up so you smile brightly and let your hand caress Iwaizumi’s cheeks before leaning down and giving him a kiss on the lips. Iwaizumi lets out a surprised grunt and almost drops you on the spot before gripping you tighter than before and kissing you back. In the background you heard whistling which in turn actually makes Iwaizumi drop you.

“Do you… uh, do you wanna go home together, after all this?” he looked at the ground with his beet-red face. You smiled and said, “Hajime, we had already planned to do that.”

Oikawa Tooru

Oikawa adored you, and he never wanted you to feel anything less than perfect so it was a given that after you two started going out, he started planning. On your one-month anniversary, he was going to take you on an absolutely amazing and thoroughly planned date and, if nothing had been done from your end of the court yet, he was going to end it with your first kiss. He picked you up at 9AM sharp and took you to the amusement park where even your park rides were minutely planned before you went to a fancy cafe to eat lunch. As you were about to go to the local art museum after lunch you tripped on some crooked sidewalk tiles and sprained your ankle, Oikawa insisted you go to the hospital to get it checked out and even went with you. As you sat in the waiting room, 2 hours into waiting for an available doctor, Oikawa sneaked an arm around your shoulders. “I’m sorry I ruined our date, Tooru,” you sighed but he just looked at you with the most lovable gaze you’d ever seen before leaning in and leaving a peck on your lips, “darling, nothing’s ruined. We’re still together, right?” before dramatically picking up a random magazine and reading aloud for you. He mostly did it to hide his own blush but hearing you laugh at his antics made it all the more worth it.

Today you were hanging out together with Hanamaki at his place, playing Mario Kart together, where both Matsukawa and Hanamaki had teased you endlessly about your bad driving skills, “aw, you got in as number 12. You got the highest number!” Hanamaki had laughed out as he patted your back. You were pouting so much, determined to win at least one round against them when Hanamaki called for a break and went out to grab some snacks for you. As you tried to explain to Matsukawa that it had to do with your controller, that the fault wasn’t yours, all the while pouting like a little child, Matsukawa smiled and asked, “how can I make it up to you? While your pouting face is adorable, I’d like to see you smile more,” an arm reaching out to pat your shoulder in a weird supportive kind of move. Matsukawa half expected you to say something like his part of the snacks, a soda tomorrow at the convenience store or to let you win, he looked at you quizzically when you looked away from him shyly and mumbled, “you could.. kiss me if you… you know, want to?”

Matsukawa Issei

Matsukawa wasn’t a guy used to romantic relationships. The only ones he ever truly noticed were his captain’s and romance didn’t really come easy to him and wasn’t necessarily a priority. Until you had transferred to his class and rocked his world. He had fallen head over heels for you from day one and if it hadn’t been for Hanamaki’s annoying (but helpful, he had to admit) meddling, he probably couldn’t call himself your boyfriend now. He always acted extremely nonchalant and chill around you – which he thought wasn’t too out of character for his laid back personality but even he had to admit it was getting ridiculous but he also thought his own excitement for your relationship would completely scare you off, no one liked an overly clingy partner, right? That’s what he rationalized. He had recently admitted to himself how badly he wanted to kiss you but at the same time he suppressed it, since your first hand-holding a few days ago had gone completely wrong. His hands had been so sweaty because he was nervous that he didn’t dare to grab your hand again, in case you would dump him for having sweaty hands – what he didn’t know was that half of that sweat? Was yours – you had been so incredibly nervous as well and sweated buckets too, he had just been too caught up in his own embarrassment to notice.

The cuteness you oozed right now almost gave him a heart attack and he almost got whiplash from how fast his upper body moved to give you a kiss, lingering a little bit longer and leaning in for a second kiss, “you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x you #iwaizumi hajime x reader #oikawa tooru x reader #matsukawa issei x reader #iwaizumi hajime x you #oikawa tooru x you #matsukawa issei x you #hq x reader #hq x you #nohr.writing #these took me hell of a lot of time actually. lmfao but here they are!!!#im busy the entire weekend so ive been writing these all nightjskfs #matsukawas is def my fav. hes just such.. a gentle man i want him to hold me forever

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hanibalistic · 4 years ago

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#67509E | HWANG HYUNJIN.

genre | fluff

word count | 1889

warning | appearances of vampire fangs, mention of blood sucking

tag | @fluffyskzclub

note | i miss hyunjin.

hyunjin pouted like he was throwing a tantrum—well, to a certain degree, he was throwing a small tantrum.

he curled himself around the fluffy blanket that you two left on the couch from yesterday's spontaneous movie night as he pouted at you bitterly. he tried to fit his tall body within the blanket, but his long legs awkwardly jutted out of the end corner, unable to bend enough to curl himself into a tiny ball. his head poked out of the blanket he draped around his shoulder and over his head.

"must you open the curtains all the time?" he whined with furrowed brows, lightly kicking his feet against the couch. "i hate the sun, you know that!"

you rolled your eyes as you closed the curtains after being drowned in his mindless complaints about the last half an hour. you had opened them so the plants could soak in some sunlight. you even took into consideration that hyunjin would be asleep for longer like he always does, otherwise, you would have never let the sunlight into your shared apartment. but for some reason, he decided to leave his stupid coffin earlier today.

to listen to the birds' chirp perhaps. that's the kind of leisure activity a hundred-year-old would like, you bet.

the same thing happens every time you open the blinds, which is that hyunjin does not shut up about him disliking the sun and how it weakens his vampirism as opposed to it actually killing him. he would not stop until you close the curtains and turn on the lights, which often made you scoff. not only was he annoying, for a vampire who was supposed to burn under the sun, he sure does speak of it a lot.

"we will need sunlight somehow, hyunjin," you said as you turned around to glare at him. "the plants you stole, from outside, in the morning, will need sunlight."

you emphasized your words to make sure he knew of all the heinous frustrations he has caused you. the puppy pout on his face, as well as the pitying glint in his eyes, only deepened with each emphasis of your voice, his body flinching and shrinking when he could tell that you were upset with him.

watching him, there was a rush of conflict brewing like bubbles in you. you weren't sure if you felt more annoyed or endeared about the fact that hyunjin, a not quite literally ancient but old enough to feel ancient vampire, gained such comfortability from you that he was fine with throwing a childish tantrum in front of you.

he looks cute, surely! he always does. but sometimes, you genuinely could not stand another second of him whining.

"stop yelling at me! you know what the sun does to a vampire!" he retorted.

oh, god—blah, blah, blah.

"yeah, a vampire that doesn't have an accessory of the sigil," you said cleverly as you moved over to him. you yanked the blanket off his body, ignoring his protest, and you pointed at his neck. "like the necklace you never take off!"

"i only got this recently! the witch would have never sold me this if you hadn't come with me," he argued, pulling the blanket around him again. "i'm not used to the sun yet, just let me have a little more time."

you pursed your lips together, your neck turning sour at his poor mumble as you softened. he did only just get the necklace—by just, it was about two to three months ago. however, while that alone may seem like a long period, comparing that to almost a whole decade of no sunlight, perhaps he really just needed more time to adjust.

but! zooming past the streets, leaving normal people wondering where the sudden gust of wind came from, and hiding in the apartment that leaves no room for any traces of sunlight was not the way to go about it!

"how about just a little bit, hmm?" you said then, suggesting a compromise casually while you walked toward the window. "take it little by little!"

hyunjin widened his eyes in disbelief as you moved farther away from him. he shook his legs in protest, his body moving animatedly on the cushiony couch as he protested loud and clear. "hey! you better not open the curtains, [name]!"

you grabbed the hem of the curtains, your mind occupied with calculating the correct amount you would flip open. it has to be a very small amount, to a point where the sunlight could only hit one leaf of the plant on the window rail, or just one square of your marble floor. it has to be the form of sunlight that could not hurt even a fly, so you could show him just how goddamn dramatic he was being.

"[name], i swear!"

"oh, bite me," you muttered under your breath.

there was a gust of wind—a familiar kind. it blew at the tip of your hair, making it waft around, and the hem of your thin shirt also danced at the breeze of hyunjin's vampiric speed.

blinking consciously, you loosened your grip on the curtains and turned around. immediately, upon feeling the heat of his face, you flinched back and closed your eyes to settle yourself.

"jesus–what the hell, hyunjin?" you muttered with a hand on your chest before you slowly opened your eyes.

hyunjin was glaring at you; no malice, just alluring intensity. his hair fell over his face prettily. the sunlight that he didn't seem to care much for now shone a soft haze over half of his face, making him glow and glitter naturally.

"those are some reckless words to say to a vampire," he said lowly, tilting his head to the side lightly as he arched a brow, "don't you think?"

your heart pounced.

the matter of blood, or just his general nature as a vampire, like his need to feed off of human beings, has only come up once.

he mentioned it to you when he was applying to be your roommate, having a foul plan to erase your memories in case the truth was not well-received by you. he told you that he has been a vampire for a while so he knew how to control his urges, therefore you would not be in any harm, and the matter was never spoken of again.

he held up his words. he has never discussed blood with you, he has never shown any blood-thirsty behavior at all. he acted like any other roommates you have had; being too loud at night, eating cereal in the living room and eyeing your bed-head with a judgemental gaze, knocking at your door and asking if you wanted to pick a takeout place.

if he used his powers less, you would have forgotten about his vampiric side.

why was your heart thumping then? was he too pretty for your own good? or was he standing too close for familiar comfort? or perhaps both?

you scoffed, making your thoughts vanish. "you won't bite me."

hyunjin softened in a way you couldn't catch. deep within the tender wash of his eyes was a sea of wildfires he hid behind closed doors.

you were right, he won't bite you, but he wants to, especially because the smell of your blood happened to be more enticing than others because he likes you.

the art of blood sharing (in a sense) is done between lovers; consider it like leaving a love mark, of a sort. it is an act of claiming and reassurance, and hyunjin has been wanting to sink his fangs into your flesh for a while so he could leave a bite mark.

but he could never do that. that was a desire trapped in his throat, urging to be let out and to be voiced, and hyunjin would not allow it. there were too many risks of unleashing the deep-seated yearning in his chest. it lingered in his head in withdrawal, cautiously threading through his mind to keep his urges contained.

he puts his want elsewhere. his want to taste your blood, to kiss your neck, has to grow somewhere, so he has to put it somewhere, and he puts in it his daydream which that manifests gently when he is with you, and ferociously when you were away.

"i won't," he muttered under his breath, to which you relaxed at. but then he grinned, and he opened his mouth to speak first, "doesn't mean i can't, though."

you widened your eyes when black veins draped beneath his eyes and his sharp fangs appeared. it was a terrifying sight, but you were only shocked to see it than scared. rationally, you reached your hands up and slapped your palms against his cheeks, startling him.

"hmmm... " you grumbled, sounding thoughtful as you surveyed his shocked expression.

the veins under his eyes retreated and the colors returned to his face. the innocence flooded back into him, bright and boyish, and he dared not move an inch under the pressure of your gaze—beneath your touch hyunjin is but a gentle boy hapless in love.

"ah...aah...wha–" he closed his eyes slightly and opened them with furrowed brows, confused and helpless with his head slightly tilted up. his words were muffled but jot too hard to understand. "[name]–why–uhh–"

you pushed at his upper lip with your thumb and looked at his fangs, wondering why they did not retreat with the dark haze of his eyes. then, ignoring hyunjin's muffled questions, you carefully poked at the tip of his teeth—razor-sharp, but very real.

he was whining again. his hands reached out to the hem of your shirt and desperately, as well as timidly, tugged at it. meanwhile, he put on a defeated face. as much as he would with your thumbs poking his fangs, that was.

"ahh, please stop–[name], stop touching my fangs–why," he feigned a sob, shaking his head as a blush reached his cheeks, "they're just teeth."

"teeth that puncture," you commented when you let go. the way your thumbs briefly smoothed over his top lip was not lost on him.

seeing his pout, you pursed your lips with faint guilt. rubbing the back of your neck, you shrugged. "sorry about that, i just got curious."

"it's okay," he waved you off quickly, "i was curious too when i first got them."

hyunjin looked at you when you giggled under your breath; soft, hearty giggles that tried to conceal themselves without the anticipation for his vampiric hearing. gentle, funny giggles that never once questioned his problematic past. lovely, adoring giggles that are here before and after he revealed who he is to you.

he came to your apartment begging for a home where he could be himself, and you allowed him safety with you.

"alright," you said with a curt smile, "i'm going to go change, need to get grocery."

"i–i'll come with!"

you seemed shocked for a moment, accessing him like a trick question. then you relaxed and nodded with nonchalance. "yeah, whatever."

he melted despite the lackluster reaction. it was the excitement that counted. smiling to himself, he twirled and twisted his body shyly as the sun shone from outside.

yeah. hyunjin truly is but a simple boy in love with you.

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escapewithbts · 3 years ago

Text

Secrets in a Foreign Language (Part Seven) - Jungkook

sorry it took so long for an update!

<<previous_next>>

—————————————

You were heartbroken. How someone you hadn’t known very long could make it hurt so badly you weren’t sure. But man, did it hurt.

So many times over the next week you debated just showing up at his place, hearing his side, figuring out a next step together. You missed him.

But then you would recall him telling you to get in the closet, acting like a coward, like you were his meaningless dirty little secret. Reminding yourself of these things kept you from going over there.

In fact, you barely left your apartment at all. The same loneliness of when you first moved to Seoul becoming ever so prevalent again. You vowed to try and go out and make friends when all this Jungkook stuff was just a distant memory.

However, it proved difficult to make it all fade away in your mind since you were still scheduled to clean his apartment. To go back to the place where it all came to a beginning. And an abrupt end.

With hesitation, you slipped the key into the lock of the front door the following Tuesday. You insisted he not be there that last time you saw him, but what if he wanted to reconcile? You gulped and opened the black wooden door.

Silence.

He wasn’t on the couch in front of the tv waiting for you. He wasn’t in the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal. He wasn’t in the master bathroom taking a quick shower. Jungkook wasn’t here. You didn’t know if you felt relieved or disappointed, but you didn’t give yourself time to think about it as you immediately noticed the state of the home. It wasn’t cleaned like all the weeks prior. It was lived in, messy even.

So that was it. Back to square one. You alone in the apartment of a famous and wealthy Korean celebrity with a job to do.

A few days later you were laying on the couch in your studio loft apartment. It was dark outside since it was 12:47am, the only light was coming from the iridescent blue glow of the television. This had become a routine now, you turning on the tv but not watching anything in particular, just so there was noise and something to get your mind off everything. Some nights you never even made it upstairs to your bed.

And tonight your eyes began to slowly drift shut, your thoughts traveling elsewhere, the beginning of sleep taking over.

All of the sudden, you heard Jungkook’s name from the television. Or had you dreamt it? However, when your eyes opened in shock and confusion, his ever familiar face appeared on the screen. It was the same show you had seen while scrolling channels at Jungkook’s a couple months ago you realized, the trashy one where random people discuss the lives of famous actors and musicians. You sat up and tried to focus on the delayed English subtitles coming up at the bottom of the screen.

“… an official statement from both their companies was released.”

“So, it is true?”

“I would say that solidifies it.”

Cho-hee’s picture popped up. Followed by one taken outside at night of her and Jungkook walking and laughing. Then a graphic of a zig-zag shaped rip formed between their bodies, and the picture ripped in half, a broken heart and crying face appearing between them.

“Wow. They seemed so happy. I really thought this would last.”

“They’re so young and busy, no need to settle down yet.”

“But still, this begs the question… is love even real?”

*laughter*

Then they moved on to talking about another kpop idol.

Your felt your heart pound inside your chest. Jungkook and Cho-hee had “broken up”? Their companies had let them? They were no longer in a secret fake relationship? You couldn’t help but wonder what happened.

With shaky hands, you picked up your phone from the coffee table and opened the internet. Curiosity was getting the better of you, your desire to read those statements greater than your will to stop yourself from trying to remove all evidence of Jeon Jungkook from your brain.

‘Hello,

This is a representative from HYBE Corporation commenting in regard to the relationship between our artist Jeon Jungkook and fellow artist Kim Cho-hee. At this time, Ms. Kim and Mr. Jeon have mutually decided to part ways due to their careers and lack of schedule alignment. Going forward, there will no longer be any updates on the matter, and any information regarding their relationship from outside sources is invalid. Please respect the artists’ decision and privacy during this time.

Thank you.

HYBE Corp.: PR Department’

You stared at your phone in shock, rereading it a couple times to make sure it was real.

So, they really ended their fake relationship? Was because of Jungkook or Cho-hee? Or their companies? What was the real reason? Who was the perpetrator?

So many theories and questions ran through your head, furthering your exhaustion, and soon enough you drifted off to sleep, head full of images and thoughts of Jeon Jungkook.

The following Tuesday started off like any other. The sound of your alarm blaring woke you up out of a deep sleep at 4:00 in the morning. You groaned and hit the snooze button, questioning why you chose a job where you had to work so early… and basically all your other life decisions. (You were, in fact, not a morning person).

Eventually you sat up and rubbed your puffy eyes, removing the sleep from their corners. You yawned and stretched your arms up high before reaching for your phone on your nightstand. You checked Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, of course, then like every morning, you opened your work schedule, just to see if there had been any changes to the course of the day ahead.

And boy, was there.

For under the 2pm slot was the same unit number that had been there for weeks, however this time one word next to it caught your immediate attention.

Vacancy.

You stopped dead in your tracks.

Wait, what?

Clearly this was wrong. This was Jungkook’s apartment! There was no way it was now empty. He had never mentioned the fact that he wanted to move, that he was going to move. This would have come up in a conversation with him at least once if it was this sudden.

Yes, his stuff would still be there when you arrived to clean this afternoon. He still owned it, still lived there. He wasn’t gone. Right?

Wrong.

To your surprise, when you opened the door, the entire apartment was empty. Everything was gone. It was cold and echo-y and barren. Dust covered the hardwood floors of the living room where the rug had laid. Harsh sunlight poured in through the large windows, no longer shielded by the curtains that had previously been hanging there. The walls were now bare, small holes left from the various works of art that were once on display.

The memories of the times being with Jungkook flooded your brain almost instantly. Playing games and watching shows and movies on his large sofa. The time he admitted he was cleaning just so he could hang out with you. When you would two would sit at the kitchen island and eat delicious food, talking and laughing about anything and everything. When he told you he had feelings for you. The first of many times you made love.

Overcome by those thoughts, you finally allowed yourself to break down.

The sound of your sobs and unsteady breathes bounced off the walls and echoed throughout the room, tears cascading down your hot cheeks.

Maybe you were being dramatic. Maybe Jungkook had turned out to be a coward. Maybe he had been using you for sex and company. Maybe he had lied about having feelings for you. Who knows?

But even if had been all pretend for him, you had still fallen in love with him.

You could finally admit that the past two weeks since you saw him last you may have been holding on to some kind of hope. Hope that he wasn’t a coward, hadn’t been using you, did have feelings for you; and all that would become evident if you ever saw each other again, if he was ever at his apartment when you came to clean like he had been so many other times.

But now it was as if the universe was laughing at you for falling for someone so unattainable and complicated.

He was gone, and you had no way of contacting him.

Eventually you pulled yourself together enough to start the long cleaning process for a vacant unit. Every surface, cupboard, drawer, nook and cranny had to be spotless so new potential buyers could tour the home.

You started in the living room: vacuuming, mopping and dusting, making sure the floor, walls, and windows were shining.

Then you moved into the adjoining kitchen, spraying and wiping every countertop, the refrigerator, the island. You even had to open each drawer and cabinet to wipe those down, too.

But as you opened the last upper cabinet to clean its inside as well, you suddenly caught your breath in your throat.

For there inside the cupboard was a box of cereal. Your favorite cereal. The same kind of cereal you had eaten with Jungkook in this very kitchen the first day you met.

He must have just left it on accident.

With a shaky hand, you grabbed it and brought it down to eye level. That’s when you noticed the envelope taped to the front of the box.

Your heart pounding, you ripped it off and tore it open.

Inside was a letter, and as you unfolded it something fell out and into your hand.

It was a ticket.

To a BTS fanmeeting event.

What?

Your eyes moved to the handwritten letter.

‘There are so many things I wish I had done differently. You didn’t deserve what I asked of you that day. I’m so sorry I handled everything so poorly. I don’t blame you for questioning everything and leaving. I was a coward. I know this now.

Please, please come see me. Please come to this event. I understand if you don’t. I just want nothing more than to see you and talk to you again.’

And then, at the very bottom,

‘보고 싶어요

사랑해요

JK’.

Masterlist

Author’s note: The two phrases in Korean at the end mean “I miss you” and “I love you”(!!!!).

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kaypeace21 · 4 years ago

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Analyzing the 5 plays in this drama club poster .From the bts pics of stranger things 4.

So... some of ya’ll know I'm going through the st s4 films given to us by the official st twitter + the films reffed in the show itself or mentioned by the Duffers in interviews .

So I decided to look at the plays mentioned here. Because even if we don't see the monologues in the show directly - the Duffers wouldn't name drop anything unless it inspired them in some way. Similar to films name dropped in the show. Tw : for some dark themes .

This is just a quick little analysis I decided to do since we probably won't get any new st content today (3/22). Nothing too deep. Just mentioning things that caught my interest especially cause these plays have a lot of narrative connections to the st s4 movies I've been watching.

Invitation to a march (Authur laurents)

Reminds me of the stancy/jancy love triangle. "A young woman is having second thoughts about doing the right thing and marrying a respectable , rich, kind, young man with good prospects.By way of a prewedding diversion, this woman becomes interested in the passionate but poor and entirely unsuitable son of a local landlord.Basically, the plot concerns the efforts of Norma Brown to choose between a conventional fiance who "puts her to sleep" but is wealthy (like what her own mother did) or go for this new-poor guy. The play is principally interested in how this youthful love triangle affects the three mothers involved (whether the kids like it or not)

12th night (Shakespeare)

- viola (el) wrongly assumes a family member (hopper) is dead. She dresses up as a man named 'cesario'. A girl named Olivia falls for 'cesario' (violet dressed as a man). "Finally, when 'Cesario' and Sebastian (violet's twin brother: assumed to have drowned - Will) appear in the presence of Olivia there is more wonder and confusion at their physical similarity. Taking Sebastian for 'Cesario', Olivia asks him to marry her, and they are secretly married in a church. Cough if Olivia is 'straight' cause she fell for Viola (as a doppleganger dressed like her twin brother).Mike being into el who multiple characters in s1 said looked like a boy and specifically like Will is...suspish and a hint he's not straight lol. just like Olivia they're both into guys . plus, this play just has a butt load of love triangles (ugh i hated that aspect). There was also romantically coded letters (which was in the s4 films) . One character is also thrown into an insane asylum and framed as 'insane'.'Pretending that Malvolio is insane, they lock him up in a dark chamber. Feste visits him to mock his insanity'. We all know the psych hospital will be narratively important- talked about it more here.

The seagull (Anton Chekhov-russian)

similar to how I believed s4 will show m*#even already broken up since the months between s3-4 : act 3 (s3) ends with Nina begging for one last chance to be with Trigorin before he leaves/moves away. They kiss and make plans to meet again in Moscow.And in act 4 there's a timeskip where it shows they've been broken up for a long time between acts- and its established they never actually loved eachother. Do i even have to spell out why this parallels the m*#even ending in s3? There is also a play within the play (this is common in a lot of the st films- they have plays- or a story within a story- which illustrate certain themes or emotions of the characters within said film : blackswan, children of paradise, highschool musical, Rushmore, book of Henry, welcome to marwen, never ending story, romancing the stone, wet hot American summer, etc).The play is Konstantin's latest attempt at creating a dense symbolist work. There is also alot of love triangles in the seagull. TW!: for se#ual ab*se/su*cidal thoughts/ inc*st (here and in other play segments). The seagull motif reminds me a lot of Jonathan's rabbit story.Konstantin romantically into Nina shows up to give her a gull that he has shot. Nina is confused and horrified . Trigorin sees the gull that Konstantin has shot and muses to Nina on how he could use it as a subject for a short story: "The plot for the short story: a young girl lives all her life on the shore of a lake. She loves the lake, like a gull, and she's happy and free, like a gull. But a man arrives by chance, and when he sees her, he destroys her, out of sheer boredom. Like this gull." This immediately reminded me of jon's rabbit story and some of the movies on the s4 list . Like in forrest gump- Jenny (who is poor) was se*ually ab*sed as a very young girl by her father. As a child she runs away into a field-away from her alcoholic father yelling at her -there she prays that she can "be a bird so I can fly far far away" .

Jenny as an adult struggles with this unresolved trauma- being with ab*sive partners, doing dr*gs, and having su*cidal thoughts . She as an adult when contemplating su*icide, jokes 'you think i can fly like a bird ?' while looking down at a bridge.God-i'm worried about jonathan (Jenny was also a musician sort of like jon). In another s4 movie example ' mystic river ' :(in the 80s) a preteen baseball playing boy is r*ped by men in the woods. He later says he wishes he could become an undead monster to not feel the pain of that experience - cause quote " if I'm not human anymore maybe the pain will stop" (Will) . slightly off topic but he also has another personality, imagines a alternate word that dissappears when he turns his head. And as a less direct animal parallel to the play - the boy from the film also imagined his perpetrators as monsters and wolves to cope.In 'getout' the photographer character sees a dead deer in the woods and it represents a parent/his own childhood tra*ma relating to his past. similarly in 'prince of tides' the 2 siblings as kids were ra*ed by men. The older brother remembered it and the younger sibling developed DID (so didn't remember but she would draw wolves- as the perpetrators/villains in her picture stories she created . In the film they also had an ab*sive dad and were very poor. She also tried k*ling herself multiple times-but started to get better after remembering the source of her pain and trauma. There is also the theme of multiple attempted su*cides in the play- and the play ends with yet another attempt- and the audience is left unaware of the artist's fate at the end of the play.

The tempest (Shakespeare)

Prospereo - (the perceived antagonist) is a wizard with monstrous looks, storm powers , and ability to create monster-dogs

He wants revenge on a man who tried ra*ing his family member & revenge on his other family member who wronged him years ago. I mean... pretty much my did theory.But in the end.Prospero decides to show his enemies the mercy that they did not show him twelve years earlier. He tells Ariel to bring the men to him, he will restore their sanity and then renounce magic forever.Prospero breaks the spell that the men are under .

Diary of a scoundrel (Alexander Ostrovsky-Russian)

- I suppose this could loosely relate to Jonathan? Glumov, is a young man from an impoverished family lacking status seeking entrance into society's pampered class. A 19th-century Russian scoundrel must scheme his way out of his meager life in a small apartment -whatever it takes.He has a quick mind and some talent for seeing through the hypocrisies of people around him ( Jonathan does make a lot of social critiques about society). That gives him some advantages. A tale of one man's mission to finagle his way into upper-class society and find a cushy job. Set in 1874, this social comedy follows Glumov, a Russian youth who begins his ambitious ascent to social esteem. He progresses by wit, guile and rhetoric. Pitting one stupid person against another, he soon gains his ends. To reach these goals, Glumov will lie, flatter, and cater to the vanities of the wealthy. Unable to contain his disgust with his victims, Glumov decides to relieve his unvoiced satirical comments by recording his schemes in a diary. But he is tripped up by his uncle's wife, to whom he has made passionate love on his way to success. At the end of the play, his diary is stolen and his duplicity exposed, but he can nevertheless suceeds. The author is much more critical about the high society itself than about the main character, so the play keeps attracting generations of directors by opening possibilities for political criticism while also avoiding naming names of the current rulers.The play's aim was to overthrow bourgeois tradition and establish a class-conscious art called eccentricism giving a deliberately comic portrayal of reality.

I suppose I notice some possible commonalities- besides s3 critiquing the wealthy/capitalism in comedic ways . jonathan since s1 has worried about his family's finances / had some resentment toward the rich . In some of the s4 movies ‘orphan’ & ‘ girl interrupted’ someone reads their diary out loud to get at them (in girl interrupted the winona character’s diary even had critiques of her new friends). Alot of movies also have someone (usually a teen/young adult) making a documentary about their life -which could narratively replace said diary? A few movies have a poor guy adjusting to snobby rich social circles (or being poor and then getting money)- titanic, kingsmen, karate kid, the craft , godfather, wardogs,into the spiderverse,flashdance, and many others . And movies like wardogs has a poor-young-character do shady things to finacially support his family . There’s also that whole uncle’s wife thing- which makes me uncomfortable for obvious reasons (but I’m just thinking of Lonnie’s creepy gf who was into him). A few movies had the guy’s step mom innappropriately hit on him- orange county & you got mail. And him trying to avoid her advances. Or...not to mention ... it may be a problematic coincidence /trope. But in enter the void -the guy who needs to finacially support his sibling/ does dr*gs -hooks up with his dr*g dealing friend’s married mom (who would give him money). Or in gilbert grape- the poor teen-who has to finacially support his siblings/single mom-has his endgame relationship be a girl his own age. But before that he h*oked up with a married woman -who would give him money. Don’s plum -young film guy-propositioned by older female film director (for dream job). Not even mentioning the other films that have the guy hooking up with toxic older women (like ‘the graduate’). Or analyze this-where the therapist accuses him of having an Oedipus complex (not touching that one... but the guy in ‘enter the void’ a 100% had one). It’s possible those movies were just- inspo for s3? A coincidence? Or s3 was foreshadowing for this in s4- but unlike s3 it will accurately be played as wrong and a sign of Jonathan recreating past tra*ma caused by Lonnie (cough like the photos) /being desperate for money. And not played ‘comedically’ like how it mostly was in s3. But shown as self destructive (for Jon) and immoral on the Woman’s end. Like... Billy and Jon are character foils. Both are older siblings into rock music, with ab*sive dads who shoved them into walls. Both lose it (and beat steve to a pulp when Steve accidentally triggers their daddy issues). In s3 it’s established womanizer Billy has mommy issues, than he tries ho*king up with someone his mom’s age, and the characters ref ‘back to the future ‘ and Steve incorrectly says it’s about “alex p keaton trying to bang his mom.” This could illustrate his subconscious issues with parental figures/adults cause of Lonnie’s possible past se*ual ab*se . One film the friend even says to the guy “you don’t have friends!” guy b: i have friends! him: no you have acquaintances! ADMIT IT! YOU’RE AFRAID OF MEN!I mean-Jonathan liked Nancy- but he initially hooked up with her cause he wanted to prove he didn’t have ‘trust issues’ from his dad. Also it’s prob a bit of a reach (and maybe a coincidence)- but the fact Murray in the same breath compares Steve (Nancy’s then bf) and Lonnie ... uh... if you think too long about it ... it’s very sinister . Especially because in s3: muray tells Joyce that despite her wanting to be with a nice guy, she’s curious about “the brute” Hopper despite him reminding her of a past “bad relationship”(aka Lonnie). Like- yeah connect some dots. Quite a few films (other than forrest gump) also have the character who (as a kid) was r*ped by their dad/parent- begin to do dr*gs/be pr*miscuous as adults since they never learned to properly cope with their trauma (’girl with the dragon tattoo’, ‘black swan’, and ‘magnolia’). Unfortunately the whole relative doing such things to kid-relatives is in at least 30+ movies.

Personally, i would be MUCH happier if Jon had a age appropriate romance- and had not a single creepy adult near him. A few movies actually imply Lonnie gets yet another ‘new model’ replacing his gf in her 20s with a new gf- who is ‘barely l*gal” and just turned 18. so there’s that possibility as well- that she’s jonathan’s age.I just want Jonathan-happy &safe. GOD. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

#byler #byeler #will byers #mike wheeler #Jonathan byers #nancy wheeler #joyce byers #jim hopper #murray bauman #stranger things #el hopper #s4 theory #stranger things theory

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keltonwrites · 3 years ago

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I bought a house in the middle of nowhere

“Yeah, I loved it, but she’d never move there.” It was something akin to that, at least. He didn’t mean any mischief, no deceit or planning. It was an honest take on what, at the time, was true. I saw the road into town on Google Maps, noted that it was closed during the winter, acknowledged the reality that a person can own a snowmobile, and I said, “we are not moving there.” But, all good truths are just dares in the making.

And here I am, living in the “there” I said I would not. Two years ago, I left my job at Headspace for a life reset. It was pre-pandemic, and Ben and I were planning a big road trip. Our perfect paradise in Topanga, CA, had crystallized itself as many people’s perfect paradise, and those “many people” all had more money than us. Our options to buy a home were nil, and home-buying was essentially all we wanted. Ben’s a builder and I’m a world builder, and we wanted somewhere to invest that didn’t belong to someone else. We packed the car with the tent and the bikes and the dog and all the things that come with tents and bikes and dogs, and off we went on our own Tour de l’Ouest, looking for a place to call home. We knew what we wanted, knew our odds of finding it, and hit the road anyway. Here was the dream list — concocted by two pie-in-the-sky dummies who married each other:

Not rainy or consistently windy

Notable access to the arts

Remote and challenging to get to/close neighbors

Wild West influenced architecture

Progressive community

Exceptional trail access out the front door

High-speed internet

In our budget

And my personal favorite: had to “feel right” Good luck to us with a list like that, but thus began our hunt. We camped in the snow, tried every dirty chai in the Rockies, and explored every town we could. Whatever a good time it was, it felt useless. Every town Ben was OK with, I hated. Every town I was OK with, Ben despised. And the few places we both loved required money we just didn’t have. We came home with our sails down, limping into the harbor of our rental. But as is the way with romantics, our dreams began to slowly eclipse our reality. Books fell victim to Zillow and Trulia. TV was replaced by the MLS. All writing time was dedicated to Realtor.com. Hours were spent pouring over maps, county records, and updating spreadsheets that tracked price per square foot compared to beds and baths. Over time, all that internetting led to one singular town of 180 people at 10,000 feet in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado with a road that said “Closed Winters” on Google Maps. Look, I don’t know what happened. Ben found this town on a map, I said don’t be ridiculous, and after a year or so of him telling people I'd never move here, here I am, being ridiculous. Was it reverse psychology? Maybe. Was it the charming “town plan” that mandated all houses be rustic cabins and forbade AirBnB? Could be. Was it the fact that when I looked at Strava’s Heatmap, it showed what seemed like thousands of miles of trails just out the front door? I mean, yes. All these things played a part, but all I know for certain is that one day I woke up and said, “we’re going to move there.” Ben doubted this conviction (and the realities behind it) thus cementing it into place in my head. In a town of 180 people there’s only ~60 houses, which means maybe 2 or 3 get listed per year — but my spreadsheet had the proof: we hadn’t missed our chance yet in this tiny town. The data showed a strong likelihood there would be at least two houses listed within the calendar year. This, however, was also our last chance. The spreadsheet also showed that if we didn’t find a house this year, we wouldn’t be able to afford one the next. We called a realtor, made our case, and harangued her until she believed us that we were truly the kind of yahoos who would move to an avalanche field and stay there. And then it happened. A pocket listing. It was a darling home built in 1890. It had the beds, the baths, and the views. We were the first and only to know. We put in an offer, they agreed, and we would come to see the house in a few weeks. But in those few weeks, the circumstances changed. The sellers lost their own sweet deal, and they couldn’t sell yet. Their agent promised we had right of first refusal, it was only a matter of time. Ben lamented, I preached patience, and we went to see the house that was no longer for sale anyway.

It was a quiet winter morning in Covid when we drove across the packed snow to meet our realtor outside the house. The sun was out and the 13 degrees Fahrenheit felt warm. I unzipped my jacket, mask on my face. I took long videos and talked about where I would set up my office and where we’d put the bikes. As we closed up and I settled into a future where this house would eventually be mine, our realtor told us there were comps in the area — other residents quietly interested in potentially closing out. Would we like to see them? Sure, let’s.

One home came with an incredible commercial kitchen. The whole house was a whopping 3500 sq ft if my memory serves me correct, which falls under the category of “houses too big to find your cat in."

Another home had an open-air-to-the-kitchen bathroom.

The third was dark and overpriced with cracked windows and open beer cans scattered about.

And then, plans changed. “Hey guys, there’s actually one more house we can see.” The last house we saw was a log cabin, nestled in the hillside by itself, with massive A-frame windows looking out onto the peaks beyond. Inside was a labyrinth of a life lived long and large. The cabin was built and loved by a man we’ll call Jack. Jack was 82, and as we walked toward the front door on that sunny winter morning, he exited with two beers in his pockets, headed to the mountain to ski. Jack was an attorney — in his life he’d been both criminal and defender — and from the stories, somewhat interchangeably. There were artifacts from running in the same scenes as Hunter S. Thompson and Willie Nelson; there were stuffed birds, bad books, sheet-covered couches, smoked spliffs, and piles and piles of mouse shit. Every inch of the house was lived in, and not just by people. You think millennials like plants? No. This man likes plants. The biggest monstera deliciosa I’ve ever seen, spanning some 10 feet wide and 15 feet tall. Draping cactuses, spider plants, massive aloes, and an ambitious hoya carnosa clawing its way to the top of the massive fireplace. But there were problems. I’m trying to be diplomatic saying the house was lived in. The wood by the door handles was dyed black from years of hand grease rubbing against it. The carpet in the upstairs was soiled almost everywhere with bat scat. Newspaper was stuffed between the massive logs to keep the wind out. There was cardboard taped over almost every window, blankets nailed over the others. Half the doors wouldn’t open. It was unnerving to touch the crusted light switches. It was early enough in the season of Covid-fear that touching anything felt like gambling. On our way back to our rental in the bigger neighboring town, we shared our awe and our no-ways, lamenting how long we’d have to wait for the little 1890s fixer upper. That night, I sent the video I took of the cabin to my parents. “Can you believe this?” I asked. And do you know what my dad said? “Great log construction.” After that, the cabin was all we could talk about. “Could you believe those plants?” “Did you see how big those logs were?” “I just googled Jack, look at this.” “Do you know what the insulating factor of logs is?” “How much did he say he was asking?” It came down to the plants. Amidst all the chaos in that house, the tender care of those decades-old plants sung the clearest. This wasn’t just a place Jack lived in, it was a place that wanted to be lived in. We made an offer the next day.

Jack had six months to clear out his 30 odd years of collecting, and the town had six months to speculate about the worrisome Californians moving to their high-altitude, high-risk town. The town itself is an old mining town. It rests in a high valley, surrounded by peaks over 13,000ft, and is over six hours from the nearest major airport. Five people died around this town in avalanches this past year. The dirt road into town is littered with avalanche fields, warning visitors to not stop when driving in. The other way out is a pass road, only drivable in the warm months, but you could skin out if it was dire. Most August days, the high is in the mid-60s. The valley is blanketed in wildflowers, and the aspens littering the mountainsides suggest a promising fall display. The town had a heyday, a low day, and now it’s a community of preppers, adventurers, appreciators, and “get all these idiots away from me”ers. We don’t know these people yet, but the ones we’ve met have the same like to live hard attitude we do. Heli-ski guides, ex-CIA agents, woodworkers, bakers, teachers, just a general can-do group of people. The kind of people that see a California license plate and peer with skepticism between the thin gap over their sunglasses and under their caps.

You might say I’m romanticizing the place, but the residents are worse. Like all good old-timers, they’re full of threats: “wait’ll you see the snow drifts,” “let’s see how you do outrunning an avalanche,” “good luck with the winds,” “the last Californians didn’t last a year.” God, what does that remind me of?

“Yeah, I loved it, but she’d never move there.”

With every taunt, my teeth ground more enamel, fingers rolling into a clench. And maybe Jack recognized this intensity, because on the day of closing, he hosted a gathering for us in the town's open space. He had us introduce ourselves to the skeptical locals, and I made my case in court, eyes narrowed and lips curled. “I’m the daughter of a smokejumper and wildlife biologist. I grew up watching the wind and the door. I’ve lived in big cities, small boats, and more than one cabin. I always take the stairs, I never use air-conditioning, and I’m a very good shot.” I’m just a girl, standing in front of a town, asking them to give her a fucking chance. Jack stepped forward to speak. “You know, I had my doubts about a couple Californians coming to look at my house. But these people? These are the nicest people you’re ever gonna meet.” And then I helped Jack set up his cot so he could spend his last night under the stars in the town that kept him young. Cooper ran circles with the other dogs. People brought homemade cocktails and bowls of dip and we felt welcomed. Even the mayor, a fellow writer, came and she struck up a conversation. “I hear you’ve got a little bit of a following on social media!” She teased. “I guess, nothing wild.” “Well I just wanted to let you know if you ever geotag this town, I’ll drag you out of it.” She grinned. This was a special place. And every visitor who couldn’t handle the realities of being here threatened the very wellbeing of the people who lived here. This town survives on a delicate balance. They source their own water, manage their own roads, and fervently protect the land and the people around them. Their stories about racing avalanches, snowmobiling in the dark of night to the doctor’s house, hunkering down in each other’s homes as the storms pass — these stories were bylaws. You can join when you’ve proven you’re ready to join. By their own projection, they are hardy and steadfast people, and when they see a Californian, they see something fleeting. Many years ago, I worked in the British Virgin Islands. The people born and raised there were called Belongers. At the customs office, the placards above the lines literally read, “If you belong, stand here” and “If you do not belong, stand here.” Whether or not we belong isn't up to the town council, and it's not up to these residents. It's up to years spent drifting my old Mustang in the snow on the way to school, up to Ben's months and months spent in the backcountry, up to my years of reading fire reports and assisting with evacuations, up to Ben's ability to read the landscape and the weather, up to my doggedness, his diligence, and our pathological love to do difficult things well. It’s up to us, to these old logs, and to this valley. Doesn't mean we'll belong, but it does mean we'll try. And for the record, the road is open in the winter. But do these sound like the kind of people who’d tell Google that? Next week, a tour of the house that we get to call ours — stuffed with newspaper, run by plants, and filled with mice. P.S. Here's where we get our mail.

Subscribe to the newsletter here. Follow on Instagram here.

#newsletters #amwriting #relocation #home renovation #cabin life #cabin living #colorado #log cabin

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spider-pxrkers · 5 years ago

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flustered || peter parker x reader

summary: peter decides to flirt with the new avenger, y/n. he doesn’t expect her to flirt back and fluster him, making him realize he needs to get the upper hand.

request: can you do a peter x flirty reader where at first peter is flirting buts the reader flirts back making him flustered?

a/n: the BIGGEST thank you to the loml @drusilla-as-in-blackthorn who helped and co-wrote this fic with me! she has some amazing fics, go check her out!

warnings: making out, sexual tones, swearing, sam and bucky being sam and bucky.

masterlist || co-writer || add yourself to my taglist!

i do not own any gifs used. all credits go to the original creator.

“Just be cool man. We practiced for hours, she’ll totally be into it.”

Ned’s voice echoed in Peter’s head like a tape stuck on loop as he entered the Avengers Compound. He puffed out his chest as he stepped into the elevator, trying to assert some sort of confidence within him to prepare himself for what he was about to do.

Steve had called for an Avengers training session today, which meant Peter got to see you again. He’d first met you during a robbery in Queens where he’d gotten tangled up. The thieves would’ve gotten away had you not shown up and ever since that day, he’d been in awe of you.

When he found out you were an Avenger too, he swore he felt his stomach do flips. His crush on you began shortly after meeting you those six months ago and is still very much there. For a while, Peter didn’t know what to do about it, but around two weeks ago Ned convinced the boy to go old school and try the one tactic ‘all the ladies loved’, and that was flirting.

He was skeptical at first, but he eventually figured he’d give it a try. And so Peter spent the whole of the night before googling pick-up lines and watching ‘flirting 101’ videos on YouTube in preparation for today. He was satisfied with his research and felt confident.

As the elevator doors opened, he took bold steps towards the rest of the team and waited for instructions from Steve. Not everyone had showed up, but you were there, leaning against a wall as your fingers mindlessly played with each other, your eyebrows furrowed as you listened to what Steve was saying. He felt his breath falter as he looked at you, you wore simple grey sweats and a ‘Stark Industries’ tank top. It was a simple outfit but for some reason Peter couldn’t take his eyes off of you. Your eyes eventually wandered towards the boy, noticing his stare. You gave him a light wink, causing his cheeks to stain red, his eyes immediately looking away.

After the briefing, Steve announced today’s training would consist of sparring in pairs. Peter silently pleaded as he grouped everyone together and he felt his heart jump when Steve announced he would be paired with you.

Everyone made their way over to their assigned partners and he watched as you walked up to him. He mentally prepared himself, taking a deep breath as you approached. He was ready.

“H-hey, Y/N.”

Shit.

He stuttered.

Why did he have to stutter?

He glanced up at you to see if you noticed but all he saw was an amused look in your eyes, as if you could somehow tell he was beating himself up. “Hey, Parker.” You grinned at him. “You ready?”

“I-” He sighed. “Yeah.”

The two of you got into your own individual sparring stances.

He could do this. He was a man of science and he had studied for this. How hard could it be to flirt with you? He had watched other members of the team flirt with each other enough to know that he could play it off as a joke if you didn't respond well. That, or he could throw himself out the window of the forty-sixth floor, whatever would be easier.

You threw a punch at him and he dodged it, then another, then a kick. You were on the offensive side which was fine with him, he could do defense in his sleep. It gave him time to think about what to say. He had to do this right, mostly because he knew you had at least four knives on you but he was also really worried about embarrassing himself.

"Hey Y/N,” He let out as he parried away from a kick, recalling one if the lines he'd memorized. “If you're enjoying yourself here, I know other ways we could use this much energy." He ducked under another one of your high kicks and punched at your stomach.

You hadn't even faltered in your attack so he wasn't sure if you had even heard him. "Yeah, I do too Spidey, but unfortunately Steve frowns upon people fucking on the sparring mats." You eyed him, the corner of your lips tugging up at his expression. He faltered at your words, not expecting such a direct comeback, and you took the opportunity to crouch down and took his ankles out. Suddenly he was looking up at your smug expression from the floor with, what he knew, was a violent blush on his own face. "What's wrong Parker? Cat got your tongue?" You asked tilting your head to the side, a look of feigned innocence coating you. You sauntered away back towards the starting point and raised your fists, obviously waiting for him to join you.

You had both been sparring for about an hour and since he wasn't allowed to use his web shooters, you happened to be winning - in both the sparring and the verbal back and forth. He didn't understand how you were doing it, everything he said, you countered with something equally as clever. He was grasping at straws at this point. "Y-you sure you're not tired Y/N? Cause you've been running through my mind all day."

He was throwing hits in your general direction with no real heat. You actually laughed at that one, no wonder. "Nah, don't worry about me Parker. I can go all night." He sighed as you landed him on his ass for the third time in a row, he wasn't going to concede but you weren’t giving him much of a choice.

"I'm not a genie but I can make all your dreams come through." He groaned as he tried to get back up.

"Yeah and that’s if I rub you hard enough?" You lightly moved your leg to push him back on the mat. When he went to stand back up, Steve shouted that everyone could take a break. He sighed.

You and he walked side by side to the cooler where the water bottles were kept. He went over to his gym bag and saw that he had three missed calls from Ned. He dialed back.

"Hey man how's it going? You ask her out yet?" Ned sounded excited on the other line, Peter smiled, he loved his best friend so much.

"Nah, buddy it's not working.” He sighed into the phone before bringing his bottle to his lips. “Everything I throw at her she hits me back with something better. I think I should just give up."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, earlier I said to her 'Hey can I borrow a kiss, I promise to give it back?' and she pinned me to the mat and said I could have as many as I liked." Peter replied, looking at you from the corner of your eye talking to Steve.

"Wait, okay, no, so she's flirting back with you? That's a good thing isn't it?" Ned asked.

Peter thought about it and how smug you looked whenever you managed to knock him down. "I don't know Ned, I think she was just doing it to get the upper hand in training."

"Well are you still training now?"

"No we have a break just now for a bit."

"Well,” Peter could practically hear Ned smile through the phone. “I would say kick it up a notch, hit her with something and if she says something suggestive back then act on it, kiss her or whatever."

Peter watched you move back to your own gym bag, watched you reach down to put your bottle in it. He thought about just grabbing you and kissing you, he wanted to, really, really badly but what if you stabbed him, or worse, laughed at him?

"I don't know Ned, I think I'm just going to give up."

"Well okay man, but you have my opinion." Peter almost winced at the distaste in his friend’s voice.

"Yeah, yeah, bye bud, love you."

"Love you too."

Peter hung up the call, sitting down and putting his head in his hands. He didn't know what to do, he wasn't the kind of guy who could just make a move on someone, and he didn't even know if you'd ever actually thought of him that way.

You were walking towards him, looking beautiful as always, a ray of light in a dark world "I must be in a museum, because you truly are a work of art." He said in almost a whisper.

But you heard him, you had a playful look in your eye. "Well if you wanna pin me up against the wall then go ahead."

Something came over him, he didn't even think about what he did next. He shot a web out and grabbed you as soon as the words left your lips, faster than the eye could see. He twirled so you ended up braced against the wall with Peter pinning you down, one hand holding yours above your head, the other holding your hip down.

His legs braced yours, with his super strength, you couldn't move even if you wanted to. "Well if you insist." He mumbled, his eyes darting between yours and your mouth that was currently parted in.. shock?

He was waiting on you kicking and screaming, or at least coming up with a witty comment or a joke. What he wasn't expecting was a fierce blush to rise up your cheeks and your eyes to avoid looking into his. "I, eh, I, uh well, h-h-hi." You were stuttering, he had actually managed to fluster you. The same girl who’d been spewing filthy lines back at him a few minutes ago looked so small under his lock now.

He opened his mouth to say something before hearing someone clear their throat behind him. Your eyes widened as you looked over Peter’s shoulder at Steve and the rest of the team staring at the two of you while Peter’s gaze still remained on you.

You pulled out of his grip, side stepping and moving away, quickly walking back to the training mats. Peter’s arms dropped to his sides, his eyes never leaving the wall he just had you flustered against.

You avoided Peter for the rest of the session, opting to spar with Natasha while he trained with Sam. You stood opposite Nat, dodging and throwing as many hits as you could as your mind wandered. Moments ago he was the one blushing after everything you’d said, you were sure you had the upper hand. But after he held you like that, something snapped. You could still feel his fingers brushing against your hip and you cursed yourself for getting so flustered. At first you thought his flirting was cute and just for fun, but something about the way his eyes looked into yours made you think differently. Was he taking advantage of you?

Or did he actually like you?

Training ended and you quickly gathered your things, darting out of the room. You made your way into the corridor to your room before hearing footsteps after you.

“Y/N, wait up!”

You silently cursed as you sped up your pace, walking into your room and turning to close the door before a foot appeared, halting it. You looked up to see Peter place a hand on the door as he tried to push it a bit more for him to enter. You placed your hand on the other side trying to close it. “Go away, Peter.”

“Look,” he pushed at the door harder but was met with you pushing back with equal force. “Listen I’m sorry if-” You pushed back again. “Sorry if I- would you stop?” He finally sent a stronger push this time, successfully opening the door and stepping in. You backed away from him, dropping your bag figuring he wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon.

He shut the door behind him as he made his way over to you. “I’m sorry if I crossed a line back there, I just wanted to-”

“Why did you do it?” You asked, crossing your arms.

“Wh-why did I do what?”

You scoffed at him. “I don’t know flirt with me? Pin me against the fucking wall in front of the team?” You shook your head at him. “What? You think it’s fun messing with people like that?”

Peter’s stance grew defensive. “You flirted back!”

“Yeah, ‘cause I thought we were fooling around! Not that you actually-” You stopped yourself from finishing your sentence. You couldn’t do it, you couldn’t admit your feelings to him, that you actually thought he liked you back.

He seemed notice your uneasiness however, walking closer to you. “Not that I what, Y/N?” His tone was softer now, almost warmer as he now stood directly in front of you. His brown eyes bore into yours as your eyes wandered around his face, looking for any sign of insincerity.

You shook your head as you moved to walk away from him. Instead, you felt his fingers wrap around your wrist, pulling you into him as he kissed you. His arms moved to wrap around your waist, pushing you backwards until your back hit the wall by your bed with a thud. Your eyes widened before relaxing at his touch, your arms gripping his hair and neck. You felt his teeth nip your bottom lip before down to your jaw and eventually to your neck, where you let out a whimper as he began sucking on your skin, earning a smile against on your neck.

Your hands left the curls in his hair and trailed down his chest to dip under his shirt and pull it over him before discarding it to the floor. His lips reattached to your collarbone as his hands slipped down your hips to your legs, hoisting you up to wrap around him. He kissed back up your neck to your mouth where you moaned as his tongue met yours, moving you away from the wall and laying you on your bed. His forearm found its place by your head, holding him up as his other hand held you by the side. Your legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer as he lay above you, the two of you caught in your make-out session as if you were the only two people in the world.

You finally pulled away after what seemed like forever, your chests connecting as you tried to catch your breath. A light smile found his face as his hands moved to cup your cheek, studying your shut eyes and now swollen lips and tangled hair while you lay under him.

“I was stupid,” he breathed out causing you to open your eyes and meet his. His fingers continued to tug at the corner of your mouth. “I thought these stupid pick-up lines would..” He trailed off as he gently shook his head, a small laugh escaping him. “Would finally make you like me back.”

You softly laughed at him, your fingers drumming against his bare chest. “Well it worked didn��t it?”

He chuckled as he leant down to press a kiss to the tip of your nose.

“Yeah, yeah it did.” He leaned back in to kiss you again.

“Hey Y/N, Nat wanted to know if you were- holy shit.”

The two of you turned to look at Sam at the door, his eyes widening at the sight before him before a grin covered his face. “Well I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” He said smirking as he leant against the doorway. Peter’s cheeks turned red as he pushed off of you, reaching to get his shirt.

You got up and glared at the man, clearly annoyed. “What do you want Wilson?”

Sam smirked at you as he laughed. “Oo, she ain’t takin’ it too well. Hey, Bucky!” He called out.

“Oh my god.” You pinched the bridge of your nose as Peter put his shirt back on, a light smile finding his face as he glanced between the two of you.

Sam kicked off the wall before winking at you, walking back down the corridor. You could still hear his voice as he walked off. “You owe me fifty bucks sergeant!”

Peter laughed as he reached his hand down to yours, pulling you up. “You alright?” He asked.

"Yeah, I'm good." You nodded your head as you smiled walking out of the room with him before clearing your throat. "After damage control,” you said gesturing with your head to the kitchen where Sam now gathered the entire team while your hands gently tugged at the waistband of his pants. “What do you say you and I pick up where we left off?” He froze as he stared at you, his eyes widening. You grinned at him before pressing a kiss to his cheek and pulling away, skipping down the hall and leaving a very very flustered Peter Parker behind you.

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marymccartneyphotos · 4 years ago

Text

Paul Weller in conversation with Mary McCartney: ‘We used to pinch a lot of Beatles songs’

For this Woking-born son of the 1970s, there were four father figures who underpinned everything, from his first guitar to an inspirational career that continues to expand and explore more than 50 years later. On the release of his latest solo record, his third in three years, we asked Paul Weller to pick through the past with an artist who knows better than any how The Beatles shaped the generation that followed. By Dylan Jones; 4 June 2021 from British GQ Magazine

(edited for Mary McCartney content only)

For Weller’s latest GQ appearance, we thought it would be good to put him together with an old friend, the photographer Mary McCartney. Which is what we did...

Mary McCartney: So, Paul, when did you become a Beatles fan? When you were 12?

Paul Weller: When I was five years old. I had some of the singles, because my mother bought them, but the first time I saw them was the Royal Variety Performance in 1963, when I was five. From the time I saw The Beatles I loved music and then when I was around age 12 I started trying to learn to play guitar. Me and my mate had a few lessons for a bit and got a few weeks in, but the guy was trying to teach us how to read music, so we got bored with that. And as soon as we learnt enough chords we stopped the lessons and we just start doing it ourselves.

MM: When did you actually start writing songs?

PW: As soon as we – me and my mate Steve Brookes – learnt the three or four chords. I’m still mates with him now. We started a band and we just learned together and we just kept swapping whatever we’d learned in the week, swapping back and forth. It was just me and him and then we just gathered up people as we could find them. There was never any doubt in my mind that’s what I would do and, even at around 12, I thought that was definitely what I was going to do for a living. Well, I didn’t know it could be a career, I just knew I was going to do music. So by the age of 14 we were playing pubs, working men’s clubs and social clubs with The Jam. But your dad’s band was the catalyst for all of it.

MM: You know, I’m directing a documentary about the history of Abbey Road Studios at the moment, so I’ve been taken back to those times. There is a photograph of me aged three months on one of the sofas in the studio, so I was there before I can remember being there. Whenever I walk in through the doors I still get a funny feeling. But I’m learning a lot about The Beatles’ recording process, though. What was your writing process in the early days?

PW: When we started to write songs we just used to pinch a lot of The Beatles songs. They were very basic, just us taking our first steps as songwriters. I was actually very passionate at the time, but I didn’t have the skills to articulate that passion. That kind of developed. Our first songs would have been nonsense songs, just “My Baby Love Me” stuff... But, like every other fledgling songwriter, I just started off by aping other people, like The Beatles did, like Dylan did. Everyone starts out copying other people.

MM: I assume you recorded your new album during lockdown?

PW: I did. I had about four or five tracks left over from [last year’s] On Sunset and they were just lying around, unused. So I started working away, chipping away, trying to put together a new batch of songs. As ever, I recorded them all in the studio down in Surrey, just me and a guitar singing along to a click track. If I couldn’t record with the band, I’d send the recordings to them and they’d play their parts and then send them back. It was a very odd process, but it worked. However, when we could finally all record again together, it was like the first day of school after the summer holidays. It was great. The writing process was actually the same as it always is, but because I knew I didn’t have any live work for the foreseeable future, we just created all this space. I think the lockdown was actually hugely influential in a way, as all the quiet made me appreciate nature in a way I hadn’t done for quite some time, maybe ever. I could really feel and hear and see nature again, it started to take over. I loved hearing the birds sing and not seeing any aeroplanes in the sky. It helped me think about things I would never normally think about in any situation. I felt more in tune with nature. I had a thought that if we weren’t here, if we all disappeared, which I’m sure we will do one day, the earth would just reclaim itself and that it will always be here and we won’t.

MM: It was such a nice feeling, actually stopping and looking and appreciating, not rushing around. I was lying in bed one night in the middle of London. It was 2am and it was so quiet it felt like we had gone back 100, 200 years. I couldn’t hear the rumble of the underground and it was almost as though cars hadn’t been invented.

PW: How was your lockdown, Mary?

MM: Mine was good, but we’re not here to talk about me. I’m grilling you today. But mine was good. Well, I say it was good, but it was unnerving. I think, on a global scale, it was just unnerving because it was like living in a science fiction movie. I think the main thing a lot of us benefitted from was having to slow down and not being able to just go and do things. So, in that sense, it wasn’t a bad thing. I was obviously worried about people’s health and the economy, but, like you, I really got in touch with nature. I did a lot more photographic work outside. And, of course, I started to prep for the Abbey Road doc. What’s the perfect recording scenario for you?

PW: Well, I love my studio and, to be honest, I’d be quite happy to never come out of the place. I could quite happily stay there forever. I bought the building in 1999, but it’s only really been the past 15 years or so that we’ve really got it together, with the sound and the vibe and the equipment. I’m continually making little acoustic adjustments to the room. We’ve got a drum kit set up all the time, as well as a mic’d piano, so it’s always ready to roll. I can play guitar, obviously, as well as bass and piano, but I’ve never really enjoyed playing the drums, because I can’t sing and drum with any conviction. It’s a different art altogether, playing drums. I like drummers who play the song, who can play the tune and who aren’t trying to do their own thing. That requires a certain amount of discipline, a different discipline: not playing too much but playing the right thing. Your dad is a good drummer.

MM: Yeah, he is. Mum introduced me to a song he played drums on years ago, called “My Dark Hour”, by the Steve Miller Band. He’s credited as “Paul Ramon” and he does backing vocals, guitar, bass and drums. It was recorded in Olympic Studios in London towards the end of 1969, after an argument Dad had had with the others over Allen Klein becoming their manager. The others had gone off and he said Steve Miller walked in and asked if he wanted to play the drums on this track he was recording. I think the drumming on it is so good, but you can tell he’s letting out a lot of tension.

PW: I love that first solo album of your dad’s, the one with you as a baby on the back. That’s probably one of my favourite records. It was lo-fi before lo-fi was even talked about.

MM: I love the rawness of it, as it’s just so personal. I still listen to McCartney and Ram a lot. They shot the album cover up in Scotland. They were horse riding and he zipped me up in his jacket. He put me in the jacket so I was safe, as he was going riding. I love that picture from a photographic point of view as well, as it’s very real. It’s taken at the end of the day, during the golden hour. It’s so natural.

PW: Now, what was it like growing up, then, as a daughter of a Beatle?

MM: Well, it was more like growing up as a daughter of Paul and Linda, because they were such a great couple. But,

also, they were such adventurous people. So, we were kind of following them around and going on lots of adventures. We went on tour with them and we really only stopped when we needed to go to school. So I have lots of memories of travelling as a girl. I even remember going on the double-decker that they used as a tour bus in 1972. The seats on the upper deck were replaced by mattresses and bean bags.

PW: I assume it was your mother’s inspiration that made you want to be a photographer...

MM: I think so, as I think I just always saw her taking pictures. She had such a casual style too. She didn’t do a lot of setting up and neither do I. It’s just so much nicer when you connect with your sitter and when you just casually take pictures. I much prefer that and I certainly know that you don’t like to have your picture taken in a very set-up kind of situation. What really got me into becoming a photographer was looking at Mum’s pictures from the 1960s. They were about her being with someone and taking pictures and very much not “This is Jimi Hendrix”. Again, casual. When I became a photographer, I took Mum’s talent for granted. She would take pictures out the car window and then they became these books or a print on the wall. When I started doing it myself I’d put the camera up and I’d be like, “Dad, can you turn the car around so I can take this picture?” And he’d be like, “No.” She would take pictures so effortlessly and I didn’t realise there was a knack to it. Mum and Dad would treat everyone equally; I do remember that. We were always surrounded by people, so I suppose that’s why I think I am a bit of a people person. I like meeting people and I like connecting with people, but I still find I’m quite shy about it. I find it stressful, but I like it. But I could never in a million years get up on a stage, ever. Even thinking about it makes me feel like fainting. When did you first walk out in front of a big crowd? How does that feel? Is it just feeling that adulation and love and appreciation and then giving that back? Does that feel really healthy? I always think when it works perfectly, it just must be such a healthy feeling.

PW: It’s almost a weird thing, because just prior to going on stage, especially in the hour before, I’m in bits. I’m so nervous and so don’t want to be there and want to go home, and then within minutes of actually being on stage, as soon as that first tune strikes up, I automatically feel as though this is completely where I’m supposed to be. It feels like the most natural, most comfortable, Zen-like place you could possibly be, it’s so weird. I’ve always felt nervous before going on stage. That’s never changed. I mean, it’s got a little bit better as I’ve got older, but not much. I think I need to have that feeling. It was weird, because there was a time when I tried to stop drinking – before I stopped completely – and when I stopped I suddenly wasn’t nervous before going on stage. And I didn’t like it. It felt really odd.

MM: Isn’t there something superstitious about this?

PW: No, I don’t think so. I just think it gives you an edge. Those nerves can make you edgy and I think that’s important for me.

MM: And then did the nerves come back?

PW: When I started drinking again they did.

MM: But now you’re not?

PW: When I finally stopped drinking it took me at least two years to get used to that feeling of going on stage totally sober and straight. And now I love it. But it took a good two years to get comfortable, as it was really odd at first. I’d be on stage and I’d notice so much, like there’s a guy in the front row who’s wearing a green shirt or something, and now I don’t feel that at all. Now it feels natural and I have a greater appreciation of it. That’s the other thing as well, getting more from it and being more conscious of what we’re doing.

MM: Growing up, watching Mum and Dad on stage just felt natural. But I’ve seen you play a few times and it makes me realise how much I couldn’t do it myself. There is such great energy and it’s really entertaining and you look completely natural, but I wouldn’t be able to feel comfortable in that position. Also, to me, it feels like your music has to be played live. I went to a concert before lockdown and the person was so vacant and not connected to the audience and, because of that, it made me nervous. You could tell they were going through the motions, that it was an act. They had no connection at all. Whereas when I look at Dad on stage he’s all about connection. I think I had taken it for granted before that, but when you see someone who doesn’t connect, you realise how important it is.

PW: I know some people who turn up just before they go on stage and as soon as they finish they get in the car and they’re off. I don’t understand that either. It’s a far bigger thing than that for me, because I’m looking for that connection. As much as the audience might be, I am as well, and my band too, because I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes and there are some nights where you get so connected together by an audience that this thing just grows and grows. It transcends the moment.

MM: It’s like magic.

PW: It’s something special. The last time I played at the Fillmore in San Francisco, a couple of years ago, it was like that, and it wasn’t because of gear. It was almost like we took off, like the whole room just lifted up.

MM: Have you got a ritual for after the show?

PW: No, not really. No.

MM: My dad has this sandwich and a Margarita, because he doesn’t eat before he goes on. He waits until after.

PW: I have a cup of tea these days. In the past, I would have got off my nut, but I don’t any more. But if you have a gig like that and that becomes your benchmark, you’re always looking to get back to that moment, which is not always possible. But that becomes the thing you’re always searching for, to find that connection. We’re always striving for the spectacular. It’s the same with record companies. Sometimes you have to compromise, but what you really want to do is pursue your own passions. It was more difficult when we first started, because the record company tried to step in more and tried to guide us to do this or that. In the early days of The Jam they even suggested we cover a 10cc song. We said, “No fucking way is that going to happen.” You’ve got to stick to your guns. You’ve got to pursue what you set out to achieve.

MM: Fashion and clothes feel important to what you do, maybe because they make you feel a certain way to be able to perform?

PW: Yeah. But although I was too young to be really involved in the 1960s, I still lived through that time and that whole thing has never gone away for me. I love that period and it informs a lot of what I do, including how I dress. The whole look and sound of that time is just really formative. I don’t feel I’m stuck in that time, but it will always be the cornerstone of everything I do. I just thought it was such a brilliant time for music and fashion and art and all that stuff.

MM: What do you think it is about it? Is it experimentation?

PW: I think so. It was those postwar years, coming out of all that austerity, that bleak black and white, grey world – large parts of the country were still like that in the early 1960s. There were still bombsites. There was still slum housing. So it took a long time for Britain to become modern, but when it did, it was explosive.

MM: Dad describes it as it all suddenly going technicolour.

PW: Yeah, I think that’s true and you just see the clothes and music expanding. Men stopped wearing demob suits and started wearing all these bright-coloured clothes.

MM: And the pill came about and made life a lot easier.

PW: Then the other pills came a little bit later and helped expand everyone’s horizons. These people were pioneers. And also look at the art world – Peter Blake, David Hockney, Bridget Riley. It felt as though everything was becoming more modern and opening up and becoming different and colourful. I was only a very tender age, but, nevertheless, that influence was of great importance and value and always has been. Punk was probably the first time I experienced that freedom. We missed out on the 1960s, had a lift with Bowie, but after that it was largely a cultural wasteland. I was always looking for when I thought it was going to be our term. The 1970s were still very much in the shadow of the 1960s until punk. And then it all blossomed. Then it all started to make sense.

Fat Pop (Volume 1) by Paul Weller is out now.

Producer: Grace Guppy. First assistant: Pedro Faria. Digital technician: Alexander Brunacci. Make-up: Jane Bradley. Retouching: The Hand Of God

#musician #mary mccartney #interview #paul weller #photographer #paul mccartney #Linda McCartney

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allegra-writes · 5 years ago

Text

"Cherry"

Peter Parker x SHIELD Agent! Reader

NSFW

Warnings: Smut. Dom!Peter, jealous, Possesive!Peter, rough sex.

Weeks after the island, Peter finally sees you again. But you aren't alone...

Part of the "Fine Line" series but you don't need to have read that first.

Series Masterlist

Peter couldn't breath. His clothes felt stiff and restrictive, the bowtie, suffocating. This was a bad, bad idea. He wasn't cut for this. He was just a Parker, not a Stark, he had spent most his life trying to be invisible, not even getting superpowers had changed that. He had never wanted to stand out. He didn't want to be seen, to be recognized.

Even Quentin Beck had realized that. That's why he had done what he had, because he knew it would be the best way to ruin Peter's life. It had been almost a month since his return from Eroda, since Pepper and Fury had managed to clear his name and expose Quentin Beck as the fraud he was, trying to frame Peter for his murder with an adulterated video out of jealousy and envy. The greedy, insane employee gone mad after being overlooked in favor of the young intern, chosen by Tony Stark himself to be his successor. Spider-Man had just been doing his job as Peter's bodyguard when the incident at the bridge happened.

That was the official story, and the press had bought it with gusto, plastering the wide eyed boy's face on every cover, every paper, every magazine, every news site. A few weeks later, he was pretty much America's new sweetheart. Everybody knew his name. Everybody knew his face. His anonymity was gone.

Quentin Beck had won.

And now, there he was, being blinded by flashing lights, walking the red carpet of his first gala as the official heir of Stark Industries… two seconds away from throwing up.

"Breathe, Peter" Pepper whispered to him, voice calm and reassuring, "Just focus on a point above their heads, and keep your head high"

She took a step forward and Peter couldn't help but stare: she looked like a queen in her white gown, complete with cape and everything. She was an elegant woman but it wasn't just about her beauty, it was about the power, the authority she commanded, every eye in that red carpet had no choice but to focus on her.

Tony had been like that too, albeit in a different way: charismatic and bigger than life. Peter wondered how anybody could look at him, awkward and pasty, and think he was related to the man. Because he knew what people were saying...

"Parker, how are you holding up, mate?" A tall, blond boy patted his back, pulling him out of his thoughts. Harry Osborn, the only person there to introduce himself to Peter and actually take the time to try and make him feel comfortable. At first Peter had thought it had something to do with his family being the one hosting the gala but the youngest Osborn wasn't exactly famous for his good manners or decorum.

"I think I'm about to have a panic attack" more like sensory overload, but Peter wasn't sure how could he explain something like that to his new friend.

"Well, you are not hungover and puking on the photographers" The blond flashed him a brilliant smile, "so you're already doing better than me on my first red carpet"

Peter couldn't help the burst of laughter, but far from offended, Harry's grin turned even brighter. The flashes went wild.

"There you go, that should make for better photographs than the deer-in-the-headlights look you were sporting"

Peter offered him a grateful smile,

"Thanks dude, really"

"Don't mention it" Harry shook his head, "You're actually doing me a favor, letting me hang out with you. You're saving me from looking all lonely and pathetic in front of these vultures, since apparently I have been stood up..."

Peter stared at the blond in surprise. With those sharp cheekbones and icy blue eyes, it was hard to believe any girl could resist him. He suddenly felt a lot less bad about showing up dateless.

"Alright, we've spent about fifteen minutes out here, we can go in now" Harry instructed, already a pro at this kind of event, gesturing for Peter to follow.

He noticed the whispers as they walked into the massive lobby together, Oscorp and Stark Industries were rivals, just as Norman Osborn and Tony Stark used to be. His mentor used to find the other billionaire shady and his experiments, unethical. Even now, Pepper's and Norman's relationship was strained, at best, so seeing both heirs so friendly with each other was a little shocking. But if Harry didn't care about that, neither would Peter. Whatever sins the father had committed, he wasn't going to hold them against the son. That wasn't Peter's style.

"So, what do you think of your first gala, so far?" Harry sauntered in front of him, stealing two champagne flutes from a passing waiter and handling one to Peter.

"Oh, I- I don't drink, thank you"

"Good, that's a wise choice, don't change it" Harry praised, taking the glass back and downing that one too. Peter shook his head.

"I like it," He replied, looking around at the huge salon decked in lavished green and silver banners, the tables gilded with intricate floral arrangements, the huge shiny dance floor in the middle. "Stark Industries' is having one for Christmas, but it's going to be held at a hotel…"

Harry made a face,

"Yeah, that would be the norm, actually. But my father wanted to have it here this year, to prove the facilities are safe, you know?"

Peter thought back to that fatidical field trip all those years ago, to this very same building, when he was bitten by a stray radioactive spider that had escaped one of the labs. He hummed noncommittally. He seriously hoped mister Osborn was right, for the good of everyone attending the party, Harry included. Because truth was he really liked his new friend, he made everything easier just by offering Peter his company, by giving him someone his age to talk too, amongst all those old, stuck up gazillionaires that stared at him with curiosity at best, and open contempt at worst.

But of course all good things had to come to an end, such was the Parker luck. Harry took his vibrating cell phone out of his pocket.

"Would you look at that! It seems my date has finally arrived" He announced, eyes glued to the screen, smitten smile on his face, "One would think an influencer would jump at the chance of being photographed by the press at a red carpet… But not her, of course. No, she arrives an hour late… I'll go find her, be right back, Parker"

That was when he saw you. Entering the ballroom, a siren in your long golden dress, scanning the crowd. You looked stunning, hair longer, lighter, done in elegant waves cascading down your back. Your smile was dazzling as you found what you were looking for, and Peter didn't see his new friend make his way to you, entranced as he was by your mere presence.

Until he reached your side, and kissed your lips.

Harry Osborn offered you his arm, and you took it graciously, and he walked you through the room, proud swag on his steps as he introduced you to practically everyone in the party, Peter's heart breaking a little more with every step you took towards him.

He hadn't heard from you since the island, and now he knew why: You had already found someone new. Someone better, more handsome, and classier than Peter. Than the awkward boy you had been sent to protect.

Because underneath the Stark's money and his spider powers, that was all Peter was: some orphan kid from Queens who didn't belong. Harry could take you on dates to fancy restaurants without mispronouncing the names of the dishes, he could take you walking around his mother's art gallery in the upper east. He, with his aristocratic features, his british boarding school accent, his old family money, was a much better fit for a princess like you. You wanting Peter had never made much sense anyway.

And you looked good on Harry's arm, better than ever, actually. You looked happy. Peter hated it, and he hated himself for it.

"Parker! I want you to meet my date, Sixtine Boucher, influencer, it girl, philanthropist..." Harry was saying, suddenly in front of him, but Peter wasn't listening. You were there, close enough to touch, in the flesh. He could hear your heartbeat, smell you, sunshine and sweetness under the chemical tang of your expensive perfume for the first time after so long and it was almost overwhelming.

"S-Sixteen?"

"Sixtine" You corrected him, sighing as if it was something you did all the time and you were tired of it, "Bonsoir, Peter."

You sounded… funny.

"You know each other?" Harry's voice asked, politely curious.

"We met during vacation, at the…" You trailed off, eyes meeting Peter in a silent request to play along, disguised as a struggle to find the right words, “... Comment dis-tu ‘plage’ en anglais?”

"Beach" Provided Peter, his brain catching up at last "Yeah, at the beach… when I was on vacation… a-at the french riviera"

"What a small world!" Harry chuckled but it sounded nervous, uncertain. No doubt he could feel the tension between the two of you, growing with every passing second. Along with Peter's understanding. The hair, the dress, the french accent? It was a costume, you were a spy after all. You weren't there for leisure, you were there for work. This was a mission. Harry was your target, or maybe your cover. Whatever it was, it wasn't you. It wasn't real.

But then again, had Peter really met the real you? After all, not that long ago he had been your mission too…

When the next waiter passed in front of him, Peter stopped him. It probably would no nothing to his spider metabolism, but alcohol was looking more and more like a good idea. He had a feeling he was going to need all the help possible to get through the night. Harry arched a brow but luckily didn't comment, as he was beginning to get a clearer idea about how you and the brown eyed boy knew each other.

A glint on your cleavage caught Peter's eyes and he frowned. There, hanging from a long gold chain, nested between your breasts and almost completely hidden by the, admittedly low cut, neckline of your dress, rested a familiar crystal sunflower. The cheap jewel didn't match your cover, or your outfit, the only reason why you could be wearing it, was him.

He nodded, almost imperceptibly, letting you know he understood, and you let out the breath you were holding.

But awareness didn't make watching you, plastered to Harry's side all night any easier. It didn't stop him from seeing red every time you called Harry "baby", the endearment close enough to the "baby boy" you used for Peter to feel like a betrayal. It definitely didn't save the glass of wine he was holding from shattering under his grip as he saw you sneak outside of the room with him in the middle of dinner.

"Peter! Are you alright?" Pepper fussed over his hand, looking for cuts, and motioning to a waiter to help clean the shards of glass from the table.

"Yeah" He murmured, distractedly, eyes never leaving the doorway you had disappeared through, "I-I'm sorry, you'll have to excuse me"

He didn't even wait for Mrs. Stark's reply as he got up from the table, giving chase to you and your date through corridors and elevators, following your giggles and the faint trace of your perfume. His persecution led him to the upmost floor of the building, where a single mahogany awaited him, but the fingertip scanner on the lock told him he wasn't going to be able to open it.

He cursed, barely catching himself from making a dent on the wall with a punch. You were doing your job, that was all, he repeated, like a mantra. Whatever was happening behind that door meant nothing. You were wearing his sunflower, that had to mean something, it had to.

After a few minutes, that felt like hours to him, the door opened.

"Peter! Shit, I was hoping you would be smarter than to follow me!" You hissed, as he pushed you back, stepping inside the room and closing the door behind him.

"Where is Harry?"

"Knocked out in the bathroom" You pointed at a door by the side. Peter took a look around the room, by far the biggest, most luxurious office he had ever seen in his entire life. And he had been inside Pepper's so that was saying something. The view of the Manhattan skyline through the floor to ceiling window was nothing short of breath taking. "I just needed him to get in here"

"Right. Of course. I knew that"

You squinted in suspicion at his flat tone,

"Pete, are you… jealous?" You smirked, amused. But Peter wasn't in the mood for your teasing, his patience finally reaching its limit.

He was on you in a heartbeat, pushing you back against the wall, caging you with his body. There was a dangerous, possessive spark in his eyes that you had never seen before. One that promised trouble for you.

"So what if I am?" He challenged, bracing himself on one hand on the wall next to your head, the other one slipping through the high slit on the skirt of your dress, fingertips digging on the sensitive skin at the inside of your thighs, "So what if every time I saw him put his hands on you tonight, I wanted to break his fingers? What if every time he kissed you, I felt like dying?"

The pain was evident in his voice, breaking your heart a little. But this was you, you were a special agent, this was what you did. Peter had said he wanted you, wanted to get to know the real you. Well, this was it.

"I'm not going to apologise for doing my job…"

"I'm not asking you to" He interrupted

"Then what are you asking of me?"

Peter pinned you with a long, considering look and you did your best not to squirm under its intensity.

"I'm not asking anymore, mon chérie " he finally spoke, "I'm taking"

He crushed his mouth, and his body, to yours, trapping you under his familiar weight and, for the first time since returning from the island, you felt home. He tasted like wine, and the cherries from dessert and heat. You had almost forgotten how his warmth felt like sunlight against your skin, until every starved pore opened to soak him up. His teeth grazed your bottom lip, making you moan. God, how you had missed him on your lips!

You must have said it out loud, because you felt his smile against your jaw as he broke the kiss to let you breathe.

"Did you, now?" He inquired, nuzzling down your neck, "Where else did you miss me, cherry?"

You felt his long, talented fingers find their goal, tugging your underwear to the side, slipping into you with no warning once he realized how ready you already were for him.

"Did you miss me here? Did you miss me inside you?"

There was a buzzing in your coms and the reality of what was about to happen, andwhere it was about to happen hit you like a bucket of cold water.

"Peter, wait, not here!" Peter ignored you, lips latching onto the spot just under your ear that Peter knew made you see stars. He couldn't wait, couldn't tear himself away from you, from your body. You were already breathing hard and he knew your halfhearted resistance wasn't going to last much longer. He speeded up the movement of his fingers inside you, tearing an involuntary cry out of your mouth. He was working you expertely, wave after wave of wetness bathing his hand, undeniable proof of your pleasure.

"Gonna leave so many pretty marks on you..." He promised, puncturing his words by biting down, hard, on the column of your neck, "Everybody's going to know who you really belong to..."

"Peter, please!" You sobbed, implored.

"Want me to stop baby girl? Really?"

You shook your head no. You didn't, you couldn't. Fuck the mission, fuck Oscorp, you only wanted to feel him. It had been too long, way too long. You took your coms out of your ear and smashed it under your hill. You'd deal with Hill later.

Peter slid the straps of your dress down your shoulders, lowering his face to your exposed chest, all wet lips and hot tongue as you hurriedly undid his button and zipper, finally freeing his angry, hard member. You pumped him once, and he bit on your nipple with enough strength to draw a single, sweet drop of blood.

"Oh god… feels so good" Peter's words were muffled against your collar bone, as he stretched you, burying himself deep inside you, as far as he would go, "being one with you again…"

"I missed you" You confessed, "so much, baby boy!"

Peter leaned back, stormy eyes capturing yours, holding you hostage,

"Oh no, my cherry, after your little stunt calling Harry baby all night?" He tsked, "No, you don't get to call me that anymore… now, you're gonna call me 'daddy'"

With that, he started thrusting up into you roughly, hips almost cruel in their onslaught as they slammed into you, truly railing you against the wall, unyielding, unrelenting. You wrapped your arms and legs around him, holding on for dear life, taking what he gave you like a good girl cause that was what Peter needed from you.

But god, did it feel good! His large thick cock, hard as vibranium, stretching you to your limits, a fit so tight you could feel every bump, every vein, as he hit all the secret spots inside you, tearing the pleasure out of you. Your orgasm was building fast, so fast it made you dizzy with the way all your blood rushed to your center. As your walls began to quiver around him, and you met Peter's fierce, furious face, you knew he wasn't going to be satisfied with just the one. Oh, no, he was going to rip out at least one more orgasm from your ravished body before releasing you. Undoubtedly not before marking you from the inside with his own release, you had long ago learned Peter was animalistic like that, all higher reasoning disappearing when it came to making you his.

"Tell me you're mine" he breathed, demanding, against your cheek, hand sneaking between your bodies to tease your pearl, making you explode in sensation, and prolonging your climax, keeping you there where he wanted you, right on your peak until you were at the edge of sanity, your brain unable to process that much pleasure so suddenly and for so long.

You tried, but you couldn't remember how to form words, the only sound leaving your lips a delirious,

"Peter!"

"Say it, my cherry" he insisted, feeling his own release approach much quicker than he would like, but it just had been so long, and he had missed you so much and you just felt so fucking good "let me hear you say you're mine as I make you come again…"

"Yes!" You cried, finally finding your voice, "I'm yours, Peter… only yours!"

"Damn right… all mine… only mine…"

He was almost there, and judging from the way your muscles were tensing and locking around him again, Peter knew you were too. But something was going on outside, his super hearing catching the sound of the elevator doors, and footsteps on the hallway. Still, he couldn't stop. He was so close, so fucking close… He had to come, had to make you come, before they did. There were voices outside, one of them he even recognized, telling the others to stop, to listen. Peter sneaked an arm around your waist, getting you away from the wall, moving you up and down his cock at inhuman speed, and he finally felt you fall apart. He came with a final cry of triumph… right as the doorknob started to turn.

Faster than any human could, he ran behind the door, with you still in his arms, to buy himself a couple of seconds as he slipped out of you, fixing your dress so you were completely covered before even thinking about tucking himself back inside his pants.

"Oh, for fucks sake!" Norman Osborn's exasperated voice was the first thing your pleasure addled brain was able to process as you stood on shaky legs, Peter's frame still hiding you from view. He took of his suit jacket, helping you put your hands through the sleeves and fastening it close.

"Put down your weapons, you goons! High security breach?.. Horny teenagers are not a menace, I should know!" Norman was still yelling at his guards. Peter turned around to face the old man, and you muffled your histerical laugh against his sweaty back, breathing him in.

"S-sir… sorry, we-we we-were just" Peter babbled, trying to catch his breath.

"Oh, save it, boy! I know exactly what you were doing, this whole place stinks of sex!"

You snorted and Norman finally seemed to notice who you were,

"I'm sorry, weren't you my son's date?"

You could only laugh harder.

"He passed out" provided Peter, as innocently as he managed, "in the bathroom"

"He's in the…" the billionaire's eyes widened, "Wait, you… you three were…"

"He really liked Peter" You announced, unhelpfully, fake accent restored.

"Ignore her, please" Peter sounded apologetic, not wanting the blonde boy that had so kindly offered his friendship to him to face unjust consequences for his own fuck up "Harry has nothing to do with this. My girlfriend was just trying to make me jealous. It worked. Harry's only mistake was to get drunk"

Norman rolled his blue eyes, so alike his son's,

"A common mistake for him. Trust me, boy, you don't need to make excuses for him… God knows I got tired of making them myself a long time ago." He sighed, gesturing to his guards to check on Harry inside the bathroom.

"Now, get out of here, both of you, so I can call the cleaning crew… not Tony's son my ass, this is the exact same shit your father used to pull at all my parties!"

Peter opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, but you tugged on his arm, it was pointless to try and deny it, Osborn senior was never going to believe him.

Peter took your hand,

"Right. Of course… we'll be… going, then"

You chuckles at his cute, nervous babbling became a full on belly splitting laugh as you ran out of the office and locked yourselves inside the elevator.

"Oh my god, his face!" You clutched at your stomach, doubled over, "that was… the best alibi in history! They didn't even search me!!" You showed Peter the tiny pendrive with S.H.I.E.L.D's logo where you had copied all the information inside Norman Osborn's computer. Peter tilted his head in confusion,

"Six, where were you even keeping that?!" Osborn's security might ot have searched you, but his own had been… pretty thorough.

You merely winked,

"Wouldn't you like to know, weather boy?"

This time, it was Peter's turn of barking a laugh. He pulled you to him, kissing your forehead.

"Come on, let's find Happy and tell him to get the car. I want to get out of here…"

And he was taking you home with him.

To be continued...

#peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker smut #peter parker reader smut #peter parker fanfic #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker x reader smut #tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland fanfic #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland hot

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sabababa · 4 years ago

Text

What He Deserves

Shota Aizawa x Fem!Reader

Summary: (Y/n) finds Aizawa sitting alone in the dark in his classroom. He’s drunk and tells her how he caught his fiancee cheating on him. Since she’s in love with him, she stays by his side while he vents out his feelings. Including how he loves her.

Warnings: Alcohol (Aizawa drinking), Angst (Fluff ending), Vomit, Mentions of cheating

Word Count: 2.7k+

Part One of ???

Author’s Note: I might do more parts to this, so if you’re interested I can put you in the taglist. I’m definitely doing a second part though.

(Y/n) looked everywhere for her binder. So much so that the classroom was her last option. It had to be there. The binder held all her necessary paperwork for class 1-A. She was TA to Eraserhead, and no way could she mess up losing documents for his class. She trudged down the hallway to the familiar room. The moon was the only thing illuminating her path as she came up to the door. She slid it open without hesitation, and her eyes immediately went to glance atop the desk to see if the binder was in view. Instead, she found the underground hero hunched over the surface with a bottle of alcohol.

Her breath caught in her throat as he lazily rose his head to look at her, the sound must have stirred him. She couldn’t see him very well due to the darkness and her shadow casting over him, but the tension in the room felt tight, she gathered that he was upset about something, which was a rare thing to see. Taking a couple of steps inside the room, she called out to him.

“Shota?” She said, concerned as her brows knitted together. Seeing him look so defeated made her heart ache. All she wanted to do was wrap her arms around him and take the pain away. His response was to look back at the desk and slump over it again. Since he didn’t object to her presence, she walked over to his form and slowly knelt next to the chair he sat in. She gently placed her hand on his forearm to grab his attention since she didn’t know how intoxicated he was. “Shota?” She spoke again, softer this time.

He turned his head again. Now that she was crouched beneath him and the moonlight filtered in to cast a glow upon his pale face; she saw how awful he looked- more than usual. Tears had stained his cheeks, and his face was tinted red from the liquor in his system. His eyes seemed especially hollow as he gazed at her. There was no glare, no annoyance, and no fight. Aizawa looked so defeated as he stared down at her. Another tear silently slid down his face. He took no action to wipe it away or even to let out a sob. He looked too weak to try.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine, but I’ll stay here with you if you want so that you won’t be alone,” (Y/n) spoke once more in a whisper and gave a reassuring squeeze to his arm.

“I-I don’t wanna be alone,” he croaked out, probably from finally using his voice for however long he was silent. She gave him a small smile and stood up to walk around him to the extra chair that was just for her while he taught the class. She rolled it closer to him and rubbed his upper arm in comfort, mostly out of awkwardness. (Y/n) didn’t know if he would speak about his problems or if he would just sit there.

Aizawa turned his head to her again and then glanced down at the contact. He didn’t look angry, but (Y/n) still removed her hand, unsure how a drunk Aizawa would react to physical touch. She thought she saw a flash of disappointment in his eyes before he turned back to the drink in his hand. He took a shot and sighed once it left his lips. The bottle was close to being empty and (Y/n) hoped he didn’t drink the entire thing by himself in here, although, judging from the smell of him, that might have been the case. He took another look at her, and for a moment, they just locked eyes.

Due to the experience of his having quirk, he didn’t blink the entire time, which was unnerving for once to (Y/n). Finally, he looked away and tilted the bottle in his hand to stare at the remaining liquid. It swirled around as he rotated it lightly. After a moment of staring, he gulped down the last of it, and the glass bottle let out a ‘clink’ as he let it fall over and roll to the side. Now, with nothing, he rested his head in both his hands, digging his fingers into his scalp as he leaned forward more. (Y/n) took the moment to rub her hand across his back, and she felt his muscles relax from her touch, which warmed her heart to know she could bring some ease to him.

“She cheated on me,” Aizawa spoke suddenly, still in the same position, unmoving. (Y/n) wanted to ask him to explain more, but thought it best to keep quiet until he made some kind of move for her to speak. “My fiancee.” He continued. That’s right. He had a fiancee. She remembered now even though she wanted to forget.

“I have a fiancee,” he spoke bluntly as he tapped the papers against his desk to straighten them. (Y/n) stood back in shock. Her heart felt heavy in her chest at hearing those words. Somebody already took the man she loved, and there was nothing she could do. Aizawa noticed her expression and quirked a brow up. “What?”

“I-I-” She stuttered for a moment before letting out a light laugh to ease the tension. “I didn’t expect you to have a partner, let alone a fiancee!” She laughed some more to appear jovial at his news. “How long have you two been together?”

“About three years, we’ve only been engaged for one though, we weren’t able to put official plans into the wedding yet, stuff kept popping up for her and stalling the marriage,” He sounded disappointed. “But, we’ve finally made plans this spring.” He stood up and tucked the papers into his briefcase. Then he turned to her with his usual stoic expression. “And I’m inviting all my friends, which includes you. I know there’s supposed to be a card you have to sign to RSVP, but you’re one of the closest I have, and I wanted to tell you in person.”

That was only a few months ago now, and spring was starting to approach. His fiancee cheated on him right when their wedding was so close. (Y/n) felt her blood boil as she heard the news. That fiancee of his was supposed to make him happy, that’s why she stood to the side all this time because she thought this other woman would keep him happy, but instead, she broke his heart. Her hands turned into fists in her lap as she thought about the disgusting woman who didn’t deserve to be Aizawa’s fiancee. She had never met her and was glad of it. It would have only made things harder for her to see her in the flesh. It would have solidified that Aizawa would never be hers, but now? Now she wanted nothing more than to meet the woman that broke her love’s heart, just to give her a piece of her mind.

“I came home early from patrol,” he spoke again, “they got another hero to swap with me, and so I went straight home to see her. I open the door and see clothes and shoes a-and underwear a-a-and-” he took a sharp intake of breath before he continued. “And they were hers, but t-those weren’t mine, and I follow them to our bedroom and- and-” he hiccuped before steadying himself again. “And she was in bed- asleep- snuggling with some other guy a-and, I just LEFT!” He yelled at the end and gripped his hair tighter. His body grew tense, and his hair rose like when he used his quirk, but as quickly as it happened, it disappeared. He leaned back into the chair with an exhausted sigh. His body relaxed, and he let go of his hair as his hands fell into his lap. “I deserve it.” He finished.

(Y/n)’s eyes flew up to him in shock. She had kept her head down as she listened, but it jerked up upon hearing him finish. The anger washed away and instead was replaced with sadness. “No! You don’t!” She said as she reached out to him, swiveling his chair to face her. “You don’t deserve that! Why would you say that?” She said with a broken heart as her hands came out to wipe away his tears.

��“Because I’ve been distant,” he said as he watched her clean his face. “She noticed, so she took care of her own needs.”

“That doesn’t give her any right to cheat.” (Y/n) held his head in her hands to make him focus on her. She secretly relished the feeling of his stubble against her smooth skin. “A real person would have talked it out, not go behind your back.”

“I think she already knew what the answer was and didn’t want to hear it,”

“And that is?”

Aizawa had turned his gaze from her long ago, but now he looked her in the eyes as he spoke. “I fell in love with someone else.”

(Y/n) froze at hearing his confession. Her heart felt like it was breaking all over again as her hands dropped from his face. “O-oh?” She didn’t know what to say. Even if she wasn’t in love with the guy, what could she say?

Aizawa stared at her as she stared back at him, waiting for a response. Finally, he made a move. He quickly captured her face in his hands and planted a deep kiss against her lips. She let out a surprised hum when she felt his warm lips against hers. Her lips never moved against his; it felt wrong. He was drunk, he was in pain, he probably didn’t even know what he was doing.

(Art belongs to me, please do not repost)

“Please kiss me,” he sobbed against her lips out of fear. His tears came back as he desperately pressed his lips to her’s again. She couldn’t resist a plea like that, so she did as he asked. Her lips molded against his, and she felt a tingle go down her spine. He hummed happily against her and dipped her head back to deepen the kiss, but as soon as it happened, he reeled back with his hand over his mouth. He quickly turned his chair around and grabbed the small trash can by his desk, emptying the contents of his stomach into it. (Y/n) sat there for a moment in a daze before she collected her thoughts and gave his back a soothing rub. “Sorry…” He groaned into the can.

She couldn’t tell if he apologized for kissing her or for throwing up in the middle of it. “It’s fine.” She answered before standing up and putting her hands under his shoulders to push him up. “You need to get some rest,” she grabbed the can from him and placed it back where it was. “Do you have anywhere else to stay?” (Y/n) grabbed the tissues on his desk and cleaned up his face. He just watched her dab and rub the soft paper against his lips and chin, his mouth slightly open from her gentle touches.

He nodded his head weakly. “I’ll stay in the lounge. I’ve got my sleeping bag there already,”

“Okay, well-” She pulled him up from the chair, and he stumbled forward, but she caught him and let him rest his weight against her, “you should go to the bathroom first and clean up.”

“Didn’t you just clean me?” He asked as she moved his arm over her shoulders and began to walk out of the room.

“Yes, but you still need to wash your mouth out and pee,” She teased, feeling like she was taking care of a child, and brought him to the men’s bathroom. “Can you stand on your own?” Even though she knew nobody was inside, it still felt taboo for her to enter. Aizawa merely nodded his head and stumbled inside, using the wall as leverage. As he did his business, (Y/n) walked down to one of the vending machines in the hallway, it was turned off, but all she had to do was plug it in. She pressed a sequence of buttons, and it dispensed a bottle of water for her.

Walking back over, she saw Aizawa exit the bathroom, and he had an uncomfortable look on his face. She quirked her brow in response to his expression. “I threw up again,” he mumbled.

She giggled once she finally reached his side. She found it funny how child-like he was being. “Did you do it in a toilet at least?”

He nodded once. “Yeah,”

(Y/n) hummed happily, glad to see that he wasn’t upset like before. She handed him the water bottle, and he took it from her. “You should try and sober up a bit before you sleep.”

He nodded again and took big gulps of water, only leaving half of it full. (Y/n) gingerly wrapped her hands around his arm and guided him to the teacher’s lounge. When they arrived, he immediately made his way to his desk and pulled out the sleeping bag from a drawer. He rolled it out onto the couch in the room and put his legs into it. He finished the rest of the water bottle before swaddling himself in the rest of the yellow fabric.

A content sigh fell from his lips as he zipped himself up, glad to be in a comfortable area. (Y/n) giggled as she watched him and made her way over to Midnight’s desk. “What’re you doing?” She heard Aizawa ask as she rummaged through different drawers before finally finding the medicine he needed.

“Getting you a pill for when you wake up in the morning,” she answered and walked over to the mini-fridge in the room. She grabbed a small water bottle and then a napkin on the table next to it that held food for whenever someone brought any treats in. “I don’t want you having a bad hangover in front of the students,” (Y/n) placed the items on a small table next to the couch, setting the bottle and pill on the napkin.

“How are you so nice?” He asked.

“Hm?” She hummed, her indication for him to explain more, as she crouched to his level.

“You’re always so nice,” he stated, “it’s hard to be nice, but for you, it’s like it comes naturally.”

“Guess I have a lot of practice,” she moved some of his hair back into the bag so it wouldn’t fall in his face. When she looked into his eyes, they were filled with adoration and wonder. “What?” She giggled at his expression.

He blinked a few times, realizing he was staring, and then brought his scarf up to cover his face, but his eyes still showed. “Nothing,” he mumbled.

(Y/n) only smiled at how expressive Aizawa was being, it was a new experience for her, and she enjoyed it. “Do you want me to stay here until you fall asleep?” She asked quietly, noticing how his eyes were getting droopy.

“Mhm,” he hummed and closed his eyes. He fell asleep quickly, and (Y/n) took it upon herself to clean up the classroom before leaving. She didn’t want anyone to see that he got drunk in school. She put the glass bottle into the soiled trash bag, tied it up, and took it to the janitor’s closet, where she threw it into a big trash bin. Then, she grabbed one of the smaller trash bags and headed back to the classroom to place it in the bin. She pushed the chairs into their proper positions, and it brought the memory of the kiss back to her. Goosebumps trailed across her skin from the thought. Her crush kissed her; even though he was drunk and hurting, it still felt nice to feel his lips.

(Y/n) took a deep breath and collected her thoughts before returning to check on Aizawa. He was still asleep, his mouth open slightly to let out quiet breaths. She gazed at the man that had stolen her heart, and because he had it, she couldn’t bear to leave him. The school was big, dark, and eerily quiet. She hated the thought of leaving him here alone all night. So she went to the end of the couch where his feet were and folded her arms to lay against them on the cushion while her body sat on the floor. As she stared at him again before closing her eyes, she hoped he wouldn’t kick in his sleep.

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Masterlist

#shota aizawa x reader #aizawa x reader #shouta aizawa x reader #female reader #aizawa oneshot #shouta x reader

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themadauthorshatter · 4 years ago

Text

Guys? I know I just called Tiberias Calore VI, Flame of the North, King of Norta, and Ruler of the burning throne a terrible parent and an alcoholic(which he still is, and I have the time, so I'll call him a terrible parent and an alcoholic), but let's go back in time and get some happiness because that last Red Queen post was, admittedly, just brutal😢.

Hiding a pregnancy was, surprisingly, easier than hiding the affect of the nightmares.

At first, Coriane figured the game would be over as the child inside of her continued to grow more and become more noticable in the trim gowns she usually wore.

Hiding them- the child she didn't yet know- soon became a project, à la fixing a transport.

Rather than have her maids dress her, she had chosen to dress herself instead- a habit she'd picked up on doing since coming to Court. Loose clothing always made her appear smaller than she was, made her look approachable to anyone, despite her place married to a King. It also served her well in hiding the ever growing lump her baby was growing in.

She barely attended training, though, in light of the nightmares taking their physical toll on her body, Tibe had her examined by nurses and healers.

"Your Highness, are you sure you're alright? Your feet are swollen and you seem like there's a weight on you."

When she'd been asked that, she had to stifle the instinct to rub her stomach and instead wrap her arms around herself.

"I'm alright," she replied, more hesitant than she would have liked, but the words smoothing as she continued. "I tried training a while ago and tried a move I shouldn't have. I used some braces, though."

The Healer scowled at her, forgetting Coriane's place as Queen and seeing the stubborn girl that always chose to help herself instead of seek proper assistance.

"I got better. Maybe it's more like... a phantom injury."

"Or you should have come to a Healer when it happened. Can you imagine if you'd set them wrong and didn't know?"

To keep further questions from arising, Coriane only shook her head; Jessamine had taught her well in the art of knowing when to stop a fight from continuing. "No."

The Healer nodded at her and continued to check on her, noting that despite her feet and growing intolerance toward physical contact, she was fine, chalking it up to the Queen's nightmares attacking her body more than her mind.

Still, Coriane remarked as she left the infirmary, eying the bump hidden beneath her thin cardigan, a close call is better than someone finding out.

Another close call occured during a war meeting she attended with Tibe before he had to leave for the front. Even though he was expressionless upon hearing of the attacks on his people, beneath the table his fists shook, either out of anger toawrds the Lakelanders advancing or fear for the safe of what family he had left, fear of losing his mother, despite her prowess, brother-in-law, and wife to a seemjngly unending war.

"Should they make it past the Choke and cross into our boaders, there's hardly a chance we can stop them," the Legionnaire explained. "Our soldiers, although they're trained well enough, keep getting mowed down, as well. They aren't enough man power to hold off an onslaught."

Tibe, who had been sitting quietly in thought, finally spoke up. "For every Red soldier, how many Silvers are on the field?"

"Fifty to one."

When he remained silent, the Legionnaire paled.

"You can't be thinking..."

"If the Reds can't put up a decent fight against the Lakelanders, we'll send in more Silvers to make up the difference."

"With all due respect, my King, surely there is some sort of alternative."

The words drew no reaction from Tiberias, but Coriane lowered her gaze to her hands, picking at her nails to distract herself from the implication.

When Tibe's fingers laced with hers, she welcomed it, welcomed the warmth and closeness their current situation could allow.

"Reds are being conscripted by the minute, more than a hundred by the hour. They can be difference enough."

"Reds don't have power," Tibe seemingly spelled out, scornful as a teacher. "Reds don't have strength. Numbers be damned, if they can't fend off the Lakelanders, we'll have to start sending Silvers to fight."

"Silvers of High Houses? Have them open for slaughter when fifty Reds can get the job done with proper leadership?"

"Your general has trained, led, and been victorious with every Red soldier he's had, what better leadership do Reds have?"

"It is not his fault they're incapable-"

"Can't you just understand it's not working!?" Coriane snapped, drawing every eye to her, including Tibe's, the mask of a warrior King dropping when he took one look at her tear stained face.

"No matter how many Reds you throw at the Lakelanders, they'll be slaughtered without hesitation! You can't shoot down a Magnetron or drown a Nymph, if you have nothing to defend yourself with!"

"Cori," Tibe murmured softly, his tone gentle despite the earlier debate, "that's enough."

The words did their job in soothing the Queen, nodding and apologizing as her husband gently pulled her close to him.

"How soon can we have Silver soldiers sent to the front?"

The finality in Tiberias's words brought the Legionnaire back to the matter at hand.

"As soon as they're ready, though, from what I've heard, they've been training since three months ago."

"Have the most experienced and capable sent to the front while the rest continue training."

With that the meeting ended, and Coriane practically scurried away, if only to avoid the glances from those in attendance.

"If you don't mind my input, I don't understand why bringing the Queen to these meetings is one of your priorities. Do you expect her to keep you safe from unwanted news?"

Tiberias turned, eyes sharp and burning with a fire strong enough to kill.

"She isn't protecting me," he said lowly as he drew closer to the Legionnaire. "She's here to protect you."

In her room, Coriane lay on her side on her bed, her hand caressing her abdomen as her own words echoed in her mind.

Regardless of the fear of losing a fourth child to her nightmares, her emotions had still gotten the better of her.

It's no wonder I shouldn't have come here.

Usually Julian was someone she could turn to during these times, if not him, then Sara, but with archives discovered and needing to be translated, and Healers needed at the front, neither were around for her to talk to.

It was childish, but part of Coriane felt abandoned, even though her brother promised he wouldn't leave her alone.

But how can anyone be brave enough to say no to a King?

Sometimes it was easy to forget, see two people inhabiting Tibe at once: the lonely Prince she'd first met at the banquet and the King that sat upon a throne of flames and blood, strong enough to burn all of Norta to the ground, if he so desired.

And he'd married a poor girl of House Jacos.

What kind of Queen am I, if I can't even bear him a child?

A knock on the door stopped her from building on the thought further.

"Coriane?"

When she remained silent, he knocked again.

"Cori? May I come in?"

She hummed loudly and nodded, and Tibe walked in and shut the door behind him, missing when she grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest.

Despite his strength, his rank, the ability at his fingertips, the myriad of metals she'd seen him wear, even the control he held over a room of other Silvers, he seemed... smaller, unsure as he carefully sat next to her.

He's the King, and he's the one who's scared?

"Are you alright?" He asked as he rested a hand on her upper arm. "I know the meetings aren't easy to handle, but I don't think I've seen you get so upset."

Upset was putting it more than lightly. Three nights of waking up to blood staining the sheets and missing a child before it was born made her more than upset. Hiding her fourth pregnancy from her own husband, out of desperation for the child's safety more than her own, made her more than upset. Fearing for Elara Merandus attacking her mind, even with Arven outside her door, made her more than upset.

"Yes, I'm fine," was all that came out instead.

Neither spoke for a while, leaving them in cursed silence.

That was until Tibe's hand clenched around her arm, just enough to let her know she wasn't alone.

"Don't lie to me," he said, pleadingly so. "I know there's something you're not telling me."

Coriane held the pillow closer to her, the tips of her fingers just brushing against her stomach.

He knows. He knows. He knows. He found out, and now he knows.

But Tibe turned his head away, looking back as his brow furrowed.

"It's Elara, isn't it?"

Coriane met his eyes and pushed herself up. "I don't know. Maybe it was before, but now..."

Now, with Rane Arven outside her door, an attack from Elara didn't seem likely. It didn't quell her fears entirely, but it was a comfort she welcomed, all the same.

Tibe's hand glided to her own, the warmth of his skin and body a blessing.

"Do you think House Merandus would do well on the front?"

Coriane gasped and whipped her gaze to him. "Tibe, you can't make that happen, and you know it."

"And Elara knows you are the Queen. If she wants a fight, she can glady have one to write home about. Whispers usually do well in a war," he said with an averted gaze and a shrug.

"But Merandus is one of the highest Houses. You know as well as everyone else what could happen, if they became an enemy."

Hers words settled in Tibe, leading him to sigh and stare at the floor.

"You're right. Damn it."

Hearing those words, and seeing her own husband pout like a child, drew a small grin from Coriane.

"As usual."

Tiberias turned his gaze back to her. "'As usual?' What do you mean, 'as usual?'" He asked incredulously as a smirk grew on his face.

Coriane merely shrugged and buried her face into her pillow. "Nothing. Just that I'm always right."

Although his jaw dropped, his smile remained, and Coriane giggled as she lie on her side, her facing him.

"You're always right?" He dared.

"Yes."

"You're the one who's always right?"

Coriane gasped, "You admit it?"

Quickly, and gently, Tibe pulled her back up until she was upright and hugged her close, her back against his chest as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, Coriane yelping and giggling more than she thought she would, even when he gave her soft, butterfly kisses on her neck and shoulder.

"Who's always right?" He asked as he rested his chin on her shoulder, Coriane lightly chuckling after he stopped.

"Me."

"Wrong," he replied quickly before kissing her cheek and temple, driving his wife into another fit of laughter.

"Will you stop that!?" Coriane exclaimed, even with a smile on her face, "You're prickly and I don't feel good!"

"Then admit I'm always right and..." Tibe lowered to his side, Coriane nearly falling with him. Her heart skipped a beat as he cradled her body against his, one arm around her chest as the other rested over her upper arm. "Tell me what's wrong," he replied softly.

Coriane only grasped onto his arm with her hands.

I'm pregnant, she nearly said. I've been pregnant for a while now. I haven't told you or anyone else because I can't risk losing this one, too, or put you through more loss than you already have. Even if Elara is the reason I can barely sleep at night, I can't lose another child. Not for his or her sake, and not for yours, either.

She sighed, maintaining her smile from the onslaught of kisses moments ago.

"Fine. Yon win. You're always right. Happy?"

Tibe chuckled lightly and shook his head against her hair.

"That's not what I meant. Please tell me what's wrong."

It was like her uncle's funeral banquet, when Jessamine noticed her crying after dressing her for the occasion.

"Tibe, do you miss them? Julian and Sara?"

Tibe remained silent, his thumb rubbing her shoulder as Coriane continued.

"I know it hasn't been that long, but I do. I'm glad that you're here, Tibe, I really am. I don't know, I just miss them being here."

Tibe leaned up and kissed her cheek before nuzzling into her shoulder.

"I miss them, too, Cori. They'll be back soon, I promise."

Like in the meeting, their fingers laced together.

"In the meantime, I hope I can make up for them."

Coriane nodded and held her head against his. "You already do, Tibe," she replied softly.

Tibe held her closer, feeling his Queen's body effectively relax under his touch.

After a while of silence, blissful and welcome, Tibe kissed her cherk and sat up.

"Where are we again on sending House Merandus to the front?"

Coriane snagged the pillow she'd dropped and swatted him in the chest. "Stop that," she exclaimed.

The look of a challenge returned to Tibe's face as he took the pillow and tossed it back to the head of the bed. "Openly attacking your King? Whatever shall I do with you?"

Coriane inched back toward her lost weapon. "Don't you dare come near me with that prickly stubble or I'm shaving it off myself!"

Tiberias faked a gasp and held a hand over his heart. "And now you've threatened the King! You traitor," he chided playfully.

Coriane only reclaimed her pillow and held it back for another strike. "Try me."

Tibe fought a snicker and nodded, holding his hands up in surrender. "Alright. You win."

Coriane lowered her pillow as Tibe kissed her lips and held his forehead against hers.

"I'll tell anyone who asks you're sick and need to be alone while you heal. Just rest now, alright?"

Coriane nodded.

Tibe stood and turned to leave the room, brisk as he had been trained to do.

A King's work is never truly done, Coriane remarked before he stopped and looked back at her.

"Is there anything you'd like me to bring back later?"

Coriane blanched and shook her head. "You don't have to. I can... ask for the chef myself, in case you're..."

Tibe only returned to her and held her hands. "Cori, please."

Again, there was that desperation in his eyes, as if Tibe saw nothing but the girl he'd met many years ago and was willing to do anything to keep her alive.

He could have chosen someone else, someone stronger, but he chose you. You are his Queen.

Coriane nodded stiffly, uncomfortable and still unfamiliar with being served in Court.

Tibe placed his hands on either side of her face and kissed her forehead, holding her close. "I'll try to be back as soon as I can. Please. Get some rest."

"I will," Coriane replied as she placed a hand over his.

With that, he exited her room, reluctant in spite of his promise to return.

Coriane could only smile as she rubbed her stomach, carefully unmarred and thankfully unnoticed.

It was a blessing she still had the boy she'd met, that the crown hadn't taken him away just yet.

#red queen #tiberias calore vi #coriane jacos #it's a rough start but the ending is worth it I promise #ship fanfic #never trust a prickly stubble #miscarriage tw #blood tw #angsty start #fluffy ending #i am an absolute asshole for putting in that last sentence!!!

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comic-book-jawns · 4 years ago

Text

Closure

“Dani? Dani, what’s wrong?”

Jamie cups her cheek. Dani wants to be able to explain, wants to assuage the concern etched all over Jamie’s face. But her mind feels simultaneously like it’s racing and not working at all. All she can do is hyperventilate, which isn’t even her doing, just her body’s automatic response to what she just saw — or more specifically, who she just saw.

She can’t even get a word out, but Jamie seems to understand. She feels Jamie take her hand and squeeze it.

“You’re okay, Dani. You’re with me. Hold on to me, yeah?”

Dani manages to wrap her other hand around Jamie’s upper arm and lean in closer.

“Good, baby. Good job.”

She hears Jamie whisper it as she stares down at the floor, not wanting to see the eyes inevitably turning toward them. It’s pathetic really that she should be a focal point amidst an array of world-renowned paintings, but she gets it. It’s human nature. But that doesn’t make her feel any less uncomfortable.

“You okay to walk?”

Dani jerks her head and then feels Jamie gently pull her along. She keeps her eyes down, trying to focus on Jamie — her warmth, her scent, the callouses on her hand.

When’d they first gotten together, on that fateful night a decade ago now, Jamie had been embarrassed of them, felt the need to apologize.

“I like them.”

Jamie had almost laughed as she’d lain on her back next to Dani, who’d lain on her side facing Jamie, propping her head up with one hand and holding Jamie’s hand on top of the covers with her other.

“Dani - ”

“No, I’m serious. They’re like - ”

“Sandpaper?”

Dani had rolled her eyes.

“They’re like you... They’re... ” She’d sighed. “Grounding.”

In the dark, Dani hadn’t been able to see her blushing, but she’d heard it in her voice.

“Oh.”

*****

“Did ya see her?”

Dani whips her head up. How could Jamie possibly know that? She didn’t even know what... oh, that her.

Jamie had sat her down on the closest stairway she could find. It wasn’t secluded, exactly. But the people passing by aren’t really paying them any mind. And Jamie’s crouched down in front of her, partially blocking her from view and holding her hands.

Dani shakes her head.

“Eddie- ” She sees Jamie’s eyes go wide. “Eddie’s mom. She’s here.”

Jamie opens her mouth but doesn’t seem to know what to say. She nods.

“Okay.” She nods again, processing. “Okay, we’ll leave when ya feel up to it.”

“Jamie... ”

They had a limited amount of time on this vacation in Philadelphia, and today had been specifically designated for the Museum of Art. If they leave now, they won’t be coming back.

“Poppins, what d’ya think I care more about: you or some bloody art?”

Dani laughs, despite herself. It was hard not to when she put it like that. It was hard not to laugh around Jamie, period. And she feels even lighter when she hears Jamie chuckle after a moment.

“Danielle?”

Just like that she feels all of the tension come flooding back to her body. That voice — older, but just as gentle, just as kind. Before she can react further, she feels Jamie squeeze her hands, then watches her stand and turn around.

“She’s okay. Just a little lightheaded. Needs to eat.”

It’s not entirely a lie. They had been planning to take a lunch break sooner than later.

“Oh, here... ”

Dani hears Judy step closer and leans over just enough to see her take something out of her purse. It’s a bag of pretzels, Dani’s favorite childhood snack. It’s coincidental, of course, has to be. But Dani can feel her eyes water ever so slightly. She ducks back behind Jamie as the woman who practically raised her looks back up.

“I know we’re not really supposed to bring food, but — well, everything is just getting so expensive these days.”

She laughs as if she’s making small talk, Dani thinks — as if she’s not trying to feed her former almost daughter-in-law, whom she hasn’t seen since she abruptly disappeared from her life without a word. Dani hears Jamie take the bag.

“Thank you. That’s very kind ah ya.”

“You’re not from around here.”

It’s not said with judgment, Dani notices, more an air of curiosity.

“What gave me away?” Dani smiles as she hears Judy laugh again. Jamie is charming — she, of all people, should know. But she also knows Jamie is fairly shy, especially around strangers. She usually leaves the talking to Dani, but here she is stepping up for her sake. “I’m from England, originally.”

“Oh, how lovely. I am, too, actually.” Dani furrows her eyebrow, unbeknownst to Judy, but Jamie must be wearing a similar expression. “My family, I mean.” She hears Judy chuckle. “I try not to talk about it too much because my husband was Irish.”

“Was?”

The words are out of her mouth before Dani even processes what she’s doing. Jamie turns back to look at her, inadvertently putting her in full view of Judy.

“Danielle?”

She says it more softly this time. Realizing her mistake, Jamie moves in, but Dani puts a hand out. Jamie takes it, helping her up, and she finally comes face-to-face with Judy. Her hair is still brown, clearly dyed; and her face is wrinkled.

But her eyes are unchanged, warm as ever — though Dani had noticed them widen for a moment. But she’s grown accustomed to it. Even people who haven’t know her since childhood don’t expect her to have different colored eyes.

Dani swallows.

“Mr. O’Mara... ”

Judy smiles sadly.

“A few years ago.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Dani hadn’t been as close to him, but he’d always been welcoming. In fact, he’d helped teach her how to drive, readily loaned his car for practice, so she wouldn’t have to wait for the one reserved for her Driver’s Ed class to be free.

Eddie had pushed back, insisting that he was the one who would be driving them around, so what was the point. But Mr. O’Mara had also pushed back, with a laugh. “I will be buying the car, and I want it to remain in one piece, so I think Danielle will be doing the driving.”

Eddie had barely spoken to her for a week after that, so Dani had not been entirely grateful for the support — always worried about keeping Eddie comfortable at her own expense. And she had also been aware that Eddie’s insecurities partially stemmed from his father being hard on him, on all his sons, in a way that he wasn’t on Dani — not that it was an excuse for Eddie’s behavior.

In the end, it was Eddie who drove them around, but Mr. O’Mara had made Dani follow through with the class; and, upon her getting her license, he'd told her she was welcome to drive the car whenever she wanted, even by herself.

Judy’s smile brightened.

“Oh, it’s all right. Thank you, sweetie.”

She goes to reach out, but then hesitates. For a moment, Dani just continues looking at her, taking the moment in, and then she takes a breath and reaches out herself.

And suddenly, it’s as though no time has passed. She’s nine years old again, and Judy is walking her home from ballet class.

Her mother was supposed to pick her up, but she hadn’t showed. Dani had called and an intoxicated Karen had insisted Dani must have told her the wrong day. Crying, Dani had tried to explain that she hadn’t. She’d been attending the weekly class for two months now, and it had always been on Wednesday nights.

Karen had refused to accept that Dani was right or even apologize. She’d told her to walk, which was what Dani usually resorted to. She’d only called because it was raining, and she didn’t have an umbrella or even a jacket. But, out of options, tears still streaming down her face, she’d set off.

Halfway home, hugging herself as she shivered, she’d heard it.

“Danielle?”

She’d looked up to find Judy a little farther down the sidewalk, wearing a jacket and holding an umbrella.

“Hi... Mrs. O’Mara.” She’d said through chattering teeth.

She’d seen her a couple hours ago, having gone home with Eddie after school. She’d offered to drop her off, but Dani had explained that she needed to go home first anyway to get changed and that her mom would be picking her up.

She’d then walked to the rec center from her house, having reminded her mother where she was going when she’d walked out the door. Her mother had responsed with an “uh-huh” that had told Dani she wasn’t really listening, but she’d still held out hope.

Judy had run to her and wrapped her in her jacket, hugging her and rubbing her back and arms to try to warm her up. Then, she’d taken her hand, and they’d set off together. Judy had invited her to come back to her house, but Dani, having not called her to pick her up out of embarrassment, had declined. She’d even told her that she had told her mom the wrong day, that it was her fault.

Dani had been able to tell, even then, that Judy didn’t buy it, but Judy hadn’t pushed back. She’d simply said that if it happened again, she wanted Dani to call her, and she would come get her. Dani had tried to decline, graciously, but Judy had held her ground.

So Dani had promised to do so, smiling shyly, and Judy had offered to at least make her some hot chocolate — Eddie would want it, too, anyway — before walking her to her own home. Dani had agreed. The next week she’d called Judy after her mother was a no-show yet again; and the week after that, Judy had been waiting for her outside when class had let out.

And that was their Wednesday night routine for years, through middle school, anyway. Sometimes Eddie would be with her, and she’d take them out for pizza or ice cream. Sometimes it would just be them, and she would take Dani to go get their nails done; or she would just walk her home, and they would talk. And Dani would smile and laugh and relax, in a way she never could around her own mother.

And even with everything that had happened, all the pain that had come later, Dani feels herself slipping back into it now, just a bit, into that comfort that she’d felt in presence for so long. She doesn’t even realize she’s crying until she feels Judy, still smiling, gently brush her cheeks with her free hand, then lower it back to her side.

Dani turns to Jamie, who’s still holding her other hand. Jamie smiles at her, and even looks rather misty-eyed herself, if a bit in shock too. Dani has a question to ask her, but there’s no subtle way to do it. She’s about to ask Judy if she can talk to Jamie alone for a moment, but then she feels Jamie squeeze her hand. Dani raises her eyebrows, then feels Jamie squeeze her hand again.

Dani smiles herself now. She wants to kiss Jamie so badly, but she settles for squeezing her hand back.

“Oh, this is beautiful.”

Dani turns back to her, and her eyes go wide. She hadn’t thought of which hand she was giving Judy when she’d reached out. But it’s too late now — Judy is lifting her hand to examine the Claddagh ring up close. And then her panic is replaced by anger, at herself. She loves Jamie, and how dare she feel uncomfortable about it.

But that wasn’t it. She’d wanted to tell Judy, but not like this. If she’d just -

“It’s Irish, too, you know.”

Well, the name was rather a dead giveaway. But Dani holds her tongue. She knows Judy is just making conversation. Surely, this was awkward for her to. She did almost marry her...

“Who’s the lucky man?”

Dani feels her heart break as she feels Jamie shift her hand in hers so Jamie’s own ring is facing away from Judy’s. But Dani understands. Jamie isn’t ashamed, either. She hasn’t let go. She’s just giving Dani exactly what she wanted — control over the situation.

Dani takes a deep breath and proceeds her original plan.

“Mrs. - uh, Judy.” Dani clears her throat. “Would you want to join us for lunch?”

*****

“So you go by Dani now?”

“What?” Dani has been so preoccupied planning out how she wants to tell her, her comment doesn’t register at first. “Oh, uh, yes.”

Judy smiles.

“I like it.”

Dani feels herself blush slightly, then feels rather pathetic for Judy’s acceptance of her name meaning that much to her, but...

“And I like her.”

She watches Judy glance over toward the bathroom. Jamie had gotten up a few moments ago as part of the plan Dani had come up with, which she’d relayed to Jamie before they’d left the museum, having asked Judy to go on ahead. They would meet her outside in a moment. She just wanted to freshen up in the bathroom.

She had, in fact, done so while explaining to Jamie that she wanted to tell Judy alone, if that was alright. Nodding, Jamie had suggested she come back to the table in two minutes, either way. Dani had nodded and then started crying as Jamie slid off her ring.

“Jamie!” She hadn’t fully realized what she was asking of her. They’d literally just celebrated their 10-year anniversary a few months ago. “I - ”

Jamie had put the ring in her front jean pocket, then looked up and cupped her face.

“S’alright, Dani. Doesn’t change anythin’. We know, yeah?”

Jamie had smiled softly, then leaned up and kissed her forehead.

Dani is smiling now as Judy turns back to her. This would either makes things easier or even more painful, if she immediately changed her mind once Dani told her. Dani takes a deep breath.

“How long have you two been together?”

She should be relieved, but instead Dani feels all the air being sucked out of her lungs. Of all the scenarios she’d played out in her head over the past half hour, none of them had involved Judy figuring it out on her own.

“I - ”

She feels Judy lay a hand on top of both of hers, which she’d been wringing incessantly for the past thirty seconds.

“I’m sorry about before... for assuming.” Judy laughs awkwardly. “It hadn’t even occurred to me, considering you and - ”

There it was. The person neither of them had yet acknowledged. Dani feels herself starting to get lightheaded again.

“I’m sorry! I - I shouldn’t’ve... ” Judy sighs, closes her eyes briefly, then looks down. “This is like Carson all over again." Dani furrows her brow, not sure what Eddie's younger brother has to do with her and Eddie. But before she can ask, Judy looks back up and presses on. "What I’m trying to say is... I love you, Dan-Dani... and I’m very happy for you... Jamie is a very... a very lucky, uh... woman.”

For a moment, Dani says nothing as she feels her eyes watering once more. And then she completely breaks down.

*****

“Can I ask - ” Judy nods encouragingly. “How - how did you, umm - ”

Judy smiles warmly.

“I’ve never seen you look at anyone the way you think at her.”

“That so?”

Jamie is back with them now, sitting beside Dani in their corner circular booth. Jamie’s arm is wrapped around her shoulders, and Dani is leaning against her, breathing her in. Sitting even just a few inches away from her before had been torture. Dani turns her head to catch Jamie’s smirk.

“And I noticed the tan line on Jamie’s finger.”

“Ah, fuck me!”

Jamie’s left hand has been resting on top of Dani’s on the table. Her ring is back on, so the line is no longer visible, but instinctively, she starts to lift her hand for a closer look. And then she freezes, blushing. She puts her hand back down and clears her throat.

“Sorry.”

Even with her grey hairs — which Dani finds incredibly attractive, as she’d told Jamie when they’d started coming in and Jamie had grown self-conscious — Jamie looks adorably like a schoolchild who’s just been scolded for using a bad word. Dani can’t help but giggle. Jamie looks back at her and smiles sheepishly, blushing even harder.

“Edmund would be happy for you, too.”

Dani feels herself tense up again. Jamie must too because Dani feels her squeeze her shoulder. But this was why she’d wanted to talk to Judy alone. It wasn’t fair to Jamie.

She knew Jamie didn’t feel that way, would never feel that way, but that only made Dani feel more strongly that it was. She needed to protect Jamie from her own selfless — Jamie, who was already trying to ease her nerves. Knowing Jamie wouldn’t leave now, even if she asked her to, Dani turned back to Judy, sighing.

She could go along with it, pretend. But they were past that now. If this undid everything, so be it.

“I’m not sure that’s true.”

“Honey - ”

“You don’t - ” Dani swallows. “You don’t know everything that happened... that night.”

That stops Judy. A bit wide-eyed, she waits for Dani to elaborate. Dani takes a shaky breath and feels Jamie squeeze her shoulder again.

“I wasn’t his fiancée... when he... at the time of his death.”

She feel Jamie massage her shoulder as she watches Judy, who opens and closes her mouth several times, before landing on a response.

“I see.”

Dani doesn’t elaborate further. Jamie, of course, had helped her come to terms with it years ago, not that she hadn’t her moments here and there — on his birthday or even when she’d see a young boy and a young girl playing together — but she’d still known that Jamie was right: it wasn’t her fault, never had been.

Judy is silent for almost a minute, and Dani feels the time has come. She’d accomplished what she’d set out to do, said all she’d needed to say, right? She’d known it might end like this.

But just as she sits up more, preparing to stand, Judy take her free hand.

“Well, that... that doesn’t change anything... You’ve always been like a daughter to me... Dani. And you always will be.”

For what seems like the millionth time that day, Dani feels tears springing to eyes.

“Thank - ” She chokes on the word and clears her throat as she feels a few tears break free. “Thank you.”

She feels both Judy and Jamie squeeze her hands and then sees Judy look over her shoulder.

“And Jamie, too. Welcome to the family.”

Dani feels Jamie tense up and turns to find her gaping at Judy. Then, Jamie looks at her, and Dani sees the corners of her mouth twitch upward, but she’s still wide-eyed and rather pale.

“I’m sorry if I... I didn’t mean to overstep.”

Dani sees panic now creeping onto Jamie’s face. Dani flips their left hands so that hers is on top and squeezes Jamie’s. Then, she turns back to Judy, smiling as she lifts the same hand to wipe her face.

“You didn’t. Jamie is very grateful.” She feels Jamie nod behind her as she places her hand back on top of hers. “As am I.”

Judy smiles, relaxing. For a few moments, they sit in companionable silence, almost silence. Dani is still sniffling a bit.

“Oh, honey. Here.”

Judy grabs a napkin and reaches over. Dani feels Jamie’s hand slip out from under hers.

“I’m sorry.”

Dani hears Jamie’s voice crack as she takes the napkin, and she turns around in alarm, kicking herself as she sees Jamie’s face crumple. She’d miscalculated, assuming Jamie would cry once when they were alone. Jamie rarely let herself get emotional in public. She slips her hand out of Judy’s, takes the napkin out of Jamie’s and turns around more fully.

“It’s okay, Jay.”

Cupping Jamie’s cheek, she lifts the napkin, but then thinks better of it. This is about making Jamie comfortable, not Judy. She puts it back on the table, cups Jamie’s other cheek and closes her eyes as she leans in until their foreheads are touching.

“It’s okay.”

She hears Jamie’s stifle a whimper and feels Jamie bring her right arm, that had been draped across her shoulders, in closer until Jamie’s hand is rubbing the back of her neck. After a few moments, she hears Jamie starting to breath more evenly, then she feels her pull back.

Dani opens her eyes. Jamie looks better but embarrassed. She can feel the heat as she brushes her thumbs across Jamie’s cheeks to wipe away the remaining tears. But it’s Judy who speaks.

“I’m sorry.”

Dani glances back. Judy looks a bit uncomfortable but more out of concern, it seems.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Dani turns back to Jamie. “My wife doesn’t take compliments well.”

Dani grins as Jamie laughs. It morphs into a cough, and Jamie pulls away, bringing her elbow up to cover her mouth. But when she turns back, letting her arm drop back onto the table, she’s smiling. It’s her crooked smile, and it’s then that Dani decides she can’t wait any longer.

Cupping face again, she kisses her, softly and quickly. Even around someone other than Judy, she wouldn’t really feel comfortable doing more than that, and she knows Jamie wouldn’t either. That’s not their style, and they are still in public.

When she pulls back, she looks Jamie over. She appears to be mostly recovered, and as if reading her mind, Jamie nods, still smiling. Dani smiles back, then turns back to Judy, who, as it turns out, is smiling herself.

Dani feels her smile widen, though she’s not quite sure what to say, what there is left to say. But Judy, apparently, has something in mind.

“Jamie, now that you’re a part of this family, I think I owe you some Dani stories.”

“If that’s all right with Dani.”

Jamie’s arm is back around her shoulders. Dani leans against her once more, squeezes Jamie’s left hand and nods to Judy.

“Has Dani told you about the first grade pageant?”

For a moment even Dani draws a blank, then she feels her cheeks start to burn as she laughs.

“Oh, god.”

“Ya know, I don’t believe she has, Judy.”

Dani hears the smirk in her voice and feels Jamie nestle in closer.

As Judy begins the story of her six-year-old self going completely off book after her class had spent a month learning a choreographed dance, Dani squeezes Jamie’s hand three times. She hears Jamie’s breath catch for a moment, then hears her sigh and feels her squeeze back three times.

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