#was fun trying to jam them into the back of the truck there

[shadow0-1]

driveaway

[pucksandpower]

Best Laid Plans

Carlos Sainz x Vasseur!Reader

Summary: you were just supposed to be a means to an end — a way for Carlos to get back at your father for dropping him — but the best laid plans often go awry and you quickly become so much more than that

Warnings: 18+ content and manipulation

Note: did I spend the whole day writing this to celebrate Carlos’ win? Maybe …

So much love to @struggling-with-drivers for always giving me the best ideas

The warm Portuguese sun beats down on Carlos as he strolls through the luxurious resort grounds, trying and failing to shake the anger simmering inside him.

How could Ferrari do this to him? After all he has given to the team over the past few seasons? To be so unceremoniously dumped for Lewis fucking Hamilton is a slap in the face he can barely comprehend.

He kicks at the pebbled path, hands jammed in his pockets, catching the eye of a young woman lounging by the pool up ahead. She gives him a warm smile that does strange things to his insides for a moment before he recognizes her — Y/N Vasseur.

The reality of who she is hits Carlos like a truck. The daughter of the team principal who betrayed him.

An idea begins to form in Carlos’ mind, a cruel little seed taking root. If Ferrari wants to play hardball, he can play harder. And what better way to get back at Fred than through his precious daughter?

Putting on his most charming grin, Carlos changes course to approach you. “Y/N, fancy running into you here,” he lies easily. “I didn’t realize you were vacationing at this resort too.”

You sit up, shielding your eyes against the sun’s glare. “Carlos! What a pleasant surprise.” Your smile is bright and genuine, setting off warning bells in the back of Carlos’ mind. He quickly silences them — this is just collateral damage.

“I was just getting ready for a dip. Care to join me?” You gesture towards the welcoming blue waters.

Carlos pretends to consider it for a moment. “You know what, I would love to.”

Stripping off his shirt, he can’t help but sneak glances at your swimsuit-clad figure as you slide into the pool, telling himself it’s just for show. You really are stunning though, he has to admit. This might not be so difficult after all.

“So what’s a beautiful young woman like yourself doing all alone at a place like this?” Carlos asks once he’s waded in beside you.

You let out a tinkling laugh, sweeping wet hair away from your face. “Taking a much needed break from real life, I suppose. My job can be … demanding at times.”

That piques Carlos’ interest — to be quite honest, he had just assumed you did nothing all day. “Oh? Do tell, I’m fascinated.”

With a bashful look, you launch into an explanation of your high-powered career that genuinely impresses Carlos despite himself. You’re whip-smart, articulate, and passionate about your work in a way he can relate to.

“Wow,” he finds himself saying once you’ve finished. “I don’t know why, but I wasn’t expecting that from you. Not that I’m judging a book by its cover or anything!” He adds quickly at your arched eyebrow.

You let out another of those bright laughs. “Don’t worry, I get that a lot. People see a privileged girl and make all sorts of assumptions.”

There’s a hint of bitterness underlying the lightness of your tone that Carlos picks up on all too well. He knows what it’s like to be looked down on and underestimated.

“For what it’s worth, I think what you do is really impressive,” he finds himself saying honestly. “And anyone who thinks less of you for it is a fool.”

The words seem to catch you off guard for a moment before your expression melts into a warm smile. “Why Carlos Sainz, I do believe you’re flirting with me.”

He grins back unrepentantly. “Is it working?”

You pretend to consider it for a moment before laughing again. “Maybe a little.”

The flirtatious back-and-forth continues as you both float lazily in the pool, Carlos quickly getting caught up in the effortless fun of it. You match him quip for quip, parry for parry, in a way he’s not used to from women. It’s exhilarating and unexpected.

In fact, he’s so caught up in your company that he nearly forgets his original intention entirely. Until a stray thought brings the memory crashing back down … you’re Fred Vasseur’s daughter.

The realization is like a bucket of cold water being upended over Carlos’ head. What is he doing? This woman hasn’t done anything to wrong him. Going after you just to get petty revenge on your father is ugly and uncalled for. He should just be the bigger man, swallow the insult Ferrari dealt him, and move on.

But then he thinks about the disrespect, the callousness of dumping him like dead weight after all he bled for the team. Perhaps a little payback is in order after all.

With a wicked grin, Carlos begins swimming slowly towards you, an unmistakable glint in his eye. You seem to pick up on it, cheeks flushing ever so slightly. “What’s that look for?”

“Just thinking,” he murmurs once he’s close enough for you to feel the warmth of his breath. “About how I could make this vacation even more … memorable.”

His heavy-lidded gaze drops to your lips for just a moment, but you catch it. You bite your lower lip unconsciously as heat blazes between you. “Is that so?”

“Mhmm,” Carlos all but purrs, reaching out to gently cup your jaw, thumb stroking over your cheekbone. You shiver despite the warmth of the day, eyelids fluttering. “If you’ll allow me?”

For a long stretch, you seem to be rendered speechless, pupils blown wide as you study his face intently. Then, so softly, “Yes.”

That’s all the permission Carlos needs before he’s crashing his lips against yours in a searing kiss.

The moment your lips meet his, it’s like a jolt of electricity courses through Carlos. He kisses you deeply, urgently, all thoughts of revenge or ill-intent evaporating from his mind. This is pure want, unbridled desire singing through his veins.

You return the kiss with equal fervor, tangling your fingers in his hair and pulling him closer. Your mouth is warm, soft, pillowy — everything Carlos didn’t know he was craving until this very moment. He skims his hands over the slick curves of your body beneath the pool’s surface, marveling at the gasps and sighs he pulls from you with each exploratory touch.

When you finally break apart, you’re both panting heavily, faces flushed. Carlos drinks in the sight of you — hair tousled, lips swollen, and eyes dark with wanting. He’s never seen anything more beautiful.

“Carlos ...” You breathe his name like a prayer and something primal uncurls in his lower belly.

Instead of responding, he simply crushes his mouth to yours once more, walking you backward until your back gently hits the pool’s tiled edge. You let out a muffled moan as he settles between your parted thighs, the heated line of his body flush against yours.

One of his hands slides up over the soft skin of your ribs to cup your breast as you arch shamelessly into his touch. He drags his lips in hot, open-mouthed kisses along the line of your jaw and down the graceful column of your neck, relishing the way you keen beneath his attention.

“You feel so good, cariño,” he rumbles against the feverish skin just below your ear, punctuating the words with a deliberately slow roll of his hips that has you releasing a broken whimper. “So fucking perfect ...”

In this moment, with you writhing and mewling in his arms, Carlos has never been more grateful for his commitment to physical fitness. He knows he can keep this up all day if need be, ravishing you over and over until you’re a limp, sated puddle.

He runs his tongue in a scorching path up the side of your neck before returning to that sinful mouth, swallowing your desperate little moans hungrily. You cling to him as if he’s the only thing keeping you tethered, nails raking deliciously over his back and shoulders in a way that will surely leave marks. Carlos loves it, loves the proof of your passion painted on his skin in thin red lines.

Trailing his lips across the hinge of your jaw, he murmurs “Should we take this somewhere more private, princesa?”

You let out a shuddering breath, hips canting up instinctively to meet each roll of his. “God, yes ... please ...”

The sound of your needy whine sends a molten thrill straight to Carlos’ cock. He’s fully hard and aching for you, straining against his swim trunks with every second that passes. If possible, he wants you even more.

With a grunt of effort, he hooks his hands beneath your thighs and hikes your legs up around his waist in one swift motion. You let out a startled squeak that quickly dissolves into a moan as he shifts against you just right, creating delicious friction. Your arms wind around his neck as you bury your face in the curve where his neck meets his shoulder.

“You feel that, cariño?” Carlos rumbles darkly. “I can’t wait to be inside you. Stretching you so perfectly full of me. Will you be a good girl and take it? Every. Last. Inch?”

He emphasizes each of the final three words with a firm grind of his hips, rutting his rigid length against your clothed heat. Your back bows in response, mouth dropping open on a silent wail of pleasure. Carlos can feel your sticky wetness soaking through the thin material of your swimsuit bottoms and groans harshly.

“P-please ...” You keen, worrying his earlobe between your teeth. “I need you, Carlos. I need it so bad ...”

And just like that, the trance is broken. Carlos blinks, suddenly acutely aware that you’re grinding shamelessly against each other in the very public pool area of this high-end resort. A few pointed looks from other guests are enough to have a flush of embarrassment creeping up his neck.

Clearing his throat, he reluctantly pulls himself back and sets you on your feet. You let out a disappointed whimper that goes straight to his groin.

“P-perhaps we got a bit carried away, princesa,” Carlos huffs out a laugh, running a hand through his damp curls. “Why don’t we go somewhere a bit more … private to continue this?”

You bite your plump lower lip and Carlos has to resist the urge to lean forward and free it with his teeth. Nodding eagerly, you cast a look around before tugging his hand and heading for the exit, leaving a trail of water droplets in your wake.

Carlos follows eagerly, openly ogling the way your soaked swimsuit hugs every tantalizing curve. He’s never been so grateful for his decision to book one of the private beachfront villas at this resort — just a stone’s throw from where you’re leading him, he’ll finally be able to have you all to himself.

The thought has him semi-frantically fumbling for the keycard as you press urgent, open-mouthed kisses to any patch of bare skin you can find — his shoulder, his neck, the line of his jaw. By the time he gets the door open you’re both panting like you’ve run a marathon, desire thrumming white-hot through your veins.

The second you’re inside, Carlos has you pressed back against the door, forearms braced on either side of your head as he towers over you. For the first time, a flicker of uncertainty crosses your features and he’s abruptly reminded of who you are.

“Are you sure about this?” He murmurs lowly, searching your eyes. “Because if we do this, I can promise you there’s no going back for me, cariño.”

You visibly swallow hard but then give a small, determined nod. “I want this, Carlos. I want you.”

That’s all the confirmation he needs before he’s capturing your lips in another searing, desperate kiss that has you melting against him. He walks you backward, never breaking contact until the backs of your legs hit the edge of the plush bed. With a growl, he hooks his hands beneath your thighs and hitches your legs around his hips once more.

You let out a breathless giggle as he tumbles you both down onto the soft cotton sheets, immediately rolling until he’s blanketed by the gorgeous expanse of your body. God, you’re even more stunning like this — hair fanned out in a tousled riot, cheeks flushed and lips swollen, eyes glazed with naked wanting.

Carlos takes a moment just to appreciate the view, raking his eyes over every inch he can see. A tremor goes through you beneath his weighty gaze and he smirks, leaning down to trail open-mouthed kisses along the column of your slender throat.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this, princesa,” he rumbles against your overheated skin. “How many times I’ve thought about having you just like this, spread out beneath me and begging for it ...”

The truth is, he hasn’t thought about it at all until this very day. But something about the way your breath hitches and your hips cant up instinctively at his words makes Carlos want to keep going.

“I’ve watched you, you know,” he lies smoothly, relishing the full-body shiver that wracks your frame. He nips along the graceful line of your collarbone and you whine softly in the back of your throat. “Couldn’t tear my eyes away whenever you were around. Imagining what delicious little sounds you might make with my cock buried inside you ...”

You moan then, loud and unabashed as you tug needily at his hair to bring his mouth back up to yours. Carlos chuckles darkly into the kiss, reveling in how utterly desperate he’s managed to make you for him so quickly.

“Is this what you want, princesa? You want me to fuck you?” He keeps his tone a low, filthy rasp against the plush of your lips. “Hard and deep and ruthless until you can’t remember anything but my name on your tongue?”

“Yes!” The word rushes out in an urgent whine and Carlos lets out a feral growl, slamming his hips firmly against yours in one rough grind that has your mouth dropping open on a broken cry of ecstasy.

Moving with purposeful efficiency, he hooks his fingers in the waistband of your swimsuit bottoms and tugs them down over the swell of your hips and off completely. He shoves his own trunks down just far enough to free his throbbing length, giving it a few firm strokes to spread the pearling bead of precome over the swollen head.

With a low, heated look, Carlos hitches your legs over his shoulders and lines the blunt head of his cock up with your entrance. Just from this angle, he can see how slick and swollen you already are for him, glistening with arousal.

“Last chance, cariño,” he rumbles, rubbing himself in one deliciously torturous swipe through your folds and back again. You moan loudly, back bowing off the bed. “After this, I won’t be able to stop until you’re utterly ruined for anyone else’s touch ...”

The sound you make is practically inhuman, hand shooting out to grasp at his hip almost painfully hard. “Carlos … Carlos, please!”

Never one to deny such a desperate plea, Carlos braces one hand beside your head and slowly, inexorably begins to sink into your welcoming heat.

The tight, slick heat of your core enveloping Carlos inch by agonizing inch is utterly sublime. He has to grit his teeth and squeeze his eyes shut to keep from embarrassing himself right then and there. You’re impossibly tight, so perfectly molded to his shape — he’s never felt anything quite like it.

Beneath him, you keen softly as he stretches and fills you in one steady glide. Your fingernails bite crescent moons into the firm planes of his back as if you’ll fall apart if not anchored to him. Carlos rumbles his approval low in his chest at the sweet sting.

Once he’s fully sheathed, hips flush with yours, he pauses to simply bask in the feeling for a long moment. You feel so indescribably good wrapped around his throbbing length — hot and snug and fluttering subtly like your body can’t decide whether to grip him tighter or ease his way.

“Fuck, cariño ...” The words tear from Carlos’ throat in a ragged groan. “You feel incredible. So perfect for me.”

You whimper wordlessly in response, flexing and releasing your inner muscles in a way that has him seeing stars behind his eyelids. He captures your mouth in a filthy, demanding kiss to swallow your desperate little noises. It’s all he can do not to start pounding away with reckless abandon.

Pulling back slowly until just the thick head of his cock remains inside your clutching heat, Carlos locks eyes with you. Your pupils are blown wide, lips parted enticingly with each panting breath, the picture of wanton desire. He’s never seen anything so erotic in his life.

You must read the promise in his expression because suddenly you’re nodding frantically and chasing his retreating hips with a needy whine.

“Please, Carlos!” You keen desperately, nails scoring lines of fiery pleasure-pain down the rigid plane of his back. “I need it, I need you to-”

He doesn’t let you finish, snapping his hips forward in one hard thrust that buries him to the hilt. The broken cry that tears from your perfect lips goes straight to his dick.

Carlos repeats the harsh, punishing rhythm over and over, relishing the snug drag of your velvet walls against his aching cock. He soon has you a mewling, mindless mess beneath him, whining his name like a holy mantra with each powerful stroke.

“That’s it, princesa,” he rasps against the flushed curve of your neck, lips brushing saltily over your overheated skin. “Take it all for me. Every. Last. Fucking. Inch.”

As punctuation, he slams home with a sharp roll of his hips that has you keening shrilly and throwing your head back. You clutch at him desperately, meeting each heavy thrust in perfect counterpoint as he picks up the pace. The air is thick with the obscene sounds of skin sliding relentlessly together and your punched-out whimpers and moans.

Carlos has never felt so deliriously consumed by physicality before. It’s like his whole world has narrowed down to this moment, this connection of your joined bodies moving as one. He wants to burn the memory of how you feel, how you sound, how you taste, into his mind forever.

“Look at me,” he growls against the sweat-slick curve of your jaw when your eyes start to drift shut in ecstasy. “I wanna see those pretty eyes when you fall apart on my cock, princesa.”

You force your lids open with obvious effort, irises wild and hazy with lust. Carlos feels a molten surge of possessive desire lash through his veins at the sight. He slams into you with renewed fervor, savoring the high, desperate whine it punches from your parted lips.

“That’s it, cariño ... fuck, you’re exquisite like this.” His praise comes out in a ruined rasp but it seems to spur you on. Your nails dig bruising furrows into his lower back as you meet him thrust for bruising thrust.

Carlos can feel the telltale tightening and fluttering in your inner walls that signals your impending release like a vise grip around his cock. He wants nothing more than for you to shatter apart on his length. Slipping one hand between your sweat-slicked bodies, he finds the swollen bundle of nerves and rolls it firmly between calloused fingertips.

You release a strangled scream, back bowing off the mattress as white-hot pleasure spikes through you. “Carlos! Oh my god, Carlos, I’m … I can’t ...”

“Come for me, princesa,” Carlos encourages hoarsely against the side of your neck. He continues to work you over with nimble fingers in time with the punishing snap of his hips. “Let me feel you come apart all over my cock. Fucking soak it ...”

The guttural river of carnal filth coming from his lips seems to be the final straw, sending you crashing violently over the edge. You seize up around him with a shrill, sobbing wail, inner muscles clamping down in hot, pulsing waves. Carlos curses roughly, eyes squeezing shut against the unbelievable sensation of being massaged and milked for every drop.

If he thought the vice grip of your orgasm was intense, the aftermath is even more sublime. You lie utterly limp and boneless beneath him, still aflutter and fluttering in sweet, rhythmic clenches around his cock. He grits his jaw and fights to keep control, knowing he won’t last much longer buried in your intoxicating heat like this.

When you finally regain some coherency, eyes fluttering open with a dazed murmur of his name, Carlos pulls back slowly until just the throbbing crown remains inside. He intends to give you a brief respite before chasing his own thunderous release, but the moment he starts to withdraw your legs lock high around his hips.

“No ...” You keen, nails raking pleadingly down his back. The desperate craving in your tone very nearly undoes him. “Carlos, please. Don’t stop ...”

Growling low in his chest, Carlos immediately buries himself home once more — this time with a single, powerful thrust that has your brows shooting up as the air rushes from your lungs in a strangled cry. Clearly, you still need it as much as he does.

He fists one hand in the tousled hair at the nape of your neck, using the grip to tilt your head to one side as he lays a searing path of nips and sucking kisses along the exposed column. You shudder and whimper beneath him, utterly pliant and receptive to his claiming touches.

“Tell me what you want, cariño,” he rasps between rough drags of teeth over your thundering pulse point. He remains buried to the hilt, muscles bunched and quivering with the effort of holding himself rigid and still inside you. “Use your words and tell me.”

For a long moment, you seem too dazed and overwhelmed to reply. Then, in a small, wrecked voice, “I want … I want you to fuck me, Carlos. Please ...” Your eyes are glazed yet earnest, boring into his from beneath sooty lashes. “Don’t hold back. I need to feel you come too.”

A harsh groan is punched from Carlos’ lungs at your plea. Letting himself go and really taking you the way his body screams at him to would be heaven and hell all at once.

There’s likely no coming back from it — he’ll ruin you for anyone else’s touch, just as he warned. Once all is said and done, you’ll be irrevocably his in a way that frightens and exhilarates him to his core.

For a heart-stopping moment, he hesitates. And then you moan again — a thin, keening sound of utter desperation — and it’s like the last thread of Carlos’ control snaps completely.

“Hold on tight then, cariño ... because I won’t be able to stop.”

That’s the only warning he gives before pulling almost fully out and slamming back home in one brutal thrust that drives the air from your lungs on a high, shocked cry. He doesn’t let up from there — turning you over onto your belly and dragging your hips up onto his thighs so he can take you from behind in a series of ruthless, punishing strokes.

You quickly become an incoherent, sobbing mess beneath his onslaught, hands clawing uselessly at the sheets as he pounds into you again and again like he’s trying to split you apart. Carlos relishes the sharp smack of sweat-slick flesh on flesh, the strained crescendo of your hoarse wails, the drug-like delirium of being utterly surrounded and consumed by your scorching velvet grip.

It’s too much and not enough all at once. He clutches you flush against him, one big hand spread over your lower stomach like he could somehow force his cock impossibly deeper. The other winds around to toy and tug almost cruelly at your taut, reddened nipples — drawing out a stream of broken, overwhelmed whimpers.

Carlos has never felt more powerful. Body and mind, he owns you utterly in this moment. The thought is nearly enough to send him skating right over the edge into oblivion.

Instead, he jerks you up onto your knees fully so he can plunge into your straining, overworked sex at a different angle — this one hitting something deep inside that has you screaming hoarsely. He captures the wild thrash of your head in the curve of one sweat-slick bicep to bare the elegant line of your throat to his hungry mouth.

“Could you possibly have taken any more of me, princesa?” Carlos husks against the side of your neck, relishing the way it makes you tremble and clench even harder around his pistoning length. “You were made just to be split open on my cock ...”

You let out a garbled sound halfway between agreement and overwhelmed protest. Carlos snarls against your racing pulse, sucking a blatant mark of possession just below your jaw where everyone will be able to see before abruptly rolling you both back over.

He looms above you once more, grinding steadily into your core with deep, purposeful strokes that leave you writhing and wailing with over-stimulation. But Carlos isn’t finished yet — isn’t anywhere close to getting his fill.

“Look at me, cariño,” he commands in a guttural rasp, waiting with molten, heavy-lidded eyes until your lust-drunk stare meets his. “I need to see that pretty face when I come inside you ...”

His words seem to energize you somewhat, your eyes snapping sharper with renewed awareness.

And then, incredibly, you cunt flutters and grips down around him again in the unmistakable clutch of another orgasm ripping through you like a livewire. Carlos has to use every ounce of stamina and control not to follow you right over that blinding edge as you thrash and shriek beautifully beneath him.

By the time you come back down, cheeks flushed and chest heaving, Carlos is practically vibrating with the force of his impending release. His movements have taken on a desperate edge, hips snapping in erratic, forceful jabs as he chases that final blissful oblivion.

When your sated, velvety heat squeezes rhythmically one final time, Carlos throws his head back with his own roar of release. White-hot rapture spikes through every nerve ending as his balls tighten in excruciating bliss. His world narrows down to the exquisite pulsing of your sheathed depths rippling and drawing every last drop from him in endless, blistering waves.

It seems to stretch on forever, Carlos unable and unwilling to move from his impaled position even once the final shudders have wrung him dry. He simply remains blanketed over you, lungs heaving and muscles quaking with the aftershocks of his orgasm.

When he finally regains enough presence of mind to open his eyes and look down at you, the devotion burning in your spent, glowing expression makes his breath catch. For a long, fragile moment, it’s like you’re the only two people in the world.

Eventually, your eyes drift shut on a contented sigh and your body goes lax and pliant against the sheets once more. Carefully, Carlos eases out of your swollen, used entrance and rolls to collapse in a sweaty heap beside you. He immediately tugs you into his embrace, savoring the feeling of your damp, feverish skin pressed to his.

As you drift off to slumber coiled against his chest, Carlos presses a lingering, tender kiss to your crown and tightens his arms around you. He can feel the words pressing at his lips, straining to be released into the silence of this moment.

For now, he keeps them locked behind his teeth. But already he knows this isn’t simply lust or passion or a primal need for revenge that will fade with time. This was always meant to be more — something deeper …. everything Carlos never even realized he was missing until you stormed into his life in a whirlwind of smiles and secrets and blinding desire.

He’s in trouble now. Trouble of the very best kind.

***

Pale morning light filters in through the sheer curtains as Carlos blinks awake slowly. For a disoriented moment, he’s unsure of his surroundings — the rumpled white linens tangled around his naked body are certainly not what he’s used to waking up in.

Then the previous night’s events come rushing back in a heated wave. The pool … the frantic, desperate passion as he took you again and again until you were both hollowed out and sated … finally collapsing into a sweaty pile together. Carlos feels his chest tighten with a complicated swirl of emotions.

He turns his head on the pillow to find the source of the delicious warmth pressed along his side. And just like that, everything else falls away.

You’re tangled up with him still, one shapely leg hooked over his and an arm flung possessively across his torso. Loose riotous locks tickle Carlos’ skin where your face is half-buried in the curve of his neck.

He has to tamp down the overwhelming urge to pull you even closer, to wrap you in his arms and inhale the sweet, clean scent of your hair.

Like this — sleep-rumpled and soft in the morning’s buttery rays — you look almost unbearably lovely. An ache blossoms behind Carlos’ ribs as he studies the delicate fan of your lashes brushing flushed cheekbones and the gentle part of those full lips. Disheveled and without a stitch of make-up, you’re somehow even more breathtakingly beautiful.

Unconsciously, Carlos’ fingers find their way into your tangled tresses, lightly stroking and playing with the silken strands. You make a small, snuffling sound of contentment and burrow infinitesimally closer. He freezes, worried he’s disturbed your slumber, but your features remain smooth and serene.

He should get up. He should definitely get up and extract himself from this warm, addictive little bubble you’ve created before things go any further. This was only ever supposed to be a fling — a deliciously vindictive way to get back at your father for how he so callously cast Carlos aside.

Yet even as Carlos turns the thought over in his head, it rings hollow. What happened between you last night transcended anything so petty and cruel as revenge.

When he was sheathed so deeply inside you, your bodies moving in perfect sync like they were made for each other, Carlos felt something far more profound than just physical gratification. It was spiritual … cosmic, even, like every star in the universe had finally clicked into perfect alignment.

He should be disgusted with himself for having such saccharine notions. Carlos has always considered himself a realist — someone grounded in facts and figures, not given to romantic flights of fancy whatsoever. Yet here he is, helplessly mooning over a woman he barely knows all because of one night of incredible sex.

Except … Carlos is self-aware enough to recognize there was more to it than that, even if he can’t put words to the feeling yet. Some invisible cord has been lashed between you in a knot that feels unbreakable. Some intangible shift has occurred in his perspective that he can’t seem to walk back from.

Perhaps you sensed it too in the way you gazed at him afterwards — not just satiated, but glowing with a sort of wondering, naked adoration far too profound for a mere fuck. Carlos knows he should have been unnerved by the depth of emotion in your spent, happy features. And yet, he only felt it mirrored and compounded tenfold within himself.

With a frustrated huff, he tugs you closer and burrows his face into your hair, allowing your warm, comforting scent to soothe his wildly spiraling thoughts. You make another soft sound and your fingers twitch where they’re splayed over his ribs — reflexively trying to pull him in even tighter.

“What are you doing to me, princesa?” Carlos murmurs, low and graveled, against the crown of your head. “This isn’t how it was supposed to go at all ...”

Because the truth is, this was never meant to be anything more than a fleeting dalliance — an explosive joining of bodies and nothing more. But now that he’s had you, had this bone-deep connection to you, Carlos doesn’t think he can let it go so easily. The prospect of never again feeling you wrapped so perfectly around him in every sense of the word is abruptly gut-wrenchingly awful.

Which leaves him at an impasse. Because you … you are the daughter of the very man who unceremoniously discarded Carlos like an old rag after he gave everything to Ferrari. The offspring of the person who threw him away in a way that cut all the way to his core.

How could he possibly pursue anything real with you after that? It would be a horrific conflict of interests and constantly make things unbearably awkward, to say the very least. Not to mention Carlos has no idea if you even want more than just this one night of passion between you anyway. Perhaps to you he really was just an itch to scratch, a bout of impulsive lust to take the edge off before moving on.

The thought makes his stomach churn with jealousy so potent he has to physically swallow it back. Which … is not great, all things considered.

Tilting your head back with the lightest touch beneath your chin, Carlos studies your soft features searchingly. Perhaps if he stares hard enough, he’ll find some hint of deception or shallowness there. Some glaring evidence that this insane sense of yearning he feels is all one-sided — a misguided obsession brought on by the sort of euphoric sex one can never quite recapture once the high fades. He could use that as his cue to bow out now while you’re still tangled up together so prettily.

But even as he looks, really looks, all Carlos sees is the serene picture of a thoroughly satisfied, openly contented woman. There’s no shuttered gaze or pinched expression betraying any darker thoughts and feelings. Just blissed-out joy written in every relaxed line of those lovely features.

Something in Carlos’ chest cracks wide open at the realization that this is real for you too. You’re not just some meaningless one-off fling, but a woman who seems to have had her entire world upended in the same way his has been over the span of one incredible night.

“Carlos?” You murmur then, voice husky and slurred with the remnants of sleep as your lashes flutter open. “What’s wrong, mon beau?”

Your endearment sends a shockwave of tenderness and want pulsing through him straight to the roots. Carlos shakes his head minutely, winding one hand into your hair to hold you steady so he can simply … bask in your presence for a while.

“Nothing’s wrong, princesa,” he assures you lowly, thumb stroking gently over the arch of your cheekbone. “I just woke up early and got a little lost in my head for a bit there, that’s all.”

That small, secret smile he’s rapidly becoming addicted to tugs at your lips as your eyes rove languidly over his face. Your hand comes up to rest over his thundering heartbeat with surprising tenderness.

“Well then allow me to bring you back to the present. Right here with me.”

Your tone has taken on that rich sultriness from last night that shoots straight to his groin. Before Carlos can so much as draw breath to respond, you’re rising up to seal your mouth over his in a searingly passionate kiss.

He groans instantly, every atom of his being tuned to your frequency in a way that’s swiftly becoming terrifyingly natural. Carlos’ hands roam hungrily over your naked curves of their own volition, relearning each dip and swell through the silken glide of skin on skin.

When you break apart at last, you’re both thoroughly breathless and aroused. Carlos splays one big hand over the small of your back and simply holds you flush against him, savoring the feeling of your racing heart thundering in tandem with his own. He brushes kiss-swollen lips along the line of your jaw, prompting a delicious shiver.

“Don’t think for one second that I’ve had even a fraction of my fill of you yet, cariño,” he rasps against the feverish skin just below your ear, using his free hand to tug your head back so he can access the soft column of your throat. “You’ve addicted me beyond any chance of recovery now.”

Your breath hitches as he latches his mouth just above your thundering pulse point and sucks a blatant mark. Carlos revels in the needy whimpers spilling from your lips with each pass of his tongue over the tender patch of skin. He needs to mark you, claim you, render you unmistakable as his in every possible way.

“Carlos ...” You keen, back arching like a drawn bow as he continues trailing open-mouthed kisses down the slope of your neck and over your collarbones. “What are you saying?”

He pulls back to meet your heavy-lidded gaze, searching intently for permission to continue with what he suspects you’re asking. And there it is — desire and hope and invitation burning brightly in your soulful eyes, practically begging him to put words to this singular thing blazing between you.

Cupping your face in both hands, Carlos holds your rapt stare as he slowly, reverently presses a soft, lingering kiss to your slightly parted lips. You melt into him, one hand coming up to clutch desperately at his bicep.

“I’m saying,” he murmurs against the plush give of your pretty mouth. “That I can’t simply let this be the end, princesa. Not anymore. Not after experiencing what it feels like to be so exquisitely connected with someone in every possible way.”

The smile you give him in answer is as incandescent and warm as a living flame. You don’t attempt to contain the rush of emotion threatening to overwhelm you. Instead, you simply wind your arms around Carlos’ neck and pull him down into a molten kiss that somehow manages to convey every single infinite feeling ricocheting between your bodies.

He suddenly feels so overwhelmingly lucky in that moment. Lucky to have crossed paths with you by happenstance. Lucky that, by some miracle, he didn’t allow bitterness or pain or preconceived notions to blind him to your kindness and warmth and inherent goodness despite how this whole crazy thing started in his mind.

Because yes, you are the daughter of the man who turned his life and career upside down. But here, pressed against you, Carlos can feel the truth resonating through his bones — you are so much more than any of that.

And for the first time in his life, Carlos cannot fathom the idea of anything frightening him away.

***

The frantic Melbourne nightlife whirls and pulsates around Carlos in a dizzying kaleidoscope of neon lights and pounding basslines. Normally he would revel in the thrum of energy and excess — drinking in the atmosphere and feeding off the infectious exhilaration. But tonight, seated alone in the VIP lounge of one of the city’s most exclusive clubs, he finds his attention utterly undivided.

You stand out like a siren among the raucous crowd, every tilt of your hips and toss of your hair captivating Carlos completely.

He tracks the line of your body shamelessly as you sway and twist to the driving beat, that tantalizing little red dress riding up to reveal glimpses of toned, silky thighs that make his mouth water. A fine sheen of sweat glistens enticingly along your collarbones and in the hollow of your throat, no doubt making your overheated skin taste like salted caramel.

The urge to slide up behind you and drag his tongue along that slender, tempting slope is damn near overwhelming. He can vividly picture himself molding his larger frame against your softly undulating form, one hand spanning possessively across your lower belly to grind the rapidly stiffening ridge of his arousal against the lush swell of your rear.

He imagines precisely how you would react — arching back against him with a shuddering gasp, fingers threading into his hair to tug his mouth down upon yours in a frantic, needy kiss. How you would whimper and writhe against him, uncaring of the very public surroundings as desire rapidly whited everything else out ...

Almost as if sensing the scorching path of Carlos’ thoughts, you glance over your shoulder and catch his eye from beneath the veil of your lashes. That sly, inviting little smile immediately kicks his pulse into overdrive and lights a slow bloom of liquid heat unfurling in his lower belly.

With a crooked finger and a subtle uptilt of your chin you summon him to your side. And like the hopeless fool he is, Carlos rises instantly and crosses the small distance to enfold you in his arms from behind.

“Having fun out here without me, cariño?” He murmurs in your ear, lips brushing the sensitive shell so he feels the full-body shiver that wracks through you.

You lean back into his embrace, all soft curves and intoxicating jasmine scent. “I’m always having fun when I’m with you, Mr. Race Winner,” you sigh as your fingers trail delicately down the solid line of his biceps. “Even if we’re just sitting around doing nothing.”

The words are simple — honest and unguarded in a way that makes Carlos’ heart seize in his chest. For two people who came together in a wild collision of lust and passion, it’s moments like these that continually remind him of how much deeper your connection truly runs. Far beyond mere physicality into some soul-binding and unbreakable place.

You must sense the shift in his energy because you turn in his arms, expression questioning but so openly caring it nearly steals Carlos’ breath away. Tenderly, you cup his jaw and search his eyes.

“What’s going on in that beautiful head of yours, hmm?”

He shakes his head minutely, leaning down to brush his lips across your forehead before pulling you snug against his chest. You settle easily into the circle of his arms like that’s the most natural place in the world, cheek pillowed over his steadily thrumming heart.

“Nothing to worry about, princesa,” Carlos assures you gruffly, stroking soothing circles over the warm bare skin of your back. “Just feeling … lucky, I suppose. To have found someone like you.”

The words seem to catch you off guard and you pull back slightly to study his face, mouth curved in that secretive little smile that always makes Carlos’ stomach swoop.

“Well, I certainly feel the luckiest woman on Earth,” you tease lightly, booping his nose in a playful gesture that somehow serves to implant roots deep in Carlos’ soul rather than make him roll his eyes.

Instead, he just gazes at you for a long, weighted moment, allowing himself to simply bask in your presence. In the soft beauties that first drew him in — that delicate blush that finds its way across your nose and cheekbones, the little crinkles that bloom when your smile widens to that mega-watt, face-splitting beam, and those soulful eyes that never fail to pin Carlos helplessly in place.

Then there are the quieter, more intimate details he’s gradually uncovered the deeper he delves into your connection. The barely-there laugh lines at the corners of your eyes when you’re feeling particularly pleased about something. The trick of tugging on your lower lip with your teeth when you’re aroused and trying not to show it. The subtle furrow that appears between your brows when you’re concentrating intently on something.

Carlos knows them all now like geography he was born to navigate.

Without conscious thought, he smooths his thumbs over your jaw and guides you up into a slow, thorough kiss that has both your pulses kicking into overdrive. You whine quietly into his mouth, winding your arms around his neck and arching against him in ways that instantaneously have him hard and aching. But Carlos doesn’t give in to the heated urgency coursing through his bloodstream.

Instead, he keeps the languid glide of his lips over yours unhurried and leisurely — savoring the sensation of you pliant and receptive beneath his seduction. You seem to shake off your initial fervor as well, melting further into the molten drag of his mouth claiming yours over and over.

This too is a geography Carlos has long since mastered. The precise angle he needs to tilt his head to slot your bodies effortlessly flush together. The soft, mewling noises he can coax out of you with carefully applied suction to your plush lower lip. The tiny shudders when he swipes his tongue in long, slick caresses over the roof of your mouth.

You’re practically vibrating with restraint by the time he finally releases your mouth with an obscene, wet pop. Your lips are swollen and glistening, glistening with shared wanting. Carlos hums deep in his chest and brushes the pad of his thumb over the slick fullness reverently.

“So impatient, cariño,” he chides with a wolfish grin that has your nipples visibly peaking beneath the thin lace bodice. “You know that’s not what I had in mind for tonight.”

With an adorable little pout, you wind your arms around his neck once more. “And what, pray tell, did you have in mind?”

A dozen filthy scenarios immediately clamor for attention in Carlos’ head. Having you right here, up against the wall of this secluded VIP area. Bending you over the sleek lines of one of the low leather couches. Finding a shadowed alcove and sinking to his knees before you, nosing aside those delicate strips of lace to ...

He banishes each carnal thought before it can take root and produce visible effect. Tangling his fingers through the soft tresses at the nape of your neck, Carlos brings your foreheads together with a soft smile.

“I thought we might enjoy a moonlight stroll along the beach actually,” he murmurs, relishing the way your disappointed huff ruffles against his skin. “Just you and me under the stars, far away from the noise and crowds for a while.”

You regard him dubiously for a moment before seeming to melt at whatever expression Carlos doesn’t realize he’s allowed to show through. As always, you give in far too easily to his indulgent whims.

With a soft, fond roll of your eyes, you press up on your toes to drop a lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Of course, mon amour. Just you and me under the stars.”

Twenty minutes later finds you ambling hand in hand down a pristine stretch of beach in the Middle Park suburb. The warm, salty breeze gusts gently over your skin, carrying traces of coconut sunscreen and the briny musk of the sea. Foamy waves lap invitingly against the silvered sands as Carlos steers you towards a small, isolated cove.

He procures a large woven blanket from his bag and unfurls it in a clear spot before tugging you down into the plush nest of fabric. You immediately gravitate into his space — curling against his side and tucking yourself beneath his arm like that’s where you were always meant to fit. For Carlos’ part, he cherishes the easy affection and careless intimacy of the simple gesture more than you’ll ever know.

You spend what could be minutes or hours like that — exchanging lazy kisses and sipping from a shared bottle of wine as the moon rises ever higher overhead. After a while, Carlos sprawls onto his back and you quickly drape yourself half-atop him so he can leisurely card his fingers through your windswept tresses.

The soft, steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath your ear combined with the soothing sounds of the lapping tide soon have your eyelids drooping. Carlos has never felt so at peace — this sublime bubble with you the single point around which the rest of the universe spins, perfectly in balance.

“Hey,” you mumble against the warm, sleep-rumpled fabric of his shirt. “Aren’t you the one always saying we should be living in the present?”

He huffs a quiet laugh, stroking one hand down the dip of your spine to rest possessively at the base. “What brings that up all of a sudden?”

You shift enough to look up at him through your lashes, eyes molten with a familiar heat that shivers down Carlos’ spine.

“I’m just wondering what’s got you stuck in your head so often these days,” you counter smoothly, punctuating the observation by swinging one leg over his hips so you can settle atop him fully, careful not to disturb his still-tender stitches. “We’ve barely been able to share … intimate moments at all the last month or so.”

Carlos sucks in a sharp breath as your weight settles over the rapidly stiffening ridge of his arousal. His hands find your hips of their own volition, squeezing reflexively as you begin moving atop him in a slow, undulating rhythm.

“Perhaps I’ve been overtly romantic,” he allows through gritted teeth, letting his head thunk back against the blanket as desire rapidly thrums through his veins. “Missing out on more … physical expressions of passion just because I wanted to remind both of us that this is built on so much more than lust.”

You hum thoughtfully, sitting up fully and swaying atop him in a way that has Carlos rapidly losing his tenuous grasp on reality beyond this blissful patch of the world containing just the two of you. He’s fully hard and straining against the loose linen of his slacks within moments.

“Then maybe we should do something about that right now,” you breathe huskily, arching your back in an inhumanly graceful roll that leaves Carlos’ mouth dry as the Sahara. His hands track helplessly up the delicious curves of your waist, bunching the delicate material of your dress around your hips.

He sits up to meet you so suddenly your foreheads nearly crack together. You release a breathless giggle that Carlos hungrily swallows with his lips, trapping you in a searing kiss filled with all the smoldering hunger he’s been studiously keeping banked for weeks now.

Mindlessly, he chases the taste of you over and over — salty and sweet and everything he’s been desperately starving himself for. His fingers fumble at the tie closures along your ribs until the bodice finally falls away, baring your breasts to his gaze and seeking hands.

You gasp softly into the heated seal of his mouth when Carlos’ calloused palms close over your soft, pliant flesh. He cups and kneads with reverent, possessive strokes that have you quickly arching your chest further into his touch and throwing your head back on a wanton moan.

“Carlos ...” You breathe his name like a prayer, riding his lap with increasing urgency and bringing your mouths back together in a clash of teeth and tongues. Your fingers slide up beneath the hem of his shirt to map the shifting planes of his abdomen, nails raking over the taut, quivering muscles. “Don’t hold back with me any longer. Not tonight … need to feel all of you.”

A shudder wracks Carlos’ entire frame at your breathy plea. He knows you’re right, can feel that same desperate yearning driving you magnified inside himself. Every cell of his body is vibrating with the need to take you fully — heart, mind, and body aligning in euphoric harmony after so many weeks of well meaning denial.

Seizing your hips in a bruising grip, Carlos surges to his feet and simply holds you against him with easy strength. Your legs immediately wind around his waist as you giggle deliriously against his lips.

“Is this what you want, princesa?” He murmurs lowly, swaying subtly to grind his straining need over the lush juncture of your thighs in counterpoint. “For me to finally have my way with you the way we’ve both been craving?”

“Yes,” you hiss out through clenched teeth, back arching as Carlos nips and sucks a path down the slender column of your neck. “God, yes, Carlos. Will you just fuck me already? Here on the sand and beneath the open sky like something out of one of those romance novels you pretend not to love.”

The easy teasing breaks through whatever lingering threads of Carlos’ control were still intact and he growls low in his chest. In one deft motion, he divests you both of the rest of your clothes and spreads you out on the blanket before him in all your unabashed glory. His gaze tracks over your form hungrily, drinking in every dip and swell as you watch him with dark, wanting eyes.

“Princesa ...” Carlos breathes, gratified to see his own desire and reverent longing reflected back at him tenfold in your heated stare. “No more waiting, no more teasing.”

His meaning is clear even without the punctuation of sinking down to settle fully over your smaller form, blanketing you with his weight and forcing your thighs apart to cradle his hips. You immediately writhe beneath him, winding limber arms and legs around him in a vice grip that sears every point of contact between you.

“Carlos, mon cœur ...” You keen breathily into the scant space separating your lips, every word punched from you in counterpoint to the sensual roll of his hips grinding his arousal through your slick folds. “Please. I need you. Need to feel you all around me again after so long.”

He crushes his mouth to yours in answer, tongue instantly delving deep to taste the exquisite velvet heat of you. You clutch him closer even as Carlos shifts his weight to one forearm so his other hand can roam freely over every inch of bare, pebbled skin he can reach. When his calloused palm finally finds your breast and gives a rough squeeze, you shudder and cry out into his waiting lips.

There’s no more waiting after that. Carlos sheaths himself in one powerful, purposeful thrust that buries him to the hilt and your gasp dissolves into a broken moan. He stills for the briefest of moments, just reveling in the unbearably tight clutch of your molten sheath, every nerve ending alight and thrumming. Then he slowly withdraws until just the swollen head remains inside before immediately surging forward once more.

Your nails score lines of liquid fire down his back at the first deep, dragging stroke. But Carlos barely notices the delicious sting. He’s utterly consumed by the feeling of finally being surrounded by you again — hot, snug, and so utterly perfect. Every sound and shudder and arch of your form against his own is like the sweetest plea washing over him.

He sets a demanding pace, relentlessly pounding into you from that first jarring thrust onward. The only sounds are your mingled cries and the wet, obscene smack of flesh on flesh echoing out over the lapping ocean waves. Carlos wants to make sure there’s no doubt in your mind how much he’s craved every inch of you.

“There’s my good girl,” he rasps hotly against the bullet-hard peak of your nipple before laving it soothingly with his tongue. You release a strangled cry, back bowing sharply off the blanket as you clench down on him in rippling, vice-like pulses. “Fuck … taking me just how you were made to. So damn perfect, cariño.”

Your garbled whimpers and keens of his name drive Carlos to new levels of feverish intensity with each hitching breath. He snakes an arm beneath your sweat-slick lower back to position your hips at a slightly higher angle, seating himself even more deeply inside.

Every purposeful thrust now grinds against that tender cluster of nerves in a way that quickly has your eyes rolling back. You go boneless and whimpering, allowing Carlos to manhandle and use your plaint and plush form in whatever way he craves.

Pressure rapidly mounts within Carlos like an incoming tidal wave as your inner walls begin fluttering around him in telltale pulses. He can feel his own imminent release building in tandem at the base of his spine, that familiar molten curl of pleasure threatening to crest.

“That’s it, princesa,” he grits out raggedly against the sweat-slick arch of your throat. He slides the hand not anchoring your hips down to toy with the engorged pearl at your apex — drawing out a stream of sobbing wails. “Take what’s yours. Fucking milk me with that greedy little cunt. You were made for this cock, made to be split open and ruined on it over and over until you’ve got no idea where you end and I begin.”

The filthy words seems to be your undoing. With a sobbing cry of Carlos’ name, you seize up — inner walls rippling and convulsing like they’re taking him for everything he’s worth. Carlos hardens his jaw and summons the last threads of his control to keep himself from shattering apart at the very first fluttering pulse.

As the shattering waves of your release gradually crest and ebb, Carlos chases them down with powerful thrusts designed to prolong and intensify every aftershock. You writhe and whimper beneath him in overstimulated pleasure, rapidly going boneless and sated.

That’s when he finally surrenders to the smoldering inferno in his belly, hips snapping forward in a few final, erratic strokes before Carlos throws back his head and allows his own orgasm to rip through him. White-hot euphoria explodes across every nerve ending as he empties himself in heavy, throbbing pulses deep inside your spasming core.

“Ah fuck … just like that, cariño,” he rasps out hoarsely, grinding himself as deeply inside you as physically possible and simply shuddering through each exquisite contraction. “Taking every last fucking drop of me right where you were made for it ...”

Utterly spent, Carlos collapses forward with the last dregs of his stamina — just barely managing to catch himself on shaking forearms so he doesn’t crush you beneath his weight. You immediately latch onto him, peppering his flushed face with sweet kisses.

For several long moments, you simply hold each other through the aftershocks, chests heaving and bodies trembling. Carlos has never felt more peaceful or completely at ease in his entire life. His every sense is utterly surrounded and suffused by you in the most blissful of ways.

When his lashes finally flutter open, the first thing he sees is your adoring smile glowing up at him in the moonlight. It nearly steals what little breath remains in his lungs.

“Hi,” you murmur shyly. Carlos huffs out a breathless chuckle and tugs you even closer until your overwarm bodies are aligned from navel to sternum.

“Hi yourself, princesa,” he replies, just as softly against your lips before sinking into another deep, leisurely kiss that tastes equal parts salt and sex and forever.

When you part again, your eyes are sparkling with so much uncomplicated happiness that Carlos nearly melts into a useless puddle on the spot. He’s drowning and he’s never felt more gloriously unmoored.

“I love you, y’know? Like … down to the depths of my soul,” your fingers trail over the sharp jaw and cheekbones you now know better than your own.

The words should terrify Carlos with their intensity and implication. Instead, they simply roll through him in a cresting wave of overwhelming tenderness and clarity.

Of course he loves you. How could he not, when his existence now seems to revolve around your presence as the only fixed point in a dizzying orbit?

So rather than balk or deflect or shove those emotions back down, Carlos allows every infinite but of love and adoration and soul-deep need to shine through unfettered. He cradles your face between his palms and simply stares, committing every minuscule detail of this moment to memory before leaning down to brush his lips over yours in the sweetest, most loaded caress.

“I love you too, princesa,” he murmurs the words directly into your mouth like a sacrament. “With every fiber of my being. You are my everything.”

You tug him down into a heated, clinging embrace, holding him like you never intend to let go.

And at last, Carlos knows without a shadow of doubt that he never will either

[tieronecrush]

so much wine

joel miller x reader

summary: christmas is difficult for joel, with and without you.

rating: M

wc: 2.8k

warnings: no outbreak, angst MAJORLY, alcohol consumption, drunkenness, acts of mild violence (NOT towards reader or any other person, it is toward an inanimate object), joel hating christmas, grief, anger, depression, big big feelings, mention of break up, sad joel, angry joel, resentful joel, reader trying to make christmas nice, um i may be forgetting some so if you notice any big ones lmk!

a/n: ya girl is always on her angst grind. ESPECIALLY around christmas cause....issues. hope you all find the means to enjoy this lil one shot based on one of the saddest but still incredibly beautiful christmas songs. here's the link to the song! tysm to @northernbluess & @kiwisbell for beta-ing and encouraging me to post this. love you both xx

“Tommy?”

“Hey, m’so sorry to be callin’ ya on Christmas Eve. I know…Well, I know this is probably the last thing ya wanna be hearin’ but I really need your help. It’s Joel…” The noise level on the other side increases with a gust of rowdiness, clueing you in that he must be at a bar. You press the phone tighter against your ear, listening to Tommy ramble off reasonings for your help interwoven with profuse apologies. Guilt hangs heavy inside of you, the soft music and glasses clinking in the other room a reminder of your own Christmas Eve plans. How it’s supposed to go every year. Peaceful, light, fun, full of love. Your holiday with Joel looked different. Full of love, yes, but overwhelming, stifling with grief.

“I’ll be right over, Tommy.” You can’t turn away, you can’t hang up and go back to your life tonight. Not with knowing how much pain Joel’s in.

The tree lights up as you stick the plug in the socket, your nightly task for the last month just as the sun sets. Clear, warm bulbs illuminate the otherwise dark living room, shining out to the street as a beacon of a lived-in home. Reflections of warmth bounce off of the shiny glass ornaments littered around the branches, heirlooms from your family, and some you’ve collected yourself. Combined with ones from Joel’s past. It’s not cohesive, but it’s a beautiful smattering of your lives. Pine wafts from the sappy center of the tree, filling the room with the scent of evergreen, tinged with the stuffy warmth from the central heat.

You��d decorated the tree on your own a few weeks ago. Joel helped you pick up the tree from the sale lot in the H.E.B. car park, strapping it down in the bed of his pickup. More than willing to help you get it inside, into the basin, and secure it tightly to avoid any accidents. But that’s when his assistance stopped. No humming along to the Christmas CDs you queued, no suggestions of festive movies to watch, no sneaking some Bailey’s into the mugs of decaf coffee you brewed to keep warm. Instead, he retreated up to your bedroom, shutting the door behind him and effectively shutting you out for the evening.

Tommy’s truck pulls into the driveway, dropping off Joel for the holiday after last-minute projects were tied off. Joel had mentioned grabbing a drink with Tommy, to celebrate another year gone by with their new business venture, Miller Construction. You didn’t think anything of it, wishing him a good day that morning and sending him off while you prepped dinner and baked cookies to bring over to your parent’s house tomorrow.

As you sit down on the couch, Joel fumbles at the door with his keys, finally getting them jammed in and the lock turned. He stumbles inside, tripping over his own feet despite his eyes being trained on them, grumbling to himself as he frustratingly kicks off his boots. You stand up to greet him, a warm smile on your face faltering when he looks back at you with a scowl.

“Need a drink…” he slurs, avoiding you completely in the middle of the living room, frown lit up by the tree. Joel treks to the kitchen, straight for the whiskey bottle that he takes a long pull from before filling a glass halfway. The amber liquid sloshes as he turns to look at you, holding out the crystal tumbler.

“You want some, baby? S’Christmas Eve! Everybody thinks it’s something to celebrate, right?”

It never snows in Austin, but driving down the highway with your windows down, it smells like winter. Crisp, cool air rubbing your cheeks raw, running your nose. Thin air, fresh. A medicinal feeling, like inhaling the menthols you used to smoke. It’s freezing, but you can’t bring yourself to roll up the windows, to close yourself into your car as you cruise on the open roads. Everyone’s tucked away at home, with family or friends, while you drive towards something as familiar, but much more grisly.

Christmas carols crack over the stereo, painting visions of picture-perfect holidays, the feelings of joy, love, belonging, and warmth that you’ve craved for him since you met him. Something you so desperately wanted to drip back into his life from your hand, dribbling water to a lightless soul.

The glass is empty now, bottle as hollow as Joel’s eyes look. He stands in front of the tree, studying the decorations with a freshly opened bottle of wine in his grip, one you were meant to bring to your parents tomorrow. His brows haven’t relaxed, not one stitch unsewn since he walked in the door. Mumbles of anger have rolled from his chest, never directed toward you, but aimed at the world around him. At the holiday. At the lack of presents addressed to his daughter under the tree, the missing duties of playing Santa.

You met Joel after Sarah passed. He spoke about her often, telling you all about his little girl who was funny, bright, bubbly, better than him in every way. She’s been gone for a handful of years now, the tragedy worn on Joel’s face and in his curls; aged and grayed. He was still so handsome, still held a smile for you despite the deep, open aches he feels the pains of every day.

Never having a holiday with him, you didn’t know that this is ‘just how he is’. Tommy had heeded some warnings to you, had called you in a whisper as he pulled away from the house that evening with apologies — ‘I tried to cut him off, but when I left for a minute to go to the bathroom, he’d gotten the bartender to pour him another double…I tried to take it, but he wouldn’t…’

You expected feelings these days, this month, the whole season. How could a father not miss his only child when the rest of everyone’s happiness, luck, blessings are thrown back in his face? But this…this was a different Joel. Someone angry, someone cursing his own existence. He fumbled around the living room, shoving the coffee table when he bumped into it, picking tinsel off the tree and tossing it to the ground.

At the time, it seemed like a good idea to intervene. To attempt to talk him into bed, or at least into eating something and laying down on the couch. Other issues to address in the morning when he was sober.

Now, you know that was a mistake.

“What do you want from me? What does my brother want from me? Am I just supposed to get over it so everyone can have their merry little Christmas?” His voice strings words together, his drawl thicker with inebriation. Wine splatters across the kitchen tile, Joel’s arms swinging around as he speaks with his hands.

“No one is ever asking or expecting you to get over it, Joel. We just—I don’t want you to be like…to feel like this. Sarah wouldn’t want you to—”

He doesn’t raise his voice. Joel never raises his voice. The calm chill of his voice sends a wash of anxiety over your entire body, words punching clear now despite his physical state.

“Enough. Don’t even say that 'cause you wouldn’t fucking know.”

The freezing air fills your lungs, choking out as it stifles your inhale. Strong heaves of breaths expand your lungs before they squeeze out with sharp exhales, the coughing fit morphing into sobs. Tears blur your vision, flowing over your waterline and burning hot against your cheeks. Carving trails across your face with iron branding. Find the same paths of all their predecessors, all that came before them for the very same reasons.

You manage to pull off to the side of the road to compose yourself, parking near enough to your exit. Slipping out of the driver’s seat, you open the door and tumble out, talking yourself down from hysterics. Wading through the thick emotions, the unresolved slashings of anger and frustration, the unanswered love.

Facing the midnight sky, twinkling spots stare back at you, reminding you of your size in the world. How large everything feels, how all-consuming. How it doesn’t seem to be felt all the same by the one person you want it from. Need it from.

Struck with a flash of a star falling against the black backdrop, there’s a brief moment when you think it’s Santa Claus. In his sleigh pulled by reindeer, riding around to deliver joy to families across the world. Another reminder of how small you feel. How much like a kid you feel. Unsure of where you stand in his life, uncertainty facing your future, undecided in what is the right thing to do.

The sky kaleidoscopes in your watery eyes, small shining bursts gazing back at you. And your first thought is how similar they look to Joel’s eyes that night. Sad, glossy, shimmering with anger that sat long enough to finally introduce itself as grief.

You stayed out of the way after that. Let him drink himself into a hole. Dinner is left untouched until the later evening when you wrap it all up and store it away in the fridge. Noting another bottle of wine gone from the cabinet.

Joel’s corralled upstairs with less persuasion the drunker he’s gotten, craving the comfort of your shared bed the closer he gets to passing out. He trips over his feet while you walk behind him, a hand pressing into his lower back to direct him. Hiccups shake his body. Teeth stained red. Life sucked from the day, no more chances at honoring memories, no more magic left to make something special for Joel. Nothing that can sprinkle some goodness into his life.

He’s got an iron grip on his resentment, on his rage. Understandably.

But that grip drops his hand from his happiness, from his comfort, from his remembrance. It all slips through his fingers now, grains of sand falling through the lines in his palms, the ridges of his fingerprints. What was so ingrained in him, years ago with his daughter, days ago with you, is easily forgotten as the monster of misery uses your kindhearted man as a vessel. Rendering him unrecognizable.

Taking in his sleeping form, fully clothed and half covered with a quilt. He was out as soon as his head hit the pillow, his coping catching up with him to finally receive the desired effect — feeling nothing. Turning his brain off completely, emptying him to float in a void for at least one night.

His lips parted with slow, even breaths. Brows relax, falling back to lift his eyes, despite them being closed. Delicate eyelashes lay against his cheeks, and you watch as a smattering of exhausted tears slip from the corners of his shut eyes. No more stubborn will to hold them back. The first real emotion you’ve witnessed all evening.

It’s another moment before you turn away, filling the empty glass at his bedside with water from the bathroom tap. Avoiding his soft sleeping form and your empty side of the mattress, you pack a small bag to retreat to your parent's house, a short note left for Joel in the morning inviting him over when he’s feeling up for it.

One last glance at him drives an ice pick into your heart, warm blood pooling around your feet matching the shade of red on his lips. It feels cruel, to pack up and leave for the night, but without knowing if this charade continues through the next day, you don’t quite feel like sticking around to find out.

The bar is busier than you would have thought, with a good amount of groups growing rowdy for the holiday. You imagine they are there drinking in camaraderie, in celebration. The opposite to your Joel. He’s slumped over the bar in his green flannel, hugging his broad frame that shields him from the joy raucous of the room.

Tommy stands next to him, hand on his shoulder in an attempt to draw him away from the wooden bartop, to get him away from the stool and the glass filled with amber liquid.

When the bartender greets you while you approach, Tommy turns toward you, sighing and shaking his head as he leans into his older brother to mumbling loud enough for your to overhear as you settle behind Joel’s seat, “M’sorry I had to do this, Joel, but you’ve got to get home…”

Joel grumbles, shrugging off his brother’s hand. When he’s turned to address his brother with a protest, he catches you in the periphery, reacting with a molasses-like double take. Angling in your direction from his perch on the worn leather barstool, his eyes widen in shock, and he swallows hard. The drink in his hand is left discarded on the bar top, Tommy signaling for the bartender to come by and grab it while Joel stands dumbfounded by the presence of you.

“Sweetheart…”

The name is a punch in the gut, recalling every other time it raised goosebumps in its wake while it was whispered against your skin, each time it was tacked onto a gentle tease, each time it was spoken in place of feelings he couldn’t, he wouldn’t, communicate to you.

Recovering quickly, you right yourself internally, rising tall and holding your shoulders back while tender kindness masks your anguish. A head shake draws up a watery expression despite your efforts, your smile plastering onto your expression. Joel frowns, seeing straight through the guise.

“C’mon, Joel. Let’s get you home, yeah?”

Both of you stare at the hand of yours laid on his bicep, radiating heat from the contact that starts to melt the ice that froze your feelings for him in place those months ago. Joel is the first to look away, the burn of his saucer eyes drilling into your profile.

“No. No, I don’t need to—” he argues, always a mule.

“Joel,” you interrupt, voice thickened with sentiment, “please. I wanna go home. Let’s go home.”

The statement isn’t a lie. The furthest thing from an untruth.

It’s exactly what you have been wanting to say to him for months, feeling untethered and lost. You’ve been aimlessly searching for that same solace elsewhere. In other places, in other people. Nothing could compare. Joel is home. And all you want to do is return, to feel safe and warm and welcomed at home. To feel as if there is room for you there, that you aren’t driven out by the torment that tortures Joel, and in turn, you.

That’s what gets him to agree. The promise of home, with you there with him. The same piece he’s felt missing, the second heart of his home stripped from him because of his unwillingness to let up his grip on his anger and resentment. Because of his resistance to cradle his comfort, his contentment, his love for you.

“You wanna go home?” A nod answers him, rolling his actions into motion, “Okay, okay. M’gon—gonna take you home, baby. We can…I can give you your gift.”

“Sure, honey. We can do that in the morning,” you counter, the corners of your mouth turning up for a split second when Joel agrees.

His large form falls from the stool and into his brother when he attempts to get up. It’s a dance between the three of you to get him into your car and to his place. Tommy follows, there to drag him up the stairs with you behind, a hand on Joel’s lower back. He preens into every touch from you, glancing over his shoulder to check that you’re still there. That you haven’t left again. You can’t help but notice the living room illuminated by a Christmas tree, the smell of pine filling the house and the delicate glass ornaments placed carefully around the tree. He tried this year.

You do stay. This time you’re sitting with it all, ready for the confrontation of the next day. With Tommy gone, you and Joel are left alone with each other for the first time in months. In your old bedroom of all places.

Joel sits at the edge of the bed, head hanging in shame while you kneel in front of him, tentatively laying a hand on his knee.

If this time is going to be different, you need a reason to stay. A single brick taken out of his walls, the signal of the start of a wreckage that you will happily clear so long as you can have your Joel feel like a semblance of himself again.

“You’re always gonna see the bottom of your glass, Joel. Nothing can save you from that, not even all the drink in the world. It’s all still going to be there. You have to decide to face it.”

It’s quiet for a moment, the only sounds filling the room are your slow breaths in sync with each other’s. Joel picks his head up, angling it to look down at you directly. Tears have carved channels into his face, fight leaving his eyes as he opens his mouth to speak in a rasped whisper.

“Sarah always loved Christmas...”

taglist: @northernbluess @atinylittlepain @swiftispunk @joelsversion @mrsmando @ilovepedro @lovers-liability @deathwife @undrthelights @atticrissfinch @casa-boiardi @wannab-urs @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @fishingforpike @msjarvis @walkintotheriveranddisappear @sugadolly @yazsos @peppesgirl @pastawench @addictedtotlou @brittmb115 @anoverwhelmingdin @spishsstuff @wolfbook87 @mswarriorbabe80 @harriedandharassed @decemberdolly @laiisleitte @fierce-bab @vickie5446 @pertinentpostmortem @livingdeadmaria @sullyosully @bitchwitch1981 @its-nebuleuse @marini03 @piercethevic03 @joeandpedrosimp @kiwisbell @planet-marz1 @txtattoostark @jrosie25 @tbniarq @vee-bees-blog @thereaperisabitch @spidermanfrog @belliezz @joelsflannel @cartoon-garbage04 @bianqueee04 @nostalxgic @xyzstar @cumberpegg @b00klvrs @burningnerdchild

[party-hearses]

don’t be a brat, baby | joel miller x f!reader

sequel to relax, baby

pairing: joel miller x f!reader (NO USE OF Y/N)

rating: explicit, 18+ MDNI

wordcount: 7.2k

summary: in a desperate attempt to get back into Joel’s arms, you brave a night at the bar with your coworkers.

series warnings/tags: porn with some plot (oops), explicit smut, unprotected piv, creampie, pet names (princess, baby), language, size kink, praise kink, public sex (kinda), bulge kink, joel and reader being a menace to everyone around them. lmk if I’m forgetting anything!

author's note: thank you so much for all the love on relax, baby! i honestly can’t believe how many people requested a part two. i had so much fun writing this. comments, reblogs, asks, feedback, etc. are SO SO SO appreciated! i swear i don’t bite. 🫶

🖤 dedicated to @nostalxgic forever and always

Monday morning comes both too quickly and not quickly enough.

Declining all invitations from friends over the weekend, you had been all too content to remain in your bedroom, hands shoved down the front of your underwear, the film reel of Joel’s hands on you a constant replay in your mind. Joel’s everything, if you’re being honest.

A mixture of excitement and anxiety coils in the pit of your belly, overflowing into your extremities. You flex your fingers against the steering wheel in an attempt to diffuse some of the nervous energy, but the knowledge that you’re walking — falling — into unknown territory sits at the forefront of your mind.

Can he fire you for fucking in the office? Even if it was him you were fucking?

When you arrive, Joel’s truck isn’t in the lot, but that’s standard for this early in the morning — he’s made it clear he’s not an early-to-rise, early-to-work kind of guy.

There’s some comfort in knowing if he shows up at all, it won’t be until later in the day. The ability to shove off the inevitable strangeness, whatever shape it may take, allows you to actually get out of your car and get moving.

But as you unlock and open the door, the celluloid frames of your memory catch fire — burning the imprint of Joel’s body hovering above yours, the thick ropes of the muscles in his neck drawn taut, into the spaces that burst with color behind your eyelids.

A heated flush creeps across your collarbones, the distinct recognition of arousal blooming in your chest.

You shove the feeling all the way down to your toes, sweeping your gaze across the surface of the desk.

It does look somewhat neater than it had when you’d left, everything stacked in the appropriate piles, the receipt book tucked away in the drawer. Credit where credit is due, you think, wondering how defiled the paperwork actually is, and if Joel would have even noticed.

Settling in to try to determine if any of it is salvageable (it is…regrettably), you do what you can to ignore the pavlovian-like wetness pooling at your core. Just being in the office, being seated in the chair, makes it difficult not to drop your fingers between your thighs at the memory of it. For a split second, you consider if it’s something you could get away with.

Pushing back from the desk, stretching the lengths of your arms against the lip of it, you drop your head back, releasing a long, slow breath. Get it the fuck together. You will not masturbate at work to the thought of your boss. Even if your boss had let slip that he masturbated to the thought of you…

Oh, god.

Caffeine. You need caffeine. Of course you need caffeine, because coffee fixes everything — including your need to have Joel’s cock jammed into the furthest reaches of you as soon as possible.

Grateful for something tangible and decisive, you rush out of the office, barely remembering to lock the door behind you.

Your blood now buzzing with the first few sips of an iced latte, you push the door to the office open with your hip, the already too-hot morning sun pouring into the room around you.

“Mornin’, princess.”

You freeze, fingers gripping the sweating plastic cup in your hand. Cunt throbbing at the deep baritone of his voice, a dull ache pulling across your lower half. The realization that you hadn’t needed to unlock the door dawns on you.

He’s seated at the desk, pushed back with both feet kicked up on the surface of it. Arms bent at the elbow into acute angles, fingers laced behind his head. The sun paints him in a silhouette, hiding his strong, angular features.

If you weren’t practically salivating just from the sight of him, you’d wonder why the fuck he always seemed to need to have his dirty work boots all over your paperwork.

“Joel,” you whisper breathily, “didn’t know you’d be here this early.” Any irritation you feel is washed out by arousal. Goddamnit.

Mechanically, you kick the door closed behind you, the click of the latch settling into your bones.

Joel hums stoically, leaning forward on his elbows.

“Get anythin’ done this mornin’?” he asks, pointedly.

Dragging your lower lip into your mouth with your teeth, you shake your head slowly. The anxiety you’d been feeling all morning flares, threatening to spill over.

Can you file for unemployment if you’ve fucked your boss?

“Nah, me either.” He slaps the palms of his hands spiritedly against the flat of the desk, pushing himself up off the chair. “Been a little…distracted.”

His face relaxes into a dangerous smirk, eyebrow quirked, gaze burning into you.

Arrogant motherfucker.

You plant your free hand on your hip. “Really? Playing the fucking ‘boss’ card?”

“Yeah, I’m playin’ the fuckin’ boss card.”

He laughs, his dark eyes glowing with what you can only call depravity — a commanding acknowledgement of what he knows he’s doing to you. Like he could swallow you whole, if given the chance.

You’d let him, you think.

“Can’t be here long,” he says lowly, eyes roving over you — devouring you. “Have a few sites to be at this week. Only stopped by to make sure everything here was…goin’ okay.”

The invisible addendum hangs in the air between you: to torture you.

His long legs bring him to stand in front of you in just a few short steps, his heady scent all-consuming. Clean, comfortable, him. There are only a few inches of space between your bodies, and the tips of your fingers tingle with a need to run them over the solid plane of his chest. To drag them through his unkempt waves.

His presence is imposing — commanding the room, even when it’s just you inside it. Looking down at you, chin angled, he curls his fingers into the plush of your cheeks. It makes the electricity crackling between the two of you that much more real, the doubt you had earlier melting away beneath his touch.

“Baby,” he growls darkly, leaning in to trace the shell of your ear with his nose, “thought about you all fuckin’ weekend.” His free hand snakes around your waist, dropping to squeeze the flesh of your ass through your shorts. “Looked at that picture ‘f you full ‘f my cum so many times.”

Your eyes widen, pupils dilating at the thought of him jerking off to the thought of you, just like you had him. It’s an almost jealous feeling that rolls through you — how unfair that he got to have a visual reminder of it, when all you had was your thoughts.

But it emboldens you.

“Joel,” you pout, speech lilted by his fingers pressing into your flesh, “don’t want you to leave.” You’re not used to being so forward, but you’re also not used to spending entire weekends giving yourself orgasm after orgasm from memories alone.

He gently pulls his hand away from your mouth, the sting of his grip still firm across your face. He doesn’t let go completely, and dragging your bottom lip with his thumb, he juts his own out in mock sympathy. The speed of your heart picks up.

“I’m the boss, remember, princess? Got shit to do.”

Your cheeks burn, eyes narrowing. A reminder that he can be such a fucking dick.

Catching your expression, he laughs again, before dropping his head to kiss up the length of your neck.

“My poor baby. Has to actually get work done today.” It’s a whisper against the hollow of your throat, sending chills rippling through you.

You’re not that naive, despite the way he has you under his spell.

“Fuck off, Joel.” You push your hand against his solid chest, but he doesn’t budge. Instead, he catches your wrist in the smooth palm of his hand, pulling you to meet his mouth. The arm that’s still wrapped around your waist drags you further into his body, and you have to stand on your tiptoes to match the intensity of him crashing his lips to yours.

He doesn’t wait for permission before rolling his tongue against yours, taking everything you have to offer. Tracing up the lines of your neck with the rough pads of his fingers, he wraps the thick length of them just below your ear, tipping your head back with his thumb to open you up for him. As he deepens the kiss, you can taste the robust richness of his morning coffee. You briefly consider what it would be like to be the one to make it for him every day.

It’s easy to lose yourself in him, the hypnotic rhythm of his mouth against yours, so it catches you off guard when he pulls back delicately, large hand still cradling your jaw.

“Really have to go, baby,” he says in a murmur against your mouth.

You whimper against him, but acquiesce by untangling yourself from his grip. The ice in your latte has long melted, and you move to chuck it in the trash next to the desk.

Before you can, Joel shoots one arm out across your chest, nuzzling into you to run his nose along the line of your jaw, up to the curve of your ear.

“Still have the panties I ripped off you,” he purrs. “Filled those with my cum, too.”

The rest of the week is much of the same, except you can’t actually get Joel’s hands on you at all. Even in passing.

He’s in and out of the office, finding and filing paperwork, taking and making phone calls, dropping crumpled receipts into your waiting hands. Business as usual.

Seemingly just as frustrated by it as you are, the most you get is a quick nip to the slope of your shoulder as he argues with a supplier.

“Asshole,” he mouths, pointing to his cell phone with his other hand.

You would be a little less tightly wound if it was just Joel, but it almost never is. There’s a steady stream of his guys dawdling around the office at almost all times, your brother being there most consistently. As if he possesses a sixth sense to crowd you out of any chance at revisiting the best dick you’ve ever had.

On Wednesday, he’s picking his fingernails in the chair across the desk, while you work through a spreadsheet of the past month’s expenditures. Mumbling to yourself, eyes focused on the totals, half-listening to him complain about how expensive a wedding is.

“Adam,” you interrupt, breaking your gaze away from the laptop screen. “Obviously weddings are fucking expensive. If you were gonna bitch about it nonstop, why did you even get engaged?”

A beat of silence.

“Damn, what’s your problem?” he sneers after a moment, brows knitted together in what you can assume is annoyance.

I need to be dicked down by our fucking boss, you think, but roll your eyes at him, instead.

“I’m busy.”

Adam snorts.

“Molly would be pissed to hear you talking about your wedding like that, anyway. I’m just doing her a favor.” The end of your sentence tapers off quietly, as you switch your stare back to the screen.

You are partial to Adam’s fiancée, if not for her bubbly personality, for letting you crash with them between semesters every summer.

“I see where your loyalty lies,” he scoffs, raising himself out of the chair. “Thought we were family.”

“Yeah, Adam, me not letting you talk shit about your upcoming wedding is disloyal,” you respond with a single, hollow laugh, distractedly typing a figure into a blinking cell.

He chuckles, running the toe of his boot along the worn carpet.

“Guys’re goin’ out Friday. I can tell Molly that you two can have a girls night. Drink wine and shit. Since that’s who's back you have.”

Keeping your eyes fixed to the screen, you’re desperate to play it casual, despite the intense prickle of your skin. Will Joel be there?

“Or I could come bug the shit out of you, since you love to do that while I’m trying to work.”

“You’re always invited, princess,” he drawls.“‘M sure the guys would love to see you.”

Every part of your body shudders. Typical Adam, upping the ante of disgusting. You choose to ignore it.

“Your boss usually go to these things?” you ask instead, words measured. You don’t dare glance over at your brother, fearing he’d read the intent all over your face.

But he shrugs, unfazed. “Sometimes. Depends, I guess.”

“On what?” This time you do look at him, but his eyes are fixed on his phone screen, thumb scrolling lazily.

He mumbles something that you don’t catch, obviously distracted by what he’s seeing. Useless.

Knowing he’s moved on from the conversation, you sigh with a certain air of disappointment. You could go, you know, on the off-chance that Joel does show up, but the idea of being there alone with your brother and his work friends makes you wrinkle your nose.

Adam turns to leave, throwing a quick see ya over his shoulder as he pulls the door open.

“Hey! Let me know about Friday!” you call after him, raising yourself up on your arms, a half-assed attempt to make sure he hears you.

He’s already on the other side, door whipping shut behind him.

Aggravated, you sink back into the desk chair, raising your fists to settle your chin on them. You feel like a petulant child, continuously denied the thing you want so bad.

There’s a whole part of you that wants to kick and scream until you get it, until Joel is soothing your angry tears with his mouth pressed to your flesh, smoothing out the knots in your limbs, reaching into the most tender recesses of you to undo you.

Ruined, you think, as you draw your knees together tightly in an attempt to relieve the throb of your cunt.

It’s Friday when you’re eating lunch (the saddest salad you’ve ever seen and the dredges of your iced coffee at the desk) when he texts you.

> J Miller: going w your bro tonite?

Your stomach flips. The restlessness that you’ve been feeling all week suddenly dials up to a 10 — an elastic compulsion that weaves itself into your lungs, your breath catching in your chest.

It’s the first time he’s texted you for non-work related things, which, much to your annoyance, should have been immediately after he made you see stars with his cock.

Either way, you’ve never texted anyone back faster.

> Me: are you?

Logic tells you to play coy, to make him wait, but it’s been an entire week since the cosmic shift of the most intense orgasm you’ve ever had, and you’re going out of your mind trying to get another one. There’s no use in pretending.

>J Miller: i am if you will b

Dragging your bottom lip between your teeth, you suppress a grin.

It’s starting to look like you’re not the only one who’s ruined.

The bouncer eyes you up and down, and you’re half-tempted to lean over just a little to showcase your cleavage. The stretchy black dress you’re wearing barely covers your ass, but leaves just enough to the imagination.

You have a feeling that Joel will want to tear it off you, too.

“You alone?” the bouncer asks, gaze flicking between your ID and you.

“My friends are inside,” you coo. “Just gotta meet them.”

He grunts, nodding his head and handing you back the flimsy piece of plastic.

“Gimme a shout if anyone gives you a hard time.”

Flashing the biggest smile you can, you shimmy past him, into the dark bar. Inside, the smell of stale beer and spilled liquor meets you, and you scan the bustling space for anyone you know. The first person you spot is your brother, who waves you over, a pint of dark beer in his hand.

You feel sexy, but overdressed. An upscale cocktail bar The Hideout is not.

As you make your way over to the table, you notice a few recognizable faces from work crowded around, a majority of them sweeping their eyes over your form.

“Hey, Princess. Lookin’ good tonight,” jeers a guy you’ve seen around the site. Kevin? Maybe? Or Alex?

You raise your brows at him, lips pursed. You’ve always hated the nickname, but it feels distinctly wrong now, like it belongs to Joel. You’d like to tell him as much, shove it back in his mouth until he chokes.

But Kevin-or-Alex brings his beer to his lips, eyes still roving over you, corners of his mouth upturned in a sneer.

Moving along, brushing it off, you tip your head to the side, begging your brother for a drink with your eyes.

You don’t need to look around the table to know that Joel is at the end of it, because you can feel his stare burning into you. It takes everything in you to not climb over the guys seated next to him so you can settle in his lap, to grind your hips down into his, but the thought certainly crosses your mind. Knowing you can’t meet his eyes without giving yourself away, you take in the bar around you, gaze bouncing from table to table.

Adam tugs you back from the precipice of your reverie by knocking the table with his knuckles and standing from his chair.

“Gotta get the princess a drink,” he explains to his companions, much to the delight of them all gathered around the table. They laugh uproariously, like he’s just told the best joke of the century. Idiots.

Your brother steers you towards the bar with a hand on the small of your back, and you’re careful to sway your hips just enough as you walk away from the cluster of tables, knowing that Joel is watching. Adam sets his arms across the bartop, and you mirror him, trepidation bubbling in your stomach.

“You good?” he asks over the jukebox, currently blaring a Van Halen song.

“Mmhmm,” you reply, gazing at the bottles of liquor behind the bar.

“You never come out with us,” Adam continues, raising a hand to flag down the bartender. “Kinda weird.”

You shrug, cheeks heating at his questioning. “Dunno. Felt like…I should get to know the guys better.”

He angles his body to you, running his palm over his mouth. There’s a playful look in his eyes, one that you know means he sees right the fuck through you. “Ookay, weirdo. The same guys whose necks you want to wring for calling you ‘princess’ on a daily basis?”

“You call me that, too, asshole.”

He laughs loudly, turning away as the bartender finally makes his way down the bar to the pair of you.

“Vodka water, and a Rumple Minze shot,” you tell him, as he leans in to hear your order over the music.

A quick nod, a swift maneuvering of bottles, and your drinks are pushed in front of you.

“Thank god,” you mumble, picking the cocktail up and sipping it immediately.

“You’re, uh…attracting quite a bit of attention,” Adam says in a low voice, gesturing subtly back to the table of your coworkers.

“Wow, you fuckin’ think?” you roll your eyes, throwing the shot of schnapps back. There’s only one pair of eyes you want on you, and they’re connected to the dick you need in you.

“I’ve never seen you this…” Adam leans into you, bumping your shoulder, “cranky before. Why’d you come out if you’re in a bad mood?”

You soften, meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been…a little too in my own head lately.”

The understatement of the century, considering that’s where Joel has made a home.

Adam doesn’t respond, just signals to the bartender, ordering you another shot with a flick of his head in your direction.

The shots go down too easy, your skin flushing with the alcohol and body heat of the bar. You stick close to Adam’s side, and it feels like hours before you allow yourself to glance over at Joel.

Your brother is arguing with someone else about the structure of something you don’t care about when you finally work up the courage to do so, anxiously chewing bites into the plastic straw in your drink.

Joel is staring right back at you, same dangerous smirk pulled across his mouth. Watching the way your lips mold around the plastic, teeth scraping the flexible material. You know that smirk all too well, and want blossoms through your body.

The guy next to him is obliviously chatting his ear off, entirely unaware that Joel can’t take his eyes off of you. But he doesn’t make any kind of move to get up, or any kind of indication that he wants you to come over, so you stay rooted to the spot, entirely unsure how to proceed.

Some kind of frustration churns in your stomach, though you allow yourself to shoot him a coy smile over the rim of your glass. He returns the gesture by dipping his chin just slightly and raising his own drink to his mouth.

Whiskey, neat. The thought of tasting it on his tongue makes your cunt clench with need, and you have to look away to keep your composure.

He doesn’t even need to try, and you melt in the palm of his hand. Fuck.

You finish the rest of your drink in one go to try to settle your nerves, and nudge Adam with your elbow to let him know you’re headed back to the bar. He barely acknowledges you, still enthralled with his conversation.

As you slide up to the bartop, you bump shoulders with the person already waiting for another beer.

“Oh! Oops. My bad. Didn’t really…calculate my proximity, I guess.” You giggle as he turns to you, meeting your gaze with a shy smile.

He’s cute, in a fresh-faced and innocent kind of way. Golden brown hair and light eyes, about your age. His navy blue polo hangs a little too loose on his gangly frame, and it’s too easy to imagine him dressed as a mormon missionary to take him seriously.

“No worries. This place is pretty crowded,” he answers, angling his chin down to make sure you hear him.

The way he draws himself close gives you the wickedest of ideas. One that will surely make Joel get out of his seat and pay you the attention you so desperately deserve.

“It’s definitely the place to be, huh?” You purr, flicking your eyes up under your lashes to meet his, gently placing your hand on his forearm.

There’s an immediate dusting of crimson over his cheekbones, and you see him swallow hard.

“Y-yeah, it…it sure is.” There’s the slightest of drawls to his words, like syrup poured over pancakes on a sunday morning. It’s nothing compared to the thunder of Joel’s baritone, the sensual velvet of a saturday night shot of whiskey.

But you keep going, acutely aware of Joel’s eyes burning into your back. Tracing the curves and lines of you, watching every move you make. Watching you put your hands on someone else’s body, the hands that belong to him.

At least…that’s what you hope is going through his head.

The bartender slides your new friend’s beer across the warped wood, looking pointedly at you for your order next.

“Vodka water,” you grin, not removing your hand from the freckled forearm, “with a lemon. Please.”

New friend clears his throat, growing redder by the second.

“On my tab, please.”

“Ohmygod, you don’t need to do that!” You sigh warmly, stupidly. As if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing.

The drink is placed in front of you in no time, but you still haven’t moved your hand. Instead, you look up at your companion, lashes fluttering.

“You from here?” he manages to choke out, before washing the cliche down with a swig of his beer.

You nod, finally breaking contact to pick up the tumbler of vodka. “Born and raised. You?”

“Here for school. ‘M from Baton Rouge.”

Turning your body to face the open room of the bar, eyes flitting over the crowded space, you lean back on your elbows, drink in hand poised just below the swell of your breasts. There’s no way Joel can miss you, now.

“What’re you studying?” You couldn’t be less interested, but you keep your voice chipper and high, drawing him closer.

“PoliSci. I’m pre-law.” He says it with an air of confidence, which you can’t blame him for. It is impressive.

You take a long sip of your drink, considering how much you want to divulge about yourself to this stranger. How far you’re willing to take this game. You sneak a glance over at Joel, who’s watching you with an amused expression, brows lifted.

“Are you in school?” New friend continues, unaware of the come-fuck-me vibes you’re radiating from across the bar.

But Joel remains planted in his seat, thick thighs spread, left arm draped between them. Leaning back in the booth, matching your energy. Playing the game.

Snapping your attention back to the question, you nod again. “Not here, though. I’m in a masters program in Washington.”

“Do you like it there?”

You throw your head back in laughter, all too aware how ridiculous of a response it is to the question.

“I love it,” you say emphatically, still giggling. “So different from Austin.”

When you look at Joel again, he’s turned his attention to the guy next to him, nodding at whatever he’s saying intently. It stokes the frustration in you, and you can’t help but draw your face into a scowl — an entire 180 from how you’d just been laughing at a non-joke.

Before your new friend can respond to your maniacal answer, you push yourself off the bartop and turn towards him.

“I’m gonna run to the bathroom really quick, okay?”

As you wash your hands, the door to the bathroom opens quickly, and Joel ducks inside, throwing a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure no one sees. He pushes it closed behind him, fingers clicking the lock shut like he owns the place.

“Oh,” you gasp in surprise, stepping back from the sink and wiping your hands across the material of your dress. “I didn’t…you’re not…Joel!”

His name comes out of your mouth as a yelp as he crowds you back against the counter, his hands already roaming over the hills and valleys of your body. Wasting no time.

“Baby,” he coos, dipping his head to trail kisses up the curve of your shoulder, “been waitin’ all night for you to go to the fuckin’ bathroom.”

You curl your fingers into his biceps to keep yourself steady while he presses wet kisses to your throat and jaw, before landing at your mouth. Gripping your hips tightly, his thigh nudges between yours, spreading you open. You do what you can to meet his fervor, but as with everything else, he’s domineering — completely in control.

His thick hands drag you up his thigh, into him, and the friction of his jeans against you makes you bite back a moan. He repeats the action with more intensity, obviously dismayed that you’re holding back, quickly establishing a grueling rhythm.

Squirming under his hold, he tastes the desperation on your tongue, and when you finally break and whimper into his mouth, he growls back into yours.

He has you exactly where he wants you — writhing in his arms, soft and compliant to what he needs.

At least, he thinks he does.

You dig your fingernails into the flannel stretched over his arms, steeling your body to his movements, pulling away from the heat of his mouth.

“Joel,” it’s a drawn out lilt, one that he’ll never get tired of hearing.

“Saw you over there tryna make me jealous, princesa,” he mutters, chest heaving against your own. He drops his mouth to press against the burning skin of your collarbone, and you can feel the stretched restraint in his muscled body.

“Wasn’t trying to make you jealous, Joel,” you protest quietly, though you both know it’s the furthest thing from the truth.

He laughs darkly, his breath fanning against your flesh. “Saw you touchin’ all up on some stranger.”

“I was just being nice. He bought me a drink.” You’re pouting now, sliding your open palms to press against the solidity of Joel’s chest.

He whips your body around so quickly that you have to shoot your arms out to the counter to catch yourself. The mirror greets you, and it’s impossible to miss your glowing skin and kiss-swollen lips. It doesn’t take anything for him to make you look entirely fucked out.

Hooking his chin over your shoulder, front pressed flush to your back, he drags his hands up the sides of your body, stopping to rest just below your breasts. His fingers splay out across your rib cage, nearly meeting in the middle.

Eyes meeting yours in the mirror, he smirks.

“Look what I do to you, baby. No one else can do that. Look at yourself.”

He rolls his hips against the swell of your ass, and you can feel his length through his jeans.

Your vision goes cloudy, the want you’ve been feeling all week flooding every part of your brain. You drop your head between your shoulders, relishing the feel of him pressed into you. But he quickly cranes your chin back up in his hands, angling your head to watch the glistening reflection of the two of you.

“Eyes on me, baby,” he says thickly, commandingly, as he continues to move against you. You obey.

“Can’t make me jealous, princess.”

Anger flares in your chest, slowly ebbing into embarrassment. Of course he would see right through you. You should have known better. You don’t break eye contact.

“That picture I have ‘f you? That tells me you’re mine. Can’t make me jealous when I know what belongs t’me.”

You inhale sharply. Hearing him say it, hearing him mean it, sends shivers over the entirety of your body.

“Why’d it take you so long to come over to me, then?”

His eyes flash. “Don’t be a fuckin’ brat, baby.”

Dropping his clutch from your chin to the top of your dress, he uses both hands to scoop your tits out over the bodice of it, palming the weight of them roughly. He rolls your nipples in his fingers, and you have dejavú of the week before.

This time you can see the way his fingers move, the way he watches your face in the reflection of the mirror more than anything else.

You moan, arching your back against his chest, and he drops one hand further to bunch the length of your dress over your ass.

Feeling entirely bare skin, he hisses through his teeth and pulls back to look.

“No panties, baby?”

You smile darkly. “Didn’t want you to ruin another pair.”

“Fuuuuck,” he mumbles, leaning down to flick his tongue against the base of your spine. “Knew you were fuckin’ trouble.”

He rucks your dress up higher, following the hem of it with open mouth kisses and demanding nips. You can feel your dripping slick on the insides of your thighs, and as if he can read your mind, he lays one open palm across your back to press your cheek down into the counter, slotting the other between your thighs to open you up for him. Your breathing quickens, knowing how on display you are.

How under his thumb you are.

Teasing the rough pads of his fingers against your core, electricity rolls through your extremities. Between the flush of the alcohol and the thrill of his touch, you know you’re done for.

“See, baby? How wet y’are? Know it’s only for me.”

Anticipation coils in the pit of your belly, waiting for him to plunge a thick finger inside of you. You squeeze your eyes shut, laser focused on every nudge and slip of his digits.

Instead, you feel him replace his finger with the thick heft of his cock at your entrance, your hands unsuccessfully scrambling for purchase on the slick marble of the counter.

“Joel,” you yelp, the delicious stretch of it seared into your mind, “I..I don’t kn-”

“You can take it, princess,” he interrupts gruffly. “You can.”

You respond with a strangled noise, knees buckling under the warning press of his palm on your back.

Reading the apprehension in your body, Joel grazes the fingers of his other hand over the curve of your hip, rubbing reassuring circles into your flesh. They dance up over your belly, finally grasping at your ribs. His mouth follows, gentle kitten licks that calm your breathing, until he stops right below where your breasts are compressed against the counter, sinking his teeth there into the soft give of you.

Both of his hands float back down to your hips, pressing their length into your bones roughly, dragging your ass back to push the tip inside of your slick folds.

Your eyes fly open, and you mewl as his teeth give way to an intense sucking sensation, as if he’s intent on marking you.

Knowing him, he is.

“Okay, baby?” he murmurs against your skin, once he’s satisfied with what you can feel is an angry red mark on your rib cage, sliding his hips forward to give you another inch, working you open, open, open.

“‘F we had more time, you know I’d do it right,” he continues, an almost tender cadence to his harsh whisper.

You nod, cheek still smooshed against the countertop, tears pricking at the backs of your eyes. He’s so fucking much.

His breath hitches as he buries himself further, the tight quiver of your perfect pussy making him see stars. He stills for just a moment, letting you adjust to him, lamenting the fact that he couldn’t get his fingers or tongue in you this time. But he’s so very desperate, has been waiting for this for far too long.

He wants to take you home with him, wrap you in his bedsheets. Undo you over and over and over.

For now, though, he will make do with what he has. And what he has is you, wet and needy beneath him, taking his cock like a good girl. Like a perfect girl.

“Joel,” you whisper, snapping him out of his reverie. “More. More please.”

You’re dizzy with need, aching to feel him stretch you open entirely.

He can taste the salt of sweat on your skin, the light sheen of it glittering under the fluorescent bar lights. It makes his heart ache with something he can’t name.

Rolling his head to press his forehead against your back, he can’t help but breathe you in. This is where he wants to be forever — pressed into you, feeling you tremble and keen for him. For him, and only him.

Unable to hold back any longer, he draws his body up, sliding inside to the hilt, pelvis pressed flush to your ass.

There are tears trickling from beneath your closed eyelids now, and he wants to lick them off your face, smooth out the pain in your features. Your body is taut, wound around the throbbing need you’re both feeling, your hands clenched into fists next to your head.

But he watches as you slowly drag your bottom lip between your teeth, sighing contently, savoring the sparks of pain from the size of him. Fucking perfect.

His entire cock has disappeared into your warmth, and you squeeze him like you were made to do so.

“So fuckin’ tight,” he manages to spit out, setting a pace that feels like you’re being split open. It’s exactly what you need.

You rock your hips, pushing back against his thrusts, thigh muscles screaming.

“So full,” you babble back, his hips snapping against the plush of your ass. Giving you everything you need, everything you’ve craved. His tip nudges the furthest part of you, and fireworks explode in your stomach. Your moans pick up at the same pace as his thrusts, and his grip tightens around your hips.

“C’mere baby,” he hums, arcing his arm across your chest to drag you up to him. You can feel the desperation in his movements, the stuttering of his hips as the new angle squeezes his cock deliciously.

He curls his fingers around the base of your throat, and for the first time, you see how absolutely fucked he looks. Black pupils blown wide with lust, strong jaw set to the side, hair mussed more than usual, stray curls clinging to his sweat-damp forehead. He’s beautiful, you think, but your brain can’t connect to your mouth to say so.

His palm spans the width of your throat, and he gently tightens his hold with each deep thrust into you. You raise your arms to card through his hair, clutching to him to ground yourself. His other hand grasps at your tits, caressing and pulling at your hard nipples.

Your legs are shaking with the intensity of it all, with the salacious way he massages your walls with the length of his cock. He’s watching you in the mirror, eyes fixed on the way you tremble around him, the way you grip him like you’ll melt into a puddle on the floor if you let go.

“So fuck…fuckin’ perfect for me, baby. Bein’ s-such a good…good girl,” he pants, and you bask in his praise, letting it fill you from the inside out.

The fingers he has wrapped around your throat inch up to your bitten, parted lips, and you open to accept three of them obediently, his pinkie and thumb clenched firmly around the lines of your jaw.

You wrap your tongue around the digits, saliva pooling in your mouth and dripping down your chin.

He’s so fucking much, and you want to give him everything.

“Say it, baby,” he growls, pressing the calloused pads of his fingers to the broad flat of your tongue. “Fuckin’ say it.”

You meet his fiery eyes in the mirror, brows knitted together in a question.

“Say it,” he repeats, the fingers not in your mouth digging into your jaw. Demanding it.

And like he’s impressing it upon your skin, burning it into your insides, you know what he wants to hear.

“‘M yours, Joel,” you whisper, words mangled by the way he pushes down on the wet muscle in your mouth. “Only yours.”

Dropping his other hand, he ghosts his fingertips over the slight bulge in your tummy, where his cock is nestled. The knowledge that you’re so full of him makes him quicken his rhythm, hips snapping against your ass ruthlessly. Giving you everything he has.

“Princess,” he whispers, nuzzling into your ear. “Gimme your hand.”

He traces up the soft lines of your arm, gently removing one of your hands from his curls, and pulls it down to feel the thick outline of his cock just beneath your belly. He keeps his hand over yours, and you press your own fingers into your flesh, in awe that you’ve taken the whole thing.

Every nerve in your body is a live wire, and you’re suddenly on the very precipice of your orgasm, his hand over yours being what pushes you over the edge.

Fingers still in your mouth, you drop your head back onto his shoulder, moaning around the shape of them, crying out, cunt strangling his already erratic movements as he races to catch up with you at the finish line.

It’s sloppy, saliva still dripping down your chin, your body cresting the wave of your orgasm, his stuttering movements fucking you all the way through it. You go limp as it washes through you, and he’s holding you up for the last few thrusts, growling into your ear and biting at your neck.

All-consuming.

Pulling his fingers from your mouth, he wraps both arms around you, holding you tightly against him, knowing that you really will melt if he lets you go. He can feel his own orgasm at the base of his spine, crawling up, up, up the column of it, until he’s there, spilling recklessly inside your swollen pussy, pushing himself further into you, making sure it stays.

He doesn’t need to tell you, because you already know.

The warmth of it shoots through his body, and it feels like heaven, buried to the hilt inside of you.

He runs his palms down your sides as you both come down, and even the slight touch makes you shiver. You prop yourself up on your arms again, the tips of your fingers numb from the earth-shattering orgasm.

A smile tugs at the corners of your mouth, satiated and soft.

Joel presses tender kisses across your shoulder blades, hands aimlessly drawing shapes into your plush hips, loathe to pull out of you.

But knowing he must, that his time with you is almost up, he does, drawing his hips back excruciatingly slowly, savoring every second of being inside of you, in whatever capacity. You hiss as he does, feeling so disappointingly empty and stretched open.

Gently caressing the globes of your ass, his palms fitting over them perfectly, he bends down to give you a final nip, laving his tongue over what he hopes will be a mark. You giggle warmly, hands meeting to pull the bodice of your dress back up over your tender breasts, while he pulls the length of it back down to your thighs.

Finally regaining the strength in your legs, you turn to face him, standing on the toes of your platforms to meet him in a kiss, him pulling your bottom lip between his own, sucking gently.

“Joel,” you mumble against him, his name an antidote to the poison of the longest week of your life.

“Baby,” he responds, encircling you with his arms, drawing you closer to him. Not wanting to let you go.

“We have to go” you whisper, pressing kisses across his jaw, his scruff pleasantly abrading your soft lips.

He grumbles an agreement, but doesn’t take his hands off of you.

“Keep my cum inside you,” is what he does say, after a millisecond of silence, as if it was burning his tongue. Like it needed to be said.

You giggle again, supplicant and sweet. Spun sugar on the tips of his fingers. Unwrapping yourself from his arms, you tug his boxers and jeans up, and his fingers fumble to help you. You let your hands wander up the plane of his chest while he clicks his belt into place, wondering how you’ll both fare this weekend.

“Can’t go that long again, princess,” he says, stroking the wild tangle of hair framing your face. “Need you.”

The admission nearly astonishes you. You’ve never seen Joel be so open, so vulnerable, so absolutely fucking wrecked.

“‘N…next time won’t be so…rushed. Wanna take my time with you.”

You believe him.

Hoping your action conveys that message, you press one final kiss to the heart-shaped space in his scruff, before turning to tame the locks of your hair and fix your smudged mascara in the mirror.

“You have my number, Joel.”

taglist: @jasminedragoon @loveisacowboyyy @scarletthefierce @thecasualnope

[mothiepixie]

With New Year's approaching, I was super curious.

How would each of the Sans spend New Year's with Mottie?

Love your work! (I live on a ranch and Farmer has my heart right now)

Thank you so much!! He's definitely my comfort character right now 🥹

I hope you enjoy this and also I hope you have a wonderful New Years! 🎆

Sans🛋:

He likes to keep things really simple. He loves parties but he's definitely the type to be glued to the couch and watch everyone from a distance. This includes watching Motti interact with others. There's just something about watching the way she interacts with each person that fills him with a sense of ease.

But as it strikes closer to midnight, he'll leave his spot and ask Motti to come with him. He'll shortcut her to the roof and wrap a blanket around them both. As it strikes midnight the fireworks in the neighboring city go off, and he'll kiss her cheek. (Which she steals a full on kiss in return)

Big Red🔭:

He's not a fan of boring get-togethers and just chilling with his family. He's more used to living it up at the bar, where everyone is sloshed to the nines. But he knows that's not Motti's jam, and that she's not a fan of loud and rowdy places. He'll do something different for her, and for himself, by taking her to the mountains where the light pollution doesn't reach.

In the back of the truck, he's got blankets and his telescope set up. He's unsure by the whole thing and trying to save face that he's not at all embarrassed by this display of love, but he gradually becomes more relaxed as the night goes on. Once it hits midnight he's about to kiss her when Motti beats him to it. It throws him off and makes him super flustered.

Boysen🍷:

The week leading up to this he has been mad busy with work, but even so, he made arrangements at a popular and expensive restaurant. He has rented out the entire rooftop for the evening and it will be just Motti and him. He messages her the day of and says to be ready and dress up. He may or may have not sent her several outfits and jewelry for her to choose from. Boysen will come home and quickly get ready himself, and shoot glances at Motti when she makes remarks she's ready before he is.

The evening is spent dining and making quips at each other while they enjoy a fire in front of them. The location he chose has the best view once midnight hits and the fireworks go off, but both of them were long locked lips that they never saw them. 💋

Farmer🌾:

Everyone is gathered outside at his and Pap's place, and have set up a movie projector and snacks galore. No one is really paying attention to the movie, which is fine because it's just there for anyone's enjoyment. However, Motti will be wondering where Sans is though. He has rarely been seen all night and so, she ends up finding him on the veranda sitting on the porch swing.

He beckons her over and while she's getting situated he pulls out a thermos and pour some hot apple cider. While curious, Motti will ask if he's not enjoying the festivities and he tells her that it's nice to have everyone here, but he just wants to see the new years with just her. Motti will rest her head on his shoulder and he rests his head on top of hers. They both go into the new year looking at the stars and hearing the distant cheering at midnight.

Dream⏳️:

It's not really something he celebrates since acknowledging the passage of time is a mortal thing. However, that doesn't mean he does not care when it's important to Motti greeting a new year. He'll hang around at the party she's throwing, but he's standing off to the side like a pretty wallflower and observing the festivities.

He has a red cup in his hands, but he more or less has it to feel like he's fitting in. The party has started off fun, but he's just around so many people, and in an enclosed area, that his empathic abilities are starting to overwhelm his senses.

Motti takes note that Dream is looking off and takes him elsewhere that is vastly more secluded. She gives him the option to leave, but he refuses. Every second, every minute with Motti is important and that means celebrating the concept of time with her no matter what.

Cross😵‍💫:

To be honest, he gets invited to the party and has a grand time, but he's inwardly nervous. He was just told about the tradition of kissing at midnight and he spends majority of the time hyping himself up to kiss her.

He's overthinking about it; does he just swoop her up and kiss her? Maybe dipping her??? He could also spin her around and into his arms before cooly and awesomely placing a big fat kiss on her lips.

But he starts thinking of all the ways he could mess up and now in a mix of confidence rising at one thought and shattering his own self-esteem the next.

With midnight just minutes away, he's standing near Motti wondering what tactic to choose, and when the clock strikes midnight he's frozen in performance anxiety. Motti doesn't hesitate and grabs his shirt collar and pulls him in for a deep kiss. He was worried for nothing.

Error🆘️:

He doesn't care much for it. Hell, he doesn't really even remember what's the point of celebrating when he was trapped in the anti-void. But Motti is yapping about the importance of celebrating and he begrudgingly finds himself wearing a party hat and party horn stuck in his mouth.

He hates it he doesnt, it's not fun at all he's having a blast and doesn't like the streamers Motti put up or the table filled with his favorite snacks he already devoured the chocolate. He's sitting on his bean bag like a perturbed cat being disturbed during their nap. But Motti mentions she wanted to spend it with just him and part of him wants to believe it so badly. Motti asks if she can give him a kiss on the cheek and he becomes a flustered mess, and begins short circuiting at the thought.

Ink🌌:

He takes Motti through multiple AUs and changes their outfits to fit each occasion. He's party crashing and eating the food, while Motti is trying to play devil's advocate and calm down all the people Ink has upset.

By the end of the night, she is growing exhausted, but Ink will take her to Outertale and he finally calms down. Motti gets to enjoy the beauty of space and finally relax. He will paint the scenery before him, including Motti, effortlessly and gift it to her.

Nightmare🥷:

To be honest, he will swoop in at the stroke of midnight and steal Motti away right in front of everyone. He relishes in their shock expressions and rash responses.

He spends the rest of the night huddling a pouty Motti to his chest, chuckling the whole time.

[thatturtleleon]

TFP Human Hcs Pt. 2

Note: I love this scene, just look at them LMAO, also here's pt.1

Raf

so this is a bit of a newer headcanon i have of him, but i feel like he's transmasc or genderfluid

raf never really cared about gender roles and things like that, but he overheard miko talking about how she didn't mind being called a girl or a boy or whatever people wanted to call her

he asked her about it and she replied saying she knew herself better than anyone else so it didn't matter what other people thought or wanted to label her, she knew who she was and that's the important part

miko then went back to talking about monster trucks or something and raf's just *cue the mind blown emoji*

lol i love them

he definitely went as the Dr Emmett guy from back to the future or as some mad scientist character for halloween

is actually pretty ok at drawing, just doesn't enjoy it as a hobby that much

LOVES learning about cybertron and its history and everything about it

at first ratchet thought all of raf's questions were annoying but grew to appreciate his curiosity

raf prefers asking ratchet any questions he has about cybertron because optimus goes on telling a long memory/story and trails off from the original question (raf's a sweet kid tho, he listens through the whole thing), while ratchet gives more straightforward answers

dog person

Jack

him and miko have "try not to laugh" challenges (raf's the judge) and usually wins

one time however, miko did something unintentionally funny while doing the challenge and jack let out the loudest screeching laugh they've ever heard, like the type of laugh that bubbles up and explodes when you're trying to hold it in

dated sierra for a little while, then sierra came out as lesbian, they still remained good friends though

(leon try not to HC every girl as a lesbian challenge, failed.)

considered going into the medical field like his mom did but decided it wasn't for him later on

in the future he eventually got a job with the government thanks to agent fowler

goes to drive-in theaters with raf and bumblebee but always ends up falling asleep

bought a mini blue motorcycle figurine and carries it in his bag

cat and dog person

favorite song is "roll on (eighteen wheeler)" by Alabama

discovered that he and optimus had similar taste in music (country music ofc) and plays some songs in the base if it's just him

Miko

makes fun of jack for liking country music

cat person (canonly has cats i believe) but she loves dogs too, except for the crusty tiny white dogs that old people have

drew bulkhead and herself together fighting some decepticons and framed the picture for him as a gift

he cried lol

speaking of gifts, she told the bots about birthdays and all of them immediately wanted to know when all the kid's birthdays were

bulkhead and some of the others took her to a monster truck event and she had the time of her life it was amazing

actually got jack into some of the music she likes, and they like going to smaller concerts around town

she bonds with raf by getting into comics and graphic novels, they both enjoy sci-fi ones

definitely doodles all over her desk at school, especially when she's in detention

although she's VERRYY extroverted, whenever she gets a crush on someone or thinks they're pretty, she gets a little quieter/shyer; not a lot but you can tell

jams out to metal music with bulkhead (canon)

i don't remember if this is canon or not, but she has a bag with pins and stuff she's collected over the years

her bookbag has doodle marks all over it, like little stars and swirls and stuff, very much a miko bookbag

[crappymixtape]

i hate you ( not )

REQUEST → anonymous, 500 FOLLOWER CELEBRATION ❝ love a good enemies to lovers smutty fic – anything works, just lots of sarcasm and name calling to build up the tension • 18+ | ( 3.6k – a nice lil mountain of angst that rolls down into a big ol’ valley of smut, steve x reader )

I H A T E Y O U ( N O T ) 🎶 dopamine, julius black

“Are you seriously following me right now?” you didn’t even bother looking over your shoulder as you shouted over the crunch of Steve’s shoes in the gravel behind you trying to catch up.

He was fucking impossible. Always finding a way to get under your skin. Telling you the way you stocked the shelves at Family Video was wrong. Making fun of your beater of a car. Chewing his chips so loudly in the break room you thought it’d make you go certifiably insane. Always obnoxious, but easily dealt with til now. When he’d gone too far.

A party down at the quarry. Too much beer and smoke and haze and the crack of the bonfire against the inky black sky. You were trying to talk to a boy you’d run into at the store, a cute boy. One that didn’t smack his lips or slurp his soda. One that didn’t look at you like you were the bane of his existence and it had been going so well for once.

Had been.

Until Steve.

“Yeah, they’re so fucking good live. Maybe I can take you next time they’re in town?”

“I’d love that,” your stomach flipped over, grin pulling at the corners of your lips as Liam looked down at you through his dark curls. Smiled at you warm and soft. Eyes deep and green, like the trees along the fence line at night and god, it was just nice to be treated like this for once.

“You don’t even like them,” Steve’s voice cut in as he stepped up next to you beer in hand, and your cheeks burned. Bright red, embarrassed and angry.

Liam looked over at Steve, confusion pinching between his brows and then glanced down at you.

“Oh, I thought you said–”

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” you insisted, turning your back to Steve and trying your best to smile up at Liam, but the warmth on his face had faded.

“Okay,” Liam said, drawing out the vowel. Drinking the rest of his beer he tossed the can into the fire and jammed his hands into his pockets, “Well. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

“Wait! A-are you leaving? You just got here,” you protested, trying not to sound desperate. Liam was so sweet and all you wanted for once was just to have a nice time, but he was already turning to walk back up the hill.

“Yeah, sorry. I gotta be up early for work. I’ll call you,” he said, but you knew he wouldn’t as he forced a smile. Gave you a small half wave before heading across the gravel of the quarry and up to his truck.

“But–don’t you want to–” you stopped yourself short knowing it was useless. Steve chuckled behind you and you felt heat rise in your chest again.

Eyes squeezing shut and hands balled into fists, your nails pressed half moons into your palms as you spun back around to Steve. The glare you gave him wiped the grin right off his face and his lips twisted into a scowl.

“What?” he asked stupidly and you huffed a sound of disbelief.

“What d’you mean, what?” you shot back, taking a few steps toward him, “You just fucked that up for me. On purpose!”

“I did you a favor, that guy’s an idiot,” Steve grumbled and you laughed then. A hollow, humorless one that pushed itself from your lungs.

“You’re a real dick, Harrington,” you said, stepping up to him in defiance and he crowded down over you. Looked at you like a challenge. Eyes lit up bright in the firelight. Melted caramel. Amber. Whiskey and honey and you didn’t shy away from it.

“Oh, yeah? Well you’re no ray of sunshine, princess,” he was close enough now you could feel his breath warm over your cheek and the air grew thick, too hot, and it had nothing to do with the summer heat or the fire.

“Asshole,” you half whispered, using what little resolve you had left to tear away from him and stalk up the same hill Liam had toward your car, leaving Steve behind in a lurch.

You could hear gravel crunching behind you, the slip and slide of rock on rock punctuated by Steve’s sharp breaths.

“Are you seriously following me right now?”

“Yeah, if you just–Jesus Christ–slow down!” Steve’s feet skidded as he nearly tripped, but you kept going, digging in your purse for your keys.

You didn’t want to stay, didn’t want to hear whatever bullshit excuse he had loaded. You couldn’t. Not without ripping into him. Fumbling your key in your hand you jammed it into the lock just as Steve caught up, hands on his hips as he sucked in gasps of air.

“C’mon. Can you just–can you just gimme a minute?” he asked, out of breath and tone edging on pleading, but you resisted turning around.

“Why the hell would I do that?” you asked against your car door.

“Shit, princess. D’you really hate me that much?” his tone was even softer this time and you shook your head.

“Only as much as you hate me,” you snapped.

Finally getting the lock undone, you tried to wrench the door open, but Steve’s hand stopped you. Pressed into yours and kept it shut.

“God, what’s your problem?” you turned to hurl daggers at him, but the words died in your throat when you realized just how close he was.

Toes bumping into yours, hair falling all messy across his forehead, chest still heaving with the effort of jogging up the hill and everything blurred. Dizzy and spinning and even though you hadn’t been the one running, you couldn’t catch your breath.

“I don’t have one,” he said voice low and you felt your lips fall open at the way it made your stomach twist.

The anger that had settled in your chest shifting into something else. Something that felt dangerous. Swallowing thick you tried to shake your head, shake him, and you pulled your hand away from his.

“Sure seems like it,” you mumbled, mouth firmed in a line, trying so hard to stand your ground.

His brows pinched together. A mixture of frustration, uncertainty. Struggling to put words to the feelings that were squeezing in his chest, just as conflicted as you were. He looked at you through the long sweep of his lashes, eyes searching yours and bit at the inside of his cheek.

He thought he’d been in love with you the minute you walked into Family Video. Wearing your cut off jeans and an old baggy Hawkins High basketball jersey. Hair pulled up away from your face so that he could see the soft curve of your shoulders, the baby hairs that curled at the nape of your neck. You looked grumpy, frustrated, and the frown twisting across your lips drove him crazy. So did the heat in your tone as you talked to Keith, telling him you wanted was ‘a stupid job’ to pay for your ‘stupid bills’ and god if he didn’t feel stupid for staring.

There was no way you didn’t have a boyfriend. You were too hot. Too funny and sharp and cool. Hell, even if you didn’t have a boyfriend he figured there was no way he’d have a chance, so he did what he always did. Acted like he didn’t care. Needled you, pestered you, got under your skin. Got a little mean with it, but he hadn’t expected it to backfire. Hadn’t expected you play back and fuck if it didn’t make it worse.

Took to calling you Princess because he loved the way you glared at him.

Ate half your lunch just so he had an excuse to walk you across the street for a bag of chips.

Said you did things wrong just so you’d shove at him, tell him ‘if he was so good at it why didn’t he show you?’

And when he finally figured out you were single he felt like he’d fucked up. Like he’d taken it too far and there was no way he could be what he really wanted to be for you. No way to tell you how badly he wanted to take you out. How badly he wanted to treat you right. Hold your hand and call you baby.

Hey, baby.

How much he wished he could press his lips into yours and see if you tasted all sweet and tart at the same time. Sour on the outside, sugar on the inside. How he wanted to run his hands up your legs, feel you under him, tell you things that’d pull sweet sounds from your lips, but now you were here at this stupid party. Now there was Liam and he couldn’t help it.

Anything to keep him away from you and now he felt like he was answering for everything.

“See?” you insisted at his hesitation, huffing a sigh and turning back into your car, but Steve grabbed at your hand and spun you around again.

“S’not you!” he said a little too loud, cheeks burning with his admission and he bit his lips between his teeth, “It’s everybody else.”

Your face shifted skeptical, a little cynical, but he was so damn close. Too close and you tried to pull in a breath. Tried to hold onto your anger, but it slipped through your fingers like water. Scattered like wishes on a breeze as the scent of his cologne made you go all hazy. The look in his eyes pouring into you like kerosene on a fire. Made you want to grab fistfuls of his shirt in your hands and feel the full weight of him on you and–

“I don’t see what that’s gotta do with me,” you sniped, trying to keep your tone short, but it came out softer and he took the opportunity and ran with it.

“Everything, actually,” his lips tugged up into a small sheepish smile, but dropped again as he realized there was more to say. “I know I’m a dick–”

“You think?” you cut in and he leveled you with a look.

“Thanks,” he muttered and it pulled a little grin from you, but the next thing he said wiped it off your face, “M’sorry,” and your stomach flipped over at the way he was looking at you. “I just…I wish it were me,” he said, lifting a hand to your cheek and tucking a few stray locks of hair behind your ear.

Wish it were me. Your heart was racing.

“Wish what was you?” you whispered. Afraid to hear the answer. Holding your breath as he leaned in. Nose nearly brushing over your cheek. Close enough to kiss you if he wanted and god did you want him to.

“The one askin’ you out,” he whispered back and it struck you silent.

How was that possible? He was awful. Annoying and irritating and obnoxious and now he was telling you he wanted to ask you out?

“So ask me, Harrington,” you murmured and watched as his brows lifted in surprise, lips parted into a little ‘o’ as his brain raced to catch up.

“Wai–what?” he stumbled over his words and you pressed a hand to his chest.

“Ask me,” you said again and he huffed a laugh, tongue jammed into his cheek as he looked back down at you.

“Okay,” he managed, licking over his lips as he gathered himself back up, “C-Can I take you out?”

“Mmhm,” you murmured, nerves giving way to confidence and you pulled him down into you a little closer. Pressed your lips against his ear and whispered, “Kiss me.” And it nearly knocked him over.

Pulling away you looked up at him, whispered his name like a question and it blew his pupils wide. Dark at the center and fringed in gold and it was enough to make him lean back down. Soft and tentative at first, but bolder and braver when you sighed into him.

An exhale. A release. A realization of what you’d wanted this whole time and it made you grab his shirt in your hands, tilting your head to deepen the kiss and the sounds you pulled from each other were greedy.

More more more.

Hands splaying out over his chest you slid them up his shoulders and into his hair, pulling it lightly as his tongue licked into you and the moan he loosed made you press your thighs together.

“Shit,” he hissed, fingers pressing into the plush of your hips, mouth dragging hot down your neck and across your collarbone. Kisses messy and slipping on your skin and god you needed him. “Christ, princess, you drive me crazy,” he admitted and you grinned, all smug and holding the upper hand, but then he slotted a leg between your thighs and you lost it.

You felt like you couldn’t breathe. Felt like he was the only thing keeping you from falling away and it made you hold onto him tighter. You could still hear the laughter and the music down at the bonfire, but it sounded so far away. Both of you hidden in the thick, indigo shadows that fell out under the stand of trees, dark enough to not care what you were about to ask.

“Steve,” you pulled away just enough to speak and he stopped, both of you panting short breaths into the space between you.

“Sorry, can slow down if you want–”

“No–shit–” you squeezed your eyes shut to focus, “Don’t stop.” Swallowing thick you opened your eyes again and looked right up at him, “Just get in.”

Hands slipping against your car you fumbled to open the door to the backseat and half shoved him in before piling in after. When you closed it behind you the small space was suddenly filled with the sounds of your breaths. Quick and nervous and anticipating.

Steve sat on the bench, just as anxious as you were, and watched with heavy lidded eyes as you climbed over him. Straddled him with a leg on either side. Your dress hitching up and bunching at your hips and all he could do was grab onto your thighs for dear life. Pressing a hand into the seat behind his head you bit your lip between your teeth and pulled in a steadying breath.

“Here,” you whispered, taking one of his hands and sliding it between your legs. Making him feel the heat that had pooled there, showing him what he was doing to you and he groaned. A filthy sound that fell from his lips as he pressed his fingers against your soaked panties.

“Fuck,” he rasped, already wrecked from feeling how wet you were. “Okayokayokay. So fuckin’ hot, babe. Shit,” nonsense fell from his lips and you had half a mind to laugh at him, but his fingers were pulling your panties aside and touching you not your panties and it pulled a gasp from you.

At the sound his eyes darted up to look at you, make sure you were okay and you put your hand back over his. Moving his fingers in slow circles as they slipped against your slick.

“Like that?” he asked eyes still on you, keeping up the motion as your hand fell away.

You tried to say yes, but it melted into another moan and he leaned in to press a kiss to your neck. Mouth open and messy. Licking against the softness of your skin and sucking a bruise on it.

“Tell me,” he said into the hollow behind your ear, trailing kisses as he went, your hips rocking against his fingers as his circles grew tighter and faster.

“Like that–ye–yeah–yes. God, don’t stop,” you stuttered over your words hands moving to grip onto his shoulders as he slipped first one then two fingers inside of you.

He filled you up better than you could at home, your cheek pressed into your pillow, tears welling up in your eyes in frustration as you struggled to reach the spot you wanted. The hot drag of him sliding in and out in and out made you see white, made your tighten your hold on him and as you loosed another moan he bucked up into you.

You could feel how hard he was through his jeans against the bare skin of your thigh and it only made you want him more. “Steve,” you leaned forward and pressed your forehead to his, “Please tell me you have a condom.”

His fingers stopped moving and he loosed a heavy sigh, swallowing down the nerves that had pushed themselves into his throat. “Yeah, course, lemme just–” lifting his hips, and you, from the seat he yanked his wallet out of his back pocket.

He had stopped carrying them around after high school. Felt like it was fucking juvenile, but one time after Steve had watched you leave work, put his returns in the wrong spot and upside down, Robin had thrown one across the store at him. “Here, dingus,” she’d grumbled, “Don’t be an idiot.” And he’d been so embarrassed, afraid to tell her he didn’t think he’d ever need it, but he silently thanked her now. Always saving his ass.

Gently nudging you back into the headrests on the front seats he put his wallet down and fumbled his fingers against the button on his jeans. He was hard as a rock and when he undid his zipper it sprang out without any encouragement.

You couldn’t take your eyes off him as he ripped the foil of the condom wrapper between his teeth and thumb. Of course he drove you crazy at work, but you couldn’t deny you’d thought about him when you were alone in your room. Touching yourself beneath the sheets. Fantasizing about what it would be like and now that you were seeing it for real your heart hammered in your chest, legs slipping together as you grew wetter by the second.

He wrapped a hand around his length pumping once, twice, three times before rolling the condom down from tip to root and looking back up at you.

“Y’okay?” he asked, hands moving to hold onto your hips and you realized how ridiculous you must’ve looked.

“Mmhm,” you murmured and let him pull you slowly back into his lap.

“Gotta tell me if you aren’t,” he whispered and you nodded as he gave you a little smile, brushed your hair out of your face and looked just a little longer. “So pretty,” he said softly, words lighting a fire in your chest, and you pressed a kiss to him again. Sucking on his bottom lip and letting it go with a dirty pop and he thought he was going to come right there on the spot. “Sh–shit, okayokay,” he breathed, pressing his tip against your entrance, hesitating just a little and you helped him the rest of the way, pushing down slowly.

You watched as he filled you up, stretched you out until he was buried deep inside you, the tight fit making you squirm over him.

“Ohhh god, so tight, feel so good babe, Christ,” he rambled and you chuckled a little until he hit the soft, squishy spot at the back of you and you moaned loudly. Fell forward onto his chest and rolled your hips forward, silently begging him to move as if he could do anything else. “I got you,” he promised.

Hands gripping your hips again he slowly turned and lowered you down, your back against the seat bench, his arms on either side of you to hold himself up. Murmured soft, dirty things under his breath as he crowded over you, started rocking his hips into you, the wet sounds of you filling up the car.

“Wish you’d asked me sooner,” you whined, wrapping your legs around his waist and he gave you a smug little smile.

“Yeah? Worth the wait?” he asked, breath hitching in his throat as he picked up the pace, fronts of his thighs slapping against the backs of yours.

“Shut up,” you gasped as he bottomed out inside of you. Tangling your fingers into his hair you pulled and it dragged a groan from him as he started to fuck you faster. Slipping a hand between your legs you drew tight, messy circles over your clit, pushing yourself closer and closer to the edge. “Ste–shit. Steve, harder,” you practically begged and the pleading tone in your voice sent him.

“Harder,” he said back, it was all he could muster, wrecked and chest heaving with each breath he sucked in, fucking into you with heavy thrusts, “M’so close.”

Opening your mouth a so close almost fell from your lips too, but the coil in your stomach had been so tightly wound that the combination of your fingers over your clit and Steve finally made it snap.

You clenched tight around him as you both rode out your climax. Head pressed against the seat and eyes rolling back to look out the window at the stars. The moon as it hung lazy in the sky. Steve spilling sweet words of praise into your ears and bringing you back down to earth. Wrapping you up soft and warm in his voice.

He rested his forehead against yours, both of your brows dewy with sweat, and let out a contented sigh as he softened inside you.

“Wish I’d asked you sooner too,” he murmured, poking fun at himself with your words from earlier and you leaned up to press a kiss to the corner of his lips.

“Worth the wait,” you finally agreed and he grinned.

God damn, was it worth the wait.

crappymixtape™ • steve harrington masterlist // stranger things masterlist

[a-reader-and-a-writer]

The Middle of Nowhere (Part 1)

AI-Less Whumptober 2023: 1, 27 (details at bottom) Fandom: Top Gun, Top Gun: Maverick, Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Reader (no relationships) Summary: Best friends Bradley and Jake arrive in a snowy forest for one of their monthly trips together. And now that everything is all set, it's time to let the fun begin... Word Count: 1523 TW: The warnings are in the tags and at the bottom of fic, but please avoid if possible due to spoilers Notes: This is the first part of a mini-series (linked below). I am EXTREMELY proud and excited about this series and hope you enjoy! Huge thank you to @loverhymeswith and @lorecraft for all of your help!💕 Part of @ailesswhumptober's event

Series Masterlist

“Come on, man. I’m freezing my balls off out here.” Jake jams his hands into his jacket pockets as he bounces lightly on the balls of his feet, his breath pluming in front of his face. “Can’t we wait and do this during the day when it’s warmer?”

Pulling the Army surplus bag from the backseat of the pickup truck, Bradley rolls his eyes at his friend. “What, and increase the chances of someone stumbling across us? Don’t be stupid. Just be glad it’s a full moon so we can actually see what we’re doing. We don’t need a repeat of last time.”

“I told you we were starting too close to that cliff but, of course, no one ever listens to me,” Jake mutters under his breath, looking around the clearing. Then, louder, he says, “Can we at least build a fire or something? Just while we’re setting up or waiting for them to get here?”

“You know we can’t. Stop acting like this is our first time doing this and just help me already.”

But Jake ignores his request as he throws his hands up in the air. “Well, whose bright idea was it to do this where there’s snow? We could have planned a trip to Florida or Texas o-or California. You know, someplace warm where I can actually feel my fingers and the girls are still showing some skin. I swear, every person at that bar had at least four layers on and that one chick looked like the kid from A Christmas Story.”

Finally unable to put up with Jake’s whining any longer, Bradley hurls the bag at his feet. Jake scrambles back with a yelp, his eyes wide as he throws his hands over his face. But after a moment when he realizes the snow has cushioned the bag’s landing, he relaxes but glares at Bradley. “What the fuck, man?”

“First of all, dipshit,” Bradley says, stalking over to drive his finger into Jake’s chest. “It also snows in Texas and California. Second of all, we didn’t drive all the way to the middle of fucking nowhere just for you to drool over every pair of tits you see. You know the rules. No fucking random girls on these trips.”

“I wasn’t gonna fuck them. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting a little look—”

“And third of all, we decided to come up here because you were tired of the same old, same old, and proposed changing it up. You wanted more of a challenge than empty desert plains or summer mountainsides, so we said we would either try the snow or the swamp this time. But since you were too scared of gators—”

“I didn’t say scared, I said concerned—”

“Scared—we decided on snow. So if you have a problem, you have no one to blame but yourself.” Bradley jams his finger deeper into Jake’s chest before turning around and walking back to the truck. “Now, if you’re done complaining, we have work to do. And the sooner we get everything ready, the sooner we can have some fun.”

Jake swears under his breath, but this time he sulkily trudges over to help. Bradley gives him a small smile and a nod as he hands him another one of the bags. Jake could be a real pain in the ass when he wanted to be, but the two of them had been friends since the first day of college so Bradley had gotten used to it for the most part. And at the end of the day, there was no one else in the world he trusted more. Plus, with everything Bradley was dealing with at work and with his family, it was nice to be able to just get out in nature with his best friend and let off some steam every month or so. 

And, despite the cold, this location is perfect. The moon reflects off the fresh snow illuminating the area and the pale trees surrounding them stand like silent guards as the two men unload their supplies. Twenty miles or so from the nearest town, it is the ideal place to set up camp with little chance of being disturbed. 

Bradley closes his eyes and takes in the sounds of the forest around him: the rustle of the frosty wind, the soft creak of the trees as they shift and bend, the low hoot of an owl as it takes off somewhere in the distance. The only man-made noise that can be heard is the crunch of snow beneath Jake’s boots as he walks over to place his bag next to the one already lying on the ground. They couldn’t have asked for a better spot.

Though he wasn’t going to admit this to Jake at the moment, Bradley is excited at the prospect of trying this in the snow. For the past ten years or so, he and Jake and occasionally a few other friends had been organizing these trips. And while he still enjoyed each and every one of them, things had started feeling a bit repetitive. He wanted more of a challenge, an extra layer of excitement and thrill that he just wasn’t feeling anymore. And this feels like it might be just the thing to recapture that spark. 

They haven’t even finished unloading the truck and already Bradley can feel a crackle of energy in the air that usually isn’t there. It’s as if the entire forest is holding its breath, just waiting in anticipation for the real event to begin. 

And who was he to keep it waiting?

As Jake places the last bag on the pile, Bradley scans the surroundings one last time before giving it his nod of approval. “I think we’re good to go. We still have to wait for them to get here, but I don’t see why we can’t get things rolling until then.”

“It’s about fucking time!” Jake whoops loudly, charging over to the truck. 

“Idiot,” Bradley mumbles softly to himself as he shakes his head, yet he can’t deny the adrenaline pounding in his veins at the thought of what comes next. He had been waiting almost two months to do this again, and now the time had finally come.

Jake runs over to the truck's left so Bradley takes his place on the right. As they both rest their hands on the massive metal toolbox in the back of the truck, Bradley catches Jake’s eye. The blonde is grinning like an idiot and practically vibrating with excitement. Bradley smiles back, and on the count of three, they both open their side of the toolbox.

As the winter air rushes into the box bringing the falling snow softly floating down inside of it, you begin to stir with a low moan. The drugs Jake had slipped in your drink must be beginning to wear off. You shift slightly in your cramped container but the ropes tightly securing your hands and bare feet prevent much more than that. 

Bradley watches with rapt delight as you flinch at the cold kiss of snowflakes settling on your cheek and, with what seems like a great effort, your eyes drag themselves open. For a moment, you stare up at Bradley and he sees nothing but hazy confusion in your gaze. But as Jake comes around the truck to stand beside him, twirling one of his knives as he grins down at you, that delicious dread-filled look of terror blooms in your eyes and you begin thrashing around in the toolbox, pulling on your bonds. 

So predictable, and yet, Bradley never got tired of it. The fear and helplessness that radiated from their prey was like a drug to him with a high that no other experience could match. Already, he feels the endorphins and dopamine rush flooding his system and he hasn’t even laid a finger on you yet. But once he had…

You begin hollering for help at the top of your lungs, the sound muffled slightly by the wonderland of snow all around you. It’s an understandable response and one that each and every girl they had captured over the years had tried. However, this time something is different. This time there are no tears or sobs mixed in with the screams. There is still fear, yes, but along with it is a determination, a fire they had only ever seen in a handful of prey.

Jake chuckles and nudges Bradley, his knife spinning faster as he soaks in the screams that only the two of them will ever hear. Bradley nods back, knowing they are thinking the same thing. This one is special. This is going to be a hunt to remember.

Several minutes later as your voice grows hoarse and falters with the realization that no one is coming for you, you curl into yourself as much as the box will allow—as if that could save you from them.

Climbing up the side of the truck so he towers over you, Bradley smiles, his eyes roaming every inch of your body. “Well, hello there, sweetheart. Ready to have some fun?”

Part 2 coming soon!

TW: Dark!Bradley, Dark!Jake, Locked Away, Drugged, Explicit Language, Hunted for Sport, Mentions of Past Kidnappings

Taglist: @green-socks, @heart-0n-fire, @mayhem24-7forever @the-untamed-soul, @inglourious-imagines, @straightforwardly, @bonnieelizabethparker, @srry-itshockeyszn, @flyinlove, @fandomhopped, @sweetheartlizzie07, @wanderdreamer, @callsign-phoenix, @shanimallina87, @forever-sleepy-sloth, @notroosterbradshaw, @dezthegeek, @blessupblessup, @cherrycola27, @phoenix1389, @nicangelinee, @smells-like-perfect-senses, @boringusername3, @petlaufeyson, @cycbaby, @topguncortez, @footprintsinthesxn, @fantasticcopeaglepasta, @writercole, @onebigfangirlworld, @wkndwlff, @ravenmoore14, @clancycucumber230, @mayhemmanaged, @kmc1989, @ohtobeleah, @sunlightmurdock, @roosterbruiser, @sparrows-corner, @ryebecca, @mads-weasley, @trencher4lyfe, @merlehs, @sunshineflowerchild789, @je-suis-prest-rachel, @tellrock35, @shanimallina87, @mak-32, @blue-aconite, @deppresseddyslexic, @horneybeach1, @desert-fern, @withahappyrefrain

[strawheart-pirate]

Carols

Eustass Kid x gn!Reader

December 7th 2023

Words: 657

CW: SFW, modern AU, fluff, established relationship, a sour mood and a happy end

It was your tradition to help out at the annual charity bazaar for the homeless, and this time your boyfriend came along. He was in a sour mood until something piqued his interest and you enjoyed the most unique carols of the season.

The honking of Kid's truck was your signal to get going. You grabbed your bag and jumped happily into the passenger seat of the huge truck.

"Hey Kid! I'm so excited about today." You gave him your biggest smile.

"Do we really have to help at the homeless bazaar?" Kid groaned. He was in a bad mood. Why should he help at all? Nobody gave a fuck about him. He was proud of himself for making it without help. Why should he help others?

"Because it's my family tradition and you're my boyfriend. I won't force you to join, but please give it a try. If you really don't like it, we can leave early, okay?" You explained it to him. You wanted him to enjoy it, to share the tradition with you, but you knew his past and wouldn't force him to stay if he wanted to go.

He rolled his eyes and asked. "When can we leave?"

"We should stay at least three hours."

"Then three hours it is. And not a second more." He groaned and made his point.

Kid's spirits dropped even lower when you arrived at the charity bazaar. One of the organizers showed you around and explained your duties. You listened to her and kept a smile on your face, even though you were worried about Kid's mood. He wasn't listening at all, and his frown was very prominent. You thanked the organizer as she led you to your table and left. The table was full of toys and your job was to sell them.

"Hey Kid, I think we got a good job. This part of the hall isn't as crowded as the food corner." I smiled at him.

"Yeah... Seems like it..." He replied indifferently, ignoring you.

You sighed and put on your Christmas hat. Time to get to work.

Two of the three hours went by fast. You sold a lot of toys, and the smiles on your customers' faces were precious. Kid sat far in the back, ignoring what was going on. He only responded when you spoke to him directly or asked him to give you something.

Suddenly a melody could be heard from the other side of the hall. It was an electric guitar and the first notes of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" rang out. Kid pricked up his ears and was gone before you could say a word. You continued your work because you couldn't just leave your table to go check on your boyfriend. The song ended and one of the organizers announced that this was a little jam session as a thank you from the homeless. As the next notes flooded the room, you got goosebumps. You would recognize the sound of that guitar anywhere and a smile crept across your face as the distinctive sound of Kid's electric guitar filled the room. When did he get his guitar? Was it already in the truck on the way there? It didn't matter, and you began to gently sway to the beat.

Two hours turned into five, and it was already dark outside. Your table was empty and you went to one of the organizers to give him the money. He thanked you warmly and you promised to come back next time. With or without your boyfriend. As you made your way to the musicians, you could see Kid jamming happily with the homeless people. His grin was captivating, and you watched from a distance as they challenged each other and had fun. They got a generous tip, and when the event was over, you walked up to him. He smiled and instinctively put his arm around you. You smiled back and gave him a silent kiss on the cheek as you walked back to the truck. You got in and the Kid pulled out of the parking lot.

"Let's do this again next year," he said with a smile as you drove home.

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[a-reader-and-a-writer-for-all]

The Middle of Nowhere (Part 1)

AI-Less Whumptober 2023: 1, 27 (details at bottom) Fandom: Top Gun, Top Gun: Maverick, Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Reader (no relationships) Summary: Best friends Bradley and Jake arrive in a snowy forest for one of their monthly trips together. And now that everything is all set, it's time to let the fun begin... Word Count: 1523 TW: The warnings are in the tags and at the bottom of fic, but please avoid if possible due to spoilers Notes: This is the first part of a mini-series (linked below). I am EXTREMELY round and excited about this series and hope you enjoy! Huge thank you to @loverhymeswith and @lorecraft for all of your help!💕 Part of @ailesswhumptober's event

Series Masterlist

“Come on, man. I’m freezing my balls off out here.” Jake jams his hands into his jacket pockets as he bounces lightly on the balls of his feet, his breath pluming in front of his face. “Can’t we wait and do this during the day when it’s warmer?”

Pulling the Army surplus bag from the backseat of the pickup truck, Bradley rolls his eyes at his friend. “What, and increase the chances of someone stumbling across us? Don’t be stupid. Just be glad it’s a full moon so we can actually see what we’re doing. We don’t need a repeat of last time.”

“I told you we were starting too close to that cliff but, of course, no one ever listens to me,” Jake mutters under his breath, looking around the clearing. Then, louder, he says, “Can we at least build a fire or something? Just while we’re setting up or waiting for them to get here?”

“You know we can’t. Stop acting like this is our first time doing this and just help me already.”

But Jake ignores his request as he throws his hands up in the air. “Well, whose bright idea was it to do this where there’s snow? We could have planned a trip to Florida or Texas o-or California. You know, someplace warm where I can actually feel my fingers and the girls are still showing some skin. I swear, every person at that bar had at least four layers on and that one chick looked like the kid from A Christmas Story.”

Finally unable to put up with Jake’s whining any longer, Bradley hurls the bag at his feet. Jake scrambles back with a yelp, his eyes wide as he throws his hands over his face. But after a moment when he realizes the snow has cushioned the bag’s landing, he relaxes but glares at Bradley. “What the fuck, man?”

“First of all, dipshit,” Bradley says, stalking over to drive his finger into Jake’s chest. “It also snows in Texas and California. Second of all, we didn’t drive all the way to the middle of fucking nowhere just for you to drool over every pair of tits you see. You know the rules. No fucking random girls on these trips.”

“I wasn’t gonna fuck them. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting a little look—”

“And third of all, we decided to come up here because you were tired of the same old, same old, and proposed changing it up. You wanted more of a challenge than empty desert plains or summer mountainsides, so we said we would either try the snow or the swamp this time. But since you were too scared of gators—”

“I didn’t say scared, I said concerned—”

“Scared—we decided on snow. So if you have a problem, you have no one to blame but yourself.” Bradley jams his finger deeper into Jake’s chest before turning around and walking back to the truck. “Now, if you’re done complaining, we have work to do. And the sooner we get everything ready, the sooner we can have some fun.”

Jake swears under his breath, but this time he sulkily trudges over to help. Bradley gives him a small smile and a nod as he hands him another one of the bags. Jake could be a real pain in the ass when he wanted to be, but the two of them had been friends since the first day of college so Bradley had gotten used to it for the most part. And at the end of the day, there was no one else in the world he trusted more. Plus, with everything Bradley was dealing with at work and with his family, it was nice to be able to just get out in nature with his best friend and let off some steam every month or so. 

And, despite the cold, this location is perfect. The moon reflects off the fresh snow illuminating the area and the pale trees surrounding them stand like silent guards as the two men unload their supplies. Twenty miles or so from the nearest town, it is the ideal place to set up camp with little chance of being disturbed. 

Bradley closes his eyes and takes in the sounds of the forest around him: the rustle of the frosty wind, the soft creak of the trees as they shift and bend, the low hoot of an owl as it takes off somewhere in the distance. The only man-made noise that can be heard is the crunch of snow beneath Jake’s boots as he walks over to place his bag next to the one already lying on the ground. They couldn’t have asked for a better spot.

Though he wasn’t going to admit this to Jake at the moment, Bradley is excited at the prospect of trying this in the snow. For the past ten years or so, he and Jake and occasionally a few other friends had been organizing these trips. And while he still enjoyed each and every one of them, things had started feeling a bit repetitive. He wanted more of a challenge, an extra layer of excitement and thrill that he just wasn’t feeling anymore. And this feels like it might be just the thing to recapture that spark. 

They haven’t even finished unloading the truck and already Bradley can feel a crackle of energy in the air that usually isn’t there. It’s as if the entire forest is holding its breath, just waiting in anticipation for the real event to begin. 

And who was he to keep it waiting?

As Jake places the last bag on the pile, Bradley scans the surroundings one last time before giving it his nod of approval. “I think we’re good to go. We still have to wait for them to get here, but I don’t see why we can’t get things rolling until then.”

“It’s about fucking time!” Jake whoops loudly, charging over to the truck. 

“Idiot,” Bradley mumbles softly to himself as he shakes his head, yet he can’t deny the adrenaline pounding in his veins at the thought of what comes next. He had been waiting almost two months to do this again, and now the time had finally come.

Jake runs over to the truck's left so Bradley takes his place on the right. As they both rest their hands on the massive metal toolbox in the back of the truck, Bradley catches Jake’s eye. The blonde is grinning like an idiot and practically vibrating with excitement. Bradley smiles back, and on the count of three, they both open their side of the toolbox.

As the winter air rushes into the box bringing the falling snow softly floating down inside of it, you begin to stir with a low moan. The drugs Jake had slipped in your drink must be beginning to wear off. You shift slightly in your cramped container but the ropes tightly securing your hands and bare feet prevent much more than that. 

Bradley watches with rapt delight as you flinch at the cold kiss of snowflakes settling on your cheek and, with what seems like a great effort, your eyes drag themselves open. For a moment, you stare up at Bradley and he sees nothing but hazy confusion in your gaze. But as Jake comes around the truck to stand beside him, twirling one of his knives as he grins down at you, that delicious dread-filled look of terror blooms in your eyes and you begin thrashing around in the toolbox, pulling on your bonds. 

So predictable, and yet, Bradley never got tired of it. The fear and helplessness that radiated from their prey was like a drug to him with a high that no other experience could match. Already, he feels the endorphins and dopamine rush flooding his system and he hasn’t even laid a finger on you yet. But once he had…

You begin hollering for help at the top of your lungs, the sound muffled slightly by the wonderland of snow all around you. It’s an understandable response and one that each and every girl they had captured over the years had tried. However, this time something is different. This time there are no tears or sobs mixed in with the screams. There is still fear, yes, but along with it is a determination, a fire they had only ever seen in a handful of prey.

Jake chuckles and nudges Bradley, his knife spinning faster as he soaks in the screams that only the two of them will ever hear. Bradley nods back, knowing they are thinking the same thing. This one is special. This is going to be a hunt to remember.

Several minutes later as your voice grows hoarse and falters with the realization that no one is coming for you, you curl into yourself as much as the box will allow—as if that could save you from them.

Climbing up the side of the truck so he towers over you, Bradley smiles, his eyes roaming every inch of your body. “Well, hello there, sweetheart. Ready to have some fun?”

Part 2 coming soon! TW: Dark!Bradley, Dark!Jake, Locked Away, Drugged, Explicit Language, Hunted for Sport, Mentions of Past Kidnappings

Taglist:@valoraxxx-blog, @m3laniehearts, @autumnleaves1991-blog, @rule107, @vintageleather, @impossiblebagelcowboyfreak, @sugarcoated-lame, @slutforadambanks, @americaarse, @reneki, @ynbutbetter, @imagineadream, @sadpetalsstuff, @salty-thembo, @rachelizabethgraham, @duckandrobin, @queenbbarnes, @grincheveryday, @uselesslyromantic, @chouricojr, @king-of-milf-lovers, @high-fidelities, @shaded-echoes-recs, @dempy, @nik2blog, @dumb-fawkin-bitch, @uselesslyromantic, @choochoo284, @littlebadariell, @thescarletknight2014

[laceratedlamiaceae]

for the ship ask game if u still wanna do it for cjizzy, 11, 15, 22, and 34?

I'm always up to do any of the ask games I've reblogged! (Ship Ask Game)

11. How do they feel about nicknames/pet names? If they like them, what pet names do they use? If they hate them, why do they feel that way?

I of course love the fanon that Jack calls Izzy all kind of pet names, chiefly among them "babygirl" and "sugartits," which Izzy alternates between finding annoying, amusing, and endearing. Izzy's go-to is "you twat," which he usually means mostly affectionately, and Jack loves it (because he loves any attention from Izzy).

15. What songs remind you of their relationship?

Ohohoho you have no idea what you've opened up by asking me this one. I'll stick to six so this doesn't get too long:

Animals by Nickelback - I know Nickelback is a joke but I'm nostalgic about them and this song slaps. Also it's about road head and that's very them to me.

Snug Slacks by John Grant - A weird, horny song about awkward flirting and having sex in the back of a truck. I can easily see Izzy trying to pick up Jack like this and it somehow working.

Blush by Orville Peck - It's a country-adjacent song about reminiscing over an old lover, with sailing metaphors to boot. It makes me think of Jack, wishing he could see Izzy again.

Lightning Bolt by Pearl Jam - This one's mostly just about the vibes, but there's something there about Jack coming into Izzy's life like a lightning bolt like the woman in the song.

Jolene by Dolly Parton - I don't need to explain this one; Jack is Dolly, Ed is Jolene, Izzy is the unnamed man.

Thoroughfare by Ethel Cain - I may be biased because I'm obsessed with this song but just go look at the lyrics. Jack takes Izzy on a road trip out west and falls in love with him.

There definitely should be a Johnny Cash song in here too but I couldn't pick one.

22. Are they comfortable joking around with each other and being silly/playful?

Jack is always playful around Izzy, making dumb jokes and just generally fucking around. In public, Izzy does not react at all and stays completely stone-faced, but when they're alone he'll smile and maybe even laugh a little. Izzy isn't really one for being silly but it's not because he's uncomfortable around Jack; it just isn't his thing.

34. Do they have any inside jokes?

Jack never lets Izzy forget the time he got caught in the rigging and Jack had to get him out. If he's subtle enough about it that other people don't notice Izzy might not even yell at him about it. They've also basically developed an entire language for making fun of Stede (and Ed when he's around Stede).

[deada55]

Being There - Chapter 2

crossposting: ao3

synopsis: Rose and Oscar meet with the school about Nathan's chances to graduate, bring home dinner, and handle a disagreement.

content warnings: I think we’re good, let me know if I missed something.

It was almost winter break when the school started calling. Nathan’s grades were in the toilet, even with the breaks and the special permissions. They weren’t great to start with, but whatever he wasn’t getting in class, he wasn’t making up for any longer. 

    Oscar’s old truck had a deliciously loose transmission that coasted around their suburban grid like some monstrous, gliding extension of his arms. It was like the Titanic, but instead of sea spray at her feet, it was regurgitated condensation coming out of the floorboard vent. She’d never felt safer than when he drove them around. If gas wasn’t so expensive, they’d cruise more often, like they used to do.

If he didn’t want to go with her to this meeting, she might not have gone at all… No, she’d always go, but her guts wouldn’t be in knots until they were in the meeting, so she could stomach lunch just fine. 

    Since Kindergarten, front desk secretaries learned quickly to balk when “Explosion” was written on someone’s meeting schedule, because whatever meetings came after it were likely to be pushed at least half an hour behind. Their check-in came hand-in-hand with vague dismissal from behind the laminated countertop. For anyone but her and Oscar, it would always be easier, and preferred, to ignore Nathan. Always. Accessibility wasn’t fun to create. It was inconvenient to try and come up with “alternative assessment strategies.” It was disenfranchising for an educator to face a begrudging, unrelenting silence instead of an answer. Are they disappointed that they’re still having these meetings, too?

    Even the pleather waiting bench sighed when they sat down, disappointed to see them coming back in so close to the finish line. Something made Rose rest heavier, ankles wrapped around each other, jamming themselves behind the aluminum legs of the seat. If Oscar wasn’t drumming his fingers, she’d reach for his hand. Instead, she worried the hem of her shorts.

    Fifteen minutes after the scheduled start of their appointment, they got led back through a hallway of cubicle partitions towards a door embedded in the same glossy, white cinderblocks all schools were made of.

    In lieu of a windowed door, the principal’s office was graced by real windows, fronted by rows of career coaching literature and self-help books to soak up whatever rain wormed through the “sleek, modern” aluminum windowframe. For now, the sun shone through, making the green and gold foil garland sparkle on his desk. Plastic evergreen hadn’t yet taken over their house, but Rose had meant to pull it out over the weekend. The desk-sized, fake Christmas tree decorated with little “schoolhouse” ornaments made the meeting feel that much worse. The tiny wooden pencils clicked against the apples when Nathan’s thick file was pushed onto the desk.

    Nathan was carried off the field with eight minutes and thirteen seconds left in the fourth quarter. So close.

    “Is Nathan joining us today?” The principal couldn’t get his hands off the goatee growing down his neck.

    “No, he’s at home.”

    She couldn’t have protected him in the field, she couldn’t have done anything from the hospital waiting room, and she couldn’t kiss him better once he got home. But this? She could do this. She’d been talking to the school for him since before he could talk.

    Now, Oscar was the one returning their calls and setting up meetings. He was always the one going after more and more with Nathan- no consolation prizes, no “. He’d been trying to set Nathan onto different things before he could talk, and Rose was impressed how much Oscar could convince him to do in a day versus what little he’d learn with her in a month. There was something about the way they talked to each other, some overtone that made it work, and trying to pick it out of the dialogue or their body language exhausted Rose time and time again.

    Going to football tryouts? Oscar. Both half-hearted SAT attempts? Oscar. Driving? Oscar. “The Talk?” Oscar. Homework? Oscar. Finally getting potty training to work after two years and a couple hundred square feet of carpeting? Oscar.

Oscar gave a lot of sympathetic lip service to Nathan’s hip new hobby of sleeping fourteen hours a day instead of doing the bare minimum it would take to graduate and Rose didn’t want to believe her husband could be so cruel as to draw this fight out any longer. At every school Nathan had been to, the secretaries learned to purse their lips every time Rose walked through the front door. 

    She’d never let them off easy before, but Nathan wasn’t seven anymore, and nineteen-almost-twenty would be the time to let go of school working out. Nathan refused to do at-home learning during recovery. It wasn’t even a discussion. He’d go back to class if they made him, but the only thing that would change was where Nathan was taking five-hour naps, and Rose wasn’t about to add disciplinary referrals to the stack of overdue late work and empty take-home tests. Harder than ever before, Nathan seemed to be pushing back with his sloth, and Rose found herself wanting to stop trying. He was a man, right? Can’t he decide for himse;f?

    Oscar must still know better than that, and his perseverance left her feeling like a failure. Her sagging cheeks in the window behind the desk, superimposed onto the beginning of a cross country practice, made her queasy. 

    “With all due respect, we’ll have to see him before anything is finalized. Your options boil down to returning to school and recovering his grades, or taking another semester to get his GPA up. Or, if he doesn’t want to do that, he can decide to accept a completion certificate if you want to go ahead and process an IEP, or he can go for a GED. That’s all we can do.”

    “Well. Thank you-”

    “I know it’s tough to hear. You’re all good folks, alright? Nathan got us to regionals- nobody’s excited about this- but either he makes it work or he doesn’t. It’s on him to graduate.”

    On their way out to the car, Rose looked down at all the tiles of the sidewalk, hands resting over the shoulder strap of her bag, which put her elbow over her tight chest. As many times as she’s taken the walk from the principal’s office to the parking lot, she couldn’t imagine Nathan anywhere near here. High school was different now. Girls walked around with pierced belly buttons and flypaper-sticky glossed lips, and the tiny pockets in the right side of Levis was perfect for the pager Nathan thought he was hiding (she’d gotten used to checking his pockets for forgotten “surprises” after picking bird bones out of the fleece of her sweatshirt.)

    She couldn’t picture any of his friends, either, not even the ones that she’d had over for dinner.

    When he was in elementary school, Oscar kept her from walking off the ledge of manufacturing a social life for Nathan, whether she liked it or not. She was a couple phone calls away from giving him the kind of overpolluted life of playdates (with or without chicken pox pass-arounds) that seemed to be the norm in the neighborhood, even though her own mother had more eclectic tastes for the time.

    Yes, if he didn’t talk, Nathan would have a harder time making friends, but Oscar was the one who pointed out how unbothered he was to play by himself. In fact, it wouldn’t make sense to have a counterpart with the way Nathan moved between tasks, or stayed at one for six hours if he weren’t interrupted, or abandoned it all to take a nap at any time of the day. 

    She worried about him becoming lonely until the birthday party invitations rolled in, two or three of them a year, and he started to drop names when asked about his day at school. The I-told-you-so on Oscar’s face had an excitement to it: it always felt good when “I hope” became “I’m glad.”

    So, his life was his. They didn’t ask where Nathan went, only when he’d be back home. Compared to Roses’ friends’ highschoolers, he wasn’t just spoiled but princely, with a luxuriously late curfew of 2 A.M and free use of her car. School was the only thing she “made” him do, and she pushed so many buttons to keep him there.

    Putting that last choice into his hands felt less like a natural part of growing up and more like handing a toddler a crystal vase— and how dare she call him a toddler!

    The truck’s engine turned over and the seatbelt alarm rang, but before she could buckle in, Oscar’s rough fingertips brushed the back of her hand.

    “Hey,”

    When she saw his face, her eyes brimmed with tears, but it was his crooked smile that gave her enough comfort to let them fall. While she dug around her bag for a pack of kleenex, he shook her shoulder.

    “It’s gonna be OK.”

    “I know,” and it made her feel so silly for crying. Graduation wasn’t a requirement for life, so why did she spend all those hours on the phone trying to get letters to keep Nathan in kindergarten? If he could get a job at Dimmu Burger and pay rent without any kind of a degree, what was the point in trying? 

    There was always a point to knowledge. Her mother would have been embarrassed if she forgot it. Hopefully, Nathan had gotten something out of all that work…

    Oscar sighed and leaned over to give her a peck over her wet trail of tears, his mustache brushing the side of her nose.

    “Wanna pick up Chinese for dinner?”

    It was a little early to eat, but they came home with two heavy paper bags with burning hot brown drippings sneaking out of one of the corners. While Oscar unpacked the food, Rose went down the hall and walked into Nathan’s room blind.

    Nathan had covered the windows, curtains and all, with red and dark blue sheets he’d scrounged up somewhere and sealed the edges with duct tape, effectively turning his room into a wet, dark hole and ruining the paint on the walls. You couldn’t inhale and open the door at the same time or you’d choke up from a staleness so thick that two fans had killed themselves trying to drag it around. She traipsed through the garbage and laundry (there was always, always more laundry) on the floor and came over to the side of the bed he was usually closer to, but instead of touching his shoulder, she’d found the top of his head and started to try and part his hair. “Good morning, Nathan-”

    When he didn’t respond, she grabbed the corner of the blanket and gave it a couple tugs out from under his hand until she could hear him suck all the drool back into his mouth. “We got chinese food for dinner. It’s five. C’mon.” She pawed around the crumpled receipts and sticky cups on the nightstand until she unearthed a bottle of Excedrin Migraine. He forced  himself up with the same dragging heaviness as a fallen towel getting pulled out of a cold bath, and the same gray cast. The ashen look of his skin put him somewhere between a swamp monster and the Addams Family.

    “Fuck, it’s five? I thought it was…” 

    “Yes, sweetie.... Come out when you’re ready. I’ll plate you up.” She traipsed back towards the door, collecting forgotten pint glasses from the dresser on her way out.

    She’d given up on trying to chastise him into anything a long time ago, but she wouldn’t try to cajole him out of bed with shame. She let him off easy all the time, but he didn’t have anything to reasonably want from sleeping through meals. He was an eater, not a cheater, and he wouldn’t trick her into letting him sleep fourteen hours a day. All he got up for was to goof off with his friends, and Rose generously accepted that getting up at all was better than staying home. If the way he woke up was any indication of how he felt during the day, going to loud house parties couldn’t be as much fun as it should be.

If he were to get his 504 plan adjusted, they’d have to make that trip to the doctor they kept putting off. She called the pediatrician a week ago to ask about the sleeping. Since it wasn’t Nathan’s first concussion, they told her to schedule something, but she hadn’t called them back.

    He came to the table just as she was forcing lo mein onto her plate  with two forks held like salad tossers. Oscar handed him a plate and a fork and let him carve his own dinner out of the takeout boxes. Once they were all swiveling around in the wheeled dining chairs, a steady rhythm of “where’s the- oh, can I have that?” started to volley between the three of them.

    Oscar ran out of tropical chicken (a mystery mess of whitish sauce, pineapple bits, and green onions) after a couple minutes and broke the silence.

    “Nathan, we met with the school today.”

    “Yeah?” Oscar could feel Rose drilling a hole through his temple with her eyes. The minute Nathan saw it, his casual attention twitched over into anticipation. 

    His brother had made an offhand comment about how Rose had to “cut the cord” with Nathan a number of years ago, but the kind of reflexes  they had around each other couldn’t be severed. Maybe all mothers did it, but it was magical to see in real time. Whenever he’d let her, she knew what he needed, and it was the only way they could live a happy life. The times when he needed her, she never missed a beat. How did that song go? You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em-

    And he took her cues. Now that Nathan was nervous, this whole conversation could go a lot worse. He wanted to broach it before it was too late because Nathan deserved to know about conversations being had about his life. And he could choose to let them take care of it, but he couldn’t make a choice he doesn’t know exists.

    Rose didn’t want it, so she set it all up for failure.

    Oscar stopped scanning for eye contact, but kept talking as he forked up a saucy piece of broccoli. “Yeah. You’ll have to work hard at your grades when you go back if you’re still graduating in May. Or you can repeat… or get a GED. That’s all Mr. Pendelton had to say. It’s because there’s a 2.0 GPA threshold.”

    Oscar saw Nathan’s shoulders drop, and he opened his mouth, but Rose chirped through the air like a dying smoke alarm, “Oscar, can you come help me with something?”

[agentcable]

Chicaog Fire Season 5 Ep. 7 "Lift Each Other"

Dawson and her brother Antonio host a family reunion when their parents come to Chicago for their anniversary. Boden takes matters into his own hands after a secret involving his stepson comes to light. Casey tries to save a young boy at a warehouse. Otis and Kidd square off at a mud race.

If you want to watch the series for yourself, stop reading! This post contains spoilers to the storyline.

Lt. Matt Casey is on a double date with his girlfriend Gabby Dawson and her brother, Detective Antonio Dawson. Antonio and Casey agree the women are alike. Gabby asks her brother if he told Brett about the party. Sylvie is surprised and doesn't know what she's talking about. Casey tells Brett to run while she still can. He's already committed to their parents' anniversary. Gabby says it will be fun. Antonio tells Brett she can come on Saturday if she's free.

Chief Boden and his stepson James are walking into the firehous together. James wants to make it his permanent home. He'll finish senior year at Boden's house. Boden says it would be nice, but his mother won't agree. He promises to ask.

Brett asks Gabby lots of questions about the parents' pary. Gabby says to relax and it will be fun. James is changing clothes in the firehouse changing room when Joe Cruz ntoices bruises on his back and upper arms.

Cruz goes to see Lt. Kelly Severide, but before he can tell him what is going on, the alarms go off and the trucks and ambulance leave. Security called the crew to a factory where kids were screaming. The kids were playing Avengers and jumped. One is on the ground and the other is hanging from the rafters. Casey and Severide climb the scaffolding to reach Wiley. They try to free him, but Severide needs to break his ankle to set him free. He's not breathing, his face is blue. They get him down, Casey breathes for him, and Gabby and Brett take him to the hospital. James watches as Severide and Casey congratulate each other on the rescue.

When the truck retuns to the firehouse, Christopher calls Brian and Stella for a favour. Herrmann tells them to cover the "Mud 100" for Molly's.

Cruz tells Severide about the bruises on James. He says it's not from falling, but from being beaten up. Severide asks if he's spoken to Boden. Cruz says he doesn't want to ruin things between them. Severide says he should talk to James first.

Brett keeps asking Gabby about the family gathering. Gabby says she doesn't ahve to come if she doesn't want to. Brett says she'll go, but is worried how her family will view her as Antonio's new girlfriend. Gabby laughs and says his family doesn't know he got divorced because they don't care. Gabby says it's a wild party where everyone gets drunk. Brett asks if they acan drink before the party. Gabby says she was uncomfortable seeing her partner at work kissing her brother.

As Brett an Gabby leave Chicago Med, Wiley's parents show up. They say he slipped into a coma on his way to the hospital. He's in the ICU. He was upside down too long and hand a heart attack. Casey is upset when Gabby says they don't know if he'll make it. He asks her to let him know when she goes on another run.

Severide follows Jams into the bathroom. They talk about the call with the young boys. When James leaves, Severide calls him back in. He asks if he is okay. James says he's fine.

The alarms go off agian, and it's another call. They arrive at the scene and the truck driver is freaking out, blaming the woman. The druck driver is ordered to move back, but he refuses and attacks James. Capp grabs the passenger, while James stands frozen as Severide pries the driver's side door open and the ambulance arrives. Severide asks James if he is okay, but James jumps. Severide knows something is wrong, but tells him to load up the truck.

Otis is upset with Stella because they have to eat stew again. He says it's the same thing she cooks every time. She laughs and says when it's good, don't change it. Herrmann says they can compete on the Mud 100. Stella bets she can beat him. Randall bets on Otis. Herrmann bets on Stella. Otis says he'll see her at the start line. She says, "Be ready to get dirty." Herrmann says they should give Molly's a t-shirt.

Severide meets Boden in his offic.e Boden makes jokes about the department trying to eat healthier. Severide asks Boden if James has had any troubel at school. Boden asks what he means. Severide tells him that Cruz saw him changing out of his uniform and saw bruises all over him. At a call, two idiots got into it, and James' reaction was like he was scared. Severide says it's probably nothing. Boden thanks him for looking out. Sevreide says he always will.

Wiley's father arrives at the firehouse and is greeted by Casey and Gabby. He's crying but says Wiley is OK. His wife says he's a nervous wreck and needs to walk. He brings baked goods to the firehouse. He asks Casey if he saw Wiley. Casey says that he gave Wiley CPR and was breathing when the paramedics arrived. He keeps crying but shakes Gabby's hand and thanks them. No one knows you can do CPR until you have to. Gabby says it breaks her hear. Casey talks to Severide about the warehouse rescue. He's questioning everything he did. Severide says he was unstoppable and didn't stop until the kid was breathing. Anything after that was out of their hands. Casey says the kid is in a coma. Severide says he knew.

James is resting upstairs in the firehouse. Boden comes to see him. Casey is also in his home office, stressing over Wiley.

The next morning, Boden tells James he heard he had a rough call. James says he likes it there and that the guys there are great. As they leave the firehouse, Gabi asks Casey if he got the dry cleaning. Casey says the party isn't for 12 hours and she needs time to look amazing. He should get her flowers. He asks if they're giving her parents a gift certificate. She says the flowers aren't for them.

Mouch, Herrmann, Stella, and Otis leave the firehouse to talk about their bet. Herrmann bets $200, and Mouch accepts. Casey gets flowers for Gabi but stops by Chicago Med. Maggie says Wiley died last night. Maggie says he did all he could and gave his family a chance to say goodbye. Casey is upset and leaves Gabi's flowers at the nurses' station.

Boden goes to a restaurant where his ex-wife works. She says the restaurant is her new boyfriend's and she just helps with the books. Boden finds out the boyfriend lives with her now. She says James wants to stay with him, but he's never around. Maybe more time with Boden is what he needs.

Todd comes out and introduces himself to Boden, offering him food. Boden declines, and Todd leaves. Boden asks about James's school and friends. His grades are A's and B's, and he hangs around with boys. She says they can talk about what's best for James when he's ready. She leaves.

At the party, Antonio and Brett look amazing, as do Gabi and Casey. Antonio is concerned that neither of them have heard from their mother. They are told to take their seats. Their father stands up and says his wife was his rock and salvation. He stops and says he can't do this. He says they're getting divorced and drinks. He says it was mutual, but she says it wasn't. Antonio tells him to stop embarrassing his mother. Antonio tells his father to apologize to his mother. His father says he doesn't need to. Antonio attacks his father. Brett drinks. Casey grabs Antonio, while Brett chases Gabi. Brett and Antonio take their mother upstairs. The father is drunk at the bar, and everyone else has left. Gabi cries and says she was blindsided. Casey says she handled it badly. Casey says her mom probably didn't tell her because she was with Louie. She says it's no excuse. He says he loves her and will always be there for her. He holds her as she cries.

Mouch is at Molly's when Stella and Otis come in muddy. He asks who won. Otis won. Stella says he's part mole. Herrmann is upset that he lost the bet. He just got everything cleaned for $500.00. Otis tells him, "You aren't going to like this…" All the muddy marathon runners come into the bar. Otis says the first round is on him. Everyone is chanting, "Mud Run."

James is having breakfast with Donna and their son. Boden says they want James to live with them for the rest of the school year. Boden says there are rules in the house. One is to be honest with each other. James says he understands and Boden asks about the bruises. James lies and says he fell at school. Boden says okay and leaves.

James asks Boden for help. He fell down the stairs, but someone hit him. Boden asks if it's someone from school. James says no. The next second, you see Boden screeching at his ex-wife's new boyfriend's restaurant. He beats Todd up.

Boden is suspended for bad behavior. Boden says the guy was beating his stepson. Steve says he understands and that he's only suspended for one shift. Donna and James support Boden and leave together. Steve says he'll be replacing Boden, who was suspended for one shift. He tells them they have a job to do and moves on.

Brett asks Casey how Gabi is. She's in a fog. Brett says Antonio is getting back in shape to beat up his dad. Casey asks Severide if he heard from Boden. He hasn't, but they're throwing him a suspension party.

Brett meets Gabi and says she had a nice time. They hug. Gabi says she's sorry. Brett says if she wants to see a horror show, she should come to their family reunions. Gabi laughs. The alarms go off and the crews are called out again.

They find a man stuck in a truck. The grain is sinking and drowning him. Casey grabs his hand and says he won't let him die. The crew makes a box and pulls the grain out to get him out. They pull him out on a pulley.

Casey is stunned. Gabi and Brett bring in the patient. As Brett looks for more papers, Maggie asks about Casey. Gabi says he was fine. Why? Maggie says he took the boy's death hard. Gabi asks what she means. She says Wiley, the boy from the factory, died. Gabi brought flowers, but the kid was gone. Maggie thought Casey told Gabi, but he didn't. Maggie says the boy died Saturday morning.

James's mother comes to Boden and Donna's house. She talks to Boden and says she didn't know what was going on. James is on the stairs. His mother says she left Todd. James hugs her as she apologizes. James asks to stay with his mom at his grandma's house. Boden says yes.

At Molly's, they joke about another mud challenge. Herrmann doesn't want to. Cruz asks if they're doing the polar plunge. He saw a flyer and all the money is for charity. Stella says she's part penguin, and Otis says he's a polar bear.

Brett and Severide are at Molly's with Antonio. Antonio says his father told him he should have divorced his mother 30 years ago. He did the math and couldn't tell Gabi. Severide says his dad has had a lot of wives. 40 years is a good run.

Antonio asks if Severide will ever settle down. Severide says he's married to the job. Boden comes in, and Severide goes to see him. Boden says James is more worried about his mother than himself. Severide says they'd love to have James on truck 3. Boden says he'll tell him, but he needs a drink.

Gabi returns home to Casey and kisses him. She says he knew the boy died but was more concerned with her having a good day. He hugs her and says they lift each other up. She's done that for him a million times.

[djmossback]

Third Space Saturday 3/16/2024

Spacebar Arcade

Tasting Notes

I was late. And I got street parking really close. I loaded my hand truck. Jules had the elevator ready for me. Really, the cards were falling into place for a smooth set. Which is good, because I had no plan, except that I was going to start with the PiL track “Memories.” On 7” single. Import. A record I’ve had since release in 1979.

I didn’t play PiL. At all.

An Athletic and a bottle of water were waiting for me in the booth, as I set up and did an equipment check. I started late. With Iggy. Which sounds great. I decide on a UB40 LP cut to follow it up. Turntable left is dead. And I’m starting late so I get a nice dead spot. You know what? I roll with it. I figure out I haven’t potted up the channel, and the power cord is loose. I fix it. Surprisingly, I’m not rattled. I just deal.

I get in a 7” groove going, but I can tell I’m strangely disconnected from the scene. There are people in the house, but they don’t stay long. It’s St. Patrick’s Day (observed), and there is green in the building. Even though I’m half-Irish, I’m not a Catholic, I don’t drink, and I’m old, so I’m out. I’m not a participant in amateur holidays. Not a joiner. Never have been. I’ve missed out on a lot of fun being this way, but I don’t care.

I’m consciously trying to organize the set in a different way. Introducing new tracks into the mix. I’m not really sure if things are in the right order. I play “Down On the Street” from Funhouse by The Stooges, which I love, but maybe I should have gone with “Loose.” Either way, the pressing sounds great – thundering low end and a great track.

Another NA is delivered, by CP, and even though I’ve admired them, and their work outside the bar, it’s the first time we’ve ever spoken to each other. They remark that the 7” boxes are cute. It seems to be a theme. The majority of the first hour is 7” singles. It’s not a plan, it’s just the way it’s worked out. It’s never a plan. I played Tony Basil for instance! And, not because it’s Irish.

It’s hard to get a bead on the room's energy. It seems like people are coming and going faster than normal. I can hear people, but they feel like they are a long way away. My transitions are sloppy, not always tight and good. I need to start concentrating.

Jules comes up, and tells me that this is her last Third Space Saturday. That is not welcome news. When I can’t get a good feel for the crowd, I can always watch Tavis, Jules, CP and Brando to key on. It’s going to be different in the future.

My friend Geneva shows up after going to a flamenco show earlier in the evening. I was unable to satisfy her craving for a ELO song. Maybe next time. I couldn’t find any of my ELO records. 7”ers, of course. “Last Train to London” would be a great jam to have.

I’m not tired, but I’m not entirely engaged either. There is something in the air. Geneva helps, she is always a good audience, but I’m mentally elsewhere – maybe at the legislature, maybe at Treefort. Geneva says I have some girls dancing in the video games section, so that sharpens me up and gets me back in the groove.

Jules comes up and asks me for more hip-hop, and I kind of oblige. Although I am not a genre DJ, I love to throw it in the mix, because it is music, and it stands up.

I go a little over, but when I play the Kendra Morris 45 at 33, and don’t notice until the chorus, I know it’s time to pack up.

TRACK LIST

Spacebar 03/16/23

PRE-Fort

Iggy Pop, I’m Bored 7”

UB40, Tyler LP cut

Cheryl Lynn, Got To Be Real 7”

Culture Club, Time (Clock Of The Heart) 7”

Pointer Sisters, He’s So Shy 7”

Vince Staples, Big Fish LP cut

XTC, This Is Pop 7”

Booker T. & The M.G.s, Hang ‘em High LP cut

Tommy Tutone, 867-5309 (Jenny) 7”

R.E.M., Radio Free Europe 7”

Bee-Gee’s, Night Fever 7”

Toni Basil, Mickey 7”

Sleaford Mods, T.C.R. 12”

The System, You Are In My System LP cut

Snoop Dogg, Drop It Like It’s Hot 12”

Stone Roses, Fools Gold LP cut

OutKast, The Way You Move LP cut

Heatwave, The Groove Line 7”

Timbuk 3, Futures So Bright (I Gotta Wear Shades) LP cut

The Cramps, What’s Inside A Girl? 12”

Go-Go’s, We Got The Beat 7”

The Stooges, down on the street LP cut

Climax Blues Band, Couldn’t Get It Right 7”

Rusty Bryant, Fire-Eater LP cut

Dazz Band, Let It Whip 7”

Fatback, Take It Any Way You Want It LP cut

DEVO, Freedom Of Choice 7”

Taste Of Honey, Boogie Oogie Oogie LP cut

Londonbeat, I’ve Been Thinking About You 12”

Stacey Q, Two Of Hearts 12”

Dee-Lite, Groove Is In The Heart 12”

Spinners, Rubberband Man 7”

The Smiths, How Soon Is Now? 12”

Kendrick Lamar, Money Trees LP cut

Otis & Carla, Knock On Wood 7”

Amii Stewart, Knock On Wood 12”

Michael Jackson, Rock With You 7”

Althea & Donna, Uptown Top Ranking LP cut

L’Trimm, Cars That Go Boom 12”

Megan The Stallion, Ride Or Die LP cut

2Pac w/Dr. Dre and Roger Troutman, California Love LP cut

Ready For The World, Oh Sheila 7”

Human League, The Things That Dreams Are Made Of LP cut

Kylie Minogue, Can’t Get Blue Monday Out Of My Head 12”

Berlin, The Metro 7”

Ramones, Swallow My Pride LP cut

Teardrop Explodes, Treason 7”

Skee-Lo, I Wish 12”

Pet Shop Boys, West End Girls 12”

Tilt, Arkade Funk 12”

Hot Chocolate, Every 1’s A Winner LP cut

Gap Band, Outstanding LP cut

Mos Def, Ms. Fat Booty 12”

Beastie Boys, She’s Crafty LP cut

RUN-DMC, Walk This Way 12”

Nazareth, Hair Of The Dog LP cut

Thin Lizzy, Johnny LP cut

Dr. Dre and Snoop, Ain’t Nothin’ But A G Thang LP CUT

Dillinger, Kokane On The Brain 7”

Digital Mystikz, Misty Winter LP cut

Supersuckers, Dead Homiez 7”

Stranglers, Golden Brown 7”

Kendra Morris, This Life 7”

Madison Time, Part 1 LP cut

Gazebo, Masterpiece 7”

Going to have to go back through my crates to try and recreate. I’m kind of foggy on the specifics.

Next Third Space is Record Store Day, 20 April, 2024. I may have my man IGA split the night with me; we’ll see what the big bosses decide is best.

Join the Legion Of Cygnus. Sign their petition, contribute if you can.

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[you-can-be-what-you-want-to-be]

{{ Fun ask meme you made: Everything with a 4 in it! (4, 14, 24, 34, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45.)

oh that’s a very fun way to do it! I already did 40 but I’ll give you the rest. Thank you for giving me so many!

4: if you had to loose one of your senses or physical abilities, which one and why?

im a chatter box but I’d loose the ability to speak. It’s kind of selfish but speaking is one of the only abilities that’s primarily for everyone else’s experience of the world. I mean you can’t talk and share ideas as easy and some of the puns and stuff you do get limited but you still get sunsets and art museums and books and musicals and cat purrs and all that. I still get things, I just can’t give anymore.

14: preferred form of travel i know tumblr doesn’t like them but car for SURE. Used to have ten hours in it every weekend visiting my dad and like. You can sing. You can have arguments with yourself and imagined people. Go noom. Pretty sights. And I’ve had the best conversations I’ve ever had in the car, because what else are you going to do? If there are two people in a confined space and one of them can’t look at anything you can only talk and I love that it’s a wonderful feeling. And falling asleep in the back of a car while people you care about talk in the front? Being able to leave home at any time? Getting sonic at 11pm? Ough it’s so good. I get home and spend an hour in a non moving car love being in a car I am no better than a dog.

24: what is a food or experience you miss from being a child? This does not mean things like paying bills, and is more about the time period you are from.

1 burning cds

2 a lack of cool people on tv. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Napoleon Dynamite but yeah things like that. Like there is no one cool in invader zim.

3 toxic waste (candy.) I haven’t seen one in ages

4 PEANUT BUTTER TWIX.

34: name a way someone has helped you before

car got stuck on this pile gravel. It had been snowing, next to a busy highway, thirty minutes by car away from any town, and it jammed up all the way up like into the entire bottom, not just the tires. Spent like an hour by hand trying to dig the stuff out with bare hands. Some guy with a truck hooked me up and pulled my car off. I’ll never forget it

41: what’s a hobby you want to get into? Disregard whatever skills money or tools you would need, listen to your heart

I want to learn how to make music and video essays. Both of those cost money and your own private area (instrument, mic, and a place you don’t disturb people with sound). Also animation I’m a very bad artist and don’t get technology so it’s a pretty hard no but I’d love to do it someday

42: what’s an experience you’ve wanted to do or have for awhile but not been able to justify to yourself?

I want to see hadestown on broadway. Or anything on broadway really but hadestown is the dream personally

43: a part of yourself you are fond of?

I like that soft spot between your lower ribs and thumb nails

44: favorite supernatural being

I’ve always been fond of ghost, because they’re the only one just about that gets to be sad or helpful instead of just scary. The idea that you felt something so strong it outlasted your body…. Yeah that’s what emotions feel like. That’s why you can be haunted by things that aren’t there, like war or an old friendship. It’s just emotions out of place that followed you.

Sad ghosts, lost ghost stuck in a loop, ghosts that save people from similar situations as their own, ghosts that come back to love their loved ones, ghosts who taunt the person who killed them and haunt them in the literal and metaphorical sense. Idk man. Just ghosts. They’re so important to me.

45: favorite fantasy being

Fae but only the fucked up kind who like find people fascinating but mostly as entertainment and make them dance till their feet fall off or see how long it takes them to loose a deal. Idk they’re just fun.

thank you so much this was mega fun to talk about

[the-firebird69]

The train size of a graphs all the time out there and the trucks and the machines are fitted with them so I do see the idea and BG is out there it says you send a drone and he says you shoot it they get shot down a lot it says you do that then so how do I do that you're driving with the worm so we're wondering if it's going to do it and he goes what kind of dispersal pattern and how many pounds I'm saying it's like they have to face up and like four or five pounds every 30 or 40 ft and create mounds if it does anything and those will moisten up quick it'll do the job that you want it so he knows okay and then down the river it's the same thing but the whole river can be done later if it works at Okeechobee and he goes this is going to be fun but I'm thinking that the whole place will clogged on here so other people might like the river so he's going to try it all we didn't hear from him

Mac

The God sent back to a few of them and they're wondering why and they're starting to figure it out so you know what they're up to and we can see it and people don't want it like Tommy f but people don't care and they're mad about it and it's going on right now almost we can see that people are getting ready for it to happen well we don't know if it will it's not a bad idea but right now that's like 160 ft tanks and trucks and more driving around up there they're pretty big but they can't go through 30 for the water the trucks are 20 ft high which is not really that high and then amphibious but down in the middle of the lake it's 30 ft deep at the bottom and that includes the mock it's a shallow lake but it's sand and they might get stuck and they get stuck in the muck and they're gone so they need bigger trucks and Tommy Allen is trying to get there and he's got trucks or like 50 ft high and you can run all through it but he has a reason to do it this stuff in there but he can't get to it with all this s*** since one or two runs down the river and and everything's going to be flushed out of there they need to run a couple runs through the harbor first they're doing it back passwords so he's thinking about it wondering how to get there and you really need to run a ship or something through it and that tugboat will only blast the muck out 4 ft it'll be 4 ft and that's kind of where it is and so but I can drag something solid so they're trying to do that and I can't seem to do it and it says what about like a farm implement or no ripper from a cat and you put it on the tub and you drop the ripper down that's how deep is it I don't know someone said there's four feet of s*** so you're making something goes down so deep he's trying to design this ripper since what do you do when you're not ripping you pull it up with a crane couple cranes doesn't have to do that heavy so they go out there looking at a river and like very heavy these things are way too heavy but it would work as soon as what if we just use one or two it says I'll be great so they're going to try it and it'll be jamming it and you could rip from the mouth in and try to go to the river the river is more shallow and the boat would work up there you got into the bay first so trying to do it now and they got a whole bunch of people out there. And we're going to try and sit tight. Mac we got to get out there and try and make it work and who knows this might not work so he says okay so we're going to get out there and we're going to get out there and grab these clones and get Intel he says his brother would say it's time to get the nets so Matt got it and the sun said don't make us go out there and walk on the water it's okay that's fine

Thor Freya

There's a lot of nonsense going on but they do get what he's saying we're going to go out there I've been trying to do stuff or these guys are

Thor Freya

This is been a fun night it was yelling at each other it's probably going to get worse but really we have to do this and we have to do it now and there's no time to dredge it takes way too long and we got to get in there and it's going to work we have to make it work and we have some equipment too and we could use and we got to get going on it

Olympus

We're going to use ours thanks it's part of his but good God what a weird idea that's what it is I know how deep to drop it let's get going

Mac