#we got to open a couple gifts a little early

[curetapwater]

FANTASTIC NEWS

[kaivenom]

One piece DILFs asking you to live with them... HCS

(obviously, we know they sure have better houses than us)

Characters: Mihawk, Crocodile, Doflamingo, Smoker, Shanks.

Masterlist

Dracule Mihawk

Him living in a big island castle means that you already had many things on there and you spent many days with him on a row.

The other thing is that when you aren't on the castle, you both spent many time separated, due to his work and yours.

That times when he goes back to the castle and you aren't there and he has to ask you to come and wait days or even a couple of weeks to come, that's when he decides he needs you all the time.

You both were taking breakfast, he was reading a newspaper and you got up to heat your tea/coffe/milk.

"You should spent more time here."

"I already spend a lot of time here."

"Yeah, but i mean... all the time."

"Are you asking me to move in with you, permanently?"

"Kind of..."

He is a lonely, tough men, he really wants to come to the castle after his shichibukai job and find you, but leaving is rough exterior is difficult.

You got close to him and take out his newspaper, you give him a little kiss on the cheek and accept his offer.

Moving all your things from your village to his island was difficult and of course a little hard to explain to people, because you couldn't say you are dating that man.

But moving all your things was worthy, even when you already had a lot of your things there.

Sir Crocodile

He is a bussiness men, a very dangerous one.

He likes to spoil you with gifts and affection and since he has a lot of berries, he buys you so much clothes that you both decided to keep them in his house, so you already had clothes and other things there.

He is a little control freak of HIS things, so he hires people to follow you and keep you safe, as he says.

That makes you upset, so you confront him on his office.

"Why there are so many people following me?"

"I told that idiots to be discreet, i will fire them."

"That doesn't matter, why?"

"Because i like to keep my inversions safe."

"That's what i am? well, inversions are kept on hidden lockers, so what are you going to do next... lock me?"

"Do you want to live with me?" you didn't know how to answer, "you are more than an inversion and i will have peace on mind if you sleep every night with me and my security alarm."

You thought about it for a moment and nodded slowly, every second the idea sounded better.

You spent the night in his house and when you were the next day preparing yourself to go get your things, all of them were already on the front door.

Apparently your powerful bussiness boyfriend had sent his staff to broke into your house and get all packed.

Donquixote Doflamingo

He doesn't ask you, he informs you.

You had a really good night with him, there was a moment when he got jealous over a dude but after that everything was perfect.

When you both ended your night things, you decided to back to your house since you had to work early tomorrow.

You open the door and find that all your things were gone, you thought someone broke in, you were almost crying and were about to call Doflamingo (since he is the king of Dressrosa he is the better person to call)

Then a large figure appeared behind you.

"Hi little thing." your breath paused from the shock.

"Why are you here? You have something to do with these?"

"Of course, you really thought someone could break in my girl's house? do you think i would let you go home without my supervision?, you underestimate my possesiviness towards you."

"And why? you are mad because of that guy on the bar? that's why all my things are gone?"

"Partly yes, your things are not gone, they are on my palace," his arms lifted you from the ground, "seeing that stupid man made me realize that i need to keep a better eye on you... that's why this isn't your house anymore, so lets go home."

Even if you wanted, you couldn't say no, you don't know how are you going to adapt to these new change but you have no option.

Smoker

He is a marine, which means he is a very traditional man (on my perspective), under his rough marine reputation, he want's to do things right with you.

All marine officers have a big house provided by the goverment, he has a estable job, paid vacations and all the requirements to be a good choice partner to live with.

So after thinknig all of that, he decides to make a plan to ask you out.

He makes dinner for you both, not anything fancy, he is a direct man and he doesn't want you to think he is going to propose to you... yet.

The dinner was in his house, and was one of the best dates you both have, even if he couldn't cook the meal right.

"So, i was thinking... i am a man with a stable job, a high rank, a good salary, a good house."

"Are you going to propose?" you couldn't believe it, it felt like it was to soon.

"No, if i wanted to kneel with a ring i would have taken you to the best restaurant i could, like the Baratie or things like that."

"Who would have thought you are such a romantic man."

"I am not."

"Clearly, then what?"

"I am trying to ask you to move in with me."

"We both are marines, i have the same privileges as you."

"Yeah, but i am one rank higher than you, which makes me the one who would ask you to move in." he looks so proud about it.

"Fine, but what we do with my house?"

"We do the paperwork and we should receive a contribution for it and maybe we can't take our next vacations together to a nice island."

"You never take vacations, you love your job more than me."

"Believe me, if this happens, then we will take vacations together."

"Okey, then you should help me to move in, come on." you were already getting up to start moving, the excitement was making you not see things clear."

"I think we can do that tomorrow, now i want you to stay here." he took your hand and sat you on his lap.

Shanks

He is pretty fast to ask you in and well, moving in has two meanings: joining his crew and moving to his quarters.

The first one is really fast because he is a pirate and doesn't spent to much time on a village.

After trying to delay as much as possible his leaving while he thinks about asking you or not, he decides to give it a shot.

"(Y/N)-chan, do you want to live a big pirate life?" he says while passing his arm around your shoulders with a big smile, he looks like he is trying to recruit you to a cult.

You accept and now you are a part of the crew, you have your own quarter on the ship and you like being with the crew.

After a couple of months, you start getting involved with your captains, you were worried about what your crewmates would think about it.

He is worried too, he knows that everything is all fun and with no strings while you both have your different spaces. He knows once you moved permanently to the captain quarter, it would be official and irreversible.

That situation lasted a couple of weeks more till he couldn't wait anymore.

"Hey, sit down," he was waiting for you with a cup of sake, "i konw we've been doing things."

"If that's what you want to call it, then i am dissapointed."

"I mean, this isn't official to the rest of the crew and the world, even if it is to me," he interviewed his fand to yours, making you see you are important to him, "and i don't know if you are ready to take the next step, cause if you do, you will be known as "Akagami Shank's partner," he makes a dramatic pose, before going back to his serious face, "i want you to move to my quarters, if you want to be publicy known as..."

"Yes, i want, even with your stupid snores and your cold feet, i would like to sleep next to you every day."

"Ahhhh, how great it's to hear that... i don't know what i have done if you said no." he gave you a kiss got back to his dramatic being again.

[klausysworld]

He Left First

He turned up late, again. It was obvious he forgot we even had a date planned let alone what it was for.

He was underdressed for the Restaurant reflecting his lack of effort, no flowers or anything. I know I shouldn't expect a gift but I thought he might've for our two years.

His eyes were so distant when he looked at me. He only looked annoyed as he looked over the menu, as if it was a waste of his time.

Hesitantly I grabbed the little gift back from my side and placed it on the table infront of him.

"I wasn't sure if we were doing gifts, I know it's only two years...I don't know I just got something small." I muttered, feeling stupid for even bothering. I glanced at his face and saw it dawn upon him why we were here. His mouth opened a couple times, the guilt started to form as he placed the menu down.

"Love-" He whispered and I forced a smile.

"It's nothing special, it's only little." I mumbled, waiting for him to open it. Slowly he opened the gift, it was just a painting. In the early stages of our relationship he had tried to teach me but I wasn't much good so I had been practicing the things he showed me to make him it. "I know it's not great-"

"No...It's perfect." He muttered as he stared at it.

I felt a little awkward as it went quiet before the waiter came over to ask what we'd like to have, I just ordered a grilled chicken salad and Klaus mumbled for a steak. He let out a small sigh once the waiter left and put the gift back in the bag.

"I haven't been here enough as of late and I'm sorry." He apologised, his eyes boring into mine. "I'm gonna buy you a hundred presents tomorrow to make up for this-"

"It's really fine, I just want to have a nice night." I told him and he nodded, getting up and moving his seat round to sit beside me and wrap his arm round my waist. It felt nice to feel the warmth of his touch. The touch of his lips on my head and he whispered he was sorry.

When the food came he stayed beside me and we ate with light conversation of past dates that had been particularly funny or eventful.

Honestly it was going so well, one of the nicest dates we'd had until his phone lit up on the table. A collection of messages lining up on his screen.

He picked it up and unlocked it, revealing Camille's name to pop up over and over. A frown overtook his features as he opened the messages. She said she needed him, his help. I heard him sigh and I looked down at my half eaten meal knowingly.

"Y/N..." He whispered and I let go of my fork.

"Can't we just have one night without her?" I ask, my voice cracking.

"Love, she's my friend. I can't just leave her when I know she needs me-" He defended but I couldn't understand it.

"I need you." I argued but my voice was weak. "I need you but you'll leave me?"

"I'm not leaving you. I'm just helping someone out-"

"Yeah? I bet you help her out a fucking lot." I snapped and his eyes narrowed.

"If you're insinuating that I've been unfaithful..."

"So what if I am? Am I wrong? You haven't been sleeping with me so you're getting it somewhere-"

"Shut your mouth." He warned. I glared at him and felt my face burn with heat as people around us came to a halt in their conversations.

"Or what, Klaus?" I asked and his jaw tightened.

"I'm not doing this with you." He muttered, getting up and taking his phone. I should have just let him go but in that moment I needed him to hurt like I hurt.

"What, you're just gonna run away? You always gonna be a fucking coward Klaus?" I yelled and he didn't answer. "You're the same bastard your father raised."

He faltered in his step at that, his hand curled into a fist at his side but ultimately he kept walking out of sight.

I glanced round at everyone staring and just sighed. I grabbed my purse and pulled out enough money to cover the meals, leaving it on the table and snatched the disregarded gift bag before walking out too.

I cried in the street, facing a wall as i tried not to make any sound. I pulled myself together as quickly as I could before walking home. Realistically I shouldn't have even considered going back to that stupid mansion but I did.

I ignored everyone as I went upstairs and got in one of the spare beds. I didn't bother cleaning my skin or changing my clothes, I just went to bed.

Even in the morning I just didn't get up, I just stayed there wondering what the fuck was going to happen. Part of me wanted to pack up and leave but...I loved him. I'd stayed with him for so long now, through far too much to just leave him right?

That being said when I heard the front door go and Rebekah asking where Klaus had been all night broke my heart because I knew he had been with Cami. I accused him of cheating so he decided to prove I was right.

I sniffed back my tears, refusing to cry anymore especially with him in earshot.

I forced myself up and got out of bed, stepping over the heels I had kicked off last night and opening the door. I stepped out and immediately saw him stood at the top of the stairs. Hair ruffled and eyes tired.

Neither of us spoke a word as I went into the bathroom next door to shower. When I came back out in my towel I found my comfy clothes laid out on my bed. With reluctance I accepted the gesture and got dressed. There was no point in drying my hair or having any makeup on so I just wondered downstairs.

Everyone was being awkward. Rebekah tried to come talk to me but I told her it was okay and it wasn't a big deal and I'd come talk to her when I felt a little better.

I went back to the guest bedroom and stared up at the ceiling. There weren't TV's in the rooms nobody used and I didn't have anything to do on my phone after the first couple hours so I just laid there.

When it got dark again a knock sounded at my door and Klaus came it. I didn't look over at him as he sat down beside me on the edge of the bed. His hand moved to touch me, stroking my palm and my fingers.

"Did you sleep with her?" I whispered, a little scared to ask.

"Not...technically" He muttered, his voice hesitant and guilty.

I didn't want to ask what that meant. Did he finger her? Eat her out? Did she suck him off and make out with him while convincing him to leave me for her? Was he here to break it off with me so he could just be with her?

"Do you want me to leave?" I asked, a feeling of indifference bleeding through me as a numbness protected my heart. It was quiet for a moment before he spoke.

"I don't ever want you to leave." He whispered. "I shouldn't have ever gone to her house especially when I was angry already. I ended up drinking so much..." He trailed as if remembering something. I sighed and stared into space.

"It's fine." I whispered and he squeezed my hand.

"What?" He asked and I shrugged.

"You haven't wanted to be with me for a while now...I just loved you too much to let you go but I don't have to let you go anymore, you left instead."

His fingers interlaced with mine but I didn't hold his hand back.

"I haven't stopped loving you." He admitted but I wasn't really sure I could trust whatever he said.

"You just love her too." I muttered.

"No, I don't love her. I truly don't. I don't know what's wrong with me but I know I'm wrong and I know I'm hurting you and out of all the people in my life, you are someone I never want to hurt so..." He paused for a second and I forced my eyes not to weep. "So I'm gonna do whatever you need me to do. I know we can't be together...I've broken your trust and I can't get it back until...well I don't know if I can."

"I'll just pack my things." I whispered.

"I can give you money to help-"

"I don't want your money, or your help. I just need you to leave me alone, I can't see you with her- I can't see you period." I told him.

I could physically feel my mental walls building up around me.

He left me alone a moment later and stayed out of sigh as I stuffed all my things into a case and called a cab.

It was a hotel I stayed in for a few days before I found a shitty motel that allowed long-stay for little money while I applied for jobs.

I was on my way to a work interview when I saw Klaus again. It had only been two weeks and I knew I looked shit. The shower at the motel was inconsistent of when it wanted to work, there was no hairdryer and I didn't have anything to straighten it or products to let it stay curly so it was just frizzy and I had no makeup or money to buy it so I looked as tired as I was due to the pathetic excuse of a mattress I was sleeping on. How I was going to get any job looking like I did would be a miracle or a massive pity party.

Klaus looked as perfect as ever, not a hair out of place when his eyes met mine across the street. He was there with Rebekah and I felt his gaze drift over me even after I kept walking away.

Part of me just wanting to feel his arms around me. But I knew that was wrong and I needed to get through this and he couldn't help with that. I wasn't sure anything could help, even if I had a new job and a beautiful house with a loving faithful family and two healthy children, I don't think I'd be able to look at Klaus and not wonder why I couldn't be enough for him.

If I wasn't enough for him, would I be enough for someone else?

[coco-loco-nut]

Book Club - Part 9

pairing: grid x reader

summary: you just got your wisdom teeth out, just in time for winter break fun with headcanons

a/n: thanks for the request, I missed the club❤️ ALSO! the original post just hit 1,500 notes??? like guys🥹 ilysm, you don’t even know. you are still reading my silly little writings, and i appreciate that more than you know. every like, comment, and reblog is the reason we are here 9 parts later (seriously you should see how happy i am when i see comments)

requests open masterlist

——————

- You didn’t tell anyone else on the grid other than Lance, obviously

- They were all surprised when it was announced that you were going to be missing Abu Dahbi

- Your oral surgeon only had that Wednesday free before Christmas

- …and let’s be real, your seat was secure, you weren’t going to win the WDC, and the constructors championship was locked in

- You would raise hell if you couldn’t enjoy the food around the holidays, so missing the last race it was

- You were exhausted from the season and appreciated the early break

- Lance just let it slip to the drivers on Friday a couple of hours after he got there

- You were sitting at home with Kimi, swollen and in pain all Friday

- “What do you mean she won’t be here? We have our presents for her” Fernando pouts

- Charles one day ships you cases of his gelato with a note telling you to feel better, he’s trying to get into the club for the gossip

- Lance gets invited to the club meeting to his surprise

- He assumes that they want to check in on you, despite them blowing up your phone

- No, he was VERY wrong

- Lance got roped into showing them videos of you on drugs

- Their favorite was the one of you when you first came out from being under

- “I’m married? Oh my god, I married Nico Hülkenberg? This is the best day of my life”

- You were sobbing tears of joy

- Nico was sent the video immediately, you gave him permission via text to post it the next day

- The second favorite was your favorite to laugh at

- You went on a massive rant about how Susie Wolff is a MILF and how you hoped Toto could fight because the female driver was your woman crush and you WILL have her

- Susie loved the video (George and Lewis sent it in the Mercedes family gc), Toto… not as much but he was amused

- You got a lot of fussing drivers on Facetime during the meeting

- You were loopy af from the painkillers and general exhaustion during it, it wasn’t your fault they called you late

- Kimi forced them to shut up and hang up so you could sleep

- Carlos joked about being relieved that there wasn’t another race for you to follow his trend during an interview

- You won the first race the next year

- Your phone started blowing up with messages on social media wishing you a quick recovery

- Most of the book club showed up to your home after Abu Dahbi, wanting to make a quick stop to check in before the break

- “Hello, wife,” Nico greets you when he sees you

- You joked you were about to file for divorce from Lance, who just sighed and went to get you a carton of LEC

- You had to film you opening your secret santa gift and send it to the F1 social team

- You got a quilt blanket that had a square for each book you read with the club since it started

- You actually started sobbing (you blamed the meds, even if you were actually crying)

- Lewis got the biggest hug ever, he enlisted help from Valtteri for all the books

- You forced them to cut the parts of you crying out of the video

- You got Logan an old iPod full of popular music (you hacked into his phone to check the genres he liked) from his childhood and now

- Obviously you added headphones and a couple chargers

- Logan used it all the time, he called you immediately to thank you

- You had the honors of choosing the first book over winter break

- You chose an F1 romance novel

- Boy oh boy were those meetings fun, just tearing up the book for its inaccuracy

- Daniel vowed to write an accurate one and sell it

- Spoiler Alert: he never did

- But Fernando did

- It was an international bestseller

[whatswrong7]

Part 1 Part 2

Ghost was sweating bullets, feeling a little too warm for comfort as he stared at the articles of clothing he had on his bed, his closet practically empty. Since when was he a ‘I don’t have anything to wear’ guy? It wasn’t anything special, just dinner. He could throw on any button up and slacks, but the mere thought of appearing like he didn’t care had him wanting to strangle himself. He got you flowers, and a reservation at a nice Mediterranean place he’d been saving for, remembering a comment you made about how much you loved their food, but how expensive it was. He couldn’t do all that just for you to think he wasn’t serious. He had to have you! He gulped thickly, wondering how pretty you would look. Would you doll yourself up just for him? His heart threatened to break a rib from the inside at the thought.

A headache was starting to form in his skull as he carefully stared at what he had to work with. How did you like men dressed? He had never paid enough attention to your rambles before. You had to have said something though, that he couldn’t help but overhear. Alas, no matter how much he wracked his brain, the thought wouldn’t come to him. He wipes his sweaty palm on his bare thighs. You may have said something about black button ups, but he couldn’t remember if you had actually said that, or if his brain was just making something up out of desperation. Either way, he quickly put it on, choosing black slacks to go with it. Usually he wore silver, but he noticed you usually wore gold, not that you got the chance to wear jewelry often on base.

He wanted to match you, his face felt a little hot at the thought people would think you two were a couple, even if you technically weren’t yet. He quickly chose his few gold rings, along with a small chain around his neck. You had a similar necklace, only smaller and daintier. Maybe you’d be wearing it tonight. He had the image in his head, the pretty color on your skin, your pretty skin he wanted to bite and-

No, he reminded himself, we aren’t doing this right now. Checking the time, he figured he should get going soon if he wanted to show up early, and see that cute face of yours light up when he gave you the flowers.

Sure enough, once you opened your door and took in the sight before you, your pretty eyes Ghost had been admiring lit up, your lips quickly finding their way to his cheek. You might as well have electrocuted him. He stood dumbfounded at your door while you placed his gift in a vase. He quickly snapped out of it once your tapped his bicep, asking if he was ok.

"Oh, yes, love, more than okay"

Your face heated up at the look he gave you, his eyes obviously lingering on places a gentleman shouldn't be looking. It was the same when you got to the restauraunt. He knew in the back of his mind he appeared like a creep, but you were such a pretty one, he couldn't help but stare obsessively at you, especially now that you were so much closer, and he could see more details he couldn't spot from the distance he usually sat from you. Besides from that, as stressed as he'd been earlier, it was so easy to fall into conversation with you. He tried to keep the subject on you as much as possible, not because he didn't want to share anything about himself, but because he wanted to make up for lost time, learn as much about you as possible, so he could be your perfect man. If you would accept him, that is.

Shit, he wasn't even sure if you wanted to pursue something serious, meanwhile he was already trying to guess and imagine what wedding dress you'd like, and how you'd give him such cute babies. Little does he know you were more than happy to think about a future with him, though, to be fair, your thoughts were a little more impure, but still wholesome.

He was starting to question why he didn't start chasing after you sooner, when you knocked over your drink of choice. Ah, right, he had considered you useless and clumsy. He chuckled to himself, but practically got whiplash when you started apologizing profusely, turning red out of embarassment. How had he missed that before? God, you were just so cute. Ghost practically seethed at himself for not paying more attention and snatching you up sooner. But that thought quickly flew away as he started thinking about how he wanted to see you jump and yelp and laugh at your mistakes again and again, forever.

And sure enough, you did, as you knocked over various things as he dragged you along the darkness of his home, his assurances and kisses on your head that it was 'ok, love, just keep following him', until you both landed on his bed, soon to become yours too.

Most likely not gonna write a part 4, besides some more cute drabbles about Ghost x incompetent! Reader cuz idk I just love the concept

[queenimmadolla]

𝐅𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐃𝐚𝐲

(dad!eddie munson x mom!reader)

Summary: . . . You and your kids wake Eddie up with a surprise for Father's Day. warnings: fluff and Eddie being down bad for Reader 🤭, implications of baby making.

word count: 2k

more dad!eddie here

“'Shhh', mama?” Your four year old asked as she trailed behind you in the hallway.

  “Yeah, we have to be quiet so you can wake daddy up with a surprise.” You were trying not to make too much noise with the flowers, wrapped in apparently the world’s loudest brown paper, hitching your nine-month old up higher on your hip.

  Thank goodness neither of your kids were in a fussy mood, especially considering you’d gotten them up early after the terrible night before. Wayne had a new tooth coming in, he was absolutely miserable and your poor baby made sure to let everyone know. He’d been wailing most of the night and Eddie took it upon himself to soothe him, rubbing some baby friendly orajel along his gums, massaging them with fingers dipped in cool water, and offering frozen teething rings and plenty of comfort in the form of nonstop cuddles.

  He hadn’t joined you in bed until the early hours of the morning, which worked out perfectly. Eddie had been dead asleep when you got up, squishing a pillow you’d planted in place of yourself to his chest.

  Next came getting the kids ready, which was also surprisingly easy. Penny was pliant with sleep, letting you dress her without whining (she kept trying to lean forward so she could rest on you and go back to sleep—it was the cutest thing) and your baby was still soothed by Eddie’s remedies, letting out content coos as you changed his diaper and also got him ready.

  After a quick trip to a music store downtown (and by quick you meant 45 minutes, Penny took delicate care in picking out another final gift for her daddy and told you not to rush her every time you’d ask her to hurry) and a stop at the flower shop, you arrived back home and it looked like Eddie still hadn’t stirred, which gave you time to make breakfast.

  You’d sat Waynie in his high chair, gave him some cut up pieces of banana to gnaw on—which he did so as aggressively as possible—and went about making pancakes, eggs and bacon (which Eddie liked to devour until he felt ill).

  Penny was of course your little helper, sitting on your lap while you assisted her with whisking the eggs in a bowl for Waynie’s scrambled eggs, and then perched on your hip to help you flip the pancakes. She’d insisted that Eddie’s pancakes all be heart shaped and you loved the idea, so after a couple of failed ones that would be on your plate, you eventually got it down and she wrapped her arms tightly around you in a hug for it.

  Once breakfast was plated and the table was set, you gathered Wayne and the flowers while Penny carried Eddie’s decoy gift towards your bedroom.

  Quietly, you opened the door and peaked in, smiling  at Eddie’s sleeping form.

  “Okay, let’s go wake him up. Shh.” You propped the door open for Penny to slip in before you and she grinned up at you, using her free hand to hold her finger to her lips, she’d be quiet.

  She set the rectangular box on the end of the bed and then climbed on top while you sat Wayne down on the bed.

  He was just starting to crawl, so he very shakily made his way towards Eddie—face planting quite a few times but it didn’t deter your baby.

  Penny looked back at you for confirmation and you nodded in encouragement. That was all the permission she needed.

  “Daddy! Daddy, wake up! It’s daddy’s day! Wakey, wakey!” 

  She poked and prodded at his side when he groaned and shifted onto his back, eyes squinting open. That wasn’t good enough for her, she moved to sit on him and Wayne finally reached him, using his dad’s shoulder to prop himself up enough to sit back on his bum while he let out a happy shriek, chunky little palms slapping eagerly at his dad’s face to do the trick.

  Eddie made a face, nose scrunching up but you could see the smile curling on his lips, dimples appearing.

  “Okay, okay! I’m awake! Stop the assault!” 

  Penny laughed as he sat up, which almost sent her sprawling on the bed but she caught herself on his leg. Eddie tutted, that wouldn’t do.

  Eddie reached out and pushed her off of him and she laughed hysterically as she bounced against the mattress which made the two of you chuckle. For some reason your daughter loved to rough house with him. 

  Penny didn’t stay down for long, quickly crawling back up to lay down along the side of his pillow and Eddie turned his head to look at her after he’d gathered Wayne and sat him on his chest.

  “Happy Fodder’s Day, daddy. You aw the best daddy in the whole wide everywhere.” She whispered to him, very seriously, and he leaned in to give her a smacking kiss on the nose.

  “Thank you, baby.” His voice was raspy but you could detect the emotion under it. Eddie was so gonna choke up.

  “You wanna give him his present?” You prompted her, and Eddie’s head darted in your direction, grin widening at the sight of you in his favorite dress.

  “Oh, yeah!” Penny scurried to the end of the bed and knee-crawled back to Eddie, hands outstretched to offer him the rectangular box.

  “What’s this?” He asked, tucking Wayne into his side so he could grab the box.

  “You gots to open it, daddy.” Penny demanded, eagerly leaning in to stare at the box while he did.

  “Sorry,” you both traded looks of amusement before he took off the lid and moved the tissue paper aside to reveal a new guitar strap; black and decorated with crossbone skulls. “This is for me?”

  “Yeah!” Penny nodded her head ecstatically. “Mommy lemme pickeded it out!”

  “Thank you so much, little pretty one.” Eddie moved his hand to the back of his daughter’s curly little head to bring it in so he could press a kiss to her forehead, then he turned to the baby at his side. “And you, too!”

  He leaned down and pressed a kiss to the sweet smelling curls on his baby’s head. In return, Waynie started gnawing on his arm.

  You sat on the side of the bed and pulled him away from Eddie’s arm. Your son looked at you, affronted,  like you’d committed the ultimate crime until you held a pacifier to his lips. He eagerly gobbled it up and relaxed back against Eddie, once more content as he suckled.

  “Penny, do you wanna go get the other thing?”

  “Wha─?” She looked at you, confused for only a moment before her big brown eyes lit up. “YES, YES, YES!”

  Penny quickly climbed off the bed and ran to her room, where you’d hidden it.

  “What are you up to, trouble?” Eddie asked and you turned your head away from the doorway to find him looking at you, sleepy eyes clouded with love and affection as he reached a hand out to stroke along your exposed thigh.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

  “You’re trying to make me cry again, aren’t you?”

  “Not me, no way. No how.” 

  “I GOS IT, MOMMY!” Penny ran back in, chin raised to peak over the box she carried. It wasn’t too heavy for her, just big.

  She brought it over to you and you handed it to Eddie before pulling her up onto your lap as you watched him unbox it.

  “I wonder what it could b—.” Eddie’s mouth parted just slightly as he pulled a small amp from the box. It wasn’t just any amp. It was an amp you’d sneakily picked up from the music store last week—he had a ton of amps sprawled around the apartment but Eddie’s favorite portable one had recently gone out on him. 

  The amp itself would have been a fantastic gift alone, but you’d taken a few extra steps to personalize it for him. You’d painted the black amp with a solid red background and then let Penny and Wayne paint whatever they wanted on it. 

  Penny had gone all out, making sure to paint her family holding hands on it, along with plenty of depictions of her dad, one of which was him wearing a cape because he was her hero and since Wayne was too little to use a paintbrush, his little hand and foot prints were on it. 

  On one of the sides was your initials (last name replaced with an ‘M’ to represent the Munson name you’d taken on when you’d married him) + EM 4Ever, tucked into a heart with Cupid’s bow shot through it. 

  “SUPISE! D’ya like it, daddy? I drews on it, and it got Waynie’s feets and hans.” Penny looked so proud of herself, smile nearly taking up her entire face.

  Eddie sniffled and you hid your grin in Penny’s hair. You got him.

  He licked his lips and cleared his throat to try and keep himself together but you could see the shine in his eyes when he raised them.

  “I love it so much, baby girl.” He choked out, holding Wayne a little tighter to his side.

  “You wanna give daddy a hug?” You whispered into her ear and she crawled off your lap to throw herself at Eddie, arms wrapping around his shoulders.

  Eddie was careful to make sure Penny didn’t squish Wayne as he held her to his chest, eyes squeezing shut and his freehand cradling the back of her head.

  “I luh you, daddy.” Penny mumbled, resting her cheek on his shoulder.

  “I love you, pretty Penny.” He pressed a multitude of kisses to her curls as he basked in the moment before his eyes shot open and over to you. “What are you doing all the way over there? Get over here and give me some love.”

  You affectionately rolled your eyes before you complied, lifting Wayne out of his arms and into yours to take his place tucked into Eddie’s side. Eddie demanded kisses the moment you were near, and because you loved him, you ignored his god awful morning breath and let him have his way.

  His lips remained pressed to your temple, an arm slipped around your waist so he could lift the skirt of your dress, fingers tracing the words I love you along your thigh as Penny explained all her paintings in great, excessive detail.

  Later, when you were all at the table eating the breakfast you and Penny had made, Eddie could barely get a bite in without staring at you. Wayne was in your arms, face pressed against your breast as he nursed (always did it before he ate solids), while Penny babbled to you about how fun cooking with you had been and how yummy it was as you helped her scoop up her food on her little fork.

  Eddie knew Father’s Day was a day meant to celebrate him and essentially all the other fathers of the world, but he’d much rather appreciate you. You’d given him Penny and Wayne; his sweet (usually) little girl and his baby boy. Without you, he wouldn’t be able to be a part of this day, really.

  Eventually, you felt the weight of his stare and looked up at him, gaze inquisitive.

  “What?” 

  He just huffed out a gentle laugh, brown eyes warm and making a certain feeling stir in your belly, “Nothing. Thank you. For them.”

  Eddie nods towards Wayne and Penny.

  “Well, you definitely played a part in getting them here.” You mused, reaching a hand out to stroke over Penny’s curls. 

  Sure, you made them but it wouldn’t have been possible had Eddie not finished inside of you on a regular basis. 

  When you looked back at him, Eddie was smirking, his eyes were heavily lidded and darkening–his bedroom eyes. The warmth in them was simmering into something much more intense as he leered at you with absolutely no shame. Lustful.

  You could feel yourself heating up, bashful nature hitting you full force as he nearly ate you alive with his gaze alone. You knew what was coming next, what he was about to say.

  “Wanna make another one during nap time?”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

It was all downhill after the Cuecat

Sometime in 2001, I walked into a Radio Shack on San Francisco’s Market Street and asked for a Cuecat: a handheld barcode scanner that looked a bit like a cat and a bit like a sex toy. The clerk handed one over to me and I left, feeling a little giddy. I didn’t have to pay a cent.

The Cuecat was a good idea and a terrible idea. The good idea was to widely distribute barcode scanners to computer owners, along with software that could read and decode barcodes; the company’s marketing plan called for magazines and newspapers to print barcodes alongside ads and articles, so readers could scan them and be taken to the digital edition. To get the Cuecat into widespread use, the company raised millions in the capital markets, then mass-manufactured these things and gave them away for free at Radio Shacks around the country. Every Wired and Forbes subscriber got one in the mail!

That was the good idea (it’s basically a prototype for today’s QR-codes). The terrible idea was that this gadget would spy on you. Also, it would only work with special barcodes that had to be licensed from the manufacturer. Also, it would only work on Windows.

https://web.archive.org/web/20001017162623/http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/sep2000/nf20000928_029.htm

But the manufacturer didn’t have the last word! Not at all. A couple of enterprising hardware hackers — Pierre-Philippe Coupard and Michael Rothwell — tore down a Cuecat, dumped its ROM, and produced their own driver for it — a surveillance-free driver that worked with any barcode. You could use it to scan the UPCs on your books or CDs or DVDs to create a catalog of your media; you could use it to scan UPCs on your groceries to make a shopping list. You could do any and every one of these things, because the Cuecat was yours.

Cuecat’s manufacturer, Digital Convergence, did not like this at all. They sent out legal demand letters and even shut down some of the repositories that were hosting alternative Cuecat firmware. They changed the license agreement that came with the Cuecat software CD to prohibit reverse-engineering.

http://www.cexx.org/cuecat.htm

It didn’t matter, both as a practical matter and as a matter of law. As a practical matter, the (ahem) cat was out of the bag: there were so many web-hosting companies back then, and people mirrored the code to so many of them, the company would have its hands full chasing them all down and intimidating them into removing the code.

Then there was the law: how could you impose license terms on a gift? How could someone be bound by license terms on a CD that they simply threw away without ever opening it, much less putting it in their computer?

https://slashdot.org/story/00/09/18/1129226/digital-convergence-changes-eula-and-gets-cracked

In the end, Cuecat folded and sold off its remaining inventory. The early 2000s were not a good time to be a tech company, much less a tech company whose business model required millions of people to meekly accept a bad bargain.

Back then, tech users didn’t feel any obligation to please tech companies’ shareholders: if they backed a stupid business, that was their problem, not ours. Venture capitalists were capitalists — if they wanted us give to them according to their need and take from them according to their ability, they should be venture communists.

Last August, philosopher and Centre for Technomoral Futures director Shannon Vallor tweeted, “The saddest thing for me about modern tech’s long spiral into user manipulation and surveillance is how it has just slowly killed off the joy that people like me used to feel about new tech. Every product Meta or Amazon announces makes the future seem bleaker and grayer.”

https://twitter.com/ShannonVallor/status/1559659655097376768

She went on: “I don’t think it’s just my nostalgia, is it? There’s no longer anything being promised to us by tech companies that we actually need or asked for. Just more monitoring, more nudging, more draining of our data, our time, our joy.”

https://twitter.com/ShannonVallor/status/1559663985821106177

Today on Tumblr, @wilwheaton​ responded: “[T]here is very much no longer a feeling of ‘How can this change/improve my life?’ and a constant dread of ‘How will this complicate things as I try to maintain privacy and sanity in a world that demands I have this thing to operate.’”

https://wilwheaton.tumblr.com/post/698603648058556416/cory-doctorow-if-you-see-this-and-have-thoughts

Wil finished with, “Cory Doctorow, if you see this and have thoughts, I would LOVE to hear them.”

I’ve got thoughts. I think this all comes back to the Cuecat.

When the Cuecat launched, it was a mixed bag. That’s generally true of technology — or, indeed, any product or service. No matter how many variations a corporation offers, they can never anticipate all the ways that you will want or need to use their technology. This is especially true for the users the company values the least — poor people, people in the global south, women, sex workers, etc.

That’s what makes the phrase “So easy your mom can use it” particularly awful “Moms” are the kinds of people whose priorities and difficulties are absent from the room when tech designers gather to plan their next product. The needs of “moms” are mostly met by mastering, configuring and adapting technology, because tech doesn’t work out of the box for them:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/19/the-weakest-link/#moms-are-ninjas

(As an alternative, I advocate for “so easy your boss can use it,” because your boss gets to call up the IT department and shout, “I don’t care what it takes, just make it work!” Your boss can solve problems through raw exercise of authority, without recourse to ingenuity.)

Technology can’t be understood separately from technology users. This is the key insight in Donald Norman’s 2004 book Emotional Design, which argued that the ground state of all technology is broken, and the overarching task of tech users is to troubleshoot the things they use:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/29/banjo-nazis/#cuckoos-egg

Troubleshooting is both an art and a science: it requires both a methodical approach and creative leaps. The great crisis of troubleshooting is that the more frustrated and angry you are, the harder it is to be methodical or creative. Anger turns attention into a narrow tunnel of brittle movements and thinking.

In Emotional Design, Norman argues that technology should be beautiful and charming, because when you like a technology that has stopped working, you are able to troubleshoot it in an expansive, creative, way. Emotional Design was not merely remarkable for what it said, but for who said it.

Donald Norman, after all, was the author of the hugely influential 1998 classic The Design of Everyday Things, which counseled engineers and designers to put function over form — to design things that work well, even if that meant stripping away ornament and sidelining aesthetics.

https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/don-norman/the-design-of-everyday-things/9780465050659/

With Emotional Design, Norman argued that aesthetics were functional, because aesthetics primed users to fix the oversights and errors and blind spots of designers. It was a manifesto for competence and humility.

And yet, as digital technology has permeated deeper into our lives, it has grown less configurable, not more. Companies today succeed where Cuecat failed. Consolidation in the online world means that if you remove a link from one search engine and four social media sites, the material in question vanishes for 99% of internet users.

It’s even worse for apps: anyone who succeeds in removing an app from two app stores essentially banishes it from the world. One mobile platform uses technological and legal countermeasures to make it virtually impossible to sideload an app; the other one relies on strong-arm tactics and deceptive warnings to do so.

That means that when a modern Coupard and Rothwell decides to unfuck some piece of technology — to excise the surveillance and proprietary media requirements, leaving behind the welcome functionality — they can only do so with the sufferance of the manufacturer. If the manufacturer doesn’t like an add-on, mod, plug-in or overlay, they can use copyright takedowns, anticircumvention law, patent threats, trademark threats, cybersecurity law, contract law and other “IP” to simply banish the offending code:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Many of these laws carry dire penalties. For example, distributing a tool that bypasses an “access control” so that you can change the software on a gadget (say, to make your printer accept third-party ink) is a felony under Section 1201 of the DMCA, punishable by a $500k fine and a 5-year prison sentence.

If Cuecat’s manufacturers had simply skinned their firmware with a thin scrim of DRM, they could have threatened Coupard and Rothwell with prison sentences. The developments in “IP” over the two decades since the Cuecat have conjured up a new body of de facto law that Jay Freeman calls “felony contempt of business model.”

Once we gave companies the power to literally criminalize the reconfiguration of their products, everything changed. In the Cuecat era, a corporate meeting to plan a product that acted against its users’ interests had to ask, “How will we sweeten the pot and/or obfuscate our code so that our users don’t remove the anti-features we’re planning to harm them with?”

But in a world of Felony Contempt of Business Model, that discussion changes to “Given that we can literally imprison anyone who helps our users get more out of this product, how can we punish users who are disloyal enough to simply quit our service or switch away from our product?”

That is, “how can we raise the switching costs of our products so that users who are angry at us keep using our products?” When Facebook was planning its photos product, they deliberately designed it to tempt users into making it the sole repository of their family photos, in order to hold those photos ransom to keep Facebook users from quitting for G+:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

Companies claim that their lock-in strategies are about protecting their users: “Move into our walled garden, for it is a fortress, whose battlements bristle with fearsome warriors who will defend you from the bandits who roam the countryside”:

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

But this “feudal security” offers a terrible temptation to the lords of these fortresses, because once you are inside those walls, the fortress can easily be converted to a prison: these companies can abuse you with impunity, for so long as the cost of the abuse is less than the cost of the things you must give up when you leave.

The tale that companies block you from overriding their decisions is for your own good was always dubious, because companies simply can’t anticipate all the ways their products will fail you. No design team knows as much about your moment-to-moment struggles as you do.

But even where companies are sincere in their desire to be the most benevolent of dictators, the gun on the mantelpiece in Act I is destined to go off by Act III: eventually, the temptation to profit by hurting you will overpower whatever “corporate ethics” once stayed the hand of the techno-feudalist who rules over your fortress. Under feudal security, you are one lapse in corporate leadership from your protector turning into your tormentor.

When Apple launched the Ipad 12 years ago, I published an editorial entitled “Why I won’t buy an iPad (and think you shouldn’t, either),” in which I predicted that app stores would inevitable be turned against users:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/

Today, Apple bans apps if they “use…a third-party service” unless they “are specifically permitted to do so under the service’s terms of use.” In other words, Apple specifically prohibits developers from offering tools that displease other companies’ shareholders, no matter whether this pleases Apple customers:

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#intellectual-property

Note that clause 5.2.2 of Apple’s developer agreement doesn’t say “You mustn’t violate a legally enforceable term of service.” It just says, “Thou shalt not violate a EULA.” EULAs are garbage-novellas of impenetrable legalese, larded with unenforceable and unconscionable terms.

Apple sometimes will displease other companies on your behalf. For example, it instituted a one-click anti-tracking setting for Ios that cost Facebook $10 billion in a matter of months:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/02/facebook-says-apple-ios-privacy-change-will-cost-10-billion-this-year.html

But Apple also has big plans to expand its margins by growing its own advertising network. When Apple customers choose ad-blockers that block Apple’s ads, will Apple permit it?

https://www.wired.com/story/apple-is-an-ad-company-now/

The problem with app stores isn’t whether your computing experience is “curated” — that is, whether entities you trust can produce collections of software they vouch for. The problem is when you can’t choose someone else — when leaving a platform involves high switching costs, whether that’s having to replace hardware, buy new media, or say goodbye to your friends, customers, community or family.

When a company can leverage its claims to protecting you to protect itself from you — from choices you might make that ultimately undermine its shareholders interests, even if they protect your own interests — it would be pretty goddamned naive to expect it to do otherwise.

More and more of our tools are now digital tools, whether we’re talking about social media or cars, tractors or games consoles, toothbrushes or ovens:

https://www.hln.be/economie/gentse-foodboxleverancier-mealhero-failliet-klanten-weten-van-niets~a3139f52/

And more and more, those digital tools look more like apps than Cuecats, with companies leveraging “IP” to let them control who can compete with them — and how. Indeed, browsers are becoming more app-like, rather than the other way around.

Back in 2017, the W3C took the unprecedented step of publishing a DRM standard despite this standard not having anything like the consensus that is the norm for W3C publications, and the W3C rejected a proposal to protect people who reverse-engineered that standard to add accessibility features or correct privacy defects:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership

And while we’re seeing remarkable progress on Right to Repair and other policies that allow the users of technology to override the choices of vendors, there’s another strong regulatory current that embraces companies’ ability to control their users, in the hopes that these big companies will police their users to prevent bad stuff, from controversial measures like filtering for copyright infringement to more widely supported ideas like blocking child sex abuse material (CSAM, AKA “child porn”).

There are two problems with this. First, if we tell companies they must control their users (that is, block them from running plugins, mods, skins, filters, etc) then we can’t tell them that they must not control their users. It comes down to whether you want to make Mark Zuckerberg better at his job, or whether you want to abolish the job of “Mark Zuckerberg.”

https://doctorow.medium.com/unspeakable-8c7bbd4974bc

Then there’s the other problem — the gun on the mantelpiece problem. If we give big companies the power to control their users, they will face enormous internal pressure to abuse that power. This isn’t a hypothetical risk: Facebook’s top executives stand accused of accepting bribes from Onlyfans in exchange for adding performers who left Onlyfans to a terrorist watchlist, which meant they couldn’t use other platforms:

https://gizmodo.com/clegg-meta-executives-identified-in-onlyfans-bribery-su-1849649270

I’m not a fan of terrorist watchlists, for obvious reasons. But letting Facebook manage the terrorist watchlist was clearly a mistake. But Facebook’s status as a “trusted reporter” grows directly out of Facebook’s good work on moderation. The lesson is the same as the one with Apple and the ads — just because the company sometimes acts in our interests, it doesn’t follow that we should always trust them to do so.

Back to Shannon Vallor’s question about the origins of “modern tech’s long spiral into user manipulation and surveillance” and how that “killed off the joy that people like me used to feel about new tech”; and Wil Wheaton’s “constant dread of ‘How will this complicate things as I try to maintain privacy and sanity.”

Tech leaders didn’t get stupider or crueler since those halcyon days. The tech industry was and is filled with people who made their bones building weapons of mass destruction for the military-industrial complex; IBM, the company that gave us the PC, built the tabulating machines for Nazi concentration camps:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

We didn’t replace tech investors and leaders with worse people — we have the same kinds of people but we let them get away with more. We let them buy up all their competitors. We let them use the law to lock out competitors they couldn’t buy, including those who would offer their customers tools to lower their switching costs and block abusive anti-features.

We decided to create “Felony Contempt of Business Model,” and let the creators of the next Cuecat reach beyond the walls of their corporate headquarters and into the homes of their customers, the offices of their competitors, and the handful of giant tech sites that control our online discourse, to reach into those places and strangle anything that interfered with their commercial desires.

That’s why plans to impose interoperability on tech giants are so exciting — because the problem with Facebook isn’t “the people I want to speak to are all gathered in one convenient place,” no more than the problem with app stores isn’t “these companies generally have good judgment about which apps I want to use.”

The problem is that when those companies don’t have your back, you have to pay a blisteringly high price to leave their walled gardens. That’s where interop comes in. Think of how an interoperable Facebook could let you leave behind Zuckerberg’s dominion without forswearing access to the people who matter to you:

https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook

Cuecats were cool. The people who made them were assholes. Interop meant that you could get the cool gadget and tell the assholes to fuck off. We have lost the ability to do so, little by little, for decades, and that’s why a new technology that seems cool no longer excites. That’s why we feel dread — because we know that a cool technology is just bait to lure us into a prison that masquerades as a fortress.

Image: Jerry Whiting (modified) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CueCat_barcode_scanner.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A Cuecat scanner with a bundled cable and PS/2 adapter; it resembles a plastic cat and also, slightly, a sex toy. It is posed on a Matrix movie 'code waterfall' background and limned by a green 'supernova' light effect.]

[j-onedrabbles]

Matching pajamas

❄︎ PAIRING: CHANGBIN X READER ❄︎ CW: DAD! CHANGBIN, FEM!READER, MENTIONS OF PREGNANCY ❄︎ WC: 1.1K ❄︎ NOTE: this barely followed the original plot

     Shopping alone was dangerous. Especially when it was the holidays. Every store had a lot of cute things out, decoration and clothing-wise. Y/n walked around the store, she and her fiancé's three-year-old daughter, Nari, in the cart, trying to grab everything she could reach. 

     “Should we get new pajamas for the winter?” Y/n asked her daughter as she grabbed her hand away from a rack

     “Yeah,” her daughter agreed 

     Y/n made a detour to the clothes. First, she grabbed a few winter items for her daughter— not that she needed any. Between her and Changbin’s family, the rest of the band, and sometimes their families, her child was spoiled with clothes, toys, you name it. 

     Y/n found a couple of cute pairs of holiday and winter pajamas for her, put them in the cart, and moved to the adult section. She picked up a couple of things for herself and Changbin. Finding pajamas that matched the set she found for her baby. What made it better was they had both her and Changbin’s size in stock. 

     She grabbed both and put them in her cart. She grabbed a few more things she needed before getting in line and checking. 

     Changbin was working late at the studio but promised he’d be home before Nari’s bedtime. One of his favorite things was putting his little princess to bed. Somehow he always made it happen, even when he was halfway across the world. 

     Nari insisted on wearing her new jammies to bed as soon as they got home. It was laundry day so Y/n tossed all the new clothes in with their other stuff as well. Her daughter happily played with her toys till dinner time. 

     Changbin came home tight as Y/n finished drying Nari off after her bath. 

     “Let’s put on our new jammies for Daddy,” Y/n smiled at her baby who jumped excitedly in her towel before grabbing the fuzzy clothes off the counter. 

     “Can you and Daddy wear your jammies too?” Nari asked, stepping into her new footie jammies.

     “Of course baby. Should we show Daddy together?” Y/n asked zipping the jammies up

     “Yeah!” Nari smiled. 

     Y/n brushed her hair out before sweeping her off to her bedroom only to find her fiancé lying on the bed. The producer looked over at the two and smiled

     “Did you get a new set of jammies princess?” Changbin smiled as he sat up and Y/n set her on the bed. 

     “Yay!” Nari crawled over to her dad as Y/n walked over to their dresser “And we got you some too!”

     “You did?” Changbin wrapped his arms around his daughter as he pulled her into his chest. Y/n smiled and tossed him his pair of pajamas.

     “Let daddy shower and put his jammies on then maybe we can watch a movie before bed?” Y/n suggested

     “Movie!!” Nari agreed before trying to get off the bed. Changbin helped his daughter down. “Mommy jammies too!!”

     “Mommy will put her jammies on too. Can you go make sure all your toys are picked up baby?”

     “Okay!” Nari ran out of their room to clean before Changbin pulled his lover down to the bed.

     “Matching jammies?” he asked kissing her neck 

     “Thought it would be cute for the holidays. Don’t think so?” Y/n faux pouted at him

     “No baby, the matching pajamas are great! We’re gonna look so cozy,” Changbin smiled and attacked her face with kisses. 

     “Go shower stinky,” Y/n giggled, playfully pushing him away

     “In a minute. Haven’t seen you all day,” Changbin replied

     “Oh! I have another surprise for you!” Y/n remembered and got out of his arms. Walking over to their closet and pulling a gift bag out.

     “Early Christmas gift?” He asked, sitting at the edge of the bed before taking it from her hands. 

     Y/n smiled as she sat next to him as he opened the bag, took out the tissue paper and gripped the fabric inside the bag. He pulled it out and set the bag aside. Unfolding the little fabric and reading the writing while she wrapped her arms around him. 

     “SPEARB's second single coming this summer!”

     “Are you…” Changbin looked up and down at her

     “Kept saying how you wanted another one,” Y/n smiled 

     Changbin's smile widened as he pulled her onto his lap and kissed her, “I like this better than the pajamas.”

     “Don’t tell your daughter that,” Y/n joked as patted his chest and got off his lap, “Shower and get your pajamas on Papa Bear.”

     Changbins grabbed the fabric she tossed at him and got in the shower to wash the day away as Y/n switched into her pajamas and found her first baby putting her books away. 

     “Good job baby.” Y/n congratulated her daughter 

     “Need blanky,” Nari said before running off to her room. Y/n sat on the couch and waited for either her daughter or fiancé to come back.

     Her daughter waddled back into the living room, a large SKZOO blanket the group had customized for her as soon as Changbin told them about her pregnancy. Putting it up on the couch then running off again.

     “Where are you going princess!” Changbin caught his daughter and lifted her. Her little giggle scream made his heart melt.

     “Dwaekki! Need Dwaekki!” She yelled.

     “Oh! Let’s get dwaekki,” Changbin carried her to the room and grabbed the SKZOO before joining his fiancée on the couch. 

     “Got everything?” Y/n asked 

     “Yeah!” Nari snuggled up between them with her Dwaekki. 

     “Picture!” Changbin announced as he held up his phone. Nari got up and hugged her dad and Y/n leaned in. Changbin snapped a couple of photos before he was satisfied. 

     “Like your jammies?” Nari asked her dad, petting his shoulder. 

     “I love my jammies, princess. Mommy did a good job picking them out.” 

     Nari plopped down on her dad's lap as Y/n threw the blanket over the three of them while Changbin grabbed the remote and turned the TV on to find a movie for them to watch. Opting more for Nari’s favorite. 

     Changbin wrapped his arm around his fiancée, bringing her closer to him and kissing the top of her head. It was rare to get to have nights like this. Snuggled up in matching pajamas on the couch while both his girls cuddled up to him. 

     Nari fell asleep on her dad's lap, clutching his SKZOO animal like every night. “I hope we have another girl,” Changbin whispered to Y/n

     “Should I go back and get another pajama set for next year?” Y/n joked 

     “No. Just buy new ones next year. And every year after that.”

SERIES M. LIST ❄︎ MAIN M. LIST ❄︎ TIP JAR

TAGLISTS ❄︎ @starlostastronaut @want2besomeoneelse @aylinbsx @143lix @princesspanda16 @manuosorioh @delulu18 @shaylaxo @chillichillicrabcrab23

© 2023 jonedrabbles. Please do not copy, translate, or republish my works anywhere.

[steddieas-shegoes]

always you

wanted to wish @rozzieroos a very happy birthday! you've been so supportive of me since the beginning and it makes a world of difference to someone who is always just a bit nervous to share the things they write. i am unfortunately not a very crafty bitch, so i can't return the friendship bracelet favor right now, but i hope this is a nice little sappy gift for ya! sending you big hugs and all my love 💕 - mickala

rated t | 1,324 words | no cw | tags: fluff, established relationship, the most miniscule hurt and almost entirely comfort, boys in love, side platonic stobin stuff but robin isn't technically there

💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

Steve always had an adrenaline crash after a visit from Robin. The first time it happened, Eddie was convinced they would have to move to Boston just so Steve could get out of the funk. Luckily, they figured out what to do after a couple of days.

And every time it's happened since, they manage to get him out of it pretty quickly.

But this time seemed worse, and Eddie wasn't sure why.

As far as he could tell, everything about the visit was normal. Robin came for a long weekend, they all went to dinner together the first night, Eddie had to work on Saturday so Steve and Robin had their fun together. Sunday, they all went to brunch together before dropping her off at the airport.

And Steve was fine! That evening he was cooking dinner and dancing to music while Eddie wrote some notes for a campaign he was running with work buddies. They ate together and Eddie did the dishes while Steve went through his nightly routine of locking up.

They even gave each other blowjobs in the shower.

But this morning, as soon as Eddie opened his eyes and smelled the bleach, he knew it was bad.

He sat up and looked out the open bedroom door.

"Fuck."

He got up quickly, throwing on the closest pair of pants he could find, probably Steve's since they felt baggier than his own, and made his way down the hall to the bathroom.

Steve was on his knees, scrubbing the shower like it personally offended him.

"Hey sweetheart, everything okay?" He asked hesitantly.

"Fine," Steve answered, clearly very far from fine.

Eddie sighed and sat on the closed toilet lid. "Stevie, it's okay if you wanna have a sad day. I know it's hard when Robin goes back home. I'm off today so we can just relax in bed if you want."

Eddie would never tell Steve that the reason he was off was because as soon as he knew when Robin was going back home, he'd requested the day off to be here for Steve.

"I don't need a sad day. I'm fine."

"Yeah, that's why you've scrubbed the shower until it's literally sparkling at way too early in the morning," Eddie reached out and covered his shoulder. "It's okay to miss her. I know it's hard."

Steve stopped scrubbing.

Eddie prepared for what was likely to be a very ugly and loud sob.

Steve turned to him with his lips quivering and eyes watery.

"Oh, sweetheart," Eddie said as he got on the floor with Steve and pulled him into his lap. "It's gonna be alright. We're gonna visit her next month, remember?"

"I know," Steve said against his shoulder, voice wobbling like he was still holding back tears. "I just don't wanna keep doing this."

"What?"

"I hate being so far from her. We were supposed to live close enough to see each other every weekend and have sleepovers and now she's in Boston with her girlfriend who is amazing, and I'm here with you and you're amazing, but I miss her. And I know she misses me." Eddie could feel tears soaking his shirt. "And it's stupid that we're so codependent still, and I feel bad that you probably feel like you're not enough."

"Sweetheart, I don't ever feel that way. I've never felt that way. Have I made you feel like I feel that way?" Eddie tightened his grip around Steve.

"No, not really," Steve shrugged. "It's just I know we're a lot. And I know it sometimes probably seems like I need her more than I need you, but I don't."

"Sweetheart, I know that." Eddie kissed the top of his head and smiled. "You're a package deal. I knew that the moment you kissed me in the hospital room. I was getting Steve and his platonic soulmate Robin, or I wasn't getting Steve at all. I know how important she is to you. Don't you think she's important to me too?"

"I guess," Steve shrugged again, sniffling against Eddie's shirt.

"Well, how could she not be? She helped make sure you stayed safe before I was there to protect you. She knows exactly what to do when you have nightmares, taught me everything she could so I could be there for you. She sends me tapes she thinks I'll like when she sends you care packages. She was the second person I ever came out to! "

"Wait, I thought I was the second person you came out to."

"You were the third. She was a practice run when I saw her staring at the young nurse who checked my vitals the day I woke up. She's the one who told me I should tell you," Eddie nudged him away for a moment so he could look down at him. "I wouldn't be on this floor with you five years later if not for her. She's kinda important to me."

"I just hate that I get like this!" Steve finally said. "I hate that this happens every time. It's not fair to you."

"Love, it's okay. I know how to help." Eddie kissed his forehead. "Go ahead and wash your hands and go get back in bed. I'm gonna grab a book and we're gonna cuddle for a bit."

"But-"

"And then!" Eddie continued, louder. "We'll get pizza delivered for lunch even though we shouldn't. We'll call Robin. We'll take a bath. I'll wash your hair. I'll make us that roasted chicken stuff you like for dinner. It'll be perfect."

"Okay."

"And then-"

"There's more?" Eddie could hear the smirk in Steve's voice even though he'd buried his face against his neck again.

"Of course there's more." Eddie poked his side. "And then we're gonna start talking about moving closer to Boston so we can visit her more than three times a year."

"Eds, we can't afford Boston."

"I know. But we can afford New England if we find the right spots. We'll have her send us some ads for places for rent. I can transfer within the company. You're a teacher, you can work anywhere."

"You make it sound so easy."

"It is so easy. Making you happy is the easiest thing I'll ever do."

"But you have to be happy too."

"I will be. You wanna know why?"

"Why?"

"Because I'll still have you. And let's be honest, it's way more likely that one of the New England states is gonna let us get married before fucking Illinois."

Steve chuckled. "Married? Who said anything about getting married?"

"Oh, did I forget to mention? I planned on spending the rest of my life with you."

"I know that, goofball." Steve let out another genuine laugh. "I just didn't think you'd ever wanna actually get the law involved if they ever let us."

"Steven, I don't involve the law, the law involves me."

"I don't think that's how it works, babe," Steve kissed his neck before pulling away. "I think all that sounds nice though."

"Then hop to it, Harrington! We've got a bed to get back into."

Once they settled in their bed, Steve curled into Eddie's side while he opened the book they'd been reading for a week now, he looked up at Eddie with a soft smile.

"I love you a lot, you know?"

"I know, angel. I love you a lot more," Eddie replied, leaning down to kiss his lips softly.

They'd spend the day exactly as Eddie said they would.

They'd find a place only two hours from Robin and move less than a month later.

They'd get married as soon as it was legal for them to do it.

They rescued a dog.

They even adopted twins.

And every single time Steve wanted to see Robin, they packed up the car and went to visit her.

Because Steve had Eddie, and Eddie had Steve, but they both had Robin.

[inkdrinkerworld]

Helloooo!

I was thinking about sleepy mornings with James or Remus! The domesticity of it is making me SOBBBB

Also I love your writing so much ❤️

Omg this is perfect for a Christmas morning fic!! Sorry for the wait my dear🤍 ft! Pregnant!reader, Christmas morning fluff, Wolfstar and their kids (mentioned)

James wales up first, to the sound of soft pattering and whispers.

He’s almost ninety percent sure Sirius and Remus’ kids are already up and being talked out of running into everyone’s room to wake them up because, ‘Father Christmas came!’

You’re still asleep on his chest, breathing deeply, but as James takes a peek out the window and spots the rising sun and snow, he knows you’re going to want to wake up soon.

Just like the little ones, you’ve this innate love for Christmas and since moving to London permanently with James all those years ago, you’ve never really grown out of your fascination and love for the snow.

“M’heart, it’s Christmas.” James whispers, hand stroking your back. “Happy Christmas, angel.”

For every word he speaks, there’s a soft kiss stamped to the apple of your cheek, your temple, your chin- wherever he can reach.

“Jamie,” you mumble his name straight into his chest, head nuzzling between his pectorals making him laugh. “Happy Christmas.”

You let James tip your chip up and smack a kiss straight on your lips, before tucking it under his chin.

“Are the kids up already?” You ask, all the grog and sleep still stuck to your voice as you allow your body time to wake up.

“Mhm, think Moony’s talked them down from barging in here.”

You snicker, “That could only last so long.”

James hums something in agreement and then his hand moves from your back to your belly.

You’re still early days along- about three months, so there’s no real visible bump to your belly yet, but James loves placing his hand on your stomach and feeling for one.

“How’re you feeling?” He asks quietly; it’s still your little secret and as far as secrets go, it’s the best one you’ve ever kept.

“Better than the last couple of days, but if I don’t get a slice of homemade bread soon I’m gonna lose it.” James chuckles at your passion and rubs his nose along the line of your jaw.

“Think I can just get a couple more minutes with just the three of us, before those four barge in here demanding we wake up and open gifts?”

You pull out of his neck and pretend to think about it, “Hmm, maybe only if you make me that cinnamon tea you do so well.”

James hums, tips your chin up and brushes your lips with his, “You got a deal baby.”

[spdrwdw]

Art by peachypie

Pairing: Miguel x f!Reader

Warnings: None, just fluff

Summary: You and Miguel attend a Christmas party at work where you receive the best Christmas gift you could ever hope for.

Word Count: 3k

A/N: Decided to whip up a quick little Christmas fic. Sorry for it being posted last minute lmao. Hope everyone has a happy holiday!

Masterlist

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It was the week before Christmas and the bakery where you worked was just bustling with people. Nonstop orders were coming in as you continued baking various breads and pastries. 

Your face and apron were just covered in flour and frosting and who knows what else. You just looked a hot mess, honestly. But, on the positive side, you being busy with orders made the time just breeze through, and you were thankful, because everything was hurting by the end of your shift. Arms, legs, neck, back. Everything ached. 

“I could really use a massage right about now,” you sighed as you began your clean up routine after the doors closed. 

Miguel, your coworker and best friend, was up front counting the till for the night. 

“Yeah? Hmm, well, I happen to be pretty good at giving massages, you know. If you want some relief,” he replied, shooting a smirk and a wink your way as you walked past him. 

You rose a brow at him, feeling your cheeks heating up at his words before finally shaking your head at him. 

“Why do I feel like you mean something completely different by that?” You questioned. 

“Maybe you should get that mind of yours out of the gutter,” Miguel shot back at you, causing you to flinch. 

“Rude,” you muttered under your breath as you headed back into the kitchen. 

Once Miguel had finished counting the funds made that day and finished cleaning up at the front of the store, he made his way to the back to help you with whatever else you needed. 

“Don’t we have that Christmas party going on in two days?” You then asked, trying to remember when the shop’s Christmas party was going to be held. 

Miguel nodded his head as he cleaned up the mixers. “Yeah. It’s gonna be on Saturday. We’ll be closing shop early for it. We’re also doing Secret Santa during the party, too.”

“Oh, crap! I honestly forgot about that! Crap crap crap!” You hissed, shaking your head as you swept the floor. You definitely had to drop by the mall and buy something for Jess. You really forgot all about the Secret Santa thing. You were so preoccupied with school and finals that it had just slipped your mind.

“Well, you’re welcome for the reminder,” Miguel snickered.

You rolled your eyes at him, however, grateful for the reminder. You didn’t want to attend the Christmas party without your secret Santa gift. 

Once everything was cleaned and checked off, Miguel closed up shop for the night. 

“You’ll be okay getting home?” Miguel asked as he locked the front doors. 

“Yeah, I should be alright. I can catch the last bus home,” you assured him as you zipped up your jacket and stuffed your hands into the jacket’s pockets. 

“Alright. Keep your phone on you and text me when you get home.”

Miguel may be a pain in the ass at times. But, he was still your best friend and he always looked out for you.

“I will. Promise. Have a good night, Miguel,” you smiled up at him, nodding your head.

It also didn’t help that he made your heart skip a beat sometimes when he acted so sweet towards you. Just fueling the silly little crush you had for him since you both met during your freshman year of college, 

“Good night,” he smiled back at you as you turned at your heel and began to walk the opposite way.

Miguel watched you for a moment before you turned the corner, waiting a couple of minutes before he walked the opposite  direction to head home. 

As promised, you texted him once you got to your apartment, even sent him a selfie of you at the front door, sticking your tongue out and giving him a peace sign before you opened the door and stepped inside. 

The next couple of days were a blur. You did not remember the events that happened during those days that had led you to the day of the Christmas party. 

All your coworkers were there. Including Miguel. Of course, he would be there. 

Everyone was dressed up, either wearing ugly sweaters or Christmas themed clothes. You settled for a cute Santa dress. 

People brought in food, either store bought or homemade. You decided to bake some gingerbread cookies to bring in. You did work at a bakery, after all, and everyone seemed to enjoy them despite constantly being around baked goods. 

The party was going well. Everyone was mingling, eating, drinking, and even dancing around in the shop. You were talking to Jess and MJ, sitting down on a booth over at a corner of the shop. Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed Miguel staring at you, or possibly at the table. 

Since he was your best friend, he sometimes acted like a sad puppy when he wasn’t allowed to be part of the ‘girl group’ that was you, Jess, and MJ. 

You couldn’t help but smile in his direction. He caught your expression and smiled back at you before moving his attention back to the conversation he was having with Peter and Ben. 

While things continued to go great, something else had caught your eye. Ben. 

He was staring at you. You noticed he had been staring at you the entire time. You didn’t think anything of it at first. While he wasn’t a close friend of yours, you did talk to him from time to time. Either during work or if you ran into him on campus. 

But, it had gotten to a point that it made you feel a little uncomfortable. You were aware of his crush on you. And you did even go on a date with him one time a while ago, but it just didn’t click. You didn’t like him like that. And him staring at you at that moment, made you cringe a little.

Miguel seemed to notice it, too. And he didn’t like it. Not one bit. He knew why Ben was staring at you. It was your outfit. While there was nothing wrong with what you were wearing, you looked absolutely cute in it. 

You were wearing the red santa dress, and you had put on some makeup to match the outfit. While you did wear makeup every now and then when you were up to it, you usually didn’t wear it as you did today. It made you look..different. In a way in which Miguel just couldn’t describe. It made his heart skip a beat every time you caught his gaze and smiled at him. 

However, your outfit had caught Ben’s attention as well. And while Miguel was good friends with Ben, he wasn’t going to have him staring at you, either. 

“What are you looking at, Ben?” Miguel asked, trying to divert the blonde’s attention. 

“Hmm? What?” Ben hummed, still looking your way. 

“What are you staring at?” Miguel repeated, with a tiny hint of aggression in his voice. 

Ben raised a brow as he finally looked over at Miguel before shaking his head. “Nothing.” 

“Nothing?”

Ben shrugged. “Okay, maybe I have been staring at the girls over there, but I mean, dude, can you blame me?” Ben slightly nudged over in your direction.

“She looks really good in that outfit. Don’t you think? Like..damn,” Ben chuckled a little. 

Miguel simply grunted in response. However, he didn’t like how Ben kept staring at you. It made him feel some type of way. He wasn’t possessive of you. He had no right to be. But, it did irk him a bit when other guys stared at you. And he lowkey wanted to punch Ben at that moment. His hands were already clenched into tight fits, getting ready to strike.

“Yo, Miguel. Helllooooo. Earth to Miguel!” Peter waved his hand in front of Miguel, trying to catch his attention. 

“W-what?” Miguel blinked as he was snapped out of his thoughts, looking back over at Peter. 

“Sorry. What was that?”

Peter rolled his eyes. “I asked if you were gonna want another beer? I was gonna grab some more from the cooler,” Peter repeated. 

“Oh. y-yeah yeah. Sure. Thanks,” Miguel nodded his head as Peter and Ben both went into the kitchen to grab more beers. 

He then looked back over to the table and noticed that you were no longer there. Where did you go?

“Miguel? You okay?” You asked, appearing beside him, causing him to jump a bit in surprise before looking over at you. You simply looked up at him, head tilted slightly in curiosity. 

“I noticed you’ve been a little out of it today. You alright?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” Miguel assured you, giving you a gentle smile. 

“You sure?” You asked, not really believing him.

“Promise,” he nodded just at Peter and Ben made his way back out. 

You then nodded your head and took a step back before making your way over to your other coworkers to talk to them for a bit. Miguel could hear everyone complimenting your outfit. He realized that he hadn’t said anything about it yet. He should bring it up before the night ends. 

About another hour or so had gone by, people were a little more loose, a little more rowdy. The music was louder, the conversations produced more laughter, and people were just a little more bold and daring. 

You had gone into the kitchen to grab yourself some more food, feeling your stomach growling. You grabbed a plate and began to load it with food, humming softly to yourself along to the music that was playing on the other side. You didn’t notice someone entering the kitchen, approaching you. 

“Still stuffing your face with food?” Miguel smirked as he appeared beside you, causing you to flinch slightly in surprise. You pouted and glared up at him before rolling your eyes. 

“This is nothing compared to your sixth helping of this entire table you had a couple minutes ago!” You pointed out. 

“I can’t help it. I’m a growing boy,” Miguel joked, shrugging his shoulders. 

You rolled your eyes again before going back to serving your food. “You want me to get you anything?” 

Miguel shook his head. “Nah. I can grab my own food. I appreciate it, though.”

The kitchen fell silent for a moment. The only thing that could be heard was everything going on on the other side. People were still chattering and laughing, music still booming. Yet, it was dead silent in the kitchen. A sort of tension then filled between the two of you. You could feel your heart beating against your eardrums. 

You were about to open your mouth to say something before you felt Miguel pressing himself against you from behind , but not hard enough to hurt you. You still had some wiggle room to turn around. And you did just as Miguel leaned down closer to you. 

“I hate what you do to me sometimes,” MIguel practically growled as he grabbed you by the arm, squeezing just a bit, but not hard enough to hurt you. 

You looked up at him with wide eyes, caught completely by surprise as you gave him a confused expression. 

“What? What are you talking about?” 

Miguel’s nostrils flared as he exhaled, looking at you with darkened eyes. 

“You make me feel these feelings that I feel like I should not be having.”

“Miguel..I really don’t understand what it is that you’re trying to tell me,” you stated. Which was true. You had no idea what he was talking about or why he was looking at you like that. Yet, you could feel your heart racing a bit. Was it excitement?

Miguel let out a frustrated sigh. He knew he wasn’t making any sense at that moment, but he really did hope you caught on to what he was attempting to spew out. 

He was terrible at explaining things anyway. However, this was the one thing that he didn’t want to be terrible with. 

“Just..come here for a moment,” he said as he pulled you away from the table, pulling you deeper into the kitchen over to a more secluded area. 

He then took your hand and placed it over his heart. Your eyes widened when you felt his heart racing against your palm. 

You then looked back up at him, meeting his eyes. He had those puppy eyes that made your knees buckle. 

“Miguel I-”

“You don’t have to say anything,” he interrupted, shaking his head. “I just..wanted to let you know.Or..let you feel, rather.”

He let go of your hand and took a step back, biting his lower lip. It made your heart skip a beat. 

“Look. I know you may not feel the same. But, I just wanted to let you know. I’ve..been feeling this way for a while. And..I don’t know why I waited this long to tell you. But, seeing how Riley was looking at you the entire time made me feel some type of way. I know you two were somewhat of a thing before and it kinda made me feel a little jealous..” he rambled. He was honestly really cute when he did that. 

He then awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck when you didn’t answer. What were you supposed to say after that? You were completely stunned that you just couldn’t find your voice. 

But, as he began to take a step back, your hand shot forward and you grabbed hold of his wrist, pulling him back closer to you. You were like a robot. You had no control of your limbs or movements. 

Stretching up on your toes, you hooked your arms around his neck, pulling him down closer to you until your lips touched. Again, you had no control of your movements. It was as if your mind had stepped into another room in your brain. 

Miguel’s eyes widened in surprise, obviously stunned by your sudden reaction. However, he quickly shook it off and wrapped his arms around you, pressing you closer to him.

You two kissed for what felt like hours. At one point, he had picked you up and placed you on top of a stack of boxes so neither of you would strain your bodies. 

Eventually, you had to pull away for air. Your cheeks were warm, and your body felt jittery. You couldn’t help but to look away shyly. Yet, Miguel caught your chin with his fingers and had you look up at him. His lips were swollen from your heated kisses. There was also a twinkle in his eye. 

Before you could get a word out, his lips were on your once again. This time, just a little softer. A little sweeter. Gentler. It made you melt into his arms. 

He pecked your lips a couple more times before taking a step back, but never let go of you. 

“Had I known you felt the same I would’ve done that a lot sooner,” he chuckled, giving you a shy smile. 

Your cheeks warmed again and you nodded your head in agreement. “Yeah. Same here.”

He helped you back down, taking your hand in his. 

“Also. Ben and I were never a ‘thing’. I only went out on one date with him. He’s..not really my type,” you shrugged your shoulders, looking up at him with a slight smirk. 

“I like them a little more rugged. Like more..jackass,” you teased. 

Miguel’s jaw dropped for a second before letting out a laugh, shaking his head a little bit. 

“Not sure if that’s something to be proud of,” he pointed out. 

“Didn’t say I was,” you countered with a shrug before grinning up at him. You felt butterflies in your stomach, and you couldn’t help but to feel excited. Stretching back up on your toes, you gave him another peck on the lips. 

Remove his hand from yours, he wrapped his arm around your waist, pulling you close before grabbing your plate of food from the table. 

“Come on, let’s go sit down so you can eat,” he said as you two made your way out of the kitchen. 

“Oh, by the way. You look great in that outfit,” Miguel complimented. 

“Yeah?” You beamed up at him. You’ve been getting compliments all night. But, you didn’t think you’d get one from Miguel. 

His cheeks turned a little red as he nodded his head. “Yeah. I couldn’t stop staring at you. You’re like a Christmas present. Mind if I unwrap you later?” He then smirked. 

You gasped and lightly smacked him, causing him to burst out laughing. 

“Absolutely not! Pervert!”

Miguel continued to laugh. “I’m just messing with you, muñeca. I’ll wait until Christmas Eve to unwrap you.”

“Miguel!” 

“What are you guys talking about?” Peter suddenly appeared in front of the two of you as you exited the kitchen. His mouth was stuffed with food and was a little red in the cheeks. He may have been just a bit drunk. 

“Nothing.” You and Miguel both said in unison before passing by Peter. 

Still. You couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas gift. Miguel had confessed his feelings to you. And shared a set of kisses with you in the kitchen. It was all surreal. It felt like a dream. 

“Look! It’s snowing!” MJ called out excitedly as she stood by the window. Everyone gathered around the windows to look outside as the snow fell. Including you and Miguel. Your food was now forgotten on the table as he kept his arm wrapped around your waist, the two of you looking outside for a moment as if neither of you had seen snow before. 

“Merry Christmas,” Miguel whispered softly to you. 

“Merry Christmas, Miguel,” you whispered back, leaning against him as you continued to watch the snow fall and coat the streets in white. 

Yeah, this was definitely a Christmas you were never going to forget. 

“Also, if Riley stares at you like that again, I’m going to punch him,” Miguel muttered. 

“Miguel!” 

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[zorrasucia]

Teach Me Tonight - Part 4

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Deleted Scene] Part 4: [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Deleted Scene] [Part 8]

Reader x Carmy Berzatto (The Bear FX)

Rating: Explicit (4k)

Tags: Smut, Set sometime after the opening of The Bear, Porn with a little plot, Virgin!Carmy, Sex Toys, P in V sex, Mutual Masturbation, Bondage but they're really tame about it, Both Carmy and Reader have a bit of a praise kink

Summary: Carmy's eyebrows arched in surprise once he saw the contents of the box, accompanied by a pink colored brochure with more options of toys, and big, bold slogans about thrusting and G spots. "Oh. That's intense," he said, not repulsed but definitely taken aback.

A couple of boxes had arrived at the store early in the morning. You were sorting their contents when Carmy walked in through the back door.

"I'll be with you in a minute, babe," you said, leaving a peck on Carmy's cheek.

"Take your time," Carmy eyed the new merch, his tattooed fingers running over the wool of a blue sweater - one you had picked out for his Christmas present knowing it would make his eyes look stunning. You bit your bottom lip to contain a satisfied smile.

"What's this one? Jewelry?" 

When you turned around, Carmy was holding a small cardboard box, shaking it lightly by his ear. Your heart started racing when you realized what it was.

"Um, actually, that's a surprise," you cleared your throat. "For you. Well us. But we'll open it later, okay?"

"Now I'm curious," he grabbed you by the waist, pulling you away from the counter and closer to him. You ran your fingers through the hair on the nape of his neck. 

"Well, if you weren't so damn nosy..." you said playfully.

"Fuck off," he said without bite. "You like my nose."

You nuzzled against it, then kissed him sweetly. 

"I do," you admitted. "Now come on, I'll see you tonight."

He left begrudgingly, but not before he gave you a bruising kiss. 

~

When Carmy arrived home, you took him to the bedroom and placed the cardboard box on his lap. He smirked. While he was opening it, you started getting nervous and second-guessing yourself. Men could get very defensive when it came to sex toys.

"This isn't, like, a jab or anything," you said quickly. "It's just something new to try for fun, you know?"

You didn't lack novelty in the bedroom. Maybe it was because Carmy was new to sex but he was willing to try most things. You had to squeeze your thighs at the memory of him fucking you against the bathroom wall, angled precisely so you could both see your reflection in the mirror as he buried himself deep inside you.

Carmy's eyebrows arched in surprise once he saw the contents of the box, accompanied by a pink colored brochure with more options of toys, and big, bold slogans about thrusting and G spots. 

"Oh. That's intense," he said, not repulsed but definitely taken aback.

"So I didn't know what you'd like, I'm guessing you don't know either," Carmy hummed in agreement. "So, uh, I bought a couple of things I wanted to try. You can choose next time, if you want," you offered sheepishly, taking out one of the two gifts you had ordered and handing it to Carmy. 

"It's a ring," he said, his Adam's apple bobbing as he felt it buzz on his palm. "And that's-"

"A vibrator, uh, for me... It's got a remote and everything so you can, uh, you know, control it too," you had seen the way Carmy's eyes darkened when he made you come before he did. It was that selflessness you loved but also something hungry and dark that made your knees buckle. "That is if you want..."

"Jesus, yes!" Carmy replied, flustered.

"Okay," you sighed with relief and grinned. "Okay! And, uh, if we like it, you can pick the next one."

"I'd like that," Carmy took a quick look at the brochure, slightly less intimidated than when he had just opened the box. "Just a quick question," he stared at the section dedicated to rabbits and dildos. "That goes inside you?"

You laughed. "Yeah, I thought it was pretty self explanatory."

He chuckled and covered his face, probably the reddest you had ever seen him. "No, yeah, I know. It's just- Does it, you know, fit?"

You took the brochure from his hands and squinted to see the measurements. 

"It's not that much bigger than your cock, Carm." you flirted. 

"Really?"

"Really," you knelt next to him on the mattress, a hand on his upper thigh and your lips ghosting over his ear. "So..."

"Uh- can I watch?" he asked, his voice quiet as he handed you the smooth vibrator. "Just for a little while. Then, I'd like to try that," he pointed at the remote, a little quiver in his voice. 

It was thrilling, knowing he desired you and your pleasure that much.

"Yes."

He started kissing and undressing you, hands kneading on your ass and thighs, lips kissing your chest. Once he got rid of your jeans he looked up at you expectantly.

You placed the vibrator over your underwear, teasing with the lowest setting, going around your whole pussy, feeling yourself get wet as you stared into Carmy's eyes - he licked his lips. You nudged your underwear lower and lower, halfway down your thighs, clicking the vibrator one notch harder. 

"Oh," you moaned and arched your back, something red and hot boiling in your veins. 

Carmy's hands caressed the inside of your legs and thighs, taking your underwear off completely, opening you wide. "Can I?"

You handed him the controller, your heart racing. His fingers hovered over the buttons.

"Be nice," you pleaded - though a secret part of you wanted to see how bad he could actually be. If his dark eyes were any indication he was toeing that line between loving and feral that made sex with him so delicious. "Actually, no. Don't be nice. Just have fun with it," you let out a breathy laugh. 

"Let me know if you don't like something, anything," he asked softly.

"Yeah," you exhaled. 

"Okay," he turned it up for a moment and then turned it off. You let out a needy whine. He kissed the inside of your calf, soothing. "I want it to last. You look so good, sound so good."

He went back to teasing, then slowly to a rhythm that made you roll your eyes and hips, and just to the edge of your release and back down. 

You let out a frustrated noise, desperate as you ground against the now perfectly still vibrator. 

"I can't believe you're edging me without me teaching you what that is," you complained half-heartedly, wiping beads of sweat from your forehead. 

Carmy was giving you a moment to catch your breath while he undressed, staring at you hungrily the whole time. His cock was hard and leaking in his boxer briefs.  

"You're so good," he said softly, sitting back in front of you, turning the vibrator back on, up and up, making you writhe against the sheets and moan loudly. Your jaw was slack and your free hand was grabbing at the sheets. "My good girl," he said, ears pricked up for the drawn out moan he knew would follow.

"Please, please," you met his eyes. "Please."

"Good girl," he repeated, going up a notch and watching you come, legs shaking and high-pitched screams leaving your lips. Your hips thrust with a will of their own as you rode it out, trembling with pleasure. Carmy's eyes were on you as you started breathing normally again and took the vibrator off your clit.

"Shit," you sighed. Your fingers grazed over your hard nipples, finding electricity wherever you touched. You would need a little while to be functional again. 

"D'you like it?" you mumbled, eyes half-lidded.

"Did I like it?" Carmy repeated then moved on top of you, strong arms holding him up as he kissed you senseless. His curls had become loose and they tickled your forehead. "I loved it so fucking much. So much."

He kissed the side of your face vehemently, like a man starved and you hummed contentedly. He ground into your hips a little.

"Give me a minute," you said softly. You were definitely wet enough to do just about anything Carmy could want but the world was still spinning a little. "I'll fuck you in a second," you joked breathily.

"Sorry," he chuckled into your neck. "Be right back," he kissed your temple and padded out of the room. 

He returned with a glass of water and condoms. 

"My hero," you teased, drinking eagerly while you watched him take off his boxers and pump himself a couple of times. The sight made you wetter if that was even possible - the prospect of fucking Carmy making you wild with need. "Your turn. Put that condom on," you said, reaching over for the cock ring.

"Oh," Carmy frowned once the toy was on him. "Feels weird."

"Bad weird?" you asked.

"Weird weird," he laughed, moving awkwardly to turn it on. "Fuck, never mind," he exhaled, eyes rolling back. 

You caressed him - his shoulders, his chest. "Too much?" you asked after a moment of him being very still and quiet.

"No, it's good, it's good," he replied dreamily, going back to his place above you, lowering himself into your pussy. You moaned loudly at the immediate feeling of fullness, the easy glide of his cock inside you, and the vibration against your clit. 

"Fuck, that's perfect," he slurred, overwhelmed. His brow furrowed in concentration as he was overcome with pleasure. "Shit. I can't move," he admitted. 

"Wanna switch?" you offered gently.

"Yes. Yes, please. Fuck," he pulled out of you, falling on the mattress, that same stunned expression returning to his face as you lowered yourself on his cock.

"Shit," you keened. The angle made the ring hit exactly on the perfect spot of your clit, your thighs were shaking and you hadn't even begun to ride him. "I'm not going to last, Carm."

"Neither am I," there was a sense of relief as he said it and chuckled. His hands squeezed at your hips with desperation. "Please."

You started moving back and forth, making Carmy squeeze his eyes shut, his breath coming in heavy exhales as you let out needy noises. 

"Holy fucking shit," he said, finally opening his eyes, following your breasts as they bounced up and down while you rode him harder and harder. 

"You're ruining me," he managed, his hand reaching for yours, calloused fingers keeping you grounded. "Ruining me completely."

You couldn't speak; every coherent thought was replaced with Carmy - his face, his voice, his tattoos, his smell, his body... 

You felt him growing tense underneath you, his muscles taut as his cock twitched inside you. You could hear Carmy panting and growling, his chest rising quickly under your palms. Exhausted, you stopped riding him and leant forwards, into Carmy's chest and open arms, your pussy directly on the cock ring. 

"Oh my- Oh my God," you gasped and trembled through a blinding orgasm while Carmy held you tight. Everything was white and hot and your ears were buzzing. You kept rutting into his hips, shaking with ecstasy for what felt like a very long time. Carmy's hands went from your spine down your ass and back up, then gently caressed the curve of your waist. 

After a while you winced at the vibration underneath you. Carmy rolled you to your side, sliding his softening cock out of you. You saw him take off the ring and discard the condom in a haze. 

"You okay?" he asked. His eyes were back to that soft, blue worry you loved so much. You cupped the side of his face.

"I'm perfect," you replied, out of breath. "You?"

"I'm good," he smiled. "That was-"

"Amazing," you supplied.

"I was going to say fucking insane but amazing works."

You giggled into his shoulder. He took your hand and held it close to his chest. You could feel his pulse still racing. 

~

The walk to Carmy's apartment was more quiet than usual. His arm was around you, warm but a little tense. 

"You okay?" you asked, raising your hand to interlock with his. 

"Yeah," he exhaled, "can't wait to get home is all."

You leaned deeper into his side. "Bad day?"

Carmy let out a chuckle. "Actually it was fine," he cleared his throat. "No, I got something in the mail this morning."

"Okay," you waited but he didn't say anything else. You stared as he got the keys out and opened the door.

You walked in, and as soon as the door closed, he started kissing your neck, hugging you from behind, breathing heavily into your hair.

"What's gotten into you?" you giggled, turning around to return his kisses, pressing against him greedily.

"Can you stay the night?" he asked instead.

"Of course, yeah," you replied against his lips. You practically lived there but he was always nice enough to ask when sex might be on the table. 

"Good," he sighed, his forehead to yours. 

He swayed you both slowly to the couch. On the coffee table there was a package. 

"Open it," he said with a faint smile, fingers tapping nervously on his knee. 

"Is this-?" you arched your eyebrow. He nodded.

Carmy hadn't taken you on the offer to let him pick your next toys... Until now, it seemed.

You rummaged through the box and touched metal and leather. Handcuffs. You had never fantasized about being tied up but you could be persuaded - maybe. You studied them in the light, they seemed sturdy and there was padding to stop you from getting hurt. Still...

"We'll have to talk about this, Carm. I trust you.  Completely. It's just-" you started, watching him tilt his head in confusion as you talked. 

"Oh, no. I mean, we can definitely talk about it," he said gently, "but those are for me."

You stared at him with wide eyes, something warm settling inside your belly. 

"Is that okay?" he asked when you were quiet for a moment too long. 

You pictured him, toned arms above his head, pupils dilated, writhing on the bed as you had your way with him...

"Yeah," you replied breathily. "That would be- fuck- I think I would be into that."

He smiled. 

"This one's for you," he said then, handing you a pink rabbit vibrator. You recognized it as the one Carmy had asked about weeks ago - it was bigger than him but only a little. "I don't know how it works exactly but, uh-"

You tested a few of the buttons and found the vibration settings for the dildo and the clit bit. You were already biting on your lip at the thought of using it when you found out the dildo moved on its own.

"Shit," you said.

"It can fuck you," Carmy added, his voice low. 

Your mind started racing at the prospect of having the toy inside you while you sucked Carmy off. Something to think about for later. 

"Do you, uh, do you have anything planned for tonight?" you asked. 

"Uh, kind of," he hesitated. 

"Tell me."

Carmy loved having a plan. You closed your thighs in anticipation. 

"I want you to cuff me to the bed."

"Okay." Pretty straightforward.

He gestured at the vibrator. "And I want you to fuck yourself with it. I want you to enjoy yourself and cum as many times as you want. And I want to watch."

Your throat went dry at his confident delivery. When you had started fucking Carmy, what felt like ages ago, he was the one blushing at things, going along with the plan. This was different - he was telling you what he wanted, he was in charge. Even if he wasn't going to be able to touch you. 

"How will you-?"

"Cum?" Carmy ended for you.

"Well, yeah. I want you to enjoy yourself too, Carm." You loved the plan so far but you weren't sure it was a fair deal.

"That's what you're worried about?" he asked incredulously. "I don't think you know the effect you have on me. The times I've had to stop myself from enjoying too much when I hear you or see you while we fuck," your stomach fluttered. He wasn't always so open. It felt like you had stumbled into something very intimate, except he had taken you there willingly. "Baby, I'll be fine."

You got closer to him. You didn't really know what to say in return so you just caressed him, his face, his hair, his shoulders. You searched for his eyes and found something fierce, something so like love...

"Tell you what," he said after a while. "If I haven't finished by the time you want to untie me, we can fuck and call it even?"

It seemed almost silly, to have him offer that, like you were haggling, like he was appeasing you, but you agreed nevertheless. 

"Deal," you gave him a little peck to settle it. "I still think I'm fucking scamming you but whatever." 

That made him chuckle. 

"Come on," he pressed another kiss on your lips and started walking to the bedroom, his silhouette undressing beckoning you like a siren's song. 

You found him shirtless, laying on his back, his jeans half unbuttoned. 

"Fuck," you said softly, your hands fidgeting with the handcuffs. "Are we doing safe words and shit?"

"Sounds like a good idea," he agreed.

"We can do green, yellow and red, you know? Green if everything is fine, red if you want me to stop and untie you," you had read about it ages ago, probably in Cosmo magazine or some shit like that but it was better than nothing.

Carmy nodded and offered his wrists to you. 

You bit your lip in concentration as you tightened the right cuff. "Yeah?"

"A little tighter," Carmy said. His Adam's apple bobbed when you pulled on the strap. "Mhmm, that feels better."

You secured the chain to the bed, your heart racing all the while. 

"Hey, you okay?" Carmy asked, his blue eyes searching for yours. You realized your hands were shaking. 

"Nervous," you admitted. "Never done this before."

Carmy used his free hand to cup your face. "Bad nervous? We can stop right now." 

You leaned into his touch - he was warm. 

"Good nervous, I think," your underwear was damp from you talking about it, you had to at least give it a go. "I'll tell you if it gets too much."

Saying that, you kissed his palm and secured the left cuff. 

You started undressing, there, sat by Carmy. His eyes followed every move. You stared right back - the strain on his arms, the tiny wrinkle between his eyebrows, his soft mouth agape. He looked beautiful, straight out of a painting, except he was breathing heavily. He shivered when your cardigan  grazed his skin as you threw it out of the way.

You stopped at your bra, then discarded your boots and jeans. The vibrator was on the other side of the bed, so you leaned over Carmy to reach it, your hair tickling at his stomach. He hummed.

You leaned in to kiss him: hot, full of tongue, then stopped and moved out of his reach. 

"Like that," he said softly, some reassurance that this was exactly what he wanted. You smiled and turned the vibration on. 

You moved it over your body, on your stomach, over the inside of your thighs. You were taking your sweet time. You took off your bra and caressed your nipples with the tip of it, a drowned out moan leaving your lips.

"Yes," Carmy said, his voice was close to that feral growl that made you curl your toes.

Finally, you placed it between your legs.

"Fuck," you hummed, getting rid of your underwear as quickly as you could, wetting the toy with your arousal. Carmy probably had lube on his bedside table but you didn't want to move, not when he was looking at you like that. His eyes were wide open and you knew that if he wasn't tied up he would be on top of you already, pounding into your pussy hard and fast. You bit your lip - you wanted it. 

You shifted on the mattress until you were in full display in front of him and aligned the toy with your entrance. 

"Eyes on me," Carmy said, his voice hoarse. A shiver went down your body. You got that delicious fullness while looking at Carmy; it felt right and good.

Once the dildo was inside you, it all became a blur. You let yourself lose control, selfishly seeking your pleasure. You got even more turned on by the sight of Carmy tied up, arms flexing.

"Is this what you want?" you said between gasps, searching the blue of his eyes, feeling your first orgasm approaching rapidly. "Oh, fuck, fuck- Carmy..."

You drew out his name into a moan, one hand pushing the dildo into you, the other playing with your nipples. You kept going, staring at him, the delicious V of his stomach as he thrust his hips into nothing. 

"Pleeeease," he keened. He was desperate, his neck strained when he arched into the bed. 

The room was hot, filled with sweat and moans from the two of you. You came and you muffled the cry that followed into your forearm.

"Let me hear you," Carmy asked with urgency once it was over. "Please, come again and let me hear you."

You climbed up the bed and gave him the sloppiest kiss, drunk with pleasure, licking into his mouth. 

"Yes, anything you want," you said, your lips on the side of his face. Then, you leaned back, just out of his reach, and started thrusting against the dildo, there, still straddling his torso, making a mess of arousal and sweat on his abs. You could feel the rhythm of him fucking into nothing just behind you. Your moans came almost in unison.

"You look so beautiful, so beautiful," he mumbled, his eyes glassy.

You went quicker, emboldened by his praise, feeling your pussy flutter against the dildo. "I feel so good."

"Cum, baby, please," he blurted out. 

And you did. And you kept going. Your moans turned into whines and then quiet sobs as the orgasm went on and on. You squeezed your eyes shut, overwhelmed.

"You're doing so good," you could hear Carmy through a fog of lust. "Sound so beautiful. I could die here, I swear..."

Slowly, the waves of pleasure became gentler, the vibration inside you just a soft hum, and you opened your eyes to Carmy's bessoted face. He stared like you were a beautiful work of art or a stunning sunset. It was everything.

You leaned forward, kissing his face, licking the salt off his skin, running your hands up his muscular arms, moaning softly as you took the dildo out.

"Did you finish?" you slurred into his ear. 

"It doesn't matter," he said earnestly, his tone soft.

And you smiled, kissing the side of his face, less lust drunk and more devoted as you went. You left kisses on every tattoo you could find. You loved him so much. 

"Can I touch you? Please," you begged.

"Yeah," he exhaled into your hair.

You reached down, between your legs, under his jeans and boxers, and started caressing his cock. It was tenting his clothes and leaking with precum. 

"You're so hard, Carm," you whispered. "You've been so good. Let me take care of you."

He groaned at your gentle touch. 

"Baby..."

"Carmy," you called, your free hand caressing his chest, lightly pinching his nipple.

"Oh, fuck," his jaw went slack. "Keep doing that."

You slid downwards, started kissing on his chest, licking at his nipples, and raking your nails down his ribs. 

"Jesus, fuck!" he thrust into your hand forcefully and shook the chain of the handcuffs. "Take these off. Please. Jesus."

You straightened up and stopped touching him, making him whine in response.

"You sure?" you asked.

"Yes! Red or whatever the fuck we said," he panted. "I need to hold you."

You freed him from the handcuffs as fast as you could. Once the first one was off, he rushed to help you, throwing them across the bedroom when he was done. 

"Thank fuck!" he said and immediately brought you down to hold you close, lying back with you on top. 

He kissed you hungrily, tongue first, mouth open. He ran his hands up your spine, squeezed your ass, caressed your legs, worshipping every inch of skin he could touch. You went back to pumping his cock, grinding into his jeans, your forearm grazing on your pussy and sending little shocks of pleasure as you went.

"Fuck," he moaned into your mouth. "I'm so fucking in love with you. Love you so fucking much."

"I love you. I love you," you said right back. 

Your hand pumped faster and faster, he was close. 

You made him lose control with one nipple in your mouth and the other held tight in your free hand.

"Son of a bitch," he cursed and came in his stomach and your hand. You kissed his chest one last time.

"That's new," you said, pumping his cock a couple of more times then letting go. You settled next to him on the bed, wiped your hand on the bedsheets and made yourself comfortable on his pillow.

"What is?" Carmy asked, breathless.

"You don't say 'son of a bitch'. You're more of a 'jesus christ' and 'fuck' kind of guy," you said smiling.

Carmy chuckled. "Yeah, you're right."

"And," you emphasized, "you like nipple play."

"I didn't know that about myself either," he exhaled. He turned on his side to have a better view of you. He was sweaty and gorgeous. You held his hand in between the mess of sheets you had both made. 

"I can't believe I was right about you," you said after what felt like a long time. Carmy was only half awake by now.

"Mmm?" Carmy rubbed your knuckles, soothing.

"You do like kinky shit."

He hid a sleepy grin behind his hand and brought you closer. 

"Fuck off," he said into your hair, sweetly, the rhythm of his breath lulling you to sleep.

[Deleted Scene]

[Part 5]

[eyesofshinigami]

Gifts

Rating: T

CW: None

Tags: Established relationship, fluff, minor sexual content

Prompt: For @forgottenkanji "Love is going out of your way to do something you know will make them happy"

WC: 653

Written for Day 29 of @steddielovemonth

He tells himself it’s going to be worth it. Standing here in thirty degree weather, shivering his ass off, waiting for the ticket office to open. Steve can picture the look on Eddie’s face when he shows up on their anniversary with Metallica tickets and that almost makes it worth it.

Three hours he’s been standing out here. The line is getting longer and longer, so he’s glad he made the decision to skip work for the day to come. 

Almost. His toes are still fucking freezing. 

“Hey man, you in the right line?” a couple of guys behind him snicker, and Steve has to keep from rolling his eyes. 

“Sure am. Friend of mine really likes the band and couldn’t make it out, so I figured I would grab tickets for him,” Steve lies smoothly. It’s not really any of these guys’ business, but he’s learned that it’s sometimes the best way to deal with people like this. 

The guys are quiet and one finally pipes up, “That’s kind of awesome, man. Sorry.”

Steve waves them off, pulling his jacket tighter around himself. He checks his watch; eight o’clock, the box office should open very soon. He had felt a little bad lying to Eddie, saying that he was going for a run and then had to get to work early, but he’d make it up to him with kisses later on. 

He hears cheers go up and the line starts moving, butterflies kicking up in his belly. The counter comes into view and the bored girl at the desk pops her gum as he gets the tickets. Middle seats, nothing fancy, but it’ll be enough to make Eddie lose his mind. 

Steve can’t wait.

–

Two weeks later they’re laying in bed, sweaty after sex and full of Jim’s Chinese from down the block. It’s been one of the best anniversaries Steve can remember, and he knows it’s about to get even better. 

“Got you a present,” he tells Eddie, reaching over to his nightstand to pull out the envelope he’s been hiding there for the last two weeks. He can’t wait to see the look on Eddie’s face; it’s going to be worth being cold for three hours and the subsequent runny nose that followed. 

Eddie grins, eyes shining. “I got you one too.” He reaches over and grabs something from his own bedside table. “On the count of three?” 

Together, they say, “One… two… three!”

They each hand the other a similar looking envelope. Eddie opens his first, and lets out a screech of pleasure. “Holy shit!!! Metallica tickets? I thought they sold out!!” He tackles Steve to the bed, kissing his face obnoxiously. “How?”

“Went and waited in line,” Steve replies, because yup, absolutely worth it. “I wanted to get them for you.”

Eddie’s eyes are a little wet and he pulls his hair in front of his face, delighted. “Okay, now you. Then I’m going to ride you into the mattress because I can’t believe you did this for me.”

Heart full, Steve opens up his own envelope, only to find a pair of tickets to go see the Bulls play next Saturday. His eyes go wide. “Eddie, what? You got me Bulls tickets? How-?” 

“Asked that guy Jake at your work and I went down the other day and got them. I thought you would like them.”

“But you hate sports!”

Eddie shrugs, looking bashful again. “Yeah, but you don’t. I thought it would nice, you know? We could go together? Unless you want to take like… Jake or something, but-”

He doesn’t even get to finish his sentence. Steve is pulling him close, kissing him like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. Their bodies press together and Steve is so ready to show Eddie how much he appreciates him. Repeatedly, until neither of them can move. 

All in all, a pretty great anniversary, he’d say.

[sturniluvr]

Puppy Love

Matt sturniolo x fem!reader

word count: 1.5k

warnings: none that I can think of, just fluffy

summary: for their anniversary, Matt surprises Y/N by adopting a dog for them and they become dog parents

requested?: yes/no

A/N: the whole adoption process may be incorrect as I’ve never adopted a dog or anything like that so idk if you can actually adopt them and then pick them up but hey ho😭also the photos for the IG posts at the end, just imagine the puppy in the photos is a golden lab and not some random dogs off Pinterest or Trevor, Presley or Leo Leclerc, it was hard finding photos😭

❗️semi proof read❗️

Today was Matt and Y/N’s 3 year anniversary and Matt had a big surprise for Y/N, he was going to the animal shelter to pick up their new Labrador retriever puppy. She had wanted a pet for the longest time and as much as Matt hated to, he had to say no to her since there was nobody to take care of said pet. A year later however, Y/N had started her own business and began to work from home, so she was always home and Matt thought it’d be the perfect anniversary present to get her a pet. 

He woke up fairly early that morning to go and pick up the puppy and buy her a bouquet of flowers, he had already brought her a few gifts, but he decided last minute that some flowers wouldn’t hurt aswel and he had a sweet idea on how to introduce the dog to her that involved the flowers. He got dressed, got in his car and drove to the nearest flower shop to him and brought her a bouquet of her favourite flowers, roses and made his way to the animal shelter to pick up their new fur baby. 

He parked outside the animal shelter and made his way into the shelter, immediately getting overwhelmed with cuteness at all the dogs and cats, he just wanted to take them all home but sadly he couldn’t. The owner of the shelter came over to him and introduced herself.  

“Hi, you must be Matt? I’m Marie” she shook his hand. He nodded as he replied. 

“That’s me, how are you?” 

“I’m well thank you. I understand you’re here to pick up little Leo is that correct? He’s pretty well trained for his young age, but a little extra training would never hurt.” He nodded and he followed her over to the cage that held Leo, the 2 year old Labrador retriever who looked up at Matt with big brown eyes and his tongue hanging out. He immediately fell in love as soon as he laid eyes on the puppy. The older woman passed Matt the adoption papers and he signed them, he and Y/N were officially dog parents. 

“You’re going home today little man. Do you have all the supplies for him or is there anything you need to purchase while here?” The older lady spoke as she opened the cage and passed Leo over to Matt and once Leo was finished licking Matt’s face, he put him in the little carrier he had brought the day before. 

“I have most of it, all I need is some food and a leash and then we’ll be good to go, won’t we buddy?” He replied, looking at the puppy. He had brought everything they’d need for Leo a couple days ago and hid it in Chris’ room knowing that’s the room Y/N was least likely to go in out of the house. Matt and Marie made their way over to the counter after grabbing a bag of puppy food and a leash off the shelves and Marie moved to behind the counter to scan what he needed. 

“That’s all done for you. Do you have any questions about taking care of Leo here?” Marie asked Matt as she passed him the plastic bag with the puppy food and leash. 

“Yeah. Leo’s a surprise for my girlfriend for our anniversary and I also brought her some flowers for an idea I had to introduce Leo to her. Are roses generally safe to have in his mouth?” Matt queried. 

“Yes, they are harmless to him, just make sure you obviously cut off the thorns beforehand, so he doesn’t hurt himself on them. You’re a good boyfriend, your girlfriend is lucky” she smiled sweetly causing a gentle blush to paint Matt’s cheeks. 

“Thank you that’s very sweet and yeah, I was planning to cut them off anyway, that’s all thank you. Have a good day.” Matt thanked her and grabbed the crate and bag of supplies and left the shelter and got Leo’s crate settled in the passenger seat of the car. 

“You ready to go meet your mama?” Matt spoke to the puppy, Leo panting in response, they made a quick stop at Starbucks to get Y/N a caramel latte and Matt got the same and brought Leo a puppucino. 

Before he walked into the house, Matt called Nick to come to the garage with some scissors so he could sort the roses out. He saw Nick walk out of the garage door and he passed the scissors through the car window and walked over to the opposite side so he could ‘meet his nephew’ as he said. As soon as he opened the crate and picked up Leo, he smiled at the adorable puppy.  

“Why are you cutting the thorns off the roses?” Nick asked his younger brother with the puppy in his arms. 

“I’m going to put one of the roses in Leo’s mouth and surprise Y/N like that and I’ll put the rest in a vase for her next to her card and other presents.” Matt replied, concentrating on cutting the thorns so his little puppy won’t hurt himself.  

When he was done, Nick took the rest of the flowers and took them upstairs to put in a vase for Matt while he got Leo ready to surprise the younger woman. 

“Right, are you ready to go meet mama? You know what to do?” The dog replied by licking his face causing a smile to illuminate Matt’s face. He picked the puppy up and grabbed the Starbucks and locked the car and made his way upstairs. 

He put Leo on the floor in the living room, having Nick watch him to make sure he didn’t move until he needed to, and Matt picked up Y/N’s latte and walked into his room, smiling at the sight of Y/N still flat out asleep, hugging mr wrinkleton to her chest. He walked over to her side of the bed and gently shook her. 

“Wake up beautiful. I got you a latte” she smiled sleepily as she took the Starbucks from her boyfriend and took small sips before placing it on the bedside table.

“Happy anniversary my love” she murmured sleepily “your gift and card are in the closet.” She added on, attempting to get up but Matt softly pushed her back down. 

“I want you to have my presents first babe, I have a nice surprise for you.” Y/N was slightly confused as he took her hand to lead her out of the bed and out the bedroom and her eyes locked on the Labrador retriever puppy sat in the living room with a rose in his mouth. She gasped and slapped her hands over her mouth, and she quickly walked over to him, pulling the rose from his mouth and immediately, she started fussing him. 

“This is Leo, he’s our new puppy” Matt smiled, and Y/N’s eyes filled with small tears of happiness. Matt made his way over to his little family and sat on the floor, fussing the puppy with his girlfriend. 

“Welcome home baby boy” Y/N cooed to the puppy, causing him to lick her face and she giggled. Matt took a picture of the two along with the photos he already had of Leo, one being of him sat on his lap with his head on the steering wheel that Nick had took just before he came upstairs.

“I love you both so much” Y/N whispered, reaching over and planting a kiss on Matt’s lips which and the couple smiled into the kiss before getting interrupted by Leo joining in by licking their faces making them both laugh at the puppy.

After playing with Leo, Y/N opened her other gifts from Matt and Y/N had gave Matt her presents for him, the couple quickly grabbed Leo’s things from Chris’ room, making sure Chris was awake first and the youngest triplet made his way upstairs and played with the puppy to keep him entertained while Y/N and Matt sorted his things out throughout the house such as his bed, his training pads and his food and drink bowls and everything else. 

They had finished setting everything up for Leo and the couple were now in his bathroom, Y/N, getting ready for the day and Matt was brushing his teeth while watching, almost mesmerised, while she applied her makeup. 

“Thank you, Matt, I’m so happy we now have our own puppy” Y/N smiled as she hugged Matt after she finished applying her makeup. He smiled as he hugged her back, placing a kiss on the crown of her head. 

“It’s okay sweetheart, I know how much you wanted a pet and now that there’s someone home pretty much 24/7, I decided it’d be perfect to surprise you with Leo. Happy anniversary darling.” he replied. 

“Happy anniversary baby” she murmured, her words being muffled from Matt’s t-shirt. 

“What do you say we take Leo for a walk on the beach, yeah?” He suggested, she nodded to her boyfriend and the couple left the bathroom to get shoes on and Y/N picked Leo up and they made their way down to the garage and got in the car and headed to the beach. 

Matt and Y/N announced the addition to the household a week later on Instagram. 

y/user

Liked by: matthew.sturniolo, nicolassturniolo, christophersturniolo, madisonbeer and others

y/user: the latest addition to the sturniolo-y/l/n household, welcome home baby Leo, featuring uncle Chris and Leo having cuddles🫶🏻

tagged: matthew.sturniolo, christophersturniolo

comments:

nicolassturniolo: Leo Sturniolo-y/l/n supremacy🫶🏻😌love the little fur baby❤️

liked by: y/user, matthew.sturniolo

christophersturniolo: Little Leo loves his uncle chris, he’s the cooler uncle😉

liked by: y/user, matthew.sturniolo, nicolassturniolo

nicolassturniolo: umm I think tf not

y/user: how about he likes his mama better than both of you?😌😘

liked by: christophersturniolo, nicolassturniolo, matthew.sturniolo

matthew.sturniolo: now that we have a fur baby, can I call you a MILF?😘😏

liked by creator❤️

y/user: you’ve been spending too much time with Chris 😭😂

liked by: matthew.sturniolo

user5: MATT😭😭😭

user1: OMG NOW THEYRE PARENTSS

user2: milf and dilf🤭

matthew.sturniolo: that’s what I’m sayin😌

user2: MATT LMAOOOO

nathandoe8: uncle Nate wants cuddles next time I’m in LA

liked by: y/user, matthew.sturniolo

y/user: can’t wait for you to meet him Nate, if we come to Boston before you come to LA, well for sure bring him to meet his uncle Nate😘

madisonbeer: omg Leo and Presley play dates when I’m back from tour🤭🫶🏻

liked by creator❤️

y/user: you already know it babes, Leo and Presley gonna be the baddest duo ever 🤭

user4: Leo asleep on Matt’s shoulder😭

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matthew.sturniolo

Liked by: y/user, nicolassturniolo, christophersturniolo, nathandoe8 and others

matthew.sturniolo: Leo Sturniolo-y/l/n everybody🐾❤️and the most gorgeous milf ever😉😘

photo creds to @/nicolassturniolo for the first photo📸

tagged: y/user

comments:

nicolassturniolo: he’s so photogenic just like his uncle Nick🤭😌

liked by creator❤️

nicolassturniolo: Matt giving photo creds? who is this and what have you done with my brother?

liked by: matthew.sturniolo, y/user

matthew.sturniolo: ha ha ha ha, so funny nicolas🙄

y/user: I thought he was pretty funny babe👀

nicolassturniolo: see Matt😌

matthew.sturniolo: you’re both annoying (Y/N come back to the couch, me and our son want cuddles😘)

user5: has Leo met Trevor yet??

y/user: no not yet as we haven’t had the chance to go to Boston. We’re planning to soon tho so they will meet soon💓

y/user: our fur baby🥹thank you again for surprising me with him baby❤️

liked by creator❤️

matthew.sturniolo: you’re welcome my love❤️ now will you PLEASE come back to the couch I’m getting cuddle deprived😭

y/user: on my way you needy child🫶🏻😭

y/user: and stop calling me a milf, @/christophersturniolo you’re a bad influence on my boyfriend 😭😭

liked by: matthew.sturniolo, christophersturniolo

matthew.sturniolo: but baby you AREEE a milf😘😭

y/user: anyone want a Matt Sturniolo?? he’s free on the boyfriend market😭😂

christophersturniolo: im not a bad influence missy, you’re just boring (you’re literally the funniest person i know after me)

liked by: y/user

y/user: @/christophersturniolo why thank you😌😭

liked by: matthew.sturniolo, christophersturniolo

christophersturniolo: Matt quit simping on the main😭, where’s tough guy Matt💪🏻

liked by: matthew.sturniolo, y/user

matthew.sturniolo: ‘tough guy Matt’ will be coming to kick your ass if you don’t shut up 🤺

nicolassturniolo: more like setting Leo on him, dogs got some gnashers on him😭

liked by: matthew.sturniolo christophersturniolo, y/user

y/user: leave Matt alone you two, just cus you’re both single and he’s not😘🙄

liked by creator❤️

matthew.sturniolo: thank you baby😌

user9: Leo with the rose in his mouth🥹

liked by: y/user

y/user: that was how Matt introduced me to him on our anniversary, he had the roses in his mouth 🥹

user9: STOP THATS THE CUTEST😭 IM SO SINGLE😭

user11: most iconic dog ever alongside Trevor and Presley😌

liked by: matthew.sturniolo, y/user

user7: the puppucino😭😂

user1: Y/N and Leo asleep together has got to be the cutest thing ever😭🫶🏻

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🏷️: @imwetforyourmom @luvr4miya @laurj11

If you’re an f1 fan, notice a familiar pup in here😌🤭

[6okuto]

gn!reader | before your first valentine’s together as a couple, atsumu would not think to ask you to be his valentine. his thought process is that since you're dating, of course he'd be your valentine, and he expects you to be his! his head has already skipped to the step of what to get you, his valentine, as a gift, and where you'd like to go. you basically turn his world upside down when it comes up (albeit as a bit of a joke.)

“why do they put valentine’s stuff out so early anyway?” he mumbles while pushing the shopping cart down the aisle.

you open your phone to check the grocery list and hum beside him. “i’m pretty sure they do that with like, every holiday. it’s to maximize profit or whatever with people buying things early.”

“that’s stupid.” he stops in front of the cereals and rests his head against yours. there’s accomplishment?—smug affection, maybe, as he speaks, “at least we have valentines this year.”

but your reply topples down the podium he’s built in seconds. “and who are our valentines?”

atsumu freezes, the only thing to move being his jaw, dropping at your words. “babe.”

“as far as i can remember, nobody’s asked me to be their valentine,” you tease while reaching for his favourite cereal.

“wh—they better not?! you’re my valentine.”

“woah, really? since when?”

your eyes flicker down to the price. “hey, there’s a 2 for 1 deal right now, ‘tsum. an early gift for you.” you point out, ignoring the blatant betrayal on his face.

and you know atsumu. he takes it as a challenge. he wishes this conversation happened earlier, so he had more time to think of a valentine’s proposal, but with the help of his teammates and searching cute/best/aesthetic valentines proposals on every social media platform he’s on, he gets it all done!

he’s got the bouquet with the flowers prepared properly—dead petals and leaves picked off, twirled upside down to open them up, stems cut at the bottom, a vase ready at home.

a poster with “will you be my valentine?” written in cursive (with the help of his teammates and anyone he thought had good handwriting), and drawing of you two dressed up on the bottom, surrounded by his lipstick stains (he went out and bought a cheap one that he's not sure what to do with now.)

there’s even a basket with a ribbon tied on top, filled with snacks you like hanging from his arm when he gets home two days later, hair done, a dress shirt on, and a big grin on his face when you laugh and say yes.

he whines only a little, only after you hold his face between your palms and plant a kiss to his nose and reassure him you did not, in fact, plan to have anyone else be your valentine, but that you really, really appreciate and love him for asking anyway.

so the real problem comes after, atsumu realizes when you cheekily mention your own plans: how’s he gonna top it for the actual day?

(dedicated 2 my local atsumu fan @reverie-starlight . YAAAAY!)

[vidavalor]

The Hoff

I think that we've seen that very distinctive and unusual, capital F in Fell in the the note inside Aziraphale's copy of Modern Magic before...

What could explain that? 😊

Ok, so, first things first... to be clear: there really was a Professor Hoffman who published a book called Modern Magic. His real name was Angelo Lewis and, until its publication of Modern Magic in 1875, there wasn't really a major book in English that acted as a guidebook in for teaching aspiring magicians what they would need to know to be able to perform. It is seen as the first magic textbook, basically. So, the book really exists but this is where we have to talk about the apparent "autograph" that we were shown in 1941.

If you've ever had an author inscribe their book to you or received an autographed book as a gift, you probably have noticed that the author almost always signs the book on the title page or, if not that, on some other page on which there is type in the very early part of the book. They usually do not autograph books on the 1-2 blank pages of paper that are included at the start of most hardcover books... which is the spot where we can see that the note in Aziraphale's copy of Modern Magic is written. There are a couple of reasons why authors do not autograph those pages.

The first is that autographing one of the printed pages of the book helps to ensure that the author's signature stays with the book. If they sign a blank piece of paper at the start of the book, the signature can be more easily ripped out of the book and potentially used by someone for something illegal-- especially true of the pre-computer & cell phone eras but something which holds over into today. There is also that one of the reasons why the blank pages in the front of the book are included in the first place is to help keep the book clean in order to preserve it for longer, with the idea being that the blank pages can be removed if the book gets dirty over time from dust and dirt falling inside the cover.

The last reason, though, is the reason most relevant to what we're talking about here and that's that the blank pages are also meant to be a space for personal notes. Not just for something the reader might wish to jot down but for a message to the reader from the person who gifted them the book.

If you gift a book to someone, the tradition is that you write them a little note on the inside of the book. In a hardcover book, this is meant to be written somewhere on the blank pages. We are specifically shown Aziraphale opening his copy of Modern Magic to the very first, otherwise-blank page and reading the note that is the only other thing on the page, in the upper right hand corner.

Ok, you might say, but the note is written from Professor Hoffman and mentions Aziraphale being a 'wonderful student', so even though the unique and significant capital F's are a match... how could Crowley have written the note?

The note is actually signed The Hoff and there is already some wordplay in the 1941, Part 2 minisode in which Aziraphale uses that word while referencing Professor Hoffman on the surface but in such a way as to really be referring to Crowley.

Later on in 1941, when the two are drinking wine at the end of the minisode, their whole conversation is word-nerdy flirtation and Aziraphale responds to Crowley's inquiry as to how he got the photo back from Furfur with this line: "Who needs miracles when you've had private lessons from The Great Prof. Hoff. man himself?"

Here's where that Crowley-mentioned "tone of voice" from the start of 2.01 comes into play a bit...

In this post, we looked at how Aziraphale's emphasis in the "Prof. Hoff.man" sentence suggested he was using Professor Hoffman's name as wordplay to really be referring to Crowley. Prof, short for professor, is rooted in profess, which is to state something, while hoff is a Welsh term of endearment that means my dear and my beloved. (Some Welsh pet names in this show starring Michael Sheen? Couldn't be! 😂)

Used in that way? Prof. Hoff.man, spoken the way Aziraphale did in the wine scene in 1941, is actually referring to Crowley and calling him his dear (and deer) man and his beloved. It's "my dear" and "my love" but in Welsh. This, then, is Aziraphale referring to Crowley as his hoff... which is how the note in the Modern Magic book is signed.

Further emphasizing this are the other words being used in the wordplay in the same sentence that talks about private lessons from The Great Prof. Hoff.man.

The first is Aziraphale adding the adjective of great ahead of Prof. Hoff.man. In a couple of other posts, this word has come up already but to sum it up, great in their speak is dry use of the adjective used to describe The Great/Ineffable/Divine/Whatever Plan to describe their relationship or one another, instead. It basically means what we all know great to mean but with added humor within their speak being that it's blasphemous to use it that way in their supernatural world and that it comes from the root words related to to rub or to grind together. It also contains the word eat-- self-explanatory for the food-obsessed Crowley and Aziraphale.

In the Odegra scene in S1, in which basically all of Crowley's work presentation is in his and Aziraphale's vocabulary, he refers to the Biblical Great Beast on the surface which, in their vocabulary, they've actually jokingly made a phrase that refers to Aziraphale between them. When Maggie tells Crowley that he and Aziraphale don't say how they really feel, Maggie doesn't realize it but Crowley responds to her in his and Aziraphale's hidden vocabulary, because he's understandably a little put off. His response concludes with the deceptively simple summary of his and Aziraphale's relationship as a whole: "It's great."

In the Prof Hoff scene, Aziraphale refers to having had private lessons from "The Great Prof. Hoff.man" himself. If the wordplay in the scene has The Great Prof Hoff.man here being a reference to Crowley then so, too, are the private lessons. This is not to say that Aziraphale might have never taken magic lessons with Angelo Lewis aka Professor Hoffman. It's just to say that he is happily using Professor Hoffman's name here as wordplay to refer to Crowley in this moment. It's using Aziraphale's human magic as euphemistic for their romance, which also what The Bullet Catch and many other scenes have done. While private lessons manages to sound quite innuendo-y just on the surface alone, there's also some other layers that make it especially top shelf.

Lessons, in this case, are a mixed French-English phonetic joke-- they're les sins, or the sins. Crowley and Aziraphale don't see sex as sinful but referring to it that way with tongue firmly in cheek is their type of blasphemous humor, yeah? Even funnier is the fact that the French word for sin is peche, which also can refer to both a peach (so, a fruit, which also happens to be pretty uniformly euphemistic for an ass) and, even more amusingly, for the act of fishing.

Additionally, lesson comes from legere, which is the root of many words related to act of reading. Originally, the word lesson referred only to a reading aloud of The Bible. The word private in Aziraphale's sentence does just refer to a sense of privacy in the way that we know it but there are also the words it contains.

Besides the food-related ate, there is vate. The Latin word vates meant a prophet or a seer. By sometime prior to the 1600s, though, the word vate had splintered off from vates and had evolved to mean something that Crowley already canonically is-- a poet.

"Private lessons with The Great Prof. Hoff.man himself" on a wordplay level is really Aziraphale referring to romance and lovemaking with his dearly beloved poet.

Ok, so, we've established that Crowley can easily be The Hoff who wrote the note. Now, let's go back to the note written inside Aziraphale's copy of Modern Magic and look at the romance and humor of it being written the way it is if we're saying that it's written by Crowley and not by the Angelo Lewis version of Professor Hoffman.

Let's start with "a wonderful student." Here's the thing... you wouldn't need to be instructing Aziraphale on anything to refer to him that way. A student is a person who seeks to and works to gain knowledge and Aziraphale is constantly doing that. He is a curious, life-long learner, as we all should try to be, right? From knowing Aziraphale as the story shows us, all of us could say that Aziraphale is a wonderful student, could we not?

There's a sweet sense of humor in using the adjective wonderful in there as well. A person who is wonderful is full of wonder, which is to say that they are miraculous. They inspire pleasure, admiration, and a sense of delight. Synonyms for wonderful include other words associated with Mr. Fell and his magic-- amazing and marvelous.

So, let's say that Crowley bought Aziraphale his much-beloved copy of Professor Hoffman's Modern Magic and so is part of the reason why Aziraphale has a human magic act in the first place. He wanted to write a note to Aziraphale in the book but obviously could not write something that isn't a bit oblique because they're a secret. There is a very Crowley-esque humor in hiding that he is the author of the note by making what he wrote at the start of the book sound like a note written by the book's author.

Crowley signs the note "The Hoff" and there are actually additional meanings to that besides the Welsh term of endearment one we looked at above-- all of which are extremely Crowley.

Hof and Hoff are Old Norse words that evolved into Dutch and German to refer to, over time, a wide variety of buildings. Originally the word meant a hall and, at that time, that was less in the sense of a passageway between rooms inside a building and more any roof-covered building. It is still present a bit in what we call a couple of types of buildings (a town hall; a music hall, etc..).

Because the word comes from the Proto-Indo-European root words meaning to cover or to conceal, a hof or a hoff began to mean basically any kind of building covered by a roof-- including both a court (as in, a royal court), a temple, and a farmstead. It also began to mean anyone working any jobs associated with life beneath any of these roof-covered structures. From this also formed the term heathen hof, which referred to a Germanic pagan temple.

A hof or a hoff, then, is a roof-covered place of protection and concealment from the elements or someone occupied under one of those roof-covered places.

A hof or a hoff? Is a canopy...

But we're not at all done... Because of hoff relating to places like royal courts and farmsteads, it also evolved to mean the person who manages the domestic affairs of a household and the person whom a monarch or the owner of the building has given authority to represent them, to rule in their name and to guard their assets and reputation. The word that we use today to mean this derived away from hoff and came about in a messy way that involves so many language overlaps that people are honestly still kind of trying to fully puzzle it out and aren't entirely sure of the results. For quite a few centuries now, though, what was once referred to as a hoff-- in terms of people and not structures-- has been more commonly referred to as a steward.

A steward can be someone who keeps watch over a household and guards its inhabitants and one who can manage the affairs of an estate for the person who is, technically, that estate's owner.

A steward is also the officer on a ship who is in charge of meals and provisions. This also later applied to trains as well, once they were invented.

In fine dining, a wine steward, for example, is another name for a sommelier-- one who provides knowledge of wine and serves it.

It also refers to someone who oversees the social arrangements of a household.

The occupation of steward is also the root of surname Stewart and its alternate, French-originating spelling of Stuart. Stuart is also a first name for which Stu is a nickname and that nickname is one of the words contained in The Steward/Hoff's love note to Aziraphale: the stu within student. Also within student? The word den. Meanings include a dwelling for animals (a fox den), a recreational or study room in a house, and, especially applicable to Crowley and Aziraphale: a place in which people meet to engage in illicit activity in secret in order to evade detection.

So, within the letter Crowley signs The Hoff is the word student, which contains words referring to the role of a hoff/steward (stu) and the den he serves and protects in that role. It's clever. 😊

For some funny, food-related bonuses: the word steward also obviously contains stew and, depending on where you are in the world, the word hof today can evidently refer to either Carlsberg beer or a Korean-style bar or pub. In Danish, it also refers to a garden and, apparently, the history of hof referring to a royal court also led to an evolution of hof referring to admirers as a result of crossing over with the use of court as a verb-- as in, to court a person.

Fish stew. Anyway!

But you might be saying: but why not inscribe the book to Aziraphale? What's with the 'To Mr. Fell' and this weird capital F?

For that, we have to bring in two of the most romantic things you can think of: a little grammar and Hastur.

Just bear with me. 😂 It's worth it, I promise...

Back in S1, we had a bunch of scenes that illustrate that the demons are seen as a collective who all belong to Satan and are not to have any sense of autonomy that overrides that. It's best summed up by Hastur harassing Crowley through his tv by reminding him that, collectively, they are known as The Fallen and only their shared goals of servitude to their master, Satan, should be what matters:

When Crowley is in public and at risk of being overheard, he will speak that way about Hell, such as in the case of "Mozart's one of ours" or "was that one of yours or one of ours?" with regards to The Reign of Terror in 1.01. In this post, we already looked at how, on a hidden language level, Crowley is crafting those public sentences to Aziraphale to really work as being about the two of them on another level while sounding like they're about Hell on the surface level because, as we know, he does not actually wish to be part of The Fallen.

This is where the little bit of irregular verb grammar comes into play. It relates to tenses around the verb to fall. As most of us know, both the future tense and the present tenses of the verb to fall is fall. If it's a fall that has yet to happen, you use fall. As in: "She should be careful as she could fall out of that tree." If it's a fall that is currently happening, you also use fall, as you would say: "She is falling." It's when you start to talk about a fall that already happened that things get a little more complicated... and if you don't think Crowley and Aziraphale would find that relevant, may I direct you to them flirting by way of pretending to be confused over the irregular past tenses of the verb to smite in S2...

Fallen is the past participle tense of to fall. The simplest way to explain that for those who are grammar-averse and find this confusing (and it is confusing-- English is a nightmare lol) is that you use fallen as 'has fallen' or 'have fallen' to describe a fall that took place at an unspecified time in the past, as well as a fall that happened already but may still also be an ongoing thing.

For example: your friend might refuse your request that she climb a tree with you by saying something like: "No, thanks. I have fallen out of too many trees before." This indicates falls that happened to your friend in the past that are now over and done with but are just not being referred to in such a way as to reference a specific point in time. If your friend wanted to refer to a specific fall she had at a specific time, she would use fell, not fallen, and would say something like: "No, thanks. I fell out of a tree last Thursday and I'm still feeling it."

Meanwhile, though, you could be thinking about investing in a company, say, and, in researching the company, read a sentence like: "The stock price average has fallen x percent over the last x months." This indicates something that has taken place in the past-- the descent of the stock price average has already happened. However, fallen is being used because that falling stock price average might still also be ongoing, as it could keep falling. That is an example of using fallen to refer to a fall that happened in the past but is not necessarily seen as completely done and continues on.

How is this relevant, you ask?

Let's say that it's long ago and you're an angel who is in love with a demon who has for millennia been referred to by everyone in Heaven and Hell as one of The Fallen to a point that The Fallen is basically the closest thing he has to a surname. And let's say that you're creating a human identity for yourself and taking on a surname so you can live amongst them more directly. And let's say that you are well-aware of the fact that marrying this demon is not something at this time that seems like it would ever be possible for an endless list of reasons ranging from the fact that you're supernatural hereditary enemies to the fact that doing so would be illegal by human standards.

You don't like the term The Fallen because you feel it doesn't apply-- to your demon partner or to any of the demons, really. The past tense of to fall is fell. It's something that happened once, at a specific time in the past, as in: "He fell out of the tree." It's over and no longer relevant, unlike the way that Heaven and Hell use the phrase The Fallen to continuously demonize the demons. They refer to them that way to perpetuate the idea that they are forever "evil" and damned for it. Added into this is that to fall, as we know, is also a verb used to describe feeling romantic love, as the humans say that people fell in love. There's also that he calls you daily what you are-- an angel-- in a romantic way and you would like a way to refer to what he is in a loving way, instead of just the teasing, double-meaning way you sometimes use words like demon and fiend.

So, if you were this angel named, say, I don't know, Aziraphale lol... and you liked the human custom of a partner taking the surname of their spouse when they married and you were making up your own surname anyway for your human identity and you were very sure that you'd never be able to actually marry your demon partner so this was what you thought then was maybe the closest you'd ever get to being able to do that... the cleverest, most romantic surname you could actually choose for yourself that would be taking his name but in a positive, word-nerdy way that reflected the love of the two of you would be to name yourself Mr. Fell.

Aziraphale has been Mr. Fell for who knows how long because it is the proper verb tense for what happened to Crowley, it sounds enough like '-phale' that Heaven won't ever really put it together and he has an excuse there if they ever ask him why his alias sounds a little demonic and, most importantly, because he wanted to take that part of Crowley's "name." Why?

Because, like with most humans, Crowley didn't choose that surname and, as is the case for a lot of humans as well, the name has a negative history that he wishes it didn't. Crowley can choose to change his name and add to his name and he does-- Anthony Crowley and others are his own choice-- but he's stuck being tied to the "family" he came from-- The Fallen-- as there has never been a way to change that. To Aziraphale, taking on that name is the same as anyone marrying into a family with bad history and a terrible reputation because they love their good partner who is stuck in it. It's an act of commitment to that person.

Aziraphale tweaked it to Fell-- the correct use of the verb, a common human surname, and something that sounds enough like the end of his own first name that it acts as a bit of sleight of hand to keep most from noticing that his last name is just the frequently confused with fallen, other, past tense of to fall and that he took it as a way to take Crowley's name.

It also adds a whole other feeling to Aziraphale reading the note aloud to Crowley in the bookshop in 1941 and the part where he says "'To Mr. Fell'-- that's me!" with the little grin and wiggle.

Crowley inscribed the book 'To Mr. Fell' because that's their name. It's an equivalent of writing something like 'For my husband'...

Another clue to support this is the Crowley-and-Aziraphale-paralleling Mutt and his beloved spouse, as Mutt referred to them as. Beloved, as we said above, is one of the Welsh terms of endearment meanings of hoff. Mr. Fell is Aziraphale having taken Crowley's name like someone might of their spouse. Since its opening, the name of the bookshop has been A.Z. Fell & Co.. On one level, it is meant to look like A.Z. Fell is a variant of Aziraphale, likely to evade suspicion from Heaven. In reality? Aziraphale is just Mr. Fell from A to Z. Just Crowley's, from soup to nuts.

Adding some humor is also that a fellow, as we know, is a term for a man, or a person in the same position or group as someone else, or a person with whom someone is sharing the same activities, as well as member of a society of learning. To Mr. Fell, a wonderful student...

A fellow-- or the slang fella-- is also a boyfriend. Plus, the silly humor of fellow as fell- ow!. "But, my deer/dear fellow..."

So, Crowley wrote the inscription in the book as a note to Aziraphale that makes it look like it's an autograph from Professor Hoffman and the other hints to this lie in his distinctive capital F in Fell and the other word hidden in the signature.

If you look closely, you'll notice some things in the way that Crowley wrote The Hoff. The o in the word is actually made up of two letter o's linked together. Besides the whole hugs and kisses of x and o in writing and the rings aspect and the fact that he drew them in such a way to look heart-like, there's that this creates a new word hidden in hoff, which is hooff, which isn't a word but the word contained within it-- hoof-- sure is.

A hoof is the foot of any of three animals to which Crowley is frequently referred to as: a horse, an ox, or a deer. It's also slang for the human foot and, as to hoof it, for the act of walking, as well as sometimes slang for dancing.

The Crowley-and-Aziraphale penned title of Demon's Guide to Angelic Beings Who Walk the Earth, which is a phrase meaning to live life. In the opening credits of every episode of Good Omens, Crowley and Aziraphale are shown living life together throughout history-- walking the Earth together. The same 1941 minisode that gave us this note that we're looking at gives us the love letters they wrote each other and published under Hell's nose as entries in Demon's Guide, furthering the suggestion of Crowley having written the note in the book.

Now, look at the distinctively-written letter F in Fell and in where we've seen that before in the 2008 minisode:

Crowley's signature on the form for his assignment to take Adam to the nuns in 2008 is him drawing with his index finger the same pattern he uses when writing with a pen to make the capital F in Fell.

Why does Crowley write it this way?

Because while the end result is that anyone not looking closely sees a cursive capital F, the way that Crowley writes that capital F is by using the pattern of a cursive capital L-- for love. If you look at it closely, you'll actually see both a L and a F overlapping as one letter in the word Fell in the note.

While I'm sure Aziraphale has no doubt as to what he was reading in Crowley's note in Modern Magic, if the 2008 minisode is any indication, Crowley has actually been using this Love F when writing his own signature-- both on Earth and in Hell-- for quite some time. Likely because while he loathes being part of The Fallen, he feels the exact opposite kind of way about Aziraphale having taken his name to a point that he wants to actually put Fell somewhere in his own name.

The result appears to be that he uses The Love F as both a purposefully kind of unintelligible signature when he signs for things in Hell... but also in the more readable signature of his name when he signs things on Earth. Why do I say in the human name, too? There's a hint to that in 1941-- back in the Part 1 of it.

I think Crowley makes their mark as the middle initial in his signature on Earth because I'm noticing here that this romantic Love F thing could be the explanation regarding confusion over a certain third capital letter... the letter J.

I now think it possible that Crowley didn't actually write a J on the document the Nazis saw. He wrote the romantic F for Fell that he writes to also look like a capital L, which got it mistaken by Mr. 'Betamax/Peter Max' Glozier for a capital J.

When Glozier said the J aloud, Crowley did use two words relating to he and Aziraphale in their speak-- just and really-- to try to explain what the letter was to Aziraphale but I'm not sure that Aziraphale heard it that way. Crowley also made it sound like he didn't want to clarify what he had really written. To be fair, saying "that Nazi thug mistook The Love F for a J" wouldn't have really worked in the moment but he also seemed squirmish about admitting to Aziraphale that he doesn't just use The Love F when writing him love letters but as part of his signature.

In Lockdown, Aziraphale appears to have written a note addressed to Anthony J. Crowley. So, either Crowley hadn't told Aziraphale by then that the J was The Love F, or they now have an in-joke from 1941 about Crowley's middle initial being J when they both know that it's not, or Crowley actually then went and came up with a middle name that begins with J after 1941.

Finally, there's the note in a gifted book that we didn't see in S2 but definitely heard about...

I have no doubt that Aziraphale has a first edition of S.W. Erdnase's Expert at the Card Table. I do doubt the next bit, though, wherein Aziraphale is pretty obviously lying his ass off. This is a now well-practiced version of 'those three kids are absolutely Job and Sitis' new children':

I would bet pretty heavily that Aziraphale's first edition of Expert at the Card Table has a 'To Mr. Fell'-style note in the inside that, when read, makes it look like it was autographed by the author but which is really a note that Crowley wrote to Aziraphale when he gifted him the book.

Aziraphale realized in the above scene that if he lets Mutt look at the book, Mutt is going to think that however Crowley signed the note was Erdnase's real name so Aziraphale just complete bullshitted the provenance of the book to cover up the fact that the autograph is a Crowley love note in order to bribe Mutt into coming to the party. 😂

This is also really why he won't give Mutt the book or let him try to buy it. It's beloved to him because of its magic importance, yes, but really also because Crowley gave it to him. The super-rare Doctor Who annual issue that Mr. Arnold was lusting after is something Aziraphale can part with (after all, he's sleeping with The Doctor so it's not really necessary). That was just one of the many rare items that Aziraphale does have in his shop and wasn't a present.

The copy of Expert at the Card Table, though? Aziraphale will never part with that.

Both books that Aziraphale has that we've mentioned here are first editions and, given their subject matter, Aziraphale would have wanted to get both books immediately after they were published. That means that Crowley bought Aziraphale Hoffman's Modern Magic in 1875 and Erdnase's Expert at the Card Table in 1902. For timeline context: He gave Aziraphale the copy of Modern Magic with the romantic note we've spent this meta looking at 13 years after the 1862 Holy Water argument. The gift of Expert at the Card Table was 27 years after that-- 40 years after the 1862 scene.

This, along with things like Aziraphale buying a dozen cases of Chateauneuf-de-Pape in 1921 "for special occasions" and Aziraphale and Crowley being in communication when Crowley bought The Bentley in the early 1930s all contribute to the idea that they had seen one another plenty between 1862 and 1941.

Crowley's faux-griping about Aziraphale's magic act is also made even cuter-- and more transparent lol-- by the fact that he's been gifting Aziraphale books about human magic for ages.

On a sadder note, it also adds another layer of horror to the bookshop fire. I think we all figured Crowley had bought Aziraphale books before but having seen one now and the love note in it and knowing there are a ton more makes Crowley standing in the middle of the shop with them all burning around him even worse.

On a cheerier note, remember Aziraphale reading books on magic (and plenty of other interesting stuff) during Lockdown? Perhaps some of the books were in the pile because Aziraphale was also going through them to re-read Crowley's love notes?

Finally, what do you think... it's a little different but... is that a Love F on his tie?