#whoops this spiralled out of control

[ikemenomegas]

@animeomegas This post crossed my dash and I immediately thought of you with cockblock sasuke headcanons haha. Itachi might be exasperated at worst and desperately horny at best during that time, thinking he understands and Sasuke will too when he's older. But I love the idea of Itachi who is sorely mistaken, has pups by the time Sasuke is courting, and is just like this. Suddenly extremely concerned for Sasuke's modesty, "are they making you wear that?" when Sasuke wears something revealing, tries to be nice because he knows Sasuke wouldn't accept someone he's not already serious about, but Itachi's eye is sort of twitching and his alpha has their second child in their arms and are staring at him like "are you okay?" when they have a second alone at a family dinner. He realizes Sasuke might be having extramarital sex and accidentally squeezes a chicken too hard when he's carrying it around in the garden and gets screamed at by a hen - not like Itachi didn't also, but Itachi was already practically married by then! and is his stupid cute little brother being safe? is it possible to be sneaky about taking him to the doctor to get checked out?

Itachi might be a little insufferable during Sasuke's teenage emo/goth rebellion too. Like he learns how to make clothes specifically because he knows Sasuke will wear anything Itachi gets him and they're all cute bulky sweaters or comfortable traditional robes. Sasuke mostly wears them around his house or when he's visiting Itachi, but it lets Itachi delude himself into some semblance of imagining Sasuke dresses like that most of the time instead of being bare chest out in the streets.

Ooh! and maybe part of Sasuke's courting story is running into his future alpha on the way back to his family's home from Itachi's house and he gets flustered and embarrassed at how obviously adorable they find him in sweater paws instead of his current off-both-shoulders, no juban, open-down-to-the-navel uniform.

[cursezoroark]

chapter 1! (and partially chapter 2?)

(First picture is a redraw from chapter 2's visual piece which is drawn by zumi honnojis! will be below Read More!)

[feralshadowdemon]

that's alotta donnies.... ✩

+ cameo of what hairstyle i think donnie would have if he ever got/had hair

[modmad]

Hey Mod, I don't know what's going on that hurt you, I feel like I missed something that's happened, but I can tell from what I did see that it didn't just hurt you, but scared you and made you feel a Lot of doubt. I've also seen a lot of messages pouring in with support, and I want to share mine.

I have hypermobile type EDS, fibromyalgia, and a whole bucket's worth of faulty wiring in my brain. And I've always had stories to tell but I never felt I was good enough to share them. If it's because I can't focus enough to get through nanowrimo, or because I can't manage the focus and time towards drawing as a hobby, or the fact that an excessive amount of either for me leads to my hands wanting to shut down. But you? You *inspire* me. Your stories, all the ones I've seen, read, experienced in some way or another, they're so good. And you're open and honest with your fans about your own health, and of course, we support you and always would rather you rest and feel as best you can, instead of pushing out something and working yourself too hard. But all of this is to say that. I think I would have given up on my own stories if I hadn't found you and yours.

I hope whatever is going on sorts itself out, I hope you're able to keep telling your stories. At your own pace, in your own way. I think you deserve to be happy. If there's anything we (your fans, especially those of us too awkward to come off anon, whoops,) can do, to help in some way? Even if it's silly videos or cute cat pictures or whatever it is that could just help you smile. We're here. We love you.

woof. I woke up to so many messages I can't even read them all in one go I'm getting too emotional- I do feel I owe an explanation so I'll explain what happened under the cut but all you guys need to know is I'm okay, I got through it, I love you, and you're so important to me and I'm so grateful for all the messages that have asked me to stay.

tw for suicidal thoughts and all that

yeah so I have the bad morning of all mornings: was introduced to the fact there's this one character (Mr Puzzles) on a very popular youtube that. resembles RGB. incredibly strongly. like. I don't want to link to it just look if you want to. Anyway at the time I thought it had just dropped (seems to have been around for 6 months actually), and having commented on it I immediately got an inbox full of hate mail.

My website, meanwhile, had locked both me and my web designer out of it, and- already in a bad state of mind- I went into full on panic/paranoid spiral of 'they have hacked it, and they are going to delete any proof that I was here before them.' This of course wasn't true, and we have since recalimed control of the site (don't know what happened there but hey. it's fine???? haha. ha.)

On top of this my father has terminal cancer of the pancreas, which is horrible for everyone already but it means that- at some point this year- I am going to be the only person with an active income in my house. I am disabled, do not make a lot of money, and the cost of living is skyrocketing. Combine that with months of Despair at the world right now, with the multiple wars, genocide, corruption and AI and the loss of control any of us have over our IP or lives and I just decided it was time to end it all.

I somehow remembered this was a bad idea to act on immediately (hard during a period of entirely irrational thought) and instead went for a very long walk, crossed the bridge I could have jumped off and during that I came out of the worst of it. I then came back home to so much love online I felt deeply ashamed for ever contemplating it, and I cried a lot. My nose is still puffy and now my feet hurt! lmao

Anyway. Yeah. There's your context. I am not going to stop hoping, making, or living. I am prone to moments of weakness and this was one of the worst of them and I am still here, thanks in a large part to all of you. I might need you in the future to defend me against this, or people who take our ideas, but I hope you know that I will do the same for you. We need each other, and to be there for you I need to be here at all.

also fuck Mr Puzzles

[ganondoodle]

okay i do have to do a mini (i call it mini now.. this is just letting my feelings about it out, so its spelled agressively bc im just so .. frustrated ... also not hate to the studio or the people working on it .. obviously >_>) rant about arcane-

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR ARCANE SEASON 2

its the most beautiful show ever produced, i mean it, its style, fortiche's (the studio) style, is just .... impossibly pretty, 3d and 2d, the animation is just so GOOD, the designs largely (like 95%) are too, the acting and sound design, the voice acting (at least the english one) is so emotional and good, the show in general is just good ... until the last episode

i have my own problems with riot declaring arcane the new canon out of nowhere and for no good reason since it was, im very sure, never conceived to be that, its a reinterpreation and works best as such, now literally everything is once again completely messed up, no one knows whats real and what isnt, no champion or story is safe, especially with the weird hexcore bullshit potentially erasing the VOID (whish is like ... half on which the canon was built on tbh) AND hextech- multiple champions being impossible to exist now .... but thats not what i wanted to talk about

i was pretty on board with everything the show did, though i wasnt a big fan of the whole hexcore stuff, but it all spiraled so far out of control, it just kept making everything worse, also with bringing in the black rose and leblanc, it kept piling stuff onto the plate despite them already compressing everything so drastically; espeically regarding viktor, but i kept my hope up even after season 2s act 2 bc it still seemed 'fixable', though not easily so

what i liked about it (in its writing) despite its pacing issues was that it was rather .. self contained for the longest time, focused on the characters and the class struggle of piltover and zaun, and doing so rather well imo, like it did and said things i did not expect riot to let through

i was worried with the alternate universe stuff that came with the escalating hexcore bullshit but held onto hope even until episode 8 and then ...man .. the last episode ... the fuck was that- like i hate timetravel and multiverses and whatever but the thing with ekko was done rather neatly ... they made all those chaarcter models and sets just for that short stuff and really .. was of little use other than getting heimerdinger out of the picture as well lmao maybe he will get his own series to advertise for 200 dollar skins in league hahaaaa but i guess the main point was to give ekko the z-drive ... which feels alot like what i feared about them forcing it to comply with the characters in game ,,,, even though that wasnt for everyone like warwick was done SO dirty after giving me hope in act two

everythings focused on the hexcore/arcane shit, theres the black rose shit (honestly i think it was a mistake bringing them in too bc .. noxus is its entire own region with so many champs and story itself that got connected via ambessa .. which was a new character the show made up until they made her a champ now .. its just too much to put into this one show already going at a breakneck pace), mel doing her bit with them then bam she mage now which felt like a champion teaser more than an organic part of the story, especialyl with how hard it got pushed later (poor little riots gotta sell more game cosmetics uwu), jayce just taking over control again and everyone going with it, singed reviving stupid version victor via using vander/warwick WHO WAS STILL ALIVE AFTER ISHA BLEW HERSELF UP TO STOP HIM FROM KILLING EVERYONE (which was ALREADY pretty cheap, but i guess jinx had to be even more suicidal than she already was heehoo), dont even ask me HOW, viktor was just whoops from corpse to im a cocoon now, ambessa being so obsessed with it, the entire class struggle being """"solved"""" by piltover and zaun fighting stupid viktors weird ass robot shitheads together and then acting like giving sevika a seat at the council is the solution to it, half the cast just dying horribly for honestly no reason?? ORIANNA being now i guess some weird viktor robot but without the mindcontrol part and singed just kinda ... winning i guess by giving her cocoon some goo of stupid viktors cocoon

it just all ... turning from this so drama, character and class struggle thing into weird ass dimension hopping magical world war that all gets solved bc we fought together once uwu AND it being a fucking timeloop WITHIN what ONE episode? and that being the ENDING (i know i know the hexcore bs was building up throughout the show but it still felt so .. unearned and sudden ... )

also i got personal gripes with the 'ending' bc .. was it REALLY an ending like they kept saying?? was it?? viktor, jayce, heimerdinger, jinx are just disappeared i guess, mel going back to noxus- the fucking 'our story isnt over' tease???? the last minute appearance of swains fucking raven???? pecking at something blue and shining like idk a hex crystal??? SHUT UP i dont want more to come, this story should have had its self containing ending, not this open ended bullshit that just reeks of corporate meddling bc they want their game to connect to their popular show as much as possible now so we gotta bring in as many teases and connections to other champions YIPPIEEEEE (yelling)

also if jinx is dead, wow, what a way to end her story, the traumatized suicidal character being tortured and tortured especially after seemingly having something good for once (i liked act 2 except for its ending the most bc ... man jinx was so enjoyable there, i loved her dynamic with vi and isha and half wolf vander warwick with the beast and man struggle i love alot, that part was genuinely beautiful, i wasnt a fan of the idea of idk ekko doing time stuff and them having a happy ending bc i just dont like going back in time to fix everything kinda stuff, but i would have much much prefered that, not changing the existing story into the perfect world where everythings happy (though i liked that part ... vander silco being gay husbands like that is just so goood) but to fix what is fixable in the present- them still having gone through alot but being able to live with it, so act 2 setup was honestly my favorite way to not invalidate everything and still have something happy .... but no we gotta kill the kid to make jinx even worse and vander/warwick too while we are at it

if shes not dead (given you see a blimp(?) flying away and her scribbles showing up and caitlyn looking at the blueprints of the hexgates) then ... ??? oh yeah lets make her leave zaun and just idk go be the main character in noxus or soemthing for the next show they are gonna do bc jinx is popular so putting her everywhere is a good idea!!!1!!11

ALSO since vander/warwick is my favorite .. i thought maybe after isha doing that, if they dont reverse it, hed get taken by singed again or ran away and turned fully werewolf like he is in the game (though i would have liked if they were able to be a weird family like in act2)- but no he just gets used as fuel for stupid viktor cocoon and then mind erased and made into the ugliest weird robot thing that looks more like galio than him JUST and i feel like it really is JUST to have Vi at the end do the scene that gets jinx 'killed' .. to lead into the 'more to come' teaser.. idk about you but that scene felt so .. forced, the typical oh no platform is slowly falling down but Vi suddendly gets emotional about weird ugly robot warwick (who conveniently comes back to life as ugly robot beast since his human mind got erased but not the beast??? i guess???) and completely ignores jinx yelling at her to get to safety, it felt so WEIRD to me (if you gotta do him like that at least let Vi listen to jinx, them embracing and then watchign emotionally as robo vanderwick falls into the hexgate thing .. that was still active somehow i guess??)

(poor viktor got done so dirty too .. i liked him .. until it all went weird wit hthe hexcore stuff ....... ..... also jayce weird speech to him .. why the FUCK did you not do that back in the cult camp instead of blasting him to bits, i get it he was fucked up from seeing the future, but then later hes just ... okay???? pretty fine all things considered??? and pretty aware of everything?? also his weird speech being all like vitkor actually you were perfect in your imperfection BITCH HE WAS SLOWLY DYING AN AGONIZING DEATH???? idk ??? it all feels so weird to me, like there episodes literally missing- ambessa dying also felt so unnecessary .. just so mel can take her place and go to noxus and have more shows maybe- )

i just .... and just like how i cant enjoy botw anymore after them fucking it all up with totk ... i dont know if i will rewatch arcane knowing it ends like that, what was that for, the most beautiful show ever made just to do a game of thrones ending in a single episode?

im so tired of it all ..... im so tired of being disappointed and feeling let down over and over no matter with how little expectations i go in with

this willl be the only arcane rant unless theres some .. big stupid reveal that gets me more frustrated than i am now, which i hope there isnt .. im tired of being and feeling like this .. i just want to enjoy things, everythings going to shit IRL and i cant even find something enjoyable to watch

[sunnie-angel]

Sunnieeee babyyy what do we think about femjay and marriage? Yay or nay? Does she even want to get married? Is she wife-ing you up or is she waiting for you to pop the question? Elopement or ceremony? WHERE does she take you for your honeymoon 😼

ooooh so i've been sitting on this ask for a bit (mostly because i start thinking about fem!jay in a tux and my brain stops working) but i love this question so much.

the question, of course, depends on when you ask her. at 15, it's an emphatic no. she hates the way that the question gets asked by the upper crust busybodies because she knows it's always with some strange faceless man in mind waiting for her at the altar. never mind that jay's never shown interest in a boy but her best friend, the assumption is there and she hates it.

at 21, fresh out of the pit and off a revenge streak, she'd laugh in your face (and riddle you with bullets, depending on who's doing the asking). she's the big bad red hood, you think she's gonna settle down? think she'd hand over her empire for a little ring and a bit of paper? fat chance. marriage didn't save her mother from a husband that was never around. talia's still pinning her hopes on a one day maybe. jay's got plans and none of those include marriage. who'd want her anyway?

you ask her when she's 23 and happily in love for the first time, well that's a different story. she's still got her hangups - the past doesn't let go so easily - but she wants to know why you want this. you start with the practical, legal reasons first. you're a vigilante and yeah you might get most of your medical treatment from secret facilities but i want to be allowed in the room for all the times you end up in the hospital. i might be under the hood's extra legal protections but there's a comfort in being legally tied to you too. then you move on to the emotional ones. i want to bring our families together to celebrate us. i want to stand up in front of the world and declare that i'm yours and you're mine. and well, it's everything that jay didn't know she wanted. answers the greedy, grasping parts of her hindbrain at the thought of publicly branding herself as yours and whoops suddenly the apartment is full of wedding planning materials. spring you said?

you asked, but she proposes. applies all her tactical knowledge to planning the perfect, meaningful proposal. she enlists the help of all of her many siblings, and thankfully it all goes to plan. she still manages to surprise you, jolts you into happy tears when she gets down on one knee and pulls out two matching rings.

the engagement goes off without a hitch, but the wedding? that very quickly spirals out of control. everyone has an opinion and your head's spinning with tablescape designs and flower arrangements and jay wants to help but she's worried about being just another opinion shouting in your ear. so jay calls in some favours from clark to borrow a photographer and gets you to clear the rest of your weekend. she takes you shopping with bruce's credit card, a fun little white cocktail dress she has you wear out of the store and into the courthouse. the two of you get married right there, with only the courthouse judge and two random witnesses you kidnap from the corridors. it's done! you two are married, and it's like this great weight is lifted from both of you. Mrs. and Mrs. Todd. The ceremony, the great tentpole party, that's for everyone else but this bit is just for the two of you.

your public ceremony is the event of Gotham society's year. even the daily globe over in metropolis prints a feature on it. but jay doesn't care because her wife - her wife! - is holding her hand and kissing her to the cheers of both of their families.

(tbh i don't think the honeymoon location matters so much because she is not letting you leave the bed for three days straight after 🤭)

[silentmouthpiece]

*Bangs my head on the wall*

No one *bang*

Understands *bang*

Jimmy *bang*

Didn't *bang*

Start out *bang*

Despicable *bang*

He has the capacity to be despicable like everyone does, but he let TWO worst moments define him and he clearly never went to therapy! He lashed out cuz he thought his life was over twice! He was capable of being an okish guy before... all that.

Also!

He is not *bang*

In control *bang*

Of his impulses *bang*

This man is a creature of impulse and instinct, he is not a mastermind planner or manipulator. He can plan, but like... is he good at it? Not really. This man has too many instances of "act first, think consequences later" that he's not playing the long game of chess, he's moving pieces for immediate gratification. It whoops his ass and he can't accomplish any of his long-term goals.

He's manipulative alright, but like... we can't forget he believes his own nonsense. That's why he panics and spirals when things get so bad in the game. "Why is everyone not listening to me? I can fix it if they just listen to me!" type headass. Also... he was really letting Anya walk around and tell everyone what he did, not even bothering to manipulate that situation. By all means he should've been like "Keep your mouth shut and nothing bad will happen" but he clearly didn't do that and he doesn't even bother to defend himself? Our Jimmy? Not even putting up a fight? "Poor, misunderstood Jimmy," but he doesn't even defend the one action that plagues him the most? He knows he fucked up, he just really... really can't acknowledge it.

Uuugh... fucking dumbass. He's so dumb. Stupid boy. Dummy. Bitch ass dummy. Idiot. Rubs his hands together like he thought he did something. Foolish fool! Got command and fumbled it like a hot potato. Weakling!Real captains never drop the hot potato! Imma smack him, he's so incompetent. Beat his ass for fucking everything up and in denial about it

[stevesjockstrap]

kinktober 4: Steve/Eddie & blood kink(/werewolf sex)

Rated E • Transmasc Eddie, werewolf Steve, crack treated not very seriously, period sex, blood

Whoops @fuctacles this happened 😂

The week of his period has always been horrible for Eddie, he thought he’d be done with it after starting hormones and birth control but alas the universe apparently had to punish him for having thick luxurious hair or spectacular music taste.

That was, until he started dating Steve Harrington. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but Steve was so thoughtful and loving, especially at that irritating time.

It didn’t hurt that he was a werewolf, and the blood and gore of it made his other persona go crazy.

Eddie screamed another climax around the huge slurping tongue. Claws dug into his hips as the creature between his thighs pulled him impossibly closer, sharp teeth sliding over his hyper sensitive clit.

He was ever thankful that Wayne worked nights, and somehow his irregular cycle matched up perfectly between full moons and his uncle’s schedule. Wayne was already suspicious of all the short brown hair around the trailer, and the awkward questions and looks from their neighbors. They had had to have several awkward conversations about the raw meat going missing from defrosting on the counter.

Eddie grasped at the handfuls of coarse hair between his legs, holding on for dear life as Steve apparently tried to achieve some kind of new record.

There was a low growl that vibrated through his belly, sending him spiraling again.

He may have blacked out. When he woke up, there was a guilty looking blood covered muzzle in his face, licking across his cheeks.

“I’m okay, you big lug. I think that may have been the one that broke the camel’s back.”

Steve tilted his head adorably, confused but his floppy ears came forward and up to show he was listening.

“Good puppy,” Eddie giggled.

After a quick shower and bedding change, they nestled into bed curled around each other.

They woke up the next morning to a note on the counter.

Clean out the damn shower drain again. And buy some candles or something, the place smells like wet dog

Steve groaned but Eddie pulled him in for a sloppy kiss.

Divider credit @/rosypotions

[paceprompting]

stars in his eyes✨

week 3 (and a little late, whoops) for @steddiesmuttyseptember. And a continuation in the saga of why can't I write just porn, this is 6K, wtf.

Rough | lingerie | aftercare | sneaking around (and failing so badly at it)

Rating: mature

Tags: mention of rough sex, shotgunning, teasing, fingering, sexy underwear, semi-public sex

~*~*~*~

Steve didn’t quite know what to expect when Eddie invited him to a gig. Robin, Jonathan, and Nancy, too. But that had been offhand, nonchalant—an Invite whoever you’d like to come with. Got to make sure we’re not too suspicious, right?

Suspicious.

Hiding from the wandering eyes of the people who knew them best. Not standing too close, but making sure not to outright avoid one another, either. They could sit on the same couch, but not with Steve’s arm behind Eddie’s head on the back of cushion. Not with Eddie’s legs splayed in Steve’s lap, as if he could get that spot before Robin anyway.

They’d taken to putting a bowl of popcorn between them just to be safe.

There was other little safety measures like that. They never drove each other around unless they were also driving around Robin or the kids. Steve never parked in front of the trailer and came in through Eddie’s bedroom window. Eddie did the same for Steve’s house, except when he stayed over after a movie night.

All smoke and mirrors. To keep everyone else from think they were sneaking around behind their backs. That Steve and Eddie were keeping something secret from them.

Because that was what they were doing. Sneaking around.

He hadn’t even told Robin. Not in such specific terms anyway. She was well aware that Steve had a “secret paramour”, as she called it. He told her he wasn’t in some Shakespeare romance from English, and all she’d shot back with was, well yeah, you’d probably be dead if you were.

Eddie had asked him not to tell. When they’d clearly moved on from that first mutual hands-down-each-others-pants behind the school gym the day Eddie and Robin graduated from Hawkins High. After Steve had kissed him before the ceremony to help keep Eddie from spiraling out of control and running off before he could finally walk across that stage.

Moved on to long make-outs on Steve’s bed.  To sucking Eddie off in the back of his van after band practice. To Steve keeping a stash of mixtapes with Eddie’s favorite bands on them in his glovebox and Eddie keeping a stash of Cola on hand at the trailer, along with a spare pair of Steve’s glasses for his migraines.

Their standing offer that if either of them called in the middle of the night, the nightmares too much, too real, the other went over with no question.

Steve had peeked in at the end of a couple practices, when he was rounding up the group for a Hellfire night. Had sat in Eddie’s bedroom with him while he plucked out melodies and chords on his luscious red guitar with such speed in his fingers, Steve’s head spun just watching.

But he had no clue how a concert would go.

And being a Corroded Coffin concert, led by a wild child of chaos like Eddie Munson, anything could happen.

Eddie hadn’t forced Steve to come. Knew that the bright spotlights and excessive sound from the speakers could easily send Steve into another migraine. If Steve had to bow out, he would understand. Of course, he could hardly meet Steve’s eyes when he had said that, voice colored by how much he wished it wasn’t a variable.

It had been a good morning, the day of the concert. No auras. No nausea. Steve had even slept well through the night. He knew why Eddie came by around noon when Steve was working, his deep brown eyes wide and hopeful before he said anything.

“Excited for the concert tonight,” was all he said and Eddie grinned, blinding Steve with his dimples. One was slightly crooked now from the demobat scar on his jaw, and Steve remembered how Eddie had started to turn his head away or let his hair fall forward to cover it when he noticed himself smiling.

He wasn’t doing that now.

Eddie quickly rented two of his old favorites from the Horror section to cover up the real reason he’d come by and then left, lingering just an extra moment at the counter to touch his fingers to Steve’s.

Part of Steve wanted to grab Eddie by the front of his Dio t-shirt and yank him over the counter to kiss him. But they both knew better.

He didn’t see Eddie again until the concert.

He nursed exactly one beer and stared at the small crowd gathered at the Hideout. Corroded Coffin wasn’t the only band performing—a sort of talent show of up and comers—but they were the openers. As his eyes lazily scanned the crowd, nodding every so often when Robin nudged him in the ribs to do so, Steve  wondered if he might see Eddie somewhere.

This was his crowd. The long hair, the dark clothes and leather. Steve vaguely recognized some of the names on people’s shirts—all said in the back of his mind in Eddie’s low voice, usually bemoaning Steve’s ignorance of music culture.

Steve knew there was no reason for Eddie to be out socializing. He was probably pacing back and forth in the tiny closet of a dressing room the venue had provided, wringing his hands through his curls and making them wilder than they already were.

A selfish part of him, the one that got to have Eddie in small bits and pieces when they could manage it, wanted to find Eddie and try to soak up all that anxiety for him. There hadn’t been any chance to wish him good luck.

Steve hadn’t even thought of it when Eddie had come by the video store.

God, he regretted it.

“Hey, you want to go to front with me?”

Robin’s voice filtered through to the front of his mind, and Steve had to shake his head before he turned toward her. She stared at him, eyes wide and intense, and her face way too close to his own.

“What?”

“Do you.” She tilted her chin down. “Want.” Widened her eyes and leaned further into Steve’s space. “To go to the front.” She blinked twice. “With me.”

Steve would have pulled away from Robin, but he was already at the edge of the booth with him, Robin, Nancy, Jonathan and Argyle all crammed together. And he was half-sure that Eddie would never let him live down Steve “The Former Hair” Harrington falling flat on his face at a metal concert.

“Are you going to have to stand like this the whole time?” he asked.

Robin tsked right in his face, but immediately pulled back. “I would say yes, but your breath smells like citrus and yeast. Now, are we going to the front or not, because if we don’t go now, I will have to use you as a human shield to get there.”

Steve looked far over his shoulder toward the stage. Corroded Coffin’s instruments were set up and waiting, and true to Robin’s worries, as the time drew closer to start the crowd was gathering as close to the front as possible.

“I don’t know, Robin,” he said. Sure, Eddie and his band were performers, but Steve could only imagine how much easier it might be to only see people you don’t even know, who probably don’t even care as long as you play half-decent music. “If Eddie and the band see us, it might make them nervous.”

“Oh, come on. Those stage lights shine so bright they won’t be able to see the end of the stage, much less beyond it.”

“Robs…”

“Please, Steve. It’s our first concert. We have to!” Robin clutched onto his forearm, black-painted nails digging in at the points.

“Alright, alright.” He pried Robin’s hand off him and basically tumbled out of the booth with her following after. He downed the rest of his beer and set the empty bottle on the table. Jonathan and Argyle were engrossed in some personal conversation, but Nancy had noticed them leave.

Strangely enough, she had her brows raised at Robin, who gave her a bright thumbs up and then grabbed onto Steve’s arm again. He opened his mouth to question the interaction, but he didn’t know whether to pose it to Robin or to Nancy. And before he could figure it out, Robin darted for the stage and yanked Steve along behind her.

So, it wasn’t until the house lights dimmed and the stage lights brightened that Steve saw Eddie again.

His first thought was how much he wanted to bite Eddie.

Like he had guessed earlier on, Eddie’s curls were a dark, wild mess around his head. The lights surround him shone on the edges like an aura, and Steve had a flash of terror that a migraine had suddenly decided to burst his lovely, pleasant bubble.

But Eddie was only one. Bathed in the intense, bright light, shining at all of his edges and through the loose curls bouncing as he bounced on the balls of his feet. Wearing a pair of overly-torn up black jeans bedecked with chains hanging from his belt loops and an equally overly-cut up Corroded Coffin t-shirt, his scarred sides and tattoos—old and new—in full view of the crowd. His guitar, his darling, shone its dazzling red now that it was were it belonged with Eddie on stage, and Steve’s eyes caught on the glint of his silver rings as he settled his fingers along the frets.

Robin practically vibrated beside him while the emcee introduced the band. Let out an ear-splitting screech even through the ear plugs he’d bought when the crowd cheered for the band. Which, thankfully, were good enough that Steve only winced from the surprise rather than sheer volume.

The drums—Gareth, he remembered—started first. The three-count that led into the starting thrum of the base. Eddie wasn’t singing on this song, since he wasn’t standing in front of a mic. The other guitarist—his name something starting with a ‘J’—joined the bass with an even, low tenor; mouth pressed close to the mic and giving bedroom eyes to the crowd.

And then Eddie…

Steve knew something was coming. In the way he grinned to himself and tossed his hair over one shoulder, practically thrumming and the stagelight aura around him growing and growing until it burst out when he finally played his starting chord.

It was one chord. Only one.

There was another line of vocals, and then he played the chord once more. The sound tore from the speakers right through Steve, vibrating through his bones and into his veins. The opening chords transitioned into Eddie’s fingers flying across the strings, and he moved—always, always moving, never still his Eddie—with the music as he played.

He saw Eddie look out toward the crowd, squinting for a second like Robin said he probably would. But his gaze traveled across as he played, never missing a note, sweat shining on his exposed skin. Steve moved because Robin did, took caught up in staring at one particular member of the band to remember to actually try jumping or cheering.

Eddie’s dark eyes stopped on a particular spot in the crowd, a lascivious grin  across forming his face. His dimples came out in full force, and still he kept playing his guitar like an extension of his body rather than a simple toll to create strange but intense music.

And he realized…Robin was wrong.

Eddie could absolutely see him.

Because Eddie was staring at him.

He’d migrated closer to one of the speakers at the front of the stage, throwing one combat boot wearing foot onto the top of it, splaying his hips out and laying his guitar across the space. He winked at Steve, he fucking winked and threw back his head as he started a solo—rings sparkling points on his hands as Eddie showed exactly why he and the other boys never gave up even when all they could get was shitty gigs. They worked for it, in every note that Eddie created from his fingers on the strings of his guitar.

The solo finished with a long-held chord like the one Eddie had started the song with—a short break for his hands in the song before he’d start up again. And Eddie found Steve immediately again, smiling like a shark in the water, the point of his canines slightly threatening. The harsh stage lights shining down on him like stars in his eyes, points of light directed at Steve.

There was no way Steve was getting out of there without losing his mind.

He’d make sure of it.

~*~*~*~

Steve knew he was staring at Eddie too much.

He blamed it on the two whiskey shots Robin had tried at Jonathan’s behest and then immediately hated, and which he ended up shooting back as they waited for the band to come out to the bar floor after the show had ended.

That and the three joints that were being passed around now in the dressing room.

He’d had to fight every urge in his body—digging his fingernails deep into palms—to be the first one to greet Eddie when he came bounding out from backstage. But it turned out not to be that much of a problem, when Eddie waved them all to join him, Corroded Coffin and another all-girl metal band in the dressing room for the after party.

Eddie had put himself next to Steve, authentically vibrating with so much afterburn energy from the show that it hid the way he tangled his fingers with Steve’s for a quick two seconds as they walked together.

But, just to be safe, they sat themselves on opposite sides of the room once the group had filed into Dressing Room A.

Eddie perched on the back of one of the couches, boots on the cushion like a damn heathen, but nobody else cared. Liquor bottles and red solo cups littered the table, slowly being abandoned now that they’d gotten their hands on the primo shit brought in by Argyle and Jonathan.

At this point, Steve was sure they could just summon the stuff at will.

But he wasn’t complaining.

He sat mainly with Nancy and Robin. Nancy stuck firmly to her second beer of the night, and Robin—only three pulls from a joint into the night—had her head lolled on Nancy’s shoulder, regaling her with a meandering, but thorough recap of the last three episodes of The Golden Girls she’d watched.

Steve made himself stare at the floor as he took another pull from the joint he was sharing with Argyle, but there was only one place his eyes would go as he exhaled, slow and smoky.

Eddie had his head cocked in Steve’s direction when their eyes met again, his pink lips around the end of his own joint as he inhaled. Gareth was talking to him, clearly used to Eddie’s ability hold a conversation without making eye contact, one hand wildly gesturing until Eddie handed over the blunt.

“Please,” Gareth scoffed, pausing to bring the join to his lips. “That move is so tired. Half the time, you can’t even do it right and the smoke just goes all over the girl’s face.” He waved his hand in front of his own face, as half the group groaned (the boys) and the other half nodded in agreement (the girls).

Eddie gave very little reaction. No, his gaze got this very particular glint that Steve had come to learn meant he was about to do something incredibly reckless and Steve could do nothing to stop him. Eddie launched himself forward from the couch to stand, effectively catching the attention of everyone in the room. His cheeks were flushed and his limbs a bit wobbly compared to the usual, but he was focused. Entirely on Steve.

“I bet the deposed king here pulled this move plenty of times in his partying hayday.” He said, crossing from his couch to Steve’s by way of walking right over the table. He jumped down with a dramatic sigh, landing in front of Jonathan—and then promptly plucked the half-gone joint from his fingers.

Jonathan squawked, but Eddie ignored him since he was quickly quieted by Argyle handing him another fresh one.

Steve tried to remain still, remain composed. He was already laid back with one arm across the back of the couch, so all he had to make sure to do was let Eddie come to him and not reach out to Eddie.

Ducking his chin, Eddie pulled from his stolen joint, stepping slowly, slowly toward Steve. He pulled the blunt away, holding the smoke in his lungs and walked forward until his knees knocked against Steve’s.

He exhaled, the smoke curling toward the ceiling along with an offer that burned in Steve’s veins.

“What’dya say, Harrington. Want to show ‘em how it’s done?”

Steve raised his brows, just to play along. He knew his fingers twitched, and if the group was sober, they might have seen him give himself away in just that action. He hummed in the back of his throat, pretending to consider Eddie’s presumptuous question, before he shrugged and ran a hand through his hair.

“Suppose I have some experience,” he said.

Eddie smiled and held out the joint to Steve, waiting until it was in his hand before clamoring straight into Steve’s lap, straddling his thighs with his knees pressed into the cushions on either side. He stumbled, and Steve was sure that it was at least half of a real one, but he took an opportunity where he could find one and placed a steadying hand on Eddie’s hip.

“Bold,” he commented, loud enough for the group to hear. Robin was giggling off the side. Steve ignored her.

“Is there any other way?” Eddie sang, tapping teasing, risky fingers where Steve’s shirt tucked into his jeans.

 He didn’t look like anyone else in the room, wearing a henley instead of a polo, even if it was a dark gray—the closest thing to black in his closet he could find. But he also knew how Eddie liked the look of his arms with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, so he would wear bright pink if it meant wearing the henley.

Steve brought the end of the blunt to his lips while Eddie stared down at him. He could almost swear that the same points of light were in the center of the pinpoint pupils. Like Eddie had carried the stars and the stage lights with him off stage.

He knew they had to be careful. Shotgunning was close contact, but when they had done this before, it didn’t usually end with them separating afterwards.

When Steve had gathered enough smoke, he passed the joint to Robin without looking at her, and then used his newly freed hand to gently hold Eddie’s chin in a cradle of his fingers. Eddie’s lashes fluttered as Steve guided him down. He even had to stop Eddie from going too far, getting too close and just planting one on him.

He pressed his thumb against the point of Eddie’s chin and when he parted his lips, Steve released the smoke in his lungs, soaking into his blood after so long. 

Unlike how Gareth had complained just before, Steve let the smoke go slow, giving out as Eddie took it with his inhale. A few stray wisps curled toward the ceiling, but Eddie breathed in all that Steve had over the course of a dizzying span of time.

Their top lips brushed as the smoke tapered off, and Steve felt it shoot through his spine. He clenched the hand holding on to Eddie’s hip to keep his control, and a couple of his fingers slipped back the waistband of Eddie’s jeans.

He was used to feeling of Eddie’s boxers, the elastic band of cotton. Normally black, but Steve knew for a fact Eddie had a pair of Garfield ones from Wayne that he wore to bed if Steve could keep his mouth shut.

But this…

He felt lace.

“Eds?” he murmured, dipping his fingers lower and finding more and more thin, delicate detail warmed by Eddie’s body heat. “What…”

Eddie planted his hands on Steve’s shoulders and pushed up just enough that Steve would be the only one to hear him. He winked as he mouthed, For later.

“Damn Munson, give the man some breathing room. He just barely made it through his first metal concert,” A loud voice—Gareth—annoying only because Steve wanted to pull Eddie right onto the fucking semi he was now sporting in his jeans, echoed across the room.

Everyone was too drunk, or high, or both to fully take in what the fuck had just happened right in front of them. So Steve was sure it was alright for Eddie to risk another thirty seconds in Steve’s lap to murmur under his breath another offer Steve would have to be dead to refuse.

“Five minutes. Dressing room B.”

Steve nodded, eyes flicking down to Eddie’s mouth. Eddie tutted softly and narrowed his eyes, playful and with a hint of a threat, before he threw his head back and returned to his performed for their audience.

“Stevie here can handle himself pretty well, I think. Knows we’re not all so big and bad.” He slid off Steve’s lap, and did a pretty impressive twirl for how much less sober than he was high. Steve noticed Gareth rolling his eyes, tipping back a drink from the vodka bottle from the coffee table.

He knew he was watching Eddie too much again. And Steve almost didn’t care, until Robin decided that she’d had enough with Nancy and flopped over to lay across Steve’s front instead. He was just glad she hadn’t decided to go for his lap with how incriminating his dick was being in his jeans at the moment.

“M’proud of you, dingus,” she said, voice heavy but not slurred.

He laughed through his nose. “Thanks.”

She raised one hand up into the air, level with Steve’s face. And he honestly should have seen it coming far faster than he did, because then her palm was directly over his nose as she patted her fingers against his forehead. “You did…so good at the concert. Didn’t even complain once that you didn’t understand the music.”

Eddie was the main reason for that. Steve had wanted to know just what about metal music enticed Eddie so much to dedicate part of his identity to it. And, once given the opportunity, Eddie had launched a full-fledged campaign to walk Steve through chord progressions and the actual skills it took to play the chaotic melodies that he loved so much.

There were still some songs that Steve could not hear as anything other than a discordant headache, but, honestly…it was more about watching Eddie talk without restriction.

And, of course, Steve had lost all coherent consciousness while watching Eddie on stage.

Robin had stopped talking, tucking her face into Steve’s neck. He was probably going to have some of her makeup on his shirt, but he’d been covered in much worse before.

He realized he hadn’t been looking at Eddie. Always looking out for him, Robin. Even when she had no idea she was doing it.

Steve looked, and couldn’t find him. He turned to look behind him in case Eddie was doing something strange because the weed had really hit him, but there was no sign of his sexy, lace-wearing metalhead.

While he’d been distracted by a cuddling, giggly Robin, Eddie had slipped out of the room.

He had no idea if five minutes had passed or not.

It was probably better for Steve to be early than to leave Eddie waiting for him when he clearly had a surprise waiting. And the last time Steve had been late, Eddie’s revenge had been swift. Eddie was entirely too skilled with his mouth for his own good.

“Okay,” he said to Robin, easing her off of his shoulder. He’d hoped to pass her over to Nancy, but she had mysteriously disappeared too. A quick scan, and it was clear she wasn’t in the room either, so Steve eased her to lie on one of the pillows. He chuckled when she immediately snuggled into it.

Rising to his feet, Steve turned next to Jonathan and snapped his fingers in front of his face until he got his attention. The dude was blitzed out of his mind, but he wasn’t Steve’s permanent solution anyway.

“Watch her until I send Nancy back here,” he said, pointing at Robin. Jonathan’s eyes slowly followed his hand until they landed, and then he furrowed his brows.

He nodded, solemnly.

“Watch her,” he repeated.

Jesus. Okay.

Steve ran both hands through his hair, damp at his hairline with sweat, and took in a deep breath. They’d all been in there so long, he could taste the acrid smoke in the air, the smell of spilled drinks, a bit stinging when it hit his nose.

If he hadn’t been smoking already, he’d probably have a hell of a contact high.

Cab fares back to the hotel were going to suck.

He made his way to the door and into the hallway, even the stale air of the bar miles above the congested air of the dressing room. He sucked in as much as he could with his mouth open, scanning slowly down the line of three other doors for one marked “B” in large, white paint.

Wasn’t hard to find, and Steve smiled, knowing what was waiting for him on the other side.

“Steve.”

Fuck.

He’d be beelining for the door with Eddie behind it, he hadn’t even noticed another door opening on the other side of the hall.

He’d also forgotten he was supposed to be looking for Nancy.

At least that solved itself.

“Nancy,” he said, too high-pitched. He cleared his throat and wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans as she hovered in the hall with him, perfect brow arched high. “Finally sick of the smell of weed and sweat?”

“Just using the bathroom.” She pointed at the door she’d come through.

“Makes sense.”

Nancy glanced at the door to the first dressing room. Clearly behind Steve, and clearly being left for another room. “You going somewhere?”

Steve was in the middle of the hallway, in between dressing rooms A and B just enough that maybe Nancy wouldn’t be able to put the very clear two and two together.

“Just stepping out for a minute. Get some fresh air away from the hotbox back there.” Steve managed a single-second smile.

All it did was tip Nancy off. She tilted her head, getting that thoughtful look on her face that unlocked the secrets of the damn universe. She stared at him, and he couldn’t help it.

He looked at dressing room B.

Nancy stood a bit straighter, her shoulders rising. “I saw Eddie leave, too. Few minutes before you.”

“Not that weird. He’s probably exhausted.” Steve shrugged and stuffed his hands into his front pockets.

“So you’re going to his dressing room to…tuck him in?”

Fuck. Again.

“I—”

Nancy knew. That was the crux of it. She knew and nothing Steve could ever think of would convince her otherwise.

“So,” she said brightly. “Eddie, huh?”

He didn’t care that she knew about him.

Eddie, on the other hand, kept all of himself much closer to his chest. And he’d no say in how someone else had found out about him.

Steve didn’t know how else to answer. It seemed pointless to lie. And he wanted to get to Eddie.

“Yeah.” His voice came out as a croak, betraying his nervousness.

“Curly hair and brown eyes are really your type, aren’t they?”

A laugh tumbled out of him, because damn…it kind of was.

Except, Eddie was somehow able to let Steve give him everything every chance he could. So far, Steve hadn’t yet become too much for Eddie. Sometimes it even seemed like he wanted more.

Steve was still trying to wrap his head around it.

Nancy knocked him out of his head with a gentle pat of her hand on his shoulder. She’d walked closer while he was zoned out, and her eyes were pointed as she looked at him.

“Go get your boy, Harrington. I’m sure he’s waiting eagerly for you.” She shuddered, lowering her hand. “Uck, don’t ever make me think about what you two might be getting up to in there.”

“I didn’t make you the first time,” Steve pointed out.

Nancy just waved her hand, dismissing herself from the conversation and headed for the door the dressing room with the rest of the group. Steve breathed a sigh of relief.

Then remembered one last thing.

He turned after Nancy, finding her with her hand just on the doorknob. She must have heard his feet shuffling on the floor, because she was already waiting for his question.

“Could you keep an eye on Robin, please?”

“Of course.” She smiled, opening the door. “I’ve still got to find out how this episode ends.”

Steve let out a surprised huff of laughter, standing in the hall until Nancy had closed the door behind her. He hovered just a second longer, listening to the sounds of conversation that filtered through the door. No one else was going to come out, not in the time it would take Steve to finally join Eddie in the other dressing room.

He could only hope it hadn’t been five minutes yet.

Turned out, he’d just made it.

Eddie hadn’t been expecting him yet, startled enough to jump when Steve entered the room. His curls bounced and then settled over his shoulders, but that wasn’t the only thing that caught Steve’s eye.

Eddie had taken off his jeans already, standing in the middle of the otherwise empty dressing room in his stylishly cut up t-shirt and…lace underwear.

“Holy fuck,” Steve whispered.

Eddie’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, nervously pulling a strand of his hair over his mouth as Steve stood, dumbstruck, in front of the door. He twisted his hair between his fingers, brown eyes flitting to Steve and holding there.

Even if Steve had surprised him, he’d already put his cards on the table. Teased Steve enough to entice him. Now, fully revealing the whole surprise.

The one thing Steve might have expected: the underwear was black.

They were shaped more like shorts than any lacy underwear Steve had ever seen. Very obscene, very short shorts, the cut of them ending just under Eddie’s butt. The legs went further down on Eddie’s thighs, but each and every bit of fabric was just see-through enough to see a hint of Eddie’s pale skin through the lace detailing.

“You’ve been wearing those the whole time?”

A smirk grew across Eddie’s face.

“That’s right,” he said.

And Steve surged forward, a fire burning in his blood at the very thought that Eddie had spent an hour and a half performing in front of at least a hundred people—all the while wearing lace fucking panties for Steve to find on him afterward.

He crossed the room in four long strides, capturing Eddie’s laugh at his behavior with the fierce press of his mouth. Eddie hummed when Steve placed both hands along his jaw, and shuddered from head to toe when Steve kept going, until Eddie’s back hit the wall.

Steve had to touch. He had to.

He brought one hand down from Eddie’s face to the soft flesh of his thigh, fingertips grazing the lace. He sighed, sliding across the fabric to cup the Eddie’s pert, round cheek. Eddie pushed onto his toes, his hands already tugging Steve’s shirt from his jeans.

The underwear was rough against Steve’s palm, scrunched a bit when he massaged and pulled Eddie against him. He could feel Eddie’s dick twitch through the underwear where it pressed against his stomach, and Steve dug his fingers in harder to make it happen again.

“Lube?” he asked, although Eddie couldn’t answer right away with Steve licking into his mouth and biting at his lips.

Steve would have loved to lay Eddie out on the couch behind them, push his shirt up and really see the dark black of the panties in contrast with Eddie’s pale skin. How hi cock stretched out the ffront, maybe didn’t even fit because Steve didn’t know if they made these type of things for guys—but they didn’t have the time. Eventually, the band would need to pack up their things and vacate the bar.

Eddie finally turned his head away to catch his breath. And answer Steve.

“Table,” he panted.

Steve hummed deep in his chest.

“Stay here,” he said, patting Eddie twice on the butt before leaving him.

Eddie slumped back against the wall, rubbing himself slowly through his underwear. He watched Steve jog over the table, laughing softly when Steve stripped his shirt. He’d only been with Eddie for a few minutes, and was already overheating, sue him.

He grabbed the little bottle of lube—perched conspicuously in the center of the coffee table—and returned to Eddie. He’d opened his mouth to make a sarcastic comment about Steve’s rush, but he never got the chance for more than a syllable. Not with Steve curling a hand into the thick of his hair, and kissing him hard.

Eddie floundered for a moment, lost in feeling just how Steve explored his mouth with his tongue before his hands landed on Steve’s biceps and he started moving his lips.

One-handed, Steve clicked open the lube bottle. Had to let go of Eddie’s hair since that was his dominant hand, and slicked his fingers. He felt some of it drip onto the floor, but he didn’t really care.

“Give me your hand, babe,” he said, and tipped some more onto Eddie’s fingers. He clicked shut the bottle and threw it to the other side of the room. Eddie laughed as it clattered on the floor, his slick hand bumping against Steve’s bare stomach.

Steve’s head was swimming, he wanted Eddie so much.

“Want to start for me?” he asked, at the same time unbuttoning his jeans with his free hand.

Eddie bit his lip and nodded.

They moved at the same time, Steve getting his hard cock out of his pants and slowly slicking himself with his lubed hand. Eddie arched his back and reached behind him, quickly getting his hand into his pretty, slutty underwear and prepping himself for Steve.

Steve stroked his cock slow, almost leisurely. Watched as Eddie’s mouth parted when he slipped at least two fingers inside, and the tensing of his shoulder while he thrust them in and out. Steve wondered how the lace felt against his hand, getting a little wet from the lube.

“God, as soon as you’re ready, I’m going to put those panties down to your thighs and take you while you’re facing the wall. Going feel that lace dragging against the bruises from my hips on your ass afterwards,” Steve said. His breath caught in his chest when Eddie dug his teeth into his lower lip and stared at Steve through his dark lashes.

His eyes still had that glint in them. The stars from the stage.

“Feeling real frisky there, Steve.”

Steve took in a deep, shaky breath, unable to hold back his smile. “You don’t surprise me unless you want it that way. When you want me to fuck you hard and fast, even if we didn’t have the time crunch.”

“Maybe,” Eddie muttered, arching his spine as he added another finger to whatever his count was. “You still owe me one after this, Harrington. I had to go hours in this scratchy lace while being cooked under those stage lights.”

He was a bit breathless, now. Head tipped back with a soft moan as he hit a pleasurable spot inside him, the sounds of his fingers growing louder. Steve couldn’t help himself. He leaned forward and mouthed a messy pattern at the exposed line of Eddie’s throat.

 “Anything.”

”Okay, then.” Eddie’s voice lilted up, and Steve could hear the trickster idea forming in his head.

Steve was either going to seriously regret this or develop some new kink. Eddie had a way of doing that to him.

“You’re wearing them next.”

“Deal.” Steve bit lightly at Eddie’s throat and then stepped back, dragging his eyes down the line of Eddie’s body, clad in black, lace underwear. “Now, turn around.”

[goldenlikedayl1ght]

timeless - j. kiszka

a/n: this one is super long and holy shit i'm pretty proud of it :) my other song choice for this was wii sports resort theme song. warnings: cursing, past infidelity, some angst, stupid choices, allusions to sex, lots of wedding talk, readers family all being chill, reader being feminine (no real descriptions though) but they wear a wedding dress and are 'mrs', uh, petnames, josh being flirty. my qualifications for writing this is that my dad got married on a cruise but it will be inaccurate, whoops. word count: 10.2k words summary: you decide to be kind after being cheated on. it spirals out of control, thanks to josh kiszka. pairing: josh kiszka x reader now playing: timeless (taylor's version) (from the vault) - taylor swift "and sometimes there's no proof, you just know/you're always gonna be mine/we're gonna be/i'm gonna love you when our hair is turnin' gray"

You book the cruise about six months before you break up with him.

Your whole family is going, you tell him, and it’ll be about five years since you got together when you go, it’ll be romantic!

When he proposes to you two months later, you decide to get married on the cruise. You’ll have the ceremony with your closest family, and then friends will be able to celebrate with you two when you get back, you’ll throw parties!

You catch him cheating on you about six months before you leave for the cruise.

At that point, you had already reached out to plan the wedding with the cruise line, you have your wedding outfit, you won’t be getting your deposit back. He will not be going, he says, because what sadist would go with your ex-fiancé’s family to the Bahamas for two weeks after they find out about your infidelity?

Your sister convinces you to go, telling you that your parents can renew their vows and you don’t even have to go.

You can get over the last of your feelings towards your ex while sipping a pina colada on a beach somewhere.

And this, dear reader, is the story of how you meet your husband on that cruise.

• • •

Day One:

Okay, so you don’t mean for him to be your husband, really. It goes something like this:

Your sister picks you up and you climb into this car with your parents, your sister, your nephew and your brother and his wife.

As your brother and his wife canoodle, still in their honeymoon phase, you make sure your nephew doesn’t spill his juice, and you ask yourself, is this it? Are you meant to have random sex and live a life of freedom yet loneliness and eventually leave everything to your nephew when you croak?

Maybe it isn’t that dramatic, but you still feel shitty!

 You’re waiting at the port, sitting by the help service desk as you wait to board the ship. You’re entirely too occupied trying to fend off thoughts of your ex, yet you hear something that just catches your ears just right.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Kiszka, I can offer you a voucher for your next trip with us, but unless a stranger here offers you their ticket, I’m afraid you’re not going on this cruise. We’re all booked up.”

The man the employee is talking to looks like he just came from a trip to the Bahamas, with this wild curly hair and sandals on. He has these, almost goofy, sunglasses on. He stands with a few other people, one who looks just like him with straight hair.

His body language seems angry, but he’s handsome. And you feel it.

You feel an attraction that you haven’t felt since your ex.

And then you remember your ex, and the ticket in your bag that was abandoned by him, and you realize that someone can give this man their ticket.

You realize you can help this angry, handsome man.

You glance at your sister.

“I’m going to do something sort of crazy, and I need you to support me no matter what. Can you do that?” She smiles.

“Always and forever.”

You get up and grab the ticket from your bag, heading over to the counter where the man stands with the employee.

“And I’m telling you,” The man says, and you almost swoon at the stranger’s voice, “These are my credit card bills! My payment for this trip is right here, there has to be something you can do—”

“Excuse me?” Heads turn towards you, and the employee sighs.

“I’ll be with you in just a few minutes—”

“Oh, no, I—” You sigh, and hand the employee your ex-fiancé’s ticket. “This guest won’t be joining us on the trip, and since I paid for his trip, I’d like to give his ticket to the gentleman here.”

Translation: This guest was a lying piece of shit who broke my heart and was supposed to marry me on this trip, and since I footed the damn bill for aforementioned piece of shit, I’d like for the handsome stranger here to stay in my room.

The stranger looks at you like you just saved his life. Your heart swells.

You all look back to the employee, who looks exhausted.

“We can do that,” They scan the ticket, and start reading your ex-finance’s information. “Okay, so, Joshua Kiszka is going to be the name on the room and the ticket,” she starts, “He’ll have to stay in your room, is that okay?” They glance at you. You turn to Joshua.

“Are you an axe murderer or a creep?”

“Not that I know of.” He answers. You smile.

“That’s totally okay.”

“Alright,” The employee glances at their computer again, typing some stuff. “So, there’s two other things. Number one, there’s the romantic dinner for two this Saturday. Is he going to that?”

“Yes,” You answer, not thinking about it. You smile at the stranger, and he smiles back.

“And the wedding.” The stranger’s smile drops. Yeah, that was understandable.

Your hand lands on his arm, and you become vulnerable.

“Just, go with it for a while, okay? We’re not getting married on this trip, I promise.” You smile, and this seems to reassure Joshua, who turns back to the employee.

“We’re a couple of soon to be newlyweds, baby.” He smirked.

The Employee seems less sure. But they scan the ticket and type a few more things into their computer before handing the ticket to Josh.

“All set. I’d recommend boarding together to get your keycards and everything sorted out. Please step to the side so I can help the next guests.”

You oblige, and suddenly it hits you. You’re a stranger standing in front of a family after you just saved their vacation. You just invited a stranger to stay with you. Joshua looks at you.

“Well, that was a crazy way to ask me on a date.” He tells you, and you laugh.

“Did it work?”

“Absolutely, this vacation would’ve been ruined without you!” He grinned. “I’m Josh.”

You give him your name, and you can just see the relief on his face. He introduces you to his family, and you meet his brothers, Jake, Sam, and Danny, as well as his sister and parents. They’re all lovely.  They begin to call boarding numbers, and Josh takes his backpack from his twin.

“I’m gonna go with them to figure this whole thing out, we’ll meet for lunch later?” They all agree, and Jake mentions how nice it was to meet you, and you head back to your family to board.

Your family looks extremely confused.

“Everyone, this is Josh—There was a problem with his ticket, and I figured since we had an extra, we can hangout with Josh for the trip.” Your sister laughs, and your nephew copies her giggles.

“Don’t worry, we’re not going to do anything wild together, I’m just so grateful that I’m actually going on this trip.” He said honestly. Then he turns to you. “So, what’s this about a wedding?” You laugh, and link your arm with his, a bit of a bold move on your part, but you’re feeling bold. For the first time in months, you want someone, and it’s making you feel bold.

Mostly, for the boarding process, you stand in pairs. You and Josh, your parents, your brother and sister-in-law, and your sister and nephew. You’re waiting in line when you start to explain.

“So, the wedding was originally supposed to be mine, yes. But, the groom turned out to be, uh..” You try to put it nicely, “Not the one.” Is the best thing you settle on, “So we’re going to use it as a way to have my parents renew their vows, or something.” You explain. Josh nods,

“But you realize that we’ll be regarded as the happy couple the entire time we’re on board, right?” You laugh at this idea of this dude you barely know being in love with you and marrying you.

“Josh, you don’t strike me as the type to shy away from the spotlight.” It’s just something about him that gives you the impression that when he walks into the room, he is the center of everyone’s attention. But he just laughs, almost a tad shy.

“Fine, then I’m making up a wild story about our meeting.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, you remember it, right? When you invited me to be a guest at a wedding for a man you were in love with but fell in love with me through out the night?”

“Why does it always have to be about weddings with you, Josh?”

“You know me, I’m a romantic.” You roll your eyes at this, and you hand your boarding passes to the person at the podium, who scans them, and then glances to you.

“Enjoy your stay on the Princess of the Ocean!” The ship name almost makes you laugh, “And congratulations to you both! We hope your wedding and honeymoon is all you want and more!” You realize they must have your name on file, or something comes up when they scan your passes.

You don’t get a chance to respond, because Josh’s arm is around your waist, and he says,

“Everyone’s been lovely so far, thank you. We’re having a great time already, right, Doll?” Your face flushes.

“It’s a dream, honey.” You respond and kiss his cheek. The employee wishes you a great trip, and you head off to the ship.

“I guess we’re going to have to get used to that, huh?” You don’t move from his arm around you.

“I guess so, honey.” You tell him.

You make your way onto the ship, wondering if this could be different. When you get to your cabin, it’s decorated with wedding stuff, and it makes you and Josh both laugh with red faces. On the bed, are towels in the shape of swans, who make a heart with their necks.

Josh tells you they look just like the two of you, and you can’t help but get this feeling that it’ll be impossible to stay away from him while on this ship, no matter how big it is.

• • •

Day Three:

But then you don’t see much of Josh for the second day of your cruise, finding your day full of drinking and running around with your nephew, who you can’t help but indulge in all the kid stuff. You take him on the slides, in the pools, to bumper cars. You get him a Shirley Temple when he gives you puppy dog eyes.

But during your second day at sea, you sort of want to see Josh. He’s out of the room before you even wake up, even though he got back to the cabin after you went to sleep last night. You miss your fake husband.

So, when you see him by a bar around noon, you approach him.

“You look familiar,” you start, “Do I know you?” You ask, a playful smile on your face. He laughs.

“Could be, we’re getting married next week.” You giggle and ask the bartender for a tropical, fruity, alcoholic drink. Josh asks him to make it two. “I want to say thank you again, for letting me take your douchebags ticket.” You smile at his hatred towards an ex he’s never met.

“Don’t worry about it. Why’d you decide to come on this cruise in the first place?” You ask curiously.

“Well, we got back from tour about a month ago, and we knew we’d be wanting to take a vacation that doesn’t involve preforming anywhere.” This leaves you with more questions then answers, and he sees it on your face, “We play in a band, my brothers and I. We scheduled a tour for this year and wanted to reward ourselves with some relaxation.” Huh. “How about you?”

“Well, my parents wanted me to go with them to celebrate their retirement. Then, it was to get married because that worked out so well.” You know you sound bitter about it. It’s because you are.

“Well, I like your new husband more anyways.” He tells you. It makes you laugh.

“We’re are you from?”

“Michigan, originally. I live in Nashville, now.”

“For music purposes, right?”

“Right.” He takes a sip of his drink, “And you?”

“Atlanta, Georgia.” You told him. “But I don’t know, that cities way too small when you have someone living there that you thought you’d marry.” You confess. “What type of music do you play?”

“Oh, we’ll play anything, but we’re known for our rock and roll.” He smiles.

“Well, what do you like to play?”

“I really love all of it, but my true passion is film. I sing. I’m partial to singing jazz.” He explains.

“Huh..”

“And what about you? What do you do for work?”

“Nothing as cool as singing for a rock and roll band.” You admit. “I’m a teacher. I’ve taught a lot of groups, but my favorite is high schoolers, honestly. I teach English.”

“Oh, an Academic?” You laugh.

“Shut up, film boy.” He fakes a hurt gasp, placing his hand on his chest.

“I’m hurt, Doll. I don’t know if I want to marry you anymore.”

“That’s a shame. We already put the deposit down, I’m not getting my money back.” He laughs with you this time.

You talk a while more, and before you know it, your stomach is rumbling for lunch. He walks you to the popular lunch spot on board and decides to join you for lunch.

You both wind up taking bites from each other’s plates.

“Do you like grapefruit, Doll?”

“God no, I was sick once, so my mom gave me one, supposed to be very good for you,” You pause, “I threw up while eating it and haven’t eaten a grapefruit since.”

“Aw, that’s a shame, it wasn’t the grapefruit’s fault!”

“Yeah, but now I associate the grapefruit with throwing up.” You told him.

“I’m sure the grapefruit longs for your forgiveness, Doll.”

“Shut up, Honey.”

• • •

Day Five:

You wind up spending all of day three with Josh, but you don’t see him much on day four—It’s your first day at the beach you’re docked at, so you both want to spend it with your family.

You learned a lot about him on day three—His favorite foods, his favorite movies, music, stories of him and his brothers on tour, growing up. He learns that you went to school in Florida before moving to Georgia, and that you have a scar on your stomach from getting your appendix removed when you were nine.

Learning about each other makes you yearn for him.

The fifth day, though, he’s still in the room when you get up. He grins at you when you wake up, coming out of the bathroom amid brushing his teeth. His hair is wet from a shower, and you sit up, deciding you desperately need a shower.

“Morning, Pumpkin.” He grins as you grab clothes for the day from your bag.

“Morning, sunshine.” You grumble.

“Do you want to go to the beach with me today?” He asks.

You grin and nod, “Sure. Sounds cool. Just let me shower.”

When you finally head off the ship to the beach, Josh has decided he needs to hold your hand. It’s a requirement, he decides.

“We’re betrothed, after all!” He defends.

It makes you laugh, but you’re happy to hold his hand. The sun beats down on you, but there’s this warmth that feels good. You’re unsure if it’s from the sun or from Josh, but you don’t ask. You just walk with him.  

There’s something that’s just easier with Josh around, something that requires no thinking. You can’t really put your finger on it, but you love being around him.

You pass this private beach that you must pay to get into. Josh, in his infinite wisdom, decides the two of you can have fun with this.

“Do you trust me?” He asks, as he takes your hand and drags you off to a shop with a sign that says, ‘locally made jewelry’ in it’s window.

You’re suspicious, but you would follow him to the end of the earth.

“Absolutely not.” You respond, but make no effort to stop him from walking you to the store. He looks around for a second before pulling you over to the ring section.

“Pick out something nice, we might as well milk the whole marriage thing.” You wind up choosing a delicate looking ring that has gold flower decals and a small black diamond in the middle, which you’re pretty sure isn’t real.

You ask the employee to try it on, and it fits like a glove.

Josh can’t take his eyes off you with this ring he’s about to buy for you.

“We’ll take it.” He says to the employee, handing him his card before you can object, and you look to him.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“We’re getting married, of course I did.” He jokes, but then he becomes more serious for a moment. “Plus, I told you, I owe you a million times because I wouldn’t be here without you.” He says softly.

You lean forward and kiss his cheek.

“It was my pleasure.” You say softly. The employee is done ringing you up, and he looks like he’s on the verge of tears.

“I just want to say how happy I am for you two. You’re a beautiful couple.” He hands you the ring and you slip it onto your ring finger.

“Thank you.” You tell him, smiling, and admiring your new engagement ring. Josh wishes him a good day and takes your hand to head back to the beach, where the person letting people in stops you and Josh, telling you the cost to get into the beach. Josh goes for his wallet before smoothly throwing in,

“Thanks for this, it’s such a nice place to spend our time before the wedding. One last quiet moment before the chaos leading up to it.”

“Oh, when are you getting married?” She asks.

“Next Thursday.” You smile. “We’re getting married on the cruise ship over there.” You point, and she shakes her head.

“Don’t worry about the admission fee, I remember how chaotic it was to get married in a familiar place, let alone on a boat.” She chuckles softly and lets you pass.

“Thank you so much!” You say gratefully, never letting go of Josh’s hand. He smiles to you.

“You’re a natural.” He says, as soon as you’re far away from the employee.

“Are you kidding? I’m literally shaking, I keep thinking someone’s gonna call our bluff on the whole wedding thing! I don’t know how you’re managing it.” You tell him honestly.

“I think you’re doing great.” He tells you. “Besides, we’re technically not lying! You were supposed to get married next Thursday on the ship, it just wasn’t supposed to be with me and it’s now for your parents.” He reminds. This is true, you suppose. Plus, with Josh, it’s so easy for you to lie and say he’s in love with you or that he’s the love of your life.

The beach is beautiful—It’s clean and quiet, and you both lay in beach chairs that have been laid out for two.

You’re just laying there for a while, but eventually you turn your head to admire him for a while. He wears a short-sleeved button up, that’s this light blue color. It’s opened, exposing his torso. He has on swim trunks too, and his sandals are discarded on the sand. He also wears this pretty necklace that matches his sunglasses.

“I can feel you looking at me.” He says softly, not turning his hand. Your face flushes and you turn your head back and close your eyes, enjoying the feeling of the sun on your skin.

“Sorry. You’re just really gorgeous.” You confess. He smiles.

“Doll, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you had a crush on me.”

“You’re the one that bought me a ring, Honey.”

“Touche.” Your conversation is cut short when someone approaches you with two pina coladas from the bar. On the house for the happy couple, he says.

After a quick conversation with him, you find out he runs this tropical paradise, and that he’s celebrating twenty years with the woman who waived your admission fee. They got married on this very beach; he tells you. You thank him profusely and when he leaves, you and Josh raise your glasses to each other in celebration for your faux marriage.

“Bajabule.” He hums, taking a sip of his drink.

You think you can get used to being engaged to Josh Kiszka.

• • •

Day Seven:

For those of us in the crowd who have never been on a cruise, there’s always a day on board where you have to dress fancy and nice, and the captain makes this speech, it’s called the captain’s dinner.

When you got engaged to your fiancé, you decided that on this captain’s dinner night, you would book a private, romantic dinner to have a moment of peace before the wedding.

And, like everything else regarding your ex and the wedding, it was nonrefundable, and you were planning on either doing it on your own or giving it to someone else who could enjoy it.

Then, you met Josh. And you had a reason to go.

So, you ask Josh that morning to come with you to this dinner before you leave for breakfast.

“Like a date?” He asks. You smile. Except for swimming and showering, you haven’t taken off your ring.

“Exactly like a date. Be my date tonight, Honey.”

He puts his hand on your cheek.

“Anything for you, Doll.”

So, you spend the whole day excited for your date. You have breakfast with your parents, and then spend the afternoon with your sister and brother, while your sister-in-law takes your nephew and parents to the beach.

You tell them about Josh, and they share this look, you’re not sure what it means, you’re too busy admiring your ring and gushing about how funny and handsome he is.

Your sister sits on your bed, all dressed with her son on her lap as you get ready. You’re nervous and you’re not sure why. Josh gets ready with his brothers.

“You look great,” Your sister assures.

“I just don’t know why I’m so nervous!”

“Maybe because this is your first first date in six years?” That could be it.

“But it’s not with just any random guy, it’s Josh. He’s so casual and cool about everything.”

“Is that supposed to make you feel better?” You see her point.

You sigh and take one last look in the mirror, before slipping on your ring. You turn to your sister.

“How do I look?” Your hair and makeup is nice, and your outfit looks really good on you.

“You look amazing. If he doesn’t like the way you look tonight, he’s not worth it.” You want him to be worth it. You want it desperately; in a way you never knew you could want.

“Thanks.” You smile, nervously. You hear a knock on the door and open it to see him standing there. He wears a white button up with the top two buttons undone, as well as black pants. He’s so good looking it almost kills you.

“Hi.” He grins. “You look amazing.”

“You look amazing.” You respond. You lean forward and kiss his cheek, and he peeks into the room to see your sister and nephew. He greets them and smiles, before taking your hand in his.

“Ready to go?” You nod and tell your sister to give everyone at dinner your love before you head out for your date. Dinner is at this candlelit restaurant, where you and Josh sit at a private table behind this beaded curtain.

“This place is so nice..” You tell him. “I don’t know If I’ve ever been on a first date this fancy.” You confess. He smiles.

“Me neither. It’s beautiful here.” He takes your hand that rests on the table. Your waitress comes in with a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket, introducing herself as Anna, and telling you about the menu for tonight.

“The chef has chosen five courses for our patrons tonight. It isn’t the same as last night’s dishes nor will it be the same as tomorrow’s. It’s preselected, so if there’s any allergies, just let me know. Now, I understand that we’re celebrating a special occasion tonight.” She hums as she pours the two of you champagne.

You look to Josh and wait for him to make up some story about wanting peace and quiet before you get married. Instead, he looks to Anna and says,

“First date. I think this one might just stick, too.”

“First date on a cruise ship? My, what a fairytale.” She smiles. “Well, we hope to give you a night to remember and a start to something wonderful.” She tells you both. “I’ll be back with your first course, soon. Enjoy the champagne, my friends.” She leaves, and you look to Josh.

“Why didn’t you tell her we’re supposed to be engaged?”

“I don’t think she’s the type to tell on us. Besides, this is real. I meant what I said, I want you to stick around...”

“I want you to stick around too.” You confess. You make conversation, getting to know each other through dinner. It’s all delicious, really. Over dessert, you decide that you can’t take it anymore. “I’m having a great time.”

“Me too.”

“I wouldn’t have asked anyone else to go on this date with me.” You confess.

“I would hope not.” He smiled.

“No, Josh, I’m being serious. It has shocked me to my core, but I’m finding myself wanting you more and more.” You tell him, your eyes meet his. “I think one of the best decisions I ever made was giving you that ticket.”

He says your name softly, and when he’s not saying anything like this back to you, you feel tears in your eyes. Is it possible that this man you’ve found yourself falling for has been playing pretend the whole time, the way you were meant to be as well?

“I’m sorry...” You say shakily. “I thought that... That maybe you’d feel the same way about me, but I was- “He squeezes your hand softly.

“Stop. I do want you… I want you so badly it’s destroying me to not have you.” He tells you. Your face flushes. “I’ve wanted you ever since I saw you, and I’ve been thanking whatever force that exists in the universe for meeting you.” He confesses.

Before you can respond, Anna comes back, asking if you want anything else, more champagne, perhaps?

“Can you have someone send it to our room in about two hours?” Josh asks. Anna, who must get that request often, thinks nothing of it.

“Of course. Enjoy the rest of your night, young lovers.” She leaves, and Josh leaves her a generous cash tip, before standing up and grabbing your hand again.

“Come on.” He tells you, and you follow him, curious as to what he has planned. There’s something in his eyes, a spark he gets when he has an idea. You follow him out of the restaurant, your hand locked into his, as you lean your head on his shoulder. He walks with you, all the way up to the top deck of the ship, where it’s quiet and the stars are plentiful. Maybe it’s the alcohol. Maybe it’s the way you’re looking at him. But Josh leans forward and kisses you, and it’s full of a gentleness you haven’t felt in years.

Your hands land on his jaw, as you deepen the kiss slightly, the night air and the passion you feel sends a shiver down your spine, only amplified by Josh’s hands on your hips.

He pulls away for a moment, looking to you.

“Let me take you back to our room.” He says softly.

“To do what?” You ask in a teasing voice. He groans and kisses you again before pulling away to add,

“So, I can make you feel good, Doll. So, I can watch you in pleasure underneath me.” He tells you. His voice is low, and there’s a lust you haven’t heard before.

“Okay.” You tell him.

“Okay?”

“Yes. Yes, Josh, please take me back to the room and fuck me.”

“As you wish, Doll.”

And he does exactly that.

• • •

Day Eight:

Your entire body aches when you wake up, tangled in sheets and in Josh’s arms. You feel amazing. Your eyes flutter open to see him admiring you, and you bury your face in the pillow as you groan. He laughs, his hand gently tracing patterns into your shoulder blade.

“Good morning, Pumpkin.” He says gently, kissing your ear.

“Good morning, Sunshine.” You tell him, before finally picking your head up to look at him. “Josh, I think you’re something equivalent to a sex god.” You say honestly. He laughs.

“Thank you, Baby.” He hums. “Wanna order room service?” He asks.

“Nah... I want you to do that thing you did last night, the one that made me scream.” You reply, and he has this smirk on his lips that makes you want him desperately.

“As you wish.”

You don’t get out of bed until lunch time, and even then, he joins you in the shower.

• • •

Day Nine:

Jake has to beg his brother to come up for air and ask you to join them for drinks that night. He’s worried, maybe that you’ll be scared off by the three of them, or maybe you’ll realize you don’t like him as much.

But you’re thrilled to get to know them, and you head down to the bar around six for drinks and dancing.

“Hey guys!” Sam calls over to you when he sees you. Josh still seems nervous, and you don’t really understand it. You both like each other more than you can put into words, so why is he so nervous for you to meet the three men he calls brothers?

Well, because his brothers are assholes.

You slid into the booth next to Jake, and you go to engage him in conversation. Instead, Sammy loudly calls over to the bartender. “Hey! My brothers getting married next week, how about some shots?”

Josh looks like he might die.

“I am so sorry about him—” You laugh, leaning against him as you try to contain your laughs.

“No, No, it’s funny, I’m glad you told them about it.” You turn back to the boys. “How are you guys enjoying the cruise so far?”

“It’s been great!” Danny yells over the music. “The beaches are so nice!”

“Did Josh tell you about the private beach we found?’

“Yeah! He also told me about the two of you conning your way into free drinks and shit!”

“It’s technically not a lie! I was supposed to be married on Thursday, just not to Josh.” You explain, and Sam laughs.

“You know, Josh has been doing nothing but talk about you, but you’re much funnier than he mentioned.” He hums. You glance over to Josh, who just blushes and rolls his eyes.

“You talked about me? What sort of things does he talk about?”

“Let’s not embarrass him, guys.” Jake says a smirk on his face.

“Thank you, Jake—”

“His new beau doesn’t need to know that he’s constantly gushing about ‘em!” The boys all break out in laughter, and you can’t help but giggle a bit. Josh is overly embarrassed.

“Douchebags! All of you are assholes!” He laughed, not really mad at them. He’s just enamored with you, and despite sleeping with you and telling you as much, it’s still a little bit embarrassing. Not that he’s embarrassed of you, but he finds himself falling for you more and more as the days go by. It’s hard to verbalize.

“Aw, Joshy, they’re just having fun, honey.” You hum. Leaning over and kissing his cheek, a habit you’re finding yourself getting more and more used to.

Shots land in front of the five of you, and Sam holds his up.

“To the happy couple!” You all drink your shots, and you think something crazy.

You think maybe you could get used to doing this. Being a part of their group. Being close to him, to them.

Maybe you could do this for the rest of your life.

You blame it on the alcohol, this feeling that this could last forever.

But when you look at Josh, you’re just enamored by him, in a way that’s deeper than just being a fan or just a crush.

And it crosses your mind for a second.

This crazy idea.

You kiss Josh quick, forgetting about the idea, blaming it on the alcohol again.

• • •

Day Ten:

You wake up with this wicked hangover, and to your disdain, Josh is nowhere to be found. You decide to get dressed and grab breakfast, figuring he’ll either text you or find you when he wants to see you.

But every few moments you’re turning as if you want to say something to him.

It’s frustrating because you know how crazy it is that you like him so much.

And it’s scary because you haven’t felt this way in a long time, maybe even a year or two, because with Josh, you realize how much you weren’t in love with your ex-fiancé, and it’s wild because you thought you’d marry him.

But it’s different with Josh, Better, most definitely. That thought from last night comes back, and you can’t blame it on the liquor anymore, and you can’t blame it on Josh looking amazing in bar lighting, and you can’t blame it on how connected you feel to his brothers because they aren’t around.

Your hand drifts to your ring finger, and you play with your ring, thinking about Josh. You wonder what will happen when you get off this ship. You wonder how it would be taking weekly trips to Nashville, especially when the school year starts and you’re busy with grading and lesson plans.

It all seems totally ridiculous. Why bother then?

But you keep coming back to it. This crazy idea, like an itch you just can’t scratch. You want to verbalize it, you want to ask it of Josh, but you realize how damn wild it is.

Maybe he’ll like that.

You’re lost in your thoughts when you feel a hand on the small of your back. You grin.

“You know, Honey, I—” When you turn around, you don’t find Josh. You find some random asshole who is already drunk, because, when in Rome. “Get the fuck off me, Dude.” You move away from him.

“What’s the matter? You seemed into it before—”

“I thought you were someone else.”

“Oh, you got a little boyfriend?”

“Fiancé, actually.”  Like magic, Josh appears behind the stranger. He looks angry. He looks jealous. He looks hot. “Is there a problem here?” he asked, tilting his head. He moves to you and wraps his arm around your waist.

“No problem, man.” The creepy dude backs off, walking off. Josh looks to you and cups his hand to your cheek.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” You say softly, “I’m okay...” You bite your tongue, before adding, “That was sort of hot—”

“I’m sorry?”

“No, not that asshole, you! Being protective of me like that… I’m not used to it.”

“Oh… Well—”

“And you were jealous. So hot.”

“I was not jealous!”

“Honey, you most totally were! It was so so attractive.”

“Why?” He seems genuine.

“Because... C’mon, I have to tell you a story, but we gotta go sit down so I can tell it.” You sigh. You wind up leaving the restaurant and sitting on a beach chair on the top deck. He keeps his hand on your thigh as you relax. Your heart is beating rapidly, and you’re not sure why you’re so anxious, but Josh seems to sense this.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I just hate this story…” You take a deep breath before you begin. “I was with my ex for about five years. He asked me to marry him after we booked this cruise, and I don’t know why I said yes… Maybe I loved him, but I wasn’t… In love with him like everyone describes I should be... But he never did anything romantic for me, no flowers, no sexy things, certainly no jealousy… So, I’m not sure why the cheating on me destroyed me so much, but it did. I haven’t felt anything for anyone since then. Until you.” You told him, and he just has this focused look on his face.

“He sounds horrible.” You laugh, tears falling from your face that you didn’t even realize you had. He wipes them tenderly.

“Yeah...” You say softly, leaning into his touch.

“Wanna hear my sob story now?”

“Sure, Honey.”

“I’m falling in love with someone who I met last week and might never see again after Saturday.”

“Josh...”

“We don’t have to ruin anything with commitment, we don’t…” His breath is shaky, and you catch tears running down his face, too. “I just need you to know that I’m falling in love with you, and I have no intentions of staying away from you or stopping that process.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to. Never.” You tell him earnestly. “I’m falling in love with you too.” You wipe his tears. Even crying, your boy is beautiful.

“Well, then we’ll just hope that the ship sinks before it docks so we can go down in history as the lovers who should’ve made it.” He smiles. It makes you cry harder, offering all this comfort but no happiness. Josh frowns and wraps his arms around you. “I’m sorry for making you cry.”

“It’s okay…” You whisper. “You have this way with words... It makes it hard not to be moved or not to fall deeper in love with you.”

“I thought we agreed no preventing the inevitable like falling in love with each other?” You pull away from the hug and wipe his tears. He kisses yours away.

“Right, well I’m instilling a new rule. Not preventing us from falling in love with each other. No more tears, either Kiszka?” You hold out your pinky. He links your pinkies together and then you both kiss the ends of your hands on instinct, giggling when you realize you both did it without words. It’s like an invisible string that had connected you all this time.

“You got it, Doll.” He says softly, before leaning forward and kissing you gently. You decide not to worry too much about it, realizing that if the universe was smart enough to bring you and Josh together for these two weeks, you’d find your way back to each other again. How could you not?

You were falling in love with each other, after all.

• • •

Day Eleven:

You wake up the next day to your favorite sight. Josh tangled in the sheets with you, but for once he’s still asleep. You love it. You wound up spending the day with him and then going to dinner with your family, the night full of laughs, because Josh is just so God damn charming.

He’s so pretty.

You grab your phone from your dresser and then take a photo of him, all sleepy and shining under the sunlight.

His eyes flutter open after a few minutes of you admiring him.

“Well, good morning, Pumpkin.” He says in this low morning voice. Your fingers play with his hair,

“Good morning, sunshine.” You grin, leaning down and kissing his head. He turns to you and smiles.

“What do you have planned for today?” At this question, you groan. Fuck, you forgot everything you have to do today.

“I have a meeting with a notary, who doubles as the cruise line’s wedding coordinator, that I was supposed to go to with my ex…” You sigh. “But now I gotta go and tell them that no, I am not getting married, and that the ceremony is going to be a renewal of vows for my parents.” You sigh and rub your eyes. Josh looks at you, and he has that idea spark in his eyes. You see it, and he knows you see it. “What? What is it?” You ask.

For a moment, you wonder if he has the same idea that you’ve had for the past few days. But that’s crazy, why would he possibly think that you two should go through with it, that you two should get married?

“What if we went through with it? Getting married, I mean?”

Well, I’ll be damned. He did have that thought.

“Josh—” You grin, and he shakes his head, burying his face in his pillow.

“Never mind, that’s dumb, I’m sorry…” He sighs. “We just met, it’s a completely crazy idea, I just can’t get it out of my head, and—”

“Let’s do it.”

“What?”

“Let’s get married.”  What the fuck are you talking about? Why would you agree to this? “It’s bonkers.”

“I completely agree.” He speaks. “You need a dress.”

“We need rings.”

“We need to tell our families…” You grab your phone and start to make a list. Get notarized, get a dress, get rings, tell families. That’s the list.

Busy busy day. Josh takes your hand and kisses the back of it, squeezing your hand. Then, you get up and head off to shower.

As the two of you get ready to meet the notary, you begin to realize how crazy this is. You met Josh what? Ten, eleven days ago? How did you manage to fall in love with him so quickly? You try not to think too much about it. Worst case scenario, you get an annulment, right?

You’re getting married to a rockstar and you’re not even a groupie.

Josh meets you at the door and takes your hand, and you begin to grow nervous. Not to get married but to tell your parents. This was a wild idea that you most definitely did not see them approving of. But you’re an adult, you can make your own choices.

Josh squeezes your hand when you get into the elevator. As the doors close, you begin to kiss him, full of this need.

Eventually, you do make it to your notary, Linda.

“Hi! You must be Mr. and Mrs. Austin—”

“No, actually. Mr. and Mrs. Josh Kiszka, and I have no intention of being Mrs. Josh. Mrs. Kiszka is fine.” You smile.

“Oh, my mistake. I didn’t realize—”

“Spur of the moment decision. Which, I know is crazy and you probably don’t get that a lot, but—”

“Elopements of all types are extremely common especially in the vacation business.” She assures. “And honestly, I met my wife and knew I wanted to marry her after a week. Some people wait years to get married and only last for a few months. Others get married after two weeks and stay together for the rest of their lives. When you know, you know.” She advises. You like that, and grin.

“When you know, you know.” You repeat. “What do we have to do to get married?” She hands you two forms for a marriage license and goes through them with you.

“And are you going to take his last name?”

Kiszka. Mrs. Kiszka. You imagine your students calling you that, imagine the name on your ID, on a sign in your home.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I will.” You smile. She guides you through the steps to do that on the marriage license.  It takes a while, but you eventually get the licenses filled out, and Linda takes them back.

“Amazing. I’m going to make sure everything looks good here and give you confirmation tomorrow. At the very least, you get married by the captain tomorrow and then when you get back to the states, you’ll fill out the license again, and celebrate your anniversary as tomorrow not when the license goes through.” That seems simple enough.

“Thank you.” You tell her. Josh parrots you, and Linda just smiles.

“Of course. I wish you two a very long and happy marriage.” She says, “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Yeah, you remember how we said this was last minute?” She nods. “Where can we get rings and a wedding dress?”

She directs you to a small boutique on the island you’re docked at, somewhere that has lots of gowns for stupid decisions like yours. Then, she tells you there’s a jeweler on board. Is there anything this ship doesn’t have?

So you head off to the jewelers first, and you, honestly, spend more time doing this than anything else. You look at black bands, and they’re not your style. You look at silver, but it really doesn’t go with the gold ring you got the other day.

Then you land on these gold wedding bands. They’re engraved with leaf patterns, and the jeweler advertises custom ring carvings in less than 24 hours.

“Hey,” He says to the attendant at the counter. “Can we see the gold bands?” He takes them out and hands them to you, and you both place it on your right ring finger. It’s bad luck to try them on your left hand, right?

They fit like gloves.

Josh glances up to the attendant. “How long would it take to engrave our initials into each other’s rings with tomorrow’s date?”

“Couple of hours. You can pick them up tomorrow morning.” He tells you two, and Josh nods.

“Great.” He tells him your initials and his, so that he gets them right, and hands him his card.

Your next step is the boutique. And you stop Josh before you go into the boutique.

“Wait here.”

“What?”

“It’s bad luck to see my wedding dress before the day of.” He scoffs, playfully.

“We’re getting married tomorrow, doll. Besides, we’re not really traditional.” He has a point, but you shake your head.

“C’mon, for me? I won’t be long.” You play with his collar. He kisses you gently, and nods.

“Okay, okay. Good luck with your shopping.” He tells you, and you kiss him quickly before heading over to find yourself a wedding dress.

You don’t find a bunch of white options, but here are your options:

The first is a pretty silk thing but it makes your proportions look bizarre. So, you move on.

The second makes you look like a Mormon, with long sleeves and a turtleneck. It goes down to your ankles and is made of a heavy fabric. No, thank you.

The third is a new age dress that is white with complex black designs. You appreciate the look, but you decide it isn’t for you.

The fourth one is one you weren’t excited about, but then when you try it on, it’s all you want. It’s a 50’s style cut, and it comes down just past your knees, with a corset top. But the skirt and corset has floral designs, with the skirt being a thin lace layer with the flower print. It’s gorgeous, and it almost makes you cry to see yourself in the mirror.

It exudes spring energy. You think about Josh’s face when he sees you walk down the aisle.

You go to pay for it at the counter, and you pick up a pair of simple white heels, and a pearl necklace.

There’s a bouquet of flowers that sits by the counter. You get an idea when you see them and throw them into the pile of wedding things you have.

“Special occasion?” The cashier asks, an amused smile on their face as they ring you up.

“My wedding day tomorrow.”

“It’s a beautiful dress.” They hum. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” You hum, a blush filling your cheeks.  They put the dress in a garment bag, so it isn’t visible, and you hold the bag in the other hand.

“How’d you make out?” Josh asks.

“Lovley. I even got myself accessories.” You grin. Josh leans forward and kisses you quickly.

“My bride to be…”

“My husband to be.” You say softly. “We need to text our families. Maybe we could have them meet us for dinner and tell them then?”

“Yeah, that’s a great idea.” He says. You whip out your phones and spend a few minutes texting your families on the cruise asking them to dinner. Then, you turn back to your husband to be, for real, not just to get free things.

“Wanna go back to our cabin...?” You smirk. “We should engage in premarital… activities.”

“Oh, Doll… You’ll be the death of me...” He growls, taking your hand and leading you back to the ship.

You spend your time until dinner doing your favorite things with Josh, and then you spend about two hours fashioning your bouquet of flowers into a flower crown, leaving a few to tuck into Josh’s hair and suit pocket.

He was off grabbing coffees for the two of you, when there’s a knock on your door. You answer it, and it’s your sister. Oh.

“Hey!” You grin, going back to your work on the flower crown.

“Hey, why’d you ask your roommate and his family to join us for dinner?” She hums. You’re about to answer when she looks around the room. She sees the garment bag hanging from your bathroom door, the white shoes and pearls, flowers scattered around the room. Her eyes land on the gold wedding bands on your dresser. She says your name, before adding, “You aren’t…”

“Listen, I know how crazy it is—”

“It’s more than crazy!” She says, sitting on the bed with you. “You’ve known him for a week!”

“…Ten days.” You say, a little ashamed, your older sister disapproving of your choices.

“C’mon.” She says.

“Mom and Dad have been married for twenty years.” You say. “They got married after six months. Arthur and Veroncia got married after a year! You had a baby with a guy who you aren’t even dating anymore. So what if I’ve only known him for a week? Who gives a shit? People have gotten married after a week and stayed together their entire life, others get engaged after five years and don’t even make it to marriage!” You sigh, rubbing your eyes. “Maybe it’s a mistake. But it’ll be the best god damn mistake of my life, so just stand by the alter and look pretty for me.” You ask.

She looks at you for a few minutes.

“Okay. Yeah, I’ll be there. You’re right, it could be a mistake, but it could be amazing.” She hums. “You have a nicer man than I do.” She grins. You laugh and hug her. “Now let me see your dress, Mrs. Kiszka!”

That night at dinner, you hold Josh’s hand nervously, as if he’ll float away if you let go. Your two families get along great. Your parents love his, your siblings quickly get accustomed to his, and your nephew sits on Josh’s lap, and they entertain each other.

Between Dinner and Dessert, when your nephew returns to his seat, you stand up and gently clink your glass for everyone’s attention.

“Hi everybody. Thanks so much for coming tonight,” Is this a rehearsal dinner? “So, a few of you might have noticed my ring, and uh—It started as a joke. To get free stuff.” You say, earning a few laughs at the table. “But it developed into something more.” You look to Josh. “And what I’m about to say, is crazy, I know that. And I’ve been thinking about it for a few days, and nothing has ever felt so right. So support us or not, I don’t care. This is what’s happening and—”

“Spit it out already!” Your dad laughs. You pause, your hands shaking. Josh takes it in his.

“So, Josh and I are getting married tomorrow.”

Silence. No response. You feel tears in your eyes.

“Mozel Tov!” Your mom gasps, standing up and going over to the two of you. She hugs you tightly, and her congratulations break the tension of the table as the rest of them come over to congratulate you.

Anyone who has reservations against your decisions keep them to themselves. Jake comes over to congratulate you two, and suddenly Josh is nervous again.

“Congrats, man!”

“You’re not mad?” Josh asks.

“Mad? You’re marrying a girl you met last week. That is so rock and roll!” He pulls josh into a hug, and then he hugs you. “Oh, good luck, hot stuff.” He hums and kisses your cheek. You feel loved.

“Good,” Josh grins, “Because you’re going to be my best man.” You turn to your parents.

“You’re not mad?” You ask.

“No, of course not. It’s crazy, but you’re an adult. If you love him, you need to do what’s best for you.” You grin.

“Thank you. We should schedule a different renewal of your vows, too, and—” Your dad hugs you.

After dessert, you hold your nephew in your arms, and he’s sleepy.

“Is Josh gonna be my uncle?” He asks softly, and you smile, kissing his head.

“Yeah. I think so...”

“Good. He’s cool…” You look at Josh and admire him laughing with your sister and his brothers.

“Yeah. I think so too.”

• • •

Day Twelve:

Your wedding day goes by way too quickly, and before you know it? You’re slipping on your heels and clipping the pearl necklace around your neck. Your phone rings.

It’s Josh.

“Hey, Honey. What’s going on?” You ask.

“Doll, there’s a photographer by the venue, was this planned?”

Shit. You forgot about that.

“Yeah, uh, let her take photos of you and our families, and she’ll photograph the ceremony. Then, she’ll take photos of the happy couple.”

“Oh yeah? And who would that be?”

“I love you, Joshua.”

“I love you.” He says your name. You hang up, and your parents are knocking at your door. You open it, and they’re speechless at your ensemble.

“Does Arthur have the wedding rings?” You ask, hoping he’ll give them to your nephew.

“Oh, baby, you look beautiful.” Your mom coos, and it hits you.

You’re getting married.

You grin, and head down to the small venue that has been put together on the ship. The photographer takes a few photos of you, and you’re suddenly happy you paid for the whole package.

And then it’s time. Your parents walk you down the aisle, and when you see Josh standing there, his brothers as his best men, your sister stands with your nephew on the other side of the alter. You kiss your parents quickly, before you stand in front of Josh, taking his hands. Your cheeks hurt from smiling.

“Hey.” You say softly.

“Hi…”

“This is crazy, right?” You whisper.

“Absolutely. You look amazing.” He hums. It’s funny because he looks ethereal. The flowers in his hair look amazing.

“You look amazing.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

The captain, your officiant, begins the usual--- Telling everyone why they’re here, about life and death.

“Do you two want to say a few words?” He asks.

“I’ll go.” Josh says gently. “For a long time, I never thought I’d find anyone who could keep up with me. Who could love me for all the parts of me… And then you came along and immediately, you showed me this infinite kindness. I knew I would never get over you in that moment. I love you. And I hope this marriage is an infinite source of happiness and wild adventures. And if not, fuck it—” He cringes, realizing he used fuck in his wedding vows, “Fuck it. Let’s make it a crazy and fun marriage even if it only lasts a week.” You almost kiss him right there and then.

“Josh, I don’t… I never really thought I’d fall in love again. I never thought I would fall in love with anyone again. I… I thought that maybe… Maybe I was unlovable or...” You play with his fingers. “Whatever. But when I met you, I realized that I didn’t know what love was before you came into my life. And since I’ve met you, life has just been crazy, full of love and this… this general glow for life. I love you. I love you deeper than anyone I’ve ever known, and I like to think we have a golden type of love. I’ll love you forever, no matter what. Marriage or not.”

You realize you’re crying and Josh wipes your tears.

“I thought we promised no more crying, doll.”

“Sorry, Honey.” You whisper.

The Captain smiles and looks to you.

“Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, in sickness and in health? In richer and in poorer? For better and for worse?”

“I do.” A ring is slipped onto your finger.

He turns to Josh.

“Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, in sickness and in health? In richer and in poorer? For better and for worse?”

“I do.” You slip a ring onto his.

“You may now kiss the bride.” And he does. He places his hands on your hips and pulls you in, kissing you deeply.

The rest of forever starts now, and with Josh by your side, that doesn’t seem so daunting.

• • •

Day Thirteen:

Only technically is it day thirteen.

After the ceremony, the photographer dragged you and Josh off to take photos, and then you went to dinner. You had cake, and then the party really started. Josh’s parents and your own call it an early night and promise to watch over your nephew.

The rest of you go out and drink until you and Josh stumble off into the night. It’s around two a.m., maybe three.

You lay on the beach chairs that you had your talk on back on day ten. Josh holds your hand as you listen to the waves crash, and even drunk, you admire the stars from the top deck.

“Honey?”

“Yeah, Doll?”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

“What happens when we get off the boat..?”

“We…” he sighs softly. “We try long distance. We can make It work until we decide to move in together.”

“It’ll probably be a while, unless I can get a job before the school year starts in Nashville...”

“I’ll wait for you.”

“And when you go on tour?”

“You’ll knit on our porch and wait for me to come back.”

“You’ll write songs about me?”

“Baby, every song is about you.” You kiss his cheek. “It’s all about you...” He hums.

You listen to the waves crashing as Josh starts to sing you something. Light My Love, you think.

It makes you realize you’ll never regret marrying him.

• • •

Day Fourteen:

You have to get off the ship early. Like, eight a.m. and you have to say goodbye to Josh.

You say goodbye to his parents, his sister, and then his brothers. Jake holds you close for a while, and then tells you,

“See you around, Sister. Be strong, yeah?” You smile and kiss his cheek. He climbs into the car, and you’re left with Josh.

Your husband.

You wrap your arms around his neck, and he places his hands on your waist.

“I love you.” You whisper. “Don’t be a stranger...”

“A stranger? How could I ever be a stranger to my wife? I love you. We’re gonna spend the rest of our lives together, doll. I don’t give a fuck about distance. You’re the only thing that’s ever been easy.”

“I’m a real hassle.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic.”

“I want a divorce.” You giggle. He laughs and kisses you, pulling you close. He hugs you for a while. Neither of you say anything. You want to cry. But you don’t. You maintain your composure. You begin planning, you’ll drive up to Nashville next weekend, you’ll make it work.

You have no other options.

None.

You have to be with him. It’s like breathing, it’s the most natural thing in the entire world.

“I love you.” He says, pulling away to look at you. “Doll, I love you so fucking much.”

“I love you, honey.” You kiss him one more time, and then he leaves. He climbs into his car, and you start to cry on the walk back to your car. Your family says nothing, and you just cry as you start to drive. Your nephew frowns, and looks down at his dinosaur blanket, that always makes him feel better. He takes your hand in his and doesn’t say anything.

You begin to look for teaching jobs in Nashville, searching for apartments too. As you’re searching for something, you get a text.

“Good morning, by the way, Pumpkin. See you soon?” You smile and wipe your tears, before texting back.

“good morning, sunshine. see you soon.”

[featherandferns]

underneath the gloves (fic)

jj maybank x fem!reader | the final part of the F.W.B universe, but can maybe be read as a stand-alone

content warning: mentions of drug use; fighting; mentions/discussions of SA/trauma (see here for context, or feel free to message and ask)

word count: 7k

blurb: after you lose a match, things seem to spiral out of control. it seems to come to a head after a confrontation with Kelce, leaving you to confess to JJ why you sometimes are the way you are.

Your ears are still ringing. Head pounding like it had been thumped against concrete, over and over; brain feeling as though it had been rattled around your skull. Knuckles and fists aching. Limbs screaming for reprieve. Knees and hands on the floor. Chest heaving. Panting for air. Unable to stand. There’s only one thought, running on repeat:

You lost.

The crowd in the school gymnasium is cheering. Applaud and hollers and whoops. But none of it is for you. It’s for Beth Sunder, the Kook girl that you were so sure you could beat. She was smaller than you; not as accomplished. It should have been an easy win. Why wasn’t it an easy win?

There’s an arm on your bicep, helping you to your feet. You somehow stand, body crying out for rest. As you face the crowd, eyes unfocused, you still think the same thought. You lost.

You don’t look over to Beth as the ref holds her arm up in the air. You don’t look out to the crowd – search for the faces of your friends, your parents, JJ. You decide to stare at the floor, breathing heavy. You lost.

It’s on instinct that you leave the ring once it’s appropriate for you to be dismissed. You don’t do the sportsman thing and congratulate Beth. Don’t even look at her. How can you? If you meet her gaze, you’ll only hate yourself more. It should’ve been an easy win. The gloves come off first, and the bandages, letting your hands breath. You wince as you stretch out your fingers, feeling them scream. The mouthguard gets spat out into the sink. Your coach seems to know to leave you alone. Heading to the showers, you shrug out of your clothes and stand under the scorching stream. It doesn’t help. Everything feels vacant; like you’re floating through life, not really there. Wash your hair, your body, your face. Dry off and change into your joggers and a tee. Barely brush your hair and don’t bother to style it or tame it back. When you look in the mirror to inspect any injuries, there’s that voice again. You lost.

You look into your eyes. There’s some bruising coming up underneath the right. Your lip’s split. No tears come. The adrenaline hasn’t faded yet from the fight. It’s still pumping around your body, and it seems to fuel anger. You sigh and shake it off. Grabbing your gym bag, you hang up your gloves in your locker and tie your shoelaces.

September air is sticky and dense, doing nothing to sooth the anxiety building under your skin. The Pogues are waiting outside the school gym for you, with the Twinkie. John B and Sarah sit in the front, with Kiara and Pope in the back. The back door is open. JJ leans against the passenger side, arms crossed over his chest. When he sees you, he offers a smile. His expression and everything about his demeanour scream sympathy and pity, and it makes you feel sick. You lost.

JJ doesn’t say anything. Just holds out his hand to take your gym bag. You almost toss it at him, climbing into the back, collapsing onto one of the seats. Your body cries out in thanks as you lean against the wall with a pained sigh, tipping your head back and closing your eyes.

“How you doing?” Kiara asks.

You purse your lips.

How are you doing? You lost – how do they think you’re doing?

“Fine,” you mumble.

There’s the sound of the door sliding shut and you feel JJ take the spot beside you. Your arms are folded over your chest. He settles on patting your knee, squeezing it in consolation, and it takes everything in you not to shrug it off. Your mind isn’t on the conversation that awkwardly starts up between the gang. It’s on the fight. Replaying every swing. Every punch that you should have dodged and every hit that you should have landed. That last one that Beth ducked out the way of, and her upper cut that had you falling to the ground, vision blurry, jaw close to snapping. It was obvious. You would’ve seen it coming from a mile away if you were watching it unfold from the crowd.

“How’s that sound, babe?”

You seem to register that it’s JJ talking, and that whatever he’s just asked is directed to you. Opening your eyes, you look to him in question. His hand is still on your knee and he squeezes again.

“Up for a house party?”

“Sure,” you say.

“You don’t have to,” Pope offers from the floor. You look over to him and shrug. Stretching out your arms, you sigh.

“Why not? Free booze, right?”

“Yeah, but is it best to drink after a fight? According to research, after a head injury—”

“Dude,” JJ says, cutting Pope off on his spiel.

The intelligent boy closes his mouth and nods, apologetic, looking out the window. You feel bad. You didn’t mean to bring down the energy for the night. It’s then that you notice how tense it is in the Twinkie. The radio’s on but it’s so quiet and makes everything feel ten times worse. Nobody wants to look at you. You hate it.

“He’s not wrong,” you say, finding a chuckle. “Probably not best to drink but when I am ever one to do the smart thing?”

“You’re not JJ,” Kiara can’t help but joke. JJ flips her off. You force a laugh. Pope seems to come back around, smiling at you.

“Guess he’s rubbing off on me,” you shrug, winking at the innuendo. Sarah must’ve spotted this in the rear-view mirror because she cringes, groaning out your name in disapproval.

“Gross.”

The group laughs, finding their rhythm again. JJ squeezes your knee for a third time, catching your attention. His eyes almost make your persona break: that everything’s fine, and that you’re okay with losing. Like it’s not eating you alive, making you want to crawl out of your skin, peel off your nails, and tear out your hair.

“You sure?” he quietly asks.

No, you’re not sure. The smart thing to do would be to go home, or back to the chateau, and sleep. Come to terms with the loss in your own time, in your own way. Eat something, since you’ve been fasting most of the day and burnt off your energy in the hour-long fight. Drink water and not cheap beer and vodka-heavy cocktails. Curl up in bed to your comfort show, ideally with JJ by your side, pulling you into his chest.

But JJ’s never seen you lose before. You never wanted him to. And you don’t want his friends thinking you’re some lame chick who can’t deal with a loss in a fight that doesn’t even count towards anything. So, you smile and nod.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” you tell him, saying it in a way that makes it seem like he’s crazy for checking.

JJ doesn’t look convinced but doesn’t say anything. Just nods, eventually, and looks back to the front. You worry he’s mad at you, or disappointed, and the anxiety from it brings another round of adrenaline. To try and settle it, you lean your head on his shoulder and untangle your arms from yourself so you can take his hand into your hold.

Now that you’re acting like yourself some more, the group falls into their usual shenanigans. Conversation kicks up between Kiara and Sarah, with Pope chiming in from time to time. JJ begins to crack jokes, John B adding on to keep the humour flowing, and your fake laugh becomes so second-nature, it starts to almost feel real. Maybe this will be fine. A party would probably lighten your mood. The night was still young and things could easily turn around. You pull back to look at JJ. Take in his carefree smile, as he watches Kiara halfway re-enact some surf trick that she’d tried out the other day. Smile a little at his laugh when she mimics falling into the water. JJ seems to feel your gaze because looks down at you, brows furrowing in question. You don’t speak and instead press a kiss to his lips.

“Hey! No PDA in the twinkie,” John B heckles.

JJ flips him off in reply, not pulling away. When he does, he tells John B that he’s jealous. John B denies this, to which JJ says, ‘denial is a river in Africa’, with Pope soon correcting it to Egypt, earning the bird from your boyfriend. The ridiculousness of it has the girls laughing, including you.

There’s a few more twists and turns on the roads before John B’s pulling up into a spot on a street. Cars line the left and right side. There are people walking past, towards a house. It’s not quite Kook level but certainly nicer than something on the cut. Average, really. The gang excitedly chatters, getting up and fixing themselves. Sarah checks her hair in the rear-view and Kiara pulls on her beanie. Pope’s anxiously fixing the collar of his shirt. John B opens the back door for you all, and you and JJ jump out last, hands still intertwined. You all begin towards the house: the foursome slightly ahead, deep in effervescent chatter.

“You lemme know if you wanna leave early or anything,” JJ says to you.

You look away from the Pogues to meet his gaze. You nod, smiling. “Okay.”

“I’m serious. I’ve been to like a million of these things. We’re not gonna miss out on anything.”

The irritation threatens to come back. You push it away and try not to sound bitchy when you say, “I know, JJ. I’m no stranger to house parties either, remember? I had a life before I met you.”

JJ takes it as a joke, thankfully, and laughs, nodding. “Fair enough.”

Your arms sway lightly as the two of you walk up to the house. JJ fixes his cap as he jogs up the stairs, you in tow. Your thighs scream out. You’re tired and should be in bed, but you repeat your mantra (life is short and the night is long), and think about the drinks to be had and the weed to be smoked and the whole packet of cigarettes in your pocket that you’d pre-bought in celebration. Now, they’ll just be in consolation, you suppose.

The music can be heard from the front garden, so when you pass into the threshold of the house, it’s blaringly loud. You almost want to wince. The tinnitus from earlier still hadn’t worn off and the loud music only seemed to make it worse. For being fairly early in the night, there’s a good crowd of people about. Not so cramped that you can’t move, but enough that you must wriggle through a little. JJ calls out ‘hey’ to a couple of people he recognises. You watch as John B does a lazy handshake with someone from school as the lot of you head to the kitchen for a drink. Kiara and Sarah begin to grab some cans, passing them around. Finally, you remove your hand from JJ’s and crack one open. Kiara holds hers up in a proposed toast.

“To the rest of the night,” she announces.

“To the rest of our lives,” JJ grins, clinking his can to hers. The rest of you follow. Your smile feels genuine once more. It’s like you’re zipping back and forth from emotion to emotion. Alcohol will definitely help. Yep.

Necking half the can, you cringe at the bitter taste as it crawls down your throat.

After that, the group begins to split off. One beer turns to two, then three, then five. You do a couple of shots for good measure: vodka and sambuca. Beer pong with Kiara against two Kooks doesn’t seem like the worse idea, until you’re seven drinks under just from that. The walls begin to bend and stretch. There are some little gaps of how you get from one place to the next: skipping out the dull parts. You stumble through the doorway of the kitchen, the cup in your hand empty.

You’ve lost all the Pogues by now, including JJ. Part way through beer pong he got roped into a conversation and then you lost track of him. On the basis that you barely knew where you had been or where you were going, it seemed futile to search for him. The sting from losing didn’t hurt that bad anymore though. It felt like the memory of a bad dream; miles away and unable to hurt you. You couldn’t tell JJ how much it was bothering you. You didn’t think he’d get it. Didn’t think he’d understand. He had enough problems, anyway. Your dumb insecurities were nothing that needed to be added. They seemed almost pathetic when stood against his troubles and concerns.

There’s a couple chatting when you get to the counter where the drinks are. You sort of elbow them out the way, ignoring their murmurs, grateful when they get the hint. You sigh and try and focus on the labels. As you go to reach for what you’re pretty sure is the vodka, there’s somebody shoving to stand beside you. They’re crowding your personal space, stand tall enough to cast a small shadow over you. You roll your eyes and bite your tongue. After the fight, your patience had been worn thin.

“Fancy seeing you here, huh?”

The lid that you’re halfway through unscrewing gets abandoned. You look up at who had come to stand near you.

“Great. As if today can get any better,” you mumble, looking back down to the vodka. There’s a new urgency to fill your cup.

“That anyway to greet an old friend?” Kelce asks, sardonic.

“That’s a generous use of the word,” you tell him.

The cup is halfway full now. It’s hard to judge things when your vision won’t seem to stay straight.

Before you can reach for the orange juice, Kelce is topping up your cup. “Vodka orange. You really don’t change, do you?”

“Is there a reason you’re tryna piss me off right now?” you ask sharply, looking up to his side profile.

He raises his brows, as if shocked by your comment, and it makes your stomach contort. Leisurely, Kelce puts down the juice and turns to meet your gaze. It’s weird how similar he looks to when he was younger. Just taller, more grown, some ageing around the jaw from the beginnings of stubble. When he holds your cup out to you, you feel reluctant to take it - taking anything from him is like accepting help from a corrupted cop - but you do. The memories his presence brings up feel easier when washed down with alcohol.

“You forget your manners?” he wonders. He picks up his own drink and takes a sip. JJ likes to tease you for the same thing, but when Kelce does, it doesn’t make you roll your eyes with mirth. It makes you annoyed.

“Thank you so much for your help, Kelce.”

When you say it, there’s a sickly-sweet smile on your face. It’s as fake as a politician’s candidacy. You move to leave, but Kelce starts speaking again before you can slip away.

“Heard you lost your fight,” he says. You freeze and look back to him. The sympathy he feigns makes your blood begin to boil. “I remember you were a sore loser. How you holding up?”

“Like you care.”

He shrugs and takes another drink. The plastic of your cup is beginning to warp in your grip.

“Lover boy doing much to ease the pain? Where’s he at, anyway?”

He seems to know he’s touched a nerve. There’s a smirk beginning to show.

“None of your business,” you tell him, bordering on a sneer.

“So you can’t find him either, huh? Probably for the best. Last I saw, he was chatting with some pretty brown-haired chick in the sitting room. Think she goes to Kildare High.”

You know Kelce’s ways. How he likes to get a rise out of anyone, especially you. The grovelling that he does to anyone above him - like a pathetic follower like a rescued puppy, afraid of being abandoned again – and the sneering he shows to the people below. You know how half the things that leave his mouth are disingenuous. But for some reason, you feel yourself lean into his words. Entertain him for a little too long.

“I told you to mind your business.”

Kelce ignores you. Goes on. “Yeah, yeah. They seemed pretty cosy, too.”

You feel your intestines warp at the thought. You know it’s bullshit. Makes the anger worse.

Clicking his tongue, he looks down at you. “Guess being the slut of Kildare isn’t everything, huh? Can’t keep even the scummiest of boys happy.”

It’s funny how easy you hear it. Over the pandemonium of overlapping conversations, the clambering of voices fighting to be heard, the bass of whatever house song is currently being blasted, you can easily make out Kelce’s flippant insult. What’s funnier is how quickly it takes effect. It hits you the same way Beth’s upper cut had. The adrenaline that had been lingering in your body for hours turns to gasoline in a split-second, and Kelce’s barely-there smirk is the spark. You don’t register tossing your cup to the side, or the closing of your fingers into a fist. The power behind the punch you throw is second nature. Maybe you yell before you throw it; you’re not entirely sure. The alcohol is making everything blur together into one confusing, continuous nightmare. Everything from the night is scrambling into this magnanimous, Machiavellian, murderous mess. The fight. The loss. The Pogues. JJ. Kelce. This.  

If people stop their conversations and pause to watch, gasping and shouting in panic or jeer, you don’t know. Your focus is on landing as many hits to Kelce’s face as you can. You’ve somehow managed to catch him off guard. He goes to bring his hands to defend himself, reflexively lashing at your face, and when the slap hits your cheek, it only adds more kindling to your fury. You lay another and another. You shrug off someone’s hands on your back, wanting to swing at them too. It’s then that you realise you’re screaming, hurling abuse at him. Any word you can think of. Any word that you know. Any word that’s ever been said to you. It starts to contort in your drunken haze, and it feels as if you’re attacking yourself. Berating her and heckling her.

“JJ!”

It’s Sarah screaming. Calling for help.

“Stop it!”

Kiara’s the one that’s been clawing at you. Trying to pull you off.

“JJ!”

When two arms wrap around your waist, hoisting you away from Kelce, you know it’s JJ before you hear his voice, angry and loud in your ear. “What the hell are you doing? Stop it!”

You’re still throwing punches, even though there’s no way they’d land on Kelce. Through the blur of it all – of your anger and the alcohol – you can make out Kelce’s face. It’s bloody and banged up, nearly bruising already, but it does nothing to appease you. It’s not enough. He needs to hurt like you hurt. You’re seething. Panting through your teeth that are barred like a lioness about to strike. Jaw tense and fists still clenched. Eventually, you register that you’re being half-carried-half-dragged outside. You violently shrug out of JJ’s hold and the move of it all makes you stumble forward. The dizziness hits in full force. A hand comes to your arm as you lurch forward in an attempt to catch your balance, but you shake it off.

“Would you stop it?” JJ snaps, trying to grab you again. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Get off of me!” you shout. It makes the dizziness worse and you close your eyes.

JJ’s saying your name, trying to calm you down, trying to grab at you over and over. He’s angry, voice loud. You keep fighting out of his hold and usher him away. Stumbling further down the front garden, you can barely make out where you’re going. Someone’s looking at you, whispering to their friend, and you start shouting at them too. Cussing them out. JJ tries to barter with you once more when you do, this time coming to stand in front of you. You push him away, feet scrambling backwards in the process. It takes a while for you to get your balance.

Everything’s a mess.

You bring a hand up to rub at your forehead as if trying to erase the fog. The world won’t stay still and your vision won’t level out and now that the adrenaline is wearing off, everything hurts more. The pain in your knuckles and the ache in your muscles and the sting of Kelce’s slap to your cheek. When you lick at your lip, you realise the force from it had opened the cut again, tasting the copper of blood on your tongue. But all of it is so minute, so insignificant, to the clenching in your chest. You can’t breathe.

“Baby, just stop,” JJ’s saying. He’s not angry anymore – at least, he doesn’t sound it. He’s almost pleading, desperate to have you listen, his touch more tender as he grabs at your biceps. “Stop walking, okay? You need to focus on getting your breathing right.”

You shake your head and try and pull away again. But there’s nothing left in the tank. Everything hurts. Why does it all hurt?

The tears start to come. No. No.

You shake your head again, uselessly willing them away. JJ doesn’t seem to understand though; thinks you’re shaking your head at him. There’re murmurs from other people and the music is still loud and your ears are still ringing and all of it hurts. It just hurts.

The ground meets you quickly.

It’s the feeling of a hand on your back, stroking under the fabric of your shirt, that draws you back to reality. You’re lying on your side, it seems. Everything about it disorientates you and you whimper, trying to open your eyes.

JJ’s shushing you. It’s his hand, moving up and down. Your head’s on his lap. Can feel the move of one of his legs as he shifts in the seat.

“We’re nearly at the house,” he tells you softly.

You don’t really know what that means but you feel like it’s a good thing. A weak nod is your answer and you close your eyes again. It feels nicer to have them shut. There’s a conversation happening above you, hushed and impossible to follow. You focus on the stroke of JJ’s hand and let it ground you. The more you come around, the more you notice. A foul, lingering taste in your mouth, as if you’ve thrown up, and a sticky dryness on your cheeks from tears. When you stretch out your fingers, you wince. The cuts that had formed on your knuckles crack open and air stings at the open wounds. There’s a dull ache in your head. Jesus Christ - what a mess.

The car stops. You have enough sense in you now to figure out that you’re in the twinkie. The voice that had been talking to JJ goes quiet. A door opens then shuts. The cold air hits your arms when another opens, nearer to you. JJ’s shaking your shoulders gently.

“Come on, baby. Gotta sit up for me.”

You try to nod. Slowly easing yourself up, relying on JJ for help, you weakly slink out of the car. It’s John B, of course, waiting outside the door. He takes your forearm gently and lets you lean on him as you both wait for JJ to climb out. JJ and John B chat some more, quick and quiet, and then JJ’s coaxing you towards the house. Your legs feel like jelly. The van’s engine starts up but you don’t turn to look, instead focusing on making your way up the stairs of the porch.

“How you feeling?” JJ wonders.

“Like God’s having a migraine in my head,” you mumble.

He chuckles, solemn. “Yikes.”

Through the dark living space and the corridor you go, finally walking into the spare bedroom which yourself and JJ have unofficially claimed. The squish of the mattress and scratchiness of the quilt is like the embrace of an old friend. You sigh as you crawl to the pillows, curling into yourself. JJ rubs at your shoulder.

“I’m gonna grab you some water, alright? And a trash can in case you need to hurl again.”

Slipping in out and rest, you pull your knees closer to your chest. The dip of the bed when JJ sits down pulls you awake again, but there’s no energy left in you to open your eyes. There’s the shuffling of sheets and clothes, and then a blanket’s draped over you. Underneath, JJ wraps an arm over your waist, spooning against your back. You feel him press a kiss to your exposed shoulder.

“We’ll talk in the morning, okay?”

You don’t reply. A part of you wants to cry at how sweet he’s being when you don’t deserve any of it, but there’s nothing left in you to produce a tear, led alone shed it.

Before you drift off, you hear JJ’s whispering voice.

“I love you.”

The hangover is brutal, like a train hitting a brick wall. It’s the thing that wakes you up. Groaning, you hesitate to open your eyes and face the music.

There’s barely a moment of peace before the memories of the night before come shooting back. Each one makes you want to wince as if taking an oncoming bullet. You shift in bed and roll onto your back. Sighing at the ceiling, you open your eyes. Step one, done.

Looking to your side, you see JJ. He’s still asleep, facing you, lips parted in silent snores. It makes you smile. The expression soon turns sombre, as you remember the chaos of the party. The sound of his voice, shouting at you, and then the worry shining through stronger whilst he kept trying to hold you. After everything else that had happened, the lost fight seemed like the set-up of a skit. Blacking out and riding home in the twinkie would be the punchline, you suppose.

You ease the blanket off you and try your best to sneak out of the bed without waking him. You can stand on two feet pretty good. Trudging to the bathroom, you relieve yourself before shrugging out of your clothes. The shower takes a few minutes to heat up and you kill the time by inspecting your injuries in the mirror. Black eye, split lip…Vague outline of a handprint on your cheek. Joy. You didn’t exactly blame Kelce for it; if somebody was throwing punches at your face, you think you’d react in a similar way. You also didn’t feel any pity for doing what you did. Was it completely unhinged? Yes. Was it rightfully deserved? Abso-fucking-lutely.

You brush your teeth to try and rid the awful hangover taste from your mouth and then climb into the shower. Wash your hair again and your body, as if trying to rinse away any remnants of yesterday. Dry off and walk back to the bedroom, wrapped in a towel, clothes tucked under your arm in a bundle. You inspect the bedroom floor for clothes and steal one of JJ’s shirts. A pair of boxers is retrieved from the closet draw. You dress in the morning sunlight that sneaks through the few inches that the blind hadn’t closed. As you pull on the boxers, you stumble backwards into the dresser, causing it to bang against the wall. It startles JJ awake.

“Sorry,” you say meekly.

He blinks, taking you in, delirious from the lingering sleep.

“Is your hair wet?” His voice is croaky and low (and truthfully, kind of sexy) from want of use.

“Yeah,” you reply, bringing a hand up to tease through it. “I got a shower.”

“Oh.”

He sighs and sinks back down into the bed, now lying on his front. The blanket is down at his waist, bare back on display. Now dressed, you walk back to the bed and climb over him, sitting atop of the sheet, back against the headboard.

“Thanks for looking after me last night,” you eventually say, quiet.

JJ shrugs tiredly.

“I’ll always look after you,” he casually mumbles into the pillow. He doesn’t know how much weight is held in his words.

You pull your knees up to your chest and wrap your arms around them, resting your chin atop. Closing your eyes feels the only way to keep from crying.

“How’re you feeling?” JJ wonders. You open your eyes to look down at him.

“Like shit,” you admit.

“Hangovers can be hell,” he says.

And, yes, the hangover sucks, but that’s not what you mean. Telling him so is harder, though. The power behind your voice is feeble and it gives you away.

“Not because of that.”

It seems enough to wake JJ up. He lets out a quiet grunt as he pushes himself up. Your eyes are shut again, not sure if you can handle watching him as he looks at you. There’re the sounds of sheets moving as JJ sits. You wonder if he’ll move to hold you. He must choose not to and you can’t decide if you’re grateful or not.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“It’s so dumb,” you sniffle through a self-deprecating laugh. Your skin smells like soap. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Well, you nearly K.O’d Kelce and then did a pretty good passing-out-throwing-up move after so…I feel like it does matter,” JJ lightly presses. It helps; makes you smile sadly against your skin. He sighs. “I just wanna know what’s going on.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you repeat. JJ goes to protest but you lift your head, turning it to meet his gaze. The worry in his eyes makes your tears worse. “It’s so fucking stupid compared to all the shit you’ve got going on.”

JJ frowns.

“It’s not a competition,” he says simply. “Just cause someone’s got a broken leg doesn’t mean your paper cut doesn’t hurt.”

The metaphor makes you laugh. It’s tearful and weak and pathetic, and all the things you’re not, and you hate it. You hate that you have to admit to yourself and to JJ that maybe you’re not all that you scrub yourself up to be.

“You gonna let me in on the dialogue you got going on in your head?”

“All that it’s saying is that that was a really cheesy analogy,” you weakly joke.

JJ rolls his eyes and smiles. “I’ll take on the feedback.”

The sound of a bird outside has your attention switching. You turn your head away from JJ to look to the window. Through the sheer blinds you can just make out the banks outside of the chateau. Daylight shines happy, outlining the horizon and water reeds and tree trunks and canopies. Seeing it makes things feel simple. It grounds you enough to speak.

“I didn’t think I was gonna lose the fight,” you confess quietly.

JJ doesn’t speak. You wonder if maybe he didn’t hear you.

“It wasn’t like it was an important fight, baby,” he tells you. You keep staring out to the scenery through the blinds, trying to make out more details. “It came close, as well.”

“Doesn’t matter. I don’t like to lose.”

“You can’t win all of them,” JJ replies.

You chuckle, sadly. If only it was that simple. Shaking your head, you try your best to verbalise it.

“I have to win. It’s…It’s like it’s the only time I feel truly good about myself.”

You don’t give JJ time to reply. Turning away from the window and back to your boyfriend, you sit up straighter and wipe your cheeks.

“I always feel like I’m the worst, so I try to act like I’m the best. Try to be funny and cool and aloof. Unbothered. Truth is…I care what people think about me, all the time. Too much for it to be normal.”

JJ’s lips are in a line, bordering on a frown. He’s watching you like he’s trying to understand; or maybe he does, and he just wants to let you continue. Either way, you keep talking.

“This…thing happened to me in school, when I was thirteen, and I feel like it was this formative experience that shaped the rest of my life. Made me the way I am.”

The memories flicker to life in your mind like watching home movies and it brings more tears. You shakily inhale, glancing up at the ceiling as you gather some courage. You’d never told anybody this before. Never spoken about it since it happened. It’s hard to know where to start, exactly.

“Me and Kelce used to date,” you reveal.

In your peripheral, you see JJ’s lips part at the news. It makes you chuckle, rolling your eyes at your past self.

“I know, I know. I’m not proud of it. It was this dumb thing when we were thirteen. He had a crush on me after seeing me at this church thing, and some notes were passed and whatever, and somehow, we ended up dating. If you can even call it dating. Truth was, I was kinda excited. He was this cute guy who had more money than I could even comprehend, and he wanted me. Weird little pre-teen me. It felt kinda nice, being the only girl with a boyfriend, and a Kook one at that. God, every girl was jealous of me at school.”

You laugh at the memory. School was so fickle back then, as were your emotions. You could recall planning your wedding and your friends falling out as to who was going to be the maid of honour. It all feels so foreign now.

As you go on, you fix your gaze on the wall ahead.

“The longer we went out, the more he wanted to fool around. I knew I wasn’t ready for that. I barely had a grasp on kissing; I wasn’t in any place to have sex. But he really, really wanted to. And I really, really liked him. Thought I loved him, in my stupid little thirteen-year-old brain. I didn’t want him to stop liking me.”

When a quiet comes, as the painful memories begin to push past the puppy-dog ones, JJ hesitantly fills the quiet.

“Did you? Have sex with him?”

Pursing your lips, you shake your head. “No. But…He asked for some pictures, one night, and I couldn’t see the harm in it. I sent them on Snapchat, cause I thought they’d delete. He never screenshotted them either, so I figured that it was all done. He seemed really happy about it. I didn’t deep it that much and we just kept on dating for a bit.”

The room begins to feel a little claustrophobic and you pull yourself away from your knees. Stretching your legs out, you lean against the headboard again and look up at the ceiling. JJ’s eyes are on you, watching and waiting patiently. You search your head for the words.

“You ever gone somewhere and know that people are talking about you? I don’t mean in a self-obsessed way. I mean in the worst way. Like you’re a spectacle for them to look at. Well, I went to school one day, and I just knew that everyone was looking at me and talking about me. It wasn’t until later on that I knew why. I remember it so clearly, even though it was like five years ago now. I went outside for lunch and was sat with my friends, and this girl on the table across starts showing her phone to her friends. They all start laughing.

And then they all start looking at me.”

When you look to JJ, his eyes are closed, as if in pain.

He knows.

“There’s this app you can download, where pictures that you get sent on Snapchat automatically save onto your phone, without ever telling the other person. Kelce didn’t delete them. He saved them and he showed them to his friends. The wrong person got them and made this anonymous twitter account. Leaked them online. And suddenly everyone at Kildare High and Kook Academy had seen my nudes.”

You’re crying now, trying to suppress your sobs and failing.

“And thirteen-year-olds are stupid. They can’t comprehend in their little underdeveloped, fucked up heads, that they’re looking at a person on their phone. That they were laughing and talking and looking at me. That it was the most humiliating, horrific feeling in the world, to know that everybody knows what you look like naked without you wanting them to. And for your boyfriend to be the reason why.”

JJ’s shaking his head. His jaw begins to tense, a clear shot sign that he’s angry. You look down at your legs and begin to mess with the ring he gave you – twisting it around your thumb.

“You wanna know what he said, when I confronted him about it? When I asked why he showed people them? Showed them to his friends?”

JJ doesn’t answer. You scoff as you recall it. The look on Kelce’s face – innocent like butter couldn’t melt in his mouth – when he shrugged off your hurt.

Another tear falls as you shake your head, lifting it just high enough to say, “he told me he wanted to ‘show me off.’ Like it was this romantic thing he’d done.”

From the corner of your eye, JJ’s shaking his head, running his fingers through his hair. You shakily take in a breath, wiping at your cheeks.

“Thanks to him and his kindness, I became the slut of Kildare. That’s what he said to me last night; the thing that set me off? He told me you were trying to get with another girl at the party, and then called me the slut of Kildare. It all just came screaming back and, after the fight and everything…I don’t know. I guess I just lost it.”

“Kinda wish I didn’t pull you off him, now,” JJ mumbles, hardly joking.

You laugh through your tears. The effort of it makes you cry more.

“I remember that happening. I remember hearing about the pictures and stuff at school.”

You turn to meet his gaze. There’s something blank in his look and you can’t quite tell what he’s thinking, but you feel like you might have an idea. You smile sympathetically, as if in understanding.

“It’s okay if you saw them, JayJ. I’m not expecting thirteen-year-olds to have the strongest moral backbones.”

But before you can finish your sentence, JJ’s shaking his head. “I never looked at them. Never felt right to.”

You pause, taken aback. “Really?”

He nods, pushing his fingers through his hair. It might be the most serious you’ve ever heard him, when JJ says, “I swear on my life, I never saw them.”

Swallowing, you close your eyes and nod. He never saw them.

“It’s so dumb, cause like a month later, everybody had forgotten it was a thing for the most part. Me and Kelce broke up – obviously – and never really spoke again. Except when we run into each other at parties. He likes to bring it up from time to time. Like he wasn’t the reason why I got the nickname.

I decided that being a slut wasn’t really a thing, and after my first proper boyfriend, decided that I actually like having sex. That it feels good. And I've sent nudes again, after, cause I wanted to.

I act like it doesn’t bother me, and usually it doesn’t, but sometimes…Sometimes I just find myself wondering after I get with someone, if they’d seen the pictures. If they were just curious to see the ‘where are they now’ version or whatever.”

At your solemn laugh, JJ chuckles. He shakes his head at the reference.

You sigh and shrug, wiping at your face once more. The tears have begun to slow. It feels like a weight’s been lifted off your chest. Like you’re breathing properly, with both lungs, for the first time in five years. The truth behind your competitive nature and your need for control. The insecurity behind your relationships that you never voiced and never confronted, brushing it under the rug, always knowing it to be there.

The prod of JJ’s toe on your foot brings your attention back.

“Well, for what it’s worth, I really like the ‘where are they now’ version,” he says.

You laugh. It feels like he's picked a pebble from out of your heart, making it lighter. “You do?”

“Mhm.”

“And it doesn’t bother you that you’re dating ‘the slut of Kildare’?” As you say the stupid nickname, you put on a voice as if presenting royalty.

JJ’s hand finds yours and loops your fingers together. “Honestly, I’m honoured that she’s settled for me.”

“Settled?”

He shrugs, smiling at you. “Everybody knows I’m punching.”

You shake your head in disagreement, jokingly adding, “let’s not talk about punching for a while, m’kay?”

JJ laughs at that. He tugs you nearer as his humour dies down, though his smile stays, and you lie against his chest. A kiss is planted to the top of your forehead.

“Thanks for telling me all that.”

You look up to him and take in his face. The slant of his brows and the cupid’s bow of his lips, smiling at you like you’ve given him the secret to the universe in your childhood-trauma-tale. Nothing’s changed in the way he looks at you; he still just sees you. You’re not sure you’ve ever had somebody understand you in the way he does, and get you like him. You worry that you may never find someone like JJ again. It’s a stupid worry, because you haven’t lost him.

Leaning up to kiss him, feeling fully at ease once you do, you can’t help but wonder how the hell you got so lucky.

“I love you,” you tell him. You feel it’s the only way to verbalise all you want to tell him. The two of you had never been very good with words.

A flush comes to his cheeks and the smile he gives you is one that you know is reserved for your eyes. Could solve any problem and heal any injury.

JJ kisses you once more, hard and certain.

“I love you too.”

[sordidmusings]

Update! (Again lol): plans, loss, and music

Howdy doody! I’ll get to the fic stuff lickety split cuz I imagine that’s the most pertinent for most. Next TLC soon to be posted and the part after that under way again! Just have to finish up checking up the next section as it was done before but was one of the fics claimed by one of my cringy “want to delete my existence” moods 💀🤡 that’s where my ao3 and masterlist went too so whoops lol did save my stuff from getting posted under someone else’s name once so sometimes that cringe instinct works out for the better 👌🏻 still trying to kick the habit tho 💀 but yeah just gotta clean it over and get it back up again! Thank you for your patience 🤍

Comfort fic with Croc is well underway! Sorry that that’s taking longer than expected and an even bigger sorry to the request for Croc and reader team bonding smut cuz that boys been taking ten million years. Both of you, I appreciate your patience too and hope to make it worth the wait!!

X Marine reader headcanons almost done in their first part! Doing the first installment as general headcanons/vibe and the backstory for them, the second being a detailed how they met, and the third being a big event for the relationship like a confession or one saving the other or coming to terms with the relationship being doomed etc etc. it kinda spiraled out of control on ideas as I have a tendency to do sorry 😅

Besides a Law fic, those are the priorities right now tho there’s also kinktober to discuss. I’ve always always wanted to do kinktober but I’m still not good enough. I’ve been trying to do some prep for it and think I may be able to get many headcanons out for the month on it but again I’m not at a quality or in life circumstances where I can make it happen with actual fic this year.

And with life circumstances, yeah there’s business with jobs and obligations and taking care of people and trying to take care of myself, but my great struggle for the past stretch of weeks and onwards is the death of my mentor, friend, and father figure who was my piano teacher. He was older but it was very sudden and we’ve all been scrambling to contend with the loss of him and try to keep all the programs he was running afloat and keep his memory and influence alive. His reach in the music community and the genuine depth with which he connected to others is now a huge wound for many of us. He was a person of exceptional quality and heart. There’s a memorial concert for him mid October that I’m one of the performers in and I’m glad it’s forcing me to practice because piano has been really hurting. Everything has been. I was already struggling to keep on top of things and in the face of this I really am floundering pretty bad, despite trying to take care of it myself cuz I know I was already asking much of others having to listen to me sometimes and most people go mute in the face of death and I don’t want that to be my experience with others right now.

So to share something more positive in this experience, here is a snippet of the piece I’m polishing back up for the memorial concert.

You’ll hear me mention briefly in the middle a “church bells section”. I was talking with @gingernut1314 about this piece while showing her some other stuff and so I gave context about why I chose it for his memorial. For ease imma just pop in a copy of that lol

{This is from the piece that I’m polishing back up for Ian’s memorial concert! It’s the second movement of Debussy’s Images for Piano. I finished learning all three with Ian. The first is likely my favorite, the third is a MONSTER (but that atm just kinda makes me want to get that back up again too to Conquer it lol), but the second one has the right mood for a memorial and is the one I spent the most time working on with him for expression (took forever to get it right and some of it was still only like just almost there when my recital came around 🤡) and it was the one I think he was happiest with how I played in the end. The final bit of the movement is just breathtaking and peaceful tho it does end sad. Ian talked about his time studying in Europe and visiting France and church bells echo on the mountainside there and that that’s the type of imagery to evoke there. He was a devout man himself and I thought that that being the end to something I play for his memory would make him happy.}

Thank again sweet pea for your time listening to me play and talk about classical piano and such in general!!! I appreciate you 🧡🧡🧡 and thank you to any of you who give this vid a listen and have this post a read. I hope to bring actual substance and treats to you all soon!!! I working on it I swear 💀💀💀

On a final note that sums basically all this shit up, that mentioned Law fic is something I’ve been mucking through to process some by engaging with a death that isn’t related to me. So! It is a fic where reader helps Law finally open up all the festering feelings and thoughts he wouldn’t let himself express around Cora’s death. I’ll give a more proper shout out there, but thank you to the people who have shown me kindness and understanding and friendship in the past couple months. You all know who you are (hopefully haha) - I try to impress these things directly to you as well but it felt right to say it here as well. Interacting with you all has impacted me positivity and you all make the world a more welcoming and loving place 🤍🤍🤍

I’d also like to extend a thank you to anyone interacting with any of my posts! I often feel invisible and unworthy so acknowledgements even small and passing are a nice !!!! to my brain and I appreciate it❣️

Talk to yall soon!

Oh and as a stupid ps cuz I forget things and have nowhere else to put this random thought - expect some One Piece crochet content sometime dhdjfhkdnd I’m finally almost fuckin done with a damn Bepo design that’s been fighting me forever 😤😤😤 same with a Cora swan lol might sneak some regular crochet and more piano in there too for shits and giggles but we’ll see - anyone else get The Guilt when you post things that don’t feel like the thing you promised or should ehcjfjldmccl cuz this bitch do and it keeps me from doing like anything cuz I’ve got a clinical case of the Brain Sillies 🤷🏼‍♀️ anyway - smooches!!!!

Oh and if you’re afraid to comment or like cuz the death topic - I won’t think anyone is being an ass for not mentioning it lol I brought it up for context and because he is so important to me not because I expect people on a post to do something about it. So as with all my content, no worries!! This is a Chill Zone that just so happens to have sad hours semi regularly but we vibe lol

[luckynumber-8]

Been thinking a lot about the whole "Alastor redemption arc" as a possibility for Hazbin seasons future (2 or onwards, this has the potential to be a several-season narrative). I think, in order for Alastor to really change in character for the better (intentional or not) he has to completely fall apart first. Whatever corner he's been backed into by his deal will probably make him more and more desperate to do absolutely anything and use everyone he knows however he feels he needs to to free himself. And I mean ANYTHING - this guy is not only a psychopathic cannibalistic demon serial killer, but also a soul-owning overlord with serious control issues. He could go on a pretty dark spiral to feel like he's staying in control when he's really losing all semblance of it - especially when he considers himself an unredeemable villain, and he's proud of it (it makes him untouchable, or at least feel that way).

Bridges are going to get burned with the main cast, and he might destroy just about every good relationship he's built. But this is Hell, and if he's in a soul contract with either of the people who we all suspect, it's not going to go well for him, and he's going to hit rock-bottom when he realizes he no longer has any control AND no one to turn to.

But that's where Charlie comes in.

Yeah, she's going to be mad. The betrayal will sting, especially when you can see just how much she wants to see the good in Alastor. And I can't imagine we won't make it through Alastor's downfall arc without him cashing in his favor in some twisted way - even if it doesn't hurt anyone else, it'll hurt Charlie. She won't want to forgive him, and she'll distance herself dramatically, likely just enough for Alastor to go and get himself into trouble.

But Charlie (and her crew) has that unfortunate all-forgiving, all-accepting streak that gets her into trouble so often... when it really matters, she'll do whatever she can to save him because that's how she is. And because Alastor is Alastor, that might be finally enough to get through to him - somebody helping him out of a situation that he would have abandoned anyone else in, assuming that they'd leave him without a care because he betrayed them (because that's what he would do). And yet here she is, stubborn demon child, back to save him for what reason?? Out of the goodness her heart?? No one in hell does things like that. It's HELL.

Ridiculous. Impossible.

Or maybe not, because here she is.

((Bonus brainrot: I can also see like a reverse Stockholm lol (getting close to people to use them and then WHOOPS accidentally getting close to them for real). He already admitted some level of fondness (which, for Alastor, is saying something) to Niffty in that last balcony scene, probably because he views her like Pentious's egg boys - someone small and insignificant to everyone (at least pre-Adam stabbing lol) who spews crazy things all the time. He can tell her things because it doesn't matter if she repeats them; everyone takes what she says with a grain of salt.)

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

I love the way you write mess 🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰🦷🦷🦷🦷🦷🦷🦷🦷🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️

MORE MESS FOR YA <3

27 for 🔼:

---

It’s like the moment he’s gone, heavy thud of his footsteps fading down the hallway, the air temperature drops several degrees. Her whole body is still pulsing, but her head begins to clear. And with that clarity, comes horror. 

With one simple, ill-advised action, Shannon has ruined her life again. Set fire to everything around her. 

Oh fuck. Fuck. She can see it now. 

Buck will hate her.

Eddie will really hate her.What if Eddie hates Buck, too?

Maddie will hate her on Buck’s behalf.

Christopher and Ja- and the baby will suffer, because their parents hate each other. 

Why the hell did she do that? Why the hell does she insist on self-sabotaging? On ruining everything. 

She needs to fix this. If not for herself, then for everyone else. She needs to fix it quickly. Like, immediately. Before the narrative spirals out of control and people get more hurt. 

The last two times Shannon fucked up, she ran.Eddie won’t forgive her for it a third time, she thinks. So this time, she doesn’t run. This time, she picks up her phone. 

▶️

Eddie has less than two hours remaining in his shift when his phone rings. It hasn’t been a very busy shift. He’s sort of relaxed, honestly.

---

33 for ➰

---

“You’re supposed to be here fifteen minutes early.”

“Sorry, Brittany,” Buck frowns, feeling weirdly guilty. 

“How do you know my name?” She asks. 

Right. She had not introduced herself yet. And she’s not wearing a name tag. Whoops. 

It takes several minutes of pleading on Eddie’s part to get Brittany to concede to take them on the tour. Even so, her tour guide skills are notably reduced. She rushes more than she usually does and her enthusiasm is halved. She’s kind to Chris, but unimpressed with Buck and Eddie. Valid. They are kind of a mess this go-around. 

Whatever. The sex was worth it. He’s gotten in way worse trouble on account of good sex.

The real problem with their tardiness is not Brittany’s mood. It’s the kayak rack. By the time they’ve made it back to shore, the thing has already broken. It’s standing lopsided and creaking in the sand, taunting them. 

“What the fuck?” Buck accuses the empty metal rack. Eddie just stands, horrified, staring at it. “I thought the weight of the kayaks did it? Why did it break?”

“Uh…” Brittany looks really uncomfortable. “You guys can just leave your boats here and… And I’ll deal with this.”

“Why do you even care?” Christopher whispers.

Eddie just looks vaguely nauseated. 

---

24 for 🦷:

---

And Eddie knows it will be exactly right for him. Exactly what he needs. A partner who is good for him, just as he is, who he loves and is actually attracted to. Someone he trusts, not just with his son, but with himself, too. If Eddie can get there, it’ll be everything. As long as he doesn’t fuck it up. 

Which is never a sure thing, with Eddie.

iii.

The day before Christopher’s surgery, Eddie accidentally comes out to him. 

Not that he wasn’t going to. He always planned on doing it.. But he sort of thought right after he and his child reconciled, and right before he gets surgery to correct the tremendous amounts of pain he’s in is not the right time. And nevertheless, that’s when it happens. Eddie and his track record of stellar timing. 

It happens like this. 

They’re driving to grab some things for Christopher to have while he’s recovery. Ice cream. Jello. Healthier options. Like yogurt. Lots of Gatorade. Not because he needs it but because he loves the orange flavor. 

“What did you have while you recovered from your surgery?” Chris asks, holding up a tub of mint ice cream. The kind Eddie mentioned Shannon having after her own wisdom teeth extraction. 

---

30 for 🛏️:

---

So innocent. 

They’re sitting next to each other on the floor. Hands inches apart. And Eddie just sort of walks his fingers over, so their pinkies are touching. He waits to see if Buck will retract his hand, and of course Buck doesn’t. Buck would stay like this forever. Eddie slips his pinky overtop of Buck’s, hooking them together very loosely. 

Gentle and sweet. 

Neither of them says anything. 

That night, when they go to sleep, they lay on their backs. Arms touching. Buck is careful to keep still. 

iii.

“I’m sorry, what?” Tommy asks, two days later. “Eddie is still staying with you?”

It’s date night. They’re at a little sushi place that Tommy swears up and down by. Best in Southern California. Buck’s definitely had better but he doesn’t say as much. This is fine. It’ll do. 

“Yeah,” Buck replies. “He is.”

Eddie hasn’t gone home. Hasn’t mentioned going home. What’s Buck going to do? Evict him? No way. He likes having him there. 

Tommy scoffs. 

[idontknowreallywhy]

Tried but failed to reach a conclusion on what I’m loosely calling the paint mystery but the majority of the chapters have deviated so wildly from any kind of plot that I may have to rethink whether it’s a story or just a collection of scenes.

Unrefined, unedited previous bits for reference:

Bit the first

Bit the second

Bit the third

The interlude after the third where I lost control of the characters and everyone went a bit nuts

Now, Bit the fourth which was supposed to be the end but that still eludes me… ALL the thanks to @astranite @womble1 and @sofasurf for the beta reading and suggestions and encouragement and to the Thunderfam generally for being a friendly safe community to practice a new thing within.

Light

A rush of harmonics drowned out Two’s steady hum as her sister raced up beneath her and barrel-rolled overhead before shooting off into the Californian twilight. Virgil watched as her vapour trail angled up, up, up and over backwards before taking a steep dive and spiralling back towards where he and Gordon watched in various shades of amusement and baffled awe.

“How is he still conscious?” Gordon murmured. “I’d be either sick… or dead. Ugh… nope, definitely dead.”

Virgil watched as his elder brother steered the rocket plane into the vertical zigzag he recognised as the signature move of the ‘Vomit Comet’ Scott had piloted for the trainee astronauts during his 6 month NASA secondment from the Air Force.

“He doesn’t have a… normal relationship with G force, Fish, you know that.”

As if to prove the point, One screamed past them, spinning, and doubled back to overtake at a distance which set Two’s proximity sensors blaring.

Again.

Virgil cringed and covered his ears.

John’s wry smile materialised in front of them. 

“Aunt Val is going to be inundated with emails from the alien spotters again isn’t she?”

Virgil snorted. Then sighed.

“Should we… you know, rein our dear flyboy in a little?”

There was a delighted snicker in the background as John coughed uncomfortably.

“He couldn’t doooo it” came the familiar singsong voice of Virgil’s digital niece. John, who now appeared to be heavily focused on brushing non-existent dust from his baldric, frowned slightly.

“I did open a comm with him, yes.”

“And?”

“He was… whooping, Virgil.”

It was Gordon’s turn to snort. He looked up from his tablet where he’d already accessed the usual conspiracy theory websites to check for new flying saucer sightings over Arizona.

“What, Scott? Pfft, seems unlikely”

John raised an eyebrow and patched in the audio from One’s cockpit.

Virgil’s breath caught in his throat as he was accosted by a sound he hadn’t heard since his brother was a teenager. Warm, hearty, unfettered laughter punctuated by… yes, that could only be described as a whoop… and then an elated giggle. 

Virgil was aware that to most people sound didn’t have colour but it was second nature to him. Scott’s usual speaking voice was a familiar steely blue, rich and dependable. It could deepen to almost navy if he was angered or concerned, or gain highlights of cerulean when he was amused or speaking affectionately. Now it was as if an arc of blazing summer sky was overlaid on the late evening clouds ahead of them, marred only by the static effect of the comm. Virgil was overwhelmed by a sudden longing to hear his brother laughing properly, truly, untainted by digital interference and simultaneously afraid the opportunity to do so would never arise.

Nobody moved, not waiting to break the spell. Then One did it for them, as her pilot pushed her into yet another feat of aerobatic madness and her own burning white squeals of delight muffled those of the man at the controls.

John muted the feed. Virgil releases the breath he was holding and swallowed, glancing at Gordon whose jaw had almost parted company with his face, his tablet hanging from a limp hand, his mission of winding up the ufologists forgotten. 

It was sobering to realise how infrequently a website tracking the rare and precious phenomena of happy-carefree-Scott would be updated. He met John’s eye and inclined his head. He couldn’t intervene either. Drop kicking a puppy would be less morally questionable.

“How’s his fuel?”

John’s gaze shifted upwards as a graceful sweep of his left hand obviously brought up some kind of display and a swift flick of the right closed something else down. Virgil was momentarily distracted by the image of his elegant brother conducting a symphony orchestra from space, his attention snapping back as he noticed the slight furrow in John’s brow.

“Low, I take it?”

“At this rate he’ll drop into F tank in about 10 minutes. Which will get him home if he flies in a straight line…”

“If.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s F tank when it’s at home?” Gordon had abandoned his tablet and was observing his elder brothers’ with overt curiosity.

John rolled his eyes. Virgil bit his lip and radiated guilt. Scott had never been told about that particular upgrade to his ship and it always made him uneasy to keep such a secret but the secrecy was necessary for it to work as intended.

“Gordon you have to swear to keep this to yourself… but you remember all those times when the paragon of caution that is our big brother has reassured us his fuel supply was “Fine” when One was actually running on fumes?” 

More like the distant memory of fumes in some cases. His little brother of course knew all too well because he’d flown enough missions himself to take fuel to whatever godforsaken location Scott had stranded himself in.

“Well… Brains and I installed a little extra tank about which the fuel gauge is ignorant and so is One’s primary pilot.”

Gordon appeared to ponder this for a minute.

“Won’t that just make him believe he really can fly on fumes?”

“Precisely what I said” John threw a hand in the air. “I had suggested a flow rate limiter instead, so she can’t do more than Mach 6 once the gauge gets below a certain level”

“But that’s slower than the Big Green Mom Bag!”

“Oi!” the Mom Bag’s pilot objected “But, yes. Can you imagine what his reaction would have been if…” Another screech of scram jets announced One’s return from who knew where and she decelerated with a shudder to match Thunderbird Two’s more sedate pace, flying above and just a nose ahead with her pilot looking down at them and flipping a cheeky salute. Virgil nudged the comms open again:

“Having fun, you big show-off?”

Scott’s hologram appeared, all shark-like grin and wildly dilated pupils. Virgil found himself leaning back into his chair, slightly intimidated by the intensity of his sibling’s manic expression.

“Well?! What are you going to PLAY?!”

Three younger brothers performed a perfectly synchronised double-take.

“P-play?”

“The concert, short stuff! What are you going to play in the concert? You should play that one that that goes ba-da-da-da da da ba-da-da-da da da da dum…” and then One was spiralling off again in a roar of jet engines, her pilot’s hologram blurring into incomprehensibility from the vibrations and leaving his younger brother blinking in confusion.

He shut off the comm before it gave them all a headache. At some point prior to the spontaneous post-tornado-rescue singalong in the school hall, their old teacher Ms Knighton had accosted Virgil and persuaded him to be the guest soloist at a benefit concert she was already planning to fundraise for disaster relief in their hometown. ‘Persuaded’ wasn’t quite the right word. He wasn’t aware that he’d actually been given any kind of an option. The woman was a tidal wave of organisation and he’d been well and truly swept along.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about it anyway. He’d not played in front of anybody but family since their Mom had passed and he hadn’t planned to either, for all that the idea gave him a tiny flutter of anticipation. He’d been meaning to send an apology citing work commitments later that week.

THIS was what had got Scott so excited?

He squirmed guiltily as he’d begun to theorise that his renowned flirt of a brother had encountered an old flame during the course of the evening and that was what had caused the adrenaline spike. But, it seemed Scott wasn’t celebrating for himself at all. This vanishingly rare level of joy from his big brother, was on HIS behalf?

He suddenly pictured Scott sat in the front row of every little school performance, even the ones Mom couldn’t get to. He’d always put the constantly jiggling denim-clad legs down to frustration at having to sit still and listen rather than climb and run but then… maybe that wasn’t it at all?

There was the gift of the electronic piano… and that time his brother flew back from college to talk round his father who’d objected to Virgil’s nervous suggestion that maybe he could do joint honours music alongside his engineering degree. Granted, when he realised IR on the horizon, Virgil had changed his mind and decided to keep music just as a hobby but thanks to his brother, it had been HIS decision to make. 

Now he thought about it, he couldn’t think of a single occasion when he’d sat and played the lounge piano where Scott wasn’t either at dad’s desk, on the sofa, or leaning against the body of the instrument chatting or just watching with a fond smile.

Scott had been his cheerleader at every step.

“Earth to Viiiirg!” Gordon leaned over and poked him in the side of the head. “So what are you going to play then?” Virgil smiled awkwardly and rubbed away the sudden excess of water in his eyes.

“Guess I’d better figure out what “ba-da-da-da da da” is.”

[this-strange-obsession]

OHHHH MY GOD I HAVE BEEN AWOKEN I’VE FELT LIKE SHIT THIS WHOLE WEEK BUT THE UPDATE IS MORE FUCKING IMPORTANT

Long conspiracy theories ahead whoops

First of all, light-hearted appreciation for these sexy mfs

Jekyll looks curvy asf in the first panel and I am LIVING for it. Also simping for the back and shoulder blades. Been living for those and Lanyon’s shoulder freckles—

AND WHY DOES JEKYLL LOOK CUTE IN THESE THREE PANELS WTF. I WANNA PINCH HIS CHUBBY CHEEKS. (Ugh my lonely ass needs to find a partner to have fluffy moments with..)

He literally looks 20 years younger than the previous chapters for obvious reasons. Lanyon’s right, I’ve never seen him so goddamn content either.

ANYWAY-

I personally don’t believe Lanyon fucked Hyde. Not just because I refuse to accept it if it were true, but because he would’ve DEFINITELY noticed while they were getting down and dirty. He’s the type to want a lotta eye contact, so I think this really was a split-second merging.

And yes- merging. I believe Jekyll would’ve also noticed Hyde seizing control in this moment. But he doesn’t have any reaction at all, even to Lanyon’s fearful expression.

I think Jekyll was blissfully basking in the moment after and was consequently oblivious to reading facial cues.

They merged for a tiny bit because Jekyll is accepting ALL of himself when he’s with Lanyon. (Aww how sweet..)

HOWEVER that’s not to say Hyde didn’t have any part to play in this merging.

Hyde typically takes advantage of Jekyll’s emotional vulnerability quickly because the previous scenes were “flashes in the pan” and Hyde could’ve missed them if he didn’t pounce. But this instance was more stable and drawn out. Jekyll was more.. sure of himself.

I think that those feelings bled through the separation. Hyde also got a little carried away by his own emotions and spiraled. He subconsciously took half the wheel after feeling such strong longing for Lanyon.

All that to say, I have three theories on how Sage is going to begin the next chapter:

1. Lanyon wakes up and tries to casually ask about Jekyll’s eyes while they’re having a domestic moment like making tea for each other or something. Jekyll freaks tf out obviously and acts really suspicious. He gives a bunch of excuses and dodges the question. Lanyon eventually drops the subject, but it overall strains their relationship.

2. (not likely) Lanyon wakes up and rolls over. He notices Henry has been replaced by a sleeping Edward Hyde. I can’t imagine where it would go from there since we still have an entire ACT to go through. I imagine Sage is saving the full reveal for half-way through or near the end. I just can vividly picture how the page would look idk.

3. Instead of Lanyon, Hyde wakes up first. A red-eyed Hyde wakes up first. He’s loosing his shit while fumbling to pull his pants back on. The two halves are partially merged and neither knows what in hell to do. In a kinda dick move, Hyde leaves and returns to the Society. This strains the relationship because Lanyon wakes up and is like wtf. He goes looking for Jekyll there but it seems both him and Hyde are avoiding him.