#will isn’t in this bit or this chapter but he’s kinda like god

[theetherealbloom]

IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU - CH.4

Chapter Four: Everybody Wonders What It Would Be Like To Love You

Summary: You find yourself sharing a hotel suite with Pedro Pascal while working on the set of Fantastic Four: First Steps. Despite your different roles—he’s the star, and you’re behind the scenes. Nothing could ever happen between you two… right?

Paring: Pedro Pascal x F!Reader

Warnings: Age-Gap Romance (Not Specified), Eventual SMUT, Crush, FLUFF, Slight Angst, Trope(s), Swearing, Anxiety, Lots of Cliches, Cheesy Dialogue, Romance, Kissing, Real People Fiction, Cameras, Paparazzi, Social Media, Swoonworthy, One-Room Trope, They were roommates, Strangers-to-Lovers, Actors, Hallmark Tropes, the reader can sing and play guitar, the reader is shorter than Pedro, the reader has hair, Alternate Universe, Awkward!Reader, Shy!Reader, Fan Girl!Reader, Cringe, Embarrassment, Starstruck, Bullying, Physicological Bullying, Mean Girls,

Word Count: 6.4k

A/N: Heads up, there’s a bully in this chapter but dw, you got Pedro on your side hehe. Again, this is all fictional. To any Cecilia’s out there in irl, no hate to you girl, I don’t even know you LOL.

Side note: I’m dyslexic and English isn’t my first language! So I apologize in advance for the spelling and/or grammatical errors. As always, reblogs, comments, and likes are always appreciated. Thank you and happy reading!

Song: gold rush by Taylor Swift

Previous Chapter → Next Chapter | Series Masterlist |Main Masterlist|

PINEWOOD STUDIOS — MORNING  

The hum of set life surrounded you like a familiar melody—the rhythmic chatter of crew members, the distant clatter of equipment being adjusted, the occasional burst of laughter from someone off-camera. You moved through it all with ease, exchanging quick words with a fellow PA as you double-checked the last-minute details before call time.  

You didn’t notice him watching you.  

Pedro sat in the makeup chair, already in costume, his eyes drifting away from the mirror as Coco worked her hands through his hair. His body was still, but his mind was somewhere else. Or rather—on someone else.  

It was the way you tilted your head as someone from production rattled off instructions, your brows furrowing slightly in concentration. The way you shifted your weight from one foot to the other, nodding once before offering a soft, assured smile. You weren’t just hearing what they were saying—you were listening, absorbing every detail like you belonged here. Like you had always belonged.  

He felt something tighten in his chest.  

God, you made him feel strange.  

It was the words that stuck in his throat when you were near, the way his pulse stuttered for no damn reason. The way his thoughts—usually so steady, so controlled—felt unruly around you. It was dizzying. Unsettling.  

It had been a long time since he’d felt like this. Since he’d been caught so completely off guard by someone.  

And yet, he couldn’t stop himself from looking for you.  

In the crowd. In the moments between takes. In the quiet spaces where he thought maybe—just maybe—you were looking for him, too.

PINEWOOD STUDIOS — AFTERNOON

Lunch break rolled around, bringing a much-needed lull in the day’s chaos. The crew scattered—some retreating to their trailers, others grabbing quick bites from catering, the energy shifting into something looser, more relaxed.  

Your phone buzzed just as you were sitting down at one of the outdoor tables, the screen lighting up with a message.  

Pedro: Wanna grab a bite later?  

You smiled to yourself, thumbs already moving across the screen.  

You: I do, but I kinda wanna hang with my friends for a bit too.  

His response came almost immediately.  

Pedro: Oh yeah, of course. Mind if I tag along?

You hesitated for half a second. Not because you didn’t want him there—but because you weren’t sure if he really wanted to be there.  

You: Are you sure? 

Pedro: Obviously.  

So that’s how Pedro Pascal ended up at lunch with you and your friends, settling into the group like he had always belonged there.  

He was easy to talk to, of course. He charmed his way through introductions, seamlessly jumping into conversations, laughing in all the right places, making everyone feel like they were the most interesting person in the room. But his attention always had a way of drifting back to you.  

The way you scrunched your nose as you tried to pick apart a joke someone had made. The way your eyes lit up as you talked about some old inside story with your friends. The way you were currently demolishing a cookie like it was the best thing you’d ever tasted.  

Pedro noticed.  

He didn’t say anything, but he noticed.  

His lips twitched as you took another enthusiastic bite, completely unaware of his amusement.  

There were other things, too—subtle things. The brush of his knee against yours under the table, lingering just a second longer than necessary. The way his fingers would graze your wrist when he leaned in to say something, as if testing the waters. The way his eyes would flick to your lips when you spoke before quickly darting away, as if he hadn’t meant to.  

And then, of course, there was the teasing.  

"Did you even taste that cookie, or did you just inhale it?" Pedro mused, finally breaking his silence, amusement lacing his voice.  

You swallowed the last bite, leveling him with a mock glare. "It’s really good."  

He smirked. "Clearly."  

"Don’t judge me."  

"Never." The word came softer than expected, a little too sincere for just teasing. His gaze held yours for a beat longer than necessary, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes.  

Your heart stuttered.  

He looked away first, but not before you caught the slightest hint of pink creeping up the tips of his ears. It was such a small thing—barely there, really—but you noticed. And it made something warm unfurl in your chest.  

The conversation around the table carried on, your friends swapping stories and teasing each other between bites of food. Pedro chimed in here and there, laughing along, but every now and then, you felt his gaze flick back to you.  

You were hyper-aware of him now. The way his arm rested casually on the back of your chair, not quite touching but close enough that you could feel his warmth. The way his fingers absentmindedly drummed against the table, his other hand occasionally brushing against yours as he reached for his drink.  

Then, he sighed, pulling his phone from his pocket, frowning slightly at the screen.  

"Ugh, my phone’s about to die."  

Without hesitation, you reached into your bag, pulling out your power bank and a charging cord. "Oh, no worries, here—use this."  

Pedro blinked, momentarily caught off guard.  

You handed it over without a second thought, already turning back to your food. But he didn’t move to plug his phone in right away. Instead, he just looked at you, something unreadable in his expression.  

His fingers brushed against yours as he took the charger, his touch lingering just a fraction longer than necessary.  

“You just carry this around with you?” he asked, his voice quieter now, something softer beneath the teasing edge.  

You shrugged, popping another bite of food into your mouth. “Yeah, of course. Never know when you might need it.”  

His lips quirked, but he didn’t say anything right away.  

Instead, he plugged in his phone, then glanced back at you, shaking his head slightly like he couldn’t quite believe you.  

"What?" you asked, raising an eyebrow.  

Pedro exhaled a small laugh, tucking the power bank into his lap like it was something precious. "Nothing. You’re just—" He paused, searching for the right word, before finally settling on, "—thoughtful."  

Something about the way he said it made your stomach flip.  

You swallowed, suddenly feeling self-conscious under his gaze. "It’s just a charger, Pedro."  

"Yeah," he murmured, still watching you. "I know."  

But his expression said something else entirely.

You weren’t sure what to do with that look—the quiet weight of his gaze, the way he seemed to be memorizing you like you were something worth studying. So, instead of dwelling on it, you reached into your bag and pulled out your notepad and pen.

Doodling had always been second nature to you. Something to keep your hands busy while your mind wandered. While your friends continued chatting, their voices washing over you in waves, you let your pen glide over the paper in absentminded strokes.

Pedro, however, wasn’t nearly as distracted.

From the corner of his eye, he watched, his attention flicking between you and the small spirals and shapes forming beneath your fingers. It was mesmerizing in a way he didn’t expect. The way your brow furrowed ever so slightly when you concentrated. The way your pen tapped softly against the pad before committing to a new line.

He shifted in his seat, subtly angling himself so he could get a better look.

It wasn’t just mindless scribbles.

You were sketching. Really sketching.

A rough outline of the restaurant table, the glasses, the crumpled napkins. And just beside that, the faint beginnings of a face—strong jaw, slightly furrowed brows, lips curved at the edges as if they were on the verge of a smirk.

His lips.

Pedro’s throat tightened.

"That me?" he asked, voice pitched just low enough for only you to hear.

Your pen paused mid-stroke, and you glanced up at him, caught. He wasn’t teasing, not really. If anything, there was something almost—fond—about the way he was looking at you.

You shrugged, offering a sheepish smile. "Maybe."

Pedro huffed out a laugh, shaking his head. "I didn’t know you could draw."

"It’s just something I do when I’m listening," you admitted, flipping the page like it was nothing.

But he didn’t think it was nothing.

He wanted to say something else, something lighthearted to keep you from looking so shy about it, but before he could, one of your friends called your name, pulling your attention away.

Pedro exhaled, leaning back in his seat, but his gaze lingered on you for a moment longer.

Thoughtful. Talented.

Yeah. He was absolutely in trouble.

PINEWOOD STUDIOS — AFTERNOON

The shift in the air was subtle at first, almost imperceptible.

But you felt it.

It was the way certain conversations would quiet just as you approached. The way people who had once been warm and welcoming now exchanged knowing glances when they thought you weren’t looking. The way whispers followed in your wake, hushed giggles that felt anything but good-natured.

And at the center of it all was Cecilia.

She was the kind of woman people noticed when she walked into a room—stunning, sharp-witted, and utterly ruthless when it came to getting what she wanted.

And for whatever reason, she had decided that you were a problem.

At first, it was small things. A pointed look. A lingering smirk. A brush of her shoulder against yours as she passed by.

But then, it escalated.

"Did you hear?" one of her friends whispered just loud enough as you walked by. "She totally forced her way onto this project. Some kind of nepotism thing, I bet."

"Ugh, so cringe," another voice giggled. "She acts all sweet, but like, we know the truth."

You gritted your teeth, kept your head down, and moved along.

You weren’t stupid. You knew exactly what this was. Psychological warfare disguised as petty gossip. You’d seen it before, and you'd see it again.

The worst part?

You refused to let it get to you.

At least, that’s what you told yourself.

Pedro noticed.

It started with the way you brushed things off too quickly, like you were trying not to care. The way your usual smiles didn’t quite reach your eyes. The way your laugh—one of his new favorite sounds—had dulled just a fraction, too forced, too polite.

And Pedro wasn’t an idiot.

He saw the way Cecilia and her group slinked around set like vipers, the way their eyes always seemed to flick toward you before whispering behind manicured hands.

It pissed him off.

But when he asked about it, you just waved it away.

“Nothing’s wrong.” You shrugged, reaching for a prop clipboard. “Just tired. Long day.”

Pedro arched a brow. “Really? That’s it?”

“Yep.”

He studied you for a moment, then exhaled through his nose. “You’re a terrible liar.”

That made you scoff. “I am fine.”

“Uh-huh.” He crossed his arms, tilting his head slightly. “So, you’re totally cool with the whole… weird vibe around here lately?”

You hesitated. Just for a second.

It was enough.

“Pedro,” you sighed, shaking your head. “It’s not a big deal. I don’t care what they think, okay? It’s just… you know how some people are. They get bored.”

“They get mean,” he corrected.

You frowned, looking away.

He softened, tilting his head to meet your gaze. “You don’t have to pretend it doesn’t suck.”

You swallowed, fingers tightening around the clipboard.

“It doesn’t suck,” you insisted. “Because I don’t care.”

Pedro’s stare was unwavering, but you held your ground.

Because if you admitted it did hurt—if you let yourself feel it—you weren’t sure you’d be able to stop.

And you weren’t going to let them win.

Pedro sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Fine. You don’t care," he murmured. "But if you ever do care… you’ll tell me, right?"

Something in your chest tightened at that.

You forced a small, teasing smile. “Wow, Pedro. That almost sounded like a serious conversation.”

He rolled his eyes but smirked. "Yeah, yeah. Don’t get used to it."

And just like that, the tension cracked, relief flickering behind his gaze.

For now, he’d let you pretend you were fine.

But he’d also be watching.

TWO DAYS BEFORE THE WEEKEND…

PINEWOOD STUDIOS — MORNING

The next two days were a slow, grating kind of miserable.

It started with small things—so small that if you weren’t paying attention, you might have convinced yourself they were nothing. The way conversations would quiet just as you walked past, the barely-concealed laughter from across the room, the occasional, suspiciously misplaced item that had definitely been right where you left it.

It was the kind of thing that chipped away at you in small, insidious ways.

Like the way Cecilia and her friends would conveniently stand right where you needed to go, their backs turned but their voices just loud enough.

“I swear, some people just don’t belong here.”

You’d walk past without reacting, even as the words burrowed under your skin.

Or the way your neatly organized stack of call sheets had been mysteriously scattered all over the breakroom counter when you came back from a coffee run. No one claimed responsibility, but Cecilia had walked by, tossing you a slow, syrupy-sweet, “Oops, was that important?” before sauntering off.

You clenched your jaw. Breathed through it.

Not worth it.

But then there were the more deliberate moments.

Like the wardrobe rack incident.

You had been helping move costumes between trailers when Cecilia and one of her friends conveniently brushed past, sending a precariously hung dress tumbling to the ground.

“Oh no,” Cecilia pouted, pressing a hand to her chest with mock concern. “You should really be more careful.”

You bent to pick it up, biting back the sharp retort on the tip of your tongue. The last thing you needed was to give her the satisfaction of a reaction.

Still, your fingers trembled slightly as you smoothed out the fabric and rehung it.

Then, there was lunch.

You had been balancing a plate of food in one hand, your phone in the other, when one of Cecilia’s friends accidentally knocked your elbow in passing.

It was a tiny movement. Just enough to send your fork clattering to the floor, just enough to make you hesitate—because was it intentional? Or were you just being paranoid?

“Careful,” the girl sing-songed over her shoulder, giggling as she caught up with Cecilia.

You let out a slow breath. Swallowed back the lump in your throat.

Not worth it.

So you kept your head up, kept moving, kept going. You told yourself that if you didn’t acknowledge it, if you pretended it didn’t exist, then it couldn’t touch you.

Right?

But it did.

Because by the time you got back to your trailer that night, you had to sit on the edge of your bed and press the heels of your hands into your eyes, breathing slow, measured breaths to keep yourself from crying.

Because it was working.

Because no matter how much you told yourself you were fine, no matter how much you smiled and laughed and acted unbothered, the cracks were starting to show.

You barely had a moment to yourself.  

Between running last-minute errands for production, keeping up with the crew’s rapid-fire instructions, and dodging the subtle but constant hostility radiating from Cecilia and her group, you were stretched thin.  

The exhaustion was creeping in—settling in the space between your ribs, behind your eyes, in the way your shoulders sat just a little tighter than usual.  

But you wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.  

So you pushed through, past the carefully calculated inconveniences. The way they always seemed to cut in front of you when you were in a hurry, the stolen side-eyes and smirks exchanged whenever you spoke in a group, the way your things somehow always ended up in different places than you’d left them.  

You pretended not to notice when Cecilia’s voice turned just a little too loud whenever she spoke to someone near you.  

"Oh my god, you know what I hate? When people think just anyone can belong in this industry. Like… babe, you’re only here because they needed extra hands. It’s cute, though."  

You told yourself not to react.  

Even when Daisy—who had been standing beside you, her grip tightening on her clipboard—made a noise that sounded a lot like she was about to launch herself across the room.  

“It’s whatever,” you had muttered, tugging her back before she could make a scene.  

Daisy had narrowed her eyes. “It’s not whatever. She’s being a bitch.”  

You had only sighed. “I know.”  

Omar wasn’t as easily convinced.  

The next morning, when you found him loitering near Cecilia’s usual coffee spot, arms crossed and expression unreadable, you had to physically drag him away before he did something stupid.  

“Do not get yourself in trouble over this.”  

“She’s messing with you,” he seethed. “I hate people like her.”  

“She’s not worth it,” you said, but even to your own ears, your voice sounded too thin, too tight.  

Omar wasn’t buying it. “Okay, but are you okay?”  

You hesitated. The truth was, you weren’t sure anymore.  

The worst part wasn’t the pettiness or the whispered insults—it was the fact that it was working. That somehow, in all the noise and nonsense, they had managed to make you feel small.  

But admitting that felt too much like defeat.  

So you forced a smile. “I’m fine.”  

Omar gave you a long, knowing look before muttering something under his breath and stalking off.  

That afternoon, as you sat on a bench outside the studio, your notebook balanced on your lap, you felt a shadow fall over you.  

“Hey,” Pedro’s voice was soft.  

You glanced up, startled. “Oh. Hey.”  

His brows knit together. “You okay?”  

You blinked. “What?”  

“You’ve been… different.” His voice was measured, careful. “Quieter.”  

You tried to play it off, shaking your head with a small laugh. “I’m just tired. Long shoot days, you know how it is.”  

Pedro didn’t look convinced.  

For a moment, he just stood there, watching you with that steady, unreadable gaze of his. Like he was sifting through the words you weren’t saying, trying to make sense of them.  

Then, without another word, he sat down beside you.  

Close enough that his arm brushed against yours.  

You tensed, just slightly, before exhaling.  

Neither of you spoke for a moment.  

Then—  

“Can I see?” he asked, nodding toward your notebook.  

You hesitated.  

It was just mindless doodles—tiny flowers curling around the corners of the pages, half-finished sketches of set pieces, a rough outline of something that might have been Pedro’s profile if you hadn’t abandoned it halfway through.  

You felt a little embarrassed, but you handed it to him anyway.  

Pedro flipped through the pages, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “These are really good.”  

You rolled your eyes. “They’re just sketches.”  

“Still,” he murmured, fingers skimming over the paper. “They’re yours.”  

There was something about the way he said it—soft, sincere—that made your stomach tighten.  

For the first time in two days, something in you eased.  

You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding.  

And when Pedro leaned in, just slightly, warmth radiating from his shoulder where it rested against yours, you didn’t move away.

Pedro was still flipping through your sketches when a sharp, saccharine voice cut through the air.  

“Oh wow, there you are, Pedro. I was wondering when you’d finally come up for air.”  

Cecilia.  

You felt your whole body go rigid.  

Pedro barely glanced up, his fingers still tracing one of your sketches absentmindedly. “Hey.” His voice was flat, distracted.  

She took a step closer, her presence invasive in a way that made your skin prickle. “I was just telling the others how dedicated you are to your work. You know, always finding ways to get into character.” Her gaze flicked toward you, her smile not quite reaching her eyes. “Even off set.”  

You swallowed hard.  

Your chest felt tight, exhaustion pressing against your ribs, making it harder to keep your expression neutral. You were already hanging by a thread, stretched too thin over the last two days, and Cecilia knew it.  

Pedro, still looking down at your notebook, gave a vague hum of acknowledgment, barely engaging. It wasn’t the reaction Cecilia had been hoping for, and you could see it. The way her expression twitched for half a second before smoothing over again.  

She tilted her head, the corners of her mouth curling. “It’s sweet, though. That you take the time to entertain people. I mean, it’s not like everyone gets that kind of attention from you.” She let out a light, airy laugh that made your stomach turn. “Guess it pays to be in the right place at the right time, huh?”  

The implication was clear.  

You clenched your jaw, willing yourself not to react.  

But then—  

“Cecilia,” Pedro’s voice was calm, but there was an edge to it now. His fingers tapped against the notebook, his expression unreadable. “What are you doing?”  

Cecilia blinked, all faux innocence. “What do you mean?”  

Pedro finally lifted his head, and when he met her gaze, something in his expression shifted—something sharp, something distinctly unimpressed.  

“I mean, what are you doing?” His voice was just as smooth as before, but there was weight behind it now. “Because if you’re here to talk about the shoot, you should probably be talking to the crew.”  

Cecilia’s smile faltered.  

It was subtle, but you caught it.  

She opened her mouth, probably to smooth things over, but Pedro was already looking back at you, tilting the notebook toward you slightly, as if she weren’t even standing there.  

“You should finish this one,” he murmured, tapping his finger against the half-finished sketch of his profile. “It’s really good.”  

You could feel Cecilia’s eyes burning into you, but Pedro wasn’t giving her anything to work with.  

Her lips parted, like she might try again, but then she seemed to think better of it. Instead, she let out a small, sharp exhale through her nose, rolling her eyes as she turned on her heel and stalked off.  

The moment she was gone, you let out a slow, shaky breath, your hands gripping your notebook a little tighter.  

Pedro glanced over, brow furrowed. “You okay?”  

You nodded, even though your throat was tight. “I just…” A deep inhale. “I think I need a break.”  

Pedro studied you for a long moment. Then, without a word, he reached out, resting his hand over yours where it lay against the bench.  

Warm. Steady.  

Grounding.  

“Let’s take one, then,” he murmured.  

And for the first time in days, you let yourself lean into it.

The evening air was crisp, carrying the lingering scent of rain on the pavement as the last of the crew wrapped up for the day. You were exhausted, your body aching from hours on set, but when Pedro leaned in—voice low and warm—you felt something in you unwind.  

“Wanna grab dinner before heading back?”  

You blinked up at him, a little caught off guard. “Like… out-out?”  

His lips quirked into a small smile, hands slipping into the pockets of his jeans. “Yeah. Out-out.”  

You hesitated, glancing around as crew members bustled past, some already heading toward the shuttle van waiting to take everyone back to the hotel. “But, like… what if people see me with you?”  

Pedro gave you a look. “So?”  

“So… you’re you,” you gestured vaguely at him, “and I’m just—”  

He cut you off with a quiet scoff, shaking his head. “Nope. We’re not doing that again. You’re you. And I wanna have dinner with you. End of discussion.”  

The finality in his tone made your stomach flip.  

You bit your lip, then nodded. “…Okay.”  

Pedro’s face softened, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he bumped your shoulder lightly. “Good.”  

By the time you both made it to the shuttle van, most of the cast and crew were already piling in.  

Vanessa was the first to notice. She raised an eyebrow, a slow grin spreading across her face. “Ohhh, where are you two off to?”  

Before you could answer, Joseph leaned forward from his seat. “Are we witnessing a secret rendezvous?”  

Ebon chuckled, shaking his head. “A little late-night dinner date?”  

Coco, already buckled in, smirked knowingly. “Have funnnn,” she teased, dragging out the last syllable.  

You rolled your eyes, heat creeping up your neck. Pedro, for his part, was completely unfazed, flashing them an easy smile as he opened the door for you. “Don’t wait up,” he called, earning a chorus of laughter and whistles from the others as he shut it behind you.  

The restaurant wasn’t far—a quiet little spot tucked away from the main streets. The walk there was peaceful, the city buzzing around you but never pressing in too close.  

Pedro, dressed down in a hoodie, jeans, a baseball cap, and his glasses, was trying his best to blend in. But even like this, effortlessly casual, he still had a presence. He still walked like he took up space, like the world had to move around him.  

The height difference was almost comical. You felt it every time he turned his head down to look at you, every time his arm brushed against yours.  

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked suddenly, breaking the comfortable silence.  

You glanced up at him, caught off guard. “What?”  

Pedro gave you a look, one that made it clear he wasn’t buying whatever act you thought you were pulling. “Cecilia.”  

Your stomach twisted.  

You exhaled slowly, shaking your head. “It’s not a big deal.”  

Pedro stopped walking.  

You took two more steps before realizing, turning back to find him standing there, arms crossed, brows drawn together in frustration.  

He looked at you, really looked at you. “Of course, it’s a big deal,” he said, voice quieter now but firm. “If it’s hurting you, it’s a big deal.”  

You swallowed.  

The weight of his concern settled over you, warm and heavy. No one had ever really said that before. That what you were feeling mattered. That you weren’t just overreacting.  

Something in your chest cracked open, just a little.  

“…I just don’t want to make a thing out of it,” you admitted, voice small.  

Pedro’s features softened. He stepped closer, dipping his head slightly to meet your eyes. “You don’t have to,” he murmured. “But you don’t have to pretend it doesn’t bother you, either.”  

A lump formed in your throat.  

And then, just as easily as he had turned serious, he pulled back, tilting his head toward the restaurant. “C’mon. Food first, then we plot Cecilia’s demise.”  

A laugh bubbled out of you before you could stop it.  

Pedro grinned, pleased with himself, before nudging your shoulder with his own.  

And as you walked the rest of the way, some of the weight on your chest didn’t feel quite so heavy anymore.

The restaurant was dimly lit, warm and intimate in a way that made the rest of the world feel far away. Soft jazz hummed through the air, mixing with the quiet murmur of conversation and the occasional clinking of glasses. The hostess greeted you both with a polite smile, barely sparing a glance at Pedro—either because she didn’t recognize him or, more likely, was being professional about it.  

Pedro let you choose the table, and you picked one near the window, a cozy little booth that felt tucked away from the rest of the diners. As you slid into your seat, Pedro pulled off his cap, running a hand through his messy curls before setting it down on the table.  

He looked… comfortable. Relaxed. And yet, there was still something unreadable in his expression as he watched you settle in.  

“You know,” he started, leaning forward on his elbows, “I’m kind of mad at you.”  

You blinked, caught off guard. “What? Why?”  

“Because,” he huffed, “I’ve been trying to get you alone for days, and the first time it actually happens, it’s because some Mean Girls knockoff has been making your life miserable.”  

You snorted. “So dramatic.”  

“I am dramatic,” he agreed, eyes crinkling at the corners. “But seriously. I don’t like that it took this for me to get to steal you away.”  

There was something in the way he said it—lighthearted, sure, but laced with something else. Something quieter. More honest.  

Your stomach flipped.  

Before you could figure out how to respond, the waiter appeared, handing over menus. Pedro thanked him with a charming smile before glancing back at you. “What are you in the mood for?”  

You shrugged, scanning the options. “Something warm.”  

Pedro hummed. “Soup?”  

“Maybe.”  

“Or,” he wiggled his eyebrows, “we get a huge plate of pasta and reenact Lady and the Tramp.”  

You rolled your eyes, laughing. “Absolutely not.”  

Pedro placed a hand over his heart in mock offense. “Wow. That was a little too fast. Like you’ve thought about rejecting me before.”  

You bit your lip, trying to fight the smile threatening to break free. He made it so easy to forget the exhaustion pressing down on you, the weight of the last few days.  

The waiter came back, and you both placed your orders—him getting some kind of hearty stew, you settling on a creamy pasta dish. The conversation flowed as effortlessly as ever, touching on everything and nothing all at once.  

At some point, Pedro leaned back in his seat, stretching his legs out beneath the table. His knee brushed against yours, but he didn’t move away. Neither did you.  

“So.” His voice was softer now, less teasing. “Cecilia.”  

You sighed, slumping slightly. “Can we not?”  

“We can,” Pedro allowed. “But I still hate it.”  

You fiddled with the hem of your sleeve, tracing the fabric between your fingers. “It’s not like she’s saying anything outright cruel. Just little things. Looks. Comments. Stuff that doesn’t sound like much but still…”  

Pedro’s jaw ticked. His fingers drummed absently against the table. “That’s how people like her work. They know how to make you feel like you’re imagining it.”  

You swallowed, looking down. “Yeah.”  

A beat of silence stretched between you. Then—  

“Do you want me to talk to her?”  

Your head snapped up. “What? No.”  

Pedro tilted his head, eyeing you. “Why not?”  

“Because,” you exhaled sharply, “I don’t need you to fight my battles.”  

His gaze softened, a flicker of something fond in his eyes. “I know you don’t. But I also know that you’re tired. And I hate seeing you like this.”  

Something in you wavered.  

Pedro sighed, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “I just—God, I don’t get it. How could anyone not adore you?”  

Your breath hitched.  

The words were so sincere, so effortless, like he wasn’t even trying to be charming—just saying what was in his heart.  

Heat crept up your neck. You looked away, focusing on the flickering candle in the middle of the table. “You’re biased.”  

“Maybe,” he admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”  

You let out a breathy laugh, shaking your head. “You’re ridiculous.”  

Pedro grinned. “And yet, here you are. Having dinner with me.”  

“Unfortunately.”  

He clutched his chest in mock agony. “You wound me.”  

The waiter arrived with your food, and Pedro’s dramatic antics were temporarily forgotten as the delicious aroma filled the air. As you picked up your fork, he reached across the table, his fingers brushing against the back of your hand—just for a second, just long enough to send a small shiver up your spine.  

“Hey,” he murmured.  

You glanced up, and for the first time all day, you felt seen.  

“Don’t let her get to you,” Pedro said, voice gentle but firm. “You’re worth so much more than whatever bullshit she’s trying to pull.”  

Something tightened in your chest.  

You swallowed, nodding. “Okay.”  

Pedro studied you for a moment, then smiled. “Good.”  

The weight on your shoulders didn’t disappear entirely, but it softened, melted into something manageable under the glow of candlelight and Pedro’s unwavering attention. You let yourself relax, let yourself exist in this small, intimate moment where it was just the two of you, where the laughter was easy and the warmth between you was something real, something steady.  

Pedro caught your gaze mid-conversation, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he leaned in just slightly. “There she is.”  

You blinked, tilting your head. “What?”  

“That smile,” he said simply. “Haven’t seen it in a while.”  

Heat bloomed in your chest, warm and unfamiliar, something delicate but deep. You rolled your eyes, but it lacked any real bite. “You’re ridiculous.”  

“And yet,” Pedro teased, mirroring your words from earlier, “here you are.”  

You shook your head, lips twitching. “Unfortunate, really.”  

Pedro pressed a dramatic hand to his chest. “Wow. First, I get turned down for Lady and the Tramp, and now this? My ego is in shambles.”  

You laughed, a real, unguarded sound, and he grinned like that was exactly what he was hoping for.  

The conversation stretched long into the night, ebbing and flowing between playful teasing and quiet sincerity. The kind of talk that felt effortless, that felt safe.  

Somewhere between the last bites of food and the soft hum of the restaurant around you, Pedro reached across the table, his fingers skimming yours. The touch was featherlight, a quiet question rather than a demand. You could have pulled away.  

But you didn’t.  

Instead, you let your fingers curl around his, grounding, steady.  

Pedro didn’t say anything—he just squeezed your hand, a silent promise, and you squeezed back.  

Outside, the night air was crisp, carrying the distant sounds of the city with it. The restaurant door shut softly behind you, leaving you and Pedro standing beneath the glow of streetlights, his cap pulled low, his glasses perched on his nose.  

It should have felt different—stepping back into reality after the small bubble of warmth inside the restaurant. But somehow, it didn’t.  

Pedro rocked back on his heels, hands tucked into his pockets. “Still okay?”  

You exhaled, watching as your breath curled into the night air. “Yeah,” you admitted, surprising yourself. “I think I am.”  

Pedro studied you for a beat, then nodded, satisfied.

It turns out Vanessa, Coco, Joseph and Ebon got dinner somewhere else in town away from the two of you and they were waiting already in the shuttle and as soon as you both stepped inside, the teasing started. “Ohhh, look who finally decided to show up,” Vanessa sang, kicking her feet up on the seat in front of her, eyes sparkling with mischief.

Joseph smirked from his spot by the window, arms crossed over his chest. “How romantic was it, really? Scale of one to ten?”

Coco grinned. “I’m betting solid eight.” Ebon scoffed. “Nah, Pedro’s smooth—at least a nine.” Pedro sighed dramatically, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You guys seriously have nothing better to do?” Vanessa waved a hand. “Nope. Now spill.” You rolled your eyes, buckling your seatbelt as the van pulled away from the curb. “We ate dinner. Like normal people. And then we walked outside. Like normal people.” Coco squinted. “That’s exactly what someone who did kiss would say.” Pedro groaned, leaning his head back against the seat, while you fought the smile tugging at your lips. Joseph held out his hands. “Okay, okay, let’s be serious for a second. Was it cute at least?” You blinked at him. “Was what cute?” “The date—” “It wasn’t a date,” you and Pedro said at the same time. A pause.

Then Vanessa gasped, clutching her chest. “You’re already finishing each other’s sentences?” “Oh my God,” Pedro mumbled under his breath. The laughter rolled through the van, easy and infectious, and despite the relentless teasing, despite the way your face burned under their knowing looks, you couldn’t help but feel… good.

The knot in your chest—the one that had been coiled so tight these past few days—had loosened. Maybe not completely, but enough that breathing didn’t feel so hard. Pedro shifted beside you, turning his head so only you could hear him. “They’re never gonna let this go.” You sighed. “Yeah. I figured.” His shoulder brushed yours, a quiet reassurance, and when he spoke again, there was something soft in his voice. “You sure you’re okay?” You hesitated. Because truthfully, the weight of the past few days still sat heavy on your shoulders. Cecilia had made sure of that. The quiet digs, the passive-aggressive comments, the knowing smirks—it was a kind of exhaustion that seeped into your bones. But right now, in the warmth of this moment, with Pedro looking at you like he actually cared about the answer, you found yourself saying— “I think I will be.” Pedro studied you for a beat, then nodded, satisfied. It was a small thing—just a simple gesture, barely more than a shift of his head. But somehow, it carried more weight than it should have, like he was silently saying I see you. I hear you. You swallowed. It was nice to have a friend. But then—was that all this was? You glanced at him again, at the way he was sat with you so easily, like he’d always been meant to be there. At the way he felt beside you, like a quiet anchor in the storm of the last few days.

End Notes:

I told you there would be drama O_O

Again, no hate to any girlie named Cecilia, everyone calm.

Don’t worry girlies… it will turn out fine, mostly… I think… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

YA'LL SEEN THE TEASER TRAILER!?!?!? IM UNWELL AND DYING AND SO EXCITED AND I WANT TO MELT AND DIE VANESSA KIRBY YOU LUCKY WOMAN I WANNA KISS HIM TOO T^T

TAGLIST: @comfortzonequeen @christinamadsen @liciafonseca @greenwitchfromthewoods @iqr-x @southernbe @maryfanson @brittmb115 @klajmekk @taytay0403 @whimsiwitchy @zymiii @sarahhxx03 @leilanixx @lilasskicker-23 @https-murdock @barnescamboy

[groovinrightalong]

Wheeler siblings for the soul

[hiiikiko]

𝖈𝖆𝖚𝖌𝖍𝖙 𝖎𝖓 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖜𝖊𝖇

[1: spider-man’s more awkward than i thought..”]

spiderman!ellie x reader | tlou m.list

synopsis: ellie is in your biology class, she’s the quiet teachers assistant, who also happens to double as your agency’s part time photographer, but you notice that lately she’s been acting strange..

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

You never really noticed her before, to you, she was just the nerdy TA and your agency’s assistant photographer but right now, you needed her to be your saviour. You were failing your biology class, a side effect of how many modelling gigs you’ve picked up to pay your tuition but what good was paying your tuition if you couldn’t even pass your classes? That’s how you ended up practically begging Ellie to tutor you.

“God, please, Williams,” you sighed, taking her hand in yours, “I’ll do anything! I’ll even pay you or I could speak to the agency—.”

“I-it’s fine, Y/l/n, I can do it,” she pried her hand out of yours and nodded, “Just put in a good word with your boss, yeah?”

You practically jump when she says that, “Oh thank you, thank you so much! Um, do you have my number?”

Ellie bashfully nods, “Uh, yeah, I have all the model’s numbers..”

You nod, “Okay, cool! Let’s meet at my place tonight, yeah? Maybe around 6? I’ll send you the location and the door code.”

Ellie straightens up, “Uhh.. can’t do six.. can we do it earlier? Maybe 4..?”

She looks a little nervous about asking, her eyebrows are furrowed and she’s staring into your eyes, anxiously waiting for your response, “Oh.. yeah that’s cool!”

With that, you go your separate ways.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

At your apartment, you prep it for your visitor, shoving your clothes into your laundry hamper, putting out some snacks, straightening up your ‘living room,’ it wasn’t really a living room, given that you lived in a small studio apartment, it was really just a corner of your apartment with a couch, rug, and coffee table. Come on, it was New York and you’re a college student! This is as good as it’ll get for now.

Just as you’re folding a blanket, you hear a thud against the glass door leading out to your balcony. Just as you’re about to take a step towards it to inspect it.. ding dong! You jump a bit, forgetting all about the peculiar sound and making your way towards your front door. Peaking through the peephole, you see Ellie, she’s awkwardly rubbing the back of her neck, camera bag resting on her shoulder and her bangs messily in her face.

“Hey,” you smile and open the door to let her in, “Uh, make yourself at home.”

“T-thanks,” she nods, taking off her shoes and putting her bag down, “Nice place you got.. very, uh, homey. Oh, you a fan of Spider-man?” She nods at the Spider-Man poster on your wall and the Spider-Man t-shirt you’re wearing.

You giggle at her attempt at making small talk, “Thanks, can I get you anything? Water.. soda.. tea..? And, yeah, I know it’s kinda ‘fan girly’ of me but he’s just so fuckin’ cool, y’know? ”

“I’ll take a water,” she sits down on your couch, she looks really tired, not sleepy tired but she looks like she just fought Captain America.

“Shall we get started,” you place the glass in front of her and sit on the floor, the fluffy rug underneath aiding as a cushion, she nods and the two of you get to work.

The first few tutoring sessions went just like that, they were stiff and awkward but eventually, you realized that Ellis isn’t just a nerd that occasionally takes your pictures, she’s also really funny and is actually a really good teacher, she’s patient but doesn’t treat you like you’re dumb. She talks you through the formulas and makes sure you understand each chapter by quizzing you. She’s actually not awkward about this after all, she seems confident when she’s talking about cells. Watching her is nice, her eyes light up when she gets to a chapter that she is obviously interested in and a small smile falters on her lips. You never really realized it before but not only is she really smart, she’s also REALLY hot. Like, the way her veiny arms l flex when she reaches over for her glass of water, the veins flexing under her tattoo, the way she gazes at you through her eyelashes, and her smirk when she gently teases you for getting a problem wrong.

On one particular tutoring session, the rain pattered heavy against the thin glass on your balcony doors, creating a serene, almost cozy atmosphere. You and Ellie were sitting close together on the floor, a thick textbook resting on the coffee table in front of you, you could feel her breath against your neck and her voice was deep and raspy, almost like she’d been out in the rain earlier, and—

“Hey, you with me?” Ellie waves a hand in front of your face, “Hm, maybe we should stop here for now, yeah? It’s getting la— shit, it’s 7?!”

Your expression fell at the thought of her leaving, so you thought ‘fuck it’ as you decided to try and get her to ‘sleep over.’

Ellie scrambled to get on her feet, grabbing her bag and putting her battered converse on, “Oh, you’re leaving? But it’s pouring out there, wanna spend the night?” You graze her arm with your hand, you know it’s wrong to wanna sleep with your TA and your coworker but.. it had been so long since you got any.. and shit, how could you stop yourself now? You could feel her lean muscles underneath her baggy jacket.. you had no idea she even worked out.

Ellie’s eyes flicker to your hand, almost like she was considering it, “S-sorry.. I really gotta go, see ya Friday, yeah?”

And before you could say anything else to try and convince her to stay, she was out the door and you could hear her footsteps echoing down the stairwell.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

“The nerve that girl has!” You throw your hands up, “She didn’t even consider it.. I mean, look at me! An up and coming model offers you the night of her life, you say yes!”

Your friends nod in agreement, “I just don—.” Just as you’re about to make another comment, you see Ellie come into the lecture hall, a band-aid on her eyebrow, ouch. What in the world could have happened between 7 p.m. and this morning?

Your friends turn to see what’s got your tongue, then one of them speaks up, “Haven’t you heard? She is always getting weird scratches.. a guy in my last class said that she tends to get in a lot of fights, crazy, right?”

Ellie gets into fights? You scoff at the idea, no way, she’s the most gentle person you know, you can barely feel her touch when she adjusts your hair during shoots, besides she’s way too awkward, you can imagine her trying to talk herself out of a beating, no way. Right?

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

During that night’s tutoring session, you ask her about the bandaid, “Oh,” her hand darts to her forehead, “This? I, uh, got it when I fell off my skateboard..”

Convincing enough, right? But the tone in which she said it betrayed her statement, damn, she was a shitty liar.

“Hm,” you hum, still not completely convinced.

Ellie’s eyes rest on yours for a moment before going back to this week’s chapter. Usually, you could focus pretty well but right now all you wanted was to ask her more about the cut, right as you’re about to bug her again, she interrupts you with a question of her own. “Hey, uh, are you booked for that shoot on Sunday?”

You can tell she’s trying her best to act as nonchalant as possible but the way she’s nervously tapping her pencil against the textbook, the way her teeth gently bite her soft pink lips, and the way her eyes look like a deer caught in headlights betray her rather calm tone.

“Yeah, didn’t Regina tell you? She booked me a few weeks ago, something about how they want a ‘fresh young face’ or whatever,” you on the other hand, have mastered the art of being nonchalant, your voice calm and your eyes never leaving the paper of your textbook.

“R-really?” Ellie looks like a puppy who’s owner just shook a bag of treats before forgetting she’s supposed to be feign the whole ‘mysterious loner’ shtick, “I mean, uh, cool, cool. I’m gonna be there too, so, uh.. yeah.”

“Mhm,” the rest of the night carries on like nothing happened, Ellie continues teaching and you continue ‘listening,’ which was a little hard because your eyes kept drifting to her eyebrows again.

There’s something about her that you just don’t get.. if those rumours are true, which you highly doubt because look at her, she’s smiling while talking about RNA… be so for real right now, there’s no way BUT if it is true, why is she so gentle? Sure, she’s clumsy but her personality, she’s not hostile, hell, she blushes whenever you graze her hand. You know how the rumour mill works and it doesn’t just churn out baseless rumours, most have some kind of truth to them, so, how did someone make one about Ellie being so violent, you wonder.

“Uh, Y/n?” Ellie’s eyes move towards the balcony doors, “Can you, uh, please stop staring? You’re making me nervous..”

Your face erupts in a blush, the sweet red colour creeping up your neck, coating your ears, and finally, sweeping over your face, “S-sorry, just spaced out.. haven’t been getting much sleep, you know?”

Ellie nods, “Yeah.. I get it.. neighbours arguing a lot ‘nd stuff, right?”

You nod before realizing, “I never told you that.”

Ellie lets out a forced chuckle, “Uh, you did! Well, you didn’t tell me directly, just heard you say it… God, please believe me, I’m not stalking you, I just heard you say in passing, I swe—. Um. I should go, it’s getting late..”

“Huh, it’s only 6..?” You stand up with her, hoping she doesn’t leave so soon.

“Sorry, but I really should—?”

You grab onto her bulky jacket, tugging on the sleeve a bit, causing it to slip down her shoulder a bit and reveal her shirt underneath, huh, it looked like…

“Hey,” she blurts out and straightens out her jacket, “Wh—?”

“Oh my god, is that a spider-man tshirt?” You jump up, a smile creeping onto your face.

Ellie is washed with relief, “Uh, yeah! Gotta love the, uh, the guy, right?”

Nodding you say, “Totally! You should’ve said something sooner, I’m like his biggest fan, I even have an, allegedly, signed poster of him!”

Ellie’s ears burn bright, “R-really? Can I see it?”

You scramble to your room and pull out a small signed flyer, “See?”

Ellie gently holds it then she snorts and mutters, “Yeah, that’s not real.”

Your expression falters, “Wh-what? As if you’d know,” you pull it from her grip, your pride hurt and internally kicking yourself for spending so much on what could be a damn knock off.

“Oh, I think I’d know a thing or two about ‘Spider-Man’,” she chuckles.

“What does that mean,” you shoot her a glare.

“Oh, nothing.. I just, uh, met him” Ellie is scrambling for any way to cover up her loud mouth.

“No way, really?!” You jump up.

“Y-yeah, a few times actually.. back in my first year of college, he let me take some pictures of him a few times for the paper.”

You squeal and begin to bombard her with questions, “What was he like? Is he tall? How does he sound? Wh—?”

Ellie is patient with you and answers all of your questions, stretching she takes a look at the clock and jumps up, “Fuck, I really should get going, it’s rainy and the parade is tomorrow and that means more cr —.”

“More, what?”

“Uh, more cramped subways!” (Ellie is internally patting herself on the back for coming up with a word that begins with ‘cr’ instead of saying criminals.)

“Oh, alright.. see ya.”

Ellie is out the door quicker than you could say ‘your friendly neighborhood spider-man.’

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

It’s the day of the parade and everyone’s spirits are high. Today, everyone is celebrating the election of the new city mayor. There will be a parade, drone show, and a market. Even you’re excited. You and your friends are making your way through the crowded streets when you bump into Abby, your ex. She must be here for her family, Abby’s family was widely renowned. Her dad isn’t just a highly esteemed surgeon, he’s also CEO of Oscorp and has very close ties to the city officials. You don’t really want any drama, so you pass by without giving as much as a nod.

“Hey, Y/n,” you hear through the crowds, a groan leaving your lips before looking up and meeting green eyes instead of blue ones.

“Ellie! What’re you doing here? I thought you would hate this kinda stuff.’

She holds up her camera, “Just takin’ photos, the Daily Bugle needs some front page stuff and they assigned it to me.”

“Oh, very cool,” you smile, “S—,” Just as you’re about to ask her if she wants to check out the stands with you, you feel a hand grip your shoulder, it’s Abby, fuck.

“Hey, Y/n, long time, huh? Wanna come see my dad, he’s been asking about you, oh, so has Manny.” Before you could reject her, Ellie is already walking away and Abby is steering you to the city hall building.

Abby drones on and on about her latest lacrosse victories and about her latest conquests, you just nod and try to space out. Normally, you wouldn’t go with her but you so desperately wanted to meet with her father. Being in premed meant you need as many connections as possible, so you were hoping Mr. Anderson could give you some pointers.

As the two of you round a corner you feel a rumble then hear a boom.

“What the fuck was that,” Abby stops and runs up the stairs, your feet are frozen in place but you quickly pull them from their cemented state and chase after her, “Abby, stop! It’s too dang—!”

Then came the second boom and suddenly, you felt the ground beneath you crumbling, fuck, this is it, isn’t it? Just as you’re about to accept your fate, you feel hands grip your waist and you’re flying..?

Through the dust, you can make out a red and blue silhouette. “I-it’s you!’

The masked figure looks at you, “Yeah.. i-it’s me.”

Uh, Spider-Man is a lot more awkward than you thought..

[basicallyjeankirschtein]

jjk men x streamer!reader

╰┈➤ Collab?

chapter two.

ೃ⁀➷ you and gojo get matched with toji, sukuna, and choso, much to the viewers surprise! ft. everyone thirsting for you + jealousy

* not proofread

masterlist. prev. next.

you tried to focus on the game in-front of you, but the fact that your usual 10-50k audience grew to 300k was freaking you out. just a bit.

not to mention your chat going crazy. usually, it was easy to catch every message and interact with everyone, but now? it was moving so fast, how did gojo put up with this stuff?!

thankfully, everyone was talking about the same thing. the thing being that you matched with toji and his friends.

just like toji, you lived under a fucking rock. yea, gojo was your best friend, but you’ve purposefully been avoiding him since he’s gotten famous. this kinda stuff isn’t your thing- you didn’t even mean to gain 50k without his help, it just sorta happened.

you were a student and you worked at the cutest little cat cafe, you didn’t have time to watch streamers. the only influencers you knew of were gojo and utahime, not because you watched their streams, but because they were your friends. maybe you were a loser.

you tried to act surprised, but honestly you were more surprised with how shit this iron fist was playing.

“chat, which one is the iron fist?” you asked, all of which responding ‘toji.’

unfortunately for you, living under a rock seemed to only bring misfortunes to your life. as the minute you knew his name, you spoke,

“can someone tell toji to swap. he fucking sucks.”

even gojo looked a bit shocked by your comment, but he immediately burst into laughter.

“y/n, you are so lucky you’re streaming with me.” was all he said, and now you were stuck furrowing your eyebrows together and pouting in confusion. even your chat was going crazy over your comment.

who even is toji? you wondered with a huff. when you died, you took the time during your characters respawn to quickly look him up.

oh no. he was hot.

he was also famous, you noticed, but you were more focused on the fact that you just disrespected an extremely hot man!

well, it’s not like you had a chance. you reassured yourself, and once you had finally calmed yourself down, reminding yourself he was just another random man, you realized he is in fact not random.

was this the guy gojo was always whining about? something about him stealing his viewers or something- oh god. you must’ve just woken a wild pack of fangirls, cause you were totally going to be ripped to shreds on twitter after this.

despite internally freaking out about how toji’s fanbase now viewed you, you kept a stoic face, emotions unreadable as you continued the game.

suckunathesenuts: gojo ur friend is funny asf

suckinathesenuts: y/n say something about toji again he doesn’t believe us when we say he’s trash but he will if a pretty girl does

chochoso: pls i can’t keep losing my rank games because of him ):

you couldn’t help but laugh at his teammates messages in chat. you knew your chat would snitch on you to toji, but at least his friends were backing you up. you think.

the comment ‘pretty girl’ had you head spinning, a small blush coating your cheeks. you were going to say thank you, but gojo cut you off.

“don’t respond to these losers,” he spoke, his voice gruff. he sounded uncharacteristically mad.

you just hummed in response, “it’s not a big deal, they’re just messing around. sorry toji,” you waved at your screen as if he was watching, hoping someone in your chat could relay your apology to toji.

toji didn’t believe his chat when they told him you had said he sucked, “yea, nobody thinks i suck. i’m the best iron fist in this server.” he grunted, in which sukuna burst into laughter and called him delusional.

even choso giggled a bit. now that pissed toji off.

“okay, sure. i don’t believe it.” toji grunted. but, the moment he opened twitter, his notification boxed was filled with people tagging him in the clip of you saying he sucks. man, things spread fast.

“yo, toji, play the fucking game.” sukuna yelled into his microphone, clearly upset toji went afk to look at his phone.

“i think it’s better with him afk. now there’s nobody for the other team to farm.” choso giggled, in which sukuna thought that was the funniest thing on planet earth because he legitimately slammed his fist against the desk with each laugh.

“it wasn’t that funny, dude.” toji growled, though his tone seemed uninterested. he was more focused on you in the clip.

not only did you say he sucked, not only did you not even know who he was, but you were hot??? this hurt his ego, a little (a lot).

damn. even his fan page called him out.

grunting as he ran a hand through his hair, he noticed sukuna and choso talking to you in game chat. what the hell? since when did they get all friendly.

and sukuna calling you a pretty girl might’ve made toji grit his teeth.

“everyone shut the fuck up. i’ll change.” he said, letting his character die so he can switch to another character. sukuna looked absolutely flabbergasted, toji was actually going to listen to advice for once?

toji wasn’t about to admit it, but he was totally trying to impress you.

you were surprised to see toji actually listened to your request. you felt kinda bad for making him swap, but he was way better on adam warlock than iron fist.

“wow, he’s going crazy now.” you laughed. it was true, but you were mostly saying that to butter him up. not only did you not want to have one sided beef with a huge streamer, but he was hot as hell! if you had a chance, you were going to take it.

gojo did not seem to agree, as he laughed at you rather than with you. “yea, right. he still sucks.”

you narrowed your eyes at the webcam, confused why gojo was acting so hostile. he was never outright mean. yea, he could be passive aggressive and sarcastic with those he didn’t like, but you’ve never seen him like this.

“says the one who has no team assists,” you laughed, trying to lighten the mood, but that only made gojo even grouchier.

gojo was also playing really bad, that wasn’t usual for him. he was naturally talented at every game he played, you never knew how!

it was like he was distracted with something, and when you looked down at your phone, you found out why.

he was too busy tweeting instead of playing the damn game!!!!

it crossed your oblivious mind that he tweeted that because he was jealous and upset about the attention you were receiving.

chochoso: y/n… i think we are the only ones left playing. all our teammates are afk ):

whoever this chochoso was, was right. everyone on your team except you and him went afk. even the random went afk!! it was remarkable you haven’t lost the point yet, choso was a crazy spiderman.

y/nissleepy: our friends suck!!! does this by default make us best friends now???

chochoso: yes!

you wondered if choso had a social media too, considering he was friends with toji.

you very discreetly opened your twitter to look at toji’s mutuals, and low and behold, there was choso.

how could someone be so cute yet so sexy at the same time.

you were usually shy about this sort of thing, but without hesitation you followed choso. he followed you back almost immediately.

you looked up at your video call to see what gojo was doing, he was completely immersed in his phone. it looked like he was texting someone- very harshly, by the way he was practically hitting his phone with each tap.

biting your lip, you decided to message choso. your stream just started, you didn’t want to awkwardly end it just because everyone’s gone afk.

playing with choso was fun. he was such a cutie, and after the first two games, he asked if you wanted to video call. you did not hesitate to say yes.

gojo hadn’t even noticed you left the call.

“hi!” you waved at your camera, the confidence you had when you initiated the conversation with choso drowning away in an instant when you saw him appear over the screen. he was even cuter than on his twitter, he had this messy hair held in ponytails! how adorable was that?! your mind started to drift when you wondered how easy it would be to tug on his hair, and that’s when you had to remind yourself it’s truly not that serious and this is a man you just met.

but god, did you have a soft spot for scary men that were actually cute.

you guys loaded into another game, making small talk as you played. both of your chats brought up the chemistry between you two, but both of you chose to ignore it (not without blushing first).

not only did your chat notice the chemistry, but so did your friends.

“since when did y/n leave the call?”

“since when did choso leave the call?”

both gojo and toji questioned this as they looked at their empty voice chats. sukuna realized it a while ago, when they were talking in game chat, and didn’t bother trying to stop choso.

toji on the other hand, looked angry. “what the hell. he left us to play with her! she wasn’t even relevant until today,” toji growled. sukuna raised his eyebrow, though didn’t reply.

gojo had been busy messaging geto. geto is BEYOND thirsty to stream with you, he’s not even trying to hide it to his stream or nanami.

gojo didn’t even know why he was so jealous. you may have been oblivious, but this guy was downright stupid. he had maybe one brain cell and three jellybeans in that head of his. he couldn’t even decipher the motive behind his jealousy was the attention you have been receiving, especially the attention of toji and geto.

and now, apparently choso.

this video is so funny i love you roblox shrimp games

tag list

@estella-novella @ourfinalisation @definetlynotanalien @fuckisthatahotghost @m-0ona @sillybillylamb @ayla-1605 @l-ilysm @randoperson22 @mentallyunpresent @poopooindamouf @1ennj4 @ex1acy @lunavelha @trsh-kitty @b3bybunny @onna-musha-mari

[chilschuck]

— ONLY IF YOU’D LIKE ME TO:

(I COULD FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU.) ♡ chilchuck x gn!reader.

꒰ warnings: ꒱ sfw, ment. of n//edles (the sewing kind, lol).

꒰ wc: ꒱ 809 words. just a drabble!

꒰ note: ꒱ guys i can’t stop thinking about this repressed-emotions-having-ass man. i wanted to write something with the song “clusterhug” by iDKHOW as inspo. i don’t know if i like this or not, so maybe i’ll delete it later. i took inspiration from the mimic chapter in the manga. sorry if it’s a bit ooc, i just kinda let my heart go with this one. i hope you enjoy!

Little things lead up to big ones. In other words, small acts of kindness become forces to be reckoned with. There’s only so much someone can do to brace themselves for the impact of falling in love, which Chilchuck had learned the hard way. His efforts to keep work and private life separate were not enough. Despite his measures at bracing himself, the problem seemed to somehow build itself into something he just couldn’t fight; something he knows he’s not skilled at.

Your touch, so gentle when handling his wounds compared to others, was the first hit to his willpower. Chilchuck was used to leading and making sure others were safe in their steps, but even then he felt he couldn’t hold a candle to you. If there’s one thing you did for the party that he considered your skill, it was being a source of light. A source of delicate touches in which he had forgotten he craved.

Chilchuck believes he could blame this all on that single encounter with that mimic. You had beat Marcille to him, immediately dropping to your knees and making sure he was safe. The cut on his cheek was handled easily with delicate touches and small tuts under your breath. “I’m sorry,” he heard you murmur. “Someone should’ve gone with you.” The cloth in your hand did not bring as much relief to his wounds as your presence seemed to.

Later, he had tried to distract himself by mending his clothes, stitching the rifts in the fabric with precise hands. It was best to stay focused and squander any emotions he considered useless. The greater the attempt, though, the harder it came back to bite him in the ass. This was only one of many things he had to learn the hard way.

“Your stitches are really neat,” You had commented in that gentle voice of yours, the same pitch you always spoke in. It wasn’t syrupy sweet, but delicate in ways he couldn’t understand. It wrapped around his brain and inched into his chest. “It’s entrancing to watch you work.”

I could say the same about you, he could say. He pictured your bashful smile. Chilchuck reminded himself to breathe. You’re entrancing in ways I can’t explain.

There was something about your gaze that made him feel like the room rose in temperature. Rolling his shoulders, he flicked his eyes up to yours.

“Just something I had to learn.”

Just like the fact that you were winding your way around his heart. Could he even begin to comprehend what you were doing to him, what you were making him feel? The depth at which you were breaking his walls down scared him. Even the thought that maybe, just maybe, you reserved those sweet looks just for him sent him over the edge.

“You should teach me one day.” You whispered.

Only if you’d like me too. He could mumble back instantly. You waited patiently, smiling at him. He swallowed.

“Yeah, sure. Here.”

His fingers brushed against yours, the green fabric resting in your hands. Chilchuck held the needle, watching the thread cascade before setting it into your palm.

“I can teach you.”

Gods, don’t look at him like that. Don’t ever beam like that, not when he’s so close and looking over your shoulder as you thread the needle.

“There, now pull it through. Make sure the stitch isn’t loose.” You did as he asked, waiting for his next instruction. When you lit up at the progress, the rip shrinking in the scarf, he couldn’t help but smile.

Maybe while you’re at it, you could stitch up the rifts in his heart he let grow. He knew if anyone could, it’d be you. But before he knew it, you had repaired the hole, holding it up proudly.

“Thank you, Chilchuck! Now I can help next time, too.” You folded it, placing it into his hands. He felt his ears burn. There was something about how thankful you were to everyone, him included. Another shot to his willpower. It’s not like he really even did anything… It’s something anyone could learn.

Even then, as your attention was called upon by Marcille, he couldn’t stop thinking about you. Gaze locked on the fabric in his hands, he let himself get lost in thought while you watched Senshi and Laios prepare the next meal. If you kept shining so bright like that, he’d have no choice but to fall in love with you. There’s only so much kindness he could handle from you. You were giving him no choice but to swallow his pride and reconsider everything he knew about living a double life like this. Could he really make you happy?

Only if you’d like him to, he let his heart say. Whether or not he would listen is for time to tell. He could fall in love with you.

[sorry-not-feeling-it-right-now]

The Process of the Voices designs (inspired by @everestgale )

(If you’re seeing this, it means that all of the voices have their own references!)

So

Um

That was a big project

(Height lineup with current designs!!!!!)

(And apparently there was a limit to how many photos I can add per post on mobile so I had to work around the limit in order to be able to show you as much as possible. I’m sorry if the sketches have horrible quality ;^;)

Starting thought process

The first thing I had thought of when I had just stepped foot into the fandom space all the way back when the game was still new was to make each of the voices be represented by a different bird. I had never really drawn anything regarding to that idea, however.

But as Pristine Cut released, I had finally found the motivation to actually start designing the voices. Now the game is done, my thoughts process became “let’s just make the voices look vaguely bird-like without really basing them off of any bird type completely” to give myself a bit more freedom in designing them. Just a little leeway. TLQ is basically a mix between mammal and bird, so I thought I can probably continue this design aspect with the voices as well.

I had also challenged myself to not use any clothing items for any of the voices, cause TLQ isn’t really wearing anything in the first place, so I don’t really think the voices would spawn in with clothes already on their bodies.

With that said, let us continue to…

Terror and Longing (Paranoid and Cold)

Cold is the first ever one I had drawn, which is why he looked so “rough” and less shape like in my post for him. My thought process for him is pretty straightforward, and it’s just a reaper bird with a hole in his chest to symbolise the emptiness that can never be filled by normal means. His princess is a ghost, a lot of the chapter 3 routes that he’s in have princesses that are related to ghosts in some way, so to me it just makes sense for him to be a reaper. His body is basically just a big ol’ blanket. A cold one, but a blanket nonetheless. You can quite literally go inside him like he’s some sort of blanket tent.

Also I’m gonna semi-retcon the “Physical form gained with the leave ending” part of the notes. He and the rest of the voices already looks like this even before they gain their physical form, albeit much more shadowy and without actual line art.

Unlike most of the voice designs here, there really aren’t any visual elements that connects Paranoid and Cold together as parallels on how they view pain. Mainly because I mostly designed Paranoid solely on his overall “vibes” as a character. In my concept sketches, he looked more like a spindly exposed nerve noodle than how he is now. I do intend to give him a minor redesign in the future so that he could match better with Cold, however.

But in a way it kinda worked out for me, as Nightmare and Paranoid are basically just creepy delicate doll + goofy sock puppet, which is kind of funny to me

Now looking back, it would have been perfect to name the post as “Bones and Nerves” if I had decided to post them in paired at the very beginning.

Skepticism and Blind Devotion (Skeptic and Smitten)

(^^^Cloaked/Detective Skeptic design and Caged Head Skeptic design belongs to @/remaking-machine and @/bubblybloob respectively. Mainly drew them for inspiration and get my gears going)

When I had first sketched Smitten, I knew that I wanted him to have a big chest and to have an overwhelming presence, to show that Smitten thinks with his heart instead of actually seeing what’s in front of him (hence the small round puppy eyes that he closes most of the time). He’s delulu and I love him for that <3

But then a thought just came to me like “hey, wouldn’t it be really funny if his chest is like, 80% of his whole body?”, and so I listened because god damn it it’s so funny that I CAN-NOT NOT listen to that (and I was so delighted to see most of the tags were pointing out the size of his bosom. Funniest thing ever). Smitten is top-heavy, which kinda symbolise how Smitten is a pretty “head-in-the-clouds” sort of guy, where his heart/chest make him look like it’s gonna take flight with him, flying up like a balloon

(Unfortunately the ratio of his chest and body became a lot more balanced again the more I draw him, since I realised that it’s harder for me to draw his chest fluff consistently.)

As for Skeptic, I wanted him to parallel Smitten regarding their physical appearances. And hence, Skeptic has sharper, bigger eyes, smaller body with huge wings to cover himself up, which contrasts with Smitten’s round, smaller eyes, with a big body revealing his heart to the world and small wings to “guard” himself with. His big wings being a play on “the truth sets you free”, but it clearly becomes more of a burden as he continuously tries and push onward and makes things more complicated then it should be, like how he does in Cage. (Fun fact, the bigger the wings the harder it is to swim)

Originally I wanted Skeptic’s design to look like a blob of smoke/shadow with little to no clear defined features except for his face, or just a bunch of lines like those line creature thingies from the animated movie Soul, but it later didn’t really click for me when I compare him with the other designs I have made (it’s kinda boring looking), so I’ve made a slight redesign to give him a more defined body structure, since I don’t think he needs that shadowy unreadable body when he already has his big wings to protect himself with.

(You might not have noticed this, but Smitten and Skeptic are the only two that have their full bodies drawn in the same panel, while the rest of the pairs have them be separated in two different panels. I just decided to keep it that way, since I thought it was funny that these two have never met face to face with each other in game, but here they are the only ones drawn together)

Consumption and Betrayal (Hunted and Opportunist)

Ahhhh Oppy

I immediately knew what I wanted to do with this slimy bastard, and that is making him a fox.

Part of me really really really want to make him cat-themed so that not only does he match well with Witch, but to also hit the pun for “cat-fight” for the dance of infinite tricks between the two. But a fox fits him as well, as foxes and cats do not seem to like each other. Oppy still being a bird while making himself look like a stereotypical scheming predator also makes for good symbolism for how he hides his vulnerability behind his many masks. His creepy smile was inspired by how he looked in PatD while he was controlling TLQ’s body.

I also gave him a longer neck, so that he could look farther away. I just think a long neck fits him.

(He doesn’t tell anyone this, but he feels more comfortable walking on all fours. He’s just accustomed to walk on two legs to make himself look slightly bigger, since he’s already on the shorter/cuter side)

As for Hunted, my first thought for him is to make him big and nimble-looking, but I had decided that I’m gonna be the contrarian and go the other direction that isn’t my first thought, settling down with a smaller, cuter looking Hunted then what I had first envisioned, as you can see with the first paper sketches of him being a small little creature

I wanted him to scream “prey”, and to further contrast him with Beast, who became bigger than what she had started with. That’s a big part of why I had decided against the longer design despite a part of me really liking the idea.

(Since Hunted is not only a bird, but is also a rabbit and a rat thingy, in which all three are prey animals. Does that make him prey-squared)

Rivalry and Submission (Stubborn and Broken)

Stubborn’s design is pretty straight forward, as I’ve already have a clear image of what he looks like in my head. I was worried that he might look too human-like, but I guess my worries were all for nothing cause he turned out quite monstrous. Decided to make him have big arms to make him look even heavier and much more of a hard hitter.

His design was inspired by multiple things, being a demon, a dragon(both the demon and dragon part are here to tie his route with Adversary and to parallel Broken), a roaster and a bull, while also keeping the bird-like elements. Out of everyone, he was probably the hardest to draw on digital aside from Smitten when I had first started drawing them. I am not good at drawing big men.

The bull/horns part came later while I was creating my design for him, and you can see that I was trying to take inspiration from All Might of all people to give Stubborn those two little thingies on top of his head. I did not like the V shaped tuffs and settled for horns instead simply because it looks cooler. It then just created this demon-angel connection with Stubborn and Broken, and I liked it so much that I decided to just go with it

Broken’s design had actually evolved a long way from his first conceptualisation. Originally he was just a bunch of broken glass shards that vaguely forms into an image of a person. But then I realised it’ll be too hard to draw over and over, so I redesigned him into more of a sad lump instead. Really happy about my decision.

He’s mostly round in shape language until he decides to stand up straight, which makes him look more regal and “angelic”. His eyes and beak have that sharp edge to them to show that he still has the capacity to bite back if he wanted to. The crack on his eye was meant to make him look like he’s crying instead of a scar to be proud of like how Stubborn’s scar reads, making him a weeping angel.

(Looking back on it, he kinda look like a melted candle)

Pain and Unfamiliarity (Cheated and Contrarian)

Oooooh boy, I have a lot of things to say about these two

I have tired sketching Contrarian’s design out many many times, and many of them weren’t able to hit the exact spot(which is kind of ironic, cause it’s Contrarian that I was designing(he also deserved his own spread sheet of sketches, cause there was so so much of it))

These ideas include—making him the only one with white feathers, having an odd number of limbs, making him look like a twisting messy arrow, making him look like a Picasso art piece, taking annoying character design do-nots and then putting all of it onto his design just to be annoying(aka very crowded and unreadable designs where you don’t even know what you’re looking at anymore), making him into a regular bird simply because it would be really funny, giving him more then one singular head etc (also, that little Jester imp design I’ve drawn to de-stress was made by @/itsonlypolite . Thank you for the design absnsjaj)

It was until I had decided to take a break from designing him that I had finally figured out what I really wanted for him. I reminded myself that I wanted his design to be simplistic enough so that it would be easy to draw, so I had returned to the basics for him, which back then was just a simple fluffy bird noodle, and then things went a bit more smoothly after that.

I took inspiration from Discord’s design from MLP and made Contrarian have body parts that corresponds to the other voices. After all, what is a Contrarian without anyone to contrast with?

I also designed his head wings to give the illusion of a jester hat. Unlike the rest of the voices, he doesn’t have wings on his back, the one place that a pair of wings should be at anatomically speaking, simply because it would be funny. He does have a pair of wings on his butt though.

And the more I designed him, the more clear I was for the theming for Contra and Cheated, which is basically a Jester and the unfortunate person who got picked for the Jester’s practicing of magic tricks. And the person is just trying not to get hit by the throwing knifes.

As for Cheated, I also had trouble coming up with a design for him. Unlike Contrarian, whom I had too many ideas that I didn’t know where to go from there, he had way too little sketches and ideas. I already knew that I wanted him to look like he had been ripped apart to compliment Razor, but I had never tried to sketch him out until almost all of the other designs were complete. Then I had started to try and relate his character design with game elements, since both Contrarian and Cheated are basically meta for the player mentality, and I eventually came up with him having a Paper sort of texture. Not only does it relate back to paper cards, it also shows that he could never win against Razor, cause Scissors beat Paper no matter how you try (and Narrator is the Rock no one wants)

(That would make him and Razor’s ship name be PaperCut. That’s so cute actually)

At one point of the process, a part of me wanted him to look like a rabbit to fit the whole magic thing, but eventually decided against it due to not wanting him to overlap with Hunted, who already has a rabbit theme. So I’ve turned my attention elsewhere.

The inspiration for his design are mainly origami birds, since I wanted to give him an illusion that he was made out of paper cards to fit with the game theme. His silhouette, much like Contrarian, is not symmetrical at all. But instead of having the different parts be mashed together harmoniously in a weird way like Contrarian, his body is just a mess, with him sticking his body back into place over and over again. I’d imagine that his body was sewn together with paper with different textures(he gets even messier in Razor!!!).

With him being paper themed, it also gave me the opportunity to hide small jokes in his design and just go wild with the puns. A part of me felt like that would be a tad bit too cruel for him. He’s been through enough… but then again… paper puns. (Call me Razor cause I’m just having fun torturing him)

At the Heart of it all… (Narrator and Hero)

Hero is actually one of the easier ones for me to design, considering I’ve already decided that he is going to look the most human out of all of the other voices. I designed him with the image of a harpy and some of the fandom’s interpretation of TLQ at the back of my mind. Since I made these designs with the Pristine Cut being out, I had referenced his appearance from what the Pristine Cut trailer has shown of TLQ, which is a lot more human-like.

Hero is basically a smaller and less intimidating looking version of TLQ, since he is what TLQ wishes he was. A Hero. He’s probably what TLQ imagined himself to look like when he still didn’t know his own appearance, and imagined himself to look less intimidating, much like how the fandom in the early days imagined TLQ to be like before Pristine Cut. It’s a bit meta, but I think it works.

I had considered giving him a helmet, but then decided against it for two reasons:

One, I don’t want to break the rule that I had set for myself, which is to not give any of the voices clothing items(acceptable to give them the illusion of clothes, however)

And two, him not having the helmet, the symbol of knighthood and heroism, shows that he is unsure of his heroism, and is usually unsure of his decisions and what should be considered as “the right thing to do”

Narrator on the other hand look basically the same as the other interpretations of him. I had actually considered giving him an alternative design, where he is a well-dressed man with a crow mask covering his head, holding a scroll in his hand.

But I decided that the symbolic meaning of a mortal man losing all semblance of humanity after his death, and the gods he had trapped have become more human then he is much more fitting (and ironic). So now he’s just a bird with a scroll.

Author on the other hand, I decided to keep his head in the shadow and keep it as a vague silhouette, while the rest of his body is still somewhat visible. I designed a version where he’s got his face uncovered, but I later decided that it’s more fun with Author’s faces being inconsistent every time I draw him, mainly because Narry probably doesn’t even remember how he had looked like when he was still alive. These sketches are probably vague recollections of what Narry believed he looked like, so each of the faces look a little different from each other. He will be the only one without a solid reference.

I wanted Author to have tired sad-looking eyes, and so his eyes are one of the few consistent things about him. Aside from the eyes, his two hair tuffs and his glasses are still gonna be a part of his design, but will probably look slightly different every time his face was drawn. So there’s that.

Annnnnd that’s about it for my rambling! Thank you all for sticking around till the finishing of this project ^^ (and reading all of this till the end holy hell I’ve typed so much)

And oh boy this took me a while to make, I was literally making this post at the same time as I was drawing the references. It kinda made the journey a little less intimidating for me hehe

[rayshippouuchiha]

Hi! I feel bad for having messaged twice in kinda quick succession, but I have a Bleach AU idea and don’t really have anyone to tell about it, but i hope you’d like to hear about it!

So I’ve only recently been trying to finish reading Bleach (I’ve read earlier chapters multiple times, but never managed to read past the Xcution arc). I’ve still got about 100 odd chapters to go, but I’m in the thousand year war arc finally, (and I’ve read the last few chapters, so I know how it ends, just not all of the details in between).

Anyway, I’ve recently read the bit where Kyoraku (is that his name? Shunsui, the head captain guy) actually goes to the land of the living and visits Ichigo’s friends to warn them that depending on how powerful he is once he’s sorted his issues with his Zanpakuto, he might not be able to come back home and it’s just GOT ME THINKING, because so far it’s not been mentioned again, and it isn’t in the last few chapters either, I don’t think. BUT!! What if it is that Ichigo is so powerful now that going back to the human world on a permanent basis would completely mess with the human world, so he’s forced to stay in the soul society.

So much potential for angst, with him missing his sisters and friends (and Kisuke), BUT also so much potential for absolute highjinks in the SS.

I think this could potentially be a little similar to your Turn Back the Clock AU, but I’m just imagining all of the remaining captains/lieutenants all absolutely beside themselves trying to convince Ichigo to join their teams, Shunsui is already eyeing him up for a captain position in the near future, Kenpachi (who’s still a little lost without his little sidekick (whose name I’ve forgotten, god I feel so bad because I love her)) just itching to get Ichigo to join his squad so that he can have daily fights without the trouble of having to go looking for the guy. Shinji (who without a shadow of a doubt has a soft spot for Ichigo, no matter how much he might enjoy irritating him) who wants to have him in his squad as some kind of “visords-stick-together” kinda deal (and because he knows it’d piss all the others off). Rukia laying claim because HELLO, she’s the one that stabbed him and gave him the powers in the first place, she calls dibs! Hell, I think even Byakuya would want him in his squad, because as much as he might deny it if asked, he’s actually rather fond of the guy, so long as he learns to call him Captain rather than his first name.

And as things are want to do in the SS, where the more power the shinigami, the more insane they seem to be, things get a little out of hand. During one heated discussion, where they’re all giving their updates on how well each of them think they’re doing in convincing Ichigo to join them, someone (I’m thinking a shit-stirrer like Yumichika maybe) gives the idea that hey, this competition seems almost as if you’re trying to court the guy! And so it turns into this weird ass Shinigami-courting situation, with a “whoever manages to (woo) CONVINCE Ichigo to join their squad is OBVIOUSLY the one that Ichigo likes best, so that means that he’s OBVIOUSLY also open to (after)life long commitment in the form of marriage to whichever captain wins” kinda thing going on.

Cue Ichigo not getting a single moments peace, when all he really wants is to be left alone to just PROCESS the fact that he 1) has had to leave everyone and everything he’s ever known in the human world to live with these absolutely crazy people, and 2) just fought in a very big battle and helped kill a thousands-year old crazy Quincy guy.

He’s more than happy spending his time helping clean up and rebuild the SS for now, and he’s happy to worry about what comes next once the SS is back on its feet. (And he’s more than a little oblivious to the weird fighting/flirting/coercing that seems to happen whenever he comes across any familiar face whenever he’s out and about).

It all comes to a head when his friends from home come for a visit to the soul society with those handy dandy tokens that Shunsui gave them, and instantly see what’s happening and have to sit Ichigo down and explain to him that he may or may not (but definitely does) have twenty or so extremely powerful shinigami captains and lieutenants all after his ass(ets), which, know that Ichigo thinks about it, definitely explains a few things that’ve been happening to him lately.

And shortly after his friends go back home, all three realms feel a shift in reiatsu and hear a distant screech from Kisuke, who’s suddenly realised that hey, maybe the human world sucks actually and he should relocate back to the soul society for no reason in particular! None at all! Definitely not jealousy because that would be ridiculous.

If I had the time or energy (and a better track record of finishing fics that I start 😬) I’d love to write this, but I fear it’ll be stuck in my notes forever, lol, so thought I’d share!

No I love this so much!! Especially if it's endgame UraIchi and like all this courting, all this drama, all the shenanigans from all these different high-powered shinigami all trying to get Ichigo's attention and Kisuke just rocks up and gets him within a solid 10 minutes and 5 of those were spent with Ichigo purposefully ignoring him while Kisuke apologized for some dumb petty shit he did before Ichigo ended up in SS

[brighttears]

Stranger Chapter 5

Joel Miller x f!reader

No physical description

Summary: Joel’s first morning in Jackson, he enjoys a hearty breakfast before you pop in front of him, asking to have a conversation. It goes differently than how he feared it would—better, but also, you break down. He gets to be there for you, and it fills him with relief, sorrow for your woes, and culminates in the depths of his love for you.

Word count: 5.2k

Warnings: Joel hates himself (looks like we have a theme going here), brief talk of violence and self harm, negative self talk from reader (name calling: freak, monster, damaged)

A/n: finally!!! A break from the heartbreak kinda!!! yay!!!!

series masterlist

@drewharrisonwriter

—

Joel stirs from sleep gently this time, blinking his eyes open and staring at the ceiling for a moment, before slowly sitting up. It’s still a bit dazing to look around and see a normal bedroom. It’s a strange feeling. Reminds him of before. 

After a soft sigh through his nose, Joel stretches, joints popping, tired muscles groaning into consciousness. 

He gets up slowly, shuffling out of the bedroom, trying the wrong door before finally finding the bathroom. He turns on the tap, leaning his hands on the porcelain for a moment as he watches the clear liquid flood down the drain before splashing cold water over his face. When he looks up, his reflection is almost startling, so clear and unadulterated in the clean, flat mirror. He looks like shit. More wrinkles than he remembers, dark bags swept under his eyes, complexion pale from the winter. He’s lost weight, too. And he feels like shit, the last few months having taken a toll on him. With a sigh, he turns away, grabbing a towel to wipe his face before leaving the bathroom to creak downstairs. 

In the kitchen, he grabs a glass from the fourth cabinet that he’s opened to find one, before filling it with cold water and gulping it down, not realizing just how thirsty he is until the first drop hits his tongue. Setting it down, his brow pinches as he tries to think of why the hell he’s so god damn parched, and then he remembers the crying fit, and lets out a quiet groan, pressing a hand into his forehead as he leans against the counter. 

“Fuck.” He mumbles under his breath. He has no idea how his little incident has colored your mind, unsure if it has maybe softened you a bit, or made you resent him more, or lose a fuck ton of respect for him. He can only imagine it’s the latter. There he was, Joel motherfucking Miller, the guy who has pressed so hard that he’s the protector, always trying to appear so stoically strong, impenetrable, breaking down like a baby, crying into your bosom about how much he misses you. How fucking pathetic. 

With an annoyed sigh, he rests his hands on the edge of the sink, leaning a weary body against it as he looks up at the window, watching the slow moving clouds pass in the east. The sky is a wash of baby blue and pale yellow, a golden shadow cast over the underside of the clouds. As he stands there, watching the slowly climbing morning sun, listening to the birds sing, he can’t help but think of you, remember the sound of his little songbird in the dead of night, and then the way you looked at him with your touch on his jaw. How he felt—

Suddenly, there’s a knock at the door, and Joel flinches, turning. His heart rate starts to spike for a split second before he remembers Tommy telling him that he’d come retrieve him for breakfast, and with a soft huff and a mumbled curse, he pushes off the sink and heads towards the door. He’s not exactly looking forward to being tossed into a room crowded by strangers, though he’d be lying if he said his stomach isn’t rumbling with a vengeance. 

When he opens the door, Tommy beams at him. “Mornin’, sunshine.”

—

The mess hall is lively, people of all ages sitting and talking over plates of food, and Joel follows his brother tensely, surveying the room. People look, some staring, a few offering friendly smiles, but Joel’s face remains stony. 

Tommy glances at him, smiling to himself in quiet amusement, before he nudges him with his elbow. “You don’t need to be so damn skittish, Joel. They’re just curious. They won’t bite.”

Joel frowns, replying in an edgy mutter, “Yeah, well, I don’t know these people, Tommy. You can’t blame me for assuming they might.”

Tommy chuckles, shaking his head as he leads him to the end of the shuffling food line. It’s then that Joel’s eyes zero in on the food laid across the long table ahead of them, large tin pans filled with still steaming scrambled eggs, cooked sausages, a tower of biscuits being ladled with thick gravy, two large bowls filled with assorted cut fruit, ripe and fresh. It feels almost like a mirage, and he has to swallow down saliva just about every five seconds, silently picking up a plate behind his brother once they finally reach the table. 

“Be generous. There’s plenty to go around.” Tommy leans in to whisper, a twinkle in his eye. Joel just glances at him, shifting on his feet before plucking the spoon out of the scrambled eggs to scoop onto his plate. By the time they’re at the end of the spread, Joel realizes he maybe should have grabbed two plates instead of one, with all the food piled onto his, the juices of the sausage and fruit mixing with the gravy, but the mash of flavors is of no concern to him as Tommy guides him through the room to an empty table.

As they walk, Joel can’t help but notice a table of children, henned by a single plump woman, openly staring at him, eyes wide and curious. They’re basically rubbernecking, heads craning as they watch his every step as he moves past. 

“Looks like you’ve got some fans already.” Tommy says in a low tone with a teasing smile on his face, but as they sit down, Joel mutters back, “They ain’t got no goddamn manners?”​

Tommy snickers, shaking his head as he starts to fork at the food on his plate. “They’re kids, Joel. You’re the shiny new toy.”

“The hell I am.” Joel shoots back, lips pursed in irritation, but Tommy only chuckles again. “Alright, whatever. Just eat up.” With one more disapproving huff, Joel settles his attention back on his food, an intense wave of hunger washing through him as he picks up his fork and knife to starts shoveling it in.

With a glimmering smile as he watches, Tommy reminds him in a teasing tone, “Chew.” Joel is too distracted by the taste to even glare, simply returning around a full mouth, “I’m not a damn child, Tommy. Just fuckin’ starving. You have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve had a meal like this?”

“Well, if you keep shoving it in like that, it might be your last.”

“Shut up.” Joel says, the sound barely comprehensible with the amount of food stuffed in his mouth, but it’s not hard to guess, and it only makes Tommy snicker.

Giving him some time to enjoy the meal, Tommy pulls away to retrieve cups of coffee for the two of them, before joining back and starting to explain the inner workings of the commune—work, specifically. The two positions that stick out the most to Joel are construction, and patrolling. Even though he’s sure he’ll be rusty, getting back into what he used to do all those years ago is a nice thought. Patrolling, well, he guesses he might end up going a little stir crazy if he doesn’t get out past these walls every once a while, and going out armed, on horseback, and joined by a couple others, in addition to knowing he’s doing his part to keep Jackson safe and that he’ll have a warm home to return to, yeah, he can do that. 

Eventually, he casts a few glances around the mess hall, trying to discreetly catch a glimpse of you, and after a few furtive attempts, he finally does, spotting you sitting alone at a table. You’re hunched over your plate, guarding it, head down, shoveling your food in almost as fast as he’s been, as if this was your first meal in days, or that someone might come steal it away if you’re ready to fight them off. 

You used to eat slowly, savoring the taste, never wanting to have the last bite to yourself, always wanting to share.

Not anymore. 

Joel drops his head back down, trying to hide how much his heart starts to hurt, nodding along to Tommy’s words, sparing a comment every once in a while, but he’s basically picking at his food towards the end. 

As breakfast comes to a close and people start to file out of the building, Joel keeks around again, almost reflexively trying to pick you out in the crowd. When he finally finds you, he catches you watching him, then deliberately side stepping behind a small pocket of chattering Jacksonvillers. His heart twinges, guessing you’re going to be avoiding him from now on, and he internally kicks himself all the way out into the street, before your voice startles him out of it, having strode up right in front of he and Tommy while his gaze was fixed on his shoes.

“Hey, do you have time to talk?” You ask, stiff and rushed. 

He blinks at you, throwing a quick glance at Tommy, head racing with questions like, ‘Is this gonna end well?’ ‘Why the hell would you even want to talk to me?’ and, the most frightening, ‘What are you gonna say?’

After a brief pause, he gives you a short nod, the words falling from his lips, “Of course.”

“At my house?” You respond immediately, shifting from one foot to the other. 

“Yeah.” He nods again, “Sure.” 

You let out a quick sigh, nodding again, before turning on your heel and starting to basically march back towards your row of houses. With a quick ‘what the fuck?’ glance at Tommy, who then gives him a tight lipped, ‘good luck’ grimace, Joel follows behind you, heart rate steadily rising the closer you get. Neither of you dare even glance in the other’s direction, body language equally taut as you walk the few more uncomfortable minutes up to your door. Quickly, you unlock it and slip inside, shrugging off your jacket and hanging it up in one fluid motion, not even looking at him as you walk to the table and sit down. Joel approaches more hesitantly, heart punching his rib cage as he takes a seat across from you. 

While you study the surface of the table, Joel can’t tear his gaze away from you, and when you finally raise your head to meet it, he swallows hard. Your expression is measured in neutrality, and Joel can’t tell if he’s in any way prepared for whatever the hell it is you’re about to say. 

After a beat, you finally begin, “We need to have a conversation. A real one. Not like yesterday where we end up screaming our heads off at each other. We both live here now, which means we’re gonna see each other around, so I think we should try to at least make that bearable.” You say evenly, lips slightly pursed.

He nods tersely, agreeing wholeheartedly that you have to do something about this whole… situation, and hoping to god that this does end up as a civil, useful conversation. He also knows that that means he needs to keep the reins tight on himself, keep in his mind that he needs to be patient with you, understanding, kind. He wants to be, it’s where his heart is at, but he feels skinless around you, as if the simple breath from your lips when you speak stings. 

After he nods, you pause, looking down at your fidgeting hands. He watches them, self reproach another set of teeth sinking into his raw skin. He doesn't want to make you nervous, doesn’t want you to have to bite your tongue around him; he’s writhing in his skin at how fucking difficult it is for the two of you just to have a conversation, when it used to be so easy. 

But maybe talking will do something. Maybe, after this, your words won’t be so forced, and he won't feel like he’s turning inside out every time a silence falls. 

He watches your mouth open, hanging for a moment before you pick back up, “And I… I realized that, I need to give you a chance to say your piece… hear your side of things. So…” You glance up at him, giving a slight, awkward nod, like now it’s his turn to speak, and he swallows, suddenly very much on the spot. 

“Uh, my side.” He stalls, adjusting his posture in the seat, folding his hands on the table. 

“Just, whatever you wanna say. I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

Joel studies you for several more seconds, relieved and surprised at your sudden willingness to ‘hear his side of things’, and your claim to actually listen to it. He’s still nervous, though, still apprehensive to actually open up about what things looked like for him. You seem to have very conflicting views on it, and he’s not certain that you’ll continue to be as calm—or probably as close as you can get to it at the moment—once he really gets to talking.

He frowns, looking away as he actually tries to think of how to explain himself. He’s still just treading water in an ocean of shame, over what he did, and the reason he did it in the first place. He fights against the urge to say ‘it’s complicated’, knowing it’s a meaningless phrase, despite the truth in it. But the silence stretches on, that expectant look on your face, so, forcing himself to finally hold your gaze, he blurts out the first thing that makes it to his tongue. 

“I’m sorry.”

He swallows, fidgeting with his hands, expecting a displeased sigh, but you stay silent, keeping your promise. So, he’s forced to continue. 

“I know that doesn’t mean much, I know it, won’t make things right. I don't think anything I could say will… but… I guess I, I mean, I do, owe you, some sort of… explanation.” He clenches his jaw, and knowing what he’s going to say next, he can’t get himself to meet your eyes, locking them instead on a dark ray on the wooden table, a bitter taste rising in his mouth as he speaks. “I was weak. Sacred. I didn’t…” the words get stuck in his throat, his entire body screaming, but he soldiers on. “I wanted to protect you. And it’s not because I thought you couldn’t look after yourself—you’ve always been very capable.” These are words he’s able to look you in the eyes for, sure and true, things she wished he’d told you more, so you wouldn’t have ended up with this fucked up idea that he looks down on you. “You’re strong, you’re smart, sharp, always have been. You saved my life more than once, Y/n, I’ve never forgotten that. I never doubted you, never doubted what you can do. That’s not why I left.” His gaze falls back down to the table, back to that dark eye in the wood. “I care about you. So much that it… it hurts, and I, I just… I wanted to keep you safe. And I thought I was, when I… but, I know that, wh-when it really mattered, I failed. I know I did.” Sorrow starts to lilt his tone, and he swallows, willing his voice to even. “I thought I was doing you a favor, by just leavin’, I thought you’d be better off, I thought I… but, but I know it was wrong, and, by the time I realized what I’d done, it was too late. You were gone.” There's a long pause, Joel hopelessly fidgeting with his hands as that feeling comes back, that boulder in his gut, not knowing where you were, the world suddenly feeling so vast, the realization that he might never find you like a vacuum in his chest. When he manages to speak again, his voice has fallen quiet, “I went back, I looked for you, but I couldn’t find you, but I, I kept looking for you. I never stopped. I never stopped thinking about you. Every day, I thought about you, no matter where I was, I was just, hopin’ you’d, just, show up somewhere and I could…”

“You looked for me?” Comes a heartbroken voice, and when his gaze flicks back up, your face has fallen, as if the thought had never occurred to you that he searched for you, that he regretted leaving you there. 

“Of course I did.” Joel replies in an almost whisper, brow strung together as he looks at you, “I wish I never left, Y/n. I just thought that… I thought it was the only way to keep you safe.” He keeps his eyes locked on yours, hoping his words can carry all the emotion that burns his pith, “I thought I was gonna, drag you down, I was gonna get you killed, Y/n. I’m old; even then, I, I’m losin’—I mean my, my hearing’s goin’, I’m not as fast as I used to be, I don’t have the same endurance or stamina—shit, Y/n, I’m not what I used to be, I’m… I’m…” he pauses for a rough breath, the shame weighing his head down as he shakes it, voice low and gruff. “I didn’t wanna be the reason you died. I couldn’t live with myself if I was.” He shakes his head, “If I failed you like that. But I did anyway, I know that I did, Y/n. I know what I did was wrong. And I hated myself for it, I still do, because I know that it was the worst thing I could’ve done, leave you to… fend for yourself. I left you, alone, with your arm still, still torn open…” by now, his voice is nothing but a shaky murmur, the confession like having his throat scraped clean, down his diaphragm, scooping out all that festering rot, to admit the shortcomings and weaknesses that tore your life apart, but it doesn’t hurt enough, he feels like he should get down on his knees and tear his own arms open, lash himself until there’s nothing left but exposed muscle, and hope that the pain could counterweight whatever it is that has shaped you into this frightened, barbed woman that you are now. “I left, because I’m weak, because I'm a coward, a scared, fool, I’m, I’m, pathetic Y/n and I know it—” He spits the last bit out, a pained grimace on his face, but then you interrupt him, suddenly whispering, “Stop.”

Joel raises his head to look at you, rambling abruptly cut short, and he finds your shoulders are even higher than before, your eyes shut tight. 

“You know I could never stand you talking about yourself like that. Even when you were joking. So just… don’t.” The lack of anger coming from you is, once again, shocking, not even annoyance present, just that tenseness, your brow pinched, jaw set. He hadn't expected that to be the point when you'd heard enough, with how affronted you’d been every time he’d tried to apologize, and after how pathetic he was last night. 

Joel stays quiet, anxiously awaiting for you to explain, for your response to his vomited admissions. 

With a sigh, you fold your hands. “Joel…” He watches your lips as you speak, saying his name softly. 

Right now, you look almost small, and he can tell that whatever you’re about to say is going to be just as hard to say as it was for him, and he becomes acutely aware of how fragile this moment is. “I…” You start again, mouth hanging open for another moment. 

“I spent a lot of time, trying to figure out why you left.” You pause. “I thought that you were just trying to protect yourself, that I was weighing you down, that I was…” you stop again to sigh. “I thought that you meant it when you said that it was all bullshit. That I never meant anything to you, that it was just some sick joke, that you��d been itching to leave for, a while, that you… that you hated me.” Your words strike Joel like an iron spike, and he feel compelled to argue, press again how much he cares for you, how highly he’s always valued you, but he knows better than to interrupt, so he instead simply sits there, watching your face, the light contortion of pain that he wishes he could rip away like a unbecoming veil. 

“But I realized that that’s not true… I think I knew for a while, why you did it. Deep down I knew that you were just scared. And I… I get it.” You nod, “I understand. I mean I, I know you pretty well, Joel.” You nod again, shifting in your seat. “And I don’t want to hate you, no matter how much I did, I—I wanted to just be angry, because that would be so much easier, easier than hurting—if I’m angry I’m not weak. I can do something about it, but, but, I just, I care about you, and I always wondered how you were doing, but every time I wished you well I shoved the thought out, because it would be so much easier to just want to—” You let out a heavy sigh, deflating, head bowing so low that he can only see the top of it, your hands folded firmly in front of you. 

“I still wished you were there.” Your whispered words sound broken, and Joel feels like he’s falling apart at the seams, like he could just start wailing, and all he wants to do is wrap you up in his arms, and protect you, like he didn’t for all those years, protect that softness that he can see is still in you now. All he sees in front of him is that girl, the one who smiled, and sang, and laughed, and offered her kindness to the world despite how terribly it would throw it back on her face. But he remains there, rigid.

“It was so fucked up without you Joel.” You continue in that small, quiet voice. “And I'm not trying to make you feel bad, I don't want that anymore, I just…” A shaky sigh slips past your lips, and the guilt is melting his skin off, because he knows that you wouldn’t be this broken if he had just stayed, and your soft little whispered words tell him just how much you’ve suffered. “I just—” The words die in your throat again with another rough breath, and then you shock him again, by unfolding a hand and laying it down on the table, open towards him. He stares at it, unable to move, before he remembers what to do, and slips his hand into yours, hesitating before he squeezes it, and when you squeeze back, his heart twists, and it’s as if every second of those six years comes crashing down on him, and after a deep, unsteady breath, you speak again, voice heart wrenchingly pained and tight, and terribly, terribly soft. 

“I know I'm not the same. I know I’m different now. I know I’m like a fucking animal sometimes. I don't want to be. And I don't blame you for that. I blame the world, all the fucked up people I ran into, all the—the fucking, shit, that is the world.” Joel’s stomach ties in painful knots, brow knitting, wanting to disagree, because all he can think when he looks at you, hears how choked up your tone is becoming is I did this. I did that to you. “I’m just, I’m just fucking damaged, Joel, I’m damaged to shit.” 

Those words are what break him, and he’s unable to stop himself from cutting you off, squeezing your hand a little tighter. “You’re not damaged.” He tells you, tender, but unwavering. 

“Yeah, I am.” You counter in a tearful whisper, eyes still shut tight and aimed at the table, but he sees how your brow is scrunched, and god, it hurts. “I talked to Tommy last night,” you go on, “and you wanna know what he said to me when I told him I was gonna talk to you again today? He said, ‘promise me you’re not gonna kill my brother.’ And he meant it, Joel. He thought I was gonna fucking kill you, his brother.” A sniffle interrupts you, and you quickly swipe a hand under your nose, letting out a feeble, trembling sigh. “I’m a fucking freak, Joel, a rabid fucking dog. I’m a monster, and I know it. The world ate me up and spit me back out again, and I don't, I don't recognize myself anymore. And I hate it.” You sniffle again, roughly wiping again with the back of your hand, and Joel’s heart is racing, eyes almost wide and tearful himself, shocked into stillness, hearing you suddenly spewing all these things out, hearing you speak of yourself in this way. “I know you miss me, and I miss me, too. But I can't see her anymore, Joel, when I look at myself, all I see is blood on my lips, on my face, pouring down my neck. I—I’m a—” Suddenly, a choked whimper tumbles out of you, shaking your shoulders, and he can’t stand it anymore. 

“Stop. Stop. No more. You’re not. You’re not.” Joel shakes his head, eyes fixed on you, keeping his voice gentle, gentle like you are to him, gentle like the place in his heart that cradles you.

“Yes I am.” You argue back, voice breaking, and he knows the tears are coming. “I’m awful, Joel, I’m awful.” 

He can’t stop himself from rising from his seat, he doesn't think twice as he walks around the table, fitting his hands under your arms to pull you out of your chair, then wrapping you into his embrace, gently pulling you against him. You lean into him easily, and he shuts his eyes tight, heart booming with a deep ache of pain but also relief, to hold you again, finally, again. 

You cover your face with your hands, folding your arms against his chest, shoulders shaking with nearly silent cries. Joel clenches his jaw, willing his own tears back, willing back the guilt and shame, to stop thinking about himself, and to just be there for you, because you're not asking for his penance, you're asking for his care. So, he wills it to pour out of him, pulling his arms tighter around you and gently running a hand up and down your back. And he knows why it makes you cry harder. Because you finally have that comfort that you wished for all those times when he wasn’t there, and hell if he’s going anywhere now. 

After a sudden, audible sob, your hands come away from your face to instead wrap around his shoulders, and then there you hang, and there he holds you, almost up from around your waist. 

As the weeping commences, you’ve never felt this raw in his arms, he’s never heard such broken sounds from you, ragged sobs launching from your throat and reverberating through his chest as you press your face into it. You’re breaking in his arms, your knees going weak, but he’s got you, he whispers, “I got you. I got you.”

Another violent bawl jolts out of you, and then he can feel your full weight pull against his arms, so he sinks down to the floor with you, wrapping his arms as far as they’ll go to pull you against his chest as you cave into it. It only swells, your lamenting, hard, rough, loud sobs and choked breaths that he instantly recognizes the need in for that gentle reminder, “Hey, breathe, breath, in and out, in and out.” He says it into your hair, whispering just above your ear, his own eyes still squeezed shut, heart swelled with all this love that he wishes could just seep through his skin to replace all of this pain, but he knows it can’t, he knows all he can do is hold you and, “Breathe with me. In and out. That’s it. Keep breathing. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here with you. Just breathe. That’s all you gotta do. Just breathe with me.”

And you do, and his head is swimming, it’s so surreal, but he feels your weight, there and true, and your hands clutching his shirt just as he had yours when it was his turn to break, and he can feel how you need him like he needed you. But it’s not weakness, that’s not what he feels from you, it’s strength, because god damn it you’re still here, you made it through that hell, and by god you are not lost, not to him, and here you are, back in his arms. 

Eventually, your tears die down, the only sound in the house those even, shared breaths, cut by a small snivel or snuffle from you. It starts to calm him, too, passing those level breaths with you, his eyes still closed as he holds on tight, the screams in his head becoming faint whispers—all the shame, guilt, hurt and pain falling away, leaving him only with how precious you are. 

After a few more moments, your body falls lax against him, and you let out a final deep, shuddering sigh, before finally finding your voice again, quiet against his chest. “I guess we’re even now.”

Joel can’t help a sudden, breathy chuckle, a small smile forming on his face. “I guess so.” He replies, a warmth spreading steadily through his chest.

He wants to hold onto this moment, just stay here on the floor for a while with your weight draped over him and warmth under his arms. It feels almost dreamlike to feel the shape of you again, hear the sound of your breaths, to have you relaxed, just, resting there. 

Despite everything, right now, it’s okay again. Right now, he has you back. And even though you’re different, he loves you, just as he always has, except maybe harder, now. More purposeful. Because you need it. You need the best that he has, so he’ll give it. He’ll be softer. He’ll tell you how much loves you, and how wonderful you are, how strong, powerful, smart, resilient, the joy that you give him just by being alive. He’ll try to make you smile more, but it’ll be alright if you don’t. He’ll make a space for you where it doesn’t matter what you've gone through or what you've seen, what you've done. He doesn't care about the cruelty he knows you've inflicted. He’s done the same. It doesn't make you any less of a person, doesn't make you deserve anything less than every single drop of love he can squeeze out of himself. And Jackson will be a home, and whenever it falls, whether it's in five years, ten, one, a week, you’ll make it out, together, he’ll take you with him, haul you and Tommy out of the flames and you’ll make another home, or something, something. But he’ll be there. He will dedicate himself to you. You are his purpose, just as you were before, but now, it’ll be in everything that he does. That is what’s left for him to do. 

To love you. Show it to you every day. However you need him to. 

That's what's left for him to do in this world. 

So, he holds you, and whispers in your ear, “I love you.” 

[a-kaash-me-outside]

a bit dirty - ch6

in which you hook up with osamu in a club bathroom and that's just the beginning. prev | ch6 [masterlist]

// a really great idea ~ ᴏsᴀᴍᴜ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ~ 7392 ᴡᴏʀᴅs

a look into this chapter: 18+ minors dni nsfw, squirting, sex in a bed!!, a lot of feelings and love!!!!, intimacy in more than just the bedroom fr, names names names pet names a million pet names, oral f!receiving, afab she/her pronouns

tori talks: oh good god guys we're finally here. thanks to everyone who is going to read this last chapter even though it literally took me over 6 months to write it. i hope you enjoy it and i'm glad it's over and that it happened. ily all. hope u enjoy. ♡ ʀᴇʙʟᴏɢs ᴀɴᴅ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴs ᴍᴇᴀɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ♡

you’re not sure you’d admit it to anyone, but walking into osamu’s apartment for the first time feels like coming home after a long day at work. you can see yourself here, more than you can in your own apartment or your childhood home. you feel just a little bit more like yourself, shoulders relaxing in a way that you didn’t think they needed to, breath a tiny fraction steadier. you’re not sure you’ve felt this comfortable in a really long time. 

you don’t have to ask him where to put your shoes or where to hang your jacket, and he doesn’t take them from you either. he doesn’t put them away for you or tell you to hang them on the hangers in the empty closet down the hall. 

when he unlocks his door and pushes inside, you mimic his motions, placing your shoes gingerly on the rack to the right of the closet between his white sneakers and black work shoes, hanging your jacket on the empty hooks above the spot where you've just retired your shoes. 

stepping deeper into his apartment, he offers a small, “so, welcome,” he says, gesturing to the living room, one hand softly wrapped around yours as he tugs you along. stepping past the barrier of the front door, further into osamu’s space, you don’t feel like a guest here. you just feel like you belong.

“oh my god, it’s so clean in here,” you say, a few paces ahead of him now, but he refuses to break contact, to let go of your fingertips so he walks quickly along with you. 

“well, yea, i’m not really ever home,” he explains, shrugging, as you walk around his living room eyes stopping at the neatly organized coffee table with cork coasters and a yellow hard-covered book titled this book will make you kinder, at the photos on his wall of him and his brother and him and his restaurant and him and suna, at the plants in the window sill and the dustless, dirtless ledge beneath them. 

you shake your head, “no, that’s not true. you come home after work and you’re here before you leave for work, and i’m sure you’re super busy leaving in the morning and super tired when you come home at night, so it’s really impressive that it’s really clean.”

he lets out a half-laugh, a breathy light scoff in the place of a real response. you turn around, looking at him directly with a mischievous look on your face, “unless you cleaned your apartment just for me tonight?”

osamu’s quiet, a very telling silence, a wordless admittance. “oh my god!” you say, hands on your hip, and the slight hold that he has on your fingertips isn’t broken yet, his hand now pressed against your side, fingers curling around your hip as he pulls you a little closer.  

“okay!” he admits, “so i am pretty tidy anyways, but there may have been a few dishes in the sink and the bed might not have been made and the couch cushions didn’t look that good before but-”

you shake your head, clicking your tongue, pulling your bottom lip between your teeth as you tease, “how presumptuous of you that i would come back here after our date?” 

“i didn’t think we’d just fuck in the bathroom again, baby, what was i supposed to do, you literally said-” he says, trying to explain himself, unstoppable smile on his face as he pulls you even closer to him.

“do you think i’m that kinda girl? to just fuck you on the first date?” you ask, palm flat against his chest now, the other hand snaking up to lazily drape around his neck.

he shakes his head, wrapping his arms around you tight around your arms and shoulders, holding you in place as he laughs so deep that it sends tingles and shivers down your spine and skin. “you’re very funny, y’know that?” he asks, squishing you against his chest as he presses kiss after kiss into the top of your head. 

“you made the bed? fixed the couch cushions? samu, i mean, really, what did you think was going to happen tonight?” you giggle, emphasizing every other word dramatically as you squirm in his tight grasp.

“i mean,” he says, leaning back to look at the warmth on your face, the fluster that lies with it, “you are here, aren’t you? i couldn’t have been that wrong if the cleaning paid off.”

you giggle harder now, leaning up and pressing a kiss into wherever you can reach in his strong hold. “i sure am,” you agree. he loosens his grip, hand falling down your arm to thread his fingers with yours again. he pecks a small kiss against your lips and then your cheek. 

“you sure are,” he says, warmly. 

you really could’ve stayed in the middle of his living room forever surrounded by couches and books on shelves and an impressive entertainment system. you didn’t need any of it either, didn’t need a place to sit or things to keep you busy, you’d be really happy just staring at osamu for the rest of time, at hearing him laugh, at feeling his pulse in your palm.  

“can i getcha a drink?” he asks, pulling you out of this mellow, love-struck state in the name of hospitality. 

“only if i can come with you,” you say, looking over his shoulder into the kitchen. your motivation is 70% wanting to stay with osamu and 30% wanting to see what his kitchen looks like: what kind of mugs he has, where he keeps his silverware, if his knives and pans are on display or tucked away in cabinets.

“clingy,” he teases, smile huge because there wasn’t any way that he was leaving you alone for even a second. 

“fine! i'll stay in here,” you pout. 

he doesn’t respond, only laughs and pulls you by the hand, “come on, pretty.”

you don’t protest anymore, following along happily into the kitchen, forcing yourself to sit on the barstool in front of the bar rather than snoop in his cupboards and drawers. he’s hesitant to let his touch fall from yours, to let go of the contact he has on your hand and your hip, but he does, presses a small kiss into the side of your head, and walks deeper into his kitchen.

from here you can see the kettle on the counter and the knives on a metallic strip above the black countertop. the pans are nowhere to be seen. they must be hidden away somewhere safe. you don’t say anything and neither does he as he pulls wine glasses and mugs and cups out of the cupboard and places them on the countertop in front of you. 

and you still don’t feel like a guest. 

it feels like osamu getting you a drink is because he loves you, like you could get up and get your own if you wanted to, like you already knew where the tea bags were and the spoons and the shelf that the sugar resided, like next time you would return the favor, let him sit down for a minute while you made the two of you tea or poured another glass of wine. 

“what’s it gonna be?” he asks, gesturing to your choices on the bar in front of you.

“y’know you could’ve just asked me that before pulling out all the cups?” you tease, eyes moving from cup to mug to wine glass. 

he shrugs, “not as visual.”

“what are you in the mood for?” you ask, reaching to pick up the mug, black ceramic with a gray stripe along the base. you turn it over in your hand, running your fingers along the matte texture. yeah, this feels like a mug osamu would own. 

“anything, really,” he says, smiling before the rest of the flirt even comes out of his mouth, “as long as i’m drinking it with you on my couch, i will be very happy.”

you roll your eyes. it’s really unfair how predictable, yet how adorable, he is when it comes to things like that. “alright, how about wine now, tea later?” you ask.

he rests both of his hands on the edge of the counter for a moment, nodding as he does, removing the cups from the counter and pushing the mugs towards the tea kettle. “sounds like a plan, angel,” he says, disappearing behind the pantry door and coming back with a bottle of wine. 

he doesn’t recork the wine or put the bottle back, leaves it exactly where he sets it on the counter in a rush to just drink wine on his couch with you. he carries your glass for you as he guides you back to the couch. 

sitting on the plush, perfectly set cushions, tucking yourself into the corner against the arm rest, osamu pressed up against you, pulling your legs over the tops of his, his hand resting comfortably on your calf, you’re not sure you’ll ever really be ready to go back to your own cold, lonely apartment. when you close your eyes, you can see this moment next week and next month and three years from now. 

your first glass of wine isn’t even finished before he interrupts your current conversation of favorite movies and media with a stupidly cute, nervous question, “so, can i ask you now?” 

you want to be stunned or at least fake it, but you can only lean closer into him, setting your wine glass down on the coaster on the coffee table to wrap both of your arms around his bicep. “ask me what?” you tease.

he shakes his head, “y’know that night i thought you were so out of my league.”

you lean backwards, mouth agape, eyebrows furrowed in disbelief, “no fucking way.”

“swear,” he laughs, leaning forward to set his glass down next to yours, “and i was out of my depth, had no idea what i was doing, just couldn’t stop staring at you-”

“oh, i know,” you say, recalling his smitten, lingering stare so perfectly that your face feels warm, “every time i would look over in your direction you would be looking at me like this.” you mimic your recollection as best as you can.

he puts his face in his hands. “that’s so embarrassing,” he says, and it’s muffled by his palms. you wrap your hands around his wrists, pulling them away from his face and kissing the backs of them.

“no, no, it was cute,” you say, but he still groans. you continue, “samu, i was into it, obviously.”

he explains further, “sumu was like shoving me over there so blatantly that i almost didn’t go over there.” he shakes his head at the memory, at the alternate universe where his stupid brother alone failed to start the best chain of events of his life. “and then omi leaned over to me and was like, ‘i'll distract your dumbass brother, go have a good night, you deserve it.’” 

“remind me to thank him then,” you say, softly, shifting against the couch to lean against his shoulder instead of the armrest. 

“will do,” he says, smile in his voice as he snakes his arm around your waist, hand resting on the side of your thigh. “i’ve thanked him plenty for both of us, but it might mean more coming from a new mouth.”

“you just say the most romantic things like it’s nothing,” you say.

“i don’t try,” he admits, “just hard not to be romantic when i’m with you.” he reaches across you with his other arm, pulls you further into his lap until both of your knees are on either side of his thighs and you’re facing him. “sorry,” he mumbles, “wanted to look at ya.”

“you’ve gotta be doing this on purpose,” you whisper. 

his fingers scrape against the tops of your tights before rooting on your hips. he shakes his head. “it’s all you, really,” he whispers back. “these thoughts just come into my mind and i say them. love you so much, you make it easy.”

you’re very grateful for this position because it’s effortless to lean down and crash your lips into his, to wrap your arms around his neck and pull him deeper into the kiss, to feel his chest lift to kiss you harder. he tastes like expensive wine and a little bit like you still and you might cry, he’s just really perfect. 

he places his hand on your shoulder, holds you in place as he leans back into the couch. the pout is already forming on your lip, so he runs his thumb across it gently. “will you be mine?” he asks, adding before you’ve even answered, “let me love you with labels.”

“oh my god, samu, you’re going to kill me, y’know that?” you say, hands cupping both of his cheeks before kissing him sweetly. “how do you expect me to keep up with this?”

“just say yes,” he says, quickly, “that’s enough for me.”

“of course,” you say, forehead resting gently against his, kiss placed on his nose and then the high of his cheekbone. you repeat it again just in case he missed it the first time, “of course.”

“i’m sorry that i didn’t make this happen sooner,” he says, soft sigh accompanying his remorseful tone.

“stop that,” you hush him.

“i mean it,” he says, sitting up into you a bit more, “if i would’ve figured my shit out sooner, we could’ve been doing this for months.”

“yeah, but you don’t know if everything would’ve turned out the same way,” you say, bringing your hands up into his hair, “if that would’ve been too soon or if we needed to go through all we went through to be as strong as we are now, there’s no way to know, really.”

he smiles at you, not opening his mouth to say anything, just soaking in the moment, humming at your astute thought. you continue, “i guess i just mean that, yea, getting more time with you would’ve been great, but we can’t do anything about that. so i’m just really glad to be with you now, here, drinking wine and sitting in your lap and kissing you.”

“and you say i’m the romantic,” he murmurs, kissing you once more. 

“you are,” you argue. 

/\ /\ /\

neither of you even finish your first glass of wine. even if you had, there was no way the two of you were untangling from each other and making your way into the kitchen for another, not in the middle of unimportance conversations about your thoughts on christmas lights or osamu’s thoughts on the type of pet he’d like to have one day. 

but as the hours tick on, as the clock hands droop lower and lower, osamu knows that you need some sort of transition period to staying the night. “cup of tea before we go to bed?” he asks, head resting against the back cushion of the couch staring into your eyes with as much love as he can.

“are you being presumptuous again, samu?” you tease, but your eyelids are getting heavier and you can’t put a lot of effort into the taunting. 

“i’m sorry, princess, do you want to stay the night?” he asks, gut-wrenchingly sincere. 

“i would really love that, yea,” you say, flustered in the backfiring of your banter, “and tea sounds really nice too.” 

he nods, once, short and happy, ready to move you off of his lap to go get the two of you a final drink before bed, but you get off of him first. “i’ll get it,” you offer, waiting with bated breath for him to fight you on it or to be weirded out by the forwardness of raiding his kitchen to feel the domesticity a little harder.  

he doesn’t protest at all, lets the smitten, lingering stare last for a few moments before saying, “only if i can come with you.”

before you’ve made it to the kitchen with osamu in tow, he stops you, plants in place in front of the hallway to his bedroom, and nods towards it. “but first, can we get you into some comfier clothes?” he asks. “nighttime tea tastes better when you’re in comfy clothes,” he reasons. you can’t disagree. 

you follow him down the hall to his room. you don’t get a good look at his plainly decorated room or the nicely made bed as you wait in the doorway. he returns quickly with a t-shirt of his. “you can change in the bathroom across the hall if you want,” he offers.

“you know you were inside of me in a fancy restaurant bathroom hours ago, right?” you ask, narrowing your eyes, pushing past him into his room and taking off all of your date clothes. osamu folds them neatly as you set them on the bed. when he picks up your torn tights, he can’t hold back his small laugh. 

“oh yea, so funny,” you joke, “you can probably throw those away.”

“but they’re perfectly good for having sex in public bathrooms,” he jokes back. 

you pull his shirt over your head, soft cotton taking the place of going out clothes and the difference is already lulling you to sleep. you’re determined to make osamu tea, but you can’t promise most of the cup won’t go cold on the counter.

it doesn’t take long for osamu to be on you, arms wrapped around your waist, hands roaming over your body, “you look so good right now.”

“shut up,” you say, pushing him away with the least amount of resolve anyone has ever had, “imagine how i feel looking at you wearing stuff like this.”

“you look better in it than i do,” he says, shaking his head. 

“not possible,” you say back.

he leans down to kiss you once before reluctantly pulling away, walking back over to his dresser to change into comfier clothes as well. if you weren’t so stupidly tired, seeing osamu shirtless and in super casual sweatpants would’ve been the perfect catalyst for your first night together having sex in a bed.

tea. sleep. tea. sleep. tea. sleep. you remind yourself.

“c’mon, angel,” he coaxes, pulling you by your hand back down the hallway and into the kitchen. he leans against the countertop, doesn’t say another word or try to make you tea despite your earlier statement. 

you start the kettle with the push of a button, pull the mugs from across the counter in front of you. you pluck two tea bags from the glass jar where they live. you have to open a few cupboards before finding the spoons, but the sugar is right where you think it will be. 

“i think knowing that you take sugar in your tea is both the most surprising thing and also somehow completely aligns with who you are,” you reason, pouring the gently boiling water over the tea bags. by the time you finish your sentence, you’ve noticed the enamored look on his face, but you don’t have time to comment on it as he replies. 

“that’s because you know me really well,” he says, nodding, loving smile still lingering. you put half of a spoonful of sugar into the cup, stir until it dissolves and then slid it against the countertop to him. he wraps his fingers around the warm cup, brings it to his lips, blows on it gently as if that’s going to do anything at all, and then takes the smallest sip. “perfect.”

you lean against the edge of the counter, holding the mug in your hands, waiting for the air to cool down the steaming beverage. “i think i’d be really okay with ending every single day of my life just like this,” you admit. if his eyes go wide or he recoils even the smallest percentage, you’ll blame it on the eventful day and the exhaustion that’s quickly overcoming you, but they don’t. his features soften, hand reaches across the counter to rub the back of your hand. 

“me too,” he reciprocates. “you’ll have to stay over more often,” he doubles down. 

“what?” you ask, taking a sip of your tea. you can feel the warmth hit your stomach. “have dinner ready for you when you come home and spend your nights off intertwined on the couch?” everything that you’re saying is getting closer and closer to practically asking to move in, but osamu doesn’t seem to mind. 

“exactly that,” he murmurs, “you’ll have to see if you like my bed first, though, before you resign yourself to coming over every night.”

“every night?” you ask, cheeky smile the only form of teasing that you’re giving right now, “maybe we should go check it out then.” you take one more sip of your tea and then set the cup down on the counter. osamu doesn’t even do that, pulls you away from behind the counter and down the hall. 

you climb into his bed, under his covers without asking or another mention. osamu joins you, climbing into the other side, and the two of you don’t waste a single second, curling up against each other, limbs lazily tangling, pressing up against one another as close as you possibly can. 

“the first time we’re in a bed together and we’re not even having sex,” he says, softly, reaching over and turning off his bedside light. it takes a few moments for your eyes to get adjusted, to make out the shapes of his face in the dark. 

“crazy, right?” you ask, smiling as you snuggling into his chest impossibly closer. 

“i like this though,” he admits, traces his fingers up and down your arms, “just being in bed with you, falling asleep with you, means i get to wake up with you.”

you hum at his voice, soft and deep, and the darkness looks the same as it does with shut eyes, but you’re trying your best to not let the sleep take you that fast. “can you keep me awake?” you ask.

“you’re literally falling asleep as we speak,” he says, your eyelids fluttering shut as if to make a point. you shake your head, but you don’t say anything else. “why do you want me to keep you awake, babygirl?”

“cause i wanna be in this moment a little while longer,” you reason, breath taking over your voice as the darkness and warmth pull you into a comforting hug.

“we’ll have plenty of time for moments like this later,” he says, kissing the top of your head. “plenty of time, so go to sleep, angel.”

you’re not even embarrassed at how quickly you listen to him.

/\ /\ /\

if last night wasn’t enough to convince you that you were exactly where you needed to be for the rest of your life, waking up in osamu’s arms definitely was. they’re strong around you, wrapped tightly around your waist, nose nuzzled into the back of your neck, legs intertwined with yours. 

you’re incredibly surprised that you’ve woken up first, but the second that you start to stir, osamu’s grip loosens, and his head peaks over your shoulder and he places a small kiss on your cheek. “mornin’,” he says, raspy as he talks off the sleep. 

you turn in his arms, laying flat on your back so you can look at him directly. “good morning,” you say back, lifting your head to kiss him. “very good morning,” you say again. 

“cute,” he murmurs against your lips, “stupidly cute.” you reach your arms up, draping them over his neck loosely to pull him down into you. “do you want breakfast or something?” he asks.

you shake your head, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “no,” you say, “well, maybe later? i think right now i just want, y’know, this.” you gesture with a small nod not really towards anything in particular, just to the situation.

he laughs, kissing the side of your face, “alright, this it is.”

you don’t say much else. nor does he. it’s all stolen kisses and roaming touches and silent exchanges. you don’t feel the need to talk, don’t have much to say, you’re communicating just fine without them. 

every touch is getting needier, every kiss is getting longer, sloppier, more desperate, and the only thing that you’ve been able to think about for the last hour is all of the promises that have been made to you about after date things. 

it doesn’t help that he’s on top of you now, tops of his thighs resting between your legs, hands on either side of your waist just looking at you like that. the first thing you say in over an hour is, “what, samu?”  

he laughs, pushing his fingertips up your body, under the hem of his shirt, pulling it up and up until your entire stomach is exposed. “god, you’re so hot,” he says, grabbing onto your waist to pull you closer to him. 

“samu,” you whine. 

“what, doll? it’s true,” he says, pushing your shirt up even further now, tits on display so pretty that you can feel him begin to grow hard against your inner thigh. “so pretty,” he murmurs. he tugs your shirt off, tosses it to the side with no regard for the tidiness of his room anymore. 

you’ve really never been this exposed before when you’ve had sex with osamu, always an article of clothes on, but now the only thing stopping you from being completely naked is the thin fabric of your panties and osamu’s fingers are already hooked in the waistband. you don’t protest as he drags them down your thighs, picks up your legs and rests them on his shoulder as he does. 

he presses a kiss into the side of your leg, slowly drops them back around him. your stomach is in knots, can barely breathe with the way that he’s looking at you, eyes traveling down your body so slowly that you can see each point that they linger a second longer.

“fuck, you look good,” osamu says, leaning down to kiss your shoulders, your collarbones, your chest.

“shut up,” you murmur, fingers threading into his hair, scratching against the back of his head as he scrapes his teeth against your sensitive skin.

“no, i’m serious,” he says, leaning back, “you’re so fucking pretty, gorgeous actually.”

“ew, shut up,” you push him away jokingly, gently, “or i’m not going to let you fuck me unless we’re fully clothed ever again,” you joke.

he laughs against your neck, breath and vibrations tickling the wet skin. every single kiss feels personal, hand-crafted and perfectly thought of just for you. the placement is direct and purposeful and you can feel his love in every single one. 

“god, i’m going to take my time with you,” he says, pulling away again. you can feel the blush blooming under your skin, warming up every inch of you, igniting fires in your stomach.

“first time that we have a lot of it,” you joke, coaxing him back up to your lips. “and first time that i don’t have to be situated on a sink or the floor.”

“so you’ll be perfectly comfortable,” he says, kisses trailing between your tits and down your stomach, “while i eat you all morning long.”

“samu,” you say, crook of your elbow rising up to your face to hide behind it. he reaches up, pulls it away from your face. 

“don’t hide from me, doll, look so cute like that,” he says, laying between your thighs, pushing them open with familiar hands. you give in to the gentle pressure so easily that you swear you hear the faintest laugh coming from Osamu, but the light kisses peppering your thighs that follow gain your focus instantly. 

it should feel agonizing, the way he takes his time dragging his lips across every part of the skin between your legs, kissing and biting lightly. but the longer he’s there the more laughter flutters through your chest, the more your cheeks flush, the more loved you feel. you bring your hands to his face as he rests his head against your knee cupping one under his jaw and using the other to push his hair back a little. 

“make me feel so pretty, samu,” you mumble. he makes no attempt to answer, just holds your gaze with loving eyes as he brings himself to ghost near your already soaked pussy, the feeling his breath overwhelming any of your other senses. 

“just want you to see yourself through my eyes, princess.” the end of his sentence comes with a long, slow swipe of his tongue against your hyper sensitive clit and it feels good to finally not worry about who can hear you. 

you dig your head back into the pillow, hair already a mess after a perfectly restful night’s sleep. you can feel his eyes burning into you, even if you can’t see them, even if your focus is really anywhere but the agonizing feather-like touches between your legs.  

it’s a shame, you think, but only for a moment, that his mouth is so busy that you can’t hear him call you pretty names or poke fun at you for whining so much. only for a moment. 

if there’s one thing that osamu cannot be called it’s all-or-nothing. osamu doesn’t do all-or-nothing; he does slowly, consistently, comfortably, and then all. this is no exception. he runs his tongue between your puffy lips, smears your juices all over your sensitive pussy with the tip, and then he eats you- not like a man-starved, but like a man who he gets to indulge in his favorite dessert. 

his fingertips are digging into the fat of your hips, palms pressing to keep you in place, to keep you from squirming, and it’s working. he lets you scratch your nails into his hair, down the back of his neck, resting on the tops of his shoulders. you don’t guide him, don’t buck your hips impatiently, you don’t need to. if he isn’t lapping exactly where you want him to, you know he will be soon, you know it’s deliberate, you know that he knows what’s best for you even if you have to wait for it. 

you’re not sure you know how many times you come on his tongue, how many are attributed to just his tongue and how many are attributed to the noises that he’s making, the grunts that are coming from his throat, the mumbled praises that he’s whispering against your soaked folds, the squeaking of the mattress from the soft grinding that he’s doing against the blankets. 

without a watch, you’d have claimed you were there for hours, all morning, just like he said. you’re not sure if he would’ve stopped either, if you hadn’t sat up on your forearm, somehow more out of breath than he was, and tugged on his hair. “samu, baby,” you whine. 

you can’t help it, the even-more-breathless-breathlessness that hits you when he looks into your eyes, bottom of his face soaked with you, licks his lips, wipes the rest of it with his palm, and crawls slowly up to meet you. he kisses you hard, as hard as you’ll let him, and then he kisses you again, and then he kisses your cheek, and then your jaw, then your neck, mumbles against your skin, “what do you want now, bunny?” he’ll give you anything. “i’ll give you anything.” you know that he will. 

the opportunities are endless. the world is your oyster. anything that you ask for, he will give you, and it will be wrapped with neat paper and a pretty bow with a handwritten note several miles long. you swallow, eyes searching his face for nothing in particular, just because he’s pretty and because he’s yours. 

“i don’t think i have anything to ask for, because you’re already mine,” you whisper.

his face lights up, skin hot and flushed on the highs of his cheeks and traveling down his neck and chest. for a second it looks like he short-circuits, like you’ve broken him just by telling him the truth, and then, in a second, the world catches back up to him. 

he shakes his head slowly and then you’re on top of him, sat with both legs on either sides of his, strong hands steadying you before you can even clock that you need to be steadied. “you’re really asking for it, huh?” he asks, and now you’re feeling warm.

“i- what are you talking about, samu,” you say, eyebrows furrowed. you can feel his hips- and yourself- lift off the bed as the fabric between the backs of your thighs and the tops of his is replaced with soft skin. you yelp softly as you’re lowered back down, hands on your inner thighs pushing you back just enough for his cock to rest between them. 

you’re soaking wet, making a mess between your lips and on the insides of your legs and now all over his hard cock, slowly pushing through your pressed together thighs. he brings his hips off the bed, steady thrusts rocking the mattress ever so slightly, both his hands squeezing the outsides of your thighs. he clicks his tongue, “saying shit like that, angel, you know i’m not going to be able to help myself.”

“samu,” you repeat, breathless. “what ar-.”

he cuts you off, sliding his thumb from the tip of his cock to the base, his leaking head slipping between your messy lips until it’s teasing your hole. “sound so in love with me, baby, need to fucking feel you around me so fucking bad right now,” he breathes, sharp inhale punctuating his sentence as he pulls you by your hips until you’re fully seated on his cock. 

you don’t know if the warmth is coming from the blush or touch of his skin or the desire that’s burning in your core, but it’s there, and before you can even fully register what he’s saying, he’s honest-to-god whimpering, spouting more lovey bullshit, “god, it’s like falling in love with you made you fit even more perfectly around me.” he lifts you slightly, fingers digging into your hips as he lets you slowly fall back down onto his cock. 

he tilts his head into the pillow, but immediately picks it back up, locking eyes with you before letting his gaze fall down your body, like he can’t believe you really exist, like he can’t believe he let himself relax into a position where he couldn’t see you at all times, like he “can’t believe you’re fucking real,” he grunts, “and that you’re all fucking mine.”

“osamu, if you don’t knock it off,” you say. you’re only half-joking. you’re not sure that you could take him talking to you like this for much longer. you feel so full, every part of you feels so full. you slide your hands down his chest, palm against his rapidly beating heart acting as leverage as you start moving in time with him.

you close your eyes, partially to focus on the parts of you that are on fire right now, and partially so that you don’t have to keep looking at how much osamu is looking at you. he can’t keep his hands off of you, can’t keep his eyes off of you.

“can’t help it, pretty, not when i get to savor it like this,” he says, brings his chest up and wraps his arms around your back, holding you securely to him. he kisses the side of your face, whispers in your ear, “not when i finally get to fuck you in my bed and tell you that i love you and see you- all of you.” 

“are you trying to make me cry or something?” you ask, placing both of your hands on either side of his face, forcing his attention on just your eyes and the hints of shyness strewn all over your face. 

a slight smirk is followed by raised eyebrows and a tiny kiss to the temple. osamu flips you over, lying you gently on your back while you’re still fully encompassing him. “that can be arranged, puppy,” he says, kissing down your neck, nipping at your shoulders and chest. he slams his hips into you and you can’t help the pleasured, high-pitched moan that comes as a result. in fact, you can’t help the ones that come one after another after another as he keeps snapping his hips, insides of your thighs growing raw from the impact.

you’re babbling at this point, a symphony of half-finished words and tiny whimpers, and when a single tear breaks free of your blurred waterline, osamu can’t hold back. “fuck, holy fuck, babygirl, you sound so good, don’t stop, princess, keep making those cute fucking noises, fuck, sound so good.” 

you shake your head no and hope that he understands what it means, that you won’t stop as long as he doesn’t. you’ll cry and scream and make cute little noises for him forever if he never pulls out of you. 

you’ve always known that fucking in bathrooms has been disadvantageous, you just couldn’t pinpoint it, not when it always felt so good anyway. you never thought the space bothered you or the hard, cold various materials of sinks or the fact that people were often only a door away; you never thought any of that mattered until now, now when you can cry for him and feel the softness of the blankets beneath you and the plushness of the pillow behind your head.

“baby,” you cry, “i’m- you’re gonna- fuck, i love you so much. i’m-.” you throw your head back, you can’t finish your half-constructed sentence before osamu is fucking you faster, harder, wrapping an arm around your lower back and lifting you up the slightest bit to angle you perfectly. your hand moves on instinct, reaches down between your legs and circles your throbbing clit for only a second before you’re squirting all over him, a release of pressure drenching him as you gasp for air, drawing in enough breath to cry out his name.

you place your hand on his lower abs, eyes closing softly to center yourself. you could’ve passed out right here, slept for a million years, and you’re not sure you would’ve completely recovered. your body is shaking, throat is sore, and when you open your eyes, osamu is looking at you with such adoration and awe that you’re certain you’ve missed something. 

“the first time we’re not in a fucking bathroom and you fucking make me squirt,” you mumble, shaking your head, “what are we going to do with you?” you ask, removing your hand from his stomach, silently letting him know you’ve recovered enough for him to keep going. 

“i don’t care,” he says, kissing your jaw, “i don’t care what you do with me for the rest of my life, that was the most amazing thing i’ve ever seen.”

“you made a mess,” you tease.

“i made a mess?” he asks.

you nod. 

he breathes a laugh before accepting responsibility, “i made a mess,” he confirms. 

“so you’ve gotta do one thing for me,” you say, circling your hips, matching his lazy thrusts as you wrap your arms around his neck. 

“anything,” he says. and you know that he means it. 

you use your loose grip around his neck to coax him closer to you, your lips now pressed against his ear. “need you to make a mess inside of me, samu, please,” you say, low enough to send shivers down his spine from the tone alone. his hips stutter. he wants to regain composure, to not give in to blowing his load deep inside of you just from you saying his name and asking him nicely, he really wants to savor it and last a little bit longer. 

but you’re so wet. you’re drenched, but you’re still so tight and sucking him in so nicely, perfectly sculpted for him, gummy walls still clenching and fluttering from your orgasm, and you kiss the skin right below his ear and you say, “please, i’ve been waiting for it ever since i fucking met you, please, don’t make me wait any longer.”

and he can’t. 

he wouldn’t.

he doesn’t.

he snaps his hips forwards, pressing himself flush against the insides of your thighs and releases deep inside of you. you can feel his cock pulse with each stream, feel yourself getting fuller and fuller and fuller with each throb and accompanying grunt. you can’t get enough. you don’t want it to ever stop, but it does. he keeps himself deep inside of you for a moment, not wanting to lose the feeling just as much as you don’t. 

when he starts to get soft, he pulls out, come dripping out of your hole and onto the blankets below just adding to the mess the two of you have created in the span of a few hours. he doesn’t exactly know where to go, what to do. the two of you could’ve passed out just like this, intertwined together and had the most incredible sleep of your entire life, if it weren’t for the huge mess beneath you. 

“what now?” you mumble, not moving. 

you feel osamu flop next to you. you’re not sure if he’s avoided the mess or if he’s embraced it. part of you wants to stand up and apologize and start throwing his bedspread in the washer, but that part of you isn’t winning, not today. if that part of osamu exists, it’s not winning either. he wraps his arms around your waist, rests his head on your chest, pulls you into him. 

“are we just going to lay in this?” you say, laughing. it sounds ridiculous coming out of your mouth, but you’re sure it wouldn’t take much convincing for you to not have to move from this very spot. osamu doesn’t answer you, but you feel him unwrap from your body and then get off the bed. you go to sit up, but you don’t make it that far, opening your eyes as osamu pulls the blankets out from under you and throws them in a heap in the corner of his tidy room. he opens the closet door and comes back with a spare, small, but clean blanket. 

he reassumes his position on the now-much-more-acceptable bed, throwing the blanket overtop of you and him and cuddling into your side. “is that better?” he asks, but he doesn’t really expect a response. your small smile and content hum is all he needs. 

after only a few moments, recuperated by a clean blanket and strong arms, your body is ready to move onto the next thing, ready to get up and start making breakfast or start kissing him again or start getting ready for work despite how long you have until your shift. your skin is antsy, pulse is quickening. there are a trillion things in your head that you want to do with osamu, plenty of dull activities that seem like they’ll be much better with him by your side. you want to see them. you want to do them.

osamu shifts and pulls you into his chest, kisses the top of your head. “love you, angel,” he murmurs into your hair. “love you so much,” he says again. you feel calmer now, the most at ease you’ve ever been, because you know that there’ll be time for all of that, plenty of time, hours and hours of time to do all of the things that you want to do with osamu, more time than you know what to do with, you just know it.

for now, all you have to do is lay here, in bed, surrounded by warmth in more ways that you thought were possible, maybe let sleep take you again or stay awake in these passing moments, it doesn’t really matter. your exhale is steady, matches with his. you close your eyes and you can see this moment next week and next month and three years from now. 

you look happy there. 

you look really happy there.

taglist: @miyaluv127 @useless-bicth @mushasstuff @unstaaableaf @mimivinx @tsukiran @kurapika-1999 @hehatesmati @karmakarter @hunny-hotline @bella009888 @um-no-ok @footjib @mon-cherries @privthemis @agashki @renster05 @greeniegreengreen @tokyo-banana @fandomtrash5092 @coyloves @heathsuii @pasta-water @ran-rangasma @ayz-it-they @ellesalzar @dabibreeder @s4m1 @perry-gallifrey @barely-coherent @katsunarii @thisbicc @jaynawayna @levis-wheelchair @sugar-crumbs @miyaslvt @sheeshizzy @i0nlyr343mut @ajbutasimp @snazzyturtles @idontevenknowlolls @nicerthanu @angelgvtzzz @lovely-part-time-whore @lilac-ski3s @dovenu @heirxx @kur0obaby @tetsuswhore @alienvarmint @georgettesand @misfit-megumi @bijuu-naginata @captain-alien-america @ti-mame @buckys-hoeee @whos-curiosity-killed-the-cat @stargazing-girl @whoisgami @zany17 @privthemis @pennylanewrites @buckys-hoeee @avfox24 @reinertiddiejuice @poke-pia @its-simply-me19 @nahcho @sugamonster22 @destinyg237 @msbyomimi

♡ ʀᴇʙʟᴏɢs ᴀɴᴅ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴs ᴍᴇᴀɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ♡

tori talks more: i do not know if i'll be around to write more to be honest with you. like i probably will at some point, but who knows. maybe when the new movie comes out. maybe ill do a jjk pivot bc i just finished it. feel free to scream in my inbox abt it or this or whatever. ily all and im so glad i could finally finish this. <3 :)

[diorsluv]

feather , part 10

“ i’m saying ‘no, no, no, no more’ ”

series m. list previous chapter next chapter

( socialmedia!au )

yourusername

liked by lhughes_06, adamfantilli, mackie.samo, and 74,028 others

yourusername little women hurt my brain so i went back to my happy place (aka gossip girl)

view all comments

edwards.73 i’m kinda scared to ask but uh… what’s the difference between gossip girl and gilmore girls

→ yourusername unfollow me rn

→ colecaufield wait no he’s valid (i don’t know the difference either)

→ yourusername both of u have asked me this 20 times already. i’m blocking u two.

markestapa i know the difference between gossip girl and gilmore girls!

→ mackie.samo me too!!

→ yourusername yeah bc u come to my place for gossip girl marathons like every other day

username64 LITTLE WOMEN

username78 FLORENCE PUGH OH MY GOD

jackhughes little women gives me war flashbacks

→ yourusername i wonder why 🤨

→ jackhughes hmmm maybe because you CALLED ME FOR 5 HOURS STRAIGHT JUST TO RANT TO ME ABOUT IT

→ yourusername IM SORRY

username14 is no one gonna talk about how she posted this at 2 in the morning 😭😭

bookerburke_ gossip girl is the one with the guy that played sam in supernatural right

→ yourusername no sweetie that’s gilmore girls…..

→ cole.caufield HEY HOW COME YOU’RE NICE TO HIM ABOUT IT BUT NOT US yourusername

username21 at least bertram isn’t in one of the pics this time

→ username35 LMAO BERTRAM

username69 i’m kinda sorta in love with your taste in tv shows and movies

yourusername

liked by jackhughes, adamfantilli, trevorzegras, and 82,185 others

yourusername went through my old photos and i guess this is sort of a photo dump.. if u ask me to explain the pics i might…….

so for all the trev, luke, jack, quinn, luca, mark, rut, turcs, eddy, and mackie girls, i hope you’re happy 🫶🫶

tagged: trevorzegras, _quinnhughes, mackie.samo, edwards.73, jackhughes, lhughes_06, _alexturcotte, rutgermcgroarty, luca.fantilli, markestapa

view all comments

lhughes_06 please for the love of god don’t explain the cow photo

→ username44 what happened in the cow photo 😧

→ yourusername okay username44 so basically i walked out of my parents house and i saw luke’s dumbass in a cow suit standing right next to my car

→ lhughes_06 I WAS 16 AND JACK SAID IF I DID IT HE’D DO MY CHORES FOR TWO WEEKS

adamfantilli why didn’t you post me 🫤🫤

→ yourusername i didn’t have any old bad pics of you 😕

username4 quinner is contemplating his life in that fishing pic

luca.fantilli okay but that cake was kind of good

→ yourusername uh huh maybe bc i made it

→ luca.fantilli ok i don’t know bout all THAT 🤣

→ yourusername ur the worst fantilli brother

trevorzegras i didn’t know everyone fell asleep on top of me on the couch 😅😅

_alexturcotte let me just say i beat cole in arm wrestling

→ cole.caufield yeah butttt who got the bigger gains??

→ _alexturcotte oh shut up

→ yourusername it’s okay turcs, not everyone’s as strong as cauliflower here

→ _alexturcotte BUT I LITERALLY BEAT HIM?? yourusername

→ cole.caufield hey lil drizzy i thought we left that nickname in 2020 🙃

markestapa you know i actually rode that skateboard pretty well

→ yourusername you fell flat on your ass

username76 i love how she’s exposing EVERYONE

edwards.73 hey it was fun getting thrown into the pool

→ yourusername says the one that started screaming bloody fuckin murder as soon as he hit the water

mackie.samo i look so disheveled eating that cake

rutgermcgroarty see me and jack held each other up in that second photo bc we’re just too strong for our own goods

→ jackhughes 🗣️🗣️

→ yourusername whatever helps you sleep at night

next chapter notes ) i’m actually grinding these chapters out it’s insane this one was really fun to make, esp the second post 😈😈 and also no booker this time so i hope yall like it a bit more lmaooo

[pixelatedraindrops]

Happy 1st Anniversary RainCode!

☔️6🔎30👻

Thank you for bringing me so much joy 💜💕

(and thank you for giving me the gift that is yuma kokohead)

I didn’t think I’d make art for it at first, but I figured this game has done so much for me, so I’ll give back by drawing the duo that started it all 💜🩷 These two are such an iconic pair and I will draw them together as much as possible c: (tho Shinigami will be mostly in her ghost form if I do)

First time drawing human form Shinigami non-chibi, and I admit she was a little tricky with that outfit. But I think I did it decently enough… xD

little bonus for the kokogami enjoyers 💕

miss death god is too much woman for this little boy to handle~ 🤭

i know he's an adult but can you honestly look at him without context and say this is a man??? he's just an eemey meemey little guy.

Personal Rambling below (because I love this game so much)

WARNING MINI ESSAY INCOMING (lmao)

Oh RainCode... Where do I even begin...

RainCode is a game that has changed my life along with likely many other people’s lives. Although the premise of it is fairly straightforward, the characters and atmosphere make this game so much more. The successor to Danganropa is honestly its own unique story and structure, and tbh I think I love and enjoy it far more than Danganronpa. But this game…is just so much more for me.

I truly never expected this game to be such an impact on my life, let alone become my next fixation.

So, for history, I was honestly in no real hurry to get the game on its release date last year, so I got it a day later. On July 1st, I played the game for the first time. And I didn’t think much of it at first. The only thing that was on my mind when I started this game, was that I was positive I was going to be treating the protagonist like Makoto Naegi and Kyoko Kirigiri’s son the whole time.

This was the first post I made about RainCode back on twitter in 2023.

Yeah... Kinda silly when I look at it now... XD But I do still beleive this headcanon.

When I started the game my 2016 fixation of Danganronpa came back a bit. As a previous DR lover, I did make comparisons here and there to all of the characters. Yuma was very much like Naegi with his shy and timid demeanor at first due to having amnesia, and it felt like déjà vu when playing through the start of the game. But then it happened. The moment that solidified Yuma as my next and now permanent target. When he got sick/dizzy on the train... God that moment still lives rent free in my head. (I know the cause of it was different/related to the first mystery/case, but as someone who enjoys any sort of sick whump moment, regardless of if its little crumbs or a whole-ass meal it still counted for me) I was still shy and hid in the shadows with my silly little niche back then, but I told myself. Yep, once I finish this game, I’m writing a sickfic for this game and he’s the victim. (though what surprised me was that I wasn’t alone on that, 3 other people made sickfics with yuma before I did so that was a pleasant surprise xD)

As the game went on it shocked and impressed me in many different forms. I realized that this game isn’t the Danganronpa clone I thought it would be. Sure, it had a lot of similar elements and mirrored mini games like Hangman’s Gambit, Spot Selection, and of course the Conclusion Comic of the whole case, but the story the world and the mysteries were honestly different from the way DR structured them. And it pleased me when not many people from the main team had died. Most of the deaths were of side characters that had appeared in their respective chapters. Which honestly was a breath of fresh air for me, and I think that’s the real reason it’s separate from DR. It’s not as cruel and not as stressful. It’s a lot more chill, but the mysteries were still enough to get me excited and look forward to the next maze I would enter. The mystery labyrinths were probably my favorites elements of the game. They were just so much fun. And every single character was so likeable, (yes even some of the peacekeepers were fun aside of one or two that I absolutely despise. mostly yomi and guillame lol but I guess I kinda like yomi a bit more bc of the fandom)

And I grew to love Yuma EVEN more. He is honestly one of the best written protagonists I’ve seen in a long time. It’s hard to do timid protagonists right, but RainCode definitely nailed it with Yuma. He had his moments, but it wasn’t enough to be obnoxious. He also shined in more ways than one. And my god, so many relatable moments… (I have anxiety too xD) He was so charming and cute the whole time and even had his badass moments. This little guy is the whole package and I LOVE him for that. Truly a unique and fun main character that blows every DR protagonist out of the water.

(Yes, I said what I said.)

And the ending, GOOD LORD THE ENDING?? It was so well executed, and the ending twist villain was immediately my second favorite character after the protagonist. I could go on about how much I loved the ending but if I did, we’d be here all day and I don’t want to spoil the entire game…so… I’ll leave it at that.

When I finished the game, I was so satisfied. (Yes I love it more than DR, what are you gonna do about it?) It left me super happy and made me want to make some fan content for it. Though I was still very quiet on twitter and had a feeling since twitter is a more complicated platform, I couldn’t gush about the game too much due to fear of spoiling other people…and when one of your favorite characters is just the whole secret of the game’s core mystery, I couldn’t talk about it too much… >.>

So, then I did the unthinkable. I went back to tumblr… It’s a little embarrassing but this account is actually my old one I had from years ago. I was on tumblr more 2013 to 2017 before I abandoned the site when it no longer seemed fun and there were times that I’d rather forget... (let’s just say that I used to RP with my OCs and…one of my RP ex friends catfished me and it made me feel VERY uncomfortable. I wanted to forget it, so I ran away and never returned.) I was super nervous to come back and try to post again, so my first RC related post was about him being a naegiri child.

After that I began making more edits once I gained access to the sprites and full body arts. I made some Pokémon AU edits because those were always fun, and then I started making feverish edits of Yuma’s sprites. My first post ended up becoming a hit and I caught the attention of some people. They liked what I was doing so it gave me a bit of confidence to continue. I got even more attention, and it made my confidence go up even more.

And then I started trying to draw art again, something I gave up long ago. My first few arts were a little rocky at best, but so many people enjoyed it! One of my older arts ended up becoming pretty popular. Through this my few pieces of art, my many sprite edits, and my first fan fiction (Home Is Where The Heart Is) got me pretty well recognized in the Rain code community on here. So much so that I felt confident enough to give myself a title. The CEO of RainCode Whump or “Whumpcode” and all of this confidence made me decide to turn my blog into a fandom and sick whump blog. It became a full blown obsession that possessed my mind that I've become TOO passionate about. Never thought making these little guys suffer would bring me this much joy... XD

Over time, I’ve drawn more art and written more fics than I ever had for a fandom. Before I never ever made fandom art, and I would usually only write one sickfic per fixation. (my last ones being demon slayer and spy x family) But here I am, making more art pieces than I ever have before (hell even doing a MONTH ART CHALLENGE) and improving even! And having 7 fanfictions of RainCode, 6 with Yuma and one with Makoto. And those two became my prime targets and muses for my art. Drawing them is easier for me and they’re my favorites so it brings me such joy to draw them. I love MakoYuma so much. Maybe not so much romantically, but friendship and familial. They have such potential to be so much, and I adore them. Plus putting them in sicknarios and situations is fun (I think we can all agree on that haha)

I think I’m talking too much, so I will say one more thing. I never thought my fixation on this game would last this long. I was positive it would go away after just a few months at best. The game is great but nothing amazing to keep thinking about for too long for me. But I think the main reason I was able to keep my fixation on this game for almost a year (and ongoing) is because of the fandom. (specifically, the Tumblr fandom, but some people on twitter are cool too) I’m honestly so happy I returned to tumblr and was able to make a name for myself in this community. I have met so many talented artists and creators and even made some new friends (and even got a few apprentices to take under my wing) If it weren’t for everyone’s support, I don’t think I would have ever done this much and made it this far.

I’ve essentially made a platform for myself, and I didn’t think tumblr would be a place I’d check daily ever again. To think this silly little game…would change my life so much and make me happier than I’ve ever been in such a long time. I feel recognized and like I belong, I’m finally able to be loud and proud about my passions for sick whump and not worry too much about it, I’ve finally found my prime target and I have fun with him every time, I’ve gotten back into the arts of drawing and writing again and I think I’ve made some of my best work yet, and I’ve met so many wonderful people and even collaborated with them on some fun projects too! (Here's the most popular one and also the first one I did!)  It’s just been…so wonderful… I am so happy to be part of such a chill talented and fantastic community TwT So thank you everyone… this is all thanks to your support… <3

Sorry I’m getting a little mushy here aren’t I… x’D I just couldn’t be more grateful for this game if I tried… So, thank you so much Rain Code, for existing and doing so much for me and making me so happy… I have never had this much fun in a fixation before, and I never felt like I was ever truly part of any fandom and was always just a lurker. It feels so good to finally feel like part of a fandom you love, and also be well liked, admired and accepted by others despite your niche being a little on the odd side… XD

I really hope there will be a sequel for this game, and we’ll see all these wonderful characters again. After all I’ve been through with this title and how much joy and purpose it brought me, consider me a fan for life. I will be dedicated to every future title in this series and play the hell out of it. And I hope it gains a wider audience come October when it is released for more consoles. (Just hoping no weirdos take over and ruin it with stupid drama and horrible things like the DR fandom…)

Though once new fans come in and are also tumblr users…I wonder what they’d even think of me and my place and takes when it comes to this series… XD (hopefully they’ll be nice to me… XD)

Anyway, I’ve said enough.

Happy Anniversary RainCode!!

☔💜👻🔍

[gretavangroupie]

The Ripe and The Ruin (Chapter 7)

Pairing: Jake Kiszka x Reader, OC x Reader

Word Count: 10.2k

Warnings: Language, Alcohol, Smoking, Angst, Anxiety, Allusions to Cheating, Lying, Jealousy, Sexual Themes, Crying.

Find the Playlist Here: Apple Music | Spotify

A new series in collaboration with my talented co-writer @gretavanmoon.

A/N: Thanks so much for waiting for us while we took our little break. We had the absolute best time at our shows. We plotted and schemed most of the week and there really is quite a bit of exciting new things on the horizon, so keep your eyes peeled.

"Like all good fruit, the balance of life is in the ripe and ruin."

DUBLIN, IRELAND

HER POV

“There,” you whispered, putting the final touches on the food display. You gathered up the empty boxes and trash and made your way out the back door of the venue to dispose of them. You hoped you wouldn’t see anyone along the way, keeping your AirPods in as a public declaration to leave you alone.

You’d thrown yourself into work the last week, doing things that didn’t even fall under your scope of work just to fill the time. Your phone was on mute, but that didn't stop the calls. The texts. The songs. They all still came, but you paid them no mind. You couldn’t. You couldn’t be that girl. You couldn’t be the one to ruin a relationship. 

You hadn’t spoken to Jake since the friend request came through. You still hadn’t even accepted it. You didn’t know if you even should. She obviously knew who you were, and that alone scared you more than anything. How did she know?

You hadn’t spoken to Josh either. He had done his best to avoid you since that night in the bar, his look more than disappointed as he walked away. You felt a twinge of regret that you’d let him down, but you and Jake were nothing, and he has a girlfriend. He should be more mad at Jake than you. 

A call rings through your AirPods, the robotic voice alerting you to Ruth’s Facetime call. You make the split second decision to accept it, pulling your phone from your pocket and tapping the green button. 

“Hello,” you answer, shielding your face from the sun. 

“God, it’s so weird that it’s sunset there and I’m just now eating breakfast,” she says, taking a bite of a bagel. 

“Babes it’s literally what, noon there? Why are you just now eating breakfast?”

“Ugh, this isn’t about me, quit changing the subject,” she gripes.

“What?! I just–”

“Did you accept it yet?” she asks, wiggling her eyebrows. 

“No! Are you insane! Why would I do that! Then she would know that I know who she is, and then she would know that I know she knows who I am!” you shout. 

“Yeah, I…am not even gonna try to decipher what you just said,” she says, shaking the ice in her coffee. 

“Ruth! Ugh!”

“What!? I’d accept it, you have nothing to hide. It’s not like you’re posting about him.”

“But–”

“But what? Show her you’re a hot bitch and she should be scared!” she laughs, tilting her head side to side. 

“You are actually a terrible influence,” you scoff. 

“Fine, what about McSexy,” she says, slurping up the last bits of coffee through her straw.

“Are you done with that yet? GOD.”

“You’re so dramatic,” she laughs, tossing it into the trash. “Spill about Beefy McGuns before I throw myself off a cliff.”

“Yeah I am the dramatic one,” you sigh, rolling your eyes. “Murph is…well, he’s good I guess. We have been hanging out a little bit since… ya know. We snuck into the hotel pool a few days ago, got Gelato night before last and last night we went to Temple Bar because the guys had an outing thing.”

“Okay, so you and McDouble are like kinda hot and heavy courting,” she asks. 

“Please don’t call him McDouble, that is gross. I mean, courting sounds kinda…more serious than it is. We are just hanging out.”

“A lot.”

“Yeah, kind of a lot,” you admit. 

“Do you like him more than Mr. Pene-Traitor?”

“RUTH ANNE!” you shout, trying to stifle back laughter. 

“Answer the question,” she snaps. 

“No! I don’t know! I mean, I like them equally for different reasons,” you answer.

“Well who is better in the sack?”

“Um…”

“Oh my god, you haven't slept with McSexy yet?” she asks, mouth gaping open.

“No! It hasn’t…gone there yet,” you reply. 

“Yet…So you intend for it to…” she smirks. 

“Well, I wouldn’t hate it,” you laugh. “I’m kinda like not planning to sleep with Jake again after all this shit. Murph seems less…complicated. He’s fun, and respectful, and we just mesh so well when we hangout. We have a lot in common and it’s just so easy. It’s not serious or anything but I’m trying to see where this thing goes.”

“So guitar daddy is out, officially…”

“Jesus Christ, Ruth.” you sigh, “I mean I haven't spoken to him in almost a week now. I’ve been ignoring every attempt and conveniently finding myself in the opposite room as him. I don't know what to even say to him without exploding so I have just been saying nothing.”

“Has he added any songs or anything?” she asks, quirking a brow. 

“A few but I haven’t replied,” you answer. 

“Oh I bet it’s eating him up, too.”

You shrug your shoulders as you see the back door open, Sam stepping out to light up a cigarette. 

“Hey, I gotta go, the family unit is present,” you say quietly nodding your head to the side. 

“Okay, well, personally I think you should accept her request. I’d think it's more suspicious that you haven’t if I were her. Maybe she just wants to talk.”

“I will think about it,” you say, pursing your lips. “I’ll text you later, okay?”

“Alright alright, and don’t forget my souvenir. I want one with sandy brown hair, blue eyes and an Irish accent.”

“You are actually so annoying.”

Your phone dings in your ear as a text flashes across the screen. 

“Oh shit,” you gasp. “It’s Murph.”

“What's up McBeefy?!” Ruth shouts. 

You open the text, reading it over quickly as a smile crosses your face. 

“Oh okay, why are you blushing Y/N? Huh, huh? Why you smiling like that?”

“So, he just said that The Black Keys are going to be in Glasgow on our day off next week,” you say, a little shocked. 

“As in The Black Keys that you’ve loved your whole life Black Keys?”

“Those would be the ones…”

You

6:02PM: How did you know I love them?

Murph

6:03PM: Just had a feeling 😉

Murph

6:04PM: I’m gonna tell the guys, I’m sure they will want to go. 

You

6:05PM: I definitely want to go.

Murph

6:06PM: Well good thing I just bought us tickets

“Hello?! Earth to Y/N!” Ruth shouts, and truthfully you forgot she was on the line. 

“Fuck, sorry,” you say, reopening Facetime.

“What did you say?!”

“I told him I want to go and he said he already bought us tickets,” you smile. 

“Mmhm, yeah it’s not serious at all though,” she mocks. 

“Gotta go! Love you bye!” you smile, ending the call and shoving your phone into your pocket.

You nod to Sam as you walk back into the building, making your way back into the greenroom to finish up. Your music begins to play through your AirPods again, and you feel a sense of calmness now that you’ve gotten a little reassurance from Ruth. You tidy up the room a bit, grabbing a few empty cans and chip bags and banishing them to the trash can that is seemingly invisible to these four men.

Just as you turn around you see Jake stepping into the room with his eyes on you. 

Fuck. 

You jump back a bit in shock, watching as he throws his hands up in innocence.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, a guilty look on his face. 

You pull your earbuds from your ears and place them in their case as you lean against the wall behind you. “It’s fine. What’s up?” you ask, trying to seem casual. 

“You think we can talk for a second?” he asks, rubbing his fingers over his chin. 

“Um, right now? I’m just finishing this up?” you counter, not really feeling like this is the best time for, well, this. 

He walks over to the small couch, tapping the spot next to him, “Please, just for a second.”

His brown eyes lock with yours and you know there is no way you can deny him. He had that effect on you. You nod and walk over to him, sitting next to him. Maybe this is it. 

You watch as he pulls in a deep breath as if trying to organize the thoughts in his head. He swallows nervously and turns his gaze to you. 

“You know, this last week has been…well, to be honest, it’s been complete shit,” he starts, locking his fingers together. “We went from seeing each other nearly every day and texting and everything to…whatever this is. Not speaking…”

You nod your head, wanting to hear his piece before giving your own. 

“I miss you. I’ve missed you a lot. I have hated every second of this silence and I would very much like to get things back to how they were before… all of this.”

Did Josh not tell him about Murph? Surely he had…

His hand reaches for yours, grabbing it in his own as he continues and you are praying he is ready to come clean. 

JAKE POV

“I know I’ve been a total and complete asshole, Y/N, and you don’t deserve that. That’s not me,” you go on, squeezing her hands in yours. Your voice continues to crack, and the emotion you feel while telling her all this actually surprises you. It’s hard to talk to her, hard to get things out. But you only know that it is because you’re positive that it all means something bigger. Your internal alarm clock is ticking, you can feel the time to get on stage is drawing closer and closer. “I just want you to know how sorry I am.”

“Jake, listen. I appreciate your apology, but I'm still not even sure what you’re sorry for? I mean, I know shit went sideways but, you never even told me why…” she goes on, pure confusion painting her expression. “I know that I was and am being left in the dark about something, and I don’t want to end up looking like the idiot.”

“Fuck, I know,” you say, rubbing a hand over your face. You can feel the bile swirling in your stomach as you prepare to speak again. “If you… I want to talk to you some more, and explain myself, but…”

“...You go on in like fifteen minutes and you aren’t even dressed yet,” she answers.

You nod, sucking in your bottom lip. Her eyes are glazed over, not with tears, but with some other overwhelming sentiment. Your voice shakes as you go on. “If you’re willing to hear me out, I have a long story I want to tell you.”

She takes a second to consider, and you know that she could just as easily tell you to fuck off, get away from her, and to never speak to her again. But instead she nods, meeting your eyes with pity. “It’s hard saying yes to this Jake, I’m not gonna lie…”

“I know it is. I know it, I’m so sorry, I’m just. You deserve to hear it all. From me,” you beg. The anxiety of it all is making you dizzy, and you hadn’t even told her anything yet. But you’re positive that when the time comes, it will all be worth it. She’s worth it. 

“Please trust me.”

She nods again. “Just…come to my room after the show?”

“I’ll be there,” you agree with a smile, and you feel the faintest hint of positivity, a tiny flame burning at the end of the tunnel. 

—

After an electric show, you dab the towel across your forehead and neck, wiping away the heavy sweat beads that continue to pour down. 

“Just keeps getting better and better, guys!” Paul compliments you as you pass by, making your way down the hall to the green room. 

“Thanks, man. Appreciate you,” you reply with a pat to his shoulder.

“Daniel, you hitting the shower?” you ask as you watch him take a seat on a red leather chair.

“Mm, here in a few, gonna have a drink first.” He pulls Mia over by the hand to sit on his lap, playfully wiping his sweat-covered arm across her face. “Where are Josh and Sam?”

You quietly walk over to the craft table, giving Y/N a sweet glance as you grab a mini bag of chips from the box, watching as she and Ty fiddle around with whatever random food is displayed across the table. “I dunno, they seemed like they were bickering all night, did you notice that?”

“Mmmhm,” Danny says through a long drink of a seltzer. “I could literally see the fuckin’ blurry tension between them, who the hell knows. He say anything to you, Ly?”

“Mmm, nope. Didn’t say anything to me…” Lyla avoids his gaze. You glance to Ty, and he offers you the same answer.

Just then, Josh and Sam burst through the door in a huffed mess of antics, yelling obscenities at one another as Josh’s hands fly up in the air around him. These two rarely fight, but every once in a while, one of them will get under the other’s skin. And sometimes it’s even worse, when they both manage to piss the other off so profusely, things can sometimes get physical. 

Josh’s voice is raised, and Sam’s face and neck are blotched red. You know that whatever it is, it isn’t good. 

“How about you stay the hell out of my face and sit the fuck down somewhere, huh?” Sam yells, grabbing a White Claw from the mini fridge and chugging it all almost in one drink. Your eyes dart directly to Danny who is just as stunned as you are, and equally as confused. 

“I’ll sit the fuck down when you stop running your fucking mouth, Sam,” Josh barks.

“Whoa, whoa, what the hell is going on?” you ask, moving toward them.

“Oh nothing, nothing, brother. Nothing at all,” Sam huffs, fury raging from him. You watch his eyeliner-covered eyes skitter across the room and finally land on Y/N, glaring at her from his peripheral. What the fuck?

For some reason, just his look pisses you off. 

“Not nothing, the fuck is your problem?” you ask him again, shooting your eyes between him and Josh. You see Mia rise up from Danny’s lap, joining Lyla on the couch. They sit closely together, and you swear they’re both biting back laughs. 

You finally move your eyes to Josh, giving him a stern look only the two of you can understand. ‘You got something to say?’ you ask him in your mind. 

He replies with an eye roll, shrugging his shoulders as he slips his stage jacket off. Josh is biting his tongue, you can tell, and the look in his eye is one you’ve seen often. With whatever rage he’s harboring mixed with the however many fireball shots he’s taken tonight, this could get bad. 

You look at Danny, as he knows the heavy feeling in the room all too well, too. You mentally ask him for backup.

Danny stands and clears his throat. “Uh, so… we going out tonight? We’re wasting moonlight if so…”

You jump in and agree. “Yeah, yeah let’s go grab a Guinness or something.” The room stays quiet as you and Danny make moves to get going, but the heaviness is still there. You decide to turn the attention elsewhere. “Y/N, Ty, you coming out with us?”

You can tell that Y/N feels like she’s invading the awkward encounter that’s currently happening in the room, just from her body language. 

“Yeah, um, sure… I suppose…” she says meekly. You offer her a little grin of reassurance.

“Oh, you mean you’re not hanging out with Murph tonight? Shocking!” Josh interjects, the tone of his voice menacing. Your head shoots to him. 

Y/N shakes her head, her entire demeanor falling. “Uh, no? No, why would I…” she stammers. 

“Just figured,” Josh continues, “You guys seemed pretty cozy the other night when I caught you making out at the bar in Paris, just thought you’d be continuing the festivities!”

“Josh!” Ty yells.

Hold…the fuck…on…

Your ears go deaf as you process Josh’s words, all the blood draining from your body, your extremities numb, your throat instantly dry. What the fuck. What the fuck??? He’s lying… That’s not true… she wouldn’t…

You hear a collective snicker from Mia and Lyla, both of them obviously loving whatever fucking show is happening right now. 

You somehow find the courage to look at Y/N, her face bloodshot and dripping with embarrassment as she turns away.

You feel like you’ve been hit by a truck. Making out? With Murph? Paris… a week ago? And Josh didn’t bother to…

You can’t find the will to move, or speak, or breathe or anything. Your mind is wracked with confusion and stress, wondering what in the hell is going to happen next.

—

HER POV

Your heart is pounding in your chest as you turn to look at Josh. 

Why? Why did he say that?

Your eyes scan the room as everyone stares at you, but all you can focus on is the look on Jake's face. It was a look similar to the one you received from Josh that night, but Jake’s hurt worse. Hit you deeper. You feel the knife twisting in your chest. 

You can see his neck growing red, the color creeping up into his cheeks as his anger starts to bubble up. Your eyes flash over to Mia and Lyla who are snickering in the corner like two highschool bullies. 

You shake your head and press your tongue to your cheek as you try to figure out an appropriate response. You decide at that moment that you owe none of them a single word. You silently grab your things and head to the door, brushing Jake’s shoulder as you pass. 

“Guess you’re not the only one with secrets, are you?”

You cut your eyes to Josh, completely shocked at his audacity to speak about something that didn’t involve him so publicly. It seemed out of character for him and you can tell by the way everyone is reacting to his outburst. 

You barely make it through the back door as the tears start to fall against your will. You feel so embarrassed. Everything has gotten so out of hand and now Josh hates you and you know Jake isn’t too far behind him. 

You just need to go back to your hotel room. Go back and be alone and cry in peace. You pull your phone from your purse and find the address for the hotel, and much to your displeasure, you see that it is a brisk three mile walk. Not to mention it is 42 degrees. You lock your phone in frustration knowing you have to go back inside and wait for the van to take you all back. 

You sneak back inside and head straight for the bathroom, locking yourself in one of the stalls and sitting down on the toilet bowl. You know the van isn’t going to leave for at least another thirty minutes, if not more. You let the tears flow freely in the confines of the bathroom stall, until you physically can’t anymore. You dry up your cheeks with the sleeve of your shirt as a notification from Ruth pushes through. 

Ruth

11:43PM: You do it yet?

You decide to bite the bullet. Who even cares anymore at this point?

You open Instagram and tap on her request, hitting the little blue ‘accept’ button and watching as her page populates with photos. Right off the bat you see how pretty she is, every picture perfectly effortless and aesthetically pleasing. Then, you see Jake. Happy, smiling, and holding her. Recently.

You're surprised by the feelings swirling through you, as you’d convinced yourself that your feelings for him were much smaller than they apparently were. You look at every single photo, and with each swipe you feel your own guilt start to grow larger and larger. 

Had you ruined this?

You hear noise in the hallway and know that they are leaving, heading to the bar or wherever they decided. You wait until you hear them leave, letting yourself out of the stall and into the empty hallway. As you approach the green room you know you want to get in, finish cleaning up, and leave, avoiding as many people as humanly possible. You press your ear to the door to listen for voices, but you hear nothing and know that the coast is clear. 

Though, when you open the door, you are met with someone, and thankfully it’s a friendly face. You see Ty grabbing the canned drinks from the fridge and throwing them into a cooler. He spots you, looking relieved and stops what he’s doing. 

“There you are,” he sighs in relief. 

“Wha– What are you doing here, I thought everyone left?”

He walks towards you, taking you into a hug before you can even process what he’s doing. It’s as if he already knows how you’re feeling and you fall into it, letting him wrap you up in his arms. 

“I’ve been around long enough to know how shit tends to go down in this family. I knew that Josh was in one of his moods tonight and Sam pushed him over the edge. Unfortunately, you were on the receiving end of things. I don’t blame you for walking out, but I am glad you came back.”

“Why are you always looking out for me?” you ask, feeling like you might cry all over again. 

“Real recognizes real, baby,” he winks, releasing you from the hug and returning back to the cooler. 

“Ty,” you whine, knowing you don't deserve his kindness. 

“Look, I know I shouldn’t, because he needs to do this himself, but I am really sorry about Josh. I’m gonna make him apologize to you as soon as I see him, I swear.”

“No, no, no. It’s okay. He is right. This whole thing is a mess and he and Jake and shit, even Sam, have the right to be mad at me. I fucked up.”

He shrugs his shoulders, “It’s a little bit of a mess but, it will get cleaned up. And as for Sam, I don’t think Sam is mad at you, per say, but more of just the situation and how he learned of it. There’s been some other shit going on with him lately, but don’t you worry I’m on your team, here.”

“You don’t need to be on my team, Ty. You have dealt with enough of my shit,” you laugh, hoping he doesn’t actually take your advice. 

He closes the cooler up and takes one last look around the room, both of you finding it spotless. “Oh, just let me. This is my shit and I am used to corralling these rowdy motherfuckers, I do it in my sleep.”

You laugh and shake your head, “Alright, alright, fine.”

He nods in victory before turning to you again, “You’re coming to the bar, right?”

“No, I’m probably gonna go back to the hotel and cry some more.”

“Actually, you’re not. You’re gonna go back to the hotel, pretty yourself up and come meet me.” He flits his hand to his chest as he points to himself. “I’ll text you the address when I get there.”

“Ty I can’t! I can’t even face Jake right now! And Mia and Lyla… I don’t know…” you stammer. 

“No, hang out with me all night. You don’t even have to talk to those bitches, I don’t half the time.”

You laugh at his honesty, and realize maybe you could go tonight.

“I don’t know…”

“Listen, it will look a lot worse if you don’t go darling,” he says, tilting his head to the side. You know he’s right. 

“Alright, fuck it.”

—

TY POV

Involving yourself in other people’s business wasn’t always your forte. In fact, it was something you tried to stray far, far away from. The thought of adding unnecessary stress into your life seemed daunting and pointless, especially when the outcome ended up being opposite of the one you desired, but, nonetheless… You find yourself here, completely involved in whatever drama is transpiring between Jake and Y/N. 

It’s none of your business in the least. It never was. But you could tell from the get-go that if no one else was going to step in and try to help each of them realize what was happening in front of them, you would have to be the one to do it. Who better, honestly?

You told Jake from the beginning that Isla seemed shady… though at first the two of them seemed like the happiest of two human beings, just like all new relationships do. She was good for him, and he treated her well. The day he told you and Josh that he told her he loved her, you were happy for him. Happy for them both. Things were good and they were taking Jake’s career changes in stride together. That was until you started to see straight through that bitch. 

That’s right, you’re not uncomfortable saying it anymore. She turned into a true-blue, cold hearted bitch. 

What started off as snide little remarks to Jake, in public, grew into full-blown insults that had you left with your mouth hanging open in disbelief. He let it slide off his back, though, and you swore it was like no one else even noticed it. How her behavior had changed almost overnight. You could see the respect she once held for Jake morphing into resentment right before your eyes, but everyone else seemed to think it was normal. 

It didn’t take long, though, for Josh’s twin-sense to be set off when he felt Jake’s normally low-key temper burning into fury; he was quite literally like a pot that was going to boil over anytime. Josh realized, but you don’t think he ever really realized, though to you, it was plain as fucking day. 

You and Josh welcomed him into your home, let him crash on the couch or in the guest room after he’d run away from her. It almost started to drive you insane that everyone else was just watching on as he let her walk all over him, all in the name of what everyone thought was love.

No. Fuck that. She may have loved him, but your senses absolutely buzzed with the feeling that all she was there for anymore was his status and fame. It made you sick how she took advantage of his popularity and his talent, only wanting to go out with him if it meant she’d be seen attached to his arm, only wanting to support him when it meant she’d reap the benefits. Made you fucking sick. 

But, like a good brother in law, you kept your mouth shut for the most part, until one day things got so bad you realized that Jake had seen the light, fully disconnecting himself from her right before you all left for this tour. 

And the minute you realized he was taking interest in Y/N, you felt like your heart could explode with relief for him. Finally, a distraction. The day you let him know how you felt about Isla in the bar was the first time you really said anything at all to him, hoping that your words of honesty would help to further the situation. 

But now… Now. Fuck, it seems like things have gotten messier than you anticipated. Y/N is the first person you’ve met in a while who matches your energy, who connects with you without any effort to do so. You like her a lot, and you are fighting to be on her team. But damn, if it doesn’t seem like she just dug herself into a hole…

So after what the fuck ever just happened in the green room, you know it’s time to strap your boots on and fix things, or at least try to. You’re no stranger to mediating arguments within this family, so you feel no shame in waltzing into this bar with a new flame lit under you. You’ve gotta fix this. For Y/N, and for Jake. 

You blow warm air into your hands as you walk into the bar, finding everyone gathered around a large table together. Good, they haven’t ripped each others’ heads off yet.

You take an empty seat next to Josh, greeting him with a quipped ‘Hey’ as you’re still a little bit pissed at his behavior earlier. His hand lands on your thigh, but you quickly pull it away, knowing that if you’re going to be the middleman here, everyone has to be on a level playing field. 

“The hell is wrong with you?” Josh slurs into your ear. 

You shoot a look his way, letting him know that now is not the fucking time. A quick glance around at everyone tells you that they’re all already fairly intoxicated, still sneering at one another overtop of their half-empty glasses. Great. Perfect. 

You take notice that Murph isn’t here, which is a good thing right now. He might need to stay behind and let the others have it tonight. You cross your arms over your chest as you make yourself comfortable in your seat. You clear your throat dramatically, effectively getting the attention of the table.

“Alright motherfuckers, who wants to tell me exactly what just happened in the green room?” you demand, taking a second to look Sam and Josh in the eyes first. The entire table groans and waves you off, except Sam, who gives you a look that says ‘Can’t tell you right now, but I will explain later…” He then does a quick glance to Lyla. You take mental note of that. 

Of course, Josh speaks first. “There’s not much to say, Ty… I caught our runner making out with our head of security last week, I don’t know what else you want me to say…”

“I want you to tell the table why you are so pissed off about that, Josh. Why are you so concerned with something that isn’t your business?” you quip back.

Josh mirrors your stance, crossing his own arms as he motions to Jake. “Hm, I don’t know, why don’t you ask my fucking twin, huh?” Everyone then turns all their attention to Jake, putting him directly in the spotlight. Your stomach turns over with nerves as you feel the tension in the room thickening with every passing second. You don’t want to do things this way. But, you’ve learned from experience, getting it all out on the table is the best way for them to do things like this. 

Jake is standing, running his tongue across his teeth, his face already glimmering with a nervous sweat. “Okay, fuck it,” he sets his beer down on the table, yanking a free chair out from underneath it and harshly taking a seat. “Y/N and I have been hooking up since tour started. Pretty regularly. Thought things were good. But I guess it doesn’t fucking matter anymore since apparently I was dumb to the fact that she’s more into our beloved Murphy.” You can tell he is seething. 

You hear Mia and Lyla gasp like the news was brand new to them. “So it’s fucking true, then, huh Jacob?!” Lyla practically yells, leaning over the table at him. “Ohhh, we fucking knew it, you sorry ass bitch.”

“It’s actually none of your fucking business, Lyla, so why don’t you lay the fuck off,” he retaliates.

You watch Mia put her hand on Lyla’s chest as she leans across her toward Jake, her words spitting with venom to him. “Actually it is my fucking business, Jake, Isla is my best friend you absolute dick! And she’s your fucking girlfriend!”

Jake almost stands from his chair completely, leaning over to her now. “She’s not my girlfriend anymore, Lyla! She hasn’t been for a long time! She just won’t admit it to anyone or even herself! Don’t speak on things you have absolutely no fucking idea about, Lyla. It’s not a good fucking look.” Jake is visibly vibrating with rage. You feel Josh doing the same.

Next thing you know you hear Sam bellowing toward Jake. “Hey, don’t fucking speak to her like that, man, or I swear to god–”

“Oh, I’d be fucking careful, Sam, given I know all the dirty details about our little conversation in my room the other night…” Jake defends himself with a finger pointed directly to Sam. His jaw is clenched so tightly you think he might break his teeth. 

Sam gives Jake a death glare that you know all too well, as Lyla turns in her seat to face him. “What the fuck is he talking about, Samuel? Is that why you disappeared drunk off your ass the other night? To go to Jake’s room? What did you talk about?”

Sam closes his eyes as he tries to diffuse his rage. “What the fuck ever, I’m just pissed everyone knew about Y/N and Jake besides me,” he slurs. “Always failing to let me in on the fuckin’ secrets.” You roll your eyes at Sam, suddenly confused and intrigued about what kind of conversation he had with Jake, anyway. 

“This is why, Sam! Right here! Shit blows up!” Jake yells. 

Josh groans, leaning his elbows on the table to Jake. “Yeah, just like I fucking told you it would.”

Jake scoffs hard. “Don’t talk to me about shit blowing up when you didn’t tell me for a god damn week that she was fucking around with Murph behind my back, Josh!”

“Ohhhhhoho, don’t try and pull that, I told you this shit wasn’t going to work anyway,” Josh responds with a sneer. 

“Wasn’t going to work?!” Mia yells. “What do you mean, wasn’t going to fucking work?! You have a girlfriend Jacob, are you a fucking idiot?!”

You watch as Danny physically lets his face fall into his hands, shaking his curls side to side.

“Alright, alright, everybody calm the fuck down,” Josh says loudly, actually qualming a situation for once in his life. “Let’s take a break, let’s talk this out.”

You dart your head to the side to give him a sharp look. “No, Josh, you’re the one who opened your big mouth in the green room and set everybody off, let’s hash this shit out right now. Everyone’s doing an excellent job of letting it all fly. Let’s not stop now,” you argue, putting your foot down. You motion with your hand to everyone at the table. “Keep going, let’s go…”

You hear a wholehearted laugh come from Jake at Josh’s expense.

Sam looks at Lyla, raising his voice a little. “Is this why you’ve been so fucking irritable lately?”

Oop, shouldn’t have gone there, kid.

She shoots back in her chair, looking as if she’s ready to pounce on him. “Whoa, whoa, irritable? Excuse me? Actually ya know what, yeah, I guess it fucking is!” She yells. “You’d be fucking pissed too, wouldn’t you?!”

“I guess I don’t know, since nobody ever fucking tells me anything!” Sam retaliates with his hands in the air.

“Sam you have got to be fucking kidding me… Do you not remember me sleeping on your couch for days at a time? Do you think I just did that because I missed you? Be serious…” Jake says with a little sincerity in his tone. 

“I don’t know! Shit, I guess I just thought you were…”

“Thought I was what?! Bored? Lonely? Hated my own home? Well, I guess that last one kinda makes fucking sense, now, huh?” Jake goes on, running a hand over his mouth.

Lyla speaks up. “All those nights you spent at our house Jake… you know Isla cried herself to sleep each and every one. Talked to me on the phone until 3AM until she couldn’t cry anymore because you fucking left her, over and over again–”

Jake leans his elbows on the table, hiding his face behind his folded hands. You can tell by the redness in his face that he is holding himself back from absolutely laying into Lyla. 

“Oh, you don’t even want to start with me, Lyla…” he grits his teeth, the vein in his head pulsing with rage again. 

“Chill out, Jake…” you hear Josh warn under his breath. 

“Do you know why I left, Lyla? Over and over again?!” His tone calms. “Yeah, I bet you don’t because all you care about is her fucking side of the story… did it not occur to you that I have one, too? What about my fucking feelings, huh? How do you know she’s not purposefully making me out to look like the bad guy? I bet nothing was her fault, was it? Hm?” He asks, looking around the table. Everyone stays silent, avoiding his glare. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. No one bothered to come and ask me what was wrong, hear my side of the story. Fucking figures, she always gets what she fucking wants, anyway,” he goes on, suddenly able to breathe through his words. “None of you cared to realize I’ve been fucking miserable for months? Tried ending things for months? I bet not, huh. You only got lies and a sob story from Isla.” He takes a deep breath. Keep going Jake…

“So yeah, I tried to end things with Isla. Multiple times. Now I know I have royally fucked up with making my life messier than it needs to be–”

“She still fucking lives with you, Jake–” Lyla cuts. 

“Yeah, I fucking know that, genius,” he eyes her sideways. “You think this has been easy for either of us? I asked her to move out way before we started packing for this fucking tour… So yes. I did start hooking up with someone else. And you know what? I don’t regret a goddamn second of it. I finally found something that makes me fucking happy, and not miserable every single second of my life. And if you want to know why I think my actions are justified, you can speak to me directly about it. I’m a grown fucking adult, and I don’t owe you a goddamn thing if you don’t even have the decency to speak to me about my own fucking business…” Jake cuts his eyes directly to Mia and Lyla, making them sink back in their seats a little. 

Fuck yes, Jacob. Fuck. Yes. 

Just then, like a sitcom hitting its dramatic peak, Murph enters the bar, leaving everyone gathered around the table even more speechless than they were before. You feel a collective breath be taken by everyone before Jake shoots up from his seat. “Another round?”

Hell yes. Success. 

Well, kind of. Progress. 

You look at your phone, seeing that Y/N had texted you a ‘?’ about fifteen minutes ago. 

“Perfect timing, Y/N is on her way here, too!” you announce, your voice full of pep. 

“You’re shitting me, right,” Josh murmurs under his breath to you. 

“Good, great. Grand. A big family reunion, huh?” Jake says sarcastically in his faux-accent. “I’m over the fucking moon.” Jake darts his eyes to Murph for a split second before making his way back to the bar. 

You take a second to hide your phone under the table, texting Y/N back.

You

12:32AM: Come. Sit with me. I’ll have a drink waiting for you. 

—

HER POV

Your palms are sweating with nervous energy, despite the freezing cold weather. You almost didn’t go. You talked yourself out of it three times before you ever left the room, but knowing that Ty was waiting for you was enough of a reason to go. He liked you, looked out for you and treated you like a friend even though he didn’t have to. You could suck it up for one night. 

As you push the door open you’re immediately met with warm air and the smell of stale beer. It’s loud in the small bar and terribly lit, making it hard to find the group. You see a hand wave you in its direction, and at the end of it, Ty. The table he is sitting at is fairly empty, most of the group dispersed throughout the bar, playing pool or darts. He pulls out the barstool next to him, sliding a drink in your direction. 

“You made it!” he smiles, watching you sit down next to him. 

“I did. What’s going on, I feel kinda weird about being here,” you admit. 

“Ahhh, don’t worry about it, everything is fine. Promise.” he says, taking a sip of his beer. “Everyone is pretty drunk now, and has already forgotten about earlier.”

You glance around the smoky bar and as you look behind you, your eyes meet with Josh’s, who is giving you the most apologetic eyes you’ve ever seen. You give him a curt smile, and turn back around, knowing that a conversation with him is low on your list of priorities at the moment. 

You spend most of the next hour with Ty, laughing and discussing anything and everything that does not have to do with Greta Van Fleet. He’s a sweet guy and you can tell why Josh fell for him, with his ability to make everyone feel heard and wanted, so easily. 

You’re two drinks in when you feel a warm hand on your shoulder, pulling you from your conversation with Ty. You turn to look at the person, but you can smell that it’s Jake, his cologne at the forefront of your mind. You feel him lean down to your ear, his breath on your neck. 

“I’d still like to talk tonight,” he whispers, his lips grazing the shell of your ear. 

You take a deep breath and try to center yourself. You turn fully to look at him, seeing that he is not nearly as mad as he seemed earlier, and you know you want to hear what he has to say. You want to hear his side of the story you’ve pieced together over the last week. You nod at him as your eyes meet his, and he nods back, stepping away to return to the bar already going over what he will likely say later.

— 

An hour later you find yourself in your hotel room, pacing as you anxiously wait to hear from Jake. He left the bar before you did, deciding to ride back with Ty and Josh after the others left. You took a shower and tidied up your room and still, you haven't heard from him, that is, until your phone buzzed on the dresser. 

Jake

1:47AM: What is your room number?

Shit! Okay. 

You

1:48AM: 407

You know it won't be long until he is knocking on the door, and your heart is beating hard in your chest. You try to slow your breathing and calm your heart rate before he gets here, but you know it's no use because it will spike again as soon as you see him. 

The knock echoes through the room and you make your way to the door, swallowing back your nerves. As you open the door you find him standing there with one hand in his sweats pocket, and the other gripping a CD. 

You look at it as he presents it to you, a smug smile on his face as you realize what it is. 

‘An Awesome Wave’.

“This is–”

“The album we listened to on the plane, yeah,” he finishes, smiling as he steps into your room. “Found it in a record shop the other day in London. Thought of you and that first time we talked on the plane.”

You both step further into the room, your heart already twisting at his sweet gesture. He thought of you. You sit on the edge of the bed as you stare at the CD in your hands. 

“Listen, I’m sorry you had to find out about Murph like that, I never meant for that to come out like that,” you offer, letting your eyes flick up to meet his as he stands in front of you. 

“Look, I came here to apologize to you, Y/N. Not the other way around. You said I’m not the only one with secrets, and I guess that’s true, but I am more interested in setting the story straight and finding out what secrets you seem to be privy to.”

JAKE POV

She holds your gaze for just a second as she leans forward, grabbing her phone from the dresser behind you. She takes a shaky breath as her thumb dances across the screen, obviously looking for something. Your heart starts to beat faster and faster as she searches for what she’s looking for, a million different suspicions of what it could be flying through your mind. 

Finally she turns her phone, showing you a screenshot of when Isla requested to follow her on Instagram. You feel your eyes grow as you breathe out a surprised “Oh.” 

Fuckkkkkkk. She found her. 

“Yeah. This was a while ago. I accepted her request tonight after the show. I know everything, Jake. I know about you and her. I know you’ve been lying to me this entire time,” she says bravely, gritting her jaw as she speaks. 

“Let me stop you there, Y/N. Please…” you beg, preparing yourself to finally lay everything out on the line. The time had come. You take a deep breath as you readjust your seat. “Where do I even fucking begin?” you ask rhetorically. 

“If I were you, I’d start at the beginning,” she suggests firmly. 

“Alright, okay, yeah…” you agree, doing your best to find the courage. “Her name is Isla Whitman. And… Yes, she still lives in my home. Isla and I had been together for a long, long time. She was there when everything skyrocketed with the band, right when everything started to take off. She moved in with me, life was going good. She uh… things were great, obviously, as I’m sure you’ve seen from the photos…” you say, motioning to her phone. “We were really good for a long time, I was really happy…”

“But then uh, but then things started to go south. Like really, really badly.” You wipe a heavy hand across your face as you relive those terrible days again. “I started to realize that she wasn’t here for me anymore, that she was here for whatever status I held. Only here because of the success of the band and shit. Only wanted to be seen and be a part of things if it meant she would be photographed and noticed by our fans. It was weird shit, like the fame got to her, and she wasn’t the one even… anyways. She turned into a completely different person, almost overnight. Apparently, uh… it was a lot worse than I even realized, now that I’m kinda putting things into perspective, and Josh and Ty are agreeing with me. She used me. She used the hell out of me. Talked down to me all the time. Gaslit me. Made everything my fault. We got into terrible, horrible fights. All the time. I’m talking fights so bad that we both would throw things at the walls. There at the end, I started spending nights on Josh or Sam’s couch, I’d completely leave for days on end until she’d swindle me into coming back home, all for it to happen again. Over and over. It was…really fucking horrible, Y/N,” you recount, feeling a lump growing in your throat. 

“I uh, I tried to get her to move out multiple times, told her I was finished, I couldn’t do it anymore. Mentally, I was done months ago. Over it. Then the night before we left for Europe, we fought and cried until 4:00 in the morning, and our flight left at six. The only way I could get out the door was if I agreed to go on a “break”. Which I know now was a stupid fucking idea,” you go on. 

“My idea of a break was no contact, cut off completely, do our own things while she found another place to live, then when I got home, we could discuss things like rational adults and get things figured out maturely, but. Ever since we’ve been here, she’s done nothing but try to involve herself in my life even more so than she did when I was home,” you bite your cheeks in as your eyes glaze over, feeling that same gut sensation that keeps haunting you at the worst times. That guilt creeping back up again and again. 

“My intention was never to hurt you, or harm you in any way at all, Y/N. Please know that. I left Nashville thinking I was practically a free man, finally. Ready to relax and disconnect while we worked. And I never intended to find you. And I never intended to… fall for you…like I did,” you explain, looking up to her with cautious eyes. “You completely blindsided me. Made me feel emotions that I hadn’t felt in years, Y/N. I should have told you from the beginning. I know I should have. That is the one thing that I regret completely and totally. I should have been upfront with you about it all. But, I was scared of fucking it up, you know? Scared you knowing about her would push you away. And now… I guess it blew up in my face even more than I thought it would…backfired completely.” You shake your head as you exhale a deep breath, letting a silence fall between the two of you. 

“I understand, Jake,” she finally whispers. “I really do…”

“Really? You do?”

“Mhmm. I get how hard that must have been. Especially since you had no idea it was even happening for so long,” she explains. You nod your head in agreement. “Feels fucking stupid now, I should have picked up on it.” 

“But she still lives with you. Still thinks you’re hers…” she reiterates. 

“Yes. Well, I guess? She still calls constantly, still texts me incessantly–”

“Was that who was calling the night we… ya know…”

You face reddens at the memory of that first night you hooked up, when you couldn’t even fucking perform for her. You nod. “Yeah. Well, her and my techs. It was a whole thing.”

“God…” she says, standing from the bed and shaking her hands out by her sides. She starts pacing the room and running her hands through her hair. “I feel so stupid…”

“You feel stupid?! Y/N, I am the idiot, here, not you…” you argue, standing from the bed as well. “I’m the one that fucked everything up and probably lost you completely.”

She stops and rolls her eyes at you, tears poking from the corners of them. “I should have… I should have asked you if you had someone, Jake. I should have gotten to know you better…” she starts to cry. “That’s like, girl rule #1.”

“Noooo no no, please don’t cry, Y/N…” you rush to her, gently placing your hands on the undersides of her elbows as she crosses them protectively across her chest. 

She runs a hand under her eye as she wipes a falling tear away. She scoffs at herself.

“No, Y/N. That was my fault. We kinda just…happened, you know? Our lust got the best of us,” you laugh a little at the memory of sneaking her into the bathroom that night at the bar.

“My suspicions kinda drove me away, ya know? I knew something was up the night Sam came to your room, talking all that…” she says. “You hiding me in the fucking bathroom.”

“Yeah, yeah I figured as much. I should have told you right then and there, I’m so sorry,” you plead. 

“I’m not gonna lie, Jake, my trust is…”

“Probably fucking shattered, isn’t it?” you ask, feeling a bottomless feeling in your chest. Like the whole situation has no happy ending, because how could it? Everything is fucked. 

She shrugs, looking past you at nothing. “I don’t know.” She walks slowly and sits back on the bed. “And Mia and Lyla? They–”

“Lyla is Isla’s best friend, yes. So of course Mia is pulled into that, as well. And, of course they are praying on my downfall. They don’t know my side of the story,” you explain, suddenly realizing that at the same time, Y/N doesn’t know Isla’s side of this story. You hope that she takes your’s in stride. 

“Great, great. Cool,” she complains. “Now they hate me, too.”

“No, I’m not gonna let that happen. I told Lyla to come and speak with me directly if she wanted the full, true story. We’ll get that sorted out, don’t worry,” you explain. “No one hates you.”

“You aren’t mad at me for… with Murph?” she asks. 

Ah, fuck. 

“Shit, I mean… I’m not mad, I don’t guess. I’m… I guess I’m blindsided with that, too,” you know you can’t explain how you feel, because you truly haven’t had time to even process it yet. “I pushed you away, I get that. Fuck, we hardly spoke for a week. Of course you wanted nothing to do with me. Then Isla goes and adds you on social media…? I mean. Fuck, I get it. Murph is… a cool guy…” you have trouble admitting it. 

“It’s not that serious, Jake,” she says, almost a whimper. “He and I, we just… clicked.”

Her words almost cut you in half. You thought she clicked with you. 

“I get that,” you choke, as much as you hate to say it, you have hardly any dog left in this fight. “Listen, the bottom line is, I know I fucked up. Royally. I wouldn’t blame you if you never want to speak to me again. I don’t blame you for running away from me. But… I swear to god, Y/N, I would fight for you to the end of my days… You gave me something that I haven’t had in so long, I hardly remembered how it felt to be happy. You gave me excitement, and energy, and… you showed me that even though my life was absolute shit, it didn’t have to be that way. You showed me happiness, Y/N. I can’t ask for more than that. And if you ever give me another chance, I know I’d spend all my time repaying you for just that little bit of happiness you gave me, because it was one of the best times of my entire life.” You let out another shaky, huffed breath, fighting back tears, yourself.

Her eyes begin to well again, and you even work the tiniest smile from her. She licks her lips, rubbing them together. “Might take me some time, Jake. I don’t–”

“I don’t expect you to forgive me overnight. I just don’t want you to hate me.”

She shakes her head. “Don’t hate you…”

She relaxes back against the fluffy pillows on her bed, her eyes obviously becoming heavy. 

“Can we agree to start fresh? As friends? Forget about all the stupid shit?” you extend your hand out for her to shake, praying that if she could just give you this….

She takes it gently, clicking her tongue. “My intuition is telling me not to, but. I don’t see anything wrong with starting fresh… Honesty. From here on out.” She shakes it with a little firmness at the conclusion of her sentence. 

“Good. Yes. Perfect, even. I promise,” you say with a little added sugar in your words. “Please just understand that my… relationship at home is anything but. She’s… so far gone from my mind I can’t even explain it to you. My number one priority is finding her somewhere else to live when we get home.”

She nods again. “That’s really none of my business, Jake.”

“Yes it is, Y/N. We’re friends now, remember?” you give her a sexy side smile, knowing that just having her in your life again would be enough, for now. “Thank you… for hearing me out.”

“Thank you for explaining. If only you’d have done that weeks ago…” she rolls her eyes playfully. 

“I know, I know, shit,” you taunt, rising from the bed again. As she walks you to the door, you find yourself fighting off the urge to pull her in, still sobbing a little from earlier. You want to feel her touch again, feel her body against yours and kiss away the saltiness of her tears. But you can’t do that anymore. 

When she opens the door and you approach the threshold, you turn back to her, letting your hand push a strand of fallen hair from her eye. “I still want you in my life, Y/N. You’re too good to let go, I don’t wanna let you go…You’ve still got me…” you say through a whisper, feeling boldness rising in your chest.

She smiles and leans her head into the touch of your hand, but she brushes it away quickly. “Go to bed, Jake.” 

You give her one last knowing look, holding her stare for just a second too long, hoping that one last ditch effort to keep you on her mind would be enough to truly start things fresh. 

Lord knows you’d do anything to get her back again.

—

HER POV

When morning comes it feels different. A weight has been lifted from your shoulders and the day doesn’t seem so daunting. You are glad that you and Jake finally talked things through, though you wish it would have happened weeks ago when you could have stopped all this from happening in the first place. 

You quickly dress and pack your suitcase, knowing that van call is approaching quickly and that everyone will be assembling down in the lobby before you know it. You feel happy with your appearance as you make your way to the elevator, pushing the button and waiting as it climbs to your floor. As the doors spring open, you see none other than Murph waiting inside with his suitcase. 

“Well good morning,” he smiles, motioning for you to join him inside. 

“Good morning,” you answer, rolling your suitcase in behind you.

“Did you have a good evening?” he asks, adjusting his hat. 

“It was alright,” you answer truthfully. “You excited to head to Manchester?” 

“Think I’m more excited for Glasgow if I’m honest with you,” he smirks, pressing the button to close the doors. 

“Can’t imagine why,” you wink, feeling the elevator start to move toward the lobby, singing the ‘Da da da da da’s’ of ‘Howlin’ For You’.

The doors spring open and you step out onto the cobblestone lobby floor, your suitcase bumping along behind you. As you turn the corner you see your group huddled up together talking quietly. They’re standing awkwardly, seeming more out of sorts than normal. It’s then you lay eyes on the auburn haired girl you studied in great detail just last night, as she stands hand in hand with Jake.

Isla. 

In a tizzy of nerves, you turn to talk to Murph, only to find that he has walked away to meet with Dean and his own group. You’re alone and you have to face this. You swallow back your nerve and decide that you will walk over to the group with your head held high, ready to meet the girl Jake swore up and down he was done with. 

As she stands beside him. 

Holding his fucking hand. 

“Y/N!” Paul shouts, grabbing your attention as he stands next to Ty. Everyone's heads turn to look at you, including Jake’s and you feel frozen in place. His face is solemn, with a hint of guilt hiding in his brown eyes. 

You step up to the small circle of people, pretending that nothing is wrong, smiling and greeting everyone with a bright and bubbly smile. If you’re going to do anything, you’re going to make your first impression on Isla one that she won’t soon forget. Your eyes flick over to Ty who is silently telling you that you will definitely be talking later. Josh’s eyes meet yours next, sad and defeated as he stands next to her, showing his obvious feelings towards the situation you've found yourselves in. 

Jake looks clearly burdened, like a lifeless shell standing there as his face is vacant of any loving emotion whatsoever. His movements are aimless, his posture slouched. And for a split second, you actually feel sorry for him. 

Until you regain your clarity, opting to stay on the clueless side of this very obviously two-sided party. 

The lying fucking son of a bitch. 

“Oh hey, Y/N!” Lyla says cheerfully, “So glad we caught you, I just wanted to introduce you to someone. This is Isla, Jake’s girlfriend!”

Isla extends her hand to you, dropping Jake’s at his side. You can feel her laser sharp eyes digging through your skull, her glare almost enough to knock you over. Your eyes meet Jake’s, looking sad and withdrawn before you look back at Isla, and grasp her hand. “Hi, I’m Y/N. Nice to meet you.”

She shakes your hand weakly before dropping hers to her side, falling into Jake’s shoulder to stake her claim. His face goes stark white. 

“I’m so glad to finally meet you,” she coos. “I have heard all about you.”

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Join the Taglist Here

Taglist: @britney-gvf @gretavanmoon @sacredstarcatcher @wetkleenex-gvf @farfromthehomelands @takenbythemadness @writingcold @builtbybrokenbells @ohgodthefeeling-gvf @fleet-of-fiction @milkgemini @gvfpal @ageofcj@dancingcarbon @highway-tuna @stardustjake @jakekiszkapunchmeintheface @gvfmarge @gracev0609 @myleftsock @literal-dead-leaf @peaceloveunitygvf @ageofbajabule @slut4lando @jordie-gvf @sadiechar @tinydancer40 @rosabellagvf @capnjaket @lyndz2names @thetroublegetssoloud71 @gretavanomens @spark-my-nature @josh-iamyour-mama @anythingforjtk @alwaysonthemend @danieljlmwagner @klarxtr @fortunatelytinybasement @demonrat444 @gretavansara @watchingover-hypegirl @hippievanfleet @digitalnomadz @raviolilegs @lipstickitty @hippievanfleet @klarxtr @strange-whorizons @do-it-jakey-baby @myownparadise96 @gvf-luna @starshine-wagner @cassiesgreta @joopsandjangs @whimsiliz @kiszkas-canvas

[angsthology]

“oh, god, no...” — or an alt title: three people bonding over random things as alex makes a horrible decision

one of his worst ideas ever. he’s never doing it ever again.

a/n ckckckckcck i love u dino anon but i was a bit stumped on where this could go BUT i give u surprise to make it more fun i love love love alex my i wanna say pookie but i cant take that word seriously. also im guilty of oversharing roolore in these suposedly shorter chapters. and now that im realizing things this kinda suck lawl

THE KANGAROO(KIE) VS. THE WORLD

after a long day of media, roo was finally free to do whatever she pleased (that being going back to her hotel and pass out until whatever time her body wakes up). currently, she’s slipping on her backpack and taking her phone out, scrolling mindlessly on her contacts until she found the right name.

“where the hell are you?” she starts, holding her phone to her face. “alright. you wanna watch a movie ‘til we pass out?” she paused waiting for an answer as she walks out of the building, “‘kay, i’ll meet you out front.”

just as she clicked her phone off, she looked up to be met with a face that just… stood there with a smile—making her jump and scream in surprise, catching the attention of people around.

when she collected all her life (that had been scattered when she got spooked) she took notice of the source of her heart-attack. he smiled innocently still, as if he’s done nothing wrong.

“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!”

alex, the culprit in question didn’t falter (though he did flinch a little bit at her outburst), he saw this one coming and to be quite frank, he did this to himself.

“i deserved that.” he closed his eyes in acceptance of defeat. alas, he brushed it off, he moved to her side and slung a hand around her shoulder. she was about to shrug him off but decided against it. “how would you feel about helping me pick my next hair color?”

that piqued her interest, she finally looks up to come face-to-face with him again, though now a smile graced her face like a cheshire cat.

his face fell. he was starting to slowly regret his decision.

without another word, a large grin still etching her face, she fished her phone out of her pocket and started scrolling through something. when alex tried to take a peek, she immediately moved away to prevent him from doing so mumbling something along the lines of ‘corporate secrets’.

he made a face at her words. but when she finally showed him her screen, he felt as if the face he made before was a bit premature.

“what the hell is that?!” he exclaimed.

she moved her phone so she could see the picture for herself seeing not what she had opened before but rather a video instead, “oh, sorry, this was from my pitbull concert. he’s great, isn’t he?” she happily showed him the video again.

he gave her another face.

“right, uh, here.” she showed him the correct picture.

he paused. “…what is that supposed to be?”

looking at the picture again, she took a second to think about it then shrug, “neon green/yellow-ish, give or take.”

his mouth drops at her direction. “what do you mean?”

“what do you mean, ‘what do i mean’?” she takes a look at his shocked face then decided to continue, “i mean: neon green/yellow-ish!” pausing, thinking back her words, “give or take!” she pauses again and re-clarified much calmer, “okay, maybe a bit more faded and muted.”

he shook his head, non-verbally ending that part of the discussion.

“where are we even going to get that kind of color?”

she shrugs, “i know a guy.”

the two girls were now currently sitting on the couch, the doberman peacefully laying between them—her eyes too, like theirs, glued to the television playing jurassic park when suddenly a knock came, shifting all three of the girls’ attention towards it.

roo was about to get up to check who it was. being who she was, she had to be extra careful who to let into her living quarters.

“it’s me!” the other side announced.

she looked away from the door and blinked, her brows screwing together in thought until she realized who that voice belonged to.

“alex?” she tested the waters.

“yeah!”

she sighed, her eyes then looking expectantly at the dog that lied beside her, tilting her head as if she were the dog asking their owner for something.

the dog whimpers as if groaning at her request. alas, she jumped off the couch begrudgingly walking towards the door and jumping up to open it.

“he— huh?” alex stopped in his tracks when instead of seeing his friend right behind the door, she was way far sitting on the couch with her friend. she greeted him nonetheless then motioning her hand towards the dog that sat quaintly besides the door, smiling up at him happily.

“oh!” he raised his brows in surprise then bending down to pet the dog who happily accepted, “who’s this fella?” he asked in a high-pitched voice, his accent stronger than usual.

“that’s jet, she’s mine.” roo answered from the couch, jurassic park long forgotten. “what are you doing here?” she asked the brit.

alex then moved his attention away from the dog, his hand still petting her chin, “uhm—i need your help.”

“with what?” her voice slightly gurgling from taking a sip of her drink.

he then holds up the boxes of hair dye with a forced awkward smile.

she gave him a look, “what about your girlfriend?”

“busy today,” he shrugged.

“then do it tomorrow.” she counters.

“okay, fine, i’m bored and alone.” he confessed.

she wanted to help; she really did but—

she groaned loudly; head thrown back to rest on the back of the couch.

“would you believe me if i say my ass is glued and have already morphed into this couch?”

“i would, actually.”

suddenly, from far behind on the other side of the couch—her presence almost forgotten—nika made herself present, “i’ll help. my ass is getting tired of the couch and i’m pretty good with handling people’s hair; i actually spent a summer working in my mom’s salon once.”

roo the gasped, turning around to face her friend with her jaw slack in shock—sarcasm written all over her face—“you had a job? like an actual job? once upon a time?”

“oh shut the fuck up,” she waved off the racing driver and stood up from her seat on the couch over to the other. “now get up, let’s do this.”

about a half an hour into their attempt, nika and alex had set up a mini salon chair using one of the hotel’s dining table chairs with a layer of plastic sitting on the ground. the latter sat on a chair in the middle of the room with a cloth draped over the top of his body. if anyone were to come in through the front door right now, they would assume kidnapping with a side of chemical testing. nika herself had changed into one of her uglier shirts incase they would accidentally get some dye on it.

the alfa romeo driver, on the other hand, still sat where she was the entire time unmoving and un-helping, now having the large dog sat on her lap feeding treats off of her hand while the other scratches the dog between her ears.

“alright. i think that’s all of your hair.” the girl stepped back from her friend’s friend’s hair, admiring the work she’s done. “now we wait. —good luck al,” she said as she took off the plastic gloves that were now mostly green.

alex—whose chair was facing the door for some reason—gripped the chair with his two (clean) hands and moved it around along with himself so he can face the couch. “so…” he looked between his co-worker and her friend, “does she just… go everywhere with you?”

“yeah.” she answered shortly before continuing, “you guys have wags i have… this.”

he looked at nika again, “no offense to you, but—”

“it’s fine, have you met her?” she shrugged pointing at the little shit she unfortunately calls a friend.

he chuckled then continued, “what about daisy-mae? i thought she was your best friend?”

“she is. this one’s just fit baggage claim. plus—daisy’s a serious scholar she’s still very busy getting her degree.”

from the kitchen sink, nika scoffed, “yeah, while she’s stuck with me around the world, mae’s stuck with atticus in college.”

alex the jumped into the conversation at the familiar name, “oh! the drummer, right?”

“yes.”

“oh—hey,” nika turned around from the sink and walked to the closest counter to the two friends, “there’s still quite some left, who wants it?”

as if sensing an idea in the air, jet jumps off roo’s lap and ran into another room.

said girl sighs, “man, knew jet was too smart for trips like this. should’ve known i should’ve brought bennie instead.”

as if the dog heard her, a bark came from the other room.

“whatever. i guess that’s one option out the window,” she turns to nika over the counter, “do me!” she smiles happily.

“alright. your death wish.”

alex, who was momentarily smiling, dropped his previous expression, “wait what—”

te1enoviyuhs

liked by daisymaerose, selvnika, and 836,735 others

tagged: selvnika and lilymhe

te1enoviyuh some notes from yours truly:

lilymhe why did u have to dump babysitting duties

and gooddyeyoung thank u for the hair dye i love hayley williams 🥰

and uh i guess awstenknight thanks for the hookup and free dye

and to everyone else!!!! hey. dump acc just dropped

see all 836 comments.

backbiteroo WHO LET YOU DO THIS

te1enoviyuh backbiteroo myself. i am a grown woman.

selvnika the nika salon is now open for business 🥰

te1enoviyuh selvnika i hope you bankrupt and close

selvnika te1enoviyuh kiss yourself.

norrislftv selvnika ??????

norrislftv OH

alex_albon why was i not tagged 😕 i thought we were twins now

te1enoviyuh alex_albon hm. sure. u wish

daisymaerose hi jet

liked by te1enoviyuh

gaslytv what does... alex mean... when he said... twins...

schupastry this is so random but so cute

awstenknight youre welcome grinch

te1enoviyuh awstenknight 🖕

lilymhe 😬😬 i apologize for having a job

te1enoviyuh lilymhe don’t apologize for that. apologize for not taking ur kid to work.

lilymhe te1enoviyuh that i won’t apologize for.

50kidgaroos BABE WAKE UP NEW DUMP ACCOUNT JUST DROPPED

taglist; @treehouse-mouse @disneyprincemuke @yansbolobao @leilanixx @judespoision @vellicora @bborra

[kim-jongin-s]

svt fic recs (mostly nc-17; minwon, jeongcheol + other)

MINWON

"jinx". oneshot, 3k. r.

“It’s just my shoulder. It’s not like they asked you to put your head on my lap.”

"lick me until ice cream". roommate!au, rule 63. oneshot, 3k. nc-17.

and they were roommates. (oh my god they were roommates)

"don't be kind to me". college!au. oneshot, 4k. nc-17.

Wonwoo knew better than to feed strays, unfortunately for him, he's weak to Mingyu's puppy eyes and pathetic demeanor.

"compliments to the chef". au: chef!mg. oneshot, 5k. nc-17.

Wonwoo is forced to attend a cooking class. By the end of it, he still doesn't know how to make pasta from scratch, but he does know that his cooking instructor has immaculate dick game and keeps a condom in his wallet for emergency situations.

"in technicolor". film student!au. oneshot, 9k. nc-17. ♡

Wonwoo makes a promise. He breaks it. Mingyu acts accordingly.

"so tell me boy if every time we touch (you get this kinda rush)". college!au. oneshot, 12k. pg-13.

It starts with the usual Mingyu slander, two shots of tequila, and then the rest is history.

"me and my husband". omegaverse: omega!ww, alpha!mg. 14 chapters, 147k. nc-17. ♡

Mingyu presses a smile to his skin. "What do you want from me?"

Wonwoo closes his eyes. Greedy and weak, that's what he is. To the very end. "I want your forgiveness."

JEONGCHEOL

"i'm just thinking about you". oneshot, 2k. nc-17.

It's not the first time that Seungcheol has noticed that Jeonghan is beautiful.

"pieces". au: veteran!sc. 3 chapters, 13k. nc-17. ♡ (please check the tags!)

Seungcheol returns to his hometown after a long stint in the military. Jeonghan is right where he left him, and set on loving him the right way this time around.

"like a good book". au: librarian!sc, teacher!jh. oneshot, 16k. pg-13. ♡

“You met the new librarian, didn’t you? He’s friendly, isn’t he? Pretty cute, too.”

Jeonghan tries to not choke on his beer, he really does. But he hiccups, which makes his beer slip down his air pipe, which makes his body instinctively cough, which makes his beer spill out of his cup and into his lap. And Jisoo watches him without a single word of concern, the bastard.

"cold". omegaverse: alpha!sc, omega!jh, game of thrones!au. 10 chapters, 25k. r.

Looking back into his carriage one last time, Jeonghan thinks that this day might be the last he feels like a Lannister. He’s arrived here to wed Lord Stark, has been promised to him from the time he was 9 summers old. He’s known his whole life he will one day cease to be a Lannister, he just didn’t think it would come so soon.

"i have everything (i wanted)". au, mpreg. oneshot, 31.5k. r.

Jeonghan’s world is perfectly aligned thanks to Seungcheol and Seulmi.

But maybe it needs to be tilted. Just a little bit.

"i crave your touch and the smell of your skin". omegaverse: alpha!sc, omega!jh. 5 chapters, 55k. nc-17.

Idol dance trainer Yoon Jeonghan meets idol trainee Choi Seungcheol, a confident 21-year-old alpha.

OTHER

"mommy's new coffee table". dino/96z. rule 63. oneshot, 2k. nc-17.

Soonyoung sets her shoes neatly on the rack, her coat put away in the closet, just like Jihoon likes it, humming as she listens to the others laughing and realizes that one voice is missing. She can’t hear Chan’s usual laughter or her soft voice or moans.

"black eye". verkwan. au. oneshot, 4.6k. nc-17.

Seungkwan has always been the good kid, always doing what his parents wanted and never getting into trouble. Hansol is exactly the type of person his parents never wanted him getting involved with.

"if my heart is racing". seokcheol. roommate!au. oneshot, 7k. pg-13.

Seungcheol wonders and worries if he's secretly homophobic after becoming roommates with Seokmin. No one else agrees.

"overheating rhythm". seokgyu. omegaverse: alpha!mg, alpha!dk. oneshot, 10k. nc-17.

To Seokmin and Mingyu, their disagreements, their alpha stand-offs, their bouts of posturing—all of it has always just been a fight for Minghao's attention, to be the one of the two that he was looking at. To be chosen.

Minghao thinks otherwise.

"how do i look in this light". wonchan. au, rule 63. oneshot, 11.5k. nc-17.

Wonwoo finds herself while Chan suffers, and then mad bonking ensues.

"picture you". seoksoo. au: camboy!js, baseball player!dk. oneshot, 12k. nc-17.

Seokmin isn’t proud of how fast he recognizes Joshua, or why he recognizes him at all.

"what became of forever". seoksoon. au: model!hs, musical actor!dk. 3 chapters, 33k. nc-17.

Soonyoung thinks about all these months, about the almost entire year he's been forcibly separated from Seokmin. About how they thought it'd be forever, had no idea it was temporary, that it'd all come to a head and end at last, the balance of the universe restored, a lot of love and one another to share it with.

"divine pain, pain divine". gyucheol. football!au. 4 chapters, 44k. nc-17.

Seungcheol gets a call from his ex-rival and teammate Kim Mingyu begging him to coach South Korea's national football team. Problem: Seungcheol hasn't played in seven years, not since he got injured and left the team, irreparably breaking Mingyu's heart in the process. Other problem: Seungcheol is still stupidly, severely in love with him.

[spidermans-l-o-v-e-r]

Orange Blossoms

Pairing: Buck x Reader

Word count: 5.2

Notes: WOW I can’t believe I have like nothing to say for notes like usually I can’t shut up here okay. Anyway I’m working on that other secret series that I’m really not sure I’m even gonna publish but I kinda want to move to marvel again who KNOWS

Chapter 2: Backpack, Backpack

Buck changes his screensaver immediately.

 Back to just a photo of all of them, because if Bobby sees that he’d probably skin him alive. He’d already all but threatened him to stay away from you. In a sweet, loving, dad-type way. 

“You go anywhere near her and I kill you” 

Okay, maybe he did threaten him. 

But it was probably just a joke, Buck would be the perfect son-in-law!

“It wasn’t a joke” 

How does Eddie always know what he’s thinking? 

“Does this mean I really have to stay away from her… because I can’t do that Eddie? I’m in love” 

They’re standing together holding a hose, it’s a pretty routine fire thank god it hasn’t gotten too big. Eddie moves over to the side and Buck follows him 

“First of all, you’re not in love, you’re infatuated. You’re not a Disney princess Buck, as much as you’d like to believe you are. It takes time to fall in love.” 

“It takes time to fall in love” Buck mocks him in a high-pitched voice, Eddie snickers knowing he’s absolutely right 

“What’s your second point, jerk.”

“Second of all, she’s Bobby’s niece. And he said to stay away from her” 

“Okay, but she's Athena’s niece!!”

“They’re married? And she calls him Uncle Bobby. Are you really getting all technical on my ass!” 

“I am giving the future Mrs. Y/N Buckley all the respect she deserves!” 

Eddie stops fully, turning to look at his delusional best friend. He doesn’t usually give em his last name. He must really be down bad for you 

“We really… need to talk about how you plan your entire life with someone after knowing them for all of six seconds” 

Buck gives him an incredulous look, like Eddie had never done that before. He kicks at him to turn back around. 

“I can hear the bells” Buck sings “well, do n'tcha hear em chime? Can't you feel my heartbeat keeping perfect time?” 

Eddie’s head falls back as he bursts out laughing, he nearly drops the hose as Buck sings the entire damn song in a silly voice, dramatically acting it out. 

He’s humming it all the way back to the station, he gets weird looks from everyone but he’s in too good of a mood to care. They tease him and try to get a rise out of him but he just shakes his head 

“Nothing you say will ever dampen my spirits, you're all just haters!” He sticks his tongue out at them 

“You’re usually this happy when you’ve got a date… so who is she?”Chim asks from the front seat and Buck stalls a little 

“Uh- no! No, it’s not a date it’s just… uh”

“Buck is talking to my cousin Alicia!” Eddie shrugs, as nonchalantly as possible “Yeah Alicia, he was Insta-stalking her so I just you know told him to…go for it”

“Long distance? That doesn’t sound like you” Bobby narrows his eyes and Buck looks at Eddie frantically 

“She’s coming here! Soon! To visit!” 

“Oh, that’ll be nice!” Bobby seems happy about that and Eddie immediately gets on his phone…he needs to send a text. 

Buck hears the rumble of your engine before he sees you and he’s already sneaking out to come greet you. Eddie notices him being shady and not finishing restocking the engine, so he follows him. 

Buck looks like he’s in dreamland, he watches you park your bike and take off your helmet, shaking out your long pink hair. The sun is shining just for you today he’s sure, the rays illuminating your glowing skin. And boy are you showing quite a bit of it. Your shorts are so tiny Buck isn’t even sure you’re wearing any underneath the sweatshirt you use for riding. You pull that off too and lay it across your seat. His eyes are glued to the orange cropped tank top and how cute it looks with your light blue shorts. He wonders if it’s difficult to drive with all your shoes, the white platform sneakers give you a little extra height but he still towers over you and that’s the way he likes it. 

“Hey, wifey,” Buck says sweetly, his voice soft and breathy. Eddie’s mouth drops open as he walks up to you both and Buck snaps out of it, his eyes wide as saucers as he puts his hands up

“No, god, no I mean… uh… hey wiffle ball??” 

“What” Eddie says under his breath, looking at Buck like he’s crazy. You bite your lip and shake your head trying to control your giggles as the boys lead you inside the station 

“Hey, volleyball?” 

“That’s… that’s not even the same category,” Eddie says, his face scrunched up as he puts his hands in his pockets 

“And you can do better?” You sass him, your hands on your hips. 

“Uh yeah. Pickle ball? Cricket? Dare I say, baseball?” 

“Wait, why cricket?” Buck asks 

“Because there’s a ball and a bat are you guys actually criticizing my thinking skills” 

“I’m just saying it’s kinda out there” You poke at him 

“Yeah, what are we? British?” Buck scoffs and you giggle when Eddie kicks your shoe and flicks Bucks's arm in pure annoyance 

“Why are you even here?” He says through gritted teeth playfully and you laugh, side-bumping him.

“Athena asked me to deliver some paperwork Bobby forgot to fill out” 

“Oh doesn’t she usually do that?” Buck tilts his head and wow he looks cute when he does that. You blush a little and look at your shoes for a second 

“Yeah, but she said I might have more fun” 

“Uh I walked in on them last time” Eddie gags “I don’t think you’ll have more fun”

“I mean she could, I know a great closet” 

Buck just says it, it’s a good joke, a great joke. Your mouth falls open and Eddie slaps his hand over his mouth gleefully 

“Oh my god” 

Buck looks confused for a second “Wha…” His eyes widen and he puts his hands out “Wait no! No, I was kidding! Well, I mean if you-“ He smirks, running his hand through his hair 

“Buck!” Eddie shouts 

You’re all out laughing now as Buck turns a wonderful shade of red 

“I just- I mean it’s not off limits you know it- guys shut up!!! It was a joke!” 

“What was a joke?” Bobby comes over, confused as to why you’re here and why Buck is trying to find the nearest ax 

“Pickleball” Eddie blurts out and you nearly keel over, wheezing. His excuses were not his best today. 

“We uh we gotta go” Eddie grabs Buck, who is holding his head in his hands whining loudly, and drags him away 

“Bye Y/N! See you later!”

Bobby watches them run away, his eyebrow raised 

“You’re not talking to either of them are you?” He asks and you roll your eyes and wipe at the little tears 

“No… we’re just friends Bobby. And they’re nice! I like hanging out with them”

“You’ve gone out with them?” He crosses his arms over his chest and you blush lightly 

“Uh… yeah? J- just to hang out and get to know them. I don’t have any friends in L.A Bobby you know that”

“You have May! She’s a great girl! She can introduce you to all of her friends”

“Bobby, we barely know each other anymore. We haven’t done anything together since we were literal children. And you know, whilst she has offered to take me out next weekend and introduce me to her friends, she and I have already decided that I’m not sticking around that friend group unless it’s an occasional hangout. Those are her friends and her life. So until she and I get closer…neither of us are letting you and Athena force us together.”

Bobby looks at you, struggling for words. He puts his hands on his hips sassily

“You know. You two don’t have to make that much sense. Just- I love Buck and Eddie don’t get me wrong. They’re my kids! But promise me you’ll be careful. Because if someone asked me who I would let my kid date from the team I would absolutely say none of these people” 

You giggle and hand him the papers from Athena, standing on your toes you kiss his cheek and wave goodbye 

“I promise I’ll be careful! We’re all just friends!” 

You walk back outside, a little skip in your step as you walk up to your bike. Buck and Eddie are standing next to it 

“You wanna sit on it?” You call you and Buck fist pumps, eagerly climbing on 

“I was hoping you’d say that!” 

You strut over and stand in front of them as Buck leans forward, pretending to be driving. He makes little car noises and you laugh, your hands behind your back 

“Having fun?” You muse and he sits up 

“Uh- yes. What kind of question is that” he scoffs and you roll your eyes 

“You wanna take her for a spin?” You ask coyly and Buck’s mouth drops open 

“Wait seriously? You’d let me?” 

“Of course, I would! I trust you” 

He starts it up, groaning as it purrs for him. He pats the handlebars and you hand him your helmet 

“Hey,, Buck?” Eddie pokes at his shoulder and he looks up

“Yes, bestie”

“We’re literally in the middle of a shift” 

“I’m sorry I can’t understand your accent. It’s too Texasy” 

“I literally don’t-“

“Buck! Get off that thing! You’re at work” Bobby yells at him from the bay doors and he groans loudly, getting off and handing you back your helmet. You take it from him, giggling and shaking your head 

“Maybe some other time… like this weekend or something! Afterwards, we go bowling with Eddie!” 

Eddie looks between the two of you “We’re going bowling?” 

Bucks behind you, signaling him frantically to say no.

“Yeah! Didn’t Buck ask you?” 

Buck clasps his hands together silently begging Eddie

“Ohhh… uh.. yeah! Yeah, I just totally forgot. Um yeah, I can go bowling this weekend!” 

Buck's mouth drops open and he mimes choking Eddie, you spin around and his hands drop to his sides as he smiles at you sweetly 

“Okay cool!! Well, I’ll see you guys this weekend!” You hop on your bike and Buck helps you put your helmet on. He shyly leans in and kisses the top of it 

“Uh- drive safe! Text me when you know you get wherever you’re going. If you want to that is I mean you don’t have to… you’ll probably text like Athena or Bobby or something yeah yeah you don’t have to text me it’s cool”

He steps back from the bike and you shake your head and he knows you’re laughing at him again. You make a little heart with your hands and wave goodbye to them before driving off.

Buck watches you drive off, your sweatshirt fluttering in the wind. He watches until he can’t see you anymore with his hands in his pockets he turns to Eddie 

“I’ll give you a five-second head start”

“Buck. That’s childish can you just-“

“Five”

“Buck, let me explain! When have I never not had a plan come on!”

“Four”

“Buck you can’t be alone with her yet you-“

“Three-two-one!” He shouts and dives for Eddie. Eddie screams and runs towards the station with Buck hot on his heels. He runs around the truck and dodges Hen with a spin 

“That’s cheating and you know it!!”

“Cheating my ass!”

“What on god's green earth are the two of you doing?!” Bobby calls down from the balcony 

“Nothing!” They yell in unison as they run around the station. 

“That doesn’t look like nothing”

“It’s a new training exercise! Just working on stamina!” Eddie yells back, yelping when he feels Buck’s hand brush his belt 

“That the lamest excuse you’ve ever come up with” Hen mumbles as they run past her again 

“Don’t be a snitch” Buck pants and she puts her hands in the air, staying out of their mess

Eventually, Buck corners him, and they’re in the sleeping quarters 

“I’m-“ Buck's hands are on his knees “I’m gonna kick your ass-“ He wheezes “when I can breathe again”

Eddie slumps down in the corner, letting his head fall against the cool wall

“Not if we die first” He pants heavily, running his hands through his hair 

Okay, maybe Buck didn’t think this thing through how is he supposed to kill Eddie if he passes out from lack of oxygen? They take a good six or so minutes to breathe normally again 

“I said yes so that way she could say she was going with both of us not just one of us and then I’d cancel or show up and just say my arm or like back or whatever was hurting so I could just sit back and keep score.”

Buck is laid out on the floor, he looks over at Eddie, his nose scrunched up 

“Wait, why didn’t you just say that?”

Buck has been staring at the picture you sent him for the last 20 minutes. You’re standing in the full-length mirror at Athena’s house, a little peace sign. You texted him as soon as you got home and after that picture boy does he wish he was better friends with May, he knows she’d “invite” him over. 

He knows it’s just… a little pervy, the way he stares at your thighs in the full-length mirror. He thinks that’s his favorite physical thing about you. Your full, plush thighs, especially in those mini skirts you just love to wear. And these shorts you’re wearing are absolutely no exception. They hug your body like they were tailored to fit you. Actually, he’s pretty sure they are tailored. 

He sighs dreamily hitting the favorites button

“Is that Y/N” 

He jumps so far out of his seat that he fumbles with his phone before slamming it awkwardly into the table 

“Did you just break your phone?!” Hen stares at him 

“I sure as hell hope not! What uh what can I do for you? Need somethin? A smoothie? You want a smoothie I’m gonna make you a smoothie” he runs over to the fridge and starts pulling things out. Hen picks up his phone, looking it over, and thank god it’s not cracked. 

“You didn’t answer my question,” She says, taking his seat and holding out his phone to him. 

“Uh, what question?” He turns on the blender, miming that he can’t hear and Hen crosses her arms over her chest, giving him a look. He smiles sheepishly once it shuts off and pours her smoothie 

“Y-yeah that was her.” He unlocks his phone and hands it over with the smoothie 

“Damn”

“I know!!” Buck squeals he’d joked about proudly showing you off to his coworkers and now he’s actually doing it. 

“She’s a nice girl… Cap knows you’re texting her?” 

“No and neither do you” Buck goes over to his “secret cabinet” pulls out one of his good mini chocolate bars and hands it to Hen. She takes it from him, opens it up, and takes a bite out. She groans softly and her eyes roll back. He always keeps those fully locked up 

“Right?”

“Right.” Hen gives him a double thumbs up and grabs her smoothie

After making sure Hen is gonna stay quiet Buck goes downstairs, there’s literally nothing to do, he’s checked off his entire list and even did the end of Eddie’s. If he’s this bored… Hopefully, someone else is.

“Hello?” You answer on the third ring and he gulps and then clears his throat 

“Uh hey! Hey Y/N it’s me, Buck” 

“I know” you giggle “What’s up?” 

“Oh…nothin just wanted to see if you were busy or anything…kinda boring around here”

“Did you call me just to talk?” You ask and his cheeks flush. Because yeah but like that sounds lame he could have just texted you. 

“…Maybe?” His voice is hesitant and cracks a little. Oh my god why was that happening so freaking much 

“That’s really cute” You laugh and he hears you rustling around for a minute. “Athena is sending me back out on an errand run with May… but we can text! If you wanted” 

“Yeah no! No texting is fine! I should have probably asked if you were busy first… I’m yeah no I’m sorry we can text”

“No it’s okay, I…like hearing your voice” You mutter shyly and he can hear May snickering in the background. His cheeks flush and he bites his lip 

“You do?” 

“Y-yeah I do” 

“Well good… I like hearing yours too, like, a lot” He admits, his heart is pounding in his chest 

“I have to go but, call me back tonight okay? Like…around midnight? When um-“

“When Bobby is asleep?” He says mischievously and it’s your turn to blush 

“Yeah… will you?” He can hear the hesitancy in your voice and it makes him weak, he just wants to kiss you breathless so badly. 

“It’s a date. I’ll talk to you later doll” 

“You better text me too, Bye Evan”

He hears May teasing you as you curse at her and hang up, he holds his phone to his chest, wilting into his seat and sighing sweetly. Midnight can’t come fast enough. 

The rest of the day drags and not just because he’s waiting to get off but because there’s literally nothing to do, which is the most surprising part. Really he supposes he should be glad nothing is happening, that means people are safe… besides 

It just gives him more time to talk to you. 

And boy does he, he starts slow with his memes, you have to kinda ease people into your insanity. But the second you send an Optimus Prime thirst trap on TikTok all decency and manners fly out the window and you’re both trying to send each other the worst things you’ve ever seen 

He’s falling faster and faster for you. Just call him Princess Buck. 

“What are you laughing at?” Eddie comes over, lifting Bucks legs up and plopping on the couch with him

“Um…nothin” he mumbles, distracted as he laughs into his fist at the Nick Fox thirst trap he’s sending you “don’t worry I’ve been sending them to you too”

“I already regret being your friend. Who else did you send them to?” He toys with Buck’s pant leg 

“Um… Y/N we’re just…talking” 

Eddie hears the click of a camera and he frowns, looking at Buck who shrugs and doesn’t look away from his phone 

“We’re also snapping” 

“Snapping? You sound like a teenager” He chuckles but puts his feet up on the coffee table and scrolls through his phone too 

“Teens use Instagram nowadays, old ass man. I asked for her snap just to see pictures of her, I just- god hold on” 

He pulls up the picture from earlier and hands his phone over. Eddie lets out a low whistle and Buck wriggles on the couch 

“God I know right! I don’t care if she suffocates me, I’d die happily” He says and Eddie laughs at him, his head falling back on the couch 

“Yeah. You know a closet” 

Buck groans and slaps his hands over his face 

“I can’t believe I said that to her” 

“She thought it was funny” 

“Okay but low-key? I wish she would have like said bet or something”

“I’m pretty sure you would have passed out” 

“Oh I know I would have and she could have given me mouth to mouth”

Eddie rolls his eyes, laughing at Buck again 

“You’ve got it bad my man” 

“Oh you have no damn idea” 

It’s around 10pm when a call comes in, and Buck is always too distracted by the voice message you sent him to get his stuff on. Eddie swipes the phone from his hands and glares at him, He blushes and gets his stuff on almost faster than he ever has and snatches it back, patting Eddie on the cheek before they load into the truck 

“Apparently a bonfire in a kids backyard got a bit out of hand, everyone be ready to possibly have to cut line but there should already be another team there doing it. Be advised the house is on fire but it’s small for now”

Athena is already there, with a few drunk people in her backseat. She’s talking to someone quite animatedly, her voice is low. 

“Everything oka- May??” Bobby stops, looking between them. Athena stands back, her hands on her hips

“Where’s Y/N?” He asks immediately and May sighs loudly 

“I don’t know. I’ve tried to say it a million times I don’t know! The fire broke out and we got separated!” 

“I’ve tried contacting her but she isn’t answering” Athena looks like she’s ready to rip her hair out. Bobby puts his hands on her shoulders, his voice is full of worry as he kisses her forehead 

“Hey, we’re gonna find her okay? I promise” 

“She’s here for a couple days and I’ve already lost her.”

“You didn’t lose her mom, I did. I should have kept a better eye on her! But she said she’d be okay! And Crystal wanted to show me something and-“ She starts up and Athena sighs, hugging her

“It’s not your fault baby, Y/N is an adult. You were both right, she can take care of herself”

Bobby walks over to Eddie and Buck who are hosing down a section of the yard 

“You two have Y/N’s number right? Can you call her real quick?”

“Uh, yeah sure.” Buck shrugs and pulls out his phone, it takes a second with all his stuff on. 

Bobby takes the hose from him and stands behind Eddie

“Everything okay?” Eddie asks, looking back at him and he shrugs 

“Yeah… just uh. Just call, Buck” 

It rings six times which is the longest its ever taken you to answer 

“Hello?” Your voice is so small it takes him aback. 

“Uh hey, hey Y/N”

Bobby perks up, motioning to keep her talking 

“Where- where are you? You sound funny” He walks away a little, so he can hear you better 

“I’m-” you hesitate and Bucks anxiety skyrockets

“I’m a firefighter Y/N, you can tell me anything” He says soothingly, his voice dropping an octave 

“I’m in the house”

“Where in the house” He turns to it and starts running, the fire is slowing down but not nearly enough. He mutes his phone for a second and alerts everyone on the radios 

“It’s- it’s so stupid”

He stops, smashing the unmute button

“Y/N, please. Fuck, the house is on fire. You do realize that right?!” 

“It’s what?! I-I’m locked in a closet in the basement. N-nothings happening down here!”

“Alright, I’m coming to get you okay? I’m coming, baby” 

He doesn’t even have time to cringe at himself as he runs into the house, Hen and another couple of guys are already shutting doors and putting some of the smaller fires out but it’s definitely staying consistent 

“Where’s the basement?!” He asks you, panting slightly as he frantically looks around

“The kitchen, there’s a doorway” 

He hangs up the phone and shoves it in his pocket

“Y/N??” He yells for you, panic seeping through his veins 

“Have you found her?” Bobby radios him “do you need help?”

“Buck??? Buck, I’m in here!!” You’re pounding on the door as hard as you can to get his attention 

“I’ve got her! I found her!” He calls into the radio as he runs over to the door 

“Y/N? Is there anywhere you can stand to the left or right, away from the door?” 

“I think so?!” You back up into the corner as far as you can, pressing yourself against the wall

“Alright! What now?”

Buck readies his ax, holding it in his hands

“Now I channel my inner Jack Torrance!” 

You shriek as the ax breaks through the door and he begins to create an opening for you. He breaks into the door easily…if he’s being honest he probably could have kicked it in… but this was more fun. 

“Don’t you dare” you say as soon as there’s a clear small hole

“When am I ever going to be able to say it with someone who would actually laugh about it in a completely unprofessional way!!” 

You groan and duck down more as a few wood chips fly

“…Fine!” 

Buck goes just a teeny bit crazy with the axe, most of the fire has been contained so he takes a little more time than necessary. He gleefully smashes the door down, laughing maniacally while screaming “Here’s Johnny!” 

You do laugh, because it’s stupid and it’s so Buck, and watching him enjoying himself is cute. As soon as the hole is big enough for you, you step through and he yanks you into his chest immediately, you let out a little squeak and hold onto him 

“What the hell were you doing in there? You could have died!” 

“I didn’t know! I tried calling May but she didn’t answer the phone and… and I didn’t want to call you and-“

“Wait, why didn’t you wanna call me??” Buck pushes you back a little just by your shoulders and you look down at your feet. He tilts your head up and that’s when he realizes your makeup is a bit ruined. He chalked it up to the heat…but you said there wasn’t any 

“Why didn’t you want to call me? Did something happen?” He asks a little calmer this time

“We should get out of here. The building could collapse” you quickly change the subject and try to pull away from him but he stops you. He bends down to your eye level and forces you to look him in the eyes 

“It’s structurally sound. Trust me. Y/N what happened.”  

You look down at your shoes, wringing your hands together and sighing 

“It’s… childish” 

“No it isn’t. Just tell me.” His voice is firm and he looks upset, you groan and let your head fall back before looking at him again 

“These girls asked me to go downstairs and get some extra buckets from the closet and then they pushed me in and locked the door. Apparently, I was chatting up one of their boyfriends, I didn’t know! I just- I saw his shoes and they were cool and then he told me they were custom from Etsy and I asked for the shop!! And he was so nice Buck, genuinely he was! He asked for my number just to send the link!” 

You unlock your phone and show it to him, the number isn’t even saved, just a link with a little smiley face and a “Demon Slayer shoes” and that’s it. 

“I…I tried calling May and she didn’t answer.. and I was locked in this stupid closet like I was a teenager again or something so I just…put my phone on silent and cried. And I didn’t want to call you because I would seem like such a baby. Like who still locks people in closets!” 

Buck listens to your story and he looks pissed. First of all, no one hurts his baby. Second of all… you could have died if you hadn’t picked up the phone when he called, and you almost didn’t. 

Buck does what any sensible man would do in this situation, he stands up tall, looks around for a moment 

And he kisses you. 

It’s sweet and lingering, he tilts your head up and presses his lips to yours gently. He watches the way your eyes close slowly and you kiss him back and he wishes he could just stay there forever but eventually you have to breathe and he makes you pull away, not him. 

“You want me to go find them?” He spins the ax in his hand and you snicker, shoving at his chest 

“Absolutely, let’s commit murder together!” 

“Sounds good to me sweetness” He winks and you roll your eyes, pulling away from him. He frowns a little at the loss of contact but shakes it off 

“We should probably get out of here, your family is going insane… May is really upset” 

He takes his helmet off and puts it on your head and you giggle while holding it down to tilt your head up 

“Yeah okay” 

He holds out his hand and you take it, he starts to lead you upstairs but you stop for a second, planting your feet 

“Whats wr-“

You let go of his hand and rush past him, going up a few steps and turning around to kiss him. It’s quicker this time, just a peck and he’s spiraling immediately, giggling deliriously as you jog up the stairs pulling him with you now 

The second you step out of the house, Athena is on you, frantically checking you over before crushing you in a hug, May is crying and promising she’ll never leave you alone again and you’re hugging her, trying to console her. Buck takes this time to step away and go find Eddie, you give him a little wave over May’s shoulder and he blushes, waving back. 

He nearly crashes into Eddie when he finally spots him, going running over. He’s standing in front of the truck securing the hoses 

“Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie” His voice is high pitched and his hands are shaking. He grabs Eddie’s shoulders and starts shaking him

“Buck calm down!” He’s laughing as he pushes him back a bit, he hands him a bottle of water and Buck takes it , chugging it before tossing it into the trash 

“I can’t, oh my god I can’t, guess what?!” He squeals and Eddie snorts, shaking his head 

“What?”

“We kissed. We kissed, we kissed, we kissed!!!” He practically screams the last one and Eddie yanks him over to the other side of the truck shushing him 

“Okay- first of all, calm down. Because everyone is going to know who you kissed. What happened???”

Buck can hardly contain himself, he holds tightly onto Eddie’s arms just to keep himself from floating off into the clouds 

“Okay well she told me about these girls that bullied her and locked her in a closet. How freaking 90s teen movies is that!! And she didn’t want to call me because she thought that would make her seem like a baby but she’s not a baby Eddie she’s really not and she was starting to tear up and I couldn’t stand to see her cry so I just kissed her!!”

Buck is speaking at a million miles an hour and Eddie is nodding his head along just trying to follow his story 

“No she’s not a baby, but oh my god she could have died”

“That’s what I told her!!! And then guess what oh my god Eddie guess what”

“What?” Eddie chuckles a little at his enthusiasm, it’s endearing 

“I put my helmet on her to make her smile and it worked and I held her hand-“ His voice is becoming squeaky again “and then she let go of my hand and I was like-“ he gasps “what if I went too far??” 

“Because randomly kissing her wasn’t far but holding her hand was” Eddie says sarcastically 

“Exactly!!!” Buck points at him and he squints but goes along with it 

“She went up the stairs because you know she’s short as hell, and she kissed me again” 

Eddie’s mouth drops open and Buck literally starts jumping up and down, he does a little spin, dancing around before shaking Eddie 

“Yeah!!!!”

[dead-tired-cm]

404 - Title Not Found (part/chapter 3)

Part 1 - Tumblr Part 2 - Tumblr

Ao3

Summary: Jason was expecting the gala to be boring like always but is pleasantly surprised when it isn’t.

Danny meant it as a joke but Fenton luck always strikes. At least he gets an excuse to talk to the cute guy he gave quarters to.

AN: As always this is crack, this is a whole crack fic; and I play fast and loose with DC&DP cannon. Ignore any out of character writing(mainly Vlad and Bruce).

Kinda/slow Vlad redemption, kinda like a shitty uncle that you get along with sometimes.

Danny and Jason don’t know each other’s names for a bit so they refer to each other as:

Danny - Quarter Guy

Jason - Laundry Guy

Enjoy the crack! :)

Jason immediately knew that the other wasn’t from Gotham. No one just offered anything without an immediate confirmation that they would get something in return. At least that’s how it was in Crime Alley. He and the other held small talk while they were doing their laundry.

“You just offer quarters to people?” He said sarcastically only to have an actual answer in return. “Only the cute people.” The other said with a somewhat joking tone.

“Uh huh. What’s ya name? I didn’t catch it.” Jason wouldn’t directly admit but this guy had peaked his interest even more.

“Well, I didn’t throw.” The guy answered with a smile that felt sarcastic with just a bit of wanting chaos.

The topic changed to other things. He learned that quarter guy had moved to Crime Alley awhile back, he didn’t give a clear reason why; “Just thought it’d be a good change of pace.”

He also learned that Quarter Guy was going to some kind of event with his godfather; saying that even though he agreed to go, he could still complain. And god did he complain but nothing sounded too bad. “He’s just a fruitloop, I wouldn’t doubt him trying to use me to get secrets from the other people.”

Jason didn’t share any too personal information; besides it just out of sceret identity and such but it would also feel weird to. Jason did complain about how he was more or less forced into agreeing to go to the Wayne gala, only not sharing that it was a gala or that it was a Wayne event.

“Maybe we end up at the same event.” Quater guy, who still didn’t tell Jason his name, joked. His laundry had been done before his own. Quarter guy left with a smile that only made him want to figure out why he felt familiarly even more. Jason was more curious about this guy than before but decided to hold off on figuring out more about it.

—

It was just meant as a joke. Danny really did mean as a joke but just his fucking luck(or honestly he was expecting CW to be the cause in some way), he was now looking at the guy he gave quarters to a day or two pior. He was standing next to the snack table, avoiding Vlad so he didn’t have to worry about talking to other rich people he didn’t trust. The snacks didn’t look good in any sense of the word, why did he expect rich people to know what good snacks look and taste like.

He was thinking about texting Sam to complain, knowing that she would say I told you so but that when he noticed the guy from his apartment building was there. It took a second to recgionze him since he seemed more put together and dressed nicer, but it was him. Danny wouldn’t have questioned it too much if the guy wasn’t standing next to Bruce Wayne but he was. Danny didn’t need to know any more rich people but life(or probably CW) had other plans.

He noticed that the guy hadn’t seemed to see him yet. Danny moved away from the snack table, going opposite from Wayne and the laundry guy; mainly focusing on staying hidden but a voice called him. “Danỉ͔͖̜͌ẹ̿͋̒̕l̙͖̑̾ͣ!” It wasn’t loud, at least it wasn’t to humans. It had just enough of a hint of ghost speak to have Danny turn to look. Of course when he had his back turned, Vlad had to go and speak to Bruce Wayne. “Come over, I’ve hardly seen you since we’ve arrived.”

Danny held back a sigh and eye roll as he went over to Vlad and Wayne; which also meant laundry guy. He had felt Wayne’s eyes on him as he went over, laundry guy hadn’t seemed to notice or frankly care enough to look. He looked at Bruce. He knew of “Brucie” Wayne and had wondered if it was just a persona like when Vlad used to pretend to be niceish to his dad. He side eyed laundry guy, who didn’t look at him at all.

“You didn’t tell me you had a so-“ Bruce started with a hint of curiosity. Danny was quick to cut him off. “He didn’t because I’m not.” That’s what finally got laundry guy’s attention, he looked at Danny for a second and Danny already knew that he recognized him. “Daniel, that was rude.” Vlad looked at him before going back to Bruce. “I apologize for him but he is right. He’s my godson.” Vlad said, leaving it to Danny to introduce himself.

“Yes, I do apologize for cutting you off like that.” Danny started. He used the tone he would use with some of the ghost nobles. It was a bit forced but relatively kind. He’d hate to admit and never would out loud but he learned it from Vlad. “It’s alright, I understand how words hold meaning.” He noticed how it sounded more real than “Brucie” usually did.

He just nodded before continuing, “Okay. I’ll introduce myself before Vlad tries to.” Danny made his tone sound just a bit joking. He felt laundry guy’s full attention on him. He smiled, a little fake and a little smug. “I’m Danny Fenton and as Vlad said, I am his godson.”

There was some “good to meet you”s exchanged. Danny picked up on the fact that Bruce nudged Laundry Guy to introduce himself.

—

Jason didn’t like Vlad Masters at all. He was creepy, all around weird and untrustworthy. He had only seen him a few times before, spoke to him barely unless with Bruce but something was off now. There was a strange feeling of paranoia around Vlad that he couldn’t place. Even with all his training from the Bat.

He had been staying relatively close to Bruce, not wanting to deal with questions or the other people which Bruce seemed to respect. He had noticed that Bruce had been trying to be better or very least trying to understand his perspective. It was something, it was better than nothing.

Jason had held back a groan as soon as he saw Vlad approach him and (mainly) Bruce. He tuned out most of everything, just looking at the other people around them. It was like every other time Bruce was stopped by another billionaire. Just stand there, vaguely pay attention and look at the crowd of other people. That’s how it was going until he heard Vlad call out to someone else.

“Danỉ͔͖̜͌ẹ̿͋̒̕l̙͖̑̾ͣ!“ He heard Vald call out to someone else. it sounded off, not by a lot but still. He didn’t show a reaction outside of paying more attention. He noticed Bruce didn’t show any slight reaction which was expected. Jason still didn’t care enough to fully look up at whoever Vlad had called over until Bruce had started talking and was immediately cut off.

Jason had recognized the voice right off the bat. He looked up and saw Quarter Guy or as he introduced himself, Danny. It was obvious that the other recognized him as well but spoke as if he didn’t. He thought of when he talked to him while doing laundry and how he joked about them going to the same event. He heard formalities go around when felt Bruce nudge him. A signal to introduce himself.

He faced Danny, taking note of how he acted like they hadn’t met and he decided to go along with it. “Jason. Nice meeting ya.” He said with a similar smile that Bruice Wayne was known for but each bat kid had their own distinct version of it. “Nice to meet you as well.” Danny said with his own smile, he noticed that it was a mix between genuine and fake.

Jason noticed how different the other acted compared to when they talked a few days prior. He took note of how he was not as talkative or sarcastic and just had a small sense of fakeness about him. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for people to have a more or less fake personas at galas but he found it interesting how the other did a complete 180.

“So Danny, this your first gala?” Jason asked. A bit genuinely curious and also since he knew Bruce would ask him at some point. Danny looked at Vlad for a split second before answering. It seemed like silent communication. “No and yes. I’ve been to a few before but this is the first one I’ve been to in Gotham.” He had kept the smile as he explained. “Vlad has dragged me to some all over. Although I mainly attend the few that are held in my hometown.”

Yeah, he was definitely lying about something. It was easy to guess especially when Danny looked at Vlad before he had answered. He didn’t outwardly question it or look at Bruce to see if he noticed it too, of course he had; world’s greatest detective or whatever.

“Well we’re glad that you decided to attend tonight.” Bruce spoke, or well Brucie did. Some of the others had personas similar to the Brucie one but Jason didn’t. He didn’t feel like he needed one especially after coming back. “How about Jason and you go off and do your own thing while I speak business with Vlad?”

Jason looked at Bruce for a second, they both knew something was sketchy with Vlad and instead of including him in getting more info on him, Bruce was pushing him off to Danny. Not that he was complaining but still. He looked at Danny for his response.

—

Danny looked at Vlad, a bit surprised that Vlad wasn’t one to suggest that although he would’ve been suggesting it as a way to get information against competition. Vlad just gave a nod to him, Danny held back a sign knowing that Vlad would still use it as an opportunity for that. “Sure, why not? Still getting used to the city and all.”

And with that, he was led away by Jason. He could already hear Vlad scheming. At least he would be the only ghost he’d have to deal with. Hopefully, he didn’t want to jinx himself. He just let Jason drag him away from Bruce and Vald, not really caring where they went.

They finally stopped in a more quiet corner of the gala room. It was less bright with less people which Danny was grateful for. He had attended more ghost galas than human ones. So the loudness that came with human ones was still newish to him.

“So, I guess we really did end up at the same event.” Jason said with a smug grin. Hopefully just making it known that he said it as a joke would make it seem as a crazy coincidence and not too weird.

Danny gave him a sheepish smile, “I swear I meant it as a joke.”