#yet another thing the pilot did better

[pyxehastoomanyinterests]

their beef needs to be revived in the show please,, PLEASE,,

(Vaggie’s name is changed to Verity in my rewrite bc. yeah)

[roosterforme]

Yours Truly, Bradley Bradshaw Part 2 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: The collection of letters that Bradley received from the fourth grade class provides him with entertainment while deployed. He takes the time to answer their questions and send a package back to the United States via air mail. But he has your email address. He also has a bit of a crush and some questions himself.

Warnings: Fluff, language

Length: 4100 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female teacher!Reader

Check out my masterlist for more! Yours Truly, Bradley Bradshaw masterlist

A few days later, when Bradley was done with his training protocols for the day, he returned to his bunk with a different mission in mind. While he unzipped his flight suit, he eyed the box which was taking up most of his nightstand, and a smile found its way to his lips. He managed to find a notebook that nobody wanted along with a thick, padded envelope, and he was going to take the time to respond to the fourth graders who wrote to him. 

He'd spent hours poring over the letters, laughing at some of the questions from the kids and frequently picking up that one photo. He couldn't stop going back for more. For another look at you. Just one more look. Okay, this really was the last one. He had to toss it across the small room toward his duffel so he could focus on something other than your smile and the fact that he might have a tiny crush on a fourth grade teacher who knew absolutely nothing about him. Yet.

The note from Jayden was on the top, and Bradley opened it up and started to jot down a response.

Jayden,

It was so nice to hear from you and the rest of your class. To answer your pertinent questions, I am currently stationed on the USS Theodore Roosevelt. The most disgusting food in the mess hall is easily the cabbage rolls (which taste nothing like cabbage... or rolls). The best food in the mess hall is surprisingly the meatloaf. And yes, I would love to see a photo of your Cocker Spaniel. Please send one next time. I hope you're studying and doing your best in school.

Lt Bradley Bradshaw

The next note he decided to tackle was the one from Violet who had the tiniest handwriting he'd ever seen. The page had at least fifteen questions written out, but he decided to answer just a few for her. He had to squint as he skimmed through them again.

Violet,

You seem very inquisitive. That's a great quality to have, especially if you want to be a pilot someday. No, I did not attend the Naval Academy. I went to the University of Virginia. Yes, the Navy is way better than the Air Force. Yes, I can hold my breath underwater for three minutes. Yes, they actually made me do it. No, I don't think I could make it as a Navy SEAL. Yes, I have been staying hydrated and getting enough sun, thanks so much for asking. Keep studying hard, because you have a lot of school ahead of you before officer training.

Lt Bradley Bradshaw

Okay, so this was actually a lot of fun. Up next was a response to the note from Oliver, which made Bradley laugh every time he looked at it. 

Oliver,

Thank you so much for drawing the different Naval aircrafts for me. I hate to break it to you, but I actually do not fly the F-35 Lightning II. Yes, I know they look 'sickeningly cool'. Yes, I know it would be like 'slam dunking off the back of a dragon'. I guess I never knew I was jealous of those pilots until right now.... But I fly the equally cool if not quite as sickening looking F/A-18 Super Hornet. And yes, I would be more than happy to draw my own version of one for you. See below.

Lt. Bradley Bradshaw

The ten minutes he spent replicating his own aircraft to the best of his ability for Oliver churned out a pretty damn good result. He fished his phone out of the nightstand and took a picture to email to Nat when he had time, because she would find this whole thing amusing. Then he reached for the letters from Harrison, Nia and Jackie. He wrote his responses, and after a bit, he had a decent sized stack of letters all ready to go back to the fourth graders.

After a few more days, he worked his way through the entire class, and each kid would soon have a handwritten response on the way. He just needed to figure out what he wanted to say to you. The pretty teacher from the class photo that he now kept tucked in with his personal items. He worked on that one last, writing your full name at the top of the page and wishing you didn't go by the very non-specific Ms. which gave him zero clue as to whether or not you were married.

The package you sent was the nicest piece of deployment mail I have ever received. Thank you. I'm lucky it ended up in my hands. I'm impressed by how much all of your students have learned about aviation this year. I just hope I did them justice in regards to the questions they had for me.

I also hope you don't mind that I replied to each kid individually. They had some very amusing stories and questions, and I wanted to acknowledge all of them. But there was one question in particular that I was asked so many times, I thought I'd answer it here instead. My call sign is kind of a silly one, so it's okay if you all laugh. I go by Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, and my helmet is mostly red, yellow and black.

Your kids seem like a fun bunch, but I bet they keep you on your toes. Feel free to let them know they can write back to me again, but please include my name on the package this time. I don't know that I'd be lucky enough to have it fall into my hands again by chance. I'll just be here somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for a few more months, ready to answer any questions you throw at me. Hope to hear back from you soon.

Yours Truly,

Lt Bradley Bradshaw

The following day, he packed everything up and dropped it off with the rest of the ship's outgoing mail. There was a rumor that a helicopter would be coming to pick it up in the next day or two, and he wanted to make sure it got back to California and those fourth graders as soon as possible. On his way back to his bunk, Bradley stopped by the lounge to see if there was an iPad free, hoping to send a quick email or two. He was in luck. He also happened to have your email address memorized.

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

You yawned at your desk and checked the time on your computer. Within the next ten minutes, your classroom would go from silent solitude to mass chaos, so you took a minute to clear out your email inbox. You had a few messages from some parents and a reminder about Spirit Week from the superintendent. And a random piece of junk mail that must have slipped through the spam filters. You didn't know anyone with a US Navy email address, and you didn't know anyone named Bradley Bradshaw.

As you closed your laptop, you gasped and tried to pry it back open again as quickly as you could. The Navy! The package you sent a few weeks ago! Maybe it was someone writing back to your class! Of course it could just be someone saying they were sorry that they didn't have time to engage with your students, but you figured even that was better than nothing. 

"Come on," you whispered, entering your credentials again before your inbox reappeared on your screen. The email was just a few lines long, but it was addressed to you by name. You were smiling immediately as you read it.

I just wanted to let you know that I got the mail you sent to a deployed Naval Aviator. There's a package on its way to your school for your class. It should arrive in about a week or two. Your fourth graders provided me with several hours of entertainment, and I hope they find my answers to their many (and amusing) questions useful. Thanks for the laughs, and thanks for the photos, too. Can't tell you how much I've been enjoying them. Hope to hear from all of you again.

Yours Truly,

Lt Bradley Bradshaw

You squealed and pumped your fists in the air. Someone actually got the box! And he actually responded! The other, older teachers thought you were just wasting your time when you deviated from the lesson plans a bit. Literally all of them said there was no way anyone would write back, even though you took the time to go through the proper channels at Top Gun on North Island. But now you could rub it in their faces, all thanks to Bradley Bradshaw who sounded like he'd had as much fun with this whole thing as your class had.

Then your day really started as Violet and Oliver burst into your classroom, calling out your name with excitement in their voices. The rest of your kids followed behind them, already asking about the plans for the day and what kind of adventure you'd be taking them on in each subject. 

When you clapped your hands twice and said, "Good morning," they all clapped and replied with their own greeting, and then they sat quietly with their gazes fixed on you. "Guess who I just got an email from!"

"The president!" 

"My grandma!"

"My Cocker Spaniel!"

"Oliver's grandma!"

You just shook your head and tried not to laugh as you said, "None of the above. But do you remember when we wrote and packed up those letters for a real aviator in the military to read?" Most of the kids nodded, so you added, "Well, he emailed us! And he sent us some mail that should arrive in about a week!"

And telling them that was a mistake. Because you didn't know a moment of peace after that. Every morning, you had kids rushing into the room to see if the promised piece of mail arrived yet. Every day you had to disappoint them, but you were finding yourself a little disappointed, too. You wanted to know what this Bradley Bradshaw guy sent back. 

You'd responded to his initial email letting him know you and the kids in your class were delighted to hear from him and that you would let him know when the mail he sent arrived at your school. He didn't respond, but you figured he was busy. Too busy to constantly muck about with your class while he was thousands of miles away on a deployment. 

And that was what left you standing at your desk with your mouth hanging open in awe when the padded envelope did finally arrive one morning. Because when you carefully cut it open, you found not just one letter to the class but individual handwritten notes, one for each child.

"Wow," you whispered, pulling the note with your name written on the top out of the stack. This man seemed humble and sweet, and his letter made you laugh in more than one spot as you read through it. Then you read it again. He sounded apologetic about responding to each individual kid, but you felt like your insides were melting. Who would do that? Who would take the time to give individual attention to a bunch of nine and ten year olds besides you? And you were technically getting paid to do it. 

Bradley Bradshaw seemed willing to continue to engage with your kids, and you weren't going to stop him. Because starting that morning, he became something of a legend to your class. A celebrity. A real lieutenant in the Navy replied to all of their silly questions, and their love of aviation just grew from there. You figured you were going to have to keep your lesson plans going a bit longer while their faces lit up as you walked around the room and handed them each their notes. You had taken the time to skim them beforehand, often laughing at his sense of humor which seemed to jump off the pages.

"Can we write back to him?" Jayden asked as everyone read their notes from Lieutenant Bradshaw. "I have more questions."

You smiled and nodded. "Yes, you may write back to him." Then you postponed your geology lesson until the next day and let them spend the next forty minutes writing some followup letters. You took some pictures of them diligently toiling away at their desks, excitement on their faces. Then you bit your lip and sat down at your own desk.

As you started to construct an email letting him know the envelope had arrived, your thoughts drifted to what he might be like. Humble and sweet, for sure. But he also made it a point to tell you that the box from your class was the best piece of mail he'd ever received while deployed. Maybe he was a little bit lonely. Maybe he was single. Maybe he was stationed on the west coast. Your thoughts started to get ahead of you, and it was hard to reel them in when you imagined him excited to see another email from you. Smiling when he was handed another box from your class during mail call.

Dear Lt Bradley Bradshaw,

We got the envelope from you today, and my kids are absolutely thrilled! I'm not sure if you know how hard it can be to wrangle eighteen fourth graders all at one time, but they are currently sitting quietly and working on new letters for you to read. Once again, please don't feel obligated to continue correspondence if you're too busy. I'm sure you have other people you could be writing to who want your attention as well. I just wanted you to know they are overjoyed that a Naval officer took the time to answer their questions about aviation.

I have attached some photos as proof that they are sitting still. Thanks again for making their day.

You signed your name at the bottom the way you always would from your work email account, and then you attached the photos. After a brief debate about adding the selfie you took with Violet where most of your face was visible, you decided to just go for it. Adding it to the mix wouldn't hurt anything. It wasn't like this semi mystery man would be up all night thinking about you. 

But you found that you were still thinking about him when you went home to your silent house and made dinner that evening. Maybe he was a little bit lonely, but maybe you were, too.

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

It was amazing how infrequently Bradley found himself thinking about Vanessa. He was busier now with his duties picking up a bit more as his deployment wore on, but even when he was tired and in his bunk at night, his thoughts seldom settled on her like he was afraid they might. He didn't miss her or her half-hearted emails, and he wasn't craving the connection of reunion sex with her. 

Instead, he was thinking about what a group of fourth graders were learning about this week and what their cute teacher was up to. It had been a few days since you emailed him, letting him know that his package was delivered to your school. You made it sound like the kids were excited that he sent it in the first place, and when he really thought about it, he supposed some officers would have just eaten the snacks and tossed the notes in the trash.

He didn't reply to the email yet, still thrown off a bit by the pictures you attached. Your classroom was vibrant, and the kids were absorbed as they worked on more notes for him to read whenever they happened to be delivered to the carrier. But the photo with you in it held his attention longer than it should have. The fact that you were working at a school that was just a handful of miles from his damn house made him feel warm.

But what would he do about it? What could he do about it? Nothing. He didn't want you to think he was creepy. He still knew essentially nothing else about you. The only thing he could do was keep it friendly if not professional. Unless of course you did something to push the boundaries of conversation into a more personal realm. God, if you did....he didn't think he would be able to handle it. 

The next day, when he was heading out on deck to talk to the mechanics who were doing regular maintenance on the aircrafts, he took his phone. "Hey, you mind if I take a few photos of some of the engine parts? I want to send them to a class of fourth graders who will think it's cool."

"Go ahead, Lieutenant," the head mechanic replied. Then he smiled and asked, "You dating a teacher?"

Well. Wouldn't that be something? Bradley would never run out of curious pen pals. He would always have some fourth graders to take interesting photos for and to send notes to. He'd always have a classroom to visit as soon as he got home from a deployment.

He couldn't help but picture you as the teacher.

"Nothing like that," he replied, his voice a little gravelly. "Just writing to some kids who are learning about aviation."

After dinner, when he had a chance to use an iPad in the lounge, he did his best to put together a response to your email that would at least hint at the curiosity he felt. 

If all it takes is mail from three thousand miles away to get your class to sit quietly, then I should probably be writing to you every day. But I'm sure you're a great teacher. That's a given considering how much your students learned and shared with me. And I can assure you that I'm more than happy to take the time to write to your class. And you. Please don't think I feel obligated, because I do not. I want to.

I have attached a few pictures of some F/A-18 engine components as well as some of my cockpit controls. Each photo is labeled, but please let me know if you have any questions.

It was nice hearing from you.

Yours Truly,

Lt Bradley Bradshaw 

As soon as he hit send, he wanted to kick himself. Should he have included a photo of his face like you had twice now? Or did he already sound too desperate to hear from you and your class again?

"Shit," he muttered, looking around the lounge as if there was going to be someone here proficient in the art of getting to know a fourth grade teacher without sounding stupid. But it was too late now. All he could do was wait for the next mail call or hope you decided to write back to his ramblings by the next time he checked his email. 

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

You were going to have to scrape your jaw off the floor. You had no idea what this man's face even looked like, but his hands were... something else. And his thighs... well, they were pretty great, too. It must have been too long since you got laid, because you were sitting at your desk in your classroom staring at the set of photos in your inbox, currently unable to look away from his right hand. It was wrapped around the throttle of his aircraft. It was elegant with attractive veins and rough calluses. You were sure that you were supposed to be focusing on the cockpit controls, but all you could see was that hand and his thick, muscular thighs below.

The next photo was no better for you. He was holding up his helmet with his call sign Rooster emblazoned across the front, and you were able to see his left ring finger. There was no wedding band. There was no evidence of an outline where a wedding band would belong. There was just his big, strong hand.

You whimpered softly while your students worked on their math tests. You couldn't help it as you took one last look before logging out of your email account. And now you needed to know if his face matched the very attractive image you had in your mind. 

When Jayden called your name, you rocketed to your feet like you'd been caught red handed. "Yes?" you squeaked, your voice sounding higher pitched than usual.

"I'm done with my test. May I have the hall pass and use the restroom?"

You handed it to him as the rest of your class finished working through the math problems. A few minutes later, when you collected the papers from them, Violet asked, "When is Lieutenant Bradshaw going to write back to us?"

It had only been a few days since you mailed him the second box of notes and some more snacks, but it made you happy that they were all so invested in learning more from him. 

"It will probably be a few weeks before we get anything in the mail. However... he did email me some pictures of engine and cockpit parts from the aircraft carrier for me to share with you guys." When you looked around the room, the kids were on the edges of their seats, excited expressions on their faces. With a laugh you added, "I was going to wait until tomorrow and use the projector to show them all to you, but if you're very well behaved for the rest of the afternoon, maybe I could pull them up on my computer for you to see them today."

Not two hours later, you were just as excited as the kids were to look at the photos... again. As they crowded around your desk, you opened up the first one of the cockpit to a barrage of questions. 

"Is that really his jet?"

"Is that the throttle?"

"What do all the buttons do?"

"Was this right before he flew it?"

Once again you were distracted, but you managed to click over to the next photo, and the kids gasped in delight. 

"His helmet is so cool!"

"It says Rooster!"

"That's his call sign!"

"Red is my favorite color!"

You just smiled softly and laughed. "Should we go ahead and start working on another list of questions for him?" you asked as you slowly scrolled through the rest of the pictures. "He said we can write back to him as much as we want to." When everyone cheered, you handed Oliver a marker and pointed to the board at the front of the classroom. "Let's start making a list."

You listened to all of your students call out questions for Bradley while Oliver wrote them down. Then Violet asked, "Can he send us a picture of his whole jet? From the outside of it?"

You cleared your throat and added, "Maybe he could get someone else to take the picture so he could stand in front of it. For size comparison."

Violet nodded, but you knew you were a fraud. Sure, it would be great for the kids to understand just how massive the F/A-18s were compared to an actual person, but you were the one who wanted to see all of Bradley. You were itching for it now. 

Later that night, you drank most of a bottle of wine and did something you promised yourself you'd never do. You logged into your work email account after nine o'clock. You skipped over the handful of unread emails from parents and clicked on the icon to compose a new message. With your liquid courage goading you on, you typed up a response to Lieutenant Bradley Bradshaw and hit send before you could think twice.

Thank you for the photos. They were very enlightening. We especially liked the ones where you were showing off your cockpit. Or I did, anyway. The kids liked all of them and started on another list of questions for you. Good luck getting rid of us now. 

We were wondering if you could have someone take a picture of you standing in front of your jet. For size comparison purposes. And also because my students would like to know what you look like. Hearing from you makes our day even better.

You couldn't believe how forward you were being with this man who you'd never even met in person, but you fell asleep thinking about his hands and what they might be capable of.

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

This Bradley makes me swoon. I've never wanted to be a fourth grade teacher so badly in my life. There is something that's starting to blossom between them even though they haven't even met in person. Thanks @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls

PART 3

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[bekolxeram]

I'm usually very block happy, but sometimes a couple of hot takes from the opposite side of the fandom manage to slip through. I'm no saint, I admit I do get quite worked up at first, but after some time, I realize they give me new perspectives to scenes I've watched countless times and discover things I didn't pick up before. So this one is for all of you, staunch Tommy haters, thank you for enriching my viewing experience.

In 7x04, when Tommy goes to Buck's loft to talk things out, this line gives some people the ick, because it echoes what Taylor said in 5x05. In that episode, Buck thought his team was off because they blamed him for Chimney leaving. He talked to Taylor about it, she shared her own experience with her boss being sulky around her, and it turned out her boss was just in a lot of physical pain, she ended the conversation with "maybe not everything is about you". While what she said was absolutely right, and she made an effort to make Buck feel appreciated at the end of the episode, but I can also see Buck not feeling supported emotionally at the time the conversation occurred. In a fashion true to her profession, Taylor delivered it in a very blunt, direct and advisory way. Her being right did not cancel out Buck feeling insecure about everyone acting weird around him and him not knowing why.

What Tommy says here though, is in a a completely different context.

Before all of this, Tommy has already reassured Buck that he's not trying to replace him, that his place in Eddie and Christopher's life is irreplaceable.

Look at Buck's smile, he's apparently in a better mood than before. It's like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders.

So going in this next part, Buck is more receptive to what he frankly needs to hear: Eddie isn't hanging out with Tommy because Buck did something wrong, he just enjoys Tommy's company.

We've witnessed Buck's growth over 7 seasons, now he can recognize that getting jealous easily is one of his character flaws, he tends to overthink and make other's action personal when he's feeling insecure in a relationship. He's telling Tommy this probably to signal that he understands he messed up and he understands what he did wrong. He never expected Tommy to validate his feelings.

But Tommy does empathize with his predicament.

Buck doesn't understand what Tommy, the cool, confident (and hot) pilot would be jealous over. And he almost can't believe Tommy gets what he's been feeling.

Tommy tells Buck that he's envious of the ride-or-die familial bonds within the 118 nowadays, as if he didn't also put his career and life in danger just to save Athena and Bobby (probably Hen's career as well), after one phone call from Chimney.

Now it's Buck's turn to reassure Tommy.

Another hot take I've seen from the other side goes like "if Tommy was nicer to Hen and Chimney back in the days, he wouldn't have to be jealous over what the 118 has now". You know what? Judging by Tommy's face here, he probably would agree. This is not the face of a man who is proud of what he did. This is the face of a man who is burdened by guilt and regret, this is a man haunted by his past, this is a man who doesn't think he deserves the praise.

Buck even cites fake mouth static as an example of Tommy's effort in aiding the 118's clandestine rescue mission, and they naturally fall into a flirty dynamic. I have no explanation for that, except, your honor, this is exhibit A against the "no chemistry" allegation.

Buck then spells it all out for Tommy that he also put everything on the line just for the 118, without hesitation. Tommy looks like he still has a hard time accepting it as an act worthy of redemption for his past behavior.

We've all made mistakes, and we all know we can't go back to the past and change what we did, so the best way forward is to change ourselves and be better. Judging by Tommy's "and [Gerrard] didn't make me a better person" line in 7x10, he quite possibly reflected on this a lot. Yet, sometimes you still can't help but doubt yourself over if you've learned enough from your past, if you're a good enough person now. I can't imagine how good it feels hearing Buck say out loud that he actually likes the person Tommy is now.

Apparently Buck likes Tommy so much that he came up with excuses just to hang out with him and get to know him.

Tommy is pleasantly surprised, because he did tell Buck to call him when he wants to go up. In fact, Buck can call him for whatever reason, Tommy accepted the Harbor tour request, there's nothing indicating that he would feel weird just hanging out with Buck. Tommy just doesn't know how much of a overthinker and bi disaster Buck truly is yet, but that's the story for another time.

Buck and Tommy really don't know much, if anything, about each other at this stage, as you can see in 7x05, but they're already validating each other's feelings. We've seen Buck get his feelings ignored, hurt, dismissed and kind of fetishized for 6 seasons, now this is something he's been looking for the whole time, for someone to understand what he's going through. At the same time, this interaction must also be quite freeing for Tommy, who's been haunted by demons from his own past.

[purinfelix]

new recruit ₊˚⊹ - charles leclerc

summary: the age-old tradition of Top Gun pilots spending the night before a mission at the local bar is interrupted by a new, boyishly charming, face w/c: 1.8k

taglist: @zowifi @musicallisto

a/n: y'all knew it was coming .. as soon as he dropped these pics i knew what i had to do (consider this a semi-ode to my top gun phase when maverick first came out)

The Hard Deck Bar never changes, and neither do its visitors. It's a fact you rely on comfortably whenever you get the call to return to the beachside town you've learned to call home after years of missions there. You push through the heavy wooden doors, sighing happily as you're welcomed by the sound of laughter and music as the evening comes alive - all against the backdrop of the golden sunset.

"Dice, is that you?" You whip your head around at the sound of your call sign - a gift to you from your lieutenant, an acknowledgement of your risky tendencies in the air. You break into a warm smile as you make eye contact with Phoenix - one of the only other female pilots on the team to whom you've grown close.

"You look well," you reply as you walk over to where she and several others stand.

Surrounding the pool table you're greeted with several familiar faces, some newer than others but all smiling regardless. You had gotten to know the other Top Gun pilots fairly well as one of the most experienced amongst the group, and the one most often called back for missions. It had come to the point where whenever it came time to take part in the old tradition of hanging out at the bar before your first mission briefing, it felt more like a family reunion than a group of coworkers. The only thing that set you all apart from the general public was the khaki uniforms you donned, decorated with multi-coloured patches celebrating your achievements.

"Did you hear there's a new recruit?" Hangman asked, the question clearly directed to you, as he potted a pool ball.

"Oh yeah, the admiral did mention it to me when he called me in," you replied before sipping your drink.

"Reckon they'll be any good?"

"Hope so, I heard this mission's one of the hardest we'll be on," Rooster scoffed from the other side of the table.

"Agreed, especially since they're going to be my co-pilot," you sighed.

"Sounds like Chief had enough of your risky solo missions," Phoenix laughed as she took her turn to play.

You could only smile shyly as she did, finishing the last of your drink before letting your eyes scan through the rest of the bar. Music from the jukebox floated through the air, joined by the loud laughter of the bar's regulars as they drunkenly joked raucously. It was nothing out of the ordinary and worked wonders in calming the nerves you inevitably felt brewing about the responsibilities you'd have to step up to tomorrow.

The bell above the doors tinkles again, announcing the arrival of yet another customer, but this one in particular catches your eye. Not because of his messy brown hair or the boyish air surrounding him - but because you've never seen him here before. You lean over to elbow Phoenix before nodding in his direction, and she turns to look at him too.

"Newbie?" she asks, and you nod before hopping off of the stool you've perched yourself on and waltzing over to where he's leaning against the bar.

You watch as his round eyes scan the menu intently, eyelashes batting as he squints to try and get a better look - it's almost endearing how lost he looks. Shooting the bartender Penny a sly smile, alerting her immediately of your plans, you take the seat next to where he's standing.

"You alright there?" you ask, and he turns to you with a shocked expression.

"Is it that obvious I'm struggling?" You pick up on his accent right away, though it takes you a little longer to locate it. Regardless, you're drawn in almost immediately by the embarrassed smile that spreads across his features.

"Just order your usual, Penny makes everything taste amazing anyway," you reassure him. He nods obediently, leaning over and mumbling his order. "I'm guessing you don't come here a lot?"

"Yeah, first time actually," his hand comes up to rub the back of his neck and you take note of the multiple string bracelets decorating it. What you don't notice though is the way his eyes scan over you, or more specifically, your uniform.

"Are you a soldier?"

"Close, army pilot." You tap the crest on your shirt.

"You must be good then," he smiles, pointing to your patches and it hits you that he might just be flirting with you.

"I am actually, thank you for picking up on that," you shoot back smugly, "how about you, what do you do?"

"Oh me, I'm just trying out some new things, travelling, flying lots." He nods, though the smirk toying at his lips tells you he's not telling the whole truth. You don't care enough to press on though, as you shift on your stool. You don't care enough to press on though, and at that moment his drink order slides across the bar to him.

"You haven't told me your name yet," he's the first to break the silence this time, before taking a sip of his drink. He lets out a surprised hum as if to tell you that you were right about Penny's bartending skills.

"Everyone around here calls me Dice," you reply, gesturing around to the entirety of the room. This piques his interest.

"That's an interesting name."

"Well it's not my real name it's my call sign, it's a pilot thing," you explain and he nods thoughtfully, "it's because I tend to take a lot of risks while on missions."

"Interesting," he murmurs, "but these risks must work out for you." He points to your patches again and you laugh softly.

"I guess you could say so. What about your name?"

He pauses for a bit, almost as if he's forgotten his own name. "Predistinato," he finally says.

"Predi- wh- sorry could you say that again?"

"Predistinato," he repeats, laughing a little this time.

"Is that French or something?"

"Almost, it's Italian," he explains and all you can do is nod, unaware that you're silently mouthing it back to yourself. It certainly isn't a name you'll forget any time soon.

"Well, Mr. P," you say, slipping off your stool and dusting off your hands, "it was nice meeting you and helping you out with your order.""

You're about to give up on your plan before you hear him call out to you just as you're turning around.

"Hold on, Dice," he hesitates before finishing, "how about taking another risk?"

You spin back around and the expression on his face tells you he isn't finding this any less cringey than you are. "Pardon?"

"Do you think I could get your number?"

A cold smile spreads across your face as you skip back over to the bar and lean over to catch Penny's eye. As you do she walks over to the corner of the bar the two of you are seated in, reaching up and ringing the large bell hanging above it. Immediately, the entire bar erupts into a loud commotion of roars and whistles, with people lifting up their cups towards the man sitting across from you.

You can't help but laugh upon seeing his confused expression and all you do is point to the sign hanging between two beer taps. Disrespect a lady, the navy, or put your cell phone on my bar - you buy a round.

"Woah, disrespect? That's harsh," he smiles sheepishly, but you only shrug.

"Rules are rules."

"A round, for everyone?"

"Good luck, and see you around," you nod, patting him on the shoulder with a smug expression before turning to rejoin your friends at the pool table.

"Attention on deck!"

The heavy sound of several chairs scraping the floor in unison is the only thing you hear as you and the rest of the pilots stand at attention. Standing as still as you can, you watch as Admiral Bates marches to the podium at the front of the hangar.

"Good morning, and welcome to your special training detachment." His expression is stern and you watch as his eyes scan the rows of tables. "Be seated."

"Everyone here is a Top Gun graduate, I'm sure you know each other well enough to know that's true. You may consider yourself elite, the best, but that stops now. In here, you will all be treated like equals and you must prove your excellence to make the cut."

The air is tense and no one dares to look at each other as he talks.

"Today we begin with the introduction of a new face however, I'd like you all to welcome the newest addition to this mission." The admiral gestures towards the back of the room and several heads turn to the figure standing at the back of the room, who begins walking between the aisle of tables. His steps are heavy, confident, and almost eager.

"Despite being newer, he has proved his proficiency in every aspect required of this mission and so I warn you not to underestimate him."

The figure passes your table and you physically feel your heart drop to your stomach when he does. He's facing away from you, and he looks completely different when sporting the pilot uniform instead of casual clothes - but you're sure you'd recognise that messy hair anywhere, even though it's clear he's tried his best to comb it down.

"Please welcome Charles Leclerc. Call sign: Il Predistinato."

Of course, just your luck.

"Good morning," from the front of the room and under the bright morning light he looks different, but the boyish charm he seemed surrounded by last night still lingers in the way he smiles.

"Charles, why don't you take a seat next to Dice in the front row, you'll be co-piloting with her for now." Your eyes widen as the attention is suddenly turned to you, and scoot uncomfortably in your seat as he nears you.

"You look well" he murmurs, just loud enough for you to hear as he takes the seat next to you. You let out a low chuckle, not knowing what else to do other than nod a little awkwardly.

The admiral goes on talking, briefing you all on the aims of the mission, but despite your best efforts to focus you can't seem to. Not with the boy sitting next to you, the way he leans forward on the desk to listen attentively the same way he had last night at the bar, the way his deep brown hair falls onto his face as he does.

"Sorry about last night," you hear yourself whisper to him as you lean in, though he doesn't seem to be holding any grudges.

"No need to apologise," he begins, and you sit back with relief. "But next time, maybe you can pay for my drinks?"

You sigh in exasperation, as he shoots you a wink before turning back to the lesson. You could only pray he flew as smoothly as he spoke.

[mikareo]

“ ࣭⸰ ★ HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU . . . ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ 呪術廻戦 ; gojo satoru x fem reader (1k)

⊹ ⠀⠀ valentine's day is approaching; and with a valentine comes love...or for worse...heartbreak.

contains; gojo satoru x fem reader, angst, mentions of fluff idk, there’s some swearing i think author's note; happy (almost) valentine's,, i’m projecting

1 day, 9 hours, and 47 minutes.

your last conversation wasn't anything out of the ordinary. there was no dry spell. no plateau. no failure to communicate. just you and satoru, plus the typical banter, talking about something as simple as what you were planning on making for dinner; to be more precise, what you were trying to make for dinner. you're a pretty awful cook according to him.

everything seemed to be going so well...really well...almost perfectly well— and with valentine's day right around the corner, you'd instinctively assumed that he'd ask you to be his. instinct is a difficult emotion, though. is it even an emotion? you're not quite sure, but your heart believes it is. your heart— which is practically pounding out of your chest at the current moment, stretching your skin, eager to feel the limitless fresh air and freedom that comes with floating on cloud 9— instinctively wants to believe satoru is your soulmate. you love him don't you? is the answer yes? it should be no.

you've known him for...what? four months? four months of your twenty years of life is seemingly small. that's only one point six-seven percent of your entire lifetime...one point six-seven percent of your life that you wish you could relive forevermore.

...he isn't going to text you back is he?

2 days, 2 hours, and 15 minutes.

each second passing is another flicker of hope that misses the candle wick. instead of lighting the path that leads to your eventual relationship, it lights a fire beneath your feet. your socks feel warm. there's coal beneath them. hot, burning coal withering away the sense of feel in your toes; breathing in the aroma of heartbreak until it becomes a roaring fire that consumes all of you.

why is he doing this? what did you do wrong? you haven't done anything wrong. he's just a man. a man who can't seem to stop playing with your heart.

you can hear his voice in the back of your mind. the part of your mind that connects to your heart. "can you facetime, right now? i'm having a bad day and i just want to see your face." he had to have meant that. "you don't need to apologize for talking over me, i love hearing what you have to say." a guy wouldn't just say that to say that. "don't be too hard on yourself, i know you'll figure everything out becuase you're you. you always know what to do." it couldn't have all been bullshit.

it can't have been bullshit.

because if that's all it was, then you're just a fool in love.

and fools in love are no better than clowns.

3 days, 14 hours, and 22 minutes.

you did what you hate doing. the thing that makes you want to scream into your pillow at the mere thought. the very thing that screams desperation and neediness and clinginess and insecurity all in one. you sent another message.

in the past, you've never had feelings strong enough to elicit such a response. your heart hasn't tied itself to another person's with a red satin bow. the fated string of fate hadn't found you yet. it allowed you to maintain a stable head and remain grounded with no hopes of love on your radar. you hadn't yet learned how to fly; until that day you met satoru and suddenly you had a hundred pilot lessons lined up day-after-day.

it was so easy being with him. everything was so easy.

for the first time ever you had no doubts. you weren't afraid of waking up one morning to find him gone. disappeared. nonexistent. you full-heartedly believed he'd never leave; and you believed he reciprocated those thoughts. now, though...now you may never know what bits and pieces he reciprocated— because your plane crashed. turbulence flew beneath the wings and drove the flight off course. the oxygen masks bellowed down upon the passengers, every seat being filled with your pounding heartbeats, and each and every one of them blew out of the window with no parachute. he didn't even try to cushion the fall.

4 days, 1 hour, and 39 minutes.

if there's one message you never expected to receive, it's surely 'seen 14 hours ago'.

you'd given him space and assumed he'd been busy with a million other things and hadn't had any time to send you a quick message. your last text wasn't even anything out of the ordinary, just a quick "are you okay?", you think that's pretty reasonable. it's reasonable, isn't it?

something could be seriously wrong with him. why else would he leave you on read? he's never done this before. usually, you're the one who's more distant between the two of you. that's how your relationship began, after all. he'd send five texts in comparison to your two; which later evolved into five rivaling five, and now to zero rivaling two. the scales have tipped. how do you rebalance them?

you trust satoru. there must be a perfectly good explanation for this odd irregularity that's occurring in your otherwise perfect relationship. after all, all of your friends love him— they think he's the greatest catch of the 21st century. he's never done anything in the past to warrant such strange behavior. this is simply a difficult week for him...and you'll be there whenever he's ready to vent.

5 days, 22 hours, and 7 minutes.

a broken heart isn't for the weak...but unfortunately, you're not one of the stronger warriors.

he's at another girl's birthday party. he hasn't messaged you back in almost six days...and he's with another girl? celebrating her? he could be holding her close and you wouldn't even know, because god knows he wouldn't tell you. he won't even say good morning anymore. he won't even answer your fucking three word message that you sent out of desperation and concern for his well being. instead, he's at the club with his friends, getting drunk and taking shots, having the time of his life; and you're sitting in your room watching his social media stories...believing that everything that went wrong is all your fault.

but it's not your fault.

it's not your fault you fell for someone like that.

someone like satoru gojo.

[lockheed-martin-unofficial]

22 for the drabble ask with Starscream!

22: you, from their perspective.

I sort of bent the prompt a little and wrote the moment his perspective of her changed. For context our human is a pilot, and Starscream has agreed to reluctantly cooperate with the Autobots (season 2 ish) even though he refuses to join them. This didn’t turn out 100% the way I wanted it to, all the more motivation to get better at writing so I can re-do it in the future.

Thank you for asking!

Words: 850

——————————————————————————

“You know, it’s nice to finally have another flyer on the team.”

“Right.” Starscream stretched his limbs, his wings twitching from how good it felt to just spread out. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since his last flight. He met the human standing next to the cliff edge, feeling the warm desert air flow around them from all directions.

“And who might your first flyer be?” He asked with a smirk, skeptical.

“Um, myself?”

A deep, rumbling laugh sounded beside the pilot.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You, you’re not a flyer.” He replied, an air of superiority about him. This human, a flyer? What a ridiculous concept. Humans weren’t even created to fly, let alone fly to the degree of a seeker. Whereas he was engineered to aerodynamic perfection. How could they ever be the same?

“I don’t expect you to possibly understand the true meaning of flight.” He replied dismissively.

“Listen, I get it. Here you are, flying since the day you were created, with a body quite literally tailored to the sky. And all of a sudden this small, fragile creature without even wings to call her own says you two are the same? I’d be unimpressed too.”

He looked down at her with one raised eyebrow, not expecting the genuine reply. She didn’t sound angry, she didn’t even sound offended. The human pilot sat down, remaining a safe distance away from the edge and crossing her legs.

“Let me put it this way. When you were left without your T-cog, unable to fly…How did it make you feel?”

Starscream sat down as well, his legs dangling off the cliff. Wings drooped down ever so slowly on his back. It was obvious she’d hit a sensitive spot.

“Restrained. With an indescribable sense of longing.” He replied without missing a beat, gazing off into the distance.

“And every time I looked up at the sky…”

A pause. A tiny crack in his voice.

“You felt the crushing weight of knowing you could never reach it.” She completed, her tone soft yet containing a hint of sorrow. His stabilisers shot up, and he suddenly turned his head to look at her.

“You…”

“That’s how I feel all the time. Look at me. No dancing between the clouds for me. No heat of the sun on my frame, no wind tugging at my stabilisers, and certainly no gentle droplets of rain on my wings.” The human sighed, her voice faltering.

“That’s just the way it is.”

He felt pity. He almost even felt a little guilty. Starscream raised a servo, placing his talons on her shoulder as gently as possible. He felt sorry for her. He could hear the longing in her voice. The passion and love she couldn’t help but feel, despite knowing it only made things worse for her.

“I’m sorry.”

Perhaps he had misjudged her. True, she was a small and fragile little thing, but he had to admit the fact that she was still striving for the sky, even though her own body was against this idea, made her admirable in her own way. The human was startled for a split second at the touch, before relaxing and placing her own hand over his servo, her fingers caressing his digits and her head leaning into his touch.

“It’s alright.”

“No.”

The human looked up, and Starscream leaned down to her level.

“No,” he repeated, “it’s not alright. It’s terrible! How do you even deal with it?” He had already spent a few months unable to fly, but he couldn’t imagine doing it for an entire lifetime. He would’ve gone insane.

She was touched by the outburst. It made her feel seen, made her struggle feel so much more real.

“Well… I try to fly as often as I can, get as close as I can, but it’s not what I want. It’s not the same as having my own wings to fly with, being able to feel and control every little thing. You know?”

“Of course not…” he nodded, contemplating. “It could never be the same.”

It made more sense now, why she had been so eager to assist him all this time, why she’d volunteered to be his partner. She’d seen him going through the same thing she was, but unlike her, his situation could be helped.

For that help, he was silently grateful. And then, Starscream did something unexpected.

“If you’d like…” he averted his gaze, fiddling with his talons as he spoke. “I will allow you to fly me on our way back to base.” He offered, trying to sound as nonchalant, as disinterested as possible.

“Thank you.”

He flinched at the sudden feeling of something warm and soft wrap around his digits. He collected himself, answering quickly.

“Yes, yes, don’t get used to it. I just don’t enjoy seeing you all sappy and miserable.” He waved her away with a servo, still avoiding eye contact.

As humiliating as his current predicament was, he had to admit it was nice to have another flyer on the team. Even such a squishy one.

[cinebration]

Too Slow For Me (Jake "Hangman" Seresin x Reader) [One-shot]

Premise: Of all the bars in all the world, Jake had to walk into yours.

Tagged: @abaker74, @ahopelessromanticwritersworld, @the-romanian-is-bae, @b-bradshaw, @alldaysdreamers, @bat-luna-cat, @solo2leo, @lucy-sky

Warnings: none

Gif Source: topgundaily

When you were hired to work as a bartender for Penny Benjamin at her bar, you thought nothing of it. The Jake Seresin you knew, while an up-and-coming hotshot flyboy, would never make it to TOPGUN, not with his mouth and his inability to play well with others. Working in the bar would be safe, you were sure of it.

Until a year later when Jake walked through the door.

A shock of surprise blasted through you when you recognized his face across the room, heard the familiar sound of his voice. Like suddenly being doused in cold water, you shivered and felt your heartrate skyrocket.

There was nowhere to hide. As the only bartender on duty, you were obligated to stay behind the bar. You couldn’t run even as Jake crossed the room and headed directly to you.

Trying to quell the mounting panic in your chest, your skin suddenly unbearably itchy as sweat broke out beneath your armpits, you forced yourself to stay calm.

He stopped at the bar and leaned his forearms against it. “Two beers.”

He flashed a pearly white smile.

You felt as though you’d been punched in the stomach. Nodding jerkily, you faced away from him to find two beers and pop off their tops, your face burning.

He didn’t remember you.

You handed him the beers and wordlessly took the money he slapped down onto the countertop, everything within you screaming as you fought back the hot tears pushing insistently at the back of your eyes.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he said, winking. “What’s your name?”

You quietly gave it to him. A faint crease rumpled his smooth brow.

“Don’t I—”

“Can I get two beers and a boilermaker?” another patron asked, raising their voice over Jake’s.

“Sure thing,” you answered with false cheer, scurrying away with relief to fetch the man’s drinks.

As Jake walked away to join his buddies, he glanced back over his shoulder as though to catch your eye, but you studiously avoided his gaze. Bitterness and pain flooded you as you kicked yourself for being stupid enough to think that working in a bar that catered to Navy pilots wouldn’t make you cross paths with him again.

Maybe, you realized, you had wanted to this happen. Maybe you had wanted the chance…

~~

When you first met Jake, he was fresh out of flight school and hadn’t earned his call sign yet. You hadn’t recognized that his confidence was arrogance and his ego was outsized even for an Navy pilot. You couldn’t see past the charm, his grin, and the mischievous green eyes.

You never expected Jake to even look at you. He seemed to like girls faster than the jets he flew, and you were decidedly not one of them. As you once half-heartedly joked with your mother, you were invisible, particularly to anyone who looked even half as handsome as Jake.

So when he approached you one night, teeth gleaming and eyes glittering in the soft lighting of the bar, cozied up to you, and invited you out to dinner, you could hardly believe your luck. You pinched yourself more than once through the night, so surreal it all felt.

He took you to a middle-grade Italian restaurant that was better than getting pizza and beer but not very extravagant. You didn’t mind, preferring the food to the heavier, richer foods of high-end restaurants. The conversation was stimulating, Jake’s charisma out in full force and the banter crisp and light-hearted. You had never quite so clicked with anyone as you did with Jake that night.

As the evening wound to a close, you were excited to see him again. Before you could say as much, he leaned in toward your ear and whispered, “Why don’t we get out of here?”

Your heart plummeted. Swallowing thickly, you pulled away and muttered, “I’m not…I don’t think so.”

He frowned. “Why not? I thought we were getting along great.”

“We were—are. But…not on a first date.”

He stared at you, the glimmer in his eyes fading. Shaking his head, he exhaled heavily. “You’re too slow for me, sweetheart.”

And he left you standing there, cheeks burning and your stomach roiling.

You hadn’t eaten Italian since.

~~

The night crawled. You exerted all of your energy trying to avoid looking in Jake’s direction or focusing on his voice as he crowed with his friends over winning shots at the dartboard or the pool table. You served drinks and faked smiles at everyone else that came up to the counter.

When the evening waned into the early morning hours, all that remained were Jake and his friends. You could hear the individual tick of the second hand of the clock over their laughter and raised voices, itching for it to be two a.m. so you could kick them out.

“Last call,” you finally yelled with relief.

Jake immediately sauntered over. You wanted to kick your own teeth out.

“Last round of beers for us,” he said, leaning against the counter.

Nodding, you counted heads and proceeded to collect the beer bottles.

“Don’t I know you?”

You froze, your heart thumping painfully in your chest. “No,” you answered. You popped open the first beer.

“Nah, I definitely know you”

You tried to pop off the caps faster, working furiously to hand them to him.

“Wait a minute…” He leaned forward, scrutinizing your face as you handed gave him the last of the beers.

“That’ll be thirty dollars.”

“You’re that girl. Italian dinner, no after party.”

Your cheeks burned. Ducking your head, you tapped the bar. “Thirty dollars.”

“Where’re the beers?” one of his friends called. “Hurry up, man!”

“How’ve you been?” Jake asked, frowning slightly as he dug around for his wallet.

“Why would you care?” you muttered, snatching the money from his hand. You scurried away from him to the opposite side of the room, hiding behind chores.

The group left before you had to kick them out at two. Relief made you slump into a chair with your head in your hands, your stomach slowly relaxing and releasing the knot it had been holding for hours. Somehow, Jake remembering you—or rather, how he had remembered you—was worse than him not recognizing you at first.

You took your time wiping down the tables and booths, stacking the chairs atop them so you could run a quick vacuum over the floor. The chores helped relax you, though bitter sadness lingered tartly in your mouth.

You locked up, debating how to tell Penny that you were quitting, and strode across the sand to the parking lot—where Jake and his friends had set up a stunt course with orange traffic cones, daring each other to do better as they screeched through the obstacle course. Cones went flying as each one clipped corners too hard or fumbled gear changes, the clutch grinding like a creature in the throws of pain.

You hesitated as you watched them, as you watched Jake laughing at his friends’ failures. Leaning against your car, you watched waited for his turn.

Climbing into the car, he revved the engine like he knew what he was doing and took off, burning rubber on the asphalt as he navigated the course. He clipped one cone, then two, before spinning out as a third snagged in the wheel-well.

Everyone laughed and talked shit as Jake climbed out of the car with a sheepish grin on his face. He shrugged it off and said, “Nobody can make this course, man.”

You pushed off your car, tossed your purse into it, and strode across the asphalt to Jake. He sobered as you approached, wariness diminishing the humor in his expression. You held out a hand for the keys.

“I wanna try,” you said.

A quiet ooooo rippled through the group.

“No offense,” he began.

You tore the keys from his hand.

“Uh, knock yourself out, I guess.”

“No way,” someone else said, shaking his head as you passed him to the car. “What’s a civilian gonna do? Total our car!”

You slipped into the driver’s seat and adjusted it before slamming the door shut, blocking out the naysaying crowd’s voices. Inhaling deeply, you glanced at the obstacle course, committing it to memory.

How’s this for fast? you thought savagely.

Kicking the car into gear, you shot forward into the opening of the track. With practiced hands, you shifted seamlessly through gears, the clutch almost purring with relief at not grinding. Coming up to the first pinched turn, you tore around it easily, the rear bumper of the car missing a cone by mere centimeters.

The thrill of the speed rushed through you, making the crowd and the circumstances drop away. You tore around the next turn, looked ahead to see that two scattered cones were a threat to your wheels.

Without hesitation, you slammed on the brakes, sending the car into a slide. Yanking the gear shift into reverse, you pivoted the car into another 180, sliding through both cones and whipping around to finish the last leg of the course.

You streaked through the other side, not a single cone touched in your wake.

Cheers thundered in the silence of the night as you killed the engine and exited the car.

“Un-fucking-believable!” someone shrieked. “Did you see that!?”

The only woman in the group was grinning, a “Niceeeee” hissing past her lips.

Jake trotted up to you. “That was—”

You tossed the keys at his chest. He had to scoop them off the asphalt as you strode across the parking lot to your car.

“Hey, wait a minute.” He hurried to your side. “I want to talk to you.”

“What for?”

He blinked. “I want to buy you a drink, catch up.”

You stopped abruptly, adrenaline still flooding your veins. You stared him directly, the first time you had been able to meet his eye all night. He took a step back under the force of your gaze.

“Why?”

“Because…you’re interesting.”

“I was always interesting, dipshit. You just didn’t stick around to find out,” you snarled.

You took off to your car, leaving him standing there. He tried to catch up, but you were too fast for him.

[vivwritesfics]

Shine A Light Into The Wreckage

Chapter Two - Until Next Time

Bob Floyd was many things. He was an instructor at Top Gun, a lover of Tolkien books and a huge fan of coffee. But Bob was also clumsy. That was how he bumped into the table, knocking her drink onto her notebook. He felt bad about it. Bad enough to come back time and time again, in the hopes that she would be there. And, every time, she is. Each time looking a little worse for wear. It doesn't take Bob long to realise he has to save her.

2K

Warnings: Abusive relationship! Abusive hair pulling! Abusive slight choking! Forceful sex! Seriously don't read if you're affect by stuff like this

Series Masterlist

The feeling of guilt didn't leave Bob for the rest of the day. He couldn't stop thinking about her, thinking about whether he'd ruined some important work or sketches that meant a lot to her or something. And then he thought about the coffee he had spilt over her lap. Was it burning hot? Did she have to go to the hospital instead of back to work? God, he hoped not. 

He didn't have work that day, but it didn't mean that he, Jake and Natasha weren't hanging out. Normally they wouldn't run to the cafe to get coffee on a day like this, not when they had Natasha's coffee machine so close by. 

Jake offered him a cigarette as the three of them sat on the back porch. Bob took it, placing it between his lips. But he didn't light it, not yet. 

"Anybody want a coffee?" Asked Natasha. She stubbed out her own cigarette and stood up. 

But, before she could get to her back door, Bob was there. "I'll get them!" He said quickly. "Latte and a black coffee, right?" He asked. But he gave them no time to answer and took off, leaving through Natasha's front door. 

"What the hell was that?" Jake asked as he watched Bob disappear out of the front door. 

Natasha returned to the porch to sit beside her fellow pilot turned Top Gun instructor. "I seriously don't know," she said, turning to Jake, her eyebrows raised. 

"You think there's a girl involved?"

"With our Baby On Board?" Asked Natasha, her eyebrows raised. "Maybe it's the cute barista, the one with the pink hair," she suggested. 

Jake looked back towards the door, but Bob was long gone by now. "Should we follow him?"

She shook her head. "He's getting us coffee. We can grill him once the cup is in my hand."

***

Bob didn't light his cigarette. He placed it in his pocket as he grabbed something, a notebook, from the passenger seat of his truck. 

As soon as he had the notebook tucked under his arm, Bob set off, heading to the café. There was no guarantee she'd be there. He just had to hope.

He didn't see her when he first walked in. No, he was looking for a girl in a blouse and a grey pencil skirt. He wasn’t looking for someone dressed down in a sweater and jeans, hair pulled back out of her face. He wasn't looking at the back of the cafe, was expecting her at the front. 

Bob walked up to the counter. He got the black coffee, the latte, and the tea (he might have been a coffee man, but it wasn’t always his go to. Sometimes there was nothing better than a good cup of tea). 

When he turned back around, his drinks in the cupholder, he finally spotted her. 

The sweater was blue, knitted. The sleeves were folded at the wrists, probably too long. The legs of her jeans were too long, hiding the shoes on her feet. She was undeniably pretty, something Bob didn’t notice the first time around. But, in his defence, he was too busy fumbling. Again she had a cup full of coffee in front of a notebook with brown pages. The notebook he had ruined just days before. 

When Bob approached, she didn't look up, desperately trying to read beneath the coffee stains. 

For a moment, Bob didn't know what to do. He looked around and awkwardly cleared his throat. 

Finally, she looked up, meeting his gaze. There was a second before she recognised him. "If you’re here to throw another coffee over me, I'm begging you find another victim." 

Bob managed a weak laugh as he set his own drinks down, this time without spilling any. "Actually, that's why I'm here," he said, grabbing the notebook from under his arm. "I saw that I ruined your notebook yesterday and I'm really sorry about that. I can't get back the stuff I ruined on the pages, but I was hoping this would help. Even if just a little."

Bob held the notebook out to her, their fingers touching as she took it from him. The cover was pink, with nothing else on it. She opened the notebook to find the lined pages. It was exactly what she needed. 

Placing the notebook beneath her ruined one, she looked up at Bob. "What's your name?" She asked, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back in her chair. 

"Robert Floyd, ma'am. But everybody calls me Bob."

"Do you wanna have a drink with me, Bob?" She asked as she picked up her mug and took a sip. She put the mug back down and licked the coffee moustache from her top lip. "Maybe then you can buy me a replacement drink."

Bob nodded. He pulled off the lid of his takeaway cup, added the sachet of milk and the sachet of sugar to his tea. 

She took another long sip of her coffee. "You're an aviator, aren’t you?" She asked. 

Bob couldn't help but smile at that. "Uh, yeah. I was in Top Gun last year. I'm an instructor now."

She nodded slowly. "You hang out at The Hard Deck?"

Bob gave a quick nod and stirred his steaming tea.

"Yeah, I went down there once," she said. "One of your guys flirted with me, and my boyfriend got so angry he got us kicked out." She had been smiling for most of the sentence. But, as soon as she had said it, the smile dropped from her face.

Boyfriend. Bob tried not to dwell on that. He wasn't here to get her attention in that way. No, he was here to make things right.

"Let me guess," he began. "He was tall, spoke with a Texas accent, and the name on his uniform said 'Hangman'."

Suddenly, she let out a snort. "No freaking way," she said through giggles as she looked at him. "You actually know him? That's hilarious!"

Bob couldn't help but laugh along with her. It was infectious and, as soon as he saw her face light up, Bob realised he couldn't get enough. "Yeah, that sounds like Hangman, all right," he said. All this time he had been mindlessly stirring his tea. 

Bob shifted the conversation away from his friend and co-worker. "Do you come in here often?" He asked and lifted his tea to his lips. 

She moved her head from side to side. Not saying no, but more like she was unsure. "I... do now," she said and finished her drink. 

Bob's eyes moved to the notebooks in front of her. The one he ruined and the one that replaced it. "What were you working on? You know, before I interrupted."

When she didn't immediately reply, Bob assumed the worst. He had overstepped and she no longer wanted to sit and drink coffee with him. 

She sucked in a breath, drumming her nails against the table. "Bob, did you ever have a vision for your life? You know, imagine the way you wanted to be loved, the way you wanted to love someone?" She asked, her eyes staring at the floor. If she saw when Bob slowly nodded, she didn’t indicate. "I did. But life threw curveballs my way."

She didn't say much more than that. Bob waited, his boiling tea in his hands as he looked at the disassociated look on her face. "Are you," he began, leaning forward in his seat with his arms on the table, "are you writing a romance story?"

She seemed to snap back into it, embarrassment written on her face and she sat up. That was all the confirmation Bob needed that, yes, she was writing a romance story. 

"You've got to let me read it."

The look she shot at him could only be described as incredulous. "You have got to be kidding me, Bobby," she said, the corner of her lips twitching up. "I barely know you."

Suddenly, Bob was feeling brave. Maybe it was because her words sounded like an invitation. "Well, let me get you another drink and you can get to know me.”

Conversation with Bob was easy. He bought her the hazelnut latte with oat milk, just as she had asked (okay, maybe she was splurging a little) and sat in the seat opposite her, still working on his own tea. He was only too eager to talk about his life, growing up in Montana and how he had ended up in San Diego. 

She listened, actually laughing when Bob attempted a joke (even if it wasn't very good). She talked back, offering up stories from her own life, making her own jokes, the kind that had him blushing red. 

By the time they finished talking, their respective drinks had gone cold (the ones Bob had bought for Jake and Natasha hours before had been forgotten, already thrown in the bin). 

"Crap," she said as she began putting her notebooks in her bag. "I didn't realise it had gotten so late." 

"Got somewhere you need to be?" Bob asked. Because, really, he didn't want to leave this cafe, didn't want the night to end. 

She shook her head. But then she stopped and gave a contemplative look. "Well, I should get going home," she said, pulling her jacket on and placing the strap of her bag over her shoulder. "But I hate walking in the dark."

"I can walk you."

He'd said it so quickly, he barely registered that he said anything at all. But he had and he couldn't take it back. 

"What, so you can find out where I live?" She challenged with a teasing smile. "You're a little stalker, aren’t you, Bobby? That's how you knew I'd be here today."

There was a split second, a fraction of a split second, where anxiety took over and Bob thought she was being serious. But then she laughed and he visibly relaxed. She was teasing him, and doing a damned good job of it. 

When she took his hand and pulled him out of the cafe, Bob's chest was hot. He'd known her a few hours and already there were feelings there. But she made it so easy for him. And that just simply wasn't fair (Bob knew she was a taken woman; she had told him. No matter what his feelings were, he hadn't acted on them and he wouldn't act on them. Feelings without action weren't bad, right?)

"So, why do you hate walking in the dark?" He asked as she led him to the end of the street. 

She shrugged her shoulders. "Always have," she answered quickly. "When I was a kid I had these vivid, awful nightmares of getting snatched off the street in the dark and I guess I never grew out of it."

Bob nodded. It was fair enough, really. He was sure if he had nightmares as a kid that were bad enough to follow him into adulthood, he'd still be scared of the cause. "I'm scared of slugs and snails," he said suddenly, easing the slight tension in the air. 

"What?" She asked before she let out a laugh. "But they're so cute!"

Bob shook his head. "They're not cute! When I was a kid I stepped on one and it exploded between my toes," he defended.

She stopped walking. "Bobby, you're gross," she said with a laugh and turned to the apartment building behind her. "Well, this is me," she said, fishing through her bag for a key. "Now you can properly stalk me." 

She found the key in the very bottom of her bag. "It was nice to properly meet you, Bob," she said, the joking tone gone from her voice. "Thanks for walking me home." 

"Until next time?" He offered, unable to keep hope out of his voice. 

"Until next time," she echoed as walked into her apartment building. 

But, before the door could shut, Bob caught it. “Wait!” He cried as she started up the stairs. He couldn't follow her, that would have been too much. “What's your name?”

“Until next time!”

Taglist: @biancathecool @not-nyasa @burningwitchprincess

[bugmomwrites]

Weary

Dr Flug x Reader

Stealing my sister’s bf’s HBO password is the second best thing I’ve done this week. Whipping up a solid drabble in 30 minutes and refining it into a whole oneshot in the same night takes first place.

There’s like, one innuendo towards the end but everything else is straight up fluff. Story came to me after reading yet another shady thing a certain airline I won’t name did, but it sounds like “we ain’t going”. I am changing the names so I don’t end up dead in a van somewhere, but if you know you know ;)

—•• •—• ••—• •—•• ••— ——•

“…And then what happened?”, Flug yawns, looking up at you through his goggles. You smile gently, kissing the front of the bag where his forehead would be.

“Well, according to some sources…the former production and safety manager’s exact words were ‘if anything happens, I didn’t do it myself’,” you respond, reading the article off your phone. Using the same soft voice you use when you read picture books to a sleepy 505, except it was a news article turned Wikipedia rabbit hole.

You two had gone from listening to him explain the differences between a 767 and an Airvan, to him resting his bagged head in your lap as you click on various entries and articles, bouncing information back and forth. The person, a known whistleblower who had retired from the controversial airline a few years ago, had tried many a time to draw attention to the company’s shady practices. For him to die so suddenly, especially as more inside secrets came to light, was too fishy for the public to ignore.

“I’m no detective, but…”

“Assassination?”, you finished for him, raising a brow. The two of you exchanged knowing looks.

“Does the Dreamweaver have flexible wings?”, he grumbles, wrapping his arms around your waist to bury his head further into your tummy. It tickles, but you try not to laugh lest you disturb his rare peace. Moments like these didn’t happen often, and you knew if any of the others were to see you like this, Black Hat would tear you both a new one, and Demencia would never let you hear the end of it.

A few more minutes go by, occasionally filled in with fun facts about the company’s various other incidents that had made the news in the past. You click off of yet another one where a plane was literally falling apart mid-air, having to make an emergency landing in a massive blaze. That was enough internet for today, at this rate you’d never want to hop in a plane again. You carefully set your phone to the side after checking the time.

“If I were him, I wouldn’t have let them get me.”

“I know, Flug.”

“And I would have documented everything.”

“Mhm”, you rest a hand on his back, your own eyes growing heavy.

“I’d go down there and put them back together myself. I’d personally take all of their shitty scrap parts, and make a better airplane than any of those so called professionals,” he says disdainfully.

You smile as he heaves a long sigh, like the weight of the world rests upon his weary shoulders; which isn’t far from the truth, if the way Black Hat nags him and Demencia torments him on a regular basis is any indication. Not to mention raising a son/care bear/science experiment through it all. But even if it’s not quite the whole earth, at the very least it’s the whole company. Everybody ought to give him more credit, himself included.

“If anybody could do such a thing, I know it’d be you, Flug. You’ve always had a brilliant mind.” He hums softly at the praise, feeling quite chuffed to know that at least someone in the manor besides his own son appreciated him not just for all he does, but who he is.

It’s quiet again for a few moments as he drifts in and out of consciousness, your hand gently rubbing his back until he speaks up again a few minutes later.

“And I’ll make you my co-pilot.”

This takes you by surprise, the hand rubbing his back stopping briefly as you let the words settle over the two of you. Reading between the lines was something you found yourself doing almost as often as reading his expression through his paper bag, the man still not quite comfortable enough to outright say all the things he’d had bouncing around in his head to you just yet. Your hand resumes as you test the waters, stuck between delicate hope and fear of possibly scaring him off.

“I…don’t know how to fly a plane. Nor do I have a pilots license.”

“Me neither, but I’ll show you how to do it in the cockpit. I’ll make sure you have a smooth ride for your first time.”

A pregnant pause falls over the both of you, and your whole face heats up, mind processing his words only to take a nosedive into the gutter. You open your mouth to respond only to be met with quiet snores from below, Flug blissfully unaware of the effect of his words.

‘Looks like the week finally caught up to him’, you think. Odds are he might not remember something like that when he woke up, but you could tease him about it later on. For now, you stretch your arms over your head and attempt to make yourself as comfy as possible without disturbing him, sleep beginning to overtake you as well. You glance down once more to where he dozes peacefully for the first time in years, committing it to memory before joining him in slumber.

“Buenas noches, Flug.”

—•• •—• ••—• •—•• ••— ——•

[fireinmoonshot]

“wait, no, don’t take kissing away from me.” & hangman please

“No more,” you hum, taking a step back from Jake. He’s had more than a few drinks and the poor man is becoming more and more pouty by the second and you know that his friends and fellow pilots will never let him live this down if you don’t try and put an end to it. “I’m going home, baby. You wanna come with me?”

Jake effortlessly weaves an arm around your waist, pulling you back towards him and pressing you against his chest. “But we’re having such a nice time, aren’t we? And I can’t go yet! Javy and I made a bet for $50 that I’d leave before him, and I don’t wanna lose!”

You look over at Javy, standing only a few feet away from you, and he smiles sheepishly. “He probably won’t remember any of this in the morning if you wanna just take him home.”

Jake tightens his grip on your waist, not wanting to let you go. “Stay, baby.”

With a sigh, you lean in and press a kiss to his lips. Jake seems to enjoy this, his spare hand moving to gently hold the back of your head as his lips move against yours. Even though he’s incredibly drunk and you can taste the alcohol, his kiss is still patient and gentle, as are all of his kisses unless he intentionally makes them more passionate. 

Your attempt at a quick kiss is smashed to smithereens.

You attempt to pull away from the kiss, pressing your hands on his chest, and Jake lets you, not wanting to keep you doing something like that against your will. His grasp on your waist loosens as well. “You okay, baby?” He asks, a tinge of worry in his slurred voice.

“I’m going home now, Jake, okay?” You reach up with one of your hands to stroke his hair. It’s something he always loves when you do, usually something that helps him relax, too.

This time, though, he doesn’t notice as he’s too focused on your words. You’re going home. You’re leaving him. “Wait, no,” he shakes his head. “Don’t take kissing away from me.”

Against your better judgment, your lips quirk up into a smile. You also hear the beginning of laughter from a few of the other pilots around you. Oh, Jake has dug his hole now, you think. He’s never going to live this one down. But now, you also have your means to get him out of here before he digs his hole any deeper.

“If you wanna keep the kissing, you gotta come home with me now, Jake,” you explain.

Jake stares at you for a moment and then sighs, giving in. “Okay,” he pouts. “I’ll go home.”

Javy helps you take Jake out to the cab and also pays for the trip home – his way of ending the bet, just in case Jake does remember in the morning. Jake is sleepy and slightly starting to sober up when you reach your house and the two of you go inside.

“Can I have another kiss now?” He asks as he sits down on the edge of your bed. 

You smile and wander over to him. “Just one, and then bed. Okay?”

Jake nods sleepily. The alcohol and the late night having finally caught up to him. You give him two minutes tops before he’s passed out cold. You dread the hangover he’s going to have in the morning.

You stand in-between his legs and cup his face gently in your hands before you press your lips to his. Jake kisses you back instantly.

“Was that worth coming home for?” You ask after you pull away.

Jake nods. “It will be if I can have one more.”

You can’t help but laugh at him. It was a good thing you got him out of the bar when you did, then, you think, or else he’d be severely regretting his choices in the morning even more than he already was going to. 

[fazedlight]

Tattoos (fluffy supercorp ficlet, post-6) “The wild days of youth,” Lena said jokingly, holding out the to-go box of potstickers to Kara from her comfy seat in the Tower. “I just didn’t want to stop.”

“What was the appeal?” Kara asked, reaching for a potsticker with her fingers, popping it into her mouth as Lena pulled the box back.

Lena smiled in amusement. Classy as always, she thought, as she reached for her chopsticks. “I suppose it was just… the expectations. A Luthor should not be so uncultured.”

Kara was making small grabby fingers, so Lena rolled her eyes affectionately, passing the box of potstickers before reaching for the pan-fried green beans. Kara popped another potsticker in, her voice muffled from the food. “So it was an act of rebellion?”

Lena hummed. “My arm tattoo was first, the day I turned eighteen. A simple bird, something that could fly - it always seemed like freedom to me. Same reason I got my pilot’s license.”

“What came next?” Kara asked curiously, curling up on her spot on the couch.

“I went big. The ‘Purity’ script on my back.” Lena smiled, somewhat embarrassed. “It was kind of an ironic tramp stamp. I wasn’t as, uh, extroverted as some of my friends. Veronica was kind of wild at parties.”

Kara laughed. “And then the circles?”

Lena grew pensive for a moment, before nodding. “Lex turned the sun red, and I… just couldn’t breathe. I found myself thinking about my mom a lot.”

“Your mom?” Kara said gently, pausing from her food to look up.

“She… talked a lot, about past, present, future. It’s one of the few things I remember her saying.” Lena glanced down at her wrist, where three circles of growing sizes lay in a line. “I just wanted to commemorate that. That whatever I was going through now, I would be able to get past it.”

“Oh, Lena,” Kara said, a little sadly.

“It was a long time ago, Kara,” Lena said emphatically, her voice… perhaps a bit contemplative, but content. “Things are better now. You make things better.”

Kara smiled softly for a moment, before wondering out loud. “And the pain didn’t bother you?”

“Not really,” Lena said. “It hurt, but it was… meditative? Something to focus on, when I needed to distract myself.”

“That makes sense,” Kara said thoughtfully. The two glanced at each other, before quietly resuming their meal.

Lena reached over for a paper napkin, smiling in a bashful way that crinkled her nose. “So am I the most tatted person you know?”

“Oh no, definitely not!” Kara said, as she popped yet another potsticker in her mouth, looking down into the container for her next one. “Kate has way more tattoos than you,” she muffled through her food.

Kate Kane? Lena thought, with a twinge of… something. She forgot that Kara had even met Kate before. “Oh really?”

“Yeah, like everywhere,” Kara said, reaching for the scallion pancakes. “She even has a dolphin on her butt. It’s super cute. Just don’t tell her I told you,” she said with a laugh.

And Lena’s mind froze. A moment passed, before it slowly started turning again. 

Kara- 

Kara has- 

KARA HAS SEEN KATE’S ASS?! 

“That’s nice,” Lena said tensely.

Kara glanced up from her food, examining Lena closely. “Are you okay?”

“Yup,” Lena said, failing to get the stiffness out of her voice.

Kara’s eyebrows crinkled in concern, as she set her food back down on the coffee table - a large feat, really, considering that there were still three potstickers left. “Are you- are you jealous of Kate?” Kara asked curiously.

I didn’t know you liked women, Lena thought desperately. Why didn’t I know? “It’s- I’m fine. It’s fine.”

Kara tilted her head. “You can always get more?”

“What- no, Kara, it’s not her tats I’m jealous of.”

Kara blinked. “Then what are you jealous of?”

Fuck fuck fuck.

Lena paused, taking stock of her options. Kara isn’t currently dating Kate, Lena thought to herself. That much was certain, Kara didn’t mention visiting Kate at all, and Lena was pretty confident that whatever they had before, wasn’t going on now. And it did mean that Kara was into women…

Maybe they had a chance? “I like you,” Lena said, trying to keep the grimace off her face. “Romantically, I mean.”

“Oh- wait- really?” Kara said, stuttering. “I’m not sure how that relates- I mean, I didn’t think you- I-” Kara coughed, pausing for a moment to clear her throat. “I like you too. Romantically.”

“Oh,” Lena said, her eyes widening as Kara smiled shyly. “That’s… that’s good.”

“Yeah,” Kara said, smiling softly. “I want to… take you out on a date?”

“I would like that,” Lena said.

Kara’s foot bounced, a nervous sort of excitement in her body, the two sheepishly resuming their meal, with the occasional warm glance, thoughts floating by their minds on what the future might hold.

Until, eventually, Kara’s expression grew a bit pensive. “What’s wrong?” Lena asked.

“Nothing!” Kara said. “I’m just not sure how we got here from talking about tattoos.”

“Oh, I… I just didn’t realize Kate was your ex, that’s all.”

“My ex?” Kara said, her eyebrows furrowing again in confusion. “Wait, I- you thought- oh.” “What?” Lena asked curiously.

“Lena, I-” Kara paused, holding back a laugh. “I saw her tattoos in battle. I needed to use my x-ray vision.”

“... Oh,” Lena squeaked.

[ice-cream-writes-stuff]

☆There's No Place Like Home☆

Episode 1: A Warm Welcome

[Pilot]

《You are new to this... Neighborhood? Where the hell are you?》

《Warnings: the subject matter this ARG has are potentially disturbing. DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT. Welcome Home was created by Clown @ partycoffin 》

-

Furiously wiping at your eyes, snot running down to your chin. You try to control yourself when realizing that the voices didn't sound like they were gonna hurt you.

"Oh, dear!"

"My goodness!"

"Are you alright!?"

Shaking like a leaf, you gaze down at the rainbow-colored pieces of paper falling down your shoulders.

"Wh-hat?"

You choke out, feeling spit and vile in the back of your throat.

"Neighbor, are you alright?" A soft voice questioned you, gazing up at...

That is not a person. What are you even looking at?

A yellow fleece-skinned puppet with blue hair styled into a tall, spiraled pompadour and 70s clothing greets you. He kneels beside you, reaching out a yellow hand to your back, rubbing it up and down gently.

His expression was rather calm than frightened of your well-being.

You wanted him to back away and didn't have the energy to shove him if you were honest. It felt like your skin was saggy and your bones turned into juice.

"I'm so sorry Neighbor, we didn't mean to frighten you. Right everyone?" The male puppet says, looking at the other puppets that stared at you with worry.

"O-oh, yes!" One of them rushes to you, causing you to lean back. "I'm so so so sorry! We didn't mean to come in without asking! Of course, we scared you! Poor thing!" The pink fleece-skinned skinned puppet exclaimed.

"Julie, maybe give them a bit of space, you're invading it." Another voice pipes up behind the female puppet. A gray puppet pulls the girl back by the arms gently.

"Oh, right!"

"What are you?" You whisper, and your pupils were blown out with fear.

"WHO. Are you?" You ask more loudly, catching the colorful group off guard.

"I forgot! Introductions are in order!" The pink puppet proclaimed.

"My name is Julie! Julie Joyful, oh, this is Frank!" "Frank Frankly."

"I wanna go next!" A voice boomed, and another puppet appears in your line of vision. "My name's Sally! Sally Starlet! And I'm a star!" She flaunts good-naturedly, her eyes bright with energy.

"Oh, I forgot!" Sally pulls a giant bird with rainbow feathers, a caterpillar-like puppet, and a mailman puppet toward your supposed "group".

"This is Poppy, Eddie, and Howdy!" They smile at you kindly before Howdy pulls out a cake, (from seemingly out of nowhere.). He holds it out with a smile with his multitude of hands.

"We brought a welcome cake from my bodega! We hope you would enjoy it," Howdy said showing it out to you from your position on the floor. The cake was layered with white frosting and rainbow sprinkles slathered around the giant frosted words: Welcome To The Neighborhood.

Little signatures surround the bottom of the bolded words. "Oh.. Thank you..? That's very, uhm, sweet."

You pause, recalling your words in your head and becoming quiet.

"Hahah! Good one bud'!" A big blue puppet dog laughed, slapping his paw on his knee. His laughter was contagious as the rest of the marionettes giggled along.

"You're gonna' fit right in! Names, Barnby B. Beagle, your new Neighbor."

The dog winked, holding out his hand for a shake. Yet moves his hand away when he pulls the yellow puppet from beside you. Holding him by his armpits and showcasing him like a shiny trinket. The blue-haired puppet seemed unfazed and still had his soft expression.

"This nice 'fella here is Wally, a real Darling! Hehe, a pal of mine! My best-est buddy, and hopefully, your's too!"

Why did it feel like this was a commercial or a horrible skit you weren't in on?

"It's lovely to meet you, Neighbor," Wally replied.

You nodded, looking away from his eyes and focusing on the cake.

You felt better than earlier when you thought you walked into some murdered party or cult-type thing. But was it worse than talking puppets without strings?

You aren't sure yet?

Was this cake even real? Was any of this real??

"W-ell, thank you for the hospitality. But this isn't my home... I'm not even sure where this place even is?"

The puppets grow quiet at your words. Their confused stares made you uncomfortable and queasy. "This is Home, where inside your Home silly! Isn't this all your stuff?"

Poppy points out, gazing at the clutter of unopened boxes and furniture.

"Hmm, they must have forgotten. Moving is tricky business, especially on short notice." Frank states thoughtfully.

"N-no that's not-"

You feel your tongue become limp and your eyesight blurring into meshes of color.

"Are you okay, Neighbor? I bet all that stress of moving got ya' pretty tired. C'mon, let's eat some cake!"

Barnby states, letting go of Wally and helping you up.

Everyone cheers as Sally goes off to find cutlery in one of the boxes. Howdy places the cake on a table hidden away in a corner while Eddie and Frank round up any chairs they could find.

Wally pulls out your seat like a gentleman, handing you a plate of cake as everyone chats and eats

-

[Taglist closed]

@tearjerker666 @trzppyghxuls @cookieswithay @luna-charlie @isometimeswritestuff @kazi-pop @lightspectre-universe @jjowithastar @smilingfox22-blog @jayysnotjoyful @cadaverous-coop @heather-hutchcroft @camilo-uwu @pauldanosbandonedirection222 @sweetheartturtle2007 @pretty-please-just-let-me-sleep @welcomehome102

[Hiya! Thank you guys so much for such the positive comments! I need some more, I crave. Readings ya'lls reactions are the best and make it easier for me. Thanks! Art is always appreciated!]

[seresinhangmanjake]

your way back to me

Dad!Jake “Hangman” Seresin x female reader

Summary: Jake’s best student gets into an accident and ends up in the hospital, and he doesn’t want to leave her alone so he waits for her mother to show up. But her mother just so happens to be the love of his life who left him in the middle of the night decades prior, and it’s about time she shared her biggest secret. 

Warnings: Allusion to smut. Cursing. idk, that may be it. 

Notes: This is an AU of the Oh, Baby series. 

She was a good kid. 

A great kid. 

Dedicated, strong, wise beyond her years. Wickedly stubborn, and yet, she managed to keep it from impacting her work. She didn’t have the ego; that entitlement and bravado that came with being as talented as she was. But she wasn’t just talented. As if it were woven into the network of her veins, she was the absolute best at what she did, far surpassing her classmates. 

No one wondered how she achieved so much at such a young age. She lived by some internal set of rules that Jake had caught onto over the last few months. Something along the lines of ‘work harder, train longer, don’t lose hope, never surrender.’ He could see it in every choice she made—too similar to his own mantra of motivation when he was developing his skills in the sky so many years ago. But she was also open. Open to offering others what she knew, and open to learning from others what she didn’t. He couldn’t have asked for a better student; didn’t even realize one like her could possibly exist.

He never had a child. There was one woman he would’ve given it all to, but when she left, finding another he cared to build a family with was not so easily achieved. But if anyone were to come close to what he imagined his kid to be like, Eve was it. The qualities she possessed that he recognized as his own were what bonded them, and the rest of her—the other pieces that made her whole—were infinitely better. They surpassed him. Those qualities, he’d deduced, came from her mother. 

He didn’t know much about Eve’s mother, and knew of Eve's father only what Eve had shared with him—that solely being that the man was a pilot and the determining factor in her choosing to be the same. And maybe, he thought, that was why the two of them fell into their easy flow. He had always wanted a child; someone to care and be there for, and Eve was in need of the support and encouragement that should have come from the father she never knew. And so developed the relationship they had—one of instructor and mentor, confidant and friend. 

Rooster teased him; told him that if he wanted something to take care of and watch over like a papa hawk, then he should’ve just gotten a puppy. But a puppy was a thought-out process. It was an acknowledged adjustment to daily life that required careful planning. It wasn’t the same. He hadn’t planned on taking Eve under his wing. Somehow, it was a natural development. He cared about the kid’s well-being. He wanted her to do well. The possibility of her fire and liveliness being snuffed out from a mission gone wrong was unable to pass through his mind without an accompanying squeeze to his heart. Should it become a reality, he would lose the closest thing he had to a daughter, and he knew he’d feel the full force of it. 

That was why he stayed when the rest of her team had eventually gone back to base. Despite his exhaustion, despite his duties, the aches in his body from cheap waiting room chairs, and the hours upon hours of unchanging news, he refused to leave. 

Eve only had her mother, and while she had been notified of the accident, it would take ages to make her way to California from the east coast. When she would finally arrive at the hospital, he didn’t want her to be alone. He wanted Eve’s mother to understand that there was someone else who cared about her baby, who tried so damn hard to protect her when he could, and wouldn’t leave her side when he failed. 

—-

Jake…

Jake!

He internally groaned. 

He hated when you called out to him. He hated that your voice always sounded so clear; so near that it filled him with enough false hope to have him reaching out into the darkness, thinking his fingers might actually feel your body. He imagined them grazing along your skin as you smiled at him in a promise that you were real, right in front of him, able to be tugged close and held tight and kissed until the rest of the world fell apart around you. He pictured you still in his bed, wrapped around him, trading whispers of love. It was a common stabbing to his chest that never failed to pierce through to his heart. Yet, if it disappeared, if you disappeared, if the dreams stopped, he knew it might be the thing to finally undo him. 

“Jake!”

He jolted upright in his chair before his eyes had a chance to snap open. He looked up at a ghost. Stunning. Ethereal. A well-known silhouette.

Huffing, he positioned his elbow back on the armrest so he could rest his cheek against his fist. He allowed his eyes to drift closed. “Go away,” he mumbled. “You’re not real.”

“What are you talking about?”

His vision again tried to adjust to the overhead lighting. With a bite in his tone, he replied, “You are not—” 

His eyes widened as they met those he had stared into so many times before. Real? 

Jake shook his head, trying to recall any serious hits to the head. But then an invading thought caused him to remember his purpose. 

His stiff joints cracked as he hopped out of his seat and rushed to the main desk.

"Excuse me, Miss." The words tumbled from his lips so fast it startled the young woman behind the counter. "Can you please tell me if—"

"She's going to be fine, Jake."

His breath hitched at the voice not leaving the mouth of the shocked young woman. The voice that came from behind him. That voice. The only one that mattered.

Moments ago, he was convinced his mind was having fun with him, playing and betraying simultaneously. However, needing to know Eve's state had shoved that concern to the side. But now it was unmistakable.

Jake gulped. He slowly turned. 

Fuck.

His brow pinched, eyes beginning to sting as his heart went wild inside his chest. 

Beautiful. So damn beautiful. 

Like a fresh wave, it washed over him how different he felt just at the mere sight of you compared to how he did for any woman he had in his life over the last decades. Those feelings never came close to matching. They weren't on the same tier; couldn't be when what he felt for you sat high on a pedestal of his own making. 

His eyes savored their slow scanning of you.

Exhaustion showed in the slump of your shoulders and in the dark circles under your eyes. Your hair was slightly messy. The shape of your body was hidden under a large sweatshirt. Your thumbnails were worn down from being nervously picked at. And Jake could see a few fine lines touched around your face. But you were still you. You still looked like his girl. And he couldn't understand how the hell you were in front of him.

"Eve's going to be ok," you repeated. "I talked with the doctor already. They gave her some medication to help her rest."

"You talked to…" He was still worn out. Brain trying to catch up with the world around him until, eventually, it clicked. "Eve is your daughter."

The empty room was silent as you stared at him. Then you said, "We can come back in the morning to see her. They said visiting hours are over so we have to go."

You twisted on your heel, making your way to the exit. Your steps against the tile echoed. 

You were real. Each passing second further proving it. So he followed after you.

"Wait! You can't just walk aw—"

"Not here," you interjected. 

His mouth instantly closed. He wouldn't argue, fearing that doing so would somehow make you disappear. And that was not something he was willing to risk.

He trailed you out the front door of the hospital.

"Are we far enough away now that you'll talk to me?"

You stopped and faced him. Neither of you seemed to guess what to do first. He had asked his question and he wanted his answer, but you didn't appear to know how to give one, so he skipped past it and instead glanced at your ring finger. It was bare. But maybe that meant nothing.

"Are you married?" He asked.

"No." You wrapped your arms around your middle. Hugging yourself. Barring yourself from him. Your weight shifted to your other foot, then your averted gaze made its way back to his. "Are you?"

His head shook as he soaked in the relief of your response.

Heaviness settled between you despite the California breeze moving the air along. 

"Did you know?" He broke the silence, but the tension held firm. And as if you expected it, you didn’t flinch. "Did you know I was her instructor?"

The simple gesture of your nod was a punch to the gut.

"And you didn't want to reach out? Talk to me? See me?"

"Jake—"

"I would've done anything to get a chance to—" He stopped himself at the pain screwing your features. That expression had always ripped him apart. Twenty years changed nothing. 

Taking a calming breath, he continued. "I'm sorry. I didn't…I'm not trying to…" His hand ran down his face. "Shit, I don't know how to do this anymore. I never thought I'd see you again." 

You made no rushing move to collect the words he was giving you, and Jake sighed in disappointment. This was not how the two of you interacted. You didn’t stand so far apart. You didn’t hold yourselves back from touching one another. You weren’t supposed to be nervous in each other's presence. 

"You look beautiful."

With a snort, you replied, "I'm a mess." You looked down at your sweatshirt and leggings. "I wore this to bed last night. They called me at the crack of dawn and I practically ran to the airport." Tugging at the hem of the oversized top did nothing to erase its wrinkles. "I didn't know you guys train so early."

"Eve likes to, so I let her," Jake said. "I'm so relieved that she's going to be ok. She's really great. If I ever had a daughter, I'd hope she'd be like Eve."

A hard swallow briefly created a bulge in your throat. Your arms found their way around your waist again.

"Do you, uh…do you have a place to stay?" With me, he thought. You belong with me.

"I'll find a hotel."

"You can sleep at mine."

"I couldn't intrude—"

"Honey, it's you. You're not an intrusion," he said, stepping closer. 

He would’ve paused to consider the slip of the endearment and the slight widening of your eyes, but he too desperately needed to convince you to go with him. He needed more time. More time to exchange questions, to learn all he’d missed. More time to hear your voice, and maybe, if he could encourage it, hear your laugh as well. More time to be in your presence and exist in the space you enchanted. More of any and everything with you. 

His hand rested on your arm and even through the thick material of the sweatshirt, he could feel your heat. So familiar. So welcoming. 

Home.

"Come home with me, Honey. I've still got the spare room."

—

There'd been an unspoken agreement, as Jake drove back to his house, that neither of you would discuss all that had been revealed within the half-hour prior. Well, ‘agreement’ maybe was not the most accurate of words. You didn't speak, so Jake didn't pressure you. Had you chosen to open your mouth, he would've hung onto every syllable. 

When you did finally step into the house, you shocked him with your sudden willingness to ask questions. How long had he been an instructor? Why had he kept the house when he'd surely been deployed elsewhere for long periods of time throughout his career? How the rest of his old team was?

He answered each one as you made your way down the hall into the living room. Then you went quiet and Jake glanced over his shoulder to find you staring at his wall of frames. From left to right, your eyes scanned each picture—those of his friends, group shots of his past classes, and one or two of him with his Gram. But you stared longest at the last one, and reached up to softly run your fingers over your younger face; a happy young woman smiling wide from his kiss on your cheek. 

His chest tightened. "Do you want something to drink?"

You jerked your hand back to your side. A pinkish tinge rushed to your cheeks from having been caught, but seeing that reaction only produced the same in him. "No, thank you."

Nodding, he said, “Make yourself at home.” Just as you used to. Back when you were so close, so attached to one another that home really was being in each other’s space. It was the way things should have always been. It’s the way things would have continued to be had you not left him. 

Jake grabbed a glass from his cabinet as you sat, poured himself a swigs-worth of alcohol, and downed it. He needed to curb the edge; calm the wiggling nerves under his skin. Then he joined you on the couch. 

“How are you feeling?”

You blew out a long breath. “Exhausted. I was in panic mode all day. The only reason I’m not suffocating right now is because the doctor promised me she’ll be fine.”

“I felt that relief, too,” he said, trying to restrain himself from wringing his hands. “I mean, I know she isn’t my daughter, but I try to help and prepare her for every obstacle as if she were my own.”

As he had hoped, he got to hear your laugh. Not the one he so fondly remembered, though. It was a weak chuckle, not the least bit imbued with humor, and there was an odd twinge of something else he didn't quite understand. 

“Of course you do," you muttered under your breath.

His brow pinched, and he was ready to ask what you meant, but his first word was interrupted. 

“Jake, why didn’t you ever marry?”

"Uh…" He shrugged. "I don’t know. It just never happened.”

Lying to you was not something he was accustomed to. It was different than when he was a younger man keeping the secret of his feelings from the woman he’d loved for a year. You’d never directly asked him what he felt for you, so he was never in a position to be untruthful. But he sure as hell wasn’t about to tell you now that the sole reason he never married was because the only woman he ever imagined having a family with vanished from his life while he slept unaware and unable to stop it. You, though, didn’t seem to have the same problem when it came to properly moving on. You had created that family. Without him. 

“Were you ever married?” he asked. “To Eve’s father? Or someone?”

For such a simple curiosity, you took a while to address it, opting instead to sit in silence, eyes not entirely focused on any particular thing in the room as one thumbnail picked at the other. 

He knew that look, only shown when you were overthinking. 

"Jake," you began, eyes still lost for a moment before they flicked over to his, “Do you know how old Eve is?"

"Sure. Pretty much everyone does. She's one of the youngest to ever be in the program," he chuckled. 

A sense of pride encouraged his smile. Being so young made Eve’s skill and abilities wildly impressive, and aiding in her success couldn't be compared to anything less than an honor. 

His grin remained long after the lingering of his statement faded entirely. And not once did your expression shift. Rather, the radiating anxiety continued to halo your body. 

Jake placed his hand on top of yours to soothe their fiddling, and you immediately grabbed onto him, pulling that hand closer and keeping it snug between your palms. 

“Honey, what’s wrong?"

Sighing, you peered up at him. Your gaze was sad, desperate, pleading, in a way. And he stared back, trying to decipher that pain; hoping to figure out why you were looking at him as you were, and why you'd asked the questions you did.

Then his eyes widened. 

His jaw slackened. 

Lips parted.

He’d heard of those random shocks. Those instances of a thread suddenly linking two dots, and that new connection bringing a clarity which, in hindsight, should have been so very obvious. 

Jake sifted through his rapid replaying of memories that spanned the last couple of months. 

Phoenix eyeing the young student and commenting how the girl bore quite the resemblance to him—He’d brushed it off. Plenty of people had blond hair and green eyes. 

The way she sometimes spoke. A specific phrase said in a specific tone that he’d only ever heard come out of your mouth—Just an odd coincidence.

The fact that her name was the same as his grandmother's—There were only so many names to select from, right?

But now, with that new unbreakable thread connecting those previously sporadic dots, clarity smacked him upside the head. 

"You left me at the beginning of that summer," he started, voice low and slow and careful with each word. "And Eve's birthday is in March."

"Yes."

Looking down at your joined hands, he nodded and said, "She's our daughter."

He could practically hear your swallow. 

"...Yes."

He stood then, hand slipping from yours so it could run down his face as the other settled on his hip. He blew out a heavy breath.

"Jake, I'm so sorry. I should have told you. I thought—I thought I was doing the right thing at the time. When I found out you were her instructor, I was going to find a way to tell you, but I was so scared and it was selfish and—"

"Does she know?"

"No, she—When she came here she told me she looked up to you, and that if she imagined the kind of man her father was, he'd be like you." 

You paused to properly exhale, head hanging in the aftermath. 

He wanted to erase that showing of shame, but if he interrupted you, you might not have given the rest of the story. And he needed the rest of the story. He needed the truth of the events that had haunted him for decades. 

"I always felt I made the biggest mistake of my life the day I left you, but hearing her say that solidified it. And for years, I let fear keep me from righting that wrong,” you said, a droplet of water falling from your face, soaking into the fabric of your leggings. "All this time I've been so afraid that you wouldn't want her, and you wouldn't want me, and it's paralyzed me."

His fingers twitched at his sides, begging him to allow them to brush away your tears—to let the woman he loved know that he didn’t hate her for her past choices—but he couldn’t move. And the only thing he could think to say was, "Should it really have taken her getting hurt for you to tell me?"

Raw heartbreak seeped into your gaze.

"So it's my daughter that is laying in a hospital bed right now." The more he said it, the more he called her that in acknowledgment of who they truly were to one another, the more it ached each limb and vein and nerve of his body to know that she was hurting. Yes, he had always cared about her and treated her like his own, but Eve being his daughter changed things. It altered his biological instincts and the chemical balance in his brain. Failing in protecting her was no longer just a failure, it was catastrophic to his soul. 

He pictured her face bruised, her lip cut, her cheek swollen. He imagined your sheer horror once learning she was injured thousands of miles out of your reach. You’d faced it alone. You never should have been alone to begin with. 

"I should've kept looking for you," he said. "I should have just told everyone else to fuck off."

"Jake, if they were telling you to give up, then—"

"Don't. Do not say it was for good reason. We could've been together. If I had found you we would've been a family."

The day his friends had sat him down, laid out what they believed to be the reality he refused to accept, and told him to move on, was fresh in his mind. Not a moment of it had faded. He’d dreamt about it for ages—sometimes still did—always waking devastated. 

Your palm cupping his cheek called him back from his thoughts. 

"The only reason we weren't a family is because I fucked up. I did,” you stressed. “This isn't on you."

You were suddenly so close, he realized. So warm within his space. How he’d survived losing you, he didn’t know. 

"Would you have come back with me? If I had been able to find where you were?"

Your hand fell but he grabbed it before you could retreat, and thankfully, you didn’t fight him. Then you sighed, the act expelling the tenseness that had stiffened your form. "I'm not going to answer that question." 

Perhaps for the best. Either answer would’ve broken him.

He wished to go back in time, to never give up on his search. He wanted a chance to convince the woman he loved to raise a child together. He wanted to be a father to that baby girl as she’d grown, and enjoy all of the moments that came with being her parent. 

Nothing could give that to him now, but at least he wouldn’t be losing any more time. 

Eve being grown didn’t mean she wasn’t his. Being in one another’s lives proved to be predestined. He was a father, had always been, and could maybe finally be seen as a father by his daughter now that you had bared it all and given the truth.

So he figured maybe it was only fair to do the same for you.

Jake looked at you. Really looked at you. His eyes bore into yours, taking in the swell of your pupils and the different colors flecked around in what remained of the ring of your irises. "Is this secret sharing day?" he asked.

"What?” Your brow pinched as you sniffled and swiped your fingers under the lower lashes framing your right eye to remove the final remnants of tears. “I-I suppose so. If that’s really what you want to call it."

“Good.” Both hands were on his hips to give him some sense of physical stability, and he licked his lips, then said, "I didn't get married because I never found anyone I loved as much as I love you. I couldn’t fully give myself to anyone while I still belonged to someone else.”

Shock and disbelief melded inside that previously heartbroken gaze.

He hadn’t been able to say the words before you left. You hadn’t given him a chance. But he could see now that you had spent years wondering if felt that deeply for you, as he had wondered if you felt that way for him. 

 “Jake, you…you love me?”

“I've always loved you, Honey,” he declared just before his lips met yours. 

The soft touch didn’t seem to stun you. You didn’t take your time to adjust to the kiss you hadn’t shared in decades. Instead, you fell right into it, right alongside him. Your arms rose to wrap around his neck, sending shudders up his spine. You tugged him closer as he did the same to you. You moaned and whimpered and let your tongue play with his, so generously allowing him to get drunk off of your taste.

You kissed him exactly like he remembered; like nothing had changed or interrupted the perfect path you once started on. There was the same sweetness that, just as it used to, surrendered to an underlying burn. A familiar need for each other that had never died. And you settled into it; kissing skin and grasping at clothes and snuffing out all space between you until neither of you could take it anymore.

“Honey?” A little whine into your mouth.

“Yes,” you replied, sealing your lips again before he could say another word. Because you weren’t just answering the call of his name for you. You were answering the unspoken question the both of you already knew was coming. 

Jake grinned into the kiss and slipped his hand down the front of your leggings. 

—-

"I assume you have more questions?" 

Your voice was the first break in the peaceful silence where he had been lazily pressing his lips to your neck and bare shoulder while your back was tucked against his chest. 

He did have questions. But it was a war whether to ask them or to remain a little longer in the bubble of bliss where he could touch you and cuddle you and kiss you. You had asked, though, and he'd never been too good at denying you anything. 

Pulling his lips away from your skin, he said, “A hundred of them.” 

You flipped under the bedsheet to face him. "Any particular one you wish to start with?"

Jake paused. Not because he didn’t know the first of which to ask, but because your answer had a great deal of power over him. It contained his hope and his pain, either with the potential to destroy the other. It was an answer that would dictate his future. 

"Can she know?" He finally asked.

"She deserves to know,” you replied to his relief. “She'd want to know. As long as you want her to know, too."

His arm over your waist curled and pulled you closer. "Of course I do, Honey." 

"Then we can tell her tomorrow, if you want."

"Are you ready for that?"

"It's not about me," you said. "She might forgive me now, she might not. It could take a while, I suppose, and I hate that, but I'd deserve it."

When your head dipped down away from his, he ran his hand over the strands of your hair and brushed his lips against your forehead. 

"I hope that we all can look at this as a chance to have something new, though," you continued. "I'd like for us to look ahead, not behind."

Jake smiled. That was all he wanted. Just a chance to have what he’d lost. Everything he had lost.

"And what about you and me?" He hummed as his knuckle under your chin tilted your face back up to his. "Do we get something new as well? Because I don't know if I'm capable of letting you walk out of my life again."

The corners of your lips curved the slightest and you cupped his cheek, drawing him further into you. The kiss was gentle, brief, but more than enough to send tingles throughout him. Then you separated a hairs width and whispered:

"Jake, I'm not capable of leaving you again."

----

A/N: Ok, so this might be it for a little bit, guys, as far as fic posting. There’s been a lack of interest it seems lately and i’m not in a good space mentally to be able to put a lot into it and not know how it’s being received. It’s no ones fault but my own that I feel this way. This is how I’ve chosen to spend my time and this is the platform I picked. I want to write the rest of Oh, Baby and Beyond the Hills stuff but idk. Maybe i’ll snap out of it. But this was just to let those of you who have been following know what the plan might be. I’m very thankful that some of you have stuck around this long.

Tags: @wkndwlff @kmc1989 @sagittarius-flowerchild @dempy @oliviah-25 @rosiahills22 @xoxabs88xox @cinderellasmissingshoe @novagreen04 @multifandomlover4life @mayhemmanaged @memeorydotcom @ryiamarie 

[gremlinvanfleet]

𝖐𝖎𝖓𝖐𝖙𝖔𝖇𝖊𝖗 𝖉𝖆𝖞 𝖔𝖓𝖊 - 𝖋𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖘 𝖙𝖔 𝖑𝖔𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖘 

anakin skywalker, circa. the clone wars

kinktober 2023

masterlist

who else is better than hayden christensen to kick off the month? we also have the same name and that's so wicked.

summary: you and anakin have been fighting in the deadly war for far too long, and you finally begin to turn to each other for comfort in the trying times after so much loss.

warnings: smut, swearing

word count: 1,884 (i'm so sorry)

The war had been taking its toll on everyone. Yourself included in that list of people as Obi-Wan’s new Padawan. You hadn’t noticed it about Anakin however. He commanded your fleet and you trusted him with every fibre of your being. He was strong, wise and had animal like instincts. A true leader. He never ever wavered and that’s why there was so much confidence in him, even if he defied orders, he always did it with the best interest of the people.

“Y/L/N! I need you here. Focus please.” He touched your shoulder. You didn’t even noticed you zoned out. 

“Sorry, General.” He nodded. He continued with his attack plan. It was simple but unbelievably effective. He didn’t believe in making things unnecessarily complex, especially when it could put his men at risk. 

“General Skywalker, how are we supposed to sneak in when they have droids outside the whole ship?” A clone asked. 

“That’s were Y/N comes in.” He gestured towards you. You felt your face heat up. You thought you were just going to be piloting with Anakin, not heading the mission. “She will fly around the perimeter and act as a distraction while we strike underneath.” 

“You have faith in her flying? She’s just a kid.” Another one chimed in. He shook his head. 

“Myself and General Kenobi have yet to see a reason to not. She’s reliable and smart. Don’t second guess me again.” He glared. Him defending you made you have a funny feeling in your stomach. 

You took a moment to admire him in this state that came so naturally to him. His hair had been a bit more tousled than usual, and his uniform was more wrinkled than you remember it. You saw him run his hands through it before he came into the command centre. Stress. The lightsaber attached to his waist shined under the light of the hologram above him. His blue eyes were as fiery as usual and the intensity behind his voice made you think he received intel that he didn’t find favourable. You felt for your friend and mentor in the moment. Obi-Wan may be your master but Anakin was a true friend. He’d been through everything you had already. He understands you. 

“Okay. I think that’s everything. Let’s go men. We have a hard battle ahead. Fight hard and with valiance and I’ll be endlessly proud.” He smiled but his eyes looked sad. He knows not everyone in this room will be coming back. 

The clones left the room but Anakin grabbed your wrist, prompting you to stay behind. 

“What is it, General?” You thought he had something important to say but instead you were met with his sad blues looking into yours. 

“I just feel like something bad is going to happen with this mission. I just don’t want it happening to you. Please promise me you’ll be careful.” 

“Anakin, you’re the one who taught me how to fly, remember? I believe you called yourself the best pilot in the galaxy. If you can’t have faith in me, have it in yourself.” You smiled at him. He chuckled. 

“Point taken. I do have faith in you though, Y/N. So does Obi-Wan. We are both so incredibly proud of you. You’ve served the council well and I’m certain you’ll continue to do so.” 

“Then why are you so worried? I’ll be just fine.” You tried to reassure him, even though you didn’t fully believe yourself. It’s scary when he gets a feeling like that. He’s always been able to see ahead. 

“Okay, okay. Let’s go then.” He walked beside you and nudged your shoulder. You laughed and walked with him to the hangar. 

The mission was gruelling but a success. Anakin had lost many of his men this time around but you made it out okay. In fact, you pulled it off perfectly. You had taken down one of General Grievous’ droid ships. Only a grain of sand in the scheme of things however. After the mission, Anakin came out of it with a heavy heart. He thought no one was looking but you saw him ignite his saber and use it in a supply room. Items clattered everywhere while he took out his rage. What was he mad at? It could be anything. The loss of his men. The knowledge that there is still so much work that needs to be done and that means losing even more men. It hurt you to see him in so much pain like this. You couldn’t just leave him like that. 

“Hey…” You stood in the doorway. He looked at you, nostrils flared, eyes in a frenzy. 

“What are you doing here? Go get some rest.” He sighed and ran his hands through his hair again.  “I won’t be resting until you do, General.” You knew he hated when you called him that, but you took the risk of poking a little fun at him. God knows you both need the pick me up. “You know I don’t like that.” He had a small smile on his face. You stepped closer to him. 

“Yeah, but it’s good fun.” You smiled. He chuckled. 

“Come on, lets try to get some sleep at least.” 

You followed him up to the sleep chambers. He got in his bed and you got into yours. The sleep came on quickly but just before you drifted off, you heard a shout from the room next to yours. Anakin. You ran into his room and found him sitting up, bare chested and breathing heavily. 

“What’s wrong?!” You searched his distressed face for an answer. He blinked at you. 

“Nothing, nothing. Go back to sleep Y/N.” He sounded defeated. Not something you’d expect from the strong man across from you. 

“Come on. I’m not that naive. You can talk to me.” You sat on the edge of his bed. He tipped his head back and sighed. Something was definitely weighing on him. 

“I just can’t get their faces out of my head…” He said dejectedly.  

“Who are you talking about?”

“The clones. We lost so many. I know its the fortune of war but I still can’t help but feel responsible.” He rubbed his forehead. 

“Anakin, listen to me. None of this is your fault. In fact, you’re the only person I know fighting in this war that cares so much about his men. I admire you so much for that.” You put your hand on his. He sighed and closed his troubled eyes. 

“We all care, Y/N. Some of us are just more radical than others.” 

“You’d be the most radical I think.” You joked. He cracked a small smile. 

“I think you’re the only one keeping me sane here…” He whispered. 

“Lucky for you, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Promise?” He searched his eyes. 

“I promise.” You squeezed his hand. 

“Can you stay here with me? Just for tonight so I can sleep?” His eyes looked sad. Your face heated up. You had wished for this to happen. You’d never admit it but deep down you’ve always hoped something more would happen between the two of you. 

“Yeah. I can stay.” You smiled and he returned it. 

He laid back down and you did the same beside him. He sighed a few times and turned over too. You gently put your hand on his arm and started drawing circles. He hummed and turned on his side to face you. 

“That feels nice.” He murmured. He kept his eyes on yours as you continued. He leaned in a bit closer. You felt your heart beating faster in your chest. Is it finally happening? He gently placed his soft lips onto yours. 

You quickly returned the kiss and slid closer to him. He wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you into his chest while never detaching from your lips. You whimpered into his mouth as he pushed his tongue in. You felt his mouth turn into a smirk after hearing it. He flipped himself over so he was between your legs. He pushed himself against you and started kissing down your neck.

“Is this okay?” His eyes were filled with concern. 

“Yes. Please keep going.” You pleaded. 

“As you wish.” He smiled and continued down your neck. He pulled your housecoat off revealing only underwear underneath. 

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited to see you like this. I’ve thought about it all the time.” He admitted.  

“Me too.” You managed out between pants.

He quickly but carefully took off your underwear, revealing you completely to him. He stared for so long that you started to feel self conscious. You began to cover yourself again. 

“No no. Don’t do that. You just look so pretty, I can’t help myself.” He caressed your side, giving you goosebumps. 

“It’s your turn now, General.” His words gave you confidence. He shook his head and began taking off his clothes. His skin was such a beautiful colour and his battle scars just added to it even more. His metal arm glistened in the moonlight. You stared at his toned abdomen while you both took each other in. 

“Ready?” He was hard and not trying to hide it. His size was intimidating but definitely enticing at the same time. 

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” 

He slowly circled your clit with his hand while he pushed himself into you. You felt so full even after only half of him was inside. He groaned when he bottomed out and you clenched around him. 

“Fuck… So tight…” He hovered over you and rested his forehead against yours. The heat radiated against your skin so pleasantly as he pulled himself out and then back in again. The pleasure was unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. His pace was too slow for your liking however. 

“Anakin, please… Faster.” You whined. He chuckled and began to move his hips faster. His skin smacked against yours and he spent time rubbing your clit to get you there. 

“Fuck, Y/N.” He panted. His fingers moved faster against you and your legs began to shake. “You gonna cum for me?” 

“Y-yes. Please don’t stop…” He smiled down at you and kept the pace of both his fingers and his hips. He drew you closer and closer to the edge with every movement. The coil in your stomach was ready to snap at any moment. 

“Come on, sweetheart. Cum for me.” His words were enough to bring you over and you shook and clenched all around him. “That’s it, pretty girl.” He wasn’t done though. 

He pounded you even faster as he chased his own high. He pushed deep inside you one final time with a loud groan. He pulled out and his seed spilled out of your swollen hole. He collapsed beside you and pulled you into his arms. 

“That was-“

“Unreal.” You finished. 

“Yeah. I can’t believe it took us this long.” He laughed 

“Me neither. Kinda kicking myself for it.” 

“Just don’t tell Obi-Wan. He’ll kill me.” You laughed at the fact that he was still scared of Obi-Wan after all this time. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” You kissed his cheek and snuggled into his chest. 

A good sleep was on its way. 

© gremlinvanfleet 2023 <3

[thewertsearch]

Ask Comp 29/05

Anonymous asked: Having the car available as an alchemy ingredient now, what should John make first? ~DJ

John has unlocked the ability to fly, but I don't think he's as fast as he was with the jetpack. I think his best option is to merge it with Dad's automobile to create the Jetson Car.

Anonymous asked: the actor who played rufio in hook did his own homestuck liveblog back in the day. when he got to this part he was Somewhat Perturbed. @morganwick asked: Fun fact: around the end of Act 5, Dante Basco, who played Rufio in Hook, started a Tumblr and was immediately besieged by Homestucks pushing him to read the comic. So he started liveblogging it. Take a guess which scene everyone, including Hussie, was waiting for him to get to more than any other.

I can't believe I'm competing with Zuko himself on the Homestuck Liveblogging stage. How the hell can I measure up to that?

@wickedsick asked: The best part about the Wallet is that it's a physical object: you can give it to other people, send it across the tubes, and even store it inside another modus!

It really is a shockingly useful and versatile modus.

With this, his absurd physical stats, and his obvious determination, I feel like Dad would be an exceptionally talented Player.

@manorinthewoods submitted: >John is an immortal God >Still applies seatbelt, because safety is important ~LOSS (24/5/24) Anonymous asked: Obviously there is some deep, hidden classpect meaning to the sudden Seatbelt PSA!

Seatbelts are in cars.

Cars run on gas.

You expel gas when you breathe.

John is the Heir of Breath.

Checkmate, Scratch!

@marinerofthestars asked: Now that you’ve learned what Gamzee’s like sober, do you still reckon he’d be useless or actively detrimental as the Cavalier of Necromancer!Jade?

Oh, good point. A more focused Gamzee could certainly be a dangerous cavalier, especially if he shares the STRENGTH enjoyed by other highbloods. However, that presupposes that he's loyal to Jade, and the current incarnation of Gamzee isn't loyal to anyone.

Initially, I assumed that Gamzee would direct his violence primarily towards lowbloods - but said he was going to kill everyone, aristocrats included. Jade's status as Reverend Daughter wouldn't protect her here.

Besides, even if he was subservient to Jade, I don't think he'd be very reliable. Sure, he's probably better in a fight, but I don't think he'd be particularly useful when they're trying to complete their actual objective - namely, the Lyctor labs. Could you imagine Jade trying to pilot him in Imaging and Response?

At best, Frenzied Gamzee is a decent siphoning target - but that won't be much help either. In the original question, I gave the Houses their canon specialties, and the Ninth aren't siphoners.

In short, a sufficiently loyal Gamzee would be more useful in this state, but not a lot more.

@morganwick asked: So, you still think rendering Gamzee's text in all-lowercase makes him come off as a "chill guy" with a "Californian surfer dude accent"?

Forgot about that, haha. I think the contrast here is in what, exactly, Gamzee is saying in lowercase.

Lowercase Soporified Gamzee does sound like a surfer dude, because he's saying surfer dude things.

Lowercase Frenzied Gamzee, however, sounds like the Joker talking about his scars.

@morganwick asked: This is the part I was worried about your lax spoiler policy ruining things. When you opened the doors for people to offer up title suggestions for you that hadn't appeared in the comic yet Rage was one of the first aspects you got. At some point, if you'd bothered to keep track, Gamzee would have been the one aspect-less troll, and Rage would have stood out as the one non-joke troll-less aspect you knew about. So my concern was that if you started thinking about what it would mean for Gamzee to have Rage as his aspect, it might lessen the shock of seeing him now. A bit overly paranoid? Maybe, especially since Eridan being called the Prince of Hope came after Gamzee's "BlAsPhEmY" moment so more likely you'd have just connected it to the latter if anything, but we've seen some pretty perceptive bloggers in our time so this is to give some insight into the mindset behind a stricter spoiler policy.

It could definitely have been a problem - especially if I'd taken the time to enumerate the Aspects in detail. According to Cat, there were several asks requesting that I do so, which she filtered out in order to obfuscate Rage a little. Good choice, I think. If someone had called attention to it, I'm sure I'd have noticed that it was probably Gamzee's Aspect.

I still think the fun I was having with Aspect guesses was worth the risk, but I also see where you're coming from. Luckily, it never actually came up, so no harm was done.

@bladekindeyewear asked: VAGUE EXTERNAL MEDIA CLASSPECTING: According to certain theoretical fan frameworks, The Joker is a picture-perfect example of a Bard of Rage even across his incredibly wide variety of iterations, and Batman happens to be a good example of a Knight of Rage.

All Bards of Rage must be clowns, no exceptions.

Actually, Gamzee has both Joker and Two-Face vibes, doesn't he? He essentially has two separate quirks now, and he's also insisting that he's 'both' of his Mirthful Messiahs. Sollux is gonna sue someone.

Anonymous asked: So if going God Tier is merging the conscience of the real self into the dream self, what happens when a real self is prototyped with something else? Does Aradia still have some frog in her?

I certainly hope she does, but we haven't seen any yet.

As you pointed out, this is technically Aradia's dream self, which was never merged with the Frogsprite. It's possible that some internal 'froggy' traits were carried over from her realself when she ascended, but it's impossible to say for sure. We still don't know how this alternate form of ascension actually works.

@tacticaltaxonomist asked: im not rereading myself atm but i love following along your posts as you do, thank you for sharing! Anonymous asked: it makes me really happy to see new readers and I hope u have a good time :D

Thank you kindly!

I'm happy to be back and in the swing of things, and I'm even happier that I've been able to maintain a decent pace so far.

@krixwell asked: For what it's worth, Jack did "spare" PM when she proved she had the guts to actually go and actually get him the white king and queen's crowns, even though he had every reason to kill her. She was a Prospitian, had visibly just killed one of Jack's best men, had gotten the seemingly useless physical crowns rather than carrying out the murders they were supposed to represent (Jack likely knew this, since HB saw her get the king's crown), and was demanding one of Jack's most powerful weapons in exchange – Jack had nothing to gain from leaving her alive, and a fair bit to lose by honoring a deal that he used to half-heartedly offer to basically anyone who visited his office. As Hussie put it in recap 2, pages later but not many, "[Jack] came, and [PM?] traded the two white crowns for the green box, Jade's present to John. He appeared pleased to uphold the bargain, either out of the misunderstanding that he was still under control of its contents, or out of respect for PM?'s tenacity and brutality in pursuing the prize. Only he knows." Around the same time, WV was also left as the sole survivor of Jack's massacre on the Battlefield. WV was standing front and center of his rebel army, mere meters away when Jack killed the Black King, so it wouldn't just be that Jack missed him. (Recap 2: "Jack then killed the entire rebellion army, sparing only WV?. Perhaps to leave a survivor to tell the story, or perhaps out of respect for a fellow mutineer. Only he knows.") Before he got so powerful, there's also the time he released Dad Egbert from Dersite imprisonment, after the latter destroyed his jester hat. So yes, Jack has been known to spare people, at least pre-Becsprite… but only he knows why, and Eridan wouldn't have had access to any of these moments through the Trollian viewport.

The droll is beckoned. The bargain, honored.

That's a good point. Jack does appear to have a sense of honor, and I do genuinely think that these gestures were motivated by respect.

Eridan, though, he'd have zero respect for. I guarantee it.

@burntheupholstery asked: homestuck filtered through your comments is so much funnier for me because - and get this - i don't understand even a BIT of computer science

Give it a few more Acts, and I'll get you up to speed. >:)

@ipunchvampires asked: Minor gripe, but it's a bit annoying to me that the "Alterniabound" walkarounds have an obviously-developer-intended order of operations, but make no effort to signal this to the first-time reader. Like the dialogue in "Past Karkat: Wake up" is written such that going around the room counterclockwise with Karkat, then Vriska, then Terezi makes the most narrative sense, yet it's incredibly common for people to start clockwise, and when they get around to Terezi, Karkat acts like he's hearing about the humans for the first time even though he's heard about them from every other character in the meteor. @morganwick asked: There are, in fact, different conversations available if you talk to Kanaya and Feferi/Sollux as Karkat; it's just the items strewn around the lab that have the same flavor text. @helium--hydride asked: Did you check all of the interactions in this flash? You can be Karkat, and I think there was an interaction between Karkat and Sollux/Feferi that you missed.

So there is!

Not much to liveblog here, but it's good to know in the future that all combinations of conversational partners will, as a rule, yield new dialogue.

Anonymous asked: it’s a fun story and stuff but what are your thoughts on the music so far?? i mean we all know megalovania but do you have any fave tracks that stood out? top 5? the HS soundtrack is so unique imo (mine so far is explore remix - dave and jade made it together on freshjamz)

We've got a big enough library at this point that I probably can highlight some favorites. I think my top 5, in no particular order, are:

Sunslammer

The Beginning of Something Really Excellent

Savior of the Waking World

MeGaLoVania (Aradia version)

Descend

@elkian asked: "Oh, for the love of peace. Is there anyone that this globe-headed chucklefuck doesn’t have in his pocket?" - I don't know if you intended this pun about Cue Ball Head but I cackled

That one was on purpose. The guy's still an orb!

@abibeur asked: Honestly I was expecting your reaction to be like Prak from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (see below) and I was not disappointed. “Tell us about it,” said Ford. “Oh, I can't remember any of it now,” said Prak. “I thought of writing some of it down, but first I couldn't find a pencil, and then I thought, why bother?” There was a long silence, during which they thought they could feel the Universe age a little. Prak stared into the torchlight. “None of it?” said Arthur at last. “You can remember none of it?” “No. Except most of the good bits were about frogs, I remember that.” Suddenly he was hooting with laughter again and stamping his feet on the ground. “You would not believe some of the things about frogs,” he gasped. “Come on let's go and find ourselves a frog. Boy, will I ever see them in a new light!” He leapt to his feet and did a tiny little dance. Then he stopped and took a long drag at his cigarette. “Let's find a frog I can laugh at,” he said simply. I can't believe Douglas Adams predicted Homestuck.

Can't believe Prak canonically learned about Sburb sessions when he overdosed on truth serum 😲

Anonymous asked: if bilious slick is the universe, then it stands to reason that the Vast Croak = the Big Bang

Or the Big Crunch, given that 'croaking' is a euphemism for dying...

@bladekindeyewear asked: AAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA WE WERE WAITING FOR YOU TO GET TO THIS REVEAL EVERYTHING YOU'VE SAID ABOUT FROGS HAS HAD US LAUGHING SO HARD!!! don't feel bad this hits every reader and liveblogger the same way and it's GREAT nobody guesses it, it's like we're laughing WITH you not at you i promise, and gosh even just YOUR LAST REMARK ABOUT THE DOOR DURING THE RECAP AHAHAHAHAHAHH Anonymous asked: /post/749478863076196352 "We finally get to learn the function of the House Door – and apparently, it leads directly into the newly created universe. Makes a lot of sense. This, of course, nixes my theory that it leads to Bilious Slick." reading that was the fucking TEXTBOOK DEFINITION of dramatic irony Anonymous asked: you: oh, the door leads to the new universe, not bilious slick like i theorized! kanaya: Bet

Oh, god, I didn't even think about that. The door does lead to Slick, just in a way that was completely impossible to predict. I'm giving myself partial credit for that one.

@sanctferum asked: after everything the troll's black queen went through as a result of her refusal to defile her being with frogness, it is incredibly ironic that she would be bestowed the universal load-bearing powers she was given by Scratch upon becoming Snowman - and in so doing, have her own life force directly tied to that of a Genesis Frog. And you just know Scratch was insufferably smug about it too

@galaxa-13 asked: When I first read Homestuck and there were mentions of ol' B. Slick or any frog I just glazed over it. Oh, OK, just another weird thing in this tapestry of weird. On following read throughs, when I knew the significance, I still just glazed over it. Yeah yeah, frog is the universe, moving on. So when you started questioning all the frogs I got giddy, because I knew that YOU'D have a bigger reaction than I ever did.

Yeah, I was so lost with those frogs. I definitely didn't suspect that the answer would be anything as monumental as this.

I sure fucking didn't, Kanaya.

@drakethedeep asked: Congratulations on reaching the genesis frog reveal! Now, what are your thoughts on the metaphysical implications that universes are living biological creatures?

It gels well with a theorypost I was sent before about how Sburb's timeline system may have evolved naturally over time. The idea that universes are biologically alive certainly lends credence to the idea that the entire reality of Homestuck is fundamentally organic. Maybe the entire multiverse is actually inside another, second-order cosmic animal...

(Because it's Hussie, that animal is probably a clown.)

Anonymous asked: about the Vast Croak: (from page 2308) “[Frogs] go by many names, and so does the reviled patron god they herald - THE GREAT DETESTATION, KING PONDSQUATTER, SPEAKER OF THE VAST JOKE, or most commonly, BILIOUS SLICK.”

I didn't consider that Vast Joke could just be a corruption of Croak.

If so, then I'm not sure why Aradia's referring to it as if it's an actual joke. Curious.

@mapswithoutwyoming asked: This is a bit of a weird message, but: I’ve been plotting a Homestuck fanfic, and I was getting confused about whether the lunar sways I’d assigned to the main characters made sense. I was so deep into orchestrating the interlocking and paradoxical web of events that changing it even a little would have had catastrophic ramifications, but I was starting to wonder if it wouldn’t make sense not to. But you referencing your theory about the dispositions made my earlier decisions click for me. thx

Happy to help! And when I'm out of spoiler territory for the fic, I'd love to read it.

@ben-guy asked: In regards to your joke about Jerma in the tags… man, just imagine him streaming Sburb. "W-what? No chat, I'm NOT going to- I'm not going to prototype myself. That's an atrocious idea. I don't even know what that means! Listen, it's just not happening. Okay. Okay, a million off the boon-debt" Just imagine… Jerma imps. They would be insufferable. Also, his server player gets to play Jerma's Dollhouse for real. TBH, the Dollhouse steam has some minor HS vibes already… Making me feel totally justified in sharing this classic HS meme with you

Look, we all know Jermasprite would happen.

Oh, man - and prototyping him turns all the Underlings into chat members, so that when Jack is watching his progress through the Fourth Wall, it also contains a live feed of Imps and Orges spamming 'next session'.

Anonymous asked: Hey, you're right, the trolls might not have gone through the brooding cavern trials, since they were delivered to the surface on meteors, not birthed in the caves. Which would mean that when Vriska talked about how she remembered her trials, she was just lying.

It's possible that the meteors were delivered directly into the caverns somehow, but that's definitely not certain.

Vriska's assertion is suspicious either way, though - would she really have memories from being a newborn grub? If the trolls could remember their infancy, then they'd already know they came from meteors.

@manorinthewoods asked: I was going to write something about Locked Home (HS chars in Canaan House) being in the wrecked troll session, but upon further inspection, I can't see an easy way to set that up without opening a few of WV's cans of worms. So, instead, here's a different question - since lighting the Forge would clear LOFAF's frost, would lighting Kanaya's Forge have cleared LORAF's rays? What would that even mean? ~LOSS (15/5/24)

I thought it could have receded her oceans, but you're right - the Forge's environmental changes might always be associated with its Land's named trait.

Maybe let's split the difference, and say that activating the Forge intensifies LORAF's rays, causing them to boil the oceans away.

@divineerdrick asked: Hello again! Just wanted to say how much I love your analysis of what Jade is going through with Jadesprite. In fact, it's a rare treat to see a first time reader dig into how Rose and Jade and the events around their Dream Selves affect them. But I especially want to congratulate you on again pointing out something I'd never really noticed, and that is how playful Kanaya is with the text in her conversations. It really is a great gag, and I never noticed how consistent it was.

Thank you! Yeah, a big part of why Kanaya is so great is that a lot of her gags are very understated. Half the time, you don't even read them as gags - they just scan as charming aspects of her personality.

@heliotropopause asked: "Actually, can anyone confirm at what point the fic will be safe to read?" It's been a while since I read it, and I haven't read the fragment of TSG act three that only exists on tumblr since I didn't know about it at the time, but I'm about 85% sure you'll be good to pick it up once you finish act five. The whole setting is built on lore from late act five, and while it references something from a ways into act six at least once, i don't think there's anything there that could rightfully be called a spoiler. (And when you're done with TSG, you can pick up Taz's husband's The Vienna Game, which is even better, though of course doesn't tie into TLT. It should be spoiler-free after page 4468.)

I've still got a while to wait, then - but not quite as long as I feared. Works for me!

@manorinthewoods asked: That image of Vriska demanding that WV not interfere is… really weirdly creepy, and I can't help but feel like I missed that whole sequence. I guess it might not have stuck with me because I didn't bother translating the Morse code - which I assume the Homestuck Collection can do for you, which is another reason why I should have used that. ~LOSS (11/5/24)

Yeah, my heart sank when I read that part.

I really thought Vriska was about to do something to hurt WV, which would have sent her careening down the tier list faster than you can say 'main character syndrome'.

@manorinthewoods asked: "Why, though? I had assumed that these stations were going to be used to restore civilization on this planet. How are they going to repair Earth with no access to technology? Surely they’re not going to start from scratch?" Bold of you to assume Earth will be repaired. ~LOSS (11/5/24)

Terezi seems to think it will - but clearly, the stations aren't involved.

Maybe the game thinks it'd be cheating, or that using Sburb tech to build civilizations would make them too advanced to be threatened by its meteors the next time around.

@necrowyrm asked: The only possible thing you can liveblog after homestuck is now The Earthbound Halloween Hack in order to experience the original megalovania in all it's glory

You are SO right. I'll also make a quick detour through Smash Ultimate, of course.

@adhd-coomer submitted:

LMAO, that literally is what that is, isn't it?

@captorations submitted:

my birthday cake from years ago (but not many... but not *not* many.) deadname nuked from orbit. my sister who got me into homestuck arranged it and maybe one day i will forgive her #for the cake or for getting me into homestuck? yes. #note: this is a joke i was/am amused by the former and very grateful for the latter

Yes, oh my god! That really is the perfect Karkat face for a cake.

I'm going to be brainstorming Homestuck meals for the rest of the week.

[genji-centric]

New foods from Earth a Martian never tried!

Juno x Reader

Hi I love Juno. She's soo cute, and I want her to be out already. I just want to kiss her and take her out to get ice cream, which is why I wrote this!! Request anything Juno. I'm desperately needing more Juno lovers to unite with me and this adorable Martian.

You and Juno had started dating pretty recently. After getting settled into Earth, she started to learn more and more what the people from here had to do. She always had a rough idea, with life being not entirely different on Mars. But things still felt exciting and overwhelming all at once, but lucky for her she had someone who knew the planet she now lived on. You. She was always curious about the world had to offer, and she was over the moon to have someone to help her explore to her hearts content.

One of her favorite things to do was activity dates, going out on the town or city and exploring the places of Earth, no matter how small. She was astonished with how different things were. Her understandings of nature and wildlife were from books in her father's study, and yet here she can go up and touch an actual tree? It's all so new and exciting, but she could go without all the rivers and ponds. Such vast quantities of water was a risk to equipment back on Mars. Large puddles signaled an issue that needed maintenance, and you're telling her that's just nature?

Juno never really could grasp her head around the water, no matter how many times you would explain. But a peck on the cheek and a reassuring squeeze of her hand was all she needed. You were like the co-pilot to a new expedition, and for the current mission was going to an ice cream parlor nearby Overwatch's base. It was a shack you grew to like on lunch breaks, and you came to realize the ice cream on Mars was vastly different. Juno explained it to be powdered and hard, not cold. Something hard to imagine ypur entire life with ice-cream was just it freeze dried, and Juno lept at the chance to go see another part of life for Earthlings.

As you two waited in line you looked at the menu. Typical flavors such as chocolate, vanilla, strawberry and so on. But to Juno, this was a extraordinary change. She was only used to the 3 flavors that made up neopilitan, and now she's met with a menu of 20 more flavors on top of that? Juno muttered to herself when met with so many options.

"Pistachio? Isn't that a nut, oh hmm.. Ube? What is that.. what is a rockey road? Do people eat rocks here? Oh, banana? Like the long fruit? Oh, and.. jasmine? Ooh I like that! We had jasmine tea on Mars!"

You couldn't help but smile at her, always so curious. You could see her eyes sift across the menu, her face scrunched lightly in concentration. But she nodded in approval, seemingly content with her choice in flavor. She turned to you with a warm smile.

"I have decided on the jasmine flavor, I am aware I will enjoy it!"

As you two placed your order, she was confused by the option of cones or bowls. She decided on just getting a bowl, 'to not take away from the flavor of the ice cream'. Your girlfriend was always so endearing, and she always had a cute way of speech. You just wanted to pepper her face in kisses.

As you two relieved your ice cream, Juno's face lit up when laying sight to her bowl. As you two sat down at a wondow seat, (something Juno loved bacuse she liked to look outside and see the bustling streets) she couldn't help but pike at the food with her spoon.

"So is this what Earth ice cream is like? It's so.. mushy. And cold."

You nodded.

"Yes, it's a frozen cream with sugars and other flavorings, it's cold and always really good on a hot day."

Juno accepted that answer. She always did. Juno took a small bit of cream on her spoon, putting it into her mouth. You could see her pupils dilate ever so slightly. As she swallowed, she giggled.

"Wow!! This is so much better then when it's all crunchy!"

She took another spoonful, savoring the floral taste of her ice cream. Never have you seen someone so excited over ice cream, but you could say the same over someone being excited over grass, birds, in fact, anything nature related, concrete sidewalks, roads, and so on. She was always so eager it was admirable.

She didn't speak much after that. You both lived in the moment and enjoyed your sweet treats. You both decided to try a little bit of each other's ice cream. The floral taste of hers was subtle yet soothing in the best ways. In fact, you were kind of jeleous, and now you know the next flavor you would get at least. Ans Juno thoroughly enjoyed ypurs, commenting on anything she liked about the flavor you picked.

"I do say, that was such a good dish!"

She exclaimed, always so happy with any new food or new sights you see.

"I'm glad you liked it! I always try and find some time to come here. They have the best flavors."

Juno nodded in agreement.

"Yes, I would certainly like to try more of the menu eventually."

And so you both did, now on a date and you both craved something sweet. The ice cream parlor was always a top spot to hit. Juno greatly enjoyed each new thing, and you enjoyed the smile she had when doing so.