#you will probably find out that i know nothing of football despite having lived in texas my entire life

[cheqorb]

More Between Us.

You’ve always been just friends, but they can’t ignore how their heart races whenever you’re near.

FEAT. Isagi, Bachira

NOTES. probably my most tooth-rotting post yet! annnd I totally forgot I had this in my drafts Bring this duo back to me though pleasj

ISAGI is easygoing, and mild-mannered by nature (though perhaps his rivals disagree on that). It’s literally harder to not be friends with him. Your relationship was equally good, nothing particularly special and not abysmal. The type of friends who might talk on the way to class if you spot each other, but never go out of their way to do so either.

If asked, you wouldn’t even say best friends; he’s too busy with his teammates, and you have your own friend group.

See, Isagi enjoys thinking about stuff in a logical sense, using reason and evidence to support his ‘theory’. Both in real life and in football.

So before he even comes to the conclusion of a crush, firstly, there’s the small details he picks up about you.

Your eyes shift colour slightly if the sun hits them right. But, he reckons that happens with everyone’s eyes. Your eyes crinkle upwards when you smile, and maybe even dimples form on your cheeks as you do so. He likes seeing people smile, and yours is… in a way, cuter than anyone else’s? If he had to rank smiles, he’d put yours near the top. All hypothetical, obviously!

He’s always been observant, even as a kid, so Isagi figured he was just feeling a little more insightful as of late but it doesn’t stop there.

Suddenly, Isagi finds himself unconsciously lingering in places he knows you'll be. He tells himself it's just coincidence, but deep down, he has a feeling that he’s seeking you out more often.

Practicing with his team becomes a lot more strategic, with him making sure he's near your usual route home (not in a stalker way, at least, he hopes not), and just on time so that he can ‘bump into you’ and walk together.

And he lives in the complete opposite direction, so, while you don’t mind his presence, you find it a little odd.

Isagi begins to remember every little thing you mention, even the small stuff, like your favorite snack or the song you've been listening to on repeat. Next thing you know, he’s casually surprising you with them, acting like it’s no big deal but loves it when you get visibly excited about it.

He fumbles with his words a little more around you now, overthinking simple things that never used to bother him. It’s not like he’s shy (actually one of the best communicators out of everyone), he just doesn’t want to mess up or make you think he’s weird!

If he says something that could be interpreted as mildly creepy, he’s actually the first one to call it out and apologise over and over again. Beats himself up about it at home, even if you thought it was mildly funny that he knew what you were doing last week Tuesday at around 5:06PM…

When his teammates joke about him having a crush, he laughs it off, but there’s always a little pink in his cheeks that he hopes you don’t notice.

He'll start texting you first more often, just to share something funny or ask for your opinion on something trivial. It’s an excuse, really, just to have another reason to talk to you.

Also catches himself smiling whenever he sees a notification from you pop up on his phone, and his heart does a little flip when he reads your replies, no matter how mundane they are. Literally a “hey, I’m bored. Wanna hang out” is enough for him to lose sleep over it.

When you two do eventually go to said hang out, he pays extra attention to you: whether it's making sure you’re comfortable, or that you’ve got enough to eat, he’s always subtly looking out for you.

Despite all these signs, Isagi convinces himself it’s better this way — giving you small hints for you to understand rather than straight-up confessing. If you notice them and accept, great! If you notice and don’t accept, that’s fine too, he hopes you can remain friends though!

If you’re completely oblivious, well… he’ll muster up the courage to say it outright.

You and BACHIRA are like two peas in a pod together! Where there’s one, the other’s probably lurking nearby somewhere. Every second of every day seems to be spent with each other (and to anybody with common sense, you two already look like you’re dating).

When the crush starts, he thinks about you more than he already did, if that were even possible. Every little thing you do seems to make his heart race, but he sorta brushes it off as just excitement from being with his best friend.

Kind of a trickier situation than Isagi’s one this way though, because now you’re so close, Bachira doesn’t even feel that different about you. He might not even realise it’s romantic until his mother points it out in the midst of another one of his rambling sessions. About you, that is.

I won’t sugarcoat it; he’s nervous if anything. You’re one of the few friends he has and genuinely seem to care and like about him and if he ruins your friendship over his feelings, he’d be devastated.

But he’s back to his usual self and gains a little confidence after some encouragement from others!

Bachira’s clinginess ramps up a notch, but it’s so typical of him that you might not even notice. He’s constantly draping an arm around you, leaning on you, or just being in your personal space as much as possible.

Willing to share anything and everything with you. For example, if it’s snacks he’s got, he’s always picking out the best pieces just for you and handing them over with a cute smile.

Bachira finds himself staring at you a lot more now. Sometimes you’ll catch him and he’ll just laugh it off with a playful comment, but on the inside, his mind is racing with thoughts he can’t quite put into words.

When you talk, he listens with full attention, his usual playful demeanor softening into something more tender. He hangs onto your every word like it’s the most important thing he’s ever heard — and you could literally be talking about a bug you saw on the sidewalk this morning.

If you ever need anything, Bachira’s the first one to jump in and help, no questions asked. He’d go out of his way just to make you smile, even if it means a truckload of extra effort on his part.

Sometimes, he hints at deeper feelings in his usual roundabout way — in little jokes that might just have a hint of truth behind them. But he always plays it off as just that, a joke.

If you’re feeling down, he’s the first to notice, offering comfort in the form of goofy antics or just sitting with you in silence if that’s what you want.

If you ever confront him directly and ask if he feels something more than just being friends, Bachira might just spill everything in a rush of words; unable to keep his feelings hidden any longer. But until then, he’s content simply being by your side, even if it means he isn’t being entirely honest to himself.

[shares-a-vest]

While my shoulder has been fucked up I've been watching a lot of football AND sports commentary shows, which I have found myself enjoying??? As always, I've kept the actual sports ball details vague seeing as I barely know American sports.

Eddie walks into the living room to find Steve on his feet and standing far too close to the television. He has the phone to his ear and his shoulders are tensing.

"I cannot believe this," he says to Robin, who Eddie knows is on the other end of the line and probably just as agitated.

She must say something Steve vehemently agrees with because he nods, all stern and vibrating in agreeance. But he soon scoffs, holding the phone away as the Sportsman on the television says... Something about something baseball-related.

Steve swooshes his hand through the air in disapproval.

"Rob, are you hearing this asshole?"

The oven dings and Eddie decides to take his chances and step forward. He tip-toes quietly, making sure to keep his distance as he moves into his husband's field of vision and boy, is Steve mad about... Whatever tonight's Sports Problem is.

It's a big enough to-do that it is being discussed on (Eddie knows this much) Sportscenter.

Steve's frown deepens and his mouth down-turns to a cute – albeit grumpy – pout that has only become more accentuated with age and wrinkles.

"Dinner," Eddie mouths, adding an innocent, wiggling hand wave.

Steve props a hand on his hip and nods at him before he turns his attention back to the television. He heaves in a breath and now Eddie frowns. Because yeah, sure, Hellfire still gets his heart a-fluttering every once in a while, but these days he and the boys carry out quieter, more laid-back campaigns that would make their former selves gasp in horror.

And, Sport Problems, or not, he doesn't like the idea of Steve getting so worked up that he's wheezing.

"Rob!" Steve scolds in disbelief down the line, "What? Ugh, fine... Fine!" he looks at Eddie, "My dinner is ready too... Alright! Call me back... Mhmm," he pinches his nose, "Yes, I'll do the three-way call thing with Sinclair instead... Fine! Okay, bye."

He ends the call with a forceful pressing of the Talk/End button and murmurs to himself, practically sneering as he shoots the panel of sports commentators a look.

"Okay-p," Eddie says, clasping his hands together as he decides to charge for the remote.

He points it at the TV and gleefully reduces the group riling up his husband's undead universe-induced asthma to black nothingness.

"Calm down, Stevie-bear," he says, discarding the remote on the couch so he can rub at his back, "No more Sportscenter for now."

"But, Eddie, can you believe –"

Steve cuts himself off as Eddie loops an arm around his middle and leads him to the four-seater dining table.

"I know your hip is too bad for you to play ball these days, sweetheart, but you gotta calm down," he bargains, relieved when Steve's breathing begins to even out, "Dinner time is our quiet time."

"Yes..." Steve glances around.

Eddie narrows his eyes the moment he realises his partner has located their iPad on the breakfast bar. He tilts his head, hoping to block Steve's view of it and they soon become engaged in a silent stand-off despite standing in the middle of their living space attached at the hip, arm in arm.

It only stops when Steve purses his lips, no doubt readying himself to bring out the big guns and say something with the deadliest of bitchy lilts.

"Nope," Eddie says, chopping his hand through the air, "You're not rewatching that... play you are so cranky about on the iPad. I'm sure you are right about it anyway."

Steve says nothing. Hell, he probably saw straight through that ever-so-slightly condescending attempt at deflection. But Eddie can't bring himself to be all that worried about his tone as some very real panic sets in at the sound of the pot on the stove bubbling up a little too much.

He detaches himself from his partner, thinking that ruining dinner and taking Steve away from the television will start up a World War III, the likes of which he hasn't seen since the time he brought a stray cat into the apartment, who promptly hid in the closet and pooped in Steve's new Nikes.

"I am right," Steve says, all perky and chipper now as he pulls out a chair, "Can you, uh... Do the, uh..."

He trails off, looking at the phone's keypad and gesturing to the buttons.

Eddie reaches forward and plucks the phone from Steve's hand.

"I'll set up the three-way call for you later," he says, reading his mind. He presses a kiss to his forehead and sets the phone down on the table, "Promise."

"Lucas will be ready to talk at – "

"Eight o'clock," Eddie nods, "Just in time for the replay, I know."

He pats Steve on the shoulder with reassurance. When his husband finally takes a seat, Eddie heads off to the kitchen just in time to salvage their dinner.

[akitasimblr]

mad about dodo: the bachelor no one asked for... challenge 🌴🩷🌞

i know this is - probably - a mistake. but i can't help myself 😶 after watching dodo fail three attempts in bachelor/bachelorette challenges; deeply inspired by nafisa's bc (@flocy-sims); and somewhat persuaded that dodo needed his time to shine, am i right, @ethicaltreatmentofcowplants 😉? i decided to give dodo a bachelor challenge of his own.

who is dodo?

dodo, short for orlando harper, is a 7th generation spare. twin brother of the one and only, leonardo harper, and son of virginia harper and paolo rocca.

dodo is a sports enthusiast, being himself a one-star famous athlete. despite not having the ambitious and selfish nature of his twin brother and superstar actor, leo harper; orlando can be a somewhat attention seeker as well.

there’s nothing he loves more than to spend time at the gym or the football field. he’s not the romantic type... IN FACT, he performed many mean behaviours with all the bachelor and bachelorettes he interacted with 🙄 so i wonder, is there someone out there who could sweep dodo off his feet? that's what we'll find out, right?

important notes

the bachelor challenge will take place on sulani and will follow the island challenge's rules (with some adaptations here and there).

the bachelor and contestants will live off-the-grid and with just very basic survival items. they can’t leave the island (lot) and they are cut off from civilization completely.

first impressions + wicked whims will be in effect (but no adult content will ever be published). we'll be having rose cerimonies, solo dates, group dates and free days schedules. until we have only 7 sims left in the challenge, 3 sims will leave by round. also, leo harper is gonna try to steal the show once in a while 😄

submission rules

open to up to 21 contestants

no occults allowed

all sims/genders/sexualities are welcome

all previously existing skills will be erased to level 0

give them likes and dislikes at your will

only one outfit per category - remember they are on a deserted island so no polish attire is advised ;)

cc allowed to the amount of your desire, but keep it maxis match (i have all expansions, packs, stuff, so no worries)

give your sim a brief, medium or testamentary backstory (i will read everything!)

please tag me and use the tag #madaboutdodo with your entry! no deadline until i have all spots filled.

if you have any questions about it, feel free to send me a dm or leave a comment :) thank you so much!

🌴previous | next🌴

[kaleidoscopic-quiddity]

reading the bluelock light novels and theres so many fun lil character traits and info thrown in (probably not on the wiki bc the LNs dont have an official english release yet)

isagi was a crybaby and a scardy cat as a kid

he was also really senitive to sounds and they’d make him cry (he just like me fr)

isagi’s always had really great spacial awareness and vision, even as a toddler

nagi lived at student dorms at hakuho academy (which explains why his parents dont live w/ him)

he got into hakuho, an elite tokyo prep school, with only two weeks of studying

there were two different rumors abt nagi amongst his classmates, one saying if you talked to him you’d be cursed with bad luck and the other saying youd find happiness after talking to him, the curse rumor is more popular 

(nagi my poor guy, his classmates think hes a weirdo just bc hes quiet an not interested in rich kid pissing contests)

he also has the nickname of ‘thousand year netaro’ bc he sleeps in class so much lmao

he doesnt study but still gets good grades, at least in social sciences

nagi helps his class win a volleyball tournament (that he was forced to participate in) despite knowing nothing abt the rules purely based off of his height, reflexes, trapping skills, and desire to finish the game quickly so he can go home lmao

bachira refers to his mother by her given name, yuu, which would typically be disrespectful af in japanese culture but in this context i think it just displays how close they are + the fact that bachira’s first/best friend is his mama :’)

he walked (dribbled), slept rough, and hitchhiked all the way to osaka from chiba prefecture for 5 days just to go see one of her art exhibitions too

he got a fortune from a shrine that literally read  that he will meet his “ 運命の相手” - unmei no aite, literally ‘partner of fate’ or ‘fated partner’, bachisagi soulmate-isms r crazy

he won a 4 on 1 fight with a bunch of delinquents in osaka

rin liked ice cream but really he’d be happy with anything as long as sae bought it for him

the itoshi bros played for the kamakura united youth club, which won the U15 national league

they shared a bedroom growing up

rin gets bad grades in every subject other than english bc hes too busy thinking abt football, and hes only good at english bc he wants to go pro and play internationally

rin got into horror movies and games only after sae left for spain, he likes the thrill they give him, especially splatter films

he found a scene of someone getting chopped up w/ a chainsaw calming after he had a rough day,, damn okay rin in there anything u wanna talk abt edgelord?

“Perhaps because of this stress, he has recently been watching shark movies at night, where sharks attack humans. It’s refreshing to see a giant man-eating shark attack and munch on humans.”  what a fuckin chuuni oml

sae got trending on japanese football twitter for scoring a hattrick for real madrid’s youth team

rin did the tongue-out-in-concentration/bloodlust thing pre-bluelock too apparantly

he didnt talk to sae whilst he was in spain bc he didnt want to bother him but he kept up news of him and thought abt him a lot

“He thought he would just shout out loud “I'm the best in Japan!” and hug him, but in reality, that didn't work out that way” <- rins first thought seeing sae after 4 years, excuse me whilst i sob

chigiri went to a ‘jitsugyo’ school, which is like a vocational tech or business school, it also has a foreign name (’lacosute’) so its probably a private school, maybe missionary?

chigiri likes cats awww, there was specially a stray black cat he’d talk to and buy karinto manju for

his ACL is attached to his knee in an odd which which is why he can run so fast

chigiri stopped cutting his hair after he quit going to his school’s football club once he finished rehab for his knee

reo got baya to hire him a whole team of ppl including a coach, nutritionist, nurse, etc once he decided on football, fuckin rich ppl i swear 

all the adults who worked w/ reo sing his praises but also said how cheeky he was lmaooo

reo was learning english, spanish, and german in preperation for going pro

he also got a specially made football training VR facility made for him this boy i swear

reo bribed the hakuho football club w/ fancy meat and the opportunity to meet idols to get them to put more effort in

immediately upon meeting nagi reo notices his height and how ‘cool’ and ‘intense’ his trapping is like okay fruit

[tenjiiku]

heaven / au

You thought he was ugly when you first started. No one admits when they find someone unattractive. Something about it being too cynical and mean. And, sure, you heavily subscribed to the notion of objectivity — beauty is in the eye of its beholder. You could get behind that, especially considering that you did not reckon yourself to be the poster child of an ethereal vision. But, simply put, you did not behold him as such for the first few months.

The first few months.

Looking back, maybe you were being too hard headed. Ugly was probably not the right word to use. You didn’t care then, you don’t care now. You don’t care anymore. Frankly.

“Isagi Yoichi,” he introduced himself as — holding a cordial hand out to you as you awkwardly sat at your assigned desk. You didn’t know whether to stand up and shake it, or remain still. You remember making a weird movement as though you were about to get up, but, ultimately, you meet his eyes sitting down — craning your head.

He was not smiling. If anything it looked as though he was forced to introduce himself to you. He was thirty years old, six years your senior.

“L/n Y/n,” you murmured.

And that was that. For the first few weeks.

You still lived with your mother. As a result, you had access to free lunches. The others on your team did not — or, could not — afford such a luxury of having the time to make theirs. So, often, you found yourself going out with them at noon to a nearby hole in the wall place which sold freshly made sandwiches along with other items.

You remember not even noticing Isagi-san’s presence in the group. Not until he waves his hand in front of your face as you blankly stare at the walls covered in the shop owner’s family pictures. They were from Portugal.

“You want anything?” He had asked you.

Shyly, you had responded, “Uhm, no. I brought lunch.”

Isagi-san hadn’t pushed there, which you were relieved of. Making conversation with strangers was never your strong suit. But, once everyone had procured their lunches and you took a step out of the shop, he was right behind you.

You had felt something on your head. It was his hand. In it, a paper bag. Sheepishly, you had looked up and he had gently smiled down at you, handing it over.

“Their banana bread is great.”

Before you could have gotten a word out, he was already with the others.

A few weeks pass. Snow starts to fall. You got into an argument with your mother over your favourite red scarf she donated without consulting you. You ended up buying the same one for double its price, because some idiotic celebrity wore it once during a random November evening — the night of their divorce.

You are a terrible person. You think. But everyone around you thinks you are an airhead who is too stupid to be evil.

“What’s your favourite sport?” Haiba-san, a colleague of yours asks. He is standing by your cubicle, which is next to the personal coffee machine your team purchased years ago (Your office was closed concept, no one could enter without a key card. It is also why many various pictures of Isagi-san decorate a colleague of yours’ desk).

You don’t get the chance to answer. Haiba-san is already talking over you. You let him. You are better than him.

“Yoichi’s crazy about football. It’s an illness,” he jokes. Isagi-san stands a foot away, and your eyes flicker towards his frame. He’s already on his feet, shoving Haiba with a cackle. You let them argue for a while, playing the role of their captive audience. You are quite good at doing so, with all your years of practice.

Until, Isagi-san asks, “Do you play?”

He asks it softly, nothing like Haiba-san. You feel a bit sweaty despite it being below zero degrees celsius outside. Shyly, you shake your head — fearing your voice will crack if you try talking.

Isagi-san hovers, today. He doesn’t leave you to your peace like the day he bought you banana bread.

“Anything else?”

And you don’t know what compels you to answer. During the moment, you’d chalked it up to being too nervous to not give him an answer. Looking back, deep down, you knew you wanted to impress Isagi-san. He looked so interested — but not the way Haiba-san was, for his own self-satisfaction.

“I… used to play badminton… in high-school.” You’d whispered, not expecting any sort of reaction.

Isagi-san’s eyes had widened, and he’d made himself comfortable on a chair outside your cubicle.

“That’s cool,” he says, “You still play?”

You looked down at your lap like an idiot and shrugged your shoulders. You’re dumber than a dog. “Sometimes, when the weather is warm.”

Your petite colleague, Mari-san, interrupts the peaceful silence with an outlandish out of character statement. “I like hockey. Just watch a bunch of big dudes bully each other on ice. Very North American.”

You remember feeling very comfortable that day. That was the first time you felt like you belonged.

It didn’t snow much last year. It concerned you heavily. Was the Earth dying? What was the point of you working? You still had student loans to pay. What would it even matter if you died the next day? Hour? Minute? Second?

Papers drop down onto your desk. You jumped and turned down the audiobook you were listening to: All About Love by Bell Hooks.

“L/n-chan, could you please finish this for me? Please?” Mari-san’s pretty voice and pretty face and pretty eyes plead with you. And how were you to refuse a beautiful woman?

“Uh, sure,” you answered through a mouthful of your burrito. Never mind that it was lunch. You were new here, so you had to make your mark.

Your work extends into the evening. It feels nice, though. You don’t have much plans for Friday night. Sure, you had planned on heading home, taking a warm shower, eating a salad-sized bowl of pasta and touching yourself to a disgustingly cliche erotica — but you could do that any time. Saturday morning, for example.

A hand touches your shoulder. You almost launch out of your seat and hit the culprit right in the face. A familiar grunt reaches your ears. Then your eyes.

“Isagi-san,” you exclaim, “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry. I got scared.”

He only waves a hand and laughs. You look away, embarrassed. It was a bit ominous with the office lights automatically dimmed.

When he stands back up, wipes the tears that formed in the corner of his eyes and smiles down at you, he only but corrects the way you called him. “Yoichi.”

You didn’t know if it was because of the environment or if it was because you were ovulating, but Isagi-san looked particularly delicious in low lighting. With his sleeves rolled up to expose his forearms, the few buttons of his top undone at the top, and his usually kept hair ruffled after a long, gruelling day of work — you felt your stomach twist.

You feel gross.

“Seems like we’re both stuck doing overtime.” He jokes. You force a smile and internally kill yourself a million times, in a million different ways.

You sense his eyes gravitate to your monitors. On one, you were working on the few files Mari-san requested help with. On the other, a generic Tokyo News Channel plays, repeating the same news over and over again.

“The news?”

“It’s… nostalgic.”

Isagi-san smiles again, and you feel your hands sweat when he drags a chair to sit next to you.

“You’re a strange girl.” He sighs, “Let me help you.”

“I—,” Isagi-san doesn’t let you finish.

“Before the last train leaves.”

You look at him and try to think of any way to get him to leave. But the prospect of going home a little earlier than intended, and smelling his cologne for a while longer were tempting offers, indeed.

“Uhm… thanks.”

It is zero degrees in January and is raining when you leave. It is the end of the World but you run behind Isagi-san who holds your hand through the train station. The red scarf you adamantly refused to get rid of is wrapped around your neck and almost suffocates you from all of the hysteria. But you still cannot help but smile.

“Come on, come on, we’re gonna miss it!” Isagi-san hollers, and you laugh as he drags you as though you are his favourite bag.

He stops near the elevator which takes you up to the platform of the train and pales at the size of the crowd.

“Shit.”

Frantically, you look around, hoping to be of some use. It’s when you notice.

“S—Stairs!”

Isagi-san whips his head around to look at you and grins. Tugging you along, you cannot help but feel oddly giddy that you were of some use to him.

It feels nice. To be heard.

When you finally board the train with four minutes to spare (the conductor deciding to be a bit generous) you practically sink into the first empty window seat you spot. Isagi-san takes the one across from you. You look up at each other, sighing, then laugh.

Isagi-san looks very pretty with tears in his eyes from joy. You think this is the first time you’ve found a man attractive for all he is.

“What are you listening to?”

His voice is the same softness as it was all those months ago. You did not even notice you were still wearing your wireless earbuds. You also did not know why you grew so damn nervous all of a sudden in front of Isagi-san of all people.

“PJ Harvey…”

“An American artist?”

“I… like the melodies.”

He hums. You hold your breath, then you criticise yourself for holding your breath.

“Send me a playlist of her best, you’ve intrigued me.”

You can only nod. When the conductor announces that there is only a minute until departure, Isagi-san gets up and walks in the aisle.

“Get home safe, Y/n.”

Your eyes widen and you cannot help but involuntarily ask him, “This.. is not your train, Isagi-san?”

The man stills for a second. Then he only offers you a smile.

“Ah, nah. I take another line. It leaves in ten minutes. Thought I’d make sure you didn’t miss yours.”

You blink, not knowing what to say. And because Isagi-san is Isagi-san and he knows you and you know him, he takes the initiative to leave for you.

“Goodnight!”

The entire train ride home, you remember murmuring goodbye in twenty different tones, none of them the right one.

It only took you three nights and four days to realise: You think you like Yoichi. You don't think you've ever liked anyone before. There was Yamada-senpai in elementary school, but he made fun of your braces in front of all of his friends and ever since then you've sworn off on ever giving your heart to a filthy man.

You hate yourself. You can't help but say,

“H—Hello!”

When Isagi-san walks in. And he only ignores you. He looks dejected, like he has had a long night. You can only wonder about the possibility.

“Hey,"

Haiba-san thankfully asks the question which forms in your mind when Isagi-san takes his laptop from his cubicle, “Where are you heading, Isagi?!”

“Ah, I have a ton of work to do. Gonna sit in one of the offices outside.”

You think you like Isagi. He won’t spare you another glance.

Two weeks pass by. You tried to convince yourself you don't like Isagi-san. But then he wheels up into your cubicle again during lunch and acts as though nothing is wrong in the universe. You have been thinking about him nonstop for three hundred and thirty six hours and he treats you like you are his favourite bag. Still. Nothing has changed for him. Everything has, for you.

“What book is that?” He asks, eyeing the novel on your desk. You want to bash his skull in.

“Heaven by Kawakami.”

“I’ve heard of this.”

You want to hold his hand again. He picks it up.

“Is it any good?”

You want to stab his leg.

“Uhm, yeah, so far. A bit dark and disturbing, if you can handle it.”

You want to kiss his cheeks.

“Do you mind?”

You want to punch his dad.

“Go ahead.”

You want to never let him go.

The next day, after your spiral, he messages you on your work phone.

>> Ninomiya is terrible.

>> In Heaven.

Your heart races. You read his messages over and over again. You know it's small. You know it's terrible. You know this will hurt you. And it does.

In your eleventh month of working, you eavesdrop on Isagi-san and Haiba-san's conversation. Well, you do not really eavesdrop. More like they have their conversation right in front of your general vicinity. Half of you wonder if they know you even exist. Or, maybe, they care too little about your existence to deem you not a threat to their private gossip.

Isagi-san has a girl he likes.

“I keep telling her, I’m here for her, as a friend, you know. She’s just hung up on him.”

Isagi-san has a girl he likes.

“Still, you shouldn’t be harming yourself by doing this.”

Isagi-san has a girl he likes.

“What’s your opinion, L/n?”

You don't know why you were born this stupid. It was a bit cruel of God to do this.

“I… don’t know.”

Isagi-san is so soft with you. So gentle and sweet. He does not even realise what he's done, “You don’t have any advice?”

You can only nod, “I… wouldn’t know.”

They carry on their conversation. You leave. You don't see Isagi-san the rest of the week, and you are glad you don't.

Come three weeks, you grow anxious. You confide in Haiba-san.

“Where’s Isagi-san?”

“You didn’t know? He’s going to Europe for vacation.”

You don’t know why the news hits you as hard as it does. Why didn’t he tell you? Were you and Isagi even close enough to be considered friends? At times, he could be so sweet — enough for you to think that sweetness was only reserved for you. At others, he could be so cruel, always keeping you at an arm’s length from his life. Were you that untrustworthy to be let in? Were you that inexperienced he thought you stupid to understand? You were six years his junior — but you knew the world. You’ve known about it since you were twelve. Everyone in your life has deemed you dumb ever since you were a child. But you knew what you wanted and how you wanted it — no one in the entire universe could convince you otherwise. Not your mother, your brothers, your friends, or Yoichi.

And maybe that’s why the two of you could never work.

You cried for the first time that year. You have no one left to love. Bitter, cold and alone.

It feels like the End Of The World in July. 

[myheadphonesareneverloudenough]

Nerdy Prudes Must Die; musical motifs

i have so many thoughts about Nerdy Prudes Must Die and specifically the musical motifs used throughout. so buckle up, i want to talk. (theres a whole breakdown under the cut.)

so, if you didn't know already, Jeff Blim is a musical genius. and in the Hatchetfield universe, theres so many musical motifs that get used in every show. but there's one in particular that i don't know what to call it, but i'm gonna say it's 'the nerds' theme'. it's this one right here;

i've heard some call it Pete's theme, which is wrong. this specific melody is the theme of Pete, Richie, and Ruth's self worth and their inescapable tragedies. when we meet the three friends, it's very obvious that they see themselves at the bottom of the high school food chain. the nerds have accepted that they are worthless and will amount to nothing in school, because that is where society has placed them. it's as simple as Pete's song Cool As I Think I Am. he very literally does not see himself as valuable as the other students. but when that idea shifts from Cool As I Think I Am to Cool As She Thinks I Am, suddenly we have Pete realising his self worth, and the motif shows up;

and right after that, Pete is beat up in a parking lot by Max Jägerman. Pete's own self worth can only go so far when you have people like Max denying it constantly.

so now there's lyrics to this motif, and yes, Pete is the first one to sing it. But that doesn't make it any less Ruth and Richie's.

just like Pete, Richie finds his self worth in the acceptance from others. Once Max is gone and Richie makes friends with the football team, he realises how great it is to be alive. he realises that he deserves to be alive.

when Max comes to kill him, Richie justifies his self worth with the motif that returns for him this time, not Pete;

now they're not his final words, but Richie dies after declaring, "I'm Not A Loser". when he finally gets some self worth, he is murdered and never gets to fulfil that worth.

Ruth's self worth is a little different. she views her worthlessness as unfair. she believes that if she was different, she could be something great. unlike Pete and Richie, Ruth really shows that she has bigger dreams. Ruth wants to be the star of the show. she wishes to be appreciated, and her ungodly horniess can honestly be seen as a metaphor for wanting to be loved. Ruth sings about her self worth in the most Ruth way, with her own number in the BBQ Monologues.

the climax of the song (which Lauren kills, btw) the motif comes back again in the background. This time, it's for Ruth and her self worth;

does the fact that Ruth's version of the motif doesn't include the 'im not a loser' lyrics have to do with Ruth having more belief in herself? that she doesn't need to explain she isn't a loser because she knows she isn't a loser and deserves to have a chance in the spotlight? i sure as hell think so.

but Max kills her immediately after. he stops her from ever living out her big dreams of being a star.

the motif comes back again, obviously, in the reprise of Cool As I Think I Am;

the lyrics change this time around, and Pete sings 'you have to do it', which is him telling Steph that she has to be the one to kill him. despite Pete learning how to have self worth throughout this whole show, he still views himself as expendable. could this be justified with the fact that his two best friends just had their hopes and dreams shattered in death? probably. the point is, at some point during Max's killing spree, the death of his best friends, and the summoning of the Lords in Black, Pete has managed to convince himself that he's worthless again.

now. in the end, it feels like a happy ending due to the nature of The Best of You, but there are still a lot of loose ends to be explored. and on top of all that, the Nerds' motif comes back one last time;

because Grace kept the Black Book and continued to use it, and the Lords in Black are far from fair, i think Pete's torment and tragic narrative is not over by the end of NPMD.

so yeah. Pete, Richie, and Ruth are 'doomed by the narrative', as are most people in Hatchetfield. but these three characters are specifically doomed by their own self worth, and the narrative will never let them truly become their true selves.

and Jeff Blim wrote a banger melody to tell that story.

[eyesmadeofpearls]

Doom rant

Isabelle x doom guy is NOT canon. If you ship them fanonically, that's fine! But please stop taking one article you saw and running with it because its getting annoying for some of you non-doom fans to try and lecture me on what's "real".

First of all, Nintendo does not own the doom franchise. And second of all, Isabelle is three years old in human years. She's not going to drink jack Daniels she's literally a puppy, she's going to drink apple juice and cry when she gets a knee scrape. They're in two different universes and the picture of their marriage was uploaded to twitter by Bethesda, not the official doom account. Although Bethesda owns the rights, IT software still owns the game. The one where they hold hands is not official and is photoshopped. The official doom account on twitter tweeted things about it as a joke because new horizons and doom released on the same date making them friends. In fact, in smash bros doom guy is a costume for the mii gunner, he is not an actual playable character. If john Romero was still working on doom, i doubt he'd be okay with them getting "married". John Carmack himself said they're just friends. Not to mention that Isabelle is an anthropomorphic dog?? He wouldn't have cute tea parties with her and would probably try to kill her at first because she talks and she stands on two legs. If you've played the game then you know that animals can become corrupted and remnant souls. Also, despite his helmet being able to detect hell energy, we've already seen that some demons don't have any in them. He'd likely think she's either 1. a hallucination (doom 64, his hallucinations never went away) or 2. she's a zombified human in a football mascot costume. There is nothing in his universe that looks like her at all, and the whole point of his character is to be untrusting of literally everything. I mean for crying out loud he shut himself away from humanity for a time being when everything was temporarily over. If he ever dated anyone again, it would be a human. Also who's to say she wont just die? She doesn't have any special abilities, she's a dog with no weapons against demons. She wouldn't even be able to find him at first she'd be wandering around. And again, there are demons that look human enough but are truly vile. He wouldn't trust her for a long time. Besides, how would she even make a portal to his world if the only existing portal around is one to hell? He'd question if she's from hell herself.

He's a grown man who's been alive for eons without dating anyone. He can live a life alone and he literally chooses to be loyal to his wife and son, he doesn't need a plus one. He's always been loyal both to daisy and his wife. If he hasn't given up on daisy what makes you think he'd give up on his wife and kid? He even cut himself out of the picture he keeps on his desk in the newer game because he blames himself for their death. Its implied he was killing a demon boss for killing daisy while his wife and child were burning to death in a village during the first invasion. The khan maykr has unused lines where he mentions doom guys wife and child and doom guy picks up the picture, there was also supposed to be cut scenes about them but things were time sensitive. The picture being under his table is because he cant bare to look at them, not because he moved on. Its meant to be an easter egg and tear jerker, you're not supposed to look too hard into it.

(in the original 1993 version John Romero wanted to make a story but John carmack was rushing it because he wanted people to look at the game and be surprised by the coding and graphics. John carmack was the brains and john romero wanted story but the story was dropped.) It wasn't until doom eternal that Bethesda gave him a proper storyline while John Romero retired from working on the franchise. He then handed it over to john Carmack who decided with Microsoft that he would have a wife and son named Chloe and hunter. Daisy daisy still exists, it's just that your dead bunny isn't exactly a proper reason to go to hell and back (quite literally). Not to mention John Romero okayed this choice as well in an interview but i forget which one. In short you don't need to worry about the game being "different" or think that it ruins the game somehow. The whole "he's a virgin!!" thing was retconned 10 years ago bud. Consider how the bit might be fake because its only source is a potentially made up screenshot whose true source was never tracked down. I also wouldn't be surprised in John Romero added him having a wife and kid And to all the "maybe he's just john wick" commenters have you considered that the dog was a gift to john wick by his wife? Because there isn't a real reason to get that enraged over an animal unless its of course that. The plot has plot holes but i head canon that the bunny was his sons bunny and losing daisy was like losing apart of his son. I feel like wife and kid or not, daisy or not, he'd still fight because who wouldn't? Humans are dying, what else can you do?

The former humans pretend to be your own soldiers, why would he trust her?

[futbol16]

The other Williamson •  Leah Williamson

Request: "Can we please have a Leah x younger sister, where she’s kinda been living in Leah’s shadow and she feels like its never enough 🥺 On her birthday they have an important day so Leah, her family and most of the girls unintentionally forgot her special day. However, they don’t find out until she gets badly injured on the pitch and in the ambulance Leah is with her of course not leaving her sisters side they ask for her date of birth and it all comes crashing down for Leah. Keira and Lucy were also with her in the ambulance and they all try to console Leah, Keira feelings horrible as well since Y/N had been her best friend since U-11’s"

Word count: 1,8k

Growing up as Y/n Williamson was awesome. You got a cool older sister, a sweet younger brother and the three of you could play football together growing up.

Being Y/N Williamson had been awesome until it no longer was. Because Y/n Williamson was just the little sister of Leah Williamson, captain Leah Williamson. The 25 year old that captained England to the Euro’s and won the tournament. Ever since then, being Y/n Williamson hadn’t been too awesome.

Although you had been one of the top goal scorers for England, even before the Euro’s, it wasn’t the same as captaining the team to Europe’s biggest tournament. And people made sure to let you know that. It wasn’t like you didn’t know, Y/N would come second and Y/N would rarely get asked about anything else that’s not her sister in interviews.

You knew the routine by now.

 You thought maybe it would be different today, on your day. 22 years ago was when you first saw the light of the day, November the 15th. Leah had always gone all out for your birthdays, claiming that she had to be the best sister and what better way to prove that to you than spoiling you on your birthday? 

However, that didn’t seem to be the case this year. You woke up alone, your roommate had already gone down for breakfast and even as you entered the cafeteria no one even spared a glance at you. It was weird seeing as most of the time everyone would be buzzing on a teammate’s birthday, but you chalked it up to it being a matchday, an important matchday against Norway.

You sat next to Keira in silence, she had been your closest friend growing up despite her and Leah being closer in age. Your best friend was focused on the match ahead and didn’t even look up from her plate. Nothing different there, maybe you were just making up things.

But as you turn on your phone and see no messages, you start to get more confused. Usually your mum or Jacob would be the first people to wish you a happy birthday, but nothing. You shrugged at it, they were probably still sleeping…at 9am on a Tuesday.

Later as you sit in the locker room you start questioning yourself. Did they forget? Or maybe they’re just too focused on the match? Yeah, that’s definitely it.

“Hey, what’s the date today?” Georgia is the one asking the question and for a second you look up, curious as to what was going to happen next. 

“The 15th mate, already forgot?” Your sister asks with a chuckle.

“Oh alright then. Thought my flight back was on the 15th but I guess nothing too important today.” the girl chuckles with a shake of her head. 

There it is, confirmed. Your best friends have totally forgotten that it’s your birthday. Ouch.

Heading out for warmups before the match, you pass by Anthony, one of the media guys and you smile at him politely.

“Big day, no Y/N?” he asks, camera in his hand recording you. 

“Yeah yeah, big one.” you answer rather confused as to what he was hinting at.

“Happy birthday Y/N! Number 22.” he cheers and you laugh at his antic, although surprised that he knew. 

“Thank you, see you later Antonio!” you wave at him.

“The name’s Anthony.” he laughs at you.

The match had been intense with almost equal possession of the ball, though your team had been off to a great start as you assisted Rachel to a goal in the 33rd minute.

The girls thought it would stay that way, and it did, for a good bit. Until you went down in the 79th minute of the match. A rough tackle that ended with you groaning into the grass beneath you, arm cradled close to your chest and a heavy pounding in your head.

With you on the ground and no one to match the speed of the Norwegians, Frida Manuum scores in the 80th minute, equalizing. 

Yet it’s the least of Leah’s concern as she kneels next to you, closely followed by Keira kneeling on your other side. The two girls try to get you to turn on your back, but as you make no move to do so, they gently turn you over themselves.

The first thing you hear is your sister’s gasp, the first thing you see though is the face Keira makes as she looks down at your arm. Mhmm, so this was more than just an ‘I fell on it and it’s bruising’ kind of hurt. 

Your sister starts talking and you’re trying so hard to focus, to only focus on her even as the medical team arrives and places you on a stretcher, but it’s no use because suddenly, or actually rather slowly the world around you turns black. 

“She’s down!” one of the medic yells frantically, it was never good if a player fell unconscious after a tackle. Your team can barely blink before you’re lifted off the field and into the back of an ambulance standing at the side of the pitch. 

Leah’s heart is beating out of her chest, she has no clue what to do. She wants to go with you, not leave her little sister alone in pain, but she also had a match to play, a match with 10 more minutes left on the clock.

Keira’s shouting breaks her out of her thoughts and she follows the girl as she pulls her along to where Sarina stands with one of the Ambulance people. They’re both ordered to go with you in the Ambulance, Lucy following the two.

The team would be fine, they had a bunch of new players waiting to make their debut. The three of them had more important things to do though.

They sit in the back of the ambulance, next to where you’re laying. It’s a bit stuffed with all three of them sitting there and the EMT guy as well. You’ve got a mask on your face, breathing in some painkillers.

“Y/N Williamson, right?” he asks them, the three nod.

“Female, 21…date of birth?” he asks, looking up from his clipboard.

“November 15th, 2000.” Leah answers instantly, hand resting on the forearm of your good arm.

“Ahh, so 22 years old then? Not the best birthday I suppose.” the man chuckles humorlessly. Leah’s head snaps at him, mouth parted slightly.

No, no this couldn’t be it, it wasn’t your birthday today. There’s simply no way she could have forgotten. She looks at the other two and her heart breaks as Lucy nods in confirmation.

She had forgotten her little sister's birthday. 

Head in her hands, she stares at your face, disappointed in herself and sorry for you.

“Leah, we all forgot. It’s okay, she’ll understand.” Lucy tries to comfort her, but it’s no use.

“Yeah but I’m her sister, I should know!” she replies, frustratedly smacking her knee. She's so glad the EMT guy decides to stay out of this. Lucy is taken aback a bit, but she recovers quickly.

“Oh god, I completely ignored her today too.” Keira mumbles sadly, reaching out to stroke her thumb over your forehead. You had been her best friend since you were 7. Well you were 7 and she was 9, the two of you in the U-11 team. That’s where you first met, it’s where the two of you had become the best of friends, going strong ever since. Keira doesn’t think she’s ever felt as bad as she does now.

The rest of the ride to the hospital is spent in silence, the two women closest to you sitting with frowns on their faces as Lucy attempts to console the two as best as she can.

They sit in the waiting room as your arm is put into a cast and you get something for your head. Leah hasn’t said a word since the nurses have taken you away, she has sat in complete silence for the past hour. Elbows on her knees, chin resting on her fist and that aggressive furrow of her eyebrows apparent on her face. 

Keira shoots up from her seat in surprise when you walk out alone, blue cast on your right arm and kept in a sling. She’s quick to pull you into a tight hug, muttering apologies to you, only feeling worse when you keep reassuring her that it was okay. 

“Kei, it’s fine, I promise.” you tell her sincerely as you hold onto her.

“How can I make it up to you?” a tiny smile makes its way onto your face, knowing she won’t give up.

“Chicken nuggets?” the two of you laugh before you’re embraced by Lucy. You find comfort in the older woman’s neck.

“You better have my autograph on that by tonight!” she jokes referring to your cast, and you’re glad you get to laugh after the events of the day.

Leah is standing behind them, unsure what to do as she questions whether you’d be too upset with her. All those thoughts vanish though as you walk towards her with a silly smile.

“Blue’s my favorite color so I begged them to get me that one, they had to take it from a baby.” you giggle as you tell her the story but you soon stop as you realize she’s not laughing with you. “Lee?”

She clenches her jaw, eyes watering. 

“Gosh Y/N, I’m so sorry.” she starts rambling, something you’ve gotten very used to over the years of growing up together, but you stop her from continuing. 

“I know, Leah. It happens -”

“But it shouldn’t!” she cuts you off, that scowl she wore in the ambulance reappearing. You take her by the hand.

“And it never has before, you were just too focused on the match today. It is okay, Lee.” you nod at her, relieved when she nods back, pulling you into her. You eventually part as you realize you still haven’t moved from the hospital waiting room and you’d very much like to leave this facility as soon as possible.

“So how about those chicken nuggets? I could eat some right now.” you comment as the four of you walk out the door, the other three laughing at the grin you have.

Being Leah Williamson’s sister might not always be too awesome with the media,, but you would be fine as long as you had your big sister with you. To her, you’d always be the number 1 Williamson.

[cherryliqueurkinks]

teacher of the year - chapter 3

Veronica has quite the long weekend ahead of her.

pairing: veronica lodge/original male character

READ ON AO3

The first long weekend of the school year should've been the brief yet beloved reprieve that Veronica was looking for, but she hadn't dared hope that Jordan would take it easy on her. He'd grown impossibly bolder and cockier since fucking her against every surface in the Bulldogs workout room well into the night, as if seeing her squeeze herself into a slutty Vixens uniform and walk through the school at his command made him realize how much control he truly had over her. Never mind the fact that it was after hours and the chances of her actually getting caught were slim at best. She'd done it despite the risk to her job and her reputation, simply because he wanted her to, and every day he seemed to find a new way to see how far he could push her.

Turns out, he can push pretty damn far when he's dangling the last shreds of her dignity from his fingertips.

Which is how she finds herself anxiously glancing over her shoulder as she stands on his doorstep, praying that she'll make it inside unnoticed. The street is empty, half of the cars gone as families are eager to get a head start out of town for the holiday weekend, but still. If Riverdale has taught her anything, it's to assume that someone is always watching.

She flinches when the door swings open, and then Jordan is filling the doorway in nothing but a towel cinched loosely around his hips, his hair damp dripping water onto his bare chest, and Veronica's stomach clenches tightly. She almost glances over her shoulder again, worried someone will choose now to walk by, while her student is half-naked and she's on his front step with an overnight bag hooked over her shoulder, but she knows her panic would only amuse him.

"Right on time, Ms. L," Jordan drawls, his smirk wide and his eyes glinting. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were eager to get our weekend started."

Veronica presses her lips together. With his parents already gone for the long weekend, Jordan would've had three full days to have her at his mercy, but of course he couldn't simply settle for that. If it wasn't for his football practice, he probably would've expected her within an hour of the dismissal bell, or perhaps he would've ditched the idea of having her pack a bag altogether, so he could've taken her straight home with him instead.

There's at least a little reprieve with the Connors living in the wealthier half of town, where the properties are larger and the houses are further apart, promising some semblance of privacy while Jordan has her at his beck and call. She can only imagine the things he has in mind in her, without the threat of interruption or getting caught to put a damper on his fun.

As if hearing her thoughts, he flashes his teeth in a smile as he finally steps aside to let her in. "We're going to have so much fun together."

-

If Veronica thought that he'd start off rough, bending her over the closest surface and making her come hard and fast just as he'd done countless times in her own classroom, she was wrong.

Instead, what must be over an hour after stripping out of her clothes in the middle of his foyer, Veronica finds herself tangled with him on the chaise of the couch, trying in vain to keep from grinding against his thick, muscular thigh as she continues jerking his cock off with her cum-covered fist. He'd already come once, splattering his abs and her fingers with his milky seed, but he'd ordered her not to stop. He'd stayed impossibly hard after his orgasm, twitching and pulsing in her hand, and her cunt grew slicker with envy where his thigh was tucked between hers.

The worst part? She'd gotten wet entirely on her own, from nothing but the friction of his skin against her cunt and the musk of his scent in the air, until she's practically humping his leg with how much she's squirming.

All the while, Jordan barely pays her any attention, his eyes fixed on the porn he pulled up on the ridiculously massive flat screen mounted to the wall as a schoolgirl was being eaten out in front of them. The camera was zoomed in on the sight of her plaid skirt bunched around her hips, her bearded professor taking slow, languid, teasing licks of her swollen cunt, the wet sounds and her wanton whimpers filling the vast space of the living room in surround sound.

Veronica nearly whimpers in harmony with the girl as her own cunt tingled, her clit throbbing, desperate for the same attention.

When Jordan comes again, it's with a low, rumbling groan that Veronica feels with the way she's pressed against him, hips jutting up into her fist as more sticky, hot cum spurts over her hand. She hates that her mouth nearly waters at the heady, salty scent of it, that she has the strongest urge to lick her own fingers clean, her cunt clenching as if it's milking every drop for itself.

"Shit," Jordan grunts out with a laugh as he finally bats her hand away, the last tremors of his orgasm washing over him as he winds an arm around Veronica's waist and tucks her even tighter against him. "With how wet my thigh feels, Mr. L, I would've thought you just came, too."

Her face flushes with heat, yet it doesn't stop her writhing against his hold as she tries to grind against him for any semblance of friction and relief from the tingling in her cunt.

"Don't be shy." He smacks her ass hard, making her gasp. "If you want to come, you know what to do."

Veronica bites her lip, cheeks growing hotter with indignation, but that doesn't stop her from beginning to hump his leg in earnest. It's embarrassing, just how easily she's come to follow his command, regardless of how degrading they truly are, but she can't focus on anything right now that finally tipping over the edge of pleasure she's been dangling off.

She clutches at his broad shoulders, thick and toned from football, wondering not for the first time how a teenager could have this kind of body on him. If she closed her eyes and desperately tried to block out the shame, with a matured, imposing physique like his, she could almost pretend that it wasn't her own student that was manhandling her, making her come faster and harder than she has since she was back in high school.

Veronica tucks her head into his shoulder as she grinds her clit hard and quick against his hip, gasping, feeling the pleasure beginning to tighten at the base of her spine, but then Jordan is clamping his large hand around her throat and forcing her head back.

"I don't think so," he chides, gripping her chin so she has no choice but to hold his gaze as she humps his leg to orgasm. "None of that hiding shit with me, Ms. L. When you come, I want you to know exactly whose body you're coming all over."

Veronica moans as she tightens her legs around him, eyelids falling half-closed as her cunt begins spasming with her orgasm against his leg. It isn't nearly as satisfying as coming from his tongue or his fingers or his cock, yet she chases the high with desperate, sloppy jerks of her hip against his thigh, staring up at the smug expression on Jordan's face as her vision blurs at the edges from pleasure. He jerks her head closer, licking into her gasping mouth with a deep kiss, and Veronica practically purrs as the waves of pleasure continue crashing over her.

She hates how much she loves this.

"Atta girl," he murmurs, the praise coming out like the taunt it truly is as he sucks on her tongue and nips at her lips. Then he tucks his fingers into her hair, tugging, and Veronica gasps as he guides her off and shoves her face down on his lap. "Now make sure you clean up every last drop. Don't want my parents finding out we christened their brand new couch, do you?"

-

After he'd finally let her come, it's as if he made it his goal to do it again and again and again, as fast and slow and hard and deep as he could, and on every surface of his house he could throw her against or bend her over.

He splayed her out on the dining table, sucking on her clit until she squirted all over the linen tablecloth.

He bent her over the kitchen island, clamping his hand around her throat as he fucked her from behind until she was shuddering around his cock, nearly on the verge of passing out.

He dragged her into his parents' ensuite bathroom, sitting on the built-in shower bench and making her ride him through two orgasms as he groped her with soapy hands.

And now he has her spread out on her back across the plush carpet of the study, her hips lifted in the air with his bruising grip as he fucked her with deep, hard strokes, making her eyes roll back as he hit that sweet spot inside of her again and again. Veronica can feel the pleasure swirling in her stomach too tightly and too quickly, but she can't do anything but take it, clawing at the carpet and keening out as he squeezes out yet another orgasm out of her. She's trembling from the force of it, practically gasping for air as it crashes over her, and Jordan grunts as he snaps his hips harder and faster.

Then he's curling over her, biting down on one of her nipples and then sucking it harshly, sloppily, as his cum spills deep inside of her. Veronica whines, squirming as the sensations of his mouth on her tits drags out her own pleasure, making her quiver from the tremors of her orgasm, but his weight keeps her pinned in place as he spurts rope after rope of his seed inside of her. She can feel it already starting to drip out despite how tightly her cunt is clamped around his cock, and she hates that her clit practically tingles in response, as if it wants even more.

Everything feels heady and hazy, so much so that she can only manage a whimper in response as he gathers her in his arms and lifts her up with ease. It's ridiculous how Jordan hardly seems to break a sweat no matter how hard he fucks her or how many times he's come, but she supposes it shouldn't be a surprise. Not only is he young, but he's also an athlete.

And without any practices or games for the next three days, he seems determined to burn off all his energy on her.

Veronica feels him slip his cock from her tingling pussy right before he practically drops her down onto leather chair sitting behind the large, oak desk, even more of their cum leaking out of her and onto the cushion. The very same cushion his father no doubt sits atop every day. She feels her cheeks burn out of mortification, but she's simply too exhausted to even attempt to scramble off.

Jordan grins at her smugly as if he knows this, too, hooking both of her knees over the arms of the chair so that she's spread out even more, more cum oozing out from her glistening cunt.

"Looks like you upgraded from hot teacher to naughty professor," he taunts, flashing his teeth in a wide smile as he picks up a feathered quill from its perch on the desk. "The only thing missing is your fuck me glasses, but that's okay. We got all weekend to get to the fun stuff." He drags the tip of the quill along the inside of one thigh, making her shiver at the ticklish sensation, until he drags it against her throbbing clit and she jolts in the chair. She nearly draws her legs closed, but his other hand shoots out to grip her knee to stop her, and she whimpers as she eases her legs back over the arms of the chair once more. "Don't worry, Ms. L," Jordan says, licking his lips as he swirls the quill around her clit once more, relishing in the way she trembles. "I know your cunt needs a break. Luckily, your little clitty looks like she's ready to play."

Veronica strains to keep her legs open as he brings the quill back to her throbbing little bundle of nerves, reaching up to grasp the back of the chair as her spine arches and her legs quiver. Every brush of the feather has her clit tingling and twitching, her cunt oozing more cum out of its folds as it clamps over aching emptiness, and she feels herself panting from the effort not to clamp her legs shut against the ticklish sensation against her overstimulated sex.

Occasionally, he drags the now-damp tip up to her tits, brushing it across her ribs, the underside of her breasts, her pebbled nipples, until her mouth is parting in a silent moan and her eyelids are fluttering shut. Then he drags it back down, circling her clit again and again, and she digs her nails into the chair as she mewls with every pass of the quill.

She feels impossibly aroused yet again, pleasure swirling low in her stomach until she finds herself trying to roll her hips up into the featherlight friction.

She's so distracted by it that she doesn't notice that he's come to stand right beside her until his other hand is tangling in her hair, yanking her close enough to thrust his cock into her gasping mouth. He continues twirling the feather over her clit, making her whine and moan around his thickness as he bumps his tip against the back of her throat with every thrust, his pace slow enough not to distract her from her impending orgasm but fast enough that she struggles to catch her breath. Which, of course, only serves to push her closer to her peak as she begins to tremble from the pleasure tightening inside of her.

"All you need is my cock and you're ready to come again," Jordan taunts, snapping his hips and hitting the back of her throat as he brushes the quill against her clit, and Veronica chokes out a cry around his cock as her orgasm bursts through her. He chuckles and fucks her face in earnest, gripping her hair even tighter, and her eyes nearly roll back. "Whether it's pounding your pussy or your mouth, you can't get enough, can't you, Ms. L?"

He yanks her head back, tossing the quill aside as she squirms through the waves of her orgasm, and then he's gripping his cock and tugging it in quick jerks. "How does it feel to be hooked on your own student's cock?" He guides himself closer, until his tip is practically bobbing against her cheeks and lips, painting her flushed skin and swollen mouth as his milky seed begins to spurt out of him. "To crave the taste of your student's cum?"

It splashes across her face, some of it dripping into her mouth and onto her tongue as she pants through her own orgasm, and she nearly moans at the oh so familiar taste as its musky scent fills her senses.

When the last of it has splashed across her chin and her neck, he shoves tow cum-slick fingers into her mouth, humming in smug satisfaction as she instantly begins sucking his sticky seed from his fingertips.

"Fucking greedy girl," he chuckles, and her eyes dart up to his as he shoves his fingers a little deeper. "Don't worry, Ms. L. I've got a lot planned for us this weekend, so you'll get your fill of cock and cum. Or maybe not," he adds, eyes glinting. "You are a Lodge, after all. Once you're hooked on something, you can't ever be satisfied, can't you?"

[urban-caravan]

PLEASE tell me about your ocs. i am desperate to know what is going on with them.

oh gosh, okay!! so they're kinda new (sorta, i've had the idea of them for like a year and some change and have only started to give them actual thought and refinement for a week) so nobody really has names yet

The basic premise is that a serial killer and a detective from the 1950s kill each other and then reincarnate in the same town decades later wherein they meet again in the 1980s and the spirit of the serial killer begins haunting them

So first up is John Doe

He's very rich and a prominent figure in the community. No One suspects him for the horrific murders occurring for the past 9 months in Sleepytown, Nowhere USA

Is gay and the most repressed man on god's earth. Abusive and strict upbringing made him obsessed with performing his role in society perfectly. His victims are usually people who make that more difficult for him or complicate his purposefully narrow worldview.

Becomes deeply fixated with The Detective during the investigation and starts giving himself little allowances to get closer to him. This causes him to spiral near the end as he starts sloppily making up for his indiscretions by killing more people.

The Detective

is also gay, and jewish

he's also a cop which is unfortunate (when his reincarnation finds out he thinks its very cringe and makes him actually rly bummed out) and becomes a cop both out of an innate desire to right wrongs but also the very less noble reasoning of wanting to gain and enforce power over the world around him to abate the innate helplessness he feels about his lot in life. this is subconscious obv. He's the lead detective on John Doe's case.

is also repressed but in a more "I'm just not going to deal with it" sort of way

very blunt and no nonsense in contrast to John Doe who at least puts on an act of being charming and sociable. he develops some feelings for John Doe despite his temperament tho. thinks about maybe moving away with him somewhere else but then OH NO HE KILLS PEOPLE

flashforward to the 80s

Johnny Doe The Sequel to John Doe

would you believe it if he was also gay?

Reincarnation of the serial killer of whom he only knows vaguely about just from living in the same town.

Also raised by very strict and domineering father/neglectful mother. By the time he was born his whole life was already planned out for him. Before meeting his boyfriend he was the most rigid and textual example of "Red-blooded American teenage boy in a small town". However, after meeting his boyfriend he grew out his hair, quit football, questions authority, and listens to better music.

Uncomfortably dependent on his boyfriend, which is why they are now exes. He is very much not over it and is constantly thinking of how they can get back together. He thinks that the boyfriend was the best part of his entire life and the boyfriend thinks that's very sad and he should have more of a life.

The Boyfriend

gay and jewish once again. the eternal constants in the sea of souls

big music fan, but his favorite band is abba

very sarcastic and anti-authority. also doesn't take anything lying down. almost got expelled his first week of highschool when he cracked a lunch tray across the face of a guy who called him slurs. this is the moment johnny doe sights as where he first fell in love.

is convinced he's going to die in a nuclear exchange in a few years so he figures why not live his truth and be gay in the meantime. unfortunately this also means he commits to almost nothing and never plans for the future. this is probably a bigger factor on why he dumped johnny doe. he stills has feelings for him though, even if he acts like he doesn't.

he's somehow not very surprised, but still disappointed, to find out his clingy ex murdered him in a passion in a past life.

um. tl;dr

[actor-max-irons]

Condor, Episode 1, Season 1

I know this series came out in 2018 but I love Max Irons so once I saw he was starring in it I couldn't resist giving it a watch!

(Read on IF you can handle Spoliers)

Things really kick off once CIA Analyst, Joe Turner(Max Irons)is on a run and his friend who also works in the CIA, Sam, calls him into his office...Joe is told that the CIA has found a suspicious person using a program he created 2 years ago(and had forgotten about). They tell him they've been monitoring a Saudi muslim immigrant man for 6 weeks(who wasn't even on their radar before using Joe's tech)and find out this man has gotten an unknown package from a secret P.O. box and is on his way to a football stadium(where the suspect works)with 80,000 people inside...but Joe's program wasn't supposed to be used on US citizens...and his uncle Bob, who's in the CIA too, is the one who's been misusing Joe's programming...the CIA is also planning to kill the suspect(despite having NO real evidence he's dangerous)and Joe is NOT on board with their plan at all...

Joe's uncle, Bob: "You wrote the program, Joe."

Joe: "Yeah, I did, so you guys would know who to look at, but not through the scope of a fucking sniper rifle."

(Up above is just a little snippet of Joe arguing with his uncle, Bob, about killing a man who's and I quote Max Irons himself here: "Now forgive me for taking a second to contemplate the 88% likelihood that this man is guilty of nothing more than coming from the wrong country and applying for the wrong fucking job").

Joe leaves after arguing over the life of a possibly innocent man...and to make things even more complicated for poor Joe, he ends up going on a date he forgot about with a woman his friends(Sam and Mae)set him up with on Tinder....and this is just the first 15 minutes of the episode, there's so much more tension and murder and lust(yes Max Irons' character, Joe Turner, has sex with a girl he met at the bar and doesn't even know her name). If you don't like spicy scenes, might want to just skip past this but I feel like it actually contributes to the plot(trust me when I say it's MORE than just a sex scene)so things might get confusing later on if you don't watch it...otherwise I'll leave it to you to watch the 1st episode and see how Joe goes from arguing with his uncle about killing a man to banging a girl he just met to everyone he works with in the office dying...

Sidenote: Without anymore spoilers, I'd like to say Condor(at least from what I've seen so far since I've only watched the 1st episode)is a really good series and Max Irons does an amazing job playing Joe Turner, making him a very believable character, which is good since some characters just seem so unrealistic and not relatable making it hard to believe someone like this could ever really exist but NOT with the way Max Irons plays Joe. This episode also makes people(or at least me anyway)really think about those hard, morally questionable times you get into sometimes where there's not one obvious answer but you're still trying to make the right call(like in Joe's case where he has to decide whether or not a man who hasn't actually done anything wrong and he's 88% sure is innocent should live or die).

The show also seems to play heavily on the government, whether it's corrupt or not, if all the people in it are truly evil, where to draw the line on protecting the public...on the surface it probably just looks like a dramatic, action series but it's honestly so much more than that and I might've went into this just wanting to watch Max Irons in the leading role but I came out hooked on this amazing show! Seriously I really hope you guys will give Condor a watch!

[absolutesort]

FRANKIE & MILES — NIGHT THIRTY-SIX.

location :   bedroom. 

time :   milkie talk abt where their heads are at post-recoupling.

featuring :  miles /  @heatwayve

miles o'sullivan

his speech for frankie had felt right in the moment, a sort of public admission that he was ready to be all in for her – at least, whatever that means in the context of the show. the recoupling had been a weird, out-of-body experience for him, something he’d seen before on tv, like a massive cultural phenomena at this point, but he’d never been part of it. felt so surreal to get that text, and he’d sort of just . . . blacked out and said things, not really feel like a person again until frankie was sat back at his side around the firepit. but now he’s not sure – after their fight, it might’ve been, like, too much? not enough? well, nothing he can do about it now. “hi,” voice soft and low as he turns to his side in their bed, arm snaking around her waist to pull her close to him. he’s got no problem with making it a long night in the bedroom, but he wouldn’t have minded being the ones to score the living room. but they might as well try this ‘talking’ thing out. “how’re you feeling? about tonight. you’re not pissed that eden foster didn’t choose you, are ya?” he asks, a bit of a smirk lifting the corners of his lips. "can do a great impression of an australian accent to make up for it." no, he can't.

𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐚 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨.

sliding into bed beside him, frankie turns to look over her shoulder in an emphasised bit, before clicking. “oh! that hi is to me?” just checking he’s not looking over her shoulder for charlene. “hi,” she says back, flinching with a cold little shiver when his hand meets her skin, but gripping his wrist and sliding it up her side anyway. tonight’s not a sexy pyjama night — she’s too exhausted to faff about with lacing and clipping herself into something just to take it off — instead she’s wearing his american footballer crop top, had stuffed it away under her pillow before the props team gathered up all the costumes, kept like a serial killer’s keepsake from their latest victim. her leg slides between both of his and hooks behind his knee, knotting their limbs together in an irish-american pretzel of body parts. eyes roll, smirk pinching in the left hand corner of her mouth as she bites back a grin. “i’m actually pissed she didn’t pick you. i was so excited to finally couple up with dante.” the statement is too laughable for him to take it at face value. frankie could probably scrawl everything she knew about that guy across her pinkie finger with a biro and still have empty space. “yeah? you been taking classes since the last time you tried? is there a love island improv group i don’t know about?” her finger slides over the dip of his cupid’s bow, tracing the outline of his mouth. “your speech was cute.” cute enough that thinking about it now has her cheeks heating up ; she’s thankful for the dark even if means his face is half in shadow. “bit intense, though. that bit where you said you’re all about me…? um... talk about lovebombing.” she tries to keep her face serious, but only manages a few seconds before she’s peeling into laughter, mouth finding his in the dark to stifle it. “i’m joking,” she clarifies between kisses, not wanting to allow any room for missed communication. “i liked it.”

miles o'sullivan

"yeah, i knew it. it's the accent, isn't it? i can't beat it," he sighs like he's defeated, leaning back on the pillow. but other than that, his hands don't leave her, legs getting tangled up with hers. he's pulling her on top of him a bit by the waist, trying to eliminate the space between them – despite the fact that sort of thing has proven to be terribly distracting any time the two of them attempt to have a serious conversation about anything. "yes, and?" he jokes, a kiss pressed to the tip of her finger as she traces the outline of his lips. "nah, can you imagine if we had an improv troupe? we're already insufferable, right? they'd literally cancel the program." he knows that she's joking about his speech, but his heart pitches at the sentiment. he'd gathered from their conversation on the gym that she was ready for it if he wanted to be full on, that it was what she actually wanted – for him to stop chatting to other girls. he doesn't hate the idea either, of course, when her lips find his in the dark, one arm snaking around her waist to hug her closer, the other on the back of her neck, deepening the kiss until he feels dizzy and breathless, glad that they're laying and not standing. "i know," he laughs, too, teeth nipping at her lower lip. "that you were joking. that you liked it . . . i'm only just picking up on that." his hand cups her cheek, thumb gently tracing at her skin, wanting to feel the way her smile pinches at her cheeks. "honestly, i fucking hate the idea of you like this with anyone else. and i don't think i could be like this with anyone else either."

𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐚 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨.

“shut the fuck up. your accent is way sexier than his.” frankie assures him, low in her throat as her mouth travels up along his jaw, teeth pulling at the lobe of his ear. “i love it when you start talking about something and don’t stop. it’s hot. talk to me about the offside rule or something.” frankie’s more than happy to follow miles’ lead when he pulls her on top of him, swinging her leg over to straddle his hips, knees tucking in against his waist until their bodies are flush as sardines in a tin, her chin resting against his collarbone. “what colour do you wear when you play? i’ll have to get the kit. make a big foam hand to wave every time you’ve got possession of the ball, or like, a giant sign of amos diggory when he’s crying that’s my boy. but hopefully you won’t be dead.” she might be half-joking, but there’s the subtle reassurance there that she’s picturing this, the two of them, existing outside of the context they’ve become accustomed with, her van parked up in a field outside his family’s cottage, surrounded by sheep, despite the fact that she knows he lives in the city. as if ireland has cities. good for you, girl! fuck the british. “i don’t find you insufferable.” maybe together they are, with their constant displays of affection, but she can’t think of a reason why anyone would think of miles as anything short of charmingly likable. “and if you are, then i’d gladly suffer you.” his kiss nullifies everything else, the hand on the back of her neck drawing her closer, body melting into his with a groan, until they're tangled as a girl scout's reef knot. he’s so easy to get lost in, presence addictive enough that when she’s in his company, she forgets anything else, forgets even to eat, like he’s her latest hyperfixation only the novelty isn’t wearing off.

“no, totally. me too!” she’s shifting with the excitement of feeling understood, though the friction of it catches, a pang of heat tearing through her. “i think that’s why i got so fuckin’ defensive and angry about you talking to other people. because honestly, it’s not that big a deal. if it’s just talking.” or at least it shouldn’t feel like a big deal. but considering he’d been solely focused on frankie from the start, his sudden desire to try new things out felt like something was missing for them, like this wasn’t enough. “but the thought of you like this with someone else?” forehead pressed to his, her thumb rolls over the hollow of his throat as she swallows down something that tastes like bile. “i get goosebumps, not in a good way. like i’m already imagining the logistics of it, and i’m jealous of a relationship that doesn’t fuckin’ exist, which is crazy. i’m so fuckin’ selfish when it comes to you.”

miles o'sullivan

frankie always surprises him in little ways – like, maybe he should be finding her voice sexiest, or her lips on his neck, teeth on his earlobe. sure, that’s sexy on its own, but it’s the words that she says that get to him, and the fact that she’s brought up football in whatever attempt to try and seduce him. “see, you say that like you already know what it is,” he laughs, “and it’s really not all that interesting, you see it all the time. just means that we’ve got to keep ourselves in front of the last defender when we get the ball. free kick when the other guys fuck it up.” though his lips pull into a smirk when she swings her leg over to climb on top of him, his hands on her hips as his thumbs find the divots on the inside of her waist to trace the shape of her hipbone. “though you’re really not acting like you’re wanting me to do all that much talking, y’know? like, this,” he sighs, pressing his lips against hers in a kiss that’s intense, lingering, almost completely gets him off track from his point, “is very distracting.” his arms wrap around her, adjusting her weight on top of him as he kisses the top of her forehead affectionately. if he had to pinpoint it, his love language has probably always been physical touch, the guy to greet all his mates with a hug, swinging an arm around someone, reaching for a hand. when he likes someone, it’s tenfold, whether he’s grabbing them by the waist, lifting them up, kissing them everywhere, reaching out to smack their ass. it’s annoyed people he’s been with before, but frankie seems keenly in tune with his language, speaking it right back with every affectionate or antagonistic touch. any excuse for it. miles loves it. “ blue and black, ” he says, “ you’d look good in those. but don’t be fucking ridiculous, i’ll get whatever you want for you. ” he is also hopeful he won’t be dead, though the amount of sun he’s gotten from a couple weeks on love island is surely going to give him early skin cancer. 

he could call the conversation here, honestly, get lost in the tangle of sheets with her for the night – it’s a conversation-ending kiss, really, though all of them are. frankie always kisses with everything in her, no holding back, almost like she’s got something to prove, and miles loves to rise to the challenge, no hesitation in his intensity, hands wandering without so much as a second thought. it just feels right when they’re together, though practically improbably, that this girl from america – from florida – who lives her life so transiently, always on the road or at sea, could be made of the same stuff as some guy who plays footie for a club in ireland. though it’s always painfully obvious and extremely exciting that neither of them have a plan. but this is a place that pushes things like plans and choices on you, and where the conversation gravitates in spite of them and who they are. “really?” he blinks, surprised at how easily frankie plays it off now after how upset she’d seemed in the gym. “okay, fine. yeah, it can just be talking. though i don’t want . . .” miles hesitates. what does ‘just talking’ mean? “like of course we’re gonna talk to people, it’s a small villa, but say some new bombshell comes in tomorrow, hits you up the same way eden did. is your answer different?” his brow furrows slightly, hips shifting against hers. miles has never been good at the what are we? of it all, tends to get tripped up and confused, especially when it’s like this – future unknown. doesn’t help that her forehead’s against his, frankie’s breath warm on his lips, hand on his throat, and he wants to be fucking selfish with her, too, and not in a way that pertains the ‘relationship’ word.

𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐚 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨.

fingers walk their way over his skin in little scissoring motions as he speaks, tip-toeing over his abdomen to trail the line of hair between stomach and waistband. truth be told, she does already know what the offside rule is. frankie’s got four brothers after all — four sports kits to peg out on the washing line on sundays, four sweaters used as goal posts in the clearing down by the junkyard, where the creek meets the marshland, and the little girl went missing the summer she turned fourteen — their own little five-a-side team, frankie alway demoted to goalie. but there’s something about his way of explaining things that makes even dull concepts seem fresh and exciting, and frankly she’d let him talk until the cows came home ( and the sheep… and the pigs… ) about anything and everything if it meant having him to herself like this. “yeah, no, you’re right, it’s boring as fuck, but when you talk about stuff i’m interested. i feel like you’re like that, too. like i could read you a bus timetable and you’d be like, yeah, babe, sure that’s good craic.” their interest in one another feels evenly-matched that way, the novelty of this new, precarious, vibrant thing still unsteady like a newborn chick in the palm of her hand. “shut up, i want you to talk!” frankie fires back, the irony of her juxtaposition lost on her as her hand smacks lightly against his chest in the same moment that he draws her in for another kiss, skin sliding over skin to tug herself closer, fingers rooting in the hair at the back of his scalp. “mm-hm, i would look good in blue and black. and i’d get your number on the back and everything.” it’s weird how she can picture this, despite living on the opposite side of the world, despite not even knowing the rules of european football, she can see herself, hands cupped around her mouth, hooting and hollering every miles has got possession of the ball, in a football kit with his name on. 

it’s fucking rude of miles to ask her this shit when his hips are shifting against hers, body tightening like a coil, a soft sigh on her lips as she feels herself slipping. it’s like meeting her scott pilgrim nega-self, a sharp, zingy spoonful of her own medicine, always broaching the topic of conversations she’d rather avoid when a partner is horny enough to tell her what she wants to hear. still, she’s trying to communicate better, speak her truth rather than what she wishes were the truth, and if she comes on too strong, she’ll deal with the consequences. “i mean, no? no. even if it was like… alysha newman or olivier giroud. it’s probably not gonna change. for me, at least.” because the truth is, she can fantasize about connecting with a celebrity crush, but it probably wouldn’t match what she’s already got, so why bother missing out on what’s in front of her. whether miles is talking to other people or not, she wants her priority to be him, wants him to feel like he's her priority, too. fingers lock around his wrists, tug them up over his head, and pin them between the pillow and the headboard. “maybe i’d be nicer about it. tell them we can still talk and stuff, see if there’s a vibe, but right now i’m not looking to complicate crap. like, for me personally… i’ve already got way more than i came for.” hesitating, she struggles for the balance between directness and coming on too strong, when the whole premise they’d built this on was keeping things light. “i'm not saying let's close this shit off, i'm just not interested in window-shopping. i don’t expect you to feel the same. you’ve had less time.” shrugging, frankie reaches for the duvet, pulling it over her head on it’s journey to tug it over them. “do i look like E.T.?” frankie asks, a half-hearted attempt to steer them away from the subject of what this is and back to the comfortable realm of silliness. she stretches out her index finger to place it against his forehead. “i’ll… be… right… here…”

miles o'sullivan

he’s about to protest such a thing, that there’s no way he makes shit like that sound that fascinating to her – she’s just putting him on. but she turns it around on him (in a way that compliments herself, of course, characteristically frankie) in a way that he can’t really argue with. “you have a point,” he says this slowly, a smile working its way onto his face, “but i think part of the reason i like you is that you don’t talk about stuff like that, like if you were reading me a bus timetable you’d have some sort of commentary, some story about one of the places on a roster or some interesting bit you read somewhere. it’s not just about you reading the bus timetable.” he pauses, “not that i’d ever underestimate a well-planned schedule.” he kisses the top of her head lightly, arms wrapping around her as he squeezes her briefly, muscles taut. he loves how she’s a mess of limbs, all over the place like she’s held together with rubber bands, slingshotting around rooms and hallways and lawns. feels good to have her in one place, too. “i like when you say it like that, though. craic,” he replies, tone playful. it’s funny to think of them in a real-life scenario, feels like a fantasy or a daydream even still. miles thinks that keeps it fun, though, not being bogged down by future plans and all. “if you keep talking about yourself in my kit, we’re gonna have to cut this conversation short,” he admits, voice low and somewhat husky as he presses his lips to hers in a lingering kiss. 

“not even? shut the fuck up. you’d better dump me for giroud, sexy bastard,” if he’s got to fight france’s top scorer of all time for frankie, does he even want to win? miles would respectfully take that L. “though that’s wicked cute of you to say,” he adds, kissing the tip of frankie’s nose. cute and frankie might seem like concepts incongruent to each other to some people, but to miles, they’re in tandem. and he’s absolutely going down on her in a minute for a comment like that. “okay, i can roll with that,” though part of miles is a little confused. it’s not like he wants frankie to order him to be shut off, but he can’t help but wonder if she’s just saying it because she thinks she should, or that it’s because he wants to hear it. he didn’t expect her to basically say that it’s cool if he leaves the door wide open. “well, i’m not exactly window-shopping either. i’ve also already got way more than i expected out of this whole thing, like, from the moment we first kissed,” he admits, fingertips lightly trailing down her back. they’ve had so much fun in here, he doesn’t wanna do anything that’s going to put an end to that right now. “yeah, actually,” he laughs, rolling her tighter into the duvet, “we’re gonna have to ship this alien mug back home asap.”

[cantfightmoonlight]

"Uh," Chai blinked over at Efe. His eyes widened as Efe mentioned what he could only assume was the football team and not actual horseback riding wild west sort of cowboys. "Now is probably a good time for me to mention I actually don't know anything about sports? I did plays in High School and yeah, uh, Oklahoma and Brokeback Mountain are pretty much where my knowledge of cowboys end," He admitted, raking his fingers back through his hair as he let out an awkward and slightly embarrassed laugh at the thought. "No, you're good man. I actually like the sound of your laugh despite the fact that we both probably shouldn't be cracking too many jokes, right now, huh? You know, for your health and all, even if laughing is supposed to make you live longer and all that," He cracked a smile of his own before his gaze grew softer as he found himself asking, "Am I?"

"You're pretty okay in my book too, Efetobo," He admitted softly only for his brows to raise in regards to Efe's next comment. "I'm sorry, go back. Are we still talking about Reese or are we talking about accidentally catching oneself on fire when attempting to put it out?" He teased some more. "Whoa, hey, hold up. What do you have against sugar? Or pudding for that matter? You know one day, we're going to grow old and all our teeth are going to fall out and then what will we have? Oh yeah, good ole reliable pudding to look forward to."

"Yeah?" Chai whispered out. A soft smile finding its way to his lips as he told Efe, "I'm glad we're friends too. You kinda may be one of the best friends I have?" He told the other honestly. "And wow. You really like sports, don't you?" He let out a light laugh at the thought.

Only when Efe cleared his throat, Chai found himself sitting up ever so slightly. "Oh, well, what kind of balloon?" He asked curiously., confused at first as to where Efe was getting at until the next few words broke from his lips. I like you.

"Oh, I-" Chai blinked over at Efe momentarily taken aback by the other's admission. "I wish you hadn't?" He finally said after a prolonged pause. "Chickened out back during the paint party? Or said something earlier? I," He pressed his lips together, meeting Efe's gaze as he forced himself to resist reaching out and giving Efe's hand another squeeze as much as a part of him wanted to, not wanting to make things worse if he could help it. "I like you too, Efetobo. Frankly, I think you're hot? I kinda always have? That and majorly out of my league? But, I want you to know that nothing and I mean nothing could ever fuck this up. I promise you that. But, I just, I should probably let you know that I, uh, Anna and I kissed, uh, tonight actually? Right before I-" Right before he came here.

"Sure. Yeah, sure, man. We can do that," Efe nodded gruffly, definitively, an indication that he would not press unless welcome. He allowed a beat of silence to fall, trying to find another topic onto which he could latch. "So, how 'bout them Cowboys?" This came out with such utter sincerity that Efe could not hold it back. It won a fit of laughter at his own expense, a fit he had evidently truly needed, because despite the severity still clinging to them all, he let it out freely. "Oh, oh, it hurts. I'm sorry. That was dumb. What do you wanna talk about?" He smiled.

"You're pretty okay in my book, Rune," Efe replied seriously, watching him from his vantage point on the bed. "But, nah. That's never prevented it from happening before, though. I can't stop, drop, and roll right now." Another laugh came, less pronounced, but sincere, his mood evidently brightening from the company. Efe shook his head. "That's all jst sugar. But you should help yourself to all the toxic hospital-brand pudding you want." He rolled his eyes.

As Chai sat next to him, then, Efe gave his hand a new squeeze, leaning into his weight. He sat for a moment. "I...uh, yeah, you got me too. I mean it. I'm glad we're friends. Like, I feel like other people generally like me and all, don't get me wrong. But real friends? I appreciate you. And just hanging out. Or talking. Or...you know, shoppin' for moderately priced sporting goods." Efe trailed off at this joke, falling into an agitated silence.

It lasted a good long while before he spoke up again. He cleared his throat. "And that's why...you should know, I was going to throw a balloon at you, Rune." His eyes widened at his own admission, but he had let the dam break. "But I chickened out. I know this is the absolute worst time for me to say that, but it's better now than later probably." He cleared his throat. "And I like our friendship. I like you. But you know, buds is okay. Buds is more than okay. I didn't want to eff that up."

[anndiscworld-phile]

For the kiss prompts, how about Shance #19? 😍❤❤

ayyyyy shance, alright here goes

—

It wasn’t so much that Lance didn’t like sports. He played on two different teams (varsity on both, not to toot his own horn, but yeah). But he just couldn’t get into football. 

He couldn’t even say it was one of those weird American things, considering the rest of his family loved it and they’d all lived in Texas, the heartland of football, for over a decade.

It was just boring. So. So. Boring. Lance still couldn’t fathom how a game with only 45 minutes of actual play somehow ended up taking 3 hours. And maybe his feelings towards the game might have something to do with the massive shadow it cast over literally every other sport at Altea. But, whatever, it was really just that there wasn’t anything happening on the field interesting enough to keep his attention. 

At least, that was the case before. The new Lions’ quarterback was doing a fantastic job of snagging Lance’s attention and keeping it. Whisked away from Galra University over the summer, Shirogane Takashi had arrived like Helen of Troy. Complete with flowing hair and a bunch of bad blood behind him. 

The rivalry between the two schools was infamous, but lately, it felt like an actual assault. Altea’s mascot had her habitat graffitied at the zoo, the football team’s jerseys went missing several times this season, and the entire sports department all of sudden had to deal with an influx of frogs. Things hadn’t even been this bad when Lotor, GU dean’s actual son, had transferred over to join Altea’s fencing team. 

If it was literally anybody else on the planet, Lance would probably be at least a little grudging. But having actually met Shiro, because he was also apparently, Keith’s secret best friend and Pidge’s old babysitter, it was impossible to begrudge him anything. 

So Lance sucked it up and went to every football game out of a combination of pettiness and jock solidarity. Really all this did was reinforce that football was indeed, boring as hell. Luckily, Shiro was a boon to the eyes as well as to the athletics department, so Lance had no trouble paying attention. 

Did he understand anything that was happening during the game? No. Did he understand anything Shiro was telling him now? No.

“So that’s really what I’ve been working on,” he finished.

Lance nodded. He’d been nodding a lot these last few minutes, trying frantically to remember anything, anything at all about football. His friends and family had pretty much given up on trying to explain things to him, so they knew not to rope him into conversations. 

But Shiro, sweet, sweet Shiro, who saw Lance at every game, cheering his heart out whenever Shiro did anything–clearly thought otherwise. Lance really didn’t want to explain that he’d absorbed absolutely nothing of this season, so he blurted out something honest and only slightly embarrassing.

“I bet when you finally nail it down, it’s going to look amazing on the field,” Lance said. 

A smile played around Shiro’s mouth. “Yeah?”

“You always look amazing out there,” Lance said. “You’re like a revelation on the field. Even I can tell.”

“Not that big a football fan?” Shiro seemed to be closer all of a sudden, which was ridiculous considering that he couldn’t have moved. Lance was hyperaware of the distance between them and–

“Lance?”

“What?” He blinked and straightened. “I mean, of course I am. I’m at all the games.” 

Shiro nodded thoughtfully. “Third row from the bottom, you dress in alternating school colors every other game.”

Lance flushed hard. How the hell had he even noticed that? Wasn’t he too busy playing to notice the guy who accidentally cheered for the other team every 5 minutes?

“Well, you know, anything to support the team.” Please don’t ask me about a play, or my favorite game, or anything, god please–

“Really?” Shiro said. His eyes seemed to glitter. And he was closer? How was he closer? 

“Yep, football Lance that’s me.” Wow, that was stupid. He clutched at his backpack strap, cursing the campus gods for letting him cross paths with Shiro during the minuscule free time they both had in between midterms and games. 

“So it sounds like you might be able to help me then.” 

“Help?” Lance’s voice didn’t squeak. He might under duress, admit that it was, perhaps, more higher pitched than usual. He cleared his throat. “Like with signs or something?” He could do that, he was good with crafts.

Maybe Shiro wanted him to knit something, Lance thought wildly. 

“Not exactly.” And yes, that was an actual step closer. That was, uh, quite closer. He could see the slight curl to the hair falling out of Shiro’s loose bun. The way his muscles pulled the seams of his jacket tight. 

“It’s a good luck thing. Nyma said it was a tradition.” 

That snapped Lance out of his reverie, and he frowned. “Do you want me to teepee someone’s car because I gotta tell you, I tried that in 7th grade and it won’t turn out the way you think.”

Shiro’s brow furrowed. “No.” He started to say something and then let out a laugh. “It’s not that.”

“Is it something vaguely illegal?”

“Shouldn’t be.”

“Okay,” Lance said, stretching out the word to the end. “Then, I guess?”

“If it makes you uncomfortable,” he started. 

“It won’t,” Lance said. He saw the tiny bit of exasperation creep into Shiro’s expression and it made him shrug. “I don’t think you’d put me in a position where I would feel uncomfortable.”

Shiro studied him for a long time. But for once, despite the silence that fell between them and the prolonged eye contact, Lance wasn’t embarrassed. It was just the truth.

“Close your eyes,” he said finally. 

Lance shot him a curious look, but Shiro stared back calmly “Okay,” he said again and closed his eyes. It was fine. It was Shiro, and they were like 50 ft from the school’s Starbucks. Nothing bad would happen. Unless.

“You’re not going to do something gross are you?” Lance asked suspiciously. He was the youngest of five kids and he had two older brothers. He’d had his share of slimy surprises. 

“I hope not.” He sounded amused, which was only marginally comforting. 

“Shiro, I swear–”

 A warm hand slid gently across his jaw and Lance forgot what he was going to say. Then, one second he was taking a breath, and the next he was sharing it with someone else.

Shiro kissed softly and patiently, like he had all day to kiss Lance. Like there was no rush. Cool, metal fingers played with the hem of his t-shirt, brushing against his hip bone. He shivered and pressed closer. Shiro was more confident, lips more firm and bold. When he opened his mouth, Lance followed suit with a sigh. 

Finally, finally when they had to take a real breath, Shiro let him go. Lance shuddered, air flooding his lungs. It felt like the first time he won a heat, heart pounding and body aching. 

He licked his lips. “So. That was.” He struggled to remember what Shiro had said. “Tradition?” 

“Kiss from a fan,” Shiro said, smirking slightly. 

Huh. Well. Shiro’s fan, maybe. As if hearing that, the hand at his hip pulled him close.

Okay, Shiro’s fan definitely.

—

welp. i honestly did not think it would be that long. i uh, got really invested in fleshing this out 

i hope you enjoyed it!!! thank you so much for sending this my way

[bongo-clash]

I Want To Break Free

Ectober week prompt: Six Feet

'When three members of Casper High’s football team make one mistake too many, they’ve got no choice other than to bury the evidence. But, both fortunately and unfortunately for them, dead doesn’t mean gone, and they’ve been living in a ghost town for years.'

(Content warnings in tags || fic under cut!!)

-

For all that Amity Park is the poster child for widescale property damage, the crime rate is practically nonexistent. There’s something about finding a common enemy in the violent ghosts ravaging their town that wards off that willingness to go against another human being’s interests like that; murder, in particular, has been shoved off the table since the moment the victims started coming back to haunt them. It’s common knowledge that if you kill someone in Amity Park, everyone is going to find out.

This is exactly why three A-listers are shitting themselves right about now. 

Look, they hadn’t meant for it to go this far. It’d been such a harmless thing in theory- or, well, maybe not harmless, but it shouldn’t have gone any further than humiliation and maybe a bruise or two. They should’ve known it only takes a bad fall. They’re footballers- they should’ve known. But it’d been thoughtless, a split second decision made in the incredibly brief time the opportunity had been presented to them. All Dale had said was ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if you tripped him?’.

And it had been funny, until he hadn’t gotten up again. Now Danny Fenton is dead on the shower room floors, and every single one of them is guilty. 

There’s a long time where none of them know what to do. God, they’ve just killed someone, is this second-degree or manslaughter? There certainly wasn’t any express malice, but they’d definitely thought about swiping his feet out from under him without considering that he might hit his head; that could definitely been seen as implied malice. But they hadn’t meant to! They’d never wanted to, it was never supposed to go this far, and it was especially never supposed to go this far here. 

‘Here’, as in some place at the end of the school day, when the buses were about to leave and the teachers weren’t waiting up for them, having let them lock up before and having been willing to do it again. ‘Here’, as in Casper High in the first place, that had already seen tragedy in a fire taking almost the entire student body in the fifties, and had now witnessed a murder in its reconstructed halls. ‘Here’, as in Amity Park, the ghost town, where there’s a non-zero chance of this literally coming back to get them. 

The silence charged with the smell of deodorant and a wet body already beginning to self-digest is broken, finally, by Dash- the one to trip him, and the first one to back away when he’d felt Fenton’s limp hand for a pulse and found nothing. 

“What the Hell do we do?” He whispers, voice barely reaching anyone else in the room, but you could hear a pin drop beneath the still-running showerheads, and everyone was straining to hear it, desperate to divert their attention. My dad’s a lawyer, he thinks, is there any chance he could save us from this?

As if reading his mind, and said like the instigator that knows they’ll be thrown under the bus for suggesting this in the first place, Dale interrupts the train of thought with a sturdy “We can’t go to the police.”

“Dude, are you insane?” Kwan splutters, barely able to keep his gaze from flitting back to the crime scene. And holy shit, this really is a crime scene. “Dale, we can’t just try and bury this, that’s so much worse.”

“You’re only saying that because you’re a witness!” Dale snaps, looking overwhelmed but outsourcing it to aggression, eyes wide and afraid but brow furrowed. “You’re really gonna let us take the fall like that? We’re your friends.”

Kwan, to his merit, is standing his ground, despite looking incredibly green around the edges. In fairness, all three of them probably look that way. “I’d rather be a witness than an accomplice! I can’t- we can’t-!”

“We’re the only people here.” Dash interrupts numbly, and this is probably the second most awful thing he’s ever done apart from actual murder, but all that’s running through his head right now is I can’t go to jail. His life can’t be over with one dumb mistake even if Danny’s is. “Who’s to say it wasn’t you who did it? All the teachers have seen how we act around the school; we work as a group, always. They’re not gonna believe it was just one of us. They’re gonna believe it was all of us.”

This is his best friend, and he’s convincing him to help hide a body by threatening him, because Dash accidentally committed murder and this does not in the slightest feel like something that’s actually happening to him right now. The whole world feels like a smudged trail against the lens of a window pane. There are tears in Kwan’s eyes.

“I’m never fucking talking to any of you again.” Kwan spits, voice damp with distress. “You- You’re monsters for this. It stops being an accident the moment you start trying to cover shit up, I just- this is horrible.”

The realisation that he’s never heard his friend swear before is a thousand miles away, back in some world where Dash’s biggest problem was getting detention for making Mikey late to class on Tuesday. It would’ve been funny if it wasn’t sad. “But you’re gonna help us.”

His expression is the picture of helplessness, but he doesn’t say a word in retort. Silently, the agreement is made that no one is going to know. 

Figuring out what they’re supposed to do with the body is a completely different ball game, though. Kwan had enough of an interest in forensic science (wrenched from him completely two minutes ago, but he can’t erase what facts he already has) to know that dead bodies are apparently heavy as Hell, and the woods is too far to carry one towards. It’d be a terrible idea to bury the body under or near the football field- the disturbed soil would be way too noticeable- but to get to any other place with easily accessible ground, they’d have to transport the body through town and none of them could drive. That doesn’t leave them with a lot of options.

“Behind the bike shed.” Dale exclaims suddenly. “The gap between the shed and the hedge is so tiny no one even goes there to make out- no one’ll even notice the difference.” 

“But won’t people look around the school if someone got murdered here?” 

Dale looks to the showers nobody bothered to turn off, and down at the body with glazed eyes. “They won’t know it was here if all the blood’s down the drain.”

There’s not much to argue with there. Dale has the forethought to go outside and make sure the coast is clear while grabbing a sheet of tarp from the equipment shed, bringing it back into the room with lips pursed into a hardset line. 

Kwan keels over and spills his guts into the shower drains the moment Dash lifts the body, blood and water congealing at the back of Fenton’s head and spilling onto the floor, but no one says a word about it, they just wait until he’s finished. They wrap the body in the tarp until only the ends of his hair and the tips of his shoes are visible, and Dale directs the showerhead to wash away the gore. He tries not to squirm at the knowledge of what he’s holding in his hands right now, because if there’s any time to freak out it’s not now. Not when there’s still stuff left to do. 

When they’ve gotten to the spot behind the shed, there’s already three shovels leaning against the back. Dash puts the body down underneath the hedge, and grabs a handle. 

“Six feet.” He says. “And no one’ll have to know.”

-

It’s probably the most stupid thing he’s ever done other than trip Danny Fenton in the showers, but that same night, he goes back to the place they buried the body. 

He doesn’t know why he thought it was a good idea. He hadn’t, most likely, but still, a piece of him felt like he needed to go back, that dumb part of his brain where all the morbid curiosity comes from and all his meanest ideas go. Regardless of the cause, though, at two in the morning not eight hours after they’d tried to flatten the soil, Dash is back at the grave. 

His heart still aches with everything Kwan had said, begging them to just go to the police and come clean, because no matter how much he doesn’t want his life ruined he knows it already is. There’s not going to be any coming back from this- whether anyone finds the body and discovers their part in it or not, this is going to follow him for the rest of his life. That soil disturbed amongst the grass from upturning, wedged between the bike shed and the hedge, the ground shaking with motion. 

…The dirt. The dirt’s moving. Why’s the dirt moving?

All at once, he jumps back about five paces and freezes stock still, gaze transfixed towards the soil rumbling like the epicentre of a personal earthquake. His mind is terrifyingly blank as he watches, hearing more and more coming from beneath as the time passes somewhere between a good few minutes and an eternity, something like muttering or moans permeating the earth. 

A hand grasps for purchase as it breaks through the top layer of the soil- pale, grimy, and fuzzing at the edges with translucence. The palm finds flat ground some centimetres away, and with a sound like a grunt or a cry, the corpse pulls itself out of the ground. 

Danny Fenton stands in full form before him, brown blood smudged across his temple from the back of his head and dirt caking every other inch of him. The tarp is sticking out from the ground like a tongue. “Hey Dash,” Fenton sighs, like he hadn’t just crawled out of his own unmarked grave alive. “What are you doing here? It’s… oh man, it’s totally past curfew. My parents are gonna kill me for sure.”

It’s that comment in particular that snaps him out of his stupor, catching the weird look in the other boy’s eyes. “Fenton, what the fuck?” His voice is half-wheezing with disbelief, surprised he’s able to breathe between it at all. This is impossible, shouldn’t be happening, but, this is Amity. The dead come back to haunt them all the time. 

“What?” He asks blithely, before tilting his head to look back at the mound in the dirt, the hole that had been filled to hide him. “Oh, that? Don’t worry about it. No one comes back here anyway, and it’s not like they’ll care if they do.”

He can’t for the life of him process the calm in Danny’s voice. “You were dead.” He says. “I killed you. We buried you.”

“But you didn’t report it to the police, huh?” Not knowing how else to respond, Dash shakes his head. “Yeah, makes sense, they never do. Still, guess that gives me less issues to deal with in the long run, and I can’t really complain about that even if the morality of the whole thing bugs me. You really should tell people about these kinds of things before they find out on their own, y’know? Oh, but Dash?”

Fenton has his back turned by now, having stretched his limbs out and began to walk off during his talk, but he turns his head just a little, then. Just enough that Dash can see the glint of sharp teeth underneath his lips. Just enough for his eyes to catch green under a light that doesn’t exist. 

“No one’s gonna believe you.”

…

(When Kwan and Dale come to school with him the next day like nothing’s wrong, and they spot Danny Fenton talking with his friends by his locker like any other stupid day, they don’t say a word. They don’t make fun of him when he falls asleep in class after claiming to have had a ‘long night’, and they don’t tell their friends why they weren’t at Star’s house by eight, and they don’t ask Kwan to talk about it when they go to bathroom together at lunch and he has a panic attack over the sinks. Because Danny Fenton being alive is not possible, but if the dead won’t tell their secrets, then neither will they.)

(Neither will they.)

[barbiewritesstuff]

Fairground Fun

-- Why are fics so hard to title??

Thank you @lgg5989 for helping me with this <3

Taglist: @unsurebuttrying @dempy --

"Whoa," Rooster says as soon as you walk into the Hard Deck that night, you're wearing your civvies. The flight suit makes you uncomfortable and the uniform is unflattering so you go for your usual clothes. You're wearing a cute pink dress with a nice pair of fuschia heels and you've clearly done your hair because your usual pin straight hair has been curled neatly so it falls over your shoulders in a very attractive way. 

"Don't get excited, she has kids. I'm single though," your friend says, her eyelashes batting at the tall aviator. You look at her to say 'what the fuck', your eyes quickly darting to Jake’s from across the table. He had taken you out on a date last week, and you didn’t find the right moment to tell him that you were a package deal, coming with not one but two kids.  

—

Jake watches the interaction from his place across the pool table. He hadn’t even met the girl and he already felt nothing but pure hatred towards her for making you feel bad. So much so that he hasn't even had time to compute what she said. The penny falls a minute later when he crosses your eyes and sees nothing but pure fear.

He tries to give you a warm smile, because the truth is: Jake is mad about you. He probably always has been, but that revelation shows him that maybe he always will be because while it should have shaken him or made him hesitate, the fact that you have kids feels like nothing more than a fun fact about you. He still feels weird about it though, and as much as he wants to comfort you, he feels himself withdrawing for the rest of the evening.

By the time Penny calls for last orders and he drinks the last of his beer, he's made up his mind. You all spill onto the parking lot and quickly spread in all sorts of directions. Rooster walks off with your friend.

"You need better friends," Jake says as he comes up behind you, nodding towards the couple. 

"You didn't tell me," he adds in a quiet whisper.

Jake thinks he might need some new friends too, because when you hum in agreement, hurt crosses your face, and he's ready to fight Rooster for sleeping with the girl behind that expression.

"I didn't want to ruin a good date. I'm sorry, I know it's so selfish of me but I had so much fun and…" you trail off but Jake can only concentrate on the fact that you had fun. You didn't want to ruin an evening. That statement shouldn't carry as much weight as it does.

"What happened to the dad?" Jake asks

"Living in Spain with his new family," you reply, "They're lucky to even get a call on Christmas."

"He moves fast," is all Jake could find to say

"It helps when you get a head start while you're still in a relationship," you reply. 

Despite your answer there's a comfortable lull in conversation as he walks you home, and it gives him time to think back. You were a relatively new addition to the team but you charmed just about anyone, even him. He'd been working up the courage to talk to you for weeks and then he caught you after training one day last week and finally asked. You had said yes, giving him a bright smile that had made him weak in the knees and Jake had to admit that the crush he thought he had might be a lot more. In fact, he thought he might have skipped right past the crush stage and gone straight to desperately in love but he didn't really care.

He took you to his favourite restaurant and spent the entire evening overthinking everything. He agonised over whether he was talking too much, or too little. Was he talking too much about himself? Was he boring you? Were you having a good time? Would you want to do this again?

Surprisingly, you didn't seem to notice and admittedly had a good time, enough that Jake figured he'd at least try to ask you out again.

"I'm playing tomorrow. If you want to come," he ventures. He told you he played football for the Navy's team during your date, after you told him that going to see a game live was one of your bucket list items.

"I'd love that," you reply, a smile so bright it could power San Diego.

----

"Babysitter cancelled. I'm sorry," you text him at lunch, right as he's about to step in the shower.

"But how will we win? You are my lucky charm," he texts back, fake pouting at his screen to hide real disappointment.

Jake can almost hear you laugh at his text right through the screen and his heart actually skips a beat. It feels funny but not unwelcome, in fact, he'd like you to do that again.

"You'll do fine :)," you text back and for a second Jake actually feels desperate, like everything hangs on you being there to cheer him on. Like they'll win if you come, which is weird, because the team he plays for has been doomed since the start of the season. 

It's the desperation that texts back, "Why don't you bring them? We can hit the fair afterwards?" and the desperation is very surprised to find that that was pretty much exactly what Jake was planning on texting you anyway. 

He can feel it stir up gossip among his neurons.

"He must really be into her," one of them says.

"I hear he's already picking engagement rings," the other one replies.

"Okay, if I don't catch you beforehand, I'll be the lady in blue and white holding two kids," you text back and his heart skips another beat. 

He can see you telling him this, a big smile on your face. The kind of smile that makes him want to kiss you -- oh, who is he kidding? He always wants to kiss you. In his daydream you're in front of him in the rec room, your hair in a navy bun, but one of your locks of curly blonde hair has escaped the gelling and is hanging in front of your forehead. Your eyes have a glint in them and Jake likes to pretend it only appears when you talk to him. 

And then it's time for him to get ready and go. The whole way to the field, every single song playing on the radio is about you. He parks, gets ready and right before the game starts, he gets your tickets for you, giving the salesperson your name and your description. One of his teammates catches the interaction and gives him shit for having a girl and finally settling down. Jake doesn't even bother correcting him, because if it goes the way he wants it to go, you'll be his girl soon enough.

It's time. They're jogging out of the building and onto the field and Jake looks around. As if trained specifically for this, his eyes find you immediately. You are dressed in blue with a navy football team jersey tucked into a skater skirt. Your hair is up in a casual ponytail but you have a second scrunchie around your wrist. Your kids fit the color scheme too but with the way your daughter is pouting at you, pinching the edges of her shirt and glaring at it, he thinks it might not be voluntary. Your son doesn't seem to care too much, he's far too busy trying to eat his own hand.

Too distracted by the sight of you, Jake trips. He doesn't fall though and he thanks God for it, because he doesn't want to embarass you like that. 

The game starts a little bit after and ends in record time. The game was lost almost as soon as it had started but he doesn't care because you cheer for him like he cheers for the Longhorns: loud and proud. Even the little one is startled out of the munching of his fingers and joins in the clapping. Your daughter doesn't.

"I wanted to be a Princess," she says when Jake joins you after the game. 

"That's Anna," you introduce, "And this is Teddy."

"I wanted to be a Princess," she repeats with enough poison dripping from her tone that Jake has no doubt that she thinks this is entirely his fault. You tell Anna off in a hushed tone and he's grateful for it but he doesn't really mind. He's not there for the kids, he's there for you.

Except, as the evening goes on, he starts being there for the kids too.

Jake's not the type of guy who's always dreamt of having his own kids. In all honesty, he's not great at thinking about the future. He does the bare minimum. He invests his money, and he saves for a nice retirement but other than that, he tries not to think about things too much. The thought that there might not be a future at all is so anxiety inducing that it gives him a nervous rash. But here and now his brain is running a mile a minute, making him a movie of everything he could have with you and your kids if this date goes well enough that you might say yes when he asks you to go steady. The movie is Oscar worthy and even has him tearing up a little by the end of it.

"What kind of princess?" He asks your daughter as they wait for you to finish changing Teddy, "You said you wanted to come as a princess… what kind of princess? What's her name?"

"Cinderella," she replies with zero hesitation. 

"That's a good princess," he agrees, feeling suddenly so very awkward about the fact he can't make conversation with a two year old.

"What's your favourite one?" Anna asks, seemingly warming up to him a little.

"Tiana, from the Princess and the Frog," he replies. It's not even a lie. It's the only Disney he has on dvd and the only film outside of Die Hard and the Ocean's franchise that he knows every word of and he's not ashamed to admit it.

Anna nods after a moment, approving of his answer.

"Okay," she says.

"Okay, all done," you say brightly, walking out of the mother and baby bathroom of the mall and joining them back out into the street. Teddy doesn't walk yet so you have to carry him, but with the big and bulky bag you carry his stuff in, everything's looking a little precarious.

Jake leans towards you, meaning to take the bag but Teddy leans in to meet him and suddenly he has the baby in his arms. In all fairness, Ted's not a baby anymore but Jake's scared to call him a child because being confronted with the fact that your baby isn't a baby anymore might make you frown and that would break his heart.

Teddy feels surprisingly cool against his chest, despite the fact that it's late summer and still quite warm, so the baby curls up into him and Jake's heart almost bursts. 

"You tell me if you want me to take him off you," you say, fussing with Teddy's collar and then brushing a loose eyelash off of Jake's cheek. He knows it's your kid, but he still has to fight off the urge to tell you you'll have to rip the baby off of him. 

Ted eventually falls asleep on him despite the fact that there's loud music at the fair, and that Anna got over her disapproval of her clothes and is now screeching with joy whenever she gets to go on a ride. 

"You sure you don't mind staying behind?" You ask, he shakes his head and even waves at you when you get onto the ferris wheel. Jake finds a nice bench to sit on. He unzips his hoodie and shimmies it from underneath the sleeping boy to wrap him inside it. Teddy lets out a happy sigh.

"How old is the little lad?" The man sitting next to him asks. He's carrying a baby in one of those chest carriers Jake doesn't know the names of.

"Err, I don't know. He's not mine," he answers.

"Oh," the man says, his eyebrows shooting up. Jake winces, only just realising how strange this looks.

"He's my date's," Jake expands, "She's up on the wheel with her little girl," he adds.

"Oh, right," the man looks relieved, "My wife's there too, with her sister."

"That's nice," Jake says, trying to quell that burning feeling in his chest, the one that told him he liked being mistaken for Teddy's dad. The man stands up and leaves, clearly unhappy with the conversation but Jake honestly doesn't care because Ted is bunching up his shirt with his chubby little fist and it's just about the cutest thing he's ever seen in his life.

"He likes you," you say when you come down with Anna on your hip.

"He's cute," he replies. You lean in and place a little kiss on Teddy's little head and then one on Jake's cheek and he feels dizzy all of a sudden. 

He takes you to get some food and a drink. You and Anna share a gigantic vat of candy floss while he eats a tornado potato. It's a nice evening, the stars are shining bright and the fair is fun and right now, Jake realises there's nowhere else he'd rather be.

"Jake, I'd like another child. I just thought I'd say that right off the bat, so you can figure out if you'd like this to go further." You say all of a sudden and Jake laughs because while you were talking, the only thing he could think about was that you had been pregnant every year so far, and Jake wonders if you'd like to be pregnant this year too.

"What?" You ask

"Sorry, it's just -- that's awfully forward from someone who didn't tell me they had kids til after the first date," he lies

You look at the floor, "I figured that maybe you might like me… you did tell me to bring the kids, I don't think you'd do that if you weren't interested,"

"I am interested," Jake replies, weighing his words.

"But?" You ask, looking deep into his eyes. Maybe he's dreaming but Jake thinks he can see something a little like apprehension in your eyes and that's when Jake realises you might actually like him back. Despite the fact, the rational part of his brain laughs, that you agreed to two dates, let him meet, hold and watch your kids and that you're now talking about more kids with him. 

"I don't think I want just one," he says, looking at his feet as you walk up to a small enclosure where people are keeping some livestock. Standing between the two of you, Anna is straining to look at the animal.

He does what he does with his nephews and he lifts her up so her feet rest on the fence and she's sitting on his shoulder. She's perfectly still, Jake's not sure she's breathing. Maybe she's scared of heights, or she's scared of him, he suddenly thinks but she lets out a big breath and wiggles on his shoulder, it's controlled and she won't actually fall but the second he feels it, Jake's hand flies up to hover near her in case she needs catching. She relaxes then, like he's passed her test and she now knows she's safe with him. Anna even rests her little hand on top of his head.

He's scared to look at you for a bit, but he desperately wants to so to stop himself he points things out to Anna. After a minute, he feels your hand on his chin, turning his head. Instinctively, he takes a hold of the little girl and puts her back down. You capture his lips in a kiss he'll never forget. His heart is beating out of his chest and his brain has gone quiet for the first time in his life. When you break apart, because Anna asks to go home please, you look into each other's eyes with such intensity that it sends a shiver down his spine. 

You carry the little girl to your car and buckle her in while Jake takes care of Teddy. His chest feels cold when he places the boy in his seat. Clearly Teddy doesn't like it either because he wakes up and his bottom lip trembles. You make your way around the car and stroke down from his forehead to the tip of his nose, Ted falls back asleep in three strokes.

"I was wondering if -- I don't know -- I figured you might like me… and I was wondering if you'd like to be my girlfriend?" He blurts out as soon as you close the car door.

You smile at him, his heart skips a beat again. Jake thinks he might get addicted to this feeling, because the way endorphins rush his brain makes him euphoric. 

"I'd like that," you reply in a soft and shy tone of voice and for once, he doesn't fight it, he leans in and kisses you. He's pouring every ounce of love he has towards you into that kiss. Eventually, he has to break away from you, not to breathe but to stop himself from just proposing right there and then.

"I should go," you whisper, pointing at the car. Jake opens the door for you and you climb in, driving out of the parking lot with a smile wave.

In the back seat, Anna shifts slightly in her seat and waves at him too.