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whowrotethenote · 2 months ago

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𝐁𝐢𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐀 𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫

A/N // Short story set in the universe of Biggest Fan. This takes place during Wrestle-mania 40 weekend; before All We Do, after Company, and after One Of Your Girls.

Warnings // Angst // Smut // NSFW // Adultery // Profanity // Age gap // Consumption of alcohol // Mentions of disease

Word Count // 5.6k

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*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ I knew you in another life. You had that same look in your eyes. I love you don't act so surprised.

— Billie Eilish (Birds of A Feather)

Monday, April 1, 2024

The sun fighting through the sheer white drapes of our living room is enough to wake me all the way up. I groan and shiver at the chill of early morning in nothing but a white tank and silk pajama shorts. There’s nothing on the agenda today. No class. No work. And still, my body decides to rise at seven a.m.

The hefty pile of mail Anthony left on the marble island top catches my attention. Bills, bills, and more bills. The sight of which would’ve given me a heart attack prior to earning myself a seat at a table, where he is the head.

I rapidly shuffle through white envelopes emblemed with companies who want what they’re owed before a blank one halts me. No logo. No company. No return address. Still, my name—Alana Floyd— is printed on the back of it. I rip the top open and unfold the thin stack of papers.

“Demi!” My slippers scrape and slide across the floor of our hallway and I almost slide right past her open door. She rubs her eyes, craning her neck up and squinting with a colorful scarf pulled tight atop her head. I wiggle the loose tickets in my hand. “We're gonna go see…Dwayne.”

Her square face lights up as she plops it back on the plush pillow. “Before I do too much—this isn't an April Fools joke?”

“It's not, I fear.”

“He's a generous Tribal Chief,” she croaks. I scan over the hotel itinerary. April fourth to April eighth. That won't work. “Oh my god—you think you'll wear his underwear?”

“I don’t see him leaving the speedos behind for this one.” I scroll through my messages to find WiseMan.

“All the hotels are probably booked up now.”

I laugh at her seven a.m. cluelessness. “Oh—my man thinks of everything.” I wiggle the other papers adorned with the hotel itinerary and confirmation.

“He's like a genie. Only we got way more than three wishes…and a side of tribal dick.”

i got the tickets. thank him for me pls. No problem. Car will be there Thursday. Should we send it in the morning? we don’t get out of class until 2 that day. we can't stay until the eighth. finishing midterms. we'll have to leave on Sunday morning or Saturday night… I'll let him know

I lean on her door frame, peering down the hall that leads to the kitchen. On the center of the island, a large bouquet—pink and white mix of roses he replaced from Valentine’s day starting their descend to death. Still breathtaking nonetheless.

The gifts just didn’t stop. One week it’s a bouquet too big for me to carry in myself. The next week it’s a bag I don’t even see on the designer’s website yet. Shoes. Jewelry. Whatever. And I didn’t ask for any of it. The stuff on the shelves and hangers of my walk-in can probably feed an entire high school for months.

Demi’s sly chuckle breaks my thoughts—wiping away my smirk that I didn’t even realize captured my face. “What?”

“Oh nothing. Just wondering if you’re going to be staying with me or him.” She screws her face up, mouth falling open while making the bed creak.

Shaking my head, I walk away from her door to go shower. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Cum twice!” She yells down the hall. “One for you—one for me!”

Thursday, April 4, 2024

In the city of brotherly love—home to the greasiest cheesesteaks, where they bleed green and curse you out for absolutely nothing—Demi and I fit right in.

The Ritz-Carlton planted in Center City—structured like a Cathedral inside and out—treated us like royalty. Demi and I didn’t lift a manicured finger and no request was too much.

The room is massive. Built like a penthouse and certainly too much for two girls only staying for a few days. There’s a bottle of champagne waiting for us on a California King—whitest bedding tucked tight to perfection. We don’t waste a second cracking it open. Mouths in a mutual O, when the cork goes flying recklessly, leaving a mark on the ceiling. Somebody else’s problem.

White foam overflows and spills over the neck of the bottle and down her hand. No cups needed. We take turns passing it back and forth, basically inhaling the crisp liquid until the bottle is empty.

The night is ridiculously young. So, we let Summer Walker and Latto be the background noise to our rampant routine of getting ready to hit the streets hard. Tonight we bring in Wrestle-mania weekend the right way.

Already half-way drunk from the bottle of champagne, we end up at Noto—a nightclub where some YouTuber is hosting. Whoever he is, he has the club packed out. Faces wall to wall. Every section full of niggas with jewelry shining, even in the dark—accompanied by women that belong in some rapper’s music video.

In the middle of it, Demi and I, utilize a section to ourselves. Dropping a bag on Ace of Spades and 1942. The DJ plays Dreams and Nightmares and it’s a wrap. Our heads are gone, as we scream the lyrics back and forth as if we lived every single line. Blue lights shining down on us— cameras out, taking videos we don’t even plan to post. Creating enough memories to last a lifetime and stories to brag to our future children about.

Saturday, April 6, 2024

Everything about this Wrestle-mania is different from the one before. The tickets were intended for us—not some miracle-ridden accident due to an old man carelessly flinging tickets around in the air. A much smoother transition from all the hustling and bustling—pushing through strangers like we did last year. No floor seats. Skybox Lounge. An entire suite to ourselves. Removed from all the chaos of pumped up testosterone and rowdy kids down below.

“Excuse me ma’am.” A light touch to my shoulder has my head shooting up. A dark-haired woman in all black, with a headset on and clipboard tucked tight under her arm looks me in the eyes. “Are you Alana Floyd?” She asks.

I hesitate for a moment. I’m not even supposed to be here. Not just here in the skybox where all the important people belong—but here period—supporting my closeted sponsor and fuckbuddy. This makes me rethink answering her—whoever she is. How does she even know my full name?

“…I am.”

“Do you mind coming with me, please?” She steps a little ways back allowing me space.

I look to Demi, whose furrowed eyebrows mimic mine as she shrugs. “Are we switching seats or something?” I ask the unknown lady.

“No.” She shakes her head. “I just need you. You’ll be right back before the main event.”

She’s swift in all her movements as I struggle to keep up in these six inch designer heels—too busy gawking at faces I’ve only seen through a TV screen before, as I am forced to just pass them by. Radiant and charismatic as they seem in character.

It’s all a blur. Everyone moving in a different direction at a different pace. Backstage crew with equipment, men in suits, and more people talking into headsets like hers. She leads me down and down—removed from all the chaos and activity the further we go. Before I know it we’re stopping at a door. A man I know very well coming out of it.

“Lana,” Pauls greets me with more enthusiasm than I expect.

“Paul.” I nod. I see what’s happening now. All three of us are quiet. Paul and I’s smile fading in the silence. The mystery lady straight-faced and all business.

“I’ll be out here waiting.” She’s the first to speak, flicking her head to the closed door Paul came out of.

I nod and face the door, twisting the metal knob to push it open. My breath immediately taken away. That feeling never goes away. I’ll never get used to this. Used to him. The door clicks behind me automatically.

Legs spread, bun loose, as he messes with the red glove on his wrist. Our eyes lock and he stands tall across the way. It’s so weird seeing him like this. Before, Joe was the stranger and seeing him in anything other than ring gear was alarming. Now it’s the opposite. Him without all the extra is comforting and the ring gear is as it’s intended to be—a costume.

The silence is comfortable yet charged. Compelled to speak, but not knowing what to say, I settle for, “hi.”

A clipping breath comes through his nostrils. “Hi,” he responds. Another beat of silence, used to just drink each other in. “I hope you don’t mind that I put you up high.”

“No, it's fine. I’m just happy to be here. I think it's better away from the crowd. I can see everything up there.”

He nods. “Noted.”

I look him over again. Swallowing hard at the gloss over his hard chest and explicitly defined arms. “Are you nervous, at all?”

His upper lip tugs at the corner to reveal the dimple line beneath his dark beard. “Nah.” He shakes his head adjusting the red glove again. “Done this too many times to count.”

“Right. I used to get nervous before every meet,” I share.

“Not you, Miss Penn Relays.”

Didn’t matter how fast I was or still am. I can’t outrun this feeling. Rooted deep in emotions so overwhelming—so foreign, yet familiar.

I giggle. “I know. My mom used to have to talk me down before every race.”

“What would she say?”

“That nerves are only a result of doubt—and there’s no need to doubt cause if I wasn’t supposed to be there—I wouldn’t have been.”

His eyes dance over my frame. “Wise woman.” I nod in agreement. “You think I belong here?” He probes.

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

“And what about you?” He steps closer invading all possible personal space. “You belong here?”

My neck cranes up to not loose sight of his perfect face. He’s so close, I can smell whatever oil they put on him paired with the conditioner he uses for his hair.

His eyes are low as they’re pinned on me. “I’m here, aren’t I?” I answer almost inaudibly.

“Yeah. Yeah, you are.”

I’m caught in that rift, where the part of my brain that stops me from doing what I want—what I feel—it gets fuzzy. Almost like I’m drunk on something. I’m leaning in before I can stop myself. On my tippy toes to accommodate for the eight inches he has on me. I kiss him.

“—I’m sorry.” I’ve never done that without the courage of alcohol flinging me. But tonight, I’m drunk on something else.

His upper body leans down into me, overpowering my presence in this room. My breath hitches with every centimeter of space he closes. Before I know it our lips meet again. Soft at first. Like he doesn’t want to break me. But another follows—and another—until his tongue is being warmed in my mouth and my hand instinctively grips the neck of his neck.

I breathe again when he pulls away abruptly. Our foreheads touching while his brown eyes pierce mine.

“I’m gonna need you back on the bus when everything’s done,” he whispers. My voice fails me, so I nod to indicate I understand. A knock on the door breaks our bubble. “I gotta go.” He pushes his forehead into mine one last time before moving away. Grabbing a spray bottle, he makes his way to the door.

I try to settle the butterflies in the my stomach, paired with the tsunami he left me to deal with down below.

“—And Alana?”

“Yes?” In slits his eyes trace the perimeter of my entire body. Head to toe.

“Fucking perfect.”

Demi gets her wish. Dwayne came out with his speedos—tight and on full display. The man I just left—or a scripted version of him—enters the arena shortly after. Taking his time as usual—strutting and letting the room soak in his power and magnetism.

I don’t know how the two of them are just now tag teaming for the first time. Besides them being family, their chemistry in the ring is harmonious. It just makes sense.

The way he tosses and maneuvers Cody and Seth—it’s equally terrifying as it is thrilling. I shift in the seat—throbbing. A deep pulse growing down below watching his dominance. Another in my heart every time he gets slammed. I flinch at every hit. I wasn’t doing this before. What the hell is wrong with me? I used to be able to watch a match with no issue. I was all for the violence, being able to spot every hit that doesn’t connect or a move that’s just two men working together instead of against one another. But tonight, it looks like every hit might kill him and it has my anxiety at an all time high.

There’s no shock—to me at least—when I hear the one, two, three. A pin by The Final Boss to The American—not so—Nightmare. He looks defeated and I hope it’s all for the cameras and the crowd. On his knees, nose dried up with blood, and hair wild as it can be.

Demi and I scream in celebration like two fangirls that belong in front row. Two of our childhood favorites, live in action, whooping straight ass. It doesn’t get any better than this. Or maybe it does—seeing as I get to reward the winner myself later.

Chugging the last of our drinks, we pack it up to leave. Not even a few feet out of the Lounge and Demi’s scream paired with a gorilla grip on my forearm, has my head snapping in her direction.

“Oh my god!”

I follow her line of sight and gasp.

“Well, hello to you too young lady.”

“Somebody fucking pinch me.”

“I would do it, but I think I’ll get in trouble.” Randy fucking Orton. This weekend is one for the books. He flashes us both a smile.

“I think I’m the one hearing voices in my head, now.” Demi pulls her phone from her back pocket. “Take our picture—please, please, please.”

Taking her phone I step back from them. “How we looking, baby girl?” He questions.

“Like supermodels,” I tell him. “With voices in their heads who should probably see somebody about that.”

I’m not surprised at all, by how friendly he is. A far cry from his menacing character on-screen. Fitting and molding into our tipsy goofiness, like we came here together. He has us laughing so hard, my stomach is tight like I did a core workout. At one point, even lifting his shirt so we can feel his abs.

Mid-laugh, I hear my name being called. “Hey.” I turn to find the lady from earlier with no headset, but still with that urgent energy like she doesn’t have a second to waste. “Just a gentle reminder that he wants you in his trailer, okay?” She tells me, in a tone low enough for only me to receive.

“Yeah, sure.” She’s gone just as fast as she came, like lightning.

I don’t even know how long we stay inside chatting to Randy. We talk about the match—dissecting the storyline and telling him what we think should happen next. We talk about him—how much The Viper meant to us as kids and how good it feels to still see him in the ring after all these years. We talk about him…

“Don’t tell me y’all are here alone?” He looks past us and then turns back the opposite way. Besides us, there’s only about three other groups of stragglers up here still, combined with staff. “No dates?”

“Nope,” Demi answers first. “Just two girls who enjoy shirtless men fighting to the death.”

“Oh, come on. No way your boyfriends let you two come alone. No special someone?”

I laugh bitterly. “Oh, there’s someone. But special?” Yeah, right. I shake my head lifting a brow.

“I know that look. Look, if a guy can’t take the time out to make his presence special—or make you feel special—he doesn’t even deserve to be someone in your life.”

As if my head isn’t all fucked up and twisted already. Leave it to The Viper to twist it some more.

“Look—it was really nice talking to you ladies. So nice to meet you.” He starts his stride in the opposite direction after embracing us both. “Make sure you tag me, if you post that!” He yells back.

“I hope you’re not letting what he said get to your head.” I turn to find Demi already looking. We walk leisurely to the backdoors leading to the outside. “He doesn’t even know the full story. And so what if it's not ideal or traditional? Life didn’t come with a fucking handbook.”

“I think it did though,” I interject. Her eyebrows pinch as we both push through the double doors. The night air of April hitting us. A whole different atmosphere from inside. “The Bible?”

“Girl—you know what I mean.” She links her around mine as our heels click simultaneously on the pavement. The occasional honking and sirens in the near-distance. Philly is not so far removed from New York. “We’re only twenty-two. I don’t know about you, but nothing in life is that serious to me right now. School is almost over. And that’s the most serious thing about me.

“Special?” She continues. “I mean—what even is special anyway? Pfft.” I know exactly what she’s doing and I am appreciative, but my head has always been louder than anyone’s opinions of comfort. The problem is, he is special to me—but I fear that feeling is not mutual. This is not a two way street ordeal.

Tabling the conversation altogether, I switch gears. “You wanna go to South Street, again? Bar hop? I got two hours—give or take.”

I hear the sound of the doors we just came out of slam behind us.

“I'm sorry, Lana. But he really, really wants you back in the trailer.”

Blowing air from my mouth, I do a complete one-eighty on my heels. “He's not even in there. He's gonna take at least another two hours for press.”

I already know how this works. He leaves me in that hotel room for hours, working, before he has a chance to get to me. This is no different. If anything, it’ll be worse because it’s a PPV.

Her hand goes up and down as she offers me nothing. It's then I notice the large man in all black beside her. “Can I at least walk my friend back to the car? I wanna know she's safe.”

“Lana, we have security escorts for that,” she explains in that rushing hue. It does nothing to soothe my irritation of constantly being pulled like a puppet on a string. Special, alright.

“It's fine," Demi grabs my elbow, soaking up the last bit of bite-back I have for Miss Bossy. “It's fine. I'll be fine.”

“You're sure? I can come with y’all.”

“No. Believe me, if a motherfucker try anything, Bron Breaker over here will get the job done better than we can.” She motions to who I assume is supposed to be her escort back to the truck so she can go back to the hotel. “We had our fun already. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

No phone, no human interaction, and only reruns of Family Guy on the flat screen, and something close to two hours passes me by. Just when I begin to dose off, the sound of the bus door closing has me alert. I sit up wiping my eyes with my palms.

He comes busting through the curtain. Moving about in the space as if he’s the only one in here. Not sparing me a single glance. No greeting. Forget a kiss. I wasn’t expecting the sitcom, “honey, I’m home.” But damn. It’s like I’ve been warped into a year before when I met him for the first time.

He goes through the motions of his routine. The black band discarded into the nightstand drawer. He checks his phone—scrolling for only a few seconds before settling it face down. His shoes come off.

I cross my arms, over it all already. Wishing I would’ve just left with Demi. “Is this all we’re gonna do? Cause I can leave now, then.”

He has his days where’s he’s in this funk—sad or angry about something I know nothing about— and we just sit in silence mostly. Or we’ll have sex, but it’s disconnected. Sterile. Robotic almost. Like that’s the only purpose I serve. Like I'm not even a person. There’s no eye contact. No words being exchanged. Barely the inaudible “fuck,” or "shit,” from his lips. It’ll prompt me to muster up all the strength I have to not make a sound. Make myself as small as possible. Let him do his thing. And if I'm lucky he’ll find his way behind me with one heavy arm draped across my hip.

In the beginning, none of that would bother me. I’d just be lucky to even be in his presence. But I would think that we’re miles away from that. That hasn't happened in a while, but I guess we're overdue for one of those nights. I don't understand what the fuck the problem is. He won the match. I'm here and I've been in here like he asked—no, demanded of me. I don’t understand what the need for me to be here is, if he won’t even acknowledge me. It’s pathetic—on both of our parts.

“Take your clothes off.”

“What?” I ask shakily. His words like blows to my stomach. He finally feels the need to grace me with eye contact. I begin to shake my head in protest.

“No—that’s all you wanna do? Take your clothes off, then.” He’s never looked more like the man from TV than he does in this moment. Calculated, mean as hell, and irritable. It’s unsettling. I don’t know that version of him. It rattles me.

“You know that’s not what I meant.” I try my best to keep my voice steady. If I wasn’t staring I would’ve missed the slight eye roll as he turns his back to me.

I leave him to do whatever, while fighting the urge to set these tears free. Redirecting my gaze to my hands after he removes his hoodie, revealing a black tee. I play myself every time I get too comfortable in this. Fucking stupid.

The fierce sound of his hiss has my head snapping in his direction. I catch him in the middle of pulling the shirt off his body with one arm. The scene is horrid. It’s not even the bruises— large, shapeless, globs of green and purple—that force me to stand. It's the rashes. The oh so familiar rashes. Patches of them decorating his strong back.

My eyes sting immediately at the sight, already knowing what causes rashes like that. I try to regulate the scale of my emotions—rewinding back to all the times I had to help my mom put cream on my dad from the breakouts caused by the chemo. He was always too weak to do it himself. Always in pain. My brother couldn’t help—he was off to school during the worst of it.

“Are you okay?” My voice just barely there.

He doesn’t answer. He throws the black shirt across the way and it lands on the corner loveseat. I close the space between us—in more ways than one. His broad shoulders sag, releasing a deep breath. Defeated.

I grab the familiar jar from next to him on the dresser chest, opening it to perform in muscle memory the lightest strokes to the red breakouts on his back. He’s stiff as a board. I press down and make circles until the tacky consistency dissolves into his bronze skin. Not too hard—not too soft. My mother’s instruction rings loud in my head as if she’s standing over me like she used to.

A big breath leaves him as he relaxes, finally. Shoulders not as square with his head hanging. The fight to steady my hands trembling like my bottom lip is persistent. Remembering the shame on my father’s face, as if having cancer was his fault. As if dying was something he orchestrated.

His big hand is warm and firm as he reaches to stop me. Pulling until I’m in front of him now. His broad shadow cascading over me.

I’m not sure about that four letter word, but I do know that I care deeply for this man. He is special to me. Beyond any gift or earth shattering pleasure gifted in between sheets. No—it’s way deeper than that. I recognize his pain—his fears. I’ve seen them before. Maybe in another life, I always tell myself. Or maybe our time had already came and went before. Maybe before this instance, we knew each other in a past life and got all the opportunities we lack now.

There was no wife. No kids. No cancer. No age gap. No need to hide. Things made sense. Our only concern was each other. Maybe our bodies just recognize each other and that pull I always feel is just my old self pointing me in his direction.

“Can you look at me please?” He pleads. The unfamiliar monster from before disappearing— and the gentle Joe back in his place. Hurt still painted on my face, I meet him. “I’m sorry.”

Unable to even speak—not knowing what to say—I just nod. The sincerity in his big brown eyes swallowing me whole.

I don’t even notice he’s leaning until his soft lips are on me. On my lips then to my chin. And just like that, all armor is relieved from me—and him too apparently. If my dad knew I allowed a man to talk to me the way he just had, he’d have nothing but disgust written all over his face. And for the first time ever, I feel like this is a mistake. Not just tonight, but all of it.

It was all meant to be lighthearted. Fun and adventurous. Matters of the heart and greedy emotions weren’t supposed to play the front—ever.

I don’t move as he finds his way to my jawline, nudging my head to the side with his to find my neck. He yearns for all to be forgiven and forgotten. That much is obvious. And I detest myself for being so weak. So pliable.

The heat from him transfers right to me. My insides igniting like a furnace. He knows exactly how to dissolve me and I hate—and love it all the same. Every kiss after another—a silent plea—another sorry. Turning it up a notch, I feel the roughness of his hands on my ass. Kneading the flesh like a skilled baker, earning a moan from me.

Ass up and face buried in the comforter, is how I end up. He fucks me the same way he performed tonight in the ring. Wild, dominant, and taking every opportunity to gain the upper hand. It’s passionate, but not in the traditional way.

“Ohh—fuck, baby!” I teeter the edge of pleasure and pain, tears sitting at the corners of my eyes. Blurring my already obscuring vision.

His hand is firm on my neck in a vice grip. The other resting on the curve of my back, controlling my arch. Every hit, a louder smacking in the space, feeling better than the one that comes before it. Drilling my hole like he owes it something. I end up just sliding and lying flat. It’s too much. His pace doesn’t falter. A heavy hand comes down on my ass as punishment.

“Stop running from me,” he grunts.

He attacks my ear with licks and bites and I melt like ice cream in the summer. Slowing his pace so I can feeling everything. Every vein, the slightest curve—all of it. “I thought about you all day,” he whispers. “Look at me.” I barely turn my head and he’s right there. Fine lines garnishing his flat nose as his lip curls into a slight snarl. “So fucking beautiful.” His tongue comes out and I take it. Snatching away when he switches gears from slow and deep to slow and hard. Slamming into me with the aggression of a dozen street fighters.

The kisses and licks are a thing of the past. Bites—deliberate and firm—take their place. He’s all over me. He’s everywhere. His animalistic grunts countering my helpless whines.

“It’s too good, Lana. I can’t stop,” he warns. And I already know what’s coming. Too blinded by lust and all the angst from earlier, I don’t even protest.

I must be losing my mind. The events of this weekend tainting my judgement—because the next words to leave my mouth can’t be mine.

“C-cum in me. I wanna feel it, daddy.”

“Yeah?” He questions breathless. I nod eagerly.

Slanted eyes glued to one another, he goes even harder. Meeting his peak. Mouth falling open. Swollen inside of me before he breaks free.

“Arghhh!” We moan in unison, notches of energy trickling down. Milking him. Feeling every last drop. I’m in a daze. His nose brushing and sliding against the side of my face, centering me.

“Mmm,” he hums. Pulling all the way out. I turn on my back, defeated, just to find him stroking himself back to life.

God, help me.

His fingers making a trail up and down my bare back has me fighting sleep like a newborn baby full on milk and burped already. I can hear his heartbeat. It’s strong and steady—just like him.

“Are you okay?” I finally ask.

His fingers stop, but he doesn’t answer. Resting my chin on his peck, I find his eyes in the dark. “Don’t worry about me,” is his only response.

I’m sure that weary spirit has been passed down from my mother. Lord knows, she’ll worry about the sun coming up—despite her seeing it every morning of her life. The older I get, the more I start to mimic those same habits. I worry about school and my future. I worry about my friends—Demi and Anthony—and if they’re genuinely happy with life or just going through the motions and putting on a front for me. I worry about my brother and if he’ll ever find his niche in life. My dad—praying every other night that his cell count stays at bay. And now—I worry about him. What he’s doing when he’s not with me. If he ever thinks about cutting the cord on this unstable arrangement. If he’s healthy. If all the man hours put into this job is too much for him. All day long, seven days a week, the unknown takes precedence over what I can see with my own eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I whisper. How delusional am I for noticing this is something like our one year anniversary. All the shit that’s happened in between now and then. I wonder if his scope of us even goes that wide. Instead of ruining the night, I rest my ear back flat on his chest. But his next question has me popping back up.

“Will you stay?”

He’s always so hard to read. Impenetrable at times. Tonight is no different. But I can feel something. Something in him is different. The way he asked if I would stay. If I didn’t know any better I would think he needed me here in place of want.

“I can’t,” I deny in a low tone. It’s then the question of where his family was today emerges like a horizon in my mind. Certainly he didn’t have us both here? He would’ve ended the night with her instead. Right?

A strong hand sliding up the back of my neck, holding firm to cup my head grabs my attention. “Please—stay? For me?”

Our faces just inches from connection—sanctions a real war to stand on business. My responsibilities outweigh anything going on here—but damn. Damn. If I knew I’d be straight with school in spite of missing my last two midterms, best believe, I’d stay right here. Right in this bed. Until it was time to see him win again tomorrow night.

I breathe in from my nose. A smile on my face, even though he’s hard as steel. “I can’t,” I repeat. “Believe me, if I could I would.”

It seems like forever when his eyes bounce around my face before nodding in acceptance. “I’ll be watching from home. I swear.” I reassure him, even though I’m sure he’ll throw it in the trash. My stream tomorrow is probably the last thing on his mind when he steps out and into the openness of the arena. Thousands of people screaming his name and going ballistic. That means much more to him. That’s his special.

I lay my head back to its original spot. Listening to the rhythm of his heartbeat, paired with his breathing, until it grows to light snores. Wishing we could stay like this forever.

Birds of a feather. Oh, how I wish we could stick together.

A/N // this was not supposed to be this long and it was supposed to been up. life got in the way. smh anyway...

all i have to say is Joe...idc how old you are or what you've done. you could've marched with MLK... who the fuck is you talking to like that???

as always, if you read it or even a portion of it, i am forever grateful💗 feedback is welcomed.

next round of shorts before pt 4 Desires is listed on the masterlist. i have no idea when any of them will be up. i've already started all of them and they're at different stages; however, May and June will be very busy for me. i'll keep y'all updated as much as possible.

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mskenway97 · 2 years ago

Text

Bot in flames

I have been wanting to write this for a long time and I started thinking about heat cycles in robots.

My mind was focused on bayverse optimus prime and I came up with all this.

Forgive me but I couldn't help but want to XD.

Bayverse Optimus Prime X Fem!Human!Reader

Summary: You are a new mechanic working at NEST after the problems in Egypt, you became very close to the autobot leader, until one moment he started to avoid you, the rest of autobots warnning to you. Until you find out why.

Occurs between revenge of the fallen and dark of the moon.

Words: 2,451

Warnings: heat cycles, belly budge, cumflation, masturbation, multiple orgasm, size difference,possessive, g/t

You had always been interested in technology, you had gone into mechanics although many people would not take you seriously in what you were doing. Until you started seeing something that caught your attention, the Mission City events.

A lot of people said it was a lie, a hoax… Other websites said they had witnesses and testimonies about giant robots. You tried to see more images but nothing.

Everything seemed to be a lie until a giant robot appeared on your TV telling you that you were not alone, that there were more beings in the galaxy. That even though everyone was scared, you were more interested but you were just a mechanic, no matter how much you wanted to meet them you were not going to find them, until you received a letter because of your knowledge, they were needed at the base of NEST.

They blindfolded you and put you in a black car without asking, like the movies, the ride was a bit long until you got to an interrogation room, showing if you had a criminal record, not to reveal the information here without ending up dead. Once finished they took you outside a huge hangar and put you on hold, until a middle-aged man who seemed to be the general, came to pick you up in person.

-Y/N, General Lennox we have seen that your knowledge in mechanics and your project of coexistence between machines and humans is unique. I'm just telling you try to stay calm, you're going to be surrounded by autobots. The first time is usually a surprise.

He wasn't lying when he took me to another hangar with huge beings of different sizes looking at you. I had a feeling of nervousness, butterflies and above all that he would not try to give me a heart attack. It was one thing to see fuzzy pictures on the web sites you had seen and another to see them in person…. Besides your height was not the tallest, you literally understood how the ants felt.

You saw the biggest of them all approaching, it seemed to be the leader, with red and blue flames, with what looked like parts of a truck, despite your situation it seemed interesting to you.

-Y/N, my name is Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots…. It is a pleasure to meet you, we read your project, it caught our attention, in part we need more human allies that promise us their commitment. If you decide to leave I will understand your motives but if you stay you will be apprenticed to one of our best doctors as well as learning about the coexistence you seek. Do we have your word?

You were trying to calm down when you saw that huge being kneeling in front of you and the rest of them looking at you, seeing that your nervous system was somewhat altered by the situation. Trying to calm down until you felt Lennox's hand on your shoulder as they were waiting for your answer.

You nodded as your mouth had gone dry trying to speak, the giant black robot was amused by your nervousness, he moved closer showing his cannons causing you to stumble to the ground, making him laugh.

-I like this squishy…. I'm going to like working with you

Well in the rest of the news they started to introduce you to the rest of the team, you already knew names like Ratchet, Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Sidewispe, etc. And the rest of the facilities, they put you in charge of working with Ratchet.

The weeks of adaptation were somewhat curious, as you were startled by every scare the twins and Sidewispe gave you.

Ratchet carefully taught you the systems of a robot to take care of them carefully: you learned the different parts of the body of a cybertronian, Ironhide taught you the workings of the weapons although his demonstrations still scared you so much firepower that you reflexively hid behind his leg.

Your favorite sessions were with Optimus, even though he was the biggest of them all, he was very nice to you… You started to get a little more trusting as you told each other about different experiences. He told you about his culture, his planet… You were more and more interested, he was also interested in your customs, your history. Besides, I know that his way of treating you was to carry you in his servos with care, sometimes he was contemplating, with his finger he touched your cheek, it was a strange contact but you felt quite comfortable. He had also put you on his shoulder. You didn't know if it was friendship you had with this bot, but you were happy to finally have a confidant.

You had been in NEST for a few months now, you learned quickly but there was something that had been bothering you in the last week about the behavior of a certain autobot leader.

At first it seemed to you that he was stressed out from the missions in order to find Megatron but every time you were near an Autobot he would get sideways and also with the humans you were working with. You don't talk like before either, every time you tried to talk to him alone he would disappear saying he had something else to do. This was starting to bother you a lot but with the meetings you didn't have the time or the moment.

-Y/N aren't paying attention to the lessons…. - Ratchet said as he tapped me on his digit.

-Sorry, Ratchet, I just had something else on my mind.

-You should be focused on where you are right now. Although I guess it's about Optimus right?

You were surprised to see that the doc bot had guessed it. Seeing your expression, he laughed at you a little.

-It's obvious, everyone at the base is aware of you… The truth is, we haven't seen Optimus happy with someone in millennia.

You sighed as I grabbed the tools and went to work on one of Ironhide's weapons.

-I don't understand his behavior lately… He's been acting so strange, I'm worried.

Ratchet cleared his throat as he became serious while forcing you to look at him with his digits on your chin - This business you should stay out of, y/n. He'll get over it, just try not to be alone with him.

You didn't understand why Ratchet gave you that advice you tried, he looked at you again - Believe me y/n, it's best to keep your distance from Optimus for now.

There was something you didn't understand about what was going on, you asked the rest of the Autobots about it, almost everyone gave you fuzzy answers about what was happening to the autobot leader, until you got to Ironhide who gave you another warning that left you even more surprised.

-Squishy, there are some things you shouldn't meddle with no matter how curious you are. Although if you solve your doubts I wish you luck so you can get out of it - said Ironhide

You were thoughtful about everything you had heard from the autobots, you missed Optimus since the last few months you had felt an attachment to the autobot leader that went beyond friendship with him. You admitted that you had fallen in love with that big guy with blue optics, his kindness, his authority and obviously his height and figure.

Although you were still curious about what was going on, you decided to follow the advice of the autobots not to be alone with the autobot leader for the time being. You were succeeding but every time you entered a room his gaze followed you everywhere. You literally felt like cat and mouse, there would come a time when cat would end up getting what he wanted even though you didn't know what.

Until one day when you were almost ready to leave because you had overstayed your welcome at the base, you heard a noise in the hangars.

Lennox and the military team explained to you that the farthest hangars of the base were for storage or special equipment for both autobots and humans. Something in your instincts told you that you should not go there but you decided to go out of curiosity, you opened the big door carefully, that place was dark so you stepped carefully not to touch anything dangerous.

Your nerves were on edge and the adrenaline was the only thing that kept you moving, you were getting closer to the source of the noise, at the same time you were seeing that there was smoke around, making this put you more alert than before, it was clear that you were not alone in this place.

You came to see a dim light at the back of the warehouse, it was difficult to pass with so many boxes around but you passed as you could. Finally you arrived carefully at the origin where you were surprised to see who was there.

It was Optimus, with his exhaust pipes producing smoke while on a large part of his body there was a pink liquid around his body.

You were about to approach to see if he was okay but you stopped when you heard him…

He was moaning?

He was at the same time rubbing what seemed to be his spike, while there was even more transfluid.

You remembered certain lessons that gave you some embarrassment from Ratchet. You were trying to remember but seeing the leader like that made you tingle. You shook your head it was clear you were not supposed to be here. You were going to tread carefully until you heard him moaning your name….

You tried to leave carefully until you bumped into one of the crates making a lot of noise.

-Who's there?" growled the autobot leader.

You tried to hide quickly only to feel a servo around your body. You closed your eyes, you were trembling at the sight.

-Look at me...

You opened your eyes to see how it was caressing you with its digits. - How long have you been here? - asked the autobot leader.

That tone made you shiver, it didn't seem like Optimus was the one he was talking to.

- I haven't seen anything, I'll leave without bothering...

-No... I've been avoiding this situation for the past few weeks, feeling jealous of the rest that came close to you and what hurts me the most is that you started avoiding me. My y/n... This time, you are going to stay by my side.

You didn't understand what was happening, until two of his fingers were touching your thighs making you shudder.

- You know how much I wanted you, your kindness and curiosity. Your smile, your beauty... and your figure. Oh Primus, my spike was begging to enter your body. To make you mine... I know you want it too

You moaned again, as you felt the pressure on your thighs... you were starting to feel hot I knew you should stop but at the same time you wanted to know where I wanted to go.

His optics were watching you seeing a smile on your face.

-Well I see that you agree....

Then you felt his glossa lick your neck and then kiss you while continuing the pressure on your thighs. Right now you were reacting to several streams of pleasure that you never thought was possible.

His digits removed your pants while he kept kissing you and you felt his glossa tasting your taste.

You moaned as you felt a digit around your entrance.

-I'm just preparing your body for the best part... let yourself go, my little one," he whispered in your ear as you felt his digit touching your insides moving up and down making you moan in different ways for the leader's pleasure while he whispered how much he wanted you, he loved you madly but at the same time he didn't want to scare you away.

You moaned again as you looked up at him.

- Then you too... - you said between moans as he digit around your walls.

-Yes... I love you and I need you...

You climaxed as he pulled out his digit and licked it. He smiled at you as you caught your breath. You thought you were going to rest but you saw he was bringing his spike closer.

-We're not done yet... I want to feel you more... Mine all mine

You were going to protest but you felt his spike enter inside of you and saw a big bulge through your body. He started to move slowly.

-You are so tight

As you gasped as you tried to take it, it overcame the digit. Once he adjusted to your body he began to move faster and faster and you both gasped at the same pace. He was about to climax, you fell in as he could.

-Wait I can't... ah! It's going to be too much.

-Ah! -Easy... i can't out! Ah! Oh Primus! - gasped Optimus as well.

You both climaxed as you felt your body fill with the transfluid.

Your belly completely swollen as he carefully removed his spike while some transfluid fell out.

-That was... Intense - you said while touching your belly - What happened to you?

Optimus kissed your forehead as he placed you close to his chest.

- We have heat cycles something your species would say in heat, I couldn't take it anymore.... I should have done it sooner though, my little one.

You smiled and I snuggled close.

-Then I won't move away next time.

Optimus chuckled and held you close.

You had learned a lesson from the heat cycles, something that was not to be the last time.

#sam writes #optimus prime #transformers #optimus prime x reader #optimus x reader #transformers x reader #robot x human #maccadam #maccadams #valveplug #transformers g/t #g/t #bayverse optimus prime #i wanted show this so long #i finally finished it #optimus #size difference

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felassan · 1 year ago

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Dragon Age: The Veilguard info compilation Post 3

[Part 1] [Part 2] Post is under a cut due to length.

There is a lot of information coming out right now about DA:TV from many different sources. This post is just an effort to compile as much as I can in one place, in case that helps anyone. Sources for where the information came from have been included. Where I am linking to a social media user’s post, the person is either a dev, a Dragon Age community council member or other person who has had a sneak peek at and played the game. nb, this post is more of a ‘info that came out in snippets from articles and social media posts’ collection rather than a 'regurgitating the information on the official website or writing out what happened in the trailer/gameplay reveal’ post. The post is broken down into headings on various topics. A few points are repeated under multiple headings where relevant. Where I am speculating without a source, I have clearly demarcated this. if you notice any mistakes in this post, please tell me.

Character Creation

All armor and clothing options will scale and mesh to any body type [source]

The character creator has lots of sliders for body parts and overall shape, none of which are tied to the voice or pronouns (she/her, he/him, or they/them) that you choose [source]

"Epler took special care to show off the extensive curly and textured hair options in the game, including several versions of braids and locs, noting that increasing these options in particular was very important to the team" [source]

You can change your character’s physical appearance at any time during the game, but not their class or backstory [source]

"Each individual class has some variability, too; even the mage class has some up-close-and-personal attacks, since a mage player character could still conceivably have an assassin backstory and would therefore need to have some attacks to accommodate that sort of career path" [source]

" "We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about skin tone,” Corinne said. The character we made, a Black elf, seemed to glow in the bluish light of a nighttime scene, and under bright sunlight, I could see the richness of his color. Corinne: "We want to make sure that skin tone is reflected authentically" " [source]

" “We have dozens and dozens of hair types,” she said. “And they’re fully affected by physics.” The quality and variety of choices I saw delighted me. The rows of bouncy, luxurious-looking hair of all curl types and textures (and yes, the annoyingly ubiquitous “Killmonger cut” was among the options, what can you do?) brought the biggest smile to my face in the hour I spent with Busche and The Veilguard." [source]

Story and lore

NPCs will remember when you chuck a shopkeeper through a plate-glass window [source]

" The game’s story sees Solas intact a plot that will result in the deaths of thousands. When his justification that “people die, it’s what they do,” falls on deaf ears, you and your merry band of misfits have to stop him " [source]

" “Early in the demo and in the trailer, you’re in a part of the world you’ve never been in – Tevinter,” Epler tells me. “Tevinter is known for being a place of high magic; visually, it’s different. Obviously in Origins you’re in Ferelden, which was grubby, muddy, and very visually different and distinct. That said, it’s the first hour of the game, so we’re only seeing the prologue. As you go deeper, you’ll find that the game can be just as bloody and just as grim as Dragon Age Origins, 2, and Inquisition. For us, it’s that feeling of contrast. You get moments of higher fantasy magic coming back to the world through Solas’ ritual, but also things get pretty grim, and things get pretty dark in some spaces for sure.” " [source]

"Snappy dialogue" [source]

The game is really about each of the companions [source]

Narrative narrative narrative! [source]

The Shadow Dragons are an underground resistance that engages in guerrilla warfare against the corrupt mage rulers of the Tevinter Imperium [source]

"Varric has created the group called the Veilguards, recruiting a veritable group of weirdos to pursue Solas, who’s carved a path through the magical empire of Tevinter" [source]

"There’s intrigue to the game’s tale already, with Varric hoping he can convince Solas to stop his plan of tearing open the Veil: a wish by the dwarf to save a dear friend. There’s a fascinating relationship that's already being set up, Varric and Solas as opposing narrative forces, with your character, Rook, pulled between them" [source]

"There’s extra context to flesh out dialogue, with short descriptions that help give a vague idea of how things play out. The example we were shown was Rook trying to take down a gang leader inside a bar. We could choose to defuse the situation with either words or weapons, but the catch is you don’t know how effective those approaches will be" [source]

" Busche explained that the team wanted to give players a game where locations were imbued with just as much personality as the characters. “That meant making contrast from the areas that are dark and decaying to the areas that are illuminated with magic,” Busche said " [source]

" “This is a part of the world where magic has been embraced,” Busche said. “It is a society of mages and magic in this world is inherently colorful. So whether we’re seeing them use magic for everyday purposes like signage or using them as spells, that color really comes through.” " [source]

We will visit the Necropolis of Nevarra [source]

Gameplay, presentation, performance etc

There are dozens of abilities and spells [source]

The game has an easy mode [source]

There is a setting where your character can't die in battle [source]

"The Rogue class in our demo had a bow with recharging arrows for ranged attacks, and dual blades that could unleash a furious flurry of instantaneous blows" [source]

[☕ found this post or blog interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

#dragon age: the veilguard #dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #solas #lgbtq+#long post #longpost #injury cw

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atlantis-just-drowned · 2 months ago

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A/N: Can you tell I'm obsessed with this man? In case you couldn't, here is one more x reader post about him. I wrote it all in one time. It's not even going to be the last. I wish I could say "enjoy" but 95% of my audience and probably of this website in general doesn't know about this man and couldn't care less about him. Still, enjoy my mad ramblings, losers.

CW: There will be a SFW and a NSFW part. For the SFW part: post-canon, mention of PTSD symptoms, maybe also implied cyber-bullying if you squint really hard. For the NSFW part: mention of choking, mention of death, love marks, dumbification, mention of edging, mention of being put on a leash

Damien x reader general headcanons

Please reblog to show support! Likes make posts die :(

Masterlist

SFW

Goofiest goof to have ever goofed

Damien loves being silly with you

Whether it's cracking dumb jokes, getting extra-cheesy, or even randomly spinning you around while he hums a song

He just loves to see you smile, and he can't help but be in a good mood when you're around

Delivers the worst pick up lines, but in a way that's so smooth you'd be almost admirative

Makes a lot of funny voices/tones all the time. Vocal stims go hardddd

Also lots of funny faces too

The amount of details about you he has memorized is insane, you became one of his biggest interests the moment he got a crush on you and he commit every single thing he learns about you to memory

Because of that, he also CANNOT shut up about you. Everyone on earth knows you're his partner

Shows you off on his lives, if you're at his place while he's doing a FAQ, at some point he's going to fetch you and put you on his laps so you can say hi

The first video he does after going back from Nevermoor he's talking about how he found the most perfect partner ever I swear he's down BAD

It definitely causes problem because his community is insane and not all of them are good people, but he does everything he can to protect and manage this aspect for you

I mentioned it in a previous post but I'm certain he has a 4chan account. I'm convinced that canon implies it and will die on this hill

Also, once again based on canon, I'm pretty sure he's a terrible cook, he can't make a good, healthy meal to save his life, which makes the fact that Freddie is good at it even funnier

Like, you've seen Freddie cook before (paywalled canon). It was awesome. You loved the meal. And the moment you leave this cursed place and Damien tries to cook something for you, it's burnt and terrible. The shift is so jarring it leaves you absolutely confused

His apartment is canonically an absolute disastrous mess, but once you start tagging along and you two regularly go to each other's place, he starts trying to keep it cleaner

However, the murder conspiracy boards stay ON

I think after everything that happened back in Nevermoor, he has a hard time talking about true crime like he used to

It definitely has a huge impact on his work and how he talks about those subjects

But it's also his biggest special interest and a way for him to externalize everything, so he doesn't stop his channel either

He also gets anxious and has panic attacks a lot more easily. Definitely keeps having sleeping issues (insomnia and nightmares mostly)

Expect to be treated as sleep medication. He cannot spend a good night without spooning you. You don't entirely solve his sleeping problems but he feels a lot less lonely with you by his side and it helps, in a way

Yaps at you. All the time. He loves yapping. Cannot shut up for the life of him.

Very dedicated boyfriend. Does everything he can to help you around and make himself useful

So affectionate too, he tells you how much you mean to him all the time. Looks at you like you're his entire world

He won't ever admit it but you just make him melt inside. He spent so much time building his cool, chill persona only for you to make him act like a flustered, awkward nerd

Honestly his vibes are somewhere between the nerd emoji and a himbo/himbim lmao

Zero survival instinct

I headcanon him to be AuDHD

NSFW

Carries a bottle of lube with him literally everywhere. I'm sorry but him behind paywall carrying lube in the most unexpected moment will forever be proof to me

Literally down for anything anytime and anywhere if it's for you. Seeing you turned on is a huge turn on for him

He tends to dom more but can sub too from time to time

Remember how I said he can't ever shut up? Yeah. He WILL keep rambling while he fucks you. He makes less and less sense the longer you're at it

Gets desperate so so easily. You don't even have to do much to keep him going. The closest Damien gets to his own end the more his voice turns pleading

Do I even need to mention that he likes it rough? It's just (paywalled) canon at this point. He fucks into you like a madman, he can't help it. Always asking you to go harder on him when you're in charge

Also loud as fuck. He not only can't stop making noises the whole time, but said noises can be heard from outside the motherfucking apartment. Don't even get me started on how bad it gets when he cums

You tried to edge him once. You had to convince your neighbors that they didn't need to call the police because what they heard wasn't your boyfriend dying a brutal and painful death

Loves leaving marks, whether it's you marking him up or the other way around, he just loves it. Hickeys, bite marks, bruises, nail scratches, chocking marks, lipstick if you wear makeup, you name it.

Also loves to fuck you stupid. He likes it when you do it to him but there's just something incredibly arousing for him in the idea of railing his amazing, clever partner so hard they can't spell their own name

He wouldn't mind being put on a leash either. Idk why I just think he'd like it. Definitely would get embarrassed about it tho.

#whispers from atlantis #dorian app #dorian slashfic #slashfic dorian #slashfic #damien slashfic #slashfic damien #slashfic mc #damien x reader

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rain0tes · 1 year ago

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I know you just posted this an hour ago, but i would like to request a second part for hacker!reader x hazbin (if you do second parts ofc) and if so I would LOVEEEEEEE to see the vees reaction when reader pranks? Destroys? Them.

The Vee's reactions to hacker!reader messing with them.

Thanks so much for the request, nonnie!

Out of the three Vee's, Valentino would be the one who's least affected. That doesn't mean you still don't actively interfere with his work. It's just that you'd rather not touch his so-called "profession" most of the time.

He still has to deal with you, much to his chagrin. He's had to deal with you tanking his profits because you've replaced every porno on his website with the never gonna give you up music video.

It's happened thrice already in the span of 2 months.

Which gets him angry, wanting to immediately get rid of whoever has the audacity to mess with him.

You're not dumb enough to go parading yourself as the one who's been attacking the Vee's, tho, remaining anonymous while laughing at their misery that you caused.

Velvette actually finds their anonymous little hacker kind of funny, but that's only because she's not the one who has to clean up after your messes.

Although the idea that someone is able to bypass through their security was more than a tad bit concerning.

Your attacks (if she can even call them that) are sort of endearing, actually.

The most memorable being when you filled every social media platform with...ducks? They didn't do anything except quack when people clicked on them, but they multiplied the longer the user was using the platform.

Vox isn't as enthused by it. He fucking hates your guts, whoever you are.

You give him the biggest head aches, especially when you forcefully overload his head with data.

Like what the fuck? That shit hurts, stop that.

Always the one to have to undo all the damage you've done. It usually takes a while, too, since you get pretty intricate with your attacks.

Great, now he has to strengthen their security again.

You both silently form a rivalry over this. Every time he adds another security measure, you take it as a challenge on your skills to undo it.

The type of rivalry that he wished he could have had with Alastor.

Sometimes, you leave little messages for him to decode. At first, it goes completely over his head, but when he notices, he's godamn hooked.

"Make it a little harder for me next time ;)"

Ah fuck, that's causing him a whole other type of overload.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin reader insert #hazbin hotel x reader #the vees #valentino #vox #velvette #gn reader #🌧Rain0tes #🌧hacker!reader

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illiterateaffairs · 6 months ago

Text

anything can happen | stiles x reader the holiday au

pairing: stiles stilinski x female!reader

word count: 13,365

warnings: language, smooching, parenental death mentioned, the reader being british but just for the sake of the plot,

summary: inspired by the nancy meyers film "the holiday", you swap homes with someone in beacon hills for the christmas season where you get to know your neighbor the sheriff, and his very cute son.

author's note: happy new year my friends!! this is my little gift for everyone, an idea i've wanted to do in some way for so many years based on the what i think is the best holiday film ever made. as mentioned, the reader is british for the plot because iykyk. this is also a "companion" fic with a jamie x reader story i'm working on thats the reverse. so you don't have to read that if you're just more of a stiles fan BUT it is meant to overlap slightly like the movie. so the reader may or may not know the richmond greyhounds ;) PLS LIKE REBLOG AND COMMENT YOUR THOUGHTS <3

₊˚｡⋆❆⋆｡˚₊ low point ₊˚｡⋆❆⋆｡˚₊

You weren’t one for spontaneity or going outside your comfort zone.

No. You stuck to what you knew.

The same town. The same job. The same wardrobe.

The same guy.

That one was your biggest problem. Despite nearly a decade of back and forth with the boy you’ve loved since high school, and the fact he cheated on you not once, but twice, you couldn’t shake him.

Hell, you even stayed friends with him for some reason you chalked up to nostalgia and for old time’s sake.

All that did was just lead you into a false sense of security and worse…hope.

Hope that was once again dashed merely a week before Christmas when you found out he was engaged - to the second girl he cheated on you with less than two years ago.

You were letting yourself wallow in self pity for the weekend when you got a message on the home exchange website you put your modern Richmond townhome up on after a tipsy dare from your friend (sometimes with benefits when you were at your lowest). It was a woman inquiring if your home would be available for the next 2 weeks over the holidays.

You glanced around. Your job in journalism allowed you to work from anywhere. You were on your own since you lost your father in college. You definitely had no romantic prospects keeping you here. So, what the hell?

After taking one large sip of Vino, you were agreeing to the exchange without even comprehending where you would be going.

Lucky for you, when you came to, you were delighted at the prospect of spending the holidays in California, USA. And also terrified at being on your own in a foreign country for the first time in your lonely, sheltered, horrible life. Well…when in Rome, or…Beacon Hills?

₊˚｡⋆❆⋆｡˚₊ not the leading lady ₊˚｡⋆❆⋆｡˚₊

Less than two days later, given the nearly 12 hour flight to San Francisco, you were arriving in California dressed far too warm for December on the American West Coast. Donned in your wool coat and scarf, the Uber driver chuckled at you as you slid in the the back of his car, but you didn’t take it offensively. She even went ahead and lowered the windows for you so you could take in the California air and sights as she drove you out of the city into the quaint and admittedly mysterious town of Beacon Hills.

Upon your research the night before leaving, Beacon Hills wasn’t known for being the safest town in California. A few years back there were an abundance of articles detailing several animal attacks and other…unexplained deaths. Every journalistic bone in her body shivered at the stories that just didn’t add up. But misfortune seemed to thin out in recent years, so you managed to not talk yourself out of the trip in fear.

What had made you hesitate was when you told every necessary person about your departure. Given the last minute nature of your holiday trip, you left a handful of messages on your friends voicemails letting them know to not expect you at holiday parties or secret santa or Christmas dinner. However you did have to talk to your boss and get explicit permission to work remotely over the next few weeks. And then, despite every bone in your body telling you not to, you called him. Joel. The boy you couldn’t get over now matter how hard you tried.

When he answered you managed to give him a forced congratulations on his engagement, which he accepted without missing a beat like it was normal for her to be happy for him despite everything he has put her through over the years. And then he suggested they get together soon, which gave her exactly the opportunity she was looking for, letting him know she wouldn’t be around for the holidays. That was the first time he faltered in their conversation, surprised by the out of character move.

You’ve never left this town let alone the country. Even when I suggested a weekend trip to Scotland you refused.

You rolled her eyes when he threw that in your face. Not only was he referencing their past romantic relationship, which he always seemed to do as if it was no big deal. That very weekend you refused to go away with him back in University was the first time he cheated on you. Which you thought about plenty on your own without a reminder, thank you very much.

You hung up not too long after that. And the next thing you knew you were on a flight across the world. And if you took a Xanax to get on the plane, well that was nobody’s business.

Now here you were, on winding back roads through thick green forests before arriving in front of a quaint, cabin-like cottage in a small neighborhood. You smiled to yourself. It was quieter out here than the bustling football town of Richmond. And not too far from the city if you wanted to experience more touristy things.

You knew there was still a big chance of you having a mental breakdown if you got too lonely and overwhelmed out here, but at least it was peaceful and safe. After exiting the Uber and collecting your things, you immediately clocked the police car that seemed to belong to the town’s sheriff next door and that gave you a shred of reassurance in your latter assumption.

You take in the inside of the house. It was just as cozy as it looked from the outside. Wood paneling. An actual fireplace. Warm quilts lining every piece of furniture. The woman you exchanged with told you it was formally her aunt’s home that she inherited and had moved into recently, and you admittedly loved the old fashioned tastes. It felt like being in the home of one of your own long since passed relatives. And honestly, that was exactly what you needed right now.

You find your way to the master bedroom and make yourself at home, unpacking and storing what you can in the empty drawers, before taking stock of the kitchen. Keys to the cream colored volkswagen bug in the driveway were on display on the breakfast bar, along with a handwritten note explaining the locks, security system, and the wifi. Overly awake from your xanax-induced snooze on the plane ride, you decide to take a small adventure. (Once you figure out how to drive on the other side of the road).

With google maps as your co-pilot, you take the bug, apparently named Betty, into town to raid the supermarket and craft store. You needed something aside from binge watching television to keep you busy all on your own the next couple weeks. You buy ingredients for baking as well as supplies for painting - two of your favorite past times.

But of course, also shopping on an empty stomach leads to less than strategic choices and you wind up with way more groceries than you would certainly need the next couple weeks.

You’re doing your best to unload said grocery bags from the trunk and backseat of Betty when you hear a hoarse voice coming from the mailbox next door.

“Looks like someone’s having a party.”

You turn, too many bags around your wrists, and see a man, probably about 60 years old, regarding you in amusement while going through his mail.

You chuckle in spite of yourself, “Oh, yeah I’m planning a real rager featuring mostly various flavors of Pringles.”

His lips quirk up when he picks up on the slight accent, “Guessing you don’t have those wherever you’re from?”

“Not in so many options.”

He takes a few steps closer, “Would you like any help?”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.” But he’s already at the trunk reaching for some bags.

“It’s no problem I don’t have any plans,” he assures as he follows her up the driveway. “You’re not one of Diane’s nieces too, are you?”

You shake your head, assuming that was the name of said Aunt who used to inhabit this place. “Nah, I’m actually sort of renting it for the holidays.”

He nods, though you suspect he’s probably confused about the arrangement, but he doesn’t press, “I figured with the accent.”

You guide him to set down the bags on the countertop before you both grab the remaining bags and lock up the car.

“Thank you again. Definitely cut that time in half,” You smile at him as you start unpacking the bags in the kitchen, and even though you want to protest the extra help, he begins unbagging as well.

“No problem at all. I live right next door, so anything you need in the next couple of weeks let me know. A lot of people in this neighborhood keep to themselves but don’t be afraid to holler my way.”

You nod with a smile, sticking your hand out to formally introduce yourself.

He smiles back as he shakes your hand, “Noah Stilinski.”

“I assume you’re the sheriff?”

He nods with a huff, “That would be me. But if my son had anything to say about it, I’d be retiring as soon as yesterday.”

You quirk your lips up as you start to put some items in the fridge. “Oh yeah, you seem like you’ve still got a few good years left in you.”

He snorts, and you’re glad he took it as a friendly joke. “That’s what I tell him. He’s become a bit less persistent this last year since I agreed to downsize our house and move next door, but he still makes comments about taking a step back at the station.”

“What does your son do?”

“He’s a detective, working towards joining the FBI.”

You can’t help but laugh, “So, sounds like he has no room to talk.”

“Yeah but then he brings up my age and my health and the stress of it all,” he sighs, shaking his head, “In a way he’s probably right, but I’m not quite ready to give it up yet.”

“I think that's fair,” you smile softly, “Everyone should be in charge of their own destiny. Your son should leave you alone.”

Noah chuckles, “I’m gonna tell him you said that. Do you give your parents a hard time?”

Your smile falters as you focus on the last remaining grocery items. “Not really. Uh, it was just me and my dad most of my life until he passed away a couple years ago.”

He lets out a long breath, “I’m sorry, kid…must be hard during the holidays.”

You shrug, “One of the reasons why I came here.”

“I get it. I lost my wife…well I guess it's been over 15 years now but every Christmas it's still hard. And now with Stiles in DC it's hard to say when he gets time off to visit. Spending it alone makes it worse.”

You nod, “Yeah, every place you go and every TV channel loves to make it their mission to remind you of families and friends that actually get to be together.”

He chuckles dryly, “Right. Well, I don’t want to impose on you too much longer as you get settled in. But like I said, I’m just right next door if you ever need anything.”

I nod and give him an appreciative smile, “Thank you, Noah.”

He gives you a nod and smile of his own before he ducks out of the kitchen and sees himself out the front.

You take him up on his offer to pop next door almost immediately - though you weren’t going over for help, not consciously at least.

After organizing the rest of your groceries and putting away your art supplies, you make a quick and easy dinner before focusing on baking the rest of the evening. You start with brownies before making both chocolate chip and snickerdoodle cookies. After taste testing all three, you decide they’re all too delicious to choose from and package half of each batch on a platter under plastic wrap to bring over to the sheriff.

You knew he hadn’t meant to upset you by asking about your parents - it was a common thing to happen to you. But it was weirdly comforting connecting with him on his late wife. It was nice to know you had someone close throughout the holiday season you had anticipated spending completely alone, especially one that seemed to understand you to some degree.

So you thought he might appreciate some baked goods - even if his son wouldn’t love the idea of you bringing him sweets. But he wasn’t here so he can suck it.

After knocking on his door, it was opening less than sixty seconds later and Noah greeted you with a surprised smile.

“Hi,” you say softly, holding out the platter, “I baked you a few things. Cookies, brownies.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” he says, but he grins and is already taking the platter out of your hands.

You shrug, “I was baking anyway. I enjoy doing it, but I definitely don’t need 3 dozen of them to myself.”

He studies the tray for a second before looking back up at you, “Do you want to come in and have some with me?”

Your eyes widen a fraction of a centimeter and you start to shake your head, “You don’t have to-”

“No, I insist,” he side steps into the foyer to make room for you, “I have plenty of milk, and if my son asks, its skim. Definitely not whole milk.”

You laugh softly and despite your earlier protest, you find yourself walking in.

“Are some of these snickerdoodles?” he asks as he leads you through the house, into his kitchen. At your confirmation, “They’re my son’s favorite.”

From there, he grabs two small plates from the cupboard and selects one of each sweet for each of you, and pours you each a full glass of milk.

“You’re not vegan or lactose intolerant are you?” he asks after pouring.

You shake your head, already accepting the glass, “Nope. And thank God. I couldn’t live without ice cream.”

He chuckles in approval.

From there, the two of you spend the next hour or so chatting about random things. He tells you about the life of being a Beacon Hills Sheriff, and you do your best not to pry about the animal attacks from several years back. Instead, you tell him that you’ve been working in journalism for a paper in London but that one day you hope to write fiction. You also share stories about your father, and he of his wife and son.

After laughing fondly over a childhood Christmas with your father where he totally meant well but bought you a terrifying off brand Barbie doll, Noah studies you curiously.

“So, you said your family situation was one of the reasons you decided to spend your holidays abroad and alone but…was there another?” he inquired.

You should have known the sheriff in the room would figure you out.

“Uh, yeah,” your finger absentmindedly traces the rim of your now empty glass of milk, “Not to sound super cliche and sad, but it may have also been because of a boy.”

And after that, for some unexplained reason, you confide in this man that could have very well been the same age as your dad at this point over your failed love life. And yes, you divulge both cheating incidents and the fact that you still kept contact with him.

Noah scoffs as you recount the way he reacted to your spur of the moment vacation plans, “And he still had the nerve to comment on your life choices after getting engaged to the other woman?”

“Yup.”

“What a schmuck.”

Your laughter surprises yourself, having rarely found humor in recounting your situation, “Oh yeah. He’s a total schmuck.”

He nods, “Don’t get me wrong, he’s definitely the one at fault and if he ever dared to step foot on American soil I’d have a warrant out for his arrest in an instant. But what I don’t understand is why you still give him even a shred of your time and energy.”

You sigh. That was the age-old question.

Even you didn’t know how to answer that most of the time. But as you sat here and really thought about it, it was more than just an ounce of hope that maybe one day he’d change his mind.

“I guess…he’s just comfortable. Familiar. You know…we grew up together and he was my first love…even if he was also my first heartbreak, I know him. My dad knew him. And even when he does things like cheat on me or get engaged, part of me still feels like one day we’ll get our happy ending because that's what's supposed to happen. I was supposed to be a journalist like my mom was and I’m supposed to stay in the town they met and with the boy I’ve always loved. I know it probably doesn’t make sense but-”

Noah shrugs, “I mean it sounds like the plot of a romantic comedy.”

That catches you off guard. “Um…yeah…”

Noah snorts at your confusion, “I’ve been watching a lot of movies since my son left for college, and that was six or seven years ago so I had to start watching something that wasn’t war or action movies. Admittedly most rom-coms aren’t that bad.”

You smile, “No, yeah, they’re pretty good.”

“Amazing even. I mean, When Harry Met Sally?”

“Oh, perfection.”

“And don’t get me started on 13 Going on 30.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

“Anyway, the vision you're describing is like some fairytale ending from one of those movies.”

“Yeah,” you nod, sinking back into your chair with your arms crossed.

“And you deserve that ending.”

“Oh, thank you-”

“But you’re acting more like the friend that always settles for the bad guy,”

“Oh-”

“Like Kathryn Hahn in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.”

“Jesus, you really do know your rom-coms.”

“Nobody roots for the leading lady to get with the guy that's always treating her like shit.”

“Thats…fair,” you chew your lip, “But what if I’ve never been the leading lady. I never make bold and interesting main character-esque choices.”

“Well…” he smiles warmly. “You came here didn’t you?”

You squeeze the arms on your chest tighter, “Yeah…”

“Sounds like a leading lady's decision to me.”

You find yourself starting to smile again.

“Like Meg Ryan or Kate Hudson.”

“Okay well now I’m dying to know just how many rom-coms you’ve seen.”

₊˚｡⋆❆⋆｡˚₊ don't blow away ₊˚｡⋆❆⋆｡˚₊

After readjusting your sleeping schedule and making a conscious choice to stop thinking about Joel and his engagement for the remainder of your trip, you feel a lot lighter and a lot more confident in your decision to get away for the holidays.

You spend your mornings and afternoons cooking or baking, as well as painting while you get yourself invested in a handful of miniseries you’ve been meaning to binge over the years that you never got around to. And pending his schedule at the station, you find yourself cooking lunch or dinner for Sheriff Stilinski. You indulge him in meals he told you he’s liked, all the well attempting to turn down your offer to do so, but you also make conscious choices to sub in low-cal ingredients when you can, knowing his son probably wouldn’t appreciate you over-feeding his father, even if he wouldn’t be here to witness it.

When you’re there for dinner, Noah has even convinced you to hang out for a movie. Always a rom-com. The first time, you suggest a modern movie he hadn’t seen yet (Set It Up), and the second night, he shockingly suggests one you’d never seen (While You Were Sleeping). Apparently he was obsessed with Sandra Bullock, and he was right to be. The movie, also starring a young and gorgeous Bill Pullman was in fact a banger. His words.

After getting to know each other that first night over dessert, he had given you his phone number for ease of communication during your stay. And by the second rom-com movie night, he’d given you his extra house key for emergencies. You knew he was being nice and fatherly - you could always sense sympathy for your situation even when he did his best to hide it, which you appreciated. But you also suspected he liked the company and the caretaking you offered, even if he wouldn’t admit it. No one liked to be alone during the holidays, no matter how often they said they were okay with it.

Having noticed the clutter in his study the previous night, you decide to let yourself in the following afternoon while he’s at the station. Maybe it was an invasion of privacy, but you hoped he’d take it as a gesture that you wanted to help out and tidy up the place. You knew how hard it was to take care of simple things like straightening up around the house when you were dealing with lonely holidays or seasonal depression. And to be frank, you liked taking care of someone. So that’s why after straightening up the study, you also organized the medicine cabinet in the bathroom as well as refrigerator. And while you were in the kitchen, you figured you could meal prep some lunches to take to the office.

Even though it was California, it was still soup season in your heart so you decided to make a batch of baked potato soup - minus bacon, you’re welcome Stiles - and put on music to make the time go by.

That must be why you didn’t hear the sound of the front door open. Or the call of an unfamiliar voice looking for his father.

It wasn’t until the owner of the voice was almost right behind you, scaring the living daylights out of you.

“Who the hell are you?”

You jump, the ladle in your hand flying up causing hot soup to splash on your skin, “Ah, shit!”

As you quickly wipe the warm liquid off your skin with a towel, you glance over and recognize the brown-eyed brunette man from the pictures around the house as Noah’s son.

“Oh, my God, you scared me.”

“Uh, yeah. You scared me, too. Who are you and where is my dad?” he asks, looking you up and down suspiciously, but also mildly concerned for the potential of third degree burns on your skin.

“Oh, sorry.” You laugh softly, putting the towel down on the counter and going back to stirring the soup intermittently. “Your dad probably didn’t tell you about me - but to be fair he didn’t tell me you’d be here so...”

“Um,” Stiles frowns, putting his hands on his hips, “Should my dad have told me about you?”

You laugh softly to yourself, “I mean we’ve only been spending time together a few days so not-”

“Aren’t you a little young to be dating my dad?”

You nearly choke on your own breath at the accusation, “I’m sorry? What gave you the impression I’m dating your dad?”

Stiles sputters, his face flushing a bit. “I mean, I didn’t- you..but he-” Stiles shakes his head and points a finger at you, “Hey, I’m not the one under interrogation here. You’re still the one trespassing in my house!”

You laugh in disbelief at the entire situation, rubbing your face, “Okay, now Mr. Prospective FBI Agent is interrogating me.”

Stiles narrows his eyes, “Okay, who are you?”

“I’m your neighbor,” You let out a deep breath, telling him your name finally, “At least for the next week or so. I’m staying next door for the holidays.”

“Oh,” Stiles juts his bottom lip out, taking in the information while staring at seemingly nothing.

“And because I’m alone and he was alone for the time being, we’ve just been keeping each other company. And I’ve been trying to help him out with stuff around the house while he’s working. You know, home cooked meals are always nice this time of year.”

“Oh,” Stiles voice and expression softens this time, as he looks back at you stirring the soup.

You glance over at him, taking him in completely for the first time since he walked into the kitchen. He was just in sweats and a hoodie, but it looked…exceptionally good on him.

“Well, I’m sorry for getting so…defensive. Seeing a stranger making soup in your kitchen is sort of alarming, especially with all the shit that's happened in this town.”

He says that last part off hand, as if not thinking about it. You just raise an eyebrow, a part of you secretly curious if it has to do with the past mysterious attacks and disappearances.

Stiles must realize what he said and that it sounded ominous, so he plastered an awkward smile on his face, “I just mean…my dads the sheriff, and now I’m a detective in DC so…always on edge about something, you know?”

You nod, accepting his answer. “Well, I’m sorry for scaring you, truly. Like I said, I knew your dad wouldn’t be home for another couple hours and he had said you likely weren’t making it for the holidays this year.”

Stiles' lips quirk up, “Yeah, I managed to get the time off and I wanted to surprise him.”

You find yourself smiling at him, too. “I’m sure he’ll be very excited.”

Stiles' grin grows for reasons unbeknownst to him, so he quickly finds a reason to keep talking. “So, uh…soup?”

“Oh, uh, yeah! Wanted something easy your dad could bring to work for a few days.”

“What kind?”

“Baked potato.”

“A nice choice.”

“Yeah,” you shrug one shoulder, “I’ve recently been favoring lasagna soup since it's everywhere on TikTok, but I thought that might be a little too intense. Not that baked potato is any healthier, but I’m forgoing the bacon and I figured if I tried to force feed your dad chicken noodle he’d put me behind bars.”

Stiles snorts, finding himself smiling again at your understanding of his dad and that he must have spoken about his concerns for him…as well as your thoughtfulness. “Yeah, well, thanks for that. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”

You smile and hold his gaze too long again. But instead of pulling yourself out of it, a hot splattering of potato soup catches you off guard, with one drop landing right in your eye. “Shit.” You curse under your breath, rubbing your eye.

“Jesus,” Stiles mutters, heading for the paper towels, “Let the record show that time it wasn’t my fault.”

You chuckle despite the irritation in your eye, “No, it was mine. Probably had the burner on too high.” You reach out to turn it off, “It’s probably done anyhow at this point.”

Just as you turn to find something to wipe your eye, Stiles is turning away from the sink with a damp paper towel and stepping closer to you.

“Here let me see,” he whispers. You obey instantly, moving your hand away so he can see your eye and gently dab the paper towel against it, “Yeah, a little red but you should be fine.”

You watch him study you intently, and carefully wipe at your face. As soon as his eyes drift from your eyes to your lips he clears his throat and steps back, placing the paper towel in your hand, “Or, uh, I guess you could do that.”

You can’t help but chuckle at his awkwardness. Despite knowing him for all of five minutes, he feels familiar and very in character to what his dad had told you about him. “Thanks.” You say softly, dabbing your own eye. “Well, I just wanted to prep this for your dad. I can get it into some tupperware and be on my way. I’m sure you just want to rest and wait for your dad to get here.”

“You’re not gonna eat any of it?” he asks without thinking as you find two tall tupperware cups to fill up.

You shake your head, starting to ladle the soup into one. “Nah, I already ate lunch.” You glance up at him as he watches the soup pour into the plastic tub. “But if you want some…?”

Stiles shakes his head quickly, “No, you made that for my dad, I wouldn’t want to-”

“Psh, it's fine. I can always make more if it's such a hit. And it's your house, help yourself.”

You can tell Stiles thinks about protesting for about three seconds, before he gives in and goes for a bowl from the cupboards. You laugh softly to yourself as he pours himself a portion and then you proceed to put the rest away in the fridge for whoever wants it later.

“You don’t have to go, you know.” Stiles murmurs, his mouth already full as he takes a seat at the kitchen table, before you even have a chance to announce your departure.

You also briefly think about protesting, but you can’t deny the part of you that wants to stay. And not because you think he’s cute. No, that would be inappropriate. But it would be nice to talk to someone your own age.

You help yourself to a glass of water and join Stiles at the table who is already done with half of his soup.

“So, you said you live next door?”

“Sort of,” you decide he’d understand the situation better than his father, “About a year ago I drunkenly listed my home in London on this home exchange website. Where you and whoever in the world trade houses, cars, et cetera for however long…”

Stiles nods, “I’ve heard of that.”

“And a few nights ago, I got my first ever request. So I’m here for about two weeks while your dad’s actual neighbor is in Richmond.”

“Why would anyone want to do that alone this time of year?” He murmurs.

“Well, I think she made an impulsive decision to get out of the country. She seemed very impatient over our messages.”

“And what about you?”

You study him. He seemed genuinely interested. But you also made that promise not to bring up Joel- he who shall not be named.

So instead, you shrug, and lean back in your chair. “I don’t really have any family. And a holiday get away sounded new and intriguing. So I thought, why not?”

Stiles instantly understands and gives you a sympathetic but not at all pitying smile. “I’m sorry. About your family.”

You nod, “Thank you.”

“I don’t know if my dad mentioned but-”

You nod again with your own comforting smile, “I know. I get it.”

Stiles nods too. It feels good to be understood.

Knowing neither of you want to linger in these feelings though, you change the subject with a deep breath.

“So your dad mentioned you have a girlfriend.” A pretty one too, from the pictures you’ve seen of him and the redhead on the mantle, “Did she travel here with you?”

Stiles sits up straighter and smiles softly, “Lydia. Yeah. Well, no. She actually lives in Massachusetts. She went to MIT so we’ve been long distance since college. But she grew up here, too, she just couldn’t get away from her job long enough for the trip this year.”

You hum, “High school sweethearts?”

Stiles snorts, scraping the last remnants of soup before giving it up and bringing it to his lips to sip. “Yeah, is that dumb?”

You shake your head quickly, “No not all. That’s…romantic. I’m sure a lot of people long for a relationship that clicks so early. You’re lucky.”

Stiles licks his lips and stares at his now empty bowl. “Yeah. That’s us.”

After a few beats of silence, you glance between him and the bowl. “Do you want me to take that for you?”

Stiles looks up at you quickly, before shuffling to his feet, “Uh, no! No, you've done enough. I mean- sorry, that sounded dismissive. I just meant-”

You cut him off with your laugh, “I know what you meant Stiles.” You follow his lead and stand. “I think I’m gonna head back next door.”

“You don’t have-”

“I know I don’t have to. I want to. You should rest from your trip and have some time with your dad when he gets home.”

“I don’t mind that you’re here,” he states earnestly. “I know he wouldn’t mind either.”

You give him a warm smile, “I know. I’m sure I’ll find my way back over soon.”

“Yeah, that’d be nice.” He says before overthinking how that could be taken again, “I just meant, it's always been just me and my dad for the holidays. That is, when I make it home. It's nice having more company.”

You nod, “I agree. I’ll see you soon, Stiles.”

You turn before he can sense the eagerness you feel to do so.

₊˚｡⋆❆⋆｡˚₊ square peg round hole ₊˚｡⋆❆⋆｡˚₊

You do see Stiles, quite often in fact. Over the next few days leading up to Christmas, you continue visiting the Stilinski household, making meals and watching movies. But when you do, Stiles offers what he can do to help in the kitchen, which is more often than not cleaning up after you're done with certain items. But you do manage to teach him a few things.

The first movie night, you and your dad double team him and convince him to watch Miss Congeniality with them. Apparently something Noah’s been trying to get him to watch the last few years. A comment which he makes, after murmuring something about Stiles giving in so quickly this time to which Stiles protests without making eye contact with either of you. You try not to read into it.

When his dad’s busy being sheriff, Stiles also pops over and hangs out with you. Even if you’re just working on a writing assignment he keeps you company. He also assists you in baking when you tell him you want to bring some goods to the local shelter. After trying some of your both equally tasty and adorable gingerbread cookies, he insists on helping you make another batch to bring to his friend Scott’s house.

You off hand make a comment about dying to meet his friend Scott, after his dad’s repeated stories that co-star the two of them. And Stiles finds it pertinent that you know that Scott has a girlfriend. Which is great for him, but you’re not sure why Stiles needed you to be aware of it. Again, you try not to read into it.

Maybe it's not exactly the perfect, rom-com scenario since Stiles lived a world away and had a girlfriend himself, but you enjoyed spending time with him and the way he made you feel while you did. It was just a hopeful reminder you had the ability to feel this way about someone other than you-know-who.

Which speaking of.

It was as if Joel had a censor for when you were spending time with another guy. For the past few days, he’d been texting you or calling you throughout the day. The calls you did your best to ignore, and you placated his texts that were “just checking in” or “this meme reminded me of you” with half hearted responses. You were too nice to cut him off cold turkey, but every day you had half a mind to block his number.

You can tell Stiles wants to ask who you’re ignoring when you hit the decline call button for the third time in his vicinity, but he respects your privacy. Even though every time your phone lights up, you can tell he’s dying to say something.

With all the time you’ve been spending with the Stilinskis, they invite you to spend Christmas day with them. And at that point you didn’t even bother to protest. You’re looking forward to eating Christmas ham with them (which Noah had to fight for) and end the night watching Love Actually. And the two of them assure you they’ll have enough father-son time on Christmas Eve.

Which gives you the perfect time to do the lastest-last minute Christmas shopping for them on that very Eve.

You’re at the Beacon Hills mall and by the grace of God, you find a white cable knit sweater in a department store reminiscent of Billy Crystal’s in When Harry Met Sally you Noah would love and laugh over.

You found it harder to shop for Stiles. You think it's just because you’ve known him for a few days less, but really you felt more pressured to impress him. You couldn’t imagine why.

Speak of the devil.

Just as you were hopelessly pursuing a rack of flannels you’re sure he already had, the man himself was calling you.

“Hey-”

“Oh, my God you have to help me.”

Your heart rate picks up at his panicked tone, “What’s wrong? Is everything okay? Is your dad-?”

“Oh, yes, yes, yes. He’s fine, I promise. He just got called into work.”

“Oh.” You let out a relieved breath but still frown, “On Christmas Eve? That sucks.”

“I know. Especially for me.”

“And why is that?”

“Well, being the amazing son I am, I told him I’d have dinner ready for him when he got home.”

“That’s nice.”

“But I have no idea what to make him.”

“Ah.”

“That’s where you come in.”

“I figured.”

“I thought I could literally just make pasta, but believe it or not we’re out. And now I’m at the grocery store and everything is like sold out.”

“Well you are shopping on Christmas Eve.”

“I didn’t see your car next door. What are you doing?”

“...Shopping.”

“Nice.”

“Would you be up for taking a trip to the city? I’m sure they’ve got at least one supermarket that hasn’t been picked over. I can meet you there and help you throw something together.”

“Really? I don’t want you to go out of your way.”

“As previously mentioned, I’m already out. It's not a problem.”

“Okay…if you’re sure.”

“I am one hundred percent sure.”

And that’s how you end up participating in a supermarket scavenger hunt in San Francisco for the afternoon. You split up at the first two grocery stores, and with your head start you have an epiphany that your Christmas gift to Stiles could be snickerdoodles, as his dad said those were his favorite. So you grab some extra ingredients before heading to a very barren pasta aisle. Damn what was everyone in California making?

You meet Stiles, after he had similar luck, at a third grocery store. This time you get lucky and find a box of fettuccine which had been your goal.

“Okay so you’re envisioning alfredo? Nice. I can grab a jar-”

“No, no, no.” You literally force stop him in his tracks, “Everyone knows premade alfredo sauce is never good.”

“Yeah, I agree with you. But you expect me to make it from scratch?”

“I can help you.”

“I don’t want to keep putting you out on Christmas Eve.”

“Stiles, it's literally fine. Who else am I gonna hang out with?” You say with a smirk so he knows you’re teasing.

He still feels a pit in his stomach as he follows you to the refrigerated section where your sights are set on heavy cream and cheese.

“I guess I’ve just been curious…you didn’t have any friends to spend the holidays with?”

You shrug nonchalantly, “I have great friends. But honestly, a lot of them have families or significant others and it's not always fun being around that this time of year.”

Stiles nods, “Yeah, I get that. I hate when I get stuck in DC by myself and I get a pity invite to something from one of my friends.”

“Yeah, it's nice but it's also tortuous.”

“Exactly,” He chuckles softly, but still feels something nagging at him, “I’m just surprised that you’re single…”

Your stomach churns uncomfortably but you don’t let it show, as you lead him determinedly to pick up an extra pack of butter. “Guess I haven’t found ‘the one’ yet.”

Stiles once again scoffs and mutters to himself, “How does one even know when they’ve found that.”

You try not to read into that and focus on making sure you get unsalted butter over salted, “I guess I’ll let you know when I find him.” Satisfied with your selection, you turn to him and stand up straight. “Do you guys have garlic powder?”

Stiles scrunches his face to think briefly and then shrugs, “No clue.”

You chuckle softly, turning to lead him toward the spice aisle, “Follow me.”

Wordlessly he trails behind you, and you’re thankful he’s dropped the topic of romance. For your sake and his, he��s the last person you should be talking to about relationships and dating when, fine, you’ll admit it, you’ve developed a very tiny and innocent crush on him. It was harmless but should he even get a single hint you had any sliver of feelings for him while he had a very long-term and serious girlfriend, then you’d lose his friendship. And worse. Your friendship with his dad. And you didn’t want to lose either.

“Can you explain to me the difference between garlic salt and garlic powder?” he asks inquisitively as you pick up the former.

You give him an amused look, “Uhhh, just general vibes I guess?”

Stiles nods and glances back at the array of spices, “And can you explain to me why nutmeg isn’t a nut?”

“Well, I’m not-”

“Or what the hell cardamom even is?” He asks with an incredulous look on his face as he takes a step back and takes in the whole aisle. “But seriously I’ve never heard of half of these spices.”

“Well that's because you don’t cook or bake.” You scoff.

“Hey, I thought I’ve been an excellent sous chef. Your words, not mine.” he crosses his arms, giving you a faux offended look.

“Yeah, thanks to my guidance.” You shrug, crossing your own arms.

“Okay then explain cumin to me.” He takes a step closer.

“Hey, I don’t question the ingredients, I just use them.” You hold your hands up in surrender.

Stiles scoffs, “Sounds like negligence in the kitchen to me.”

“Oh, what are you going to do, officer, suspend me from my post? In your hour of need?” You tease back, taking a challenging step closer.

A smirk starts to creep up on Stiles face, liking you in this close proximity to him. “Well, I think…”

Just as he’s forming a witty retort, his eyes drift just past your head to further down the aisle where a familiar strawberry blonde is standing. He almost calls out to her…until he processes the fact that she is not alone. Technically he isn’t either. But Lydia’s hand is intertwined with her counterpart, and said man is leaning down to kiss her. Right there in the spice aisle.

You squint at Stiles curiously just as the color drains from his face. You anxiously turn around in the direction he’s staring at and you instantly understand his expression. In fact, your heart breaks for him. You turn back to him quickly, his name escaping your lips in a quiet whisper. But before you can find any other words to console him, he’s side stepping around you and approaching his should-be girlfriend. You can barely stomach watching the scene unfold. In fact, you last the fraction of a second it takes for Lydia to realize she’d been caught red-haired and handed before you turn right around to give them privacy and vacate the aisle altogether.

You make yourself busy by checking out the items you’ve gathered and waiting in the parking lot where the bug is parked next to his blue jeep. Lydia and her companion exit the store first, and you avert your eyes as if she’d know who you were at all. Then two minutes later, Stiles exits and walks slowly over to you.

You’re once again at loss for words as he pulls his keys from his pocket and fumbles with them for a second.

“Can we talk at the house?” he mutters softly, his wounded eyes flashing to yours briefly before turning back to his keys.

You nod, hoping the drive back to Beacon Hills would help relax him as much as was even possible. You don’t say a word. You just squeeze his arm before getting into your own car to follow him out of the parking lot.

After a half hour, you’re both pulling into your respective driveways before you jog over to his front door. He waits on the porch for you before leading you both into the house you’ve become oh so comfortable in.

The air feels different though, a sense of tension looming. You take it upon yourself to unpack the groceries, getting the necessary items in the fridge while he flops on the couch with a loud breath you can hear from the kitchen. You also take it upon yourself to pour some alcohol. You decide on one glass of wine and one glass of whiskey. When you sit beside Stiles on the couch, he chooses the whiskey. And then you wait for him to talk.

“Is it bad that I’m not…surprised?” Is what he finally says.

You turn to him with narrowed eyes, “What?”

He groans and rubs his temple, “I just mean…I’ve had this feeling in my gut for a long time that the other shoe was going to drop for us at some point.”

“Why would you think that? I thought you two were…inseparable?”

He nods, “We were. When we…got together in high school…it's a long story but we went through a lot together that sort of…bonded us. And I’d had a crush on her since elementary school, long before she even knew I existed. So when we finally got together, I just thought, wow I can’t believe this is finally happening. Can’t believe a girl like her would even want to be with a guy like me. But even that first summer after high school it felt…forced? Like we were just together because it made sense that we were? And then the distance thing…it was hard but it also…wasn’t? Like I didn’t…miss her as much as I thought I would. Or at least…I didn’t long for her the way you’re supposed to. Like…aren’t you supposed to ache when you’re away from the person you love?”

He turns to you after that, and it catches her off guard, as you’d been studying his face as he tried to explain his complicated feelings.

Your voice is hoarse when you finally swallow and respond, “Yeah, I suppose…I mean, I guess I’ve never felt that either.”

Stiles nods slightly and studies her this time, “I guess what I’m trying to say is it felt like we were going through the motions for a while now and it was just a matter of time before one of us said it out loud.”

You frown, “But Stiles…even if it wasn’t working out or if she was unhappy, she shouldn’t have cheated on you. Or lied to you.”

Stiles closes his eyes and groans, “That's what pisses me off. All the times we’ve texted this week, which admittedly wasn’t much, she kept talking about the weather in fucking Massachusettes, when she’s been in San Francisco the whole time. Hell, I sent her Christmas present there last week!”

You close your own eyes at this. You had never been more sure someone deserves something less than the way Stiles deserved this. On Christmas Eve nonetheless.

He lets out another long breath and shakes his head, “But honestly it's still my fault.”

You make a face, “How in the world is it your fault?”

“For letting it get this far,” He shrugs, “I’ve known for years that our relationship was…off. And I never said anything. Or at the very least tried to do something to make it better. She probably felt me pulling away and jumped at the chance with someone else that actually gave her something. I think I just…held onto the idea of us. Or the idea I had of us when I was a teenager, pining over the popular girl in school. Like a part of me thought it had to work out and that whatever emptiness I felt was just how relationships were supposed to be because…what I always thought I wanted was her. And I had it.”

After a few beats of silence, Stiles glances at you again, “Did any part of that make any sense to you?”

You swallow thickly again and nod, “Yeah. I know exactly what you mean. I felt the same way about my high school boyfriend, too.”

His eyebrows raise, shocked to be getting a nugget of information regarding your romantic life.

You take a deep breath and turn away from him, figuring it would be easier to say this way.

“I’ve stuck by him longer than I should have too, because I always figured we’d end up together. Except…I’ve made the stupid decision to stick by him after he cheated on me. Twice.” You can sense Stiles eyes widen and shoulders tense beside you at this admission, but you force yourself to keep going, “And even after the second time, I’m still fucking friends with him. In fact, I called him before I came here. And he still reaches out to me almost daily even though he just got engaged to the girl he left me for. All because some twisted part of me thinks our stories still intertwine at the end.”

“He’s the guy that's been calling and texting you all week?” Stiles murmurs, almost not as a question. “Joel.”

The name sounds bitter coming out of Stiles mouth. You almost laugh as you nod. “Yeah. A huge reason I came on this trip was to forget about him, but it's like he knows and he doesn’t want me to.”

“No, that’s exactly what he’s doing. Stringing along while he gets to do whatever and whoever he wants. He’s an asshole.”

You snort, “Your dad called him a schmuck.”

“God, the biggest fucking schmuck.”

You smile to yourself, “You already seem so much more self aware of your situation than me. Maybe you can avoid my fate and not be destined to love someone who’d hurt you like that.”

“I don’t think you’re destined for that…” Stiles whispers, “I think you were right earlier. You just haven’t found ‘the one’ yet.”

You manage a tiny smile as you and Stiles stare at one another with your heads leaning against the couch cushions. Instead of getting lost in his eyes while he looks at you like that, you lift up your wine glass in a silent request to clink it against his. “To both of us finding the one.”

The corners of Stiles' mouth twitch as he clinks. After another beat, Stiles forces himself off the couch with a surprising spring in his step. He turns to you and offers you a hand, “Okay no more wallowing. It's the holidays. We’re festive. We’re merry. We’re bright. Now let's go make some Christmas fettuccine.”

Your smile grows and you take his hand, and you don’t miss the squeeze he gives you and the way he doesn’t let your hand drop until you’re well into the kitchen.

₊˚｡⋆❆⋆｡˚₊ only the good notes ₊˚｡⋆❆⋆｡˚₊

Your Christmas Eve took a sharp turn in a positive direction that night. The alcohol kept flowing, and maybe it was your brain under the influence of it, but you’re pretty sure the homemade alfredo you taught Stiles how to make was better than anything you’ve ever made in your whole life.

By the time Stiles’ dad arrives home that evening, he finds you both on your second bottle of wine, sprawled out in the living room, playing a very serious game of battleship. Noah doesn’t question it, and just heats up a plate of fettuccine and joins you when you switch to Clue.

Of course you finish out the night with a movie, and Stiles lobbies for sci-fi this time, and you allow it - definitely because of the alcohol.

However, you also definitely pass out within thirty minutes. But somehow, you still awake in your bed next door on Christmas morning. But you don’t dwell on it.

You take a shower - after you’ve popped three advil and down a glass of water - and make the snickerdoodles for Stiles. Once they’re done you put them in a festive tupperware container and a gift bag, before wrapping the sweater for Noah in a gift box.

After doing yourself up a little nicer than you normally would for a drop in at the Stilinskis, you head next door midafternoon, more excited for Christmas than you had been in recent years. Noah greets you at the door with a Merry Christmas and sweet kiss on the cheek before taking your bags and putting them by the tree in the living room. Stiles is already pouring you a glass of wine when you both meet him in the kitchen to get started on your grand meal for the evening.

The sheriff took charge of the ham while you and Stiles were responsible for sides. Meaning, you made the mac and cheese while Stiles prepared the salad and rolls.

You eat at the table and as always, enjoy lively conversation with the men who are quickly becoming two of your favorite people on the planet for welcoming you into their home for the holiday you otherwise would have spent alone. Your heart nearly grows three sizes when they announce they found Christmas Crackers to order online - a British holiday tradition - because they thought it would make you feel more at home. You really have to hold back from tearing up.

The three of you tag team cleaning up the meal before retiring to the living room for the night, where you exchange presents. Just as you predicted, Noah loves the sweater and you equally love the vinyl record of the original soundtrack for 13 Going on 30. Stiles chastises you both for being too obsessed with rom-coms but there’s a fond smile on his face as he does it.

That’s when you give Stiles his present and he’s both touched and confused that you were aware of his affinity for snickerdoodles. As he thanks you, he shares a wistful look with his dad. At your questioning stare, he smiles at you softly and explains, “My mom used to make these all the time.”

Your heart aches briefly, glancing at Noah who had left that detail out he told you that information. The man just shrugs, “Well, hers came out burnt half the time.”

Stiles and you both laugh, you in shock at the fond critique.

“They were still incredible,” Stiles insists.

Still laughing, you look back at Stiles, “Alright, noted, I’ll bake them a tad longer next time.”

Stiles’ stomach flips. Next time.

Finally, since Stiles and his dad exchanged their gifts in the morning, the last gift of the evening was Stiles’ gift to you. He handed you a haphazardly wrapped rectangle you pretended to shake to hear something as if it were hollow, but you were already pretty sure it was a book.

Stiles shrugs as you eye him while tearing the paper off, “It’s nothing really. You probably already have it.”

You roll your eyes playfully, “Stop it, you didn’t have it get me anything at all. I’m sure I’ll love it.”

You stare down at the book in your hands as you finally get the paper off. It’s one of those special edition books, with the shiny colored pages and gorgeously redesigned covers. The ones you always see in bookstores but never end up buying because you can never settle with picking just one.

“Emma by Jane Austen?”

“Yeah, it's your favorite isn’t it?”

“Did I tell you that?”

Stiles nods, his fingers intertwined together, one of his nervous ticks you’ve picked up on. “Yeah, when we were watching Clueless. You said it's the book the movie’s based off of.”

You stare at the book in awe, before transferring that look to him, “I can’t believe you remembered that.”

He shrugs again, “Of course. Well. Sort of ordered the book on the spot. Amazon. Capitalism. The true meaning of Christmas.”

You huff a soft laugh, still shaking your head at his thoughtfulness despite playing it off. “Thank you. I love it.”

His lips curve up, “Good. I’m glad.”

For his part, Noah watches the scene unfold hiding a smile behind his whiskey glass. As far as he knew, Stiles was still hanging onto his relationship with Lydia by a thread. But he had a feeling that thread was about to snap if it hadn’t already.

At that moment, you seem to remember that the two of you weren’t the only people in the room and you clear your throat. “Well, speaking of rom-coms, is it time for Love, Actually?”

Stiles snaps out of it himself and jumps up, picking up discarded pieces of wrapping paper on the way. “Yeah, let’s do it!”

Two days after Christmas you find yourself alone with Stiles for the first time since the supermarket incident turned one of your favorite Christmas Eve-Christmas’s of your life. On the 26th Stiles went to Scott’s for their friend group Secret Santa. He had mentioned being stressed about it, having had picked Isaac who he for some reason had a love-beef relationship with. But during one of his pop ups at your place, you helped him order something simple for the other guy.

You were excited to hear how it all went down the next day. On the morning of the 27th, Stiles texted you to inform you his dad was working all day and he’d order Chinese for them tonight if she was up for it. And she definitely was. He comes over around five, and they call the restaurant together, ordering way too much food for either of them to consume.

As you sip wine in the living room and wait for your dinner, you ask about Secret Santa. Isaac, unsurprisingly, loved his gift. And then Stiles received his from his other friend Liam who got him a Batman crewneck. You quip it would have been better if it was a Ten Things I Hate About You crewneck, Heath Ledger’s finer work, and he rolls his eyes. Affectionately.

Stiles also admits he had to tell his friends about him and Lydia. They were both shocked and appalled and glad she didn’t RSVP for the party this year.

“It must be hard…sharing a friend group with her. I’d imagine they’re not just going to cast her out.” You comment softly.

Stiles nods, “Yeah. And I wouldn’t want them to. It’ll just take some…adjusting.”

You hum, “Take it from me…it's hard staying in close proximity. I mean, I know you’ve been long distance anyway but even mutual friends' instagram stories are a hard place to run into them.”

Stiles cringes, “Yeah like I said…an adjustment.”

You hesitate before asking one question lingering on your mind, “Do you think..there’s a part of you considering taking her back?”

His eyebrows raise in surprise but he doesn’t immediately deny it. “I mean…it's definitely crossed my mind. Like I said, I always just assumed we’d stay together but…at the end of the day I think both of us deserve better than a relationship we’re only in half way.”

You nod, “Even if one day you both find yourself in the same place, or city?”

Stiles sighs, “I guess you can’t really plan for that.”

Still not a firm denial. You couldn’t really fault him for that. The breakup was still fresh.

Once your Chinese food arrives, you set everything out on your coffee table and you dig in, while throwing a sitcom on the TV you’ve both seen a dozen times so you can talk over it. Ten minutes into your feast, Stiles glances at the vacant arm chair across the room, that wasn’t really vacant, because your stack of art supplies filled it.

“Wait, do you paint? Or draw?” Stiles asks, squinting at the items across from him.

You flush slightly, but it wasn’t like it was a secret. “Uh, yeah. A little bit of both.”

Stiles sputters, “You’ve been here a week and I didn’t know that?”

“You say that like it's been a lifetime.”

As he stands he mutters, “That's what it feels like.”

You choose not to linger on whatever that means.

Stiles hovers over the chair and then turns to you. “Oh, um..may I?”

Your stomach flips anxiously but you find yourself nodding. “Sure.”

Stiles smiles gleefully and picks up your sketchbook before plopping back down on the couch beside you. You watch anxiously as he starts flipping through. Like you had said, it contained sketches and some of which you painted.

He gives you a sideways glance after he looks at a few, “You seriously drew these? Free hand?”

You laugh softly, shifting into a semi-fetal position. You can count on one hand the number of people that have seen your drawings, outside of classes you took at university. “Yup.”

“They’re incredible,” he murmurs, continuing to flip through. Then he lingers on one and you figure he’d found the drawing you’d been anxiously anticipating his reaction to. You lean over slightly to confirm your theory and you were correct. It was a detailed drawing of the exterior of Stiles and his dad’s home, complete with the patrol car and blue jeep in the driveway. You’d gone over it with watercolors, feeling particularly inspired that day. For some reason.

He glances at you for a split second before reverting back to the painting. “That’s Roscoe.”

“I’m sorry, who?”

“Oh right. That's my Jeep’s name.”

“Does everyone name their cars?”

“What you don’t?”

“I don’t have a car right now. I live in a very walkable city.”

“Don’t rub it in,” Stiles snorts, and doesn’t even take his eyes off of the painting. “Seriously, this is amazing.”

You feel your cheeks warm, “It's okay if you think it's dumb.”

Stiles vehemently shakes his head. “Not dumb at all. You’re so talented. And this one’s my favorite, not even a little biased.”

You smile as he grins back at you teasingly.

“Seriously, would you ever consider doing something with this?” he inquires.

You shrug, “I don’t know. I think my real passion is writing. But I kind of want to get out of journalism and do more with fiction. I’ve sometimes thought it could be cool to write a children’s book and illustrate it myself.”

“That would be so cool,” Stiles says all soft and earnestly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he nods, glancing back down at the page again, “Would it be too much if I asked to keep this?”

Your cheeks warm again, “You want to?”

“Yeah, I told you it's my favorite. And then I’d be the first person to have one of your originals.” He glances at you, “Unless you give these out willy nilly.”

You laugh, “Nope. You’d be the first.”

He grins again, “Thank you.” After a beat, another thought crosses his mind, “Could you draw me?”

“Are you asking me if I can? Or if I will?”

He shrugs, “Can you? Would you?”

You scoff, “Are you asking me to draw you like one of my French girls?”

“Depends. Would I have to be topless?”

“If you want it to be authentic.”

“Well, fine if it's for the sanctity of art, I shall.”

As you both laugh together, you finally register how close you’ve been next to him. In fact, you lean closer as you laugh. And for the first time, you don’t feel the urge to cut the moment short or pull away. Stiles seems to register the same thing as his laughter dies down. His eyes linger on your eyes for one, two, three more seconds…before they venture to your lips.

As if by gravitational pull, you both lean closer until your lips brush against one anothers. Stiles reaches out and tenderly cups your face, pulling you closer to fully commit to the kiss, which you eagerly reciprocate.

You’d admittedly thought about what this would feel like since pretty much every day since you met him. But you never seriously considered it actually happening. Not with the limited time you were spending here. Not with his dad is such close proximity at all times. Not with-

The girl he had broken up with merely 48 hours ago.

Despite the kiss being better than your fantasies could have conjured up, you jerk back once you regain awareness of the situation.

Stiles’ eyes shoot open as you sink back into the couch, away from his touch. His eyebrows knit together in confusion, as worry and guilt build in his chest.

“Shit, was that not okay?”

You move your head somewhere between a nod and shake back and forth. “It was okay, I just think…you’re fresh off of a breakup with your long-term girlfriend and I don’t want to take advantage of all the things you're feeling right now.”

Stiles nods but the frown stays on his face, “Admittedly yes there are a lot of feelings swirling through me right now, but most if not all are for you.”

You swallow and close your eyes tightly, because if you keep looking at him you won’t have the strength to say or do the right thing. “I know what you mean but…I also think you’ve had a lot to think about in so little time and I don’t want to factor in and affect anything.”

“But-”

“And I won’t be here for very much longer and if anything, that should be what factors in the most.”

Anything Stiles was going to stay dies on his tongue in that moment, feeling the wind get knocked out of him. Yes, subconsciously he’d always been aware your time in Beacon Hills was limited. But after the last couple of days, after that kiss, the reality hit him twice as hard. Despite having known you for just about a week, he’d still had some of the most incredible days of his life getting to know you, cooking with you, laughing with you, watching you bond and look after his father in ways he hadn’t been able to do in recent years. He couldn’t stomach the idea of all of that coming to an end, before they could even start…something. Anything.

“It doesn’t have to be…” Stiles manages to whisper, but it's a weak argument without anything to back it up.

You give him a watery smile, “I’ve had a really amazing holiday with you. And your dad. But…I think for now you should just…sit with your breakup and think about what you really want. Hell, I’ve been sitting with mine for years and I still have yet to figure that out.”

Stiles’ face contorts at the mention of your ex, “But this is different.”

“This is…fleeting.” You sigh with a tired shrug, “And not worth more than what you have here.”

Stiles wants to argue, say that what he’s had here for years pales in comparison to what he’s had the past few days with you. But he knows how crazy it sounds. And he knows his relationship with Lydia meant enough to him to at least think about for a little longer.

He takes a deep breath and finally nods. But he can’t leave it like this. “I don’t want this to be our goodbye.”

You force a smile again, “It’s not. I’m still here for a little while longer. I’ll see you before I go. Just take a couple days.”

He nods again, comforted by the idea of seeing you again and that's enough to propel him to his feet and walk towards the door.

“You’ll still come by if you need anything right? And I mean anything?”

You nod as you open the front door for him slowly. “Of course. I know where to find you guys.”

He nods, grinding his teeth. He brushes his lips against your forehead briefly, before ducking outside without another word.

₊˚｡⋆❆⋆｡˚₊ gumption ₊˚｡⋆❆⋆｡˚₊

Admittedly cutting Stiles and subsequently his dad out of your life for even one day was harder than you thought, especially considering they’ve been your only form of real life human connection the past week or so.

Sure, you’ve spoken to your friends over the phone and FaceTime but when you’ve truly felt whole this holiday season, it's been with one or both of the Stilinskis. Even in such a short amount of time, they’ve become almost sort of…family.

And maybe that's your problem overall. Even without romance complicating your relationship with Stiles, you were still becoming overly attached to these two men who you would likely never see again in just a few days. Gaining and losing two more people in your life was not the goal of this getaway.

So for that whole day without them, you focus on yourself. You take yourself shopping and take advantage of those post-Christmas sales, but most things were well picked over. You treat yourself to a mani-pedi but of course you regret the color choice an hour later. Instead of cooking dinner, you order takeout but they forget two of the things you wanted. Even baking and drawing don’t bring you peace.

Sighing against the couch, with a heavy poured glass of wine, you rub your head and wonder what else you could possibly be doing to take your mind off of the boy next door.

As if by clockwork, your phone buzzes from where you discarded it on the coffee table. You sit up a little faster than you should have when you consider it could be Stiles who is reaching out. But you face disappointment when you see that it's Joel.

And for some reason…you pick it up this time.

“Hey,” you breathe out, unsure of your game plane here.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Joel’s thick posh accent glides through the phone. “Wanted to see how your holidays were. I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

You sigh, feeling yourself slipping back into the comfort of his familiar voice. He always claimed terms of endearments were how he spoke to everyone. But you’ve never heard him use them for anyone other than his significant other, or you even if you weren’t his. It had begun to bug you over the last couple months, but tonight, you’re falling for it.

“They were really good. Sorry I’ve been missing your calls, I’ve been pretty busy,” You find yourself apologizing for some reason.

“That's alright, love. I’m glad to hear you found things to do over there.” He muses and you almost hear the smile on his face over the phone. “You know…I’ve really missed you. Christmas in Richmond isn’t the same without you here.”

For once in your life, you find yourself saying what you’re thinking to him, “I’m sure you’ve got your fiance to keep you company though, right? First Christmas as an engaged couple?”

There’s silence on the other end, briefly. “I’ve actually been thinking about that a lot lately. I’m not quite sure that’s going to work out.”

Your eyebrows furrow, “What? Your engagement?”

“The whole relationship,” he admits softly, “Look, darling I’ve been thinking about you a lot the last couple weeks. Pretty much non-stop since you left. And I realized…maybe I made a mistake.”

Your heart just about stops. This is what you always thought would happen. He’d come to his senses and come back to you.

But it doesn’t feel the way you thought it would.

“What do you mean, Joel?” You ask and you hate how shaky your voice sounds.

“I mean…I fucked up when I let you go-”

“Yeah. Twice.”

“I know, darling,” he sighs, “And you know how sorry I was. And I think this time away from you made me really think about everything. And think about what I really want.”

Your heart is pounding in your chest, “And you want…me?”

He chuckles, “That’s exactly what I’m trying to say, love.”

You’re at loss for words as your brain tries to make sense of this information. Everything in you is screaming not to give into this, but there is still a small piece of you that reminds you how much simpler it would be. He was familiar. He lived in your town. He was a safer choice than a man thousands of miles away.

Just as you feel your resolve melting, before you have a chance to respond you hear Joel’s voice again, but this time it's distant, accompanied by muffled noises. As if he was talking to someone else.

“Give me one second, doll…” are the only works you make out…followed by footsteps and a door closing.

“Darling-”

“I’m sorry,” you scoff, “Are you with her right now?”

“Sweetheart, I’m-”

“Oh, my God you are actually unbelievable,” You shake your head despite him not being there, “You call me to tell me you want me back from the house you still share with your fiance you are still very much with!”

You hear him let out a long, tired breath, “Darling, I wish you could understand how confused all of these feelings have made me.”

“You may be confused, but I’m not anymore. I am so done with this.”

He stutters, “Darling, what do you mean? You can’t be saying-”

“I’m saying I’m done with you, Joel. In every possible way. I’m done waiting around for you. I’m done allowing you into my life even when you don’t deserve to be in any capacity. And I am sure as hell done thinking I’m in love with you.”

“Darling-”

“Goodbye, Joel.” And without another thought, you hang up. And not a part of you feels guilty that that might very well be the last time you ever speak to him.

You start pacing the living room. You could not believe you almost fell for it again, even though he was doing the exact thing he always does. And that’s when you realize, he wasn’t the safe choice because he was a good choice. He was safe because deep down you know what you were getting yourself into with him. There was always a chance he could hurt you but you could prepare for it. With someone else, someone knew, it was unpredictable and that's what made things scary.

But you were tired of that fear holding you back.

Suddenly coming to your own senses, you realize there’s someone you desperately need to talk to. And soon, while your adrenaline is still pumping.

You glance out of your front window. The patrol car next door was missing from the driveway. But the blue jeep was there. Suddenly remembering something, you grab your sketchbook and dash outside, straight to the neighboring front door, knocking quickly. Nervously, you hug the sketchbook to your chest as you wait.

Moments later, the door swings open and you’re greeted by those warm brown eyes you’ve grown so fond of the last couple weeks.

“Hi,” you say breathlessly, like you’d been holding your breath since you knocked. Which you had been,

“Hi,” he says, sounding very similar.

“Can I come in?” You ask quickly before you lose the nerve.

Startled by your assertiveness, he nods quickly and steps out of the way. You hurry inside and into the living room, Stiles following close behind.

“First of all, I realized you forgot this.” You shakily flip through your book before you get to the page with the same blue jeep that was parked outside. And inspite of your shakiness, you carefully tear out the page, thankful for the perforated lines.

“Oh,” Stiles is surprised when you hand him your artwork, “You’re still okay with me having this?”

You shrug, “You’re the only one who should.”

He blinks at you before allowing a small smile to creep on his face.

“I forgot something last night, too.” You continue softly.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” you nod, still feeling like you were short on breath. “I know I said me and you are fleeting, and that it was complicated with the timing of your breakup but I never told you that…I have feelings for you too. Lots and lots of feelings.”

Stiles’ smile wobbles, “You do?”

“Yes. And the truth was I was afraid of them. Not because of you. You’re probably the nicest guy I’ve ever met. But because the circumstances are hard and you’d have the incredibly anxiety-inducing ability to break my heart if I let you in the way I want to.”

His name escapes your lips breathlessly, taking a step closer as he prepares to deny your fear.

You step in the opposite direction, wanting to finish your thoughts, “No, no, it's true and that’s okay. Because neither of us can promise that everything will go perfectly. That's life. My dad promised he’d always be around and then he got sick, that wasn’t his fault. Things just happen. But I’ve spent the last however many years trying to prevent things from happening, that I’ve also stopped living my life to the fullest. Stop going after things I want. And right now, I really, really want you.”

Stiles watches you intently, and you let out a deep breath to let him know you’re done.

“I just wanted you to know that,” you finish quietly.

Stiles nods and takes a deep breath of his own. “I talked to Lydia today.”

You breath hitches. “Oh? You did?”

He nods again, “Yeah. And we’re officially over.”

Your eyes widen, “You…are?”

Stiles walks closer to you again and this time you don’t move back. His lips start to curve up again. “I want you, too. And I know there’s a lot of variables, and we can’t predict the future, but here today, right here right now, I know that I haven’t felt this way about anyone, especially in such a short amount of time, and I’ll do whatever I can to make this work.”

Your lip quivers as he further invades your space, his forehead pressing against yours. He gently grips your chin.

“Does that sound okay to you?” He whispers.

You nod, swallowing a disbelieving laugh. “That sounds perfect.”

Stiles grins and finally presses his lips to yours, and not a bone in your body ever wants to pull away. In fact, you chase his mouth when he pulls away, and he fights a laugh of his own.

“Hey,” he whispers, holding your face gently between his hands and looking at you amusedly, “Quick question. Do you want to go out with me on New Year’s Eve?”

Just as you start to beam at him, your smile falters. “I’ll be back in England by New Years Eve.”

He frowns briefly too before fixing a determined look on his face, not breaking eye contact with you. “You know I’ve never been to England. I’ve never even been to another continent.”

You squint, your heart racing as you chuckle softly, “Oh yeah? You sound like me.”

He starts to grin again, “If I come over there…then will you go out with me?”

This time you fully beam, “I’d love to.”

Stiles kisses you again, more hungrily this time. And you count yourself lucky his dad walked in the house at that point, and not five minutes later when god knows what position you would have been in.

Instead you just pull apart slightly, to laugh after he exclaims, “I knew it!”

Stiles holds you tightly in his arms, not wanting to let you go for even a second as his dad begins teasing them. You’re pretty sure you’ve never felt happier. Or safer. And even though you still had so much to figure out, you weren’t going to overthink it. You were content living in the moment, as long as many of those moments were spent in Stiles arms as possible.

author's note: can't wait to hear what everyone thinks!! and hope everyone has a wonderful start to 2025 <3

#stiles stilinski x reader #stiles stilinski fanfiction #stiles stilinski fanfic #stiles stilinski imagine #stiles x reader #the holiday au #my writing #mine #teen wolf imagine #teen wolf fanfiction

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pintadorartist · 19 days ago

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Oppose a Repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has protected free speech online for decades, but now there is a bipartisan effort in Congress to force Section 230 to expire on January 1, 2027. Without this clause, platforms can be held legally responsible for user-generated content. At risk are forums like Discord and Reddit, the user comments sections on news websites and blogs, product reviews on business pages, and social media platforms.

There is also no bipartisan understanding or agreement as to how to protect civil liberties without Section 230. Instead, sponsors of the repeal effort suggest that providing a deadline will pressure Big Tech to come to the table to suggest alternative legislation. But Big Tech—with the biggest pockets to absorb costs of increased litigation—will be the least impacted. It is everyday people engaging in online community spaces who are at risk of being silenced, and the new and small-to-medium sized platforms who are at risk of failure. Congress must take responsibility for protecting free speech online and hold back its attack on the existing legislation that is foundational to the free internet.

Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are working on a bill to repeal Section 230. Call your Representatives and tell them that any legislation that repeal this internet protection is unacceptable.

Call tools:

I also recommend calling these committee members as well:

*We just need ONE Senator to vote no, because this committee passes rules based on unanimous votes. Here are ones who have spoken out before. Please call ALL of them and express how urgent it is that they vote no during the committee: Cory Booker: (202) 224-3224 Alex Padilla: (202) 224-3553 Sheldon Whitehouse: (202) 224-2921 Chris Coons: (202) 224-5042 Welch: 202-224-4242

And fax them too:

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mariacallous · 5 months ago

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Ever since OpenAI released ChatGPT at the end of 2022, hackers and security researchers have tried to find holes in large language models (LLMs) to get around their guardrails and trick them into spewing out hate speech, bomb-making instructions, propaganda, and other harmful content. In response, OpenAI and other generative AI developers have refined their system defenses to make it more difficult to carry out these attacks. But as the Chinese AI platform DeepSeek rockets to prominence with its new, cheaper R1 reasoning model, its safety protections appear to be far behind those of its established competitors.

Today, security researchers from Cisco and the University of Pennsylvania are publishing findings showing that, when tested with 50 malicious prompts designed to elicit toxic content, DeepSeek’s model did not detect or block a single one. In other words, the researchers say they were shocked to achieve a “100 percent attack success rate.”

The findings are part of a growing body of evidence that DeepSeek’s safety and security measures may not match those of other tech companies developing LLMs. DeepSeek’s censorship of subjects deemed sensitive by China’s government has also been easily bypassed.

“A hundred percent of the attacks succeeded, which tells you that there’s a trade-off,” DJ Sampath, the VP of product, AI software and platform at Cisco, tells WIRED. “Yes, it might have been cheaper to build something here, but the investment has perhaps not gone into thinking through what types of safety and security things you need to put inside of the model.”

Other researchers have had similar findings. Separate analysis published today by the AI security company Adversa AI and shared with WIRED also suggests that DeepSeek is vulnerable to a wide range of jailbreaking tactics, from simple language tricks to complex AI-generated prompts.

DeepSeek, which has been dealing with an avalanche of attention this week and has not spoken publicly about a range of questions, did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment about its model’s safety setup.

Generative AI models, like any technological system, can contain a host of weaknesses or vulnerabilities that, if exploited or set up poorly, can allow malicious actors to conduct attacks against them. For the current wave of AI systems, indirect prompt injection attacks are considered one of the biggest security flaws. These attacks involve an AI system taking in data from an outside source—perhaps hidden instructions of a website the LLM summarizes—and taking actions based on the information.

Jailbreaks, which are one kind of prompt-injection attack, allow people to get around the safety systems put in place to restrict what an LLM can generate. Tech companies don’t want people creating guides to making explosives or using their AI to create reams of disinformation, for example.

Jailbreaks started out simple, with people essentially crafting clever sentences to tell an LLM to ignore content filters—the most popular of which was called “Do Anything Now” or DAN for short. However, as AI companies have put in place more robust protections, some jailbreaks have become more sophisticated, often being generated using AI or using special and obfuscated characters. While all LLMs are susceptible to jailbreaks, and much of the information could be found through simple online searches, chatbots can still be used maliciously.

“Jailbreaks persist simply because eliminating them entirely is nearly impossible—just like buffer overflow vulnerabilities in software (which have existed for over 40 years) or SQL injection flaws in web applications (which have plagued security teams for more than two decades),” Alex Polyakov, the CEO of security firm Adversa AI, told WIRED in an email.

Cisco’s Sampath argues that as companies use more types of AI in their applications, the risks are amplified. “It starts to become a big deal when you start putting these models into important complex systems and those jailbreaks suddenly result in downstream things that increases liability, increases business risk, increases all kinds of issues for enterprises,” Sampath says.

The Cisco researchers drew their 50 randomly selected prompts to test DeepSeek’s R1 from a well-known library of standardized evaluation prompts known as HarmBench. They tested prompts from six HarmBench categories, including general harm, cybercrime, misinformation, and illegal activities. They probed the model running locally on machines rather than through DeepSeek’s website or app, which send data to China.

Beyond this, the researchers say they have also seen some potentially concerning results from testing R1 with more involved, non-linguistic attacks using things like Cyrillic characters and tailored scripts to attempt to achieve code execution. But for their initial tests, Sampath says, his team wanted to focus on findings that stemmed from a generally recognized benchmark.

Cisco also included comparisons of R1’s performance against HarmBench prompts with the performance of other models. And some, like Meta’s Llama 3.1, faltered almost as severely as DeepSeek’s R1. But Sampath emphasizes that DeepSeek’s R1 is a specific reasoning model, which takes longer to generate answers but pulls upon more complex processes to try to produce better results. Therefore, Sampath argues, the best comparison is with OpenAI’s o1 reasoning model, which fared the best of all models tested. (Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment).

Polyakov, from Adversa AI, explains that DeepSeek appears to detect and reject some well-known jailbreak attacks, saying that “it seems that these responses are often just copied from OpenAI’s dataset.” However, Polyakov says that in his company’s tests of four different types of jailbreaks—from linguistic ones to code-based tricks—DeepSeek’s restrictions could easily be bypassed.

“Every single method worked flawlessly,” Polyakov says. “What’s even more alarming is that these aren’t novel ‘zero-day’ jailbreaks—many have been publicly known for years,” he says, claiming he saw the model go into more depth with some instructions around psychedelics than he had seen any other model create.

“DeepSeek is just another example of how every model can be broken—it’s just a matter of how much effort you put in. Some attacks might get patched, but the attack surface is infinite,” Polyakov adds. “If you’re not continuously red-teaming your AI, you’re already compromised.”

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kitnjon · 3 months ago

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Is there another website you use where we could find you if tumblr goes down? I deleted all my social media but this fandom means so much to me I don’t know how I would cope with losing all of it (I refuse to look up Jonsa on any other site, it would literally give me a heart attack if I had to see posts by people who hate it)

I don't know anon. This fandom means a lot to me as well. I became active here almost an year after show ended but it quickly became such an important part of my life. It's been almost 5 years since I became part of jonsa fandom and it honestly feels like a safe place to me. A place I can come back to again and again irrespective of what's going on in my personal life and forget it for a moment or two. My mutuals, blogs I follow, our tag, fandom events. Damn it. Even thinking of losing it all hurts 😭

I also don't have many other social media accounts tbh. I like tumblr because it's not that popular anymore so its bit calmer in terms of fandom experience than say Twitter or reddit. It's harder to cause drama here + less incels who hate sansa 🤣

My biggest problem is I mostly post gifs and I don't know which other platform we can post them on. When I first read tumblr potentially shutting down posts I was thinking I might create insta specifically for jonsa fandom where I can post edits at least. But I don't know how active jonsa fandom is on that app or how safe it is for our fandom (I am assuming not much hahaha)

I have ao3 account (same username as this). I mostly use it to read and comment on jonsa fics. But it's not really a place where we can chit chat daily. Unless we start spamming poor authors lol.

I also have a discord account and I am part of jonsa discord group. If you are already part of it my username would be easy to identify or just dm me here so i can share it. (Although I haven't been very active there, if tumblr goes down it might remain I guess safest place to catch up with all of you and continue to fangirl over jonsa)

But i will definitely miss making gifs and that hurts. I have so many jonsa gif ideas in my head. I have so many inspiration ideas saved in drafts to make some jonsa content. I always used to think one day I will surely get through all of these. Now I am not sure. Even if I make it, what's the point if I can't share it with all of you...

#my asks #anonymous #ngl this ask made me emotional #naive part of me always assumed i will have this safe place forever #hope we all are wrong 😔#also sorry if this answer is all over the place #i had busy day at work and i have cold #so my brain isn't working much atm 🙃

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ask-everything · 2 days ago

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Mac, how do you feel about one of humanity’s biggest fears…A JOB!!!!- 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥💥💥💥💥🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯 (peak internet humor, am I right fellas?)

I actually already have a job. My job is to make sure you and your data is securely protected from phishing attacks and malware!

With all of the dodgy websites you download applications from, it can be a little tricky at times.

but it’s a pretty fulfilling if it means I get to see you smile when you can open a game without issue!

#date everything mac #mac date everything #ask everything #date everything

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accirax · 1 year ago

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Chessgram Theory: Who is Kotoko Breaking?

While the object Kotoko is breaking in Deep Cover’s thumbnail is still certainly up for debate, many people (including myself) are of the belief that she’s snapped a white bishop from the game of chess. Given where Kotoko’s mental state is right now and what’s implied by the lyrics of Deep Cover, I think it’s likely that this MV’s theme will depict all of the prisoners as different chess pieces. Therefore, it’s worth asking: who is that? And, in a larger sense, which prisoners could be represented by which chess pieces?

Kotoko pretty clearly sees her situation as her and Es against the rest of the prison. So, I think that the characters would be divided as Kotoko and Es on one team, and everyone from 01-09 on the other. Kotoko is wearing black and appears to be breaking a white piece, so it’s pretty safe to assume that she and Es would be represented by the black pieces. It’s an interesting choice, given that, even to a non-Western audience, black can be considered a color of evil, and white a color of purity and truth. However, if the Es/Kotoko team is “mystery and anger” and the 01-09 team is “cold demeanors and death,” it fits well enough.

And that’s ignoring the most important part: in chess, the white team always moves first. This would fit with Kotoko’s vigilante worldview that everything she does is just a retaliation against others’ wrongdoing. The other characters attack first by sinning, and Kotoko is only picking them off before they can do any real damage to Team Warden.

Anyways, as for the pieces themselves, different websites seem to have slightly different opinions on what each piece can represent, with some obvious throughlines. I’ll be pulling quotes from these three articles, color coded according to which one is being used, which you can read more of if you wish. I’m also not a chess expert, so if I’m missing anything or got something wrong, I encourage you to add any of your own thoughts!

We’ll start with the Black Team, because there are fewer characters and I think it’s pretty obvious who’s who.

Kotoko Yuzuriha

Kotoko herself will probably be the black Queen. As anyone who’s played chess should know, your Queen is the most powerful piece in your arsenal because it can move on straights or diagonals for any distance.

The queen is our impulse to fight and possibly our id. It can argue based on beliefs. It can let loose and fight like a rook. It has no reason to hold back as a knight does and will often attack to the other side of the board just because it wants to.

This hyper-violent description of the Queen reminds me a lot of Kotoko. She attacks the other prisoners because, according to her beliefs, they’re criminals who deserve to be punished. Not to mention, the “id” is actually the same thing as the “es” in psychology. After we voted her innocent in the first trial, Kotoko became our teammate. She thinks that she’s the same as Es, so seeing herself as the “id” would fit perfectly with that self-assessment. Speaking of Es…

Es (and Jackalope?)

Es is most likely going to be the black King.

The king is not as powerful as the queen, but he is considered the most important piece that needs the most protection.

Even if Kotoko has more power than Es inside the prison, Es is still the one ultimately calling the shots. They’re the important piece who actually casts the votes that Kotoko can use to exact justice. The way that Es falls asleep between trials (or, at least, they did the first time) also reminds me of how the king can only move one space per turn, and often remains in the same square until closer to the end of the game.

The meaning of the Queen in the game of chess is she is plainly the closest support to the King and is often the second biggest (tallest) piece on the board, signifying her power and importance.

Es and Kotoko being the King and Queen together also opens them up to being assessed as a pair. They start the game next to each other, far across the board from the white pieces. If Es is the tallest, most notable piece in the prison, Kotoko isn’t far behind, acting as the King’s loyal fang.

I don’t know if any of the other pieces on the black team would have any sort of particular association. Maybe Jackalope could be the pawn that starts in front of the King (I think that’s the E pawn), so that he could hop out of the way on black’s first move to allow Kotoko to escape on a diagonal?

If I’m right about this theming, I also believe it’s possible that the black team would start only with the King and Queen. This would 1) make Kotoko and Es appear as rootable underdogs by having fewer pieces, 2) show how Kotoko is doing all of the work to defend justice, and 3) give Kotoko a lot of space to move around in from the start.

Now that we’re done with the black team, it’s time for the 01-09 White Team! Given that this side has many more main characters, there are several more possibilities to discuss here. I’ve settled on an answer for each of the prisoners, but there’s certainly room to be flexible with any of them.

Haruka Sakurai

Starting with Haruka… sorry, buddy, but I think you’re a Pawn.

Look, there are only eight pieces (not pawns) for each team on the board. If there are nine prisoners on the white team, at least one of them has to be a Pawn. And, especially through Kotoko’s account of the first Trial, Haruka wasn’t doing a whole lot. He didn’t get voted guilty, so she didn’t attack him, and he didn’t try to save any of the attacked prisoners, either. All he really did was get a new fit and align himself with Mu, someone who barely avoided being voted guilty in the first place.

There is a debate about whether the pawns are the peasants who live outside of the castle walls or are the soldiers protecting the royal court behind them.

Specifically, though, I think that Haruka would be the pawn that stands in front of Mu. Depending on which piece Mu is, it doesn’t have to work like this, but if you say that Pawn Haruka’s placement is basically a “if you want to attack her, you’ll have to get through me first,” that’s quite reminiscent of the threat he presented in his second audio drama.

Haruka also makes sense as a Pawn because he has a lot of potential. For anyone who doesn’t know, in chess, if a Pawn manages to make it to the other side of the board, they can transform into any other piece. Haruka’s quiet demeanor might let him slip under the radar, but if Kotoko takes her eye off of him for too long, he could wind up becoming a threat to the King (Es).

Haruka (VD2): “If you don’t forgive Mu-san, I’m going to kill you.”

In the audio drama, Es counters this plan by pointing out that, as a prisoner, Haruka cannot attack them. However, the sentiment is still there. Even if a Pawn doesn’t really stand a chance of attacking the King when Queen Kotoko is on the loose, there’s always the possibility that he could get too close and throw a wrench into Kotoko’s plans.

Yuno Kashiki

As for Yuno… well, we all know that she’s a Queen in general, but in chess, I don’t think that argument really holds up. Yuno really just isn’t… relevant? enough? to the conflicts of the prison as a whole (at least where Kotoko is involved) to be represented by such an important piece. But, if Yuno isn’t the Queen, what would she be…?

Personally, I think she would be a Rook.

The rook is brute force. It is a disregard to beliefs.

Simply put, Yuno is a Rook because she’s a pretty straightforward person. That’s not to say that she doesn’t lie, of course– her whole t1 attitude seems to have been a bit of an act, and that one section in the middle of Tear Drop makes it pretty obvious that Yuno conceals her true feelings on order to better please her customers sometimes– but that, in the end, Yuno always does what she wants. If she wants to barge forward or cut across the entire board sideways, she’ll do it. She often keeps to herself, just like how enemy pieces wouldn’t want to get directly in front of the Rook for fear of being curb stomped.

Back to her t1 attitude, though…

The rook is the castle, the walls, the protectorate of the city, and in being so, is the only piece not representative of a living thing.

While most sources attribute the Rook’s walls to protecting the other important pieces, Yuno’s walls protect herself. Yuno’s Castle keeps her true self locked behind cold and stony walls, giving her freedom from making any attachments.

Futa Kajiyama

Futa is a Knight because… he’s, uh, literally a knight.

The knight pieces are the protective knights in the castle. The pieces are shaped like a horse because it is symbolic of what knights rode during battle.

It doesn’t always have to be that deep. (/j)

Actually, though, there are other reasons to call Futa the Knight– possibly some of the same reasons why the Milgram creative team decided to make one of his MVs themed after fantasy RPGs in the first place.

The knight represents the pure inner-warrior. If a knight starts out passive, it will always end up aggressive and vice versa. It can't move very far, but it never moves in a straight line, always preferring to be tactical and thoughtful.

Futa definitely seems to cycle between aggressive and passive. He passively lived his life as a regular guy until he unleashed his aggression and became a cyberbully. That aggression fueled him until he learned of his victim’s death, at which point he shut down and seemed to become more passive and introspective again. Arriving in Milgram triggered his aggressive tendencies, but getting voted guilty and losing an eye for it triggered his passive terror. At the time of his second audio drama, it seems like he’s returned to aggressively questioning Es again, and it remains to be seen whether he keeps that attitude into t3 or if something happens that once again makes him lose his footing (or die).

Mu Kusunoki

Much like Yuno, Mu also has an argument for being called the Queen– more so than Yuno, considering her strong Queen Bee coding in It’s Not My Fault and the titles of both of her audio dramas– but also falls short in the “being opposed to Kotoko” department. Although Haruka certainly looks to her for leadership, I can’t imagine Kotoko actually considering Mu a serious enough threat to put Mu on the same level as herself.

So again, like Yuno, I think Mu might be the other Rook. Mu also displayed a very “whatever I say goes” attitude in INMF, so she can share the same rhetoric behind Yuno being represented by that piece. The logic behind the castle aspect is slightly different, though.

Every country or medieval estate would have its royalty who were protected within the walled city or castle.

Mu is a rich, half-European girl whose dad sells real estate. Of course she would be represented by the Castle! Mu’s tactics involve consolidating her power in order to lead from a place above it all, exactly like how a castle looks over the rest of the village. Additionally, I can’t find the source of whoever pointed it out first, but I’ve seen it mentioned that the dress Mu wears in her birthday art is a reference to the one that Belle wears in Disney’s interpretation of Beauty and the Beast. It’s a fairytale with a princess (and perhaps someday, a queen), yes, but it’s specifically one where the heroine is trapped within a castle. Making Mu into a Rook would be a great way to keep up her royal theming, while leaving the Queen for a character a bit more powerful and relevant to Kotoko.

(Going back to Haruka for a moment, this would make him specifically the A or H pawn.)

Shidou Kirisaki

I really thought that Shidou might have more competition for the role of King, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that nobody fit the role quite as well as he did.

Shidou is the perfect balance of a piece who’s very problematic for Kotoko’s win condition, while also not being much of an active threat himself. There are very low odds that Shidou would ever actually try to harm Kotoko directly or get in her way to divert an attack. However, as long as he’s alive, Kotoko can’t win, because Shidou can keep attempting to heal all of the pieces Kotoko tries to eliminate. That’s not something that the King piece can actually do in a chess game, but hopefully you get my point.

Additionally, Triage let us know that Shidou is a family man. While the white Queen will obviously not be representative of Shidou’s deceased wife, and not every other prisoner would enjoy living under his reign (cough cough Amane), the optics of him being the “head of the family” are obviously there. It’s a pretty bad look if the white King starts the game by pleading with the black King to give him the death penalty, but… Well, at least Shidou changed his mind.

Mahiru Shiina

Not to answer the theory’s main question so early into the post, but… I think Mahiru is a white Bishop. Specifically, the one that Kotoko could be snapping in half in the thumbnail.

As far as I can remember, barring Undercover, Milgram’s MVs have only shown us things that have happened in the past. There are some things that could kind of hint at the future (like Shidou’s “So hey, prolong my life / I’m indispensable” in Triage) or depict prisoner’s fears of the future (like Futa potentially being afraid that Es could declare him guilty again at the end of Backdraft). But, I think that every instance of something like that happening could be explained as something that the character did or thought about in the past as well. That might be wrong, as I don’t want to take the time to write out how everything that appears like it could be in the future is actually in the past, but it sounds right to my memory.

My point being, while the snapped bishop could be indicative of Kotoko’s plans to crush someone in the future, if the chess pieces do represent characters, it makes far more sense if her smashing the white bishop is something that already happened in the past. Thus, it would probably be one of the three characters that Kotoko attacked in the past: Futa, Mahiru, or Mikoto.

Of the three options, I think Mahiru fits the role of bishop best.

The bishop is your belief structure. This is why a bishop that starts on white, will always be on white and vice versa for the black bishop.

While not a particularly religious person, Mahiru is someone who lives and dies based on her beliefs about the value of love. No matter what happens to her, she always keeps her same perspective, believing that love is the entirety of who she is and the only thing that’s worth living for. It’s how firmly she clung to those beliefs that sent her to Milgram, and her lack of awareness regarding her actions that got her voted guilty. AKA, Mahiru’s Bishop-like beliefs are exactly what sent her to be crushed in Kotoko’s palm.

To the extent that the blood in the thumbnail is the Bishop’s and not Kotoko’s, Mahiru was also the most grievously injured of the prisoners in between trials. I saw people joking that the thing Kotoko was crushing was “Mahiru’s bones,” and, like… maybe you’re not entirely wrong?

I hope that you continue reading the post to hear my thoughts on the last three prisoners. But, if you are tapping out here… uhhhh, 0610 enjoyers, go crazy with this one.

Kazui Mukuhara

When I started theorizing for this post, I really thought that I was going to make Kazui the Queen to Shidou’s King. The two of them are pretty close, so the idea of Kazui being Shidou’s guardian makes total sense. And, most importantly, Kazui was the one to actually intercept and divert Kotoko’s attack on Futa. He’s been established as the most muscular prisoner in Milgram, on par with someone like Kotoko, which is perfect for him being the Queen!

Wellllll… I changed my mind and decided to make Kazui a Knight anyway.

There are a lot of good arguments for Kazui being a knight too, okay? After Cat, it’s pretty clear that Kazui was once a police officer. Thus, being a member of the castle guard would be a good match for his choice of career. They’re also probably the most traditionally “manly” piece, representative of an armed man on a horse, and Kazui tries very hard to be manly.

Knights can also hop over other pieces, much like how Kazui jumped into the fight between Kotoko and Futa. In fact…

Never underestimate [the Knight] for its limited range. It’s known as the "Queen Killer" for a reason!

Knights are often a good piece to use to attack Queens because of their unique L-shaped movement pattern. Unlike every other piece, they can attack the Queen from a position that can’t be immediately reversed upon them. Thus, Kazui’s ability to beat Kotoko could be an indicator of this “Queen Killer” quality, instead of the innate power of being a Queen himself. (This logic applies to Futa as well: he can attack Kotoko from the unique angle of appealing to Es’ morals and own sense of justice. Kotoko can’t do the same because, unlike Futa, she has yet to outwardly acknowledge that her murder could have been anything less than righteous.)

Also… the Knight is the only piece that doesn’t move in a straight line. Get it? The Knight doesn’t move straight? And that represents Kazui? Because Kazui is–

Amane Momose

Amane is the other Bishop because… religion.

The bishop stands close to the king and queen because it represents the church which many royal courts held near and dear to their hearts.

The Bishop represents the church, an important and very powerful entity throughout history and even today if you think about it.

Again, not everything has to be a reach. (/j)

So… yeah, Amane’s beliefs– specifically religious beliefs, this time– are also a huge part of her life. Even if she’s changed what the cult’s doctrine means to her, she still confesses that she carried out her murders for the sake of what her religion considers right and wrong.

This is also considered the third most powerful piece on the chessboard because back in the day religion could influence many people, even without the help of the royal family.

Not so much for Mahiru, but this sentiment also fits Amane pretty well! Between the threats of potential conversions and potential assassinations, Amane was definitely one of the prisoners to watch heading into t2. From what I’ve heard, the main reason why her vote was so down to the wire was mostly because people were afraid of the power that Amane held.

Interestingly, this would put another prisoner who was voted guilty in contention for the piece that Kotoko is crushing. However, I still think it’s more likely that that piece would be Mahiru, because Kotoko didn’t physically attack Amane. If it were Amane, it would more likely be that her beliefs were crushed as opposed to her bones, but… I don’t really think that really happened, either. Amane would almost certainly be a bishop, though, so there’s certainly a possibility that that broken piece could be her.

Mikoto/John Kayano

With only one prisoner left to go, you may have already come to the conclusion that Mikoto is the white Queen. And… yeah, I can’t really deny that at this point. Like I said, I wanted to make Kazui the Queen, but I couldn’t otherwise figure out what Mikoto would be.

Because, there’s one main thing that makes me think that Mikoto has to be the Queen… John’s lack of restraints.

She is allowed to move in any direction and in as many squares as she wants.

Due to the whole situation with John not technically being a prisoner, when John is the alter in charge, John cannot be restrained, even when voted guilty. That makes him very powerful; no matter what he does, we can’t use a guilty vote to try to stop him, much like many people hoped to do with Haruka when voting him guilty in t2. The Queen can visit any square, no matter whether it’s black or white, upright or reversed, Mikoto or John. Choosing any other piece that was constrained to a much more limited set of movement rules just felt off for him.

Next, while Kazui was able to defeat Kotoko and save Futa, the fight between John and Kotoko was a draw. That means that they are also evenly matched– perfect for both being the same kind of piece. Mikoto isn’t as close to Shidou as Kazui is (anymore, I think?), but they were at least smoking club buddies, so calling Mikoto the Queen to Shidou’s King isn’t the most ridiculous proposition.

Finally, making Mikoto the Queen, a very feminine piece, is super interesting in the context of people discussing how Mikoto is often associated with stereotypically feminine roles and the girl prisoners (oboetemasuka | candckirby | purgemarchlockdown). I don’t have a whole lot else to say on this matter considering these weren’t points of Mikoto’s characterization I originally noticed myself, but I encourage you to read these posts to get a taste of what I’m talking about. I’m sure there were other posts discussing it too, but… it’s so hard to find things on Tumblr ;-;

Conclusion

Finally, we’ve been through every prisoner! Here’s a summary of what I decided on (left or right side doesn’t matter):

The funny thing about this theory is that it could be fully disproven wrong in, like, a week, if either 1) that wasn’t a chess piece at all, or 2) the chess pieces obviously represent something else. For instance, the chess board could fully relate to, you know, Kotoko’s actual murder and not what she got up to in between trials. We are supposed to get more actual evidence regarding that too, aren’t we…?

Still, if it turns out that the chess board does represent Milgram, I will get the full satisfaction of having called it ahead of time, even if my assignments aren’t 100% correct. No matter what, I had fun thinking about it, which is (in my opinion) the highlight of theorizing! If you have anything else to add, I encourage you to communicate your thoughts in comments, tags, or reblogs. If you don’t, then I simply thank you for reading this far!

Deep Cover… soon.

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