#this was the last prompt but decided to get rid of the prompt text in the end

[lnbeep-art]

Happy Halloween! 🪦🩸

Have some night terrors with your friendly neighborhood Lord of Death.

[serensho]

୨୧‿‿‿୨ﾠ୧‿‿‿୨୧ ୨୧‿‿‿୨ﾠ୧‿‿‿୨୧

୨୧‿‿‿୨ﾠ୧‿‿‿୨୧ ୨୧‿‿‿୨ﾠ୧‿‿‿୨୧

she

in which you and mark have drifted apart...but that doesn't mean he's left your life for good.

warnings: SMUT, coochie eating, angst, surprisingly soft/fluffy, variant!mark, kind of creepy vibes but not too much imo, not canon compliant, fem!reader

wc: 2766

inspired by tyler the creator's she, sycamore tree by kali uchis

a/n: ayy doing something different by having my note at the beginning; thank you sm for the love on my last two posts! i hope you all love this one and reblog, like, reply, request, etc!! this could be imagined with any mark variant imo, but let me know who you think fits this best! also it is pretty light despite its inspo, and i hope you all like it! i had fun writing it and getting out of my comfort zone. enjoy

You and Mark Grayson have lost touch.

 It wasn’t surprising at first. Having grown up with him and watching his transformation from ordinary high schooler to superhero from only a few doors down– it seemed only natural that he would act differently, make new friends and find new hobbies. 

The two of you drifted apart as he began fighting crime, talking to girls, and the friendship that was once so strong between you fizzled out. There wasn’t any animosity– at least you tried not to harbor any– but it was only natural that a sense of bitterness began to fester as he stopped trying. 

He stopped coming over late at night after a fight with a petty villain, stopped walking you home, simply stopped. And you tried to reach out to him, to let him know you would always be there but he found comfort elsewhere. Which was fine. He was following a different path, one that was extraordinary compared to your ordinary experience going to the nearby college sometimes crossing paths with William and Amber. 

Last you heard she and Mark had broken up and he was now with Atom Eve. But a lot had been happening to Mark recently with the arrival of different versions of him wreaking havoc on Earth, and his subsequent fight with some sort of super strong hero from a completely different planet. You couldn’t help but worry for him, worry for Debbie and his little brother, Oliver. 

You still cared despite the loss of contact and that was what prompted you to try to write a text to him, hoping that his number hadn’t changed. However, it sat in your messages, too scared to send it. You stewed over it, reread it probably a hundred times, before giving up on it. Weeks passed by and you hadn’t read or watched anything in the news about Invincible, deeming that that was probably a good thing. 

Which was why when you saw him waiting on the sidewalk in front of your house after dark one night was so weird. At least you were pretty sure it was him. Deciding to investigate further, you padded downstairs from your bedroom to the front door, slipping on a pair of shoes and walking outside, turning on the flashlight of your phone while approaching the pavement. Only to find that Mark– whoever had been waiting outside had left without a trace. You called out into the night, looking around before going inside, but you couldn’t shake the feeling as though something, someone had been watching you. You walked back upstairs and decided to try to relax, pamper yourself for tonight to rid yourself of the sensation.

From far above in the sky, Mark held a hand over his mouth as he chuckled. Your cute chirp and frightened look on your face excited him. Back in his home universe, you hadn’t been so close to him– it was a wonder why this world’s Mark hadn’t taken advantage of your proximity but after days of observation, weeks, Mark realized that you two weren’t together, weren’t even friends. That was something he would be sure to remedy. But he couldn’t rush it no, that would be too suspicious. He tapped his chin in thought as he flew to your bedroom window. Your light was still on, blinds open to let the moonlight in, and he quickly flew to hide behind a nearby tree as you approached the window– only to open it to let the cool night air flow into your room. He could hear your sweet humming and watched as you sat down on your bed to brush your hair. He imagined running his hands through it, brushing it himself, pulling it– but it got so much better when you began undressing right before his very eyes. 

You hummed along to a soft tune as you applied velvety lotion along your body, massaging your thighs, hips, before moving up to your chest. You plopped down on your bed again, putting some on your arms before redressing into a silky pajama set and turning your lights off. 

Mark was hoping for you to do more. To touch yourself, rub and pinch your nipples, play with your clit until he could hear you mewling and crying out in pleasure– but he supposed he would have to be the one to pull those sweet sounds from you instead.

In the days that followed Mark began to slowly insert himself back into your life. He began leaving signs, walking throughout your house leaving doors and windows open so he could watch you later that day. He followed you around as you drove to work, college, to the grocery store–meanwhile you had been noticing these things, realizing that you hadn’t left your bedroom window open all day…Had you? 

Mark continued to stay hidden, biding his time for the perfect moment to approach you but he wanted to learn more about you in this world, and found himself falling for you all over again. As luck would have it, that perfect moment arose the same day this world’s Invincible made headlines after having been in a particularly nasty fight with another villain. 

You paced your room, contemplating sending that text to Mark. It certainly couldn’t hurt, could it? It was simple and to the point–Saw what happened, hope you’re doing alright. I’m always here if you need to talk. You took a deep breath as you collapsed onto your bed afterwards, the night hours becoming later as you tried to distract yourself in anticipation of a response. You were reading a book as your phone suddenly buzzed, the screen lighting. Your heart jumped as you scrambled to grab it, the message reading, I’m alright. Just been dealing with a lot, hope you’re okay, too. 

Well, at least it was something. A sense of relief washed over you–quickly being followed with panic as a knock came from your window. You got up and opened it, only to see–

“Mark!? Holy shit, how are you–what are you doing here right now?” You gasped as he hovered into your room and landed.

Something was up…you had just seen him fighting for his life on television and now he was wearing a new suit and visiting your bedroom after so many years?

“I had to see you,” he said as he looked you up and down. God, you looked even better up close.

“I thought you were hurt? How did you heal so fast?” you shook your head as you grabbed his arm, assessing him for injuries. None. You turned him around, seeing there wasn’t even a rip in this new suit. But he looked different in it, somehow. More muscular, like he filled it out more but maybe it was just the difference seeing him in person and on a screen. Your hands trailed along his body as you grabbed both of his hands in yours. Realizing what you were doing, checking him out and gawking, you dropped them as you turned around and cleared your throat, embarrassed. 

“It’s my powers. I’m good as new, now,” he said as he stretched, missing your soft hands on his body already. 

You frowned as you turned back to face him. “Mark, what are you doing in my room? We haven’t spoken in years. I mean, just because I sent you that text doesn’t mean I was expecting you to visit or–or that we can suddenly go back to what we used to be.”

Mark walked toward you as you backed away from him. Seriously, what was up with him? 

Noticing your apprehension he began taking off the face piece of his suit, grabbing your hands. “I’ve missed you. And that text…” he trailed off. What the fuck could he say that wouldn’t alert you to the fact that he wasn’t your Mark? “I–I realized that I wanna make up for the time we’ve lost together. It’s you I should’ve been giving my time and attention to, not anything else,” he reasoned, looking into your eyes deeply. 

You looked down to your hands, intertwined in his. You shook your head, thoughts running wild. You had harbored a crush on him when you two were friends. But he was with Eve, was he not? This all seemed to be some sort of dream, a fantasy. 

You sighed before meeting his longing gaze. “Mark, you have a girlfriend. I’m not some sort of boyfriend-stealer. I don’t know who you think you’re fooling right now, but you need to stop. It isn’t fair.”

His brows raised as he scowled. “I don’t care about her, we’re done. Her, those other girls, they were just distractions, I thought that I wanted them but my judgment was clouded. Now, I see what’s been in front of me this whole time,” he pulled you closer to him, still holding hands. He rubbed comforting circles as you looked at his face, carefully examining his features. 

His body was definitely more muscular in person– but his face was the same Mark you had been missing, yearning for. He seemed aged somehow, eyes sad but still holding that same depth you remembered. Which was what prompted you to lean into him, breaking your hands apart to rest one on his chest as you looked up at him. 

Everything was falling into place, perfectly.

“Mark, I’ll be honest, I don’t know what to think right now. Maybe this is stupid, but I…I believe you.”

You could feel his heartbeat quicken, from your touch or words you were unsure, as his hand which had been rubbing those comforting circles, stilled, tightening before releasing entirely. 

Mark’s eyes darkened, his gaze dropping to your lips before flicking back to your eyes. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you,” he murmured, his voice huskier now, lower. There was something dangerous, electric, in the way he spoke, as though he was holding back.

Your chest tightened as you leaned in closer, your lips just inches from his. “I missed you too,” you whispered, barely audible, feeling the weight of everything you hadn’t said in years. It all came crashing down now, in this moment—every longing glance, every unspoken word. 

Without thinking, you rose up on your toes, closing the gap between you, your lips brushing his in the lightest of touches. For a second, you hesitated, your heart pounding in your ears as you pulled back just enough to see his face, wondering if you’d gone too far.

But Mark’s reaction was immediate. His hand slid up, cradling the back of your neck, pulling you in for a deeper kiss. This time, there was no hesitation, no uncertainty. His lips crashed against yours with a kind of desperation, like he’d been starving for this for as long as you had. The kiss was firm, claiming, his other hand slipping down to rest on your waist, fingers curling possessively around your side.

You gasped against his mouth as his body pressed closer, his heat enveloping you. Every touch, every sensation felt amplified—the brush of his lips, the way his hand tugged lightly at your hair as he kissed you harder. Your fingers dug into his chest, feeling the solid muscle beneath, and you could feel the tension in his body, something tight and wanting, waiting to be released.

“Mark…” you breathed, breaking the kiss for a moment as you leaned your forehead against his, your lips swollen and tingling from the intensity of it all. His eyes were clouded with desire as he stared down at you, his thumb brushing gently over your bottom lip.

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” he muttered, his voice rough with need. “I’m not letting you go this time.”

You shivered at the possessiveness in his tone, your body responding in ways you couldn’t control. His hands slid down your waist, pulling you against him, and you could feel the hardness of his body pressed firmly against yours. The air between you felt thick with desire, each breath you took seemed to pull you closer.

The line between wanting and restraint blurred as his lips found your neck, leaving slow, heated kisses along your skin, each one sending a shock of pleasure through you. You couldn’t help the soft moan that escaped your lips as he nipped lightly at the sensitive skin beneath your ear, his hands roaming lower, fingers brushing the curve of your hips.

Your pulse quickened, your body arching instinctively against him as his hands found the hem of your shirt, teasingly sliding beneath the fabric to touch your bare skin. His touch was warm, firm, but careful, like he was savoring every second of this moment. He helped you out of your top as he took in the sight of your breasts. 

You moved to cover yourself before Mark grabbed you bridal style, placing you on your bed as he quickly rid himself of the rest of his suit, completely bare before you. 

“Don’t be shy, baby. Lemme show you how much I want you,” he said as he climbed on top of you, pulling you into a long kiss. While your lips were locked, his hands came down to palm your breasts, pinching and pulling at your nipples. Mark pulled away from you, moving lower, sucking and kissing as he fondled one of your tits, bringing the other between his warm, wet mouth as he began suckling. 

You arched your back in pleasure as you brought a hand to pull at his hair as you moaned. 

“Oh, Mark–Please!”

He pulled away from you and tilted his head coyly. “Tell me what you want,” he said in a low tone as he moved his mouth to your other breast, giving it the same treatment. “I-I don’t know I want–want more,” you whimpered as the hand that was in his hair came to grab at the pillow under your head.

Mark stopped his efforts on your chest and moved lower, using both hands to spread your legs as he appraised the heat between your thighs. “Poor thing. She’s begging for some attention, you know that?” 

Mark’s strong arms kept your legs apart as you squirmed under his touch. He placed light kisses along your inner thighs before he brought his mouth against your clit and sucked. Hard. You cried out in bliss as Mark continued licking, and sucking, swallowing your essence as you writhed under his touch. 

Mark's tongue worked expertly, flicking against your sensitive clit with a rhythm that made your body tense and shiver with every stroke. His grip on your thighs tightened, holding you firmly in place as you bucked against him, lost in the overwhelming pleasure.

Your fingers gripped the sheets, your head falling back as the intense sensation built inside you, a fire spreading through your core. "M-Mark..." you gasped, your voice trembling as his mouth moved faster, the wet sounds of his tongue sending electric jolts through your body. He moaned against you, the vibrations sending you even closer to the edge.

Just when you thought you couldn’t take any more, his hand slid up, teasing your entrance with his fingers before thrusting them inside, curling just right. The sudden fullness made you cry out louder, your hips lifting off the bed as the pleasure crested. His tongue and fingers worked in perfect harmony, pushing you higher, deeper, until the pressure inside you finally broke.

You shattered, waves of ecstasy crashing over you as your body shook uncontrollably. Your cries echoed through the room, your thighs trembling around his head as he continued, drawing out every last bit of your orgasm until you were spent, breathless, and completely undone.

Slowly, he pulled away, kissing your inner thighs tenderly as you tried to catch your breath, your body still trembling from the aftershocks. Mark looked up at you, his lips glistening with your arousal, his eyes dark with satisfaction as he crawled back up to hover over you.

"That," he murmured, brushing a stray hair from your face, "was only the beginning." But the intensity of his gaze softened as he pressed a gentle kiss to your lips, leaving you breathless all over again.

You registered the sound of your phone buzzing, but with Mark on top of you, loving you, the edges of your mind fuzzy and melting, you willfully ignored it. 

For now, you were his, and the world outside didn’t matter anymore. Mark was different–but did it really matter to you all that much if it gave you the chance to be his? 

tags: @weeb-simp-11

[thebeast-dennis-etcetera]

Interference Part 2

Prompt: You run to your FBI neighbor when you and your boyfriend get into a fight.

Part 1

You shut your laptop with a frustrated sigh and crossed out the last address you had written down on your pad of paper. The last two days you had been searching for a place to rent, only to be turned down due to your bad credit or limited income. You didn’t have the privilege of asking your family for help, most of them had shunned you once you got into your relationship and the few that did still speak with you were in no position to lend you money.

Your phone rang again for the 3rd time in 30 minutes, a blocked number popping up on the screen. You had ignored it the last 2 times for the fear that it was your boyfriend, but he should still be in jail with no chance of making phone calls, right?

Deciding it wouldn’t really hurt to answer it, you slid the call open and instantly regretted it once the familiar devious voice spoke to you.

“Hello bird,” he greeted with fake sincerity, using the pet name he made for you as a jab at your eating habits. The fear shot through you just as hard as the other night, rendering you speechless.

“I’m out baby. I’ll be home soon and we can sit down and talk about everything. Hopefully you were able to get the house cleaned, it was a mess the last time I was there.”

He didn’t get a chance to say anything more before you ended the call. Anxiety and fear began creeping into your body, making you scramble to grab a luggage bag from the closet before shoving some clothes, toiletries, and your laptop in it. Running into the living room, you peeked out of the curtains, hoping to see Aaron’s car in the driveway. No such luck.

So grabbing your keys, you left the house, not even bothering to lock it and threw your luggage into the backseat of your car. You tore out of the driveway and down the street like a bat out hell, unsure exactly how far away your boyfriend was. As reckless as driving 50 in a residential was, you took your chances of being pulled over and put as much distance between you and that house before dialing Aaron’s number at a red light.

“Hotchner,” he answered professionally from the other line.

“Aaron. He got out. I don’t know how, maybe his mom paid his bail. He called me and said he was on his way to me.” Your words were fast and frantic. You would've continued rambling had Aaron not stopped you.

"Y/N. Just take a deep breath for me, alright?"

The light turned green and you did as he instructed, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, it doing very little to calm your frazzled nerves but appreciated it regardless.

"Now do you have anywhere you can go, maybe a friends house or family member? Somewhere you'd be safe?"

"No," you spoke. "I don't have any friends and most of my family disowned me when I got into this stupid relationship. The rest of them live on the West Coast."

There was a pause of silence as you felt him thinking over the phone. Most likely figuring out the easiest way to get rid of you and your problems.

"Alright. I have some down time before my meeting in an hour. Why don't you come by and we can figure out a plan. I'll send you the address, just take the elevator to the 4th floor."

A second later you felt the buzz of your phone from the incoming text message. "Ok. Thank you so much Aaron. And I'm so sorry for taking up your time." Tears threatened to fall but you held them back.

"Don't be sorry, Y/N. I want to help you. Don't worry, we'll get this all sorted out. Just text me when you arrive."

"I will," you replied before you both said goodbye and hung up. You put the address in your navigation and drove mindlessly through traffic, so many thoughts going through your head it made you want to scream.

The address wasn't too far from your own homes, arriving there in less than an hour and heading into the very drab looking building before taking the elevator, texting Aaron that you had arrived on the way up.

You had just made it to the front desk before seeing Aaron headed in your direction, giving the receptionist a small smile. "She's with me Lonnette, thank you."

You waited as Lonnette printed your visitor badge and handed it over with a friendly smile before following Aaron through the floor, passing by glass offices and cubicles. You were quiet, not really in the mood for small talk which you felt he sensed and didn't bother saying anything as he lead you up some stairs to an office that you presumed was his by the gold name plaque on his desk.

"Have a seat, please," he offered politely, closing the door and walking over to his side of the desk. "Would you like something to drink? Water? Coffee?"

You shook your head. "No thank you. I appreciate the offer though."

He unbuttoned his suit jacket and sat down, moving some files to the side. "So I'm genuinely surprised to hear that he's out of jail. You said you think his mother bailed him out?"

"Yeah. I don't think she knows anything about what happened but whenever he asks her for money, she just sends it to him. I think she feels guilty for never being in his life so giving him money when he needs it helps her feel better about it." You rung your hands together, anxious about the whole situation as well as being there, talking with a man that was pretty much a complete stranger, bugging him for help.

"And he called you afterwards, telling you that he was on his way? Did he seem upset?" His tone was curious as if trying to get every piece of puzzle to fit perfectly in order to build an accurate idea of who your boyfriend was. It made sense considering his profession.

"I don't know. He's really good at hiding his anger until he snaps. He was talking like nothing had happened and we were just going to go back to normal." Your head whipped towards the open window blinds where someone was just walking by, Aaron noticing your jumpy behavior immediately.

"You're safe here. No one knows anything about what happened except you and I," he reassured you, making you relax just a little. "I don't think he'll be out of jail for long though, at least until he sees the judge for arraignment. I will personally see to that."

His words brought you a bit of placidity and hope as you still wondered why he would go through such lengths to help you out.

"I do have a small flat not far from here that I use occasionally for late nights at the office when I don't want to drive all the way home. You can stay there for now, until you find a place of your own if you'd like. Completely up to you, I don't want you to feel pressured."

Your eyes looked up from the floor to meet his, surprised by his offer.

"I- uh. I couldn't impose on you like that-

"You wouldn't be. I barely use it anymore, I prefer to be at my home with my son whenever I can."

Son? He has a son. Of course he does. He probably also has a wife or at least a girlfriend since you didn't see a ring on his finger. The thought of him with a son didn't bother you, in fact it only gave you more of a reason to trust him.

"If you're sure you don't mind," you said, trying not to sound too excited, relieved that you wouldn't have to go back to your boyfriends house. "Please let me pay some sort of rent or something though. It's the least I can do."

He shook his head no, his expression soft and nonchalant. "Don't worry about it. You're gonna need the money for your new place. Just promise me that you won't contact him or go back to that house unless you have some sort of escort, preferably by law enforcement."

You could be my escort.

You nodded in agreement, ignoring your thoughts.

“Alright then. I can send you the address and give you the keys now. I'm not sure if the fridge is stocked but feel free to add or throw anything away. There is a washer and dryer there so you can wash the sheets and anything else you need." He pulled his keys from his desk drawer and removed a ring with a single key on it, holding it out for you.

You took it gratefully and stood with him as he buttoned his suit back up and checked his watch.

"Could I at least make you dinner or something?" you blurted, not sure where such confidence came from. "I mean, I just want to do something for you in return for your incredible generosity." You couldn't stop the blush from burning your cheeks, your words successfully embarrassing yourself.

A small smile played at the corner of his mouth, showing off just the slightest sight of dimples. "I'll be with my son tonight but maybe we could grab a coffee sometime tomorrow."

You smiled back, more than satisfied with his offer and followed him out of his office, feeling a few stares from people but avoided eye contact. Aaron walked you back to the receptionist and even had her add you as a contact so visiting would be an easier feat.

"Thank you again Aaron," you spoke, the anxiety you had been feeling for the last few hours, finally beginning to dissipate. He answered with a friendly nod and you entered the elevators. Once the doors closed and you were completely alone, you took in a deep breath. Maybe everything was going to be ok like he said.

[ghostsvacuumcleaner]

You came — you called. | Simon "Ghost" Riley x f!reader

credits for the header - ghost's pic by the very talented @ave661 ✦ Word count: 2.2k ✦ Pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x f!reader ✦ Summary: After being abused by your current date, in need of comfort, you call your ex-boyfriend and recurring fling, Simon, to talk. ✦ TW and general warnings: SFW, some kisses here and there but no smut, angst, you guys are in a complicated situationship, fluff, sensitive content (domestic violence) ✦ AO3 | Masterlist edit: I wrote a part 2 in case you're interested <3

A/N: I really need to finish my already started requests, really do but inspiration ONLY gets to me when I'm randomly existing and then a random prompt comes in mind and arghhh gotta write 😭 but I promise - if anyone reading this sent me a request, know I've started it already and I WILL finish. also, thinking really a lot about making a part 2 for this piece and making it smutty. pls let me know if anyone's interested! anyways, not proof read, hope y'all enjoy, x

━━━━━━━━━ ⟡ ━━━━━━━━━

It’s the same place as the last time you saw him. Ironic, maybe. You still smoke the same cigarettes he offered to you once in a promise it would help you calm down from your anxiety; it did. It did a little too much. You still wear that same necklace you refused to get rid off even after you dumped him, after you promised you’d never see him again, never talk to him again. God, hope he doesn’t get mad at that.

Truth is you’ve been failing at that for quite some time. You’ve been seeing him way more than it’s necessary, but contrary to how things used to be before, now every moment with him is a single time that ceases to exist once you get home. He texts; you ignore. He doesn’t text anymore till the next time he misses you. You ignore it till the next time you miss him. This time isn’t much different, only you have a bit more of a reason to be here, unsure if he’ll show up, smoking this damned red Marlboro and feeling like shit. Like absolute shit.

You exhale the smoke, your hair tied back in a ponytail through the cap gap. Hiding yourself.

His big broad figure fills the door in, and he comes inside. To your big surprise, he decided lastly to come; Simon looks at you with a bitter look on his face, his dirty blonde hair trimmed, his beard done, wearing one of his thousand black tight t-shirts and a pair of jeans. He looks the same as ever.

“You came.” You say, surprised as he pulls the chair back and takes the seat in front of yours. 

“You called.” He replies simply, his body relaxing spaciously in the chair with his arms crossed over his chest. 

“Yeah, I did.” You let out some more smoke before discarding your cigarette on the ashtray. “But I thought you were still mad at me.” 

He looks at you in silence for a couple seconds, and scoffs.

“And that never stopped you from calling, did it?” He snorts impatiently. “Did something actually happen or are you just lonely and needing someone to help you fall asleep?” You feel derision in his attitude and his voice is dripping with venom and bitterness.

You close your eyes. Can’t blame him, can you? You had your own good reasons to break up with him, although stupidly, without thinking twice - without thinking that you’d end up missing him. Trying to find him in all the wrong places, wrong guys. 

“Well go on, Simon, what else do you still have to tell me?” You mimic him, crossing your arms and your face a little twisted in irritation facing him. “I was single, I still am. I had the right to be with someone else.” 

“I never blamed you for that. I never fucking blamed you.” Simon wipes his mouth with his hand, his ever icy expression breaking into frustration the second you open your mouth again.

“You are blaming me. You-”

“I fucking am not. I’m angry at the poor fucking choice you did. Getting rid of me for that fucker? You’re making a joke out of yourself, even for someone like me that’s fucking downgrading.” He snaps, regretting it the second later and squeezing his eyes for a moment. 

You remain silent. He’s right. He’s absolutely right. 

You stare into the distance of the window by your side, silent - embarrassed, regretful. Your hands together over your lap and your silence put together make him raise his head at you once again, in a sigh.

“I shouldn’t be here. Our conversations won’t ever end in anything good but me taking you to bed, if that’s what you want then I’ll gladly do it without all the trouble.” He states. You tremulously raise your eyebrows and your lips curl in a small hurt smile. 

Ouch.

You know he said it to hurt you. You know he’s angry, he’s hitting all the right buttons to get under your skin, he can’t help it. He can’t help but to be a bastard sometimes, he never learnt different.

Your eye stare down your own hands, you feel your lips tremble and the lump in your throat gets bigger each second. It's hard to hold back the tears, but for your dignity, you try. There's no less brutal way to admit something like that, so you vomit the words all at once.

“He hit me, Simon.”

His eyes open, the pupils slowly dilate like those of a shark that has just tasted blood for the first time.

Simon has blood on his hands. From too many people, more than you could count. And even if that's his job, never in all those hard years with him - you swore - had you ever seen him so pissed off.

The veins in his temples stood out and he swallowed bitterly, his mind empty; If he wasn't an extremely restrained man, then he would have gotten up and taken action right now. A thoughtless attitude that he might later regret - maybe.

“Tell me his address.” He snaps, his blood boiling enough for you to almost feel the heat increasing in his flesh. 

“Simon, no.” You immediately cut him off, shaking your head, almost crying at this point. "That's not what I called you for, I don't want you to hurt anyone. I broke up with him, I don't have anything to do with that son of a bitch anymore, I just-"

He interrupts you with a gesture and claps his hands to his face. He brushes his own skin roughly, as a self-reminder that if he gives in to his own anger, he'll let you down.

When he makes room for his eyes through his hands again and sees your reddened

face, tears streaming down your cheeks - he dies inside. 

He promised he’d always be there for you. He promised he’d never let you down, he’d always protect you, he’d kill for you. He said it plenty of times and you were completely aware that it was true. 

He couldn’t possibly let you down.

“No, please, I can’t- I just can’t when you cry.” He mutters, getting up from his seat and offering his hand. “You come with me. Please?”

━ ⟡ ━

The hot steaming water falls over your head, sweeping your tears as you hug your legs. Simon's fingertips brush calmly your back, he contours the bruises on your lower half like he's grieving. The silence fills in the bathroom if not for the sound of water dripping on your head. He pours some water on your back to soothe your pain - even if you're not feeling any at this point. 

"Why did you not call me before?" He asks, with painful confusion in his raspy voice. His hands are shaking and you know it's pure anger and his own incapability of holding himself back when it comes to feeling anger. You sigh, tired. 

"I don't know. I felt like I'd be unfair to you." You try to explain, your hands caressing your shins while the water runs through your skin. "And because I didn't want to get you in this state." 

His eyes narrow as he stares at you, and you shrug in response. It's clear to him why you don't like to get him stressed - he could never hurt you, but he was a danger to others.

 He waves his hands to shake off the water and stands up, grabbing and opening a clean towel for you.

You stand up, your eyes don't dare leaving his. He silently admires you, although his mind can't think much more than how guilty he feels for letting this happen to you - even though there was nothing he could do about it. You dry your feets on the mat and turn your back so he can wrap you in the towel, and he does so. 

Simon calmly brushes the towel against your shoulders, drying a bit of the water that drips from your whole body and once he’s done wrapping you in the towel, he places his hands on your back and leads you to his room.

His smell is everywhere around and what used to be intoxicating and lustful for you, is now soothing and quiet. You sit on the edge of his bed, silence seeming to be now a whole conversation between the two of you.

Your hand reaches for his and places it on your cheek. You look up at him with kitty eyes, your thumb circles the skin on the back of his hand till it finds the scar you were looking for – one of his oldest ones, according to himself. You close your eyes and snuggle into his hand, giving it a light, calming kiss.

He caresses your cheek and moves your hair from your face.

“I’ll get you some fresh clothes.” He says in a whisper. You nod, and he comes back moments later with a clean shirt of his. You tug it in your neck and quickly put it on letting the fabric run free on your body, loose. 

He starts removing rubbish from his bedside table – an ashtray, an empty can of energy drink, a gun. As you notice he seems to be trying to empty the room for you, you speak out.

"Wait, where are you going?" 

"I'll be in the living room if you need me for anything." He says simply. Before he can leave the room, you stop him by wrapping your hand on his arm. The sudden motion makes him turn around to face you, his dark eyes gazing at yours and seeming already aware of what comes next – a protest. 

"Simon." You use a warning tone, and he closes his eyes. 

"You don't want to have me around now, kitten. I'm far from calm…" He argues, calmly looking down at you now. The proximity burns you, he's too close. 

"I'm not scared." You mewl, your hands on his tough chest, he doesn't move a muscle. Your hands start trailing up to his neck, and you get on your tiptoes to wrap your arms better around him; Simon closes his eyes, drunk by the overwhelming feeling of having you so close to him. He misses you. 

One of his hands holds your wrist before you manage to curl up on his neck, and the other one gently holds on your waist. He bends down enough so he can reach your tiny self. He gives you what you want - his lips slowly catch yours in a slow, calm kiss; the warmth of his lips against yours is medicine to you – soothes all of your pain, eases all of your anxiety. He squeezes on your waist and pulls back once he starts feeling heaty and his breath starts to become uncontrolled, needy. He breaths against your lips, his eyes barely closed and his breath catching on his throat like panting. 

You stare at his lips before going back to his eyes. 

"Stop." He snarls, raising his head a bit, avoiding your face and the closeness you impose on him now. It feels wrong. You need space.

You close your eyes, you understand. It feels wrong. 

After all of this time of failed attempts to let go, to sound nonchalant and be away from each other – after all the fails and the sex, devoid of feeling type of sex, rough, delicious but raw sex, he wants to fuck you straight. He doesn't want to be angry, he wants to take you and make love to you. 

You understand. Feels wrong.

"Will you be fine here? You need to rest and I need to take a walk, clear my head." He mutters, avoiding your eyes for the sake of restraining himself. You nod. 

"I'll be alright. You'll come back, right?" You ask, looking at him - looking for his eyes. He stands back from you and nods. 

"Of course." He assures you, before caressing your hair slowly and giving you a calm kiss on the forehead. "Rest. Do not stay awake waiting for me, hear me?" He snarls, grabbing his keys and a hoodie of his, tucking it in and giving you space. 

You sit in his bed and nods, watching him leave by the room door and close it behind himself. Now alone, you close your eyes exhausted by the lack of sleep you've been having for these past few days; it doesn't take you long to fall asleep, surrounded by comfortable pillows that smell like his perfume – woody and whiskey. 

Walking in the streets, with his hands digging in his hoodie's pocket and tough stomps, Simon's face lit up by the light emanating from the street lamps. His body swings slightly to the weight of his steps, and he breathes heavily. 

After several minutes – more than he probably told you he'd take, he stops in front of a very familiar residence. You should know it wouldn't be any trouble for him to find your abuser's house. 

He took a familiar piece of cloth out of his pocket, it had been time since he last wore it. Now seemed like a good moment. A balaclava, full face mask – handmade, with a skull painted on. Simon hugs you and kisses your scars; Ghost wants revenge. 

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for taking pictures of my sister's house and not deleting them?

I (25f) and my adopted sister L (also 25) have grown up together since we were babies and are extremely close. I truly love her and want the best for her.

She has been married for 5 years to D (25m). They dated since they were 18 and got married at 20. I never had an issue with him except at times I thought he was immature. They have a kid together who is adorable and about to turn 3.

However, as they have been married i have an issue with him. I don't hate anyone, but he is highest on my shit list. Not an exhaustive list but he has (and I want to make this clear THESE ARE THINGS I HAVE WITNESSED I AM NOT LISTING THINGS SHE ONLY HAS TOLD ME ABOUT):

Whenever they argue yells at her. Even in front of guests (ahem me). She'll yell back and then he gets upset she is "raising her voice" at him, when he started it.

He won't let her get a job. He has canceled her applications for jobs before. She has sold some stuff online until he sold the materials she used to make things. Her only "income" is if he decides to give her an allowance and transfer money from his account to hers (please note they have BOTH their names on the accounts but one is considered hers one his). If she takes money from his account he gets mad. Bills, groceries, etc. Come from "her" account

Was always sweet but now uses her as jokes to his friends. Demeans her in front of them.

They move a state over after they got married, almost 5 hours away. Doable in one day, but many don't like to do it. Since being married, she has effectively not seen any of her friends except when they come into town to visit. I have went to visit her and one of her friends did, that friend confided they did not feel comfortable or welcome. That doesn't bother me cause personally I don't give a shit what D thinks and am there for my sister and nephew. But I have overheard D talk bad about all her friends, even me, snd encourage her not to talk to them.

The two friends she has made in the area D has told her to drop because they are "bad influences". The worst thing one has done was medical Marijuana that was prescribed to them. Not sure how they are bad except they've encouraged her to get a job and be more independent

D decided to get a cat, which my sister has a known allergy to. She didn't want the cat, but D brought it home. It has absolutely zero training and has destroyed their home. It pees everywhere, including my nephew's bed. It hates absolutely everyone except D, even attacking my sister for sitting on the couch next to D. D refuses to get rid of the thing even though it has scratched my sister and nephew multiple times and my nephew is afraid of it

Of course, there's more, but those are all things I have witnessed. The last part is what prompted me to take pictures of the bed that was peed on, the scratches on the kid and my sister. My sister showed me texts of her begging D to get rid of the cat and to me it seemed he threatened her, so I took a picture of that.

I personally believe D is an abusive prick. Definitely financially and emotionally, but not physically unless you consider neglect or him keeping the cat. He has never once hit my nephew or my sister that I have seen, and she has never stated he has. My sister has talked about leaving but then goes back to him, and I know on the outside it seems clear to me what to do but I know there is a cycle of abuse. When she is ready to leave him, she knows she can come to me and our parents.

However, D found out I took the photos. He called me drunk and extremely irate, but he didn't explicitly threaten me. It was implied. He called me an asshole, which is what made me think of this. He told me to delete the photos and that upon me doing so, he will get couples therapy.

On one hand I know they need therapy. On the other, what's to prove he will do this after I do that? My sister is begging me to delete the photos because she believes if they have therapy things will improve.

To be specific: D wants to be there when I delete them and make sure they are gone and to me that just proves how bad of a person he is because he doesn't want any evidence of any wrongdoing. My sister has sent me multiple texts and I know she has been trying to make a way for things in case it does go south, but she is afraid the inlaws will attempt for custody because apparently the inlaws have a bit of money and know the judge in our area. I dont want these photos to be used against her either...

AITA for not deleting them?

What are these acronyms?

[lyrenminth]

JB9 request

They are divorced and have two children together, and he is jealous that she is leaving the kids at his house so she can go on a date. but the meeting was horrible, because the guy is not like Joe

This was a very specific and I had so much fun writing in. A little bit of angst at the end.

What we used to be

The decision for filing the divorce was consciously taken. It was done three years ago, while you went to a rough patch in your marriage. The decision wasn't easy, because you share two children together, and for them was equally hard to understand why mommy and daddy weren't together anymore.

One of the main reasons was after having children, you marriage went cold and dead. He was busy playing football and you were busy mothering a three years old and a nine months old. You didn't have the time to be a couple anymore.

Currently, you decided to start dating again after your friends prompted you to do so. It was difficult because you had to coordinate with Joe (now that you were co-parenting). And of course, was during the off-season because during his seasons you had the kids most of the time. On weekends you dropped the children with Robin so she would take them to the home game. It was a messy life, because you shared a lot of things as a result of the years together. Trying to get rid of Joe was impossible having children with his face and living in Cincinnati. So you made peace with that fact long ago. You got along for the children, he was kind and always asked for your opinion when included the family. And you were polite with him, but nothing else.

You send him a text. "Hey, I'm dropping the kids early this Friday. That's ok?"

Joey B: Yeah, that's ok. Are you busy on Friday?

You: Yeah, something came up. Your home or your parents'?

Joey B: My house. Everything alright?

You: everything alright

That was the last text. After that you waited earnestly for your date. You met John through friends, he seemed like a good guy. By looks, the completely opposite of Joe. John had one child already, and worked for a big company in New York but was living in Cincinnati two years now.

You thought it would be difficult if men knew who was your ex-husband because it had happened one time and it ruin the mood for everyone. Apparently, you completely fucked up or whatever. Well, John didn't know anything about football, he couldn't care less about the Superbowl and that was a pleasant surprise.

So on Friday, you drive Mackenzie and Julian to their dad's house. They were behaving well during all morning. And since it was off-season they could spent the weekend with Joe.

You parked the car, and for your surprise Joe was waiting for them outside.

"Dad!" yelled Julian, running towards Joe who was wearing pants and a hoodie. "Mom, can you help me with my backpack?" asked Mackenzie trying to open the door. You got out of the car, and help her. She made cookies for her dad, and was so happy to share.

You help her to carry the backpack until you were face to face with Joe, who was looking handsome as always.

"Daddy, I made cookies!"

"Daddy, can we play videogames?"

The children demanded attention equally, but Joe was still staring at you. Hard.

"Have I something on my face?" you asked, almost aggressively. You put some make up on and dressed in a nice dress for the occasion.

"No, you fine" he cleared his throat "Not your usual fit"

"Mommy is going on a date" Julian shout, excited. Joe's eyebrows raised, you laughed nervous.

"Well, kids behave well. Enjoy the cookies" you said trying not to look at your ex-husband. "Is that true?" he asked, he sounded kinda jealous. Maybe you were overthinking.

"Well, yes" not wanting to discuss anything further in front of the kids "Take care, Joey"

"Please, call me if you need something" he said, "Let me know you're safe"

Your heart flipped. Why he did those things before your date? Weird. You nodded, going back to the car.

John was a nice man. You were sure he was nice, just...not to you. After thirty minutes in the date he kept talking about himself and his work that you thought you were watching a TED talk. He was good looking, but soon you realize you didn't have anything in common by what he was saying. Your mind wandered to your first date with Joe, it was in a bowling alley. Things got competitive and you spent a really good time together that you hook up in your car after the date. Would you hook up with John? Nah.

"Do you need another drink?" John's voice brought you back from your wild thoughts.

"No, thank you"

"So, you told me your ex-husband was a football player, right?"

"Yes" you said cautiously "He still plays"

"And how do you get along?"

"We talked only for the kids"

"Ummm, sure" he dismissed your answer. You raised your eyebrows, astonished. "What do you mean?" you wondered.

"Nothing. I didn't tell you about this trip I'm going to make next month..." he started talking again.

Joe bought you drinks too. You loved his smile back then. Julian had the same smile actually. After getting married you had very nice dates too, but you loved to spend time at home watching movies and resolving puzzles.

The date went on, and you have to excuse yourself or would die of boredom. After the date you missed your children so much, but it was Joe's time with them. So you went to your house and waited.

On Sunday evening, you went to pick up the kids. After a couple of minutes, Joe appeared wearing shorts and a compression shirt. He looked really handsome, his sandy hair was messy, he looked younger somehow.

"Hey" you said, nervous.

"The kids are in the pool" he explained "Come in while I prepare them"

"Oh, no. I can wait in the car" you replied, pointing at your car. He looked up-and-down, and pressed his lips. You blushed like a teenager "I bet they want to see you"

"Okay" you whispered, follow him inside the house. "How was your date?" the question made you flinch. You didn't remember John at all. "Umm, it was good"

I was bored as hell, and thinking about you. How pathetic.

Silence. By the way he was looking at you, he didn't believe you either. You reach the kitchen and he offered something to drink and you decline. "Are you going to the OTAs early this year?" you wondered, hearing music and the children screams outside.

"No, I'm going to spend time with the kids" you nodded, pleased. Joe was a great father, you never doubted that.

You locked eyes, and your stomach made weird things. His eyes softened, and he got closer to you.

"Y/N can we talk about us?" he requested.

"What?" you were in panic mode "About what?"

"The divorce. I thought were struggling but I never listen to you" he said, seriously "Until you fill in the papers" Your heart sank. His lips were still pressed, the wrinkles on his forehead let you know he was stressed too. "I feel like we never had the time to stop and think what we're doing" he said softly.

The bump in your throat didn't let you speak properly. You tried anyway. "I try to speak to you, Joey. I tried to do many things to save our marriage. It didn't work, you were focused on football, and I felt utterly alone" you wipe a treacherous tear "We weren't a couple anymore. I didn't have a partner"

"Mommy! Daddy!" Julian got into the house all wet and hugged you. "Do you want to see how I jump into de pool?"

"Julian, mommy is here to pick you up" Joe explained "Go and tell your sister" Julian nodded and went happily to his sister. Joe attention was on you again. "We should speak about this with more time"

"Why? Are you trying to marry me again?" you joked frustrated he wasn't listening again. "Yes, I never wanted a divorce" he replied ardently. The confession hit you. "Then, why did you fill the divorce?"

"Because I was scared..." the footsteps didn't let him finish "I'll send you a message, please"

You left Joe's house confused and heartbroken. Even though, you couldn't avoid the hope growing in your chest.

Let me know if you want a second part. I think it would be cool.

[shygirl4991]

Chapter 4 Do you care?

All art belongs to @b-r-i-n-g-x do not repost! Fic prompt from @itsajanea Tags: Angst, Romance, Action Adventure, jealously, love confessions, SMG4 discovers he is bi, fluff, abuse, PTSD Last Chapter Next Chapter

Three lies in his bed frowning, his mind was driving him insane, it’s been several weeks already with Aster.Surely the magic of a new relationship has vanished, due to these thoughts Three found himself getting nervous when he saw his partner. Over time Three has been letting down his walls showing his softer side, while Aster seemed to be unchanged. It was driving him insane, some moments he wondered if that's just how they are. Then a memory comes to him from a few days back, the soft blush they had during their breakfast together was something that Three never stopped thinking about. Not to mention Aster said they had work to do, only to end up dressing up like a maid to  help his cafe. Aster never brought up that they did this also, he wondered if they knew pictures of them in a maid outfit were taken.

He sighs annoyed by the mixed feelings until Eggdog jumps on the bed, he turns and smiles softly as the pup cuddles up to him “I know…i should trust them but something tells me there is more to them, I can't put my finger on it.” a ding is heard from his phone, holding Eggdog close he reaches for the phone seeing the name duck girl on the screen. Curious, he unlocks his phone to see what Tari wanted from him. He smiles seeing how the crew wanted to invite him and Aster to a gaming competition at the castle, he goes to his contacts and finds Aster’s name. He pauses looking at the number feeling nervous, shaking off his nerves he presses the number and calls Aster. After a few rings he hears the line pick up “Hello Darling, didn't expect a late night call. Did you miss me that badly?” SMG3 couldn't stop himself from letting out a bright smile, just hearing their voice was enough to put Three in a good mood. Then his mood dropped when he started to think about their relationship, how often did Aster even call him by his name. He was always darling which wasn't something Three minded, yet the thought of hearing Aster call him by his name made his heart race. He smacks himself, annoyed by the school girl's thoughts “Yeah my bad i wasn't paying attention to the time, i just called cause Tari invited us to the castle to hang out. Wanted to know if you're up for hanging with those losers?” Aster lets out a chuckle “Sure,you know I don't mind hanging out with the crew. Though I do find it interesting how you always tell me they're not your friends, yet we just made plans to hang out with them in the morning.” 

SMG3 blushes at the comment as he glares at the phone “OI! I don't care about them, I only hang around them because it's better than having those guys be annoying near my cafe!” Aster lets out a hum hearing their boyfriend complain, the line goes silent for a moment. Three frowns unsure what to say, Aster sighs before speaking up hoping to end the silence  “I will be there at noon, I should let you go, it's late and now we have plans.”  SMG3 frowns at Aster’s words while on the other line Aster stares at their phone conflicted, they look around making sure Ztar wasn't around before speaking “Sweet dreams, cant wait to see you tomorrow.” Three smiles as they hung up, staring at his phone he decided that he was overthinking, he texted Tari and tossed his phone to get ready for bed.

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

Aster stares at their phone for a moment before looking around the house, seeing Ztar isn't around they out a loud groan “UGH! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!?”  Their heart was racing over what they told Three, the emotion was so sudden it startled them. They sit on their bed and stare at the photo the pair took together, they blush thinking about the phone call “He…is the villain we must kill, Ztar is already annoyed it's taken this long to get rid of him. I need to act faster and ignore whatever is happening, more than likely heartburn from that toad.” This hang out could be the perfect time to score the words needed to start the trap, the more they thought about it the more certain they became about the next plan. Aster glares at the photo before moving the photo out of sight, they make a note to attempt a love confession this month. They couldn't keep playing the slow game, something needs to happen to change their relationship. They lay down thinking over what they could do before sleep takes over, Ztar arrives home hearing snores. He floats over to see Aster sleeping. “You're getting soft, I'm going to have to remind you what happens when you get soft.” Suddenly an electrical energy zaps Aster causing them to jump up awake screaming in pain, Ztar stares as he zaps Aster again “Child, while I’m annoyed by not having our target in our hands. I’m more annoyed by what you have shown me about yourself!”

Aster hugs themself as their body felt as if it was on fire from the shock, they breath heavily as Ztar gets close and gives them a magical pat on their head. The dark star let out a sigh “You know how much it hurts me to do this to you, you're my best creation and seeing you screaming in pain hurts me more than you think.” Aster nods as the pain subsides, they get up showing Ztar a serious expression “Don't worry, I'm not being soft with the crew I know they can't be trusted. I will make my big move there and play my role.” They open a drawer and show a piece of paper with different confessions on it, Ztar looks at it and chuckles “You're going to tell him you love him to inspire his own confession, perhaps I had nothing to worry about.” 

Ztar uses his power to give Aster a gentle back pat, Aster smiles at the affection their father was showing them “Child i know i can be rough on you, but remember the pain i give you is nothing to what will  happen if i lost you. You're too important to lose.” Aster nods shoving their past thoughts aside, they can't let weird emotions get to them after all parents know what's best. They knew about what SMG3 did and they shouldnt let themself forget it, Ztar looks over them. Aster gives a stern nod before Ztar floats to the door “Aster, those people don't care about you so it's best you watch out for their lies. Plus those people will never accept you for what you are, a shooting star like you can't be trusted in their eyes.” Aster frowns from their fathers words looking down for a moment. “I understand, I promise father I don't care about those people.”

Ztar opens the door then floats out leaving Aster alone thinking over his words, they throw themself on the bed as they get lost in their thoughts.                             -------------------------

Four tosses and turns in his bed, since learning about his crush on Three things felt like a nightmare. How his stomach twists whenever he sees Three and Aster together, how the pair didn't care who was looking as they kissed. Not wanting to get angry from the memory he takes out his phone and goes to youtube, there he looks up his favorite girlfriend asmr video. Hitting play, he lays his phone on his bedside table as he closes his eyes. “Had a rough day baby? Come over and we can cuddle your stress away~” the woman's voice was calm filled with affection. Yet it wasn't helping him, annoyed he grabs the phone and looks over the list of girlfriend asmr videos. Each one that he played made him more annoyed, as he scrolls looking for the perfect one he pauses seeing the title on one of the videos. He taps on the video ‘Tsundere Girlfriend wants cuddles asmr’ he then gets comfy in bed listening to the video, “I just…I want cuddles there happy baka!” as the video goes on the attitude brought comfort yet wasn't enough for him.  His eyes go wide seeing his recommended videos, there in the list was SMG3 youtube channel.

He taps the account name and sees all the twitch stream highlights, he smiles softly seeing the man smirking in the thumbnails. He hits the playlist tab and sees a playlist of SMG3 asmr, he blushes staring at the playlist. He wasn't that down bad for the man that he would listen to the playlist, he chuckles thinking the idea was ridiculous as he taps on the playlist without thinking. Realizing what he has done he panics and attempts to exit out only to hit play on the video “Hello chat, this is SMG3 I will be doing a little asmr tonight to help you all go to sleep.” Four’s face goes red from the whisper, he never noticed just how deep and soothing Three’s voice was. He stares at his phone as if he was in a trance, he had spent so many years with this how could he have been so blind. Feeling sleepy, he hugs his phone with a soft smile listening to Three’s voice, as he dreams of finally being able to date SMG3 a loud scream jolts him awake. He sits up in a panic, he looks to his phone for the time only to see it died. Slowly he gets up from his bed and leaves his room, that's when he notices the game room doors being open. His eyes go wide seeing the one behind the screaming “OH FUCK OFF I SO WON THAT! Three shouted as he glared at a smug Tari. Four panics as he runs to the bathroom and fixes himself, once he looks presentable he steps out of the bathroom and peeks in the room. He smiles brightly “Hey everyone! Didn't know we were having a gaming day.” He watches as Three hands over the controller to Luigi, his grumpy expression making Four giggles and smile at him “Sore loser much?” Three rolls his eyes “Shut it scrub!”

His good mood then sours when Aster walks in the room with a bag of snacks “Listen just because I'm soft for my boyfriend doesn't mean you can keep sending me out to get snacks.” Aster smiles brightly making Three blush, any trace of the man being upset over losing is now gone as he walks over to his partner. Three grabs the bag digging around for his treat, Aster’s eyes then lock on to Four “Ah sleeping beauty has awakened i see.” Four felt his jealousy wanting to come out, swallowing the emotion down he gave Aster an eye roll “Yeah well Three is a pretty good alarm clock.” Three finally gets his treat and tosses the bag to the crew, hearing Four’s comment Aster turns to Three “Lost the battle Darling?” Three scoffs looking away from everyone “That's only because she cheated!” Aster gently grabs Three turning him to face them, Three stares wide eyed at Aster as they lean down to kiss him. Three closes his eyes ready to kiss his partner, the sight was making Four feel sick. Not wanting to see the pair kiss, Four pulls the gaming controller out of Tari’s hand. He charges up to the couple, the distance causing the cord of the controller to unplug from the console as Four points at Aster “ASTER I CHALLENGE YOU TO A MATCH!” The couple turn, staring at Four, Aster smirks seeing the anger in Four’s eyes “Oh? Now why would I do that hm?” Three steps back staring at Aster confused seeing the mischievous expression they had, Four chuckles as he fixes his hat “We can make things interesting, If I win you stop all that gross pda you do with Three. Not all of us want to see you making out!” Aster crosses their arms amused “Alright, then if i win you have to do one thing i ask of you. No matter what, we got a deal cupcake?” 

Three frowns as he watches the two shake hands sealing the deal, Aster gives Three a quick kiss on the cheek before sitting down on the couch. Four plugs in his controller before pushing Luigi aside to sit next to Aster, they exchange a look before going to the character select screen. Aster picks their character and lays back on the couch “Ready?” SMG4 takes a deep breath as he selects his character “I hope you're ready to lose pretty boy!” Aster chuckles as they lean forward, Four focuses in as he attempts to counter Aster’s moves. Tari gasps, jumping up from the intense match “I never seen someone able to pull off that combo!” Aster smirks hearing her comment about their play style as Four starts to sweat seeing his health dropping low. “Looks like round one will be mine~” they smirk as they land the final hit. Three bites his lip seeing the bright colored victory icon on the screen, as the second round starts he couldn't help himself as he whispers “Please lose Aster…please.”

Aster chuckles seeing SMG4 struggle with avoiding their attacks, Aster smirks seeing his health bar drop low “Hope you're not a sore loser cupcake, cause I’m about to win this bet.” Four rolls his eyes at the comment as he manages to block Aster’s attack “Not giving up to some pretty boy that wears so much eye shadow he looks like a raccoon!” Tari giggles at the comment as he pictures a racoon version of Aster “Aw I think Aster would be a cute racoon.” Annoyed by the comment they glare at Four, Luigi smiles along with Tari on the idea of Aster being a racoon.  Aster grip on their control tightens “Would you guys kindly not make comments about my taste while im playing?” Tari and Luigi apologize as the pair keep playing, Four’s health has dropped to a low percent causing both Four and Three to panic. In one quick move Aster does the final blow, they drop the controller smirking at Four “I win, be ready to do your end of the deal.” Four frowns as he stares at the winner screen, he didn't think they would be so good at fighting games. It was almost as if Three’s partner was perfect at everything, while Four was pouty over the loss Three clenched his fist he felt sick at the fact Aster won. “I can't believe you Aster…” hearing their name they turn confused at Three. Even the others in the room were surprised by the hostile tone in Three’s voice “You told me you wanted me, yet you make this sick bet with Four. Well go on do your stupid request, i know what you want to ask him.”  Aster looks at Four then at Three, they weren't prepared for a situation like this as they think over what to say. “Darling, I have no idea where you're going with this.” 

SMG3 lets out a sarcastic laugh causing Aster to walk up to him “You're being strange, are you okay?” as Aster reaches out only to have their hand slapped away.  Aster looks at Three surprised, the shorter man glares at them “I know you made that stupid bet to get a date with SMG4.” Now it was Four’s turn to get up from the couch and stare at Three in shock, there was no way Three honestly thought Aster had feelings for him.  Aster shakes their head “Darling what would give you that idea? We were just having friendly competition, isn't that why you invited me to join everyone so we could have fun?” They were starting to feel strange, they didn't understand why their chest was feeling tight. The thought that Three would think they were interested in someone else was ridiculous, they needed to show the only one they wanted was him.

Four gets up in a panic “Whoa no! SMG3 why on earth would I want your partner?!” Four couldn't let this misunderstanding happen, sure he is all kinds of jealous over what Aster and him have. But to get in the middle of that without a good reason was cruel, he hated to see Three hurt after everything they have been through. He cared too much about his ex rival, Three glares at Four “You have taken plenty, every relationship I have had you manage to get in the middle.” Four’s eyes go wide at the comment before Aster reaches out one more time to Three, seeing Aster reach out the man swats their hand again walking out of the room “GO ON ASTER MAKE THAT REQUEST! WHO DOESN'T WANT THE FANCY YOUTUBER OVER SOME CAFE LOSER!” Four takes a step back feeling his heart break hearing the man's words, Aster follows after Three “Darling I don't want Four, where is this coming from it was just a silly bet nothing serious.” Three growls as he turns around “IT'S OVER ASTER!” They pause as Three’s words echoed in their head, their legs suddenly felt heavy. He snaps his fingers opening a portal next thing the crew knew Three was gone. Aster stood still in shock, their mission is at risk if SMG3 doesn't want to date them. They had to chase after Three, except they couldn't make any attempt to move,they just stood there frozen.  Mario pats Four’s back before whispering with a smirk “Hey good-a job now you can get your gay lover.” Four frowns hearing Mario’s words, this was not how he wanted things to go. It didn't feel right to go after Three with the thought of making a move when his crush must be in pain, he sighs throwing himself on the couch making Mario worry.

Tari runs up to Aster “Are you okay?” taking a deep breath they force their heavy body to move giving Tari a small smile “I will be fine blue jay, I just…need to think on things.” They walk out of the castle with Tari slowly following them. “Three has a rough past…please don't hold it against him.”  Aster nods as they leave the castle, they walk down the forest path lost in thought. Tari watches in concern before returning to the gaming room “Guys what are we going to do? We have to help our friends!” Four bites his lips, his feelings were mixed on the whole situation. Getting up he turns to his friends “We need some kind of event, something that can bring those two to have some kind of talk.” The group goes silent thinking on what to do, then a loud slam of the front door catches their attention. They go to the main lobby to see an excited Meggy “GUYS! Guess who is going to be the host for the new and improved splatfest!” her smile drops seeing Four and Tari frowning. “Hey everything okay?” she hugs Tari then Four as she waits for them to explain everything, Four gives her a small smile “Three and Aster got into their first fight, Three told Aster it's over but…knowing Three if it was really over Aster wouldn't have walked out of here in one piece.” Meggy nods then hands a ticket to splatfest “Then how about we get these two talking,” Four takes the ticket remembering all their bonding during the first runs of splatfest. How professor E gadd helped make a gadget for everyone to now be able to join the event, thanks to Meggy being turned into a human. He takes the ticket and nods “I will go to Three and try to talk to him, you guys find Aster.” As Four was about to leave Mario grabs him “Are you sure? If we fix this fight…you-a lose your chance.” 

SMG4 looks behind Mario making sure the others can't hear “I know…but I love SMG3 too much to see him suffer, I can't do that to him again.” Four leaves the castle and snaps his fingers, nervously he tosses a rock making sure the portal is stable. Seeing that the portal wasn't going to blow up, he runs in hoping to all the memes he wont end up blowing up or ending up in the wrong place. Four looks around the woods hearing the clicking of the local memes was enough to confirm he made it, walking he looks around in surprise from all the new buildings. “Wow..Three really is an amazing ruler,” he stops walking when his eyes meet with the iconic starbucks building. He walks in and smiles softly, it's been so long since he last saw this place. He frowns as he hears crying, Four gently knocks on the door “GO AWAY I'M ON A BREAK!” Three shouted attempting to sound angry. Four pushes the door open only to get a pillow to the face “AH! Dude it's me Four!”

Three blinks as he wipes his tears “Four? The hell are you doing here, didn't you do enough back at the castle?” Four sits on the bed ignoring the glare the other man is giving him. “Offering a bet with Aster was dumb of me, I guess I hated…” Four closes his eyes thinking on what to say, the last thing he wanted was to let his feelings for the man be known. He turns to Three “I’m sorry, I was upset that you got to find someone that understood you. While me…I try so hard to get a relationship but heh no one gets my passion for memes. Maybe it's the curse of being a guardian.” Three stares at Four silently, he hugs his pillow shaking his head. Four watches as Three's eyes move from him to the floor. “This is my fault.” feeling his eyes water, he looks away. “Aster acted so perfect, or maybe it was all in my head. Every relationship has been a pain in the ass yet here comes some random guy from the dark web, they just changed a lot of things for me.” Three throws himself on the bed getting Four to stand up to give him space “I fucked things up cause i couldnt trust them, Aster side of the bet just screamed i was an idiot for trusting them.” Four nods as he listens to the man, he peeks out the door asking a few Eggdogs to grab coffee. After a few moments the coffee arrived, he thanked them with a quick pat before offering the cup to Three. Three sits up taking the cup and sipping as Four begins to speak “I don't know Aster as much as you all do, but I do see how they look at you these days. I’m pretty sure the rizzler has charmed this dark web guy pretty bad, no way could Aster look at anyone else.” He hated having this talk with Three, just thinking of the soft looks Aster gives Three when they think no one is looking always made him feel sick. Four stares at his coffee thinking back on that look, he wondered if that's how he also looks at Three.

Four looks at Three seeing how the man was avoiding eye contact, how he stares at the floor hoping it will give him the answer he needed. Four was about to reach out to the man before Three let out a shaky breath, his voice cracking “Aster will never forgive me,” clearing his throat SMG3 finishes his coffee “Even if you're right about them…I told them it's over.” Four gets up putting his coffee on a nearby table, he then digs into his hat pulling out a ticket “We both screwed up, so how about we fix it?” Three stares at the ticket confused, Four rolls his eyes and takes Three’s hand placing the ticket on it. Three places his coffee down as he begins to read it “splatfest hosted by Meggy?! The squid is bringing that back, wait how the hell is this going to fix anything?” Four smirks at Three giving him a wink “We are going to get you and Aster a moment alone, we fight all the time and make up after talking. I’m sure Aster will hear you out, just be honest with them.” Three lets out a soft chuckle getting up “I doubt this will work, but I don't have anything going on that day,” Four nods as he walks to the door “This lets hope the others found Aster.”

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

Tari looks around frowning “How will we find Aster? We  don't even know where they hang out, oh why did none of us ask for their number.”  Mario smirks as he walks in front of Tari “Aster has the looks of a god, to find someone like that you must find the simps!” He takes out binoculars looking through the crowd, that's when he notices a small group of people giggling. He sprints to the group of people leaving Tari to run after him “Mario wait!” Mario slides up to the group getting strange looks, he takes out a photo. The group looks at it before one of the women takes it with a huge smile “omigosh! That's the hot guy we saw at the cafe, you know he is out of this world hot when he makes your boyfriend question himself!” The girl giggles along with the others over the photo, Mario takes out a spray bottle and starts spraying the group of girls. Tari catches up and watches the whole thing in shock, she grabs his hand stopping him “Uh sorry about that guys thank you for the help!” Tari pulls Mario away “We can't spray people, how are we going to find Aster that way?” she frowns as Mario rolls his eyes “Fine fine!” He walks up to the girls again, seeing him the girls huddle together glaring at him. Mario lifts up his hands, he turns to see Tari giving him a thumbs up. He smiles at her before turning to the group of girls “Listen here, if you don't want to get the spray again you will tell me where that person is.”  Mario points to the bottle making one of the girls hiss at him “We found him at cafe meow.” Mario takes the photo back as he walks over to Tari giving her a thumbs up, she cheers as she follows after him. 

Aster sighs as they lay on the floor, a small black cat walks up to them slowly staring at them.Aster smiles as they reach out to the cat “Hey little buddy, want to join me in thinking how to fix my fathers plan?” They couldn't wrap around how they manage to screw up the mission so bad, they thought they were being the perfect partner. The cat meows as it cuddles up to them making Aster melt and smile, only for the moment to be ruined when Mario kicks the door open “ASTER COME GET YOUR MAN!” They sit up as the cat runs away in fear, Tari lets out an awkward giggle “Hey Aster..we were looking for you for Meggy.” They look at the pair suspiciously, they stand up focusing on their heart. There they heard Mario’s wish for pasta making Aster shake their head, then they turn to Tari. Their expression softens when  they hear Tari’s wish for her friends to make up, relaxing more knowing there was no danger they smile at the pair “Meggy? Did something happen?” Tari smiles, handing them a ticket “She is hosting the new splatfest, it's an inkling event, it's a lot of fun. Oh but it can also be really scary…I used to be in a team with her back in the day.” Aster takes the ticket and stares at it curiously, they hum trying to picture Tari firing ink at anyone making them giggle “How did you guys even manage that? Don't inklings swim in ink?” Tari smiles while taking out her cell phone showing them pictures of her time in the competition, Tari starts telling them about their adventure with Axol and how they saved anime. As she tells them the story Aster’s eyes sparkle as they smile brightly, Tari frowns as she fondly looks at the group picture they took together “We lost a lot of people…Axol and Desti aren't with us anymore. But they won't ever be forgotten.” Aster frowns as they look at the photo then at the ticket, the crew have gone through so much together. It was different from what their father told them, they think over the story before looking at Tari and Mario seeing them frowning. Aster then smiles wrapping their arms around them both “Hey, I can't really relate to what it's like to lose someone but im sure they both are happy you carry on their memory!” Tari looks at Aster and smiles “Yeah!” Mario steps away from Aster feeling awkward being too close to them “Mario takes it you will join us?” Aster nods “Sure, maybe at the same time I can figure out what to do with Three..” Tari and Mario exchange a surprise look before Mario smirks at Aster, Tari gently pats their back “Don't worry together i'm sure we can figure things out!”

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

The next day the crew met up in the inkopolis plaza, Aster looks around in amazement while Meggy giggles at them “It's funny seeing the calm and collected Aster looking like a child in an amusement park.”’ Aster blushes then pouts trying to regain their mask “Ahem, I was just surprised by all the colors.” What was wrong with them, they needed to stay focused on the task. They only showed up because they had to fix things with Three, not to be on some field trip. Aster shutters at the thought of what their father would do if he learned that they weren't with SMG3, they needed to get this mission done and get payback. As more of the crew showed up Aster was beginning to get nervous, the meme guardians weren't around. They bite their lip wondering why they were showing up late, then a thought came to their mind. The pair had a history together, could they have gotten together after their fight with Three? Aster places their hand on their chest feeling it get tight at the thought, it was strange for them. Why would something like that bother them, they think it over and sigh coming to the conclusion they were nervous about disappointing their father. That's when in the corner of their eye they notice the pair showing up together, something in them snapping at the sight.

As the pair arrived Three felt himself getting nervous, Four smacked Three’s back earning him a glare “Don't be nervous I'm sure Aster will be all for hearing you out!” With a nod the pair join the group, Meggy claps excitedly and starts to lead the group to her new office. As the group walk Three awkwardly moves himself next to Aster “uh hey..” Three looks up hoping that Aster would talk to him, Aster looks down at Three. This was their chance to make things up and fix everything, they had to keep the plan moving forward. Aster opened their mouth to talk only to shut it, they mentally scolded themself for struggling to talk. They needed to fix things for the plan they just had to say what they needed to “ Brave of you to say hey to me after showing up with him, after the things you told me.” Aster wanted to scream at how aggressive they sounded. Before Aster could take back their words, Three scoffs at them “Unlike you I'm friends with the scrub and i didnt make any stupid fucking bet with him.” Aster wanted to slam their head against the nearest wall, why did they say that now all chances to fix things are ruined. Three walks ahead with Four following after “Dude what happened?” Three facepalms as he walks not wanting to talk. 

Aster stops walking letting out a sigh, Meggy turns, catching what happened “Hey guys uh there is an arcade over there, how about we play some games and we can meet up at the office later?” A few members of the crew cheered running to the arcade while Tari, Four and Mario stayed outside with Three. Meggy then walks up to Aster “Hey Aster join me? I'll be pretty lonely seeing my office alone, plus I need to see who I will be up against in the future!” Aster nods following Meggy as they attempt to figure out what's going on with them, it was a simple greeting yet they couldn't return it. All that came out of them was annoyance, why did it annoy them to see Four so close with Three? Once they were away from the group Meggy turns and tosses a splat gun “THINK FAST!” Aster panics as they catch the gun, they look at the gun in their hand confused “Uh why are we throwing weapons?” She smiles as she points to an arena “When i need to think or get over negative emotions i go target practice!” Aster looks at the arena then the splat gun, with a shrug they go with Meggy. She does a quick explanation on how the gun works then points at the target “Okay focus on the target, think on something you would love to hit. That's what I do and it helped with my aiming when I first started, you got this Aster!” She cheers as Aster stares at the target, their mind starts to picture Four making them growl as they aim and fire hitting the target. They gasp, surprised they really hit it while Meggy gives them a thumbs up “Heh thanks coach, did help a little though i rather not spend too much time firing at a target. I doubt it will give me any answers,” Meggy deflates as she watches Aster frown walking away, she quickly walks after them to point them the right way.

“Well then what's the problem?” Meggy wasn't one for romantic advice given her failed past with it, even so it wouldn't stop her from trying her best to help her friends. Aster shakes their head “It’s fine, we are here to celebrate you being the new host for splatfest.” They smile at her as they arrive at her office, Meggy opens the door excited to see the office “Just remember you're not alone Aster, if you don't want to talk about it that's okay. Now let's see this ro-” Meggy freezes seeing the office, Aster looks around unimpressed “Pretty dusty, this inkling must have been gone for a long time. Hm one shot wren?”  Meggys breathing quickens hearing the name as she reaches for her hat, flashes of her meeting with wren. ‘DRAW’ Meggy screams making Aster turn quickly, she shakes her head crying holding on to her beanie as if her life depended on it. 

Aster stares at her, focusing hard seeing the negative energy “Shit..even if i attempted anything there i would be worse off.” They slowly approach her, unsure what to do. As they look around the room they notice multiple wren photos giving them an idea, their purple eyes glow as they erase anything with Wren on it “Uh Meggy I got rid Wren, are you okay?!” She hugs herself breathing heavily, Aster curses to themself, they sit near Meggy thinking on how to help. “You know it's pretty fun seeing your home, hitting something with ink was really fun!” They begin to talk hoping that their rambles could help the women next to them. As they keep talking, Meggy slowly relaxes as she stops hugging herself, she watches Aster as they ramble about their thoughts on her home.  Seeing her feel better they get up and get her fresh water “Need some air?” she drinks the water before slowly getting up “That…sounds good.” The pair walk outside the building, they stand there in silence before Meggy speaks up  “Sorry about that, I’m normally able to handle things better than that..” She lets out a shaky breath as she removes her beanie, Aster stares at the road watching inklings walking around “It’s fine, sorry i wasn't the best company to have for this.” Meggy smiles softly “It was nice not to be alone for once, this feeling reminds me of when I first became human…” Aster turns towards Meggy “Ah yeah Tari told me, you guys had a whole anime arc.” She nods as she puts her beanie back on “I lost someone close to me, a rival, an old crush. When the others told me about you and Three, well all i could have thought of was how i never got a chance to get closer to Desti. I didn't want you two to fight and leave each other's life without seeing how deeply you care about each other.” Aster blushes at Meggy’s words, how could she think that they care deeply about SMG3. 

They must be that good of an actor to make the crew think they care about what happens with the man. Aster could laugh at how hilarious the idea is, yet their chest was feeling strange again thinking over her words.  Before the two of them could chat more they notice a group of inklings running, Meggy runs up grabbing one of them “What's going on?” the pink inkling pointed towards the arcade “Killer Ink is having a battle with a bunch of humans over at the arcade!” Aster and Meggy nod at each other as they run towards the arcade. A loud explosion of ink could be seen as they approach, Meggy starts to speed up sliding in seeing the crew hiding behind a pile of crates. There she sees Killer Ink laughing as they keep shooting “That all you guys got? This is why humans should stay away from splatfest!” Meggy growls taking out her splat gun “HEY! Leave my friends alone!” Aster arrives looking around, seeing the buildings covered in ink, then their eyes land on Three. They both blush looking away from each other, the leader of killer ink rolls her eyes “Oh look who it is again, just cause you got lucky and won splatfest years ago doesn't mean you can take this one from us.” 

Three swears under his breath “Ugh these fuck heads ruining our planning!” Four yelps as he hides behind the crate dodging the shot. Wearing white overalls at this time is a choice Four is hating at the moment “How did they even know we were here, god these guys sucked so much when we first met them!” Three peaks and gasps seeing a shot almost hit Aster, he hits the floor as he thinks about what to do. Four felt a chill making him turn to Three “Three…what are you planning?” Seeing Three get up taking a bomb out of his hat makes Four eyes go wide, he grabs Three “No! My meme sense is saying this is a bad idea, Three if you go out there with a live bomb you could hurt Meggy and Aster!” Three looks over at Aster and Meggy who are now hiding by the arcade, he then turns looking at the inklings chuckling. He growls pulling his arm away from Four “I will be fine, after all i felt the same with you and look your still standing! I’m just going to put them in their place, I'm not some wuss that hides!” Three goes over the crates and tosses one of his bombs, one of the inklings scream running as it explodes. SMG3 lets out an evil laugh making Aster smile, Meggy steps out and aims, hitting a few of the other team members. The team looks to their leader in a panic, she growls frustrated at the situation “I won't let humans scare us off!” She fires her gun, the ink hitting Three’s bomb, Four gasps as the ink makes the lit bomb fall next to Three. Aster eyes go wide seeing the bomb get hit, their eyes glow the moment the explosion goes off. 

“YOU'RE SUCH AN IDIOT!” Aster yells as they hold Three close to them. Slowly Three pulls away staring at Aster in awe, Aster places their hand on his face checking on him “YOU COULD HAVE DIED THREE WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!?” Three grabs on to their arm “I..wanted to teach them a lesson,” he mumbled at them. Aster’s eyes water shaking their head “That was worth risking your life? What if you died? What if…” They let go of Three slowly touching their face, their voice crack “What if…I never got to see you again?”

The leader glares at the pair and readies her gun only to hear footsteps behind her, she turns to see Meggy smirking at her “Game over, thanks to your stunt as host of this year's splatfest you're banned.” She swears as she gets up walking away “You won't get away with this!” Meggy smirks, putting her splatgun away and  joining the crew. Seeing their concerned faces she turns to see what they were staring at. Aster starts to wipe their tears confused as Three gently caresses Aster’s face “I…I’m sorry, for everything…What I did was stupid but not as stupid as what started most of this mess. I got scared that you were using me, I let it get the best of me and I snapped at you when I should have trusted you. Do you forgive me?” Aster slowly pulls away from Three, their heart racing seeing the soft look the man was giving them. Aster then runs away, Three watches them run off as he clench his fist “FUCK!” Four slowly walks up to Three and gently rubs his back. Aster falls to their knees after running for a long while, it felt like hours having Three’s face haunt them as they ran. They could have ended their mission there, that bomb would have killed Three yet they stopped it “Whats…wrong with me, why cant i stop crying?” Aster looks around to see they ended up at a beach, they get up and walk toward the sea staring at the sunset. They stare at the sea thinking over everything that has happened the past days, was their father right?

The more they thought about the crew the more things felt confusing, their father told them all these stories about the crew. Yet none of it was adding up, they shouldn't question their father. They frown feeling panic grow “Was he right? Am I getting soft with the crew…with him?” The very thought of seeing Three hurt made them feel sick, it never did before which frustrated them more. They sigh, drawing in the sand thinking everything over, their phone starts to ring. Taking out their cell phone they see Three’s name, they feel their heart skip a beat as they silence their phone. Perhaps they needed to accept what was happening, the very thought put fear in them. They stop drawing and stare at their phone “Have I…already failed my mission? Am I falling for you?” Once the words escaped their mouth they felt a strange pull, their head hurting. They close their eyes, suddenly an old man's voice is heard “Oh man you really know how to keep an old star waiting~” Aster’s eyes shoot open as they look around “who..who said that? 

[literaryslapshot]

22- So High School with Princess and Nolan pleeeeeeeaase 🫶🏻

"you knew what you wanted, and boy you got her" | poetic prompts | warnings: anxiety, panic attacks, chaos, weddings

it was everything they could imagine, even though it was the most stressful day of their life.

the wedding day had finally approached. after almost five years of dating, a year of being engaged, the day arrived. typical wedding day jitters fell upon both parties, the usual last minute thoughts and touch ups, nothing prepared either of them for the massive chaotic crowd that was waiting outside the venue.

even though the bridal party did their best to keep it away from y/n, she knew that the flowers hadn't been delivered, the photographer was an hour late, and the shuttle was also late. as a group they decided to push the wedding back at least an hour to make room for adjustments. but nothing, absolutely nothing, was going to stop her from getting married today.

not even a nervous groom.

"y/n, i need to talk with you for a second." her maid of honor whispered in her ear. she was about to get in her dress, hair and makeup done and set, ready for pictures when the photographer would arrive. stepping to the side in her silk robe and slippers, she felt her stomach drop. god, what now?

"no bullshit. i know we're all done with that today, but you need to talk to nolan. travis texted me saying he is having a panic attack and won't come out of the bathroom. all of this massive chaos is probably freaking him out too," y/n was handed a tissue when she felt tears well up in her eyes, "no no, no crying, it'll all be okay. i'll go with you?"

"no, i can do it. when the photographer gets here y'all go ahead and take pictures and just wait for me."

walking across the venue and where the guys were getting ready, she knocked on the door and was greeted by travis. she made sure all the guys left before talking to nolan. it was like his soul knew she was there before she spoke. a few seconds before she knocked on the door he felt his breathing steady out.

"nolie it's me, please open the door. nobody else is here, just you and me." she softly spoke. he got up, leaning his forehead against the wooden door with a soft thud.

"it's bad luck to see each other before the wedding," his thick accent present in how he spoke, sniffling after he finished. he heard her giggle and slide her slippers across the wooden floor.

"we've had enough bad luck today, so i think we're gonna be okay." he unlocked the door then leaned against the wall, waiting for her to open it. her heart softened when she opened the door, noticed that he'd been crying a lot with tear tracks down his cheeks. his shirt was unbuttoned and his hair was messy. "oh baby," she placed her hand on his cheek, wiping another tear away.

"'m sorry, princess." he took in a sharp breath before letting out another cry. "i just got really nervous, y'know? i mean what if i'm not a good husband? i don't want you to get sick of me and...and leave."

she tucks a lock of loose hair behind his ear, grabbing a tissue from the counter and wiping his cheeks and nose for him. "if i was gonna get sick of you, i would have left by now." she kisses his forehead softly, "remember when we went on our first date? you were so confident, and it was really hot." nolan chuckled, "and when you came to the shop like ten times that next week? you knew what you wanted, and you got her. you got me, and i'm not going anywhere. i'm gonna be your wife, you're gonna be my husband, and we're gonna have a happily ever after together."

nolan places a hand on her cheek as she spoke, a smile on his lips and this time, happy tears filling his eyes. they share a sweet and emotional kiss, one she hopes to recreate in an hour at the altar. they pull apart and she helps nolan fix his tie and to get rid of some of the tear tracks on his cheeks.

"alright, nothing is stopping me from getting married to you today." nolan laughs with his head thrown back, "i'll see you in an hour," she walks to the door of the groomsmen suite, "i'll be the one in a pretty white dress." nolan kissed her on the cheek.

"i'll be the one waiting for you at the altar, princess."

[obeythebutler]

Hey so I see you said your prompt requests are open. I love your writing! I was wondering if you could maybe do Satan with the prompt: spontaneously deciding to paint their spare room on a Sunday. No pressure, you don't have to write it if you don't want to! Love ya byyyee

Sundays are meant for indulging yourself in the House of Lamentation.

In yours and Satan's case, it means coming to his room to read that one book you've been waiting for all week.

"All set?" Is the first thing you say when you step into his room with two cups of tea. The rare blend which you'd procured from Barbatos after helping him get rid of rats in the castle.

His room is set in darkness, unlike that of his brothers.

You have come to the conclusion that it must be a demon thing. You know, eyes meant for navigating in the darkness and all that jazz. While in the human world, you had gifted a pair of sunglasses to the blonde demon after his incessant complaining about the human world being too bright.

And even if his room is suited to his tastes and nature, even if he has a formidable knowledge of all things in the three realms, who in the nine layers of hell keeps candles on top of precious books?

Your Satan.

"Your room is a fire hazard," You state after having finished half your tea, his arm snaked around your waist. "Plus how do you even know where which book of which topic is?"

Satan shrugs. "I've got it all in my mind, so it's organised to me."

"To you."

"I tried 'organising' stuff once," He mutters, eyes scanning the text in front of him, book in hand as you both read. "Made different columns of books. The first toppled over after three hours. One week later and it returned to its usual state."

"There are many spare rooms in this house. One behind the Planetarium hasn't been discovered by the others yet. Why don't you try keeping some of your collection there?"

"That room isn't exactly suited to my taste." Satan turns the page. "Plus there's a dire need of renovation. I'll have to put some curses to ensure no one can steal those manuscripts."

You say nothing for a few minutes.

Enough time to finish reading the last three pages of the third chapter, and rest your head on his shoulder.

When you flip to the fourth one, the words spill past your lips without thought.

"Want to paint that room with me?"

The book slams shut.

Hours later, after having scrounged Devilkea, there's a color that you both agree upon. When the clock strikes three, you and Satan are armed with paintbrushes and rollers, ready to attack.

"That corner needs more paint," You say, turning your head towards where Satan works.

"That looks alright to me," He furrows his brows. "Does it look different from there?"

"Yeah, just a bit more."

Thirty minutes pass by like a breeze. Your arm hurts at the end, though, and since an idle mind brews mischief you decide that Satan needs a pop of colour.

You wait for the demon to get engrossed in his work, and then execute your move. It was wisely decided to wear old clothes for this activity, given that you were wearing your favourite shirt today.

An undignified squeak spills past the demon's lips.

"What was that?" He hisses. There's paint all over his behind now.

"Paint."

He rolls his eyes. "You know what I mean."

You grin at him, all teeth. "When everything has dried, we can shift some of your books here. Place some charms on this room, have a little corner all to ourselves." Satan smiles at that.

"Add your stuff too," He tells you, stepping down from the ladder since that part of the wall is completed. "One of your cushions, maybe? You've got too many."

"Never too many."

[sodaneko]

❈ 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐰/ 𝐆𝐨𝐣𝐨 & 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐥!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 (𝐠𝐧)

@bas-writes asked: That was supposed to be a joke but I can't get it out of my mind after our extra conversation 😭😂 Could I request Gojo or Geto (still can't decide sorry aklskdd) taking bath or shower with their tall afab s/o - or rather, attempting to because when the average height is like 185cm nothing possibly can be easy 🤭 Thank you! ❤

a/n: ngl this drabble sent me into a deep dive of how certain parts of a shower are called because somehow i forgot them in all three languages LMAO it ended up being a short drabble and only slightly suggestive at the end, but the scenario was just too funny for me to take the full blown nsfw route asdfhjks but i hope you'll enjoy it anyway! thank you for your request, Bas! you're always giving me such fun prompts to work with, hehe.

word count: 637

“Uhm, excuse me, personal space?” 

You let out a small huff when someone squeezes into the shower with you, basically cornering you with his tall frame. It’s not like you were small to begin with, and yet Gojo still could rest his chin on top of your head if he wanted to–and right now there was almost no other choice than to do so. This shower wasn’t built for a person above average height, even less for two of your kind.

“You didn’t seem to mind me in your personal space last ni–OI!”

Note to yourself: Shower head aimed directly at his face can make Gojo shut up for an approximate span of two seconds. He’ll never get rid of the house cat accusations, huh?

Gojo grabs your hand that’s holding the cursed tool and gently nibs at your neck (again with the cat behavior…) before he puts the shower head back where it belongs. He’s not bothered by your protests and reaches to adjust the temperature of the water from a pleasant medium high to something that could best be described as close to boiling, filling the already too small shower with so much steam you practically go blind. Not much of a problem for the Six Eyes though.

“You could have just waited till I got out of the shower, you know?”, you grumble, trying to find your shampoo bottle but continue to grab anything but said bottle, maybe because Gojo is everywhere your hands reach out to in this cramped space. He hums, a deep sound in his chest that was close to purring, his big hands running over your body playfully with his chest pressed against your back. 

“But Ichiji texted me that he’s already waiting for us outside, even before I got into the shower. I’m just being time-efficient here”, Gojo coos and presses a kiss on the back of your neck. His wet hair tickles your skin while his hands sneak around your waist—a moment of defenselessness, leaving him unprepared for you abruptly bending over to grab your shampoo from the ground and pummeling your boyfriend out of the shower with the sheer force of your arched back.

Freedom never tasted sweeter than in this moment; to finally move around somewhat freely in your shower again without bumping into this brick of a man. Sure, you still had to duck slightly to stand under the shower head, but at least it wasn’t getting blocked by another giant. You love Gojo, with all your heart, but you learned very early on in your relationship that showering together wasn’t this romantic and cute scenario for you two to enjoy–it was war.

“Oi!”

The shower curtain gets dramatically pulled aside and once the hot water steam sets slightly, you see your butt-naked lover with his hands on his hips, bright blue eyes on you, probably thinking of a hundred creative ways to make you pay for your crime. You would be intimidated if he didn’t look like a soggy wet Norwegian cat which makes you bite back a laughter forming in your throat.

“Don’t come back in here, I swear, this shower is too small for–”, you threaten him with a laugh, already reaching for your weapon–the shower head–again. 

With one big step Gojo is back in the shower with you, cornering you once more, his mouth finding your neck and trailing kisses up to your ear before he bites it gently. He chuckles quietly at the small noise you let out and you know he won’t stop until he charms out many, many other sounds. Something tells you that you won’t be getting out of this shower anytime soon and you make a mental note to send Ichiji a gift basket for putting up with your demeanors. It probably won’t be the last time.

[chicxxonaa]

Hi. This is the first text post I’ve made relating to writing. I wanted to challenge myself to make prompts for my favorite fandoms. So like this is my first one. I’m still an amateur. So I hope you all enjoy and give me good feedback 🙏🏻. (This is JJK related btw)

Content: angst. some fluff lol. this is from Gojo’s perspective. (Will post Geto’s version sometimes today or this week)

I thought of you again today.

And I decided to look for you.

…

I tried looking for your eyes first. Christmas has passed again without you. So I thought the low glow of the festive lights and lanterns could guide me to them.

Your eyes always spoke of something alluding to longing. They’re dark as the ocean at night. When I looked far off into the bay when the moon was nearing its new phase, I thought of how your eyes used to look at me. Stare at me back, like how I stare out into the abyss of the sea. They were black, cold, full of melancholy. Yet when you smiled they would scrunch up and wrinkle your temples.

…

I tried looking for your ears next. When I last saw you, you were still sporting those black gauged earrings that would hang like the ears of Buddha. I always teased you with a statement and in return you’d give me a hard hit in the arm. So I visited shops less known to the public where they did ear piercings. I’d look at their displays and see if anything stuck out. I saw beautiful designs. Black was always your signature color. And I may not be the most fashionable in this area, but you always reminded me of the color of royal blue. The kind of blue you see on pictures of nobles. The kind of blue that shows elegance. I think something like that would make you look like royalty.

…

I then decided to search for your mouth. Your voice. Your lips. Your teeth.

You never were much of a smiler. My jokes would only arouse a boring expression or you rolling your eyes away from me. Always so stoic. Only making slight little smiles when something was interesting. Or when you were trying to smooth talk your way out of trouble with the headmaster. A polite, small, gentle smile.

But when you smiled at me. It was so distinct that I could still draw it a million times in my head.

You would show your top teeth when you smiled at me, followed by a laugh. And what a laugh it was. It was dark and rich like chocolate. Your lips, thin and slightly chapped, stretched to form a marvel on your pale mooned face. It would savor in my mind for days on end. I never wanted such a taste to go away. So I made it my priority to make you laugh and smile as much as I could.

So I searched for that same sweetness in the places I would make you smile the most. The arcade. The little coffee shop with just three small tables. The alley with stairs and rails where I would attempt to glide down without loosing my balance. And in return, you’d join. Finding amusement in my foolishness. What a fool I have become so.

…

I searched for your body and hair. You were always so well kept. You always wore a bun, dark strands slicked back with a few falling to the front of your face. The color was black like raven feathers. You were pale, unblemished, and not a sign of age to your features. Like the glow of the moon above fresh, untouched snow. You weren’t always the best eater. Other than your favorite dish, Mak-guksu, you couldn’t really come around to eating everything and anything I got you. “I can’t get rid of that taste back there.” You’d say. Alluding to your abilities.

So I went looking for you in temples. Where I would see nests of crows circling around me. Death’s messengers. Near the temple, I’d see worshippers come in with white robes that would blend with the snow. With their dim lanterns, the shadows bounced off radiating a warm glow from their holy attire. A pure being, no matter what you did.

…

The last thing I searched for were your hands. Slender, rugged, brittle. Calloused and tender. Your knuckles would go white every time you were writing out a report for class, because you would be so focused you’d forget to let your fingers relax after each pen stroke. Your fingernails were clean, despite the dirty work you’d do. But I loved your hands. I loved the way they’d come close when you passed me something like a dropped pen, a cup of tea. Or that night during the summer solstice, when we would go out to downtown for festivities and we left the group to go find a better spot to watch the fireworks. When we found a small ledge just off the edge of river where the show was beginning, we watched in awe. Smiling, the sound of the whistles that ended with a loud bang as an array of sparks and flames danced in the air.

And that’s when your hands,

your warm hands, crept their way, sliding carefully across the rail bar where the ledge was, temptingly to interlace with my own. Like the call of the siren I couldn’t resist such a moment. It started with our pinkies overlapping, testing the waters. Then it soon became our ring and middle fingers intertwined like stitches. And surely, your hands clasped with mine and for a moment, the world seemed still. I could see from the corner of my lenses that you weren’t looking at the sky anymore. You were looking at me. The hue of bright blues, purples, greens and yellows illuminating such a heavenly sight. You looked at me, like you knew me for a thousand years. You saw me. And I saw all of you. Your hands, skin, hair, ears, mouth, nose and eyes, were all I saw. And they painted the most beautiful of all living things that this earth has given me. And you leaned forward to share the warmth of your love, as I couldn’t hear the sounds of the world, and only the sound of your breath slowly rising as you planted a kiss on my lips. Forever marking me as yours.

…

I searched for the that same warmth that night so long ago on the same ledge, at the same time it all happened.

I place my hand on the cold, snow covered rail bar, to see if you would take it.

But you never did.

I looked forward to see anything of your likeness.

But I saw nothing.

I shut off all thought, muted the outside world as much I could

To hear your sound, a voice, a whisper.

But there was silence.

And in that silence, I only heard the sound of my heart, becoming more numb under the freezing night. I can only hear my breath, visible to the icy air.

…

I searched for you today, Suguru.

I failed, but I’ll try again next time I think of you.

[k4shixe]

Prompt 4 with nanamiiiiiiii pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

BabySitter

CW; reader is 17, character is 28, age difference, strictly platonic, complements said to character, type of flirting (its teasing/joke tho), shouting at reader, kinda swearing

Pairings; rich!fem!reader x bodyguard!nanami (platonic)

Summary; After getting caught too many times, your father decided to get you a body guard. In an attempt to get rid of him, you go it the mall with your best friend.

Word count; 3k+

Prompt: “that’s enough.”

A/n; aaah here it is! Worked 2 days on this and ngl I never did watch the anime so he might be a little too formal. BUT I did enjoy writing this so please send any requests along! And I hope you enjoy! :)

12 minutes.It took them 12 minutes to find where you were. It’s worse that there are things that you shouldn’t be having at the party, especially at a party with teenagers. And you thought escaping to go to the party was easy. Oh how you knew you were going to get it. Your father stood in front of you with guards blocking the way out.

“Y/n I expected better. I told you that, you, explicitly, couldn’t go anywhere until we finish the meeting. You could’ve been kidnapped or worse”

“But dad I was bored! What was I meant to do wait?”

“That’s exactly what your meant to do! You leave me no choice but to take your credit card and get you a bodyguard”

“Okay fine my card is understandable but a bodyguard! That’s crazy! I don’t need to a baby sitter! I’m 17 for god sake!”

“It’s too late. My decision is final. Now go to your room, your grounded until you show me you can behave.”

You left for your room, sitting on your bed and sulking over the fact your going to have a babysitter. Or as your dad called it a “bodyguard”. You wished your mum was here, but tragically she died in a car accident when you were still a toddler so you knew how precious you were to your father. He loved you but you couldn’t blame him since you managed to get past everything he tried but that also didn’t change the predicament you got yourself into. You decided to texted your best friend telling her about what happened.

Bestie <33

I got caught ;(

Now my dad got me a babysitter

Oh cheer up,is it a guy or girl?

And are they hot?

Oh shut up.

And he didn’t even tell me so idk

Ok fine, how about

you just try getting rid of them?

Ooo, now your talking!

Just come to the mall tomorrow,

I need more outfits

Didn’t you buy some last week?

Yeah but I already wore those

Okay whatever you say

After chatting with your friend you started realising that you actually didn’t know who it was going to be. It could be some scary homeless dude your dad found on the street. You started praying it was atleast a girl, maybe you 2 could be friends. And with that you fell asleep.

“Honey wake up. Sweetie please get up” Your father shook you lightly.

“So early in the morning though” You slowly sat up on your bed,rubbing your eye to try get the tiredness out. You squinted your eyes seeing a tale, well-built man who was wearing a suit with blonde hair styled with a neat part next to your dad.

“Dad who’s this?“ you say visibly confused as you regained your eyesight.

“This is Mr Kento Nanami, he’s your new bodyguard.” Your dad sounded oddly proud for his accomplishment of finding such a well groomed bodyguard.

“But Dad he’s like 50! People are gonna think I’m dating this weirdo!”

“That’s no way to talk to your bodyguard y/n!”

“Im 17 I shouldn’t have some babysitter! I should be able to make my own decisions!”

“Sneaking out to go to a party at 3am shouldn’t be one of them!” He took a deep breath to calm himself down “Y/n, you are having him as a bodyguard and that’s final. Now if you need me I’ll be in my office” Your dad walks off leaving you and this “weirdo” in your room.

“So… your what now?”

“As your “dad” stated I’ll be your body guard. I’ll have to watch over you and make sure you don’t do anything reckless”

“Okay old man, I know my dad told you to do this but aren’t you annoyed you have to babysit me? You can just quit right now and blame it on me. I won’t mind.”

“Nice try but I already got paid so orders are orders until said otherwise. And I’m not your babysitter, I’m your bodyguard”

Man, this guy was going to be hard to convince. You thought as you looked at Nanami who was looking around the room, analysing it.

“Okay mr bento ninja could you leave my room?”

“It’s Mr Nanami to you, and I can’t just ‘leave’ I was ordered to stay”

“So what your going to watch me change then?” You say raising your eyebrows while starting at him awaiting his answer.

“Of course not, don’t be childish. I’ll leave if you had told me why.” He says as he left the room and closed the door behind him.

After getting changed into a sleek bodycon dress that really complemented your look, and with some makeup,heels plus a matching purse, you were all good to go. Now to only convince your dad. Shouldn’t be hard right? Walking down the staircase with Nananmi behind you (you couldn’t help be a little disgusted), you went to your fathers office and opening the door when hearing a “come in” by him.

“Dad could you please give me my credit card back? I promise I won’t spend much” you say with a pouting face and batting your eyes. You knew he couldn’t say no.

“Sorry sweetie but rules are rules. Until I can trust you again no credit card until then.” To say you were shocked was an understatement.

“But-“

“No buts,ifs or ands. Rules are rules.”

“Can I atleast go out with f/n?”

“You can but you must take Nanami with you. He must know anything and everything you are doing, and he can and will be able to check your phone if necessary. That’s the only other rule”

“Fine.” You groan and glare at Nanami who couldn’t care less and walked off, after he nodded to your dad he followed after you.

You pull out your phone, making a quick call to your driver when you heard Nanami clear his throat. “You do know your under my care, so I should be a able to do everything for you. Ms l/n.”

“Ugh don’t call me l/n, brings back memories. Just call me y/n. And I’m just calling my driver, I need a lift to the mall.” You have gotten your mother’s last name when you were born, since your parents felt like you’d like it more, especially when you’d become someone of more importance.

“If you insist Ms y/n, and you know I can drive.”

“Yeah…no thanks I’d rather take my own driver.”

“Very well. Whatever you want.”

The car ride to the mall was quiet. Too quiet. You wanted to listen to music but kind of over thinking that the music would be too loud and Nanami would judge you. He sat on the opposite side of the car, sitting still and quiet. Why are you overthinking something you would never think twice about? Is this bento dude that intimidating? I swear he’s staring at me from the side of his eye. Ugh snap out of it. You leaned your head back and let out a small groan. This was so nerve wracking. You pulled out your phone and just opened it to check the time. The lock screen showing a picture of your mother, father and you just a happy family. You stared at it with a small smile, the picture always made you calm and relaxed. Nanami noticed and decided some small talk would be better then silence.

“Is that your mother?”

You jumped a little at his words. First not expecting him to talk and second to ask that question. “Oh uh yeah…”

“Where is she? I never seen her around before”

The fact that sentence stung was a whole different type of pain. It felt like he was making fun of you just like the kids did to you when they found out in middle school. You tried putting a fake smile up but it hurt a little too much and an ich in your throat to cry came. You quickly tried wiping away the forming tears but just opted to looking the other direction when that wasn’t working.

“She uhh, died when I was younger”

And for the first time you got some emotion out of Nanami. Surprise and more of a regret for asking that question. “Oh, sorry I wasn’t aware.” He noticed the tear on the side of your face still visible to him and got a handkerchief from his suit pocket and handed to you.

For the rest of the car ride it was more awkward and silent then before. You managed to calm down but now you were thinking what Nanami thought of you. Some spoiled brat? Probably. I mean he isn’t wrong. You zoned out looking at him and didn’t even realised till he looked back at you. “Is everything alright”

“Oh sorry! I zoned out! I tend to do that a lot.” You looked back out the window blushing from embarrassment. He shook his head and went back to his seating position.

Finally you had made it to the mall and the drive opened the door for you with Nanami fixing his suit while walking up to you. You entered the mall looking for your friend and found her at the Gucci store shopping for some shoes.

“Hey! F/n!” You quickly walked over to her giving her a hug like always.

“Who’s the old guy?” She whispers to you looking behind you to exactly point him out.

“It’s the dumb babysitter my dad got me remember?”

“He is kinda hot though.” You hit her lightly.

“Shut up. Now let’s go to Sephora, I heard there selling a new makeup pallet!”

“Quickly then! We need to get it!” She grabbed your hand as you both rushed off with Nanami keeping an eye on you both, mainly and specifically just you. You reached the aisle with just a few pallets left when you realised.

“Crap, I wasn’t allowed to get my credit card. I can’t pay for it.” You say disappointedly.

“It’s fine just take my emergency one. It has a budget of like 50k though so just be a little mindful.”

“Omg did I ever tell you that your the best?”

“No but you should start” you and f/n laughed as you went to pay before

“Not so fast. Do you think your father would let you pay with your friends credit card? There is a reason he took yours away from you.”

“Yeah but this is different. So don’t try put your reason into this. Besides if he doesn’t know then who cares.” You say and your friend nodded her head in agreement.

“Fine. If you really don’t care, I’ll call him right now” He says getting his phone out his pocket.

“Hey! Wait! I won’t use her card” you mumble quietly as you put the make up pallet away upset about it.

“Let’s go to the restroom I got to tell you something.” F/n whispered and you nodded. You both began walking, Nanami close behind. When you reached the door you both quickly entered saying something to Nanami about fixing your make up and hurried in.

“That was easier then I thought.”

“Yeah but what would he do? Enter the girls bathroom?”

You both burst of laughing, Nanami could definitely hear you both from how echoey the bathroom was but you didn’t care right now.

“We need to get rid of your babysitter. Even though he is kinda hot at all”

“Agreed, except for the last part. But atleast we know we won’t be fighting over the same guy in the future.” You say as you both laugh.

“Ok we could go clothes shopping next and since we’re basically the same size just look for everything you want and pretend it’s for me.”

“Got it, now let’s try the make up pallet you got”

“Yess!” Let’s just say you guys spend at least half an hour in there just gossiping and doing each others makeup. F/n was telling you the juiciest gossip ever when it was interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Who would be knocking to enter a public restroom?”

“Beats me” you shrug.

“Are you ladies done in there?” Of course it was Nanami who was standing the whole time just waiting for you to leave.

“Would’ve thought security took him away for being a perv”

“Same!” You both burst out laughing again before another knock stopped you. “Well let’s just go clothes shopping!” You both get up and leave the restroom after packing up. Entering the first clothing store and looking for clothes, you both went to the swim suit aisle and poor Nanami had to stand there looking at the ground while you both giggled and tried them on. You swear you could see a tint of pink on his cheeks from the embarrassment. You smirked, your plans working. Now just a matter of time. I mean what would people think of some grown man following two girls trying on bathing suits. After picking out a few you headed to the dresses and picked out a few to try. Finding one you particularly liked but didn’t know if you should get, you decided to play a little joke on Nanami, and your friend encouraging it just built up your confidence.

“Oh mr Nanami~”

“Yes Ms y/n. What is it?.”

“Do you think this dress looks nice on me?” Expecting some sort of reaction, you can certainly say you were disappointed when he just nodded and looked back to where he was looking. You frowned and rolled your eyes, “whatever”. Your friend and you finish shopping and managed to get Nanami off your back about you trying on the clothes even though your not supposed to buy anything. “It’s just for fun! It’s not like we’re hurting anyone. Besides shes going to buy them anyways” your friend agreed with you.

Of course you guys went a little overboard and bought way too many clothes to hold them all. After a good 4 hours you waved your friend goodbye and she gave you half her bags insisting you “hold them” for her and she’ll pick them up next time. Your friend secretly handing you a credit card, not having as much but enough to get you a few extra things. Nanami still swift and quick to catch up with you, you decided to try something on him. With a little bit of a dramatic effect (thank god you took acting classes).

“Oh Mr Nanami sir. Could you please hold my bags? My arms are sooo tried, I don’t think I can hold them anymore” you say looking up at him with ‘puppy dog’ eyes.

“No. I’m your body guard, not a mall porter”

“Oh Pretty please~”

“Fine.”

“Thank you!” You say delightedly as you hand him your bags and quickly rush off to another store. Using the card your friend gave you managed to buy at least 3 more bags worth of clothes, 3 with shoes, 2 with purses and accessories and that was just the starting. You kept handing Nanami bags, and he was just silently taking them and holding each one. You could tell he was getting tired and fed up with you though. Slowly and surely you noticed him getting slower from carrying all those bags and the anger was just building up. The last straw was when you showed up with another 2 bags just hanging them on his arm when suddenly

“that’s enough.”

To say that didn’t scare your soul out of you was an understatement. You were mortified.

“Enough?…”

“Enough. You are going home this instance and you will carry your bags on your own.” He was practically death staring you, leaving you speechless.

“Yeah okay…” yeah okay? Why did I say that? I should’ve told him to shut it and listen to me. What am I doing? A little too scared to say anything back, you picked up as much bags as you could, struggling to pick up some as the weight of them was way more heavier then expected. Nanami sighed and picked up the rest, escorting you out of the mall. After following you for around 6 hours and having to go through the most embarrassing things ever. He still took your bags and watched over you, maybe because it was his job, but maybe, just maybe, he actually did care.

Nevertheless, the car ride back was silent like before, even being able to hear a pin drop was possible. You got your phone out and opened a food delivery app, scrolling through the food options. Yes, you did have a personal chef at home but you wanted to eat out today. Especially being forced to eat a models diet was tiering. You felt a little bad for Nanami so you sucked up your pride and turned your head to him.

“Uh Mr Nanami, would you like to eat something?” He looked over at you before shaking his head.

“thank you Ms y/n but no.” And with that the car when quiet again.

Getting home with all those bags was a trouble waiting to happen. You should of thought of it, oh how your brain was mentally screaming at you. But thanks to mr snitch, he called your dad beforehand telling him about everything. Your were no longer allowed to hang out with your friends, they could come over but that was it. After a shouting match with your dad, you slammed the door to your room with tears in your eyes. Your almost an adult and no freedom. What was the point? Nanami on the other hand, probably doesn’t know what a slammed door means and knocked on the door before opening the door. You quickly composed yourself, opting to just wash your make up off instead of looking like a clown you and went off to your bedroom’s bathroom. You had to push Nanami out of your room to change as he wasn’t believing you, thinking you’d run off. You began doing some homework, being homeschool was easy but the homework you got was something else. Struggling on one question in particular, you didn’t notice Nanami leaning over your chair looking at the question.

“No, your doing it wrong. Here.” He scribbled a few things on the paper which somehow made perfect sense to you. You mumbled and quiet thanks “Thanks…” which he simply acknowledged with a nod.

“Mr Nanami could I tell you something?” Nanami nodded his head for you to go on.

“I’m sorry about today, and thank you for watching over me. Even though it’s your job and everything but uhh…” Here comes your dumb phase! You were sure he though you were as stupid as you sounded.

“What I’m trying to say is thank you.” You keep your eyes on your homework, scared he’d just look at you with disappointment. But you looked up and you swear you saw a teny tiny smile on his face. You smiled back as you noticed he wasn’t mad at all. Maybe things with a body guard wouldn’t be horrible after all.

Request here ;)

[taomyou]

The Romance of Reimbursements - Chapter 14

Pairing: Levi Ackerman x Reader Status: COMPLETED Summary: There’s a guy you see every Friday on bus 143, and you think he’s pretty hot. It wouldn’t hurt to tell your best friend about him, would it? or, you and Levi take the same bus home from work every Friday, and you fall in love slowly, clumsily, and with all the time in the world to fold as many paper stars as your heart desires. Word Count: 8.7k Tags: slow burn, friends to lovers, modern au, office au, fluff, romance, meet-cute, matchmaking (A/N: this fic is entirely available on ao3 here if you would like to read it there instead!) Chapter Navigation Accompanying Playlist

bitter(sweet)

Levi refuses to look at his phone.

It’s not because he suddenly decided that he needed a technology cleanse. No, absolutely not. Quite frankly, he doesn’t even use his phone that much in the first place.

So... why is a grown man like Levi not using his phone? It’s the age of technology, and anyone else would’ve withered away without their phone by now.

Well, it’s quite simple, really.

He refuses to look at his phone because he doesn’t know what to say to you, and getting rid of his phone is his way of making sure he doesn’t fuck up by sending you a text that’s off-putting or annoying or anything else bad.

Since leaving your apartment on Monday, Levi’s been an unbridled ball of nerves.

The idea of coming over earnestly hadn’t crossed his mind before you offered. He figured that, if anything, you’d scold him for getting sick and tell him to take the next day off work (which he wouldn’t have done regardless, but he would’ve at least lied to you so you wouldn’t have to worry about him).

Instead, you let him into your home, lent him your clothes and your annoyingly complicated shower, made him dinner, and gave him a comfortable place to rest. Nobody’s ever gone so out of their way to do something so… wholesome for him before, and he doesn’t know what to do about it.

He doesn’t know how to thank you, he doesn’t know how to approach you, and he doesn’t know if he’s even meant to be saying anything to you between Monday and when you’ll inevitably see each other again on Friday.

And so here he is now on a sunny Friday afternoon, working in his office as he tries to ignore his phone and the hole it burns into the bottom of his backpack.

He has ten minutes before he has to haul ass across campus to get to the lecture hall he’s assigned to for his Friday course, so as soon as he’s done formatting his lesson plans for today’s lecture, Levi just sits at his desk.

He sits, and he lets himself stare aimlessly at the lone teapot that sits atop the shelf that’s near the door. It was a gift from Pixis, and Levi’s never bothered to even entertain the idea of actually using it, but he really ought to start bringing tea with him to campus. He can’t stand being around neither faculty nor his students, so it’d be nice to have something to take a bit of the pressure off.

The ten minutes he allocates for himself go by quickly, even with only the mere thought that he needs to start bringing tea to work, so he gets up, packs away his things, and starts the long walk over.

For just this week, he’s grateful that there’s always a student in his ear as he walks across campus, asking him how to choose the subject for the final. If nothing else, it gives Levi’s mind something to hold on to so that it doesn’t drift off into thinking about you.

Levi hasn’t the slightest clue why they’re asking about the final when the prompt even hasn’t been released yet, but he lets the kid talk themselves into their own answer until they leave him alone. Another student takes their place almost immediately, introducing themselves with a name Levi can barely remember seeing when he was reviewing their midterms, and he lets the same event repeat itself.

When he reaches the hall, things resume as normal. He connects his laptop to the projector and continues last week’s lecture on digital mapping and visualizations, and after that’s over, everyone scrambles out of the room to finish off their Friday academic schedule as early as possible. Of course, there’s some drifters that stay back to try and ask questions he’s already answered during the lesson, but he doesn’t have the time to deal with that so he redirects them to his instructional assistant before leaving.

Lecture ends at 2:30 and bus 143 always leaves at 2:45, and he can’t afford to miss that specific ride.

The walk isn’t particularly far, but he still tries his best to get over there as quickly as possible to make sure that he can save your usual seat for you.

Just before he’s about to turn the corner to reach the bus stop, he’s stopped by the sound of someone calling after him. He knows he can’t ignore it because the voice belongs to another faculty member, but he still wishes that he could pretend he just didn’t hear them at all.

“How was lecture? Heard a few of my students complaining about your midterm,” says Pixis, jogging to catch up to him.

Levi has to stop because he can’t imagine Pixis would tolerate any amount of disrespect, especially from someone who’s only in their first year teaching at the university, and Levi doesn't need to be making any enemies right now.

Still, he’d rather run into oncoming traffic than stay and talk to him.

“It was fine,” Levi replies. “I have somewhere I need to be.” His answer is curt and to-the-point, but that doesn’t seem to convince Pixis.

“I’m sure you could spare a second or two. How’s grading?”

“It was fine. My IA handled some of it, but I reviewed everything before submitting grades.” Levi checks his watch for the time: 2:38 PM.

“You know, Ackerman, it’d be good to let your IA do all the work. Us professors don’t really have time to be doing all that, you know? Focus on other things, and the rest can get sorted out by your staff.”

As much as Levi hates his students for being annoying college kids, he’d rather rot than let himself get away with overworking his teaching staff. And these students all paid good money to attend this university, so he really can’t understand how Pixis can be so ready to just dismiss their efforts for ease of time.

Maybe that’s just what teaching for so long does to you.

“Yeah, sure.”

“So, where are you headed? A date, perhaps?”

And there’s that nosiness. Does this guy seriously have nothing better to do than get into Levi’s business?

“No.”

“That’s a shame, beautiful day today.”

“I’m not one to care much for the weather.”

“Well, I should let you go, but we should grab dinner sometime. How do you like Sina’s? You came to our faculty dinner there last semester, no?”

“I did, and it’s alright.” He checks his watch again: 2:41 PM. “I need to get going.”

“Right. Still, let me know when you’re available. Always good to teach a rookie the tricks of the trade,” Pixis says, putting his hand on Levi’s shoulder. Levi just stares at him, and Pixis nervously laughs before turning to head in a different direction. 

Levi all but runs to the bus, desperate to get there before it can leave, and he makes it just in time. He apologizes because he still has to get his bus card out of his wallet, but the bus driver is understanding and just offers him a smile. He scans the card, and thankfully both your and his seats are still available.

Once he sits down in his usual spot, he puts his backpack down on the seat that you usually occupy, and he instinctively goes for the zipper of his backpack’s outermost pocket. Every other week when it’s his turn to get you something new to try, he stares at the box up until the very last second to make sure that it’s nothing you already have (and, of course, to make sure that it’s caffeine-free).

He’s not even halfway done unzipping the pocket when he realizes that in his venture to avoid fucking up communication with you, he forgot to bring anything for you today.

Fuck… the absolute last thing he wanted to do was upset the routine the two of you have. Life is hectic enough as is, and the newfound normalcy of these exchanges has grounded him more than he’d like to admit.

And so, instead of checking to make sure that a box’s nutrition label hasn’t miraculously changed to include any amount of caffeine, he’s forced to weigh his options.

He could get off at either of the next 2 stops to run and get something, but that means he’d be on a different bus entirely. He’s sure that if he asked for you to wait for him, you’d be completely fine with that, but he’s too scared to even check his phone to even message you at all. Besides, he knows how exhausted you are by this point in the week, and he doesn’t want to be the one telling you to keep yourself at work any longer than you have to.

He sees how tired your eyes are, even with all the time that you try to make for yourself, and he also sees how much it means to you when he hands you the tea every other week. It’s in those moments that he’s glad that you’re so easily pleased because your gentle smile and a shoulder bump is enough to bring him out of his own poor spirits.

But it’s just a small box of tea, what’s so special about that? He knows how much you have at home already—you definitely do not need that much tea. Not that he’ll ever say anything, but he doesn’t really understand.

He chooses to ignore the fact that he’s a complete hypocrite for thinking this when he feels the exact same way when it’s your turn to get him something, but it’s not like he understands that feeling either.

His other option is to just admit that he forgot to bring something, but it defeats the entire purpose of him ignoring his phone for the last 3 days if that’s all he’s able to say to you.

How could he forget your tea when it’s all that’s on his mind whenever he steps into a grocery store? Or really, anywhere that could possibly carry tea?

He swears up-and-down that this is just the result of him being so occupied with ignoring the thought of you—the you that takes care of him, the you that wants to worry about him.

He leans forward and digs his palms into his eyes, silently sulking to himself. He already has a hard enough time figuring out how to even thank you for the shit that you do, and it’s the worst time for this to happen when it’s barely been a week since you literally nursed him back to health.

He couldn’t even bring himself to text you to let you know that he’s been healthy since Tuesday morning, what’s he meant to do now?

Is there even anywhere that sells tea between here and where you get on the bus? The city isn’t exactly known for having great tea shops, and he doubts he could even find something suitable in time to get to you.

Would tea even be enough to repay you? He always gets on you for being so quick to try and repay the sentiments he pays to you, but he’s no different. He can’t stand the idea of being in debt to someone else, and it feels like, right now, he owes you the world. You wouldn’t even hold him to it—you’d probably bump his shoulder, just like you always do, and let the mistake fly over your head.

But he doesn’t want that.

He doesn’t want you to think that he doesn’t respect your kindness, especially after having stayed the night on Monday. Especially after you used your coat as a makeshift umbrella to protect the two of you from the rain. Especially after you made boxes of sweets just for him. Especially after you helped him and his housemates make egg tarts. Especially after you let him have a near-full canister of dandelion root tea just a day after knowing each other’s names.

In his worry, he forgets to keep track of time because before he realizes it, the bus has already stopped twice and it’s now at your stop. He hears the sound of his backpack being picked up, and you tap his shoulder to get his attention.

He looks up at you, trying his best to hide his turmoil, and silently takes the backpack from you so that you can sit. At least you don’t look as tired as you usually do—he can relax a bit knowing that you probably had a decent workweek.

You take a second to put away your phone and get comfortable, and the bus’s engine roars back to life as it continues on its regular route. You hum to yourself as you smooth out your blouse, and he can’t even bring himself to look over at you again. He puts his head down on his backpack and just watches as the scenery passes by.

He expects you to hold out an expectant hand for the tea that he should’ve had with him, but instead, he feels a bit of weight on his right shoulder.

“Bad day at work?”

The weight disappears, and he looks over at you. You’re looking directly at him, eyes filled with worry and quiet understanding, and he can’t help but let himself melt.

God, all this worrying about how to talk to you when you just make it so easy anyway.

“Yeah, something like that.”

He watches as you tip your head back and stare up at the ceiling.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” you offer. “Are you feeling better? You know, since you were sick on Monday.”

“Yeah, I’ve stopped sneezing.” Levi doesn’t know what else to say, and his stomach is in knots with the still-present worry that you’ll be disappointed that he doesn’t have anything for you.

You hum. “That’s good.”

“How was your week?”

“It was good, not too much work. Me and some coworkers started planning my friend’s engagement office party, though, so that’s been fun.”

“It’s been a while since her engagement, hasn't it?”

You chuckle, and Levi feels himself relax further into his seat. “Well, yeah, but things have been busy, and we haven’t really had time to get anything like that planned.”

He listens as you continue talking about some of the things happening at work, and he appreciates that you don’t pause during any of it. At the end of your stories, he looks over at you when he hears you shifting in your spot. You go to the side pocket of your briefcase, and from it, you pull out a small tin of tea and hold it out to him.

…What?

He can only look at it in confusion, and even when you wave it in front of him, he doesn’t move to take it.

“Don’t like tea anymore or something?” You joke.

“It’s my turn,” Levi says quietly.

“What’re you talking about?”

“I fucking forgot, okay? I don’t have anything today, I’m sorry.” He feels upset in having to admit that, and you trying to make him feel better that he forgot isn’t any help to his heart.

He looks over at you, expecting to see your hurt expression, but instead you blink a few times in confusion. “Huh? You got me the hibiscus tea last week.”

What? No, he didn’t. That was on the 31th, and he remembers because you were held up at work because of your monthly reports.

Levi goes through all the events of the past week, trying to figure out the dates. You all went to the expo on the 1st, he came over on the 3rd, and today—

Oh, for fucks sake.

You’re right, it is your turn. Today is the 7th.

He puts his head down on the top of his backpack, face burning in embarrassment, and he hears you laugh next to him.

All this worry about tea and repayments and everything else for Levi to actually just forget something as simple as who’s meant to be giving the other tea. He feels his worry become replaced with relief, and the dryness in his throat that he didn’t even realize was there suddenly disappears as he takes long breaths to try and calm the red on his face.

Fuck, maybe his cold did a bigger number on his mind than he thought it did. Levi ignoring all his thoughts about you probably didn’t help either, and he must’ve just gotten so caught up in trying to occupy himself with other things that he just forgot.

He has to get up eventually, though, so he takes it from you and idly reads the labels as you look away to give him some semblance of privacy.

It’s kuding cha.

“I picked that one out since the lady at the shop said that it’s good for treating colds, and I thought you might still be sick,” you tell him.

And here you are again, doing everything with so much intention. In that sense, Levi doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to compete with that level of sentimentality, but he isn’t mad about it.

He’s still too embarrassed to say anything, having been caught in the mistake of thinking he’s the one meant to be giving the tea this week, but you just take it in stride and laugh.

“Besides, even if you did bring me something, I told you that I’d throw it out the window.”

He goes to unzip his backpack to put the tin inside, and he frowns. “Even then, I do still need to pay you back.”

“For what?”

“Monday,” is the answer he comes up with. What else is he supposed to say? Everything?

He doesn’t know what to do with the feeling of comfort that’s exclusive to when he’s in your company, but he’s brought back to it with the memory of being in your kitchen with you on Monday, doing his best to help you get dinner set up. He has to look back down towards the floor of the bus again to avoid possible eye contact with you. 

Levi feels a tap at his right foot, and he sees your shoe from the corner of his eye. He looks up over at you again, and he just sees you smiling at him.

“You know I’m going to say it, right?”

He scoffs. “Yeah, so get on with it.”

You put your left shoulder to his right, leaning onto him. “You don’t have to pay me back for anything.”

He rolls his eyes, and he goes to step on your shoe too. You playfully yelp, just as you always do, and Levi can’t help the bloom that grows from the warmth in his chest.

“And you know that I’m going to do it anyway, right?”

You nod, the smile on your face still bright on your face. “Yeah.”

You still haven’t moved away from his side, and neither of you dare move for the rest of the ride you’ll have next to one another.

The scenery doesn’t change—it’s still the same roads, the same landscape, the same cityscape. The seats don’t feel any more or less comfortable, and the hum of the bus isn’t any quieter, but still, Levi wishes that he can stay here forever, in the silence of your company and comfort.

When the sound system announces that you’ve reached Rose, you straighten up and tell him to get home safe with a wave. He says the same back at you on his way out, and once he’s off the bus, he lets out a huge sigh of relief as he watches it drive away. He watches as it disappears into traffic, and the gust of wind it leaves behind blows his hair in all directions. He’s grateful for the brief cold because it fans away the heat on his red face.

✰

After that, Levi finally gives up on his self-imposed phone ban.

Reflecting on it presently, Levi feels stupid for having been scared at all. The two of you don’t even talk that often over text or on the phone, save for the brief moments where you have to give your weekly tea ratings.

Speaking of, he doesn’t bother reading the instructions for the kuding cha.

When he gets home on Friday, he immediately goes to turn on his kettle before getting settled into his home. He doesn’t take the tin out of his backpack until after the kettle whistles, and even then, it’s muscle memory that lets him measure out the proper amounts without thinking.

He stares back at his phone for what feels like the first time in ages, and he thinks about whether or not he should just text you his 9/10 rating now or after he’s taken a sip. He already knows all too well what it tastes like. It’s why he even likes bitter tea so much in the first place.

It isn’t that he didn’t have the heart to tell you that he’s already had it before. He doesn’t have it at his house, so you couldn’t have known with just the picture reference he sent you.

When enough minutes pass, Levi pours out a cup of the tea for himself, and the act brings him back to memories of drinking tea with his mother. Even now, years later as an adult, those memories continue to be some of the most precious to him.

Before his mother fell ill, she would make tea for the both of them in the comfort of their apartment.

It was never bitter—it was always slightly sweet, and there were always fresh herbs, berries, and sugar cubes at the end of the table for them to share.

The cheap tea set they used was replaced with a fancier one when his mom had enough money saved up, but Levi had broken the handle of one of the teacups the very first time he tried to pick it up. His mother didn’t yell at him, instead telling him that it was okay and to not try to pick up the pieces, but he still cried into the sleeve of his sweater and didn’t ever hold his teacup the same way again.

She promised that she would take the cup back to her workshop to see if she could try repairing it with glass, but she was never able to make good on that promise.

When he was five, his mother had to be moved into the hospital for treatment. The pair of them would continue to drink tea together, the difference being that now, Levi was the one who had to make the tea. He would go to the hospital floor’s drinks station everyday after school, and he’d try his best to copy what he remembered from when his mom was healthy enough to do it herself.

As much effort as he put into the process, nobody had ever taught him how to actually make tea before, and he was still too young to fully understand the instructions on the boxes that the hospital had at the drinks station. Sometimes the nurses would see him struggling with the kettle and they’d pour the water out for him, but other than that, he was entirely on his own in figuring it out. He would take one of the wooden stir sticks to dip into the tea to see if it tasted alright, and he’d be disappointed when it wasn’t sweet.

That’s how he knew he was terrible at making tea—it never tasted like how his mother made it. His was always burnt or steeped for too long, too bitter to even be comparable to what his mom would make when she was still healthy. He knew she was too tired from her illness to do something as unimportant as teach him how to make a cup of tea, so all he could do was try to pretend that he was perfectly capable of it.

Even though he knew his mother hated the taste of bitter tea, she would still smile at him when he would eventually come back to her room with the warm ceramic teapot. He’d pour a cup for her, and she’d sip on the tea while he talked about his day at school or what new things he learned. She'd ask questions and try to give him advice, but most of that time spent was with her just listening.

He’d also drink the tea to try and prove to himself that he actually did a good job, but it just never tasted right. Sometimes he would try adding sugar packets from the coffee section, but even that couldn't fix it.

As the next couple years went by and his mom’s condition continued to deteriorate, he learned to read. The first time that he tried following the instructions, word by word, he was elated to find that it tasted sweet. Sweet like how it was when his mom was still healthy. Sweet like how it was when his mom was still able to throw him up into the air with laughter.

But when he brought it to her and she took her first sip, she told him to go back to how he used to make it. She told him that she’s grown to like the bitterness, and that it reminded her of the first time she realized that her son was just trying to keep a bit of their old life still there, even with her sickness.

Levi was too aware at that point to go back to burning the tea, so with some of the spare change he’d collected over the years, he started going to the grocery store to get different teas. None of what the hospital kept on hand was actually meant to be bitter, so he had to get that elsewhere.

An older woman had asked what such a young boy was doing in the tea section, and when he told her that his mother wanted something bitter, she directed him to kuding cha, telling him that it was also good for treating sickness.

And from then on, all he drank was kuding cha.

His mother loved the tea, and she was happy that Levi seemingly did too. He didn’t, but as the years continued to go by, he stopped caring about the taste and just took solace in the time he spent together with his mom.

When she died in his first year of high school, he didn’t have it in himself to try going back to that grocery store or to drink any more kuding cha, but that bitterness was something he continued to chase.

And as he sips on the tea, already more than a decade later, he can feel the tears well up in his eyes at the realization that it still tastes just like how he remembers it. It’s so bitter, overwhelmingly more so than anything else he’s ever drank since, and he feels so comforted by it. He realizes the tears before any of them can fall, so he sniffles as he blinks them away, and he wipes at his eyes gently.

A grown man, crying over a cup of tea. God, and then on top of that, he’s still got to tell you how much he likes it.

He wipes his eyes again before he reaches for his phone, and he pulls up your messages. He texts you his 9/10, and you get back to him seconds later with a smiley face. He rolls his eyes at that, but he pockets his phone with a sniffle.

He finishes the pot quickly enough, taking sips as he scrolls aimlessly on his phone to catch up on anything he's missed in the last couple of days. He brings the now-empty teapot and teacup with him to the sink to wash them, and as he’s washing the tableware, his mind floats back to you.

Even without the knowledge of it, you’ve brought him even more comfort than he can imagine asking for. He didn’t think it’d be so dramatic to just have a cup of tea, but he isn’t upset about it at all. He’s grateful, even. He probably never would’ve had the clarity to get that tea for himself.

So, as he turns off the tap and reaches for the drying cloth, he thinks about how he can repay you. This time, without the worry of forgetting anything important.

You’d probably be overwhelmed with something extravagant, so that’s already out of the question. There’s definitely no way that a single box of tea could measure up to anything you’ve done for him in the past week, so he still has to think a bit bigger than that.

Or maybe it’d be enough to just do the same thing for you, as you do for him.

And so, he does the unthinkable.

He calls Hange, and he asks if you’re busy next week.

They try to ask why Levi wants to know, but he doesn’t budge and continues to ask. They tell him that you probably aren’t, and he tells them that they need to get a definitive answer from you.

Hange threatens to tell you that Levi's trying to pull the moves on you, but Levi just barks back and says that if they do that, he'll tell you about them and Moblit being an item. Hange just about loses it, asking how he even knows they’re together, and he just rolls his eyes before hanging up.

Sure enough, a couple hours later, Hange gets back to him to say that your only plans next week are to stay in and bake.

And that works. Levi can work with that.

✰

Come next Friday, Levi has a box of tea for you. This time, it’s rooibos tea, and he chose it because it’s meant to have a similar flavor profile to hibiscus. He doesn’t bother putting it away to hide the fact that he's been looking at it, instead just giving it to you as you sit, and you thank him with a smile as you look at the labels.

He spent the last week trying to figure out how to make this work, and he somehow still can’t fucking figure out how to ask you. He buys himself some time by asking you about your week, but even then, he can’t take his attention off of you as you’re telling him stories from work and complaining about your coworkers.

There isn’t even much about it that demands his attention, but he still can’t tear himself away to actually start mustering up the courage to say what he needs to say.

“And yeah, that’s about it. How was this week for you, Levi?”

Your voice breaks him out of his momentary trance, and he can only blink. His mind is both empty and full at the same time, and he just blurts out what’s there.

“Do you want to have dinner with me at my place?”

The words come out awkward and they feel unfamiliar on his tongue, but he manages to not stutter when he asks. He brings his hand up to his face when he clears his throat, but he doesn’t allow his hand to move away so he can continue to shield his face.

Fuck, how could saying something so innocuous be so embarrassing? He doesn’t mean for it to be anything more than just that—dinner—but it’s just so… ugh.

It’s not like he hasn’t ever hosted dinner before. Before his friend group had enough money to afford going out, his house was the premiere hotspot for group dinners. To be fair, it’s not like he’s ever the one to invite them over. It’s usually just Hange inviting everyone and just telling them that whatever’s happening is going to happen at Levi’s place.

Your silence doesn’t help him at all, and he tries his best to keep his eyes steadily trained on the landscape that passes him by. It really hasn’t ever been anything interesting, but he can’t take his eyes off of it yet.

You hum next to him, and he braces himself for the rejection.

Don’t worry. He’s prepared for this possibility already, it won’t be any blow to his ego. Maybe to his feelings, but that doesn’t matter.

Over the past week, he’s been thinking that treating you to a nice dinner would be the most appropriate thing to offer. After all, you did practically the same thing last week, and there isn’t really any monetary equivalent that would “balance out” this imaginary debt scale you have between the two of you.

Before he can speak up again to clarify his intentions, he sees you check the time on your phone.

“Today, right? What time?” You ask.

His face just about gets a million times hotter, and he clears his throat again before answering. “Any time is fine with me.”

You hum again, and he watches as you tip your head back on the seat. “I have some laundry to do when I get home, but that should only take, like, two hours?”

“You’re not going to ask why I’m inviting you over?”

You look over at him again before you burst out into laughter, looking back up at the ceiling of the vehicle again. “We do this ‘paying each other back’ thing every week, I think we already know how this works.”

Right. He doesn’t need to explain himself because this same thing has already happened before, and this cycle of you both trying to outdo the other is never going to end.

He rolls his eyes to save face, not that you can even see. “Yeah, so just come over whenever you’re done with whatever you need to do.”

“Okay.”

He puts his head down on his backpack, trying to be as quiet as possible as he lets out the biggest breath he’s ever held in his life.

Fuck, okay. The worst part is over.

“So anyway, how was your week? You still didn’t answer.”

Levi lifts his head up, and he groans before choosing to shift focus to talk shit about anyone and everyone he’s had to interact with in the past week. The rest of the ride is with the attention on him, and as much as he’s afraid of what you could be thinking, he hopes that his mentions of random architectural concepts are enough to keep you entertained enough to not pay attention to his nervousness.

At Rose, he gets off just as he normally does, and there’s no semblance of a goodbye. No waves, no ‘get home safe’s—only a silent nod of acknowledgement after he gets up to leave.

If anything, there’s just a silent promise to see each other in about two hour’s time.

And that’s what happens.

After Levi arrives home and changes into something more comfortable, he gets on with cooking dinner. At around 6, he hears the doorbell ring. He opens the door to see you, dressed in casual loungewear and holding a big clear container of various ingredients and baking appliances. Your arms are wrapped around it, and you look like you’re about to tip over.

“Hi! I forgot to ask, but do you think I could use your kitchen for something? I already got the ingredients for this apple galette I wanted to try, and I’m supposed to meet up with my coworkers to help pick out an engagement gift tomorrow, and—”

“Just get inside,” Levi cuts you off by taking the container from you, and he moves out of the way to let you in. You let out a sigh of relief, and you take off your shoes as fast as you can before stretching out your arms.

You follow behind him as he brings everything over to the kitchen, and you take a dramatic whiff of everything that’s cooking on the stove. “Smells good.”

“I had no idea,” he deadpans.

You move over to where he’s set the container, and you lightly shove him. “Yeah, sure.”

For the next hour, you and him work alongside one another. You poke fun at him for asking questions about what you’re doing, but he still listens when you inevitably try your best to explain what you’re doing and why you’re doing it the way you are. He stops to ask you to hand him various items from around the kitchen, and you seem to have fun as you try your best to navigate the space.

By the time that dinner’s ready and set up at the table, the dough and filling for your galette are chilling in the fridge. The pile of dirty kitchenware in his sink bothers the both of you, but you’re just ready to sit down and take a break to bother washing them right then and there.

You thank him for the meal, and you both get on with eating the dinner that Levi’s prepared. Levi knows it’ll taste good because he spent the last week practicing it and force-feeding it to Isabel and Furlan, but he’s still embarrassed when you compliment it in earnest. You decided earlier that you wanted to try the kuding cha since Levi liked it so much, so Levi brings you a cup.

He watches as you take your first sip of it, and before you can even voice your obvious dislike for the bitter taste, he resigns himself to go and get another batch of water going in his kettle so you can have something else to drink.

You follow him back into the kitchen for a second time, probably not to be rude and eat without him, and you ask him about how he could like something so bitter. You backpedal to clarify that you aren’t judging him because you also have a decent tolerance for the flavor profile, but you don’t take back the question itself.

He remembers mentioning his mother to you at the expo, and back then, you hadn’t judged him or his situation either. And he really did mean it—when he said that he’d be okay talking about it with you.

So he does. He talks about how his mom used to make tea for him, how he used to make tea for her, and how she used to love kuding cha. You ask questions when appropriate, but there’s nothing invasive about it, and you make sure to remind Levi that he doesn’t have to share anything he doesn’t want to.

In the middle of his talking, the kettle whistles, but both of you ignore it so that you can finish your conversation. Levi finishes out by telling you that he really does appreciate you listening to him, and you give him a sympathetic smile before jokingly asking if he even has anything without caffeine in it that you can drink (and that, if not, you’re fine with a glass of ice-water).

He ends up not having anything without caffeine so he fetches you that glass of iced water, but neither of you make mention of the hot water that remains unused in the kettle.

By the time you get back to your food, it’s gone cold, so Levi apologizes for taking so long to talk about his mom, but you just kick his leg underneath the table and tell him that’s what the microwave is for. You and him continue eating and making light conversation, and time flies. He continues drinking his own cup of kuding cha, but even though it's still bitter, he can't help but taste hints of sweetness along with it.

You offer to do the dishes, but he shoos you away so you can finish the galette you already started on. You thank him up-and-down, and you work alongside him as he washes the dishes. It isn’t long before it's in the oven and he’s completely done cleaning everything up (including any bowls you just finished with), and the both of you go over to his couch to take a breather away from the kitchen.

Levi hands you the remote so that you can pick out something to watch on the TV, but before you can even start figuring out how the controls work, the two of you hear the sound of the door opening.

“Hey, Levi, who’s car is that in the front? Why are they in our driveway—”

“Oh my gosh, hi!” Isabel exclaims when she sees you. Levi watches as she goes to greet you, and he can feel Furlan’s eyes on him. Isabel forces Levi off of the couch so she can talk to you more intimately, and Levi shakes his head before getting up and joining Furlan at the dining table.

“Is this why you asked us what time we’d be getting home on Friday?” Furlan asks, careful to not draw your attention.

Levi doesn’t want to give any sort of answer, so he just shrugs. He knows that his housemates couldn’t care less about who comes in and out of the house, but he didn’t know how to articulate his plans to them when he didn’t understand them fully himself.

“Wait, actually, is this why you made us eat the same dinner, like, 4 nights in a row?”

Levi can’t get out of answering that one, but thankfully, the beep from the oven saves him.

You bolt up from the couch and go to the kitchen, grabbing an oven mitt before sliding out the tray that the galette’s on. Isabel follows closely behind, and both her and Furlan dramatically gawk at it when it’s set out on the countertop.

“This smells so good! Can you be our live-in baker?”

You laugh and slide the mitt off your hand. “If Levi’s fine with it, sure.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Aw, why not?” Isabel whines.

He rolls his eyes, and he steps closer towards Isabel so he can flick her forehead. “Don’t ask stupid questions.”

While the two of them bicker, Furlan gets some plates for everyone and helps you find some ice cream in the fridge to put on top of the baked dessert.

You call for everyone to gather around the table, you and Furlan having gotten everything situated over there, and Levi and Isabel join you. You try to leave again to do the dishes, but the three all shout in protest at that and force you to stay at the table with them while they try out the apple galette. There’s still more of it in the middle of the table in its original baking tray, but each person has more than enough to start with.

Levi doesn’t even know what the fuck a galette is, but whatever it is, he loves it as soon as he takes a bite of it. It’s warm, it’s tart, and it’s sweet. He isn’t even one to really care for ice cream in the first place, but he can’t say that it's an unwelcome addition to the dish. Everyone gives their thanks to you for such a divine treat, and you just shyly look down and smile as you receive your compliments.

Levi’s the first to finish his portion, so he gets up to do the dishes. You try to stop him because you’re the one who made the mess in the first place, but he ignores you completely and just gets himself situated at the sink. He can hear the shared laughter between you, Isabel, and Furlan at the table as you talk to one another, and he can’t fend off the smile that sneaks its way onto his face as he scrubs everything clean.

At some point, you come over to him with an empty baking tray and tell him that Furlan and Isabel have already eaten the rest of it, and he just shakes his head disapprovingly before shooing you away and telling you to go and have fun with the other two while he finishes. You give no contest in return, and Levi’s left on his own until he’s done.

He makes sure that he puts everything back into the container you brought with you, and he double checks all his cabinets to make sure that he didn’t accidentally misplace something that belonged to you.

He eventually joins the three of you at the couch, and when you see him, you say your farewells to Isabel and Furlan. Isabel sends you off with a hug and Furlan with a wave, and you head over to the kitchen to get your things. Levi’s the one following you this time, and before you can pick up the container, he does it for you.

“C’mon, I already let you wash all the dishes,” you protest.

“Shut up, just let me do it.”

You say goodbye to Isabel and Furlan on your way out the door, and Levi follows closely behind to help get the container into your backseat. After he clenches and unclenches his fists to get rid of the stinging pressure from holding onto such a heavy and large container, he puts his hands into his pockets and waits for you to speak up.

“Thanks for having me over, Levi.”

“Yeah, thanks for coming.”

He’s glad that the lights that are meant to light the driveway don’t shine any light on his face, because there’s no other way he’d be able to hide the shyness on his face.

There’s a silence as the both of you struggle with what to do next, and you clear your throat before looking at him directly. “See you on Friday?”

God, he has to wait another fucking week to see you again?

“Yeah, Friday.”

You hum before moving to stand shoulder-to-shoulder next to him, looking up at the sky. It’s probably just too awkward for you to lean on his shoulder when you’re both standing, but Levi will take it.

“Really, thanks for making me dinner and letting me use your kitchen. The dishes too. Fuck, I’m a terrible houseguest.”

“And what would it say about me if I made a guest wash the dishes?” He muses back to you.

“Fair point. No asking to wash dishes at the other’s place, then.” You pause. “Thanks for trusting me enough to tell me about your mom. I can’t imagine that’s easy.”

“Don’t worry about it, I really don't mind telling you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

There’s more silence, and the both of you just continue to stare up at the sky. Levi slides his phone out of his pocket to check the time: 11:18 PM. “It’s getting late, you should start getting home.”

You sigh next to him. “I just feel bad that I dirtied your kitchen so much and that you had to clean.”

“I told you not to worry about it, idiot.”

“Still, is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”

“It’s your turn for tea next week, so just wait until then.”

“It’s going to bother me for the whole week. Are you sure there isn’t anything?”

You could give him a clump of dirt, and Levi’s pretty sure he’d still take it gratefully. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“You’re impossible to please,” you accuse.

“You’re one to talk.”

You sigh again. “We could be here forever.”

The idea of that flashes in his mind, and he ignores the subsequent fleeting thought that he’d be okay with that.

“Leave while you can. Isabel will hold you hostage here for as long as she can.”

“Yeah, nothing worse than being at the mercy of a college student.”

He rolls his eyes, and he watches as you get into your car. He leans down slightly to see you better, and you wave to him after you roll down your window.

“Get home safe,” you tell him, completely straight-faced.

Levi deadpans back at you. “You graduated law school with that brain?”

You smile brightly. “Yep.”

Levi groans. “Whatever, dumbass. Get home safe, okay?”

“Mhm, okay.”

You both wave to each other again, and Levi watches as your car backs out of the driveway, and he stays in his spot until he sees that your car is completely out of vision.

When Levi goes back inside his house, he hears the sound of feet moving and the snickers of his two housemates. “What the fuck are you guys doing?”

They shush one another, but Levi still finds them at the couch, huddled together over one of their phones. Isabel tries to hide it, but Levi gets to it first.

And he’s unsurprised to see that it’s a photo they snuck of you and him, shoulder-to-shoulder and looking out at the moon. Of fucking course his friends would do something as ridiculous as this.

“Please, Levi! Don’t delete it!” Isabel begs, reaching over to try and get her phone back.

“Yeah, no.” He swipes the screen back to see that it’s one of many that’re in her camera roll, and he grimaces.

He holds his finger over the pictures, and he deletes them all in one go. He can hear Isabel still asking for her phone back, but he ignores it for the sake of this. He goes over to the trash section of the camera roll to make sure that she can’t recover the photos, but he hesitates when he sees one picture that looks a bit different from the others.

When he clicks on it, he sees that it’s still not the greatest quality, but it stands out to him because it’s only you.

The harsh lighting of the driveway lamp shines on your face and casts awkward shadows, but that’s exactly how you looked earlier when you told him your thanks for his invitation to dinner. There’s a gentle smile on your face, and he feels like he can stare at it forever.

He quickly goes to restore the single photo, but he still goes through with deleting everything else. He sends the picture to himself as quickly as he can, deletes it on Isabel’s end of the messages, and deletes the photo from both her gallery and her trash.

Without another word, he throws the phone back to Isabel, and he’s off to his room.

At the couch, Isabel waits until Levi is completely out of view before she bursts out into full laughter.

“I can’t believe he bought it!”

Furlan snorts from his space on the couch, and he takes his own phone out from his pocket. “Yeah, what a fucking idiot.”

The two of them move so that they can both see Furlan’s screen, and he pulls up his messages with Isabel to see all the photos she forwarded to him. They may be gone forever on her phone, but they certainly do exist on his.

“So, what do you think we should do with these?” Isabel asks.

Furlan swipes through them all, taking a second to download each and every one of them. “Who knows? But we should wait, let him forget this happened.”

Isabel nods in agreement before rolling over onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. “Levi’s such a loser, he doesn’t even realize he likes her.”

Furlan jokingly shoves Isabel, shaking his head. “Don’t be mean about it, he’ll figure it out eventually.”

“You think so?”

“Not really, but it’s kinda funny to watch him act all lovestruck, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, you’re definitely right about that." She turns on her own phone too, and she scrolls through her gallery to check if Levi actually deleted any photos. She ends up scrolling a bit too far up, though, and she accidentally clicks on the recipe that Levi forwarded to her for the egg tarts.

Hm, she did want to make those again. Maybe she could ask you for the recipe for that galette, too, she really liked that.

She zooms into the image to reread the listed ingredients, but before she can even get to actually comprehending the words, she moves over to frantically tap Furlan’s shoulder.

“What?”

Isabel readjusts so that she’s now sitting cross-legged and facing Furlan, and she starts by handing her phone to him.

“Dude, you’re not going to fucking believe this…”

✰

Next Chapter

[phillipfancypants]

Also: I want to add something based on my experience being in my undergrad through all of this. When I started college in 2021, AI was Not A Thing. Like, I used CleverBot in middle school but got bored with it by high school. Then in my sophomore year we saw the rise of ChatGPT and DALL-E and everything was flipped on its head.

Writing and History professors started getting rid of take home essays, opting to switch to oral exams, in-class papers, or handwritten essays. Some CS professors straight up banned AI code, other professors encouraged it (but made project prompts harder). No one knew what to do.

I saw the bad sides of AI first. I lost a science-related art contest to an AI-generated work. I had to redo entire sections of a group project during my study abroad because my group member was using AI to solve things (poorly) and didn’t think to tell us. I had to make the call as a TA grader on whether a student used AI to write code, or whether they really were just that dumb.

But slowly, I started to see some good sides too. And that was scary. I held off for a long time and started off small. I realized I could use Chat-GPT as a sophisticated Ctrl-F when wading through hour-long interviews for my student newspaper (i.e. I could ask it “Give me a direct quote from this interview that relates to X-topic"). I also started to use it as a tip-of-my-tongue thesaurus at times. You can tell it "I want a word that is similar to these words/concepts" and it's a lot better than finding something "close enough" using a single synonym.

I also took a class last semester called "Cognition in Writing" that changed my worldview in many ways. The professor was one of the coolest people I know—they did their undergrad in Computer science and linguistics and then went on to get a Brain and Cognitive Science PhD with a focus on how the brain is able to create words and thoughts. The bulk of her graduate research was literally the science that Chat-GPT was built on. And so she knows *exactly* what it can and cannot do. They're now a professor in my school's writing department and are very involved in discussions over what is and isn't okay in terms of using Chat-GPT in the department.

She was the first person I ever heard using the term bullshit in an academic context—in AI study, it's a term used to explain the fact that AI Cannot Think. It can regurgitate information it's been given, but it cannot think for itself. Across that course, they would often give 2 options for each homework assignment. One that encouraged us to try out generative AI and think for ourselves about what it got right/wrong and another option that explicitly did not use AI, for those of us with ethical or environmental concerns. (I mainly did the non-ai because I found AI to be too much of a hassle to deal with).

Anyway, this is all a roundabout way of saying that, as far as my current education has taught me, these taggers are doing exactly the right thing. One of the biggest ideas that my professor wanted us to walk away with when it came to AI was to disclose not only when but how AI was used. In the screenshot, notice how the tags range in severity. Some tag options say that AI was used only to write the title. Others say that they used AI to translate some phrases/sentences into other languages. Some people cited that an AI conversation was the inspiration for their fic, but that the text itself was human-written. Some people cited using AI grammar checkers. And of course, some people said that whole chapters or sections were AI written.

The important thing is that almost every tag was specific and honest. And at least in academia now, that's what we're being taught to do. Keep logs and screenshots of every conversation. Mention when and how AI was used. Because in academia, your use of AI is your responsibility. If it screws up, that's on you.

I fully support this tagging system because it allows people to decide what they're comfortable with reading. To me, that limit is probably that I don't want the text of the body to be AI-generated and I don't want to read things that are re-writes of character-AI interactions. I'm fine with an AI title or a bit of translation here and there. As long as the author is honest. You might have a different limit--perhaps you have environmental/art theft concerns that mean you don't want AI to be involved at any stage of the process. Or maybe you're fine with any/all AI usage. The important thing is that people are tagging their usage and that we can read those tags before we start reading.

OP asks if these people "have no shame" and that's an unfair assumption to make. In the grey areas of "just the title" or "just some translation," I'd much rather have people be upfront about it. Readers deserve to know what they're about to read and make decisions for themselves.

do people have no shame anymore?

[myalchod]

21 and 26 for the year in review asks! 😁

21. Share your favorite piece of dialogue

sdflknsldfnad I hate favourite anything questions because I can never decide, so one of my favourite bits of dialogue instead ... 🤔 This is interesting because I always feel like my strength as a writer is definitely not with dialogue. I'm torn, because there are a number of dialogue beats in (not) alone in the dark that I'm inordinately proud of, but most of them are more monologue, so I'm not sure if they count? (Farah and Saul's exchanges in his head don't count because it's him arguing with himself, right? 😂) I think Andreas' lines were probably my favourites from within that, because it's Saul's subconscious putting the words into Andreas' mouth but they could have been his, and because I had fun being vicious. (One example below, actions stripped out.)

“Seems like you’re the soft one, closing your eyes and giving up as soon as it gets difficult. [...] Pathetic. So much for Headmaster Silva. Just as much of a failure as the father and the soldier before him. Will anyone mourn you, or will they be glad to finally get rid of the burden you’ve always been?”

But if it's truly dialogue, then I think my favourite exchange is from the Alfieverse WIP -- an argument between Farah and Luna. Again, shared only as dialogue, no action text.

“What is done is done. Aster Dell would not have been the last place to suffer in the name of necessity, Luna; you know that. You were her student too.” “I know a great deal. That, too, you would do well to remember.”

26. If you had to choose one, what was THE most satisfying writing moment of your year?

Rather than a singular fic, I think the most satisfying moment is honestly looking back at what I accomplished in 2023. Strictly numerically, that was the most productive year I've had as a writer -- in word count and works alike -- but it was also the first time I posted properly in years, and being active and engaged and pushing myself beyond my comfort zone into characters I wouldn't normally go for, longer form than I've usually used, chasing challenges and prompts ... which is to say, in a tl;dr sense, that maybe the most satisfying moment of this year has been diving headfirst into the FtWS pool and splashing around happily with all of you wonderful people. I don't think I would have done nearly what I did without that, to have liked as much of what I wrote as I did, and reaching the end of the year and being able to look on that with pride is sincerely the best writing moment of the entire year.

[ ask me another? ]

[s0ulsniper]

prompt 21) with spider-gwen please 🙏 🙏🙏 with a happy ending though because i cry easily if it's possible thank you <3

spider-gwen x gn!reader

DNI 18+

Gwen had been distant, only replying to texts about once a day, and not picking up any of your calls.

it was weird to say the least, because you two were very close before she just suddenly decided to stop liking you.

y/n : gwen, what's going on?

y/n : I'm about to stop trying gwen, you're ghosting me when I need you.

you shut your phone off and put it in your bag backstage.

she always told you she would come to your concerts but you never found her in the crowd.

you knew she had her own responsibilities, her band and being spider woman and all.

but instead of telling you she could be there, why couldn't she just say she was busy?

all you really asked was for one visit, so you could show your skill off.

a knock is heard on your door and you bandmate peeks in.

"were on in 5." he says.

you nod and pull your patched jacket over your tank top.

you took a second to adjust yourself in the mirror before you walk to stage, behind the closed curtain.

You're handed your guitar, while you help to attach it to your amp and pedals.

everyone is set up and gets ready for the first act.

But as soon as the curtain draws you see Gwen staring at you from the first row, where you always got her a seat.

you stumbled, but you played through the first act amazingly, but as soon as the curtain drew you rushed to your room backstage.

but there was no hiding, you heard a knock on the door.

"y/n? you there?" gwen calls.

you don't answer for a minute but then you reply.

"yeah, come in."

the door creaks open slowly to reveal a sheepish gwen.

"i uh- I know I've been acting weird but I wanted to kinda... explain myself."

you look at her from your mirror.

"in the middle of my concert?"

she sighs.

"I had no other time, I wanted to tell you as soon as possible."

"I think we're long past being on time, gwen."

she doesn't speak, just walks to kneel down beside you by your chair.

"just please listen." she begs, you not looking at her.

you give in, and look at her, she looked genuine.

"I just-... I think I might be in love with you, and I'm terrified." she admits.

your mouth falls open in confusion.

"you're in love with me?"

she nods, grabbing one of your hands in hers.

"I just don't want you to be in any danger. I couldn't imagine you getting hurt."

"trust me, you're never getting rid of me."

for the last few acts you play better than you ever had.

knowing you were with gwen and everything's solved put you at ease.

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