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blackjack-15 · 3 days ago

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Can you write more about when you think joe realizes georgia is the georgia. I do think he knows by the time ginny shows him the sunglasses. I think thats more when he lets himself be sure and that that rest stop moment actually meant a lot to georgia too, before that I think hes rationalizing it as a big coincidenze she moved there. Im just not sure when he goes from thats a whole lot of weird coincidenses to omg georgia is that georgia.

i adore this question, nonnie, thanks so much for it!

this is a fascinating question because there is room for personal interpretation. the show is pretty straightforward that georgia knows by the time she asks "you got your horses, huh?" and that joe knows by the time ginny shows him the sunglasses, but there's a Lot of time to play in between those. so much so that i kinda wanna take it scene-by-scene.

under a cut, of course, not to clog up people's dashes/the tag.

i think his first instinct is actually when she shows up at his cafe and says "thanks, joe". it's more obvious on a re-watch, but his subtle double-take before asking if they know each other is sizing up her looks and her accent -- something he's probably done about a billion times before, looking for her in everyone -- to see if she matches Georgia-From-The-Rest-Stop. also significant is when she's pulling the whole "you must get a ton of business from the mayor's office" disarming small talk routine (and it is a routine -- she's scoping for info without seeming to ask questions), joe doesn't get distracted or fall for it, he just responds "yeah, and you are?" in a Much sharper voice. he knows what she's doing immediately; as we follow him through the series, we learn that he sees it because this us how joe gets info as well. their similarities are cinched in the "i appreciate a good scam/right back at you" (as well as him flirting a bit there). over and over again in this scene it's shown he can see through her -- that he understands her. this is the point i think he wonders, even if just briefly, if this is His Georgia.

the scene where she volunteers him for school lunch just puts the cap on this. he never sees georgia as Innocent or Nonthreatening or Stupid, not even for a second.

he knows and understands her well enough that in their brief scene after ginny shoplifts, when this sweet, friendly bombshell sings his name with a smile, his reaction is "oh no". he's well into liking her by this point (after 2 episodes of watching her be conniving and duplicitous! he's down Bad!), and that's part of why he agrees to let ginny work for him, but i firmly believe that it's 1) he saw how Pissed she was at ginny, which yeah, rightly so and 2) because it guarantees georgia's gonna be around, and he may be able to find out more (to see if she's who she Could Be) if she is.

then we're at 1X03 (girl you will ALWAYS be famous) and him asking/quasi-demanding her help passing out wraps (despite the fact that he seems to have it handled, but you Know she wheedled him into catering part of it), with the repeat of the "don't cry over spilled condiments"/"i'll cry if i damn want to" -- the next Big hint, and one of three times (1X01's meeting, this one, and the "you got your horses" scene) georgia actually Hints to him who she is. you can see him start to smile Big -- like his brain is going THIS IS GEORGIA THIS IS HER -- and he physically shakes himself out of it and answers with "...okay." because he's thrown So Far off balance. here's the point where i think joe isn't just considering it, but actively looking for confirmation that she's who he thinks she is. note that, in another similarity to georgia, he doesn't come right out and ask; that would show his hand, and he's not about to show his hand until he Has to. it takes him a second to reply, but his "okay" is certain by the end of it. he's made a decision or a supposition here, turned a page. she thanks him, and he says "yeah", and watches as she goes. he's Paying Attention now.

onto the next ep where we have a few fabulous scenes. joe steering georgia away from the nice-off with cynthia is a Personal Favorite, as is his nonchalance when she pours herself wine at the bar and his laugh when she insults cynthia -- the show is Not Shy about showing that joe is not as "nice" or "innocent" as others (including some viewers) think. he "talks to her like she's a horse", calling out that she's legitimately stressed and a bit scared ("you're bein' skittish" -- an unconscious and subtle adoption of her accent/dialect), and she gives that Hint (which seems to be 99% unconscious) of "finally got your horses, huh?". once again he gives her a look, dancing around the subject in the same way she is, and gives a test right back to her, telling her his horses' names, and when she asks about milkshake, says "yeah, what about it?" faux-casual, dropping eye contact. she blinks first, saying "nothin'", and he chooses to let it drop. it's a small scene -- and often overshadowed by her (a little too "casually", judging from the way she says it and then runs out the door, missing his answering grin/smirk) telling him he'd look good in a suit, prompting him to show up in a suit (and resulting in her checking him out obviously from head to toe and helping her save casino night), because it's Squee-worthy and delicious, but for me, this is The scene for them in Season 1 -- and, maybe controversially, this is when he decides that she's v likely His Georgia.

because after this, the way he treats georgia changes -- in some ways subtly, i'll grant, but Definitively.

he shows up to flirt with her at casino night, gives in immediately to auctioning off a dinner for two at his farm (and teases her with the "you know you've got this bad habit of taking away my money?" "you want my car? my atm pin?" -- he's flirting hard there, as well as challenging her, hinting why he's doing this -- "it's for the school, right?"). he laughs at her about Fallfest the next episode, ("i've never seen you clueless before. it's Cute." -- flirting hard again, because joe is quiet, joe is cautious, but joe is not shy, not in the least. she flirts back "you know what would be real cute? ("Mm?") you bringing us more wine. that would be real cute. like, downright Adorable" -- and she's flirting with a little bit of her Claws showing, instinctively and unconsciously grasping that he wouldn't mind it, and boy does he not -- that clench of his jaw is the "i'm turned on in public" clench (seriously, go rewatch it, it's the horniest face of the season, and that's Saying Something), make no mistake. it's why he reacts stone-faced to her attempting to resurrect the "joke" when she's on her date with paul -- that would be Exposing Himself, and joe doesn't do that, not in public especially, and not around paul specifically, who he seems to not overly care for. if i had to Invent a Bit of Fanon, i would guess that paul wasn't super nice to joe when they were growing up, given the way he holds him at arms-length, but that's full speculation, so grain of salt, etc etc.

especially since the next scene where they're 'alone' again (even in public), he's back to good-natured teasing and offering his opinion.

much as i (rightfully!) despise her, i will always love maddie immediately calling out that joe likes georgia, georgia not even letting herself Consider it, and being stone-faced-serious about shutting maddie up when she starts asking if she'd sleep with him (because she's not gonna let herself Consider the answer). the writers are careful to keep bringing up joe romantically in relation to georgia, even though it flies under the radar of the town a bit. he's more than willing to dance with her, grinning as they sway, making her laugh. and while it's well within the bounds of friend/responsible bar owner to take the girls home, the absolutely fascinating, illustrative thing to me is not his smile when she sways into him up in her room, but the way that, when she realizes what she's doing and frowns, he plasters on a mask as quick as we've ever seen georgia herself do it.

the look joe gives paul there -- that dismissive smile when he says he was just leaving, the way he barely moves his shoulder so he doesn't body-check him in the doorway, the glance behind as he leaves -- is, for lack of a better term, the look one man gives another when he full on does not see him as a 'threat', or even an equal. this is the mayor, ostensibly georgia's boyfriend, and he's dismissive. once again, joe is not without his teeth.

it's not quite a 'your wife wanted to f//k me in your bed' look but it's not far off. just saying.

and then of course the "drunken nothing" where ellen is Suspicious and georgia desperately wants to make sure they're okay. but it's worth noting georgia remembers it and wants to make it right, because it shows she knows she Did Something, that it was Her swaying into him. significant.

next is the "roleplay" scene, where we get a hint towards joe's loyalty thing ("would you rather be diane?" "diane abandoned the show, so no") and also joe bringing back the 'cute' thing from earlier ("am i sam in this cute little roleplay?"). of note to younger viewers of the show, Sam and Diane (of Cheers) are one of the most famous TV couples of all time. just saying. this one, as the last of their scenes before the Sunglasses Moment, where it's proven beyond a doubt that she's His Georgia, is also a favorite of mine; he asks if she's okay, knows immediately how she'll react to that, slips just slightly ("..compared to how you always -- you usually look, which is...amazing"), and knows she's gonna chug the (nice) wine moments before she does it.

And then, of course, there's the Sunglasses Reveal, and the house of cards falls, and joe never recovers, and we have that Glorious scene in season two:

"of course you knew. there's nothing you don't think of."

#asked and answered #ginny & georgia #joergia #georgia x joe #otp: lazy dancer

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unopenablebox · 1 year ago

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i love TAing. some parts of it are stressful but running office hours and just getting to talk through a concept with the students until we've identified the source of their confusion and successfully resolved it is so satisfying and fun.

#and i know a bunch of fun facts to throw in that they appear to find genuinely fun!#e.g. 'worms are one of the only commonly studied multicellular organisms that we can freeze'#which is always a real hit.#a couple of them asked me to explain my research to them today???#and they said they thought it sounded 'cool' and 'sci-fi'#which makes me feel :')#and they asked for grad school advice! i feel so USEFUL. they're so likeable and interested in stuff #even the ones who are clearly suffering under the weight of only being kind of interested and really wanting to pass the class #1. are showing up and asking questions! which i appreciate!#2. are obviously trying to think through the concepts and light up when something becomes less confusing #and i am very grateful to them for putting in the effort. and i hope i repaid it with useful information about how to pass the exam.#box opener

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randompiecesofwriting · 1 month ago

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Coffee Snob (pt 4)

Summary: The reader ends up in the Pitt threatening to break as she goes through the aftermath of a mugging leaving Robby to pick up the pieces

Pairing: Michael “Robby” Robinavitch x Reader

Word Count: 6.5k

Warnings: Reader gets mugged but she’s 1000% physically fine, hurt/comfort, lots of fluff, this is the angstyist one so far!

Author’s note: Back again because I cannot be stopped! Again I do not have the words to convey just how much all of the feedback I have gotten on this series thus far it is absolutely what drives me each and every time to write another part I cherish every one of them!

Also tagging @li22ie2017 because they asked! Thank you so much!!

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

There was a woman in his spot.

A very familiar woman. A very familiar woman in a very familiar spot at a rather unfamiliar time.

It was early, too early for even the sun to have risen yet, so early he had expected the spot to be empty, for even the city below to posses an unnatural stillness.

He couldn’t say he was upset to see you there though, legs dangling over the edge, familiar coffee cup in hand.

“Caffeine and heights?” You whipped around at the sound of his voice breaking the silence of the city suddenly, eyes just wide enough to show that he had caught you off guard, thankfully not bad enough that you were in any real danger that close to the edge.

Still you adjusted quickly, a warm smile growing on your face at the sight of him, the scene sending warmth through his chest “thought I’d mix it up”

He came up to sit beside you, the scene so similar to how everything had started and yet still so vastly different, a coffee instead of two beers, a familiarity in the air instead of a cautious approach, a much smaller distance between the two bodies than before. “And the verdict is?”

You hummed as you thought about it, wordlessly handing your mug over to him without any real thought behind the gesture, as always sharing your creations with him. He took an eager sip before handing it back “It’s too quiet”

He nodded at that, looking out over the city around him “too empty”

You took a sip of your coffee and hummed in agreement, setting the mug down between the two of you. A silent invitation, one he took up happily “What are you doing up this early?”

“My chef de patisserie is out for the week so I’m doing their prep” you shrugged.

“Their prep starts at four in the morning?” You smiled at that and he couldn’t help but appreciate the ease he always felt with you, the ease at which you gave out smiles, the ease with which he returned them.

“Pastries take time. You have to let dough rise, let creams cool, bake. It’s a labor of love”

He hummed appreciatvily at that, stealing another sip of coffee, looking out over the city, a sense of peace washing over him despite the weight of the world he had felt crushed under just an hour ago.

“What about you; why are you up this early?”

“Couldn’t sleep” and he decided to leave it at that, hoping you wouldn’t pry further, not quite ready to scare you off with his full answer.

But as you always did you seemed to know when to not push it, to not ask quite yet. He could feel your eyes on him, looking him over for a brief second, assessing him before nodding slowly, making a dramatic showing of checking a watch he knew you weren’t wearing “well since you don’t have to be at the hospital for a few hours. Want to come to work with me?”

He furrowed his brow at the invitation, asking the obvious question silently.

You shrugged in response, grabbing your mug and cradling it against your chest as you stood “It’s four in the morning, restaurant will be empty, come keep me company” you stated it like it was obvious, as if there was no better answer to his lack of sleep than hanging out in an empty restaurant kitchen “I’ll even make you breakfast” personally Robby couldn’t think of anything he’d rather be doing.

And that was how he found himself wide awake at nearly 5 in the morning, sitting at a stool in a restaurant he has never been in, looking out over an open kitchen as you carefully weighed out ingredients into a giant bowl, eating what was undoubtedly the best omelet he has ever had in his life.

There was a small array of soft lights that illuminated the kitchen before him, all other lights in the restaurant remained off creating a soft ambiance in the space, an almost intimate look that highlighted how it was just you and him here, your laugh echoing slightly off the walls as you recounted a story.

“You should’ve seen his face when he realized he’d been chopping cucumbers for the last hour instead of zucchini”

He tried to listen to your story, he really genuinely wanted to. But his sleep deprived brain refused to focus on one thing for too long. Jumping from how good the food was, to how warm the coffee felt, to how beautiful you looked as you worked, ot how at peace he felt in the space.

It contrasted so greatly with his world he almost felt on edge within it, waiting for that other shoe to drop, for something to ruin it.

Then you’d look at him from over your shoulder and smile softly, naturally, and everything for a second would be okay.

“And you said this kid went to culinary school?”

You snorted at that and he felt almost proud, of being able to make you laugh, of saying the right thing, of deserving in that moment to be here.

“He’s just nervous. So eager to prove himself. Reminds me of myself when I first started”

And god could he relate to that. To starting out after school and desperately trying to prove that he deserved to be there, to solve a patient’s every issue, to be good.

“What’d you do with all the cucumber?”

You hefted the bowl with a small huff and poured it into a giant mixer, flicking the thing on and coming back to stand on the other side of the bar from him, leaning casually on the countertop on your elbows “let him come up with a way to use them for dinner service. He came up with-“ you suddenly cut yourself off, standing up straight and looking at the fridge along the back wall “actually…”

Trailing off you started across the room before he could say anything, opening the fridge and grabbing a deli-container. As you made your way back to him, you grabbed a fork from a cup on the counter and scooped up a bite from within “try this”

Without question he took the fork from you, taking a bite and looking back up at you with wide eyes “wait that’s delicious”

“Right” you laughed at him, grabbing a second fork and taking your own bite from the container “basically a spicy quick pickle, went perfectly with the braised beef I’d already had going. We turned it into sliders and served it with this. Shit I wish I still had some to give to you it was so good” And Robby, to be honest, didn’t mind at all that you didn’t, listening to you talk about it, seeing the way you practically melted onto the counter as you recounted it, that was more than enough.

You packed back up the container and put it back into the fridge, stopping on your way to grab the dough from the mixer and a container of flour, grinning at him rather maliciously as you made your way back over to the space in front of him. “Now how’s your kneading Robinavitch”

He chocked slightly on a laugh at the question, watching you spread flour out on the counter and place the dough on top of that, giving it a small slap as you smiled back at him.

It was five in the morning, he had to be at work in two hours, you had him doing manual labor in the kitchen where you worked, and there was nowhere else Robby would rather be.

You’d been holding yourself together rather well all things considered.

You weren’t sure if it just hadn’t hit yet, if you were bound to break later, if you were unhealthily shoving every feeling too far below the surface, but to be honest right now you didn’t care. You were tucked into an empty room in the Pitt and you would be damned if you were going to cry at Robby’s place of work.

Then he walked in.

No matter how many times you had been in this hospital without it being an emergency he came with the same expression every time. Brows furrowed in concentration, eyes soft with concern, hands reaching out to softly prod, desperate to figure out what was wrong before you could tell him, desperate to solve your every issue. It was strangely comforting as he did it this time.

He was asking you questions, bent down slightly to stare directly into your eyes, looking for any sign that would tell him what was wrong, why you were here.

And you cracked.

A single tear slipped out and you couldn’t stop it. Your breathing picked up and stuttered as you fought against the lump in your throat, fought to keep everything under control, fought to swallow it all back down.

But Robby noticed it, of course Robby noticed it. There was a brief look of panic that flashed across his face before the mask was yanked back into place, a hand coming up before you could pull back to wipe away the tear with his thumb, leaning even closer, dominating your field of vision “Honey please, tell me what’s wrong”

You were worrying him. That’s what made you get it under control, what sparked you to tamp everything back down, to take a deep breath. You were worrying him and you didn’t like that expression it put on his face.

“Nothing it’s-” you pushed his hand away from your face, tilting it up to look at the ceiling as you blinked back the tears, taking a deep breath before speaking “nothing it’s stupid”

His hand dropped without issue from your face down to your hip, his thumb rubbing slow, soft circles into the area “It’s not stupid” and he said it so simply, so conclusively that you couldn’t help but start to believe it “now tell me what’s going on”

You watched him for a moment, the furrow in his brow, the way his eyes never once strayed from you, before you cast your gaze across the room, finding yourself unable to look at him as you said it “On my way back from the restaurant I-“ another pause, a slight break in your voice, a deep breath “I got mugged”

And because you weren’t watching him, weren’t totally paying attention to all that was around you, you didn’t notice the way he went still at your words, the way his entire body tensed, the way his expression went completely blank, before you were talking again.

“He took by bag it’s got, fuck, it’s got everything: my wallet, my phone, my keys” you could feel yourself starting to spiral again, could feel the grief and the panic start to swell before you looked back at him to see the almost blank stare, the way he seemed to look through you rather than at you “I’m sorry I didn’t know where else to go”

That seemed to snap him out of it. His entire expression softening as his hands came up to capture your face in them, cradling your head between them as he shook his slightly “no no no you did the right thing, you come here. You always come here okay?”

You nodded numbly, barely processing the words as he spoke.

“Good okay now I really need to know are you hurt anywhere”

You sniffed quietly, shaking your head before you could properly think about the question “I don’t think so he pushed me down and kicked me in the side but it doesn’t-“

He was reaching down for your shirt before you could finish your sentence, stopping himself forcibly as soon as he grabbed it, eyes flicking back up to yours for permission “please can I-“ he didn’t finish the question, didn’t need to as you were already nodding.

You looked away as he lifted your shirt, didn’t want to see the damage that had been done, didn’t need to based on the sharp inhale that Robby let out at the sight of it, the way his jaw clenched visibly, his hands tightening their hold on your shirt as he looked it over.

Swallowing, you watched him as he lowered a hand to probe softly at the area, eyes flicking up to meet yours at the hiss that left you as soon as he touched it. His voice gruff but soft “I know I’m sorry”

You felt like a child the way you sat on the bed, your lip wobbling as the confession escaped you “Robby I want to go home”

His expression fell at your words, the professional mask fully dropping as he nodded and let go of your shirt “It looks like your ribs are just bruised but I’d really like you to get a chest x-ray”

And to be frank you were too tired to fight him on it in that moment, no matter how badly you wanted to. A thought that must have shown on your face as Robby sighed, crumpling slightly on the spot as an anxious hand came up to run through the hairs on the base of his neck. “You shouldn’t stay at your place until we can change the locks” he finally conceded “let me talk to Dana about getting Jack here to cover for me and I’ll take you back to mine”

You smiled softly at that, looking up at him gratefully and only upon seeing the corners of your mouth tick up did Robby start to relax, his shoulders slumping ever so slightly at the sight as he moved back just enough to give you space to step down, placing a comforting hand at your back as he led you back to the nurses’ station.

Dana was nothing but a force of pure sympathy the second she connected eyes with you. Up and out of her chair before you were fully at the desk, engulfing you in a warm hug before you could get a word out, a “Oh sweetheart I’m so sorry” whispered softly into your hair.

A slightly warmer than hollow chuckle left you at that as you melted into her arms, rocking her back and forth slightly before letting her go, giving her arm an appreciative squeeze as she let it fall back “thank you Dana”

The corner of her mouth ticked up at that as she put her hand over yours to give it a soft reassuring squeeze before nodding back at Robby who immediately stepped in to take her place, standing practically at your hip as a large hand ran comfortingly up and down your back “Dana can you give Jack a call see if he can cover for me”

“Called him the minute she walked in” she answered easily, making her way back around the desk “he’s leaving as soon as he can, should be here within the hour”

He frowned slightly at the news but still nodded appreciatively, head snapping across the floor with a huff as someone called out his name asking for him in one of the rooms. He sent Dana a look, silently asking her a question she answered without having to think about it “go I got her”

Still he turned to you with a frown, another question sent silently you were already nodding at, taking a step back from him and wrapping your arms around yourself “go I’m good”

Still he stayed rooted on the spot, an internal debate playing out on his face making the corners of your mouth tick up again, nodding back towards the room that had asked for him in response “really I’ll be okay here”

With a sharp exhale he conceded, finally seeming to make up his mind. Taking a second, he shed his stethoscope followed by his hoodie, slipping it around your shoulders without asking, helping you shove your arms into the holes and zipping it up for you, hand resting on the zipper for just a bit too long as he looked you over once more “you need anything-”

“Dana will know where to find you” you answered for him with a small smile, watching one grow on his face in response as he nodded, giving your shoulder a soft squeeze before shooting Dana a silent look and heading off across the floor.

“Come on kid I’ve got a chair back here for you” Dana called you back from watching Robby disappear through the doors, directing you to a roller chair behind the desk with a pat on the seat.

“Am I allowed to be back here?” You asked hesitantly, perching yourself on the seat next to her.

She shrugged in response, eyes glued on to the screen before her as she typed something rapidly “Sure just if Gloria asks you’re a nursing student”

A laugh huffed out of you at that as you nodded, relaxing further into the seat burying yourself deeper into Robby’s sweatshirt in response “Nursing student got it”

The hour came and went slowly, you feeling more and more useless and in the way with each new emergency that came through the doors.

Robby visited whenever he could, never able to stop by the desk for longer than a second or two but always carrying a new snack each time he did. The pile of sandwiches, protein bars, apples, and cups of water was growing to a nearly hazardous size on the table before you as you took each from him without complaint when you realized how relieved he seemed to get each time you did.

Rounding the counter this time you were a little relieved to see his hands empty for once, forearms resting on the countertop before you as he leaned on it casually, giving you one quick check before turning his attention to Dana. “Any word on Abbot?”

The woman shook her head with a frown “Not in the last few minutes” She confirmed what you already knew “though there’s supposed to be an accident blocking the interstate he’s likely caught in that” and you tried not to deflate further at the news, tried not to make everyone pity you even more.

Robby, however, seemed to notice, he always did.

Seeming to debate something with himself for a second Robby hesitated as his eyes scanned you, taking a moment before speaking “if I give you the key to my place are you okay getting there on your own?”

You perked up at the question, straightening in your chair “are you sure?”

He nodded easily “I’ll be right behind you”

And you tried to tamp down your excitement, but truthfully you were more than ready to get out of the ER by this point “I’d really like that”

He chuckled softly at your answer, seeming to note just how happy the proposition made you as he motioned wordlessly for you to follow him back to a row of lockers, opening up one of them and rooting into his familiar backpack for his keys.

“Go back, take a shower, help yourself to whatever you need, just be careful yeah?” He asked you purposefully, dipping his head slightly to properly catch your line of sight “And call me if you feel anything off with your ribs I’m not joking”

You nodded gladly at that, grabbing the keys from him carefully, giving them a quick inspection.

“My cars parked in the third row, left side” he instructed with a soft smile making you furrow your brows.

“I’m not taking your car”

And for once his smile didn’t drop at all when you argued with him, instead his face stayed exactly the same, the corners perhaps ticking up even further, as if he had been expecting it “yes you are”

“What about-“

“I’ll walk” he interrupted you before you could even ask with a small chuckle, crossing his arms over his chest, leaning one shoulder against the locker next to his, settling in.

“Robby I can walk”

“You’re insane if you think I’m going to be okay with letting you walk back alone after what just happened”

“I’m fine” the protest sounded weak even to yourself.

He only raised a brow at that, silently daring you to double down on that, before he released his posture with a sigh, taking a step closer to you, dipping his head slightly to better meet your eye “please, can you just for once let me take care of you”

You couldn’t help but snort at that, shaking your head softly “I’m not great at that”

“Really I hadn’t noticed”

You smiled at the sarcasm, at the familiarity of the tease, at the man who seemed beyond willing to greatly inconvenience himself for your sake “Fine I’ll take your car”

A smug grin grew on his face at that, nodding appreciatively as he straightened and took a step back “good text me when you get back” You nodded at that, watching as he began to take small steps away, dragging his feet as he returned to the ER, throwing back one more comment before he disappeared “and if I find out you filled up my tank on your way back there will be hell to pay”

You snorted at that threat, biting down your smile as you watched him disappear without comment, shaking your head as you looked down at the keys in your hand.

You had a least a few days before he would notice that anyways.

It was a sight he wasn’t even aware he had been missing, coming home to the lights already being on. There was a new warmth permeating the space he wasn’t used to greeting him as he opened his door. In that moment he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to do without it from now on.

Standing in the doorway the smell hit him first. Citrus and fat cooking, fresh herbs and spices mingling in the air. Soft music playing from the Bluetooth speakers he barely remembered owning.

He shut the door behind him as he entered and you spun around at the sound of it, sending him a smile over your shoulder he found himself already returning.

His mind was completely fixated on the fact that you were here, in his apartment, cooking at his stove, wearing his clothes.

Your wet hair told him you’d done as he suggested and took a shower, the familiar looking sweatpants and shirt telling him you had raided his dresser too. He couldn’t help but wonder if he refused to let you return them was there a chance he’d get to see you in them again?

“What’s going on here?”

“Recipe developing” you answered eagerly, Robby spotting the dozens of pages of hastily scribbled notes he had long since learned to associate with your development process. “We have pan seared duck over a citrus kale salad”

He couldn’t help but frown slightly down at the dish, furrowing his brows as he asked “where’d you find all this?”

“Over at mine” You answered simply, avoiding his gaze as you started to assemble a plate “stole the spare I gave you and popped over to raid the fridge”

And god did he not want to let that go, to tell you how unnecessary, how dumb it was to risk something like running into the guy who has your keys for some ingredients. To tell you that if you wanted food he would have gladly sent you back with his credit card.

But for the first time since his shift had started you seemed lighter. There was more ease in each of your smiles, a soft sway in your hips to the music, a happiness in your expression as you carefully arranged the food on the plate. He realized that he couldn’t ruin it.

Instead, he just watched as you assembled a bite for him. A ritual he was more than used to every time he was recipe testing for you. You always took the time to gather a bit of each component meant to go together in what you declared to be the perfect bite on a fork for him to try, always wordlessly passing the utensil over and looking up at him eagerly.

And every time he delayed taking that bite just a little. Taking the time to appreciate the way you looked up at him, eyes blown wide in anticipation, a small proud smile on your face as you waited patiently for him.

Taking the fork from you he brought it to his mouth. Biting down on your so-called perfect bite and finding himself completely unable to stop his entire expression from souring immediately.

Your face fell instantly, sending Robby into a tailspin as he desperately tried to quickly do damage control, speaking around the food still held in his mouth as he tried to force it down.

“no no it’s good” He chocked through the words, each coming out through a coughing fit as the food stuck to his throat.

He heard you snort loudly at that as you reached for a glass from the cabinet beside him and moved to fill it up with water “are you seriously trying to lie to me right now”

He gladly took the water from you, draining the glass quicker than he thought he was capable of, taking a deep breath once he finished, trying to force the memory of the dish from his palate as he forced a smile “I swear it’s not that bad”

You shook your head at him, lips still tilted up in amusement he was counting as a win “You are a dirty liar Michael Robinavitch”

He opened his mouth to respond, getting just a little too hung up on the way his name sounded in your voice, how soft, sweet, organic is sounded even as you teased him.

But you beat him to it, taking the fork and assembling a bite for yourself

“No I wouldn’t-“ he tried to interject but the utensil was in your mouth before he could stop you.

Immediately your face was puckering just as his did, wasting no time in bending over the sink and spitting the food out as he wordlessly filled a glass of water for you.

“Oh god what was that” you gasped out as you took the glass from him, downing the water in seconds and grimacing.

He couldn’t help but laugh at your expression, taking the now empty glass from you and putting it back on the counter.

“Oh my god and you swallowed that are you okay?” You were reaching for him before he could react, hands coming up to his forehead to check his temperature only making him laugh harder as his hands came up to encircle your wrists, holding them there rather than pull them away.

“I think I’ll pull through”

You pulled your arms from his grasp with a snort, turning back to your pages of notes. “I just don’t understand why it was so acidic. What the fuck kind of lemons do you keep here?”

“Here?” He asked “you found a lemon here?”

You furrowed your brow up at him, pausing your search as you answered “yeah. Lemon in your fridge”

He simply shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest, “I don’t think I’ve ever bought a lemon before”

You didn’t seem to know how to answer that for a second, your mouth opening and closing as you processed his words “you and I are going to talk about your lack of citrus appreciation at some point, but better question right now is if you didn’t buy the lemon how’d it get there”

He thought back briefly, the only logical answer coming to him and making him regret having to admit it “I think I bought a lime once”

“Michael”

The way you sighed his name like that almost made it worth it. The subtle uptick in the corners of his mouth spurring you on.

“Michael how long ago”

He chuckled at that, running a sheepish hand through his hair as he grimaced.

“Michael no”

“I mean it couldn’t have been that long ago”

“It was yellow!”

“I feel the bigger issue here is you can’t tell the difference between a moldy lime and a lemon”

“I thought it was just an old lemon!” and you were laughing again, Robby happily drinking up the sound as the two of you turned to glare down at the admittedly beautiful duck that was now ruined. “Are we going to die?”

“No” he scoffed, taking the plate off the counter and making his way over to the garbage “probably not”

“Oh that’s reassuring”

He could only shrug in response, sending you a cheeky wink before dramatically tossing the whole dish into the trash.

You glared at him at that, crossing your arms over your chest even as a twinge of amusement danced over your expression “This is why Gloria is on you about your patient satisfaction scores just so you know”

He groaned at that, returning the plate to the sink to be washed “I knew putting you next to Dana this afternoon would be a mistake”

“Eh you’ll get over it fruitcake”

The pizza Robby ordered instead of your carefully prepared duck was delicious but you couldn’t help but note the theme of the day seemed to be you screwing things up and Robby swooping in to fix it. Always without question, always without judgement, always without any expectation of anything in return.

A petty part of you wanted to be annoyed about it, to keep score in your head of all the things he did for you so you could do something of equal value in return. A part of you wondered if that was why you felt the need do those small things for him today, fill up his car with gas, make him dinner, you already had a mental list of all the things he was starting to run low on in his cabinets for the next time you went grocery shopping.

But another part of you relished being taken care of like that. Relished being able to let go of the reins for just a little bit and trust someone else to steer you in the right direction. Another part of you knew that you liked being that person for him in return, liked making him smile as you did little things to make his life a little easier, liked knowing you knew him well enough to have that kind of impact.

You were glad now more than ever that Robby had never returned the book you left at his place from back when he was sick. Being able to curl up on his couch with a blanket and a cup of tea he had made you without even asking first was an exceptionally comfortable place to be.

There was no awkward tension between the two of you as he sat on the other side and read his book as well, no need on his part to try and host you and no need on yours to provide any sort of conversation. There was no expectation in the air, simply two people existing comfortably tangentially to one another.

You honestly weren’t sure how you were supposed to go back to your empty apartment after all this.

Robby hummed softly from the other side of the couch before closing his book, setting it on the coffee table, running a tired hand over his face as he sat up a little straighter.

“Bedtime?” You asked with a small smirk, watching him over the brim of your cup as you took a sip.

“Bedtime” he nodded affirmatively, pushing himself to his feet and giving his back a big stretch.

“Goodnight Robby” you hummed at him as you went back to your book, hearing a small huff of a chuckle escape him as he slipped past the couch back towards his room.

“I’ll let you have the room after I change” You paid no real attention to the words as he disappeared, letting your eyes skim over the words with no real thought before you heard the sound of his door open again a few minutes later, looking over your shoulder too see him standing in the doorway clutching a pillow and blanket he didn’t seem like he was giving up anytime soon.

His expression alone told you exactly what you needed to know “Absolutely not”

He chuckled at that, softly shaking his head as he made his way over to the couch “I knew getting you to agree blindly to it was too good to be true”

“Go sleep in your bed you psycho I’m fine on the couch”

He seemed to ignore the statement entirely as he set his pillow on the side of the couch he had been sitting earlier, “I’m turning off the lights in five minutes so I can sleep, it’ll be much easier to read if you’d just go in my room”

“It’d be much easier to sleep if you’d just go in your room” you countered, watching as Robby arranged the blanket over the part of the couch you weren’t sitting on with a small sigh, still refusing to acknowledge your words.

And a part of you felt a little guilty for fighting back, for always fighting back. He’d just gotten off a shift, a rather busy shift you interrupted by going to the Pitt without really needing to, the poor man needed sleep and though you weren’t willing to throw him out of his bed he clearly was just as unwilling to let you take the couch. This was a stalemate plain and simple.

“We could share?” You nearly cringed on the question as it came out, face starting to run hot as Robby froze on the spot as he processed the words, gaze snapping up suddenly to meet yours.

And maybe he could read just how stubborn you were going to be about this as well, maybe he came to the same conclusion as you did, because instead of pushing back like you almost expected him to he spoke “are you sure?”

“Yeah” you willed yourself to be normal about it, to be chill, to ignore the eagerness that edged your tone as the word spilled out of you “I’ve always wondered if I snore, be nice to have a witness”

He snorted at that with a fond shake of his head, taking a moment before bending down and picking back up his pillow and nodding back towards his bedroom “If the answers yes then I’m coming right back out here”

You smiled back at him as you set down your book, moving in front of him to his bedroom “oh that’s much nicer than what I’d do”

Chuckling as he placed his pillow back on one side of the bed, the two of you moved in a strange tandem, the ritual of pulling back the covers and getting ready beside one another feeling strangely familiar “and what does that mean?”

You sent him a cheeky wink as you got into bed and settled down on the pillows, watching as he made his way across the room to the light switch “don’t snore and you won’t need to find out”

With a shake of his head he took a second by the light switch, giving you a onceover from across the room with a soft smile before turning off the light and making his way back, the mattress dipping slightly as you felt him settle in beneath the covers.

And you couldn’t help but acknowledge how awkward the situation was starting to become even with how smoothly it had started. The two of you sharing a bed that easily fit you, a good amount of empty space between your two bodies, both of you terrified of breaching the others personal bubble.

You became cognizant of your very breath, sure that even performing that necessary bodily function could be felt by him.

“We should start at the DMV tomorrow”

The statement pierced through the silence suddenly, taking you so much by surprise all you could do was hum in response.

“To replace your license” his answer came simply, as if it were obvious “bank should probably be next. We can stop by your place in the morning to grab all your documents before we go”

And you couldn’t fully process his words in this moment. Couldn’t get past the one pronoun he had opened with “we?”

“Yeah I mean” You could feel him shrug more than see it in the dark “I’ve got the day off tomorrow”

“You’ve got the day off tomorrow?” You asked in genuine surprise “Since when?”

“Jeeze you have my whole schedule memorized?” Yes. The answer was yes. “Abbot owes me one, it’s no big deal”

You were pushing back before you could even think the words through “you don’t have to-“

“I want to”

A tense silence permeated the air. An unnatural stillness the words settled into. “They’re basic errands, it’ll be boring”

“Not if you’re there” and again the answer was so simple, so natural, so obvious.

You were moving before you could talk yourself out of it, acting purely on instinct rather than logic, on want rather than restriction.

Robby reacted on instinct as well, arm coming up and out of your way as you pushed yourself into his side, tucking under your neck as you slotted your head on his shoulder, placing one arm over his stomach and entangling your legs with his, giving the man a small squeeze in appreciation.

He froze as soon as you came into contact, muscles tensing beneath your touch as you settled into him, remaining like that just long enough to make you worry.

“I’m sorry is this-“ You started to pull away as you spoke, worried you had crossed some sort of line, worried you had ruined everything for yourself.

“No” the word left him quickly and maybe a bit to loud for the otherwise silent room, the arm under your head snapping into action to curl around you and pull you back into him, pressing your face softly into his chest “no it’s okay-it’s good”

Accepting that you tightened your hold on him and buried yourself a little further into the comfort, whispering into the dark room “Thank you Robby. For everything”

“It’s nothing” you could feel his voice rumble within him beneath your head, could feel yourself rise and fall with his chest with each breath.

“It’s not nothing” you protested softly, rubbing soft patterns into his side with your fingers “not to me”

There was nothing but silence in the air for the next few seconds, a weird feeling of vulnerability around you that you didn’t feel the need to shy away from, before you felt a soft kiss being placed onto the crown of your head, the arm wrapped around you tightening its hold.

“Anytime honey”

Final

#dr robby imagine #dr. robby x reader #dr robby x reader #fanfic #reader insert #the pitt fanfiction #the pitt x reader #the pitt x you #x reader #doctor robby x reader #doctor robby x you #dr. michael “robby” robinavitch x reader #dr. robby #dr. michael robinavitch #dr. robby imagine #michael robinavitch x reader

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dailydoseoffanfics · 4 months ago

Text

⭐️ SELF AWARE FORSAKEN AU (GENERAL HEADCANONS PT. 2)

⭐️ a/n: DARLINGGGGG GUESS WHO'S BACK FROM JAILLLLLLLLL /silly ASDFGHJKL ANYWAYS THIS IS PART 2 TO MY PREVIOUS HEADCANONS ! FEATURING ELLIOT, SHEDLESTSKY, GUEST 1337, 007N7 AND BUILDERMAN !!! I'LL LATER DO THE KILLERS PART !!! (FEATURNING ALL 4 :3)

⭐️ warnings: possible ooc

reader is gender-neutral so they/them pronouns are used !

(1) (2) <- you're here!

You're a really normal fan about a Roblox game called "Forsaken".......yeah.....totally a really normal and sane fan about that game. But lately, you've noticed something weird about the characters you're playing.

The characters have varying reactions into finding out they're being controlled by something....or someone (you).

⭐️

ELLIOT (MY SHAYLAAA)

Elliot was going on his way to confront Noob about their sudden increased weariness when he noticed Two Time walking down the hallway as Elliot was approaching Noob's room.

Elliot noticed Two Time looked....deep in thought. They aren't smiling, and their eyes are narrowed, looking down in the ground. It feels like they didn't even noticed Elliot bumping into them.

....Elliot just decides it's best to not disrupt them, and shakes his head. C'mon, focus Elliot!

Back to his original mission, Elliot goes to Noob's room, and asks them what's going on, and cracks some jokes here and there to calm Noob down a little.

Something's controlling Noob, and they know by feeling a type of warmth?

That's......concerning.

Elliot's concern grew when he noticed Two Time being....more unusual. Elliot would catch a glimpse of Two Time looking at nothing in particular, their face looking like they're deep in thought. Two Time isn't the only one deep in thought though, Chance seems to look like he's in the clouds as well.

Elliot frowns about his observations of his acquaintances. What is going on? Why are Noob, Two Time and Chance suddenly acting...off? Did it had something to do with this warm, controlling thing going on????

........Speaking of this controlling thing.

When a new round started after observing his acquaintances' weird behavior, which is just, y'know, the usual trying to restrain himself when any of his teammates ignored the pizza he threw at them, he immediately felt something.

The warmth. His arms losing control and a muffled voice.....are those white strings around his arms???

Elliot felt his soul left his body for a second before immediately snapping back. My man is trying SO hard to stay focused and calm, but right now, his mind is having a mantra of "WHAT THE FUCK".

Annnnd when the round ends, Elliot is still having his mantra of questioning what the hell just happened and who was that person as he lays on his bed. Holy shit, he just wants to reunite with his family and make customers happy again. WHAT MORE CAN HE ASK FOR?????

The more Elliot thinks about who was controlling him, the more sleep he loses.....well not like Elliot has a sleeping schedule, he usually just stays up at night, so I think you just made his insomnia worse 💀(Random head canon I have for Elliot is that he's insomniac. He just wants to see his father and his sister again. He's fr trying his best 💔💔💔)

Elliot is SPOOKED about that incident. And then he quickly realizes that "oh shit am i going to be controlled by some kind of person EVERY. SINGLE. FREAKING. ROUND?????"

Yeahhhh, Elliot's kinda scared of you, but that's only because he doesn't know if you're good or not. And if your behavior seems alright so far, Elliot still got some doubt inside of his mind, but his heart is telling him to trust you.

He could even throw a smile at you for your helpfulness! He noticed that he's getting less hits and stabs from the killers so far, and he shows his appreciation by looking at the screen, and giving you a warm smile. He even thanks you for your help.

.......The response was Elliot immediately losing the warmth. Elliot is caught off guard by this, but is immediately sad about it. Awh man, did he scare you? He hopes you'll come back soon.

Overall, the most STRESSED about this situation (for a while). When he first felt some type of force controlling him, Elliot is sweating BULLETS. But later, he appreciates your hard work and also wants to know you more. Even if he's still a little scared of you....

⭐️

SHEDLETSKY

Being a former admin, he noticed that something is off about his teammates.

Noob was usually scared, so Shedletsky didn't mind. But now? Noob is acting like the boogeyman actually got them or something!

Two Time? Creepier than usual. One time, when Shedletsky went into Two Time's room to ask them if they want to eat dinner tonight, he saw piles, and I mean, PILES of papers being everywhere. It looked like a tornado struck Two Time's room, and one of them has .....a person in it? With the other half of papers being filled with.... undecipherable handwriting. (But that's only because Shedletsky immediately shut the door the moment Two Time's eyes locked with his. So uh, he didn't had enough time to read about what Two Time's writing about.)

Elliot? Normally, Elliot was happy-go-lucky and always smiling. And now? Elliot seems to always have his mind somewhere, with a blank face on his face. For Robloxia's sake, he even forgot to make dinner one time!! (..Ehhhh, it's not like he was actually starving, he totally didn't eat some fried chickens earlier.)

Chance also seems to have their mind occupied with something. Yea, he's still smiling and having a big ego, but Shedletsky also noticed Chance looking at a window, thinking about....something.

Shedletsky's confused, and frustrated about the sudden weirdness of his teammates' behaviors. Seriously, what's going on with these people?

Shedletsky talks to Builderman about what's going on lately. Turns out, Builderman also noticed as well, but he also doesn't seem to know WHY his four teammates are acting like this.

Shedletsky's stumped about this. But depsite this, whatever's going on, Shedletsky WILL find out about it sooner or later, and Shedletsky WILL find a solution to whatever this problem is.

.....That's what he thinks at first. Because during a new round, while Shedletsky is brainstorming a plan about stunning the killer, he feels....warm. And his arms go limp before being picked up by....white strings?? And Shedletsky thought that somebody laced his fried chickens with some kind of drug, because he heard a voice, despite the voice being....far away.

At first, Shedletsky tried to ignore it by saying some few jokes. Something like, "oh hahaha can't be that bad...." until his legs jerk forward, a movement that was NOT something he was in control of. Shedletsky got GOOSEBUMPS after that. Bro went "OH HELL NAH I'M NOT DEALING WITH THIS 😭😭"

Would try to cut off the strings with his sword LMAO. Meanwhile in your POV, you're just wondering why Shedletsky is trying to cut air.

When the round ends, Shedletsky wastes no time into checking his admin logs, yes he still has the commands. He's searching the logs PRECISELY, wondering who was controlling him, thinking you're some kind of hacker or exploiter.

Despite his bestest efforts, Shedletsky found nothing. Shedletsky lets out a groan of frustration, and immediately reports this encounter to Builderman.

Yeah, no. Whoever you are, Shedletsky is gonna FIGHT BACK. He thinks you're up to no good, and doesn't trust you AT ALL....at first.

For some reason, Shedletsky decided to do some kind of test of just letting you do whatever you want with him, and yea, he knows this idea has high risks, and pretty dumb, but he's going to only do this ONCE.

And YOU'RE actually......somewhat nice? Your voice is still muffled, but he could've sworn he heard a "sorry" when he got hit. You found a medkit, and even healed him.

.....Yeah he still doesn't trust you. What if you're just doing to make him trust you? So that you can betray him and torture him forever?

But eventually, if you still continue to be nice to him, his doubts will slowly melt, and he'll trust you eventually. He'll say some dialogue about thanking you for your hard work if you stun a killer (which you question if that dialogue was official or there is something wrong with your device) and when he's feeling goofy, he'll look at the screen with his epic face, while having finger guns pointing at you (or so what it looks like since he technically doesn't have fingers).

BRUH, WHY ARE YOU STILL PLAYING THIS GAME DESPITE THESE CHARACTERS SAYING THOSE THINGS THAT YOU SURE AREN'T IMPLEMENTED??? You thought to yourself as you saw what Shedletsky did, instantly leaving the game.

....Well damn. But Shedletsky knows you'll come back eventually, so he waits for you. And when you come back and play as him, he's going to ask some questions here and there.

........You meekly replied to some of his questions. Honestly, you're already mentally unstable in a way, so I guess there's no harm into answering these questions???

Even if your voice is muffled, Shedletsky turns his head away from your view, as he quietly cheers. "Score!" He says in his mind.

Overall, I think Shedletsky's mind will be between "Hahahha what will this person do i ain't scared (he is..kinda) 🤣🤣🤣🤣" and "oh shit what if this person is actually bad....", so erm, yea, he will be ON EDGE with you at first. But over time, he wants to know more about you, so he starts making jokes and casually talking to you like you've been his best friend for 10 years. He's definitely gonna yap about you to Builderman, and tells Builderman to trust you since he's CERTAIN you're a good person!!! (Builderman ain't buying it 💀)

⭐️

BUILDERMAN

Shedletsky's been talking about you for a while. Builderman wouldn't really mind if he knew you actually had, y'know, GOOD INTENTIONS.

Builderman reminds Shedletsky to not trust too easily, you never know. Shedletsky would agree....and then the next day talk about you again. Builderman would sigh at that.

Yeah, Builderman had been noticing something was going on with his teammates. It seems that Shedletsky seems to be under your influence as well.

Even if Shedletsky reassures him that you're a good person, Builderman is the boss of ROBLOX after all, so he'll be stubborn and won't trust you. He ain't budging.

....That's what Builderman thought at first. He knows the drill by now. He knows that the player is controlling someone by the strings (I'll make a separate post about the white strings cuz y not) and feeling a strong warmth, so he prepares for you to control him.

No matter how mentally and physically prepared he is, he still feels his skin crawling when his limps are wrapped around the white strings and hearing your voice that sounds mumbled. All of it just feels.....alien to him. So foreign. So.....unusual. So he doesn't try to resist you.

He wants to trust you, and I guess he is, kinda? I mean, he still would be on edge around you, but over time, he'll be more.... neutral about your presence. He guesses that Shedletsky was right after all. You don't seem too bad.

As long as you're nice and you showed that you have no harmful intentions, Builderman will be chill about you, and throws you a quick smile at your screen if he survives a round.

....You don't close your game this time. You've just....kinda accepted it at this point. (Builderman is secretly giddy about that, but he won't let you show his joyful face.)

Overall? Builderman WILL be more skeptical of you than Shedletsky, but don't worry, he'll be comfortable in your presence eventually. (Man, I think Builderman has like the least amount of headcanons... 😭)

⭐️

GUEST 1337 (i'll just call him by Guest in this post) (also fun fact: i actually had to watch the movie for the first time to try to make him more in character.....yeah i know, i missed out 😭)

Guest will eventually found out about this "controlling force" going on. He gets along with all of the survivors, so he's bound to know about it.

Initially? Guest is immediately on guard. What do you mean there's someone out there that is controlling them? How are we even certain that they're even good?

NGL, I feel like he would disapprove of Shedletsky and Builderman seemingly being positive towards you. C'mon, both of them are like, the higher beings of ROBLOX. But he keeps it to himself and doesn't say anything.

But what do you expect from a man who witnessed his parents get killed by one of the members of the Bacon Terrorist Organization, was in military, and had to sacrifice himself to defeat the Bacons? He doesn't even know if he'll ever see his family and his friend again. He's canonically stated to be the "no-nonsense type of person". He WILL not trust you in the beginning.

That's just because that's how he is. Adding on from what I said earlier, he learned that naivety will get him nowhere, so he'll always be on guard whenever he meets someone new.

He also already knows the drill by now. He overheard Shedletsky talking about feeling a strong type of warmth when you're being controlled, so he's READY.

And when he DOES feel the strong warmth and his limbs being wrapped around by the white strings, he.....surprisingly doesn't try any attempts to resist. He's just staring at the ground, and later looks at your screen.

...Well, Shedletsky did mention you didn't seem to be a bad person, so he'll let his guard down...for now.

So Guest just lets out a sigh and tells you to do whatever you want with him. And you obliged.

And...oh wow. Not even one teammate died. Even if one of them got injured, he could sense that you're genuinely trying your best, with the evidence being your voice letting out quiet squeaks of "sorry" and bodyblocking Elliot.

Guest feels......relieved in a way, and also feels a bit of happiness....but those emotions immediately dissolve when his paranoia logical side reminds him that you could be tricking the survivors, including him.

....And he's immediately on guard again. When the round ends, he's standing near a wall, with his arms crossed and his eyes gazing at the floor. You were truly an enigma. How would he exactly sure that you're a good person? And what even exactly are you?

Ehhhh, he's just generally protective. He'll learn to not hold grudges against you and will warm up to you. That's what you expected after all. But you were kinda expecting Guest to continue not trusting you, so this was a pleasant surprise for you.

Overall? Yeah he would definitely be the LEAST trustful about you in the beginning, so also give him some time to trust you. But like the other survivors, he'll warm up to you eventually. Might even defend you if anybody's talking shit about you.

⭐️

007N7

He already knew everything. He watched everything from the sidelines. He saw how his teammates were talking about this "person". About how they're controlling them.

However, 007n7 seems to be a special case. His first thought of you wasn't fear or distrust, it was....interest.

As in like, he was at first curious about you. I feel like he would be the person to ask the most questions. He's definitely going to yap to you A LOT.

However, he noticed that you didn't even try him once. So naturally, 007n7 just feels.....insecure. He thinks that his skills are "useless", which is why you don't play him. Or you might even hate him. Yeah, it's probably.

He's trying to think positively, reassuring himself that you don't seem to be the type of person to say like that. He's heard of the survivors talking positively about you!

But considering that he's an outcast of the group.....yeah, I don't he'll hold up these positive thoughts for long. The negativity will get to him 💔

BUT ONE FAITHFUL DAY, where a new round started, and during that round, he expected you to not play as him, so he just walks around, searching for a generator.

But his walking suddenly halts. And he feels....warm. And---oH SHIT, HE'S GOT STRINGS ON HIM.

007n7 was alarmed at first, but it quickly turns into disbelief.

But not in a way "OMG PLZ DON'T HURT ME 😰😰😰😰" it's more in a "....you actually wanna play as me??? fr"

(GIVE THIS MAN MORE LOVE HE'S BEEN THROUGH A LOT 💔💔💔💔💔)

His mind is running around circles about you actually playing as him, while you wanted to try something new, so you decided to play as 007n7 for a bit.

When the round ends, he runs off to the ocean where the fisherman resides, as his brain keeps replaying that interaction he had with you.

He knows that he's being too hopeful, too..... delusional. But despite these thoughts, you actually made him happy in a way, so yey :D

Overall? 007n7 the second chillest about this situation. He also wants to interact with you more, but sometimes, his insecurity will get the best of him 💔

#💫🌈📝 starbles' writing #OHHH MY GODDD IT'S FINALLY DONE #forsaken x reader #forsaken #elliot x reader #shedletsky x reader #builderman x reader #guest 1337 x reader #i guess??? he has a wife but we can just ignore it lol #007n7 x reader #killers are next stay tuned !!!!!!#you can tell i'm running out of ideas LMAO #⭐️ self aware forsaken au

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beggamoth · 23 days ago

Text

The First Supper

Contains gooning material

summary | your boyfriend introduces you to his dysfunctional family on the holiday dinner. and later fucks you in his childhood bed.

pairing | aegon II targaryen x fem!reader

tags | modern au!westeros. TEAM GREEN CENTERED!!! TW! mentions of substance use and alcohol. p in v sex, tiddy sukkin, breeding kink (like 2 sentences), body worship, not proofread. very chopped english. contains one (1) succession reference.

wordcount | 5k

any kind of feedback is highly appreciated!

Aegon Targaryen had learned many forms of dread: waking up on some stranger’s yacht with a black eye and no pants, the trembling hours after an Instagram DM slide turned into a PR disaster, the slow realization he’d lost his phone in Flea Bottom again.

But nothing compared to this: bringing you home.

His girlfriend, the apple of his eye, the loveliest but probably the dumbest person he’s ever met – because about a year ago you stayed for breakfast against all better judgement, now sat beside him on the backseat of his overpriced, over-compensatory car. He wore sunglasses despite the sun long having set, chewing a toothpick like it would protect him from the chaos of his lineage. Aegon loved his family, truly, irrevocably, in this desperate way that he would not admit when he’s sober and not actively dying. However, it never saved him from secondhand embarrassment in front of other people. In front of you. Fear that you’ll see the root of his fuckedup-ness and run away before mom showed you his baby photos or Aemond quoted mistakes from his college application letters while balancing dagger on his finger or something equally menacing.

“You can still run,” he whispered, voice low, eyes sparkling with that Aegon Targaryen deflectionary charm, one foot twitching like he might join her. “They’ll just assume you were imaginary. Like the others.”

You smiled. Didn’t say anything. Just touched his hand, grounding. Which was horrifying. No one grounded Aegon. He was a helium balloon with a coke problem.

The house looked like a mausoleum that had discovered central air. Columns. Gargoyles. A fire pit for some reason. The dinner table was long and cold and ancient, with enough chairs for dead ancestors.

Alicent Hightower—matriarch, corporate priestess, human dagger—greeted you at the door. She kissed Aegon’s cheeks and murmured, disapprovingly:

“You’re late,”

“Hello to you, mother. I am alive and that’s what matters most,” he returned, deadpan.

Helaena sat already in her chair, bent over a plate of untouched salad, murmuring something to a beetle in a decorated mason jar filled with leaves and earth she’d brought inside her oversized knit bag. Aemond stood by the wine bar, pouring himself a generous glass of red like it was blood and he needed it to survive. His eyepatch was a matte black strip, thick like the band of a designer watch.

Aegon cleared his throat. “Everybody, this is…” He trailed off, not saying her name, because he liked the sacredness of keeping her outside them for just a minute longer. “My—uh, actual girlfriend. As in, not part of a monthly rotation.”

Aemond’s lip curled in an approximation of a smile. “Brave girl.”

Helaena looked up, dreamy-eyed. “You’re not a cricket, but you’re nice. I think that’s better.”

You blinked. “Thank you?”

“Please sit,” Alicent said, motioning like a museum docent pointing toward an uncomfortable mid-century chair. “I made roast duck.”

“She means she hired someone to make roast duck,” Aegon whispered across the table, leaning in with a conspiratorial grin. “Last time she cooked, the smoke alarm wept.”

“You lit the oven with a match, Aegon,” Alicent replied, cutting her duck with surgical precision. “It was an electric oven.”

“And yet the house remains,” he said, lifting his glass in toast. “To sacred days and improbable survival.”

The conversation was a seesaw from the start. Alicent asked poised questions — “What are your views on career longevity?” and “Do you find monogamy restrictive or grounding?” — while maintaining direct eye contact like she was mining for weaknesses. You answered sweetly, self-assured, and that only made Alicent’s fork movements more deliberate.

“So,” Aemond said, swirling his wine, with a tone of a resting anime villain. “What exactly is your angle here?”

“Excuse me?” you asked.

“Dating my brother. There must be a reason. He’s… entertaining, sure. But like a street performer. You don’t usually take them home.”

“Aemond,” Alicent said in her best controlled warning voice.

“No, no, let him speak,” Aegon said, grinning like a wolf who’d spotted a fresh kill. “Go on, brother, tell us how you really feel.”

Aemond turned to their guest again. “Just trying to understand the strategic advantage.”

“She’s not a treaty, you sociopath,” Aegon snapped. “She’s a human.”

“She’s someone you brought into this,” Aemond replied, voice cool. “She’s now part of the chessboard.”

Helaena clapped softly. “I like chess. But the pieces scream if you listen too close.”

There was a pause.

“Right,” Aegon muttered, dragging a hand through his hair. “Family dinner’s going great, by the way. No notes.”

The duck was overcooked, but nobody mentioned it.

Midway through, the Dornish wine loosened things. Alicent began reminiscing about the children's baptisms. “Aegon fell into the fountain during his own. Completely naked, waving his arms like Neptune risen.”

“Big dick energy,” Aegon muttered.

“Aegon!” Alicent hissed.

“You walked in on me doing coke off a Dorne-themed map once, mother. I think we’re past the point of clutching pearls.”

Aemond chuckled darkly. “That was a good party, though.”

“That was your graduation dinner,” Alicent snapped.

“Ah, right,” Aemond said, smiling thinly.

You had stopped eating, watching them all like you’d just stumbled into a live taping of a psychological experiment. Aegon leaned toward you, hand sliding to rest on your thigh beneath the table, fingers warm and tense.

“See?” he murmured. “You thought I was exaggerating.”

You smiled faintly, leaned back, and squeezed his hand under the cloth. “You didn’t say enough.”

The fire crackled like an old secret refusing to die, its orange light spilling across the rug in soft, uneven pulses. The rest of the house had finally fallen quiet—Aemond had vanished upstairs, Helaena had wandered off with her insects and half a plate of cookies, and Aegon had gone outside for a cigarette that had already turned into twenty minutes of pacing on the patio. That left you alone in the parlor with Alicent, who had sat down with you like it was a business meeting and then, somewhere around her third glass of Dornish red, had begun to unravel with the delicate slowness of a tapestry snagged on a nail.

“-he was a colicky baby, actually,” she was saying now, staring into the fire. “Cried for hours. Nights without sleep, days feeling like one. I remember pacing the nursery barefoot, praying to the Mother to take pity and just let him rest. Let me rest.”

You were perched on the edge of the settee, warm but rigid, hands wrapped around your glass as if etiquette were the only thing keeping you upright.

“And yet, he had the most beautiful eyes, even then. Wide and accusing, as though he knew I was bluffing.” Her voice shifted, softening, but not quite tender. “He wouldn’t be soothed unless I rocked him for hours in certain way. He was peculiar even as an infant. Difficult, obstinate. Desperate to be seen, and terrified of what it meant.”

A silence fell, not awkward but immense. She poured another inch of wine into her glass but didn’t drink from it. Her fingers tightened around the stem.

“Aemond was quieter,” she continued, tone almost academic again. “He watched more than he spoke. Methodical, intense. I put on a cassette with war documentaries; it was the only thing that made him sleep through the night. Conquest was his favorite.”

Another pause.

“And Helaena,” she said, almost to herself, “was my little oracle. Always murmuring things I didn’t quite understand. I thought perhaps I’d broken her somehow. That I’d missed the right formula—too little affection, too much structure. But she would hold my hand without warning. Press her forehead to mine and say, ‘You’re trying so hard, Mother. I see you.’”

The wineglass trembled. She set it down with perfect precision, but her voice faltered.

“I see them, you know,” she whispered, almost in awe. “Even now. Children in grown bodies, staggering under all this inheritance—expectation, silence, disappointment. My legacy is restraint. I gave them rules where they needed sanctuary.”

She pressed her thumb to her lip, as if trying to hold back something spilling from within. Her eyes were glassy now, faraway and full. She didn’t blink.

“Aegon,” she said at last, like dropping a stone in still water, “was always so loud. Laughing when he should’ve listened. Mocking what he feared. He’d drink from the decanter in my office and pretend I hadn’t noticed. Pretend I wasn’t watching him become a man too quickly and in the wrong direction. And I-I told myself he’d grow out of it. That indulgence was just adolescence.”

The firelight licked the edge of her profile, catching on a tear she didn’t brush away.

“I don’t know when I started praying for him to just… stop.” Her voice cracked. “To pause. To be still, or sober, or steady, or anything at all. I thought I was asking for peace. But what I wanted—what I want—is for him to be whole.”

She turned fully toward you then, tear-streaked and composed in the most terrifying way, like a statue discovering it could bleed.

“And I see that, now,” she said softly. “With you.”

Your throat was too tight to respond.

“I know what it is to be needed in all the wrong ways,” she said. “Don’t mistake your influence for obligation. He’s exhausting. They all are. If he makes you feel small — leave. If he forgets to love you properly, remember him once, and then go. He deserves more than that. So do you.”

You nodded, not trusting your voice.

“But,” she added, with the smallest laugh, “should you choose to stay... then know that you have done what I could not. And for that-” Her mouth trembled. “For that, I thank you.”

She wept then, silently, the way people do when they’ve forgotten how to ask for help and yet still need to. No wracking sobs, no theatrical moan — just tears, like a cathedral window cracking under centuries of sun.

You reached across the small distance between you and took her hand.

She didn’t flinch.

The hallway outside his old bedroom smelled faintly of dust and lavender polish. The door was ajar, light leaking out across the carpet like a secret trying not to be noticed. You nudged it open.

Aegon was sitting on the edge of the bed, one leg jiggling, a cigarette smoldering in the saucer of a decorative plate that probably once held communion wafers or mints.

He looked up when you stepped in and immediately smiled. Too wide, too bright.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite hostage,” he said, spreading his arms. “Survived the dinner. You're basically family now. We’ll get your blood tested and your name embroidered on a handkerchief.”

You said nothing, just moved to him. He opened his arms wider and pulled you in like gravity had claimed him.

“God,” he breathed against your temple, swaying you side to side in a lazy, slow-rocking motion that wasn’t dancing and wasn’t stillness either. “You’ve got no idea. You’ve really got no fucking idea.”

You didn’t ask. You didn’t need to.

His arms stayed tight around your waist, like he thought you might float into the walls like one of the ghosts haunting the Red Keep. He kissed the side of your head and held it there for a beat too long, breath warm, uneven.

“I don’t deserve this,” he said, quieter now, like confessing to a priest he didn’t believe in. “You. The way you looked at me across that table like I was worth something. That’s not—”

He laughed suddenly, sharp and empty. “Shit, this is where I’d normally spiral and drink myself into a blackout, but I left the minibar behind.”

You curled your fingers into the back of his shirt, and he sighed against you, breathing you in like oxygen had gone extinct everywhere else.

“God, you’re good,” he whispered. “You’re so good it makes me want to fuck you stupid just so I feel like we’re on the same playing field again.”

You leaned back just slightly, caught his smirk creeping in again — cracked at the edges but real, boyish and obscene in the same breath.

“I mean,” he said, tilting his head toward the pillow behind him, “technically speaking, I did just introduce you to the best half of my disfunctional dynasty, and I think it’s only fair you now get fucked in the same bed where my psyche was molded.”

You raised an eyebrow.

He grinned wider, biting his lip, hand sliding down to your hip. “C’mon. It squeaks like hell and the headboard is definitely haunted by my teenage shame. Makes it more fun.”

He laid you back on the mattress without waiting for the verbal approval — soft and too old, springs squeaking in protest under your weight, the sheets smelling like dust and nostalgia. His room preserved adolescent riot in the perfect order: same posters peeling on the wall, same scratch in the headboard from where he’d thrown a tantrum and cracked it with a metal lighter. He crawled over you with all the grace of a boy who knew how to fuck but never quite learned how to feel safe doing it.

“God, you on this bed,” he murmured, sinking down onto his elbows above you, eyes flicking over your face like he was memorizing a crime scene. “This bed’s seen everything. My whole goddamn life.”

You looked up at him, blinking slow, lips parted.

“I mean it. I cried here. Bled here once. Smoked my first cigarette under the blanket with the window cracked like an idiot. Jerked off so much the sheets got crusty.” He laughed under his breath, nose brushing yours, so close his breath hit your lips.

He kissed your cheek. Then your other. Then the tip of your nose.

“Nothing’s ever felt like this though. Like... like this is it. This is the way the circle closes.”

You blinked up at him again, breath caught halfway in your chest.

He kissed your forehead, thumb tracing along your jaw. “Perfect,” he whispered. “You’re just... perfect. Pretty little thing in my arms like some gift the gods decided I didn’t deserve but gave me anyway because they were bored.”

His hands slipped under your shirt, dragging it up slow, lips skimming your collarbone. When he got to your breasts, he made a sound like prayer, open-mouthed, hungry, tongue tracing a slow wet arc around your nipple before he sucked it into his mouth with a low, appreciative groan.

You slapped him lightly on the shoulder with a laugh, half breathless. “You’re a fucking menace.”

He just grinned around your skin, pulled back with a wet pop and looked up at you, flushed and amused and too in love for his own good.

“We should get married,” he said, like he was suggesting pizza for dinner.

You snorted, brushing hair from his eyes. “Right now? After dinner with your terrifying family?”

“Exactly,” he said, nodding like it all made perfect sense. “It would be the equivalent of the thing where I abduct you and force you to live with me, except you’d say yes and I wouldn’t get arrested.”

You stilled beneath him, caught on the word. “That’s not an equivalent.”

He grinned wider, not moving, not apologizing. “Semantics.”

His hands found your hips and pulled you closer, grinding against you just enough to make the air thin between your lungs.

“I’m not saying now,” he said, kissing down your stomach. “I’m just saying. Think about it. We’d make headlines. Or history.”

“Or orphans,” you muttered.

He laughed against your skin, kissed lower, bit at the waistband of your jeans. “Depends how the kids turn out. You know, destructively perfect like us. Full set of teeth and all the wrong ideas.”

“You are not breeding me,” you said flatly.

“We’ll negotiate,” he replied, tugging your pants down with both hands and pressing a kiss just above your hipbone, smug and entirely too fond.

Your shirt was somewhere on the floor, or maybe it had never existed at all — lost to the ether the second Aegon got his hands under it, mouth hungry and reverent. His palms squeezed your breasts as if testing fruit from the market for ripeness, for bruised sides - and finding none. His hair fell in messy strands over his forehead, and he didn’t even try to push it away — he was too focused, too transfixed.

“By the Seven,” he muttered, voice thick with awe, “I could write epics about these.”

You laughed, arching your back slightly as he licked a slow line from the underside of your left breast up to your nipple. “You’ve said that before.”

“Yes, but I meant it with less grandeur then,” he replied, nuzzling the soft curve of flesh with his nose. “These—these are not mere tits. Nay. These are alabaster domes fit for the kings.”

You snorted. “Aegon—”

“Silence, wench,” he cut in, mouth already moving to your other breast. “Let me sing praises unto thy silken orbs.”

“Silken what?”

He lifted his head, eyes fever-bright, solemn like a knight swearing fealty. “Twin orbs of fortune! Bountiful ye stand—lo! Like the hills of Valyria, yet untouched by fire or Doom.”

You giggled, breathless now, one hand in his hair. “You’re such a perv.”

“And proud!” he declared, before latching onto your nipple again, sucking it into his mouth with a wet, obscene moan that vibrated through your ribcage. “Mmmf, fuck. I’d suck these till dawn if you let me. Maybe longer. Like a cursed sailor with the sirens’ song trapped in his throat.”

“Do sirens have tits?”

“I dunno, but yours are better anyways,” he said immediately, one hand now palming your breast, thumb circling slow and firm, the other pinching lightly at the sensitive skin underneath. “Gods, these are too good for me. You're right. I'm a perv. A wretched man.”

You laughed again, helpless, as he bit down just slightly, then soothed the sting with a warm, open-mouthed kiss.

“D’you think they feel it?” he asked suddenly, pulling back just an inch. “The gods. When I do this?”

“When you suck at my tits?”

He nodded solemnly. “I imagine the Stranger flinches. The Crone turns away. But the Mother…” He winked. “The Mother approves.”

“You’re disgusting,” you murmured, pulling him back up by the collar of his wrinkled shirt, kissing him hard, teeth clashing, tongues lazy and warm.

“I am,” he agreed, mouth still half on yours. “And these…” his hands squeezed your breasts again, reverently, “…these are the holy texts.”

He wasn’t seducing you. Aegon moved like a creature crawling back into the dark warmth of its den, needy and desperate. His body covered yours without elegance, hips flush to yours, breath hot and impatient, grunts leaving his throat. This wasn’t about performance, not for him. He didn’t care if it was pretty. He didn’t care about lighting or timing or the way the bed creaked with every push of his knee.

He needed.

His fingers were already between your legs, not gentle, not rough—just there, desperate, sliding through folds still damp with arousal and lazy warmth. It had been a long day. You hadn’t showered. The room smelled like sweat, a little like wine and dust from the heavy old duvet that had seen too many years folded under the weight of his adolescence. But none of it stopped him. If anything, it pulled him deeper.

“Mmm, fuck,” he murmured into your throat, one finger sinking inside you with a slick, gluttonous sound, followed by a second almost immediately after. He didn’t tease, didn’t ask. He just pressed in deeper, jaw clenching, like he could bury himself whole if he pushed far enough. “Warm. Fuck, you’re so warm.”

His hips rolled against the side of your thigh, mindlessly, cock stiff in his boxers and grinding into your skin as if by accident. His face was half-buried in your neck, one cheek pressed against your collarbone while his free hand cupped your breast again like it grounded him. He moaned, like he felt it all in his chest.

He moved down your body, dragging his face against your skin like a dog burrowing under a blanket. No buildup, no foreplay, no clever lines. Just need. By the time he got between your legs, he wasn’t saying anything at all. He spread you with both hands, fingers slick from what he’d already taken, and looked at you with glassy, wild eyes.

And then he dove in.

No ceremony. No teasing. Just his tongue pushing against your folds, mouth dragging open kisses that were all spit and breath, his nose nudging into the mess as if the smell didn’t just not bother him — it wrecked him. He moaned against your cunt like he was the one being touched, face grinding into you, licking with a fast, needy rhythm that bordered on frantic.

You shifted beneath him, trying to catch your breath, but he didn’t slow. He grunted against your pussy, muffled and sloppy, wet sounds filling the room along with the creaking of the bed as he adjusted himself, rutting his cock into the mattress.

You carded your fingers into his hair and tugged—not harsh, just enough to make him pause and look up. His mouth and chin were slick, red, nose shiny, eyes hazy.

He looked dazed. Grateful.

And then he was crawling back up, yanking his boxers down to his knees, not even bothering to fully strip. His cock slapped against your thigh, hot and hard and leaking, and he lined it up with one hand, the other braced by your head as he panted.

“I… fuck, I’m not gonna last. I just-” he groaned, sliding in, slow but deep, teeth bared, eyes fluttering shut. “Just wanna be inside. Just wanna feel you.”

The bed moaned beneath you both, the smell of dust and sweat and old cotton rising with every sharp thrust, but you didn’t care. He was fucking into you like it was the only place he’d ever felt safe. Like your cunt was a mouth swallowing his past, his shame, the echo of every mistake he never fixed.

His rhythm was fast, greedy. Not cruel. Just desperate. Like he was afraid you’d vanish if he stopped.

“You feel so — fuck — you’re real,” he gasped, hips stuttering, face buried against your shoulder again. “You’re fucking real. I’m gonna—god, I can’t-”

You dug your nails into his back, and he came with a choked-off moan, cock pulsing inside you, his whole body tense like a drawn bowstring. He didn’t pull out. Didn’t move. Just held you close, panting, face buried against your skin, breath shaking like something had cracked open inside him.

He wasn’t seductive.

He was starving.

He started humping like he couldn’t help himself—his body moving in lazy, dragging thrusts, not fully withdrawn, just rocking into you again and again with the heavy pressure of someone not trying to impress, only trying to get as deep as his hips would let him. His cock wasn’t long. But it was thick, undeniably so — meaty and blunt and sheathed in soft skin that caught just a little when he shifted, every push nudging against sensitive walls with a wet, sloshing noise that was growing louder by the second.

It wasn't even rhythm, not really. More like instinct. Animal persistence.

And you could feel all of him — his weight settling harder with every grind, lean now, but not built for delicacy. His back was tight, sinewy under your palms, but his hips already carried the heaviness of future stock. You could tell. One day, he’d be broad in a way that left no room for fragility. Not like Aemond, who was build like a twink, for the lack of better wording. Aegon would always be warm, solid, heavy, with his own center of gravity.

His cock dragged slow inside you again, thick enough that your cunt squelched, loud and obscene, and that made him pause—just a second. His eyes lit up.

“Oh my fucking gods,” he breathed, blinking down at the place where you were joined. Another slick, sucking noise followed as he shifted his hips and sank deeper, groaning. “You hear that?”

You rolled your eyes and tried to breathe through the pressure.

But he grinned, still moving, just a little, the rhythm getting messier. “She’s talking,” he said, breathless, high on it. “Your pretty cunt’s got opinions. Listen to her—”

And then, in the dumbest, shrillest falsetto he could manage, he imitated the noise:

“Y-yes daddy,” he squeaked, barely moving his lips as if the sound were coming straight from your pussy. “Yes daddy your dumpy little cock makes me feel so gooooood—!”

You burst out laughing so hard it broke the tension in your spine. He didn’t stop humping. In fact, your laughter just made it worse—made him grin harder, eyes bright and fucked-out, sweat beading on his brow.

“Wait wait—wait listen, she’s got more to say,” he gasped between thrusts, voice still in that high, quivering pitch as he shoved in again, the noise even wetter now.

“Ohh ohhh mister Targaryen sirrrr, put a fucking ring on me so I can be your officially betrothed cum dumpster—”

You hit his shoulder, laughing too hard to breathe. “Stop it, you absolute degenerate.”

He didn’t. His hips kept grinding in little circles, his cock pulsing hard inside you with every lewd squelch. “She’s a talker,” he whispered, face buried in your neck now. “Gods, I love her.”

Another thrust. Another sound.

“You’re both so fucking loud,” he muttered, biting your ear with a grin. “I’m gonna end up worshipping you till my dick falls off.”

And then, against your throat, voice low again, amused and exhausted and real:

“But seriously. You make the best noises.”

He came with a grunt muffled into your neck, a low, clenching sound that pulsed straight through his stomach into yours. His cock went soft and limp inside you as he spilled, hips grinding through it with short, greedy thrusts like he couldn’t bear the thought of being apart from your body, not even for the second it would take to slip out. It was raw and slow and so fucking messy—your cunt wet and aching, stuffed full of him, every twitch of his cock inside sending another slick aftershock sliding down your thighs and onto the dust-worn sheets beneath.

He didn’t move for a long moment.

Just collapsed, half on you, half beside you, breathing hard, face flushed and damp with sweat, nose smushed against your collarbone. You could feel the stickiness between your legs spreading, cooling slowly in the heat of the room, and neither of you said anything about it. There was no point. He wasn’t going to apologize. You weren’t going to ask him to.

And then, without a word, he rolled off you, rummaged blindly through the drawer beside the bed—half hanging open, crammed with old cigarette packs, broken lighters, a sticky bottle of lube, and two AA batteries—and pulled out a knife. Just a small one, but sharp. Old. The tip was stained from when he used it to cut open a can of peaches at age sixteen because he was too high to find the can opener.

You watched, still sprawled half-naked on your back, lazy and glowing, legs spread just slightly where his cum still leaked from you.

He knelt up on the mattress, took a moment to push the headboard curtain aside, and began to carve.

Slow and deliberate, like he’d done it before. Like this wasn’t the first time his name was gouged into the furniture of this house.

“What are you doing?” you asked finally, voice thick and soft and lazy.

He didn’t stop. Didn’t even glance back.

“Making it official.”

You squinted. The headboard was ridiculously massive, a slab of carved oak that probably weighed more than both of you did and had stood through decades of moaning, crying, and solo existential crises. He carved your initials with care, a little heart, and then—beneath it, with exaggerated flare—wrote out in rough, slashing strokes:

Aegon II ❤️ [your name]

All the letters uneven. The heart skewed slightly to the left.

You raised a brow. “You could’ve just put A.T.”

He scoffed without turning. “There’s at least three fuckers in this cursed family whose names start with A.”

He finished the heart with a jab of the tip, tossed the knife onto the nightstand like he was done with all tasks for the day, then rolled back toward you with a smirk.

“You’re not getting confused and accidentally fucking Aemond in here someday. This-” he thumped the headboard with his palm, “-this says it was me.”

You laughed. “You really think Aemond would carve a heart?”

“Exactly,” he said, tugging you back toward him with that lazy, pervy grin, already burying his face in your shoulder again like he was winding down for round two or a nap. “He’d burn the whole bed before leaving a trace. I leave receipts.”

His cum was still dripping between your legs.

His name was now in the wood behind your head.

And he was already half-asleep, grinning into your skin like the animal he was, one arm heavy across your stomach, breathing all content and possessive.

“Aegon, second of his name,” you murmured.

He nuzzled you.

“Mhmm. That’s right.”

#hotd x you #hotd x y/n #hotd x reader #hotd smut #hotd modern au #aegon ii targaryen #hotd aegon #aegon the second #aegon x reader #aegon ii x you #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon targaryen ii #aegon smut

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hollandsfavbabe · 1 year ago

Text

Wet & Wild II

pairing: art donaldson x reader

synopsis: in which you, a swimmer, and art, a tennis champ, change each other's lives for the better when you challenge his match-like stance on life

warnings: SMUT, porn with a plot, sexually explicit language, cursing, oral sex (f receiving), p in v sex, nipple play, locker room sex, swimmer lingo

word count: 5.5k

part 1

tags💜: @midnightwrriting @no1runawaymilkdad @ihave-aboringlife @blahhucantmakeme @laniirackssss @blood-bloss @lmaoyani @geminiflanagansblog @ruyaas-world @hrlzy @povobsessed @stephstephstephsteph @chakin @10ava01 @lem0ns77 @velvrei @hdhdhdndhdndk

masterlist

a/n: sorry if the tags aren’t working, I tried to include everyone that wanted it. lmk if you have questions on anything. hope you enjoy!!

A week has passed since the last time you’d seen Art and you try to rid any thoughts of him from your mind as you enter the women’s locker room, the day so early that the sun has only just risen. You’d only spent a few hours with him, but he feels more important to you than a mere acquaintance, especially considering you’d let him have more of you than most people would ever get to. You try to tell yourself it won’t matter if he shows or not, but deep down you know that it will. Regardless, overthinking won’t help you in the water so you shove it down as you steadily pull on your tech suit, careful not to rip the delicate fabric. Your headphones are currently blaring your hype playlist in your ear, but you slide them off once you notice movement to your left as Chloe opens her own locker.

“You ready?” she asks you, pulling out her own racing suit from the depths of her swim bag.

“Not really,” you admit, giving up on stretching your tight suit to your full body frame for the time being as you opt for a tie-back bikini top instead. Your shoulders are ever so grateful. “I’m so nervous.”

“Why? Because of your race or your little tennis boyfriend?” she teases, lips quirking into a classic Chloe smirk. As your best friend, she was the first and only person you told about your interaction with Art at the party and, of course, she had been teasing you about it since. While during practice it was amusing, you are not in the mood for jokes right before a race, especially one of such importance.

You furrow a brow, shaking your head to signal that it’s not the time for such jests concerning the blonde. As the good friend that she is, Chloe immediately understands as she moves to help tie your suit straps, a simple task that you are unexpectedly failing at due to the pressure of the meet ahead of you.

“You’re going to do great,” Chloe comforts, placing an assuring hand on your shoulder once she’s finished with your straps. “I’m sure of it.”

“What if I don’t break the record?”

“Who cares? You can try again next time. If that’s the worst that can happen, you don’t have anything to be nervous about,” she smiles in assurance. “Besides that record is as good as yours -” she makes a gesture to your tech suit that has the most magical of time bending abilities if wielded by the right swimmer. “You’ve worked so hard for this. Nothing can stop you now.”

“Thanks Clo.” you grin at her appreciatively, and though your nerves don’t settle in the slightest, you feel more comfortable living in cohabitation with them now. They’re so much easier to manage when you’re not alone.

It’s only minutes before the rest of your team has arrived and you have hours before your event is scheduled to take place, yet it only feels like seconds before you’re being seated in the waiting room amongst your competitors, tech suit finally fully on. Rousing music plays through your headphones though you are sure to skip any songs that seem even the slightest bit romantic. You try to slip into the right headspace, the line between confident and cocky that has always aided you in not panicking just before you step up to the blocks in the past. You try to find it, using any method at your fingertips, but it’s no use. You can’t seem to find it no matter how hard you try and suddenly it feels as if the weight of the world is crashing down on you when the door opens and your event is called. You stand with the other women and together you line up behind the blocks.

The sun shines much higher up in the sky than it had been when you dove in during warm ups, blaring down to reflect off the red of your cap that bears the Stanford logo in white along with your last name. You take your rightful place behind the starting block of the middle lane, and though you already wrote your heat and lane in black sharpie on your forearm just to be sure, you can’t help but worry that you’ve already missed your race.

It’s only when the head announcer calls your event on the loudspeaker that you stop dwelling on it, her voice echoing through the stands that seem so much taller now that you're in the center with so much pressure resting solely on you. You rake though the rafters to your left, hoping to be comforted by the sight of Chloe or one of your other teammates until you realize that they are more than likely preparing for their own events in the warm up pool.

It's then, just when the swirling hurricane of emotions is hurtling toward you, that you see him. He’s seated in the first row, blonde curls circling his head like a golden crown and a wide smile lighting up his face when he sees that you’ve finally spotted him, one that you can’t help returning as he mouths sweet wishes of luck to you.

Art came. He actually came!

The storm subsides and all of a sudden you’ve lost all your inhibitions. Instead of buzzing anxiety, you are filled with a new light and the confidence of a record breaker. It’s all so clear with Art in the stands and as his presence wafts away your storm of worries, you come to the realization that you can do it. You know you can.

The whistle of an official blares through the speaker and on cue you slide on your goggles and mount the block. You’re really starting to feel the compression of your suit as you bend into your diving position, waiting for the magic words. The signal that it’s time to race and leave everything you have in the pool as you go.

“Swimmers, take your marks…”

You take one last breath before the sound blares and you dive off the block. It all comes naturally to you and with the help of your suit, you find yourself breaking out farther than ever before.

You only have a few strokes until you’re at the end of the pool when out of nowhere, the girl in the lane beside you starts to catch up to you until the two of you are neck and neck and it doesn’t escape your attention when she flips a split second before you’re able to.

You know it’s not about winning, you told Art that, but it’s as if a fire has been lit behind you and you’re suddenly determined to go for the gold. You push yourself harder than you ever have before and though you're not sure where the energy has come from, you know it’s exactly what you need. You’ve failed if you’re able to get out of the pool without stumbling.

Before long you catch up to the swimmer beside you, taking your first and only breath as you summon the last of your power, pushing through the water like a jet-ski. At once you’re behind the flags and unlike before, there’s no one beating you to the touch pad resting on the side of the ending wall as you slam your hand down and come up for air.

The crowd erupts with applause once you finish and at first you’re under the impression that it’s because of your win until your eyes glaze over at the scoreboard and nearly burst from your skull at the sight of the result.

You had accomplished your goal. There it was, a time faster than the Stanford record glowing right beside your name. But you didn’t just pass it by a few flimsy hundredths. Your new record was more than a second faster.

You can hardly believe it and you know if the proof weren’t right in front of you, there’d only be disbelief instead of this crashing wave of accomplishment and pride. Though you’re in severe oxygen debt from the race, you find yourself screaming in excitement at your gigantic accomplishment.

“We have a new record!” an official announces through the loudspeaker once the other girls have returned to the starting wall, followed by your name and new time. You search for Art again once you’re out of the water, all but failing to suppress your grin as you find him clapping in the stands and smiling down at you as if you were the most precious stone in the world.

Your teammates are filled with the same immense pride when you join them in the locker room once the meet is over. You’ve since changed from your tech suit, switching out the tight fabric for your cozy hoodie, tie-back bikini top, and a towel tied around your waist. The suit in question now hangs in your locker with the rest of your clothes that you had been in the middle of putting on before the congradulations began.

“I fucking told you!” Chloe shouts, clapping you on the back like you had just won the lottery. You imagine such a feat couldn’t match the pride you feel now.

You almost say that you can’t believe it, but the words stall on your lips. You actually can believe it, this is something you’ve been working tirelessly for. And now, after a long hard race, the record title is finally yours.

“Did I see a certain blonde in the audience?” Chloe smirks, nudging you as you wave goodbye to one of your other parting teammates.

“Maybe,” you drawl, trying your best to hide your growing grin, but the thought of the man makes you feel like flying through the air as year worth of buried emotions bubble up to the surface. You haven’t felt anything like this for a very long time.

“You know what that means…” Chloe whispers to you after you pull away from a hug with one of the other girls who like everyone else, is on her way out. The night’s party is being hosted at a house that’s a longer commute than usual in honor of the women’s tenth annual win and unlike your teammates, you aren’t in any hurry to get there knowing the a portion of the celebration will surround you.

“Drinks on you?” you guess, pretending you are clueless as to what she’s getting at. You hope it’s enough to deter her from whatever inevitably grotesque she’s about to say, but you know it’s to no avail as she laughs and shakes her head.

“Nice try,” she smiles, nudging you with her elbow. “I meant that he’s definetly going to fuck the shit out of you next time you see him.”

You cringe bashfully at her words, hitting her on the shoulder as she backs away from your shrunken form.

“Chloe!” you chide, though you both know no real anger lies within your tone. She’s been like this since the day you’d first met her: always the same old loving, indecorous Chloe.

“Just saying.” she shrugs before turning to say her goodbyes to the last lingering one of your other teammates.

You turn to open your locker, finally ready to change out of your damp towel until you’re startled by the clacking footsteps of unfamiliar tennis shoes heading in your direction. You assume it’s another random spectator who had bypassed the many signs clearly stating that the locker room is for athlete occupance only, but at once you find you’re very wrong when you turn to see who it is.

Art stands before you and though it was his decision to invade the women’s locker room, he looks as surprised as you.

“Hey,” he says, almost breathlessly. You’re thankful when you notice that Chloe is fully dressed to your left, just pulling on her knit cardigan.

She smirks smuggly at the sight of him, swinging her bag over her shoulders before sending you a wink and a swiftly muttered, “Told ya.” Without another word she exits, leaving you and Art utterly and completely alone.

“You realize this is the women’s restroom, right?” you jab as you hear Chloe shut the door behind her, though it’s all in good fun. As far as you know, no one is coming anywhere near the locker room for the next several hours.

“I was waiting outside for you,” he states, gradually lifting his hands from their tense place in the front of his jean pockets. “I thought everyone else had already come out, but I guess I was wrong.”

“That’s just Chloe,” you laugh, gesturing in the direction of the exit path your best friend had just taken. “Don’t worry, she won’t tattle.”

He chuckles, amused by your jest before he takes a slow step closer to you. Like a sparkler to your stomach, you become acutely aware of the tension between the two of you, growing like the blush colored blossoms of a cherry tree in spring. “I’ve thought about what you said.”

This makes you smile.

“And?”

“You were right.”

You’re heart flutters, so light that if it weren’t encaged within your chest you’re sure it would’ve floated away. He pauses to take another tense step in your direction, now only a foot away.

“Do you know how Tashi and I met?”

“I don’t, actually,” you say, words laced with a twinge of sarcasm.

“Right,” he laughs, realizing the folly behind his question. It was more rhetorical than anything, but he begins the story like a spider spindiling its web. “Well it was only about a year ago. We met at the US open. Patrick and I both went after her and you know what she told us?”

You wait for the answer.

“She said she’d give her number to whoever won our match. That was the first time I ever lost and it was to my best friend.”

“That’s who was at your match, wasn’t it?” you ask.

Art nods solumnly, though the pain that had been etched on his face from your last meeting has vanished, as if the thorn in his side has been replced by a budding rose.

“I didn’t know Art, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he urges. “It’s all okay now. I’ve realized that none of it matters anymore and it’s all because of you. If I’m being honest, I thought maybe if I won my match, then Tashi would leave him. But it’s not what I want anymore. I don’t want to be the winner she’s running to. I don’t want to have to earn her love.”

“What do you want?”

There’s a pause, a distinct moment where the glint in his blue eyes from the bright lights above conveys a clever message to you than any words could. Then he speaks.

“I think you know what I want.”

It’s all the confirmation you need to know that he’s finally playing the same game as you. He’s unbearably close now as his head reaches up to gently rake through your stringy wet hair. You welcome his touch, breath catching in your throat at the feeling of his fingers as his lips hover just above yours. If you’re being completely honest, you haven’t stopped fantasizing about it since the night of the party. Since the moment he had kissed you.

“You were right,” he whispers as his hot breath tickles the tips of your top lips with every placid word. “I don’t care about winning anymore. The only point I want to score is you.”

“That’s a really bad joke.” you remark, pointing out the obvious from his corny declaration. But Art doesn’t share your smirk, his face settling in an expression that’s much more sensual.

“I’m not kidding.”

You feel the immediate shift in energy as your smirk fades to parted lips and Art’s longing gaze moves downward from your eyes. What little space left between you is squashed as you allow him to pull you even closer, noses prodigy one another as Art’s fingers drift from the tips of your hair to cup the back of your head. It’s almost salivating the way he looks at you and you’re suddenly eager to remember what he tastes like.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks through a whisper, so quietly that if you hadn’t been right in front of him, you surely wouldn’t have heard it. It’s milliseconds before you’re nodding exuberantly with more urgency than a speeding ambulance (something you might need if your heart decided to beat any faster).

“Pleas-” you start, but Art’s on you before you can even get the word out, covering your lips with his until all you can taste, smell, and feel is him. Everything is him.

He’s gentle with you at first, testing the waters as his lips pass smoothly over yours. You lift up your hands to invite him in, squeezing the toned flesh of his arms before you drag them slowly up to the nape of his neck. You toy with some of the curls that rest there, twirling them between your fingers while sinking into the sounds he makes in return. He lets out a soft moan into your mouth, and at once his tongue melds with yours. You match the new intensity, swallowing each low groan.

Unlike your last encounter, it’s Art who pulls away this time, forcing you to scowl at him in confusion, eyes squinting and lips puffy. He twists his head to the left, glazing at the wide space behind him as he slowly moves the both of you backwards to the nearest flat-board bench until one of its edges grazes the top of his shin.

“What are you doing?” you ask through a whisper, leaning forward so that your lips titillate the tip of his ear which sends inadvertent shivers through his whole body. Art turns back to you, smirking as he leans in for another sloppy kiss, earning a salacious sound from you before his lips shift from yours and trailing from the corner of your mouth to the line of your open jaw where his teeth scrape against your skin. You can feel him grinning as he makes you emit the softest of moans.

“I want to make up for the other night. I said some things - I’m not proud of.”

You give a giddy chuckle as you cup his cheek, amused by the fact that he thinks his past behavior was inexcusable until Art’s head dips to suck on the tender skin of your neck and you can’t help but whine. You’re glad you have the lung capacity of a swimmer otherwise you might’ve fainted from the near constant lack of oxygen.

“Art, honestly-” a sudden gasp is ripped from you as you feel him nipping at your sweet spot, crumbling like a tin can under pressure. “-it’s fine.” you barely manage to finish your sentence.

He places a few more steady kisses to the column of your neck, working his way down to your clavicle. You tip your head back, an unintentional effect from the sensation of his lips as he lays the last just near the edge of your collarbone before raising his head to look at you and it’s almost as if he can see right through you.

“Does that mean you don’t want what I’m offering?” he questions, glancing down at the steady movement of your chest as it rises and falls beneath your hoodie. You don’t recall when in the last few minutes he managed to move his hands down to your waist, but you can feel them now as clear as ever. He grips the sides of your hoodie, nimble fingers sliding under the thick gray fabric until they find the skin beneath and his touch feels like fire, sparking flames along your hips with every small caress. It’s so hot that you aren’t sure how Tashi could pick anyone over him. You aren’t sure how anyone could deny him for that matter.

“No…” you admit and at once his hands start to travel higher and higher until they reach the bottom band of your bikini, inflaming the whole of your torso as he meets the straps still tied neatly together in the middle of your spine forming a perfect bow. His fingers follow the provided path, meeting at the center of your back as he starts to twirl one of the tails of the knot around his pointer finger.

“May I?” he asks, his tone so deceivingly politely as he gently tugs on the string. He waits patiently for your consent as his eyes pan up from your chest to your expression. You can’t get the words out, already too overwhelmed from the sizzling sensation of his touch, but you make sure to nod with the utmost enthusiasm. Who were you to tell Art Donaldson no when he was so eager to touch you? And you, in turn, were so eager to feel him.

He smiled at your agreeance and instantly unfastened the tie of your suit, pulling on the strand until the entire bow came undone. He lips pressed against yours once more before he settled down on the bench and raised the hem of your hoodie just enough to expose your stomach, peppering kisses to every inch of you.

You released your hold on him to assist in pulling the hoodie over your head, tossing it behind you where it lands in a crumple pile near the metal door of your locker. Without any tension left to hold it up, the triangle cutlets of your bikini slump to reveal two perfect pebbled nipples, leaving the towel looped around your waist as your only source of coverage.

Usually you’d feel insecure being so bare for a man that’s practically a stranger, but from the dazed look Art gives you as he takes in the sight of your figure, you find that you don’t mind it in the slightest.

“Fuck, you’re so pretty,” Art mutters almost involuntarily, sending shock waves down straight to your core. The words came bursting out before he could find the strength to hold them back, his brain too busy processing your beauty to have any control over any sort of filter. You return your hands to his head of blonde curls just as he presses one last kiss to the center of your abdomen, exactly below your rib cage.

The movement is so sudden that you can't count the seconds that pass before he grabs at your breasts, each hand perfectly cupping the mounted flesh. His mouth is slower, trailing kisses up the valley of your chest.

His thumb works the sensitive skin encircling your nipple, running over the hardened peak in an unperceivable pattern that forces another well earned moan from your lips. It’s encouragement for his other hand that immediately drifts upwards to mirror the actions of the other. Every pinch and slight movement is like gasoline to your fire, all pouring in a downward stream to the part of you that grows more needy with every passing second. You could cry from the sensation of it all, the intensity only growing when you feel him pass his tongue over your left nipple. You try to suppress any sounds this time, teeth biting down on your lip as you curve your head back, but it forces its way out despite your efforts. You grip the hair fixed to his crown and pressure him forwards so that he remains in place.

“Shit, that feels - really good.” you praise, your phrase strung together like an old beaded bracelet as changes in pace break apart each word. When Art does part from your breasts, it’s to press wet kisses down the line of your abdomen as flickering thumbs replace his mouth. He pauses as he reaches the softest portion of your stomach, stopping just above the knot that is covering your very bare lower half, and though you don’t recall informing him about your lack of undergarments, you are sure that he already knows.

“I need to taste you,” he whispers against your skin.

He doesn’t ask you for permission anymore, but instead glances up at you from his spot on the bench and it’s everything you need to understand what he wants from you. And of course you want it. You’re sure if he wastes a second longer to tend to your throbbing center, you might just pass out in his sturdy arms.

“Please, Art, I need you,” you’re able to get out, though it’s breathy and delicate from the way that he’s rendered you.

He’s quick to oblige as he takes the top of your towel cover in between his perfect white teeth and yanks the fabric hard enough for it to fall to your feet. He’s on you in an instant, one of his hands moving to support your shaky frame as he slides a knee between yours to spread you open.

He coaxes every cry out of you with his tongue, wet and skilled as he traces it along each fold, his nose bobbing against your swollen clit not dissimilar from his left hand that still lies atop your breast. You press him closer to you as he swirls his tongue around you, over and over and never in the same way more than twice in a row. It’s overstimulation at its best, overwhelming you until you're trembling in his grasp and before you know it, you’re riding the edge of the wave to pure pleasure.

“Fuck, Art! I’m- I’m-“ you can’t even finish your sentence, he feels so good. He hums against you in amusement, the vibrations of his voice meeting your core in a melting sensation that you find yourself grinding into uncontrollably.

“On my tongue,” he promotes against you before licking a steady stripe along your center. It’s then that you know you’re done for. Your cry is almost inhuman as you leap off the edge, diving into the heart of the wave as Art finally relinquishes his hold on your breast and uses the newly unoccupied hand to pierce into your arousal, calloused fingers curling into you as he helps you down from your high. Even after you cum you know you still have more in you. And you can tell from the growing bulge in his pants that Art isn’t done with you either.

He stands to kiss you with dampened lips as the taste of your own arousal invades your senses, but you withdraw from the embrace after only a few seconds to ask him your burning question, desire already regrowing like a flooding river of need.

“Art, I need you,” you start, pulling at the canvas material of his button up. “Please, please fuck me.”

“Oh fuck,” he mumbles before pressing his mouth towards yours and back you up to the wall of lockers that are neatly arranged behind you.

Granted by his permission, you unfasten each button of his shirt until it’s enough to pull it off him which he happily helps you accomplish. You can’t tell who’s more desperate for you to feel the dense muscle of his chest as he places your palms face down on his pecs, granting you the assurance you needed to explore his body.

You take your time, squeezing and prodding just as he had done to you until one of your hands is low enough on his stomach to palm him through his light wash jeans. The soft whimper he returns is nearly enough to send you over again. He pulls back as he lets you undo his belt, eyelids fluttering after you’ve unbuttoned and unzipped the only thing keeping you from him. You’re quick to pull him out, not at all shocked by how hard he is and it’s a major ego boost knowing it’s all because of you.

“See what you do to me?” he whispers against your lips as if you needed more proof of his longing for you. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Please,” you beg. “I need to feel you.”

Art is quick to oblige as his calloused fingers grip the soft skin of your hips, so rough that you can feel every callus from his racket as he pushes you against the lockers, thrusting up into you. While he’s dying to continue, he hesitates so that you can acclimate to his size. It takes no longer than a second as you release a guttural groan and wrap a leg around his waist, aiding him in hitting even deeper within you.

“Fuck!” you cry, throwing your head back against the cold metal as Art nips at your neckline again. You’re drowning beneath the blissful rocky wave and from the sounds that he’s making, almost re-enacting one of his matches just for you, you can tell that Art is too.

It happens so quickly that your mind struggles to understand it, spinning wildly as the wave pulls you under once more along with Art who finishes in a similar amount of time. You lean into his chest, breathing heavily as you take in the heavenly scent of his undoubtedly expensive cologne and slightly wincing as he pulls out of you slowly. He ducks to pick up your fallen towel as he starts to clean you up.

The realization that it’s over doesn't quite hit you until Art helps you get dressed, buckling his belt back up only once you’re decent and in return you hand him a spare shirt so he doesn’t have to redo every button on the one you’d nearly torn off him.

“Thanks,” he smiles gratefully, pulling on your shirt which fits tighter around him than it would around you, though it’s nothing to complain about as every miniscule ripple of muscle is on display.

You’re both thinking the exact same thing as you exit the locker room, hand in hand with the same guilty expression on your face as you pass an incoming janitor who is too busy scowling to ask Art what he was doing in the women’s locker room. It’s obvious from the encounter that it won’t be your last and as Art drives you to the planned frat party, you’re even sure that it’s not the last of the night.

Time proves you right as you’re seated next to Art a few weeks later, curled into his side as you share a large plate of the appetizer combo at a local Applebees. It was the only thing open after a long day of matches and meets and steamy rendezvous in between. The two of you were going on steadier than the trunks of ancient trees as you continue to support each other, you attending all of Art’s matches ( even if it meant skipping a practice or two) and Art cheering for you at all of your meets. You’re not sure if it’s the consistent attendance, but the both of you were only getting better at your respective hobbies by the day, particularly Art who hadn’t lost a match since meeting you.

You’re both jokingly arguing over who gets the last quesadilla when a familiar woman stops near your table, joined by a man you’d never seen before, though you recognize him from several of Art's detailed stories. He straightens beside you, gathering himself to greet the new company.

“Hey guys, long time no see!”

“Art,” Patrick nods to his friend before smiling to you and offering his hand, one that you take without a second thought. “I’m Patrick.”

“I know,” you admit. “I’ve heard a lot about you. You must be Tashi.” you turn to the girl and you can’t help, but analyze the peculiarities of her expression. It’s clear she is content with her own man of choice, but something about the way she looks at you tells you that she’s still involved in the tennis philosophy you managed to screw out of Art. She looks at you like you’re a player she’s lost to. And from what Art’s told you, you're certain it’s the first time Tashi has lost.

“It’s nice to meet you.” she fakes a smile before pulling Patrick to the door, careful not to stay long enough for the conversation to lead anywhere important. It’s awkward and strange, but you know it’s for the best. You’re not particularly interested in anything she has to say anyways.

“Did you see that?” you ask, pointing in the direction of the doorway that the couple had used for an easy escape.

“What?” Art wonders, looking towards you in anticipation.

“I think she’s looking for a new winner.”

Art leans in to peck the apple of your cheek, assurance that no matter the circumstance, he’ll never be available to the likes of Tashi Duncan again.

“Must be because I’ve won,” he reasons, “-because I have you and there’s nothing she can do to separate us.”

You smile at his sweet words, praying that he never ceases to use his talent for affectionate poetry as you lean in to kiss him. Whether he wins or loses or even never plays again, you couldn’t care less about the outcome of his career. As long as Art’s happy, you’re prepared to take on any challenge you’re put up to, whether on the court or in the pool.

#art donaldson smut #art donaldson fanfic #stanford art!!!#art donaldson x female reader #art donaldson x you #art donaldson #art donaldson x reader #art donaldson fic #tashi duncan #patrick zweig #challengers 2024 #challengers movie #challengers #challengers fanfic #swimmer life #swimming #smut #mike faist

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valeriehalla · 6 months ago

Text

I have gotten a lot of messages saying that they really love the presentation of CURSE/KISS/CUTE. Often the commenter in question can’t say what exactly it is about the formatting that they appreciate, but that it just reads well and looks good. Well!!! Allow me to bare my wealth of secret knowledge for you once and for all:

I sorta just did some research into book typography...?

Here’s something you should know about web development, alright: typography on the web is really, really bad. The tools we have at our disposal—HTML and CSS—are incredibly powerful, but they are set up to fight you every step of the way towards Good Typography. When you know what you’re looking for, you can fix all the common issues quickly and easily. But it’s not easy to know what to look for, because

problematic typography is overwhelmingly the norm on the web, and

good typography is invisible.

Here’s a screenshot from CURSE/KISS/CUTE episode 0:

Now, I don’t want this post to come across as prescriptive. It is not my intention to tell you, “This is what good typography looks like, so follow my lead exactly.” I made a lot of choices with the typography of my web novel: many of those choices would not make sense in other contexts. What I want to convey to you is what those choices are, so that you will know they’re available to be made.

I mentioned that the web “fights you” when it comes to good typography. What do I mean by that? Well, check this out:

This is how that passage of text renders “by default.” In other words, this is how a web browser would render that text without any input from me about what styles to apply. It kind of sucks ass! But it also looks pretty familiar, right? This is not that far off from how a lot of websites—even websites full of prose (looking at you, AO3)—render text.

I think the most illustrative thing to do here would be to walk you through my thought process and show you, step by step, what decisions I made to turn this unstyled text into the styled version you see in the novel.

So, first things first:

1. We have got to shrink that text column.

Computer monitors... are wide. They are wider than they are tall. They are so wide, and they have so many pixels. This means you can fit a lot of characters on them. If you wanted, you could just have a wall of characters from the left side of the screen all the way to the right side. Talk about efficient!!

You should never, ever, ever do this.

This is one choice that I actually will make a prescriptive statement about, because it’s supported by quite a lot of research: fairly narrow text columns are more legible. Specifically, research seems to support the idea that a width in the range of 50 to 70 characters per line is the most comfortable for people to read*. Every font is different, so it takes a little doing to turn that “characters” figure into a pixel measurement; I went with 512 CSS pixels for the maximum width of my text column:

Isn’t that just so much nicer to read already?

*A commenter reminds me that I’d be remiss not to point out that the research on column width legibility isn’t completely conclusive. You do want to limit the width of your text columns, but going over the 70 character-per-line recommendation isn’t necessarily the end of the world, and you might have good reasons to do so. I did not: as mentioned, one of my goals was to mimic book-style typography, and books by nature have fairly restrained column widths, on account of they’re books.

2. Picking a font.

I’m not going to give you the blow-by-blow on how I decided what font to use. The short story is that I asked some designers, and one of the recommendations I got was the free font Crimson Pro, which I took a liking to immediately:

It’s just an all-around attractive serif font, but one thing I really like about it for use in a novel is its highly-visible quotation marks. They’re just kinda jumbo! They’re real big! Easy to see! In a novel, those things aren’t just ornamentation. It makes a great deal of practical sense for them to stand out just a bit. It also has a fairly large x-height, unlike a lot of the more traditional options, which is good for legibility on a computer screen.

3. Adjusting the line-height

Web browsers default to a line-height of about 1.2em, which, as you can probably tell, is quite cramped. If you go and Google “optimal line height for legibility”, you’ll get a number of results right off the bat suggesting 1.5em. Sounds good! Let’s do that:

Well... hmm. That’s definitely an improvement, but between you and me, it actually looks a bit too spacey to my eyes. I wonder why?

I’ll cut to the chase: the 1.5em recommendation makes some assumptions about the font you’re using. In Arial, the letter “A” is about 0.6em tall; in Crimson Pro, it’s about 0.5em. That means that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to spacing your lines, because different fonts have different amounts of empty space baked in. How annoying!

Let me tell you something about the kind of nerd I am. When I had this realization, I grabbed some books off my shelf and pulled out a literal micrometer. I started measuring the line-heights against various font features to see if there were any patterns I could spot in professional typesetting. Here’s what I found:

Almost every book on my shelf spaces lines such that the distance between one baseline and the next is about three times the x-height. How cool is that? I clapped my hands like a seal when I put this together.

Adjusting the line-height to match what I observed in the wild gives us this:

It’s a subtle difference, but to my eyes it feels just right. It’s almost like magic!

4. Paragraph spacing...

Let’s address the elephant in the room. Probably the most controversial choice I made with CURSE/KISS/CUTE’s typography was to opt for book-style paragraph indentation rather than web-style paragraph spacing—like so:

I did this for a few reasons:

It’s what I’m used to. I’ve read a lot of books, and this is just the way that books are formatted. I think for something aspiring to the title of “novel”, there’s value in making it look the way a reader probably expects a novel to look.

A novel has a lot of paragraph breaks in it. A paragraph in, say, an encyclopedia entry might go on for half a page or more; whereas it is unusual for a paragraph in a modern work of narrative prose to run for more than a handful of sentences, especially in any scene with dialogue. Because paragraph breaks are so common, spacing between paragraphs in a novel results in a lot of wasted space. Also, subjectively speaking, the additional space seems to me to lend an undue amount of weight to paragraph breaks. I’m just starting a new thought; there’s no need for a 21-gun salute, you know?

Having said that, here are some good reasons you might decide not to do paragraph indentation anyway:

Doing it right requires a bit of extra legwork. Notice how the very first paragraph in the image above has no indentation. That’s because it’s the start of a new section, and the first paragraph in a section traditionally goes unindented. This is an easy detail to miss, and it can be difficult to wrangle CSS into doing it for you automatically.

Web users don’t expect it. For the first decade of the web’s existence, there was no good way to do paragraph indentation; by the time CSS rolled around and made it easy, paragraph spacing had already become the norm. And while CURSE/KISS/CUTE may be a novel, it is also, specifically, a web novel!

But it’s my house and I get to make the rules, so I went with indentation. Incidentally, there seems to be a dire lack of research into the question of whether indentation or spacing is more legible for readers—but the data that does exist appears inconclusive at best. So, the choice really does come down to vibes.

5. The tragedy of justification.

You��ll note that one way in which I did not make my web novel look like a paper novel is the text alignment. It’s un-justified: the right margin is ripsaw-ragged.

This is because it is not possible to justify text on the web.

Oh, you can try. Look right here: there’s a CSS property for it and everything. Just turn on “text-align: justify” and...

Nightmare! The interword spacing on that first line is almost as wide as the indentation!

Reader, I’m afraid that your web browser is simply too dumb. That’s not the browser’s fault: robust algorithms for justifying text without creating these distractingly huge gaps between words have existed for many decades, and modern computers are powerful enough to run them in real time with little performance impact. It’s just, uh—nobody has ever bothered to implement them into web browsers. It is the damnedest thing.

I tried, I really did. You can mitigate this problem a bit if you enable automatic hyphenation, but browsers are unfortunately also kind of dumb at hyphenating. Firefox, for example, will refuse to hyphenate any word containing a capital letter, so any sentence with a lot of proper nouns in it is a lost cause. I tried manually inserting soft hyphens with a text preprocessor I wrote myself, but still these overjustified lines plagued me: when the text column narrows, for example on a phone, even hyphens can’t save you. The line-breaking algorithm is simply too naïve to optimize for well-justified text, and that’s not something you can fix as a web developer.

As a result, my heavy-hearted recommendation is to never use text justification. It’s just too distracting.

6. And then some extra stuff just for me

I added drop-caps because it looks neat and I made the ellipses spacier because I think it looks good when it, uh, when they are spacier. I think that looks pretty good that’s just my opinion though.

That’s all! Hope you learned something bye!!!

#text #typography #advice...?#not a professional by any means by the way

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neil-gaiman · 1 year ago

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Gosh, I hope no one's asked this already but...

After watching The Sandman together, my husband and I are looking forward to watching Dead Boy Detectives. I've just watched the trailer and while I'm excited at the prospect of snuggling up with hubby to enjoy more of your creative genius, I'm really nervous that this show will be too much for me. While I can manage blood spurting and can even appreciate the occasional jump scare, the horror aspect is making me more than a little nervous.

Which leads me to ask...

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being "Hey, let's pop some popcorn and gather the kids around the television," and 10 being "Watch in broad daylight with every curtain in your house open and every light in the house on or you'll never sleep again," how would you gauge the show and its episodes as a whole, horror-wise?

Yes, I apologize for being a wimp, (I blame my big sister for intentional exposure to "The Shining" as a 5-year old.) but I'm pretty certain you've answered a question like this kindly in the past, and I'd be most grateful.

Regardless, even if you only read this in passing and don't answer, please know that even though I'm just finding the time to get to know your work now, I have been fan of you as a human being for a long time. Thank you for all you contribute to the human race, Mr. Gaiman. There aren't enough kind people in the world.

Honestly, I'd say mostly it doesn't get scarier than a 4. It's not a horror series. It's very funny, very sweet, romantic and loving and human, sometimes painful and always weird.

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liahaslosthermind · 7 months ago

Text

~𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐩𝐲 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭~ Part 1

Part 1 of The Spy Master's Secret Find more ACOTAR works here! Summary: The Inner Circle has questions they need answered, too bad the one person they rely on for secret information is also the one who doesn't want to answer it. Warnings: Swearing, Cas and Rhysand fight, mention of *that* Solstice conversation, but I actually write Rhys as not an asshole in this one

Part 2 out now!

“It would certainly be me!” Nesta yelled, her voice joining the many that were arguing in the Inner Circle.

Her mate let out a bellowing laugh, finding the statement ridiculous. She wouldn’t have been as pissed, had he not doubled over when realizing how very serious she was.

“Nesta, don’t be ridiculous. You could be attached to him for 100 years straight and it still wouldn’t hold a candle to either me nor Cassian.” Rhysand stated, the air of superiority around him while making such a statement caused a shoe to fly at his head.

“Don’t be an ass, Rhys.”

“Of course, Ferye, Darling.” The High Lord slumped down a little at that.

The argument had been going on for far too long and after far too many drinks consumed, there wasn’t a resolution in sight.

“Well, now that we have established Nesta is out of the running, does anyone want to nominate themselves? Or will it only be Rhys and I?” Cassian asked.

Everyone was silent, minus Nesta who was angrily huffing at both her mate and his brother’s arrogance.

“Good. Now, Rhysand, tell me what in Prythian has possessed you to think he would ever pick you over me?”

“What! Cas, you cannot actually be serious enough to think it would be yo-”

“If I remember correctly, one Solstice night a few years ago dethroned you forever.”

“That is not fair and you know it! Plus, we have made up tenfold.”

“Doesn’t matter, its about principles.”

“Please! Cassian, what the fuck do you know about principles?”

“Oh, I’ll show you principles alright-” Was all the General said before he promptly tackled Rhysand to the ground.

Everyone else in the room just rolled their eyes. It seemed the fight would never end.

“What am I looking at?” Lucian asked as he walked in on the brawl, noting how Amren and Mor were in the corner exchanging money for the bets they had already placed on the two Illyrians still fighting on the ground.

“Cassian called himself Azriel’s best friend.” Elain explained as she moved over slightly on the couch, beckoning her mate forward.

“I thought he was?” Lucian replied.

“Thank you!... I knew- I liked… you, Vanserra” Cassian managed to get out while Rhysand tried and failed to put him in a headlock.

“I still think it's me.” Nesta grumbled.

“I don’t understand why you all can’t ask Azriel himself?” Gwyn pitched in.

The two brothers stopped their fighting as everyone looked to the priestess.

Clearly, the thought hadn’t crossed anyones’ mind.

They all slowly turned to the Shadowsinger, who had been sitting in the chair by the corner of the room, shadows dancing around him, clearly enjoying the show as much as he was.

“Come on, boy. Put the two most powerful idiots in Prythian out of their misery.” Amren said commanded

The rest of the Inner Circle waited impatiently for Azriel’s response, which he purposefully took a pause before answering to torture them.

“Cassian, Rhysand, you both are my brothers. But I wouldn’t classify either of you as my best friend.” He finally responded. “What the fuck?” “Are you serious?” They yelled over each other.

“Ha! I knew it had to be m-” Nesta was cut off by the hand Azriel raised, pausing her thought.

“Nesta, you are a very dear friend of mine. I appreciate our friendship very much… but it isn’t you either.”

The tension building from everyone’s anticipation was almost suffocating.

The Spy Master opened his mouth then, deciding better of it, closed it. Getting out of his chair and walking to the door without a word.

“Hold on!” Rhysand yelled and the House of Wind shut the door in front of Azriel, as if it too wanted to hear his answer.

Unamused, Azriel turned around to the sea of expectant faces.

“Azriel. You don’t think your… shadows are your best friend, right?” Cassian asked, a pitying tone in his voice.

Az’s shoulders shook with silent laughter at the string of curses his shadows sent at the General, even if Cassian couldn’t hear them.

“No, I don’t. But they don’t appreciate the tone, Cas.” Azriel answered as he watched his shadows menacingly circle Cassian. Finally deciding to put everyone out of their misery, he replied:

“None of you know her.”

Before walking into the shadows, escaping the shouts of vulgarity that filled the room at his nonresponse.

A/n: Do y'all want a part 2?

Update: Read part 2 here!

#acotar x reader #acotar #azriel x reader #azriel #inner circle x reader #azriel x you #azriel x oc #azriel fluff

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litsenn · 29 days ago

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Hi, I hope it's alright to ask your thoughts on something about Astarion. I just think your posts always show a very deep understanding of Astarion as a character, especially in regards to his complicated views on sex and intimacy, and I really appreciate and respect your analyses. I'm only on my second playthrough, so I like to hear from people who have played a lot more than I have.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Astarion’s state of mind in the first sex scene in act one (I'm currently writing about it). The more I think about it, his experience seems to be a very complex mixture of both positive and negative that exist simultaneously. These are just some of my current personal thoughts (all of this in the context of the PC being someone who treats him well and is generally a good person):

This is the first time he's getting to have sex on his own terms in 200 years, and that's probably liberating, in a slightly terrified and overwhelmed way. He is likely trying to convince himself that he feels more empowered and in-control than he actually does, because he needs that feeling.

He knows the PC better than he ever knew any of his past targets, but he doesn’t yet believe that they truly care about him, either.

The sex ends up meaning more to him than he thought it would, but I also imagine it isn't exactly enjoyable for him, given his dissociation, feelings of disgust, and the fact that this was all just supposed to be an act.

He is also probably struggling to reconcile the fact that he’s growing to genuinely like the PC with his belief that they are fetishizing him (this also connects with your incredible post about Astarion’s feelings about feeding on the PC at this point, and how biting during sex can be enjoyable for him, though still uncomfortable in that he views it as transactional)

He feels like his performance here is important to his survival, because in his mind he is using sex as currency to get the PC on his side. The transactional nature of it is probably comfortable in its familiarity, yet no less disgusting for him.

So what I’m ultimately trying to ask is:

In your opinion, how much of this experience feels positive to him vs negative?

Which of the feelings mentioned above do you think are at the forefront of his mind going into the encounter? Which ones “win out” over others? Are there more factors I forgot / didn’t list?

(I hope I made this sound somewhat coherent. I’ve had a hard time articulating my thoughts about this scene.)

First of all, thank you so much for your kind words 😭 I’m always very touched when people say they enjoy reading my stuff. I don’t know if my understanding of the character is so relevant, all I can say is that I relate to him on many levels, and therefore I analyse him from my personal perspective. Which also means that my posts are just one interpretation among many others.

Now, concerning this scene, there’s a lot to unpack. And I first have to say that there is no clear answer to the question "Did he enjoy it or not?". IMO, it will always be yes and no. And I'm only offering a personal analysis of this ambivalent situation.

Proceed at your own discretion because I’m going to talk about trauma, SA, sex-work and complicated relations to sex in general. Be careful.

Please, keep in mind that al of this is pure speculation (and forgive the typos😅)(and this post is long and chaotic, sorry).

I globally agree with all your points, and I love that you mentioned the complexity of his feelings during this scene. We can all agree that he has contradictive feelings about sex in Act 1. It's not just disgust, not just hedonism, not just attraction, not just manipulation: it's all of this and more.

And that’s one of the things I love about the writing of this character.

Sex is always complex (for everyone) but for survivors it’s even more complicated. And I love that Astarion’s narrative stands against the “perfect victim” tropes and the idea that SA survivors are incapable of enjoying sex. Despite the decades of SA, Astarion still enjoys it and wants it, but his desire is tainted with self-loathing, with fear. He deals with those through defence mechanisms and what I’d call “automatisms” from his former experiences and obligations.

That's why before I answer your questions, I want to add one point which can also work as a foreword to the rest of the post: Astarion is attracted to the PC.

He says it during the confession scene, and there's no reason for him to lie at this point. Likewise, if the PC tells him they can be together without having sex, he's indeed relieved, pleasantly surprised, but he jests about it being a challenge.

I think there's some truth in those words: it will be somehow challenging. First because sex is the only kind of intimacy he's known for 200 years; it's will be difficult to "quit the habit", to discover and get used to new ways to get close to someone. Secondly, because he does find the PC attractive and probably wants to be able to have sex with them without feeling bad about it.

After all, it seems like he enjoyed sex very much before Cazador turned him, since at the beginning, he thought he could still enjoy having sex with his targets.

Meaning sex wasn’t something that disgusted him before all this. He might be able to remember (deep down) that sex can be 100% enjoyable.

Yet, it doesn’t necessarily means he’s now incapable of enjoying it; it only means that it’s going to be more complicated. He needs to rediscover how to fully enjoy it again – on his own terms – now that he’s free to give his consent.

Take the brothel scene for instance; if the PC has sex with Astarion and the Drow twins after dealing with Cazador, he's at first very excited about it. And I don't see any lie here, he's genuinely enthusiastic.

Unfortunately, during the orgy, he realises that it’s not for him ( not yet at least). Being with many people, and/or with someone that is not the PC is still an experience that triggers his trauma. But he didn't know that, he wasn't expecting his trauma to manifest. He wanted to do it, he wanted to enjoy it.

Not only he falls back into his old mechanism: sex as a performance, Astarion as an entertainer who must give the best performance to his partners, paying no attention to his own desire and needs. Followed by dissociation, which is something that happen automatically. You don't decide to dissociate. It's your brain switching off because the reality is too uncomfortable. It's survival.

Anyways, this bad experience is typical of what can happen to someone who's healing. It's normal. You want to explore your sexuality, and sometimes it works perfectly well, and sometimes not. That’s what healing is about. It's not linear, and sometimes it's messy.

It is true that some SA survivors are perpetually sex revulsed. And some of them become sex-addicts. And for most of them, it’s somewhere in-between. Still capable of enjoying sex VERY MUCH, but also finding themselves disgusted by sex sometimes for reasons they can’t really explain. There’s no rule as to how survivors experience sexual attraction.

All of this to say that it is clear to me that Astarion experience sexual attraction, that he is attracted to the PC and that even in Act 1, an important part of him wants to have sex with the PC.

Back to your points.

Control, habits and defence mechanisms

I like how you said he “is likely trying to convince himself that he feels more empowered and in-control than he actually does, because he needs that feeling.”

There’s definitely something in his mind that still thinks as a slave, something which believes that he must have sex to be safe. Because it was the case for as long as he can remember.

Seducing people, sleeping with them without thinking about his own needs, that's part of his habitus. His body has been a tool for so long that he still sees it as such.

It’s ingrained in his mind, and even if he’s regaining his agency, some of the seeds planted by Cazador persist in his mind (and will until the Act 2 confession). Astarion says it himself, it's instinctive. And as you put it, it's somehow comfortable, it's charted territories.

A part of him tells him his only value relies on his sexual skills. Therefore he associates sex to a “safety net”. But he probably hasn’t acknowledged that yet in act 1; he prefers to lie to himself and to pretend he’s sleeping with the PC because he has become the puppet master. It's easier to think that way. But in fact, it was just a automatism, his survival instinct. So even if he’s really attracted to the PC, Astarion is still driven by fear and by a need to control how the PC feels about him (precisely because he's so afraid to lose control over the situation). And sex is the perfect tool for that. His body is the perfect tool.

[I can recall a few numbers of times when I had sex with people while lying to myself and pretending I 100% wanted it, pretending I was the one in control, when in fact, I had sex with those persons for reasons that had nothing to do with my own desire. It doesn't mean I didn't find them attractive, it doesn't mean I regret having sex with them, but it still means that my motivations weren’t what I thought they were, that my decision to have sex was still controlled by something else in my mind, something different from my actual desire. I acknowledged it months and sometimes years later.]

When Astarion welcomes the PC in the clearing, he’s performing. When I say he’s performing, I mean in the way he presents himself as as a person craving for sex, and he expresses his desire as such. He puts on the mask of the “mysterious sexy vampire”, keeping his voice low and his smirk sharp. He plays his part, the one he's played for years. He pretends to be the lover he thinks the PC wants him to be, the overly seductive vampire with his exaggerated declarations.

I think there are several ways to explain why he feels the need to perform:

It has always worked with his target up to now

That's the only way he knows

The exaggeration is also a shield behind which he can hide his vulnerabilities

Let me explain that last point : Saying a simple “I’m attracted to you, I want to be with you tonight”, without all the grandiloquence, is not something he would do at this point (even if that's how he feels), because that would make him look vulnerable. That would mean being honest with himself and with you, letting you see his raw desire, so to speak. It would feel too real (I purposely insist on that word and you all know why), and it's easier to exaggerate the whole thing and to pretend to be the hedonistic and over-the-top vampire. After all, he’s confident, he’s been doing that for years. He knows it works. He knows he’s hard to resist.

But when you think about it, he's obviously lying, saying he wanted this to happen since his first meeting with the PC... Come on, the first time they met he was ready to kill them.

It's a lovely lie, just like the "I love you" during his second proposition for sex (I talked about it here), but when you look into it, it's far grimmer.

Once more, there's a parallel between sex and death: "to have you"= Killing you. I already talked about that connection here, so I'll just quote myself: "It's possible to see Astarion's offer to kill you as a foreshadowing of him offering you to have sex with you. And considering what sex means to him at this point of his life - a tool to manipulate, which can lead to his partners to death - the parallel between the two in early act 1 makes a lot of sense to me."

But oh! µTav/Durge survived that first night with him! The PC is still here in the morning! That's new! It never happened to him before, waking up next to his partner. He needs to control this unusual and terrifying experience! Quick!

So I tend to think that the little remark about the PC being loud all night falls along those lines. He displays his (exaggerated) hedonistic and over-confident part of his persona, as a way to reassert that he’s the one in control. As if saying, reminding them: "I made you (the leader of the group) scream all night because I decided to, and everybody knows about it. I’m the one calling the shots.”

But I think it's also as way to hide how he really feels about that night. So instead of opening up and saying how he feels about it, he teases the PC about their own enjoyment. Another defence mechanism.

And yet, the mask cracks a little bit when he asks if the PC wants to lose themselves in him; he suddenly looks terribly sad…

he asks for a consent he was never able to give before that

That’s probably a line he’s said thousands of times before and those who agreed did get lost… in death

It brings him back to the feeling of being a toy for others to enjoy, for people to use so they can "lose themselves"

The look on his face here is what he's trying to hide during this scene. He's wearing that mask (which will come back later if you ascend him), because he needs to protect himself. I'm not even sure if he acknowledges it at this point. It's an automatism.

But I believe that, as the night unfolds, he finds himself enjoying it.

Maybe it's just me, but I tend to feel like he’s getting more like his playful and silly self when you let him bite you. Whereas if you trust him to not bite, he keeps on performing, in control, like he was told to do by Cazador.

If you let him bite you, you roll on the ground and he looks pleasantly surprised. And I think he starts to have fun here.

(Shadowheart, please)

And I think he can enjoy it even if he dissociates. As I said, the switch is automatic when the brain finds itself in a situation that represents some kind of danger or discomfort. For two hundred years, Astarion experienced sex in a way that was all but comfortable, sex he didn’t really want. It makes sense that his brain automatically switches off. Even though he’s having a good time here, intimacy itself is a trigger, no matter how much he's enjoying it. It’s instinctive, just like flirting is instinctive to him, paradoxically.

And I find the way he explains it quite interesting: he pretends it’s because of his bloodlust, because he didn't want to get carried away.

You see in his eyes that he’s lying. And I kinda like it because it’s sooo relatable. Finding excuses to justify dissociation or plain detachment during sex? yeah, that something I did, with answers along those lines: “I didn’t want to hurt you/I didn’t want to be too intense/I didn’t want to be too loud/I didn't want to scare you/I'm a little tired/etc."

And I still think he enjoys it even if he’s not 100% into it. He keeps his distance (mentally, emotionally) and it’s normal because he’s careful, because he doesn’t really know how to let go. And (healthy, happy) sex is about letting go completely, it‘s about trusting someone and allowing yourself to be completely free from your mental and physical restrains and automatisms.

It’s easy to understand why he can’t fully let go: he’s afraid, because he’s not 100% sure he can enjoy this, because he doesn't know how the PC will behave, and because he must be in control to feel safe.

His body knows how it works, so he lets his body act automatically, that body which have danced the same dance thousands of time. He doesn’t have to think and it’s easier not to think. Easier and apparently safer than following his true desires. Here again, it's an automatism: his body knows, he can switch his mind off, protecting it from potential bad memories, protecting him from his own desire and feelings, protecting him from the temptation of being himself.

He can’t let go, he has to be in control. if only to make sure he will offer his partner the best performance. Even if he's enjoying the moment because the PC is respectful, playful, gentle or whatever you imagine for this first night, he can't let go.

As you said, he’s convinced the PC is only here for his looks – But think about it: Astarion himself never offered anything other than sex, he didn’t pretend he was in love with the PC. He only offered his body. By doing so, he's also protecting himself from potential feelings (theirs or his) of attachment and affection.

It's like saying “Don’t get attached to me. It’s just SEX”. He pulls up his own walls to keep the PC outside. It's another contradiction: he suffers from being seen as a beautiful and shallow individual who’s only good for sex, but he says upfront that he won’t give more than sex. He keeps the PC away (emotionally) while suffering from it. That’s another defence mechanism, combined with the fact that he probably still sees himself as a "mean to an end" (unconsciously), unable to see that he can be someone else than the "hedonistic and heartless vampire."

Besides, it's probable that he doesn’t believe it’s even possible for anyone to care about him. So he anticipates a potential emotional disappointment by saying that it’s only sex, convincing himself as much as to convince the PC that there’s nothing more to expect from it.

Positive/negative experience

You asked how much of this experience feels positive to him vs negative. Let's recap.

Positive feelings:

Excitement (first time having sex on his own terms + he’s attracted to the PC)

Physical pleasure (sex + blood if the PC lets him bite them)

Fun

A sense of freedom

Relief and a sense of pride (they fell into his trap)

A newfound affection (they trust him, they respect him)

Good surprise (he can still have fun while having sex!)

The PC being who they are (more about this later)

Negative feelings:

A sense of obligation

Fear

PTSD

The need to perform and make sure they enjoy it

Habits that make him serve instead of just enjoy the moment

Guilt

Shame

Confusion

Disgust

Feeling of being used (even if the PC isn't exactly "using him"; they accept his offer and they're not to be blamed for it)

One could think that the negative feelings are more important, and true, those bad feelings can be destructive. But I don’t think the unbalance is so evident, maybe because the positive feelings are all completely new to him, therefore they may be particularly powerful.

But in fact, they're all entangled and messy, and I believe Astarion himself can’t really make sense of them.

And later, he sums it up all on his own.

What we know, is that a few days later, he remembers that night as a good experience. And exceptionally good experience.

And tbh I think that’s what matters: What he makes of this night, how he digests and, remembers it, and how he looks back at it. It was special. Special enough for him to admit it.

He admits it feels different with you, it feels good with you -- but he can't yet get rid of the negative feelings sneaking in the back of his mind, ruining what should be a lovely moment.

As for the main feeling at the forefront of his mind… I don’t think it would be one feeling, but more a motivation: “I must stay in control” (whether he succeeded is up to discussion). In the end, I think he manages to suppress his main fears, to keep a certain distance, while at the same time finding himself surprised to be enjoying it.

Questionable motivations and enjoyment

As a SA survivor myself and a former sex-worker, there are so many things that fall close to home both in terms of ptsd, of performance and habitus. I perfectly see how desire, obligations, attraction and disgust can mingle until they become difficult to set apart. {Mind you, I’m not saying that sex-work and sex-abuse are one and the same, far from it. One can be a sex-worker and have never been abused].

In the case of Astarion, he’s first and foremost a survivor, and even if he compares himself to a prostitute a few times, he had no choice in doing it. Therefore, it's not sex-work, it’s human trafficking.

Yet, it's still transactional, and just like a sex-worker, he had to perform, to let the partner(/client) believe that he wanted them, that he wanted it, that he was enjoying it, even when it wasn’t the case. Remember how he made Sebastian believe he was head over heels for him.

During the first night with the PC, Astarion decides to have sex without anyone forcing him to do it. But he doesn’t do it out of sheer lust and attraction. He does it because he wants to keep himself safe and he thinks that’s the only way. Which is, imo, closer to what a sex-worker would do: having sex for money because they need that money to pay the rent or whatever they need to survive. No one is forcing them, except the material conditions and (in Astarion’s case at least) cognitive bias (the belief that he’s “only good at that”) + long terms habits.

And just like a SW, he has to make them believe that he's totally into it (believe me, client don't enjoy it as much if the SW doesn't pretend to be attracted to them).

Look at him, he’s performing. He's said those lines multiples times before. Even the movement of his hand: it’s theatrical. It’s planned and calculated.

This too is instinctive. He's done that for years and he is good at it.

Look at the shift, look how easy it is for him to put on a smiling face to "open a lot of doors" (and legs).

And after pretending to be attracted to those persons, he had to pretend sleeping with them didn't affect him. That too falls close to home.

That line in particular. SO FUCKING RELATABLE IT HURTS.

In my experience, there had been bad experiences. But you go on, because you need to. And to protect your own sanity, you stick to the idea that it's fine, that you can do that again. That it doesn't matter.

But it does matter.

And yet....

In the case of SW (which should always be consensual), being with a client can be a nice experience. Some clients are attractive, some clients are very sweet and respectful, some clients are very good fucks, some clients are all of this (and some clients are bastards but we’re not talking about them here). In any case, they are still clients. As a SW, I didn’t see them as potential ‘real’ lovers, and I wouldn’t have considered sleeping with them in any other situation. It doesn’t mean the experience was bad. I had genuine O with some clients and really enjoyed the company of some of them.

It seems contradictory, but it's real.

Back to Astarion: at the beginning of the meeting it ultimately starts with a performance, like the SW pretending they really want it (whereas they're only do it for money), but it might turn into a really good moment for everyone involved.

And IMO, that's more or less what's happening here with Astarion.

It's a tricky thing to explain because I really don’t want to look like I’m promoting forcing anyone to do anything. Sex should ALWAYS happen in a situation in which all the persons involved are 100% sure they want to do it, and 100% sure their partner(s) want to do it.

But there are exceptional situations (such as sex-work or what Astarion’s going through here, and I can think of other cases), where sex remains enjoyable even if the original motivations weren’t that clear. It’s not fully incompatible. Clearly, that’s NOT a healthy way to deal with your sexuality!!! But it can happen. And the main point here is that it still relies on consent. The person fully consents to do it, but they do it for “questionable” reasons (whether they acknowledge it or not), and they enjoy it in spite of having questionable reasons to do it. It can happen.

I think that’s what happens to Astarion at this point.

(That being said, I repeat it: ALWAYS make sure your partner is fully into it, and NEVER force yourself to have sex if you’re not 100% sure you want it!)

From a transaction to something else

It’s interesting to notice that if the PC refuses to have sex with him in the clearing, he doesn’t really seem to care.

He’s probably disappointed because his plan failed, but his reaction is very different from the reaction you get if the PC rejects him after the first night (my post on this matter here) when he seems really sad to be rejected. It means, I think, that this first night was REALLY meaningful – his heartfelt reaction to your rejection to spend another night together makes it clear. That first night was special since his reaction to your refusal is so very different.

In any case, if the PC refuses during that first night, he says he thought you had an “understanding", and it somehow evokes me something like a transaction (as you rightly mentioned in your message).

And it's not the first time he compares sex with the PC to a transaction. The first time he offers them to sleep with him, he presents it as a reward for letting him bite the PC. It's transactional: You let me feed, I give you sex.

He thinks that’s what sex is about. He has never known anything else, or maybe he did a long time ago but can’t remember.

I wrote that long post about how feeding him can be quite problematic given how he might see it as a transaction (here and here): Offering the the vampire bite kink in order to be fed and survive. It’s the same here.

He knows the PC enjoyed being bitten, he’s convinced they're attracted to him, and by being the one who gives "a reward", he presents himself in a position of control. I “allow” you to have sex with me, since you want it so much: I’m the one making that decision, having more power over you.

After all, in his mind at this point, sex is a question of power. (And if he ascends he undeniably falls back into that pattern; treating sex as a reward, as something to use to better control the PC)

You put it rightly in your message, there's also some sort of familiarity with that transactional system that is deeply comforting.

I won't lie, back in the days, it was sometimes difficult for me to be with someone who wasn't a client, because my partners then didn't expect anything from me. Whereas clients always expect something specific, if only in the SW's behaviour, or/and concerning the acts themselves. And it was comforting. I knew what I had to do to please them. But as I said, it didn't always keep me from having a good time with some clients. It's not incompatible. That's why I think Astarion can still enjoy it even though he's performing, and can get attached to the PC even if it started as something more or less transactional.

And that's precisely why it must have been so destabilizing for him!

After all, when that first night together happens, he appreciates the PC (you need enough approval to sleep with him). As you pointed out, they've already spent several days/weeks together, shared a lot things... That's new to him, sleeping with someone he knows and appreciates.

As a SW, I had defined through the years a clear line between people I met for the job, and people I met outside of it. There was no confusion between the two, even for the long-terms clients – even for the clients I cared about. I liked them, but we weren’t friends, we weren’t partners, we weren’t lovers. And we would never be.

I would say that in the case of Astarion, that separation exists, but it’s not as well defined because, despite his experience, all his partners were destined to end up dead (for all he knew) and he barely knew them anyway. He didn’t have to clearly define that separation because there was no opportunity, no room for him to get attached to them. He saw a target, seduced them, slept with them and they disappeared forever.

It was “easy”, he didn’t have to question the nature of his relationship with them. Whereas after that first night with the PC, they’re still there, alive, and they’re still being this great leader who cares about him and his needs, who values him as a person, someone whose company feels good. His habitus is all messed up and his mental pattern is no long relevant.

{From personal experience, and SW put aside, many years ago, before I really started working on my traumas, I forced myself to believe that I didn’t need affection, tenderness, care. I would never allow myself to cry, I refused to get attached to people (except some very close friends). Because I wanted to be in control of my feelings, I thought it made me look stronger, not showing any kind of vulnerability. I was 27 or 28 when I first experienced genuine tenderness and care while having sex and I realized that there was a softness inside me I had hindered for years and that I actually loved tenderness. Before that, I would run away at the first sign of affection, because it made me feel deeply uncomfortable (and vulnerable). And when I finally accepted to experience it, it was completely destabilizing. It felt good, but I needed time to adapt.}

Astarion realizing that he wanted something real, soft, and gentle with the PC might have had the same kind of effect, but worse. Because he was supposed to be manipulating the PC, to pull the strings, and he suddenly found himself being “manipulated” by his own feelings.

It must have been terrifying for him, realising that he could feel something like this. Because it means he doesn’t control himself (his feelings) as much as he wants to, as much as he thought he could. He "falls" for the PC, the expression itself being one of vulnerability.

For him, falling in love = falling into a trap. He was supposed to be the one crafting that trap, and he ends up being trapped by his (uncontrollable) feelings.

That's why he can sound so cynical about your affair. This banter is from Act 2 if you romance him:

He feels uncomfortable, not because you had sex, but because it actually means something, and he doesn't not how to deal with it. It's easier to joke about it than to admit that maybe he's not so much in control.

It's not the PC's fault

He’s hurt, he has PTSD, but he can now think by himself and make his own choices, for better or worse.

It’s normal for us, fans who know the rest of the story, to worry about him and to not want to have him do something he's not fully into. But we should give him some credits and let him experience sex his own way.

When you’re a survivor, sometimes you have great sex experience, sometimes your PTSD will ruin it, and you won’t be able to go through with it. Sometimes you have sex for bad reasons, sometimes you regret it and sometimes you’re proud of it. Sometimes you have healthy sex and sometimes you use it to hurt yourself. It’s normal. That’s what healing is about and how you learn to define your boundaries.

Astarion didn’t have any body agency for two centuries, it’s coherent that his first experience as a free man is driven by questionable reasons. You can’t expect him to immediately find a healthy way to deal with his sexuality.

For instance, if you don't sleep with him at the party, he spends the night with Lae'zel, and imho it's even worse.

She shamelessly uses him like a toy, and he knows about it. But it's still his decision to sleep with her, even if his motivations aren't "good". You can't take that away from him on the pretext of protecting him. He doesn't need that kind of infantilisation. Same thing when he decides to sleep with the PC.

The thing is that the PC can’t know. As benevolent and respectful and selfless as the PC is, it’s part of Astarion's storyline that they don’t notice anything. He does his best to keep the mask up because the last thing he wants is to look vulnerable to you.

And he knows it's not the PC's fault. He slept with them for questionable reasons and he feels bad about it; not because he thinks they hurt him, but because he knows he mostly hurt himself, and he feels bad for manipulating the PC.

He doesn't blame the PC for it, and I'm sure it's not because he's deluded by his sense of guilt. After all, he never blamed his targets for sleeping with him, even the "villains" among them. They're not the enemies.

Those who hurt him didn't hurt him because they accepted to sleep with him, but more probably because of their behaviours during sex.

Besides, if the PC uses the confession dialogue to trick him into sleeping with them again, Astarion accepts before realising how disgusted he feels about it, and there he blames the PC for it, because here they explicitly abused his trust, using his vulnerabilities against him. It's still difficult for him to say no, especially to someone he respects, but he can say no when he's not taken aback in his most vulnerable moments (again: he doesn't sleep with the PC at all if there's not enough approval). Sleeping with him that first night doesn't make the PC an abuser.

In act 1, the PC has no way to know how Astarion is feeling about sex, The PC is one that fool who wanted to love him...

Trust

I already mentioned how pleased he looks when the PC let him bite them, and I think it has to do with trust. They accept to spend the night with him although they know he's a vampire and they trust him not to drink too much. Look at his reaction if the PC warn him not to bite.

He's really disappointed, enough to put an end to this affair. The tone he uses here doesn't seem 100% genuine, though, masking indignation? frustration? sadness? I don't know, but the "it's about pleasure" sounds so fake to me.

He nonetheless decides to not sleep with the PC - he listens to himself and realises he doesn't want to spend the night with someone who can't trust him. The PC has taken back their trust and reduced him to his vampiric nature (as something bad). Whereas if they sleep with him, they show him that they accept him.

That’s what makes that night so special: not thanks to some sort of “collective ecstasy” but thanks to mutual trust. The PC trusts him not to hurt them. Astarion trust them not to abuse him. He’s not ready to be vulnerable, but he allows himself to enjoy that moment with the PC, despite his plan, despite his past. Because they've both come this far and the PC has proved him multiple times that he could rely on them. It’s a fragile trust at this point, but it’s still more than what he’d ever had before.

An essential step

IMHO this scene is essential in the romance route. I know some players wished there could be an option to romance him without sleeping with him, and I perfectly understand why. Realizing that he might have not be totally into it is painful. It’s uncomfortable. I also understand that if the PC is demi-sexual/ace, it makes the romance road a bit awkward. And it’s a valid feeling.

You can romance him without sleeping with him as Karlach origin, and that's because it's Karlach. The tension arises from the fact she can’t and wants it so much (for good reasons), whereas Astarion can and wants it somehow (for questionable reasons). That road is specific to them both because they are a mirroring one another.

Karlach aside, the thing is that in terms of narrative growth and storyline, this first night is the starting point of his healing journey. For the first time in 200 years, he has sex in a safe environment. For the first time, he finds a partner who trusts him enough to sleep with him even though they know he’s a vampire who could bite them. For the first time in his existence he can have real fun while having sex, he can be silly and roll on the ground. And maybe during this moment, he’s no longer the “sexy vampire” but just a man frolicking in the forest with someone he's attracted to. And again, it's still his decision, no matter how "bad" his motivations are. We should give him some credit.

I think it’s a brave move from Larian to put the players in that situation, to make them face the harsh reality of trauma. The harsh reality of being with someone who has such complicated feelings towards sex because of their trauma. It’s real. Very real. And it feels good to be seen.

You don’t always know the past of your sexual partners. You don’t always know what’s in their mind when you’re sleeping together. And if you happen to learn the harsh truth, it stings.

The Act 2 confession wouldn't be such a powerful scene without the first night. Astarion wouldn't have appeared so brave. Telling the PC about his former motivations must have been incredibly difficult, telling them "I wanted it but wasn't really into it" is freaking brave, and it's a token of trust he gives to the PC. Without that first night, it would have fallen flat. The PC would have just felt some kind of pride for not falling for his flirting and...that's it. Good, have a medal. Instead, the narrative puts the PC in an uncomfortable position, asking them: "Can you accept that? Because that's what trauma looks like and it's ugly."

That first night is inherent to Astarion's storyline, and to its message. That man goes from someone whose only reason to exist is being a sensual, sexual being in a cruel environment - someone who cannot connect with others without sex - to a man who finds out that he’s more than that, that sex doesn’t have to be dangerous, that’s it’s so much more than a game of power. And when you compare his grandiloquent attitude during that first night to his behaviour in the graveyard scene, it’s even more telling.

Those two scenes need to exist side by side to make sense, to reveal the evolution.

Everything about him in the graveyard scene - his body language, the look in his eyes, his voice - is a reversed image of that first night. He’s at peace, he doesn’t have to use those stupid lines about “mutual ecstasy” and how he will “taste you”, he doesn’t look down on the PC or look away. He looks into their eyes and tells them with his own words that he’d love to have sex with them.

But you have to experience both situations for the graveyard one to be so powerful. To witness that beautiful evolution. And Astarion too; he has to experience a “not so real” night with the PC to know that he wants something real with them.

It makes it all the more meaningful and sweeter. And imo, the graveyard scene is so freaking hot! Much more than that first night! Because it's genuine. It’s simple. He knows what he wants, his motivations are clear. It’s a man telling his lover “I want you”. A man who's learning to decipher what he really wants and to express it. And it’s more than enough.

[Let’s be honest, it’s been quite challenging to write all this. I rarely talk about my past online (for obvious reasons) and this scene means so much to me. Analysing it feels a little bit like analysing myself. And if you ever went through therapy, you know how hard it is xD In any case, that’s still my pov, based on my personal experience. I don’t pretend I hold the keys to a universal truth about it. We all have our own experience and sensibilities, and all of them are valid, even if we don’t agree in our interpretations.]

Thank you again @rivereverie for giving me the opportunity to dig into all this. I hope my humble opinion will help.

Last thing, some time ago I wrote a short fic about Astarion’s preparing himself for that first night, and it’s here.

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redyoshi241 · 20 days ago

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something I've always really appreciated about sebastian and ciel's dynamic is how good sebastian is at calming him down, actually showing a surprising amount of emotional intelligence.

In this scene, he reacts by grabbing Ciel's arm to stop him from hitting Elizabeth. Ciel typically seems to react negatively to being touched when he's emotionally heightened, but Sebastian's touch seems to be grounding:

Sebastian then moves in front of Ciel while he talks to Lizzy, effectively hiding Ciel and giving him space to calm down.

In the Jack the Ripper arc, he covers Ciel's eyes to stop him from seeing the corpse, and again, Ciel doesn't react at all negatively:

Again, he doesn't attempt to talk to Ciel himself to try and calm him down. He just takes over the situation and talks to Grelle, letting Ciel calm down in his own time. When Ciel is ready, he pushes Sebastian's hand away, and Sebastian lets him:

In both examples, Sebastian deals with it by effectively giving Ciel a temporary break from the situation and stepping in until he's ready.

I think it's something that works uniquely well for their dynamic. Sebastian knows that he couldn't comfort Ciel with words. Even when Ciel had a nightmare and didn't want to be touched, he was still comforted by Sebastian's presence. He didn't want him to say anything, just to stand there:

I also find it cute that Sebastian immediately agrees to stay and doesn't question it or make fun of him.

When making the contract, they agreed that Ciel's orders are only binding if he explicitly calls it an 'order' or a 'command':

Sometimes, Sebastian doesn't do what Ciel tells him unless he explicitly gives it as an order. In chapter 1, Ciel asked him to make him a cake and Sebastian refused. In the Circus Arc, Sebastian didn't immediately burn the manor, Ciel had to yell at him and state it was an order, and Sebastian then had no choice.

So in the scene where Ciel has a nightmare, Sebastian wasn't compelled to a) not touch him and b) stay in the room. He could easily have been cruel about it and mocked Ciel, or made him give it as an order first.

Similarly, I always found it interesting that in the Emerald Witch Arc, Sebastian says 'if the young master commands me not to touch him, then I cannot touch him'. Because at no point in this scene did Ciel 'command' Sebastian not to touch him:

But Sebastian treats it as a command anyway, because he can see how distressed Ciel is. Touch is his way of calming Ciel down, and that includes not touching him when he doesn't want it.

I think that's why, in these scenes, Sebastian's words are quite mocking but at the same time, he's caressing Ciel's face and refusing to put him down:

This ended up being way longer than I intended it to be, but basically my point is that it's interesting that while Ciel knows Sebastian can't lie to him, it's physical reassurance rather than words of comfort which play the biggest role in their dynamic. Because Ciel knows Sebastian doesn't really have his best interests at heart so he doesn't trust his words, but Sebastian's touch is safe and grounding to him, at least subconsciously.

#black butler #kuroshitsuji #sebastian michaelis #ciel phantomhive

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tarotwithavi · 8 months ago

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Which Disney princess would you be and why?

Timeless reading

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

How to choose a pile?

Close your eyes and take a deep breath and ask the angels to show you the right pile for you and open your eyes. The first pile that catches your attention is the right pile for you.

This is a general reading so take what resonates and leave the rest!

Masterlist 🍒 Extended masterlist

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I am currently running short on funds and am unable to pay my rent, I would really appreciate some help 🙏🏻

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR LOVE AND SUPPORT 🫶🏻💞

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

Pile 1

If you were to embody a Disney princess, you'd likely resonate deeply with Mulan and Moana.

Starting with Mulan, there’s a natural connection here due to your deep respect and love for your family and culture. Just like Mulan, you feel a strong responsibility to protect and honor your family. This could mean taking on the role of looking after your father, possibly even working with him or supporting his business. You don’t see these responsibilities as burdens, but rather as an honor, much like Mulan stepping up to protect her father and family when they needed her the most. You have that same fire within you—a drive that makes you stand up for the people you care about.

Your path, like Moana’s, is not confined by societal expectations. You’re someone who values independence and is ready to challenge the limits of what others think you should be or do. You’re always learning, always growing, and you’re not content with just “following the rules.” You want to make your own path, just as Moana did when she set out on her journey across the ocean, even though her entire village expected her to stay put. There's a deep explorer within you, someone who wants to experience life beyond traditional boundaries and limitations.

One thing that truly defines you is your straightforwardness. You’re not one to dance around the point you say what you mean, directly and with confidence. You may even have a sharp or deep voice that demands respect and conveys authority. People know where they stand with you, and that honesty is something that draws others to you and gains their respect.

Your courageous nature shines through in every part of your life. You’re not afraid to take the lead, to stand up for what’s right, and to go after your goals no matter how long it may take. In many ways, you have a warrior spirit; you’re determined, ambitious, and won’t settle for anything less than what you’ve dreamed of achieving. Like Mulan on the battlefield and Moana on her journey across the sea, you face challenges head-on, fully committed to coming out victorious.

This fierce independence is a core part of who you are, and it shows in your reluctance to rely on others for help. You’ve learned, maybe from a young age, to take responsibility for your own life and decisions. It’s possible you’ve had significant responsibilities from a young age, perhaps as the eldest child or someone others depended on, which has made you resourceful and strong. Now, you’re in a place where you’re even more eager to carve your own path and live life on your terms.

Curiosity and intelligence are two of your standout traits. You’re someone who questions everything, eager to understand the world in a deep way, and you don’t just accept things at face value. This makes you a natural explorer, someone constantly learning and searching for meaning, whether it’s through intellectual pursuits, travel, or self-discovery. You might have a fire or air sign as your Sun, Moon, or Rising.

Random things that may resonate : maroon red, eldest daughter, pretty handsome, short or medium height, group of 3 friends, novels/books, glasses, round eyes, parrot, hats.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

Pile 2

If you were to embody a Disney princess, Rapunzel would be a perfect match for you. There’s something about your life journey that aligns with hers a sense of yearning for freedom, adventure, and the desire to find something truly meaningful.

From a young age, you may have felt like you were held back, perhaps by the restrictions of family or the walls of your own home. Like Rapunzel, you sensed that there was a big, exciting world beyond the limits of your surroundings, but you might not have been allowed to step out and explore on your own. It’s possible that you had strict parents or a family that wanted to keep you close and safe, but this may have also made you feel confined. You’ve always known there’s more to life and have longed for the chance to experience it firsthand.

You have many dreams and aspirations, which fuels your journey to find something truly meaningful. Some of you may be in search of your life purpose or even a career that will make you feel alive and fulfilled. There’s a deep sense within you that you’re meant for greatness, but at times, you may feel restricted by family expectations or responsibilities. This drive for something greater keeps pushing you forward, even when it feels challenging to break free from those limitations.

Just as Rapunzel treasured her hair, it seems that you also hold a deep connection to yours. Whether it’s long, well-cared-for, or something you’re known for, your hair might even reflect how you’re feeling. In times of transformation or emotional shifts, you might experiment with your hair, changing it up to mark a new beginning. It’s almost as if your hair is a symbol of your personal growth, a reflection of your resilience, and the beauty that lies within you.

You may feel a bit of a distance in your relationship with your parents or family. It’s not that there’s a lack of love; rather, there may be an invisible barrier that makes true connection challenging. Like Rapunzel, you might feel like you’re waiting for the day when you can break free of these unseen walls and find that sense of freedom and individuality. This may be why you’re drawn to finding your own path, something that defines you and allows you to be yourself without restrictions.

Creativity and spontaneity are other traits that connect you to Rapunzel. You have a spark of imagination and a playful side, someone who can turn any situation into an adventure. Whether it’s through art, ideas, or even just the way you approach life, you know how to make things vibrant and alive. This ability to bring color and joy into the world is something that makes you truly special. Your story is one of discovering yourself, breaking free from constraints, and finding a purpose that fills you with joy. Like Rapunzel, you’re on a journey to step into the world and make it your own, letting nothing hold you back. You have the courage, the creativity, and the strength to shine, and once you step out into your own light, there’s no limit to the magic you’ll create.

Random messages that may resonate: water sign, arts or art major, curly hair, autumn, Taurus, white and red dresses, blindfolded, moving away, knight in shining Armor.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

Pile 3

Like Belle, you are someone who values knowledge and understanding. You have a deep appreciation for learning and personal growth, which drives you to explore new ideas and experiences. Just as Belle is often found with her nose in a book, you, too, are likely someone who seeks wisdom and insight, eager to expand your horizons. This thirst for knowledge not only enriches your life but also sets you apart from those around you, much like Belle’s unique perspective in her village.

Your ability to work well with others suggests that you have a collaborative spirit. You understand the importance of teamwork and the power of building relationships. Whether it's through family, friends, or colleagues, you recognize that great things can be achieved when people come together. Just as Belle works with the enchanted objects in the castle, you thrive in environments where you can connect and collaborate, bringing your talents to the table to create something beautiful and meaningful.

However, your journey also includes a sense of transition and growth. You might have experienced significant changes in your life, moving away from familiar surroundings or letting go of old beliefs that no longer serve you. This willingness to embrace change is a sign of your strength. Much like Belle leaving her home for the Beast’s castle, you are open to new experiences that lead to personal transformation.

You possess a nurturing quality, reflecting the warmth and care that Belle shows to those she loves. You likely have a deep sense of empathy, wanting to uplift and support others. This makes you a source of comfort for those around you, and people naturally gravitate toward your kind heart. Just as Belle helps the Beast see the beauty within himself, you have a way of bringing out the best in others, showing them that they are worthy of love and respect.

At the same time, you may find yourself in moments of solitude or deep reflection. Just as Belle often finds solace in her own thoughts, you may cherish your alone time, using it as a way to gain insight into yourself and the world around you. This introspective side allows you to process your experiences, helping you grow into a more well-rounded individual. It’s during these quiet moments that you gain clarity and strengthen your inner resolve.

Your willingness to embrace transformation indicates that you’re not afraid to face challenges head-on. Just as Belle navigates the complexities of her relationship with the Beast, you have the courage to confront difficult situations and seek growth through them. You understand that change can be uncomfortable, but it is often necessary for evolution. This resilience speaks volumes about your character.

Family and legacy are also important themes in your life. Just as Belle values her relationship with her father, you may find that family plays a significant role in shaping who you are. You likely cherish the bonds you have with loved ones and aspire to build a life filled with love and stability. Your dedication to those you care about reflects a desire for lasting connections, much like the legacy that Belle seeks to create in her own life.

However, your journey isn’t without its challenges. Like Belle, who faces conflicts with both societal expectations and personal struggles, you might encounter obstacles that test your determination. You may find yourself in situations where you need to stand your ground and assert your beliefs, navigating conflicts with grace and understanding. Your ability to confront these struggles with poise sets you apart and showcases your inner strength.

Random things that may resonate : ponds/lakes, leadership qualities, physically attractive, lonely, transformative, fever or headaches, competition.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

#tarot reading #pick a card #tarot cards #free readings #free tarot #tarot #pick a pile #tarotblr #pick a picture #pick a photo #princesscore #disney #tarotcommunity #tarot business #tarotoftumblr #tarot readings #tarot deck #tarot blr

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moonstruckme · 9 months ago

Note

i seen your post asking for thawing out ideas/requests and i love it so far you’re an amazing writer!! it’s only 2 parts and i’m obsessed haha – maybe reader or sirius falls or something on the ice (nothing serious ofc!) and remus panics a little as a way of thawing the tension between siri and rem? either sirius realizing remus cares about the reader and starting to trust him more or remus realizing he really cares about what happens to sirius/their duo!!

Thank you for your request gorgeous!!

collab with @ellecdc

cw: modern au, chronic pain, brief and lightly implied past abuse

poly!wolfstar x fem!reader ♡ 2k words

You’re only a few days out from flying to the Olympics when Sirius doesn’t show up to walk you to practice. You call him and wait around with Remus for a while, but eventually you decide to get in whatever training you can without him. It’s far from unheard of for Sirius to sleep through his alarm.

Remus seems grateful for the extra time with you. He’s been laying it on a little thick since you’d reacted so drastically to his unintentional Peter-ism, praising you for everything from how you stretch to the simplest of jumps, and any criticisms are softened into measly recommendations. You’ve done your best to let him know that you’re not upset with him (you never were, honestly, how could he have known the effect those precise words would have on you?), and now things seem to be more or less normal between the two of you.

You like Remus more by the day. When he’d first come to coach you and Sirius, you’d been happy to see him, but only because of what he represented. A fresh start, a guiding hand, the possibility of his greatness transmitting to your duo and making you better than you’d ever been. And all of those things have proven true, but as you’ve worked together and learned from each other you’ve grown to appreciate your miracle coach as a man, too.

Remus is kind. He’s smart, and discerning, but he doesn’t boast about it, and he’s patient with you and Sirius when you can’t always keep up with his reasoning. He’s patient in general, though you know neither of you have made it easy for him and you’ve often wondered if you deserve it. He has a serious manner, but sometimes when you’re joking around with Sirius you’ll see him smiling, tongue pressing into his cheek like he’s trying to repress it. You can tell that, despite years in front of cameras and a well-earned self-assuredness, he’s shy about certain things. Like Sirius, he doesn’t always like to have his kindnesses acknowledged. But there’s a warmth about Remus. Not bright and dazzling, but a soft, steady warmth, like the flicker of a candle or the glow of the moon.

You can see it now, the faint gleam of approval and something else in his eyes as you land your final jump in the routine on a solid ankle. His lips tilt up as though the accomplishment were his own.

“That was lovely,” he says as you skate over for feedback. “Really, really good.”

You beam at him, the praise lighting something in your chest. “But…”

Remus shakes his head. “No buts. I think you’ve got your part of the routine down completely.”

It’s impossible to contain your elation. You want to hug him and so you do, the toes of your skates pressed against the edge of the rink and your arms wound up around his shoulders.

Remus seems surprised for a moment, but eventually his arms come around you too. Gentle, tentative. You don’t mind; you squeeze him extra hard to make up for it.

“Now all we need is for Sirius to get the spiral,” Remus says.

You laugh, your good mood unshakeable. You know Remus has questioned the wisdom of his decision to add the death spiral into your routine over the last few days. After several practices on and off the ice, you’ve made no progress on getting even an inch lower than you were, which isn’t enough to gain full points in competition. You know by now that it’s not because Sirius isn’t strong enough to crouch further down, or that he has his skates in the wrong position. He just won’t do it. It’s frustrating, but there’s nothing left for you or Remus to do. It’s like you under-rotating your jumps when you’d first started practicing; it’s a mental block, something he has to get past on his own.

“He’ll figure it out,” you tell Remus certainly. “Sirius does well under pressure. You’d be surprised what he can pull out at the last minute.”

And speak of the devil. The door to the rink bangs shut, announcing Sirius’ entrance. He looks about as happy as he always does to be up before sunrise, worse because he’s clearly rushed out of bed to get here. His sweatshirt is on backwards and there’s a pillow crease on his cheek.

“Sorry,” he mutters, slumping down onto the bench to put his skates on.

“It’s okay.” You comb your fingers through his sleep-fluffed hair, moving some of the larger pieces away from his face. The look Remus is giving him borders upon fond. “As it turns out, I do much better when you’re not here.”

“Always knew you would.” He brushes your hand away, using the hair tie on his wrist to pull his hair back into its usual haphazard bun. And as usual, you have to make a concerted effort not to watch how his biceps flex with the motion.

“Let’s have you do a shortened warm-up today,” says Remus. “Ten minutes, alright?”

“No, I’m good.” Sirius stands, stretching his arms behind his back as he walks towards the ice. “We’ve missed enough time today, let’s get to it.”

Remus frowns but doesn’t argue, and you know better than to try either. Sirius doesn’t seem grumpy, per se, but he’s never in his best mood when he first wakes up and he’s stubborn at the best of times.

However half-asleep he may seem, Sirius is still resplendent on the ice. He skates with a lazy grace, the illusion breaking only when he has to tighten his form for jumps and turns. He never wobbles, never falters, every movement as easy and sure as if he’d been born with blades on his feet.

The death spiral goes the same as it has been. Sirius makes it look like that’s the way it was always meant to be performed, but no matter his bravado any judge will know the difference. Still, you get your practice in with the general movement, and then he’s throwing you into your next spin, then jump after spin, spin after jump, the routine crescendoing in music, pacing, and difficulty. The world whirls around you, Sirius’ hand a home base that you grasp and let go of only to find again, the sounds of your skates on the ice their own rhythm conducted by muscle memory, complex and quickening and so consuming you almost wouldn’t notice Sirius’ had stopped if he didn’t cry out.

You stop, breathless. Sirius is on his side. He’s no stranger to pain, but he doesn’t like it any more than the next person, and it’s all twisted up in his face now.

It takes you a beat to move. When you do Remus is already coming out onto the ice, the rubber soles of his shoes slipping until he goes down on his knees to slide the rest of the way to Sirius.

“What is it?” you ask, though you think you know, your friend’s body curving and hands reaching for his skate.

Sirius’ breaths are short and pained. “My ankle.”

“Let me see.” Remus’ fingers are deft and sure as he undoes Sirius’ laces. Your own hand quivers slightly as Sirius sits up and you set it on his shoulder, hoping to anchor him even if you don’t feel very anchored yourself. He inhales sharply as the skate comes off. Remus shushes him, gentle fingers circling his ankle. “Shh, love, you’re alright.”

“Does it feel broken?” you worry.

Sirius is watching Remus prod at his ankle with a bemused sort of caution. “No,” he says. “I think maybe just twisted.”

“It could be a sprain,” Remus says. He’s rolled down the top of Sirius’ sock and is turning his ankle over carefully in his grasp. “Bruising might show up later.”

“It’s fine.” Sirius sits up further, but when Remus doesn’t let go of his ankle he doesn’t pull away. “I just need to stretch it out and it’ll be good.”

Remus’ eyes flicker up to his, and you see the kind sternness in them. “Whether it’s sprained or not, you can’t just skate it off. We’re done for today. Probably for tomorrow, too.”

“Don’t be daft.” Sirius reaches for his skate. Remus moves it away. “We don’t have time for me to take a sabbatical.”

“Sirius,” you say, “practicing more won’t mean anything if you can’t compete.”

Remus nods his agreement. “We’re not risking you injuring yourself no matter how close to comp we are,” he says. “We’re not.” He stands with Sirius’ skate in hand.

“What’re you doing?”

“I’m confiscating this,” Remus holds up Sirius’ skate, and you press your lips together to hide a smile, “until you’re cleared to skate again.”

Sirius is appalled. “But—but it’s mine!”

“Oh, don’t be a child, Pads.”

Now you can’t suppress your snicker. Sirius lets out a shocked huff, elbowing you in the ribs. You can see the corner of his mouth twitching unwillingly.

“Hey.” You pinch the back of his arm in retribution. “Do you want my help getting off the ice or not?”

You end up finding ice for Sirius in the staff break room and sitting with him for a while as you hold it to his ankle. Remus stays, too, the three of you chatting about banal things that you enjoy immensely nonetheless. The car Sirius had nearly walked right out in front of in his rush to get here this morning, Remus’ mother and how she loves to bang around the house as soon as the sun is up, the new syrup flavor you’ve discovered at the coffee shop. Every sliver of information you can get about Remus feels precious, and though you sometimes feel like you know Sirius inside and out you never tire of hearing his stories either. He has such a fun, vibrant way of telling them, all big gestures and dramatic words, whereas Remus seems almost tentative when he talks about his life, smiling when you laugh along as though it hadn’t occurred to him that humor could be shared.

When the hockey team shows up Sirius only lets James fret over him for a minute before he’s dragging him and his messed up ankle out the door, forcing you to hurry after so you can act as his crutch. You walk Sirius home, where he vows to stay and rest, before heading back to your own apartment.

It’s only once you’re alone that your mind, unbidden, begins turning over the way Sirius and Remus had looked at each other today. You’d been too worried about your friend to think of anything else at the time, but there had been a moment, between Remus’ gentle handling of his ankle and his soft, kind placations, where Sirius’ expression had faltered. Surprise, vulnerability, and something else. Something that rings of familiarity, and yet you can’t place.

It’s clear to you that the dynamic between your partner and your coach has shifted. That while you’ve been feeling closer to Remus’, Sirius has too, and they’ve passed some boundary you missed along the way. Maybe the chemistry between them was always obvious. They’d fought, antagonized each other, but some people enjoy that, don’t they? Maybe you’ve been naive to think that you’ve been working to get them amicable, when really they’ve had this unspoken tension tethering them to each other all along.

The idea of Sirius and Remus together feels…strange. But that’s probably only because it’s so new to you. Sirius is your best friend, and you’d thought you and Remus were getting close, so it’s odd to imagine the two of them interlocked in this other dynamic together, separate from you. You can see how it might happen. They’re both very attractive, both headstrong in their own ways, and you’ve seen how they can soften for one another when the circumstances call for it. You think they could take care of each other. And you can take care of them both, though in a different way. You can support them, make things easy between the three of you, be a good friend. Nothing has to change in your dynamic with either of them, even if theirs with each other has shifted.

You could be alright with that, you think. You can be happy for them. You will be.

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lackadaisycats · 4 months ago

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Hi!

I got a question about that delightful opening of the pilot, the Old Man River poem. It is my second favourite moment of the comic, only beat by the chapter "Breakdown", and I have never seen a better clip in an animated show/film. It then occurred to me, however, that it is 1) a 1-to-1 translation from the comic in terms of spoken lines, but 2) it adds wonderful visuals and sound design, including Rocky's fiddling, which makes the scene absolutely epic! But it is very much the same scene.

I heard somewhere on the grapevine that the series will follow far more closely the plot of the comic, and thus I wonder: Will that scene be in the show? Will it be repeated nearly exactly as it is in the pilot but minimally tweaked to fit the series? Will it be remade, and if so, to what extent? What sort of upgrade could it need?

Or will it just be skipped altogether?

The rest of the pilot I feel takes notable parts of the first volume and sort of fuses them together as a "showcase" of course, which I love, but that scene in isolation is so close to the comic canon, I have to know. Any information is appreciated! I do understand anything withheld due to spoilers.

Long ask I know, sorry, I ramble a lot, so Tl;Dr: Will the Old Man River poem show up in the series? And if so, will it be replicated or remade/updated/altered?

I didn't want to rehash the Old Man River poem since it already appears in the pilot, so we wrote something different. It serves a similar purpose in the story, but the presentation and prose is all different.

#lackadaisy #lackadaisycats #q&a

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romanofftherealest · 23 days ago

Text

𝔑𝔬𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔅𝔲𝔯𝔫𝔰 𝔏𝔦𝔨𝔢 𝔗𝔥𝔢 ℭ𝔬𝔩𝔡

Chapter 1: When Cold Meets The Heat | 1.3k

Summary: The boss meets the boss.

Pairing: Mob boss Natasha Romanoff x Mob boss Female Reader

Tags | Warnings: +18 sexual tension

Author's Note: Not about this fic but I already answered those asks that was stuck for weeks in my inbox. If yours didn't get answered maybe it's bc I already answered it on another ask, it's private or I am not comfortable. Thank you for those who expressed their support, gratitude, and care, I appreciate it a lot.

⧗

"I got some company for my appointment?" you asked, not mad or angry. Just the usual cold tone of yours. But the irritation was evident with how you quickly paced through that even your guards cannot even keep up.

Emergency? You'll be understanding about that but not being told that your appointment was canceled for some emergency? Definitely not.

"Y-Yes, ma'am." The girl stutters, rushing to follow up on your heavy strides. "There is an emergency appointment that Doctor Banner had to accept and, wait—ma'am..."

The girl wasn't able to signal the guards outside the appointment room to just hold before they could even open it for you to come in, because, unfortunately, they do not take orders from secretaries not unless they were informed to. But the moment they saw you, digging your stiletto heels on the wooden floor, they knew whose order they are going to follow, even without being informed.

"Ice Queen."

"Black Widow."

You walked passed in front of the sitting mob boss and sat beside her. The air in the room is thick with tension as the two of you wait for Banner. Despite your frosty demeanor, you can feel the heat of the Black Widow's stare the moment you stepped inside, and it takes every ounce of your self-control not to look at her.

The heat and the cold fighting whose dominance will fill the room.

The Black Widow clears her throat, shifting in her chair and adjusting her sleeves, which are rolled up to reveal a series of colorful tattoos covering her arms. She wouldn't exactly call it as bothered but she was definitely shocked the moment you stepped inside but she remained composed.

And she definitely did not stare at your ass as you get pass her to take your seat.

She pulled the end of her suit in her wrists, chilled.

"How's the diamond business treating you these days?" she asks in a casual tone, her gaze fixed on you.

"Lucrative."

Another silence.

You sit back, smoothing out your long dress, which has a sexy slit that shows off your crossed legs. You feel the weight of her gaze on you, and when your pride manages to glance in her direction, you catch a quick glimpse of her eyes before they dart away. Both of you remain steadfastly facing forward, refusing to let the simmering tension between you escalate, if only for now.

You're not bothered by her. And you are not going to be bothered by her. It was her who's taking your space and time right now.

"How is the Red Room?"

"Under control."

Easy questions, with easy sounding answers. You continued to sit in silence, waiting for your comrade-of-sorts to finally come. It was never easy for such dangerous people to meet comfortably, but you are both aware of the importance of maintaining good relations with the powerful mafia doctor. Besides, you are just following your own appointment and that is right now.

Your gaze runs over her, taking in her confident, relaxed manner. She sits in the chair as if she owns the place, feet splayed out, knees bent, leaning against the armrest. Her rolled-up sleeves reveal toned arms, and even the muscles that aren't exposed are clearly defined—and it was something impossible to ignore about her, God.

Meanwhile, Natasha can feel your cold eyes on her, but she doesn't react outright. She chooses to be a gentlewoman about it, for now at least. So, she sneaks a quick glance in your direction, knowing that she is a pro stealing glances when you are not looking. The distinction between the two of you is stark, while you may be more accustomed to bold stares, Natasha relies on subtlety and stealth.

Who could blame her? It wasn't that she had a thing for you—the Ice Queen, or anything. But she admired and respected you for being a successful and powerful figure in the underworld and in your own syndicate. Natasha had known and heard about you for years and had acknowledged your achievements…while being so beautiful at the same time.

You sat quietly, breathing evenly to maintain an air of calm. You ignored the urge to fidget and mess with the lace shawl that draped elegantly over your shoulders. It didn't escape your attention that Natasha had been staring at you, with her typical lack of subtlety. Even though she might not have realized it, you were keenly aware of her gaze. At least, you could say that her stares were different from the lecherous ogling you sometimes received from other men in your line of work.

"I heard Stark bought something off of you," Natasha said nonchalantly. Trying to create a conversation once again.

You simply replied with a "Yes," not bothering to elaborate.

You are really not for small talks are you?

"Did he give you any trouble?"

"Jealous?" you couldn't resist a faint smirk, unable to help yourself. You enjoyed seeing Natasha get flustered when you teased her.

"Of having to deal with that prick?" she snorted, straightening up in her chair and tugging at her suit jacket.

"He even offered to let me keep my pick," you replied.

Natasha raised a brow at you, unable to resist rising to your bait. "He offered to let you keep your own product?"

"Yes," you responded, letting a strand of hair fall over your shoulder. "He was willing to give it to me as an engagement ring."

Natasha's laugh echoed through the room, its volume more akin to a sharp bark than a laugh. She tapped her chelsea boots on the floor, punctuating her words with a rhythmic slapping sound. Leaning closer between your chairs, she fixed you with a penetrating look.

"So, let me get this straight," the Black Widow started, her tone dripping with skepticism. "He was seriously trying to play the knight in shining armor and propose to you? He thought he could just sweep you away and offer you some kind of fairy tale existence?"

You responded with a sultry laugh, unable to resist toying with her a little more. Leaning on the right arm of your chair, you drew closer to Natasha, matching her earlier move.

"In fact, that's remarkably accurate," you retort, voice low and smooth. "And he is a literal knight in shining armor, you know?"

Natasha could only huff, clenching her jaw at your comment. Tony had always bragged about his stupid suit and armors and if he's here right now, that little comment of yours would feed his big, fat ego.

"In all his fairytale glory, he actually asked me to give up my life of crime and become his dutiful wife." You continued.

A tense moment passed as the two of you held each other's gaze. Natasha was torn between wanting to give in and ask the question that was clearly on her mind. You were equally unwilling to break the silence, waiting to see who would falter first.

Finally, the Black Widow relented, unable to bear the ice any longer.

"Obviously, you turned him down," she said, her tone betraying a hint of curiosity even as she tried to maintain her usual stoicism.

"Obviously."

"Heart elsewhere?" Natasha upturned her lips unevenly, giving you a lazy smirk, "Printsessa?"

"That's Queen," you snapped so quickly that you actually cut her off. Your tilt your head, eyes narrowing. She thought she was so cute with that stupid smirk, "To you."

"Sorry," she had a lot of nerve to chuckle right in your face. She bowed her head to you slightly, "your Majesty."

"You have a lot of nerve taking your eyes off me," you glared at her.

"Believe me, Y/N," she raised her head again. You were nose to nose. Those amazing green eyes of yours scrubbed over her face, flitting over her with wide pupils. "I can never take my eyes off you."

"You think you're so charming," you held her eyes.

"Your words, not mine."

"The word is insufferable."

"Yet here you are," she grinned. For your supposed intolerance of her, you were still leaning in as well. "Suffering me."

"And what are you suffering from?" your words came out as a soft whisper as you leaned more. You were no longer nose to nose. You were somehow even closer, heads leaning close together, foreheads almost touching, heads almost tilting. The distance between you is almost non-existent.

The heat is taking over...

Natasha let out a soft chuckle, her breath warm on your face. "Suffering?" she repeated, her eyes fixed on yours and dropping to your slightly parted lips. "Oh, you have no idea. I'm suffering in the most excruciating way." She could feel your hot breath on her lips and she could feel the heat rushing up the back of her neck too. "I could never suffer when I'm with you."

You breathed heavily. Your tongue brushed the back of your teeth. Your lips were so close. Your hand was reaching for her shirt collar.

"Please don't fuck in my office."

Nothing Burns Like The Cold: Masterlist

#natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff x female reader #black widow #black widow x reader #black widow x female reader

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