#The Pretty Little Thing Pre Party

[surra-de-bunda]

Megan Thee Stallion at The Pretty Little Thing Pre Party hosted by The BET Awards (June 2019).

[supercutszns]

rotten to the touch; luke castellan

series masterlist

wc: 3.2k

pairing: pre-tlt luke castellan x f! reader

synopsis: you’re pretty sure you’re an awful person. you’re pretty sure luke castellan is too. and you’re pretty sure you want to make out with him.

warnings: reader is flawed & not the greatest, luke is ... a little dark🫣, small mention of blood, swearing, lots of making out but no explicit nsfw, a bit toxic, & no more more ‘i can fix him’ or ‘i can make him worse’ it’s ‘he can make ME worse’

notes: this is… sluttier than my usual stuff so it’s not as good but i’m trying, feedback is appreciated! also i wonder what cabin we think this reader would be in, let me know where you’d place her im curious :) maybe i’ll write more of her in the future she’s interesting!! and thank you for 100 followers i am so grateful<3 designated song for this fic is crush by ethel cain

You are a miserable, wicked, asshole of a person, and everybody knows it. Including you.

It’s unclear to you why you turned out this way—every reason to blame never satiates the fury searing your insides. All the campers hate you. The counsellors, too. Even Chiron looks down on the viciousness inside you. You are Camp Half-Blood’s black sheep; a mean, bitter person with no love for the people around you. And it’s not just for show. You know you’re rotten. You know the anger will never go away.

It’s evident in the things you think about other people—the way you pick them apart in your head, toss them aside, because they just don’t see it. This miserable, unforgiving world, with children sleeping on wooden floors because the people who created you think you disposable. Because they can just make more of you. More, more, more, until one of you comes out rotten, born of all the ugliness they have inside them. You are the worst parts of Godly blood. The wrathful parts.

Everyone hates you. Everyone hates a person with an unquenchable anger.

But everyone loves Luke Castellan.

He’s a saint at Camp Half-Blood if there ever was one. Handsome, generous, kind. Goes out of his way to help out the new kids and gives them homes in his cabin. He’s the best swordsman in camp by a mile. Shit, you’d even love Luke Castellan if you didn’t know any better.

But you do, and you don’t, and it’s complicated, okay?

Because there’s something you know about Luke Castellan that nobody else does: he’s miserable and wicked, too.

You see it in his eyes sometimes. The way they look at you at dinner, when you’re picking at your food away from anyone else at your table. Something familiar rises in them, and your stomach twists. His body tenses whenever someone mentions his father, but the smiles he flashes are so charismatic nobody notices. But you do. It’s exciting.

During sword practice, he quips back and forth with the kids and laughs whenever they take a jab at him. He’s light, easy, carefree. But you see how he holds back, the tension in his shoulder, the way the arc of his sword never fully finishes. So you wait until everybody leaves and he’s alone, with the training dummies and the setting sun. And you. Hiding.

He slashes through them and spears through their heads. You see it, the gnashing of his teeth, the sweat curling down his cheeks. There’s something there. A chasm he’s hopeless to fill.

Before you know it, you’re going out of your way to catch him training alone. It’s creepy, you know, and awful, you know, but the more you watch him the more you see a sort of violence scabbed under his skin.

Whenever you see him now, the feeling you get is entirely foreign to you. It’s almost . . . longing.

Wherever she is, you’re pretty sure Aphrodite’s having a cosmic fucking laugh. And you’re sure she’s laughing double tonight.

The Aphrodite cabin is hosting some secret party for the older counsellors. You’re definitely of age to be a counsellor, but you’ve never been made one because that would probably make half the campers drop out. Chiron and Mr. D don’t know what to do with you. You’re sure you’ll be kicked out of camp soon for good.

But you’re here anyways, for a reason you don’t want to admit, and you stay tucked in a corner as the world around you mingles. Luke is on the other side of the room, lovely as always, laughing with a few other counsellors. He brings a drink up to his lips, and you have a startling thought of what it would be like to kiss him. And you’re fucked. You’re so fucked. Because for the first time in your life you want something tangible, something real. You want to hear him and feel him and pry him apart, and a part of you wants him to actually see you, see all the awful things that might make you the same. You feel like a teenage girl with a crush, and it is infuriating.

An Aphrodite girl comes up to you with a foolish smile. “Hey, sorry, you want a drink?”

“Fuck off, you idiot,” you snarl.

You wait for her to leave. She doesn’t. “You know, you don’t have to be so mean all the time,” she says evenly. “If you’re here, you might as well enjoy it. So yes, I want to give you a drink.”

“Have you ever thought that I’m not being mean? Maybe I just am.”

You glare at her. She looks you up and down. “Sure,” she shrugs, walking away. There’s a vivid picture in your mind of her falling through a hole in the cabin floor. It doesn’t soothe you, but at least the fantasy is there.

The night drones on. You’re sick of the smells and the laughs and the heat. And you’re sick of yourself. You can’t believe, underneath all your sourness, you came here to stare at a boy you barely know, and you don’t even know why. He’s fascinating, and you resent him, and he’s also beautiful. But he’s looked back at you all of three times tonight and you’re sick of the way your skin crawls when he does.

Leaving the cabin brings the relief of the cool night air, and the singularity of your body. You are the only one who feels this rage. You are the only one who hates.

To stave off your discomfort you walk around to the back of the cabin, to the crest of the hill facing the water. The stars above twinkle at you in spite. There’s a bitterness in your throat you want to wash down with something worse (maybe you should have taken that drink), but you know it won’t matter. Nothing matters. Those stars and whatever they hide are apparently the only important things in the universe, so why should anyone care about anything?

They stars only get brighter. It’s probably their goal to piss you off. You grunt, “Oh, fuck you,” to them. It’s not enough, never nearly enough to expel the rotten part of you. “Fuck you. Fuck off!” You groan at the sky. Nothing happens. Until:

“I’m guessing you’re not having a fun night.”

You whirl around. It’s hard to see in the dark, but whatever light is left catches a long scar on a cheek. Your stomach knots.

“Yeah, me neither,” Luke Castellan says, hands in his pockets as he meanders towards you.

Even when he’s close enough, you don’t say anything. If you do, you’re afraid it’ll be something ugly. Like I kind of want to make out with you. Are you awful too? I need a lobotomy.

The thoughts almost make you laugh. Been a long time since you’ve been funny.

He nods at the sky. “Those things don’t talk. You do know that, right?” He’s still so captivating, so self-assured, even when there’s no one around but you.

“Gods, you’re the worst,” you scoff. You really mean it, so you can’t look him in the eye.

“Then why have you been staring at me all night?”

It catches you so off-guard that you whip back to face him. He has an eyebrow raised and the itch of a smile that makes you burn with shame. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

He shrugs, leaning against the cabin wall. “I’m not stupid. You’ve been brooding in the corner watching me the second you came in.” He cocks his head to the side, adding, “Actually, you stare at me all the time. At meals and stuff. I really hope you don’t think you’re being subtle.”

You huff. “Okay, if we’re really being honest here, you started that! You do it too! All the time!”

His hands shot up like he was being arrested. “Hey, I never said I minded it. A guy’s . . . just gotta wonder. What’s up with you spying on me when I’m training alone, anyways?”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You watch me when there’s nobody else around. I’m not blind. It’s weird. If you want tips you can just ask me. Or if you like what you’re looking at, at least be upfront about it.”

You speak before you can take in that last sentence, or the way his smile took pride in itself when he said it, or how embarrassed you should probably feel. “You didn’t answer my question about why you started staring at me first.”

The anger (shame) blinding you made you forget how close you are to him right now. Close enough to touch, but not enough to see. But almost there. Almost.

“People think you’re mean,” Luke says after a moment, his dark eyes probing you. The words curl out of his mouth slowly, like he’s choosing them all with care. “You’re rude. You never listen to anyone. You judge everything. They all think you’re awful.” Again, he looks you over. “I’m not so sure.”

“If I’m awful, then you’re awful,” you spit before he can say anything else.

He just shrugs. “Well, I guess that’s why I’m not sure.”

It’s irritating, his calmness. He has the same anger you do. How come he can just . . . shove it down? You try to unearth any fury in his eyes, but it’s too far back. Simmering. “Jesus,” you mutter, “You’re worse than me.”

He looks genuinely taken aback by this. His scar deepens when his brows wrinkle. “What?”

“You’re a pretender—that’s what you are.” It’s your turn now, to step closer, to make his skin crawl. “Look at you. Everyone loves you. You’re this perfect golden boy and you’re sweet and attentive and whatever the fuck but you know it’s one giant lie. At least I’m honest, but you just sit pretty and act like you don’t have that . . . thing that I have. Resentment. Insanity. Whatever you want to call it. We’re the same, but I’m the only one getting shit for it.”

Now, you are close enough to really see him. The patterns on the wood behind him frame the vision of his ever-shifting face. You realize that this, like most things are to Luke Castellan, is a challenge. You also can’t remember the last time you saw him lose one.

But when you play, you play to win.

“You don’t know that,” he dares.

“Oh, I do. You’re rotten, Castellan,” you sneer, index finger jabbed into his chest. You can feel his heartbeat if you concentrate. “And you’re not owning up to it, so you’re also a coward.”

However scathing you look, it isn’t enough. If anything it only makes Luke’s manner more playful. Nothing feels playful anymore. Everything, inside and outside of your mind, feels like constant, exhausting war. Maybe that’s why you don’t slap his hand off you when it wraps around your wrist, keeping it pressed to the middle of his chest. His heartbeat thrums through you.

He tilts his face towards you, grinning, “Then why do you want to kiss me?”

All right. What the fuck. It feels like you’ve been electrocuted.

“What the—what are you talking about?” You blunder, but he knows, of course he knows, because there’s something between the two of you that has been formed and understood by eye contact alone. He can probably read your mind. As much as you don’t want to admit it, you’d like to read his just as much.

He cocks his head. “I mean, you did call me pretty,” he teases, and it’s almost endearing. “You’re pretty like this too.” His other hand comes up to your face, and you’re surprised you don’t flinch when his thumb gently smooths the crease in your eyebrows. “Don’t call me a coward, heathen. Then we’ll both be embarrassed.”

The nickname makes you want to fight, but the touch makes you dizzy. “You don’t want to kiss me, Luke,” you say with all the control you have, which, right now, is increasingly sparse.

“You’ve gotta stop telling people what they want,” he muses. The hand on your wrist traces further down your forearm. The one on your face snakes around your hips. “One of your more disagreeable qualities.”

His words fan over you. That fire simmering in his eyes has finally come to the surface.

“One of?” You challenge.

“You let me make out with you and I’ll give you a whole list.”

You snort, hoping it hides the shortness in your breath. “What a charmer you are.”

His lips brush yours. “Well, that’s what makes me so rotten, isn’t it?”

There’s hardly time to unravel if that’s a question or a statement because you grab a fistful of his shirt and he kisses you. Your heart detonates. It is not rotten in the slightest.

His body is warm and firm. You smell the cabin wood and the drink on his breath. It all matters, and none of it does. You’re warm everywhere as he wraps both arms around your back, and the way he kisses is, unfortunately, exactly how you thought he would. Your hands are tentative in his hair. So is your mouth on his. But Luke is so deliberate in the way he kisses that you know he’s thought about this, too. It makes you all the warmer.

His hand takes your jaw and tilts it up. You know your neck is shaky with breath, and you’re pretty sure he’s admiring it. You don’t complain when he presses a kiss to your jaw, then another one, like he’s testing the waters. “You’re so nice like this,” he mutters almost to himself, thumb running across your neck. “If only people could see you.”

“Then they’d see how mean you are too, no?” You huff. “You don’t want that.”

Another kiss to your jaw. “Not yet, sweetheart.”

Whatever feeling is harbouring in your body right now, it’s so fulfilling it almost makes you uncomfortable. You want to reject it. You’re not supposed to want things. Worse, you’re not supposed to get things. Luke starts marking a path down your neck and you are so determined to enjoy this that you’d kiss a fucking baby if someone asked you to. You might as well be a saint.

He bites the pulse point on your neck, sure to leave a mark, and a shudder rips through you. You’re pretty sure the bastard starts laughing. You hit his shoulder in retaliation.

“Easy, heathen,” he reprimands in your ear, and you know he’s still smiling.

“Don’t—don’t call me that.” You hate that you start to smile, too, and that your stomach burgeons with butterflies when he pulls back to look at you.

He touches the corner of your upturned mouth, kiss-bitten and red. His expression is boyish. “Hard to when it makes your face do that,” he goads. “I thought it was impossible for you to smile.”

“Be quiet.” You thread a hand through his camp necklace and bring him closer. You can almost taste his mouth on yours, but he sweeps past you at the last minute.

He gently tugs your earlobe with his teeth and whispers, “Yes ma’am.”

Fuck him. Seriously. You might have to.

It’s a tangle of teeth and hands and smiles kept hidden, as you slip your fingertips beneath his shirt and he does the same, and you’re both angry and greedy and incredibly destructive, but it doesn’t matter yet. Now you’re just teenagers fooling around at the back of a party, and it’s the first good thing either of you have had in a long time. Luke leaves you gasping whenever his mouth hits certain places, maybe too many places, and he teases you accordingly. “So sensitive,” he taunts, pressing his knee between your legs so he can see you squirm. You rake your nails through his scalp and he tilts his head back to groan. It shuts him up for a while.

He bites your neck until you say his name. You trace lines on his stomach till he takes your hand in his own. You’ve been hungry for something your whole life, and you finally have something to sink your teeth into. For better or for worse.

After Hades knows how long, laughter floats out from the front of the cabin. Sounds of feet tripping over each other and muffled goodbyes. You pull away from Luke, chests heaving together. His hair is wild, his shirt crumpled, and he looks entirely satisfied with it. Smug little shit. “Party’s letting out,” you mutter.

“What a damn shame.” His hand rubs your jaw, and it’s too tender a gesture so you angle your head away to peek over the side of the cabin. You barely pay attention to the kids straggling back to their bunks.

“Is now the time you tell me all my horrible qualities?” You ask once you’re ready to look at him again.

He clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Actually, I came up with more since I said that so I’m pretty sure it’ll take more than one night.” He fakes a wince, “Might have to spread it out for a few days.”

You roll your eyes, “Oh, you ass.”

“I’ll give you one for starters.” You feel like a tornado when he kisses the juncture between your jaw and your neck. “Your hands are too cold.” They’re tucked underneath his shirt right now, pressed against his back. You don’t move them. “And,” he adds, “you’re incredibly crass.”

“Thanks, dipshit.”

“Thank you for proving my point, heathen.”

The commotion at the front gets louder, and you know your time to go undiscovered runs short. “You meet me again tomorrow, and I start telling you the rest?” He raises his brows.

The prospect both repulses and excites you, although perhaps they’re hand-in-hand. You tentatively reach up to trace the scar on his face. A faint, jagged line that holds scripture within it. His eyes flutter shut for a moment. “Even though I’m rotten?” You ask, and there’s an echo of mischief in your voice, too.

He’s got a strange expression when he looks at you. “That’s not true.”

He leans down, angles his head to kiss you. It’s slow, but bitter, and he bites down on your lip until you’re pretty sure there’s blood. “Luke,” you murmur, and he kisses you softer. You lean into him like a hapless, lovesick fool.

After you part, he loosens his grip on you. The bumbling campers have gotten louder. He stares at you, and you see the chasm in his eyes again, brimming with fire. Same as yours. You know you’ll see him tomorrow.

He says, “You’re not rotten. You’re right.”

And damn it, you really do believe him.

[theyluvkarolina]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍

Part One , Part Two ' ' 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐓 ' '

· . ୨୧⭒๋࣭ ⭑ ` ` no! you’re married to me! she’s the other woman! ` ` ⊹ ‧₊˚

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 ୨୧ Being in love with your friend is the best! Until your wort dream comes true.

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 ୨୧ lando norris x friend!reader (one-sided love)

𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌 ୨୧ none!

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 ୨୧ angsty…?

𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐏𝐎 ୨୧ The Other Woman - Lana Del Rey

𝐀/𝐍 ୨୧ sheeee’sss baaaaacckkkkk!!! so sorry i’ve left you guys high and dry! this work isn’t my favorite but definitely improved in my eyes! for my other mclaren supporters, how are we feeling with the results so far? personally, we can always improve, but I’m very happy with how they have been so far! Especially Oscar! :) (OP81 fic coming soon! 😉 )

hmmmm kinda feeling to make a part two but I will let you all decide! ;))

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y/n.jpeg

liked by, landonorris, maxverstappen1, ybsf_username and others

y/n.jpeg pre-race-week pizza day :)) someone is now banned from the kitchen after almost setting the AirBnB on fire.

1,234 comments

landonorris it’s not my fault it had a hard oven to use 🙄

→ y/n.jpeg says the one that left the pizza in the oven for MORE THAN TWO HOURS??? → username1 TWO HOURS???? → username2 don’t let that man cook ever again. → y/n.jpeg trust me, i plan on it → landonorris you just don’t know real gourmet dishes. → y/n.jpeg okay buddy 💀

maxverstappen1 i think chrales met his match for worst cook

→ charles_leclerc the next race it won’t be just a inchident. → maxvertsappen1 🤐 → username3 THAT’S CRAZY 😭😭

ybsf_username WE NEED TO HANG OUT SOON :(( i don’t want to see you spend time only with this stinky man

→ y/n.jpeg DW I GOT YOU 🙏🙏 → landonorris STINKY?!?!?!

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y/n.jpeg has posted a story!

[Caption!]: Me and Pookie #1 cheering for Pookie #2! (w/ @ ybsf_username)

y/n.jpeg

liked by landonorris, ybsf_username charles_leclerc and others

tagged; ybsf_username and landonorris

y/n.jpeg congrats to my boy and everyone for the tremendous job they did! congrats to @ mclaren for their placement this race.

p.s. Y/Bsf/N and Lando met for the first time today! I think they like each other 🙃

2,345 comments

ybsf_username my gf is so pretty 😍😍😍

→ landonorris who said she’s your gf?? → ybsf_username why are you asking??? → username5 not them fighting over Y/N 💀

ybsf_username i hate him i’m gonna chop his weenie off

→ landonorris im feeling rather unsafe right now. → username4 LMAOOO

username5 SHES SO PRETTY

landonorris i don’t like your friend she’s scary.

y/n.jpeg

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therealyn_ln they are friends now! nothing a little partying can’t fix 🥂

tagged; ybsf_username and landonorris

3,456 comments

ybsf_username okay he’s not the worst 🙄 🙄

→ therealyn_ln :)) → landonorris i’m honored → ybsf_username don’t think this would be a usual thing for me to admit mr. norris. → landonorris yes ma’am 🫡 → username11 I can’t be the only one sensing some romantic-ish tension here am i? → username12 time for your meds gram-gram!!

username6 oh god

username7 after the last post celebration post I don’t know what to expect…

username8 i’m so happy the duo is expanding into a trio

username9 someone check on Y/N

→ y/n.jpeg no need! I’m fine! → oscarpiastri how many drinks did you have again? → y/n.jpeg 12 why? → oscarpiastri yep we’re taking you home.

y/n.jpeg guys, is it normal to think you guy best friend is hot?

y/n.jpeg why don’t I like it that they are laughing together

y/n.jpeg i don’t want him to forget about me

**THESE COMMENTS HAVE BEEN DELETED….**

username10 i can’t be the only one that saw those comments… right?

y/n.jpeg i think i had too much to drink…

→ oscarpiastri you think?

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y/n.jpeg the vienna balls are pretty cool. absolutely loved it in austria! 3 days till race day :)

tagged; ybsf_username and landonorris

4,563 comments

username13 idk guys this rubs me the wrong way.

username14 this feels… so forcibly positive?

username15 she literally looks like the third wheel not even a friend :(

landonorris haha balls

→ ybsf_username you re literally so immature → landonorris piss off, suck these balls.

ybsf_username my girl looks so gorgeous

→ y/n.jpeg right back at you wifey → landonorris so does mine 🥴 *Liked by ybsf_username!* → ybsf_username no. → username16 uhm! → username17 Oh!!

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landonorris bone apple teeth as the french say

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charles_leclerc that is not how you say it in french.

→ landonorris oui oui baguette Monsieur Leclerc → charles_leclerc 😐 → pierregasly 😐 → estebanocon 🥖 🍷

username18 who is that? where is y/n for pre-race-week pizza day? :(

→ username24 it’s never pre-race-week pizza day without y/n :(

username19 guys… that’s not Y/N’s hair color…

username20 call me crazy but i think that’s Y/Bsf/N

→ username21 that makes no sense… → username22 i mean, lately, lando has been spending more time with her… → username23 not only that, y/n looks like her own third-wheel to friends that just met each other. Have you seen their posts together over the past couple of weeks?

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y/n.jpeg girls grils glirs !!

tagged; franciscac.gomes, lilymhe, lailahasanovic, flavy.barla

2,874 comments

lailahasanovic the best 🩶

→ y/n.jpeg mwah mwah → mickschumacher :( → lailahasanovic still love you though lovey 🫶 → mickschumacher :)

lilymhe FUNTIME FUNTIME FUNTIME

y/n.jpeg guys don’t drink if you are under 18

y/n.jpeg or 21 if you are a weird american

→ logansargeant this feels aimed. → y/n.jpeg noooooo

y/n.jpeg guys i’m at my limit!!! and not with alcohol!!

→ username24 Y/N :((( → franciscac.gomes literally call me right now. we’ll have a pasta night! :) → y/n.jpeg what about pierre?? → franciscac.gomes he won’t mind! → pierregasly I won’t??? → franciscac.gomes now you won’t!

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y/n.jpeg pasta night with my girl is better than pizza :)

ps. thank you big brother pierre for the photos 🫶

tagged; franciscac.gomes

pierregasly anything for my girlfriend’s girlfriend

→ franciscac.gomes mwah mwah ❤️ → y/n.jpeg best honorary big brother → pierregasly normally I don’t like this… but I’ll let it slide. → franciscac.gomes 😼 😼 😼

username24 BIG BROTHER PIERRE!!

username25 i hope Y/N finds someone that loves her :(

alexandrasaintmleux sorry I couldn’t join :((

→ y/n.jpeg don’t worry alex 💕 it’ not our fault charles stole you from us

charles_leclerc what is the pasta recipe? it looks delicious 😋

→ y/n.jpeg one you can’t make and one you definitely can’t serve to alex. charles_leclerc enough. 😒 😒

y/n.jpeg men ain’t shit ladies!!

**COMMENT HAS BEEN DELETED**

iMessages

[gl1tteryzebra]

rafe overstimulating reader while fingering her pls!!

(sorry i’m so bad at requesting things)

don’t apologise babe, this is my kinda shit 😜

if you had known the harmless little comment would land you in this position… perhaps you would've thought twice before opening your mouth.

it was one of those party’s where the crowd had dwindled down early on, leaving an intimate gathering to congregate in the living room. rafe’s knee bounced petulantly as his gaze flitted to his phone every minute or so— you could tell he was just about ready to go but you were having so much fun! 

"truth." a plethora of boos sounded out in the small space, targeted at you. an ominous smirk stretched onto the lips of the pretty kook girl who asked you. “I've always been curious, what's rafe like in bed?” 

a bubbly giggle floated from your chest, any previous inhibitions muted by the alcohol coursing through your system. “the best of course... but also the greediest.” 

and that was all it took: rafe's pre-existing sour mood + a silly little joke and no more than half an hour later you found yourself spread out limply on your floral doona quilt like a flaccid doll. unable to do anything apart from squirm and mewl pathetically as he anchored your hips to the bed with a heavy arm, his other hand occupied by your sopping cunt– fingers unwavering in their administrations as they crooking into that cushiony spot which usually had your stomach doing excited little flips, but was now tender and achy and begging for a reprieve.

“what was that? ‘don’t think I heard you right,” 

at your lack of response, his thumb cruelly pressed into your sensitive clit, making you jolt. it was an overwhelming combination of pain and pleasure that turned your synapses into dandelion fluff– struggling to form a coherent thought. "n-no more! ah– please, m'sorry."

a saccharine grin tugged at the corner of his lips as he cooed, the faux sympathy causing you to whimper in despair. he really wasn't gonna let this go. "no more? but i'm bein' so generous baby."

"mhmm...ple–"

"'think you deserve this fuckin' dick?" your head mindlessly bobbed up and down, although you were in no state to take him. another finger slipped inside your dripping hole with ease, this one adorned by silver. the foreign stimulation prompted you to wiggle in desperation as your body climbed further up a familiar wall of pleasure; this time, however, it felt as though you were close to toppling into some uncharted abyss.

"nahhhh I dunno 'bout that, only grateful sluts get what they want." 

your walls clamped down on him hard, a telltale sign that had him increasing the pace of his movements with a mocking snort. "ha–your cuttin' off my circulation here baby."

a choked gasp was ripped from your throat, you were so so close. "ra-rafe!"

"yea that's it, say my name."

stars exploded behind your eyes as you came. your chest rising and falling rapidly, overexerting itself. a sticky sheen coated your thighs– you felt dirty and unbelievably spent.

rafe's face came into view, his eyes glistening with satisfaction as he lightly tapped your cheek. "who's the one greedy now?"

sincerely ~ 🦓༝༚༝༚

[hottestvirgin]

ex!heeseung who you utterly hate but find yourself running back to for his massive cock. you ended the relationship with him a while ago. but it came to a point where you both would casually have sex one day then act like nothing happened the next. 

just like now. you were dragged to this small party by your friends and unironically, heeseung’s there. with no words spoken, you drag him into a small bathroom stall, sitting on the toilet seat with his cock, heavy and stiff, in your palm.

you roll out your tongue and lick at the pre-cum that oozes from his slit and he hums, licking his lips. “i missed you.” he admits while patting your head, and you look up at him through your eyelashes.

“i bet you did,” you smirk. because it was true. you were the only person he was getting regularly laid by. not because you’re in this weird relationship with him, but because you know him and what he likes in bed.

you trace his tip with your tongue, digging into his slit and he gasps, biting back his lip with a groan. tightening your hand around his thick veiny cock, you cover your teeth with your lips and wrap them around the head, sliding down and earning a small grunt from him.

one thing you loved about this man was how thick he was. and fuck, if only you weren’t wearing your favorite dress right now you’d definitely let him bend you over this toilet and stretch you out. 

you focus on relaxing your jaw as you slowly pump what you couldn’t take. heeseung watches you with gentle eyes, a small chuckle falling past his lips. and you pull away with a small “pop” and furrowed eyebrows.

“what’s funny?” you question. and heeseung shakes his head, unruly hair falling on his forehead. “you just look so cute trying to handle allat.” knowing that you were gonna snap at him, he takes hold of his cock and slaps the tip on your cheek before guiding it back into your mouth. 

he releases the heavy air from his lungs, slowly, watching how you hollow out your cheeks and suck desperately. the way you flatten your tongue to lick the underside of his cock sends shivers down his spine, especially when you squeeze and fondle his balls. 

how soft your swollen, pillowy lips feel around him. god, it feels so fucking good when they run over his veins. the warmth and wetness of your mouth is the whipped cream but when your teeth slightly graze over it.. it’s the cherry on top. fuck. he missed this so much. 

gagging around him, you’re quick to pull away with a long string of salvia following, dripping down your chin while you try to catch your breath. 

“you’re doing so good.” heeseung utters, wiping your doused lips with his thumb and dragging it across your face, smudging your makeup. 

smirking at his words, you grip his aching shaft and guide it back into your mouth. he’s throbbing and twitching uncontrollably, so you know he’s close.

“fuuuk. just like that.” heeseung grunts and you can sense the desperation in his voice. so, you part your lips and shove more of him into your mouth, swallowing around him.

he winces with another shiver, one hand reaching to hold onto the side of the stall and the other to push your head further onto him. “m’ close.. fuck.” heeseung grunts. and he swears his vision turns black as he fills your little mouth full of his thick, sticky cum. 

standing up, you spit his load into the toilet and flush it, pulling and patting down your dress. it was always this awkward silence afterwards that fills you both with regret. but heeseung hated it more. pulling his pants up, he tsks. 

“you look pretty tonight,” he says, eyes working on your curves and how the dress beautifully exhibits them. 

“save it for next time..” you push past heeseung and out the cramped stall. 

but he couldn’t choose whether he was excited about your “next time” or at the trail of your wetness dripping down your leg as you walked back into the crowd. 

[hannie-dul-set]

WHAT’S WRONG WITH CEO PARK?

p — PARK SUNGHOON x gn! reader. g — ceo! sunghoon and secretary! reader, humor, romance. w — swearing, sunghoon being a weirdo, a misplaced marriage proposal. 1.3k words.

requested by — anon: menace to everyone but you x the opposite of that.

note — i hate the cold angsty male ceo trope. so instead i turned ceo hoon into a weirdo that's a little bit too in love and doesn’t understand the concept of workplace boundaries which stresses you the fuck out!!

when you got promoted from being assistant secretary thanks to your ceo’s former secretary resigning, your co-workers did not throw you a celebration.

“you called for me, mr. park?”

instead, they threw you an advanced farewell party. it was nice working with you, said the cake dusted with stray confetti on the day of your promotion. they’re celebrating your inevitable resignation. they’re sure you’re going to follow suit after you predecessor within three months max because according to them—

“yes.”

your boss, park sunghoon, is the nastiest fucker in the planet.

“take a seat.”

you gulp, making cautious steps into your ceo’s office. he’s signing a stack of documents while you take your sweet time delaying having to sit in front of his paper-stacked desk, setting them aside the moment you sit down, sharp eyes immediately zeroing into your soul, and you start sweating.

there’s a bet on the line on when you’d eventually quit. today marks your fourth month here, and you’re pretty sure heeseung is going to win because you are in fact this close to sliding your pre-written resignation letter over his desk, adding onto his pile.

not because he’s terrible, like they all say. not because he’s temperamental.

“sunoo told me you were sick,” sunghoon starts. “why did you come to work today?”

but because you fear your boss might be a little bit in love with you.

“is...is that the only reason you asked for me?” you hesitantly say, picking on your cuticles and trying to avoid eye contact because the concern drowning your boss’s expression is just enough to drown you as well.

“you don’t look well,” he avoids your question. of course you don’t look well. you’re very, very uncomfortable right now and the main cause of that discomfort is him. “you should go home. i’ll tell jay to drive you.”

you’re pretty sure jay isn’t going to be happy with that. 

“mr. park—”

“i thought i asked you to call me sunghoon.”

your mouth is left hanging open. you’re flabbergasted. you take a second to recollect your thoughts. “...mr. park. sir,” you emphasize. you should at least be the one reminding him of your hierarchical roles at the moment. sunghoon looks upset that you’re not abiding by his request, but says nothing in protest so you continue. “i ran out of sick leaves. and there’s still so much work to do, i can’t just go home.”

“you ran out? well i’ll just give you more.” sir, that’s not how it works. “and jungwon can take care of your work. you should go home and rest.”

jungwon wouldn’t be too happy with that either. you feel your stress levels rising, headache incoming, because he’s just not listening to you. this crazy bastard, you think to yourself.

but maybe you were thinking a little too loudly.

“can you say that again?”

you slap a hand over your mouth with a gasp.

“say it again.”

you’re fucked. you just called your boss a bastard right to his face. “i’m—i’m so sorry, mr. park, i didn’t mean to—” but maybe that’s a good thing because that means you wouldn’t need to debate about resigning if he’s gonna fire you. “i apologize. i’ll accept any punishment you’ll give me.”

“no, say it again,” he hums, sounding a little too happy after being called crazy and a bastard, and you get a bad feeling. a really bad feeling. “i felt like we just got closer because of that. swear at me again.”

there’s a smile playing on your boss’s face. 

“i— i don’t think that’s appropriate, sir.”

jesus christ, he’s a bit more in love with you than you thought.

“why not?” when sunghoon gets up from behind his seat, circling out from behind his desk to lean back against it right in front of you instead, you start fearing for your life. he looks at you, arms crossed in disappointment, and he looks a little too good with rolled up sleeves and slim-fit slacks. 

crap, were you just checking out your boss?

his crazy is rubbing off on you.

“you have no trouble with swearing at and laughing around with the others,” he says. “why can’t you do the same with me?”

he is not normal, you think. thankfully not out loud this time. “sir, you’re my boss. i’m just your secretary. there’s a big gap there. i can’t just treat you the same way as i do with my co-workers.”

your boss takes in your words. he remains quiet with a stoic face for a few moments, and with each passing second of silence, you feel half a year of your life being shaved off. “ah,” he finally makes a sound after a good minute and a half. “should i give you a promotion, then?”

oh my fucking god, he’s nuts.

“boss, there’s an urgent thing you need to—”

“did i permit you to enter my office?”

your eyes widen, slapped in the face by a whiplash when your fellow secretary jake suddenly pops into the office, only to be cut off by the sharp glare and icy tone of your boss. jake’s hand doesn’t leave the doorknob when he nearly stumbles in shock with a stack of papers pressed to his chest. you see the look on his face. it’s the face of someone who’s about to get royally fucked over.

“n—no, sir. but these documents are—”

“then why are you in my office?” holy shit. so this is what they meant when they said ceo park is a bitchy demon from hell. jake looks like he’s about to piss himself. you’ve never been on the brunt of his temper— likely because he’s biased and has feelings for you, which has always felt burdensome. but now you’re a little thankful because you’d probably cry if he snapped at you like that.

“i’m sorry, i’ll leave now. i apologize.”

with that, jake makes his hasty retreat, and you’re once more left alone with your crazy boss. 

“where were we?” he says. “oh, right. your promotion.”

you’re starting to feel dizzy. 

“i’ve never liked how seojoo handled things. you can take his spot as the sales department head.” you have to stop him. you have to stop him before he actually fires a competent employee and gives you their spot as a courtship gift. “wait. i think you’d prefer working in HR actually. it’s a shame ms. kim is going to lose her position, but i can just—”

“mr. park—”

“sunghoon,” he cuts you off. “call me sunghoon.”

you look at him, exasperated. “sir,” you say. “i don’t think this is right.”

sunghoon raises a brow. “you don’t like HR? which department would you prefer then?”

you can’t. you can’t do this anymore. you make the mistake of letting your eyes wander out of stress, because they inadvertently land on the shiny gold glint of his nameplate, which is a terribly bad move following after his question because sunghoon notices, and sunghoon gets the very, very wrong idea.

oh, no. oh, no no no no no—

“i see.”

he doesn’t! he doesn’t see! you aren’t coveting his seat! you just want to go back to work and stop dealing with your insane and far too in love with you boss!

“i’m afraid i can’t give away my position as ceo,” he tells you. you swallow, shutting your eyes because you don’t want to acknowledge the mess you’ve just accidentally made, but your lack of vision definitely doesn’t interfere with your sense of hearing.

what you hear next sounds clearer than you’d like it to be.

“how about the position of being the ceo’s fiancé instead?”

that’s it.

“i will be getting back to work now, mr. park.”

there is something very wrong with your boss. it’s not in your job description to fix him.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH CEO PARK? © hannie-dul-set, 2023.

[ugotcooneycrossed]

keep pretending pretty girl • alessia russo

pt2: let you break my heart again

w/c: ~1.4k

alessia is adamant that shes straight, she just likes kissing you sometimes, and she just likes holding your hand, and she only likes it when you talk to her

a/n: OBVIOUSLY based off another song from the queen renee rapp

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

“i love you.”

alessia is drunk- her cheeks are flushed, and her speech is slightly slurred, she’s teetering on the edge of completely falling over, the only thing stopping her is the door she’s leaning on.

“no like- seriously, i love, love you.”

you send her a small, tight-lipped smile- your head thumping back against the mirror of the bathroom counter you’re sat on.

it’s cramped in the small room- there’s only so many things you can look at to avoid staring into alessia’s eyes.

still, you avert your eyes from hers nodding your head. gripping the cup in your hands tighter as she inches closer to you.

a tight coil snakes its way into your chest and you sigh heavily.

“i love you too less.”

it’s not a lie- far from it in fact, you love her, you have since you were seventeen.

and alessia loves you too, only in private- when no one’s looking, stealing kisses from you late at night, and leaving you as soon as the sun comes up again.

drunken confessions, promises, and pleas- swearing to love you- and only you.

it’s all in vain though, as soon as the alcohol wears off and her phone pings with a new text from her boyfriend- she’s off without another word.

“i’m going to kiss you now.”

she falls into you- her hands finding themselves on top of your thighs to balance herself, her face inches away from you.

“less… you’ve got a boyf-“

and suddenly- all you can taste is the lingering tequila on her lips, all you can smell is her strawberry perfume, and all you can feel are her hands gripping your thighs tighter.

and you kiss her back again- cause maybe you’re a little drunk too, and maybe, no matter how much you try to stop yourself, you’re pathetic, and you love alessia.

she pulls away suddenly- her lips a little swollen and a dazed look in her eyes, her eyebrow furrows in concentration before a huge grin spreads across her face.

“oh my gosh­- i love this song!”

she grabs your hand- dragging you off the counter and out the bathroom.

the flat is cramped with people- a pre-season party thrown to celebrate the start of the new season.

and everyone is way too drunk and way too far gone to notice the way alessia keeps herself attached to you.

she’s swaying with you- despite the fast pace of the song, she has you wrapped up in her arms and rocks you slowly.

“less i think it’s time for you to go home.”

“but I want to stay with you- i love you.”

she’s looking into your eyes now- genuine and raw, but you know how this will go.

she’ll come back with you.

she’ll kiss you a little more.

then, she’ll fall asleep in your bed- you’ll take the couch of course.

and then; you’ll wake up to the sound of your flat door closing, the first rays of the sun filtering through the cracks in your blinds.

you know it’s a losing battle trying to find a way to say no to her.

“okay- come on, let’s get back to mine”

-

like always you wake up just as the door closes- flopping back onto the couch with a defeated sigh.

now you know the next part will go a little something like this;

she’ll ignore you for a few days.

she’ll make a big deal of missing her boyfriend.

she’ll be on the phone to him all the time.

then, be right by your side like nothing’s happened.

she’ll invite you to hang- and you do, because of course, you can’t say no to her.

and you’ll end up third wheeling.

a vicious cycle you can’t seem to drag yourself out of.

-

it started when you followed her to UNC you think- young, dumb, naïve- and absolutely infatuate with your best friend.

best friends- who never wanted to be apart, you both turned down pro contracts to go to the US. attached at the hip, co-captains for the tar heels, you did practically everything together.

you were there for her first boyfriend, and consequently her first heartbreak.

as her best friend though.

that’s all you were- and you were okay with that, even if seeing her talk to anyone else brought a bitter taste to your mouth.

and so maybe, one night, she had a little too much to drink- and she kissed you, right on the lips.

“i think i like girls but shhhhh! you can’t tell anyone.”

she whispers it to you- before passing out on your bed.

and the next day when she wakes up- she doesn’t remember the kiss, or she wants to forget it. you wouldn’t bring it up either way.

but then it happens again, and again, and again.

and you’re sucked into an endless loop of alessia kissing you, ignoring you, then acting like nothing happened- only to kiss you again.

then, she’s off signing with united, and you with arsenal- and it stops.

then when the national team calls both of you up- it starts again.

now alessia is with arsenal- and you’re completely fucked.

-

you’re dead tired, and quiet when you show up to training a couple days after the party- unusual on any normal day, but routine after whatever it is, that happens with alessia.

the blonde girl looks up at you from her cubby when you walk into the room- but just as quickly averts her eyes, picking up her phone and slipping out the room without a second thought.

you roll your eyes at her.

you can almost predict exactly what is happening on the other side of the door.

lotte- who was there to witness the mess you were every day after alessia kissed you at UNC, nudges you.

“you know- you can like, i don’t know, talk to other girls?”

“shut up lotte.”

“i’m just saying.”

she holds her hands up in defence- but the sympathetic smile never leaves her face.

“i’ve tried- don’t you think i have?”

cause you have- really.

not that you remember their names, or their faces.

cause all you really remember from them is that their lips weren’t nearly as nice as alessias, their hands weren’t as soft, and they didn’t know where to kiss you to leave you weak in the knees.

 “let me set you up?”

narrowing your eyes at her you go to protest- but she interrupts you before you can speak.

“just try at least, take your mind off of her for one night.”

-

you arrive earlier than lotte told you to- an excuse to start drinking to calm your nerves.

the restaurant is nice- definitely somewhere for a couple to go, dim lighting and light music floating through the room.

lotte’s friend shows up when you’re already a little tipsy- sitting across from you and smiling from across the table. the conversation between you two is boring, and you stopped listening a while ago.

you order another drink, and then another- then your vision is spinning and lotte’s friend harley, or hayley, or- well you don’t exactly remember her name, ‘cause she’s starting to look a little like alessia, and you’re one more shot away from making a bad decision.

“hey (y/n)- what’re you doing here?”

and she’s starting to sound like her too?

you blink- lotte’s friend coming into focus in front of you and alessia is standing by your table.

“less?”

she’s staring at you now- eyebrows raised and nodding to the girl across from you.

you try to wrack your brain for the name- but alessia is looking a little too good right now and you’re mouth has gone a little dry.

“im lotte’s friend- grace.”

alessia hums at that- her eyes still not leaving yours.

“you are…”

grace- you now remember, questions alessia.

“alessia.”

“great- can i get back to my date now alessia.”

alessia’s eyes still haven’t left yours- she barely acknowledges your date and the atmosphere between you three is tense, you sink down into your seat, eyes flickering between the two, trying to catch your breath. 

“sure thing.”

alessia disappears- slipping away and back to what you assume is her boyfriend.

whatever her name is goes back to speaking but you can’t focus on anything.

cause alessia is here.

alessia is here- and you’re supposed to be forgetting her.

but of course- as fate would have it, the blonde texts you a moment later.

lessi to ‘you’

-> bathroom in 5??

[devilmademewriteit]

Pretty When You Cry

part 2 of Dark But Just A Game

pairing: (pre-ellie) joel miller x afab!fem!reader

summary: after getting a taste of dad’s associate, Joel Miller, facedown on a desk, you can’t seem to stay away. despite his best efforts, he can’t seem to, either.

warnings: rough sex/smut (fingering, fem penetration, unprotected sex) so 18+ only content; fem afab reader; mentions of reader having long-ish hair; alcohol consumption; pet names (sweetheart, angel, baby); dubcon (slight intoxication, power imbalance); age gap; dbf!Joel.

beta reader: @millllenniawrites aka bestie4lifie

word count: 4.7k

no use of y/n in this fic

Click to read part 1: Dark But Just a Game

Click to read part 3: Let Me Love You Like a Woman

ok y’all here she is!! thank you thank you for the reblogs on part 1! this piece and the last were slightly inspired by the dbf!joel miller drabbles by @anchoeritic, which you can read here. once again, love hearing your feedback, negative and positive, & my requests are always open<3

-em<333

—

It had been months since you’d last seen him.

Joel and Tess had a tendency of disappearing for weeks on end, taking the riskier smuggling jobs that nobody else dared to. How they managed to fly under FEDRA’s radar time and time again remained a mystery to all. The pair had to be extremely well connected on both ends of the spectrum.

It was easy to pretend that nothing had changed. He’d left without a word the morning after the party, taking Tess and a great deal of your father’s ammo along with him. It’s not like you’d expected a warning, much less a goodbye, but his departure still felt so sudden, so pointed. The next day, all he’d left you with was a constellation of light bruises between your thighs and a small, white pill in a dime bag tucked under your bedroom door.

So you went on with your life, only allowing your thoughts to wander in his direction when you’d had too much to drink or whenever you heard the word ‘sweetheart.’

Then, this morning—rubbing sleep from your eyes, you’d stumbled down to the main floor in a scant excuse for pajamas, failing to register the multitude of voices at the base of the stairs in your half-awake state.

And there he was, his spread legs taking up half of the shabby couch, one arm draped casually over the back, his other relaxed at his side. A deer in headlights, you screeched to a stop as soon as you were conscious enough to recognize him, frozen in his gaze as he briefly took you in—one hand shifting subtly to pull at the fabric of his jeans. Then, he looked away, his features hardening into a mask of nonchalance and indifference.

No acknowledgment, no greeting, no nothing.

Great. Things were back to how they’d been before he’d fucked you dumb on a wooden desk.

Scampering back up the stairs, you sealed yourself back into your bedroom, doing your very best to ignore the heat building between your legs.

A heat that only Joel-Fucking-Miller could entice from you.

Leaning your forehead against the door, you kicked yourself mentally for running away from the (non)interaction like a scared little kid. Where had that bygone, unchecked confidence gone? Where was that fearless playfulness you’d so often used against him?

Fine. If Joel wanted to pretend that nothing had happened between you two, he was leaving you with two options.

The first was to ignore him back.

No, you decided. That would be exactly what he’d want of you—what he’d expect of you.

To make things easy for him.

Conveniently, your second option was to make things really, really hard for him. To make it impossible for him to ignore you.

Good thing you were exceptionally well versed in what made Joel Miller incapable of disregarding you. Getting him to snap was practically your specialty, your carefully crafted home-made method.

After all, your incessant teasing had gotten you facedown on a table before, maybe it could get you on your back this time.

Smiling mischievously, you felt your old confidence soar back to its former standing.

—

“What could possibly be more fun than watching a building explode?”

Emma punctuates her tone with incredulity like a needle passing through silk—she was always doing a poor job of managing her attitude when it came to peer-pressuring you.

“C’mon, you know I can’t leave the boss here with all these people,” you lie effortlessly. Of course, you could leave. Hell, your dad probably would’ve preferred it that way. There weren’t many parents who enjoyed or encouraged the presence of their child while they were—oh, just committing criminal offenses—and your father was no exception.

Under normal circumstances, gallivanting around the moonlit city with Emma would’ve been your bread and butter, especially when she had intel on a firefly operation that would be (she hoped) culminating in a few explosions and a ton of rounds fired. But it wasn’t every night that your old man hosted a soirée for the best bandits in the city to congregate, getting them to drink shit liquor and make shit deals.

And Joel Miller was in your home, drinking the strong stuff and actively avoiding you.

So, these were not normal circumstances.

“That’s so lame,” she whines, brow furrowing in anguish as she mourns her mission.

Guilty eyes to the floor, you toss her a placating smile, thankful for her poor observation skills. Despite being raised in a family of highly successful criminals, Emma seriously lacked in the whole ‘perception’ department.

As it happened, you were just about ready to give up on your own mission. Despite going bra-less in the tightest top you owned and wearing the most ass-hugging jeans you could find, Joel hadn’t spared a mere glance in your direction all night.

In fact, you hadn’t even seen the guy. He’d been M.I.A. all night.

Frustrated, you decide to play your final card. Joel Millers aside, it was a fun card to play, even if you ended up losing the game.

Someone was going to have their hands on you tonight.

Scanning the bustling room of criminals, worn-in faces and worn-out hands gliding across your field of vision, your gaze lands on an unfamiliar young man. Tall, blonde-ish, lanky—looks like a toy still in its box, begging to be taken out and played with.

Perfect.

“Give me an hour,” you murmur urgently, catching Emma’s wayward attention, “no questions asked, and I’ll watch the damn shoot out with you, sparky.”

She looks at you, a bewildered smile creeping onto her expression. “But I thought—you just said—”

“Without asking any questions, Em.”

She puts her hands up in mock surrender and backs away, subsequently tapping her wrist and mouthing ‘one hour.’

Straightening yourself out, you ease your way toward your target, landing in the unoccupied space between the young man and the out-of-commission fireplace. He eyes you up before quickly looking away.

Nervous. Good.

“He waters down the drinks, y’know.”

Looking up at him through your eyelashes, the stranger returns your attempt at conversation with a puzzled glance. Jerking your chin, you gesture to his cup, full of a light-brown liquid that was once a spiced rum or a bourbon, now a glass of water barely seasoned with dark liquor.

“Saves the good stuff to repackage and resell to soldiers. His crime co-conspirators get stuck with the weak shit.”

You keep your tone casual, half focussed on the art of flirtation, half eyeing the room for a pair of angry, dark eyes. The boy sizes you up, nodding with sudden respect and understanding.

“You’re the boss’s daughter.”

You smile half-heartedly, a twisted part of you enjoying the look of amazement on his face. “Guilty,” you respond, shrugging sheepishly. Angling your body towards him, you flash him your most exquisite expression of interest.

“Meet him, yet?” You ask, curious to hear his thoughts. After all, your old man never failed to make an impression—nine times out of ten, it was an extremely negative one.

He shakes his head, explaining, “I only know about him ‘cause I’m here running my first job for him.”

“Interesting. And you are…?”

He stares down into his cup.

“Just passing through,” he answers quietly.

“Just-Passing-Through—what an interesting name!” You tease, hand landing gently on his bicep. “Is it foreign?”

The stranger snorts. Eyes darting across the space, you scan the room again for Joel, giggling artificially with the stranger.

“So,” He gestures awkwardly to the dusty, yellowing, crowded room. “You live here?”

You nod, gazing intently into his hazel eyes. The boy’s cute, there’s no denying it, and a tiny voice in your head tells you to forget about Miller, to actually try with this guy and experience something normal, something simple for a change.

But it is a tiny voice, and quickly, another louder, deeper and richer one reemerges to dominate over the softer echoes in your head. “I like needy” “you think of me when you’re touchin’ this pretty pussy?” “Takin’ it so good, pretty girl—”

The pair of bandits in front of you inadvertently shuffle a few feet to the left, clearing a direct path, right down the center of the room. You’re graced with an illuminating glimpse through the disorderly crowd.

He’s leaning against the old gas stove, burly arms crossed over his chest, apparently deep in conversation with your father. Shit. He looks so fucking fine in that dark t-shirt; your breath catches slightly as you trail your gaze up to his face, remembering the way his soft stubble felt against your neck, the way those hands felt on your tits, your ass, your waist, buried inside you…

Cool it, you scold yourself. We’ve still got work to do.

“You like music?” You ask abruptly, returning your attention to the lanky boy at your side.

Taken aback, he rubs the back of his neck, replying, “Uhh, I guess?”

“Great.” Plucking his cup from his grasp and placing it above the fireplace, you hold out your hands to him. He smiles a soft, sweet, shy smile—excitement burgeoning in his timid eyes—and links his fingers with yours.

Pulling the stranger across the room, you briefly lock eyes with Emma, whose mouth gapes open as she relays her classic what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you-and-also-you’re-my-hero expression, which you return with your own specialty, an I-don’t-know-how-we-got-here-but-here-we-are shrug. You make a point not to look in Joel’s direction, giggling affectionately as you climb the stairs with your gaze fixed on the boy’s. It was better if he thought you were doing this because you wanted to and not just to make him jealous.

So what if it was a petty game to play? Games had won you Joel the first time. They could sure as hell win you him again.

Your door creaks on its hinges as you press your free hand to it, the occupied one still interlaced between gentle, long fingers. Guiding the boy into the room, you make a conscious choice to leave the door ajar. Sure, it felt riskier (and that alone was enough to entice you), but it also seemed more natural—something a stupid, horny youngster would do.

The stranger stands self-consciously in the middle of your room, taking in the unmade bed, the faded, distressed curtains, and the old cassette player on your dresser. Shuffling over, you hit play, and Jimi Hendrix’s skilled fingers work their magic over the ancient speakers.

Spinning around to face him, you lean back casually against the hard, wooden edge of the dresser.

“You know it?” You ask, voice infused with seduction, intrigue, and mystery—all those things that men seemed to enjoy.

He frowns in concentration. “Heard it, probably couldn’t name it.”

“Can’t name Hendrix?” You gasp, feigning offense with a hand over your heart. He shrugs shyly, smiling down at his feet.

He really was sweet. Something extremely gentle dominated his disposition, something that pulled you in and asked you not to leave. He’d watch meteor showers with you and lend you his jacket if you shivered within a 10-mile radius of him. He’d ask, “is this okay?” before laying you down and making sweet love to you—missionary, of course, so he could look into your eyes and steal soft moans from your mouth with passionate kisses. Hell, he’d probably get straight for you, ditch the fast life, build a nursery and raise babies with you.

You fling out your hand, daring him to take it. Hesitantly, he moves to grasp your fingers in his, looking down to search your softened stare.

“You’re pretty fearless, huh?” He strokes your index affectionately with his thumb.

Chuckling under your breath, you lift a curious hand to trace his cheekbone. “I know what I want,” you reply in a partly seductive, partly earnest whisper. He ducks his head, and you rise onto your tippy toes to press your lips to his, butterflies dancing in your stomach.

“M’I interrupting somethin’?” A deep voice booms from the doorway.

The stranger swings around, revealing one half-annoyed, half-amused Joel Miller, arms crossed, leaning informally against the frame. Your heart lurches in your chest, drumming hard and fast. Stifling the reaction, you fix your eyes unabashedly onto his, recognizing the unchecked danger roaming his gaze.

Oh, fuck.

“Joel.” You acknowledge him coolly. “Nice to have you back.”

He ignores your reproachful taunt and the pointed tone you deliver it in, breaking away from your glare. The tense, tall form next to you shifts uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

Joel draws an understated smirk, drinking in the effect of his presence. “You’re needed downstairs.”

You raise an interrogative eyebrow at him. “For what?”

“Not you, sweetheart,” Joel condescends. “Him.”

You gape at him, gaze darting between the two men, not comprehending a damn thing.

“Oh!” The boy lunges forward, extending a gangly hand toward Joel. “You must be the boss, then, yeah?” He gestures back to you. “Told her earlier I was startin’ out with you tonight. Thanks a lot for the opportunity, man, really—” he rambles.

Joel shows no signs of acknowledgment aside from an inconspicuous twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Heat rushes to your cheeks, and you snort involuntarily—defensively—as over-correction corrupts your tone, gushing, “Joel is not my dad.”

Subtle amusement flashes across Miller’s expression.

“Oh,” the boy responds, hands dropping to his sides in embarrassment.

Joel clears his throat, interrupting the brief interlude of painfully awkward muteness. You think a silent thank you to Jimi Hendrix’s guitar for making the moment a tad less excruciating. “Down the stairs and to the left,” Miller instructs. “They’re waitin’ on you.”

The stranger nods. Shuffling towards the door, he spins on his heels, relaying to you a sheepish wave, mumbling out a hopeful “see you around.”

He leaves. The din from the main floor and the music from the speakers punctuates your tense stand-off with Joel Miller as genuine annoyance clouds your thoughts.

You simmer speechlessly.

“Good song,” he mentions off-hand. Stifling a scoff at the nonchalance, the cockyness, and the sheer casualness of his demeanour, your annoyance swells.

“You’re needed downstairs.” You mock his deep voice, throwing up air quotes to drive the derision home. “Really, Miller? That’s the best you could come up with?”

A shrug.

“S’true, sweetheart. Go n’ see for yourself if you want.”

“Bullshit.”

Again, he shrugs, eyeing you up hungrily, visibly entertained by your flustered state.

“Y’know, Joel, I actually liked this one,” you mutter coolly, realizing the genuine truth of the sentiment as the words roll off your tongue.

“You could do better.”

Huffing a quick breath, you cross your arms and roll your eyes dramatically.

Joel bathes in your ire for only a moment before pushing off the frame and shutting the cracked, dilapidated door behind his back. A familiar tingling spreads through your core, mounting to a buzz as he closes the distance between you. He weaves a hand behind your back—there’s a click, and then the music’s stopped.

“So, that’s it?“ You challenge, Joel’s proximity doing a number on your nervous system. “Just gonna keep ignoring me til’ I’ve got my eyes on someone else?”

Tone both sincere and playful, he rumbles, “jus’ cause I can’t have you, angel, doesn’ mean some other jerk-off gets to.”

Damn it. Damn it right to hell.

Joel’s downright possessiveness makes you weak in the knees, ringing in your ears like a bible hymn. The ridges and valleys of words spell out come home; you think a silent prayer to God, begging him for the strength to resist them. But Joel’s magnetism beckons you towards sin, and no God stands a chance against the unholy look in those darkening eyes.

It serves no use, fighting against it. You craved Joel like a smoker craves nicotine—and you’d risk it all for one more fix.

You needed the man to cave.

“You can have me, Joel.”

A dangerous smile teases his lips. Then, he ducks his head, slowly shaking it side to side.

“Trust me, angel—you don’t want that.”

A huff. “Yes, I do,” you insist.

“You want me to fuck you, that’s it,” voice deepening a near-octave, he straightens to tower over you. “‘Cause if I actually had you…?” He whistles under his breath as the sentence trails off.

A hand cups your face, one wanton finger absentmindedly tracing your cheekbone.

“I’m not a good man, sweetheart.”

Determination courses through your blood as his warning sets your nerves alight. You grasp his thick wrist, turning to place a soft kiss on the skin of his palm. His shadowed eyes lock onto yours, drinking in the sight of your lips dragging across his hand.

“Well,” you purr, seizing what you recognize as the perfect opportunity, “I’m not a ‘good girl,’ either.”

“And I never asked for good, Miller.”

A moment passes—only Joel’s breath, your heartbeat, and the echoes of your invitation disrupt the heavy silence.

And temptation wins him over, once again.

A powerful arm snakes around your back, spinning you around easily. The backs of your knees hit the edge of your mattress, and before you know it, Joel’s pushing your waist down roughly, settling himself between your legs as he looms over your body.

“Y’know,” he muses darkly, eyes wild with lust. “You got some serious fuckin’ daddy issues.”

He undoes the button of your jeans, grabbing the denim at the waist and yanking it unceremoniously over your hips, your ass, and halfway down your thighs. Without wasting a second, he pushes your dampened panties to the side, easing a thick finger between your dripping folds.

“Remind me to thank your old man for that.”

He groans with approval at your wetness, your readiness for him. Crying out “Joel!” in surprise and pleasure, you dig your fingernails into his forearm.

“Fuck, angel,” he breathes softly, watching his digit pumping in and out of you, “Jus’ can’t bring myself to let anyone else touch you like this.” He palms himself through his jeans to relieve some of the building arousal.

“Wanna be the only man this needy lil’ pussy comes for.”

It’s not enough. Tears leak from your eyes and your knuckles go white as you squirm on the unmade sheets—Joel’s touch fills you with ecstasy, but it’s still not enough.

“Joel—” you whine, fighting to prop yourself up on your elbows, forcing yourself to meet his lust-filled gaze before wandering first to the sight of his fingers fucking you, then to the bulge in his pants.

You need more of him.

“I know, sweetheart,” he coos, following your line of vision. ”But I’ll split you right open f’I don’t warm you up first.”

When he slips another finger between your walls, your back collapses against the mattress. Mewls and whimpers tumble from your lips—male satisfaction darkens Joel’s complexion with every moan you give him.

“Know what I thought about, away on the job?” His fingers alternate between curling roughly inside your cunt and rubbing your own slick against your swollen bud. “Thought aaalll about this pretty fuckin’ pussy, takin’ my cock from behind.”

“Pictured it when I used my hand.”

Mouth frozen in a silent “ah,” you look into his hungry, heavy eyes and the grey-speckled hair falling into them.

“Yeah?” You manage, voice involuntarily sliding up an octave.

He cups your cheek and nods.

Your eyebrows knit together in euphoria as his talk and his tantalizing fingers bring you right up to the edge of your climax.

And then Joel’s abruptly pulling his fingers out, leaving you gasping for air on the damn brink of bliss. He drags your jeans and underwear towards your ankles, tearing them from your body and tossing them carelessly onto the bed.

“You take that pill I left you?”

You nod enthusiastically, watching intently as Joel’s wet, wide fingers work impatiently at his buckle. “S’good, baby.” He pulls his own denim over his hips, smirking arrogantly as amazement crosses your expression. You’d forgotten how big he was. “‘Cause I’m gonna need you to take it again.”

It feels like the first time all over again, watching his heavy length bob up and down in front of you. You wonder what he tastes like.

Before you can find out, he’s yanked your legs over his hips, leaning forward to guide the tip of his manhood between your aching folds and teasing you with the dark head of his cock.

You’re moaning a soft “feels s’good, Joel” when he pushes himself entirely inside you, eliciting a sharp squeal from your lips as the curve of his cock grazes that spot inside you—as he bottoms out completely. He releases a low groan; it sounds like angels sighing.

Needing to see more of you, he bunches your shirt above your breasts. “Look at you, baby,” He palms one roughly, teasing and pinching the nipple as his thighs snap against your ass, the torturous combination bringing you closer and closer to oblivion.

“S’fuckin’ pretty with your tits bouncin’ for me.”

Lost in his eyes, expression frozen in ecstasy, you anchor your nails into his forearms, responding to his thrusts by grinding your hips against his.

“Fuckin hell, sweetheart.”

Joel’s eyebrows knit together as he gives you every inch of himself without holding back; your body responds to him—muscles quiver uncontrollably, cunt squeezes devotedly around his cock. The only word you seem to remember is ‘Joel.’

“Squirmin’ like crazy, baby,” he mumbles. “Been waitin’ for me?” His harsh, rhythmic strokes fuck you mute—but that was never an excuse with Joel. A calloused hand circles your gasping throat, pressing softly against your windpipe in an unmistakeable command.

“Words, angel.” Possessiveness underpins his husky demand. “Anyone else fuck you while I was gone?”

You meet his shadowed eyes, gaze hazy with pleasure. “N-no, Joel.”

He groans with approval.

“Fuckin’ right. That’s my girl.”

Your breath quickens as your clit begins to twitch, release simmering between your hips. “Oh god, Joel, I-I can’t—”

When he ducks his head into your neck, the scent of sandalwood soap mingling with his sweat overwhelms you with need; Joel’s teeth nip at your skin affectionately, beard brushing your collarbone as his thumb finds its way to your throbbing bud.

“Ohmygod—Joel, Joel, Joel—” uttering his name in worship, you reach your climax the second his finger presses into your clit—toes curling inside your socks, fingernails digging into the soft cotton of his t-shirt.

“That’s it, good girl,” he praises, growing harder and harder as his name tumbles from your lips, punctuating the rhythmic sound of his broad thighs slapping against your skin. “Jus like your lil’ pussy.” His hands move to your waist, squeezing your hips between his calloused hands as he bounces you up and down his pulsing cock.

“Fuckin’ young n’ needy.”

As he fucks you through your orgasm, you feel Joel working another one out of you. Wanton whines and moans escape your throat. Catching glimpses of his broad, towering form over you only makes the fluttering more intense—meeting his wild eyes only brings the simmering heat inside you to a downright boil.

“Please—come inside me—want it so bad—Joel—”

“Keep fuckin’ quiet,” He growls. “Tryna make your poor fuckin’ dad hear you beggin’ for my cum?”

Joel loved fucking you like this.

He loved fucking you with only a shitty, thin door separating your naked, eager body from all the blissfully ignorant assholes he worked with. He loved watching you writhe pathetically under his weight, cunt wrapped around him so desperately.

Made him feel like a man.

“Gonna give me another one?” He goads, voice straining slightly as his own release builds fast between his thighs. “C’mon, baby, wanna feel this pussy comin’ on my cock—js’one more, sweetheart, that’s right—”

His breathing turns shallow as his words tumble out; your eyes roll to the skies as he takes you there again, your near-sobs of “thank you thank you thank you” stifled just in time by the rush of his hand to your lips. Cradling your head, he pulls you into his shoulder and buries himself impossibly deep inside your cunt. You distantly register his muffled “shit—s’fucking good, baby” as his seed soaks your walls. Joel pushes his cum right into your guts with a couple of final, decelerating strokes.

Head still cradled in his neck, stars dance before your eyes. Joel’s chest heaves with every breath he takes, and his exhalations tickle the top vertebrae of your spine. You let your heartbeats settle together, frozen in place as he slowly softens inside you.

Finally, he pulls out with a gentle groan.

“Gonna be the death of me, sweetheart.”

You slump onto the mattress, a cocktail of his cum and your slick leaking out of your pussy, still unable to string along a cohesive sentence.

Softly smiling, he adds under his breath, “Be at the wrong end of every conman and criminal’s rifle f’anyone ever found out about this.”

You prop yourself up on trembling elbows, watching Joel pull his jeans back up over his hips.

“I guess we’ll just have to run away together,” you hum, half-joking, half-serious. “You can teach me how to be a big-bad-smuggler.”

He chuckles, the rumble in his chest blanketing your still-pulsing body with an unfamiliar warmth.

“Yeah, you’d sure like that, huh?” His eyes dance with playfulness, a rare vision of Joel Miller. It suits him. “Wouldn’t last a damn day with you teasin’ me on the job.” He kneels down, finding your underwear and slipping it onto your ankles, wriggling it up your calves—a practiced movement, like something he’d done a million times before. “M’not sure you’d be too crazy about the clickers—though sick n’ decaying does seem to be your type.”

You giggle, lightly slapping his firm shoulder as he bends over you, pulling your damp panties up. His fingers smooth the distressed fabric delicately, lingering on the skin of your hip for a brief, cherishing touch. Silence settles between you as Joel’s thumb strokes your hip absentmindedly. Glasses clink and laughter erupts downstairs.

Brusquely, he clears his throat and straightens up, a hard mask of apathy descending on his features once again.

“Clean yourself up, alright?” He smooths his hair back, heading for the door.

“Joel.”

He knows the meaning behind your tone before you do.

It’s not that there’s anything, in particular, you need him to hear—you just don’t want him to leave.

Not yet. Not now.

Hand on the doorknob, his looming form stills.

“You should…” he begins, eyes glued to the door, throat constricting around his words. “You should go out with that guy. From earlier. Be good for you to see someone your age, y’know.”

“Well, I don’t want that guy,” you respond, sitting up on the mattress, fixing your stare on his back. “Do you really need me to say it, Miller? I don’t care how old you are, or that you’re friends with my dad, or how many people you’ve wasted,” you ramble, the taste of exasperation and agitation building on your tongue. “Hell, I wouldn’t even care if you were fuckin’ infected. I like you.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose, eyebrows furrowing together in frustration.

“Well, don’t.”

He exhales, shaking his head with frustration.

“Shouldn’t’ve let this happen again. Made a damn mess of things by fuckin’ you.”

For some extremely unwelcome reason, his words bite like hell. You’d borne your soul to him, been vulnerable with him, had him inside you twice now, and all he viewed you as was a regret. Crestfallen, tears stinging your eyes, you roll onto your side, facing away from him, still half-dressed. You don’t have the capacity to care about how pitiful a sight it is, only wanting the man to leave you to tend to your wounds in peace.

But, of course, he doesn’t.

He won’t.

That hand just can’t seem to twist that fuckin’ knob. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” he mutters. “Okay.”

Something like hope begins to bloom in your chest as you hear the concession leaking from his words. You try to beat it down, focussed on the cracks and divots in the wall facing your tear-lined eyes.

“Tess is gone for the week—job outside the Zone.” Despite the tortured strain in his voice, it tastes of desire. “Place’ll be empty. Jus’ don’t let anyone see you.”

With that, he wrenches the door open; a brief swell of noise floods the room before he seals you back in. Still curled up into yourself, the beginnings of a smile etch their way onto your lips. You turn into your pillow, grinning into the linen, unable to contain it.

Victory.

Joel Miller was a hard man. Of that, you were certain. absolutely certain.

But you were also certain that he was soft on you.

And that felt like winning.

—

Read part 1: Dark but Just a Game

Read part 3: Let Me Love You Like a Woman (Let Me Hold You Like a Baby)

—

TAGLIST: @witchy-jadda @bookofbee @ninebluehearts @jbcalway @jasminedragoon @mads-grace4 @anyas-stuff @liviloo12346 @mattmurdocksgirlfriend @stardust-chords-enthusiast @fruitcupsworld @sallymilkweed

—

TAGLIST: @witchy-jadda @ninebluehearts@jbcalway @jasminedragoon@mads-grace4 @anyas-stuff @liviloo94 @ninebluehearts

[stvolanis]

can u write a smut which farleigh start has a breeding kink? i was so shy to ask but here we are...

Of course! don’t be shy, I love getting requests like this!

HOT & HEAVY

(a one shot)

PAIRINGS:Farleigh Start x reader

WARNINGS: foul language, clingy!Farleigh, pet names, fluff!

NSFW WARNINGS: breeding kink!!, cream pie, overstimulation, praise, light dumbification, cock warming

˚ ꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ˚

Farleigh was more antsy than usual. More observing and jumpy.

He’d been this way ever since last nights party when his friend, Mark, had arrived with a 1 year old in his arms. Said he was babysitting, although a party full of drunken and strung out people didn’t sound like an ideal place.

So, that’s what made you take it upon yourself to care for the child that night while everyone else had fun. You didn’t mind at all, matter of fact, you were excited. You were amazing with kids, and you’d much rather be spending your time taking care of one than having a killer hangover the next morning.

Farleigh had watched silently as you bounced the 1 year old, who’s name he learned was Marceline, on your hip half the night. The way she would babble on and on while chewing on your fingers absentmindedly while you casually talked to other people. The little giggles the little girl let out when you’d tickle her stomach, the smiles on both of your faces adoring.

Then it got him thinking.

What if that was his baby that you were holding instead? The one he’d only ever dreamed of having with you? How great of a mother you would be; naturally so caring and loving, kindness a default in your tender nature.

So of course it was the only thing spiraling in Farleighs’ mind for nearly 2 weeks since it happened.

Then his mind drifted off to….other things.

How beautiful you’d look swollen, full of his seed. Breasts sore, tender to the touch and full of milk he’d selfishly want to keep to himself. Everyone would know you were his, how could they not? He would be within 4 feet of you at all times if you’d fallen pregnant. The ‘scary guard dog’ over your shoulder, yet staring at you with the upmost love.

but you, innocent little you, were completely unaware of this.

So you gasped in shock when Farleigh had taken it upon himself to bend you over the kitchen counter when you were trying to make chocolate chip muffins.

You wore a baby pink robe with nothing but lilac laced panties underneath. “Baby, what—“ you started, but you were hushed by the feeling of his cock pressed against your already dampening cunt. “You little fuckin’ minx. Don’t know what you do to me, love.” He whispered in your ear.

You heard his pants drop to the floor behind you, and he pushed your panties to the side, lining his tip that was laced with pre-cum to your throbbing entrance that was clenching around nothing.

You whimpered as he pushed his fat tip in before filling you to the brim full of his cock. He was freakishly long, the biggest you’d ever taken the only cock you’ve ever taken, he was at least 8 inches, maybe a little more.

You could feel his tip kiss your cervix and your mouth hung agape, breathless as he began to relentlessly pound into you. His balls slapped against your clit with every thrust he delivered, and his hands gripped at your waist harshly, yet the angel kisses he delivered to your shoulders were gentle.

“Gonna fill you, baby. Gonna stuff you so full, you’re gonna look so so pretty when I’m done with you, honey.” He nearly whimpered out. Your cunt was spasming around him, and he knew you liked the idea by the way you clamped down onto him. You were so tight around him, he felt like he was gonna lose his mind if he couldn’t rut himself into you.

Farleigh was like a bitch in heat; and he was no better than you in this position. He was equally as a mess as you were. Both of you moaning uncontrollably, gripping at anything just to hold yourselves stable. Your eyes rolling to the back of your head when his fingers met your clit.

He rolled your bundle of nerves between his fingers harshly, adding just the right amount of pressure to make you see stars. He was using you like a fleshlight, a cocksleve that was made specifically for him. And the worst best part about it? You had absolutely no complaints.

You’d gladly let your needy boy use you anytime he wanted to if it meant getting your brains fucked out.

He gently craned your neck back by your hair “Gonna make you a mommy. Yeah? You want that? You wanna make me a daddy, sweetheart?” He asked against your lips. You whimpered and whined, his cock still drilling into you at an alarming rate. “Y-yesss, oh fuck! Farleigh! Whatever you want!” You all but yelled out.

He somehow managed to let out a half-assed chuckle in amusement. “Nearly fucked my baby dumb, I think. Don’t even know what you’re agreeing to.” He said as he held your face back down against the marble countertop. The way he towered over you, and overpowered without even trying is what had you tumbling over the edge with a loud moan.

You released all over him, his happy trail becoming sticky with your cum. But he wasn’t finished, hell, he hasn’t even had his release yet, but the way your cunt ached around him trigged it.

He shot his hot, sticky seed deep into your fertile womb with a satisfied groan. “I’ve fucked a baby into you now, yeah?” He asked, condescendingly. You were on too much of a high to even process the words the taller man was saying to you.

You felt him pick you up, and somehow turn you around on his cock, now facing him as he carried you to the couch. He sat down with you still on him, and began rubbing slow circles onto your numb clit.

You whined as you dropped your head onto his shoulder. “S’too much, Farleigh!” You whimpered out, but your pleas fell to deaf ears. “Shh, I know, baby. Just gotta make sure you stay nice n’ full of my cum.” He whispered out as he rubbed his hand up and down your back with his free hand soothingly.

“My good girl, hm? Takin my cock so well, princess.” He said as he kissed the top of your head. You nodded, still clinging onto him like your life depended on it.

Your eyes felt heavy with sleep as your boyfriend trailed his kisses down to your neck, sucking and nipping at the sensitive skin. You were half awake, having your second orgasm as his fingers began to toy with your clit more feverishly.

Your swollen bud aching painfully, yet somehow still feeling so good just from his skilled fingers. “M’gonna cum again, Farleigh!” You moaned out as you humped yourself against his fingers at the same pace he was toying with you.

“Just let it happen, baby. So good f’me.” He cooed in your ear as you felt yourself squirt all over him for a second time. He groaned as he felt your juices slide down his cock. It was such a pretty sight.

You stuffed so full of his cock and cum, whimpering and helpless as you sat on him. The way your cunt squelched when you’d attempt to get off, yet Farleighs rough hands held you down.

You fell asleep in his arms, his cock still planted in you. Farleighs only hope was that you’d wake up with morning sickness, and if you didn’t, he’d have no problem fucking you everyday till you did.

Sure enough, after 2 weeks of the both of you fucking like rabbits every damn day, you’d finally fallen pregnant with your first child, and you and Farleigh couldn’t be any happier.

˚ ꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ˚

don’t be shy, ask to be a part of the tag list and request things!!

TAG LIST: @elvisalltheway101 @epthedream69 @claire-elvisgirl @elvisrealgf @littlehoneyposts @ireallydontcareanymorebrooo @luxuriouslokistan-3

[infamous-if]

✮ CH. 2 PART I ✮ 92k (+86k) -> 178k ✮

PLAY CHAPTER 2: PART I

It's here! First, sorry for the long wait. Chapter 2 has proven to be a behemoth, and I'd gotten sick this past week, my computer broke, my documents went kaput and I had to do some Frankensteining for the last few pages of this part. I'm not too worried, as Part II update can help smooth out all the kinks. I will definitely be looking for beta testers once chapter 2 is complete ha

Anywho! Enough about my problems. This demo update adds 86k words (86, 818 to be exact) and is the first part of a two part chapter. Which means the narrative in this chapter is not complete, but I kind of closed it off at a pretty satisfying place. As with every Infamous chapter, this is very character driven. So have fun!

What to expect in Chapter Two PART I:

get on the bus & deal with the consequences of your actions lol

arrive to your first tour stop and do your first gig...which might get messy (both literally and figuratively)

hang with a familiar father and daughter duo

have some heart to hearts/ some cheeky little POV passages

meet more BOTB crew and learn exactly what's in store for you this season

get roped in some ValenReign mess !

Maintenance:

this chapter has a lot of flavor text, or at least, more than the demo did, so if there are any errors or if there are lines that don't correspond with your choices, please let me know so i can fix that!

you will no longer be forced to write your own lyrics and the update will offer you pre-written lyrics by yours truly. im not t swift so i would advise you not to expect professional level songwriting, but they work well enough lolol

lyrics page is up as well as stats, but i don't really like the system i used to balance it, mostly because new...stat things will be added as the story goes on, so that's still getting reworked. still, good enough for now, as there are some personality stat checks!

Prologue and Chapter 1 errors/typos/grammatical bits fixed. (Wouldn't be surprised if I missed some though...) + variables updated.

Scenes not showing up fixed. hopefully, that huge error in which it throws you back to the fight after returning to the house is fixed (It was a bit wonky for me, hopefully it works for everyone else)

Stat and relationship pages updated ( + lyric page to look back at all your lyrics).

Can choose to be asexual and any sexual scenes will be skipped or replaced with romantic scenes. Flavor text in which MC displays any sort of sexual desire will be skipped. (This option comes up during Dakota's party scene. If not, it will show up when it presents itself again.) (Nothing sexual has come up yet, but if there are any scenes or even lines/ internal thoughts that should be skipped or changed for Asexual MCs, please let me know!)

If there are errors or anything, im always open. I've play tested but you girl is always prone to errors. As always, thank you for your love and enthusiasm! It makes me really happy and motivates me to keep writing ! <3

(Also, if you're thinking "omg amy how did you go from 65k to 86k?!" i don't want to talk about it /j)

See you on tour!

[erwinsvow]

YOU LOOK SO SWEET — RC.

“i can’t believe you made out with sarah’s brother,” your friend comments. you choke on your water. 

it had been an hour or so since your friends had dragged you out of the bar, bringing you home with them for the pre-planned sleepover that you had been ready to ditch for rafe. in that time you and your friends had taken off your makeup and changed into pajamas, munching on pizza on the floor of your bedroom while discussing the night’s events like you always did. you wipe your mouth, looking up at them incredulously. 

“what?” 

“you didn’t know that was rafe cameron? shut up.”

“he’s a psycho, that’s what she always says-”

“he was really nice to me,” you defend, not liking the way your friends sound right now. the rest of the night goes like that—you trying to counter and justify everything rafe did for you last night with your friends telling you it’s a good thing they dragged you away. 

they fall asleep shortly after, but you lie awake, staring at the ceiling and wondering what time your friends will leave in the morning. you’re making plans to go to tannyhill. 

normally breakfast the morning after going out is a sacred ritual between you and your friends, which is why they’re extra surprised when you usher them out without any real reason. you hurry back to the kitchen after their car drives away, getting everything ready to make cookies and wondering which kind rafe likes best.

rafe sees it from inside tannyhill—the white bike with the wicker basket pulling up the driveway, the tiny figure dressed in pink parking it next to his truck. you climb off your bike and even from up here he can appreciate how short your dress is, how you almost gave the gardeners a show. he's gotta teach you to be more careful.

you reach into the basket to pull out a matching pink container, walking up to the front door. he’s down the stairs and opening the door before you’ve even had a chance to ring the doorbell. 

you beam at rafe, hoping he remembers you and wasn’t drunk during that entire encounter. you smile brightly, offering the pink box of cookies to him.

“sorry to just drop by like this. i made cookies for you. um, to say thank you.”

“yeah, kid? that’s real cute.”

“oh. thank you.” he looks down at you, leaning against the door frame.

your chest is heaving, material of your tight dress moving up and down while you keep your gaze fixed on him, eyes big and blinking fast. you don’t even realize how you look right now, trusting and innocent and staring up at rafe like you’d do whatever he asked. if you looked like prey yesterday night, you’re the definition of an offering today, walking straight into the predator’s den.

“i didn’t know what kind you liked, so i made a whole bunch.”

“yeah?”

“yeah.” you stare back at rafe for another few seconds, then tear your eyes away. you think he wants you to go, and as much as you like him, as much as you feel a little brainless around him, you’re not stupid—you can tell when you’re not wanted. “well, i should go. thanks again for last night.”

“stop thankin’ me. it was nothin’.” rafe steps out of the house, just a foot from you on the porch now. his hand comes to rest on your shoulder and you nearly jump at the touch. “come inside. can’t eat all these myself.”

your pretty smile comes rushing back, following him inside just like you had followed him to the dance floor yesterday, looking around at the walls of tannyhill. you’d been once before, years ago for a party for sarah’s birthday that the entire class had been invited to,  but you hadn’t admired it then. nor did you realize what other treasures laid inside.

“want milk?” rafe questions, opening up the fridge while you rest your hands on the marble island in the kitchen. you nod your head, still looking around and taking in the new environment. rafe comes back to you with the jug of milk and two glasses, pouring you a cup first.

“how was the rest of your night?” you ask tentatively, breaking an oatmeal raisin cookie in half and offering rafe the other piece. he accepts it with a grin. you’re nervous—scared of the answer, wondering if another girl took your place after you left.

“boring. i left after you did.” he bites into the cookie, and then takes a sip of milk. if he thought you were beaming earlier, you’re radiant now—looking up at him like he’s hung the moon for you. your laugh—and even that’s pretty—fills the room.

“that’s not how you’re supposed to do it, rafe,” you giggle, dipping your own cookie into the milk first to demonstrate. “see?”

it’s quick. rafe takes your wrist into his hand, guiding it up to your mouth, making you take a bite. he doesn’t let go while he speaks, either.

“now it’s soggy. see?” you nod, watching where he’s touching you with big eyes. if you’re this reactive to a little skin contact, he’s dying to see what you’ll be like naked in his bed. he reminds himself to be patient.

“i didn’t realize i was doing it wrong,” you comment, picking up another cookie, this time snickerdoodle, to break in half. he’s half surprised at your compliance, half wondering what else he could convince you of with a little manhandling and kissing.

“don’t worry, kid. i’ll teach you right and wrong.”

[theemporium]

[4.1k] as promised, jack throws luke a belated birthday party before the season kicks off. except, luke gets more surprises than he bargained for. (smut)

series masterlist

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“I don’t get why we have to do this.”

“I’m just following instructions.”

“I already know Jack is throwing a party, there is no surprise.”

“I know. You have said it thirteen times since we left the apartment.”

Luke shot the older defenceman a look, his face blank and unimpressed. It had been bad enough that Jack had barged into his room at an ungodly hour on their off day, rambling away so fast that it took Luke a few minutes to even realise what he was saying. He had clothes thrown at his face and told he had fifteen minutes to get out of the house before he was dragged out. 

He was only mildly surprised to find John waiting outside their apartment complex, two coffees held in his hands and looking just as thrilled as Luke to be awake so early. And just like Luke, he had been given close to no instructions on what to do, other than keep Luke out of their apartment until everything was ready. 

Whenever that would be.

“I don’t get why we couldn’t just hang out at yours.” Luke said, leaning back against the hood of the car as he shovelled the ice cream around the small tub he was holding. “Or why he demanded I spend the day acting like a seven year old.” 

“To say goodbye to your youth before you turn twenty,” John replied.

Luke frowned. “I’m already twenty.”

“Semantics,” John shrugged.

Luke stared at his teammate for a few moments, letting the silence envelope them. He got along well with John, probably better than some of the older teammates. He didn’t want to say it to anyone else—like Jack or Quinn or his parents—but it was a little intimidating. He wasn’t the youngest guy in the team, and he knew he had others his age. But sometimes, the older defenceman were just…a little intense. 

He knew they meant well. He knew they only wanted to help and guide. But it was hard to believe the words they were saying when it was still pre-season, when Luke still felt like he had to prove himself on the ice, even after playoffs.

But John was a nice middle. He wasn’t old but he was experienced. He understood it a little better than some of the others. Luke might have even gone as far to say that John had been the closest thing to an actual friend that he felt on the team, like somebody he thinks would genuinely hang out with him outside of team hangouts and post-game pub crawls.

Luke’s eyes narrowed in suspicion at the older boy. “Do you know what Jack is planning?”

He could see the beginnings of a smirk tugging on John’s lips.

Luke pointed his little spoon in accusation. “You do!” 

“Eat your ice cream, Luke.” 

“Surely I get birthday boy privileges or something.”

John’s face broke out into a full blown grin. “Thought you were already twenty? Not technically the birthday boy then, are you?” 

Luke only rolled his eyes as the boy beside him cackled, but there was the makings of a smile on his face too. 

…

He had made the mistake of underestimating a Jack Hughes’ party.

Luke knew what his brother was like. He knew how his mind worked and how he thought and how he acted. He knew just what certain words and phrases really meant. He knew the kinds of tricks Jack tended to have up his sleeve. 

He had ranted to John about as much all day. He had warned you about the same.

He was fully equipped to be prepared with whatever was on the other side of the door.

And yet, Luke still found himself standing frozen in shock when he opened the apartment door to so many fucking people screaming happy birthday at him. More people than he ever considered possibly fitting into their apartment. 

Every surface had more bottles of alcohol on them than he could count, there were balloons and other decorations taped to the wall, and he was pretty sure he saw a fucking keg hidden amongst the crowd.

It was the most Jack Hughes kind of thing to throw him a party that resembled a frat party, more than a fucking birthday party. He shouldn’t have been surprised and he still was because, honestly, he didn’t think it would be much bigger than the team and their partners and some extra friends. 

Luke didn’t think he knew half the people in his house right now. Maybe more than half. 

And still, staring at the large group of people, he couldn’t help but let his eyes wander over the crowd as if he would be able to spot you in seconds. 

But he couldn’t.

Instead, Jack was dragging him into the apartment with a shove and a big smile. He had a drink pushed into his hands seconds later, more people wishing him a happy birthday and the overwhelming realisation that his social butterfly brother was going to drag him around to meet every single stranger currently in his house. 

And as much as he wanted to claim it was horrible—and it kind of was, socially—Jack undoubtedly knew how to throw a great party. 

He was in the middle of listening to some retelling of a goal from a game that Luke didn’t even care about when he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He glanced around him, everyone far too focused on the storytelling before he slipped his phone out. He wished he was embarrassed with the way his smile grew when he saw it was from you. 

cherry🍒: which room is yours? 

cherry🍒: please answer quick before i break into your brother’s room

Luke pressed his lips together, trying to resist the urge to smile or laugh.

hockey boy: is there a reason you’re trying to sneak into my room? 

It didn’t even take a few seconds after he pressed send for you to respond. 

cherry🍒: stop being a smart ass and tell me which one

cherry🍒: otherwise i guess jack gets your present 

And it was stupid, really. He didn’t know what you got him. It could be a card for all he knew, and he would be grateful for it regardless. But still, something about the implication of your words made his cheeks flush in response. 

And something quite possessive bubbled in his chest at the idea of anyone else being in his position. 

It was his gift, after all. He had every right to feel possessive over it. Or, at least, that was what he told himself as he quickly responded. 

hockey boy: second door on the left

He watched the bubbles appear on his screen, let the seconds pass painfully until your message came through.

cherry🍒: come and get your present, birthday boy ;)

He stared at the text for a lot longer than he cared to admit before he was snapped out of his thoughts, feeling someone’s pointy elbow digging into his side. His head snapped up, finding Jesper staring at him with a slightly concerned look.

“You good? Your face has gone red.”

He could almost feel his cheeks burn hotter in response. 

“Uh, yeah,” Luke cleared his throat and gave the older boy a slightly strained smile. “I must’ve drank a little more than I expected. I’m just gonna go splash my face and I’ll be back.”

Jesper’s brows furrowed together. “You sure? I can go get Jack—”

“No, no,” Luke quickly reassured him, giving his shoulder a small pat and squeeze before he took a step away from the crowd. “Promise I’m all good. Just need to freshen up.”

Jesper didn’t look convinced but Luke didn’t give him much time to say anything else before he rushed off. 

He kept his head down, trying to avoid eye contact and getting dragged into conversations as best as he could. He gave polite smiles when he could, pushing through the crowd of people without a second thought before he made it to the corridor that led off to the bedrooms.

It was quieter, which was expected with most of the guests in the main communal areas but Luke didn’t give much thought to them or anything else as he made a beeline for his room. 

His heart was thundering in his chest as he reached for the door, quickly sliding inside and shutting the door with a heavy sigh before he finally turned around. He leaned back against the door, taking in the sight of you casually sitting on his bed like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Maybe because, for some reason that was beyond his own understanding, it was. 

You sitting on his bed, leaning back against your hands as you grinned at him. Your white dress was a stark contrast against his navy blue sheets, resting around mid-thigh and it drove him crazy. Almost as crazy as the cherry red lipstick did. 

“Happy birthday, Hughes.”

His nose scrunched. “You can’t call me that when my brother is under the same roof.”

You snorted. “Aw, you know you’re my favourite.” 

Luke didn’t bite back his smile this time. “Is that my birthday present?” 

You grinned back, patting the spot on the bed next to you. “Why don’t you come find out?” 

He barely had a chance to sit on the bed before your hands were on him, fingers lightly tugging on his curls as you pressed a smacking kiss onto his cheek with a cheesy grin. 

“Happy birthday, Luke.” 

He huffed out a laugh, turning to look at you with an elated expression. “Thanks, Cherry,” he murmured, almost shyly as your fingers remained in his hair, playing with his curls like it was instinctive. “How are you enjoying the party?”

Your lips twitched upwards. “Your brother sure would’ve made a great frat boy.”

“It’s his true calling,” Luke joked.

“And you’re a popular boy,” you commented.

His cheeks flushed. “Oh no…I…I don’t know half of them, to be honest. Maybe even more than that.” 

Something glinted in your eyes and you smiled at him. “So I’m one of the lucky few people who actually know the birthday boy?” 

He swallowed. “One of the few, yeah.” 

“I’m honoured,” you hummed, tilting your head to the side. “I’m guessing you won’t be missed if I keep you up here for a bit, then?”

He blinked, staring at you for a few seconds before he remembered he had to respond. “Uh, yeah, no. We can…we can stay here for a bit. Or a while. Or however long you want.” 

You tucked your lip between your teeth. “Good. Get comfortable.”

His eyes widened a little. “Huh?” 

“Get comfortable, Luke,” you repeated, something quite like pride blooming in your chest as you watched his face blush in response. “Need to give you your birthday present.” 

“Oh,” he murmured before he realised. “Oh! Right, I—” 

Luke glanced at you for a second, seeing if you were going to give him any hint on what was happening but you just smiled at him. He cleared his throat, almost embarrassed by the way his dick twitched in response before he shuffled back onto the bed until his back was pressed against the headboard. 

“Is this okay?”

“Perfect, baby, always so perfect for me,” you murmured, not wasting any time as you began to crawl towards him. 

He gulped a little, watching you like he was completely entranced. He expected you to swing your leg over his lap, to feel your thighs on either side of him as you settled yourself on him. He waited for you to be close enough before he could reach out, before he could pull you closer. He itched to have his hands on you.

But you crawled until you were kneeling beside him, your knees brushing against his thigh and hand on his stomach—but it still didn’t feel close enough for his liking. 

Yet, when he opened his mouth to speak, you were already leaning forward to kiss him.

The way he moaned in relief the second he felt your lips on his was almost pathetic, but Luke couldn’t bring himself to care. You shifted in your spot before your free hand cupped his cheek, guiding his head so you could deepen the kiss with a swipe of your tongue against his lips. 

He parted his lips with no hesitation. 

“Hm, good boy,” you hummed, your breath tickling against his lips and it made his cock strain in his jeans. 

“Always for you,” he responded, almost like it was instinctive. It took a few seconds for his brain to catch up, for his body to flush in realisation.

But he could feel your smile widen against his lips and it made it worth it.

You pulled back, panting softly as your hooded eyes took him in. Your gaze glanced over every inch of his face before they lingered on his lips. Your eyes darkened and your lips twitched as your hand moved to cup his jaw, to let your thumb slowly swipe over his lips.

“Cherry red looks good on you, baby,” you commented, and it was only then he noticed how smudged your own lipstick looked. 

“Might give you a run for your money,” he retorted, his voice a little lower and rougher than it was moments ago.

“Hm, I bet you could.” 

He gulped a little, the blood roaring in his ears as he felt the anticipation of your next move crackle under his skin like lightning waiting to strike. He watched you closely like he was scared to miss something, like this would all end if he looked away.

“Relax, Luke,” you said in a softer voice, the hand on his stomach lightly fisting the material of his shirt. “You trust me, right?” 

He nodded.

“And you’ll tell me if you wanna stop?”

He nodded again.

“Good,” you murmured before you were leaning in again. “Then sit back and enjoy your present, birthday boy.”

And every other coherent thought Luke had in his brain went completely out the window as you leaned in to kiss him again. 

There was the distant thumping bass sounding from the main room that made him feel like he was back to the party just over a month ago. When he was in the small bathroom with you, feeling just as hot and flushed as he did now but for very different reasons. And if he didn’t have your tongue in his mouth, he was sure he would have appreciated how poetic it all felt.

But he really, really couldn’t bring his brain to do anything except focus on you, you, you.

A needy noise sounded from the back of his throat as your hand on his stomach travelled downwards, as the heel of your palm pushed against the bulge in his jeans. 

“So responsive,” you murmured between kisses as you continued to palm him over his jeans. 

He felt breathless, his brain feeling fuzzy and his body feeling overwhelmed as he desperately tried to keep up with you, to kiss you back, to not buck his hips like he desperately wanted to do.

“This okay?” 

He sighed, nodding his head.

You hand paused, and he almost whined in response, before your fingers paused at the button of his jeans. “Still okay?”

He nodded again.

“Words, baby. I know you can use them for me.”

“Yeah, still okay,” he managed to get out between gritted teeth, almost sounding wounded as he felt your fingers circle his button before slowly popping it undone. He let out a staggered, heavy breath as your hand slid into his jeans, until the warmth of your palm squeezed his cock over his boxers. “Oh, fuck.”

“Shhh, can’t be too loud, baby,” you murmured, watching the way his head slumped back against the headboard with a thump. “Not when they can hear you.”

“There’s music,” he defended weakly, his eyes fluttering shut as you slowly began to stroke his clothed cock. 

“Your pretty noises are louder,” you teased, unable to help yourself as you leaned forward to press a kiss to the hollow of his neck. “Help me get these off, yeah?” 

Luke could only find it within himself to nod and lift his hips to help shuffle the fabric of his jeans and boxers to pool just above his knees. “Please.”

“No need to beg this time,” you assured the boy, pressing another kiss just under his jaw. “Gonna give the birthday boy what he wants.” 

He blinked his eyes open, expecting to find you staring back at him. Instead, your focus was on his exposed dick, resting against his stomach. He swallowed a little, suddenly self-conscious and painfully aware that despite the amount of times you had made him come, this was the first time he had ever…well…it was the first time you had ever seen his dick.

He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Nothing except a noise mixed between a moan and a whimper as your thumb traced over the slit on his head.

“Pretty boy, pretty cock,” you commented casually, like your thumb wasn’t spreading the small beads of precome over the head of his cock.

“Cherry,” he breathed out, fighting the urge to clench his eyes shut. “Fuck. Please.”

“I like when you say my name like that,” you confessed, turning to look at his flushed cheeks and glossy eyes that were already staring back at you. You never once looked away from him as you raised your thumb to your mouth, wrapping your lips around it.

He gritted his teeth together. “Shit.” 

The eye contact remained as you licked the palm of your hand before reaching down to stroke his cock again, no layers of fabric acting as a barrier anymore. Just your warm, wet palm slowly pumping the length of his hard cock, in his fucking bedroom when a whole party of guests celebrating him were just god-knows how many feet away.

“Fuck, yes,” he moaned out, slumping back against the headboard again as you continued to stroke his cock. His eyes fluttered shut as a small voice in the back of his head muttered about how much better it felt when it wasn’t his own hand. 

“That’s it, baby, just sit back and enjoy,” you whispered, closing the distance between your lips and his neck once again. Your breath tickled along the column of his neck, sending small shivers through his body as he tried not to twitch his hips.

“Feels good,” he managed to blurt out.

He could feel your smile against his skin. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” he nodded hopelessly, his hands fisting the duvet on either side of him. “So good.”

“Hm,” you hummed in amusement, your teeth lightly nipping a spot just before his ear. “You gonna last long, baby?” 

He shook his head, whimpering.

“Gonna be a good boy and come for me?” 

He nodded without a second of hesitation. 

And then he felt your lips against his ear, your breath warm and your voice sultry as you whispered, “then come for me, Luke.”

And he fucking shattered. 

White, hot pleasure exploded through him. He could feel it in every nerve in his body, from the tip of his fingers to the end of his toes. He could feel the rush down his spine, the spots dotting his vision as he tried to ground his bearings. He could feel his cock twitching in your palm as he came, as ropes of his come exploded over your hand and his thighs and stomach.

“Holy shit,” he breathed out, chest heaving with soft pants as he took a few moments before he turned his head to look at you.

“Like your birthday present?��� You asked with an innocent smile.

Luke snorted, not replying as he leaned forward to press his lips against yours. It felt like the natural response and you didn’t seem to push him away. 

When he pulled back, he reached for a box of tissues and handed you a few to clean yourself up whilst he did the same. It was only thirty seconds of silence before he opened his mouth to say something, his brain still fuzzy and the oddest urge to say ‘thank you’ on the tip of his tongue when he heard familiar voices on the other side of his door.

“Nah, I swear Jack said his room was to the right.”

“He said left, dipshit.”

“No, he definitely said right.”

Luke’s eyes widened as he turned to look at you, a sudden burst of adrenaline and panic ridding him of whatever post-orgasm brain fog he was experiencing seconds ago. “Get under the bed.”

You blinked. “What—”

“Get under the bed now,” Luke hissed as he quickly scrambled to pull his boxers and jeans up.

You listened to him, despite his confusion, as you quickly slid off his bed and crawled underneath the frame. You disappeared just as the door to his room burst open and Luke was met with three very familiar faces grinning at him. 

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LUKEY!” 

Despite hearing their voices, the shock of seeing three of his closest friends didn’t hit him until they were standing right in front of him. His heart was still thundering in his chest and his brain still felt a little delayed, but the smile on his face was genuine as he took in the sight of Mark, Ethan and Rutger.

“What the fuck are you guys doing here?” Luke retorted, shuffling off his bed. He contemplated hugging them before remembering what had just occurred seconds ago and thought better of it. 

“You really think we were gonna miss your birthday?” Ethan asked with a scoff.

“I mean, it was a few weeks ago…”

Rutger lightly punched his arm. “Don’t be a dick, we just flew from Michigan to be here.”

Luke raised his brows in surprise. “You did?”

“We wouldn’t have missed it for the world, bud,” Mark replied, a softer smile on his face. “You may have hit the big leagues but you can’t get rid of us.”

He swallowed back the lump in his throat, an odd pang of homesickness in his heart craving to be a college student in Michigan once again. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“I think the better question is why the fuck you are hiding at your own party,” Ethan spoke up, slapping his arm around Luke’s shoulders before he began guiding him to the door. “Your brother splurged on a shit ton of booze downstairs, we should be taking advantage of that.”

“And kicking their asses in beer pong,” Mark added with a grin.

“Let’s fucking go!” Rutger whooped, already the first one out the door with the expectation of the others to follow.

“Gonna embarrass them all,” Ethan grinned, turning his head to look at Luke before he frowned a little. “Hey, what’s that on your neck?”

Luke’s eyes widened as his hand instantly came up to his neck, as though he would be able to feel the lipstick staining his skin. “Uh…it’s…a rash.”

Ethan’s brows furrowed together. “Damn, really? It kinda looks—”

“Are you two coming or what?”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “We’re coming!”

“Hurry up or Mark’s my partner in beer pong!” 

Ethan scoffed, his mouth parting in offence. “Absolutely not—” 

Luke didn’t get much of a chance to say anything else before Ethan and the others all but dragged him back into the party. The guilt of leaving you in his room swirled inside him, but he waited until the boys were distracted before he managed to slip his phone out of his pocket. 

hockey boy: i am so sorry about that

hockey boy: i didn’t mean to leave you like that

hockey boy: i feel like a dickhead 

His lip was tucked between his teeth as the typing bubbles appeared. 

cherry🍒:  don’t worry about it, luke

cherry🍒: have fun with your friends 

cherry🍒: hope you liked your birthday present ;)

His cheeks burned but he grinned down at his phone.

hockey boy: don’t think anything can top it

He paused for a few moments, glancing up to find his friends still lost in some debate on who was gaining Mark as their beer pong partner before his focus shifted back to his phone. With some lingering confidence and the shots Ethan made him do as soon as they left his room in his system, he found himself typing and hitting send before he could over think it all.

hockey boy: next time i get to make you come

hockey boy: it’s only fair 

Luke watched as your response came in soon after. 

cherry🍒: maybe you can show me how good you really are with those hands of yours 

.

[vidavalor]

The *Original* Original Sin Theory or... why Aziraphale's "I forgive you"s really mean "forgive me" and just why he wants Crowley's absolution...

Will this break your heart in a good way and make the end of S2 hurt less? more? both? idk let's find out...

I want to talk about what the Before the Beginning scene does to the Eden scene and what all that suggests about Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship... because it might be enough to upend what we think this relationship is quite a bit, at least from Aziraphale's POV, if it goes in the direction that I think they are hinting at in S3, which I'm basing off of where they took it in S2 in these scenes.

This also contains an analysis of That Scene from 2.06 that ties into lots of other scenes and some other meta related to the show and it's a bit long-- like, the mother of all metas-- but there are pretty gifs and I brought snacks? Just letting you know it's a long post but tuck in with some tea if you're in the mood and thanks for reading. :)

Under the big cutty thing...

Before we get started, a couple of quick warnings: I curse a bit in here. It's in the show itself but just letting you know it's here a bit, too. I also mention *very* briefly suicide ideation in the characters and also very briefly (one sentence) Satan's mind-control of Crowley in S1 in a way that might be sensitive for a sexual assault survivor. There is general mention of religious trauma and abusive relationships (not Crowley & Aziraphale's relationship) all over this. If you are okay with the show, you should be more than fine reading this but just wanted to let you know up front. If you're okay with that, read on...

So, the Before the Beginning scene contains a twist, in that we learn that pre-Fall Crowley is naive to Heaven while Aziraphale is the one who is wary of it. This is especially interesting because, best we can tell, no angel has Fallen yet. There aren't *explicit* consequences for asking questions yet, as Crowley doesn't think it could get him into trouble to do so... but *Aziraphale* does. Heaven in S1 and S2 is shown to be basically a fascist state full of bullies jockeying for power where the ones on top dole out all sorts of abuses to maintain a sense of order among the rank and file. We see the emotional and even physical abuse they dole out to Aziraphale and how little they tolerate any sort of dissent, even from an archangel, based on what they ultimately do when Gabriel doesn't want to do arma-bloody-geddon anymore. Heaven is basically The Kremlin. Toe out of line and they'll toss you off a high-rise while telling everyone how sad it is that you recently had a spell of depression and heart troubles as a way of scaring everyone else into submission, right? What's surprising to us is that Aziraphale knows this *absolutely* Before the Beginning and he's terrified on Crowley's behalf, since this place functions as a kind of mafia state.

This implies something really kind of dark which is that Aziraphale knows enough to know how to toe a party line and keep quiet about any doubts he has. He knows how to survive in a way that then-innocent Crowley did not. He tries to tell Crowley that questioning things is going to get him angel-killed but Crowley has a faith in God that's different than Aziraphale's was even before the Earth was fully created. Crowley believed in Her more than Aziraphale does. He doesn't think anything will happen to him. Aziraphale knows what will and this implies knowledge of the abuse of the system and it completely changes our perspective of Aziraphale throughout the rest of the series. We often think of him as either willfully naive or just desperately optimistic regarding Heaven's goodness but, in reality, he's neither of those things. He's something else, entirely. His actions are not expressing naivete or desperate optimism or anything else.

They are expressions of guilt.

And the Eden scene tells us why he has that guilt.

The Eden scene introduces us to Crowley and Aziraphale and the series itself and it has Crowley posit the central question of the show regarding the nature of angels and demons:

Objectively, when you watch this scene, you think this is about the tempting of Eve and the flaming sword. It is... but it's also not *just* about that. Because Crowley and Aziraphale are watching Adam & Eve venture off beyond the Garden of Eden in this scene. They're still within view so the flaming sword situation happened a matter of minutes earlier. Yet, when Crowley posits that central question of which one of them actually did the good thing and which did the bad thing, Aziraphale reveals that it wouldn't be funny at all if what Crowley is saying (that Aziraphale actually did the bad thing) is true. He's distressed about it and so Crowley, somewhat dryly, reassures him that he's an angel so he couldn't have done the wrong thing. (Crowley, of course, being a literal former angel punished for doing the wrong thing lol and that being the joke but also in there is also the layer of Crowley genuinely liking Aziraphale and trying to tell him that it's all okay and meaning it.) Aziraphale is relieved and this is the key bit here-- he says oh good "because it's been bothering me."

The tone of this is that this central question of whether or not he did wrong or right by Crowley and whether or not Crowley was wrong or right in his actions *has been bothering* Aziraphale and he phrases it in a way that implies he's been losing angelic sleep (so to speak) about it for a little while now. If this was *just about Adam and Eve* then Aziraphale's reaction here makes absolutely no sense because the camera also then cuts in their conversation to in front of Crowley and Aziraphale *to show us Adam and Eve still visible in the near-distance* fighting off the lion with the flaming sword. They literally *just left* so how could Aziraphale be all in knots for awhile now over whether or not he made the wrong call? He's not. You can argue that his decision here in Eden to help Adam and Eve by giving them his flaming sword-- by standing up and doing something in the face of God to help out other beings he secretly thinks might have been treated unfairly-- *is a direct response to what he failed to do back in Before the Beginning*...

... which was to stand up for Crowley.

Meaning: Aziraphale doesn't need to see Heaven's files to find out what happened to Crowley when Crowley fell because he was there. S3 is going to be about preventing the Second Coming and so plot allusions to the crucification (which had its own Crowley & Aziraphale scene in S1) will likely abound. Aziraphale was there when Lucifer and The Gang were tossed out of Heaven. To be fair to Aziraphale, there is basically nothing he could have done to prevent this and the best possible situation is that he didn't even have the chance to. The worst possible situation is that he's literally Judas and sold Crowley out, out of fear of being tossed out of Heaven himself. I tend to think it's more that he just didn't stand up and say anything in support of Crowley to prevent himself from being seen as on the side of the eventual demons. Still, just as Crowley thinks the punishment for Adam and Eve was harsh, Aziraphale thought that asking questions and being curious wasn't enough to send Lucifer and everyone around him to Hell to be damned for all of eternity but it caused an obvious existential crisis in him that he still struggles to totally resolve.

If he disagreed with the decision to cast out the suggestion box-happy angels, he was as "bad" as they were. If he agreed with the decision, he was condemning them and that didn't seem angelic, either. How to be a good angel, which is the only thing he had ever tried to be or knew how to be? He did what he thought must be right-- to follow what the other, more powerful angels said the word of God was-- and if it was Her will, then it must be what was right, even if it was *extremely difficult* to see how this lovebug here was really an evil, demonic creature of Hell...

Not to mention that Aziraphale was in love with WhateverHeWasCalledPre-Crawly!Crowley. (We will just call him "Crowley" for this whole meta, because that is the name he chose for himself.) And maybe Angel!Crowley went after the more glamorous, daring guys. Heaven honestly seems like both a fascist state and high school at once (is there really a difference? lol). Crowley describes how he wound up falling in S1 as that he "hung out with the wrong crowd" and Aziraphale in Before the Beginning honestly seems like he's been flying around watching Crowley make stars for ages, trying to work up the nerve to or find an opportunity to introduce himself to the beautiful hot cool arty science-y guy who barely looks at him when his other option for a view are nebulas... or Benedict Cumberbatch's Lucifer/Satan, whose "stroke of demonic genius, dahling" bit in S1 and dark assault on his fave Crowley while Crowley was driving had a real "Angel!Crowley went for the bad boy who were so bad pre-Fall that they wound up fucking Satan afterwards and friend-zoned angels like Aziraphale" vibes. Alternatively, maybe he didn't totally? Before the Beginning seems to be the first time they met and maybe after that, Crowley and Aziraphale became close. It's just that Crowley canonically also wound up sitting at the cool kids' table because they were the only ones questioning things and he wound up damned for eternity for it and Aziraphale?

Aziraphale blames himself for it.

He has blamed himself for Crowley's Fall for six thousand years.

When they speak in Eden, Aziraphale is being confronted for the first time with what has come of his nebula-joyous, freshly baked blueberry muffin of an angel. He calls himself "Crawly" now-- or that's the name he's been given-- because who he was is dead. His eyes are yellow. He's now a snake. He's maybe a bit sarcastic, a bit dry, and a lot more guarded and aloof but Aziraphale sees flickers of Angel!Crowley in there. He's *kind* to Aziraphale. He's still inquisitive, in spite of it being what damned him to Hell. Aziraphale, God help him, is still wildly into him and, ugh, maybe even *more* so, in spite of everything.

And 'everything', for Aziraphale, includes Crowley being a demon being Aziraphale's fault.

They don't talk about it. Ever.

They don't talk about it because Aziraphale thinks that Crowley doesn't remember. Crowley's memory loss of a lot of his time pre-Fall is canon in S2-- something we, the audience, will need to understand the whole picture when/if we end up getting this revelation in S3 of Crowley's Fall and that Aziraphale feels he's at least partially responsible. What's even harder for Aziraphale is that because Crowley doesn't remember his time as an angel, he doesn't remember their full history together. He doesn't remember how they met and protecting Aziraphale from the first celestial shower and all the times they chatted after that and if they were in love back then, Crowley doesn't remember it. Eden then becomes, to Crowley, the first time they meet... but then look at how while Aziraphale seems to think that Crowley doesn't know him while Aziraphale knows Crowley-- the moment that he pauses so Crowley can introduce himself-- *Crowley* seems a little bemused. Why?

Because what Aziraphale has failed to consider is that the one memory that the demons are allowed to keep, most likely, is their Fall, which means that if Aziraphale was there when Crowley fell, Crowley actually *does* remember him. At minimum, he remembers Aziraphale being there and looking stricken by what was happening so even if he can't remember more than that, he knows he's safe with Aziraphale and that Aziraphale cared about him, which would explain why he risked going to talk to with him on the wall in Eden. He knows they were friends and that Aziraphale is good and he can trust him. It's also theoretically possible that if Crowley remembers his Fall and if Aziraphale was there, it's a trigger to him being able to remember all of his and Aziraphale's time before Crowley fell. Aziraphale might not know this and because these two idiots do not know how to talk-- and especially don't talk about this-- Crowley hasn't told him. In part because Crowley can't go back and he doesn't want them to dwell on Angel!Crowley when Crowley is who he is and if that's a demon, it's a demon, and the whole system can go fuck itself anyway, as far as Crowley's concerned.

Aziraphale, though, is still back on "it's my fault". He thinks he literally took goodness from the world; that he participated in the murder of his friend and the love of his life. He has never. In six. thousand. years. lol. told Crowley that he feels like this because he still thinks that Crowley doesn't remember Aziraphale betraying him and he is terrified that if he told Crowley he did-- if he told him that he was responsible, in part, for his Fall-- that Crowley would hate him and Crowley is Aziraphale's only friend in the universe and Aziraphale is madly in love with him. He couldn't bear the loss of him. He can handle their occasional spats and disagreements, knowing that Crowley always comes back, but this? If Crowley knew that his Fall was Aziraphale's fault? Aziraphale thinks Crowley wouldn't come back from that and he'd never see him again.

In reality? Crowley either already knows this and has the whole time or suspects it or if he found it out, would forgive Aziraphale for it. If he knows, he already has. His counter-argument is, like, what were you supposed to do to save me, exactly, angel? You alone versus all the hierarchy of Heaven and God Herself? I'm *glad* you didn't do something stupid and get yourself tossed into a pit of boiling sulphur. You don't deserve that.

Thing is, though, because they've never had this conversation because they DO NOT TALK lol, Aziraphale thinks he *does* deserve that. But look at what's happened since he made the decision not to save Crowley from falling...

...nothing.

Nothing has happened to Aziraphale. He didn't fall for it himself. He didn't fall for betraying the angel he loved and he wonders every. single. day. why he didn't and the only thing he can come up with is that he must have done the right thing. *It must be* that Crowley did the bad thing and Aziraphale did the good one because Crowley was damned to Hell for all of eternity and Aziraphale is still an angel of Heaven, six thousand years later. It's not for Aziraphale to question God. Her will is ineffable. It's ineffable because he cannot begin to understand how any of this can possibly be just and that just keeps happening over and over and over and over throughout the years to come in every situation he and Crowley find themselves in, from Job to The Flood to Wee Morag and Elspeth to Arma-bloody-geddon, right?

Aziraphale begins to lose count of how many times he's gone up against God at this point. Gives away his flaming sword to Adam and Eve. Saves as many as he could during The Flood-- *with* Crowley. (You know they did.) Lies to Gabriel's face in the eyes of God to save Job and Sitis' children... and learning that Falling was political, really, in the process. Nothing happened to Aziraphale for Job's kids. He suffered no consequence for lying to Heaven and God because Crowley was willing to lie for him-- to protect him from Falling, where Aziraphale couldn't protect Crowley himself ages before-- and nothing happened. Falling, suddenly, didn't seem totally God-ordained it it could be tossed aside by something as simple as having a demon just choose not to toss you to Satan. Crowley didn't take him to Hell because he didn't feel like Aziraphale belonged there. It wound up all entirely within Crowley's control, which then made Aziraphale begin to question if God was even really behind the Fall of Lucifer and the Gang or if it wasn't just the thugs in charge of Heaven who decided to toss them out... thoughts he was terrified to think and didn't dare voice aloud, at least not then.

In another era, Aziraphale and Crowley stood there together to witness the torture and murder of Jesus Christ in the name of God, in a parallel to the Fall. What happened to Jesus? He was betrayed by his closest friend, then tortured and murdered by those in the government who thought he posed a threat to social order. Heaven as Pontius Pilate. Aziraphale as a kind of Judas, in Aziraphale's mind, anyway.

Jesus as Crowley.

Time goes on and he and The Demon Crowley form friendship in their own right, regardless of what Crowley might remember from before his Fall. They form their Arrangement off of that and Aziraphale learns even more that, often, no one is really paying attention to what they do. That no one seems to notice if Crowley performs an angelic miracle or if Aziraphale performs what has become termed a 'demonic miracle'... because, really, *they're the same*, though that's not something Aziraphale can fully admit. He cannot allow himself to believe that demons *are angels* because if there's nothing different between demons and angels than Aziraphale doesn't know anything at all.

Anything at all... He doesn't know what being an angel *is* and it's what he supposedly is so it means he doesn't know who or what he is, really.

He doesn't know what God wants or if he truly believes in Her.

He doesn't know what the purpose of all of this is-- why Crowley had to suffer, why demons in general have to, why the *humans* do. Why it all has to be destroyed eventually. To what end?

Aziraphale has the same questions Crowley does and sometimes, late at night, often a little drunk, he'll dare to ask them with Crowley, and every morning that he still wakes up and sobers up and finds himself still an angel when Crowley Fell for so much less than Aziraphale has ever thought or done, he wonders just *why?*

Why is he still an angel when he, really, is no different from Crowley? Why Crowley is damned? Punished for all of eternity for curiosity and innovation and imagination, while Aziraphale is still an angel, doomed to only have until the clock runs out on Armageddon before losing him for the rest of fucking *eternity* but, until then, stuck suffering watching him suffer while remaining an angel? Is being an angel at this point, really, his punishment for failing the apparently foul fiend he adores?

Does Aziraphale ever have any answers to these questions? Good God, no lol. He's six thousand years into this and he's in the same spot as Amnesiac!ArchangelFuckingGabriel in 2.01:

...would be okay if you could just be one near particular person?

Of course Aziraphale knows what this feels like. Of course. We know he does. And that's why he hasn't been able to make a real move in six thousand years-- because it's his fault, as far as he's concerned.

Crowley's damnation is his fault. Crowley cannot really love him, or couldn't if he knew. Not because he's a demon, though Aziraphale might have thought that at one point but he definitely was cured of it by events in 1941. The more time that goes by, the more Aziraphale knows that Crowley loves him-- that he's *in* love with him-- and the worse it all gets for Aziraphale because every day that he hasn't told Crowley that he didn't prevent him from Falling is another day within the last *six thousand years* of them falling in love and the betrayal seems to get worse and worse to Aziraphale. The time to have this conversation was on the wall in Eden and it still hasn't happened. Still, over time, he starts to realize that Crowley, if ever knew, would forgive him.

Because his Crowley has the kindest of hearts. He really does, and that wasn't taken from him when he Fell and Aziraphale finds every opportunity he can to delight in seeing that and making Crowley reveal it.

It goes against everything Aziraphale is supposed to believe.

Demons are not supposed to be good-- if they were, they wouldn't have Fallen. Yet, Aziraphale knows Crowley is. He never has truly believed that Crowley isn't-- even when he could have, at least at the start. He worried, maybe, that he had helped create a monster out of the most lovely being he'd ever known but Crowley just kept proving him wrong about that, time and time again. *Crowley* doesn't believe it about himself, really, because that's his own trauma from his Fall but Aziraphale believes it about him and that's often good enough for Crowley.

But, really, this is why they still haven't gotten together in six thousand years. This is why Aziraphale seems like he can never get beyond "I'm an angel and you're a demon", no matter what Crowley does or how he proves that there are shades of gray and also, that the entire system is bullshit. It is not that Aziraphale doesn't *know* that it's bullshit-- it's that if he admits that it is, if he stops believing in Heaven (even if he doesn't stop believing in God), then he's left with nothing but the crushing weight of guilt that he has for all the pain that Crowley has been through.

If he tells himself that Crowley Fell *for a reason* and that he (Aziraphale) was *right* to not interfere, to not try to thwart God, even if it would have likely failed, just on principle, to stand up for his friend... then Aziraphale doesn't have to deal with the fact that he made what he really considers to be a colossal mistake and that it has caused the continued pain and torture and eternal damnation of the being he considers his soulmate...

...which is why everytime that pain comes to the surface in something Crowley says or does, Aziraphale *cannot handle it at all whatsoever* and reverts to You'reADemonI'mAnAngel!Mode.

Example: Crowley's religious trauma on display in their bandstand argument:

Crowley owns this, even if he's still traumatized by it. He's saying it sarcastically, making a joke on a song Aziraphale probably barely knows, if he knows at all ("Unforgettable"-- Nat King Cole). Aziraphale *aches* at Crowley saying this-- because it reminds him that it's partially his own fault. And he can't. Do. Anything. About. It.

He's an all-powerful *angel* here but he can't change this for Crowley. He can't stop his suffering some six thousand years after his Fall. He's looking at sexy goth Crowley here and he's thinking about curly-haired, beaming, ball of light! Crowley and that they are *the same person* and Aziraphale *does* know that. He knows it and he loves him passionately and desperately and he is one of the most powerful beings ever in existence and he's standing there looking at the man-shaped-being he adores talking about how he still aches from the betrayal of his fellow angels and his mother God and *there is no way for Aziraphale to fix it* when he can mend broken bones and heal the sick and let their be light! all over the place. He can do proper magic and still, he cannot take away Crowley's pain.

This is Aziraphale's Hell. He didn't Fall but he's been in Hell anyway.

So when Crowley's religious trauma and pain comes out, usually in an argument like in the bandstand scene, Aziraphale does the only thing he thinks he *can* do, right? He's an angel. Still. Somehow. He's an angel and there must be some reason for that and an angel is not a demon-- an angel is a purer being, a healer-- and so he says "I forgive you". He doesn't mean it to be patronizing, even if it is. ("I am a *great deal* holier than thou," as he told Crowley at one point and that was the point, right?) He is trying to say "I am still of Heaven and if it's absolution you need, I can give it to you."

He is trying to say: You are not unforgivable to me.

The real lyric of the song Crowley parodies in the bandstand is what Aziraphale means, whether he knows that song or not...

Unforgettable/That's what you are...

*Crowley*, though, doesn't know about Aziraphale's inner turmoil because *heavy sigh* FFS TALK, YOU IDIOTS *breathes* lol, so *he* hears:

I still think I am better than you and you are Fallen, so you're not worthy of me. I can't love you, not the way you want. I love all beings because I'm an angel and I you know I'm in love with you but I can't *allow* myself to be because it goes against the nature of an angel and I've only done eleven thousand things that should have made me Fall over the years but letting myself be in love with you is the rubicon I won't cross, apparently...

Crowley knows by the time they're having the bandstand argument enough about Aziraphale's general religious trauma (not necessarily about how it pertains to Crowley's Fall but about it in general) to know that he spits out hateful garbage when he feels cornered and how to just call it bullshit and move on. ("I don't even like you."/"You doooo.") But he understandably walks away when Aziraphale pushes him away past a point he can handle-- and Aziraphale knows how to do that. He does it *intentionally.* The "I forgive you" is sadness because it's all he has to offer Crowley but he also knows it'll piss Crowley off enough to end the argument, so he says it intentionally to get Crowley to go away. In this scene (which parallels the end of S2 quite a bit, as many have noticed), Aziraphale is trying to deal with it all on his own, right?

He knows where the antichrist is. He's just not telling Crowley yet. He's trying to deal with it to keep him safe. He's doing it because he thinks he should-- that maybe, when it's something of this level of importance, that his job should be as an angel first, above his side with Crowley. (It's also worth mentioning here that Aziraphale is straight up terrified of Falling, not even just for being damned to Hell but because then, if he's no longer in Heaven, he has exactly zero power to even *try* to protect Crowley.) At the end of S2? With The Metatron?

Aziraphale does the same thing as with the antichrist for a time in S1, really.

The beginning of S2 shows us that Aziraphale has known that Heaven is North Korea since Before the Beginning so now marry that with its last scenes and see the arc that connects them-- Aziraphale does what he does out of guilt over what happened to Crowley to *protect* Crowley. He didn't want to do any of it without Crowley and when The Metatron finally offers that carrot, Aziraphale is suspicious as all hell (pardon the pun) and here we have this moment where part of him *wants* this to all be real, right?

Times change and sometimes, your parents who traumatized the living fuck out of you and didn't approve of your boyfriend, grow the hell up a bit and try to repent and mend fences. Maybe the trust is broken but maybe it can be healed and *as an angel*, Aziraphale is a being of goodness and hope and optimism. He's pure of heart, as Crowley put it to Nina. He *wants* that to be the case... but he also knows it likely is not.

Still... they can't run. There's nowhere that Heaven won't find them. It's no life for them-- no life for Crowley, in Aziraphale's mind, no matter how many times Crowley tries to get him to run away with him. "We can go off together!" begs Crowley, over and over, and Aziraphale's only really ever found that Crowley will only slither off if he's ticked off enough and only "I forgive you" ever really does that enough to work lol. He *means* I love you endlessly but you know this is impossible, you bloody maddening, gorgeous serpent! Will you stop reminding me of what we could have when it can never happen?! but that's not exactly how Crowley's taking it.

In the end, to Aziraphale, Aziraphale is an angel and Crowley is a demon and they are doomed to spend eternity apart and Aziraphale thinks he has no one to blame, really, but himself. If he had somehow saved Crowley six thousand years ago-- or had somehow been brave enough to stand up for him and Fallen alongside him-- they could have been together forever.

But he wasn't then and now The Metatron is here and it's time for Aziraphale to go back to Heaven and he knows, as he sits there drinking coffee with the being whose posse sent Crowley in a free fall into a pit of boiling sulphur, that Crowley will never, ever, ever, EVER go back to Heaven.

But he also knows that Heaven is here to collect Aziraphale and they are making it clear that there is no escape. There's nowhere to run. Everyday, it's been getting closer for six thousand years and going faster than a roller coaster for the last handful but a love like Beez and Gabe's will surely never come his and Crowley's way now.

It was always going to end like this. Nothing lasts forever. He told Crowley that, Before the Beginning. Six thousand years. That was all the time they had before the end of Earth, the place they'd come to call home. They found a way to borrow a few more years at the end of it since S1 and he got to dance with Crowley, their fingers brushing, and that is going to have to be enough because they're out of time.

The Metatron never needed say it directly but it was evident: they wanted Aziraphale to go to Heaven and they would say or do anything to get him up there and Aziraphale may have bought it for a moment but he's definitely figured out by the end of S2 that they need him up there not to become the Supreme Archangel but because his time as an angel is now over. The threat to Crowley is unspoken but omnipresent.

The Metatron makes it sound like he doesn't care if Crowley comes back up to Heaven with Aziraphale or not and he really doesn't and why would that be? Why would he be eager to have the two most troublesome beings in all of Heaven and Hell teaming up and getting in the way of his Second Coming plans, which he absolutely *knows* they won't support? Because they won't have jobs waiting for them up there. Crowley will not be restored to full angelic status.

They're going to kill them. Aziraphale knows it. He's known what Heaven is since Before the Beginning, even if he's been in denial about it for almost as long to try to assuage his own guilt over participating in it.

And it's a lot easier a goal for Heaven to accomplish if they separate them and just Aziraphale goes up to Heaven. If Aziraphale goes alone-- if he keeps Crowley from following-- then Crowley is not a threat to them if Aziraphale is gone.

They aren't as powerful apart.

Aziraphale knows that if Crowley comes to Heaven with him that they will kill him and Aziraphale thinks okay, this is it... this is my moment of redemption.

Six thousand years since Crowley Fell and I can finally make up for not saving him by saving him now.

I can go with The Metatron and let Heaven kill me and know that they will not threaten Crowley if they do because what they are threatened by is both of us together. One of us, alone, is less of a threat and the only problem here is that if I go... Crowley will follow me.

If I just go without telling him what The Metatron said and I don't come back right away, he'll go to Heaven, worried that something happened to me, and they'll kill him when he comes looking for me. He'll find out they've Book of Life'd me and do something stupid and my sacrifice to keep him safe will all be for nothing.

So what's our tortured angel to do?

Bandstand 2.0, right?

He's got to piss Crowley off enough that Crowley won't follow him.

He's got to piss Crowley off so much that Crowley *will never come back* and the worst part is that Aziraphale knows *exactly* how to do it.

He makes his own plans and if things get drastic enough, he'll blow up that damn halo, metaphorically-speaking this time. To save Crowley, he will break Crowley.

It's darkly romantic, really. He'll sacrifice himself for Crowley but to be sure that Crowley will be safe and not follow, he'll have to break his heart a bit first-- to further their misunderstandings in a season based on "I don't think your exactly is my exactly exactly"-level miscommunications.

So Aziraphale accepts The Metatron's offer and lets The Metatron think he completely believes that the offer is legit and maybe a part of him is still hoping that it is but he knows it's really not and that this is a suicide run. This is Aziraphale's Holy Water arc...

...and speaking of Holy Water... that arc from the perspective of this being Aziraphale's mentality... Crowley, tortured by Hell for what he did while with Aziraphale in 1827, then refusing to talk about it, showing up with a cane, sullen and depressed, asking Aziraphale for the one thing that would kill him and Aziraphale's unwillingness to understand that it wasn't completely suicide ideation on Crowley's part but as a way to *protect Aziraphale* and keep him safe. Crowley wanted what could kill a demon not to kill himself but to kill one that might come after Aziraphale. All Aziraphale could see, though, was Crowley's physical and emotional pain, that he could barely keep hidden in that era, and how Aziraphale couldn't make it better. All he could see was how he failed him and led him to this suffering. All he could see in a note begging for "holy water" was Crowley wanting a suicide pill, wanting to destroy himself, unable to take any more, in so much pain that he'd leave Aziraphale forever to make it stop. Aziraphale is blinded entirely by guilt and fails to see what Crowley is really saying, which was, ironically, the last time Crowley began to try to tell Aziraphale how he felt, which was:

I've been thinking-- what if it all goes wrong? (What if I lose you? I'm terrified of losing you. I love you. I wake up from nightmares of you being destroyed by the demons who just spent a couple of decades after 1827 not that long ago torturing me. I didn't know for sure if you were still alive during any of it.) We have a lot in common, you and me. (We're a team. A... group of the two of us.) What if it all goes pear-shaped? I need you to get me the magical demon-killing stuff so I have a weapon against *my own fellow fallen angels* that I can use in case they come after us. I would kill another demon and send every legion of Hell after me to protect you.

Aziraphale: I like pears.

(My God, they are so stupid. Please. I can't take any more lol.)

So, yeah... it's Aziraphale's turn for the holy water suicide run here only with an actual suicide run...

It takes the books in The Blitz for Aziraphale to really understand what Crowley was asking for and what he meant by asking for holy water and by 1967, he gives Crowley the holy water, in the one moment when *they actually talk*, as much as they can, about how much they love one another, that exists prior to the end of its parallel-- the end of S2.

So, yeah, Aziraphale "goes to tell his friend the good news" with a look on his face like he's marching to his death *because he is* and he knows it. His last moments with Crowley, in some of his last moments in existence, he already knows will be spent upsetting the man-shaped being he loves. He's got it all planned out. Not exactly the picnic of his dreams but it'll redeem him and save Crowley and that's all that matters to Aziraphale in this moment.

He will sound naive to the threat of Heaven and because Crowley doesn't remember pre-Fall, he won't remember how Aziraphale warned him against taking on the brass in Heaven so Crowley won't be suspicious, he'll be *frustrated*, like he was in the bandstand. He'll get angry. Aziraphale's goal is to get him to storm out-- but it has to be a really, really, bad relationship-ending storming out.

He can't come back after he drives The Bentley around the block like he did back in 2.01 and say "okay, fine, I'll help you" and Aziraphale knows that if he plays this right, he can make it so Crowley won't because helping Gabriel was one thing but asking Crowley to become an angel with him and pretending like they can go fix the broken system of Heaven is going to be Crowley's bridge too far. It's *the only thing* that Aziraphale believes is Crowley's bridge too far where Aziraphale is concerned and isn't that heartbreaking as hell? That Crowley loves him this much? And they never got to be together the way they wanted? That they were just beginning to get close to trying to figure that out?

That, hours ago, Aziraphale was asking him to dance and trying to ignore the signs of trouble around the corner, desperately wanting more time with him? That they are semi-immortal beings that always somehow seem to be out of time?

Truer words have never been spoken, Crowley. Little did you know, poor demon...

So Aziraphale goes into the bookshop and Crowley looks all worked up and wants to say something and some part of Aziraphale begins to hear warning alarms going off in his head because Crowley *never* looks like this-- is never this flustered, never this uncomfortable, never this nervous, never in a rush to say something-- and Aziraphale thinks no, can't be, we don't talk about this... even if, ironically, all of S2 shows that Aziraphale has been trying *for just that*. It was just a few hours ago that he was trying to Jane Austen a ball for them to use as a pretense to discuss their feelings because, in the height of ironies here, right?

Aziraphale was ready.

They'd had some time without Heaven and Hell breathing so much down their necks, even if the threat still loomed, and spent every day together and it was perfect and it was lovely and he knew Crowley would forgive him and Aziraphale was almost there, right, he was *almost* ready to tell him. He was almost ready to tell him he loved him and that it was him, all those millennia ago, who could have done something and didn't and he's so, so, so sorry and can Crowley ever forgive him? Is there any way that Crowley could ever forgive him after what he didn't say and didn't do when he should have? For all the times since that he's said things in anger when, really, he was madly in love and just full of his own issues to sort out? (Damn, Aziraphale, we're beginning to see your affinity for Austen heroes here...)

But he's out of time so there will be none of that now. Now is his karmic payback. Six thousand beautiful years with the being he loves and feels he doesn't deserve have led to Aziraphale's redemption being that he can sacrifice himself to save him. He can leave the world they love with Crowley and Crowley's *goodness* in it, as it should be. So when Crowley says he needs to say something, Aziraphale cannot-- CANNOT-- let him speak because he cannot bear it.

He suddenly fears that of course-- OF COURSE-- the one moment in all of these trillions of moments they've lived through where Crowley is about to directly say he loves him for the first time is the also the same fucking moment when Aziraphale has to destroy their relationship to save Crowley's life and Aziraphale will be dead after this and he cannot bear hearing what his life could have been. He can't hear Crowley say this right now or else he worries he might lose his nerve. He *wants* to hear it but if Crowley speaks first, Aziraphale might cave, he might be weak again like he was when Crowley Fell, he might fail him again, and he can't. Not after all this time. Not when he loves Crowley so much.

"What's that lovely human expression?! 'Hold that thought!'" he blurts out, in a callback to, of course, the moment Crowley saved him in 1941-- to that night where Aziraphale really realized for the first time that Crowley wasn't just capable of good or capable of being friendly towards him but that Crowley *loved* him and that he loved the Demon Crowley, whether or not he should. ("But somewhere in my wicked, miserable past," sings Frances McDormand as the Voice of God, from her apparent favorite film lol, "I must have done something good.")

Ah, yes. Played for suckers. Here is where it's important to note that in 1941, Aziraphale had no idea that Rose was really Greta and that he, in fact, was the one being played for a sucker. By the end of S2, though, it could be argued that he very much knows that The Metatron is Fraulein Greta Klauschmidt-- someone who presented herself as Captain Rose Montgomery, an agent of anti-fascist good, who approached Aziraphale in his bookshop and told him that he could be an agent of change, too. He could help save the world and stop the global rising tide of fascism represented by the Third Reich. He could even do so using his books. They plotted a sting together, in which he'd bring his books to a church and seem to give them to Nazis to give to the Fuhrer, only for agents to surround them and arrest the Nazis. Aziraphale, desperate to *do* good and to *be* good, falls for this-- he fails to see that Rose is really Greta, a Nazi agent who fools him into working for the enemy and getting him to help destroy the world in the process. Pretty obvious to see here that Greta is The Metatron in S2... but it's likely that Aziraphale knows it and is playing along because it's his turn to save Crowley, unlike what happened in 1941, when Crowley saves him and his books.

Crowley, in the bookshop back at the end of S2 in our present time, stops speaking at the "hold that thought", looking like he's about to be ill, and has to also be thinking of 1941 and the church now that Aziraphale has referenced it. Maybe, in some way, it's an unconscious effort on Aziraphale's part to convey to Crowley that this is a charade-- that he doesn't mean this, that it's an act-- but he really doesn't want Crowley to figure that out. It would defeat his goal. But he also doesn't want to hurt him because he loves him but this is the only way that Aziraphale can see to save him. So he starts gushing about his coffee with The Metatron, right? We all remember this pain lol.

Maybe I've misjudged him. (Aziraphale, we suspect you know that he tossed Crowley into hellfire and stole Gabriel's memories so honestly, the worst part of all of this is that you're so traumatized that Crowley is *buying* what you're saying here...) And guess what?! He wants me to be the new Supreme Archangel! And he said you can come! And you can be an angel again! It will be so fun! We can have a slumber party, Crowley, after days of doing good, and braid each other's hair!

Crowley is like jfc fml are you even serious right now? Which, of course, is what Aziraphale *was going for.* It's the "I don't even like you" and the "we're hereditary enemies" and the "I'm an angel, you're a demon" way of trying to intentionally push Crowley away but the new version of it because none of that flies with S2 Crowley-- most of it barely flew with him in S1-- because Crowley *knows.*

He knows that Aziraphale loves him. And he knows that Aziraphale knows him, which is to say he knows how to hurt him, and that's what this is but also Crowley just sees it as how much Heaven has hurt them both. How much they've hurt Aziraphale. Because just as Aziraphale looks at Crowley in the throes of his religious trauma-- "Unforgivable. It's what I am", etc.-- and wants to help and save and protect him, Crowley feels the same way in return when Aziraphale is like this. Frustrated, sure, but in just as much pain at how much pain Aziraphale is in and feels powerless to stop it but will do whatever he can to try to, yeah?

For Aziraphale, this is all going fairly well (it's miserable but in terms of goal, it's working) through "tell me you said no" but the problem is that Crowley is still pleading. He's still trying to work through it because they're an *us* now and also ironically of course this is when Crowley's been trying to do better with storming out lol so he's trying to couple-solve this. He's not just *leaving* like how Aziraphale had hoped. He had been trying to sell to Crowley that he could pick Heaven over Crowley and Crowley is just kinda... not believing it so much at first and, instead, is trying to approach it like a problem for the two of them to solve together, instead of as a decision that Aziraphale has made for his life that he's stating that Crowley can take or leave.

Which calls back to this scene in 2.01 at the start of this arc, when Crowley calls their life *his* life and Aziraphale counters with that he thought *they* had carved out a life for themselves *together* and Crowley answers: "so did I!" Because they haven't had a discussion about what they are, exactly, at that point, Crowley still cautiously calls *their* life *his* life, retaining a sense of autonomy, as if he's only making decisions for himself when, in reality, they are a couple who are trying to make a life together and have been doing so consciously since S1. Crowley calls that life "precious" and "peaceful" to Aziraphale-- beautiful, lovely things that they both treasure and want and find with one another-- but also "fragile". The threats to them still loom large in the background and they are still so afraid to go much further in their relationship because, in part, of those threats and how terrified they are of losing one another... which just makes the end of S2 even more brutal, really.

(*mantras* cottage in the south downs cottage in the south downs...)

So back in That Scene later in S2, Aziraphale is then just kind of stuck trying to figure out how to get Crowley to be so angry with him that he storms out and never comes back in the face of Crowley trying to very much not do that and then Crowley starts saying that he needs to say what he was going to say or he never will and Aziraphale *knows*, ok? He knows what Crowley needs to say. He just literally cannot believe this is going to happen right now. He honestly can't believe it's happening at all but right now?!

He knows before Crowley begins speaking. He probably knew when he told him to "hold that thought" a few moments before but he *really* knows now. Crowley has no idea that Aziraphale has planned for this to be the last time they ever see one another and to go sacrifice himself to Heaven for whatever they want to do with him to keep them away from Crowley. Crowley looks like he's about to pass out from nerves and can barely speak and just...

...six. thousand. years...

...I know we have all looked at the heartbreak of this scene from Crowley's POV here every which way to Sunday, okay, but just imagine you are Aziraphale, who has loved this being since before the literal beginning of time, and you blame yourself for his pain and suffering, and he's standing here, braver than you've ever been with him, looking into your eyes and telling you that he knows that you love him and that he loves you and he knows you both have known this for basically the entirety of your existence together and he can't pretend anymore. He doesn't want to pretend anymore. He knows things have changed over the last few years between you and he wants more of that. He wants to be with you.

The two of you are not even human, just human-adjacent beings who have gone native from the stars and clouds here, who live and love like humans, who know that maybe the angels and demons have it backwards and God's great creatures are the humans-- that it should be the good in them that you should be trying to emulate-- and Crowley had never been more beautifully, impossibly human than while he's standing there looking ready to pass out while asking you if, after six millennia, it might be alright for him to not hide how much he loves you.

How many times has Aziraphale imagined this by this point? A million? How many different ways? There's at least half of them when he imagines that he's the one who gets up the courage first but there are so. many. Crowley. fantasies. Ones in every time period. But always *a fantasy*, at least up until maybe very recently. Why?

Not even just Heaven and Hell and the threat of being caught but the fact that Aziraphale believes that Crowley doesn't know Aziraphale didn't save him during The Fall and how could he ever really love him if he knew? How could Aziraphale ever go to him like this and give Crowley everything he knows Crowley has desired for so long without telling him the truth about Aziraphale's role in Crowley's Fall-- but then, Aziraphale assumes, he'd lose Crowley forever? So this has always been a pipe dream for Aziraphale-- fantasies from a world where they ever stood a chance of being together-- never really something that could be reality and here it is, starting, happening *now*...

...after six. thousand. years. of living with this guilt and in the last moments in which he will ever see Crowley before he heads to his likely death, with no time to tell him the truth and beg for his forgiveness, no time to ever know what their lives might be like if they could be together.

As Crowley, unbeknownst to Aziraphale, mused dramatically, if not inaccurately, earlier in the season... it's always too late.

It's punishment, in Aziraphale's mind. That's what Crowley's proposal, his confession, is now. It's his Fall, whether he falls or not when he leaves the bookshop for Heaven. It's karmic retribution-- it's God, finally saying something, and what she's saying is:

Look at what you've done, Aziraphale...

Look at how he loves you.

He was never unforgivable.

You are.

Aziraphale might be erased from existence once he gets to Heaven and he knows that's a possibility but he basically is dying here. Crowley is killing him. Crowley has pointed that silver bullet gun straight at his head and fired but he's missed and the bullet isn't in Aziraphale's teeth, it's gone through him.

Crowley, here, tears in his eyes, asking for whatever time they have. An eternity? Impossible, unlikely. Angel and demon. One day, the war will begin again-- another war to end all wars, like all the ones they've fell more and more in love during throughout history-- but it might be the one where Heaven or Hell wins and they're doomed to spend eternity apart. Crowley has said before he thinks the real war is humanity versus Heaven and Hell and that sounds like he thinks there's a chance they could survive it but who knows? They don't know. They're immortal beings who live like humans and that's, of late, included a sense of mortality. They don't know how much time they have left and Crowley is asking for all of it. He is asking for whatever time they have left to be spent together, openly loving one another, and what he doesn't know is what Aziraphale knows:

That they're already out of time.

Crowley is proposing marriage unaware that Aziraphale is dying. It's always too late, Crowley had stated earlier but had hope that maybe it wasn't but it is. And Aziraphale?

Gah. Aziraphale...

He's never loved him more. He's never wanted him more. He wants to tell him that he wants that, too, that they can have it, that Crowley can have anything he wants, but it's not true. It's not true because they could run out the back door of the bookshop now and hop in the Bentley and end-of-Grease it up to Alpha Centauri and Heaven will still find them. Heaven and Hell will still be after them. Running away solves nothing and Crowley always, ultimately, anyway, comes back and this time-- this time-- for Crowley's own good, to save his life, Aziraphale needs him to leave the bookshop and never come back.

And the moment that Crowley confesses that he loves him and that he knows Aziraphale loves him in return and that they've both known this, forever, and asks him if he can be allowed to just love him, Aziraphale loves him so much in return that he'll break his heart to save him from dying.

Dying is... not on, as High!Crowley put it in 1827 lol, but suicide-ish attempts are, if it's Aziraphale's turn this time.

So he twists the knife. He hides the goats as pigeons and he looks at Crowley and does a bit of this:

...only with the exact opposite intent. In the Job minisode, Crowley cannot speak aloud his true intentions. (Something he can finally do in the S2 finale, when he declares his love for Aziraphale.) He cannot tell Aziraphale outrightly that he had zero desire whatosever to kill Job's kids and animals and doesn't plan on actually doing it and, in fact, is actively engaged in a bit of bait-and-switch to make it look like he's doing what he's supposed to be doing as mandated by Heaven! this time as well as Hell (a nice little extra bit of paralleling to the end of S2 and Aziraphale, there.) He wants Aziraphale to believe him enough to allow him to pull it off because saving the kids and the pets (and protecting Aziraphale from any harm that might come to him if he gets in the way of what Crowley's been asked to do) matters more to Crowley than Aziraphale believing him...

...and believing him here means believing *in* him. Believing that they are on the same side and it's their own side and they're in it together. Crowley has to lie to him here *and it works for a moment*. It's really important to note that *it works*. Aziraphale believes that Crowley can do this and that he wants to-- that he not only can but he *longs* (lol) to "kill the blameless kids of Job"-- but it's all in Crowley's wording. He isn't *actually* lying. He *does* long to kill the blameless kids of Job like how he killed the blameless goats of Job-- because he "killed the blameless goats of Job" by turning them into pigeons. So he's really saying to Aziraphale that he longs to *fake the deaths* of the blameless kids of Job and plans to in the same way that he did the goats. In that moment, though? It didn't matter if Crowley was lying or telling the truth. There was only one goal--

--to get Aziraphale to walk away.

To get Aziraphale to leave, for his own safety, and let Crowley handle this. Better that he misunderstand Crowley and be disappointed in him and think him a lost cause than to get himself into trouble. Crowley out here loving Aziraphale that much in the days of Bildad the Shuite. (This poor mfer. Six. Thousand. Years lol.)

So what caused Crowley's plan to save Aziraphale in the Job era to not work?

One of the pigeons bleated, right?

Aziraphale heard it and realized that Crowley hadn't been lying so much as he had been trying to protect Aziraphale from his plan of subterfuge against the Almighty and Satan. The difference is that there are no bleating pigeons in the S2 finale... there's just *a whole certain famous other kind of damn bird instead* and its *absence* from the scene is the big emotional gut punch moment. And we all know it but I'll gif it anyway since this is already a depressing meta (cottage in the south downs cottage in the south downs...)...

...and that *is* the point. Because unlike back in the Bildad the Shuite days, there is no bleating pigeon (at least, not yet) to make Crowley realize that all is not what it seems and that Aziraphale is trying to lie to him and get him to leave to protect him from Heaven.

As Aziraphale is like mortally wounded here by Crowley's confession of love and is so not going to recover from this, he's now got to not only get Crowley to leave feeling like Aziraphale rejected being their own team for Heaven, he has to now do it with all of it out in the open-- with Crowley having openly confessed love for him, with him having asked for them to be together. He's not just going to have to frustrate Crowley more than he ever has before and get him to leave more angry than he was before, he has to, instead, smash into little tiny bits the very beautiful, very passionate, beating heart of the being he has loved since he met him *making the stars* in the bloody sky here...

The only way to get Crowley to go now is to make Crowley think he's rejecting the idea of loving him. Aziraphale honestly can't even sell the idea that he *doesn't* love Crowley because Crowley won't believe it-- he knows Aziraphale does and he's said as much in his whole marriage proposal here. So it has to be that Crowley thinks Aziraphale chose Heaven over loving him. Chose being an angel. That he really meant all of those 'hereditary enemies' and 'you're a demon' moments and to sell that, he sells it.

(You're a dark horse, Mr. Fell, Nina said of him in 2.01... the same turn of phrase Crowley uses when surprised by the secret skills and narrative power of Jane Austen later on in the pub.)

Aziraphale does love himself a bit of theatre. A bit of a disappearing act. The West End, The West End...

...our Nefertiti-fooling fellow...

He sells it with:

Well, of course you said no, *you're* the bad guys...

Come with me... I'll run, it you can be *my second-in-command*...

We can be together. *Angels*. Doing *good*...

...oh, Crowley... nothing lasts forever...

For his final act, The Marvelous Mr. Fell will saw his ineffable husband's heart in half by spewing a litany of everything he can think of to say that will piss him off enough to make him leave the bookshop broken-hearted enough to never come back.

Only someone put a miracle blocker on here because, try as he might and good heavens (pardon the pun), Aziraphale is *trying* here...

...this turnip is not turning into a damn inkwell.

Crowley finally starts to go-- it's looking promising. Finally, Aziraphale thinks, this misery might end. Six thousand years of wanting to speak of all of this between them and hoping for some happiness when-- if-- it could maybe someday arrive, if it even could-- and it's the worst moment of Aziraphale's existence and he knows it is the same for Crowley.

Crowley stops and the "do you hear that?" And no, Aziraphale doesn't hear anything, he just has never been more upset and Crowley needs to just go because Aziraphale can't handle another moment of this, how could it possibly get worse?

Nightingales. Of course.

A call back to S1's "no more world-class composers/little restaurants where they know you/gravalax and dill sauce/old bookshops" but this time, it's "no nightingales". There's Armageddon coming that neither of them know about in this moment. It's still a 'someday, they'll try again' concept to them in this scene, not an extremely immediate threat, as Aziraphale doesn't learn about The Second Coming until after this. So the end of the world that Crowley references here is the end of *their* world and that means no nightingales. No romance. No *them*, together. Worth remembering that Crowley thought, up until maybe what? Five minutes ago? That they were headed to breakfast at the Ritz together. They should have been sitting there together *in this moment*, is what he's saying. Miracling the pianist to play "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" and gazing at one another over teapots and mimosas and croissants.

That's gone, since you chose Heaven instead, is what Crowley states and Aziraphale knows it because, God help him (no, literally, GOD HELP HIM! WHERE THE HELL DID YOU GO OFF TO THIS SEASON, FRANCES?!), it's what he's *trying* to make happen.

You idiot, says the once-Bildad the Shuite, who thought he was taking his beloved to the ox rib special this morning and not getting dumped for an old floating head and the cinematic world's most contentious to-go cup of coffee, we could have been... us.

Not really a part of the theory here, just the observation that Crowley's confession/proposal begins with him unable to say "a couple", in case this all goes pear-shaped and he needs to have never said something that romantic, so he says instead "a team", "a group-- of the two of us". He says it without saying it. But, by the end? He just says "us." He *present*-tenses it. He's like forget everything else, angel, we could have just kept on being us because we both know what we are. We don't need to find the right turn of phrase or even the most specific human word for it. We are just *us* and we could have kept on with that but you chose the mentality of your abusive family and asked me to be what I'm not and I still love you because I *know* you but I can't be with you like that and *you* know that.

And he kisses him. Because Franny McD says you ain't suffered enough yet, Aziraphale lol. Should I just gif it while we're miserable? If you've read this far, a month has passed and hopefully, you've taken breaks and I do apologize but I'm gonna gif it because yeah. Here we go, folks...

God, make it stop, pleads Aziraphale to literal God and here comes Crowley with the S1 wall slam parallel, all dammit, angel, I know you've wanted us to snog for centuries and this is our last chance.

I know people have opinions about this kiss and I know we're all posting them here, obviously myself included, but while I've seen a lot of like... 'Crowley knows it's the only time they ever will be able to because Aziraphale is leaving him for Heaven' and 'Crowley wants to remind Aziraphale what he's giving up and could have had' and 'Crowley tries the kiss to see if it'll change Aziraphale's mind' takes-- and I agree with all of those things and think they're all right-- I've not seen a lot of 'Crowley kisses Aziraphale *for Aziraphale*' and I think that's a big part of it, too.

Crowley really isn't stupid. Not when it comes to Aziraphale wanting him. It would be honestly hard to spend a zillion lifetimes on Earth and not get it after like...

And Crowley understands Aziraphale's particular brand of religious trauma more than most, since he has a variant version of it himself. He understands that where his whole thing is that he's very much *not* an angel anymore, that Aziraphale's identity is wrapped up in being one and the conflicts he has with Heaven and while Crowley is not yet quite hearing what Nina said-- that she just got out of an abusive relationship and that she's not yet ready to be with Maggie and needs time-- and marrying that to Aziraphale and Heaven (especially because Aziraphale is showing exactly zero signs of trying to get out of his relationship with Heaven lol), Crowley wants Aziraphale to have had what he (Aziraphale) wanted, even if it was for only a moment. He can't go with him. This is the *one* scenario where Crowley cannot follow where Aziraphale goes, where he can't come to him and rescue him, because Aziraphale has said he doesn't want him to. Aziraphale wants to go and do this and the only way he'll take Crowley is if Crowley wants to become an angel again, which Crowley will not do.

And damned if there isn't a part of Aziraphale that thinks that if The Metatron can really be trusted, wouldn't that be something? That if he gets up there to Heaven and he really is made Supreme Archangel and if Crowley changes his mind, if he comes back, like he always does... if he storms out and leaves but then misses him too much and takes the elevator up... then maybe Aziraphale could make him an angel again and while Crowley hears in Aziraphale offering that you aren't good enough as a demon-- you're not good, period and even if he doesn't totally believe that Aziraphale really thinks that but knows Aziraphale has enough religious conflict that it's a problem for their relationship, what Aziraphale *really* means is... I could fix it.

I could go back and un-Fall you. I could take away your pain. I could stop your suffering. I'd have the *power* to do it when I don't right now and it kills me, every day. I could right the wrong I did, the sin I committed-- the real Original Sin-- six thousand years ago when I betrayed you, when Heaven betrayed you.

I could do right by you, the way She never did.

I am going to Heaven to either have the power to do that or to be obliterated into non-existence and I don't totally know which, though surviving is not looking promising, but all I know is that it's too dangerous for you to follow me right now until I do know so I'd rather hurt you than see you dead.

You want to be with me and I am afraid it will lead to your destruction so I need to say anything to put the breaks on your attempt and make you back off. To a lesser extent, I've done it before. Can do again.

Only this time, no hope of the possible, future picnic, I'm afraid...

It really is the worst possible Aziraphale nightmare here like... everything he's ever wanted. Six millennia of wanting to pull Crowley close and he has to reject him or Crowley could die. Fanfic season here said Coffee Shop AU and also a reverse-Fuck or Die for the ages. People complaining that it's awkward? YES. It's supposed to be. Crowley has no idea that Aziraphale is facing a round of sudden death here and was just hoping for his one fabulous kiss and vavoom. Even if it didn't change anything-- he wanted *Aziraphale* to feel that. To know how much he's wanted this for so long and to have it, even if they can't again. The intent is terribly romantic, as is Aziraphale flailing in the middle of it and giving in because he is made of strong, halo-exploding stuff here but he's wanted this forever. He goes up on his toes, he leans in, his hands flail around and he touches Crowley's back. He *shouldn't* do any of this if he's trying to meet his goal of getting Crowley to leave because it gave Crowley hope. It might have even been what motivated Crowley to stay outside and not go right away, or at least a part of it. But Aziraphale had to because he loves him and he couldn't help it.

Then, *sob*, The Michael Sheen eviscerating all of us here...

For anyone who might still be saying that is an "I didn't want his kiss" face... hard, HARD, VERY HARD disagree. That is "I didn't want *this* kiss, like this, right now." That is a man-shaped being who was just kissed by the love of his life for what may have been the first time but, at minimum, is for what he believes will be the *last* time. (I'm still out here holding out some hope for Blitz, Part 3-- a nice first kiss after they kill some Zombie Nazis with Chekhov's derringer in the bookshop but I digress...somehow, even if this entire long meta is one long digression, I digress lol...)

It's the face of a man gutted by the fact that this, in his wildest dreams, was not supposed to happen like this and he's been alive for damn ever at this point so he's had *all* the wildest dreams. And a lot of them, let's be real, have centered around Crowley doing just this. Exactly this. Crowley ain't wrong with the 'grabbing him by the collar and kissing him senseless in the middle of the bookshop' thing. He's wanted to do it for centuries. And the middle of the bookshop bit? That's important, too. This is their home. It's *their* home, even if Crowley is technically homeless. It's safe for him in here and Aziraphale has made it so. It's where they've spent thousands of hours together, happy and safe in each other's company, and here they are, bouille-bouile-bouile-baby-ing finally and it's a complete and utter, unmitigated trash truck dumpster fire.

Honestly, this was a better kiss than in S2 lol. S1 laying down though how long they've been dreaming about it (and having Crowley start listing animals that are in Aziraphale's nonsense magic spell, like he flashes back to 1941 when thinking about the end of the world and kissing Aziraphale in the bookshop... so you can see why I'm moderately hopeful that maybe they did kiss then, once, before then trying to never again until Crowley kisses Aziraphale in 2.06.)

I'm going to bring this back around now to the comparison I made above with Crowley and Jesus and talk about how 2.06's end scenes are also like the last temptation of Christ. Good Omens makes it pretty clear that Aziraphale is the tempter, really, of the two of them, in their relationship. Crowley can't say no to him and Aziraphale has learned it and loves to puppy eyes Crowley into anything he wants.

Crowley knows it and is fine with it. He's smitten and happy to be wrapped around Aziraphale's finger. Crowley has tempted Aziraphale and we see that in S2 with the ox rib. He is, himself, just by existing, tempting to Aziraphale. But in terms of temptation carrying with it a bit of manipulation and *that* kind of tempting being what's demonic in nature? Then Aziraphale is, and always has been, the demon of the two of them. This is true into the end of S2, as while there is almost nothing that Crowley would deny Aziraphale, there is really only one thing and that's to change who he is for him. To become an angel again, to work for Heaven again, after what they've done to him and Aziraphale. So the end of S2 is then Aziraphale's temptation-- it's a test, of sorts, for Crowley, even if Aziraphale doesn't intend for it to be. Crowley resists the temptation. Even for Aziraphale, he won't follow the path of darkness for himself and become something he's not. Crowley-Jesus. (Aziraphale-Satan S3 incoming lol.)

And if you've been reading all of this right then you know what happens next and what it means from the POV of this guilt-ridden Aziraphale...

I honestly don't think Aziraphale is really that angry *with Crowley* at this point-- I think he's just angry. He's reached his limit and then some. He has a lot of simmering, under the surface rage on a good day that only bubbles over when he's stressed by a situation he can't control and here is the ultimate one, really. He's a little mad at Crowley because they've waited countless years for that and in an argument, while ironically probably kind of perfect for them, is not really how *either* of them wanted it to be... but, mostly, Aziraphale is just angry that he can't have any of those moments at all. That they're out of time. That they had all this time and they never really could be safely together and that he's been haunted for six thousand years of the image of his fluffy cloud of redheaded sunshine, bloodied and stricken, and then tossed to Hell while Aziraphale was powerless to stop it. He's never seen those eyes since and he loves the snake ones. He loves all of Crowley with all he has but he's never been allowed to *have* him and never felt safe enough to try and now it's all over. And he still has to make Crowley fucking leave this bookshop for his plan of self-sacrifice to fucking work here so...

...I forgive you. It's the worst thing he can think of. The thing Crowley always hates. The thing that he knows makes Crowley feel lesser and demonic, even if Aziraphale has always, always meant it as an I love you. He even spits it out to Crowley with an almost self-deprecating, referential tone to it-- like "here we go again-- you say you love me and I say 'I forgive you' because I can't say anything else, can I?" The anger is laced underneath it and all the pain but he's intentionally referencing how this this the thing he says whenever Crowley says they can be their own side. He's trying to claim that nothing has changed in all of these years, when they both know that everything has changed since S1 and the bandstand. That's what makes it hurt both of them even more. Aziraphale chooses to say "I forgive you" because he knows that Crowley has never heard it for how Aziraphale means it and Aziraphale is a little bitter about it and lets it show in the moment, since Aziraphale's I forgive you always really means...

I can't stand to see you in pain and if there's any power in me as an angel to stop it, then I will do that so I forgive you and may that make it easier, may that make it all okay, even though I know it won't.

And just before saying I forgive you, Aziraphale's mouth works and he almost-- almost-- says I love you instead... what Crowley would really give anything to hear.

You can see the 'l' forming there, the beginning of "love", what he *really* wanted to say... what Crowley himself didn't even actually explicitly say. Crowley said it without saying it. He called them a couple without saying that word, asked for eternity without fully asking for it, said he loved him by acknowledging that they had both been pretending, but Crowley was terrified and so he said the things in a way that made it obvious what he was saying and asking for but, so unused to not speaking in code are they, that Crowley didn't say he loved Aziraphale, not directly. He did say it. He just didn't say it in those words.

And for a second, Aziraphale almost does.

He can't stand that he's breaking Crowley's heart. He can't stand that Crowley has kissed him and Aziraphale only briefly kissed him back, only barely touched him, when he really wanted to go at him like an ox rib and never let him go, and he starts to say the truth because no part of him really *wants* to be lying like this to Crowley. But he stops. And not even just because he needs Crowley to leave the shop to save his life but because, in the last four minutes, Crowley has confessed love and proposed and they've kissed and Aziraphale, pretty sure he actually died somewhere in the middle there and he's now stuck somewhere in one of Dante's worst circles of Hell lol, just cannot *also* have this be the moment where he says "I love you" to Crowley.

It's not even false hope that maybe they'll somehow have more time. With Heaven breathing down his neck in the form of The Metatron, Aziraphale has no real hope of that. He just always dreamed of telling him and not like this. He doesn't want Crowley to hear it like this, either, not as a part of a rejection. The anger, instead, surfaces, because why can't he and Crowley just *have* this?! How the hell did Gabriel and Beezlebub get to fuck off to Alpha Centauri after dating for ten minutes when he and Crowley have spent bloody eons in queer pining hell over here? What did they ever do that was so wrong to deserve this? Why was Crowley asking questions so terrible? Why have they had to spend thousands of years pretending not to love each other as if love-- the epitome of the angelic-- was unholy? Why, Aziraphale is wondering, now that they are out of time, did he ever spend so many years terrified when, in the end, it all ended tragically anyway?

How many of those years could Aziraphale have spent loving Crowley the way they ought to have been able to have and denied themselves of for so long?

And then Crowley finally does it. Tells him "don't bother" about the forgiveness-- about the love, as Aziraphale has always meant it-- and he leaves. It worked. The anger and pain and saying "I forgive you" after that kiss... it worked. And Crowley leaves and Aziraphale, alone, is a complete mess of broken and furious and broken some more.

Crowley, as we know, doesn't get to see this moment. Muriel does! Great for fic! Hilarious by show standards that the new angel who is literally being ordered to take over Aziraphale's home against his will is who witnesses the aftermath of the intimate moment our angel has been craving, oh, just since before the dawn of humanity over here.

He touches his lips, his hand trembles... have you all noticed that Aziraphale is literally fucking *tasting and eating* what of himself Crowley left in his mouth here? He's pulling every bit of Crowley to his tongue from his teeth and *swallowing*, like he knows it's all of him he'll ever again be able to consume, like he's committing how he tastes to memory for the last like, who knows, ten? fifteen? twenty minutes? of his own existence that he knows he probably has left...

Jesus fucking Christ, Michael Sheen...

This is all without yet mentioning the single most under-analyzed line in S2 that calls into question a ton of stuff, which is this beauty from Shax, right off the top of 2.01:

"Beezlebub's put some of the lesser demons on half-rations."

What does this have to do with Aziraphale consuming Crowley's kiss like it's the most scrumptious thing he's ever tasted (because it is) and being furious that it'll be their last?

Because that Shax line casually confirms that demons eat. Do they eat human food or some sort of demon food or both? Who knows, really, but they're *supposed* to eat. Ok, but is it just a demon thing? No, because it ties to Crowley's comments in S1 about how he complained that the food wasn't really that good lately when hanging out with Lucifer and The Gang, which then implies that, at least back then, *angels* ate, too. Eating was a normal thing. Over time, though, we know that the higher angels have come to see eating as human and pedestrian and not something befitting of an angel. Some demons eat-- even Crowley eats, if less than and differently than Aziraphale-- but the angels think it's beneath them and if we have confirmation via Shax in S2 that they are supposed to be eating and basically only don't die because they're immortal beings and not human, even if they have human corporations, then the show is saying that all of these angels are fucking starving themselves.

They're doing what they're told and denying their own nature and their own needs in the process.

S2 also shows that with the ox rib, right?

Aziraphale went *at* that thing. He'd never eaten at all in a couple thousand years after being told it was un-angelic and so when he tasted food for the first time, he went so overboard that he's been Mr. Prim and Proper with his napkins and table etiquette ever since out of embarrassment over Crowley watching him food orgasm once-- and that's the metaphor there, as we've all figured out. Our show that has a sex worker named Mrs. Sandwich is all about its ongoing food-as-sex metaphor. S2 even opens with the hilarious turnabout from S1 as a "thank you for my pornography", "why do you consume *that*?" Gabriel shows up at the bookshop-- naked-- and has a food orgasm trying hot chocolate for the first time.

Gabe, babe, Aziraphale does not need the play-by-play here....

Mah point is... mah point is that Tumblr is maxing me at 30 images per post and so you'll just have to picture Crowley slurring "dolphins" while I get to my actual point here...

Mah point is while this is a whole separate analysis almost and one that many of you have already done in different ways re: food & sex on the show, my point here is that starving yourself of food in Good Omens is analogous to being touch-starved or love-deprived and before someone yells at me about how angelic beings don't necessarily need sex or are by nature not into sex unless they make an Effort, I agree with you and Neil Gaiman. I'm just also saying the show is suggesting that they all have human corporations and that many of those human corporations are not sex-averse so for those of them that are not, they're literally out here touch-starved and/or sex-starved here in different ways. But, you say, maybe Crowley is hungry (goodness knows, Crowley *is hungry* lol) but Aziraphale eats all the time!

Yeah. Aziraphale eats *food*, all the time. But he isn't touched all the time. He doesn't have sex all the time. He isn't kissed all the time. The 2.06 scene shows him *physically* making that metaphor of food and sex real for us-- we watch him *consume* what remains of Crowley's kiss--showing that he's desperate for it and deprived of it. He's starved for it, to a point of trembling hands and rolling every bit of Crowley's lingering taste around his mouth like he's taking on every last bite of the best crepe he could ever imagine in all his days...

...and then being, understandably, full of rage that this is the only time he's going to ever have Crowley-- and all he's ever going to have of him, when Crowley just offered all of himself-- forever.

And then The Metatron comes back and is Aziraphale ready to go to his death now? And, Friends, Aziraphale...

...is absolutely not.

He's turned away from the door, barely containing tears. When the door opened and he turned, he half-hoped it'd be Crowley but it was grr That Bastard instead. He looks out the window and Crowley is still out there...

...he left but he didn't really *leave*... and it somehow then still isn't over and will someone please just take Aziraphale out back and angel-shoot him? He can't take any more of this.

What about the shop? he asks, in a moment of desperation and terror over what's to come and some blind, stupid hope that he can somehow get out of all of this with him and Crowley still alive and The Metatron, who anticipated this, tells him Muriel lives here now. Aziraphale looks around the home he's made for him and Crowley for the last 223 years and his favorite books and possessions. Crowley's hat from 1941 is on the hat stand, the horse statue is where Crowley put his glasses back when he trusted him, back when he let Aziraphale see his pretty yellow eyes whenever Aziraphale wanted in recent years... before he just put his glasses back on now and closed himself off again.

Aziraphale is never going to see those eyes he loves again. He didn't even get to kiss Crowley without the sunglasses on before it was all over.

Even Gabriel had something to take up to Heaven with him to remind him of the demon he loved but Aziraphale goes to Heaven and to his death empty-handed because he pushed Crowley away to save him from all of this and, in the final push, he looks at Crowley standing there by The Bentley, all that secretly optimistic, beautiful, romantic hope about him still in him from the angel Aziraphale first met, all the awareness there of Aziraphale-- the only being who really knows him-- and so he's still waiting, still hoping. It goes back a few hours to the ball.

I'll be back. I won't leave you on your own.

But it's Aziraphale's call now and he gets into the elevator. The Metatron wins because Aziraphale's love for Crowley wins. He'll die before he lets anything happen to him, even if he wants to run to that car and to him but where would they run *to*? There's no place to go. Crowley has always been wrong about that. They can't go off together. There's no place safe from Heaven for them.

So Aziraphale gets into the elevator at The Dirty Donkey, leaving Crowley alone in the street once again, just with less hope this time than in 1967.

So Aziraphale leaves the bookshop this time, instead of going into it like he did in S1, when he left Crowley in the street, standing beside The Bentley, while clutching a different book this time-- Agnes Nutter's prophecies in his hand versus The Book of Life and its threatened erasure hanging over Aziraphale like the specter that it is. What was predicted about the future versus erasure from the past and all time. Nothing to see here, Crowley! Everything is as it's seems.

Everything is tickety-boo!

Tickety-boo?

Yes, which is also what Aziraphale-as-Crowley said... when he was kidnapped by Heaven and Hell in S1, remember? When he was taken from Earth to be sentenced to death... along *with* Crowley.

This time, Aziraphale is shutting Crowley out again. Telling him 'mind how you go' again, this time a bit more, uh, emphatically lol. And on their heels, again, the end of the world. Arma-bloody-geddon 2.0: The Second Coming.

Aziraphale heard The Metatron saying that was the plan-- as, of course, our villain walked away and meant for it not to be totally heard, further implying that they have no plans to really make Aziraphale the Supreme Archangel and that this is all a remix of Fraulein Greta Klauschmidt. That then makes this all somehow *even worse*... because now Aziraphale gets in the elevator to ride up to his death to save Crowley but now he knows that it was all for nothing.

War is coming. The planet they love will be destroyed. Crowley, if he knows him well enough, will likely die trying to save it. When he does, he'll still be damned to Hell for all of eternity while Aziraphale thinks he likely won't exist at all once he makes it upstairs and Michael finally gets to Book of Life him. Let the other angels think he's been played for a sucker. Better they think him a fool than that they come for Crowley.

He doesn't want to Fall and doesn't wish for it. If they take his memories as punishment, and they almost certainly will, he won't remember any of the moments he spent with Crowley and even if they could have eternity together in Hell if the world is destroyed, he wouldn't wish Crowley the pain of being around him when he didn't remember anything.

Aziraphale only finding out about The Second Coming in the moment before he gets on the elevator-- *after* everything happens with Crowley-- is a million times worse because now Aziraphale is riding to his death knowing that everything they've done in six thousand years doesn't matter and that the events of S1 didn't matter because all it did was delay the inevitable end of the world and everything Aziraphale loves is about to be destroyed.

That, apparently, was God's ineffable, Great Plan.

All of that is what is on Aziraphale's face on the ride up to Heaven in the final splitscreen.

In that splitscreen, Crowley, for what it's worth, is visually echoing the driving back from Tadfield bit that leads to the "tickety-boo" moment of Aziraphale lying to him by omission. He looks close to a parallel to the S1 moment where he suddenly yelled:

"DUCKS!"

They're what water slides off of. In this context? They were also the thing itching at the back of Crowley's mind-- the not quite right thing, the puzzle he couldn't quite figure out, the question he coudln't yet quite answer... until he could. That's positive, actually. It means there might be something for him to realize, even if that realization might come too late in the short term. (They will solve everything and be fine, memory-intact, immortal beings in love who go off together by the end of it. This is all just until then.)

Ducks are also, sort of, the be all and end all of Good Omens. Crowley knows how to take care of them, after all, when others do not. You feed them frozen peas-- they are good for them and they love them, too. (Don't feed him coffee, you Metatron idiot! He only ever drank one mug of it in S1 and it led to the *points above* see: tickety-boo Aziraphale lying to Crowley paralleling sequence of scenes.) [The "do you have one, single, better idea?" scene is Aziraphale drinking coffee, for reference.]

So, yeah, by comparison here... Aziraphale, you are a duck lol. You have been fed bread by idiots for far too long when, really, you need to be eating frozen peas. Crowley knows this and he knows how to take care of you. With any luck, he's about to have his duck-moment-paralleling epiphany any moment now, though I fear you're already going to be memory-wiped and fallen to Hell when he does. That's okay, though, because this is the main scene that still needs a go-around in paralleling and we know Crowley knows where the dungeons are down there from unfortunate, personal experience.

Cottage in the south downs, cottage in the south downs, cottage in the south downs, cottage....

Notes: Hi! If you have made it all the way here, thank you for reading. I hope it was worth the read for you. You all write such great stuff that I felt inspired to put my lit and film studies and psych background to use and jump in a bit. Thanks for indulging me. I also wish to note that there is a gif above that is by @fuckyeahgoodomens but for some reason, the credit was not working properly so I just wanted to make sure you knew who was providing us the visual joy.

[roanniom]

more eddie phone sex more eddie phone sex i am screaming it from the rooftops

Not a Creature Was Stirring

Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Warnings: NSFW, 18+ ONLY!, phone sex / masturbation, dirty talk, light alcohol consumption, light drug use (pot), tiny bit of distance related angst, these idiots are actually pretty sweet so a lil fluffy though it’s filthy? Idk

“So what are you wearing right now?”

“Eddie I’m on the phone in my parent’s kitchen. You can’t be a perv right now,” you chide him in a whisper, but he definitely still hears the smile in your voice.

You’ve been gone for less than 10 hours and yet Eddie is already going out of his mind missing you. Since you’d only been dating for a few months, the two of you agreed that him going home with you for the holidays might be moving a little too soon. You both, however, are bitterly regretting the decision.

“Not being a perv, baby. Just trying to picture you standing there all pretty, happy to talk to me,” Eddie replies. He intends for it to sound teasing, but it comes out just as genuine as he means it. It makes your throat get a little tight.

“Wish I was talking to you in person right now instead.” Your voice is small and his heart skips a bit.

“Me too.”

“This was stupid. Can’t believe I didn’t tell you to just come with me,” you huff, twirling the phone cord around your finger in distress.

“I mean we said it was too soon for the whole meet-the-parents thing,” Eddie reminds you, but his jaw is clenched as he holds back all the things he’d wished he’d said. Like how desperately he wanted to spend this special time of year with you, and how he would have loved the chance to win over the people who you care about most.

“Yeah but we were wrong. Who says there’s a timeline set in stone for this kind of thing anyway?”

“If you weren’t so far away, I’d hop in the van right now and let you know exactly where I want us to be on the timeline,” Eddie declares, feeling bold due to the distance and the fact that you can’t see his face. You laugh, which he’d hoped you would.

“If you weren’t so far away I’d let you.” It comes out shaky. You hadn’t said much but you’d said plenty, holding back the tears that threatened to spill out of nowhere. Eddie can hear it over the phone and he aches with the need to encircle you in his arms. To make any and all bad feelings melt away. He’s desperate to hear you laugh, so he tries his best.

“You can make it up to me by touching yourself and letting me hear some pretty sounds.”

“Eddie!” you say with a hushed squeal. Your eyes dart around to make sure you’re still alone in the kitchen, though nobody would be able to hear him even if they were near.

Eddie barks a laugh.

“It was worth a shot.”

You chew on your lip and contemplate, checking the clock on the wall above the sink.

“If…if you’re still up at midnight I can…maybe call you back from my room,” you saw slowly. Eddie’s eyes widen.

“Oh honey, if it means the chance to hear your sweet voice, I won’t be the only thing up at midnight.”

~*~

You’re adorably prompt, calling him back at 12am exactly on the dot. Eddie knows because he had been staring at the clock for the last fifteen minutes, willing time to fold in on itself if it could bring him just a little closer to you.

Eddie wrenches the phone to his face, a massive smile on his lips.

“Hey Princess,” he says, nice and low. Your laughter on the other end is breathless.

“What if it hadn’t been me? What if it was Wayne calling to tell you something?”

“Wayne would survive being called Princess,” he says with a shrug you can’t see. You giggle and Eddie preens. “What has you in such a good mood in the witching hour baby?”

“It’s all you, Eds,” you confirm, keeping your voice soft because of the time. “But I did steal a bottle of wine from my cousins after I said good night and I might have had a few glasses quickly before calling you.”

“Ah, looking for a party, are you?” A thrill runs down Eddie’s spine and he sits up a little straighter in bed, reaching for a pre-rolled joint and a lighter. He’s seen you tipsy before and you’re both adorable and insatiable.

“Yeah. And I was a little nervous,” you add honestly. You’d never talked dirty over the phone before, and even though you’ve had sex with Eddie many times by now, you’re still a little self conscious. Worried you won’t say the right thing or be sexy enough for him.

“Nervous about what? That someone’ll hear? You’re in your room, right?”

“Yeah, the cord from the hall phone was long enough to reach inside here, thank god.”

“So there’s nothing to be nervous about. You’ll be quiet, like a good girl, and nobody’ll know that you’ll be touching yourself for me.”

His words go straight between your legs, turning you on even more than the anticipation for this conversation had turned you on. He hears your sharp intake of breath and feels proud. Proud that without even touching you, even from so great a distance, he can still have a physical impact. Eddie strikes his lighter and inhales deeply, breathing his joint to life and taking a good long hit.

“I’m not nervous about people hearing I’m nervous that…” you trail off and Eddie feels apprehension for the first time all night.

“Nervous that what, baby?”

You huff in frustration, words not as easy in your tipsy state while also the excitement in your veins prompts you to get over yourself and stop wasting the time you have with him.

“You so much better at the dirty talk than I am…” you try to continue but he scoffs, cutting you off.

“If you dare say you’re nervous that what you say won’t be hot enough for me, I’ll scream.” Eddie drops the lighter back on his bedside table and scooches down to recline more comfortably now that he’s confident that your concern is silly. “Not to be creepy, but you could just breathe into the receiver while I jerk off and that would be enough to get me to cum my brains out.”

You let out a startled laugh at the absurdity of the statement and Eddie feels accomplished, taking another hit.

“You’re a fucking weirdo,” you respond affectionately.

“Yeah? But I’m your fucking weirdo,” Eddie counters, letting his hand smooth down to the front of his boxers. “And your fucking weirdo is hard as a rock right now, so is there anything you want to do about that?”

“Well…” you begin, getting comfortable in your bed despite the blood pounding in your ears, making it harder to hear the rustling of Eddie’s clothes over the phone. “If I was there…I’d probably tell you to get those boxers off and out of my way.”

“How did you know I still had my boxers on?” Eddie chuckles.

“Because I can hear you touching yourself through them. And because you always like doing things the hard way.”

“So, so hard Princess,” Eddie muses, pulling them off. “Ok, I’m naked for you. Boxers off as requested, ma’am. Now I repeat the question that I asked earlier - what are you wearing right now?”

“I’m wearing your Dio shirt. The one you left at my place last week,” you whisper sheepishly. Eddie swells with pride (and something close to possessiveness).

“You’re in my shirt and I can’t even see you? That’s cruel, baby,” he pretends to be cross. “Ok my Dio shirt and what else?”

“Nothing else,” you reply.

“So if I asked you to put your hand between those pretty little legs you’d be able to tell me how wet you are for me right now real easy?”

You do as he’d mentioned, bringing your hand down to gather your waiting slick.

“I’m really wet for you right now, Eds.”

“Good. Can you rest the phone on your shoulder or the pillow or something so both your hands are free?” he asks, doing the same thing himself as you move to follow his instructions. He holding his joint up in the air while getting a glob of lotion from the bottle on his nightstand, bringing it down to slide over the shaft of his cock. It adds a smooth glide to his motions that makes him swallow a moan.

“Something I should be doing with these two free hands, handsome?” you ask. You’re really pushing yourself here, trying to be confident in spite of the nerves. Eddie appreciate it and silently vows to make it so worth your while.

“Yeah. Take one and play with that little button I love so much. And the other one…tease your nipple with it through my shirt.”

You do as he says, rubbing circles into your clit, sending ripples of pleasure to your extremities. Your other hand presses and teases at your nipple through your shirt, making it harden from the friction of the material. You hum at the feeling and Eddie chuckles.

“Good, baby?”

“Really good. But not as good as it would have been with your hands.”

“No? Well why don’t you go and put two of those fingers inside you right now. Let’s get this show on the road, yeah?”

You slide your middle and ring fingers inside your tight entrance, finding little resistance with how wet you are. Your other hand squeezed your breast more fully as you find a rhythm moving your fingers in and out of yourself.

“What about you? Are you…jerking off?” You ask shakily. You hadn’t been joking when you’d insisted he was better at dirty talk. Eddie usually talked all night long, leaving you with no obligations beyond feeling fucking incredible, moaning, and occasionally responding with a “yes! Yes!” or a “feels so good!” when prompted.

Eddie chuckles over the phone at your attempt, but the sound makes warmth spread through your body, rather than the embarrassment you’d assumed you’d feel. Apparently you’re too turned on to feel anything other than desire for him.

“Jerking off is a little crude. I’m not exactly a horny fifteen year old here, baby,” he admonished jokingly, abandoning his joint in the near by ashtray. You can hear the shick shick shick over the phone though and your stomach swoops. Of course he’s all lubed up. You know Eddie likes it wet. “I am, however, stroking my cock to the thought of your sweet pussy.”

“Oh god,” you whisper and Eddie laughs again. Your free hand abandons your tits and comes down to play with your clit as you add a third finger into your hole. Still not enough to recreate the stretch of Eddie’s fingers, let alone his cock, but still, better than nothing.

“Mmm what did you change? What’s got you moaning like that?” Eddie prompts. You feel heat spread through your body.

“I…I added another finger,” you admit and Eddie all but growls.

“That’s what I’m talking about. I know my baby likes to be stuffed full.”

“It’s not enough, Eds,” you whine then, and his heart wrenches. His instinct to give you something, more, everything hitches in his throat and he’s fucking his fist in earnest.

“Well then what will help? You got a toy there or anything that’ll feel…I don’t know, fucking more like me?” he laughs. You let out a frustrated laugh too.

“No, I don’t have a massive dildo just laying around at my parents house, Eddie.”

Eddie groans and squeezes himself even harder to stave off the urge to cum suddenly.

“Oh fuck, say more about how my dick is massive.”

“I didn’t say your dick is massive,” you say rolling your eyes, but thrusting your fingers in and out of yourself faster nonetheless. “I was talking about a dildo -,”

“I know what you meant, baby. No need to get coy with me now.” Eddie’s voice is hoarse. He’s trying his best not to cum, but something about your desperation, the sound of your voice (and if he’s being honest with himself, probably the weed), is bringing him all the way to the brink.

“Okay you’re right,” you say, finally letting go, circling your clit with abandon and bucking your hips to meet your hand, simulating what it feels like to meet Eddie’s thrusts. “Your dick is massive and perfect and I wish I was bouncing on it right now.”

Eddie’s eyes widen.

“Ah, so you’ve been picturing yourself on top?”

“You’ve been picture yourself on top?” you counter.

“Well yeah,” he admits. “But I just needed a visual, baby. I can flip us over in my head,” he adds with humor.

“No tell me what you were thinking,” you ask, you voice suddenly quieter, strained. You’re so close, desperate to cum with him. The way he wants you.

Eddie rolls so that he’s no longer on his back, his knees now digging into the mattress. He braces himself with one hand by where your head would be if you were there, his other moving furiously up and down his cock, tugging in down strokes that would have him bucking right into your pussy.

“I’m thinking about what its like when you’re under me and I fuck you so hard, every part of you jiggles. And those tits. Fuck.”

Eddie loses himself for a moment, grunting through the feeling of fucking himself. Imagining you there with him.

“You always take me so well, Princess. You’d take me so well, huh?”

“Yeah. I’d…I’d be so good for you, Eddie,” you whimper.

“I know you would be, baby. You make it so easy to just sink right in and just…fuck. Just give you everything I’ve got.” He’s so fucking close now he can feel his balls tightening, heavy and waiting.

“I-I want it,” you whine, voice cracking.

“What do you want princess? Tell me,” he commands gently. His hips are thrusting down towards the mattress now and he’s right on the edge of combusting.

“You,” you say, your voice small. Almost silent as all of your energy and focus zeros in on the tension building in your core, ready to snap. “Fuck…want you. Wanna cum. Wanna cum so bad Eddie.”

“Cum, baby. Come on and cum for me.” His tone is desperate, and the breathlessness is what has you tipping over the edge. The sound of your quiet moans, as your walls spasm and tighten around your own fingers, is what does him in. Eddie, free to be much louder alone in his trailer, cums with a deep groan that passes over the phone lines, through your ear and directly into your cunt, making your clit pulse anew beneath your frantically rubbing fingers.

“Merry fucking Christmas to me,” he finally mutters, sounding hoarse and wrecked when he finally drops onto his back on the bed, letting his softening cock fall from his grasp, spent. He hears your weak giggle over the phone and smiles.

“Hope you get everything you want for Christmas this year, Eds,” you whisper, fondness swelling inside you and evident in your voice.

“Oh Princess,” Eddie says with a chuckle, throwing an arm over his eyes and breathing deeply to help himself settle in the come down of his high. He wishes almost bitterly that you were in his arms right now, cuddling in the afterglow, but that sound of your voice on the line and the promise of your impending return keep his heart light. “I’ve already got all I could ever ask for.”

~*~

[blondephenobarbitol]

I actually fucking hate Mr. Jägerman here's why

Mr. Jägerman is a character in the Hatchetfield universe who is never onstage and only mentioned in 1 (one) line. This was enough to ignite my rage.

It's because in this one line, so much is revealed about Max's character. So let's dissect that.

Max is mean. We know this. The very first thing established about him is how threatening he is. But I think his character often gets lost in the 'bully' identity, because just like every other Hatchetfield character, he is layered and complex.

We also find out two other things about him pretty much immediately: He has a crush on Grace (we'll come back to that) and he needs to feel in control.

There's a lot of evidence to support this. He repeatedly refers to himself as the 'god' of Hatchetfield High. He creates arbitrary rules around who his friends can date. He creates arbitrary rules around where the nerds are 'allowed' to go. And the moment someone implies he is not as powerful as he thinks he is, he retaliates violently.

This isn't just Max being a jerk. These are all signs of someone who is almost certainly deprived of control in their home life, which forces them to find it elsewhere. Max likely has little to no say in what happens to him at home. He's clinging to a sense of control wherever he can find it. And that line basically confirms that his home isn't a safe place for him.

Back to the crush on Grace, when you look objectively at the actions Max takes in the show, you'll find that he's not really a bad person, he's a mean person. He's a little shit that processes his need for control in the entirely wrong way, but people are shaped by their surroundings. The actions that come from him are different.

His crush on Grace only supports this. Every other bully in every piece of media sees the girl they like and whistle and say "yo lemme hit that." And if the girl rejects them, they resort to "tease bitch." Not Max. The first thing he does is start a conversation with her, laughs at (what he thinks is) a joke, then offers to carry her books. Like, I wish my highschool bullies were that nice to their own girlfriends.

When she rejects him, it's true that he continues to pursue her and calls her "dirty girl," but that once again comes back to his need to feel in control. But he doesn't get aggressive, he doesn't do anything that screams 'bully.'

We don't get a lot of scenes with pre-ghost Max. But when we do, they're interesting to analyze. Like, have you ever noticed that when he finds Steph in the Waylon Place, his very first instinct is to tell her, "Get behind me, I'll protect you" from, as far as he knows, actual ghosts? He feels like his life is in danger, but he's still putting Steph's safety first, despite having no interest in her romantically. That's huge.

There's even some evidence to support that Max terrorizing the nerds is, from his perspective, not so one-sided. When he finds out they were the ones who pulled the pranks, he says "I thought you guys hated me."

And he's open to change. He's not stubborn, he's not brutal. He doesn't continue hating the nerds just because it is what it is. Moments before his death, he is showing signs of opening up to them, and actually seems like he's coming around.

And none of this is meant as trying to defend Max's actions. I know he's the antagonist. I know he treats people unfairly. But all of this has to come from somewhere. I'm trying to say that there was clearly a foundation of a good person underneath all that cruelty. So what toughened his shell?

Mr. Jägerman. Max reveals in that one line that if he were to go back home from the 'party', his dad would call him a 'little cuck.' "can't even fight off one lousy skele'uhn." In this, he reveals his dad is demeaning to him. He's the kind of man who would hear that his son was in a life-or-death situation, and instead of comforting him, he would have made fun of him.

What must that do to a person? As someone who grew up in a home where Dad wasn't always a safe person to be around, I know that when I was younger, a lot of my bad bad behaviours were something I learned from him.

The prank meant to scare Max was the nicest thing anyone's ever done for him.

I think a lot of what happens in NPMD is indirectly Mr. Jägerman's fault. "Knowledge is knowing Frankenstein is the doctor, wisdom is knowing Frankenstein is the monster" type of shit. It is directly because of his actions and the way he treated his own child that any of this happened.

or maybe I'm reading too much into this. But I fucking hate Max's dad so much.

[tarjapearce]

You know the ‘girlfriend effect’ trend going on ? I feel like that would be mama and Miguel. Like Miguel having a horrible style and wearing the most outrageous terrible clothes and not knowing what to do with his hair or not doing any form of facial care routines (you how men are) until he meets our mama and she just helps him develop a style and find what works best for him but doing it in a way that isn’t insulting and belittling but rather caring and loving.

This is Pre-Soccer Family 🤭

Boyfriend Makeover

Ever since MJ's birthday party at Peter's, things had taken a turn between you and Miguel.

Something that had left him with the little seed of seeing you as many times as possible from now on, rooting and blooming within. And in truth, you couldn't wait to see him again as well.

He had this je ne sas quoi that drawn you in like bees to pollen. Like gasoline to a fire, and anything intrinsically related in nature.

When you went home to a little more intimate and girls only after party, you spilled the beans and Jessica slid a couple of bucks in MJ's direction when you were too busy fangirling and gushing like a teenager whose crush just noticed her for the first time ever.

"He tried to kiss me!"

"Miguel?"

"Yes!" You plopped on the bed with a nervous squeal.

"You two kissed?" MJ watched at Jessica eagerly, as if ready to receive more money from the secret bet they had done on who kissed who first.

"Nah, he gotta work for it. But, damn... I was holding back so badly. He looks like a good kisser."

Jessica giggled at your ecstatic state.

"Just kiss him, woman! Pretty sure he'd die on the spot if you do that"

And so you did. The first kiss had been nothing you had expected, A little fumble and clumsy but sweet. He was taken aback when you made the first move, but couldn't complain. He had sandwiched your face in between his big hands and gave you a kiss you only  fantasized often, once the movie had finished in TV back on his apartment's living room.

Things just flowed from there. He once grabbed your hand as you ventured through the sea of people in the mall when you were shopping.

"Won't find you later, Chaparrita." (Little one)

"Well, if you're gonna hold my hand, then do it properly."

With an impish smile you entwined your fingers with his, he only flared an airy yet bashful chuckle as his hand tightened it's grip on yours.

----

Even though he had asked you to date him officially, the doubt in people's faces remained. Not that you cared, but seeing him particularly serious after a gathering meant that someone had said something either about you, or the both.

"Do I look awful to you?"

You truly weren't expecting something so trivial to upset him that way, sure there were things he could improve about himself that would just only add him a bonus to his already effortlessly gorgeous looks.

"What?. Who told you that?"

He shrugged and kept driving. His style was something basic and borderline boring, office like all the way. Like if the nerdiness refused to leave his body completely and had rioted big time and now was the ruling sovereign of his closet.

Sweatpants in different tones of gray and black, graphic tees that had endured through college time and other basic things, sneakers and a couple of shoes and boots. The only stylish sort of thing he had was a navy blue suit that ripped as he tried to slid it past his broad shoulders.

"Shit you hear around." He grumbled while driving.

"Well, if you don't like your style we could change it. I could help if you want to, of course."

"What would you change about it?"

"Even though I love when you wear your lab coat and those sweatpants together" You giggled and took his hand briefly, "I'd add more color to your wardrobe and other different textures. You'd look even more handsome with summer colors."

"It's not summer."

"I know, just saying I'd add a bit more color to it."

"Right. We can do that. What about eh, the... things you put on the face. Masks and shit?"

Your face lit up upon the questions he was throwing at you as he gestured to his face.

"What about them?"

"How do you use them?"

In truth, he had overheard some things behind his back. Him looking like a tired creep that always wore the same clothes, them surprised at you tolerating such lack of style, but what had affected him more than what he let on was hearing that you deserved more than just a greasy haired nerd guy in your life. Mostly said by guys that looked straight out of a photo shoot in Italy.

His hair hovered on his shoulders, either tied in a lazy man bun or simply slicked back. Skin rough and oily, a few ingrown hairs in his stubble. Some pimples here and there. As long as he was clean, like his clothes it had been more than enough for him so far. Contrary to you. Ever glowing, stylish and delicious smelling.

Hell, some of his clothes still smelled like you even if he washed them. But now that a new chapter of his life started with none else but you, he wanted to be better. He was already a bit self conscious about his overall looks, and didn't wanna add more to the list of things he already hated about himself, but for some reason you loved.

He wanted to increase the latter. And if a makeover was needed for you to be even more into him, he'd go under them. And what a better chance to do so when you were excited about it. Another excuse to spend the day together, really. Even if it meant to go under layers of things foreign to his skin or be switching into things in a secluded changing room.

"We could meet tomorrow at the mall, buy new clothes and spend the rest of the day pampering ourselves."

"Sounds scary."

"The only thing you gotta be afraid is what the lack of sun block does to the skin."

"I'm aware that cancer can be developed after the constant exposure to high UV lights."

"You're so sexy when you speak like that."

"I'm actually surprised you find me appealing given my lack of-"

"Ah don't ruin it, Miguelín. You know that's not why we got together."

"Still, I wanna be better. Can't look like a tired creep." You swatted his head gently with a deadpan in your eyes.

"Miguel, even if you wore an unicorn onesie, I'd still adore you the same and I'd definitely fuck you afterwards."

He snorted and looked at you with softened eyes.

"But the gesture is highly appreciated. I'm excited really. We get to spend the day together and have fun."

"Shopping day tomorrow then?"

"Of course!"

-----

You visited different stores, even took a mini photo shoot of the outfits you had picked together for him. He wasn't that into flashy or saturated prints. He was more of plain colors, and if something was printed it had to be minimum. Attention seeking was in the least of his priorities.

His confidence seemed to take a higher place the more clothes he tried and new compliments flew out your mouth.

You had him a blushing mess as you asked him to twirl for you only to slap his ass and give a rather thirsty yet loving comment on him. You already made those when he wore your favorite gray sweatpants. Nothing had changed really, except for one outfit that had your cheeks a bright red the more you stared .

Cotton plain navy blue polo shirt that adjusted perfectly on his upper frame, white pants that made a perfect job in accentuating his waist and white leather loafers. It was the winner of the day.

"Never in my life have I been envious of a shirt, until today."

You then went for the skin care. Exfoliants, moisturizers, masks and so many other tools he had the slightest idea they even existed. Even though you explained each and their functions, he had to take a break to let all sink in.

"How many times I must put all this in my face?"

"Twice a day. Morning and night before sleeping."

"Don't get me wrong but, how do you find time to do this?"

"It becomes a discipline over time. And now I can't live without it."

"If something's worth saying, I like the... uh, the scent and feeling that it leaves in your skin. It's nice."

He cleared his throat as you kept adding products to the basket.

"Why, thank you." You kissed his cheek as you both looked over the men section of skincare, "We gotta get you a proper shaving kit also. Razors only damage your skin. Wanna keep your beard?"

"Do you like it?"

"I don't mind it honestly. With or without it you look scrumptious." Your eyebrows wiggled at him and his ears turned a light shade of pink.

"Let's get it then."

----

His eyes were all teary and glossy the more you pulled the peel off mask from his sensitive skin.

"Ow! Ow, ya! Amor, ya!" You laughed silently as you stopped. Hips straddling him, face to face, masked with the pore cleansing charcoal product, smeared in your features.

You had tied his hair carefully to then teach him how to properly clean his face, after a session of much needed steam to relax and open his pores.

Also squeezed some tools as gently as possible to get gunk and black spots out, but even so had him squirming at the beginning, then you had taught him how to properly cleanse his face, and in what order each product had to be applied. He was genuinely interested at the components of each thing and how well they seemed to react on his skin. Secretly taking a picture of him while having his eyes closed.

"Relax Eddie Brock, we're almost done!"

"¿No te duele o qué?" (Does this even hurts for you?)

"We are Venom." You giggled but he just deadpanned,

"You're not funny. You're a psycho."

"After you do this a bunch of times it comes out easier and less painful."

To his horror, you peeled off the mask without much ows and hissing, like he was, cringing at the way the black and elastic thing abandoned your face, coming out in in a piece.

"It would've be a lot less painful but you put it on your eyelids and so damn close to the ears. The first places I told you to not put it on!"

"I don't know about these things-" He hissed as you pulled in a go the last remnants of the mask. A little whimper and a grunt came out later.

"Canija!" You kissed his face softly where the mask had been, trying to soothe the pain as he cussed.

"Please tell me we're done with that"

Instead of words you smooched his lips with a proud smile.

"We're done. Now let's get you some serums."

"You're not putting needles in my face, are you?"

"What? No. It's not that kind of serum. It's like vitamins for your skin in oily or creamy textures."

By the end of the day he had fallen asleep as you used your jade face roller on him, but woke up with a glowy and healthy looking skin. Even some pimples had diminished their redness. His tired face not only was less tired but looked like he had slept well for weeks. No longer oily and breaking out.

Despite the pain, it all had been worth it. But your shocked face upon seeing him well dressed in a cream button shirt, black pants and dress shoes, and a fresh haircut that would turn into his forever look; holding a bouquet of tulips before your door, was absolutely priceless.

Needless to say you didn't make it to the dinner date, too busy ravaging eachother to care.