#They make me want to throw my tablet and drive my pen into my heart (affectionate)

[themintman]

When your like the only helpful character, always polite to the protag, the goddamn backbone of the games platforming and have a fun spooky vibe, but people prefer a glitchy lad who isnt even in the game:

[loserchildhotpants]

“you’re not sorry.” for destiel 😐👍

here's some end!verse angst and hurt/comfort for u <3

When Dean finds Castiel again, he's sat in the tall grass at the back of his cabin, a tablet of something melting under his tongue, and a journal open on his right thigh where he writes in foreign languages he still retains.

There's no proof that Castiel uses ancient Sumerian for the purpose of coding his personal journals, to make them near impossible to decipher their meaning, but Dean has a feeling that's exactly what he's doing.

It's fine that Dean can't read it. He doesn't want to. He's petrified of what he might find out.

"You don't need to hover like a ghost, Dean. Just announce yourself or leave."

"Says the worst silent-starer of history," Dean combats, hackles raising.

Seeing Cas turn to face him with that black eye and split lip nearly drives Dean to physical illness.

His heart sinks low in his gut, and he cringes, looking away.

"That's actually fair," Castiel allows, "carry on, then."

Rolling his eyes at the darkening sky, Dean counts to ten, then takes another step toward Cas.

The black eye is very distracting.

"You should put ice on that."

"I don't like feeling cold."

"Well, tough," Dean grumbles, scowling at the offending shade, physically restraining himself from going to fetch an icepack for him.

With just a tired sigh, Cas turns back to his writing, seeming to dismiss Dean until Dean is more willing to state his purpose. And that sucks for multiple reasons, chief among them being that Dean has no idea what he's doing there at all.

"Is there nothing you'd like to say?"

"What? You expect me to apologize?"

Glancing over his shoulder again, Castiel evaluates him, then decides, "no. You're not sorry. Why would you be?"

Scoffing, Dean throws his arms out and accuses, "you had it coming!"

"You punched me in the face."

"You tried to kiss me!"

"There's an operative word in there," Castiel replies, turning back to his writing, "if all you came here to do is tell me I deserve my suffering, I assure you, I don't require assistance."

For a few beats, Dean just stands there, useless, furling and unfurling his fists at his hips, floundering.

"I'm not good at this, Cas. I dunno what the fuck to do here."

"Okay."

"Don't give me that 'okay,' shit - you can be a real passive aggressive bitch sometimes, you know that?"

"Dean, I'm not interested in making you do anything," Castiel says to his scribblings, "I don't know why you're here, I am getting the distinct impression that you don't know why you're here either, and there's nothing I can do about that. You say you don't know what to do here, and I don't know what you're trying to do here, so I cannot help. I tell you it's okay because there is a throbbing on the side of my face reminding me that you don't have the emotional bandwidth available for things between us to be anything other than okay, and it's something I can afford you."

"The world is falling apart around you, you're tired, I'm tired too, and I can't do what I once..."

He trails off, lets his pen go loose in his hold, sighs again, hangs his head and mutters, "I'm not what I once was. You don't know how devastating that is for me. For you, it's an inconvenience. For me, it's... loss as I've never known. But I can't ask you to carry any part of that, as a friend or otherwise, and one thing I can do for you is turn the other cheek."

He half-looks over his shoulder, not really peeking over, but giving the impression of looking; it's very defeated.

"This is me turning the other cheek. I wanted to kiss you, you punched me, I've gone to lick my wounds in privacy which you've broken unannounced, and you want me to know you're not sorry, and that I deserve this. I hear you. I understand. It's okay, because that's all I have left to give you."

Dean feels ill again.

"Stop giving me shit - stop giving me passes, Cas. I fuckin' hit you."

"You did," Cas admits, shrugging, fully facing away from Dean, "That cannot be changed."

"Yeah, and you want me to be sorry."

"Do I wish you felt regret for causing me bodily harm? Obviously, Dean."

"Yeah, well, I don't!" Dean shouts too loud, his hands shake at his sides, his eyes feel hot, "and I'm not gonna - I'm not changing, okay? I'm not - I wasn't - I've never - and I won't. Okay? I won't."

"Okay, Dean."

"No, fuck you!" Dean argues, stomping closer to Cas' hunched form, "Don't do that!"

"What do you want me to do?"

"Get up, and tell me to go fuck myself!" Dean shouts, gesticulating wildly, "have a fuckin' spine! Face me, and tell me to wise up, or -"

"Or, what, Dean?" Castiel asks, standing and turning in an uncurling, graceful motion he's had the others learning in yoga, "you expect I'll leave you?"

Jaw locking up, Dean scowls dangerously at Cas, and growls out, "it's what I'd do."

"I won't leave you," Castiel vows, not for the first time; his eyes scan Dean's face, memories in his eyes, "I do not stay with you because I expect you to change, Dean. I stay with you because of precisely who you are - not for what you might be. I'm sorry if that unsettles you."

Pushing his chest, Dean shoves him and follows after, putting them much too close.

"Tell me to go fuck myself! I hurt you, Cas! I hurt you, and that's - it's fucked up! It's fucked up that I did that!"

"I agree," Castiel tells him, serene as anything, "I forgive you."

"I'm not -"

A broad, calloused hand wraps around Dean's wrist; he glances down at where Cas' thumb pushes at the smooth skin of his forearm, then glares into Cas' eyes.

Cas' other hand reaches up, nicotine-stained fingertips coming to brush delicately at Dean's face; he swats at the hand, postures like he's going to strike again, but Cas doesn't flinch.

After a brief struggle, Cas just takes that hand in his too.

"Stop it," Dean commands, a quiver in his voice as Cas steps closer.

He gets up so close, their noses nearly touch, and Dean flinches in Cas' hold, but Cas still has that preternatural strength of something not-quite-all-human, and has Dean well in hand.

"Is it so terrible? To be loved so tirelessly?"

Heart skipping a beat, Dean's eyes flash across Cas', flickering back and forth; his auditory processing isn't always great, it sometimes lags, and he thinks that if he gives them a few moments of silence, his brain will catch up to what was just said in a way that makes more sense, but then that doesn't happen.

"Don't say that."

"So many rules," Cas observes, like he's pondering again why humans prefer personal space.

"Let me go," he says, and doesn't resist.

"Is it so bad?" Castiel asks again, gaze soft and sorry, "I wouldn't know."

That takes the fight out of Dean; 'I wouldn't know what it is to be loved, can you describe it?' - it's a roundhouse kick that lands directly in Dean's solar plexus and promises to bruise for months.

"No," Dean mutters, eyes hot and vision cloudy, "don't - fuck, Cas - don't say that."

"What am I allowed to say?"

When Dean weakly tries to pull away again, Cas' hold gets tighter, he tilts his head, breathes in Dean's breath out, and asks, "what are you so frightened of?"

"Fuck you."

Squinting his eyes, Castiel looks at him, looks through him the way he always has, and Dean's praying to a God he doesn't believe in that Cas can't do that psychic shit anymore now that he's lost his wings - he has to believe he's got some privacy left at the end of the world.

It doesn't matter, though.

Cas knows him, has known him since the start, and just like they're standing back in time, back in the dark of that old barn, Castiel cocks his head and says carefully, "loss. You fear that voicing desire means marking someone for death. That if you allow yourself to feel loved, and to want, that inevitably, this too will be taken from you."

"It's easier not to hope, after a time, isn't it?" Castiel asks him, like he's not just flayed him, "you are a strong man, powerful, and fearsome, but not a harbinger of destruction, Dean. In fact, I think you're a brilliant engineer, better than my Father, even."

Dean's eyes round out, and Cas watches that happen with fascination.

He mutters, as though it's inconsequential, "you build invisible things. Homes, families, love. You don't destroy. You only create in the wake of destruction. Sometimes... I sometimes wonder if I was real at all before I met you."

That snaps the last hold in Dean, and he rips his hands away, grabs at Cas' shoulders, walks him hurriedly backwards, and throws him down into the grass.

Cas blinks up at him, wondering, and then Dean is on his knees, straddling Cas, cupping his face and kissing him like it's an insult, like he hopes there's venom in it that will kill his best friend.

Rough hands pet his flanks, his chest, his neck, and he's groaning or crying - he's one long, exposed nerve, and Cas kisses him like he's got all the time in the world.

"Stop it," Dean huffs out, biting at Cas' bottom lip, "I'm not any'uh that, Cas, I'm not - I hurt you. That's what I do. That's who I am."

"You're wrong, my friend," Castiel assures him, leaning up to kiss him better, to lick into his mouth and moan against him.

"I'm sorry," Dean manages tearfully, hands trembling around Cas' bruised and cut face, "I'm sorry, I -"

"Dean, I forgive you," Castiel answers, kissing him again and again, "I forgive you."

[cutiepisenpai]

Gifted part 5

Spencer Reid x  F!Reader

Warnings: Fluff, a tiny amount of angst, mentions of unsubs crimes

That night when Spencer got home he called Y/N to let her know he got home safely, she had insisted he did. But rather than a brief call they talked all night long until they both received calls from Hotch telling them to come in for a case. They rode in together which was not unusual but they were trying to hide their new relationship from the team for now. "Long night, did you get lucky?" Morgan teases Spencer, seeing the bags under his eyes more pronounced than usual. But Spencer just ignores him. Garcia and Hotch brief the team on the case there is a serial killer duo driving across country on a murder spree. They have robbed a bank, gas station, and a diner killing everyone inside and heading west from Kansas on Route 70 with no apparent destination. The last location the duo was seen was in Grand Junction, Colorado so that is where the team is headed. On the jet Y/N and Spencer are sitting side by side that in and of itself it is not abnormal but the arm rest that would usually divide them is up so they sit side by side legs touching, if anyone on the team notices the change they say nothing. “Different states, different venues, different victimology. The only thing these murders have in common is the weapon used and that every location is just off of Route 70.” Y/N says while swiping through her tablet looking at the information they had. “They didn’t hide their faces, they want people to know who they are. If they had hid their faces with them crossing state lines and venues would we have even been called in?” Morgan added in. “Glen Rogers the “The Cross Country Killer” was convicted of stabbing and strangling five victims, one man and four women in California, Florida, Ohio, Mississippi, and Louisiana although he originally claimed he murdered over seventy individuals.” Spencer chimes in. “When we touch down Reid and Morgan go to the latest crime scene, Prentiss and JJ go talk with the victims families see if they know anything, Y/L/N, Rossi and I will head to the local police precinct to bring them up to speed.” Hotch informs everyone. 

While the team was investigating in Grand Junction they sent out alerts to other precincts along Route 70 informing them to be on the lookout for anything suspicious. “What is the importance of this highway to them?” Y/N says in frustration watching Spencer map out the geographic profile. “Route 70 crosses through ten states and is 2,153 miles long and crosses through nine major cities in the heart of the US.” Spencer spouts out before turning to see her smiling at him. “What?” “You’re cute.” Luckily none of the other team members were around to hear Y/N comment or see Spencer’s light blush. “Another thing is all the places they have hit; outside of the bank the gas station and the diner are quick stop places they might have traveled a lot beforehand. I wonder what set them off though to go from living an ordinary life to killing dozens of people every few days is a huge escalation.”Y/N continue to question. “It is possible that they have been killing all along but more discreetly and over time the kills became less gratifying and so they escalated. Do you think we should tell the team about us?” That question caught Y/N off guard she was so focused on the case she hadn’t thought about the fact that the team didn’t know. “If you want to but I don’t think it’s necessary that they know everything.” She says not looking up from the file. The phone rings Garcia calling before their conversation could go any further. “Go ahead Garcia you’ve got me and Reid.” “Hello my favorite geniuses I come bearing bad news there has been another hit at a cafe in Richfield, Utah” “They are running out of road if they’re plan is to stay on Route 70.” Reid says. “They must have an endgame in mind, approaching the actual target of their desires. Thanks Garcia” Y/N says hanging up the phone. 

A few days later the team finally caught the unsubs holding up a gas station in the last town on the west end of the highway. They never find out the unsubs true motives both declining to answer any questions. The team had just landed back in Virginia Y/N and Spencer had had little time to continue their previous conversation but there was tension surrounding them since then. Although still close in proximity there were no quick quips, no playful banter. While the team is finishing this case's paperwork when Morgan meets Spencer while getting coffee to ask him about it, “What’s going on with you two?” Gesturing in Y/N’s direction. “What? Nothing? Why would you think that something is wrong?” Spencer questions his voice getting higher. “Oh I don’t know for two people who seemingly never stop talking to each other you haven’t said a word to one another in what six hours since we left Utah. And your voice just raised two octaves.” Morgan says. “We can go without talking to each other without it being something weird.” Spencer says trying to keep his voice purposely even. “Well word of advice lover boy just apologize for whatever it is, even if you’re not wrong, it will make your life easier.” “I don’t need to apologize there is nothing going on.” Spencer says walking away with his coffee. When he got back to his desk Spencer couldn’t help but admit to himself that Y/N's silence was bothering him. He knew nothing was wrong. He could understand her reasoning for wanting to keep their relationship private, she was very private about her personal life. It didn’t actually bother him; he just didn’t like hiding things from the team they would find out eventually. He looks over to Y/N, she is focused on the file on her desk working quickly through it. Spencer walks over to her desk, “Hey”. Y/N looks over to him, “Yes?” “Are we okay?” He asks. “Why wouldn’t we be?” “Because we haven’t been talking.” She sets the file and pen down turning to give him her full attention. “We’re talking now. What’s bothering you?” “Morgan said…” but before he could say anything further.  “Whoa Morgan said? No, I don’t care what’s bothering Morgan. What’s bothering you?” Spencer starts chewing on his bottom lip. Y/N reaches to grab a hold of Spencer’s hand rubbing her thumb across the top of his hand. “Is it the whole telling the team thing? We can tell them, it’s okay.” Not really thinking about what she had done before doing it, they hear a wolf whistle from across the room. Morgan and Prentiss looking over at them stifling laughs. With a deep sigh, “Well I guess there was no use in trying to hide anything working in close proximity with profilers.” She says. “Sorry, if I hadn’t freaked out they wouldn’t know.” “It’s fine they would have found out anyway.” Sharing a look between them Spencer pulls Y/N’s hand up to his lips placing a gentle kiss to the back of it. “I don’t have to tell you how many germs are on the back of people's hands.” She says with a smirk. “No but for you I will risk it.” Garcia had just come out of her lair to hear the commotion and seeing what had just happened she ran over to Y/N screaming happily grabbing her out of Spencer’s grip to pull her into a tight hug and dragging her back towards her office. “Okay you have to tell me everything.”Garcia says. Y/N looks back to Spencer with a pleading look for help while Morgan and Prentiss are no longer able to hold back cackling loudly. 

A few hours later paperwork was done and finally having convinced Garcia that there was nothing more to tell they were ready to head home. During the drive Spencer holds Y/N’s hand as they make light conversation. “What do you think about me hanging at your place while we’re off? I still have some clean clothes in my go bag.” He asks. “What kind of girl do you take me for Dr. Reid?” She says jokingly. “No no that’s uh that’s not what I meant. It’s just I want to spend more time with you.” “So you’re coming home with me?” and Spencer just nods in return. When they arrive at Y/N’s apartment she opens the door and they walk in together. When he walks in he takes in his surroundings, her apartment is surprisingly more colorful than he expected. Her furniture is neutral warm greys and browns, but the patchwork pillows and throw blankets on her couches are a variety of colors . Her bookshelf is organized with books lined up starting at red and ending in violet. It reminded him of Garcia although more organized it made sense why the two are so close. He stands there awkwardly not really sure what to do. “So I’m going to go take a quick shower and you can shower after me if you like. Go ahead and make yourself at home.” She says before heading towards a door Spencer can only assume is her bedroom. Not really sure what he should be doing he sets his bags down and walks over to the bookshelf looking at the books she had. From the books he recognized that she has lots of classic literature, mystery novels, biographies, autobiographies, and what he assumes to be young adult and adult fantasy novels. What does catch his eye is her collection of Twilight novels, five books in total. He reaches for the one with just the twilight name and starts reading. He is half way through the book before he feels a tap on his shoulder. When he turns he sees Y/N hair still wet, smile as bright as always, she is wearing a tank top and pajama pants. “So you decided to give it a try.” “What?” Not realizing she is talking about the book. “Twilight you decided to read it.” He looks down at the book in hand. “I don’t understand why so many people like it. It’s ok I guess.” He says closing the book and placing it back on the shelf. “It’s an acquired taste I guess. Well showers available. I left a clean bath towel and washcloth on the counter for you. I’m going to go make something for us to eat.” Spencer nods before picking up his go bag heading towards her bedroom. He hesitates just looking into the room not walking in yet. When he finally walks in he feels out of place like he shouldn’t be here almost as if he is invading her privacy. Finally relenting he walks in deciding to just head into the bathroom and shower. When he gets out of the shower feeling refreshed the smell of something amazing draws Spencer to the kitchen. Walking into Kitchen he sees Y/N humming to herself as she tastes whatever food she is making. He walks about behind her placing a kiss on her cheek, causing her to flinch. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” “Don’t worry about it. It’s just a me thing “I’ll adjust” as Garcia says. So I decided to keep dinner simple so teriyaki stir fry and rice, are you okay with that?” “Sounds good.” They eat while making light conversation and end their night laying on opposite ends of the couch with their legs tangled together. 

[fuwafuwamedb]

A Personal Tea (Avenger Gil, Hakuno)

Tea is the drink of the eloquent, of the refined and the truly magnificent.

There was no time like tea time and tea time was frequently and persistently throughout the day. He loved the sight of the drink pouring forth from the cup, falling into the cup. She always filled his cup right up, holding the teapot close.

She would come in quietly, adorned in a light robe and jewelry dripping from her ears and neck. She would turn those golden brown eyes his way, letting that deep brown hair gleam in the low lights of the room.

The box was pulled from the high shelf, letting her robes lift up against her backend. That rounded rear end would meet his gaze and he would sit still, closing his eyes for what was to come.

The sounds of water being poured forth from the springs in the other room into her teapot came next. She would set the pot over the fire and let it come to a boil within the clay pot.

All the time that the water took to boil, the woman’s skin would take on a thin sheen of sweat. She would sit on the other side of the fire, letting the flames lick at the view of her that he had. Those beautiful robes, so terribly plain upon her body, would falter. They had come undone from her belt and now, with her resting with her shoulders down, the fabric was slipping to her arms.

He could see the swell of her breasts for several moments before the steam blocked his view. He could see her weathering those reddening lips of hers, preparing them for what was to come.

She moved carefully, using her robes to pull the pot down.

While he had filled his mind with thoughts of her body, she had filled her mind with the task at hand. She had poured herbs into the teapot she had on the floor. Two teacups waited nearby. A little tin of herbs lay open, soon with their scent immersing the room as she poured the clay teapot’s steaming water into the decorated teapot before her.

There was a slight pink showing upon her chest. Her breasts were beginning to greet him, letting him know that something other than his tea was almost ready.

Patience though.

He would show patience for her.

His tea maker was setting the clay pot aside, carrying the decorated teapot around the fire with the two teacups.

Her lips pressed to his cheek.

That handiwork of hers was set before her, left for a moment longer to steep.

Sweet woman, but she busied herself once more as their tea was finishing up. Her hands brushed across his chest. She stood upon her knees and beheld him with more than he did with her. He drank his fill with his eyes, taking in her every curve. She drank him in with her hands. She desired touch.

Robes were loosened, his chest hair was tangled around her fingers a bit. Those hooded eyes the color of golden tea leaves were looking up at him. She pressed to him and he felt her robes surrender to the weight of her desire for him.

“Forgive me,” she murmured.

“Leave them,” Gilgamesh replied, voice engulfed in the feelings of the moment. His hands stroked to the plump chest that threw her body into disproportion. He let a hand slip behind her back after a moment, coaxing her in.

“I shouldn’t,” Hakuno breathed.

“Must I wait longer for you to steep in the meaning behind my actions?” he inquired of her. “I fear that you may be nothing but bitter if I hesitate.”

His hand on her chest was circling around those rosy nipples, bringing a flush to those cheeks. She was leaning into his hand, but not out of a need to leave. He could see the love pouring forth into her eyes, the need to be in his arms influencing the cool waters of her personality.

“You’re not allowed to let me lose you,” he purred to her.

“You won’t.”

“I need you at my side.”

“I’m right here,” she promised, reaching up and wrapping those arms around his shoulders more. He had the belt undone. He had her exposed to him, the firelight behind her bringing a halo silhouette around her.

He lowered her back, letting her face lay near the warmth of the fire.

Which would be hotter, the warmth of his mouth or the heat of the fire? He made a path slowly down that waist, dragging his tongue along those thighs to make her tremble.

“Gilgamesh…”

“I have waited for my tea to steep all this time. I think I have found the best blend for me.”

Her eyes were going to the teacups, but he was beyond the mere pleasure of an herbal drink. His lips closed in around her center, tasting the wetness that lay between those lovely legs. He could taste the flavor of her, the taste of her unerring admiration for him.

His tongue delved into the depths of those waters, lapping at where it had originated from.

“O-our tea…” she tried to tell him.

He liked his tea that he had before him.

It had been formed from the body of a woman that looked at him like he was the very embodiment of life. It had been created with nothing else than the sound of his voice and the feel of his body around her. It proved to him, more than any words could express, what she felt for him.

Her back arched, her hands delving into his hair.

“I-I can’t,” she cried.

He let his tongue leave her, trailing it up her stomach to her chest. He tempered the flames of desire, coaxing the fear of being burned by the depths of her love from her mind. He eased her into the pleasure that she felt in his embrace.

She needed a bit more of him. She needed more of his body to reach that peak essence of affection for him.

The robes around his body were pulled away. He let her jewelry fall to the floor, jingling away and rolling off to corners of the room as he threw her bangles aside.

“Gilgamesh,” the woman dared to try again.

His body lined up with hers. He could feel her warmth waiting for him. He could feel the way her hips moved forward.

As he found her lips, his body slipped a bit closer.

“Take me,” she demanded to him, a darkness swallowing up those eyes as she looked up at him. Desire had settled into that calm demeanor, love had taken over the indifference in her being. No longer was her soul a plain cup, it was now a steaming chalice of admiration for him. Her body, her mind, her very soul breathed his name. It poured forth when he tilted her to him.

Over and over again.

“Gilgamesh,” she’d gush in that breathless voice of hers.

The heat of her desire sent her nails down her back. She branded him with the flames of her need, pushing herself onto him until he was buried deep within her.

“Gilgamesh,” she called to him again.

She had been engulfed in it all, set out into a sea of endless waters steeped to perfection in adoring him, worshipping him.

There was nothing and no one that she needed more in that moment than him.

All the world could cease its movements and he would be the only thing she wanted to see in this world. His side was her throne. His body was her safety, the porcelain protection from letting her love and kindness not spill forth and be wiped away by the evil of the world.

He rocked against her, letting his body set the motion for their sultry waltz on the floor.

In return, Hakuno let him have the grace of her lips. She let him enjoy the pleasures of the scent of roses and spice upon her skin. The dear goddess of a mage allowed him to dine upon the sweet taste of her sweat and what came into fruition between her legs.

She cried out to the room, letting loose the overflow of emotion that wracked through her spirit.

And what was a man to do in return other than to bury himself deep within the depths of her, releasing himself to the tides of her devotion?

The floor was a sea of endless space. The world beyond this room, with its array of warriors and human beings, meant little.

In this space, in this time, he could forget about the deep drive to seek after those who would ruin his world. He could forget for a moment how many people out there needed to be impaled upon his blades.

Those hands were reaching forth, wrapping around his waist.

Those lips, so bruised and reddened to the color of the rose petals in his tea, were moving. She whispered words that made his heart find its peace. She opened for him a world of ease, a life filled with everlasting pleasure.

She tangled her legs with his, dipping her finger softly into the teapot nearby and giving the gentlest of smiles.

“My king,” she murmured to him, allowing him to brush a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Let me help you enjoy your tea.”

His lips tasted hers again, eyes closing as he tangled his tongue with hers.

The cup was poured while he wasn’t looking. The matching teacup to that teapot nearby was pressed lightly to his lower lip. He drank the lukewarm waters, his eyes remaining upon the one who made his body burn like fire.

The tea, as usual, tasted of sheer perfection.

He would go back to his cup before this once the cup was drained.

Hakuno deserved her own cup of tea in return for her giving him herself for his tea time. She deserved no less.

“…The man has an obsession with tea,” Archer grumbled.

Caster Gilgamesh drifted his eyes over the last few lines of Avenger’s writing, glancing to where the man lay on the couch, resting with Hakuno at his side.

The boy at his side was not as unaffected as Archer seemed to be. Prototype trembled, his eyes drifting back to the first tablet that lay on the table. Penned in an almost too pristine Cuneiform, Avenger had gone into great detail about…

His knees gave out, sending Proto tumbling back into Archer’s arms as the boy collapsed.

“This boy is an idiot,” Archer hissed. “Help me set him in a closet and throw those tablets into the gates!”

A soft moan drew the two of them into looking towards the couch. Hakuno’s eyes were slowly opening, glancing their way.

“Gil… Can you get me a cup of tea?”

Archer’s face turned a deep red. Caster could feel himself cough a bit, finding the room to be gaining a bit of heat.

Water was more than enough for her.

[thorsstorms]

Abroad part 10

(Chris Hemsworth x Reader)

Summary: Being the Hemsworth Kids’ Nanny, you were vowed to keep it strictly professional for their sake, but do the stolen glances go unnoticed between you both?

Word count: 6k ish idk 

Warnings: The lot y'all. Fingering, unprotected sex (y'all wrap that shit) 18+! VEGAS BABY.

A/N: if you want to be tagged, PLEASE SEND AS AN ASK. 

Masterlist

“India, I don’t want to say it again.” Her wet swimsuit was still on the floor in the upstairs bathroom, just as it was thirty minutes ago.

“Put the tablet down and do what she says or I swear you will not see that thing for a week.” Chris rounded the kitchen corner to eye her, watch her huff and throw it down on the couch and slowly walk for the stairs.

Today was not her day. She had been defiant since the moment she woke up, crying because she didn’t want to eat breakfast, sad that she doesn’t have the sandals that she likes in California, heart broken that the shirt she wanted was in the washer. It was enough to drive you crazy for the day.

You threw the blanket you were folding on to the back of the couch and sat down next to one of the boys who was making seemingly a million little paper airplanes. His fine motor skills weren’t very sharp, so the edges were very crooked and not creased, but he didnt care. His little fingers did what they could to keep him entertained.

Sasha was your saving grace compared to the other two. He was easy to please, and compliant, the easygoing child, much like you were.

Chris had been seated at the kitchen table for the past hour on his laptop trying to memorize maps and try to plan out what we were going to be doing. He had been watching travel sites for information, trying to track how long the drives were from each stop. It sounded like too much work honestly, you were a road trip veteran. You learned to go with the flow, it is hard to follow a timeline, but you left him to it. He had ever done this across the states, you had.

By some grace of god, Elsa was going to be flying into LA and was going to stay with the kids. Back months ago, you both had this time planned for Paris, the kids were going to fly out of Paris with their mother to Spain and spend two weeks with them while we were all in Europe.

This ment begging Chris for an extra night in Vegas. Originally only staying one night at the Mirage because it seemed the most kid friendly to you. You on the spot asked him to cancel those reservations and book two nights at Paris instead. It was your absolute favorite hotel of them all, and was home to your favorite restaurant that looked over the Bellagio fountains. He had never been, so either way he didn’t care but you were determined to show him the best time possible.

Plus you had a surprise in mind, located in Treasure Island, and maybe another in the Venetian. You were going to have to be sneaky about it, deciding to call Gen later in secret and make sure it would be okay, she would get it setup for sure.

“Go fly one of these at Papa, tell him to get off the computer and come play with you,” you whispered quietly in Sasha’s ear. He turned to you with a mischievous smile, starting to giggle and cover his mouth to stay quiet. He picked a few up off the floor and one from the coffee table and started to tiptoe across the room, moving slowly like he was a spy. Your gaze shifted between Chris and the creeping ninja on his way to attack.

He was sat hunched over the computer with his hand covering his chin, eyes scanning the screen.

“Papa!” Sasha’s high pitched voice broke the silence, pelting all four airplanes like they were baseballs at his head. “Come play with me!” He jumped suddenly at the sound of his voice, watching the paper fall on to the keys.

“Play with you? You want me to come play with you?” He rose from his seat as the boy slowly nodded his head, ready to dart in the opposite direction to get chased. You watched Sasha dart around the room, Chris on his tail, Tristan running to you to take cover.

Later that night he was stuck back at the laptop after the kids were in bed. Sat against the headboard looking for hotels around your hometown regardless of the fact that you had told him there was no way your mother was going to allow that. He was afraid of intruding on her since you insisted it be a surprise. A compromise was reached when you agreed to call her in the morning and tell her that you were coming again, but only her.

Trying to pack the last of the clothing proved to be a bigger job than you had anticipated. Everything was washed and the kids were finished, but you swore he had brought his entire closet with him.

“How the heavens did you fit all of this in here in the first place!?” Trying to opt for a new way to arrange the luggage.

“I told you I would do it, just leave it be!” He pulled his eyes away from the screen, watching you surrounded by clothing on the floor.

“Really? If you packed this, nothing would be folded and there would be no order to anything. Then I would lose sleep over it.” It ended up working by putting all the shoes in a duffle bag, yours included, then putting some of his things in your two bags. Remaining in control of all the little things was what kept you sane. You ignored his continued obsession over the computer screen and resorted to pulling through drawers to make sure everything was out and your weren't leaving anything behind when you both left in the morning.

Inside a drawer of the dresser was two scripts that had been sent to him, some other paperwork, and a manila folder. You grabbed them all out, knowing they would be forgotten if you didn’t, and tossed them all on the top of the closed suitcases, not knowing where to put them at the moment. You watched as the papers slid off the top of the suitcase to a sloppy pile on the ground. You had always had an amazing aim.

The papers were gathered in a pile and you sat down to try and straighten them out and shove them all in the folder when a certain few words caught your eye.

“MARVEL TWO FILM CONTRACT”

The stapled papers got singled out on the carpet in front of you, flipping over the next 10 pages, seeing zero signatures. The contemplation zoomed through your brain, whether you should even be snooping or not. You continued anyway, hyper focused on the documents in hand.

Not a single pen mark was on any of the papers besides the last, signed fresh by Kevin Fiege in black ink, dated almost four weeks ago. You tried to conceal the confusion, silently covering your mouth and glancing back up to him, who was not paying a lick of attention to you.

Why had he not signed it yet? Did he not want to finish this? Its only two films, much smaller than the last.

“Chris,” your voice was quiet and trying to gain the courage to ask, but heard easily over the sound of the fan in the room. You were met with a hum, not looking your way yet. “Are you- do you not want to do this?”

As if he suddenly knew exactly what you were talking about, he shut the computer and sat up, staring at you on the floor with the other papers in a pile. The sudden urge to defend your curiosity took over.

“I-I wasn’t snooping, I promise. I was just, you were going to forget this stuff and, I pulled it out. It-They fell.” Your words were having trouble making it out to make sense, though he didn’t move from his spot to grab anything from you.

He took a deep breath, running a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes. He motioned for you to join him on the bed and you followed quickly, bringing the papers with you.

“I didn’t sign them yet.” He said, pulling the paper from your grasp flipping back a few pages. “The filming period is 18 months- maybe longer, due to start in November.” He pointed out a section on the fourth page, stating the filming period and locations. You still didn’t understand. So what? You knew he had done more rigorous work in the past, what was two more movies, and then being done with it?

“Do you not want to do this?” You asked again. Your question remained the same.

“(Y/N) it’s not that I wouldn’t want to do the movies, of course I would want to do them. But it’s a very long filming period. Two big movies back to back again. I filmed Ragnarok, then Infinity war, and Endgame all back to back and was pretty much gone for a straight year and a half. Almost two.” The longing feeling that would take place inside yourself during that period was treading up lightly. He hadn’t been legit filming the entire time you’ve been with them. He had just finished. But it was his job, and he built this character into something far deeper than expected. The obligation to finish the story was far greater than the obligation to be selfish and not do two last movies, at least that is what you were thinking.

“I don’t understand.” The air was starting to hang heavy over your confusion.

“Doing something like that again, being contractually bound to it, it was hard on the kids. Me being away for long periods of time. It was hard on me. It was- It was hard on my marriage.” Finally understanding where this was going. You stayed silent, thinking about it. The timeline matches up, something you had never thought about before. You never pried him for answers, you figured he would tell you if it mattered. This was him telling you. Now, it matters to him. “It is not that I don’t want to do the movies. It’s just the rough draft of the schedule that- that stresses me, I guess.”

“You’re job is not easy.” He put the papers aside on the nightstand. “I can’t tell you what to do. But if I could, I think I would tell you to sign them.” He leaned back on the pillows while you put the laptop on your nightstand and adjusted the blankets. “I think that you can pull this off. It’s just two more years and you can take off as long as you’d like. You have worked like crazy these past couple years. Cranking movies out, one after another. You’ve made your mark Chris.”

You paused to let him speak. To tell you that you don’t know what you are talking about or that he just doesn’t want to do it at all. But he didn’t speak. He laid in contemplation, staring at the ceiling and listening to your words of encouragement.

“Don’t worry about the kids, don’t worry about me. You can be selfish about this, finish what you started.” He laid still in his quiet thought. It became clear to you that he had thought about this for a long time, even still didn’t feel like he knew the correct decision. He thought of you, what kind of future would take place if he signed and if he didn’t. He decided himself he wasn’t willing to put everything on the line with you, but that was where he wasn’t thinking clearly.

The silence swallowed up the room, suddenly making you understand why he was so hesitant.

“I’m not Elsa, Chris.” His eyes snapped quickly to you, daring you to continue. “I don’t-I don’t have a modeling career to run towards. I’m not… taking the backseat for you to do this. I like to think I’m sitting in the front seat, ready to grab the wheel for you.” Your silly analogy lightened his mood, but it was true. It was different.

“You think I should sign them.”

“Do the damn thing.” He still didn’t move. “I don’t want to pressure you or anything but-”

“You are not pressuring me, I’ll do it. You are right.” He stood up grabbing a pen from the bedside table. You started to panic, definitely feeling like you had just guilted him into it.

“Are you sure?” You watched him with bright eyes. He deserved to let himself do this. He would never forgive himself if he didnt.

You felt almost a sense of pride as you watched him sign the last page, ignoring your further questions, standing almost naked with only boxers on, almost 11PM.

“Don’t move! Freeze! I want to take a picture.” Of course he didn’t listen and stood up straight. “Say cheese!” He smiled silly and held up the paper showing his signature.

~

“Woah.” We were coming up on the strip and could see it from the highway. “Which one is Paris?”

“I’m gonna take a guess and say the one with an Eiffel Tower attached to it,” you said, looking at him like he shouldn’t be driving if he couldn’t see it from here. The drive had just reached over four hours. Four hours of you talking about Vegas and stories from the last two times you had come, trying your hardest to leave out the surprise. He’d see it for sure when you got there.

His restlessness was rubbing off on you. Turning onto the south side of the strip, you watched as he admired Luxor and your other favorite, New York New York, through the windshield. Arriving farther down the strip, you eyed the big sign attached to Treasure Island. Granted, it was still another two blocks down the strip but honestly. He seemed oblivious to it, eyes attached to the Bellagio fountains and trying to pull into the valet at Paris.

How the fuck did he not just see that? Surely he knows about it. You decided to not say anything just yet, proceeding to follow directions that Gen had given you both. The luxury of not having to lug your own bags around the hotel entrance and through the casino to find your room had never been presented to you before. Questioning him as he left the keys with Valet without grabbing the bags, waiting for security before going inside. Oh, right.

You walked with two security guys that worked for the hotel, weaving through the hotel to the check-in desks, greeted by a manager. He was promptly handed two room cards, and a hotel brochure.

As soon as you entered the room you went straight for the window to see the view. He gave his thanks to security and shut the door behind him, following you to the window. The giddy smile across your face couldn’t help but spread to his. His arms wrapped around you, resting his head on top of yours. You leaned back against him, relaxing into the enveloping warmth of his embrace.

“Thank you,” you looked out at the view from the room, feeling excited to get out there.

“For what?”

“Just being you, I guess.” You leaned over in his arms and he met you for a kiss. He was gentle and unrushed. You had hoped he would mellow out once you got on the road.

You turned in his arms pushing him across the room till he hit the bed and sat down.

“Just being me, huh?”

“Oh shut it,” wishing he would wipe the smirk off his face. You straddled his lap, throwing your arms around his shoulders, his coming to your hips. He welcomed your kiss, wrapping yourself around him. His smirked disappeared as you both deepened the kiss, his tongue poking around yours. He left gentle kisses across your jaw, pressing hard against your pulse point sending a shiver down your skin.

A knock at the door interrupted your trance, Chris pulling a way and placing a small quick kiss at your lips.

“I love you,” he said quickly going to stand up to open the door. You locked your limbs around him, locking your ankles behind his back while he stood up.

“Oh c’mon, really?” You pouted, clinging to him. He chuckled and unwrapped your feet setting you on the edge of the bed, reluctantly letting go.

You quickly fingered through your hair to make it look somewhat presentable as your bags were piled in the room off a trolly. You immediately went for clothes and a makeup bag. There are so many bags, surely you do not need all of these for two days here.

“Hey woah, don’t we get to finish what we started?” He walked up to you taking the makeup bag out of your hands and setting it on the desk. Before you could answer he had grabbed the bag of your thighs, hoisted to his waist, walking back to the bed, your arms reflexively going around his shoulders. He started to nip at your neck, sitting back down and rigorously trying to go back to what you had started.

“Wait,” you choked out, trying to remember what you were going to say. “I- I made us dinner plans.”

“You did?” he spoke softly, lightening up on his assault.

“Mhmm,” his hands left your hips, pulling under your shirt and running up your exposed skin. His lips found yours for just a moment before you pulled off of him. A groan erupted from his throat as you slipped from his grasp.

“Princess,” His voice carried a coarse, impure ring to it.

“Just have some patience,” your voice was definitely lacking the conviction it needed. The thought of making him wait was almost detrimental to your will, always ready to give in. With only two nights to show him Vegas, you wanted to do something before dinner as well.

You went back for the makeup bag and a black and floral jumpsuit, after all, you can’t wear a dress on a gondola! You hadn’t gotten to do them yet but you were determined to this time around. Through The Venetian they had a gondola river flowing in and out of the casino and hotel, surrounded in an Italian setting and a guide, it looked amazing and romantic and you couldn’t wait to show him.

“Can you wear your blue button down? It shows off your ocean eyes, I like it,” you disappear into the bathroom, whisking away the blush of your confession. Too forward of a request? Hopefully not. The mirror in the bathroom was something to be admired, excited to do your makeup. Getting dolled up sounds so amazing, it was a rare occurrence these days.

“Okay so, we are gonna go to the Venetian. It is down just two blocks. I’m just, so excited!” He eyed up and down the street, admiring the detailed tall buildings, the dancing fountain across the street. So much for the blue shirt he looked so handsome in, you knew he was going to have those obnoxious sunglasses covering his eyes till the sun went down.

“But what are we doing? Just walking?” He fell into step next to you, clasping your hand to keep close through the crowded sidewalks.

“We are going to go on a gondola ride and pretend we are in Italy!” You couldn’t wipe the smile of your face.

“Holy shit,” he said quickly, halting his footsteps in place, almost tugging you backwards. Both of you getting dirty remarks from those behind you. Your heart felt a quick jolt at the thought of people recognizing him and ruining your evening, maybe even the days here. You quickly tugged him forward telling him to keep walking before he draws attention to himself, not bothering to mask the urgency in your tone. You looked up ahead knowing he finally saw it.

“Is that-no way! That’s me!” You shook your head, lugging him along behind you trying to keep up with the pace of everyone else. He kept talking to himself, saying how in the world he didn’t know about it, trying to ask you questions about it. You skipped the part about telling him you had gone a few years ago, though surely it would come up tomorrow.

You answered all he needed to know while you both were in your own little world, floating through the hotel. The detail and styles of the build captured his eyes. The body language he showed was taken back at the extravagance of the hotels, each having a strong thematic presence.

He admired the posters at the entrance of the wax museum, walking to the counter for tickets, thanking heavens there was no line or crowds. He made fun, taking selfies with almost everyone of them. Kissing Dwayne Johnson, laying with Hugh Hefner, standing even taller on his tippy toes with an annoyed look next to Captain America. You indulged yourself, posing with Khloe Kardashian who almost towered over you as Chris did. You got close with Channing Tatum and Bradley Cooper, making him take your photos. Needless to say, you both probably had way to much fun, spending way too much time in each themed room.

An amazing idea popped in your head as you entered the main gala, telling him you were going to play a game of freeze. You positioned him down the couch from Will Smith, on hand on his knee.

“Don’t move!! When the next guests walk through I’m gonna act like I’m taking a picture with you. You can not move! Or it won’t work!” He was on board almost immediately, ready to scare the whoever dared to get close. You moved away from him to check it out, starting to hear chatter coming up the escalator from the outside.

“Oh my goodness don’t move! I’m gonna video!” You whispered to him, running the Brad Pitt, pretending to be interested with him.

You watched from the side, trying your hardest not to reveal him from laughing. If you started laughing, he would to.

The onlookers drifted from each wax figure at the entrance, spotting a perfect seat between Will and Chris.

“Ooo! Take one of me here too!” The woman handed her company an Iphone, skipping to the couch. You watched with wide eyes as he looked like he was about to burst an eyeball from not blinking or breathing. He snuck a small, quick blink, making it difficult not to pee yourself from holding in the laughter. The man slowly lowered the camera, tossing her name into the air to get her attention. He ignored her questioning reply and walked a bit closer, eyeing him.

“What?” She asked him again, ready to pose for the picture, both her arms around their shoulders. As soon as her arm landed she jumped away, Chris screamed at her to scare her and she screamed back profanities, clutching her chest.

The eruption of laughter continued, yours probably obnoxiously ruining the video you were trying to hold steady.

You kept it going as he greeted them both, being the best he could be before you ended it. You approached the couple as they all calmed down, automatically being put in charge of taking photos for them.

You listened as Chris asked them nicely if they could hold off on posting anything for a day or two, asking to enjoy his time here with you, drifting his arm around your back. You blushed from his stare as they nodded in agreement of his explanation.

The four of you ended up snaking through the themed rooms together. You left your separate ways after you airdropped the video to her, reviewing it all together again to catch his blinking.

On the way back towards Paris, you passed through the mall to hit a couple stores, buying too many brushes and a few Jeffree lippies at Morphe. You followed him into Swarovski, refusing to allow him to inform you of the prices of the wrist watches he was admiring.

Dinner was more than what you expected. Gen had come through with the the string pulling. The manager offered you both free wine tasting while you had a stunning table, privately seated along the balcony. The fountains to keep you both entertained for the time being.

“I am genuinely lost for words.” The dessert was sat down on the table, but his eyes were on you. The dark sky and lowlit balcony did the most to hide your rose blush, but you both knew it was there.

“Well I’m glad you like it,” the glass of Sangria seated on the table top had become increasingly attention-grabbing under his stare.

“Come here,” the legs of his chair scratched across the ground as he scooted back from the table. His hands secured around yours, bringing you to sit on his lap, stealing the glass from you and setting it on the table.

You observed his movements with curiosity until he met your lips for a thank you. His hands keeping you from sliding from his grasp. You leaned into his chest, grazing his neck with your fingertips to savour his slow moving taste on your lips. The certain kiss that no words are needed, or exchanged. Striving to accept his appreciation, overjoyed with the romantic atmosphere that was created for the evening. He was quick to create a bliss in you that had you forgetting to breathe, forgetting to act appropriately in public, regardless of the needed privacy.  

“I love you,” his promise was whispered against your lips. The kind of moment where your thoughts flash through your mind erupted in your head. Regardless of any crush, or any love you had thought you felt before this moment, it was fake. It was swept away in the wind. Any charm that was presented to you in the past, it was weak. Any humor you found in someone else, it was paled in comparison to the joy he was always radiating on to you. Any soul crushing want, it was ignored and invisible until your eyes settled on him.

“And I love you.”

After a few minutes, you both decided it could be time to leave. Before you could exit the restaurant, you were met with the same hotel manager that gave you the room cards from earlier. She stood strict with two men from security with her. She spoke about offering security if you chose to remain in the casino for the evening.

You stayed stiff, almost behind him as you glance towards the entrance of the restaurant, where two more guards were trying to escort a few photographers out of the casino.

“We can keep professional photographers out, but guests with cameras are a different story.” She gazed between you both with sympathy. Before he could even turn to look at your reaction, you informed her that you would stay for the rest of the evening. It was only almost 10PM.

He didn’t know, but Gen was smart enough to assign you with security for all day tomorrow. Going to S.T.A.T.I.O.N. was the given reason, but also so you could explore further. You obviously didn’t expect to be walking the streets all day long, so nothing of it was much of a surprise to you, just an inconvenience.

Between walking to the room, you admired him as he stopped and took a few photos with people. They were all polite, waiting patiently as he made his way around the group of about 10. There were not many instincts to go in the opposite direction like the first time you ran into this problem with him. Granted it was still kind of weird, but more admirable.

As soon as you got into the room and started to pull off jewelry, you heard him shutting the door behind you, “So, do we get to finish what we started yet?”

You couldn’t hide the laugh that started, “Hmmm… Shower first?”

He groaned, saying he agrees only if he can shower with you. You were not one to say no, after all. He walked straight in there, stripping clothes as he walked across the room. You of course had to grab all the essentials into a bag first to carry in there. There was no way you were going to use that shampoo, soap, and face wash they provide. Before walking into the already steamy room, you gathered his scattered clothing and threw it in the corner on top of his bag. Messy clothing happened to be one of his downfalls.

You placed all your clothing on the counter top before opening the shower door, greeted with a stupid youthful grin, happy he got his way.

“You really are just a big child, you know that?” You switched him spots so the water trickled over you, wetting your hair and warming your skin. You reached for the face wash first, turning away from him when you washed it away and caught him fixated on you.

His fingers working diligently through your hair with shampoo. You didn’t even have to ask. The friction against your scalp was worthy of a licensed masseuse. You held back a groan when he lifted his touch, turning you with your eyes closed so the water could flush the product away. The silent minutes turned softly intimate as he brushed the warm rain back from your face, reaching for the other bottle.

You felt his lips press firmly against your forehead, a gesture that warmed you apart from the water. You leaned forward into his abdomen so the fall of the water hit lower on your back while he ran conditioned fingers through your hair.

The raw intimacy that encompassed him was overbearing. It was almost as if he could feel his heart swell while you display yourself for him to care for. It wasn’t just a wash in the shower. It was the unspoken, ‘I trust you,’ that captured his attention. He remembered the days that you would shyly bare yourself to him and not accept his need to be near you and touching you.

Your tapping fingertips against his back broke him from his thoughts, silently instructing him to continue playing with your hair.

“Okay lean back,” his soft voice broke the silence. You held onto his arms as his hands worked against the waterfall to drain the conditioner from your hair, eventually letting go to wipe your eyes when he slowed to a stop.

You reached for your own body wash, spreading it across his chest and up to his shoulders. “My turn,” you told him.

He waited patiently, zoned in on your expression and touch while you ran your soapy digits across his skin. The pure contentment and innocence of it was driving him almost wild, running down his sides, down his arms, your fingers dancing slowly across his neck.

He quickly returned the favor, the length of his hands covering your back quickly, drawing down your backside and thighs, causing bumps across the surface of your skin to rise. You leaned into him again as he planted soft kisses across the back of your neck while his hands reached the insides of your thighs, squeezing gently causing you to almost lose your footing.

“Your skin is so soft Princess,” his whispers sent shivers down your spine and straight to your core. One hand left the party and traced up to your chest before wrapping around you there and the other finally ghosting over your clit. You jumped slightly in his hold, gasping at the contact.

His fingers slowly circled the nub, painfully, agonizingly slow while he listened to your labored breathing, a soft whine escaping you. Your brain starting to short circuit while you tried to hold on to every ounce of pleasure he would give you. You kept a steadfast grip on his forearms, trying to grind into his touch, a motion to beg for more that ended up driving against his hardening cock behind you.

You stilled hearing his voice in your ear. Two fingers teased your entrance, circling it and dipping his fingertips in to dance around lightly. The slow torture was enough for you to be letting out a quiet plea for more.

They shoved in, stretching you out on his fingers. Your balance almost gone if it weren’t for his arms holding you up. He quickly started to pulse around, tracing inside your slick heat untill the moans withered out to silent pants and your hands gripped his arms almost to tight.

Your eyes clamped shut as a wash of pleasure rolled through you, your walls squeezing around the intrusion while it dragged on till he slowed.

Hot kisses were placed over your neck and shoulder while your breathing was slowing, trying to gasp through the humid air. He was speaking praises in your ear, how good you were cumming around his fingers, letting him bring you there.

His hold released from you, quickly turning off the tap and grabbing for the white fluffy towel to dry you off and haul you out of the shower.

Before you could get a word out he was pushing you backwards out of the bathroom, straight back into the bed. No words needed to be spoken anyway. It was at the point where he just wanted you to feel what he could give you. Feel his love for you, outside of spoken words but through his actions and intentions.

His love ment pushing you to bliss 3 more times with a slow and deep rhythm that had you clawing from the sheets, pillows, to him arms in attempt to ground you from his onslaught. With tears peddling against your will when he thrust into you so deep and hard when you hit your last high, eyes almost blacking out for your overexertion and voice straining from an uncontrolled vocal response. The light headed dizzy feeling you get when he finally blows a load deep inside you after rutting against you for his high when he knew you could take no more. Proclaiming his promises against your neck while burying himself in you, that you knew deep down were not just from a sex high.

His fatigue ridden body laid tilting across you, trying not to crush but muscles shaking in place, refusing to cooperate enough to move farther away.

When you finally came to, almost clear headed enough to fully form a sentence, meaning your muscles lost the strained twitch and your eyes could open enough to focus on surroundings, you found him with a slower breathing pattern than your own, admiring you as if he hadn’t just done so for the past hour.

He brushed away tear marks and messy hair from your skin while you sported red swollen lips, blown out eyes, and deep red marks across your breasts to compliment your skin, courtesy of his attempt at showing affection and appreciation. The sight was a treat for his own to view, but was nothing compared the to the fucked out leaking mess he left you with on your bottom half.

You watched with lost eyes, not enough energy to stop him as his fingers gently ran up your mess, cleaning, gently pressing his seed filled fingers in. Your pelvis shook at the intrusion even though you were almost numb to his touch. The thought of his actions was enough to kick start your belonging underneath his bearing weight.

He pulled away, sensing your wariness, to treat your new marks across your chest to a soothing aftermath. Your arms gaining strength to redirect his lips again, timidly to your own. A soft press of his kiss was meticulous to avoid any more torments of your skin.

“All mine Princess.” A careful watched teetered over your expression, touch ghosting over your jaw as you nodded and rasped an ‘I love you,’ that was returned before you could even finish speaking the familiar the words.  

“Don’t move baby, I’ll be right back.” He pulled from your weak hold and came back a minute later with boxers, he put use to a washcloth, and gifted you a clean t-shirt of his that you gladly slipped over your shoulders. You immediately nested through the blankets curling into his arm as a pillow.

“Aren’t you gonna play with my hair?” You asked, closing your eyes.

“Whatever you want.”

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[loreweaver-universe]

All right, all right, people are started to get annoyed rather than laughing, so let’s cut this short.  Here’s the story of how my mom accidentally poisoned me!

So I have asthma.  This went undiagnosed until I enlisted in the Air Force in 2007 and subsequently passed out in formation less than a week in.  (It went undiagnosed, interestingly, because in the words of the Air Force medic who tested me, I have the lung capacity of a lifelong wind instrument player or long-distance runner--so it all muddled out to slightly worse than average, and we thought I just got winded easily.  Nope!  I’m a weird mutant whose weird mutation just doesn’t work.  Go figure.)  People with asthma, it turns out, are quite often allergic to aspirin--something I didn’t take once in my entire runup to my twenties.

The first time I took an aspirin, because I’d run out of ibuprofen (the stuff in Advil) and decided to try something else, I just kinda wheezed a little and didn’t think much of it.

The second time I took aspirin, it was worse, and I realized I was having some kind of weird reaction, so I stopped taking it.  Then I found out I was allergic because asthma, went to the store, bought a five hundred pill candybottle of ibuprofen, put it on my shelf, and didn’t have another headache for four months.

The next time I had a headache, the ibuprofen gave me a pretty rough asthma attack.  Because!  Guess what!  There’s a whole class of what’s called Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs, or NSAIDs, that are perfectly fine for asthmatic people to take...until they trigger their aspirin allergy.

After that, they’re poison.

At this point, I do a bunch of research and discover that nearly every over-the-counter painkiller available to me is ibuprofen-based.  The stuff that I’m told is safe for me to take is acetaminophen, the stuff in Tylenol.  Half the acetaminophen-based painkillers out there have ibuprofen in them, too.  It’s a nightmare finding stuff safe for me to take, and around this time my sinus polyps are really getting going and I’m suffering daily pressure headaches which is a whole other ball of fun let me tell you.  So I get in the habit of buying 500-pill candybottles of generic 500mg Tylenol tablets, keep a general eye out for safety’s sake, and otherwise largely leave the whole thing on the shelf.

I make it to my second year of college without another incident.

Spring of 2014, my mother’s in Bangor, picking me up so we can have dinner out, and I complain about headaches when I get in the car.  (I had surgery to remove the sinus polyps!  They’re growing back by this point.)  She hems and haws, because she has a couple Aleve in a plastic baggie that she keeps around for her personal painkilling needs, and she can’t remember whether they’re ibuprofen or not.  We look it up--there’s no ibuprofen or aspirin in it, hooray!  It’s got something called naproxen sodium instead.

At this point, we aren’t aware that acetaminophen isn’t just safe for me to take, it’s the only safe painkiller for me to take.  Naproxen sodium is another NSAID, and I’m in for a rough night, because I pop that sucker in my mouth like it’s the cure for nose cancer and we head off to Chili’s to try them out for dinner.

I’m pretty much okay when we walk in the door.  We order appetizers--I get a little dish with soft pretzel sticks in it--and we get to chatting about life.  As the conversation goes on, I get a little coughy, and a little snotty, and then I have to excuse myself to the bathroom a few times to blow my nose, because at this point my respiratory system is trying to strangle itself.  The pretzel sticks come and I’m starting to wheeze, but I barely care because I tried one of those bastards and they were goddamn incredible.  My mother starts to get scared, despite my insistence that this has happened before, and she and I eventually get up to leave because she wants to drive me to the emergency room.  While she’s apologizing to the restaurant manager (who insists on turning down her offer to pay for the food we ordered), I dash back to the table and grab the five remaining pretzel sticks, because screw leaving those behind.

So begins the most memorable car ride of my entire life.

Mom’s driving through downtown Bangor, starting to panic, because at this point I am audibly choking on my own throat, but I’m on cloud nine because these god damn pretzel sticks, man, holy shit.  I’m snarfing them down, and babbling about how good they are--and anyone who’s spent any amount of time around my mother and I at the same time knows my absolute favorite game is making her laugh--and generally doing my best (somewhat on purpose, even) to distract her from the fact that her son is suffocating in the passenger’s seat.  She, meanwhile, is doing her damnedest not to swerve off the road, because she’s alternating between hysterical tears of terror and hysterical tears of laughter.  She rolls down the window so I can get some fresh air, and I alternate between gulping down oxygen and suffocating myself with pretzel sticks because why are these so goddamn good.

Mom’s losing her shit laughing when we pull up to the hospital, and I’m red-faced, pretzel-less, and starting to slow down, so she pulls up to the ambulance door and runs inside.  After being directed by a very annoyed desk clerk to pull around the side, we go inside, and while I make a few more half-hearted efforts to tell jokes, I spend most of the rest of my wait red-faced and desperately dragging breaths through my closing windpipe.  I’m in a bad way, guys.  Mom finally gets them to bring me in ahead of some people who aren’t suffocating to death, and they pump me full of some kind of Benadryl cocktail, which makes me loopy and high and sleepy.  I spend a few hours drifting in and out of consciousness, high off my ass (and boy howdy do I hate being high) and at one point, because I’m in no state of mind to do social math, I tease Mom about getting me that Dave Strider figurine I wanted.  Then i go back to sleep.

Eventually, I’m good to go.  I get sent off with some information about my condition, plus the knowledge that this particular allergic reaction gets worse every time it happens.  The next time it happens, I may die before I get to the hospital.  Mom takes me to a pharmacy, buys me a pair of epi-pens I never wind up needing because I get religious about being careful what I put in my mouth (I still have ‘em, because I’m not throwing away three h u n d r e d dollars of medicine, what the hell is wrong with you) and...well, honestly, the night past that point is a bit of a blur, because I’m loopy from the meds and just had a near-death experience.

A couple weeks later, though, I got a surprise in the mail!

This is Dave Strider!  I almost died to get him.  Literally!

To this day, Mom and I tease each other about how she spent my entire childhood not murdering my insufferable mug, only to almost kill me by accident once I was out of her hair.  I’ve been sending her screenshots of your reblogs and tags and discord messages and she has been laughing her ass off.

So, I’m sorry I strung you all along for that long, but I did say my favorite game was making my mother laugh.

[obsidiancorner]

I have a question!!! How long have you been drawing and how long have you been doing digital art? Was it difficult to start with? I'm looking at learning to draw, but I'm not sure if I want to start traditional or if I want to get a tablet. TELL ME!!!

Hey there! Sorry this took me a full day to get to. I wanted to make sure I had time to properly search/attach links and whatnot. Then I had to contend with bath and bedtime for Kiddo. I literally started this post at 7pm... It’s now almost 11. 

I have been drawing in traditional mediums since I was a LITTLE kid. Really little. Before I was in Kindergarten. I broke away from it after I graduated high school but came back to it after I moved to Florida. Chibi Cullen was my first digital piece, though. So... technically since October of 2017. I got my tablet at Christmas 2017 and that is when I REALLY got into it.  

To answer what you should learn on: That’s largely a personal decision and not one I can really help you with outside of giving you some info and some links to help get you started. 

Bare bones basic info:

Traditional is cheaper but you can play and learn without restraint on digital. It’s just that the tablet is going to be a MUCH bigger deposit. To get started in traditional art supplies, you can get away with approximately $20. A tablet is going to run you at least $50, likely more. 

Keep in mind: expensive equipment does not a better artist make. A graphics tablet will not make drawing easier. Sure it has tools to help, like line stabilizers and such... but only practice will truly make you better. 

I expand on this stuff below but first, my opinion. 

My humble opinion: 

If you want to just dabble and see how you get on: go traditional. 

If you absolutely positively KNOW art is a skill you WANT to pursue no matter the degree of difficulty it is for you, that’s when you can begin to entertain the idea of a getting a tablet, but make sure you weigh everything out. 

I don’t want to see anyone shell out that kind of money and have it be used once. I cannot stress enough to make sure you know your heart before sinking in on an expensive piece of equipment like a graphics tablet. 

The rest is under the cut because this is a long post and I don’t want people to hate me. 

Digital 

If money isn’t an issue and you have a decent computer, you can consider going digital. 

 FireAlpaca, Krita, and MediBang are all free to download digital painting software. I, personally, have FireAlpaca and I love it. But I have also been toying around with trying Krita out. However, all of these programs are good enough that I don’t think you’d miss not having PaintTool SAI or Photoshop. 

I will sing the praises of my Huion graphic tablet until my dying day because it will honestly probably last me that long if I don’t upgrade to a more advanced one sometime down the line. 

Seriously. The one I have right now has already been dropped (because I’m clumsy as fuck), thrown (courtesy of a melting down kiddo), peed on and subsequently washed and sanitized (courtesy of an asshole cat), and stepped on (because my guy tripped over the asshole cat and knocked a whole bunch of shit off my desk in the process). The thing still works. They ARE built to last.  

The version I have is the H610 Pro which costs about $80.00. There is some hand/eye coordination that needs to be learned because you will be drawing on the tablet but the image will be on your screen. That can take some time to get acclimated to. 

My H610 is not the cheapest tablet they offer... I know that much but I haven’t really done a deep dive into Huion’s selection. But there are other types of tablets as well. Wacom, Yiynova, Lenovo, Microsoft, Apple, and Samsung all have tablets for artists. 

If you want to talk tablets with monitors that allow you to see what you are drawing where you are actually drawing, you’re gonna be looking at throwing down a hefty chunk of cheddar (a couple hundred at least). For Huion products, that’s the Kamvas series of tablets. 

I have had my tablet for 14 months already and I use it All. The. Time. I tell you that to tell you this: I have not yet replaced the nib on my pen and don’t anticipate having to change the nib for another year at MINIMUM. The tablet comes with four backup nibs. So, at almost daily use, you can easily get a decade worth of art out of the set they give you out the gate.

Traditional

To just do some light sketch stuff while you are getting used to drawing, it’s cheapest to just get some cheap mechanical pencils or drawing pencils and some simple printer paper. If you want a sketchbook, go cheap. 

Once you get into your groove and want to start branching out, by all means, buy more expensive supplies if that suits your fancy. But to just get started on basics: Go. Cheap!!! There is no reason to spend more than $20 (and that’s being exceptionally liberal) at Walmart or the local dollar store.  

I cannot stress enough that to just start out you don’t need pro quality anything. Crayola or RoseArt is what every. single. artist. started on because most of us started in school and just kept going from there. Those companies are still around because they are the building blocks every artist started on (at least in the USA... I don’t know about foreign markets). Guaranteed. 

I still, to this day, use Crayola colored pencils. Two reasons: 1. I’m incredibly cheap and, most importantly, 2. they work just fine. 

Conclusion (at last, amiright?) and Affirmation

I know I sold my Huion tablet pretty hard in the digital section but that’s ONLY because there is more information needed to make an informed decision (like sturdiness, brands, etc.). There is a lot less to discuss for basic supplies to just get started.  

I will suggest traditional more often than I will suggest spending boatloads of cash for a beginner.

The choice between digital and traditional largely boils down to two things:

Cost

Drive / ambition / want / dedication

For the average person/household, cost effectiveness is critical in this economy. Even if you know in your heart of hearts digital art is a skill set you want to achieve, if you can’t afford a tablet, go traditional at first and gradually save up for a tablet. If you aren’t sure you will like drawing enough to sink in AT LEAST $50- and that is a fairly low-balled price tag- go traditional. 

I will only ever recommend a tablet as a starting point to those who know with 100% certainty that drawing/digital painting is a hobby/skill they WANT to pursue. 

I know I cannot tell people what to do because, ultimately, the choice is theirs. All I can offer is my opinion and some words of wisdom and caution. 

I will say this, though:

Art is a skill, just as much as writing, sewing, knitting, and so on. ANYONE can learn this skill. Some advance faster than others due to natural aptitude but anyone can do it. You just have to dedicate time and patience to learning it. 

Every artist started with stick figures. ;)

Remember that. 

Every single one of us started by drawing stick figures. 

That’s not to say that’s where you will begin, but an affirmation that literally EVERYONE, including commissioned artists, starts in the same place. Stick figures in crayon when we were kids. We all evolved from there.   

Do NOT under ANY circumstances beat yourself up if you set out to draw a cat and it looks like Ditto with whiskers. (It’s happened to me. Literally that exact scenario. It’s okay to laugh. I sure did.) This is a Ditto, in case Pokemon isn’t your thing:

Keep at it and you will improve. I promise. Regardless of which way you go. Keep. At. It. and you will improve.

Drawing/painting is a constant evolution, regardless of medium, be it digital or a traditional one. Once you get the basics down, you begin to develop your own style. And even your own style changes as you progress. Look at mine. I’ve drawn two things for you. Hannah and Satinalia Cullen. Both mine but the styles are lightyears apart because I worked and evolved.

Studies in anatomy, color theory, light theory, and the like will be your best friends. Good reference photos will be your best friends. 

And always remember: art is 150% subjective. Look at Picasso and Jackson Pollock. They are nothing like Michelangelo, Da Vinci, or Georgia O’Keefe. All of it is art. 

Abstract, Renaissance, Nuveau, Deco, Modernism, Fauvism, Pointilism, Impressionism and the rest... All art. All very different styles. 

All. Are. Valid. 

All started with stick figures somewhere in their history. You gotta start somewhere but keep at it and you will succeed.

[were-cheetah-stiles]

The Blackouts (Part One) - Stuart Twombly

Author: @were-cheetah-stiles

Title: “The First Blackout”

Relationship: Stuart Twombly x Original Female Character

Based on: Writer In The Dark - Lorde, which you should listen to just cause it’s like so a part of this fic...

Author’s Note: So, my first Stuart. It is purposefully detailed as all get out and poetic-ish. *shrugs* This will only be two parts, and the second part will be coming soon enough.

Additional Note: *** so anything that looks like this is a lyric from “Writer In The Dark” by Lorde... I generally use italics for a greater effect on a certain part of a sentence, which I still do, but in the part where she is reading from her book, anything that is italicized but not bold, was borrowed from Said the Shotgun to the Head by Saul Williams. That is not my original content. He is a brilliant poet, and I am not, but I wanted Penny to be. so, credit given where it is due. ***

Summary: At age 18, Stuart Twombly met and fell in love with Penelope Marshall. At age 21, he let her go. At age 27, he saw her again.

"Hi, I'm sorry, I really don't want to bother you, but are you Penelope Marshall?"

The hair on Stuart's arms stood at the sound of that name. He lowered the volume on his laptop, as a new song began to play, and then pulled his headphones from his ears altogether. The coffee shop had died down as the lunch hour crowd had begun to clear out, and the tables around Stuart's began to empty. He looked around to see where the conversation he had managed to overhear, in between changing songs on his computer, was coming from. Three tables down he saw a girl standing in front of a table, and then saw a familiar sight: a pair of blue slip-on Toms, ankles crossed, resting on an empty chair. Stuart thought that it had to be a coincidence, and yet, he continued eavesdropping.

"I just, I'm such a huge fan of your work, and my Modern Literature professor at USF had us read your book my sophomore year and I have read it so many times since, and it has gotten me through a lot of hard times. I just, it would mean the world if I could get your signature."

Stuart listened, quickly slipping between bouts of absolute denial and sheer, heart racing terror over the fact that this was too great of a coincidence and it was actually her. He knew that he heard that name correctly though. He quickly grew frustrated that the coffee shop was playing Adele's "Hello" a little too loud, and that only the excited, standing fan was speaking loud enough for him to hear. He craned his neck, trying to see around her, but she was standing too close to what he really wanted to see, to actually set his eyes on it. He leaned in, and tried to listen more.

"I'm so sorry to hear that, honey." Stuart knew that voice. It was quiet and low, but it was unmistakable. "Oh, don't cry...."

"It's just, your writing has really helped me to not feel alone. That passage where you wrote 'Break the news, you're walking out to be a good man for someone else. Sorry I was never good like you. Stood on my chest and kept me down, hated hearing my name on the lips of a crowd. Did my best to exist just for you.' was something I so understood and identified with and to know that someone as talented and beautiful and wonderful as you got cheated on but bounced back and turned all this trauma into something so brilliant, it really... it really..." The girl devolved into a puddle of tears, and the one he wanted to see finally stood.

"Oh, you are so sweet. Come on, honey, let's sort you out and I'll buy you a coffee..." The familiar voice rang again.

Stuart sunk into his chair and hid his face with his hand as the girl was escorted to the bathroom by the woman she was talking to. He watched as the restroom door closed behind them, and he began frantically packing up his laptop, tablet, personal phone, work phone, multiple flash drives, and two external hard drives. Then he stopped.

He hadn't seen her, in person, in six years, and just the sound of her name still gave him literal goosebumps. He had dreamt about running into her again, on a more frequent basis then he would ever admit to anyone out loud and if Stuart believed in fate, he would think that this was it. But he didn’t and he had a decision to make suddenly. 

Something in Stuart told him to keep his laptop out and remain in his seat. He did a Google Images search for 'Penelope Marshall' and stared at the picture that he had seen on the inside of her book cover a million times. It was about four years old at that point but it was certainly her.

"No, thank you, sweetheart. You are so kind and I really loved meeting you. I hope to see you at my reading on Thursday. Have a good day, honey." She waved as she sat back down at her table. 

Stuart saw her smile and shake her head, as she picked up her pen and began to write on the yellow legal pad in front of her. Her smile was like a shot of adrenaline to his heart; he felt more alive in that very moment than he had in years. A rush of memories came over him suddenly, but one in particular stuck out in his head. The kiss. 

He sighed and ran his long fingers through his chocolate brown hair, massaging his scalp as he worked his way to the back of his neck. He slumped his head down in the crook of his arm, feeling his glasses jab into the bridge of his nose, and he stared at the USB ports on the side of his MacBook Pro. He sighed, picked his head up, glanced over at her again, and then went back to reading the memos in his work email, trying to focus on anything but her. He reached for his now tepid coffee and looked up at the ceiling as he sipped. He slowly lowered the oversized mug back onto the accompanying saucer on the table and stared at her again. He couldn't take his eyes off of her.  

Penny tapped the end of her purple felt tipped pen on the paper in front of her, stalled in her writing, and she looked up. Finally, she saw him. A slow, but genuine smile spread across her lips as she made eye contact with the man across the room, hiding behind his laptop and coffee cup. She smirked and raised an eyebrow, as she pushed the empty chair across from her out from under the table with her feet, daring him to come over. Stuart accepted her silent proposal. He shoved his phone into his gray trousers pocket, stuffed his computer into his backpack, and grabbed his coffee. He adjusted his thick black rimmed glasses on his nose and walked over to her table.

"Hey, Pen." Stuart said in his low husky tone.

"Hey, Stu." She said smiling up at him. "You going to sit or...?"

"I don't want to bother you if you're writing..." Stuart began doubting himself. He was normally very confident and self-assured, but there was something about this exchange that was throwing him off. He knew what that something was: her.

She happily shook her head, and pushed the chair out a little further with her tip-toes, the sound of the legs sputtering against the terra cotta tiled floor filled the quiet room. "Sit, Twombly. Let's catch up."

Stuart smiled. 'Twombly.' God, he loved hearing her say his name again. Stuart dropped his backpack to the floor, pushed the sleeves of his navy blue pullover up to his elbows, and sat down in the chair across from her. "I never.. I, uh..." He struggled to find the perfect opener. "How are you?" He sighed internally.

She smiled and leaned forward, resting her elbow on the legal pad and her chin on the back of her hand. "I'm good, Stu, how are you?"

He rolled his pink lips into his mouth and wet them with his tongue, and rang his hands together in front of him on the table. He was mere inches from her and he could not think straight. "I'm good. Uh.. just, you know... Um.." Stuart struggled to find his words.

"Okay, well while you figure that out, I am just gonna..." She snickered and pointed her pen down towards the paper underneath her. "..go back to this..."

"Oh god, I'm gonna go."

"STUART! I'm kidding! Sit! Oh my god, you act like I'm auditing your finances, not catching up with you for the first time in years, would you relax? I'm your ex, not like the boogeyman." Her raised tone garnered some attention, and a few of the other customers looked up to watch what was happening at their table. Stuart lowered himself back into the chair and sighed.

"I'm surprised to see you is all. I never thought you'd come back to San Francisco again."

Penny smiled, and leaned back in her chair, biting down on the end of her pen between her front teeth. Her arms folded in front of her, as she barely held onto the cap. "Well, I've only been in town for a couple of months, so."

"Months?" Stuart questioned, unable to hide the surprise in his tone.

Penny nodded. "Yes, Stuart, months."

"What are you doing back here?" Penny frowned slightly and narrowed her eyes at him. "I didn't mean it like that, just, like, what brought you back... oh, fuck, Pen, you know what I mean." Stuart brought the palm of his hand up to his forehead and Penny laughed. He glanced up at her from under his eyelashes and felt like he had been struck through the heart again. Her laughter was like the best song from his childhood; the sweetest and most nostalgic music he had ever heard.

"I got recruited by a writer's collective in the area, and... yea, my publisher has been on me to write and I thought that a new space could get the creative juices flowing again, and yea, so I moved back."

"You have a publisher? That's amazing, Pen." Stuart played coy. He didn't want her to know that he had kept tabs on her after all these years.

Penny narrowed her eyes and smiled, then nodded. "Yep, and she's trying real hard to get a decent book out of me."

"I'm sure you could write a wonderful book, Penny. You were always incredibly talented." Stuart continued his charade.

"You still at Google?" She asked, trying to steer the conversation away from her reappearance in the Bay Area and her employment by a publishing house.

Stuart nodded. "Still at Google. I've been headhunted by a few other companies, Facebook, Spotify, Microsoft, but Google was always the goal, and it's home at this point. I couldn't leave." Stuart relaxed as he talked about work, one of the few things he was truly passionate about in life.

"How's Neha?" Penelope was never one to beat around the bush, and in this instance, she felt like she had nothing to lose by being direct.

Stuart's cheeks flushed a bright and noticeable red, and he ran his hand through his hair, pushing the locks back and forth, trying to hide his face with his arm. "She was good, the last time we spoke. I haven't talked to her in a long time though. She moved on to Apple like five years ago."

"So you broke up?" Penny’s facial expression remained completely unchanged. She was playing the best game of personal question poker that Stuart had ever participated in.

Stuart furrowed his brow and frowned slightly. All of his daydreams of running into her and instantly falling back into a happy rhythm were being dashed by the talk of Neha. He rubbed his hands together nervously. "We broke up after only a few months; it was never destined to be anything special..."

"Hmm.." Penny moved her pen off of her paper and onto the table. She had spent six years irrationally hating a girl she had never met, and now she knew that she had never been replaced by that girl, and Penny didn't quite know what to say about it. She moved on instead. "If you're working for Google, what are you doing here on a Tuesday afternoon? Shouldn't you be at work, at Google...?" Her smile returned.

Stuart was grateful for the topic change. He smiled and Penny felt a small tingle dance across her skin. She pulled the sleeves down on her denim jacket to hide her sudden goosebumps. "I can work remotely if I want and sometimes it's nice to just get out of the office."

"So you're supposed to be working right now?" Penelope asked, with a smirk, leaning to the side of the table to look at Stuart's full backpack.

Stuart chuckled quietly. "Kind of, yea... and you were obviously writing, so I can just..." He scooted his chair back and began to get up to go back to his previous table, until suddenly Penny's hand was on his forearm.

The two of them stared silently at each other, frozen in their respective positions for a longer amount of time than would be considered normal. Finally, she spoke. "No, you weren't bothering me, Stu. You don't have to go back over there to work, I can work just fine with you sitting here... if you wanted. I wouldn't mind hearing about your job and your parents and brother a little more too.."

Stuart felt like he had been kicked in the stomach; his breathing was ragged and shallow. He could barely think straight, let alone speak coherently. He simply nodded and sat back down, grabbing his laptop out of his backpack and placing it on the table.

Stuart tried hard to focus on his work and not the way that she chewed on her bottom lip as her pen flew across the paper. He could make out the words if he tried, but instead he felt warm inside staring at her handwriting. He always thought that it looked more like calligraphy than regular handwriting. It was a beautiful cross between print and script and it was steady and full of flourishes and embellishments. He remembered all of the handwritten notes that sat in a shoebox at the top of his closet in his apartment, and all of the memories attached to each letter. Some were pages long and some were simple and short, pages torn out of her books with affirmations of her love to him, or napkins that she had scribbled little notes of encouragement on when he needed a quick confidence boost.

Penelope was hunched over the table, her free hand rubbing her shoulder and neck, under her shirt. He became distracted from her writing when a section of her hair feel from her back to the front side of her shoulder, and suddenly, Stuart found himself at eighteen again, on his first official date with Penny, watching her stare at the menu and then smile up at him when she caught him admiring her.

"Stu... Stuart...."

Stuart jolted out of the movies playing in his head when he felt her soft skin touch his arm. "Yea?" He blinked at the contact that she hadn't broken yet.

"You haven't typed anything in, like, three minutes and you have been staring at me...." She narrowed her eyes and smiled at him.

Stuart laughed. He missed how direct she was. Regardless of the fact that both of their blunt natures used to lead to some arguments between them, that quality was one of his favorite things about her. He never had to wonder what she was thinking because she would always just tell him. They never really played games. It was something he struggled to find in his dating life as an adult.  

"I kind of zoned out there for a minute there.. sorry." He winked at her quickly, and then glanced at her smile in reaction to his gesture.

"I missed that." She grinned from ear to ear and shook her head. "Fuck, I didn't even realize I missed that until you just did it." She began laughing, and covered her face with her hands.

Stuart closed his eyes and drunk in the sound of her laughter; that childhood song playing over again. "I missed that." He whispered, testing the limits of his upfront nature. He opened his eyes and saw her leaning forward, softly smiling and looking at the paper in front of her.

"You know what I've been thinking about since I saw you?" She asked, as she leaned in, her chin resting on her balled up fist, suddenly willing to take a walk down memory lane with him.

Stuart raised his eyebrows, rolled his lips into his mouth, and allowed the corners of his mouth curve upwards into a coy smile. "Hmm?"

"The kiss." She replied, and Stuart felt like he had literally been shot in the chest. He instinctively brought his hand up to his heart and dug his fingertips into his chest, almost like he was trying to jumpstart his heart again.

Stuart stumbled with his words; his brain felt like it was on fire. "Is that what you've been writing about?" He asked, glancing down at her yellow legal pad.

Penny smiled, and Stuart felt his skin tingle. He rubbed his left arm and wondered to himself if he was having a heart attack. All of those thoughts left his head though, as he watched her long and delicate fingers run across the dried ink and flatten out the pages. "I was working on short stories and some poems about my time in New York before, but it was going no where...." Penny grinned. "Then some inspiration hit, but I haven't quite worked out my thoughts yet." She gently pushed the pad of paper across the table, towards Stuart, and he read the words quietly to himself.

Stuart saw some scribbles at the top of the page about old school versus new school and a doodle of his glasses. He flipped the page up to see if anything was written on the back and noticed the underside was blank, so he tore out the doodle and placed it on the table. He reached into the small front zipper of his backpack and pulled out his wallet. He opened it and placed the doodle inside, next to his cash, and then closed it and put it back in his backpack.

"For the collection." He winked, and Penny blushed, and grinned.

He continued reading the ramblings on the page. A lot was crossed out and most was her just jotting down feelings and words and ideas, but when Stuart got to the bottom of the page, he read something that was incredibly familiar. Something he had read before. Something he had read upwards of a hundred times. 'When you see me, will you say I've changed.' Stuart tried to fight an emerging smile, as Penny became fidgety, and leaned back in her chair, tapping her pen quickly against the air as she waited for him to speak again. He reached across the table and pulled the pen out of her hand, and then wrote something down on the paper below her scribbles, then slid the pad back over to her.

Penny held her hair back from falling in her face with her hand, as she leaned over the table and stared at the words he wrote. She glanced up at him through her eyelashes, a bashful smile emerging on her lips, and she remained frozen in her position. "'Just more gorgeous with age'?" She repeated what he wrote, and then shook her head. "Still know how to make a girl weak in the knees, Twombly." She shook her head and grinned.

Stuart closed his laptop and leaned his elbows on the table, folding his hands over the closed lid. He leaned his chest against the edge of the table and spoke lower. "Penny, I don't want this to be the last time I see you again." As soon as the words left his mouth, Stuart's AppleWatch lit up with a phone call from Dana. "Shit, it's my boss... I may have just accidentally dropped out of a work Google chat... Um, I probably have to head back to the office, but Pen... I'm serious. Can I see you again? Take you out to dinner and actually catch up?" Stuart founds his confidence in desperation. He needed to see her again. He had waited six years to see her again, and he was not going to let the opportunity slip through his fingers.

Penny smiled gently, and tucked a small section of her hair behind her ear. She began to slowly nod. "Okay. Yea. I'll see you again... For old time's sake."

Stuart didn't love that clarification but he would have to take it. He began to pack his computer back into his backpack, and then pulled his phone from his front pants pocket. "Um, what's your number? We'll set up a plan for maybe Thursday or Friday?"

Penny leaned back in her chair and smirked. "I don't have a phone, Stuart."

Stuart's mouth gaped open slightly, and he raised his eyebrows. "You what?"

"I feel like that should surprise you less.." She smirked, and Stuart snickered and shook his head. If anyone he knew would live a cell phone-less life, it would, in fact, be Penelope Marshall. "I'll tell you what, do you remember that dim sum place we used to go to all the time in Chinatown?"

Stuart grinned and nodded. "Yea, but it isn't there anymore."

Penny smiled at the fact that Stuart knew that. "I know, but the Greek place that replaced it, that's in the space now, is weirdly amazing. I have a work thing on Thursday at 6:30, but it should be over by 8:30 and I can meet you for dinner there at 9. If you're late though, Stu, I won't wait. Sound like a plan?"

Stuart sighed softly and nodded, while he typed the dinner date into the calendar on his iPhone. "I'll see you on Thursday then."

Penny stood as he stood, and she walked around the table to hug him. The familiar smell intoxicated her and she was grateful for his prolonged embrace. Stuart rested his cheek against the top of her head and wrapped his arms around her back. "I'll catch you later, Twombly." She whispered into his clavicle.

Stuart exhaled through his nose. His heart hurt and his chest constricted again. He didn't want to let her go, but she began to break from the embrace. He licked his lips and adjusted his glasses, the slung his backpack over his shoulder. "I'll see you on Thursday, at nine. I won't be late." He winked one last time, watching her cheeks flush pink, as she smiled and shook her head, and he walked out the door.

"Stewieeeee. What's happenin', kiddo?"

"Oh, hey, Bill. Nothing, just trying to troubleshoot that glitch for Nick." Stuart answered, barely glancing up from his computer.

"Whoa, 'Bill'? What am I your boss or something? Since when do you not call me 'Big Daddy'?" Billy asked, his face contorted with confusion and a subtle smirk.

Nick walked over and patted Billy on the shoulder as he saw his friends and colleagues congregating without him. "What's up, guys? What's the news?" The tall and shaggy blonde-haired man always had a much more casual and gentler approach than his lifelong friend, Billy.

"Stewie neither complained about me calling him 'Stewie', nor did he call me 'Big Daddy'." Billy reported to Nick.

"Whoa.. Stu, what's going on? Your aura is a little weird." Nick ran his hands above Stuart's head.

Stuart rolled his eyes and turned in his swivel chair to face the two men behind him. "Shut up about my aura, Nick. You have no idea what you're even talking about."

"No, no, it's really dark, I can feel it. What's wrong, bucko?"

"You know he's not going to give up until you tell him? He's a relentless friend like that. He cares. I respect your privacy but Nick, he cares." Billy began to talk faster and faster, knowing exactly which of Stuart's buttons to push in order to get him to talk, and finally Stuart did.

"OKAY! Enough, my god. The two of you are like a circus act. Fine. I'll tell you." Stuart huffed and rolled his neck along his shoulders, then adjusted his glasses. "I ran into my ex yesterday..."  

"You ran into Neha? How is she? Man, I miss her. She always had a penis joke just ready and waiting." Nick grinned, and Stuart shook his head profusely.

"No, not Neha. Penny."

"You gotta give us a little more here, Stewie. This is the first time you have mentioned a 'Penny'." Billy replied.

Stuart sighed and turned back to his computer. He opened a new webpage in Chrome and typed in Penny's name, along with the title of her book. Nick sat in the chair next to Stuart and leaned over to see the screen. "Oh, I know her! Dana is obsessed with her book... wait.. Penny... Penelope Marshall is your Penny? Your ex? Dana is going to flip." Nick became very excited and smacked his hand against the desk top.

Billy patted Stuart hard on the back and Stuart scowled, sighed and then turned back around. "Well, she is quite the looker. How'd you mess that up?"

Stuart became more pensive looking and shook his head. Billy pulled up a seat and sat near the two of them, listening intently as Stuart began his story. "Penny and I met during Freshman Orientation at Stanford, during one of those idiotic ice breaker games. She was complaining about it and I was on my phone and she kept leaning over and making snide remarks about other kids' stupid answers and instead of finding her annoying, I found her funny, and..."

"Wait a minute.... she wrote, wait a minute, if you met her when you were Freshman... wait.." Nick tried to work out the problem out loud, but it only frustrated Stuart more.

"IT WAS ME!" He shouted, then looked around and saw that he had garnered some stares. He lowered his voice and continued. "It was me, okay? She wrote the book about me... about us, and about what I did."

"I'm confused. Who is this girl, besides someone who is really hot?" Billy asked, gesturing to Penny's picture on the screen.

"She's a New York Times Bestselling author. Dana read her book a billion times. Hell, she made me read it too. It's amazing." Nick explained.

Stuart took his glasses off and pinched at the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off a tension migraine. He sighed and put his glasses back on. "Penny and I dated from eighteen to twenty-one, about three and a half years, and honestly, she was the love of my life, and I let her get away."

"Weren't you twenty-one during the internship, Stu?" Billy asked, toning down his jokes and sarcasm, seeing the internal struggle happening inside of Stuart.

Stuart rubbed the back of his neck and closed his eyes, a pained look covering his face. "We lived about thirty minutes away from each other when we were home from school, we grew up in adjacent towns outside of the Bay Area and I was... well, you knew me back then."

"You were kind of a dick, buddy." Billy patted him on the shoulder.

"Not too bad though. You grew out of it. I mean, it only took you.. how old are you now?" Nick tried to defend Stuart.

"Twenty-seven.... and I didn't grow out of it quick enough. I just, I thought I was too good for her when I got here and we started doing well as a team, and Neha would flirt with me, and I felt like we were going in different directions in life, and so about half way through the internship, I broke up with her..... over text message...." Stuart winced and glanced between the two older men.

"Oh, you dog." Billy chuckled.

"Not good, Stu, not good at all. That's not how you treat a lady." Nick shook his head.

"I know that now. I was an asshole back then."

"Alright, then what happened?" Billy asked.

"Then towards the end of the internship, Neha and I sort of hit it off, and you guys know that story, but then we all went home because classes for my senior year started a few weeks later, and she knew what day I was coming home, and when I pulled up with my parents, she was sitting on my front steps. My parents went inside and she just sat there, holding her phone in her hand, and her eyes were all puffy and red, and she just kept asking me if I had seriously dumped her over text after almost four years, and I only then realized how fucked up that was. She cried and asked if it was because of someone else, and I told her no, but I also told her that I had become recently involved with Neha an-"

Billy cut Stuart off. "She thought you were cheating?"

Stuart nodded shamefully. "I hadn't, not even emotionally, but there was no changing her mind on that. She smacked me across the face, and she accused me of being self-involved, which was true, and having a superiority complex about my future, which was true, and not supporting her when she would perform her writing live, which was sort of true too. Then she told me that she had managed to get into the study abroad in New York City for Fall Semester and that if she ran into me when she was back for Spring Semester, not to fucking talk to her. She said she would never forgive me and that I broke her heart."

"And then she wrote a best selling novel about it." Nick shook his head, and patted Stuart on the shoulder lightly.

"Yea, and I mean, she wasn't even petty or cruel about it either, and she never mentioned my name and basically every thing she wrote was true.." Stuart trailed off, staring into empty space as he thought about the book.

"So you ran into Penny yesterday?" Billy asked.

"That makes sense, she must be in town for a book reading and signing. Dana is going to it tomorrow night." Nick interjected.

Stuart shook his head. "No, she moved back. She lives here again, and she's writing another book, and she looks amazing and she was Penny, and it was kind of spectacular being around her again." He stared down at his hands.

"Oh, I see, Stewie, you still have it bad for this girl, huh? Never got over it?" Billy prompted Stuart.

Stuart nodded, shamefully. "She was the one and I'm pretty sure I just barely got her to agree to get dinner with me tomorrow night after the reading."

"You need a big gesture." Billy suggested. "Show her you care."

Penny listened intently and graciously as the manager of the local bookstore introduced her to the packed house of eager fans. She stepped up onto the stairs, leading up to the platform where the podium stood in the middle.

"Please give a big round of applause for Ms. Penelope Marshall." The manager said before the room broke into a round of applause.

"Pen.." Penny's agent, Meg, grabbed her wrist and put the book in her hand. "The day you don't forget to bring your book up with you is the day you can fire me."

"Lucky for you, I'll probably always forget my book." Penny smiled and then walked up onto the stage. She stood in front of the podium, adjusted the microphone and opened her book. "Hi, everyone. How are you all tonight? Thank you for not only coming out to this reading tonight, but for sending my agent so many emails requesting that this happen that we had no choice but to make sure it finally did."

The crowd sat in their chairs chuckling and one younger girl screamed out above the laughter, "WE LOVE YOU, PENNY!"

Penny chuckled, smiled, and shook her head. "Thank you..." Penny flipped through the book, staring at the words on the pages of her usual passage that she used for readings, but something about it didn't feel right that day. "Um, do you guys mind if I read something a little different than what I usually do at these sorts of things? I am feeling particularly....." Penny cleared her throat. "...connected to this chapter this week, and you all know I try to live my most authentic life as often as I can."

Excited murmurs filled the room and Penny's agent whispered from the side of the stage. "What are you doing?"

Penny smiled at her friend, and flipped to the section of the book that had been on her mind for two days. She took a deep breath and began speaking slowly into the microphone, staring out into the eyes of her audience members as she asked her first question. "Have you ever been kissed by God? Passionately (tongue, lips, etc.)? Here's a simpler question: Have you ever lost yourself in a kiss?" Penny looked up from her book and out into the crowd, connecting her eyes with those looking back, when suddenly she connected with a familiar amber set, hiding behind black thick framed glasses. Penny felt like she had been punched in the stomach; all of the air left her lungs and she adjusted her focus to be sure, and she was. Stuart sat in the third seat from the left, in the back row. His brow was slightly furrowed, like he was worried that she would be upset that he was there. Penny understood that she had started this chapter in front of some of her most enthusiastic and dedicated readers and that she would have to commit to what she had started. She blinked up at the warm lights above her, and took a deep breath. "Sorry. I've been having one of those weeks."

Penny heard the soft and comforting sound of people rubbing their hands together over and over in support of her. She smiled out at her fans and bowed her head slightly. "Take your time, Pen!" Someone finally shouted out, and others snapped in agreement. Penny loved the quirky support that usually accompanied creative communities like this. She took a quick sip from the glass of water under the podium and decided she was ready to continue.

"Have you ever lost yourself in a kiss? I mean pure psychedelic inebriation. Not just lustful petting but transcendental metamorphosis when you became aware that the greatness of this being was breathing into you... The first kiss of the rest of your life. A kiss that confirms that the universe is aligned, and that the world's greatest resource is love." Penny spoke slowly and emphatically, hovering on certain words over others, using hands gestures and the slow winding of her neck to further drive her point home. "Will you allow me to tell you a story about that kiss?" Penny looked up again, and instead of watching as the people in her audience snapped in agreement with her question, her eyes became glued to the handsome man in the back, who had leaned forward, pressing his elbows against his knees, his hands pressed against his mouth, just to focus more on the words escaping her lips.

"It was a record breaking and sweltering one-hundred and two degree September evening, in the Nob Hill neighborhood of San Francisco and the power had gone out four hours and twenty-three minutes prior. The rooms in Billy's apartment were illuminated by the candles that were haphazardly strewn on level surfaces, inevitably raising the temperature by another few degrees. The apartment smelled of sweat, skunky beer and weed, and to this day I am certain that the only reason that we talked as long as we did was because his phone died and even if he had gone home, he wouldn't have been able to charge it." Penny looked up at Stuart, and saw the right corner of his mouth curl up. He recalled that evening like it was yesterday, instead of nine years ago.

"'What kind of stuff do you write?' He asked me, as he adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. 'Poetry, mostly.' I told him, confident in my youthful talent. Three more hours, and the entire city was covered in a dark sheet; no light, no distractions. Just truths. The kind of night that only happens under those circumstances. Our skin wasn't sticky, not with that much sweat involved; it was just smooth and wet. I watched him watch me drag my hand from my jaw down my clavicle, under my shirt towards the valley of my breasts, trying to wipe away whatever salty excretion I could." Penny mimicked the movements she explained, closing her eyes and getting lost in a memory. Stuart felt his blood pressure rise, as he remembered the epic moment that followed, and how it led him to be sitting in the sturdy mahogany chair he was currently in. He shifted uncomfortably.

"Have you ever lost yourself in a kiss? We did. We kissed as if we, alone, could forge the signature of the sun. Licking the sides and corners of your mouth, like sealing a thousand fleshy envelopes filled with the essence of your passionate being and then opened by the same mouth and delivered back to you, over and over again - the first kiss of the rest of your life." Penny wasn't even reading from the pages in front of her anymore. Her eyes were closed and she was speaking from pure memory and feeling. When she opened her eyes, she saw that at least half of the audience had pulled out their phones and were recording her, but there was one person who was still watching for just him, his eyes glued on her.

"'Bet you rue the day you kissed a writer in the dark.' I said to him, the joking threat rolling off my lips in between reality-shattering embraces, on the dingy old couch in Billy's cramped living room. 'Why's that?' He inquired in a whisper, peeling a damp strand of hair off of my shoulder, and replacing it with his fingertips. 'Cause now I'm gonna play and sing and lock you in my heart. Bet you rue the day you kissed a writer in the dark.'"

Penny paused, and opened her eyes. She made eye contact with Stuart, who suddenly looked visibly uncomfortable. They both knew what was coming next in their story. "Three and a half years of love and laughter and pain and tears and opposites coming back together through history's most epic kisses...." She took a very long pause, and stared straight into Stuart's amber eyes. "Then he left." Stuart pursed his lips together, his nostrils flaring, as he tried to fight the sharp pain building in his stomach. His regret was eating its way out of his body.

She never broke her gaze on him. Some of the audience members began to take notice of their prolonged eye contact, and began to glance back and forth between Penny and Stuart. A spectacle was forming, but neither of them noticed.

"So, she left. But those feelings never did, because I am my mother's child, I'll love you 'til my breathing stops. I'll love you 'til you call the cops on me. It took two years, but in our darkest hours, I stumbled on a secret power. I'd find a way to be without you. But I'll always wonder if you regret the day you left a writer in the dark."

Penny stopped speaking. She stared into Stuart's melancholic eyes, and then got brought back into the present by her agent fake coughing off to the side. Penny blinked excessively for about ten seconds, trying to collect herself, and then she finally closed the book, and leaned back over to the microphone. "Thank you." The crowd erupted in excited applause and gave her a standing ovation.

Let me know what you thought and if you would like to be added to the forever tag!

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[ezrafanfic]

An Unexpected Future

PART 7

The car ride was completely silent. Ezra didn’t even bother turning on any music and focused on the road, as I stared at my lap.

I swallowed the hard lump in my throat before speaking up. “Your friends are really great.”

He nodded. “Yeah. They are.” His voice was quiet and rough and he wouldn’t make eye contact.

“Listen, Ezra.” I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

“I dunno what for.” The more he spoke, the more I could sense tension and irritability in his voice, “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I guess I just feel bad for running out on you in there…”

“Well, then. If you’re sorry for wussing out and leaving it all up to me to break the news to my friends, I accept your apology.”

“Are you kidding me?” I huffed. “If it wasn’t for the sudden need to puke my brains out and the fact that you didn’t find it necessary to inform me about your big plans to travel the entire country, maybe things would have gone a little smoother.”

He didn’t say anything and I just rolled my eyes, folding my arms across my chest and I looked out the window.

It was too quiet, so I reached over and turned on the radio, not even paying any mind to what was currently playing. Anything was better than the painful silence.

Then out of no where, when our light turned green, Ezra went and a car flew out in front of us. Ezra slammed on his breaks and laid on his horn. The guy stuck his hand out of his window, giving Ezra the finger.

“NO, FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE!” Ezra hollered, speeding past him, laying on his horn again, and he cut the guy off, “LEARN HOW TO FUCKING DRIVE OR STAY OFF THE ROAD!”

“Hey!” I yelled at Ezra, who was breathing heavily and clutching the steering wheel tightly. “Calm down! Pregnant girl in the car!”

“I am calm.” He said.

“Pull over.” I demanded and to my surprise, he didn’t argue and pulled over to the side of the road as soon as he had the chance.

He put the car in park and rested his forehead against the steering wheel.

“Sorry,” He breathed.

“I can drive the rest of the way if you need me to,” I said. “But I think we should talk first.”

“What is there to talk about?” He lifted his head up. “Look, we just found out about the tour a few days ago. I wanted to tell you, I just didn’t know how to. But I’ve been thinking and it’s probably not the best idea right now to pick up and leave in a few months with a baby on the way…”

I shook my head. “Ez, I know how happy music and acting makes you. And I think it’s great and you know I support you. You’re super talented and I’m really glad that things seem to be looking up for you lately. And I want you to be open to every opportunity that comes your way. But you’re going to be a father now and that’s a new opportunity in itself. But I-I just didn’t know if this is something you really w-wanted. I-if it’s not, I u-understand…“

I was crying and Ezra pulled me close, his arm around my shoulders and I leaned into him.

”(Y/N),“ He said as I wiped my eyes on the sleeves of my sweater. “Hey, I’m sorry I’m such a shitty friend. I should have told you…Look, I admit, when we found out about the tour, the three of us sat there together, looking at a list of all the places we would get to visit and I thought that nothing would ever make me happier than being with those guys, traveling the country and making music. But today, when we got to see our baby and hear its little heart beat…” he stopped talking for a moment and I could feel his hand resting on my stomach. “I knew that really, nothing would make me happier than being a father.”

I sniffed, placing my hand on top of his. “Really?” I asked. “You mean that?”

He smiled. “I do.”

I sighed. “Still, I don’t want you to sacrifice your career…”

“I’m sure I can work something out.” He said. “But it’s not for you to worry about, alright?”

“Fine. Just as long as you don’t keep me in the dark from here on out.”

“Of course not.”

Ezra was much more calm and collected after our conversation and I trusted that he wouldn’t have another crazy episode of road rage, so he drove us to the city. I didn’t eat anything at the diner and after throwing up what little I did have in my stomach, Ezra insisted that I get some food in me.

“What are you in the mood for?” He asked me.

“Call me crazy, but a big fat juicy burger would be pretty fantastic right now.” I said and he laughed.

He took me to a small bar that was a few blocks from my place. It was a little early, only going on 4, but Ezra wanted a beer and the place had pretty good burgers.

We were sitting, chatting about the tour and a few movie rolls he was interested in auditioning for and I was going on a rant about all the stupid courses I had to take in order to have enough credits to graduate, when a small group of girls approached us.

“Excuse me,” One of them said to Ezra as the rest stood behind her, giggling to each other. There was 4 of them. “We don’t mean to interrupt, but we saw you walk in. We’re all such big fans! Do you have a moment for any autographs?”

“Oh sure,” Ezra took the pen and tablet from the girl. “No problem.”

I rolled my eyes and watched him do his thing. It wasn’t the first time this had happened when we were hanging out, but it was something that definitely got old quick, at least for me. Ezra was always really polite and patient and I had no clue how he always managed it. I noticed the girls kept glancing over at me as he wrote them each a short message along with his signature. I just sat there, quietly nibbling on my food.

The girls thanked him and went on their merry way and Ezra turned to me.

“Sorry,” he said, bashfully. “I wish I could say that hasn’t been happening more often than usual lately…”

I held out a napkin towards him. “Oh, Ezra.“ I said in a mocking tone. “I’m such a big fan. Can you sign this napkin for me? I already used it to blow my nose. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Ew, don’t be disgusting.” He shooed the napkin away, but laughed. He reached over and grabbed a french fry off of my plate. He already had a few beers and I was full.

“Well, it’s good to see that all this fame over the years has yet to go to your head.“ I said.

He shrugged. “It is what it is.”

I watched as he finished off what was left of my fries. “So, do you plan on telling everyone?”

“If by everyone you mean the press or the media, I dunno.” He said. “I'm assuming you’re talking about the baby.”

“What else would I be talking about?” I asked.

“Us.”

“Whoa, slow down buddy.” I laughed. “We’re just friends, like we have always been.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” He said. “But I feel like it’s suddenly more…complicated.”

“Because I’m pregnant?”

“Of course.” He definitely had a bit of a buzz going after 4 and a half beers. When Ezra drank, he got pretty chatty, more so than usual. “But it’s not just that. I mean, we haven’t really talked about it much, you know? The night we slept together?”

“Well, we don’t have to talk about it,” I reassured him, my face red with embarrassment at the sudden direction the conversation was going.

“Do you not want to talk about it?” He asked.

“Not really.” I admitted. “I’m perfectly content not talking about it, actually.”

He snorted. “Sorry. We don’t have to talk about it then. It’s just that Lilah and Josh asked me if we’ve been seeing each other. And I didn’t really know what to tell them, not that I told them that we were or anything. But, I guess it was a fair question to ask considering we have been spending a decent amount of time together lately and we both really want to have this baby…And I haven’t been with anyone else since we-“

“Ez,” I laughed. “Please, shut up. You’ve been drinking and are getting way ahead of yourself…”

“Sorry.” He apologized again.

“Stop apologizing,” I groaned. “Hey, I don’t know about you, but I’m still trying to wrap my head around this whole pregnancy thing. We don’t have to rush into anything because there’s a baby involved, alright? So let’s slow it down with the relationship talk.”

“Okay,” he nodded. “You’re right. I think we should take things slow. Well, as slow as one can take things with a girl they’ve already had sex with and managed to knock up…”

I laughed, shaking my head. “So much for NOT talking about it.”

“Oh, bite me,” He clicked his tongue against his teeth, “I’m only half drunk. Forgive me and my inability to keep my mouth shut right now. Just try and imagine how much worse you would have it right now if I was hammered.”

“You’re right,” I gasped, sarcastically, “Oh, it could be much worse. You could try to have your way with me and get me pregnant.”

We were both laughing hysterically for a few minutes before Ezra made his way to the bar and ordered a few more drinks.

[carryonmyswansong]

Questionnaire - About Me, pt 2

Do you usually sleep with your closet door open or closed? This might be weird but I don’t even think about my, closet. Its sitting open at the moment, and has been for several weeks now...

Do you take the shampoos and conditioner bottles from hotels? and the lotions, too....

Have you ever ‘done it’ in a hotel room? Yes.

Where is your next vacation? Does homeless camping this past summer count? Cuz otherwise “vacation” isn’t really something I can afford.

Have you ever stolen a street sign before? Nope. Never saw one I wanted to take lol Plus I don’t have the balls to do it lol

Who do you think reads these? Whoever is scrolling through their dash when I hit post.

Do you have a calendar in your room? Nope, not unless the one on my laptop counts

Where are you? In my room, in Jackson, MI.

What’s your plan for the day? A little more blogging and then I’m gonna go to bed.

Are you reading any books right now? Does fanfiction count? Cuz yes.

Do you ever count your steps when you walk? I do not.

Have you ever peed in the woods? Yes I have. I love camping.

Do you ever dance even if there’s no music playing? Yeah, sometimes

There are more under the Read More. Had to break the list up to include the Read More cuz it was hella long otherwise.

Do you chew your pens and pencils? not technically. but I will hold my drawing tablet pen in my mouth so I don’t lose it. Who ever thought to make those things as dark as they are, instead of a bright neon color, needs to be throttled...

What is your “Song of the Week”?  Pretty much anything from the Teen Wolf soundtrack

Is it okay for guys to wear pink? Why wouldn’t it be? Its even ok if he wants to wear a dress and become a princess. I hate gender roles/rules….

Do you still watch cartoons? Yeap

What’s your favorite love movie? The Last Unicorn, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (with Gary Oldman *swoons*), and The Boondock Saints. This answer hasn’t changed in well over a decade Just the order of the three.

What do you drink with dinner? Usually milk or water.

What do you dip Chicken Nuggets in? I often don’t. I do like sweet and sour sauce though.

What is your favorite food/cuisine? Sadly, since my ED relapse, I don’t have the same taste or passion for food, anymore. It doesn’t ignite the pleasure centers of my brain anymore.. I either I “don’t hate it” or I do. *shrugs*

What movies could you watch over and over and still love? Same as my favorite’s list. I usually watch The Last Unicorn like once a year or every other year, depending on if I remember to.

Last person you hugged/kissed?  not a person; My cast ZahZah

Were you ever a boy/girl scout? Girl Scouts. Very briefly.

Would you ever strip or pose nude in a magazine? Maybe

When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper? Its been a very long time

Can you change the oil on a car? I’ve never been shown how. I’m sure I could, once I learned. I love car stuff.

Ever gotten a speeding ticket? Nope. I don’t drive.

Run out of gas? Same answer as above. I’ve been in the car when both happened, but I wasn’t driving.

Favorite kind of sandwich? ham, turkey, roast beef, bacon, with variations on veggies and sauces... 

Best thing to eat for breakfast? Glass of milk, and leftovers from dinner the night before.

What is your usual bedtime? I’m 33, and unemployed. I don’t have a bed time. (The last time I filled this thing in, I was 26 lol)

Are you lazy? No. I’m disabled, so some days, I can’t do much because of my illness.

When you were a kid, what did you dress up as for Halloween? I didn’t celebrate Halloween that often as a kid. I dressed up as a mermaid, a witch, and a vampire…. As an adult, I dressed up as a fairy once.

Do you have any magazine subscriptions? Nope. I wish.

Which are better, Legos or Lincoln Logs? Legos.. hands down!

Are you stubborn? Yup.

Who is better…Leno or Letterman? CONAN! I don’t care for most… 

Ever watch soap operas? I use to. They are kinda dumb… I prefer the teen dramas

Afraid of heights? Afraid? No. Am I cautious? You bet your ass I am.

Sing in the car? Only way to travel!

Dance in the shower? No, but I sing.

Dance in the car? Sometimes.

Ever used a gun? Not really, no.

Do you think musicals are cheesy? Yes, but I like them anyways.

Is Christmas stressful? I hate Christmas. I prefer to celebrate Yule.

Ever eat a pierogi? Yes. Cheesy potato. Yum.

Major annoyance right now? The fact that every time someone gets sick where my roommate works, he brings it home and I’m down for the count for a month at a time...

Occupations you wanted to be when you were a kid? Country music star, scientist, unicorn trainer.

Do you believe in ghosts? Yes I do.

Ever have a deja-vu feeling? More times than I’d like to remember.

Do you take a vitamin daily? No, but I drink at least one glass of milk.

Wear slippers? nah

Wear a bath robe? Use to. No idea where mine ended up

What do you wear to bed? whatever is comfortable

Wal-Mart, Target or K-Mart? None, if I can help it. I prefer Wal-Mart, though. I also shop at Meijer’s as well.

Nike or Adidas? Neither. I’m not one for sports brands. I prefer Vans, Etnes, or Volcom.

Cheetos Or Fritos? Depends on my mood. I like both, but I will eat Cheetos over Fritos more often than not.

Peanuts or Sunflower seeds? To be honest? Neither.

Ever hear of, “gorp”? When I answered this the first time, I had to look that word up. I didn’t retain the info.... the word means “trail mix”... lol

Ever taken karate? nope

Ever kissed someone of the same sex?   Yes. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat. 

Can you curl your tongue? Yes, and I can also do the three leaf clover thing, as well.

Ever won a spelling bee? No, but I can spell archeologist by heart now haha

Ever cried because you were so happy? Yes, I actually have.

Own any record albums? Records? No. I wish.

Own a record player? Same answer as above.

Regularly burn incense? I would, but my room mate is allergic.

Ever been in love? Yes. 

Hot tea or cold tea? Depends on the flavor. I will drink my tea if it gets cold. I love both.

Tea or coffee? hmmm… Depends on the time of day. I drink more tea than coffee, but I do like both.

Favorite kind of cookie? Oatmeal chocolate chip. Yes. That’s one flavor. Do it. You’ll thank me later. ;)

Can you swim well? Yes I can.

Can you hold your breath w/o manually holding your nose? Yes I can.

Are you patient? Usually

Ever won a contest? Yes

Ever had plastic surgery? Not sure if this counts as cosmetic since it was helpful, but when I was a baby, I had to have the frenulum under my tongue clipped because it hindered my suckling.

Which are better black or green olives? Neither.

Can you knit or crochet? Yes. I can do both.

Wash room or bathroom? Bathroom

Do you want to get married? Yes

Who was your High School crush? Lordy, I don’t actually know... that was a long time ago.

Do you cry and throw a fit until you get your own way? No. That’s dumb.

Do you have kids? No. I have a couple of angel-babies though… But I do help co-parent 4 kids. And I’m a godmommy to one of them... 

Do you want kids? Yes.

What kind of mom are you?  Openminded, but accountable.

Do you miss anyone right now? My grandmother and all my friends in SC. I haven’t seen most of them for like 8 years….

Who do you want to see right now? Same answer as above.