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sequinsmile-x · 10 hours

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Quality Time

She missed her husband, even though he was right there with her.

Part of the Love Languages series

-x-

Hi besties,

This is just...pure fluff really because that is all my brain was capable of after a very busy few days at work.

This is just these two idiots being idiots for each other.

I really hope you like it, as always please let me know what you think <3

-x-

Words: 3.2k

Warnings: pregnancy

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

It’s late when he gets home.

He feels the tension in his shoulders start to ease the moment he steps over the threshold into the house, the sense of home washing over him as he closes the door behind him, locking out anything other than his family on the other side.

He pauses as he turns from the door when he hears the low hum of the television. He checks his watch and frowns when he realises just how late it is, surprised that anyone is still awake. He walks towards the living room, a purpose in his step, and as he gets closer he realises it’s one of his wife’s favourite reality TV shows, something she’d sworn him to secrecy over when they first started dating. He half expects to find Emily asleep on the couch, slumped over with her hand pressed against her stomach after she’d lost the battle against sleep to stay up for him, but instead when he walks in she’d wide awake, her focus torn from the TV as he enters the room.

“Hi honey,” she says, sitting up a little straighter when he walks over, one of her hands on her baby bump as she kisses him before he joins her on the couch, slipping under her legs as she raises them just enough for him to sit, “You made good time.”

“Traffic wasn’t bad,” he replies, squeezing her foot, smiling softly when she groans in pleasure, “You didn’t have to wait up.”

She shrugs like it’s nothing, like she wasn’t just shy of 8 months pregnant and constantly exhausted, “It’s okay, I wanted to see you.”

He frowns, seeds of concern planting deep in his chest, her tone of voice, the way she was holding herself tightly, both of her hands on her bump as she absentmindedly drew patterns on it.

“You’re tired. I wouldn’t have minded if you’d just gone to bed, I’ll be here in the morning anyway.”

She scoffs, unable to stop herself, hormones, exhaustion and irritation she knows he doesn’t deserve swirling in her gut, “Yeah, if you didn’t get called away for a case.”

His concern for her immediately gets worse, the flowers of it taking up all the space in his chest, burning against his lungs as she tries to figure out what is wrong. She’d been okay when they spoke earlier, relieved even when he told her that they were about to fly home. It’s a flash of his past life, a momentary collision of his marriage to Haley forcing its way into his marriage to Emily.

She’d never had an issue with his job, with their job, and she understood the unpredictable nature of it. Things had been different lately since she’d stopped going on cases with the team, he knew that, and he knew she missed being a part of it.

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

She blows out a breath, embarrassment at her outburst colouring her cheeks, and she shakes her head, “Nothing. Sorry, I think I’m just hormonal,” she flashes a tight smile at him, “Your kid is ruining me.”

He squeezes her foot again to get her attention after her failed attempt to deflect, his face nothing but kind as he looks expectantly at her, their promise to never lie to each other on the tip of his tongue, “Em…”

She looks down at her bump and clenches her teeth, desperately trying to stave off the tears she can feel pressing at the back of her eyes. Pregnancy had left her on a razor's edge, everything sharp and making her prone to breaking down at the tiniest thing. It was driving her crazy, irritation at herself that only ever seemed to make things worse, her head swimming with emotion she was trying and failing to push down.

“I…” she says, clearing her throat when her voice wavers, shaking her head at herself as she chuckles humourlessly, removing a hand from her bump to wipe tears from her cheek, “I just miss you,” she says, wiping away another tear. She shrugs as she avoids eye contact with him, embarrassed in a way she doesn’t understand, her love for him overwhelming even after all this time. “That’s all.”

“Em,” he says softly, moving closer to place a hand on her knee, squeezing gently as she looks up at him, his smile gentle as their eyes meet, “I’m right here.”

She blows out a breath and rubs her hand over her belly as she feels the baby move, a constant reminder these days that she isn’t alone. She’d spent so much of her life chasing something exactly like this - a family to call her own. She had Aaron and Jack and the baby and she always would.

She’d never be alone again.

“I know. I think it’s because you’re going on cases and I’m not. I miss spending time just the two of us - which we never got a whole lot of anyway,” she smiles, an edge of sadness mixed in with the happiness as she reaches for his hand and places it on her stomach where the baby is kicking, “And we’re about to have even less of it.”

She’d stopped going on cases earlier than she’d originally intended. Pregnancy had been much harder on her than she’d anticipated, the nausea in the first trimester giving way almost immediately to exhaustion when it faded away. She’d wanted to carry on, content to sit in precincts and work on victimology because it made her feel useful, like she was still contributing to the team, but Aaron and her doctor convinced her it was time to stay home just as she turned 6 months pregnant. She hated that they were right, that she felt better for it, and she mostly hated that it meant she saw less of her husband than she was used to.

Since the start of their relationship, they’d spent practically all of their time together. It was clear from their first date that they were it for each other, a type of pull she knew she’d never felt before, her love for him overwhelming from even before their first kiss. They spent all their spare time together, she slept at his most nights - content to hang out with him and Jack until the little boy went to bed and then they’d get some time alone. Despite initially saying they wouldn’t, they snuck into each other’s rooms on cases before they told the team about their relationship. They were both aware that they slept better with the other there, a type of peace neither of them thought they’d ever experience again.

She missed him. Their bed felt bare without him, their choice of buying a super king even though they snuggled, more than half the bed empty even with them both in it, feeling all the more absurd when it was just her and her pregnancy pillow in it. Occasionally Jack would sneak in and join her, his small hands on her face as he woke her to tell her he’d had a bad dream. She’d feel guilty by feeling relieved when she had him there with her, the little boy she loved as her own pressed up against her whilst her baby shifted under her skin.

Aaron smiles softly at her, rubbing his hand on her bump for a moment longer before he links their fingers together and lifts their joint hands to his mouth. He presses a delicate kiss to her knuckles and it gets her attention, her eyes meet his again, and he tucks some of her hair behind her ear.

“Sweetheart,” he says softly, “I miss you too.”

Even though it was almost six weeks since she stopped going away on cases he still found himself looking for her, his eyes flitting around a room she wasn’t in to look for her reassurance, for the love she always freely gave him. He missed having her there, her smile sometimes the only good thing that would happen to him on a hard day at work. He found it difficult to sleep in hotel beds that she wasn’t in with him, her weight against his chest, her breath skipping across his neck as she slept, both as essential to him for a good night's sleep as a dark room and a decent mattress.

She was his safety net. His port in a storm. And whilst he was excited for this next step in their life, close to desperate sometimes to meet their baby, to see the face he’d imagined for months, he knew he’d miss this stage.

She smiles sadly at him and stamps a kiss against his lips before she rests her head on his shoulder, “Sorry I kind of ruined the mood the moment you got home.”

“You could never ruin the mood,” he assures her, turning his head to kiss her temple. He tugs her in closer, a tightness in his chest that had been there for days easing now she was in his arms, and he feels an idea start to form, a smile spreading across his face as he pulls back to look at her, “Why don’t we go somewhere? Just the two of us.”

She hums, her eyebrows knitting together as she looks him up and down, “What? Like a babymoon?”

He frowns, tilting his head as their eyes meet, confusion painted across his face in a way that she finds nothing short of adorable, “What the hell is a babymoon?”

She chuckles and runs her fingers through his hair, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as she tries to tamper down her amusement, “It’s a trip you go on before the baby comes. Pen was telling me about them.”

He smiles and nods, “Then yes, exactly like a babymoon,” he says, not missing how her smile gets wider as he says it, “We could go to Virginia Beach. Get a rental right near the water. Spend some time just you and me before this little one joins us and life gets a lot busier.”

She wants to do it more than anything, wants to spend some uninterrupted time away with him, something they hadn’t done since their honeymoon almost 8 months ago, but she sighs, the reality of their lives causing anxiety to spike in her chest.

“What about work? We’re both taking some time off when the baby comes, I don’t want it to be a problem.”

Aaron squeezes her hand reassuringly, “Em, we both have enough leave days banked to take a year off if we wanted to,” he says, smiling when she nods, “If you want to do this we’ll do it. I’ll book us a place to stay tonight.”

She doesn’t have to think about it, doesn’t have to mull it over anymore and she nods, kissing him fiercely as she leans in.

“Yes,” she says, kissing him again before she pulls away, “I want to go away with you,” her words disappear into a laugh as he pulls her in for a hug, her bump pressed up against his side, as he kisses her temple. She sinks into it, into him and wraps her arms around him, her cheek against his shoulder as she sighs, a relaxed feeling washing over her for the first time in weeks, “If you think about it, it’s perfect timing.”

He furrows his brow as he pulls back to look at her, curiosity sparking in his eyes as she tries to suppress a smile, a hint of mischievousness in it that never fails to make his stomach swoop, “What do you mean, sweetheart?”

Her smile only gets wider, “Well you got me pregnant on our honeymoon,” she says, shrugging playfully, “It seems like a nice way to bookend the pregnancy.”

“Em.”

___

He knows they’ve made the right decision the moment they get to their vacation rental.

She’s instantly more relaxed than she has been in weeks, a softness to her smile that makes him want to call up the owner of the beach house and offer to buy it off of him.

“I can help with the bags you know,” she says, her eyebrow raised at him as he gets their bags out of the trunk of their car, her pregnancy pillow tucked under his arm as he shuffles towards the stairs leading up to the house.

“I’ve got it,” he says, ignoring the strain in his back as he makes it up the stairs, smiling at her when she rolls her eyes. He sets down the cases and crouches down to press a kiss to her bump, ��You’re already carrying the most important cargo.”

She chuckles wryly and runs her fingers through his hair, fighting a smile as he kisses her bump again, “You’re ridiculous,” she says, shaking his head as he straightens back up, her gaze drifting to where her pillow was still tucked under his arm, “If you drop my pregnancy pillow I’ll kill you, and we both know I’d be able to - even if I am the most pregnant person to ever exist.”

He clears his throat, well aware that whilst her threat was playful she’d be mad if she thought he was laughing at her.

“Yes, sweetheart,” he says, kissing her again before he digs through his pockets for the key to the house. He unlocks the door and pushes it open, his hand splayed on her lower back as he guides her in, “Why don’t you look around, make yourself comfortable, and I’ll get everything in from the car. The owner said his wife would leave lemonade and homemade cookies.”

Her eyes light up and she looks down at her stomach, already walking into the house before she replies, her focus on their unborn child, “Did you hear that, baby? Cookies!”

When he’s done bringing in their things, the suitcases carried up to the bedroom and her pillow diligently placed on her side of the bed, he finds her on the back porch sitting in the swing, her gaze fixed on the ocean and the seemingly unending horizon. She turns to look at him as he steps out, her smile wry as he unfolds a blanket as he joins her, laying it over both of their laps, making sure her bump is covered, when he sits down.

“It’s not even cold out,” she says, wrapping both her arms around one of his, her hand squeezing gently at his tricep as she lays her head against his shoulder.

“I know,” he replies, resting his cheek against the top of her head, “But I’ve got to look after the two of you,” he adds, placing his hand on her bump, smiling at the movement of the baby, something that got no less amazing no matter how often he felt it, “So,” he says, kissing Emily’s forehead before he pulls back to look at her, “We have four days to do whatever we want.”

She hums and tilts her head to look up at him, the reality of being here with him, the next few days stretched out ahead of them washing over her, “I’d like to say we could have a crazy amount of sex and barely leave the house,” she laments, “But I think all I want to do is nap, eat and sit right here with you.”

“Then that’s exactly what we’ll do,” he assures her, resting his hand on her neck, his thumb tracing her jawline, “As long as I’m with you I don’t mind what we do,” he says, leaning in to kiss the tip of her nose, “And, I have it under good authority that a restaurant just down the street has to die for mac and cheese and they deliver.”

She moans, the sound turning into a delighted laugh as she closes her eyes, “You really know what a pregnant woman loves to hear.”

He hums, kissing her forehead before he lets his hand fall back to her bump, “Maybe I just really know my wife.”

She can’t explain the feeling that swells in her chest, threatening to pull her under as tears press at the back of her eyes. It was moments like this, moments when it was just him and her and their love for each other when she let herself feel the happiness she never thought she’d get, let herself bask in it.

She wasn’t lucky, this hadn’t fallen into her lap. She’d fought for this. Fought to get here and sometimes she’d lost, tripped and fell as the battle seemed too much, but she’d made it here. Made it to him, and he’d done the same to make it to her. They’d endured so much apart, but she knew whatever came next, the good and the bad, they’d face together.

She cups his cheek and rubs her thumb back and forth over his skin, “You’re the love of my life, you know,” she says, her cheeks warm with love and a hint of embarrassment, “I can’t imagine wanting to do any of this with anyone else.”

“You’re the love of my life too,” he says, and he places his hand over hers on his cheek and leans in to kiss her, “I can’t imagine doing it with anyone else either,” he says, frowning at himself when he says it, realising it sounds clumsy because he had done it with someone else.

A shaky breath escapes him, her admission not new but unexpected in the moment, their conversation about her favourite pregnancy food suddenly turning into more. He loved her so much it hurt sometimes. It was different to how he’d loved Haley. They’d grown up together, had initially grown together and then apart, both of them still in love with a version of themselves that no longer existed. He and Emily loved each other for who they were, for what they’d gone through, and he knew he’d have it for the rest of his life.

He sighs at himself and shakes his head, “I mean-”

“I know what you mean,” she says softly, cutting him off as she presses her thumb into his lower lip, “I’m glad we came here.”

He rests his forehead against hers, “Me too.”

They sit there for a few moments in silence, the only sound the waves crashing against the shore in the background. The moment comes to an end when her stomach audibly makes a noise that makes them both laugh, the baby almost moving in tandem.

“I think baby wants some of that mac and cheese,” she says, leaning into his palm when he wipes away a stray tear that had escaped her lashline.

He chuckles, pressing a kiss against her lips before he kisses her bump. He stands up to find the stack of take-out menus the owner had left out, but she stops him, her hand tight around his as if she didn’t want him to go, “I’ll be right back.”

She sighs and relents, letting go of him before she winks at him, “Make sure to bring me some of those cookies on your way back.”

“Anything you want, sweetheart,” he says as he steps back into the house, “Absolutely anything.”

-x-

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bitchthefuck1 · 1 year

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Okay but do you see how Jesper saying they're like brothers and Kaz saying yes doesn't have nearly the same level of drama as Kaz accidentally calling him his dead brother's name in an argument that ends with them trying to beat the shit out of each other

#like. where is the flavor???#the drama?? the cuntery????#the show just does not have the range for this #like the fact that they literally have 'we're like brothers and sometimes brothers fight' IN DIALOGUE because i guess its impossible to #have the audience understand the nuances of a relationship unless you verbally spell them out. garbage.#anyways the only good thing about this show is that its made me want to reread the books again #six of crows #shadow and bone #crooked kindgom #jesper fahey #kaz brekker

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starlooove · 22 days

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No bc fuck tim but it really really bothers me how people ignore his growth like he used to be an asshole and I’ll give tim Stans one thing: now he’s so so so stale but what I disagree with is that this staleness is bc nobody likes him like it’s in fact the exact opposite where everyone likes him so much they dont want to do anything. Even when it’s him surface level challenging Bruce it’s when everyone else is doing it too; but he’s still the backbone of the fam! Etc. and it’s so irritating bc him gaining more compassion and empathy even for people he doesn’t fw is so fun to watch and that’s why the captain boomerang thing was so out of character! (Not in a from the author way but in a tim wouldn’t do that and he and Bruce both knew it which is why it went down like it did. Same way dick killing joker was ooc; not in fanon sense but in a he would hate himself forever for this sense) and speaking of that it’s such an interesting mirror to Bruce who genuinely believes that everyone can grow vs Tim’s it doesn’t matter if they grow it’s not my decision to make like it’s the same but it’s not AND WITH CASS’ IT DOESNT MATTER IF THEY CHOOSE NOT TO GROW I WONT DO IT! like ugh. And anyways even when people acknowledge it they boil it down to “Janet and Jack taught him that the capitalist pigs that they are” like no. This is who tim was. Tim was the kind of guy who’d blame a dead kid for dying. That’s ok. Also Janet and Jack? Please reread anything involving them that’s not a fic like Jack had anger issues and they were both aloof at worst like relax.

#the Jack and Janet thing is both an understatement and an exaggeration but I don’t think anyone reads enough to care #some tim stan might get all pissy and be like ‘no look this is everytime jack yelled at him and boarding schools are abusive’ to which #and its like narratively that means nothing bc the tim you made up to justify the Drake parents you made up by blowing shit out of #proportion is also made up and if all of that was abusive there’d be smth to show for it besides ur homophobic Jack #too girlboss to care but still terrible Janet bc god forbid a woman have a personality from ur fics #anyways that’s also the reason I’m ignoring the council of spiders #well two reasons #first is that was just a moment to make tim look cool and did absolutely nothing for him or his character moving on #like at all #I’d say it fucked with his previous established dislike of killing for his own reasons #and while that COULD be interesting it’s not bc they didn’t do shit with it #and fanon doesn’t do fun shit with it either #nothing about how tim in his most manic state did shit he doesn’t want to remember shit he’d HATE other ppl for #just “’remember what I did to ur base Ra’s? mess with me again and see what I do next 😼’#like ok can you be real and genuine?#anyways I think #AND NOT IN A HATER WAY #Tim would benefit from being humbled #like genuinely I detest the world can’t move without tim running it but the idea that tim thinks that way is so good to me #and #I think next step being him realizing that’s not true would be a BIG push for his character #bc like I said tim Stans are right in the fact that he’s stale as hell rn #but that’s bc there’s nothing to say bc there’s nowhere to go! y’all want a tim action story where he shows off how badass he is reread #the Bruce quest and maybe it’ll remind you he’s not ceo lmao but anyways there’s nothing internal to say about him atp bc nobody wants to #say anything that’s not propping him up. same with Bruce! Gotham war was such a copout but it’s like ppl are saying he’s stale and it’s bc #god forbid he makes a lasting fumble. and I’m not under the illusion this is new I’m just saying it’s weird that fandoms not clocking it #anywayyys I really do like thinking about the No killing rule and how different it manifests for each perosn #like the way each distinct difference tells u so much about them #UGH ONLY SLIGHTLY RELATED BUT DUUUUUKE BEING LIKE IDGAF ABOUT GUNS LIKE UR SO REAAAL #anyways enough tim positivity for today FUCK THAT NIGGA!

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iintervallum · 12 days

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ive been listening to the grotto and 1) it's really good, the production is something that stuck out to me immediately and i was pretty much hooked in after listening to the first two episodes

2) the concept of endangering yourself to view a hallucination of your ex just reminds me of twilight, i now half wonder if there will be sparkly vampires appearing in the near future of this show/j

#aster.txt #the grotto #it always takes me at least two episodes of anything to get me to get fully immersed #almost every audio drama I've listened to i only became a full fan after the first 2 eps #the only exception being the Amelia project because it was that interesting from the get go: hot cocoa will do that #more people should listen to the amelia project its super good- i really need to catch up at some point #but yes the grotto that's what the post is about lol #i was immediately intrigued because of how ep 2 started off with Emily's perspective and her being alive #that just made the whole show do a 180 and challenged my initial first impression of what this show would be like #the woe.begone inspirations are very markedly obvious but only for the first ep really #ep 2 and onwards cements it as its own thing and i like that #also athans music is very nice i now want there to be more music in podcasts i didn't realize that was a thing i would want #it works for nightvale so it's surprising how not that many other shows have used that aspect #like the weather intermissions are one of my favorite parts of the episodes because of how varied they are #anyways please do listen to the grotto it's just started and it's pretty good!!

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kingdomoftyto · 2 months

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"Carlos, if you could just pause your experiment for a second--if you could only hear me out, hear my hypothesis! I think once you understand the science of the situation, you--" Carlos opened the door. He was crying. She had never seen him cry. He was overwhelmed and unsure of how to express his emotions, since he usually only did so in carefully worded sentences, not with water from his body. "The science of the situation?" he snarled. "That Otherworld. I was trapped there, Nilanjana. I couldn't see Cecil for ten lonely years. I was kept away from the people I love, in that desolate place where you never get hungry and you never have to drink water and so you never live. It is a place that devours. It is a place that is empty. That is the science of the situation, and I study it so I can fix it. Only I can do that. Only these experiments can do that. I'm sorry, Nilanjana; I'm not going to stop so you can tell me what science is."

🫠

#Tyto listens to WtNV #spoiler warning I guess for a book that came out a few years ago now #anyway yeah hi I finished the book #the resolutions to the plot and to Nils' character arc were pretty good. nothing to write home about but fun and serviceable #I personally get annoyed whenever a story pulls a ''you thought this romance would end with these two TOGETHER? lol NOPE''#like we get it it's more realistic for whirlwind romances to end in a breakup and sometimes it's better for people to just stay friends #but firstly this isn't real life; it's fiction. with narrative devices and such.#and secondly WtNV of all media does NOT get to preach about realistic relationship trajectories when its lead fell in love at first sight #lmao I'm just saying. I'm not MAD about it or anything it just made me roll my eyes.#ANYWAY. that aside: it was good. and I do genuinely like the friendship Nilanjana builds up with Darrell at the end #but obviously the real star of the show was Carlos and the completely unprecedented character depth that they smothered him in.#not ONLY recontextualizing over a year's worth of the podcast but ALSO saddling him with LAYERS of guilt over the events in this book #he *KILLED* the *GODDAMN* *CENTIPEDE*#after his beautiful little speech about not killing things just because we don't understand them!#he was just SO traumatized by his time in the Otherworld and SO afraid for his family after Janice nearly got Got that he KILLED IT!!!#and THEN!!!! not only do they find out that the centipede wasn't responsible for the destruction!!#but it turns out it was HIS OWN MACHINE THE WHOLE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#his attempts to keep everyone safe were what actually caused the danger!!!! AUGH HE WAS ONLY TRYING TO HELP #HE'S JUST SCARED AND HE WANTS EVERYONE TO BE SAFE AND NOT EXPERIENCE THE SAME HORRORS HE DID AUGHDUSHGHDH #...anyway yeah back to my regularly scheduled episode listening tomorrow

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spideysatan · 8 months

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im so // lucky // my life was such a mess that i confused confort with falling in love

#biggest blessing was realizing i didnt actually liked L.#and dont get me wrong i was starting to fall for him #its just that july was so fucking confusing and exausting and filled with uncertainty #and he was one of the ONLY things that were good in my life #that i mistook it for falling in love #im still pissed that he broke up with me in the way that he did. it was not very adult and it just seem like there was more that he was #not telling me. which made me angry.#and i found out that he had said before to another friend of mine that he wasnt going to date any more white girls and that kinda #idk #it just stinks a bit #cuz why should that matter anyways.#but yeah.#glad it wasnt love fr.#and im doing very fine indeed lol #i am however going to maybe just continue to do what i said i was gonna do after the heartbreak i had #which was if someone shows interest in hooking up thats fine but protect your heart #and i dont mean i wont open myself to love (i actually wanted to give it a chance with him but lol it didnt work ig)#but like. not gonna jump into any love bombing and delusions.#idk just seems like the right thing to do ig?#also i just have a shiton of stuff to work thru and figure it out about myself #maybe thats the best thing to do rn?

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colleendoran · 3 months

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Great Big Good Omens Graphic Novel Update

AKA A Visit From Bildad the Shuhite.

The past year or so has been one long visit from this guy, whereupon he smiteth my goats and burneth my crops, woe unto the woeful cartoonist.

Gaze upon the horror of Bildad the Shuhite.

You kind of have to be a Good Omens fan to get this joke, but trust me, it's hilarious.

Anyway, as a long time Good Omens novel fan, you may imagine how thrilled I was to get picked to adapt the graphic novel.

Go me!

This is quite a task, I have to say, especially since I was originally going to just draw (and color) it, but I ended up writing the adaptation as well. Tricky to fit a 400 page novel into a 160-ish page graphic novel, especially when so much of the humor is dependent on the language, and not necessarily on the visuals.

Not complainin', just sayin'.

Anyway, I started out the gate like a herd of turtles, because right away I got COVID which knocked me on my butt.

And COVID brain fog? That's a thing. I already struggle with brain fog due to autoimmune disease, and COVID made it worse.

Not complainin' just sayin'.

This set a few of the assignments on my plate back, which pushed starting Good Omens back.

But hey, big fat lead time! No worries!

Then my computer crawled toward the grave.

My trusty MAC Pro Tower was nearly 15 years old when its sturdy heart ground to a near-halt with daily crashes. I finally got around to doing some diagnostics; some of its little brain actions were at 5% functionality. I had no reliable backups.

There are so many issues with getting a new computer when you haven't had a new computer or peripherals in nearly fifteen years and all of your software, including your Photoshop program is fifteen years old.

At the time, I was still on rural internet...which means dial-up speed.

Whatever you have for internet in the city, roll that clock back to about 2001.

That's what I had. I not only had to replace almost all of my hardware but I had to load and update all programs at dial-up speed.

Welcome to my gigabyte hell.

The entire process of replacing the equipment and programs took weeks and then I had to relearn all the software.

All of this was super expensive in terms of money and time cost.

But I was not daunted! Nosirree!

I still had a huge lead time! I can do anything! I have an iron will!

And boy, howdy, I was going to need it.

At about the same time, a big fatcat quadrillionaire client who had hired me years ago to develop a big, major transmedia project for which I was paid almost entirely in stock, went bankrupt leaving everyone holding the bag, and taking a huge chunk of my future retirement fund with it.

I wrote a very snarky almost hilarious Patreon post about it, but am not entirely in a position to speak freely because I don't want to get sued. Even though I had to go to court over it, (and I had to do that over Zoom at dial-up speed,) I'm pretty sure I'll never get anything out of this drama, and neither will anyone else involved, except millionaire dude and his buddies who all walked away with huge multi-million dollar bonuses weeks before they declared bankruptcy, all the while claiming they would not declare bankruptcy.

Even the accountant got $250,000 a month to shut down the business, while creators got nothing.

That in itself was enough drama for the year, but we were only at February by that point, and with all those months left, 2023 had a lot more to throw at me.

Fresh from my return from my Society of Illustrators show, and a lovely time at MOCCA, it was time to face practical medical issues, health updates, screening, and the like. I did my adult duty and then went back to work hoping for no news, but still had a weird feeling there would be news.

I know everyone says that, but I mean it. I had a bad feeling.

Then there was news.

I was called back for tests and more tests. This took weeks. The ubiquitous biopsy looked, even to me staring at the screen in real time, like bad news.

It also hurt like a mofo after the anesthesia wore off. I wasn't expecting that.

Then I got the official bad news.

Cancer which runs in my family finally got me. Frankly, I was surprised I didn't get it sooner.

Stage 0, and treatment would likely be fast and complication-free. Face the peril, get it over with, and get back to work.

I requested surgery months in the future so I could finish Good Omens first, but my doc convinced me the risk of waiting was too great. Get it done now.

"You're really healthy," my doc said. Despite an auto-immune issue which plagues me, I am way healthier than the average schmoe of late middle age. She informed me I would not even need any chemo or radiation if I took care of this now.

So I canceled my appearance at San Diego Comic Con. I did not inform the Good Omens team of my issues right away, thinking this would not interfere with my work schedule, but I did contact my agent to inform her of the issue. I also contacted a lawyer to rewrite my will and make sure the team had access to my digital files in case there were complications.

Then I got back to work, and hoped for the best.

Eff this guy.

Before I could even plant my carcass on the surgery table, I got a massive case of ocular shingles.

I didn't even know there was such a thing.

There I was, minding my own business. I go to bed one night with a scratchy eye, and by 4 PM the next day, I was in the emergency room being told if I didn't get immediate specialist treatment, I was in big trouble.

I got transferred to another hospital and got all the scary details, with the extra horrid news that I could not possibly have cancer surgery until I was free of shingles, and if I did not follow a rather brutal treatment procedure - which meant super-painful eye drops every half hour, twenty-four hours a day and daily hospital treatment - I could lose the eye entirely, or be blinded, or best case scenario, get permanent eye damage.

What was even funnier (yeah, hilarity) is the drops are so toxic if you don't use the medication just right, you can go blind anyway.

Hi Ho.

Ulcer is on the right. That big green blob.

I had just finished telling my cancer surgeon I did not even really care about getting cancer, was happy it was just stage zero, had no issues with scarring, wanted no reconstruction, all I cared about was my work.

Just cut it out and get me back to work.

And now I wondered if I was going to lose my ability to work anyway.

Shingles often accompanies cancer because of the stress on the immune system, and yeah, it's not pretty. This is me looking like all heck after I started to get better.

The first couple of weeks were pretty demoralizing as I expected a straight trajectory to wellness. But it was up and down all the way.

Some days I could not see out of either eye at all. The swelling was so bad that I had to reach around to my good eye to prop the lid open. Light sensitivity made seeing out of either eye almost impossible. Outdoors, even with sunglasses, I had to be led around by the hand.

I had an amazing doctor. I meticulously followed his instructions, and I think he was surprised I did. The treatment is really difficult, and if you don't do it just right no matter how painful it gets, you will be sorry.

To my amazement, after about a month, my doctor informed me I had no vision loss in the eye at all. "This never happens," he said.

I'd spent a couple of weeks there trying to learn to draw in the near-dark with one eye, and in the end, I got all my sight back.

I could no longer wear contact lenses (I don't really wear them anyway, unless I'm going to the movies,) would need hard core sun protection for awhile, and the neuralgia and sun sensitivity were likely to linger. But I could get back to work.

I have never been more grateful in my life.

Neuralgia sucks, by the way, I'm still dealing with it months later.

Anyway, I decided to finally go ahead and tell the Good Omens team what was going on, especially since this was all happening around the time the Kickstarter was gearing up.

Now that I was sure I'd passed the eye peril, and my surgery for Stage 0 was going to be no big deal, I figured all was a go. I was still pretty uncomfortable and weak, and my ideal deadline was blown, but with the book not coming out for more than a year, all would be OK. I quit a bunch of jobs I had lined up to start after Good Omens, since the project was going to run far longer than I'd planned.

Everybody on the team was super-nice, and I was pretty optimistic at this time. But work was going pretty slow during, as you may imagine.

But again...lots of lead time still left, go me.

Then I finally got my surgery.

Which was not as happy an experience as I had been hoping for.

My family said the doc came out of the operating room looking like she'd been pulled backwards through a pipe, She informed them the tumor which looked tiny on the scan was "...huge and her insides are a mess."

Which was super not fun news.

Eff this guy.

The tumor was hiding behind some dense tissue and cysts. After more tests, it was determined I'd need another surgery and was going to have to get further treatments after all.

The biopsy had been really painful, but the discomfort was gone after about a week, so no biggee. The second surgery was, weirdly, not as painful as the biopsy, but the fatigue was big time.

By then, the Good Omens Kickstarter had about run its course, and the record-breaker was both gratifying and a source of immense social pressure.

I'd already turned most of my social media over to an assistant, and I'm glad I did.

But the next surgery was what really kicked me on my keister.

All in all, they took out an area the size of a baseball. It was hard to move and wiped me out for weeks and weeks. I could not take care of myself. I'd begun losing hair by this time anyway, and finally just lopped it off since it was too heavy for me to care for myself. The cut hides the bald spots pretty well.

After about a month, I got the go-ahead to travel to my show at the San Diego Comic Con Museum (which is running until the first week of April, BTW). I was very happy I had enough energy to do it. But as soon as I got back, I had to return to treatment.

Since I live way out in the country, going into the city to various hospitals and pharmacies was a real challenge. I made more than 100 trips last year, and a drive to the compounding pharmacy which produced the specialist eye medicine I could not get anywhere else was six hours alone.

Naturally, I wasn't getting anything done during this time.

But at least my main hospital is super swank.

The oncology treatment went smoothly, until it didn't. The feels don't hit you until the end. By then I was flattened.

So flattened that I was too weak to control myself, fell over, and smashed my face into some equipment.

Nearly tore off my damn nostril.

Eff this guy.

Anyway, it was a bad year.

Here's what went right.

I have a good health insurance policy. The final tally on my health care costs ended up being about $150,000. I paid about 18% of that, including insurance. I had a high deductible and some experimental medicine insurance didn't cover. I had savings, enough to cover the months I wasn't working, and my Patreon is also very supportive. So you didn't see me running a Gofundme or anything.

Thanks to everyone who ever bought one of my books.

No, none of that money was Good Omens Kickstarter money. I won't get most of my pay on that for months, which is just as well because it kept my taxes lower last year when I needed a break.

So, yay.

My nose is nearly healed. I opted out of plastic surgery, and it just sealed up by itself. I'll never be ready for my closeup, but who the hell cares.

I got to ring the bell.

I had a very, VERY hard time getting back to work, especially with regard to focus and concentration. My work hours dropped by over 2/3. I was so fractured and weak, time kept slipping away while I sat in the studio like a zombie. Most of the last six months were a wash.

I assumed focus issues were due (in part) to stress, so sought counseling. This seemed like a good idea at first, but when the counselor asked me to detail my issues with anxiety, I spent two weeks doing just that and getting way more anxious, which was not helpful.

After that I went EFF THIS NOISE, I want practical tools, not touchy feelies (no judgment on people who need touchy-feelies, I need a pragmatic solution and I need it now,) so tried using the body doubling focus group technique for concentration and deep work.

Within two weeks, I returned to normal work hours.

I got rural broadband, jumping me from dial up speed to 1 GB per second.

It's a miracle.

Massive doses of Vitamin D3 and K2. Yay.

The new computer works great.

The Kickstarter did so well, we got to expand the graphic novel to 200 pages. Double yay.

I'm running late, but everyone on the Good Omens team is super supportive. I don't know if I am going to make the book late or not, but if I do, well, it surely wasn't on purpose, and it won't be super late anyway. I still have months of lead time left.

I used to be something of a social media addict, but now I hardly ever even look at it, haven't been directly on some sites in over a year, and no longer miss it. It used to seem important and now doesn't.

More time for real life.

While I think the last year aged me about twenty years, I actually like me better with short hair. I'm keeping it.

OK. Rough year.

Not complainin', just sayin'.

Back to work on The Book.

And only a day left to vote for Good Omens, Neil Gaiman, and Sandman in the Comicscene Awards. Thanks.

#good omens graphic novel #good omens #terry pratchett #neil gaiman #dunmanifestin

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bangarangdarling · 11 months

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blame the “hitting on your mom as a punishment” tiktok i just saw that literally blew my brain up. established because they’re disgustingly in love and because i say so

Eddie would normally consider himself pretty immune to the roar of arguing teenagers. Chaos surrounds their little Party. They’re not a quiet bunch when all together. It’s all shoving and yelling, giggling and roughhousing. Carpet-burned battle scars from the floor of Steve’s living room.

Lord knows Eddie himself wasn’t an inside-voice kind of person. He was certainly wont to standing on coffee tables and screeching demands for the remote when it was unjustly stolen away by villainous hands.

Eddie loved these people to death, and they were a lot of fucking fun to hang out with, it’s just this...this was an unreal level of noise. A normal sleepover night turned a little too rowdy, the adolescents celebrating the start of Summer with a bang.

Steve had already asked them to keep it down four times this evening. Nothing seemed to calm them. Not requests. Not threats of being sent home. Usually their Dungeon Master threatening their characters’ souls did the trick, but no go.

Getting teenagers to listen? A feat more impossible than defeating creatures from an alternate universe.

Dustin and Erica were in a bitching match about the best D&D class. Lucas and Mike had been fighting over movie choices for the last half hour. Eddie’s money was on the VHS player breaking before that, the constant mishandling and shoving of tapes had the poor thing practically smoking.

Will, ever the diplomat, was trying to be an impartial party when asked his movie opinions. Which, of course, caused more yelling.

Max and El had been the only ones being semi-quiet, but that quickly ended when they followed through on their surprise attack pillow fight, pummeling the boys senseless and causing the already unbearable volume to kick into overdrive. Eddie could practically feel Steve’s migraine building, even from where the dude had retreated to the kitchen. Dinner had been pizza. Quick. Easy. Clean. Or, it would have been if it hadn’t had been for the food fight. Steve was still in there scrubbing cheese out of his parents’ tiled backsplash. Dishes clattered in the distance when the cacophony hit its crescendo.

It was the proverbial straw.

“Alright, that’s it! Hey. Come on, guys. Knock it off,”

Nothing.

“HEY!”

He maybe overdid it that time, but the absolute ear-splitting boom of a yell he let out stopped the ruckus dead.

Silence rang for a beat.

Huh. Maybe Eddie should try out incorporating that into his music. He honestly hadn’t known he could get to that range.

The teenagers in the room stared at him, not cowed in the slightest, but curious enough to know what the hell Eddie’s problem was. Max was the first one to quirk an eyebrow at him. “Geez, need attention much?”

Eddie folded his arms to show he meant business. “Steve has asked you guys to tone it down. You’re waking the fucking dead. Why don’t you guys, like, actually go be good human beings and help him clean up your mess you all made in the kitchen, huh?”

Lucas snorted. “Yeah, okay, mom. Why don’t you go help him, you guys will probably just make out in there, anyway.”

It was a teasing comment. Meant to jokingly rib before getting back to doing whatever the hell they wanted to do.

But, see. That just gave him an idea.

Never let it be said Eddie couldn’t be creative with his punishments. He was a DM after all.

“Alllllllright. New plan. Listen up or suffer, ankle biters,”

He really didn’t appreciate the snickers that brought about when he was trying to be intimidating. Rude.

“You going to send us to our room or something? I’m real scared,” Erica’s scathing, dry wit was unparalleled, truly.

“Nope. Better. It’s a new rule: You little shitheads give me attitude and don’t listen, I hit on your babysitter.”

It was silent for a minute, brains audibly computing that statement and coming up ERROR. Will hesitantly spoke up.

“Uh, Eddie, I really don’t think that’s--”

“Yeah, what the fuck?” Mike interrupted. “Why would you beating up Steve hurt us? I mean, like, I guess it would emotionally, but that’s fucked up, man.”

Eddie rolled his eyes, still smirking wickedly as his plan solidified. “Oh, I don’t mean that kind of hitting, young Wheeler. Though, it may yet get physical--Hey, Steve?” He called out. The sink in the kitchen shut off after a second.

“Yeah?”

“Can you come here?”

The kids shuffled around on the floor warily as the other man walked into the living room. The energy had obviously shifted, it was probably an odd vibe to walk in to, but Eddie cut Steve off before he could ask any questions.

“You tired?”

“Uh, no. I’m fine--”

“It’s just you just keep on runnin’ through my mind constantly. I figured you’d be exhausted, sweetheart,” Eddie purred, the words cloyingly sweet and full of exaggerated charm.

There was a countdown, three, two, one...

A collective groan let out. A few uncomfortable laughs. “Dude, what the hell?”

“You guys agreed not to be gross in front of us!”

“Oh, my god, can I actually get sick from how cheesy that was?”

Eddie had to work at keeping in character when his very first line had pulled the intended reaction. He was already reaching forward to curl an arm around Steve, pulling him in in a slow, sultry attempt at being smooth.

“What? Can’t I be sweet on my guy? You all will understand when you’re in love one day. Right, sugar?”

Fake gags and retching sounds, too dramatic to be real protests, but still indignant and annoyed. Eddie was pretty sure Dustin slapped a hand over his eyes.

“Uh...yes?” Steve, who had previously looked like a car accident had happened directly in front of him, was catching on to the play. He eyed the disgruntled floor-children with a growing grin and let Eddie snuggle up to him.

God, his baby was so clever. He always knew what Eddie was thinking.

Too busy having a non-verbal conversation with Steve on how to best annoy the kids, Eddie didn’t see Mike turning his attention back to the tv. He did, however, hear him telling the others to “Just ignore them, they’ll get all gushy and leave us alone.”

Oh, Michael, Michael. Wrong move.

“How you doing, babygirl?” Steve flushed, deep and red and--huh. Okay. Revisiting that one in the future. “You good? You need anything? Your head hurting, sweet thing? I can kiss it better,” Eddie ducked forward to kiss Steve’s cheek. It was chaste, a sweet little thing...that Eddie made infinitely worse by the smacking, obnoxious kissy sounds he emulated there. The chorus of groans and protests started up again. He didn’t even pull his face away to call over to them.

“I’m sorry, is that attitude? Am I hearing more attitude?”

“Dude, Eddie, noooo!”

“Jesus, it’s like watching your parents make out, oh my god.”

“You guys, let’s just go already,”

“Yeah, I’ll take washing dishes over this,”

The grossed out teenagers whooshed past them. Grumbling and glaring--except Eleven, who smiled up at them sweetly--leaving Steve and Eddie standing in the living room, still wrapped up together.

It was too tempting then, with the kids safely out of range, for Eddie to resist the temptation to drop his kisses a little lower down Steve’s neck. To let them get a little less chaste. Just a little.

What can he say? He’s a weak man.

“That was evil,” Steve hummed. His shoulders dropped, though, relaxing into Eddie’s hold, the closest thing they’ve had to quiet all night settling in.

“Hey, I accomplished two things. Got them to chill out and I get the perk of feeling you up in the middle of sleepover night. It’s a win-win.”

A crash and a muffled argument broke out in the kitchen before Steve could respond to that.

The audible scuffling was cut off by Eddie calling out “Your ass looks great in these jeans tonight, Harrington!”

The fierce whispers and shushing were enough to get both of the older boys cackling loudly.

#Listen this is cheesy and poorly written but i HAD to #go find that tik tok because it was hilarious but also radiated love and healthy parenting #they called it 'gentle parenting with malicious intent' looooool #steddie #the party #my brain vomit

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mystellenia · 28 days

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giving ellie a hoodie full of kisses ୨ৎ

summary: you paint a hoodie with kisses for ellie, and the gesture flusters her.

content: nothing much, just ellie being shy

notes: answer to this req!! i'm trying a new format of posts. sometimes i see people do not quite hcs but also not quite a normal, paragraph-formatted fic. its this in between of bullet points????? idk lemme know if yall like it

(wc 0.6 k)

after spending an hour on painting your lips and pressing them to the cloth of the hoodie you'd gotten for ellie, you sat back and examined your work

you had to admit: the hoodie looked beautiful. but! you did not!!!! your lips were stained red from the paint, your back hurt from hunching over to kiss the hoodie, and you'd probably ingested about an ounce of red40!!! (i know red 40 is in food but let me be silly)

after washing the paint that had gotten on your skin off in the sink, you ironed the sweatshirt to seal the paint in (don't ask me how that works bc idk i just saw it on tiktok like 10 mins ago)

and now we wait for ellie to come home!!

when she finally comes in, she throws her keys on the table near the door and toes her dusty, disintegrating, been-to-bethlehem-and-back converse, bc have you seen them. one day she's gonna take a step and they're gonna turn into a cloud of dust i swear

anyway you're sitting on the couch with your phone in your lap, the painted sweatshirt folded into a square with the kisses hidden inside. she walks towards you and gives you a lil kissy kiss on the forehead like hiiii

you get all smiley because you're excited for her to see the sweatshirt and she gets all suspish.... like what's so funny....

sooooooo.... you tell her you made her something and unfold the hoodie and hold it up to your body so she can see the full thing. and she would soooo get all beet red, like, "...you made this for me?"

and you're like "yes of course do you like it queen" then she gets over the like flusteredness (????(actually i revoke my ???? bc i just made that a word)) and gets so happi like yayyy!!!!

then she looks all confused at your lips and is like "is that why your lips look so severely chapped and red?"

and you get mad so you take away kiss privileges so she does the only reasonable thing which is putting you in a headlock to force kiss you

would definitely immediately put it on and go look in the mirror at her with it on. she'll start geeking and thank you and all that jazz

she would wear that shit 24/7. sleeping working showering shitting ANYWHERE best believe she has that hoodie on. and you tell her its been like 2 weeks of her wearing it nonstop so she needs to wash it but she refuses bc she doesn't want the kisses to start fading. u wash it anyway bc its dirty and she cold shoulders you for about 30 mins before she sees some dumb reel she just has to show you (me fr).

i feel like she's a hot sleeper--like she gets too hot at night to wear the hoodie but she still wants it so she'll just hold it as a baby blanket of sorts and Whatnot.

wait very unrelated but does anyone have a baby blanket that they've had for so long its like basically just threads thats so funny

but overall she loves it. she likes to kiss the kiss prints you made on the sweatshirt bc it's "like kissing you."

there was one time she couldn't find it for like 2 days (because you'd washed it since she never does) and she tried to act all nonchalant and unaffected like she wasn't about to start tweaking and like twitching

then you gave it to her all calm because it was literally just in the wash and she was like "what😨😨😨 where did you find it😨😨😨" and you just tell her it was in the wash and shes like "oh that makes sense"

pls im so sorry. before i say anything i would like to formally apologize to the anon who submitted the ask for this bc this is so shit. you ask me for a product and this is how i repay you!! shame on me. please dilly dally on over to my asks and ask me something else so i can actually, i don't know, do a good job!! this ask was cute tho u ate with that

@picklesarenice69

wow i very strongly dislike this format so much this is the first and last time i will be doing this!!! i’m only posting this bc its been like a week since i last posted and the citizens will soon revolt, which the city's defenses cannot afford!! we're about to run out of wheat like times are getting tough. maybe i should just try just headcanons 🤔

can you tell i was fighting demons to not make this my normal vocab and format. like just look at this sentence and how it progresses: "when she finally comes in, she throws her keys on the table near the door and toes her dusty, disintegrating, been-to-bethlehem-and-back converse, bc have you seen them." the way that sentence progresses is just the silly demons taking over and also my coping mechanism for grimacing at how much i didnt mesh with this format

like i just couldnt take myself seriously. "yes of course do you like it queen" HELLO??? WHY DID I TYPE THAT but i will not be fixing and/or deleting it bc its making me giggle

dont get me wrong some of you ladies chew it up but i am made for unreasonably long and time consuming fics!!! i’m getting heated too bc not only is this so short and quick to do but it also takes less focus and brain power and ofc i had to make things hard for myself and hate it!!! i’m soooooooooooo silly

click here!! oh and here too!! ˶ᵔᵕᵔ˶

---

edit: wait i would like to clarify that i just hate this because perhaps i’m not used to it. if you guys like this maybe i'll do more bc i follow the clout always 💯

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horrorsequel · 2 years

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Man I haven't watched The Young Ones in so long but I clicked on a link to an episode and as soon as the theme song started playing I felt over the moon.

2 thoughts I had -

1) the way vyvyan interacts with Mike is honestly my favorite dynamic on the show.

2) I feel like... idk if it's fair to say, but at least back in like 2014/2015 I was a Recognizable Name in the TYO fanfic crowd and I'm not sure if people still read my fics but for a glorious little while I was The Neil Guy

#of course i now want to delete all the fanfic i wrote possibly ever but deifintely before the age of 24 #except my Reverent Neil Deep Dive: Heavy #i think i had some fun ideas for things to write and i had a good time writing them but ALSO #i think a lot of it is cringey to me now as the person who wrote it either #because it absolutely doesnt go with the show at aaaaalll for genre reasons or otherwise #or because like.... i think its weirdly written and the subject matter isnt something id write anymore if that makes sense #honestly its probably a mixture of both #needless to say the only one i still like is Heavy and even that is pretty rife with flaws #but most of them are technical #i dont think its inherently dumb to write a serious fic for a non serious source material #especially aince neil is suicidal In Text and thay lends to a lot of... idk ways to flesh him out or whatever #but yeah. i just know that if i qas approaching it now it would be a lot different #i think i handled it well for what i knew at the time #the character appeals to me for a lot of reasons #but rhe main draw to me as a teenager was using him as a proxy to think about depression suicidal thoughs panic and anxiety and ..#and more things if you read Variety or one of my other series #but yeah anyway i dont even properly remeber what im talking about anymore #i could have honeslty juat made a post talking about rhe disconnect between me and my old works but #i dont think anyone wants to see that so #im making it volumtary by putting it in the notes of my own post lmao

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bloompompom · 8 months

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rebounding; one-shot

“Don’t you want to give it a try? I mean, haven’t you ever thought about it?”

✧ content: ~10.5k words. eren jaeger x female reader. modern/roommate au. reader is dumped by unnamed boyfriend for "plot" purposes (what plot?), lighthearted with slight hurt/comfort + angst, complicated feelings, pure filth, eren’s bad with emotions but so are you, rough sex, praise, dirty talk, 'pretty girl' as a pet name, mentions of masturbation, light overstimulation, oral sex (f!receiving), protected PIV sex, explicit sexual content, explicit language, reader discretion advised. 18+ only

It was little more than a passing thought when Eren realized he hadn’t seen you since he’d been home. It wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary, considering your boyfriend’s shoes strewn near the front door—Eren tripped over one earlier—but he thought you would have come out for a snack or a trip to the bathroom or something by now.

Perhaps it was best to give you two some privacy.

On his way out, he opted to text you instead of knocking on your door to check if you needed anything. He took his time gathering his wallet and keys, but even after a few minutes, you still hadn’t opened the message. He got the hint, loud and clear.

The five-minute drive to the corner store didn’t eat up much time, and Eren spent the first half of the hour trying to figure out how to kill the next. He stalled for as long as he could, running down his mental checklist for household essentials and uselessly debating between soda brands. But after a while, he started to feel like a weirdo for stalking every aisle twice over.

Eren didn’t like to be at the apartment when he was there, your boyfriend. It wasn’t anything personal—

Okay, maybe he could admit it was a little personal. Eren had told you before that he was a major douchebag, but hey, at least he was honest.

Anyway, it wasn’t like anyone wanted to be around when their roommate was getting laid, but Eren had nowhere else to go and a gas tank bordering on empty. He couldn’t even take the long way back home.

Somewhere in his gut, Eren hoped you’d be there to greet him when he returned. Not for any special reason; he was just bored. What was the point of having a roommate if they were always locked away in their bedroom?

Of course, you’d only been ‘locked away’ for a handful of hours, but that was like an eternity to Eren—always one for dramatics. For him, it was an ordinary Tuesday night, with nothing to see or do except wait until he was tired enough to sleep. He couldn’t even enjoy his show because you scolded him for putting on an episode while you were out. ‘I can’t believe you watched our show without me!’ He wasn’t sure when the ‘our show’ thing started because it didn’t even seem like you paid it any attention.

Unfortunately for him, when Eren stepped through the front door, you weren’t curled in your usual nook on the couch. Your boyfriend’s shoes were still annoyingly kicked to the side, and not a single thing had changed since he left. The apartment wasn’t that spacious, and it didn’t take long to learn the walls were about as thin as cardboard, which made the silence eerie as Eren slipped from his shoes. Even the metallic clang of his keys on the table felt out of place, like he was walking on eggshells in his own home. Something was off.

Before he could put his finger on it—before he could even crack open his bottle of soda—he discerned the first sign of life from your room. Shouting, but Eren couldn’t pick out if it belonged to you or him.

Your bedroom door swung open. Eren didn’t see it but heard the swoosh of it, the rickety wood shrieking in its hinges. Your boyfriend stormed down the hallway, shoulders tensed and hands drawn into fists at his side. What did Eren say about him being a douchebag again?

Then, he shot Eren this glare. This downright nasty glare for no good reason, flagrantly huffing and puffing his way to snatch his jacket. He was rough with it, leaving the chair wobbling but still upright.

Prickly, and merely seconds away from acting on it, Eren’s disgust curled at his lip to return the sneer. But the asshole was out the door—even made sure to slam it behind him—before Eren could ask what the hell his problem was.

The apartment went quiet again. The door stopped quavering and the room was still. Though your boyfriend was gone, the strangely thick, suffocating air lingered. Eren didn’t know what to make of it. He couldn’t move, firmly planted in the center of the living room like his feet had taken root. He didn’t want to know what just happened, lest he wished to get wrapped up in your relationship drama, but he had this dreaded feeling he was about to learn regardless. Especially once the sniffling began, faint, but spilling from your room and into the hall.

The door to your bedroom was still open. Eren grazed his knuckles against it, carefully trying to catch your attention. You saw only his head at first, tentatively poked around the corner. After he decided the coast was clear, he made himself known, loosely leaning against the doorframe like he always did when he had something to tell you.

Your instinct was to hide your face—to quickly swat away the tears with the sleeve of your sweatshirt. It was your best attempt at collecting yourself, but it was worthless because Eren had already seen the puffy-eyed look on your face.

You straightened out, uncrumpling your legs and letting them hang from the edge of the bed. You started to fumble over snot-coated words. “God, sorry. I probably look like a mess.”

Eren couldn’t begin to guess why you were apologizing, and immediately, he felt a pang of sympathy. Despite how it struck him iron-hot in his chest, he didn’t know what to do with it. His body stiffened.

Thinking (hoping) you’d laugh, or at the very least chuckle, he didn’t disagree with you. Instead, he pitched you a boyish yet well-meant, “What’s new?”

You pulled a face but otherwise ignored the comment, reaching toward the box of tissues on your nightstand. Eren was surprised there were any left, considering you were surrounded by what appeared to be a hundred of them. Balled up and scattered across your bed, the floor, and even one on your lap. He didn’t want to, but he took a cautious step into your room. He even took another, squeamishly watching you loudly blow your nose.

He should say something, shouldn’t he?

“So,” Eren started, rocking back on his heels once. “What happened?”

You glanced over at him, still looking pretty awful. You had smeared the streaks of mascara across the crests of your cheeks, even to your temples, tinging them like soot. Eren’s stomach seized up as he fought off his primal urge to back away slowly and retreat to his bedroom.

You sucked in a breath and answered, “We broke up.” Between the words, your bottom lip started to quiver. “He broke up with me.”

Say what you wanted about Eren—label him a cynic or accuse him of being heartless, perhaps both—but he didn’t particularly enjoy dealing with others’ emotions. To put it bluntly, they repulsed him, most especially the waterworks that accompanied them.

Eren averted his eyes like you were some tragic spectacle. He hated seeing you like this. It was such a bummer, no different than spotting a kitten forgotten in a rainstorm. He wished he could console you, find an umbrella and run to your rescue, but that was much more complicated than it sounded.

If he had known about the breakup earlier (if you had responded to his text message), he would have brought you something back from the store. Ice cream or red wine—the sort of stuff he’d seen in movies—he didn’t know. Ugh.

He remembered his bottle of soda, still sealed with its condensation cooling his hand. He extended it to you, offering, “Here. You can take this if you want.”

Face buried in your palms, you pried your gaze higher and, unexpectedly, grimaced.

“What? No, I don’t want that right now,” you grumbled. Eren could be such an idiot sometimes.

Your voice was sour enough to sting, like he had purposefully salted your brand-new wound. His face said enough—a resounding yikes—but he didn’t stop there; he continued digging his own grave.

Eren nodded his head in the general direction of the front door. “You know, he probably hasn’t gotten too far. I could go kick his—”

“I think I just want to be left alone.”

“Well, what if we—”

“Seriously, Eren,” you snapped. “Go away.”

Tears collected in the corners of your eyes again, welling up like dew. Then your bottom lip did that trembling thing again. It must have embarrassed you; that was why you rushed to slam the door in Eren’s face. At least, that was what he told himself, rather than admit you didn’t want his help, that he was only making things worse. That maybe he was the last person you wanted to see right then.

Honestly, that might have been the case. Not just in that fleeting moment but for the days to come.

It had been over a week since that night, a very strange eleven days in the little apartment you both called home. It wasn’t like you to keep to yourself. Even when Eren first moved in, when he was little more than a stranger to you, you liked his company. You told him as such. ‘I just like to have someone to talk to. That’s all.’ And you’d do just that, chatting to pass the time it’d take to wash the dishes or whatever menial task you were up to. Eren never minded, but it did make it harder to adjust to the quiet. He could even admit he missed your unnecessary commentary while he watched TV.

He supposed it was naive of him to think you’d bounce back from a breakup after only a week. But were you really that hung up on this guy?

No, Eren was sure you were giving him the cold shoulder for badgering you less than a minute after your boyfriend had stormed out. Not that it wasn’t deserved, but for the record, you never apologized for slamming the door in his face.

Neither of you wanted to lose this childish stand-off, nor were you above butting heads, no better than a couple of rams, if given the right provocation.

To outsiders, the two of you may seem like an unlikely pair. But the reality of it was you shared this apartment for well over a year now. Eren wasn’t your original roommate, that was your friend Mikasa. After a few months of living together, she was offered an internship a few hours south of here, out of commuting range, and took it on a whim. That internship turned into her dream job, and her friend Eren’s sublease turned into one of his own, for no other reason than it just worked; it was as simple as that.

So one could imagine why Eren had trouble wrapping his head around it. By now, it was customary, borderline a requirement of living together, for you to annoy one another. You’d poke and poke and poke, as roommates tend to, and no matter what, the other would come around. Eren always did. You always did.

But this time, even Eren’s bribes didn’t work. Not even a latte from your favorite cafe—conveniently located on his walk home from the gym—softened you. That was when he knew it was bad, worse than when you discovered he’d been snitching from your expensive hair products in the shower. It was awkward and tense and, frankly, unbearable.

It was Saturday night, probably creeping into Sunday morning. Eren’s eyes burned, a bit bloodshot when he last checked. He took it as his sign to shut off the computer.

You still weren’t home. Eren didn’t know where you were; he told himself he didn’t care, but his rampant curiosity said otherwise. Throughout the night, he’d excuse himself from his video game, telling his friends he’d be back in a second, and on his way to ransack the kitchen for the umpteenth time, he’d check to see if your purse had returned to its rightful spot: draped over the back of the loveseat. For whatever reason, your absence irked him.

You knew there was a chance Eren would still be awake when you came home; you just didn’t expect to bump into him.

You stood in your entryway, your coat only halfway down your arms and sagged around your elbows, when Eren emerged from the hallway. He had a hand shielded over his squinted eyes as they adjusted to the brash overhead light.

His white tee held the wrinkles of his bedsheets. It was an old shirt, by the look of it, its collar drooped in the front and a hemline that appeared slightly thread-barren against his charcoal sweatpants. He must have fallen asleep with his hair tied back; stray strands framed his cheekbones and curtained his lidded eyes. He blinked them a few times, hard, then let his hand slump to his side. He studied you with a judgy once-over.

“Did you just get home?” He sounded as groggy as he looked.

“Yeah.” It was a rather redundant question, given your current state of toying with your strappy heels, bounding around on one foot as you tried to slip free of them.

Eren retrieved his phone from his pocket. “It’s almost three in the morning.” He showed you the screen as if you requested proof.

“So?”

“What were you doing out that late?”

You couldn’t decipher his tone, and for the life of you, you couldn’t read the expression on his face. For once, it was blank. Tired, but blank.

“It’s none of your business,” you snarked.

“It is when you wake me up.”

You had difficulty believing you had woken him up in the thirty seconds you’d been home. Regardless, you brushed him off with, “I was out with a friend.”

You were purposefully vague because it truly was none of his business. But you let your attitude seethe to the forefront, with it, an implication you didn’t intend.

Eren gave you this look, stern and accusatory, but more than anything, he looked absolutely baffled with you.

“You didn’t.”

He thought you went crawling back to your ex.

You didn’t correct him in time to prevent his ranting and raving.

“You can’t be serious. After what he did?” He was referring to the nasty breakup. “After everything?” And that was referring to the rest. You were aware Eren had become an unlucky bystander to your relationship, frequently caught in the fallout of every nuclear fight.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, wiping the sleep from the inner corners of his eyes as if it would clear his head. “You could be with anyone you want. Why go back to him?”

You were insulted he’d think so lowly of you, that you needed a fatherly lecture from him of all people. You were fixed on that, not reading between the lines when you barked, “So what if I did? Why do you even care so much?”

Eren didn’t care. What possibly gave you the impression he cared? You were a big girl, you could date whoever you pleased. You were certainly doing whatever you pleased; the only reason he was even talking to you—the only reason he was awake—was because of you, loudly stumbling through the front door in the middle of the night, unwilling to consider his perspective on the situation.

A situation you created, by the way. Not just tonight but eleven days ago. It didn’t need to exist in the first place. The drama, the theatrics—all of it. You must have forgotten Eren wasn’t the one who dumped you.

So in his mind, the better question was, “Why are you being like this?”

You defensively knotted your arms over your chest. “Like what?”

Eren opened his mouth, raring to sling some smart-ass comment your way, but he only stammered. He blamed it on the fact that he was torn out of his slumber and immediately thrown into the ring with you, but truthfully, he could have eight hours of sleep and a shot of espresso and still suck at this sort of thing. You know, emotions.

Words failed him miserably. He gave up on them and waved a hand over you like you were supposed to know what he meant by it. “Weird and stuff.”

“Weird and stuff,” you mocked with a pointed scoff. “You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that.”

“You’re never here anymore,” he said in exasperation, “and when you are, you’re ignoring—no, you’re actively avoiding me.”

You wanted to do exactly that, to roll your eyes and stomp to your bedroom. Eren knew that. He was daring you to prove him right.

In a way, ending a spat was much like defusing a bomb, wasn’t it? Both backed you into a corner, forcing you to make a decision on instinct alone. You’d clip a wire, red or blue, the choice was yours, and cross your fingers that it was over. You could deny, deny, deny, put it off for another day, just to see if it explodes. Or you could end it.

You exhaled reluctantly. “I went out for drinks with Sasha. We went back to her place, got to talking, and I lost track of the time.” He matched your sigh, and you watched the sink in his shoulders. “The breakup was long overdue. I don’t think one night out would change anything between us.”

You told Eren the truth not because it was any of his business but because guilt pitted your stomach. Yes, he was upset you woke him, you understood that. And undoubtedly, it was a part of the reason—at least why he was testier than normal, which was saying something—but hearing him now, you realized it ran much deeper than that.

The tension in the room eased its grip on your throats. You sensed he was about to offer you some cliché, but if it would be anything like his last attempt at cheering you up, you weren’t interested.

You beat him to it, confessing, “He dumped me because of you.”

The sentence fell to the floor with a blundering splat. You plopped this thing between you and expected him to know what to do with it.

Eren’s eyes narrowed and flickered over you, head to toe. He took in your words, scrutinized and dissected them. Before he could draw his own hasty conclusions, you elaborated, “That’s the reason he broke up with me—why I’ve been avoiding you.”

He snorted derisively. “That’s a load of bullshit.”

“That’s what I said. But he told me I either had to move out—find a place of my own or live with him—or it was over.”

The mood shifted. Eren stared back at you apprehensively, waiting for you to go on as if you hadn’t made up your mind already—as if you were about to break your lease on the spot. He couldn’t fathom the obvious answer.

“And?”

You exaggerated it when you extended your arms out at your sides. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

You looked and looked at him, but for once, he didn’t say a thing. You disarmed him; he tucked his hands into his pockets in his own Eren-y way of surrendering.

“It sounds stupid, but I like what we have. I like this,” you said genuinely, even if you weren’t quite sure what ‘this’ was—your living situation, your roommate-ship, your friendship with Eren. Whatever it was, it was comfortable, and maybe it was just some lame proverb, but you couldn’t help but think: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

You shrugged. “And I’m definitely not about to ditch it for some jealous douchebag.”

He finally cracked. His lips bowed into a small smile. “At least you can finally admit it.”

Deep down—like way down in there—you recognized none of what happened was Eren’s fault, but that didn’t lessen the blow. It became easier to pretend as if he wasn’t there, just for a while. It was irrational, it was your gut reaction, and by the time you realized how petulant it was, you were too ashamed to fess up to it. All it took was a bit of cornering, you supposed.

You and Eren were too close, apparently. That was what your ex-boyfriend believed for however long he chose to keep it to himself. He stewed on it, a simmer at first, until it bubbled to a seething boil, splattering you when you removed the lid and asked, ‘Why have you been so distant lately?’

Once the argument ensued, it was like you no longer spoke the same language. Anything you said, any explanation you gave, wasn’t good enough. To him, you were irredeemable. He had already set his mind on that ultimatum—a rather expensive one at that.

You weren’t oblivious to the fact that some may find it strange you were in a relationship with one man while living with another, but was it that bizarre a concept? It was how the cards fell, so you made the best of it, which wasn’t too difficult, actually.

It became clear just how long it’d been bothering him when he began to list everything you’d done wrong over the months, even going as far as to count your crimes on his fingers. Looking back, you should have stopped him there; no one needed to be with that kind of person, anyway.

Firstly, and what appeared to be your greatest sin, was that he hated when you borrowed Eren’s hoodies; it really didn’t happen often. Eren left them thrown about the apartment, so you’d only wear them to empty the trash when it was raining or when you went grab a coffee down the street on a chilly day. According to him, he was always finding them in your room.

You could appreciate his perspective on that one, but he should have mentioned it sooner. His second reason—and this was where they started to become silly—was that he ‘always’ (he used that word a lot) heard Eren in the background when he’d call. You told him it was farfetched to think Eren’s naturally loud demeanor was somehow your fault.

Then he became more upset, ridiculing you for, in his words, being all ‘Eren this, Eren that’ about everything—another exaggeration. In your defense, if you turned to Eren, it was only a matter of convenience because he was literally across the hall. You never explained this; he didn’t give you the chance, so you tuned out his other reasons, more focused on trying to make sense of this tailspin.

It hit you then, not like a smack across the face; it was stealthier than that. It prowled from behind in a low rumble, creeping down your spine before pouncing, taking you captive in one go.

“Eren?”

The mildness in your voice surprised you. You spoke his name in a quiet request, the same way you would if you needed something from him (you did). He was immediately suspicious. Still, he met your eye, acknowledging you with knitted brows.

Whenever you needed something, you turned to Eren.

You had to choose your words carefully, but there was no careful way to go about this.

You bit down on your bottom lip, unwittingly wetting it. “Would you kiss me?”

What you needed now was to forget. To lose yourself in his body, just for one night.

The softness in his voice contended with your own. “Why?”

He didn’t say no. His face certainly didn’t say no, either. And he didn’t draw back when you neared him.

Sasha spent the evening encouraging you to find a hookup, telling you the only way to get over someone was to get under another. But meeting someone new was hard.

“I don’t know,” you slowly said. “Just want to.”

Eren flinched, only slightly, when you laid the tips of your fingers on the back of his wrist. You grazed them higher up his arm, noting how the hairs stood up as you went.

“Don’t you,” you started, in an almost temptatious way, “don’t you want to give it a try? I mean, haven’t you ever thought about it?”

He sucked in a breath and his lip went with it, pinched between his teeth. He shut his eyes because he was pretty sure he was about to kiss you. It didn’t help that the sight of you was incredibly distracting, either. He still had to decide what to do, and all the while, his thoughts juggled around in his head; he couldn’t hold onto one without losing another.

It was a terrible idea. Downright awful. Even so, it didn’t feel so bad when he felt your hand on his chest, even if it made his heartbeat hammer.

Eren opened his eyes to your face, nothing else. He took you in, from the top of your head to the very tip of your chin. Your hair was a bit out of place, expected for three in the morning, but your eyes were as bright as if it were the middle of the afternoon. Something about them was alluring, though he couldn’t pin it. They grew, bigger and bigger, until they were out of focus. Closing in, your noses brushed, and Eren’s ‘yes’ died on his lips as he placed them to yours—an answer to one or both of your questions, he wasn’t sure.

He couldn’t stop himself from kissing you, losing his words between your lips as he asked, “Should we be doing this?”

You inched back, still extremely close, enough that your breath warmed him. “Why not?”

Eren knew you didn’t need him to break it down for you. You were Mikasa’s friend, his roommate. Someone he wanted to keep the peace with, even if you were making it difficult.

“Won’t it make things weird?”

“I thought I already made things weird. And stuff,” you teased. He shot you the unamused look you anticipated. “Whatever. You already pop a boner when you see me after the shower. Do you really think this is what will make things weird?”

Heat scorched the tips of Eren’s ears. It had only happened twice! And there was no way you knew about that. Unless you were looking for it, he supposed, but thinking about that made him more nervous.

It was that damn robe of yours. The one you only wore from time to time, the telltale sign laundry day was near. Eren had only seen it a few times, incidentally of course, just if you’d pass one another. Still, he could picture it then. It hardly counted as a robe, so frail that he was surprised anyone would spend money on it. It bordered on see-through, clinging to your body as you’d leave the steamy bathroom, into the cool hallway—

You lightly smacked his arm. “I’m just messing with you.”

He deflated in relief, but the feeling didn’t last long because you were still between his hands, sitting dangerously low on your waist. In that moment, his sense drizzled from him much like a leaky faucet: drop by drop at first, then a burst pipe. Now, he wasn’t sure there was even an ounce left.

You batted your lashes at him. “C’mon, you’re really going to make me get off myself?”

Okay. Now he was absolutely certain any and all sense had drained from him.

Eren swallowed hard. “Will this help you get over him? Because I’d really like to never see him again.”

Yeah, that worked. That was how he’d justify it: he was merely helping you out. Nothing more. Then things would be fixed, and everything would go back to normal. Better, even, because now he wouldn’t have to deal with your ex-boyfriend anymore.

“Mhm,” you murmured, but desire had been lowly buzzing between your legs for the better half of the evening, leaving you fuzzy enough to agree to anything he said. Anything to keep the fire in you alive and burning. But right then, you weren’t sure if there was anything—no body of water great enough—that could douse it. You didn’t mind; you found pleasure in it because at least you weren’t burning alone.

You went to kiss him again, but Eren dodged it with a small tick of his head.

“You just told me you liked this,” he said. “But now you’re willing to risk it? What if this is a mistake?”

He was still struggling to understand you. He always struggled to understand you, even after living with you for over a year, but this was next level. You had him dumbstruck.

Let there be no misunderstanding: Eren wanted this. He was just another twenty-something-year-old guy, of course he wanted this. It was just that he was also very aware of the consequences.

You touched his mouth with the tips of your fingers. His lips were wet with your spit—a combination of yours and his. You pressed down, ever so lightly, to shush him. You didn’t want words; you wanted incoherency. Purposeless and meaningless sounds and syllables, groans pulled from the back of your throats.

“If it’s a mistake, then let’s make it together.”

You invited him with a peck at first, a taste, then he pulled you back in to devour you whole.

Eren kissed the same way he lived: passionately, intensely, maddeningly. He was better at it than your ex, which you didn’t expect. The thought of what else he could do better made your stomach flip.

His palm warmed your cheek as slender fingers wrapped around the back of your head. Like an anchor, it kept your lightheaded self tethered to him. He smelled of sleep, and he smelled like him. The heady scent coiled around you. You inhaled as you kissed him, and when his mouth dipped to the delicate skin behind your ear, you buried your nose in his hair. You imagined your face shoved in his sheets, how they’d smell the same. You’d inhale it then, too, through gasps and an agape mouth.

You smoothed your hands higher on his chest, over his shoulders. Your nails gently scratched at Eren’s back, and even through his T-shirt, it set his nerves ablaze.

The part of his brain demanding he pump the breaks finally shut down, his entire body thrilled by it. It was all physical, fueled by carnal desire. He acted solely on what he wanted, and that was for your lips to stay exactly where they were. To stop you now would feel like abandoning a hearth in the winter. Instead of taking his hands against your shoulders, pushing you away to create some distance, he molded them around your hips.

You clasped your hands around his larger ones and placed them on your ass. You squeezed down on them, encouraging him to fondle you—to feel you—and he took to it as if he’d already thought about everywhere he’d like to grab.

Mistake or not, Eren knew if he ended it now, the palms of his hands would feel hollow the second you’d left them.

You didn’t bother debating between bedrooms and made the decision easy by heading for the couch. If you were being honest, you’d thought about fucking on this couch before—not with Eren obviously. The cushions were deep-set and roomier than most. It was evident you and Mikasa didn’t spend a fortune on it, but at least it was firm and wouldn’t give too much beneath you. You felt like it was made for fucking but respected your roommates enough not to give it a spin. But with Eren, everything was shared. Everything belonged to you and him. You could do it wherever you wished.

Eren laid you back on the couch and positioned himself above you. You wriggled below him, attempting to make any space for him to fit between your legs. It was nearly impossible in such restricting denim. You mumbled a ‘hold on’ into his mouth as you darted your hands down for the button. He was eager to assist. Once your jeans were undone, he pulled them past your knees, freeing one leg so you could kick them off the other.

Settled between your legs, Eren kissed you again, and you tasted the desire on each other’s tongues. His sweats did little to hide how hard, and heavy, he was against your leg. You imagined if you slipped a hand below his waistband you would find he wasn’t wearing boxers.

You bunched his shirt in your fist. You tugged at the hem of it, lifting it out of your way so you could greedily glide your hand beneath. Tracing between the divots of his abs, you felt the way they tensed as you trailed higher up his chest. Once it was established that it wasn’t needed, Eren sat back on his calves to peel it over his head, and it was on the floor a second later. Yours was next, but it was a bit more complicated than his cotton tee.

“What the fuck,” he muttered once he realized it wasn’t coming off. He fiddled with the strings tied around your neck, more frantic to get under the fabric with his fingers and tongue than he was concerned with being romantic. “How did you even get this thing on?”

“Sasha helped,” you relied matter-of-factly, though a bit breathless.

Did she have to knot it this many times?

You arched your back as Eren slipped his hands beneath you, blindly reaching for any of the ties. The straps had been digging into your shoulders all night, marking your skin with soft indentations. With every slackened string there was a sense of relief until, eventually, Eren had the shirt bunched around your midsection, your tits out. That was what mattered to him; he could figure out the rest later.

He cupped your breast in his hand and brought his mouth to it. Your skin was supple and smooth under his impatient lips, balmy and warm from pressing your bodies together. With a pointed tongue, he flicked over your nipple. When it was perked, he sucked lightly until your breathing began to flutter. He pulled off you with a pop, thumbing over your nipple as he turned to gift his attention to the other.

Eren’s touch was resolute, weighed down by hunger as his hand mapped its way down your side. It both unnerved and ignited you—the titillating vulnerability that came with being with someone new; how he caressed you for the purpose of exploring, seeing for himself what you liked best.

Heat pooled in your stomach. Lapped at you like the tides, though far less tranquil. Summery waters lured you in, kept you still and contented beneath Eren, kissing him, letting him kiss you, everywhere. From your neck and the dip in the center of your collarbone, focusing the most on your breasts. Then at your hipbones next, where it tickled the most. He must have liked the sound you made, reminiscent of an airy giggle, because he grazed his teeth there, pulling the noise from you again.

But as was certain, the tides would ebb; tepid waves turned to sea swells. Deep in your stomach, that dull yet glowy ache begged you to do something about it, your hips kneading into him, inviting him to tear off your underwear and fuck you already.

Eren leaned back when his fingers met your underwear. He hooked the band of them with his index finger, toyingly sliding it along your stomach. On instinct, you twitched, feeling frustratingly helpless to him. You bit back a strangled murmur along with a hiss urging him to get on with it.

Though your panties separated you and him, his eyes were still transfixed on where you wanted him most. And he knew how badly you wanted him there by the telling damp spot on the fabric.

Eren pressed the pad of his thumb to it, his other fingers rested atop your pelvis. He made soft circles against you, slow and testing. He observed every flick and flinch in your expression, his mouth slightly slacked in a smile that widened with your whimpers.

When he finally started to remove your underwear, it revealed just how wet you were for him—for your roommate. The back of your neck fevered when you noticed the lewd string connecting you to the soaked fabric. Eren snapped it with his thumb, and your humiliation only worsened when you watched him bring it to his mouth.

He didn’t anticipate going down on you. You only wanted to get off, and so did he, and a quick fuck would more than achieve that. But as he played with your clit, your tiny moans had him craving to hear how you sounded when you were wrecked, sobbing out for more. And with the way you were spread and dripping below him—well, he wouldn’t want any of it to go to waste. Not with how sweet you tasted.

So without hesitation, Eren dove between your thighs, gripping your hips and pulling you against the heat of his mouth.

Immediately, you throw your head back. It bumped the armrest with a thud loud enough to catch Eren’s attention. He glanced up to check on you, and right then, you found the sight of him inexplicitly striking. You didn’t know why, but it was as if his piercing eyes had pinned you to the spot for him, like he had control despite being down between your legs. You went blind to anything but him and his eyes, dazzlingly green against the flush tinting his cheeks.

Once he realized you were all right—it didn’t faze you one bit—Eren pressed a kiss against your clit before swiping his tongue through you. You shivered as he licked you with broad, lazy strokes of his tongue, savoring you, the button tip of his nose nudging your clit.

“Oh, God,” you breathed sharply, chin tucked to your chest, following it with a series of heavenly moans that were anything but holy.

Eren parted you with two fingers. He added more pressure with his tongue and swirled it around your clit. You screwed your lips together rather than allowing another cry to spill from you. It bubbled in your throat, and you swallowed thickly to keep it at bay before the neighbors could learn how debauched you sounded when Eren made you come. But when he closed his lips around your clit, sucking gently, you had no choice but to bite your knuckle instead.

Admittedly, you had wondered if he was actually talented at this or if the girls on the other side of his bedroom walls were only trying to boost his ego. He answered your inexplicit question by delving his tongue inside you, fucking you with it.

“Don’t stop,” you rushed to choke out, your back curving up from the cushions. “I’m almost there.”

Closer. You needed him closer.

You clung your hand to his head, raked your fingers through his hair. The useless tie slipped from it as you disheveled his bed head further. You pushed back the pieces that hid him from you, tugging as you angled him to the spot that made your thighs quiver.

“Do that again,” Eren breathed, fanning the command over you.

You did. He groaned, and you felt the couch shift as he rutted into it.

Your stomach contracted, that last gasp hitching in your lungs. Whatever glorious thing he was doing with his tongue felt like fire licking up your spine. He brought you to the very brink of becoming undone until you were writhing as you teetered it.

It was slick between your legs, you and the cushion beneath you drenched in your arousal and saliva. Eren’s mouth slipped around the more you wiggled. It didn’t matter where he held you, how deep his fingers dug into the fat of your thighs, he couldn’t keep you still. At this rate, you’d fall off the couch, undoubtedly taking him with you.

Eren wrapped his hands around the backs of your knees, pinning them to your chest in a reminder to hold them out of his way. You replaced his hands with your own, whining when you felt his fingers at your slit. He glided them between you, coating them until they slipped right inside. He dragged them in and out of you, increasing his speed until he discovered the tempo that made you pulse around him. Then he curled them, just right, aiding his tongue in driving you to your release.

“I’m coming—fuck, I’m coming,” you whispered, ragged and hardly audible at the end.

Eren sounded equally muffled, groaning as you started rolling your hips over his mouth. You heard him mumbling, but it was distant and overshadowed by your heart thrumming in your ears. You couldn’t make out what he was saying—something about how fucking hot it was—but you felt his raspy timbre vibrating against you as you shattered.

Your legs dropped to your sides, quivering as you rode out the final pulses of your orgasm. You closed your eyes, unable to focus on anything but finding your breath.

Eren planted a long kiss against you, easing you down with wet, open-mouthed kisses, trailed from your inner thighs to below your navel. Each sent another shock through you. He continued until you were face-to-face again.

“How was that?” Eren asked. He was cheeky with it, grinning and everything, so you responded by flicking his bicep.

He was still smug about it as he tilted to kiss beneath your jaw, intermittently nibbling at your earlobe. You lolled your head back, offering the expanse of your neck to him. But when you saw him reach for the band of his sweatpants, you rested a hand against his arm.

It took him a second, but when it clicked, he said, “Condom. Right,” and pushed himself off the couch.

Your shirt was still gathered around your midsection, clammy and sticking to your skin. You wriggled free of it, shimmying it over your head before you flung it to the opposite side of the room. It felt wrong to lay on the couch like this, bare and fully exposed. You thought to cover up with a blanket but reminded yourself there was no point; it’d be on the floor, just like everything else, in a matter of minutes.

You were still lying there, fidgety and a bit limp, when Eren returned. He was rustling with the condom wrapper as he joined you on the couch. Calmly as ever, like he’d done it a million times before, he lifted your legs to make room, setting them over his lap as he sat beside you. He smirked to himself when he noticed you were shaky in his grasp.

Eren leaned in as you rose to meet him. One of his hands supported your lower back while his other trailed up your inner thigh. His fingertips ghosted over the spots he had tasted not long ago until he was back between your legs, almost like he had never left. You melted into him with a dreamy sigh the instant he began to rub gently, placing his lips to yours as he did.

You looped your arms around his neck. His hand left your back, and you heard the familiar crinkling as he reached for the condom.

Eren reveled in every flimsy little breath you let spill into his mouth. He tightened his circles, expertly attuned to your clit. He gauged your reaction, noticing when your lips began to stutter against his own. He felt them curve into a small ‘o’ as he picked up where you couldn’t—kissing you, sucking your tongue, skimming his teeth along it, until your angelic sounds turned depraved.

The intensity at which Eren wanted this—wanted you—surprised him. You had barely spoken in eleven days, and he spent the better of the night grumbling and bitter about it, positive you’d never want to see him again. Now, it was as if you never wanted to leave his lap, and he wasn’t sure he’d let you. He could play with your perfect pussy all night; so perfect that he had no choice but to give you a taste; how warm and wet and soft you were around his fingers; how you’d feel even better around his cock.

Just thinking about it had him rutting into your leg, just once, in a helpless search for friction.

Eren caught your chin between his thumb and index finger. He tilted you away from his lips as he spoke against the side of your face. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Your face was puckered, squishing your languid and needy, “Yes.”

He angled your jaw further. “Then tell me how you want it.”

You felt his lips tickle over your pulse point. Kissing it, sucking it, nipping at it.

“Fuck,” you cursed on an agonizingly long hiss.

“Well obviously.” Eren gave a breathy laugh. The vibrato of it echoed through you. “Look at me.” You did, as much as you could; he was still cupping your face. “How do you want me to fuck you.”

You shook his hand off, panting, “I want it rough.” Grabbing him by the shoulder, you pulled him down until he collapsed over you. You smoothed his hair back before taking his face between your hands. You wanted to see the reaction in his eyes when you told him, “Let me feel it.”

You said it as if you’d thought about it before. Eren couldn’t help but wonder if your ex did, in fact, have a reason to worry. He told himself it was a problem for tomorrow and didn’t question it again. Tonight, his only obstacle was that he was still in his sweatpants, but it was swiftly resolved when you both reached for them.

Once they were gone, Eren sloppily licked his palm. You’d almost call it crass if it didn’t shamefully turn you on, watching him wrap his hand around his cock. His eyelashes fluttered at the small bit of release. He fisted himself a few times, unbothered by your blatant staring, before rolling the condom on.

He had you on your back, your head laid on the armrest again. One of your legs was hitched around his waist, and your other dangled from the couch, creating enough space for him to nestle in between.

You felt him—how hard he was for you—pressed in the crease of your thigh. With a hand around his base, he lined himself up with you. The tip of his cock threatened to push inside you, but he only glided it between your folds in one slow, encompassing stroke. And just as slowly, an overwhelming warmth tingled down your spine.

Eren continued toying with your clit. The condom’s lube and your wetness made it easy for the head of his cock to slip between you, to dip inside and tease you. But it wasn’t long before he was only teasing himself. Teeming with anticipation, you were already clenching around him so nicely, and he hadn’t even put more than the tip in.

It wasn’t like he was any better. When Eren felt your heel dig into his lower back, wordlessly pleading with him to fuck you, he succumbed. Not with a tilt of his hips but with one plunging thrust.

Your mouth hinged open, but nothing came out. Your wilted gasp was lost somewhere in the depths of your throat. You swallowed it down before you could choke.

Caged between his arms, you were close enough to catch the slight tremble in his biceps, only once he had filled you, entirely, his body flush against your own. Above you, Eren’s eyes squeezed shut. His lips parted in a shaky, dare you say it, beautiful sigh. Thrilled, your muscles naturally spasmed around the thick of him.

Eren stilled to adjust to you; your sensitive, needy pussy wasn’t making it easy on him. Of course, you felt fucking amazing. Just as good as he imagined, but so much tighter when he split you on his cock, not with his fingers.

He took his sweet time pulling out of you, losing himself a little more as he went, ensuring you felt every inch of him, just to bury inside you generously again.

Eren fucked you with smooth rolls of his hips. And God, it was effortless how he slid into you, over and over, thanks to how wet you were. You scraped at the cushion as if it were a bed sheet, as if you could twist the taut fabric between your fingers to ground yourself.

Once Eren discovered a pace that had you both breathing harder, his head dropped. You took it as an opportunity to muffle your moans, mouthing over his neck, right where it met his shoulder. You kissed him there, flattening your hands against his back to hold him to your mouth like you wanted him to smother you.

His skin tasted salty against your tongue. If he kissed you now, you were sure you’d taste the same, the heat between you growing feverish the more you ground against each other in a sticky lust.

When the blunt of your teeth dragged over his skin, you’d argue the groan he gave tapered into a low whimper. So you did it again, harsher this time. You bit down on him, the lean muscle giving easily, and it kept you quiet enough. It did pull another sound from Eren, though. He muttered some incoherent curses you couldn’t make out, and you would have thought you hurt him if not for the way his steady thrusts sped into pounding.

The couch was a tricky place to have sex, but you knew that already. You made it more complicated than it needed to be, forgoing the two bedrooms you had at your disposal, full-sized beds and all, and cramped yourselves onto this sofa because you couldn’t keep your greedy hands to yourselves long enough to think ahead.

Already, this position wasn’t going to work. Half of you had slipped from the couch, even more with each of Eren’s thrusts. He’d hoist you back into place only for you—the pathetic, squirmy thing you were—to falter over the edge again. Only your ass at first, then it was your whole leg. Then the process would repeat.

Eren sat back slightly. He closed his hands around your waist and yanked you to him, further down onto his cock.

With a yelp, your head fell from the armrest and lightly bounced against the cushion. He replaced it with your hands, pinning them high above your head with a sturdy grasp on your wrist. Your knees threatened to clamp around him, and he used his other hand to hold you open for him, gripping the fat of your inner thigh.

“Keep ‘em spread for me,” Eren growled. “Wider.”

You liked how his voice sounded right then, almost like gravel. You’d never heard it like that, all raspy and weighed down by his lust. That and the subtle pinch in his brow gave away just how turned on he was.

You fucked like that for… You weren’t sure how long exactly. Time was irrelevant after three a.m. anyway, wasn’t it? One particularly good thrust—his hips sputtering and grinding against you as if he could go any deeper—had his elbow buckling. Unable to hold himself up and continue his ruthless pace, he chose neither and flipped you onto your stomach.

Eren tossed you onto the armrest. You planted your forearms into it, propping yourself up. You felt his hand at the center of your back, forcing a nice bend in it for him. He smoothed it down lower, taking a handful of your ass and indulgently spreading you just to watch him disappear inside.

Too weak to hold your head up, you let it drop between your shoulders, gritting a wakened, “Fuck—you’re deep.”

When he sank into you fully, bottoming out, the head of his cock brushed the spot that had you briefly seeing stars.

Eren slowed at your dubious remark, unsure what to make of it. The moment he did, you made it clear, demanding, “Keep going.”

He began ramming into you, his hand still searing into your spine. You were too far gone, too focused on coming again, to hold back any longer. The noises that poured from you were pornographic. Short and breathy bleats of ‘right there, right there’ as his cock set sparks between your legs.

Your fingers flexed and relaxed around nothing, nails piercing the meat of your palms fiercely enough to leave them tender. You didn’t know if you needed him harder or faster, and through a few choked gasps, you could only wail a pleading, “Fuck me.”

You emphasized it by rocking back into him, smushing the back of your thighs against the front of his. It said enough.

Eren’s hands found your hips and settled into the crease where they met your stomach.

“Let me know if it’s too much.”

He was so casual that it almost irritated you. Whatever snippy comment you wanted to make, you kept it to yourself for the sake of getting off again. And you were glad you did because you would have eaten your words not a second later.

Eren fucked you with one foot planted into the floor, and his opposite on the couch cushion. His first thrust stole your breath; the second knocked it back into you. He took you from behind, sealing every rut of his hips by jerking you back on his cock. In the tangled spot where ‘too much’ became ‘yes, yes, yes!’ you were lost in messy throes of pleasure.

The sound of smacking skin was more severe than even your loudest of cries. Between, you could hear Eren’s grunts and huffs through his nose, restrained, but telling of just how riled up he was to be ravaging you like this. You closed your eyes and tuned into how good you were making him feel.

Your eyes shot open when you felt your upper body slipping over the armrest, your body lurching forward with the brutal snapping of his hips. You extended a hand to the floor, the wood cool under your clammy palm, to brace yourself. And bent over that armrest, your ass perched in the air for him, you let him have you.

Eren didn’t let you hang there long, just long enough for the blood to rush to your head a bit. You were blinking and dizzy as he gracelessly swung you upright, maneuvering you so you were straddling his lap. You went with him, willingly and submissively.

You lifted to your knees before Eren seized you by the waist to impale you on his cock. You gripped his biceps as a wispy moan left you—something like an ‘ah–hah’ as a loose smile tickled at the corners of your ajar lips. Once you’d finished pulsing around him, he took care of the rest, working you up and down over his length.

He looked you squarely in the face, jaw tight and eyelids heavy with a determined look of lust. You wanted to clear the hair from his face, but before you could, you were kissing again, roughly and carelessly, with him humming as you licked into his open mouth.

When you pulled away, you were panting. Saliva connected his lips to yours. Eren’s eyes flitted down, briefly distracted by your tits, before returning to your face.

“You look good like this,” Eren told you, his voice a bit strained. He snapped the spitty string with a flick of his chin.

“Like what?” you tried to sass, but it came out warbled as he bounced you on his cock. “Getting fucked by you?”

“Exactly,” he panted through a smug half-grin. “Gonna think about this—you taking my cock so fucking good—every time I jerk off.”

That mental image did things to you.

“Mm, fuck,” you groaned, long and sweet, your teeth bearing down on your bottom lip. You shoved a hand between your legs. “I’m close—keep talking.”

If your head wasn’t tossed back, you would have wanted to slap the sick smile off Eren’s face. He would have never suspected you’d be into dirty talk.

“Oh, yeah? Gonna come again?” You nodded dumbly. “Playing with yourself—whining on top of me but can’t get there on your own, huh? Need me to tell you to come, don’t you, pretty girl?”

The words were heavy on his breath and settled in the depths of your chest.

“Yes,” you breathed, rubbing at yourself desperately.

You sensed Eren was enjoying this—uttering filth to you—as much as you did, perhaps even more. His hips sputtered as they bucked into yours, as if he wasn’t already rashly pulling you against him, stuffed to the hilt. You could already see the reddened, blotchy marks this would leave on his thighs, an unavoidable consequence of fucking like animals.

“I wanna hear you say it.”

You started rolling your hips. “I need you to make me come—please make me come.”

His cock jolted inside you, but he didn’t relent. He wanted to play with you a bit longer.

“Tell me how pretty—ah—how pretty you’re gonna look coming on my cock.”

You were right fucking there. So close that you’d do just anything—say anything. It’d spill out of you like a babbly, drooly mess of course, but you’d say it.

“So pretty—” Your shiver reverberated through your whimper, your insides ignited. “I’ll look so pretty for you when I come.”

“Fuck yeah, you are.” He punctuated it with a firm slap on your ass. You didn’t feel it because you were coming, deliriously hard.

You sounded pitchy and whiny and you just knew Eren would tease you for it in the future. You wished you could cover your mouth, but you were too overwhelmed to do anything but hold on tighter. It hit you in ripples, and you rode out every one of them, carving your nails into Eren’s arms like you could wring out the last drops of your orgasm.

“God damn,” Eren remarked, voice tight, “You needed that one, didn’t you?”

He was right, but you wouldn’t have answered even if you could.

When your shaky comedown finally subsided, it left you in a haze. You fell into him, hooking your chin on his shoulder. Soft, happy hums escaped you while you stayed there, contented, as Eren worked toward his own high.

He could have come two positions ago, but he finally allowed it to well up in the deepest part of his gut. His hands abandoned your hips only for him to lock his arms around you, holding you there to fuck up into.

Eren’s breathing began to pick up, his chest heaving against you. His thrusting turned erratic until he pumped into you one last time, deep, and kept you flush to him. It was your name on his tongue, the word he buried into your neck as he groaned from the back of his throat.

You felt him throbbing inside you as he emptied into the condom. Gradually, he moved you over his length a few times to ease himself down. After, he started to lift you off his lap. His oversensitive cock slipped from you, tearing a tiny hiss from him. When he let you go, you crumpled to the couch.

You stayed like that for a minute, staring at the ceiling, hand folded over your chest as you timed your racing heart. By the time it evened, Eren patted your leg and stood up.

He went to the bathroom; you knew it because you saw the fluorescent light seep into the hallway. You listened to the faucet turn on, then searched for your underwear and a blanket.

You’d already wrapped yourself in a fleece and snuggled into the couch by the time Eren returned. Your eyes lazily followed him as he pulled on his sweatpants and double-checked that you locked the door when you came home.

He flicked the light off, but when he realized you weren’t following him to your respective bedrooms, he turned back to ask, “Aren’t you coming to bed?”

You didn’t want to get up yet, whether it was because you were too sleepy, or because your body felt too doughy to walk, or because the thought of tomorrow now felt like a threat.

“No,” you told him. You tugged the blanket to your nose and nuzzled into it. “Not yet.”

“Okay.”

You figured that was that, but then you saw him head to the other side of the couch. It shuddered beneath his weight as he slumped into its cushions. When you sat up to look at him, he answered your question before you could open your mouth.

“I’ll stay here then, too,” he said cooly.

“Why?”

Eren thought on it, and though he didn’t decide on an answer, he was just as content with, “I don’t know. Just want to.”

Everything was silver in the moonlight, barely sneaking in through the cracks in the blind. All the color had been smudged away like ink, except for Eren’s eyes. You made out the glint in them as he wittily quoted you from earlier.

You smiled. “But I thought you were mad at me for waking you up.”

“I got over it,” he said with a leisurely shrug. “Besides, for some odd reason, I’m not so tired anymore.”

You laughed lightly through your nose, and Eren tossed you a small smile in return.

He was still shirtless—not that you minded, there was no point in modesty now—with an arm sprawled along the back of the couch. His breaths were no longer heavy, neither of yours were, but you could tell he was still cooling off from your pornstar sex because he was quick to tie his hair up again. Neater this time, with every strand up and off the nape of his neck.

His neck.

Eren noticed the way your eyes widened. It freaked him out. “What?”

You stifled a cackle. “That’s a nasty hickey you got there, Eren.”

He frowned. “Shit.” He started pawing at his neck, looking down as if he could possibly see it. “Is it that bad?”

“A little.” You leaned in to poke it, but he swatted you away. It only made you giggle harder as you said, “Hey, can you put on our show? The one I like.”

“You don’t even know the name of it! How can you say you like it?”

“I know it! I just—can’t remember it right now,” you said both confidently and sheepishly, if that was even possible.

He raised his eyebrow at you; you didn’t like it. “So I was just that good, huh?”

You snatched one of the pillows and launched it at his head. “I thought we said we weren’t going to make this weird!”

As you said it, Eren broke out into the sort of laughter you only heard from someone occasionally, one that made it feel like you could get back to the way things were—before everything.

And they would, just as Eren hoped. Except now, he had a pretty good solution for the next time he pissed you off.

thank you for reading ♡

#eren x reader #eren jaeger x reader #eren yeager x reader #eren smut #eren jaeger smut #eren yeager smut

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