#as i had other things planned i wanted to work on

[echoofadream]

Your favorite patient...

Part 1

Summary: You are a hardworking doctor and you save a man's life. Wait, why is he coming back with all sorts of conditions? What do you mean he followed you home? He's begging to be your...what?

Contains: Obsessive behavior(yandere), stalking, mentions of masturbation, slight smut, dom!reader(gender is not specified), sub!male!yandere.

Part 2 Part 3

Imagine you work in a hospital. You're a workaholic doctor who simply loves treating people and helping them get healthier and better. You greet everyone with a smile and try to cheer up every person who comes in, despite their state. 

One day a young man is brought into the ER and you find out he had been in a horrible car accident. You don't waste any more time and treat his wounds and the next day he's already conscious and aware of everything happening around him. Yours is the first face he sees once awake.

The following days you visit him in his hospital room and ask him how he's feeling, the same honest and benevolent smile on your face. You can tell that he's exaggerating most of the time and that the pain he tells you he's experiencing is not as severe as he claims. So you do the only rational thing and discharge him.

Next week, he's back with another issue and he requests you specifically. An ear infection. It wasn't your area of expertise but you took a look and recommended him a qualified doctor. He left displeased.

One week later you saw him again. A stomach ache. It wasn't bad but he wouldn't have it. "You don't get it, doctor! It hurts!" he'd say and grab your wrist, putting it on his lower stomach. He wanted a set of tests. He was even willing to pay any sum of money! You actually ran the tests and he spent one night in the hospital. You should've paid more attention to the smile he had on his face when you came with his results. He wasn't pleased seeing a green line next to every word on the file, yet he understood the situation and left. "Thank you so much, doctor!" he said with a huge smile on his face. "I was so scared! What would I do without you?"

The following week he was in the ER again. Ibuprofen overdose. "I had a headache and didn't know what to do! Help me, doctor!" A part of you was starting to see a pattern, yet your overworked mind couldn't quite put the finger on the issue at hand. You treated him like any other patient. The same friendly smile on your face, the same soft tone of voice, the same tired eyes. You were busy saving lives everyday. This was your duty and you had to do it right. "Such a big heart you have, doctor!" the same adoration in his eyes when he says this as always. "You're amazing!" and you could've sworn you saw tiny hearts forming inside his dark pupils. You should drink less caffeine, really.

After a couple of days the man doesn't come into the ER. Yet you don't even notice his absence. You were so overworked, so tired! Poor you!

One random Thursday(a thoroughly planned day) you freeze when you step into your living room. A familiar person was sitting on your couch. You knew him from somewhere, but why was it so hard for you to remember?

"Hello, doctor!" he greets. The same smile, the same excited voice. And you recognized him. "Don't tell me you don't know who I am..." he started, a bit of disappointment making its way into his facial expression.

You were standing there, unable to move. What was your patient doing inside your house? How did he know where you lived? How did he get inside? Why did he get inside? Was he dange-

"You don't look too pleased to see me, doctor..." he says, a small frown on his face. He approaches you and you instinctively take a step back. "Don't be afraid. I'd never hurt you." his words were either as honest as they could be or he was one hell of a liar. The former sounded better. "You're good and kind and gentle. I'd never hurt you" he chuckled. That makes you make another step back.

"What are you doing here?" you ask, breathlessly.

"I'm here for you, isn't that obvious?"

It was very obvious but you were hoping he'd elaborate.

"You work so hard, doctor" he starts talking in a pitiful, saddened voice. "You work overtime almost everyday. You always come back home late. You don't even have time to cook and you always order takeaway. Then you sit in front of the TV with a glass of wine in your hand, drifting off with god knows what series in the background." He chuckles. "Well, I know actually.".

He takes another step towards you and you flinch. "I wanna make you feel good, doctor" he tells you, almost whimpering. "You work so hard...it's a pity you don't have a slave at home to take care of each and every one of your needs"

Did he just say slave?

"I've been following you ever since you saved my life, doctor. I owe you!". He puts a hand over his heart, trying to show you just how much he loves you. "I know everything you do. I know you barely have a social life, or a sleep schedule or time for yourself except for the moments when you lay on your back on the bed, your glass on the bedside table and you...touch yourself." He blushed at his own words. Meanwhile, you were going through the five stages of fear. If they didn't exist until now, well now they did.

"You don't have any time to clean this place either. I know, since I try not to cough when I lay under your bed and listen to your moans every night." A huge smile spreads across his face. "God, you're amazing..." .

Your hand goes to the pocket of your coat and, as soon as he sees you, his face darkens.

"Doctor...I told you I'm not here to hurt you" His tone held some sort of threat and that made you the more afraid. Your fingers wrap around your phone and you pull it out. He grabs your wrist, stopping you. "You're not gonna do that!" he screams. "You're gonna make me yours! You're gonna do it!".

The sound of your palm making contact with his cheek echoed in the room. He bends forward a little, covering his red cheek and whining softly. He looks at you with fear in his eyes, but you needed to be blind not to see the arousal that fear created. He drops to his knees, hands on his thighs, head lowered.

"I'm sorry, doctor!" he whines. "I shouldn't have yelled at you! Please forgive me! Please! Forgive me for being such a bad boy..." .

You look at him with a shocked expression. It was crystal clear that he was living inside his own world of make-believe in which you were the master and he was the slave. It was obvious he'd wanted it ever since he first saw you. And that he wouldn't take 'no' for an answer.

You smirk, all the previously felt fear having already vanished. After all, everything he said was right. You were exhausted and you needed someone to serve you. You deserved it, didn't you? Weren't you that god sent person who saved this poor boy's life? Why not give him what he wants? Why not...give yourself what you want?

"You followed me home" you start, your tone as assertive as you could make it. You could see his body shiver and that only made you keep going. "You broke into my house multiple times. You stalked me!"

A soft whimper escapes the man in front of you. He tries to lift his head, to look at you with those big pleading puppy eyes of his, to show you how very sorry he felt(not in the slightest) for doing all that. But when you snap at him he lowers his head again.

"You gave yourself medical conditions so that I could treat you! What kind of sick fuck does that?"

He moaned when he heard your degrading words, lifting his head and looking you straight in the eyes, a big smile on his face.

"I'm sick, doctor. I'm very sick..."

You laughed at his wordplay. "I think you've been a bad boy. A bad sick naughty boy. You know what bad boys get?" You smirk, waiting for his answer.

"Punishment!" he yells, his eagerness immeasurable. "They get punishment. Please, doctor..."

"Please, what?"

"Please....punish me"

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!

If this goes well I'll write the second part(smut ofc).

[luveline]

Hiiiiii!!!!!!! I recently got back into criminal minds and devoured all ur hotch fics like a MANIAC (you write. So unbelievably well. Im also in love w ur tasm peter stuff, you are just such a good writer thru and thru) and that one request where Jack calls reader mom for the first time really stuck w me so I was wondering if maybe I could request smth of the opposite? Like not-so-single mom!reader and hotch have been dating for a while and her lil girl calls him dad for the first time :3 🖤🖤

thank you for requesting! 💌 —your daughter calls Hotch dad for the first time. fem, 2k

“Come in, come in!” Hotch says, the door held ajar by his arm, forcing you to squeeze in and save the heat. “Quickly, honey, please, get out of the rain.” 

Sarah bursts in through the door and away from the rain, her vinyl coat covered in raindrops, her boots wet with mud. “Aaron!” she says, pulling it into something softened and excited at once, though her ‘r’s are weak, closer to ‘w’s. “I missed you.” She jumps from one foot to the other. 

He makes sure you’re safely inside before he abandons you. It’s not very kind to you, but he can’t help himself. “Sarah,” he says, without your daughter’s sweetness but heavily fond, “I missed you more, honey. How many days has it been?” 

“Four!” she says, holding up four fingers as Hotch grabs her by the waist. 

He doesn’t mind her wet coat, working an arm around and beneath her to shuck off her muddy shoes. They topple to the ground to unveil damp socks. 

“Oh, no, your socks are wet. I did all the laundry while we were waiting, I have some warm ones for you in the dryer. Should we get you out of this coat?” 

“Where’s Jack?” you ask. 

“Eating. He was starving, couldn’t wait.” 

You kick your shoes off and gather them with Sarah’s to line up by the door. Hotch takes off Sarah’s coat with some one-armed manoeuvring, aware of her smiley gaze following his every move. 

“I,” you say, pressing a swift kiss to his cheek, cold lips to his rough skin, “am gonna go to the toilet really quickly. Hi, handsome.” 

He savours your kiss and watches you go. He owes you a better greeting, he missed you just as much as he missed your girl. For now, he wipes the cold from Sarah’s cheeks and stations her comfortably on his navel. 

He loves her like his own. He’s privileged to get the opportunity, and it’s hard not to feel that low level of awe whenever she’s around, because she loves him the same way. Sarah waits for him to smile before she wraps her arms around his neck, long enough to twine her fingers in the short hair she finds there. 

It’s funny to love someone you had no hand in bringing into the world, but no less real. He’d do anything for Sarah. I miss you doesn’t cover it, but it’s a start. “I missed you,” he murmurs, not well-versed in baby talk but always willing to try for his kids. “It’s so nice to see you. Jack missed you too, should we go see him? I can change your socks.” 

He ushers her back enough to see her. She has such loving eyes, not shy at all as she nods her head. “Can you make crackers?” 

He beams. “Oooh, yes. Crackers and cheese and apple slices, I know what you want, honey. It’s ready for you in the kitchen.” 

Things weren’t easy at first for either you nor Hotch. He works too much, and you both have priorities that can’t be shifted, but the connection between you was easy. Love, undoubtedly, pretty much the moment you met, even if it scared him. He never thought he’d get a second chance and he’s not sure you thought you’d find yours either, and yet loving you has been as helpless as loving your daughter. He doesn’t have a choice and he doesn’t want one. 

In this time, you’ve found routine. He’s introduced the idea of moving in together and you’re excited for it, though concrete plans haven’t been laid. There’s a lot of questions and no need to rush into answering them yet. He has no intentions of letting you go now —Hotch will do anything it takes to keep his small family. 

Today, right now, that’s crackers. 

“Sarah!” Jack says when he sees them, jumping off of his chair to climb on top of it. He holds his hands out and Hotch leans down with a loving laugh to let his son hug her. “You’re back!” 

“I’m back,” she agrees. 

“Do you want some of my sandwiches? Daddy made me two.” 

“Yes!” she says, wiggling to be put down and given what he’s promising. 

Hotch fights to take her to the sink and wash her little hands, to her horror and whining. He says, “Okay, okay, I’m sorry, sweetheart, but you gotta wash your hands before you eat.” 

He puts her in her own chair, and it is Sarah’s chair, outfitted with a big pillow so she can see the table and marked by a pink star sticker, putting a placemat in front of her. Jack quickly pushes one of his sandwiches towards her. “There you go.” 

“Thank you, Jackers,” she says. 

Hotch smiles. Despite their different interests and ages, they’re quick to get along. 

He shouldn’t pry while you’re in the bathroom, but he worries about you. “Honey?” he calls up the stairs. 

“I’m just changing!” 

“Yeah? Can you bring some socks for Sarah, please?” 

You shout back something incomprehensible. He returns to the kitchen, where Sarah looks over the chair with pleading eyes and asks, “Crackers?” a piece of lettuce stuck to her chin. 

“Ah,” he says showfully, turning to the fridge to grab the plate of crackers, sliced cheese, and apples he’d Saran wrapped an hour ago. He peels off the wrapping and places it in front of her. “Here, sweetheart. Do you want anything else? Maybe some chips?” 

She laughs and grabs a piece of apple without answering him. 

“What about you, sweetheart? Drink?” he asks Jack. 

“Yes please, daddy.” 

Hotch makes Jack a cup of orange juice and Sarah a sippy cup, hers diluted some with water. He places them down in front of the kids, crouching between their chairs, intending to stay and chat. “How’s that?” he asks, tilting his head to the side to listen for your light footsteps on the stairs.  

“Thanks, daddy,” Jack says. 

“Thank you, daddy,” Sarah echoes, reaching for him. Hotch offers his hand, startled, not quick enough to hide it. She doesn’t pay any mind to his expression, pleased to have her hand held and her big plastic plate of crackers to munch on. 

“Why’d you look like you’ve seen a ghost?” you ask, passing him Sarah’s socks, and rounding the table to stand by Jack's other side. “Hi,” you add, ruffling Jack’s hair, “look at you, gorgeous, you got your hair cut.” 

Hotch rubs Sarah’s knuckles, trying to phrase it, not sure how to tell you with the kids still there. Will Sarah feel embarrassed if he brings it up so swiftly? Will she feel like she’s done something wrong? Will you? 

“What’s wrong?” you ask. 

He decides to present you with the situation. He’s not manipulative, but clever. “Mommy got your socks, too. Can we take these cold ones off, is that okay?” 

“Yes, please,” Sarah says.

You watch in confusion. Hotch gives you a quick look. Trust me for a second. 

He eases the socks off of her feet, laughs when she laughs at his tickling, even if he’s not quite sure how to feel. Happy, he gives her toes a squeeze and bunches a sock up to pull it over her heel and up to her ankle. “One,” he says, repeating the process with the same tenderness. “Two. There we go, all warm again, Sarah.” 

“Thanks, daddy.” 

You breathe in. 

Sarah puts some cheese on a cracker and offers it to Hotch, who eats it while you summon him away with silent parent talk. He kisses her forehead and wipes it clean as he goes. 

“Did she do that when I was upstairs?” you ask quietly. 

Hotch knows you. Loves you, but knows you intrinsically. He knows just by looking at you that you’re happy, but you’re worried about something, and it’s not hard to guess what it is: he might not want Sarah to call him daddy, and telling her not to might break her heart, and yours too. 

“She did.” 

“She’s never… expressed that interest to me.” 

“Sometimes they think about things more than we know.” Jack still surprises him as he did when he was a toddler.

“She just loves you,” you say. 

“I love her. She can call me whatever she wants to.” 

You hold his wrist, taking a step closer to him. “Are you sure?” 

“Of course I’m sure.” He murmurs now you’re close, ducking his head to yours, two halves of the same heart looking at one another’s hands. “I love her more than anything in the world. I want to make her crackers for the rest of my life.” Hotch puts his index finger to the soft skin under your chin. “Maybe by tomorrow she’ll forget she called me daddy and she’ll never say it again, but… I want her to. Is that okay?” he asks. 

You lean up to kiss him and you nod into his lips, which makes it hard but not impossible to kiss back. “She loves you so much,” you say quietly. You’d only wanted a quick peck. 

He might’ve said he loves her more than anything, but there’s a level on which he holds her and Jack where you sit too. He loves you. You made Sarah who she is all by yourself, and you’re so lovable standing in his reach. You’re perfect. 

Maybe he’s feeling sweet because Sarah called him daddy. 

“I think Jack confused her,” he says. 

“Maybe. You are, you know, her dad. You do everything a dad would.” 

Hotch slots his leg between yours and leans back to force you into his favourite kind of hug. You laugh slowly, hug the same, your arms sliding up over his shoulders to wrap behind his head, your hand cupping his hair. 

He closes his eyes and feels your waist. 

“You don’t have to worry,” he says. 

“I don’t worry about you and Sarah, I know you love her. I guess I just worry about us. Not that you don’t love me, Aaron.” 

“Big changes,” he guesses in a whisper. 

“Big changes.” 

He encourages you away to hold your face. He hopes that waiting with you in quiet for a while can explain it better than words. 

Your shoulders finally relax. 

[44st4rs]

ON THE SCENE!

✫ ˚♡ ⋆｡ ❀ synopsis: the life of a pornstar like toji full of bliss, prestige, and the freedom to do whatever he wants...until you break out on the scene!

✫ ˚♡ ⋆｡ ❀ pairings: pornstar!fem!reader x pornstar!toji fushiguro

✫ ˚♡ ⋆｡ ❀ cw: 4.4k, oral(f.receiving), facesitting, toji's mushy, exhibitionism, consensual filming, unprotected sėx, crèmepie

✫ ˚♡ ⋆｡ ❀ words from chris: just a repost but i hope you still enjoy!

“Toji!” you squealed, pulling him into a tender embrace. The strength of his forearms had to offer alone clung around you, his lips busying themselves with wayward pecks along your flexed cheeks. “Hey Angelface, what’s got you all happy? Don’t say it’s me now,” he jested, parting from your cheek.

You met the blazoned green hues of his eyes, jubilance dotting Toji’s pupils with their subtlety. He gave you the exact glance each and every time you had been in his presence, filling your belly with the bliss of butterflies.

“Ready for this shoot?” You inquired, rustling the thick locks of Toji’s hair. He nodded compliantly, bringing his accursed grin to light.

“You already know how much I love making you cum, Beautiful.”

Just the smitten words from the Toji Fushiguro.

At the age of 35, he managed to capture all the hearts of women and even men all around the world–one film at a time. For an adult film star like himself, it wasn’t unusual for him to rally quite the following he acquired, each one vying for his attention, but his touch all the more.

It was in the manner that Toji could fold a woman in half and have her begging for more that drove his fan base insane. He always delivered an intoxicating watch, his skill to produce faux connections with his partner was unmatched.

Of course, through such skill of deception, no one really did expect for the salacious man to fall for anyone. At least that was the cause… until you broke onto the scene.

Since entering the film industry three years after Toji’s debut, the attention came flocking to you. Basking in similar talents that he possessed, any man could fall for you with how you’d claw at the expanse of his back, cry out their name, and use such tantalizing stares–it was a done deal.

The request for you and Toji to finally work together had flooded in, drowning out anything else deemed unsuitable for both your causes.

The day that you and Toji met was like nothing before, the fondnesses for each other blossoming at first sight. Toji knew he’d been enamored when you first flashed him a giddy smile, coaxing for his cheeks to prickle with embarrassment.

As time went on, every time you and Toji worked together, the lines between fantasy and reality grew increasingly blurred. The revelation weighed upon both shoulders, unspoken feelings that were casted away from mind. It became apparent in the way Toji held you, his hands rubbing along every inch of your body.

He had grown attached to your every curve, never wanting to part once the cameras completed its task. Whenever you worked with someone who wasn’t him, Toji was swift with his punishments, discreetly bullying your cervix beneath the harsh glare from the lens.

Eventually, it took to him making advances. Beginning with suggesting that you should come to visit his humble abode, all for it to end with you leaving the next day. His attraction to you was crippling, hindering his once-hailed versatility.

In truth, Toji Fushiguro only wanted you at his side.

Now here he stood, an arm around the waist of your robe and admiring you through the mirror. With just moments before the start of the shoot, Toji began to set his plan into motion, hoping he’d gain his desired results.

“What are you doing after this?” Toji hummed, pressing yet another stream of pecks along your temple. You shrugged your shoulders, “Nothing, unless you have something in mind.” He directed his lustful gaze towards your own, a delighted chuckle seeping from his throat.

“I have a couple of things we can do, but first things first–we’ve got a job to do,” he declared, bracing his arms around your hips for extra security. Ripping you from the mirror, Toji lifted you into the air with a smile curling onto his lips.

Without a lick of retaliation, you allowed him to carry you away, bringing the both of you into the brightly lit room. Toji rested you atop the edge of the bed, his hulking figure standing before you.

Instinctively, you tugged at the loose knot of Toji’s robe, only for his broad digits to lace around your wrist. “And what’s my pretty baby up to? You know you might hurt yourself,” Toji teased, biting down into the plush of his bottom lip.

“Your what? Toji, I don’t recall you asking me to be anything remotely near that,” you caught swiftly, earning a snicker to ring from the sculpted hull of Toji’s chest. “Then do you—”

“Alright, looks like you guys are ready. Scene starting in…” the director began, only for you and Toji to drown out the voice alike. Without delay, Toji brought a kiss onto your lips, the crashing fervor rousing the very depths of the man. As your eyes came to a fluttering shut, Toji’s tongue began to grace the caverns of your mouth lazily.

Toji kept himself perched above you, the tips of your fingers running along the exposed skin of his thigh, leading up to his hardened erection behind the robe.

Your fingers wrapped around the thick girth of his shaft, using loose strides to stir Toji awake. He unleashed a sudden whimper against your lips, prying himself from the kiss. Toji hung his head beside your ear, wincing along the shell.

“Fuck–I love when you touch me like that,” Toji groaned, just enough for you to hear. You struggled to control the gasp that desperately sought to escape from you. Toji was typically a vocal man, spewing all kinds of bits about you.

Yet, he was never so vulnerable to confess his own direct pleasures. It was prominent in how the supple pad of your thumb swiped at the swollen tip, flushed in hues of an innocent pink. Toji bucked into your fists, his erratic response bringing concerns to mind.

“You’re sensitive, Toji. Tell me what’s going on,” you voiced nervously, slowing your pace gradually. He only shook his head as he drew his arms back, allowing for the silk robe to fall from his bare body. With his chest smoldering against your breasts, Toji gained a bit of control over the situation again, pinning you to the soft duvet of the bed.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Toji taunted, his lips settling against yours once again. The tips of his fingers grew curious, tugging at the knot of your robe gently. His eyes panned over your body, revealing itself as the silky material set beneath you.

“I can never get enough of you, Y/N. You always keep me wanting more,” Toji cooed as he pulled away, guiding his promiscuous hand to ghost the band of your panties. “I can tell, but that’s the way I like it,” you replied, lifting your hips to aid him.

Once he discarded you of the obstructing cloth, the rough pads of his digits drifted between your legs, parting the puffy lips of your cunt. He teased your clit with pulsing taps, slipping his middle finger between the viscid mess tucked behind your folds. You whined at his touch, pressing your forehead against his own.

“Tojiii,” you dragged out, “I hate when you play with me like this!” He chuckled softly at your argument, a mere kiss of his finding solace along the tip of your nose. “And what are you doing to me right now? You’re taking advantage of me being just a lil’ sensitive. So who’s the mean one?”

You rolled your eyes, disregarding the truth within Toji’s words. “Which you still won’t–holy shit!” You gasped as Toji slipped his digits through your slit, your back arching in response. He grinned at how your body reacted to his touch, curling his fingers to nudge at your sweet spot.

The hold around Toji’s cock had withdrawn itself, your hand latching onto his tensed forearm. “It’s too soon, I don’t wanna come yet!” You confessed to him through shuddering breaths. Toji shook his head as he slowly drew his digits from within, admiring how glossy they appeared in the short time.

“Of course not, I just wanted to get you ready,” Toji informed as he rose from you, dropping his burly figure atop of the bed. You didn’t need an explanation from him to know exactly what Toji was thinking, it was just the unspoken language between you both. Completely shedding the robe from you, you laggardly crawled over Toji, resting your thighs beside his head.

From his post beneath you, Toji placed his hands along your arms, guiding the limbs to rest along the wooden headboard. “You look on top of me, y’know that?” Toji joked, placing a kiss into your inner thigh. Whipping your head to the side, you mumbled softly into your arm, “Shut up, Toji.” He caught on to your coy nature, his hands navigating your hips to hover above his smug grin.

“Why don’t you make me…Princess.”

Before you could reply, the broad of Toji’s tongue had already sunk past the lips of your cunt, indulging in your precious essence. Your hands resting atop the headboard began to clench, baring the wooden to ground you.

Toji had such a graceful way of spurring your body into an orgasm, all when he saw fit. It was a task he held with the highest degree, devoting all his energy to the moment. He lived to witness your body fall at his touch, working his tongue to glide across the exposed nerves.

The whimsical spews of rambles outpoured from your mouth, only bringing amusement to Toji’s ears. He dragged the slicked muscle through the thin sheets of your folds, only to draw himself back to place a sloppy kiss against the plump lips of your cunt. Every so often, Toji would send a passing glance over your trembling physique, his everlasting gratification written with every moan to pass through your mouth.

The palms of Toji’s hands pressed into your pelvis, his tongue swiping at your clit with its heightened pace. He hummed at your request, sealing the tender bud within his mouth, only to release his hold with a lewd ‘pop’ of his lips.

There was no need for instruction or even words of praise to fall from your gaping jaw. With the number of times you’ve been with Toji, he had become accustomed to all the in’s and out’s of you. He knew how every curve would sit perfectly in his hand, or how much time it took for you to reach a proper high.

You peered down at the lewd scene unfolding, whimpering in Toji’s care. The hazy gaze of his eyes intimidated you to the core of your being. It was the same gaze he had whenever he’d have you all to himself, either during shoots or at the convenience of his own pleasures. You never could comprehend what it was Toji loved about you, why he’d become so insistent on only ever wanting to work with you.

Then again, such thoughts as the “why’s” had to be reserved for a much later date, the building pressure of your release pooling within the pits of your belly. Your hips began to rut against Toji’s tongue, even using the rounded end of his nose to your advantage.

All he could do was grin at the explicit display, his folded arms supporting your frantic swipes. “That’s a good girl, use my tongue just like that!” Toji encouraged, grinding his back into the mattress beneath. Your ears hadn’t picked up on Toji’s assurance, being drowned out by the heft of your high.

Your legs came to a slamming shut, your body collapsing beside Toji. He took to pulling you into his chest, the warmth of his skin radiating surrounding you. He pressed comforting kisses into your smothered cheek.

“You always look so pretty coming down,” he purred, cupping your jaw softly. When you finally met his gaze, a sweet smile was inclined to take onto your lips towards the man beside you.

Toji lugged himself to his knees, resting back upon his haunches. He was careful to pry your legs apart, leaving gentle pecks along the curve of your knee. He filled the space between your thighs, pulling your frame closer to his reach.

“Think you’re ready? I have no problem taking my time with you if need be,” he joked, the pad of his thumb grazing along your bottom lip, You shook your head, ensuring that it was clear for him to proceed.

Toji directed his attention down between his legs, his free hand forming a firm fist along his tanned shaft. The swollen head of his cock nudged at your clit, your body flinching beneath the weight of it.

The curves of your nails grazed along the contoured ridges of Toji’s abdomen, etching crescent marks into his skin. “Look at you, being greedier than ever,” he snickered, inching his aching cock between your folds. “No, you just get off by being mean to me,” you chided, pushing out a pestered pout on your lips.

Toji darted his sights, shifting from your narrowed glare to the thumping crown of his cock. Even he couldn’t keep himself waiting any longer, giving in to your merciful whims just this once.

“Oh I’m sorry, I’ll be nice and give you exactly what you’re asking for,” he returned, aligning his hips with your own. In foul push, he snapped his hips against yours, your gummy walls struggling to envelop the entirety Toji’s cock.

An inaudible gasp filled your lungs, the glossy stream of drool spilling from your mouth. No matter how many times you were with Toji, you couldn’t ever properly adjust to the mind-numbing girth he offered, the stretch sending your thoughts into a state of absence.

“Shhh, I’ve got you. That’s what happens when you rush perfection, Baby,” he cooed, rubbing at the plush of your flexed tummy. As your eyes began to loll to the back of your skull, a frown spread across Toji’s face, finding displeasure with your lack of eye contact.

“Hey, stay with me, Gorgeous, if you do I’ll give you a surprise,” Toji wagered, grinding his pelvis against you. Gradually, the whites of your eyes were replaced by your own dazed hues, barely grappling with the moment. Toji knew he had to work fast, using the only method he knew best with you.

Cupping your jaw, Toji brought his lips to yours, humming a soft tune as he allowed for his hips to draw back from inside you. “Keep that pretty mouth of yours open for me,” he whispered, eyes trained to the glimmering spool of spit leaving from his mouth, dripping along the grooves of your tongue.

“Swallow it, finish the job,” Toji added, his ears piqued for the harsh gulp traveling down your throat. With his satisfactions met, Toji planted his palms into the plushy mass of cotton beneath your head, his hips gathering more force with every passing second.

Curses flew from his mouth, nonsensical babbles about how good you felt around him. As much as Toji wanted to bask in your warmth, he still had a goal in mind, gritting back the pool of arousal building at his core.

Bringing his features above your own, Toji began to speak once more, using a kindred tone to lull you to his long-strayed rhythm. “Y/N, I thought you would’ve caught on by on,” Toji mumbled, his hands gripping at the plush surrounding your waist.

“On to what?” You replied, confining the hitching breaths to your lungs. Toji released a pitiful huff into the air, realizing that an answer was due. He sank his head within the crook of your neck, his breath warming the shell of your ear.

“All those dates we went on, the times I’ve asked you to stay over. I mean, just add a few more of your dresses and you’ll basically be living with me. Not to mention how much I hate whenever you’re on a job with someone else, it breaks my heart honestly,” he confessed, earring your whimpers as a form of response.

“Point is, Y/N…I want us to be..together, officially, not just behind the scenes–”

Your brows knitted in the wake of Toji’s confession, unsure of how to reply during the current situation. “You can’t be asking this now, Toji. You are shit with your timing,” you winced woefully, thrashing your head against the pillow.

“I’m not taking no for an answer, I don’t care if I have to keep this up ‘til I pass out. I’m leaving today with you as my girlfriend,” he announced pridefully, adjusting himself on top of you. Just as you processed Toji’s words, his hips began to drive into you, plunging his cock deeper than before.

Each stroke was more relentless than the last, his flushed tip bullying your cervix into the inevitable submission. After your first orgasm, the sensitivity lining your cunt made its presence vividly clear, the overstimulation taking its heavy toll upon you.

Toji hadn’t let even the slightest jolt of your body gone unnoticed, relying on his words to soon push yout over the edge. “Y/NN,” he called out innocently, a complacent smirk dressing his visage. You darted your patchy gaze from his face to the hand he pressed below your navel.

“Can’t you feel just how deep I am? It feels so fucking good, doesn’t it,” he taunted, blowing faux kisses of apathy to your direction. You could only squirm beneath his hulking frame. Toji’s sly comments only fed the heft of your pending orgasm.

“You’re creaming, Angel! You must be closer than I thought,” Toji sang, adding to his lewd spews to fluster you. You struggled to reply to him, only short-winded gasps and moans feeding Toji’s ears.

“M’ so close, fuck, it’s right-“ A shrilling squeal interrupted your words, the overwhelming pressure within your stomach giving way. The pricklings tings of your orgasm brought along more than expected, a sudden gush of your release painting Toji’s pelvis with glistening droplets.

Combined with your fluttering walls and wayward writhing into the bed, Toji succumbed to the amorous atmosphere, spilling the sinful hues of white into your womb. His head tossed back in tandem with his high, hot pants warming the air.

Glancing down at the mess adoring his abdomen, Toji chuckled at the sight, finding his balance between your legs once again.

“You came already? And with no answer..guess I’ll just have to keep going, right Baby?” Toji sneered, drawing his hips back once again.

Your arms laced around the nape of his neck, dragging down Toji flushed against your chest. Between shuddering breaths you entertained Toji’s skillful scheme at last, bursting into a fit of giggles.

“You’re a damn idiot, honestly. Of course, I wanna be with you!” you beamed, carding your fingers through his slicked hair. Amidst the mess riddled along Toji’s skin and the mixes of release spilling from your slit, the pair of you basking in what was the abnormal birth of a newly found relationship.

Resting his head within the valley of your breast, Toji’s fingers tweaked around the heartened peak, rattling off about his thoughts.

“Just saying, we’ve been at this for a year now, I think it’s safe to say I love you, don’t you?” Toji hinted, his hazy sights settling in line with your lidded ones.

Just as you began to utter the three words of affirmation, the loud crash of the clapperboard broke you from Toji’s sights, the piercing lights ahead burning your eyes.

“Alright guys, great job today! It felt so real to watch,” the director called from his seat, pulling both you and Toji from the somewhat intimate moment.

The director’s words resonated in your mind, coaxing for a another best of laughter to ring from your chest, Toji following suit. He held you beneath him, peering back at the director with an annoyed stare.

“That’s cause it was real!"

TAGS: @po3ticb3auty @dabilovesme @katsukismelons @ebiharachan @kenmasbimbo @pixelsanji @slaughterakira  @woahhajime @hannas16 @omniuravity @sweeneyblue1 @yukihime-mikeys-girl @kazusugar @jjjangsta @10-jiku @missyasma @a3trogirl @chaoticevilbakugo @desiray562 @lovemegood @luvrdrop @yourmommy52726 @tojibreedingme @widepipepaladiknight @tojishugetiddies @taesd-urag @nekoriots @ladyackerman @ladyackermann @holychocopie @bloobrryktty @dukina @hon3ybee-3 @dabis0bitch @kensgff @23victoria @sisnot @insideboburnham @shima707 @patchi-chi @brokenheartshards @akiko0-0 @mx-luvzz @whore02 @lilystarknette @your-favorite-god @missakward123 @ssetsuka @alwaysfreakingout @httpstoyosi

[luna-has-some-thoughts]

Pt2Danny Accidentally becomes the Ghost king, the president and the biggest threat to Bruce's social status.

Pt 1 link:

Part 2 Danny becomes the president.

Amity Parkers are the most adaptable people in the world. They're barely fazed by anything.

If you throw them into a situation that they are very unfamiliar with, it'll only take them five minutes to adjust before they start planning on how to live with this situation.

The Amity Parker mindset is: "Oh, I guess this is happening now."

So when the ghosts start attacking? The Amity Parkers immediately look for ways to avoid and protect themselves from the ghosts, not even questioning why ghosts are real. The only thing they think about is, "Damn, there's a ghost. I hope it doesn't attack the theater; I really want to see that movie."

When Phantom had his debut as a hero? The Amity Parkers started looking for ways to help, ways to keep out of his way (some to try and keep him away). The thought running through their minds was, "So this one is trying to protect us? Guess we have a hero now."

Amity Parkers don't spend their time getting mad at the sudden change of routine, the sudden loss of normalcy, or the broken buildings. Amity Parkers don't ask why and how ghosts are real, don't question if all ghosts are evil or if there are some good ghosts, and don't even think of how to get rid of them completely (they're part of the community now). They only look for ways to keep themselves from getting overshadowed. They definitely don't spend time thinking if the ghosts could bring more danger in the future or looking for more information for possible contingency plans. They aren't Batman; they believe that if the present is good, then the future will be better.

Point is, Amity Parkers are resilient and adaptable. They will take everything in stride and focus on the present. So what if some ghosts attack and block the street? They need to get to work, so they'll just drive around it.

After the whole Pariah Dark thing, they become liminal, gaining some form of super strength and glowing eyes (symptoms vary based on how strong the radiation on a person is). A normal human would think, "OH MY GOD, I'M DYING!" The Amity Parkers went, "Oh, cool, this is cool, but now I'm having a problem with opening doors without breaking the knob. Maybe the Fentons could do something about it, make stronger knobs or something."

When some babies started gaining some inhuman features? Some start floating? (Sharper ears, fangs. Babies adapt to things faster, so they get more ecto radiation.) The Amity parents went, "Is there a way to keep my child on the ground without leashing them like a dog?" Then proceeded to make a help blog for other Amity parents dealing with the same things.

So when the ghosts start becoming more of the community rather than enemies, the Amity Parkers just shrugged and asked for a book of ghost customs so they don't accidentally offend them.

When the Fentons started making ghost and human-safe items, no one even questioned why Danny had so much money and was funding his parents' research.

When Danny's name was almost (if not) in everything and he seemed to own most of the town, no one questioned it.

But everything changed when the GIW came again. Even the Amity Parkers weren't expecting this change.

The GIW waltzed in, claiming the liminal town was theirs to play with and started attacking everyone, including the Amity Parkers. The Amity Parkers went full defense mode, protecting the ghosts that were now their friends/neighbors/lovers, making sure that nothing would harm them.

They learned that it was Vlad who called on the GIW. He was pissed and petty that the crown was taken from him and decided to report his liminal town, pretending to be a "concerned mayor" who "wants his people to be healed."

The Amity Parkers were mad... they were furious.

And in the moment they saw Phantom fall to the ground, unconscious, and watched him de-transform from the hero King Phantom to the kid that owns and funds the most helpful companies in town, something changed. Something in the Amity Parkers changed.

Keep in mind that Amity Parkers don't change; they remain the same as they adapt to whatever change the world throws at them.

NEVER ONCE HAD THE AMITY PARKERS DECIDED TO MAKE A CHANGE THEMSELVES.

The first thing they changed? Their mentality. NEVER AGAIN WERE THEY GOING TO LET OUTSIDE FACTORS CHANGE THEIR LIVES. THIS IS THEIR TOWN AND IT WILL STAY THAT WAY.

God help the GIW for being their first victims.

An angry town of liminals, ghosts, and borderline gods, who have access to the Fentons' very destructive and effective technology.

Vs.

The regular GIW humans with anti-ghost tech they stole from the Fentons and nothing against liminals.

The battle was a swift victory, destroying not only the GIW in town but also all of its branches (and Vlad) with almost no traces of them even existing in the first place.

The change didn't stop there, however.

The Amity Parkers banded together with Team Phantom and the Fentons (minus Danny, as he is healing and shouldn't know about their plans; the hero should rest) and took out some of that ghost king money that Danny's trying to get rid of. They crashed the UN meeting while kidnapping the president of America.

The Amity Parkers have decided that Amity Park is theirs; it belongs to the people and its heroes. But how is it supposed to be truly theirs if they have to follow the rules of the country that funded the GIW?

A couple of death threats, bribing, more death threats and more money bribing to make sure the anti ecto acts are gone and the League of Bitches (Phantom called the JL that, and the Amity Parkers decided it was true) doesn't know about it, and a couple of hours in the nightmare realm (courtesy of Fright Knight, who happily participated when he found out what happened), and Amity Park was now its own independent country.

They decided that Tucker was to be a main part of security, letting him put up another firewall like the GIW did to make sure no one knows about their country. They don't want the League of Bitches or any outsider in the King's Haunt. It's theirs now; it belongs to the Ghost King of Amity Park, outsiders be gone.

And when it came to deciding who would be leader? There was no hesitation as they wrote down:

Daniel "Danny Phantom" Fenton, King of the Infinite Realms, King and President of Amity Park.

___________________

A couple of years later, Batman, finding hints of a "Lazarus pit" in Illinois, send Flash to look around for anything suspicious. Flash, hyper focused on following his gps, hits a wall, literally faceplants into it.He double checks his map, the wall wasn't supposed to be there. He goes around it, there no way in, no way out. He goes back to batman and reports.

Pt3 soon.

Tags as requested

@nana-mizu-shiki

@talia-scar123

[greg-montgomery]

the latest hotch x sunshine reader fic?

u think u ate with that?

no.

U DEVOUREDDDDDD. GRRRRRRRRRRR

part 2 now mama i love u so much

bestieee thank you omg!!!! <3 i hope you like part 2!!

part 1

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

Spencer took a deep breath staring at his desk. On any other day it would be due to the amount of paperwork waiting for him, but this time it was a cup of his favorite coffee order, a muffin, and a chocolate croissant, all sitting right on top of the report he was working on.

He wasn’t ungrateful for the treats, but he would rather enjoy them if they weren’t accompanied by three pairs of wide eyes looking at him, while searching for answers in return.

Emily threw her head back dramatically. “Come on, give us something.”

“They’re on a date right now, aren’t they? That’s why he left early. I know you know,” Penelope said. “I know you do. Rossi knows too, but he won’t say anything.”

“Yeah,” JJ agreed, “Every time we ask he says nothing and just…smirks at us.”

“Please, you’re our last hope.”

Spencer took a bite of his muffin and smirked.

“You’re even worse than him,” Emily said and pointed at him.

“Come on, girls. Let’s go hack Hotch’s phone.”

“No, wait!”

--

Was it silly to start planning your wedding on a first date?

Maybe it was; you didn’t care. Because there was no way Aaron was not your future husband.

He did everything perfectly: he picked you up from your house, got you flowers, did not let you touch a door handle, paid for your dinner date, and let you play your music during the car ride.

Aaron also smiled a lot and the sight of it made you melt into your seat. It wasn’t often that a man gave you butterflies by just one look or with the sound of his laughter.

“What are you in the mood for now?”

The last thing you wanted was for the date to end, so instead of suggesting you walk back to his car you made a different offer.

“Let’s get ice cream!”

He chuckled, but you could already tell he would not say no to you. “Okay.”

You were walking side by side and even though you were already falling in love with his warm voice it was hard to pay attention to his words. Your mind was too occupied thinking about his arm swinging next to yours and how bad you wanted to hold hands with him.

Did he want it too? Would he think it’s childish to hold hands?

What if you just…did it?

Life’s too short, you thought and grabbed his hand.

Yes, you had not been paying attention to what he'd been saying but you did notice how he stopped mid-sentence when your hands touched. Was he mad?

Your heart was jumping against your chest, afraid you did something stupid. Aaron was quick to ease your anxiety, intertwining your fingers and squeezing gently your hand.

He wanted this too.

He cleared his throat. “So it’s um…a good chance to…”

With the side of your eye, you caught him turning his head to stare at you. You hadn’t wiped the grin off your face from the sudden hand holding yet, and he saw it.

His dimples made an appearance, and as your grin got bigger you noticed he blushed.

“Oh, shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything!” you giggled.

The sound of Aaron’s phone ringing interrupted your moment.

“Sorry, I have to get this,” he said.

You, of course, didn’t mind. Even though he hadn’t said so himself, you knew he had left right on time – early in Hotch’s terms - from work just for your date. Perks of being best friends with your date’s subordinate was getting to have this kind of inside information.

“Hotchner,” he said sternly.

You stayed quiet.

“What? I didn’t authorize this.”

Oh.

“No. And I trust this won’t happen again.”

Oh…Maybe you liked this side of him a little bit more than you should.

“Thanks,” he said, and hung up. “I’m sorry about that.”

I’m not.

“No, it’s okay! It’s fascinating observing you being a boss.”

“You like observing people?”

“Why, are you interested in hiring me?” you teased.

“Oh, I would never.”

“Why not?” you asked, acting offended.

“I would not be able to focus on a case with you around.”

You took advantage of the fact you were on a sidewalk and stopped walking, turning your body to face him. “And why is that?”

Aaron moved closer and dropped your hand only to cup the side of your head. His thumb moved back and forth on your cheek and his eyes on yours made you feel dizzy.

“Because you take my breath away.”

And with his next move he took yours. Maybe you’d actually faint if he didn’t pull you in and place his lips on yours.

Your hands moved to his tie with the intention of pulling him even closer to your body. His kiss was heavenly and you really wouldn’t mind if you were to stay like that forever.

Yeah…there was no way Aaron Hotchner was not your future husband.

[mattscoquette]

“ 𝐬𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐲 𝜗𝜚 “

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: chris sturniolo x fem!reader

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: helping the triplets clean up their warehouse and somehow ending up fucking chris. based on this post from my inbox!

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1k

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠: smut, p in v, unprotected sex (DONT DO THIS!!!!!!), basically just sex with a small plot line

𝐚/𝐧: i’ve been writing sm for chris lately i feel like im cheating on matt 🫣🫣 anywho i wrote this while it was dead at work the other day so sorry if it’s a little rushed and short but i promise i got more things coming soon. writing grind is back!!!!!!!!! i love u all so very much thank u for reading! hope u enjoy

⋆｡˚ ౨ৎ

“fuck chris,” you muttered, your head dropping low as you leaned against the desk, chris pounding into you from the back.

you really don’t know how you both ended up in this situation. the triplets invited you out for the day, grabbing lunch and planning to go shopping afterwards. however, you had to make a quick stop at the warehouse before going to the mall, matt claiming that it was a “fucking disaster in there” and he didn’t want to work tomorrow if it was messy. so, you all dropped by to clean up after your lunch, the three of them promising to buy you something nice at the mall for helping them.

when you arrived, you each decided to split up, the four of you taking your own floor to focus on. you finished way before everyone else, opting to go upstairs to the top floor and help chris out since his floor was the messiest. you weren’t sure if it was the way your legs looked in your denim shorts, or the not-so-subtle looks you were giving chris, but before you knew it he had you against the desk while his tongue roamed your mouth, his hands exploring all parts of your body. now you were propped up against the desk, leaning on your crossed arms for support with your shorts around your ankles and your tank top on the other side of the room.

“taking me so fucking good,” chris grunted, the bottom of his t-shirt being held in between his teeth. his hand were leaving bruises on your hips, gripping onto them for dear life while he thrusted into you. you moaned loudly when chris hit that spot inside of you, your legs beginning to shake.

chris’ hand flew up to your mouth, his thumb running along your bottom lip before he shoved it in your mouth. he pressed his body flush against your back, leaning down with you as he kept up his pace. “gotta stay quiet, baby, can’t have everyone hearing how good i’m making you feel, can we?” be whispered into your ear.

you nodded, feeling chris move your hair to the side and begin to press hot kissed down the back of your neck, his hand moving from your mouth to your tits, groping them over your laced bra. he picked you guys up from your bent over position, so you were both standing upright as your head tilted back again, trying your best to keep your noises concealed. the blue eyed boy continued leaving marks on your neck, groaning into it when he felt you grinding your hips on his dick as he thrusted in and out of you. his hand that held your hips moved down to toy with your clit, his thumb rubbing it in small circles.

your bottom lip tugged between your teeth, a small mm escaping your mouth. you felt chris’ hot breath fan across your neck, his hair sticking slightly to his forehead. he was sucking a mark into your neck right beneath your ear when your phone on the desk began ringing. nicks name flashed across the screen, your eyes going wide.

“answer it.” chris told you, his speed not slowing.

“i-i can’t,” you whined, you bringing your own hand up to cover your mouth now.

“answer it or i’ll fucking stop,” he threatened, although his hold around your body tightened.

you nodded hesitantly, reach forward to pick up the call. “h-hello?” you answered, your voice faltering as you felt chris’ thumb rub faster on your clit.

“are you both almost done? me and matt are down here waiting.” nick huffed, his voice laced with annoyance.

you gasped, chris scooping your one of your tits out of your bra, pinching your nipple.

“hello?” nick asked again, “do we have to come up there and get you two?”

“no, no, we’re almost done,” you managed to get out, practically panting.

“okaay..” nick replied, saying something to matt about how they should both just go wait in the car.

you hung up, your phone falling from your hands, reaching up to tangle your fingers in chris’ hair while you met his lips in a messy kiss of teeth and tongues to keep your noises concealed. he continued pounding into you, his thumb at your clit still while he kneaded the flesh of your exposed boob with his hand.

“so close,” you sighed into his mouth, the tingling feeling in your stomach growing more and more with each thrust.

“i know, baby, me too,” he muttered as his head fell to your shoulder, “be a good girl and cum for me.”

you moaned loudly, praying nick and matt actually did go out to the car like he said he would. you felt the knot in your stomach snap, your legs shaking as you came on chris’ dick, your body going limp against his. with a few more hard thrusts, chris released his load into you, groaning into your shoulder. he slowly pulled out from you, watch the mix of yours and his cum drip from your soaked pussy. his dipped his hand down, scooping it onto his fingers, bringing it up to your mouth and letting you suck the arousal off.

“taste yourself, pretty girl,” he told you, feeling your tongue swirl around his slender digits. after a moment, he pulled them out with a pop, pressing a quick chaste kiss to your cheek. “let me get you cleaned up real quick.”

chris walked away into the bathroom, returning a minute later with a baby wipe and your tank top that was strewn across the floor. you wiped your legs, ducking down quick to pull up your panties and shorts. your turned around at chris, watching as he pulled his sweatpants up, his neck and face covered in a sheer layer of sweat, his lips kiss swollen. he looked up, smiling as he met your gaze.

“what?” he asked.

“it’s still messy up here.” you told him.

Ⓒ 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐒𝐂𝐎𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄 | taglist

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬:

@alorsxsturn @sturniolossss @cammie4298 @bussybandit1 @amorttentia @franticroads @sturnsssbow @cams5sos @strombolilovr @st7rnioioss @junnniiieee07 @mattscurlygirly @simply-a-simper @sturnrc @sturnifyed @freshlovie @imwetforyourmom @69isabella69 @mattsturnxoxo @stonermattsgf @pettydollie @fawnchives @mmay4ever @sturniololvrrr @whosthislyssbitch @pr1ncessmatt @lanas-doll @55sturn @grimholic @emma4eva @recklessmatt @pinksturniolo @sturngirly @matthewscorner @mattspolitank @dominicfikue

[inkyray]

neighbor!chris x reader part 7

a/n; not text messages yet yall we're getting there, part 6 here

You

You watched him approach you, an expression on his face that told you everything you needed to know. He had forgotten about you, and remembered too late. That was your given conclusion the moment you saw him clutter onto the beach.

When you first went in the water, got carried away for half an hour in the water and came out, expecting him to be there, you didn't find him. You checked your phone to make sure if he had sent a message or something, he hadn't even opened your previous message asking if he was there. Hurt pooled up in your stomach, but a part of you wanted to reassure itself for the better. I threw your phone back to its spot on the towel-covered sand, your emotions quickly replacing itself with anger, and you went for another dive in the ocean.

Now you dried your legs, looking back onto your body as if you truly cared about getting yourself dry as Chris marched toward you. "Hey!" He jogged over, a nervous look on his face as he calculated your mood. "I know I'm late but we can still make time for—"

"I'm surprised you showed up at all." You interrupt, your tongue bittersweet in your mouth. "I was gonna come–I swear–but I just got so caught up with everything." Chris winces, knowing he'd have to try harder than that. You scan him up and down, he looked normal, like every other day he'd pass by your house or stalk past your window. "I'm sure you were, Chris." You sigh, slipping on your clothes over your bathing suit. You don't bother hiding the fact you were upset, but at the same time, you didn't quite show it. It drove him nuts.

"I'm sorry, I came as soon as I could–"

"Did you though?" You wonder out loud, getting ready to leave as he stood there, watching you. "This was the first time we actually wanted to hang out together, just want to point that out." You laugh a little.

You hear him ramble in your ear, and in all honesty, you tune him out, walking past him as he follows you behind like a dog. He gave every excuse he could think of, but truly, you hadn't heard a single word. "Look, Chris." You turn to face him after he trails behind you a little longer. "It's okay. I forgive you." You forgave him, shit happens, but that doesn't mean you weren't still salty about it.

"Really?" His eyes widened, like he didn't take you for the kind of girl to forgive so fast.  You nod. "Yeah." But nothing in your tone seemed sincere, negative feelings started to erupt in Chris's stomach, and he couldn't quite decipher what they were. You watched him gulp.

"How about we come again? Tomorrow? This time we'll both be free with no work and, this time I could pick you up instead— Take you there myself." He plans out loud, and you audibly sigh. "I have work tomorrow, how about just take me home instead? That's all I want."

And that's what he did.

He took you to Matt's car, and you sat in the passenger seat as they drove you home in silence. Chris sat in the back with Nick as he kept glancing back at you, trying to make something out of your expression. You had a good poker face.

Nick kept studying the atmosphere of the energy that had appeared the moment you two had entered, and immediately knew there was negative tension. He gave Matt a look from the rear mirror, and they shared an understanding. Something was wrong.

You weren't dumb, you were aware that Chris kept bouncing his leg behind you in nervousness, you knew that he kept looking at you and burning holes into your skin, so did his brother that accompanied him in the back. Thankfully, they didn't decide to ask a single thing, keeping the talk small, short, and sweet. You had gotten close to all of them since you moved, but you knew you'd still have to go a long way before they were fully loose around you.

"Were the waves bad today? I've been wanting to go to the beaches here but never came around to doing it." Matt randomly asks as he makes a left. He really just wanted to squash down the awkward silence with anything, and Nick mentally applauded him for it. You took the hint and responded.

"They were huge, I almost drowned today but I thugged it out." You laugh at the memory that was only a few minutes ago, thankfully you were a strong swimmer. They took note of your light-hearted attempt at humor and ran with it, the attempt working completely. "Really? I thought the waves here were like, calm as fuck." Nick stated.

"I wouldn't know," You run a hand through your dampened sea-salted hair. "It was my first time going to the beaches here."

"We're actually still yet to go to them, a whale washed up on shore a few months ago and that kind of scared us off." Nick openly laughed at the irony of the reason, and you chuckled with him.

The rest of the car ride was dreadful for Chris, you engaged with all of his brothers in a conversation but him. He could help but feel bad—and jealous. He knew he had brought it on to himself, and he'd need to find a way to make it up, fast.

But now, he'd have to face a really loud conversation with his brothers, who decided to corner him as soon as they made it home.

-

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[youunravelme]

nothing happened in the way i wanted part 2

author's note: okay so here's part 2! sorry for making you wait, i like the anticipation lololol

summary: a year has passed and you are no closer to understanding why matt ended things and you have every plan of avoiding that thought until he comes back in town for the offseason, then suddenly he's everywhere.

pairing: matthew tkachuk x reader

warnings: ANGST, friends to lovers to exes to lovers, mention of sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, drinking, depression, panic attacks, let me know if i missed something! (these include the trigger warnings from part 1)

before

a piece of plastic should not be that big of a deal.

but it is when there are two pink lines staring back at you.

weren’t you and matt careful? he always wore condoms, you were on birth control, you two were so careful all the time—

wait.

shit.

except for a few weeks ago.

you were wearing a red bikini at a pool party and matt had tugged you into the guest bathroom. he didn’t have any condoms and you assured him it was fine.

but maybe it wasn’t fine.

because there were two fucking pink lines staring back at you. and the worst part? matt wouldn’t be home for another two hours or so.

you were hyperventilating, surely. that’s why you felt like you couldn’t breathe?

oh god.

you were going to have to figure out how to raise a child while matt was on the road. oh god, what if he didn’t want the baby? what if you didn’t want the baby? what if he didn’t want the baby or you?

you were pacing back and forth in your living room when matt came home, arms full of bags from his workout. they immediately dropped when he saw the look on your face.

“what’s wrong?” he asked. “what happened? did someone die?”

you shook your head and burst into more tears. it was a mere second before you were wrapped up in his arms, one of his hands stroked your hair while the other stayed firmly put around your waist.

“baby, you’re scaring me.” at the sound of the pet name, you sobbed even harder. baby. there was a baby.

“i’m sorry, matty, i’m sorry,” you managed to get out between cries.

“what’re you sorry for, huh? you haven’t done anything wrong, have you?”

your hands were shaking as you pulled back from him, opening your palm to show the piece of plastic in your hand.

“what—” but matt seemed to have lost his voice at the sight of the pink lines staring back at him. “oh,” was the only thing he found fit to say.

“i’m sorry, matty. i thought it would be fine, but i went to the dollar store because i didn’t have any money and this was the only test available and—”

matt tugged you back into his chest. “it’s okay. we’ll figure it out.”

“we’re too young!” you wailed. “barely 20.”

“it’s one test, we’ll take another and if it’s still positive, we’ll go to the doctor,” he murmured against your hair. “wait,” he started. “where did you say you got the test?”

you pulled back, confused as to why his voice took a sudden turn from concern to something you couldn’t quite place. “dollar store, why?”

matt laughed. he threw his head back and laughed. “baby,” he started. “you chose a cheap test, it could be a false positive.”

you blinked. “is that how that works? i didn’t think—”

“let’s get another test, and we’ll take it, together.”

matt drove you both to the pharmacy, his hand on your thigh the entire ride. he went in alone, grabbed a box of clear blue and a bag of sour patch kids before he came back out. you almost burst into tears at the sight. as you ripped into the bag, matt’s hand found its way back to your thigh, his thumb rubbing soothing patterns into your pants leg.

the sour patch kids had done the job of calming your nerves for the moments leading up to retaking a pregnancy test. matt held your hand while the two of you waited for the timer to go off.

“whatever the result is, i’m with you,” he mumbled against the side of your head. and when the timer went off, matt was the one to check it, you were too overwrought with nerves. he didn’t even check the test, wanting you to see the result first.

negative.

a sigh escaped your mouth. your shoulders sagged as tears came to your eyes. relief wasn't a strong enough word to describe how you were feeling in that moment. matt pressed a kiss against your temple and wrapped you in his arms.

“one day,” he said. “just not today.”

after

maybe you were a bit of a coward, waiting for tuesday to come around before you texted matt a good time to meet. you waited until the last two minutes of your lunch break before you sent him a message. the second you heard the whoosh sound, you put your phone on do not disturb and shoved it in your bag so you could forget about it.

frankie popped his head into the studio while you were hunched over a canvas, carefully scraping away the back side of it to clean.

“you busy?” he asked.

you looked up before glancing down at the giant canvas in front of you. “i can take a small break, my back is killing me. do you need me to clean up? how long do you need me?”

frankie shrugged. “not long, so you don’t have to put anything away. i just wanted to talk to you about your future.”

your stomach dropped. “is this a segue into firing me?”

“you’re so dramatic,” frankie chuckled. “no, you’re not being fired. i’m more so trying to get you in a place where you can be compensated fairly one day.”

you blinked. “are you not compensating me fairly right now?”

frankie rolled his eyes. “you have a lot of talent, and unfortunately, i can’t pay you any more until you get a graduate degree in art conservation.”

confused, you nodded. “i know,” you said. “i started here for experience to use on grad school applications.”

“and have you applied anywhere yet?”

you opened your mouth and then promptly shut it again. no, no you had not.

frankie sighed and placed his hands on his hips. “look, you’re talented, i’ve said that plenty of times already and i want you to be successful, whether that’s as a conservator or an independent freelance painter. what i don’t want is you staying in st. louis forever in this job waiting around for something to happen.”

waiting for something to happen.

waiting.

what exactly were you waiting for?

frankie continued. “i’ve emailed you some of the best conservation programs in the states if that’s a route you wanna go. i honestly think you could do conservation or freelance painting, you’d be great at either, but that’s a choice only you can make. if you want to go to grad school, i will gladly write as many letters of recommendations as you’d need, i’d even help you by asking clients for some if that’s what you want, but the ball is in your court.”

for a moment, you were floored, truly astounded that someone would go through those lengths to help you figure out your life. for now, all you could manage to say was a “thank you.”

“anytime,” frankie replied.

he left the studio room shortly thereafter so you could continue the mindless scraping once more.

when the work day was finally done, your hand was sore from the constant repetitive motions and your back ached from hunching over. but at least the scraping was done.

you grabbed your bag and car keys and headed out the front door. the aux was the first thing you reached for after locking yourself in the car. it wasn’t until you searched your bag to grab your phone that you remembered the text you sent matt earlier that day, the reason why your phone was on do not disturb.

you:

what does your week look like?

matt had responded two minutes after your initial text.

matty:

i’m free tonight, or any other time you’re free.

you rolled your eyes but couldn't stop the smile on your face.

you:

i just got off work, let me go home and change and we can find a place to meet.

you barely managed to get the music flowing through the aux when your phone buzzed with a text.

matty:

you can always stop by the house? mom, dad, and taryn would love to see you. we could go on a walk around the neighborhood...

your stomach churned at the thought, it felt a little too close, too familiar. but there were very few places in that city that wouldn’t spark some sort of memory for you. you grew up there, you grew up there with matt. there were seldom spaces that weren’t deeply intertwined in your co written story with him.

you:

that’s fine.

neither of your parents were home when you got there, which was probably for the best, it meant you wouldn’t get asked where you were going or why you agreed to talk to matt after all this time.

you made the drive to his parents’ house. it felt as familiar as putting on the old t-shirt you’d stolen from your mom before you left for college. you didn’t need the gps, even after the time had passed.

you parked in the same spot you always did when you finally got a car to drive to matthew’s. it wasn’t like that spot on the street was used very often, not when you were dating at least. matt hated making you drive, especially when his car was newer and better and by all of his standards, safer than yours.

by the time you made it onto the front porch, taryn was opening the front door and smiling so wide, her eyes were squinting.

“you’re here!” she shrieked. it was only a matter of seconds before you were wrapped in her arms. “what brings you here?”

your mouth opened to respond, but you were promptly cut off.

“she’s with me.”

matt appeared over taryn’s shoulder looking every bit the man you fell in love with all those years ago.

taryn pulled back from the hug, her eyes wide. “what? she’s with—”

“not like that,” you smiled gently. “just came to talk, figure some things out.”

“are you staying for dinner?”

you looked at matt, unsure if that was something he’d even want. “it’s up to you, i won't force you to stay,” he said.

you shrugged. “we’ll play it by ear.”

matt nodded and moved past taryn. “you good for a walk?” he asked, eyes never once leaving your face. and you couldn’t help but stare back, getting lost in the pools of blue that once were your whole world. you felt yourself nod right before following him down the stairs and off the porch.

neither of you said anything until you were both sure his family couldn’t see you from their house anymore.

“thank you,” you said. “i should’ve said that the other night.”

matt shook his head and shoved his hands into his pockets. “you don't need to thank me for that. i’m sorry that happened.”

“you couldn’t have done anything to prevent it.”

“i could’ve told the bartender to stop giving him drinks when i saw how drunk you were.”

your head whipped to the side to look at him, but matt wouldn’t return your stare. his jaw was tightly clenched. “how’d you even know i was there?”

mat shrugged and kicked a rock out of the way. “i always notice you, even when i don’t mean to.”

there were no words coming to your mind, nothing you could say could add to the conversation. so you nodded and looked ahead of you.

“i wanted to apologize—”

“matt—”

“for everything.”

you stopped walking altogether. “don’t,” you said. “don’t say that. don’t apologize.”

matt’s brows pulled together, the corners of his lips turned down. “why?”

“because i don’t want it.” words you thought you’d never say.

did you mean them? it felt like you did. for months, you’d waited for a moment for him to apologize, to admit that he regretted it. but now that you were faced with this decision, you weren’t sure it was an apology you wanted.

“what do you want, then?” he asked, earnestly this time.

you looked down at your beaten up hokas, the ones you bought after moving back to missouri, needing something that didn’t used to stay in the apartment you shared with matthew. the shoes were only a few months old, but they were discolored and dirty. you wore them to work, and often got droplets of solvent or paint on them when you weren’t paying attention.

matt’s foot nudged your own. “what do you want?” he repeated.

“did you cheat on me?” your eyes were still trained on the ground, so you didn’t see the look of hurt in matt’s eyes. you only saw the way he stepped back immediately.

“what?” he asked, pain clear in his voice. “why would you think that? i would never do that to you. you have to know that, please know that i’d never cheat on you.”

you shrugged, still not making eye contact. maybe you were scared if you did, you’d start crying, and he’d seen you cry enough times since he’d been back in town. “you broke up with me over a five minute phone call, matt. it was out of the blue, didn’t make any sense. the only reason i could think of was that you got tired of me and found someone better.”

matt scoffed. “i could never find someone better than you,” he said. “and never in my wildest dreams or thoughts did i ever even consider cheating on you.”

you finally met his eyes. the once bright blue irises were now darker, whether in pain or anger, you didn’t know. you weren’t sure how much had changed with him since the break up. “then why’d you end it? why’d you wait until you were traded and nearly halfway into the season to tell me it’s over?”

“because i didn’t want you to move to florida.”

you figured as much, but it still stung hearing it confirmed.

“why?” you asked.

“because you kept putting off your life for me! i hated it!” matt was pacing now, shoving his hands through his hair.

at the same time, your head tilted. you wanted answers. you wanted the reason why he'd ended things out of nowhere and the reason he just gave you wasn’t enough. “what’re you talking about?”

matt stopped moving long enough to fix you with a look. “you wanted to go to ucla until i committed to notre dame. and then when i signed with calgary, you transferred after a year.”

“so?”

matt scoffed. “so?”

“i wanted to do that!”

“and i wanted you to be yourself, i wanted you to chase your dreams without worrying about me, without altering your life just to stay with me!”

you stepped back. “so you didn’t want me with you?”

“that’s not what i said!”

“then what are you trying to say, matt? we’re just not compatible? headed in two different directions?”

“i—” he groaned and ran a hand down his face before shoving that same hand through his disheveled curls. “i wanted to do right by you. you are so gifted, and you could’ve gone to any school you wanted, but you followed me. i didn’t want to be the reason you never got to do what makes you happy.”

“so you took the one thing i wanted away from me?”

“you weren’t going to choose yourself! you were never going to choose yourself, so i did.”

“that wasn’t your choice to make, matt!” you couldn’t help but want to rip your hair out. who was he to think he could make decisions for you?

he took a step closer to you before immediately stepping backwards and pacing. “i have known you my entire life,” he said. it was an exaggeration, you both knew it, but as you both got older, it was harder to remember the years before you were in each other’s lives. “you are the kindest person i know, the best person i know. you have made more than enough sacrifices for me, for this game i love. but i was tired of being the only one living out their dream. you love art, or at least you did. you loved it, you painted all the time growing up. but when you moved to calgary? you stopped. you went to my games, galas, team events, instead. i wanted you to have something that you loved just as much as i love hockey.”

“and what if that was you? what if i was okay just supporting you?”

he shook his head adamantly. “you deserve more than that. i love you too much to let you live like that.”

you furrowed your brow. “live like what? supporting the love of my life as he lives out his dreams?” you tentatively took a step closer to him, imploring matt to look at you. “why is that such a bad thing?”

“because what if it’s not enough?” he looked up. you were shocked to see tears brimming in his eyes. “what if one day, you wake up next to me and resent me for dragging you all over the continent for a stupid sport?”

“it’s not a stupid sport—”

“it is when i’ve seen it ruin people, ruin their relationships.”

“but you ruined ours when you broke up with me, matt. how does that make any sense?” his mouth opened and shut once, twice, three times before he avoided your eyes altogether. “matt, how does that make sense?” you took a step towards him, slowly but moving. “matt?”

“i could handle it if you hated me,” he said. “i could learn to live with it if it meant you got to be happy in the end.”

your heart broke, your face crumpled as you watched the man you’d loved for a decade shuffle shoe around what he was actually trying to say. “why couldn’t i be happy with you, matt? why isn’t that possible in your mind?”

you waited for him to say something. it felt like you waited forever. but you would’ve waited for the cows to come home if it meant honesty from him.

“because i’m never gonna be enough for that.”

you thought the phone call from six months ago ripped your heart in half, you fully believed he’d done the most damage then. if your heart was going to be broken again, surely it would be when you would inevitably see another girl hanging off his arm at brady and emma’s wedding.

but there you were, standing in front of the man you still loved, heart breaking even worse because he believed he wasn’t enough. he wasn’t enough.

“matt—”

“to me? you’re everything. you’re literally the smartest person i know and you’re so talented and kind and considerate.” he laughed a little under his breath. “i still remember you shaking in the goal while i practiced my shots. i was waiting for you to say you didn’t want to do it, but you did it because you knew how much it meant to me.”

you smiled as you remembered the moment he was talking about. you were eleven and your crush on matt was just starting to form. you would’ve done anything he asked even if it meant flinching every two seconds.

“breaking up with you was the worst thing i’ve ever done, but if it meant sparing you the life of forever being forced to follow me around, it would be worth it.”

you stepped closer to him, uncaring that the two of you had been having this conversation in the middle of the sidewalk of his neighborhood. “who put this idea in your head, matt? was it me? was it—”

“your parents.”

you barely even heard the “what” leave your lips, so you were unsure how matt did. he looked as uncomfortable as you felt.

“i was gonna propose when you moved to florida. i bought the ring before the season ended and over the summer i had every intention of asking your dad for his blessing.” matt cleared his throat before finally looking up at the sky. the sun, thankfully, was beginning to set, golden hour was coming soon. “you’d gone out with our moms, emma, and taryn, and i went over to your house to talk to your dad.”

you weren’t liking where the story was going.

“he asked if i would quit hockey for you.”

your stomach dropped to your feet.

“when i said i would in a heartbeat, he didn’t believe me.”

your stomach was in the core of the earth.

“matt...”

he swallowed and looked at you. “i would do it, you know. if you’d asked me, i would’ve given hockey up in a heartbeat to keep you.”

“i know, matty, i know,” you said, the nickname slipping out before you could stop it. “what else did my dad say?”

matt shook his head.

“matt,” you implored.

but he didn't relent.

“matthew.” you took a step closer, finally, after months of little to no physical contact, your hand cupped his cheek. and like he had no control over his body, like he was acting on pure instinct, he leaned into your palm. “what did he say?”

he shook his head again. “i can’t.”

“you can.” you stroked your thumb along his cheekbone.

“he asked if this was the life i wanted for you. the moving around, the fighting, the crazy schedules, the tweets, all of it. he asked verbatim if that’s the kind of life i wanted you to live, if i wanted you under a microscope for the rest of our lives. he told me that he knew why i was there, and that if i thought you’d be happy to a life like that, then he'd give me his blessing.”

your hand shook a little, but matt’s hand steadied it against his face.

“it’s not that i thought you were weak,” he clarified. “it’s not that i didn’t want you, because i did. i just didn’t want you to be stuck with me for the rest of our lives.”

“is that what he said? that if we got married, i’d be shackled to you?”

matt shrugged, but in his silence, you found the answer.

“matty,” again, the nickname slipping out before you could stop it. “i’m sorry, you should’ve said something—”

“and cause problems between you and your dad?” he shook his head. “you love him, i wasn’t gonna come between that.”

you could’ve cried at that sentiment. after all this time, he was still looking out for you. “thank you, matt. thank you for being honest.”

he gave you a small smile, one that broke your heart as much as it mended it. “you staying for dinner?”

the temptation was there, to go inside and sit in your old seat next to him, to feel your shoulders brush like they used to when the two of you were still together. maybe you’d laugh at something brady said, maybe you’d compliment chantal on her cooking.

but there were bigger fish to fry at home in the shape of your father.

so you shook your head no. “i think you know i have to go.”

matt nodded. “i get it.”

the two of you turned around and started walking back to your car. in the end, you didn’t walk very far so you were standing next to your vehicle in a matter of minutes.

“thank you for agreeing to talk,” matt said, his hands shoved deep in his pocket.

“thanks for telling me the truth.”

matt opened your door and braced his forearm on the roof of your car while you got in. “i’ll see you around?” he asked.

you smiled. “don’t be a stranger, tkachuk.”

he laughed and knocked on the roof of your car before shutting the door. you watched him in your rearview mirror as you drove away. all the years you were together, there were only a few times you could remember walking away from him.

the drive home was quiet, you were stewing on what you'd say to your dad when you got back. you were pissed, upset, angry.

but most importantly, you were in agony.

the man you loved your whole life let you hate him for six months so you wouldn't hate your dad. he let you make him into a villain so you had the support of your parents.

and maybe it was that thought process that had you throwing your car in park and storming up to your childhood home and all but slamming the front door wide open.

your mom and dad were sitting in the living room, neither of them interacting with the other in any meaningful way. no, this wasn’t the tkachuk house. your parents weren’t in love anymore, they were content with the idea of not having to find anyone else.

“matt was gonna propose to me?” you asked, chest already heaving from the anger coursing through your body. your eyes were on fire, if looks could kill and such.

your dad, to his credit, managed to catch onto what you were talking about immediately and put his book down.

but your mom cut in. “sweetheart, what're you—”

“ask him,” you interrupted, but didn't spare her a single glance, something you'd apologize for later. “go ahead, ask him what i’m talking about. ask dad why matt broke up with me out of nowhere.”

“honey....” your dad started. you waited for him to continue, to justify something, to say it was a huge misunderstanding, but he said nothing.

“alan, what is she talking about?”

you still wouldn't look at your mom. your eyes were fixed on the figure of your father who sat still in his recliner. “i went to talk to matt today, get some closure, figure out what went wrong with us. dad convinced matthew that i would feel shackled to him if he proposed, if we got married. he planted this idea in matt’s head that he wouldn’t be enough to keep me happy.”

that seemed to be enough to get your dad speaking. “you have so much potential, honey, i didn’t want to see it wasted chasing him around.”

you rolled your eyes. “i was happy to do it. he was everything to me.”

“and you should’ve been everything. you should want to be great, you should want to be a great painter, you should want to accomplish great things.” your dad gestured between himself and your mother. “you think we want this for you? to choose a partner just based on love? what happens when that love runs out? what happens when you get married, have kids, and matthew get bored on the road? what then?”

your stomach twisted at the thought. “matt would never.”

“maybe not, honey. but you have to understand, i was looking out for you.”

you scoffed before you could stop yourself. “looking out for me? you literally held me while i sobbed a few weeks ago and told me that maybe matt had changed when you knew damn well the reason things had ended.” you ran a hand down your face and laughed bitterly. “do you wanna know the worst part about this? you let me believe the worst things about the man who has loved me most of my life.

“you let me hate the man who wanted nothing more than to protect my happiness. and then you had me going on absolute bullshit pep talks to myself every morning where i’d tell myself i’m fine, that matthew brendan tkachuk was just a guy i dated for almost half my life and that there are plenty of fish in the sea to choose from. and that i’m a woman, a strong, intelligent, and capable woman that any man would be lucky to have! but i went on a date the other night and something really awful almost happened, but matt was there and he made sure i was okay. he took my vitriol in stride, he protected me without ruining my life, something you can’t seem to do.”

your dad, to his credit took your spewing words with a straight face. he didn’t interrupt you once.

your shoulders were heaving with the force of breaths you were taking to get all those words out. your heart was pounding in your chest. you were angry. angry. angry.

until it dissipated at the look on your parents’ faces.

tears replaced the anger quite quickly.

“i get you were trying to protect me, but you should’ve seen the look on his face when he told me. dad, i love you, but you damn near ruined my life.”

your father nodded, a shattered look on his face. “sweetheart i—if i’d known—” he cleared his throat. “i’m sorry. i thought i was doing right by you, trying to keep you from making the same mistakes.”

“and what mistakes are those? falling in love? getting married to the person you loved? getting to live the rest of your life together?”

“falling complacent,” your mother said. “getting too comfortable, becoming roommates instead of lovers.” your mother was picking at her nail beds, refusing to look at either of you. “i was not a part of the conversation your dad had with matthew, but i will not lie and say that your behavior didn’t concern me, because it did.” your mother held a hand up when you opened your mouth. “you didn’t have any ambition! you were sacrificing your dreams for him, aimlessly following him.”

“mom—”

“i have found myself lost before, lost in this marriage, lost in motherhood, lost in my job. i did not want that for you, neither of us did.” your mother stood from her seat on the couch and walked towards you. she placed her hand on your cheek. “i know you love him, and maybe he’s your person, but we did not,” she cleared her throat, “i did not want you to grow up regretting and resenting matt because you were too young to know what you wanted.”

your mom’s thumb traced your cheekbone. she stared you down with the eyes that matched your own. “do you remember when you were younger, you would draw these beautiful pieces with your colored pencils?”

you nodded.

“you don’t draw anymore, sweetheart. your art supplies are still in a box in the attic where they have been since you've moved back home. from my viewpoint, i see the little girl i raised chasing the man she loves and neglecting herself in the process. you’ve spent most of your life following matthew, but what about you? when will it be your turn?”

your bottom lip wobbled.

you were nine years old again, showing matt the self portrait you did and watching his face light up.

“you should draw me sometime!” he said.

and you did. all through middle school, high school, undergrad, all of it was matt matt matt matt matt. even if it wasn’t his face, even if it wasn’t hockey related, it was matt. the colors swirling together, the passion beneath the oils, all of it reflecting him.

you were so pissed at your dad, for telling matt what he did, but you were pissed at yourself as well, for neglecting who you were.

who were you anyway?

the fight left you pretty soon after your mother’s words were spoken. the hard truth of them still lingered in the air.

you went to bed that night and stared at the ceiling, trying to imagine what you would paint if the surface was a canvas instead.

before

you would’ve never picked up your phone had you known what was waiting on the other side of it.

the day started off simple enough. your apartment was a mess, usually at that time of year, it would be covered in christmas decorations and presents would be wrapped under the tree you and matt picked out from a tree farm. this time, there were boxes strewn about the room in anticipation of the move you’d be making to florida in just a few weeks. the plan was you’d fly into st. louis and have all your belongings that you didn’t need to survive, shipped to your new home in florida.

you were in the middle of packing up the last of your summer clothes into a box when matt called. it felt like a flip had been switched, because any exhaustion that was set deep in your bones from the work week disappeared the second you saw his contact photo on your lock screen.

“hey!” you said, smile so wide, your cheeks ached. “how’re you doing?”

“hey,” he replied, but his voice sounded off.

“everything okay?” you asked. “i saw the game last night, i’m sorry about the loss.”

“don’t worry about it.”

“oh,” you said. “well i have most of the apartment packed up, just need to put the rest of my clothes in my suitcases. i’ve already arranged the rest of our things to be shipped and—”

“i don't think you should move to florida.”

all the words in the world and all you could say was “what?”

matt sighed over the other end of the phone. “i didn’t mean to say it like that.”

“but you still meant to say it?”

“look, this isn’t easy for me to admit but, i don’t think it’s a good idea for you to move to florida. i don't even think it’s a good idea to keep this going.”

“keep what going?”

he sighed again. “this, us, our relationship. i just don’t think it’s working.”

well that was news to you.

you swallowed, your hands were shaking. it wasn’t until you couldn’t see straight that you realized you were crying.

“since when? i thought we were fine! what did i miss? what can i do to fix this?”

the battle of alberta had nothing on matt’s silence ringing through the phone. with each passing second, you felt the hope of repairing and fixing your relationship dwindle.

“i don’t think there’s anything to fix.”

the world had stopped spinning, even as he continued on, talking about the next steps you'd need to take, how he would continue to pay the lease, he’d cover the moving expenses to switch destinations of your things.

it all made you want to vomit.

how could he speak about the logistics of your break up when you felt like you couldn’t get past the actual reality of your breakup? your world was caving in and he seemed fine.

at the end of the call, he apologized. “i’m sorry,” he said.

all you could say was “okay.”

five minutes, your phone said when you looked at the call log.

matthew tkachuk had ruined your life in five fucking minutes.

after

frankie had to be the weirdest boss you ever had. when you called him and said you needed a few days off to sort things out in your personal life, he jumped at the chance to tell you to take a day or two off immediately.

“i can’t pay you for those days, but if it means you feel better, go ahead and take off. we’ll be fine.”

which is how you ended up sitting in your room for eight hours, staring at a blank canvas.

your hands shook anytime you reached for a paintbrush. what if it was the wrong brush? the wrong color? what if it was bad? ugly? what if you hated it?

you'd communicated those same thoughts to simone over the phone when you called on her lunch break, trying to keep yourself from crying over a blank canvas.

“it’s gonna be difficult at first,” she started. “but you have to start somewhere, even if it’s just a dot in the middle of the canvas.”

and you'd repeated her words in your head, yet you couldn’t force yourself to do anything about it. this was supposed to be about you, yet everything you were doing reminded you of him. it was the particular blue you used to mix together to represent his eyes. it was the red from calgary. it was the yellow that reminded you of the t-shirt you wore when matt first kissed you.

what would you even paint? the living room of your first shared apartment? saddledome? this was supposed to be about you, so why did you keep wanting to make it about matt? what was wrong with you? your parents were right, you lost yourself in trying to be the most supportive girlfriend around.

the second day didn’t produce much results either and when you finally went back to work, you looked and felt like you hadn’t rested at all.

“that bad, huh?” frankie asked.

“i didn't think it’d be that hard to paint, it’s literally never been that hard before.”

“you gotta just let it go.” when he didn't say anything else, you gestured for him to continue. “stop expecting it to be a masterpiece or to be meaningful, art is about you, not perfection.”

“but—”

frankie held a hand up, just like your mother had. “when you're here, it’s about doing right by the painting, the art itself. when you create though, it’s about doing right by you.”

you floated through your workday, your fingers itched to do something more than scraping dirt and grime off the back of a canvas. they longed for the oil based paint to stick to them. they longed for the cramping in your hand that came from holding a brush too long.

but you started.

you turned on some classical music and started.

you weren’t even sure what you were painting until you were staring back at the ice rink in front of you, empty, just like you were feeling. you should’ve known it would've had something to do with ice.

maybe it was foolish to believe you could completely get rid of matt in one painting. you'd known him longer than you hadn’t. but frankie’s words kept echoing in your head.

it’s about doing right by you.

so instead of painting matt or his number, or the curls on top of his head, you painted something else entirely. blurred figures raced past a lone frame standing completely still. the slumped shoulders of the person in stuck in one place, the lack of proper equipment, no ice skates, no sweater.

after days of painting and plotting and painting and waiting, it was finished. an ice rink with a person completely stationary while life moves around her.

it wasn’t your best piece, but it was your most honest.

it was like a dam had been broken because you couldn’t stop painting the silly little pieces of your feelings. you were losing space in your bedroom, and your phone had been neglected for two weeks.

now, you still responded to texts in the bridesmaid group chat, and you texted simone frequently. but your brain was taken up by this reawakened, once dormant, passion of yours. it was all you could think about.

your fingers were practically permanently stained with paint. you hadn’t changed out of your paint clothes all weekend, living in the spandex and one of your dad’s old t-shirts. the past few days, you’d been a hermit, only leaving the house to go to work. and while you weren’t completely anti social, you weren’t going out of your way to get in contact with people.

your parents were out on a rare date night while you were up in your room adding little details to your painting. the music playing through your phone’s speakers had lulled you into another world. you were all but lost to reality.

thump.

you paused, brush poised over the canvas. you listened again for the sound but heard nothing. so you continued.

thump thump.

you glanced at the window just in time to see a rock hit it. before you could stop yourself, you sighed and chuckled.

you felt like you were in high school again.

when you opened your window, sure enough matt was standing outside with a handful of stones in his hands. “you busy?” he asked.

at the sight of his boyish smile, your heart leapt. “what’re you doing here?”

he shrugged. “just wanted to see you.”

be careful, your head warned you. he’s not yours anymore.

but your heart didn’t give a shit. try as hard as you might, you were almost positive you’d love matt the rest of your life. “you couldn’t knock on the door?”

he shrugged again. “i tried, you didn’t hear me.” he shifted on his feet. “so are you busy?”

you glanced back at the painting you'd been obsessing over all day and decided you could leave it for a little while. “gimme a sec.”

very quickly, you cleaned up your art supplies before you ran down the stairs. you snagged your keys out of the basket by the door and locked the front door behind you.

matt had moved off your lawn and was now propped up against the passenger door of his car. “wanna go for a drive?”

how could you deny him anything when he looked so happy to see you?

“you’ve been busy,” he said as soon as he pulled out of the driveway. you did your best not to pay attention to how good his arm looked behind your head rest as he backed out into the street.

“how do you figure?”

matt put the car in drive, but before he pulled away, he gestured to your forehead. “you have paint, everywhere.” you could feel the heat crawl up your neck as you opened the sun visor to look in the mirror. sure enough, streaks of paint covered your cheeks. matt reached over and shut it with one hand. “stop it,” he said. “you look great.”

“even with the paint?”

“especially with the paint. you look happy again.” a beat passed. “are you?”

you thought about it for a moment. a few weeks ago, you were in the trenches, suffocating in the unknown, drawing in questions that had no answers. and while you were still single, even as you sat in the passenger seat of the man that you still loved, you felt capable. you felt like you could handle life. no longer were you floating, waiting for a strong breeze to blow you away from your reality. you still might depend on having wind in your sails, but at least you were a boat with a steering wheel instead of a helium balloon.

“i think i’m getting there. i’m not as angry anymore, i’m painting again.” you gestured to your face. “though you could probably tell.

“what have you been painting?”

how could you explain it? how could you possibly articulate that while you were still searching for what it meant to be you, you had somehow uncovered fragments of yourself that you’d lost along the way?

“myself.”

matt smiled, his eyes crinkled in the corners. “that’s what i like to hear. you enjoying it?”

“more than i thought i would, once i got over the fear.”

“fear? what were you scared of?”

you picked at the dirt under your fingernails. “not being good enough.”

matt made a sound between a scoff and a snicker, like the words coming out of your mouth were so incredibly stupid it was both alarming and hilarious. “are you fucking with me? you’re the most talented person i know!”

you rolled your eyes before you could stop yourself. “you play with some of the best athletes in the world—”

“and none of them could hold a candle to you.” he braked easily when you came up to a red light.

and you weren’t sure why you said what you said next, maybe it was the intimacy of the environment or maybe, when it came down to it, you wanted matt to hear all your updates first.

“i think i’m gonna apply to more grad schools again. i talked to frankie, he gave me some information and said he’d write as many recommendations as i needed.”

you wanted to be brave and look at matthew, you wanted to see his reaction in real time. but you couldn’t bring yourself to. whether that was because the moment felt too intimate for eye contact between exes or the you were afraid you'd see real time disappointment, you weren’t sure.

“is that something you wanna do?” his voice was soft. you could feel his eyes on your profile.

that was a question you'd asked yourself over and over again. was it something you were legitimately interested in? or were you like every twenty-something who applies for grad school when they don't know what else to do?

“i think there's just as much beauty in restoring as there is in creating.” in a split second, you decided you could be brave, so you looked back at him. “i don’t think i should have to choose between one of the other.

matt nodded, his hands white against the steering wheel. “do you think everything deserves a chance at restoration?” he asked, his blue eyes filled with a sincerity only he could replicate.

“i think anything can be fixed if someone cares enough to try.”

feeling bold, you spared him a glance from the corner of your eye. matt had his head down for a brief moment, a small smile on his lips.

there were words that hung in the air like the car freshener on matt’s rearview mirror, yet neither of you spoke them. both of you were more than content to bask in the silence rather than answer unasked questions that you weren’t ready to acknowledge.

before

matt wasn’t at school that day, and you were the reason why. he hardly ever missed, even with his busy hockey schedule and his dad’s games, chantal always made sure to have her kids in school. if they weren’t rich, you’d assume his parents had the same thought process your grandparents did: they weren’t forking out all this money just for their kids to be absent all the time.

which brought you back to your original thought.

matt wasn’t at school.

and you were the reason.

well. that wasn’t entirely true. matt’s decisions were his own, even if the two of you were in fifth grade, you were both mature enough to own your mistakes.

and he made a big one.

it started at the beginning of the school year when jared, a new kid, started bothering you during class. you'd done what your parents had taught you and told the teacher. but mrs. wright just looked at you with a condescending smile and said:

“aw honey, he just has a crush on you!”

you were met with the same excuse each time you told her.

you’d tried to keep it to yourself, done your best to get over it, but he was too forward. on monday, he teased the way your uniform looked, which was a sore subject because your parents couldn’t afford to buy you a new uniform and your grandparents were being stingy with money in an effort to manipulate your mother. you were old enough to start recognizing that now.

on tuesday, jared criticized your doodles on a sheet of scrap paper, saying they looked childish. wednesday was no better, he snickered and pointed at you when you messed up a note playing hot cross buns on your recorder. thursday was when things took a left turn.

jared hadn't been at school for long to fully understand the dynamic between you and matt, not like the other kids did. he was smart enough to approach you when matt wasn’t around for the most part. maybe it was the confidence of the lack of punishment and accountability from your teacher and school administration that made him bold enough to tug on your hair and push you down during recess right in front of matthew.

you didn’t have enough time to shed a tear before matt was on jared.

to put it simply, physically fighting someone was grounds for suspension. it probably should’ve been a longer suspension had you and your parents not said jared had been harassing you for weeks now with no consequences.additionally, the amount of money the tkachuks sewed into the school probably helped lessen his punishment too.

“you shouldn’t have beat him up,” you said. the two of you were sitting on the back porch of matt’s house. originally, you expected matt to be grounded from seeing you as a punishment, but given the context, keith and chantal both said it would've been unfair.

matt shrugged. “he should’ve kept his hands to himself.” his words sounded similar to the ones you heard from his father earlier that day when you and matthew were sitting outside the principal’s office. 

“mr. tkachuk, we do not condone violence at this school.”

“but you do condone harassment? bullying? my son was doing what your administration failed to do, and that’s protect his best friend.”

“i don't like it when you're in trouble.”

“and i don’t like seeing some jerk hurt you.” matt nudged your knee with his own. “besides, i’ll be back on monday. ‘s not like i was expelled.”

“just don’t make it a habit.”

“no promises,” he said. “i’ll always fight for you.”

after

the wedding approached faster than you thought it would. you spent the last seven months dreading emma and brady’s big day, scared of what seeing matt in a tux would do to your heart. originally, you didn't think you could handle it, you never thought you'd actually get to the wedding day and not want to cancel last minute.

but now you were standing in the bridal suite adding finishing touches to your makeup in the vanity feeling every bit of happiness for emma that you were faking just months ago.

life was starting to turn around for you. just last week, frankie had helped you finish your applications to some grad programs in art restoration and conservation. you were holding out hope for nyu, but didn’t want to get your hopes up.

“how’re you feeling?” taryn came up behind you where you were lined up in preparation to walk . 

“ready for some wine and the reception,” you answered honestly. “i’m so excited.” and you were telling the truth for once. your smile felt genuine.

“matt will be excited to see you,” she said. “you look so pretty.”

you rolled your eyes but couldn’t stop the smile from forming on your lips. “oh hush, this isn’t about us, not even remotely close.”

taryn rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders. “maybe...” she trailed off before the wedding planner was moving her into position.

your hands shook as you held the bouquet. lily, one of the other bridesmaids looked back at you and mouthed “are you okay?” when you nodded and gave her a shaky smile, she turned around.

you weren’t nervous for a good reason, but walking in front of crowds always scared you. what if you tripped? what if the heel of your shoe broke? what if what if what—

but then it was your turn to walk down the aisle and every anxious thought went quiet the second you saw matthew.

it really wasn’t fair, how he could put you at ease so easily, without even saying a single word. how his blue eyes would meet yours and the racing of your heart would beat for a different reason. sure, there were moments where you were anxious around him, around the feelings that came with dating for ten years, but the truth was you never felt more safe than you did in his arms.

you kept your eyes locked on his as you walked down the aisle. not once did you stumble or fall. though, you nearly laughed out loud when he winked at you. a flush creeped into your cheeks when he smirked. you’d known him most of your life and you were still reduced to a school girl whenever he looked at you. when you made it to the end, you took your spot next to lily, taryn eventually took the spot next to you.

personally, you loved weddings. you cried every time. so obviously you were wiping tears with brady when emma walked down the aisle. it was almost surreal, watching the boy you knew as when he was eight years old was now marrying the love of his life. when did you grow up? when did that happen?

you met matt’s eyes over brady’s shoulder. in another life, it would've been you two getting married. the very thought sent an ache through your chest, but it didn't hurt the way it did a few months ago, hell, even a few weeks ago.

sure, you might not have ended up with matt, but you reconciled. he would still be in your life, even if it wasn't in the same capacity as before. that thought used to be debilitating, now you were just thankful he was around at all.

the crowd cheered as brady kissed emma. you could barely see them through the tears. you managed to wipe most of them away in time to walk back down the aisle. you were supposed to be linking arms and walking back down the aisle with quinn hughes. so when matt was standing there and holding his arm out, you almost stumbled back out of sheer confusion. in a haze, you took his arm.

“you weren’t supposed to walk me,” you said just loud enough for him to hear.

matt scoffed and pulled you a little closer. “like i was letting hughes walk you back down the aisle. that’s my job.”

“you messed up the order.”

he shrugged like the idea didn't bother him in the slightest. “brady will get over it, if he even notices.” the two of you had just walked down the aisle when you went to pull away, but his arm tightened around yours. “you look beautiful,” he said before releasing your arm and walking off.

it felt like you were stuck, rooted where you were standing, until the wedding planner ushered you along to take photos.

you were floating through the pictures, only barely remembering to smile and look at the camera. matt’s words floated around in your head in an endless loop. 

when it was time for dinner, you entered with quinn like you were supposed to (and to matt’s chagrin). brady and emma did not want to confuse the dj who was announcing everyone. quinn indulged your excitement and twirled you under his arm as the two of you walked out. there was a huge smile on your face at the sheer fun of it all, a smile that didn't dissipate until you were both seated with the rest of the wedding party.

you were happily chatting with quinn, asking him about how his girlfriend was, and eating your dinner when emma’s maid of honor stood up and started her speech. to be quite frank, you knew it was a beautiful nod to her friendship with emma, but you weren’t fully paying attention, too enraptured with the food and wine in front of you. though, you did clap where you were supposed to and laughed when everyone else did.

it wasn’t until matt stood up to give his speech that you were dialed in. and maybe that made you a horrible person.

you knew matt well enough to know he didn't prepare a speech, not like the maid of honor did. he'd told you so once brady and emma got engaged.

“are you not gonna write your speech down?”

“nope,’ he said, popping the p.

“but he's your brother.”

“the only one who is getting a planned and fleshed out speech is you, when i propose and when we get married. everyone else gets the improvised speech.”

so you weren't surprised when he didn’t have a slip of paper in his hand like the maid of honor.

“thank you all for coming to celebrate the marriage of brady and emma with us. i know it means a lot to them, to see the support they have all around,” he began. “i’ve known brady his whole life, obviously. so i know better than most that he’s a menace to society. both on and off the rink. but seeing him with you, emma, well you’ve brought the little bit of good out in him.” the crowd chuckled at the slight, you even cracked a smile, especially when brady flipped him off.

“love is the best thing this world has to offer,” he continues. “who are we without it? what is life without it?” matt looked around the room until his eyes settled on you, locked in. “falling in love is, dare i say, better than the game itself. once you experience it, there is no game that could hold a candle to the feeling. i’ve found it, and i’m happy that you, brady and emma, found it too. just hold onto it, don’t let it go. not when it gets hard, especially not when things look bad. it’s those times you hold on tighter.” 

maybe it was the lighting, but his eyes looked a little misty.

matt cleared his throat. “so here’s to the bride and groom, may you have nothing but good years ahead.”

you swallowed the lump in your throat and clapped along with everyone else. but matt’s eyes never left yours. you could feel his gaze on your face even as you talked to quinn. but he was on the other side of the table closer to brady.

it wasn’t until the dancing started that he even approached you.

outkast’s hey ya blasted over the speakers when matt found you. his hand immediately slid into yours as he tugged you closer.

“great speech!” you shouted over the music. “did you prepare it beforehand?”

matt spun you around. “you know i didn’t. i’m saving prepared speeches for special occasions.”

you expected the answer but played dumb anyway. “your brother’s wedding not a big enough occasion?”

he scoffed, like the very idea was offensive. “not even remotely close. only the love of my life deserves the written speeches.” he pulled you a little closer. your stomach twisted at the thought of him falling in love with someone else, but it didn't hurt the way it would've months ago. “but considering i broke up with her before i could propose, that’s not happening any time soon.”

your heart lurched in your chest, yet you felt yourself stepping back. “matt....”

he sighed like he knew what you were going to say. “i know we need to talk, and that this isn't the time, but can i just dance with you tonight? like nothing changed?”

and in the end, you wouldn’t be able to deny him anything.

you allowed him to spin you around and hold you close when the music slowed down. you allowed yourself to pretend all of it was real. you allowed yourself to live in this fictitious world where new jersey was the happiest place on earth simply because you had matt. the last seven months hadn't happened, you were still together, your future was certain, and maybe one of these days, he'd get down on one knee and ask for forever.

you played pretend even when the night was coming to a close. even when you were all waving goodbye to emma and brady. even when you gathering your things, matt was there, holding your bags for you and walking you to the car you rented.

“when do you fly back to st. louis?” he asked.

“tomorrow. i have work on monday.”

he grimaced. “frankie wouldn't let you off?”

you rolled your eyes and smiled. “some of us don't make millions of dollars and need to pay our bills, matt.”

“right,” he said. “forgot about that.” he cleared his throat and stepped closer to you. “do you think we could get coffee when i get back in town? i really think we should talk.”

you reached out and took his hand in yours. “just let me know when you’re back.”

and he did. days later when you were back at work on your lunch break, you got a text from him. before you could stop yourself, a smile lit up your face.

matty:

just landed, when are you free?

the two of you met at a park not too far from your homes, deciding that you two needed privacy to talk and sitting in a coffee shop where matt’s face was well known wasn’t ideal. it felt like it used to, with the two of you walking side by side, matt walking a little slower to match your pace. your arms occasionally brushed.

“everything okay?” you asked when the silence started to make you anxious.

matt looked at you and smiled. “yeah,” he said. “just wanted to talk.”

“about what?”

“us. what happens next.” when you didn't say anything, he continued. “i wanted to apologize—”

“there’s nothing to apologize for, matt. i understand—”

“but i should’ve just communicated with you instead of letting my insecurity and the pressure get to me. i should’ve done better.”

you bumped your shoulder into his bicep. “you did what you thought was best, i can’t blame you for that.”

matt ran a hand down his face and sighed. “i wish you wouldn’t be so understanding,” he said. “i wish you'd just say that what i did sucked.”

“but i get it—”

“i get that you get it, but i need you to be honest with me.”

“okay,” you said. “i’ll be honest. i hated every single rose you've ever gotten me, but i was too afraid to say anything because you looked so happy to give them to me. and i know it’s what your dad would bring home to your mother after roadies. i hated that you never remembered my coffee order, you changed it every single time, but i accepted it and tried it because i saw how proud of yourself you were and how much it meant to you that you got me a drink. and i hated that you ended things over a phone call with no explanation. i hated that i spent seven months agonizing over what i did wrong.” you swallowed the emotion bubbling up. “but i understand why you did it, and in another life, i might have done the same.”

matt’s hand brushed yours. you thought he was going to leave it at that, a gentle touch, but he grabbed your hand and interlocked your fingers “i wish you would've told me you hated roses.”

you smiled and shrugged, squeezing his hand in yours. “seeing how happy you were outweighed the hatred for roses. it was the thought that counted.”

“so what is your favorite flower?”

“red anemones.”

matt pulled out his phone and typed something into his notes app. “what’s your coffee order?” when you told him, he typed something else into the note. “i do care about that stuff,” he said. “i didn't mean to seem dismissive.”

“you remembered the important stuff like anniversaries and my birthday. you remembered that i hate driving in snow, you used to pick me up from school every time there was more than an inch on the ground.” you squeezed his hand again so he'd look at you. “you weren’t a shit boyfriend for forgetting the little things, matt. in fact, you were a really good boyfriend until you broke up with me.”

he didn’t say anything for a moment, choosing to bask in the summer sounds of the park. “do you think we could try again one day?”

it was a question you'd asked yourself multiple times since the conversation where you found out the truth behind the break up that nearly ruined you. could you two do it again? do it right this time? there was no way to know.

“i don’t know.”

a beat passed. “would you want to?”

would you? being with matt was all that you dreamed about but would you want to risk the heartbreak again? would you want to take the chance that it wouldn’t work out a second time?

yes. it was an easy yes.

heartbreak was inevitable, but you wouldn’t want your heart to be broken by anyone but matt.

but you could love him and also want to prioritize yourself and your wants and desires. you had a plan for your future that didn’t involve him for once. maybe he’d be there years later, but there was no guarantee. if you got into grad school, you wouldn’t be moving to florida. and while long distance had worked before, there was no assurance that things would again.

so you said “maybe one day,” and gave him a smile.

“one day,” he replied. “in the meantime, can we be friends?”

one more time, you squeezed his hand, tugging him a little closer, his arm bumping into your shoulder. “i’ll always be your friend at the very least, from here on out.”

after what looked like a moment of hesitation, matt pulled you closer and pressed a kiss to the side of your head.

after

when matt flew back to florida for the season, you fully expected him to stop talking to you. with distance being a factor, it was easy for you to assume he'd text whenever he wasn't tired or out partying.

but he texted you every waking and unoccupied minute of his day. in all honesty, you were worse at replying than he was. everything felt like high school again, in the days leading up to your first kiss.

you felt like you got your best friend back.

it started with him telling you about his day, asking about yours, and evolved into him telling you a joke he'd heard that day, a tiktok that reminded him of you, remembering your schedule. 

god your heart leapt every time he texted you. it was pathetic, but you loved it.

you loved him. 

it wasn’t a scary thought, you’d never stopped loving him even after the breakup. to act like you ever stopped was crazy.

and when you got into grad school? he was the first person you called.

it was nearly a year after he ended things, and there you were, calling him on the phone. you waited for him to pick up, for a moment, you were scared he wouldn’t answer. the phone kept ringing and your anxiety built up as the seconds went on. maybe he was busy or his phone was in the other room. or worst case scenario, he was ignoring your call, out with someone else. what if you annoyed him? what if—

“hey!” his cheery voice sounded over the phone. “everything okay? you usually don't call at...” he trailed off. “...3pm?”

you could’ve cried at the sound of his voice, the relief hitting you all at once. “i got in,” you replied.

“what—” he choked. “you got in? nyu’s program?”

you nodded before realizing he couldn't see you, stunned at the news and the fact that he immediately knew what you were talking about. “i did.”

he sighed over the phone. “god, baby, i’m so proud of you.” your heart swooped at the pet name, no longer angering you like it did months ago. “what did your parents say?”

“i haven’t told them yet,” you said. “i just found out.”

he paused. “and you called me.” he didn’t bother asking.

“and i called you. maybe that makes me a horrible daughter for not telling my literal parents but i just wanted to tell you first.”

he paused again. “why?”

your stomach twisted with nerves, your hands felt sweaty. “you know why.”

“i need to hear you say it. tell me there’s still hope.”

“matty—” you cut yourself off with a shaky inhale. “matt, we shouldn't.”

“why not? i love you, i’m sorry but i love you. i fucked up and lost the best thing that’s ever happened to me because i was scared.”

“matt, we shouldn’t be having this conversation over the phone...”

“then i’ll book a flight.”

you closed your eyes and smiled. this was a side of matt that you knew, someone who’d drop anything for someone he loved or the game he adored.

“you have games and practice,” you reminded him.

you could practically hear the scowl through the receiver. “we play the blues in a week. can we talk about this then? i’ll take you out to dinner.”

“you usually get dinner with your parents.”

matt scoffed through the phone. “i see them enough, i want to be with you.”

you smiled because you just couldn't help yourself. “we’ll talk about this in a week,” you agreed.

matt whooped over the phone, the glee evident in his tone. “i’m really proud of you,” he said, changing the subject back to the original point of the call. “grad school is a big deal. you worked so hard to get here.”

“thank you, matty.”

“i’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

the week leading up to the panthers vs. blues game was agonizing. you kept thinking of his confession over the phone:

i love you, i’m sorry. i love you, i’m sorry. i love you.

his words rattled around in your head like the cartoon birds that would fly over a concussed cartoon character.

five more days.

then four.

then three.

two.

tomorrow.

today.

matt bought you tickets to the game, one that you offered to simone, but she declined saying she “wouldn't want to be in the way.” when you told her she wouldn't, that you would like her company, she laughed.

“honey,” she said. “there is no one else in the room whenever you and matt are around each other.”

you’d flushed when she said that, but didn't deny it.

your mother and father were seated in the living room when you came bounding down the stands to head out to the game. “you going to see him?” she asked. there was a fond look in her eye, one that only brightened when you smiled and nodded. “have so much fun, honey.”

you looked to see if your dad would say something, but he just nodded and went back to reading his book. it was fine, you were past caring what other people thought of you. in a month, you'd be moving to new york for school and out this cycle of mediocrity and settling. you bid your parents goodbye and left.

there was no time to waste when you got to the arena. you immediately made your way to the seat matt paid for and waited. you were a bit outnumbered in your panthers jersey (again, courtesy of matt), but he was no stranger to the st. louis crowd.

you were sitting close enough to the glass to be spotted when matt came out for warm ups. he tossed a few pucks to the kids next to you, but his eyes never left yours. the smile on his face eased the anxiety about coming, the anxiety about the conversation you'd have afterwards.

seeing him beam at only you? the world could've stopped turning and you didn't think you'd even care.

the game, unfortunately, did not turn out in their favor. with a 4-1 loss, you were two seconds away from asking matt to reschedule. the conversation both of you needed to have shouldn’t be done when he was coming off a loss.

nevertheless, your phone vibrated with a text.

matty:

where’d you park?

you replied with the vague location of your vehicle and headed that direction. you weren’t sure how he beat you out there, but he was propped against your driver’s side door like it was a luxury car and not the used vehicle you’d had since you were sixteen.

he held his hand out, and to anyone who didn’t know any better, they might think he wanted to hold your hand. but you tossed him your keys and he caught them mid air. 

matt unlocked the car and threw his bag in your backseat while you got in the passenger seat.

“where are we going?”

“waffle house.”

suddenly, you were seventeen again, sitting shotgun in matt’s car at 2 am when neither of you could sleep. sometimes, you'd go to a 24 hour drive through and sit in the parking lot to eat. but your favorite moments were spent in a waffle house booth that had a half ass wipe down and food prepared by people who’d rather be anywhere else.

it was the best food you’d ever had every single time.

the bonus was that no one asked any questions, no one batted an eye at the son of keith tkachuk sitting in a waffle house at 2 am.

matt knew the drive by heart and minutes later, you were entering the establishment, trying not to slip on the greasy floors.

both of you slid into a booth and picked up the menus.

“didn’t think you could eat this stuff, with your diet and what not.”

matt shrugged. “it’s the holiday season, i’m allowed a few cheat days?”

you quirked a brow, remembering a time in calgary where you fixed dinners based on the diet given to you by the team nutritionist once she realized matt didn’t and couldn't cook. “i didn’t think that was allowed.”

“what they don't know won't kill ‘em.” he gestured to the menu. “what do you want?”

“you mean you don’t remember?” you teased.

matt rolled his eyes and gestured to the waiter. he recited both of your orders with an alarming amount of accuracy, given the fact the two of you hadn’t eaten at a waffle house in over a year.

“what?” he asked when he saw you looking after the server walked away.

“how do you remember that but not my coffee order?”

he blushed a little. “i feel like your coffee order changed with the seasons—”

“because they have seasonal drinks, matthew!” you exclaimed with a laugh.

“your waffle house order is simpler, easier for me to remember.”

you rolled your eyes with a smile on your face but accepted his answer. you sipped at your water and stared at him. “so what did you want to talk about?”

matt flinched back, like the sudden change in topic slapped him in the face. “what? you didn’t wanna wait until we got our food?”

you shrugged. “i’d feel less anxious if we just talked about it now.”

matt reached across the table and grabbed your hand in his own. it felt like being twenty-two again, living with matthew in calgary and holding hands under the table when you hung out with him teammates. his palm fit perfectly in your own.

“you don’t need to be anxious, i’m not gonna pressure you into anything.”

“i just wanna know what's’s going on in your head.”

matt’s thumb stroked the back of your hand. “you are all that’s in my head right now,” he confessed. “i get it, i fucked up by breaking up with you a year ago. and if i could go back, i would in a heartbeat. i would tell you everything i told you a week ago. that i love you and i’m sorry. i’m sorry that my insecurities got in the way, that i made a decision for you and in doing so, made you doubt my love for you.”

he continued. “but if you hear nothing else, hear me when i say i love you from the deepest part of my soul. if you asked me to give up the game and move with you to new york, if you asked me to request a trade to the fucking rangers, i’d do it in a heartbeat.”

“i would never ask you to do that,” you whispered.

“i know, but i would. because i love you, and if you’d let me, i’d like to be with you again. i’d like to marry you like i should’ve years ago. i’d like to have babies with you, however many you want. i wanna grow old and live in a house big enough to fit all of our grandkids for holidays. i want all of that with you,” he said. “what do you want?”

there were so many things you could say, so many things you wanted to say. but with watery eyes, and a heart that raced faster than a treadmill at full speed, you couldn’t vocalize any of it.

your mind raced with thoughts.

i wanna know the nicknames you gave your teammates. i want to use that specific combination of paints to make your eye color. i want to stick my cold feet between your legs and laugh when you pull away.  i want my birthday to be your passcode again.

“i want you” you said, unable to say anything more. it was a miracle you even got those words out, your voice cracked on every syllable.

“yeah?” he asked, eyes shining with hope.

you nodded. matt immediately leaned over the table and kissed you, you met him halfway. and it felt like every question you ever had was answered. it felt like the best possible ending of your favorite tv series.

he felt like home, more than st. louis ever could. more than calgary.

when you both pulled back, neither of you could keep the smiles off your faces. “what do you say to doing long distance again? just while i’m in school,” you proposed.

matt’s smile could’ve lit the entire city. 

“baby, for you? i’d do anything.”

[harmshake]

Jey Uso x Black Fem Reader | 18+, NSFW, fluff, smut | ~2,700 words

a/n: This is a request from my girl, @bboutabbagg. Sorry for the wait and ily!

Happy reading! Read my other Bloodline stories here. ✨

The music was loud but charming, the DJ that Jey hired playing your favorite song as it wafted through the speakers of his backyard that people grooved in as they held their red cups—or as they held their plates and sat along the picnic tables enjoying the catered bbq and seafood. It was your and his family and friends all coming together to have a good time and celebrate you for graduating from nursing school.

The tealights that twinkled all around the space competed with the stars in the sky as Jey stood behind you with his arms draped on your waist covered in a cute, form-fitting dress to sway with him to the beat as well, his husky voice all soft as he mumbled in your ear, "I'm so proud of you, baby."

You couldn't help the little smile that pulled at your lips as you knew he meant it. Taking in the extravagant party he'd put together for you—as well as the gift table that held big, elegantly wrapped boxes you knew were mostly from him—along with his little smile you felt on your cheek before you kissed there, you felt blessed to have a boyfriend that cared so much and showed it.

"Thank you. Still can't believe you did all this, good god," you said with a blush and put your hands around his that were settled on your hips. The 3D photo booth was occupied by your young cousins making duck faces. The tattoo artist sat beneath her tealight-adorned tent touching up the colors on his twin brother's older ink on his shoulder. There was even a blackjack table where your and his uncles were hollering and laughing at the hand someone dealt. You wanted to be surprised Jey went all out like this, but for the couple of years you'd been dating, he'd made it obvious his love language was acts of service.

He sucked his teeth with an affectionate squeeze around you before he agreed with your thoughts and said, "You think I'mma let my girl do her big one without a celebration? You know me betta than that."

"Yeah, I do. Love you." You craned your neck to glance at him and tug at his black dress shirt collar. 

Yet he caught your lips that brushed his with a kiss that you smiled into, especially when you heard your little cousins oooooing at you both before he detached from you with a quick "I love you, too, bae," to playfully chase them away before he scooped up one of them to swing around on his shoulders.

The fun night went on until every last guest left with a big hug to you before you and Jey retired to his bedroom for a shower and, finally, bed. You didn't live together as you had your own apartment across town, but you might as well have because his closet was full of your clothes and pajamas—and yet you still opted for one of his gray t-shirts that fit you like a dress as you laid next to him beneath the comforter. Jey was on his back and scrolling through his phone as you lay your head on his bare chest and peeped up to see him browsing an article that listed "the best things to do in Cancún."

"Uhhh, you going to Mexico soon for work?" you asked with your curious eyes flickering up to him. That made him giggle before he put his phone on his nightstand.

"Look atchu bein' nosey." He slid his arm around your waist to jostle you until you giggled, too. "Naw, not for work. For you." 

"Wait, you're planning a trip for me? For what?"

"C'mon now. You really thought all you was gettin' for your graduation was a party? Be for real." Jey planted a kiss on your hair and you shook your head in surprise.

"You know I appreciate you, but damn, babe! What am I supposed to get you when your birthday comes up? Or when you win King of the Ring, huh? I can't top you." You were half-joking but it was always a struggle to think of ways to treat your boyfriend who seemed to have it all.

But he only grinned at you as he leaned over to cut off the lamp at his bedside, bathing the room in black, save for the glimmer of moonlight beyond his curtains. His dark eyes still shone with that same glimmer, an almost mischievousness that flashed in them, as he held you and let his lips leave little kisses along your cheek before they found yours and murmured on them, "You ain't gotta 'top' me, bae. Just lemme spoil you. Can I do that? Is that alright witchu?"

Jey let a kiss linger on your lips between each sentence, his hand that wasn't cradling your head beneath your pillow cupping your jaw as he made you look at him. You nodded with a smile that he kissed and you kissed him back, your arms falling over his broad shoulders as you fell deeper into the softness of his full lips that you nearly whimpered to be separated from when he trailed those lips to your jaw, your neck, and then your chest.

He was shirtless, which let you run your hands along his warm, smooth, tatted skin as he rolled up his shirt on you until he lifted it over your head to throw it to the floor. He let you feel more of his warmth when he climbed on top of you, your now bare body spiking the temperature beneath his sheets as it combined with his, moreover when his warm, huge hands found your breasts to hold to his lips for more kisses.

Your boyfriend truly did love to spoil you, even with his mouth as he took his time giving each mound of flesh in his gentle grasp kisses, suckles, and licks of his tongue that hardened your nipples underneath it. You didn't hide how good it felt as you chimed with soft moans each time Jey pulled his lips around your nipples, knowing the sound of you felt good to him, too, as you could feel his length growing hard and pressing to your belly behind his black boxers briefs.

"Swear I can make you cum just like this," Jey whispered to your cleavage before he kissed it and glimpsed at you right as your face twisted with a whimper slipping from your lips from his thumbs gliding over your nipples that were slick from his mouth. "You so sexy, baby...everything about you and on you..."

You whimpered again when he dipped his head back down to curl his tongue around your left nipple as he continued to thumb your right, feeling his length twitch at the sound before his entire body did, readjusting himself so you felt his next twitch against your bare clit. And that felt dangerously good..."You got me close, baby...keep going. Just like that."

Jey's little rocks of his hips to nudge his tip to your sweet spot as he massaged and slurped sweetly on your nipples had you rocking your hips beneath him as you tried to push yourself over the edge, the tingling deliciousness on the tip of his tongue as your heart raced to meet you at your finish...but then he pulled away. Your eyes flitted open with shock but he hid his face in the crook of your neck with kisses, his hands freeing themselves from your breasts to grip your waist as he whispered in your ear, "I said I can make you cum like that...didn't say I would. Now get on them knees for me."

"Baby, really? You're going to do me like that? I thought you said you wanted to spoil me," you panted with a stubborn pout when Jey patted your thigh until you rolled over onto your knees. You heard him remove his boxers before he sat on his knees behind you and you hid your smirk as you knew your boyfriend would spoil you, even if he liked to tease and drag it, something you cherished because he would cherish you until you came undone for him.

And that's why you quietly chuckled when Jey got on his elbows with his sultry breath grazing your wet, warm essence that opened for him with his hands on your ass. You knew you would get your way...especially when he pushed his tongue into you to taste how close you still were for him. The man made it feel dangerously good all over again, his tongue just as dangerous with those long, greedy laps on each fold of you, on every spot that quivered for him, his tip tracing them and loving on them until your nails tried to claw his sheets as that delicious tingling returned with a vengeance.

"Jeyyy, baby..." was all you could whimper as you felt his tongue pushing in deeper, pushing you to the edge. He moaned into your wetness that slipped into his salt-and-pepper beard, savoring your pleasure that was about to swallow you whole—but then he withdrew from you again. "Jey, are you serious?!"

Your nostrils flared along with your entire body that radiated from the heat of being so close but being denied a second time. Now you were glaring back at him as he sat back again but kept his hands on your ass with his thumbs holding you open to lovingly stare at you.

"What, bae? You act like you don't like when I play with it..." He let his fingers dip into your soft, gushy folds until they caressed your clit to make you throb around them.

"When I make you wait for it..." He let the fingers of his other hand dip into your hair as he gently pushed your head onto his pillow until it caught your moan from him slowly dipping the head of his thick length into you.

"When I make you beg for it..." Jey then let those fingers slip around your throat to pin you down, hunching over you with his pointer and middle fingers swirling on your clit, matching the swirls of his dick as he carefully thrust deeper, his voice deeper and huskier when it touched your ear. "Mmm...I'mma make you cum, baby. But I need to hear you ask for it nicely."

"Baby, can you please...stop fucking with me and make me cum?" you managed to moan with his strong fingers softly clamped around your throat, your demanding tone making him clamp down a bit harder from you denying him. You usually liked your boyfriend's teasing but being on the edge this long was making you testy. And that made Jey test your limits more with deep strokes that winded in and out and on that spot that had you squeezing him and squeezing your eyes shut before he hit harder...

"You think you funny, huh?" Jey growled from behind you, his hand traveling from your clit to your asscheek that he gripped and smacked lightly with a warning spank that made you moan louder. You wanted to smile as you buried your face in his pillow, but you bit your lip instead as you knew being a brat would make him want to punish you. His steady strokes tunneled to the depths of you where he tapped hard and felt your body shiver on him. "But you gettin' close...so what I say? Ask me nice..."

It felt so good that your mind was trying to get fuzzy with those tingles that spread throughout you, trying to make you give in to him when it should be him giving into you and pushing you over the edge. "Stay right there, baby. Please..."

"Naw, that ain't nice enough..." Jey mumbled before he pulled out. Your body shivered for a different reason, tears of frustration and pleasure dotting your eyes as a cry sounded from your throat. The build was too delicious and the tingles had already claimed your limbs...but Jey merely reclined on his heels as he claimed your hips in his hands to add gruffly, "Thought I was playin', bae?"

His hands ran up the sides of your body before fitting between it and the bed to cup your breasts as he pulled you onto your knees and to his body, his soft lips covering your throat with kisses. When his hand covered it next, you moaned, that moan tapering off into a whine as your boyfriend pressed the tip of his length to your opening. You tried to sit on it, the tingles on your skin and the fuzziness on your mind keeping you needy even though you wanted to curse his cute ass out. But Jey held you up with one arm slung around your waist and a dark chuckle on his lips.

"Aht aht. Just ask for it, baby..." His grip on your throat and waist, along with his head just skimming your little entrance as you tried to grip around him, made a tear roll down your cheek as your body reeled from being denied yet again. You felt like you had no choice but to surrender to him and let him spoil you with what you needed...

"Please...please...can you make me cum, Daddy? Please," you heard yourself whine, the words quickly drowned out by your moans that brushed the ceiling when your head fell onto his shoulder...when he finally let you drown him in your wet that he soaked deep in, stroked deep in. Your orgasm rushed up on you before he could say another word, your body so desperate for him that the slightest contact of him wedging himself on your spot over and over made you lightheaded.

"Feels good when you listen to Daddy, don't it?" Jey said in your ear with his hands kneading for your breasts to keep you upright when you tried to fall forward. He toyed with your nipples between his thick fingers, sending those warm tingles to your core with each rush of your orgasm, softly moaning with you, "Stay right here with me, baby. Tell me how good I make you feel."

"You make me feel so good, Daddy...ohmygod," you whined to him in erratic whimpers, the raspy sound growing more erratic when Jey pushed you back down to the bed and gathered your hips in his hands. His hips then began to move with a quickness, abandoning the slow strokes for pounding strokes that took your breath away altogether. You didn't try to run but instead clutched behind you at him and his sheets again to keep you from sliding up them. He took your hand in his, his touch so delicate with his backshots so brutal, so dedicated to your spot that you felt a second, powerful orgasm crashing into you. You squeezed his hand as you fluttered around his length that throbbed in you from feeling you give in to him again, hearing you cry for him as you sobbed his name into his pillow.

"Goddamn, baby," Jey uttered before he jerkily stumbled back right as his length began to drip that he aimed at your essence still fluttering for him. Your mind was blank with pleasure yet you instinctively reached your middle fingers between your thighs to ease into yourself and ride out the delicious feeling, loving how delicious it felt to feel warm, sticky ropes of your boyfriend's pleasure drip to your knuckles as he groaned for you.

You groaned back but couldn't form words just yet when you breathed heavily as Jey took hold of your waist to kiss up your spine until his kisses met your cheek. 

"Breathe for me, baby...mmm. You did so good for me," Jey breathed to you as he nuzzled his nose to your cheek with a kiss. You were trying your best but he and you both knew the best remedy was for him to put his arms around you and keep you close as you settled. You cozied up to him as he lay behind you and pulled you to him, a whispery chuckle escaping him when you trembled from his fingertips trailing up your belly. "Told you I'd spoil you and you ain't wanna listen. Now look."

"Don't talk shit when...I'm too tired to defend myself," you breathed to him and made him chuckle again as he kissed your shoulder.

"Just statin' facts. You know I'mma take care of you...even when you wanna show out..." Jey got you to smile with his fingers tickling your belly as he left another kiss on your shoulder. "...'Cause you deserve it, bae."

.

.

.

Spoiled

Thanks for reading! Y'all know I don't write for Jeyson anymore (even though my deleted Jey fics are still circulating on here 🙄) but I owed my girl this story since last year. 😭

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[bubbleddisasters]

(Can’t believe I’m writing my first ever x reader (kind of) this but the Self Aware Au is so interesting to me)

Code Escaping: Heartstabyl Edition.

(All Students (can be viewed as platonic or romantic, Orthos is strictly platonic though)

Gender Neutral Reader!

——-

After several attempts, and failures, they finally succeeded.

They got through

To your world.

What next? Try and Find you, Rush to your side first thing and try to casually explain that a video game character broke out of their code to see them?

Maybe set things up first? Comfy living, then an easy way to find you? Or go off clues from things you used to say or areas he saw behind you? Or did he get lucky and he’s two feet away?

Man, He should have checked the code for your location…..No time to lose!

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

𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒃𝒚𝒍

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

𝑹𝒊𝒅𝒅𝒍𝒆 🌹

——

Truth be told, he got quite lucky.

A library is where he arrived, one he recognized as your hiding spot to study, or simply relax.

So, he found every tome he thought relevant on what he needed to know of the basics of your world, aswell as the one he last witnessed you study, and sat himself in the seat next to where you usually did, awaiting your arrival.

Was it timely? Perhaps, Perhaps not.

You’d been slightly (Very) annoyed that for some reason, none of your Riddle cards would show his appearance. The Chibi was no where to be seen, and your homescreen vacant of him.

So as you made your way to your spot, you nearly shrieked because either thats a damn good cosplay or Riddle Rosehearts was very casually reading the history textbook your teacher assigned while sitting four feet away from your usual spot.

Steel blue eyes scoped to check the noise, and sat up instantly.

“Just as I expected, you’d arrive here sooner or later. You certainly took your time, however.”

Before you could process the fact he sounded suspiciously like Ciel Phantomhive, he quite literally summoned a tea set. Out of thin air.

And was just staring. Most definitely waiting for you to sit down casually like he didn’t summon an entire china set with piping hot tea in a magicless world.

This was the real deal. Mommy Issues Supreme was now officially your problem. Good Luck.

————————

𝑻𝒓𝒆𝒚♣

——

He remembered the name of the bakery down the street you visited.

As a joke, when you’d finished book one, you’d ordered a Strawberry Tart. He couldn’t exactly remember if you actually ate it, or gave it away, but it was funny, regardless.

Using Paint the Roses, he altered a napkin into a very nice resume, and he got a job there.

When Trey up and vanished from your homescreen, you’d gone to get a pastry to cheer yourself up. Not the best coping skill, but hey, it works.

It was pretty late, and it seemed they were closing up, so you planned to just be in and out, not wanting to make their job any harder.

The little bell rung as you entered, and the little alarms in your head went off when you arrived at the counter, and a-wait, why would someone cosplay at their job? Trey and working at a Bakery fit together, but…wait a second. Thats not a wig, and thats not contacts either.

If Ingame Trey was missing, and this guy looked exactly like him…..Nope, Not Possible.

Trying to play it casual , you ordered the usual and once you had it, sat down as you normally would.

But when you took a bite of your treat, it tasted like….Strawberry. Then Chestnut. What the hell.

You unintentionally had an odd staring contest with the current cashier, who then held out a scarily familiar pen, chuckling a bit as he placed it on the counter.

“Surprise.”

After making his way around the counter, he sat down on the other side of the table, doing his best to not freak you out too much.

“Yea, I know this might be a bit confusing, and It’s probably not easy to process all this, so take your time, and I’ll answer any questions you have.”

Great, because you had several.

——————-

𝑪𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓♦

——

Social Media Stalking but not Stalking was his forte.

The first thing he did was make pretty much every account he could on medias he knew you had. Like Tumblr.

He decided it would be way too freaky to just pop up out of nowhere, so as he was thinking and exploring, he took a few selfies and photoshoots here are there.

And WOW. They blew up. At first he thought it was the general math of Attractive Guy + Good Photos of him = Alot of Views. He had sorta kinda forgot other people knew about Twist until he noticed the flood of “Cater IRL” and “THE Cater Cosplay” comments. Which gave him an idea.

After the annoyance of all your Caters being lost in the code sauce, you messed around online until you accidentally pulled up a page with the greatest Cater Cosplay you had ever witnessed.

You had to do a double take when the follow button said “Follow Back”. You complied with the buttons wishes and followed them back.

After a while, you somehow ended up dming back and forth with him, and his strangely Cater coded texts. You also discovered that it apparently wasn’t a cosplay, and just his natural appearance was scarily similar to Caters..and his name was Cater, which was accidentally revealed by a Starbucks barista calling out after finishing making his drink while you were calling.

Part of you suspected that this could be the real Cater, with all the math adding up, and the other half of you called you a fucking idiot for that.

Little did you know the first one was exactly what Cater was hoping for.

With that, he managed to do some kinda social media stalking ( but not like, Rook Levels, DW) and found your general area based on area matching (TY Google Maps!) and nearly jumped for joy when he realized it was where he was too.

He subtly managed to sneak that in conversation, and set up a meetup between you two, a brunch and phone shopping. Weird Pick on the last one, but you decided not to judge.

The first thing he said when you arrived confused you, alot.

With a bright smile, he waved you over.

“Hey! Long Time no see!”

Ignoring the aggressive red flag in that statement with a simple “Maybe he meant since we called” as if you didn’t call him last night to plan this out, either way, you scooted in.

You two got so distracted chatting, at one point making up a game of fake gossiping the craziest things to see if anyone reacted, and for your own entertainment.

Because of that, your drink went warm, and as soon as you mentioned it, you got your answer to the “Where did my Caters go.” question.

Why? Because, as if this had happened before, he simply refroze it. Magically.

As you stared in pure awe and confusion, he grimaced upon the realization his cover was pretty much blown.

“Whoops…Lets just pretend that didn’t happen, and I’ll explain later, ‘Kay?”

You just had to pray nobody witnessed that, as Area 51 did definitely did not sound like Cay-Cays ideal Vacay.

——

𝑨𝒄𝒆♥

—

He thought it would be fucking HILARIOUS to prank you, as, unfortunately for you, he ended up in your house, only to find out you were asleep, which gave him the opportunity to PUA (Prank Upon Arrival)

For the next several hours of your waking life, Ace of Hearts playing cards of varying sizes would be infesting your house, or when you’d put something down and look away, there was either a card on it or it had been replaced by a card.

You were also robbed of leftovers you’d been saving, and a few snacks by this card demon.

After you left the house vacant (you fool), the Knave struck again, this time sneaking out and guessing your next move, heading off to a cafe because you needed caffeine after the card madness, until you had already ordered, and you had turned on Twist while waiting for your drink.

Quietly, he slid into the chair infront of you as you grumbled.

“He’s not on the homescreen either—Where the hell are all my Ace cards?”

Hehe, Infront of you. This is the best setup ever.

Leaning back on the chair, he couldn’t contain a grin as he faked obliviousness.

“I dunno. Maybe try looking around a lil’ more?”

Not paying much attention to who was talking to you in your moment of despair , you sighed, swiping back to the home screen.

“They’re not those kinds of cards.”

“Aren’t like, five of them card themed?”

“Four right now, since Ace has seemingly gone and fucked off to another dimension:”

“Yeaaa, about that. It was not as easy to do as you’re making it sound. Just saying.”

You looked up for a split second, then did a double take and nearly skyrocketed out of your chair, making indecipherable confusion noises while he laughed his ass off, totally soaking in the success of his perfect surprise you had unintentionally enabled.

While you stood frozen in shock, he simply grabbed your things, put them in your hand, S̶t̶o̶l̶e̶ grabbed your coffee, and whisked you out the door.

I pray for you, good luck dealing with him.

——

𝑫𝒆𝒖𝒄𝒆♠

——

Woke up in either your garage or kitchen, and was confused. Rightfully so.

Since he couldn’t really find you around, but at least recognized this as your house, he just waddled around more or less, fixing random things here and cleaning up there while trying to find clues to where you might be, or if he should just wait here.

He finally found a grocery list, which you had forgotten, and spent the next 10 minutes trying to find the nearest grocery store while unintentionally locking himself out of the house in the process, so made the genius decision to hope you were still at the grocery store and dashed over.

You’re doing great, dude.

Anywho, he got lucky, because in the middle of carrying off your shopping bags, your notification that your AP was full went off, and as you went to use it, you noticed a severe lack of Deuce on your homescreen.

This lead to sitting on a bench and getting distracted trying to figure out why the hell this glitch had only affected your Deuce cards, so you weren’t paying much attention when you heard a voice somewhat far off but close.

“Oh hey! There you are!”

Assuming it was for someone else, you continued trying to fix the “glitch”, then paused when you heard the voice from before right infront of you.

“Do you need help with carrying those bags?”

The words “I’m good, thanks.” died on your tongue when you looked up, only to be face to face with the guy you’d been suffering trying to figure out where he went for 20 minutes. Ingame. In a VIDEO GAME.

Internally, you practically short-circuited, after you panicked, he started panicking, and you both ended up in a weird confusion panic that had the energy of the spidermans pointing at eachother meme.

Great job! You have now acquired a German Shepard Golden Retriever mix in human form.

————

Bonus :

——

𝑪𝒉𝒆'𝒏𝒚𝒂⤵➟

——

Unlike most of them, he had absolutely zero trouble hopping into your world.

However, instead of revealing himself right away, he decided to be the ghost of good deeds and mischief. And a random black cat you’d suspiciously find on your window sill demanding pets or cuddles.

Luckily transforming, flying, invisibility, and the rest of his magic ability seemed to work just fine.

Sometimes, you’d randomly find things placed in unusual places, spoons on the ceiling, for example, the paintings or pictures sometimes randomly taking on very funny faces, teacups and plates floating around at 2am, leaving you to assume it was a sleepy hallucination.

Other times you’d be aggravatingly trying to fix something, look away for one moment, and not only was it fixed, it looked almost brand new. Or you’d open the fridge or pantry, and notice the lack of food, then open it again, and i’d be filled to the brim.

You never noticed anything too strange on Twist itself however until you got bored one day, and decided to replay Heartstabyls chapters, only to realize Che’nya was…completely missing.

Out of sheer curiosity, you checked his Pomfieore Chapter appearance. Nothing. Gone.

Trying to see if it was just the WIFI connection, you moved rooms, only to see a blink of purple in the corner of your eye.

Lounging in the air by on window, tail swaying lazily, he peeked over, then grinned his signature grin.

“Nya-ice to meet you~”

———

Yay! Thats all!!

Holy shit I can’t believe I wrote this, feel free to take me out (Date or Assassination I really don’t care)

Alright! I might do more but they might not be in dorm order, see ya!

[jensettermandu]

black cat & golden retriever*ೃ༄

"the black cat and golden retriever duo of le sserafim i.e the asocial & social, hot & cold, sun & moon, day & night."

warning; from the blackcat!Y/n series, the parts don't need to be read in order!

prev. m.list. next.

“You’re up.” 

“Yeah,” was all that Yunjin got in response, barely catching it as she sat on the couch and Y/n passed to get to the open kitchen. 

She turned around, leaning her arms on the backrest of the couch to look at the feline who grabbed a glass of water. It was one of those rare days when they had their day off and Yunjin had been lying around waiting for Y/n since 10 A.M.; it was 1 P.M. when the girl finally woke up. 

When Yunjin woke up and realised that it was a free day, her mind started swirling with things she could do and each thought contained the girl who wasn’t paying her any mind at the moment. It wasn’t anything Yunjin minded; Y/n had always been quiet, the quietest member of the group and she could still remember their first encounter. 

They had come a long way; a very long way. 

“Well, I was thinking–” She started and automatically got up from the couch as her feet led her towards Y/n. It was like she was being pulled by a magnet. “Since it’s a day off we could go out, there’s this café, I know you like to…” The words were flowing out of Yunjin’s mouth without a break as she walked to where Y/n was drinking water.

“So, we could leave at like 40? I’m all ready to go.” She concluded and leaned against the counter to look at Y/n who had yet to put down the glass.

Y/n removed the empty glass from her lips that she licked after, putting it on the counter. It seemed like Yunjin had planned a whole day for them already and it made the feline look over at the canine who was looking at her; expectantly as she waited for a yes.

“When did I say I was planning on spending the day with you?” 

“I–Y/n!” Yunjin complained as her lower lip jutted out, but to no avail, as Y/n had already turned away and was walking back towards her room. 

“Yes?”

“Please?” She pleaded, chasing right after the girl who sighed as she opened her door and stepped inside the room.

Y/n turned to look at Yunjin who was still waiting for her, she looked lost as if she wouldn’t know what to do with herself unless Y/n told her what to do. 

It kind of was that way. 

“I’m not going to the café or any of the other things you mentioned, Yunjin.” The thought of going out and being among all those people made Y/n want to go right back to bed and continue sleeping. She already did enough of that when she had work, the last thing she would want to do on a free day was be in crowded places. 

“I’m heading to the park,” Y/n stated as Yunjin looked like she was about to start whining.

“Okay! I will go get my stuff right now. I will come with you.” She happily replied.

“No.” 

“That’s a yes,” Yunjin called out as she was on her way to get her stuff, knowing that a lot of the time Y/n meant the opposite of what she said.

There was no way Y/n would say that she didn’t mind Yunjin tagging along despite loving her alone time and originally having her day planned with no one else in the picture. There was always an exception for Yunjin. 

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

There were times when Y/n wondered why she became an idol to begin with. There were a lot of reasons as to why she would wonder why. One of them was the social part. Despite being in a group full of introverts, she was the one who did not enjoy being social, in other words, the girl was asocial. 

Her members enjoyed being out with or around other people, needing to only be alone to recharge–Y/n preferred solitary. 

Y/n’s social battery didn’t last long either. 

With multiple groups having their comebacks this month, she was called to the building to film challenges with different labelmates. Three different challenges to be exact and each took about 20 minutes if not less. 

To greet each other. Go over the dance. Take multiple shots and then bid goodbye. 

After an hour Y/n found herself at the Hybe roof terrace, taking a break to recharge and be able to film the ones with her members.

There was no escape though, the door opened and she ignored it as she continued to stare ahead. The best she could do was pretend she didn’t see or hear the person come out and that way she would get her peace even if the presence of someone else was annoying to her. This was the most secluded she would get at the moment.

She would probably get more–

“Y/n, I have to tell you what just happened…”

Yunjin sat down beside the girl and took out her phone as she started to explain while showing her the screen. All she got was silence, but it didn’t make her pause for a second as she talked before getting any affirmation to start. 

She glanced over at Y/n to check if she was listening as she had yet to get a response from her feline since she started going over the previous events. 

The ginger smiled to herself as the feline’s eyes were glued to her phone, seeing that Y/n was listening to her like she always did. Her full attention was on Yunjin, possibly a small smile on her lips or maybe it was the light–Y/n didn’t smile often–the girl always listened to every word she had to say no matter how small or big it was. 

It made her continue, knowing Y/n wouldn’t talk much, but Yunjin could go for hours as long as she had Y/n’s attention on her. She knew that the dark-haired girl was an amazing listener. 

Maybe Yunjin was a rare exception that made it possible for Y/n’s battery to recharge because of how comfortable she felt around her. She always gave up her alone time so Yunjin could rant to her about whatever it was that she had on her mind. Y/n simply dropped her needs and the only need was to hear what Yunjin had to say. 

No one listened to Yunjin the way Y/n would do. 

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

Y/n was rational, she always had her thoughts collected and emotions in check. However, being approached and asked the same question every other week was infuriating even to someone like Y/n. She valued her privacy and having someone trying to invade it ticked her off.

“What’re you doing?” She huffed and glanced at Yunjin who rested her chin on her shoulder after coming up from behind her. Yunjin’s eyes fell on the girl’s phone screen and Y/n rolled her eyes at the anger that was bubbling inside her, but she always kept it on the inside.

“He sent his manager to ask for my number this time.” 

It made Yunjin furrow her eyebrows as their fellow labelmate had been trying to get Y/n’s number for quite some time now. It had never been directly in person though; Yunjin assumed it was because Y/n’s silent and mysterious nature was intimidating yet drew people in. 

“It’s infuriating because I can’t tell him off personally.” Y/n expressed and Yunjin was the quiet one this time as it wasn’t often that Y/n spoke much, so she did her best to not accidentally interrupt. She liked listening to the feline once she would start talking.

“We could maybe approach him ourselves and…” Yunjin trailed off as she looked for ideas, knowing that Y/n wasn’t one to walk up to someone to start a conversation, but this was different. She was aware that Y/n’s words had a sting on them because of her boldness and if she went alone it could cause a scandal. 

Her fingers gently twisted the sweater Y/n was wearing as she had her arms wrapped around the girl from behind. As her thoughts would run wild she still found the time to also bask in Y/n’s scent and comforting warmth. 

“We could threaten him.” “We could tell him to stop.”

Yunjin pulled away from the feline she was hugging from behind and they both turned to look at each other at the very different suggestions. The ginger scratched at her nape and despite the anger she could feel radiating from Y/n, the girl didn’t look like she was plotting murder. Y/n was always collected on the outside and it made it hard for the canine to know what went on on the inside.

She tried her best to understand though;

“Well, I don’t think we should threaten him, but if I were you, I would think so too, so I agree but we could do what I was thinking instead.” She reasoned, doing her best to see it from Y/n’s point of view, however, Yunjin was too soft to go through with it. 

“We? Wait—why are we talking we? I can handle myself, Yunjin.”

“Don’t worry, I will help.” Yunjin always stepped in to defend the girl who never needed any help defending herself however those words always fell on deaf ears. The canine defended her feline whether she wanted it or not and in the end, Y/n let her;

“I don’t want or need your—“

Y/n stopped and groaned as she ran a hand through her hair as she looked through the empty hallway she had been waiting in for Yunjin. There was no reason to argue about it when it wouldn’t change anything and she would only work herself up more and let Yunjin be a hero. 

Yunjin liked the peaceful options. Y/n didn’t lose control often, but when she did it could go overboard. The canine girl was a great source of balance in those rare moments. 

“You know what?”

“Yeah?” Yunjin piped.

“We should go to the studio.” The feline suggested at last, knowing how to control her emotions like puppet masters controlled their marionettes; some were hard, but they were caused by someone else. Those were emotions she realised couldn’t be controlled as she looked at Yunjin. 

The best option for Y/n was to always ignore her anger, bottle it up and distract herself by occupying herself with something else. It was the most rational solution at hand to the problem.

“Oh! We could work on the–”

“Yeah, let’s go now.” She dismissed the sentence knowing what Yunjin would say and grabbed the taller girl by her hoodie as she led the way. 

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

Y/n knew just how to pass by people without them trying to stop her to greet her and talk. Considering her fame even among idols, it happened often and she knew just how to avoid it. 

The hardest sharks to avoid were the ones in the backstage waters. Groups would swarm, greet each other, film content to promote songs and catch up with friends if not make new ones. Y/n included, but just not this time.

Among a sea of faces, she would describe as dull, there would always be one person who would stand out. She’d like to call it unfortunate that she was drawn to the sun and the walk she was making to her group's green room turned into a detour towards Yunjin who was talking to someone who gave Y/n a bad feeling. 

The feline would call her canine far too naïve.

Yunjin always tried to see the good in people. 

Y/n was far more cautious and saw the bad before looking at the good. 

The feline’s logic was way too precise to ignore and so when her senses rang with bad intentions she couldn’t not intervene when Yunjin was about to exchange numbers with the guy. 

“We’re not allowed to give out our numbers,” her hand grabbed hold of Yunjin pulling back the girl’s hand that was about to give out her number. It was like a tingling of all the bad intentions coming from the male idol. As cold as Y/n could come off, she cared deeply even if she wouldn’t admit to it. 

“That’s only when managers are looking, isn’t it?” The guy asked with a chuckle, his hand about to reach out to get Yunjin’s phone who this time hid it behind her back. 

As far as Yunjin knew, Y/n was always good to listen to.

“I can call one over and you can ask again.” 

He looked between the two girls who stood with their arms linked, waiting for Yunjin to say something. The hook? Yunjin didn’t go against Y/n. First off, she wouldn’t win, second, she didn’t want to because this was the girl she would do anything for. She was nothing but a good girl to her feline. 

“Forget it.” His tone was harsh this time. 

“Didn’t plan to remember it,” Y/n replied and side-glanced at the guy who was already blinking red lights before she tugged Yunjin to walk. 

“Just because they work in the same industry doesn’t mean that they have the same good intentions as you.” She mumbled as they got away from the guy, walking towards their green room. 

“He wanted to hang out.” 

“Yunjin…” Y/n trailed off in disbelief, making the ginger stop in her steps and the feline looked at her with eyebrows raised, seeing the dots connect through Yunjin’s face.

“Okay yeah.” She nodded, seeing where it would all lead. 

Yunjin truly dodged a bullet, thanks to Y/n. 

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

Everyone who knew Y/n knew she loved her peace, the moments where it was just her and nothing else. Silence that she filled however she preferred by either listening to music, reading, painting, or anything she liked as long as she was all by herself and not in anyone’s company.

Her room was her sanctuary, the safe space where she found herself most of the time, especially after days that could be exhausting for someone who was asocial. The members all knew it, respecting boundaries they never found themselves knocking on the girl’s door or entering her room unless it was important or Y/n asked for them–vice-versa.

There was almost nothing better than closing off and being all alone at the end of the day before heading to bed.

However, there was still one person who often did knock on Y/n’s door before slowly opening it. That one person who always seemed to be around her, suffocating her, but somehow oxygen seemed to be the last thing on Y/n’s mind whenever the sun appeared before the moon. 

She looked up from the book in her hold, the room illustrated by the orangish light from the side lamp on the night table. The same head as usual peeked inside with a bright smile no matter the time. Y/n sported her neutral stoic expression as Yunjin licked her lips and smiled even bigger when Y/n looked at her. 

Unlike Y/n, Yunjin loved nothing more than spending the last hours before a new day with someone close to her, someone she cared for and wanted to be around every second of the day one way or another. That someone was Y/n who was staring at her in dead silence without any muscles on her face moving. 

Most people would turn around and close the door at the intimidating look that was always on Y/n’s face.

Not Yunjin!

“Do you perhaps want to watch The Real Housewives of New York City?” 

No one would ever believe that Y/n watched some silly reality show; it was far from how she appeared. 

Yunjin looked away, half of her head disappeared for a second as she shuffled on the other side with the sound of rustling before she appeared fully again. The feline in the bed was yet to answer her, the door got pushed open fully with a thud, making her sigh and Yunjin stepped inside. 

“I got your favourite snacks too.”

Aside from showing the plastic bag that she had to offer with her laptop under her arm, she offered her feline a smile once again. 

There was almost nothing better than closing off and being all alone at the end of the day before heading to bed. Almost.

Y/n didn’t answer, instead, she sighed again but with a roll of her eyes. Yunjin could start bouncing off the walls when the girl closed her book. The ginger pushed the door closed while Y/n bit back a smile while putting away the book on the nightstand as all her attention would be on the canine as always. 

The double-sized bed dipped before Y/n could finish putting away her stuff, making her click her tongue; Yunjin’s eagerness was evident despite the late hours of night slowly approaching. 

“I was thinking–” The older started as she made it to her spot on Y/n’s bed as the feline moved to the side by the wall. 

“Ask me tomorrow.” It wasn’t hard for Y/n to read her fellow member who jutted out her lower lip while opening the laptop. Yunjin was always thinking and they would never get to watching if she wouldn’t stop her every once in a while. 

She compensated by always listening any other time. 

“Okay…” She agreed either way, getting a hum of acknowledgement and she glanced over at Y/n who was busy with rummaging through the snacks. 

With that she got the show running on the laptop, turning off the side lamp before she leaned back against the headboard. Something was missing as Yunjin fiddled with the duvet that was draped over her legs. Her eyes darted to Y/n who was half lying down, chewing on one of the jellies in her mouth. 

Y/n inhaled deeply, feeling Yunjin’s gaze on her and she knew what type of eyes she would encounter if she looked at the girl beside her. It didn’t matter if she looked or not, Y/n didn’t need a pair of puppy eyes to get convinced.

No matter how many times Yunjin would wrap her arms around her throughout the day it was different during these moments.

“Yunjin–” She called out for the girl, still looking at the laptop that played their show. 

“Yeah?” Y/n got a reply in an instant before she could fully finish Yunjin’s name. 

“Lie down or leave.” 

She happily obliged knowing that Y/n’s way of showing affection was different regarding words. It was still all warm even if Y/n came with a bite of frost that a certain sun melted. 

Yunjin slowly lay down, the intimidating girl who shook hands with claws and smiled with a hiss was like a cosy ball of fur; Yunjin loved being the small spoon. She rested her head right under Y/n’s chin, her hands mindlessly playing with the girl’s hoodie while her back was rubbed as Y/n hugged her. 

Y/n released a breath, relaxing her body as she let go of everything else on her mind because she could allow everything to wash away when Yunjin was around. The girl could be herself even if she felt like she was a difficult person, but Yunjin didn’t seem to mind. A gentle smile appeared on her lips as she rested her chin against Yunjin’s head, agreeing to feed the girl gummies.

Almost;

Because at the end of each day, the black cat loved having her golden retriever right beside her. .　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

[mayakern]

Why....why are the sweaters 3/4 sleeve??? Personally I would totally get a black sweater (or white tbh) but I can't vibe with a 3/4 sleeve (for a few reasons, mostly various sensory/attention problems) so i was wondering why that choice was made and whether there's any chance of a full length sleeve being made in addition or instead? But also I'm curious as to exactly what kind of fabric it is? Is it an anti-pill material? (Pilling is one of my fabric enemies)

so first off, this as is about the lace collar sweaters that will be hitting the store later this year. you can watch the full video here, but i’m including screenshots as well for those of y’all who don’t want to watch the video.

2nd, i get that everyone has personal preferences, but this was unnecessarily rude. you’re not going to like every decision we make, and that’s OK, but if you’re old enough to use a credit card to buy things online, you’re old enough to realize that product decisions you dislike were not made to personally gall you.

there were a few reasons we chose to do 3/4 sleeves, but the primary reason was that 3/4 sleeves work better for a variety of arm lengths. a 3/4 sleeve will look good whether someone’s arm is shorter or longer than average, whereas a full length sleeve can easily be too long or too short for the person wearing it. we also didn’t want to do short sleeves because at the time the only other shirt we had in production was the wrap top, which has short/cap sleeves.

we do have some full long sleeve shirts/sweaters in planning/in production that we have not shown off yet, but currently we do not have plans to make a long sleeve version of this particular sweater because we have no idea what sales will look like. if these sweaters sell well and there’s considerable customer demand, we’ll consider doing long sleeves. if these sweaters sell poorly they will not be returning to the store, period. we are a small business with limited funds and we cannot throw infinite money at the wall.

last, the fabric composition is 62% polyester, 33% viscose, 5% elastane. we tested a lot of fabrics for this sweater, and this was the only one that felt right. its appropriate thickness (not super thin, but not super thick, so that it can easily be layered under warmer garments or worn solo without causing you to overheat), the cute ribbing, and the texture/feeling (which don’t aggravate my textural sensitivities as an autistic person with very sensitive skin) were all just right.

we’ve also done a number of wash tests and did not encounter any issues with pilling. in general, if you take good care of our garments, that is not going to be an issue from our current manufacturer, who have demonstrated time and again that they prioritize quality labor and material that is made to last. the reason shein products fall apart isn’t because they’re made of polyester: it’s because the sewing is rushed and the fabric fibers are low quality and often have a looser knit or weave, which makes them more prone to damage/falling apart on a structural level.

as for pilling specifically, pilling is actually the fabric breaking. looser weaves/knits are more prone to breakage because they are more open and cheap fabrics are often made of looser weaves, which results in more pilling. but even a high quality material can pill under the right (or wrong) circumstances. when fiber is wet, similar to hair, it is more vulnerable to breakage, and washing machines with agitators (the big thing in the middle of some washers) are really really good at breaking your fibers, thus resulting in more pilling.

anyway tldr the sweaters shouldn’t have any pilling issues if you treat them right and full length sleeves are not likely to happen but are not totally impossible.

[vbecker10]

Talk to Me (Part 2)

Part 1 / Part 3 (in progress)

Pairing: Loki x female reader (Y/N)

Summary: (4 months after the first part) You and Loki have grown incredibly close, to the point where you both have feelings for each other but are afraid to admit it. One night, you have a nightmare while staying in Loki's room and he calms you but accidentally shows you his Jotun form in the process, triggering his own insecurities.

Warnings: fire (a small one), panic attack, fear of running a friendship, Loki being insecure about being a frost giant

A/N: Well... here's the second part I didn't plan on making lol @irishhappiness made a comment wondering how Loki would comfort Y/N if she has a nightmare which triggered her powers and then this just sort of happened... also there will now be a third part that I am working on 💚

FyI - I used some of my own experiences with panic attacks for this part, I know they are all different but this is just what they feel like when I have them

It's almost midnight when you finally see Stark Tower and smile knowing you are home, and going to see Loki again. You had both been away on missions for the last week but he texted you that he arrived back hours ago. You text Loki and let him know you'll be landing in a few minutes and Thor nudges your shoulder.

"Texting my brother again?" he asks with a smile.

"Yes," you dramatically hold your phone away from him. "Do you mind?"

He laughs, "Of course not. I'm glad to see you two have grown so close."

When the jet finally lands, you walk down the ramp and see Loki waiting for you near the entrance to the building. Thor waves and Loki rolls his eyes, keeping his hands in his pockets. He is unable to hide his smile when he sees you step out from behind his brother.

"I had a feeling it wasn't me he was waiting for," Thor jokes, looking down at you.

"I'm sure he missed you too," you laugh. Loki, as if to prove he is only there for you, walks past his brother without a word and wraps you in a tight hug. You hug him back, your body relaxing instantly the moment you're in his arms again. "You give the best hugs," you mumble against his chest.

"Does he?" Thor asks and takes a step towards his brother when he finally releases you.

Loki faces Thor and reminds him, "Y/N is still the only person allowed to hug me."

You giggle and hit Loki's arm gently, causing him to look back at you, "Be nice."

"I am being nice," he smirks. "I didn't threaten to stab him if he tries to hug me like last time."

You roll your eyes at him but Thor laughs and pats his younger brother on the back hard before leaving you both for the night. You pick up your bag and walk together towards the Tower, telling Loki the highlights of your time away. When you finish, you ask Loki how his mission was.

"Successful of course," he says proudly then he adds, "I wish we had been assigned together. You are far better company than the Captain and Stark. Plus, then I would not have had to miss you."

You giggle and try to hide the blush that creeps up your cheeks at his words. You would have preferred Loki was your partner on your last mission as well, or all of your missions for that matter.

"You should probably head to bed," Loki suggests when you reach the elevators even though the last thing he wants to do is say goodnight to you already.

"Or we could watch the last episode of that show you insist you hate," you offer hopefully. You didn't want to admit you were exhausted, you just needed to spend a little time with him.

He chuckles, "We could do that."

You sit next to Loki on the couch and try to focus on the show but you're finding it difficult. Not only are you fighting to stay awake but Loki is also sitting closer to you then he ever has before. When you first started this show a few months ago, he would sit at the other end of the couch, placing a collection of snacks between the two of you. Over the course of the series, he had gradually started sitting closer and closer to you. You weren't sure if he was doing it on purpose or not but it wasn't something you were going to complain about. Tonight, there is no space left between you, your shoulders touch and his leg rests against yours comfortably.

All you want is to lean into him and feel his arm around you but you don't move. He really has gotten good at giving hugs and you've decided that means he is also very good at cuddling. It is a theory you want to test but your friendship is too important for you to risk it. He is still in such need of a friend and you have to put that first.

You almost make it to the end of the hour long show, but not quite. Your head nods and comes to rest lightly on Loki's shoulder as you finally lose the battle to stay awake. He looks over and smiles when he feels you shift. He could tell you were too tired to watch the show but there was no chance he was going to turn down spending even a minute with you.

He runs his fingers slowly through your hair and you smile in your sleep. You nuzzle against him and he wishes he could hold you the whole night. He knows he can't though, you are simply friends. He sighs, wondering if this is as close as he will ever get to falling asleep with you and places a soft kiss on the top of your head. His heart skips a beat when you respond by mumbling his name in your sleep. Carefully he gets up from the couch and helps you lay down on the pillow he conjured. He waves his hand again and covers you with the softest blanket he can create.

He stands over you for a moment, taking in how cute and peaceful you look curled up under the blanket. He whispers, "Sleep well, darling," then goes into his room.

Loki lays in his bed but finds himself unable to get close to sleep. He wishes he could pick you up and bring you into his bed so he could keep you close. He has never missed anyone the way he misses you, he has never had a person in his life like you before.

When he was a child, it seemed as if he had dozens of friends but they weren't really his. They were Thor's friends and he simply inserted himself in their games. As he grew older, he found it harder and harder to relate to his peers and they slowly distanced themselves from him.

You are the only person who has ever chosen him over Thor or anyone else for that matter. He knew he was truly your first choice when he was the one you came to two months ago when you became an aunt in the middle of the night. He could barely believe the fact that he was the person you wanted to share one of your happiest moments with. He sat with you for over an hour, looking at the same ten pictures of the little new born but he would have done it all night if it meant he could see you smile and listen to you laugh.

He groans and puts his hand over his eyes, there is no doubt in his mind that he is your closest friend and you are his. He can talk to you about anything but the one thing he cannot bring himself to tell you is that he wants to be more than your friend.

Loki's eyes finally close but only moments later he sits up, his body rigid with fear as you scream. He throws off his blankets and runs into the living area.

"Y/N," he says your name in a panic, his heart pounding in his chest at the sight in front of him. You are sitting up on his couch, looking at the blanket he placed over you which is fully engulfed in flames. You hold your hand shakily over the fire but you can't pull the flames back, you are still too frantic from your nightmare to control your powers.

Loki instantly drops his illusion and waves his hands towards you as he comes to your side. The icy air covers the blanket and quickly smothers the fire. You kick off the charred blanket and pull your legs up to your chest, lowering your head on your knees as you breath heavily.

"Are you okay?" he asks, putting his arm around you as he sits on the singed couch. You shake your head no. "What do you need?" he asks but you don't respond.

You squeeze your hands shut tightly to stop them from trembling and look up towards Loki's voice but you are lightheaded and the quick movement makes you dizzy. You know he asked you something but his voice seems far away as does the rest of the room. You can no longer feel the couch you are sitting on or the floor under your feet, you are vaguely aware that you are disassociating but there is nothing you can do to stop it. Your heart pounds faster in your chest and you fear it may never slow down again.

Loki takes your hand and pulls you up from the couch when you don't answer him. He sits on the floor with his back against the couch and guides you down so you are sitting directly in front of him with your back flush to his chest. He takes your hands in his and let's out a quiet gasp of pain when sparks erupt from your fingers.

"Y/N," he whispers in your ear. You mumble his name in return and he asks, "Can you name five things you can see?"

"What?" you ask, confused by the random question. His cool fingers interlace with yours and small clouds of icy air calm the flames that are rise from your hands.

"Tell me five things you can see," he repeats in a low voice.

You try to focus on answering him. You can hear your heart pounding in your ears as you look around the far off living room. Slowly, you list five objects.

"Good, now can you tell me four things you can touch?" he asks quietly.

Your breathing is still ragged as your chest tightens but you push yourself to think about Loki's second question. You take a breath then look around to find the first three objects. "And I can feel your hands," you give Loki your fourth answer, his fingers squeeze your hand gently. As you say each item, you can almost feel the room shrinking to a less distorted size.

"How about three things you can hear?" he asks.

"My breathing," you turn to rest the side of your head on his chest, "Your heart beat and your voice," the answers come quicker now.

"Two things you can smell?" Loki asks, you finally register how worried his voice sounds.

"My shampoo," you answer, suddenly remembering when Loki told you he loved the way your shampoo smelled. You bought four more bottles of the fruit scented soap that weekend. "And your cologne," you tell him, a smile crosses your lips when you inhale deeply and breath in your favorite smell.

"You're doing so well, I just need you to tell me one thing you can taste now," he says.

"Do the apples on your dining table count?" you ask him as your eyes scan his apartment.

"If you think they do, they count," he responds and you nod that they should count. "How do you feel?" he asks after a moment.

"Better," you realize suddenly. Your heart rate feels normal, even your breathing is steady and easy. You are no longer lightheaded and feel as if everything around you is real and not distorted. You ask, "How did you know how to do that?"

"I read that it was a popular grounding technique," he explains. "I looked into ways to help you after you told me your nightmares sometimes triggered panic attacks."

You smile at the effort he had gone through to make sure he could help you, "Thank you Loki." You feel safe and comfortable pressed against Loki and look down, feeling your hands still in his hands. Loki's skin is a deep shade of blue and it takes you a moment to realize why. You shift to face him, his crimson eyes fixed on yours and he smiles. "Is this your Jotun form?" you ask, touching the ridges on his cheek with your fingertips lightly.

His smile vanishes and he immediately shifts back into his Asgardian form, pulling his fingers free from your other hand. "I'm sorry," he says nervously as he gets up and walks away from you.

He sighs, "I did promise that, didn't I?"

"For what?" you ask getting up but he ignores you. "Wait, Loki," you call as he heads towards his bedroom and pauses under the door frame. You walk towards him and say, "Please don't do that. Don't shut me out." You slip your hand into his and he looks at you. "You promised you would talk to me, remember?"

You nod and try to smile, hoping he will open up to you. You are always worried Loki will retreat behind the walls you've worked so hard to break down.

A small smile tugs at his lips and he says, "I don't know what I did to deserve such a fiercely devoted friend."

You shrug and hold your forced smile as you feel a twinge of pain in your chest when he refers to you simply as his friend.

"We will talk in the morning, I promise," he says as he moves to pull you into a hug. "You need to rest."

I hope you liked this!! Please like, share and comment if you did 💚💚 Please let me know if you want to be added to my taglist!

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[yandereend]

Yandere Househusband

The wedding

P. 2/?

TW : normal yandere stuff, dubcon, reader is into it?, Tyler talks about children, both are like 18 or 19

Btw English is not my first language so please keep that in mind

🩵Also thanks to everyone who wrote nice comments under the first post🩵

You sometimes watched those trashy shows about the bridezillas who were obsessed with their weddings and made everyones live hell. Like many people you hopped to never be in a situation like this. But here you were sitting besides your fiancé while he discusses flower arrangements, acting like a giant brat.

Is it so hard to put together bouquets with ALL pink flowers?!

Sir we dont have enough pink lillies for all your decorations. You should reconsider some of your choices-

I‘m surrounded by idiots!! My spouse wanted pink lillies so i don’t care if you don’t have them stocked!! Just buy them!

That would be even more expen-

Just do it !!!

And with that Tyler took your hand and you both exited the flower shop. It was almost comical how such a small thing could affect a grown man so much, but hey it’s his day. Tyler had a big pout on his face so that called for your attention and pampering.

Tyler don’t be upset.

But its our day my darling, everything should be perfect! We spend so much time picking out your (suit/dress/whatever you want its your wedding) and my suit. The flowers have to match or everything was for nothing my dear!

Not everything has to be perfect.

Oh yes it does! Have you never been on pinterest ?

That was the whole wedding planning in a nutshell , just an avid pinterest user placing together the wedding of their dreams( yandere style). Sometimes it was cute seeing Tyler being so invested in the wedding, other times it was more than annoying to cater to his perfectionism.

You also often thought about how quickly things progressed. I mean you just graduated high school and are already engaged and working for your fiancés father. Tylers father, Eric, was a great boss, you often wondered why people were scared of him. It’s just your nice father in law! Always explaining everything to you and hyping you up as the next in line of the family business. I mean you’re almost a part of it.

And Tylers mother, Ramona, was the same, always acting like she’s your real mother and caring for you. Not to mention Tyler himself. You were not suprised when he didn’t went out to look for a job or university, he always promoted the idea of a traditional family with you as the breadwinner in the center. And hey, his parents gifted you a house as an engagement gift, so its safe to say that you wont suffer in the presence of those saints.

At least that’s what you thought of them, little did you know that they were the reason why most of your friends cut contact and your family hardly called after you moved out. But hey who needs them anyways.

So while all these thoughts ran through your mind here you were, walking down the aisle with your father and finally seeing the man of your dreams in his perfectly tailored suit and styled hair, with tears in his eyes witnessing your beauty.

Your wedding vow was rather short but still packed with the love you felt for your husband. And after he put himself together, because of his happy tears, he read the most beautiful wedding vow you ever heard touching your heart and everyone else’s in the chapel. So when you finally get to put the rings on each other’s fingers you both stand up there with tears in your eyes.

And when you both finally unite in a grand kiss your fate was finally sealed. Tyler had you finally completely in his grasp, even if you didn’t realize it. And he,as well as his family, will never let you go. So enjoy your wedding party with your family and friends, you won’t get to see them any longer my dear.

Till death do you apart.

🩵Thanks a lot I hope you enjoyed it, I am planning on making this a series so please comment ideas for your life with your new husband 🩵

[ham1lton]

47 with FA14 please :)

047. the inside of an elevator that won’t move w/ FA14.

— part of a series of drabbles! <3

you were incredibly annoyed. so annoyed in fact, that you were this close to quitting this job. your very cushy hybrid job which paid incredible and gave you your own office even though you mostly worked from home. toto, your boss, had given you the alonso case which meant that you’d be working through your sister’s wedding. the same wedding you’d booked off months ago.

you get in the elevator, slightly fuming, as an older man also got in the elevator with you. he turns to you.

“floor three please.” he asks politely, as you’re standing next to the buttons. you seethe but press the button for him.

as the two of you stand in silence, the elevator suddenly stops. you give each other a panicked look. the silence between the two of you is heavy, only broken by the occasional faint hum of the elevator’s machinery. you click the help button and after a short conversation with the very unhelpful guy on the other end, you’re told help will arrive in half an hour.

“great! just what i fucking needed.” you mutter. he turns to you. “what? like this is a great situation for you either?”

“no, obviously not.” he says, in very accented english.

“so don’t give me that look.” you roll your eyes.

he raises his hands defensively. "okay, okay. truce?"

you sigh, realizing you're being unfair. it’s not like it’s his fault. "yeah, sorry. it's just been a really bad day."

"tell me about it," he says, leaning against the elevator wall. "what’s got you so worked up?"

"my boss just dumped this huge case on me last minute," you say, frustration bubbling up again. "it’s for this big client, alonso or something. now i have to miss my holiday because of it. i had the time off booked for months."

he raises an eyebrow, clearly surprised. "alonso? that's tough."

"yeah, and all because some big shot can't finalize a business contract on time," you grumble. “what’s so important about this stupid contract anyways?”

he looks away, as if contemplating something. "sounds like a real pain. what do you do, exactly?"

"i'm a corporate lawyer. and you?"

he hesitates for a moment before answering, "i'm... in business. finance, mostly."

you roll your eyes. "well, mr. finance, at least you’re not stuck working on a weekend for some unreasonable client."

the silence that follows feels heavier than before, and he shifts uncomfortably. "yeah, must be tough," he says quietly.

you frown, feeling slightly guilty for venting so much. "sorry, i didn't mean to unload on you. it's just been a lot."

he nods, offering a small, understanding smile. "i get it. sometimes things don’t go the way we planned."

you both fall silent for a second, the hum of the elevator the only sound, as you wait for help to arrive. then, as if compelled to fill the void, you continue. "it's just... my sister's wedding this weekend. i've been looking forward to it for months. and now, because of this contract, i'm going to miss it. i don't even know why it's so urgent."

he shifts again, looking like he wants to say something but isn't sure if he should. "maybe the client has their reasons," he offers carefully. "not that it makes it any easier for you."

"yeah, well, whoever they are, i hope their business crashes and burns," you mutter darkly. "no contract is worth missing something so important."

there's another pause before he speaks again, his voice softer this time. "sometimes, it's hard to see the bigger picture when you're in the thick of it."

you look at him, a hint of curiosity mixed with your frustration. "you sound like you know a lot about this."

he gives a half-smile as he shrugs, almost rueful. "more than i'd like to admit."

before you can ask more, the elevator jerks and starts moving again. you both breathe a sigh of relief as the doors slide open. he gestures for you to go first. "after you."

as you step out, you glance back at him. "thanks for listening. and sorry for the rant."

"anytime," he says, his smile warm but his eyes holding a hint of something you can't quite place. "good luck with that contract. and i hope you find a way to make it to your sister's wedding."

"thanks," you say, still feeling a bit unsettled as you walk away, wondering why his understanding smile seemed to hold more weight than a simple stranger's sympathy.

later that evening, as you’re buried in paperwork, your phone buzzes with an email notification. it's from toto. you open it, and your heart skips a beat.

•───────•°•❀•°•───────•

subject: urgent update on alonso case

dear l/n,

i have some unexpected news regarding the alonso contract. the client personally requested to change the deadline, granting you the weekend off. i know this is a surprise, but please take the weekend to attend your sister's wedding.

best,

toto.

•───────•°•❀•°•───────•

your mind races as you read the email again. how did the client know about your situation? you stare at the screen, the pieces slowly clicking into place. the man from the elevator—the one who listened so intently, who seemed to know more than he let on—he must be connected to alonso.

the realisation brings a mix of emotions: relief, slight embarrassment, gratitude, and a touch of something warmer. you can't help but smile, remembering his kind eyes and supportive words. your phone beeps again.

•───────•°•❀•°•───────•

subject: dinner invitation

dear y/n,

i hope this message finds you well. i wanted to extend an invitation for dinner sometime this week. it would be a pleasure to meet in person and discuss matters beyond business.

please let me know if you're interested and i hope you enjoy the wedding.

warm regards,

fernando alonso.

ceo of alonso corp.

•───────•°•❀•°•───────•

author’s note: i don’t actually write for fernando but this was calling to me so i decided to fulfil the prompt. i hope this isn’t too ooc. my bad. also reader and ceo!alonso go on the date and fall in love and the week before their wedding he pretends to get her on a contract all over again bc he thinks its funny.

[aeruia]

↻. GENSHIN IMPACT

↻. EYES ON ME .

in which [name] can't really handle eye contact very well, can they handle scara's gaze on them? ( they can't . /j )

pairing : scaramouche x reader

warning/s : lowercase intended, not good very cringey!

word count : 714

note : not really my best work but i'm doing this for the sake of keeping this blog alive and active, i have sm pending works istg i've been trying to finish them all at once 😭

you have a habit of staring everywhere except to whoever is talking to you. every time someone speaks with you, you're looking in the other direction and aside from that you will only look at them if necessary. several of your friends also noticed that if you're talking to others, your gaze seems to avert and look elsewhere.

they asked you about it and it appears that you're unable to hold eye contact for too long since you weren't used to making eye contact with other people and got used to working alone or with only a few people you had known like family.

by the time you have finished your work, you find yourself having a drink and a chit-chat with scara. it was only supposed to be a small chat with how your work and his work is but seems like scara has other plans. he made you his drinking buddy.

you weren't really a fan of drinking yet you accepted the offer since you don't wanna be rude and now, you're here drinking with none other than scara as you avoid looking at him as possible. everything around you now looks interesting to you. it now appears that each thing has a deep meaning that it should have. with your eyes glancing almost everywhere you still managed to catch everything he says word by word.

he notices that your eyes have been glancing everywhere but he never saw you glance at him even for a second. tilting his head to the side, his arms crossed near his chest.

“ are you listening? ” that didn't sound like a question to you yet it is a question. you're just interpreting it differently. “ huh? yes, of course. i'm listening. ” answering his question only looking at him for a few seconds and then smiled before looking away again.

the indigo haired man smiled. it wasn't visible but you can see it if you look closely. he stopped discussing things with you besides everything that was coming out from his mouth was complaining.

in exchange for the silence, his eyes linger on you, you can feel his eyes on you as if he was burning holes into your sitting figure in front of him. your [e/c] slowly side eye scara's own orbs. he was definitely just looking at you and by the looks of it he doesn't have any plans on looking away soon even if you aren't staring at him.

“ you genuinely can't keep an eye contact, huh? ” he questioned as if it wasn't obvious enough by how you tried to avoid his gaze. he knows that you aren't that used to looking at someone in the eye and also knowing that it's disrespectful to not look at the person who's talking to you.

you didn't even notice there was a lump forming at your throat if you haven't gulped. everything looks so interesting right now, you just want to run away from here and look for something that looks interesting and pretend to study it. “ i should really practice on holding eye contact.. ” you thought, you can even do it by looking at the person in front of you but that doesn't seems like a good idea.

the person in front of you is scaramouche. everything about him feels intimidating for you. building up the courage you finally give in and looked up at him. he was taken back when you looked back at him, his eyes widened for a second before he smiled smugly at you.

that lasted you well, not that long but you're proud of yourself for that. you hear him chuckle as he uncrosses his arms as he puts his hand on the table.

“ very well then, can't really keep your pretty eyes on me for so long? ” he teased with a saddened tone when he said the words so long as your cheeks heat up.

you didn't even answer it as you just left him alone there, not wanting to embarrass yourself any further as scara just watched you walked away.

he noticed the tip of your ears were red when you stand up and he couldn't help but smile by just how adorable you are.

maybe teasing you more often, will make him see your other side?

date posted 052024