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siebear · 3 months

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Beach Trip - Yoon Hyunsuk

Pairing: Yoon Hyunsuk x Female Reader

Word Count: 7.5k

Warnings: sexual content 18+ (minors dni pls), cursing, alcohol consumption (every character mentioned is legal in this au), vomiting

Genre: Smut, fluff, angst, non idol au, friends to lovers

Summary: You and your best friend Hyunsuk take a much needed vacation to Santa Cruz, California along with a few of your other friends (CIX). While staying in your shared beachside cabin, tensions grow between you and Hyunsuk, and the feelings you share can't be hidden any longer. Of course, not without a little drama.

Abbreviations: Y/N: Your Name, B/F/N: Best Friend's Name

(A/N: I felt as though there wasn't enough fanfic about CIX, so I wanted to write my own! This is my first time writing smut, so if it is awkward I apologize! Anyways, please enjoy this story)

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The day had finally come.

The beach trip with your closest friends that you had been anticipating for a while now was happening at last. It's very common for your friend group to create plans that never leave the group chat, but this time your self-designated “group leader” Byounggon was determined to make it happen. So, on a random weekday he suddenly sent a screenshot of a beachside Airbnb that he found in Santa Cruz, California to the chat and told everyone to venmo him ASAP so he could book it. Surprisingly, everyone was on board, and you were all able to come to an agreement on the dates for this vacation.

These past few months have been nothing but school, work, repeat, and you were so excited to break the seemingly never-ending cycle for summer vacation. In fact, you took an entire week off of work just for this three-day long adventure. Before you could even climb out of bed, you heard your phone buzz. You quickly unplugged it from its charger and read the message your phone displayed. It was from your best friend, Hyunsuk.

Hyunsuk: i’ll be over in a few with my stuff

Y/N: i just woke up, can you give me like 10 mins?

Hyunsuk: …bruh

Hyunsuk: we’re supposed to leave in 30

Y/N: i know but i woke up late, pls give me like 10 minutes to get my stuff together

Hyunsuk: i’ll be over in 5

You sighed as you placed your phone back on your bedside table. There was no arguing with him and you knew that. As his best friend of over 15 years, you knew him well enough to not try to convince him once he had his mind set on something, as he was often extremely stubborn.

Sometimes, however, with the right tone of voice and pleading eyes, you could convince him to give into your demands. Unfortunately over text these methods don’t work on him, so you have to settle with what he wants for the time being.

You finally got the motivation to get yourself out of bed and walked over to your closet to find something to wear. Since it was a long car ride, you decided to throw on something comfortable which just so happened to be a pair of black gym shorts and a hoodie with a black tank top underneath. Hyunsuk, being the gentleman that he is, offered to drive with the exception that you two took your car since you had more trunk space to which you happily agreed to. This gave you the opportunity to sleep on the way there, as you couldn’t deal with Hyunsuk yapping your ear off this early in the morning.

You heard your parents downstairs talking to Hyunsuk, which made you speed run brushing your hair and teeth before quickly throwing those last minute items into your overnight bag. You then left your room with your car keys to go greet him and allow him to start loading his things into the vehicle, but the second you started walking down the stairs he turned to smile at you which made your heart…flutter?

“Stop it”, you thought to yourself, “He’s my friend…just my friend…”

You’ve been having these intrusive thoughts lately about him that make your cheeks flush red and give you the feeling of butterflies in your stomach. You often wondered what life would be like if he was yours. You wanted to know what would it be like to be able to cuddle with him, kiss, and even more.

Sometimes these thoughts make you sick to your stomach, since you’ve known him since you two were in kindergarten. Lately, however, you haven’t been able to suppress these thoughts as they've been taking over your daydreams. You yearn for Hyunsuk, but you don’t know or even want to know if he yearns for you back. You refuse to ruin your friendship with him, as this is the most valuable thing in the world to you.

“Finally” Hyunsuk says, snapping you out of your thoughts.

“Shut the fuck up, it didn’t take me that long to get ready” you argued back while reaching the bottom of the stairs. Hyunsuk chuckled to himself and turned to your parents.

“See what I have to deal with?” He said jokingly, which made your parents laugh but brought you to smack his arm lightly out of slight annoyance.

“You’re a weakling” He said, peering down at you.

“I swear I will punch you next time” You stated, crossing your arms and looking back up at him with a smug smile on your face.

“Don’t get too feisty now, we got a long car ride to go on together” Hyunsuk said back, which raised a huge sigh out of you. You were looking forward to being alone with him, but long car rides were not fun for you at all. Hyunsuk then took your keys from you and went to unlock your car so he could begin packing. You said goodbye to your parents as Hyunsuk came back inside to help grab your things from upstairs and load them into your trunk.

“When will you be back?” Your mom asked, hugging you goodbye.

“I’ll be back in 3 days” You responded.

“Ok good, please be safe” your mom leaned in close to whisper to you

“You know, I’m so glad you have a friend like Hyunsuk, he’ll be there to protect you”. You blushed slightly and looked down at the ground.

“I have my pepper spray mom”

“I know, but you know what I mean. He’s a good man Y/N, and he will be there for you”

“Mom please!” You whispered, but then you suddenly heard the trunk of the car slam shut which made you jolt a bit. Hyunsuk came running back inside to let you know that he was ready to go and that he was going to start the car. You said your final goodbyes and waved to your parents as you and Hyunsuk backed out of the driveway and took off towards your destination.

The car ride was miserably long. Not even 20 minutes in you kicked your shoes off and placed your feet up on the dash, and to Hyunsuk’s annoyance you turned up the A/C since you liked it cold. However, you were grateful that he was driving and you didn’t ask to stop for snacks or a bathroom break unless it was necessary to stop for gas. You also were able to use your guilt tripping skills on Hyunsuk to get him to buy you a bag of chips and a soda at the gas station for you, but he secretly enjoyed doing that despite the fact that he seemed to act displeased when paying.

After hours of being on the road you finally arrived at the beachside Airbnb. You gasped at the sight, as the scenery was even more beautiful in person. This house was two stories and on the side it had a stairway leading down to what looked like a private beach area. You looked back at Hyunsuk and pointed out all the little details you noticed as you pulled into the driveway and he smiled. Little did you know, Hyunsuk wasn’t smiling at the scenery. He was just happy that you were happy to be here, but he didn’t need you to know that.

As soon as you got out of the car you were greeted by your girl best friend, B/F/N. She gave you the biggest hug and almost picked you up off the ground out of pure excitement. You two haven’t seen each other in weeks due to conflicting work schedules. Luckily though, you were both understanding and still managed to text each other daily.

“Come on guys! Everyone is inside waiting for you!” B/F/N said in an excited tone.

“I told you we’d be the last ones here Y/N!” Hyunsuk said. You rolled your eyes at him.

“It’s fine Hyunsuk, let’s go inside!” You said, leaving him to grab the bags from the trunk as you walked towards the front door with B/F/N.

“Oh, before we go inside, I need to tell you something” B/F/N said, her tone changing to be slightly serious.

“What did Jinyoung finally propose to you?” You asked.

“No! Not yet anyways…but it’s about the bedroom arrangement” She said. You looked at her confused.

“What do you mean? Is my bedroom not the one upstairs anymore?” You asked.

“So, um, please don’t get mad, but the listing had the wrong number of bedrooms…” She trailed off.

“What do you mean?” You repeated yourself.

“Well…come on I’ll just show you” She took your arm and led you inside and towards a room on the downstairs floor. You briefly waved at the four boys who were sitting in the living room playing a card game before being dragged away down a hallway. Once you got to the room she opened it and showed you inside.

“Is this my room?” You asked, confused as to why this would be a problem.

“Yeah…and Hyunsuk’s…”

“What?” You were getting annoyed at her dodging the questions you’ve been asking.

“So basically, me and Jinyoung are sharing a room while BX and Seunghun share a room, and Yonghee is taking the room that has the twin bed because he wants to be alone, so this is the only room left for you and Hyunsuk and we figured you guys would be ok if you took the room with the bigger bed while Yonghee took the smaller bed” B/F/N said, almost out of breath by the end of her tangent.

The realization hit you like a bullet to the chest, your stomach dropping as if you were on some intense roller coaster ride. What kind of cliche fanfiction trope is this?

“Oh so you mean me and Hyunsuk have to…share the bed…okay…” You said slowly.

“Please don’t be mad! Besides from what you’ve been telling me I thought you would love this–” You quickly shushed her by putting your hand over her mouth as you heard footsteps coming down the hallway. The door swung open to reveal a very tired looking Hyunsuk carrying your overnight bags. His eyes widened as he saw that there was only one bed in the room.

“Is this the room?” He asked, his eyes darting between you and your best friend.

“Yep this is it! I will leave you guys to get settled, bye!” B/F/N said awkwardly before scurrying out of the room and slamming the door shut.

“I guess the Airbnb had the wrong number of rooms listed…” you trailed off before sitting down on the edge of the bed. Hyunsuk came to sit next to you, as he needed a bit of rest from the car ride.

“Are you ok with this?” He asked. You were surprised at the question.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” You asked back. He shrugged.

“I don’t know, we’ve just never slept in a bed together. If it makes you more comfortable I can sleep on the floor or on the couch or something” He said. You shook your head.

“No no it’s fine, I truly don’t mind, as long as you don’t either” You said back. He smiled at you, which made your cheeks turn a slight pink.

“I don’t mind at all,” He said. He suddenly stood up and started looking around, trying to figure out how to arrange all of your things.

“At least we have our own bathroom in here” He said. Then your phone buzzed, it was a text in the groupchat from Yonghee telling everyone to get their swimsuits on and meet him in the hot tub on the back deck. You relayed the message to Hyunsuk, and you both took turns changing before meeting the others outside.

After weeks of not seeing them, you forgot how much fun hanging out with your friends was. After popping open a few cans of alcoholic seltzers and sharing a bottle of vodka with the others you were having the time of your life, as you were already wasted by 10pm playing a game of drunk truth or dare with the others while still in the hot tub. After Yonghee started pouting for being dared to scream the word “penis” for the third time it was your turn to finally ask Hyunsuk the question.

“Sukkie...truth or dare” you giggled. Sukkie was the nickname you gave him in private, but now your friends know, as you can’t stop calling him that in your drunken state. Your friends started chanting the word dare, and he got visibly annoyed with them.

“Okay fuck I’ll chose dare!” He exclaimed.

“I dare you…to shotgun another seltzer with me” You said, not being able to contain your laughter. He looked at you concerned, as well as the others. You were already far ahead of them as you made it your mission to get wasted tonight.

“I don’t know Y/N, you’re already pretty drunk,” Hyunsuk replied.

“Pleaseeeeee sukkie it’ll be soooooo much fun!!” You begged. He sighed and got out of the hot tub to grab two seltzer cans. You followed him and watched as he popped open the bottle with a key, a sight that you never thought could turn you on, but it did. He handed you the can and you both counted down from 3 before popping the tab and beginning to shotgun. He beat you easily, as you were still trying to down the cool carbonated liquid as it burned your throat. After you finished, you instantly knew that was a mistake as your stomach couldn’t handle it anymore.

Before you knew it, you told everyone you’d be right back and then rushed inside to your room as you couldn’t fight the urge to throw up.

Unfortunately you were stuck in the bathroom for a minute. Hyunsuk noticed you were gone for a while and went to check on you, where he found you in the bathroom vomiting for the third time in a row. He looked visibly worried as he kneeled down beside you to hold your hair back while you let out yet another one.

“I”m so sorry…I know this is gross,” You said, feeling yourself begin to become sober again.

“It’s ok, you can let it out, I’m here for you no matter what. Besides, you helped me through my last hangover. It’s the least I can do” Hyunsuk said with a smile, but you could tell through his eyes that he was concerned for you.

“I think I just need to lay down now” You said, trying to stand on your own but failing. Hyunsuk quickly picked you up and carried you, gently laying you down on the bed making sure to lay you on your side.

“Don’t move ok? I’m going to grab you some water” He said before rushing out the door.

You couldn’t help but start to doze off as you heard him telling your other friends that you got sick, but you didn’t mind that they knew. Before Hyunsuk came back, you ended up falling asleep. He entered the room with your water and couldn’t help but smile to himself as he heard the soft snores coming from your side of the bed. He set the glass of water down on the nightstand next to you and brushed his hand over your face, tucking some hair behind your ear.

At that moment he wanted nothing more than to kiss your forehead and then cuddle up to you in bed. However, he knew that he couldn’t do that. After all, you two were just friends, and he didn’t want to ruin it. He climbed into bed next to you before turning away to resist the urge to spoon his best friend, and after thinking about how pretty you were to him, he was able to fall asleep as well.

You woke up with a pounding headache, looking to your side you reached over to your nightstand to chug the water Hyunsuk left there for you. Your sudden rise to sit up made Hyunsuk wake up, thinking you needed to throw up again.

“Sorry sukkie, I didn’t mean to wake you up” You said.

“It’s ok Y/N, you just had me worried for a second.” He responded before laying back down on his side and falling back to sleep. You were desperate to get rid of that awful headache, so you climbed out of bed and made your way to the kitchen to search for some medicine. You discovered Seunghun making himself a bowl of cereal in nothing but plaid pajama pants on.

“Seunghun jumpscare warning next time please!” You joked as you pretended to shield your eyes from his naked upper half. You couldn’t lie, he looked good, but you currently had your eyes on someone else.

“Wow, that was rude!” Seunghun said, not being able to hide his laughter.

“Don’t worry I was kidding!” You defended yourself.

“How are you feeling?” Seunghun asked you.

“Not great, I have a really bad headache that’s not going away. I already chugged some water but it’s still here” You responded, rubbing the side of your head.

“I think B/F/N might have some medicine, you should go ask her. I saw her take something this morning” Seunghun responded as he took a bite of his cereal.

“Will do, thanks Seunghun!” you said before heading up the stairs to B/F/N and Jinyoung’s room. After interrogating your friend as to why she suddenly has a bunch of hickeys on her chest, she finally forked over some advil for you to take. After you took the pills, she whispered to you.

“You know, Hyunsuk was really worried about you last night”

“Really?” You asked, sounding surprised.

“Yeah, I mean we were all worried, but he was restless when you left to go to the bathroom and needed to check on you as soon as he could. Also, when he came to get you water last night, he told us he was going to stop drinking with us so he could lay in bed with you to make sure you were ok” She responded with a smile on her face.

“I guess I am lucky to have a friend like him, huh?” You say nonchalantly. This caused your friend to smack you lighty on the arm.

“Girl I think he wants you, and not in the friend way,” she said. You started blushing again.

“I really don’t think so,” You denied it. Although, that is the only thing that you want right now.

“Whatever, just pay attention to how he looks at you today. He definitely sees you as more than a friend,” B/F/N responded. You shook your head before walking back downstairs towards your room.

“Does he really see me as more than a friend?” You couldn’t help but wonder. You didn’t want to let your friend give you false hope, but you wanted to believe it so bad.

Today you and your friends decided to go to the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk, so you all piled in your car and headed towards the boardwalk together. After you park your friend group immediately split up as Seunghun, Yonghee, and Byounggon wanted to go on rides while Jinyoung and B/F/N wanted to lay on the beach. Hyunsuk decided he was hungry, so the two of you go to the food area and buy him a burger while you got a corndog.

Unfortunately, Hyunsuk couldn’t help it when his mind started to wander while he watched you eat, and he couldn’t help the growing bulge in his pants either. It also wasn’t his fault that you decided to wear short denim shorts and a crop top that very well showed your cleavage to him. You may or may not have done that on purpose. This outfit left a lot up to his imagination, and he couldn’t stop himself from picturing what it would be like to be inside of you at the moment.

“H-how’s the food?” He stuttered, trying to take his mind off of how good you looked right now.

“It’s so good, do you want a bite?” You offer him your corn dog, but he refuses.

“No I’m good I have my burger,” he says quickly while shoving another bite in his mouth.

“Are you ok? You’ve been acting weird since we got here” You asked him, genuinely concerned.

“Yep I’m fine! Let's go play some games or something” He said, finishing his burger and getting up to throw the trash away. You followed him, but almost got lost in the sea of people trying to keep up with him. He noticed you were trailing behind and grabbed your hand to pull you next to him. You started to get butterflies in your stomach with the realization you guys were holding hands, but Hyunsuk was trying to get the image of him fucking you in that outfit out of his head.

He thought the arcade would help, but it actually did the opposite. You pulled Hyunsuk towards one of your favorite games which happened to be crossy road. The way you bent over to focus on the game drove him up a wall. He almost said screw it and bent you over the machine to fuck you from behind, but of course he couldn’t. He did not want to get arrested today. Instead, he began to separate himself from you and focus on games he wanted to play such as first person shooters. He found a zombie one that he liked and played it until his little problem started to die down.

He didn’t realize how much time passed until you approached him and asked him if it was ok if you guys went on a few rides now. He apologized for taking so long and you two left the arcade, but you were sad because this time he didn’t grab your hand.

You two found yourselves in line for the log ride, and you were so excited because you haven’t been on a water ride in a long time. Your turn came and went, and by the end you were soaked because not only did the ride splash you, but Yonghee and Byounggon decided to be assholes and pay for the water guns at the end of the ride to spray you guys even more. It wasn’t until after the ride that Hyunsuk realized he made yet another mistake and allowed you to get your clothes wet in front of him. All he wanted was to rip the clothes off of you at this point, and he couldn’t handle it anymore.

“Can we go now?” Hyunsuk suddenly asked as the five of you were walking to meet back up with Jinyoung and B/F/N.

“What? But it’s only been a few hours” Yonghee whined.

“Please? I’m tired” Hyunsuk snapped back at him.

“What made you tired? All we did was play arcade games and stand in lines” You said, slightly irritated at the fact that he already wanted to leave.

“I’m just tired, ok? I drove you yesterday while you got to sleep in the passenger seat” He said back. You did not like his tone.

“Why is it my fault? You offered to drive,” You argued back. Hyunsuk was starting to get even more turned on, but he decided he couldn’t be here any longer with his little problem.

“Whatever, I’m just going to uber home” He says and then starts speed walking away. Everyone started to call his name but he disappeared into the crowd. You were visibly upset by this, and Seunghun started to pat your back gently.

“It’s ok Y/N, whatever it is I’m sure it’s not your fault” He said trying to comfort you.

“I hope it’s not” You say, tears starting to form in your eyes. Byounggon noticed and offered to take you on more rides which cheered you up. While you were in line for a rollercoaster, Byounggon realized he hadn’t taken any photos on this trip yet so he whipped out his phone and took a selfie of you and him to post on his instagram story. You stood on your tippy toes and rested your chin on his shoulder for the picture, thinking nothing of it at the time. He then put his phone away so you guys could get onto the ride.

Back at the Airbnb, Hyunsuk saw the photo. He thought you two were too close for his liking, and he got mad. He was so upset that he almost threw his phone at the wall, but he opted to set it down instead. He paced around the room anxiously. He wanted to get back at you, but he didn’t know how. All he wanted was for you to be his, but in his angry mind he thought you wanted to be with Byounggon. Suddenly he picked up his phone and started downloading an app that he hasn’t used in a long time: tinder. He decided that if he couldn’t have you, the best thing to do right now would be to fuck some other girl so he could get his mind off of you.

You finally returned to the house with the others after having an amazing time at the boardwalk, you almost forgot about Hyunsuk’s little fit and went to the bedroom to tell him all about it. You walked in and suddenly felt your heart sink as you saw Hyunsuk putting his shoes on.

“Hey Hyunsuk, what’re ya doin?” You asked, trying to joke around. He didn’t even look up at you.

“I’m going out. I’ll be back later,” He replied coldly. Your heart sank even more.

“Where are you going? Can I come?” You asked. He snapped his head up and shot you a dirty look.

“No you can’t come with me, it’s none of your business” he says while tying his laces.

“How come? You can tell me I promise I won’t judge” you pleaded.

“I said NO Y/N,” he raised his voice at you. You were taken aback by his tone.

“Oh…” you said quietly. That’s all you could manage to get out. Hyunsuk’s phone then buzzed with a message, and you saw it was from tinder. Suddenly every hope you had of being with him was gone, and you almost burst into tears. But you couldn’t let Hyunsuk see you like that, so you held it in. Once he finished putting his shoes on he stood up and walked past you towards the door, but before he left you managed to get one sentence out.

“Have fun fucking some random bitch” you said in the most monotone voice you could manage. You didn’t like how you said it, but you didn’t care. Hyunsuk hurt your feelings and you wanted to hurt him back.

“I will, and you have fun fucking Byounggon tonight” he said, slamming the bedroom door shut.

“Wait what?” you asked yourself. You then realized what he said, and it couldn’t be further from the truth. You then realized that he was referring to the photo that you and Byounggon took, and upon further inspection it did look slightly like a couple photo. You messed up, but he had the wrong idea. By the time you realized where the miscommunication was, Hyunsuk already left in your car, which made you even more upset. You tried calling him, but he kept declining. All you could do was cry as the others comforted you in the living room. They kept telling you it wasn’t your fault, and Byounggon felt especially guilty. He tried calling Hyunsuk as well, but it was no use. You assured him that it wasn’t his fault.

After about 20 minutes of trying to contact him, everyone gave up and decided to head to their rooms for the night. They all told you that if you needed anything at all then to come find them, and you just nodded your head and tried wiping away tears but they kept coming. You sent one last long text to Hyunsuk explaining the situation and telling him this was all a big misunderstanding before putting your phone back in your pocket and silencing the ringer.

Once everyone went to their rooms, you decided you needed a breath of fresh air, so you got some new clothes on, grabbed a blanket, and walked down to the private beach area. You laid the blanket down and curled into a ball on it. You couldn’t help but start crying again. You wondered why Hyunsuk was acting like he hated you suddenly, and why he didn’t want to hear your explanation. Once you felt like you cried enough, you sat up and stared at the sea. Watching the waves crash on the shore was almost therapeutic for you, and it helped calm you down.

Suddenly you felt a presence behind you, but you couldn’t bring yourself to turn around. Then, that same presence sat beside you on your blanket. You kept your gaze on the ocean’s waves in front of you, but you knew that the person who joined you was Hyunsuk. You couldn’t even look at him after what happened tonight. He made you feel so ashamed of yourself. However, he knew you were upset with him, so you two sat together on the beach in silence for what felt like hours before you decided to break it.

“How was she?” you asked. It probably wasn’t the right question to ask, but you couldn’t help it.

“I didn’t go,” Hyunsuk said firmly.

“What made you change your mind?” You asked, not fully believing him. He was gone for an hour after all.

“I parked in an empty parking lot and did some thinking, I realized what I was doing was stupid” He said.

“Yeah, it was stupid” you scoffed.

“Especially because you took my car, asshole”

“It was, and I’m sorry,” Hyunsuk said.

“I appreciate your apology, but I need an explanation” You said to him. He sighed, but agreed to tell you.

“Like I said, it was a bad decision. I wanted to get back at you for that photo Byounggon posted. I thought you made him post it to make me jealous and-”

“Wait make you jealous? I don’t understand” you cut him off.

“I thought you were trying to make me feel bad for leaving the boardwalk early, so I was upset with the post,” Hyunsuk said quietly.

“You know I’d never do something like that Sukkie, you’re an idiot for thinking I would do that to you. Also, Byounggon would never agree to that” you said.

“I know, and I’m truly sorry for assuming the worst,” Hyunsuk said sadly.

“But can you tell me why you left the boardwalk? You seemed fine at first, none of us understood why you left,” You said. He clearly didn’t want to tell you, but you begged him.

“Please, Sukkie, be honest with me. You’re my best friend, you can tell me anything” you said.

“I just…don’t want to ruin our friendship,” he said. Your stomach dropped when hearing those words.

“You won’t, I pinky swear. You can tell me anything. Please?” You pleaded with him.

“Ok fine...it was because of you,” he said bluntly.

“Because of me? Was I being annoying?” you asked, your feelings hurt. You could feel the tears in your eyes forming again.

“No, you weren’t being annoying at all. This is so hard for me to explain, Y/N. I left because…I liked your outfit a lot. I liked your outfit too much, if you get what I’m saying. I got…um…excited,” He said while looking down, slightly embarrassed by his choice of words.

“Oh…OH!” You exclaimed as the realization hit you.

“Will you relax?” He said, already feeling slightly humiliated.

“I just want you to know i’m not judging you Hyunsuk, sometimes we can’t control how we feel and I didn’t mean to make you feel that way” you said, stuttering like crazy. But secretly, you did. You knew what you were doing when you put that outfit on, and now you’re feeling some form of satisfaction knowing you got a rise out of Hyunsuk.

“It’s ok, you can’t help how sexy you are,” Hyunsuk said. Your mouth hung open, you couldn’t believe your best friend just called you sexy. You turned to face him, the moonlight casting the perfect lighting onto his already flawless face. At this moment, his lips have never looked so kissable to you before.

He turned to look at you too, and it was like a switch flipped. He was no longer afraid of ruining your friendship, he needed you more than anything at that moment. He closed the distance between you and pressed his soft lips against yours. You sighed of relief and closed your eyes, as you’ve been waiting for this moment for years. After a few seconds, you pulled away to look at him again.

“Sukkie, I-I don’t know what to say. I’m so happy right now” You said

“Y/N…I need you to know that I’ve loved you for years. I didn’t want to risk ruining our friendship by confessing prematurely. I wanted to make sure you liked me first, that’s why when Byounggon posted that photo it crushed me. I just wanted to have you to myself and I thought I lost you” Hyunsuk confessed.

“Hyunsuk, I love you too. I always have and I always will. You’re still my best friend no matter what, but I think I want to be more than just friends with you” You said. Hyunsuk smiled at you before leaning in to kiss you again. This time, however, it was a little more passionate. His tongue grazed your lips as you opened your mouth a little wider, allowing for his tongue to enter your mouth. He brought his hands up to your neck, pulling you even closer to him. He broke the kiss and started to trail down your neck. The sensation of his warm mouth on your sensitive skin sent shivers down your spine, and you wanted more. He returned to your mouth and you kissed him for a while longer before you noticed the growing bulge in his pants, and the growing heat in yours.

“Should we take this to the bedroom?” Hyunsuk whispered. You nodded and quickly stood up from the ground and grabbed the blanket, signaling for him to get off before you picked it up and folded it. You two then ran back to the house, hand in hand, anxious to be close together again.

Once you reached the bedroom it was as if every care you had in the world was gone. Hyunsuk shut the door behind him and you two were once again kissing, this time faster and more aggressive. He grabbed you by the waist and pushed your body against the wall. He yet again slipped his tongue in your mouth, which made you whimper. You grabbed him by the hair and somehow managed to pull him even closer than he already was.

His fingers found his way up your shirt, and he started to feel your breasts between the fabric of your bra. This action made you moan into his mouth. You couldn’t help but rock your hips against his due to his touch, and that’s when you noticed his hard on pressing against you. He pulled back from the kiss, a thin trail of saliva still connecting the two of you. He then picked you up and placed you on the bed in a seated position.

“I want to please you, tell me what you want me to do to you,” Hyunsuk said, looking down at you.

“Hyunsuk…please just touch me” you say desperately, clenching your legs together as you were slightly embarrassed about the wetness that has already accumulated for him.

“Just wait baby, I’ll get to that” he said. Hyunsuk decided he wanted to move as slow as possible to relish every moment he had with you.

He kneeled on the ground in front of you then slipped his fingers into the waistband of your shorts and slid them down your legs. You threw your shirt off for him as the material became unbearable in the heat of the moment. He looked you up and down, admiring your natural beauty that was displayed before him. He knew you couldn’t wait any longer for him, so he then put two fingers in your mouth and demanded for you to suck on them, to which you happily listened. This sight made him twitch with anticipation, as he couldn’t wait to make you feel good.

After his fingers were coated in your saliva he slowly entered one finger into your gaping hole that was just begging to be touched. The sound you made was unholy, as you whipped your head back from the instant pleasure. He easily slipped in the second finger because of how soaked you were, and he started working at a pace to stretch you in preparation for later. You became a moaning mess and fully fell backwards onto the bed as you couldn’t sit up anymore. As much as you wanted to watch him finger you, he was doing it so well that it made you almost pass out from bliss and you couldn’t help but throw your head back again. He rammed his fingers into your g-spot over and over again as you hissed out profanities from all the pleasure he was providing.

“You’re so fucking hot” Hyunsuk whispered before sticking his tongue out and circling it around your clit. He then started to move his fingers in and out of you faster while trying to work his tongue at the same speed. This caused you to start seeing white as it felt so amazing. You never realized Hyunsuk could make you cum by just his fingers, as no other man has ever come close to making you feel this good. You started to buck your hips against his working tongue, and you were on the verge of climaxing.

“Hyunsuk…I-I’m gonna…I might-”

Hyunsuk then pulled his fingers out abruptly, the brief absence of his touch made you feel empty. He didn’t want you to cum just yet. He stood up and then made you sit up.

“Before I continue, I need to know what it’s like to have your lips around my cock” he said. You didn’t even need to be asked twice. As soon as he said those words you lunged forward to unzip and pull his pants down. To your surprise, Hyunsuk was big. Bigger than you expected, but you didn’t care. You didn’t hesitate to put his dick in your mouth before beginning to suck on it.

He dug his fingers into your hair and pulled your head back to look up at him. You continued to go up and down on his length until you felt him begin to twitch. You started licking the tip and around the base until you felt him throbbing. He couldn’t take it anymore, he needed to fuck the shit out of you. Before you could finish sucking him off, Hyunsuk pushed you back to lay down before climbing on top of you.

“Is this ok baby?” He asked, lining his dick up by the entrance. The sudden nickname made you smile.

“Hyunsuk if you don’t fuck me right now I think I’m actually going to die” you said back. He chuckled a bit before starting to push his cock into your entrance. You moaned louder than expected at this, but you didn’t care. He was so big that it hurt you, and you’ve had sex before. Once he got it all the way in, the pain was quickly replaced by pleasure due to how turned on you were. He leaned down to capture your lips in a deep passionate kiss before beginning to thrust into you. He felt your walls clench as he moved his cock in and out of your slick folds, which only turned him on even more. You couldn’t help yourself and began to dig your nails deep into his back muscles creating bright red scratch marks.

“Y/N, ahhh…fuck…you’re so good…” He said between thrusts. You couldn’t believe you were making your best friend moan like this, but it brought you a lot of satisfaction. He continued to buck his hips into yours, moving faster and faster as he gently held your waist down onto the bed. He then started to slow down, and you whimpered as you wanted him to continue going at the fast pace. You didn’t want this moment to be over already.

“Can you flip around for me baby? I want to fuck you from behind” Hyunsuk said. You nodded at him and gladly turned over onto your stomach, your bare ass completely exposed to him.

“I know I said this already, but you are so sexy Y/N, '' Hyunsuk said as he placed his huge hands on your ass and gave it a light smack. He then pulled you back towards him by your hips and went to kneel behind you on the bed, positioning is cock yet again at your entrance. He wasted no time slipping it in this time, as you were already prepped. The sudden penetration made you yelp slightly.

“Are you okay darling, did I go too fast?” Hyunsuk asked, sounding worried.

“No it’s ok! I just didn’t expect it, but please keep going” You responded with desperation in your voice. He nodded and started to push deeper into you before pulling out and re-entering again. You could barely handle this motion as he was so large it made you weak. Hyunsuk then started a fast steady pace thrusting in and out of your hole that had you panting and yearning for more. Your walls started to clench even tighter as you could feel yourself yet again building up to your climax. You turned to look at him, and seeing him clenching his jaw while focusing on fucking you was all you needed to finish.

“Hyunsuk, I’m going to cum” you almost yelled. Hyunsuk was also close, he increased his speed and started to thrust extremely sloppy as all he wanted was for you and him to cum together. He leaned down and kissed you wherever his mouth could reach and you attempted to kiss him back, only grazing his lips with the corner of your mouth. Suddenly you couldn’t take it anymore, and your body trembled as the feeling of your orgasm overtook you. This sight made Hyunsuk thrust into you one last time before he finished inside you. The hot sensation of his cum made you feel weak, and when he fully pulled his cock out he left a small trail on the bed sheets.

You fell flat onto the bed to rest as Hyunsuk quickly went to the bathroom to grab a towel and clean you up. Once he returned he tried rubbing the cum out of the sheets, but only made it worse.

“Shit, sorry Y/N I meant to pull out and cum on your back but…I couldn’t help it” He said sheepishly. You chuckled at his ridiculous apology.

“It’s fine Sukkie, I appreciate the effort. Let’s just get some new bed sheets to sleep on…and we’ll hunt for some plan b tomorrow” You suggested, standing up and walking to the closet where you luckily found spare sheets to put on. After remaking the bed, your body felt so tired that you couldn’t even bring yourself to go to the bathroom to get ready to sleep. Instead, you plopped down onto your side of the bed. Hyunsuk followed and draped his arm around you, pulling you in closer towards his warm exposed chest. You rested your head on his side, as you couldn’t believe that just happened.

“So…is our friendship over?” Hyunsuk asked quietly.

“I think so,” You said, leaning up to kiss him quickly on the lips.

“I think we have a different kind of relationship now,”

You took his hand in yours. Hyunsuk had a huge grin on his face, he was so excited to start a new chapter in his life with you.

“Y/N, I would love for you to be my girlfriend. Of course, you’ll always be my best friend, but I think girlfriend is a more fitting title now” Hyunsuk said.

“And I would love for you to be my boyfriend” You said back. You threw your arm over his body as you snuggled in close to him, smelling his cologne as you took a deep breath and closed your eyes, ready for sleep to overtake you.

“I love you, Y/N” Hyunsuk said before shutting his eyes.

“I love you, Hyunsuk” You said back, drifting off to sleep in his arms.

THE END

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possibilistfanfiction · 8 months

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do you have any funny or cute details about Bea(or avatrice) in your butch Bea universe that you haven't share yet?

(I'm definitely re-reading some of it to fight against this bad day I'm having)

hello i’m sry this is late! work has been busy 😵‍💫 i hope ur day improved or at least there’s been some better days since 🫶

hmm well bea is good at like… every outdoors activity she tries — she’s coordinated & strong & focused, so once she gets the body mechanics down she’s like. above average to Excellent fairly quickly. surfing, trail running, backcountry hiking, bouldering, trad climbing, skiing, etc. i am lazy & put them in socal since i am in socal lmao but for the majority of the year california really is just outdoor enthusiast paradise.

she started trying stuff bc ava was gone & she was so sad & when her cool friends from surfing were planning a trip to climb in joshua tree or some ppl she met on the pct were driving up to mammoth for an end of the season ski, it was all better to be moving outside in grief than it was to sit at home in an empty house.

i think that maybe she worries, when she’s alone surfing or on a long run along the cliffs, even just bouldering at the gym with her airpods in instead of hanging out w friends who are there — maybe she worries that ava would be disappointed in her, that this isn’t what ava meant by ‘live your life’ — quiet streams & long car rides into the piney forest in a practical small suv, listening to a podcast about architecture. it seems small, to be in the wild — the ocean, the woods, the mountains, the desert — & not grand; at least, she feels small. she worries ava wanted her to feel big.

but then ava comes back & bea has been keeping a list of all the places to show ava, all the things to do with her, the movement & the air that kept her just on this edge of sane. & of course ava is delighted by it all — the kid who cried on the beach when she saw stars? absolutely in love with the waves & the wind in the trees & the sunset on a big hammock on a hot night in the desert in the summer. it makes sense to ava & it is what she meant — settling into the texture of a life.

it’s good to feel small sometimes, yknow? she tells bea, when they’re eating sandwiches a few miles into a hike on the lost coast — ava refuses to camp, so they’re meeting friends later on. it’s good to feel small in a world that’s so big.

they make s’mores that night with their friends & it’s dark & beautiful; the sand & the sea & the sky are all wine-dark & quiet-loud; there are so many stars. it’s rainy & cold in the bay the next day & they sleep in & eat ramen & don’t leave their hotel room all day (ava’s request; if he had to hike ten miles he earned it tenfold). bea worried that a slow day might seem small too, but ava sinks into it just like everything else: rest & softness.

eventually bea gets more used to it, & better at letting it happen. in recovery from top surgery, the worst part is not being able to get outside for a while — but ava drives them both to the mountains & they sit on the balcony together while it snows. when ava can’t move as well, they sit in the warm sand by the beach & bea puts her hand on the small of her back when they walk in the cool surf. eventually bea’s shown ava every place she ached & then there’s the rest of the world left to explore.

#butch bea 🥺🫡#if i could abscond to the mountains tomorrow forever i simply would #lol

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is-the-snake-video-cute · 1 year

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Have you mentioned Viago before? I love hearing about your snakes!

Not sure, but I'll happily show him off! He's an adorable little stringbean of a California kingsnake. I've got some pictures I snapped of him in his enclosure a few days ago.

Ignore all the boxes in his enclosure - empty cardboard boxes heat bulbs come in are great enrichment and he prefers to climb all over his like a jungle gym and scatter them throughout his enclosure.

Viago's great, he turned a year old back in February and he's deep in the juvenile kingsnake shoelace phase - almost a foot and a half long, and he's still just a bit wider around than your pinky finger. I got him when he wouldn't eat for his breeder, but he just needed some one-on-one attention and he's been thriving ever since. He's a delight, very polite and getting some wonderful confidence. Always comes up to the front of his enclosure to say hi when he sees me.

It's a shame he doesn't have a good temperament to be an ambassador - he's just way too food-motivated and tries for a feeding bite almost time he's held. He's a confident, extraverted, super delightful little snake otherwise.

One of my favorite things about him is his cute pink checkered belly!

#not a rating #my snakes #kingsnakes

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bedupolker · 2 years

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What was your journey towards working as a ranger?

I was dumped by a girl in animation college, so I did what any self-respecting nineteen year old would do: listen to a shit load of weezer and risk my life by rock climbing and hiking with inadequate gear and little to no experience. One day during an expedition I met a wise old ex-convict who told me there was a place I could hike and climb and listen to weezer every day without anyone telling me otherwise: the wilderness. He used to work at one of the restaurants at yosemite. Since I hate having money and affording things, instead of working I decided to volunteer, with Grand Canyon. I did audio video at first but quickly realized that it was stupid to do audio video at the Grand Canyon and I just hiked every weekend. I quickly learned that I could walk very fast in high temperatures, that this was probably my greatest talent yet. But alas I had to return to the city to finish animation college. I no longer cared about Steven Universe or Tangled, all I could think about was the sunbaked red rock that had forged me into the man I am today. Nothing made me feel more alive than being on the brink of heatstroke. I worked odd jobs, I even worked at a Patagonia and still own all the clothes I got from there to this day. I worked on an island with a prison on it. I worked in a climbing gym. But then, covid happened. I lost all my jobs. But I had something better than a job: two thousand dollars, plus unemployment, courtesy of daddy Uncle Sam. So I signed up for EMT school. It wasn't glamorous. My first day working as an EMT was also the day I learned that the California Minimum Wage was, in fact, less than fifteen dollars. I toiled as a covid tester, spelunking in nostrils of all shapes and sizes. But then, a beacon of hope: a nearby mountain was hiring for ski patrol. I didn't know how to ski at the time, but being a straight white man, if there's one thing I'm naturally good at it's being hired for jobs I'm massively under qualified for. It was one of the best jobs I'd ever had, I would've gone back if the housing situations wasn't one of the worst I'd ever had. I saw all kinds of blood, and bones, and learned all the ways a shoulder could pop out of a human's body. Very cool stuff. I also learned how to ski pretty well. But alas, spring came, and I had to come face to face with USAjobs dot gov. That's when my current supervisor contacted me. He had one question for my references: was I an alcoholic? My references both said no, I only drink at social events after work. And thus, I was hired. The rest is history.

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r0ttenb0gb0dy · 3 days

Text

jack ‘canary’ skalbek — full backstory

this is incredibly self indulgent, but i wanted to get it out of my chest, i guess. it's raw and silly at times but i love it all the same and i hope you do too. ive never posted my writing on tumblr so i really hope it does ok out here heh.

18+ for swearing, canon COD violence, no explicit sex but alluding to further acts, just generally not for minors ! adult topics and characters individual trauma discussed within .

There’s something to be said about the haze of being a teenager in California in the early aughts. The warm, all-over feeling of the sun beating down on tanned, freckled skin. Bruised knees, busted knuckles. Spending every day in a lake or a river, god forbid the chlorine riddled soup of a swimming pool, making the most out of what time is had.

Jack Skalbek was, by all accounts, an average teenager, who did average teenage things. Smoking pot behind the bleachers when he should be in class, watching his marginally more athletic friends throw themselves at gym class like it actually mattered. Football, soccer — whatever it was, he could usually find Keegan and Alex there.

Keegan, a year his senior, and Alex a year older, the closest things he could call his friends. They’d spent much of their childhood daydreams running around town together, iPod plugged into a speaker on the back of one of their bikes, blasting some obnoxiously emo music that all of them indulged in. 2004 lends itself to that aspect, dyed hair and painted nails, one too many chains hanging off of Jack’s wallet.

Alex would never speak of it, but he could see it in little glimpses. Catch the fleeting hand-holds and hushed laughter, that look.

There was no way they weren't feeling something.

They just didn't know what to call it.

Sitting on the roof of Jack’s parent’s house, having climbed up through an access point that certainly wasn't meant to be used by 16 year olds, Keegan and Jack lingered. Long past Alex’s curfew, his need to return home leaves them in each other's presence.

“You decide anything about college yet?” Keegan asked, watching Jack fumble with his lighter in an attempt to light the cigarette between his lips. They tasted awful, and he didn't even like the nicotine buzz, but the ‘deep breathing' exercise was relaxing.

“No — I mean, I still have a year.” Jack huffed, sighing with satisfaction as he got it to light. The burn in his throat was comforting, but his attention was more focused on Keegan. “Did you?”

“Yeah.” Keegan murmured, his voice low and quiet. “I, uh, I was talkin’ to a recruiter downtown the other day.”

“Oh? Is that why you blew off our mall date?”

“It wasn't a date, but yes.” Keegan chuckled, pulling the sleeves of his hoodie down over his hands. Worn from use, he slipped his thumbs through holes in the cuffs, the heather gray fabric fraying at the edges. He felt like he was doing the same thing, some days.

“So, like, what sport? Did you get picked up for football?”

“No, I mean, like — a Marine recruiter.”

“Oh! Yeah, I got that letter too — you actually went and talked to those guys?” Jack snickered, but Keegan was infinitely more serious about it. He had really gone and discussed a future in the military? What future was there in something like that? Brutish violence and bloodshed, all for some rich man’s greed — proxy wars.

“I mean, yeah. Alex came with me. They said I’d be a prime candidate. I’m taking the test soon to see where I place, but they said my grades were high enough that —”

“Slow down.” Jack turned to face the other boy entirely, the warm glow of the setting sun painting him somewhere between coral pink and tangerine. His eyes, though, were still an icy blue. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “You joined?”

“Enlisted.” The dark haired boy shrugged, fixing his gaze on Jack’s. “It’s no big deal, Jackie.”

“It’s a really big deal.”

“It’s not — it's the same as if you told me you were gonna go to art school in New York City.”

“Art school doesn't get me killed.” Jack said softly, almost embarrassed that his qualm with the entire thing was the idea of his person Keegan dying. His cheeks were flushed red, all heated up and uncomfortable. He averted his gaze, but Keegan's hand on his cheek returned him to reality.

“Is that what bothers you about it?”

“It's dangerous, Keegan. Y-You could get shot, or lose a leg, or —”

“I can live without a leg.”

“You're not funny.” Jack groaned, pushing Keegan's hand away only to feel it in his hair this time, fingers laced in-between his long grey-blonde hair. It grounded him, making his thoughts clear up and focus down to just one, very clear idea. “I don't want you to go. I-I thought you had to be 18 to enlist.”

“If I pass all the tests, they’ll make an exception. It’s still a couple months out, I’ll be 18 by the time I get out on deployment.” Keegan said whilst gently brushing through Jack’s hair, a bit tangled from being wet earlier that day, knotted with pool water. “This is somewhere I can make a difference.”

“But why does it have to be you?” Jack replied, having long forgotten his cigarette by now. It was mostly ash, all balanced perfectly at the end. One little twitch of his hand and it all fell off, leaving half an inch of smokable length behind. It didn't matter anymore, though.

“Because if I don't, and I just assume someone else will, nothing’ll ever change.”

“How poetic.” Jack mumbled, closing his eyes as Keegan’s hand drew forward, back to his jaw. Soft, gentle, well intentioned. Better than anyone that Jack could ever pray to fill the gap Keegan would surely leave behind with. It made his heart ache knowing that these nights were fleeting, slipping through his fingers already and Keegan hadn't even passed his exams yet. “Promise that you’ll come back from wherever they send you?”

Keegan bit back the words that came to mind first, acknowledging that he couldn't promise to come back. Men and women die all of the time overseas, and he could likely become one of the many that don’t come home outside of a casket. He looked down at Jack, those soft brown eyes enamored with him, and knew he had to make that impossible promise.

“I’ll come back to you.”

It happened quickly. His exams came up fast and he passed them with flying colors, eviscerating the physical testing all the same. Even with the sword of Damocles above their heads, they continued to share hurried kisses and late nights, begging for a few minutes more from the universe. Fighting the timer with every movement. Pressured by the impending doom, Jack started applying to colleges — it was a year too soon, but if Keegan could weasel his way into the Marine Corps at 17 then he could finesse his way into some pretentious art school.

Flashes in his memory now, images of his acceptance letter and Keegan’s coming just days apart, his call to action a far greater anomaly. He and Alex would be leaving for the opposite side of the country in a matter of weeks, ensuring Jack felt helpless. His best friends, whisked away to die in the middle of the desert.

The night before Keegan needed to be at the airport, to be sworn in and shipped off, he didn't spend a second longer at home than he needed to. He was at Jack’s house the second he finished packing, duffel bags discarded at the front door. Mrs. Skalbek would surely move them and re-fold the messy clothes, probably even press his uniform nicely for the next day — she knew it, too, the way that her boy was enraptured by the Russ kid.

She didn't mind, even if Keegan’s parents did. He was leaving, now, she could at least provide them with a safe home for one more evening.

Keegan half expected Jack to break down in tears, begging for him to change his mind or something, but he didn't. He opened the window of his room instead, letting the salt air in, a gentle breeze cooling the room down. Christmas lights strung from the ceiling the only real illumination save for the fading sunset, casting a pinkish glow over everything. On his desk, a closed sketchbook with about a million drawings of Keegan and Alex, though there was a distinct pattern of a particular set of blue eyes repeating every few pages. Then there was Jack laying on his bed, swallowed whole by the comforter, his sad and tired eyes fixed on Keegan in the doorway.

They skipped the “awkward” part fairly quickly.

No hello or how are you, just straight and to the point. Wrapped up in each other’s arms above the sheets, bodies warm and hazy at the edges, blurring the lines between a tangle of limbs. Jack didn't say a word as he closed his eyes and breathed in the achingly familiar scent of the gold standard of a boy he’d grown to love.

“Don’t get hung up on me, alright?” Keegan asked, sleep laced between his words.

“What’d’you mean?”

“Like…go and do whatever you’re gonna do in LA. Don’t worry about me. I can handle my own.”

“Respectfully, shut the fuck up. I’ll be worried about you until you’re home.”

“M’not gonna change your mind, am I?”

“No.” Jack replied, pulling Keegan in closer. It was much too hot for proximity like this, but neither seemed to care.

“At least make some good memories so we have somethin’ to talk about when I come back.”

Jack hummed in reply and drifted off to sleep against his will, waking up without another body in his bed. In a panic he sat up, making his head spin, but he realized Keegan was just getting dressed. He hadn't left yet. The uniform he wore looked foreign on his frame, a little too big on him, but he looked happy enough in it. Keegan looked up when Jack startled awake, a slight frown on his face.

“Wanted to slip out without wakin' you.”

“You didn't say goodbye.”

“That was the point, Jackie.” Keegan chuckled as he sat on the edge of the bed, lacing his boots up with unpracticed hands. “I didn't wanna make you have to go through a goodbye.”

He was right. Goodbye sounded awful. It took Jack a moment of contemplation before he settled on an alternative, his half asleep brain convincing him it was a great idea.

“I love you.” Jack spoke softly, though confident in those three words. They'd remained an unspoken law thus far, only now being brought into the fabric of reality. They made Keegan stop in his tracks for a split second.

“I love you, too, Jackie.” He replied, his voice a solemn tone. After he finished tying his boots he turned and placed a kiss on Jack’s forehead, rustling his hair up one more time for good measure. “I’ll text you when I get to base. Be safe.”

‘made it 2 base. no phone 4 a few months. alex says hi. xx keegs.’

Jack loved and hated those text updates every single time he received one. They were few and far in-between, but they meant the world. It was all he really had left of Keegan. The following summer, after nearly a year of no real contact, Jack finally got a phone call. He was moving into his dorm at UCLA when his phone started blaring Keegan’s ringtone, setting his mind on high alert. Jack fumbled his phone open, pressing the green answer button as soon as his fingers stopped shaking enough to do so.

“Keegan?”

“Jackie.”

He’s alive.

“Oh, it’s so good to hear your voice. Holy shit.” Jack laughed, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes from the sheer emotional weight. He could hear idle chatter in the background, Alex’s voice included, carrying on about something he didn't quite understand. “How has it been?”

“Listen, I don't have a lot of time. We’re gonna be leaving for Tel Aviv, soon.” Keegan sounded all too serious, some of that warmth and wonder gone from his voice. It’d dropped an octave, too. “S’been good, Jackie. I just wanted to call and talk to you before we hit dirt.”

“Tel Aviv?” Jackie mumbled. “You’re in the middle of the war?”

“Fuckin’ neck deep in it.” Keegan replied quietly. “You made it to LA, right?”

“Didn't know you still got my texts.”

“Of course I do. I just — I don't have time to reply, some days. I don't have a good excuse, either. Just want to make sure you know I meant it, back then. Miss you like hell.”

“S’that your girl?” Someone’s voice called from a distance, earning a huff out of Keegan. “Is she hot?”

“Shut your fuckin’ trap!” He barked back. “Sorry, Jackie. Listen, I — I gotta bounce, I don't know how long we’ll be out here. Be safe for me, okay?”

“I — yeah, of course, K.” Jack stuttered, running a hand back through his hair in a self-soothing manner. Though Keegan hadn't said the words, Jack wanted to make sure that the point got across that he understood. “I love you, too.”

Click.

Radio silence did not begin to describe what followed that phone call. Jack pushed down his anxiety for a long, long while, ignoring all of the news outlets claiming that a civilian hospital in Tel-Aviv had been assaulted and defended by U.S. Marines. That there had been countless casualties, that those men would be honored posthumously with medals and awards. He didn't read a single article out of fear that he would see Keegan Russ or Alex Johnson in the list of names.

College flew by. The war raged on. He didn't hear from Keegan, his family, no one. Even when his mother called, he blew her off, fearing that she was calling to break the news of his untimely death in the Middle East. Birthday after birthday, year after year, and he had not even begun to fill the space in his chest with something real. Uppers and downers, party culture — it was his way of smothering the pain temporarily, far better than anything his psychologist offered him in way of coping.

Deep breathing exercises and journaling didn't bring Keegan back.

Nothing did.

Not drinking, not partying, not kissing strangers in bars — nothing.

The world continued to strife while Jack continued to linger in 2004, the better part of him remaining on the rooftop of his mom’s house. He especially noticed his inability to change with the rest of the world as ‘The Federation of the Americas’ rose to power. News of their rampage spread like wildfire until they, themselves had spread closer and closer to the U.S. Even when their leader was assinated, it didn't stop them.

Tensions were high, tides ebbing and flowing with every passing day, until 2017.

Jack Skalbek had settled into his life in Los Angeles. He had a house that he rented with a few roommates, a cat, a rather nice car — nothing was too awful those days. He could go outside on his porch and rip a bong like his life depended on it, seeing stars in broad daylight, and —

Wait.

Those aren't stars. It’s broad daylight.

Jack blinked a couple of times as he raised his hand over his eyes, shielding out the harsh glow of the sun. There were small pieces of something hurtling towards the earth, like shooting stars, and as they drew closer he knew they weren't small. They were large, flaming chunks of a spacecraft or something — that was the only logical explanation.

People were running. Something was rumbling.

Impact.

The earth split in two, directly through Los Angeles, and all Jack could do was run. He ran like he never had before, stumbling through the literally broken streets with little regard for anything else. His cat, Molly, leapt out into the street (he never quite stopped thanking God for that) and he scooped her up, hauling ass as fast as he could.

He never really stopped running.

Molly learned to stay at his side, mewling as they traversed what remained of Los Angeles for a while, eventually forced up North by the Federation’s invasion. Before he knew it, Jack had found company with a military squad, having been on base whenever ODIN hit. They stuck together in the aftermath, and when they found Jack essentially camping in the wilderness, they picked him up. At least then, he was “camping” with a group of heavily armed, skilled soldiers.

It didn't last long, the ideation that he could just tag along. Before he knew it, Lieutenant Ames had shoved a rifle into his hands.

“You're too tall to be a sniper and too lanky to be close quarters, so you’re gonna scout. Think you can manage that, Skalbek?” Ames asked, watching Jack inspect the rifle. He’d never used a gun before, or held one, but he supposed that now was as good a time as any to learn how. It would likely be the only difference between him living and dying, so it felt important.

A distant memory these days, although a sweet one, Keegan would have been proud of him. He had passable marksmanship, steady artist hands coming in handy for such a task. His lungs were a weakness, but it wasn't exactly commonplace to come upon large quantities of smokable substances in their travels. Stretching a pack of cigarettes became a habit, until he was barely smoking them at all. Once he could hold his breath long enough to get a few shots off, he was good enough.

That was all that mattered. He could protect himself in the wild.

Jack spent years with the same crew of men, calling them brothers. He never grew too close, never squinted to see Keegan’s face in theirs — he didn't think of those blue eyes often those days. It was hard to dream of good things in such a bad place, like a war-torn America, in desperate need of saving.

Jack just prayed that Keegan was alright, wherever he may be, whatever he may be doing. He had to have survived the initial attack in Tel Aviv.

The soldiers would gossip about a team of men that came from Santa Monica, made up of the survivors from Tel Aviv — fifteen men out of sixty that came out on top when up against five hundred Federation attackers. Ghosts, they were called, a supernatural force that somehow overcame the odds.

He believed that men had survived, but he didn't believe that they were so mythical. Though, after so many years of dissidence, some will cling to those little miracles out of desperation.

Hope was a very dangerous thing for anyone to have, let alone some random man from Northern California that barely survived Los Angeles' implosion, but he had it. Even if he would never admit such a thing aloud for fear of it being taken away. Jack spent most of his time from 2017 until 2022 doing the best he could to hold himself together, and eventually in the winter of that year, it came crashing down.

He woke up to gunshots. Loud, quick, violent. Close. Jack startled awake and reached for his rifle, but before he could even aim he felt a firm thunk on the side of his head. Everything hurts, his head ringing until he falls unconscious, and everything goes painfully black.

Jack had never been knocked unconscious before, but he learned quickly that the wake-up was infinitely worse than the go-down. Nothing was worse than realizing he was chained up, though. His hands were cuffed above his head, the distinct taste of copper rich on his tongue as his eyes fluttered.

“Fuck…” Jack breathed, the sound of his lungs almost wet. He’d surely aspirated his own blood, but he couldn't be certain he wasn't waterboarded by the way his lungs felt liquidy. “Hello?”

Mistake.

A Federation soldier joined him in that cell within seconds, and he learned to keep his mouth shut from then on. It went on for a week straight, the torture, getting beat senseless day in and out by Feds just for fun. They’d laugh, dump alcohol on his gaping wounds, break bones like it was a game. One of them took a bat to his knee on the last day of that first week, and he was sure that he would die in that cell.

Cold. Alone. Bloody.

Months went by. Long, arduous. Sometimes he wouldn't see another human being for several days, and then he would be forced to take a beating alongside another of the soldiers from his company. He wasn't sure when he started referring to himself as one of them, as a soldier, but the Feds saw him that way too.

Corporal Skalbek. The punching bag.

Six. Long. Months.

He was happy that he was still alive on occasion, but most days were spent half-conscious and starving for breath. He couldn't even scream anymore. His throat was so terribly dry he was certain that it was only wet from his blood, coating every gulp with the distinct taste of it. If he coughed, it’d sputter out and paint his pale flesh with an array of sanguine specks, blending with the other stains from the physical abuse. Bruises littered his body, alongside gashes and lacerations, marks from where ligatures had dug into his skin.

The handcuffs were always the worst, a little too rusty and worn, sure to give him tetanus if he survived this ordeal. But, in some sort of optimistic turn, he wasn't sure he would survive it.

If Jack closed his eyes, he could almost hear Marines charging the camp, barking orders over gunfire. That, however, was a fantasy, just like the idea of going home was. Well, at least back to the U.S.. LA wasn't home anymore, and he didn't rightly have a place to live since the soldiers he ran with were always moving, but he would be happy to live in an abandoned motel for the rest of his days at this rate.

Fantasies of a better life left him feeling warm and fuzzy inside despite the exhaustion gripping his every emotion. He was sure, now, that he was starting to see things that weren't really there. Disturbed cognitive functioning is a symptom of mental deterioration, and with the way his mind was creating custom imagery of Marines coming to save him he had to be close to death at this rate. The deafening sound of gunfire traveled closer down the hallway, echoing off the walls alongside the repetitive drum-beat of bootfalls.

“Clear every room — I want every last one of these boys to survive.” A voice shouted, followed by a few affirmative replies of some kind. Jack perked up, straining the cuffs holding his hands up, aggravating the painful friction wounds. A fresh stream of blood ran down his forearms, warm and wet.

It took a few minutes for him to actually believe that someone was here to rescue him from this hell, but once he did he started fighting his restraints. Trying desperately to make the chains jingle but failing at that as well. The pain in his wrists was too much to simply push through it, and he truthfully couldn't feel the lower half of his body anymore. He tried to push himself up on his knees but they were in pure agony.

It wasn't fair.

They’d never hear him.

When they came to the door of his cell, a pair of eyes appeared in the barred enclosure, glancing the room over. He opened his mouth to speak, to beg for mercy, but once more nothing came out. Jack fought his restraints once again and the eyes lit up. Next thing he knew, the door was wide open and he was sure that this was all some vivid hallucination before his death.

The man looked to be a grim reaper, or a twisted angel of mercy. His eyes were nearly white, they were so blue and he knew right then and there that it was him.

He couldn’t mistake those eyes.

“Hey — look’a’me. You’re gonna be jus’ fine.” The man’s voice was low and gravelly, husky in every sense of the word. He went to whimper his excitement but, well…it came out as a coughing fit, blood coating his dry lips once again. Did he not recognize Jack? Has so much changed? Did he not look like himself anymore? “Don't push yourself.”

Jack huffed and sat patiently as the man, who’s last name was too blurry to read and he knew it anyway, broke the cuffs off his wrists with bolt cutters. It hurt, but it reminded him that this was actually happening and that he was alive still. Air still filled his lungs at a quickened pace, he could still feel the warmth of another person’s flesh on his. The man had gloves on, but there was life in his touch — gripping Jack’s fragile and broken body.

“Can you walk?” He asks. Jack shakes his head rapidly and the man doesn't reply, picking the semi-emaciated other up without hesitation. When they enter the hallway, Jack can see the blurry outlines of other men populating the space, both his soldier friends and Marines. “Merrick! Got the last one — he’s not doing too hot.”

“Exfil’s outside — he’s still breathing?’ ‘Merrick’ called back, a fuzzy figure in the distance.

“Barely. Pulse is thready.” The man holding him barked back to Merrick, leaving Jack wondering if he would die anyways, regardless of being saved. It was getting hard to stay awake now that he knew he wasn't going to be stuck in captivity any longer, his eyelids fighting sleep. He knew he was safe. “Hey — stay awake. Eyes on me.”

Jack suddenly felt his eyes open wide again, fixing on the man holding him. He felt like a teenager all over again, looking up through tired eyes on that last day before he lost his best friends to a war he was now fighting, too.

“There we go…eyes on me. Just a few more minutes.” Focusing on that voice wasn't hard. It had gotten deeper, but it was as familiar as breathing.

It was just a few more, in truth. Jack found himself seated in the back of a Humvee, bleeding all over the fabric interior. His body begged for sleep but his blue-eyed angel kept nudging him awake, occasionally pinching his arm to make sure he felt something enough to keep him awake.

“Stop it. You fall asleep, you die.” He huffed in frustration as Jack dozed off again.

“Don't be such a prick, Keegan. He’s a prisoner of war.” Merrick called from the front passenger seat, gazing back at Jack and his mangled body. A mess of limbs and blood, but with the widest smile he could possibly muster. It was him. In the flesh, breathing right in front of him, holding his hand. “You’re gonna be alright, kid.”

Oh, he would be just fine.

Upon arriving in Fort Santa Monica, he was allowed to rest. Anesthetic sleep was never truly restful, as it was artificial, but it was enough for him to walk in a more lucid state. His vision wasn't blurry, his head was no longer pounding, and he didn't taste blood.

A much better day in Jack’s book by a hundred miles.

He rolled onto his side and overlooked the small med-bay, the typical hustle and bustle of a hospital environment carrying on beyond the curtain. It smelled sterile there, but it was welcome in comparison to the scent of rust and rot. The flat white surface of the curtain was disrupted by a hand, followed by the presence of Keegan fucking Russ.

“Didn't think you'd be awake so soon.” He sort of darts his gaze away from Jack, embarrassed that he’d come to sit with a man that he’d presumed to be unconscious. The trouble, though, really came when Jack went to reply. No noise came out. His throat was sore, but it likely only felt that way because morphine was smothering any real pain he would normally be feeling. He touched at his throat anxiously, fingertips dancing across bandages wrapped around the entirety of his neck. “I can do most of the talking, s’alright. I’d like to know who I’m talking to, though. You know sign language or something?”

Jack rolled his eyes. It definitely made sense for him, a person with functional vocal chords and ears six months ago, to have learned sign language. Keegan chuckled at the display of attitude, not a clue in his mind still that he was who he was.

“Stop me when I say the right letter. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J—”

Jack tapped Keegan’s hand. A flash of recognition crossed his face before he continued.

“Okay, J. A—”

Another tap.

“J-A…A, B, C—”

Tap.

“Jack?” Keegan spoke softly. “You — sorry, you kinda look like someone I know. His name was Jack, too. When LA went, he went, too.”

Huh? How had he even heard something like that? How was he so certain that Jack was dead?

“Nevermind. I’m, uh, Sergeant, First Class. Keegan Russ. You in pain or anything, Jack? I’m sure I could get them to sneak you a little extra morphine or something. Maybe a cigarette? Not that you should smoke with your throat torn open, I guess…”

Jack stared up at him. If there was any uncertainty, it was resolved immediately.

“What’s that fuckin’ look for?”

Jack went to speak and he literally squeaked in place of words. God damnit.

“Exactly. Go on, get some sleep. I’ll be around with a better way for you to talk, later.” Keegan said as he left, pulling the curtain shut once again. Instead of throwing a fit because Keegan didn't recognize him, Jack opted for sleep, coiling up on his side as the morphine lulled him into a sense of security, the warmth putting him out like a light.

A man of his word as he always had been, Keegan returned after Jack got some much-needed sleep, food, and water. He looked somewhat disappointed though, taking a seat across from Jack’s bed.

“Does a pen and paper work? I really thought I’d have a more innovative solution to the, uh, no-talking thing but…” Keegan said sheepishly as he snatched the medical clipboard from the side table of Jack’s bed, flipping to a blank sheet of paper before handing it to Jack alongside a pen.

‘It’s fine.’ Jack wrote, turning it to face Keegan. ‘My wrists hurt, though.’

“I figured — Doc said you got some pretty deep lacs. I’ll keep it brief. Your last name?”

‘Skalbek.’

“No it isn't.” Keegan’s expression dropped. “Don't fuck around. Who the fuck told you that?”

Jack furrowed his brow and turned the clipboard around, scribbling out a response as fast as he could before Keegan reasonably flipped out. ‘Do I not look the same?’

“You're not Jackie.”

‘How can I prove it?’

“You can't. Fucking…that's a sick prank, you know that? Whoever the hell told you his name is gettin' gutted.” Keegan stood up and turned to leave, only serving to frustrate Jack more. How did he not recognize him? It would seem that while he was excited to see Keegan again, Keegan was…upset? He licked his lips, dry and cracked as they were, and did the only thing he figured would work.

He whistled.

He whistled the tune to Drowning Lessons by My Chemical Romance. It was cheesy and fucking stupid, but he knew for a fact that Keegan knew it because they’d bought the CD together. They didn’t rip it off of Limewire or Napster, no, they bought the actual disc.

They would listen to that song on repeat, Jack never quite shutting up about the bridge and the melodies of Gerard Way’s gang vocals, and Keegan always said it was easily the best song on the record. He knew that they were never really together, and they never had a song, but if they did it would be that. He whistled until Keegan’s expression softened up, and he pulled his mask up over his head.

Same oceanic blue eyes, same slightly crooked nose, a few more scars. Still Keegan.

“I searched the wreckage at that address he — you sent me.”

Now, it was Jack’s turn for rightful emotional revelations. Keegan still got his texts in 2017? He only texted out of habit, out of a desire to vent every once in a while to nobody, even knowing that Keegan was dead. Being convinced that he was, at least.

“I found a body, I…”

‘Housemate. I had three.’ Jack wrote, urgent this time.

“He was so-so burnt that I…I thought the worst, I guess, I —” Keegan stuttered, his eyes never quite leaving Jack. The gap between them was much too far all of a sudden. “I need a minute.”

‘Take your time.’ Jack wrote back, but Keegan was gone before he could even turn the paper around. He sighed and leaned back into the pillows, closing his eyes once again. He would never know, but Keegan practically bolted outside because he didn't want to crack in front of anyone, let alone Jack. The dark haired man locked himself in a broom closet and covered his mouth with his gloved hand, chest heaving with pure emotion as he panicked. His entire world view was shattered by that one living, breathing man out there.

Keegan Russ was not a man that broke down often. He fought back the urge to feel anything about this for two decades, to let his emotions get the best of him, but there was little he could do to stop it now. Jack was alive, a miracle in it of itself, but he was right there in front of Keegan. Busted and bruised, shattered bones and a scruffy face, but it was Jack.

He always regretted not getting a hold of him once they survived Tel Aviv, but there was little he could do about his mistakes now. They had already been done. Truthfully at the time it didn't seem like such a terrible thing, Keegan always had the hope that he would make it to UCLA to see Jack when the war ended, but it never did. Then, he looked forward to seeing him again when he moved to the outskirts of the city, but when ODIN struck LA…

In his mind, Jack had died. He had already mourned him and their brief respite of time together. The grief was simply something he grew around, letting it become a piece of his past that he could lovingly look back upon. Smile, knowing he gave Jack the best version of himself, untainted by war and violence.

Now what was he?

A killer, hardened by years of killing Federation soldiers indiscriminately, unable to look himself in the mirror on the bad days. The last thing that they never see coming. A ghost.

Jack didn't deserve that.

After all of that time, of burying his first and only semblance of love in the backyard outside next to who he used to be, he was sitting right there. If he opened up the door right in front of himself, he was right out there.

He moved his hand from his mouth once he was sure his breathing had regulated down to normal, taking a couple of shaky and unsure breaths before feeling satisfied. The last thing he needed was for their medic to appear out of nowhere and start prodding Jack again, only to see Keegan visibly shaken by seemingly nothing.

It wasn't Jack's fault that everything panned out the way it did, and if it was anyone’s fault it would be Keegan’s. He left, not the other way around. In fact, his squad was responsible for Tel Aviv, which sparked the following energy crisis, inevitably landing them where they are today. Here. In Santa Monica, perhaps the last safe place close to No Man’s Land.

There were two options.

He could, reasonably, walk away and let the medical staff deal with Jack. This could end right here and now, send him on his way with the survivors of the squad he was found with. Keegan would never have to see him again, never have to let him see this mangled version of himself that he had become.

Alternatively, he could walk back out there and sit back down, and start from the top. A do-over. Pretend that the last twenty or so years weren't so long, own up to his fuckups, and make a new starting point here and now. It would be infinitely more difficult, but Keegan also knew that it was indubitably the right thing to do.

With a few more seconds of silence to think about what he was about to choose, he stood up from the pile of boxes he’d been sitting on in the closet, and then went right back to Jack’s side.

“Sorry.” Keegan said quietly as he re-opened and shut the curtain again, sort of standing at the end of the bed rather than sitting in the chair he had previously been in. He was too full of anxious energy to sit down, having to actively think about not tapping his boot on the tile floor. “I just — you have to understand why this is weird for me.”

‘I thought the same when you unchained me.’ Jack wrote, earning a little sad-puppy look from Keegan. It was much harder to see Jack all beaten up and bruised knowing that it was, in fact, Jack.

“You don't look the same, for the record. I don't know who this badass, battle-worn version of Jackie is.”

‘Me neither.’ Jack shrugged.

“He seems like an alright guy.” Keegan said, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. “You’ll have to tell me about him whenever you can talk again, huh?”

‘How about you tell me about this Sergeant Russ guy?’

“Very funny. You need some sleep, y’look like shit, Jack.”

‘Come on. You’d have, like, pretty good bedtime stories.’

Keegan couldn't help it, he laughed at that one, a wide smile on his face. Still the same little spark of attitude that he always had, just with a few more years of bite to them.

“Fine — what’d’you wanna know?”

‘Tel Aviv.’

“Not right now. How about…basic training?”

‘Fine.’

It became a ritual, almost. Every single night without fail, Keegan would return to his side with something he stole from the mess hall and a new story, carrying the conversation enough for the two of them. Beforehand, he had been the quiet one, but Jack had involuntarily taken that role. He told him tales of Task Force: STALKER and the Ghosts. Their adventures through the entirety of the war, how many lives they saved — shit, he even got to hang out with Alex, too, on occasion. Well, Ajax, now.

It also became ritualistic that every single night, without fail, he'd wake up in a cold sweat.

He could only manage to gasp for breath, clutching at his throat as he set the attached heart monitors off time and time again. The ringing noise it made was most insensitive to someone having a panic attack, but it at least actually alerted the medic to his state. Grim, his name was, as in reaper.

It was no comfort to have a medic named after death itself at first, but he learned rather early on that Grim was a saint. He’d show up, mute the monitors and administer anti-anxiety medication, which was in short supply, but useful all the same.

Jack wasn’t terribly embarrassed about it either, he’d survived something traumatic and deserved to feel any way about it that he wanted to, until Keegan witnessed one of those late-night panic attacks. He'd fallen asleep in the chair beside Jack’s bed after a late night of one-sided conversation, barely awakened by the quickened breathing of the man in the bed beside him. Jack had never had panic attacks as a teenager, but the heavy breathing and scared eyes were a dead giveaway. Grim had learned to leave the monitor’s sound off, so it wasn't blaring, but Jack was still gasping for breath. His hands were clasped over his chest, eyes screwed shut as he tried to get his heart to slow down.

He looked over when he saw Keegan jolt awake, his eyes flicking anxiously up and down the other man as his cheeks flushed red. Fully embarrassed of the way the trauma affected him so deeply. It meant he was damaged goods. Discardable for something more favorable, less troubled.

“Y’alright? Should I get Grim?” Keegan asks, genuine concern laced into his words. He was so soft spoken it was almost scary, gruff texture never leaving even at a low volume.

“No.” Jack squeaked out, wincing at the pain. It sounded painful, too, a fragile pitch that wavered for the brief second it was spoken. His hand rubbed at the front of his throat, hoping to smother the pain out.

“Easy, Jackie.” Keegan replied, his brow knit in worry.

“M’fine.” Jack hacked, that wet feeling in his lungs returning in a phantasmal way.

“You're not. Take a deep breath. You’re safe. I’m here.” It was so very grounding, hearing those words spoken aloud. He was safe. He was alive. He was no longer cuffed to a wall in some dank basement.

He was with Keegan again.

Jack heaved a few more anxious breaths out, hand grasping at his chest for purchase until Keegan grabbed it, stopping him from scratching at the bandages constricting his breathing, a bit of a frown hidden beneath his mask. At first, Jack struggled, but he gave in after a few short moments of Keegan’s firm, gloved grasp on his twitching fingers.

“Thanks—” His voice comes out timid in both tone and volume.

“Stop trying to talk. You’re just gonna make it hurt worse.”

“Fuck —” Cough. “— off.”

“Just tryin’ t’help.” Keegan murmured, giving Jack’s hand a gentle squeeze. “You've been having night terrors like that a lot?”

Jack went to reply but bit his tongue, squeezing his hand instead.

“Yes?” squeeze. “Okay — hey, I can work with that. Do you want me to stay?”

Jack didn't reply. He just held Keegan's hand tighter, not letting go for a long, long time.

It was unconventional, this method of communication, but it got the point across. One for yes, two for no became the gold standard, especially when he was able to leave the med-bay and explore a bit. Fort Santa Monica was in no state of beauty, sure, but from what he could see it was a haven. There were refugee camps surrounding the military installments, packed tight with families and off-duty soldiers alike, lining the sandbag ridden streets. It was engineered to be impossible to take, the perfect place to shack up just outside of No Man’s Land.

Jack stood outside once he was cleared to walk again, leaning on a railing that overlooked the dismantled city. He was in a great deal of pain most days, but he’d rather grit his teeth and bare it over scarfing down painkillers. A brace and a dream, he could get just about anything accomplished these days.

“Elias said he wants to talk to you.” Keegan’s voice came as a shock, giving Jack the slightest bit of a scare. He turned on his heels to look up at the other man, brow knit in confusion. “Don't know why, don't ask. C’mon.”

What the hell could STALKER’s Lieutenant even want with him? The Ghosts weren’t exactly arms wide open to anyone in particular. They were brothers forged in blood and dirt, and he certainly was not present during Operation Sand Viper. So, short of kicking him out of the encampment, he had no idea what thee Elias Walker could possibly want.

Nothing bad, surprisingly.

“You must be Jackie Skalbek — pleasure. Elias Walker.” A firm handshake from the older man, setting Jack back a few notches. He felt awkward and terribly small next to such a force of power. Keegan had told him so many stories by now that he was certain Elias was inhuman purely based on skill and drive to do more, do better. Jack nodded a reply and Keegan stood quietly by, waiting for his presence to be necessitated.

“So…you’re the infamous Jack.” Elias smiled. “Keegan didn't shut up about you in…what was it, ‘06?”

“Embarrassing.” Keegan huffed, averting his gaze.

“I gotta say, son, your squad sung some high praises of you. Keegan, too. You’ve got a lotta reputation preceding you.” His squad? The soldiers he’d been shacked up with. They were saying he’d done well? His marksmanship was nothing to scoff at, sure, he had steady hands — but make him a soldier it did not. “I know you’re still taking it easy for now, but…we need warm bodies. Desperately. I’m sure Sergeant Russ filled you in on our work, the things that STALKER is responsible for?”

“Only the good parts, I promise.” Keegan said jokingly, earning a bit of a glare from Elias.

“Point is, if you’re up to the challenge, I could use the hands around here. You’re no Marine, but I betcha I can make one out of you yet.” Elias had a sort of warm smile, a confidence that exuded from every word he spoke, that almost made Jack feel like he could do it. How could he fit into the very rigid spot here, though? The lifestyle was hard and rigorous, made for men with years of experience in the field, not…him. “What's that look for?”

“I —” Jack squeaked. Squeaked! In front of Elias Fucking Walker. Frustrated with his own inability to produce a sound that wasn't equivalent to a hamster, he turned to Keegan. Now, they hadn't tried lip reading, but there wasn't exactly a better way to deal with this.

“He’s — slow the fuck down, Jackie, Jesus — he doesn't think he’s cut out for it.” Keegan roughly translated the quick talking, focused on the irregular way Jack formed certain words, the way he most definitely still had a slight lisp based on the way his tongue caught his front teeth sometimes. His fully grown voice was probably lovely if he could choke out more than two words at a time.

“I have it on pretty good authority that before the Federation got their paws on you, you were the best sniper among that squad of army veterans.”

“That was before the Federation.” Keegan translated once again, a slight sadness to the way he spoke the words. It didn't feel good knowing that he’d taken such a confidence blow from being held hostage — it made sense, though. Nobody comes out of that sort of ordeal without a few loose marbles. “He doesn't want to get someone killed because of his inexperience.”

“I understand that, but you've got a certain…quality. It’s that resilience, Jack. That’s what being a Ghost is.”

It resonated deep in his chest, the way that he spoke of what comprised a Ghost. Surviving against all odds. Coming back from ungodly nightmares and asking the world if that was all it had. Having the guts and courage to do what just be done. When Alex and Keegan enlisted, he knew they had more willpower than he ever would, and he wondered how Elias could possibly see that quality in him.

Scrawny, terrified, shaking, Jack Skalbek.

That was no Ghost. He was no soldier.

“I’m not who you think I am.” Keegan spoke his words once more, shaking his head just a little. “I did what I had to do to survive out there, but that's it.”.

“You can live, not just survive. I just need you to have a little faith in yourself, huh? Those boys you ran with sure have it. There’s a lotta folks out there that can't fight for themselves, that’s why we’re here — you can make that difference for folks. It’s up to you, though, I won't force it. I just know a Ghost when I see one, and I have a real good feeling that you’d be at home with us.”

Home. Home wasn't a place anymore, was it? Not since his home got blasted off the face of the earth by ODIN, not since his family and housemates got —

Then, there was us. The Ghosts. His closest friends from growing up.

Men that he’d spent weeks hearing stories of, the legend of brothers in arms coated in blood and sand, walking corpses. He was not made to do that, let alone the minimal work he’d put in during his travels. Jack realized he was just looking at Elias with shock and awe still, shaking his head to get his thoughts right.

Jack knew that if he took this opportunity, he’d be roped into this war for good. Moreso than if he only stuck around for Keegan’s company. There wouldn't be a way out of it, not that there was now, but he would cement his future if he trained to take up work with STALKER. He swallowed his fear, the anxiety welling in his stomach, and extended a hand to Elias.

“Good.” Elias shook his hand, taking it as the ‘yes’ answer that it was. “Once you're cleared for duty, we'll see how well you do.”

“Y-Yessir.” Jack managed to speak, a slight terror in his eyes that paired well with the confidence that came from actually forcing words out.

This, of course, meant that he was now privileged enough to meet the rest of the Ghosts. He’d met them in passing, trailing around behind Keegan most days like a lost dog, but now they were becoming acquainted. They were few in number compared to normal squads and battalions, but they were a force to be reckoned with.

Ajax was more than thrilled to see Jack again, having a much more overwhelmingly positive reaction to his presence than Keegan had. Saying that ‘I knew you weren’t dead because you’re too stubborn to die.’ It almost felt like the before again, memories flickering back to life in the back of his mind. Synapses that hadn't fired in decades.

Kick was the friendliest by far. He sat down with Jack before any proper training and got him kitted out, thrusting a marksman rifle into his hands before he even had the chance to protest. Boasting American made quality, a magazine that would make Vogue blush, and a scope with dual magnification. The matter of his tactical gear would come later, but Kick was more than satisfied to ramble about the specs of his firearms whilst Jack listened intently. He promised him custom gear and maybe even a mask, one day, but he needed more time.

Torch, Grim — they were well acquainted enough from his time in the medical bay under Grim’s watch, Torch often spending his days down there as well for an extra set of hands. He worked in demolitions, but that didn't mean he didn't have surgically delicate hands to assist when Grim couldn't get to something himself. He was actually the one to remove Jack’s stitches — a painfully long process that was almost, but not quite, as bad as his bones getting shattered in the first place. Grim would occasionally cheer ‘you’re doing great!’ and Jack couldn't be sure if he meant him or Torch.

Merrick, though, he was the tough one to crack. Cold, harsh — but effective. He was a decorated officer, completing the SEAL training at 17 years old with flying colors. Sure, Keegan and Ajax had become Marines at the same age, but that wasn't the same as being a Navy SEAL. It was overachievement to the highest degree, except he wasn't showing off — he was just that good. Jack felt small and insignificant in the presence of a man like him, who could outsmart entire battalions of Feds without much forethought.

He was out of his league, and Merrick knew it from the moment they met.

Sitting in the arsenal, having been gifted his uniform by Kick, but too terrified to put it on, Jack just held it. It was dark gray in color, camouflage and flat black as well, though the vest and accompanying guards were all matte black. They’d given him the standard patches that matched everyone else’s, a STALKER insignia set, but his name was the most jarring one to observe.

Skalbek. Corporal Skalbek.

He wasn't even enlisted — how could he be classified as a Corporal? The soldiers called him one, sure, but it was mostly in a teasing way. Jack thumbed over the embroidery and took a deep breath, deciding it would be better to just get dressed and have an existential crisis later. He had to tape and brace his knee in order to walk for long periods, but he’d grown used to the limp in his gait by now that it didn't bother him much anymore. The return of his voice, though, did bother him.

Even as he strapped his gear into place and laced his boots, every little huff or grunt of exertion felt foreign in his mouth. He didn't know what he was supposed to say for himself, truthfully, so he wasn't comfortable with using his voice. It was impossible to even fathom an explanation for how he ended up here, for what he went through in that cell — so he just didn't.

Instinct always takes over, though.

“You all set, blondie?” Keegan asked, leaning in the doorway of the arsenal. He could see Jack all geared up, but it felt right to ask.

“Yeah. All set.” Jack spoke, unaware that he'd even done so at first. Keegan knew better than to overreact, though, it would likely scare him off. Take that pretty voice away. If he wanted to talk, he could, and Keegan wouldn't apply pressure in any way.

“Good, good…lemme see.” Keegan said as Jack turned to face him, sort of standing awkwardly with his arms down at his sides. He looked lost. Uncomfortable in all of th buckles and straps, like the gear was suffocating the life out of him. “You look suicidal.”

“I’m —” Jack stopped himself, a bit shocked in his expression.

“You were doing great.” Keegan huffed in response, mildly disappointed. “The uniform looks good, though, Jackie.”

Jack rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest, watching Keegan draw in closer across the room. He picked up the other man’s marksman rifle, inspecting it for a moment before handing it back to Jack.

“Needs some dirt on it — lucky for you, we’re just doing recon. Nothing crazy, just gettin’ your boots wet out in the field.” Keegan watched Jack take the rifle back, clicking the carry strap around his neck into place, carefully snapping the scope cover on for travel. He looked nervous, like a kid on his first day of school, only with much more weighing on his chest. It made sense. He hadn’t been sure of himself the entire time Elias was giving him a golden opportunity, so it made sense that confidence wasn't leaking out of his every movement. “Stand up straight, act like you know what you're doing until you do. Merrick prefers his name or his title, not sir, if you decide to talk to him.”

Jack nodded, letting a shaky breath out. He held up a thumbs up, hand trembling ever so slightly, pathetically. Keegan reached out and steadied it.

“You’ll be fine. I’ll be with you.”

Jack turned his hand and held his pinky out, raising a brow. Without much hesitation, just the normal amount from a tough guy, Keegan did the same and interlocked them. He leaned in instinctively and pressed where his mouth would be under the mask to Jack’s knuckles. It was a thing from years ago, something they did to “seal” a promise. Jack was surprised that he remembered, but not upset by any means.

It wasn't a terribly long drive to the recon point. It felt that way because of the deathly silence in the SUV, save for Merrick giving the mission brief. Kick sat in the passenger seat beside their Captain, humming to himself as they flew down the dirt roads, jostling over every bump. Jack kept his eyes on the floor until they arrived at the infil, at which point he and Keegan exited the vehicle. It was fairly heavily wooded, the area well covered and higher than the place they were doing recon on, making it ideal for a sniper’s nest. Jack had a natural sense for that sort of thing, carefully and quietly slinking around the woods before coming to a tall, heavily branched tree. He looked it up and down, sizing it up, then looked at Keegan. He was all searching for a nest, a ways away into the brush.

“You take up high, I’ll go down low?” Keegan asked into the comms for confirmation as he found a comfortable place to get vantage from, half expecting a vocal response from Jack and half expecting a snap or something in reply.

Whistle.

“That works.” Keegan chuckled to himself as he pulled his rifle off his back and nestled into the dirt, mounting the tripod on a hard surface so that he could get a stable view. Meanwhile, Jack climbed up into the large redwood. He struggled at first because of his knee, but eventually he powered through and hoisted himself into straddling a large limb. “Are you in position?”

Whistle.

“Heard that. Merrick, we’re locked. Watchin’ exits.”

“Roger — the place should be empty, but you know how that goes. We’ll clean and clear, then raid for supplies.” Merrick replied, voice a low crackle over the comms, before silence fell over the area. Jack relaxed back against the trunk of the tree as he racked a round in his rifle, sliding the bolt into place as he looked down the scope. It was peaceful, almost, quiet. The idle rustle of birds in the trees and the quiet thrum of the earth breezing past, only occasionally interrupted by the crackle of activity over the radio.

Jack hummed quietly, the soft rumble of his voice in his throat only truly comfortable in a muffled manner, barely making any sound at all. He felt his finger gently sliding over the trigger, not quite squeezing just yet — there was next to no movement ahead, save for Merrick and Kick as they navigated the empty warehouse.

They spent a long while going through the place room by room, combing it through, picking up any usable supplies. Sterile equipment, alcohol, first aid kit materials — all sorts of things. It had been vacant for quite a while, clearly, despite old Federation flags flying above. They’d yet to reoccupy it after their removal, meaning everything inside was up to date and ripe for the taking.

Jack’s gaze traveled around outside, flickering from the warehouse to the dirt road leading up to it, watching a car start to close in. Federation flags. His eyes went wide and he stuttered to speak, nothing quite coming out. Damn anxiety reaching up from the depths of his stomach to choke him out internally, clawing his vocal chords into submission.

Three, rapid fire whistles. High pitched and quiet all at once, ringing out through the comms.

“Movement?” Keegan asked quickly.

One.

“Got it. Watch your backs, boys. How many?” Keegan called.

Five.

“Five tangoes, on their way to your position.”

“He didn't say anything, Keegan. Are you sure you're not hearin’ things?” Kick asked, almost a laugh to his voice when he spoke.

“I’m sure.” Keegan asserted, glancing over through the blur of leaves and trees blocking his view of Jack. He had to be right. A couple of seconds pass and he can see the vehicle for himself, five Federation soldiers climbing out slowly. Stalking their prey. Merrick and Kick. Jack wasn’t scared, though, knowing very well that he only had one shot before they were aware of him.

He let out all of the breath he had been holding in from his lungs, took a deep breath and released it slowly, feeling the unsteadiness slip out of reach.

Bang.

Two down. One shot.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Jack gave a long, drawn out whistle of satisfaction as he took a new breath in.

“All clear.” Keegan exhaled. “Nice fuckin’ shots, Jackie.”

Pride washed over him all at once. The warm, fuzzy feeling of success seeped into his bones and made him blush all over, a hot feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“We're on our way out now to confirm kills. Meet us down here?” Merrick asked.

“Rog.” Keegan replied, leaving Jack to watch the doors in anticipation. Before he knew it, Keegan had made his way over, looking up at Jack perched in the tree. He rocked back on his heels slightly, taken aback by the way Jack had curled himself up onto a tree limb, nearly wrapped around it as he aimed down sight. His cheek was pressed up against his rifle, keeping him nice and steady.. “Look like a bird up there, y'know that, Jackie?”

Jack sat up straight, a bit surprised. He hadn't been listening at all to his surroundings, sort of zoned out as he watched down his scope. A bird? He prayed that didn’t stick.

“The whistling works. Got my attention real fuckin’ quick.” Keegan extended a hand to Jack, helping him climb down from the tree unceremoniously. He replied with a playful whistle, a smile crossing his expression briefly. After collecting his first 5 confirmed kills as a Ghost, they returned to base in the same car they came in. Quiet, at first, but Merrick broke the silence midway back to HQ.

“Quiet type, huh, Skalbek?” Merrick asked, glancing back in the rear view mirror.

“Leave him be.” Keegan asserted. His voice always seemed to be quiet and soft spoken, but he had a bite to it that showed he meant business. If anything good happened to Keegan while he was gone, it was that voice.

“Didn't mean anything by it. You did great out there, Jack.” Merrick defended himself.

Silently, Jack thumbed over the pristine Federation tags before stuffing them into the pocket on his vest. He didn't like the idea of keeping trophies, but those tags were proof that he could actually do some good here.

It took a long time for him to truly feel that way.

Like, the first time he got to see his own dormitory. It wasn’t anything crazy, just a room with four walls and a bed right down the hallway from the showers, but it was his room with four walls and a bed. Dark, cozy sheets on the mattress, a warm light overhead — his name on the door. Jack actually sort of felt important for once in his life, and he began to understand the draw and appeal of military life. There was one tiny problem with the lone dorm, though.

Even at UCLA, he dormed with someone else. His first apartment had a roommate, and the same man moved with him into their home in Los Angeles with a handful of friends. He had no siblings as a child, but Keegan and Alex were at his house so frequently he may as well have at that point. Being alone did not come easily to Jack.

“Hey — came to drop off your tags.” Keegan knocked at the door, a little whistle coming from inside telling him to enter. When he threw the door open he saw Jack sitting on his bed, legs crossed, just sort of looking lost once again. A recurring theme for the blonde. “Need some decor in here, seriously. It’s abysmal.”

Jack just sort of shrugged, catching his tags mid-air when Keegan threw them, the jingling making him flinch slightly. They had, of course, his name on them. Blood type, affiliation, spot for a call sign if one ever stuck to him. He thumbed over the engraving before undoing the clasp and snapping it back into place around his neck, stuffing it beneath his shirt. It was ice cold, but the metal would warm and warp to him eventually. Become like a second skin, something he couldn't go anywhere without.

“I had something else, too, but — s’up to you if you want it or not. Could always make your own.” Keegan added as he came a bit further into the room, taking a seat on the edge of the bed beside Jack. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a piece of black fabric, neatly folded into a little square. When unfolded, Jack could see it was a mask, his very own. It looked similar in pattern to Keegan’s, but noticably neater and cleaner in texture and facial features — across the mouth were two black strips in an X. Maybe a little bit on the nose, but he couldn't complain.

“It’s not great compared to what you could probably do — don't know if you’re still into the whole art thing these days.”

Jack shook his head, turning the mask over a couple of times in his hands before he went to put it on. The fabric was thick, making him uncomfortable at first, but once it was in place he could breathe easily. He looked over at Keegan as if to ask how he looked, the scrunched up wrinkles around the other’s eyes telling him everything he needed to know.

“Little Ghost.” Keegan hummed, ruffling up Jack’s hair in a playful manner. “You’re one of us now, as far as I’m concerned.”

Wide eyes like saucers, just looking up at Keegan with awe, wondering how they'd managed this. Circling back to sitting in Jack’s room, though this time it was less than cozy. Even without the Christmas lights casting a warm glow over everything, though, Keegan was more sure than he ever had been that everything was worth it to end up here.

That summer, July was hot in Santa Monica. The sun bathed the city with regularity, not even letting up in the evening. Though, there seemed to be a brief respite in between months of hardship.

After a particularly good bout of missions, Jack even getting some more confidence in himself (and a call sign, while he was at it) they decided to have a small leisure break. Time for themselves, to breathe in without the threat of being dispatched on a mission looming overhead. Something that many of them hadn't had a chance to do in a long, long while. There often wasn't much remaining time for recreational drinking, but Keegan couldn't lie, there was something about Jack in the doorway of his dorm with two cans of beer that made his heart skip a couple of beats.

Sure, they’d stolen liquor as teenagers and gotten wasted on Jack’s roof. His mom always made sure that they were safe and well looked after when they made those foolish errors, giving them plenty of room to make mistakes and not feel stupid about it.

They had kind of missed out on sharing 21st birthdays, though. Keegan's was a year sooner than Jack’s, so they would've had to wait anyways, but they’d inadvertently waited over a decade. The crack of the pop-taps couldn't come soon enough, and neither could the ensuing burn of alcohol. It was liquid comfort, burning the whole way down and settling in the stomach, leaving every sensation tinged a hazy shade of amber.

Kick, in his endless curiosity, had obtained a camcorder at some rate. They had access to new technology, high quality drones and cameras, and yet he was obsessing over the film grain and scan lines of the older camera. It was probably as old as him, the brand name long scratched off from time and use, but he still boasted it’s American made durability. Pointing it at Jack after a couple of drinks, giggling to himself as he zoomed it in and out.

“Alright, alright — this one’s Jack. We’re still — heh — getting used to him, but this kid?” Kick turned the camera to himself for dramatic effect. “Sharpshooter. I think he could shoot the pimento out of a fucking olive from a hundred meters out.”

“He said that’s pushing it.” Keegan answered for Jack, having taken up that role nicely. They weren't quite at the point of telepathy, but beating ASL into his head was starting to work. Jack picked up usage of it back in college, so a refresher was needed before he could actually use it, but the main problem was teaching it to Keegan. He was impatient and short tempered, but he could learn it for the other's sake.

“Maybe! Maybe it's not! Only way to find out is to try, Jack.” Kick snickered as he turned the camera around again, watching through the viewfinder as Ajax joined Keegan and Jack on the balcony. The sunset over Santa Monica Pier was beautiful, even now, with a fort plopped overtop of it. Ajax took his spot between the two others, throwing his arms around them with a smile.

“Good to have the gang back together.” Ajax hummed, pulling Jack in a bit closer, spilling a little bit of his drink in the process. “Fucking missed you, kid, seriously. You have no idea what it was like dealing with Grumpy over here for 15 years without you.”

“I’m not grumpy.” Keegan huffed. “I’m apathetic.”

“Whatever you say.” Ajax laughed, snatching Keegan’s drink from his hand before disappearing back inside with Kick hot on his heels. It was a mostly empty can anyways, so he wasn't terribly disappointed. Still, he wanted to obtain just one more for the end of the night, grabbing one for Jack as well. Turns out, both of them grew up with quite the tolerance for the stuff despite having exactly zero when they were younger. Keegan’s resilience could be attributed to body mass, but Jack’s was built entirely on whiskey lullabies.

The years of travel were hard on him, a once soft and fearful creature of a boy, now…a man.

Keegan took a moment in the doorway to look at him, really look at him. Wearing sweat-shorts and that blasted knee brace, scars drawing up and down the length of his left leg. His sweatshirt, an increasingly well used and loved camouflage tarp of cloth, swallowing up his lanky frame with ease. Those pretty brown eyes, watching the sun dip beneath the horizon, casting tangerine and coral hues all over him.

It was straight out of a movie, or a memory, he couldn't tell.

What’re you staring at? Jack signed, catching Keegan a bit off guard. He bit at his bottom lip beneath his mask and unhooked one side of it to take a drink from the fresh can.

“You. Just…taking it all in.”

Take your time. I’m here now.

“Got no idea how good it feels to know that you're still kickin’ dirt up, Jackie, I…” Keegan stuttered a bit, an uncommon occurrence for him. He didn't feel that sort of nervousness often, hadn't since he left for basic. Scratch that. He hadn't felt genuinely nervous since Tel Aviv, calling Jack from the back of that plane, hands trembling in fear. This wasn't anything like that, though, this was the butterflies sort of nervousness. Somehow, infinitely more terrifying than getting shot at. “I want to make it up to you, somehow.”

What?

“The last…what, 15 years?”

We're older now. You know that. Can't go back and change what already happened. Jack shrugged, not quite grasping that Keegan meant it. He wanted to repair what damage had been done to whatever extent he could, even if things were vastly different, even if they were entirely different people now.

Whether Jack knew it or not, he still had the combination to Keegan's pad-lock chest, the chasm labeled hollow to keep anything good out. It didn't matter how they got here, what mattered was now Keegan has a shot at actually apologizing. Making right what he had once done wrong. He would regret not reaching out sooner until the day he was dead, but he could do better this time around. This is not the kind of opportunity he could squander.

No way in hell.

“I know. But…I can be the person now that I couldn't be then.” Keegan came closer until he was leaning up against the railing, too, overlooking the pier. If he looked up at the stars long enough, he could almost imagine the floating space trash left behind from ODIN, what didn't enter the atmosphere swirling and churning above their heads. “I’m not saying we pick up where we left off in ‘07, I’m just asking that you hear me out.”

Okay. I’ll bite.

“Plain and simple. We know what happened in-between then and now, but we can just…ignore it.” Keegan inched closer as he spoke, until he was shoulder to shoulder with the shorter man. The cold drink in his hand was all he had to steady himself, shocking his system into continuing to speak. “You know I loved you then and I still do.”

Jack swallowed. Loud. The can in his hand crinkled slightly under the pressure he was holding it with, his mouth dry. He still loved him? He? Stone cold, violence wrought, Keegan fucking Russ still loved him?

He, who hid at Jack’s house from his parents, always thanking Mrs. Skalbek for the place to stay, always denying how often he was there. Hiding the fleeting kisses, never lingering long enough to leave a mark on soft flesh. Lying to himself and his father, always forcing himself into the image of what he thought a man to be, never showing much softness at all.

Only to Jack, only back then, only behind closed doors.

This was a massive, groundbreaking departure from whomever that was back then. It took their semi-permanent separation for Keegan to admit that he loved Jack the first time, it only took a few months this go around. The promise of staying, rather than leaving or coming back, was much more emotionally grounding.

“Was that too much?” Keegan asked after a moment. He seemed on edge about Jack’s reaction, gaze flickering anywhere but on those soft brown eyes, eating him alive.

No. It's just been a long time.

“You probably moved on, like, a few months after I last called, huh?”

Never. Jack sighed softly in reply. There was emotion in the movement of his hands, his eyes portraying all of that sadness well. It was never really over.

Just five words, but those five words carried an unspeakable weight. Keegan stared for only a few seconds, going to speak when Jack continued.

Everything came back to you one way or another. My thesis for my degree was a portfolio full of you. I still texted you every time I needed to talk even if you didn't answer, I needed you. My mom called me every few months and I was so scared that she would tell me you were dead that I just didn't pick up. Everything I did up until the fucking world ended was about you, no matter how fast I ran.

It all spilled out so fast that Jack couldn't even be impressed with himself. His hands stuttered every once in a while on more complex words. The words themselves shocked Keegan, too, but that was secondary. He felt wholly guilty for ever letting himself get so close to Jack back then, because his own feverish dreams of doing something with his life just meant he did that to Jack. Got him hooked and ran, watching it spiral out of hand until he was sure he lost Jack forever. The red string tying them together threatened to be severed by the universe with every knot and fray in its threads.

But it never broke. It never fell lifeless.

He would've thought that Jack married, maybe even squeaked out a kid or two, joined the PTA. Cut his hair short and finally start making art for a living, take his kids to soccer practice — not wake up in the middle of the night missing his highschool boyfriend.

Boyfriend.

Were they ever even that much?

Are you gonna say something or what, K? Jack added, breaking Keegan out of the cyclical nightmare of thoughts in his mind.

“I just didn't…know you felt that way about it.”

You had everything to lose by loving me, and you did it anyway. How could I ever move on from that? He wasn't speaking, but he was feeling every emotion from every word. Jack’s eyes were all welled with tears, a soft gasp escaping with every mouthed syllable. Threatening to spill out, but not quite making a sound.

Keegan knew what Jack meant. He would’ve been kicked out if his father ever caught wind of what Keegan was doing with ‘the no-good Skalbek boy’ down the street. If not for Jack’s mom, they would’ve never gotten as far as they did back then. Even then, it wasn't far. He would’ve been spitting teeth from that fight, if he ever found out, probably dead.

He’d unknowingly shown Jack that someone could love him enough to die for him, and as a consequence he never really learned how to be loved any less.

“You still feel that way?” Keegan asked after a moment of silence, a bit of his inhibition slipping away. Perhaps it was the alcohol, perhaps it was just an old spark flickering back into life.

Always.

“Can I start trying to make up for that lost time, then?”

“Please.” Jack replied out loud, gaze averted out of embarrassment. That didn't last long, though, not with that spark beginning to rage into flames. Nothing could've kept Keegan’s hands off of him, his drink thrust into Jack’s hand so that he could pick him up a little bit easier. Hoisting him up onto the railing of the balcony for balance, strong arms laced around Jack holding him steady. The railing creaked, the drop was far, but neither of them seemed to give a damn.

Hot. Heavy. Hurried, whiplash kisses, hands in hair and lips on teeth. It was not gentle, it was not pretty, it was feverish and raw. Keegan could've made him bleed with sharp canines on his bared neck and he would’ve been quite alright with it.

Even when Kick threw the door open, trailed by Ajax with the camcorder, he couldn't have guessed what was going on outside until he saw it. Under the haze of one flickering light that never quite stays on long enough to catch a clear glimpse, but the camera picking up their meshed bodies nonetheless.

“Get a room, you two! Sheesh!” Ajax laughed, but impressively enough, neither seemed to care.

“Mmmhmm…Can’t hear you.” Keegan murmured against Jack’s lips, earning a snicker from the blonde in his arms, still faithfully holding both of their drinks.

“Talk about making up for lost time.” Ajax joked. Kick all too certain he would get chewed out by Keegan if he drunkenly giggled too, he stayed quiet. As quickly as they came they dipped back inside with Ajax pumping his fist, proclaiming that he always knew.

“This alright, Jack?” Keegan asked, breathless as he took a moment to cool off. Still holding the other man, just leaving some space between them for now. Foolishly, Jack dropped the cans so he could sign, a blush dusting his cheeks as the half-drank liquid spattered on the ground beneath them.

Haven’t been this alright since I don't know when.

“Can't lie to you, I never — you were — ugh, fuckin’ sounds pathetic…” Keegan sucked a breath in shakily and buried his face in the crook of Jack's neck, faint scent of cologne and body wash still attached to him. “Never let anyone get close after you. No-one.”

Touch-starved did not begin to cover it.

He didn't hug, he didn't do physical contact, skin-to-skin was a foreign thing. Jack was probably the last person who touched him with bare hands and he didn't convulse. Ajax was an exception to that rule, but it wasn't like they were snuggling. Pats on the back, pull-ups onto a ledge — those weren't intimate like this. He didn't get intimate.

Jack felt sort of dirty knowing he'd gone and tried to bury the feeling of needing someone he couldn't have in the arms of others, never succeeding, whereas Keegan had done the opposite. Instead of voicing that he only ran his hands through Keegan’s short, scruffy hair, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

“You think it’s pathetic, don't you?” Keegan sighed, nuzzling into the other man with wandering butterfly kisses, lips ghosting over his main artery.

Two whistles for no.

“Hah! Sure thing, Jackie, sure…” He laughed. “Remind me to never ask you that sorta thing again, ‘cause even your whistles sound sarcastic.”

They weren't, but Jack would let him live in his little bubble. Moments like this were never long enough, and thankfully they got to spend the rest of the night catching up on the important things, previously undiscussed stories of Jack’s life in SoCal. It was good to know that they at least had a chance before things began to kick up once again.

For some reason, things didn't.

It was a pure, mostly calm stalemate.

Sure, they still got sent on patrols. They often made ventures to the No Man’s Land border, overlooking the minefields and traps, wondering what could possibly shift the tides. Piece by piece, some bizarre force of nature allowed them to rebuild what used to be between them.

Some nights that meant they’d climb atop the roof with Keegan's iPod, still functional despite a cracked screen and barely functional UI, and let the world melt away. If only for one night at a time they could pretend to be real people, living some sort of domestic existence in a place far from the halted war. Perhaps, in that distant timeline, they wouldn't even have survived a relationship in their teen years without the hardship they’d suffered.

As far as either was concerned, it made them stronger.

Forced them to learn what it meant to live without the other one. Of course, this meant that they knew how dull and awful life could be when it was empty, and they'd fight a hell of a lot harder to stay now that they'd been threatened with separation once.

Jack was a silent killer, Keegan a mouth full of vicious mockeries. Ghosts. Wisps in the wind. Dead already, living a better afterlife on the other side of the apocalypse. Nothing the Federation could throw their way would hold any weight, of this they were certain.

Until they did, of course.

No good thing lasts forever.

5 notes · View notes

quillpokebiology · 1 year

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Ooc: Places that I think should be pokemon regions

I want these so bad omg.

Texas, USA

As much as a dislike Texas, a region based on it would be nice. It could also bring a lot of neat pokemon. Imagine the wild areas too!

South Africa

Or just an African region in general. I don't have a reason for this other than the cool pokemon that could come with it, and I have pokemon OCs that are from a pokemon version of South Africa. It probably won't happen because Japan has a lot of xenophobia and racism, but I can hope (They added a Hawaiin region and I know that's US territory, but all 3/4 Kahunas were Hawaiin and dark skinned, so it could be closer than we think)

Egypt

5th grade me made an Egyptian pokemon region called Asaro. I never worked on it much, but I remember making a ghost type eeveelution that was a mummy (it was a regional variant of the OG ghost type I made). If they were to ever make an African pokemon region, Egypt would be the best one.

Italy

I literally have no reason for this other than I think the towns could look nice.

Australia

I think the next pokemon region is going to be Asutralian because each gen gives us a hint to the next (Example: Pokemon swsh showed art of a cherry and a grape in the hotel, which is pokemon sv). For Pokemon Scarlet, we got an image of a mountain that resembles a mountain in Asutralia.

I think an Asutralian region would be super cool. I actually had an Australian region in 5th grade called Sonin, and I want the Australian region to be real so bad to bring 5th grade me peace.

Midwest, USA

Reason? I live in the Midwest, and I want a region where I can stand in and be like "Omfg, I live here." Specifically, I live in Nebraska, but the entire midwest is the exact fucking same, so it doesn't tmatter if they choose one state or combine all of it. I even have some cool fakemon ideas! Example: a cardinal fakemon that looks like a thief, a maid raccoon because they're actually pretty clean, and the early grass types you find that turn into hot plant ladies could be corn. My friend actually made one when we were younger, and I made a map of it during quarantine. I remember making a cool town that was underground and held a ground-type gym leader.

China

I don't have any reasoning for this. I just think it'd be neat. OH WAIT! I just remembered an old fakemon I made named Fumo! It was a starter for a Chinese based region I don't remember the name of, and it was a red panda. I remember liking it a lot, and I might redraw it some day!

India

India is a really big place, and it'd probably be the biggest region. Honestly, they might just have to choose a section of India. But India has a lot of culture, and also has 1 billion people, so a lot of fans would be able to relate to it.

Mexico

There's actually an artist @voidarkana who is working in a Mexican region on their insta. I'm actually surprised we haven't gotten one, or at least hinted at one sooner (I can because Japan is xenophobic as hell). Buy there could be cool things with a Mexican region. And could you imagine the mythical and regional variants??? Imagine an Alebreje pokemon, or a Dia de los Muertos Houndoom!

Brazil

I made one in 5th grade (I made a lot of shit in 5th grade). I don't remember what it was called. I think it was Bravo or something? Idk. I want this because RAINFOREST WILD AREA. Imagine climbing on these massive vines with the newer graphics, and being able to go on the canopy! Or imagine a town in a rainforest and it'd be a cool treetop city! It'd be like Fortree city, but so much better!

Germany

Germany has a lot of culture, which I think would be fun to explore in pokemon. Plus, they could make SO many pokenon off of the Grimm's fairytales.

California, USA

California is gross, expensive, and polluted irl, but it could be super nice in a pokemon game.

Canada

I made a Canadian region named Calle in 5th grade, and I liked it a lot. It's where I had a Buneary regional variant that was ice type and had these cute little slippers. And one of the starters was an ice type hare, and I thought it was super cute.

Greece

A YouTuber had an idea for one, and I liked it a lot. I don't remember who made it, but they had the idea of the gym leaders being based off the gods, and the champion being based on a Greek Hero. That'd be so cool!

#ignore how if they did all of these it would be in the span of 42 years #rotomblr #pokemon irl #pokeblogging #pokeblog #irl pokemon #pokemon #pokeblr #rotumblr #pkmn irl #pokemon roleplay #irl pkm #ooc post

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nicole-timey-wimey-stuff · 8 months

Text

Love and Pipelines

dbf!joel x reader

Dbf Joel x Surfer girl reader

Word count - 4.2K

Warnings- swear words, smut in other chapters (but not this one), suggestive thoughts and comments, large age gap, slowburn, forbidden relationships, fluff, awkwardness. My terrible grammar. Let me know if I’ve missed anything.

This will be a 3 part series, it’s a slow burn with Joel and reader. This is one of my first fan fics so bear with me, I’m used to writing non fiction usually.

No smut in this chapter but there will be in the next two, so no minors this is a 18+ fic. I know many have said they can’t relate to a hyper fem/ girly reader, so I’ve made the reader a sportier tomboy character, just to change things up.

Chapter 1

The low buzzing hum coming from your phone alarm rouses you awake, ‘6:00am is way too early for a Sunday’ you think. But it’s the last chance you’ll have to get in any practice, before your big competition. With a groan you stretch out your limbs almost cat like in your movements, trying to shake the stiff morning aches. With a groan you pull yourself up, grabbing your swimsuit and wetsuit from your wrack, and make your way to the bathroom.

On your way downstairs you can still hear your dad’s soft snores, coming from his bedroom which is closest to the stairs. Smiling to yourself you’re glad he’s actually still sleeping, recently work has had him up at the crack of dawn, and in bed way into the early hours. He works hard to provide the best life for you both, and you’re truly thankful for all he does for you, but you can’t help but wish he was around more these days.

Your mum left one night when you were only 4 years old, just upped and went. A single note left on the fireplace for your dad, explaining she couldn’t do this anymore, how she didn’t love him enough nor wanted to be a mum enough to stay. It broke him, he’d tried so hard climbing the corporate ladder, to bring in more money for a comfortable life. To bring her the life she said she wanted. But she left, with nothing but her indent in the mattress and a note.

So it was just you and him, and he tried he really did, he moved you away from the bustle of California life, to a fairly small but lovely beach house just at the edge of Lincoln City. Nelscott Beach was beautiful, long stretches of sand and great waves. The residents in your area were lovely too, mainly the older generation who have come here to retire. Mrs Myers your 68 year old neighbour across from you always made you baked goods, claiming you were too thin, “no meat on you” she’d say offering you the tub of whatever she’d made that day. You had tried to tell her being an athlete you weren’t thin but muscular, that you tried your hardest to keep fit and strong. She’d always just wave you off though, smiling as you took the sweet goods from her, usually to hand off to your dad to enjoy.

It was true though being a surfer was demanding, you spent half your time in the gym or out in the waves. Building muscle and stamina, pushing your body to the maximum it could handle, but this was your dream.

Ever since you were a little girl the ocean called to you, and whilst living in California at just 8 years old your dad started paying for your surf lessons, which turned into surf clubs, which turned into moving from foam topped boards to more expensive boards, to custom boards. He paid for it all, he supported you through it all. You never felt growing up that you only had one parent, he more than made up for it all. Coming to all your small kiddie competitions to finally your proper competitive ones.

Three month’s ago you came second in the three part competition at Florida’s PRO-AM championship. Which you were absolutely elated about! Even more so that it got you the wildcard ticket to compete at Billabong Pipe PRO, Pipeline in Hawaii. Which was terrifying but at the same time, you were bursting with excitement at such a huge opportunity. Not to mention a trip to Hawaii would be like a dream, your dad has booked two hotel rooms for two weeks, pretty much on the beach near your contest. The rest of the time will be spent travelling the island, finding great surf spots, waterfalls, hikes and cafes. You were leaving in two days just you and your dad for a trip of a lifetime!

And so you were practicing hard these winter months, as they brought in large waves to your doorstep. You were proud of how far you’d come, praying that Pipeline was your opportunity to finally get a sponsor. Grinning to yourself at that thought you grabbed your board and a bottle of water, leaving your dad a note on the counter ‘Catching waves, be back soon! Y/N’ and headed out the door.

The morning was dull, grey skies and a slight hazy mist, but there were specks of sun coming through the clouds, colours of purple, yellow and blue breaking through and casting golden shadows. You loved that morning sea air smell, the cool wind on your face. You closed your eyes and breathed it in for a moment enjoying the peacefulness, until a sudden truck door slamming startled you, causing you to jump and swing your board into the offender “Hmmph, woah watch it there kiddo” Oh how you wished he wouldn’t call you that ‘Kiddo’. Joel Miller your next door neighbour to your right and your dad’s closest friend. There he stood with that amused smirk on his face, all broad and handsome with his tousled sleep hair, having no right to look so good at 6:15 in the morning!

“Joel!! I’m so sorry you startled me, did I hurt you?” You rambled out quickly, feeling embarrassed for being caught daydreaming and for smacking him with your surfboard.

“No it’s alright darlin’ no harm done, you be careful out there, it’s quite rough today” he says pointing to the heavy crashing waves 300 yards from us. You were now praying your face wasn’t too red after the pet name, you loved when he called you darlin’ in that southern accent.

“I always am” you smile “Catch you later?” You ask. “Yeah I’ll be over watchin’ the game with your dad” he answers, “Great! See you then” you reply already escaping to the beach. “Later’s” you shout back as you break into a jog, leaving an amused Joel standing in his driveway.

Joel had moved here from Austen Texas, along with his daughter Sarah about five years ago, mentioning a fresh start for them both. Sarah was a few years younger than you, but you both made fast friends with one another. She has recently started college, something your dad had originally hoped you would do too. But after finishing high school your surfing career was starting to take off, as competition wins became frequent. So you made a deal with him, to pick up college once you’d come to the end of your competitive years. ‘You have great grades and it’s never too late’ he had said. Your dad and Joel had bonded quickly over being single dads with teenage girls at the time, they now help each other out and bond over football games and BBQs.

Standing on the beach you strap your board to your ankle, before running in. The rush of cold water runs over your feet as you wade deeper, placing your board down when the water starts hitting your waist. Throwing your right leg over you pull yourself on and start paddling out, pushing your board down at the back, in turn pulling the front up to glide over the waves.

When a particularly large break comes you push the front of your board down, diving under the wave, you feel the rush of icy water submerge around you, as you pull up the other side gasping, feeling air refill your lungs. You paddle out further getting yourself in place for when the next large wave comes. Unknowingly by you being watched from the boardwalk by Joel, who was leaning on the railing gazing over your every move.

Joel’s POV

He told himself it was to make sure she was ok, after all those waves were pretty aggressive this mornin’. But he couldn’t help admiring you, the way you showed no fear, how strong and confident you were out there. The way your sea bleached hair swayed as you ran into the water, how your powerful body pulled you up and over those waves, the determination on your face as you rode the wave to precise perfection.

You were beautiful, in such a different way to other women your age. You weren’t girly, or wore much makeup, you had a toned but muscular figure, strong thick legs which were powerful to push that board wherever it needed to go. You had sun tanned skin from hours out in the sun and ocean, in turn your hair never sat sleek, but in constant windswept curls.

You chased your dreams, worked hard for them, weight training, boxing, running. All to achieve your goals to become a professional surfer, and Joel admired you so much for that, for the commitment and determination. It just made you even more beautiful in his eyes.

He doesn’t even know when it started, these feelings he had for you. The ones that ate him up in guilt and anguish, they even stopped him from sleeping some nights. He shouldn’t feel this way about a girl half his age, not to mention his best friend’s daughter! God if Howard ever found out, he’d be a dead man! But every evening he spends at your house, and you joke with him and your old man, when you talk about your competitions with such passion, your goals with such drive. The way your face lights up, your eyes crease and those cheek dimples of yours show….. he can’t help himself.

Not only that, you’re just so damn sweet! You always ask about Sarah, how’s college going, if she’s happy. You always ask Joel if he needs help, or if you can grab him anything while you’re out shopping. You’re always smiling, even through the tough times, you have this demeanour about you to always look on the positive side, or what can you do to make the situation better. Your heart is huge and kind and fearless, and poor Joel he just can’t help but fall in love with you.

He’s Tormented by these feelings he can never act on, because for one what would a gorgeous, talented young woman of 22 want with a 46 year old man. In addition to that you’re Howard’s kid, his best friend’s daughter. But what he can do is watch over you, feign ignorance to others, that your his best friends kid therefore he worries about your wellbeing.

Y/N POV

You’d been out here an hour now, and you were beginning to feel exhausted. One more wave you thought, let’s make it a good one to end on. You felt it before you saw it, the push of something large coming. You turned your head waiting for the perfect moment, then you started paddling, moving your arms steady but fast to get into position in time. Before pushing up and onto your feet, you held yourself steady as you started to descend, the wave pulling over you into a perfect even if on the smaller side pipe. You crouched leaning into the wave, hand stroking the curl of it, until you came through the other side, hearing it crash behind you. “YES” you cheered! Absolutely ecstatic that you managed to pull it off.

You ran out of the water so elated, noticing Joel standing on the boardwalk you sprinted towards him. Pulling him into a wet hug “did you see that! Please tell me you saw that! Dad won’t ever believe me otherwise, he’s so worried about Pro Pipe, saying I can’t do pipe, how it’s so different to my usual competitions, his…. I’m rambling aren’t I?” you babble out at such a speed you doubt he understood a word you said. Joel lets out a chesty laugh, eyes creasing ‘gods he’s beautiful’ you think to yourself. “I did” he responds heartily, “You just remember me and your old man when you make it big alright” Joel offers. “Promise” you reply with a big grin, before realising you are literally soaking Joel. “Oh my goodness, I’m sorry I’ve drenched you!” You exclaim. Joel clears his throat detaching himself from your embrace, “Don’t worry about it sweetheart” he replies. ‘Sweetheart that’s new’ you ponder, face turning red for the second time today at one of Joel’s pet names.

“Come on kiddo, let’s get you back before your dad starts to worry” Joel said before walking towards your house. ‘Kiddo again’ you sigh to yourself, secretly hoping that he starts seeing you for the woman you’ve grown into and not the kid you used to be. You silently walk back to your house together, both deep in thought. Once you have reached your driveway, Joel turns to you with a fond smile “See ya a bit later yeah?” Joel asks “Gonna run some errands, then I’ll be over for the game.” He continues. “ Yeah see you later” you reply timidly, small smile on your face. Joel nods before leaving towards his house, you gaze at him for a second before reaching for your own front door.

You walk in to total chaos happening in the kitchen, your dad on the phone with his boss arguing over something, meanwhile smoke coming from the stove where he’s attempted to cook breakfast. You quickly slot your board into its rack by the front door, before moving fast to take the pan off the stove, turning off the heat and opening the window, wafting some of the smoke out. Your dad mouths a quick ‘Thank you’ before leaving the room, to continue his phone call.

You quickly run up to your room stripping off your wetsuit, hanging it out to dry, pulling on some sweatpants and a hoodie, before you begin cleaning up the mess in the kitchen, afterwards you whisk some eggs to make you both an omelette. You plate them up and place them on the table along with some fresh coffee, for you both just in time for your dad to walk back in. “Thank you sweetheart” he mumbles clearly frustrated about the phone call, and the cooking disaster.

“No worries dad, what was all that about?” You ask, “Don’t worry, hopefully it’s getting sorted as we speak” he replies, still clearly annoyed at whatever situation is happening, and you know better than to push him right now. “Ok well I did good out there today! Actually caught some great waves, one pipe even!” You exclaim. “Yeah?” He replies kind smile on his lips. “Yeah! Joel saw me do it too! So he will help convince you I’m not going to kill myself at Pipeline, I know your worried but I think it’s going to be really great for me” you trail off excitedly. “Joel saw you?” He asks his voice showing some confusion. “Yeah he walked over to check on me I suppose?” You reply, “He caught me leaving this morning, said to be careful or something as it was a bit rough out there.” You continued. “That was nice of him, he’s a good man Joel. Really cares about everyone in his life” he replies. “ He’s helping me do some work on the garage next month, I’m gonna split it into a double, it’s big enough. That way we can have somewhere else for you to put all those boards you keep collecting” he laughs, his voice amused even if he’s complaining slightly. “Hey I got rid of the foam topped ones! I even gave one to Sarah to practice with!” You exclaim laughing too, knowing all too well you do probably have too much surfing equipment. You share a smile before digging into breakfast, eating in comfortable silence.

“Joel says he’s coming over for the game later?” You ask while cleaning the dishes. “Yeah thought we could order pizza in? Make a night of it?” He asks. “Yeah sounds good! I’m sure one cheat meal before the big day won’t hurt.” You reply. “Great! I’ll send him a text to let him know, I think he gets lonely on his own over there you know? Since Sarah’s been at college.” Your dad muses, “Yeah I’m sure your right, maybe you should invite him over more? Especially once I’m travelling the world as a famous surfer, can’t have you old men all lonely can we?” You taunt with a giggle. “Alright you, go on… go pack or something” he replies shoving you along, you huff out a laugh. “Yeah I probably should get on with that actually” you announce before making your way upstairs.

The rest of the day passes slowly, you take a shower washing off the ocean. Taking time to shave your legs and condition your hair, goodness knows it needs it! Before getting yourself ready for this evening, you stand there looking into your closet for something to wear. You want to look cute, you want Joel to notice you, for his eyes to wonder over you. But your not a girly girl so you don’t own dresses or skirts, and you wouldn’t even know how to put them on anyways. You opt for low sitting, baggy legged jeans, and an off the shoulder crop top. Showing just enough skin to feel sexy, but casual enough to still feel like yourself. You move over to your vanity and apply small winged eyeliner and use some lip balm on your lips, again casual but still making a effort. You really want Joel to see you’ve grown up, that your nearly 23 and not that awkward teenager anymore, well not a teenager anyways you are still however as awkward as ever.

As you make your way downstairs you hear the distinct muffled voices and laughter, that belong to your dad and Joel, meaning he’s already arrived. You gather yourself together before walking into the living room. “Hey!” You announce yourself as you take a seat in the armchair next to your dad. “Hey darlin’” Joel says with a smile, “There she is!” Your dad replies. “Been waiting for ya to order this pizza, what you having?” Your dad asks. “Uh veggie please” you reply shyly. Joel’s watching you smirk on his face, “Still eatin' that rabbit food I see?” He teases. You blush at his teasing, ‘Is it hot in here you think’ “Yup, got to at least try and be healthy, maybe you two should give it a go too” you sass back with a smile. “Haha I’ll keep that in mind darlin’.” Joel replies with a amused grin. “Joel was telling me how well you did out there today, think your ready kiddo?” Your dad asks. “Yeah I’m definitely as ready as I’ll ever be! I’m super excited for this one!” You declare. “You’ll do amazin’ darlin’ you always do” said Joel, your always taken back by his kindness and support. “Thanks Joel I hope so, it may be my real chance at securing a sponsor” you reply. Your dad chimes in with “Does that mean someone else will be paying for all this expensive stuff that clutters my house then?” An amused look on his face, “Nah that will probably still be you dad” you snip back laughing. “Sounds about right” he scoffs.

The night carries on with banter and laughter, and once the pizza is all gone and the game is finished you fall into comfortable chatter. Your about to ask your dad if he’s all packed ready for your trip, when his cell phone stars ringing. He excuses himself and retreats to his study to take the call, leaving you and Joel alone.

You stretch out in your chair, unconsciously showing more of your skin as your top shifts up. Joel gazes over at you catching glances of your exposing midriff, wondering how soft your skin is, what it would be like to run his hands up your sides, to hold you close. He clears his throat and try’s to control his thoughts, but they slide straight back to imagining touching you, what noises you’d make if he ever got the chance to touch you like he wants too.

“Joel?” Your questioning voice pulls him out of his trance. “Yeah sorry sweetheart, what were you saying?” Joel replies trying to control his embarrassment of being caught staring. “I was asking if your ok? You kinda zoned out there” you ask. Your inner thoughts running riot, ‘was he staring at you? No he couldn’t of been could he? But he was staring straight at you, zoned out with a weird look on his face.’ Joel clears his throat again, then scratches the back of his neck awkwardly, “Yeah all good darlin’, was just in a daze I guess, long week” he offers. You nod offering him a small smile.

You dad comes walking back in with a grim expression on his face, “What’s wrong dad?” You ask worried. “Well sweetheart” he replies trying to collect his words and you can see his inner struggle, it’s written all over his face. “That was Mathew from work, it appears that Thomas has quit, just walked out Friday and told them he ain’t coming back. The problem with that is him and I were working on this large presentation. Which needs to be presented over tomorrow and Tuesday to the main investor, then the second part presented Friday and Saturday to the rest of the investors. This deal is worth millions to the company, and the investors will not reschedule. No one else in the company can catch up in time for the presentation, meaning I have to present it. I found out from Mathew this morning when you came home, but he was going to try and convince Thomas to come in just for the presentations, but it seems he won’t” He finishes waiting for your reaction, you however are pretty much speechless.

After what feels like forever you stutter out “ But but but, my competition is from Wednesday, our plane is at 5am Tuesday and I have to sign in Tuesday.” “ I know sweetheart, I’m so sorry. But if I don’t present this I could loose my job” he croaks out, emotion thick in his voice. “But what do I do? Do I go on my own? I can’t miss this opportunity dad, I’ve trained so hard!” You say, really now starting to panic. “You can go alone if you really don’t want to miss it, I know what this means to you, I’m just so sorry you won’t have support there with you” your dad replies.

“I’ll go with her” Joel all but blurts out.

He’d been watching the exchange between you and your dad, heart breaking at how upset you were getting, he couldn’t let you go alone, and he couldn’t let you miss this amazing opportunity. He hadn’t really let his brain catch up with his heart before he opened his mouth.

“Really?” You reply your voice laced with hope. “Yeah really, if it’s ok with you Howard? I mean I have no work scheduled for a few of weeks now, and I’d just be sat at home nothing to do.” Says Joel. Your dads looking at him while Joel explains, “Are you sure Joel? That’s a big ask, I mean I’ve booked two hotel rooms and a hire car. But you’ll have to take her to sign in Tuesday, then back for the event Wednesday, and I’ve been told the heats for the contest are spread over a few days, and that’s if the conditions are right, the trip is a two week trip?” Your dad explains. “I’ve also promised her day trips around the island after, there’s some spots she wants to surf, a waterfall she wants to see, cafe trips …” your dad rambles on, feeling distressed and guilty.

“Yeah I’m sure, it’s fine I’m happy to do it Hal, and she can’t go alone it’s a dangerous contest. She needs someone with her, plus it’s a huge chance for her to get the recognition and the sponsors she needs. It’s not a problem I can go, if you can get the travelling documents transferred into my name?” Joel replies. “Yeah I can do that no problem there.. is this ok with you kiddo? You happy for Joel to go with you?” Your dad asks. “Yeah” you reply “I’m happy for Joel to take me” you say with a smile. “Ok then, I’ll get the documents put into your name first thing tomorrow Joel” your dad confirms. “ I can’t thank you enough for this Joel” he continues. Joel just smiles at you and nods at your dad, butterflies start to flutter in your stomach at the thought of two weeks alone with him. Though your disappointed your dad can’t come, your excited to go on this adventure with Joel.

#dbf!joel #dbf joel miller #joel x reader #joel miller x reader #dbf Joel x reader #surfer girl #tlou #the last of us #joel miller #dads best friend Joel miller #dads best friend

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visceravalentines · 1 year

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Murph Connors NSFW Alphabet Headcanons

there are exactly 4 Murph gifs so you get these guys instead. it's symbolic <3

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Murph is the biggest snuggle bug. Just wants to hold you and be held. Showers you with little kisses and caresses and nestles your head under his chin. The man's heart is attached to his dick and he's a little bit in love with you right now.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Real proud of his physique. He is a gym bro and he works hard for those gains. He's all about his upper body and abs, all those important surfing muscles. Tell him he's strong, compliment his gains, he'll light up and flex for you. He doesn't even mean to do it, it just happens on reflex.

When it comes to his partner, he likes the soft things. Thighs, breasts, tummy, ass. Whether you're thick or thin he likes the parts of you he can really get his hands on.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Thinks swallowing is the hottest thing on the planet. If you let him cum in your mouth he'll buy you flowers. Also, btw, this man is bisexual as hell and when he's giving head you bet he swallows.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Super into pet play. Never ever will bring this up unless asked point-blank. If you put a collar on this man and tell him he's a good dog whoops he came already.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

He's got a fair amount of experience under his belt but not as much as you'd think. He is very good at making sure his partner is taken care of and has a few tricks up his (very tight) sleeves to rile you up.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

All of them. Are you having sex with him? Awesome. You wanna take him for a ride? Climb right on up. You want him to fold you like a paper airplane? He would love to do that for you. You want to fold him like a paper airplane? Say less, baby.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

He’s not goofy on purpose, he’s just kind of a goofball by nature. He’s being very sincere actually. When he says “this is the best moment of my fucking life” while you’re sucking him off, he means it 100%.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Fuzzy boy. Full fucking bush bby. California blonde from his head to his toes.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Murph is, shall we say, a very clumsy romantic. He's not so much sweeping you off your feet as he is throwing you over his shoulder. He says the sweetest things but they're not exactly poetry, e.g. “you feel fucking incredible, you're a fucking dream, fuck,” etc. If you've been together for a minute he'll hug you tight and tell you he really likes you because it's true and he does.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Absolutely thinks about you while he's jerking off. Uses your nudes for inspiration. Probably texts you about it before, during, and after. He really prefers getting off with a partner, but sometimes u just gotta get that nut.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Oh my god edge this man. Be so mean to him, deny him all day, just don't ruin his orgasm or he'll never forgive you. Do literally anything to his nipples and he's a puddle with an erection. Loves to be bitten and sucked on. Leave him little love marks he can look at later and it'll make his day every time he sees them. Praise the fuck out of him, it gives him a boner in his heart. 💕

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Tbh?? Bed. He loves bed. Bed has everything you need. Would he accept couch? Yes, couch is good too. Kitchen? Why the fuck not? Not car. He can't get comfortable in a car. Kinda shy about public places but he thinks it's so hot you want him that bad and if you pull him into the bar bathroom or a dressing room he's not going to say no.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Any amount of interest shown in him at all. If you are soft and needy, he is tripping over himself to please you. Push him up against a wall and he's immediately yours. Send him nudes and flirty texts, he will be so stoked you're thinking of him. So stoked he can’t stand up for a minute. PDA?? Oh man. Touch him under the table at a restaurant and he is going to be pent the fuck up until you get him home. Absolutely loves when you assert your claim on him in some way publicly, taking his hand, arm around his waist, standing beside his chair and pulling his head against your hip.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Not one for degradation, giving or receiving. Prefers pleasure to pain for the most part; your standard biting, scratching, and spanking are fair game. Not much for group sex or threesomes. He's pretty down to try anything once if you want, doesn't have a lot of hard limits.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Enjoys both giving and receiving for different reasons. Uses giving as a way to warm up his partner and gets himself all hot and bothered in the process because he just really is having a good time. Gives sloppy fucking head. Enjoys receiving bc he’s a simple man and he likes having his dick sucked, duh.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Murph gets worked up pretty quickly but he’s hung like a horse, which means he usually has to take it slow for his partner’s sake. He is so very good at being patient. Plus, once he’s in the moment, he doesn’t want it to end.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

You want to have sex with him right now?? Right now? Pants are off. Expect him to be really clingy afterwards though, and maybe don’t leave right after or he’ll be sad.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

He kinda sticks to his comfort zone when left to his own devices. He’s not the one to bring a new idea to the bedroom. But he’s extremely receptive to whatever you have in mind.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Clear your schedule. He's in great shape, he's down to switch it up so things don't get repetitive or chafey, and he would love nothing more than to spend the whole night with you (and the day, and the next night).

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Nothing fancy, but he has a couple cock sleeves he likes that he'd be happy to use on a partner with a penis. If you've got something you like that you want to use on him or have him use on you, he's totally down to try it out.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He'll try, but he's not great at teasing because he just wants to give you what you want. Why would he deprive you?? You're so hot. :(

However…you can tease him until he's blue in the balls face. He'll whine and complain but he loves it.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Buy the neighbors earplugs. Murph does not hold back nor does he know how to nor does he care. Full-throated moans and whines and whimpers. Vocal sighs like all the tension in the world has been siphoned from his body. Begging, pleading, bargaining. Grunts, growls, a truly juvenile amount of the word fuck.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

Looooves when he gets to cum inside you. It's not even a breeding kink thing, he just is thrilled you'd let him do that. If his partner can't or doesn't want to adjust to his size he has to make do with other avenues, which is fine, but he just really likes being inside you if you'll let him.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

Big man. Thiccc. He's what you'd call a seven by seven…seven inch girth, seven inch length. Circumcised. Curly curly blonde bush. Usually hangs to the left.

As for the rest of his body, he's pretty fucking fit. Bulkier in the shoulders, arms, and chest, slim in the waist. Ass that won't quit. He's very tan bc he's always in the sun. Has a handful of tattoos including a shark on his left hip and a sun and moon on his calves.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Murph is always just a little bit horny and ready to be hornier. It's like a soothing white noise in the back of his mind. He's just bopping along until you drop him a hint and then he is ready. Sometimes he gets real needy though, and he can't focus on anything, and he'll do literally anything you want if you'll just get him off right now.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

He won't fall right to sleep, but he'll get cozy and cuddly and won't want to leave the bed again. And you better believe he's up before you are, already went for a run, and is making you breakfast.

#murph connors #murph connors fanfiction #murph connors x reader

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theblazingpoetess · 1 month

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For K <3

Michigan girl in Ukrainian hues, Overlays in Burbank summertime Camp shenanigans falling in Star-crossed kindred adoration.

Dropping suitcases, rolling Blunts smoked by California Wildfires curated in New York Catwalks and drop-dead long-distance Internet pen pals, exchanging Traumas in the face of weeklong Roommates with past life ties.

Ultimatums for turn-of-the-season September babes; new chapters and ancient Beginnings gifted with July’s Blessings of whirlwind sisterhood, Spinning on Los Angeles hill-climbing knees, Spelling out remiss opinions in Free-thinking spirit style and ‘60s stoner culture Dread revivalists of Joni Mitchell Siren godsend of divine fruition.

Painting Van Gogh’s Sunflowers on crinkled Canvas losing to the conspirational Madness regaining strength in gym Memberships and cutting clean Hard drives of old histories, drinking in Methods of self-actualisation At Lake Michigan ironing Out that crinkled canvas.

find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theblazingpoetess/

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sonofahero · 3 months

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«—◦—→ Kit Connor, Bisexual, Cismale & He/Him, Fighter«—◦—→ Well met, Evander Althea! The godling born child of Heracles. It’s been 21 years and now he has answered the song in their veins. Can he change the course of history with his positivity, lovingness, & strong-wiliness or will his nativity, air-headedness, cockiness hinder him? Only time will tell before this godling’s name is sung into myth and legend!

🏺 ︰ 𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬

Name: Evander Althea Nicknames: Evan or Vander Date of Birth: May 4th, 2003 Place of Birth: ‎Greeley, Colorado Age: Twenty-One Gender: Cismale Sexuality: Bisexual Divine Parent: Heracles. God of Strength and Heroes. Mother: Melody Althea Companions: Melody Althea ( Nemean Lioness Cub ) Education: Some College ( Major: Undecided ) Occupation: College Student

🏺 ︰ 𝐏𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥

Hair Color: Ginger Eye Color: Brown with hints of gold Height: 6'1" Build: Athletic Dominant Hand: Right Tattoos: None Scars: None Notable Features: Pale skin with constant blushed cheeks and nose, splattered with orange-brown freckles that litter his cheeks, shoulders and chest. A small tuff of ginger chest hair in the center of his pecs. Brown eyelashes. Fashion Style: Sportswear usually. tank-tops, t-shirts or long sleeved shirts pair with mainly shorts or joggers. At home, he goes for a cardigan, some lounge pants and a baggier t-shirt which he tucks in and let's hang over the sides of his pants.

🏺 ︰ 𝐏𝐬𝐲𝐜𝐡𝐞

MBTI: ENFP - The Campaigner Enneagram: 7 - The Enthusiast Moral Alignment: Neutral Good. Astrological Sign: Taurus Habits: When Evan isn't working out at the gym ( which he does everyday ) or when he wasn't at school, Evan was at home with his mother, a total mama's boy. He is full of energy and is always on the move, going on hikes, rock climbing, swimming. Quirks: He loves physical affection, hugs, cuddling. He does believe in bad luck and tends to avoid things that would give him bad luck ( Black Cats, Ladders, Splitting the path when walking with friends.) Pet Peeves: Poor treatment of anyone ( animals or humans ) and littering. Hobbies: Working Out, Hiking, Swimming, Rock Climbing, Video Games ( Fighting and Hack-and-Slash ), Music. Personality: Evan is a golden retriever in human form. He is extremely friendly and empathetic to others. He is strong-willed, loving, and very positive but is also not the smartest in general, he is easily tricked into believing things, doesn't pick up on social cues from time to time and is a little vain when it comes to his looks and physical appearance. He loves love and loves people, so loves being around them and isn't the biggest fan of spending time alone, except for when he's working out and in the zone.

🏺 ︰ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬

Disney's Hercules. Johnny Bravo. A literal golden retriever. Chris Hemsworth's Thor. Kronk from An Emperor's New Groove.

🏺 ︰ 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐞

TW: Some financial instability Evander Althea grew up the only child to a single mother in San Francisco, California. Evan didn't let the lack of a father figure get to him, he loves his mother with all his heart and is fiercely protective of her when it comes to men she dates and people who treat her poorly. He grew up fast, being the 'man of the household', he took that to heart as a kid and did all the chores around the house, taking care of the home as his mother worked for their only source of income. Evan got into working out in high school, taking up a job at a fitness center, spending everyday there with his friends, he loved it. It wasn't long before he was off to college, leaving his mother for the first time ever. The distance from his only family was tough, but Evan is quick to making friends and found his own posse of people in college. One late night as Evan, who may or may not have been drunk, was walking back from a sorority party to his frat house, was accosted by a mugger. Evan was going to comply but the other didn't leave him alone even after giving him all the cash he had. What Evan meant as a small push to get the man away from him since the mugger flying, crashing into the grass a ways away. Evan ran home, it was clear that it wasn't his own physical strength that made the man sore through the sky but something deep within him, crawling to get out. He was contacted shortly after that night about Camp Godlings and his mother confirmed it, his father was Heracles, did that make Evan a Disney's prince? He had so many questions, and with honestly no real direction in his life in college, he decided to drop out and moved to Camp Godling, he could feel this was his destiny.

#godlingintros

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crevicedwelling · 2 years

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I keep a small amount (~100) of Armadillidium vulgare and I find that they are very fond of climbing, which seems counterintuitive to a litter dweller - they spend a lot of time at the top of sticks I angle against the terrarium side, and I also gave them a dried hydrangea panicle which they use as something of a jungle gym now. They do spend time beneath the bark, litter, and logs I give them but plenty sit right out in the open on these climbing structures. Do you observe this behavior in any of your isopods? They also don't seem to eat leaf litter very much - they reject most of the types of dead leaves I give them, opting instead to eat lichens, living moss, and some kinds of fresh leaves like clover, autumn olive, and bittercress. I'm just not sure if this is normal pillbug behavior! What are your thoughts?

I’ve heard Armadillidium vulgare climb often in desert habitats out in California but since they’re only about 10-15% of the population of local isopods I’ve never been able to witness them climbing any more than the more common A. nasatum, P. scaber (which do move around here on concrete walls, wooden objects, etc).

isopods can be picky about leaf litter and mine seem to strongly favor maple leaves that have sat and aged for at least 3-4 months, fully dry and brown. I soak litter further to leach out bitter tannins. my isopods avoid oak, beech, and other shiny, hard leaves unless they are rotted to the point they’re soft and crumbly.

isopods do eat a lot of fresh leaves when available, although most common species don’t require it in their diets. lichens and mosses in most urban habitats can gather pollutants and may not be sustainable to harvest, which is why I don’t feed them those, but isopods do eat them readily.

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thebigfudanshi · 1 year

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anyone even seen My Giant Life? It's like a show where people (mostly women I've seen) are like 6'7 and they get documented how their lives go, how they go about their daily lives being really tall and how other people react.

I have the overwhelming urge to write something like this with Beach Bear, it doesn't even have to be its own thing, I'm just gonna throw all these inconvenient things in my fanfics.

Like putting thing in comically high places just on accident because he's literally 8 feet tall in my head canon. Just casually sliding a box of something on top of the cabinets in his and Dook's apartment and this 5'5 little dog has to climb on his counter to grab that shit later. Or hitting his head on shit all the time. Or just adding little nuances because HE'S MASSIVE.

Boom, new idea. You know how often tall people get asked how tall they are? The show I'm referring to is kinda old, but there's this lady at my mom's work who's hella tall who STILL gets asked how tall she is every time she goes in. You guys remember that part in the '86 gift showtape where Beach Bear referenced going to malls to watch people go ballistic near Christmas? I can fully imagine he would go to malls just to have people fuck with him. He's like an instant magnet for people and he LOVES it. Everyone flocks to him and he's got instant friends. That's why he's so chill and friendly. Cause he came to California and he was just hit with attention. It's a great feeling. I feel like that's also why he'd like showbiz, cause kids ADORE people who look like Teddy bears and could be used like a jungle gym, and I feel like if you work at a kids restaurant, you gotta like kids a little bit.

But my favorite thing about My Giant Life is that there's a couple in it, a woman who's like 6'9 and her boyfriend who's like 5'8 and it's fucking adorable, I put Dook and Beach over that immediately as soon as as saw this dude have to hop on a wall to kiss his girlfriend like hjhjdjgjgk beach Bear's 8 foot dook would have to climb a fucking pole to kiss this man I love it. Beach Bear would totally pick him up too just cause and kisses.

I think I just really like tall people.

Can't you tell I'm 5'3?

#rock afire explosion #beach bear #the rockafire explosion #i ship these two obviously #I can clearly see Dook getting fiesty with Small Dog Energy at someone barking at him or something and beach bear picks him up like a pet #like “we dont bark at people.”#and dook being all huffy cause he dont like getting barked at by people or pets #but hes over it cause hes being held like a toddler #and i feel like hed be down with that

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deada55 · 2 years

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His Life Will Find A Purpose (When the River Meets the Sea) - Chapter 7

crossposting: ao3

work summary: A nine-year old in Tomahawk, WI gets glaucoma surgery over Christmas break.

chapter summary: As the advent calendar counts down, Pickles struggles under the anxiety of looming surgery.

tws: none (let me know if I missed a biggie!)

As December trickled by, Pickles would occasionally feel something rush up from nowhere in slow-motion, like he’d seen a tsunami climb out of the horizon. On the Wednesday before Christmas break started, they had a school assembly to watch the kindergartners and the fifth graders (including Seth) sing Christmas carols, and on that Friday they had a party complete with cupcakes from the classroom mom, quiet Mrs. Lofgren. But not even candy and watching Seth boil red from humiliation on the stage in the gym could break Pickles out of his fog.

Since he’d been provided an assigned seat after the first week of class, sitting with his friends in the back wasn’t an option, so he had to catch up with Rodney, Jonathan, and Michael during recesses. Today, they all sat behind the previous day’s snow fort.

“You’re lucky you don’t go anywhere on Christmas. My mom drags us to grandma’s house for dinner and it’s so boring.” Jonathan seemed to be related to almost everyone in town, if you went by everyone he claimed to be his cousin. A silent nodding consensus among Rodney and Michael cemented that yes, it was possible that Jonathan would have a large family gathering to attend on Christmas Day. Jonathan had the best baseball card collection and made a good playmate despite his constant fibbing, but his remarks consistently needed vetting.

“Yeah, it’s kinda busy at my house on Christmas.” Rodney’s mother was easygoing, yet exhausted with three year old twins, Rodney, and three beautiful Labradors. “I just play with my toys and have dinner.”

“Hey Pickles?” Michael interrupted Rodney just before taking a cool, refreshing bite out of a fresh snowball. “My sister’s in Seth’s class and she said you’re gonna be in the hospital on Christmas.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Pickles took off his wet mittens and drew furrows in the snow with his bare fingers. Traces of dried blood from his cuticles gave the snow the slightest rusty freckles as he plowed it into parallel lines.

“Really?” Rodney wiped his nose on his sleeve. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s his eye thing, remember?” Jonathan chirped, doing his best to be helpful.

“Yeah,” Pickles confirmed. Michael pushed himself up onto his knees.

“Wow. Are you going to get presents there?”

“No, my parents decided it’ll be when I get home.”

“Seth also said you’re not getting nothin’, but I don’t think that’s true.” Michael was always nice, whether he tried to be or not. Believing Seth came too easily to Pickles, and hearing someone else disagree with him always made Pickles feel a little better. If someone else thought Seth was wrong, then maybe he was actually wrong, and it wasn’t just Pickles trying to sabotage himself into disappointment.

Pickles sat back and put his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t care?” Michael ducked his head a little bit and ended up looking so sincere, with big, warm, black eyes, that Pickles almost snatched him into a hug,

Pickles shrugged, but before he could speak, Jonathan piped back up, this time just to be a know-it-all.

“You know eye surgery sometimes makes stuff worse, right? That’s how my uncle lost his eye!” His uncle lost his eye in a VA hospital in California after he’d come back from Vietnam, a story he told almost everyone he met. And Jonathan’s uncle met a lot of people working at the liquor store. He’d get talking for hours at the counter and wouldn’t even remember the back door of the stockroom was unlocked, and the creme de menthe was awfully close to the back door… Pickles helped himself every now and then. Jonathan’s uncle sure knew how to drum up new customers.

“Would you come back to school if you were blind?”

“I don’t know.” Blindness was such a frightening prospect that Pickles had instead begun to settle with his mortality, and fully intended to choose death over blindness out of sheer will. Still, there was no guarantee that wishing himself dead would finally work… Jonathan had effectively read Pickles’ fearful mind, but he smirked and looked back up into his friends’ faces. “I could get an infection and die with pus coming outta my face, so…” Heh. That’d be funny. Closed-casket funeral for sure. Maybe it’d make his mom sick of making casseroles with that set, gelatinous, yellow cream of chicken soup that was so concentrated that it came out shaped like its can… Can pus be chunky?

The boys were silent as they watched two beads of winter “sweat” drip onto Pickles’ cheeks.

“Well, I’d miss you-” Michael began, but was interrupted by Mrs. Wallace clearing her throat from the other side of the fort. Her festive nativity vest wiggled its pom pom trim at them from above.

“Gentleman, recess ended five minutes ago.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Wallace!” Jonathan was not only a fibber but a kissup and stood up the fastest, but they all trudged into line with the other kids.

At the end of the day, right after the final bell, before she’d even sat her chalk down, Mrs. Wallace called Pickles over to her desk. He slid everything on the top of his desk into his schoolbag, leaving papers and pencils to get crushed under his books, as long as it could close. Then, he walked up to her, standing in the scuffed 12x12 asbestos tile squarely in front of her nameplate.

His eyes only lifted when she held his mittens out to him, dry and warm from sitting on the radiator behind her desk.

“You left your gloves at recess.”

“Oh…” They needed to be washed but otherwise they were perfect and almost steaming with warmth. He cupped them in his hands, but he didn’t dare look at Mrs. Wallace in case he were in trouble for forgetting them in the first place. “Thanks.”

“Merry Christmas,” she offered, softening her eyes.

“Merry Christmas.”

When Pickles had his coat on (and doublechecked that Luke and his inhaler were still in the pockets), he heard Mrs. Wallace call him again while she straightened out the rows of desks. “Pickles?”

“Yes?”

Her mouth opened and shut a few times but nothing in her mind made it down to her mouth. Over the length of the semester, it felt like a light had gone out in her class. Although Pickles became less disruptive, it wasn’t a result of trying to focus more in class, punishment, or ‘maturing’. If anything, he’d gotten more distracted with his head on his desk instead of making faces or trying to cut up with the other students. She let him get away with playing with toys in the pockets of his clothes because it was one of the only remaining signs that Pickles was a nine year-old boy and not a frightened dog. His current state was far from the description of the incorrigible and wildly sincere child his last teacher described. It was like he’d been snapped in two.

Mrs. Wallace knew from being on the church prayer chain that when someone believes they’ll die, they come that much closer to it. Surgery was no laughing matter, but to see Pickles say a roundabout goodbye behind the snow fort he built laughing the day before made her heart lurch into her hands. But who was she to tell him he wouldn’t die?

He could barely stand to be spoken to. With his head tucked and his arms creeping up to his chest, Pickles took baby steps backwards towards the door.

“I’m looking forward to seeing you back in class in the new year.”

He chalked it up to seasonal formalities and nodded in her general direction. “Yeah, uh, you too. Bye.”

While she was dusting the cubbies, she found his mittens again, laid right under his coat hook on the floor. She brushed them off and folded them, laying them neatly in the left corner of his cubby where he could see them as soon as he returned.

Pickles’ sleeplessness followed him to Saturday morning, cartoons be damned. His teeth ached, for no good reason, and it was almost enough to make him stop eating. Weakly, Pickles hiccuped, and scooped spoonful after crunchy, wet spoonful into his mouth, until he could feel the granulated sugar he’d sprinkle over his cornflakes squeak between his molars.

“Just slap me,” Seth moaned with his head leaned against the couch cushion and his limp arms giving him the languishing, saintly form of a groggy Saturday morning schoolkid.

“What?”

“I said just slap me.” The hum of the tubes on the TV was eerie and clear, or were they hearing the refrigerator? They were still as two bodies laying in adjoining cabinets in the morgue.

Pickles reached to the right and hovered his fingers over Seth’s cheek. He brought it down on Seth’s unfocused face with the same hardness you’d use to make a hollow sound on a dog’s ribs, but pulled back when he felt his brother flinch.

“Ow!” Seth squeaked… right before he laughed. “You hit like a girl.”

“I do not!” Pickles couldn’t help being a little brother, but he was not a little girl.

Seth clicked his tongue like an idiot (Mom smacked him when he did it, but he swore he saw it in a mob movie) and returned his head to the polystyrene hammock of the couch seat cushion. With his knobby legs shoved under the coffee table and that smug, satisfied look on his face, Seth looked as comfortable as could be.

“Do it again.”

This time, with twice as much hesitation, Pickles popped him in the chops with an open hand. The sound of Seth’s teeth snapping together briefly volleyed around the room.

“ Ow !” Seth twisted himself towards his brother, then looked back away with a puff.

Pickles pulled his knees to his chest and chased the not-yet soggy cereal stragglers floating around his bowl with a little tea spoon. “Yeah. Don’t call me a girl.”

Instead of letting it go and going back to his own breakfast, Seth slapped Pickles in the side of the head with a flailing arm.

“Seth! God-”

“You’re such a pussy.”

“Am not… Jeez.” Pickles grumbled. Unwilling to debate further, he got up to sit on the couch.

“I know I didn’t just hear you speak the Lord’s name in vain, Pickles! Shame on you…” Molly waltzed into the room clutching her housecoat closer around her chest. When she sipped her coffee, her glasses fogged over and her eyes went missing.

“Seth, I want you to shovel out the driveway this morning.”

“Mom!” Seth turned towards her and crossed his arms tight, hoisting his shoulders over his ears. “That’s not fair!”

“Now don’t throw a fit. I’ll give you $5.”

“But make Pickles do it!”

“He’s too short.” She cut her eyes towards Pickles and he decided to stop trying to hunt every cornflake down. “He did a terrible job last weekend- your father almost broke his back! I want you to do it.” Pickles left the room to wash out his bowl.

“Fine.”

“That’s good.” She took her glasses off and came around the couch to give her oldest a kiss on the top of his head. “Love you. I’m going to go call Aunt Elaine.”

“Love you too, Ma,” he mumbled over his soggy cornflakes, then he stared at the television.

Pickles returned as she was leaving and laid down across the sofa, minding Seth’s head and curling up in hopes that it’d stop his stomach from tossing his cereal around like a front-loading washing machine. The second he closed his eyes, he was dozing off. Almost every waking moment he wasn’t talking to someone, he was thinking about the surgery. There were too many unknowns, from the food to the other kids to the non-zero chance that the surgery would fail and he’d end up even worse. Maybe blindness would be where everything would look like a blurry shape. Or darkness. Maybe his eyes would pop or they’d scoop them out, and he’d have empty, skin-covered eyesockets like one of the neighbors’ outdoor cats. Maybe blindness would be not knowing how nauseating he’d be to the unwilling friends and family who could bear to see his mutilated face. He probably wouldn’t die if something happened, after all. He’d have to learn how to live with it.

Maybe he could be a telemarketer, since he could probably memorize where the numbers on the telephone were, if only someone could read the numbers out to him. Or, braille, there was always braille…

Can labels and money and newspapers didn’t come in braille. Maybe he’d have to live with mom and dad forever, since he knew the house.

The last thing he might ever see could be white sheets or a doctor’s face. How long would it take for him to forget what everything looked like? Last night, he’d tossed and turned and made himself dizzy suppressing sobs and using his inhaler, something that had become more and more frequent as Seth’s advent calendar counted down like a bomb.

Today could be his last day to be a normal kid. Tomorrow, he went to Milwaukee.

“Pickles, can I ask for a favor?”

Instead of brushing Seth off, Pickles always felt compelled to accept Seth’s little “deals.” Although they’d bitten him in the ass, there were a handful of times where it’d been fun, or it’d saved them both a lot of trouble… like the time Seth’s friend gave them a ride in the back of his truck to the gas station and he gave them the remnants of nitrite leather cleaner, which kept Pickles entertained for the rest of the month. But Seth would do the same for him eventually, right? That’s what mom told him. Besides, he didn’t have any big plans today.

Seth rolled his shoulders and closed his eyes. “You gotta shovel the driveway.”

“I can’t. Mom said I suck at it, remember?”

Seth leaned forward and looked Pickles in the eyes as he pulled himself tighter and tighter into a ball. “Pickles, look, you’re my brother, alright? And you can do what you gotta do. It just iced over last time- but it was perfect, just perfect before that. You’re my brother, you can do anything you want to, and so what if you did a crap job last time, ok? You can’t do everything right. But you gotta shovel the driveway.”

“You can’t make me. Mom said she wanted you to shovel the driveway.” Pickles dredged himself up and sat upright to argue, but stopped short when he saw how quickly Seth twisted around, and how his face was stuck in that still, stern look that felt almost as bad as mother’s.

“I can’t make you but you’ll be sorry, trust me, ok? You don’t want to know what I’m gonna do to you.” Seth stood up, leaving his bowl of lukewarm, used milk on the coffee table. As he walked away, he backhanded Pickles in the ear.

“Ow!”

As Pickles sat by himself, the TV’s cheerful chirp started to sound mocking and hostile. When it became unbearable and sick-feeling, he stood up, turned off the TV, and grabbed the little shooting gallery pocket game from one of the side table drawers.

“Pickles?”

“Yes, Mom?”

“Your snow suit is clean.” He’d had it taken out of commission for a few days after Seth and his friends infested their yard with every frozen dog turd they could find within a half-mile radius. And that happened only a few days after he’d become un-grounded from slamming the door when Seth chased him up the stairs for using “his” broom for broomball. With all the drama along with his asthma, he’d spent most of his weekends inside. If today was his last good day, he might as well spend it in the snow.

When he emerged from the house, he immediately heard Jonathan reciting the rules of street hockey and ran up the plowed street just in time to even out the teams. Although he wasn’t a particularly valuable player, even when he could see the ball, it was better to have another body on your side than nobody, and there was even an extra stick! He burnt the rest of the morning that way, hollering and hustling, setting his lungs on fire. The ice on the telephone wires gave them a tinsel-y sparkle in the morning sun.

He’d played a couple games before Seth and his friends replaced some of the kids who had to go eat lunch and change gloves, and at the end of a match, Seth slapped him upside the head so hard that his hat flipped off.

“So when you gonna shovel out the driveway?”

“I’m not.” Pickles shot back as he bent down and shook the snow off his hat. “Mom said-”

“I didn’t ask you what mom said, did I?” Seth grabbed the back of Pickles snowsuit and jerked it up so that Pickles would stand. The game hadn’t really stopped, but with two people arguing by one of the goals, the rest of the neighborhood boys stood around and watched the sun shine helplessly on the snow-burdened, slumping cedar trees in neighboring yards.

“I’m not gonna shovel the stupid driveway!”

The white snow sparkled with such a sincere invitation that Seth couldn’t help but kick Pickles in the back of the knees, but before he could do much of anything else Michael Jones’ mom poked her head out of her door, swathed in her own winter fleece housecoat and slippers, but with a silk scarf over her hot-combed hair. And Michael’s mom wasn’t afraid to pull out the phone book and find your parents. And if they hung up on her, she’d write them. And if she wrote them and called them and what you did in front of her house was bad enough, she’d tell Mrs. Wallace or the grocer or even the Schwann’s guy… Mrs. Jones would get you in trouble if she thought you deserved it, and not even Seth would test her this close to Christmas. At the sound of her screen door squeaking, everyone stood still.

Seth stood back, casting a shadow over Pickles as he flipped himself over. “So that’s how it’s gonna be, huh? Alright.” Without another word, he turned and left. Slowly, the game resumed, but Michael himself came outside, and he and Pickles and Rodney left the game to go sledding on trash can lids a couple streets over.

When he came back down the road, red-nosed and cold-handed, it was after lunch. He shed his boots and his snowsuit at the door, freeing his sweaty hair from his hat and flinging his gloves to the floor. Snow had managed to wiggle into the arms of his clothes, wetting his undershirt, so he went upstairs to change it while he shivered off the lingering cold in his legs and ears. Seth bounded down the stairs, shoving right past Pickles, with a pair of scissors in his hand.

The door to his room, typically wide open, was mostly closed. The inside was as dark as it usually was, but the outline of his plastic Millennium Falcon looked more like a microwave omelette maker than a blurry dinner plate on the ground. He turned the light switch on and almost gagged at the sight of it cracked in two parts, all the glued plastic joins popped-out, with shards of grey plastic spilling out of the splits. Around it lie the whole cast of Star Wars (at least, the ones Pickles had) in pieces, their arms and plastic boots scattered like they’d lain down on landmines. A couple heads were broken off, or marred by the force of two blades attempting to saw them in half.

He knelt, but he kept his breathy torment and pathetic tears in his hands. After all, they were only toys, right?

#my writing #metalocalypse fanfic #metalocalypse #pickles the drummer #preklok #metalocalypse hcs

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