#high top boxing shoes for women

[slutshamethesquirrels]

All The Sweet Tea In Carolina

Pairing: cowboy!geto x reader

TW/CW: historical inaccuracies, smut, rough sex, choking, gagging, mentions of guns, mdni

Description: Restless and duty-bound, you are set to begin courting with one very handsome Nanami Kento come morning. However, your heart belongs to another, who may change your mind before sun rises.

This work is part of the "Slow It Down, Cowboy" AU, a collaborative effort with @vallification . Read it's sister work, "In My Heart You Pay No Rent" here.

How unfair life could be, truly.

You should've been ecstatic, over the moon even, to have received an invitation to court from one Nanami Kento. He was the son of a blacksmith and a well educated mother, polite, modest, and only four years your senior. Nanami Kento, certainly, would make a fine husband.

”Oh my, how handsome he is!”

Your mother had gushed in the dining room, occasionally dipping her head to peer around the entryway into your living quarters as he discussed his intentions with your father. Marriage, money, children were all topics that had been thrown around. All of which you knew because every time your mama would hear something she liked she’d floundered and flounced as if there were ants under her feet, squealing excitedly at what had to be your worst nightmare. You had to resist the urge to insinuate she was a church bell.

She wasn't wrong, though, the old church bell. Nanami Kento was handsome. The other young women of the town would simply stone you if it meant they could step into your shoes.

And so you’d accepted the proposition with a tight smile, hoping he may have thought your eyes were wide with excitement, not panic.

I am a wretched, ungrateful woman. I will be courted by the very handsome Nanami Kento. When he asks for my hand I will be his wife. I will learn to love him.

Your brain repeated the mantra over and over in your head, trying desperately to convince your heart of it’s truths. All the while, your body seemed to revolt against you as well, taking sides with your heart in this futile pursuit. Every shift in your bed was uncomfortable, the collar of your nightdress too high, the wrist cuffs of that same dress too tight. Your body thought this night would be much more comfortable with a particular pair of arms wrapped around you. Your heart screamed for the return of a certain set of catmint hued eyes. Your brain thought he was a backhanded fly-by-night, and argued with the other two to follow suit.

To the rest of the world, Suguru Geto was an outlaw, a cowhand turned desperado chasing some wild tale of claiming land out west by means of force. Under your bed in an old pine box were clippings from newspapers spinning wild fables of his desperate attempts at gunslinging his way into codfish aristocracy alongside one notorious “Six Eyes Satoru Gojo”, a figure whose name struck fear in the hearts of many.

To you, though, Suguru Geto was a humble farmboy, sent to the dogs by the untimely death of his parents not long after he’d turned 18. 

You hadn’t known him well then, not honestly, but gossip needs no carriage. Rumor in the market paths was that the young man was a bit less of a pony, and more of a stallion. You remembered feeling a blend of emotions everytime it was mentioned. Disgust at the reckless deflowerment of so many young women of proud heritage. Visceral shock at the idea that Suguru Geto, a boy known to live by his charms, with a voice laden with honey and a tender smile, would commit such atrocities. Then, on top of the latter, was a feeling that spurred an immense shame within you, jealousy. The green eyed wretch. 

It was no surprise to you why so many young women had fallen into the bear trap that was his porcelain grin; the one that he would flash at merchants as you passed him time and time again at the market with the furtiveness of a field mouse darting through the grass. Though, with the way you assumed of him, perhaps you were more like the corn snake. After all, who was to say any of it was true? Lies and gossip had long since been wed, after all.

Those girls in their bustled gowns would be floored to know how many times he’d bedded you in the years since then, especially after he’d run for the west and Chicagoed more men than you could count on both your hands and all your toes. Your family would simply be ruined if the coffee-sisters caught wind of all the ways he’d taken you. If it ever happened, you’d already decided you’d publish a pamphlet and then promptly drown yourself in the river to save them from the shame. Tell the emerging nation in its entirety how sure of a shot “Sure Shot Suguru Geto” really was. He’d forgive you for bubbling around, surely. Not like he’d have much of a choice.

After all, it was his own discourteousness that had left you here in your bed on this night, tossing and turning and wallowing in your own delusional sentimentality. What was there to miss, even? He was a landlouper, a vagabond that only stayed for a night, if one could even refer to it as such. He’d come to take you after dusk on the off chance it wouldn’t trouble him so much as he was passing through, and return to his misruled adventures before the sun had even risen. Of course, there were more reasons than his own transgressions that sent him packing so quickly. Once, he’d made the mistake of over sleeping, only to be awoken to your father beating on the door of your room, asking why a horse was posted up by the tree on the farside of the property, wanting to ensure your safety. Admittedly, it was a tad fun trying to distract your Pa while he attempted to back slang it by way of your bedroom window. You almost understood why he chose such a lifestyle.

God be with you, you needed to sleep. Now.

Either by night or by sleight, by fair means or foul, you stomped the images of his broad shoulders and calloused hands out of your mind and attempted to count sheep. But even the sheep, it seemed, were disgruntled. After a fair number they laid down in the field of your mind, refusing to run their courses and instead curling into briskets, having grown tired and lazy. It seems they needed a cattleboy to guide them. A tall, toned, miscreant cowhand with a flair for violence and princess-esque locks of inky silken hair that tumbled down his--

Your eyes fly open, and dammit you could absolutely kill that man for the way he’s ravaged your entire being. The thought crosses your mind that perhaps you should’ve counted Nanami Kento’s jumping hurdles instead, and you can’t help but giggle childishly at yourself, pawing at your weary eyes with balled fists.

“What’s s’funny?”

You jolt upright, catching the crown of your head against the pine headboard as you did so, causing you to yelp a little louder than you should’ve. Clutching one hand over the painsome spot where you’d practically bludgeoned yourself, you lift your eyes to find none other than “Sure Shot” himself, his jaw resting against a closed fist and his elbow against the wood paneling of your open window, his hair loose (just the way you liked it) and toppling into the open air of your room, the light of the moon catching on the locs like sun on water.

You search your soul for every reason to be cross with him, trying desperately to cling to the crumbling remnants of your anger that were slipping through your hands like sand at just the sight of him, but your body– dammit, your body. It betrays you, craving him like sunlight. You scramble out of your bed and to the window, leaning out to toss your arms around his neck, melting into him as he chuckles mischievously, his hands finding your sides to hoist you out of the window, spinning you around like children celebrating a hard won game of marbles.

“Now just how did you manage to snake your way up here without alerting the likes of Archie?” You question, leaning your hands against the broad stretch of his shoulders to look at him. Your father had found the ol’ hound in a burlap sack by the river the summer prior. He grew into a fierce protector, for better or for worse.

“Seems even dogs’r charmed by my delicate sensibilities.” He smirks, and you can't help the soft smile that creeps across your face, your fingers affectionately tracing over the embroidery of his shirt, carefully crafted delphiniums threaded in various lilac hues painted across his shoulders. He did always have a thing for fashion.

“Charmed only by the dog biscuits in your pocket, surely is what you intended.”

He snickers, setting you down in your still-open windowsill so your bare feet don’t touch the moist earth below, stuffing a hand in his pocket as he speaks,

“Cain’t blame a man, honestly-” he produces something from his pocket and expertly tosses it into his mouth, too smooth for you to catch sight of it before it was crunching and cracking between his teeth. “Better’n any human biscuit I’ve ever tasted--”.

You gasp, wide-eyed and astounded at such a disgusting act carried out by such a beautiful man right in front of your eyes.

“Suguru Geto, you truly forget yourself!” your scold carries out over his wheezing, a mixture of hushed complaints about how you were sure to get the two of you caught if you didn’t pipe down intermingled with chuckling. He tries to muffle it by leaning his arms on the window, caging you in by the hips and burying his face in the crook of your neck. The rumble of his chest lights a fire inside you as you attempt to playfully push him away to no avail.

“I mean it, Mr. Sure Shot if you even so much as attempt to toy with the idea of putting your poor misfortunate dog lips anywhere near me--!”

“Shhh!” He begs, cupping your head on either side and bringing your forehead down to rest against his own, still laughing lightly “It’s a mint, I swear! See? I’m only hackin’ on ya’.”. He blows a gentle cooling breath against your face and despite yourself you breathe in deeply, swallowing a lungful of his breath and something distinctly fresh, hoping he doesn’t notice the cheek-ache you’ve gained from the tingling sensation.

You mimic his giggles, though whether it was due to humor or the way he stole your breath so effortlessly was up for debate “You’ve gone mad.”.

“Yes’m, sure have.” He confirms, his smile fading from one of amusement to one of reverence, “T’love an’ be sane ain’t possible, after all”.

Your smile fades as you lean back slightly, shaking your head with a dry scoff, “You, Suguru Geto, do not love me.”.

His brow scrunches in confusion, eyes bouncing back and forth across your face as he chews his cheek. What you’d give to be able to see into his head.

“Now, ‘at dog jus’ ain’t gon’ hunt.” He huffs, displeased with your response to his confession. You roll your eyes and go to slide backwards into your bedroom only to be caught in his hands, one on your waist and one clutching your chin between his calloused fingers, rough from years of roping and riding “If I ain’t earnest, then ‘m dead, y/n. I lov-”.

“Stop it, and stop it now.” You spit, reaching up to grab him by the wrist and toss it back at him “You do not-”.

“Who ’re you to try’n tell me how I feel?” He cuts you off, nostrils flaring and lips cementing themselves into a tight line as he grows increasingly wrought-up over your dismissal. You’d never, not even once, rejected his advances or affections before. Typically you were malleable, pliant to his wills. It was obvious he didn’t know how to handle it.

You hold up a hand to signal him to settle, and he does a bit, finally backing away just a few feet and allowing you some much needed room to breathe.

“My apologies. It might be better to say you cannot love me-”

“I’ll do whatever‘n the hell I damn well please-”

“Suguru.”

He huffs and turns away from you, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation, “Sorry, I guess. Go ‘head.”. A frustrated sigh.

You set your gaze anywhere but at him, your mouth opening and closing several times as you struggle to say the words you know you need to, your heels kicking softly against the wooden framing of your family home.

“Well?” He prods, growing impatient, and you shoot him a glare, sending a clear signal; that he needs to relax. This is hard enough without him becoming chewed up.

“I am set to begin courting tomorrow.” You breathe, trying to remain steady, your head growing fuzzy as the confession seems to set the reality of it all into stone. You were going to start courting tomorrow. With a man that was the polar opposite in nearly every fashion of the one before you, the one you wanted.

He stills for a moment, hooded eyes widening in shock momentarily before he relaxes entirely, following that with a snort and a chuckle, “Very funny, but don’t yank my chain like ‘at. You got no idea what I almost-”.

“It is no laughing matter, I fear. He talked to my father this morning. They discussed funds and… and the dowry-- a-and, children.” You have to stop yourself and manually fill your lungs with much needed oxygen, hanging your head low and gripping to your makeshift seat until your knuckles turn white, caught off guard by how badly you ache more and more with each passing word.

When you lift your head to meet his form once again, he’s stock-still, entirely unreadable. The once cool and open night air now felt stiff, stale, and impossibly hot. Eventually, he breaks first, huffing and rolling his lips between his teeth, nodding as if to confirm his own thoughts.

“Well, y’just seem plum thrilled, babe. By all means, don’t go lettin’ my nonsense stop ya’.” You’re certain he wants this to come off unbothered, but his voice absolutely drips sarcasm and venom. The sound is almost foreign to your ears. “Who’s the lucky bastard, huh?”.

“Luck?!” You evade answering that question entirely, deciding it better to focus on the relationship he knew versus the one he didn’t. You weren’t callow enough to lose sight of Suguru’s tendencies. You needn't sweet Nanami Kento’s blood on your hands.

“It hasn’t anything to do with luck, Suguru. You could have done it just as easily as he, but the path you chose was different. You just as simply could’ve gone to my father and–!”

“And what?!” He steps closer, his voice barely a harsh whisper, pushing through clenched teeth, “Introduce m’self to the beer bottle? ‘Howdy, I’m Suguru Geto. I got nothin’ to m’ name, dead parents and a barrel’a women under my belt but please force your daughter into allowin’ me to court ‘er.’. You ‘n I both know-”

“I will have you know I am most certainly not being forced into anything-”

“Then why not say ‘no’?”

“Because I cannot!”

“Sounds awful forced t’me.” He deadpans. You hadn’t paid much attention to how close he was again until his breath was fanning your face. 

“You’re impossible.” Unwilling to let him back you into a corner, you slide backwards into the room, fully intent on turning around and slamming your window right down on his ridiculously large hands.

He beat you to the punch, though. Hopping through the open space right behind you, giving you no time to shut him out before you’re chest to chest with him, standing on your tiptoes to try and cut down on the height advantage, much like one would go about handling a bear.

“This is your fault, you know? What’s forcing my hand here is that you’ve-” you jab a pointed finger into his chest “-devalued me! Without Nanami Kento’s consideration I would surely be left to the hands of some- some dizzy-aged cretin with a wad of gold and a lobcock that hasn’t worked since before I was born!”.

He smirks, and you immediately realize your mistake, your eyes widening as he cocks his head and dips down to your eye-level, his body language telling you that your attempts to dominate him were all but futile.

“Nanami Kento, huh?” He questions, smugness plastering his unthinkably handsome features. A tense few beats pass, and he relents, seemingly satisfied with the new information. The moonbeams that cascaded in through the window caught and glimmered on his holstered pistol strapped to his hip by way of his gun belt, reminding you of the weight of your mistake.

“Do not. Suguru, I’m gravely serious, do not do this-” You weren’t sure what you were begging for.

“Nanami Kento.” He repeats the name slowly, his voice coated with malice as he stops and turns to look at you. His eyes were narrowed and sharp, nostrils flaring and jaw clenched tight as he fought to keep his voice low and his breathing even.

“Let me tell ya ‘bout Nanami Kento. ‘At man ain’t ever worked’fr nary a damn thing ‘n his entire life, and when it comes to fightin’? I bet on ev’r dollar I got ‘at prick’s all hat, no cattle. He wants ta take ya from me? Fine. But he’s gon’ have to do a lil’ more for it than just givin’ yer ol’ man a lick n’ a promise.” He nods the affirmative at his own words and turns to leave, but you lunge forward and catch him by the shirtsleeve.

“Just of what exactly do you speak?” You demand, and the smile he gives you could shake the shit from the pants of Satan himself.

“Real simple, peach. He can duel me for it, like a gentleman. Better be grateful, too. ‘Cause the way ‘m feelin’ right now- I got half’a mind to sharpen’at silver spoon he’s graced with’n cut him with it.”

You scan his face with the providentness of a surgeon, blinking a few times before you finally just ask,

“…You can’t be serious?”

“Oh, simon pure, m’afriad-”

“You will ruin me!” You grit your teeth and slap a flat palm against his chest out of pure instinct. He flinches a bit, less in pain and more in pure shock at your outburst. You’d never had a legitimate reason to be cross with him before.

“Accordin’ to you, I’ve already gone on an’ beat that bull-”

“Oh, you rat! You know what my intention is! How am I to explain why Sure Shot Suguru Geto desires to duel for my- my-” You let go of him, your hands flailing as you search for your words. You’re so mad you can’t even articulate.  “Well surely not my honor! If anything, for my-! My madge!”.

By the time you finish your outburst, you’re effectively tied up in knots, your fists clenched at your side and your jaw jutted like a bulldog as your chest heaves with fiery, angry breaths. He’s tense too, but for an entirely different reason. His lips are pressed in a tight line, eyebrows damn near flying off his face and cheeks turning crimson with effort.

“Don’t you dare.” Your warning is the thing that sends him over the edge. It starts with a snort, and then evolves into a fit of wheezing and whickering as he tries with conviction to keep his volume low, doubling over slightly and catching himself with one hard palm on the window frame, the other clutching at his jerking abdomen as he laughs. 

You can’t hold yourself to the conviction of not laughing along with him, tears brimming in your eyes as you cover your mouth with both hands and give him a swift kick to the shin as if he were the one who said the offending comment in the first place. It earns a girlish yelp from him, and then you’re both laughing harder, cascading to the floor in a heap as you  attempt to get the reins back on this metaphorical horse.

“See?” He coughs obnoxiously and draws a deep breath, flipping over onto his back on the hardwood flooring of your bedroom and swiping at some tears that had formed in his eyes “Now how’n the hell do ya expect me to let’cha walk away with a mouth like ‘at?”.

You sit up straight and shake your head at him incredulously, sighing as you feel your hostility leave with your breath. He looks just as mesmerizing as ever, with his hair fanning out across your floor like splattered paint and his face flush from laughter, stripped of his hat, vest, and overcoat. He must’ve left them with Cinnamon, his trusty palomino steed who was undeniably tied up somewhere on the corner of your parent’s property. He claimed that a horse was nothing more than a form of transportation, but you'd caught him draping his over layers across her back more than once before. It wasn't even that cold outside.

You reach forward and grab his hand in yours, running your thumb along his knuckles, noticing the scrapes and fading bruises but choosing not to bring it up. Who knows what kind of hogwash he’d gotten into since the last time you'd seen him.

“I'm serious. You cannot duel with him. The shame it would bring my family would be odious.” You whisper, avoiding his gaze and choosing instead to focus on his hand in yours, his warm skin working wonders to ground you.

He shifts until he's sitting, pulling your hand to his lips for a quick kiss before he's kicking off his boots, an action your body has an inherent reaction to, muscle memory causing your heart to pick up pace and your face to light fire in anticipation.

“What can I do, then? Tell me, y/n. Jus’ say the words an’ I’ll flatten the Appalachians for ya’.” He murmurs after setting his shoes aside, careful not to let the iron spurs clang against the floor. He reaches forward and tucks your hair behind your ear, letting his palm rest against your cheek, holding you in a gaze that could’ve pinned you down without the help of his warm hand.

You lean into him, bringing your hand up to hold him there, lips falling loose and open as you search for words, finding none. What could he do? The damage was irreparable, it seemed. You couldn’t be selfish over the matter. Your head shakes slightly and the hand that cups his own grips at his fingers and attempts to pry him away from you. You couldn’t. You couldn’t--

“Anythin’, doll. Ya want the sun? I’ll bottl’it. I’ll stop the clouds from rainin’ and ‘is ol’ earth from turnin’ if’n it jus’ means I can have ya.” His harsh whisper cuts through you like glass and he refuses to let you go, instead shifting to his knees and bringing his free hand to mirror the one in use. Leaning over you, desperately caging you in that fucking gaze; eyes a somber and honest amethyst. Your hands come up to grip his wrists as you attempt to blink away sentimental tears, silently begging for reprieve from his overwhelming attention.

“Please, y/n.” He breathes, beckoning you to give in, lips so close to your own that you can feel every syllable, “Please let me have ya.”.

You break, of course you do, capturing his bottom lip between your own, your breathing steadily growing heavy as he jerks your body flush against his, guiding your arms around his neck to free his hands. They roam every dip and valley of your frame over your bedtime linens, resisting the temptation to pause and play along the way before trailing their way down over the globes of your ass, stopping only once they’ve reached your thighs. He picks you up with a bruising grip, your legs locking around his abdomen. He stands, as if you weigh nothing at all, and carries you to the bed. All the while he’s swiping, pushing, curling his tongue against your own like he has something to prove; and maybe he does.

The minute he sets you down your fingers make way to his gun belt. Starting at the string around his thigh, you find yourself smirking cheekily as he tenses at the contact.

“Are these those ‘delicate sensibilities’ you spoke of?” You tease, smiling up at him as you undo the knotting, making sure to let your fingers make as much contact with his clothed inner thigh as possible.

“Don’t go stirrin’ up a hornets nest, now-” He teases right back, his smirk only lasting a fraction of a second. You run a flat palm up the inside of his thighs and across the half-formed tent in his pants, massaging over the area before continuing onto his waist buckle. He hisses, throwing his head back in gratification “Shit, baby, I mean, how long’s’it been now? Four months? Six?”. His fingers dance into your hair, clinging to the locks for some sort of purchase, and the way he seems so desperate for you has you clenching your thighs together.

“Now, do you expect me to clean-handedly believe you travel like you do and don’t bed women when you’re gone?” You ask, rolling your eyes as your fingers dance upward to tug at his waist buckle, the plum stained leather smooth against the pad of your fingers. He shoots a look down at you, tutting disapprovingly.

“ Wh’Kinda guff is ‘at?” He fusses, “Ain’t ever been no other woman. Not since the first day I had ya.”

The words cause your cheeks to flush deeper red than they ever had before, and you have to fight yourself not to loose sight of the task at hand. “No?” you ask cheekily, finally wrestling off his gunbelt and sitting it off gently to the side, iron still in the holster.

“Why would I?” He asks, clenching his teeth and hissing as your hands find his waist and your lips place hot, open mouthed kisses across the front of his pants, loving the way you can feel him twitch and grow harder beneath the confines of the fabric.

“You’re spinning yarn,” You accuse, running a flat tongue against him once, twice before continuing, “Not even have you stopped at a brothel?”.

“Ain't no need, when I got my own right hand ‘nd yer mem’ry.” He’s losing all reverence, the deft fingers on his leftmost hand gripping tighter against your scalp and hips rocking in time with your movements, his right hand coming up to undo the buttons of his shirt, seeking reprieve from the heat that had washed over your tiny little bedroom.

“You are the slyest of stray alley cats.” You can't allow yourself to believe his words, though the thought of him satisfying himself under a blanket of stars makes your pussy throb. Sweaty, dirty, one hand covering his mouth so that he doesn't accidentally call out for you and wake his associates. Jerking himself hard and fast, hips rutting into his fist--

“Dumplin’. On m’ iron n’ what tiny bit’s left o’ my honor; the fuckin’ Virgin Mary ‘erself could offer t’bed me an’ I’d turn ‘er down for you-- shit!” He cuts himself off with a gasp as you take the opportunity provided to you by his freshly unbuttoned shirt, not even allowing him a moment to shed the off-white fabric from his shoulders before you’re running your tongue along the thin trail of hair along his lower abdomen. You unbutton his tight-fitted trousers, whimpering against your own will as his toned muscles twitch and jerk beneath your lips. His body was confirming his convictions. He wanted you.

Hooking your fingers under his pants and underwear, you pull them down until they’re hugging his thighs, squeezing the toned flesh there just right. You're practically panting as his cock springs free, slapping against his abdomen with a wet thud.

For a moment, all you can do is stare with heavy lidded eyes and parted lips. This is why sex was a sin. There was no earthly explanation why something could make you feel such elation; it had to be unholy by nature. Shaky fingers reach up to stroke him, nimble pads running through the coarse tufts of hair at the base before tracing up, up, up the underside of his shaft. You try not to think about how this is the last time you’ll ever see this view, focusing instead on committing every fat vein to memory, hoping you can recall it on the off chance you ever get a bed to yourself again following your dreaded marriage. Your index reaches the very tip and you find yourself swiping away the bead of precum that's formed there, bringing your finger to your mouth and closing your eyes as you do the same with the taste.

“Angel-” A raspy voice from above you has your eyes snapping open, looking up to find Suguru panting, sweating, swallowing hard and desperate “M’an outlaw, not a priest. Ain’t got patience like ‘at-.”.

“My sincere apologies, handsome.” You wrap your hand around him and stroke him in earnest, drinking in the way his face falls open from satisfaction. “I assure you, I didn’t mean to tease you so.”. You hang your mouth open, tongue hanging out and swiping upward against him from base to tip, absolutely adoring the way he sucks air through his teeth. You’re ready to take him in earnest, just as soon as you explain yourself:

“Simply ensuring I can remember, for when I-!”

You’re cut off by his fist slamming your head down on his cock, and low growl leaving him as he bottoms out against the back of your throat, loosening slightly as you slap at his hip, wordlessly reprimanding him as you choke and gag on his girth. He mumbles out an apology, pulling you back halfway and allowing you to pull air back into your lungs through your nose.

“Y’ain’t gon’ half’ta remember anythin’, baby - shit, ah-!” He’s all but face-fucking you, but at least he’s being gentle, shallow little thrusts and much slower than he originally started with. “J-just, fuck, y/n, ya’ cain’t leave, ‘kay? I’ll figure it out, I-”.

It’s your turn to shut him up, taking him deeper and bobbing your head faster, ignoring the tears in your eyes as you watch him slowly lose his composure above you, shedding off his shirt and tossing it behind you as he pants and grunts, his pupils blown wide and a slick sheet of sweat beading on his forehead, causing little strands of hair to stick to his face.

You know you’ve won when his hands grip the side of your face and one leg gets thrown up on the bed bedside you, his mouth open in a silent moan as he takes back control of the pace, bobbing your head up and down on himself erratically as he gasps for air.

All that loose jaw he was spitting is now replaced by a whispered little mantra of “Yes! Yes, Yes- fuck, baby. S’good. Always s’good f’me-”. You hollow your cheeks and flatten your tongue as much as possible, trying desperately not to gag and ruin his pleasure as a mixture of spit and pre-cum drips form the corners of your mouth and down your chin.

A string of curses escape him as he pushes you all the way down until the tip of your nose is buried into the dark hair at his base, holding you still there as his cock jumps and writhes in your throat, your fingernails digging into his hips in protest. Surely they were cutting into his skin by this point.

Just when your vision starts to go dark around the edges, he pulls out of your mouth, cooing at you as you suck in air like you were hungry for it, looking up at him with vulnerable eyes as you swallow thickly, the tears that had been pooling in your eyes finally slipping down your face. He catches them with his thumbs, guiding you backwards on the bed and shuffling out of his pants in tandem. Once he's fully nude, he settles between your thighs on his knees.

“Y’okay?” He asks, and you nod, smiling weakly up at him as he cards his fingers through your hair, pushing it back away from your face with the gentleness of a sunday morning rain, like he hadn’t just bruised your esophagus. He smiles, honey sweet, and leans down to kiss your forehead first, and then your lips, groaning lowly as he tastes himself on your tongue, hips rutting as if he couldn't stop them.

Leaning back on his haunches, he taps on the outside of your knee twice.

“Strip f’me, doll.”

And so you do, trembling fingers trailing up your body to undo the buttons on your nightgown one by one, starting at the top and working your way down, your eyes studying his sharp features and wandering gaze as he gathers his hair and secures it back with the elastic band he forever kept on his wrist. You couldn’t remember a time before them, but your mother swore tying hair with silk ribbon was a pain when she was a girl. You pondered now if he'd look just as mesmerizing trying to wrangle all that hair up with a ribbon.

His cat-like eyes trail down your body as you work, and he sucks on his teeth when he realizes your barren underneath the white cotton of your bed clothes. Once your gown has been properly parted, his hands roam their way around the new expanse of your exposed skin, starting at your thighs and working their way up, pushing aside the fabric with his wrists as his rough hands tend to a garden he’s harvested time and time before.

It was by his own design, the way your body reacted to being tended by him. Goosebumps erupted along your skin and flames danced in your abdomen. Your core dripped with anticipation, every swipe of his rein-worn fingers reminding you that he'd yet to touch you where you desired him most. His hands meandered up your sides until he was cupping your breasts, rough thumbs languishing over the feeling of your stiffening nipples beneath him as they swiped and toyed with the flesh. Your back arches from the corn husk mattress and your hands try their best to quell the sparks he was lighting in your tummy; one of them gripping at your sheets above your head and the other covering your mouth to stifle the whimpers that escaped you.

“I ever tell ‘ya how pretty y’are?” He half-murmurs, half-whispers as one hand leaves your breast to traverse back down across your abdomen, never ceasing until he reaches your core, one thumb shallowly dipping into your entrance and stretching your folds apart so he can watch the way she winks at him with every movement, spitting clear arousal with every clench.

“Perhaps only every-- ah!” His fingers shift to pinch and roll your nipple, “-chance you’ve gotten. Still though I am-- nngh!” His thumb pushes deeper into you, “-certainly honored to receive such praises!”.

He smirks at your inherent tendency to keep your wording polite even in the most devilish of circumstances, and he must’ve decided he could take it no longer because before you can blink he’s hiking your legs up and across his sun-kissed shoulders, practically folding you in half and lapping away at your pussy like a man starved.

You would've complained about his so-called “delicate sensibilities” when it came to handling your body in such a manner, but your face was frozen in an open silent moan, your eyes blowing wide and struggling to keep contact with his in the way you knew he liked. If you so much as dared to let any sound escape you, you'd wake not only your parents, but the entire town! 

He knew you too well, everything about his conduction of your body had been fine tuned. The way he toyed around with your clit in his mouth had your body temperature rising to concerning levels, your arousal absolutely coating his face in a matter of moments. Not that he didn't expect it, you knew. In fact, it was probably precisely why he'd pulled his hair back. He adored it too, this you could also tell. From this angle, you got a front row seat to how his eyes rolled back in his head as he flicked and swiped his tongue against your core, up and down and back and forth and something you couldn't care to ponder on- stars, maybe? Never the matter.

A familiar tightness was building in your stomach, your panting growing faster and more needy as you think to yourself,

My god, please help me! How am I to go the rest of my life without this wrong I do?

Suguru pushes a flat hand against your mouth before slipping two fingers inside of you, and praise heaven for the man as well as his forethought because you lose your battle with your own throat the second he begins pumping in and out of you in perfect harmony with his tongue, crying out into his hand as your hips begin to rut against him in a desperate plea for faster, harder, more.

He happily obliges, curling his fingers against that god-forsaken spot inside you you’d never been able to find on your own in all your nights waiting for him, leveraging into you with a pace and force that reminded you of his deviant side. This version of him wasn't Suguru, the man who brought you rocks and flowers and exotic wines from his travels. This was not Suguru, the boy breezing by you at the market with sharp features and tempting eyes. No, this was Sure Shot Suguru Geto, the man who robbed and killed and gambled. Save your soul, you loved him.

Your hands fly into his hair as your hips betray you, all but humping his face in time with his movements as the tension inside you rises to a boiling heat, your knuckles gripping his hair beneath his bun so cruelly but you know he doesn't mind, not only from experience but from the way he groans directly into you as his eyes flutter shut. He transitions from licking to suckling on your clit and it's the final nail in the coffin for you. Your orgasm fires off like a gun shot, sharp and unfathomably intense as you scream into his hand, your legs absolutely spasming around his head with the force of it alone, your whole body tensing and jerking so hard that you fear you may have torn something as he continues his ministrations to push you through your high, never ceasing until you bite at his hand and kick at his shoulder.

He makes his way back to your face, chuckling as he captures your plush lips with his own, not leaving even a breaths span of time before he's nudging his tip into your tight entrance, swallowing your gasps and whines as if he may never taste them again.

“More, baby, more- please?” You manage to choke out between swipes of his tongue. He stills momentarily, pausing to scan your face, something unreadable plaguing his sweat lined features. You attempt to rut your hips and give yourself some reprieve, but one rope-warn hand grips you at your bare hip, holding you against the mattress effortlessly.

“Suguru!” You scold, and his lips quirk in the slightest of ways.

“Call me that again.”

“...Your name?”

“By god ‘m so glad yer pretty.” He giggles and pushes into you a few more inches harshly, his smile growing wilder as you yelp, both of you immediately pausing to listen for noise from the other rooms. 

Silence.

“Not m’name, peach. ‘At lil’ thing you said before-” His voice is quieter now.

“Baby?”

He pushes into your further, more gentle this time, the hand that was on your hip snaking up to grip your face and hold your gaze “Atta girl. You keep callin’ me that and I’m gon’ put a baby in ya’, swear solemn.”.

Your face contorts as his words hit you and he bottoms out, tip pressing against your womb and girth stretching you so wide. It burns, it hurts, it feels so good-- and his words? You knew they held no weight but the thought had you gushing around him. You needed him to move, and move now.

“Always naggin’ ‘bout my mouth, but look at ya’ now, darlin’- droolin’ on my cock all’f’r some nasty words.” He demeans as he begins to roll his hips into you, smirking as your hands grip at his biceps and your legs fall open wide for him, “Mmm y’like’at idea, huh? Stuff ya so full’a me that ol’ fuckin’ Nanami Kento has t’ raise my kid if’n he wants to take my wife?”.

You don't reply to that, you can’t because he’s steadily picking up pace, fucking you with determination that you knew was coming from somewhere other than his cock. No, of all the times he’d taken you prior, this one was different. Stubborn, vivace, and oh so frantic. You find yourself biting down on his shoulder as he slams against your soft walls, each time pulling almost entirely out before pounding back into you again, bruising your cervix like he wanted to mark you from the inside out. He’s spewing guttural rumbles and low moans from above you, and each one only makes you want him more. Not just here, not just now, but forever and then some.

“I love you, y’hear me?” His voice is deeper than usual, husky, somewhat of a moan in your ear, “Don't’cha ever tell me I cain’t ever again.”.

Each word is accentuated with a sharp thrust, desire and want and desperate prayer rearranging your very being. All you can do is whimper his name in response. He trails kisses along your neckline, they almost feel apologetic.

How absolutely inhumane time was, only the night left to claim every part of each other before it was ripped away, burnt to nothing but a memory of a flame that once shone so brightly in the darkness. Despite the way every stroke has your mind melting away, you find yourself realizing that perhaps this wasn’t Sure Shot at all, but instead just Suguru, a helplessly enamored man on the verge of losing his love on top of everything he’d already lost in the past few years. You choke out a sob, unsure if it’s the pleasure or the pain or the realization that has you blubbering, but it didn’t matter all the same. You were still adulterated, he was still taken with you, you were still duty-bound to marry another, and he was still hammering into you like his life depended on it.

You feel your body begin to contract, thighs starting to squeeze around him as he beats against your favorite spot so deep inside, the feeling almost tormenting you into another release.

“Aht, aht, now don’t go tensin’ up on me, babydoll.” He doesn’t stop his arietations, though, as he leans back to encase your tender throat with his fingers. The simple action is enough to have that coil inside you winding tighter at an exponential rate, “Ya’ know by now it’s better when ya relax f’me. Thought I had ya well trained, mm? Now be good f’me and loosen up- atta girl, atta girl-”.

You do your best to let your thighs fall slack and all you can feel is the way he’s piledriving into you, closing your eyes and zoning in on that place inside where his cock is shooting sparks across your body over and over and over. His fingers begin to tighten around your sensitive throat and your pussy follows suit around his shaft. You think you hear him breathe out a string of whispered curses, but you can't tell with the way your vision is beginning to go white and fuzzy. His free hand reaches around to flick across your clit in quick, frantic motions, and you’d be so appreciative of his hand on your throat if you could think anything at all. You gargle out a strangled noise as you come undone beneath him for the second time that night, your hands coming up to grip at his wrist, your head pounding backwards into your sheets and hair bouncing wildly as his thrusts become somehow stronger, but all the while more erratic. He was close behind you, this you knew.

A few more pumps and he’s pulling out of you, letting go of your neck to lean back on his haunches and fist his cock with ferocity, hissing as his seed splatters across your abdomen, hot and sticky. You gasp for air, feeling like you’d just run a few miles in the summer heat, gargling and sputtering as you attempt to re-ground yourself.

A tender hand finds your cheek, and your eyes flutter open to find his dark features gazing at you longingly, his bottom lip pushed out in a small pout.

“M’okay.” You assure, turning to press a kiss into his palm and smiling up at him lazily. He mirrors that and leans down to plant a gentle kiss against your lips, mumbling an apology for being so rough.

“Thank you most kindly for refraining from sowing your oats in me.” Your brain feels numb.

He lets his head fall into your shoulder to stifle his giggles “C’mon, ditz. Let's get ya’ cleaned up and light us a hand roll.”. A tender kiss against your shoulder.

A few minutes later you're curled up between his spread legs on the floor just by your window, him in nothing but his pants and you wrapped in his shirt. You watch over your shoulder as he produces a single cigarette from his pocket, striking the match he’d stolen from atop your armoire against the rough grain of your window, marveling at the way the light paints his skin orange as he puffs a few times to get the stick lit. When he’s done, he shakes away the flame and disposes of the match on your windowsill, draping one arm around you and pulling you backwards until your back is flush with his bare chest.

He is careful when he blows the smoke away from your face, but you’re not as you snatch the cigarette away from him as soon as he’s finished the first drag, bringing it to your lips and drawing in a breath of smoke just as big as his own.

“Woah, Nellie!” He teases, resting his cheek against the crown of your head, “Didn’t know y’was such’n avid smoker.”.

“I most certainly am not!” You tease right back. “I only do such unfavorable, unladylike things in the presence of scoundrels such as yourself.”.

He chuckles, leaning forward to puff on the cigarette as you hold it up for him. You scold yourself for craving the plush of his lips again so soon. Not only did you just finish bedding him, but you also could never do so again. Well, at least not after the night was through. For a while, the two of you stay like that, silently watching the stars and smoking your cares away to the best of your ability. The eastern crickets sang a song of farewell as you sat comfortable in the quiet serenity of your darkened room, a place that had been only for the two of you to share for so long, but would be no longer come dawn. Neither of you, it seems, wants to acknowledge it, savoring the calm before the raging storm of forever comes for you with the rise of the sun.

It’s just after he’s lit the third hand roll of the night that he suggests something so foolish, so childish and stupid, that you aren’t sure you heard him correctly the first time.

“Come away with me.”

You shift so that you’re setting sideways in his lap, looking up at him like he’d sprouted a third eyeball right in the center of his suntanned forehead. A beat, and then two passes, and you realize he’s serious.

“Surely you’ve gone mad. Out west?”

He nods “Yes’m.”.

“And just where shall we sleep? Eat? Make love?” If your eyes were to grow any wider they would certainly pop out of your head.

“Wherever the wind carries us, that’s’a best part-”

“Suguru!” A scoff and a laugh of disbelief escapes your gaping mouth, shaking your head at him in such unconvincibility.

“ ’M stone cold, baby. On my Ma-!” His tone sounds pleading, and he’s smiling hopefully, like a child who really hopes that Santa will leave a tommy gun under his tree.

“Good thing she's already under, bless her soul.” You snatch the cigarette from him and puff like your life depends on it. Truly, he would be the death of you.

“You hush’up.” He laughs, taking the hand roll back and clenching in between his teeth, using one hand to pull you by the bicep until the both of you are on your knees, elbows resting on the window as he speaks.

“Y’ain't ever gon’ know the things I’ve seen ‘less-n ya light a shuck with me. Baby there’s deserts, canyons, caves that shoot right down t’hell itself and fields a’ clovers ‘n wildflowers just as far’s yer pretty lil’ eyes could ever see-” As he talks, his hands make dramatic gestures in front of the two of you, as if he could physically paint the views into the open air before you.

“There are also snakes, and bears, and bandits-” You argue, but he cuts you off with a wink and a nudge.

“That's why yer com’n’ with me, cain’t no varmint catch ya’ if you're tucked under my arm!”

A defeated sigh escapes you, uninterested in playing these childish games of possibilities with him, “Pray tell, does your jaw ever ache from how much you jabber on?”.

His face falls slightly, but he’s still smiling. Softer now. Begging.

“Only for you, if’n ’m honest.”

You glare at him with knowing eyes, trying your best to simply look some sense into him, but of course your attempt is unsuccessful, the both of you erupting into giggles.

“Oh,” You take a long sigh as you calm yourself, “How am I to carry on without you?”.

“Y’ain’t. Because yer comin’ with me.”

“Suguru.” Now you sound like the one pleading, looking up at him with sad eyes as you steal the cigarette directly from his mouth and take another drag. And then, on the exhale; “My family, hopeful lover. Why is it can’t you understand I have a responsibility to-”

“I do.” He reaches forward and grabs your jaw, leaning inward, “I can acknowledge the corn. Ain’t claimin’ no ignorance here. But to see ya’ sell yerself for the good graces of society? I cain’t hang my hat on ‘at. I’m beggin’ ya, baby. ‘N Imma real proud man. Be selfish, just this once. Come away with me.”.

For a moment, all you can do is stare, your stomach sinking as you realized he was right. Your whole life you'd been a proper young lady. Honing your craft with your mother in the kitchen while the neighborhood boys played soccer in the fields. You learned to cook, to clean, to play piano forte in hopes to one day secure a rich husband, not for yourself, but for the hope that one day he could provide them more than this cottage on the outskirts of town. Sitting here now, though, you realized that was never what you wanted. It was what everyone else wanted of you.

“...Tonight?” You whisper, and immediately he’s lighting up from the inside out, his grin wild and wide as he surges forward and captures you between his arms, squeezing the life out of you as you giggle and do your best to hold the lit cigarette away from the two of you. He captures your lips in a kiss, and then another, and another, until you’re fussing at him to answer your question.

“Not tonight, tomorra. Gotta get some things’n order. Stock up on sum fixin’s. Shoot a letter to ‘ol Six Eyes out west and pray it arrives before we do-”

Oh, right. You scrunch your face up. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea after all.

“Ya have my blessin’ t’shoot him.”

Okay, you’re excited again “I get a gun?!”. 

He snorts and steals the cigarette back from you, drawing in the last of it and nodding hesitantly “Affirmative, tho I gotta wonder if it’ll be the death a’ me.”.

You hum, your eyes wandering out into the night as you ponder aloud.

“If I am to be completely vulnerable, I do not wish to shoot anyone.”

He presses a kiss to your cheek “The gun ain't f’people, peach- it's for ‘em bears n’ snakes ya’ mentioned. I'll handle the people, don’t worry yer pretty lil’ head over’it.”

***

You couldn’t sleep after he left that night, a sure case of the morbs settling over you as you packed according to Suguru’s instruction. That is to say, lightly. A simple change of clothing and a leather bound journal for writing was basically all you would leave with.

This house, though not one of grandeur, had held you since you were but a babe. Your first steps were taken on this very hardwood, your height from every year notched into the frame of your bedroom door by your Pa’s pocketknife- up until you stopped growing at sixteen or so, that is. The crops from the garden had nourished you, the trees from the wood line knew your deepest secrets. You’d chased and caught frogs here, learned to read and write here, laughed and cried here, been bedded by a ill-fated outlaw here, and ultimately decided to make haste with him on westward winds. Here.

You hadn’t allowed yourself to think to hardly on your parents, reminding yourself of Suguru’s words:

“Be selfish, just this once.”

Right. He was right. From now on, you are living life for you. Not for your Mama and Pa. Not for what the pew regulars would think of you. Not for the coffee-sisters, nor the gossip in the marketplace.

…That was, until you snuck as silently as possible through the door of all you’d ever known, only to find your Mama leaning against the wooden railing of the porch, watching the sky ever-so-slightly lighten with each passing moment.

Your heart plummeted through the floor as you nearly dropped your bag from your shoulder in despair. Suguru would be arriving any moment. Surely if she were to see him she would simply fall dead.

“The coffee-sisters at tea last Saturday were just gushing about how there's quite a bit of wide open space out there in the unclaimed west.” is her version of a ‘goodmorning’. She doesn’t even turn around, keeping her stare set off into the distance.

You swallow thickly, trying to keep as normal as possible, “Mama? Why are you awake at such an hour?”.

She ignores you, staring, staring, staring still into the horizon, boring holes into the mountains in the distance. The same ones that hand held you, and her, and her mother, and the mother before.

“You know what's so grand about so much open air?”

You deflate, tears welling to your eyes as the realization dawns upon you that she must know. The one day you decide to run away with a vagabond outlaw is the one day she happens to be up before the sun, standing on the porch, waffling poetic about the unclaimed west? Nonsense. You could only hope this didn’t end in a shootout between Suguru and your father. Anxiety builds and pressurizes in your chest and you stay stone silent, trying to think of a way to de-escalate the aforementioned confrontation before it had even begun.

“There's so much space to grow. A gentleman at the market mentioned to me of his brother who ranches cattle out there. In his most recent letter, he spoke of cacti that grow to three times the height of your average man. Isn't that lovely, my girl?” Finally, she turns to look at you, smiling gently. Her face looks so much like your own but older, wiser.

Your brow dips in confusion. Was this or was it not the part where she was supposed to call you a harlot? Was she not to disown you? To tell you the very thing you’d been telling yourself since Suguru first bedded you; that you were a wretched, wretched, woman and surely when the roll is called on high you will be sent southward?

“Mama, of what do you speak?” The tears brimming your eyes are threatening to fall, but you tell yourself you must remain brave. You were a grown woman, making grown woman choices now.

“Add to that wonder, if the rumors are to be believed they grow flowers! Big, beautiful vibrant blooms from the toughest of plants this world has to offer. I thought unto myself; ‘My good Lord, how fitting. It must be by design.’. Do you understand me, daughter?” she cocks her head at you, and you come to lean beside her on the railing.

“No, Mama. I’m afraid I’m terribly lost.” You aren’t sure why it is you’re whispering, you’d already been caught, after all.

She takes your hand in her own, smiling at you, chuckling lightheartedly, as if she were watching a baby child dance about, “I'm saying to you, girl, that good things come from sharpened situations. There may come a time that you prick yourself to find something brighter than your eyes have seen… but you know of that already, no?”.

The tears begin to fall from the corners of your eyes and you mimic her smile back at her, elation washing over you like fresh spring rain. She was giving you permission. She knew, and still-

“Ma, how did you discover me?” you breathe, and she laughs genuinely, patting your hand.

“I take night strolls in the garden when your father's fog horn snoring keeps me awake. It was just this time last year that I turned to see a rather handsome young man leaned against your open window.”

Your cheeks go red and you hold a palm to your face, shaking your head lightly before you wipe at your tears.

“I must admit, I considered waking your father. You're the upmost of lucky he sleeps like a rock, by the way. A word of advice from an old maid? Tuck a pillow between your headboard and the wall to still the bed--”

“Mama, please! I never meant to bring you shame, of this I swear-!” You cut her off, taking both of her hands in your own, threatening to fall back into the treacherous place your mind had been just moments before.

“My love, everyone beds before they're married these days. They simply do not speak of it, and then there is nothing to say of the matter. I myself was two courses missed when I married your father. The world kept spinning, much contrary to the belief of your Nan.” She shrugs dismissively as you let go of her hands, and all you can do is stare at her; awestruck. Who was this woman standing in front of you now?

“Anyway, If I may continue. I stood out there for quite some time, weighing upon my options. The two of you never even noticed me, so lost in each other that I think I could've marched right up to him and pinched his tight little ass cheeks before either of you took note--”

“Mama!! My word!!!” You gasp, and bark out an incredulous laugh at her words. Your mother, never once in all your live days, had been so crass in front of you.

She laughs too, slapping at your arm and hushing you, “Hush, child! You’ll wake your Pa!”.

Your laughter settles into tender smiles. You were going to miss her most furiously.

She grips both of your shoulders as she speaks.

“I knew that the clock had been set in motion by the way he looked at you. What I saw that wonderful night was the sweet smile of a man that had made up his mind standing by the window in the moonlight. And what of you? Oh glory in the highest, I hadn't seen that look on your face since you were a babe! Not since before this world had taught you it isn't polite for ladies to laugh with no regard for looking proper.”

“I love him, Mama.” You admit, chuckling lightly with watery eyes, “And he loves me, too. Of this I am most certain.”.

“I know.” She pats your shoulder, and then continues, “I had never seen you look so miserable until Nanami Kento showed up on our doorstep, either. A shame, but your heart is already tucked deep in someone else's pocket, I fear.”.

You nod, slow and grave. “If there’s one thing of which I must apologize, it is that. I am terribly sorry for poor Nanami.”.

“Do not be so. Perhaps I will strike lucky and your father will keel over when he wakes to find you gone. More for me.”

“Oh, do not curse him so!” You both snicker again.

She pulls you into a tight hug, squeezing you for all you’re worth, which is maybe more than you knew. It’s around that time that you hear a familiar sound, both of your heads turning to watch as Suguru slowly fades into view, the steady thump of Cinnamon’s hooves against the soft earth growing rhythmically louder as they approach in a slow trot.

You turn back to your mother, your eyes apprehensive. She grabs your head and presses her lips to the center of your forehead, “Go now, child, before your father wakes. Do not forget to write, we will be here should you return. We will be here until the roll is called on high. As for you, though, adventure awaits.”.

With her graces, you step away from the porch, and it feels like you’ve stepped off a ledge into something beautiful. You run to meet him, your shoes padding against the grass and your dress billowing against the motion, never ceasing until he’s bringing Cinnamon to a halt so he can dismount and catch you as you fly into his arms, wrapping you in a hug as if he hadn’t just seen you a few hours prior. He looks good, he always looks good, but it’s a rarity for you to see him in his full get up. You wonder if you, too, will require such gear, and even more so if your bandana and gun belt will be stained purple to match.

He eyes your mother from the considerable distance and she waves. He returns the greeting by way of removing his stetson from his head, pressing it to his chest and bowing lightly in her direction, revealing his hair had been wrangled back into two tight plaits on either side of his head. While he’s distracted, you snatch his hat from his hands, plopping it on your own head, an action that has him laughing, his eyes crinkling up and twinkling with lovesomeness.

“Ya’ wear it much better’n I ever could, dumplin’. Now lets brush th’ breeze ‘for someone decides ‘ta kill me for this.”

***

“Y’know what ‘at ol’ Six Eyed bastard tells pretty young things like you?” Suguru asks through a mouthful of apple, and you’d chastise him for his manners if he wasn't graced with such beauty and you weren't cursed to be so sleepy.

You’d made it about twenty miles before Cinnamon needed to rest. You're all shaded by a tall oak tree, you and Suguru leaning against its base, your hands holding onto his bicep and your cheek rested against his shoulder, his hat still on your head.

“Mm?” You question, barely lucid, and he chuckles, holding the core up for Cinnamon which she's more than happy to accept, crunching almost as obnoxiously as her dear handler had been just moments before.

“He tells’em, ‘You wear the hat, you ride the cowboy--’.” 

You lift your head to ensure he sees you roll your eyes, and he laughs, dipping beneath the brim of his own hat to steal a kiss from you, soft and slow.

[creamhoodie]

𓆩♡𓆪 Period Play 𓆩♡𓆪

A/N: A Christmas Eve gift also helped me get through my period this week. synopsis: Gojo stimulates you while you are on your period (afab reader, reader uses a tampon, set during Gojo's jujutsu high days, all characters are young adults)

“Why didn’t you go on today’s mission?” Satoru Gojo said, opening the door to your dorm room and poking his head in. 

“I’m sick,” you said motioning to the state you were in: lying in bed with a heating pad on your stomach and a box of chocolates next to you. The background noise of a chick flick you were watching filled the brief silence.  

“Bummer. I missed you out there today,” he said, now fully coming into your room and closing the door behind him. He plopped himself down on the edge of your bed and looked closer at you. “Wait when you say sick you mean-“

“I’m having menstrual symptoms, yes Gojo,” you told him, a little annoyed at his presence. While you did admire him for being the strongest, you found he could be arrogant sometimes and he was always teasing you. 

His crystal eyes seemed perplexed, almost stumped.

“Oh well, are you feeling okay?” He asked unsure, it was the first time he sounded unsure of himself. 

You failed to hold back a laugh.

“So all it takes to stump the great Satoru Gojo is some period symptoms that’s very funny,” you giggled. 

He narrowed his eyes.

“No. I know about this stuff plenty of the women in my clan went through it. I just didn’t wanna seem insensitive is all,” he said genuinely. 

“Oh okay. Well I appreciate that,” you said, accepting his words then adding, “Gojo those are mine!” when he popped a chocolate into his mouth. 

“Can I stay here with you for a bit and hangout?” He asked, licking his longer fingers for any residue of the chocolate. 

Now it was your turn to narrow your eyes. 

“Why would you wanna do that?” You asked.

“I told you, I missed you out on the mission today,” he replied. 

“Did you? I thought I always slowed you down,” you said. 

It was true that he was infinitely stronger than you and even without his abilities his body never seemed to tire as he was in perfect shape despite his raging sweet tooth. 

“Sometimes you do, but you’re good company and I like saving you,” he said with a hint of pink in his cheeks. 

His words made your heart beat pick up speed and his stunning crystal eyes becoming puppy like wasn’t helping. 

“Okay you can stay and ‘hang out’ or whatever you called it,” you conceded. 

“Sweet,” he cheered, kicking off his shoes and rummaging around until he was sitting beside you under the sheets. “What?” he asked innocently as you watched him make himself comfortable. 

“Nothing. Now give me my chocolates we can share but I’m holding them otherwise you won’t.” 

—— 

You had ended up restarting the chick flick for Gojo to watch it from the beginning. He teased the cheesiness of it at first.

“You seriously like this type of thing?” He asked, brows raised. 

“I do. I like romance and sweet gestures,” you replied a little defensively. It was a guilty pleasure especially because the romance in your life had been lacking lately. 

“Okay hold your fire I was just asking. No need to get all defensive on me, doll,” he said snickering. 

You ignored him but took the last chocolate as payback for his teasing your heart relishing the way his voice turned boyish as he exclaimed “hey!” 

As the movie progressed Gojo seemed more invested, no longer making witty remarks. He had also allowed for his knee to rest against yours under the sheets, the slight contact making you blush. You dared not look up at him however, not wanting to be caught. It was unfair that he got to sneak all the glances he could at you (and unbeknownst to you there were plenty!) but it would be so obvious if you looked up at him. 

After a while you dozed off. 

You only came to when you felt Gojo shifting under you. 

“Gojo?” you asked, groggily as your mind registered your position. 

You had ended up laying on his chest and on top of him in your sleep as he sat there in a relaxed fashion like your own personal recliner. 

“Good morning, doll. You missed the ending but I gotta say it wasn’t as bad as I thought,” he teased. 

From where you were laying you could smell his natural scent as well as his musky earthy cologne, the smell of him was enticing to your pheromones. “Like how I smell?” he was clearly amused and you looked up at him now, he was watching you intently.

“Gojo stop being weird, I just woke up. Sorry for falling asleep on you,” you said, straightening yourself up so you were sitting next to him again rather than laying on him. 

“Your face is red,” he teased. 

“Because it was hot under the blankets,” you deflected.

His grin said he knew otherwise. 

“You’re cute when you’re sleeping,” he said. 

Again, your heart began to pick up speed and to your horror you felt a second heartbeat in a much more intimate area.

“Okay, well since the movie is over you can go now. Thanks for keeping me company. See you on the next mission,” you said, trying to force nonchalance when you felt anything but. 

Gojo laughed and leaned closer to you. 

“See you on the next mission? Why are you talking to me like we’re just colleagues?” 

He came ever closer still, bridging the gap between the two of you so you could smell his minty breath. 

“Isn’t that what we are?” you asked, blinking slightly. Time seemed to stop with him and suddenly you were hyper aware of everything from his long white eyelashes to his lush pink lips and of course his signature crystal eyes. 

“Ouch, I would have at least called us friends, but you wanna know something?” his voice was like molasses as if he wanted you to take in every word. 

“What?” you asked.

“I don’t just wanna be your friend,” he confessed. His lips were on yours and you exhaled a breathy moan you didn’t know you had been holding in. “Fuck, do that sound again,” he whispered between kisses. 

You did, it was easy with the way he was making you feel breathless as his tongue and lips completely intermingled with yours. 

Your hands went instinctively to his undercut, always having wanted to touch it, you did now, fingers grazing the blunt hair texture causing him to moan into your mouth. 

Hormones raging you struggled to wrap your legs around his waist, but luckily he knew what you wanted. 

Effortlessly, he positioned you two so he was in front of you in a sort of missionary fashion, your legs draped around his shoulders, he bent forward to give you tongue filled kisses. 

“I’ve wanted this so bad, you have no idea,” he whispered to you. 

“Me too,” you came clean at last. You made out with him some more and you felt his erection through his pants against your sex causing you to come back to reality. “Gojo, I'm on my period, remember?” 

He blinked as if remembering but he was as witty as ever.

“So? A little blood doesn’t scare me. Does it scare you?” he teased. 

Your face flushed with heat. Of course it didn’t scare you but the prospect of him seeing you in that manner did.

“Gojo!” you whined in disapproval.

“I’m kidding, god you’re so fucking cute when you’re riled up. There’s plenty of other ways for us to have fun,” he said. 

As if to demonstrate, he resumed kissing you, his hands inching up your shirt hesitantly, you nodded to give him approval and he continued. You sighed in bliss as you felt his large hands cup your breasts as he continued to kiss you. His thumbs massaged the nipples that were hypersensitive from it being your time of the month. 

“Feels good doesn’t it?” he said softly to you as your lips broke apart. 

You could only nod, eyes rolling back in pleasure. He continued to massage your nipples and as he did he grinded his clothed erection against your clothed sex stimulating you as much as he could. 

“Gojo.. so good,” you moaned. 

“Call me Satoru,” he said, his voice shaky, almost vulnerable. 

“Satoru..” you moaned, indulging his request and you didn’t miss how his eyes softened at you doing so. 

“Fuck, can I take your shirt off?” he asked his voice heated and eyes still soft, a thrilling combination that was making your stomach leap with butterflies at what it could mean. 

“Yeah,” you said, granting him permission, it was getting too hot anyways. 

He eagerly popped open the buttons of your top and you didn’t miss how one went flying in the air. 

“Sorry. I’ll fix it or get you another. Just so excited,” he said breathlessly.

“It’s fine Go- Satoru,” you assured him, unhooking your legs from his shoulders and opting to sit up to help him shrug the sleeves off until the whole thing was discarded and forgotten on the bed. 

You hadn’t been wearing a bra so your full breasts were exposed. Gojo had always taken peeks at your breasts and down the cleavage of your shirt when you weren’t looking. It was all too easy for him given the height difference. Now faced with your exposed breasts he couldn’t look away, feeling like an adolescent again seeing a pair for the first time. 

“Fuck,” he whispered, again cupping them with his hands. You trembled, loving both his reaction and touch. “your tits are fucking perfect.”  

He bent forward and to your amazement he began sucking on your nipple while his other hand worked the other nipple, massaging it with his fingers again. 

It was all too much and somehow much more sensual than you would have ever expected foreplay to be. 

He looked up at you from where he was sucking your tit, blue eyes not leaving your face. His lips felt so good, the stimulation against the sensitive skin so pleasurable, you couldn’t help but grab his head to hold him in place. 

He was bringing out sides of yourself you didn’t know existed, a new sexual confidence you hadn’t had before. Between him and your hormones, the racing of your pulse in your veins and clit you just wanted more of him. 

This newfound confidence caused you to move his head between you both your tits now, pressing your arms against yourself closer so your tits were fully enveloping his face.

“Yeah that’s it, suffocate me with your tits baby,” he groaned, his words muffled but decipherable against your skin. 

“Oh god,” you moaned, your lips quivering completely on the brink of losing it now at the new endearment he had called you. 

You mentally cursed your cycle for cock blocking, you wanted him, no you needed him desperately. 

“You wanna be fucked so bad, I can tell,” he teased and you figured not even a face full of tits could silence his playful personality.

“Shut up,” you replied but loosened your grip so he could come up for air, now his face was flushed and snowy hair was a full on mess, plastering down on his forehead with sweat. 

“It doesn’t take six eyes to tell you wanna be fucked, even a blind man could tell,” he said. 

“So what are you getting at? You seem in a similar state yourself,” you asked. 

“Well my offer still stands. I wouldn’t be the strongest if a little blood scared me,” his eyes glowed mischievously. 

You chewed on the inside of your cheek as you contemplated it. You were wearing a tampon after all, maybe he could stimulate your clit a little and help you orgasm? 

“Mmm, okay Satoru but we can’t do much else besides clitorial stimulation because you know,” you said. 

He perked up.

“Sounds good to me. I’ll do only what you want,” he said. 

He got off the bed positioning himself on his knees in front of you, pulling your legs closer to him so you were within perfect reach. His long fingers reached for the ties of your sweatpants and you suddenly felt shy. You began to overthink: this was your first time hooking up with him, what is too much too soon? What if he didn’t like it? Even worse, what if you smelt even though you had been keeping up with your hygiene more than usual because of your period? 

He sensed your hesitation, pausing.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked softly, voice serious for once. 

“Yeah I’m fine,” you replied, ever the people pleaser. 

He knew better.

“If you’re uncomfortable we don’t have to do anything. I just wanna make you feel good that’s all,” he said genuinely. 

You searched your feelings. You wanted him, you always had, and now you had your chance to be with him. What was stopping you? Just fear, fear that he wouldn’t like it or he’d judge you. 

“I want to, Satoru I’m just..” your words drifted off. Luckily, he knew, he always seemed to know. 

“Scared? That’s okay. I’m right here with you. I’ll take care of you,” he said. 

His sentence.. it was the very same sentence he had told you on your first ever mission when you were paired up with him. You had been so scared then and he had said these exact words to you, and it was then that you had begun to fall for him. It was something so little but it meant so much and as the memory played in your head it gave you the assurance you needed. 

“You can go ahead now,” you said nodding to him. 

“Yeah? Alright, let me know if you wanna stop at any time. You’re in charge,” he said, visibly excited. 

With that, he undid the tie of your sweatpants and you helped him slide off your body along with your underwear, he placed your garments carefully on the floor. 

Your bare sex exposed to him now, you didn’t feel as embarrassed as you thought you would have. Maybe it was because of his reassurance and the way he treated your clothes with such care that showed you he’d be non judgmental. 

“Wow, you’re incredible,” he praised as you laid completely nude to him.

 He used two fingers to feel up your wet folds making you shiver and your breathing hitched when he found your clit. He started rubbing your clit with his two fingers in a circular manner. He loved the way you let out a little ‘oh’ your face taking on an expression of absolute ecstasy.“That’s a good girl, your moans are so fucking sexy,” he said. 

He was enjoying himself as well, making you feel good turned him on but then again everything you did sexually or not had always had an affect on him. You had said clitorial play only, and he was fine with that, after all he was a master of worshiping the clit. 

Lucky for you, his fingers weren’t the only ones that were well versed in this art form. He inched forward, slicking his tongue across your precious pearl. 

“Oh- Satoru- fuck yes!. mm,” you sounded unhinged, extremely in heat and all because of him. 

It was everything he had wanted since he had seen you for the first time and as he continued to lap and simultaneously rub at your clit he enjoyed the view of your naked tits rising and falling with each breathy moan. 

“Keep going, fuck, please keep going,” you begged taking full advantage of his earlier statement of you being in charge. 

He had no intention of stopping and he had taken to licking the rest of your sex, tonguing your fleshy labia lips as well. He felt that he could spend infinity here between your thighs eating you out, and god did you smell good. He wasn’t the type of man that entertained foolish unrealistic fantasies of women smelling like roses down there and he was experienced enough to know what a pussy smelt like and yours with its heated metallic scent and taste was sending him over the edge. 

“So good,” he lapped at your arousal, “so fucking good.” 

Hearing how turned on he sounded made you pulsate more and you couldn’t help yourself, like you did before you reached down and took hold of his head pressing his face against your pussy. 

It was criminal how insanely good he was at this, criminal how he had withheld this ability of that smart mouth of his from you. God, how many times have you two had spare time from finishing a mission early? Countless and to think you could have spent that spare time with him like this.

Your moans began to sound wet and guttural as tears rolled down your face from the immense gratification he was making you feel. As you felt yourself getting closer to climaxing, your grip loosened on his head as you fell back against the bed, hands falling back as well and gripping the sheets. 

He glanced up at you, his face slick with both sweat and your arousal as he continued to pleasure you. The way your hair was matting to your forehead and was disheveled brought him glee since it reminded him of when he’d ruffle the top of your hair to tease you. 

“Satoru, I’m so close,” you whispered. 

“I know, I know,” he cooed gently as he paused, opting to only stimulate your clit with his fingers now. The raging erection that had been present during this whole ordeal pained him now and he wanted nothing more than to sink into the deep warmth of your pussy, but he understood that wasn’t possible right now. He’d later jerk off to the thought of you (not for the first time) to relieve himself, right now he wanted the focus to be on pleasing you. He found your most delicate spot and set a rhythmic pace. 

“Yes, Satoru right there just like that!” you exclaimed enthusiastically knowing that if he kept his motions in this tempo you’d soon orgasm. He followed your command, eager to watch you hit your peak and he decided to aid you in that regard by talking dirty. 

“You’re so fucking hot, you know that? Always have thought so from the moment I saw you.” 

His words earned him a yelp from you and caused your knees to buckle, that made him smile… so you love when I talk dirty to you, doll, he thought to himself. 

“You know how many times I thought about taking you as my own while we were out there all alone together on missions?” 

He kept the same tempo you had instructed and he put his free hand on your waist, fingers kneading down the thick flesh of the side of your ass.

“Better yet, you know how many times I stroked out to you when we’d go our separate ways for the night staying at whatever dingy hotel we could find?” 

By this point his words, his confirmation that his attraction to you ran as deep as yours for him was making your toes curl. 

You were so fucking incredibly close as if standing at the edge of a cliff, body full of adrenaline. 

“Truth is I may be the strongest but you’re the only thing that can render me completely weak, doll,” he whispered. 

And off the cliff you fell into a cloud of pure bliss as your body released its orgasm. It felt so good, better than anything you had experienced. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head, closing on their own accord. 

It was a fulfilling end to this symphony of pleasure he had brought you. 

“Satoru… that was amazing,” your words slurred and were almost buzzed as if you were drunk. 

To think this was the pleasure he had brought you only with his tongue and fingers. You were willing to bet that the pleasure he could bring you was limitless but for now you focused on catching your breath feeling as free as a cosmic star. 

—-

“Can I stay with you? I’m not the type to hit and run,” he said after you finished redressing yourself. He had cleaned you (and his face) up before gently handing you your clothes and straightening himself up to his full height. 

“Yes I suppose you can,” you said awkwardly not knowing how to go forward in this new dynamic with him. 

He seemed to pick up on that. 

“Things don’t have to be weird between us, you know they can keep being how they’ve been,” he said.

“And what does that mean?” you asked looking up at him from where you sat at the edge of your bed. 

“It means I can still do this,” he said ruffling your hair, causing you to protest. He leaned forward, hands resting on the sides of the bed as he eye level with you “and I can do this,” he added, kissing you softly. 

You moaned against his lips, enjoying the way his lips felt against yours. When your lips broke apart he said: 

“Now should we cuddle for a while? You can enjoy my scent freely without having to pretend you don't,” he offered.

[lezzballer]

Diana Taurasi sleepover headcanons

(Completely SFW!! I just wanted to use that picture to get your attention 😇)

(That picture is from 2010 so these headcanons are from that era too)

∞ Diana's place is cute enough to be on HGTV. But there's more clutter than you expected

∞ There's art and family pictures on her walls. She has a nice glass case full of old momentos. But she doesn't have any trophies anywhere

∞ Her living room has a DVD shelf and some old game consoles. The coffee table is piled high with lifestyle and sports magazines

∞ She chats with her mom on the phone in Spanish for a few minutes while you thumb through her magazines

∞ Her kitchen cupboards are stocked with unopened bottles of fancy liquor that she doesn't really drink anymore. Her fridge is stocked with hard seltzer and regular seltzer. And her recycling bin is full of empty bottles of fancy wine. She can't cook anything besides cereal, toast, sandwiches, sliced fruit, and coffee. She offers to make all five of those things for you

∞ Her room looks clean but only because she hastily tidied it up while making you wait outside. On her bedside table is a biography of Julius Caesar. There's an old stuffed animal sitting on the bench at the foot of her bed

∞ Her huge walk-in closet resembles a department store with the men's section and women's section all mixed together. There's a glass box displaying watches sitting on top of a locked safe containing even more watches. The shoe situation is reasonable because she stores most of her shoes elsewhere. In the back of the closet is the door to her bathroom. That bathroom contains a lifetime supply of hairspray. By the sink, there's a colorful glass bong she forgot to put away

∞ At dusk, she goes around and checks to make sure all the doors and windows are locked

∞ She'll cuddle up with anyone whether you're just a friend or something more. During the day, she's always on the move and she's larger than life. But as she's sitting by your side at night, you notice she's suddenly very small

∞ If you spend the night at her place, she does not shut up the entire time. She will just keep talking and talking unless you bluntly tell her to be quiet so you can sleep. You need to be assertive about making her be quiet or else she'll keep thinking of things to say

∞ She's an insomniac. She does not sleep all through the night. She just lies there with her eyes closed replaying basketball games in her head. But once she finds the right person to sleep next to, she'll sleep more soundly

∞ She wakes up at 5am and makes coffee every morning. You don't hear her alarm because she wakes up 3 minutes before it goes off and silences it

∞ She makes her bed every morning and neurotically changes her sheets more than necessary. But she can't make her bed this morning because you're sleeping in it

∞ By the time you wake up, she's already showered, dressed, and bunned. And the coffee is cold. She won't reheat your coffee because reheating coffee goes against her values. She insists on taking you to a cafe on the way to the gym

∞ She drives to the cafe and finishes the story she was telling last night right before you fell asleep. You don't remember the first half of the story very well but the conclusion is entertaining

[octuscle]

im a skinny 18 year old nerd who is also a wimp and super shy. i'm 5 foot 7 inches tall with an iq of 160 .one afternoon i was walking across the college campus was on my way to  the Chemistry Lab when a pair of big burly hands grabbed me , punched me in the gut. When i came to ,i was tied to a bench with rope in the male locker room. my legs were tied to a bar below the bench and my hands two the pegs above. my mouth was coved with duct tape with a mouthguard inside my mouth. i look down to see all my clothes were gone i was wearing only a jock strap . i have never worn a jockstrap before it was so uncomfortable .i look to see my red star trek t-shirt , my jeans, my sneakers and socks & my "geeky" white briefs were are cut up on the floor. i look up to see that i was surrounded by the hairiest, most manly, most self-centered, most muscled guys on campus : The college football team. the football team was wearing gray tank tops & crimson basketball shorts. the football players were at least 6 feet 3 inches tall in height and is broad-shouldered and muscular in build .their faces have thick beards, .they took off their tank tops i saw they all have 6 pack abs , substantial pecs and arms They told me that each fall they capture a college freshman nerd they take him to the locker room & the jocks take that geek & they make that geek into one of their own. that this year i was that nerd & that soon i will be unrecognizable that my nerdy body will be going though the changes of having a nerds body into growing & becoming a jocks body. soon i will have a body of a jock. that the mouthguard in my mouth is not only collecting spit in my mouth in process of changing my high nerdy voice into a deep jock voice .they will let me keep my iq ill be the team linebacker & tutor. i will also tutor the cheerleaders& sorority girls who also will find me  the  object of sexual desire for most of the women on campus . i saw a gym bag in a corner with other pairs of boxers& jockstraps& clothes such as gym shorts, tank top, sweats, a box of  XXL Magnum condoms  and a table right in front of me on that table was a football uniform, The helmet, cleats, jersey, and gear .they shoe me the jersey with my last name. also on the table other items that will turn my nerds body into a jocks body items such as jock deodorant& shaving cream which change my hair less nerdy armpits into hairy jock armpits& will also cause my face to grow a thick brown beard. a protective cup which when the team put the protective cup under my jockstrap caused my dick to grow into a huge jock dick. i watch as they change my nerds body into a jock body with a genius iq. afterwards the team had practice then take my team picture with in my football uniform .after practice i changes my clothes into a gray tank tops & crimson basketball shorts same outfit as the other guys on the team for a party at a frat house at the frat house the guys on the team took off my tank top to show my jock body that i now have a 6 pack abs , substantial pecs and arms which lead the cheerleaders & sorority girls to bid on who i will lose my v card to now living my as a tall nerd jock hybrid with a genius iq who is a chem major . my jock build & broad-shouldered, alongside my wavy dark brown hair, perfectly puts me into the description of "tall, dark and handsome. As result of my good looks (and sometimes solely because of them), i am is often the object of sexual desire for most of the women on campus. the women on campus have been known to physically objectify me. i have also have model recruiters after me . i'm generally oblivious to my attractiveness

Bro, what else can I add… But I don't understand what you have with the cheerleaders and the chicks?

As far as I know, the smell of the quarterback's sweaty hair makes you horny and wild…

But anyway, the world needs more hot nerds. Have fun!

[transgenderteensurvivalguide]

do you have any tips for subtly looking more masculine? I can’t fully transition now because I’m a minor in a confirmed to be transphobic household, and if you have any suggestions that would be amazing

Lee says:

You can try starting slowly incorporating more masculine-styled women's clothing into your wardrobe. This is usually a gradual process anyway since it can take time to save up enough money to purchase enough new shirts/pants/shoes etc. to fully replace your current wardrobe, especially if you're working part-time as a babysitter, dog-walker, etc.

Clothes that are more structured or straight-cut, like button-down shirts or straight-leg pants, can help create a more traditionally masculine silhouette. Layering with hoodies or jackets can also be effective. You can sometimes find these things styled as "boyfriend" clothes, and you can tell your parents that it's the current trend/style. You can see our post on finding masculine clothing in the women's section here.

Another easy change is dropping the accessories. That means not wearing feminine necklaces/earrings/bracelets/hairbands, not painting your nails, etc. It's easy to say you want to keep things basic and sporty and that's why you're going without the accessories. Wearing a neutral watch or a smart watch is another accessory to consider instead of a thin-strapped "women's watch" if you wear watches at all that is.

You can see our post on purse alternatives here since bags are often the biggest practical change in the accessory category. Not carrying a purse when you hang out with your friends in the mall, go out on a trip, etc is obviously a high-impact change to make.

If possible, choose a haircut that's more typically masculine. Shorter haircuts, or styles that are longer on the top and shorter on the sides, can subtly change your appearance. If you use a female reference for your photo when you show your parents what you want they may not suspect anything. You can see our post on convincing your parents to let you get a haircut without coming out here.

If a haircut isn’t possible, consider styles like pulling your hair back in a low bun or wearing hats. If you're Black, cornrows, box braids, and locs are styles that can be gender neutral depending on how you wear them. There's a few links on that here.

There are also things you can do to come across as subtly more masculine without buying anything at all.

Sometimes, adopting a more traditionally masculine posture and body language can make a difference. This doesn't usually have a big impact on passing, but it can help you feel better about yourself and boost your self-confidence and reduce dysphoria, and it's something that your family may not notice because it's easy to alter when you're with them. You can see a post about masculine body language here.

Similarly, you can try voice training and practice speaking in a slightly lower tone or in a more monotone style, which is often perceived as more masculine. Be careful not to strain your voice, though, and maybe avoid doing it while you're with your family. You can see a post about voice training here.

Engaging in exercises that build upper body strength can also help in achieving a more masculine physique. Focus on workouts that target the shoulders, back, and arms. You can often do body weight workouts at home in your room without needing a gym membership or specialized exercise equipment.

Find a support system, whether it's friends, online communities, or a counselor/therapist, who understand and support your gender identity. This can provide a safe space to express yourself and explore your identity. It can help to have other friends who are also masculine to feel like you're not isolated.

Observing and adopting some masculine behavioral cues, like how men typically occupy space or interact in social settings, can also be a subtle way to express masculinity, but you want to be careful that you're not imitating toxic masculinity / obnoxious guys. Similarly, engaging in hobbies or interests that are stereotypically masculine can be a subtle way to align with male peers, but always choose activities that genuinely interest you and you can probably find other guys out there who are also interested in the things you already care about to be friends.

The above suggestions are all things that you can do without your parents necessarily noticing. Binding is something that may not be subtle depending on your chest size, so while it is possible to sometimes bind in front of family without them noticing (saying it's a sports bra, for example) I would recommend keeping your binder in your backpack and only changing into it at school in the bathroom / at a friend's house / in a public bathroom when you're out with friends but not family, etc. unless you really are wearing only a single well-fitting sports bra. You can see more about buying a binder and that whole process in this post.

It's harder to be seen as masculine or male when you're pre-medical transition and not passing which means people often have to "overcompensate" by being more masculine than they would otherwise choose to be, but as always, I'd like to note that it can be possible to pass as male / be masculine while doing any of the things I recommended changing!

So while I might advise someone who wants to come off as more masculine "don't paint your nails" for example, that is a general rule and doesn't mean that you have to follow those guidelines if you're really passionate about painting your nails. You can always choose whatever gender expression you're comfortable with. There are plenty of guys who wear nail polish and otherwise come across as masculine or who are recognized as men. It's important to remember that masculinity is diverse and there's no one right way to be masculine.

Followers, any other tips on performing subtle masculinity that won't make transphobic parents suspicious?

[cazzyf1]

Some of my favourite quotes from David Benson's 'Hunt v Lauda'

'He was nursing a toy yellow-eyed gorilla which made alarming noises and clapped a pair of cymbals attached to its hand.

"Whats with the gorilla?"

James looked tired. "It's called smiler. Alistair and Teddy gave it to me to celebrate my championship."

Teddy smiled benignly: "The gorilla was not very popular in first-class lounge I'm afraid."

"No," said James, "and they wouldn't let me blow my whistle either." He produced a police whistle and blew it.' - p7

"When we boarded the plane, he (James Hunt) insisted on joining mechanics in touring class until the lights were turned down for passengers to sleep." - p8

"Niki had always wanted to marry Mariella but she had refused to do so until he had become world champion." - p21

"The unsuspecting young actress Marlene Knaus was going to endure a trial that few women, even with a tremendously experienced and well-founded background, could have endured." - p21

"I telephoned James Hunt in Johannesburg where he is preparing for the South African Grand Prix. He told me, "I have been in daily contact with Susy and am fully informed about what is going on. I wouldn't stop her getting a divorce. I am trying to help her as much as I can so that she makes the right decisions. Obviously if she wanted to come back to me, I would help her do that." - p40

"I walked out of the dinning-room to an annexe alongside it, and sitting in the corner with a lady I didn't know was Niki Lauda; he smiled and asked a Carol and me to join him for a cup of coffee. He introduced the girl alongside him very simply, "This is my lady," She was, of course, Marlene Knaus, a very beautiful girl, with her hair in a rather severe style, brushed back, and a bun on the top of her head. We had a long chat about seat belts - both were empathetically in favour (that evening the house of commons in the UK were debating on making seatbelts in cars compulsory) - but the important thing was that I established a friendly relationship with Marlene when other people on the racing circuit cold-shouldered her, thinking she was merely some local pick-up. In fact, she and Niki were planning to get married as soon as they flew back from South Africa." - p44

"The main topic of conversation was the break-up of the long relationship between Niki Lauda and Mariella. Helen (Stewart) offered, with the best possible intentions, to get in touch with both Mariella and Niki is necessary to heal the breach. Having seen how close Niki and Marlene were in South Africa, I doubted if this were possible. As it turned out, a day after we had our discussion in Nina's home, Niki went quietly to a register office near Vienna and married Marlene." - p47

"He tried awfully hard not to hurt me." - (Susy about James) - p58

"James was standing right alongside me. Tears welling in his eyes. "It's stupid," he said, "It does not affect the performance of the car or make it any faster. Not even the Ferrari team protested and they were the ones who have the most to win..." - p62

"It was in triumph, therefore, that Hunt, six weeks before his 29th birthday, left for Britain in preparation for the John Player Grand Prix at Brands Hatch. With good humour and in high spirits, he took part in an event before the race and revealed another facet in his talents. It was at the Albert Hall at the Grand Prix Night of the Stars, a concert in aid of the Graham Hill Memorial Fund. The hall was packed with evening-suited celebrities who had paid up to £500 for a private box. Hunt was introduced by astronomer Patrick Moore who had just done a soft-shoe shuffle. Suddenly, Moore reached for a trumpet left behind on the bandstand by Chris Barber, who had done an earlier turn. "You're supposed to be good at blowing your own trumpet," he said, "so try this one." The audience dutifully laughed expecting a knockabout comedy turn. But Hunt took the trumpet, the studio band started to play and Hunt's clear, clean notes echoed through the vast auditorium. It was a memorable moment. When the audience realised that Hunt was playing for real, they roared their approval and then sat in silence as James plaved like a professional. Hunt's brother, Peter told me later: "I had a hell of a job convincing the BBC, who were recording the show, that James really was a good enough trumpet player to perform on TV. He learned to play at about 12 or 13 when he was at Wellington. He was in the school orchestra and the school band and played solo at concerts. Stuart Turner, Public Affairs Director of Ford of Britain, had a box at the Albert Hall. He turned to me after Hunt had finished his solo and said: "Now I have seen everything: James Hunt playing the trumpet at the Albert Hall we'll have Niki Lauda doing a comedy act next." - p73-4

"Niki himself, having almost killed himself in a first-lap accident there in 1974, has always campaigned against the Nurenburgring. He argued that the 1976 German Grand Prix should be switched to the Hockenheim Ring, a purpose-built circuit with outstanding safety facilities installed after the death there of Jim Clark in 1968. But Lauda was reviled by the Germans for his attempt. In practise at Nürburgring spectators displayed a huge poster of Lauda and his car. Across it was written, 'Lauda 20 kilometres per hour. Aus.' Ring bystanders are hard on anyone threatening the thrill of the race." - p80

"Sunday's race day was altogether depressing from the start. The young American driver Brett Lunger had heard the night before that his father had died unexpectedly in the United States and Brett decided to stay and go on with the race before returning home. It was to be a vital decision in the saving of Niki Lauda's life." - p81

"Jackie had a remarkable story to tell that Niki's agents had telephoned him soon after the crash and asked him to appear at a promotion for a new line of jeans which were being marketed in Niki's name. Jackie refused, saying he would only appear with Niki's permission. Niki was telephoned and they were told that he was determined to be there himself." - p86-7

"What would the situation be if Niki was fit to drive and Ferrari still wouldn't come to the track?" I asked Alastair, without hesitation he replied: "We will lend him a car so he and James can fight it out." - p89

"Then Niki arrived in his Jaguar with Marlene and Willi Dungl, his masseur/confidant, the man responsible for building Niki up physically in preparation for the race. There was a last-minute panic when it was discovered that Dungl had left his passport back at the house but he had an identity card and Niki knew that with Ferrari influence we would have no trouble getting Willi into Italy. Niki insisted on carrying out all the check-out procedures himself and we made a beautiful take off from Salzburg Airport." - p95

"At one point I was asked if I wanted to see a priest. So I said: "OK." He came in, and gave me my last rites - crossed my shoulder - and said "Goodbye My friend". I nearly had a heart attack! I wanted someone to help me live in this world, and not pass into the next." - p98

"I was watching his wife Marlene's eyes as she protectively, solicitously, studied her husband. She seemed almost proud of his scarred features." - p101

"A beautiful elegant grey/green-eyed young woman by the name of Marlene Knaus enjoyed life of a promising screen actress and model. A member of one of the most respected families in Austria she fitted easily into the jet set world of show business. She moved easily too in the rarefield world of medicine in which her grandfather was a renowned gynaecologist and in the artistic circles into which she was born as the daughter of a famous painter." - p101

"I used to smoke maybe one or two cigarettes a day, but from the time of the accident I have become a chain smoker. I know that this is not good for my health but it helps me through the crisis." Niki does not smoke and he says that this fact helped him recover from his lung injuries, but he does not reprove Marlene for smoking." - p102

"Marlene is a delightfully warm person. Her handshake is firm. Her eyes are steady and constant. They are the eyes of a woman who could inspire a man to great things, and she likes to touch the person that she is talking to. She looks at her husbands scarred face and gently strokes it." - p103

"Hunt, who had trotted through the driving rain along the length of the pits to salute the supreme courage of his world title rival Niki Lauda." - p104

"I just wish there bad been no accident, no disqualifications, no aggrevation, and Niki and I were fighting it out fair and square on the track. After what Niki has achieved, he deserves that at least. What Ferrari have done is to devalue the world championship and to cloud Niki's brave recovery. His recovery is absolutely amazing and he really is fit again." - p125

"His wife Marlene was happy with his decision. She had said earlier; "When he got into the car and drove away, I wanted to throw myself in front of it and stop him." - p140

"All Hunt knew was that he had to pass everything in sight. It took him two laps to catch and pass Alan Jones in the Surtees. Now he was fourth. Almost on the same bend he came upon Regazzoni in the Ferrari. Would the Swiss Italian let him through or hold him back? Ostentatiously Rega moved over and waved Hunt through ar a point where the Ferrari pit could clearly see his manoeuvre. As Rega passed his pit he gave them the two finger sign to show his disapproval that he had been dropped from the team for 1977." - p142

[laracrofted]

baby, i'm high octane (i)

synopsis: nora rogers has made a name for herself in the documentary world, but lately, she's been running on empty. and then, with impeccable timing, her aunt charlie calls about an eight-week project in san diego: a feature on naval aviation's newest and most elite squadron. she accepts.

pairings: jake seresin x nora rogers (oc), minor bradley bradshaw x nora rogers (oc)

warnings: 18+, minors dni, explicit language, existential dread, alcohol consumption, slutty (affectionate) rooster, eventual smut in later chapters. set after the movie, so spoilers!

note: i have been working on this for many, many months, and every time i went back to edit it, it gained another 500 words, so i need to put it out in the world for my own sake. hope you enjoy!

read on AO3 | series post | next chapter

tagging: @theharddeck as usual, some mutuals (@anniesocsandgeneralstore @roleycoleyland), plus some folks who were nice about the halloween fic (@peakyrogers @t-nd-rfoot @double-j) let me know if you'd like to be added or removed!

[ OPENING CRAWL ]

On March 3, 1969, the UNITED STATES NAVY established an elite school for the top one percent of its pilots. Its purpose was to teach the LOST ART OF AERIAL COMBAT and to ensure that the handful of men (and now women) who graduated were the BEST FIGHTER PILOTS IN THE WORLD. They succeeded.

The Navy calls it Fighter Weapons School. You might know it better as TOP GUN.

The DAGGER SQUADRON is Naval Aviation’s newest and most elite squadron, exclusively made up of patch wearers. Here are their stories…

 [ CUE MUSIC AND FADE TO BLACK ] 

Back in California for less than 24 hours, and Nora already longs for the cobblestone streets and late night espressos and dear god, the accents of the past six months.

She is used to being on the move. Living out of an expertly packed suitcase, down to a science now. Never quite settling down.

Any documentary filmmaker worth their salt learns early to stay light on their feet, ready at a moment’s notice to get the call that takes them halfway around the globe and brings them the quote, unquote next great story. 

This…was a different sort of call.

“You want me to go to San Diego? Why?” 

It was well past midnight in France, which made it more or less dinner time on the other side of the Atlantic. For Charlie Blackwood, a perfectly acceptable time to ring her favorite niece, but Nora had to take the call out on the small balcony that was attached to her hotel room. 

Documentaries weren’t the same as Hollywood films with their wider box office appeal and George Clooney-type stars. Funding was measly in comparison, so Nora bunked with one of the producers for the Paris leg. She and Jenna had worked together before a couple years back, and while Nora knew her to be sugar sweet from dawn to dusk, the 30-year-old woman did not fuck around with her skincare routine and her eight hours. 

At this time of night on a non-weekend, Paris didn’t have much street noise, but Nora was still certain Charlie’s connection must’ve cut out somewhere in the middle of her sentence. Or maybe Nora had heard her wrong. 

International calls could be so fickle sometimes. Right?

“Let me get this straight. You’re asking if I want to leave Paris to go to San Diego…” Nora repeated slowly, leaving ample breathing room between each word, plenty of time for Charlie to cut in and correct her, “and meet with your ex-boyfriend about some Naval feature? We don’t even like him.” 

“You can call him Maverick,” Charlie replied evenly, “Everybody else does.” 

Nora pulled a face. “I’ll call him Pete. How’s that?” 

“He’ll definitely ask you to call him Maverick.” 

“And I’ll still call him Pete.” 

Charlie’s answering sigh was loud in her ear, even through the static, and Nora smiled down at her shoes. She took a careful step around the bite-sized table, stacked precariously full with her laptop, camera, and notepad, and planted her elbows on the railing. Metal creaked gently under her weight.

“Pete… will be fine,” Charlie relented, “and really, Pete is fine in my book. We’re just… two old acquaintances who wanted different things and were never going to work out in the long term. Besides, from what I hear, Penny Benjamin is his new sweetheart now. Well, new old sweetheart.”

She didn’t know who Penny Benjamin was. Must be a real saint to put up with him.

“Good. He won’t be knocking on your door the next time the Navy sends him to Washington to accept some medal then, right?” 

Nora was seventeen the last time Pete Mitchell came knocking on Charlie Blackwood’s door; around eighteen months after Nora’s mom died, making Charlie her legal guardian. He happened to be in town for some medal or some ceremony or some medal at some ceremony.

He left in the dead of night, out the window, and Charlie spent the next two weeks muttering curses about hotshot pilots and their charismatic bullshit.

“That was almost twelve years ago, Nora,” Charlie chided, much less fun Aunt Charlie and much more diplomatic Charlotte Blackwood, employed by the Pentagon in that moment. Nora rolled her eyes. 

“And anyway,” Charlie continued, not letting her get another word in, “Maverick isn’t the main contact. You’d only meet with him because All Hands…” A Naval magazine, print and digital, funding the project, as Charlie had explained in her initial one long sentence explanation before Nora had been distracted by the who and the where. “…wants to focus on his team. Everything is already approved. All you, my love, would need to do is get the golden seal from Cyclone to head it up. He’s the Air Boss over there.” 

“Now Cyclone is a name that I don’t know,” Nora said, then swiped out of the call to look up the definition of Air Boss. “Doesn’t sound like a name made up by a 13-year-old boy who plays too much Call of Duty. He a Captain too?”

“Vice Admiral. You can meet him on your first day,” and Nora’s lips parted in protest, to say that was a little presumptuous, given she hadn’t agreed to anything and was still half a world away working on something else. Charlie cut her off, right at the knees: “Don’t start with me. Your Paris job wraps in what… four, five days?

Three, but Nora didn’t correct her. 

“Normally, by now, I would be getting half a dozen calls every week from you, gushing about what you’ve got going on next; whatever place you’ll be jetting off to this time. This is the first time I’ve talked to you in at least two weeks,” Guilt pinged at her chest, along with a large helping of existential dread. “Have you even signed on to anything new?”

No. And Nora was doing jack shit to change that. 

Her producer was already signed on for a film that would start pre-production ten weeks from now. It was a big one, lots of people to bring on board, and Jenna – literal angel in human form Jenna offered to pass Nora’s name along for consideration. 

Nora still hadn’t given an answer. 

She worried the edge of her lip but said nothing, and Charlie must’ve taken that as encouragement enough to continue on. “It’ll be a short project. Gives you enough time to find something new that excites you. Just… go to North Island and talk to Cyclone. You need a break.” 

Late May breezed across her cheeks, smelling of the sweet pink and white cherry blossoms in bloom at a nearby park. She’d passed it nearly every day, afraid that the end of May would come and Nora wouldn’t ever see them in full bloom before having to leave. They bloomed two weeks ago, almost overnight, and Nora knew that June loomed and with it, the end of another project. 

All that remained was uncertainty. 

She did need a break, though Nora wasn’t sure that anyone other than her aunt and herself would consider working on another documentary to be a break. She couldn’t remember the last time Charlie had even taken a sick day. They were born and bred workaholics the both of them, and usually, Nora thrived on that.

But lately, Nora was so tired. 

Another project could be good for me, Nora thought. Fewer eyes and expectations, without the pressure of acclaim and awards and future grants and questions of what are you doing next tightening like a noose around her neck. It’d be a one and done. She could do that.

“Alright,” Nora said, feeling a little lighter from letting the words loose. That was reassuring, at least. “Start from the beginning. How’d you find out about it? Who are the subjects? What’s the goal?” 

Smile audible in her voice, Charlie started again, “Here is what I know…” 

They wrapped mid-week with the usual fanfare, and the next day, Nora was packed and on a plane back home to Southern California. 

Nora could already tell the Vice Admiral was ready to have the screening process over and done with. He barely asked her any questions before shaking her hand and foisting her onto Admiral Bates who ran her through the rules and regulations for getting onto the base and her accommodations. 

Since Nora was freelancing for a Naval magazine, the United States government would be putting her up for the duration of the project. God bless America. She did not want to find a last minute hotel room in San Diego in June. 

After obtaining a temporary ID card and a neat stack of manilla folders, probably filled with generously redacted background and service records, Nora is promptly deposited in the beachside parking lot of a steel-blue apartment building, faded from sun and brine, with a whole night ahead. 

Showering off the plane eats up a few minutes, as does replying to the check-in email that the magazine contact sent over this afternoon. They would talk more over the weekend and into next week. It was difficult to connect with the time difference, so Charlie had guided the initial communication. 

Calling Charlie drains another half hour, while Nora hums in all the right places and fights to keep her eyes open, chiming in with the occasional observation about North Island and tidbit about the conversation with Cyclone and Warlock. 

“What’d you think of Cyclone?”

She stares at the blank wall across from the bed – all that wide open space and not an art print in sight – and thinks back. 

Cyclone leveled an impassive stare at her over the folder that held her portfolio – apparently faxed over by Charlie before Nora had even agreed to come – and said, “This is an unusual circumstance. Most of the nepotism hires that come across my desk are aiming higher than an eight week contractor.” 

She’d bitten her cheek to hold back a laugh, and Admiral Bates let out a suspiciously timed cough, hiding his mouth behind a balled fist. 

“He was kind of hot,” Nora admits, then has to hold the phone away from her ear to not be deafened by Charlie’s laughter. “What? Just because I lack a father figure, I’m not allowed to appreciate an older man every now and then?” 

“Sure, but I think I’ll draw the line at Maverick.” 

Nora does her best projectile vomit noise, and Charlie laughs so hard that Mr. Charlotte Blackwood – as Nora affectionately likes to call Charlie’s husband John, who always accepted it with a congenial smile that only made her like him more – shouts from another room, wanting to know what exactly is so hilarious. 

She won’t see Pete Mitchell until Monday, and after promising to tell him that Charlie says hello and sends her best to him and this Penny Benjamin woman, Nora hangs up the phone. 

It’s barely 8 PM, and Nora wants nothing more than to crawl under the covers and leech the travel from her bones, but the San Diego sun is stubborn and high on the horizon. She knows her own body well enough to know that an 8 PM bedtime makes for a 3 AM bout of insomnia. 

Boredom finds Nora perched on a cushioned barstool, a fresh t-shirt on her torso and a new coat of red lipstick on her lips, in the crowded Hard Deck bar. Sipping on an Old Fashioned, chatting with none other than Penny Benjamin. 

“Charlie Blackwood,” Penny Benjamin repeats, a surprised but amiable smile on her face. A brown leather jacket sits over her slender shoulders, the same warm shade as her hair, and Nora spots a United States Navy patch on the sleeve. “God, I haven’t seen Charlie in… 30 years now. She may have told you, but I met her once or twice at Top Gun, back before my old man, the great Admiral Benjamin, retired. How’s she doing?” 

“She’s good,” Nora offers, adding as an afterthought, just in case Penny Benjamin was the jealous type. “Married now.” 

Penny sends her a sidelong look, narrow-eyed, that must make the fresh-faced Top Gun hopefuls cower in their regulation boots. Behind the glass, Nora’s lips curve into an amused smirk. 

Things must be going well. Good for them.

Nora swirls the amber liquid, fishing out an extra cherry from the bottom and popping it into her mouth. “She sends her well wishes. She’d probably want me to give you a hug or something, but I think I’d fall on my ass trying to lean over the counter. Consider yourself lucky.” 

“You can give my hug to Pete, but only if I’m there to witness.” 

 “Distinguished Captain Mitchell isn’t much of a hugger? I’m shocked.” 

“Are you kidding?” Penny fills another pint glass for a patron a few barstools down, sliding it down the counter and looking back at Nora with an amused twinkle. “He’ll turn into a robot. He won’t know how to react. Make sure to ask one of the boys to record it for you so I can blackmail him with it forever.”  

Imagining it, Nora is still smiling when Penny’s name calls her to the other side of the counter. Leaving her alone to people-watch and observe the establishment with a filmmaker’s eye. 

Miniature planes hang from the ceiling, swaying in the breeze that cuts in with the opening and closing of the door. A wood island separates one side of the bar from the other, stacked high with an assortment of colorful glass bottles that gleam in the fading sunlight. 

A golden wash spills through the back windows, and the Hard Deck is filling up fast with civilians, veterans, and servicemen alike. They’re the easiest to spot, wearing  their service khakis and all. 

Music swells through the bar, and Nora spies a jukebox in the corner, drawing a line five deep, all waiting for their turn to select the next 1980s classic. She recognizes the current song from her white dad music playlist. 

‘Take It Easy’ by Eagles. Track four, baby. 

Over her shoulder, a tight-knit crowd surrounds the pool table. They throw jeers and jokes at each other with familiarity, and Nora watches them for a moment too long, dragging her tired eyes away when one of them starts to turn in her direction. 

She checks her phone, under the bar, not on top, of course, unless Nora wants to buy the whole room a round. A little after 8:30 now. She just needs a kill another hour or so, and then, that’ll feel like an acceptable time to crawl into bed and sleep for the next ten hours. 

Fingers dancing through her tote, Nora fishes out her favorite journal, setting it down flat on the least sticky surface she can find. Leather-bound, stuffed to the brim with colorful sticky notes and touch-creased photographs. Further searches reveal that Nora left her pens back at the apartment, somewhere in one of those suitcases that had gotten packed and unpacked in an attempt to burn time. 

“Do you have a spare pen?” 

A blue pen rolls over to her waiting hands as Penny passes with a wink and dashes down the counter to fill a round of drinks. She has that endless energy that Nora needs a few coffees to achieve. 

Thinking it makes Nora’s lids feel even heavier. 

Tracks switch again on the jukebox, and Nora hums along to the new song, another winning installment on her white dad music playlist. Has the United States Navy hacked her Spotify account or something? She cuts through the pages like a surfboard through an ocean wave to find a fresh page, and Nora spins the pen between manicured fingers, mouthing the lyrics to ‘Dancing in the Dark’ under her breath. 

Her brain is a firework show, thoughts shooting off high and fast, bursting into a million different directions. Loud and colorful. She can be like this on her best day, but a severe lack of sleep – or in this case, horrible jet lag – makes it a million times worse. 

A long blank stare at the page later, Nora manages to piece a few words together into what might resemble a coherent thought, with emphasis on the word might here.

And right as Nora clicks the pen and presses it down on the page, denting the lined paper beneath the blue ink, an empty pint glass is set down on the counter, a few inches from her left hand. A whiff of cologne fills her nostrils, a little overbearing but still pleasant. 

Fingers drum against the wood, in time with the music, and determined, despite the distraction, to pin down the semi-coherent thoughts that are now fleeing like scattered mice, Nora reaches for her drink and finds it empty save for half-melted ice and an orange rind. 

“Buy you another one, sweetheart?” 

She looks up, in spite of herself, and damn. 

He is handsome as hell, heart-aching levels of handsome, a little like looking into the sun. Like a goddamn movie star, all broad shoulders and perfect, slicked back blonde hair, and easy confidence that fits him like a well-worn shirt. 

He plucks the rocks glass easily from her stunned grip, holding it between two fingers, a loose, almost careless hold, and damn her to hell, Nora swallows against her suddenly dry mouth. 

She really needs to go to bed. Among other things. 

Green eyes study the contents of the glass, then flick back over to her, and Nora is hit with the full force of a mega-watt smile. 

Dimples out. Ready to film a tooth-whitener commercial. 

“Bourbon girl? I’m impressed.” 

“Why?” Nora drawls, and hell, the word comes out of her mouth a little rough. Get it together. Put away the bedroom voice. She clears the cobwebs from her throat. “Because I look like I’d order a cosmopolitan in a dive bar and act surprised when I’m given a vodka cran?” 

He seems to take look as an invitation, dragging his eyes over the soft t-shirt, a little damp over the shoulders from her shower, and the faded blue jeans that hang loosely from her legs, an old pair with a rip in the knee big enough that Nora might soon need to give them a second life as shorts. 

His appraisal stalls out on her blood-red lips, tracing the shape of them, getting the lay of the land. And then, slowly rises back to meet her gaze. All the while, smiling like a pageant contestant. 

“Name’s Hangman.”

Record scratch. He’s a pilot.

Goddamn pilots. 

“That doesn’t sound like a name,” Nora drawls back, matching his conceited-ass smile with her freshly chilled ice-cold bitch smirk. “And I can buy my own drinks.” 

Rudeness isn’t her drug of choice, but Nora clocks him as a tough one. A swift one-two ego punch should do the trick, rejecting his advance and mocking his precious call sign in one fell swoop. Aviators toss those around more than their actual names.

He’ll leave now.

She stares him down, and Mr. Pilot stares right back, eyes amused and sparkling in the twinkling lights dancing right above the bar, tucked between the steins. 

Any minute now.

He doesn’t move an inch, and if possible, the Barbie and Ken smile grows even wider on his perfect face. He’s so hot, Nora kinda wants to break his nose just to make something on his face crooked. 

“It’s my call sign.” 

She is so tired. It trips off her tongue, almost out of habit: “Well, I’m not calling you Hangman. What’s your actual name?” 

Why…. Why would those words come out of her mouth, instead of the ‘Get lost, Malibu Barbie’ that was locked and loaded in the back of her mind? Damn damn damn. 

She doesn’t fool around with pilots, not after Charlie’s history with Pete Mitchell and her own Air Force sperm donor who couldn’t be bothered to call more than once a year. And especially not, when Nora will be working on the base for the next two months. What if Nora ran into him?

The edge of Hangman’s mouth twitches into a slow, dangerous smile, and Nora catches a flash of his canines, ultra-white like the rest of his teeth. 

She fiddles with the pen cap, rolling and bending it between her pointer finger and thumb. Waits impatiently for him to give her an answer that gives her the opening needed to send him packing, back to the pool table to make better use of his bulging arm muscles over there. 

Some co-ed girls push behind him, stumbling and giggling to each other, and in stepping out of their way, Hangman inches forward into her space. Breath warm at her nape, stirring the pale strands loose at her cheekbones, too short to remain tucked behind her ears without a fight.

Clever fingers capture one and brush it back into place, softly brushing against the side of her neck. His words are a low, hot rumble against the shell of her ear: “It’s Jake. Lieutenant Jake Seresin.” 

Oh, Nora thinks, warm all over in a way that has nothing to do with the sticky heat of the night. Oh shit. 

She has the borrowed pen in a chokehold, gripping it hard enough to redden her fingertips, and Hangman – now Jake notices. His grin widens, and Nora forces herself to loosen the hold, to let the blood flow back into her hands, to regain some of her composure.

“Let me buy you a drink.” 

Not a question this time, so Nora doesn’t need to give him a yes or no. 

He’s offered a loophole, one around her own better judgment, without even realizing it. She can just drop her shoulders with casual indifference, as if to say if you insist, and turn back to her journal. Pretend not to feel his intent, most definitely intrigued gaze on the side of her face. 

It’s a free drink, and Nora’s hardly encouraging him. What is the harm, really?

A smug smile crosses his face when Penny comes over, an unreadable expression on her face, and Nora doesn’t stop him from ordering another Old Fashioned. He’s close enough now to feel the evening heat radiating from his tan skin, exposed where the sleeves of his t-shirt cut across his biceps. 

Nora is not enabling anything. Not at all. 

Rooster is on the last swallow of his beer when Phoenix looks over his shoulder and groans, a dramatic and drawn-out sound that would’ve made her an excellent soap opera star in a different life. He barely has time to snort before Bob appears at her side, a look of sudden concern on his clean-shaven face.

“What’s wrong?”

“We’re never getting our next round.” Phoenix rigidly jerks her head in the direction that Hangman disappeared a few minutes ago. Too long ago, now that Rooster thinks about it. “Bagman got distracted.” 

This is enough to bring the rest of the Daggers to attention. They round the pool table one by one, incited by the suggestion that Hangman might get out of buying them drinks. 

“Distracted,” Payback lets out a sardonic snort. He leans on the pool cue like a walking stick, towering over the rest of them with Rooster seated. “He probably forgot to order the round. Idiot.” 

“I don’t blame him,” Fanboy drawls, looking to the center of the room, waggling his brows. “I think I’d let her distract me anytime, anywhere. Is that not the hottest woman you’ve ever seen step foot in this bar?” His eyes go wide, almost panicked, darting to the only woman in their ranks. “No offense, Phoenix.” 

Phoenix shows no sign of hearing him, and Rooster and Payback share a disbelieving look over the WSO’s head, snickering underneath their amazing mustaches. Lucky son of a bitch. 

“Poor girl,” Phoenix muses with a slow shake of her head, sending her loose curls cascading over her shoulders. “Someone needs to launch a rescue mission. He’s practically drooling into her glass. And…” Something changes in her expression. “Did I hit my head in the cockpit this afternoon and not remember it? Does that girl look familiar to anyone else?” 

“Never seen her before in my life,” Payback says, slapping his WSO on the shoulder, which seems to give Fanboy the confidence to add in, “I’d love to get further acquainted though. Think I can swoop in and steal her from Hangman?”

Phoenix has already pulled out her phone, paying no attention to the round of low chuckles and smirks that are shared between the men. Her fingers skate across the screen, faster than an F-18 on descent, and Rooster looks over his shoulder to get in on the joke. 

It takes him all of two seconds to find them, mostly because Hangman has just flashed that thousand-watt smile that could probably blind an enemy dogfighter. 

He leans against the counter, the cocky bastard, with a pint glass in his hand – one that should be in all of their hands right now. Not an empty glass filled with an inch of foam. Looking down at the barstool next to him, or more specifically, at the woman perched there.

Slender, blonde, dressed down in a t-shirt and jeans, and most definitely a civilian. He can’t accurately weigh in on Fanboy’s assessment, at least until Rooster can catch a glimpse of her face. 

“I knew it!” 

All of them startle when Phoenix makes the announcement and looks up from her phone with the victorious expression of someone who’d just shot down Maverick in a dogfight. She waves her phone in front of their faces, too fast for him to make out more than a blur of words and pictures. 

“I fucking knew it. I follow her on Instagram.” And the wide smile on Phoenix’s face be described as nothing short of gleeful gloating. She cackles to herself, leaning over to show the screen to Bob again. “And you little shits made fun of me for loving documentaries so much. Who’s laughing now?”

Documentaries…. 

Recognition tugs at the edge of his drunken memory.

“Her name is – ” 

She turns, and Rooster sees her face. 

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Rooster calls out, and Phoenix and Bob startle at the sudden change in volume, brown and blue eyes shooting up from the phone like Rooster blared an airhorn between their heads. He ignores them. “Am I seeing things, or Nora fucking Rogers, is that you?” 

Everyone in a 10-foot radius looks at him, exchanging looks and eye rolls, dismissing him as belligerent but harmless, but Rooster ignores them, keeping his eyes locked on one woman. 

Cornflower blue eyes survey the crowded room, sifting through the noise to place the voice, and finally, land on him. Surprise softens her features. And as the jukebox switches tracks, another crooning 1980s love song pouring through the speakers, Nora Rogers smiles at him for the first time in half a decade.

“Bradley Bradshaw, from beyond the grave.” 

It really is him. This… six-foot-something hallucination with tree-trunk arms and a ridiculous porn star mustache and a familiar gleam in his eyes that spelled trouble. Did Charlie know Bradley would be here? She might’ve mentioned that. Nora looks up at him… and up again, because goddamn, were all Naval aviators so fucking tall?

An awkward beat passes where Bradley and Nora seem to grapple for the right greeting for a person you hadn’t seen in years and hadn’t seen all that often in the first place and mutually, come up empty-handed. 

They’d met all of four or five times over the years, courtesy of the long-distance friendship that blossomed between Aunt Charlie and his mother Carole after Pete had left his Top Gun instructor post and shipped out again. She could use the extra friend without her husband, Charlie had said. 

And then, Nora got older and became Charlie’s backup plus one to some Naval Aviation functions, usually thrown by Top Gun graduates who passed through when Charlie was a civilian instructor. She’d see him there every once in a while, all grown up and pursuing his dreams of becoming a pilot. 

And then, Nora thinks absently, there was that one time…

She should’ve remembered that Bradley Bradshaw is a hugger. 

Making up his mind for them both, Bradley reaches out and tugs her against his chest. And for one moment, Nora can feel the muscled strength of his arms banded around her torso, the firmness of his chest underneath the open Hawaiian shirt and incredibly thin white tank; can practically make out the ridges of his abs through the fabric. 

It is barely longer than a brief squeeze, but as Nora pulls back, an unnatural but not entirely unexpected lightness buzzes in her chest. She is quick to blame it on the lack of sleep and dark liquor coursing through her veins.

She is feeling all kinds of strange tonight. 

Like earlier, when Jake Seresin handed over the Old Fashioned, an unshakable curl to his lips, and as Nora took a delicate sip, watched the movement with half-lidded eyes; the muscles that worked in her throat. Like Jake wanted nothing more than to follow the path with his mouth, and Nora could picture him sprawled across her bed, clear as a snapshot: chests heaving, sweat dripping, tongue dragging across her pulse point, his large hand a collar around her throat. 

Right then. Silly little thoughts like that. 

Nora clears her throat, tugging at the neckline of her tee, and almost unbidden, like a magnetic pull, her gaze wanders back to him, standing in nearly the exact same spot at the bar, collecting a round of drinks. He apparently owed the group for the last pool game or something.

She can’t help but notice a new tension in his shoulders that wasn’t there a few minutes ago. She can tell, having been slightly too preoccupied with the strong line of his shoulders over at the bar for her own liking. He’d seemed so casual at the bar, so relaxed. 

Is Jake mad? At Bradley, for interrupting them? At Nora, for coming over here?

These seem to be his friends. He was playing pool with them after all, up until Jake approached her at the bar. And Nora was hardly even talking to him at the bar, scribbling in her notebook and entertaining the occasional question as Jake seemed content to stand at her shoulder and watch. 

“What’s your name?” 

“What’re you doing in Fightertown?” 

“What do you do for work?” 

“A filmmaker? Like Quentin Tarantino?” 

And Nora had been incised enough to set her pen down and stare him down. “I make documentaries, and if I did make movies, I’d at least like to be compared to someone decent. Not some piece-of-shit asshole director.”

His brows rose, but Jake looked unperturbed. “Like who?” 

“Like… I don’t know, Nora Ephron or Greta Gerwig. You probably don’t even know who Nora Ephron is, do you? Do you also think Fight Club is a love letter to toxic masculinity?” 

He exhaled a laugh, brows still halfway to his hairline, and opened his mouth to reply when Bradley called her name, and Nora was gone before Jake could get another word in.

Still. Seeing him look so… Tense? Dejected? Annoyed?

It makes her feel off-kilter. 

Maybe Jake just wanted to chat her up at the bar and go back to his friends, not to be bothered for the rest of the night. She’s ruined that plan by coming over here, invited or not. It shouldn’t matter. She can’t stop herself from wondering anyway. God. Why do you even care?

She doesn’t know him, and after tonight, she’ll likely never see him again. 

He starts to turn, and Nora slingshots her gaze back to Bradley, refusing to be caught watching him, who is looking down – and down – with a rose-colored hue to his face. A pair of aviator sunglasses sit crookedly over his eyes, showing her reflection. 

She takes a half-step back to not have to crane her neck so much to meet his eyes. Raises her voice to be heard over the music, much closer to the jukebox now. “What are you doing here? I might be out of the loop, but didn’t you already graduate from Top Gun? Like many, many years ago?” 

“She’s calling you old, Rooster,” Jake cuts in, reappearing and passing out the few bottles and glasses around the circle. Seven total, including another Old Fashioned that Nora probably doesn’t need but still accepts. He shoots her a wink over the glass. “You gonna take that, man?” 

“I was not, you jackass,” Nora shoots back, the second Old Fashioned blurring the lines between her brain and her mouth.

Jake settles against the pool table in a casual stance, arms crossed across his chest, biceps bulging. She must’ve imagined the earlier tension. He seems fine now, watching her with a smirk.

“I didn’t expect to see anyone I knew here. Answer the question, Bradshaw.” 

Bradley’s laugh is a little loud, a little unsteady. One look at the nearest hightop table, littered with empty beer bottles and pint glasses, tells her everything she needs to know. 

Bradley Bradshaw is tipsy. Color shines high in his cheeks.

“‘What am I doing here?’ You’re on a Naval base, darling, which makes me,” Bradley pushes the glasses up the bridge of his nose and with the hand holding the new beer bottle, gestures to his own chest. Covered in that shirt that is… not hiding much, “the law around these parts. I ask the questions around here.” A dark-haired woman rolls her eyes behind his back. “What the hell are you doing here, civilian? You following me around now?” 

Oh wow. He’s so drunk. 

“In your dreams.”

She doesn’t like the look on his face; doesn’t trust what drunk Bradley might spit out next in a public setting, so Nora brings them back to more even ground, summarizing everything with a short and sweet, “I’m doing Charlie a favor” that is more or less true. Gives him the barest rundown of her past 48 hours, all too aware of the four Naval aviators standing within earshot, shooting her curious glances and waiting for an introduction. 

“It’s your turn now.” 

“We were here on a special detachment. Eight months ago. Top secret shit,” Bradley offers in an oh so serious tone. All of his concentration seems to go towards hiding a smile. It’s given away by the obvious twitch of his mustache, dampening the effect slightly. “I can’t talk about it, or Cyclone will shoot me out of an airlock.” 

“We’re on the ground, Rooster.” 

“Semantics, Payback. He will take me up into the atmosphere in an F-18 just to shoot me into space. And then, probably like, come down here and have one black coffee in victory. Happy now?” 

Nora offers, “I actually have some security clearance.”

Some was probably an exaggeration. Charlie set her up with a director who needed an assistant, back when Nora really needed another project under her belt to build her portfolio. Lightly sensitive, all for internal use, of course.

“No shit. Aren’t you special?” 

Drenched in sarcasm, but Bradshaw is looking at her over the edge of his pint glass with a hint of something else in his brown eyes.

Nope. No. Not going there tonight. 

“Now, Bradshaw.” She delivers a light slap to his chest, and Bradley looks down, amused. It’s a little more familiar than Nora was going for. She probably didn’t need another drink. “When are you going to stop being rude and introduce me?” 

His arm settles over her shoulders, swiveling her like a Hard Deck barstool to face the rest of the group. They go down the line, one by one. Call signs, then their first and last names, upon request because Nora refuses to call a bunch of grown men things like Rooster and Fanboy. Phoenix is actually a damn cool name. 

Phoenix, Fanboy, Payback, and Bob.

Natasha, Mickey, Reuben, and Bob again.

“And Hangman,” Jake finishes, a pronounced twang in his voice that Nora didn’t notice before. She was missing the accents earlier, wasn’t she? “We met at a little spot not far from here. I was the devastatingly handsome man buying you a drink.” 

“Sorry,” Nora shoots back, all calm and collected. “I don’t think I know a Hangman. Doesn’t sound like a real name to me.” 

A muscle twitches in his cheek. “Jake.” 

“It’s all coming back now.” And Nora doesn’t mean for it to come out so quiet, so intimate. “Hi Jake.” 

He flashes her a dimpled grin, all soft edges. “Hi Nora.” 

It’s so damn charming that Nora has to bite back an unbidden smile, but with the high-speed attention of an F-18 pilot, Jake catches it, the smug son of a bitch. He lifts his beer to his mouth and shoots her a heated look that curls her toes inside her boots. 

“So,” Phoenix interjects, glancing between them with an all too knowing look that makes Nora flush. “Who is up for another round of pool?” 

She should’ve stuck to her original plan, which would have seen her leave over an hour ago. Already curled up under the sheets for a long, much-needed sleep by now. 

But Nora is having too much fun, sitting on a barstool near the pool table, watching the game and listening to them trade insults and stories (just the non-classified ones, of course) back and forth. All of them seem to know each other well, and Nora learns early on that Captain Mitchell recruited them for this special top-secret detachment a few months back. 

“We’re still here under Maverick as an actual squadron now. We’re… I’m sorry, I’m not exactly sure what I can and can’t tell you,” Bob explains, cutting himself off with a sheepish expression. He is damn cute, clean-shaven and baby-faced. Easygoing. He reminds her a little of a duckling, jabs rolling off his back like water. “You can ask Maverick on Monday. Are you just following him around with a camera or…?”  

She gives him the quick run-down, well aware that the Daggers are all within earshot now, not even pretending not to eavesdrop on the conversation. “It will probably be a good bit of interviews and additional footage. It’s not just about Captain Mitchell. I’ll be focusing on the whole team.” 

“We’ll probably be seeing a lot of you then.” 

It is a perfectly nonchalant observation, but Nora’s heart does a stuttered thump-thump in her chest, the exact same realization piercing through her intoxicated brain way too late. If Maverick is their CO, then Bob is on the team that Nora will be profiling in the feature. All of them are. Which means...

She will be seeing them. Probably every single day.  

Nora manages to get out an even, “I guess so.” 

She remembers the cardboard box of files, sitting unopened next to her overturned suitcase, and wants to bang her head against a wall. Instead, Nora washes down the overwhelming sense of uh oh with a too-quick gulp of her drink. Green eyes burn against the side of her face, stinging like the bourbon in her nostrils. 

Natasha drops onto the next barstool over, providing the perfect distraction from her thoughts. She’s just landed an impressive sequence of shots against Mickey and Reuben, who now stand staring down at the table, hands on hips in identical stances of contemplation.

“I follow you on Instagram,” Natasha admits, snagging her beer bottle from a nearby table and waving off the popcorn that Bob offers her. “And I have to tell you. I have invited these idiots over to watch documentaries with me more times than I can even remember. Tried different topics too. Bob is the only one who ever comes over. Don’t let them convince you otherwise.” 

“Oh, I won’t. I can smell a fraud a mile away,” Nora reassures, a conspiratorial gleam in her eyes to match the other woman, “but I, for one, would love an invitation to watch a documentary with you. Make it a weekly thing while I’m here.” 

And Natasha grins wide enough to inspire warm and fuzzy feelings in her chest. Is this what budding friendship felt like? She has been on the move so much lately. She’d almost forgotten. 

“Nora is my friend, Phoenix,” Bradley cuts in, sunglasses sliding further and further down his nose. His large hand comes up to deliver a playful push to the other woman’s shoulder. “Stop trying to steal her away from me. Get your own friend.” 

“We’re friends now, are we, Bradshaw?” Nora can’t help her laugh, slightly mocking, light enough not to be mistaken as rejection. “I haven’t seen you in like… five years. You probably don’t even know my birthday.” 

He pouts. “Phoenix doesn’t know your birthday either.” 

“It’s in August. She posted about it on her Instagram.” 

“Go away, Phoenix,” Bradley reaches across her again to push at Natasha harder. He loses his balance a little bit and nearly topples into Nora’s lap, only caught by Phoenix shoving against his shoulder. “Don’t let her do this, Rogers. You’re breaking my heart here.” 

“You’re drunk,” Nora giggles, an honest to god giggle, only reserved for drunk Nora. Sober Nora laughs. Drunk Nora giggles. It’s usually a sign to call it a night. “You’re drunk, and I think… I think I might be drunk.” 

“You’re definitely drunk.” 

Nice. Real professional. Getting drunk on the night before her first day and with none other than the only team of pilots on North Island that she is guaranteed to see after tonight. 

“Oh no….” Nora whispers through another giggle, and with a hand that feels disconnected from her arm, reaches up and pushes Bradley’s sunglasses back up his nose. His grin turns wolfish and… “I think I need to go home.” 

“Or…” 

“I can take you. Where’re you staying?”  

Jake pulls his keys out of his pocket and dangles them from a finger, while Bradley straightens, with sudden coordination, to his full height. Out of the corner of her eye, Natasha has paused mid-sip, watching with unadulterated interest, like Rooster and Hangman were the most interesting thing on television. Bob offers her the popcorn again, and Natasha takes a handful. 

“You’ve been drinking.”

“I stopped an hour ago, and I only had two.” 

“She doesn’t know you.” 

“Did you not just say you haven’t seen her in five years?”

“She’s not going home with you.” 

“Jesus Christ…” Jake scrubs a hand over his face, his growing irritation plain. “It’s a ride home, not an invitation to bed. You’d rather put her in a cab with a stranger than have me drive her home? What’s your problem?” 

“My problem is – ” 

Well. This is… rapidly descending into a testosterone fest.

She can feel a dull ache developing in her temple, a heaviness to her lids that is becoming harder to ignore. She needs a strong painkiller, about three and a half glasses of water, and a bed. Preferably tonight. 

“Alright, I’m calling an Uber.” 

 She reaches for her phone, and Jake raises a placating hand.

“Don’t waste money on an Uber. I’ll take you home,” Jake repeats, looking pained, and then, Bradley Bradshaw opens his mouth and takes a big breath, gearing up to restart this idiotic argument. 

“Bradshaw, I swear…” Nora presses her fingers to her forehead and closes her eyes. “In about five minutes, I might sleep on that pool table, so please, I will take what I can get. I’m staying at…” Did Warlock ever give her the address? Goddammit. “It’s… It’s like a blue apartment building next to the beach. It’s not far from here. Know what I’m talking about please.” 

Exhaustion makes her blunt, but Jake looks amused again.. More amused than Nora would give herself credit for inspiring with her drunken rambles.

“I know it. We all live there.” 

Oh. Oh no. 

“Oh. Great.”  

She really will see them every day, even on her days off.  

Something flashes across Bradley’s face, too quick for her to clock it, but Nora is focused on putting hands on her phone, wallet, and keys. Hoisting her bag onto her arm. 

“Well, I’ll come with you.” 

“Rooster. Seriously?” 

“No, I should probably call it a night too, and I caught a ride with Phoenix here anyway. I’ll come back with you guys.” 

Jake and Bradley share a long stare-down that Nora is too tired to even process. It is some sort of telepathic conversation that must be exclusive to Top Gun graduates, or a silent dick-measuring contest. One of the two. 

“Oh,” Phoenix observes, tossing another piece of popcorn in her mouth. “This’ll be interesting.” 

Yeah, Nora thinks. It’ll be something alright. 

It is a short ride back to the apartments. Bradley hums the words to ‘Great Balls of Fire’ under his breath the whole time, over and over in an unending loop, while Nora presses her forehead to the window, breath fogging the glass with the late night temperatures, and closes her eyes. 

It does little to alleviate the weight of Jake’s gaze, dashing off the rearview mirror at every red light. He casts a sideways glance at Bradley, then opens his mouth to say something, but then Nora’s eyelids flutter closed and Jake remains silent, reaching for the radio knob to turn the volume down.

His truck finally rounds the last bend in the road and pulls into the lot, and Nora is damn near crawling out of her skin. She drank two full glasses of water at the bar before leaving. She isn’t buzzed enough at this point to blame the heady warmth on the alcohol. It’s him.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” Jake expertly steers the truck, one-handed, into a spot along the front row of apartments. She can see her door from here, spotlighted under a second-floor flood light like a safe haven. “Please keep all hands and feet inside the vehicle until I’ve come to a full and complete…” 

He’s barely tapped the brakes when Nora mumbles a good night and makes a run for the staircase. 

“Alright then,” Jake calls after her through his open window, accent thick from drowsiness. “Good night to you too, sweetheart.”

She shuts her door on his raspy chuckle. 

It echoes in her ears all the same, even after splashing freezing cold water on her neck, stripping off her clothes, and climbing into the bed with the slightly scratchy sheets. Lingers, like the brush of his fingertips down the side of her neck. 

Nora heaves a sigh in the blue dark. “Goddammit.” 

end note: likes, comments, and reblogs are always appreciated. and if you have thoughts and feelings, please shout in my asks or my messages. i'd love to hear from you!

read the next chapter!

[beanghostprincess]

I've fallen in love with trans girls usopp oh my god

Nami and Robin know she's trans they invite her to go shopping, spa days hair appointments. They accept and welcome here before usopp knows about it.

Usopp still feels a little silly asking to join them on their little outing. She doesn't want to ruin it by being the only "" boy"" when it's a girls night. If she doesn't ask Nami drags her along any way. Even before they expected her to be trans they were always comfortable around usopp. Nami more than anyone, the amount of time she's walked in on usopp showing just to ask what she wants for dinner (Luffy does it too but he does that to everyone he would start conversations while his crewmate is on the toilet) or to join the bath to relax and unwind It's normal. It's just usopp she takes her to the spa all the time. Mud bathes, facials, back massages. Nami gets a full mani pedi nothing extra just french tips, ussop just like trim and buff with a clear gloss.

When they go shopping Robin likes to find nice outfits for her to try on. She takes things from the women's section and places it in men, for her to "find". Like 'oh usopp look what I found in the men's section. Try this on it would look nice on you' and it's a flower print low cut shirt with flared sleeves and bell bottoms with a matching bandana.

They also notice when usopp is feeling insecure about her body or identity. She takes glances or full on stairs at herself in the mirror looking at every flaw or part that causes dysphoria. They try to find ways to distract her, if by clothes or going to the bathhouse is too much for her at the moment they take her to lunch or sightseeing.

After she comes out the girls welcome her and have a girls day. After they pry sanji off of her it's straight to shopping. They try on bra after, after bra, after bra. What size would you think you'd be? What size do you want to be? B? C? Nothing over DD. What color do you want? Undies tucking or non tucking? Bikini or boy shorts? How about the lace set. Sopes and body washes. Coconut and vanilla or how about hibiscus and honey? Clothes! You need some nice clothes and shoes. Heels you need one pair of heels and a nice evening gown just in case our captain puts us in a situation where we need to look nice. Her hair is cute already but it would look better if it was half up and hair down especially with this cute scrunchy that Nami found.

They come back to the ship with bags and boxes all carried by sanji. All belonging to usopp, the trip was honestly overwhelming to say the least but she enjoyed herself. She tries different looks throughout the month but she falls back on her signature brown overalls but now unclamped and worn as pants and a yellow crop top and floral pattern bandana. She also got a belly ring.

Sabaody was a nightmare. She spent two years training getting stronger for her captain, yeah getting fit was great (she loves her muscles) but growing a beard not so great. It felt like her body was betraying her but she couldn't worry about that now, not when her crew needed her in top form. After the two years she learned a lot about plants and found some are high in estrogen and can increase hormone levels. Not by a lot but enough to alleviate some dysphoria it helped a lot with her hair growth mostly. Speaking of hair she made a blade from stone so she can shave, it's better than the cheap razors you have to buy.

When meeting up again, Nami could tell she was a little self conscious about her appearance. She was going to give words of encouragement but was quickly interrupted by sanji being a little too overly affectionate to usopp. Fawning over her, missing her and admiring her soft skin, pretty eyes, her scent of eucalyptus and mint. He buried his face in her new long and luscious curls and babbled sweet nothing to her until Nami pulled him off. Most of her troubles washed away after seeing Sanji still obsessed with her even though she's not looking like her ideal self at the moment.

Buy honestly she still hates it. Sanji words of affection can only do so much. She hates getting dressed with the others, Shopping trips and spa days aren't as fun. She looks good, hot even but still a stranger to herself. She gets up earlier than most of the crew to get ready. shower and mostly shave, she hates shaving in front of the other girls. she's welcomed by Saji and heart shaped pancakes.

Usopp is tickled but still feels down. She asked him if she's feminine enough and she looks like a woman. Sanji is still in awe with her and answers yes 100 times yes. She gets a little frustrated and asks again not as a boyfriend but as a fellow trans person. Does she look feminine enough. Of course he gives the same answer but in a more serious tone and he tells her she looks like a lot of women. They have been to countless islands and met tons of people including women that are buffer and broader than her and they're still women. Luffy also chimes in agreeing with him (he also stole usopp's pancakes) saying she looks like a lady who would be on Amazon Lily. They reassure her that there's no one way of looking like a woman or being a woman but if it's dysphoria related they can call up Ivankov to fix things up for her.

Okay this is- This is so relatable, tbh. And also- Auch. It hurts.

I am so in love with the idea of transfem Usopp, too! She has been through so much,, And I love the way you portrayed her problems with dysphoria and the way the crew helps her out all the time. The experience of her asking Sanji if he thinks she's feminine, not as her boyfriend but as a fellow trans person... It's so- Ughhh. I love this. Please. It's so good. I love them so much. Thank you for this.

[cheetahgirlju]

The Mr. Darcy Standard

Every night, my friends and I spend a good amount of time discussing numerous topics. One of our top conversations last night still lingers in my head. The topic of standards. Growing up on romantic movies like Pride and Prejudice has lifted the bar. Men don’t act like they did in the early 2000s films. They don't chase you around New York begging for your attention. They don't fall in love with you so hard that they have to outburst their feelings in the rain because their love has become too overpowering. It's so disappointing how through time women have had to lower their standards to achieve the most average men.

You're telling me Noah built Allie a house after not seeing her for years, wrote her a letter every day for a year, and waited for her, but my first date was walking to Jack in the Box and the liquor store. I'm not asking for the world, I'm just asking for a decent feeling of actual attraction to males. I know how annoying it is to get the ick for every man. As Snookie said, “Guys are douchebags and I hate them all, they don't know how to deal with women, and that's why the lesbian rate is going up in this country.” I feel as though real love is only constructed by intellectual people, and how many intellectual men are left in the world?

I just want to feel wanted and yearned for. That may be corny but EVERYTHING is painted as corny nowadays. Maybe that's the reason it's so hard for men to be romantic. They probably fear embarrassment but maybe it'll be less embarrassing when you're really really in love. Sometimes I feel as if I'm the issue. Maybe my standards are too high but I fully believe that if someone like Nicholas Sparks can write ‘The Notebook’, then not all hope is lost.

I want the old timey type of love that feels as if it could last forever. I would gladly take what Mr. Big and Carrie had because even though they fought a lot, there was still genuine love there. I genuinely tear up thinking about the possibility of me being alone or even worse feeling alone. Growing up with nothing but toxic relationships as a guide for love, I now just want to know if it's real. I’m tired of boys, bring the men in.

I always try to see from a man’s point of view but I refuse to put myself in incompetent shoes. If The Notebook is unrealistic and I'll never achieve that level of love, even without the house, without the rain, without the letters, and without the book, I’m just talking about their love. Is that so unrealistic? Is love dead? I don’t care if this is corny because this topic spirals through my head constantly. I wonder if I'm wasting time. Will I ever love someone that deeply? I’m not desperate for just anyone. I'm desperate for that feeling, that's why I never have deep connections with men. Because why am I going to waste time with something I don’t deserve. I deserve to be wanted and pursued, but more than that I deserve the mixture of simplicity and complexity that comes with loving someone. Maybe I am desperate, let’s hope my longing will help me in the long haul.

This is just my personal diary and my personal manifestation book where I allow myself to have opinions and allow others to either agree or disagree. So I'll end this by asking if there are any real Mr. Darcy’s and Mr. Bigs out there. I'm not asking for the exact love they had, I'm just asking for their desperation and most importantly their intimacy. Complex and in love. I'll update if I ever get this lol or maybe i'm just delusional.

- By Me <3

[persephone-s-moon]

Who I think the Lost Boys' favorite Monster High characters would be

This turned out longer than I expected, but I also included explanations for my picks. Let me know your guy's thoughts :))

(I did try to put a read-more link, but it fucked up the picture formatting, so I apologize for the long post)

David: G1 Toralei Stripe and G3 Draculaura

For Toralei, David LOVES a messy bitch. He supports women's wrongs always, and Toralei causes almost every problem in Monster High. I definitely see David as a cat guy, and Toralei is the true embodiment of cat-attitude. She's a leader and your classic mean-girl, but doesn't like kicking people who are already down, and you know what? He respects it. He respects it a lot.

When it comes to Draculaura, he didn't really get the G1 hype. She's very sweet and pink, which is Totally not his style (so he says), and he thought the Monster High take on vampires was incredibly silly. But by G3, Draculaura's grown on him. He doesn't really get the whole vampire-witch thing, but he's surprisingly fond of her new style. He likes the dainty little sheer details on her main doll's top especially. Also, the image of this "cool" vampire with a cute little pink doll is Very Good.

Honorable mentions: G1 Cleo De Nile, G1 Nefera De Nile, G1 Spectra Vondergeist

Marko: G1 Venus McFlytrap and G3 Frankie Stein

Look at Venus and tell me Marko wouldn't be obsessed with her. Her overall personality is really inconsistent, but he's super fond of her being depicted as a loud, chaotic party animal. He really likes her bold colors and all of the patterns she wears and the fucking sharp teeth on her shoes. I could see him trying to recreate that. He'd also add little details of his own to her battle vest.

He wasn't really big on G1 Frankie because she was sort of basic to him, but really likes the new take on their preppy/punk style, especially the new bright color palette. Neons really stick out to him. The new prosthetic leg is so goddamn cool y'all, and he'd be all over the idea of Frankie doodling on themselves. Also! Canon trans doll! I headcanon Marko as transmasc, so the inclusion of a nonbinary doll that actively binds? Sign him up, he wants that.

Honorable mentions: G1 Ghoulia Yelps, G1 Howleen Wolf, G1 Holt Hyde

Paul: G1 Lagoona Blue and G3 Ghoulia Yelps

Lagoona is such a cute monster, and she's so fucking friendly. She can get along with any monster without letting anyone walk all over her (except for Gil, who Paul HATES), and Paul would just adore her passion. He really likes how she leans into the whole fish-aesthetic with her outfits, and he just thinks she so cool. Like, look at the fishnet shorts!! He'd love that shit!! Specifically I think he'd like her Dawn of the Dance look, but moreso the official art rather than the doll.

G3 Ghoulia is so cool y'all. He already liked G1 Ghoulia, who was easily in his top five monsters, but G3 has that skater/gamer aesthetic and this man just eats it up. I feel like he'd be disappointed that she doesn't speak Zombie anymore, but her new cool-girl schtick makes up for it. He definitely gets rid of her eyebrows with nail-polish remover as soon as he gets her out of the box though. Thinks she looks better without them.

Honorable mentions: G1 Ghoulia Yelps, G1 Deuce Gorgon, G1 Clawd wolf, G1 Viperine Gorgon

Dwayne: G1 Clawdeen, G1 Abbey Bominable, and G3 Ghoulia Yelps

Yes, Dwayne gets THREE because I genuinely couldn't decide between G1 Clawdeen and G1 Abbey for him, and I didn't feel like G3 Abbey was really his style.

G1 Clawdeen is That Bitch. She's confident, bold, and does not hesitate to call someone out on their bs. I think Dwayne would really admire her feircly protecive nature and her no-nonsense attitude. And that fur coat? That fur coat that she wears to high school? Increadible. Amazing. Showstopping. Dwayne would also figure out how to curl doll hair just for Clawdeen because he Knows what she deserves. The irony of a vampire liking a werewolf character is not lost on him.

Is Abbey's accent accurate to the Himalayas? No. Does Dwayne care? Also no. Abbey is way too charming of a character for him to be terribly bothered by her Russian-esk accent (even though he points it out Every Time). She's honest to the point of accidently insulting her friends and doesn't really understand a ton of cultural differences, which Dwayne thinks makes her more fun. He'd really love her dry sense of humor and her strong disposition. And honestly? Maybe I just think he has a thing for faux fur.

Another G3 Ghoulia enjoyer. I feel like we've somehow collectively forgotten that Dwayne skateboards. I haven't forgotten though, and I think Dwayne would redecorate Ghoulia's skateboard and then promptly lose it (he'd end up stealing Paul's and then gaslight him into thinking it was his the whole time). I think he'd really enjoy this more confident version of Ghoulia, but again, disappointed by the language shift. (I'm projecting at this point.)

Honorable mentions: G1 Cleo De Nile, G1 Frankie, G1 Clawd Wolf, G2 Deuce Gorgon

Star: G1 Spectra Vondergeist and G3 Cleo De Nile

Look me in the eyes and tell me that Spectra DOESN'T make you think of Star. She's pretty reclusive but a mega gossip, and she's super quick to make judgements. Spectra will literally make shit up and then start to believe it herself, including lies about her own past. Her aesthetic is somewhere between the lost boys' and Star's, which looks both cool and super flowy. Star would totally see herself in Spectra in both appearance and personity, and as another supporter of women's wrongs, I think that she'd adore her.

Honestly I feel like G3 would be a hard sell for Star because she's already so attached to the original versions of the characters, but if she had to pick, it would be Cleo. Her jacket and accessories are so fucking cool, and Star definitely wishes she could see herself properly so she could do makeup like that (she does NOT trust the boys). She would try to paint Cleo's molded-on bandages and ruin the plastic, but she'd wrap real fabric around it to hide her fuck up.

Honorable mentions: G1 Purrsephone and Meowlody, G1 Cleo De Nile, G1 Operetta

Michael: G1 Frankie Stein and G3 Deuce Gorgon

Michael is nothing if not a basic bitch. G1 Frankie is very peppy and constantly confused since she's somehow always 16 days old, which I think Michael can relate to. She has the messiest fucking love-life known to man, and he gets it. She's exploring and trying to learn everything at once, which includes relationships, and Michael isn't exactly known for thinking things like that through. He isn't the biggest on any sort of fashion, but I think he'd like her color palette and the little stitch details. That, and I think he'd find her heterochromia really cool.

G3 Deuce is the first time Deuce didn't look like a weird asshole to Michael, and I think after meeting the lost boys, he's definitely more into alternative men's fashion than he used to be. This new Deuce is what Michael considers "cool" in a cartoonish sort of way. I wouldn't put it past him to try to figure out how to decorate his jacket a little to resemble Deuce's considering the lost boys all have something unique going on, but I think he'd end up regretting the snake motif since it isn't really Him.

Honorable mentions: G1 Jackson Jekyll, G1 "Slo Mo" Mortavitch, G1 Iris Clops

Sam: G1 Draculaura and G3 Twyla Boogeyman

He's going with the safe choice, but he's right. Draculaura is sweet, sensitive, and a shopaholic (something he can related to, Mr. Born-to-shop). I think, like Star, he'd be the type project onto her. He'd get as many different Draculaura sets his grubby little hands and mostly-empty wallet can get and he'd talk to all of them like, "You hearing this shit, Draculaura?" Even though she's a vampire and he's recently been on the anti-vampire bandwagon, he makes an exception for her because she's vegan.

I feel like he was surprised with how much he liked the new Twyla since he wasn't terribly fond of G1 Twyla, but I think changing the green to a nice teal really helped. Her patterns don't clash as much (neither do her accessories, which he was SUPER bothered by in G1), and her hair Actually looks nice. She just feels more cohesive, which really sells her to Sam. He's still a die-hard Draculaura fan, but there's room in his heart for two cute monsters.

Honorable mentions: G1 Clawdeen, G1 Clawd, G1 Rochelle Goyle, G3 Draculaura

[scrapesaladofficial]

Ten big moments of the 2024 Olympics

End of the road: Cuba's Mijain Lopez removes his shoes as a signal that he is retiring from wrestling (Punit PARANJPE) From a colorful, sometimes controversial opening ceremony to boxers caught up in a gender row to respectful bows on the gymnastics podium, the 2024 Olympics served up many memorable moments. AFP Sport looks at 10 of the best: Rain on opening ceremony parade -- Organizers promised a spectacular opening ceremony and the rain-soaked boat parade on the River Seine ended up making global headlines, but not for the expected reasons. Church leaders, conservatives and even US presidential candidate Donald Trump were left outraged by a scene involving drag queens and lesbian DJ Barbara Butch that appeared to parody Jesus's Last Supper. Artistic director Thomas Jolly denied any such intention. He and others involved ended up facing vicious online harassment that led to police complaints. Djokovic's roar of approval -- Novak Djokovic stunned Carlos Alcaraz in a memorable men's final to clinch tennis gold and become only the fifth player to complete the Golden Slam of all four majors plus Olympic gold. The 37-year-old celebrated with a roar which echoed around Roland Garros before the tearful Serb clambered into the player's box to embrace his wife Jelena and two children. "There is no greater inspiration than representing your country," said the 24-time Grand Slam title winner. Alcaraz was also in tears, claiming he "had let Spain down". Biles bows to 'queen' Andrade -- Simone Biles may have been the star of the show but she was widely praised for bowing to her arch-rival Rebeca Andrade on the podium. Biles said it was "just the right thing to do" after she and team-mate Jordan Chiles finished in silver and bronze medal position respectively behind the Brazilian in the floor final. "Rebeca's so amazing, she's queen," said Biles. Romanian Ana Barbosu was later awarded the bronze medal after the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that Chiles should not have been upgraded from her initial fifth-place finish. Lyles just in time -- World champion Noah Lyles roared to victory in 9.79sec to claim gold in a dramatic men's Olympic 100m final in the closest finish in modern history -- just five thousandths of a second separated him from Jamaica's Kishane Thompson. "I'm the man amongst all of them. I'm the wolf amongst wolves," said Lyles whose victory was only confirmed after a photo-finish. Not cricket as Pakistan top India at javelin -- Pakistan's Arshad Nadeem won the men's javelin title, his country's first individual gold at an Olympics, with a Games record of 92.97m. In second place was India's defending champion Neeraj Chopra. "Rivalry is there when it comes to cricket matches, other sports, the two countries have a rivalry, but it's a good thing for the young people in both countries to watch our sport and follow us. It's a positive thing for both countries," said Nadeem. North-South Korea podium selfie goes viral -- Images of Olympic table tennis players from North Korea and South Korea taking a selfie together on the medal podium went viral in South Korea, hailed as a rare show of cross-border unity. After South Korea won bronze and North Korea silver in the mixed doubles behind China, South Korea's Lim Jong-hoon took a group photo after the medal ceremony. North Korea's Ri Jong Sik and Kim Kum Yong, the South's Shin Yu-bin and the victorious Chinese team Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha all beamed into Lim's phone, a South Korean-made Samsung. "A selfie with both Koreas' national flags and a Samsung phone," said the widely read daily JongAng Ilbo. Dreams come Trew -- Australian skateboarding sensation Arisa Trew, just 14, won the women's park event to become her country's youngest ever gold medallist. Trew nailed a high-risk and high-speed final round in her trademark pink helmet, bringing the crowd to their feet at a sun-drenched Place de la Concorde. The event also featured 11-year-old Zheng Haohao, the youngest athlete ever to represent China at the Olympics. "Skateboarding in the Olympic Games isn't much different from skateboarding in my neighbourhood. It's just more spectators," she told reporters. Gender-row boxer beats 'bullying' -- On a raucous night at Roland Garros, the storied home of the French Open, Algerian gender-row boxer Imane Khelif claimed gold and used her platform to hit back at "attacks" and "bullying" before defiantly declaring "I am a woman like any other." Together with Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting, who also fought in Paris, Khelif was disqualified from last year's world championships after they failed gender eligibility tests. However they were cleared to compete in Paris, setting the stage for one of the biggest controversies of the Games. "I am fully qualified to take part, I am a woman like any other. I was born a woman, lived a woman and competed as a woman," said the 25-year-old. High five for Cuban wrestler -- Cuban wrestler Mijain Lopez made Olympic history when he became the first athlete to win five consecutive individual golds in the same event, bettering the records of Games icons such as Carl Lewis and Michael Phelps. The soon-to-be 42-year-old then placed his shoes in the centre of the mat to signify his intention to retire. "Wrestling has been the love of my life, for all of my life," he said. Cool hand Yusuf -- Turkish Olympic shooting silver medallist Yusuf Dikec became an overnight sensation for his casual style during competition. His eye-catching posture saw the marksman wearing standard glasses, a team T-shirt and with his left hand casually tucked in his pocket. Other than his pistol, he notably had none of the specialised equipment used by athletes in the hyper-precise event, like headphones, special lenses or a hat. "The name's Dikec. Yusuf Dikec," said a social media post in reference to cinema icon James Bond. Read the full article

[wordpimp]

No pulling out

Sunset on the mountain the high peaks the danger blossom pyramids in a circular shape seen from above on an aerial map, got on my radio to make a night call, come see me if you can

A deer was killed was a mule chased by an unruly child a devil was asking it to drown to see its mom at the end it was smiling

Women in a pew with me seminar of faith they lie on top of me kissing my nose white blossom I sit with them while the children perform it's a church of rock and roll the piano plays by itself the organist is 16, with glasses and long hair the preacher is younger than that, someone's little sister

Give me your cold back and your chest and your little horns

My friend bought 15 pairs of shoes they came in a box slipped inside of 3 stacks, in a library, we picked her up at the airport and went to dinner. Everyone got dressed first

A naked wonder woman gave someone a blowjob on live tv no one could stop this from happening

[twentydaysofdrabbles]

The Concierge Goes Tracking - Pounce (Part 18)

You don’t miss the number of familiar faces dotting the streets as you make your way over to a stout apartment complex, box of pie in hand. Women sitting at an al fresco cafe, coffees in hand. Men jogging along the street. All of them look at you, then look away just as quickly. 

A small downturn of your brows is the only indication that you found any of it out of place. It seemed as though they were waiting for something. What exactly, you can only guess.

Tap tap tap go the heels of your shoes as you move from pavement, to stone, to tile. The sound echoes in the stairwell, then the hallway, until you finally come to a stop in front of a plain apartment door. There, you pause. Long enough that you can focus on the soft breathing on the other side of the door, on the soft scent of pie crust and freshly cut grass. She’s here. 

Knock knock.

Nothing. Not even the skip of a breath, a slightest shuffle of feet. 

You try again. Knock knock.

“Who’s there?” comes a soft, firm voice. Entirely human sounding. 

You hate that you have been acquaintances with Sans long enough that the first thing that comes to mind is a knock knock joke.

“Howl.” Well, technically it isn’t far from what you’ve been doing the whole afternoon. 

“...howl who?” Oh goodness, she sounds so perplexed yet curious. Is this how you sound when you react to Sans’ puns?

Well, nothing for it. “Howl you know if you don’t open the door?”

A soft snort, a stifled giggle, and finally the soft shuffle of feet. The deadlock to the door opens, along with a whole host of locks. When the door finally swings open, you have to look up and up to meet the former Queen’s dark eyes. Only slightly shorter than King Asgore, if you had to guess, with small horns, long ears, and luxurious white fur. Her broad shoulders fill the frame, her plain green dress doing nothing to hide her build. 

But she...

You take her in without a shift of your eyes. She looks haggard, the fur around her neck ruffled and flattened, as though she had smoothed her fur over the skin, as if there were a missing patch. The way she holds an arm tells you that her bicep aches, that she won’t be able to lift it past her ribs. Something happened to her.

The goat monster only shakes her head at you and ushers you in quickly. “That was a terrible joke,” she says with a small smile, closing the door behind you as you step in. But not before she casts a glance at the hallway behind you - empty.

You hate that you gave into the urge to use such a joke, but it did work. Your notes indicated that she was fond of such things, and far be it for you not to use it to your advantage. “Good afternoon, Miss Toriel,” you incline your head, the pie balanced between your hands. “My apologies for interrupting your day.” Then you extend the boxed pie to her, freshly baked and burning against your gloved hands. “Please accept a housewarming gift.”

Toriel looks at you sharply, already backing away with her hands raised in a defensive posture. “I should have known--!” she hisses, fire sparking between her fingers in an intimidating show of magic.

The taste of it is heavy on your tongue, ash building on your taste buds. And yet you do not move, the pie still held before you. “Peace, Miss Toriel.” The intensifying heat in the apartment causes your breaths to linger in your chest. “I come on behalf of those who wish to see you unharmed.”

“Unharmed but captured, is that it?” the former Queen growls. 

You don’t blink, you don’t flinch, you don’t move. “No. Unharmed and safe.” Slowly, you open the top of the box and immediately the warm scent of butterscotch fills the air. “I come on behalf of the owner of the Continental Hotel. She wishes to invite you to high tea with her.”

Toriel still looks suspicious, though the heavy taste of ash dies down. “A bribe.”

“An invitation.” Like the pie still held out to her. “A bribe would have been snail pie, but I have it on good authority that I would be hard pressed to find one better than what you can make.” You make sure that your tone is even, with no inflection. 

The fur on the back of the former Queen’s shoulders rise. “On whose authority?” She sounds less wary even though she still looks tense. Good.

Without hesitation, you answer, “Mx Frisk.”

White furred hands fly to her snout and she gasps. “Frisk! Oh, my child,” she breathes out shakily into her cupped hands. “Please, is Frisk--is my child safe?”

“Safe and waiting at the Continental, Miss Toriel.” Your head tilts deliberately in a silent question. Why is she so worried if she was the one who left Frisk alone in the first place? You can only think it has to do with the increased activity in this area. Someone has taken an interest in her, but not in Frisk. 

It’s almost as if she deflates on the spot, staggering and slowly sinking into the couch. “Oh stars...Frisk...” But she caught your question, eventually looking up from her hands and gesturing you closer. When you do, she takes the pie from your hands and smiles through her tears at the freshly baked pie. 

“Please, sit. Did you want some as well?” She heads for the kitchen.

“Certainly,” you say with an incline of your head, sitting primly in the armchair adjacent to the couch from where she had sat. The former Queen bustles in the kitchen for plates and a cake knife and cutlery. Letting you inspect the apartment without scrutiny.

Bare bones, sparsely furnished. Curtains drawn. A lamp here and there to illuminate the room, but no overhead lights. A safehouse perhaps? The former Queen clearly does not want to be found. 

“Here,” her paw comes out from your peripheral vision, offering a slice of butterscotch pie and a little fork next to it. 

You nod, taking it. “My thanks.”

For a while, there is no sound save for the clinking of cutlery on porcelain, of the soft sounds of eating. You, too, slowly take measured bites of the pie. Not because you dislike the taste, but out of habit. Best not to ingest too much lest you need to exert yourself later. 

When the former Queen is finished with her slice, she finally speaks up, her doe-like eyes fixed upon her plate. “Asgore is a fool. More heart than sense,” she bites out, her eyes flaring as she looks up into your impassive face. “I told him to stay out of human politics on that scale, but he never listens to me. And now look where we are, more eyes on us that we can afford.”

Toriel grinds her teeth, the sound louder than even the rattling of her plate as it trembles in her grip. “All I wanted...” Tears fall from eyes squeezed shut. “I just wanted to live in peace...”

You can only listen quietly, your plate cradled on your lap. It is odd. To listen to someone just...pour their heart out to you. In all your years, that has not once happened to you, not even with the Manager who can boast to be the closest to your heart and you to hers. 

Feeling endlessly awkward at being unable to say anything, you elect not to, maintaining a polite expression as you listen to her. 

And that seems to be enough for Toriel. The goat monster wipes away her tears and sets her plate on the coffee table, sighing heavily. “What did my child say about Asgore, when they asked you to find me?” She looks at you, gaze expectant. 

Oddly enough, you find yourself compelled to answer. Interesting. “That he could not be trusted.”

Toriel nods sharply in response. “Gorey--that is, Asgore. He wants me...” She groans, as if she was struggling to force the words out. “Safe. Or as safe as he thinks I can be. I didn’t agree with his version of ‘safety’.” Though she does not gesture to her neck, you can tell what the bare ring of skin indicates. 

The King wanted her safe. At all costs. 

The former Queen lets her head fall back into her hands with a groan, muttering under her breath, “Fucking Alphys...”

You pretend not to hear it. For a few minutes, you stay quiet, allowing Toriel to gather her thoughts. 

“Did Asgore get what he wanted?” She doesn’t lift her head from her hands.

How to answer that question. “No,” you answer evenly, placing your half-eaten plate on the coffee table. “But they are now bound by the rules of the Continental.”

At that, the former Queen stirs. “I thought that might happen,” she breathes out slowly. Finally, she scrubs at her face and sighs. “Then...” Blazing doe-like eyes burn into your dead ones. “Would you kindly escort me to the Continental Hotel, Concierge?” And from a pocket of her dress, she pulls out a gold coin. 

Dead eyes flick from hers to the coin, and then back again. A polite smile spreads on your face. “Of course.” 

You take the coin.

And all hell breaks loose.

[thewarriorspecial]

Greenhill High (CH6 - The Weekend Part 2)

*Archive Edition* Previously only linked to AO3, full work now available under the cut.

Read on AO3

Rating: Teen | Guy Gardner/Kyle Rayner, Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Dinah Lance, Oliver Queen, Wally West, Katma Tui

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence

A little something special for @hobicat!

Our ensemble finally rounds up to arrive at the café. The drama builds!

Kyle peels off another shirt and tosses it onto the growing pile on his bed. He’d already lost the fight against wrinkles when he decided folding clothes is for people who don’t enjoy 75 hour JRPGs.

He sighs in frustration and flings himself on top of the pile, landing with a little bounce. He pulls his phone out and starts scrolling down the fifth page of search results for “What+to+wear+coffee+date+men”. He frowns at the dozens of well-put-together men in their 30s who look more like CEOs or Target models than just guys going out to the movies. At a coffee place. Or something.

Kyle deeply envies their perfectly coiffed hair but he feels only disgust for those ugly ass shoes.

He sighs again as he chucks his phone into the overflowing laundry basket. He rubs his face as he tries to imagine what Guy’s type might be and if he even wants to try and fit into some kind of box in the first place.

Guy seemed to like everyone, even Jordan to some extent. He was smart, thoughtful, kind, and funny. Not to mention charming and disarmingly handsome. He was the whole package.

Kyle was just…Kyle. Just another brown-eyed white guy. Unless he got a lot of sun. Then, people just started walking up to him and speaking Spanish or Arabic. He’d like to help or answer a question or just talk to them at all but he only understood English and what little Irish he had left.

And then he missed his mom.

Kyle threw an arm over his face as all the women he’d ever cared for suddenly died all over again in his mind.

“Mothaim uaim thu, “ he whispered to all of them at once.

He could not, would not do this anymore. He had to find a way to move on. None of them would want him to lay about and mope like this.

Kyle stood up and made his decision. Black on black. Can’t go wrong with that. Black jeans, black shirt, black shoes, black hoodie. Done. Good enough for Johnny Cash, good enough for Kyle Rayner.

Kyle strode to the bathroom mirror and prepared to square up with his arch nemesis.

His hair.

——

Guy double checked the letter and number code on the tags on the clothes he had picked out. He thanked his lucky stars for the day he and Carol got together to prank Hal because without her little system, he’d still be grabbing whatever clothes and leaving the house looking like a fuckin’ Keebler Elf.

Carol had explained to him very kindly that 1) orange shirts and orange hair Do Not Mix and 2) men his age should not own anything leopard print.

She took the pants but she ain’t takin’ the couch, no way.

The casual outfit he’d picked out not only matched, but had tons of pockets for all of his spy gear. For tonight, Guy was out to play To Catch A Killer The Home Game.

He dug through all of his junk drawers for the best spy equipment he could put together on the fly—a little tape recorder, flashlight, clear tape, zip ties, pens, a little notepad, bear mace, binoculars, and a selfie stick for taking pictures around corners.

He wanted desperately to be wrong but there was just too much evidence. ——

Hal rested his book on his chest and checked his phone again. His fingers walked to familiar pattern to the last several years of saved text messages from Carol. He scrolled over the last few, thought about typing something, and then put his phone face down on his belly again.

He rocked gently in the hammock, pushing off with one long leg stretched over the edge and the his toes touching the ground. It had been a long time since he had spoken to Carol every day. He’d like to get back to that.

If that was even possible.

More and more it seemed like the people most important to him were the furthest away.

He sat up from the stretched, swaying fabric with practiced ease. He decided to take a walk while he decided if he wanted to ask Carol to come hang out with everyone. Maybe by the time he was back someone else would have asked her and she’d just happen to be there and it might be less awkward.

Or maybe he’d just see if his feet remembered the way to her old house.

——

Carol sat hunched over the dining room table. The space had slowly become her office as her stacks of student work and classroom planning had taken over the table.

She wished she could say she had truly boomeranged home like her friends with marriages and children and better jobs but she had merely retuned home from college when the housing crisis started and never made her way out.

She had grown exhausted with managing a grocery store chain and decided to get her teaching certificate online. The pay wasn’t much but she had the summers off to travel. With how little her workaholic parents were home it felt like she had the house to herself.

It was a good balance, she told herself. Teaching was as good a use of her MBA as any of the other soul crushing options and she didn’t feel like she had to apologize as much for not having children when her day job was making sure other people’s kids were ready for the real world.

The screen door rattles, making her jump and nearly fall out of her chair before she registers the sound as a knock. She puts her reading glasses on her head and crosses the house to answer the door.

She recognizes Hal’s silhouette before she sees his face. He doesn’t see her right away. His eyes are turned to the sky as always, his trademark dreamy look on his face. She should be irritated. She should want to tell him to take whatever trouble he has in mind somewhere else.

She sees the “wild daisies” in his one hand and his skateboard hanging from the other. She can’t help but smile. He still comes to her house by way of the old service road and picks chamomile to bring to her. He still ties it in a little bunch with an errant stem.

“Hi Hal,” she says as she lets herself out onto the porch to greet him. She meant to sound curt and busy but something about the way Hal smells after he’s been in the sun and his shirt is warm and a little damp slows her stride and softens her voice.

“Carol!” Hal says, turning his gaze from the vast blue sky to Carol’s deep, blue eyes. “Hi!” He thrusts the little bunch of flowers at her, his motions as rigid and excited as the first time. He’d had a skateboard with him then as well and her father had chased him off of the porch.

“You, uh, doing anything tonight?” He asks, rubbing the back of his neck, looking down at his shoes and back up to her eyes again. A hopeful smile tries to break across his face.

“I don’t know, Hal,” she says, fiddling with the tied-together flower stems, “I do have a lot of paperwork to get through before Monday.

“Oh, yeah, okay.” Hal says, dropping his eyes again and grabbing his wrist behind his back.

“Well,” Carol pauses, “What did you have in mind?”

“Just, you know, movie night. Radu’s. Nothing fancy. Couple hours.”

Carol smiles to herself. Breaks do improve productivity, as she always told her Management students. “I could squeeze a movie in.”

Hal smiles, bright as the autumn sun, “Okay. Cool. Awesome.” He steps off of the porch and looks back at her one more time, waving, “See you there!” He drops the skateboard, hopping on and pushing off all in one fluid motion. The sound of the wheels scraping the concrete echoes between the houses.

——

John was tugging his favorite shirt over his head—just a normal sky blue golf shirt but instead of a brand logo over the heart, this one sported a funky, dark blue cat with flowers instead of spots. Nothing like a custom band shirt to start a conversation.

He couldn’t help but smile as he headed to the kitchen to grab the charcuterie tray he’d lovingly prepared for his awaiting wife. He headed to the ensuite where the tub jets were rumbling and his beautiful beloved was using the remote to turn on her favorite cooking show.

“You look so cute in your new shirt!” Katma said from her cozy seat in the corner of the tub.

“You look so lovely in nothing but warm water,” John said, low and sweet.

“You sure you want to leave?” Katma batted her eyelashes playfully.

“You sure you don’t want to come along?”

“Naaah,” Katma reached for the snacks and leaned back in the tub.

“You enjoy your night to yourself and I’ll be home soon.”

Katma blew a few kisses which John pretended to catch and put in his pocket. She wiggled her fingers over the overwhelming variety of cheese and fruit on the tray. He really did spoil her.

——

Dinah set her purse and keys down on the marble counter a little harder than she meant to. After the elevator inspection, the board meeting, the zoom call that could’ve been an email, the power going out at the grocery store, and then the completely unnecessary speeding ticket for eleven over—she was exhausted.

She put her quart of skim milk and small container of blueberries in the refrigerator, wishing she had put that errand off for one more day. When she turned to close the refrigerator door she saw the sink still full of dirty dishes despite the empty dishwasher and sighed.

Before she could roll up her sleeves, she heard something plap plap plapping its way across the kitchen floor. There, at the open sliding door with the air conditioning running, stood Ollie in his swim trunks and flippers. A bright pink, blow-up flamingo was wrapped around his waist. He held another flamingo floaty in his one hand and sinking rings in the other. Water dripped off of him and all over the floor.

“You’re home!” He shouted, warm and excited. “You’re just in time! I put the slide up and I got us matching duckies! You want a beer?”

All of the stress that had pulled Dinah’s shoulders into her ears was fading away. Oliver’s smile was contagious. The hell with the dishes. She could catch up with everyone at the next movie night.

“Yeah,” she smiled, “Beer me, baby.”

“Alright!” Ollie give a little fist pump with his full hands and waddled towards the pool.

——

Wally watched his microwave macaroni and cheese spin slowly at the center of his drooping reflection. Thirty more seconds and delicious cheese like product would be heading into his growling belly. He deserved a little treat for the absolute last firewall teardown he’d ever do for the rest of his days.

The smell had been unbelievable.

The microwave dinged and he thought to himself, “Nice, what level?��� He’d have to remember that joke for Gar and Vic next time he was at the Tower.

Wally careful gripped the bubbling hot tray by the corners and turned towards the toolbox that often served as a makeshift dinner table these days. Then he saw it.

The trunk was open.

As the cheese and pasta concoction slowly spun towards the ground in gravity's embrace, Wally’s feet were already at the closed bedroom door.

“LindaLindaLinda!!” He nearly shouted as he rapidly knocked.

“Son of a fuck!” Linda’s voice carried through the door, “Come in!”

“Hey—“

“Shit! You absolute cock-wad!” Linda shouted, standing in front of the TV wearing a crop top, panties, and a furious frown.

“What?”

“Not you. This dick-smear. Yeah, you! A dick smear. Exactly what it sounds like.”

“Who—“

“Not you!” Linda turned and shouted at Wally. “Yeah, you!” Linda shouted as she turned back to the TV. All the while she hadn’t stopped furiously pressing buttons on the Xbox controller in her hands. Then Wally realized she had her headset on.

“You uh,” Wally glanced back towards the man-door that led from the kitchen and into the garage, “you busy right now? Cuz we should go out.”

“Augh! We wiped! Your mother should’ve wiped you off of her chin. Damnit,” Linda growled as she took the headset off and threw it on the bed. “Sorry, honey. What were you saying?”

“You hungry?”

“Starvin’. Why?”

“We should—we were going out. Yeah,” Wally suddenly remembered Hal bugging him about movie night, “Remember? We had plans? Radu’s.”

Linda’s eyes narrowed, her journalist instincts picking up on Wally’s little fib, “Are you gaslighting me right now?”

Wally glanced nervously at the garage door again. “N-no,” he lied.

Ah, Linda thought, he fucked something up in the garage. Well, as long as I act like I don’t know what it is, I don’t have to deal with it.

Linda crossed her arms and nodded knowingly. Wally shifted his weight as he bounced on the balls of his feet.

“Wallace,” Linda said indulgently as she put her hands on her hips, “Are you taking me on a special surprise date?”

“Yes,” Wally answered quickly, knowing it shouldn’t be this easy but really needing to get the hell out of the house.

“You’re so cute. Let me get some pants on and we’ll go.”

Wally thought about thanking God for a second but considering this was a DEFCONstantine level problem it was definitely too soon, or worse too late for that kind of intervention.

“Cool beans,” Wally said as he disappeared in a rush of air and reappeared a few seconds later, showered and in clean clothes.

——

Alan flipped the lock and pulled the door gently shut. He headed down his front steps and folded his coat over his arm. Hal had given him the impression that just faculty would be attending but he wondered if anyone would be bringing a date this time. Not that he was lonely or anything—he preferred to be alone. It was just—people. Extra people. He liked to be prepared, he thought as he nodded and stroked his practical coat.

It was nice to have something and not need it or be able to offer it if someone else needed it. He wasn’t a total jerk, despite what people said.

Still, it was nice to have planned-on company. Someone to facilitate the social landmines of where to sit and what to say. Someone to offer to get another drink for to duck an uncomfortable topic. Or just to be nice. Sometimes.

Alan slowly spun his two keys around the single ring in his hand, enjoying the way they felt as the keyholes ground around their circular path. Should’ve asked Hal, he thought briefly before shaking his head to dismiss the notion.

No, no. Hal was much too young. And a coworker. It would be inappropriate. Frowned upon, which was fine it’s just that frowned upon so often led to talked about and that’s where the trouble starts. Best to just let him be.

Alan thought briefly of John and Katma, of their happiness and how it was celebrated. And how it was different.

Hm.

Alan busied himself in his thoughts during the brief walk from his place to the coffee shop until a vehicle’s lights cut through his daydream. The distinctive headlights of a sleek, black Jaguar XJ6 crested the sloped road ahead.

That’s Carol’s car. So, Hal did manage to move on. And lure Carol out of her cave for once. Good show, Alan thought with a grin. Tonight would prove to be worth the walk.

——

John arrived a few minutes early. He had headed inside to claim a table by dropping a few menus on the tabletop and hanging his blazer over a chair. He stood outside the door to enjoy the evening breeze while he waited for his friends.

The rumble of Hal’s skateboard wheels announced his arrival from the end of the block. He rode out the last of his momentum and then popped the skateboard up and into his arms with practice ease.

“Hey man, glad you came out,” Hal said, giving John a classic, one-arm hug which John happily returned.

“Happy to be here.”

“Oh my gawd,” came Guy’s enormous voice, “Hello fellow kids!” He followed with his barking laugh.

“Wow,” Hal drawled as he grinned, “A meme and a selfie stick, you insufferable millennial.”

“Okay, boomer,” Guy laughed.

Ah, venomous sass, John thought, the bisexual love language.

“What are you doing with that thing, anyways? You’re gonna scare Alan away,” said Hal.

“Alan came out? The whole way out of his house?” John asked.

“The whole way. Didn’t even have to pay him.”

John grinned mischievously.

“Nope not that either. Just asked nicely.”

John’s look turned suspicious.

“Okay, I bribed him with food,” Hal admitted.

“Shit, that’d work on me too,” Guy laughed.

“Me three,” John added as a sleek 80s sports car pulled up to the curb to park. “My, my,” John added as he aimed a knowing smirk at Hal, “You buying her food too, or…?”

Hal might’ve blushed a little at that.

Carol gracefully swung her legs out of the car, looking elegant as ever in one of her everyday skirt-suits. “Hey boys,” she greeted them playfully with a wave of her fingers as she rounded the car and stepped onto the sidewalk.

“Glad to see you finally come out with the faculty, Ms. Ferris.” John kept his greeting friendly, but just a little distant. It just felt a bit odd to him; the lovely and flirtatious Business teacher finally coming out the night Katma wanted to stay home.

“No Katma tonight?’ Carol asked, seeming to come to the same conclusion at the same moment.

“Not tonight, I’m afraid.”

“Bummer! I was really hoping to have another True Blood fan to talk to!”

“Next time, I’ll make sure,” John promised. Carol turned her flirtation toward Hal after that, which calmed John’s nerves a bit.

Alan crossed the street and joined the group. “Evening,” he said with a subtle nod.

“Wow, a real live fossil,” said Guy.

“Ha,” Alan bristled.

“Aw be nice, now. If we’re good, when Alan takes over the world he’ll kill us quick, right Al?” Hal gave him a good natured smile. He didn’t want to clam him up by ribbing him too hard right out of the gate.

“That’s right,” Alan said, posture relaxing a bit.

A dark blue Camry pulled up to the curb behind Carol’s Jaguar. The driver managed to get both wheels up on the sidewalk and took two backups to get parked properly. Guy didn’t hear any of Hal’s jokes. All he could hear was his own pulse speeding up in his ears.

“Hey!” Kyle said with a sheepish wave as he scooted out of his car. No sense pretending no one saw that.

“You get your license out of a cereal box, kid?” Hal cackled.

“Hur hur, did you get your skateboard at Tony Hawk’s retirement party?”

“Weak,” Hal smirked. He turned to Guy, waiting for him to jump in.

“Hey,” Guy smiled and waved. Kyle looked so good all in black. He had a real bad boy vibe about him. He was unfairly attractive.

So was Charlie Manson.

Allegedly.

Guy swallowed heavily, “So uh,” he nodded his head towards the door, “Yeah?”

“Indeed,” Alan smirked as he glanced between Guy and Kyle. He strode into the café first, not waiting for anyone to follow.

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