#i don’t think this is a spoiler since I didn’t say what happened but I’m not sure

[fluentmoviequoter]

A Home to Thrive In

Pairing: Tim Bradford x fem!neighbor!reader

Summary: You still live next door to Tim Bradford's mother, and when he visits for the first time in years, you have to decide if you're willing to let go of the idea of him you fell in love with.

Warnings: spoilers/rewrite for 4x09 "Breakdown", angst, arguments, discussion of past abuse, r is Tim's childhood friend, fluff and comfort

Word Count: 3.5k+ words

A/N: It's late. This may be terrible. I will reassess tomorrow.

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“Have you talked to Mom recently?” Genny asks. When Tim doesn’t answer, she sighs and murmurs, “Don’t know why I thought you would.”

“Isn’t it bad enough that you’re dragging me back into the Tom Bradford-centric world I’ve been trying to outrun since we were kids? Now you want me to tell Mom about everything that’s happened,” Tim argues. “I’m already working on a murder case that Dad hid for decades. I don’t need more family drama right now, Genny."

“She worries about you, Tim. Just wants to be part of your life again.”

Tim's phone rings, a saving grace, and he excuses himself as he pushes his chair away from the table and leaves his sister.

“Tim,” Lucy greets. “I brought Monica Ochoa back in.”

“The woman who was killed by the gun I found in my dad’s house. Why?”

“Because I knew there was more to her story. You- you couldn’t see past the version that you wanted to see.”

“What’d she say?”

“Your dad… Tim, Monica confessed.”

Tim hangs up on Lucy, walks directly past his sister while ignoring her questions, and gets in his truck to visit his dad. To see if he’ll tell the truth when he has no other choice or if he’s really the terrible man Tim thinks he is.

“You didn’t kill Frank,” Tim states.

Tom sighs before he counters, “Sure I did. Now, come on. Cuff me. Let’s just get this over with.”

“Monica confessed.”

“Leave her out of this.”

“Frank was beating her. She fought back. She shot him. She was terrified, so she ran to you. You came up with the burglary story, helped her stage the house, then you hid the gun in case the cops got too close, and you needed to frame someone else.”

“He was brutal, abusive,” Tom explains. “She deserves a medal for what she did.”

“He was abusive?” Tim repeats.

“What? You think I’m like him? I was nothing like Frank. I taught you what you needed to know, son. You’re a man now because of me.”

“No. I’m who I am in spite of you,” Tim replies. His dad doesn’t speak, and Tim nods as he adds, “Goodbye, Dad. I hope it hurts.”

In the hallway outside his dad’s room, Tim pulls his phone from his pocket and calls Grey.

“Bradford,” Wade greets as the call connects.

“I need to take some personal time,” Tim says instead of a salutation.

“Lord knows you’ve stashed up enough of it. Where are you going?”

“To see someone I should’ve visited a long time ago.”

“You did the right thing, Tim. Take your time and know we’re here for you when you get back.”

Tim ends the call, then texts his sister that he’s taking her advice. He hasn’t been home to his mom’s house in years, and he needs her, needs space from his family and his station, and needs to work through the events of the week on his own. Though he isn’t sure if he’s welcome or if his mother's new home will feel the same as it did fifteen years ago, Tim gets in his truck and drives toward the last place he felt at home.

Your evening walk is refreshing, and the sunset helps you focus on the beauty of the day as you wind down.

“Sweetheart!” your neighbor calls, waving from her porch.

“Mrs. Bradford,” you greet with a smile as you step onto her walkway. “How are you today?”

“Good, good. Talked to Genny earlier, she’s visiting Tim.”

You smile and nod, unwilling to touch the sensitive subject of Tim. Growing up with him, you saw the worst parts of his childhood, home life, and father, but that never added up to you. He ran away from his mother, from love and home just to outrun bad memories. A task you know to be impossible.

“How was your book?” you ask, moving away from Mrs. Bradford’s stressful family life. “Did you finish it last night?”

“I did. You were right, the twist at the end was a shock. I thought the vigilante did it!”

“Interesting,” you muse. “I was torn between him and the builder.”

Mrs. Bradford hums before her oven beeps.

“You take care of that,” you say as you wrap your arms over her shoulders in a quick hug. “We’ll talk about the book and start the sequel on Saturday?”

“Count on it. Have a good night!”

“You too!”

Headlights reflect off your front door as you push it open, but you don’t bother to turn around and see who it is. Two of your neighbors get home around this time, and there aren’t many visitors or tourists in your area. So, when you’re closing the curtains and notice an unfamiliar truck in Mrs. Bradford’s driveway, you decide to watch and ensure everything is okay.

“Tim!” Mrs. Bradford calls excitedly as the driver’s door opens. She rushes out and pulls him into a hug, and from the way he grips her and buries his face against her shoulder like he’s eight again, you know that this isn’t just a sorry I stopped calling, Mom visit. Something happened and that’s the only reason he’s home.

“Welcome home, Tim,” you whisper before you pull the curtains together and put the distance you’re used to back between you and Tim.

You kneel by your front door to tie your shoes. Then you untie them and loop the laces differently. Knowing that Tim Bradford is next door makes you hesitate to go outside. Yet, you don’t want to let him impact your life more than he already has. It wouldn’t be surprising to learn that his mother already told him about your downward spiral, how you fell apart when he left without so much as a word. As a kid, you fell in love with Tim Bradford, and you stayed in love with the idea of him in high school. Then, when he disappeared without a word or trace, and you only found out that he was a cop for the LAPD through his sister, you decided that the idea of him was as good as you would ever get.

“You can do this,” you tell yourself as you stand and lay your hand on the doorknob. “It’s just the man who has occupied your every thought for years. Just walk by.”

The magnitude of your mistake hits you in full force when you’re nearly past Mrs. Bradford’s fence. Tim says your name and your heart clenches at the realization that you remembered his voice so well. Years of hearing it in your dreams will preserve your memory like that.

“Tim,” you reply, swallowing as you face him. “I didn’t know you were coming home.”

“It wasn’t exactly the plan. Genny showed up and everything just kind of blew up in my face.”

Kind of like what you put me through, you think. Rather than saying it, you nod sympathetically.

“Did my mom… did she tell you about my dad?”

“Tim, your mom tells me a lot. But no one close to your mom has brought him up in years.”

“Wish my sister had gotten that message,” Tim scoffs.

“I hope you enjoy the time with your mom,” you interrupt. “But I’ve got to get going.”

“Right,” Tim agrees. “I’ll see you around.”

You nod but feel your chest tighten as you hope he’s wrong. Losing Tim Bradford again is not an option, so you refuse to let him closer than he needs to be.

“I didn’t know she moved with you, still lived next door,” Tim muses as his mother ushers him inside for breakfast.

“You don’t know much,” she points out, not unkindly but not untrue. “She knows more than you. I’ve told her everything Genny passed along. You were so close as kids.”

“Yeah,” Tim agrees before he trails off. He remembers being friends, but not the kind of friends that would ask about each other. “I don’t think she wants to talk to me.”

“Well, you can hardly blame her.”

“What does that mean?”

Tim’s mother looks at him and presses her lips together. He has her eyes, but he doesn’t have her understanding or the intuition about people she tried to instill in him when his father wasn’t trying to teach him to be a man.

“If you can’t see it, Tim, it’s too late to explain it. She’s coming over for lunch and our duet book club tomorrow. You have thirty hours to read the book if you want to participate.”

“Thank you for letting me come home, Mom.”

She lays her hand on Tim’s shoulder and promises, “You’re always welcome here, Timothy.”

You knock on Mrs. Bradford’s door while Tim’s truck is gone. With one of her signature ceramic loaf pans in your hands, filled with your favorite cookies, you wait for the door to open to return her dish and offer some goodies.

“Sorry to…” you begin as the door opens. “Oh, Tim. Sorry, your truck was gone so I assumed your mom would be here.”

“She borrowed my truck to do something that she refused to have help for. Come on in.”

Tim opens the door for you, and for reasons beyond your comprehension, you accept his invitation and walk inside. After you set the pan on the counter, you turn around to leave, but Tim is leaning against the table and watching you.

“Enjoying your time off?” you question, wringing your fingers together behind your back.

“I am. Especially after the last case I worked on,” Tim answers. “My mom hasn’t told me much about you.”

You hum and look at your feet as you reply, “Not much to tell.”

“She seems to tell you a lot.”

“Look, Tim, I’m just trying to respect your boundaries. She told me that your dad was involved in something, a murder, but it’s not my business.”

“Frank Ochoa,” Tim interjects.

You furrow your brows as you ask, “Monica’s husband? But that was a robbery.”

Tim tilts his head to the side as he says, “My dad admitted to killing him. He was protecting Monica.”

You pull your bottom lip between your teeth and nod.

“But you knew that, didn’t you?”

“What?”

Tim stands from the table, his crossed arms falling to his sides. “You knew something and didn’t tell anybody, didn’t you?”

“Tim, I-“

“Look, I’ve been lied to by too many people this week. You still have the same tell you did in elementary school. What did you know?”

You clench your jaw and step to the right to go around Tim, but he moves to block you, and rather than running into his chest, you retreat further into Mrs. Bradford’s kitchen.

“This case – the people there – have been lied to, we’ve been wrong, there’s been no justice for decades. And you’ve known something the whole time? How can you live with that?”

“How can I live with it?” you repeat incredulously. “How was I – a child, Tim – supposed to go to the police and tell them that I saw Frank beating Monica over and over? They wouldn’t have believed me!”

“You didn’t try!”

“Yes, I did!” you yell. Wiping the single tear that managed to escape in your memories of the only time you tried to help your neighbors, you lose some of your fight.

“Doesn’t seem like you tried very hard,” Tim adds under his breath.

You laugh once and shake your head. “I told the police your dad was beating you, Tim. You know what happened? They came and asked him about it. He denied everything. After they left, he took you out into the backyard and demanded to know who you told. So, see if you can wrap your cop brain about why I was scared to tell on someone else.”

“I didn’t know you-“

“You didn’t know anything, Tim.”

Tim scoffs and argues, “Oh and you know so much about who I am now because of what my sister tells my mom?”

“At least I talk to your mom, Tim,” you snap. Immediately, you regret it. “I’m sorry,” you offer.

“I couldn’t,” Tim defends.

“Did you try?”

Tim’s truck rumbles as his mother returns from the store, and you hold Tim’s stare until the engine shuts off.

“Can I leave now, or do you want to blame me for something else?”

Tim steps back and opens his mouth, but you storm past him before he can say anything else. You return to your house after you hug Mrs. Bradford and tell her about the cookies. The idea of Tim Bradford that you’ve clung to since childhood is growing fuzzy around the edges, and alone in your house, you cry over what he told you today, the mistakes you made, and the loss of the Tim you were born to love.

Someone knocks on your door the following morning, and you stare at it rather than walking toward it.

“Sweetheart, it’s me,” Mrs. Bradford calls.

With a sigh, you stand and invite her in, not caring if she notices your teary eyes or unusual attitude.

“I thought you might want someone to talk to. Somewhere away from my son,” she explains as she leads you to your dining table. “So, I brought food and company. Choose what you want.”

“It’s not just Tim,” you explain. “I mean… he was right, but it’s different.”

“Different than when you fell in love with him?” she guesses.

You look up at her, wide-eyed at her question. She smiles and gestures for you to continue.

“I’ve been dreaming about him coming back, thinking that we could pick up where we left off, but he’s nothing like what I remember.”

“Time will do that,” she soothes, taking your hand over the table.

“It didn’t do it to me.”

“Sweetheart… you didn’t let it. I love you, you know that, but you cling so tightly to the past, to the familiar, that you haven’t allowed yourself to adapt to the beauty of the growth and changes around you. Haven’t even let yourself show the woman you’ve become.”

You lick your lips before sniffling and asking, “What if I don’t like it?”

“But what if you thrive in it?”

Wiping the back of your free hand across your face, you clear your tears and nod. You know that Mrs. Bradford is right, but you also know that there will be pain in the beauty when you choose to move forward.

“Does he hate me?” you whisper.

“Timothy? I don’t think he could ever hate you.”

“He can sure blame me for a lot, though,” you point out with a wet laugh.

“Beating himself up over that at the moment, if you’re wondering. And, when you’re ready to talk to him, maybe you should try getting to know who he is today.”

You nod and pull a homemade candy from her special-made meal. “Thank you.”

“Anytime. Now, are we going to keep crying over silly boys or try to solve a murder mystery on a pioneer plantation?”

Dressed in your favorite outfit, you shift from foot to foot on Mrs. Bradford’s porch as you try to get your courage up. Just as you lift your hand to knock, a throat clears behind you. You spin around quickly, then release a breath and press your hand over your racing heart.

“You could have told me you were back there sooner,” you point out softly.

“I wanted to see where this was going,” Tim answers, closing his tailgate. “Listen, about the other day-“

You raise your hand to silence Tim and shake your hand. “I came over here to talk to you. About more than that. Do you maybe want to go somewhere to do that?”

Tim nods and opens the passenger door of his truck, offering his hand as he helps you in without a word. The drive to the local high school football field is quick but silent, and when you exit the truck and join Tim on the tailgate to watch the sunset, you take a shaky breath.

“I’m sorry you had to go through all of that with your dad, the house, Frank, all that,” you begin. “But I’m sorrier that I didn’t do more back then.”

Tim nods and says, “You were right. They wouldn’t have listened, or it would’ve spooked my dad and made everything worse.”

“I guess we’ll never know.” You look at Tim’s profile and ask, “Are you okay?”

“No,” he admits without hesitation. “My dad was protecting Monica. He never did anything to protect us, but his mistress – broke half a dozen laws for her.”

“I knew that, too,” you whisper. “My mom made me stop sitting by the door after that year, which was probably a good thing. Uhm, are they going to prosecute your dad?”

“No. Not on his death bad. But it doesn’t matter. He’ll get judged soon enough.”

You nod, your eyes still on Tim rather than the pink sunset before you. His eyes have teared up, and everything inside of you begs for you to just let go.

“Tim, you’re nothing like him. You know that, right?”

Tim nods a tiny movement that breaks your heart. This isn’t the Tim you remember, not the Tim from elementary school or the one who was punished for your ill-conceived attempt to help. Most importantly, you realize, this isn’t the Tim you’ve dreamed of loving. Tim Bradford, the man before you, is who you can love, want to love, and desperately, wholly, devastatingly need to love.

With a deep breath, you release everything you’ve been holding onto. Your grip on your dreams, on your memory of Tim and what you thought you wanted, and the moment that trapped you in your position of being terrified to do the wrong thing in your efforts to do good weakens, and you feel like a flower in bloom. Everything seems new, the possibilities are endless, and you’re a new person who isn’t afraid to do right, even when it terrifies you and carries the potential to break your heart.

“Tim,” you whisper.

He turns toward you, drawn by the tone in your voice, and blinks past his tears. You shift on his tailgate and raise your arms toward his shoulders. Tim leans forward and meets you halfway, pulling you into his lap as you collapse into a hug that heals the broken edges of who you are. With Tim’s arms against your back and waist, you feel more at home than ever, and he feels the same. His mother’s house was never the home he was returning to, but a pursuit for this feeling, right in your arms.

“I’m so sorry,” you murmur against his shoulder.

He shakes his head, tightening his grip on you, and this version of you - unafraid, complete in Tim Bradford’s arms - is ready to thrive. You won’t heal overnight; neither of you will, but it’s a start.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and Tim laughs against your neck before he pulls back gently to retrieve his phone from his pocket.

“My mom,” he tells you. “If you haven’t kissed her yet, what are you waiting for? Another set of wrinkles?”

You fail to stop the laugh that escapes at Mrs. Bradford’s bluntness. Then, you realize how glad you are that he’s reading her text messages.

“Well?” you ask. “Should we kiss or wait for more wrinkles?”

Tim pushes a stray hair out of your face and promises, “None of it was your fault.”

You nod and thank him, then brush your thumbs against his cheeks. “Last time we were on a field together, it was raining. I also wanted you to kiss me then.”

“You never told me.”

“How was I supposed to tell you that, Tim?” you ask. “I… I was caught up in an idea of who we could be, and I was scared to ruin it by doing something new.”

“And now?”

Rather than asking for what you want, you take it as you lean forward and kiss Tim. One of his hands moves to the back of your neck, and the first raindrop feels suspiciously like a teardrop as it runs down your face and onto Tim’s. You laugh as you run toward the truck doors, thunder rumbling as a storm approaches from the west. In the truck with Tim, you find yourself face-to-face with a better version of the dream life you craved in Tim’s absence.

Bonus:

“Get inside, it’s going to start raining again!” Mrs. Bradford calls from the kitchen when she hears the door open. “Don’t need you catching a cold on your time off, Timothy.”

You press your lips together and smile at Tim, who is drenched after offering you his jacket to hold over your head in a poor attempt to stay somewhat dry.

“She’s going to mother you, too,” he points out.

“Hey, I’m used to it,” you reply. “Like it, even.”

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Bradford murmurs as she appears in the doorway. “Go get dried off and change, Tim.”

After he disappears into his room, Mrs. Bradford offers you a towel and a change of clothes. She smiles as she leans in and says, “Flowers that thrive need plenty of rain to grow, you know.”

[say-hwaet]

The Dynamic Between Arthur and the Marstons (long post )

I guess I should say there are spoilers, just in case…

After playing the story through several times, I have to say, that Arthur Morgan is one of the best characters ever written. Aside from his development, there is so much depth to him, and regardless of his honor, there is so much to unravel.

I’ve been thinking about the relationship that he has between the Marstons, meaning John, Abigail, and Jack, and it really makes sense as to how Arthur acts the way he does around them in the beginning and all the way to the end.

A lot of his behavior, I think, stems from the loss of Eliza and Isaac. It is my opinion that he himself was torn between living a full life with them and remaining loyal to his gang, and before or by the time he had made a choice, it was too late, as they were killed in a robbery. This had haunted him since and it made him extremely bitter. Later in the game, he tells Rains Fall that he realized that he didn’t get to live a bad life and have good things happen to him. I also think that he was with Eliza after Mary had broken their engagement. I can get into my support for this later, but that isn’t what this post is about.

I think that Arthur was angry with John out of jealousy. He is the “golden boy” and clearly was Dutch’s favorite at one point. Not only that but after Arthur loses his own son and lover, John and Abigail get pregnant and he takes off for a year. He abandons his family, which Arthur takes personally. Arthur had tried to do right by Eliza and Isaac and still failed. So when John has Jack and is within the circle of the gang to help and support him, he takes off. Arthur gives up a potential life with Eliza and Isaac for Loyalty to the gang and John throws it all away. When John comes back, Dutch welcomes him with open arms, and Arthur believes that he would have been held to a different standard if he had come back after being with Eliza and Isaac for a long time. And it doesn’t help that John treats Jack like crap in the beginning of RDR2.

Arthur, imo, was a good father to Isaac when he was present. We can see this in how he treats Jack. In Arthur’s journal, he writes how he should have married Abigail, but due to his feelings for Mary, he didn’t. I’m not sure why after years of not hearing from Mary he would say this, but meh. Perhaps, the hope of starting over, or that she did pop in again at some point (which is how Abigail might have met her?). Anyways. I think he says he should have married her so that she would have someone to rely on and that he could be the father Jack needed. He cares about Abigail, but I don’t think it is anything beyond that. Arthur seemed to me not to be one to be with a woman without some sort of relationship, based upon how he treats women and the prostitutes in Valentine, so I don’t think he was ever with Abigail. Even so, Abigail relies on Arthur, and while he puts up a front, he gives her money for clothing and spends time with Jack. Heck, he even tells John to step up and be a dad. In some of Arthur’s conversations with John, he tells him that he can’t be two people at once. He’s speaking from experience. I think he’s subtly telling John he needs to make a choice as to what life he’s going to live. Hosea and Arthur both tell Abigail and John to leave at parts of the game.

When Jack is kidnapped, and eventually rescued, I think it is one of the most heart-wrenching missions and scenes. I can see it in Arthur’s body language that he longs for the family that he once had. He’s alone in his pain and when everyone is celebrating, Arthur doesn’t sing with the gang; there isn’t even the option to do it like it does other times. Even in my first playthrough, it seemed so sad to me. Everyone was drinking and singing, but Arthur just looked so sad.

So, it is at this point that John starts to step up, and Arthur starts to show symptoms of his illness. When he learns of his diagnosis, Arthur’s eyes open to the reality of the gang’s downfall, and he acknowledges the doubts/reservations he has about Dutch’s plans and schemes. He isn’t blindly loyal anymore. He tries to get John, Abigail, and Jack out, so that they can have the life that he had lost due to loyalty to the gang. He continually tells John to get out and that it would mean a lot to him. In his journal, after rescuing John from prison, he writes in his journal “…We’ve argued over the years, but I’ve grown to care a little for [John]. He’s less of a fool than he was, and maybe he can have the luck that has eluded me. Jack is an innocent little boy. In him, I see what I missed [meaning Isaac]. We did it.” This speaks volumes to me about how he feels about them in the end. He sacrifices himself to let John live. And though it isn’t forever, Arthur dies believing that he made it, and that matters. And hopefully, he could finally be at peace and see Eliza and Isaac again.

I could keep going, but I think I am too long-winded. I guess that helps when writing fleshed-out fanfiction stories, but not for posts. LOL

Would love to hear other thoughts or opinions, I’m always keen for a discussion.

[dinoswithswords]

IVE STAYED UP ALL NIGHT TI FINISH BOOK 6 OF HEAVEN’S OFFICIAL BLESSING aAND I AM IN TEARS THE LAST CHAPTERS ARE THE MOST HEART WRENCHING GUT CRUSHING CHAPTERS IVE EVER READ OMG I HAVENT BEEN THROUGH SUCH AN EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER SINCE 5TH GRADE

I want to say that I’m speechless but I have so much to say I just don’t know how so I’m just going to scream or something

[megerrific]

I am being so brave and strong (I finished book two of the scholomance and read the very first bit of book three) (I then, in what for many would be inadvisable but for me is a habit I’ve tried to squash and have mostly but return to in moments of deep need, flipped through to find about where I’d stop screaming) (so what if I saw a major spoiler at least I know how long I’ll be in agony and that it’ll likely draw agony after that but at least I’ll be counting down confidently)

[suzukiblu]

"Lex Luthor's latest character flaw" poll winner, "deciding he wants grandbabies and giving Robin a cloning lab about it". Behold, a new WIP strikes!!

“What,” Tim says, staring blankly at the brightly-lit and airy sunroom full of very obvious cloning technology in the very expensive penthouse that Lex Luthor’s bodyguards just dragged a handcuffed Red Robin and Spoiler into after kidnapping them straight off patrol in the Diamond District in the middle of an active crisis situation with the League of Assassins and disabling all their tech and every single one of their trackers six and a half hours ago, down to the bastardized Kryptonian-tech ones in their back molars and two more in both of their suits that Tim didn’t even know existed, plus the one he put in Steph’s collar that she didn’t know existed. Babs is probably just about feral by now. Bruce is definitely feral by now. 

And Lex Luthor is drinking what appears to be a neon purple protein shake out of a rocks glass while sitting at a neatly-arranged desk in the center of the sunroom lab, looking idly bored and scrolling through whatever’s on his phone with his free hand. 

Alright then, Tim thinks carefully. 

“There you are, I was starting to wonder if I’d gotten al Ghul riled up for nothing,” Luthor says, barely glancing up from his tablet. 

“. . . which al Ghul,” Tim asks with wary dread. 

“All of them,” Luthor says, setting down his tablet to give him a pleasant smile. 

Well, now Tim knows why nobody’s dropped in a skylight to rescue them yet. And also why half of Gotham is currently on fire. 

“Uh,” Steph says, glancing around the sunroom lab. “So like, lead-lined glass in here, then, or . . . ?” 

“We’re in Connecticut, so no,” Luthor replies dismissively. “Anyway, the Boy Scout always gets suspicious of too much lead in one place. Which I personally find darling, since anyone in Metropolis without at least a lead-lined and soundproofed bedroom is essentially asking for Kryptonian voyeurs, whether intentionally or not on said Kryptonians’ parts. Also, privacy laws exist for a reason. As do patents, copyrights, attorney-client privilege, HIPAA . . .” 

“Connecticut?” Steph repeats incredulously. “What the frick is in Connecticut?” 

“Currently, us,” Luthor replies matter-of-factly. “Hope, Mercy, do me a favor and go check the security systems manually, just in case any invasive species of vermin have gotten into them. Also, yes, there is kryptonite, and no, there is actually much more than you’re theorizing.” 

“You have literally no idea how much kryptonite we’re theorizing,” Steph says as the bodyguards both leave with an affirming nod. Luthor gives her a pitying look, then turns his chair a few degrees towards Tim. Tim immediately expects the inevitable threat or ultimatum, and braces himself for–

“I’d apologize for all the fuss, but I don’t actually care about inconveniencing you and don’t see the point in pretending I ever would,” Luthor informs him. Tim stares blankly at him again. What is even happening right now? “Now then, what are your intentions in regards to ‘Supernova’, as I hear someone’s started calling himself now. ‘Themself’? I’m not sure if ‘Supernova’ is meant to be gender-affirming or more a ‘too old to stick with ‘Superboy’ but there are already three ‘Supermen’ active and the whole, you know, general stubborn individualism they’re so fond of. Or ‘he’s’ so fond of. Whichever."

Tim stares at him. 

“Is this supposed to be a trap for Supernova or a shovel talk for me?” he asks, because a) he’s not telling Lex Luthor anything about Kon’s gender or personal choices that Kon hasn’t publicly stated, and b) only Lex Luthor would actually kidnap two active vigilantes in the middle of a crisis he’d apparently pre-arranged to give a–well, no, Bruce would also do that, definitely. But this is not a Batman talk, either way. 

Batman’s “talks” all involve tests, for one thing, so actually so far this is an improvement. 

“It’s an engagement present,” Luthor says pleasantly. 

Tim’s brain crashes, then does the slowest reboot of his life. He’s recovered from concussions faster, he’s pretty sure. 

“They’re . . . not engaged, though?” Steph says skeptically. “Or, like, even dating?” 

“Red Robin’s commitment issues are his own problem, not mine. I’ve got a schedule to keep,” Luthor replies dismissively.

[la-undercover-latina]

Mommy Issues (Seonghwea Smut MDNI)

Summary: What happens when you're cuddling your boyfriend and without thinking, you make a comment about another member of Ateez?

There is just filth under the cut, so MDNI brb I'm gonna go dunk myself in Holy Water

In hindsight, you never should’ve challenged your boyfriend like this. But god damn it was it fun.

All because of a damn TikTok. That cursed app got you in trouble so much, but what’s life without a little risk?

Nothing at the start of the evening was out of the norm after Seonghwa got off tour, cuddles while he played Animal Crossing and you doom scrolled TikTok.

Not remembering that you weren’t alone after months of that being the case, you spoke without thinking.

“Damn, those poor San stans, fuck!” You couldn’t help the blush that crawled up your cheeks at seeing your boyfriend’s friend get chained up before Wake Up.

“Come again?” Said boyfriend asked, a brow risen above his glasses.

“Nothing baby,” You patted his head, hoping it would help him forget the words that left your lips moments ago.

Spoiler alert, it didn’t.

“No, what did you just say kitten?” You gulped at the tone Seonghwa used. It was the one that he used when he meant business. And if that didn’t give it away, the use of the word kitten definitely made it crystal clear.

You shook your head, not wanting to awaken the possessive side of your boyfriend. 

In the blink of an eye, he flipped you two so he was on top of you, your hands pinned above your head by one of his large hands.

“I think my kitten is being naughty. What do we do when she’s being naughty?”

“Punish her,” You mumbled, not wanting him to hear you.

“I’m sorry, speak up, I couldn’t hear you,” You shook your head. He grasped your chin in his other large hand.

“I said speak up,” His voice deepened as he slipped into his more dominant persona. The one that made you shake and cry for him either to stop or keep going.

“I don’t wanna,” You whimpered.

“Why not?” He demanded.

“Bcause,”

“Because why?”

“I don’t wanna get punished,” You finally gave him what he wanted. So he had heard you right. And from the look in his hard almost black eyes, he had your punishment picked out.

“Pick a number over 5,”

“Eight,” He smiled a little, knowing why you picked that number. He sat you on his lap. His eyes tracking you like a panther waiting for his prey to enter the trap.

“Bend over Kitten,” You obeyed, resting your belly on your boyfriend’s lap with your ass in the air.

“Good girl,” He purred before ripping your lounge pants down your legs, knowing full well that you weren’t wearing panties since you two were originally winding down  for bed after your shower together.

“Count for me,” You nodded.

Smack

“1,” Your voice was clear in his ears, despite the handprint that was starting to become visible.

Smack

“2,”

Smack

“3,” Your voice started to waver a bit as you felt his large hand start to sting.

Smack

“4,” It started to burn now, making a tear leave your eyes.

“You’re halfway there baby girl,” He switched hands as his first hand started to now sting from spanking you as hard as he could.

Smack

“5,”

Smack

“6,” Your voice wavered as the smacks started to reverberate and spread to the place you now needed him the most.

Smack

“7,”

“You can take one more. This is your punishment, not mine. And you picked the number, not me,”

Smack

“8,”

“Good girl,” He slowly started to massage your now cherry red ass.

“You might as well ride me, Kitten. Since you can’t lay back,” He leaned back, patting his lap, where his cock was strained against his gray sweats.

You swung your legs to straddle him, determined to mess with his head and drive him insane.

“Gotta get rid of these,”

“Who’s the boss here, you or me? Huh? Who was the one being a little slut on TikTok. Looking at someone other than me,” He punctuated every sentence with a roll of his hips, the friction on your bare core making your head swim. 

“You, and I was the bad one,” You whimpered.

“Yes, you were being a bad girl kitten. Now for your punishment,”

“You spanked me! Wasn’t that punishment?”

“That was only part of it. Now’s when the punishment really begins.You’re not allowed to cum until I say so,”

“Okay but no using your tongue. That’s not punishment, that’s torture,” he grasped your chin in one of his large hands again, forcing you to lok him in the eyes.

“First off, who made you think you were in charge of your own punishment? And secondly, who said anything about eating that pretty pussy? But now that you mention it,” he got a devious smirk over his plump lips.

Oh shit!

“If it keeps your eyes from wandering, what’s pleasure without a little suffering? Plus I’m starving,” he growled as he threw you onto the bed, crawling up your body, lapping at your legs. As he got to your thighs, he started to suck harder, even biting a bit. At least enough to give you that sweet mix of pain and pleasure that you oh so craved while he was on tour. You moaned as he inched closer and closer to your heat.

Nothing compared to how your boyfriend ate you out, knowing exactly what areas to put more pressure on than others in order to send you to the heavens. Your hands flew to his hair, wrapping it tightly in your face, making a moan leave Seonghwa’s puffy pink lips.

The moans from him caused a vibration to rub on your pearl, making your own moan rip through the air, and your back to arch.

You were only stopped from him putting one of his large hands on your stomach to keep you still. When he introduced his long dexterous fingers to the mix, you felt like you couldn’t breathe. Without warning, he stood up, stripping off his own lounge pants.

“I want to feel you cum on me,” He explained before entrapping your lips in a heated kiss. One where he dominated, and you let him. Seeing as you trying to avoid it was what got you partially in this predicament in the first place.

In record timing, he had his pants down, his cock springing free: red and angry from being hard for so long without release. As quick as he was off you, he was back on you, slipping into your damp heat.

With how long he was on tour, you had to take a second to reacquaint yourself with how big he was.

“Fuck Kitten! You’re so tight. I’m almost afraid to move. Almost,” he smirked before pulling your lips into another kiss and rocking his hips. You had to grasp his hair in your hands. You needed to pull on something, and your boyfriend’s silky jet black locks worked perfectly.

“I can tell you’re close Kitten. Cum for me,” He ordered and it was like you were pulled down in the tidal wave of pleasure at his words, not realizing how much you both needed this.

“Atta girl, Just keep listening to me Kitten,” He acted as your lifeboat in the tidal wave, keeping you grounded to your body.

“F-Fuck!” He hissed before you could finally make out his contorted features as he let his own pleasure fill him before filling you to the brim.

Once you both were back on Earth, the first thing Hwa saw was you running your fingers through his silky locks.

“I love you,” You whispered as his eyes fluttered and he could slowly piece together all of your features. The sex hair leading to the look of bliss in your eyes, and finally, all of the hickeys he left on your skin.

You attempted to stand to get water for both of you and some baby wipes to clean up. Except your legs weren’t cooperating.

“Damn Hwa, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to walk for a bit,” You giggled and he chuckled, pressing another sweet kiss to your lips.

“I’ve got you Kitten,” He told you before throwing a robe on and getting the recoup items.

“It’ll make you think twice about looking at San, right?” He chuckled, handing you the water bottle.

“I don’t know, seeing you get all possessive was kinda fucking hot,”

Taglist: @the-princess-of-mischief-1998 @multidreams-and-desires @faeratil

Read the other guys here: Hongjoong, Mingi

[ironunderstands]

These Aventurine, Topaz and Jade comparisons are getting out of hand…

As much as I adore both of them, I think it’s very disingenuous to compare Aventurine and Topaz’s lore and be like “but they are the same!!!! If people like Aventurine and dislike Topaz that’s just misogyny!!! and like… no?

Topaz’s whole thing is that she doesn’t know the extent of the IPC’s evil, and believes that what she’s doing is genuinely the right thing to do. Even if she never had a choice in joining the IPC, she (incorrectly) believes what they did to her and her planet is justified, logical and moral, and for those reasons she stands with them. Part of this is likely IPC brainwashing, as she was probably very young when she became an indentured servant to them, and someone living on a planet on the brink of destruction would likely view anyone who stepped up to save them as heroes (imo the IPC likely waited for the point of no return to establish contact so her people had no other choice to except).

However Topaz got best end of the proverbial stick, her planet and its people were deemed useful by the IPC, and didn’t fight back, even if in the end they were still exploited.

Unfortunately, we have seen through Boothill, Belabog and Aventurine what happens when that isn’t the case.

Boothill’s planet got bombed and people genocided because they had a resource useful to the IPC, but were unwilling to cooperate with them or hand over their home, so the IPC decided to eradicate them.

Belabog had a debt owed to the IPC that was ridiculously high and very unfair to expect them to pay back, and had Topaz not convinced the higher ups to give them some time (which she got demoted for), the IPC would have taken Belabog by force

That leaves us with Aventurine, whose story is in no way on the same level of bad as Topaz’s. Unlike her, he has witnessed and experienced firsthand the truly awful shit the IPC can do.

They took custody of Sigonia and promised to offer the Avgin aid in their fight against the Katacans, at the very least protect them from harm. (Sidenote, since the IPC held control over Sigonia, they should have stopped the fighting in the first place). However, they simply stood by and did nothing, resulting in the deaths of around 6,000 Avgin, with around 3,000 went missing (or injured, I don’t remember, either way it’s bad).

But wait! It gets worse! Aventurine when he was still known as Kakavasha referred to the IPC as “the men in black/the men in black suits”, and his first master says he bought Aventurine from “the men in black/the men in black suits”, likely mocking the way he referred to them. Therefore THE IPC TOOK PART AND LIKELY EVEN CREATED A FUCKING SLAVE TRADE IN SIGONIA

Look being made into an indentured servant isn’t fun, but idk personally I’d take that any day of the week OVER BEING ENSLAVED

That’s not even to mention how horrible of a reputation Sigonian’s have in the galaxy, one likely spread by/resulting from the IPC themselves, as at least on Aventurines planet they do not have the mobility to make a name for themselves. (Honestly it’s a mini theory of mine that Aventurines scam is what partly contributed to this reputation, and his status as a slave is something the IPC conveniently left out in their broadcast about it-)

But, you might be saying, didn’t Aventurine have a choice to join the masked fools and leave the IPC, isn’t he free now? And to that I say, it’s complicated.

Considering the amount of suicidal shit Aventurine has done while being part of the IPC, he clearly hasn’t been having a fun time as a member of one, so why does he stick around, especially with the Fools invite? Even if he was a slave, does that absolve him of the crimes he’s committing now? What could justify his actions?

Revenge, plan and simple.

This is going to delve into some spoiler territory for the end of the Penacony 2.2 quest, something which I didn’t feel like mentioning earlier because I’m sorry but everyone and their mother already knows Boothill’s lore. Now, let’s get into it.

Aventurine accepts Jades offer to join the IPC, and when he becomes a Stoneheart, the first thing he asks about is the fate of the Avgin, to which he then learns that besides him, they are all dead. You see, from birth Kakavasha was pushed onto a pedestal as the savior of the Avgin, but now that there are no more Avgin to save, his primary motivator in becoming a Stoneheart (beyond not being enslaved anymore) is gone.

So what does he do now?

Simple, try to kill the motherfuckers behind it.

That’s why he takes on such risky gambles still, and why he wagers and wants Diamond to promote him to rank p46. The higher Aventurine gets the closer he gets to his goal of taking down the IPC for good.

Which is why his meeting with Boothill is so meaningful. I think Boothill is going to “kidnap” him and together they are gonna take down the wicked bitch that is Oswaldo Schneider for his literal crimes against humanity.

Mark my words, an IPC downfall is going to happen, and I think Topaz, Aventurine, Boothill and Ratio are going to be at the forefront of it.

However, Topaz and Ratio (and by extension the rest of the galaxy) have to learn/realize the true horrors of the IPC (although I can sense Ratio doesn’t really like them, and he’s learned a lot from Aventurine, I doubt he knows the full extent of the situation or is in any way happy about it). Therefore? Topaz mental breakdown arc? Ratio lore? PLEASE??!? The IP3 compliment one another so well and god I can’t wait for that to come to fruition.

I really want to see a Topaz and Ratio centered story leading up to an IPC smackdown, and I think we are gonna learn a lot more about how shitty they are in the later half of 2.2 and in 2.3 when the interlude and Jades release arrive.

As for the aforementioned Jade, she’s gonna need a Aventurine squared amount of trauma or reasoning behind her actions to seem in any way sympathetic, because right now she just seems like an evil bitch (in a semi good way, I will always respect the commitment to the bit) who loves her job and would make Machiavelli weep over how hard her ends are trying to justify her means.

[inkspiredwriting]

Seven Years Lost

Five Hargreeves x Fem!reader

A/N: This was a request. I really hope it's not that bad. To the lovely person who sent me this request, please contact me and tell me what you think about it, even if you don't like it, then I really want to know what you don't like. So that I can do better next time

Warnings: spoilers for season 4 episode 5-6, angst

Y/n sat on the worn-out couch in Diego’s living room, the sound of muted conversation from the kitchen drifting through the house. The weight of her growing belly reminded her that she wasn’t alone, that there was a small life depending on her now, a life she had been overjoyed to create with Five. But that joy had turned to a hollow ache since she had discovered the truth.

She absently ran her hand over her stomach, trying to find comfort in the small kicks and flutters that had once brought her so much happiness. The baby was all she had left to cling to now.

Diego had been the one to tell her, his voice low and hesitant as he explained what Five had confessed to him. Seven years. Seven years in a different timeline, trapped with Lila. Seven years that had only been hours in their timeline. And in those years, Five had been unfaithful. It was a betrayal Y/n couldn’t understand, a wound that cut deeper than any she had ever known.

“Y/n,” Diego’s voice broke through her thoughts, and she looked up to see him standing in the doorway, concern etched across his face. “You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to. We can go somewhere else.”

She shook her head, forcing a small, tight-lipped smile. “It’s fine, Diego. I just… I need some time to think.”

He nodded, understanding, but didn’t push further. “I’m here if you need me,” he said softly before retreating back into the kitchen, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

Y/n closed her eyes, trying to make sense of everything that had happened. She had been so happy, so content in the life she and Five had built together. She had believed in their love, in their future. But now, all of that seemed like a cruel joke.

How could he have done this? How could he have betrayed her, betrayed their love, even if it had been in another timeline, in another life? And yet, as much as she wanted to hate him, to push him away, she couldn’t ignore the part of her that still loved him, that still wanted to believe in the man she had married.

But the reality was inescapable. She had to protect herself, and more importantly, she had to protect their child.

Just as she was about to get up and leave, the door to the living room creaked open, and she looked up to see Five standing there. His face was drawn, pale, with dark circles under his eyes—a man broken by his own actions.

“Y/n,” he said quietly, his voice trembling with regret.

She stiffened, her heart constricting as she met his gaze. “What do you want, Five?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady, though it trembled slightly with the weight of her emotions.

He took a tentative step forward, clutching a leather-bound book tightly in his hands. “I’m so sorry, y/n,” he began, his voice thick with emotion. “I can’t begin to tell you how much I regret what happened. I know I’ve hurt you in a way that might never heal, but I need you to know that I never stopped loving you. Not for a second.”

Y/n looked away, unable to bear the intensity of his gaze. “You say that, but how am I supposed to believe you? You were with her for seven years, Five. Seven years, while I was here, pregnant and thinking about our future.”

“I know,” he whispered, pain evident in his voice. “I know, and I hate myself for it. But right now, we don’t have time. The cleanse… it’s unraveling everything, y/n. And you… you’re the only one who can survive this.”

She looked back at him, her brow furrowing in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

He held out the book, his hands trembling slightly. “This is the key to the train,” he explained, his voice thick with desperation. “It contains all the paths to different timelines—places where you can be safe, where you and our child can live a normal, happy life. You didn’t take the Marigold, y/n. You don’t have to die like the rest of us. You can survive this.”

Y/n stared at the book in his hands, her heart pounding in her chest. She knew about the train, a mysterious force that could take you to alternate timelines, but she had never imagined she would need to use it.

“And what about you?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Five’s expression crumpled, and he looked away, unable to meet her eyes. “I can’t go with you,” he admitted, his voice cracking. “If I leave, it’ll only make things worse. But you… you and our child… you deserve a chance at a life, y/n. A life without this madness.”

Tears welled up in her eyes as she realized what he was asking of her. He was asking her to leave him, to walk away from everything they had built together, everything they had fought for. But more than that, he was asking her to survive, to protect the life growing inside her.

“Five…” she choked out, her voice trembling with emotion. “I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if I can leave you.”

He stepped closer, gently taking her hand and pressing the book into her palm. “You have to,” he said softly, his eyes pleading with her. “This is my last chance to do right by you, to protect you and our child. Please, y/n. Let me save you.”

She looked down at the book in her hands, feeling the weight of the choice before her. It felt impossible—leaving the man she loved, the father of her child, to face whatever fate awaited him. But she also knew that Five was right. She had to survive, for their child’s sake.

Finally, she nodded, tears streaming down her face. “Okay,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “I’ll do it. I’ll take the train.”

Relief washed over Five’s face, but it was tinged with sorrow. “Thank you,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. “Thank you, y/n.”

He pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly as if he could somehow imprint the memory of her onto his very soul. She clung to him, sobbing into his shoulder, knowing that this might be the last time she would ever hold him, the last time she would ever feel his arms around her.

After what felt like an eternity, Five gently pulled back, his eyes red and swollen. “We need to go,” he said quietly. “The train won’t wait forever.”

They left Diego’s house together, and blinked to the subway station. It was quiet, only the shallow breathing of Five could be heard, but y/n barely noticed. All she could focus on was the man beside her, the man she loved despite everything, the man she was about to lose.

When they reached the station, Five led her to the hidden platform where the train was waiting. It was a strange, thing, its doors open and waiting.

“This is it,” Five said quietly, his voice trembling. “This is your way out.”

Y/n turned to him, her heart breaking as she looked into his eyes one last time. “I love you,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. “No matter what happened, I want you to know that I love you, Five. I always will.”

Five’s eyes filled with tears, and he cupped her face in his hands, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to her lips. “I love you too,” he whispered against her lips, his voice breaking. “And I’m so sorry, y/n. I’m so sorry for everything.”

She kissed him back, pouring all of her love, all of her heartbreak, into that one final kiss. Then, with a shaky breath, she pulled away, clutching the book to her chest as she stepped toward the train.

Five watched her go, his heart shattering with every step she took. But he knew this was the only way, the only chance they had to save their child, to give y/n the life she deserved.

As the doors of the train closed behind her, Five’s knees buckled, and he sank to the ground, sobbing as he watched the train disappear into the ether, taking the woman he loved more than anything away from him forever.

He had done what he had to do, but the pain of losing her was more than he could bear. He had saved her, but it felt like he had lost everything in the process.

And as the world around him continued to crumble, Five knew that he would carry the weight of his betrayal, his mistakes, for the rest of his days—however long or short they might be.

But he would take comfort in the knowledge that y/n and their child were safe, that they had a chance at the life he could never give them.

Even if it meant he had to face the end without her.

[borathae]

Close Shave | Jungkook x f.Reader

↳ Full Art

"You walk in on Jungkook using your razor to shave his balls and the bratty question for help on his lips. It's only fitting to help him, if only so you can give him a sexy little punishment for touching your things."

Pairing: Jungkook x f.Reader

Genre: established relationship!AU, Slice of Life Smut

Warnings: sub!Jungkook who is the cutest pookie, mean Dom!Reader, he tries to make her laugh, until she accidentally gets him horny, then he tries so hard not to make her notice his boner, spoiler alert: it was her plan to make him hard, she shaves his dick and balls, handjob, edging, multiple orgasms (m. receiving), whiney!Koo, some dirty talk, overstimulation, ruined orgasms & post-orgasm torture, begging & subby boy tears, male squirting :'), soft & cuddly aftercare, he is so cozy in subspace hehe <3, they're in love <3

Wordcount: 4.5k

a/n: sometimes i give myself new kinks and i think that's beautiful :') have fun besties, i missed writing this kind of Koo 🤍

You knock on the downstairs bathroom door.

“Sweetie, are you okay in there?” 

Jungkook has music playing, but is worryingly quiet. Normally when he listens to music in the bathroom, you can always hear him singing to it. He did so at first, but became worryingly quiet all of a sudden.

“You didn’t slip and fall in there, did you?” 

Jungkook doesn’t answer you. Your worry grows. He’s got Chase Atlantic playing and he isn’t singing to them. He loves singing to Chase Atlantic. Something must have happened.

“I’m worried, I’m coming in. Last chance to stop me”, you tell him loudly and open the door. 

Jungkook reveals himself to your eyes instantly. He is sitting on the floor with his back against the sink counter. He is in his white button up and slippers, but doesn’t wear any pants, sitting with his legs spread and his head right between them. A silver bowl filled with dirty water stands in front of him. Shaving cream and hair swims in it.

“Oh? Sorry”, you gasp.

Jungkook’s head shoots up, his big eyes look you up and down.

“Since when are you here?” he exclaims, “you scared me, wah, don’t do that. I have blades against my balls.”

“Sorry, oh god.” You laugh. “You were suddenly so quiet and I was worried that you slipped and hit your head. I didn’t know that you were shaving.”

“Yeah well, trying to. The razor sucks ass”, he says, waving the pink razor around.

“Is this my razor? And my shaving cream?!” 

He pulls a sorry “I’m a little shit” face. 

“No?”

“Jungkook, I shave my armpits with that. I don’t need your ball hair on it”, you whine.

“Hey, you’re acting as if you never had my balls in your face before.”

“It’s about the principles. You doofus, you’re gonna dull the blades.”

“No, I won’t. They’ve already been dull since the beginning”, he says and demonstrates their inability to shave on his crotch.

“You’re doing it wrong. No, what- Kook, you’re doing it wrong.”

“Urgh I knew it”, he groans and stands up. The view is a little funny. White dress shirt, black slippers and crotch messy in shaving cream. He presents the razor to you, “show me.” 

“Sorry?” 

“Show me. I promise I’ll be a good boy.”

“You saying it like that makes me think you’re not gonna be a good boy.”

He smirks playfully. You study it with a fluttering pulse. It could be fun. You could use it to give him a little punishment for taking your stuff. 

“Fine”, you give in, “sit on the counter.”

“Okie dokie”, Jungkook says, jumping on the counter with a giggle, “look at us. Shaving my balls together.”

You roll your eyes, bending down to get the bowl. You put it on the counter next to him, cleaning the razor under running water. Once clean, you walk to him. 

He opens his legs for you, making grabby hands at you. You meet his eyes. They’re sparkling boyishly.

“Don’t give me that face”, you say.

“I’m not even doing anything”, he defends himself, fluttering his lashes at you.

“Yeah sure.” 

You step between his legs, chuckling when he instantly grabs you and kneads you. 

“Doofus.”

“Heh, you’re pretty”, he says, earning himself another fond roll of your eyes.

“Scoot to the edge.”

He follows. 

You bend down and place your hand on his balls to stretch the skin. The razor touches his skin.

“Careful. If you cut them off, you’re at a loss too.”

“I’m gonna be careful”, you say in a chuckle, dragging the razor through his bush. It picks up a good strip of it.

You straighten up and clean it in the bowl.

“Woah, how did you manage to get so much?” Jungkook gasps.

“Practice. You had the angle all wrong”, you say, bending down again. 

“I knew that it was user error.”

“No, you didn’t. You said the blades were dull.”

“No, I didn’t”, he says, clearly being playful. 

“Mhm sure”, you mumble, feeling oh so very fond of him.

You and he share silence, which the music fills. You can listen to Jungkook singing softly and every time you straighten up to clean the razor, he gives you a little grin. One you never retort because you kind of enjoy acting a little annoyed. He knows that it’s pretend and therefore tries to make you laugh and he’s cute when he does. One time he tapped your head to the beat of the song, another he rubbed your neck to the melody as he sang the lyrics with all his heart. Another time he called you pretty, while yet another time he tried it with a silly joke about pubes. His attempts were very good and whenever you had your face between his legs and he couldn’t see it, you let a fond smile wash over it. 

You are straightened up again, cleaning the razor in the bowl. Jungkook watches you, gazing at your face more than anywhere else. 

You bend down again, shoving his balls to the other side.

“Oh? Careful”, he chuckles, “that was quite the shove.”

“Sorry, I gotta do the other side now”, you tell him, furrowing your brows as you guide the razor through the first patch. 

Jungkook stays still, but puts his fingers on your head.

“How many fingers?” he asks.

“I’m tryna concentrate”, you tell him with concentrated brows. 

“Try. I’m making it easy”, he says, wiggling his fingers.

“Three.”

“Correct. See? I knew you could do it.”

You scoff, “doofus.”

You clean out the razor then go straight back to shaving him. Jungkook watches you.

“It’s kinda funny to see you between my legs like that and only have you shave me. Normally you’re doing something very different when you’re like this.”

You stop mid-shave, keeping the blade on his skin as you lift your eyes. 

“You lift your eyes like that too when you do.”

“You’re so annoying”, you mumble and look back at his balls to finish the shave. You smile.

“I saw that.”

“You saw nothing.”

“I’m pretty sure I did. You smiled.”

“I was gritting my teeth in concentration. Like this.” You straighten up and show it to him. “See?”

Jungkook laughs, scrunching his face for it.

“No, you weren’t. I saw you smile.”

“Whatever you saw, it didn’t happen”, you say and bend down again. But before you can, Jungkook stops you with a finger under your chin. 

“Mhm?”

He leans in, stealing a kiss. You grab his thighs instantly, kissing him back with a fluctuating pulse.

The kiss breaks with a bite to your lower lip and his lips curling into a smile.

“I love your smile”, he whispers, following it up with a giggle and peck attack to your lips.

You huff out air to cover up your chuckle, nudging his chest, “doofus.”

You bend down, unable to hide your smile. Jungkook soaks up the view with a fluttering heart. He is having so much fun right now. Spending time with you like this is new and exciting. He also likes the little game you make him play. You are so obvious when you only pretend to be annoyed and he gets so nicely competitive to make you break that he could squeal now that he finally sees your smile.

Your smile soon drops however. A look of concentration replaces it as you guide the razor over his skin smoothly. You clean it and go straight back in, putting your fingers on his dick to move it aside. 

“I think JK Junior has a preference to fall left.”

“Yeah, definitely...JK Junior? Really?”

“Yeah.”

You chuckle, “you’re annoying.”

Jungkook bites down his squeals, having a hard time with it. He loves making you laugh! 

“Should I hold him?” he offers.

“No, keep your hands to yourself.”

“Okay”, Jungkook says and runs his fingers over the nape of your neck.

“I didn’t know my neck was yourself.”

“I’m not touching JK Junior, am I?”

You scoff, following it up with a little chuckle.

“You’re annoying.”

Jungkook snickers, kicking his feet.

“Hey!”

“Oop!”

He tenses up, gawking at you with big eyes.

“No kicking. I’ll cut you on accident.”

“Sorry.”

You clean the razor, “I’m almost done, don’t worry.”

“Already?”

You glance at him. He is pouting.

“Are you sad about that?”

“Yeah.” He pouts harder. “This is so much fun.”

You hide the victorious smile. It’s all going according to plan. You knew that he wouldn’t be happy with just his balls. Now the real fun is going to begin. All of this was just a warm up, the perfect way to get Jungkook into a giddy kind of mood. And when he is in this kind of mood, it is terribly easy to turn him on. Oh, you are going to have so much fun with him. 

“Fine, I’ll do JK Junior too”, you fake your annoyance, “good god, I knew you would do that”, you add, bending down to do the last part of his balls.

“Yay thankies. I swear it’s just because you’re so much better at it than me.”

You feel ecstatic. Look at him still thinking that he is in control when you are playing him like a fucking game.

“Yeah sure”, you say and finish the shave. You straighten up, clean the razor, then leave to get the shaving cream. 

“The cream is really good. It smells so nice”, Jungkook says, “flowery and sweet. I like it.”

“Yeah and it’s only fourty bucks”, you say sarcastically.

“What?” He widens his eyes. “Fourty bucks?!”

“Yeah and you used way too much.”

“Fuck, sorry. I thought it’s like four bucks. Mine’s like three sixty.”

“No, I always get the expensive one.”

“Why? Cream is cream. Wouldn’t a normal one do the trick too?”

“Sure, but this one lasts me more than a year ‘cause I only have to use a little.” 

“Sorry, I’ll get you the next one.”

“Mhm, okay”, you say and begins spreading some on his crotch area.

“Okay, I definitely used too much. Look at how well it foams up.”

“Right? It’s really good”, you say and wipe some on his nose.

“Hey”, he gasps and laughs, wiping the foam away, “not cool.”

You give him a grin and pick up the razor. You have a plan. You will do the first few shaves normally and then go in with the attack. Jungkook doesn’t suspect a thing. He is still singing and making jokes with no idea of what will happen soon. Oh, you are going to ruin him. 

You finish three small patches. It is finally time. Your heart is racing as you go in. You pick up his cock, holding it in your hand. Act innocent at first. Make him believe you are only making it easier for you, only to drive him desperate with your warm hand little by fucking little.

Jungkook stops singing for just a second, but then continues. He feels it, but doesn’t want to pull attention to it. Oh, you could squeal. 

You clean the razor, releasing his dick. For now. You will do two more like this and then you won’t pull your hand away when you clean.

It goes well and then the fourth patch comes. You don’t pull your hand away, keeping it around his cock with just enough pressure that he feels it.

Jungkook lets out a breathy chuckle. You look at him with faux confusion in your eyes.

“Why are you laughing?” 

“Nothing, uhm, you’re pretty.”

“Doofus”, you say, smiling internally. Of course he’ll act innocent. He is still in the belief that this is innocent, that you are just shaving his dick. He won’t tell you that the warm pressure around his cock is starting to affect him. 

But you know him better. You know that his brain is currently trying to zone in on nothing but your touch, while he is actively trying not to make it do that. He doesn’t sing as much anymore because he needs to concentrate. He is so adorable. 

You won’t have to do this for long anymore and then you can move to the next step. Oh, he is going to have a very hard time with that. You have the perfect plan. 

You increase the pressure whenever you clean the razor, doing the smallest pulsing motions with your fingers. You make sure to keep them small enough that they aren’t noticeable, but that he will ask himself why it suddenly feels so much better. By the third time, you hear him exhale shakily. He hasn’t sung to the entire song by now. 

You look up, watching as Jungkook tries to make a normal expression. He had his jaw tightened and brows furrowed before that as he secretly tries to keep the blood from shooting to his cock. 

“You good?” you ask him.

“Yeah. Yeah totally”, he says, nodding his head vigorously, “you uhm…do you have to do a lot more?”

“Mhm?” you look at his crotch and act as if you needed to inspect him, moving his cock from side to side with your hand moving around his tip. 

Jungkook sucks in air, tensing his thighs. His cock hardens a little in your hand. Not enough to be visibly noticeable, but you can feel it.

“Mhm, I would say that we still have some way to go. Why? Did your butt fall asleep on the counter?”

“No”, he laughs breathily, “no, not at all.”

“Okay, just say if it does”, you say and bend down to drag the razor over his skin. You pretend to struggle with the position and to fix it by moving his cock to the side with a pulse around his tip.

Jungkook doesn’t sing at all anymore. He is actually very quiet and you know that it’s because he is trying so hard to keep his breathing silent as to not make it obvious that he needs to breathe to regulate himself. But of course you notice because he is not slick with it. Unlike his cock, which is beginning to be slick between your fingers. 

You straighten up to clean the razor, pulling your hand from his cock. Jungkook’s hips chase you, but he tense up when you look at him again. He is giving you such intense eye contact that you know for a fact that he is trying to distract you. Oh, he definitely noticed how hard his cock is. 

He can’t even think of a joke right now, simply staring at you with a nervous smile on his lips. 

You don’t retort it for show, looking at his cock again.

“Mhm”, you let out loudly, furrowing your brows. You want him thinking that you noticed his semi. 

Jungkook tenses up in panic.

“It’s not-”

“I don’t know how to get that part, mhm”, you interrupt him, “oh? Sorry, did you wanna say something?”

“Huh? No, not at all”, he says and laughs nervously.

“You’re so weird sometimes”, you mumble and pick up his cock to move it to the side. Unlike before, you don’t use your entire hand for it, instead you keep three fingers on nothing but his tip, moving them up and down as little as possible. Again, it shouldn’t be obvious, but he should suddenly ask himself why it feels so good. 

And he does. He is trying not to show it, but he must currently scream in his head. His thighs keep tensing and he is doing a worse job at masking his heavy breathing. 

You clean the razor, retreating your touch. 

“I think this part is easier to shave. You got more room”, you tell him calmly.

“Yeah, totally. I totally agree with you. Totally.”

“Are you okay? You’re talking weird”, you say and gasp, “oh god, did I cut you somewhere?” you exclaim and pick up his cock to move from it side to side with your hand pulsing around his tip, “you should have told me. Gosh baby, where is it? I can’t see anything.”

“No, it’s”, he is squeaking, arching his back and grasping your wrist to stop you, “you didn’t cut me. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” you look up at him. 

He nods his head vigorously, “I’m coolio.”

“Okay, if you say so”, you say and change grip to three fingers on his tip. His cock is so hard by now that you know that this round will be enough to make him fully erect. The fact that he still hasn’t acknowledged it, acting as if he isn’t completely out of breath, is giving you the biggest butterflies ever. He is so bad at pretending and it’s so exciting to you. You won’t say anything either, you will continue to act oblivious while you drive him insane with just three fingers. 

You work meticulously to shave him while your fingers move up and down his tip secretly. Jungkook grips the edge of the counter again, tensing his stomach to prevent his back from arching. 

You clean the razor, dropping his cock again. You make sure to look at the water, but in reality you watch him from the corners of your eyes. His cock twitches and leaks. Jungkook gasps and goes to wipe it away quickly, hitting it in an attempt to make it go down, which results in a more aggressive throb because he likes it. 

“Mmh.”

You look at him. Jungkook scrambles into a relaxed position quickly, fumbling for words but he can't think of anything. 

“Everything alright?” 

“Mh-hm”, he gets out, nodding his head vigorously.

You move back to shaving him, picking up his cock between your fingers. You want to stay longer this time around, do the strokes in three tries while your fingers massage his tip secretly. You keep pressure on the spots, using the shaving cream as slip. Jungkook’s thighs are flexed, his abs engaged. You glance at his hands. His knuckles are white because he is using so much strength to grip the counter, resulting in his veins to bulge all the way from his hands to his elbows. He is so sexy. 

You make sure to slow down more, to really drag it out. He should be desperate once you’re done, he should crave your touch again and ask himself why on fucking earth he is such a needy fucking man. And oh how you drag it out, how good you time it. You pull back at the perfect time which results in Jungkook to arch his back and whisper a curse. 

You glance at his face. He is scrunching it, gritting his teeth as well. You edged him. And he isn’t even aware that you can see his agonised face because he is too busy trying to suffer in secret. Fuck, you want him like crazy. 

But you stay quiet. You look away before he opens his eyes and clean the razor with an innocent expression. You can feel his eyes on you. They are begging you as much as they are trying to figure out if you were actually that blind to his problem. You don’t grand him eye contact, moving in instantly. 

Jungkook sucks in air, tensing up again. You dare to glance up at him. As you had figured, his eyes are closed. He is biting down on his lower lip, flaring his nostrils as his nose tries to keep up with all the wheezing he is hiding from you. His eyes are closed. You can dare to increase your touches. He is too preoccupied with suffering quietly to watch them become obvious. You allow yourself his initial reaction to the increasing pleasure. He opens his mouth to moan only to remember in the last moment that he needs to be quiet and he bites down on his lip again, tilting his head back just enough to reveal his throat. He is so sexy, holy fuck. 

You look back at his crotch, concentrating on gliding the razor over his skin safely. It might not be obvious yet, but you actually want to do a good job in shaving him. He’ll come out of this experience smooth and with a scrambled brain. You are making sure of it. You finish the round the moment Jungkook’s hips dared to chase you. 

The latter lets out a small whimper, squirming on the counter because you had him so close. 

“I like this razor. I don’t know how you used it, but it’s not dull at all”, you speak calmly.

“Yeah uh, yeah I don’t know.”

“It’s probably because you used too much cream”, you say and pick up his cock, keeping the movements minimal again because his eyes are on you. You put the razor to his skin and drag it up his skin. Your fingers massage his tip, Jungkook tenses up more. More. More. 

“Oh god”, he squeaks and begins twitching as the pleasure finally gets too much. You move the razor away for safety reasons, gawking at his flushed cock shoot all over his tummy and your hand. He is writhing, thrusting his hips into your touch as he cums with his panicked eyes first looking at his cock, before meeting your darkened gaze. 

“Seriously?” you ask him, cocking your brow up.

“Sorry”, he whimpers, reaching for you with the goal of kissing you. It feels so good that the shame is minimal to him right now. 

But you aren’t happy. You need him to suffer a little more, you need him confessing how bad he needs your touch. You pull back in the best moment, ruining his high which results in Jungkook to sob in agony with his hips fucking the air.

“Please, please it hurts please. Touch me please.”

“Well, that didn’t take long”, you say, placing the razor aside, “it only took you twenty minutes to finally admit it. A new record”, you say sarcastically.

“You knew?” he gasps out, writhing.

“Duh. You think it felt that good accidentally? I was touching you from the beginning”, you say and pick up his cock to jerk it off quickly, finally using your dominant hand for it. 

Jungkook drops his head against the mirror, finally arching his back and moaning the way he had wanted to do for ages. 

“You’re so cruel.”

“It’s what you get for using my stuff”, you throw back, twisting your hand around his tortured tip. 

“Sensitive please”, he begs, kicking his feet desperately. 

“You begged for it. So take it”, you order with no ounce of pity in your voice.

“Oh god”, he presses out, arching his back repeatedly while his shaky hands grip the marble.

His cum already became a deep white from the fast friction, sticking all over your hand and his cock. Residues of the shaving cream add even more slip to the punishing handjob. You know that he won’t hold out for long with the rhythm you have going on and that it’s gonna be the kind of orgasm which makes him cry just a little. 

And how right you were. Jungkook can only take five more pumps and then the overstimulation gets too much, forcing him to orgasm with such intensity that he shoots all over his own face and mirror. The sudden hot mess on his face startles him, making him cry because it was all too much. It still is. You don’t slow down even now that he is cumming. It burns and aches so much and Jungkook has no control over his body anymore. All he can do is sob and shake uncontrollably while you force his poor cock to soothe the burn by squirting all over himself. 

There is so much of it that it runs down on each side of him, spilling all over the counter and washing away the remnants of shaving cream. He sobs and he moans, he whines and he keens while you match his noises with evil laughter and mocking coos. 

Jungkook cries so much harder. You are so mean to him and he didn’t even do anything. You are so, so mean. 

His orgasm dies down as aggressively as it began. His once pleasured writhing becomes agonised, he tries to tug your hand away, sobbing begs to warm your heart.

“Please, I’m sorry. I won’t take your stuff again. I’m sorry, please!” 

“Promise me?”

“Promise! Please I’m sorry, I promise!”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Promise!” Jungkook screams so loudly his voice bounces off the walls, “holy fuck, I’m sorry!”

“That sounded better”, you say, finally releasing his ruined cock. You tortured him so good that you made him go soft as a defence mechanism. He is so fucking lovely to play with.

Jungkook drops against the mirror instantly, wheezing for air and spilling tears as he scrunches his face. 

You rub his trembling thighs, guiding your touches up his torso slowly until you can pull him into a hug. Jungkook hides away in the crook of your neck, holding you with his arms both weak yet terribly strong as they try to clutch you for soothing. You rub his back and scratch his scalp.

“You did so well, sweetie”, you praise him, “I’m so proud of you.”

“Hmmh”, he lets out, nuzzling his face into your shoulder from left to right. 

“You were also not slick with pretending everything was okay.”

He laughs, but it soon turns into little sobs. He lifts his head, looking at you with teary eyes.

“You ruined me, oh god look at me”, he says, laughing even if tears run down his face.

“Gosh baby, I’m here now”, you say, cradling his face.

“It was so nice”, he presses out, sniffling aggressively in order not to cry again. He ends up pouting with sparkly and happy eyes.

“It really was” you say, brushing his tears away, “I had a lot of fun.”

“Me too. It, it was so nice. I felt so happy to be with you and, and making you smile and then you made me so horny. Oh god”, he falls around your neck, “I feel like a giddy boy, you have no idea.”

You giggle with him, ruffling his hair. 

“I think I’m getting an idea.”

He giggles and squeezes you, following it up with a deep sigh. 

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Kookie.” You kiss his neck. “Do you want me to do the last stripe too?”

“Huh?”

“Your dick. You lost it like one more razor stripe before the end. I’d hate to leave you unfinished.” 

“Oh god.” He giggles, kicking his feet and nodding his head vigorously. “Yeah, you can finish it.”

“Nice. I promise I won’t rile you up again”, you joke, making him laugh to the point where he has to cough because he laughed way too hard. The joke definitely wasn’t that funny, but he is giddy, in love and totally mushy in his afterglow. You could breathe and he would think that it is the funniest thing you have ever said. 

You like when he is like this and after you finished the shave and you cleaned him (and the mirror), you take him to the couch for cuddles and kisses. He is just too adorable not to.

[gin-juice-tonic]

So, for Starters: Book Of Bill Spoilers warning. Another opinion from me below. (Here's my first opinion I shared, if you havent seen it) This new one is about the lost journal pages again, of course.

Originally, I wanted to make a super big crazy essay about all the reasons I think the journal pages in BOB (The Book of Bill’s given name) are fake, and show off my super-cool totally completely sound deductive reasoning techniques in the process.  

Unfortunately, knowing myself I’m not sure I’m actually capable of accomplishing such a feat. You all know how I tend to post things in parts, sometimes out of order, often never finished. However I would like to share something in particular that’s been eating at me that I’ve seen… partially discussed, but only partially. And certainly not the part that I would like to discuss. 

It’s about the rats.

You know, the rats.

I saw these rats being talked about since before I was even able to have a look at the book myself. 

But before I get further into it all, I would like to start off with a joke: 

Why did dead rats, eggnog, a land orca, shrimp colors, It’s a Small World After All, and an Anti-Cipherite Suit cross the road? 

Well, that’s easy. To get to the other side. 

Of the book, that is. 

If you’re anything like me, you probably skipped right to the journal pages upon contact with the book. And if you’re even MORE like me, you were probably left a little confounded by them. Not only did they seem… wrong somehow. But they also felt random. Full of odd choices of subject that didn’t make a lot of sense. Could these pages really have come from journal 3? If so, why do parts of them feel so… completely out of context? 

And this is where the rats come in. As I mentioned before, I saw many people discussing them. In particular, they were noting their connection to this passage from earlier in the book:

Many of the related discussions also felt odd to me. Though I lacked the knowledge to be able to articulate why at the time. UNTIL, I read the book for myself from start to finish. That's when I realized something:  This is not the only time something from earlier in the book connects back to the journal pages. In fact, it happens many, many times throughout the earlier passages. (Here is a small collection of them for your perusal.)

And then it started clicking into place. The reasons the pages felt like they were so abnormally out of context… is because they WERE lacking context!

Now, before you can finish saying “Gin, you’re an idiot.” I would like you to ponder these three questions: 

1) Why, if these pages were taken from Journal 3, should they require context from outside of it to be able to be completely understood?

2) Why is it that this context can be found in what Bill Cipher has been writing in the preceding passages up till now? 

3) If you put food in a mogwai’s mouth at midnight EST but drive it over the CST time zone line back to 11PM before it can swallow, will it still transform into a gremlin? 

Okay, you caught me, that third one is unrelated. But the first two I believe require further thinking. So let’s delve a little further into the idea. Consider this the real third question: 

3) Are we to seriously believe that these, the only pages of J3 still lost to us, just so happen to tie into the new topics from the rest of the Book of Bill over and over like this?  

And since you’ve done so well thinking thus far, I’ll ask a fourth question: 

4) Are you aware of the concepts of Watsonian and Doyalist analysis? 

Assuming you don’t and you won’t google it, I’ll skip to the important part. Watsonian analysis is to analyze a story from within it, as if you yourself were Watson making deductions in a Sherlock Holmes novel.  

Now, from a Watsonian point of view, what happens when we try to answer our earlier questions? Why should it be that the Book of Bill provides so many of these points of reference to the journal pages? 

One possible line of thought could be that Bill wrote the earlier passages of his book *around* the idea of what was contained in the pages, but I think this doesn’t work for a few reasons. For one thing, the purpose of the book is to get the reader to make a deal, not to take a whole novel to set the stage for a 3 day mini Ford adventure. For another, not all of what I described prior is really fit to be called “context”, is it? The rats, the “Small World” cassette, and the Bill-Suit are one thing, but Eggnog? Shrimp colors? Land Orcas? I certainly wouldn’t define them that way. If anything, they’d be better suited to being called “references”. And unlike the more contextual ideas, there’d be no real need for Bill to sneak mere references to the pages into his grand story.  And lastly, there are a great deal of Bill pages that have nothing to do with the content in the journal pages at all.

So what exactly am I trying to say here? 

If we do intend to think of the callbacks outlined above as references, the only logical conclusion within the story is that the journal pages themselves are referencing back to the Book of Bill, not the other way around.

But… how? And why? Something Ford has written in the 80’s shouldn't be able to reference something Bill is writing post-weirdmageddon certainly. 

That’s because “Ford” isn’t referencing it at all!

And as for why… Well, have you ever noticed when you're writing a story on the fly, things you wrote earlier all come crashing back to you as you try to wrap things up? I believe personally that the journal pages are nothing more than a strange endcap on Bill’s crazy train of thought! And the "references" are just fuel that further the pages creation. Almost as if, to quote someone much more knowledgeable than me on this subject…

In the end, all I've described above (as well as other aspects of the pages I've not mentioned here) leave me with the impression the pages are not real.

As I stated only a bit earlier, the idea that these pages, the only pages of J3 purported to be lost, should be so connected to the rest of the book is beyond coincidence to me. Not to mention that in order to take these pages as total truth, you must give credence to several other passages of Bill's book as well. And I'm not too keen on having to trust him that much.

To all who have read this far, even to those who may have scoffed at the ideas in here or think I've only written up nonsense. Thank you for reading and considering my thoughts.

I am not saying anyone must agree with me on this. I know some people have found the pages to be important and meaningful to them, and I do not wish to give the impression that I think my view is the end all be all correct one, or that I think lesser of those who believe in them. I only want to share my own opinions. And to anyone else who found the pages to feel "off" somehow, possibly validate their feelings too.

[superluver]

Together again | Gojo Satoru

wc: 1282

warnings: MAJOR SPOILER WARNING, SPOILERS FOR SHIBUYA INCIDENT ARC AND MANGA, Chapter 236, mentions of pregnancy(literally one word), FEM!Reader, Wife reader — NOT PROOFREAD

(I didnt put an exact warning because it would literallt give away what happened)

Pairing: Husband!GojoxWife!Reader

desc: You meet with Gojo after two long months

He doesn't remember much, just a blink and he was back as his high school self. A female, hand on her hip, a curious expression written all over her face. Staring at him, she tilted her head. “Satoru? What are you doing here?”

Satoru Gojo wants to laugh, like this was all some cruel joke.

Here you were, in front of him after not having seen your face(though younger) in almost 2 months since the incident in Shibuya— where you died.

He partially blamed himself. He watched you during your last moments, and selfishly, he’s grateful he didn’t actually see your death. His wife, his one and only. He smiles, and laughes as he pulls you in by your waist into a hug. “My boy did so good,” you whisper, allowing him to dig his head further into your torso as you giggle, your own fingers curling in his hair.

You smell exactly the same, like home. A home he never got to give you.

After he’s done being whiny, and well, a child, he pouts, throwing his head back.

“Aw man this is awful!” He shouts, and you laugh. The person he doesn't realize sitting beside him speaks up.

Suguru. His best friend, the one he had to kill, the one that would keep him up at night. The one that—

“Guess you were wrong.” you giggle, and Suguru stares at the two of you like you were keeping a secret joke from him.

You point at him mischievously, “He was all like, when you die you die alone, to his students, but look at the reality of it— well not really reality but still!”

He whines, “(Y/N)!!!”

Suguru breaks the ice, “How was the king of curses?”

Satoru huffs, shaking his head with a half hearted grin. He nods his head so the side, the empty seat beside him— which you take, his hand taking yours while you sit

It’s cold, just like his.

The tip of his nose hits the back of your palm, his eyes are closed before opening halflidded, staring out into the floor. His eyes peer over the overly tinted glasses, responding, “That guy was too damn strong, and he wasn’t even trying.”

It was almost mumbled, like a child complaining. Still holding your hand, he looks at Suguru, “To be completely honest, I don’t think I would even be able win.. regardless if he had Megumi’s cursed technique or not. The guy had too much up his sleeve.”

Your free hand pats his arm, laughing loudly you shake him lightly with a coo, “It’s alright, you’re my loser anyways baby,” you say with pressed eyebrows and puckered lips, almost teasingly.

He rolls his eyes, biting your hand lightly.

“I gave everything I had. Just a little sad you guys weren't there to support me, maybe you would’ve been able to give me a slap on the back to motivate me,” He jokes, shaking his head with closed eyes, imagining Suguru and yourself in the crowd of students.

“I’m glad that he was the one to kill me.” He confessed.

Somebody stronger than me. He wanted to say.

“It’s kind of gross hearing that from you, Gojo. You sound like a samurai general.”

You’re laugher bubbles up from your throat, tears forming as you turn back feom your seat.

“Kento, you’ll never change, will you?” You laugh, watching Satoru smack Nanami on the head multiple times, ruffling his hair in the process. You get up, releasing Satoru’s hand to sit in the seat besides Nanami. Smiling as the seat behind you is now empty.

Shoko.

It was for her, she was the last of the group, and you hope she wouldn't be here for a while.

“I won’t justify him, but I’ll sympathize with you.. I guess..” he mumbles, causing you to slap him on the shoulder with no ill intent, laughter from his stoicness.

“Hey!” Satoru snaps back, and you reach over and pinch his cheek.

“What I’m trying to say is, it was a fitting way to go out, Gojo.”

“You should be morw polite to your Juniors.” You chastise Satoru.

“I was already nice enough to you!” He retorts, and you tilt your head with a smile. His hand takes yours that was clipped to his cheek back in his,

“What was it like for you guys in your last moments?”

You blink, looking around the room.

“It was kind of scary,” you start, and he clenches your hand slightly. He remembers how the two of you split, you pecked him on the cheek with a determined expression, clenching your fist you told him you would be back, before warping to Harajuku. It was the last time he woult see you conscious.

You had crossed paths with Mahito, and you had it under control, until you didn't. Your weak nature, strong virtue, Satoru told you these would get in the way of you becoming a sorcerer, but you would always brush him off, telling him, I’m fine.

But you couldn’t help it, seeing a small girl in the line of Mahito’s path of destruction. Your arm was the price to pay for her life.

And, maybe you had lost too much blood, you cant remember, it’s a blur, but Satoru remembers.

Your leg contorted in a way he coulf only asume was unfoxable, your arm missing, eye streaming blood, you were dead. But his six eyes said you were alive, that you both were. And he was hopeless, tued up by the prisom realm, watching your eyes dim, he watched you die.

“To be honest, I wanted to quit with Kento, but I just couldn't bring myself to leave you alone doing all this. I don’t regret it to the end,” you smile loving at him, and he feels like vomiting.

“I would do this a thousand times over if I got to be with you every time.” You tell him sweetly, and Nanami coughs, “Enough with the sappy shit.” He grumbles.

You laugh again, and stare at Suguru. He looks back at you, and you feel your lips curling back up into a brighter smile. The man who defected, the man who left you all, he was here, and with you all.

“Once,” all attention back to Nanami. “When I was discussing with Mei-san about where I should move, she told me to move North to become someone new, and to move south to stay the person you are. Naturally, I chose South. I think it’s ironic how I died while betting on my future. But it wasn’t too bad because of Haibara.”

Haibara grins, “Aw! You’re too kind!”

“I see..” Satoru says, and you squeeze his hand back. His head snaps upward, looking right in front of him to Yaga, his voice as annoying as ever, “Yo Yaga! I thought you said no sorcerer dies without regrets!”

You laugh, and he laughs back, the room filled with laughter, Riko, Kuroi, Kento and Yu, Suguru, even Yaga.

“Now I’m hoping this isn’t a dream.” He confesses, while standing up, and you smile.

“It’s not, ya big loser!”

You shout, standing up from your chair and throwing yourself over it, crushing him. He falls back onto the ground, and Suguru jumps on top of you, Yu crushing him as Satoru wheezes, and you see him smirk.

“Welcome back!” You grin, Suguru’s face smushed next to your own. Haibara’s chin resting in between the two of yours.

He takes in the scene in front of him, everybody he’s loved all together, and finally, his arms wrap around the three of you, and he’s just so happy, that he doesn’t even Think about going back.

CLEAR MINDSET THIS IS MY REALITY NO ONE TELLS ME OTHERWISE SHUSH

[noemilivv]

Can I please request a Lucifer, Vox and Adam x GN! Reader where Lucifer, Vox, Adam becomes a nervous wreck trying to propose to Reader and even at there wedding day as they get themselves ready to step out of there dressing room and do there bows and all :3

what the flip this actually had me getting giddy reading this OFC I WILL WRITE THIS FOR YOU !!

a/n: i’m just doing proposal and wedding hcs so i hope that’s okay!! but they will contain bits of them getting all nervous so dw :)

a/n #2: THIS WAS ACTUALLY SO MUCH FUN TO WRITE TYSM FOR REQUESTING THIS!!!

Warnings: Swearing, potential S1 spoilers(?), mentions of sex (no smut)

Adam Proposal + Wedding Headcanons

Adam didn’t understand why he was so nervous to propose, he’s ADAM, he’s the fucking man, he’s the OG DICK. Who could say no to him?

Uh.. actually… you could, technically. And he is — believe it or not — sorta scared out of his fucking mind for that outcome, considering he spent all his time with you, he wasn’t sure what his life would turn to if it didn’t go smoothly, but bitch is a risk taker, so ya boi fuckin’ went for it

Adam, with little-no ideas, went super basic, it was the only way he really knew how, he took you out to a fancy restaurant with fancy ass clothes, as a ‘business meeting’

After waiting over and over for the right moment, he realized he was almost out of time, so he popped down onto one knee

“Look, I don’t really understand this whole… proposal bullshit.” Adam started, fidgeting with the ring box in his hand nervously — whilst trying to maintain his cool,

“But I’m gonna do it, cause I’m the fucking man!” He said as he began to regain his confidence, “So, babe, would you make me the happiest man in Heaven and become the fucking one?” He said, pushing out the ring box, with a nervous but genuine toothy grin.

You said yes! Pffft, he called it! He called it.. heh..

He’s actually a lot more invested in wedding planning then you might think!

Just the reception though, the ceremony is ‘boring as fuck’

He will get slightly emotional during the ceremony, not tears or anything, but for one of the first (and realistically last) times, he has a gentle but proud smile on his face as you walk down the isle and you two do your vows.

THEN, that completely changed at the reception, bro goes batshit crazy. He definitely planned to have some bomb ass music and he is either chugging a shot or dancing his fucking heart out to the music.

Whenever talking to people at the reception, he will sit there and shove his wedding band in their fucking face as if they didn’t just watch you get married.

And then you guys go to your honeymoon basically immediately, and once you two get your ass into your hotel, you’re fucking.

That aside though, Lute was Adam’s best man, no questions asked. 😛

Lucifer Proposal + Wedding

Headcanons

Lucifer hasn’t had to do this since Lilith, which has its pros and cons.

He’s a little more experienced than the other two, due to the fact that he’s obviously proposed before.

He’s less nervous because of this, but that doesn’t mean he just doesn’t care, cause he really wants this to be special for you, he just doesn’t want you to regret it — whatever your response may be.

He bought a ring for you way before he actually proposed, and he always kept it with him, because he never knew when the right moment would strike

And it came when he least expected it…

It was around 3am, and there was hardly anyone out on the streets, surprisingly, you two were taking a nightly stroll, and you had laughed at something he said, and you just looked so beautiful in the Hellish night sky, he knew, right then and there, you were the one.

You continued to stroll down the street in the bloody red, before realizing Lucifer’s absence from your side, you turn around to see the blonde angel on one knee, with a soft smile and tears pricking in his eyes.

“Y’know, I wasn’t too sure about love after what happened with Lilith..” He started, letting out a small sigh to contain himself before continuing, “And, somehow, someway, you came into my life at the best possible time.” He said, taking a pause, trying to regulate his emotions.

“You found me at my worst, and turned me into my best, and my God, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me.” Lucifer said, combing over some of his blonde locks to the side, as tears continued to well up in his eyes.

“Sweetie, you make me so happy, and you love me, silliness and flaws and all, so my love, would you please do me the honor and allow me to be your husband?”

Yes, he got you duck themed wedding rings. Because why would he not?

He’s very insistent on helping with the wedding planning, you’ve done so much for him, so he wants you to be able to sit back and relax and just be able to enjoy the wedding.

And then he crashes and burns, as he realizes, he doesn’t fucking know how to plan a wedding… So you guys split it half-and-half.

He really wants a winter wedding. On Valentine’s Day. With Valentines colors. Please let him have it. He’s so baby, he really wants it.

During the ceremony, he definitely cries. Not too hard core though, a couple tears and sniffles with a proud, dopey smile across his face.

The reception is a more lowkey version of Adam’s, there’s music and shit, but it’s not like a madhouse in contrast lmao.

Luci does make a point to talk to almost every guest, especially if their your family, cause he wants to get to know them.

Also, if there are kids at your wedding, especially if their your relatives, he loves them. He will let them climb all over him, he’ll fly them around a bit, he’ll play with them. I love the idea of Luci playing with kids.

You guys don’t have a honeymoon, though, he’d rather stay at home and make ducks.

Oh yeah, next topic to tackle is… how does he tell you he wants kids…? And when…?

Vox Proposal + Wedding

Headcanons

As much as Vox may say, it’s for business, it’s not. He loves you so much.

Vox wants a lowkey proposal, not a lot of people around, just done and out of the way.

He does it while at a VoxTech event, so the two of you are already dressed up incase some paparazzi come and sneak pictures.

Once he has a bit of spare time, he pulls you out into a private hallway or a balcony, and does his thing. And yes, he glitches

Halfway through your conversation with Velvette, you feel a jerk on your arm and as your being dragged off Velvette gives you two big thumbs up with a toothy grin, while mouthing ‘Goodluck!’ like bitch, the fuck? Good luck for what??

You’re pulled out into the hallway, and shoved into the outside balcony area, you turn after you get your focus back, which is immediately taken away after you see Vox on one knee.

“Dear, zzh— we’ve been through a lot together, ssz— and szzz!- Honestly, it’s not like I even care, szzzz- but, maybe, you’d consider, szz- marrying me?” Vox makes an attempt to proudly hold the ring box to you as he just embarrassed himself, he gives a nervous, toothy, talk show host grin.

Yeah.. Just for business. mhm.

A lot of people are invited to your wedding, it’s fucking Vox, he knows people.

Neither of you plan the wedding, per say, Vox just gets an employee to do all the tedious stuff for you guys and you two give your input when needed.

During the ceremony, Vox doesn’t get emotional, there’s people here who has business deals with, therefore, the show must go on!

But during the reception, when you both have your first dance as spouses, the world for him… goes quiet.

THAT’S when he gets slightly emotional, he leans into your touch and cannot stop whispering to you about how much he fucking loves you.

The reception is a bit more formal, you both go around and talk to guests as Vox does his little host shit, and makes a few business deals.

You guys have a honeymoon, and it’s expensive as FUCK, that was a little surprise for you, he takes you out to the biggest places in all of Hell, only the best for his newly-wedded spouse~

[saetoru]

✩ ‧₊˚ ✩ APATHY OF THE CHIEF JUSTICE — NEUVILLETTE.

contents. archon quest spoilers, liddol weepy dragon neuvillette :(, established relationships, reverse comfort, lots of kissies 4 him, it’s a bit self indulgent my bad but he’s just a sensitive lil friendly guy who tries his best he makes me sad :(, maybe ooc idrk how to write him yet

it starts raining out of nowhere on a sunny day, hard. you frown—you know exactly what this means, walking up to neuvillette’s office in concern.

“good afternoon, sedene,” you smile, patting the melusine on the head. she leans into your touch happily, content with the small show of affection.

“good afternoon. if you’re here to visit the chief justice, i have to warn you. today, he seems…” sedene trails off, unsure how to finish, and you hum knowingly as you nod.

“i see,” you murmur, “i’ll see if i can help.” you turn and knock on the office door—it’s silent for a moment before you call, “it’s me.”

you hear some shuffling before neuvillette finally answers. it’s a quiet, “come in,” and nothing more. you sigh before entering—that can’t be a good sign.

neuvillette looks…well, devastated. with red rimmed eyes and a slightly pink nose, his cheeks trailed with delicate tears that break your heart. you walk over, cupping his cheek and brushing away a stray tear with your thumb as he closes his eyes.

“what’s got you so upset,” you murmur, “the weather has taken a rather drastic turn, wouldn’t you say?”

he sniffles, the poor thing—it’s as precious as it is heartbreaking. “i believe…i believe i may have made a mistake,” he mumbles, “a terrible one, in fact.”

“oh?” you raise a brow, leaning down and brushing your lips against his forehead soothingly, “i’m sure you’ve done your best, neuvillette.”

“no,” his voice breaks, a fresh round of tears falling past his lash line and staining his skin. you furrow your brows, cupping both sides of his face as your forehead presses to his, “no, i didn’t…i didn’t do what i should have. in fact, i did nothing at all.”

“i’m sure that’s not true,” you reason, “you always do what you can.”

“i could’ve stopped the duel,” he shakes his head, and instantly you know what must be on his mind. “i thought…i thought i understood but i didn’t. i still don’t.”

neuvillette doesn’t understand humans as well as he hopes—it’s changed a bit since you’ve shown up, but their emotions are far too complicated for him sometimes. you help him, sometimes—you try to show him they’re not much different from him, but he’s learning slowly on his own.

you nod slowly at his words, as if you understand, before pressing soft kisses along his face. you scatter them along his cheeks, over the tip of his nose, just at the corners of his mouth and right on the center of his forehead.

he sniffles again, miserably.

“oh, love,” you murmur gently—callas has always been a complicated topic, one you’ve carefully treaded since it’s happened. his lips wobble, and you pull him into you, letting his head rest against your chest as you sit on the armrest of his chair. “callas wasn’t your fault,” you whisper, “none of us could’ve known.”

“i believed he was guilty,” he confesses, “otherwise, why duel? i…i didn’t think he would do it for…”

“and you weren’t alone in your assumptions,” you reason. that doesn’t seem to make him feel any better—in fact, you feel your shirt dampen, and the rain hits the glass of his window harder.

“but i am the chief justice,” he insists, “how i can be so if i let innocent men throw away their lives?”

you’re silent for a bit—it’s difficult to give him an answer. it’s difficult to offer him any solace over something like this. but you do know it’s not his fault—and soon enough, you hope he’ll accept that too.

but until then, you thread your fingers into his hair as you press a chaste kiss to the crown of his head.

“being the chief justice doesn’t mean you have all the answers,” you say quietly, catching a tear as it slips down his cheek with your thumb, “you won’t have all the answers. but you’ll do your best to find them. i think that’s enough.”

“lady navia yelled at me,” he tells you. you want to chuckle a little at the way he says it, like child who’s been scolded—but now is not the time, not when he’s so upset. “a few days ago. because i did not stop it. she…she was right—”

“lady navia is grief stricken,” you interrupt, “you have to understand. she didn’t mean—”

“but i could’ve stopped it—”

“anyone could’ve, neuvillette,” you insist, “lady furina, or even clorinde. but no one knew, and that’s okay. it’s how callas wanted it, i’m afraid.”

he’s silent for a bit, weighs your words as he presses against your chest further, let’s your fingers trail through his hair and stroke along his cheek for a bit.

it rains in fontaine—whenever there is something to mourn, it rains. perhaps the people can know this way that they are not alone in their grief, that there is always something, someone to share the burden of pain with them.

“i’ll visit,” he mumbles after some time, “to pay my respects to mister callas.”

“i think that’s a lovely idea,” you smile, poking the tip of his nose and pulling the tiniest of smiles from him, “would you like me to come?”

“no, i think i should do it alone,” he says thoughtfully, “but thank you.”

you feel his hand grab yours, his fingers lacing with yours as he gives it a small squeeze—perhaps he still has a long way to go to understand humans and their complex emotion. but this one, he thinks he understands well enough.

he loves you, just as much as you love him—it’s simple enough to understand.

my lil cinnamon roll :( my emotional liddol weepy dragon :(

[jeankluv]

The prophecy - Gojo Satoru

summary: Gojo Satoru knew he was the strongest, he perfectly knew. But that didn’t mean he didn’t cry and that night while everyone still preparing to fight Sukuna, he cried. He cried because he felt completely alone and only seen as a weapon

paring: Gojo Satoru x gn!reader

tags: angst, canon universe, manga spoilers, Gojo centric, lyrics, fluff, mutual feeling, no use of y/n, Gojo thinks reader hates him, open up for a second part.

note: i wrote this some time ago and never actually posted, everything i have to say is that I love Gojo Satoru so much and i miss him like crazy. If y’all like it I could write a second part and explore more about this pair, but this part is mainly focused on Gojo’s character

words: 1,7k

Jujutsu Kaisen materialist | part 2

“I’ve been on my knees, change the prophecy”

Gojo Satoru only cried four times in his life. The first time he was 5 years old and he wanted to learn to ride a bicycle, but he fell to his knees and bled. The elders of the clan and his parents always told him that he should not cry and that he should be strong, but that day when he got to his room he cried hugging his favorite puppet. 

The second time was when he was 17 years old, Suguru had left and he didn't understand why, again he cried alone in his room wondering if he could have done more for the one who was once his best friend. 

The third time he was 27 years old, it was after killing Suguru, he stood there statically looking at the lifeless body of his old friend and let the tears run down his cheeks. 

The last time was now, when he was 29 years old. And once again he was alone.

He always wondered if his whole life was already written, if there was a prophecy that said that he who possessed six eyes and limitless was destined to always be alone. That was the burden he had to bear for being “the strongest.” 

He wondered if he would be able to change jujutsu society and thus change everything. That if someone in 100, 300 or who knows when had the same powers as him again, they would not have to be alone, that they would not have all that burden from the moment of birth.

Satoru was born with a price on his head, he was used by the higher ups since he was 15 and now he was facing what could be his last battle and ironically if he died they will continue to use him as what they have always made him believe he is. A weapon.

Satoru did not mind dedicating his life to exorcising curses, in fact he liked it and they satisfied him, especially if they were of a high level. But he wanted to stop being alone, he wanted to stop being seen as the strongest, as a weapon to use.

When the idea was proposed to him, the first thing he thought about was what would happen to Yuta. He knew that Yuta could only replicate the techniques for 5 minutes and then he lost them. In the best case scenario, he would return to his original body, right? The second thing he thought was that it wouldn't be necessary, and he was prepared to beat Sukuna, he wasn't going to lose. And the last thing he thought was that he would once again be used.

Now there he was in his room, alone, crying because he just didn’t feel like anyone really cared about him. Why didn’t Shoko object? Why didn’t anyone object to the idea? 

He sighed and throw himself to the bed, looking up to the ceiling of his bedroom, preventing his tears from falling down. 

“Don’t want money, just someone who wants my company”

The door opened letting in light from the hallway, Satoru did not move, he knew the cursed energy immediately. He let you come in and sit on the bed a little away from him.

“I think it’s an awful and dehumanizing plan.” You said.

Satoru chuckled, holding his tears, the room was dark but still he didn’t want you to see him crying. “Can’t believe you are the one standing for me.”

“Don’t get over your head Gojo and besides one of your kids, Yuta also stood for you.” You said. “And I’m pretty sure Shoko hates the idea but believes in you more than anyone else.”

“Really?” He whisked.

“You don’t think like that?” 

“Well…” He sighed. “After feeling all my life used as a weapon by this cracked society, I wasn’t surprised if people were willing to use me as a weapon even after my death.” 

You fell silent, processing Satoru’s words. “Satoru…” He hummed. “You feel lonely?” 

Satoru turned his face towards you, thanks to his six eyes he was able to see you clearly. And why were you crying? You off all the people? You who hated his guts? Why?

“Why are you crying?” Satoru inquired and you wiped your tears away.

“I’m not crying and besides it’s dark you can’t know.”

“I have the six eyes, I see everything.” 

“I doubt…” You whispered.

“What?” Satoru stood up and moved closer to you.

“Nothing.” You tried to avoid him. “Do you like plan B? Be honest.” 

“To be honest, I don’t know.” He sighed. “If I lose… that might be the only way to kill Sukuna and bring Megumi back but I’m worried about Yuta, it would be awful for him to get stock on this body, although I’m pretty handsome.”

“You are not serious.”

Satoru chuckled. “But for real, if that’s the only way… then it’s okay.”

“But it’s not.” You said. “You want to be used as a puppet? As a weapon?!” 

Why were you so sad? So angry?

“All my life it’s been like that, it’s like a prophecy and maybe if I let them use me one more time maybe I can redo that prophecy, so no one else has to go through what I, we went as kids.” 

You stood up from the bed and walked away from it. “I hate you…” You whispered but still Satoru was able to hear you.

“I know you always say how…”

“No.” You shook your head next to the window. “For you to have the six eyes, you’re pretty blind you know?” You chuckled. “You once said that you had the theory that love is the most twisted curse right? Well you were right.” You laughed. “Love really consumes you, especially when the person you love won’t look at you the way you want them to look at you.”

Satoru's heart started to rise with each one of the words you were speaking. He was still confused and overwhelmed by what you were saying.

“It’s funny right?” You said once again. “I’m such a coward and selfish person, silent for over 10 years and now that you are about to face the greatest threat of your life I’m here, making everything about me and my feelings.” You look down. “Please Satoru, let someone assist you during the fight, let me assist you.” You were on the edge of tears. “I’m also a special grade, my kitsune fire technique could help…”

“I work better alone.” He cut you off. 

A silence fell between you too and your nails dug into your palm, causing small wounds. “That’s what everyone has always told you.” You whispered. “But you don’t have to be alone. You don’t have to hold all that weight alone.” 

“Who do I have to speak to, about if they can redo the prophecy?”

Satoru took a deep breath and with a shaky voice, spoke. “I’m the strongest, it’s what I must do, so everyone is okay, so everyone can…”

“Stop with that Satoru! Stop…” You throw your hands to the air. “What about you? I don’t want you to die Satoru, I don’t want you to be used as a puppet.”

“Enough.” He said your name in a whisper. “The decision has been made, I don’t care.” He stood up and walked towards the door.

“You do care…” You whispered. “Because then why would you be crying here, alone?” You walked. “Hiding all your burdens, all your pain for just yourself. Why?” 

Satoru stopped himself and tried to catch his breath but it seemed like the room was running out of air. You walked to him and took his hand on yours and rested your forehead on his back.

“I’m here Satoru…” You whispered against his back.

You felt his grip tighten around your hand and you held onto him tightly as well, letting him know that you were there.

“What should I do?” He whispered.

You stayed silent for a moment and then spoke. “What if you do a binding vow? Just in case Sukuna…” You were unable to say those words.

“A binding vow…”

You nodded against his back. “I know that for it you need to give up something and you probably won’t want to give up what I’m about to suggest…”

“I will.” He turned to look at you. “You suggest that I give up the six eyes, to come back alive.” You nodded. “I will do it.” 

You felt like crying. “Good…” 

Satoru smirked and kissed your forehead. “Thank you…”

“I hope you don’t have to lose it…” You whispered. “I hope you kill Sukuna off and you come back to us, to me.” You whispered the last part.

Satoru hugged in a hug that almost hurt, but that you knew that the both of you needed. 

“It’s late, I should…” 

Satoru didn’t let you move. “Stay…” You froze, not sure what to say or what to do. “You said I never looked at you the way you wished, but…” Your heart started to pump in your chest, you could almost hear it in your ears. “Stay with me tonight, pretend like I’m yours for tonight and let me pretend like you are mine.”

You swallowed and hugged him back. “I don’t want to pretend.”

He giggled with a sad tone. “You will have to wait…” He whispered.

You thighed the grip, not wanting to let him go, afraid of him leaving. “Have you been sleeping?” You whispered.

Satoru shook his head. “Badly… really badly.” 

You caressed his back gently. "Try to sleep." You said and he responded humming. “I hope you can break that prophecy, Satoru.” You whispered and Satoru wrapped his arms around you tighter. 

Satoru hid his face on your neck and in silence he also hoped for that, he hoped to return alive and to be able to finally have someone besides him. To be loved and to be cherished. He hoped he didn’t have to beg anymore and no one else in the future needed to go through what he went through. 

That no was seen as a weapon for the Jujutsu world and their youth was never taken from them. 

Satoru Gojo just hoped for that, for the prophecy to stop, to break. To be happy with those he loved.

[jakesduskwood]

even statues crumble if they're made to wait

Pairing: Jake x Fem!MC

Genre: Post-Episode 10 Duskwood, Post-Episode 1 Moonvale

Words: 8,916

Summary: It's been three months since the explosion in the mine. Three months since Hannah was found. And MC's accepted that Jake is never coming back. When she gets roped into another missing person's case, it makes for the perfect distraction. Jake is dead. It's fine. That is, until she finds herself on the phone with Alan Bloomgate who says he has something to show her. But it's fine. Jake is dead.

Until he's not.

EPISODE-1 MOONVALE SPOILERS AHEAD (MAYBE)!

[ A/N: Hello! :)

I know it's been a while since I've done this, but I finished Moonvale Episode 1 and if you've seen the ending (and used its Duskwood code), you know what happened and how excited I was to receive that bit of Duskwood. So, I took it and ran with it, and out came this extremely long fic. I did not proofread this as it took me literally almost 12 hours to write so it is completely and 100% me and my love for Jake and I hope you love it.

Side note: I suck with anything related to timelines, so I made one up on my own. I know Episode 1 of Moonvale takes place over the course of a day or two, but for the purpose of this fic, it made sense to make it longer, so it's not a typo, or me losing my mind, it's just the way my brain processed this.

Enjoy! :) ]

It’s been three months since the explosion in the mine.

Three months since Richy had been killed. Three months since Hannah was rescued. Three months since I had last spoken to Thomas or Cleo or Lilly or…or Jessy. I didn’t blame her then and I don’t blame her now. Any of them, really. I didn’t share the bond they had with each other. I wasn’t from Duskwood. It didn’t matter that we’d experienced a tragedy together—and yes, perhaps them more than me, but I loved Richy too. I had lost Richy too. And Jake—

But mostly, I think they just wanted to forget. To move on. They didn’t want to remember that their friend had been capable of…of that. And I was a constant reminder of that to them. So I understood why we didn’t necessarily talk anymore.

The one person I did keep in contact with from Duskwood, oddly enough, other than the occasional update from Alan Bloomgate, was Dan. We weren’t best friends or anything, but he allowed me to check in on our friends in a way that I didn’t know how to do with anyone else. Maybe because I thought he was the least affected among them. I knew he cared about Hannah, but he wasn’t to her what Thomas or Cleo or Lilly were. And he wasn’t to Richy what Jessy had been.

I’d learned from him that Thomas and Hannah had broken up. There was no bad blood, but Thomas hadn’t quite figured out how to accept the things he’d learned about his girlfriend when she’d been gone, and Hannah hadn’t quite figured out how to re-trust someone after Richy. Even if that person was Thomas. But I’d hoped they would find their way back to each other in the end.

I thought about reaching out to Jessy every once in a while—even just as an apology for everything that had happened. I’m sorry that Hannah was found at the expense of Richy. I’m sorry that he did this to you. I’m sorry I didn’t realize it sooner. We should have. We should have. We should have. I miss you. But I never send it. I’m not all that sure she’d respond anyway.

Cleo and I were never all that close. She has her best friend back, so I think she’s probably as okay as she can be. Helping Hannah find a new kind of normal in a time where her childhood friend had kidnapped her in order to prove a point. I don’t know how you come back from that—I don’t know how you come back from knowing that you killed somebody at all.

I hadn’t found the courage to ask if somebody had told Hannah about Jake.

Not that I think it would matter anyway. I hadn’t heard from him since before the explosion in the mine, which was, like I said—three months ago. I waited the appropriate amount of time—twenty-five days—before I broke down and concluded that maybe he hadn’t survived. Which just piled a shit-ton of guilt onto my shoulders because it was supposed to be me in that mine. He had gone in place of me and now he was dead.

It was the only explanation that made sense. I was used to Jake disappearing for days at a time, but never as long as he had been now. And he didn’t seem like the type to tell me he loved me and then leave without a single explanation. Not unless he had to. But it had been three months and as much as I missed him, as much as my chest ached with the thought that we would never eat Chinese food out of shitty motels and have that on-the-run ending we talked about, I had accepted that he wasn’t coming back.

I wonder if he had known about Richy or if he had died still thinking Michael Hanson was the one who had kidnapped Hannah. I wonder if his last thoughts were of me. Maybe it’s selfish, but I kind of hope they were, because I’m pretty sure I’ll think about him for the rest of my life.

I wonder what it would have felt like to run my hands through his hair. To kiss him. To spend every waking moment with him and know it was because I loved him. Because I would have. Talking to Jake became about more than just finding Hannah. It became a part of my day I looked forward to more than anything else. He confided in me in a way that told me he never had with anyone, maybe not even Hannah, and I needed that from somebody. I needed somebody to trust in me the way that Jake did. I needed somebody to love me the way that Jake did.

It was strange—and maybe a little ironic—the thought that something so beautiful could come out of something so tragic.

Anyway, my point is: it’s been a long couple of months. Of thinking about my friends. Of thinking about Jake. Of wondering if I should have done things differently. I should have gone to Duskwood to help. Not even with the mine, but sooner. I could have. I could’ve gone when Jessy was attacked on the way home. I could’ve gone when the group made plans to cut out of town and hide away in the house Richy had found. Selfishly, I should have. In that moment, when they were settled around the fire and Lilly called me, I had never remembered wanting anything more. I should have grabbed Jake—metaphorically, maybe even literally—and rode it out with them to the end.

I don’t stop missing them after three months. Of wishing things could have been different. Wishing I could have done more. But exactly ninety-five days after the explosion in the mine, seventy days since I had accepted that Jake was never coming back, twenty-two days since I had last heard from anybody from Duskwood (Dan included), my phone dings with a new message.

And the cycle starts all over again.

It’s somebody named Eric, who claims he needs my help to find his friend Adam, who disappeared while he was waiting for a ride in someplace called Redlog Pines. And much like with Duskwood, I have never heard of Redlog, and the case reminds me way too much of Thomas’ first message to me, so much that it makes my chest ache, but I can’t say no because there’s somebody missing, and if I’d say no the first time, God knows where Hannah would be.

So, I say yes, and I help out where I can, and Eric decides he needs to bring about four more friends in on his little plan and I try my best to stay emotionally unattached because I remember everything that happened the last time and I can’t go through that again. I offer up information when I can and keep my words short and careful because I’m not ready to get attached to somebody else I know I might never meet.

I know how this ends.

Two days in, Ash, one of Eric’s friends, brings up my Duskwood past and the unhealed wound I’ve been trying to mend breaks open again. She asks about Richy, and about the mine, and then because I’m me and I can’t help myself, I tell her about Jake. She tells me the news never mentioned another body and I shove that thought to the back of my head because hoping for something that will never come true will kill me.

Four days into Adam’s disappearance, and the police not giving a shit—as Charlie, somebody who reminds me far too much of Richy for comfort, points out—my phone beeps with an incoming call from somebody I haven’t spoken to in a while.

“Go for [MC].” I answer my phone.

Ever since Hannah had been found in the mine and Jake had…you know, my phone had been more silent than I’d gotten used to. Until this new case. But even that—it was only a few days old and I didn’t want to go down the same path with them that I did with my friends in Duskwood. We didn’t really know each other that long, sure—even though sometimes it’d felt like it—but it felt like I’d finally been a part of something. Like, I had found these people who had chosen me for me.

And originally, maybe they had. Maybe they’d had every intention of keeping me around, but then Richy was the Man Without A Face and Alan Bloomgate had rescued Hannah and nothing was the same as it had been when we’d met each other. We knew too many secrets about each other by the time the town settled. Secrets we would have to take to the grave.

Or maybe I’m losing my mind a bit and I had really only been a means to an end.

Either way.

“Alan?” I raise my voice when there’s nothing but breathing on the other end of the line. “Did you mean to call me?”

His tone is clipped. “I found something.”

“You found something.” I repeat.

My heart clenches. For all I know, it might fall into my stomach. As far I know, from watching the news, from what Ash told me, Jake’s body was never found. Richy’s was. Or what was left of him to find, anyway. I had assumed that there just hadn’t been enough of Jake left. The thought left me nauseous, but it was better than hoping for something I knew I could never have.

“I’m sending it to your phone now.” He responds. “Let me know what you think of this.”

And then he hangs up.

That was a riveting conversation, I think as my phone dings with a message. I do my best to ignore my other messages—contacts from Duskwood I’m still not ready to acknowledge—and click Alan Bloomgate. He sent me a video that looks like—oh God.

Immediately, I’m overcome with emotion as an all-too-familiar forest pops up on my phone. It’s a video of Alan’s bodycam footage. He’s searching the Duskwood forest. A forest I’ve seen too many times in the background of other video calls.

I watch as he stumbles upon an object that’s too dark to make out at first. When he gets closer, it’s clear that it’s a backpack. It’s simple. Black. Nothing about it that screams this is mine and I left it here about anybody in particular. You stupid, stupid idiot, I tell my heart when it rattles against my chest in hope. He’s dead.

Alan stands and treks away from the backpack—I want to scream at him to go back, to open it and look through it and tell me if it’s what my heart aches to believe, but I can’t, because this is a video and I’m simply watching with wide eyes, waiting for…for something. But then. But then, he moves further into the forest and I watch as he stumbles upon an object that makes my knees tremble and tears rush to my eyes and my hands shake. A black hoodie. It looks like it’s been through hell, with holes scattered up the sleeves and dirt cakes into the hood, but it’s unmistakably his.

And then—Alan lifts the hood and picks up something that makes me sink to my knees with a sob that wracks my entire frame. Because I’m staring at Jake’s mask. The mask he doesn’t go anywhere without. The mask that protects him. And so my relief is short-lived, because I realize that even if he’s alive—which seems like a very big possibility at this point—he’s alive without the things that he needs to survive.

And then the anger kicks in. Because if he’s been alive, on his own, for three months—why has he not contacted me? Unless he survived the mine but he didn’t survive the after. But that didn’t make any sense. So, okay, he wasn’t dead. But that didn’t make any sense either. He told me he wouldn’t let them catch him. Because catching that meant he would be apart from me. Did something happen that prevented him from being able to reach out and tell me he was at least okay? A quick text that said didn’t die in the explosion in the mine, you don’t need to mourn me, by the way, going off radar for another year. Did he think I would have given up on him?

I wipe my eyes and shoot a message to Alan.

ME: Recently?? Did nobody search the forests before?      

ALAN: Searched the forests for what, [MC]? The logical assumption seemed to be that if anybody was inside the mine when Richy set the fire, they would have perished alongside him. Officers were stationed outside every known entrance and exit. Besides, after the story you and your friends spun around this town, do you think anybody would have gone back into its forests?

ME: But it’s possible?

ALAN: I would say these items had been there for some time. But I would say it is likely he ditched them when he fled the mine, yes.

Another sob tears through my throat. Jake is alive. I don’t know quite what that means for us as of now, but I know it’s the best news I’ve heard since Hannah was found. Jake is alive. He’s out there somewhere. And even if it’s been three months, and even if I’m a little bit mad at him right now, I know that if he was here, I would throw my arms around his neck and hold on to him until someone dragged me off, and even then—I would fight kicking and screaming.

I close out of my messages with Alan and pull up a conversation I haven’t had the heart to look at in quite some time.

ME: Jake’s alive.

LILLY: …

LILLY: Have you spoken to him?

ME: Alan called. He found some of Jake’s things in Duskwood. I don’t know a lot of details. But I know he made it out of the mine.

Lilly types for a long while, but she doesn’t respond. I don’t take it personally. I think it’s probably hard for her to be happy that her brother’s okay while also trying to accept that her sister may never be okay again. Her sister, who had once-upon-a-time been kind-of-sort-of in love with their brother she didn’t know she had. I think that would probably mess with any family’s heads. And on top of all that, you throw in manslaughter and a kidnapping. I wouldn’t wish anybody, not even my worst enemy, to have had to go through what the Donforts had.

When it becomes adamant that Lilly isn’t going to respond, I start scrolling through messages with the rest of the group in Duskwood. I click on Jessy. I’m here if you need me. That had been the last thing I sent to her, a couple of days after Richy’s death. She hadn’t responded. I click out of Jessy’s contact and click on Thomas’ instead. Thank you for everything. That had been his last message to me after we found Hannah. I’d liked it. I hadn’t expected at the time it would be the last thing we’d ever say to each other. I click out of Thomas’ and click on Richy. So, you want to turn yourself in? I’d asked. That was before he called me. Before he lit a match and burned himself and the mine to the ground. Some people would call that heroic. I mostly call him a coward.

I click on Jake’s name. It’s been a while since I read messages between the two of us. Maybe before I had accepted—thought—he was dead. In that twenty-five-day period when I’d hoped with all I’d had that he would come back. I love you. That was the last message he sent me. I’d responded with I love you too, Jake. Then, four days later: Are you okay? A week later: Jake, please, you’re starting to scare me. I know you said you would contact when you could, but it’s been a week. After twenty-five days, when I had finally accepted our fate, I’d sent one final message: I hope you know that I love you, and I will always care about you, but I think it’s time for me to move on. I’m so sorry that I sent you into the mine. It should have been me. And I will probably feel the guilt from that for the rest of my life. Thank you for everything. Take care of yourself, wherever you are.

After that, I had closed out of our messages and hadn’t looked back. Partly because I couldn’t bear the pain of it. It felt like I had given up on him. I hadn’t—if I had thought for a second that he was alive, if I knew then what I know now, I would have never sent that message. But holding out hope for somebody who I thought was a ghost at the time? That was slowly killing me.

It’s only then that I notice the screen flickering. Much like the way it used to whenever Jake would hack into my phone. I don’t think he’s much in the mood to be hacking right now, but somehow, I know it’s him. When had he done this? Recently? If I had opened our messages, would I have seen this ten—twenty—even fifty days ago? It hadn’t looked like this the last time I texted him. Did he see my last message about needing to move on? Was that why he hadn’t reached out to tell me that he was okay? Because he thought I was moving on happily without him?

No, my brain supplies. He wouldn’t. He would reach out anyway, because he knows how much the thought of him not being okay would have destroyed you.

The screen flickers once more and then a message pops up, bright and blue-tinted and clear as day on my phone.

[MC]

I WILL FIND YOU

And the world around me shifts.

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

Maybe it sounds crazy, considering I’ve never seen his face before, but I always thought that if I’d ran into Jake one day, maybe on the street or at one of those motels he stayed at or maybe even in Duskwood, surrounded by all our friends, I would know it was him. I would, because it’s him, and it’s me, and we’re the only two people who understand each other quite the way we do.

I still believe that.

I believe it when I book my flight to Duskwood (or rather, twenty miles outside of town, which is the closest airport). I believe it when I board the airplane and find a seat next to a mother with her screaming child and when I shoot off a quick text to Eric to let him know I’ll be MIA for the next few hours, but to message me if he needs anything—and I think about how much easier this case would probably be to solve if we had Jake.

Maybe it would have been harder to find Hannah without me, but I know damn well they would’ve never found her without Jake.

Dan picks me up from the airport. I haven’t told the others yet. Something about it felt off—like I shouldn’t message them and say hey, I know we haven’t spoken in a while, but I’m booking a flight to look into why my maybe-slash-not-really boyfriend left his belongings in a forest we really wish we could forget about, and by the way, can I crash at your place?

It’s quiet on the car ride back into town. I’m looking through my messages from Eric and the group from Redlog Pines and thinking about how I’m Duskwood with this group and I want so badly to laugh because it’s ironic, but Dan wouldn’t understand. He might just call me crazy. Better yet, he would ask how I manage to get myself into these situations, and really, I don’t have an answer for him.

“How have you been?” I ask, just to break the tension, as Charlie, in my messages, tries to persuade his friends to head back into that creepy cave in the middle of the forest. He’s going to get someone killed, I think.

Dan looks over at me. “Are you still with Hackerman?”

My chest squeezes. “His name is Jake, Dan. And we were never really together.”

“Hm.” He nods like he doesn’t quite believe me. “You already know mostly everything that’s been happening here. Thomas and Hannah called it quits. They say it was some mutual decision, but it’s hard to find them in the same room together. Jessy hasn’t been out with us since. I think we remind her too much of Richy. The group’s all changed.”

“And you?” I ask.

He gives me a cheshire-like grin that doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “I’m always the same.”

We make it to Duskwood just as the sun’s going down. Much too late for me to try and trek through the forest and retrace the steps Jake might have taken that night. Not that I think it would help give me any clues as to where he might have gone, but mostly because I wonder if it will make me feel closer to him. We’ve never been in the same place before, and even if he’s not there now—he once was.

“Can you drop me at the police station?”

Dan blinks. “The police station.”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“We answered their questions for weeks, [MC]. I don’t think anything you have to tell them at this point is going to help. The investigation’s closed. Everybody knows Richy did it. He died with the fire in the mine. Everybody’s trying to move on from that.” He works his jaw. “Did you come here to open old wounds after all this time?”

I try not to show the hurt look on my face. “This isn’t about Richy. Look, Alan called me. He asked if I could look at some things. I figured it was better for me to do it in person. That’s it. Nothing to do with Richy. Nothing to do with Jessy. Nothing to do with you.”

He sighs, and I’m not entirely sure he’s going to abide by my wishes until we pull in front of a tiny building—tinier than most—that says Duskwood Police on the sign. Duskwood must not have that much crime. Well, not until this, I suppose.

“Thank you.” I tell him as I reach over to undo my seatbelt and climb out of the car. “This is a nice ride, by the way.”

He raises a hand in some mock-salute. “Need me to pick you up?”

“Nah.” I shake my head. “Think I’ll explore the town for a little bit.”

“Suit yourself.” He shrugs and then he’s off.

I square my shoulders and take a deep breath before opening the door to the police station. It wasn’t like Alan asked me to come down here. He hadn’t. Even during the investigation into Richy’s death and Hannah’s kidnapping, when he questioned us, he never asked me to come to Duskwood. We’d done way too many video calls and phone calls and at one point, I had asked if he thought it would be easier for me to come to Duskwood, to which he responded back, are you ready for that?

No, I hadn’t been. I’m not even so sure I was now. But knowing that Jake was alive, that here was the last place was, I had to try.

“Can I help you?” The woman at the front desk asks.

I clear my throat. “I was wondering if I could speak to Alan Bloomgate. I’m one of—I was involved in the Hannah Donfort case. My name is [MC].”

Her eyes widen. “Give me a moment.” She stands and heads to some back office—which looks to me more like a closet—and then returns with a clipped smile. “He’ll be right out.”

Apparently, she isn’t lying, because not two minutes later, Alan is stepping out from the same door and staring me down. I hold his gaze and hope it says that I’m not here to argue. I will tell him my truth, but only my truth, not Hannah’s, not Jake’s, not anybody else’s.

“I was wondering when I would see you.” He says.

I shrug one shoulder. “Isn’t a few months later better than never?”

“Let’s go into my office.” He says, and leads me around the desk and back into the closet space he had come out of. He sits behind the desk and motions for me to take a seat opposite him. “I’m just going to guess you’re not here to talk about Miss Donfort.”

“I want to see them.” I tell him. “His things. I want to see them for myself. And whatever you want from me in return, I’ll give to you.”

“You’re playing a dangerous game here, [MC].”

“He isn’t a game to me.” I snap back and then sit back and try to relax. “I appreciate that you called me. It’s—I helped you find Hannah. I would do it again. Even with knowing the things that we do now, I would do it all again. That’s how much that group means to me. That’s how much he means to me. I’m not asking you to break any rules or to lie for him or to—to let him hide in your basement for the next five years. I’m just asking you to show me what you found.”

He stares me down for a moment. Then, he sighs, says “wait here for a minute” and disappears to another room. When he comes back, it’s with an evidence bag in his hand filled with the objects I saw on his bodycam footage. My breath hitches in my throat.

“I can’t let you touch them.” He says as he lays them in front of me.

I stare into the eyes of the mask. “Did you tell anybody that he’s alive?”

“I don’t know that he’s alive,” is all the answer he gives, which is an answer to my question. I slide my gaze down to the black hoodie, to the dirtied sleeves and muddy hood, and think about the fact that Jake wore this. I’m so close to him.

And yet I’ve never been further away from him.

“Thank you.” I tell him. “For—for this. And for listening to me about Hannah. If you hadn’t, I—I don’t know what would have happened. How much longer he would have gone on for. If he would have ever stopped.”

Alan’s silent for a minute. Then, he clears his throat. “You know, it was strange to me. Both Hannah and yourself swore to me that neither of you knew the other.”

“I don’t.” I swear.

It was one of the (albeit many) things that didn’t make sense to me. How Hannah got a hold of my number. How she sent it to Thomas. She’d told Alan she hadn’t really remembered texting him my number at all.

“I believe you.” He reassures. “I just think it’s strange. One mistake, if you can call it that, and you throw yourself into a missing persons case to help a stranger.”

“They’re not strangers.” Even though Hannah is kind of still a stranger.

“But they were.” Alan reasons. “You had no reason to say yes to helping Thomas. I doubt anybody would have held it against you if you turned the other way. But you decided to follow this until the end. To make sure they found Hannah. And you care about them. Maybe that’s why I find that I’m more lenient with you than maybe I should be. Why you’re sitting across from me right now calling the shots. Why I’m not asking you about the hacker.”

“I wouldn’t tell you if you did.” I look him in the eye so he knows I’m telling the truth.

He returns my gaze. “Maybe that’s the other reason.”

“Hm.” I acknowledge before I turn my gaze away—from him, from the objects that I know belong to Jake and it takes everything in me not to snatch them up and run. “Well. Thank you for allowing me to steal some of your time. For letting me—” I cut myself off before I say something that makes me break down in a fit of tears in front of him. “—just thank you.”

Leaving the station is easier than coming in. I’m still not any closer to knowing where Jake is than I was when I arrived here, but there’s a comfort in knowing he walked these streets. I wonder what he would think if he knew I was here. He hadn’t wanted me to come to Duskwood when everything was happening…but now that it was over, would he be happy that I was here? That I had come to Duskwood to piece together where he might have gone? Would he track my location and come to find me and…or was I grasping at straws?

It felt like I had just gotten him back. Not really, not entirely…but knowing that he was alive, that he was out there somewhere, maybe thinking of me and looking for ways to come back, to live the life we talked about when he asked me if I was sure…that was worth it. The thought that we could maybe someday have that—even if it was a twenty percent chance.

I check my phone again to see a new message from Ash. She’s asking me if I’ve heard from Charlie in the last few hours. Apparently, he’s AWOL, and I want to help, really, but…it doesn’t really feel like that’s where I am at the moment. Not just physically—obviously—but mentally. We got lucky with Hannah. And that was really only because we had Jake. Adam didn’t have a Jake. Or…maybe he did and I just hadn’t met him yet. But I already had a Jake and I didn’t want another one.

Maybe—if I found him, I could convince him to help. That was a big maybe. Not because I thought Jake would say no. He would say yes to anything I asked of him. The maybe was whether or not I could find him. More likely, the maybe was whether or not he would find me.

Three months ago, I would have been able to come to Duskwood and have no shortage of things I wanted to do and people I wanted to see. Now, as I stand outside Duskwood’s police station, I feel nothing but loneliness. Nobody knows I’m here. I could pass Thomas on the street and he wouldn’t even know it. I could run into Jessy at the library and she would walk by me without even a second thought. Why would they? I hadn’t told them I was here.

So, with nothing left to do, I walked. Toward the town center. Toward the library that Jessy showed me on our walk through Duskwood. Toward the Rainbow Café where I knew that Cleo and Hannah had spent a lot of their time. Toward the Black Swan. Toward—

Ah, what the hell.

I had nothing better to do and The Aurora seemed like a great place to drown my sorrows. To think about my next steps. To figure out—now that I was in Duskwood—what I planned to do. The thing about Jake being so secretive (and on the run) was that I couldn’t retrace his steps. I wasn’t able to ask if anyone had seen him. One, because he would make sure nobody had. And two, because three months was a long time to forget somebody’s face if you didn’t know who you were looking for.

I pull open the door to the bar and step inside. Immediately, I’m hit with the stench of whiskey and a handful of chatter. Duskwood’s a small town. And The Aurora definitely proves it. The bartenders move melodically around each other, serving patrons on the other side of the bar. If you walk down further, there’s a handful of tables.

And dead in the center is a table with my friends. Or, some of them. Dan and Cleo and Lilly. Could I still call them my friends? Ex-friends, maybe? Acquaintances? I didn’t know what they were. Or how to address them. It wasn’t like we had gotten into a fight. We didn’t stop talking for any reason other than that we did. We stopped talking.

I make a beeline for the bar to avoid a confrontation and plant myself on one of the stools. One of the bartenders—a girl cute with bleach blonde hair and brown Bambi eyes—asks what I want and I channel my inner Dan to order a whiskey—neat.

Looking over my shoulder, I focus on the table of them. On Lilly, who’s smiling at something Cleo said. On Dan, who’s the only one of them who actually knows I’m here. But even he’s focused on the conversation they’re having. It’s strange—to see Dan a part of something I’m not sure he would have been before. It’s nice.

“[MC]?”

I turn my head away from the table of my friends and focus my attention across the bar on someone I should’ve expected to see. “Phil.”

“I thought I recognized your voice from when we talked.” He smiles. “I wasn’t sure, but I saw you staring longingly at them—” He nods towards Dan and Cleo and Lilly. “—and I knew. What brings you around here? I expected you to show up maybe a few months ago, but by now, I thought you’d moved on without us.”

I was tired of the words move on. Like I’d had a choice. Like the people from this town might open their arms and welcome me back into their lives. So I’d been part of the group who’d saved Hannah Donfort. So had a lot of people. It didn’t make me special and everyone here knew it.

I offer him a smile in return. “I’m looking for somebody.”

“Anybody I know?” He asks.

I shake my head. “Nah. At least nobody you would recognize.” I pause. “How’s Jessy?”

“She’s—Jessy.” He answers, like that is an answer. “I don’t know if she’ll ever really be okay with the way things happened with Richy. I wouldn’t expect her to. Obviously. But I don’t know. I think I just thought she would have gone back to her normal life by now. And then I remember that most of her life revolved around him. He was her best friend. She worked for him. And I’m trying to be patient about that. But—” He shakes his head. “Maybe you should talk to her.”

“She doesn’t know I’m in town.”

“Okay.” He hums. “So, you’re not in town for my sister. And you’re not in town for your group of friends because they’re over there and you look like you’d rather be anywhere else. There’s always Hannah, but I don’t think you knew her that well. Or at all. Would I be right to assume this is about a certain hacker who helped to find Hannah?”

“He didn’t help find Hannah.” I defend. “He was the entire reason we found Hannah. I would have never been able to do it on my own. Even with the others’ help. He’s the only reason we found out about—” I pause before I say something I maybe shouldn’t. “It doesn’t matter. He’s the only reason we found her. Everything I did was just dumb luck.”

“That wasn’t what the news said.” A voice cuts in and I turn my attention from Phil to focus on the stranger that slides into the seat beside me. Not too close—a couple inches away. I don’t recognize him. I don’t know him. But I don’t know every person in Duskwood. Maybe a total of like nine or ten. “I’m sorry to interrupt. But I heard you had a lot to do with finding Hannah Donfort. The news said you were some kind of hero.”

I offer him a tight smile. “That’s nice of them. But…if they knew my—friend—knew what he did to find her, I don’t think I would be as much of a hero as everybody says.”

“That’s noble.” He says, eyes meeting mine, and it strikes me at once how handsome he is. He has dark hair. Bright green eyes. Focus, [MC]. I scold. You have a…a someone.

My phone buzzes.

ERIC SENT A PHOTO.

ERIC: What do you make of this?

I sigh and click on the photo. It’s of—some object. Much like the one that was addressed to me on the envelope in Adam’s glove compartment. The image is a bit different—but I don’t know enough about what it means to have an answer as to why.

ME: Was this one addressed to me?

ERIC: Nope. Ash.

“Are you okay?” Phil asks.

I clear my throat. “I’m a popular person—apparently.” A thought strikes. “Have you ever heard of a place called Redlog Pines?”

Phil frowns. “No.”

I turn to look at the stranger. “You?”

“Redlog Pines is a small town about two hundred miles north of Duskwood.” He answers. “Known for their wooded forests, much like Duskwood.”

“Why are you looking into a place with forests as creepy as ours?” Phil asks, incredulously. “Didn’t you get enough of that with Hannah’s case?”

“Yeah.” I sigh. “You would think.”

“Hey, [MC]!”

I wince at the sound of Dan’s voice. Shooting Phil a look that screams please help me to which he shakes his head amusedly, I turn and plaster on a fake smile as I take in the shocked looks on Cleo and Lilly’s faces. I should have known better than to come to The Aurora and talk to Phil when the three of them were having a conversation across the room. I should have known they would sooner or later see me. I just hoped it was later.

“Hey.” I hop off my stool and make my way across the bar to them. “It’s, uh, fancy seeing the three of you here.”

“What are you doing here?” Cleo asks.

“I haven’t really figured that out.” My eyes meet Lilly’s. “It sounds crazy to say it out loud. But I was hoping that—I’m not sure if Lilly told you—”

“That Jake’s alive.” Cleo nods. “None of us ever really thought he wasn’t.”

I don’t think she means it as a dig—but it still feels like one. Like she’s saying you gave up on him you gave up on him you gave up on him even though she’s not and she didn’t really know him and the only person I can talk to at this table who even might understand is Lilly and even—Jake didn’t confide in her the way he did me.

“Right.” I acknowledge. “So I thought that maybe if I came here, I could trace his steps from when he was here and—I haven’t really thought that far ahead. It’s not like I thought he left me any clues in the forest or anything like that. I don’t think he expected me to be here. He hadn’t wanted me to be the last time we talked. But that was before everything happened.”

Lilly’s eyes track behind me. “Does Jake still have Nymos on your phone?”

“Uh.” I furrow my brows. “I think so. I hadn’t heard from him in a while, but I went back and read through our messages after I talked to Alan and…my phone glitched, like it used to when Jake had hacked it. And then this message appeared on my screen.”

“And by chance, can Nymos track your location?”

“What—” I shake my head. “Maybe. I don’t think I ever really asked him. It didn’t seem necessary at the time.”

“Uh huh.” She focuses on me once more. “Let’s say, for one minute, that Jake has access to Nymos who has access to your location.”

Cleo must catch onto something I’m not sure of. “Jake didn’t want you here.”

“Uh, thank you?”

“You know that’s not what I mean.” She waves me off. “He didn’t want you in Duskwood. He had been adamant about that when we were talking about the mine. That’s why he went. If you showed up in Duskwood—”

“Nymos would have alerted him.” Dan finishes.

“Okay…” I’m not entirely sure I’m on the same page as them. “So—you think that Jake found out when I came to Duskwood.”

“Correct.” Lilly beams like she just solved life’s greatest mystery.

“And you think he would—come find me?”

She smiles sympathetically at me—like I’m the world’s biggest idiot for not realizing what she has been trying to say sooner. “I think he already has.”

“You think Jake’s in Duskwood.” I deadpan.

“[MC].” Cleo grabs my shoulders and turns me around. “We think he’s in this bar.”

Stranger, as I had nicknamed him—AKA the guy sitting beside me at the bar, with Phil and Redlog Pines (which he probably only knew about because of me) and the whole Hannah being kidnapped and not taking any of the credit thing—was looking back at me. So was Phil. Like they thought I was the crazy one. Like it would’ve been so hard for him to look and me and say it’s me or anything that might have clued me into the fact that—

“Jake?” I whisper, because I’ve lost quite a bit of sleep over the past couple of months and I’m not one hundred percent sure what—or who—I’m seeing is real. “Are you here?”

He tilts his head and smiles at me. Actually smiles. A bit shyly, like it’s something he’s not used to doing, but maybe like it’s something he could get used to. And I think about how terrible I probably look right now because I’m not wearing makeup and my hair is tousled from constantly pulling at it and my clothes are wrinkled from the plane and the police station and I look like a mess. But our relationship has never been about looks. Clearly. I didn’t even know the person I’d been talking to until Lilly and Cleo and even Dan pointed out the obvious.

“If I—” I close my eyes and open them again. Nope. Still there. “I need you to still be there by the time I reach you because it’s been a—” I sniffle. “—it’s been a rough few months and I don’t think I could handle you disappearing again.”

He stands from the stool he was sitting on and shuffles his feet. Like he’s not quite sure where he’s supposed to stand. If he thinks about moving, I’ll tackle him onto the floor of The Aurora and then apologize to Phil later. It feels like everything I wanted is right here in front of me. And I’m scared to death that it’s not real.

“What’s one thing you would take with you if you were stranded on an island?”

His smile stretches. “My computer.”

And that—that’s what breaks me. I think I might start blubbering like an idiot but I don’t remember the time it takes for me to cross the measly twenty feet between us. All I remember is grabbing his black hoodie—because of course—and dragging him to me. I don’t kiss him, despite how much I want to, because I don’t want our first kiss to be tainted with my snot and tears. Instead, I bury my face in his collarbone and wrap my arms around his neck and hold on for dear life.

Because I can. Because he isn’t dead.

“Y—You’re here.” I pull back and cup his face with my hands. “How are you here?”

“You came to Duskwood.” He responds, and then—hesitantly—he presses his lips to my forehead in a kiss. “Alan called you.”

“He found your things in the forest.” I whisper back. “He said they’d been there a while. The police hadn’t searched the forest because they assume you died in the mine.”

“They aren’t looking for me here.” He confirms. “I didn’t expect it to take so long for them to find my belongings, but I anticipated that you would find out. At the time, it wasn’t safe for me to reach out and contact you. They kept on my trail for a while before they assumed I died in the mine with Richy.”

“Why didn’t you contact me then?” I ask. “Is it because of what I last messaged you? I didn’t mean it—I swear, I thought you were dead. If I had known you were alive, I would have waited, however long it took. I wasn’t trying to give up on you.”

“Hey.” He places both hands on either side of my face. “I know. I know that, [MC]. That was never why I didn’t reach out to you. I know you said you wanted this life with me. But I didn’t want that for you. But I was selfish. I couldn’t let you go. So I was trying to find a way to make both of those things true. But I was always coming back to you.”

“And did you?”

“Come back to you?” He asks.

I sniffle. “Find a way to make both of those things true.”

“Not entirely.” He admits. “Nymos alerted me you had boarded a plane headed in the direction of Duskwood and I—” He shook his head. “I knew I would find you here.”

“You could have found me sooner.”

He lets go of my face and he feels like he takes my skin with him. “It wasn’t that easy.”

“It could have been.” I demand.

I’m angry again. Now that I know he’s alive and okay and that he could have found me, I’m angry that he didn’t. I told him I would choose that life with him. Over and over and over. He didn’t need to make the decision for me. He didn’t need to try and protect me. And yes, maybe the fact that he did makes my heart flutter a tiny little bit, but that’s besides the point.

“I told you before you left me.” I tell him and I’m aware it sounds like we’ve been in a relationship for five years and I’m aware that everybody in here is watching and listening in on our conversation and they probably all know we’re who we are, two people involved in helping to find the kidnapped Hannah Donfort, and maybe that’s all we’ll ever be in this town. But I would rather be the girl who found Hannah Donfort in Duskwood with him than be me anywhere else. “You told me you would let me go with you.”

“That was before I told you I loved you.”

My heart skips a beat. It screams I love you I love you I love you back, but I say— “What does that have to do with anything?”

He looks somewhat amused. Like he knows I would never hold it against him. It’s clear to both of us that I wouldn’t because even though I’m glaring up at him with my furrowed eyebrows and my lips pouted, I’m still pressed tightly against him. His hands—even though they’ve moved from my face—are now resting on my hips. Pulling my tighter to him. There’s no space in between us. If it was up to me, I’m pretty sure there never would be again.

“[MC].” He says, and oh god I wish he would say my name every day for the rest of his life. “Have I—in the short time we have known each other—ever struck you as the type of person who says I love you? But with you…” His words are a whisper against my lips. “It’s easy to fall back into old emotions with you.”

“I want to be angry with you.” I tell him.

He shakes his head. “No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t.” I agree. “But I might be if you don’t kiss me.”

He brought one finger underneath my chin and tilted it up until our lips were separated by a fraction of an inch. My eyelids fluttered. I didn’t care that everyone in here was about to see just how much Jake meant to be. I didn’t care because I had waited too long for this. And then—just as I’m leaning toward him to press our lips together, he whispers— “[MC]?”

“Hm.” I acknowledge.

“Who’s Eric?”

My eyelids crack open and I shove at his chest. “That’s what you’re worried about right now? Here I am, in front of you, covered in snot and tears and who-knows-what-else because you’re here right now, and you’re worried about some guy I don’t even know?”

“Who’s Eric?” He repeats.

“Ugh.” I run my hands through my hair and take a step back. “I don’t know. He’s the other side of Thomas or whatever you want to call him. If we lived in a different town.” I glare back at him and try not to admit that I think his jealous side is a little cute. “He messaged me. Thought I picked up his friend from some parking lot and I didn’t, but his friend sent him my number, and it was Hannah all over again. I’m trying to help them.”

“This Adam has been sending you a lot of videos.”

“You know I hate when you hack my phone.” I complain, even though I really don’t. Even though I had prayed for him to help me with this case. “I really don’t know Adam. Like—even less than I know Eric.

“But you know Eric.”

“For like a week.” I reassure. “He added me to this group chat with him and like three other friends of his. They’re desperate to find Adam who has apparently dropped off the face of the earth and I don’t know what to do. I had you with Hannah’s case. And you knew her. And they—” I look over my shoulder at Cleo and Dan and Lilly, who are pretending like they’re not listening in even though I know and Jake knows they are. “—they knew her. And obviously Adam’s friends must know him but I don’t and you don’t and there is no Jake in Redlog Pines.”

“I don’t trust him.” He shakes his head. “Any of them.”

I laugh. “Jake, you didn’t trust half the people in this bar when we first started talking.” I look over at Phil and then Dan. “It doesn’t mean they committed a crime. If I had backed off when you asked me to help you find Hannah, we may never have.”

“I thought that was all thanks to me.” He sounds smug, like that little smiley face he loved to annoy me with (AKA make me fall in love with him). “Did he flirt with you?”

“No.” I deadpan. “I think he was focused on his missing friend.”

“I was focused on my missing sister.” He shoots back.

I close my mouth. Alright. He has a point. But I wasn’t flirting with Eric. He was focused on finding Adam and I was focused on mourning—and then finding—Jake. Maybe it felt like Eric and I were two sides of the same coin. Maybe that’s why I agreed to help him. Because I didn’t want to happen to him what I thought had happened to Jake—to me.

“You’re being ridiculous.” I say instead. “How do you think I could ever entertain the idea of being with somebody else when for the past three months—more than that if you count the time we have actually had together—I’ve been focused on you? On discussing Hannah with you and then talking to you about anything and everything and then worrying about you and then hating you a little for convincing me you should me the one to go into the mine and then mourning you when it was hard to even think about you and then finding you?”

His eyes are wide. I think I’ve rendered him speechless. Which—serves him right. I know he’s not somebody who serves their feelings up on a silver platter. I know that. Obviously, I knew that from the first time I spoke to him. Back when he was nothing more than ??? and I was almost convinced that Dan was right and he was the Man Without A Face—a thought that I now hate with everything in me. But I need him to trust me. Jealousy streak and FBI and the missing persons cases aside, he needs to trust me.

“Trust me.” I cup the sides of his face again. “He’s nothing like you.”

He swallows. “Some people might consider that to be a perk.”

“I don’t.” I say.

And then I’m kissing him and it feels like coming home.

[darkeralmond]

cam cameron and the readers first time?

THANK YOU FOR THE REQUEST I LOVE U BAE!!

First Time

Cam Cameron x fem! Reader

synopsis: after your date with cam, things escalate when he decides to stay with you at your house

warnings: 18+, smut, first time sex, fingering

word count: 1.3k

a/n: I LOVE CAM SO MUCH!! i’m gonna need AE to come out with team cam shirts ASAP!! also spoiler alert for season 2 episode 4 BUT HAVE U SEEN JEREMIAH AND BELLY OH MY GOD THE HAND HOLDING CAUSED ME TO SCREAMMMM. TEAM JEREMIAH!! mark smut coming out soon!! (i hope)

masterlist | request info

“I can’t believe you beat me in ski ball,” you giggled as you looked over at Cam. “I’m like the reigning champion.”

He shrugged. “Turns out working at an arcade does come in hand sometimes.” You cracked a smile before letting out a snicker.

You were a debutante last year which is where you met Cameron. Both your guys' moms worked at the country club that hosted the ball. You would run into him often because of this. After a while, you developed a little crush on him and had asked him to be your escort since you didn’t have one.

It wasn’t until this year you actually decided to pursue something with him. You finally asked him out on a date and he picked the location, which was the arcade he worked at since he got a discount.

Cam had just dropped you off at your house and refused to let you walk up to your front door alone. He was truly a gentleman who was adorable and he knew it.

You grabbed your key out of your pocket and unlocked the door. “Can I come in and say hi to your mom?” he asked, peeking his head through the open door.

You giggled and looked back at him again. “No, my parents aren’t home.”

“Oh.” He then looked down at his phone, presumably checking the time before tucking it back into his pocket. “You sure you don’t want to come back to my house? I don’t want you to be here alone.”

You shook your head. “No, my dad wouldn’t like me going over to a boy’s house at night.” He nodded his head and flashed a quick smile, agreeing with you. “But you can stay here and keep me company!”

You didn’t even think twice about the offer, you just said it. His eyebrows raised slightly as his cheeks dusted a red tint. “Okay,” he gushed.

You let him into the house before shutting the door behind you two and locking the door. You watched as he admired the interior of the house, his mouth slightly hung open. “What?” you laughed.

“Nothing!” he said as he looked back at you. “Your house just looks like a beach house.”

“Well it is on the beach.” This won a chuckle out of him as he continued looking around. “You want a tour?” you asked as you walked up to him.

“Sure!” he answered as he nodded his head.

You grabbed his hand and led him around the entire downstairs. According to him, his favorite room was the living room due to the fireplace. You then led him upstairs and showed him every other room before leading him to your own room.

You opened the door and led him in. “Here’s my room. Sorry, it’s a little messy.” There was a t-shirt and a pair of socks lying on your unmade bed. You quickly took those off and threw them in your laundry basket.

At least your room smelled good because of the essential oils you had just purchased. “I like the vines on the wall,” he commented as he pointed at them.

You giggled, “Put them up myself.” You then plopped down on the bed and looked at him as he took in every corner of your room. “You wanna watch something? I can pull something up on my Mac.”

He nodded his head and sat down on the bed next to you.

…

You weren’t sure how it happened, but one thing led to another and now you were on top of him making out. You pulled away and looked down at him as his chest rose and fell with his heavy breaths.

“Have you done this before?” he asked. His eyes reminded you of a puppy. There was so much innocence in them and his lashes gave his eyes a more doe look.

You were tempted to lie and said you had, but staring into his eyes just poured the truth out of you. “Uh… no,” you answered. “Have you?”

“Nuh uh,” he said. You licked your lips and looked off to the side. “Do you… uh… want to?”

You looked back at him and hesitantly nodded your head. You could hear the beating of your heart in your ear, the silence between you two was deafening.

“Okay,” he breathed out. His hand met the side of your face before tucking loose strands of your hair behind your ear.

He smiled at you and gently leaned forward to capture your lips in his once more. You sighed against his lips, his touch sending chills down your spine.

Your hands slid up his shirt causing a groan to escape from his lips. He kissed you harder and deeper this time. You could feel his tongue poking at your bottom lip, hoping to meet yours. You let him do so, his tongue danced with his.

You felt his hands run up your shirt, his hands felt cold against your heated skin. It made you shiver a bit but you enjoyed every second of it.

You pulled away again and let him take off your shirt. He stared at your topless body, drooling over your figure.

You gasped softly, your breath hitching when his fingers brushed across your breasts. Your hips jolted as your nipples hardened beneath your bra.

“Fuck,” you whispered.

He noticed your reaction and stopped what he was doing. “Is this okay?” he asked. You nodded your head, leading him to cup your breasts again.

Him touching you felt nice, but you wanted to do more than that. You were just too nervous to ask. You didn’t want to obviously have full on sex, but you at least wanted him to do more.

Your face must’ve given that away because he asked, “What do you want me to do?”

“Uh,” you thought about it for a minute. “Can you… uh…” Your face turned bright red as embarrassment washed over you. “Finger me?”

His cheeks flushed crimson and his eyes widened. He pulled his finger away as he nodded. “Yeah,” he answered. You hopped off of him and laid down on the bed next to him.

His gaze softened and you gave him an encouraging grin. He swallowed hard before he slid his hand down your shorts.

Your breaths hitched as your eyes fluttered close. His fingers moved in a circular motion around your clit. You opened your eyes as you held back any sounds that may escape your lips.

He pulled you back into a kiss, it tasted like vanilla ice cream and mint toothpaste. He moved a little faster, rubbing your clit with his ring and middle fingers until you let a moan slip in his mouth.

He then inserted his fingers inside you, your wetness made it easier for him. Your back arched as you let out a louder moan.

His kisses became more frantic, almost desperate. Every time he moved his fingers or thrust into your depths you would squirm. A small whine left your mouth as your hips bucked upwards.

You finally pulled away since you needed to catch your breath. His fingers sent a wave of pleasure through you. “Cam,” you whimpered. His wet fingers pulled out of you and continued to massage your clit until you finally came undone.

Your whole body felt drowsy but still buzzing with excitement. When your orgasm had passed and your breathing returned to normal you rolled onto your side. “Do you want to do it again?” you asked him with a grin.

He nodded and crawled back on top of you, but before anything could escalate, the sound of jingling keys and the front door opened echoed through the house

“Fuck,” you mumbled. “My parents.” You rolled your eyes.

He chuckled, “Now I can say hi to your mom.” You rolled your eyes and pushed him off you.