#i feel like i had more but i can't remember rn lmao

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

I know your requests are closed so feel free to ignore this but if I don’t type it somewhere I WILL forget it lol. I’ve been re-binge reading your works and just thought of this…

Civilian reader kills someone out of self defense for the first time. And it’s the whole staring at her bloody shaking hands panic attack what have I done fiasco. And her boyfriend or husband helping her through it and dealing with it all (I can see it with Ghost or Price idk)

But yeah feel free to ignore, I know your requests are closed rn

Love your work! You are so talented!

This has been in my inbox for so long, lmao. Sorry for not answering right away - take a few paragraphs w. soft, worried, Simon in compensation.

Warnings for gore, death, blood, panic attack, etc. F!Reader.

Your body shakes violently, blood dripping down like crimson tears from your hands. The overwhelming sense of dread sits with bullet fragment aggression in the delicate make-up of your psyche.

You weren't meant for this.

Not the blood or the terror. Certainly not the body laying out in the hallway.

"Oh, fuck," you gasp out, shuddering as your throat swells in on itself. Your form had slipped down the wall just across from the door not minutes prior, legs weak and heart pounding like a war call. Now all you can do is stare into the vacant eyes of some random burglar—at the knife you'd stuck in his chest when he'd backed you into Simon's office.

It was a miracle that you remembered where your husband's combat blade had been, seen on some off chance when you'd been cleaning. He tries to keep this all separate, you know.

The blood just keeps slipping out of the corpse. It's a pool now, and you don't know how long you'd been huddled like this until the sounds of rampaging feet and hurried yells of your name bounce off your eardrums.

All you can see is the uncleanable amount of red.

Simon had only gone out to the corner store half an hour ago, getting a quick supper so you both could sit in each other's company. You'd been hesitant to watch him leave so soon after getting home, but he'd sworn he'd only be a few minutes.

None of you had thought too much about the local break-ins. After all, Simon was...well, Simon. And he was home.

S-Simon was home.

There's a loud, barked, curse when the body is discovered, stomping feet that make the entire house shake like it was the epicenter of an earthquake. Your husband's form slashes the front of your vision as he kneels in the blood on the floor. Frantic brown eyes behind his balaclava snap from place to place; taking in the familiar handle and blade in nanoseconds. In his left hand he clutches a pistol, white-knuckled.

But you can't even say anything, because you're as still as stone—breathing in concrete as the gravel shreds your vocal cords and trachea. Reality slips in quick streaks of color as Simon's face flashes into the open doorway.

He sees your wide eyes with a mirroring of his own, bone-deep fear striking in his head with a heated pulse.

"Love!" Simon's rushing to you. Your body can't help but startle back, spine shoving into the wall; fingers still saturated and stained.

Inside your chest, your lungs jerk in a strained whimper.

Your husband freezes, one foot ahead with his widened legs as he fights his mind to rush to you and take you into his arms. Simon puts the gun away with little thought to look for more assailants—all that matters is you.

And you looked terrified.

"Hey," hands reach up to this balaclava, slipping the fabric off as he kneels down slowly to one leg. He tosses it to the floor and you try to focus on the strength of his jaw; those scars and pale hairs as your eyes well with tears. A delicate sob builds. "Hey, now. It's just me, alright?"

Simon speaks softly, hands splayed out and a few feet from you. He wishes to hold you tightly but refrains even as his chest tightens at not being able to calm you. The man can't stand that look on your face.

Your fingers curl into shivering fists, "Simon," you cry, finally able to get a solid word out even if it sounds slurred and ragged.

It's all the permission your husband needs.

Simon jerks forward and takes you up into his large arms; the wide encompassing of his palm on the back of your head and the other circling your waist. He angles you away from the body as he glares into it with hatred and vile curses, hissing venom.

When he found the door busted off its hinges, he'd never felt so panicked. Even now as you release a small wail into his neck Simon's heart races, breath coming in short puffs.

"You're alright, Sweetheart. You're alright. I'm right 'ere." You sag into him, grabbing at his leather jacket with nails digging into the brown material. Simon nuzzles his nose into your scalp, muscles tense, "Breathe, it's over."

All you can focus on is Simon's scent, his words. They're the only thing keeping you from oblivion. Eventually, as your husband rocks you back and forth, you can gasp enough air down to push away the black at the sides of your vision.

"That's right," he whispers, gritting his teeth. "Good girl, keep focusin' on me, yeah? You're doin' perfect." Simon doesn't care about the blood or the screams of sirens in the distance.

For the first time in his life, he doesn't care if someone else happens to see his face.

Your husband pulls his head back and shifts his hold to your cheeks, angling your runny and chilled face upwards. He grits his teeth and his eyes bleed with concern; fear.

"...He do anything?" You can only make out half the words as the sounds all huddle together in a ringing tone, but you shake your head in small flinches. Lips find your forehead—heated and firm. Muttered words. "Did so good, Love, I'm so proud of you. S'not your fuckin' fault, you hear?"

Sniffling, you only whimper once more before lips kiss away your tears; thumbs coming up after to swipe at the remnants. Curling over you, this beast—defined so often as ruthless and deadly—shields you from the image of the man you'd killed in self-defense like a demon of smoke and ash. Holding you as if he can make everything else disappear.

After all, you weren't meant for this. You were meant for your soft skin and your loving eyes. Everything else that Simon tied himself to you for—goodness.

"Simon," you gasp again and shove your face into his chest. For the life of you, you can't say anything else. He knows what you mean.

"I'm here," he repeats. Caressing the back of your head, his hand tenses and softens with leaving adreanaline. "Nothin'll happen to you again. It's all gonna be alright."

You believe him.

[b1rds3ye]

hi!! this is my first time doing a request so idk if I'm doing this right haha but uh, I was wondering if you could do like. yknow the masked one you made for the 141 (I can't remember the name rn💔)? I thought of like, a sequel idea. like, what if during combat an enemy manages to take reader's mask, and so reader panics and like, rips the enemies throat out with their teeth (or if that's too violent, just goes basically rabid on them lmao) and how they would react?? if this is too violent or specific dw you don't have to!! anyways, I love your content it's totally awesome ur writing is amazing! have a good day!!

YES I LOVE THE BADASSERY AND THE UNHINGEDNESS!! If I'm your first request I'm so flattered anon pls do feel free to drop by again <333 Also just going to do general rabidness because ngl the throat thing sounds like an infection speedrun and we want our masked reader to stay nice and healthy <333

Word Count: 1.2 (it got a little long WHOOPS)

Warning: Canon typical violence, reader does get a lil sadistic and unhinged <333

Beyond Task Force 141 and Laswell, many - if not all - allied soldiers wondered about what lay under your mask. Obscuring even the eyes, your visage was more unreadable than Ghost's. Larger than life, a soldier among men.

There was a running joke that there was just nothing under your mask, perhaps an eldritch horror of sorts. You let the new recruits entertain the thought, it kept morale up as they conjured more myths of you. They said that no one has seen you without your mask. They were partially right.

It simply was that no one lived to tell the tale.

You were never one for close combat, but fighting terrorists was never smooth sailing. The chaos of battle had all of the 141 separated against the tight streets of Las Almas. How uncanny that you could not see your allies but hear their gunfire. Running out of ammo, you couldn't lament at your misfortune as a shoulder pummeling into your chest, sending you to the ground and the air out of your lungs. Head bashing against the floor you groaned as you furiously clawed up to whatever heavy weight was crushing your body. You were starting to make up the figure of a man hovering over you through the blurry haze of a concussion that filled your sight. The distant static of Price's voice through the radio, probably asking where the hell were you but you had more pressing issues at hand.

Through your struggle and flailing limbs you managed to wring the enemy's pistol off of them with a painful twist of their wrist. And they retaliated tenfold, a large sweaty hand reaching down and pressing your head back against the ground. Your adrenaline makes you writhe further, he was going to suffocate you, or worse, poison you with how fucking awful his hand smelt as the stink of burning gunpowder replaced any of your oxygen. But no, he committed a far worse crime.

A singular pull and the grating tear of fabric as your mask is pulled off of your face.

A heavy moment where your enemy looks down at you and his gaze is not like before. It's clear, it's deep. It is not looking at your facade but at you and you are no longer a soldier. You are merely a human, so fragile, so weak. One that is on the verge of death in a foreign land surrounded by bodies of fallen comrades and enemies alike. One whose mythos is all but lost at the victorious and leering smirk of an enemy as they take in your face.

That simply won't do.

Pulling your knee up to create space between you and the man, you pull out your tactical knife from your waist and drive it into his torso. His smile falls only to land at settle on yours below him, just like his blood that trickles as forbidden crimson down your hands and seeps into your uniform. It's disgustingly warm. He grows heavier as he loses all control over his body and you heave to throw his figure off to the side. You stab him once again for good measure. And then again. And again. Quick, short jabs down with a sharpened blade that cuts through uniform, flesh and bone alike. You did not count how many times you drove your blade down, numbers were too complex when your mind was running faster than any comprehensible speed. There was only one goal. To make sure no one knows what happened.

A harsh grip on the shoulder yanks you back up and you swipe with your armed limb to cut your new assailant's neck but they were onto you. Catching your arm, they pull it up as they hold onto your shoulder once again with a tightening grip that digs into your uniform. But they do nothing more, no matter how much you thrash and kick.

"Wake up, Sergeant," your opponent seethes and that voice makes you still, a buoy that floats across through your rage. Deep and grounding and your captain's.

You nearly stumble back but Price catches you before you crumple to the ground in exhaustion. The adrenaline was escaping your body leaving you with barely the energy to stay upright. Your head lolls back for a second before you bring it to the side to look at your direct superior, the remnants of a concussion making your vision blurry.

"You broken?" he asks.

"Negative, sir,” you respond immediately but he looks a little doubtful, a singular eyebrow raised as he inspects you. Not your body, but your face. The dilated pupils and the taut muscles told more than any wound.

"Can't say the same about your wee friend over there," Soap whistles as he tilts his head to behind you. “Christ, you did a number on him.”

You dare turn to look over your shoulder but Ghost already situated himself in front of the body. But between his feet you could already make out the indistinguishable mass of tattered fabric and discoloured flesh. Fresh blood filled the rivets between the cobblestones, the remnants of the body inching its way closer to you-

"Was it the mask?" Simon brings your attention back to him. You nod dumbly. He only dips his head in what you can only describe as understanding as he folds his arms, fortifying his stance in front of the mess you made. You weren’t going to see your handiwork, he was too kind to ever let you.

John drops his hands down to his sides as Gaz approaches you with your mask.

"Remind me to never get on your bad side," Kyle offers you a sympathetic smile.

"Learnt that the first day I saw 'em on duty," Johnny retorts and you instinctively smile as you take your mask from Kyle. The hardened plaster of your mask had cracked, the fabric that hugged your neck had become torn but it'll do for the remainder of the mission. Slipping the mask back on, Simon offers a nod of approval while Johnny tugged at the fabric for a few finishing touches.

Ultimately the mission was successful. The task force returns to base and although none of the boys mentioned the carnage you left, there are still whispers of it on base. You had hurried to debrief and get your mask fixed but it seemed some privates caught sight of you and that was enough to spark rumours. Your mask had gotten so fractured that a shard was left back in the streets of Las Almas and revealed one of your eyes to the rest of the world. Such a small organ but so vivid. The privates saw, and more was added to the myth that was you. There was now no question about what was under the mask. No lovecraftian horror or empty space, no monster beyond comprehension. No, what was under your mask was terrifyingly human.

Masked Reader Masterlist Call of Duty Masterlist

[captainfern]

Heyyy, I'm literally in love with your work and how you write Graves, so it would be amazing if you'd do him again. Honestly any scenario would be AMAZIIING

Anonymous asked: hope im not to late for requests but the noisy graves thing kinda enlightend me. instead of overstimulating him imagine edging him in kind of a risky place (a closet or shared bed/bathroom idfk lmao) and when he gets to loud after being told not to several times you simply take care of the problem by grabbing him by the hair and pushing him between your legs and caging him in with your thighs or simply just sitting on his face while he desperately tries to fuck the air😎

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Dreams

Commander Phillip Graves x fem!reader

[“Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac]

[18+]

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• summary - your commander can't get enough of the new recruit. you're the new recruit lol. • rating - 18+ • wordcount - 2.5k • warnings - fem!reader, switch!reader and switch!graves, power imbalance? he's your superior so yeah i guess so, handjobs, oral [m!receiving], unprotected piv, praise, degradation kinda, semi-public sex?, oral [f!receiving- from the front and the backkkkkkk lmao], strong language

graves brainrot going wild rn sorry to any grave-antis in my followers

actually i'm not sorry this man is so boyfriend

apart from the fact that yk he's a traitor but i close my eyes and he's so boyfriend

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When your Commander called you into his office late one night, you expected you were going to be disciplined for something you did. You probably missed a target somehow, or you got distracted with a couple of the other shadows and missed a briefing. You couldn't really remember, but you do remember feeling anxiety brewing in the pit of your stomach as you walked towards his office.

But, he wasn't mad at you, or intending to discipline you in the slightest. It was the complete opposite, actually.

You had always had a feeling your Commander favoured you over his other Shadows– lingering looks, gentle touches, whispered affirmations. He tended to guide you a bit more than the other Shadows, and always made sure you were the first in the chopper or plane during evac.

You thought it was because you were new. Maybe. But clearly, it was a lot more than that.

Evident by the way Graves had a hand to the back of your head, pushing your mouth further down onto his cock, throaty moans falling past his lips, blue eyes settled on your face. He watched you take more of him, inching your lips closer to the base, the tight heat of your mouth drawing more moans from him.

He had imagined you like this since the moment you joined the Shadow Company– god, you looked so pretty on your knees, so pretty with your lips wrapped around the girth of his cock, so pretty gagging around him as his tip skimmed the back of your throat.

Graves guided you gently, just like he did on missions, applying a light pressure to the back of your head and moving you closer. He pet your hair with his other hand, muttering between moans about how good you looked and how pretty you were. It made your cunt flutter within your underwear, which were slick against you.

He was so close, cock twitching inside the warmth of your mouth. You could feel him, taste the pre-cum coating your tongue. You hummed around him, and his eyes rolled, hips bucking and forcing the head of his cock against the back of your throat again. You gagged, a string of saliva escaping the corner of your stretched mouth, and Graves moaned your name.

"So close, baby..." He whispered, high off the feeling. His eyes fluttered closed as his climax loomed, and just as he felt it begin to crest, you pulled away from him with a pop of your lips.

Graves let out a guttural groan, bucking his hips. The reddened tip of his cock smeared over your closed lips as you smiled up at him, before you were grabbing his cock and pumping him. You squeezed him around the base, twisted near the tip, and watched as bead after bead of pre-cum dribbled from his slit.

The build-up of his orgasm flared again, and pleasure coursed through his veins as he focussed on the feel of your hand against him. He looked down at you with hooded eyes, watching the movement of your hand, then watching the expression on your face.

"Didn't think you'd be this noisy, Commander." You mused, pumping him faster, wet clicks sounding throughout the office.

Graves responded with a moan, his lips falling apart as he watched you stroke his cock. You placed another chaste kiss to the tip while you worked him with your hand, and his hips chased the contact when you pulled away. He let out a growled fuck.

You tutted. "You have to be quieter than that, sir. You wouldn't want one of your Shadows walking in here, would you?"

Graves choked on a groan. You raised your eyebrows at him, intrigued.

"Oh, you would like that?" You teased, stopping the movement of your hand. Graves gasped out, his cock throbbing heavily in your hand. He could feel his orgasm trickling away again and it made him let out an annoyed whine. You laughed. "You want one of your Shadows to find you like this? Getting jerked off by the new recruit? Acting like a cheap slut desperate for some pussy, aren't you, Commander?

"Oh, fuck–" He moaned quietly. "Don't t-talk to me like tha-ah-at. I'm your Comman– oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, baby, oh my god–"

You slowly started stroking him again, and he was immediately babbling under his breath.

"You wanna come? You have to be quiet." You told him, before wrapping your lips around the tip of his cock while continuing to pump him. He whimpered quietly, holding onto your head, more for support than to guide you. He released muted hisses and deep groans trapped in his throat. You were making him feel so good.

He couldn't help getting louder.

His hisses and groans turned to moans and loud whines as he got closer and closer to orgasm, his head growing dizzy. He could smell your perfume and it was driving him insane.

"Come on, baby, come on–" He moaned loudly, and you couldn't help but sigh as you pulled your mouth and hand away from him and sat up. He let out a loud, desperate plea through a groan, chest heaving as you ran your hand up his abs.

"No, no, baby, m'so– fuck, m'so close–"

"I told you to be quiet, Graves," you said, situating yourself on the edge of his desk. Through glossy eyes, he looked over at you, and his face lit up when you dragged your underwear down your legs and spread them. "So if you're not going to be quiet, I guess I'll have to put your mouth to better use."

You paused, then smiled. "On your knees."

Graves dropped to his knees and shuffled towards you, wrapping his hands around the flesh of your thighs, squeezing and pinching lightly. You grabbed the back of his head, and pushed his face towards your dripping core. He responded with a grateful moan before his mouth was sealing over your clit, and his tongue was moving against it.

You bit your lip to stifle the moans threatening to escape. He worked his tongue against you, warm and rigid, gliding between your folds and circling around and over your clit. You felt him move in a particular pattern, and it took you little over a second to realise what he was doing. He was spelling his name against your clit.

You gripped at his hair, and he groaned into your cunt, muffled.

Between the spelling of Phillip and Graves, he slipped his tongue into your wet hole, licking up the arousal that had pooled while you had sucked him off. He moaned happily, eyes closing as your thighs clamped around him. His cock, hard and leaking painfully against his abdomen, twitched as he swallowed the taste of you. He rutted into the air in time with the thrusts of his tongue. Then, he was dragging the flat of his tongue back up your folds, before spelling Graves across your swollen clit.

Cocky son of a bitch, you thought as your orgasm trembled within you, making your legs clamp heavier around his him. Not that your Commander minded, anyway, considering he moaned desperately each time your leg muscles flexed around his head.

"M'gonna come," you whispered, keeping him trapped between your legs. "Open your mouth and take it all, Commander, go on–"

He did as he was told with a content hum, trailing his tongue back down your folds before circling your dripping hole. Graves licked inside slowly as you came around his tongue, your back arching and eyes rolling. Your orgasm hit you like a train as he fucked you through it, tongue lapping up as much he could, the rest dribbling down his chin. You released your thighs from around him, but he didn't move.

Graves continued to lick into your sopping cunt, moaning quietly to himself as he did so. You let out a breathy moan, your grip tightening in his blond locks. The feeling made him groan, and he finally detached from you with a furrow in his brows, his entire lower face slick with his saliva and your arousal.

"Still desperate for it, are you?" You smiled down at him, before he was getting to his feet and closing the distance.

He slammed his mouth to yours, invading yours with his tongue. You tasted yourself as he licked into your mouth, teeth clashing as he pulled you closer to him with his hands to the small of your back. He ground you down onto his throbbing cock, your slick cunt sliding against him, making him groan into your mouth. The head of his cock, glistening with pre-cum and saliva, dragged between your folds, spreading your arousal against you. You mewled out as, with one last swipe of his tongue against yours, he pulled away.

"S'enough of that," he grumbled, his eyes flickering away from a submissive kind of desperate to a, well, Commander kind of desperate. "Turn around."

You did as you were told with a smile, locking eyes with him the entire time you hopped off the desk and proceeded to bend over it, peering at him over you shoulder. He grunted, slotting his hips to your arse, rubbing his cock lightly against your entrance. He grabbed a handful of your arse with his free hand and kneaded the flesh. He let go, and brought his hand back down with a solid smack.

It was loud, and made your body flare hot.

You went to moan, but you were cut off as Graves thrusted into you in one heavy movement, pulling the air from your chest and making you choke on your pleasured gasp. You could only breath out shakily as he withdrew his cock and then pushed into you again. He grabbed your hips, fucking you back onto him, the sound of skin on skin echoing through his office.

"You had your fun, didn't you, baby?" He asked, bringing one hand down to knead the flesh of your arse. You braced for another smack, but it didn't come. Yet.

You nodded, whimpering. "Yeah–"

Graves brought his hand down onto your arse cheek hard again, and this time, you released a moan of his name. He chuckled behind you, soothing your stinging flesh with his fingers.

"Yeah, you had fun teasing me?" He mused, slamming his fat cock into you, pushing you further and further against the desk. You moaned in response, and he chuckled darkly again. "I could tell, baby. This pussy was fucking soaked for me. Absolutely fucking soaked."

Both of Graves' hands found your hips again and fucked you back onto him. He curled some of his body over you, and you could feel his solid warmth over your back. You soon felt his lips at the curve of your neck, tongue swiping over your bra strap.

"God, such a tight pussy, sucking me in so good, baby," he whispered in your ear, hips rocking against your arse, cock heavy inside you. "Been thinking of this since you arrived, you know that? Been wanting to feel you n' taste you since you first reported to me."

You moaned, cheek pressed against the cold desk, arms scrambling to keep you grounded against the sleek wood.

"Good girl, you like that? You like your Commander thinking about this pretty, wet cunt?" Graves teased, and you moaned again. He placed kisses along your shoulder, and then up your neck, before skimming his lips along the shell of your ear. "Tha's right, baby. I came all over my sheets thinking about this pussy. Made such a mess thinkin' about you."

His accent was growing stronger. You were panting against the desk, whispers of his name and rank falling past your lips as he rutted into you. The tip of his cock hit that spot inside you every time, and you wondered why you didn't let him fuck you sooner.

He groaned in your ear, the sound made you throb around him.

"M'so close, baby. Want you to come 'round me. You can do that, can't you?"

You nodded against the desk because you were so close too– your orgasm building tight in your abdomen, your legs trembling, knees knocking against the front of the desk. You let out a string of whines and whimpers, your clit throbbing.

"Come for me," Graves whispered as his thrusts gradually became more desperate. "Come for me like a good girl. Want to feel this pretty cunt squeeze 'round me, baby."

With one last heavy thrust of his cock to that spongey spot inside you, you came around him.

"Commander." You mewled as you clenched, milking his cock as your orgasm rattled through you. Your cunt leaked around him, arousal squelching loudly, wetness running down the insides of your thighs where he spread you open.

Graves moaned, rutting into you, chasing his high. You were so wet around him, so warm and tight. He screwed his eyes shut, leaning back so he could drive deeper into you, clutching at your hips and squeezing the soft flesh. He let out a moan of your name, followed by deep grunts amongst his laboured breaths.

He groaned again. "You gonna let me come inside, baby? You gonna let me fill this pretty pussy?"

You couldn't respond, brain turning to mush. You whimpered at him, hoping he could see you trying to nod.

"Yeah, tha's it, take it, fucking take what I give you," he whispered. "Take my cock... tha's it, baby, good girl."

He came inside you, filling you with a moan of your name. He thrusted further, stuffing you full, making you whine out at him to slow down. He did, lazily rutting his cock in and out, some of his seed dropping down your thighs, making you shiver. He pulled out, then pushed you further up the desk until your feet were barely touching the ground.

He crouched behind you, and you mewled as you felt him spread your folds with his middle finger and forefinger, revealing your fluttering hole, leaking with the heady mixture of both your cum. You heard him groan, before you felt his tongue swipe against you, pushing into your cunt and curling.

You caught a loud moan in your throat. "Graves, what–"

He licked his spend from you, also pushing more in with each thrust of his tongue. His face against the curve of your arse, he grumbled against your soft skin, and your body was quick to grow hot again. He spent a good minute or so behind you, groping your arse cheeks, rubbing your thighs, before standing back up with a satisfied smirk on his face.

He gently turned you around and wrapped his arms around you, sinking the both of you to the floor in front of his desk.

Graves placed a kiss to your temple. "Y'alright, doll?"

You hummed tiredly. "Mhm."

He chuckled quietly, placing another kiss to the top of your head. "You want to sleep?"

"Mhm."

"Come on, I'll take you back to my room."

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here’s a gif of warren just cause he’s so fine

AHHHH

that is all

[haveateadude]

bleak horizons iii.

summary *. ⋆ ⋆·˚ opening up it's not easy, isn't it?

warnings *. ⋆ ⋆·˚ depression, self-harm mention, and disordered eating (not explicitly mentioned but you can clearly see it's there)

author notes *. ⋆ ⋆·˚ helloooo welcome to part 3!!!!!! i think this might be the last part (if u have an idea on how this can continue feel free to tell me. u can send a request or just leave the idea in the comments). also just saying, this stuff is based on MY issues and experiences with mental health, so this might not be truthful to everyone. my insta is @/starsfinder_ if anyone wants to vent or just talk :))

remember you're not alone if you're going through a shitty moment, trust me!! ik everyone says to ask for help, and even if that's soo fucking true i know some people are not listened (even if that's literally a fucking RIGHT). so, as i said, you can dm me <33 take care of yourselves pleaseee. can't stress enough how much i want y'all to know you're not alone. hi. hello. i care!!!!!!!! and i'm here!!!!!! so please listen to me when i say everything's going to be alright :)) i love youuuuuu

also, sorry for any mistakes. i'm sooo tired rn lmao

pt1 — pt2 — pt3

I told you a lie, désolé, mon amour

I'm trying my best, don't know what's in store

The next week, I stepped out of therapy crying. I got into the car, slamming the door.

“Hey,” Ellie says softly, looking at me with her hands resting on the wheel, her gaze full of worry. “You okay?”

“Drive.”

“But—”

“Just drive.”

“Okay.”

Ellie starts driving. I wipe my tears, feeling overwhelmed. My mother had called yesterday and made me feel like shit. I wasn't doing my best at school. Ellie and I hadn't gone out since Christmas. So basically, everything was shit. I've also had urges to relapse, and they're just not going away.

I cry. Ellie drives. This is okay. It's okay. Except that it's not, and I haven't told my therapist anything about myself yet. My mother hasn't spoken to me in weeks, and my father sent a cat video on WhatsApp this morning. And Ellie’s knuckles are turning white from how hard she’s gripping the wheel, which makes my heart ache because I know she cares. It makes me want to tell her everything, but the words are stuck in my throat, and I can't seem to get them out.

We arrive at the apartment a couple of minutes later. Ellie doesn’t immediately open the doors, and I've calmed down enough to answer when she asks, “Baby? Are you feeling okay?”

I nod, looking away. The people that I see walking around look sad.

“I’m fine.”

“It’s okay if you’re not, though,” she says. I stay quiet, doubting it. Ellie nudges me with her elbow, looking for an answer. “Hey.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I know.”

Ellie pats me on the thigh before getting out of the car. I get out, too. I don't bother eating dinner that night; I just go straight to bed and fall asleep.

The next few days felt monotonous. I've fallen back into my sadness, the type that isn't bitter but sweet. It doesn't make me want to relapse. It makes me want to stay in bed more hours than I'd like, takes my appetite away, and leaves me feeling nothing but numbness.

I wake up, go to work, study, attend uni, come home, and sleep. The cycle repeats and repeats, and I'm so, so very tired.

Today, I took the day off. I knew I was too tired to do anything, so I planned to rot in bed. Ellie knocks on the door, but I don't answer. I hear the door creak open and the light from the living room creeping in.

"Hey," Ellie says, her voice coming from behind me. "Mind if I lay next to you?"

"It's fine," I say with a hoarse voice. I feel the bed sink at my side, and then Ellie is behind me, wrapping her arm around my torso and nuzzling her face into my neck, leaving a kiss right there. I feel cozy and comfortable. I don't know if this will last. I hope it does because it's a feeling I've never experienced before—someone comforting me? That has never happened.

"Do you want to talk about what's going on?" she asks. I stay quiet. "I care about you. I'm worried."

I do want to talk about it, but at the same time, I don't.

"I'm fine."

"You always say that… You haven't gotten out of bed since you came from work, and the frozen lasagna you were going to make for yourself last weekend has been in the fridge since then." She stays quiet for a second, her fingertips caressing my arm. "You're not doing fine, baby."

Millions of thoughts go through my head. Thoughts I don't say. I don't want her to leave; I don't want her to see how I feel.

"I'm trying, though." It's easy to say since Ellie isn't looking at my face directly. Tears threaten to spill from my eyes. I blink them away; I blink, blink, and blink again. Fast.

Ellie stays quiet, her breath tickling my neck. She kisses the back of my head again, her hand holding mine. I hold it to my chest. "I know. But you don't have to be alone in this."

That hits me like a truck. I wasn't expecting to be held by her, let alone her saying I don't have to be alone. A tear falls from my eye, landing on the pillow. I sniff, and Ellie holds me tighter, not saying anything. She tucks a strand of hair behind my ear with her free hand and kisses my temple.

"I'm sorry," I say, in a moment of pathetic weakness. She hugs me even closer.

"Hey, no. Don't apologize. C'mon, turn around."

I let go of her hand, turning around. Her left hand cups my face and she kisses my cheek, then my forehead, and then she kisses the tears that fall on my cheeks. When she pulls away, she gives me a small smile, "You're going to be okay."

She doesn't want you. She's your friend; she doesn't want you. She will fall in love with you, not your brain nor your scars, and when she finds out about the way you think, she'll leave.

I wake up on Ellie's chest, it feels good to be comforted, I've found. Her phone is on the nightstand, so I just reach it and look at the time. It's eight o'clock. I've fallen asleep for two hours. I try to make myself more comfortable on her chest, attempting not to wake her, but my movements fail and she stirs.

"Hey," she says, her voice still laced with sleep. "What time is it?"

"It's still night," I say, closing my eyes. "We slept for two hours.'

"Feeling better?" I feel comfortable enough to shake my head. "Do you want to talk about it? I told you, I'm worried. And don't bullshit me with the whole 'I'm fine' shit, yeah?"

I stay quiet as her thumb caresses my back, "Did I tell you why I'm going to therapy?" Ellie shakes her head. "Well—back home I had some… issues. Mental health stuff related. I kept going back to depressive episodes. And one day I just asked for help from my mom, because I—I just couldn't stop self harming."

"Baby," Ellie says, hugging me tighter and kissing the top of my head. "What happened? Did your mother react well?"

"Yeah. Surprisingly. I got help. Got better. Sometimes it comes back, and I still get urges sometimes, but I can control it. It isn't as bad as it was before. But lately, it's just—yeah."

"You don't do that anymore, do you?" She asks, worried.

"No," I shake my head. "Not anymore."

"And what about the urges, do you still get them?" I nod, slowly. Ellie plays with my hair. "And therapy? Is it helping?"

"I haven't told her anything, yet. I—I don't know, I can't talk about it."

"What if I go to the next session? If you're okay with that, of course. If you still don't feel comfortable we can look for another therapist or another way to get you help."

I hide my face in her chest when she says the last word. I don't know why I've been refusing to get help. I don't know why I don't like that word. I sigh as Ellie stops playing with my hair and begins rubbing my back.

"I think—I think I would like it if you go with me."

"Okay. Okay, then. I'll go." The room falls to silence again for a few seconds. I feel ashamed for telling her. "I'm sorry you have to go through this… I wish I could do more."

"You're doing more than enough," I assure her. It's my time to hug her tighter. "You’re the first person I’ve talked to about this."

"Yeah?" She seems surprised. "I'm glad you talked to me. I'm here for you if you need anything—I mean it. You just have to tell me, I will listen… You could've told me sooner."

"I'm sorry."

"Hey, don't apologize. I’m just saying, I'm here for you. I've been there for you, always. And… is there something I can do to help?"

"Just be there," I say. "That's enough."

"Mhm, I'll stay."

I think she wants you, a little voice in my head says. I think she loves you, and I don't think she'll ever leave.

Maybe I'll be okay, after all.

[p0ssywhippedcream]

Hey girlll, it’s me again (at this point file a restraining order LMFAO😭) I quite literally had this idea right now- Zuko, Katara, and Reader (if you need to choose then waterbender?), are fighting Azula together, and reader takes the hit of lightning form Azula instea of Zuko to protect him (they have like A HUGE mutual pining too rn lol).

Later when they won and are at the palace, he visits her and says he wants to talk, and he says he was super scared and wouldn’t know how to live without her and confesses, and she says yes and says similar stuff and like they start dating.

THANK YOU SOO MUCH FOR YOUR WRITINGGGG- TAKE ALL THE TIME YOU NEED, JET LAG SUCKS DUDE, I SLEPT FOR LITERALLY 20 HOURS STRAIGHT ONE TIME LMAO. LOVE YOU GIRLLLL<333

"I'm okay, I swear!" You put your hand over his and it flexes on the bed, "I just need to rest, most of it was deflected by my water bending."

Zuko's thumb crawls out from underneath your palm and gently rubs the top of your hand, "But not all. You- you got hit by lightning, Y/n. You could have died."

You grunt as you shift on the bed, the bandages around your stomach preventing a fully comfortable position. "Yes, but I didn't. You don't have to worry, Zu, I'm not going anywhere."

And something about the way the light from the candle beside your bed catches your expression, casting such beautiful shadows on your reassuring smile, compels a heart-wrenching feeling inside Zuko. He needs you to know, in case he doesn't get a chance to say it again and because his overwhelming gratitude for your kindness towards him needs him to repay your pain with something almost as difficult to do.

"Y/n," He starts and despite the nerves, keeps his fiery gaze locked onto yours, "I- I can't lose you. I wouldn't know what to do."

You're a little taken aback, a rosy blush dancing with the firelight across your cheeks but you remain with that comforting smile of yours, "You'd keep being the good person you are, keep loving."

"I don't know if I could," He confesses with a small shiver down his spine knowing all he can tell you is the truth, "I don't think I can be a person at all without you. I can't live without you."

Your eyes widen, easy grin flattering and Zuko knows that rejection is coming, braces for it like he's in the presence of his father again until your soft hand is pulling his face closer and you're kissing him. You're kissing him slow and gentle, like leaves in a summer breeze but its your lips and it drives him crazy all the same. He presses a little more, molding his mouth against yours when a rushed exhale leaves your nose and he remembers your wound.

He pulls out of your reach, clutching the hand that drew him in as he checks your tummy and makes sure you're alright.

"Zuko," It comes out breathless and accompanied by a laugh, "I'd be more alright if you kiss me again."

So he does. A couple more times actually. And when you ask him to lay next to you in the bed as you sleep, no matter how red the idea makes him, he blows out the candle and tucks you in anyway. He watches your eyelashes flutter as little snores leave the lips that left him speechless and knows that he gets to watch you breathe in and breathe out, everyday for the rest of his life.

He wants to kiss your forehead but you're a light sleeper from your time with the Gaang so instead, he opts to kiss you tomorrow. And the tomorrow after that, and the one after that too. And he gets to kiss you and hold you and watch you breathe for the rest of his life, knowing how deep the love of yours goes as he traces a lighting bolt into the sheet beneath him.

[bratbarzal]

On Your Side (NH13) / Chapter Five

Pairing: Nico Hischier x Fem!OC Poppy Jensen*

*I say it's an OC, it's just a name and third person POV. I use minor character descriptions because I don’t get on with writing vague reader inserts/YN for long-form, story heavy fics, but I will generally try to avoid including race and body type or really any physical descriptors. I’m always open to feedback on my writing, or how to be more inclusive.

WC: 17k (holy moly)

Chapter Warnings: I tried to sprinkle some fluffy flashbacks and smutty references later in here just to lighten the mood but this is angsty!! probably cursing I honestly can't remember, and serious warnings rn mentions of hacking/gossip blogs/blackmail/cyber bullying/nudes being leaked, talia is her own warning tbh. I tried not to make a cliched ex comes in between them plot and idk how it comes across but yeah I was trying to toe the line between it being interesting/different and then going too far and not being able to write around it which is why the plot kind of fixes itself quick and is a leeeetle bit bad but there's some unresolved bitterness in that relationship for sure lmao she has a LOT 2 say!! did I mention there's angst in here? insecurity/self-doubt and miscommunication!!! in abundance!!! but!! luke is a cutey patootie in this I wrote his part with a lil smile on my face 💖 also a ridiculous conversation about huffing glue lmao

Series Masterlist

Previous Part (Chapter Four)

A/N: ok so in the grand scheme of things this is both a filler chapter and also like a pivotal point in the story to set something later up, but when I was planning this entire fic out, the only directive I gave myself for this specific chapter was insert angst. you wouldn't believe the amount of times I've written and rewritten and gone back and forth on what's in here. it's the kind of instruction only a complete melon would give themselves and I clearly just hate myself in ways that are spooky and strange to submit myself to this kind of torture.

and I hear your cries of hasn’t this fic just been angst so far??? yes!! you may be correct!! but you don’t get a rainbow without a bit of rain hun!!! grab an umbrella!!! I promise good will come of this lmao

I'm sorry this one took so long, it's the only chapter I didn't have any kind of plan or direction for obviously and I tried to come up with so many different options for the talia plot before I landed on whatever this is, but the next one I do have some scenes written out in my plan so shouldn't be as long in between. my goal has always been a chapter a week but like I said the other day work has been a lot for me the past couple of weeks so I am genuinely sorry for making you wait!!

you guys were very fun and very kind to me after the last chapter so please please please lets keep the good vibes going come chat to me about your thoughts about the fic about the weather about anything!! 💓

Nico

When Nico and Talia had first started dating, there had been an element of excitement to the dynamic. Nico hadn’t properly dated anyone in a while - had casual flings here and there, and for the most part spent his time swallowing down his burgeoning feelings for his best friend - and there was a novelty to starting something with someone new.

He had all the intentions of building something serious with her. She was fun, got on with his friends, had ties close to home that meant he wouldn’t be putting a wedge between the two of them should he want to travel back in his breaks, and sinking his teeth into the challenges of a relationship was something that actually intrigued him.

He liked planning dates, liked buying gifts to see that buzz of joy and gratitude it would elicit, and he liked the companionship - liked having someone there when he came back from a long roadie or a tough string of games. 

He liked it so much he never really opened his eyes to the fact that Talia didn’t. 

She didn’t like the dates he planned - didn’t like the restaurants he chose, the movies he wanted to share with her, the bars him and the guys frequented. She didn’t like America, didn’t like their coffee shops, thought their pastries were packed with too much sugar, their portion sizes were too large for her ever to enjoy going for lunch, always complaining about feeling bloated and sluggish after every meal. She hated Jersey - wanted to spend all her time across the Hudson, looking down on everyone she met and everywhere they went together. She didn’t make much use of the gifts he bought her - let every bouquet of flowers die a quick, careless death, said the watch he bought her didn’t go with enough of her other jewellery and turned her nose up at every effort he made to make his apartment feel more like her home. 

She wasn’t all that comforting when it came to companionship, either. Rolled her eyes when he came home aching and exhausted, went out without him on the days he was coming back from a roadie and returned home when he had long retired to his bed. She would always want to meet up with her girlfriends instead of hanging around the team, and only ever wanted to come to games if she could bring her own entourage - mostly to show off her connections and hardly ever to actually support him.

And so, despite the initial attraction, despite the excitement that first came with their blossoming relationship, Nico can only look at Talia with disinterest and frigidity now.

He barely greets her as he opens the door to his apartment, moving aside to let her in and waiting for her to trudge her small case in behind her before he closes it, leaning against the surface and watching her discard her bag and keys on the counter with familiarity.

When she turns to face him, running a hand through her hair and huffing out a big sigh, he takes in her dishevelled appearance.

Even when travelling, Talia usually takes great pride in her pristine exterior - hair blow-dried, outfit co-ordinated and steam-pressed to perfection, not a crease or stain in sight, and usually a light layer of makeup to cover the slight imperfections like the darkened under eyes and redness around her nose. This isn’t like her.

She looks like she’s been messing with her hair the whole 8 hour flight out and beyond, her eyes are rimmed-red with smudges of brown at the corners, her lips are chapped and swollen like she’s been crying, and her sweatpants don’t match her hoodie. It’s almost like she’d thrown on whatever she could find and caught the first flight out, fresh out of bed.

“What’s going on?” He cuts straight to the chase, losing all formality and courtesy. He should feel bad for his callous greeting, but she had broken up with him over text not even a month ago - she doesn’t exactly deserve outstretched arms and a warm embrace, he thinks.

“Hi Talia, how have you been, Talia? It’s nice to see you Talia.” She mocks, a frown overtaking her features immediately. “I’m absolutely amazing, thanks for caring, Nico!” Sarcasm spews from her tongue like pure venom, and his eyes practically roll into the back of his head.

Nico pushes himself off of the door, heavy footsteps leading him into his kitchen where he can make himself a coffee to get through this. His watch reads 6:05 - far too early for her antics - and rising to her nagging is only going to make things worse.

“Do you want a drink?” He asks, as he busies himself with his coffee press, unable to look at her too long without the pricks of guilt irritating him.  He doesn’t even know what he has to feel guilty about.

“I’ll get it myself,” she scoffs, venturing over to the fridge and pouring out some orange juice - her movements around his space eerily natural. She slams back most of the drink as he works out how to brew his coffee - but she sees right through him. He’s hardly ever used the press before, and he’s just doing so now to avoid her in whatever capacity he can. “I need money.”

Nico’s almost positive he hasn’t heard her right - that there’s some kind of mix up between her standard German and his Swiss - and he slowly turns to properly face her, brows slanting into a deep frown as he assesses her expression.

She has a hand on her hip, her jaw set and her eyes darkened and serious. 

“You have money.”

Talia comes from money - her father is some kind of film producer and her mother an artist, if Nico remembers correctly - and she makes good money, herself. She’s been a print model since she was scouted in some market in Munich since she was 15, has had her face plastered in ads in magazines and catalogues around the world. She’s hardly strapped for cash. She gets things gifted to her by whatever company she can get a hold of. What could she possibly need him to give her money for?

“Not enough.” Her tone is cold, her demeanour the same, and if Nico can still gauge her emotions correctly, there’s an element of blame that she is starting to shift towards him, and his whole body starts to feel tense.

“Not enough for what?”

He can’t quite tell what feeling washes over him - worry, at the thought she’s gotten herself into some kind of trouble, stress, at the thought this could be a recurring thing, and potentially pity, at the way she’s so clearly carrying the weight of something heavy - something she’s lugged all the way across the Atlantic on a long haul flight with her.

“Not enough to pay the guy who’s blackmailing me not to leak the videos that I sent to you.”

“What vide-“ he bites back, and the immediate arch of her brow tells him all he needs to know. “Oh.”

Shit.

“Oh? That’s all you have to say?” She sneers, fury in her gaze and dismay in her tone. “You’ve ruined my life, and all I get is an oh?”

“Whoa, slow down, I’ve ruined your life?”

Nico has never been one to shame any girl for sending explicit pictures - he’d been more than willing to receive them at the time - but he hadn’t ever forced her hand. He hadn’t even asked her for them, in the first place. 

She’d taken it upon herself to spice things up, as she had put it at the time, when the team had gone on the road in early December. It was just after he’d returned from his injury - a time in which he’d spent mentally distanced from her as he’d focused so much on getting back to the game, their relationship consisting mainly of not-so-passionate sex to avoid aggravating his injury and hardly of any kind of meaningful conversation - and she had thought that keeping him on his toes on a roadie would mean he’d come back more interested than ever.

If he’d been looking out for red flags at the time, he might have caught that blaring one; needing to try new things only a few months into a relationship to keep it fun and light.

He’d been in his hotel room in Seattle, freshly showered and ready to throw himself straight into bed when his phone had started to ping. It was suggestive texts at first, are you alone? And I’m thinking about you. Then it had been pictures, hands over lingerie and fingers between glossy, pouted lips.

And then videos, one after the other before he had any chance to respond - her phone set up far enough away that her whole body was in frame, touching herself while laying on his bed and calling out for him.

He had called her instead of sending anything back, and as he realises the severity of the situation, a selfish part of him is glad he did so.

“Talia, I didn’t even save those videos, and I definitely didn’t show them to anyone else.”

Nico could never. Not only for the fact that he was raised to be a decent human being, but he has a sister - if anyone ever did that to Nina, he’d tear them apart, limb from limb. 

“You’re the only person I’ve ever sent anything to.” She seems to have made her mind up, and Nico feels as if his heart plummets through his torso at the realisation. She’s travelled all this way because she genuinely believes he’s the cause of this - that he’s shared intimate videos of her without her consent, to someone who would extort her for them. “And he sent me some pictures as proof, had information about me like the address of this apartment.”

“Talia, I swear on my mother’s life, I wouldn’t do that to you - to anyone, not ever.”

Tears well in her crystalline eyes, and Nico waits with bated breath as she assesses the situation in her head. 

He isn’t a liar - he has never given her a reason to think he is one. In their time together, he had always been honest, always been loyal, and he hopes at the very least - despite her obvious distain for him now, and how little she ended up caring about their relationship in the end to cut it off in the way she did - she thought of him as kind. 

He can do nothing but be patient, let her come to whatever conclusion on her own, and it’s only when he spots the quiver in her bottom lip that he takes an apprehensive step forward, ready to console her if needed.

She practically throws herself into his arms, wrapping her own around his waist and bawling into his chest, and all he can do is hold her and wait. He tries to rub a soothing hand up and down her back, holding the other against her head as her body wracks with sobs. All he can feel is the pounding of his own heartbeat, pulsing throughout his entire body until it’s all he can hear, too.

Nico does his best to comfort her, shushing and cooing and whispering how it’s going to be alright, but it does little to help. She’s beyond relief.

“There’s a guy who said he can track whoever is doing this to me,” she sniffles as she pulls herself away. “He’s in Jersey City Heights, he’s some sort of ethical hacker, whatever that means, I’m going to meet him and he’s gonna go through my phone.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Nico doesn’t even hesitate to ask - if not to protect her, and make sure she isn’t unknowingly getting herself into an even more dangerous situation, then to protect himself too. If someone has Talia’s pictures, and she only sent them to him, there’s a possibility his phone had been hacked, and if this guy is as ethical as he says, maybe he can check Nico’s stuff, too, just to be safe.

She gives him an appreciative smile, eyes still glassy and cheeks flushed. “I’d really appreciate that.”

“I’m gonna shower, then we can go. You can grab whatever to eat while you’re waiting.” He backs away from her completely, only just able to acknowledge the ache in his muscles once the intensity of the situation has settled a little, and he just needs to stand under the steaming spray and clear his mind before he properly immerses himself in her company. 

He has a lot more than this whole mess that he needs to think about, and maybe a shower can bring him a little clarity on how exactly he’s going to explain himself to the beautiful girl whose bed he had abruptly left not even an hour ago. 

“Why are you dressed?”

Nico stops in his tracks.

When he had got back to his apartment, he’d made a little effort for it to seem like he’d been there all night. He’d gone through to his bedroom, mussed up his sheets to make it seem like he had been sleeping in them - and not with the anticipation that Talia was going to be entering his bedroom, but with her, he never knows - trying to retrace the steps of his usual routine before he goes to bed, he had closed all the blinds, had moved his gym bag by the door.

But he hadn’t changed.

Still adorned in his sweatshirt and jeans from the night before, the clothing feels all that much heavier on his body as she brings attention to it, and he quickly racks his brain to come up with a valid excuse that doesn’t rouse further suspicion.

“I fell asleep in these clothes.” As easy as the lie comes out, he doesn’t feel great saying it. Doesn’t feel like erasing the night he had shared with Poppy is for the greater good, even if it is just to Talia, but avoiding another difficult conversation is a must right now - especially when he’d already lied to her on the phone. “Was out late with the guys last night, Timo threw a party for my birthday.”

“Right,” she drags out, and when he turns back around, she casts a scrutinising glance over him, top to bottom. “Sorry, I forgot.”

“No worries,” he shrugs, genuinely not offended. She has no reason to remember his birthday. Not anymore. “Like I said, help yourself to whatever, I’ll try not to be long.” 

When he undresses for his shower, he’s thankful he hadn’t had the foresight to change in anticipation of Talia’s arrival. He probably would have donned a t-shirt and some shorts, oblivious to the visible indents on his thighs where Poppy had dug her nails in as she took him in her mouth.

His chest and torso are littered with scratches, some faint, some a little deeper, and he can’t get the right angle to see his back but he imagines they’re the same - the memory of her clutching at him as both of their climaxes approached is vivid enough for him to picture the marks she left behind.

He groans as the thought of her brings back that swirling feeling in the pit of his stomach, as he notices the blooming arousal pool there, and feels himself harden as he steps under the spray of his shower.

If his phone had been on do not disturb through the night, he could be in the shower with Poppy, instead.

He could have woken up to her in his arms, could have pecked at her sleep-swollen lips until it brought her out of her slumber, and spent his morning making up for lost time just like he had promised her last night. He could have made light work of the pleasure he had given her the night before - could have had her underneath him in her bed, tangled up in the mess of sheets and falling apart before they shared a morning shower, where he’d have held her up against the tiles and would’ve moved into her until they couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. He’d have made her breakfast, something sweet, so that as she sat and watched him atop the kitchen counter he had tasted her on for the first time not even 12 hours before, he’d press his tongue into her mouth after she had eaten and savour the flavour of strawberries that had settled between her lips.

Instead, he’s here, turning the temperature of his water down until any and all excitement in his body is dampened, and all he can focus on is the effect the cold has on all his other aching muscles.

Once he has showered and gotten dressed - and has come to the conclusion that any further thoughts about Poppy need to wait until the Talia problem is resolved and out of his hands, he finds his ex girlfriend sprawled across his couch, music playing from the speaker in the corner, and taking helping herself to a whole new level. 

Her case is opened where she had left it by the door, and she’s set herself a little vanity up on his coffee table, fixing her appearance before they leave.

She’s changed out of her mismatched sweats, has dressed herself in jeans and a sweater, and has found an extension cable long enough for her to plug in whatever hot tool she’s currently running through her hair.

“You take the longest showers in the history of man,” she rolls her eyes, not even casting a glance his way as she focuses on her own reflection in the little mirror she must have brought with her. “I do not want to know what it is you get up to in there.”

“I was barely 30 minutes, are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, almost,” she runs the tool through her bangs until they flick out at the edges on either side of her face, and it reminds him of all the times he had watched her while waiting for her to finish getting ready. It makes him feel uneasy how familiar it all is, how she’s so quickly made herself at home again in his space.

He wants to tell her she needs to pack her stuff back up, that she won’t be staying here and needs to give his keys back, but the weight of the situation at hand dawns on him before he can open his mouth.

He’ll wait until they get back later, his decision depending on the outcome of their visit to her hacker friend.

As much as he doesn’t want her around, he isn’t going to kick her out with no place to go if her life is still shrouded in unsafe circumstances. 

Talia unplugs her stuff, wraps the cord around the handle of the brush she was using, and places it on a mat she must have brought with her so it doesn’t burn through the surface of the table. “Kay, let’s go.”

She marches ahead of him, picking up her bag and keys on the way out and leaving him to lock up while she calls for the elevator. They wait together in silence, his heart thudding an anxious rhythm in his chest as he anticipates the arrival of the elevator - and thankfully, it arrives empty.

He tries to distance himself from her as they enter, him standing in one corner, and hoping she takes the other, but she doesn’t quite get the memo, standing obliviously in the centre as she types away to someone on her phone and he presses the button to go to the basement.

Nico watches the numbers go down with bated breath. His floor, the next, the next one after that, and he uses any good will he has left with the universe to hope and pray it skips the floor coming up - but, as is just his luck, the elevator comes to a stop with a soft thud, and the doors open to reveal the very situation he’s been hoping to avoid. 

Jack walks straight in, eyes cast down to the phone in his hands, distractedly typing away and not even noticing the button for the parking level has been pressed before he pushes it, himself.

Luke notices straight away, halting in his movements to enter the space as his gaze flickers between the two people already occupying it. 

He diverts his eyes when they meet Nico’s head dropping as he steps in and stands beside his brother, uttering a quick greeting of, “Hey, Cap.”

Jack’s attention is captured immediately, spinning at an almost dizzying speed to face his captain, phone disregarded into his back pocket. “Schao! I thought you’d be at-,”

He’s thankfully able to tune into his perception before he carries on with his train of thought, a subtle movement in his peripheral diverting his gaze to the figure stood to the side of Nico. 

“Talia. Hi.”

“Hi, Jack.” Nico cringes inwardly at how disinterested she sounds. “Luke.” Talia had never really cared for Nico’s teammates - especially not the younger guys like Jack and Luke. She was quick to pass judgement, making comments on their maturity, or apparent lack-thereof, and wasn’t the biggest fan of how close Nico was with the pair. Didn’t like the time or attention he gave them considering the close quarters they lived in, and had always been resentful. She always claimed her English wasn’t good enough to hold a proper conversation with them, but he’d seen her enough around her American friends to know it wasn’t true.

“We’re just meeting up with some of the guys for breakfast.” Jack says, cautiously, in an attempt to fill the silence. The invitation remains unspoken, but Nico can tell in the way the younger boy cocks his head and meets his eye that he’s gauging his current situation for the morning.

“We have plans.” Talia must be able to tell what he was getting at, too and Nico can see Luke’s eyes narrow as soon as the word resonates in his head. Plans. Pre-meditated. Made before she had sprung all of this on him within the last hour or two. Panic stirs within him, and his throat itches to speak the truth, but it’s just not the right time to do so with Talia stood beside him. If he starts getting defensive, she’ll start asking questions, and the boys will have to bear witness to him skirting around the matter of Poppy. 

It’s not a good look no matter which way he swings it. He’s stuck in a thick, dark, tarry mess of not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings but making all the wrong decisions. A minefield of not knowing how to explain himself without raising a million questions on either side, and hoping one of the brothers might toe the line of the boundaries of their relationship and just straight up ask why Talia is here.

He knows he has fucked up without the way neither of them are looking him in the eye.

He knew it the second Poppy’s door had locked behind him this morning - he doesn’t need Luke refusing to meet his gaze, doesn’t need Jack’s shifting side eye to tell him he’s made a mistake. 

“I’ll text you later.” Nico says, mainly to Jack but still trying to meet his brother’s eyes with no luck. It’s an attempt to say something, without saying anything. A silent beg not to jump to conclusions about what they’ve seen - and, although he knows they wouldn’t, not to tell anyone else. Not whichever of the guys they are meeting up with, not anyone else on the team, and definitely not Poppy.

“Yeah, sure,” Jack mutters in a poor attempt to hide his discomfort, and an even worse attempt at masking his relief when the doors ping open on the parking level.

“Have fun with your plans,” Luke huffs out, his tone like a tight fist clutching at Nico’s chest despite his courteous choice of words.

“We will,” Talia forces a smile. Nico gets the feeling she isn’t as oblivious to the tension as he hopes she is.

The four of them separate into their pairs with mumbled goodbyes, Jack and Luke heading off to Luke’s car on one side of the garage, and Nico and Talia heading to his on the other, and Nico can’t even let out a sigh of pseudo-relief before Talia jumps on him.

“That was weird.”

“We broke up, they weren’t expecting to see us together.” He quickly excuses as he starts the car up, turning on the heat and hoping the soft buzz of the air will fill the silence enough that she doesn’t feel the need to talk. 

“It’s been like 3 weeks, most couples get back together after their first breakup.”

Has it only been 3 weeks? He thinks, shuddering at how little time had actually passed between her sending that text and him restoring balance to his life.

“We’re not most couples,” he shrugs, shutting that train of thought immediately as he starts to make his way out of the parking garage, ascending the ramp where the doors open up to reveal the dull beam of the winter morning sun. “You dumped me over text a week before Christmas, we’re not getting back together.”

“Oh yeah, I bet you were real cut up about it,” she jibes, sarcastically. “Probably landed straight in the bed of some desperate puck bunny more than happy to take your mind off of how awful I was to you.”

His mind immediately goes to Poppy, to last night, to her bed - and despite the complete bullshit Talia has fabricated in her head, despite how much he wants to tell her she has it all wrong, he can’t bear to twist himself even further into knots to skirt around mentioning the girl who did make him better.

“We’re not having this conversation right now.” He decides, tapping at the screen in the console of his car until he brings up the navigation. “Put in the address you need, we’re not too far from The Heights.”

The location she enters into the system is for an unassuming condo in a quiet, suburban area. The neighbourhood itself is picturesque, the buildings colourful, the paths lined with trees that seemed to flourish even in the midst of winter, and when Nico pulls up across the street, he notices the amount of families around - parents walking their kids to school and couples with dogs getting their morning steps in. It’s the last place he imagines some hacker to be shacked up, but maybe that’s the point.

He still doesn’t entirely understand the ethical part.

“It’s the one with the red brick and the balcony,” Talia points to the other side of the road as she unbuckles her seatbelt, and Nico looks over at the building as if he’s going to be able to see all the secrets stored within it.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, number 414.” She shows him the messages she has exchanged with the guy, and sure enough, the address matches up. “C’mon, the sooner we get in there, the sooner we can figure this out.”

He follows her across the street, adjusting the cap he wears atop his head and making sure it conceals his identity from anyone with eyesight good enough to catch it, trying to shrug off the discomfort of the whole situation as he waits for someone to pick up the buzzer Talia relentlessly presses.

He hears a different kind of buzz, lighter, like the manual zoom of a camera, and cranes his neck to assess their surroundings as they wait, before he catches sight of the device in the top corner of the porch, facing directly onto them.

He hears the click of a lock as soon as his eyes make contact with the thing, and cautiously tries the handle on the door until it pushes all the way down, letting them into the building. 

The door to the ground floor condo is open, and stood in the entrance is a guy no older than 20, dressed in all black with dark, beady eyes framed by wire-rimmed glasses. If Nico could find it in him to see the humour in the situation, he’d laugh at how he looks like Luke - a mop of curly brown hair, tall with a slim build and ever so slightly poor posture.

He straightens up as the two of them approach, Nico keeping Talia behind him as he assesses the safety of the situation. If they’re being lured into some kind of trap, he could definitely take this guy - he can’t even maintain direct eye contact, never mind manage to subdue a man of Nico’s stature.

“You didn’t tell me you were bringing someone, Talia.”

He’s soft-spoken, his voice ever so nasally, and despite the fact that he’s talking to the girl behind him, his gaze has settled on Nico’s chest.

“My name’s Nico.” He introduces himself, holding out a hand to shake. He thinks he can write him off as a threat, for now, and if making him feel comfortable encourages him to help them, he wants to put him at ease. “

“I know who you are.” He doesn’t shake Nico’s hand. “I’m Myles. Come in.”

Myles doesn’t wait for the two of them, marching back into his place and leaving the door open for Talia and Nico to enter and close behind them. 

Nico isn’t surprised by the space - from his brief encounter with the resident so far, it fits him to a tee; neat, impersonal, furniture that looks fresh out of a catalogue. He follows him over to the corner of his living room, a PC set up with several monitors that he can’t tell are on until they’re standing straight in front of them.

Myles throws himself down into the large swivel chair, spinning until he’s facing the two of them and crossing his arms over his torso with disinterest. “So, nudes?”

Straight to the point. Nico can’t exactly be mad at it.

Talia steps out from behind him, handing her unlocked phone to Myles. “The messages started last week, just after New Years. Straight to my number, not in DMs or anything, but the number doesn’t even come up for me to call it from another phone or anything, just says unknown.”

Myles takes her phone and plugs it into his setup without even looking at whatever she has opened on it, and Nico watches as the screens come alive with mirrors of the device and some other apps that launch as soon as it connects. 

“That’s more helpful than you think, they have to use an app to be able to anonymously text you, makes it easier to identify them.”

The way Myles talks is monotonous and detached, but the way he works is anything but. His fingers move quicker than Nico’s eyes can track on his keyboard, typing away at whatever as different things flash up and leave his screen. It like something straight out of a spy movie.

“So we can find out who it is just from that?” He asks, arms folding over his chest as he watches in almost-awe.

“Not exactly. If it is a hacker, I could identify their signature. Doesn’t mean I could identify them, but we can work around it potentially.”

Talia throws herself down on the couch behind them exasperatedly, sighing loudly and making her displeasure known. “You told me you could track them down, that’s what I’m paying you to do.”

“I told you I could help you, I didn’t say I could specifically track anyone, that’s not how this works.”

“How does it work then?” Nico asks.

Myles wheels his chair to the side to make room for Nico to get closer, and starts walking him through the process, pointing through the different apps he uses and explaining how he uses them. One deciphers which app the person used to message Talia. Once that’s been deduced, he uses another to enter a backdoor into that app’s servers, perusing through them until he finds the account that sent the text, making sure the date, time and then content line up. Once he’s found the account, he can see the other texts sent from it, and a gallery spreads across two screens, with maybe hundreds of pictures, videos, messages and transactions all to or from that same account.

“You’re telling me you have the power to do all this and you don’t use it to like rob banks or something?”

“Ethical hacker, clue’s in the name.” Myles shrugs. Nico looks back to Talia, her jaw set as she picks at her nails out of boredom. It’s probably taken about fifteen minutes for this guy to work an absolute miracle, and she looks like she couldn’t care less. “We use all this information, and the access I have on the server, to shut this dude down and cut his con before he can do it to anyone else.”

“Whoa whoa,” Talia shoots up, “Won’t that make him mad? Make him just post all the photos?”

“I doubt it,” the hacker comments, bringing up a couple of the photos on the screens, some of Talia, some of another girl, making Nico divert his eyes. “They’re not even real.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Excuse me?”

Talia and Nico both question at the same time, leaning in to get a proper look to confirm what is being told to them. The other pictures Myles had brought up, the ones of other girls, are actually kind of the same. The same poses, the same backgrounds, the same outfits, or lack thereof, just different faces and different hair.

“They’re called deep fakes. Photoshop, essentially.” He has that aloof tone to his words again, and Nico can’t quite believe how simple it seems for him to say. “They put a bunch of your pictures into an AI generator and give it instruction, like put this face on a body posed like this or wearing that. I’d assume the video they have is the same.”

“How is that even possible?” Talia gasps, pushing herself forward and snatching the mouse from Myles’ grasp. She clicks into what she assumes is the video, and it starts playing before she can think better of it, thankfully without any sound. 

It’s Talia - that much is obvious from the initial close up of her face - but Nico doesn’t recognise anything else about it. He doesn’t recognise the room she’s in, the bed she’s on, the things she’s doing. He’s never seen this before. It’s definitely not one of the videos she had sent him, and when he looks closer, he realises the little moles on her ribs aren’t even there.

None of it is real.

“You said he sent you the photos? You didn’t realise they weren’t the ones you took?” He can’t conceal the bite in his tone, his brows furrowing as he looks at her in disbelief. She’s flown out here, disrupted his peace, blamed him for blackmailing her, and she can’t even recognise what is or isn’t her own body. 

“They looked real, I-,” Her shock disappears as quickly as it had come about, her mood shifting and a glare all of a sudden being directed at her ex boyfriend. “I wouldn’t have accused you if they didn’t look real, Nico.” She snaps, frowning at him like this is his fault. “You have no idea what it’s like to be threatened like that, I won’t have you blame me for panicking.”

Slivers of guilt seep into his subconscious, and he takes a deep breath, diverting his gaze uneasily and letting out a big sigh.

He knows he should be a little more compassionate, but there’s panicking, and then there’s this.

She had accused him of ruining her life.

“What about the rest of it?” Nico asks, “Like how did he get her number or have my address? You said he had other information?”

“He did,” Talia nods, looking over to Myles.

“The address he probably got when he got your number, and he could have got that from anywhere. Could be something as small as you ordering something online and the store having a data breach, or clicking a link that shared your IP address, and getting your phone information from that.” Myles starts his typing again, keeping a tight grip on his mouse so that it can’t be snatched again. “I could probably find out actually, they’re pretty easy to spot, do you clear your history often?”

“I wouldn’t even know how to do that,”

“Perfect,” Again, his fingertips work at lightening speed, and Nico watches as instagram opens on one of the screens. “Yeah, a DM sent to you from… Devils_tea. You opened a link to a shared drive to upload some pictures, the drive probably had malware and the pictures have location metadata.”

Nico rolls his eyes, that small ebb of pity washing almost completely away, and before Talia can stop him, Myles carries on. “Some of the pictures you sent them are the ones they used for the AI photos, look your face in this one is the exact same as this photo they threatened to leak.”

Nico recognises these photos. The ones that had been plastered all over social media when their relationship had leaked. Pictures of them back in Switzerland, on a weekend trip to Ibiza, selfies of them in his apartment, and even a picture of the two of them with his parents back at his family home in Valais.

He has been far too oblivious to Talia’s games for far too long, he realises. 

Of course she had been the one to leak everything - who else would have had those photos - but he hadn’t even considered it would be her; she had faced the harshest aftermath for it, why would she subject herself to all the subsequent grief that came with people knowing about their relationship?

Thank God for this guy’s lack of social cues, Nico thinks, or he would never have known that for as long as they had been together, she had been violating his revered privacy and trust.

“Nico, that wasn’t-,” Talia’s panic is evident, wide eyes, trembling hands raised in defence, “I must have been hacked,”

“Actually, there’s no-,” Myles begins to interject, fingers working again to fact check, but Nico doesn’t need him to validate what he already knows.

“Shut up,” Talia snarls, with a finger pointed at him, “You don’t know what you’re talking about, we’re done here.” She reaches forward to snatch her phone back, yanking out the wire that connects it to his monitors and throwing it onto the desk. “We’re leaving, and if you think I’m paying you anything, you’re deluded.” 

Talia marches past them and straight out of the condo, slamming every door she possibly can behind her. Nico can only cringe as the sounds of her stomping footsteps echo until they fade out - until she’s probably outside and waiting for him back at his car.

“Doesn’t she want me to shut this thing down?”

“I’ll pay you.” Nico sighs, reaching into his pocket for his phone and trying to push down the feeling that arises when he’s met with a blank lock screen.

Poppy hasn’t messaged him. 

Not that he deserves for her to make it easy, to let him off the hook and pretend he hasn’t royally fucked things up with her.

“If you stop him, does he still have all the photos? He could still release them?”

“Yeah, but they’re pretty easy to validate as fakes, especially when you have the source material. I don’t think this guy is sophisticated enough for a full blown hack into her phone for the real thing. I couldn’t find evidence of any breach of her cloud or her device.”

Nico nods, but the information does little to quell the anxiety that squeezes his chest in a vice-like grip. 

This whole morning has been nothing but a giant waste of his time. From the second his eyes opened, to this moment right now, he’s made nothing but mistakes.

Not putting his phone on sleep mode before he and Poppy went to bed had been a mistake. Taking Talia’s call had been a mistake. Not waking Poppy up had been a mistake. Leaving without a note, without a text, leaving at all - it had all been one error after another, and all he has left to do is face up to the fact.

He can’t do anything to dwindle the panic rousing in every fibre of his being, the scarring marks left by torturous lashings of regret that whip at his skin.

He’s never felt so ashamed of himself, in such disbelief at his own decisions.

Why didn’t he just wake her?

She’s the most level-headed, acceptable person he knows. She would have understood. He hadn’t had a reasonable explanation at the time, and he doesn’t really have one now - but she would have accepted it, whatever he could have told her, she would have listened, waited until he could give her more.

He needs to see her, to explain, before it’s too late.

If he thinks about the feeling settling in his stomach, if he can compare it to anything, it’s like running from a blazing inferno of doubt and insecurity, licks of fire racing to catch up to him, the soles of his feet pressing into the sizzling ground - and Poppy is the cool embrace of safety.

She is light cracking through a window he just needs to break through to make it out.

If he can get to her quick enough, if he runs, and runs, maybe he’ll make it before he’s jiggling at a red hot handle that won’t move, won’t give, won’t budge.

If he can just talk to her, maybe the morning from hell will be outweighed by the days of resilience, weeks of efforts, years of loving her in whatever capacity, and the promise of something better.

He just needs to get rid of Talia.

The car journey back to his apartment is carried out in a deafening silence. She had tried to talk to him when he’d made his way out of Myles’ condo, when he had found her waiting by his Mercedes with crossed arms and a sour look on her face, but he’d told her he didn’t want to hear it, that they’d deal with it in private.

He hardly wanted a showdown with her in the middle of the street.

And so, she sat in his passenger seat, jaw set, glaring out the window and letting out the occasional huff or puff for attention that he wasn’t entertaining.

The elevator ride up to his place had been the same. Silent, filled with the type of tension you could cut with a knife, and all he could do was ignore her continued petulance and take deep breaths to calm himself down. In through his nose, out through his mouth, overlooking the way she tapped her foot in his peripheral vision, and almost audibly rolled her eyes every few seconds. 

“Would it have killed you to defend me in there?” She scoffs as soon as the door closes behind them in his apartment, “You just let him accuse me of all that stuff and completely invade my privacy!”

Nico screws his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose.

He can’t blow up, can’t stoop to her level. He won’t feel good after the fact. He knows how Talia operates, should have known she’d immediately play the victim card, and he isn’t falling into the trap of arguing to the point of being in the wrong.

He’ll say something he regrets and she’ll use it to her advantage, somehow.

“You asked him to go through your phone, Talia.” He sighs, making his way over to the kitchen and getting himself some water. Chugging at it does little to soothe the burning feeling prickling at the back of his mouth, or the itch of his tongue to spit out a scathing retort. “He’s shut down the guy behind it, he can’t message you or anyone else with any more threats, you should be happy.”

“I should be happy?” She follows him wherever he tries to get away, crowding his space and jabbing a pointed finger into his arm. “You have no idea what I’ve been going through this past week. I thought my career was over! How was I supposed to know it was fake?”

“You didn’t even look at the pictures-,”

“Because I was panicking! I was upset, you can’t expect me to be able to recognise what’s been photoshopped when I’m scared like that!”

“But you can fly straight over here and pin the blame on me for ruining your life? You weren’t too upset to point the finger, Talia,”

“Don’t be an asshole, Nico, it doesn’t suit you.” 

“I’m being the asshole? You don’t even care about the trail of destruction you leave behind you, do you? You send private pictures of us, of me, of my family to random people online who you don’t even know, for what, Talia? For money?”

“I don’t need their money-,”

“So it was just for the attention? You get to parade our relationship around like it means nothing more to you than a title, and once you get your fifteen minutes and a few more instagram followers, you just jet back home and dump me over a text?”

“Oh my God,” she cries, flailing her arms dramatically, following him yet again as he makes his way into his living room, picking her stuff up after her that she had discarded here before they left and throwing it into her travel bag. “Stop playing the victim, for Christ’s sake, you’re hardly heartbroken over it. I know for a fact you’ve been hooking up with someone, one of the girls messaged me that they saw you leave a party with her on New Years!”

“So that’s what this is?” Nico snaps, pointing to her, to her stuff, “You think I’m moving on so you fly back out here and spring this bullshit on me, try to make me feel bad?”

“You have some nerve, Nico,” Talia scoffs, folding her arms across her chest and levelling him with a darkened glare.

“I have nerve? You’re the one who broke up with me out of nowhere and think that you can just march back here and make demands, Talia, blaming me for something that was entirely your own doing.” He’s getting sick of walking on egg shells around the topic. If she hadn’t have been messaging people she wasn’t supposed to, this would never have happened - it’s no one’s fault but her own, and as harsh as it may be, he wants to wash his hands of the whole thing. “Calling me in the middle of the night, telling me I ruined your life, saying I need to give you money?”

“Out of nowhere?” Of course she would only pick up on that, he thinks. “My God, you are so self-absorbed.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Do you think that dating you is easy?” She questions with a measured step toward him. “Do you think I want to spend my life waiting around for my boyfriend, only for him to only ever come home grumpy,” another step, “Or whiny,” and another, “Or too tired and achey to do anything? And that’s when you do come home at all and aren’t half way across the country with the communication skills of a candle. It’s a constant uphill battle trying to get even a second of your attention, Nico, so God forbid I tried to gain some kind of advantage from being with you.”

Her words are starting to cut, but he tries not to react, tries not to bite back. He can count several ways in which she gained an advantage being with him, just off the top of the head - a girl like Talia is never shy of attention. Her courting gossip blogs and sending them private information is probably just scraping the barrel of the ploys she made for exposure while she was with him.

“I didn’t break up with you out of nowhere, I put up with you and the whole circus that comes with you for months, but God, is it exhausting being with you.”

“You knew what you were getting into, Talia. You knew my job, knew my life.” They had met initially through mutual friends - hockey friends of his back home, even - and she has other friends who happen to be wives or girlfriends of athletes. She can’t say she came into the relationship completely oblivious to the downsides of dating a professional player.

“Not really,” she shrugs, “All the other guys can find some sort of balance, but not you. All the other girls get a proper boyfriend, someone who spends time doing what they want to do, who sticks up for them when their psycho fans start to turn on them, who doesn’t keep them hidden away like some dirty secret.”

“That isn’t fair, I can’t control that stuff, Talia, it’s not my fault.” He wants to point out that she was the one engaging in their gossip and riling them up, but he can’t keep harping on about something she refuses to acknowledge. He doesn’t have the time, patience or energy for it anymore.

The initial ‘leaking’ of their relationship had caused their first major fight. Fans online had somehow - although Nico can now hazard a guess as to how - found out about the two of them, had dug into Talia, her background, her family, her job, and had found some pretty toxic posts on her social media. They had been old posts, and she had told Nico that wasn’t the kind of person she was anymore - and he had no reason not to believe her, had never seen or heard her act in the ways she had online in what she called her misguided youth - but someone in the PR department at the Devils had cottoned onto the topic, and had warned Nico of speaking out in her defence when the pitchforks started to raise.

He’d told her he supported her, but he couldn’t do so publicly - not without upsetting people within the organisation he had worked so hard to gain the respect of - and she had told him she understood. They hadn’t been together that long, it would have been a little unreasonable for him to put her above his work in the ways she was expecting, but she clearly doesn’t see it that way, now.

“Maybe not, but if I’d have known that being with you meant having my life invaded, my career ruined, I never would have followed you back here, Nico.” She sounds more solemn now - regretful, even - and as deep as her words cut, she says it like a piece of advice, “I just hope whatever poor girl you’ve got tangled up in your mess this time knows what she’s getting herself into.”

“And what’s that?” His throat feels tight as he speaks all of a sudden, his resolve in defending himself fading, and he tries to gulp down whatever lump is forming there but the feeling doesn’t budge.

This is what she’s good at.

Turning the tables. Reducing him to uncertainty of himself, of his actions, of his memory of their time together.

“A one-sided relationship with a guy who will never be able to put her first.”

There’s a point in every game he has ever had the misfortune of losing, as the seconds count down in the final third, where he has to come to terms with the fact that there’s no possible way for him to win. It’s sort of comparable to the way his insides churn when he’s on a plane and it drops into descent, like his body is falling at a different speed to his surroundings, or the feeling he gets in his gut when he’s hiking, and he dares to take a peek over the edge of whatever mountainside he’s trekking up, where his body can predict the fall, and his mind has set on there being nothing he can do about it.

This feels like all those feelings.

“Whoever she is, and I know she exists, she doesn’t deserve that. It’s not fair.”

Nico’s heart pounds in his chest, echoing and thrumming in his ears until all he can hear is the beat reverberating, ricocheting around his skull.

He can put Poppy first.

So many parts of their lives are intertwined, it would be so easy to make it work. They work together, they live close, he speaks to her more than he speaks to anyone else in his circle. They’ve spent more time together as friends than he has with any other girlfriend he’s had.

He’s wanted her for years, of course he can do it.

Except, deep down, he knows he can’t. Being in a committed relationship with someone is an entirely different ball game to a friendship, no matter how close he and Poppy have been over the years.

He knows there’ll come a point soon into the season where he has to knuckle down and focus, can’t let anything or anyone distract him, and he’ll close himself off. It’s what he has always done. He gets in his head, starts to carry too much weight that he can’t shift until that final buzzer blows - and he can only hope that it happens with his team in the playoffs. Winning, thriving, succeeding. And for that to happen, he can’t prioritise anything other than the game he’s already dedicated his life to, his training, and most importantly, his team.

It isn’t about what he wants.

What have you done? He thinks, his chest aching.

Talia is right.

Poppy doesn’t deserve that.

She doesn’t deserve him only being there in the physical sense, if she even gets that at all. Doesn’t deserve him getting snappy and stressed, doesn’t deserve him not being able to give her time, or give her attention or affection like he wants to, or like she’s worthy of.

“I need to go.” He manages to choke out with a shake of his head, shouldering past her to pick up his jacket - needing to be out of this conversation and away from Talia. “Leave the keys, I don’t want you here when I get back.”

He needs to see Poppy.

He never should have left her - he wishes with everything in him that he had soaked up the time he had with her before everything came tumbling down around him. And somewhere deep within him, there is a fragile, wilting piece of hope that clings to the belief he can make things right. He just needs her to hone in on it. If anyone can reach into the deepest cracks of his insecurities, can show him he’s overthinking things and everything is not as hopeless as he has made it out to be, it will be Poppy.

Poppy

The first time Poppy had ever fallen asleep beside Nico was at a movie night in Jack’s old apartment he shared with Ty Smith. Jack had invited more people round than could reasonably fit in their living room, and so everyone was smushed in - each chair and every inch of floor space used to its full capacity. 

Nico had attempted to save Poppy a space, to give him credit. He had scowled at each of his teammates who tried to throw themselves down in the tiny slot beside him - prime space, corner of the comfiest couch, facing the tv directly, a small table to the side where one could keep their drinks and snacks - only, by the time Poppy got there, he had barely gotten away with man-spreading to make room, so the small section of the couch between Nico and the arm rest had become her designated spot.

It was cosy, to put it nicely. He had to swing his arm over the back so that she wasn’t being assaulted by the hard dig of his shoulder with every laugh, and her closest leg was pretty much on top of his for most of the film.

She’d known the guys for almost a year - had been working in media, attending every game, home and away, and had integrated herself into the group pretty closely - and she felt pretty comfortable around everyone.

It wasn’t the kind of dynamic she had anticipated falling into when she first got the job with the Devils. She was supposed to start getting serious about her life - cracking down on mingling with co-workers and throwing herself into new social circles, and focusing on building a career for herself, climbing through the ranks and attaining the kind of success and happiness she could shove in her family’s disapproving faces - but the guys had charmed her.

Jack had been somewhat relentless in his pursuit of Poppy’s friendship. He rarely took no for an answer when it came to inviting her out. He was new to New Jersey - a much younger player in a slightly older team - and his rookie season had been rough, so it came naturally to Poppy to want to provide comfort. She introduced him to some of her friends, showed him her favourite spots close to his apartment, found him a decent barber, picked up extra fruit whenever she went to the farmers market near her parent’s house and took it over to his and Ty’s place when she came back home so she could mother him into having his 5-a-day as if he didn’t have access to the best nutrition coaches in the country. Despite her best efforts, Jack had weaselled his way under her skin in the way only a brother could.

Nico’s charm was entirely different.

Nico’s charm came in the form of convenience at first - in the oh I live that way, I can drive you and I have some time, I can do some media stuff for you type of way. Convenience blended into companionship - I haven’t eaten either, we should go for lunch together and I’ve been wanting to watch that movie, do you want to watch it with me?

It turned into grabbing food together, even on days neither of them were working - breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, even coffee or sometimes drinks if they could meet up with the rest of the team. It turned into him spending time at her place, whether it was helping her paint her apartment, putting up her new wardrobes, or just binging whatever crazy long series Poppy had decided to start over from the beginning - she provided him with a sense of familiarity and calm he couldn’t really find in anyone else he had met in his time in the states. She became his person, his home away from home, away from home.

And he became hers. 

There wasn’t as much she had to escape; her job not as strenuous, the expectations of her not as high, but when things built up for her - when her mother became overbearing, or her latest endeavour into a relationship crashed and burned - Nico was there. He’d make sure she had a distraction, made sure she was looking after herself, and, in turn, would look after her as well. He made sure she got home safe on nights out, or when they returned from a roadie and landed late - he would always make sure to see her off into the comfort of her own home before he went back to his own. 

And that first time she’d fallen asleep beside him, he’d done the same.

He’d wrapped an arm around her to make her as comfortable as possible for as long as he could, and when the movie had finished - when her face was burrowed into the side of his chest, soft snores falling from between her lips - he gently drew her back to consciousness with his hand stroking at her cheek.

She’d been a little startled, hand shooting up to wipe at her chin and thankful she hadn’t been drooling on him - although with the easy smile he was giving her, she had thought he of all people wouldn’t have minded. 

“Movie’s done, do you need a ride home?” His voice had been low and soft as not to worsen her apparent disorientation, and his hand was still lingering by the side of her face.

She had nodded, blinking away her sleepiness, and working her way up from the couch and onto her feet, stretching out her muscles as Nico did the same.

The two of them bid their goodbyes to the rest of the guys, made their way together to Nico’s car, and he had driven her back to her apartment, chatting on the drive about work and training. 

Poppy had been cramming to prepare for her interview for the Foundation at the time - had been getting herself seriously worked up, staying up late, getting up early, barely allowing herself any time for anything fun - and Nico had seen right through her. 

He’d stopped her before she got out of the car, had held her hand, rubbing at her knuckles with his thumb, and had told her that she should get some proper rest, and that she was going to absolutely rock their world in her interview in a few days time. And, knowing she was going to ignore any instruction he gave to make herself some decent dinner and go to bed early, had ordered her favourite Japanese takeout to be delivered a good half an hour after she got inside, with a text that followed telling her to sleep straight after she had finished.

She’d never expected to drift asleep with him on Jack’s couch - had never expected to open her eyes to the sight of his looking so warmly back at her.

And she hadn’t expected the same thing this morning, because, as her eyes drifted open to the intrusive light peaking through the cracks in her curtains, it wasn’t the first time she had woken up.

The first time had been to subdued movements, a slight groan of her bed frame, and the soft pattering of footsteps leading away. It had been to a hushed voice, the creak of her bathroom door, the flush of a toilet and the uttering of a name she had hoped she would never have to worry about again.

Talia.

The rest of his words had been uttered in his own language, but that she could understand.

She had acted purely on fight or flight instinct, laying back and pretending she was asleep - although as soon as she did, she regretted it, her mind racing at the million and one other possibilities she could have gone with. Sitting up, waiting for him to come out and asking him what was going on being the most rational.

But when had she ever gone with the most rational thought?

She tried not to react as she felt his presence, felt the soft press of his lips to her skin, or the placement of her bunny in her arms. Tried not to follow him as soon as he departed her bedroom, beg him to come back and whatever was going on could wait until the proper turn of the morning. Tried not to get up and go after him when the click of the lock to her main door echoed throughout the empty apartment.

And she tried not to cry as she laid in bed, overthinking herself back to sleep, thoughts racing to the point of exhaustion, and hoping when she woke up again it had just been a god-awful dream.

But it hadn’t.

The spot beside her in bed is empty, not even a crease in the pillow to prove he was ever there - only the t-shirt of his she still adorned, the one that when she takes a deep inhale, still smells like him, and the distinct aching between her thighs.

She finds more evidence of their night together in the bathroom, where she undresses herself with sore muscles and glances in the mirror to see the spattering of purple marks forming on her chest and neck. Her fingers trace over them lightly, her fleeting touch bringing vivid images forth of his lips pressing to her skin, practically able to feel the pressure of her flesh being nipped and bitten again.

He had been so attentive to her - so in tune with what she needed and wanted, and so ready to give her whatever that may be. He’d been gentle at some points, and purposeful at others, and every little thing he did, he did it with sweet disposition.

The kind of man who treats a girl like that doesn’t just leave her in the dead of night with no good reason, right?

Her mind races despite her body going into auto-pilot throughout her morning routine. Her shower is over in the flash of an eye, she strips her bed, starts her laundry, makes herself some tea and gets herself dressed - all the while weighing out all the possibilities of what could have taken him away from her, and what she would be able to understand. 

That quickly turns to her imagining the worst, and a tight, constricting feeling starts to consume her chest. 

There isn’t a single part of her apartment she can get away from the thoughts buzzing around her brain - her kitchen marred with the memory of what had happened on the counter, her couch, her bedroom, her bathroom - all carrying distinct memories of Nico that she needs to bench until she knows the truth.

She mistakenly thinks her escape might lie in her phone. There might be a text there waiting, explaining everything and relieving all the anxiety that has welled up in her very core.

Nia’s warnings from the night before don’t ring quick enough in her mind as the screen comes to life, the immediate barrage of notifications flooding in.

2 missed calls from Mom

Mom: Just calling to remind you of proper table etiquette in case it has slipped your mind, I won’t have you embarrass me in front of a Lyon.

Mom: Cutlery going from the outside in, hold your wine glass by the stem and dab with your napkin, don’t swipe!

Mom: Also let the man tuck your chair in and pay the bill, this 21st century woman nonsense is very unbecoming!

Mom: And I don’t want to have to bring this up but for the love of God, Poppy, have some class. I don’t want to hear mutterings of your promiscuity at the next luncheon.

Whoever taught her mom to text deserves a prison sentence, she thinks.

Tucker Lyon standing a girl up and ghosting her attempts to contact him is what’s unbecoming, not her trying to pay her half of the meal.

She can picture her mother as she reads the texts, sipping on her Manhattan on the couch in the great room, her dad already having retreated to bed at that time, and her having nothing better to do than sit and stew on her daughter’s sex life.

If she knew what was really going down last night, her mom would probably have a conniption.

Knowing she’ll no doubt be getting a call later that evening, Poppy swipes away at her text thread with her mom, immediately checking the notifications she hasn’t long received from her best friend.

Nia: hey if you happen to release yourself from Nico’s wandering hands at all today me and Kelsey are grabbing breakfast by my work!!

Nia: if you need refuelling we’ll be at Marco’s at 9 😘 

Perfect. Therein lies her escape. Breakfast with her best friends, where they can hopefully talk her down from the ledge she’s precariously placed herself on.

A catch up with her girls, and then she can distract herself with work.

Poppy: I’ll be there!!

“Hasn’t he text you or anything?” Nia asks, covering her mouth as she chews on her breakfast bagel, the three girls sat around a table inside their favourite cafe close to Nia’s office.

When Poppy and Nia had first moved in together, they rented an apartment in Hoboken, not too far, and their tradition of grabbing breakfast at Marco’s carried on despite Poppy living further down the river and working even further away in Newark. 

Kelsey had lived in Manhattan at that time, but she stayed over so often with the other girls that she practically spent majority of her week there, and so Poppy and Nia’s routine became hers.

Poppy had given the two of them a brief rundown of her night with Nico, a safe-for-work version of events, all leading up to the mysterious early morning phone call and swift departure.

“Nope,” she sighs, swiping to refresh her messages as if she hasn’t put her phone on loud just to be alerted when he does reach out.

“Have you text him?”

“Nope,” she repeats, putting the phone down and leaning back in her chair, running a hand through her already messed up hair. She’s going to have to throw it up if she wants to look any sort of presentable when she gets to work later.

“Is he usually this pathetic at communicating?” Kelsey asks, manicured nails swiping at a bunch of Sweet’n Lows like she’s trying to play Tetris with the packets. 

Kelsey hasn’t met Nico before, not that Poppy can remember.

Despite considering her one of her closest friends, their personal lives have never quite intertwined like that - not like hers and Nia’s.

In college, things were different. They were coming into their own together, figuring out just what they wanted their personal lives to be, and so Kelsey, Poppy and Nia would all share pretty much everything, just to have someone there to validate their feelings.

But that changed once they graduated.

Kelsey moved in with her boyfriend, Liam - who just so happens to be Poppy’s idea of hell-spawn.

The kind of guy her mother would probably love.

Liam worked on Wall Street, couldn’t go five minutes of conversation without talking about stocks or investment funds. His native language was risky money moves and belittling remarks, and he treated Kelsey like an accessory to parade around in public and discard in private.

Poppy had tried a few times to open Kelsey’s eyes to the way that it was, but it soon became apparent that she had to let her friend make her own mistakes, and some parts of their lives didn’t have to cross over.

They broke up around Thanksgiving, and Poppy had tried with all her might not to show her relief, but it has made her somewhat resentful when it comes to other relationships - like no one can be happy if she isn’t.

She knows it isn’t malicious, but she restrains from letting Kelsey all the way in, all the same.

“Not really,” Poppy lies, not wanting to clue her in on the Big Freezewhere he didn’t speak to her for months on end. It doesn’t entirely help her case. “I just don’t get why he’d sneak out to see her of all people, he told me they weren’t ever that solid, that he wasn’t happy with her.”

“Ooh, what if she’s pregnant?” Kelsey is entirely oblivious to the horrific realm of possibility she has just opened Poppy up to, evidenced by the casual chuckle and subsequent sip of her coffee. “Maybe she’s back to baby-trap him.”

Poppy thinks she would have to flee the state.

Nico is a family guy - if Talia is pregnant, he’d force himself to love her again, if he ever even stopped, for the sake of their gorgeous brown eyed, floppy haired baby, and push Poppy to the side just like he had before. And she’ll have to watch him from the sidelines, yearning for what she had just managed to touch the tips of her fingers to before it was violently yanked from her grasp. 

Maybe she’d have to flee the country even - move somewhere remote where she doesn’t even have the chance of being reminded of hockey, let alone of him.

Somewhere with no coffee shops that she’d enter, and the smell of fresh pastries would remind her of all the breakfasts they had together. No railways, where she’d be reminded of his love for model trains every time she came across the tracks. No weird club music that he loves so much, or dorky wizard franchises he chastises her for never having seen.

Maybe Antarctica. They only have penguins there. No real civilisation that she knows of. No brown haired, dark eyed Swiss Gods with deep, honeyed voices that make her knees weak and dimpled smiles that do even worse.

She wouldn’t be able to cope with losing him like that, living her life in an endless mental cycle of what ifs and maybes.

“Kelsey, I beg of you to read the room,” Nia chastises, swatting the girl on her arm before taking Poppy’s hand in her own. “Don’t listen to her, she just wants us all to be single at the same time.”

“Sue me for wanting to have fun! It would be just like college, you and me full-body plunging into the dating pool. Imagine the chaos, Pop, you don’t wanna be tied down to a guy hung up on his ex right now.”

“Dating pool?” Nia scoffs, turning to glare at her, “You’re hardly dry from your last relationship.”

“I’d rather be a grape than a raisin, Ni.” Kelsey chides back, and Poppy can’t help the twitch of her lips at the horrific comparison. 

“You’re really gonna listen to a girl who says that?” Nia asks, unable to mask the glint of humour in her eyes, and Kelsey bites back a smile, too.

Despite the ache in her chest at the thought of any of it - of Nico leaving her this morning, filling her up with empty words and false promises, potentially knocking up an ex girlfriend he is still secretly hung up on even though he told her otherwise - she manages to crack a full smile.

“You are terrible at analogies, Kels,” Poppy tries to hide the grin behind her cup, sipping at her tea and letting the warmth of it soothe the pain in her throat. 

“I’m trying to encourage you to be a strong, independent woman here!”

“She is a strong, independent woman,” Nia defends, “She also happens to be a chronic over-thinker with a deep seated fear of confrontation.”

“I don’t fear confrontation.”

“Then why are we here chit-chatting about hypothetical scenarios when you could just text him and ask what’s up?”

“Maybe ‘cause that’s scary?” Poppy scoffs, only half joking. “What am I supposed to say, hey I just so happened to eavesdrop on your private conversation before you fled my apartment this morning, and despite me not understanding most of it, I definitely heard you mention someone, so could you just let me know if your gorgeous model ex girlfriend is pregnant with your perfect specimen baby?”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out, you don’t even need us.”

Poppy rolls her eyes.  

She could text him. Could be casual about it, a good morning or even an are you okay? Those don’t warrant the alarm bells she’s afraid of raising - the ones that blare out with the siren sound of run, this girl is unhealthily attached to you already!

But she doesn’t want to be the pathetic girl chasing after the guy sending her clear messages that he doesn’t want her.

It’s easier said than done not to overthink the whole thing - not to second guess everything he had said, or everything she had done last night.

She feels like she had rushed things. It was so impulsive, so charged, and after spending the majority of her week away from him, she just hadn’t been able to help herself. And that makes her feel like a hypocrite. She had told him that night he had first kissed her that things between them had gotten intense. It had been the whole reason for spending a few days outside of each other’s company, and in the first possible instance, she had thrown herself at him.

It was desperate.

And maybe that scared him.

It sure as hell scares her.

“I don’t know what to do,” She groans, throwing her head into her hands and scrunching her eyes shut to try and drown out the endless doubt. 

She feels two hands rub at either sides of her back, “Listen, Pop,” Nia is the first to attempt to console her, as always, and Poppy holds her breath for the harsh reality check she’s about to throw her way. “You know I am the one person who would usually be trying to convince you to cut your losses and run when it comes to guys who are no good, but this is Nico. I’ve watched the two of you ignore your feelings for far too long to let you get in your own way, now.

“And you’re forgetting I saw him last night, before you got there, there isn’t a chance in Hell he would have left you like that without a good reason. I don’t for a second think he’s still hung up on her.” Nia casts a side eye to Kelsey.

The only problem is that Poppy isn’t sure there’s a reason good enough. Not when it comes to Talia. Not when the memory of those months of radio silence is still so fresh for her.

“I have to go to work in a building where his face is plastered everywhere, Ni, I can hardly forget his entire existence until he deems me worthy of an explanation. Who leaves after a night like that without even a note or a text?”

“An idiot,” Kelsey mutters around her drink, rolling her eyes when Nia sends her another death-glare.

“I’m not asking you to forget, I’m telling you to wait.” Nia frowns, but her tone remains consoling and warm. “You need to stop letting what this thinks,” she flicks at Poppy’s forehead, “Get in the way of what this knows.” She points to her chest on the left side. “You know him. You know how much he likes you.”

She does.

She knows Nico, she trusts him.

She can only judge him based on his actions so far - the ones that tell her that he cares. He leads with his heart, it’s his most attractive attribute. He’s gentle and loving and she needs to focus on those things over anything else.

“Ugh, corny,” Kelsey drags, and despite her repeated efforts to discourage her, Poppy knows she isn’t being entirely serious. “If he has any non-stupid hot athlete friends though, I’m first in line when the two of you kiss and make up for double dates.”

Guilt pricks slightly at Poppy’s chest - for making her recently single friend sit here and listen to her complain about something so monumentally small compared to the breakdown of the long-term relationship Kelsey had just endured. Even if it was perceivably toxic.

“You’d make such a good WAG, Kels.”

It’s a poor attempt to make up for it, but it seems to console her friend all the same, a giant grin breaking out and flashing her perfect pearly whites.

“I know.”

Poppy tries to distract herself with work. Tries to make her way through her inbox of seemingly never ending emails and her list of ever-growing tasks. She types up lengthy responses, puts together a presentation, makes a bunch of phone calls she’s been putting off for God knows how long, sorts all her invoices out - she even sends a fax. In the year 2024. It’s her most productive work day she thinks she’s ever had.

She zeroes in on the ground every time she moves through the building. Ignores the pictures that line the walls of the Rock, pushes down the memories of all the times she’s walked these very halls by Nico’s side, and she thinks she’s done just about enough to clear her mind for the time being.

She hasn’t thought up some heart wrenching scenario in at least an hour by the time she’s wrapping up for the day.

She’s making her way back to her office after dropping some files off for Elaine when she catches sight of a mop of curls over the top of the chair by her desk.

Luke is sat in her chair when she enters, swivelling around and staring at the ceiling.

“You’re gonna make yourself sick doing that, you know.”

“You’re such a mom,” he scoffs, standing up and clearly trying not to sway, “You ever tried having fun? I think I saw a glue stick on a table out there,” he points through the door into the wider office space, where there are a few, less private cubicles and a common area. “We should go sniff them, let loose a little.”

“Is that why you’re here on your day off? To huff glue?”

“Yeah, I don’t get to let loose enough. Being a rookie in the NHL is hard, Poppy,”

“Bummer for you.” She pouts, mockingly, swerving past him as he rounds her desk and sits on the other side, flicking at the bobblehead version of his older brother that stands by her computer. “If you’re chasing a high can you do it with one of the other departments, it’s not a good look for the Youth Foundation.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t.”

When Luke had first joined the Devils, she hadn’t expected that she would warm to him the way she has - but, surprisingly enough, considering the fact they’re brothers, their relationship recently has started to mirror her and Jack’s.

Luke is funny. He’s sarcastic and a little silly, and it can be nice to have him around when work gets a little stressful. He doesn’t let the pressures of his own career outweigh those of hers, and, despite the gap in age, she actually enjoys his company.

But he never seeks her out like this.

Their interactions have always started through other people. Group conversations that dwindle to just the two of them, or he usually accompanies Jack to bug her and carries on when Jack’s ever-so-busy schedule takes him elsewhere.

She can’t think of another time he’s just shown up in her office alone.

Especially on his incredibly rare day off.

“Why are you actually here?” She asks, casting a suspicious but half-playful glare his way as she starts to pack up her things. 

“Came to see if you wanted to join us for dinner.”

“Aw Lukey,” she reaches over her desk to pinch his cheek, “I’m flattered and all but I’m a little too old for you.”

“Ha ha,” he swats her hand away, “Us. Me and Jack. Maybe a couple of the others if they’re free but you can pick where we go if you make a decision quickly, we were thinking a steakhouse.”

She narrows her eyes at him, expecting him to crack a joke about her being old, but he just looks back at her awaiting a response. “Why?” She drags out the question, her movements stopping completely.

“Maybe ‘cause humans need sustenance to live? What do you mean, why?”

“Why would you want me to tag along on your bro date?”

“Don’t call it a bro date,” Luke cringes, “Just remembered you were working today and we were in the area, don’t know why you’re being weird about it.”

“You’re being weird. You guys never let me choose where we eat. Don’t you remember that time we grabbed dinner when you guys drove me home and Jack told me to stop being a pussy about my seafood allergy ‘cause he wanted sushi.”

“Don’t blame me for the crimes of my brother, Poppy, he was obviously joking.”

“I had to eat tofu, Luke, I don’t find that very funny.”

“Are you coming or not?”

“That depends, how do you have your steak?”

“Well done.”

“Oh! Then absolutely not.”

“Remind me never to try to be nice to you again.” He scowls as they make their way out of her office, and she locks up behind the two of them.

“Gladly, it’s creeping me out.” She grabs at his elbow before he can carry on, stopping him in the otherwise empty common area where she knows no one is around to listen in. “Is something going on, seriously?”

Luke rolls his eyes, but she knows him well enough that it’s only done in an attempt to avert from her gaze. 

Bingo. He’s hiding something.

“I just thought you might want some company.” He shrugs, shoving his hands into his pockets and twisting his lips to keep from saying much more.

“Why?”

If Poppy wanted to spend her life getting a straight answer out of people for a living, she’d have become an interrogator. What is it with these guys and their inability to answer a simple question?

“Jack said you left the party last night with Nico.”

Poppy’s eyebrows scrunch so close together that she can feel a deep crease form between them. What on earth does that have to do with asking her to dinner? Or being overly nice to her?

Unless-

“You’ve seen him?”

“This morning.”

“Oh.”

All of her efforts from throughout the day seem to have been for nothing - an immediate rush of insecurities flooding her mind.

Where did he see him? What did he say? Was he okay? Was Talia there?

She feels like she can gauge an answer from the way Luke looks. Sheepish, almost, like he doesn’t want to say something he knows will hurt her feelings.

She had to have been with him. He wouldn’t just show up to her office like this if it wasn’t something that would seriously hurt.

She wishes she wasn’t the kind of person who did this - who filled in the gaps of conversations and always came out with the worst possible outcomes - but she can’t help it. She’s been doing it all her life, and there’s rarely ever an instance where her instincts have led her astray.

She knows it’s some weird part of her mind protecting her, but she needs to do something here. Nia’s words from earlier ring like a warning. Don’t let what her brain thinks get in the way of what her heart knows.

Her heart knows Nico wanted her. Knows Nico liked her. Knows Nico wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.

She needs to figure things out for herself and stop running, stop letting her mind fill in the gaps of a situation it can’t even comprehend to begin with.

She reaches her arms around Luke’s shoulders, stretching up on her tip toes to pull him into a hug before rubbing her knuckles into his curls, affectionately.

Luke Hughes is sarcastic and silly, and he cares enough about her to not want her to be alone if she’s going through something.

“Thank you for the offer, Luke, but I’ll be alright.”

“Are you sure?”

She nods, a tender smile tugging at the corners of her stubborn lips. It takes over her face, eyes glinting fondly and cheeks warming. 

“Yeah, you can walk me to my car if you’re that worried about me though.” She loops her arm through his elbow as they make their way to the parking lot, and when they get there, he makes sure she’s in her car and has set off before him and Jack leave.

As if her day can’t get any worse, the elevator in her building is cordoned off with tape and a sign when she gets home, and she has never regretted moving up a floor as much as she does when she’s trudging up 6 flights of stairs.

She’s exhausted. Emotionally and physically, and she just wants to throw herself into bed and pretend the last 24 hours were a terrible dream.

Only, as she rounds the final corner to get to her door, any hopes of that go straight down the pan when her eyes land on Nico, standing in front of her door with his hands buried in his jacket pocket.

He looks tired too - hair messed where he’s no doubt been taking his cap on and off for however long he’s been stood here, running a hand through the tresses until they’re all askew. 

His shoulders are slumped, and he doesn’t even greet her with that pretty smile he usually gives her.

His lips do curve up a touch - limp and half-hearted, not even enough for a dimple to form - but it doesn’t provide the comfort she had thought it would.

She feels anxious. A culmination of the day’s emotions washing over in one go. Sad, regretful, nervous, disappointed - all things she shouldn’t be used to feeling when it comes to Nico, but are all too familiar when she takes the last few months into account.

“Hi.” She gives a weak smile of her own.

“Can we talk?”

She wishes he’d have just said hi, back. That might have relieved the tightness in her chest just a little.

Nothing good ever comes of can we talk?

He steps aside as she approaches, maintaining a safe distance as she opens the door and enters her apartment.

The Nico from yesterday might have brushed past her, the graze of an arm or a lingering hand, but this Nico doesn’t. He barely even meets her eye.

He closes the door behind himself, watching as she discards her bag and keys to the console table on the side, and while she’s turned away from him, she tries to let whatever emotions need to come out cross her features where he can’t see them.

She needs to be cool about this, she thinks.

If she doesn’t get her back up, doesn’t get agitated, she won’t scare him off.

“Are you okay?” She asks once she’s turned to face him, not liking how he stands unmoving by the door. He hasn’t made any effort to settle in - his jacket still on and his hands still hidden in the pockets.

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?”

She realises now that she can get a good look at him that the expression he wears is one of shame. Guilt. Apprehension. She needs to be careful and toe the line before he gets consumed by it, she realises.

She steps toward him a little, and he doesn’t back up - not immediately, not obviously - but he hardly welcomes her approach, either.

She doesn’t like feeling this way when it comes to talking to him - feeling uneasy and unsure, but there’s a part of her that’s tired of having to prompt him for answers.

He had been the one to leave this morning. Why can’t he just come out and tell her why?

“I’m alright,” she shrugs, not wanting to scare him off with the truth. “Super tired, though, can we sit?”

She wonders if he thinks about the same things she does as they make their way to the couch. Wonders if he can feel the scratch of her nails on his torso, or the brush of her lips against his, as they sit in the spot where not even 24 hours ago, their bodies had been intertwined.

He doesn’t sit right beside her as he normally would, and she finds herself missing the way his thigh usually brushes against her own.

She doesn’t know where to start or what to ask, and so she basks in the silence for a little - finding comfort in the fact that, despite the mess they’re currently in, they aren’t quite at the end yet.

But a part of her feels it coming.

She’d known it this morning if she lets herself listen to the rational voice in her head. As soon as she’d heard him say her name, as soon as he’d left, a part of her knew that was it, and maybe if she’d let herself believe it at the time - hadn’t talked herself down and convinced herself she was being irrational - she could have protected herself from all the ways this is going to hurt.

“I’m sorry.” He says, and when she looks up, he’s looking down where his large hands are now clasped together in his lap.

“For what?” She manages to choke out.

“Last night, I,” she digs her nails into the palms of her own hands to stop herself filling in the gaps as he figures out what he wants to say, but it’s no use.

He’s sorry for last night.

Last night, he made a mistake.

Last night, he was drunk, he was confused, he was just looking for something or someone to keep him occupied.

“I care about you so much, Poppy.”

That sentence shouldn’t be the one that fills her with dread, but it is.

“You’re my best friend, and I love you,” he does look up as he says this, eye meeting hers in an attempt to convey his honesty, but she sees more of the truth in his glassy gaze than she hears in his words. “This morning, I panicked, and I just needed some time to figure out what I want.”

No, no, no.

She’d rather he tell her what actually happened than do this. Than pretend he left because he doesn’t want her.

“I love you-,”

“You said that, already.” She can’t help the bite in her tone as she prepares herself for the hit. The I love you, but.

“You’re so important to me. Being your friend, it’s like it’s what keeps me sane lately.”

She chews at the inside of her cheek as she feels the tears start to well at her lash line.

“Poppy, I don’t want to mess up what we have,” he shakes his head as his gaze drops, dark eyes darting to focus anywhere but on her own, pleading and watery as she watches him slip away. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You don’t think this is hurting me?” She feels weak as her voice breaks, “You don’t think this is already messy?”

She reaches out to take his hands in hers, digging in to unclasp them, to try thread her fingers through, but he doesn’t make it easy.

“Nico, I love you, too, you know I do, we can figure it out, you don’t have to run away from me.”

It’s a desperate attempt and she knows it is, but she needs to know she tried. When she’s sobbing into her pillow and crying herself to sleep tonight, she needs to know she didn’t just let him go without a fight.

“I can’t give you what you want, I can’t be in a relationship, I’m no good at it.” 

Regardless of what she had told herself earlier, about taking what he says at face value, and trying not to fill in the gaps like she does so often with everyone else, she can’t help herself. When he says, I can’t be in a relationship, he means with her. He can’t be with Poppy. He would be no good with Poppy.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I told you-,”

“No, you said before that you’ve wanted this for as long as you’ve known me, you don’t just wake up and change your mind, not after-,” Poppy starts to feel panic building within her like a flipped over sand timer. Rising and rising until she starts to feel nauseous, getting harder with each second not to jump to conclusions. 

The voice inside her that tells her he got what he wanted and decided it wasn’t for him sounds caustic and bitter, and if she hadn’t wound herself up so much about this whole situation over the course of the day - the past week, even, or the months before - she might have been able to fight off the way it so easily convinces her.

“I have to put the team first, it doesn’t matter what I want, I have to focus on them, on hockey.”

She’s too caught up in her own emotions to notice how weak he sounds - glassy eyes unable to catch the glint in his. All she can hear, all she can see, is the minute hints of a cover-up - that she isn’t getting the whole story, that he’s lying to her, and that the excuse he’s giving is cowardly.

He still hasn’t mentioned the call, hasn’t mentioned Talia, hasn’t explained why he left her, why he didn’t say anything, why he didn’t come back.

“And you didn’t know that before?” She scoffs, pushing herself up off the couch and stepping away from him, “I can’t believe you would do this to me.” She wipes the tears from her cheeks as soon as they fall, but she can’t rid her skin of the feeling that they were there, her flesh damp and sore.

“I know we took things a little too far last night, but that doesn’t mean-,” She almost thinks he notices how bad that hurts her, referencing the night they shared as a mistake - an instance where they got carried away, and not where they followed through on years worth of built up tension and adoration for one another. She doesn’t even have to fill in the gaps, this time. Took things a little too far is clear enough. “We can still be friends. I want to be friends.”

“Friends?” Poppy jeers in disbelief, turning completely away from him now and missing the tears that drop from his own cheeks - missing the way his chest cracks and stretches open in a last ditch demonstration of his vulnerability, his desperation not to lose her completely. “You should go.”

“Poppy,”

“I can’t,” she tries so hard not to cry, knowing she won’t be able to stop, but the words come out in a choked sob, and her voice carries on in the whiney way she always hates. “You told me you wanted more, you said I was yours, and I’m supposed to just act like it never happened? Just accept you didn’t actually mean the things you said?”

“I meant them,” he says, defiantly, so sure of himself that it makes her head spin. “I wouldn’t-,”

“No, you didn’t. You’re a liar. You were either lying then, or you’re lying now. I don’t know which is worse. I can’t be your friend. I can’t pretend like you can that I don’t feel the way I feel.”

“Please, Mohn,” His fingertips just manage to reach out to land on her forearm before she shucks him off, wincing as if his touch has pained her.

“Don’t.” She takes an immediate step back, arms crossing over herself as a defence mechanism, body language screaming at him to go away, and she watches his pleading eyes drop to her arms just as she feels the cold of the metal there - so in tune with her every thought despite his denial of their true connection. Her arms move before her mind can make the decision, before it can remember what even sits on her skin, and her shaking fingers fumble to unclasp the jewellery adorned on her wrist. “You should take this back.”

Nico shakes his head, stepping back and away from the outstretched hand that holds her gemstone bracelet like it’s an actual danger to him. “No, that’s yours, Poppy.”

“I don’t want it.” She knows she’s the one that’s lying now. She wants the bracelet. She wants him. She doesn’t want him to leave. She wants to be his friend over being nothing. 

But she doesn’t want to hurt.

Looking at him hurts.

Remembering last night, remembering their kiss, the things he has said, the things he has done, it all hurts, and she can’t keep hold of a constant reminder of the pain, can’t wear it on her person at all hours of the day just to know deep down that the man who gave it to her will never want her the same way.

“I want you to leave.”

“Please,” he begs again, head tilting as devastation floods his features, brows pushing together, tears welling at the corners of his eyes, “We need to talk about this-,”

“No, you were right, we went too far, it was a mistake.” Her voice breaks as she says things she knows she doesn’t mean, but he’s already put it out there, so she doesn’t see the harm in echoing his own opinions. “There’s nothing more to talk about.”

She can’t look at him anymore, and so she drops her gaze to his hands, stepping and reaching forward and forcing him to take the bracelet from her before she rounds the couch and heads to the door.

If he isn’t going to give her the whole truth, she isn’t going to entertain part of the story, and she needs him gone so she can give in to the way her body wants to fold in on itself.

It takes him a minute to gather himself, but she refuses to look his way, waiting by the open door to her apartment and staring at the floor in front of her until his shoes appear.

“I do love you, Poppy. I’m leaving because I don’t want to upset you any more than I already have, and I’ll give you space if that’s what you need, but I’ll be here when you want to talk about this. I mean it when I say I can’t lose you.”

 She doesn’t say anything. She can’t say anything.

There’s a stabbing pain that’s building and building in the centre of her chest, and she doesn’t even think she can breathe in his presence.

He clasps a hand around her upper arm, and leans into her, his lips pressing a firm kiss into the crown of her head, and he lingers there for a moment before he retreats. 

She manages to push the door closed behind him, the click of the lock louder than ever, and waits a good few minutes in silence before her body is wracked with a silent sob.

The one time she had tried to be brave and fight her own intuition, and this is where it gets her.

So much for Nico wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.

Next Chapter

Taglist: @alwaysclassyeagle @bunbunbl0gs @idgaf-if-youre-here @youflowerr-youfeast @thearchersstuff @bellsdi0r @wonderheartz @jjgsunflower @butterflies35 @kenziepickle @josierosie @laheyxlover @mrsmattytkachuk (sorry if your tag hasn't worked btw)

[onsraas]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐨𝐢𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞

┊luke castellan x daughter of aphrodite!reader — angst-fluff

summary: although the daughter of aphrodite tries, the feeling of love won't come other than from the person who not only seems oblivious, but also lacks the reciprocation of the love she so wildly desires. but, is that right?

warnings: use of y/n, 1st person, like one cuss word, (some poor writing tbh) — not proofread !!

wc: 1.3k

a/n: hello, I'm back with my take on why an "i love you, too." is more important than a bare "i love you." — also, can you notice the big fat crush I have rn through this? lmao.

ps. reblogs helps a whole lot.

photo credits | masterlist | navigation | request

My chest feels empty with the lack of a heart. I can feel it beating in my chest yet somehow the sense of emptiness remains there as I kiss this boy.

I can't remember his name, I don't even remeber if he said it or not, to be honest. But when his hands reach for my waist I try to help myself from gagging. I don't like the feeling of his hands on me.

Not as much as I like Luke's.

He's never touched me romantically, and yet his hand on my thigh trying to calm me down, his shaking hand in mine looking for comfort, his arms wrapped around me, lifting be from the ground after I told him big news, it all comes back to me before I feel a hand tug me backwards, tearing me away from the stranger I'd been kissing, who I now realise is Mark, a son of Ares.

"What is going on in here?" The voice behind me makes me shiver with recognition.

"What does it look like, dude? Leave." Mark says. He attempts to reach for my arm but I snatch it away.

Before either of them can say anything else, I turn to look at the person behind me: Luke. His face is contorted in an angry frown, glaring at Mark as if he'd just killed a kitten.

"What is it, Luke?" I say, my voice sounds annoyed, but although I'm looking at Luke, is not him whom I'm annoyed at. It's me. The fact that I had been imagining Luke kissing me while kissing someone else makes me think I'm stupid enough to not realize the truth: it's never gonna happen.

Luke's gaze softens when he looks at me, but still keeping the look of superiority. "You shouldn't be here. It's dark and you're very deep into the woods." He pauses and looks at me, but whatever he's looking for he doesn't find it. "We should get back."

"Okay," I agree. I think both of them were expecting me to put more of a fight because they look at me in confusion...or anger on Mark's side could be.

I pay Mark's insults no mind as I follow the path that will lead us back to the camp, Luke beside me.

Eventually we stop hearing Mark altogether and Luke finally says something. "Not a good one, huh?"

I shrug. My heart is overwhelmed with the sense of dread and the need to tear it out of my chest becomes more powerful with each step.

Why do I feel like this is my mother is the goddess of love? Why do I feel like this when everyone fights to get the bare minimum from me: a child of Aphrodite?

Could it be because the only person whom I really want looks at me with a shine that lacks of love?

Because every night I go to sleep I think about the stars and how they are my only companion when I see him look at someone else with the look I want all for myself.

I think about the stars whispering in my ear how I'm still dumb enough to not give up on the idea. What they don't realize, though, is that he's the one not letting me go.

He doesn't know my heart is his but still he won't drop it for it to break completely.

"Hey," Luke's hand on my shoulder stops me on my track, making me flinch a little. "What is going on?" His voice makes me want to break down and cry from how soft it is.

He is looking me right in the eye, and I can't help but notice that he's already invading my personal space with his closeness. "Nothing is going on, okay? Can we just...walk in silence?" 

"No, we can't." I don't think he's ever talked to me this serious. "Not until you stop pushing me away." 

I'm dumbfounded. "Wait, what?" My voice sounds weird to my own ears. "What are you talking about? I'm not pushing you away, Luke." 

"Yes, you are, y/n, and you've been for the last year." His eyes reflect nothing but hurt, probably remembering how this last year has gone for both of us. "You think I don't realise? You think I don't realise how you do anything to stay away from me? And my only question is: why?" 

He is closer to me than he's ever been and I can only focus on his intense blue eyes staring back at me. "That is none of your bussiness." I somehow get it out, still my voice sound breathier than normal.

I could get it out now, try to make the damage the least painful as possible, but my selfish heart tells me I can't make it better if a lose him.

"I think it is. Now, either you say it, or I'm going to say it myself." Still, I don't say a word. He leans impossibly closer, and my breath hitches when I feel his hand slightly touching mine, as if waiting for and invitation. 

Fuck it. "You think you know, everything about me, Luke, well you don't. The answer to your question is the only thing you should have noticed and it's yet the only thing you see to have no clue about. The only reason I've been avoiding you, and doing anything to stay away from you is because..." I pause, trying to gather my thoughts. "It is because I love you, Luke. I have loved you from the very moment I met you all those years ago."

Luke looks at me as if a just grew a third head. Yet, somehow, I can for the first time feel my heart. 

"Why were you kissing mark then?" He asks.

I scoff. "None of them matter, I've only ever done it because I wanted to stay away from you, Luke."

"Away from me? Why would you wanna make that?"

Is he serious? "You're just making fun of me at this point." I attempt to leave, but I fail when Luke grabs my arm, keeping me from leaving. 

"I would never make fun of you." His voice is soft as silk. "I truly want to know."

I sigh. "I know you don't feel the same, Luke. That's okay. Just...please, don't become a stranger." 

"I would never." He takes my hand in his, bringing us closer, or noses touching. I could lean a little and our lips would touch, but I won't unless he asks me to. "Can I kiss you now?" 

When people said they felt butterflies I'd never undestood. Sure, I'd felt nervous, yet the feeling of butterflies fluttering in my stomach right now was so strong I wanted to vomit. I decide to nod instead.

His lips are soft in mine. One of my hands is occupied in his, while the other moves to wrap around his neck. 

The kiss is sweet at first, two people showing affection through the art of kissing. But when Luke's tongue gets access inside my mouth I feel like we are both making up for all the times we wanted to do it but couldn't, for all the years of waiting, and for the time we need to catch up.

His hand leaves mine only to get bothe his hands in my waist, tugging me closer to him, closing any possible gap there could be between our bodies. 

His hands are everywhere in my body and when his hands find the bare skin underneath my shirt I break the kiss, searching for his eyes. "Was that too fast?" He asks with pure panic.

I smile and shake my head before I wrap my arms around him, hiding my face in the crook of his neck, while he does the same. 

"I love you, too." He says leaving a soft kiss in my neck. 

And there a realise that the emptiness is long gone.

[servicpop]

im feeling a little sad so i came up with how ur ocs react to reader crying <333333

mk adrien wouldnt know what to do. hes never rly had to deal with anyone being vulnerable with him. he doesnt know what to say, so instead, he just pulls you into his lap and places ur face into the crook of his neck as you keep on crying. he plays with your hair, rubs ur back, but he doesnt say much, which is just what you need rn

vallen would also put u in his lap, but he'd talk to u a lot more. "whats wrong, babe?" "aw, its ok darling..." and then he'd spoil you with like, rly fancy food and anything else you want lol. (me personally i want five star michelin boba :D)

cole would wrap his arms around you the minute he sees you crying. smother u in kisses in hopes that it'll make u feel better. he'd ask the usual questions but he'd tuck ur head against his chest. i'd imagine a nice horse ride in the middle of the night after. it'd feel nice with the wind brushing against u

callahan would feel a pang in his heart and he'd question everything he thought about criminals. do thieves rly cry like this? at first he'd be hesitant, wondering if this is all fake to pull him into a trap, but he treats u like he would anyone who gets vulnerable around him. he'd be distant for a bit, but he'd binge watch his favorite cartoons with you. it makes u laugh eventually, wondering why such a gruff and rough guy would watch mickey mouse and know everything about it lmao

mk these were kinda bad but like i needed to share these ToT

these are so good nonnie ,, hope you're feeling better too !!

Adrien would have his back against the headboard of his bed, holding you so tight against his chest, practically forcing you to listen to his heart beat to help you calm down. He's owned those plushies with built-in pulses and they've always helped him calm down so he thought it would with you ! And you're right , he wouldn't say anything , too afraid of sayin' the wrong thing so he just quietly strokes your back , occasionally muttering quiet sentences like "I'm right here, it's alright, I'm not leaving."

Vallen definitely would start spoiling you immediately. It's a bit abrupt but after your tears dry up and you're no longer trembling , the first thing he's doing is booking out the whole restaurant just so you and him can talk about your problems in a cozy corner with a breathtaking view without the annoyance of other people. His spoiling isn't limited to fancy things either ! He values the thought that goes into presents rather than things worth a lot of money so he brings you to a spot where the fruits are the freshest and the older ladies are there to comfort you as well — Vallen thinks that food always tastes better when the aunties or grannies make them. He's definitely a grandparent's boy ! Once you and him sit down , enjoying your treats , he'll cup your face and whisper in the most velvety tone , "You're worth every penny and dime I spend, I wouldn't trade anything in the world for you, darling, remember that. You're my sweet boy"

Cole 100% would bundle you (and him) up into a warm burrito with his blankets, trying to be as close as possible to you. He's like those absurdly big puppies , licking kissing your face and everywhere he can. When he sees those tears he can't help but tear up too ! When you're sad he's sad. He kisses them all away , letting you hide in the comfort of his chest , holding your nape gently with his hand as he lets words spill out his mouth. Unlike Adrien , Cole can't seem to stop talking , he'll ramble about how you're the most special boy he's ever met , how you make him feel so good , and how he's always excited to see you. Once you're somewhat calmer, he'd offer you to ride with him, letting you take the lead as he sits behind you , arms draped around your waist as he tells you about all the old stories of the animals. "That's why Mary's got wool in the shape of a heart, she's the equivalent of cupid — but sheeps," They were all so outlandish, but you could tell he was just trying to make you giggle.

Callahan is definitely dumbfounded at first , he doesn't know what to do or how to react when he sees those tears dripping from your eyes. All he feels is an ache in his chest but his mind screams against comforting you. He was supposed to hate you , not want to console you , tell you everything is going to be okay. He awkwardly puts a hand on your shoulder, trying to come up with something to say before letting out a sigh, gently tugging you to lounge with him , putting on Mickey mouse as he sits there quietly , watching your face change from sad to a soft smile. He can't understand that fluttering feeling in his heart — maybe it's old age? "Did you know that mickey mouse's first words was hot dogs?" He'd grumble out of the blue. It was honestly concerning how much he knew about Mickey Mouse and other cartoons you binged with him ... he was just spewing out facts you never knew !

[daydreams-after-dark]

Lmao I know we are chatting rn but like-

Imagine big big big monster cock literal chan having a dick so big it makes reader cry? 🥹🥹 Like they're saying they couldn't take it well and it hurts but then Chan would be so reassuring and fluffy with them knowing that the stretch would be intense (hehe your fav stretch kink 🥴🥴)

"you're doing so well baby" "I'm so proud of you" "taking it so well" then he's so soft and so showers reader with praise 🥹🥹 ah soft dom chan makes me breathe

Preferably male reader again 🤔🤔🤔🤔

So this ended up being gender nuetral, as I only focus on reader taking chan's big monster D, and don't really describe reader's anatomy (except for their ass that is)

"Channie, I'm nervous. Not sure if I can take you?"

"Shh...baby." Chan soothes, rubbing your ass cheek. "I know it's gonna be a big stretch. It might hurt a little. But I've got you."

You hear the squirting of more lube, and Chan's three fingers return to your hole. Your eyes roll into the back of your head as you let out a choked moan. "Feels so good, Channie. I...I wanna try for you."

Chan withdraws his fingers, and you push your face into the pillow and whimper from the emptiness.

He's had you laying across his lap prepping you for the best part of forty five minutes. You've almost come three times, but each time Chan sensed your impending orgasm, he'd back off.

But now, it was time to finally feel his cock inside you.

"Baby, pop up on all fours for me. That's the way. Like that." Chan sucks in a breath as he spreads your ass cheeks and takes a good look at your hole. More lube is spread on your rim, and on Chan's cock.

"I'll go really slow, okay? Remember your colour codes, yeah?"

"Yes." you choke.

He presses the tip to your hole.

"Channie... I.... Oh... I can't." you cry.

"Shhh... you can. It's about to slip in. Just breathe for me."

You let out a shaky breath as you feel your rim give way and the tip of his fat cock squeeze into you. Your hands grip the sheet underneath you, and you whimper into the pillow. "it's not gonna fit." you murmer. "too big... you're gonna split me in two."

"Sweetie...shhh. Your stretching beautifully. You feel so good clenching my cock... I know it's big... but you're so good for me.." he reassures you.

Chan pushes himself in a little more, massaging your cheeks to help you relax. "This ass was made to take huge cocks. Fuck... you should see how you look right now."

Chan's words of praise and encouragement help you feel more at ease. You trust him, and want to give yourself to him. But he's just so big. You really aren't sure if it is possible to take him fully.

"You're doing so well for me, baby. I'm going to go deeper now." he pushes in more, waits for you to adjust, then a little more.

"Ahhh... how much more?" you pant. Tears stream down your face. You're not sure if you can take it.

"Almost there, baby. I'm proud of you... not much more to go... so good at taking me." Chan cooes.

He's only a quarter of the way in.

@channieandhisgoonsquad @noellllslut @itsseohannbin @weareapackofstrays @kangnina @3rachasdomesticbanana @palindrome969 @xxkissesforchanniexx @chuuchuu1224 @fun-fanfics @wolfennracha @rhonnie23

[youalreadyhavefullresults]

all the success stories I can remember off the top of my head

because of a certain account causing people to doubt the law(me included tbh, I'm human too lol), I decided to list off all the successes I've had ever since I've start consciously manifesting. Keep in mind this is only a small portion of them, since I have too many to write all of them down lol.

revised getting into my dream uni

amazing friend group/busy social life

my sp who had been so dry with me now texts me all the time, and we even call for hours(i'm not sealing the deal yet tho because personally I'm still not sure if I like him yet LMAO)

amazing genshin luck

amazing luck in general tbh, like to the point where people point it out and use me to "increase their chances"

daily compliments about the most mundane things(I literally got complimented on my nose the other day out of nowhere 🤨, and other things like i have a cute laugh/smile etc)

people randomly started asking me out despite me never showing interest in them

smart asf, college is actually not that hard for me lol, though ofc i still need to and like putting in effort

changed my personality from an anxious introvert to a social butterfly

manifested my period away, and then manifested it back(because it makes me feel more feminine don't ask me why LMAO), although i never have cramps anymore and it's much shorter now

clear skin

i used to struggle with my hair so much because it was just so frizzy, and now people keep asking me all the time "how you do have such cute curls", and they're so surprised when they find out I do absolutely nothing :p

plus so many more but I can't remember them rn lol

Honestly writing this list was therapeutic for me as well lol, it makes me feel so good to know I was able to do all this with my power alone. If you're feeling doubt rn, I'd suggest you look back on your journey and remind yourself of everything you've done, a great way to cement your faith in the law.

[yeyinde]

Oh my god yeyinde! Your latest fic with dog/definitely not dog!Johnny has been going through my brain nonstop since I read it. This may not be my most eloquently written praise as I’m sick, but I HAD to comment on the absolutely gothic, eerie beauty of this fic. I get deep mountain, Appalachian vibes- isolated, dark- a place your parents warned you NOT to move to (because there’s no way a homegrown Appalachian native would’ve let that dog into the house). I reads like a legend your grandparents would warn you about and you’d roll your eyes hearing it but then in the dead of might hear a dog howling in your yard and close your blinds and check your door locks remembering the story. It’s so eerie and brilliant- it reminds me of the image on tumblr associated with Margret Atwood’s poem “let now let us praise stupid women”. I’ll the image in my comment. But I love the fact she’s not naive- she knows it’s not her dog, but the idea of confronting it, dealing with it is almost more horrifying than just straight up denying it and going to sleep to pretend it’s not real. It’s haunting, devastating, bone-chill, and reads like a brilliant urban legend. You’re such an artist with words!

you are living inside my head rn lmao i also hope you feel better soon!!!!

i love dog/animal/pet horror but i think it's sooo underutilized and poorly executed. there's something about the monster being your dog, your pet, that's infinitely more horrifying than some random, separate entity. your dog suddenly turning on you (or in this case, being taken over) is so terrifying to me. i also have an irrational fear of letting my dog outside at night and something else coming in. something that looks and acts just like him, but isn't. so!! there's that.

that's such a fitting poem too!!! it might not be everyone's fave but i love characters who refuse to accept reality until they're in the jaws of the beast. spinning themselves in circles as they struggle to come up with excuses for what they're seeing, or just not looking at it at all. brushing it under the rug. i just think the arc from "this is not happening everything is fine" to "everything needs to keep being fine and the only way to do that is to keep this thing happy so i can pretend it doesn't exist" is such a good plot point.

like, the slow pan from an obvious slaughter, a bloodbath, with the dogthing just licking it's paws like it normally does after eating, to them just numbly cleaning it up is beautiful. they ignore the missing posters stapled to the utilitypoles because everything is fine. he's just hungry. all dogs are. he just needs something wild to eat. it's fine if it's just a random animal. a stray. the neighbours dog just got away. it's not your boy. it can't be him. it's fine. everything is fine. it's their fault for getting too close to him. don't they know he doesn't like that? of course he'd snap. of course he'd eat them. he's just doing what dogs do.

he's a growing boy, of course he needs to eat.

and you didn't really like your neighbour much, anyway.

[youremyheaven]

with that Venusian man 👨 hmm 👀👀 spill the tea girl

Not the 33yr old, this is the friend from a few nights ago 😜 whose arms I liked 🤭😩

They're both Bharani Moon tho 😌 which is my favourite among the Venus naks 😌😌😌 so I do feel like God's favourite rn lmao 🤪

Idk why I never felt this way about him before but looking at his pictures and talking to him, didn't make me feel much , like he's objectively good looking, a veryyyy handsome man, 6'2 😩😩 (the 33yr old is 5'7 max 😔) BROAD ASF SHOULDERS, BIG ARMS, but I was never attracted to him. He has a very sweetie personality too, he has Mercury in Purvabhadrapada atmakaraka and lots of Jupiter in his navamsa chart and he feels veryyy Jupiterean, which according to Claire's video is the nice guy you friendzone etc which is what I did too 😜🤭🤭but OH MY GODDDDDD THE MAN IS DEMONICCCC IN BED 😩😩😩😩😩

He has a veryyyy masculine presence and I love love love love LOVE his body 😩😩😩 he's so bulky and so big, I just get butterflies looking at him 😍😍

So we agreed to book a hotel room that you can rent for a couple of hours??? BEST DECISION IVE EVER MADE 😩😩😩

and from the minute he picked me up, I just had to have him inside me one way or another like 😭😭😭 he's SOOO manly, that I just WANT to get on my knees for him 😭😭😭 I can't believe I'm saying this out loud 😭😭

He's so affectionate and SOOOO gentlemanly, like DAMN he was raised right ✨ he prioritizes foreplay and spends a lot of time on my body, just kissing me all over, I remember when we were friends, he'd casually point to the moles on my arms and say shit like "would be nice playing connect the dots with these 😏" but I just saw him as a friend and I flirt with all my friends male and female and vice versa so i didn't think too much of it but tonight 😩😩😭 as he took my pants off, he saw the mole on my upper thigh and he was like "here's one I haven't seen before 😈" (and all of today, his voice has been deeper and more 🥵🥵 usually he sounds all 😃😊😃☀️🌸 but today he sounded so 😈🥵😈 even tho he was just talking about normal shit) and then he kissed it and licked it 🥵🥵down until he reached yk where 🙈 and BOYS' GOT THAT TONGUE TECHNOLOGY 😩😩😩I was shook 😳😳😳too stunned to speak 🙊😳😳😳😳I was physically glitching 😭 i literally had to beg him to just put it in because I cannot take it anymore 😭😭 and the wayyyy he grabbed my legs closer to him 😩😩😩we fcked thrice 🙈🙈🙈🙈 he only had one condom 💀💀💀 and y'all should always use protection when you have sex but when he pulled out and jizzed on my stomach, I lost my mind, idk it was so hot 🙈🥵

And just the way he holds me, touches me etc it makes me feel 😩😩😩

I'm sorry to share such filth detail with y'all but I don't have friends I can share any of this with (so instead I'm telling thousands of strangers lmao 😭) idk why I'm giving such a blow by blow account of this but honestly it was suchhh a good experience 🙈🙈🙈

We were just lying down talking between rounds and we have such a good bond y'all it's so funny 😭😭 like we're talking about random shit, he was asking me about stuff and I was telling him and he was smiling kissing my body as he's listening and then he holds my face and says "you know this is pillow talk right" and idk we're both blushing 🙈 and he's like "I love listening to this, don't stop, keep talking" 😩😩 (fastest way to my heart lol)

Anyways, we leave the hotel (super cute place btw) and when we're by the reception the staff (just two dudes) look at us like 😏but tryna remain professional and I feel so accomplished like ??? I just had sex with this tall handsome man ??? 😩😩And everytime others looked at us, I was just like 😌😌hehe this hottie was inside me 😌hehe 🤪😜🤭 and ngl we look reallyyy good together 🥵🤭🙈but anyways although he pulled out in time, he did cum outside my yk what and I told him I'm taking the pill just to be safe and he parked a little bit away from the pharmacy and went and bought it for me???? Like that's well raised right there 🥹🥹 (he didn't want them to see me bc this is India and women are judged heavily for having sex and he bought it bc he came inside me so that's the least he could do 💀but just the fact that all of it was so unspoken and he just did all of it intuitively was sooo hot to me, like I said I'm turned on by gentlemanliness) you should have seen the way he looked when he walked back to me 🥹🥹🥹🥹 just the finest man alive 😍🥵😩 idk how someone can go from being some guy to THE guy in a couple of days but it's happened 😭😭😭

he texted me asking if I reached home and then asked me a little later if I took the pill 😭😭 I never ever EVER thought that him and I would be at a point where we fuck raw and he reminds me to take the pill 😭life works in mysterious ways 😭

[harcove]

Stargazer - B.H.

a/n not a request, because... idk man, i have so many things im in the middle of writing for billy rn, and i had this one in my noggin for a while because i swear i remember somewhere dacre said smthing about it would be cool to see another side of billy- like with a girl just... in a field- cuties. or maybe... i made that up in my head besties idk, but here u go

length: 2.6k

pairing: billy x reader

warnings: no; mention maybe of billy's father and to trauma/abuse. maybe badly written billy im not too confident with this one lmao

summary: billy and you sneak into the hawkins high school football field and look at the stars

The air outside was considerably cooler than it had been during the day, and even then it had already been rather nippy out. The autumn air crisp as the months crawled slowly towards December, towards winter. Maybe a bit chilly for you to be laying in an open field in the middle of the night, but Billy Hargrove didn't seem to care; especially not when he was the one who snuck the two of you into Hawkins High schools football field.

You weren't even sure you had a football team. It was used for soccer and running track. It would be better to refer to it as a soccer field.

"Goddamn it's fucking cold," Billy grumbles, as he jumps down the fence, watching as you take the easier route (for you at least); the small hole that the school had yet to repair in the fencing in a bottom corner; too small for Billy to fit through, but just big enough you could wriggle your way through, "mind reminding me why I agreed to this bullshit?"

"I dunno," the smile is evident in your voice as you finally end up on the right side of the fence, picking yourself up off the dirt ground as Billy looks down at you, hands in his pockets. You use his bent arm to pull yourself up and you can feel the way he stiffens his body to compensate for the weight of your pulling, so neither of you fall, "But it's really not that bad."

"Not that bad?" his brows raise almost comically, and he blinks; his bright blue eyes looking at you like you're insane, "Not that fuckin' bad, huh?"

He breathes out, a bit harsher on purpose, and a plume of air appears in front of the two of you. It's just cold enough that your breath can be seen in front of you, like tiny little clouds of mist; a constant and subtle reminder that the seasons were close to changing once more, Autumn would soon blend into Winter.

Also, a constant reminder for Billy that he was no longer in California.

The sudden thought put a damper on his mood and it was visible in his body language and facial expressions. Billy Hargrove was so much more of an open-book than he realized sometimes. When it came to emotions like anger, or hatred, they showed themselves like black ink on a white page; strikingly. They were two emotions that coincided with one another; and they were the emotions he felt most often and most deeply. Being sad was weak (his father really beat that into him, physically and metaphorically) and being happy? He wasn't sure he could feel happy anymore. Too much anger. Too much hatred.

But then, when he looks at you, everything felt less harsh- his chest doesn't feel as heavy, his body isn't as on fire from a rage deep within; and there is something there. Something that maybe could be happiness. If he let it build, if he worked on it. If he just let it happen.

Easier said than done.

You can feel the way Billy slips away from the moment, noticing the way the dirty blonde sunk deeper into his own head, his face losing any of it's previous sarcasm and maybe even slight amusement, you clear your throat. Better than touching him, because you can't really be sure where his thoughts are in these moments exactly, and you'd seen more than enough to know what his father is like.

"Yeah, not that bad," you repeat, a sly smirk graces your lips as you walk backwards from him, taking big steps to reach the wide open field, your eyes adjusted to the darkness at this point, "you're just being a baby."

Mission successful. Even at the distance you've created between the two of you, you can see the way his face morphs. It's not anger, not like some might think it would be at being called a name; it's light-hearted when you say it, and only you can say it. He'll get back at you. He always does. Sometimes sooner rather than later; and now it's sooner.

The sound that comes from his lips isn't exactly a laugh, it's more of a scoff; a laugh of disbelief as he watches you get further away. His tongue juts out, wetting his lips, a slight shake of his head; eyes zoning in on you perfectly.

"Baby?" he sounds defiant, mock-angry. You just shrug your shoulders, shouting back at him, 'yeah' before waving your arms in the air, "You're fuckin' asking for it."

Billy is fast. He would be, considering how he likes to work out and stay fit; his place on the basketball team for Hawkin's high school shines through in moments like this where he starts running towards you; in turn you turn to face forward, starting to run yourself towards the centre of the field. It's a futile effort to run from Billy Hargrove. He's always going to catch you. He's fast. And he doesn't let up.

You squeal when he suddenly grabs you, slamming his body into your own with his arms around your middle, picking you up with easy and throwing himself onto the ground with you to boot. The laughter bubbles up in your throat as you try to catch your breath, winded and filled with adrenaline. You can hear it before you see it; the laugh from him, the smile in his laugh. It's not a laugh like yours, one that is full-bodied and hard to catch your breath too- it's more like a burst of laughter that he brings back down to control. But it's still a laugh.

You've heard it before. But never like this. He's laughed when he's been angry, he's laughed but it's been fake and calculated. But now he laughs and it isn't thought out beforehand. It isn't in disbelief or anger.

His strength and heavy-handedness is only amplified when he tosses you off him from where he took the brunt of his purposeful fall to the ground, quickly flipping you over without much time for you to think about what's happening. It's only when he's hovering over you with a hand digging into your hip- not enough to hurt you, but enough to know damn well it's there.

"Now," he breathes out, his warm breath a stark contrast from the crisp autumn night, "What was it you called me...?"

Mischief swims in your eyes as you stare directly into the prettiest blue you think you've ever seen. Everything about Billy is pretty. He is so beautiful, in every way, but he hates when you say that. He prefers words like hot, or sexy. But he can't hide his red tipped ears when you say he's beautiful or pretty.

He deserves to know he's not just some object for women to oggle at. He's a beautiful human being. He's Billy.

"Ba...by," you huff out, still trying to catch your breathe. The rise and fall of you chest makes contact with Billy's, showing just how close he is to you right now.

His lips crash onto yours. Hungry. Heavy. Angry? No... Needy. But also, vengeful. If you weren't already winded, you are definitely winded now as all thoughts escape you; the need to breathe becoming a secondary thought. Why breathe when you have him? He makes you feel alive. He makes all the bad things in Hawkins just... Stop. Like the stars in the sky, he may disappear, he might go away for some time but he's still always there. He's...

He bits into your lip.

It elicits a muffled cry from you as you push against his chest, his mouth leaving yours.

And he has the audacity to look at you, mock-confusion on his face, breathing much more normal paced compared to your own. It makes you wanna pinch him. But you don't, instead you settle on glaring at him in the dark.

"Someone's being a baby," he throws it back at you with ease, rolling off you when you push him off. To be fair, you didn't have the strength to push him off, he's just giving you one by rolling off of you anyways. A thump when he hits the grass beside you.

Pouting is useless since he can't even see it now that he's looking at the sky, but you do it anyway. It's the principle of the thing you suppose.

It's quiet. The only sound being a cricket here or there, and the sound of your breathing mixed with his own. Your finally able to regulate your breathing and bring it back to normal. You wish you had a drink, but that's not a big deal for now. The cool air entering your lungs feels good, a balm to the burn from your previous silliness.

"At least your warm now, right?" You offer up the words after a few more beats of silence.

He snorts.

"There's better ways to get warm and stay warm."

You know what he's implying and you hit his shoulder softly with your fingers.

"No. Not in public."

He doesn't respond to that. He really would do anything with you right there, but contrary to what others seemed to believe, he was rather respectful of your boundaries when it came to these things. That didn't mean he wasn't going to tease you.

"Can't believe I'm with a goddamn prude. Its the middle of the damn night."

Like that.

"It's not being a prude!" You focus your attention on the sky, "now just... Look."

He lets out a heavy breath.

The reason you wanted to come out here in the first place. The night sky, filled with stars.

Hawkins wasn't a big city or more populated place like California, it was a small town. Light pollution wasn't really a thing here as it would be in big cities. You took it for granted till you visited your aunt and uncle one year in New York, where the light pollution was rampant. Seeing a star there was nigh impossible.

But Hawkins? The sky was littered with so many little stars, stars you could see perfectly. You could make out some and the vast dark that went on forever. It made you feel oddly melancholic. Sometimes you wished you could reach up, touch them, and join them up there. So small in the grand scheme of things. A reminder of just how large the universe was. Just how... Insignificant you were in the grand scheme of things.

And that was okay. Sometime, you need to be reminded that you're just one person in a world of billions, you're small, and not everything needs to be on your shoulders.

You wanted Billy to feel that. Feel the weight of the world drift away as the stars reminded you, you're only human. Just a small, little human.

"That's the big dipper," you reach your arm up to point at the cluster of stars forming the measuring cup like shape in the sky, "I only know it because it was the only one I could find when I was a kid."

"Still the only one you can find?"

"Uh, no," you matter-of-factly say, moving to point towards another cluster, "there's the little dipper."

"Damn," he mocks, "the little one too?"

You giggle, wiggling closer to Billy's side, seeking his warmth and just his presence in general.

"Still don't get why we couldn't do this when it's warmer. I'm not giving you my damn jacket, you still haven't given me back the other fucking one."

That's true. But he doesn't complain too much. You always bring it back to him, and it somehow always ends up back with you anyways.

"Because, you can see the stars better when it's colder."

"Bullshit," you see his breath when he speaks, "That's the biggest crock of shit I've ever heard."

"No its not!" You don't actually know that. You just said it, because you've always found you see the stars the best when it's colder. Maybe it's because you usually look up at the sky most during this time of year, when the sky darkens so much quicker than in the summer.

Once more, the conversation lulls to a stop, it's a easy silence that settles between you, one that feels comfortable and safe. Something about being with Billy feels safe, it always does. You can only hope that it's the same for him; that being with you is a safe place for him. Or someday, it will be.

He deserves at least one person, one place, in his life that's safe.

You wriggle close enough to the man that you can rest your head on his shoulder and you do so with ease, but you can feel his shoulder stiffen for a moment before it relaxes. It's just you. He's fine with you.

Much to your pleasure he moves the arm of the shoulder you placed your head on out from beneath you, snaking it around your shoulder to force you closer to him with a single tug. It brings you close enough to Billy that your practically on top of him. When you settle yourself comfortably, one leg hiked up across his torso, with your body pressed against his side and your head close to his heart- his hand leaves your shoulder and travels to your waist. He squeezes the flesh on your hip, causing you to jump slightly.

You know he enjoys how you react.

And you like how it feels.

Laying there, beside him, felt right. It felt like this was where you were meant to be. The cold air didn't matter, the hard grass beneath you didn't change anything. It felt so cliché, to lay under the stars beside a handsome boy- the quote en quote bad boy, as if there was nothing else in the world but the two of you.

You really felt you could stay there forever. Be with him forever.

"You fallin' asleep?" When he speaks you feel the vibrations from his chest, "you fall asleep, your on your damn own."

He doesn't mean that. You know that, he knows that. You breathe in his cologne, savouring it before releasing a long breathe.

"I'm not... I'm just," you pause, voice quiet, strikingly different to how it had been before when you were running from him as a joke. If it wasn't so quiet already, your voice may have been carried away with the wind, "Happy."

You aren't surprised when at first, Billy has nothing to say to that.

Billy is turning this over in his head. Happy. You were... Happy. Happy to be there with him, happy to lay on a dirt and grass in the middle of the night with him. Happy. You were happy.

He didn't think he could make anyone happy. That anyone could be happy with him. It was scary. It scared him; how long could he keep that going? How long till something happened, till he did something and ruined everything. Before he ruined your happiness; ruined you. Was it selfish for him to keep you with him, even knowing that he could ruin everything? Was it unfair to want to have you despite his own fears and issues... Maybe, but Billy Hargrove did not care.

He'd be as selfish as he damn pleased.

"A prude, and a goddamn crackpot. At least you're easy to please."

You swear you can hear a soft edge in his voice as he speaks, even if it's hard to catch, like it's barely there. But you can hear it. You pull yourself closer to him, if it's even possible to do at this point.

Yeah, you think, you could stay there forever with him. And he thinks, maybe he could too.

[poppy-metal]

BE SELF INDULGENT WITH YOUR WRITING DO IT NOBODY CAN STOP YOU BE A FREAK 🔥💪💪🔥💪🔥🔥

i have like very specific scenarios i wanna write abt some day or just talk about like

okay tmi for very personal darksided kinks LMFAO. like do NAWT read if you dont fuck w cnc, noncon, cucking, cheating, ddlg, incest ect. look AWAY

i wanna write about cnc like the genuine feelings of fear and panic as you're made aware of your own helplessness under someone else (looks at patrick) and then the euphoric release of being made to cum because it feels so good to be overpowered and have your cunt forced open. being able to act out the reluctance and to cry and and sob as loud as you want and not have the pounding stop, because you haven't safeworded, but its that panic regardless of oh hes not listening oh i can't stop this oh its gonna happen anyway. coming around them so hard it feels transcendent.

the other one is based on my fear of not being good enough like I've been cheated on alot, and one instance specifically my boyfriend at the time said "im gonna fuck someone in front of you and make you watch" and it stuck with me like it truamatized me LMAO to the point where i physically couldn't bear remembering it without getting violently ill. but then i developed a kind of fascination with the kink of infidelity like I'll watch alot of porn about it and then feel wrong about it afterwards. not being good enough is very much a trigger for me, being excluded is a trigger for me but i think something bordering just on the line of that - like being cucked consensually would heal me. like i think about it with art and tashi or patrick and tashi where they make me watch them together to the point where its bordering on the point of being just too much - where im about to say my safeword because i cant take being ignored anymore - and then they bring me in, and all the attention is on me and im showered with love. its like, having my worst fear played out in front of me (being cheated on, being left out, being ignored) and then being shown that fear isn't a reality - that im important and special and loved and they make me cum and i feel liberated from this vile thought that they'd leave me for eachother, because I make them complete. LMAO its fucked up i know but thats what truama does baby.

the other one..... I've struggled with alot and is kinda controversial but its in the sense of it not being real and being consensual but ddlg.... (and i used to hate this kink for the shame it brought me and the trauma i had w it) like i dont want to just call someone 'daddy' i want to ACT OUT the fantasy of them being my father or my parental figure and I'm their little girl and they just cant help themselves they have to touch my pussy. they have to show me they love me by sliding inside me because this is how daddy loves me. and if i love him back i wont fight him or tell him its wrong I'll accept it with open legs because i want to be taken care of

i have more but baby steps.... not all trauma needs to be processed rn

[amethystfairy1]

Hi Amethyst! It's been a hot minute since I sent an ask in, but I have been reading both fics every day (still obsessed lmao) (also I name changed btw, used to be ElenaLoo)

Anyways, I had written a whole ask waxing eloquent on all the wonderful things going on in ttsbc, but I accidentally shut off my computer partway through and frankly I can't be bothered to write it all out again lmao. Just. It's beautiful (wow isnt that so meaningful and deep? im sure you're feeling very complimented rn)

The REAL thing I wanted to talk about was Traveling thieves (which is by far my favorite fanfic of ALL TIME), and all the amazingness in ttsbc made me forget it even existed for the past few weeks. But the other day I was just like "oh yeah. Traveling thieves." and then i reread the whole thing. whoopsies.

Ummm anywyas there's so many thoughts in my head about all the little guys, but recently I've been on an Imp and Skizz obsession (just scroll on my page for .2 seconds and you'll see) and YOU. You left them on a CLIFFHANGER. >:((( (not actually mad btw). I just. so excited for them. They're out alone in the woods right now and Skizz is going to have the perfect opportunity to kill Impulse and get away and I just am falling apart thinking about them. (I drew them to cope lol, posted on my blog but also later here so that I can talk about it more). I can see this playing out a few ways. Obviously Skizz isn't actually going to kill Impulse, so he's either going to 1) make up some excuse as to why he can't do it right then, but still plans to do it eventually, or 2) he does it. but he doesn't. Skizz attacks Impulse when he's not expecting it, there's a scuffle, and Skizz comes out on top---BUT THEN HE CAN"T FINISH IT!!! and it's a whole thing where even tho skizz tried to kill him, imp is still so understanding and skizz cries and impulse just freaking gives him a hug and

sigh

Whatever you do will be beautiful, I'm sure. I think you mentioned you're switching to tt after this fic, so crossing my fingers it's imp and skizz. (Though, would also be very happy with Martyn and Ren :P) (or anything really i just love tt)

Anyways, I had the art on my blog but I'm also putting it here so i can say things about it to you

Mostly I'm just very proud of their expressions, with Impulse being all concerned glancing over at Skizz, meanwhile Skizz is completely deadpan staring forwards, also looking very tired bc he needs a break from this universe. Also I switched up my Impulse design a lil bit from last time (if u even remember that lol it was months ago now). you would think, just looking at them, that Impulse took way longer to design, but nope, I was messing around with Skizz for at least double the time, trying to figure out how to have him facing forward whilst still showing some of the scars on his back. I gave up eventually xD (all that means is that im gonna have to draw him again later, from different angles)

actually that made me remember a question I had: are you planning to ship Imp and Skizz? Ik you said Zed and Tango are going to be a thing far in the future, but... skizzpulse? plzzzz plz pretty please haha im not obsessed

aaaaaand that reminds me of another question, is skizz going to be in ttsbc? (pretty please also same question as tt, if he was in ttsbc, are him and impulse together? Im addicted to them all i care about these days is some good imp and skizz shipfics, and you're such a fantastic writer, both with plot and the vibes of the words themselves. u could write such good imp and skizz. just imagine the possibilites! (am i selling it?))

aaaaaanyways. im gonna go reread the old tt skizz fics because theyre delicious and painful, like eating knives. u have a good day :))

HIIIIIII

I ADORE THIS ART SO MUCH! I gave you all my rambles on the reblog but it's SOOOOO COOL!

I'm sad the waxing eloquent about TTSBC is gone 😭 but that's ok!

I'm so glad you're enjoying TT and all the drama going on in there! Imp and Skizz are definitely having a time and a half with all of this nonsense going on...I love all your theories! I won't confirm or deny anything of course, but I'm so happy you're excited for them!

I will not be shipping Imp and Skizz, sorry! I just personally don't ship them, so they're gonna remain platonic...I mean, in TT who knows what the hell they're doing to be fair 😆 but yeah, Zedango is going to be a thing in the distant future, but no Skizzpulse! Sorry!

Skizz is not in TTSBC at the moment, that doesn't mean he never will be! Just haven't found a spot for him yet...and no, he also would not be with Impulse, I'm so sorry I just don't ship them personally! I think it's a very cute ship tho!

Enjoy rereading the TT Skizz fics!!! Thank you again for the gorgeous art!!!! I love it!!! 💖

[aluria-sevhex]

THE KING FUCKING ONE-SHOT ME

notes:

-why am i being so anxious lol. if i die i can loop again it's fine

-i love this game's music

-wtf is the stuff all over the place and the gate

-i love how when Sif forgets terms for stuff like the kiln the others will remind him

-a mirror...

-"everyone say fromage!" F R O N C H

-Siffrin has a lot of pocket space

-aw, Odile's eyes light up when she's learning things

-woah this Sadness is just giant hands

-I FOUND MIRA'S ROOM

-ooo Mirabelle likes horror

-the barrels. are EVERYWHERE

-discussion of crafting your body has led to the wonderful sentence "High heels hurt my feetsies..." thanks Isabeau

-woah Sif's cloak is magic

-Isabeau's so considerate of the fact that Sif doesn't like being touched :]

-ok where the fuck is Siffrin from and how did they get the cloak

-FUCK. LOOP KNOWLEDGE BLUNDER

--aw that's kinda cute how Odile will ask questions about stuff she already knows to get the emotional component

-huh. this gate has weird writing that they can't read. and the gate looks like... stars... hmmmmmmmm

-CREST TIME

-i picked the wrong way :( WELP TIME TO EXPLORE THIS ROOM

-ah yes the "handsome young men falling into beautiful heartbreaking madness" horror anthology

-THE SCHADENFREUDE!!!!!!!!!

-openphrase123

lol

-aight i'm looping now

-um. Loop. what would happen if you saw the others

-what's up with that book Bonnie was reading...

-WAIT FUCK I MEANT TO CHECK THE LOCKED HOUSES I'M GONNA HAVE TO LOOP AGAIN

-the world would be inside of the universe...

-yeah i can't be assed to search the entire House for the book rn that's like 2 floors i've cleared. i'm looping forward.

-the little nodding Siffrin when he zones out is cute

-woah. observatory...

-hmmmm Mira can't remember who studied in the observatory. maybe this is tied to Loop? or the starry gate? or the disappearing island?

-trying to read the books gives you a headache

-istg this is some Gaster shit

-COLOR? WAIT THE WORLD IS MONOCHROME. HOW IS THERE A BOOK ON COLOR THEORY

-Siffrin where the fuck are you from

-welp. looping time

-lol the crying key is in the super duper cool notebook

WAIT THAT'S A MEAN THING TO DO. THE GAME IS BEING MEAN LMAO

-loop-de-doop-de-doop

-might as well go do some things in Dormont if i'm looping anyway

-ok time to loop forward to floor 2

-uh-oh. Sif is having a crisis over not being good at their job. :(

-looping forwards. round and round and round we go...

-"if you hadn't picked up the key wouldn't we be stuck?"

Live Siffrin reaction: (Yes.)

-lol bathroom break. fictional characters NEVER go to the bathroom

-Sif whaddya need to do alone?

-lol

-Sif is SO glad to have the loops

-:0 intact Change God statue

-KEYKNIFE

-what the- they got teleported! this is sus...

-feel like the bit where Sif laments the loss of the keyknife and thinks they could've found another use for it might be foreshadowing...

-FUCK FUCK FUCK MIRA IS KO

-fml Odile is the only one left standing

-first game over damn

-jesus fucking christ this is a bleak game over screen

-is he gonna finish himself off

-fuck that's bleak

-ok he finished the Sadness off

-WAIT DO I HAVE TO GO THRU FLOOR 3 *AGAIN*??? THIS IS BULLSHIT

-grinding for exp

-had to go to dinner. back

-it's nice when Bonnie gets to deal the final blow :]

-time to try again!

-I DID IT :D

-uh-oh. Mira is freaking out at the sight of another frozen person :(

-oh her roommate :(

-Mirabelle you're not useless :(

-HOLD UP. THE *HEAD HOUSEMAIDEN* GAVE MIRABELLE THE ABILITY TO NOT GET FROZEN?

-hehe Odile is hungry. SNACK TIME... maybe *i* should eat more.

-love how crab is used like a swear word

-Siffrin's like "i"m fine!" and i'm like "ARE you?"

-hey King why do you have stars on your gauntlets

-THE KING JUST REFERENCED SIF SPECIFICALLY?

-...what does he need to remember...

-Siffrin is sus

-DID HE JUST FUCKING 1-HIT US?

-this is one hell of a game over