#it turned out pretty good in the end imo

[pufferfishartblogorsth]

Took me like a month for this one. Trust me, I'd love to finish it much sooner but schoolwork kinda got in the way and I had to study for my midterms... But anyway

[happi-tree]

out of my head (when you’re not around)

“Mornin’, sweetheart,” Link slurs, voice low and lazy and scratchy from sleep, and he shifts a bit more.

Suddenly, there’s a warm, pliant pressure against Taylor’s chapped lips, followed by a soft pop as Link breaks the kiss. “Ten m’re minness, mkay?”

And with that, Link tucks his head into the side of Taylor’s neck, drapes his arm across Taylor’s stomach, and drops back off into slumber.

What the fuck.

“What the fuck?” Taylor exclaims aloud, because his best friend just kissed him like he’s been doing it for months on end and they’re very close, but never like that.

Or: Lincoln dreams about his life in the simulation, and some wires get crossed.

ao3

Better late than never! Here's my fic for Day 5 of Swiftli Week: Queerplatonic / Ride or Die 💗 This one turned out a good bit longer than expected, but I hope I did my fellow qpr Swiftli enjoyers justice with it!

Taylor Swift wakes up to bright orange against the backs of his eyelids and the sensation of being held. Only one of these things annoys him.

“Hey,” he stage-whispers to Lincoln Li-Wilson, one of his partners in world-saving last year and his closest friend. “Gotta get up and close the blinds.” 

He nudges an arm gently with his shoulder. 

Link’s very prone to cuddling in his sleep, Taylor’s realized. Most of their sleepover nights end with his lanky limbs curled around him or one of their friends, protective even when there’s no need for it.

(Taylor would never tell him this, but he certainly appreciates it - nightmares of Doodler-twisted mayors beneath his bed are fewer these days, but he feels safer having his secure arms around him.)

Plus, Taylor’s always run pretty hot, and Lincoln has a penchant for seeking out anything to warm him as he rests. Often, Taylor ends up with Normal or Scary pressed into his other side, complaining about how Link stole their blankets.

It’s just the two of them this time, though, so the room is peacefully quiet. Now, if only the stupid goddamn sun wasn’t glowing through his eyelids and preventing him from sleeping in… 

“Get off me, please,” Taylor mutters, a tiny bit louder now, wriggling in his grasp to see if he can escape -

“Mmn,” Link groans wordlessly, shifting to throw a leg across Taylor’s own, which is decidedly the opposite of what Taylor asked. 

Link’s eyes flutter to half-mast for the briefest of moments, leaning further into Taylor if at all possible. It’s kind of adorable, the way his face screws up against the light. 

“Mornin’, sweetheart,” Link slurs, voice low and lazy and scratchy from sleep, and he shifts a bit more. Suddenly, there’s a warm, pliant pressure against Taylor’s chapped lips, followed by a soft pop as Link breaks the kiss. “Ten m’re minness, mkay?” 

And with that, Link tucks his head into the side of Taylor’s neck, drapes his arm across Taylor’s stomach, and drops back off into slumber. 

What the fuck. 

“What the fuck?” Taylor exclaims aloud, because his best friend just kissed him like he’s been doing it for months on end and they’re very close, but never like that, and what the fuck?

“Link,” Taylor says, prodding him much more urgently than before. “The fuck was that, man?”

Link makes a questioning sort of grumble before propping up his chin on Taylor’s chest (on Taylor’s unbound chest, what the fuck ), muttering nonsense as he blinks blearily, squinting without the help of his glasses. 

Then, his eyes widen comically. 

“You’re not Chris.”

Link’s voice is still thick with sleep but also heavy with a dawning realization. 

“No?” Taylor agrees, though it sounds more like a question. 

Link backs away so quickly that he nearly topples out of Taylor’s king-sized bed. 

“Dude!” Taylor shouts, diving across the comforter to grab at his wrist.

“You okay, man?” He asks after he’s sure that Link isn’t in danger of falling off his bed and dragging him down with him.

“I’m - I’m sorry,” Link says instead, which is totally not answering the yes-or-no question.

Though, looking at his best friend, it’s easy to tell what the answer is as he hauls himself back onto the mattress.

Link has this… blankness in his eyes. Taylor’s seen it happen a few times before, actually. With the firemen, with Tony, even with Hermie. It’s like he’s not all there, haunted, more of a void in a person’s body than a person. The wrist Taylor’s holding twitches, then twitches again, and again, but it’s only when Taylor looks down that he realizes he’s shaking. 

“Hey, man, don’t freak out on me,” Taylor says, tapping on his wrist in an attempt to ground him as he scoots closer.

Link laughs, a pinched, shrill, hysterical thing as he shrinks away, back pressed against the headboard.

“No, no, no, no, you don’t get to say that, you’re the one who should be freaking out,” he responds, and while Taylor’s glad that his friend is at least present enough to hear him, the words come out all strangled and gasping.

Whatever’s got him so choked up holds Taylor’s heart in a vice grip.

“I’m not freaking out,” Taylor says, then reconsiders. “Okay, I’m freaking out a little. I just got kissed out of nowhere, I feel like it’s warranted.”

Link makes a wordless squeak. He draws his knees to his chest and buries his head in them, still shaking.

“But. You’re freaking out more, so that’s more important. And you apologized, and I forgive you - which, fuck, I guess I should’ve led with that, but - but I need you to be okay first”

Taylor doesn’t have the faintest clue what could’ve set Link off - the kiss is the only thing he could think of, but then again, he initiated it. Maybe Taylor has bad morning breath?

Whatever the reason, he needs him to calm down.

“It’s okay, Link,” he soothes, opting not to move closer but speaking loudly and slowly enough so that it can break through the anxious thoughts swirling in his friend’s head. “I’m not mad. Just confused.”

“Really?” Lincoln peeks through the slats of his fingers at him, and the hopefulness in his voice shatters something in Taylor.

“Really,” he confirms. Why the hell did Link think he’d be angry with him? Even though it had been Taylor’s first kiss, it’s not like Link had intended to go through with it, given that he had backed away once he realized -

Oh. Taylor’s starting to put together what this could be about.

“Sorry,” Link says again, face no longer blocked by his hands but eyes still downcast.

Taylor frowns. “You already said that.”

“I know.”

“So…” Taylor prompts after a beat, seeing that most of the tension is gone from Link’s body. “You okay?”

Link slumps a little, but at least he isn’t shaking anymore. “Not really.”

Taylor scooches a tiny bit closer to him, and when Lincoln makes no move to get away, he joins him at the headboard, nudging him with his shoulder.

“You wanna talk about it?”

Link groans. “You deserve an explanation,” he says, though it looks like it pains him.

“You don’t uh, have to if you don’t want to.” Taylor attempts to shift beneath the hefty, itchy, too-tight compression of vulnerability, and it comes out through wringing hands that immediately fist themselves in the comforter. 

He can totally do feelings, if that’s what Lincoln needs to get off his chest. It’s Link. 

He’d do just about anything for him, has done just about anything, has turned around and doubled back to the FBI for him, has gone through the layers of Hell with him, has watched countless episodes of soccer anime just to figure out the game and see the cute little smile he gets when he mentions something about it.

This, he can handle.

He just hopes Lincoln can, too. 

And if he can’t, well… 

Link exhales loudly, shaking Taylor out of his own thoughts.

“It’s… well,” he starts, voice going soft and nerve-wracked and almost reedy in a way Taylor hasn’t heard in a long, long time. “Do you remember the simulation?”

“It’d be hard to forget, I think,” he says. “I just know my own, of course, but… you had a spouse in yours, right?”

Taylor hasn’t really thought much about the simulation. It was early on in their adventure, and there were much cooler, much more fucked-up things that took precedence in his mind. He hasn’t really given much thought to what the others went through, then.

Maybe he should have.

“Yeah,” Lincoln says. “Yeah, I did.”

Then, “I dream about them, sometimes.”

Oh.

“Oh.”

Link grimaces. “Yeah. And just, they feel so real sometimes. The dreams, I mean. The, uh, marriage, too, I guess, which is kinda stupid since I’m the only one who remembers anything and I’m still a teenager even if I’m technically over a hundred years old -”

“Hey,” Taylor interrupts, voice sharp, reaching out a hand to hover above Link’s own but not touching, unsure if it’ll help ground him enough to stop his spiraling or if it will only make matters worse.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s not stupid,” he says with a conviction that surprises even him.

There’s a beat of silence, and Taylor tries to meet his friend’s gaze, wanting so badly to decipher the emotions on Link’s face and offer comfort. 

Lincoln silently turns over his hand, palm-up, an invitation. Taylor takes it in his, trying not to be distracted by how cool his skin feels compared to his own.

“Okay?” He asks, giving his hand a little squeeze.

Link sighs, squeezes back, steeling himself. “Okay. I guess… it’s not that I have these dreams super often, it just. Happens. And even if it wasn’t real, my subconscious can’t, like… get over the fact that I wasn’t married for years, and… and when I woke up, it still felt like I was dreaming, and you were cuddled up next to me, and…”

Taylor’s face feels oddly warm for some reason, but he understands now.

“Crossed wires, huh?”

Link simply nods, looking incredibly guilty and sad. 

“I’m not mad at you,” Taylor reminds him, “Or like, think you’re weird, or whatever. You know that, right?”

Lincoln hums uncertainly. 

“I promise, dude.” Taylor searches for the right words, and he isn’t really sure that there are any. “You’re always gonna be my best friend, man. You didn’t, like, weird me out too much or whatever. This changes nothing.”

“Thank god,” he mutters, visibly relieved. “To be honest, I don’t know if I could handle fucking up another relationship in my life.”

Taylor squeezes Link’s hand again and wonders how he could ever think that their friendship would be ruined over this. 

“You haven’t fucked anything up, my guy,” Taylor reassures. Then, because Taylor doesn’t know when to shut up, he asks, “Another relationship? I mean, I know things are kinda rocky with your dads, but -”

Link lets go of Taylor’s hand and, shit, Taylor definitely shouldn’t have asked that, should he?

Lincoln isn’t looking at him, though. Instead, he reaches for the ring he left on Taylor’s bedside table, fidgets with it in his hands for a little, slides it onto his middle finger. The black metal glints in the early morning light.

“Yeah, things with my dads are still a little shitty,” Link says, “But we’re working it out. I think.” Taylor nods.

“But… in the sim… the marriage with Chris didn’t work out too well,” he continues haltingly. “And, like, it wasn’t my fault, but it… kinda felt like it was? Like I fucked it up. It wasn’t the only reason we were considering separating, but… I didn’t know that I was ace until, uh, after.”

“That’s rough,” Taylor says, which is a little lame to say to something like that, but it’s literally all he can think to say. 

It kinda recontextualizes a lot of things, like how Link was so quick to call their affectionate names after they got space-married, how he fixated on the concept of being married in the first place… but Taylor pushes those thoughts aside later.

He instead tries to imagine only realizing he was aromantic after dating someone, and it only produces an uncomfortable churning in his gut - especially given the fact that he knows he doesn’t really want to date anyone in the first place. 

Link fidgets with the ring on his finger, keeping his gaze purposefully lowered. “I worried that I, like, tricked them into thinking I was a n- a typical person. Like I made them fall in love with someone who didn’t - who couldn’t - like I was attracted to them that way, and I fooled myself, too, and then I realized that no, I don’t work like that, and I -“

“Shit,” Taylor mutters, noticing the tear tracks streaming down his friend’s cheeks and quickly scrambling for the box of tissues next to his bed.

“Sorry, I just,” he continues, sniffling, “I felt so guilty that I couldn’t give them the kind of marriage they wanted, the one they deserved, and I felt selfish and awful and -“ 

“Woah, woah, woah, man,” Taylor placates, holding out a tissue. Link takes it and stares at it blankly for a moment before swiping it below his eyes.

“Sorry, sorry,” Link apologizes, which is silly because he already apologized for kissing him like 50 times at least and so he has absolutely nothing to be sorry for. “This wasn’t how I wanted you to find out.”

Taylor’s heart sinks a little. 

“How did you want me to find out?” He asks as gently as he can manage. 

Link laughs mirthlessly, and Taylor hates how hollow it sounds.

“Ideally? Never.”

“Dude.”

“Up until now, I’ve been handling it fine on my own, and I wouldn’t want t-“

“Dude,” Taylor repeats, and Link slumps further in on himself. 

After a moment’s hesitation, Taylor scooches closer to him and places a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder blade, rubbing soothing circles into it to hopefully calm him down. 

“Hey, we’re ride or die, man, remember?” Taylor asks. 

“Yeah,” Lincoln replies, though it doesn’t sound like he believes it. 

“And it’s not just me. That goes for Norm and Scary, too,” he adds, and he ducks down a little to meet his friend’s misty eyes. 

This guy faced down gunfire for him, healed him, protected him, despite everything. Link means so much to Taylor that it feels like his heart might burst with it, sometimes.

And it kinda kills him, Taylor realizes, that Link might not know that. 

“We care about you, Link, and we’ve been through a lot of jacked-up shit. We help each other with our jacked-up shit, and you’re not the exception, got that?”

Lincoln nods, though his lip quivers a little. 

“Just talk to us, man,” Taylor says. “We get it - I mean, not exactly in my case!” He clarifies, “But. I understand where you’re coming from, and. We just wanna see you happy. Time fuckery is, like, typical Tuesday shit.”

“It hasn’t been typical Tuesday shit in like, ten months,” Lincoln says, and his voice is a little wavery, but it almost sounds like he’s smiling. Taylor counts that as a win.

“Thank fuck for that!” Taylor agrees, and then Link laughs - really, actually laughs, weak but joyful; Taylor can feel his instinctual grin in response. 

“But,” Link says, after the laughter peters out, “there were… parts of it that were good, I guess. With them.”

Again, emotional vulnerability is… not really Taylor’s thing. He prefers to blot out any attempts at deep contemplation with humor. 

That’s what his therapist tells him, at least. 

He’s trying to get better at it, at the feeling-things-fully-and-sitting-with-it shit. 

“Like what?” Taylor prompts. 

Link smiles, slight and wistful, and gazes up at the ceiling. It’s an unfamiliar look on him, one that makes him seem older and younger at the same time, somehow. 

“Well, the, uh, kissing, for one?” Then, he grimaces a little. “ Some of the kissing,” he amends. “It’s funny. I didn’t think I would miss it at all - I hadn’t really even thought about it until, uh, god, my early twenties? In the sim? But it’s… nice. Can be nice. Uh.”

Taylor makes an affirmative sort of hum to let him know he’s listening, trying to shake the lingering feeling that he shouldn’t be seeing his best friend smile at nothing the way he is. 

“I think my favorite thing,” Link continues, “was just… waking up to someone. Like, getting up in the morning with one of your favorite people next to you - it’s,” Link cuts himself off with a considering hum, worrying the ring on his finger as he searches for something. “Comforting,” he settles on eventually. “It’s like, this constant in your life. It feels… secure, I guess, to have another person to face down the start of each day with. To take on the world with them every day.”

“Doesn’t sound like a bad gig,” Taylor muses as he attempts to take all that in. 

Then, he blurts, “I’d be down to try that out sometime. With you. If you want.”

Unfortunately, Taylor’s brain catches up about two seconds too late. 

“I don’t mean in, like, a romantic way, or anything!” He rushes to clarify. 

“O-of course not,” Link says, and is it just Taylor, or does his voice sound a little breathier? “I wouldn’t ask that of you, but… you’d really be okay with that?”

Link’s expression is nothing short of wonderment, all wide eyes and raised brows and slightly-parted lips. The weight of his closest friend’s eyes on him feels suddenly like all too much - all that wistfulness and vulnerability and affection directed at him, leaving him with nowhere to hide - but he can’t bring himself to avert his gaze.

“I mean,” Taylor says, feeling at an utter loss for anything profound to say, “Yeah, dude. You’re my best friend. And then some.”

“‘And then some?’” Lincoln echoes, then frowns. “You, uh, don’t have to explain that if you don’t want to, sorry-“

“Quit apologizing, Link,” Taylor interrupts, attempting to swallow down his heart, which currently feels like it’s climbing up his throat. He takes a deep breath, clenches his fists in the fabric of his pajama pants. 

“I don’t know how to describe what I feel for you but there’s… a lot of it. Not romantic but not like friendship, per se. I’m not, uh, in love with you, like in the traditional way? But,” he cuts himself off, squeezes his eyes shut to get through the rest. “I love you, Link.”

Taylor feels Link take hold of his hand. It’s the one with the ring, and the metal feels nice against his palm. “It’s okay,” Link says, and Taylor opens his eyes to see his best friend gazing at their interlocked hands adoringly. “I love you, too.” Their eyes meet, and Taylor’s stomach feels all sorts of fluttery. “In that way, I think.”

“Oh,” Taylor says, awestruck. “That’s… wow. Okay.”

“Okay?” Lincoln repeats with a smile in his voice, tracing his thumb along the side of Taylor’s hand. 

“Yeah,” Taylor responds, feeling… well, he can’t put a name to it. But it’s a lot. 

It wells up in the spaces between his ribs as he glances sidelong at Link, studying the way the rays of golden morning light peek through the blinds to stripe his skin with shades of copper and amber, the way his shirt and his hair are all sleep-softened and rumpled, the way his thumb traces absentmindedly along the side of their joined hands again and again as they lapse into a comfortable silence.

Taylor’s never been one for romance, or for dating, or for particularly wanting either of those things for himself. But when he looks at Lincoln, he thinks he really, really, really wants this. Whatever this is.

Link’s eyebrows furrow, the way they always do when he gets in his head about something. It turns the pale slash of his scar to a lightning-bolt squiggle, and the strange longing-affection threatens to overwhelm him entirely. 

Taylor kinda wants to press his thumb against that scar, smooth it over, meet that mark of his friend’s devotion with a gesture of his own.

“Taylor…” Lincoln starts, brows still pinched together and the uncertainty in his tone hangs in the air.

“Mhm?” He runs a thumb across Link’s knuckles, nudges his shoulder, a wordless go on, I’m listening.

“What do you wanna try out, exactly?” 

When Taylor looks up at him, he adds, “We don’t have to talk about it right now if you don’t want to! I just - I figured! I don’t know, actually, I’ve never, uh, been in this type of relationship before. If you’re okay with calling it that, haha.”

“Link.” Taylor says, squeezing his hand, and the boy next to him stills almost entirely. “You don’t have to be nervous with me, man. Not like I’ve exactly done this, either.”

Taylor hums a little, shifting on the mattress to rest his head against Link’s shoulder in an attempt to calm his friend’s (partner’s?) nerves. It seems like it works a little.

“I think I really like what we have now,” Taylor answers eventually. “I like cuddling with you. Hugging you, holding your hand, spending time with you. Sleeping in the same bed, waking up next to you, like you said. I don’t think I’d ever stop liking that. I don’t really want to like, date, or anything,” he says, glancing down at the comforter. Link squeezes his hand, wordless reassurance, and Taylor smiles to himself. “But if you want to try something new,” he considers, “I guess I wouldn’t be against that.”

“Like… kissing?” Link asks hesitantly.

“I, uh… I guess I didn’t mind it, earlier,” Taylor mumbles, and god, he can feel himself blushing.

Suddenly, the floor is much more interesting. Taylor accidentally makes direct eye contact with one of his body pillows, and his face heats further as he quickly looks anywhere else.

“Ooh, you liked it, huh?” Link asks, a teasing lilt to his voice as he nudges his shoulder, and of course that’s the conclusion he would come to seeing Taylor all flustered and red-cheeked like this.

“I - I don’t know!” he blurts, a response to a question that probably wasn’t expecting an answer. “I mean,” Taylor fidgets nervously, his free hand twisting in the blankets. “I wasn’t expecting it, and that was my first kiss, and everything happened so fast and I was worried about you and -” his face feels so, so red right now. God, this is embarrassing. 

“Hey, you don’t have to be nervous with me,” Link echoes. “And, uh, sorry that I stole your first kiss. That was kinda shitty.”

“You already apologized,” Taylor replies, feeling a little calmer. “Plus, it’s not like you meant to.”

“I didn’t,” he agrees. “Not then, at least. I’ve thought about it before, though.”

“You have?” Taylor asks, gaping at Link in surprise.

“Uh, yeah,” Lincoln glances away, bashful, but then he looks down at Taylor, and the earnest gleam in his eyes sets Taylor’s heart pounding in his chest. “I’ve thought about it… kind of a lot. You’re, like, really pretty, dude. And funny, and kind, and smart, and loyal…”

“Thanks,” Taylor says, and he would be more self-conscious of his voice cracking if his brain wasn’t currently working overtime to process this new information.

Link likes me. Link loves me. Link thinks I’m pretty. Link’s thought about kissing me “kind of a lot.” Holy fuck.

“Well, do you… uh.” Link pauses. “Do you wanna find out if you like it? Like kissing someone, I mean. With me?”

Jesus Christ. This boy is going to be the death of him. 

“You can say no, by the way. I wouldn’t think of you any differently if you don’t want to,” Lincoln reassures quickly, though he seems a little less anxious now. “So, uh. No pressure. But also if it turns out you don’t like kissing, that’s totally okay, and -”

“Okay,” Taylor interrupts.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” he confirms. “I’d rather figure it out with you than with anyone else. I trust you.”

“Oh,” Link mutters, seemingly more to himself than to Taylor. “You sure?”

There’s something fragile about the expression on his partner’s face, something long-closed-off, something vulnerable. The Taylor from a few months ago would’ve run from it, would’ve jostled him a little too roughly and smiled a little too toothily until Link’s expression matched his and things were much less precarious again.

Taylor as he is now, though, lets go of his hand, shifts around on the bed until he sits facing Lincoln, legs straddling his thighs, a few inches of space left between their chests. 

“Figured this might be easier,” he says, looking into Link’s wide, dark eyes. “You good?”

“Um,” Link responds tactfully. “Here, let me just… could you get off for a second?”

Taylor quirks a brow at him but complies, and Lincoln makes a bit more space between himself and the headboard, shifting to sit with his legs crisscrossed. Taylor copies him, scooting close enough that their knees touch.

“Better?” Taylor asks.

“Much,” Link replies, looking visibly relieved. Taylor doesn’t really see much of a difference, but it’s definitely nicer to see him more comfortable.

On the other hand, the fact that his best friend is about to kiss him on purpose has Taylor feeling like he’s about to vibrate out of his skin.

“Where do you want me to kiss you?” Link asks, gazing at Taylor with so much open affection that he thinks he might explode.

“Whuh?” Taylor responds intelligently.

“You look nervous,” Link says, taking his hand again, loosely enough so that Taylor could pull away if he wanted to (he doesn’t). “It’s just me, we don’t have to kiss if you don’t want to.”

But I do want to. Maybe, Taylor thinks.

“Would it be okay if you kissed me on the forehead instead?” Taylor says aloud.

Lincoln smiles, and Taylor thinks that even if he closed his eyes, he would still be able to see the radiance of it through the backs of his eyelids.

“More than okay,” he responds, and leans in closer. 

Taylor squeaks as Link’s hand cups the side of his face.

“You alright?” Link asks, pausing.

“Yeah,” Taylor says. Link’s cold fingers make a stark contrast against his heated face, and he closes his eyes, leaning into his palm.

Above him, he can hear the way Link exhales, feel the way he closes the distance between them.

Then, there’s a soft pressure at Taylor’s temple, warm and loving. The pressure remains there for a few short seconds, and then Link backs away with a barely-audible sound.

Taylor opens his eyes and lifts his head, and Link drops his hand to Taylor’s knee. He’s much closer than before, and the proximity combined with the lingering sensation of his lips against his skin floods Taylor with a giddy, dizzying feeling.

“So, what’s the verdict?” Link asks. 

“Good,” Taylor says, a little breathless. “I, uh, really liked that.”

“Would you be okay with me doing that more often, then?”

Taylor doesn’t even need to stop and consider it. “Yeah,” he replies, and Lincoln smiles, and he smiles back. “More than okay.”

Link’s smile grows, and Taylor finds himself staring at his lips. He lets himself wonder what it would feel like to kiss him, and something swoops in his stomach, a heady concoction of nerves and curiosity and longing.

The smile fades, and his friend’s mouth is slightly downturned in concern. It’s unfair, Taylor thinks, for Link to look handsome even when he frowns. Even so, he’d much rather have him grinning and happy and next to him, and maybe Taylor wonders what it would be like to turn to him and pull him down by the collar of his shirt and fit his lips to the seam of that smile -

“Taylor?”

“Woah,” Taylor mutters, shaking himself out of his forehead-kiss-induced-madness. Because that’s what that was, that’s all that was, right?

“You good?”

“Uh,” Taylor says, still a little transfixed at the way Link’s lips shape out the words.

Ask him, ask him, ask him.

“Do you want me to kiss you?” Tumbles out of Taylor’s mouth.

Link’s eyes go wide. 

“What?” The question isn’t quite a squeak, but it’s almost there.

“Because I think I kinda wanna kiss you.”

“Are… are you sure?” Link brings his hand up to rest it against Taylor’s cheek again, but it hangs in the air, wavering, like he isn’t sure if he’s allowed to want this.

Taylor thinks that’s pretty stupid, so he snatches his hand out of the space between them, presses his friend’s calloused palm to the contour of his jaw.

Link breathes out shakily. Taylor leans a little further into his space, their foreheads practically touching, looking into his deep, dark eyes.

“I’m sure. Like I said, I trust you.”

“Okay,” Link says, just barely loud enough to be heard. His eyes flit downward to Taylor’s lips, and he tilts Taylor’s jaw the slightest amount, and Taylor closes his eyes against the gentleness of his partner’s touch, against the fierceness of the drumming in his chest.

All the manga and anime and romance movies hadn’t really prepared him for this, Taylor thinks. There are no fireworks as Link kisses him, no burning passion beyond the flustered, demonically-assisted heat already scorching his cheeks.

It’s nothing magical, nothing world-endingly special. Definitely not something that should justify a whole plot’s worth of hype, in his opinion.

Even so, kissing his closest friend feels like something sacred and mundane at the same time. He leans his face just the slightest bit further into Link’s hand, to feel the slowly-softening calluses scattered along his palm, and the gesture has Lincoln humming something delicate that’s muffled against his mouth. The vibrations of it reach down to Taylor’s soul as Lincoln’s lips turn up just the slightest fraction - not enough to break the kiss, but enough so that he can feel it.

Link keeps the kiss chaste, which Taylor greatly appreciates, but there’s something slow and achingly gentle about it. His partner’s other hand moves to the nape of his neck, fingers running through the flyaway hairs there tentatively, then less so as a pleased sigh crawls out of Taylor’s throat, unbidden. 

Kissing is… less than what it’s made out to be, Taylor thinks, but it’s not necessarily bad. Strange, new, a little vulnerable in a way that might freak him out under certain circumstances. But here and now, held within Link’s arms, he decides he feels… safe. Cared for. Seen, but by someone he’s okay with being seen by.

After a few moments, Link pulls away, and Taylor lets him, still reveling in the feeling of his palm against his cheek and his hand in his hair and the ghost of pressure against his lips.

“So, Tay,” he murmurs, voice barely above a whisper as Taylor opens his eyes. “What’d ya think?”

Link’s brown eyes search his face for any signs of discomfort before meeting his own again, and the enormity of his gaze - unabashed, unashamed, so visibly loving and concerned - has something building up in his throat.

“Don’t - you can’t just look at me like that,” Taylor says, voice hoarse, and they’d barely even done anything but he’s still overwhelmed, somehow.

“Sorry,” Link responds, rote and hushed, but his voice pitches up at the end, question implicit.

“Sorry,” he echoes back, “I’m just - not used to…” He pulls his hand away from its place on Link’s shoulder (when had that happened), waving it around in the minimal space between them to gesture at - well, whatever they have going on.

Lincoln nods, blessedly understanding, and though he glances elsewhere, Taylor knows the starry-eyed, near-worshipful awe painted across Link’s features won’t fade from his memory anytime soon.

“It’s kinda scary, isn’t it?” He says, eyes flitting to focus on the way their knees bump together atop the comforter.

“God, terrifying,” Taylor replies, slumping forward to rest his forehead on Link’s shoulder.

Link’s arms circle around him wordlessly, automatically, and it feels like relief, like comfort, like home.

“I thought my heart was gonna, like, explode,” he admits into his best friend’s sleep shirt. “Is it always like that?”

“What? Kissing?”

“No, not that,” Taylor replies. “Like… I don’t know. Feelings?”

“I… I don’t know,” Lincoln settles on after a beat of contemplative silence. “I think you’re the first person I’ve ever really liked this way.”

“Same here,” Taylor admits, leaning further into him simply because it feels right to do so. “I mean, I have little crushes every now and then, but you’re the only one that’s stuck.” He pauses a little, considering. “Even if I don’t like kissing as much as you do.”

“That’s okay,” Link says.

“Not a deal breaker for you, Boss?”

Link gives that cute little half-laugh of his. “Far from it, honey.”

Then, “Was that okay?”

Taylor might as well be permanently flushed around Link from here on out.

“Yep!” He chirps, maybe a little too loudly. “More than okay, babe.”

“You know, I thought I would hate that, but it sounds kinda cute when it’s you saying it,” His partner says, and Taylor can’t fight the toothy grin pulling at his lips. 

Then, his mouth stretches a little wider into a yawn.

“Tired?” Link asks, hand drawing meaningless patterns on his back as Taylor nods against his shoulder.

Link hums. “What if I got up to close the blinds and we slept in a little later?”

“That sounds like a great idea, partner,” Taylor replies, a little giddiness welling up in him because they’re partners, now.

And Taylor doesn’t really know what all that entails, yet, but as he watches Link get up and make his way across the room, he figures that it’ll be alright. After all, he’s got his ride-or-die at his side through it all in more ways than one. 

[well-its-kind-of-a-long-story]

I’m a demon, I lie.

[boy-armageddon]

YES my username on yt is a blood bros reference :33 i need to go to crimes world again i know in my heart and soul that i love her but i seldom show her attention .. i need to care her more ..

HOOFRAY!!!! also pretty please do!!!!!!! for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bandsanitizer]

.

[bigfatbimbo]

i need vox to lowkey think being a housewife is kinda sexy like... the guy was probably raised with strict gender role expectations (that's probably why he's also a workaholic) and reversing the roles kinda turns him on a lil bit yknow? Just plays into him being submissive and wanting to be taken care of imo

Housewife Vox with a Dom Reader [smut hcs]

a/n — the first part is right here, you should all read that before this so I don’t seem batshit fucking crazy [and probably like and reboot just to be safe]!

warnings — dom reader, sub vox, headcanons, gender neutral reader, read the first thing so I don’t sound dumb please because this is for a specific au

summary — After the fall of the vees, Vox ends up washed-up and crashing at the readers place, making him a sort of ‘housewife type.’ Basically just the first part but in the form of smut headcanons!

So i’ll start off with what you were saying. Growing up in his given time period, the gender roles were absolutely heavily enforced. Men work and make money, that’s just what they have to do. 

Vox strives to be as ‘modern’ as possible, so all of the sexism and misogyny has pretty much worn off, but the internalized gender roles have stuck. So given his current… situation, he’s confused, to say the least. 

His stuck at home, practically obligated to take care of the house, do your laundry, and wash your dishes. He’s never had to be that person in the relationship, and it’s infuriating.

But also weirdly turns him on. He’s a business man by nature, and now he’s in slippers and an apron. Shouldn’t he be embarrassed of such a submissive, stereotypically womanly job? 

Or maybe, even absolutely humiliated. And he was, don’t get him wrong, but that’s what he found so hot about the whole thing. 

Yes, he was angry at his new downgrade in society, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want you to bend him over the kitchen counter and fuck him in his little pink apron.

And yes, he absolutely plays into it. He’s never been the type to play into attention in a sexual kind of way, but in the light of loosing the other Vees, he plays a few cards he’s seen before.

He’s leaning over to do the dishes and talking to you at the same time, and he’s arching his back drastically more than he has too, and his talking increasingly smoothly. 

Maybe he even drops something in front of you and bends down very obviously to pick it up. And of course, he curses himself for acting out so shamelessly for attention. 

Like, has it really come to this? But then again, that makes it ten times hotter to him. 

His praise kink is absolutely terrible during this time in his life too. Because quite literally, he’s lost everything that’s made him even slightly impressive. 

And this makes him very insecure, because while his ego has always been fragile, he’s always had something going for him to fuel his self entitlement.

So any praise from you will get him going, and make him instantly needy for more. He’s such a slut for you being nice to him in this situation. 

“Oh, by the way, good job on remembering to do the laundry, babe!” He’s hard instantly. 

It would be so easy to make him cry in bed, from degradation obviously, but also from your nice words. 

I think this is because for the first time in his existence, his self esteem is actively low. And he thought so incredibly high of himself before, the whiplash would leave him so exhausted.

Like he’d be normal, just moaning and whining under your touch. And, as per usual, you whip out the line “Your such a good boy for me.”

That’s when you feel his whole body shudder, and stop squirming. He just looks up at you, and he bursts out into fucking tears.

You’d stop what you were doing at first because you’ve never elicited a reaction that strong, “Uh… Vox, are you okay—“

“More—mzz—more please!” Is all he’d manage to buffer out before continuing his desperate sobs for approval. 

And you’d give him what he wants and treat him gently and kindly, all while complimenting him about how amazing he is, and what a good housewife he is for you, and how useful he is. 

He’d be squirming, arching up into you, buffering up into you, and whining desperately as tears pour out into his screen. 

Now degradation would be a whole other thing. Because he definitely wouldn’t be able to take as much as he would have before this whole situation.

But as discussed previously, his humiliation kink would still be very present. So light teasing would definitely get him going. 

Like messing with him and degrading him about how he’s just your little housewife now, and embarrassing him on the subject.

You know, he’d probably start crying even if you weren’t going specifically hard on him. 

Now, if you’re not familiar with my boycunt Vox idea, this is going to sound like gibberish. 

But I imagine even after the fall of his empire, he those supplies. So boycunt Vox, and housewife Vox??? 

Imagine sliding a little vibrator in his cunt while he works around the house, and every time he doesn’t do a task efficiently, you up the level.

By the end of the time, he’s on his knees begging to be fucked by you, saying he’s done everything you asked, and it wouldn’t be fucking fair to just leave him like this!

Because yes, he’s still a fucking brat at rock bottom because he just sucks that much. In fact, he’d definitely try to provoke you sometimes.

Especially when you piss him off. He’s not above ‘accidentally’ shattering your fine china dishes or spilling your favorite dish all over the floor, or worse, onto your lap. 

However, his desperation for approval shows when you fuck the brat out of him. 

a/n — this au is my everything, gang. MY EVERYTHING. also I hope this is coherent, I know it won’t be to anyone who didn’t read the fic that prompted this but like… it’s linked at the top so.

Anyways I want to do more with this au, so I tried to not get too specific with the smut headcanons because hopefully there will be fics. SEND REQUESTS.

[lastminutestarwarsfan]

I know George Lucas insisted the films be watched in chronocological order and I get why, I get that the story becomes more clearly about Anakin's arc, his fall and his redemption.

But imo the true Star Wars experience is watching the original triolgy and thinking, "that was pretty cool! I see why people like this". It's a nice, slightly goofy in places, tried and true heroes arc story about how anybody can make a difference, how a farmboy from some godforsaken planet became the savior of the galacy. It's a little cliche but that just adds to its charm.

And then you watch the prequels, and you see all the little parallels. You see how Anakin in Phantom Menace mirrors Luke destroying the Death Star. You see Anakin lose a hand. You see both Luke and Leia in Anakin and Padme so much. You see the end hurtling towards them like a Greek tragedy, and the more steps they take to avoid it the more you recognise how things will turn out.

There's this creeping dread that pervades the prequels and it climaxes the moment Vader's mask comes down over the audiences heads. Every time I watch that scene, literal chills down my spine.

And it leaves you wanting to rewatch the original trilogy with fresh eyes. Leaves you sobbing watching R2 flying with Luke the way he used to fly with Anakin, happy to have a piece of his best friend back. Leaves you seeing ROTS Anakin in ROTJ Luke. Leaves you seeing that Luke and Leia really are the best of Anakin. Luke who defied Yoda and Obi-Wan, threw caution to the wind and declared "there's good in him". Leia, so full of fire and anger and passion and a thirst for justice. They are who he could have been. Should have been. Who he really was under the pain.

[yok00k]

LOVE.

pairing: pinkcoquette/Sanriolover!oc x bf!jk

genre: fluff, smut

“Sippin' bubbly, feelin' lovely”

Synopsis: you wanted to try the “pink coquette core” on your boyfriend and your poor sleepy dog

warnings: brief SMUT at the end, oc is desperate, clingy, and be waking everyone up @ midnight in the name of coquette core💀, too much love in the air, mention of jk only in his sweatpants, dirty thoughts, (pink bow should have its own warning too imo)

Author’s note: this is my very first work/drabble ^o^ I was mainly inspired by these outta pocket ‘coquette core’ videos on tiktok and it made me think about my man jungkook and my son bam (this is unedited & will probably stay that way, I just write for my own sanity)

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ ⋆

Pleaseeee my kookie? I promise it will be quick” I desperately pleaded to him as I straddled him on the couch. I showered his entire head with plenty of my sweet kisses, trying to convince him to do a foolish video that’s quite trending today. The only response I got are his arms snaking around my lower waist while he continues to watch his tv show, Bloodhound.

Early this morning, I was scrolling on my ‘for you’ page and saw a bunch of pretty and pleasing coquette videos. Essentially, pink bows were wrapped around the daintiest [and most random] stuffs including ramen cup noodles, lip oil, or even a rose toy. Do I get the pattern of the coquette trend? Absolutely not. But one certain thing I’m sure of is that I will wrap a tiny baby pink bow around my boyfriend. And it will happen no matter what it takes.

Since offering him with plenty of affection doesn’t seem to work, I had to go down with my last technique. “I will grant you three wishes if you let me do it” I whispered softly to his ear. Immediately, he grabbed the remote to pause the show that he was so focused on .

“Anything?” Jungkook eagerly asked, two round, shining dark eyes gaze upon me as they search for assurance in my words. “Anything” I guarantee, kissing his pretty nose before getting off his lap.

―୨୧⋆ ˚

“koo stay still” I complained while giggling at the sight of him attempting to awkwardly stand still with a flimsy ribbon flimsy bow that looped around his torso and veiny arms.

‘How cute’ I thought.

While trying to capture videos and a couple of photos of him, I can’t help but to flash a grin. Small things like this really make my heart so full. Spending a solid quality time with him, even if it’s doing something nonsense is a memory I will forever value.

“So cute” I mumbled, staring at my phone as I went through the images I took seconds ago.

After a minute or two, Jungkook, who’s still standing, took a loud, deep breath.

“baby are we done yet?” he whined. “Oh my bad kookie” I rushed to turn off my phone to finally give my undivided attention to him. The ribbon tied around him got unfasten by me. Finally, he can breathe freely again.

―୨୧⋆ ˚

It was midnight when out of nowhere, another light bulb popped out of my brain on what (or who) to use the notorious pink decoration for. And in this case, I won’t be able to sleep unless I accomplish the sudden idea. Somehow, I managed to escape from Jungkook’s arms securely holding onto my waist. I quickly grab two pink short strips and head to the living room. The entire apartment was filled by silence and darkness therefore I turned the mini lampshade in the corner, causing Bam to wake up and immediately have his guards up. When he recognized that it was just me, he put his head down on the floor while holding a gaze on me as if he’s questioning ‘why is she bothering me at this hour?’

“I’m sorry for waking you up this hour bammie, mama just needs to do something real quick ok?” I gently explained to the Doberman. It didn’t take me so much time to delicately tie a not-so-tight bow around his both ears. What took time was taking good pictures of him for the reasons that he’s moving too much and doesn't know what on earth is going on.

“Look at mami bam” I whispered, snapping my fingers to get his attention to look in the camera. The poor dog keeps moving his head, figuring out the thing around his ears are for.

“Baby what are you doing?” an abrupt voice spoke behind me.

Shit. Turning my body around, I got a glance at the half lidded eyes filled with pure curiosity. As I examined his tall and muscular physique, I also didn’t fail to notice that he was only wearing a pair of baggy sweatpants. And when I say only, I meant only so don’t ask me for any color of something.

The things that my mind urges me to do.

―୨୧⋆ ˚

I dropped my knees in front of him, left hand wrapped in his upper leg while the other hand softly palmed his growing tent. I looked into his eyes as I gave his clothed cock few pecks, teasing him. Instantly he gave me a nod before throwing his head back, gesturing to me to keep on going.

I wasted no time and pulled down his sweatpants till an angry, hard cock that slapped his bottom abdomen was released from being suffocated. It’s too pretty, so desperate to be touched. Using my small grip, I wrapped my hand around his shaft, directing it right to my drooling mouth. I gifted his pink mushroom tip kitty licks, then proceeded to gradually bob my head up and down greedily to his cock as if he’s my last meal.

“mmh.. so good baby” jungkook shamelessly groans, the cold room is filled with nothing but dirty, loud moans. The noises motivated me to go on and also to do the best I can to make him feel good.

―୨୧⋆ ˚

“___, you still with me?” he asked again, bringing me out in reality from the filthy thoughts that've been going around the back of my head.

“yeah.. I was just trying the ribbon on Bam” I responded breathlessly as my gaze returned to his beautiful eyes. I just smiled, as if I wasn’t imagining an obscene scene with him a few seconds ago. “let’s go to sleep” I announced as I got up from the ground.

and before we sleep, I made sure to turn my little cute scenario into reality.

[mrs-kmikaelson]

Braver Together

(Should've Known Better Part Two)

Pairing: Kol Mikaelson x reader, Klaus Mikaelson x reader, Mikaelsons x sister-in-law!reader, Hope Mikaelson x mother-figure!reader Summary: Ever since your heart was broken, you became scared of love altogether, but then the most unexpected thing happens and you realize that there was no point in being alive if you weren't living. So you force yourself to face your fears and start being brave... with some help, of course. Warnings: very long, mentions of cheating, angst (with more fluff tho imo), complicated relationships, death, ofc violence, and i totally bend the tvd-originals timeline Words: 10.6K

Masterlist

a/n is at the end of the post.

When you accepted Klaus’ proposal a thousand years ago, you could’ve never imagined that your life would end up the way it would. For a long time, you were happy, maybe even the happiest girl in the world. It didn’t matter if your family was dead—the Mikaelsons became your family. And for a while, that was fine with you, but now it just felt like torture to be with them every single day.

But you supposed that you signed your life away when you married your husband.

His infractions amazed you, but you still didn’t leave him, even when every bone in your body begged you to. It was the little things, like watching Hope smile as she opened presents on Christmas morning, that made you feel like it was worth it.

You had grown attached to her. While you still weren’t the best of friends with her mother, you remained civil for her. After all, you were both stuck in this family with no way of escaping, so you found it pointless to continue to ignore her.

Klaus, however, was much more deserving of your ignorance, but like Hayley, you pushed that to the side. Your feelings didn’t matter when their child was involved. Even though you weren’t her mother, Hope felt like a daughter to you. Her name was so fitting; she really was this family’s last hope, and she was definitely yours.

Over the years you had, you managed to mend your relationship with Rebekah, even if it was never really the same as it was before. You were no longer running around Chicago together, dancing the night away, but now you had responsibilities to care for and hurt in your hearts. Rebekah had always been a child of sorts, but coming back to this city forced her to grow up. In a way, you supposed you did, too.

Elijah and you were better after that talk you had that one Christmas Eve, not as good as before, but better, and for the time being, that was good enough.

Sometimes, as you were playing with Hope in the living room, your siblings surrounding you, you lied to yourself and pretended you were a family again. But you knew better now. You’d been here before already.

But then something happened, something that almost made that lie feel real.

You walked into the Abattoir with a wide smile on your face, a sight that’d become rare to see. But when you were with Hope, it was impossible for the corners of your lips not to go up. She was giggling at something you said, but, looking back, you couldn’t even remember what it was.

There were shopping bags in your hands. You just took her out to get clothes for her first time at school. You were expecting to see the family seated on the couches, prepared to watch her “runway” her new wardrobe.

Instead, you were met with an apparent crisis. Rebekah sat on the couch, hand cupped over her mouth in shock, tears in her eyes. Hayley stood off to the side, glancing in between Elijah and Klaus, the former staring pointedly at an unknown man whose back was turned to you and the latter with his arms crossed, also staring at said man.

At your entrance, Hayley looked over to you, seeming to let out a breath, as if she was thankful to have a reason to leave the situation. “Mommy, mommy!” Little Hope waved Hayley over, even though she was already walking in your direction. “Me and Auntie Y/N/N bought pretty clothes! Wanna see?”

“Yes, sweetheart, just after your father and Uncle Elijah work this out.” She picked the child up, glancing your way with a sort of warning in her eyes, nodding over to where the rest of the family stood before she looked back to Hope. “For now, why don’t we get you in the bath?”

Hope groaned in protest, making you smile in amusement, but Hayley paid no mind to this, taking her upstairs. Your smile was immediately wiped away. The look the werewolf gave you suggested that something was going on, something she didn’t want Hope to be apart of. The rest of the Mikaelsons hadn’t taken their attention off the man they were staring at for even a second, worrying you.

So, you placed the shopping bags you were holding down next to the gate, walking towards them with your arms held out. “What’s going on?” You asked, but no one turned to answer you. Your brows furrowed. Just as you were about to ask again, the mystery man turned around and it was like the wind was knocked out of you instantly.

Standing right in front of you was no stranger. It was Kol Mikaelson.

For a moment, you almost forgot how to breathe. He gazed at you tenderly with an indecipherable look in his eye. Before you could get to even trying to figure it out, you jumped out of your shock and engulfed him into a tight hug that he quickly reciprocated. Tears leaked out of your eyes for the first time in years.

After a minute, you pulled away, patting his arms and looking him up and down, like you were trying to figure out if he was real. He looked just like Kol, just like your Kol. You pinched yourself, causing the man to let out a small chuckle.

“Oh, how I’ve missed you, Y/N,” he said, and you were gobsmacked because that was his voice, his voice that you hadn’t heard in years. As you realized this was real, that this was really Kol, you pulled him in for another hug. 

Kol was the one to pull away this time, cupping your cheeks with his hands and wiping your tears away. You opened and closed your mouth like a fish, trying to find the right words to use, trying to figure out what you even wanted to say. When he died, you felt like there was so much left unsaid, but now you didn’t know where to start. “How- how are you here?”

He softly smiled at you, so different in comparison to the usual Mikaelson smirk that you were used to. “I’m going to explain everything.”

All of a sudden, you heard a throat clear, reminding you of the others in the room that you’d somehow forgotten about. You looked behind Kol to see Elijah, straightening his cufflinks. “Yes, it appears that we all have a lot to discuss,” he remarked, almost looking uncomfortable. You then glanced to Klaus whose jaw was clenched. Rebekah was still in the same exact position as before, expressionless.

Kol guided you to the couch next to her, telling the brothers they should sit, too. And then he told you all the story of a lifetime.

You listened intently as Kol explained how he was alive. He said he had been on the other side, watching all of you every day. Hearing this made you tense as you wondered what he could’ve possibly seen or heard; you were embarrassed that he might’ve seen how Klaus treated you and how you stayed, but your mind didn’t linger on the subject for long as he continued with his story.

He said the other side started to fall apart, all thanks to the travellers and their sociopathic leader, Markos. You were surprised he was even real; when you came across travellers in the past, you thought they were insane, but it turned out that they actually had real power, enough to bring down a supernatural purgatory that had existed long before even your time.

Kol then said he went back to Mystic Falls after a witch told him that Bonnie Bennett had taken the place of the other side’s anchor. He explained how, following Stefan’s death, the scooby gang engaged in a plan to bring him and their other fallen friends back. 

“So I was stuck with my life in the witch’s hands.” He suddenly looked to you. “She refused at first, but when I mentioned you, she eased up and decided to let me through.” For some reason, this information made you freeze. You were stuck staring into Kol’s eyes until he eventually looked away, making you shake your head. “Whatever you said to her, Y/N, may have just saved my life.”

You knew what he was referring to. Long ago, when you were still in Mystic Falls, before Klaus cheated and before Kol died, you gave the Bennett witch some advice you thought she’d find useful. You told her not to let people walk all over her, to start living for herself.

How ironic was that?

It seemed that neither of you had followed this advice, though, because Bonnie was still stuck putting her life on the line for her friends and you still lived with your husband and his family.

Both of you were doing things that’d kill you eventually.

Maybe it already did.

After Kol’s story, you were all worn out, like each of you had lived through it yourselves. Even though you were exhausted, you were still ecstatic that Kol was alive, that your wishes had come true. When Rebekah got over her shock, you could tell she was happy too, and even Elijah had a ghost of a smile of his lips. But Klaus didn’t look as happy as you would’ve thought he’d be.

You didn’t mind this, ignoring it altogether, refusing to let anything ruin your good mood. That night, you went to bed happy in a house full of Mikaelsons.

The next day, when Kol met Hope, the smile that was already on your face got even wider. Oh, they would cause trouble together, you thought. The three of you spent the week together, sometimes including one of your other siblings. And for the first time since you were with that boy, you felt human again.

You could’ve never imagined this turn of events, Kol coming back to life, Klaus’ child being your salvation. But no longer could you imagine any what ifs, any other life for yourself. You didn’t wonder and wonder about what would’ve happened if Elijah let you go, if Klaus never found you. If you got the chance to go back, you didn’t even know if you would’ve done it all differently. That was saying something, but at the moment, it all felt like it was worth it.

There were so many questions you had for Kol, so many qualms you still had with your family, but for that week, you ignored it all. You could only focus on the influx of pure happiness you felt. You started living like you weren’t a thousand-year-old Original whose heart was broken and like you were gonna die the very next day.

And it was liberating.

But you knew better than to think you could live in paradise forever.

You and Kol lied on the grass of some hill he’d driven you to. You were surprised he even still knew his way around the city, but he was always one to surprise you.

You just stared up at the stars together in silence, a comfortable silence that didn’t feel like it was suffocating you. It was just the two of you, no Klaus, no drama, no anyone. It was just you and the stars.

Out of nowhere, Kol broke the silence, his voice just above a whisper. “My brother doesn’t deserve you.”

Your breath hitched, turning your head towards him, but his gaze was still aimed at the sky. Your perfect little moment was suddenly invaded by the thought of your husband who you’d been unknowingly avoiding in conversation with Kol altogether. Maybe he noticed that.

Maybe he noticed the way you and Klaus no longer touched, even though you couldn’t keep your hands off one another the last time he was alive. Maybe he really was watching you from the other side, and that terrified you.

You knew Kol held you on a pedestal, even if neither of you would ever acknowledge that. He thought you were so good, so strong, so it killed you to think that he saw you when you were most vulnerable. It killed you to think that he knew all of his brother’s indiscretions and how you stayed, anyway.

You knew better than that—no, you were better than that.

Kol went on, “He never has-”

This time, you cut him off, the shock wearing off. “Kol-”

“No, Y/N.” He finally stopped staring up at the stars, turning to look at you. You were expecting the disappointment, but you weren’t expecting the raw anger in his eyes, an anger that’d never been directed at you. But you know it wasn’t. “You were always too good for that bastard, too good for this entire fucking family.”

You tried to stop him, but he kept going every time you opened your mouth. “Here you are, raising a child that isn’t even yours for his sake. Even after what he did to you, what he kept doing to you, you stayed—because that is just how loyal you are and how loyal he isn’t.” He started laughing, but there was no trace of humour in it. “You have no idea how much I want to sock him every time I see him.”

“Kol-”

“You know there’s nothing you can say to make this better, Y/N.” That shut you up. “I’m not going to let you spin this just to spare my brother the trouble.” Oh, how embarrassed you felt. Klaus cheated on you over and over again, yet you still felt the need to defend him. 

Things were okay with Elijah and Rebekah because, even though they were there, they weren’t really there. They didn’t know how bad things were between you and Klaus, how it ate you alive, not even Rebekah who watched you break down and isolate yourself. But Kol- oh, Kol saw it all.

You swallowed, looking back up to the sky. “I’m sorry,” you whispered.

Never had you been turned so fast. When your eyes met Kol’s, they were fierce, but his voice softened. “Don’t ever apologize for him. Never again, not to me- not to anyone.”

You swallowed a second time, losing your words as you just stared into his eyes. You hadn’t seen him in so long; you forgot how well he knew you, how he was able to read you like a child’s book.

But Kol had gotten more complicated to you. Whenever you were around him, there was a new look that’d surface in his eyes. This look was like a passerby that you didn’t know but had seen before, a friend of a friend. This was a look you could not decipher, and currently, he was giving you that exact look.

For a long while, the two of you just looked at each other as if you were the stars you’d came all this way to see. The only things heard were crickets and the cars from the city until Kol’s voice sounded.

“I should’ve never let him do this to you,” he said. And you didn’t know what that meant.

But it didn’t matter.

Because, seconds later, you both got up and drove away.

This night hadn’t dampened your mood. There were so many things to be happy for. Years ago or even a week ago, you were depressed beyond words, but Kol coming back had filled a hole you’d thought would never go away. So even though this conversation stung, you were still okay.

When you got back to the compound, you both pretended he never said what he said. Kol went back to being his playful self, making jokes, and you went back to laughing at them.

It was like you’d been given a miracle. You never thought you’d feel like yourself again, and you didn’t really, but it was so close, as close as you’d been in a long time. 

You didn’t feel so alone anymore.

Every day started being spent with either Kol, Marcel, Hope, or sometimes even Rebekah. Life was as normal as it had ever been, as sunny as you’d ever seen the world—at least as sunny as your life has been in decades.

Until it started to rain.

You were in the kitchen of the Abattoir, looking through the cupboards to see what you could make. While none of you had to actually eat, Hope did, and so it’d become a staple in the Mikaelson house to have dinner every night. These dinners stopped being so awkward after a while.

Hayley and Eijah were at some werewolf meeting, Rebekah had taken Hope to buy school supplies, Kol was roaming around, and you suspected Klaus was out causing some sort of mayhem. You assumed you were alone in the house, but you were proven wrong.

Footsteps sounded behind you; you sensed him before you even turned around. Even though Klaus and you had gotten to a point of pleasantness, that didn’t mean you enjoyed being alone with him. 

A few years of pleasantness couldn’t erase the thousand years you’d spent together.

“Love,” he greeted, pulling out a barstool and sitting down, the kitchen island separating you. You lightly inhaled, turning to nod to him in acknowledgement.

You kept rummaging through the kitchen, trying your best to ignore your husband’s presence. Oh, Klaus hadn’t felt like your husband in so long, but what else could he possibly be to you?

You were trying so hard to be friends with him, but could you really be friends with the man you were in love with for a millennium? With the man who had hurt you more than anyone else ever had? You didn’t have an answer to that.

The two of you sat in silence. There was a point in time where silence between you both felt like a warm blanket, comfortable and safe, but now it felt ominous, like the calm before a storm. With Klaus, there was always a storm.

Just as you placed your final ingredients on the counter, he caught you off guard and asked, “What are you doing with my brother?” You quickly spun around, widening your eyes and narrowing them in the same sequence. This was a question, but it felt much more like a challenge.

Klaus was impassive, but you knew better than to actually believe that. However, you mirrored his expression, anyway. “What do you mean?” you quizzed. You tried to keep your voice devoid of emotion, but you couldn’t help the bite of annoyance that seeped through.

He clearly noticed this if the tick in his jaw was of any indication. “You and Kol, Y/N.” Your brows furrowed at his vague explanation, causing his eyes to roll. “Come on, don’t act as if you’re surprised. You had to have known that I’d ask eventually. You’re my wife.”

He stared firmly into your eyes. No, I’m not your wife, you wanted to scream, but you bit your tongue. You hoped that your gaze said it for you, anyway. Instead, you scoffed, “No, Klaus, I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” He tried to say something, but you cut him off. “I’m not sure what insinuation you’re trying to make, but you need to cool it.”

You were fed up, and you could feel an argument on its way. Klaus and you hadn’t argued in a long time, but that didn’t mean you didn’t have things you wanted to say to him. You held your comments in for Hope’s sake, but if he wanted to poke the bear, then you’d make sure that the bear poked back.

This time, he scoffed, his calm façade falling apart as he snarked, “Oh, please, you can’t possibly be so naive.”

“There is nothing to be naive about, Klaus—there’s nothing going on between your brother and me.” And if there was, it wouldn’t be your business, you wanted to add, but you weren’t gonna add more fuel to the fire. You didn’t even know why your mind went there in the first place.

“Perhaps that’s what you think, Y/N, but I’ve seen the way my brother looks at you-”

“He doesn’t look at me in any way.”

“Yes, he does- and you’re fooling yourself if you think he doesn’t.”

There was a door in your mind that Klaus had opened with these remarks, a door you’d been scared to even go near. But you closed it right away, refusing to wonder about it. He was wrong. There was nothing going on between you and Kol.

Your eyes hardened and you snapped, “I don’t have the time nor do I have the patience to deal with another one of your paranoid episodes.” He scoffed again, but you paid it no mind. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have dinner to make.” You turned around, not caring to see Klaus’ expression. You heard the barstool screech against the floor and then his angry footsteps as he left the kitchen.

And just like that, that opened door was slammed shut.

You tried your hardest to ignore Klaus’ words, telling yourself it wasn’t true, that there was no way it could possibly be true, but you couldn’t stop thinking about it. You and Kol had always been close, but there was nothing that wasn’t platonic there. 

Or maybe you were wrong.

You had given up on love so long ago. You gave your lover your heart without a second thought and he threw it to the ground like it was nothing, like it wouldn’t shatter everywhere, like it was possible for you to ever recover from that. And then when you try and find happiness, he rips that away from you, too.

Klaus had blown out any spark you had, leaving you alone in the dark.

Was love worth it if felt like this?

You didn’t know. These weren’t questions you asked yourself when you said “I do.” You didn’t know what to do anymore.

So you did what you always did, stuffing your feelings away and acting like nothing was wrong. But something changed. Whenever you saw Kol after that, you felt something—something you couldn’t explain, something you couldn’t name. It was like you had felt this before, but just never noticed it.

This feeling lurked in the background for a while until it was pulled back to the forefront of your mind when you least expected it.

“Bloody hell,” you muttered, storming into the compound with Kol following soon after. Your language was partly ironic because bloody you were. Of course, not your blood, but you hadn’t been in this state in at least a century.

Safe to say, you didn’t miss it.

You had just killed a horde of witches. They were good opponents, strong, but nobody was ever really smart if they decided to go up against the Mikaelsons. Nothing was stronger than family, even if it didn’t always feel that way.

They wanted to go after Hope, but you would never let that happen—none of you would. So you killed them- slaughtered may have even been a better word to use. Some of them had their hearts taken, their limbs ripped apart, stakes stabbed into their chests; your family could get creative.

Elijah, Hayley, and Klaus were dealing with the mess while Rebekah was tending to Hope. They didn’t need anymore man-power, so Elijah told you both to go home and clean yourselves up. He didn’t have to tell you twice.

“Seems that this family can never escape a bloodbath,” he joked.

“Ugh, disgusting. I need a real bath.” You spun around, a dramatic look on your face. Kol chuckled. He was more at ease than you were; he got a meal out of it, but you preferred quick kills, so now you were just annoyed.

“If you weren’t my brother’s wife, I’d join you.” His tone was light and playful, teasing even, but there was a glint in his eye that made you think he wasn’t completely joking. Your mind went back to what Klaus said to you, about the way Kol looked at you, then you thought about everything he did to you, how he just discarded your vows like they were meaningless. 

Maybe, if you hadn’t just come from a fight, you would’ve laughed it off, but you were tired of thinking about what Klaus wanted. 

You shrugged. “Well, I don’t think I’ve been his wife for a long time now.” You maintained eye contact with Kol as he paused. The playful atmosphere disappeared and was replaced with tension.

A beat passed before he slowly responded, “Y/N, what are you trying to say?”

What were you trying to say? You didn’t know if you could put it into words. So you stepped forward, hearing his breath catch in his throat, putting a hand on his bicep. “I think you know what I’m trying to say.”

Another beat. And then the next thing you knew, Kol’s lips slammed onto yours. You were sped upstairs, immediately ripping his shirt off and letting it fall to the floor. Yours came off somewhere in the mix. You could taste the leftover blood on his lips, not enough to satisfy you, but just enough to leave you wanting more.

You didn’t know what you were doing, but it felt good. You never thought you’d feel anything remotely like this ever again, but now that you had it, who knew if you could ever let it go?

Kissing Kol was like drugs. Ecstasy raced through your veins. You didn’t know if you had ever felt anything like this before; if you had, then how was it possible that you let it slip through your fingers? No, this was unlike any experience you’d ever had.

He suddenly pulled away, heaving. You reached to pull him back in, but he stopped you, breathing, “Are you sure that you want this?”

You didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes- you have no idea how badly.” This clearly sufficed because he was back to kissing you the second you stopped talking, hands going to unclasp your bra.

Oh, at that moment, you couldn’t give a damn what Klaus thought.

And Kol made sure you didn’t think about Klaus for the rest of that night.

Kol made it feel like your first time all over again, like everything you felt was new and foreign to you, but by the time you were done, your body was anything but foreign to him. 

After multiple rounds and showering, you laid in your bed tired. You couldn’t remember the last time someone else laid with you. Part of you thought that, for some reason, Kol would leave, but he stayed right next to you, holding you in his arms.

You only had sex, but this felt like so much more than that.

The only thing that could be heard in your room was the sound of your breathing. You didn’t want to say anything, to talk about it and be reminded that you were married. You just wanted to bask in this moment.

You don’t know how long you’d been lying in silence before Kol whispered, “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.” You turned your head toward him, but like that night on the hill, he kept his vision directed to the ceiling as if he was afraid what he’d see if he directed it to you. He hesitated. “I think I’ve felt something for you for years, centuries. Maybe- maybe I always have.”

Your heart nearly stopped. Not just because he was confessing to having feelings for you, but because maybe you did, too. But this was more than a confession.

Your response to this could determine your future, if there was any, with Kol. 

The rational part of your brain argued that this could never work, that Klaus would never let it happen, that this would only end in tragedy. You wanted to stop this before it became something more, but that other part of yourself, the part ruled by her heart, told you that it was too late for that. This was already something more.

You couldn’t let this go, not even if you wanted to.

You cupped his cheek, turning him to you. When his eyes met yours, you saw an emotion that Kol rarely ever showed, and that was fear. You wondered if he could see that you were scared, too.

You looked into his eyes for what felt like forever but was really only a minute. And then you decided that what you were feeling was more powerful than words, so you didn’t say anything at all, leaning in to kiss him. It wasn’t as fervent as before, now tender and soft but still with purpose. You weren’t too sure of what’d happen after this, once you woke up from this dream and got back to reality, but as you kissed him, it didn’t matter.

You were together. 

And for now, that was more than enough.

When you woke up, Kol was still there, right next to you. You could’ve stayed in bed together all day, but you weren’t normal people. You belonged to the least normal family and led the least normal lives. So you got up, reluctantly, and he went back to his room before anyone could find him in yours.

Then you walked downstairs, ate breakfast, and dealt with the effects of the your most recent problem. You were at Rousseau’s, about to meet with Marcel, when you were pulled into the bathroom, Kol’s lips immediately meeting yours.

The feeling of his lips soon became so familiar to you.

You wanted to be normal so badly, but you couldn’t. You knew you couldn’t. So this became your new normal instead: stolen moments and glances, being together when no one else was around. 

Slowly, that feeling you had whenever you were around him was given a name. You don’t know if it was love, if it could even be that yet—but it felt dangerous, and exciting, and warm all at once. You felt it whenever you kissed him, whenever you looked into his dark brown eyes, and whenever he smiled. 

You were falling for Kol Mikaelson.

You constantly berated yourself, even though it felt so good. This was like alcohol, and drugs, and every other vice out there: it was temporary. The Original Hybrid was your husband—this was his brother. He wouldn’t let this happen.

This was wrong.

But it felt so right.

You had rejected every possible opportunity of happiness for years. Couldn’t you just have this one thing? Couldn’t you just let yourself be happy?

Oh, Kol made you happy. He brought out a part of you that you thought was gonna be gone forever. He made you feel like yourself again, like you were alive, like you had something to live for.

You had been living in black and white for so long that you forgot what it was like to live in colour.

Music filled the Mikaelson living room, music that the rest of the world would perhaps call old but never got old to you. Kol held you close to him, rocking you to the rhythm while your head rested on his chest. You were both very well versed in classical dances, but you didn’t need a big fancy dance for this to feel the way it did: special.

There was something going on—there always was—but, at that moment, that something didn’t exist. At that moment, it was just the two of you.

A small smile came to your lips. “You know, you weren’t even actually alive when this song came out.”

You felt his chest rumble as he chuckled. “Yeah, and I’m glad. This song is terrible.”

You gasped, pulling away and hitting his arm. “Kol Mikaelson! Don’t you dare speak about Celine Dion that way.”

He laughed again, easily pulling you back to him and kissing the crown of your head. You tried pouting, but it felt impossible to do anything other than smile. “Don’t worry, darling. You like it, so I like it.” Your smile got wider, pulling back again but this time it was to kiss him.

You found that, when you kissed Kol, it wasn’t always so hot and heavy. It didn’t always lead to making out or making love. Sometimes, you just kissed because it felt good. It was soft, and gentle, and reassuring, and it felt good.

Maybe, if you were being honest with yourself, it felt better than anything else.

You pulled away after a few seconds, taking the time to stare into his eyes. You did it all the time and yet, every single time you did, it felt like the first time all over again. You could stare into his brown orbs all day long if you could. However, your lives didn’t allow for that.

But that just made little moments like these all the more special.

After a few seconds, he directed your attention away from his eyes, mumbling under his breath, “The song’s still shit, though.”

“Oh, shut up,” you scolded, but your head still made its way back to his chest, anyways.

Everyone else was back at the benefit. You were there, too, until you both decided to sneak away and go back home. That was cutting it close, definitely, but you couldn’t find it in you to care. You didn’t get to go on dates or hold hands in public, so you were gonna grab these moments while you still could.

You knew that what you were doing was just prolonging an eventual- no, an inevitable outcome, but after everything you went through, you learned a few lessons. All good things came to an end—everything had to end at some point. Your marriage sure did, but that didn’t mean that you’d go back and change a thing. Yes, things with Klaus ended badly, but he gave you a thousand good years first.

So if what you were doing with Kol ended, then at least you had this. At least you had dances in the living room, and stargazing, and soft kisses.

Maybe this story wouldn’t have a happy ending.

But as long as you got a happy middle, then you were okay with that.

And he did everything he could to give you just that. 

It felt… different, to be with someone other than Niklaus, but it was a good different. It felt good to smile and to actually mean it. And it made you wish for something more, to be more than just two people engaging in a forbidden love affair, but that’s what this was, wasn’t it?

But Kol made it feel like it really was more than that. He made you feel like a diamond, like you were beautiful, like everything that had weighed down on you only made you that much stronger. 

This was more. This was so much more than you could’ve ever hoped for.

You were lying in bed together late at night when it happened. You weren’t expecting it- you weren’t sure if you ever expected it. But Kol was always one to do the unexpected, surprise you and keep you on the edge of your seat.

Yet, when he spoke, he didn’t sound so dauntless. He sounded small and afraid, but at the same time, you could hear the hope in his voice. Hope, courage, bravery—at the end of the day, it was just called Kol.

He was always brave enough for the both of you.

“I love you.”

Your breath hitched, turning to see that he was already staring at you. The déjà vu hit you hard. Here you were, in the same position you’d already been in with him, but this time, he looked right at you.

Brave enough for the both of you.

You didn’t say anything. You wondered if you were dreaming, hallucinating, imagining things, if this was some cruel trick of the mind. But, the longer you stared and the longer he stared right back at you, the more convinced you became.

This was real.

This was real.

You wrapped your arm around his neck, pulling him in and connecting his lips with yours. Butterflies still erupted in your stomach, even though you had been at this for a while. You put your everything into this kiss, but Kol deserved more than everything.

This scared you, but Kol had given you so much. He didn’t need to be the brave one all the time.

You wanted to be brave, too.

So when you finally pulled away, resting your forehead on his, eyes closed, you whispered back, “I love you.” 

You and Kol were brave together, braver together. Yeah, there were dragons out there so much more powerful than you, but you could slay them together. Maybe it would’ve been safer to just stay away, to just tuck yourself away in a castle and avoid the dragons altogether, but what was the point in that?

What was the point of being alive if you weren’t truly living?

And you were living.

Everyone around you could see it. Your change in behaviour was unusual, but it lifted everyone’s spirits. You were starting to be able to actually hold a conversation with Rebekah, and you were starting to be able to talk to Elijah about things other than the family’s latest conflicts. You were even starting to be a little more friendly with Hayley.

You didn’t tell her, but a part of you was thankful for what she did. She knew who you were when she met Klaus; she knew he was married, and she still slept with him. This had previously enraged you, but now you couldn’t help but feel relieved.

Had she not done what she did, you may have never had this with Kol.

And Hope would’ve never been born.

Oh, you would do anything for her. This family may have been cursed, but you were all willing to do whatever it took to break the cycle. No more running, no more instability. No matter how dysfunctional you all were, you would give her that.

She was never alone. When her parents weren’t there to bring her or pick her up from school, you were. And if you weren’t, then Kol was, or Rebekah, or Elijah, or Marcel. The odds were against you from the start, but you were all there to flip them. 

For her.

You were always happy with Hope, but even she could tell that something had changed. She was a child, but she was bright, and she knew you were happier.

The relationships in your life blossomed. Klaus was the only person that this didn’t happen with.

You loved Kol—you were in love with Kol, but loving him didn’t skew your memory. Klaus and you had a long history. You still couldn’t look at him without picturing it.

It was easier to be more forgiving of Hayley. She wasn’t the one who vowed to be faithful to you, nor was she the one to cheat on you three times or give up on your marriage. He was. You couldn’t see yourself letting go of that. Maybe one day, but being around him wouldn’t speed up that process.

Klaus was actually the last person on your mind.

But that didn’t seem to be the case for him.

You were on your way out of the compound when something caught your eye. You stopped, turning to see your husband by himself in an empty hallway. It appeared that something had caught his eye, too.

He was so focused that he didn’t even see you. You could’ve pretended not to see him, walked away and gone on with your business, but you knew what he was looking at. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t look at it every once in a while, too.

Yes, you could’ve walked away, but the easy thing was never easy for you to do.

So you walked up to him, leaving a foot between you and looking at what had captured his attention. It was a portrait, and a familiar one at that.

The truth was, you’d studied that portrait until it was engraved into your memory. Even when you weren’t looking at it, it still came and found you in your dreams and even when you were just sitting around and thinking.

It was you. It was you, and Klaus, and Rebekah, and Elijah, and Kol. Before he died, before Hayley, before this godforsaken city. It was when things were calm, when you still had some sort of semblance of family. Or at least that’s what it was supposed to be.

Because it wasn’t real.

You never got together for this portrait. This time didn’t exist. It was fake. Niklaus was such a wonderful artist that he almost made you believe it, but it wasn’t real. He could paint you all so realistically, make you look so happy, but when was the last time you were all happy as a family? It was never in these clothes, never in this age.

But he made it look real.

He made it look like you were all picture-perfect, like his brother didn’t bring you to your end, like Rebekah never lost her mind, like Kol was never murdered, like you were never out crying in the rain for a man who would never change, like he was a man who could change.

Who knew that such a happy picture could evoke such sadness. Because this portrait wasn’t what was— it was what could’ve been.

Klaus broke the silence with a voice you would’ve never heard without enhanced hearing. “I really did love you.” Neither of you turned to face the other. “I really do love you.”

Not too long ago, you would’ve started crying. And while tears did build in your eyes, you smiled first. You didn’t doubt that. It didn’t take you long to respond, “So did I.”

1996, when you left, when you came back, when he cheated again, when you found out he was having a baby, when he killed Leo, when you stayed, when you took Hope. All of this flashed before your eyes, but it wasn’t all you saw. You also saw your wedding, your first time, when he painted you as you slept, when you got drunk together, when he cooked for you, when you kissed on the beach at night all by yourselves. You saw how happy he made you and how easily he just took it away from you.

You would never forget these things, none of it. You would never forget the bad, but you would never forget the good, either.

He lightly chuckled as if he was remembering all the same things as you. And then, for a while, you both just stood there, staring at the painting. There was a time when you could practically read his mind, but now you had no idea what he was thinking.

You were different people now. You weren’t the same people who went through the good, nor were you the same people who went through the bad. You weren’t the same people you could’ve been in that picture, either.

And he knew that, too.

“I’m never going to be your husband again, am I?” He mused, but this wasn’t a question. You both already knew the answer, even if you hadn’t said it out loud to each other.

“No.” You shook your head, opting to look down at your boots. “No, you’re not.”

Maybe you were imagining it, but out of the corner of your eye, you saw him wipe at his eye. Suddenly, a part of you felt bad, but not for him. You felt bad for the boy you fell in love with, the boy who gave you humanity even when he had lost his own. And you felt bad for the girl who kissed him at the altar.

So, against your current feelings, you turned and swiftly wrapped your arms around him, hoping that you weren’t just hugging Klaus, but that you were hugging the boy you married all those years ago. He quickly hugged you back, holding you tightly, but his grip slowly lessened.

Like he was getting ready to let you go.

You don’t know how long you were in his arms, but eventually he pulled away. You could finally see his eyes, his beautiful blue eyes, and how they were filled with tears despite the smile on his face. He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t need to. You had both said everything you needed to say; there were no more chapters to write in this book of yours.

It was time for your story to end.

You let go of each other and you turned around, walking away without sparing that painting another glance. You were just at the edge of the hallway when he called your name, making you turn your head.

“Be happy with him,” he said, even though it looked like it annihilated him to say it.

But you didn’t question it. You just nodded, then you turned around and walked away. You didn’t need to ask him who he was referring to or have him explain any further. You understood perfectly.

You would.

You were gonna be happy with him.

And just like that, the Original Hybrid and the Mikaelson Wife were done.

But who knew? You could very well become a Mikaelson once again if Kol got his way. You wouldn’t admit, just as to not inflate his ego, but deep down, you wanted him to get his way.

Slowly, the suspicions your other siblings had became confirmed. You weren’t overly affectionate in public, but they were able to put two and two together. Rebekah had been in love so many times that she was able to see it clearly on you, and Elijah was always the scholar amongst you, the smart one. Marcel saw it from a mile away. While he and Kol hadn’t always gotten along well, they were both willing to put that aside for you.

Even a child could see that you were in love; Hope did.

“Aunt Y/N/N, do you and Uncle Kol love each other like Belle and the Beast?”

You both simultaneously turned to her, along with everyone else in the living room. It was movie night; Beauty and the Beast had just finished, and Hope had asked you that question as soon as the credits were rolling.

She was just a kid who was curious. She didn’t know the potential outrage her question could cause.

But you weren’t gonna lie to her. You weren’t gonna deny what was possibly the best thing you ever had, even as your entire family was in the room.

“Hope-” Hayley had started to scold, but you cut her off.

“Hayley, it’s alright.” She didn’t look convinced and still looked embarrassed, but you turned back to Hope with a smile on your face. “Yes, sweetheart, Uncle Kol and I do love each other.”

She now looked confused, like your reply hadn’t cleared anything up at all. “But my daddy looks at you the way Uncle Kol looks at you.” You opened your mouth, but you didn’t know what to say. “Does daddy love you, too?”

It appeared that none of you had the answer to her question. How were you meant to explain your situation to a child, that you and her father had loved one another for a thousand years and then your relationship ended because he slept with her mother?

What you were least expecting happened. Instead of having an outburst, Klaus beckoned Hope over, petting her hair once she was sat on his lap. “Ah, my littlest wolf,” he sighed, but the corners of his lips were upturned. His eyes were slightly glazed over as if he wasn’t really there, but that look quickly disappeared. For Hope, he’d be present. “I wish that love was as simple to understand as Belle and the Beast, but it is much more complicated than that. Your Aunt Y/N has been there for me many times, and for that, I will always love her,” he professed. His eyes found yours for a moment, but he quickly looked back to his daughter. “But we love each other differently from how her and Uncle Kol love each other. We love each other as family, not as people in love with one another. But no matter what any of us feel for each other in this family, Hope, we will all always love you.”

Hope slung her arms around her father’s neck. “I love you, too, daddy.”

“Always and forever, little one.”

While Hope’s back was turned, your eyes met again and the corners of your lips quirked up slightly. You knew that must’ve been hard for him to say, so you mouthed, thank you.

He smiled back at you. Even though it was so obviously fake, you still appreciated it. He nodded in response.

Yes, you and Klaus had been through a lot. You all had complicated relationships with one another, Kol and you included, but you were gonna push that aside for Hope. Every time.

One day, you would explain it all to her, how Marcel was her brother but your son, why Rebekah was so soft and hard at the same time, why Elijah was so protective, why her parents weren’t together, how you fell in and out of love with her father, why you were still here, how you fell in love with Kol.

But for now, you were gonna let her hold onto her innocence for as long as she could.

Hope still had questions, but she also had all of you to distract her from all of the problems you dealt with. However, you were no longer consumed by all these problems. You had someone to distract you, too, and that was Kol.

Whether you were in bed together, kissing, or just holding hands, he always took your mind off your troubles. He was like a wizard, transporting you from reality and bringing you to cloud nine every day. The problems, the threats, the drama—none of it mattered to you. To you, being with Kol was enough.

If you could just have this for the rest of your life, then you’d be happy, and that is exactly what he wanted to give you.

Time passed in a blur. It was a true what they said, that time flied when you were having fun. Before you knew it, a year had passed since Kol first kissed you, since you started this. A perfect year, calm with minimal conflict both in the Quarter and in the Abattoir.

You could’ve passed many more years this way happily, but you were always one to accept less than what you were worth. Kol knew that, and he wanted more for you- more for both of you.

He wanted to do more than just take you to dreams away from reality.

He wanted to make those dreams come true.

“Kol, what are you doing?” You giggled, stumbling a little but never falling. Kol would never let you fall.

He hushed you, “Shhh, we’re almost there.” 

A blindfold was over your eyes as he guided you around. You got into the car together hours ago, and when you woke up, the blindfold was on. He said he had a surprise for you.

This was so cheesy, but you were a sucker for these kinds of things. You never thought you’d get to a place like this again, that you’d be a hopeless romantic or even just a romantic ever again after what Klaus did to you, but Kol made you believe in romance again.

He put your heart back together after you thought it’d been broken beyond repair.

Finally, after more stumbling and laughing, he stopped, holding you in place. “Okay, are you ready?” You couldn’t see him, but you could hear the excitement in his voice. You nodded. “Alright. Three, two, one-”

The blindfold fell to the ground and the sight he’d been withholding was revealed to you. Your brows furrowed. You were in a living room with beautiful floors and beautiful decor, a fireplace parallel to the big couch behind you. You looked around and saw incredible artwork hanging on the walls and gorgeous windows that let the moonlight in.

It was beautiful and all, but did you drive all this way to break into someone’s house?

You voiced your confusion. “Kol, what is this place?” You turned around to see him trying to hold back a smile, a twinkle in his eyes. He looked like a kid about to tell you that he saw Santa. That thought made you laugh. “C’mon, Kol, really. Where are we right now?”

“Well, geographically, we’re in North Carolina.” His explanation produced a gasp from you, making him laugh. He was having way too much fun having you in the dark.

“North Carolina?” you echoed. Your jaw was practically on the floor. “We’re in North Carolina? You’re kidding- that’s like ten hours away-”

“Thirteen, darling.” This didn’t get rid of your disbelief, though you doubt that was what Kol was aiming for, anyway. He shrugged, adding, “Well, I actually got it down to twelve, but that’s besides the point.”

“Trust me, the shocker for me is not your reckless driving-”

He cut you off by speeding to you, lifting up your chin so you were looking right into his eyes. Funny, how he was still able to make you speechless. “I’m going to ignore that jab at my impeccable driving skills because I love you.”

You snorted, “Sure, if impeccable means shit.”

He hushed you again, causing you to roll your eyes. “Back to your question,” he said, making you remember the topic of conversation. You wondered if he had any idea how easily he was able to make you forget about anything—about everything. “I drove us here because North Carolina is relatively… quiet.”

You raised a brow. “Quiet?”

“Yes.” He gently grabbed your hands, holding them in his. Sometimes, he did this absentmindedly, but you were never bothered. You were far from bothered. “Louisiana is perhaps the heart of the supernatural. New York and any other state with a thriving night life also has a thriving vampire population, and they’re busy enough with humans as it is. The big states always are. But North Carolina… North Carolina isn’t on any vampire’s bucket list.”

You drawled, “Okayyyyyy… but why are we here?” What he was saying made sense, but you didn’t get how it related to either of you.

He just smiled, so clearly amused by your confusion. “You amaze me, Y/N, truly,” he proclaimed, that same shit-eating grin on his face that you’d grown accustomed to. “Only you would take so long to get the hint.”

That was obviously a hint, too, but you weren’t catching it. Kol shook his head, getting that look in his eye that he got when he was remembering something. “You told me once that, if we weren’t who we were, you’d want to live somewhere without ruckus, like a normal person. But you knew that couldn’t happen with my brother’s aspirations.” Now he looked at you pointedly and, all of a sudden, a wave of realization washed over you.

Your eyes darted all over the house. There was a reason why you were so in love with it. You looked back to Kol, mouth agape. He continued, “You wanted a house that wasn’t just decadent, but a home.”

Tears welled in your eyes as your hand flew up to cup your mouth in shock. You could remember telling him that, but it was so long ago. You’d long since abandoned the idea, but here he was, offering it up to you. “You- you remember that?”

He leaned in to wipe a tear that you didn’t even notice had fell, caressing your cheek. “I remember every moment I’ve ever spent with you, Y/N.” His actions were pointless because his words caused even more tears to fall.

You had never felt such an overwhelming feeling, so in love, so loved. Your heart’s immediate instinct was to kiss him, to say yes, but your mind… you’d been through enough to know better. 

“How are we going to-” you stammered, “we can’t- we can’t just move away.”

“Y/N-”

“This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me, but-” your voice cracked. “we can’t just pick up and leave, Kol—you know that.”

He was now cupping both of your cheeks, staring so deeply into your eyes that you were sure he could see the parts of yourself that you’d tucked away. “Do you remember when I left Mystic Falls?” Of course, you did. How could you ever forget? “I asked you to come with me and you didn’t. Why was that?”

You didn’t want to answer, to relive this after you’d already agonized over it for so long, but you did, anyway. “Klaus. I didn’t go because of Klaus.”

“Exactly. You didn’t go because of that bastard, and you don’t want this now for the same reason.”

“Kol-”

He stepped closer when you thought he’d already closed all the space between you. His voice was soft and firm all at once. “I died thinking I’d never get the chance to tell you how I felt. I wasted so much time, worrying, unhappy.” He shook his head. “Well, I don’t want to worry anymore. I don’t want to waste any more time.” More tears fell, from both of you. “You make me happy, Y/N. I just want to be happy with you.”

A teary laugh escaped your lips. He made you happy, too, so much happier than you’d been in so long, so much happier than you even thought was possible after everything you’d been through. And he was right. Klaus was the one thing holding you back, but why should he get to do that?

You’ve given away years of your life for other people. Couldn’t you be selfish, just this once, and have this one thing for yourself?

You just wanted to be happy.

So you pulled him in and kissed him until you had to pull away for air, and when you did, you whispered, “Yes.”

And that may have just been the best decision you had ever made.

When you eventually drove back to New Orleans days later, you explained the situation to Klaus. He wasn’t jumping up and down with joy, but he surprisingly took it better than you expected.

You spent a thousand years with that man; saying goodbye wasn’t as easy as it seemed, but it needed to happen. It was time for you to go your separate ways. And even after everything he put you through, you still hoped that he could maybe find happiness one day, too.

Niklaus Mikaelson was your epic love, but you knew without a doubt that Kol was your true love. He was the warmth you’d been yearning for, and you were gonna let yourself have that.

North Carolina was the perfect place for you to settle down. It was quiet, like Kol said, with little to no supernatural population. It was also close enough to Louisiana that you could distance yourself from all the crazy but still get there if they needed you.

That’s what you told Elijah when you said your goodbye to him, that you were just a phone call away. He was gonna be the one running the show now, as always. He was always the responsible one amongst you, and you hoped that he’d let go of that and let himself live a little, too. As much as you didn’t like her, maybe he could get with Hayley one day or even find his own person.

You had hope that all of your family could one day be free of this Mikaelson curse, that they wouldn’t be bearing the hybrid’s sins for the rest of their lives. Rebekah was getting there. She was still growing up a little, and she all the time in the world to do that.

It was hard saying goodbye to Hope, but you just reassured her that this wasn’t goodbye. She’d always have a place in your home if she so needed it, and she’d definitely always hold a place in your heart. The only reason you felt okay with leaving her was because you knew she wouldn’t be alone; she had two parents that loved her more than life, a crazy aunt and uncle, and her big brother.

Marcel congratulated you with a wide grin on his face. He was elated for you, telling you that he’d be visiting you, to which you replied that he would always be welcome with you two.

Maybe you were just sentimental, but even saying goodbye to the city itself was hard, nerve-racking. It had given you so much, but taken so much more. You were learning, though, that love wasn’t supposed to drain you. You were learning to let go.

Goodbye, New Orleans, you whispered to yourself as you passed the town sign, and then you were saying hello to North Carolina… and also the new you.

Y/N and Kol Michaels. You got married not too far down the line. Of course, if you wanted to be normal, ditching the medieval last name was best. You supposed you could’ve kept it, but getting rid of it was more symbolic than anything.

You wanted to start over completely, and so that’s what you guys did. You weren’t abandoning your family, but making one of your own, too. Eventually, the idea of kids came up. You wanted nothing more than to raise your own child with the man you were in love with, but you couldn’t conceive a child and you didn’t want to drag one into this life, anyway. It was too dangerous.

The realization that you would never get to have kids broke your heart, but your lover repaired it like his words were glue. The two of you were together, and that was good enough for you.

Doing this, starting over, was scarier than any other situation you had ever been in—and that was saying something, considering how long you’d lived. But with Kol at your side, you were able to be brave. 

There was so much to be afraid of. You were scared that this wouldn’t work out, that this was only a happy middle with no happy ending, that you’d feel cold again one day after growing accustomed to the fire, but if all of that happened one day, then you decided that you’d be okay with it. You would be okay with it because at least you lived. You weren’t gonna let your fears stop you from doing that. If you just gave into your fears, then you would’ve never felt this feeling. You would’ve never fallen in love. You would’ve never found yourself again.

You owed it all to your bravery.

And you owed it all to Kol’s.

But together, you were fearless. Together, you were braver.

You were braver together.

Taglist: @honestlycasualarcade @hyperactivewhore @tnrthings @brooklynscherry-z @roselibrary @kollover24 @volturissideslut

a/n: sorry for the long wait, but here is part two! ik i said i was gonna do the thg fanfic first, but that one is long asf so i decided to drop this first. i tried my best to listen to all ur suggestions—unfortunately, i couldn't find a way to write in a pregnancy. but we've got a happy ending! i really, really, really did not want a happy ending, like i had a whole sad ending planned for the part 2 but everyone wanted happiness so i just decided to end it there to avoid to outrage lol. if u want a part 3 where it doesn't end there but ends the way it was supposed to originally, then tell me. and lastly, thank u all so much for all the support!

[evanpeterswhoresblog]

Cherry Bomb

Sirius Black x f!reader

warnings: smut, unprotected p in v, oral (female receiving), soft!dom sirius, underage smoking, brief underage drinking, rough sex, pretty good sex imo, this all leads to a bigger plot i promise !!

summary: you’ve got a plan, and that plan starts with a simple shag with a simple man. sirius black.

word count: 1.6k

a/n: i used two beautiful prompts from this beautiful account @eloquentmoon and they are as followed.

11. “Louder, let me hear you”

28. “I want to have my way with you”

i listened to fat bottomed girls by queen during this and god did it help. anyway, enjoy :)

~~~

If boys could be considered easy, Sirius Black would be the easiest boy in all of Hogwarts. To shag Sirius Black, a girl only needs to meet a short list of requirements. One, she must be fit. Two, she must not be a virgin. And three by far the most important, she must be desperate for Sirius Black.

That’s why he was the first on the list. He was the easiest.

~~~

You stare in the mirror for a few seconds. Everything seems alright. Your dress is tight, your makeup is done, and most of all your plan is set. You turn to your friend and gesture to yourself.

“You’re stunning, as always. I don’t get why you’ve been insisting on doing this. What’s the goal?” Your friend says.

“Some fun I suppose.” You look at the clock on the dorm's wall. “I better be going, parties not going to last forever. Neither is Mr. Black’s smoke break.”

“Have a good time then.”

You grab your purse and start for the door. “Will do. See you tomorrow.”

After a few minutes of walking, you find Mr. Black exactly where you predicted him to be. He’s sitting on one of the benches, a cigarette between his lips. You casually step out into the moonlight, your hand rummaging through your purse. An unlit cigarette is held between two of your fingers, you make a sound of disapproval as you continue pretending to search your bag.

“All right there miss?”

You look up from your bag and shake your head. “Forgot my wand in my dorm.” You pretend to just notice the cigarette between his lips. “Mind helping a lady out with a smoke?”

“Why of course,” he answers. He gestures for you to come closer, and you gladly comply. “But I’m going to need your name first.”

“Why’s that? All I’m asking for is a quick light,” you reply.

He smirks. “If you know mine, I feel it’s only polite to know yours.”

“I don’t know yours, so we’re even. Anyway, how about that light now?”

Without another word, he pulls out his wand. You stick the cigarette between your lips and lean down. He’s surprised, you can tell from the way his eyes shift. Nevertheless, he lights the end of your cigarette. You lean back and take a long breath of smoke. It feels all too familiar in your lungs. You take a step back and pull the cigarette from your lips, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

“Y/n y/l/n.”

“Pardon?”

You look down at him. “My name, it’s y/n y/l/n. I’m from Ravenclaw, probably why you haven’t heard of me.”

“I’m Sirius Black from Gryffindor,” he replies.

“Ah Gryffindor, that’s where I’m heading actually. Heard there’s a big party up there, why aren’t you there?” You ask, sticking the cigarette between your lips again.

He shrugs. “Needed a small break. ‘Suppose it’s a good thing, right? Or else you wouldn’t have that precious fag between your lips. Perhaps it’s fate.”

“I don’t believe in that nonsense.” You pretend to check your watch. “Seems like the time is flying by. I’ve got to run before all the firewhiskey is gone.”

You drop your cigarette to the ground and smoosh it with your boot. When your eyes meet his again, you’re happy to see the slight shift. He’s curious, you can tell. Good. Curious is good. You give him a small smile.

“Nice to meet you Sirius Black from Gryffindor, ‘suppose I’ll see you up there, till then,” you say, giving him a small wink before turning on your heels and starting for the doors.

“Nice to meet you too Y/n y/l/n from Ravenclaw!” You hear him call from behind, but you don’t acknowledge it.

Phase one is done.

It’s almost an hour later when the second phase begins. You’re dancing to the beat of Queen’s newest hit, your hips swaying in a way you hope is entrancing. One or two shots of firewhiskey have been down your throat already, and you’re tempted to reach for a third, but that’s when you see him.

He’s across the room, his dark eyes practically glued to you. Despite how much you’ve planned this moment, you can’t help the butterflies that take over your stomach. Sirius Black, one of the most popular boys in the school, wants you. You lick your lips and watch as he lifts his hand, gesturing to you to go to him like he had earlier in the night.

You inhale one last breath before beginning the walk to him.

It’s the last time you’ll walk straight for a day or two.

And so, phase three begins.

~~~

You gasp as your face meets one of the pillows on his bed. You try to get back up on all fours, but it feels nearly impossible. With one of Sirius’s hands presses down on the small of your back, while the other grips one of your hips you’re lucky your legs haven’t given out yet. He fucks you relentlessly, and you’ve never loved anything more.

“Fuck Sirius,” you moan, you can’t catch your breath. Your orgasm is close. “Sirius.”

“Louder, let me hear you.” His voice is like music to your ears. “Let them all hear you love.”

“ ’M gonna cum Sirius,” you say, a bit louder than your previous words. “Fuck I’m so close please don’t stop.”

“Wasn’t planning to.”

You cum a few seconds later, your whole body shaking as you do. Sirius doesn’t falter for even a moment, making your orgasm ten times more pleasurable. When you’re done, he pulls out and flips you over onto your back. Your eyes meet and you almost audibly moan.

How could someone be so bloody handsome?

He lowers himself so he’s on top of you, his body held up by his two hands placed on either side of your head. You wrap your arms around him, and as he thrusts inside you once again, you let your nails drag down his back. He kisses your neck sloppily, causing you to whimper.

“Have you never been shagged properly?”

You can’t help the small laugh that leaves you. “I suppose not.”

“Something mustn’t be right because your pussy is by far one of the best I’ve ever had.” He presses himself so deep inside you, that you wince in pain. He’s reached your cervix. “So soft, so warm, so tight. In fact, I think I need a taste.”

He pulls out of you again and quickly kisses down your body, pausing only to suck hard on one of your nipples. After that, his tongue is on your stomach, your navel, your...

“Sirius, what are you-”

“I want to have my way with you.”

Your back arches as he begins to lick your clit. Your thighs clench around his head, and your hands move to his hair. You squeeze your eyes shut, the pleasure almost too much for you to handle. He eats you out as if he’s been starved his entire life. His lips and tongue are so soft, so warm. Your second orgasm comes far quicker than the first.

“Perfect taste.”

He begins to crawl up your body, his mouth shining with your cum. You don’t hold yourself back from kissing him, in fact, you’re the one who initiates it. You love the taste of yourself on his lips, it’s one of the most attractive things you’ve ever encountered.

After a minute or two you push him down onto the bed and crawl on top of him. From the way he’s grinning up at you, to the way his gorgeous hair is sprawled out on the mattress, you can’t help the words that slip from your mouth.

“None of the gossips ever mentioned how empowering it is to have the great Sirius Black underneath you.”

He raised a brow. “I thought you didn’t know who I am.”

“I uh...” You give him a small smile and begin to move your hips back and forth, his cock sliding between your incredibly wet folds. “I knew you didn’t know my name, so I pretended not to know yours. To make it even.”

It wasn’t a complete lie, but it also wasn’t the complete truth either.

Sirius’s eyes flutter shut, his hands moving to grip your hips. “I know your name now y/n y/l/n.”

“And you will remember it,” you reply. “Not like all those other girls whose names you forget the next morning.”

“Course not love.”

“It’s not a question.” You lift your hips and slowly begin to sink down on his cock. His fingers dig into your skin, you place your hands on his chest. “It’s a statement. I’m going to spell it out for you.”

You start to rock back and forth and up and down, just the way you know drives guys mad. Sirius is no different. Except, unlike the others, he doesn’t bother to hold back from moaning his approval. You lean down after a few minutes, so your lips are almost touching his ear, and with each movement of your hips, you say a letter of your name.

So, by the time you reach your third orgasm and Sirius reaches his first, your name is properly engraved in his head.

When everything is done and you’re both spent, he holds you in his arms. Your head rests on his chest, and you listen to his gentle heartbeat. The two of you share a cigarette in silence. It’s not uncomfortable in the slightest. Sirius Black has that effect on people.

As you stare at the wall you wonder how you’re supposed to move forward with the plan. You never expected such aftercare from the school player or such kindness during the shag. He’s a very giving lover, contrary to the popular belief that he’s simply another boy who enjoys using girls for his pleasure. You take one last long drag of the cigarette before handing it back to him and closing your eyes.

“I think I quite like you, y/n y/l/n,” he suddenly says, his voice barely above a whisper.

This plan might be harder than you thought.

[arguablysomaya]

Nightwing's weird fem-coding

! LONG POST !

Finally got around to jotting down my thoughts on the weird way that Dick Grayson (Nightwing) often occupies female-coded roles without being a particularly feminine guy. This is entirely due to me procrastinating on my finals. Okay!

Dick has often been cited as the hero who plays into the "female gaze", and he takes up some key roles that are typically reserved for women characters.

A large portion of Dick's fem-coding is contingent on his being with his family, and when he's not with them, this fem-coding kinda drops away, such as when he's with his various teams or acting solo.

His most prominent (and imo, complex) femme-coded role is:

-> Eldest Daughter + Widow

Eldest daughter syndrome means " frequently feeling like you’re not doing enough, like you’re struggling to maintain a veneer of control, like the entire household relies on your diligence." It's born out of the unique way that first-born girls are expected to take on adult roles around the household before they've had an opportunity to fully experience childhood (an opportunity their younger siblings will have, in part due to this sacrifice). It creates a strong sense of independence and a desire to be a good role model, but also leads to undue pressure and perfectionism.

Dick acts as a central emotional pillar for those in his family. To the point that when he fakes his death, it breaks something fundamental in the family dynamic:

Not only is it repeatedly made clear that Bruce depends on Dick to act as a lifeline for his own mental struggles, but moreover, his siblings do as well. In a very literal sense, the maintenance of the batfamily rests on Dick's shoulders. Bruce is so rarely available for emotional support that these children turn to the next best thing, which, to be fair, is better than what Dick had growing up. He has to clean up so many breakdowns, it's honestly pretty staggering.

As the OG sidekick, Dick receives quite a bit of hero worship, particularly from younger heroes/sidekicks, who look toward him for guidance. As a naturally upbeat and welcoming person, Dick ends up in the position of bringing light to everyone, not just Bruce. For example, here's Cassandra:

This balancing effect is unique to Dick's skill set. However, this can (and does) backfire very easily. The same pragmatism Bruce engages in hurts extra bad when coming from Dick: like when Dick had to take Robin away from Tim. Not to mention just how intimidating Dick's legacy is, which can create resentment when his successors aren't able to play this role so easily. For example, Jason both before and after his death expressed insecurity that he felt he was constantly being compared to Dick, and falling short.

As the original character that people think of when they think "sidekick", DG Robin (and his successors) had the advantage of not losing prominence even as his contemporaries (Kid Flash, Aqualad, Wonder Girl, etc.) were de-prioritized in favor of independent teenaged heroes (like Cyborg, Beast Boy, Raven, and Starfire). But that means Robin as a concept now has to deal with questions that weren't so prominent in the earlier decades, such as: "How do we justify a grown-ass man using a child (and in fact, children) as emotional crutches?"

It's icky to think about, but there's no denying that early Batman and Robin got side eyes for homosexual subtext. I mean, they literally call each other "partners". So while that "subtext" was, and remains, just audience speculation, given Dick is literally Bruce's adopted son, there is room, I believe, to call into question how healthy it is for Bruce's oldest kid to be taking on a nearly-parental role and be a core pillar of Bruce's emotional regulation.

Hot take here, but I think Dick's relationship with Bruce was/has been pretty emotionally incestuous for a long time.

-> Emotional incest

"Emotional incest[...] is a type of emotional abuse performed by a parent. In cases of emotional incest, parents rely on their children for significant emotional support, which is a reversal of roles. Emotional incest is more than just relying on your kids on occasion—rather, it is an extreme dependence on them." (There's a pretty good argument to be made that Bruce has been emotionally incestuous with all his Robins, especially Dick and DEFINITELY Tim, but y'know. Small steps.)

Emotional incest is a semi-common consequence of eldest daughter syndrome; the natural conclusion of deputizing a child to manage the other children combining with an inability to see the child as a child, still in need of emotional guidance, but more like an adult capable of shouldering the burdens of grown-ups dumping their traumas on them.

To be clear here, while emotional incest may not be incest in the most traditional, taboo sense, it is still abuse. It's putting a burden on a child they shouldn't have to carry, even for children that aren't dealing with such extreme burdens as "grown-ass man running around in a fursuit needs me to keep him from getting himself killed". It's a perversion of a healthy parent-child relationship, where the child is treated more like a partner than a child. In Dick's case, it further exacerbates the parentification he already experiences. This is made more explicit when Bruce "dies" and Dick is cast into a sort of "Widow" role.

Dick reluctantly dons the cowl in an attempt to bring order to his family members. He's also left to parent Damian, alone. He has to make the decision to take Robin from Tim, and try to deal with the fallout from that decision. He has to put a stop to Jason's fratricidal rampage. He's made into the de-facto head of the family.

And the thing about this is: Dick's not even bad at it. In comparison to Bruce's litany of disasters-in-parenting, Dick does a pretty bang-up job of managing his siblings, heading the Justice League, and being Batman. But the crucial point is that he does this at the expense of his own mental health, which is the crux of eldest daughter syndrome. There's no denying that at the time, Dick was most certainly the best choice for New Father Figure, but it was a choice he was pushed into, and a sacrifice he had to make. When this sense of responsibility to the point of self-sacrifice is pushed to its logical conclusion, it has the effect of making Dick a Martyr-type figure.

-> Protector/Mama Bear/Avenger

Dick has shown repeatedly that his hot button is his family. From Tony Zucco to allowing Blockbuster to be killed after the villain targeted Haley's Circus, going after Nightwing's family is a pretty good way to earn yourself an asskicking. Probably the most infamous example of this is when Dick thought the Joker had killed Tim, beating the clown to death to avenge both Tim and Jason.

And while this role isn't particularly feminine, I do think it's interesting that Dick protects his family members from each other with almost the same frequency that he protects them from outside threats. He's pretty notorious for wrangling Damian and Tim, foiling Jason's murder plans, and most importantly, beating the shit out of Bruce whenever he crosses a line, such as when Bruce asks Dick to conceal being alive from their family to join Spyral or when Bruce wanted to abandon the Bruce Wayne persona after the murder of Vesper Fairchild. Or of course, more recently after Bruce's latest MK-ULTRA shenanigans.

This basically puts Dick in the position of being the glue that holds the family together, at basically all times, but especially in times of conflict. This also means he's put in the dangerous position of bodily defending his younger siblings from Bruce's wrath or irresponsibility, a position made even more awkward given the whole emotional incest thing.

That's not to say that Dick's relationship with his family is 100% unhealthy. Dick and his family members (including Bruce!) feel legitimate affection and care for each other. There are times when the dynamics here are indeed healthy. And like most people with eldest daughter syndrome, the unhealthy nature of this dynamic is usually understated. Oldest sibling syndrome is often just an unavoidable consequence of how parenting works. So while I am of the opinion that this dynamic is often unhealthy, hot take: I'm fine with that.

Now, though I've just listed some tropes that he only falls into around family, Dick also falls into some fem-coding all the time, regardless of who he's with, and these have to do mostly with his sexuality.

-> Sexual Assault & Harassment

Yeah, so nobody is surprised that this is a factor. Look up any list of the top ten hottest/sexiest/most attractive male superheroes, I guarantee 9/10 times Nightwing is number 1. However, unlike his father, whose attractiveness is usually played as a part of the male wish-fulfillment fantasy, something people aspire to be, Dick's attractiveness more often makes him an object of desire- very similar to how most attractive female characters are perceived.

And as an object of desire, Dick Grayson is constantly having to deal with being objectified.

Now, Dick Grayson being an attractive character is not the problem. Dick Grayson being sexually assaulted isn't even the problem. the problem is that he keeps being harassed, assaulted, and raped in ways that are flagrantly nonconsensual, and yet it's not treated with the seriousness it deserves. In fact, it took a full decade for Devin Grayson to retract her previous statement and admit that yes, the rooftop scene with Catalina Flores was in fact rape, and it's never been acknowledged in-universe (though, comics have always been atrocious at calling out sexual abuse of all kinds, let alone that which targets men).

Hell, even when he in-universe calls it out, he's dismissed immediately and the story continues like nothing happened.

Like???

Dick's adult sexcapades (which were consensual and enthusiastic) have long contrasted with the numerous times he's been harassed; times in which he comes across as bored, exasperated, and even frustrated with his own attractiveness and the vulnerable position it often leaves him in.

This puts him in the rare (in comics) position of being a male character who consistently and near-exclusively has his sexual agency and boundaries violated by women - a position that authors uniformly refuse to examine despite writing him into it all the fucking time.

Other characters around him frequently make comments passing off this harassment and assault as a natural consequence of Dick's own attractiveness, making "jokes" that essentially amount to "I understand why someone would want to assault him". Which- UH?

There is also, of course, the unavoidable reality that as an acrobat and an aerialist, he receives a very specific type of sexual harassment

the nature of nightwing's fight style necessitates a type of tight-fitting suit that male heroes typically don't go for: an extremely slick suit with bare-minimum armour that again, makes him vulnerable in a way most male heroes aren't, but a style female heroes wear all the time, whether it makes sense for them or not. This of course then allows artists to draw attention to this fact by posing Nightwing in poses usually reserved for femme fatales:

And unlike the Hawkeye Initiative, these poses are (largely) unironic, and not played for jokes. Dick isn't arching his back or looking over his shoulder to poke fun at how female heroes are treated; he does so because the artist (clearly correctly) sincerely believed these poses would play into the unironic gaze of the audience, and also probably thought it was hot. It's the same line of thought artists use when posing femme fatales.

He's even been known to use his sexuality as a bargaining chip, much like more traditional Femme Fatales. In Batman and Harley Quinn (2017), he refers to sleeping with Harley Quinn after being kidnapped by her as one of "the things I do for Gotham", to which she responds "I'm taking that as a 'yes'." And that's uh- not how consent works.

And this particularly sucks because- HELLO? The opportunity to explore the very real and tragically underacknowledged phenomenon of sexual violence against men is literally invaluable, especially with such a prominent character. It's one thing to ignore that men face sexual violence, it's another, entirely more unforgivable thing to continuously and explicitly depict such scenarios and play them off as jokes or not as serious as they clearly are. But what did I expect from an industry that has never had a good track record on sexual violence anyway.

-> Queercoding?

There's also of course the fact that DC has been, as of late, dropping hints that Dick might be bisexual.

That on it's own doesn't mean anything, but when paired with the fact that DC has been angling toward giving Dick a similar playboy persona that Bruce has, just with men included, it's just very interesting.

(BTW: The likelihood DC actually commits to making Dick bi is, uh, not a lot, but if they're gonna stick with this weird closet stuff for a while, let's hope they do so in a way that doesn't make him sound like a cross between Donald Trump and Harry Styles next time? Please?)

Anyway, all of this is basically to say I am forever fascinated by the gender dynamics of Dick Grayson, likely due to the fact that I'm projecting all my eldest daughter traumas onto him, and that someone who's background is in Gender Studies needs to get on this shit if they haven't already. I just love this character sm.

[myysaints]

hi i hope you’re doing okay! i wanted to know if it’s possible to request something with carlos where he had this crush on y/n who’s a famous actress or singer and is a complete mess when he gets to meet her at a grand prix

thanks if you do it and ps i love your work!!

°˖ ⊹ ꒰ CS55 ꒱ MORE THAN JUST A CRUSH ─ CARLOS SAINZ

CARLOS SAINZ x f!singer!reader

⌗︙・ summary — your first appearance at the miami grand prix turns heads – catching the eye of one particularly enthusiastic driver in red.

genre — fluff, socmed au, fc: sabrina carpenter

notes — hi anon!! i am doing okay thank u for asking 🌷 and thank you for the ADORABLEEEEEE request!!! love the idea of carlos being this cool suave guy and just utterly melting lol. thank you for your kind words of support <3 hope i did your request justice! (also thinking of making a pt 2 hehe)

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yourusername    miami i am in u ❤️🤰

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user    literally a goddess

user    we need the album !!!!!!!

user    LMFAOOO the caption she is so unserious i love it

user    mother getting a good rest after a SMASHING world tour, deserved ✨

user    y/n going straight to miami after finishing her asia world tour is so random lol 😭😭

user1    i heard she’s going to the f1 race this weekend, maybe that’s why shes there user2    ohhh, makes sense ig. is she even a fan though? user3    dunno, but a ferrari driver liked her pic so good enough i guess 🤣

revealmoi

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revealmoi    UPDATE: The people anon are referring to are NOT Taylor Swift and Fernando Alonso. Lol.

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user    The way Deux had to say that the blind isn’t about TSwift and Alonso LOL

user    “Fast Times” – Y/N L/N’s newest single. “Blonde songstress” – Definitely L/N. “Spicy individual” – ?

user1    the chili emoji was so random lol user2    has to be carlos sainz, smooth operator and chili are both his nicknames user3    hmmm but anon would have specified if the spicy indiv was a driver right? i feel like that’s pretty big info to leave out

user    not carlos liking the post HELLO?????

user    no way this is about carlos and y/n, he doesn’t even follow her 😭

user4    he likes almost all her posts though user5    lmfao liking posts but not following, that’s even shadier imo 💀💀

user    idk man i’m just glad that my girl y/n is finally getting the appreciation she deserves 👑

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2023 C² Challenge | Music Challenge with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz

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You knew attending a Formula 1 Grand Prix would be hectic – after all, you had just ended the Asian leg of your world tour, and Miami was always swarming with press – but you did not expect just how chaotic things would get.

“It’s great being here!” You flashed a bright smile to Martin Brundle, who was currently following you around the pitlane as apart of Sky Sports’s coverage. “Obviously, I’m here to support Ferrari, who have so kindly invited me this weekend, but I’m just really excited to feel the energy and watch the race.”

Martin nods, a sly smile creeping onto his face. “I just have to ask, out of pure curiosity, of course: Is it true that Carlos Sainz personally invited you to attend this weekend’s race?”

You laugh, casting a nervous look to your publicist, who shakes her head with a stern look. You turn back to Martin and the camera, an apologetic look on your face as you recite the statement your agency has prepared for you. “I really don’t know much, it was Ferrari’s PR team who reached out to me, after all. So, whatever the rumours say, just know I’m as clueless as you are!”

That gets a laugh out of Martin, at the very least, and you think that he’s about to leave you alone. However, unfortunately for you, you’ve just reached the Ferrari garage, and are greeted by the sight of none other than Carlos Sainz himself standing at the entrance, chatting with his engineer.

Your publicist almost immediately motions for you to step aside, but Martin is one step ahead of her as he grabs your arm, tugging you along with him as he makes a beeline towards the Spaniard.

“You know what – Why don’t we ask the man himself?” he grins deviously, steadfastly making his way into the Ferrari garage.

You stutter out weak protests, casting doubtful looks to your publicist. But she merely sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose, gesturing for you to go ahead with Martin. You shrug, following Martin into the Ferrari garage. Not that you have much of a choice – the presenter seems unshakeable as he heads towards Carlos, who has his back turned, blissfully unaware of the chaos approaching him.

“Carlos! Carlito! My man!”

The Ferrari driver grins, whipping around as Martin claps a hand on his back. “Martin! What brings you to the gara-”

As his gaze shifts from Martin to you, his voice trails off. Time seems to slow – A red heat spreads across his face, and he ducks his head down in a fit of sudden coughs. You stand by Martin’s side with a small smile, extending your hand to offer him a water bottle.

“You okay?” you ask with a teasing smile.

Carlos nods furiously, a large hand reaching out to take the water bottle from you. His fingertips brush yours as he does so, and butterflies erupt in your stomach. He blushes harder at the brief moment of contact, turning his face away from you as he gulps down the water, still spluttering.

Amidst a few weak coughs, he grits out, “Choked on my spit,” before clearing his throat, raising his head to flash you a shy smile.

Martin sends you a knowing smirk, chuckling lowly. “Come on, what happened to being the ‘Smooth Operator’, huh?”

You roll your eyes playfully, returning Carlos’s meek smile with a bright grin. “Oh, lay off him, Martin.”

Turning to Carlos now, you extend your hand with what you hope is your friendliest smile, “Nice to meet you, Carlos! I’m Y/N.”

“I know,” he blurts out, all too quickly. His cheeks flush red, and he clears his throat awkwardly. “I mean, yeah, I know... ‘Cause, well, I like your music. It’s really good.”

Martin cuts in, microphone in hand, “So, Carlos, word ‘round here is that you were the one who campaigned for Y/N to be invited. Is that true?”

Carlos rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, suddenly averting his eyes and avoiding your gaze as he smiles shyly. “I don’t know who told you that… I’ll need to have a chat with the team about adding more privacy clauses in their contracts next time.”

You giggle, and that makes his head snap towards you. “Nothing, nothing, ignore me. That was just hilarious.”

“Ignore you?!” Martin exclaims, practically shoving you towards the Ferrari driver, whose eyes have now almost doubled in size. “Oh, come on, you youngsters. Get to know each other! This isn’t the 1920s, you don’t need an old geezer like me to chaperone you all the time. Get chattin’!”

You send Carlos a teasing smile, to which he shyly returns.

“Well, Carlos,” you bump his hip playfully, “How ‘bout a tour of the garage?”

He nods, leaping up and offering you his hand, ever the gentleman. “Of course, it’d be my pleasure.”

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yourusername    newintown.jpg (#forzaferrari)

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carlossainz55    That camera looks familiar…🤨

yourusername    drop the .jpg account then we’ll talk user    LOL shes so real for that

user    the forza ferrari hashtag ajdfgshdf shes a true tifosi to the core

yourusername    always! ❤️🌶

landonorris    Ayo where’d that ring come from carlossainz55?

This comment has been deleted.

landonorris    Nice meeting you Y/N!

landonorris    Friendship bracelets (and rings) are always welcome ❤️ carlossainz55    Blocking you. yourusername    reporting you. landonorris    😭😭😭 WHAT’D I DOOOOOOOO

user    NEW JPG ACCOUNT INCOMING???????

user    the way carlos literally manifested this LMFAO

Liked by carlossainz55

user    excuse me ms l/n but WHO is that on the third slide !!!!!!

user1    carlos sainz user2    NO WAY…. user3    and another one bites the dust…

user    carlos never beating the simp allegations i fear

user    “To new friends”…. i remember…..

user    i smell a new wag in townnnnnnn !

yourusername    just friends, don’t make it weird please 🤍 user4    LOLLL GIRL YOU TELL EM

user    i know carlos was crying after seeing y/n’s just friends comment lmfao

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[yourstrulyrika]

leon taking care of fem reader after a long day? could be nsfw or sfw, either would be to die for <3 thank you!!

of course we live for caring leon ♡ thank u for your rq!!

i decided to do both sfw and nsfw because i love both <3 i may be smut focused account but i lovelovelove comfort and fluff. i am a SUCKER for it. i have a whole ass playlist for soft moments that fit leon imo. if you guys would like to see it, i can share!!

honestly no warnings, fem! reader obviously, leon taking care of reader, that’s really it :3

you guys will actually end up like this is you keep being so sweet smh. love you all ♡

SFW ver!

long days aren’t something new for you two. it’s nothing new for you to be tired, sleepy — sometimes you just end up asleep the second you’re in bed.

however, Leon is always there to take care of you — just like you do when he has a long day. when you’re sleeping, he’ll just lay down beside you, making sure you’re in a good sleeping position so you won’t be in pain when you wake up, holding you until you wake up. Leon’s actually the type of person to stay awake when his darling is not feeling well, had a long day etc. he’s just too focused on taking care of you, so he ends up staying awake. when you’re not asleep yet though, things are a little different.

he’ll definitely make you dinner, or if he’s tired himself he’ll just order your favorite food. he always makes sure you’re not doing anything — you always take care of him, let him have his turn to care for you. you’re his princess, and he won’t let his princess strain herself right? you insist on dealing with things yourself — after all, this man struggles a lot already, you feel like a burden, you don’t want to tire him further. but he’s there to shush you with a kiss, before wrapping you in his arms.

“No no no, you’re staying here. Just sit down and be pretty, alright? Let me take care of you for once.” he says this so sweetly, you only hear this tone from him when he’s around you. and he’s looking at you with so much love in his eyes it’s hard not to cry. this man is actually so in love with you, when he’s staring at you it’s like he’s staring into the most precious thing he’d ever seen. and that’s how he sees you.

when you finish eating, he carries you to the bathroom, because let’s be honest Leon loves carrying you around. he knows you like this too — who wouldn’t like being carried by his big, strong arms?

he helps you take off your clothes, filling the bathtub with rubber ducks (you bought them one day and he loves them ever since) and lavender oils, epsom salts (recommending this btw it’s actually soothing for muscles) and green tea. he literally asked Claire for help one day on what to do when you need relaxing. he turns off the lights, lights up the candles and sinks in the bathtub with you. he’s holding your hands all the time too, wrapping you in a warm hug from behind. only stops holding you to wash your hair, but otherwise? no way, he won’t stop holding your hands.

“I love you so much. You know that, right? You’re all I could ask for.”

once the water starts to get cold, he helps you out, gives you one of his shirts and waits for you to dress up— once that’s done, he takes your hand again and guides you to the bedroom where he lays you down, disappearing for a moment before going back with drinks and your beloved snacks before laying down beside you, wrapping his arms around you protectively. he turns on the TV, putting a show or a film you like, depends on your choice. you just end up falling asleep together while the show goes on.

NSFW ver!

Leon knows exactly what to do when you have a long day. he knows you like the back of his hand, and if he sees you having a long day but still feeling needy, he’s here to help.

it can go both ways.

he makes you sit on his face, wrapping his strong arms around your thighs to hold you down tight so you won’t squirm too much. put your whole weight on him, he doesn’t care if he’s struggling to breathe. he loves eating your pussy out— especially when he knows it’s relaxing for you too. just use him all you want, he’s all yours.

“That’s it, what a good girl. Mm, you’re doing so well. My girl works so hard, huh? You deserve a bit of rest, you know? Don’t worry, ‘m gonna make it aaalll better.” he’s saying it so lovingly, voice muffled by your pussy but it’s okay — he loves it here. loves being suffocated by you, it’s literally heaven on earth for him. eats you out like man starved, eyes closed so he can focus on your taste. he remembers the shape of your pussy at this point, knows the points that make you see stars, and he uses it to his advantage.

“Fuuuck, she’s so sweet. Could eat it out for hours on end,” if you haven’t noticed it before, he actually loves talking to your pussy sometimes. it happens when he grows really pussydrunk, which is quite easy because he’s always drunk on you. he won’t let you go until you cum, and even then, he won’t. he’ll eat you out until you cum at least three times, or if you beg him to stop.

when he finishes, he lifts you up by your hips, and you see the prettiest sight you could see. eyes hazy, messy, sticky hair, flushed cheeks, your juices dripping out of his mouth and trailing down his chin, and a content look on his face. he’s so damn beautiful like this. he takes a moment to get back to his normal state, before speaking up.

“Told you, always ready to take care of my girl. Come on now, let’s clean up and rest, yeah?”

or,

he lays you down on your shared bed, making sure there are comfy pillows under you, making sure you’re comfortable and ready. he sticks his two thick fingers in your warm walls at first, preparing you for his fat cock. fingers you so good, curling his fingers until he finds that sweet spot and then repeatedly rubs it. he won’t stop until you’re cumming, arching you back so prettily for him.

“Thaaaat’s it. Sweet girl, always doing so well. But you want my cock, don’t you?” he teases you because he knows — hell, he wants to be inside you too. his cock is actually so hard, throbbing and just begging to be taken care of, already leaking precum.

he slides off his clothes, positioning himself on top of you before rubbing his thick cockhead against your clit a few times, tapping it and teasing you until you whine and say to slide in already.

“Impatient little thing. But I like when you’re impatient like this. Your wish is my command, baby.”

he reaches out to take your hand in his, before finally sliding in, and fuck, it feels so good to be buried deep in your walls already. so warm, so soft, gummy walls taking his fat dick like it belongs here. it does belong here, obviously.

“Oh fuck, gripping me so hard, can’t take it. Don’t worry, I got you, ‘m gonna make you feel so good you’ll forget about today.”

he can’t help the grunts and moans he lets out when he starts thrusting. you’re already sensitive due to previous orgasms, so you’re pulsing around him, massaging his cock so well his brain just goes blank. his body goes on autopilot at some point, pulling your legs over his shoulders so he can slide deeper into you, folding you all he wants. thrusting in and out, in and out, hitting your spot so well you can’t help but cream his cock. his heavy balls hit your ass every time he thrusts in, lewd squelching sounds mixed with skin slapping echoing through the house.

“God, ‘m gonna cum, so fucking close, baby, can feel you squeezin’ me so much, you’re close too aren’t you?”

he always makes sure you cum first— speeds up his movements until you let out a loud moan, spreading your legs wide when it hits you. he still moves, helping you through your orgasm, before finally cumming deep inside you, warm seed filling you up to the very brim. he stays like this for a while, before pulling out and almost collapsing on top of you. he simply presses a kiss to your forehead before he notices you’re already half asleep.

“Awww, my baby’s so tired huh? Don’t worry, go to sleep, I’ll take care of everything.” he coos, before reaching out for damp, soft cloth to wipe the cum off of you, cleaning you up like he promised. he’ll take a bath with you once you wake up — for now, he’ll just clean you up like this. gently cleaning you up, using baby wipes front to back to prevent infections. once both of you are all clean, he lays down beside you, pulling you on top of him so you sleep on his chest. he lets out a content sigh, pressing a kiss to your forehead before closing his eyes, too.

[punksocks]

Placements For Romantic Archetypes Pt.1: Accidental Playboy (18+ Only)

*Adults only! Minors dni

*just based on my experiences, only takes what resonates

Someone whose usually monogamous that has dated/hooked up with a lot of their friends and stays friends with their exes. They just have a lot of attachments and a lot of love to give ! This may be a phase for most of them (if they’re developed) and they tend to settle down with one person whenever they find their twin flame.

***

-Cancer Venus: just a lot of affection for the people they hang out with, if you’re in their circle they can feel a lot for you and depending on their other placements this can turn into hooking up with their friends. They also don’t really let go of relationships, this placement is most likely to stay friends with their exes as well imo. They also tend to do anything to make their friends/significant others happy which is very sweet …but can lead to some awkwardness on occasion. (Like I knew someone that had a ex turned friend and she would like show him her lewds before she sent them to guys she was asking out and he was like yeah we’re just friends! He stopped that in a relationship, but then she said that they would’ve ended up together when she broke up with someone she was seeing and he was like oblivious and just said haha no, that was only the tip of the iceberg, I was like dude get a boundary.)

-Venus in 11th: A tendency to only get intimately involved with people after they’ve become good friends anyway. Also a tendency to hold onto all their friendships if they can. Can create a like web of attachments, of friends and old flames.

-Cancer Mars & Earth/Air Moon: Needing to be emotionally drawn to someone in order to find them s*xy and hookup… but also this like detachment underneath that. Like a deep amount of emotional investment and fixation but also like being pretty emotionally removed behind it all. So a tendency to pursue like friendships with objects of desire but not too much behind that (not that there’s anything wrong with that, it can just quickly turn into a string of affairs)

-Virgo Mars: This placement usually acts in their relationships through acts of service to express their commitment and affection. Due to Virgo being mutable, I’ve found that they’ll often have a more flexible approach to how they handle their relationships. Like I’ve just seen a lot of Virgo mars natives that would perform acts of service for current and ex partners because of how helpful they want to be to everyone. (Not necessarily a bad thing but a little messy if you’re in a relationship and doing favors for your exes). Lots of checking up in on people and trying to help manage them that can turn into them hooking up in order to be “helpful” (especially after they’re emotionally involved)

-Sagittarius Venus/Mars: just a placement with a lot of abundance, so they tend to date around and explore with many options. Depends on the other placements with how they handle this, (I find fire signs to be more up front about it, but they catch feelings like water signs) but they tend to want to move through relationships on as best of terms as they can.

-Libra Sun: kind of a stereotype due to Libra’s indecisive nature and how because they’re viewed as typically being attractive and charming, due to Venus they tend to draw people into them. I also believe that Libras don’t like to be on anyone’s sh*t list, so like they may hookup and date around and try to do a lot of work on the back end to make sure their past relationships still view them in a positive way… and sometimes they may reopen that door to see if they can reconnect to an old flame. (When they find their other half they won’t really do this anymore, but they charm everyone into thinking they’re the one so it can be hard to tell when they really feel this way imo, the moon sign would help with this)

-Leo Sun: This may not be true for every Leo out there, but they usually have a phase of really basking in all of the attention they pull in. (Leo in the big 6 tends to show someone who goes through a period of being ignored or not receiving enough attention before they become a sort of magnet for other people’s attention) That tends to set up Leos for a period when they’re indulging in that attention in all their relationships. Like they’re getting a bit of ego validation by how much all their friends are into them and they go with it and sort of ignore any emotional consequences until they can’t.

-Neptune hard aspects (esp square/opposition) to Moon/Mars: they tend to have a deep fantasy life that affects how they move in the world. They build up their fantasies of the people they’re into being their perfect hook up and they can get “confused” about their feelings about someone. Like they get closer to a friend and hook up and may entertain the idea of dating and a future together but they just don’t actually feel that way about them. Or they break up with someone and still see them in a certain way so they work to please them to some degree in entertaining the idea of getting together again. It’s like future faking but lowkey the native is doing this the most to themselves and trying to figure out what they actually want long term. Sometimes they only understand what they want after an option has been cut off from them.

-Mars hard aspects (esp square/opposition) to Moon: their heart and their d*ck want different things. No but for real though if they have insane s*xual chemistry with someone they’re probably overwhelmed and overthinking it. If they have a deep emotional connection with someone, they may be torn because they lack chemistry with the person. It’s a lot of internal strife of like wanting people to fit together with the perfect traits in the perfect way but the native has to actually figure out what that means for them before they’re able to settle down.

-How do you know if you’re the one? I hate to be blunt about this, but you connection with this guy will take top priority over the others. But dear god you will have to communicate so much to like work through this. You’ll probably have to be a bit patient as you guys get past all of this messiness. The good thing is, that if he’s a good guy he’ll make you feel like you’re in a rom com in a good way, like you’re really loved and cared for, despite all of this. If he’s underdeveloped? Don’t do it girl, he’ll never know what he wants and he’ll stress you tf out (i mean do whatever you want, you’ve just got to figure out if it’s worth the headache and possible heartbreak for you).

(I hope you all liked this! If you did I have a few more types I have in mind to post about ;0)

[f1byjessie]

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS ━━ LN4.

sometimes the right words are hard to come across, and sometimes everything you need to say can be captured in an image.

( lando norris x photographer!reader )

━━ part six.

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user AIN’T NO WAY HE FINALLY POSTED HER

user girlies i hate to say it, but maybe this one’s actually serious… 🫢

↳ user i refuse to believe it…

↳ user he’s literally never posted another girl before tho??

user king of aesthetics

user i can’t believe he’s actually dating her

user what does he actually see in her?? like gen what is it cuz i cannot see it from here 😒😒😒

user she’s just using you for your clout garrett DON’T FALL FOR IT 😫 SHE’S NOT THE ONE THERE ARE BETTER FISH IN THE SEA

↳ user she’s fr just using him for the money and fame it’s so sad

↳ user right?? like he’s posting her which means he’s probably serious but i doubt she is and it’s just gonna hurt him in the end 😔

↳ user this is why i hate when celebs or athletes get with ppl who aren’t in the same sphere as them, cuz like if she were another celeb then we would know she has money or if she were actually a football fan then we would know she’s invested in helping him get better but she’s neither 🤷‍♀️

↳ user it hurts to see such an innocent man get used

user wait she’s actually kind of pretty tho 👀👀

↳ user she lowkey is

user can’t wait to see you back on the field soon garrett!!

user mad style bro

user came over from y/n’s account to say that you fans are exhibiting behaviour that is genuinely so immature and disrespectful. it’s sickening. you claim to support this athlete but you don’t support his decision to enter an exclusive relationship with someone? you say it’s bc she doesn’t know football or that she’s controlling or that she’ll ruin his career, but you know nothing about her and i’d bet you all would say the same thing about anyone. she could be a professional footballer herself and you would still say she isn’t fit to be with him. get over yourselves and bffr. none of you had a chance with him to begin with, and you hating on an innocent girl so much that she had to turn her comments off so she wouldn’t keep getting death threats is actually crazy. you all are delusional.

↳ user THIS. i’m so tired of the hatred

↳ user i’m honestly surprised garrett hasn’t said anything to his fans about them leaving her alone yet…

↳ user he probably thought GROWN ADULTS would know it’s inappropriate to act like BABIES but i digress 🙄

↳ user whether he thought they were mature enough or not, the fact that he probably knew it was happening (she’s his gf, there’s no way she didn’t tell him or he didn’t see the comments himself before she turned them off) and still hasn’t said anything is a major red flag imo. he’s posted her/acknowledged that she exists on his acc now, but he STILL hasn’t addressed the hatred his “fans” have been sending her and continue to direct towards her in the comments of his own post.

↳ user i think it’s a out of sight out of mind type situation tbh. if neither of them acknowledge them, then the haters aren’t given the attention they want. they might just be waiting for it to die down.

↳ user i don’t think that’s a good enough reason tho?? if i was a celeb and my significant other was being harassed by jealous and delusional fans, i would absolutely say smth and try to get them to stop, partly bc my s/o doesn’t deserve to be spoken about like that just bc they’re in a relationship with me and partly bc i personally wouldn’t want to see that type of negativity directed towards the person i care about. it’s a matter of respect for your partner.

“I’ll be honest with you, Garrett━ I don’t like you very much.”

The restaurant table you’re both sitting at is tucked away in a corner and gives you enough privacy to feel comfortable having this conversation with Garrett out in public. The restaurant itself is exclusive in its own right, similarly to the first place Garrett took you. It’s not as high class in the sense that you feel underdressed with business casual, but it’s the type of locale that other celebrities or higher class individuals tend to frequent and it makes you feel secure in the fact that the staff are trained to be discreet about anything they might overhear.

“But,” you shrug, “I don’t think you need me to tell you that.”

Garrett takes a slow sip from his coffee and raises an eyebrow at you over the rim of his cup. While he does so, you appraise him. The only other time you’ve seen him in something other than his training attire or some equally comfortable athletic-adjacent wear was the first night you both went out, and you hadn’t really been paying much attention to him then━ too focused on trying not to scream your head off in frustration.

He looks good though, which you’re loath to admit. Garrett, at the very least, has fashion sense if nothing else. If he were even half decent his style might’ve been enough to make up for the rest of the decency he’s missing, but as it stands he’s so far below the bar that his ability to dress nice only serves to get him within jumping distance of your lowest standards.

He lowers his cup back down the table with a faint clink, and then steeples his fingers together on the table.

“Quite frankly, Y/N━” the way your name sounds on his lips makes you shiver, but not at all in the way it’s described in the romance novels you used to read back in school. It’s like the human equivalent of your hackles rising, sensing danger, knowing you need to make yourself bigger to appear like more of a threat, “━I don’t really care what you think of me. This is more of a business transaction than an actual relationship. You don’t need to like me, you just need to pretend you do.”

He ends it with what would be a charming smile on anyone else, but knowing who he is beneath his charismatic facade makes it look sleazy.

You scoff. “For a guy who’s so desperate to fix his reputation, you sure aren’t doing anything to actually try and fix who you are as a person.”

It’s his turn to scoff. “I don’t actually need to be a better person, I just need everyone to think I’m a better person.”

“Fair enough.” You can’t argue with that. “But if I’m going to be spending a prolonged amount of time with you, you’re gonna have to at least pretend to not be a total dick.” You take a sip of your coffee.

He watches you for a moment━ observes your face, your hands, the way you tap your fingers against the table once your cup has been lowered. And you watch him right back. His steepled fingers have intertwined together, and he’s resting his chin atop them in a show of nonchalance, but his eyebrows are furrowed tight and his shoulders are pulled tense.

“What do you even want out of this?” He finally asks after another few seconds of silence broken only by the quiet drone of other restaurant patrons in the background. “What’s so important to you that it matters more than whatever notoriety being with me could give you?”

The Manchester skyline outside the window draws your gaze as you ponder how to go about explaining your answer. The storm-darkened sky casts the city streets below in a heavy shadow, which mimics your own mood as of late. It’s the weekend now, but Lando’s call and the things he’d drunkenly said still looms over you. You’d spent the week in a bad mood that not even your newfound friendship with Jack was capable of easing, and each day with continued radio silence on Lando’s end━ the fact that he can’t even bother to apologize himself━ only sours things more and more.

It had soured even more when McLaren’s PR team manager had reached out to you with the knowledge that you could plan on being back at the Technology Centre in Woking by the end of the month, in just under two weeks. In and of itself this hadn’t been bad news, but it meant seeing Lando again and unless he reaches out first to extend an olive branch, you could almost guarantee you’d be in for an uncomfortably awkward reunion.

But none of that matters right now.

“I’ll admit, I’m taking a page out of your book and being a prick,” you say as you turn back to Garrett. “But, in my case, it’s entirely warranted because he was a prick first.”

“What’d this guy do?”

In an odd turn of events, it feels as though you’re gossiping with Garrett Ward of all people. Without the context of your relationship with him━ the real one, not the one you’re pretending to have━ you imagine you probably look like two friends talking shit, or pretty close to the couple you’re supposed to be. Despite being such a twat normally, Garrett really does just come across as being a normal guy.

You have to remind yourself just what he threatened to do. He’s not a normal guy━ he’s dangerous. But he’s also a crucial part of your plan, and there was certainly some truth when he’d called things between you a business transaction. You don’t have to like him, but you have to trust that he’s got his own best interest in mind and you can certainly capitalize off of that.

“He had some choice words about our ‘relationship,’” you start, fiddling with the handle of your cup. “And even though we aren’t actually together and I probably wouldn’t touch you even if we were the last two people on Earth, it’s the principle behind it all. He has no right to judge me so harshly for my relationship choices, so I’m going to flaunt that I don’t care what he thinks, he’s not my keeper, and I will date whoever I damn well please,” you finish with a huff.

Garrett blinks at you. You’re starting to think he just has a staring problem, but before you can call him out on it he rolls his eyes, crosses his arms, and leans back in his seat━ looking the part of the smug douche he actually is. “You like this guy, and you want to use me to make him jealous because you’re pissed that he hasn’t given any hint at being interested in you but still feels as though as if he can be possessive over you.”

You blink at him. “No. Absolutely not.”

He raises an infuriating eyebrow.

“Fuck you,” you mutter into your cup, taking a sip to avoid having to say anything more.

Garrett heaves a sigh. “I suppose I could help you with that. We’ll be doing the couple shit anyways, might as well kill two birds with one stone and solve your problem and mine.” The way he says it makes it seem as though he’s doing you a favor, and if you weren’t so sure that he’d rescind his willingness to help if you argued with him, you’d call him out on the fact that technically he’s the one who owes you after you agreed to help him with his dilemma in the first place.

“Why not just be honest with him?” He says after another moment.

You snap your eyes back to him. “What?”

“Why not just be honest?” He repeats with a shrug. “Aren’t you worried he’ll lose eventually lose interest if he thinks you’re off the market?”

You scoff, “I’m not off the market. I’m just not available to the public.” You’d sat awake at night not long after things with Garrett began and realized that it really was all just an act. Actors kiss in front of a camera all the time, but at the end of the day they go home to their real partners and that’s the only person that really matters. Things aren’t all that different between you and Garrett. You call yourselves a couple, but side from the agreement that you’ll act like one in public, there’s no obligation or commitment to put one another first. Garrett will always prioritize his career, reputation, and friendships over you, and you’re rather inclined to do the same.

He purses his lips.

“Oh please,” you roll your eyes. “As if you expect me to believe you aren’t still planning to pick up a few birdies at the pub and show them a fun time.”

“My situation is different than yours. I’m the one trying to convince the media I’ve changed, which means I need someone who can be discreet, and a birdie from the pub certainly isn’t that.” He shrugs his shoulders. “Not getting laid for a few months is just a sacrifice I have to make to keep my place at Man City.”

You don’t mention that no matter what he does to try and clean up his act, Manchester City won’t be keeping him around after his contract expires. He wouldn’t believe you anyway, but even if he did you doubt he’d be all that willing to continue with this facade.

“More fun for me then,” you say instead, returning the smug smirk he’d given you earlier.

He glares.

INSTAGRAM.

liked by user, user, and 487,462 others

footballfansofficial UPDATE: Manchester City Forward Garrett Ward once again seen out in public with girlfriend and Formula One photographer Y/N L/N! The couple were caught sharing a romantic evening for the first time on the 5th of January, and have once again been spotted Saturday, the 20th, following Ward and L/N’s public posts on social media platform, Instagram. Ward has reportedly been making progress with his injury recovery, and is speculated to be rejoining the team on the pitch in February if all continues to go well. As the 2024 Formula One season draws nearer, it’s also expected that L/N will be returning to her McLaren roots, after working with Manchester City to photograph their winter training, which leaves fans wondering how their relationship will fare. Check the link in our bio for the full article!

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user i’m starting to warm up to the idea of them as a couple… 👀👀👀

user I WAS SO CONVINCED SHE WAS WITH LANDO NORRIS??? WERE THEY NOT EVER TOGETHER??? 🤯

↳ user i don’t think they were which is super shocking bc she posts him all the time on insta

↳ user i mean?? that’s technically her job?? as a photographer for mclaren she takes and posts pictures of the mclaren drivers. if you scroll across her feed she also has a lot of oscar from 2023, and carlos and daniel from their years with the team. she’s been working with manchester city recently too and has been posting the players as well. it’s just that she’s worked with lando the longest consecutively so ofc her account is gonna have him posted more than the others

↳ user LET ME BE DELUSIONAL I ACTUALLY THOUGHT THEY WERE SO CUTE 😭😭

user i really wish garrett would actually focus on his career instead of dating women bro’s contract ends at the end of the season and he doesn’t even seem bothered

user MAN CITY RE-SIGN GARRETT WARD 2024 🩵🩵🩵

user i hope the long distance makes them break up

↳ user me toooooo that bitch needs to get away from my man

↳ user he’s too good for her

↳ user be so fucking fr, she’s never had a scandal in her entire career but garrett ward has had dozens in just the past few years. if anyone is too good, it’s her 🙄

user MCLAREN WCC 2024 🧡🏁 AND MAN CITY TREBLE WINNERS 2024 🩵⚽️

user don’t hate me but i totally thought garrett ward was gay

↳ user ah, yes, most notorious casanova, known for his many nightly escapades with women, that’s 100% proof that he’s gay

↳ user idk that was just the vibe i got

↳ user be so fucking fr 💀💀

user will city even want to re-sign him after the season is up?? he’s been on loan for the majority of his contract anyway, playing in the championship of all things, and now he’s back but he’s missed a majority of the season cuz of an injury. i personally don’t think garrett ward stands a chance against the current starting forwards, so even when he’s recovered who’s to say he’ll play in any matches?? just seems like a waste for city to keep him around if he isn’t even being used

user if ward is actually cleaning up his act then good for him

↳ user real. all these ppl acting like she's suddenly changing him into a whole new person against his will, but none of them have stopped to think that maybe he WANTS to change.

━━ tags: @maih23 @urfavnoirette @leclercsluv @f1luvur @formulaal @a-disturbing-self-reflection @starlightpierre @chezmardybum @marshmummy @405rry @sideboobrry11 @d3kstar @mcmuppet @happylittlereader @casperlikej @5starl1ght @bellezaycafe @whentheautumnleavesfall @mess-is-my-aesthetic @ssprayberrythings @landosgirlxoxo @lifelessfan @81ja

━━ a/n: i did it! got this part done so much faster AND i didn't wanna rage while i did it 😌 feeling pretty proud of myself for that. anyways! hope you all enjoy!

[superhaught]

Gym Class Heroes (Chapter Two)

Pairing: Regina George x Reader

Warnings: homophobia

Word Count: ~2300, Part 2/?

Part 1

Regina pursues her interest in protecting reader as she recovers from the basketball to the head.

Turns out, you did indeed have a mild concussion from the basketball incident, so you took the weekend and the following Monday off of school to rest and recuperate.

You were napping when your mom knocked lightly on your bedroom door and then came in. You woke up and saw that she had an armful of things.

“One of your school friends stopped by and brought your homework from today plus a card and some snacks, how sweet!”

You sat up and rubbed the sleep from your eyes, “one of my friends? Do you know who?”

“Oh I don’t know, sweetheart. She was blonde and tall and pretty.”

You couldn’t help your face from lighting up, “gimme the card!”

Your mom handed you everything and you tore open the envelope. It was a simple “get well soon” card but what you were most interested in was the handwritten note. The writer’s penmanship was exquisite, not that you were particularly surprised by that fact. The card smelled like her perfume, as if she had spritzed some on. She’s unreal, you thought. Fragrant notes of orange blossom and rose filled your nostrils and it was addictive. 

The note read: Hey you, I hope you’re doing okay and aren’t too worried about getting behind on schoolwork. If you need help getting your homework done, I know a guy. Anyways, Shane got three days of suspension, which isn’t enough, imo. Text me if ur bored <3 R

She wrote her phone number at the end. You giggled and reread it in full, going as far as kicking your feet excitedly under your blankets. 

“She seems like a sweet girl,” your mom pointed out.

Her voice brought you back to reality. You cleared your throat, “mom, my head is kind of hurting, can I go back to sleep?”

“Oh yeah, of course honey! Get some rest.”

“Thank you,” you set the card down next to you and laid back down as your mom left and once she closed the door behind her, you grabbed your phone and began typing a message to Regina’s number. 

“Hey, ‘R’” you wrote. 

The message delivered and the little typing-indicator dots showed up right away, then her message back came through, “I’m glad you didn’t keep me waiting ;)” then she sent a second message, “how are you feeling?”

[Text Message Transcript: Reader: I’m feeling okay. I got a concussion like you thought, but I should be back tomorrow. Thank you for the snacks, btw. How did you know cheez-its are my fav? | Regina: My lips are sealed | Reader: You must have gone to a lot of effort to discover my favorite snacks and my home address… | Regina: It’s nothing someone with my social power can’t handle. | Reader: Well, I owe you. For this and for taking care of me yesterday. | Regina: You don’t owe a thing | Reader: Come on, you’ve gotta let me repay you somehow. | Regina: I won’t allow it | Reader: -_- | Regina: :P | seriously. don’t worry about it. | Reader: But why are you being so nice to me? | Regina: because | Reader: That isn’t an answer | Regina: must I have a reason?? | Reader: People usually do | Regina: cynical of you | I guess I feel bad. MY idiot ex gave you a concussion and was an asshole | also | I think ur cute | Reader: It’s not like you own him. | Regina: are you just gonna ignore that last part | Reader: I was getting there! how do you type so fast when you have acrylics?? | Regina: ... | i blame your concussed brain | Reader: You thought about making a dirty joke, didn't you? | Regina: no | maybe | Reader: So... you think I'm cute? | Regina: Not anymore. I take it back because you embarrassed me. | Reader: No take backsies | Regina: Well now I really take it back because that was dumb | Reader: I don't believe you! | Regina: good | you're going to have to see through my bitch act if we keep going along this path | Reader: "if we keep going along this path" meaning...? | Regina: meaning... if you let me take you out on a date | when you're all recovered of course | Reader: Like... a date date? | Regina: yeah dumbass | what other kind is there?| Reader: Sorry!! I've just... never been asked out before | Regina: okay well... I am asking you out | End of transcript]

Being stunned, you didn’t respond to Regina’s text right away. Your heart was pounding. You couldn’t believe that Regina, the queen bee of the school, the most popular girl, the previously-believed-to-be-completely-and-totally-straight-girl, was asking you out. 

Another text from her popped up, “well don’t leave me hanging”

You decided that you wanted to call her. Maybe you felt like you needed to in order to confirm that this was actually real. You called and it rang twice and then you heard her voice through the phone.

She chuckled as she spoke, “hi…”

“Hi…” you said back, suddenly forgetting what words were. 

“What did you want to say that couldn’t have been sent over text?”

“I just… you really want to date me?”

“Yes. I do. Is that really so shocking?”

“A little, yeah.”

“Well listen, I’ve had my eye on you for a while now. And, as I’m sure you are aware, I’m used to getting what I want.”

You shuddered and then replied, “Regina… I’d love to go out with you.���

The two of you continued to talk on the phone well into the night. It was Regina who insisted that you hang up and go to bed to get some good sleep before coming to school tomorrow. The blonde also offered to pick you up in the morning and drive you to school herself. You, of course, accepted. 

You went to sleep feeling lighter than air. 

In the morning, you got ready for school with more zeal than you ever had in your life. Your mother wondered out loud whether you had been replaced overnight by an entirely different person. You just smiled and said that you were happy and feeling better. 

There was a car horn honk from your driveway and your mom kissed your cheek goodbye as you left your home. 

Regina was sitting in her black Jeep, using her mirror to fix her hair. She smiled at you as you came out of your house and approached the passenger side of her car. She leaned and reached over, cracking the door open for you and then offering you her hand to hold as you stepped up into the car.

You sat down and tossed your backpack into the backseat. 

She smiled again, looking you over, “you look so cute!” Regina then gently caressed her thumb over the bruise on your forehead from the basketball, “and this is looking much better.”

You looked her up and down as well and smiled, “you look incredible…”

“Thanks, baby.” 

She had called you ‘baby’ on the phone the night before as well. The affection made your heart flutter.

She continued, “get buckled, let’s go.”

Regina drove you both to school and parked in her spot in the student lot. It wasn’t an assigned parking spot or anything, it was just the closest spot to her preferred entrance and it was hers by way of having scolded anyone who had ever dared to park there.

When you got out of the car, Regina walked over to you and took your hand in hers. 

Surprised, you said, “you know, we haven’t actually gone out yet…”

“I know that. Do you mind if I hold your hand anyway? Do I have to wait before I can show you off?”

“I don’t mind,” you smiled. 

Regina walked you into the school and immediately, all eyes were on the two of you. You half expected Regina to drop your hand but she didn’t. You glanced over at her and she was proud. Beaming even. 

She squeezed your hand a little tighter and looked at you, “you okay?”

You nodded your head, “I am.”

Regina went with you to your locker and leaned against the adjacent locker while you put your backpack away. Then Regina noticed that you had a small magnetic mirror in your locker and she came up behind you and wrapped her arms around you from behind and looked into the mirror.

“We look good together, don’t we?”

You looked at the image in the mirror and thought she was right. With her bright blonde locks draped over your shoulders, her manicured fingers touching your neck, her cheek pressed against yours, it was a dream come true. 

“It’s way too easy for me to get lost in you…”

“I feel the same way, baby.”

At that point, Gretchen and Karen approached, locating Regina as if they had a homing beacon to her. Gretchen flashed you a polite smile and said, “you look mostly recovered!”

Karen stared at you with wide eyes and said, “don’t worry, I’ve been knocked out by a basketball too! It happens to everyone.”

You thought about objecting to her statement in some way but then you just nodded. 

Regina grabbed your hand again and touched your cheek, turning you to face her, “you’ll sit with us at lunch, right?”

“Oh sure! If you want me to…”

“Of course, silly! Well, you know where to find me, then. I’ll see you later.” Regina pulled you into a hug and squeezed you tightly against her chest. And for the first time in your life, you felt genuinely wanted.

The next two days went by fast. Regina took over driving you to and from school and your mom thanked her profusely for giving her a break. You joined Regina, Gretchen and Karen for lunch, sometimes you were also joined by Cady, Janis and Damien, now that things had gotten less tense between those two trios in the aftermath of the junior year dramatics. 

Regina was extremely attentive to you. You naturally fell into habits of taking care of each other, Regina looking out for you as you continued to recover from your concussion, and you paying attention to her chronic pain flare ups and making sure she was monitoring her POTS symptoms. 

You and Regina agreed to go on your first official date together that weekend, but she certainly was not hesitating to claim you as hers in the meantime. In those 48 hours, there was already an instagram and twitter account dedicated to shipping the two of you and you overheard a lot of talk about your sudden closeness and Regina’s obvious protection over you. 

It all came to a head the day that Shane Oman was back at school.

At lunch, Regina showed up to the table a few minutes later than what was typical for her, and she was dragging Shane by his shirtsleeve until she shoved him right in front of you. 

You set your lunch down and looked at him, then Regina, who shoved him again and said, “well, go ahead.”

Shane rolled his eyes, “fine… I’m sorry…”

Regina’s arms were crossed but she smirked a little, clearly proud of herself. 

“Sorry that you’re a disgusting fucking carpetmuncher!” Shane finished, yelling loud enough for the entire cafeteria to hear and immediately cease their conversations, turning all of their attention to your table. 

Gretchen covered her own mouth in shock. Janis and Damien's jaws both dropped open. Karen was staring at something on the ceiling. Cady whispered “oh my gosh” under her breath. 

You just froze and stared. 

Regina lurched forward and gripped the back of Shane’s shirt collar, pulling him backwards by it in a swift motion and basically choking him with the fabric, “what the fuck did you just say?” she growled.

Shane coughed, “I… I… said… carpetmuncher… and I’m not sorry… and I don’t believe for one second… that you’re falling for this… this… dyke!”

“Oh? You don’t?” Regina pushed Shane down to the ground and he collapsed to his knees and rubbed his neck as Regina let him go. Regina walked over to you and took your face in her hands. One second, her face was red with fury, but when she looked down at you, she immediately softened. She pulled you close to her and then pressed her lips to yours.

It wasn’t how you imagined how your first kiss with Regina would have gone, but you wouldn’t have changed anything about it. 

She kissed you so tenderly. Your senses were completely overwhelmed by the softness of her lips, the taste of her lip gloss, the smell of her hair, the feel of her tongue just teasing your bottom lip. Regina held the kiss for a long time and you held her waist. 

You knew everyone’s eyes (and cameras) were on you, but you couldn’t have cared less. You had Regina, and that’s all that mattered. 

When Regina pulled away, she kept eye contact with you for a moment and smiled, assuring you that she kissed you because she wanted to, not just to prove a point. She came back to give you one more quick and gentle kiss before returning her attention to the pathetic man on the ground. 

“Next time you want to say anything derogatory to my baby here, you better be fucking prepared to say it to me, too, Shane. And I don’t think I need to spell out the absolute shithole you will find yourself in if you do that.” 

Shane stared at her with wide, terrified, eyes.

“Now get the fuck out of my sight.” Regina added. 

Shane scrambled to his feet and sprinted out of the cafeteria as Regina took her seat next to you with closed eyes and exhaled a breath through her nose to calm herself.

You leaned your head on her shoulder and whispered, “thank you, Gina.”

She turned her head and kissed your temple, “of course, baby.”