#just tossed on whatever vanity stuff I had on hand and went back to dying to the twins lol jdskjf

[theplumsoldier]

SINNERMAN

Summary: y/n’s dad’s best friend is not a man of god

Pairing: negan x reader

Word count: 1549

Warnings: smut, explicit language, blasphemy, age-gap, vulgar language.

“Smells delicious, Y/N.”

Turning around you saw your dad’s friend standing with a smirk plastered on his lips, Negan’s tall frame leaning against the doorway. “Thank you. It’s almost done, just a few more minutes,” you spoke and offered him a smile when you noticed empty bottles he held by the neck in one hand.

Opening the fridge, you reached in to grab a pair of new beers. You strode towards him and took the light bottles from his hand, your fingers brushing briefly.

“How come it’s always you making dinner and not your dad?” asked Negan with a wondering curiosity and grabbed the cold beers you handed over. “Thanks, doll.”

You turned back around to look into the oven and out of the corner of your eye, you could see him opening the drawer pulling out a knife, and you heard him pop off the cap.

“Trust me, you’d rather have me make it than dad,” you chuckled thinking back to the last time your dad had cooked. Thank God it was back when your mother was still around, so she could stop him from burning down the kitchen, not to mention the entirety of the house.

“I’m sure I would,” he said and you tossed him a small grin. He enjoyed how your nose scrunched up lightly and the skin around your eyes crinkled when you smiled.

You wondered if your dad had had a rough day at work considering they were usually not drinking this much before after dinner. They were already on their third beer and Negan had only been here for an hour.

Grabbing the thermometer to check if the temperature was at what it should, you closed the oven again and pulled off the oven mitt before turning off the oven. The meat could take the excess heat as you finished up with the rest.

It was when you had just brushed your teeth and combed your hair, you heard a shattering sound from downstairs. Slowly, you put down the brush and stood up from the stool by your vanity table and made your way to the hall. You could hear Negan cussing and then remembered your dad had let him sleep on the couch. Carrying yourself down the flight of stairs, you called out his name, hardly able to see anything as the only light in the living room coming from the TV.

“Oh, hey Y/N. It was uh–just the bottle–it uh. . .” he excused and stood up. When he did, his large hand immediately went to his forehead and you thought his head was probably spinning from all the alcohol.

Walking closer to Negan you rounded the couch to see the broken bottle his finger pointed down at. A sigh escaped your lips but it was not loud enough for Negan to hear. You guessed it was Negan that had had a bad day, not your dad as you earlier had thought. Hurriedly you stepped into the kitchen to get something to clean up the mess.

“Let me,” he said and tried to get the paper towel from you. Leaning forward he attempted to get the cloth from you, but as he came closer to you, you noticed he was swaying slightly, trying to find his balance, so you steadied him by putting a hand on his chest.

“No, it’s alright. I got it,” you insisted and carefully shoved him back down and he slumped onto the couch, letting out a groan. “You just sit. I’ll take care of this.”

Crouching down, you went to dry up the liquid with the foul odor.

“Sorry I woke you up,” you heard him hum and you cast a quick look his way. You were not sure whether his somewhat painful expression was caused by guilt or the large amount of alcohol he had consumed throughout the night. You were more apt to believe the latter.

“You didn’t,” you secured him and shook your head. “How can you drink this? It smells horrible.”

“You don’t drink it because it smells good,” he grinned down at you, the light of the television reflecting in his dark eyes. “Dan’s never let you have a taste?”

“I’m not supposed to,” you shrugged and stood up before disappearing for a moment to throw out the dirty paper towel.

“And you always do what you’re supposed to?”

When you appeared again in the doorframe, Negan was watching you closely.

“Do you believe all that? Jesus dying for us, God havin’ a plan and shit, Adam and–what’s her name? Bree?”

“Eve,” you corrected with a chuckle and your eyes caught the TV. The channel seemed to depict the Garden of Eden, and you then understood what had gotten him thinking. Reaching for the remote, you turned off the low voice and the picture went black.

“Well if I wanted to explain to you that God’s the creator of all things I would say that he created the world in seven days. It does not mean that he did create the world in seven days, but it means he did create the world.” You attempted to explain, though he did not seem the least bit convinced.

After he padded the spot beside him, encouraging you to sit, a warm silence fell upon you both and though Negan’s eyes returned to the black screen in front of him, yours remained on his face, observing every movement and watching his prominent features shift. His head was battering, only in spite of the amount being “on too many”, he did not yet feel numb as alcohol used to make him.

“Why do you always have cuts everywhere?” You gesticulated to his face and his gaze returned to the window, looking all dreamy in the moonlight.

“The world is not as kind as you like to believe.”

“Someone did that to you?”

“I did something far worse to someone,” Negan replied and his jaw clenched.

Your eyebrows scrunched up as you thought about that for a second. When noticing you went quiet, he looked down at you to see your reaction and it was only then you realized what he meant.

Inaudibly gasping, you looked up to him and your eyes made contact with his dark ones.

“Have you ever touched yourself, Y/N?”

You opened your mouth before you could comprehend what had been said. "You–I. . . Wha–what?"

Negan chuckled at your reaction and his head fell back, a guttural sound booming from his mouth. You shifted in your place, eyebrows creased and eyes wide. You could feel your cheeks heat up.

"It's a simple question, doll. You don't wanna tell me, that's fine-I'm simply curious," explained he and you then managed to swallow the lump in your throat but you did not dare look into his eyes. "Ain't no sin. I think."

“If accompanied by wrong, lustful thought it can be addressed as sinful,” spoke you, uncovering a stutter.

“That was not what I asked,” was all he had to say.

Making the mistake of looking into his eyes, both the atmosphere and longlasting teasing had you going, and so you felt enchanted by the man. The unnerving intensity stirring you to answer in an uncertain voice, “yes.”

Negan hummed to himself with a slight nod and shifted in his seat. “Were you accompanied by “wong, lustful thoughts?””

This was pining and plain rude on his part, toying with you like this; had not even laid a hand on you yet. Again, you bobbed your head without thinking much and he emitted a grunting sound.

“How come?” asked he, tilting his head.

“Uh–I. . .” stammered you nervously, unsure whether you should answer. You definitely should not, although whatever bond there had been between the two of you were by now changed forever; there really was nothing stopping you except the touch of reality and what awareness you still possessed. When you felt Negan’s warm, large hand rest on your thigh you lost that too. “I. . . I was thinking o–of a man.”

You did not dare look at him but you could tell from the corner of your eye that he smirked the slightest. It was countless nights that Negan had paid you a visit in your dreams, therefore as you sat dangerously close to him, the memories of sinful moments flashed in your mind.

“What’s so wrong with that, doll?” questioned Negan, having a faint idea who it might be. His hand slid over the delicate skin of your leg and squeezed slightly, pulling at the hem of your nightgown.

“It–it shouldn’t have been–it felt. . . good.”

Negan’s head fell back as he chuckled lowly, you looked up to him with a puzzled look in your eyes, slightly embarrassed and confused what he laughed about.

“That’s sorta the point. Nothing wrong about it.”

“It’s a sin,” said you with a frown. “I shouldn’t be doing that. . . stuff.”

Negan leaned closer to you then and you looked down where his hand moved closer and closer to your sex. Finally catching your eyes, his bore into your own his a craving desire sparkling behind the dark. “If you’d let me, I’d just love to take care of you myself.”

[youswiminmywater]

new perspectives on loneliness

it’s important to try to stay away from your bed sometimes. i never used to be the type to spend the entire day locked away in my room, but the past few months have been exactly that. i even rearranged all of my furniture one day just to change things up, update and organize everything in a way that made more sense. pointed my bed towards the tv. put my clothes in the closet, in my bed drawers (which is astoundingly a habit i’m still keeping up!). organized, alphabetized, and filtered through all of the stuff on my bookshelf, made better use of the space in my room. there’s still some stuff to throw out. there’s still dust accumulating. but it’s a snail’s step, a healthy move inside of a swampy situation. i don’t want this room for much longer, or at least i don’t want to be trapped in it all the time, but i’m glad i fixed it.

the other day, i went down to the cafe to get a salad and try to read a little in public, which is generally my go-to outing for when i want to get out of my house. it’s important to get out of the house sometimes. i’ve been trying to slog through “the faerie queene,” which is an old renaissance epic poem about knights and chivalry and greek mythology splashed into a weird christianity-focused landscape. i’m reading it most because i can, because i know what words like “weet” used to mean, because i’m comfortable reading spenser’s intentionally bizarre spelling and letter-swaps. just for context, here’s an example:

Nathlesse the villen sped himselfe so well, Whether through swiftnesse of his speedy beast; Or knowledge of those woods, where he did dwell, That shortly he from daunger was releast, And out of sight escaped at the least; Yet not escaped from the dew reward Of his bad deeds, which dayly he increast, Ne ceased not, till him oppressed hard The heauy plague, that for such leachours is prepard.

and i’m also reading it because the stories are fun to retell in my own words, whenever i can find an ear to gab into! a lot of old literature is like that, surprising you with a fun story. so i took my massive old book with queen victoria on the cover, got my salad, and decided to sit nearby a couple that looked like they were on a date so that i could eavesdrop on them.

boy is it easy to judge strangers! from what i could tell, he was an older guy, maybe grad student age, clad in nouveau punk garb, the band shirt with sleeves rolled up to his armpits, the rolled up jean shorts, stompy boots, thick rimmed glasses, the side shave haircut that everyone seems to be sporting these days, tattoos up his arms and half way up his neck. he was talking very adamantly about his classes, particularly with a recognizable pretension about how much of an intensely emotional and intellectual endeavor it is to both READ and WRITE in the modern age. something or other about how his professors just Don’t Understand, how they’re Taking the Magic Out of It. he was very particular about the genres he liked to read, and very particular about explaining it to her with confidence, caution, and exactness. she, meanwhile, was at least a few years younger than him (in fact, i’m pretty sure she was an acquaintance of mine, knew her tangentially through people i knew in high school), and it seemed like she hadn’t been to at least a traditional college in several years. the last i remember, she worked at this kind of odd farm-fresh fast-food joint, where they make you wear blue bandannas instead of brand hats. she looked like she went to art school maybe, studied photography. she was very supportive of his opinions on reading books, or whatever, and tried her best to come up with things to share back on the subject, but it was clear she wasn’t really That Into reading. she ran with the crowd that was used to doing, parties and skateboarding and concerts, not sitting at home over a notebook.

it just seemed like the kind of pairing that didn’t have much in common, but they were still fresh and enthusiastic and willing to blow past differences and have some fun for a while. in any case, i was in true goblin form, hunched over my salad, building stories for each of them in my head, telling myself they were communicating poorly and failing to connect with each other, telling myself they’ll be over and done within a few months, maybe more if the circumstances call for it. a stupid grin slapped across my brain while i half-read about some sinful queen named “lucifera,” who embodied Vanity itself in every way, even carrying around a hand mirror just to admire herself.

this is the cafe i used to work at, and so i knew a lot of the patrons and just about all of the employees; i spotted one person, the “new girl,” also enjoying a salad off duty a few tables away from me. she had been hired shortly after i left, though the two of us had developed a little bit of camaraderie between my frequent visits. i called her bree-bree, she called me bri-bri, it was something cute and fun  between us. one of the few fond connections i have with the world outside my bedroom. 

i made my way to the door, pretended to notice her, and sat down in the seat across from her, imposing in probably a very trumpian way, though she didn’t seem to mind, wasn’t nose deep in a book like i pretended to be. we got to immediately gossiping about the couple i was just eavesdropping on, my favorite hobby, talking about dating and relationships from a safe and frankly lofty position, dragging someone into my holier-than-thou mindscape to bond with them. it’s the magic of people-watching, really, and sharing that experience with someone makes you feel so much less like a wretched lonely creep. she nodded sagely when i talked about talking but not communicating, first dates in the cafe.

she told me a story about how she was on a first date with a guy and kept asking him questions expecting him to toss the ball back into her court, but at the end of his several monologues, the only thing he was able to bring back to her was “so, any more questions for me?” i told her he was probably trying very hard to impress her, and maybe felt interrogated. like it was his time to make a splash and show her how good and smart of a boy he was! and probably terrified out of his mind. you can’t chalk everything up to male vanity. she shrugged a maybe-probably. i declined to tell her a story about some of my first dates, not wishing to mirror the guy she just described to me.

i learned that she was dating one of the other guys that worked at the cafe, who was working there that day, though the whole thing was a sort of semi-hush. she said they dated but she didn’t really talk about it. she just gazed at him over my shoulder, dreamy-eyed. how do you get a girl to look at you that way? i admired it, appreciated it. i turned around and announced to the guy “i didn’t know you two were dating!” made him blush, show him that i was Aware and not threatening anything by having an intimate salad talk with his girl right in front of him. she told me she was moving to Cleveland in two weeks, and was bad with long-distance. she didn’t seem that bothered by it, though i still sympathized, knowing by now how those relationships end, the early 20s flings that always get bashed backwards by college schedules and other necessity. 

her mentioning it gave me an opportunity to talk about vivien, for a moment. i told her i was a long-distance veteran. i forcibly showed off pictures of vivien, of the two of us together, because i was dying to show at least one person, even someone who could be barely considered a friend. i don’t know why i wanted to; maybe another opportunity to say “just so we’re clear, i’m not trying to come onto you, here’s a girl i already like!” or maybe it was a way to legitimize a connection in my life that seems to slip away more and more every day.

i offered to give her a ride, probably a minor misstep. she said she preferred walking, good exercise. i agreed, told her i wanted to ride my bike more often too. she insisted i make some desserts for her and the cafe before she had to leave, and i promised i would. left.

i had something of a panic attack that night. i don’t like calling it that, because the feeling wasn’t...well, maybe i’m just unfamiliar with panic. it was intangible. i was feeling manic, i could hear myself breathing, i wanted to get out of the house again (this was now around 11pm or so). i was feeling trapped, claustrophobic, lonely, forgotten. i went to a 24/7 gyro place to tap my foot, pick up dinner for me and my mom. wrote an obscure facebook status. sent a few oblique text messages. wanting attention but not wanting to attract it. wanting someone to care about me and show concern but feeling selfish and childish by offering out my hands.

i had a phone conversation with a friend of mine just before. my best friend, or at least someone i used to be really close with, now feeling more and more like a stranger, more like a burden, more like i destroyed something that was taking a painstakingly long time to fully implode. i was becoming less and less to her, and it showed in our conversation, and showed even more when she was telling me about other friends she was starting to hang out with more, or when she was having a conversation with her boyfriend that was so much more lively than the one she was having with me. it used to be the other way around. i sat on the phone and let my heart break, realized i was becoming alone again, and ended up at this gyro place an hour later.

it’s not that i’m particularly going to miss the life i’ve been living the past few years; i really hate feeling stuck, even if i had some great company while doing so, and shared a lot of myself with someone who has been very important to me. but trying to move on has blasted away a lot of stuff i took for granted, or didn’t realize i depended on so heavily. so i guess i had a panic attack, on both ends. i felt empty and heartbroken looking back on my past friendship; i felt worried and alone looking forward. i’m still not sure if i’m moving into anything real or not. 

maybe i’m once again too much in my own head, but sometimes i get the feeling vivien is already done with me. we don’t really have any plans when it comes to moving closer to each other; i’m not even sure what she wants for her own life sometimes. we’ve both been through our own gauntlets, and we know long-distance isn’t really something we have the energy for anymore. all i know is that we happen to have landed in the same spot, together, right now. but i don’t know if we’re both going to leave this place together, or if we’re going to be facing the same direction when we do. we’re certainly not going to stay here for much longer. i only hope she isn’t already through with me. sometimes i feel like a needy puppy, begging for her attention, putting effort into something that i maybe shouldn’t be. i truly do adore her, and we resemble each other so much; we sometimes joke about being each other’s “twin flame,” soulmates. it still feels that way. but soulmates aren’t always lovers.

i’m just preparing myself for the worst. i don’t want it to be over yet.

today i listened to an “etiquette podcast” on the way home. it’s really hardly about etiquette most of the time; it’s just this married couple that started a podcast together, likely because the wife felt left out of her husband’s podcasting career and wanted an excuse to hang out with him. they pick random topics, the wife goes into a brief “history” of the thing, and then they talk about “the best way to blank,” “when is the right time to blank.” how do i ask for a raise without coming off as bossy? what’s the best way to end a phone call? what’s the proper thing to say when i fart on the train? 

this week’s episode was about naps. the wife went into a personal yarn about how she had postpartum depression and took frequent naps that just felt Very Bad. like gigantic naps that felt too good, wasted the whole day. the husband likened it to eating ice cream when you’re starving. just the wrong medicine for the occasion. 

when i got home, i took a 6-hour nap. i was still riding the wave of sadness from the day before, though without the manic energy. just the overwhelming feeling of aloneness, having no one to share anything with anymore. being alone really makes a lot of things feel pointless, when you’re in the headspace of, i want to do things so i have something to share with people. suddenly reading feels stupid. endeavors to work out feel pointless. long naps are a brief fast-forward through something that feels like it ought to blow away at some point. and it really doesn’t, at least, not in the way you expect it to.

i woke up and checked my e-mails, my school e-mail in particular, to remind myself that i was still a student and had responsibilities beyond trying to find love and companionship to enrich my future (snort!). cracked open my textbook, a chapter about plate presentation, and got quite lost flipping between dessert possibilities. really inspiring stuff, even though the book is a little outdated:

i’m sure this is somewhat a product of my mood...but looking at these foods made me really want to dive into my work as a pastry chef. become good at something, make all these sauces and coulis and collect a bunch of chocolate shavings and such and try out some plate designs for myself, likely in very bizarre, personal ways. “here you go mom, i made dessert, and i bought a special plate to put it on!” i mean, how else is a boy to practice? it’s a relief seeing stuff like this, because the class i’m taking right now makes me believe cake decorating is the alpha and the omega of pastry learning. and i just hate cake decorating! my boss told me that some people are decorators and some people are producers, and that i’m a producer. i feel good about that role. it’s encouraging.

i’ve written pretty freely and frequently about this belief i have, that people have a built in “fail-safe” system that keeps them from tolerating a bad feeling for too long. some motivation inside of them that keeps them from stewing in depression until they disintegrate. in the past, i’ve taken opportunities like this one i’m in to go on impulsive bike rides, usually in the dead of the night. i felt the same impulse washing over me today; however, i knew that my bike tires were flat and needed a pump. this is essentially the extent of my bike-repair expertise, so if they didn’t stay inflated, i was probably done for without a real concentrated effort to fix the damn thing.

i went outside to our backyard shed to try and find the bicycle pump. no luck. and our backyard was starting to look and feel overgrown, plants poking through fences and coming up to the windows. my mom says she likes the overgrown because it grants privacy, but i hated it in that moment. i wanted to clear everything away. in lieu of finding my bike pump, i grabbed some forgotten rusty shears instead, and just started going to town on these masses of towering plants. snipping bit by bit, shoving them into mossy old yard bags, grabbing thorns and twigs barehanded in my sleepwear and clogs. just fed up, burying my feelings in the impulse.

i started to imagine, maybe this is what i need to do from now on. just focus on cleaning the house, yard work. eventually move on to working out, getting stronger arms, losing weight, eating healthier. if i’m going to be a shut-in for the rest of my life, maybe this is the secret to accepting it. just obsessing over some kind of work and never thinking about loneliness ever again, except maybe by accident late at night, in moments of stillness. it made me feel kind of like boo radley. it was a familiar place, like one that i had recognized in writers and poets, or any other person that was considered isolated, in solitude. like a retired old dad, feverishly picking up hobbies to keep himself busy. emily dickinson with her botany and gardening (did you know she had a 66-page leather-bound book of pressed plants? it’s called an herbarium). or like a robert frost type, hauling wood to a cabin, reveling in the simplicity of it. after all, it’s easier to tear weeds out of the ground than it is to make friends. maybe it’s the kind of life i need to embrace, constantly becoming better and healthier, more useful, stronger, but for nobody. building a nice home and a nice life and only sharing it with someone if i get really lucky. 

i didn’t really hang out with my dad much after my parents were divorced, and now that i’m older, and i’m realizing how badly i wanted someone to teach me how to be a guy. all the things i remember doing with him when i was younger, fishing, flying kites, swimming, are distant memories. i’m rusty. i’m gonna take my kids to do these things with nostalgia and fumble at it, because it fell out of my life a long time ago. i feel like being outside again, getting bug bites, tearing up the yard and putting it back together again...it’s a way of being a dad to myself. or i feel like my dad was supposed to teach me this stuff, like it’s a old secret, “now son, when you grow up and your life isn’t what you wanted it to be, just build a birdhouse. it’s the best remedy for depression!” 

or maybe it was just a manic episode, me out there chopping away at the bushes. a cathartic release that’ll sink back into its deep slumber again come tomorrow. it was a shift in perspective, another way of making loneliness OK, a different kind of ocean to drown in. i wouldn’t mind if it stuck around. 

i know i really don’t deserve much, i’m not exactly a very good person. but if i can find a way to turn all these feelings back in on themselves, and just focus on something...manual and productive, i think it’s a life i’d take. just needs some motivation.