#like Johnny like Dutch thinks they do. I say they do but I left it open

[zappedbyzabka]

So I just read a fic about this but I have a different idea

Sid cuts Johnny off after Laura’s death and Johnny, not wanting to be a ‘freeloader’ and asking his friends for help, turns to the streets and doesn’t tell anyone about it

Sid lies to all his friends and tells them he ran away to New York and it’s not till a couple of months later that Dutch finds Johnny on the streets and take him home

Johnny really doesn’t want to prove Sid right and keeps running away so Dutch decides to basically pay him thousand of dollars to stay and fucks him every chance he gets, after all, Johnny can’t up and leave if he’s in the middle of having his back blown out by his sugar daddy

👀👀👀👀 yesss

(My instant thought was that Dutch started working for Silver’s, who was another client of Johnny’s, and that’s why he has money to give. Timeline is a little ambiguous.)

Johnny tried to hide, making sure no one who knew him ever saw him, comforting himself with the thought that he’d be too unrecognizable, covered in dirt and malnourished, selling his body to every man that offered him a buck or ten, his throat raw and hole aching by the end of every day. He kind of…enjoys that part though; he likes that all these men, sometimes married, go out and find him, want him, tell him they’d leave their wives for them, put a ring on him, and give him everything he needed—of course Johnny never took them up on the offer, but it was fun to play along sometimes. He hated thinking about the women at home waiting for their husbands, but he needed money.

Turns out that his past training comes in handy for a job like that. He was still flexible, unable to get as easily into a split as he could before, but still very flexible, able to get his pressed to either side of him on a dingy motel mattress no problem. He also had a habit of sneaking some extra cash out of their wallets; who cares? Most of them are a waste of oxygen and don't deserve the money anyway.

Then Mr. Silver came along. Johnny must admit, he was a little frightened of the man at first; he clearly had power and money. He came in a limo, smoke seeping from the window as it was lowered. Rich men were the roughest and most sadistic. Or the opposite, and liked to be degraded by someone "lesser" than them.

He walked up to the door, putting a hand on the car and leaning down, glad he smoked enough in high school to not be coughing up a long; that’d lose him a client…usually. He waited for Silver to speak first. One thing he learned is that these men like it when you let them lead, it makes them feel like you weren’t always gonna try and charge them 30 bucks for a 1 minute make-out session and another 50 for sweet talk.

But he seemed nice, and he was handsome. Johnny has always been a sucker for danger. He greeted Johnny easily, offering him $100 up front to get in the car and ordering his driver to step out and open the door for Johnny. It felt nice, it had been a long time since he was treated with any semblance of respect.

Johnny felt eager to get in the vehicle, scooting close to Silver and putting a hand on his thigh, looking up at him through golden lashes. He’s been told his eyes make him look weak, innocent; guys like that.

Silver didn’t fuck him in the limo, but Johnny left his mansion with a limp and the corner of his lips red.

Silver told him he’d take him out, gave him modest clothes, and took him to McDonald’s. He bought him whatever he wanted, like it was a reward or comfort added to the filthy money. But Johnny didn’t care; he was hungry and lonely, and Silver thankfullly didn’t say anything when he started crying over his food. The last time he'd went to McDonald’s was with Tommy. He remembered every detail: Tommy ordered a cheeseburger and a large coke, and he was wearing one of those striped shirts he liked so much—pastel white, pink, and blue. He remembers the way the fluorescent light shined on Tommy’s thinning hair. He remembered thinking Tommy’s smile was his favorite. Tommy's voice made him feel twelve years old with his very first friends again. He was so tired that day, and Johnny couldn’t figure out why, but he still joked. Now he’s in a hospital, probably thinking Johnny abandoned him. The tables were different; everything was.

Silver offered Johnny a bed for the night and breakfast in the morning, and Johnny said no. He slept at Motel 6, holding the extra pillow in his arms the entire night.

In his dreams, he and the cobras get that apartment they promised to rent together, and they’re happy. The shouting is of joy, and the sounds of footsteps aren’t so scary anymore. All his friends are shielding him again.

Dutch had loved Johnny since high school and never stopped. He had a lot of competitors back then—italian slips of paper hoping to shove their stupid big dicks into Johnny and making Dutch want to punch their lights out—but the main ones were the other cobras. He’s still sure to this day that they felt the same way about their leader as he did. There was a reason they were so loyal: Tommy looked at him like the sun shone out his ass, and Bobby was so lenient with him even when he chided others. but all of them got it, all of them understood.

He’s told Johnny everything because he always pictured him in his future— gold gray hair and summer days. Sitting at their dining table, it would be small, so Johnny wasn’t reminded of the dining table he was always lectured and degraded at. The cloth Dutch’s grandma made on top. He can picture how the fabric would look under his and Johnny's held hands, he can picture the bands on their fingers.

He was in jail when Johnny "moved to New York". And It was hell not knowing what happened. Before that, Johnny had been visiting him, not super often but when he was able, but he’d frequently send him letters, long letters in Johnny’s surprisingly neat handwriting, all about what he’d been doing that week, whether he had gone to a concert or had a fight with Sid, he’d always tell Dutch. Sometimes they even smelled like the soap Johnny used, which made Dutch hope Johnny slept with them under his pillow before sending them. The other inmates teased him relentlessly about his "girlfriend", some even having the audacity to snatch one of the letters out of Dutch’s hands and read it; that dude got a concussion. That doesn’t even compare to when Johnny first visited him in jail. Johnny wasn't really dressed up, just had a hoodie and some jeans on, but that didn’t stop them from staring at him; their wants sickeningly clear. Then Johnny would press the tip of his shoes against his under the table and tell him he couldn’t wait to have him back, and suddenly Dutch wasn’t thinking about anyone else.

Dutch didn’t want to be away anymore. He didn't want to keep landing in jail and disappointing the cobras—the only ones he gave a shit about. And he didn’t want to keep leaving Johnny alone. Why did he always come back beaten and skinnier than before? Where were the others?

He’d been panicking when Johnny stopped showing up. He thought he’d for sure messed things up or that something terrible had happened because he wasn’t there to stop it, and he couldn’t stop picturing Johnny getting jumped somewhere and calling out for him. Would he call out for him? Does he know Dutch would help him?

After a few weeks, he called Jimmy to ask if Johnny was alright, he didn’t expect him to say Johnny ran off to New York. He didn’t believe it either

He stayed on his very best behavior, even letting himself get beat up, just so he could get out as quickly as possible and figure out what was really going on. It took too long, but he made it out, got a job from this nice fella with a ponytail, and started looking.

Apparentally, the other cobras had been suspicious too but were so busy with everything they hadn’t been able to look. Bobby had even convinced himself that maybe Johnny did run away; Dutch told him he was just being selfish and lying to himself so he didn’t have to face his own worries. Bobby didn’t deny it.

Sid was no help at all, insisting with a smile that Johnny left and sticking to it. Dutch got thrown out when he didn't give in to the bullshit.

When Dutch found Johnny again, it had been after a long day of trying to find clues, and he felt like one of those brooding detectives in those crime shows Johnny and Bobby loved so much. It’s so tiring to search and come up with nothing; it’s so hope-draining. He needed a drink, and on the way to the bar, he spotted that familiar face. Johnny looked different—somehow even skinnier than the last time Dutch saw him. Dutch couldn’t get over there fast enough. He parked his car and ran over there.

"johnny!"

Johnny had turned to him, eyes wide. "Oh my god. What are you doing here? I—You got out?"

Is he disappointed? Are those other makeup-covered faces his new friends?

"I told you I’d get out this time. I even got a good job! I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Johnny. Why is your stepdad telling everyone you moved? What happened?"

Johnny looked down, shoulders slouched. "We got into another fight after…" he swallowed, "after mom died, and he kicked me out."

Dutch felt his stomach tighten. He wishes he could have been there. "Where are you staying?"

Johnny sniffled, rubbing his eyelid and smearing up his mascara. "Different places."

Dutch knows what that means: "I’m homeless."

He knows from personal experience.

"Will you come to my place then? I’ve got weed and Monoply waiting for us."

Johnny picked at his nails. "You aren’t mad at me?"

Dutch tilted his head, brows creased. "Why the hell would I be mad at you?"

"Because I disappeared. I didn’t call. I mean, I don’t get paid a lot of quarters, just cash."

Dutch pauses for a moment, looking at their surroundings and the other people near them, who are also underdressed like Johnny and tired looking. He looks at the marks on Johnny's thighs and the rest of him. It clicks. He won’t say anything, not yet.

"When was the last time I got pissed at you, John? Sure. I get irritated a lot, but rarely with you."

Johnny nods; he can’t deny that. He doesn’t want to. Dutch grabs his hand carefully. "Will you come over like old times?"

"Yeah, okay."

It was the best night either of them had had in months. They didn’t talk about the time missed or the difference in them that it brought yet; they gave themselves over and lived in the past for the night.

Dutch didn’t want him to live. Never wanted him to go back to "work" again. Johnny didn’t either, he was honest about that, but he kept repeating that he refused to be a freeloader and refused to use Dutch like that. Dutch can’t believe Johnny can’t see how he’s helped him change for the better and how this love that’s been raging in him for years is the biggest reason he has money now.

He practically begged him to stay; there’s space for him on the couch, there’s space for him on Dutch’s bed—a spot for him everywhere Dutch goes.

He told Johnny to at least stay while he looked for a better job, that he really didn’t have to pay. Johnny told him he’d have to think about it and went to take a shower.

In that time, Dutch mulled over the idea he had in his head the second Johnny brought up being a freeloader: he could pay Dutch by dating him.

He felt creepy, he’d rather Johnny not pay him anything—feel right at home. But he’s been doing it with all those countless other guys, and Dutch would just…make the payments few and far between—no matter how badly he wants it more.

Dutch focused on the dripping ends of Johnny’s hair as he brought up his idea.

"I didn’t know you liked me like that." I love you. "But I think it’s a good deal."

He cupped Dutch’s face in his hands, looking over his features. "Do you want me to kiss you?"

Dutch pulled him in instead of answering, kissing him until he couldn’t anymore. "Stay."

Johnny stayed. Now he’s bouncing in Dutch’s lap, mewling shamelessly as Dutch’s cock hits his sweet spot over and over again, arching when Dutch grabs a handful of his ample ass, his other hand groping at Johnny’s pec.

"Fuck. Always loved your cute little tits, babe. Used to get so hard when you’d walk around without a shirt." Johnny whines, hole clenching like a vice around Dutch. "God, swear I had blue balls every day back then—fuck. I used to imagine how tight your ass would be too, and it’s so fucking tight—can’t get enough. You got me addicted, sweetheart. Even before I had it."

Johnny stares down at him. "So—ah!—so why didn’t you do something about it, huh? Coulda' wrestled me to the ground and pounded me, I would have loved it."

He’s suddenly thrown on his back, his wrists pinned firmly to the mattress. His hole spasms when Dutch brutally plunges right back in, giving Johnny no time to adjust as he starts up his hard, fast pace once more. No mercy. Johnny’s eyes roll back.

"Quite bein’ a bitch."

He tests Dutch’s grip; no budge.

He really can’t stop the pleased noise that comes from him.

Dutch grins, sweat glistening on his face. "Yeah. That’s right. You can’t get away from me, Lawrence."

You’re all mine now, he wants to say, but there’s a 50/50 chance that Johnny will like it or punch him right in the mouth. Dutch has always wanted him.

Johnny crosses his ankles behind Dutch’s back, relaxing against the bed with a glazed look in his eyes that he only got when Dutch did something about that attitude. "You’ve always been so strong."

"And you’ve always been so fucking hot, John. Like a damn dream."

"You dream about me?"

I have for years. I dream of being allowed to love you. "Yeah, I do. Dream about your sweet ass."

Dutch lets go of his wrists, wrapping his strong arms around Johnny’s waist and holding him as he ruts faster.

"I‘ve dreamed of you too. Heard you fucked good and couldn’t stop thinking about it." He throws an arm around Dutch’s shoulders and runs his fingers through that thick hair, kissing his cheek. Dutch has always had chubby cheeks. Reminds Johnny of a squirrel—adorable.

He can’t know about Silver; Johnny can’t lose Dutch again, not like all the others.

Moodboard

[say-hwaet]

You did your worst, you tried your best. Now it’s time to rest.

I’m just a poor, wayfaring stranger,

Traveling through this world below

There is no sickness, no toil, no danger,

In that bright land to which I go…

Arthur Morgan, with each breath barely exiting his body, crawls to the edge of the mountainside. His body aching, his lungs burning, he knows this is it. This is the end.

Dutch had backed away and left him. Micah, his enemy, snarled and gurgled on his way back down the mountain as he retreated like the rat he is. Will he meet the Pinkertons there? Arthur doesn’t care. That isn’t what’s on his mind.

As his cracked and bloody fingers grip the gravel beneath him, he clutches to the hope that his brother John and his family made it out alive. If he didn’t do anything good in his life, it was this.

But he tried. In the end, he did.

And that has to count for something.

He pulls himself up onto a jutted out wall of the mountain’s cliff and lays his back against it with a hard gasp.

He turns to his left as he pants heavily. The sun is rising and he soon feels the warmth on his face. Death is welcoming him with her gentle arms and warm embrace.

He thought death would be cold, as he had seen it many times. It was, if not always, behind the cold barrel of a gun, so it has to be so.

But it isn’t. He hears a morning dove cooing in a nearby tree. It was a song he hasn’t heard in a while. It is, to him, like a sweet lullaby.

He thinks of his mother, for the first time in forever. He wonders if he will see her soon.

He takes in one more breath and exhales.

***

Gasp!

Arthur rises to a sitting position. It is day. He keeps taking in deep breaths and quickly looks around.

He sees a field of tall grasses. He’s on a hill. There are clouds in the sky and they are moving quickly as though a storm is rolling in, but there’s no rain and no gray.

It dawns on him that he’s not on the mountain.

“Where…where am I?”

He begins to move and realizes that his muscles don’t ache. His lungs don’t burn. In fact, he doesn’t really feel anything.

He also doesn’t notice the figure standing afar off. A smile forms on the man’s lips and he speaks.

“Arthur…”

Arthur quickly turns, surprised to hear the familiar voice.

It is Hosea. He’s younger. Near the age he was when Arthur first met him. But his smile and expression still carries the wisdom and wit he had moments before he died.

Arthur quickly rises to his feet and hurries over to him. “Hosea?” He still cannot believe his eyes.

They embrace and Arthur hugs his father tightly.

“I’m proud of you, son,” Hosea says and he releases Arthur from his embrace.

Arthur knows it now. He’s dead. And wherever he is, it is where his soul has gone to remain. His body is still on that mountainside, or perhaps it has been over a hundred years and his body has long since been decayed and gone. He feels a weight come over him, a life unfinished, and the people he left behind. “But,” he begins. “I couldn’t save everyone. If I died then...” His voice trembles. “Karen, Dutch, and the rest of them. I couldn’t stop them from…from…”

Hosea forms an empathetic smile. and he places a gentle hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “Redemption comes in many ways. It’s never too late, Arthur. You clearly saw the error or your ways and you sacrificed your life for the truth, that’s why you’re here.” He pauses a moment, gesturing to the land around them. “And now you’re home.”

“But…” Arthur speaks, his voice edged with trepidation. “Is there…is there anyone else here? Did they make it?”

The smile on Hosea’s face grows and removing his arm, he motions for Arthur to follow. “Let’s go see!”

They begin to walk across the valley. As they walk across the lush, beauteous field, Arthur begins to notice the colors in the sky. As a gap forms in the clouds, he sees a myriad of stars twinkling with swirls of pink, blue, and green dancing around them. An Eagle flies above them as though it is about to break through the clouds and explore the galaxies behind them.

Arthur exhales at the sight. If he had his satchel with him, he’d sketch what he sees, but even if he hasn’t given it to John, he doesn’t think he could bring it with him here.

Hosea takes the lead and Arthur follows until he suddenly stops. They have reached the top of the hill and can see it slope down into a valley below.

And in that valley is a mass gathering of people. People he has never seen before. He turns to Hosea, expecting to get an answer but he only pats Arthur’s back. “Just go down there.”

Arthur hesitates. He doesn’t want to leave Hosea and the unknown frightens him. But then again, he was once afraid of death, and now he knows he has nothing to fear.

He begins to walk down the hill.

And he hears a voice call his name.

“Arthur!”

It is a youthful voice and it calls from within the crowd. He looks around and sees a group divide to reveal the outlaw that he had last seen on the roofs of Saint Denis.

Arthur feels his eyes sting and a lump in his throat. “Lenny, my boy!”

Lenny smiles. He looks clean and happy. When they are close enough, they clasp hands. “So this is you in your former glory, eh, Arthur?”

Arthur looks down at himself. There wasn’t a way of knowing, but he is younger looking. He lacks the scorched, leathery skin from the sun. He resembled himself when he was younger. Arthur grins. “I guess so.”

Lenny turns to a man beside him, who looks to be an older version of himself. “Father, this is Arthur Morgan.” The two men shake hands. They are strangers, but there is a mutual respect for one another. Lenny smiles. “There was someone looking for you, Arthur. She told us she’d meet you here.”

An excitement fills his mind as he begins to look around. “Who?”

Lenny quickly points into the crowd, and Arthur begins to walk in that direction, not sure what he is going to find. The sea of strangers part the way for him, almost with a unified knowledge of what he is searching for.

He sees other familiar faces, people he thought he’d never see again. He wants to greet them, but they all seem to know that he is on a mission.

He keeps going. He doesn’t know how fast to move, but he feels like he’s floating on air. Who has been looking for him? How long must he sail these seas?

Then a soft voice calls to him. “Arthur…”

He turns quickly and sees a woman standing there. He doesn’t initially recognize her at first. After all, he was just a child when she died.

But then she speaks again. “It’s me.”

And he remembers.

“Mama?”

She beams. Her dark hair braided in a bun, her dress still remnant of the 1860s. She opens her arms to him and he enters into her embrace. It is warm and welcoming and he is almost taken back to when he was a boy.

They part and she holds her son in front of her, taking him in. “You’re all grown up…”

Arthur bashfully looks down. “Sometimes.”

“And so handsome.”

He smiles sheepishly and chuckles. “You’re just sayin’ that.”

His mother, Beatrice, looks into her son's eyes, and there is a tinge of sadness. All of those years she missed with her son. She didn’t get to see him grow up or learn what he had become. She wants to know how he’s been, but she isn’t sure where to begin. She reaches up and places a hand on his cheek. He is so much taller than her and towers over her. “It’s been a long time, my son.”

Arthur feels tears well in his eyes, but they don’t go beyond that. It is almost as though he is unable to cry. “I missed you, Mama.”

“I missed you too…”

“I lived a bad life, Mama. I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head regretfully. “No, I’m sorry. I'm sorry that I left you too soon. I wasn’t there to protect you from your father. I know he was hard on you.”

Arthur knows she’s putting it delicately, but she doesn’t know who he needed protection from after his father died. He wants to tell her now, but it can wait. They have plenty of time. So he decides to just say, “It’s more than that, Mama.”

But she has a reply. “Which is why you shouldn’t blame yourself. You’re here now, and that matters more to me.”

“Yeah, Hosea was just telling me.”

After a moment, Beatrice holds out her hand. “Come with me, my son.”

He hesitates, but takes her hand. Leading him gently, they walk through the fields of grass. As they add distance between themselves and the crowd, the scenery changes. What was once an open valley is now hills and mountains in the distance. Something about it begins to look familiar to him. As though it is a place he had been before.

Reaching the top of a small hill, Beatrice looks down into the valley below and smiles. Arthur follows her line of view and instantly feels himself frozen in disbelief.

A small boy, around four years old, is playing with a dark-coated Chesapeake Bay Retriever. The boy’s laughter carries throughout the land and echoes into the wonderful day-lit, starry sky.

He’d recognize the two anywhere: it is Issac and Copper.

He doesn’t have to wait long before the boy looks off in their direction. Their eyes meet and the boy recognizes his father. “Daddy!”

Arthur smiles. It isn’t forced or made to hide the pain and ache that he once felt. He really feels it this time. “Issac!”

Beatrice lets her son go and he runs down the hill to meet his son. Isaac goes to meet him, with Cooper happily running at his heels.

As soon as the boy is within arms reach, Arthur slides to his knees to hold him in his arms.

“My little bear, my son…” Arthur utters, as he can hardly speak.

Issac nuzzles into his father’s arm, relieved to feel the safety and warmth that he always craved. The last time he saw his father was nearly a year ago, in his mind, and even if he felt the weight of years that passed, his desire would be just the same.

“Papa bear!” the boy cries.

“Lemme look at you…!” Arthur holds Issac in front of him. The same. He looks the same as though nothing has changed. He doesn’t show signs of death, no bullets to mar his skin.

Issac turns his head and looks up to the side of Arthur. The boy’s eyes soften and he smiles. “Hi, Mommy.”

His eyes start at the skirt then follow all the way up. When their eyes meet he wants to question whether or not this is all real, but he knows it to be true.

It’s her. It’s Eliza. Her chestnut hair gleams from the light all around them. She may as well be the sun. An angel.

He rises to his feet but doesn’t move towards her. Isaac shifts back and forth between them, eager to see what will happen.

Her brown eyes bring him back. Back to that day he found the two crosses.

He walks to her. He touches her soft hair, then her shoulders, then her face. She holds his hands there for a moment as though she cannot believe it either.

A tear threatens to fall from his scarless face and she reaches to wipe it away. “No tears, Arthur.”

His hands remain on her face, his thumb gently caressing her cheek. The softness and warmth of her skin only validate the reality that he is here. Right now. With her. “I…I missed you so much.”

She now knows it has been a while. “I know, but it’s over now.”

He can’t help himself. After years of holding back, he longs to do what he should have done years ago. He kisses her.

As though creating a mutual understanding, Eliza responds in kind, pressing her lips deeper into his. She wraps her arms around his neck and he brings her up into his arms and lets the passion run its course.

After a moment, they break away. Arthur returns his woman to her feet and he feels a tug on his pant leg. They both look down. Isaac looks back up at them, extending his arms upward.

Arthur feels a swell of joy overcome him. He picks up his son and tosses him into the air. Isaac giggles with delight, holding out his arms. If Arthur throws him any higher, he could very well fly. Eliza, keeping one hand on Arthur, smiles gently. She had hoped that this day would come. Now Arthur is home and he is here to stay. No longer will he leave and no longer will she ever worry if he will ever return. Here, they are truly free to be together, and death can no longer separate them.

Arthur sets Isaac back down. Copper rushes to the boy and licks his face.

Arthur puts his arm around Eliza. With a gentle nod, she gestures over to a single house a few yards away. It looks almost like the home he had left behind many years ago. Only, it glistens. It were as though it were made of the purest gold.

Isaac takes his father’s hand. “Look it, Daddy!” he sighs.

Arthur can only look at her. She is more beautiful than anything he could ever lay his eyes on. “Eliza?”

She looks up at him. “Yes, my love?”

He loves to hear her say that. He takes in a deep breath as though he could inhale every lovely word she speaks. “Let’s go home.”

He feels her arm wrap around him. “Sounds wonderful to me.”

And as the sun and moon glide over the sky in their own paces, and the colors and stars of the galaxies dance, the wayfaring stranger walks through the fields with his loved ones. He was going over home.

[sensei-venus]

anyway I might be a masochist or a straight up wh*re but I can’t get the thought of og cobras with a chubby!reader out of my head and teasing her in school, staring at her, flipping her skirt up (Dutch would do it all the time imho) and telling her how hot she is, how that outfit looks so good on her, etc and she’s thinking that they’re just being dicks to her because she’s chubby and then one day she just has enough of it and confronts them and tells them to stop being dicks and they’re just like oops-

because I 100% agree that those boys are giant himbos so they were being genuine and flirting and teasing her because they like her and think she’s hot and they don’t realize that she thinks they’re being mean to her and they’re like “oh my god no-“

and yeah it ends up in a giant orgy of them showing her that they’re actually serious 🤤

No! I definitely get this and I love it. Honestly I love the trope where the more “bad guy character/s” pick on their crush but it's actually because their kinda stupid to the fact what they are doing can be seen as mean.

Half of them just think they are giving her compliments. And when she gets upset or mad they think she's trying to play with them, trying to play hard to get.

Bobby and Jimmy always give her straight-up nice compliments, like how her new hair style is cute or how pretty she is. They always take notice of her looks or how she's acting. Both of them are the first to know of she is doing something new with her make up or skin routine. Both of them are just overly sweet to her even if the other guys aren't.

Johnny and Tommy are the ones glaring her down from afar. They both talk about how hot she looks and how sexy she is. They don't go to overboard with the comments but they can't help but admit how attractive she is. As long as Dutch isn't around it's pretty tame conversations.

The minute Dutch is around, oh no because this guy can't keep his mouth shut for the life of him. He's always spewing something and he has no filter on his thoughts either. Everything always gets nasty when he's around and talking. All the bous could be sitting around and talking a out the pure thing they know about Reader, but then he opens his mouth.

Dutch is the starter if jerk circles and he knows it. It's all his fault and he's happy about it.

Besides Bobby, Johnny is actually one of the sweetest in the group. He's the first one to say something to her when they are all around. Yes his comments may be....a tad bit gross or borderline inappropriate but he's trying to be nice. He just doesn't seem to get that you can't say “Wow your tits look great stuffed into that shirt babe.” to someone and they automatically think you're a great guy.

Insert Johnny getting backhanded multiple times but never dodging. All the other cobras won't admit it but they think it's hot to see her get so mad.

Dutch definitely flips her skirts and dresses like a lot but never in front of too many people. Dude gets off on panty shots way to much. Of course the other boys don't mind it either. They all end up popping boners a lot because of Dutch’s gross stupidity.

They don't really understand until one day it goes a bit too far.

Dutch tries to pinch her hip to get her skirt to ride up just a little because he wants to get a good look at her thick thighs. They're so soft and pillowy. But her on accident actually snap her painted which makes her yelp and shoot up with a huge blush on her face while trying to hold her skirt down. She turns around and tells them off for once, not carrying about her normal shyness. She calls them assholes and morons and that she's tired of their bullying. They kinda scratch their heads at this because, like, their not bullying her? They wouldn't be complaining her left and right and trying to see up her skirt if they didn't actually like her.

At that moment they start to put together the pieces and realize the mistake. She actually thought they were picking on her and trying to make her into a joke.

After the incident they try to think of a way to get her to see they actually meant all of the nice things they said to her.

Which ends up being them inviting them over to Bobby’s, where they spoil her for the night with food and a movie. This ultimately ends with them in Bobby’s decked-out basement having a huge orgy. Jerking each other off before fucking the chubby girl. Taking turns using all her holes, and after a while, she gives them up. They switch from her mouth to her pussy to anything else she wants. It's pure bliss all night long.

And after the night is done, Reader fully understands that her new group of boyfriends isn't that bad. Their just stupid, aggressive himbos. But she wouldn't trade them for anything after finding out the truth, and giving them a lesson.

[veliseraptor]

April Reading Recap

so apparently I read a fuckton in April. I put that on the week off for Passover and also a number of very fast reads last month. here goes

The Spite House by Johnny Compton. Might be the best horror book I'd read in a while, and I did not see the twist coming for a long while. Good and very spooky on the whole, but the "creepy kids as ghosts" thing took some of the luster off it. Still, some good and original ideas here and I'll be watching for more books by this author.

The Nine Eyes of Lucien by Madeleine Roux. Not very good writing and a good third of the book was rehashing the events of the end of Campaign 2, which I just watched. It was fine, I guess? But I didn't find it added much.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. I've had this one on my list for literal years - it's a retelling of the Biblical story of Dinah, Jacob's one daughter. I kind of wish I'd read it sooner, when (a) I was less burned out on retellings/reinterpretations of familiar stories, and (b) when I would've been less bothered by the flavor of gender essentialism of the text and could have appreciated other things about it without getting stuck in feeling iffy about that. I am trying to work out why it bothers me so much that Diamant chose to change the reading of the text from (an implied) rape to a consensual love affair, and I'm not quite sure I can explain that.

It's an interesting book and I'm glad I read it but I don't think I'd recommend it without disclaimers; I think in some ways it's more interesting as an artifact of the cultural movement it comes out of than anything else. Would analyze in a class about Jewish feminist responses to stories in Tanakh (or Talmud, tbh).

Six Myths of Our Time: Little Angels, Little Monsters, Beautiful Beasts and More by Marina Warner. Fascinating collection of short essays originally given as lectures on the BBC, apparently - the one essay about the way the West conceptualizes the simultaneous purity/monstrosity of children was particularly interesting to me. Interesting piece of work I picked up totally by happenstance because it was short and looked interesting and it lived up to both qualities.

Gallows Hill by Darcy Coates. Good spooky horror recommended by @cigaretteburnslikefairylights and actually legit scared me in places, which doesn't happen all that often to me anymore when I'm reading horror. (I'm still a weenie watching it.) I actually...liked this one start to resolution and am going to be looking up more of Darcy Coates' writing, because if it's not, you know, doing something super ~innovative~ it is good spooky reading and that's really what I've been craving.

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded by Simon Winchester. Reading this book was a weird experience. I went into it just thinking "ooh, book about an interesting natural disaster, I love volcanoes" and came out of it going "whoa, surprise Islamophobia," checked the publication date, and learned it was 2003, whereupon I was miserably unsurprised. I don't know why the author felt like he needed to make colonial apologetics and blame the post-eruption upheaval on Islamic fundamentalists manipulating the natives into uprising against their Dutch masters but apparently he did. (I'm exaggerating. But not that much.)

The geology stuff was interesting. Mr. Winchester should've stuck with that and the reportage of the eruption itself and left politics out of it.

Violent Phenomena: 21 Essays on Translation ed. by Kavita Bhanot & Jeremy Tiang. This might be my favorite book I read in April, honestly. It's a really good collection of essays about the concept of decolonizing translation, and what that means, and whether it's possible, and the uneasy and uncomfortable relationship between translation and imperialism. I didn't agree with all the essays in here, and they didn't necessarily all agree with each other, but all of them at least had something interesting to say. I would recommend this one to people who can find it - it's by a small press - who are interested in translation or who frequently read in translation. The writers have a lot to say that I think is worth thinking about.

She Is a Haunting by Trang Thahn Tran. I think I just need to give up reading YA books with the realization they're generally not for me, though this one almost had me. It's something about the...I know there's a range of styles, I can't generalize style across the genre, but there is a texture to YA writing that doesn't quite work for me.

I love the concept - diaspora horror, colonialist horror, some really fucked up body horror stuff that got surprisingly gruesome - and would love to read a slightly different book about it, but alas, that book wasn't this one.

American Midnight: Democracy's Forgotten Crisis, 1917-1921 by Adam Hochschild. Another contender for favorite book I read this month though I think this one loses out to Violent Phenomena and possibly Gallows Hill, though comparing horror fiction to historical nonfiction feels kind of unfair. Anyway, I knew some of what this book was digging into - the Sedition Act and the intensely violent repression that was going on in the United States during World War I - but I learned a lot more here.

The depressing thing about reading this, though, was watching (so to speak) the brutal crushing of a once fairly robust American Socialist Party such that it never recovered. Not to mention the grinding down of the labor movement, which I think was at its most powerful during this period of time and hasn't been as strong since.

Just looking at that and wondering what might've been if Woodrow Wilson wasn't such a fucking dick.

Elektra by Jennifer Saint. I feel so funny about this book. I read another mythology retelling even though I swore not to because a Tumblr user I respect mentioned it being good; my experience was that it wasn't bad and it didn't actively bother me like some other retellings I could name, but I don't know that I'd actually call it good. Mostly I'd say I wasn't annoyed, just uninspired.

Of the three narrators, Elektra was definitely the best, and I really did like the construction of her relationship with Clytemnestra, which really felt like the meat of the book. (Perhaps, considering the House of Atreus, that's a bad turn of phrase to use.) The Cassandra sections felt like a distraction, mostly a way to keep the reader up with what was going on across the sea and provide some action in between the familial drama. Ultimately I just felt like those sections took away from the Elektra/Clytemnestra dynamic, leaving insufficient meat.

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach. I went through a period of time where I was reading all of Mary Roach's books, and was kind of obsessed with them, so this was sort of returning to an old and familiar friend. I found I wasn't quite as enamored with this one as I remembered being of some of her others (I think I remember Stiff being my favorite), but it was an interesting look at the intersections between human and animal - which is really more what this is about than law, per se. It's about what we do when animals cause problems for humans, from monkeys to bears, and the questions that are raised about the best way to handle those issues.

Nero: Matricide, Music, and Murder in Imperial Rome by Anthony Everitt & Roddy Ashworth. I'm so confused by this book. From the insistence on referring to Nero as "princeps" throughout the book, to the random dropping of French in places it really didn't need to be, to the frankly credulous approach to the sources, particularly when it comes to sex, even when the author mentioned how sex is often a proxy for politics in Roman historical writing, the weird sideways digression into "did Rome have gay marriage?", the weird "maybe she got what she deserved" aside about Messalina's death...

I learned a fair amount, I can say that, I'm not as knowledgeable about this period's Julio-Claudians. Frankly I think Agrippina (the Younger) was the real star of this book, despite Anthony Everitt's heroic efforts to make Nero the protagonist. Buddy, I see your point, but you're pushing a little too hard here.

Anyway. Weird reading experience, I'm tempted to recommend it just so someone else can either validate it or go "what are you talking about, this was a perfectly normal history book."

---

woof long post, but hey it was a lot of books. currently reading A Fever in the Heartland for more American racism in the early 20th century. I have a stack of library books that are waiting for me and I think the next one is probably going to be The Social Lives of Animals, which will either be really enjoyable or annoy the hell out of me, possibly both.

[crimsonscloud]

jelco was definitely into dutch, the show just doesn't call attention to it the same way it does with pawter.

with pawter he does a lot of things that imply he's attracted to her.

when johnny kisses pawter in front of him in wild, wild westerley jelco delivers a snide comment about how she's "a little out of your league, killjoy". shaft in particular has a lot of hints: he brings her flowers and invites her to dinner with him, tells her they can work together to get revenge on the families that abandoned them, and then there's the line he has where he's like "i need you, pawter. my heart needs you." in context he's really referring to his heart defect, but it means something else when you take it out of context, and the look on his face when he explains his defect to her tells me he knew she was taking it out of context. then there's the scene in full metal monk where she threatens him and he tells her power looks good on her.

all of this points to two things: either he's seriously flirting with her or he's trying to unsettle / manipulate her. another line in shaft ("back home, you wouldn't even need to look at me. but here you have to do what i say") hints that it's at least partially the latter, but lovretta seems to have left it up to interpretation.

with dutch, it's a lot more subtext.

when they first meet, this is his reaction to her cutting herself free from her bindings. he doesn't even look surprised, just turns his head because she's gotten his attention, and even stops his guards from intervening. he wants to see how this plays out, she's impressed him.

"are we going to serve this warrant for you or not?" "well, i think you'll do nicely."

his tone and the way he looks at her? definitely flirting.

the office scene is like this, too. jelco's explaining to the trio how his job is to put down the rebellion and whatnot. he gets into all of their personal spaces, but the camera lingers the longest on dutch when he talks to her last. and so we get this shot that i think about constantly.

(also, lol at the fact that when the camera is on jelco, you can see johnny looking to the side at d'avin in the background like "you seeing this shit?" he knows.)

this is the last time we see them interacting like this, since plot moves dutch away from the conflict with jelco and he becomes the antagonist more directly to johnny and pawter. until we get to johnny be good.

i didn't realize it at first, but there's a scene in this episode that feels like another hint when you look at it. dutch and pawter break into jelco's office and accidentally set off the security alarm, which triggers jelco to pop up via holophone. excuse the blurriness, but there's a shot in this scene that frames jelco directly between both dutch and pawter.

when he comments on them being in his office, remarking dryly that it's the "cherry on my day," they both think he's referring to themselves.

"i think he means me." "he probably means me."

coincidence? maybe. maybe not. but the subtext is there regardless.

also the fact that he pulls the exact same tactic with them, making himself necessary so that they don’t just immediately kill or discard him. “you help me, i’ll help you” with pawter and “you’re going to have to save me” with dutch. and lovretta’s comments about heist, heist baby and how jelco made a deal with borna for her protection, not his, and that’s how he fell in love with her … something about how that’s a common thread here.

heist, heist baby also canonizes the fact jelco is into strong women since he more or less says that about his wife, but that was already implied in his interactions with both dutch and pawter. i have a lot of issues with how jelco was written in that episode which i mention in his meta over here, but at least that part makes sense.

i think in general it's a power thing since jelco admits he likes people that are hard to read and neither dutch nor pawter are willing to show weakness to him, but that doesn't mean genuine attraction to either or even both is out of the question.

[desolateice]

✨What's a fic you've posted you wish you could breathe life into again and have people talking about it? (or simply a fic you wish got more credit)

🌈is there a fic that you worked *really fucking hard on* that no one would ever know? maybe a scene/theme you struggled with?

💥find your least kudos'd fic - say something wonderful about it.

💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

✨What's a fic you've posted you wish you could breathe life into again and have people talking about it? (or simply a fic you wish got more credit)

This is difficult because I feel like people go in waves and currently everything feels like it's in a lull. I ended up writing a lot more than planned so to save dashes I'm putting it all under a read more.

Like arguably root beer floats and green tea tends to every once in a while get hits, and I'll get comments as people read and then people tend to hit a wall or life gets busy and I never know if they actually finish it or if when I start responding to their comments when I have time if I scare them off 😅. Like did I say something that they didn't like and they noped out of there because tone doesn't transfer well to text? Or if life just gets busy or the fic is just so so very long. (Valid) I'm not sure how many people have actually finished reading it. The final chapter has one comment and the final chapters in general tend to have much less than the earlier ones. People generally, comment based, don't seem to make it to the end. Let alone past the Okinawan arc if they even make it there. The authors note is where most people actually left their comments which are more for the overall experience and the end of the journey which I greatly love and appreciate. But because I spent so long with time and energy (and research) on that fic I just want to know what did people like in the chapters. I wonder sometimes if that 100k chapter just is super overwhelming. Which is why I'm kind of debating cracking it into smaller chapters. Heck it freezes ao3 when I try to go back and edit issues I find in it. So I can only imagine. But at the same time, it's ridiculously long so I don't really feel comfortable asking for anything related to it because it's such a time commitment and no one owes me comments or anything. And the comments I have gotten and the messages are just always a delight and I'm very grateful. Because it does in fact have a lot of comments, the most I've ever gotten on anything. I'm not sure if that accurately answers that question. 😅

🌈is there a fic that you worked *really fucking hard on* that no one would ever know? maybe a scene/theme you struggled with? 😂 I'm amused you messaged me this since you get all my complaints. I worked really fucking hard on Root Beer Floats and Green Tea, but because there's so many notes and it's so long I think every one knows that. I worked really hard on Wisteria Sherbert but that was because I was trying to drop a long fic in a month. Really all of them. Except the Feast for Fools, that one I just had a ton of fun with and it went smoothly, though I did struggle a bit with the end and I do have some cut parts for that one. For example they were going to get married and Margaret had left designs for the arch and Johnny made it by hand. Put a ton of effort into that and then was like nah, 😂 this can end with them going on vacation. But as I've complained to you multiple times I fight a lot with Earl Grey. Here's a part I cut as a treat:

“Where are your friends?” Dutch looked blankly ahead. “You know it’s important to make the right friends. You’ve got a lot to uphold. Legacy.” Dutch’s fingers dug into his legs. Who’d been the ones to scare off his last batch of friends? “You can’t keep biting people.” They deserved it. He hated that they waited until moments like this to talk to him, talking out of the side of their mouths, barely moving their lips, too concerned with the painter getting something wrong. He knew he couldn’t have an outburst. Not in front of the painter. So he just dug his fingers deeper against his thighs. Nails digging in. “You need a partner. What about a nice girl?” Said the couple who suggested every girl he ever met was a gold digger, and not a single one was allowed on the property without being thoroughly vetted. What even was the point of it all? He smiled as angrily as a person could at the painter. Teeth gritted, trying his damn hardest not to let anything change in his position, in his face. Make friends. But no not those friends. Go out more But no not there. Not those places. Invite people over. But not those people. Dutch wanted to scream. Why did it even matter. They weren’t ever home anyway. So what if one of his friends pocketed the silver? So did that guy from Les Misérables. He stole silver from a church and bread and he was still a beloved character. He was the hero. So what did it matter? It wasn’t like the silverware was actually something they couldn’t replace. It wasn’t like the statues were being enjoyed. They were just collecting dust. Like all the gold and rubies and precious jewels. Dust. So much fucking dust. Like him. Just left with everything, alone in the house to collect dust.

💥find your least kudos'd fic - say something wonderful about it. 😂 That would be at the moment: Hardboiled Gunpowder Tea Dear little Tommy/Johnny fic you're new and only have 1 chapter, so it's okay that you don't have a lot of anything because there's not much to you anyway. I've got two-ish more chapters started and I know this is going to be research heavy because I want each chapter to talk about a different type of detective work/skill. So the first two are fingerprinting, i.e the first is how to dust, the second is how to tell what kind of finger print it is and then we're moving onto photography and old school darkroom work. I just maybe have gotten a bit too tied up into the mechanics and haven't figured out what is happening, who did it or how to get these two together yet. 😅 It's all sort of vague at the moment. But I love mysteries so I'm hoping to have a lot of fun with it. Plus it's the Tommy route of Root Beer Floats so....I at least have the world and relationships already down. 💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

I have two open WIP that are being posted and I've already talked about them so I guess I'll talk about the ones I'm debating about and one in my drafts. I have two Lawrusso and one Bobby/Johnny I've got that I'm planning. Since this is an I'll stick with the one that is actually started and not just stewing in my brain which has the place holder title: 🐔 which is sort of this deal Cookie and I made. I write this and Cookie will draw a horse, I mean that's not the whole deal but listen if I can write something that's been on my the back of my pile and it'll make Cookie move something from the back of the planned art pile then I feel like it's a win win right? 😂 So 🐔. Here's a clip, I might've already given you one that I inevitable cut in a different ask but I feel like this one, which also might get cut, is more of the thesis of the fic:

Johnny carefully took out the incubator and plugged it in, reading the instructions carefully and transferred the eggs into the machine, flipping on the switch to keep them warm. They were alive. Over a dozen eggs. Maybe 20 or so. Too many. Too many fucking eggs. Sensei, our assignment is to raise eggs and watch them hatch and take notes. But Mr. LaRusso planned our training session for the entire break out in the mountains so we can’t. They shouldn’t hatch while we’re gone, but please keep an eye on them and keep them warm. You shouldn’t have to do anything else. Thank you so much Sensei! You’re a life saver.

Johnny carefully took out the incubator and plugged it in, reading the instructions carefully and transfered the eggs into the machine, flipping on the switch to keep them warm. They were alive. Over a dozen eggs. Maybe 20 or so. Too many. Too many fucking eggs. "Sensei, our assignment is to raise eggs and watch them hatch and take notes. But Mr. LaRusso planned our training session for the entire break out in the mountains so we can’t. They shouldn’t hatch while we’re gone, but please keep an eye on them and keep them warm. You shouldn’t have to do anything else. Thank you so much Sensei! You’re a life saver."

But uh something that has me excited? When I originally envisioned it I wanted it to be a fix-it fic, but then I thought maybe I'll just have it focus on the chickens. But now I'm like well maybe I can fit some of that fix it into it. Which essentially is I had this idea about the baby. And I kind of like that plan (spoiler, no baby) and I wanted to explore this thing that I kind of explore frequently in the fics which is this promise they gave in the first couple of seasons that like Johnny does in fact learn but he stopped and they sort of made him a joke in the later season/let him backslide pretty far. I kind of took a shot at it with Wisteria Sherbert. But it's something I want to explore and I don't know if explaining it flat out is a spoiler. Like if people want that or not. Err I guess I'll write both the plans (the no baby and Johnny learning/backslide) and just stop now if you don't want to know.

🐔 So Carmen and Silver met, and Silver explains she's got a choice, she can either keep Johnny occupied while he deals with his issues with Daniel or the next time they interact he can't promise Johnny'll make out alive. And Carmen decides to fake it. She's a nurse, so she fakes the whole thing to keep Johnny busy but she doesn't necessarily want to marry him or have a real kid. That's part of it anyway. So I think that's going to be my start. And the Johnny backsliding from where he'd learned... So I realized or like wrote somewhere that something that bums me out is that like if you look at Johnny from the very first time we ever meet him in the Karate Kid is he's telling the guys, no thanks for the beer, I'm going to improve, I'm going to get better, I'm no longer going to have my life as a mess. And then he fails. And he just keeps failing. You add to it that pretty much everyone thinks he's an idiot, and I think if that happens enough times your self worth just tanks. He has pretty much no self preservation, he doesn't think about taking care of himself, not for himself anyway. So you take Kreese who tries to murder him for not getting first place, you add Sid who did who knows what and he has this fear of failure so great that he just can't try. Trying becomes so freaking hard, which leads to failing from the get go with Robby. But every once in a while he tries. Right? And he learns, when given the chance, but then he fails again, and people call him an idiot again. And so I think at some point it becomes just this defense mechanism. If he doesn't try, if he doesn't learn then he won't let anyone down. He'll just be an idiot to everyone around him and then that disappointment wont crush him and...arguably the won't leave or try and kill him for not being perfect. So my thought is that he's not an idiot, he's just using it as a shield. And he's pulled so deeply within himself so as not to get hurt. He's trying in ways, but no one's gotten to the kernel of it because when he does try and fail he fails in big ways. Like he screwed up, got a lady pregnant, and he screwed up with Robby so he's going to try but he's trying by like ways that would benefit others and not himself. I.e. cleaning and wearing a mask but taking it off to drink a beer so really not protecting himself beyond the barest minimum, or like being an awful rideshare driver because if he sucks at it well then he's not going to care if he fails. It feels like the dude's just limping through life. Occasionally he manages to walk, occasionally he takes a rest and gathers himself, but most of the time he's wounded. And I think part of that is the only person he thought who believed in him unconditionally died. (Laura) and every other person who believes in him, well it's conditional. I mean even Miguel took away his trust and belief in him. (For valid reasons) but with his shattered self esteem I think it just makes things so much harder on him.

Anyway so I'm going to give him chickens. And he's going to fucking nail it and he's going to heal and open up and he's going to realize he can fuck up without it being the end of the world and he's going to show everyone he's not the dumb blonde they think he is and that he can take care of himself and not have to be perfect. Or at least that's the plan. That's the goal.

Thank you for the writers ask. These are from this list.

[80s4life]

Little Dove*

Word Count: 3,949

Status: Not Requested!

A/N: Had a thought lol

Fandom: Karate Kid 1985

Relationship: John Kreese x Student!Female Reader

Summary: You had stayed around throughout all of his bullshit. Throughout the beginning of a forever-long battle with Daniel LaRusso, throughout losing all of his Cobra Kais, going through crippling debt, and now, more than ever, as he tries to put himself together. You’ve been there, the whole time. So why is it, that when a random man from his past appears, all of his problems are fixed without a glance your way? What does this Terry Silver have that you don’t (besides endless money and a history)? It’s unfair. It’s selfish. It’s Kreese.

Taglist: @intersellars-the-alien-of-human @snapessecretdiary

Warnings: smut, teasing, jealousy, age-gap paring, language, Terry being an overprotective cockblock, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it), slight dubcon, daddy/little girl kink, degrading kink

Masterlist Karate Kid Masterlist

{not my gif, credits belong to @atmostories​}

I just love how innocent he looks here lol ^

Staring into the window of his office, you make no attempt in engaging in the conversation your peers were having, the people on the other side of the glass proving to be more interesting at the moment. Besides, it’s the same conversation over and over again, “Terry’s so great,” “The money,” “The brawn,” “The elegance,” you snort. All that Terry was anyway was trouble with enough money to pay off his stupidity. 

The other man, however, was different. He did not become as fortunate as his younger companion. He went through many hardships that Terry would simply never understand. The proof: you. You had been there, through thick and thin. You can still remember the fights, injuries, and brokenness of a man like a slideshow constantly playing in your head, haunting your dreams. You should’ve left a long time ago, but you didn’t. There were points in your life that made you consider dropping him and everything he was in contact with at one point. But, yet again, you never did. All you did was forgive and forget, most of the time without apologies.

But no matter how much you’ve tried, there was always one outlier that couldn’t be erased. 

Holding onto your brothers shoulder, you congratulate him on how well he’d done. He lost the tournament, but it was his heart that shined through it. Johnny was the one who handed LaRusso his trophy even as they were beating each other senseless moments ago. Pulling him in tightly, you whisper, “You did good, Blondie. We’ll get ‘em next year.” 

He smiles broadly at this, returning the favor, “You didn’t do too bad yourself, Tiny. Hell, maybe next year, you’ll be the one to beat his ass for me... That, or you’ll be the same height as him,” he ruffles your hair.

“Shut up!” you swat his hands playfully, shouldering his side, then making your way over to the man of the hour. “Congratulations,” you outstretch your hand, “You were tough to beat! I’ll get ya one day though!” you point to him smiling as Johnny pulls you out of the arena with him.

“Thanks...Oh, and I’ll hold you to it!” he yells back, lifting his trophy high above his head. You leave with a sly smirk and playful roll of the eyes, not bad LaRusso.

Walking outside, you smile at Kreese nervously, knowing that he wasn’t going to take the loss lightly. Ignoring you completely, he snatches your brother from your grasp within moments, pinning him the the nearest car in the parking lot. With Johnny under the weight of Kreese, you try to yank him off, no longer in fear of your actions but what could happen if you don’t act fast. Shoving you out of the way with a hard jab of his elbow to your eye, Kreese goes back to harming your brother, switching positions as he goes to tighten his arm around Johnny’s neck.

Tommy, fearing for his life, stands still, on the verge of passing out. Dutch goes to help you up, pulling you away from Kreese’s proximity, but not for long. Full of anger and disappointment, you tear you body away from Dutch’s, giving him a stern look that he acknowledges and respects, stepping back. You run towards Kreese once more, putting more force into your pushes and shoves. He catches your eyes for a moment, anger glazing over his own as he gets a good look at the utter helplessness and determination within your own. He doesn’t loosen up though, tightening his hold even more so as if to test you. 

Lunging once more, he blocks you from him and counters with a hard blow to your face. You fall again at Kreese’s feet, Johnny’s purpling face looking down at yours in fear and worry. As you go to make a final attempt, your prayers are answered, a man about your height grabbing Kreese’s fist in a vice grip. In a daze, Johnny is able to slip from his hold to the ground beneath him, falling into your outstretched arms as you lunge, again, to protect his head. Kreese, now turning his fury onto the short man, goes for a punch, missing and smashing the glass beside his target.

As the fight starts to get worse, Dutch gets a hold of Johnny, taking his weight off of yours and dragging him to safety. Jimmy and Bobby, going to help Dutch, leaves Tommy to help you up. Taking his hand gratefully, you are able to see Kreese’s demise clearly, a burning crimson decorating his now busted fists, no doubt shredded and in need of medical care. You turn back just in time for him to look your way, grief washing over your figure as you feel a sense of uncertainty. 

The boys get into Johnny’s car quickly, pulling out of the car lot. Tommy, silently turning his calming body to yours, questions you with his eyes. Shaking your head lightly, you signal for him to go with them, your head hazy with the brute force of numerous blows previously clashing with your face. He nods knowingly, smiling weakly, as if questioning your motives or even why you were considering the choice you’d made up. Johnny looks back at you too, but is reassured as the short man, Mr. Miyagi, places a hand on your shoulder. As they peel out of the lot, you sigh and all the strength you’d conjured dropped instantly.

“You need checkup,” the older man states, looking you over.

“Yeah, but I need to take care of him first,” you point at the man.

“Ah. Good heart always forgives. You come by dojo sometime.”

“I’ll think about it,” you answer, kindly excusing yourself as LaRusso runs over to Miyagi, leaving just you and Kreese left in the parking lot.

Slowly, you pace yourself as to not speed too closely, too quickly to the man, walking lightly and quietly. Upon entering a close proximity, he looks up, neutral expression catching you off guard. Blinking once, he looks back down at his continuously bleeding hands, acknowledging your presence but not daring to step the line of communication. He never does.

“Do you...Do you n- ...?” you start, at a loss for words as you try to rephrase the question in a way to still make him feel superior without appearing weak to himself, “Do you want my help?”

He doesn’t say anything as an answer, just simply stares at the reddening hands.

So, following his chosen behavior, you adopt it and act the same. Slowly, you take off your fleece sweater, soft and warm to the touch, and move closer to Kreese. As you move into his personal space, you don’t dare look him in the eyes, and go to rip a piece of the sweater in half. Silently, you carefully take one of his hands in your own, them swallowing yours in turn. Wrapping the now torn cloth around his fists, you slightly tighten the material around the injury to prevent further bleeding, tying off the ends to keep the sweater where you want it. Turning to do the same for the other hand, Kreese never winces, or sucks in a breath, or even grunts in anguish.

As you finish your duty, you step back, parts of your hands and some of your pants now coated in differing amounts of blood from the constant dripping mess he’d left it in for a while. Taking in a deep breath, you look at him directly for the first time of the night, “Get in the car.”

That was the first of many nightmares that litter your mind. You grew into a tough, headstrong, and independent woman not only physically, but mentally as well. You were no longer the child looked down from the tip of Kreese’s nose, and despite your height not making much of a difference, you had filled into your body, soul, and mind. You were a woman nonetheless.

You were understood by Johnny, but to an extent. As you had continued to serve Kreese, it was only right that Johnny distanced himself from him, and with that, came you as well. You accepted this, and knew that you were not at war with him, settling for calls and texts when you missed him most. Johnny still allowed you the time to talk about your problems like you did in high school, and even let you rant about the newest situation with Kreese. Everyday, he worried for you, but he knew that this was what you wanted. 

He knew you fell for him before you even had.

After that night, you went through phases with Kreese: sometimes he was happy and nice to you, other times was full of anger, arguments, and nonstop screaming at one another. You were like an old married couple without the ring, matrimony, and age. You didn’t pay any mind to it, the mixture of feelings for him stronger than the will to leave as you’d wanted to in your youth.

But overall was the feeling of betrayal, or at least a form of it. For 4 years, after the night of the failed tournament, you were with Kreese, and finally, when things started to clear themselves out, another problem arose. Although shit out of luck, Kreese was ready to give up the dojo, give it to the owner, and move on in hopes of wiping the slate clean. You were ready to forgive him. And then, Terry Silver, unable to let the past be the past, convinced Kreese to give it a second try.

Now as you sit in a circle with Dennis, Mike, and Snake on the mat of the dojo, doing some stretches before training starts, you couldn’t help but look at the men excluding you from something you had tried to keep alive as long as they had. Longer than Terry at least. 

Snapping sounds through your frustrated haze, knocking you back into reality by Snake’s fingers. Scrunching your nose in confusion, you look at him, anger now turned towards him instead. “You keep drooling like that and we’ll all be slipping around and breaking shit. Then how would we be at the tournament?”

“Fuck you, Snake,” you get up, stomping to the office without another word. He just turns a mock-offended expression to the boys who give confused ones in return.

Storming into the small cubicle deemed an office, you turn to the men standing side-by-side. “Aw, what’s the matter sweetheart? The boys not playing fair?” Terry teases, trying to push your buttons.

Face now reddened with anger, you spit, “We don’t pay for you to sit around in your office and play with each other’s dicks. You can do that on your own time.”

“You don’t pay period as far as I’m concerned. And last time I checked, you weren’t of much use here anyways, Shortcake,” Terry rebuttals.

“And last time I checked, you're just here to tie your hair back, paint your nails, torture a kid half your age and an man even older than you.”

“Why you-!”

“Terry!” Kreese warns, a hand placed on his comrades’ chest, “It’s not worth your time, just go get the boys readied up for practice.”

“Sure...sure Johnny, I can do that,” he says eagerly, leaving the room with a side glance your way and elbow to the shoulder as he passes by.

Getting up from the back of the desk, Kreese loops around to close the office door, going back to where he was previously. “Wow, you really have that dog under wraps huh? Ready to bark when you say ‘bark’ or growl when you say ‘growl’?”

“Y/N, not now. You better cut this shit out now or I’ll kick you out,” he warns.

“Oh, so now your protecting him?! You’re going to sit here, right now, and threaten me for what? Because he served with you? Because you saved him?! What a load of shit!”

“Watch your mouth! You have no right to raise your voice to me! What I do with this dojo is none of your damn business, and will certainly never concern you. Ever.”

“Oh yeah! For sure! What did he even do, huh? What’s so great about him that is worth protecting his ass for when he’s never had to do anything in return?! I was there John! I was! I dealt with your shit for 4 years! Not 1! Not 2! Not even fucking 3!”

“I never told you to! No one was stopping you from walking out that damn door when everyone else had! I would’ve done perfectly fine without your ‘help’ when all it did was provide extra shit to take care of!”

“Really?! That’s what it was? Nothing? I dealt with your anger issues, your screaming! The god damn punches, kicks, spits, screams, hell anything you wanted to do in order to harm someone else to make you feel better! But that wasn’t me... No... Of course it wasn’t, right?”

“I’ve got no time for this. Stay in this fucking room and don’t move. You even dare come out into that dojo and you’re out. I have a winner to make and not some little girl to argue with.”

“Fuck you,” you spit, tears pooling at the bottom of your eyelids as the door hides you from view.

For hours, you sit in boredom, listening to the repetitive “hut” or “ah” as blow after blow is thrown into the dummies and punching bags. If only they could do that to me, take me out of my misery for fuck’s sake. But, despite the utter pissed state you were in, you did not move from the desk, even deciding to take a nap. It wasn’t until Dennis’ unusually loud laugh is echoed within the whole dojo do you finally wake back up. Looking through the blinds, you see the boys getting packed up. Doing the same, you walk out of the office just in time for Terry to leave with the boys a few moments later.

Speeding across the length of the mats, you take long strides in order to storm as fast as possible out of the cage that holds the biggest chains around your neck. Going for the door, you are unable to catch yourself as Kreese grabs your hand and flips you onto your back, splaying your body on the mats beneath you.

Groaning, you move to sit up, watching as he goes to lock the door to the dojo, throwing the keys somewhere and closing the blinds of the big glass panes adorning the front wall. Getting up, the harbored anger floods your being once more, “I’m done with your bullshit Kreese. Let me the fuck out so I can leave this place once and for all. You seem to be doing ‘perfectly fine’ with your boyfriend, so let me go!”

Without answering, he grabs you by the neck firmly, but not enough to choke you. The memories of Johnny instantly flood your mind, causing you to grab his hand just as tight, eyes peering straight into his. Noticing your change in demeanor, he loosens his hold a little and pushes your back up against the closest wall to your back. As your back collides with the wall, his lips clasp yours.

Whining in surprise, you go to pull back only for him to pull you closer by the neck. Realization dawns on you after a moment, and within seconds, your leaning into his touch absentmindedly. You only break apart once your lungs beg for more air. “There. Is that what you wanted?” he asks you, voice gravelly.

Ignoring his comment, you grab him by the nape of his neck, pulling him into you once again, tongue battling his own. Your tongue dances around, observing every crevice and tasting every bit of his mouth, grazing his teeth, biting his lips, and even tangling it with his. Taking control back, he shoves your body back into the wall, separating your mouth from his, a trail of saliva the only thing connecting your bodies.

His hand, long forgotten and hanging loose on your neck, tightens the grip back up firmly once again and moves his other to pin your arms above your head. Now basking in dominance, he kisses you once more, pinning his knee between your legs in the most delicious way. Taking advantage of the placement, you attempt to grind your core against his thigh to relieve some tension. 

“Ah. Ah. Ah,” he warns, pulling his knee away and moving to unbuckle his belt instead, “On your knees, Slut.”

Obeying instantly, you do as he says and place yourself on your knees. Finally undoing the tie of his gi, he pulls his pants, alongside his underwear, down just enough to let his dick spring free. Gulping in admiration, you take in the view of his girth and length, precum oozing at the tip.

“Looks like your happy to see me,” you joke, loosening your tension in your shoulders.

Stepping closer, Kreese edges closer to your mouth, and, taking the hint, you wrap one hand around the base of his shaft. Your other hand, deciding teasing is the best get-back, wraps itself closer to the tip, thumb grazing the slit. Earning a shudder of pleasure from the man, he goes to move in closer again. Pulling your head away, you squeeze the tip loosely, staring up at Kreese.

At your locked gaze, his cheeks burn bright pink, enabling you to give the man what he wants now that he’s at a loss for words and flustered for you. Taking him into your mouth little by little, you stop just before the barricade of choking. Eyes locked onto his, you place your hands on either side of his hips for support, then take him in as fully as physically possible. Instantly, you are met by struggling moans of relief.

Swirling your tongue around and lapping at his veiny member, he struggles to control himself, the undying need for more consuming him. Pulling away just enough to keep the tip in your mouth, you nod at him, giving him the okay to do as he pleases. That was all he needed to start going, pulling your mouth around his cock again, and tangling his hands in your hair for a better grip. Thrusting into your mouth now, you try your best to breathe as you feel him start twitching, knowing you will be fine in a few minutes.

The closer he gets to ecstasy, the louder he gets, hips thrusting in any possible direction as his pleasure threatens to bubble over. “Look at me,” he orders, looking you in the eyes. Slightly confused, you do as told, looking at him through your eyelashes as he continuously uses your mouth. “That’s it, Good Girl.”

Without warning, he unleashes his load into your mouth, the hot and sticky cum shooting to the back of your throat, forcing you to swallow. Licking up the remains, you make a show of swallowing the contents as well, getting back onto your feet with a help of his hand. Pulling your body into his, he kisses you deeply, tasting himself.

You whine as you are still left in uncomfortable need for him, having not gotten your share just yet, the feeling of being filled a painful reminder. “Don’t worry, Daddy’ll take care of you.” And that, he does, getting to work on untying your gi and throwing the long-sleeved shirt over you head. Doing the same to him, you match his enthusiasm, pulling his shirt off and throwing it somewhere in the room. 

Playing with your clothed breasts, Kreese slips a hand under your bra to pinch your nipples, twisting them between his middle and fore fingers. Moaning, you pull him into your chest nibbling his ear. Gliding his hands down your sides and to your waist, he slowly edges his fingers slightly underneath your pants, pushing them down with your panties. As he busies himself with your clothes, you move your hands behind your back to unclasp your bra, breasts springing free and instantly hardening at the new temperature of the room.

Fingers, teasing your entrance, catches you off-guard, moaning again at the first shocks of pleasure. “Kreese,” you start breathlessly, “Enough is enough. Mgh... Stop teasing me,” you try to order, impatient and horny.

“As you wish, Princess.”

Lifting up one of your legs and wrapping it around his hipbone, he lines himself up with your entrance, entering slowly. Together, you sigh in ease simultaneously. Nodding once, you lean your forehead underneath his chin, starting to thrust slowly. Knowing this isn’t the pace he prefers, and body adjusting to his shape, you pull him in closer, whispering in his ear, “Faster, Daddy.”

Jolting at the name, he fastens the pace, grinding in rougher strokes, rubbing every part of you body in the best way possible. No one’s ever filled you the way he is now, and it leaves you stunned in a trance of utter euphoria. Tapping your other leg, you hop up to warp both legs around Kreese. At the new angle, he thrusts upwards, the overstimulation causing you to shake in a new sensation. 

Squeezing his dick tightly, you try to hold your orgasm off for as long as possible, but the building want of release causes you to topple over the edge quickly, spilling all over the body still within your own. Without faltering, Kreese continues his assault on your body, causing you to scream out in the fury of pleasure being all too much for you. Shaking harder, you struggle to keep yourself around his body for long.

Seeing this, Kreese keeps himself sheathed in your cunt, laying you on your back against the mats of the flooring. Grabbing your legs, Kreese bends them until your thighs meet your chest. Then, thrusting at the same pace as before, Kreese is able to fuck you senseless without further issues. Moaning screams of ecstasy echo throughout the dojo, the combination of yourself and the slapping of skin being the only noises in the room.

As quickly as you’d built up the previous time, your orgasm and need of release forms again, your pussy throbbing in anticipation.  “Kreese..” is all you manage, the older man quickly teetering towards the edge with you. Thrusting the hardest he had the whole night, he manages only a few more before you both come at the same time, screaming as you pull him down by the neck and into your chest, your name falling from his tongue in multiples.

Sucking in as much air as possible, Kreese and you stay in the same position panting before he unsheathes himself and collapses next to you. Catching your breath, you cuddle into his side in a naked heap of sweat and satisfaction. “Are you still jealous of Terry now?”

“It depends, am I still as useless as before?”

“I don’t believe so,” Kreese giggles, “but if you pull another crazy stunt like that, I will really have to give you a good beating. Huh, Babydoll?”

“I like the sound of that,” you say, going to straddle his hips as he lays on his back, “How about round two and I’ll consider not ripping his throat out?”

“Deal.”

[rosesradio]

LawRusso, and for the prompt...sleepover?

ooh thanks for the prompt! <3 this one got out of hand lol. cw for underage drinking and it gets into light smut territory so apologies if that isn’t your thing! (i just modeled it a bit after ctp since i assumed you liked it? lol)

Daniel twirled the phone cord around his finger, grinning despite the nerves fluttering about in his stomach.

"I can't believe he's really doing it!" Ali whispered, to which Jessica playfully swatted her arm.

"He's only been checking him out for forever!" Jessica muttered. "I was gonna say something for him, but--"

"Guys, shh!" Daniel put a finger to his lips, a giggle escaping them. Yeah, he'd probably had a bit much to drink. If he tried to stand now, well, he'd probably fall forward like a rag doll. In his defense, it wasn't his fault. Alcohol wasn't his thing, but with Ali's parents gone and her somehow getting her hands on a margarita kit, well...it wasn't his fault they came in all those sweet fruity flavors.

"Weinberg residence, this is Johnny," Johnny's voice answered, slightly sleepy given the time of night.

"His voice is so warm!" Daniel whispered, eyes wide with fascination as he grasped Jessica's arms, and the two collapsed into another round of giggles.

"Daniel, is that you?" Johnny asked. "What are you doing, man?"

"He recognized my voice!" Daniel hopped up on Ali's bed, leaving the phone behind.

"Get the phone, Daniel!" Ali grabbed it and put it on the bed, handing him the phone to make conversation inescapable. "Go on, be charming!"

"Oh, hey, you!" Daniel started, his face flushing bright red. "I'm super charming, aren't I?"

"Sure...?" Johnny replied. "Are you prank calling me, of all people? Ali has Dutch's number, he's a lot more gullible than me."

"No, I'm not prank calling you!" Daniel replied. "I wanted to tell you something. Something secret. And you have to promise not to tell anyone else, ever. Do you promise?"

"Oh," Johnny sounded slightly taken aback. "I guess so, yeah, I'll keep quiet..."

"Okay," Daniel took a deep breath. He had a weird taste in his mouth from the alcohol, but also the taste of strawberries. Ali had cut him off though; any more, she said, and he'd get sick. "I think you're the prettiest boy in the world, Johnny Lawrence." he looked over at Ali and Jess, who were staring back with flushed faces.

"Larusso," Johnny said, voice hushed. He sounded almost sad, wistful. "Daniel, you can't just...you can't just say stuff like that..."

"Why not?" Daniel asked, and he hated how his voice sounded slightly whiny. "It's true."

"Are you drunk?" Johnny asked, agitation leaking into his tone.

"A little," Daniel admitted. "But I meant it before, too, before the drinks. Do you wanna come over and have a drink? We have strawberry and peach left."

Daniel heard a sigh on Johnny's end of the call. "I'll be there in five." With that, he hung up the call.

"He's coming over!" Daniel covered his blushing face. "He's gonna want a drink--oh my gosh, I'm nervous!"

"Sober up, Larusso!" Ali demanded. "What if he wants to take you out and hook up?"

"Hook up?" Jessica frowned. "But I don't want Daniel to leave..."

"We're not gonna hook up," Daniel insisted. "He's probably just...what if he tries to fight me? He did think we were prank calling, and he said I can't call him pretty..."

"He's not gonna fight you. Trust me, we're well past that." Ali insisted. "He's probably here to tell you he likes you, too, super romantic stuff--"

"Does Johnny know how to be romantic?" Jessica asked. "I don't exactly see him coming down here on a white horse, asking for Daniel's hand."

"Sure he can," Ali shrugged, fishing around for the bag of gummy bears she was working on earlier. "Or, at least he's good in the sack--"

"Who's good in the sack?" a new voice asked, and Johnny Lawrence was crawling in the window.

"Johnny!" Daniel went over to help him, though he was mostly inside already, but he gladly held onto Daniel's hand for a few moments longer than necessary.

"Oh, just your mom. I was giving it to her good last night," Ali replied.

"Oh haha," Johnny sneered, flipping her the bird. "Anyways, um..." his expression turned more reserved, and as much as he seemed embarrassed by it, he seemed unable to keep his eyes off Daniel. "You wanted to talk to me?"

Daniel nodded. "You want a margarita? I like the strawberry...which is why there's not much left, but there's plenty of the peach."

Johnny looked over to where Jess was making herself another generous glass and grinned back at Daniel. "I'm not here for your fruity drinks, Larusso." he said, taking a step towards Daniel, his voice low.

"Then what are you here for?" Daniel whispered, holding onto Johnny's arms, looking up into his eyes.

"Okay, I'm leaving," Jessica shook her head, starting to get up, but Ali grabbed her arm.

"No, no way. These two idiots are not doing it on my bed. You two, lovebirds, get a room." Ali said. "And not my room. Actually, not any room. Keep it PG, please?"

"I was going to--" Johnny started, but Daniel grabbed his wrist and pulled him out, into one of the several guest bedrooms in the mostly empty house.

"Daniel," Johnny murmured. "What you said on the phone earlier..."

"I meant it," Daniel replied, wrapping his arms around Johnny's neck. "You're so pretty, it's hard to look at, but I can't help it, too..."

Johnny's eyes looked dark and full of want. "I'm not kissing you when you're drunk, or anything else...even if you might taste like strawberries..."

"Are you sure?" Daniel asked, pulling away reluctantly, his eyes more Bambi-like than ever. "'M not that drunk..."

"I'm sure," Johnny chuckled, pressing a kiss to Daniel's cheek, the kiss somehow just as longing as one on the lips would have been. "I just wanted to see you, to hear it in person. Now, do you wanna go back to your sleepover, or do you want me to take you home, or something?"

Daniel hummed in thought. "Could we just lay down here for a bit? I just like being with you..."

"Yeah, 'course..." Johnny got under the covers, patting the spot beside him with a nervous smile, and Daniel got on the bed, pulling them off Johnny. "Daniel, what--"

"Can I...?" Daniel put a hand on Johnny's thigh, giving it a gentle squeeze, a sharp jolt of nerves going through him at the beautiful sound of his hitched breath. "Can I sit here, please, Johnny?"

Johnny made a sound like a dog's chew toy being ran over by a steamroller, which made Daniel laugh, but he managed: "Yeah. Yeah, that's alright..."

Daniel swung a leg over Johnny's, straddling his hips, hands cradling Johnny's face. "Just one kiss? Just say the word and I'll stop..."

Johnny admired the boy sitting on his lap, from his tousled hair all the way down to his thighs resting on his own, not to mention the smooth arch of his back. Johnny's hands wondered down his back to the curve of his ass, resisting the urge to squeeze, to flip Larusso over and take what he wanted. “One kiss,” he replied in a whisper, as if whispering, doing these things subtly was okay.

Daniel smiled at him so sweetly then, before closing his eyes and pressing his lips to Johnny’s. It was soft, faint, like a fairytale kiss; for a terrifying moment, Johnny felt as if he’d forget what it felt like if he didn’t get another one.

But he did.

Daniel’s kisses slowly melded into something of more desire, a plea, a bargain. His fingers tangled into Johnny’s hair as he let out a low moan against his lips. Johnny’s hands moved away from Daniels ass and went instead to rub his inner thighs, relishing the gentle whine against his lips, his kiss tasting like candy.

Johnny finally managed to pull away, his forehead resting against Daniel’s. “You are not playing fair,” Johnny protested, though he definitely did not mean any of the complaining tone in his voice. “That wasn’t one kiss.”

“Yeah?” Daniel grinned smugly, rolling his hips down onto Johnny’s lap, relsihing the feeling of how hard he was against him, drinking in the pretty choked noise Johnny made. “That’s usually my rule, Johnny. I can never leave well enough alone. If you want something done...” he tilted Johnny’s chin up with just his index finger, their eyes meeting with enough electricity to sting. “I’ll give it to you twice...”

“Fuck,” Johnny whispered, and next thing Daniel knew, he was being dumped onto the bed awkwardly on his side, Johnny starting out of the room.

“Johnny?” Daniel started. “What the hell, man, what are you doing?”

Johnny looked back, expression unable to hide the want in his eyes and the way his cheeks flushed. “I’m gonna get more drunk than you,” he replied. “So we’re even. Besides, I bet your fruity drinks aren’t half bad...” he winked, and with that, he wondered down the hall, leaving Daniel perplexed and particularly needy.

[chaotictommy]

Christmas Writing Prompts 🎄

Character A and Character B both sign up for a Christmas Pen Pal project to exchange postcards.

Christmas 1985, Just two guys sending pen pal letters back and forth without a clue that they were ex-Karate rivals. Daniel is lonely since Ali left him at prom, and Johnny is just as lonely... but won’t admit it, and his life has become anything but holly or jolly. Enter Bobby, Jimmy, Tommy, and Dutch, a little holiday magic, some tricks and a little Secret Santa. when they finally meet again, will they put aside their differences when they discover the truth? Or will it be a rematch of the century? Only Johnny and Daniel can say for certain, in a season where everything is far from certain.

Chapter II. will be out soon as I can...

A Christmas gift for @dorkybilly @resedacitrus & @wanderingspiritys ... happy holidays!!!

What Comes Around, Goes Around or Christmas with the Cobras

— LawRusso —

Chapter I. Rocking Around in a Christmas Tree

Johnathan,

I don’t really know why my mom signed me up for this, it’s stupid really... she thinks I need people to talk to since my girlfriend, Alison, dumped me at prom, so I can be truthful when I say that I’m not really in the holiday spirit. What about you?

Your friend, Danny.

“Honestly man, I think this is a great idea, who knows, he might be a really great guy,” Bobby Brown states as he’s stringing Christmas lights around a large tree in his family’s front yard. Tommy’s up in the top of the tree, swaying dangerously back and forth as he rushes to set the Christmas star on the top.

“Tommy get down from there,I’m giving you till three... one, two...” Bobby shouts in exasperation, before he turns back to his friend and shrugs “Who knows, man, he could be the one,” Bobby states with a broad teasing smile as he plugs the lights in. Minutes later there’s a sharp cry and Tommy plummets down, taking a strand of Christmas lights with him.

When he finally hits the ground, he’s wrapped up in multicolored lights and wires, and Bobby is concerned, he’s the first over, and he comes with equal parts of chastising and comforting. He hurriedly checks Tommy over for injuries, while Tommy’s eyes are tight shut and he looks like he’s passed out. Johnny, Dutch, and Jimmy are all hovering around his head while Bobby’s at his side “Tommy? Tommy come on man? Tommy say something? Anything?”

Johnny can hear Bobby starting to freak out, to panic, and he feels helpless until he sees a slight movement from Tommy, and relaxes, but Bobby’s still tense beside him and trying to do everything he can to help their possibly injured friend. Bobby shakes Tommy gently, rapidly losing his calm “Tommy say something!?”

“I —,” Tommy blinks and flutters his eyes before he glances around then at Bobby “I think I broke something,” Bobby is so done, but that comment almost puts him over the edge until Tommy extracts the crushed remains of a candy cane from his pocket and groans while he surveys the damage “Oh my candy cane, Ouch!” He’s not ready when Bobby smacks his head and starts yelling, panic briefly fighting through his calm demeanor “You idiot! I was worried about you! You’re lucky all you’ll have is some bad bruising! You could’ve actually broken something! Are you crazy!?” Tommy apologizes in a small embarrassed whisper, and Dutch, Jimmy, and Johnny break down into laughter “Bobby, give him a break,” Johnny laughs and starts untangling Tommy from the Christmas lights “He looks alright, he’s always alright, remember?” He’s met with a skeptical glance and a slight shrug, before Bobby’s helping in untangling their friend.

“Hang on man, I’ll have you out in a minute...” Bobby mutters, rolling his eyes at Johnny, a look which Johnny returns “Honestly, man, you should try it, who knows — you could find out you like it,” Dutch looks over at Johnny then at Bobby, in confusion “What’s up?” “I signed Johnny up for a holiday pen pal program, since he refuses to talk to us about the shit we all went through together... I thought it might help him talking to somebody else...”

[theladyragnell]

Tag game from @flammablehat, thank you very much, darling!

Rules: List the first lines of the last ten (10) stories you published.   Look to see any patterns you notice yourself, and see if anyone else notices any. Then tag some friends.

And I’m just going to tag anyone who’s in the mood and is in the mood to analyze some of their own writing!

1. Johnny taps on the door pretty soon after everything quiets down. (all some children do is work, Killjoys, gen, 3k)

2. yo I’m in spain hear you are too hit me up if you want (if you could redirect my day, Ted Lasso, Roy/Jamie/Keeley, 11k)

3. “He loves her. The Marshal.” (Some Place Better Than Where You’ve Been, Leverage, Parker/Hardison/Eliot(& Team), 4k)

4. In the city of Tyne, there are two pots of spaghetti sauce simmering on stovetops. (a phenomenon no one can explain, The Campaign of Five Dragons, Valira/Haoti, 18k)

5. “We can’t really get married,” Parker says one night, and is really sorry she can’t see Hardison’s face in the dark, because he definitely drops something. (and we’ll take it slow, Leverage, Parker/Hardison/Eliot, 600)

6. “We need a dog.” (we would stay away from crowds, Leverage, Parker/Hardison/Eliot, 300)

7. She has, in the fifty years and more she has been building her position here, heard of the Fairy of the Border Tower. (waiting for the world to turn once more, Sleeping Beauty, gen, 3k)

8. Most days, Phi meets Quil at the ship’s rail in the morning, when the sailors on the night shift are yawning their way to their hammocks and the rest are eating in the galley, arguing over who is taking which post for the day, drinking weaker coffee the farther they get from any ports that have any to sell them. (You Feel Just Like the Sun, The Campaign of Five Dragons, Quil/Phi/Terry, 45k)

9. Calla left confusion in her wake. (what a tale my thoughts could tell, The Games We Played During the War, Calla/Valk, 6k)

10. Someday Dutch is going to buy a spaceship that likes her best. (Lead Me To Your Door, Killjoys, Dutch & John, 5k)

I definitely have some patterns! Four of these start with dialogue, which actually feels low to me, I feel like throwing the reader into the middle of a conversation is a technique I tend to use a lot (though I do tend to use it more in shorter stories, I think that happens in a lot of ficlet rounds when I do those).

Other than that, I enjoy declarative statements that make sense to the narrator if not to the reader and/or statements that quickly establish a status quo so that I can promptly mess with that status quo.

All of which are fairly common writing techniques for beginnings, I think, so probably nothing terribly special or unexpected, but it is very fun to go through and see what I’ve been starting stories with for the last while!

[a-cupof-jo]

Dyspnea

Parings: Potion Master!Jaehyun X Medicinal Herbalist!Reader

Genre: Fluff, Intended Angst, Magic!au

WC: 4.1K

Warnings: magic inaccuracies, food mentioned, tiny bit suggestive

For @ficscafe fic scenario event! 

Summary:  The candle flickered as Jaehyun’s breath caught the flame. The life you two lived together was simple, but he wouldn’t change anything about it, “Happy birthday, Jaehyun. Make a wish.” The flame flickered out. He hadn’t known it then, but he should have used that wish more wisely.

Prompt: 38. When they test out a love potion on their partner.

~~

It wasn’t fair that so many people get to enjoy this day while he is stuck behind the shuttered windows  dark shadows. He doesn’t hate this day. How could he? It was Valentine's day- and his birthday but that never mattered. Not to the everyday people who slip through his door hours before this day begins. He can’t blame them. For they came in search of something only he can provide. 

Love.

Or at least some figment of love. For some it was a way to prove their love. Others used it to try and get their long time crush to like them back. Jaehyun can’t help but laugh every time a young teenager pushes open the door to his shop for the nth time that week saying that they wanted to test this “love potion” on another person. Of course he doesn’t give them a full love potion. Just something diluted down closer to an addictive, like honey. It barely lasts 15 minutes. 

He hears a bell chime from the other room. Whipping his hands on his apron he walks through the separating doorway. “I’m sorry,” he glances toward a cracked window that no longer had sunlight gleaming through it. “I am actually closed.” 

“Oh,” a man just shorter than Jaehyun stood in the middle of the room. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I’ll just come back tomorrow.” He bit his lip lightly glancing around the room.

“Nonsense,” Jaehyun waved his hand. “You are already here. Might as well make good of the trip. Besides. I don’t mind.” He grinned at the man, trying to ease the tension that laced through the newcomers face.

The man sighed before stepping closer, “I still feel bad.”

“Don’t,” Jaehyun gave a light laugh. “Gives me something better to do than stir pots,” he watched the man warily as the sentence left his lips. “Magical beings” were still a wary subject for some people even if they had been able to practice in the open for nearly 50 years now. When the man just gave him a small smile Jaehyun stepped behind the counter that held his potions and elixirs. “What can I help you find today Mr…”

“Oh, Lee. But just call me Taeyong,” he waved his hand around peering through the glass at the display. “Well here’s my situation.” He glanced up at Jaehyun. “I have a date coming up and my date said there is this potion that allowed a person to change their hair color just by drinking it,” Taeyong looked amazed as he stared up at Jaehyun. “I wanted to try it out for our next date. That, and I’m not sure how much more bleaching my scalp can go through.” He combed his hand through his hair giving it a light tug at the bangs afterwards. 

Jaehyun grimaced as he watched the straw like strands fall back into place, “Well you’re where you need to be. I have a lot of potions for that.” He moved down the row to where a shelf full of colorful bottles filled every inch. “There’s all of these, plus I can also create other colors if you don’t see one you like here.”

Taeyong peered back through the glass eyes wide with wonder. He glanced around the box a few times. "What about white?" He rested a hand over a bottle he assumed to hold the potion. 

Jaehyun grinned, "One of my best sellers." Reaching for a little black jar Jaehyun scan the man. He would obviously look good with white hair. He probably looks good with any color of hair. "You just want to try the white?" 

Taeyong hummed a second glancing toward the moonlit window, "Yes, just the white." 

Jaehyun set the bottle is a small leather pouch, "2 shillings." The coins clinked as rested on the counter. "Enjoy! Have a good night." He watched the thin man walk through the door and past the window before latching the door shut. Taeyong had been pleasant and kind but Jaehyun couldn't help but be slightly peeved with the man. Unlatching the door he peeked his head out; he glanced to his left and, yes, there was still the sign with hours stating 'Dawn to Dusk' hanging off the building. 

The moon was bright tonight and he couldn’t help but stare at it. How could it be that a ball of rock could bring him such peace. Maybe it was just the ambiance, but a little part of him wants to believe that there's a little man that lives on that moon and watches over the earth. It might seem ridiculous, but he could brew color changing elixirs and make people fall in love, so it couldn’t be that far fetched. 

“Happy birthday, sweetie,” Jaehyun jumped lightly as arms wrapped around him from behind. He sighed as you placed your chin on his shoulder. “Sorry I wasn’t back earlier. I got stuck talking to Johnny at the market.” Your finger traced little patterns on his stomach as you both stood in the dimly lit doorway. “Come on, I’ll make dinner.” You pulled at his arm. Jaehyun closed his eyes taking a deep breath of clear night air before turning and giving you a soft smile. “I may have something for you. You know, considering it is valentines day.” 

“Only because it’s valentines day,” He raised an eyebrow at you as you glided through the small store. 

You were once an enigma to him. Someone he couldn’t reach, couldn’t touch. Your brother, adoptive brother, Johnny was Jaehyun’s best friend growing up. You were the aloof younger sister that Jaehyun hardly knew about until you made it to your apprenticeship. For as long as Jaehyun had known you, you’d have always been enamored by plants and flowers. So, when he found out you were studying herbal medicine, he wasn’t surprised. 

“Of course, what other day would it be,” you gave him a small smile as you stood near the pot Jaehyun had previously been working at.

Jaehyun's relationship with you had been moments of fleeting looks, paths crossing, and unspoken rules. Two lives bending and swaying, following the same path, but never touching. Until you broke the pattern, you veered off course.

He had just finished his apprenticeship with the, now retired, potions master Kim. Mr. Kim had taken Jaehyun in from a young age, raising him when Jaehyun’s parents decided they didn’t want anything to do with someone containing magical properties. Johnny had planned a small party congratulating Jaehyun on his success. He didn’t know you were going to be there. Even if you were Johnny’s sibling you never showed anything but indifference to Jaehyun. Music had played from a small group of boys too loud for the space they were in. 

You had sauntered over, a small flute of champagne dangling from your fingertips. "Can you do it?" Jaehyun had been surprised by your bluntness. "Take over for Kim. There's gonna be a lot of pressure," you noted, not unkindly. 

"There will be, but Mr. Kim wouldn't let me take over if he didn't have at least some confidence in my abilities," he swiped the glass from your hand and swallowed down the contents. "Besides, he's still going to be around. He hasn't cut me loose yet." 

You grabbed his hand in yours and tugged him towards the outskirts of dancing people, "A dance?" You didn't wait for a response as you twirled him closer to the center of the floor. 

Jaehyun was not surprised at your fluid movements. Johnny had always bragged about how his sister was a natural dancer and the best in their city, perhaps the world. He smiled at you now sharing Johnny's sentiments. You gave him a small grin in return as the music died, "You're going to be great."

A whoop went up from one of the musicians, Donghyuck, Jaehyun's brain supplied. Your grin grew as you raised your voice in a louder whoop. Jaehyun watched as the sentimental atmosphere changed. You grabbed his hands leading him to a lively dance, "Beside, you can't fail, not when I'm just a few doors down." 

"You mean cause Ms. Joy is a few doors down," Jaehyun teasing corrected. 

You shake your head at him, "I'll be a few doors down." 

You were, and a line that you didn't know existed between you both was crossed. Jaehyun wasn't sure who started the late night rendezvous or the unspoken pact of always standing by each other, but turned into late night talks which turned into early morning coffee, and later, shared lunches. 

You guys fell into a rhythm, a three year rhythm that morphed into passing kisses, soft hugs, mornings of gentle coaxing and nights of soft loving. 

Jaehyun wrapped his arms around you glancing into the pot full of a clear liquid, thicker than water and smelled of sweet syrup, "Busy?" 

You spun to face him shaking your head as you fixed the collar of his shirt, "Everyone was too busy being in love to be worried about visiting me.” 

“Ah, the prettiest healer on the street doesn’t have love on this day,” Jaehyun furrowed his brow. “I knew this would happen. You would leave me because I have given love to everyone but you.”

You gave him a light giggle kissing the corner of his mouth, “I would never leave you.” You spin out of his arms walking further towards the house that sat behind the shop. “You are my soulmate,” you gave Jaehyun a look full of adoration and love.

Jaehyun was sure that his face read the same, “My perfect half.” 

You motioned for him to follow you, “Come, I made something for you.”

“Made something for me,” Jaehyun stepped into the small living areas entryway. “What is the occasion?”

“It’s Valentine's Day,” you had shrugged, pulling a large dutch oven out of the convection oven. You turned and furrowed your brows at him, “and I think there’s something else going on today. Any idea what that is?” 

Jaehyun shrugged, “None that I can think of.” 

“Hmm,” you opened the lid letting more of the aroma fill the room. Your mouth popped open in  mock surprise, “Oh, that’s right. It’s your birthday.” You placed vegetables on the table before scooping up some hot soup. You widen your eyes at him, humor dancing through them, “I can’t believe I forgot about it. Especially because I got you something special.” 

“Something special?” Jaehyun placed cups on the small table as you set down the plates. “Where is it?” 

You grinned and leaned in close to his ear, “That’s for me to know and you to find.” You laughed as Jaehyun let out a choked breath and scanned you up and down. “Now, let’s eat. You’re going to need all of your energy.” 

“You are going to be the death of me,” Jaehyun gave an astonished laugh grinning as you sat across from him placing a small cupcake in front of him. 

The candle flickered as Jaehyun’s breath caught the flame. The life you two lived together was simple but he wouldn’t change anything about it, “Happy birthday, Jaehyun. Make a wish.” The flame flickered out. He hadn’t known it then, but he should have used that wish more wisely.

~~

Jaehyun hummed under his breath as the sun shone through his shop's open windows. Spring was just around the corner and Jaehyun’s happy mood couldn’t be dimmed. Warm bright weather brought in more customers. More customers meant that he was busier, and brought in more revenue, but mostly he was busier. That was one reason Jaehyun loved his job. He was working with his hands all day. There was never a moment where he was bored. 

He watched as a little boy walked between the two aisles the shop held. It wasn’t much, but the little trinkets and common potions that lined the shelves made Jaehyun proud of how far he had come. He could still picture the small store from when he was around the young boy's age. Laughter sounded through the store as the boy tried to escape his mother's hands. "Have a good day!" Jaehyun watched the giggling pair walk out the front door. Turning to the backroom he sighed looking at the pot that sat there.

The weeks he had spent trying to develop a new love potion was wasted as he, once again, failed. Since before Valentines day, now nearly 2 weeks ago, he had been cooped up in that backroom, trying to find a better love concoction. You, while fully willing, were starting to become an annoyed test subject. Jaehyun couldn't help but get testy when you complained about the new love potion. If you were gonna tell him it wasn't good or right then maybe you could give some ideas on how to fix it. Maybe he just needs to find a new test subject. Jaehyun looked through the list of love potions and ingredients that he had already used. Too many, he scowled down at the pages and pages of notes he had made on each variety of potion he had made. 

"Hello," he heard the little bell connected to the front door ring and someone walked around the shop, obviously looking for him. 

Jaehyun sighed, rolled his shoulders back and tried to put on his best smile, "Hi, what can I help you with- Oh Taeyong. Hello." Jaehyun scanned the man in front of him. "The white looks good."

Taeyong reached up and ran a hand through his bright white hair, "Thanks. I love it and so did my date." He tapped his index fingers together as he walked back up to the counter full of the colored potions. "I wanted to try more." 

Jaehyun smiled as the man scanned the rows, "We've plenty to choose from." 

Taeyong narrowed his eyes, concentrating on different colors. He eyes flickered up and met Jaehyun's, "I can't decide. What do you think? What would look good?" 

"He looks great in pink," a hand wrapped around his bicep. "He knows it too, but not many can pull it off well. You might be able to," Jaehyun grinned at you. While you were right about pink being a difficult color to pull off, you knew more than that, the pink dye was the hardest one to make. Which is why when Jaehyun glanced down at the box, he saw only 2 pink vials while the others had at least 10. "What about red? Maybe a green?" 

Taeyong watched the two of you share another quick look. Clearing his throat slightly he looked down in the box again.  "Red and green," he nodded his head. "Yes, I think I'll try those. One of each, please." 

Jaehyun grabbed the two vials and placed them both in a leather patch that you held open, "Okay, 4 shillings." Taeyong placed the coins in Jaehyun's hand. "Have a good day!" 

"You too," Taeyong gave a half hearted wave. 

Jaehyun sighed as your arms wrapped fully around him, “What’s up?” Your eyebrows furrowed as you stared at his face, your eyes fluted around looking for an answer. 

“I still can’t get this potion right,” he ran his hands up and down your arms. Jaehyun felt you press closer to you, your hands started running up and down his sides. “I want something different, something that shows who you are supposed to love, but how are you supposed to know that.”

“Soulmates.” Jaehyun startled as the voice rang through the shop. He turned to glare at the man who had made him jump, “Sorry.” Taeyong raised his hands. “I didn’t mean to intrude or overstay my welcome, but I can’t help but be fascinated by all of this. And also you can’t really-”

“It’s fine,” your arms dropped away from Jaehyun. You finger tapped your chin as you considered Taeyong words, “Soulmates… that may work, but, how could you put something like a soulmate indicator in a love potion.”

Jaehyun tapped his hands on the counter. Soulmates, while not nonexistent, hadn’t been thought about in decades. In fact, Jaehyun didn't know the first thing about finding soulmates or even if he believed in them. It’s not not very plausible, he can’t just give someone a potion and tell them that it will give them their soulmate. There's more to it than that. More to love and being in love then just having souls destined to be together, "I can't do that." He shakes his head at the two who had continued to excitedly discuss the topic. He watched as their faces morphed to disbelief and disappointment. 

Your hands came up to rest on your hips, "And why not." 

Jaehyun reached into the glass cabinet rearranging vials and avoiding eye contact, "There's no way I can reveal soulmates. Too many indicators and no defiant way to squeeze all of those into one potion. Soulmates and their indicators have been hidden for years and it's rare that people ever find or want to be with their soulmate. Besides, there are too many variables." 

"Too many variables," you gave a light scoff. 

"What if you didn't give them a way to instantly reveal their soulmate," Taeyong cut in. "What if, instead, you revealed soulmate indicators or made them stronger." 

"What do you mean," Jaehyun sighed. He knew they weren't going to give this up. The hope and excitement in their eyes made Jaehyun more hesitant to even consider creating this potion. 

Taeyong walked closer to the counter where Jaehyun and you stood. “Soulmates, they are predestined, we can’t control or decide who they are or how we get paired. Now, many of us don’t meet our soulmates, the bonds aren’t as strong and people can find people they truly love. What if you strengthen the bonds? Revealed them?” Taeyong lifted his hand wiggling his fingers. “Sometimes I think I feel a tug on my hand, especially when I am at home alone. I can’t help but wonder if, hope, it’s my soulmate.”

You watched him, an unfamiliar look in your eyes. Slowly you turned to Jaehyun and grabbed his right hand in both of yours, “Please Jaehyun, you can do this, we can do this. Help others find their soulmate, their perfect half.” Your eyes pleaded with him.

 It really wasn’t fair. You knew that he would do anything for you, and you used that against him. Jaehyun sighed, “Okay, I’ll try. If you think this will work I’m willing to work on it.” Jaehyun couldn’t help the small smile that graced his face as you gave him a hug cheering along with Taeyong. He watched as you danced around the room bidding goodbye as you ran back to work. Taeyong also raced out of the shop, saying something about a ruby and some fish. As he watched the door swing shut the smile dropped his face. He couldn’t help the dread that filled his stomach and the distinct feeling that this would not end well. 

~~

Jaehyun stirred the sweet smelling syrup again. This was his fifth attempt at this potion. By this point he was frustrated. Nothing was working, all he kept making were diluted love potions, potions that made eyes change colors when they saw their loved ones, and a potion that made your heart glow from inside your chest. Both you and Jaehyun had been disturbed by the last potion. He had spent two weeks trying to figure this out. Both Taeyong and you had been helping when and where you could. You would get herbs and plants of magical origins, guiding and helping with the new ones that Jaehyun hadn’t seen before. Whereas, Taeyong would stir the potions or gather, obscure, ingredients- fairy dust, dwarf warts, pegasus hoof shavings. While impressive, Jaehyun was too scared to ask Taeyong how he got all real, authentic these ingredients or knew about all of these ingredients. As far as Jaehyun knew, Taeyong wasn’t a magic user. Though he wouldn’t be surprised if he descended from fairies or mermaids. 

He sighed as the potion bubbled the mugwort he just dropped in hissed as it blended, “Make a potion, they said. It will help people, they said.” He pulled out another vial. He had it simply labeled “love”. A base potion that he used when creating all his love potions, but this wasn’t a love potion, not truly. People don’t fall in love because of it, they may not even be able to find love because of it. With that thought in mind he set the base potion down and pulled out a different potion. It’s more medicinal, healing than anything else. It was the first potion that you and Jaehyun had made together. A potion that could heal a bond. Chi bonds specifically. Maybe it would work. If he broke it down to its core parts and mixed it with the current love potion or maybe the one that made your heart glow just a few nights ago.

Jaehyun jumped from his seat racing around the room grabbing ingredients and writing down ratios and doses. The smell of linens and irises filled the room. Jaehyun could help but feel comfort from the two smells. It smelled like you. Like a warm day under the sun laying in the little meadow sitting on the outskirts of town. 

“It smells so good here,” Jaehyun looked up as you entered the room. You closed your eyes inhaling a deep breath. “Like just after it rains and…” you took another deep breath, “and roses.”

Jaehyun tilted his head. That was interesting. The scent was different to everyone. Maybe it was a comforting scent or the scent of your beloved. It may have worked this time. Jaehyun stirred the pot a few more times before turning off the heat, “I just need to let it cool now.” 

You walked closer to him peering down into the now pale yellow potion, “You think it worked this time?” 

Jaehyun wrapped an arm around your waist. He shrugged, his chin coming to rest on your shoulder, “Maybe. I tried something different this time. It may do the trick.”

You hummed as he swayed you both back and forth, “That’s good. I’m really glad that you decided to make this. Soulmates were intended to be together, to have each other and we’ve moved so far from that.” You reached up and played with his hair twirling it between your fingers a few times, “I know that it doesn’t really matter, but I’d like to know, to confirm what I know, you’re my soulmate.”

Jaehyun was so in love with you. So ready to spend the rest of his days with you. He took another deep breath, linens and irises, “My better half.” He kissed under your ear before moving to grab a ladle from beside the pot, “Would you like to ladle or hold the bottles.” You grabbed the ladle from him motioning to move closer to the pot. “Would you like to know what I used this time? What the heart of this potion?” He watched you nod your head urging him to continue, “Our first potion.” Your head shot up surprise lighting up every feature. Jaehyun laughed, “I still remember you rushing in here and demanding I help you. You had never had to make a medicinal potion for a chi before. I hadn’t either, but that didn’t stop us from trying. Maybe we were lucky, or maybe it was fate because that day I feel deeply and madly in love with you. You unlocked my ability to love.” 

You stood still. Face slack jawed but eyes full of love, “You’re such a dork.” Jaehyun couldn’t say anything before you were in his arms, lips on his, and arms wrapped around his shoulders. “I love you.” 

“I love you,” Jaehyun grinned at you, pulling further away from you. He looked over at the now empty pot. “Now, rock, paper, scissors for who has to drink the potion.” He held his hand up in a fist.

“Fine,” You rolled your eyes at him. “Rock, paper, scissors.” You sighed as he held up scissors motioning to cut through your paper. “Fine,” you picked up the small vial tilting it in a small cheers before drinking the liquid inside. 

Jaehyun waited, the air tense around the two of you. A bell rang, but he didn’t pay any attention to it. A small red string pulled at your previously bare pinkie, “Hey guys! What’s going on. It smells so good here, like fresh linen and Irises. Are you guys back he- oh.” The string led past Jaehyun and tugged tight where Taeyong stood, his hand lifted in surprise.

~~

Tag List: @qianinterprises @stayctday @infnteen

[sensei-venus]

Ok but what about big scary mean Dutch falling for the cute studious girl. She's technically a "nerd" or "geek" but she doesn't look it. She's just super soft and sweet and has a little pout to her lips. It all started because he had to sit next to her in their English class and he couldn't help noticing the way she bit her lip when concentrating or the crease she gets between her eyebrows when she's reading. She's all soft sweaters and books in her arms and he's muscle tees and karate. She's soft spoken and articulate and he's loud mouthed and act first-think later.

(This is super short but still, unedited.)

Dutch hated english class with a passion, not just because he hated school work but also because the teacher was a buzz kill. The old basterd even moved his seat at the beginning of the year because he was talking to much to Johnny. After he got moved he was pissed, this class was a bore to begin with but now with no one to mess with in class it was ten times worse.

Things changed when he started to notice the people around him in his new seat. Actually he only notice one person, the girl who sat next to him.

She wasn’t his type, at least compared to the girls he had previously dated during the last few years in highschool. She was different in every way. She didn’t reek of cheap perfume or dress high and mighty like his past flings. She didn’t even roll in the same crowed as those girls. She usually sat alone during lunch doing her homework or reading books she got from the school’s library.

She smelled like real flowers, like the once’s outside the county club when Johnny and Bobby would let him sneak in with them to use the county club pool during the summer months. She only had the slightest undertone scent of old books from the library on her sweater’s. The scent would linger and travel his way every time the window of the classroom was left open on hot days. It was intoxicating in a weird way. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t even talk to her for months besides when he got caught cheating off one of her English tests.

“You could just ask to copy off my sheet, I don’t mind….”

Her voice was soft, so soft that it made his stomach flutter for a moment. He couldn’t even say anything back, he just nodded back as he continued to copy off her test. That was really the beginning of his whole silent obsession. But it was only silent for so long because of Johnny’s big mouth. His big mouth had to say something to the other guys after seeing Dutch basically play footsies with her in the aisleway between the desk’s. Bobby had encountered him to actually say something to her while Johnny and Tommy ragged on him about it.

When he finally asked her out, it was the best day ever.

He never regretted the days he spent cuddling with her while she read books. He secretly loves listening to her read out loud to him. The days spent outside in the park listening to her read to him while under the shade of trees where just different. It was peaceful.

[elessildur]

One of the key moments from The Karate Kid and I don’t think we talk about it enough: 

Just look at Tommy and Johnny’s reactions at Kreese while Daniel is carried away for his injury. Neither of them join in with the clapping and Tommy looks downright concerned. They wear matching expressions of disbelief as their heads turn from their Sensei, to Daniel, and back to their Sensei. 

I think the boys always knew that Kreese was maniacal in his methods. I can only imagine what Coyote Creek under Kreese entailed (I believe we saw a mellower version of it under Johnny’s leadership). During the movie, we see that Kreese has permitted Tommy to join the karate class despite the fact that his arm is in a sling! Maybe KK3 wasn’t the first time the wooden dummy was used for training a student. 

But it’s this moment, this exact point, when the boys seem to realise just how maniacal Kreese actually is. He shows no remorse, doesn't even fake concern that Daniel has received a potentially serious injury by one of his own students. He stands there smugly and claps while the boys stare in disbelief. 

I’ve heard some people say that the OG Cobras only turned good after Kreese choked Johnny and they left Cobra Kai. But it’s plain as day from the reactions of not only Bobby, Johnny and Tommy, but also the Cobras at the back (except possibly Dutch lol) that they’re concerned at their Sensei’s reaction. 

We’re so busy rooting for Daniel in TKK, we might easily forget that the OG Cobras aren’t villains; they’re impressionable kids with good hearts that had been radicalised by Kreese’s teachings, and they had let these teachings define their identity and how they behaved. 

Now, history is repeating with a new generation of Cobras under Kreese’s training. So maybe when Hawk, Tory and other Cobras do things in upcoming seasons which are unpalatable, we might keep in mind that they're just impressionable kids who’ve been radicalised. It’s not who they are but what they’ve been taught. ‘Only a bad teacher’, as Mr Miyagi so aptly explained. 

And just like the OG Cobras, each one of them is capable of redemption. 

[laterzgators]

Hey! How are you? I was wonderin' if you could do Johnny x reader (85) when their freshmen in college? Thank you!

I’m doing well thank you! And yes of course!

-New to the Both of Us- Johnny Lawrence x FEM! Reader

After summer ended I said bye to the Cobras as Dutch, Tommy, Jimmy, and Bobby all headed on their own paths to college. Johnny and I had luckily been accepted to the same college. They had messaged me while for Johnny he had written to them. We both decided it was best to move in with each other for the time being. He had his own dorm and I had mine but it was fairly close to each other. Right now I am waking up to the first day of college. The radio in my room is playing “Power of Love” that came out back in the summer and I absolutely love it. I decided I’d wear a pair of light washed hemmed jean shorts with a thick white and blue stripped tank top and a Jean jacket. I put on my slouch socks and my Reebok’s and headed out the door with my bag and books in hand.

“I didn’t know I’d be seeing someone so beautiful this early in the morning.” I hear behind me in the hall as a door clicks. “Johnny!” I said running to him to hug him. “Good morning beautiful ready for this?” He says to me. I sigh smiling and look at him. “No but will I ever be? Haha” I say to him and we walk down to the stair case leading to the next door college campus. “Johnny I don’t know how I’m going to make it. I mean this place is huge.” I say to him. “I don’t know either Babe but let’s just hope it goes well alright? It’ll be just like going into our first year of Highschool.” He says to me smiling. “Alright. I love you baby see you later alright?” You say to him pecking his lips softly. “Okay y/n. See you later babe. Love you more.” He says kissing your forehead and you both head to your respective classes.

Heading into your first class you felt dizzy. The auditorium was huge and you wanted to cry almost. You just thought about Johnny and how he would probably be seated right now. You also thought about how the girls would fawn over him. You had a very handsome boyfriend with a good build so it would be a surprise if no one had found him attractive. But you knew he loved you more than anything so you didn’t care. You enter into the class and sit on the top left towards the middle going into the back. You put your binder out and books just waiting for the professor to go in. Finally you made it past your first few classes and you were so confused you didn’t even remember how you were at the door to your last class for the day. All you knew is you were tired and hungry and wanted to be with Johnny. You head to sit down and put your head down after a while you feel someone kiss your forehead and you look up. “You look so tired baby.” Johnny says to you softly smiling, running his fingers down your hair. “I am. I am so tired Johnny. I don’t even know what I’m tired about. I’ve zoned out in most of my classes.” You say to him sighing. “It’s okay this is our last class so we’ll be okay.�� He says hugging me. I put my head on his shoulder and just thing of the power of love like how it was playing earlier on the radio. The power of love is so strong. Just an hour ago I was drained and dreading the whole situation. Now I’m more relaxed and at ease. We go through the last class and get up from our huge class. I put my books and objects away and Johnny holds my hand guiding me back to his dorm. “Ya know it’s only 2:30? Wanna go out?” Johnny says to me. “Yeah lemme just go put my stuff back in my dorm. Leave your stuff with mine so we can pick it up later.” I told him and he nodded. I unlocked my door and leave our stuff on my bed.

“Ugh today felt so long for no reason.” I told him sighing and yawning. “Well baby we aren’t little kids anymore. It’s gonna be like this for a while.” Johnny tells me laughing slightly. “Be quiet I don’t want to think about that. Let me pretend I’m a senior in highschool and you and the cobras are busy terrorizing Larusso.” You say laughing. “You aren’t gonna let that go huh?” He says to me half annoyed. “Nope and I never will.” I say to him. He picks me up from my waist and tickles me. “JOHNNY! PUT ME DOWN!!! BHAHAHHA JOH-JOHNNY!!!” You say laughing out loud. “No way babe no can do.” He says laughing. “JOHNNY I LOOK CRAZY STA-STOP HAHAHAHA!” You say laughing. Finally he puts you down and kisses you. “You good now?” He says to me. “Mmmm Yeah” you say to him hugging at his waist. “I love you Johnny.” “I love you more babe.” He says to me. “To us becoming adults and making through our first day of college?” I say to him making a fake toast. “To us making it through our first day of college.” He says back kissing me.

—————

I LOVED THAT SO MUCHHH!! Thank you for the request ❤️❤️❤️💖

[desolateice]

Cut and Rewritten: This was supposed to be around Chapter 42, after they get back from New York City and before the prom. But I wanted the magazine’s to go with Daniel and that wouldn’t have happened if this interaction had happened earlier. So I got part of the way and then changed my mind and cut it and then rewrote it.

Dutch wanted to take over prom. The idea was weird. The meaning of that six months ago, a couple years ago would have been vastly different than what it meant now. Then it would've been Dutch with joints and booze to sneak in. It would’ve meant introducing Johnny to girls he'd met at the punk bar or at the beach or somewhere where he'd somehow managed to charm them.

As Johnny's life fell into a routine prom kept popping up. Being on student council meant Tommy was still busy. Busy planning prom now that the senior trip was over and then when that was over it was graduation. Johnny didn't know whether he pitied Tommy or was jealous. But he still hosted study night a couple times as they neared the end of the school year. He wasn't the only one busy. Jimmy had gotten to go to visit his campus early. Had met his teachers. Had talked to some fancy lawyers and that long trek ahead, like Ali, that he had and he seemed busy, distracted with a future far off in the distance. Like he already had a job, was already loaded down with cases. Which didn't make any sense to Johnny because what college puts the high school seniors to work early? 

So that left Bobby and Dutch in charge of their prom plans and festivities. And Bobby just held up his hands and told Johnny that because he couldn't take all of the girls he decided he wouldn't take any, and would just go visit them on campus at a different date. He made it seem like this big deal. But Johnny could tell he was delighted to have been invited to campus. 

Dutch seemed so absolutely pleased with his secret plans. He just told Johnny to "Dress pretty". 

Johnny focused on everything else. It was better not to try and think about Dutch and his plans and whatever they might be. It was better to focus on doing kata and helping Mr. Miyagi. Focus on helping the kids with their homework. Going to the animal sanctuary and taking too many dogs on walks around the farm. Throwing balls and freebees and running this way and that with them because they needed the exercise and someone to play with. He focuses on finishing Pride and Prejudice with Daniel. The way Daniel liked to lay down with his legs in his lap, as they sat in the grass together. Usually at Mr. Miyagi's, sometimes at a park.

It's a weird reversal.

Daniel quiet and listening to Johnny. Watching him with those big brown eyes. He was kind of relieved when they finish the chapter and moved on to other homework. All that focus on him was overwhelming. He always got nervous. Heart pounding in his ears. But he was trying to enjoy the moments before they slipped past.

He tried to enjoy dinner with Mrs. LaRusso and the way Daniel would drag him to his room, the way friends do to talk about everything and nothing, to go over homework and math problems. 

Until one evening that he was sitting at Daniel's desk, Daniel's radio on and he looked for a pencil because his broke over the last problem. Daniel was lounging on his bed, giving him time and space to work through the problems before looking them over and he opened the drawer to see a familiar magazine. Johnny pulled it out. It was undeniably the one. The right issue. Tommy's aunt always showed him the cover. He never wanted a copy. Never thought he could bring himself to look or take it home. Because Sid would say something. Would get weird about it. Sid had this thing about how models really should only be women and that male models all were...well liked guys.

Accurate for him he supposed, but he didn't want to deal with the outbursts.

He flicked it open, wondering, curious.

He spotted Daniel out of the corner of his eye, bolt up, rushing over. Like this magazine was some kind of secret. Johnny knew he was in it. He knew that Daniel had worked on the set. It wasn't some secret that he'd have it. Unless Daniel had gotten childish and drawn fake mustaches on his face or something. 

[theworldofotps]

Silent Stranger (Part 1)

Pairing: Dexter Lumis x Reader Word Count: 2,377 Description: New to NXT, Y/n makes some new friends who warn her to stay away from one of their coworkers. Misunderstood and silent Dexter can’t help but admire the new woman at work.

Part 2

Part 3

Dedicated to the sweet anon who said they would like to read some Dexter fics in the future. And I had been planning to but never had an idea, my sweet friend Rachael gave me this idea which I love. Anon I really hope you like this, and thank you so much @new-zealand-chic for all your help. Xx

Warning: Povs switch between first and third person throughout the fic. They are separated by ~~~ so hopefully you don’t get confused. ____________ Tag list:

@hungmanhorsecarriage @writtingrose @sjwrites22 @sassymox @the-beastslayers-queen @thewrestlingwarehouse @new-zealand-chic @mrsambroserollinsacklesmgk @xladyxfatex @biforrollynch @irish-newzealand-idian-dutch @demonqueen29 @itsicantbelievethis666  @lilred91 @xbreezymeadowsx @rebellious-desires @youcantreignonmyparade @melblacc @undiscovereddisneyroyalty

If you wanna be added to the list lemme know. _____________

“Glad you could finally join us Y/n we’ve heard some amazing things from the PC about you, I truly hope you enjoy working here with us at NXT.”

“Thank you so much Hunter I really appreciate it, I’m sure I’ll love it.”

I smile shaking his hand, standing I pull my bag over my shoulder following behind him as he leads the way from his office.

“I’ve already gone ahead and asked Shotzi to show you around just until you learn the ropes and know where everything this. She was thrilled to be the welcome committee, any questions you have just go ahead and ask her.”

“Thank you that takes away some of the nervousness I had.”

Following Hunter, down a few halls, we come to the back area where a few superstars were sat at tables doing their own thing or eating.

“Hey Shotzi come here for a moment please.”

I watch as an energetic woman comes over quickly her green hair standing out brightly, at least I wouldn’t lose or mistake her for someone else.

“What’s up boss?”

“This is Y/n, she’s the new superstar I was talking to you about the other day.”

“Of course the one I’m showing the ropes to, it’s so nice to meet you I hope that you enjoy working with us here.”

“Thank you, it’s nice to met you too I really appreciate you helping me.”

“You’re welcome, it’s no trouble at all I know how hard it can be when you first get here and who better to befriend on your first day than me?”

Shotzi laughs and lets out a little howl then hooks her arm with mine quickly leading me away from Hunter who chuckles waving. Walking around Shotzi points out a bunch of different areas and even introduces me to a few of the other wrestlers sitting or walking around. 

“What do you think so far?”

“It’s great better than I ever dreamed it could be I’m honestly so excited that this is going to be my life.”

Smiling as we sit at a table with some bottles of water and a bag of chips to share I look around watching everyone.

“Is this everyone?”

“No way, there are some in other parts of the building working out and some didn’t come in today. But you’ll see most of them on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.”

“Okay got it.”

I say eating a few of my chips as nervous as I was to be finally here I was more excited and hoped to befriend some of my coworkers.

“Once you’ve finished eating we can head over to one of the practice gyms and do some work to practice for whatever match you end up having first for your debut.”

“Sounds good to me I’m more than ready to get started.”

Shotzi smiles at me patting my back as we make small talk finishing our snack then heading off to find a ring to work out in. ~~~~~~~ Dexter walks quietly down the hallway he had just finished a match and gotten a shower. Since he wasn't needed for anything else tonight he was going home. Adjusting his duffel bag on his shoulder, he gets halfway through the center before feeling a smaller body crash into his from behind. Thinking it was someone doing an unexpected promo he quickly turns around stopping when he sees the new woman that joined NXT a few weeks ago. 

“I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to run into you. I'm trying to hide from my friend and wasn’t watching where I was going.”

She says and gives him an apologetic smile, Dexter offers his hand helping the woman up off the floor looking her over to be sure she wasn’t hurt then gives an incline of his head. She was trying to keep her balance as she adjusted her shoe. Hearing someone call her name he turns and leaves continuing on his way to the parking lot. Not noticing the woman left standing behind, staring after him. Getting into his car he starts it pulling out of the lot and driving back home.

That was the first time he had seen her face to face, the last few weeks she was at Full Sail he had taken a genuine interest in her. He had learned a little about her having overheard conversations with their coworkers while he was eating lunch. He honestly was kind of hoping to run into her sooner or later and found himself wanting to befriend the woman. He just wasn't sure how to go about it, maybe it was just best for him to be silent and wait. It was what he did best and he really didn't want to let people know he was curious about her.  

The drive from Full Sail to his house was filled with a little music playing on the radio. Other than that his mind was just wondering, he couldn't help but smile when he moved and the faint scent of your perfume hit his nose. You hadn't even touched him for that long. Parking in the garage once home he goes inside. Dexter was more than ready to sleep; he just needed to brush his teeth and change into pajamas. Stepping into his bedroom Dexter begins stripping crawling into bed once he is changed and settled. He was excited to go back to work to see you. 

~~~~~~~~~ Looking up from my book I smile seeing Finn walk into my room carrying a small vase full of flowers. 

"Y/n delivery." 

"Hey Finn, wow those are beautiful where did they come from?"

"I don't know I was coming to see if you wanted to grab lunch with Shotzi and I. They were sitting on the floor outside your door and there is a card that says. 'Hope you enjoy these flowers, they pale in comparison to you.'"

“Awe that’s so sweet.”

Standing I took the flowers, smelling them then reading the card, it was typed out so I wasn’t able to find out from handwriting who sent them. 

“I wonder why they didn’t sign their name.”

“Well if you ask me I think you have an admirer.”

“Oh come on Finn I haven’t even been here that long how could someone admire me?”

Setting the flowers on my small table I read over the card once more as he sighs dramatically and sits down next to me.”

“Because you’re an awesome person who just seems to draw people in even when you don’t mean to. I know you don’t feel like you’re good at making friends but people just can’t help but want to be around you.”

“If you hadn’t trained me at the PC would you have felt that way when I came here?”

“Probably then again I don’t know, being the champ makes me busy so it’s a probability but I’m sure we would have become friends quickly anyway.”

“Awe that’s sweet of you.”

Pinching his cheek lightly I laugh as he swats my hand away standing back up and stretching. 

“You wanna go get some lunch?”

“Yes I’m hungry.”

Standing I grab my phone pocketing it and following Finn from the room shutting the door behind me, placing my arm through his grinning.

”Lead the way Prinxey.”

~~~~~~~~

Dexter watches from the shadows as Finn picked the flowers up that he had left for y/n, he really hoped that you liked them. Waiting until you left he walked over with a small gift box full of a few things for a self care day. Opening the door a crack he slides the gift in, he didn’t want to invade your privacy by going all the way in. And he was thankful you hadn’t remembered to lock the door before you left. Closing your door gently Dexter quickly leaves just to keep anyone from spotting him. Going back to his room he sits down to start on a drawing he was doing for you.

For the next month Dexter left you small gifts, drawings and notes just something to make you smile. Nobody could tell you who it was doing this all and he couldn’t believe his luck that you hadn’t found out it was him yet. You two still had no communication apart from the night you ran into him. He was good at staying hidden and to be honest he was nervous about how you’d react. It wasn’t any secret that a lot of people thought he was weird and even a bit scary. But the few people he had managed to befriend they all stayed out of each other's intimate relationships. And he wasn't sure if he wanted to go changing that now. ~~~~~~

"I can't for the life of me figure out who's been sending these gifts."

"Have you gotten any new ones lately?" 

Looking across the table at Johnny whose wife I was currently feuding with, I nod my head. Reaching into my bag I pull out the most recent picture. Handing it to him I watch as he looks it over then shows it to the guy beside him. 

"I can almost guarantee you that it's Lumis, he's the only person around here I've seen that draws like this."

Johnny says and hands the picture back with a chuckle.

"Which one is he?" 

I ask as if I didn't already know, I had been paying attention to Lumis since that night I ran into him. There was just something about his presence that made me want to know more about him. 

"He's that really tall guy kind of blonde colored hair, mustache and muscles he wears those leather gloves when he wrestles." 

Johnny says and then points towards the door over my shoulder. 

"That one right there, aye Dexter! Are you the one sending these weird pictures to Y/n?"

"Like you'd actually stand a chance?"

The guy sitting with Johnny laughs loudly, frowning I watch as Dexter stops in his tracks staring at our table. He quickly turned away leaving the catering area.

"Why would you do that?"

"Oh come on y/n don't worry or waste your time on Lumis he's a freak that's why he stays to himself."

Johnny listens to his friend before turning his attention back towards me.

"You'd do your best to stay away from him y/n honestly."

"I think that should be my choice to make and right now I'm going after him. I suggest you two find something else to do then be awful to someone who just doesn't wanna talk to people."

Grabbing my things I quickly leave the catering area looking down the hallways. I had no idea where Dexter had gone or even what room he stayed in. Pulling my phone out I text Finn.

Y/n🎶⭐: Do you know where Dexter's room is?

Hitting send I begin walking around if Finn couldn't help me I may have to find a staff member who could.

Finn😈👑: It's one hall down from mine left turn

Finn😈👑: Why?

Y/n🎶⭐: Cause Johnny thinks he's the one that's been sending me the pictures and gifts and they called him out on it and I think they made him feel bad

Y/n🎶⭐: So I wanna talk to him

Finn😈👑: Dexter doesn't really talk to anyone here except for the few people that he's friends with

Y/n🎶⭐: It's worth a shot

Finn😈👑: Just be careful and if you need anything let me know

Y/n🎶⭐: I know thanks Finn

Pocketing my phone I make my way down the hallways heading for Finn's room. Once past it I go down turning left. I look at the doors, not all the superstars had their own changing rooms but Dexter's was one of the only few back here. Taking a deep breath I knock on the door then step back to wait and see if he opened the door.

"Hi Dexter."

I wave after he opens the door.

"Can I come in please?"

Dexter steps out of the way after a moment of hesitation, stepping inside I walk a little farther in his room and look around. He motions to the couch, smiling at him I sit down fiddling with my fingers in my lap.

"We haven't formally met apart from me running into you, I'm Y/n. I wanted to come and apologize for how Johnny and whatever his friend's name treated you. I didn't think showing him the picture would cause that, I was just hoping he could help me figure who sent it."

Pulling out the picture I place it on the small coffee table between us.

"Did you do this? Are you the one who's been giving me the flowers, little gifts and drawings."

Watching Dexter rub a hand against his neck then nods his head, smiling at his gaze darting around the room I place it back in my bag.

"I want to thank you for everything. It was really sweet of you. You don't have to be embarrassed about it either if you were, I'm actually quite flattered."

I explained looking around the room, he hadn't said anything yet and I wasn't sure what else to really say.

"I know you don't really say much but maybe would you like to exchange numbers? I think we could be really good friends, and it would be easier for you."

Dexter nods and grabs his phone, swapping we put our names in and I hand it back.

"Well I guess that I better go, I have a practice match coming up and I don't wanna miss out. Thank you again."

Standing I walk to the door Dexter holding it open for me, stepping out I turn giving his hand a light squeeze then quickly making my way back towards my room. I felt really good about how it went and I hoped we could be friends. Stopping at my door when my phone goes off I pull it out smiling.

D. Lumis👁️👁️: Would you like to go get coffee or something sometime? Maybe Wednesday morning?

Y/n💮: I would love to😊