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sp0o0kylights · 1 year

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Bullshit.

The word rings obnoxiously in Steve’s ears as he pushes his way out back, not wanting to be anymore of a talking piece at this party than he already was.

He’d just wanted Nancy to stop drinking, take a second, pace herself…

Steve swipes furiously at his eyes, and then curses when it nearly causes him to run into Chrissy Cunnginham, who’s perched in a chair tucked away from the patio door.

“Sorry, sorry.” He apologizes, trying not to sound like he’s upset, trying to keep his cool--only for her to look up and away, brushing off her own tears.

“Oh.” Steve says, a little laugh bubbling out of him. “You too huh?”

Thankfully she correctly interprets that he's not laughing at her, and adds her own giggle to the mix, the sound gentle even if pitched in upset.

"Boy problems?" Steve asks her, sinking down to the vacant chair on Chrissy's right.

She nods, clasping her hands together in her lap.

"Girl problems?" She asks back, and he grimaces a smile.

They sit for a minute, Steve pulling out a cigarette and offering it to her before lighting up. Chrissy shakes her head, and though her nose curls a little at the smoke she doesn’t say anything.

Neither of them do, staring at the few people bringing the party outside in the way only drunk teenagers can.

"Can I tell you something?" Chrissy says finally, as Steve continues to struggle to keep himself breathing evenly (and not spiraling. He still has to go back and try and escort Nancy home, and he needs to keep his temper when he does it.)

She licks her lips. "I keep trying to break up with Jason, but he won't let me."

It takes a second for the words to register, but when they do he leans himself towards chrissy in concern. “What do you mean, he won’t let you?”

“He’s not--it’s not…”She trails off, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “He talks me out of it is all.”

She’s downplaying it, and Steve’s concern grows tenfold. “Does he argue with you or just…tells you no or something?”

"It's complicated." Chrissy says, refusing to look at him. "He has this vision for me, for us."

Steve watches as she worries at a hangnail.

Feels the need to reach out and take her hand, but keeps his own hands to himself.

If Steve has learned anything, it's that not everyone wants to be touched as much as he does.

"He keeps telling me I'm just being anxious. That I should trust him, and I do, he just expects me to always do what he says? And more and more lately I--"

She huddles down into the little cat costume she's wearing, pulling the thin black sweater around her. "I want different things than he does."

Steve wonders vaguely if Nancy wants different things.

Or a different person entirely.

"That's not fair to you." Steve says, leaning forward and lowering his own voice. "He can't keep you in a relationship you don't want to be in."

A hard thing for him to say, after the bathroom conversation but this is different.

‘Please, let this be different.’ He thinks, before pushing the thought aside.

"He can't force you to do what he wants just because he wants it, or thinks its best. He should be listening to you and what you want too. Relationships are about…compromise right?” It’s what he’s heard anyway, though most of the time “compromise” means “letting the other person get what they want.”

Which is what he thought he’d been doing for Nancy all this time.

“I can help you if you want. Be your," Steve poorly mimes waving a pom pom. "cheer support."

Chrissy looks at him, eyes still wet. "You would?"

"Of course.” He says, before scooting just a smidgen closer. “Might have to ask you to return the favor though. Nancy said some things tonight and I could really use a second--”

A loud curse makes them both startle, interrupting Steve.

Together, they look around before another noise, like bark being scraped, draws both their attention to the large oak that stands in the backyard.”

"Is…is that Eddie Munson?" Chrissy asks.

"I think so."

Chrissy squints a little, as if not quite believing what she's seeing. "Is…he stuck in a tree?"

Steve finds himself staring in his own disbelief, hands moving to his hips as he watches Munsons wriggling, cursing form.

"I think so." He repeats with a shake of his head.

Eddie's foot slips off a branch, once, twice.

"Hey--" Steve calls out in warning, but unfortunately it comes too late.

The branch under his foot gives away with a startling crack! as another branch shreds Munson's jacket as his full weight caches on it.

"Oh!" Chrissy gasps, hand flying to her mouth as Eddie falls right onto his ass with a yelp.

"You good man?" Steve asks, rising from his chair, hesitant to go over but needing to make sure the idiot hasn't cracked his skull open.

Chrissy has no such qualms, popping up to run over to Munson.

"You're bleeding." She tells him worriedly, dropping to her knees to get a better look.

"Well shit." Munson says with a wonky grin. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?” Chrissy asks, as Steve’s newly honed babysitting instincts kick in and drive him to get up and look at Munson’s injury himself.

Chrissy carefully strokes the older teen’s hair out of his face, as Steve bends down to check his head and neck.

"You hurt anywhere?" He asks, spotting the scratch that had Chrissy worried.

It’s on his forehead--the guy must have knocked his face against the tree when he fell. Head injuries always bleed a ton but this one's well contained to a small scrape.

Probably not a concern, though Steve looks at his pupils anyways.

"Nah, I’m pine. I didn't mean to drop in on you guys.” He waves a hand behind him before dropping his voice to a dramatic whisper. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted that tree, it was pretty shady.”

Steve, long trained by Dustin, narrows his eyes. "Are you making puns right now?"

"Maybe?" Munson hedges, looking delighted to have been called out.

“Uh huh.” Steve puts his hands back on his hips, straightening up from where he’d crouched down. “Your head okay? You remember your name and shit?”

“Edward Edwardian Munson, present and ready for duty!” He gives a mock salute, before dropping Chrissy a wink. “If the duty is drinking and playing games that is.”

“Your middle name cannot be Edwardian.” Chrissy laughs.

"It is!" He defends, at the same time Steve says,

“It's not "

“Oh?” Munson challenges, as if this entire situation isn’t ridiculous. “Then what is my middle name, Sir Steven?”

“No idea, but I know it’s not that.”

Munson blows a raspberry at him. “Well then, maybe you should mind your own beeswax."

"Like you were doing? Up in the tree right above us?" Steve banters back.

The playful look dies a little, Munson beginning the painful process of standing after one falls.

"For the record, I absolutely was not eavesdropping, you guys just happened to be under the tree I climbed and I was there first. " He says it rapidly, like he's used to being accused of such things, and is heading off as many problems as he can.

Steve just ignores it, opting instead to hold his hands out. One to Chrissy and one to Eddie.

Watches surprise cross the older teens face, even as he waits for Chrissy to get up before accepting Steve's hand.

"Why were you up a tree? The family dog run you up there?" Steve grunts as he pulls the metalhead up.

"Funny." Munson quipped sarcastically. "But no. I was up there for reasons."

'Reasons.' Steve mouths, and has to fight himself to keep from grinning.

"Even though I was there first, I did happen to hear some things." He looks at Chrissy, voice turning serious. "If you need any help getting things through Carver's thick skull I'd love to lend a hand."

"You would cheer for me too?"

"Oh absolutely. I'd make a far better cheerleader than Harrington here." He shoots a grin towards Steve to take the edge off the words, before doing a far more enthusiastic mimicry of the cheerleaders pom pom routine.

"But I know how much Carver hates the word no. If you break up with him and he gives you shit after, I'm happy to step in."

Steve hadn't actually thought about that yet, but given what he knew of Jason it makes sense.

He could easily see Chrissy worrying about Jason harassing her after the break up.

"Thank you. Both of you." She sniffs. "Eddie, are you sure you're okay?"

"Right as rain!" Munson gives a rather theatrical thumbs up. "I'll let you in on a family secret, we Munson's have rubber bones."

She gives him another giggle for his efforts, and even Steve can’t fully cover his

Munson, the ass, notices.

“Well call me the court jester, I got both the King and Queen to smile!” He cheers.

Steve rolls his eyes, but doesn't deny it.

"Chrissy!?" Someone barks, loud in the otherwise quiet backyard.

"Speak of the devil." Eddie drops his voice dramatically as Jason strides out of the house.

"I've been looking for you." He chides, two of his friends following close behind.

They're younger members of the basketball team, ones Steve's brain sluggishly attempts to remember.

"Are your knees dirty?" Jason asks Chrissy, disgust tinting his voice as he slowly looks from her to Munson next to her.

His eyes narrow, expression almost offronted.

"You heathen." Jason snarls, stepping forward with a fist clenched.

It was a move right of the sitcoms Steve swore he didn't watch, and it looked just as cheesy in real life as it did on screen.

"Calm down." Steve speaks up, hands going to his hips.

Jason's head jerks as he registers him, so focused on Munson that Steve slipped his notice entirely.

"Harrington?" He asks, as if Steve could be mistaken for anyone else here.

Steve gives him jazz hands in return.

"What are you doing out here?" Jason speaks only to Steve, whole body angling towards him like he's the only person who matters.

It's something Steve's dad does, if there's a businessman he considers to be an equal in the room. Zoning in on them, so he can subtly work in ways to make them feel inferior.

It's narcissism at its core (or so says his mother, when she's blitzed out on too many glasses of wine.)

"Talking to people." Steve deadpans. "If you're looking for beer, you walked past it."

Jason entire face pinches, like he just stepped in dog shit. "No one just talks to Munson."

It's a stupid thing to say, and whatever Hason was trying to imply with it wasn't appreciated.

"Well mark me as the first." Steve's hip cocks, voice frosting over.

Surprise washes across Munson's face, though he remains silent as Steve deals with Jason.

Probably a smart move, given how Jason seems to be eager for a fight.

"Whatever it is you're doing, you can leave Chrissy out of it." He says, and god his voice even sounds like Steve's dad.

"Chrissy," Steve says, with an eyebrow raise he knows looks judgemental, "can speak for herself."

He turns to face her, inviting her to the conversation, in the same way he'd always wished someone would invite his mother to speak against his father.

Watches as the cheerleader bites her lip, trying hard to hide the tears that have sprung to her eyes--but proves that she's stronger than Steve's mother ever was.

She steps forward, taking the opportunity offered to her with a steadying breath. "Jason--"

"You can explain it to me later." Her boyfriend waves her off, like she was a waitress offering water and not his partner.

Uncaring entirely that she's clearly upset.

That she wants to talk.

Munson has come to stand on Chrissy's other side, gone still in a way Steve's never seen him do.

It's downright weird for a guy who's normally always moving, and Steve knows it's defensive.

He's feeling a little defensive himself right now, though he doesn't want to particularly untangle why.

"Jason, listen to me." Chrissy tries again.

In his preffery vision, Steve spots a flash of familiar color. Turns his head automatically, seeking it out--and sees Jonathan hustling Nancy across the room.

The younger man is trying to balance Nancy while opening the front door, and for a second Steve almost beelines for them, except--

Except.

Nancy's whole body moves in what Steve intimately knows is an exhale, leaning her head in the crook of Jonathan's shoulder.

One arm wraps around his waist, as Jonathan finally gets the door open, and Steve watches with a stunned sort of horror as his girlfriend presses a kiss to Jonathan's shoulder.

It's fine.

He's fine.

Nancy was just--drunk. Seeking comfort. She didn't know what she was doing. She didn't mean it like that, she didn't--

"Oh shit Harrington." Jason drawls, a lazy sort of taunt. "I think Byers just stole your girlfriend."

Steve's head snaps back to him, the emotions he was attempting to box up flying to the front of his brain like dogs who slipped their leash.

"Never thought a priss like Nancy would be easy like that, but then, you never were the kind of guy to inspire loyalty." Jason continues, clearly ignoring his own girlfriend and all Steve can see is red.

Munson sucks air between his teeth next to him, nervously eyeing Steve while Chrissy's eyes have gone wide with shock and growing anger.

"Jason!" She admonishes, but he's not even looking towards her.

That too sharp smile is all for Steve.

He thinks of Nancy, the way she'd been so angry with him but so gentle with Jonathan.

He thinks of the monster he faced down in the Byers house, the terror that had shrank down to that same adrenaline soaked focus he had on the basketball court.

He thinks of this asshole Junior in front of him.

Making Chrissy cry just because she'd been kind enough to try to help Eddie, and accept Eddie's kindness in return when the weirdo tried to help her and Steve both.

Steve taps his foot, then switches his stance.

'Plant your feet.' Hargroves voice snarls in his memory and Steve wouldn't be surprised if the asshole abandons the keg long enough to come watch this.

Have his turn at heckling, just because he can.

Steve plants his feet anyway.

"You know what Carver?" He says, hands dropping from his hips.

Jason's face curves into a smile. "What?" He says, tone smarmy.

"You're full of shit."

Hand cocking back of its own accord, Steve puts every bit of himself into his punch.

Feels it reverberate up his arm as his knuckles connect to Jason's cheek.

It's going to hurt later, but right now all he can do is stand over Jason as the asshole's head snaps sideways, legs staggering him backwards until he's falling into his friends.

Chrissy gasps, Jason's boys chanting variations of 'Oh shit!'

Steve just glares him down.

The junior wipes his bloodied mouth, letting his friends push him up before shrugging them off.

"You're going to regret that." Jason snarls, and Steve squares up a second time, expecting to be rushed, when the sharp snickt! of a switchblade freezes them both.

"I think we're done here." Munson says, knife in hand.

The blade he holds is stained a deep, russet red. Crusty flakes fall off it, drifting gently down to the patio floor.

Jason's eyes boggle at it for a moment before he stands up straight.

"Now it makes sense. You're weak, Harrington, letting the Freak get his claws into you." Jason spits bloodstained saliva down at Eddie's feet. "No wonder Coach wants Billy as co-captain!"

Steve just scoffs.

"Chrissy!" Carver barks, making the poor girl jump. "Come here, we're leaving!"

Trembling, but stepping closer to Steve, she shakes her head.

"Chrissy." Jason orders again, and has the audacity to point to his feet, like a man commanding his dog.

"No." Chrissy says it quietly at first, voice a little shaky, before she seems to realize it.

She stands taller, repeats herself in a stronger voice. "No, Jason. We're done."

Jason stares at her, hard. "Chrissy, your mother told me to bring you home. So I'm going to take you home and get you away from this--demon and his lackey!"

It doesn't sound loving.

It sounds like a threat.

He steps forward, hand out to grab her arm and Steve tenses, shifting to step in front of Chrissy.

Eddie beats him there.

The word demon seems to awaken something in him, because his face is now grinning theatrically, voice dipping low in pitch.

"You heard her, Carver. She said no, and even I respect a lady's wish. So run along now," he walks two fingers in the air, from the hand not waving the knife around. "before I decide to make you and her both one of mine, just as I did Harrington!"

Jason actually crosses himself, before making one last attempt for Chrissy.

"That monster is dangerous. if you don't come with me, I'll have to alert your parents." He locks eyes with her. "For the good of your soul."

Steve snorts at that crock of shit, but Eddie lunges forward, slashing the knife in the air.

It's nowhere near Jason, but the guy leaps a foot back anyway.

"Begone!" Eddie booms, and that's all it takes for Jason and his cronies to huff and puff and stride away.

He keeps his arms in the air for a few beats more, before dropping them when it's clear Jason won't be back.

"So I'm yours, huh?" Steve drawls, as Eddie finally puts his hands down and turns to face them.

The guys scary face drops into something almost excited, and Steve can practically see the adrenaline crackling through him.

"Hey it worked. Carver's a religious nut, he goes running anytime you even hint at Satan." Eddie shrugs, grinning wildly. "Put on a little show and poof! Him and his flying monkeys melt away!"

He mimes melting and Steve stares at him for it, until he hears Chrissy laughing next to him.

Eddie grins at her and Steve is hit with the realization that it was for her benefit. To make her feel better about her psycho ex.

Something fond and familiar winds through his chest as the other boy bows.

He refuses to put a name to it.

"Did you paint your knife?" He asks instead, rubbing the hand he hit Jason with.

"What?" Eddie asks, startled out of his court jester act.

Steve nods to his hand holding the switchblade. "That's not blood, it's way too red."

"Ah." Eddie turns the grin back on, and this time it's for Steve. "Yeah, it's uh. Modeling paint. Not like Carver would know the difference."

Unspoken was the fact that he hadn't thought Steve would.

Prior to last year, he'd have been right.

Drunken cheering erupts into wild yells inside, breaking whatever spell the three of them were under.

Hargrove's voice is the loudest among them, and the dude is definitely wasted.

Steve has a feeling Hargrove also knows the difference between paint and blood, rendering Munson's knife trick useless if the dick tried to start something.

"Do you want a ride home, Chrissy?" He asks quietly.

"If it's not a bother." She says, wiping tears shed refused to let fall from her eyes.

Chrissy Cunningham was a lot stronger than people gave her credit for.

"Come on, Munson, I think it's time we all make our exit." Steve says, finding himself weirdly unwilling to leave the older teen behind.

Eddie could hold his own, but given how badly things were playing out Steve figured it was best if they all just called it a day.

"Yeah lemme just…" Munson puts his blade away, fumbling at his pockets for a moment before turning and snatching up a metal lunchbox.

"There! After you, my liege." He says, before opening the lunchbox to make it talk.

"My lady." He makes it say, pitching his voice high.

Chrissy breaks into giggles again and Steve rolls his eyes, but he claps his good hand on Eddie's shoulder as he walks past.

Eddie smiles at him, this one a bit softer than the others, eyes sparkling and Steve chooses not to read into that either.

The three of them walk together, Eddie splitting off to his van after Chrissy thanks him.

Part Two

#borked my computer trying to update the graphics card #have a thing #steven harrington #eddie munson #chrissy cunningham #this is part of an almost finished one shot #eventual #steve/eddie/chrissy #eddie is a dork #100% this oneshot focuses on how dorky his ass is #well that and putting two jocks back together after bad relationships and monster's details both their lives #i called it patchworks because its written to ne weaved through the shows plot and is mostly compliant until vecna #hurt/comfort #breakup

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bodybaggage · 1 month

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Phantom in the League pt.2

The Reality of Phantom

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The atmosphere in the Watchtower had become decidedly less tense after Danny’s revelation. The League was still processing the idea of one of their own being the ruler of an entire interdimensional ghostly kingdom, but they were professionals. They’d seen stranger things.

Well, most of them had. Flash was still stuck on something that Danny had casually dropped during the initial conversation. The speedster tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for the right moment to bring it up.

“Okay, okay, hold up,” Flash finally blurted out, snapping his fingers as the thought clicked into place. “You said your name is Danny Fenton, right?”

Danny, who had been silently dreading this part of the conversation, nodded hesitantly. “Uh, yeah. That’s me.”

“And you’re a teenager?” Flash asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously as he zipped over to scrutinize Danny’s face up close.

“Last time I checked, yeah,” Danny replied, leaning back slightly from Flash’s sudden invasion of personal space.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. So you’re telling me you’re not some ancient ghost who’s been around for centuries, pulling strings from behind the scenes?” Flash’s eyes were wide with shock. “You’re just… a kid?”

“Hey!” Danny protested, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m not just a kid. I’ve been through a lot, okay?”

Wonder Woman stepped in, placing a calming hand on Flash’s shoulder. “Barry, remember what we discussed about making assumptions?”

Flash blinked and gave her a sheepish smile. “Right, sorry. It’s just… wow. You’re younger than some of the villains we’ve fought.”

Green Lantern rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, glancing at Batman, who remained as stoic as ever. “Uh, so… not to be insensitive or anything, but you’re, uh, you’re dead, right? Like… you’re a ghost?”

Danny sighed, rubbing the back of his head. “Yeah. Half-ghost, technically. But, yeah. I died… sort of.”

The room fell into a brief silence, the weight of Danny’s words settling over them. It wasn’t something the League was accustomed to dealing with—death was part of their lives, yes, but having a teammate who had already crossed that threshold was… different.

Superman, ever the symbol of hope, stepped forward, his voice gentle. “Danny, we won’t ask how it happened. It’s not our place, and we respect your privacy. But if you ever need to talk about it, we’re here for you.”

Danny offered him a grateful smile. “Thanks, Supes. It’s, uh, a bit of a sensitive subject. But I appreciate it.”

Batman, who had been observing quietly, finally spoke up. “If you’re the King of the Infinite Realms, that means you’re responsible for a vast number of spirits and entities. Your age doesn’t change the fact that you’re capable of handling this responsibility. We trust your judgment.”

“Plus,” Flash added with a grin, “you’ve got us to back you up. We’ll make sure you don’t get overwhelmed with all that kingly stuff.”

Danny chuckled, feeling some of the tension ease. “Thanks, guys. It’s nice to know I’ve got some backup, especially when things get… complicated.”

There was a brief pause before Green Lantern asked the question everyone had been thinking but was too polite to voice. “So… do you, like, age? Or are you stuck as a teenager forever?”

Danny shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. Clockwork—you know, the Master of Time—he’s my mentor, and he’s hinted that I might age slower now, but he’s never been clear on the details.”

Batman nodded, his mind already analyzing the implications. “You’re in a unique situation. If your aging process is altered, it could affect how we approach future missions and strategies involving you.”

“Yeah,” Flash chimed in, grinning. “But, hey, look on the bright side! You get to be the youngest member of the League indefinitely! Think of all the birthday parties we can throw.”

Danny laughed, shaking his head. “As long as you don’t make a big deal out of it, I’m good with that. And for the record, I don’t really do birthdays. Kind of lost the appeal after, well, you know… dying.”

The room fell into a brief, awkward silence before Flash cleared his throat. “Right, sorry. Didn’t mean to make it weird.”

“It’s fine,” Danny reassured him with a smile. “I’m just still getting used to all this myself.”

Superman nodded. “We’ll respect your boundaries, Danny. You’ve already proven yourself to us time and time again. Your age doesn’t change that.”

“Agreed,” Wonder Woman added. “You are more than capable, Danny, and your youth is not a weakness. If anything, it speaks to your strength and resilience.”

Danny felt a warm surge of gratitude toward his teammates. He had been worried about how they’d react to the truth, but they had accepted him without hesitation. “Thanks, everyone. I guess I’ve been carrying this around for a while, and it feels good to finally let you all in on it.”

Batman’s voice, as calm and commanding as ever, broke the brief silence. “We’ll need to adjust some of our protocols now that we know the full extent of your abilities and responsibilities. But for now, we have more pressing matters to attend to. The dimensional rifts.”

“Right,” Danny agreed, snapping back to business mode. “I think I can close them, but I’ll need to figure out what’s causing them first. It could be something from the Realms leaking into your world.”

“Then we’ll start by monitoring the rifts and gathering as much data as possible,” Batman stated, already strategizing. “And Danny, if you need to access any resources from the Watchtower to help with your investigation, you have full clearance.”

Danny grinned, feeling more confident than he had in a long time. “Thanks, Bats. I’ll take you up on that.”

As they all prepared to leave the briefing room, Flash lingered for a moment, leaning in close to Danny with a conspiratorial grin. “So… do you have ghostly powers that let you pull pranks? Because I’ve got some ideas.”

Danny’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Oh, you have no idea, Barry. Just wait until you see what I can do.”

With that, the two exchanged a knowing look, and Danny couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief. The truth was out, and despite the initial awkwardness, the League had accepted him for who he was—both as Danny and as Phantom.

And with that acceptance came a new sense of belonging, one that made the title of King of the Infinite Realms feel just a little bit lighter.

pt. 1

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don’t mind me, im just mass posting my drafts rn👩‍🦯

#dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #dc x dp #justice league #dcu #dpxdc #danny phantom

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itsmrshamilton · 2 months

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Watch Him Rise

Summary: Lewis & Y/n watch their son's first competition. Y/s = your son's name.

A/n: guys, 100 of you?? Thanks for the liking, commenting, reblogging and reading🫶 I saw these pics of Lewis and thought they were so cute. Its giving WAG or SupportiveDad.

"Can you please sit down, it hasn't even started yet." You admonished your husband who was standing with his hands on his hips, eyeing the arena. You two had just found your seats and set down your belongings but Lewis refused to move from his position.

"I have to make sure he sees me! Support matters, love." He responded adjusting his bucket hat and moving his hands back to his hips. "Yes, I-" "I also need to scope the whole arena so we know where to look when his name is announced." He continued to assess the grounds.

You sighed in resignation and focused on unpacking drinks and supportive gear. You two had bought everything from bucket hats, to t-shirts, to foam fingers and pom-poms. All in the colours of your son's gymnastic team's colours. Your matching shirts had 'HAMILTON' printed in all caps and had a family picture at the back.

It was his first competition since he started training two years ago. His interest in the sport was a surprise to you and Lewis because you had never brought it up nor had you participated in it as children yourselves. But you were happy to do anything to make your son happy no matter how short his obsession with the craft. Luckily (cause you forked out thousands), your son remained devoted and passionate about gymnastics. He was the one who woke you up on weekends for training and asked to spend hours after school practising in the backyard.

Lewis was incredibly proud. He went from being worried about a bone injury to researching new moves and routines for your son to perform. He looked up the best coaches, got the best reviewed gear and most importantly, attended every single practice. The support he received from his father when he was growing up was what drove him to be his son's biggest supporter. Lewis understood how much of a mental game sports really were despite the physical strain they caused.

The day you gave birth to your son, you felt your heart double in size and increase in the capacity it had to feel love. When Lewis held him for the first time, it grew even more. And since that day, watching Lewis easily take to fatherhood and complete the simplest of parenting tasks made your heart ache and expand some more. You didnt think it was possible to feel so much love. Their matching brown eyes brought bright smiles to your face and it was your lifelong goal to constantly see joy reflected in those eyes.

"Oh, there he is! There's the team!" Lewis raised his voice in excitement. "Y/s! Y/s! Up here! You're going to do great!"

You stood up to wave your pom-poms in your kid's direction. He looked at you two through his mop of dark curls, grinned and waved. Nothing was embarrassing for him. Yet, you thought to yourself. You were lowkey dreading the teenage years but you put your all into cherishing these current days.

"Hi baby! Go smash it! Wooo!" You yelled at him. The parents around you were beginning to look on in annoyance but you paid no attention. This first competition was something you had spent months waiting for so you wouldn't allow your son to feel inadequate or unsupported.

A loud voice boomed through the speakers, announcing the start of the day's events. Your son waved one last time before turning to his teammates and coach. You and Lewis sat down to watch. You leaned on his arm and he turned to press a kiss to your temple and grasp your hand in his. The events began and you separated shortly every now and then to clap for the other kids. At this age, the events were not complicated and mainly consisted of the vault, parallel bars and balance beam. The floor was covered in busy bodies of varied ages all dressed in shiny kit and doing their best to score well. The mother in you wanted to give everyone full points for the adorable effort they put in. Lewis, on the other hand, sounded like a professional judge beside you. He was leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees and muttering to himself.

"More power. Don't flex the feet. Lift now. Mm. Too slow. Release. Mmm. Pull back." It had taken him less than 2 days to understand this sport's rules and regulations. In fact, he had crammed so much gymnastics information that if you asked him a rule about F1 right now, he'd spend hours trying to recall the correct answer. It was hilariously cute and you admired him greatly for it.

"Next up on the vault, Y/s Hamilton!" The big voice boomed. Lewis stood to cheer as you dug around for the sign to hold up: 'Soar high, Y/s! Fly!'. It was covered in glitters, stickers, jewels and more.

Your son stepped up to the end of the mat.

Your eyes began to water slightly as he pushed the curls away from his forhead and closed his eyes. Lewis had taught him to take a moment to envision the routine and make intentional movements before starting. A second later, he opened them up. Even from your distance you recognised the fierce look of determination in them. The same look Lewis got before a race and before he signed on a new business venture. You were so proud of that look because according to it's history, only great things followed.

Y/s took off sprinting down the mat and you felt your heart move to your throat. "Right. . .now" You heard Lewis mutter beside you. "Twist, tighten, lengthen. . . release. Release!" He went through each of the movements mentally while he watched his son soar, flip, twist and land perfectly on the mat. "Yeah! That's my boy!"

You jumped up and down squealing with pure bliss at Y/s's achievement. Lewis scrambled to get his phone out to record the scores the judges selected. You noticed that his hands trembled slightly as he reached up to swipe a lone tear on his face. His smile still bright and proud.

"Y/s Hamilton. 10s across the board." The voice boomed.

The two of you erupted into bigger cheers and grabbed each other before steadying the phone that was recording. It caught your son jumping up and down in excitement and high-fiving teammates. He turned to the stands to wave at his parents and receive all the kisses they blew at him. "Oh Lewis, our baby!" You whispered when everything had settled down. He pulled you towards him and hugged you tightly. Together you watched your son get warmed up for the next event. His smile so wide it showed all of his gaps and baby teeth. "He's only just beginning to rise." Lewis said to himself. "And we'll be here til he reaches the top."

💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌

Why did I nearly make myself cry? Guys, I had to take a break for a couple of weeks because I was doing too much on this app and not focusing on my real life, lol. Thank you for reading. Remember to interact before you leave. This is not a part of the "tattoo of us" series.

#lewis hamilton #lewis hamilton x reader #lewis hamilton x you #lewis hamilton fic #lewis hamilton x black reader #lewis hamilton fluff #f1 x reader #lh44 #f1

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netherfeildren · 4 months

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FABLE OF THE DOG : 1. The Two Headed Calf

Series Masterlist;

Pairing: Joel Miller x FMC

Summary: Welcome home and buck up, cowgirl.

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: Cowboy/Heiress AU; Slowburn(ish); Original Characters; Alcohol & Drug Use; Discussions of Grief; Daddy Issues; Graphic Descriptions of Vomiting; Description of a Dead Body; Death of a Parent; Parental Neglect; Older Man/Younger Woman; Jealousy; Past Teenage Crush; Unrequited Pinning; Yearning and Longing Galore; Boss’s Daughter; Complicated Family Relationships; A Home is a Place but ALSO a Person!; Found Family

A/N: Disclaimer, I know nothing about Wyoming and it’s geography, ranching, or being a cowboy and just made all this up. Any and all misrepresentations are fallacy of my laziness.

The FMC tag was decided because she has a last name. It was just too difficult for me to speak in depth about her father without giving him a name, and thus her one too. After that decision was made, she kind of went away from me and devolved into her own person who I have come to be quite obsessed with. It’s still written in ‘you’ format, anyhow.

I’ve been having a whole lot of fun with this, I hope you do too.

Word Count: 10K

Read on AO3

1: The Two Headed Calf

“She’s been shut up in that house goin’ on three days now, Joel,” Tommy says as the two brothers make their way across the lawn.

The ride had been long and hard, and Joel is tired—he levels a dark look at him. “Just sayin’. Nothin’ you find in there’s gonna be pretty to look at.” He raises his hands in surrender at the brooding glare, that non-confrontational shrug that’s set Joel on edge since they were boys.

“One of you’s should’a gone in there. Made sure she’s okay.”

“The housekeepers’ve been keepin’ an eye. And Frank tried to go in there and check on her himself, but she’s angry as a barn cat. Hissin’ ‘nd yowlin’, and just bein’ downright scary as hell, to be honest. You should be prepared is all I’m tryin’ to say.”

“Her father just died, Tommy. I’m not expectin’ pretty sights right now,” Joel gruffs, trying to swallow the panic that flutters in his throat as they crest the final hill up to the big house.

The beautiful stone, oak, glass monstrosity that’s stood as monument to this place, this home that is not truly his, for over a decade now. The Kelly Ranch. The sky above is still a sultry, yawning blue, deep and tired, basking in the throes of dawn as the sun just now makes its way over the crest of the Tetons in the distance so that the house sits for just a moment longer in its pool of shadowed blues.

Joel pauses on the border of that somber darkness, afraid suddenly of what awaits him inside; boots glued to the ground with the gum of cowardice. He doesn’t want to see her broken. He doesn’t want to see her hurting. But there’s no other recourse, he knows this. The death of the estranged father she’d fought with all her life, the inheritance of this world that seems suddenly too big for just one orphaned girl, all alone now.

He’s afraid that he’ll walk into that house he’s always seen as other and home all wrapped into one—that Olympus that was so far removed and out of reach even when he walked through it’s halls to the man who’d given him sanctuary and salvation, to the man he knew mistreated her sometimes, didn’t love her enough—and not have the capacity to recognize her, this girl who’d always been familiar and stranger all in one also.

Joel Miller suddenly feels afraid of the memory she exists as in his mind, in the face of the woman he knows she is now.

When he lets himself in the back kitchen door, it’s still nighttime within. The cool dryness of the AC cranked up to inhuman temperatures makes him shiver once while sprouting a damp sweat along his nape. He should’ve showered before coming, should’ve washed the ride and the days of camp off his skin before walking into her presence, but all he’d managed were his hands and face. There’d been panic to make sure she was well, if not then alive, at least. But he should be more presentable for her.

Hell, he should’ve been here for her when she came home for the first time in two years to the house where her father had died. He should’ve been here when the man died.

But the herd had needed moving. He hadn’t thought it’d all happen so quickly, thought he had more time, that they all had more time. He’d hoped she wouldn’t return at all, if he was being honest. There was nothing here for her. Nothing except memories of a gilded and loveless, already motherless childhood. The reality of all she was set to inherit. The truth of an aloneness Joel didn’t know if she was prepared for.

He moves through the house slowly, afraid to disturb the ghosts and the silence. The interior, immaculate and beautiful and solemn. Something out of a movie picture or the gloss of a magazine. Something covered not in dust but in sadness. The stairs are silent as his spinning mind makes up for the creak, the boots she’d sent him on his last birthday hit the richly piled rug at the top, and the hallway to the bedrooms yawns long and frightening in front of him. Two grand a pop, the boots—Lucchese, he’d looked them up on the iPhone she’d sent him the year before. A gift giver, generous to a fault, kind to a detriment. She sent something to all the ranch hands that’d worked for her father since she was a girl. Something for the entire ranch at Christmas. And all he managed each time was a perfunctory thank you card, like he did every year because he remembered, years ago, in her little voice, polite people send thank you notes, Joel, my grandmother told me so. Last year he’d written that they were too much, that she shouldn’t have, that he was grateful. There wasn’t much else to say.

That was the extent of their communication, familiar and stranger in one, the far removed golden child of the Kelly. They’d all called him that, the Kelly, for as long as he’d known the man. As if he was some Scottish laird of old, ruling over his clan and half the world. Egotistical, was what it really was. He’d thought himself a god among men, in the face of his only child. Ridiculous was what Joel saw it all for, a put on play, a farce.

And wonder of wonders, she was entirely unlike him because of course she would be. Of course a man ruled by nothing more than ego and narcissism had been sent his polar opposite in the form of his only child. Kind hearted, was what she was—sending him a birthday gift every year. Remembering them all here always no matter how far she’d gone. He sent her a thank you note for each benevolence in return, a word of respectful gratitude for the fact that a person like her could ever remember a dog like him.

Sometimes, Joel had wanted to go to him, the old man, Oswald Kelly, and ask him where his daughter was, why he wasn’t looking for her, keeping her closer, caring for her. He wasn’t the sort of man that could’ve ever understood such callous behavior towards one’s child.

The last time she’d been here, over two years ago: less than forty eight hours that had ended in screaming so terrible they’d all heard it down from the barn, sitting in uncomfortable, swollen silence, the spinning of tires ringing as she yelled at her father that he was never going to see her again, the man’s echoing laugh as she’d fled him.

Joel hadn’t seen her on that visit, it’d been so quick and angry. Flying down on the jet from New Haven for her father’s seventieth birthday and not even making it long enough for the festivities. This was what her life was, as he’d observed it from a distance for all these years, the singular daughter of this great house, coming to her father, attempting joy and finding nothing but disappointment at the end of him.

She’d been right, a knowing streak running through her. Kelly had never seen her again, and Joel didn’t know if the old man had regretted it or not, the anger and the estrangement and the lack of love. But the last time he’d spoken to him, hours before setting off on their move, the herd always came before everything else, the ranch was all that mattered is what the man had always said, with death scratching at the window, his frail and withered body licked down to almost nothing from the austere and imposing figure Joel had always known him as, he’d asked for her. His only child. Do you think she’ll come, Joel? The dying man had asked him. My daughter, do you think she’ll come see me? Joel had lied a lie he hadn’t known was one, said she would, that he’d call her as soon as he was back.

In the end, he hadn’t even afforded her that decency, a personal call.

He comes to her open bedroom door now, pitch dark as grief within, and the stench of sorrow and liquor seeping from the living grave. He looks down the long and empty hall for a brief second, wishing it didn’t have to be him, that again, he didn't have to see her any way other than okay. And he realizes that there’s something about her, as she will exist now, that makes him cowardly. Something about this house without the man who’d granted him the absolution of a hiding place all those years ago, who’d understood and sheltered Joel in the midst of his own past grief, that makes him cowardly. The house feels wrong without Kelly within it, wrong with only her as its holder now.

Joel steps into her dark, and it’s a battleground—

—You are silent and motionless in the blue room.

Nothing of the gleaming splendor that dresses the rest of the home sleeps in here. There are clothes everywhere, an exploded suitcase lies open and massacred in the middle of the plush white rug, a turned over bottle of red wine bleeding into your clothes. Shredded pages with scratched on writing slashed across them, the dusted white mounds of crushed pills, as if you’d smashed each one individually beneath the thumb of your grief. The sight makes him more afraid, the scent of weed and cigarettes heavy in the air, as he takes the final step towards the wrecked bed, and a single small foot hangs limply from the edge.

He stares at it long and hard for a second, afraid, afraid again, still, of what he’ll find. He says your name once, short and gruff like a dog’s bark. It’s what he feels like. Animal, bestial, lacking any sort of cognizance amidst this minefield. His heart beats against his spine, and he thinks he should do something else, shake you, check for a pulse, his bones throb inside his skin. He needs to fucking move, but the smell of smoke is so cloying he’s choking on his own tongue.

Your ankle twitches.

And Joel sucks in a sigh of relieved air without panic, saying your name again. His voice is level now, maybe gentle, no more barking dog. His eyes move up the length of one pretty leg, and then quickly, he averts his gaze when he gets high up enough he’s met with soft-creased asscheek covered in silk. Swallowing his tongue, his eyes roll in their sockets, looking for anything else to look at besides the sight of panty clad ass. He steps closer again, gripping the edge of the sheet to pull it over your scantily clad body, eyes flitting to the silver spun clock on the nightstand, the warm glow of the hall light shows that they have two hours to get you sober and presentable before the funeral.

Joel should have been here. He does not feel that he is even here now. And the guilt eats at him like acid. The fear too.

“Darlin’, you’ve gotta get up now,” he says softly, taking hold of your shoulder, scalded by the feel of fragile skin, realizing with the suddenness of a gunshot that you’ll be the Kelly now. He gives you a gentle shake, “We’ve gotta get you ready,” and his heart pumps blood like a machine. The sight of the dry liquor bottle toppled on the nightstand, the shattered glass glittering the floor in crystal, the empty pill bottles, it all taunts him. His guilt is a cacophony in his mind. He knows he’s going to have to stick his fingers down your throat, make you spit it all up, that you’ll hate him for all of this afterwards, but when his gaze meets streaked rust, dark and shocking against the white sheets, he’s kicked into terrified action.

He turns you over, your head lolling sickeningly in unconscious stupor, hair a tangled mess strewn about your face so that he has to dig for your eyes, parting the curtains of your fringe to uncover you. He focuses on your closed eyes, the too long lashes clumped together, lips cracked and parched.

He should’ve fucking been here.

Smoothing his fingers along the lengths of your arms, he keeps his eyes on your face and averted from all the skin that keeps peeking out below, searching the divots and slopes of your arms for hurts. When he gets to your right hand, battleground of a long ago broken hurt, he finds the drying crust of blood, the ragged split in the soft, small palm, thankfully shallow.

His eyes smart, looking down at the broken glass, feeling the tear in you.

Gripping you gently below the elbows he pulls you into his arms, cradled like a child, light as loss. Your head lolls again, neck crooked at an unnatural angle as he carries you into the restroom, careful of your head, knocking the lights on and putting you down in front of the toilet bowl. He pulls your camisole to rights, making sure everything is covered, and gathers your mess of hair as carefully as he can, trying his best to not snag the fragile strands in his too rough hands, but gripping you firmly in position. And ignoring the sound of your awakening cry, he sticks two fingers into your slack jawed mouth and down your throat until he feels the hot rush of vomit.

Crouching behind you, his thighs bracket you, keeping your form from slumping over as you empty the poison from your belly, flushing the alcohol soaked bile as you struggle. He wipes his messy hand on the leg of his jeans and rubs soothing circles on your back, his fingers woven through the soft silk of your hair to keep your head in place and your face clear. His heart thumps in rhythm with your heaves, your too quick, panicked breathing. There seems to be not enough oxygen for the two of you and your grief in the too small room of the commode, and Joel gasps like a dying fish, trying to swallow calm breaths.

When you finally stop your heaving, you rest your arms at the edge of the gleaming porcelain, head hung low, defeated, wracked with shivers or silent sobs, he isn’t sure, a strange and horrible keening noise, so small he barely catches it, held in your throat. There’s the finest down of peach fuzz that covers the tender slope of your vulnerable nape, and it makes Joel feel suddenly, just as vulnerable, just as unprotected. At a complete loss for how to help you.

“Finally decided to show your face,” you croak, voice ragged with your sick.

His fingers tighten once around your shoulder, a panicked tick of reminder that he’s here now, that he’s him. “I was moving the herd. It had to be done. Your father, he—” he stutters, trying explain, tripping over his own guilt ridden words. “I didn’t think it’d happen now, so fast, that you’d get here so soon. I thought we had more time.”

We.

Your skin seems to cool by the second beneath his fingertips, and then you’re shrugging his touch away, huddling closer to the porcelain bowl, further away from him.

“Get out.”

“Let me explain. I—” And he’s begging now. He can hear the note of it in his voice. Begging for forgiveness. For a chance.

“I don’t want to see you.” You don’t say his name. “Get out.” It feels worse than anything.

“I’m here now. I didn’t know— I didn’t think.” He reaches to grab for you again, but you turn to face him suddenly. Wiping the back of your hand against your mouth, pushing your heels at his shins to kick him away. Your eyes are red rimmed, the hollows beneath bruised with lack of sleep. But fire spits from the deep color, all anger and hurt.

“Go deal with your fucking ranch,” you fling the words at him. “It’s all you care about anyways.” And they weren’t shivers, he sees now, they’re tears tracked as proof of all his guilt, all his lacking, along the slopes of your fine grained cheeks.

Your, you say. As if this place and anything in it has ever been his. He’s never wanted any of it like that, only ever seen a thing that needed taking care of, and him, with the ability to care for it.

“I needed you,” you whisper as if the thought comes along on a second wind of anger, a realization that sends your voice breaking, hitching, your chest caving in on itself as the tears come faster and faster now. “He’s dead, and I needed you.”

“I’m sorry,” he begs. “I’m so sorry.” His voice breaks now too. He thinks he’ll cry now too, for the man who he also lost, who despite it all meant something to him, as well. For you, who’s lost even more. For Joel’s own guilt.

But he doesn’t think you see any of that, not his apology, not his regret, not his own grief. You turn away from him again, laying your temple down again on your forearm. “Get out. I’ll be ready soon.”

And so he goes.

Your father is made small and withered in death.

One of the wealthiest men in the entire world. A stranger, a titan, a nightmare of a man.

It wasn’t something you’d ever considered, that a human body could look so colorless and frigid and not alive. Like a shock or a ringing bell, it’s a realization that you’re an orphan now. That you’re all alone.

You feel something like a memory of regret. Or something that’s like the idea that you should feel regret, that you should feel guilt for how it was between the two of you. But all that is overshadowed by the reality of what you weren’t. All you feel even more, or in actual reality, is the old loss of what you’d never been to each other. That, you realize, is the seed of your grief. That long ago wound, that child’s understanding that he wasn’t like all the other fathers, that he’d never care for you the way other children were cared for.

Looking down at the frozen face that looks nothing like the one he’d worn the last time you’d seen him, the wispy thatch of hair that hadn’t been so jarringly white before sickness had ravaged his body, you realize that this is no new loss, it is only a continuation, a reopening of a very old one.

The cavernous cathedral at your back is silent, vacated by the sea of people that had congregated here earlier. And with sickening curiosity, you uncoil an arm from where you’ve got it wrapped around yourself, reaching out to press a finger against the ice cold back of his hand. Shockingly not alive; he feels made of rubber.

Everyone that’d been here to bid farewell to this behemoth turned slip of a man, to catch a glimpse of you, packed like teeth into Jackson’s grandest cathedral; business men and heads of state from around the world, the oldest family names in the country, figures of the highest echelons of wealth and society, vipers circling the barrel—half the world here to see this person who was supposed to have been your father but was really only a stranger.

You take your hand back, and you don’t say goodbye as you turn away from his body. There’s no farewell to really tell.

And at the back of the church, hiding in a bright ream of sunlight, Joel stands propped against the face of a saint. Dark and silent and maybe even more far removed than your dead dad. Watching sentinel. Oswald Kelly’s hovering man—come to watch over him one last time.

The silk of your stockings slide against each other at the junction of your thighs, the hiss of your skirt around your calves as your reed thin heels click against the stone, and you pull your armor as tightly around yourself as you can. There’s a hollow echo inside of everywhere and everything, your mind like a gong, reverberating, and his gaze is so steady, hazel bright, deeply shaded by the lip of his dark hat, beckoning you towards him from beneath the brim.

Large and strong and steadfast, your heart gives a painful, longing thump—stupid, writhing thing—and you can only bear to look him in the eye for a second, and if you were to really think about saying goodbye to that father that never really was, lying behind you, slipping further and further away, you’d say it to the man that always stood as his shadow before the world, before you ever said it to the man himself.

The drive back home is cast in frigid silence and made all the more uncomfortable because you can practically hear Joel’s brain clicking and ticking away with worry.

He’d sent your car and driver away with a harsh word while you collected your final goodbyes and words of respect from the last smattering of people congregated and waiting for the newly birthed heir to one of the greatest fortunes in the world.

Hovering over your shoulder, he’d kept anyone from stepping too close or getting too friendly, so close you could feel the heat of his chest through the silk of your blouse, and then going suddenly full on aggressive when a reporter from the New York Times had approached, fishing for a quote on the future of the Kelly empire. Ushering you away with a hovering hand at the small of your back before the man could get half a question out, he’s opening the truck’s door for you as a haze descends over your eyes, the distant shutter and flash of cameras bursting in your peripherals, a latent hangover and sleep deprivation and not enough to eat in the last forty eight hours causing you to sag in his hold. Then it’s only his big fist wrapping around the span of your wrist as he lifts you into the truck, your eyes downcast and unable to take in sight or sound, vision all a blur. You murmur a barely there thank you with his hand fitting at the dip of your waist, big body blocking yours entirely from prying eyes trying to catch a glimpse or a stumble, and for a single second, your entire weight is suspended in his hold, allowing you to bypass the struggle of balancing your high heel on the step up, and then you’re sliding onto the leather of the seat, the whisper of your cashmere and silk rustling around you as he handles you like a child being spirited away from the scene of a crime.

The door shuts gently behind you, face turned away from the flashing lights, the watchful eyes of the whole world, and worst of all, the assessment of his concerned gaze. All you’re afforded are thirty seconds of privacy to let out a single gasping sob.

And now, an hour and a half of silent purgatory.

You slip your heels off, flexing your smarting toes against the damp of your stockings and tuck your folded legs beneath you on the seat. Paying the frantic energy of his anxiety and lodged words no mind, you consider instead: your new reality. The burden of it all means very little to you now. The last of your worries is being readied for entombing as the two of you speed down the eighty nine, zinging past the bright Wyoming green. The thrum of his truck drowns out your thoughts, brand new, probably over a hundred grand, only the best for your father’s right hand man, and the Kelly Ranch insignia emblazoned proudly on the sides. A brand for the whole world to see just who exactly is being whisked away to her old home turned brand spanking new grave.

You might be feeling a little bit dramatic. But then again— you’d just put your last remaining parent in an actual grave, surely that provides you some allowances.

Out of the corner of your eye, you can see his big paw gripping the leathered steering wheel in a death clutch, knuckles white with his frustration at the dilemma you pose, his own discomfort. You’re sure if he thought you wouldn’t catch him, he’d be squirming in his seat.

You do something to him sometimes, you know this. Not in any way you’d like, not in any interesting way, that of a woman affecting a man, but something respectfully harrowing. Maybe something a little bit like fear.

There has existed between the two of you, always, that strange intimacy of two people who’ve known each other for a very long time, and yet, have always remained at a far removed, arms length distance from one another.

A professional intimacy of sorts. Your father’s foreman, shadow, fixer. The man who guarded that treasure trove you’d inherit one day, today; the thing your father loved most in the world. Two people who’ve known each other a long time, and yet, don’t really know each other at all.

There has always been, however, the fact of the birthday.

The birthday. Your birthday.

The way you’d latched onto that small, immense, detail when you’d first discovered it at fourteen, when he’d newly arrived at the ranch and the true weight of your first real crush had really hit you, it was probably not entirely healthy. But you’d thought yourself in love with your father’s man, the first figure of the male species who’d ever drawn your attention in such a way.

He’d never paid you any mind; you were the boss's daughter, a figurehead or a responsibility, maybe a nuisance, although he’d never ever treated you as one. But the day someone had let slip it was his birthday, on the same day as yours, your teenage heart had swelled with the naive hope of fate. It was meant to be, the two of you were connected, so on and so forth, swallowed by girlish innocence and made buoyant by fantasy.

But you’d had something to share with someone, which was what really mattered. Something tangible, even if only in your inexperienced little mind, something to wield as comfort so that the first time your father had forgotten your special day, fifteen, and what a tender age it had been, you’d had something to cling to. That's when your gifts to him had started. It was your way of making sure there was at least one person in the whole world who’d remember that was your day too. That you were alive, that you mattered. A reminder of yourself. And as the years and birthdays passed, sometimes, when he sent those coldly gracious notes of his, you’d wished you could’ve written back with honesty. Said something like, I’m so lonely, wish you were here, wherever it was in the world you’d found yourself at the time.

And of course, he was gorgeous and older, strong and patient and capable, entirely unattainable. Impossible to forget. You’d gone so far, traveled wide, gotten yourself an overpriced education that would probably serve you for nothing, had lovers and parties and splendor, and always, you remembered your gifts for him, you remembered him. It was the single most important detail of your birthday every year.

The leather creaks beneath his fist again, chapped knuckles set to burst before he flexes his fingers out, long and straight. Thickly built hands, strong, made for working or hurting, on a man who you’ve never seen be anything but stoically patient.

He was strange in that way, neither wholly impulsive nor precisely intentional in his mannerisms. More so, it was that there was something extremely neutral about him, a middle buoyancy of personality. Strict with the cowboys, exacting, wielding his title as ranch foreman with an iron fist and your father’s blessing, and yet still, quiet, serious, with that patient gentleness about him. You’d seen it in the way he’d handled Ellie when she’d first come to the ranch, young and skinny with that hollow look of trauma kids who’d seen things they shouldn’t have shamed adults with. She’d been a little older than you, and with an air you’d not understood, a sort of lived past you’d been naive to the existence of, frightened when confronted by it, and yet inevitably, the two of you’d become fast friends eventually.

You’d even experienced it yourself, on two treasured occasions, that gentleness that you’d held onto for years. Nurturing the memory of him in your mind like a delusional bloom.

He stretches his hand again, wheel caught between his thumb and forefinger, cinching it there, back and forth. His nails are meticulously clean, cut to the quick, and you imagine he must spend a great deal of time cleaning himself up when he works so hard at getting himself so dirty most days.

You can see him sneaking glances at you, and he coughs once, a clearing of his nervous throat. Averting your gaze, you turn your face away so that you’ll be able to watch him through the reflection in the window. He monopolizes the space in the cabin of the truck, broad shoulders and hulking form, all the fine leather smell washed away in the scent of him. That bay rum aftershave he’s always worn, the one with the distinctive notes of bay leaf, cloves and citrus. An old fashioned scent, masculine and crisp.

You’d snuck into the bunk once with Ellie, before he’d moved into the foreman’s cabin, before Switzerland, when the two of you were still girls running rampant and free through the ranch, clutching desperately at the last vestiges of any sort of happy childhood you could scrounge up for one another. You’d peeked in his things, found a whole world of Joel shaped curiosities. The glass etched bottle of aftershave, a hole spotted t-shirt with a burnt orange longhorn across the front, Flannery O’Connor’s The Complete Stories—something you found comforting, knowing he could read about the small, the freakish, real life; thinking that perhaps he was homesick for the comfort of the South, hungering for a taste of the life he’d had then, through books. And then, in a spine cracked copy of Suttree, the pages almost falling apart beneath your fingertips, dog eared and well loved, her picture tucked between the pages.

It had been the first time you’d done something you knew you shouldn’t have and actually regretted it, looking down at that green eyed photograph.

You’d run back to your room after that, ashamed and something a little bit like jealous, desperate to know who she was, desperate for someone to keep a picture of you like that—as if they loved you. And years later, you’d found the scent for yourself. The little molasses glass bottle you still have and pull out on occasion, when you’re feeling extra bad, extra lonesome, extra far away from the whole world, just for a reminding of home.

Beside you, he sighs again, coughs again, brings you back to himself and the present. Just spit it out already, you think exasperatedly, say something, anything else besides how sorry you are.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he starts, and you roll your eyes, scoffing quietly.

“You already said that.” Sullen. Mullish. You wish you were a child who could still throw a tantrum and get away with it. Letting your eyes go unfocused from his reflection in the window, you brood at the sight of everything that’s yours now as he turns off the highway, passing below the iron eave of the Kelly Ranch entrance. Eight hundred thousand acres of pristine Wyoming land nestled into the deep valley surrounded by the Grand Tetons mountain range.

“Well, I’m sayin’ it again.” He’s driving too fast, and you refuse to turn and look at his face. Your heart beats blood in your ears, and you screw your eyes shut to the dizzying blur of green legacy, not wanting to see any of it—him.

Your belly swoops, going slightly nauseous and gurgling.

“I didn’t think you’d get here so quick.” He swallows, “Hell, I didn’t think it’d all happen so damn fast.”

“I was already in New York,” you tell him, voice clipped with breathlessness. “I left Paris last week.”

“What? I didn’t know— I—”

“Why would you?”

“I would’ve called you. I would’ve gotten you out here quicker.”

“Ellie called. It’s better like this, Joel.” Finally letting yourself say his name out loud, it feels wrong and molten on your tongue, a heaviness being spit up from the depths of your stomach. “We don’t have to pretend anymore. He’s dead now.”

“There’s no pretending. He wanted to see you—”

“Please, stop.”

But he urges on unheeded: “He told me so before I left. Told me—”

“Stop,” you snap. Finally turning to look at him and hating him for it. For how gorgeous he is, for all the things he’s always made you feel for as long as you can remember what it was to feel something for a man, for all he did or did not have with your father when you had none of it or so much of an entirely different thing. “Stop. I don’t want to hear any of it. It doesn't matter anymore, Joel.”

“But you should know. You deserve to know that—”

“What?” Because that one hurts. “I deserve to know what?” That he actually had loved you but had just never been able to show it? That now it was too late? That the only person the great Oswald Kelly had ever been able to speak to of the supposed care he had for his only daughter was the hired help? You’d read once that one should never let their parents anywhere near their real humiliations. You’d tried your damndest to follow that as soon as you’d grown up. “It’s not your place,” you seethe with teeth bared, an animal shoved into a corner and made to fight for its life, deciding you won’t ever let Joel near them either.

He spits a cursing, growled sound of frustration, but doesn’t continue. The two of you find yourselves at an impasse, and you turn back to your windowed mirror of him, eyes pinching hot, filling with tears. One of the things your father disliked most about you, your easy tears, and a single salt marred inadequacy tracks down the slope of your cheek, dripping off the edge of your jaw into the bandaged cup of your palm, and you breathe slow and measured through your open mouth, watching the fog cloud grow and shrink against the glass obscuring your vision of him.

The last time you’d missed your mother, the one you’d never known, in any sort of real and true way, you’d been eighteen. Returning to an empty house after celebrating your high school graduation in a far off school, alone.

In the midst of your sophomore year, you’d been sent away to a Swiss boarding school. It had been something worse than devastating, losing your life in Wyoming, the only home you’d ever know, Ellie, the other people on the ranch… But it was far removed enough that you couldn’t bother, where you couldn’t ask for things like attention or consideration. The education had been excellent, the upbringing desperately lonely ending on a whimpering sigh despite your many accomplishments. You’d wanted her very badly then indeed, your mother. To have been there, to have helped you pick your dress, kissed your cheek after watching you walk across the stage. To have wiped your tears when she told you that your father wasn’t there because he was busy managing the whole world, but that he was proud of you, that he’d have been there if he could. You’d wished she could’ve been there to lie to you so that you wouldn’t have needed to lie to yourself.

Peering down from your balanced perch atop the deck’s bannister, you survey the deep bed of Lily of the Valley, destroyed beneath the vindictive soles of your bare feet. He’d planted them for her all around the house after she’d died, her favorite flower.

You’d always hated them.

And that was the thing of it all, which you’d learned when you grew old enough to recognize such things like disdain. He couldn't stand you because you reminded him of her. Clichéd and old and tired. An excuse for being a neglectful father. The daughter who was too much like her dead mother, and thus did not deserve to be loved.

You tip your head back, nursing at the lip of fine aged Macallan, and the sky is a glass mirror of blackened silver streaks. You’re almost positive that all the stars in the Milky Way are visible from right here at this very spot in the heart of Wyoming. The sight makes your broken heart feel full and falsely mended.

You’re certain you’re painting a pretty picture right now: tipsy on a bottle of your dead dad’s sacredly hoarded whiskey that probably cost as much as someone’s house, staring up at the stars in your newly inherited home with a whole unappreciated life full of possibilities ahead of you. Basking in the title of your newly minted— orphan-hood? Orphan-ness? A peer of the orphans.

You snort softly, sucking on the bottle again, letting the heat of it settle in your belly, smolder in your heart. Your head feels full of bubbles and sugar and sad.

There’s a part of you that feels a little ridiculous, despite the circumstances. You’re good at compartmentalizing, good at being objective of your realities. Obviously: sad because your father is now dead, and it’d been nine months and eleven days since you’d last spoken to him. Sad because he’d never given a shit about you. Sad because you’re alone, dumped by the stupid French jockey boyfriend who you’d not even liked very much, just a few days before this whole pathetic ordeal of acquiring your orphan-hood, yeah, that’s what you’re sticking with, had occurred. Not to mention the army of looming lawyers and financial advisors and various heads of business vying for your attention, waiting for the what next?

And Joel.

A one man army of looming Joel.

So you’re feeling morose, blue, maybe a little spoiled, but brought low and cut short. Depressed and unsatisfied with your life thus far.

Poor little rich girl. Poor little orphan. Poor little me.

What you want?

Someone to care.

Someone to love you.

Hard to come by. Impossible to buy.

The stars gleam purple silver, winking at you. The bracketing black so dark it swallows the eye. Another taste of the nutty bouquet of smoked apple oranges, and soon you’ll be tipsy enough you won’t be able to balance your butt on the bannister’s ledge anymore. Maybe you’ll go humpty dumpty over the edge and crack your skull against your mother’s valley of destroyed Lily’s.

You laugh again with sound now, not crazy, only an orphan, ha, but you think that it’s only that it feels shockingly as if you’ve fallen through the surface of your life. As if you are still falling with nothing and no one to grab on to, to help stabilize you. A really terrible, shit-out-of-luck feeling.

Your eyes continue their infernal leaking, and you blow your nose loudly on the inside of your sweater. You’ve given yourself three days to do whatever the hell you want, be as disgusting as you may. When the three days are up you’ll plan to get your act together, take responsibility and hold of your life and become the woman you should be.

Who that is? Still being decided.

You think that maybe you’ll buy another jet before that time’s up. Or an island. Something ridiculous. Maybe you’ll sell the goddamn ranch.

You eye the dark rolling hills of the valley with seething suspicion. Let’s see what Joel says about that. You, marching up to the highway entrance and spearing a For Sale sign in the dirt of the largest privately owned cattle ranch in the continental United States. Way more than that God forsaken surly frown is what you’d get.

So long, Joel, it’s been swell. I’m done with this place. It’s time to pack it up and find some new hunk of land to care about more than you care about me or anything else.

Maybe you’ll be real funny and put up a Craigslist ad.

And it isn’t that you don’t love this place, the only home you’ve ever known. You do. In a way that is passionate and consuming and irreconcilable. Everything about it, the serenity, the guarding mountains and the deep woods, the home you’d been born in, that both your parents had died in. You do love it in your way.

It’s only that every man you’ve ever loved—loved—had always cared more about the place than he’d ever cared about you.

For the longest time, most of your youth until you’d decided that you officially felt an adult, you’d thought you’d hated your father. There was just so much anger and resentment and the resound of his ever furious words and insults and endless disappointment. The echo of no mother ringing so loudly in your ears that the confounding feelings had all been mistaken for hatred. But with age and distance and life, you’d realized you didn't hate him. You never had. You thought, actually, and this was a very good and mature thought of yours, that you were the only person in the whole world that had ever seen him as only a man and not a god.

He was only a man, full of greed and grief and missing the mother of the child he’d probably never wanted. Nothing more or less.

Maybe it was that you felt sorry for him. Not in the way of pity, but in the way of one person feeling empathy for another in a clinical and helpless sort of manner. And a numb, detached sort of sadness. A longing for something that you’d never had and had always wanted but eventually learned to live without.

Ultimately, his disappointment had turned on him, and now it was all you felt you had for him at the end of it all.

But, for some reason, and an annoying one at that, you do think that, if you try very, very hard, you could bring yourself to hate Joel Miller. There’s satisfaction in that possibility, vindication—resentment that even now, as practically strangers, you know he’d be able to pull that sort of feeling out of you which could result in hatred. Something strong and overwhelming and not easily escaped.

Your stomach rumbles, and you smile blithely at all your inherited legacy, filling the hollow with more drink. Three days to behave very badly, as badly as you can. The whiskey is so good, and swishing it around in your mouth, you tip your head back further, gurgling it loudly at the back of your throat.

“What the hell are you doing?”

You jerk, scrambling to keep your balance, choking a little on smokey apples and your own spit. A trickle of the golden amber liquor drips out of the corner of your mouth as you find him hiding in the dark across the deck. Accustomed to drooling over him, you wipe it away with the back of your hand.

“Having a party. Would you like to join?”

“Are you drunk again?”

Tough crowd. Ugh. “Never mind. You’re not invited. Go away.”

“You need to go inside and go to bed.”

You tip your chin at him, putting on doe eyes. “Alright. And are you going to be my new daddy also?” You say in a baby voice.

Fucking Christ, you hear him whisper under his breath, turning away to run an exasperated palm over his mouth. Frustration seethes off of him like sulfur. He’s tired. Of you maybe. Of the whole circus this place has become in the past few days—and rightfully so.

“What do you want? I’m extremely busy, if you can’t tell.”

“Just thought I’d check on ya.” Courteous, always the gentleman, bullshit. You roll your eyes at him.

“I don’t need you to check on me.” And you, ever the child. One day you swear you’ll grow up.

But it can’t be said that you’re entirely selfish either. You have considered the fact of Joel’s own grief at the loss of your father. After all, they’d been much closer than you’d ever been to him for many years. And maybe, in his own cold and removed and superior way, your father had seen this man who you’ve thought yourself in love with since you were a teenager, as something like a son.

Probably, that’s just your own wishful thinking: that Oswald Kelly had ever been capable of such tender feelings.

Maybe the fact of Joel’s own grief is the thorn beneath your nail bed that’s making you so angry with him, so needing of his attention. Maybe it’s that he’d failed to fulfill your silly and girlish fantasy that upon receiving the news of your only remaining parents death, he’d have been here waiting for you, at this home he’d guarded for you for so long, ready to take you into his arms and console and care for you.

When instead, he’d been off doing what he’d always done for as long as you’d known him. Protecting your father’s interests, his legacy.

“Is this how it’s going to be?”

“How?”

“You, being difficult.” Driving me fuckin’ crazy— he adds again under his breath.

“I’m an orphan now, Joel.” You’re becoming quickly addicted to the word. “I think I should be afforded a tiny bit of leeway to drive people fuckin’ crazy,” you mock his Southern drawl. Enough of your time had been spent in Europe over the past two years, kissing Europeans, that you’d sloughed off the last of your American twang; something of a vaguely European lilt peppering your words every now and then that Ellie likes to tease you for whenever the two of you speak on occasion.

A muscle under his left eye twitches at the jab, and you take another deep swig of the bottle, provoking him with your gaze. Wishing you had whatever it is a woman needs to entice this man. Like the fucking vet. Fucking world renowned, brilliant, highly coveted, beautiful veterinarian. You know about her. You’re sure he thinks he’s been discreet over the years with their whatever they’ve had, Tess, but you know.

Maybe you’ll be insane and irrational and possessive, taking advantage of your three crazy days, and fire her with your new found power. See what he has to say about that. Ha.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Obviously not.

Despite your current hysteria, your goal is not to send the ranch head over heels into a tailspin.

But the imagining is soothing.

“Want some?” You hold the heavy crystal out towards him in a peace offering, held precariously between two sweaty knuckles. “It’s probably worth as much as your truck. Would be a waste for me to finish on my own.” You eye what’s left of it, about half, and give him a sheepish grin. It really is very good.

He looks at you for one long, solemn moment, always so silent and pensive, this strange enigma of a man. You get to watch in real time as he loses whatever fight it is he’s trying to fight against you, victorious when he shrugs and comes over slowly, resting his butt against the bannister—a carefully respectful distance away from you.

When he takes the bottle from your swinging clutch, gripped from the base, careful not to touch you in any way, you see the real sad in his eyes. The dim lights bleeding out through the big windows of the family room without a family shine on his face in strips and bursts. A shadow here, golden warmth there. He’s got more lines around his eyes than you remember from the last time you’d been this close to him. Smile lines made bright white in the center and gold burnished at the edges from too much sun. There’s little bursts of silver threaded at his temples now too, a gleam here and there in his dark beard. Forty four years old, he’d turned on your last birthday.

You dig your nails into the soft meat of your palms, and your belly smolders as he brings the bottle to his lips, tasting the exact place your own mouth had just been moments ago. You press your knees together as hard as you can, head a little woozy with the color of his eyes; the most gorgeous green, caramel hazel.

You’d graduated two years ago with a degree in art history and had done absolutely nothing with it since. It was just that everything appeared boring and pointless and shallow. Your whole life had one day suddenly seemed just a little silly. Useless, overpriced degree, nothing to be done with extensive knowledge in color theory when your world is expecting such different things from you now.

But you sure as hell can appreciate the color of his eyes in extensive and meticulous detail. There is that.

Watching the slow slide of the amber liquor down the bottle-neck, the long pull of his lush mouth, the ripple of his strong throat, and the way his eyes go a little wider, shocked at how good it is. You laugh soft: “I know, right.”

He takes another pull, another swallow. That’s what you want to be—swallowed just like that. “Damn, that’s good.” His mouth is a little wet, bottom lip shiny with thousands of dollars worth of your father’s favorite whiskey, and his eyes are sad.

You’d said you were going to be bad, but you don’t want to be bad to him. “I’m sorry,” you whisper.

He swallows again, tipping his head towards you, trying to catch your too soft words—he’s got a bad ear, you know why—and turns to peer at you from beneath his low pulled brow, the tip of his tongue peeking out to swipe at the drop of liquor you wish you could suck off his tongue.

“You’ve got nothin’ to be sorry for.”

The first time he’d shown you that gentleness of his: You’d fallen from your horse at school in your junior year. Something had frightened the beast, and she’d bucked you, sent you flying ten feet in the air, ragdoll-like, before you’d landed badly on your right arm, a comminuted fracture in your radius that you’d needed surgery to fix. At your insistence, and with only a few weeks left to spare, you’d been sent home for the remainder of the semester. Your father had been incensed but eventually allowed it. He’d been away from the ranch on business, after all, at no risk of being truly disturbed by you. But when you’d been readying to return to Switzerland at the end of the summer, arm healed, courage not, you’d not been able to get back on a horse no matter what you tried. Joel had helped you, before they’d shipped you off again. Trotted the corral with you for hours and hours before you’d finally been able to relax and sit on your own without tears and vertigo. No questions or admonishments, nothing but the quiet burr of his deep voice, guiding you and the mare along.

It had been a kindness unlike any you’d experienced in maybe your whole life.

“I’ve been bad.”

“Nah. You couldn’t ever be.”

The second time: “Did today make you think of Sarah?” Years after you’d found that green eyed photograph, he’d shared her with you.

His gaze turns suddenly sharp, but you’re not worried you’ve stepped in unbreachable territory. “Yeah.” The echo of her name rings around the two of you.

“In a bad way or a good way?” He takes another long swig, a low whistle through his teeth and a shake of his head before he’s handing the bottle back to you—again, carefully.

“Both.”

You take your own swallow, slicking your tongue all around where his just was, and you’re drunk for real now. Drunk on a man.

“Do you ever regret telling me about her?”

“Nah.” He tips his head back, looking up at the thick beams of the deck’s awning. He’s got the longest lashes you’ve ever seen on a man, thick and curling. The deepest voice you’ve ever heard too, sultry, a bedroom voice. A voice for fucking. Your belly swirls and dips, and you want so much you’re dizzy with it.

Heart beating like it’s about to burst, out of breath on the verge of hyperventilating, you can taste his mouth in your mouth, the imagination flavor of it. This is what it must feel like to die. This is what your father must have felt like three days ago, this agony.

His Adam’s apple bobs, and it’s so pronounced, the skin of his throat sun pebbled. There isn’t an inch of him that isn’t all rough-hewn man. “You needed to hear about her then, I s’pose.”

Yes. “You told me when I needed you to.” After that lonely graduation, the last time you’d missed her really very badly, longed for a mother. Alone, alone, alone little girl.

“You were missin’ your momma somethin’ fierce. Needed to know you weren’t the only one that felt like that sometimes.”

You laugh a not-laugh, butt scraping against the railing, slipping off your perch, socked-feet thudding beside his gifted boots. The pleasure you feel whenever you see him use one of the things you’ve given him is indescribable.

“Silly,” you say with barely any sound, his bad ear reaches for your voice again. “At the time it felt like I was the only person in the whole world that had ever felt like that.”

“We all feel like that at one point or another, I reckon.”

“Will you miss him a lot?” You ask looking up at him, the beautiful profile, the strong jaw. You’ve always wondered how he sees you. If he’s ever thought you were beautiful. Other men do, it’s a common thing, a nothing sort of thing. There are always men, there will always be men. But this singular man—this one is not like the rest.

“Maybe. Can’t tell yet, don’t think. But it felt wrong earlier, walking through his house without him in it.” His house, not yours.

“Do you wish he’d been your father?” And he turns to look down at you at that, gaze snapping, and you can tell you’ve shocked him with the question. But you’d always wondered.

“No. Never,” he says with such assuredness, an uncompromising shake of his head.

And the answer doesn't necessarily shock you in turn. You don't think anyone could have ever wanted a father like that. But it also doesn't help you understand what it was that lived between them either.

He sighs, perhaps reading the confusion in your gaze. “He helped me at a time when I needed it real bad. Gave me a place and a purpose and a thing to do and take care of. You get me? It was gratitude—maybe. He saved me in a way, after Sarah. Nothing more.” He thinks for a moment, and then, “Perhaps it was that we understood each other about certain things.”

You gaze across the sprawl of dark land as far as the eye reaches, that point of no return where the earth shoots up into the sky, purple blue behemoths in the shape of mountains.

From this spot, rooted to the deck of your family home, it seems like the whole world is yours to keep. Also, like you’ll never be able to touch any of it with fingers or taste or meaning.

Your love for this place is complicated—tied up in the people, the memories, the could’ves and should’ves, the whole dreamscape idea of the monument of childhood and all it’d really never been. The time away had felt eternal, like you’d never really been here to begin with, like the young girl who’d grown up on this land had never really existed. But you’d not forgotten them, this, despite your distance. Your home, the father that wouldn’t want you, Wyoming and all its splendor, the people you’d left behind, Joel and Ellie and shared birthdays that meant a secret world to you. Morsels of small happinesses interloped amidst a largely lonely and sad childhood. That’s what it was at its core.

“Would you be angry with me if I gave it all away?”

He thinks for a moment, maybe you’re making him sadder, but then finally says with a swallow, “No. It’s yours to do with as you please.”

You eye the quarter of whiskey left, but your belly isn’t hungry for its warmth anymore. You want something heavier now.

“Could you even do that—legally—sell it or somethin’?”

“Probably not. He probably tied it to my fucking life. Sell and die.” You mime your name in an imitation of your fathers deep voice, frowning at yourself the way he’d always frowned when he looked at you, but it pulls a laugh from him, and the painful memory is worth it. “But I have a billion dollars to spend now. More?” You tap your chin—you want to make him laugh again. “Gotta think of something interesting to do with it all.”

His mouth slides into an easy half grin. Like the moon—that beautiful. And he turns to face you fully. “You’re gonna be just fine. You know that, right?”

You turn to face him too, gripping the bannister for dear life. “What? Will you make sure of it?”

“That’s my plan.”

“How’re you gonna do that, d’you reckon?” The American twang bleeds back into your voice, and you’re all swollen lush on the inside, heart a beating fist in your chest.

“Haven’t gotten that far, if I’m bein’ honest with you.” God. His eyes, the strong bridge of his nose, his mouth. He’s so tall your head has to crook back to look up at him. “I’ll figure something out.” And after another pensive second, and still with that soft, sloped eye smile, he asks, and nicely, “Will you stop drinking now—for me?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” you say with the same sort of smile in return.

And then suddenly, like vomit again but maybe more humiliating this time: “Did you respect him?” Because you don’t know all the things about him that there are to know, but you do know that Joel Miller’s respect is a thing hard earned.

He clicks his tongue, and you hear the pop of his jaw as he shifts it like he’s chewing on an honesty. His eyes, his eyes, they’re serious, mercurial, warm and deep also. You worry he won’t answer, that he wouldn’t want to disappoint you or something, but then: “No,” said real simple like.

“Why not?”

And the way he looks down at you, you know already, and it makes that falling through the surface of your own life feeling rise up inside you again, makes your ears pop with embarrassment. Ah. “He never did a very good job of hiding the way he treated you, sweetheart. I couldn’t ever respect a man like that.”

This is reality right here, this is you falling through your life, this is the realization that it wasn’t only you imposing yourself, your existence, on someone with gifts they didn’t want or ask for. Joel had seen. Joel had understood.

Someone else had noticed that you exist, and it had been him.

What else had you ever wanted?

And in the blink of a desperate, yearning eye, drunk on a man still, you’re throwing yourself at him, pressing your mouth hot and heavy to his, kissing him full on the way you’d dreamt of since you knew to dream of such things.

Chapter 2; Sugar, Not so Sweet

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watchmegetobsessed · 9 months

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NOW AND FOREVER (part 2)

A/N: these two got stuck in my head and seemingly in yours as well, so lets see some more of them! part 1 is linked under the summary if you haven't read it!

WORD COUNT: 3.4k

PAIRING: princess!reader x guard!harry

WARNING: sexual content

SUMMARY: To be eligible for the throne, you need to get married. The past few years have been dedicated to finding a king for you, but now that you're secretly dating your guard, these attempts are a bit more complicated than before.

PART 1 | MASTERLIST | SUPPORT ME!

There’s that scene in The Princess Diaries when they are choosing a possible husband out of a slide show for Mia. You used to find it funny when you were younger and made jokes to your parents that you want to do it too. They laughed, but exchanged a look you didn’t understand back then.

Now you do.

There are two requirements you need to meet to take the throne. The first one is to be at least 25 years old. That box has been ticked for three years now, the real problem is the second one. Because as outdated that law in the movies was, it is your reality. You have to be married, you can’t take the throne without a man.

As a teenager you didn’t think much of it, because you pictured yourself to meet a handsome prince, marry him and then become queen, easy as it is. But as you grew older and dating was proven to be impossible as a princess, anxiety and panic started to set in that you’d end up in an arranged marriage just to become eligible for ruling Eroda.

Then came Harry, you fell for him and he fell for you, but it just complicated things even more, because he is not from royal blood, not even close to being an aristocrat, therefore you can never marry him.

For the past few years most of the social events you’ve attended had a not so hidden second purpose: finding a husband.

Never ending rounds of introductions to single men, awkward chatting that ended up in asking you out on a date that you declined politely most of the time, followed by a sermon from your father about needing to settle soon, because he is not getting younger and you need to be eligible for the throne as soon as possible. You always tried your best to just ignore him, but ever since you and Harry have become an item secretly it’s been extremely hard to hold your tongue and not tell him that you have found the man you want to spend the rest of your life with, but he can’t be king, because he is your guard.

It’s such an impossible situation and you have no idea where it’s going to lead.

Now it’s another one of those occasions, the opening of the Spring Festival is just another opportunity to fill up the palace’s ballroom with all kinds of single men from around the country and even outside as well.

You know people are filling up the room already while you’re still in your suite. Your hair is done, makeup perfect, wearing a gown that costs probably way more than you feel comfortable with, but you’re never informed about how expensive your outfits are.

You’ll be announced in about fifteen minutes, walk down the stairs for the millionth time and start your rounds. You’d rather jump out the window than to meet all those people, but you have no choice.

There’s a knock on the door.

“Come in!” you call out and you see Harry step inside from the mirror. He is wearing his usual black suit, looking polished and threatening at the same time, but not to you. You see the man he is behind his thick walls, because there’s a door on that wall, just for you, wide open.

The door clicks behind him and he watches you turn around, his gaze runs down the length of your body and then up to your face again.

“Should I change?” you ask, arching an eyebrow at him teasingly.

“Do you want the honest or the brutally honest answer?”

Your lips stretch into a smile as you start to cross the room slowly, walking towards him while he remains standing in his spot.

“Both. The honest first.”

“You look stunning,” he replies, his eyes soft and loving. You stop just a few inches away from him.

“And the brutally honest one?”

There’s a short pause, you catch his eyes slip down to your chest and waist again before returning.

“I want to lock you in here and not let you close any men out there. I wish I could mark you mine.”

He knows how to turn you on within seconds with just a few words. He knows so well how much you like it when he gets possessive, ready to show it to the world that you belong to him and only him.

A shaky breath leaves your lips and just when you reach up to grab him by his neck there’s another knock on the door. forcing you to take a step back instead.

“Come in!” you answer when there’s enough distance between you and Harry, though your heart is still pounding in your chest as if it’s about to jump out and right into Harry’s hands.

Head of security, Clarke steps into the suite.

“Her Royal Highness, you’re expected to appear in ten minutes,” he informs you with a polite nod.

“Styles just arrived to walk me over. Thank you.”

The two men exchange a look before Clarke walks out. Taking a deep breath you turn to face Harry.

“Ready?”

“Sure,” you huff, earning a tiny smirk from him before he opens the door, but as you walk past him he stops you just for a split second to whisper into your ear.

“Mine,” is all he says and you keep walking as if that one word didn’t just make your knees wobble.

You use the walk to the ballroom to get your thoughts straight and not imagine how Harry would peel you out of this dress if you had some privacy…

They announce you and every pair of eyes are glued to you as you walk down the stairs and join the crowd. Endless rounds of introduction, the smile is frozen on your face and your feet are already sore from the heels, but you ignore the pain.

It always amazes you how uninteresting the men you meet are. How they can’t hold a conversation that doesn’t make you claw your eyes out. Thirty seconds into the chit-chat and you’re already planning your escape usually.

Tonight however there is one exception.

His name is Magnus, some kind of relative of the Swedish royal family, you don’t really care to be honest. At first he seemed just another one of the boring puppets, but he soon proved to actually have a personality and your status didn’t stop him from showing it.

His almost inappropriate, a bit risky jokes are what keep you sane tonight. He just knows what makes you laugh and he has a great timing dropping his silent comments that are only meant for you.

“I think I’ll have a little break,” you tell him after a rather long conversation with some old baron you know you’ve seen a couple of times already, but can’t remember his name, only that he is always oddly curious about the neckline of your dress.

“I’ll be around here, dodging questions about my father’s political choices.”

You smile with a nod and then look around to find Harry. He is not far away, by a window, his eyes already glued to you when you make your way towards him.

“Bathroom break,” you announce to him with a smile, expecting to see that hidden glimmer in his eyes as usual, because this is always the time when you steal a few intimate moments, but he is different now. Something is off.

He nods without a word and escorts you out of the room. In those few minutes you go back to your suite you try to figure out what could have happened since you parted ways that could upset him this much. As always, he opens the door for you, one guard stays outside and he comes in with you.

He plants himself by the door, his hands clasped together in front of him as he keeps a straight face.

“What’s wrong?” you ask.

He looks at you just for a second before turning his gaze towards the window, his jaw flexes and your worry just grows, you haven’t seen him this upset in a long time.

“Nothing is wrong,” he answers, but you both know it’s not true.

“I’m gonna ask you one more time, Harry. Just once more. What is wrong?”

Slowly, his eyes move back to you and for a moment, you forget to breathe, they’re so intense and darker than ever, as if all that gorgeous greenness is gone from them.

“Your little date must be waiting for you, better hurry.”

Amusement settles on your face and you can’t stop yourself from letting a laugh slip out.

“That’s your problem? Magnus?” His lips twitch at his name, but he doesn’t reply. “Harry, you know this is what’s expected from me. I have to pretend like I want to get to know the men out there.”

“I bet you didn’t have to pretend much when he came into the picture.”

“What are you talking about?!” you let out another frustrated laugh. You know he tends to get jealous, but you’ve never seen this side of him before.

“You seemed to enjoy his company a lot out there.”

“Because he is not a boring asshole like most of the men I’m usually introduced to.”

“Great. You two will look good as king and queen.”

You know he doesn’t mean it, that he is just pissed and feels helpless in our situation, but in this moment you simply can’t see over the nasty fog of anger.

“Oh you think so too? I agree,” is all you say before you march into your bathroom and shut the door closed.

There’s no more talking as you walk back to the ballroom, but even the blind could see the tension between the two of you. You catch the other guard that came with you giving Harry a puzzled look, but he didn’t dare to ask.

“Magnus!” you call out to him, making your way straight to him upon arriving when you spot him by a table. You can feel Harry’s burning gaze on your back, but tonight you’re in the mood to be petty.

“Your Royal Highness, you’re back!” he smiles brightly.

He is handsome, that’s for sure. Has great manners and an even greater sense of humor. The more you talk to him the more you think that you might be able to develop feelings for him in some years, or at least enough to live beside him in peace.

But those feelings would never live up to the love and passion you have for Harry.

You’re still angry at him, for how childish he was and thought that anyone could stand a chance when he’s in your life.

As the evening carries on your anger eases, though you’re still upset with him, you just want to be alone with him finally, touch him, kiss him, hear him call your name.

Magnus asks you out at the end of the night and you politely decline, he doesn’t seem offended, maybe a bit disappointed, but he masks it well. You say your rounds of goodbye and then finally make your way back to your suite, Harry walking right beside you.

The tension has somewhat lessened, but the vibes are still not the usual. You can’t tell what he’s thinking, if he is still as upset as before or he has cooled down, his face is so blank it irks you. Arriving at the suite you look at him, searching for any sign or feeling in his eyes, but they look back at you completely empty. So you walk in and lock yourself in your bathroom with trembling lips.

Normally Harry would sneak in later at night, but this time you don’t expect him to show up. Hoping to burn the feelings tonight left behind, you take a hot bath and try to carry on as if nothing happened, even though Harry is all you can think about.

Is it possible this is how things will end between the two of you? That this stupid little jealousy game is enough to pull you apart? You start to spiral heavily when you step out of the steamed up bathroom, but all your thoughts disappear the moment you notice you’re not alone.

Harry is sitting on the edge of your bed, still wearing his suit from tonight, but his black tie is gone and the top few buttons are undone on his perfectly white shirt. Unsure about where you’re standing and if he is still angry at you for the whole Magnus thing, you just stop halfway over to the bed, wrapped only in a silky robe.

For a while he just sits there, staring at you, silent and unreadable and right when you’re about to speak, he stands up and starts walking towards you, slowly, his eyes locked with yours. You’re waiting for him to say something, maybe lash out on you, or apologize, practically anything, because his silence is pure torture.

He stops right in front of you, if you took a deep breath your chest would be touching his, but he is still just staring down at you without a single word.

And you break.

“Harry, I–”

He doesn’t let you finish, instead, his lips smash against yours, one hand on the back of your neck, the other one grabbing your jaw as he moves forward, pushing you to move with him until your back hits the wall, his whole body pressed against you as he kisses you like never before.

He’s been rough with you before, but not like this. He is devouring your lips with the raw passion he had to hold back all evening, watching you parade around with another man while he wished he could show everyone in the room who you belong to.

You both are in a rush, he is practically tearing your robe off your body while you’re ridding him of his clothes in a frenzy. You don’t even get to pull his shirt off entirely and his pants are just pooling around his ankles when brings your legs around his waist and thrusts his throbbing cock into you, only to freeze once he’s buried deep inside you.

You both gasp, lips smearing against each other as you stare back at each other, savoring the feeling of being as physically close as possible finally. The events of tonight have turned, they are now a force between the two of you, pulling you closer and closer until you’re melted together as one.

You grab his face, tightening your legs around his waist as you breathe his name into his mouth before he starts moving.

He starts off slow, but he is quick to fasten his pace, your gasps fill the room and you’re thankful your whole suite is soundproof, just like almost all rooms in the palace. It’s the only reason why you could have been in a similar situation in the library, the guest room in the west wing and your study.

You’re tugging his hair and clawing at his back while he pounds into you relentlessly. At one point, most likely to muffle his moans, he bites into your shoulder and you faintly feel him sucking on the skin, but you’re just too gone to even realize what he is doing.

He is kissing you so hard your teeth are clashing as he comes, his movements fall out of his fast paced rhythm for a bit, but then he keeps going for you.

“Come on, baby. Give it to me, come on my cock,” he urges you, knowing you’re close too. “I know you’re there, I can feel you so tight around my cock, just give it to me.”

A few more rough thrust and you’re whining out his name, your orgasm spreading through your whole body in waves. He fucks you through it and only stops when he’s sure you’ve given him everything.

You stay like that, his cock buried inside you, his body pressing you up against the wall, foreheads resting against each other as you both try to catch your breath. When he pulls back you follow his eyes to your shoulder and see the reddish-purple mark he left on you.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” he breathes out as he lets your legs down, your feet returning to the floor but he keeps an arm around your waist, knowing you probably don’t have much energy to stand on your own, his other hand comes up to your shoulder and he runs his fingers over the mark.

“It’s fine, I have makeup that covers anything,” you smirk at him. Secretly, you wish he’d let himself loose like this more often, you love seeing his mark on yourself.

You catch his face falling before he speaks again.

“And I’m sorry for tonight.”

You couldn’t be angry at him anymore, not even if you tried. The tenderness is back in his eyes and he is the Harry you love so much again.

“I’m sorry too.”

“No, you have nothing to apologize for,” he shakes his head. “You did nothing wrong, just… talked to a guy whose company was nice, after all those events full of assholes you always have to put up with. I was… jealous, because he got to be with you the way I want to.”

It stings in your chest, his confession hits hard now that it was said out loud, even though deep down you knew he felt like that, because you did too. You wished it could have been him.

With a gentle touch, you take his face between your hands and pull him in for a soft kiss.

“I know you know it, just probably forget it sometimes, but I’ll say it. No matter who they try to set me up with or how many princes and barons they throw into my way, I will only love and belong to you. Now and forever.”

You intentionally use his words and it seems to strengthen the message, you notice the tears in his eyes and you feel your throat closing up as well when you pull him in for another kiss, this time it’s longer and more passionate. You can taste his words on his tongue: I love you too.

When he pulls back you see the glimmer in his eyes, but then they disappear in a second.

“What’s wrong?” He shakes his head. “Harry, talk to me, please,” you beg him, pushing his hair back.

“It’s just… You’ll have to marry one day. You can’t be queen without marrying someone and I… I can’t be…”

He doesn’t want to say it out loud, as if it would make it more real, even though it’s as real as it could get.

“We’ll figure it out. I promise,” you tell him, running the pad of your thumb over his eyebrow, as if you wanted to memorize every feature of his face. When he looks into your eyes you know he doesn’t believe you, but he just nods. You don’t want to let him go like this, to end tonight on such a bitter note. “So… you’d want to marry me? You’re saying you would willingly have me as your wife?”

You see the switch in his eyes and the way the corners of his mouth curl up makes you lightheaded in a second.

“Did I say that?”

“You very much implied, yes,” you grin at him. “I’m surprised you’d want to put up with my big mouth and attitude, you get the most of them, because I can’t act up in public. Wouldn’t you get fed up with me after a while?” you ask teasingly.

“Mm, don’t let it get to your head, but I love your big mouth and attitude.” Leaning down his lips are now brushing against yours, but he is not kissing you just yet. “Especially… your mouth and everything it can do,” he adds in a whisper before finally sucking on your bottom lip.

He pulls you away from the wall and starts walking you towards the bed and you just smile widely against his mouth as you willingly move with him until you both fall into your bed and make the best out of the little time he gets to spend with you before he needs to sneak out.

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed and buy me a coffee if you want to support me!

#harry #styles #harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles oneshot #harry styles one shot #harry styles fluff #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x reader #harry styles blurb #harry styles smut

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ssailormoonn · 9 days

Text

❛ His Girl ❜

Shippuden! Uchiha Sasuke X Fem!Reader

WC; 1.7k+ | !MDNI! | TW/CW; Not nsfw but suggestive!, slightly angtsy (unintentionally), talk of kids, slightly goofy, lowkey kinda cringe warning??, making out, sasuke being sasuke and leaving, mf is possessive -> saying youll always be his, domestic talking

⋆·˚ ༘ *𝑅𝐸𝒬𝒰𝐸𝒮𝒯 :: (filled request) About Sasuke's request (I am the one who asked) can you write about him and his girlfriend in their teenage years ? Like he is still trying to get his revenge but he visits her in secret ( she is from Konoha too , and they were together before he left and she doesn't agree with him about leaving the village but she loves him so much to let him be ) if you are okay with that can it be fluff with suggestiveness or smut , maybe they are talking about their future together and he brings up having kids together or how many kids he wants with her and the topic gets freaky 🤭- ANON

m.list | naruto/boruto m.list | uchiha m.list

It's late, far too late, for him to be here, but then when has that ever stopped him?

You lay in bed awake, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the quiet knock on the window. Your mind always had a place for Sasuke, was always so intent on the question of if he'd ever come back to you. But you could always feel it when he'd come to secretly see you, always when the night had grown quiet and you'd always look out that window hoping he saw you again.

Then, with the now-familiar taps of light against your glass windows, with your heart pounding, a bright smile lights up your face. You're already off from bed, crossing over the room. Sliding the window open, you see him leaning against your window frame; his eyes-you loved his eyes.

"Sasuke," you breathe, relief bubbling in your chest.

He doesn't say anything, his body steps inside. Sasuke's action causes a small pout to outline your lips. Sasuke's presence was the same as it always was when he wasn't with you, cold. But, when he is with you, his posture changes, to one in which he would never hurt you.

"You're back," you whisper quietly, your voice still managing to echo through the room.

He nods and his eyes flicker to yours before he turns away, automatically scanning the room as if seeing what's changed since he was here last. He's here a few hours at most, but you'll take what you can get.

"How long?" you ask.

You really don't want to know since it breaks your heart bit by bit.

"A few hours," he replies in a low tone. "Needed to see you."

Your heart clenches at that because he still needs you even if he won't admit it. He always comes back. You reach for him, your fingers brushing against his hand, and for a moment, he doesn't move. Then he took your hand, his skin so so so cold compared to your own you almost shivered, but you were so used to the sensation.

You walk him to the bed, sit down beside him, your head leans against his shoulder like it once did, when things weren't so complicated. His hand clamps over yours, a fraction tighter.

"I still don't agree with this, you know," you murmur, breaking the silence. "I hate that you left."

Sasuke tenses up, but you push, because if not now, then when?

"I don't understand why you would feel this is the only path. There are other ways, Sasuke."

He turns back to you, his face is as unreadable as ever, but you catch frustration bubbling behind his eyes. "It's the only way for me. You know that."

You sigh, tugging your hand from his and wrapping your arms around yourself. "We had a future planned, Sasuke. Remember? We talked about it all of the time. When we were kids." you trailed off softly.

He is silent, and for a moment, you wonder if you have pushed too far. But then he speaks, softer than before. "It's not the time for that."

"When is it going to be enough?" you press on, turning around to face him. "When you're done with this all? What will be left when you get your revenge?" He does not answer. His eyes drop onto the floor.

You bite your lip, and in an instant, you're thinking of the talks you used to have, the dreams shared before it all spiralled down, before sasuke. "We could still have that future, you know," you continue softly, your heart drumming in your chest. "We could still…

Words catch in the throat, and you feel the flush rise to your face as you try to voice the thought that had been circling in your head for so long. "We could still have a family. Kids, Sasuke."

His eyes widen a little, and surprise flickers across his face, normally so composed. He says nothing, only stares at you as if he tries to process what you have just said.

You look away, suddenly nervous. "I know it's probably not something you've thought about, but… we used to talk about it. I haven't stopped wanting it."

Sasuke shifts, his hand reaching up to brush a loose strand of hair behind your ear. His fingers linger on your skin, his touch soft but firm. "You really still want that?" he asks, his voice low. "With me?"

You nod, swallowing the lump in your throat. "Of course, I do. I love you, Sasuke. I still want that life with you, even if it's not the same as it used to be."

His gaze softens, and for a moment, you could see the love he held for you in his eyes. "How many?" he asks, his voice barely more than a whisper. "How many kids?"

Your heart skips a beat as heat flushes up to your face when you realize the conversation is taking on a course you hadn't quite imagined. "I… I don't know," you stammer, trying to sound casual. "Maybe two… or one.?"

"Two, huh?" His lips curve slightly up in an almost teasing smirk. "Think you can handle that?

You double over, laughing breathlessly, and swat him lightly on the arm. "I could handle it just fine. The real question is whether you could."

There's no more time for words, though, because the instant Sasuke springs onto you, the motion so quick, you feel yourself lying beneath him, his body over yours, his eyes dark with intent, heat radiating from him as he leans in close to you.

"I could handle it," he mutters, his voice falling even lower and sending a shiver down into your spine. "I'd take care of you… of them. You know I would."

Your breath catches in your throat, and you're unable to tear your gaze from his face as his words reverberate deep in your chest. His hand skates down the side, his fingers tracing the outline of your skin through the thin material of your shirt, the tips leaving a trail of sparks in their wake.

"Sasuke," you whisper, voice shattering as his lips barely brush against the shell of your ear, the breathing hot and laboured.

"You want that?" he repeats, voice soft and low, full with something darker, something more possessive. "Tell me."

"I-I do," you stammer out, hands instinctively clawing into his kimono shirt. "I want that with you."

His lips no more than a whisper from yours, eyes locked with yours, the temperature rising between them. He tightens his hand on your waist, drawing forward until you are against him, pressed up against him, there is nothing in between.

"Good," he whispers, his lips brushing against yours. "Because when all this is finally done, I'm going to make sure you're mine. Completely."

The words course through your veins like an electric jolt of longing, while your heartbeat pounds against your chest. The everything else in the outside world had disappeared, leaving only yourselves entangled in the heat of that one moment. Then he kisses you deeply, his hands wandering over your body possessively and making you out of breath.

You melt into him, your fingers threading through his hair as the kiss deepens, grows more urgent, more heated. There is desperation in the way he holds you, like he is scared to let go, like this moment could be all you ever get.

"Sasuke," you breathe as the kiss finally breaks, your voice shaking. "Don't leave me again."

He leans his forehead against yours, breathing rough, and can say nothing more than the low, hoarse words, "I have to. But I'll come back." His voice is raw, the vow one that has never changed, yet never ceases to tear your heart into shreds. "I always come back."

You close your eyes and try to hold his words with you, though you know it will never be enough. It's his revenge, his mission-it's just there, tugging at him again and again, ever further into the darkness. You're so scared he'll become lost and never find his way. In these stolen moments, though, with the way his hands cling to you as if you were the only thing holding him anchored, you make yourself believe it.

Your fingers rake through his hair, pulling him back down to you, needing him close, making the most of the moments left. He kisses you again, deeper this time. Sasuke's hands are on your waist, your back, pulling you closer and you feel like you're both standing at the lip of something.

You wriggle beneath him, breath catching in your throat as he leans down, moving his lips along your neck to trail small kisses down over the rise of your collarbone. His name is lodged in your throat on a quaking whisper as his body, really, reacts to every touch and every kiss.

"How many kids did you say?" His voice rumbles against your neck, soft and low, as he trailed wet kisses down the column of your neck, leaving crimson splotches in its wake, in slow motion.

"Two," you whisper back, breathlessly, the moan slipping past your mouth, your fingers digging deep into his shoulders as he continues his deliberately slow motions. "Maybe more."

"More?" He draws back far enough to catch your eyes, a rare smile tugging his lips upwards. "You think you can handle more?"

Your face flushes down to your neck, but you refuse to back down. "I can take whatever you dish out, love." Sasuke's eyes darken even further and he cups your face, his thumb brushing over your bottom lip. "I know you can," he mutters low, "That's why you're the only one I want. You know that right?

You nod, the lump in your throat forming. So much more needed to be said between you both than words let on. You pull him back down, capturing his lips once more in a kiss, hands sliding up his back, feeling the warmth of his body against yours.

Sasuke's hand drifts lower, the touch sending an electric current through your body as his lips move into your ear. "When this is all over," he whispers low, the breath hot upon your skin, "we'll have that life. You, me, and our kids."

His words cause your heart to flutter with all that hope and longing inside you. You nod again, wrapping him close in some wordless, desperate wish that someday it may be true-a time when such a life wished by both would be more than just a dream.

But for now, you cling to the moment.

Because, for as long as he keeps coming back to you, keeps holding you like this, you'll wait for him-whatever it takes.

Do not copy, steal, modify, etc. Relogs and like are appreciated.

m.list | naruto/boruto m.list | uchiha m.list

taglist :: @enouche @lovelyandproblematic

@sugu-love @why-are-you-still-awake

#sasuke smut #sasuke x reader #sasuke x you #naruto x you #naruto smut #sasuke x fem reader #uchiha sasuke x reader

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keyotos · 1 year

Note

i am absolutely in love with ur writing AND with gepard landau,, can i request a first kiss fic for him? i read your kiss the girl fic for dan heng and ITS SO GOOD!! tysm in advance, take care of yourself!

teenage dream

summary ⎯ gepard knows he can't keep these feelings to himself. gepard also knows that he can never tell you about how he feels. so, he goes to the person he tells all his secrets to: serval. serval, who told pela. pela, who is determined to set you two up. and doing so, entails a bookish adventure for you to enjoy.

tana's words ⎯ i too am in love with gepard. i feel u anon. also thank u for the kind words!

tags ⎯ matchmaking (serval and pela). first kiss. pining (this should be expected). bookish!reader. bookstore owner!reader. oblivious idiots.

IT’S EXTREMELY SURPRISING TO HEAR GEPARD frantically knocking on the doors of nevermore workshop, so serval obviously had to open the doors for him.

when he entered, gepard immediately shut the doors as if he was being followed. the expression on his face was dire; he looked as if he was chased by wolves and he was being hunted down.

“gepard?” serval asked, concern dripping in her tone, “what the hell happened?”

“serval,” gepard panted. serval was getting worried; this was all irregular behavior coming from gepard, “i need help.”

gepard never asked for help. he is one of the most self-sufficient and stubborn people serval knows. he would rather stare death in the face instead of asking someone for help.

“what is it?” serval rushed by his side, “whatever you need, i got you.”

“i think i have feelings for,” gepard sighed, palm dragging across his face, “the owner of the bookstore,” he finishes quietly.

serval’s jaw dropped. it wasn’t because of the declaration of gepard’s crush. it was that he made it sound so dramatic. serval thought that he was being tracked down and was about to be sent to the madhouse.

“are you serious!” serval shoved gepard, “i thought you were about to die or something!”

gepard recoiled at serval’s shove; his sister was stronger than most people thought, “it feels like i am! every time i’m around them my heart rate quickens so much that i think i’m about to have a heart attack. i get all nervous on the inside and i can barely think with them beside me.”

aeons, gepard has definitely fallen in love with you.

“wait⎯so, where are you gonna go from here?” serval leaned on the counter, trying to process all the words her brother confessed.

“that’s the thing,” gepard sighed again. he sounded like a lovesick puppy, “i don’t know. that’s why i came here, i thought you’d be able to help.”

“um. you are aware of my past relationship with cocolia, right? i think i’m like the least qualified person you should be asking romance advice from,” serval pointed out.

“i don’t know who else i could tell,” gepard ran a hand through his hair. this was really stressing him out.

“how about you just… tell them?” serval suggested.

“no!!” gepard shook his head distraughtly, “i can’t do that. what if they don’t feel the same?”

“then it’s not meant to be,” serval said, “simple as that.”

“but it’s not,” gepard whined. serval thought he was making this a lot more complicated than it needed to be. when she was his age, she confessed her feelings to cocolia like it was nothing. they were happy until the break up anyway.

but then it donned on serval. gepard had little to no relationship experience. the only “experience” serval remembers him having was when they were children: his friend had a crush on him and tried to confessed, but gepard rejected her.

that’s why gepard was so distressed. he had no idea how to go on with this. these feelings for you? all new. what he missed out as a teenager, he is now getting as an adult.

“tell you what,” serval wrapped her arm around her brother’s shoulder, “i’ll get this sorted out. trust me. yn will never know about this,” she reassured him.

“you just go along with your guardly duties. i’ll help you,” serval grinned. she knew that she had the perfect plan. except, she couldn’t do it alone.

pela already knew about your crush on the silvermane guard captain. every time he greeted the two of you at the book store, pela practically saw the hearts in your eyes. it was sickening and disgusting, but it was cute too.

what pela didn’t know, however, was that gepard has a crush on you as well.

serval came to pela just a few minutes after gepard’s confession. she knew that she probably shouldn’t have told pela right after the conversation happened, but serval didn’t know how else to console gepard.

“so… you’re telling me that they both like each other?!” serval slammed her hands on the counter. “and they’re both too scared to confess!?”

“that’s exactly what i said, yes,” pela monotonously replied.

you knew that there couldn’t be anything between you and gepard. it was highly improbable that you, a bookstore owner, would be able to gain the captain of the silvermane guard’s interest. it seemed like something straight out of a fictional (key word: fictional) romance novel.

so you appreciated his friendship while he was around. sometimes, as a way to become closer to the captain, you’d suggest different books to him every week. despite being on the front lines quite often, he always comes back to see you. well, he comes back for the books anyway.

serval groaned into her hands, “so what do we do? they both like each other but they literally can’t bear to admit it.”

pela smirked. she’s read enough romance novels to figure out what to do next.

“two words, serval,” pela smirked, “grand. gesture.”

gepard took a few deep breaths before approaching your book store. after his chat with serval, he's been distressed the entire day. he had these feelings for you storming all over his body; occasionally, they'd get so strong that it would feel like those feelings would overtake him.

he opened the door, book in hand, and greeted you formally. gepard couldn't help it: he was so nervous, he wasn't able to function straight.

"hello, captain gepard," you turned around. you were on a latter stacking books on top of bookshelves. originally, you thought it would be cool to have towering shelves, however you quickly learned that it was extremely impractical and difficult.

"i told you," gepard stood near the counter, refusing to slouch in your presence, "you can call me gepard."

"and i told you," you grunted, trying to reach a higher spot on a shelf, "to drop the formalities," you grinned to yourself.

gepard noticed your (potentially) perilous situation and quickly got near the end of the latter. in the case that you fall, at least gepard would be there to catch you.

fortunately, you made your way down the tall latter peacefully. as you descended, the sight of gepard holding down the latter for you made you flush. it was the bare minimum, but it still made your heart speed up.

when he reached out his hand to guide you down (it was out of instinct), you gave him a warm smile. it looked easy on the outside, but you were burning up on the inside. similarly, gepard had the same reaction. for you, he'd do anything.

"thank you," you held onto his hand for a little longer. once you realized what you were doing you quickly recoiled your hand away and apologized. gepard wished your hand was still entwined with his; he wanted to hold onto to the feeling of your hand in his. gepard wanted to trace patterns on your hands, wanted to feel every part of them.

as an attempt to dissipate the tension (it was making you nervous), you decided to ask gepard for help. "we had a busy day yesterday. a best seller recently came out; people were storming the shelves. good for my profit but not good for my sanity," you let out an airy laugh, "would you mind helping me clean up?"

realizing what you just did (asking the captain of the silvermane guards for help) you quickly added, "unless you're busy! then i'll be okay. you can leave. i'll be fine," you rambled.

gepard parted his lips, almost as if he was about to say something. how could you ever think he wouldn't make time for you? even so, he'd deploy a few other guards if you needed help. he'd make sure your needs were met as soon as possible.

he reached his arm out; his hands were close to your collarbone. then he reached back, scared of what would happen next. how silly. the captain of the silvermane guards was not scared of no monster, but of rejection of the one he likes.

"i'll stay for anything," gepard blurted. you were taken aback for a second, but then once you realized what he had just said, you tucked a piece of hair behind your ear and covertly pinched yourself to make sure that whatever was happening was not a dream.

gepard didn't intend to add, "anything," to his sentence. but his mind was thinking it, and then it just accidentally came out. he meant what he said though. if the bluntness of his voice didn't show his sincerity, the blush that was slowly grazing his face probably did.

"thank you, gepard," you bit the inside of your lip to keep yourself from beaming too hard. you had to turn away from the captain once again, for your smile at his words would be too embarrassing to show. how silly of you to act so giddy and childish at one simple word.

gepard thinks he could hear you say his name a million times, and he would never get bored. he wants to hear his name on your lips as if it were a mantra; you've said his name a few times before, and each time he swears he gets more and more addicted to the sound.

"how about i start on the right and you'll start on the left. that way, we'll both finish in the middle!" you clapped your hands together. you gave gepard a reassuring smile.

you two started on opposite sides, but how gepard wished that you two would be closer. however, there are positives to this situation. gepard can brainstorm ideas for the "grand gesture" pela and serval texted him about.

gepard already had ideas in mind. he just needed to figure out the material for them. he obviously will not tear out papers from a book; that will cause more harm than good (for you and gepard; he cares about books).

while gepard was planning, you were blushing. you still couldn't believe he actually stayed with you. surely, there are more important deeds than helping out a leisurely bookstore owner. and this was the most boring task ever: organizing books. yet, gepard was still here. and he was only a few feet away from you.

you turned back to observe gepard; you wanted to see if you had trapped him in a boring task or not. to your surprise, gepard seemed to be enjoying this. he would flip through pages of various books, spend time reading the summaries; gepard would even go as far to reading the first few pages of some books.

gepard liked to read. at first, he started coming to the bookstore to fetch some books for pela. however, after he met you, he began to adopt a newfound interest in books that he never had before. he read some of pela's books, discovered that he did not like them, and went to browse for more. that's when you came up. you thought you had talked his entire ear off that entire morning; you went on and on and on about what kind of books he would like.

you tried to ignore him afterwards; you even offered the books for free because you were so embarrassed. but gepard kept coming back. your recommendations impressed him: gepard had never met anyone who was so meticulous at their craft. and he loved hearing you talk. he loved your rambles, your rants, your reviews. maybe that was the first sign.

gepard caught your gaze as he turned around. he had the same motivation as you: he wanted to see how you were faring in this task. did you miss the proximity you had before? are you flustered as well? do you like him too?

you two were both staring at each other, thoughts racing, until you shouted, "see something you like?" to break the tension.

gepard thought the question was a taunt at first; similar to asking, "like what you see?"

"no!" he abruptly shouted, trying to hide the fact that he was just staring at you. and then he realized the real meaning of your question: he was browsing the books with such intensity. the truth was, he was trying to find your favorite books. you've informed him about them before, always on your bookish rants. he was going to use them for his gesture later on.

thinking that he now looks like an idiot, gepard tries to save himself by shouting back, "i mean⎯ yes! i do. these books are nice," he tried to cover up.

you seemed not to register his mistake, as you tell him, "whatever you want, it's on the house. for your work today. it'll be on the house for life!" you put some books on some shelves and move closer to the middle.

gepard shook his head and chuckled, "you've always given books to me for free." he put some books back and continued around the room.

"are you complaining?" you raised an eyebrow, "what if i just kept a tab on you this entire time? and you never knew?" more books get put away.

"then i'd rightfully pay you back," gepard wholeheartedly responded, "or i'd arrest you," he joked.

you mock-gasped, "for what?" you're getting closer to the middle now.

stealing my heart, the intrusive part of gepard's mind thought. he'd been hanging out with serval too much; he would never say that. gepard internally cringed.

"false advertising," he moved closer to the middle, “i don't know," he smiled to himself. gepard doesn't think he would have the heart to arrest you.

you blushed at hearing the captain lost on amendments. the captain wouldn't know how to arrest you. is this flirting? or are you reading too much into it?

you don't know if the heat on the back of your neck is from gepard's words or the sun shining so brightly on the back of your neck. you stack some more books on shelves; you've now reached the middle. you're having trouble reaching one of the shelves, but you're too lost in your thoughts to even think about that.

in fact, you're too lost in your thoughts that you don't even notice the warmth disappear from the back of your neck. your cheeks are still warm, so you are still blushing. your struggles with the tall bookshelf are lost when you feel a hand over yours.

"i'll take that," gepard quietly mumbles. it's so quiet that you didn't hear it at first.

on instinct, you turn towards him. when you looked at the position the both of you were in, you noticed that you were caged against him. you were caged against the captain of the silvermane guards. against a bookshelf.

gepard towered over you. his body was centimeters closer to fully pressing on you. his breath was fanning on your face. you could see every detail of his face from your view from below. your hands were so close to grazing his chest, so you immediately slapped them to your sides. you gulp, you start to breath quicker, and you feel like you're about to combust.

you swallowed, trying not to move. you were frozen in place as you tried not to disturb gepard. you gaped at him as he was working to organize the books, not noticing the position the two of you were in.

when gepard finished, he gave a sigh of relief. he underestimated your job: if you had to do this every day, you were probably stronger than some of his soldiers. when he opened his eyes, he was greeted by your wide eyes staring right into his.

he was breath-taken by your beauty. the look in your eyes as you look into his was captivating. gepard needed it framed. the way your lips parted made him go feral; his heart stuttered with every second he looked at you.

his arm was pinned above your head. your bodies were so close that you kept focusing on the rise and fall of gepard’s chest. the way his expression scanned yours made you want to quiver against him.

you said the first sentence, “hard work?” your tone was breathless. you were still trying to catch your breath.

“yeah,” he sighed, still not noticing the way your bodies curved into each other, “hard work.”

“did i waste your time?” you whispered. it was quiet, like you were ashamed of your actions. you looked down at his chest rather than his face.

“no,” gepard leaned in, trying to hear your voice one more time. he tilted your head up slightly with his fingers so you could look at him, “you’d never.”

silence crippled the room. it was just you and gepard, the two of you leaning oh-so-close together that your lips were nearly about to touch. a part of you wanted to lean into him; you wanted to pull him closer and closer until you were both out of breath.

but that was delusional. that was something straight out of romance novels, and your life was anything but.

gepard leaned in closer on purpose. he gave into temptation and wanted to feel your lips on his. he wanted to grab you by the waist and pull you so tightly into him. he wanted this: he wanted your kiss, he wanted your insight, he wanted you.

but with gepard, want is not something one could have. especially one like him.

“i’m sorry,” he abruptly let go, “i’m⎯i think, i have something i need to do,” he took a few steps back away from you, leaving about three feet in distance. quite the opposite from how you two were positioned a few seconds ago.

“oh,” you let go immediately. “i’m sorry! i didn’t know,” you quickly ran to the other side of the room. you wanted to hide from embarrassment.

“not your fault!” gepard shouted as he headed for the exit, “goodbye mx yn!”

you didn’t bother to say goodbye as you slammed the door shut after he left. what just happened was mortifying. the position you two were in? the way you two gradually leaned closer to each other? no wonder he ran away, you thought, you must’ve scared him off.

oh, if only you knew how wrong you were.

you didn't see gepard for a week after the incident. he hadn't come into the bookstore at all the entire week. however, that also could've been your fault: you've been in and out of the bookstore for the past week. if you faced gepard after the incident (you've dubbed), you'd probably apologize and beg for forgiveness.

but still, wouldn't he come in and leave a note? wouldn't he at least stop by once? did you scare him off that badly? the more you thought about it, the more you thought about becoming a hermit.

you'd thought you terrified him and ruined your friendship (and any future hope of a relationship) until flowers appeared on the counter of the bookstore. your assistant refused to let you know who they were from.

you bent down and eyed the pot of flowers sitting on the counter. they were your favorite color: pink. you had to admit, they were gorgeous. they looked well grown, as if these were from a master gardener. the flowers bloomed perfectly, each petal reaching out for the sun.

the message of the flowers also intrigued you. begonias are the flowers that symbolizes knowledge and deep thoughts. whoever gifted these to you must have been very observant or they wanted to be your intern.

"did someone come by asking to be my intern?" you stood up and put your hands on your hips. your lip twisted in thought. you were a bit preoccupied at the moment; the bookstore was getting exceptionally busy and (with your whole gepard crisis going on) you didn't think you were fit to be a mentor at the moment.

"no," your assistant shook her head. you leaned back on the counter, wondering why (and who) would gift you flowers on such a strange day. you already knew it wasn't gepard, due to the awkward tension surrounding the both of you right now, so you had a big list to narrow down.

"but," your assistant continued, "someone dropped off this letter with the flowers. they told me to give it to you after you saw the flowers," your assistant handed you the letter.

it was very formal, the letter. it's envelope was very extravagant, fit for someone with high standards. the stamp was still warm, meaning that this letter had been written recently. you tore open the envelope to reveal it's contents.

yn,

please do me the honor of accompanying me to everwinter cafe tonight. i would really appreciate seeing you there.

"g.l." you paused, "as in green lantern?!" you asked your assistant, wide eyes and all. "who is trying to cosplay as a superhero to talk to me? this is insane. did i owe someone a book or something? charged them extra?" you panicked.

your assistant frowned at your idiocy. who else could 'gl' entail to besides gepard landau? "what if it's the captain," your assistant urged on, nudging your shoulder.

"it couldn't be the captain," you jolted. does your assistant know? "we barely even talk," you try to reason.

"he comes in here nearly every day," your assistant counters, "if not every day, be it every other day," they sighed.

"he just comes in to look at books," you placed the flowers in a safe space in the shelves. "we don't converse as often as you think."

"you talk every day," you assistant drags on. "you're telling me that the two of you have no relations whatsoever?"

"we⎯it's complicated," you sighed, "long story short, it could never be the captain," you looked down at the plant. even if it was gepard, what was he doing? sending anonymous flowers? cryptic notes? why couldn't he just talk to you?

"you should go," your assistant encouraged, "you never know. it could be the captain or it could be another potential secret admirer."

"you think?" you raised an eyebrow. your assistant nodded in response.

you looked at the flowers one more time. though you wished it was gepard who sent them, you knew it was probably someone else trying to flatter you into taking them in as an intern. but as you stared at the begonias, no other thoughts beside gepard consumed your mind

it was late when you walked to everwinter cafe. tonight was not a particularly chilly night, but belobog's slight chill was ever present.

you walked around aimlessly, trying to walk slowly so you can prolong the sight of your "intern." you tried to focus on other things as you walked past, such as the plants and heaters surrounding the city. it's wondrous how things such as plants are still able to flourish in times like these.

as you viewed your surroundings, you saw a note placed on a lamppost close to the cafe. it read, "'i know you're working. i wanted to be somewhere...' safe? familiar? comfortable? 'near you.'

you automatically knew which book that quote was from. book lovers by emily henry. it was your favorite romance book; you've raved about it many times with gepard.

as you continued, you saw another note, "'if you saw yourself the way other people see you, you'd never doubt again.' 'how do people see me?' 'like you're the most beautiful, most remarkable, thing they've ever seen."

you must admit, you blushed a little bit while internally reading that. the only reason you blushed was that because you discussed that quote with gepard. you were talking about the 'twisted' series and how it had it's pros and cons with gepard, and this quote was one of the pros.

another read, "'who are they? the best part of my day.'"

another, "books she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives."

and the last, "'favorite word?' 'you.'"

you quickly noticed that these were all quotes from your favorite books. these are books you've only discussed and rambled about with one person: gepard. you'd never thought he would've actually read these books. let alone, you'd never thought gepard would also quote them.

with slightly more hope than before, you ran up to everwinter cafe.

"did you get my message?" gepard stood tall in front of you. you couldn't look into his eyes and it was killing him.

"your letter? yes, i did. and your flowers too. they were beautiful," you rocked back and forth on your heels.

"thank you, i grew them myself," he gave you a soft smile. you wanted to talk about how he managed to even grow such beautiful flowers, but how could you talk to him if you couldn't even look at him in the eyes? "but, did you get my message?"

you looked down at the many notes in your hand. it turns out gepard had left notes after all, "oh yes. i did," you blushed at the obvious context of the quotes. "all my favorite books."

"yeah," gepard spoke breathlessly, as if all of his air had run out after he started speaking to you, "but did you get my message?" he looked at your face for any type of indication: whether you liked him back, hated him, or had no strong feelings towards him. his eyes darted throughout your face, and the sight made you slightly flustered. he was leaning over you, and you thought you saw his eyes graze over your lips.

then it donned on you. the flowers. the letter. the sneaking out at night. the romantic context of all the quotes. the way all the quotes were from your favorite books that you've only talked about with him. the way gepard has admired and remembered every single thing about you. your stomach dropped as you realized gepard had been feeling the same things you have felt for him this entire time. your heart pounded in your chest as you finally met his eyes in the pale moonlight.

"yes," you swiftly exhaled. it was like all your hidden feelings for gepard were compacted in your chest, and when you finally breathed, they were all let out. it was like all your troubles were leaving you, "i did."

"and..." gepard trailed off, now failing to meet you in the eyes. he was terrified of your rejection; your opinion was one of the things that mattered most to him. before, he regarded it was his passion for the people, but now he recognizes that he was just passionate for you. "did you like it?"

"i loved it," you smiled; it wasn't just a soft smile this time, like the ones you've always given him. it was a big smile: loud and talkative, much like you. one smile could convey so much.

but you still had thoughts, "i didn't need all of this though," you grabbed his hand for reassurance. you were in range of his lips. you could close the gap right now.

gepard froze; your words and your touch made him tense. he was finally able to look you in the eye, having prepared himself for iminent rejection and was ready to leave. whatever you needed, he would do.

"what do you need?" gepard asked frantically. "whatever you need, i will give it to you. whether it be space or never seeing me again."

what you needed? you needed his thoughts, his opinions, his reassurance. you needed his touch on a cold night, you needed his arm around you when you were cold, you needed to feel him beside you on nights similar to this. you needed everything that he was.

"i need you," you whispered up on his lips. "right now."

and gepard swore the entirety of everwinter city heard his heart drop to the ground. he was sure that you could feel his heart pounding in his chest after you said those five words. only five words, yet gepard felt like he was going insane. he was going insane for you: your touch, your mind, your words, your entirety.

gepard removed his hand from yours for just one second, using it to tip your chin up so you could be in his view. in the pale moonlight, you were gorgeous. to be fair, you were always gorgeous, but something about tonight extenuated your beauty.

"can i⎯"

"don't even ask," you cut him off, leaning into him.

the kiss was soft and sweet at first. the feeling of your lips pressed onto his was heavenly: gepard felt ten times stronger with you than with anything else. it was gentle and tender.

but when you tugged your arms around his neck, all restraint went out the window.

gepard moved his hand from your chin to your waist, pulling you closer into him. it was bold for his first kiss, but who could blame him when you're holding onto to him so tightly?

you threaded your hands through his hair as he kissed you feverishly. his hands on your waist made you want to combust into him. you were standing on your toes at this point; if you tried to stand any taller, gepard was about to lift you up into the air.

when you finally stopped to breath, all that was left in the air was your love and the light from the sky.

"was i your first kiss?" you asked him coyly, arms still wrapped around his neck.

gepard blushed and you immediately knew his answer to your question. you stood up one more time to give him one more quick kiss.

yes, you were his first kiss. and gepard wished for more to come.

i need a week off after this fic i swear to god

#tana writes (∗´ ᨔ `∗)#honkai star rail #honkai star rail x reader #honkai star rail x you #hsr #hsr x reader #gepard x reader #gepard landau #gepard hsr #gepard x you #gepard landau x you #tana answers: request ver #FINALS WEEK IS OVER I FINALLY GOT THIS DONE WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO #gepard

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hugsandchaos · 7 months

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Seeing Double

Part One, Part Two, Part Three

Summary: A ghost who looks a lot like Phantom comes to him in search of protection, and their newest member instantly agrees. He calls her his little sister, and sooner or later, Phantom also might end up with a new brother.

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“And that’s why I have... complicated feelings about Danielle being here.” Conner finished. Black Canary sat across from him and was leaned forward a little to listen. It felt good to finally get something like this off his chest.”It’s not anything against Danielle specifically. If it’s the safest place for her like Phantom says, then she can stay as long as she needs. It’s...” He trailed off, not knowing how to put the reason into words.

Luckily, Black Canary knew what he was implying by what he had already told her.”You also want Superman to be there for you like Phantom is for Danielle.” She said. Conner clenched his hand into a fist, but only for a second. She was right. He silently nodded.

“It’s not just that, either. Sometimes I want to be included in their sibling activities. I want to hang out with them. Not Superman. Not as often as before, at least.” He added. He thought himself pretty rude for thinking that. He wasn’t nearly as close to Phantom as Danielle. He wasn’t related to him in hardly any way, and they only recently started hanging out the way friends did.

And yet here he was, wanting to be part of their little group.

Black Canary seemed only a little bit surprised by this.”You want to be their brother?” She asked.

Conner shouldn’t have been taken aback by the suggestion when he began thinking about it. Yes, he wanted to be close with both of them the way they are with each other. Yes, he wanted to protect them both. And yes, there was a small part of Conner that wanted to be able to look to Phantom for help.”I... I think so. If that’s what it would mean.” He said. He’s heard of people calling others they’ve fought many battles with “brothers in arms” and those who are simply close to one another their brothers as well, regardless of wether or not they’ve survived fights together.

Canary smiled a little bit and nodded for him to continue.

“But what am I supposed to do about this? I’ve been mostly ignoring it because they have a bond with each other that I don’t have. I can’t just butt in on it.” Conner said. He wasn’t wrong, and Canary knew that. Then again, she also knew something that would make that feeling disappear.

However, she knew that it wasn’t her place to say it.

~~~~~~~~~~

Around thirty minutes later, Black Canary now sat across the from Phantom, who was floating above the recliner instead of sitting in it. She had only very recently been able to make a small breakthrough with the ghostly teenager. Since his arrival, he’s been trying to avoid opening up with almost anything she’s tried to talk with him about, but soon after Danielle came, he finally opened up a little. Maybe it was the fact that someone he was more familiar with was there with him. Or perhaps it was because of the very thing he’d mentioned during their last session.

Phantom was alternating between eye contact and staring at the floor.”You mentioned something last time. About Conner.” She said.

“I’m worried about him. The others have their families, but...” He trailed off. He opened and closed his mouth a few times while he struggled to find the right words. This was pretty common during these sessions, and Canary knew to be patient.”Can I be mean for a second? Say something I probably shouldn’t?” He asked.

Canary nodded.”Nothing leaves this room.” She assured him.

Phantom looked her in the eyes.”Superman is a coward.” He said bluntly.

Canary was taken aback by his choice of words, but didn’t let it show and remained silent for him to explain.”He has a clone, practically a literal son, but he refuses to see him almost as anything but non-sentient. Why? Is it because he’s too much of a coward to step up? Why won’t he at least apologize for what he said last visit and admit he was wrong!” He said.

Phantom’s tone and volume had raised up, which sounded like the start of a rant. He rolled his eyes as if disgusted.”He’s acting like a deadbeat with the way he does his best to ignore Conner’s existence! Seriously, the way he treats him almost makes me want to...”

Canary raised an eyebrow slightly. The ghostly teen let out a sigh.”This is gonna sound weird, but it makes me want to have Conner as my little brother so he doesn’t have to feel the way he does. But I can’t treat him like a child and just make him leave the room whenever he comes.” He said.

Canary nodded in agreement.”That’s may be true, but your motive is in the right place. It’s incredibly kind of you to be so worried about your friend that you’d be willing to become something of a new role model or guardian for him. Especially since he’s older than you.” She said.

Phantom lifted a hand and shook it side to side.”Eh, only biologically. Definitely not chronologically.” He said.

~~~~~~~~~~

Conner and Phantom were talking about their day when Wally had come in to tell them, specifically Conner, that Superman was coming in a few hours. Phantom’s reaction was immediate; zipping out of the room through the wall and vanishing. He came back a second later with an important to ask Conner.

It was a task that’d keep him busy from having to interact with Superman, which he really wanted at the time. All he had to do was watch Danielle and prevent his original from even seeing her.

And so here he was, doing a simple dog puzzle with Danielle in his bedroom.

Conner finished sorting the edge pieces from the rest and picked up a corner piece.”So you’ve never been to the ghost zone before?” He asked.

Danielle shook her head and held an edge piece near the corner piece to see if it would match.”No, Phantom says my core’s too weak to survive going through the portal. He says he’s working on a solution to fix that, though. “Even if it’s just for one trip,” he said.” She explained. The piece was incompatible, so she moved it to the size. She picked up another one. That one fit. The young ghost picked up another edge piece. Conner let out a small hum and helped her search for other pieces.

He had found it infuriating to discover that he was practically half of what Superman was in terms of superpowers, but Danielle didn’t seem too angry about being not as strong as her brother. Maybe it was because he was so nice and encouraging to her.”You’re lucky to have a brother like Phantom.” Conner said. Danielle nodded in agreement and looked up at him.

She knew by now that he was also a clone like her and had so many questions, but stopped when he started to get upset a few weeks ago. He didn’t know if anyone explained the situation to her yet.”Don’t you have a family?” She asked. Conner remained quiet.

Rejection from the very person that’s practically the reason you’re alive hurt a lot. He kept his anger under control, though. At least, he tried. If she had asked this months ago, he might’ve yelled at her or something. Now he was better at controlling himself until he could hit something, but he still wanted so badly to just explode. To hit something and shatter it to a point beyond repair. But he couldn’t. Not here. Conner shook his head.

Danielle frowned a little, but then she suddenly sat up. A big smile appeared on her face.”What if you were my second brother?” She asked.

Conner paused. He’d been pushing the developing want to become her and Phantom’s brother. He strongly believed that it wasn’t right to intrude on their relationship as siblings, especially when he wouldn’t exactly be the best brother with the anger issues he’s working on. He glanced over at Danielle with a very shocked look.

She was smiling at him so hopefully. Conner almost didn’t want to say no. Scratch that, he didn’t want to say no at all. And even if he did, would he be able to resist that pleading look?“That would be nice.” He finally said. Danielle took in what was probably the most dramatic gasp he’d ever heard and practically lunged at him for a hug.

She opened her mouth, but all that came out was a bunch of static and pings. Conner soon smiled and hugged back.”You know I can’t understand you, right?” He asked.

“Oh, right! Sorry. But this is the best!! Now I have two brothers, and one of them is a clone like me!!” She cheered, switching back to English.

Suddenly, Phantom’s head poked up through the floor, startling the both of them.”He’s gone. What’s this I hear about a new brother?” He asked. Danielle let go of Conner as Phantom floated up and smiled.

“Can Conner be our new brother?” She asked. Phantom’s eyes widened a bit. He glanced over at Conner, who shrugged.

Why did he shrug? That was stupid.

Phantom glanced between him and Danielle, then smiled.”Sure, why not?” He said. Danielle threw her arms into the air and cheered. Phantom floated over to Conner and gave him a hug.”Guess you’re stuck with us now.” He said, then laughed.

Conner didn’t really get it. He said that like it was a bad thing.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #danielle phantom #dani phantom #Danielle #yj conner #Conner #conner kent #black canary #young justice crossover #young justice #danny phantom crossover #yj x dp #dp x yj #phantom now has a new brother #i hope this works!

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antiyourwokehomophobia2 · 6 days

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I wish women did not feel so strongly about the fact men, on average, are physically stronger than them. I feel like women have such negative feelings about this that it drives them to ridiculousness. Listen, I get it. I get it, I get it, I get it. The fact men are stronger is frightening. It’s scary to know that if a man decided to physically attack you then you are probably fucked. The USWNT, women who have spent years honing their skills on the field, lost to teenage boys who—when compared to the women—were basically just beginning to develop their talents. I understand how demeaning that can feel to every woman who hears this fact. I can imagine how demeaning it was for the USWNT. I’m sure every woman has been in a situation, playful or threatening, where they have tested their strength against a man and lost miserably. I’ve seen videos where women hit and slapped men with genuine rage and fury and the man barely even flinched. I understand how embarrassing and scary it can be to come to terms with the strength disparity between men and women, but you simply must come to terms with it. Far too many women have taken to pretending that it's not there—this is not a good approach.

Women choose to pretend it's not there because acknowledging that it's there makes them feel inferior. I ask women to remember that this world was built with the ideals of men in mind and to cater to their specific strengths. Men value strength and violence so of course the world is going to seem like those two things are all that’s valued in it. It's no coincidence that many male heroes are physically strong/easily able to cause harm—such as Naruto or John Wick or the Avengers. Of course it feels shitty, as a woman who inhabits this world, to have to acknowledge that your biology generally prevents you from being able to have the ‘can beat anyone in a fight’ type of strength that gets constantly praised.

However, I implore women to consider that men being physically stronger than them is no more of a significant fact than women being able to give birth while men cannot. Women also have biological advantages over men but when was the last time you saw a man calling himself inferior because of them? Imagine if the world was built with female advantages in mind. Imagine a world where the ability to give birth was seen as some sort of pinnacle of human worth. I mean, the ability to give birth is crazy. You are literally creating a whole new life. The female body is capable of providing the necessary tools to bring about a whole new person. Every brain that has thought of something life changing and every hand that has built something new was brought into existence by a woman’s reproductive system. Every single person that has ever so much as breathed was brought to life by a woman, but men never think women are superior for this fact.

Oh, but women couldn’t get pregnant without men, right? No. IVF exists. But even without it, the correct thing to say would be that women cannot get pregnant without sperm. A woman can get artificially inseminated. She never has to go out and find a man to have sex with. Is that not an advantage? Because, I mean, what can a man do if he wants to have a child but no woman is willing to give him one? Hire a surrogate? That comes with a list of complications, is far more intimate than artificial insemination, and is incredibly expensive. How is that not a disadvantage of being male? You may be thinking that you, as a woman, never want to become pregnant, but that is not the point! The point is that it's arbitrary to look at biological advantages as anything other than completely neutral.

Women also survive famine better and live longer than men. Imagine a world where women held this over men’s heads? But we don’t live in that world. In this world, I’m certain a man would say that they die sooner because of being braver, taking more risks, and doing dangerous jobs. However, if it were women putting themselves in danger and dying as a result, men would not be quick to call us brave; they'd call us the opposite. Idiotic. Foolhardy. Too stupid to take the necessary precautions to keep ourselves alive.

It is just so painful to see women lamenting over the physical disparity between men and women. Let it go. Consider being neutral on the subject of biological advantage. Consider that male strength isn't something to pretend doesn't exist and isn’t something that proves women are inferior.

I understand that acknowledging vulnerability is against the survival Instinct—I get it—but come on. How can we let this get to a point where we’re saying it’s okay for males to enter female sports and beat the absolute crap out of/wipe the floor with women? Them being stronger is neutral! It does not mean anything! But it’s fact. Pretending it’s not only serves to put women in a losing position. Pretending it’s not only serves to make women into a laughing stock. Men will gladly collect medals that belong to women—they’ve been doing that forever. If there was no reason for male and female leagues then there wouldn’t be any. You cannot deny your way into something being true. I also wish it were true that the average woman was evenly matched against the average man, but it’s simply not reality. In the same way that it’s not reality that the average woman is taller than the average man.

I am begging women to think neutrally about this topic instead of being in such deep turmoil over it that they open the door for men to walk all over us.

#I'm so tired of the talking point of #'oh you want males and females seperate? You must think women are inferior and men are better'#No that's not what I'm saying #I am simply acknowledging that testosterone is a literal drug that gives men crazy strength #In the same way I don't think adults are superior to children but I acknowledge puberty does crazy things to the body #No I'm not comparing women to children so go away with that mess #I know this piss on the poor website too well to not put that disclaimer

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glitter-gummy-bears · 2 years

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New idea for a Danny Phantom DC crossover fic!

Danny always knew that he was adopted. His parent's had always been open with this fact and always made sure he knew they loved him just as much as Jazz. What they failed to mention was that they found him in a crashed spaceship while camping!

"You were so small and scared," his mom told him with a sigh, "We couldn't understand anything you were saying, the only thing we understood was your name."

"Sooooo you're saying Daniel is my alien name?" Danny asked in complete disbelief.

"Yep! But you said it kinda weird for a while," his dad chuckled like this whole situation was completely normal, which admittedly calmed Danny's nerves a bit. "You would point to yourself and say Dan El! Dan El! Gosh, it was adorable."

Danny felt his face heat up. His dad ruffled his hair and laughed, "I miss those days, now my kids are both moody teenagers! I'm starting to feel old!"

Danny found himself laughing lightly. Honestly, this whole thing would be pretty cool if he wasn't still freaking out. He was an alien. A freakin alien. As if being half ghost wasn't strange enough!

Danny could only pray that his life wasn't about to get even more complicated.

900 miles away Clark Kent sat at his desk at the daily planet.

As he typed about local long-lost sisters reuniting after years apart, he couldn't help the depressed, bitter feeling swirling around his stomach. Growing up Clark had always wanted a sibling, someone to play with and help him with chores on the farm. Someone who understood him.

So you can imagine his shock and delight when he learned he actually had a sibling! An older brother!

They were sent to earth in separate ships but should have landed at around the same time!

Clark did what anyone would do and searched for his brother. Then he started college but would still look. Then he got a job but would still look. Then he became a superhero, he didn't have much time to look. Then he joined the Justice League... he didn't look much anymore, and when he did he wasn't hopeful.

Clark was just about done with the article when a beep let him know someone from the league was trying to get ahold of him.

He quickly left his desk and headed for the hallway. Pressing the button on his earpiece, Clark couldn't even get a word out before a familiar brooding voice echoed in his ear.

"I looked."

Clark felt a chill go down his spine, "Did you find anything?" he demanded, sounding more like Superman.

There was a pause.

"You're gonna want to see this."

Clockwork watched as all the pieces finally fell into place. He waved his staff and saw the event that started it all play across his screen. Two Kryptonian ships heading to earth when a portal opens up, a portal Clockwork himself created, and swallows one of the ships.

The portal opens up again over a decade later, spitting out the same ship.

"Yes, everything is how it should be."

#danny phantom #danny fenton #danny phantom fanfiction #dp x dc crossover #danny phantom superman #superman #clark kent #justice league #dp x dc #danny phantom x dc #danny phantom crossover

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hurts2think · 30 days

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Hi! This might be a bit complicated but can I request a Young!Bridget x Goddess!Reader (sister of Hades, she’s either his age or a year older than him, just not younger)

Initially, she doesn’t study at Merlin Academy cause she finds it stupid to study amongst mortals. But due to her brother Hades causing trouble along with his group of friends, she was forced to go to the said school and keep an eye on him.

She arrived the same moment Bridget was being mocked by Uliana and decided to step in. Ever since then, reader always kept them away from the princess and Bridget made it her habit to constantly be around the goddess and spoil her with treats. Overtime, they eventually developed feelings for each other but is too afraid to admit it. (The ending is up to you)

Pure fluff pls, Thank you!

🎀Young!Bridget Hearts x Reader🎀

Reader pronouns: She/her

Pairing: Young!Bridget Hearts x HadesSister!Reader

Plot: Being only a year older than your trouble maker of a brother, you were often held responsible for his actions. So once he starts getting in trouble at school, you have no choice but to attend too and find yourself defending an oddly pink colored girl.

Word count: 2.7k

Extra: I'm sorry this took so long, but in my defense it's almost 3k words. I hope you guys like this even though it's long...🫶🎀

Attending highschool really was not something on your bucket list of anything you actually had to do. Who ever heard of gods going to school? Even as a teenager it was absolutely not necessary.

That was, until, your brother got a girlfriend and they started following each other around like sad puppies. So he decided to go to Merlin Academy, the same school she attended. You didn't attend the school, naturally. Why should you? Studying amongst all of the tedious mortals sounded exhausting and not something you'd enjoy. But if your brother liked it, who were you to judge? You’re just happy if he’s happy.

And of course, like anything he did, you as the older sister were held responsible. Hades was apparently causing too much trouble up there so you were forced to go make sure he stayed out of trouble. You really couldn't understand why it was your responsibility. You were only a year older than him afterall, and he should be the one suffering for his actions, not you. There wasn't a single good thing that could come of this.

Everything up in the world felt so overly bright and annoying. You couldn't even look at someone without the color palette of their clothes straining your eyes.

But you just kept telling yourself you only had to get through the year and hope Hades fixes his attitude. You didn't even understand why he was getting into so much trouble for messing with other students. What's the point in picking on others? Your brother confused you in a lot of ways like that.

You typically kept to yourself, only getting involved when absolutely necessary. However, the other day, you found yourself in a situation where you had no choice but to step in. A girl, who seemed almost overly sweet, was happily handing out her homemade sweets to all of the other students. She had a type of genuine kindness about her that made her a target of bullying. Your brother's gang noticed this and started picking on her, mocking her innocent gesture and trying to steal the cupcakes, though you weren’t entirely sure why? Nor do you really care.

You stepped in, confronting the VKs and somehow managing to defuse the situation, standing up for the girl in a rather threatening manner. You were pretty sure that if it weren’t for the fact that Hades was your brother, Uliana would have definitely shifted you to be a new target to mess with. But you had seemed to call some kind of uneasy truce, though it was likely they’d still pick on the pink girl not far into the future.

And you really were just glad that was the end of that and hopefully you could just go back to minding your business and only pulling Hades aside to tell him to get his act together rather than actually getting involved. But just your luck, you were never let off so easily.

———

You find a spot in the courtyard, away from the hustle of the over energetic students. The sun shined down into the grass and onto your face, making you squint. You settle onto a bench, the sounds of distant students chatting faded in your mind. A gentle breeze occasionally threatens to turn the pages of the book you had opened in front of you.

You felt almost at peace for a second before your calm moment was abruptly interrupted.

“Hey! You’re Hades’ sister, right?” The obnoxiously pink girl you defended the other day asks with the brightest smile you’ve ever seen.

You looked up at her, hesitating as if you were unsure how to respond. You settle for a nod.

Somehow she took this as an invitation to sit next to you on the bench, “Well, I’m Bridget.” She introduced, somehow keeping that bright smile on her perfect face, “I just wanted to thank you for the other day.”

Letting out a small sigh you shook your head, “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” You shrugged it off, rather shrug it off than worry about it and have some kind of stupid situation where she thinks she’s indebted to you or something.

“No, really! I mean… Not a lot of people just stand up to Uliana and her crew like that, especially for me.” She giggled, but the giggle came off as a little awkward.

A puzzled expression took over your face and you tilted your head, “You mean your friends don’t stand up for you or anything?” You raised a brow, almost suspicious of her claim.

Bridget fiddled with a small box that was in her hands before answering, “Well, my best friend Ella does. But they pick on her just as much as I do. And… other than her I don’t really have any other friends.” She explained with almost too much of a light hearted expression for someone who just said they’re bullied and have hardly any friends.

Subconsciously you let out a small scoff, looking her up and down, “I find that hard to believe. You’re practically bursting with that ‘friendship is magic’ type energy.” You say jokingly but Bridget’s expression showed she couldn’t really tell if you were being serious or not.

“Anyway, I just wanted to give this to you. I made them this morning.” She smiled, opening the small box she was holding to present to you small homemade pastries she made. The were some kind of cookies in the shape of hearts.

You were a little taken a back by the gesture, “Oh, uh, no. It’s okay. I’m not really a sweets type of girl… I mean, I never even had anything sweet like that before. I probably wouldn’t like it.” You explain but it mostly sounded like you were a little flustered by such a kind and personal gesture.

Bridget’s smile grew but her face also showed that she was surprised to hear this, "What? Really? You've never tried anything sweet before?"

"Nope. Really you don't want to eat anything in the underworld..." You trail off.

She tilts her head slightly, "Well then how do you know you won't like it if you've never tried it?"

Really you couldn't argue with that. You wanted to but maybe if you had one of her little treats she'd leave you alone, "I guess you're right..." You take one of the small pastries from the box, staring at it for a short moment before taking a bite.

The outer layer of the cookie crumbles, a little dry at first, and then suddenly, your teeth sink into the jam. The flavor spreads across your tongue in a wave, something between fruity and rich, a sensation that catches you completely off guard. At first you weren't sure how to feel about it, but once it really sank in it was like the most delightful feeling in the world. You facial expression definitely shifts to a little more surprised at how good it was.

"Do you like it?" Bridget asks in anticipation with a smile.

You nodded quickly before taking another bite, a bigger one this time. "You made these? Can I have another?" You suddenly ask, your attitude suddenly brightening slightly for the first time the whole time you've been here.

Bridget giggles, “Of course! I did make them for you after all,” she says, handing you the whole box, her smile brighter than ever before. She was very happy you liked them so much.

You took the box from her before clearing your throat and regaining your composure, "Thank you, Bridget..."

-----

The next couple weeks were not really what you were expecting. After you stood up for Bridget and your little interaction with her, she started coming around and talking to you more and more often until it got to the point where she approached you everytime she saw you.

What was even less expected was that she kept bringing you treats and things she made, insisting it was 'because you need to try out these things you've missed out on!' which honestly... You weren't really complaining. The sweets were good and Bridget was nice enough... You never really planned on making friends, your only real friend was your brother anyway. But she seemed like she really wanted to be your friend.

"So, you and that Bridget girl girlfriends now or something?" Hades asked, unprompted as he sat back into his chair.

The two of you unfortunately had to share a dorm since you were related and not many of the other students were willing to share a dorm with literal gods of the underworld.

"What?" You ask, looking up from the book in your hands, a little shocked by the question, "No. Of course not... I don't date anyone." You huff, looking back down at your book.

You don't know why but the question made your heart suddenly feel like it was speeding up and your face warm.

"That's probably because no one likes you." He rolled his eyes, "I know that look. You totally have the hots for her." He smirked teasingly, standing up and pulling his chair to sit on front of you

You shot him a glare before closing your book, “I do not.” You refuted.

But he just ignored you, “Look, If you want her to like you, I can tell you exactly how to get that boat sailing,” he offered

“What do you know about girls? You and Mali fight like everyday,” You raise a brow, not convinced by your brother’s offer.

He shook his head and sat up, “It’s simple. Castlecoming is soon, right? Ask her to go with you. But you gotta make it all romantic like get her flowers. Girls like that. Makes them feel special.” He said confidently.

“You say that as if I’m not a girl. I know what girls like.” You insist. But really you were totally clueless when it came to romance in general. Not that you actually liked Bridget or anything… right? “Besides! I don’t actually like her.”

Hades looks unconvinced, “Okay. But I’m gonna say I told ya so once you two start going out.”

You only sigh and roll your eyes, looking back down at your book. But you couldn’t stop thinking of the subject now. Bridget was pretty cute. Well, she was really cute. The way her big curls bounced with every step she took and the way she twirled around when she was happy was adorable. And it was like everytime she brought you a treat it was harder and harder to stay away. It was like she had you trapped in some kind of spell every since you had that stupid pastry she gave you.

Your face only burned hotter as you thought about it, burying your face deeper in your book so Hades wouldn’t notice.

———

The next day you couldn’t stop thinking about it. Asking Bridget to the dance. You didn’t even intend on going at first, but ever since Hades put that stupid thought in your head you just couldn’t drive it out.

“Do you have any plans for Castlecoming?”

That was the last question you wanted to hear. Especially from Bridget, “Uh. No. I don’t think so.” You mutter.

Bridget gives a small frown yet somehow still seemed full of bubbly energy, “Yeah, me either.”

You paused for a moment. Now felt like the best time to ask her. Maybe you should. You didn’t have plans… she didn’t have plans… maybe she’d want to? No. Probably not. She was sweet and hung around you but would she ever want to go out on a date? You two were total opposites. She was literally bright and full of color while you were a goddess of the underworld. Someone like her deserves someone who’s as happy and bright as herself.

“Castlecoming is stupid anyway. It's just a school dance. It won't really matter in the long run..." Was all you managed to say.

Your words seemed to make her expression deflate slightly, "Maybe... But it would still be fun, wouldn't it?"

For the rest of the day you found it hard to even look Bridget in the eyes. You felt like hitting your head into a wall. Why were you suddenly so flustered about this? All because of what Hades said.

What if he was right? Maybe you did like her... She just felt so perfect and amazing. You never felt so safe and comfor with someone, you never felt yourself holding back a smile so many times in one day.

After some long consideration and staring off in your class, you ask Bridget to meet you after school by the gardening club. You felt it was secluded enough and far from anywhere someone might see you two. Just in case this went horribly wrong.

You stood by the entrance that was covered in bushes of flowers and fruit. An arch stood tall that you stood under, pacing back and forth, waiting for her to arrive. While you were very anxiously awaiting, last minute you decided to pick a rose from one of the bushes for her, absent mindedly picking off the thorns on the stims. And then you heard foot steps approaching.

"Hey! Sorry I took so long. Ella and I had to finish a project," Bridget giggled, walking into the garden as you quickly hid the rose behind your back.

You clear your throat, "It's fine..."

Bridget smiled and stopped in front of you, "What was it that you wanted to talk about."

You felt it was even harder to look her in the eyes. You looked down at your feet and stumbled through your thoughts to find the right words before you just started spitting stuff out, "I was just thinking, uhm, ya know. You don't have any plans for Castlecoming. And I don't have any plans for Castlecoming." Your words tripped a little as you felt your heart beat faster, like it was about to leap from your throat, "Do you want to go to Castlecoming with me?" You suddenly blurted out, holding the rose out to her.

Before she could even say anything or before you could even look at her face you immediately realized your nerves may have accidentally triggered your powers and set the rose on fire... "Oh! Shit—!" You frantically waved the rose until it went out, your expression ten times more embarrassed than before.

You suddenly felt Bridget's hand over yours, making you suddenly look into her eyes for the first time, "Wait, are you serious? Do you actually want to go with me?" She asked, a smile slowly appearing on her face.

You look back at your hands that she was now holding. Her hands were so soft, gentle, and warm compared to yours. You hesitantly flip one of her hands over and placed the now crisped rose into her palm, "I've never been so serious in my life." You say, a sense of calmness finally settling into your tone.

Her grin grew brighter and she squealed in excitment, jumping and suddenly pulling you into a tight embrace, "I would love to go with you!"

You were shocked by the sudden embrace but a small smile crept onto your face, slowly wrapping your arms back around her. "You're the most amazing girl I've ever met. I know you don't like to show it but you're so caring and kind. I love everything about you..." She admits with a grin.

She pulled away slightly to plant a kiss on your cheek, making you return to that flustered state.

"You're adorable," she giggles, holding the rose in one hand and taking your hand in the other, "We need to try on dresses right now!"

"Oh, uhm, okay." You say, still processing this turn of events. You really expected some kind of rejection. But now you were being pulled away by the pink girl to start preparing for your first date.

You couldn't calm your heart beat or the way you felt like your cheeks were on fire from how flustered you were. You couldn't believe she actually liked you back... And she thought you were caring and kind... Not even something you could see in yourself, but she saw it. This made you smile.

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