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buckbuckbarnesstuff · 3 months

Text

Completed Series

Get yourself a snack, enjoy these wonderful series and leave some love for the creative writers :)

♤ - includes sexual themes

Also, this gif has me in a chokehold

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Something domestic [50k] @fandoms-writings

ex-military amputee!Bucky x fem!Reader

Summary: Needing an escape from the loud and busy city life, Bucky comes to stay with you on your little farm. He didn’t expect you, a hardworking and beautiful woman with struggles of your own, to take his breath away and make life a little less dreary.

{personal comment: This is one of a kind and it got stuck in my head immediately. The way Bucky heals is beautifully written and I love how the animals of the farm got included}

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For the love of the game @pellucid-constellations ♤

College Athlete!Bucky x Reader

Summary: Bucky Barnes was a menace. NYU’s top baseball player, he was used to girls falling at his feet and could smooth talk his way out of just about anything. You hated him. He couldn’t figure out why. So when the novelty of weekend parties and quick hookups finally wore off—and his feelings for you began to grow—he made it his mission to fix it.

{personal comment: I love the changes Bucky goes through and the way all the characters are portrayed. This story never fails to give me butterflies every time I come back to it}

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Undisclosed @pellucid-constellations ♤

Lumberjack!Bucky x Reader

Summary: Desperate to outrun a secret that could cost you your life, you seek refuge in a small mountain town. Its deep forests and small cabins make it the perfect place to hide, but the travel website hadn’t mentioned anything about the quiet, burly lumberjack that wouldn’t leave your thoughts. No one had warned Bucky about you either.

{personal comment: The story is so creative and I got hooked on the few hints of the reader's backstory in the first parts and how it got revealed. Overall, it was a great mix of angst, fluff and Bucky in love}

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Scars @chickenfics

Bucky x reader Western AU

Summary: Running from a past that haunts you and a future that is unsure, the last thing you wanted was to take up with a stranger. Strangers, you'd learned, are almost always more trouble than they're worth. But when dangers from the life you're trying to leave behind get too close for comfort, drastic times call for drastic measures, and the stranger you'd once feared becomes the only person you can trust -- and perhaps the only person you'd call your friend. Now you both just have to make it out alive...

{personal comment: I'm a sucker for Western AU's and this piece of art satisfied me to no end. I love how naturally a connection bloomed between the two and the way they learned about each other. I would give so much for being able to read this for the first time again}

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A World of Our Own @shreddedparchment ♤

Bucky x Reader Castaway AU

Summary: You and a man named Bucky crash land on a deserted island. Can the two of you come together and make it until rescue comes? After you begin to fall for the mysterious Bucky Barnes, will you even want to be rescued?

{personal comment: I was astounded with the idea of this story and the creativity that came with it. It was lovely to read how Bucky and the reader grew closer over time and how they dealt with getting rescued and having to adjust to a 'normal' life on mainland again}

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Just One Kiss @sarahwroteathing

40s!Bucky x 40s!Reader

Summary: Bucky Barnes has been chasing after you since he was ten years old, but you’re determined not to give in. How long can you hold out when all he’s asking for is just one kiss?

{personal comment: This is such a lovely series. Bucky is a sweetheart and those letters were giving me all the feels. I loved all the characters and how they are written}

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Awake My Soul [78k] @foreverindreamlandd

Bucky x reader

Summary: It's been five years since zombies first started walking the Earth, destroying anything and everything in their wake. Now, in this apocalyptic world, fighting for survival comes as naturally as breathing. The one thing you've learned ever since they arrived, though, is that the living can be so much more dangerous than the undead. When you stumble across two young, scared boys lost in the woods and being chased by walkers, you go against your better judgment and help them to safety. Little did you know that helping them would lead you to Bucky - an angry, grumpy, distrusting member of the camp Shield. Bucky has zero interest in having you enter his life. He's been hurt before and lost too many people to risk experiencing that kind of pain again, and he knows that there are secrets you aren't telling the group. Yet, when push comes to shove, and you're put at risk, he'll stop at nothing to keep you safe.

{personal comment: The storyline of this series is so creative and I was hooked since the beginning. So much thought went into this and the background of the characters, and I'm beyond grateful I got to read this lovely piece of art}

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Burn The Witch @dreamwritesimagines ♤

Bucky x reader

Summary: The mission was simple; get closer to the Winter Soldier and start a relationship with him to get the necessary information for your superiors to use.

Everyone told you not to get your feelings involved.

You should have listened.

{personal comment: I loved reading about how Bucky interacts with the two different personalities the reader portrays without knowing it’s the same person and how she switches between those two. The other characters are great as well and I really enjoy your writing style here]

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The Bienville @indyluckycharlie ♤

Modern!Bucky x reader

Summary: Bucky is the young CEO of his family’s publishing house. A year into the role and working his ass off, he’s finally taking a much needed vacation (upon the advice of his well-meaning family and friends).

Solo and feeling a little lost, Bucky finds himself getting a little attached to the front desk receptionist, a local who grew up on the islands and dreams of bigger things.

{personal comment: I've read this a few times already and will definitely do it again. I loved how Bucky relaxed more and turned so charming, and how they built that connection so naturally. I felt everything I read and it was beautiful}

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Harmless @shurisneakers

Bucky x Villan!Reader

Summary: Bucky volunteers to go stop a small time villain, but nothing can prepare him for what exactly he has to deal with.

{personal comment: I had so much fun while reading this and it’s so damn creative. It was lovely to read how they grew closer over time and the many things they did for each other]

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Heart to a Gunfight [38.3k] @lailannajacobs

Modern!Bucky x reader

Summary: You didn’t want to help Bucky Barnes make it through the party by pretending to be his fake girlfriend, after all, you had just met him. You also didn’t plan on the charade lasting as long as it did.

{personal comment: This is so lovely and I found myself grinning so much while reading this. But I also enjoyed the little angst in there and how they ended up together}

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Leave This Town @avengerofyourheart ♤

Mechanic!Bucky x reader

Summary: Your dreams of kissing your small town life goodbye are about to come true when an unexpected detour leaves you stranded. Meeting the handsome local mechanic has you rethinking your plans. Perhaps happiness is less about where you’re headed and more about the people you meet along the way.

{personal comment: I'm a sucker for Mechanic!Bucky and I really love this creative piece of art}

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Vacant Mirrors @whirlybirbs

Bucky x reader

Summary: Shit’s been rough. Shit was rough even before the blip. Dr. Hart shares an office with dr. Raynor, and you share a waiting room with Bucky Barnes.

{personal comment: I enjoyed this so much and went through so many emotions while reading it, feeling everything so vividly. This includs all I need of Bucky Barnes and I'm in love}

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The Two of Us [39.7k] @bucky-bucket-barnes ♤

Bucky x Avenger!Reader

Summary: You and Bucky go to investigate the phenomenon happening in Westview, New Jersey. While attempting to understand the issue, you yourselves are sucked into Wanda's world of pretend. Now, you believe yourselves to be the happily married Mr. and Mrs. Barnes; in real life, you are most definitely not a happy pair. It is up to you and Bucky to piece together what's happening while dealing with one another inside the hex.

{personal comment: We all love a good enemies to lovers and this was really exciting to read. It got me hooked so fast and I loved it till the end}

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Everything Backwards [35.2k] @buckybabybaby

Bucky x reader

Summary: When you make-out with a ‘James’ on a night out, you don’t expect to see him again, so imagine your surprise the next day when it turns out he’ll be your new sort-of-flat-mate. As Nanny for Peggy & Steve’s three children, you’ve hit the jackpot, but now the guy across the corridor is threatening to ruin it.

{personal comment: I really loved how Bucky softened and the way they formed a connection. The interactions with the kids are lovely, I enjoyed this so much}

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Sky full of Song [65k] @wkemeup ♤

Pirate!Bucky x Pirate/Siren!Reader

Summary: Despite the bitter resentment of the crew, you found a home on Captain Barnes’ ship; on the ocean where you belonged, at the side of a captain you swore loyalty and heart to. But when course is plotted for a legendary island, the secret that has kept you alive for years is threatened to be revealed.

{personal comment: This series is amazing and the storyline has such a nice flow to it, that had me hooked so bad. Bucky's so respectful and protective and I read this so many times already, it might actually be sad. But I'm in love with this art}

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365 Days @abovethesmokestacks

Bucky x reader soulmate AU

Summary: "You all know how it is, the one constant in this hellish life: You have a soulmate. No idea who it is, no clues whatsoever, only 25 years to find them. In 364 days, my time’s up. It sounds like a lot, but so does 25 years, and look where that got me. So, for better or for worse, I’ll try. I’ve got twelve months to find whoever my soul is knit together with."

{personal comment: I didn’t think I'd be into solemate au's but this was really lovely. The small glimpses into the life of Bucky in between really piqued my interest}

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All Good Things @sagechanoafterdark

Ghost!Bucky x witch!Reader

Summary: After only three days of dealing with the annoying specter haunting you, you break the rules and accidently give a ghost a body. So what do you do when you find out the man you’re now sharing your your apartment with isn’t really a ghost and that haunted touch is a little warmer than you realized?

{personal comment: The concept of this story is so interesting and captivated me instantly. I had fun reading this and went through a lot of emotions throughout}

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Wild horses [22k] @whitewolfbumble

Biker!Bucky x reader

Summary: Kicked out of school and exiling yourself in a town time forgot, one little incident lands the sights of the locally infamous Avengers biker gang square on you. Wild horses run faster and there was no chance to turn back now.

{personal comment: I'm smitten with this story, it’s so nice and I found myself relate to the reader so lany aspects. It’s some lovely work}

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The Thrill of the Hunt [12k] @rookthorne ♤

Scare Actor!Bucky x reader

Summary: Ancient game of cat and mouse, a fight for survival between a predator and their prey, wasn’t a new phenomenon — it had been practised for centuries and it was an art that very, very few perfected. For years you had chased the craving to find someone that had mastered the art of the hunt, and for Halloween, you had gone all out and visited a haven unlike any other.

It was there that you found your match.

Cloaked in nothing but black and shrouded in a sense of lethality, you would have to run from this shadow in an adrenaline fuel haze unlike any other. A chase for the ages, the very one you desired.

And if he caught you, your world would end as you knew it.

{personal comment: This is so thrilling and was really exciting to read. The switches between him as Bucky and then his character had me reeling}

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Want one? @hootyhoobuckaroo

Demon!Bucky x reader

Summary: The reader summons a demon by accidentally drawing an occult symbol in sandwich condiments. The demon, a strange yet oddly charming being by the name of Buchanan, begins to frequent her little apartment. It’s only a matter of time until she can make her way past his guarded exterior.

{personal comment: The story had an interesting concept, and I really liked it, it’s endearing}

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Drifting @real-jane

Bucky x reader

Summary: Bucky saves the life of a woman when she's buried in an avalanche. Faced with the possibility that his cover might be blown, Bucky must keep the woman alive, and try to keep her from finding out who he is... or what he's done.

How long can he hide?

{personal comment: I don’t read a lot of fics written in the third person but this did me in and I had to try. Couldn't stop, the writing style is captivating and I was really invested}

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A dish served cold @artficlly

Outlaw!Bucky x reader

Summary: After the murder of your pa, you go on a journey to find justice. Fate brings you to Crimson Junction for a reason, and that reason is Bucky Barnes.

{personal comment: This series got me so invested. I'm loving the captor/captive energy and although I do feel bad for Bucky, I am so grateful the reader doesn’t instantly fall in love with him and forget about the reason she tracked him down for in the first place. I got so excited when they talked about what happened and I'm thrilled to find out that there is going to be a sequel}

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Salt the earth @mallowswriting

Childhoodbestfriend!Bucky x reader (best friends to enemies to allies to lovers/Road trip AU)

Summary: Brock Rumlow is a slick, charming, wise-cracking businessman that you are lucky to have a claim to. Brock Rumlow is your fiance. brock rumlow is going to suffocate you.

Brock Rumlow is going to be surprised when you disappear, nothing left behind but a note. But once you’ve gone through with steps 1-4 of your 5 step escape plan, you find out that the ‘friend’ nat told you to meet - the ‘friend’ who is going to drive you across the country to the utopia of safety that is new york - just had to be Bucky fucking Barnes.

“If you’re so annoyed with the music, you can drive.”

“You’d never let me drive this car.”

“Exactly. Now shut up.”

{personal comment: Read all this in one go, just couldn't help myself. The way that connection forms again all throughout the bickering and heartfelt conversations and the way the backstory of them both is introduced is so captivating. This was a nice read}

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Something more @tellmealovestory ♤

bestfriend!Bucky x reader

Summary: After a bad breakup you ask your best friend to take your virginity. It’s just friends with benefits. What could possibly go wrong? Modern AU

{personal comment: Bucky is such a sweetheart, so soft and considerate, I'm so smitten and I really enjoyed the way the sexy times are written}

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That Summer @tellmealovestory ♤

Biker!Bucky x reader

Summary: You’ve spent every summer since you were a child in the idyllic beach town that you call home three months out of the year. This summer should be no different except for the addition of Bucky Barnes. Sparks fly upon first meeting, but it’s only a summer fling, right? Modern AU.

{personal comment: This made me feel so warm, it’s beautiful. I love this relationship and how it’s portrayed}

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It’s a Deal @justreadingfics ♤

boytoy!Bucky x reader

Summary: You’re out of a relationship of 10 years and you’re just in desperate need to get laid, no strings attached, no romance, no complications. You dear friend Natasha feels like she’s going to regret this later, but she might have the perfect guy to fulfill your needs.

{personal comment: I love fuckboy!Bucky falling in love and this was just what I needed}

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Relationship tutor @samingtonwilson ♤

College!Bucky x College!Reader

Summary: Bucky, a relationship novice, asks for your help in dating your friend. Unable to say no to him, you agree despite everyone and everything telling you not to.

{personal comment: Another beautifully written series. I love the many friendships, especially the little interactions with Sam. And Bucky's a lovesick idiot, and I find myself craving that a lot, so that was perfect}

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No such thing @sanguineterrain

College!Bucky x College!Journalist!Reader

Summary: You’ve been assigned to write a column for your school paper on the team’s spectacular running back. You don’t care very much for your university’s football team; you just can’t understand the hype, okay? Turns out your distaste for football bigheads was exactly on point: James Barnes is insufferable.

{personal comment: Sassy reader here and I loved it. Their bickering is everything and I enjoyed how they grew a friendship to realizing there is more}

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Breaking the Rules @redgillan

Modern!Bucky x reader

Summary: You hate James Barnes with a burning passion and the feeling is entirely mutual. Just when you think things can’t get any worse, you are tricked into attending his sister’s wedding as his girlfriend. Stuck with a bunch of strangers, you come up with a set of rules that are not going to last long.

{personal comment: I enjoyed this so much. It’s incedibly relatable, real and it’s enemies to lovers, so that’s a huge bonus in the first place. Bucky's backstory touched me and I love how she needed some time to process everything and not just jump at the chance to be with him}

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#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky x reader #bucky series #bucky x female reader #bucky barnes #bucky fic #bucky fic rec #fic recs

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mrsshabana · 4 months

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𝐃𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 - 𝐆𝐲𝐮𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐨 𝐱 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

꒦꒷‧₊ Content Gyutaro x female!reader, fluff, school au ꒦꒷‧₊ Note 1k words. Got this idea from this amazing art piece I reblogged earlier today ♡

You don't belong here. Girls like you would never be caught dead in detention. With your cute pleated skirt, pastel colored cardigan, and animal plush keychains that hang from your backpack.

Now a guy like him, this is where he finds himself most afternoons. At this point Gyutaro is in detention more often than he's in class. Probably the most intimidating guy in school. If his towering height and sour attitude aren't enough to deter you, then his attire will do the trick. Always decked out in heavy punk fashion. He wears combat boots, ripped jeans, leather jackets, spiked bracelets, and not to mention copious amounts of piercings.

It's almost comical seeing the contrast as you sit next to him in detention.

The sweet scent wafting from you immediately hits his nostrils. Cupcakes...? he thinks to himself.

With a sigh Gyutaro leans back in his seat, crossing his arms and stretching out his long legs. He looks at you from the corner of his eye, watching curiously as you fold your arms and lay your head down.

He looks around the room, noticing the teacher sitting at a desk in the front of the classroom. This teacher always supervises the students in detention, and without fail, he falls asleep after ten minutes or so. Gyutaro can never seem to remember the teacher's name. He only remembers him because of the giant lump he has on his forehead.

Once the teacher falls asleep, Gyutaro reaches over to his backpack and pulls out a crumpled piece of paper and a half-broken pencil.

"Pst," you hear a raspy voice whisper as someone nudges your arm. You slowly open your eyes to see a large hand with black painted nails holding a small piece of paper.

"Hm...?" you hum as you take the note.

The tall boy dressed in black who sits beside you quirks a pierced brow, waiting for you to open it.

Unfolding the small piece of paper you see something scrawled in messy handwriting, "What u do 2 get stuck in here?"

A small smile tugs at the corner of your lips, detention suddenly got a bit more exciting.

You pull out a Hello Kitty mechanical pencil and write, "I refused to change my skirt."

Somewhat ashamed, you hand the note back over to the boy. He quickly opens it and frowns upon reading the sentence inside. Unashamed, he immediately looks down at your skirt.

"Looks fine 2 me," he writes back.

"They said it was too short and a distraction," you blush as you admit this to him. It took a lot of courage for you to wear this skirt. Expressing yourself through your clothes has always been something you were afraid to do, always worried that people may judge you or give you disgusted looks. And when you finally got the courage to wear something you actually liked, you get shamed for it.

He scoffs and scribbles back, "They tripping. Its not 2 short. Its cute. Wear whtvr the fuck u want."

"Thanks. I think I will :3" his comment gives you some of that confidence back. He's right, you shouldn't feel ashamed about what you choose to wear and how you choose to express yourself. Besides, look at him. His outfit is probably breaking a few rules and he doesn't seem to care at all.

"Its badass u stood up for yourself cupcake."

You smile when you receive the note and read the nickname he gave you, "Cupcake?"

"Yeah. U smell like em." He scribbles a drawing of a cupcake below his sentence.

"Thanks!" you draw a little cat eating the cupcake.

In return, Gyutaro draws a spikey collar around the cat's neck and gives it a little mohawk. Seeing the cute drawing you can't help but giggle.

You briefly make eye contact, and Gyutaro has a shy smile on his face.

"Wanna get outta here?" he leans over and whispers to you, "Old man's asleep, he won't notice."

Looking over at the teacher you see him slumped over the desk, a dribble of drool dripping down his lip.

"Won't we get in trouble?" you whisper, worried about getting in even more trouble.

"Who cares, you're a bad kid now." With a smirk, Gyutaro quietly slings his backpack over his shoulder and stands to leave. When he sees you hesitate to follow him, he takes your backpack and walks out the door.

"Hey!" You whisper, internally panicking as you watch him casually leave the room with your belongings. You have no choice but to follow him now.

Even though your inner voice is telling you not to, you slip out of your seat and tip-toe toward the door. Outside you see Gyutaro leaning against the wall with your backpack in hand.

"I can't believe you did that!" you pout with a flustered face as you snatch your backpack from him.

He chuckles, "Tsk I did you a favor. Besides, it feels good right?"

"What?"

"To break the rules," he smirks, looking down at you.

You blush and look away, trying to hide your flustered expression, "kinda..."

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he begins to walk down the hall knowing that you'll follow him without asking. And of course, you do just that.

"So, you got a name or you just want me to keep callin' you cupcake? I'm gonna keep sayin' it either way though," he chuckles.

"My name is Y/N... but I don't mind if you call me cupcake I guess," you mumble that last part under your breath, "What's your name by the way?"

"Gyutaro," he says. The piercings under his lip contort as he smiles.

"Well," you look up at him, "I hope we get detention together again someday."

"Oh we will, cuz I'm gonna teach you to rebel just like me!"

#gyutaro #gyutaro shabana #gyutaro x reader #gyutaro x y/n #gyuutarou #gyuutarou x reader #demon slayer x reader #kny x reader

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minniethemoocherda · 2 months

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Just A Friend To You

A/N: Thank you so much to @pkmndaisuki for agreeing to be my beta reader for this fic! I never would have spotted any of my spelling mistakes otherwise lol! Please go check out their amazing X-men art! I hope you guys enjoy the fic! I know I don't post that frequently but I am trying my best to help keep this ship afloat! Xxxxxx

Ao3

FF.net

From across the diner, Morph watched as Jubilee and Roberto inched ever closer to one another, neither of them quite yet taking to leap to touch.

Ah, the perils of young love, Morph thought. Although it wasn't as if the perils of love stopped once you became an adult. Something that they knew all too well as they turned their attention to the man sitting opposite them.

When Logan had learnt that the two teens were going on a date, he had demanded that he chaperone them. After many protests, Jubilee had agreed, on the condition that Morph also came along to make sure Logan didn't stab anyone, namely Roberto.

Which was how Morph came to find themselves that Saturday afternoon, watching a date, whilst on a not-date with the man they were in love with.

Most times when they and Logan were hanging out they would be roughhousing, or watching TV, or playing basketball. But here there was nothing to do but just enjoy each other's company. It was nice.

Morph wore their usual human form but with dark jeans and a pink crop top that they may or may not have borrowed from Gambit's wardrobe.

Wolverine was reluctantly wearing a buttoned shirt, because Jubilee had demanded that if he insisted on stalking them then he should at least look presentable. Morph was pretty sure that Logan had stolen his shirt too, probably from Scott, especially given that it was at least three sizes too small for him. He'd had to roll up the sleeves to hide how short they were and left the two buttons undone as it wasn't wide enough to fit across the expanse of his chest. Not that Morph was complaining about the view.

Nor were they complaining about the sweet potato fries that came with their burger.

"You should try one of these," Morph told him as they dipped one of those said sweet potato fries in ketchup.

The next second, Logan leant over the table and bit the one that Morph had been holding between their fingers. Which under different circumstances could have been romantic, but instead reminded Morph of when their old family dog would steal scraps of food from the table.

"I didn't mean that one you animal!" Morph cried, throwing a fry at his face.

But Logan bit that one too, catching it in his mouth, which then spread into a wide grin. With the ketchup dripping from his teeth onto his white shirt, he really did look like an animal.

In retaliation, Morph stole one of his onion rings which Logan protested with a "Hey!" But didn't otherwise complain.

Of course, that was when Roberto finally got the courage to make a move and draped his arm over Jubilee's shoulder.

Morph heard the familiar snikt of Logan drawing his claws from under the table.

"Calm down Wolvie." Morph said, reaching under the table to wrap their hand around his wrist. "I doubt he's gonna try to jump her in the middle of a diner. And even if he did, Jubilee can handle herself."

"She sure can." Logan said, his snarl turning into a proud smirk as he put his claws away.

Now, Logan might say that he didn't like kids, but Morph had seen how he interacted with them.

He always gave into Jubilee's demands to go shopping, or play video games with her, no matter how much he said he wouldn't. And when the teenager needed a non-judgmental shoulder to cry on, he was always there.

Morph knew Logan didn't want kids of his own, and in their line of work they couldn't really blame him. But still, they couldn't help but think it was a shame. He really would make a good father.

It was just one of the many reasons why they loved him.

Suddenly the waitress appeared next to their table and Morph realised that they were still holding Logan's wrist. They quickly retreated it back.

Thankfully, the waitress appeared not to notice, too busy trying to balance an overstuffed bowl of ice cream, sauce and sprinkles in her hand that she placed on their table.

"We didn't order that, lady," Logan told her.

"I know. The girl over there did," the waitress replied, pointing over to Jubilee where a similar looking desert was placed upon her table. When Jubilee caught them looking her way, she waved a cheeky grin and Robert just looked confused.

By the time Morph looked back, the waitress was gone and Logan was digging a scoop out of the ice cream.

"What?" Logan shrugged, shoving the spoonful into his mouth. "I ain't gonna waste free food."

Melted ice cream dripped down Wolverine's chin adding to the collection of stains on that poor shirt, and Morph took a scoop themselves to try to distract themselves from that train of thought.

They had to admit that the dessert was pretty good, not too creamy yet not too solid with a perfect balance of ice cream and toppings.

Logan must have thought so too because as he licked his spoon he let out a low rumbling moan. Morph knew that in this form, they had to have been blushing at pink as their t-shirt. Not even Logan dipping one of the left over fries in to it could lessen their blush, so they did their best to hide it by ducking behind the large bowl as they ate the remainder of the monster of a dessert.

But try as they might, Morph couldn't distract themselves from the thoughts in their head. Logan had to know how this looked right? The pair of them, sharing a dessert. Morph swore they had already seen some of the other diner patrons giving them funny looks. Maybe Logan didn't care? Or maybe he wasn't as hyper-aware about appearances as Morph was?

At least their internal breakdown didn't last for too long, thanks to Logan's never ending appetite.

Morph glanced over at Jubilee's table to see that they had finished too.

Now all that was left was to pay the bill.

"I'll get it." Logan said, grabbing some bills from his trouser pockets. "I'm the one who dragged you into comin' with me."

"Wow, a burger, some frees and a free dessert. You really know how to treat a girl." Morph teased, as if the idea of Logan ever treating them to a real date would be a complete joke.

"Fine." Logan snorted, handing the money over to the waitress. "Next time I'll persuade that Roberto kid to take Jubilee some place fancier."

Next time? Morph felt their stomach somersault.

"Well, if you insist on taking me somewhere fancier then we will have to get you a new shirt," they said, pointing to where a third button had now snapped free. They tried to hide the fact that they felt left like they were about to puke up their own gloop.

"Why? You not likin' the view?" Logan said through a smug smirk.

"I like not getting kicked of restaurants more."

"So you do like it," Logan stated, that smirk turning predatory.

Wait, was Logan actually flirting with them? No, of course not. That could not be happening. This was just their usual banter. Right? Morph must have gotten so caught up in how the pair looked that their brain must have tricked itself into believing that Logan was flirting with them. Yes, that's what must have happened.

Of course that was when Jubilee decided to interrupt.

"I thought I told you to wear something decent!" She cried, grabbing Logan's leather jacket from where it was draped over the back of his chair and throwing it over the exposed expanse of his chest.

"I wore a shirt didn't I?" Logan protested, shrugging the jacket on properly. "Besides, Morph said they liked it."

Jubilee turned her accusatory glare towards them.

"Okay first of all, I never said that. Also I was the one who told Logan that shredding his only shirt wouldn't get him out if wearing one in the future so this-" Morph waved their hands in Logan's general direction. "Is not my fault."

Jubilee stared up at the ceiling but she was unable to stay annoyed for too long as Roberto placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and when her gaze once again found his and a smile once again graced her face.

"Whatever. Me and Roberto were going to go to arcade if you two insist on stalking us."

Morph glanced towards Logan and was surprised too see him shaking his head.

"Nah, you kids go ahead. We got our own plans."

Jubilee looked between them, a suspicious smile on her face that had Morph's stomach churning. But for once she chose to keep her mouth shut simply waving them both goodbye.

"You kids have fun!" Morph called after them.

"But not too much fun." Logan grinned making Roberto's brown skin pale as the teens headed for the door.

Despite their teasing, Morph truly was happy for Jubilee. Robert was a good kid. They were good for each other. Roberto helped to keep her grounded whilst she showed him the light around them.

Morph watched as Roberto reached out his hand and Jubilee didn't hesitate to take it in her own. Morph knew that it wasn't easy for the pair of them easier. As an Afro-Brazilian and Asian-American couple, they too drew their own fair share of less than happy looks. But the two teens ignored the stares, only having eyes for each other.

"Not that I'm complaining about getting out of babysitting duty," Morph said getting up from the table. "But I wasn't aware that we had any plans."

"We're going bowlin'." Logan stated, getting up himself, when he suddenly refused to meet their eyes. "If you want. 'Cus we still haven't been since- I mean we ain't been in a while."

Morph chose to believe that Logan's uncharacteristic fluster was because he had reminded them of how they still hadn't gotten the chance to go bowling together since they'd been freed of Sinister's control, and not the fact that he'd accidently made it sound like he was asking them out on a date.

"I'd love too." Morph quickly covered up the sincerity with a joke. "As long as you promise not to act all stabby when I beat you."

Logan snorted.

"As long as you promise not to act all bratty when I win."

"No promises."

As the two of them left, Morph couldn't help but glance down at Logan's hand as it swayed between them. They hoped that one day, they would have the courage to take his hand too.

#morpherine #x men 97 #wolverine #logan #x men #morph #morph x men #morph xmen #kevin sydney #jubilee #jubilation lee #roberto de costa #sunspot #james logan howlett #logan howlett #logan x morph #morph x wolverine #juberto #marvel

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pascalsbby · 1 year

Text

CARNAL : PROLOGUE

Read Part 1

Carnal Masterlist / Masterlist

Summary: 2.9K/ f!reader, dark!joel, stalker!joel.

Warnings: 18+ mdni, SMUT, age gap (unspecified but reader is late into college), female masturbation, joel masturbating, dominate & aggressive joel, cam girl, pet names, praise kink, he briefly talks you through it, tells you what to do. talk of: trauma (not graphic or specified as SA), pain kink, fingering, sucking fingers, red flag girl stalker!joel is coming, the usual pure filth

“You thought you had it all figured out before him. Animals. Tender, primal flesh. That’s what we are at the end of the day, right? Fucking, testing one another and then eating each other alive, heart first. Maybe the heart is the sweetest part of the body- or maybe it’s just the easiest to get to.”

°:. *₊ ° . ° .• ♡ °:. *₊ ° *₊.• ♡ °:. *₊ ° . ° .• ♡ °:. *₊ ° *

It started as a way to claim something back for yourself. Pieces that you’d given away over the years, ones that had been ripped from your hands, your body. This way, you had a say.

Strip, open your lips for a stranger to coo praise towards your teeming core… and then pay you. You cried a couple of times afterwards, languidly sitting in the filth of your own desire. Through the guilt of it all, it was hard to explain why it pleasured you so deeply.

No man had ever, in real life, truly pleasured you. Taking cock this way and that just for you to squeeze your walls together and moan, tired of the wrestle and hoping it would end soon. “I came.”

This, behind a camera, didn’t feel like real life, though. Most of the time you didn’t see their faces, just the curvature of desperate dick and tiring arms. That made it easier, of course, until the money became second thought to how pleasing their whispered obscenities were, dripping from their mouth down to their sobbing cocks.

You read somewhere that some kinks are a result of trauma, which makes sense. Having an angry father and a mother who didn’t leave her bed until after you left for college, was just the first lock on a heavily bolted door. You raised yourself, your brother, your mother, your father. Labeled an ‘old soul’ or whatever the fuck the grownups always told you as they patted your back and sent you along.

Scratching your way through childhood, you decided it would be easier to be invisible in high school. You painted, and finally you were noticed. You told yourself college would be different. But the only interest shown was that of your body, or that of your art.

Maybe if he praised the way my tits looked after he marked himself into them, I’d feel better about myself. Maybe if he slipped his spit-soaked fingers into the right place, I’d be cured.

The cure never came, no matter how many different sets of fingers you had inside of you. No matter how many tubes of oil you emptied onto primed canvas. Everyone always wants to know the story of how the canvas came to be covered, but do they really want that truth?

Maybe the desire to bare yourself to these men stemmed from never being wanted or loved the way you loved others. So much so that it caved in your chest the first time you fell in love. You fundamentally could not understand why he wouldn’t try as hard as you, why he didn’t love like you did. “I just don’t know if I want to stay with you because of your body, or if it’s because I love you.” Watering yourself down was preferred, it hurt less, even though there’s shame in that, too. So love hadn’t really crossed your mind since. You wondered where that little girl was, who so deeply believed in it, despite the fact she never received it back. Desire, pleasure, pain with no connection? That was easy.

So uttering your want…need, to be hit, spit on, filled, devoured- as if it was an act of release- to any sexual partner, lover, or even therapist, never seemed right. Especially when you were aware that you would collapse into yourself afterward, falling over the thin line of possible pleasure and needing safety. Of wanting to, but not being able to let yourself go completely.

The stranger across the screen? They could tear you apart in every way you wanted, without you having to beg or be asked “why?” Without touching you. Afterwards, you could shut the computer screen.

This was your secret, the squalor. A juxtaposing new kind of fight.

You thought you had it all figured out before him. Animals. Tender, primal flesh. That’s what we are at the end of the day, right? Fucking, testing one another and then eating each other alive, heart first. Maybe the heart is the sweetest part of the body- or maybe it’s just the easiest to get to.

You learned quickly that he was in charge. Submitting to him felt like second nature. You’d long ago given up the belief that someday, someone would save you.

@texanblackbird

You look like you need to be put in your place sweetheart. Havin your sweet little holes out for all these men and what worthwhile could they possibly be givin you back?

You

Well Texan Paul McCartney, right now they’re giving me a lot more than you. $100 and I’ll enter a room with you for an hour.

@texanblackbird

Let me help you little bird, you sound fuckin pathetic. $300 and you’re mine for 30 minutes. Don’t open your mouth until I say & don’t you dare smart off to me again, got it? Then I won’t clip your wings, not just yet.

You felt your cheeks swell with heat, but more so you felt the pull in your core. His profile picture was missing his face of course, but you couldn’t deny that from the small circle, the body filling it looked intriguing. You got off of the bed, sat up your laptop and checked yourself in the mirror above your desk. You brushed out your too-perfect lipstick with your finger, making it look a little more worn. Making it seem like you were a little more experienced, that you put on a good show. That you were worth the money.

You let him in and waited.

He was breathtaking, sat in a simple office chair. His shoulders spread the entire width- he engulfed it. His collarbones adorned by freckles and warm-toned skin. Like the sky had kissed him over and over, singing praises into his skin. He had gotten a little sun recently, his chest blushing and soft looking with a few scars from time. His arms splayed across his lap, jeans still on but wantonly unbuttoned. He was thick, rugged- dirty even. He needed a shower from whatever laboriously hard work he had just completed. You could already see the length of him pushing against his jeans. His hips protruding slightly, curving at his thighs. Veins running down his hallowed v line.

He wasn’t big in the sense of grotesque protruding muscles, but large in a soft way. His biceps pushing against his skin, showing that he would easily overtake you, lay you down and pin you where he wanted. Strong. His shoulders could support you. His fingers thick… one was the equivalent of your two. He could caress the spongey insides of you with absolute ease. His palm greatly bigger than your entire face. You imagined it sprawling your mound, fingers tall enough to push down on your stomach at the same time his thumb was pushing down into your body. His build was that of an older man, someone whose body has seen years, been loved, discarded, kissed, and maybe even hated. His stomach lightly spilled over his half open jeans, hair curling above the seam and crawling up towards his belly button.

You didn’t dare say anything until he instructed. You sat pretty on the edge of your bed and took him in. Oh, you would do anything he asked of you. Then, he took out his cock and spoke a voice that sent fire down your spine.

Husked, vibrating, basey. You never had an affinity for a southern drawl until his lips parted.

He spent most of your sessions hungrily ordering you around your own body. He was abhorrent in ways you’d never dreamed before. You discovered parts of yourself you didn’t know needed touching, panting and babbling for him. Right when you’d hit a new spot he would huff a laugh at your desperation, breathing out, “Good girl. Goooood. Now do it again, harder. That’s it baby.”

“Turn around ‘n spread open those pretty lips for daddy. I wanna see what you look like drippin from the back. Bend over. Mhmm, oh so good,” he paused as you did what he asked, “God damn I know that pretty pussy would love to swallow this cock. Don’t ya think so Birdie?”

“Y… yes sir.” In reality, it would absolutely destroy you. But imagining the stretch of your hole as he slipped himself into you was enough to pull out another orgasm. Your entrance tightening and losing slack each time he sheathed himself into you.

“Let it out baby girl.” You did. You let it out for him, unabashedly.

If his deep voice wasn’t enough by itself, then even looking at his hands was sometimes enough to send you over the edge. The way he grabbed himself, spitting multiple times into his palm in order to cover the width, moving his middle finger in lazy circles around his angry head. Drawing spit into strings to wet his slit, pushing the precum down the veins of his length. Breathing heavily and moaning from his chest.

He told you that all of your holes needed to be filled simultaneously until you were whimpering, begging for reprise. You agreed through overstimulated tears.

By the fourth encounter, you’d given him your phone number, not thinking too deeply into it, considering by this time he was paying you enough to cover your phone bill three times over. And rent.

You lived alone in an apartment a few minutes outside of campus, far enough to drive but not far enough away to feel like you weren’t in the mix of everything. Everyone around you was around the same age, so no one thought twice about the moans you failed to stifle. Or the dad-aged man who often sat in the lobby, head down- unbeknownst to you, of course.

You still didn’t know each others name, but you were instructed to call him ‘daddy’ and ‘sir’. When he wasn’t calling you filthy pet names he called you ‘darlin’’ or ‘sweetheart’. You Googled his phone number but couldn’t find anything worth following. The ignorance to who he could be was good enough for you, blissful even. It fed into your daydreams between seeing him every Thursday.

You’d never had a true conversation with him, never dared ask why that day over any other. Upon his request you would send him multiple pictures a day, your fingers in your mouth. He wanted to see the wetness in your underwear, begging for you stick your fingers in and play with it so he could see what he’d done to you.

By the seventh encounter you knew you wanted to be completely devoured by him. You wanted to fill the space between his teeth.

“I want to bring you pain so that you know what real pleasure feels like. Bring you so close to the edge that I’m the only one who can bring you back. I want you to fall on your knees for me, I want you bruised and beggin,” he husked, “at my mercy, not the world’s.”

°:. *₊ ° . ° .• ♡

One Thursday, someone knocked at your door amidst your indecency. You had a few friends, mostly those with the same major and classes. It didn’t make sense for them to be showing up, considering you’d just spent a three hour class time with them.

Your movements stuttered.

“You gonna get that?”

“Are you gonna let me?”

“And let whoever it is see how wasted you look right now? Absolutely. Tell ‘em I said hi,” he smirked.

The knocking continued until you finally made it to the door. Whoever it was, could by no means enter your apartment, especially not your bedroom.

“Sarah!” Oh god.

“Oh my gosh, are you okay? Have you been crying? Who hurt you, let me at ‘em!”

Always full of energy, this one. She was a few years younger than you, a photography major you had met when she approached you one day in the Student Union, asking if she could take your portraits because you, “had a certain aura about you.” Of course you agreed, how could you say no to someone who was so entirely happy? You exchanged numbers and had at least one new text from her daily, since. You hadn’t seen the photographs yet, she took them on an old film camera, but you kept meaning to ask if she’d developed them.

“I’m okay, promise. I just wasn’t expecting you. I would invite you in but I’m not feeling too great at the moment. I think I caught the cold that Shay had,” you pouted, hoping your were selling it well.

“Oh no worries, I texted you but you didn’t respond so I thought I’d walk the couple doors down! I just wanted to see if you wanted to grab dinner on campus, but we’ll reconvene another time.”

“I’m sorry,” you palmed your forehead, “it’s been a day. I promise I’ll answer next time. Dinner tomorrow night?”

“Sure! See you then. Text me if you need anything.”

“Always,” you said with a smile as she walked away and you closed the door.

You hadn’t been to her place just yet. She has a roommate she absolutely despises, you learned. You didn’t know she had an ill bone in her body, but she spends most of her time outside of her apartment, understandably so. It made you feel a sort of calm though, knowing she lived so close. You were going to miss her liveliness whenever you graduated and she returned to her hometown for the summer. You wished you’d met her earlier in college.

°:. *₊ ° . ° .• ♡

He had heard everything, you rushed too quickly out and didn’t close your bedroom door entirely. The apartment is small, he thought, if it was anything like Sarah’s. Sound travels. He wondered if Sarah was there to drop off the pictures she’d taken of you. Oh she was so excited about them, FaceTiming him months ago to show him. She insisted that she would wait to give them to you, as a graduation present. At the time, graduation was a semester away.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” You were. There was something in your eyes that fell to the pit of his stomach. Who had hurt you so badly that your eyes gave it away, pleading? You looked so small, sitting at a table with pencil in hand, drawing. You looked so familiar, he felt your stare in his core.

He would never admit that he had taken a screenshot of one specific image as Sarah continued on, “She was just sitting there, and I went up to her and asked her! And now we’re friends. I feel like we’ll be best friends soon. She’s a senior though, but she lives right down the hall. And oh! Her taste in music is so similar to yours too, you’d like her.” She smiled.

He looked at the picture shamefully. Between jobs, in the bathroom, in his work truck. He felt gross the first time he touched himself to you, but it felt so good, the way his cock would twitch at the thought of all the ways he could ruin you. Fix you.

A week later he couldn’t take it anymore. He found you quickly, you popped up in Sarah’s Instagram friends right under a few other people, smiling in your profile picture. Private, but your social media was all under the same name, so he took you for everything he could find. You were an artist, loved classic rock and always retweeted sad poetry.

The day he came across your secret Twitter felt like an answer to a prayer. He knew you had it in you. What a naughty girl. But why would you follow yourself? That wasn’t very smart of you. Did you even think about your own safety? Did you even care?

He made an account on the cam site you promoted on said post- and he was in. As far as he knew, Sarah had never mentioned him to you… never had a reason too.

You’d surprised her one weekend, showing up to have dinner with her. Not before sitting in the lobby for a few minutes, hoping to catch a glance of you. For you to pass by without a thought, the air bringing your scent to his nose. He even walked down the opposite side of Sarah’s hallway when he got to the fourth floor, trying to see if there was any indication which apartment was yours. Maybe he would knock on it, accidentally, apologize and say he was looking for his daughters apartment. He wanted more of you, anything he could get his hands on.

The money wasn’t an issue for him, he lived alone and didn’t need much. He gave it to you happily if it meant that you were his for an hour, through text, whatever. He gave you a fake number, one that led back to some app he texted you on. He’d had these obsessive tendencies before.

You returned to him, blushing while dropping the robe you had hastily grabbed. As you sat on the edge of your bed, spreading your thighs open for him, tracing wet lines towards your cunt, he knew that you were his, you would be. An hour later he was texting Sarah.

“What time is your friends capstone show next week?”

Extra: Joel in his truck

Part 3

°:. *₊ ° . ° .• ♡ °:. *₊ ° *₊.• ♡ °:. *₊ ° . ° .• ♡ °:. *₊ ° *

A/N: Thank you for all the love in Part 1! I haven’t written in a while, but I’ve just graduated college and I have some downtime and a busy brain to satiate.

I just wanted to state that I’m pro-sex work & pro-therapy! This is me writing parts of myself and my own trauma into the main character…forgive me! ‘Art’ is embarrassing sometimes, huh?

I have an entire Pinterest board filled with ideas, pictures, quotes for this fic. I hope you guys are enjoying ☺️

Tag List: @paleidiot @sarap-77 @i-love-rafe

#joel miller #pedro pascal #tlou #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x you #pedro pascal x you #tlou fanfiction #carnal #pervy!joel miller #perv!joel #dbf!joel miller #dbf!joel #stalker!joel #stalker!joel miller #smut #pascalsbby

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onepiece-polls · 1 year

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One Piece Shipping War - Grand Finale!

Propaganda under the cut.

Propaganda for Franky x Robin:

Do I really need to explain?

The old married couple who's healthy, Enies Lobby (and all their appearances) are their propaganda really.

It’s all about the maturity!

Their dynamic is perfect and their pasts are so similar. I love the chemistry between them as well as their introduction that helped build the connection and shared history they already have.

they are THE t4t bi4bi ship | franky telling robin "existing is not a crime" immediately puts this at number one for me | they are opposites (bright and loud + quiet and goth) but also they're both so eccentric and silly <3 | THEY WEAR MATCHING OUTFITS

Mom and dad Straw Hat

They are STILL the Mom and the Dad of the Straw Hats, this is the one thing I don't care what Oda says <3 Also their interactions in Enies Lobby and Thriller Bark are amazing.

In my eyes, they are married. Some of my favorite character interactions in the manga/anime and in official art.

Oda had Franky call Robin his wife at least once

Your honor they’re married

I'M GOING TO PUT LINKS IN MY EXAMPLES (Mod note: I linked to the whole post, the propaganda was going to get too long otherwise. But I will copy this line:...) They immediatly clicked in Enies Lobby, Franky saved Robin with both words and actions ("Your existence is not a sin!"), and then she grabbed his balls.

The duality of two kids who were just trying to chase their dream and having circumstances outside their control (the government) take everything they love away from them, but one choosing solitude and the other adopting every other person in a bad circumstance??? I love them. Plus they literally had couple moments from the first interaction.

The ultimate t4t couple idk what else you need theyre iconic

A wholesome ship of a woman who feels the need to be constantly on edge trying to relax and a man who is a 110% himself from the moment we see him. the joy of frobin is the causal domesticity, in many color spreads and especially post timeskip we can see them casually enjoying the others company.

Remember when Franky was in Chopper's body in Punk Hazard and every time he spoke Robin was like "Franky. Stop talking. Do not talk while you're in Chopper's body."

idk like. he's obsessed with her. she's his weird Goth gf and he's her himbo. they have matching outfits. I love them.

Look. It's Franky and Robin. Literally the only two characters that make sense to ship on the Sunny. Their arcs are inextricably intertwined (water7/enies lobby). Also LOOK AT THEM interacting, both during their arcs, but also thriller bark, or post time skip. I love them. Also robin crushed frankys balls.

funny big robot man & analytical smart research lady power couple... silly x smart... himbo x researcher... augh... so good

They are the ship for taxpaying adults your honor I LOVE them they’re literally freak4freak and they share such a fucking powerful arc together (Water 7).

that moment she let him sleep on her lap in punk hazard was sooo cute <3 -- The matching thigh highs and bottoms in film z can NOT be understated. -- Strawhat mom and dad -- Let's not forget the way robin convinced franky to join ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) -- she also indirectly called his balls "treasure" so,,, -- the way their stories are so closely intertwined...they were both keys to destroy the world...the way they instantly connected over that...the soulmate-ism of it all...

they . them. girlboss and malewife. that's it.

She grabbed his balls. He totally liked it.

He's so silly and she loves it. She's so scary and he loves it. She grabbed his balls in public.

They will be endgame trust me. Franky doesn't treat any other girl like he treats Robin. There dynamic in Water 7 and Thriller Bark was and always will be one of the best in all of OP.

Propaganda for Nami x Vivi:

Yes, Nami has a new girlfriend on every island, but her heart belongs to Vivi. Vivi in turn refuses to marry, because her heart belongs with a pirate ❤

THEY’RE LESBIANS! IN LOVE! another point: my friends who are watching OP for the first time came to me and asked “so Nami and Vivi… they’re gay right?” So it’s pretty apparent to even newcomers

I just think they’re neat! And in love. Nami gave up money for Vivi that’s True Love

Anyone who saw them can just tell they’re gay. Like Nami gave up money for her

They're one of the rare lesbian ships in op, they care for each other so much !!

Lesbians

They were so gay that Luffy offered to share food to cheer Nami up when they were separated.

i dare you to read Baroque Works through Alabasta without shipping them. the way Vivi and Nami are so affectionate with each other, and Vivi putting saving her nation on hold to get Nami healthy again ???

Lesbians

Let’s go lesbians!!!!! Ok but actually, I think Nami saw a lot of herself in Vivi (ha) especially when Igaram “died” and then throughout their journey together Nami really encouraged her to open up to the crew. Nami showed Vivi it was ok to ask for help just like Luffy showed her.

Vivi was Nami's gay awakening and you cant change my mind. Nami was in love with Vivi and Vivi def had some kind of feeling for Nami. They were so close and they were more then just 'gal pals'

Lesbian Pirate Supremacy! they clearly care a lot about each other and considering when nami meets vivi she is probably one of the first close female friends she gets to have.

#one piece #frobin #NaVi #namivivi #op shipping war #grand finale #tournament poll

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kosmicdream · 7 months

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Please don’t think of me as a male artist.

..is what i used to feel, for many years, even when I finally came out as trans. In a way, its one of the factors that kept me from pursuing HRT (which im so glad i finally did.) After only one year, my feeling on this hasn’t evaporated completely but i suppose I kind of don’t care anymore about how I am interpreted, as a person/artist, ect.. It isn’t something i can be in control of anyway, which upsets me less than it used to.

Sometimes in the past, the way i write characters has often been analyzed by the gender I am, or appear to be - that my male characters were written like how a woman writes men (too emotional/vulnerable, ect) , or how my female characters are written thoughtlessly- like how a man would. (too horny, stupid, violent, ect.) Its not a new way to analyze a story but I can’t say that it doesn’t annoy me. It could still be true that my characters/writing could fall into sexist/problematic archetypes, but gendering my work based on the way my characters act always reminds me of the “you draw like a girl/boy” comments, which used to be more frequent when i was a teen.. But the idea that boys = angular, good at cars! Or something and girls are, i dunno, gonna draw sexy anime men or something. Even as a teenager, i hated this idea that my art was “girl art.” Truthfully, i always viewed my art and myself as an artist as genderfluid, maybe even a type of drag performance, where i can explore any gender and not be limited by my body, it was my escape from that. Which naturally, it became my place to explore gender presentation and eventually helped me “crack my egg” of realizing i was a trans man.

I do think its important to reflect or regard my work as the art made by a trans man, or transmasculine person. I feel more and more just like “just a dude” these days. I am also a gay man. I think those things are important to my work. I think that the analysis of my work in regards to my identity as a person is important to reflect on. I also think the steps I took to get there were important, that transformation and my continued exploration of my older selves and more “label-less” self in the art i make. That’s a private space for me, that I happen to share with the world too. I feel the audience is part of my work too, I welcome it even. I have become part of the audience too and I look at my work as if I’m also a stranger. The older my work gets, the more of it I can study, the more I can see plainly how I got here and also it feels so confusing how it did. I try to study my art to help me find where I want to go to next, a map to guide me.

In some ways, I feel more lost than I did before, where all my instinct was pushing me was just to grow and explore as much as possible. Now, I don’t have that same type of energy that I used to. Its not a bad thing, its just different. There’s a sense of duty and commitment and a sense of dread of the time it takes to do what I feel compelled to do on this step of my journey. I am trying to focus more on the things I used to think I was incapable of before and I’m trying to remember the things I used to think were so effortless. I can tell my art is sharper but it feels almost like a mimicry of my older selves - at least when I revisit old work to continue its journey past where its been frozen in time. Comics take a long time, after all, it's normal that after a few years - a story might be yours, but it feels like it belongs to the past of you too, maybe more than it does in the present. I like the commitment I have to my comics though, its not a burden to me. The feeling is strange anyway.

I tend to think that 1-3 years of a project being made, those are the honeymoon years of the relationship. But you hit a wall in 4-5 years and sometimes you’re in denial about it, you try to keep the dreams and feeling alive as you drag it forward, and sometimes the project really reaches its end around 8-10 years and it becomes a type of empty promise to return to it. Not that this is true for every artist, every project, ect. But I think its a natural lifespan for comics that I’ve observed, and it's because it is uncomfortable to face morality and the morality of our own art. Art is this escape, and when it becomes a job - or an uncomfortable mirror into these things about ourselves, about our failures and promises we couldn’t manage to make, the pressures of the audience, the boredom of the task if you have already told yourself the story a thousand times and you have no longer a desire to continue it, ect - its a normal and natural feeling to want to drop it off a cliff. Blow it up, start over fresh - I know the feeling! Its happened many times. But its kind of temporary? Then, it cycles back to nostalgia - and the desire to create and recreate and reform the past to something tangible again.. uh

Sorry, sorry.. I am getting far from the point I started with. Not that any of this makes too much sense, I feel like writing it anyway. It bothers me that the fantasy of art to me, is the ability to dissolve yourself and stop existing, you are the creator creating. You don’t need to be confined by, really anything. It is in “your control” now, and you surrender your own control by falling into the art and letting it “lead you” places. This is a very seductive process and while it might temporarily be fulfilling (even when done for a lifetime) cannot really.. What.. completely fill the void of whatever you’re chasing down there? Its nice though. At least, when I think about when i first started drawing comics, it was to draw Vash the Stampede (from the original 98 anime series, i hate the new one. We’re not talking about there here) coming out of my television after a thunderstorm and he had to just live in my house now. It was the closest thing I could do to actually manifesting that as reality, of making this amazing anime husband come to life to just like live with me now and be my boyfriend. In a lot of ways I don’t see my pursuit of writing ocs, specifically male ones, really much different from this same desire of like “i can just make my perfect boyfriend!” born out of the loneliness I felt in my heart, and the fear that there is no boyfriend out there for me so i need to frankenstein my own - and this boyfriend will be poifect in every way. Or like, crafting the perfect “relationship” in replace the lack of one, or just the fantasy of watching very abstract extremes come to life in various puppets i crafted, beating the shit out of each other for entertainment. But to subject all these.. Abstract Internal conflicts as simply like a “boy author thing” or “girl author thing” is like.. Tiring. Are we really not past that? (Of course not.)

Like there’s some hidden truth to the way someone might write/draw, the way that “makes sense” in retrospect once the identity of the author is analyzed and discovered.. How can you make sense of the self, let alone the other .. and In a way that’s permanent? And gendered? Does art now have an inherent sex characteristic? But I cannot deny that I do want my art to look and feel like part of who I am, what I have chosen to sexually identify as - a transgender, a man, a faggot. I DO identify as a sexual deviant, but that is hilarious because I have been single for so long at this point I can’t even remember in a tangible way what that felt like and I question if I ever felt it or experienced it “for realsies” because of the experiences I have had or havent didn’t feel very fulfilling or romantic, despite that being something I desire so much - and so I feel like a failure. And to create art just based on the fantasy of desire rather than the lived reality, can it even really display what that would actually be like. So its embarrassing, right?

I have worked on my art a lot and I have often thought, or come to the conclusion (true or not) that my singleness is the result of my pursuit and dedication to art - which is the pursuit of self isolation and protection from harm. From influence, from acknowledging that life can exist and someday end. And when you work on projects for years and years, the pride/shame dichotomy only gets more.. Weird. It gets weird, guys! It always was weird, but.. I just think about so many my heroes, my art inspirations, working decades on their art.. I follow in their footsteps too and it feels scarier and lonelier than I expected it to be. And the more and more I realized that as a reality, as my 20s faded away, the more I kept walking. I wasn’t gonna stop now, even if I could, I don’t want to and its not hard to do other things too. I have a slower pace than I used to (thank god) and gets slower but I’m still moving.

I don’t post or write my little art journals as much as I used to. Mostly cause I don’t really have anything good to say and it kinda feels embarrassing to post them too LOL. But.. whatever!! Its been a weird four months of me being off work and I’m about to go back to being a normal working person again.. But its like, its weird to tell people about your art when they ask about what you do. Its like “oh yeah, i draw webcomics” and they wont get it, you’ll say - “yeah its 8,000 pages long” and they’ll say, “thats a lot!” and it is. They’re very nice about it, but there’s a lack of satisfaction there with what that means. I don’t expect it, that’d be dumb as hell. Its nice to take a break from it too, to discover other sides of myself I never let shine because i stayed indoors for a decade, but its a weird feeling too. Like, what will it mean in the end? I don’t really know.

I don’t think I need “success” to feel like this was worth it, its not like a trophy is gonna come in the mail for the good workTM I’ve done - there is no closure to the work I make even when a story finishes. I have to keep going regardless of that, and its strange to know it won’t ever feel done. But I am so thirsty for that temporary itch to be scratched, it keeps me working every day for the “maybe” of what that might feel like. Kinda silly, really. Is it my “male” pride that demands recognition? Would respect be given more freely if I had “remained” to be perceived as a woman, for subverting the expectations for what a woman can/can’t write? (lol) Is my value as a person determined by that sort of thing in my art? I don’t think of my pride as gendered, but I know its there and I know because of who I say I am, my pride will be gendered by others. I think when I was a woman, that pissed me off more than now because.. Well.. I wasn’t even living as the way i wanted to. I still don’t really live as the way I want to, the way I want to be perceived, but even being on HRT for a little more than 1 year, without much else lifestyle changes, I feel a little more at peace not mattering what others will take away from me or what i write about. I have a lot of my own expectations for myself and what i write about and that concerns me far more.

I don’t really know how else to end this, I’m going to eat chocolate now. Oh, to answer your question (?) if you might have this one: can I think of you as a male artist, kosmic? sure. I am one after all.

#whoops! long post #its very rambly sorry #webcomics

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jellazticious · 6 months

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“You can’t rush art”

I think everybody can recall the quote from Toy Story 2. From the most satisfying part of the movie where we see a montage of Woody getting restored by a toy maker. It’s one of my favourites too, I absolutely loved looking at the different procedures used to fix a single toy. The toymaker’s precision and care were found mesmerizing by everyone. As a multi-hatted artist, one that can draw, sculpt, animate, and write, I can say that it’s spot on that there’s so much to do for a single piece of work. HOOO boy, you should see how me and Beefy are organizing Cursed to Charm, there’s so much.

For the upcoming webcomic, we design characters, give each and every one of them their stand-alone story, design different clothes, create the map, draw renders and posters, polish scripts for the episodes, plan to program the comic’s own website, make the backgrounds eventually, etc. To people who aren’t artists or take art for granted, to them, art is stroking a paper using a pen and BAM instant masterpiece. No no, it’s more than that.

Another thing I’d like to say about the comic is that the progress is very slow yet very fruitful because of the time taken. Me and my co-author came up with the idea at late November, which makes the comic four months old now. However, with all that time passed, we have already finalized the list of nine episodes of season one. We have also written seven out of nine summaries from that season before actually writing the dialogue in detail. We have a rough four seasons worth of story progression in the span of four months. Nyeh, excuse the little ramble about CtC, I’m just giving insight of how much should be done for the production of anything which leads us to the next point.

Art production in general.

Movies, animation, shows, video games, books, comics etc etc

All of these are part of art, some people would deny because it isn’t sophisticated like they’re lead to believe art is supposed to be. Art is literally just creation man, can’t get any simpler than that 😩 if you made something, then you made something woohoo! Congratulations you made art, cooking included. It came free with your fucking humanity.

Anyway, just like the webcomic, every single one of these listed also have a set of different procedures that will piece together the final output.

Let’s take Disney movies as a specific example, I want to talk about something real quick.

So one time, I was watching Tarzan with my parents and we stuck around for the end credits. My mom pointed out the animators are divided into sections and there’s so much names on them. There are different teams of animators for each character and these teams are divided in two for the storyboarders and the clean up artists. When the credits rolled a bit more, it showed that the background artists and colorists also have their own sections too. There’s so much people working on different body parts of a movie. I got the habit of reading end credits of every movie I watch, animated or live action, then I would compare the credits of old and new movies. Boy, let me tell you that the work space on old movies are FILLED compared to newer movies. One thing I noticed about Disney movies although, is that the old movies have more sections compared to new ones. The major difference of old Disney and new Disney are the length of the credits and the time gap of the movies. I’m really not trusting the way new movies have way shorter end credits while the publish time of new movies are getting narrower and narrower. Before the 2000s, movies usually come out twice a year and sometimes there’s a two-year hiatus before the next batch of movies are published. Now there’s at least two or three movies that publish yearly while also releasing a bunch of shows in the middle of it. I really don’t understand business talk with the way it sacrifices quality over quantity. Like I get having money is great and all but what’s the use of hoarding it? Especially when there’s so much news of people about to be in poverty and mass layoffs. Why should companies earn money if they’re not going to redistribute it back to the economy at all? This is a little off topic but I want to point it out that people in the 80s used to buy whole houses by being a janitor but nowadays people could barely afford a one room apartment even with three jobs. The Simpsons is an example of this because it was set in the 90s and the family is constantly reminded of how “poor” they are. They even created an episode that talks about the same job that supported people’s fathers will no longer support you nowadays (Poorhouse Rock ep22 s33). It’s fishy and I’m salty about it especially because I hear so much people complaining about how they’re not being given a chance to work. Anywho! Let’s go back to art.

I’m just spitballing my thoughts here but somehow they’re connecting either way. All I’m trying to say is that for the people who care so much about the quality of art, it’s noticeable that they get downgraded, not just by the look but by the way they’re written.

Example.

Clone High.

Jesus Christ, the new show is a nightmare and an insult to the original Clone High. The difference is clear with this one. The original Clone High was heavy satire of every single high school trope used in shows and movies. Every single character was meant to have one personality and that personality is the butt of the joke. The original did not care about making the characters appealing because the appeal is found in the way they interact, they clash so much and a lot of them are idiots. The writing is funny because the dialogue flows so easily unlike the renewal. The renewed Clone High takes itself too seriously and it tries too hard to be relevant. It’s funny to me that fans can draw the original’s art style more accurately than the animators hired. What’s even more frustrating is that concept art was released from the art head and the concept art looked way better than what they decided on the final designs. Other than the art style that tries to be marketable, the writing is insufferable with the way they try to be “relatable” without understanding why the original jokes were funny to begin with.

Now we’re all familiar with this cheap tactic of using the title of successful franchises to grab clicks and views. It’s every live action Disney film, it happened to Scooby Doo, Marvel shows, FNAF, some Cartoon Network shows, Megamind, and now even Kung Fu Panda. Basically MILKING. It would have been better if the productions TRIED to understand the original’s intentions which they forgot about. They ended up being disappointing at best and soulless at worst. I won’t be explaining much cuz I’ve already reached the minimum word count lmao. I’m just rambling here, I better not see anyone interrogate me in asks or replies. ANYWAY, I’m gonna get to the point real quick.

Back to the quote at the start of the post, people tend to forget that. Art is a skill, not a button people press and it gives you pretty pictures or videos. Art is a job and an effort. While art is subjective and it differs from person to person, one thing for certain is that art that is made ingenuinely will never be better than art that is made because the artist loves art. This is why the Tom & Jerry reboots with the lineless art style even if they had a storyboard artist who understood the cartoon wackiness (which were discarded for a “cleaner” and faster style). This is why it’s so frustrating to see concept art of movies which have more appeal than the final 3d models. This is why FNAF Security Breach was nearly unplayable.

Because they all rushed art.

They rushed in favour of what is marketable, no matter how unappealing it is. Everything could have been better, some final products are good, but all of them could have been better. As good as what were released pre 2010s when production had a passion. You can’t spell heart without art.

I’m just really passionate about art in any form since it’s everything that created me too. I will not be here at this point in time if it weren’t for me learning that there’s so much beauty in the world if you could just squint and appreciate why that’s so. I’m defined by my works and it only hurts and infuriates me that people who have the ability and accessibility to create better art than I do waste it for their personal gain or selfish intentions. Everyone could be a better person because of art just as it did to me. Again, it came to us the moment we’re born, art isn’t just a pretty picture, it’s everything we create out of love, passion, time, and effort.

But really, to the wise words of Chef Saltbaker, “like any good bake, heart and soul is the secret ingredient”

You can’t rush art.

#Jell tells wisdom #<-keeping it PG #I wrote this

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loafthecat · 2 months

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Now I don’t have any drawing or anything planned for the anniversary-

But I do wanna express how much this game means to me personally-

Honestly, I don’t even remember what drew me into ctm, lol- I just remembered the series from some old play throughs and thought to give it a watch but- something about the game just made my brain want more of it-

So- I watched more playthroughs and comic dubs and animation memes, (even vine comps too-) I just- loved it- and from there it’s led me a lot of places-

Thsc was how I joined discord and met some of my best friends and some of greatest people I know! All my mutuals are really creative and nice- idk what I’d be doing without @emperorcandy or @rubianarosevine or @toxsradioactivelocks and ESPECIALLY without @randomgasleak because Leaky is one of the bestest, nicest friends I have- and I would seriously miss out on every fun lil conversation and infodump we have with eachother, getting to share my ocs with him is some of the most FUN I’ve had in my life- and i am seriously thankful to EVRYONE in Tox’s server for just- existing lol-

Also no I didn’t forget about- @kean-thebean or @savagepotat or @cybercypress24 or @lynplaque or stormy love yall too-))

Thsc led to me learning about more lgbtq+ identities that I didn’t even know of- in fact it helped me figure out my own identity and realise I was AroAce! So thanks for that-!

Thsc also helped and inspired me to improve my art!!!! Seeing the talent in this fandom made me wanna improve and develop an art style I truly love to draw with- and well- I did it!!!! I finally have an art style I LOVE to use and which actually looks good!!!! I can finally draw necks!!!! And no that was not something I could do before thsc- hm, funny because sticks don’t have necks technically so who would’ve thought-???

Continuing on from that, thsc is directly responsible for the creation of some of my FAVOURITE ocs!!!! Ollie, mitzy, mavy, Kapper, Tulip etc. heck- even ocs that while they ain’t sticcs or direct thsc ocs were INSPIRED by and influenced BY the game!!! (Lookin at you, Opal and Angus-) I especially have to gush about Ollie because I just LOVE him so much- who would’ve thought a BACKGROUND oc for a rp would become one of my main ocs today-? Not me that’s for sure-, I especially didn’t expect that I’d cry over how invested I am in him lol- I just love my lil gae sticc so much!!!!! He’s brought me so much joy, he’s helped me to vent out my problems- I just- I just- LOVE Ollie- lol- and I’m sure I’ll continue to do so even in future-

Thsc also introduced me to Dave panpa’s existence so everything is 100% worth it. I would die for this man, I want to platonically hug him and him and Rupert kiss kiss, I should know- I am the loaf of bread on their countertop!

And I guess last of all- I wouldn’t be on tumblr if it wasn’t for thsc. Thsc gave me the confidence to branch out and actually start using over websites aside from YouTube- it’s also how I joined discord and as I’ve said meet all my closest friends- sure- tumblr hasn’t always been the best at times but- I enjoy being here and while yes I’m not the most popular person here or even of note to some people- I’m still here right-? And I gotta thank thsc for that-

So in conclusion-

It is 23:24 pm at night- and my WiFi really didn’t like me finishing this- (it f^cked up THREE drafts of this that I had like wtf WiFi-????)

Now. Is this normal-? No, it probably isn’t normal to have a extreme obsession over a silli game about a sticc figure stealing shi- but shush I’m weird- and autistic it’s fine-

So yeah. Thanks thsc, and thank you puff for making the game.

You changed my life- for worse or for better take your pick-

#thsc #henry stickmin #the henry stickmin collection #henrystickmin #henry stickmin collection #oc tag #thsc oc #henry stickmin oc #rambles #meow meow daily loaf apprence lol #loaf speaking from the void #is this a love letter-? idk-#/:#eh-

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thyla-scene360 · 5 months

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I have returned with more TSSM AU art. Sorry about the hiatus, real life has been rather busy these last several months.

I’ve had this concept floating around in my head for a while; here’s my take on a much younger Vulture, aka Adrian Toomes.

I mentioned a while back that I imagined him being a Sphynx Cat in my AU. He still is, but I imagine he had a very thin coat of fur running from his nose to the base of his tail in his youth (some sphynxes still retain a small amount of velvety hair on their bodies, although it varies). Unfortunately, a combination of old age and significant stress caused him to lose all but most of it over the years - only a few sparse patches of peach fuzz remain on his back.

Overall I wanted to try and see what Ol’ Beaky may have looked like in his youth while still staying true to his character. I gave him a slicked-back, businessman sort of hairstyle; I also gave him ginger hair as a nod to the comics (yeah, Adrian was apparently red-haired in his youth, both in the comics and in the 90s animated series).

Anyways, here’s a couple of headcanons I came up with for him, taking inspiration from some of the movie and tv adaptations (including tssm of course).

Unlike many of his fellow villains, Adrian didn’t have a particularly bad or unstable upbringing. He actually had a pretty normal childhood all things considered, and was raised by strict but loving parents.

Hot-tempered, disciplined, straightforward, and determined, Adrian’s turn to villainy was in truth far more gradual than most were led to believe. Decades of stress, frustration, and failure in addition to experiencing workplace corruption first-hand slowly hardened his heart. The bright-eyed young man with big ideas who joined the engineering business in the hopes of revolutionizing the industry was now a cynical, tired, and bitter old man with a short temper and an even shorter patience. The final straw was having his life’s work (years of research, setbacks, failure, and constant work) stolen out from under him by a mega corporation with no hope of recognition or even an ounce of compensation.

Adrian and Otto have been longtime friends, having known each other and worked together since their Tricorp days. Despite his cold exterior, the former cared a great deal for his friend and worried extensively about him during their time at Oscorp. Adrian knew it was only a matter of time until Otto received the same backstabbing treatment as himself, and tried to no avail to convince him to find better employment. However, Otto was simply too afraid of Norman at the time to do so. It came as no surprise to the old bird to find out his good friend had finally snapped…and ironically enough their turn to villainy has strengthened their friendship more than ever. Even through countless failed schemes and prison stays, the pair continue to support and look out for each other.

#fanart #anthropomorphic #furry #sphynx #tssm vulture #adrian toomes #the spectacular spider man #the vulture #tssm #sinister six #spectacular spider man #spiderman #marvel

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jupiter-soups · 1 year

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every bait and switch was a work of art

part two of begging for you to take my hand. part one here.

pairing: joel miller x f!reader, friends -> enemies -> lovers (kinda)

summary: joel has always pulled away from you. you are determined to find out why.

warnings: unprotected piv sex, explicit smut, 18+ MDNI, some angst

word count: 10.3K

sixteen months ago

The first time that you had met Joel Miller was the second time that he appeared in Jackson. His initial visit had been incredibly brief, after all, and so it wasn’t until after you returned from the resource expedition for the town schoolhouse that you heard of his arrival at all.

Tommy had been a veritable whirlwind of emotions; guilt, happiness, fear, all at once. It must have been the tenth time in just the few days it took for you to return that Maria heard Tommy’s retelling of his brother’s arrival, and yet she listened quietly, with a troubled expression on her face. An expression that told you everything you needed to know about how unlikely it was for this mysterious man to ever return.

As months passed without word of the older Miller brother, you didn’t talk about it; not to Tommy, or Maria, or any of the wall guards that were given the burdensome task of informing Tommy of the lack of news at the end of each week.

So, when you finally bumped into him at the end of a grueling five day trip beyond the walls, you didn’t even consider the possibility that it was him. You had never seen the man in person, after all.

You had just trudged into The Tipsy Bison, worn boots covered in a thick layer of wet mud and hair dripping rainwater over the scuffed hardwood floors. A rain storm had ambushed you the moment you foolishly let yourself believe that you made it home without incident, and had managed to soak you to the bone in the short minutes it took for you to actually get through the gates.

If your hunger hadn’t already begun to verge on nausea you would have immediately gone home to take a warm shower and pass out, face down, on your welcoming bed for the next twelve hours in a coma-like type of sleep. Instead you perched on a stool in the mostly empty bar and began shoveling the contents of the small bowl of dried berries into your mouth, fistfuls at a time and with the ferocity of a wild animal.

You could feel his stare on you from where he sat at the corner of the counter. It was hard not to feel, since he wasn’t exactly being subtle as he watched you. What you couldn’t tell was if he was looking at you in indifference or disapproval, just another old man who thinks that table manners still matter in the apocalypse. He mostly just seemed deeply exhausted as he sat there, slouched on his stool and with dregs of a drink sitting in a chipped whiskey glass in front of him.

“Yes?” You asked pointedly, voice muffled by the fruit you refused to stop chewing.

“Nothin’, nothin’” He responded carefully and in a slightly gravelly tone, as if he hadn’t spoken in a while. He cleared his throat. “Here.” He slid the small bowl that was sitting in front of him across the counter at you, and you didn't hesitate to begin eating the weird dry crackers from them. It was way too late for dinner service, and you were sure your cabinets were empty, so the bar snacks would do.

Slowing down your rapid consumption now that you had started to feel like a real human being again, you looked back over to the man who was staring down at the last few sips of his drink with an unreadable look on his face. He looked sort of familiar now that your vision wasn’t clouded by hunger. He was handsome, too, in that weathered, rugged, sleep-is-for-the-weak, kind of way.

“You new here? Haven’t seen you around before,” You questioned while leaning over the counter to pour yourself some water from a glass carafe. It was way too late in the night to start drinking, as much as you were craving something strong to ease the exhaustion paining your body.

He looked over, looking slightly surprised that you spoke to him again. “Yes. Been here about four days now. Tommy Miller’s brother, you might’ve heard.”

“Oh fuck,” You exclaimed, eyes wide, before you could contain yourself. “You actually made it back! I thought–” You stumbled over your words for a second as he raised an eyebrow at the start of your sentence, “Well, shit, welcome!” You continued, hopping down from your stool and rushing to move over to the one directly next to him, making sure to bring the bowl of crackers with you.

“Yes, we did.” He watched you approach with an inscrutable expression, and you felt a twinge of guilt for intruding on this man who probably just wanted a quiet nightcap before heading home to bed.

“You had a kid with you, right? You’re both back here for good then? Tommy must be a mess right now. In a good way!” You grinned at him, trying to couch the way you hinted at Tommy’s unstable emotional state. It had been obvious that Tommy loved Joel, but there had also clearly been some kind of drama that Joel probably didn’t want some random woman to know about.

“Uh, yes. Ellie. She’s not mine, just takin’ care of her. An’ Tommy’s been fine. Happy, I suppose.” He finally lifted the glass up to down the last few sips of his drink, chasing his words down with the bitterness of whiskey. The empty glass now back on the counter, he turned slightly more to look at you. “You know us, then?”

“Right, I forgot to introduce myself!” You ignored the sudden realization of just how much of a mess you must have looked, pushing your wet hair behind your ears and sitting up a little straighter before saying your name brightly. “And I’m Maria’s friend. Tommy’s too, of course, but I met Maria first. Heard a lot about you. A little about Ellie, too. She’s quite…feisty, apparently?”

His lips pulled up in one corner ever so slightly at the mention of the girl’s attitude. “You could say that.”

A few moments of comfortable silence passed between you, as you scarfed down another couple of handfuls of crackers, reaching the end of the bowl. He continued to look vaguely amused despite himself as he watched you eat, tapping his thumb against the countertop. “They don’t keep you fed here, or somethin’?”

You made a show of tipping the crumbs from the bottom of the bowl into your mouth that was still very much full of food, with an eyebrow raised as if to challenge him. He chuckled quietly with a small shake of his head, deciding to let you go about your impromptu dinner without any more judgment.

After a slightly painful swallow (the crackers were more sharp than you anticipated), you asked “So, what are you doing here so late, Joel Miller? Would’a thought you’d be making up for all of the months of shitty sleep now that you get to have a real bed.” The thought of sleep made you need to muffle a yawn, your body suddenly remembering just how exhausted it was.

“I suppose I should be,” He hesitated and looked you over, as if debating saying anything further. “Been a little strange, that’s all.” He finally conceded, shifting his eyes down to the countertop then back up at your face again.

You nodded and raised your eyebrows encouragingly for him to keep talking. He inhaled sharply and began to turn the empty glass in his hand as he spoke.

“Things are real peaceful here, is all. I’m glad for that, it’s just. Hard to sleep sometimes.”

You gave him a sympathetic smile and a small pat on the shoulder, a touch that made the muscles in his shoulder twitch for a split second. “Makes sense, it can be a little quiet here sometimes. But hey, you’ll get used to it. Might not seem like it now, but I’ve been here a long fucking time and I promise you, everyone gets used to it.”

The next yawn was not one that you were able to muffle, so you slowly, reluctantly, began to stand up, stretching as you did from the pain in your muscles.

“In the meantime, you should go to the gardens and ask for some passionflower. Tell them I sent you. Boil it with some water and drink it right before you go to bed, and it should help you sleep.”

He nodded slowly as he watched you wordlessly throughout your movements, before beginning to get up too. Joel followed you outdoors, where you groaned in exasperation at the rain that had only worsened. As you pulled your tragically hoodless jacket up and over your head, you faced Joel again.

“You’re gonna be okay, Joel.” You reassured with the most certain smile you could give him. “You have family, you have community, and most importantly, you’re gonna be given a job that will be so physically exhausting, you’ll be falling asleep standing up in no time!”

His faint smile didn’t really seem convinced, but it was good enough for you to give him a quick wave and start walking home.

It took another two days for you to hear if your advice had actually been helpful. Tommy was the one who found you at your home, and he rapidly banged against the door with both fists in his eagerness for you to get up out of bed and open the door. To be fair, it was the mid-afternoon, but damn if you didn’t nearly kick Tommy in the shins the moment the door swung open to his stupid, excited face.

“What?” You growled at him, making sure to give him your patented ‘you’re my friend and I love you but I won’t hesitate to kill you’ look that he knew very well.

He spent the following twenty minutes begging you to accept Joel as your new patrol partner. You knew immediately that you would love to work with Joel. He seemed a little gruff and closed off, but you were naturally pretty extroverted so that didn’t bother you. And he wasn’t exactly hard on the eyes. You still let Tommy beg though, considering it payback for his annoying wake-up call.

According to Tommy’s excited blathering, Joel had mentioned that the flower you recommended for him helped him get the first full night of sleep he had since arriving in Jackson. Not only that, but he apparently even smiled when recounting how grateful he was for your tip, especially as dropping your name with the gardeners was what convinced them to give him some of the limited supply. So, clearly, you were destined to be best friends and you had to be the one to show him the ropes, whether it was during the regular local surveying or monthly trips out to the firewatch station for overnight patrol.

fifteen months ago

The first three weeks of working with Joel had been pleasant, if a little uneventful. He didn’t speak much, and you didn’t really want to push him to do so. Instead, you just let yourself fill any awkward silences with little anecdotes about your time in Jackson. It was hard to tell if he was even listening to you, but he didn’t object so you just kept going. Occasionally you would catch a throwaway comment or quick exhale of air from his nose (‘that’s just stupid,’, ‘now why would you ever think that was a good idea?’) with a small smile tugging at the side of his lips. The knowledge that you had even slightly amused him filled you with a strange sense of pride.

During your first encounter with a small group of stragglers, you could feel Joel tense up beside you, hand firmly on the pistol sitting in his holster. He watched as you offered the people the berries from your hip bag, and he seemed to be holding back the urge to interrupt your kind act. While you knew very well that caution was important, these were people that had clearly been abandoned by a larger group. People that had been deemed weak and a burden, and if their emaciated state was any indication, they were not going to be a problem for Jackson.

Your first trip to the firewatch station had similarly been uneventful. You taught him how to use the detailed map in the center of the room, and how to use the radio to listen out for signals or warnings from the broader region. He took the first shift staying awake, letting you have a few hours of sleep on the single bed in the corner of the room, and when he woke you to swap roles, you took his place on the fold out chair on the small-wrap around balcony surrounding the station. A mostly empty thermos that smelled strongly like floral tea sat on the railing, still warm.

fourteen months ago

Ellie had practically run you over with how fast she reached you the second she heard the Savage Starlight joke leave your lips. Any offense that you felt at her surprise that an old person liked the comic books faded as her excitement won you over, and so you let her the teen and her friend, Cat, ramble on and on about the character (‘...and then they crashed and it was like woooOAHHHH, but I don’t get why they didn’t just work together to…’).

The eye contact you made with Joel over their heads made you giggle at the way he seemed both embarrassed but also impressed by the girl’s ability to speak without stopping for air. He gave you an apologetic look, before telling Ellie and her friend to go back to school and stop bothering you both on your break. It took a promise to have dinner with the pair of them, where she would have free reign to quiz you, for her to finally agree and head back to class instead of continuing to ditch.

The hesitant look in Joel’s eyes at the prospect of having dinner with you made you nervous, but he insisted that it was fine. His uneasy assurance did not really do anything to make you think that it was actually fine, but you still showed up on their doorstep that evening, tupperware of oat cookies in hand.

After a fun evening eating the slightly overcooked, but still tasty, pasta that Joel had made, and trying to wrestle the cookies out of Ellie’s grasp for long enough to make sure that Joel got one, you found yourself on his couch, lore-dumping all of the obscure comic book information that you knew onto Ellie.

You weren’t sure how it came up, but Ellie mentioned that Joel played the guitar and had already begun to force it into his hands before he could even protest (‘come on, old man, don’t be shy now!’). He begrudgingly played a few chords, and you recognised the old country song from the cassette tapes your brother hoarded. Face as sincere as possible, you began to sing along, hitting every note in the first line as poorly as you could manage.

As you peeked out of the corners of your eyes to see his reaction you were met with sheer, undisguised panic. You burst out into laughter at him, stating that you were just messing with him. He returned this laugh. It was the first sincere, loud, laugh that you had heard from him, and the butterflies in your stomach at the sound immediately dampened your mood. The jovial atmosphere suddenly felt a little dangerous for you. Thankfully, Ellie’s mockery at Joel’s expense (‘you shoulda seen your stupid face!’) helped to mask the sudden internal crisis you were having.

As you forced yourself to calm down and snap out of the rise of emotion that you felt for the rugged man sitting just a mere few feet away from you, Joel mentioned his newly growing collection of old Westerns. It didn’t take much insistence from you to put one on, and he seemed determined to convince you that they were actually good (‘you both need to learn to appreciate the classics.’)

Within ten minutes of the movie starting, a knock at the door from Ellie’s friends had her rushing out to a last-minute sleepover, leaving Joel yelling out a hasty warning (‘don’t do anything stupid, I know where’ta find you!’) You had begun to get up to leave as well, when Joel stopped you, offering to finish the movie. The lurch in your chest at the idea of that had you sitting back down instantly, and the way warmth radiated off of his body that was now right next to you was overwhelming.

You had woken up a couple of hours later to a gentle shake of your shoulder, Joel’s bleary voice indicating that he had just woken up himself. He quietly joked that it probably didn’t help his these-movies-are-amazing argument that neither of you made it through it (‘maybe we should give it another go next time. Should really give it a fair chance,’.)

Dinners with Joel and Ellie became a twice-a-week activity, after that.

twelve months ago

Joel Miller was your friend. You knew that much for a fact, despite not quite knowing when you realized that he felt the same way about you.

Maybe it had been when last call had rung out in the Tipsy Bison, and you noticed that everyone else that you had sat for dinner with had been long gone.

Maybe it was when you had snuck beers up to the firewatch tower in an old cooler, and regardless of his vocal disapproval, the next time you headed out you found that he had packed some mixed nuts and extra jerky to pair with it.

You were only certain when you spent an evening sitting next to each other on the balcony of the firewatch station, and he told you about Sarah. He was well aware that Tommy had told you all about outbreak day and the heartbreak that came from the loss of his precious niece. But he still told you about it himself. He didn’t pull away when you reached a hand over to clasp his clenched fist, and instead you felt his hand slowly relax in yours, not quite holding yours back, but enough to acknowledge that you were there. That you cared.

Later that night you woke up on your own, rather than by him calling out for you to get up and swap shifts. You trudged out to the balcony, confused to see him still sitting there even as the sun had begun to rise. Questioning what was going on just resulted in Joel awkwardly standing up, curtly explaining himself, and promptly heading inside (‘don’t need the third degree,’ ‘thought you might have needed an extra hour. Looked like you were sleepin’ pretty deeply, is all. Forget it.’)

ten months ago

“Hey,” you called to Joel while leaning part way out of the wooden balcony door. The sun had just begun to set, and the way the gentle evening breeze tousled Joel’s slightly-longer-than-usual curls made you forget what you wanted to ask for a second. The bead of sweat that was forming on his forehead reminded you, and you held out the condensation covered bottle of beer to Joel. “Want another?”

He gave you an appreciative smile, and took the cold bottle from your hands, using the back of the metal spoon he had just used to eat to crack off the cap. You watched unabashedly as he tilted his head back and took a few deep gulps from the bottle. This had been happening more and more as of late. Him, being accidentally sexy. You, being unable to look away.

He let out a satisfied exhale, and you quickly sat back in your seat, pressing your own bottle against your exposed neck and upper chest in a pathetic attempt to cool yourself down in the sweltering heat of early fall. The tank top you wore did nothing to help.

You could feel Joel stare at you, but you refused to look at him. Overthinking every little look he gave you had become a habit for you over the last couple of months, and it had become increasingly difficult to avoid any delusions that maybe he might be struggling around you in the way you struggled around him. The rush to avoid this train of thought caused you to quickly burst into an attempt at conversation.

“So, Maria’s been trying to force me to go on a blind date recently. Well she says it’s a blind date, but I just know it’s going to be one of Tommy’s gardening friends.” Good job, moron, you berated yourself for bringing up the topic of romance.

“That so?” He murmured quietly, thumb tapping on the edge of the bottle in his hands, “You like gardenin’. You thinkin’ of going along with it?”

Your leg bounced with anxiety at the absolute minefield you had dropped yourself into, and it took a conscious effort to seem as relaxed about the topic as you wanted to seem.

“Well, I-uh,” You laughed in an attempt at seeming nonchalant, “I guess I have been a bit lonely recently. My younger brother– he’s getting married soon. Don’t really know if that’s for me, but it sort’a made me realize that maybe I do want…something like that?”

You heard him take another slow sip, and lifted your own bottle in turn, using it to cover your face. You knew that it would betray exactly what you meant by wanting something.

“Makes sense. You, uh, you deserve that.” He cleared his throat before continuing. “Somethin’ real, I mean. Someone-” He hesitated and shifted the glass bottle, paying all of his attention to the movement as he seemed to try and reformulate what it was that he was trying to say. “Someone who can give you what you need,” He finally finished.

The pair of you watched the gradually darkening sky for a moment, letting his words linger as you thought about what it was that you really needed. The idea of a romantic relationship, someone that could hold you at night and make you feel loved, was definitely appealing. But it wasn’t as if you weren’t happy enough as is. You were safe, you were cared for, you cared for people. And you had Joel, in whatever way it was that he let you have him. What more could you really need? Wouldn’t it be selfish of you to try and pursue something more when what you already had was so good?

“I guess I might go for it. It has been a while since I got laid,” You joked, missing the way he sort of choked on his beer. “But, I don’t know. Maybe it’s best for me to just leave things as they are. I’m not exactly unhappy, right now.” You mused, while pulling a knee up to your chest to try and prevent the constant leg bouncing that was a dead giveaway for your nerves.

“And would that be enough for you?” He asked quietly, waiting for you to turn and look at him in the eyes before he continued. “If nothin’ more were to happen, no big commitments, would that be enough?”

His questioning made you uncomfortable, and as obvious as your discomfort probably was, Joel didn’t let up, seeming to need an answer at that moment. You struggled to find one that felt right.

“I don’t know. I don’t care about marriage, or whatever. But, I guess I do like the idea of having someone.” You couldn’t bring yourself to elaborate, suddenly shy under the weight of Joel’s probing brown eyes.

He nodded slowly, wordlessly, and leaned back into his chair. You weren’t even really sure when he had shifted so far towards you until he moved back.

“I hope…I hope that that works out for you, darlin’” Something about his words felt definitive, as if he had made a decision in that moment that you were not privy to.

“So, uh, what about you? Tommy set you up with anyone since you've been here?” You finished off your beer, trying to steel your nerves in preparation for his response.

He let out a dry laugh, a sound that was far from amusement. “Yeah, I think those days are far behind me, doll,” You watched as he tapped his fingers against the armrest of his fold out chair. “Not really somethin’ I’m capable of anymore,”

As you watched the soft orange light against his face, you desperately wanted to convince him otherwise. But that would have been too honest, too vulnerable. Instead you joked, “I’m sure Ellie’s relieved about that, can’t imagine her horror if she came home to a sock on the doorknob.”

He laughed for real that time, and you finally felt yourself relax after the weird and uncomfortable conversation.

The sun was much lower in the sky at that point, and the conversation felt like it was at a safe ending place. Joel didn’t look at you again as you got up, and when you finally went to bed, he let you sleep through the night.

nine months and nine days ago

Patrol with Lucas was different to patrol with Joel. He was younger, and more agile, of course, but he was also rash. He had something to prove, and none of the confidence that came with experience. It was fine. You were fine with it.

The boots you were wearing as you made your way into the Bison squeaked from the water they accumulated in the heavy rain. It was miserable and gross, and all you wanted to do was get to bed and forget about the way that Lucas got spooked by a creaking door and almost shoved you to the ground in his haste to escape the room.

You halted in place in the doorway at the sight that greeted you in what should have been an empty bar, given the extremely late hour. Of course, on such a shitty day, you would see Joel sitting at the corner of the bar, swirling the few remnants of his beer around the pint glass in his hand.

He noticed you, as well, and began to sit up from where he was slumped on his stool. He looked exhausted. Good, you thought, as you examined the dark circles around his eyes.

Reluctantly, you walked up to the bar, reaching to grab a small bowl of dry puffed rice. You pouted unintentionally at how bland the current selection of bar snacks were.

Something caught your attention from the corner of your eye, as a small bowl of candied nuts slowly worked their way into your frame of vision. You looked up to see Joel sliding the bowl over the counter, eyes flitting up to yours for a brief second before shifting away as soon as he saw you noticed him.

Your jaw ticked in anger at the weak attempt at…well, you didn’t know what he was doing, really. You pointedly grabbed another handful of the crunchy cereal and shovelled it into your mouth, glaring at him the whole time. He seemed to get the point, and he withdrew the bowl with poorly disguised exasperation.

It almost made you laugh, how he had the audacity to act annoyed in that moment, and you couldn’t help but provoke him.

“Yes?” You made no attempt to conceal your persistent anger at the man.

“Nothin,” He responded quickly, but quietly, and you watched him scrape the edge of his fingernail across the countertop, back and forth.

You gave him a derisive look up and down, and he sort of shrunk under your gaze before clearing his throat and waving down the bartender and to hand him a drink ticket.

“You seem tired. New patrol partner putting you to work?” You continued to poke at him, and you were not really sure why. He was leaving, you could have, and you probably should have, just left it as is.

He sighed out loud this time, while standing up from his stool. “Haven’ been sleeping all that well.”

You let him leave, and as soon as he is out of your sight, you leaned over and grabbed the bowl of candied nuts.

now

You were laying there awake on the cold floor, barely three hours later, with your teeth chattering so loudly that you couldn’t even imagine falling back to sleep. It was hard to tell what woke you in the first place, but you were inclined to believe that it was the loud-ass snoring of the old man across the room.

Any warmth that the alcohol had lent to you was long gone, and if the way the old wooden building shook from the snowstorm outside was any indication, you were in trouble. Survival tactics would dictate that the best plan of action would be for you to share some body heat with the person that you were stuck with, but the thought of that pained you, especially given how your last conversation ended.

A particularly all-encompassing shiver had you giving in and rolling over to look at him, ending the internal debate over whether you should just suffer through the cold. He was still snoring away peacefully. Of course he is, the bastard you found yourself thinking bitterly, the chill in your bones definitely making you unnecessarily spiteful.

As much as it pained you to admit, you knew that Joel emitted warmth like a space heater and he would be able to help stop the shivering with ease. You fought away the thought of his broad chest pressed against your back, and instead focused on getting up on your knees to crawl over clumsily in the dark towards Joel’s body, still wrapped in your sleeping bag.

“J-Joel?” A shiver punctuated your faint voice, as you nudged his shoulder to try and wake him.

Joel barely moved from the contact, making you grit your teeth in frustration. Logically, you knew he wasn't ignoring you on purpose. He was just far too exhausted to wake up from such a gentle jab. It still irritated you, regardless.

You gave his chest a stronger shove. “Come on, move over, I’m f-freezing.”

His eyes slowly cracked open and he softly said your name, a question, confusion and something else that you couldn’t quite place lacing his tone. Joel’s brown eyes were softer than you’d ever seen as he stared up at you, unmoving. Your words seemed to catch up with him all at once, and he nodded quickly, unsteadily, reaching a hand out to start unzipping his own sleeping bag.

“Sure, sure…come here, darlin’’ His voice was thick with sleep as he flipped open the bag.

With some effort, you combined the two bags and started to slip in next to him, hesitating briefly when deciding which direction to face. None of the options felt appropriate. There wouldn’t have been enough space to comfortably lie on your back, facing him seemed like a psychotic choice, and letting him spoon you felt way too intimate. It would have been too intimate even when you were still friends, let alone now. Your eyes flitted up to his, questioning what the correct choice was. Joel responded with a firm hand on your shoulder, pulling you down so your back was pressed against his chest.

The way you fit against him just deepened all of the frustration you felt about your situation. It should have felt awkward and bumbling, but it just didn’t. Your frame fit against his like you were made for him to hold, and you hated it. You should not have been feeling this way about him after he had made it so abundantly obvious to you that he simply did not like you.

It made you feel pathetic, harboring a childlike crush on this man that didn’t give you the time of day. I’m a grown woman, for fucks sake, you reprimanded yourself as you tried desperately to will yourself to sleep.

The way his gentle breathing against the delicate skin of your neck caused goosebumps to rise made you feel as if you were going to suffocate. It had taken you months to bury these emotions, concealing it with anything from mild disparagement to outright pettiness. And here you were, feeling all of it again. Suddenly, freezing on the cold floor by yourself seemed like the preferable option to whatever hell you had gotten yourself trapped in.

“Do you mind?” He muttered quietly, as you felt his arm lift over your torso, hestating slightly to give you an option to tell him to keep his hands to himself. “Arms sorta sore, keeping it straight by my side.”

“Yeah. It’s fine,” you responded quickly– probably too quickly. If you were lucky, your tone would have seemed irritated rather than reflecting the greed you suddenly felt towards the idea of having more of his skin against yours.

His sturdy arm shifted to rest against the side of your torso, and you felt his hand slide down gently, resting his palm flat against your stomach. You were holding your breath for a moment to try and repress the gasp that almost fell from your mouth. His hand was just so big against you. It made you feel like a repressed Victorian housewife to react so strongly to an innocent touch, but God you had tried so hard to forget how much Joel Miller could affect you.

Minutes went by without any further speech from either of you, and you finally felt your heart rate begin to settle back down from its elevated position. He was so warm, so soft, so inviting, that you couldn’t help the way your eyes started to flutter shut. Your shivering ceased quickly after you were wrapped in Joel’s heat, and you had become convinced that he had already fallen back asleep as his body seemed to have relaxed around you.

“I’m sorry,”

“Jesus, fuc-” You jumped out of your skin at his voice, the sleep in your system quickly evaporating. His hand bunched up slightly in the front of your shirt at your movement and his arm tightened around you, instinctively pulling you in closer. He quickly let go of your shirt upon realizing what he had been doing, but his arm remained just as tight around you.

‘It’s fine.’ You responded brusquely. Him touching you like this meant that he had the upper hand. There was no way that you would be able to maintain a cogent argument with him wrapped around you, and you knew it was best to just avoid the urge to drag out the argument.

“I didn’ say what I was sorry for yet.”

You sighed. “Fine. Continue.”

“I shouldn’t have been such a hardass earlier about you getting in trouble with that runner. It was a fuck up, but you’re not…bad at what you do.” He paused, as if waiting for some kind of response. Without any indication from you that you were actually listening or even cared about what he was saying, he continued.

“An’ I shouldn’ve asked Tommy to switch me off of patrol with you. That was….” he hesitated as if he couldn’t or didn’t know how to keep going. “I overheard you talkin’ with Al on the radio earlier. I guess I didn’ realize that you would take it so hard.” You heard him swallow dryly. “Everyone back in Jackson sees you, sees how good you are. I thought you would just tell me to fuck off, or somethin’’

His tone was almost begging you to just understand him.

“I did tell you that.” You reminded him bluntly, trying to keep your voice unaffected despite the way he had begun to lightly trace lines against your stomach through the cotton of your worn t-shirt.

Joel let out a single chuckle, clearly not really amused by the memory but more so at your candor. “Right.”

“Just forget it, Joel. I know that I’m good at what I do. I just….” you were suddenly glad that you weren’t looking right at him, as you decided to just bite the bullet and say it. “I liked working with you. I thought we were friends…or whatever. It hurt my feelings that you thought- I don’t know, that I was a burden, or something? That because I had been in Jackson for a while, I was weak or not as capable as you. But it’s fine. I don’t need your validation. I guess I just wish you would have told me yourself or something.”

You fought the urge to turn over and see his facial expression, instead choosing to listen closely for any change to his deep breathing.

“I jus’ didn’t know what to say. How to say it.” He gradually said, choosing his words carefully. They felt strangely loaded. “I see now that I shouldnt’ve. Said any of that, I mean. Should’ve just... been honest.”

His words circle around in your mind. He should have been honest? If what he said was him being reserved, what was it that he actually wanted to say to you?

“Well, be honest now then.” You demanded.

“I-” Joel started before cutting himself off, clearly not knowing what to say next. You feel a small smile pull at your lips at the fact that you had made him uncomfortable. Good. Suffer. you thought to yourself, highly aware of the way that even when apologizing, he was unable to give you actual closure.

“I just didn’ think I could be a friend to you, like you wanted. It was becoming-” He went silent for a second before clearing his throat and continuing. “Difficult, for me.”

“I see.” You wished you could say something more, but the sick feeling in your stomach prevented you from doing so.

Joel Miller just didn’t like you. He didn’t want to be your friend, let alone anything else. There was nothing more to it, nothing fixable to save the friendship that had become so important to you. Maybe the disappointment you felt was your fault. If you had just accepted that he didn’t want to work with you any longer, you would have been able to move on by now. But God, he had just seemed so genuine every time you made him laugh. If you hadn’t spent night after night with him, falling asleep watching his favorite movies tucked under that stupid purple blanket, this probably wouldn’t have felt so wrong.

“Do you understand what I’m tryin’ to say, darlin’?” His voice was practically a whisper in your ear.

“Goodnight, Joel,” was all you could summon as an answer.

A bright sliver of light from the cracks of the shutters was concentrated directly on your sleeping face, dragging you out of a warm and pleasant sleep. It had been such a long time since you slept so deeply, dreamless and without a kind of nagging awareness of an endless list of upcoming tasks clawing at your brain even in unconsciousness.

You tried to shift your face away from the sun but were quickly made aware of something soft, yet firm, pressed against your cheek that prevented such movement. At some point during the night, Joel had shifted onto his back, and pulled you with him so that your head was resting against his chest. You were now facing him, with your left leg kicked up over his hips, and clinging onto him as if you were a koala. He had an arm wrapped around you, holding you against his chest in a gentle embrace. His other hand rested on his own stomach, and to your immense horror you realized that he was holding your wrist in his soft grip against his torso. Joel was breathing gently, deeply, under your palm and his steady heartbeat thumped loudly against your ear. It was too intimate, too tender.

With all of the grace and elegance of a turtle stuck on its back, you jolted back away from his inviting body, only to be caught by the constraints of the small sleeping bag. In your attempt to disentangle yourself, you felt something press against your thigh that was extremely identifiable. That's when the panic set in, causing you to manically swing your arm up from where it was stuck with as much power as you could muster, trying to get it free from the bag with sheer brute force. Fortunately, it worked, and your arm was freed. Unfortunately, the sudden loss of the sleeping bag’s restriction around your shoulder caused your arm to propel up, resulting in an audible smack against Joel’s jaw.

“Huh- Wha-” He looked around wildly for his assailant before clocking the abject terror on your face at the predicament you were both in.

“Fuck- sorry, I-” He quickly reached up and unzipped the bag in one swift motion, freeing you both.

With a quick, ungraceful, scamper away, you turned back to face him where he remained on the floor. Despite everything, you couldn’t help the way your heart pounded at his appearance, all wild-eyed and messy, overgrown hair that stood up in strange directions.

You also couldn’t help but let your eyes snap down towards his crotch in a need to confirm that you had felt what you thought you had felt. Immediate regret flooded your system at the sight, and you could feel your face heat and your mouth get dry. You quickly wrested your eyes away and back to his face. His expression was one of mortification and guilt.

“I-”

“Uh-”

Both of you spoke at once, and then paused. Joel took a moment to sit up fully, and dragged part of the loose sleeping bag over his lap, trying to subtly cover what you had both already known was there.

He attempted to speak again. “I’m sorry, darlin’, I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable.”

“It’s fine, Joel. You’re a man, it happens. I’ll just. Uh. Go and wash my face or whatever and then we can eat something and head out?” You said, already starting to walk backwards towards the staff room. The awkwardness is only heightened when you clipped into the side of the counter while walking backwards, letting out a humph of sudden pain that just embarrassed you further.

You could barely make out his response (“Right. Sounds good.”) over the blood pumping in your ears as you firmly shut the door behind you once you reached the safety of the staff room.

After a quick rinse of your face with fresh water from the spout of the water jug placed on one of the shelves, you checked in with the morning shift radio workers at Jackson, confirming that you would shortly be beginning the three hour hike back to the gates. A few deep breaths later, you were able to make your way back out to face him.

The creaking door announced your entrance back into the main room, and Joel looked at you from where he was standing and trying to shove the sleeping bags back into the small pouches that housed them.

Grabbing it out of his hands wordlessly, you started to correctly fold the sleeping bag for him, refusing to acknowledge the awkward atmosphere. Even ignoring Joel’s obvious arousal, you had practically been cuddling in your sleep. Mere hours after he made it abundantly clear that he wanted nothing to do with you.

Obviously, what happened while you slept was out of your control. It wouldn’t be fair of you to read into it. But, in the cold light of day, you found yourself needing more, needing a real reason for his dislike of you. There was no way that this conversation wasn’t going to hurt you, but maybe that was what was needed to get over everything and truly move on from it. You could sense him sneaking looks at you, but you chose to keep your eyes on the task at hand until everything was correctly packed away.

No longer able to stall, you finally began “Can we talk?”

He swallowed, before giving you a few short nods in agreement.

“I know you already gave me a reason for not wanting to work with me anymore. I…didn’t have the experiences that you had, and you didn’t want to have to take orders from me. Fine. But, I don’t think I’m crazy for thinking that we were real friends, Joel.” You stared at him, trying to gauge any kind of emotional response.

“I don’t care if it’s cruel or…whatever, just.” You sigh. “Just…please tell me why I was wrong. Why you don’t like me.” Every part of you burned from the embarrassment of being so vulnerable in front of him. You had spent months curating the perfect image of hate for this man, and to have to admit that he was still so capable of hurting you was just embarrassing.

He watched you with a look of true indecision, letting you say your piece but then remaining silent for a torturous amount of time after.

“Nothing? Really?” You knew that your face was giving away the hurt that you felt in that moment.

Once it became clear that you weren’t giving up, Joel let out a low exhale of defeat. He didn’t look at you, and he hung his head before speaking hesitantly.

“This is what I was hopin’ to avoid. I thought if I were harsh with it all, you would just leave me alone.” He caught himself quickly, and his head snapped up to look at you with some semblance of panic, grabbing your upper arm as if to hold you in place. “Not that– I just thought it might be best to…create some distance.”

“What, I crowded y’all or something? Because that was never my intention. I just. I liked being around you both.”

He looked sort of pained as he quietly admitted “And that’s the problem. I liked being around you too. More than I should’ve.”

The grip he had on your arm loosens, and you feel his hand slide down to meet yours. Joel didn’t make a move to grab it, but his fingers traced the back of your hand gently, as he watched the path they took against your skin.

“Somethin’ about you just” He finally grasped your hand in his, moving his thumb across your scuffed knuckles, “Hard to resist”’

You blinked rapidly, thoughts running at a million miles per hour as you tried to make sense of what he was saying. You began to speak when his other hand lifted to cup your cheek, rendering you speechless yet again.

“I thought you wouldn’ care. I still don’t see why you would, but I’m sorry, darlin’, for hurtin’ you.” His eyes flash to your lips before he pulls himself away from you. Your blood feels like ice in your veins in the absence of his touch.

As he stood a few steps back from you, you watched a look of guilt manifest on his face, before he let out a pained chuckle. “You see now, doll? Why I had to push you aside? You don’t want an ol’ man like me getting attached.”

His eyes were searching yours for something that you were struggling to understand how to provide. You could feel your heartbeat where he had been touching you, and it finally clicked.

You slowly stepped forward until you were chest to chest, putting your own hand against his cheek to force him to look down at you. Rising up on your tiptoes, you pressed your lips against his softly, giving him the option to push you away if he so chose.

He was practically frozen under your lips, and so you pulled back, ready to apologise. The words didn’t get the chance to leave your mouth as he grabbed your face with both hands and kissed you as if it had been costing him every ounce of control in his body to prevent.

You found your back pressed against the end cap of the shelves in the center of the room as he devoured you, barely letting you up for air.

“Joel-” you were unable to finish your sentence before he wrapped an arm around your waist and kissed you again, pushing his tongue into your mouth desperately.

It was impossible to hold back your loud moan as he hitched you up, wrapping your legs around his waist and letting you feel himself, hard against your quickly dampening core.

“F-fuck, I-” he practically whimpered as you took the opportunity to grind against him, eyes practically rolling back at the obscene sensation of him. “We don’ have to do this, this is why-” You cut him off by gripping his jaw in your hand and looking into his wild eyes as if to give him permission. “Joel. I want this.”

That’s all it took for him to lean his head over into the crook of your neck and start pressing wet kisses along your skin, all while walking you over to the chest freezer and placing you on top. It takes him a few more minutes of lavishing kisses against your skin to pull himself away for long enough to drop down to his knees in front of you.

He grabbed a thigh in each hand roughly and tugged you forward until you were perched on the edge of the surface. Shaky hands began to pull at the waistband of your jeans, not even bothering to try with the buttons. As he finally succeeded in pulling them down and off, you couldn’t help but bite your lip at the sinful sight in front of you. His pupils were dilated and his lips were swollen as he repeatedly murmured to himself “Wanted this for so long, been so hard to resist-”

His chest was heaving as he grabbed at the lace decorating the edge of your underwear, beginning to pull at them impatiently, any hesitation that he once had long gone.

‘Wanna make you feel so good, baby, need to make you feel good”

Your response was to simply push your fingers through his soft curls and grab a handful, pulling his face towards your waiting pussy.

Joel pulled your legs over his shoulders and quickly pressed his face against you, licking a wide stripe up your wet folds eagerly. A broken moan pierced the room as he expertly pushed his tongue into your dripping opening, before withdrawing to raise his mouth up to suck on your sensitive clit.

Your hand remained tightly in his hair as you lost yourself in the sensations of the man on his knees for you, it only being heightened by how much he seemed to be loving it.

He moaned against your cunt at your taste, as if he couldn’t get enough. Every moment that he retracted slightly to get a lungful of air, you heard him speak almost deliriously “So perfect, so sweet for me.” Before long he was taking a hand off of your thigh and bringing it down towards his own crotch, desperate for some direct stimulation.

This snapped you out of your reverie, and you dragged his head away from your folds, ignoring the sharp pang of pleasure coursing through you at the sight of his wet jaw and desperate eyes.

“Joel, please, fuck me.” Your voice cracked and the sheer desire radiating through it made Joel rise to his feet in an instant, reaching for his belt.

He pulled you in for another deep kiss as he fumbled with his belt buckle, and the taste of yourself on his tongue made you ache. He drew back from the kiss and pushed his jeans down past his crotch. Your eyes went wide at the sight. He was huge, bigger than anyone you had been with before, and the way he was pressed against his boxers told you it had been sheer torture for him when you stopped him from touching himself.

He grabbed your hand and placed it against his erect cock, slightly hissing at the contact even through the material of his boxers, before murmuring “Y’see, baby, do you see what it is that you do to me? Do you understand now why I’ve had to push you away?”

He freed his cock from his underwear and lined himself up with your entrance, before giving you a gentle kiss against your temple. “I’m so weak around you, doll, it’s so hard to hold back.” He whispered in a broken voice against your ear.

Truthfully, you had no idea what he was talking about. The hint of self-reproach in his voice told you that this was something that he had struggled with, but it was too difficult to focus on the meaning of his words when his swollen tip was nudging against you in such a maddening way. So, instead, you chose to reach down to grab his hip and pull him closer, “Then don’t hold back.”

Whatever shred of restraint he had dissipated instantly at your quiet request, and he plunged himself into your wet heat, practically a man possessed with the way that he thrust himself into you.

Everything was him, and you had never felt this consumed by another person. Every sense you had was overcome by him. His quiet voice as he whispered how perfect you were in your ear, the scent of his musk, the rough feel of his calloused fingers against your waist as he held you in place to fuck up into you. All you could see was him and his brown eyes, as he filled the room yet again. Each open mouthed kiss was deeper and sweeter than the last.

The stuttering of his hips indicated that he was about to reach his peak, and he quickly shifted a hand down to rub circles on your clit, determined to ensure that you came before him. “Baby, you’re so good, you’re so good for me,” he panted in a husky tone.

You could see redness travelling down his neck and below the collar of his flannel shirt, but the increased pressure from the masterful way he moved his fingers stopped you from ripping open his shirt the way you wished you could. Instead, you grabbed on tight to his arm, digging your nails into the firm muscles.

“Joel, I-I’m gonna-” your moan cuts off your sentence as something in you snaps. Your toes curl and you clench around him, eyes screwed shut from the radiating pleasure.

“F-fuck, darlin’, look at me, look at me while you cum” he seems to barely get the words out as your walls pulse around him.

As you were finally able to open your eyes to look back at his face, he quickly pulled out, reaching down to grab his cock and bring himself to completion. You moved faster than him, and wrapped your own fingers around his shaft, wanting to bring him to climax yourself. He practically fell into you, forehead resting against your shoulder as you jerked him off, each whimper he let pass his lips going straight to your core. He came with an extended groan, his release coating your fist. Continuing to gently stroke him through it, you listened to him babble incoherently, repeatedly, into your ear: “Fuck, you’re so perfect, you were made for me, fuck-”

“Jesus…” you trailed off with a gentle laugh, before releasing him and moving to wipe your covered hand onto your discarded underwear.

Joel seemed to be basking in the afterglow, responding with only a hum of agreement as you hopped down from the top of the freezer onto shaky legs. You pulled him close to press a kiss against his cheek. Chaste, after everything that had just happened, but it just felt right with the way your heart was bursting out of your chest. In your rush to go and grab a clean rag from the staffroom, you didn’t notice the way he froze under the press of your lips.

Emerging with a satisfied grin on your face, you spotted Joel standing by the door that was now unlocked and letting in the bright early morning light. He had managed to clean himself up in the brief moment that you took your exit to do the same, and he had his bag strapped across his back, clearly ready to start heading back.

“Easy, Joel, give me a second to regain my balance,” you said playfully, making a show of stretching your legs out. His face was expressionless as he watched you and you felt your stomach drop from the sudden uneasiness that that familiar expression brought you.

Rather than let him keep waiting, you decided to quickly grab your own bag and hoist it onto your shoulder, approaching him where he stood and putting a hand on his shoulder to snap him out of the absent-minded state he was in. He flinched at your touch.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” You asked with a feeble attempt at an encouraging smile.

“Nothin, nothin.” He insisted with a shake of his head, returning an equally unconvincing smile before exhaling sharply and turning his attention to the outdoors. “Just thinkin’ that we really should get goin’. Snow’ll likely start up again soon,”

“...Right.” You confirmed with a dry swallow.

Something was very clearly wrong. Joel had never been the best liar, and it wasn’t exactly shocking to you that he would be a little apprehensive after everything that had just happened. What was concerning was how he flinched at your touch. The touch he was just begging for, quite literally on his knees with how much he craved you.

Maybe he just needed a minute, you justified to yourself as you walked ahead of him, allowing him to trail behind slowly. It wasn’t exactly the way Joel liked to operate, he would always be in front of his partner, always ready to be the one to meet the threat head on. It was unsettling, to say the least, that he wasn’t rushing ahead.

Okay, you continued to rationalize three silent hours later as the tall structure of the Jackson walls came into line of sight, maybe he just needed a few hours. Slowing your pace, you looked over at him and felt your chest tighten painfully at how he pointedly avoided your gaze.

‘What is it, Joel? What’s happening?” You asked feebly, coming to a halt in a small clearing before the forest thinned out to allow for Jackson.

His jaw clenched and unclenched before he spoke. “That shouldn’a happened.”

You blink at him. “What shouldn’t have happened?” You knew immediately what he meant, but needed him to say it.

“Any of that.”

You gave him a resolute look. “But it did happen. We fucked. We both wanted it, and it happened.” You took a few steps closer to him, and the way he stepped back hurt you more than you could have anticipated.

“Well, it ain’t happening again.”

“Joel, please. Why are you being like this?” You tried to reach out and place a hand on his shoulder.

He practically ripped his arm away from your touch, putting even more space between the two of you before he started speaking.

“I can’t give you what you need,” He said unwaveringly.

You raised an eyebrow in response, “I think you just gave it to me pretty good a few hours ago.”

Joel’s unchanging face filled you with a hot rage.

“Joel, you just fucked me and now you’re telling me that, what, you can’t do this? You don’t want anything else to do with me?”

“I’m not the man that you treat me as. I can’t do all of the loving, sweet shit that you would want or need”’

You scoffed in response, unable to stop your voice from raising as you looked at him in disbelief.

“Oh, you’re such a fucking martyr Joel, so brave and strong for coming to this conclusion after getting your dick wet.” You laughed humorlessly. ‘I thought you were an emotionless dick, but this is beyond.”

“It isn’ like that, darlin’, i just-” He suddenly seemed small under your gaze, cold demeanor breaking at your words. No part of you wanted to hear him try to defend himself.

“Don’t. You can have what you want. We’ll go back to Jackson and pretend this never happened. But you don’t get to use that bullshit excuse.” You stomped off past him, shoving your shoulder against his as you walked out of the clearing, back onto the well worn path to the gates.

He didn’t speak for the rest of the short journey back to the gates of Jackson, following you with a distance of at least 10 feet between you.

As you approached the gates, you heard him call out your name after you. Every part of your brain was screaming at you to just flip him off and go home, but instead you came to a stop a few feet from the gates, and turned to him with an icy glare.

“I-uh. Thought you would’a wanted this.” He handed you the Spider-Man bobblehead that you had already forgotten all about.

“It was for Ellie. Give it to her yourself.” You said coldly, going to turn back around before he stopped you.

“No, I know. I jus’ thought. Well, it was your idea. And Ellie’s always yammering on about your comic collection, so she would probably appreciate it more from you.”

Your heart clenches. It would have been so simple, so nice and right if he cared about you the way you had come to accept that you cared about him. But he didn’t. Not enough to try for you. Not enough not to hurt you.

You snatched the stupid toy out of his hand and turned away from him, letting him watch you leave without another word.

a/n: ahhhh please tell me what you think!

#joel miller #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller fic #joel x reader #tlou fic #the last of us fic #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller smut #joel miller angst #joel miller x female reader

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simmerandwrite · 2 years

Text

Sink Into Me - 02 - mob!Steve Rogers x plus size! reader

Pairing: mob boss!Steve Rogers x plus size female reader

Summary: You were simply doing a good deed, pulling the handsome stranger out of the way when a car jumped the curb. Little did you know that the life you saved belonged to Steve Rogers, the Army veteran turned art dealer with connections to the Brooklyn crime syndicate.

Steve Rogers, who won’t stop calling you his guardian angel.

Steve Rogers, whose new goal in life just might be repaying his debt to you.

Steve Rogers, who isn’t shy until it comes to his feelings and will stop at nothing to keep you safe.

Chapters: 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08

Wordcount: 6k

Warnings: canon level violence (series), body image issues (series), very brief mentions of animal abuse

Notes: hello! meet your friends - Maria Hill, Claire Temple and Wanda Maximoff. thank you all for being here and reading!! I appreciate your enthusiasm soooo much. things are :) about to get :) complicated :) if you see me out in the wild, my main blog is @simmerandcry

---

The skyline view from the floor to ceiling windows had been the real selling point to Steve taking the penthouse apartment at his latest investment property. Truthfully, he had been growing tired of the brick walls of his old place, despite their aesthetic charm. The new renters could live with that red dust now.

But the view into both Brooklyn and downtown towards Manhattan made him feel like he was exactly where he needed to be. Like he was on top of the world, his own little empire carved out in the heart of the borough. Most importantly, his apartment was his home. And that meant work didn’t come home with him, ever.

He drew that line very cleanly, even leaving the second bedroom fully intact as a guest room instead of converting to an office. Because this is where he needed to clear his head, to be Steve Rogers, the plain and simple Brooklyn born boy who loved his city.

Steve Rogers, the war veteran turned real estate mogul and art dealer, who sat at the top of what remained of an old Irish crime syndicate - that man worked on the streets, in the office, in his clubs and galleries and restaurants. That shit was not supposed to come home with him.

Though recently, it seemed to have started to bleed into what little time he spent at home. Mainly because of you and the whole incident outside the restaurant.

“Well, what’s the plan?”

“I already told you, Buck. I’m not retaliating.”

Bucky Barnes, Steve’s right hand man, his oldest friend and main confidant, the literal fist and brawn behind their organization, scoffed. “Someone sent an amateur barrelling into our territory to try and pin you between the hood of a car and your new restaurant - and you don’t want to retaliate? We coulda been weeping over your body right now, Steve.”

“I can recognize an act of aggression when I see it, I’m not an idiot.” Steve tipped his rocks glass against his lips once more, the scent of scotch lingering as he stood from the couch. “We don’t know if it was Rumlow or that new idiot creeping in from Staten Island.”

Steve rolled his eyes and cut off Bucky before he tried to add in his two cents again. “And if someone wanted to kill me, they wouldn’t hit me with a car. You know what. This was some stupid message that was poorly planned and equally poorly executed.”

Sam Wilson, who had been sipping his own concoction from the kitchen table, finally looked up from his phone and piped in. “I mean, I hate to admit it but Bucky is right. You would have been dead if it wasn’t for that beautiful woman saving your ass.”

“Sam.” Steve turned his head, eyes narrowed in a pointed glare.

“What? I’m not blind. The hips on her were-”

Steve took another step towards his friend and trusted colleague, who had a particularly loud mouth and a flair for getting on Steve’s nerves, and held up a steady hand. “Stop.”

He wasn’t inclined to admit it, but the entire thing had been replaying in Steve’s minds for days now. Ever since you had saved him on that sidewalk, throwing yourself into a dangerous situation for him, a total stranger, something had changed. He was still living, breathing, surviving. And although he was dead set on figuring out just who was driving that vehicle and ensuring they paid for their actions, it was you he couldn’t stop thinking about.

You. Who had been in the right place at the right time, who had risked your own personal safety to make sure he didn’t get hit, who was insistent that it had been an act of good faith, a simple act of kindness.

You, with the kind smile and generous curves. You, who swept off your actions as innocent and selfless, concerned more about the happiness of your dog than your own well being. You, who left Steve feeling curious and longing to get to know you, to make you smile, to hear you laugh.

God, what he wouldn’t give to have someone like you in his life. While he couldn’t stop thinking about the kind of person you were, he also had your face playing over and over again in his mind too. It didn’t help that his mom called him a few days ago, asking how you were doing and reiterating how much she enjoyed talking to you and…

“Still no news from Hammond?”

Steve knew Bucky couldn’t help but prodding, as if his fingers were itching to find a quick, efficient solution.

“He said their tech department is behind. I’m inclined to believe him but my insisting this is a priority hasn’t been successful this time. I’m trying to play nice.” Steve gritted his teeth, finishing the last sip of his drink as he stood, tugging on the lapel of his suit. “So I asked Stark to help instead. We’re meeting him at the club.”

---

The only good thing about your dreadful basement apartment was the private patio space in the backyard. You had high hopes for it when you rented the garden level unit but once your lease had been signed, everything about the place seemed a lot less shiny. From the shared laundry with the loud, obnoxious upstairs apartment to the inconsistent water pressure and flickering lights, you were counting down the days until your lease was over.

But the backyard - you had done what you could to make it a safe oasis for you and Hercules, with a few pieces of thrifted outdoor furniture and string lights making it a bit more magical. It was a nice location when hosting your girlfriends, especially when such a thing happened so rarely now that your schedules seemed to conflict all the time.

You were so grateful to have your girls. Because at any moment, they all loved to share their opinions on the weird chaos that seemed to stir up in your life. While you had known Maria since college, you had collected Wanda and Claire into your life since starting your new job in the city. You had worked as a server at the same restaurant as Wanda a few summers ago and Claire, an ER nurse, had dropped into your life by chance one night when you were stood up on a date at a bar in Hell’s Kitchen. Your group had been solid since then - although girls nights were few and far between now, with jobs and the general grind of life making it hard to get together often.

“I’m not saying the man isn’t attractive. Because I have eyes,” Maria was on her third glass of sangria, legs extended out on the brick patio outside. “I just have no reason to trust him.” She squinted down at her phone screen. “What did he say he did for work again?”

You sighed. Perhaps it was a mistake to share Steve’s name and photo - that you found after an extensive internet search - with your friends, but you valued their perspectives. It’s not like anything had happened with the guy. You hadn’t seen him since that day you saved his life and hadn’t communicated either, outside of you emailing him the stupid photo you took.

You had added his number to your phone, though. Just in case. Just in case what? You had no clue. But he had written it down for you and all.

And he said he owed you a thousand favours…

Officer Hammond, though, had reached out to you a few days after the event - asking you to come in and try and ID the driver in a police lineup. It made you feel a bit uncomfortable but you supposed it was your civic duty to do it, if it could help stop this from happening again or to help in delivering justice for wrongdoing. You pointed out the person you best recognized from your blurry memory and moved on, trying not to think any further about the situation.

Although a few strange things seemed to happen since then, if you just used your head it could all be justified. Like seeing the same black, unfamiliar SUV on your street multiple times this week. That was probably just a new vehicle belonging to one of your neighbours.

And that one time you were walking Hercules and a stranger who seemed to be lingering outside your apartment asked to borrow your phone.

Which you promptly said no to, because you aren’t dumb enough to let someone run off with your phone. But instead of going inside with Herc, you continued to circle the block until the blond stranger disappeared. You wouldn’t consider your neighbourhood the safest place after dark, but in the daytime you never felt concerned.

It was all just sort of weird.

But completely unrelated to anything else, you were sure.

That was all behind you now anyway, a strange footnote in the chapter of your life that was playing out. You’d probably never have to see Steve again, though he had crossed your mind a few times…

Okay, you had been thinking about him a lot. Which is why you had told your three closest friends about everything that had occurred.

You replied to Maria, who was nudging you with her elbow. “Oh. Uhm, he works in real estate, I think. He owns an art gallery and some apartments. Oh, and that club on Morgan Ave - Shield .”

“Sounds like a professional landlord. Thumbs down.” Claire chimed in from her chair too, shaking her head and dismissing the entire concept of Steve with a wave of her hand. “Rich at best, financially questionable at worst.”

“And he owns that restaurant the car smashed into?” Maria reached for her own phone. “The one owned by the mob. Okay, that settles it - he’s in the mob then.”

You laughed and shook your head. “The mob isn’t a thing, Hill. What’s your source on that again?”

Wanda shrugged and finally chimed in, fingers tapping idly against her wine glass as she turned towards you. “Describe his aura to me.”

You groaned, smirking as Claire rolled her eyes with a heavy sigh. “His aura?”

“You know, what kind of energy did he have?”

“Is that your way of determining the kind of person he is?” Maria got up from her chair to toss a small toy for Hercules to chase after. “I’d love to know the science between your aura theories, Wan.”

You delayed answering by grabbing the nearby bowl of popcorn and cradling it in your lap, leaving your phone and the thought of Steve on the small crate that sat between you and your friends. “He was very confident.” How could you do any justice to Steve’s intimidating Big Dick Energy without admitting your attraction to him? That last thing you wanted to do was bait your friends with any material to tease you with. Plus, really, it didn’t matter. You had no plans to ever see Steve again. And AND and, even if you did, what made you think it would be romantic in any way?

Steve was beyond hot - from the trimmed beard and deep blue eyes, to his easy charm and well dressed body. You had no doubt in your mind that the man probably had some equally hot partner. If not, he could have his pick of the entire city. There was no way you would be on his radar.

“I don’t know,” Maria chimed in once more, clapping her hands quickly. “This is the wildest meet cute story I’ve ever heard. If the man is so willing to do you some favours, maybe you should cash in on it, mob be damned. You know what they say about tall guys..”

“You just said you don’t trust him!” You laughed, tossing a piece of popcorn at her.

Maria just scooped it up and popped it into her mouth with a shrug. “I don’t trust any man. I trust you and your judge of character, though. Plus, you haven’t been on a date in forever so maybe this was some sort of fate driven happenstance.”

“The universe does work in weird ways,” Wanda agreed. “And you said he really filled out that suit so…”

“You should text him!” Claire sat up tall and straight, pushing her hair over one shoulder as an idea formulated in her brain. You were nervous. “I think how he reacts to a sudden text will be a perfect test.”

“It’s a Saturday night, I can’t text him! And a test of what? All I did was save the man’s life, there is nothing else to..” This was not how you wanted this to go. The last logical thing you could think of doing right now was messaging Steve Rogers anything. What would he think if you texted him out of nowhere on a Saturday night? “What would I even say?”

“Here, allow me.” Maria plucked your phone off the table and damnit, why did you ever tell her your passcode?

“Maria-”

“It’ll be harmless, I promise!” She glanced up from your phone and opened her eyes wide. “You need to stop playing safe. What’s the worst that could happen? He doesn’t reply?”

You sighed. YES. The fear of rejection crept up like a weird pain in your chest. “Yeah, I guess. He might think it’s a wrong number or some sort of spam message...”

“Then no harm, no foul.” Her grin grew even wider as she typed something out on the screen. She took a deep breath. You leaned over to see what she had crafted together and sighed. “It’s just a simple little push..”

---

Normally Steve would ignore then block an unfamiliar phone number, but this had been intriguing. Given that you hadn’t reached out to him at all, he had tried not to give much of his time to thinking about you. But when the text came in, without a lot of context or forewarning, he figured it was a small gamble to see how it could play out.

Unknown number [10:47PM]: hey, I need to cash in a favour S Rogers [10:49PM]: who is this? Unknown number [10:51PM]: 👀 🍑 🎁 🔄 🥞 S Rogers [10:55PM]: am I supposed to just guess what this means? Unknown number [10:59PM]: yes ;) S Rogers [11:02P:M]: it’ll be easier if you just tell me what you want, angel ;)

You hadn’t struck Steve as the type to flirt like this. If it was you, of course. He could really only safely assume, considering only a certain number of people had his phone number. And now, he finally had yours.

Tony had consolidated all the info he could find about you earlier that week. Steve didn’t feel great about asking Tony to dig into you, but since he had sent your picture for analysis after the delay at the police station, it sort of just happened. Frankly, Tony said your online presence was minimal. You were smart about keeping your social media secure and had a very thorough CV on LinkedIn. Otherwise, he didn’t have much information that you hadn’t already shared. And Steve had no intentions of doing anything suspicious with any of it, it just helped him understand who he had invited into a small corner of his life.

If that’s what he could call it. But you had crossed his mind over and over, and it didn’t help that Bucky kept bringing you up. Especially the part about Steve taking you to the clinic for help from Sarah. That resource was a well kept secret in their family and the fact that Steve took you there had been a big risk.

Beyond Steve’s unavoidable racing thoughts about you, he had been deep into a plan to deal with the actual problem - the group of idiots spilling into his Brooklyn territory. Tony had helped him with that too, finding names and dossiers on everyone who belonged to Rumlow’s extended Stryke gang causing a mess in the boroughs between Queens and Brooklyn.

For years, Steve had worked hard to make a respectable reputation for himself and now things were getting shaky. And it annoyed the shit out of him, especially when a few of the names Tony pulled were on the NYPD payroll.

“It’s messy,” Tony had said with a shrug, leaning back into the leather seat from their place at the top of the club.

Another property on Steve’s growing list - Shield was a popular nightclub in Brooklyn, which served as a perfect location for arms deals and financial transactions to float. For Steve and his old friend, tech mogul Tony Stark, it was a safe place to share theories and secrets. The upper level served as a secure hideout from the general population while the downstairs dance floor catered to obnoxious crowds looking for a drink or something else to roll on.

It was lucrative for Steve, to say the least.

“Let me know if you want me to get Rhodes involved.”

Steve shook his head. “He’s got enough on his plate. Is he ready for the campaign announcement?” Steve had a serious interest in the upcoming Mayoral election, especially if James Rhodes, former DA, planned on running. And with Tony bankrolling the campaign and some additional under the table support from Steve, it was going to be a shoe in.

“Oh, we’re just getting started, big guy,” Tony stood up and patted Steve on the shoulder as he left the corner area, flitting off in search of whoever might be going home with him soon enough.

Usually that would be Steve’s next step too, but damnit, if he couldn’t stop glancing at his phone for a response from you. Maybe calling you ‘angel’ again had been out of line. He contemplated sending another message, but no, he had to wait. He knew how to play this game.

The rest of the night carried on, with certain reports popping in with updates for Steve on what was happening out on the streets. Things like confirmed shipments at the dock and successful cash pickups. He had eyes across the whole of Brooklyn, with his growing syndicate working beneath him. Things mostly operated smoothly and this night was carrying on as normal.

Bucky showed up eventually, grumbling about getting turned down by some smart mouthed girl outside the club. Sam corroborated the story, lauding the woman and her tone.

Steve checked his phone, again.

“I saw Sharon downstairs,” Sam nudged Steve, eyebrows raised curiously. “Unless you’re off again-”

“We’re permanently off-again,” Steve rolled his eyes. “You have my blessing if you want to pursue, Sam. But good luck, don’t say I didn’t warn you..” That was all Sam needed apparently, finishing off his glass and heading back down to the dance floor below. Steve didn’t miss his cheeky grin.

“You’re thinking about that girl again, huh?” Bucky nodded and tried to hide his mischievous smirk as he scanned Steve’s face.

Steve scoffed. “No, no. I’m not..”

Bucky laughed, hard and incredulous. “I haven’t seen your head in the clouds like this in ages. Since whatsername in high school, maybe. What was her name?”

Then as if by some weird shift in the universe, Steve’s phone started to buzz. He left Bucky’s commentary lingering as he looked at the screen. You.

Ah, no text reply but a phone call? Okay, he could get on board. Standing, he headed a few steps from the lounge and brought his phone up to his ear, with a small smile. “Rogers.”

The first thing he heard was your frightened yelling. “Leave me alone! Jesus - oh my god, Steve? Is this Steve?”

He said your name quickly to confirm who he was speaking too but raised his eyebrows in concern. “What’s going on?”

“Someone is trying to - HEY! Stop -” Steve could hear banging in the background. “--trying to break into my fuckin - I’m going to CALL THE COPS! Leave me alone! Please, just..”

Steve closed his eyes, doing his best to focus on the background noise. Behind your defensive yelling and the attentive reactions of your dog, there was a mixture of other voices. Something about the voices felt familiar.

“We just want to talk.. Did someone offer you something for that statement? Was it Rogers?”

“If you tell Hammond you got the wrong guy, this will all be over very quickly, honey.”

“Walker, move, let me – Open the door, or we’ll open it for you. Let’s talk..”

“He didn’t offer me - Stop, please! I swear I -”

Steve nearly crushed his phone when the call dropped. He was off like a bullet train, shouting for Bucky to follow him as he pushed past his security guards on the stairs and rushed down towards the back exit of the club. He tried to call you back as he sped through traffic, blatantly bypassing stop signs and treating red lights like suggestions.

A heavy twisting feeling in Steve’s gut had told him that the aftermath of this entire situation wasn’t going to go smoothly. Especially with dumbass dirty cops on the inside who could share information to the highest bidder.

Steve felt a new responsibility to keep you safe, until this whole mess had been taken care of. He had plans to deal with it all on his own but now, if he hadn’t acted quickly enough and something had happened to you.. God, he couldn’t live with himself. How could he explain that to his mother?

He got to your apartment first, hoping Bucky was close behind. Steve didn’t know what he might be walking into but having backup was never a bad idea.

Steve had not only visited but had also lived in a lot of seedy neighbourhoods over the years. The street you lived on didn’t strike him as anything especially dangerous, but that thought enough couldn’t squash the unsettled feeling in his stomach as he approached. He pushed his way through the small metal gate beside the front stairs, towards the door to your garden level apartment.

His jaw clenched when he saw the damage to your door, clearly kicked in with plenty of force before being shoved closed. He glanced to the front window, nearby - that had been smashed, too. He tried to contain the growing fury and pressed on the door, calling out your name as he made his way inside.

As someone more than familiar with the real estate market, Steve could tell the bones of your apartment weren’t in the best shape. The entire townhouse was in desperate need of updating. But what concerned him more, outside of the low ceiling and old light fixtures, was what he could only assume was a new mess. Your coffee table had been smashed, creating a pile of kindling in your tiny living room. Papers were thrown about, a coffee cup sat shattered on the floor.

He called your name again as he went in, reaching inside his jacket to pull out his concealed handgun as he listened carefully. Once he stepped into the hallway leading to your tiny kitchen, he took a step back at the sudden lurch of your dog heading in his direction.

Then Steve heard your quiet voice. The dog retreated into the kitchen, planting himself in front of you as Steve turned to look in. His heart sank.

You were seated on the floor, back pressed against the wall. It was clear you were trying to hide, make yourself small. And was that… some sort of steak knife in your hand? When you finally looked up at him, your eyes were wide.

When you tried to press yourself even further back, eyeing down the gun in Steve’s hand, he slowly put it down on the counter and said your name. “Hey, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. That was just a precaution.” Shit. The way you reacted to the gun wasn’t a surprise but it made Steve even angrier. Whoever had been here, whoever had done this, well, they probably had guns too.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Steve crouched down, keeping his distance while Hercules acted as your bodyguard. He was trying everything in his power to maintain his composure but god fucking damnit, Steve needed to know who did this and he needed to deal with it. “Are you hurt?”

You took in a deep breath then just shrugged, relaxing just a fraction when Hercules circled around and flopped down to rest his head on your knee. “There were two guys, they had.. They had guns with them. They said they just wanted to talk to me, to … they kept talking about whoever the guy was who drove that SUV.” Your breath picked up as you recounted what had happened. “They..they smashed my phone and..” Slowly, you moved your hand up towards your neck, gently dragging your fingers against the tender skin on your collarbone. “..One guy he..” You winced at the memory.

The heat grew more and more in his stomach as he saw you shaking with fear, recounting whatever the fuck had just happened. How dare any of those fucking imbeciles lay their hand on you? And because of him? If he wasn’t sure of his next steps before, he was going to figure them out now. Because someone needed to pay for this.

His phone buzzed. He stood up and saw a message from Bucky, wondering if Steve needed his help inside. Steve took a step back, turning towards the front door.

“Don’t go,” you pleaded quietly, letting your hand linger in the air as you reached for him. “Steve, please..”

Steve stopped and turned back to you, giving his head a firm shake. “Sweetheart, I’m not going anywhere.”

---

A few hours ago you were saying goodbye to your friends as your sangria pitcher finally ran dry. And now? You and Hercules were in an elevator with Steve and his friend Bucky, heading to Steve’s apartment.

Everything that had just happened felt like a bit of a dream - a bad dream. A break in at your own apartment, being intimidated, harassed and assaulted by men with guns, zipping through Brooklyn with Steve as he promised you a safe space to stay for the night.

You didn’t say much to each other once you had left, but you could see the twist of concern and small decisions Steve started to make to ensure you felt secure. A hand at your back, a soft smile, extra attention being given to Hercules to make sure he was okay, too.

You hadn’t gotten into much detail yet but you knew Steve wanted to figure out who the men were who had done this. You were already dreading talking about it again. And god, you likely had another police experience coming your way. What was happening in your life and how could it go back to normal again?

“Hey,” Steve tipped his head towards the door as the elevator opened. You took the lead as you stepped out into the hallway, where just a small handful of apartment doors were spread out.

Steve’s building was a place you could only daydream about living in. You followed him through the door to his apartment, checking over your shoulder to see Bucky guiding Hercules behind you.

Bucky was incredibly kind to you throughout this whole thing, especially back at your apartment. He had patiently directed you as Steve made some phone calls, carefully standing outside your room as you packed a quick overnight bag. And he was very taken to Hercules, which you really appreciated.

Once inside Steve’s place, you made your way into the living room just past the foyer. Steve and Bucky moved into the kitchen briefly, exchanging a few hushed sentences out of your earshot.

When they joined you in the living room, they found you crouched down on the floor with Hercules. You tipped your head up to look at them. Bucky’s gaze was on his phone but Steve was watching you with a soft smile.

“Do you think he’ll be okay here tonight?” Steve took a knee on the other side of Hercules, slowly reaching his hand out to scratch behind his ear.

You couldn’t stop yourself from smiling, just a bit, as you nodded. “Yeah, he’s pretty easy going usually.” As if on cue, your dog nudged his head against Steve’s hand for one more quick pet then trotted further into the living room, flopping down on the rug between the couch and windows. “All his adrenaline seems to have worn off.”

And so it seemed had yours.

A few minutes later you were sitting on the couch, with Steve planted in the chair across from you and Bucky standing over his shoulder, arms crossed. Steve leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he took you in.

God, even in the low light of his living room, the man was handsome. Wearing just a navy blazer and matching dress pants, over a black button up with no tie, he managed to look effortlessly intimidating and strangely welcoming. Like you had no reason not to trust him, as if the dark shadows behind his eyes were a sign of protection instead of a signal of something to be feared.

You took in a long breath and leaned back into the couch.

Steve dragged his tongue over his lips then let out a sharp breath. “Okay, so I need you to walk me through exactly what happened.”

You knew this was coming. The moment Steve insisted on not calling the cops, something shifted for you. This whole situation had escalated beyond what you were used to, that whomever these men were to Steve - it probably wasn’t good.

But when you looked over at Steve, as much as you wanted to shake with worry about what might happen next, you couldn’t. Despite being way out of your comfort zone, scared out of your mind, coming down from your own rush of adrenaline, you weren’t scared. Not anymore, not in his presence and under the additional watchful eye of his right hand man.

And so you told him and Bucky exactly what had happened. How your girlfriends had left, how you were finding the next episode of your favourite show to watch, how you had some writing to catch up on and planned on staying up late. Then you heard a noise outside, then a knock at your door.

Then… well, then you had called Steve when everything started unfolding.

And after the men managed to get beyond the door and push their way through to you, you had nowhere to hide. Once they smashed your phone, you were going to comply and do whatever they needed to, to get them out of your home but then one of them threatened Hercules, and even kicked him-

“Jesus,” Bucky muttered, teeth clenched. Before he could get his true feelings out, Steve held up his hand and had you continue.

“I shoved the guy who was closest to me, trying to go for the other idiot before he hurt Herc and then..” You closed your eyes, going into vague details about how the man pushed you back, how he shoved you into the wall, the kitchen counter. How he pulled out his gun and put his hand around your throat and..

When you opened your eyes again, taking in the silence of the room as you trailed off, Steve was watching you carefully. Though you safely assumed he was an expert at hiding his emotions, you could see a twitch in his jaw. His fists rested on his knees, clenched and turning white with tension.

“One of them got a phone call and I guess they were beckoned to leave. They had enough time to make more of a mess while I cowered away but..” You gulped, shaking your head. “What if they come back? I think I should just call Officer Hammond and-”

“No.” Steve stood up, taking barely a stride to make his way towards the couch. He took a seat beside you, extending his hand to ever so gently cradle your jaw, turning your head to look at him. He said your name softly, barely.. “I’m going to take care of this.”

Your safe feeling was depleting and as much as you wanted to argue, to put a stop to all of this, to do it the correct way, you couldn’t. Earlier, when the threat was outside your door, you didn’t think of calling the police. It was Steve who had crossed your mind. For some unknown reason, you had a feeling he would help you.

Steve pulled his hand away and stood again, shooting a glance to his friend.

Bucky cleared his throat, taking a step forward. “Doll, can you tell me what the guys looked like? Identifying features?”

You wanted to ask a thousand questions about what happened now, about what Bucky was planning on doing, about his metal arm and lack of hesitation to help Steve. But you just played along, delivering all the details you could. Once you repeated it all and answered a few of his questions, you sat up and leaned forward. “Oh. One of them went by Walker. I’m not sure if that’s a first name or..”

“Last name.” Bucky gave one nod before muttering out a tired laugh. “That fucking moron.” He looked at Steve. “Okay, I know where to go. Nat’s gonna meet me downstairs.”

Steve followed him to the door and you could hear their quiet conversation once more.

Twisting your hands together, you sat on the couch with your thoughts. You couldn’t believe how your night had played out. Really, if you thought about the last week of your life you’d be hard pressed to believe it was real life. How could the simple act of getting a person out of harm’s way lead to this?

When you heard Steve’s footsteps heading back towards you, after the door shut behind Bucky, you stood up and looked at him.

Okay, you had to ask. Because a lot of this felt nonsensical, impossible even.

“You don’t really work in real estate, do you?” With the most courage you could muster you met his gaze, which was stoic as he watched you. “My friend Maria had this crazy theory and.. I don’t know what I’ve gotten myself into here, Steve. But this isn’t… I just did the right thing and saved you from being hit by a car and.. Now what? People with guns are breaking into my home and threatening my dog? And instead of going to the police.. I’m right here in your apartment - with you, a kind, handsome stranger who keeps offering to help and take care of me and I just don’t get it. Is this real?”

He didn’t falter or let his facade break when you spiraled. Instead, he motioned towards his kitchen. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

You sat with a steaming mug of chamomile at Steve’s kitchen island. His kitchen felt impressively Steve somehow too, with dark granite counters and cool grey tones decorating the tall cabinets. The light blue kettle that sat on his stove somehow humanized him even more though.

Steve opted to lean against the counter, shrugging off his suit jacket as he met your eyes. “So. First, let me just say - I don’t want you to feel like I brought you here for any other reason than keeping you safe tonight. I want you to feel safe here, with me. But if you don’t feel comfortable, you can leave. I will put you up in a hotel somewhere or if you have a friend you can stay with-”

You swallowed hard and brought your hand up. “No, that’s not.. I’m sorry for, uhm, going off a bit there. I just..” You left your mug on the island and leaned forward, balancing your chin on your hand while your elbow propped you up. You matched his gaze, somehow both honest and shy. “In college, my friends and I did this thing called honesty hour. Usually after a really late night or when we were a bit drunk. But the point is to be as honest as possible, but gentle, I guess. Feelings were always at risk but if it was after 2am, it was honesty only.”

A small smirk tugged at Steve’s lips as he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. “Okay.”

“So. Honesty hour.” You nodded.

“What do you want to know?”

“Do you always carry a gun?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“There are often dangerous, poorly- intentioned people in my line of work.”

You narrowed your eyes, pausing to take a small sip from your mug. “Your line of work - in real estate and art gallery ownership?”

Steve let out a quiet laugh. “The scope of my day to day work goes well beyond that.”

God, you had so many other questions but you had a feeling Steve was not going to share any details with you. Maybe it was better that way for both of you. Because answering some of your questions might ruin everything. “Would you rather I not ask about that? Your.. full scope?”

“I don’t think it qualifies for your honesty hour, no.”

You were ready to counter with something but you figured it wasn’t worth pushing his buttons. After another big breath, you closed your eyes. “Do you think those guys are going to show up again? At my apartment?”

The mug that had been resting in Steve’s hand found a careful spot on the counter. He took a big step forward and leaned onto the island opposite you.

Your name left his lips. You opened your eyes.

“I promise they won’t.” It was clear some things were being left unsaid, hidden behind his reassuring smile. His hand landed on yours as it rested on the table. “Trust me when I say I’ll never let that sort of thing happen again.” You looked from him, focusing on the warmth in his eyes and how his palm felt against your skin and…

“My turn.” Steve ran his thumb over the top of your hand, as if searching for the softest spot. “You called me. How come?”

You had never been so grateful to hear someone’s phone ring, because you did not want to answer that question. He tried to ignore it but the buzzing in his pocket filled in the quiet that lingered between you. Just like that, whatever that moment was or could have been - vanished. He gave you an apologetic glance as he stepped away.

You sipped on your tea, feeling more and more run down by this whole situation. You were tired, finally and Steve’s big sweeping statements gave you some peace of mind. You trusted him, that was the only thing you were certain about.

Despite everything, including the silly rumours from Maria and the broken remains of your apartment on the other side of Brooklyn… There was something about Steve that made you feel okay about all of this.

But the thought of talking any more about it now made your thoughts spiral out of control. Truthfully, you needed to sleep. And you really needed to talk all of this through in the group chat with the girls. You desperately wished your phone was still functioning.

Before you could even let your train of thoughts derail, you heard Hercules’ feet tapping against the floors in search of you. You took one final sip of your tea and met him in the living room. Your boy was ready for bed too.

You hesitated though, glancing from him to the door. He looked that way too. Maybe it would be smart to take him out one more time before you headed to bed.

Steve found you near the door and reached his hand out to stop you before you could even grab your coat. “Hey. I can take him out, if you want to get ready for bed.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Please, I insist.” He grabbed Hercules’ leash from the small entry table and rested his hand on your shoulder. “I’ve been thinking about adopting a dog for months now so this is a nice reminder about responsibilities.”

Steve’s genuine smile was unmatched and, well, Hercules just looked excited for one last moment of fresh air. “Okay, fine. For your own research purposes. Thanks Steve.”

He waved his hand and pulled on a coat from the hanging rack. “The guest room is just down there.” With his free hand he pointed down the hall behind you. “First door on the right. Bathroom across the hall.”

The minute Steve was outside the door with Hercules, you made your way to the bedroom. You nearly gasped when you opened the door, considering the space was practically the same size as your entire apartment. And god, the view from the windows. A full floor to ceiling piece of glass illuminated Brooklyn below.

The bathroom was just as impressive. After finding a fluffy towel and figuring out how the shower and faucet functioned, you let yourself get consumed by the water. Though you felt far past your breaking point, you held back your tears. Yes, the entire night behind you had been a rollercoaster. And yes, you were nervous about what tomorrow was going to bring.

But you were safe. That’s all that mattered.

Chapter 01 - Chapter 03

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x plus size reader #mob boss steve rogers #stever rogers fanfiction #marvel fanfiction #steve rogers #steve rogers fanfic #plus size reader #stever rogers x plus sized reader #mob boss stever rogers x reader #simmerandcry #simmerandwrite #simmer writes #story: sink into me

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redgoldsparks · 6 months

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March Reading and Reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Reviews below the cut.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 4 by Ryoko Kui

I'm reading these books so fast I can barely remember which parts of the plot happened in which volume but know that I am still having a great time!

Delicious in Dungeon vol 5 by Ryoko Kui

Oh, this story has taken a darker turn, and also just introduced a whole bunch more characters. Will I be able to keep track of them all? I hope so!

Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb, read by Anne Flosnik

Unfortunately, this is definitely the weakest Robin Hobb book I've read so far. I was expecting to like it less than the glorious, 5-star previous trilogy, but I actually think I'm going to skip the rest of the Rain Wild Chronicles and read summaries online to get to the next Fitz books. This book follows five main POV characters. This works fairly well for the first half, when the characters are all in different physical locations. However once all of the characters meet up, we start getting the same scene from multiple different POVs, which feels extremely repetitive. Also, almost EVERY SCENE includes a flashback, often a lengthy flashback, sometimes to something that happened only the previous day and could have been told as present-moment action. This writing choice baffled me. It's something I can't remember struggling with in any of Hobb's previous books, but by the end it was driving me up a wall. The book also moved very slowly; the stakes feel lower, and the character far less emotionally true than in the two Fitz trilogies. Disappointing, but I will keep moving forward towards the next part of the series I want to read.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 6 by Ryoko Kui

Damn, a lot of characters get murdered in this volume! Good thing almost everyone who dies in the dungeon can be revived. Also, very excited to finally meet the cat ninja I've been seeing fan art of since before I even started the series :3

Delicious in Dungeon vol 7 by Ryoko Kui

I am still completely caught up in this series. I love the glimpse of Senshi's past revealed in this volume, and the lore of the dungeon that is still being revealed. There was a line in here about how the dungeon leaves you alone if you don't ask much of it, but that if you have strong desires it throws even more obstacles into your way. Our heroes have such big goals right now, but they're marching ahead regardless!

School Trip by Jerry Craft

A satisfying new installment in the New Kid series from funny, talented, charming Jerry Craft! I appreciated how this volume started to complicate some of the students who had been left a bit one-dimensional in previous books. Several people stood up to and called out a bully; new friendships were built; and Jordan Banks left Paris even more inspired than ever to follow his dreams of becoming an artist. This series has a lot of jokes, but also a lot of heart!

A Frog in Fall (and Later On) by Linnea Sterte

Minor frog is less than a year old, and is dismayed when winter begins to steal all of the light and warmth from his world. Instead of bunking down safely with his mentor to wait for spring, he sets out on a journey with two vagabond toads passing by on a quest to make it all the way to the tropics. They tramp through the Japanese countryside, encountering tree spirits, new friends, dangers, and views the likes of which minor frog had never even imagined. This is a gorgeous book; every page worth pouring over, an economy of line and detail building a beautiful and mysterious world of talking animals and miniature packaged foods. Made me want to draw.

Dark Rise by CS Pacat read by Christian Coulson

In 1820s London, orphaned Will tries to earn enough as a dockworker to survive- and evade the killers pursuing him. Violet dresses in her half-brother's clothes and sneaks onto a ship in the Thames to watch a man be branded with his master's mark. Katherine excitedly anticipates her engagement to one of London's richest and most mysterious lords; his gallantry nearly makes up for the fact that he's twice her age. And in the bowels of one of that lord's ships, James tortures a man for information. All of these characters are 16 or 17 years old, but all of them are tangled in an ancient conflict between the Light and the Dark which stretches back into an age of magic before history. This is CS Pacat's YA fantasy debut, and it contains a lot of tropes very familiar to both YA and high fantasy- there are shades of both Tolkien and Rowling in this. Its fast-paced and action-packed, but especially in the first third of the story, the characters all felt fairly thin. None of them have quirks, hobbies, career hopes, relationships outside of immediate family, school, or work; or much more than a brief sketch of past. It took until the mid-way point for what I consider Pacat's major strengths as a writer to emerge: intense, homoerotic interpersonal sparring between characters operating under major power imbalances. Every scene in which the seductive, manipulative, powerful evil gay faced off against the good boy chosen one crackled with energy. Unfortunately, there were only four of these scenes in the whole book. It ends on a cliff-hanger, because of course it does, with a tempting set up for book two; but that doesn't entirely excuse the fact that the first 50% felt like set up. I will definitely keep reading, but long-time Pacat fans should take note that this is toned down version of what I expected based on Captive Prince.

Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls (re-read before event)

What an accomplishment! I savored every page of Feeding Ghosts, absolutely floored by the labor and courage that went into the writing of this book. The inking is gorgeous, the history is clear, digestible, and devastating. This book threads the line between honesty and compassion in a way that I appreciate so much in any memoir, but especially one dealing with family. Hulls lays out the story of three generations of women starting with her grandmother, Sun Yi, a Shanghai journalist who faced intense persecution during the rise of Communism in China, who penned a popular and scandalous memoir and then suffered a mental breakdown. This left her only daughter, Rose, a student at an elite boarding school with no parental figures and no other family to lean on. Eventually Rose earned a scholarship to an American university and in the end moved her mother into her California home. Sun Yi haunted that home during the author's own childhood. The unexamined trauma and codependency of Sun Yi and Rose drove the author to the extreme edges of the Earth, seeking freedom from their ghosts. But in the end, she stopped running from her family history and turned, instead, to face it. Shelve this book with Maus, Fun Home, Persepolis and The Best We Could Do. Re-read it for a second time and got even more out of it on a second pass.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 8 by Ryoko Kui

Laios and company realize that their encounter with changling mushroom rings had more consequences than they'd realized- its the body swap episode! This visual humor is contrasted against increasing dangers from both above and below, as nastier monsters and political machinations begin to close in on our heroic adventuring party. I'm now over halfway through this series and almost feel like I should start reading it more slowly to savor it, but I'll probably just keep devouring it instead.

Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang and Leuyen Pham

High school senior Val grew up knowing her family was unlucky in love; for generations, relationships in her family have ended in heartbreak. Her childhood love of Valentines Day ends with a shocking family revelation and what feels like the beginning of a curse. Then her Vietnamese grandmother sweeps her off to a Lunar New Year celebration in downtown Oakland and a pair of cute lion dancer boys catch her eye. Could one of them break the spell on her heart? This story offers a classic and satisfying rom-com, with Val torn between an outgoing, rich, but flaky boy and a broody, shy, loyal one. The story takes several kdrama style twists and includes ghosts, saints, red envelopes, confessions, fights, reunions, tears, and kisses. For a comic, its wordy; the pages are dense with small panels and thick with dialogue, but also illustrated with such warm, humor, and realism. I really liked that the story included as much of Val's relationship with her family and best friend as romance. And the lion dancing scenes practically leap off the page with color and energy!

Witch Hat Atelier vol 10 by Kamome Shirahama

This series remains as visually stunning as ever but I'm struggling with how every single book expands the cast. There are so many characters now that I don't care about that much, and have trouble remembering from volume to volume. I wish the story line would stick more closely to Coco, her classmates, and their main mentors!

Delicious in Dungeon vol 9 by Ryoko Kui

Oh the stories are all converging! The savior at the bottom of the dungeon is probably a demon! Ituzumi saves the day! I am still having a great time reading this series.

A Dowry of Blood by ST Gibson read by Abby Craden

A short, very queer, very poly retelling of Dracula focusing on his coven of enthralled lovers. I liked the way the book breezed through history, as the dysfunctional little family moved from one major European city to the next, with snatched moments of glittering joy interwoven with violence and plague. The story is fairly simple, and has a happier ending than I expected, or honestly think the characters deserved.

City of Dragons by Robin Hobb

I DNFed the previous book in this series and just read a summary online before skipping ahead to this one. I think that was a very good choice for me. This third one was more engaging and a bit more action packed, with some cool discoveries about the city of Kelsingra and the nature of Elderlings. But the Rain Wild Chronicles as a whole do not stand up to the quality of the Farseer books. There are so many POV characters that a few of them get only two or three scenes in this whole book. I don't feel that I deeply know any of these characters; while at the same time watching Hobb pair them off at an extraordinary rate- in the last book five sets of characters got together and in this book an additional two couples are developing feelings for each other. Between this and a kidnapping, a birth, a murder, and a lot of blackmail, this series feels like a soap opera.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 10 by Ryoko Kui

Almost two TPKs in this volume, yikes!

Delicious in Dungeon vol 11 by Ryoko Kui

You know shit's getting serious when the character who has been the series main villain up until now is partially devoured by a different, worse villain. Exciting changes coming to this dungeon under it's new lord and master!

Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Lisa Sterle

When Becca gets invited to sit with the popular girl clique at her new high school, she's thrilled. But the friendship turns bloody and complicated when she learns that her new friends are actually werewolves who need to kill and feed on a human once a month. If she joins them, Becca will gain superhuman strength and a pack; she'll never have to fear a male predator again, because she will be a predator herself. I loved the queer rep and the twist on werewolf lore; I wish it had been a little longer and more developed. Give me multi-page transformations sequences!

Delicious in Dungeon vol 12 by Ryoko Kui

I love seeing all these plot lines come together! Building towards a wild climax.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 13 by Ryoko Kui

I went out and *bought* vol 13 of this series because my library didn't have it yet, that's how hooked I am. And now I have to wait until JULY for the final volume! (But also, thank goodness I didn't get into this series any sooner or I'd have a much longer wait).

#book reviews #books #reading #comics #manga

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