#past few days have kind of sucked actually. I could probably make it suck a little less

[neganium]

I need more drawing pads. Like, plural. I absolutely hate running out of drawing paper...

I have enough money for like, one, maybe two, depending on the size of them. But I want pads of a decent (tho not excessive) size, and I want a lot of them... I don't have quite enough to buy certain ones in bulk like I'd like, bc for some reason that's expensive.

Really, I need to get back to drawing on the computer, but that's such an unpleasant experience for me lately; drawing with pencil and paper is just barely more tolerable wrt the desk situation. Also, depending, I could maybe save up for a scanner, with how much some of these bulk packages go for... and how cheap the particular scanner is. hh.

I also really need a new desk. But I have to be conscious of a few things, even assuming I had the money; there's a limit to what I can do presently, wrt to space, and also how the room is currently (i.e. sinking floors is a big issue). My mom wants smth lightweight and easy to move; something somewhat temporary, you know? Whereas I want something... idk, bigger. at least taking up more lateral space than she'd probably like it to... tho again, space is an issue, especially considering the furniture I already have in here. Really, what I'd like to do is just transplant into a different space; start from scratch, as it were. But, you know, rent is a thing; we're paying for far more than this house is worth as it is. But hell if I wouldn't like for us to jump ship out of this slowly sinking, moldering dump someday...

[supernovafics]

series masterlist | last part — next part

pairing: modern!college!steve harrington x fem!reader, bestfriend!eddie munson x fem!reader

word count: 3.9k words

warnings: explicit language, a bit of angst, (nothing else really?)

summary: game night at the apartment proves that you and steve are a surprisingly good team

CHAPTER FOUR | ❝𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒚𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒅❞

Fall Semester 2015

Your first thought was that maybe you heard him wrong. 

But, it was pretty hard to hear the sentence, “I have a crush on a girl in my Statistics class” wrong. 

You wondered how you looked right then. You felt surprised— more so absolutely stunned— but you hoped that Eddie couldn’t see that, and you were quickly turning your head away from him to make sure of it. You pretended that you suddenly needed to grab something from your bag that sat next to you on the bench you two were sitting on, which was right outside the building that you needed to be in in ten minutes for your last class of the day. 

You pulled out your water and took a long, tentative sip from the bottle as you simply nodded at Eddie’s statement. 

Your mind was blank, but you knew that you needed to say something in response to his happily spoken words. All you could think right then was that this was inevitable. Of course, he’d end up liking someone, and of course, it would happen sooner rather than later.  

Selfishly, you had hoped it would be you. Now you just felt pretty stupid. 

“That’s cool,” You finally said as you placed your water bottle in your lap. “What’s her name?”

“Chrissy,” Eddie answered. “At first, it just felt like a dumb crush because we only sat next to each other on the first day of class and I borrowed a pen from her, and that was the only time we talked. But we were grouped together on this project and we got to know each other a lot over the past couple of weeks.” 

He was smiling the entire time he talked and he looked so damn happy; the kind of happy that if the circumstances were the tiniest bit different, you would’ve felt just as happy for him too. 

You wondered if this was how he had looked for the last few weeks, and if you somehow completely missed it; completely missed any and all of the signs of him slowly falling for someone right before your eyes. 

You replayed the past few weeks in your mind to see if you had somehow missed the obvious, but nothing seemed like it had been too different from the normal that you and Eddie had developed since you became friends. Most of your nights were still spent across the hall in his dorm room whenever your roommate was being annoying, and most of your nights still consisted of him showing you songs from a band he loved or you making him watch a movie that was one of your favorites but he had somehow never seen before.

“We both equally suck at Statistics, so we probably did horrible on the project, but we’re going on a date next Friday,” Eddie told you and you only nodded in response. 

You needed to say actual words, it had been way too long since you’d spoken, but you had no idea what would be the right thing to say. You could’ve said that the timing for the date made perfect sense, it was right after finals and the semester would be over too so there wouldn’t be any school stress, but the words wouldn’t form on your lips, nothing would. 

You were suddenly glad that you had a class in a few minutes because that meant that you had a plausible reason to end the conversation and head inside of the old building that was to your left. This would probably be the first time that you wouldn’t despise sitting through an hour-long European History lecture. 

“That’s great, Eds,” You said and forced a smile that you hoped seemed genuine. You put your water back in your bag and then slung it over your shoulder. “I need to head to class. The professor is an asshole when it comes to people being late and I don’t want him to start hating me now when there’s only two more classes left. So, I’ll see you later and you have to tell me more about, um, Chrissy.”

Eddie nodded, still smiling. “Yeah, definitely, I think you’d like her.” 

“Cool,” You said as you stood up from the bench. “See you later.” 

You gave him a final smile before turning away and heading inside the building where your class was. You let out a soft sigh and felt the fake smile drop from your face as you pulled open the obnoxiously heavy door and walked toward the elevators. 

For the first time probably ever, you actually wanted to pay full attention to what your professor was droning on and on about because it would help push your thoughts away from everything else. But your mind was a traitor and it only wanted to focus on everything that Eddie had just said to you. 

It was just a first date, but there was something about the way he smiled as he talked about her and how happy he seemed about everything that let you know that one date wouldn’t be the end of it. 

You kept telling yourself that you were thinking way too far ahead for no reason— most first dates ended up going nowhere anyway. But sometimes it actually felt better to prepare for the worst than simply hope for the best.

.・���.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

Spring Semester 2018

The tradition started when Talia brought home Monopoly in October. 

In hindsight, what should have happened following that night was it should’ve made you all realize that playing games together was a horrible idea. Because what ensued that night was six hours of near friendship-ending arguments and competitiveness. The only reason why Robin ended up winning was because by three in the morning, everyone else was sick of arguing and just wanted to go to sleep— Eddie had tapped out at midnight and fell asleep on the couch as the rest of you kept playing around the coffee table for a few more hours. 

Instead of that night scaring you all away from ever wanting to play any sort of game with one another again, it was simply decided that you all just wouldn’t play Monopoly again— except on super rare occasions— and you’d do a once a month game night with other games instead. Because even though a monthly game night with the five of you sounded very deadly, it also sounded very fun. 

It was a weird kind of environment that you were actually a little scared to throw Steve into. However, at this point, it had to happen. Mainly because you were already waving at him as he walked across the parking lot of your apartment building and headed toward you.

“I’m just now realizing that you’re probably gonna hate me for putting you through all of this tonight,” You said once Steve was close enough to you and started stepping through the door you pushed open for him. “Just remember that you wanted to come.” 

“Hello to you too,” He said as he started walking with you toward the elevators at the end of the hall. “How scary is this game night gonna be? Does the loser get murdered at the end or something?” 

“Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about the fifth roommate we had who was really terrible at charades so we had to sacrifice her. It was a whole thing. Don’t tell anyone, though,” You said and he let out a laugh at that. You shook your head after a second. “No, but things just get intense and stupidly competitive, so this might actually be the worst way for you to meet everyone.” 

“I can get really competitive too.”

You couldn’t entirely tell if he was joking or not, but you still nodded anyway. “Okay, in that case, you’ll fit right in.” 

“So, I know Eddie was fine with me coming,” Steve started as you two waited for the elevator; it would either take ten seconds to come or five minutes, somehow there was never any in-between. “But was everyone else?”

Surprisingly enough, Robin, Vickie, and Talia were actually completely okay with it— maybe even too okay with it. A part of you expected it to be the opposite because, even though it was never outwardly stated that game night was a “sacred” thing, it did feel like something that was meant just for the five of you. However, they wanted to meet Steve because it was unanimously agreed that you wanting to bring him to game night was a huge deal. 

“Yeah, they’re fine with it too. And they really want to meet you,” You answered, the elevator doors opening as you spoke. You both stepped in and you pressed “7” and then kept talking. “None of us ever want to bring other people to game night, so me asking you to come is kind of a big deal in their eyes.”

“Okay, that’s good. They believe we like each other.”

“Actually, since we’re seeing each other four days in a row now, they think we’re madly in love,” You told him with a laugh and roll of your eyes. You had to admit, though, if the tables were turned you would be thinking the exact same thing for any of them. 

“Honestly, that makes sense,” Steve responded. “I’ve never seen a girl I just met multiple days in a row, and I probably never would unless I was really into her.” 

“Or unless you want to fake date her.”

He laughed. “Yeah, that would also count.”  

The elevator ride was quick and it wasn’t until you and Steve were a few feet away from your apartment and moments away from stepping inside that you thought about something. 

You abruptly stopped walking and turned to look at him. “Shit, I should probably brief you on everyone so you can make a good impression or whatever. You obviously already know Eddie so I don’t need to tell you anything about him. But, anyway, Robin’s probably gonna be a little mean to you at first, but it’s only because she wants to play the “overprotective parent” role right now, not because she doesn’t like you. If she actually doesn’t like you she won’t talk to you for the rest of the night after the first conversation. And then Vickie—”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to do this,” Steve interrupted with a quick shake of his head. “I’m good at making people like me.” 

There was the smallest part of you that wanted to roll your eyes at him saying that, but instead, you simply nodded. “Okay, but just don’t be too charming and nice, I know they’ll definitely hate that.” 

He looked at you, confused. “They’ll hate it if I’m too nice?”

You nodded immediately. “Yes, because it’ll seem fake. Just be, like… averagely nice.”

“What does that even mean?” 

“Honestly, I don’t know,” You shrugged. “Just be normal, I guess.”

You stepped closer to the unlocked door, but before you pushed it open, you reached out to grab Steve’s hand and linked it with yours. You noticed him glance down at your now intertwined hands and then give you a look that you couldn’t decipher. 

“What?” You asked.

“You hated holding hands with me last night.”

“I was way too in my head then,” You told him. “I feel better about everything now. Kinda. And everyone already thinks we really like each other, so we need to look like it.” 

“So, you won’t cringe again if I put my arm around you?”

“Nope, we’re dating so I’d actually love it if you did that,” You told him and plastered on a sweet smile.

Steve laughed a bit. “I’ll keep that in mind.” 

“Also, I didn’t cringe when you did it last night. I was just surprised.” 

He gave you an amused look. “Okay, sure.” 

“And by the end of the night, I was much more okay and normal about it,” You added. 

Before he could potentially say anything in response to your words, you were putting an abrupt end to the conversation and finally opening the apartment door with your free hand. 

Everyone was still in the same spot that they had been in when you left to get Steve— settled in the living room on the small couch and loveseat, and a handful of board games scattered on the coffee table.

“Everyone, this is Steve,” You said, grabbing their collective attention and keeping the introduction as simple as possible. “Steve, this is everyone. Talia, Robin, and Vickie.” You pointed them out in that order and then you gestured to Eddie who was sitting on the couch next to Vickie. “And you already know Eddie.”

Quick “Hi’s” and “Hello’s” were said along with friendly smiles and Steve returned it all with a smile and “Hey, nice to meet you guys” of his own. It was a little hard to pretend that this didn’t feel entirely weird and out of place. The first time you were introducing your friends to a guy, and of course it was a guy that you were pretending to like and be with. And instead, the guy that you actually wanted to be with was only feet away and still felt entirely unattainable.

You were moments away from suddenly spiraling and overthinking everything that you were currently doing, but you didn’t get the chance to do so because Robin was standing up and joining you and Steve by the now shut front door.

“Can I steal him for a sec?”

You nodded as you dropped Steve’s hand. “Be nice, Rob.” 

She only smiled at you in response. 

You walked over to the couch, joining everyone else, and leaned against the arm of it. “Did you guys finally decide on what we’re playing first?” 

“We will be starting things off with a heated game of Pictionary,” Vickie answered.

“I personally wanted to play charades first, but I was sadly outvoted,” Talia told you. 

“I would’ve voted with you, Tal,” You said. 

She smiled at that and then looked at Eddie and Vickie. “Shall we do a revote?” 

Eddie shook his head, laughing a bit. “One vote won’t change the outcome.” 

“Exactly,” Vickie said with a nod.

“But,” Talia started. “Steve will probably also vote our way, for obvious reasons, and then it’ll be three against three.”

You turned your attention away from the brewing argument, which you knew would only be the first of many for the night, and looked at Robin and Steve. 

Apparently, Robin was done with doing the overprotective parent spiel because she was laughing and nodding at something Steve had said, and you truly wondered what they were talking about. Maybe he really wasn’t exaggerating when he said that he was good at making people like him. 

She said one final thing to him and then turned away, meeting your eyes and mouthing a “He’s cool” to you before taking her spot back next to Vickie on the couch. 

Instead of waving Steve over to where you were still leaning against the arm of the couch, you went over to him. You wanted to ask what Robin had just said to him— it was pretty clear that the short conversation went perfectly fine but you were still curious— but Steve spoke before you could. 

“It smells really good in here.” 

“Yeah, Talia made cinnamon rolls,” You said and gestured to where they sat in the kitchen, still cooling on the stove. “Definitely eat one later if you want an easy way for her to like you.” 

“Got it.”

“What did Robin say to you?” 

“I was told to never speak about any of what was said,” He told you, giving you a small teasing smile. “But, I’ll say that even though I’ve never seen The Godfather, that conversation is what I imagine that movie is like.”

“What? The Godfather? She was literally laughing and smiling.”

“That was way after she told me in a very serious voice that she’d castrate me if I ever hurt you,” He responded and then immediately rolled his eyes at himself when he realized that he accidentally just told you what was supposed to be “never spoken about.” “Shit.” 

You let out a laugh. “If this was a normal situation, I think my friend threatening to cut off your dick would’ve immediately scared you off.”

“Yes, it for sure would’ve, but good thing this isn’t a normal situation.”

“Great thing.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

For the first time probably ever, winning any game tonight wasn’t what was mainly on your mind. 

If this was any other game night, you would’ve joined in the argument about how the points were being stupidly disturbed during the Mario Kart tournament, or the one about Eddie and Talia accidentally, on purpose, going over the time during two of their rounds for charades, which they both vehemently denied even though the evidence was pretty clear.   

However, tonight, you were worried about other things. Worried about if you looked more comfortable with Steve than how you felt last night at the bar. If you looked like you were “madly in love” with him like everyone had playfully assumed you were. If any of what you two were doing even seemed believable to your friends. 

“Everything’s going fine,” Steve had assured you during the first brief “intermission” that happened after the final round of Pictionary. You two were grabbing cinnamon rolls in the kitchen, as per his request. You loved anything that Talia made, but you weren’t really in the mood to eat, so you just stood by as Steve ate his. “You’re thinking too much.”

“I keep forgetting that you’ve only known me for four days, but overthinking things is kind of my default setting,” You responded.

You broke his gaze and turned your head, immediately spotting Eddie across the room. He smiled at you when his eyes met yours and you instinctively smiled back and then just as quickly looked away because you were certain that your mind would head down another spiraling path if you looked at him any longer.

For the most part, though, you were still having fun. Kinda. 

After brutally losing at Pictionary, Steve was not lying when he said that he sucked at drawing, you and him were actually good at other stuff. Robin and Vickie won almost everything— whenever they paired up together on game nights they were always a pretty much unstoppable team— but you and Steve were at least able to come in second place for most of the games. 

He also wasn’t lying when he said that he was pretty competitive too. He fit in almost too perfectly with the chaotic energy of everyone else and it was surprising but also nice to see. It was probably the only part of the night that didn’t worry you. 

“You were right. Tonight went well,” You told Steve as you walked him to his car at the end of the night. The time was close to midnight, but it didn’t necessarily feel that late. “I think we’re actually pretty good at this.” 

“Games or fake dating?”

“Surprisingly both.” 

It was quiet for a second and then you were breaking the silence with something other than the “Bye” that probably should’ve been said. 

“I meant to ask this earlier, but have you told your parents about “us” yet?” 

“Not yet, but I’ll probably do it in a day or two. We don’t talk that often.”

“Okay, so I’ll hold off on stressing out about having to meet them,” You said, only slightly joking with your words. “Honestly, this entire night felt like you met my family.”

“Seriously?” He asked. 

You gave him a quick nod in response. “Yeah, I was pretty nervous about how all of this would go earlier.”

“So what would it feel like meeting your actual parents?” 

You thought about his question for a second, but you couldn’t think of a simple enough answer that would sum up every thought that suddenly came to mind.

“I don’t know, honestly,” You shrugged. You could’ve explained further— talked about how the relationships with your friends somehow made much more sense, and at times felt even more significant, than the relationships you had with your parents— but you didn’t want to say any of that right then, and Steve didn’t ask you to elaborate, so you didn’t. 

Another stretch of silence prevailed and if you really wanted to, you could’ve come up with something to say, but the conversation simply felt as if it was at its natural end.

You were suddenly realizing that you weren’t sure what you and Steve were aside from fake boyfriend and girlfriend. This didn’t necessarily feel like a friendship because you still felt as if you barely knew him, but the two of you definitely weren’t fully strangers anymore either. 

In the weirdest way what you two were doing felt equivalent to a group project; forced together for specific circumstances and once it was done that would be it.

“Okay… Well, see you later, partner,” You said before realizing that he didn’t know about the group project analogy that you just thought of.

Steve gave you an amused smile and nodded. “Yeah, see you later.”

You decided against watching him get in his car and drive away, and you instead rolled your eyes at yourself for letting things end on the weirdest note as you headed back into your building. You were a little tired, but any hint of it went away when you walked in the apartment and spotted Eddie in the kitchen, looking through the fridge. 

“I’m assuming everyone immediately went to bed,” You said as you joined him in the kitchen and grabbed the final cinnamon roll that was left. 

“Yup,” Eddie said, pulling out a water from the fridge and then closing it. “Somehow I don’t feel tired at all, though.” 

“We can watch a couple episodes of the show they watched Friday night if you want. Apparently, it’s absolutely terrible, but in a good way,” You suggested, not at all thinking about your class in the morning or needing to wake up at a decent time for it. “You’re staying over, right?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna be the fifth roommate for the night and camp out on the couch.”

“Okay, so it’s decided. Shitty reality TV until we fall asleep,” You said and he nodded in agreement. 

You both settled on the couch and Eddie was the one to grab the blanket that was draped against the back of the couch and toss it over your laps. The show was easy to make fun of and laugh at and barely thirty minutes into the first episode you completely understood why Robin, Vickie, and Talia had been obsessed with watching it. 

“So you really like Steve?” 

You were surprised by the randomness of Eddie’s question and for a second you thought that you somehow imagined it. 

“Yeah, um, I think so, yeah,” You answered after what you hoped didn’t feel like too long of a silence. “He’s really great.” 

“That’s cool,” Eddie responded, and you met his eyes then. He had a certain look on his face that you weren't able to decipher. For a moment, you thought it was jealousy, but you quickly thought against it when you remembered that this whole thing probably wasn’t going to be that easy.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

next part!

taglist (lmk if you want to be added or taken off<333); @eddiernunson , @loulouloueh , @the-aster , @blckburd , @totally-bogus-timelady , @yujyujj , @irhdifartzamfyaa , @mochminnie , @munsonssweets , @blckbrrybasket , @xprloki , @definitionwanderlust , @dwcode

[steddieas-shegoes]

i wanna be a good boy

for @subeddieweek day two with the prompts cockwarming and first times

rated e | 3,319 words | please check ao3 for tags

Day one:  ao3 | tumblr

⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕

One month.

One month was all it took for Eddie to fall entirely down the Steve rabbit hole.

They talked on the phone every night for a week after the school incident, and most of it wasn’t even dirty.

And then Steve showed up at his door, much to the shock and awe of Eddie himself, and they started hanging out. Like friends.

It was weird, even Wayne thought so, but Eddie was gonna keep this going for as long as he could get away with.

One day– a Friday, Eddie would never forget –Steve showed up at nearly ten at night, much later than usual. He hadn’t mentioned that he’d be by at all, even mentioned that he and Robin might hang out after their shift.

But there he was standing at Eddie’s door.

“Not that you’re not welcome, but uh, what are you doing here?” Eddie asked, standing at the door with his sweatpants on, torn up tank top hanging off of him in maybe the most unattractive way possible.

“Sorry, I can go. I just um, I had kind of a bad day? Just needed to-”

“Oh, you wanted weed? I just restocked, actually, even managed to grab a few edibles this time. Those are pretty rare for our neck of the woods, but I’ll slip you one for free if you promise not to tell anyone I pick favorites,” Eddie winked, backing up to let Steve in.

“No, uh, not weed. Is your uncle home? I didn’t see his truck,” Steve still stood at the door awkwardly, hands in his pockets.

“Nope, working a couple night shifts this week to cover for his buddy. They keep talkin’ about switching him to nights permanently, but hopefully he says no. He’s too old for that shit.”

Suddenly, his back met the wall behind him, shaking the mugs hanging up dangerously. The door slammed closed and Steve’s hands were on him again.

“Uh-”

“Remember how we talked about the things we were into? And you said you’d never gotten to try much?” Steve’s breath was hot against Eddie’s face.

Eddie’s dick was twitching in his pants as he nodded.

“Could we try something?”

“What-” Eddie swallowed. “What did you wanna try?”

“You remember when you said you wanted someone to use your mouth?”

Oh fuckin’ Christ.

He thought back to the conversation they’d had only a week before, high out of their minds, talking about their experiences and what they were into, what they thought they’d be into, what they weren’t into at all. It was enlightening, and Eddie had stripped his cock until he was numb after Steve went home.

He admitted to Steve that there was something special about knowing the person who is using you cares about you, that you’ve trusted this person enough to do whatever they want with you knowing that they would never go past your comfort zone on purpose. It wasn’t necessarily about getting off, or even getting the other person off, it was just about knowing he could make someone feel good, be useful, cherish someone in a physical way.

Steve didn’t have much to say to that, but did admit he’d always wondered if he’d be into cockwarming.

Eddie hadn’t stopped thinking about it since.

“I…do remember that, yes,” Eddie’s breath left him as Steve crowded him further against the wall, his arms resting on either side of Eddie’s head, boxing him in.

“You wanna try that with me?”

Yeah, obviously. Eddie dreamed about this, literally for years. Sucking on Steve’s dick until he couldn’t think of anything except the weight of it on his tongue? Sign him the fuck up.

But a small part of his brain still fought him on it, screaming that this was a bad idea, that nothing good could possibly come from being that vulnerable with someone he was pretty sure he was falling in love with.

“You can say no,” Steve backed away an inch or so, gave him room to breathe, to think, goddammit.

Eddie could say no. He could remember that this wasn’t a relationship, and probably never would be. They were friends, and Eddie’s unfortunate pining was not mutual.

Steve even said he’d had a bad day, probably just needed to let off some steam.

Eddie could help with that.

“No, we can do it. Stoplight system?” Eddie asked. God, he was gonna regret this.

“Yeah. One tap for green, two for yellow, three for red.”

Oh, yeah. He wouldn’t be able to talk with Steve’s dick in his mouth. Right.

“Where should we-” Eddie was nervous. His palms were sweaty, which was gross, and his heart was racing, which was probably close to a medical emergency.

“Where are you most comfortable, Eds?” Steve’s hands grasped his, sweat and all, and Eddie felt himself relax against the wall.

“My room.”

Steve’s lips brushed against his, reassuring in their silent strength. He led him down the short hallway to his bedroom, gently closing the door behind them.

Eddie let himself pretend that this was special, that this was only for them, that Steve never shared himself like this with anyone else. He’d feel the pain of the truth tomorrow, when the sun brought it along as it rose and Eddie woke up alone.

For now, he’d be here with Steve, making him feel good.

“On the bed or on your knees?” Steve asked, pushing his hair away from his face and holding his head steady so he couldn’t look away. Somehow, Steve already knew him well enough to know that facing these things head on was a difficult task. He wouldn’t let him run.

“Knees.”

If he was gonna have this, they should go all out.

Steve grabbed a pillow from Eddie’s bed, the one he always used when they were laying in it getting high together, and placed it on the floor. Eddie watched him unbutton his pants, no hint of shame or nerves.

Eddie felt like he was vibrating out of his skin, but Steve just seemed calm.

“I’m gonna sit here so we can find where it’s comfortable, okay?” Steve asked as he sat on the edge of Eddie’s bed, now naked from the waist down.

Eddie nodded, suddenly feeling shy. When had he ever been shy before?

“You’ve gotta use words, okay?”

“Sorry, yeah. That’s fine.”

“‘S fine.” Steve spread his legs so Eddie could kneel on the pillow between them. “Look at me.”

Fuck.

Eddie had sucked a dick before. On his knees even. But it was nothing like this, no one like Steve.

Steve was staring down at him with something similar to awe, and Eddie couldn’t handle it.

What right did Steve have to look at him like that, from his place above, ready to be worshiped by a person who never learned how to look up at a god for guidance? How could he look down at Eddie on his knees and see anything worthy?

He wouldn’t ask him, but he wondered.

He wondered how he’d crash back to earth after.

His cock was already hard, but there was no sense of urgency in the way Steve’s fingers scratched at his scalp. He wasn’t tugging him closer, wasn’t telling him to do anything.

He just watched and waited.

Eddie scooted in closer, not tearing his eyes from Steve’s, not wanting to lose this feeling yet.

He leaned in, bent over just enough at the waist to brush his lips against the tip of his cock, eyes still locked with Steve.

“You can taste, baby.”

Fuck, again.

The whimper that escaped him was muffled by his lips closing around the tip, tongue pressing against the precum trying to drip down his length.

He’d heard that Steve was confident, saw it firsthand in the school halls. He had no fucking clue that Steve could do this.

His hand in Eddie’s hair tightened, but he still didn’t tug or push him further down on his cock. His eyes closed for a moment as he moaned.

Eddie wanted to drink that sound, find a way to swallow it with his cum, make it a part of him a ls a reminder that he made Steve sound like that. Steve’s eyes blinked open, pupils blown and cheeks flushed a soft pink.

“Your mouth is perfect. So lucky you’re letting me have this,” Steve muttered, sounding damn near delusional.

Eddie knew he was pretty good at this, but he’d barely even gotten Steve in his mouth. He knew Steve had a bit of a dry spell recently, but this was being a little dramatic.

But he let the praise wash over him anyways, settling into the warmth spreading through his chest and stomach at the words.

“Take what you can but don’t suck. Just get used to it.” Steve was breathless as Eddie sunk further down.

He was big, but Eddie was already feeling a little cloudy, and he’d practiced on a lot of bananas back in the day, so he didn’t stop until his nose was nestled against his pubes.

Steve’s chest was rising and falling rapidly, his hand flexing against the bedsheet to keep from flexing in his hair.

Eddie swallowed. Steve groaned.

“Fuck, you’re so warm. Feel so good,” Steve looked down at him and smiled encouragingly. “You good? Need to move?”

Eddie tapped once on Steve’s thigh.

“Good. You’re doing so good. Just relax. I got you, baby,” Steve was barely speaking louder than a whisper, but the words sent vibrations through Eddie’s entire body.

He finally let his eyes close and let the thoughts fly away.

The only thing he could hear was the occasional intake of breath when Eddie swallowed around Steve’s cock. He didn’t do it as often as he probably should, but it was hard to remember to do it until the spit was dripping from his mouth and making a mess.

Steve kept a hand in his hair the entire time, sometimes just a calm reminder that he was there paying attention and sometimes to dig his nails in and remind him where he was. Despite how he felt, he was still on the floor of his bedroom, making sure Steve’s cock stayed hard and warm in his mouth.

He sometimes found the energy to swirl his tongue around the sides, cataloging the whines that left Steve’s lips when he did.

The world didn’t exist beyond the feeling of Steve’s cock on his tongue and the sounds Steve let out. Eddie slowly let his head fall to the side, resting on Steve’s thigh, only managing to keep half of Steve’s length inside when he did.

But Steve just pet his hair, traced his cheeks and lips, whispered that he was doing good.

Eddie drifted far, but Steve knew exactly when to pull him back.

“Hey, Eds,” he said softly. “Let’s give your mouth a rest, okay?”

Steve’s hand gently pulled Eddie’s head away, a quiet popping noise making it obvious when Steve’s cock fell from his lips.

He whined and pushed forward, trying to get it back in his mouth. He didn’t wanna be done. He liked floating here with Steve.

“I know, baby. You did so good. But it’s time to take a break.” Steve’s thumb rubbed against his cheek, pausing at the corner of his mouth before pushing in. Eddie moaned, sucking it further in so he didn’t feel so empty. “If you’re good, I’ll fuck your face and come in your mouth.”

Well, Eddie could be good if that was the reward.

Steve pulled his thumb from his mouth and rested his hand against his cheek.

He watched as Eddie slowly came back to himself, to the world around them, to Steve.

“Hey, Eds,” soft, fond, too much for Eddie.

“Hey, Stevie,” too in love, too infatuated, too obsessed.

“Color?”

“Green.”

“Good.” Steve’s smile was distracting, and Eddie couldn’t look away even if he wanted to. An explosion could happen behind him and he’d still only have eyes for Steve. “Can I get my mouth on you?”

Wait.

What?

Steve wanted…he…what?

“It’s okay to say no, Eddie. It just looks like you could use it,” Steve glanced down at Eddie’s lap. Eddie lifted his head from Steve’s thigh to see what he meant and was actually surprised to see his own cock tenting his pants, a dark wet spot making it very obvious how much he’d been leaking. “I can take care of you. You earned it, Eds.”

See, the thing is, no one had ever sucked Eddie’s dick. Not a single person he’d fooled around with had returned the favor because they were “in a rush” or it “wasn’t the dom’s job.” Eddie wasn’t stupid; He knew those were just excuses for them to get off and run.

But Steve Harrington of all people offering to suck him off. What fucking universe was he living in?

“No, I-” Eddie was gonna just have to admit it. “No one’s ever done that for me. So it may be over quick.”

Steve’s eyes widened. “No one? But you said- you’ve done some of this stuff before.”

“Yeah, yeah. But like, only giving, never receiving? I mean one handjob in a bathroom stall once, but the guy didn’t even spit in his hand first. I like pain, but that was…not the best.” Eddie scrunched up his nose at the reminder of the sensitivity he felt for two days after that. Hopefully the guy learned some basic manners for the next poor guy he got his hand on. “I don’t wanna disappoint you.”

The floating sensation he’d had was mostly gone now, replaced with nerves and an overwhelming need to please Steve.

“You wouldn’t. The only thing that would disappoint me is if I didn’t make you feel good.” Steve turned Eddie’s face back up towards him. “I don’t care if it takes five seconds or five hours. I wanna make you come.”

Eddie should actually say no. This would be the final nail in the coffin, he could tell. If Steve got his mouth on him, no one else would ever live up to it, and since he could never keep Steve permanently, he should say no.

“Okay.”

Steve’s face lights up, his grin contagious as Eddie smiles back at him.

“Get on the bed,” Steve orders, though the smile stops him from sounding demanding. “Make yourself comfy.”

Of all the times Eddie had pictured Steve in his bed, it was not like this. He’d always pictured himself being thrown around, fucked until he was begging to stop from oversensitivity, riding Steve until his legs were shaking too much to keep going. He’d pictured waking up to Steve entering his still stretched hole, after hours of being fucked the night before.

He’d never pictured having Steve’s mouth on him, hadn’t dared to.

Eddie did what Steve asked, keeping himself near the center of the bed so Steve had plenty of room.

Steve leaned over him, covering his entire body, his chest hair brushing against Eddie’s and making goosebumps appear across his skin. It was already too much, even without pressure on his cock.

Lips against his neck, teeth biting into his skin with just enough pressure to leave marks. Hands sliding down his sides and pulling his sweats off his hips. A groan as Steve took in Eddie’s length as it twitched against his stomach.

“You’re perfect.”

The words sunk deep into Eddie’s brain, making a home there for him to find comfort during the times when he forgot that he was good.

Steve’s lips trailed down his chest. He didn’t move slowly, probably could guess that Eddie was too close for teasing or taking his time with him.

“You can come whenever you want, okay? Don’t wait for permission. This is your permission.”

God, this was gonna be so embarrassing. Hopefully, Steve meant what he said.

And if he didn’t, hopefully he at least had the decency to not make fun of him.

Steve nipped at his hip, pressing small kisses across his stomach before licking at his tip.

Eddie’s thighs tensed and his hands gripped the sheets under him.

Just breathe.

Steve’s hands pushed his legs further apart, as far as they would go with his sweats still half on.

Eddie knew he was good at giving head. There were few things he was confident about, but that was one of them. That, and his guitar playing.

But Steve was incredible.

He was born for this.

He knew exactly how to swirl his tongue, exactly how much to suck before taking more.

When he moaned with Eddie halfway down his throat, it was over.

It was a damn shame, too. Eddie wanted to experience hours of this.

But it felt too good and Steve did tell him to come as soon as he needed to.

Steve didn’t even choke when he came down his throat, just moaned again and swallowed it.

Eddie did his best not to buck his hips up, but he was only human, and Steve was still sucking well past the point of his orgasm being over. He was sensitive, okay?

Finally, when Eddie managed to get a hand in Steve’s hair and tug gently, he let Eddie’s softening cock fall from his mouth as he looked up grinning.

“Was that okay?” he had the audacity to ask, as if he hadn’t just sucked the soul out of Eddie’s cock.

“No, it sucked,” Eddie deadpanned, surprisingly breathless still.

“Ha.” Steve moved back up his body, covering him. “But seriously. Was it good?”

“Stevie, I have absolutely nothing to compare it to except fantasies and you outdid those. So yeah. I’d say it was good,” Eddie closed his eyes, smiling to himself as he felt Steve’s weight press on him from above.

Lips brushed against his forehead and then Steve’s weight was gone.

“No, come back,” Eddie opened his eyes and reached his hands out, searching for Steve’s skin.

“I’m just grabbing you a drink, Eds.”

A drink? Eddie didn’t need a drink.

Well, maybe he did. His throat was a little scratchy, and he felt a bit lightheaded.

Steve was back before he could do a full evaluation on his body’s needs, glass of water in hand.

He couldn’t help the ogling, and he wouldn’t deny that’s what he was doing if asked.

Steve was still hard, cock straining against his underwear. Eddie should do something about that.

“Will you fuck my face?” He asked before he even took a sip of the water Steve handed him.

“Maybe if you drink all of that water,” Steve slid into bed next to him, turning on his side as he watched Eddie take a few sips. “Don’t want you to drop.”

“I won’t. I’m good,” Eddie was not too good for begging, especially not when he still felt tingles up and down his spine as Steve kept his eyes on him.

“I know you’re good, but doing too much at once can hurt you so we’re gonna take a minute.”

He knew Steve was right, but he felt better than ever. He was ready.

He still didn’t argue, knew better than to risk Steve saying no altogether.

Steve held the water as Eddie settled further into the sheets, moving the pillow so his head was resting against it, but still sitting up enough to avoid falling asleep.

Or so he thought.

The moment his head hit the pillow, his eyes felt heavy.

Steve’s voice was distant as he asked if he was okay.

“Jus’ restin’ my eyes,” Eddie mumbled.

“Sounds good, baby.”

If Eddie were more awake, he probably would have heard the smirk in Steve’s tone, maybe would’ve realized that Steve was aware he was losing a battle he didn’t even know he was fighting.

He slipped into unconsciousness with Steve’s fingers in his hair and his warmth in his bed.

Day three: ao3 | tumblr

[lovelyladyabsinthewrites]

Um, if you’re taking Twilight requests, what about Edward lying about being a virgin and having never loved anyone before Bella? A past vampire lover shows up out of the blue and is upset that Edward has moved on? Maybe they separated because she didn’t want to do the vegetarian diet? But then she changed her mind because she was lonely and missed Edward. So she shows up asking the Cullens to let her join and teach her the diet in the hopes she and Edward can get back together. Carlisle can’t turn her away (maybe he turned her after Edward) and so she stays but it’s awkward for everyone. So you have this love triangle with the ex, Edward, and Bella. But Bella also still has her thing with Jacob lol. So it’s kind of a love square. And Bella feels insecure about this new woman showing up and it puts a strain on the relationship with Edward and the Cullens.

I just find it hard to believe Edward didn’t have an interest in anyone at all in 80+ years after being turned. It would really suck being the only single in a house of couples.

Pairing(s): Edward Cullen x Vampire!Reader, Edward Cullen x Bella Swan, Jacob Black x Bella Swan

Warnings: love square, mentions of blood (human and animal), hurt feelings, cheating?, longing, both bella and edward are sexually frustrated lol, past relationships mentioned, might be a two parter 🤷🏽‍♀️

Words: 2761

He can't help but think of her when the smell of jasmine filled the air. Bringing him back to a moment in time that he saved specifically to reminisce on when Edward found himself alone. He could practically feel the gentle breeze tousle his bronze hair. Her laugh ringing in his ears as clear as church bells. The only thing that ruined the memory was recalling the smear of red on her smiling face. Red of human blood.

Pulling himself out of his revery, Edward realizes that he'd been sitting at the piano for a possible hour, staring off as he dissociated. He hadn't thought of her in a while.

Must have to do with Bella's new perfume. It reminds him of-

The pinging of his phone has him sharply inhaling, abruptly remembering the physical world he's almost rudely thrown out of his own mind.

Bella's name shows up on his screen. That's right, he's supposed to be picking her up for a date in five minutes.

Edward scratches his head, pondering how long he'd exactly been there.

Quickly dashing to his keys, Edward is out the door in seconds. Dwelling in the past served him no purpose. His life was finally starting to move forward.

Well, there were a few halts along the way. Mainly one that went by the name of Jacob Black. A massive thorn in his side.

Damn it all that Bella even reciprocated the mongrel's feelings, despite her protesting. No doubt Bella loved Edward, that still didn't mean she didn't love Jacob too.

Perhaps that was why he was thinking so much about her as of late.

The lights in your hotel room are all turned off. Didn't matter if they were on. Your vision was clear either way as they watched the subtle movement of shadows cast by what little light streamed in through the blinds.

Your dinner lay still on the bed next to you. Nutrients drained from it. Usually you tried not to make a mess when you ate. If you had enough time in the day (also if your prey was easy on the eyes) you'd work on a way not to kill them. Only take a bit of their blood then dash off while they slept. Nothing too gruesome, though they probably question the healing slit on their wrist when they awoke the next morning.

Tonight, unfortunately, took a different tone. An atypical type of desperation filled you to the brim, screaming at you to consume every part of the man who you had your teeth sunk in. You wanted to rip him to shreds and actually eat the meat that clung to his bones. It terrified even you.

You sigh and finally withdrew yourself to the bathroom. There was work to be done. The blood on your face dried a long time ago.

What were you even doing with your immortal life?

Day in, day out, everything felt the same. Especially the gaping loneliness you'd been feeling.

In your beginning days of immortality, you'd quite enjoyed it. You discovered all sorts of new things you could do with your powerful new body. And you liked discovering them with Edward.

Back then it was just the four of you for the longest time: you, Edward, Carlisle and shortly after Esme. Then you and Edward went off together on your own for a couple of years.

You wished you and Edward had never strayed from Carlisle. At the end of it, you realized that you didn't want to go back. You wanted to feast on human blood and not shy away your power.

Young and dumb, that's what you thought of your past self now. Decades later and you were now seeing the repercussions of your actions come to light.

You missed having a mate to travel the world with. Someone to turn to late at night to keep you company. You miss Edward's gentle caresses that coaxed your attention his way.

The blood of humans wasn't worth it anymore.

Losing track of how many years it had been since you checked your private PO box, you honestly weren't anticipating anything. The only one who knew about it was Carlisle. He'd begged for some form of contact information before you split from his coven. Fatherly responsibility was the root of it. His second vampiric creation.

A part of you is delighted to find two slim envelopes collecting dust. The first one was dated over a decade ago. They'd been in Alaska apparently and met other vegetarian vampires. Most recent one only several weeks old. In this one he gave you an exact address in Washington.

You stare at Carlisle's hand writing. Getting choked up, you put the letters in your bag. It was quite the journey you had ahead of you to get to Forks.

In the blink of an eye, Edward leaps away from Bella at the feel of her fingers digging into his shirt in an attempt to deepen the kiss. They'd been playing this push and pull game for some time now.

"Bella-" He sighs in exasperation and runs a hand through his tousled hair.

Bella's brows furrow in return, a pout rising on her lips as she sits back on her bed again but at a distance. She'd heard him repeat himself so many times about being careful with her. How she's so fragile compared to him. Like she didn't already know of her delicate mortal body. Just a few months ago James nearly broke every bone in her body.

"I know!" She hadn't meant to sharply snap at him. Edward was just trying to protect her like he always did. A steady exhale flares through her nose as she rests her head against the back board of her bed. He constantly left her craving more of his touch.

Like any man, Edward desired physical contact. With Bella that desire was too much. Too dangerous. The forbidden fruit that Edward must resist by any and all costs.

The first and last girl he'd taken to bed was. . .

What he could never tell Bella was that he wasn't a virgin like he had told her. After all, he had been alive for decades. Being a virgin for that long was implausible.

He traced where the golden rays of the sun hit your skin. In the presence of light, your skin reflects like a million sparkling stars. You're trying to fix the headboard of your bed that both of you broke during your love making.

"We can just buy a new one." Edward chuckles, his fingers run up your bare spine causing you to shiver. The headboard wasn't the only thing both of you accidentally demolished. Bedsheets were torn to shreds, feathers from the pillows dusted your hair, even the mattress creaked ominously.

Your brows are creased in a small pout. "I hope this doesn't happen every time we have sex."

At your words, Edward felt something in his stomach unfurl and warm. Happy to hear that this wouldn't be the last time he got to touch you.

When you catch him staring, your frown turns up into a coy smile. "What're you looking at?"

"You."

"Obviously. But why?" You ask that like you weren't still naked as the day you were born.

He coaxes you back into his arms, little resistance from your part as you rest your head against his chest. "Because you're painfully beautiful."

Edward wasn't just buttering you up. When he said that, there was undeniable warmth and adoration that dripped from his tone. He was smitten. You'd never had any man regard you in such a way that made you feel vulnerable. You trusted Edward with your most vulnerable self.

He smirks when he reads your thoughts. Gently, he tilts your head back so that he can capture your lips.

After you, Edward thought he'd never fall in love again. Not as intensely as he had with you.

Bella came extremely close. But because she was human, Edward was limited in how he can show his affection. Even holding her hand, Edward had to reign in his supernatural strength. The slightest amount of his real strength could break her entire hand.

Without reading her thoughts, he could feel her annoyance and frustration. She desperately wanted to take things to the next level like any healthy teenager would. Bella desired to experience the physical aspects of their relationship. Were he human or even like Jacob. . . Edward would be more than happy to let himself fall into his temptations.

That just wasn't so.

The drive back home was a silent one as Bella stared out the window. As of late her attempts to get intimate in him were becoming more and more frequent. Along with her desire for Edward to change her into a vampire. He didn't want to change her just because it would make their relationship easier. That was still a last case scenario that he kept in the back of his mind. She didn't view her humanity the way Edward and his family did. It wasn't something to carelessly throw away. None of them had a choice in the matter. All were on the brink of death when Carlisle turned them. They would not have willingly given up their mortality.

Edward tried multiple times to convey this to Bella. It would go in one ear and out the other. Normally Edward didn't mind stubborn women. You were as stubborn as a bull during arguments. The two of you literally butting heads to get your point across. Those arguments never mattered in the end. There'd only been one argument that truly tore the two of you apart. Your very last argument.

Getting within a five mile radius of the Cullen house, Edward nearly slams the brakes of the car when he listens to the minds of those in the house. One whom he couldn't quite believe he was hearing.

Bella felt the swerving of the car. She glances at Edward with concern. "A-Are you okay?"

His grip tightened on the wheel, the flimsy material bends under his fingers.

He was hearing YOUR thoughts.

Esme refused to let you out of her hug.

Helplessly, you glance around the room; your gaze landing on a smiling Carlisle.

"Welcome home." His smile is heard in his words.

Finally Esme pulls back, her hands flying to your face to turn it this way and that. "Have you been eating enough? Oh look at your clothes. Alice, can you get her some new clothes?" You notice how her face flinches with nervousness when her gold eyes meet your red ones.

"I'm fine, Esme." You giggle and lower her hands away from your face to give them a reassuring squeeze.

"Clearly. Look at her eyes. She's been feeding on human blood." Rosalie needlessly points out. Yeah, you didn't really miss her. You had no idea what her mate saw in her besides the pretty face. Emmett was a bear of a man with the personality of a stuffed animal. You hadn't yet met Alice, Jasper or Emmett. When you left it was only Carlisle, Edward, Esme, Rosalie and you.

"I know that'll have to change if I want to live here again." You murmur defensively. "I'm ready now. Human blood isn't worth being alone anymore."

Esme's smile beams and once again she smothers you in a bear hug.

"Esme, give her some space. We don't want to scare her off." Carlisle pats his wife on her shoulder. Even Carlisle couldn't stop smiling. He'd sent that letter so long ago that he doubted you'd even read it.

"By the way. . . Where's Edward?" You curiously ask. Everyone appeared to be home except the one face you really wanted to see.

Instantly the room goes deadly silent.

"What?"

Carlisle grimaces and glances at his wife who was equally unsure of how to tell you. "There's something you need to know."

Your eyebrow quirks up. "Oh?"

He couldn't continue. The door swings open. No one had heard the sound of Edward's car entering the driveway or heard his hurried steps up the porch.

When the two of you lock eyes, the rigidness of his frame slackens and his honey eyes glisten with that same fondness he'd always had for you. He breathes out your name like it's a sacred phrase. You were even more beautiful to him standing there than the day he'd lost you.

You feel it to. That instant pull of your heart as it attempts to escape from your chest to jump at Edward. Your entire body vibrates with the intense urge to be close to him.

You would have run to him. Had it not been for the human girl at his side.

The rose tint your world had taken on faded in that moment to reveal the drabness of this brunette that stuck to his side. Her own brown eyes wavering in your presence.

Now highly conscious of Bella's existence next to him, Edward hastily makes introductions. "Um, Bella, this is (y/n). (y/n), this is. . . Bella."

Alice groans. "Way to go Ed."

"What's going on?" Timidly asked Bella who was still staring at you. She didn't like the way you and Edward had stared at one another like star-crossed lovers come together again. Bella hated how he'd said your name with such veneration. For so long Bella possessed Edward's sole attention. She was loathe to relinquish any of it.

Jasper and Emmett averted their eyes from the train wreck that was occurring.

Being blunt as usual, Rosalie steps in. "They used to date too."

Bella's eyes widen and with an expression of betrayal flicks to Edward. "Date?"

"Well, probably more than simple dating from the sounds that would come out of their room." Rosalie's tone was that of boredom. This was old news to her but new news to Bella. News that shattered her perception of everything around her.

"Rosalie!" Edward snaps at her.

She rolls her eyes. "Everyone was taking way too damn long in saying anything. What? Doesn't Bella deserve to know?" Rosalie looks at you while pointing a finger between Edward and Bella. "They're dating now."

"Yeah, I kinda got that." You glare at the blonde who was unaffected by the daggers thrown at her. Really, you were angry with the human girl. A human with the man you'd called your mate for so long. Jealousy licks the walls of your stomach like white hot flames.

Edward stands in front of Bella. "You're the one who left me." He whispers but everyone can hear it.

Bristling, you turn your back on the two and back to your adoptive father. "Where did you say my room was?"

"You told me you never had sex before!!" Bella can't help the shaky quality of her voice. Anger and hurt overwhelmed her. Tears bubble along her lower lashes. She keeps as far away from Edward as possible. "What else haven't you told me? O-Or lied to me about?"

"Bella-"

"And you still love her! No! Don't try to deny it. I heard you say her name when you first saw her. Everyone did Edward!" Maybe that was the worst part of it. That Edward still held a flame for you. She had so many questions. How long was it after their separation did Edward meet Bella? Why weren't they still together? Clearly you were staying if you'd asked Carlisle where your room was. For how long?

Did you intend to take Edward from her? Would you hurt her?

"I shouldn't have lied to you. I'm sorry, Bella." And he was. Edward never thought you'd come back to him after all those years apart. Boy he was royally fucked though.

Because he was still in love with you. That much was evident. The knowledge of you being just down the hall was driving him crazy. Something deep inside of him was begging to be with you.

Meanwhile on your end of the hallway, you're doing the best you can to not break everything in your room. He was right. Damnit he was right. You were the one to leave. Unable to accommodate to the vegetarian lifestyle. You gave up Edward for the high that human blood offered you. It would be unfair to expect Edward to pine for you. You should've taken into thought that maybe he'd moved on.

The backs of your eyes burned with the urge to cry. Unable to produce tears, all you can do is wrap yourself in blankets and let the dark swallow you whole.

[chipified]

Avatar hcs

Spoilers for the reckoning of Roku, the kyoshi novels and the yangchen novels. Note I still need to finish Rokus and kyoshi's books

Korra

• Korra has broken her fingers many, many times

• Her eyes are so bright and eye-catching. People stare at them a lot.

• She could pull so easily. She's great at flirting (usually) But she doesn't because she's loyal to asami

• Sure she was showing growth when she spared kuvira but she does NOT like her. Kuvira pisses her off

• Luckily she's able to make up for her lack of experience in the real world with how social she is but she is clueless about slang and she never understands references

• Jokes fly right over her head

• All of the krew has such a shitty sense of humour they laugh at the dumbest things

• Goes through like 12 hairstyle phases. She loves mixing it up

• Stubborn as hell she stood by the spirit portal decision for he entire life and death

• A really talented bender. In her spare time she attempts to recreate the feats of her past lives

• Bias towards kuruk. She thinks he looked very cool and admired his skills

Aang

• Being vegetarian spared him from the knowledge that he is allergic to shellfish

• Sokka and toph teased him about his first flirting attempts on katara until the day he died

• His death was really unexpected. He was mostly fine leading up to it. Noone could really figure out what killed him at first, it was ultimately just him overworking himself too much

• Not a fan of the spirit world. He avoids it where he can

• Koh the face stealer scared him senseless actually no matter what he says

• He was always really busy with his duties but he did try to spend as much time with his children as he could

• Was super doting on katara while she was pregnant

• Tried a long bearded look for a while. It looked awful and toph clowned on him so hard. So did his kids

• Admired Yangchen and Roku so much. Kyoshi freaked him out as a kid

Roku

• Those first few months of travelling with the air nomads sucked ass. He was constantly covered in mud, his hair was knotted and he STANK oh my god he missed home so bad

• Actually pretty clumsy. Even when he was old he would trip over his own feet all the time. Dislocated his hip once

• A pushover. Sozin would take his snacks and drag him places as small children and he'd just take it

• Sozin had no faith in his avatarhood

• Politics were a nightmare for him in his late teens and twenties because of how awkward he was. He grew into his own though and ended up decently good at negotiating.

• Has freckles, but they only show up at the height of summer

• He doesn't tan he goes red

• Low self esteem, he thinks everything he does is embarrassing

• Collected seashells. Both because he wanted to try and get reacquainted with the ocean and because he thought they were pretty

• Shortly after Yasu died, he was so petrified of water he could barely bathe. He was very traumatised for a long while

• His own safety wasn't much of a priority. Guilt consumed him, so he didn't care what happened to him, as long as the people he was close to were safe

Kyoshi

• Thank god for airbending because she is intensely affected by the cold

• Her Hands are always slightly shaky, so applying her makeup can be so annoying sometimes

• Politics bored her to death

• Queen of “this could've been an email”

Uses her height to her advantage as much as she can. It's just easier and leads to less violence

• Very kind to young children

• She doesn't mean to be harsh or rude, she's just very blunt and has a flat tone

• She got very sick very easily as a kid. If kelsang hadn't found her she probably wouldn't have lived much longer

• Insecure about her appearance. Rangi spent years convincing her she wasn't ugly

• She saw a lot of her younger self in Roku. It made her uncomfortable

Kuruk

• Hopeless romantic. Loves poetry, songwriting and those partner dances. You know damn well he took ummi on as many dates as he possibly could

• Self reliant. Asking for help with anything becomes harder and harder as he grows older (“older”). Even basic stuff like asking someone to help him carry stuff

• His parents were disappointed in him. In their eyes they raised the only avatar in recent history who just didn't do his job

• They both outlived him

• He was fantastic at bending though, he could pull of some tricks that not even his teachers could

• He should've been at the club bro!! House parties would've been his shit!! He would've eaten at karaoke

• As much as he drank he still despised the taste of vodka

• Wanted to be a father. But that didn't work out

• Trust issues

Yangchen

• Her hair started going grey pretty early into her life. She was crazy stressed

• Rip yangchen you would've loved weed

• She did not celebrate the day Chaisee died because that would be disrespectful. So kavik did it for her amen

• Really enjoyed sports. Would've killed it at baseball

• She doesn't like watching the lives of the future avatars until they hit like 25 they stress her out so hard when they're young

• One of the few team avatars to stick together for life and not retire at any point. All of them worked until they were forced to stop

• Infertile

• Tries to visit her sister in the spirit fog sometimes but can't bring herself to go in again. She stops doing this eventually

• Kavik cuts her hair. He's weirdly good at it. In return she brings him trinkets she finds in all the places she visits

• Yingsu and her have spa days together

• Her sanity was hanging on by a thread during Legacy. She was so close to crashing out

• The past lives “possessing” her was an issue her whole life, exacerbated in times of stress. Neither she or her past lives could control it. It just happened when it happened

Wan

• Realistically he knew that he couldn't just fix all the world's problems in his lifetime alone, but god he did not want to die the way he did. He really wanted a peaceful death

• The armour he was wearing when he died was slowly gathered up over the years from battlefields and things he just found on the ground

• His avatar state was slightly different from his incarnations. Since it wasn't something he was born with, it caused some issues. For example, his vision was very poor when he died

• Felt really bad about the impact he had on the other avatars lives.

• Super bored all the time. He's seen everything there is to see at this point

• Wan and raava are super comfortable they know literally everything about each other

• Never had a lover. It just didn't interest him at all. The following avatar just ended up looking similarly to him (Alternatively- he had a bad breakup with a guy and that is why none of the future avatars date men/j)

• Wan and Jaya (his friend that died fighting spirits) built the treehouse they lived in together. Yao (tree-sprit guy) met them a little later. They formed their own little family after being shunned by everyone else

• Yangchens life was his favourite to watch. Aang's life was his least favourite.

• Korra was the only one he went out of his way to speak to. He hasn't been summoned for at least a few thousand years and he just prefers to let them make their own decisions

[stars-tonight]

100 REASONS

tw: depressed!reader

he sees your struggle.

he sees the bags under your eyes, which themselves are swollen and puffy from crying. he sees you zone out in class, head propped up on your hand as you gaze out the window. you seem so at peace, so tranquil, but occasionally you’ll frown and crease your eyebrows, and a look of pain crosses your face. he wants to wipe it away, to hug you and hold you until your worries go out the door. but he doesn’t know how to approach you. you’ve never really talked to each other, but he’s noticed you a long time ago. he doesn’t like thinking of you being sad, but reality often sucks. and here you are in front of him, fading away, and he can’t seem to do anything about it.

fine, he decides. if i can’t comfort them through words or touch, i’ll do it through action. 

the next day when you come into school, there’s a glass jar on your desk. [y/n], reads a sticker carefully pasted across the front. you study it warily before taking it into your hands as you sit down. inside is a bunch of folded paper cranes. you take one curiously--you’ve never been very good at origami--and study it. it’s folded carefully; you can tell a lot of effort went into making it. you smile a little, and you’re about to put it down when you notice something on the inside. it looks like a pen mark, so you hesitantly unfold the paper crane.

9. your eyes are so pretty.

you frown at the note. it’s written neatly, in black pen. you unfold another one: 84. i love your laugh.

your heart skips a beat. the teacher comes in and starts class, and you hastily shove both pieces of unfolded paper into your folder, carefully tucking the jar into your backpack.

you finish reading all the papers when you get home. there are a hundred in total, each with a little note for you. they range from you are so smart to you always help others without asking for anything in return. with each one you read, your heart feels a little lighter. you don’t know who could be so kind to make this for you, but they must have seen that you weren’t doing so good. you feel like crying. you didn’t think anyone cared about you enough to notice you were struggling, let alone do something about it to make you feel better.

there’s an actual note, folded into a square, thrown into the jar too. [y/n], it reads. i couldn’t help but notice that these last few days, you seemed really tired. take a break, okay? eat good food, go for a walk, listen to your favorite music. take a long shower, play with a pet, read your favorite book. do all the things that make you happy. it will be okay. forgive me for being too scared to tell you this face-to-face, but everything i want to say i’ve written in these paper cranes. take one out any time you’re feeling sad and read it. together, they make up a hundred reasons why i love you. and remember you are not alone. whenever you’re feeling like you’re alone in this big, cruel world, remember that there’s a boy, just a dumb, lovesick boy, who knows and loves you.

the next day, he sees you come into the classroom looking considerably happier. he can’t help but smile seeing you happy. if his gift cheered you up even a little, it was all worth it. do you know it was him who spent all night folding those paper cranes for you? probably not. does he care?

definitely not.

SUNA RINTARŌ, AKAASHI KEIJI, kita shinsuke, SUGAWARA KŌSHI, iwaizumi hajime, miya osamu, YAMAGUCHI TADASHI, AZUMANE ASAHI

A/N: not doing so hot so i’m writing this when i should be studying for an anatomy quiz

update: by the time i posted this i'm back home after school; i think the quiz went well lol

[miraclewoozi]

HIGH FIDELITY, PT 2. -c.hs

getting back on the horse is hard, and failing to hit it off with the cute gamer guy you went for a drink with last night has the potential to be your love life’s last straw. but when up and coming rockstar VERNON unexpectedly canters into your life, you find yourself asking one very important question: do you have it in you to saddle up, one more time?

( PART ONE )

pair ; vernon x fem!reader.  content ; strangers to lovers.  up-and-coming musician!vernon x record store owner!reader.   fluff, angst, smut. (MINORS DNI). warnings ; drinking + alcohol is a big theme pretty much throughout. mentions of past relationship breakdowns. reader experiences a lot of stress, anxiety and feelings of doubt, reflected in self sabotage. mentions of sickness (acute). wc ; 12.2k ( ~38k total. ) disclaimer ; this fic was inspired by rob + liam in the series high fidelity and is therefore pretty influenced by the show. if you’ve watched it, you’ll probably see a lot of similarities! i just felt so drawn to vernon in this kind of role that i really wanted to try and put a spin on it. i do not claim that every idea behind this is original. notes ; been working on this one for a while. hope you enjoy it.<3

smut tags : making out. some groping. some 'first time together' shenanigans. oral (m rec) & ball sucking hehe. he has a big cock because i have an agenda to push. implied f rec oral. implied multiple rounds. PLEASE let me know if i’ve forgotten anything.

The clock on your bedside table reads somewhere between 4:00 and 5:00 in the morning when you resign from trying to fall asleep and force yourself to sit upright, fed up of tossing and turning between your now too-creased sheets, brain stuck in a foggy, hellish limbo. Your mind won’t shut down. Your body won’t rest. Birds are starting to chirp outside and you can hear them clear as whistles through the cheap window that doesn’t quite seal shut to your left. Your eyes squint in preparation as you reach for your lamp and flood the room in yellowish light, drawing your knees up to your chest. 

You’ve spent so much time in your own thoughts that you’ve begun to feel systemically unwell. Your stomach twists and aches, your eyes are so dry it hurts to even blink and there’s an ache behind them that started as an annoying throb, but has grown over the hours into a roaring flame. From the hairs on your head all the way down to your toes, you feel like you could burst. 

You wish you had it in you to cry. To let it out. Keeping this pent up is no doubt making you feel a hundred times worse, and you think it would be nice to feel something other than the endless swooping of the spiral you’re well and truly making your way down. Your alarms are going to go off in a few hours. I can’t let anyone see me like this, you think. I can’t work in this state. 

You throw ideas around in your head for a little while, thumbs tweaking over your phone as messages get typed, edited, deleted, and repeat. Part of you thinks maybe you could manage. Just tough it out and put on a brave face, because actually, what right do you have to be hiding away when you’re the one who ran out one of the nicest guys you’ve ever met? But you just know something will go wrong, even if you tell the boys that you need to camp out in the office for the day. When you need peace and quiet, you can never find it behind that creaky old door. When was the last time you got a full admin day without being called through to help with a problem or deal with a drama? And truly, the idea of facing the world right now makes you feel like you could be sick. 

Sick…

Could you—?

You’ve never enjoyed taking sick days, even on occasions where you’ve really needed them, when you’ve woken up feeling like you’re knocking at death’s door. Sometimes, you swear the guilt that it brings ends up making you feel ten times worse than whatever your ailment is doing to you in the first place. But your exhaustion lets impulse take hold and you’re already sending a message into your group chat with the boys before you can talk yourself out of it, biting the inside of your cheek as the little indicator pops up on your screen. Delivered. 

Well. You’re committed now, whether you like it or not. 

Not feeling so hot. I won’t be in today. Take it easy, I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Sorry. 

You pick your comforter up off the bed and wrap it around your shoulders like an extravagant, well-padded cape, trudging your way through the apartment until you’re stood, barefoot and cold, staring into the bright light of your refrigerator. Somehow in the seconds between pulling the handle and now, you’ve managed to forget what is what that you were hoping to find. More out of spite for how the bulbs are currently bleaching your retinas than because you want it, you pull the milk from its home in the cradle of the door and fix yourself a glass to take with you and put it on the coffee table back in your living room.

Without an ounce of grace, you throw yourself onto your couch: your head rests against the arm of the seat like you’re in the apartment of a sketchy therapist, and you’re wrapped up in your duvet as if it’s a sleeping bag, treating yourself to the luxury of a slightly different ceiling pattern to stare up at. And it could be the change of the room that finally manages to drag you under, or it could be the total fatigue of the emotional rollercoaster that has been your last twenty four hours…

But your glass of milk goes completely untouched as you eventually drift off, either way. 

Of course, it’s not for nearly long enough. Barely an hour after finally managing to fall asleep, your phone starts to vibrate harshly against your chest. You tap at the screen blindly, hoping to shut off what you assume is your alarm; when it’s still buzzing a few seconds later, you reluctantly open your eyes, fighting back a sob. It’s not your alarm – it’s an incoming call. Why would it be anything else?

“Hello?” You grumble, putting the phone on speaker and resting it on the couch cushion next to your head. The energy expenditure of holding the device up to your ear feels mammoth.

“Ohh, you sound terrible.” Seungkwan’s voice sounds more taunting than it does concerned, but you pin that down to a symptom of his over-familiarity. “You’re sick?”

“Yeah,” you sigh. “I’m sorry.”

“I heard there was something going around,” Seungkwan tells you. Great, you think. Good to know. Now go away. “Yeah – one of my cousins… ah, what did she say…”

“Hey, man, I really-...”

“That’s it. She said she was love sick.”

You sigh so hard you think it’s a miracle you don’t pass out.  

“Don’t–”

“You better make sure Vernon gives you plenty of Vitamin D, today,” he harps on. “It’s quite the disease. I heard it can really–”

“Seungkwan!” You snap, finally, grabbing your phone and barking straight into the microphone. He doesn’t need to know that you’re stretching the truth to its absolute limit, but you certainly won’t let him keep believing that you’re calling out just to get laid. “Knock it off, okay? I’ve been awake all night.” 

(You suppose you should be glad that that much really is true.)

He falls silent, and you don’t know if he totally believes you, but a few breaths later, you hear his voice through the speaker again. He’s softer, this time. Quieter.

“I’m sorry,” he starts, hesitating a moment before he goes on. “Try to get some rest, all right? I’ll swing by after work and check in with some food, and… if you need anything, just text me?”

You’re immediately overcome with guilt at the sharp change in his demeanour, and it does nothing to settle the way your insides are writhing inside you. You clear your throat and pull your duvet up to cover your face, squeezing your eyes tightly shut. 

“I will,” you mumble. “I’m sorry – thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” he says. You can hear the front door to his own apartment slam shut and his breaths pick up as he starts to rush down the stairwell of his building. “I’ll see you later.”

“Okay.”

“Hey–” he rushes, before you can hang up the call. “Rest up. Run a bath, drink plenty. Love you.”

You cringe a little, but not enough to stop you from saying it back. Sort of. 

“Yeah. You too.”

Nobody could ever accuse Seungkwan of not being a man of his word. As irritating as he can sometimes be, as determined as he is to get on your every last nerve, you’ve never known him fail to come through on a promise. 

Not long after 6:30pm, you hear a series of knocks at the front door of your apartment. You’ve managed to squeeze in odd shifts of sleep throughout the day and though your head is still in a mess, you feel significantly less irritable than you were this morning. Cleaner, as well. One of your (several) naps took place in the bath, where you laid there and let the hot water draw some of the anxieties clean out of you to float towards the ceiling amongst the lavender-scented steam. 

In the knowledge that Seungkwan’s expectations of you are quite literally zero, you don’t bother to fix the one leg of your sweatpants that’s rolled up before you heave yourself off the couch and go to let him inside. He stands in the doorway with a bag of takeout food in each hand, all wind-flushed cheeks and that brilliant smile, and you feel like your stomach settles almost straight away when you see him.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, toeing off his shoes as he comes inside and lets the door close behind him. He sets the bags down on top of the small table by your front door and cups your face in both of his hands, squeezing your cheeks and frowning down at you. “You look awful.”

“Wow, thanks,” you huff, squirming to get out of his grip. “I was going to say I feel a little better, but…”

“You look exhausted,” Seungkwan clarifies, picking up the bags once more and following you through to your living room as you start to walk away from him. “I’m sorry about earlier, I didn’t realise you were actually… this bad…”

“This is doing wonders for my ego,” you grumble. “Keep it coming. Really.”

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

“No, no. By all means, continue to kick a girl while she’s down. Super classy.”

Your best friend flops down onto your couch with an exaggerated huff at your petulance. You curl up in the armchair instead, bringing your knees up beneath you. 

“Do you think it was something you ate?” He asks, refusing to give into your bickering and changing the subject matter instead. 

You shrug your shoulders at him. “I don’t-... I mean, it was more of a head… thing?” 

He sucks his front teeth. “What, like a migraine?”

“Sort of?” 

“What do you mean, ‘sort of’?” He asks. “You’ve had a migraine before. Was it that or not?”

“Well, it’s difficult to-... It wasn’t exactly…”

“Okay.” 

Seungkwan interrupts you as you hesitate again, swinging his legs off the couch and resting his elbows on his thighs, leaning as far towards you as he can while still remaining seated. He wrings his hands, plays with his fingers, lips drawn forward in a stern-looking pout. 

“I thought something was up this morning on the phone, but I didn’t wanna push it because you sounded mad. Now I know something’s wrong with you. What’s going on?”

You swallow hard and cross your arms over your chest, dropping your gaze away from Seungkwan’s very intense one. 

“Nothing,” you lie. 

“Bullshit.”

“Seungkwan!” 

“I’m sorry,” he sighs, tipping his head forward and running his hands through his hair. He’s never been a coddler, always one to prefer the tough-love approach: it’s no surprise that he doesn’t appear any softer when he looks back at you. “But we both know that’s crap.”

You can feel your pulse starting to quicken the longer he stares you down. It’s as if he’s burning two great big holes into your head, laser-beams where his pupils ought to be. He’s the master of the hard stare, and you know he won’t move until he hears the truth. 

Maybe I should just tell him. Maybe it’ll help…

“Look, I don’t care how famous he thinks he’s gonna be, if Vernon upset you last night, I’ll kick his ass myself.”

And there are the alarm bells. In hindsight, maybe you should’ve seen this coming; it’s not that far of a reach, and given the few facts that he actually knows, you can’t blame Seungkwan for jumping to this conclusion. It’s quite effective in triggering you to speak up, too. (You think that maybe, this was on purpose. Attack where you’re likely to defend. He knows you like the back of his hand.) In an instant you’re sitting upright with your feet firmly on the floor and you’re shaking your head at him like a dog trying to get itself dry. 

“No, no, no, back it up,” you rush. “It’s nothing like that. He hasn’t done anyth-... God, it’s not him.”

“It better not be,” Seungkwan tells you. His voice still has that dark edge to it, and you’re not sure how exactly to stamp it out. “I’m serious. If he’s done anything-...”

“He hasn’t,” you say more firmly. After a couple slow breaths, you clasp your hands together, swallowing your pride. “The food’s gonna go cold. Go grab a couple glasses and-... whatever else from the kitchen—”

“Only if you tell me what’s happening,” he says, slowly pushing himself up to stand. 

You don’t assent with words, but you don’t have to. You look up at him and nod a couple of times and that’s all he needs. Seungkwan strides off through the doorway, leaving you to shakily exhale away the stress that is once again squeezing at your lungs.

Once the containers are laid out on the table, food is divided up, utensils are handed over and he’s poured you each out a glass of soda, Seungkwan sits back on the couch. He doesn’t prod you, or ask you again – he doesn’t need to. You know what he’s waiting for. Even so, he allows you a few mouthfuls of your dinner first: seeing as this is the first substantial thing you’ve eaten all day, you silently thank him for the generosity.

“All right,” you say, gulping down a few mouthfuls of your drink to re-lubricate your throat. “Okay. Fuck – you’re gonna wanna make yourself comfy for this.”

The only way he moves is to pick up one of the food cartons and settle it on his thigh. Oh, how you wish you were joking. But if he really doesn’t want to heed your warning…

“You know I went on that date the other week?” You ask, biting the inside of your cheek. Seungkwan nods at you, lifting a helping of noodles out of the carton.

“With the hitter and quitter,” he confirms. “I remember.”

“Right,” you say. “Well – okay, wait, no. That’s a bad start. He didn’t do anything either.”

“I mean…”

“Not the time.”

He lifts his free hand up in surrender and gestures for you to continue as he slurps his food into his mouth. You clear your throat, bouncing one leg so rapidly that the decorative candle holder on your mantelpiece starts to rattle. 

“So… it was before the date. I was on my way to the bar, walking down past-... that convenient store. You know the one Chan keeps going into ‘cause he’s got the hots for the person who works there on a Friday night? Yeah, I was walking down that way. Actually running on time for once, and-...” 

You falter, sucking a breath deep into your lungs. It causes your next words to come out more strained than they ought to. 

“I ran into Jaehyun...”

Seungkwan swallows just in time to prevent himself from choking on his mouthful of food, but his eyes still shoot wide and you think his chest convulses a little bit anyway. His is a name you haven’t mentioned in a while, but he clearly hasn’t forgotten who it belongs to.

Because, well… how could he ever forget? 

Your ex-partner. Jaehyun.

The ex-love-of-your-life, Jaehyun.

The man who asked you to marry him after three and a half years of dating only to leave you, heartbroken and alone, six months later because he wanted to travel the world and there was too much that you couldn’t bring yourself to leave behind, Jaehyun. 

How could Seungkwan forget when he had been one of the people who helped drag you through what was not only the worst break-up, but one of the worst times of your entire life? 

Aside from the other week, it’s been… nearly eighteen months since you saw him last. Almost a year since you let yourself talk about him. Even sitting in your own apartment with a box full of your favourite food in your hands, a sense of dread chills you from head to toe just going so far as to say his name. But you’ve started, now, so you might as well finish.

“…right outside that stupid fucking store.”

Your voice cracks when you say it and you hurry to set your dinner down on the floor to free up your shaking hands. You cup them over your mouth, closing your eyes and taking a couple of deep breaths. It helps enough for you to be able to continue, even if you still feel a bit like you’re drowning.

“I thought he…” Seungkwan starts, putting his own food down and slipping off the couch. He comes to sit on the arm of your chair and puts a hand around your shoulders, pulling you into his side. “When did-...?”

“Yeah, uh… apparently he moved back a couple weeks ago,” you swallow, leaning into your friend’s embrace. 

Seungkwan looks down at you and you look up at him, all misty-eyed and drained. There’s more. He knows there is, but now he waits for you patiently, giving you all the time in the world to get through this and to let it out and to lean on him. He doesn’t butt in. The quiet feels worse than the talking. 

“He’s with someone now. They, uh— they met in Paris. Just over a year ago.”

Seungkwan finally dares to make a noise and breathes out heavily, so loud that it’s almost a groan. 

“Y/n,” he sighs, tightening his hold around you. “Shit – I’m so sorry,”

You shrug, staring across the room to where your record player sits on top of a low cabinet, lid open, table collecting dust. 

“For months, I sat here feeling… fucking, sorry for myself,” you say, barely above a whisper. You swallow around the lump in your throat and shake your head. “This whole time, refusing to get back on the horse ‘cause I thought maybe-... but he was-…”

The room goes quiet again as you lose the words you want to say and Seungkwan just rubs small circles against your arm. The problem is that you know this doesn’t explain why you called out of work today. It doesn’t explain what happened last night, and you’re not sure where to begin with that either. Especially seeing as the last time your best friends saw you and Vernon, the sparks flying between you were nigh-on visible. 

“I thought I was handling it, you know?” You sigh, leaning harder into Seungkwan’s soft sweatshirt. “Like… yeah — it hurt… but I was okay? I guess. And then Vernon fucking… kissed me last night—“

“He— what?”

“Hang on — no, he… I wanted him to.” You fumble with a thread hanging off the sleeve of your t-shirt as you talk. Why is this all so difficult? At the same time, why does it feel so juvenile to say out loud? “I just… I don’t know…”

Your wall clock tick, tick, ticks away in yet another painful fall of silence. 

“How bad was he?” Seungkwan asks when you struggle to elaborate. 

You assume this is an attempt to shatter the gloomy atmosphere and lighten your mood a tiny bit; it works, you suppose, because despite yourself, you laugh drily. Not without nudging your shoulder into his ribs, though. He deserves it, and you won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that it does make you feel a little better.

“He wasn’t,” you groan. “Don’t—… you’re such an ass.” 

He pulls himself away from you at the sound of your laughter and moves to sit on the edge of your coffee table instead, careful not to disrupt any of your food while keeping himself close enough to you that he can hold both of your hands in his and soothe his thumbs over your palms.

“You freaked out on him, didn’t you?” 

He sees straight through you and truthfully, no part of you is surprised. No part of you tries to fight it, or reject his assumption, or even question why that’s the first explanation he leapt to. You just nod, looking to where your best friend’s fingers are currently the only things holding you together. 

“Ran out his apartment like the building was gonna burn down,” you sigh, still laughing but harshly now. He squeezes your hands gently, urging you to look up at him. You do, slowly. “It’s ruined everything.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Seungkwan tries, narrowing his eyes at you when you scoff your obvious disagreement. “No, seriously. Anyone can see the poor guy’s got it bad for you.”

“Even if that’s right, you didn’t see his face,” you say. “God, he isn’t gonna wanna look at me ever again.”

“Have you spoken to him today?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Maybe if you explain what happened–”

“Oh, sure,” you snort. “‘Hey, Vernon. Sorry for running out on you like a lunatic yesterday. I ran into my ex recently and when you kissed me, it reminded me of being with him and I got freaked out and had to dash. Hope you don’t mind.’ God.” 

You try to draw your hands back but Seungkwan just holds onto you tighter. “We’ll workshop it,” he says firmly. “Do you like him, or not?”

“Seungkwan–”

“That wasn’t an option.”

You scowl at him. “It’s not that easy.”

“It’s a yes or no question.”

“Yes,” you stress finally, groaning through it. “Yes – I do.”

Seungkwan’s face lights up for a second, his eyes sparkling, lips lifting. You’re half expecting him to say ‘I knew it’. Half expecting him to try and be all deep and philosophical and a little bit motherly, as he sometimes does, especially when you’re upset. He’s always been a sucker for a happy ending. But this isn’t a happy ending, you remind yourself, squaring your jaw. It’s past that, already. It isn’t going to happen, you just know it. 

“Stop being so fucking hard on yourself,” he tells you, squeezing your hands one last time before he lets go and moves back over to the couch so he can finish eating before his food goes cold. “If anyone can pull this off, it’s you.”

You’re not sure what’s in the air right now, but this has been one of the busiest weekends that you can remember. Both yesterday and today, almost as soon as the store opened, your first handful of customers came through. Apart from about an hour around lunchtime, you don’t think there have been any periods of time where you’ve not had someone milling around the shelves. It makes a nice change, really, from some of your weekend shifts – hours at a time where the dust starts to settle and hardly anyone disturbs the bell above the front door. But this means you’ve been in full customer-service mode basically all day, and you’re starting to feel exhausted from keeping up the persona.

Still. There’s only an hour or so left — you can push through, and when you get home, there’ll be a nice, hot bubble bath with your name written all over it.

The bell chimes again just as you finish serving a group of teenage girls. You watch them scurry away, excitedly giggling about their new albums and you look towards the door with a smile already plastered on, all ready to greet the new customer until your eyes lock with theirs.

A ‘hey, how’s it going?’ stops somewhere midway up your throat, a pathetic little ‘huh?’ sound escaping you in its place. You’re frozen all of a sudden; you and the man who just came in both stand perfectly still, staring at each other like a pair of bunnies in headlights. It takes you forever to register the strap wrapped around his fist, the purse that hangs just below his grip. My bag, you think to yourself, but the voice that narrates your thoughts is hushed for the first time ever, too. Everything in your head gets sucked away into a little vacuum. The only thing left is him.

“I-… thought you might want this back.” Vernon breaks the quiet first. Your throat runs dry. In a flash, the noise in your brain is as loud as it’s ever been and in amongst all the chaos of thoughts and questions and apologies, you can’t pick out the words you actually want to say. 

He slowly unravels the strap from around his hand and takes a few steps closer to you, inching towards the counter. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” he hurries to assure you. Your heart aches for how reserved and nervous he looks. It doesn’t suit him. You hate it. “It’s okay. I’m… really sorry, about the other night. I didn’t mean to—” A deep breath. “I’ll see you around.”

Vernon lays your bag so delicately on the wooden surface that you could be forgiven for thinking he was handling an explosive. Then, he takes one, two, three steps back, before turning and heading to the exit.  

“Wait—” you call out to him, finding your voice at the most critical time, right as his fingers curl around the door handle. “Wait—, please.”

He spins back around to face you as you slip out from behind the desk. His left brow lifts higher than the right but otherwise, he gives nothing away. He doesn’t even say anything as he stands there, pushing his hands deep into his pockets. 

You swallow around the golf ball sized lump taking residence in your throat and clasp your hands together in front of you, wringing and twisting and accidentally popping one of your knuckles in the process. “I shouldn’t have run out on you like that. It wasn’t fair.”

Vernon chews this over in his mind but ultimately just shrugs his shoulders at you. What is there to say? He surely agrees, but he seems so adamant to ensure you don’t feel bad about it happening that he just… says nothing. Again. It’s kind of maddening, even if you fully get why. 

“No, I mean it,” you try again. “It wasn’t you. It’s nothing you did.”

“We really don’t have to do the whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ thing,” Vernon offers, his cardboard-like posture softening. There’s even a little bit of a smile on his face, you think — but it’s not the kind of smile you’ve grown used to seeing on him. It doesn’t reach his eyes; he looks kind of like someone who has read their cards and accepted their fate. “Seriously. It’s okay.” 

“It’s not,” you stress, stepping closer to him again. You sigh deeply. There’s something almost relieving about the position you find yourself in. You suppose this really is crunch time; it’s now or never. “Can we… talk? About everything?”

“What? Here?” Vernon asks. 

You glance around the store, at the few people doing a very poor job of pretending to be minding their own business, and frown. He’s right. This isn’t the time, or the place. The problem is, you have a feeling that if you send him away, he may not decide to come back and listen to you. In his defence, why should he? He’s already done more than the decent thing and brought you back that which you abandoned in his apartment; several of your previous conquests would have shoved the bag and its contents either in the trash or the back of a closet somewhere. This is more than you could have hoped for. 

You hold a finger up to him and ask him to stay where he is, and though he looks a little bewildered at the gesture, he ultimately doesn’t move. You rush off out the back to the storeroom where you banished Chan an hour ago, on account of his raging hangover and your low tolerance for his whining about it; you’re genuinely surprised to find him working, and actually alphabetising the records you got in a few days ago like you asked him to.

“Hey. Can you do me a huge favour?” You ask, not announcing your arrival and subsequently scaring Chan out of his skin. He jolts as he hears your voice and claps a hand to his chest, exhaling hard. You don’t entertain his dramatics, though. There’s no time. “I need you to close today.”

“Huh?” He asks, still acting as if he’s trying to catch his breath. “I thought–”

“Please.” You wave him off, knowing he’s about to ask about the task you gave him. “We can look at this together tomorrow. You did great. It’s just an hour – is that okay?”

He chews the inside of his lip, almost looking disappointed. To be fair to him, he did look like he was in a groove when you appeared, but he doesn’t argue with you as he puts down the record in his hand and picks his phone up off the table to his right, silencing the catchy tune that was playing while he organised. 

“Of course it is,” he says, holding his hand out for your keys and starting to walk towards you. “Everything okay?”

“It-...” you start, faltering as you place the store keys in his waiting palm. Your default response was about to be ‘it’s fine’, but you’re trying harder these days to stop pretending, especially around him. So you swallow, nodding your head, flashing him a tight lipped smile. “I’m about to find out.”

“Oh? Is it…?”

A brief pause later, not before cringing at how predictable you’ve apparently become, you say, “yeah.”

Chan claps you on the shoulder as he skirts his way around you, leaning in to give you a sort of side-along hug on his way. You stretch your arm across his waist and pull him closer for a moment, trying to drive home how much you appreciate this. He doesn’t comment on the uncharacteristic display of affection, and you want to find out why, but Vernon isn’t going to wait around for you forever. 

“Go get him, tiger,” Chan whispers.

“I owe you, big time,” you promise. 

He winks at you before he disappears through the door and you follow him briefly, but as he does a round of checking in with your customers and making sure they don’t need any help, you hurry off to grab your jacket from the office.

Vernon is exactly where you left him when you come back out into the storefront, hands unmoved from where he stuffed them into his pockets earlier, rocking back and forth on his toes and looking around from wall to wall. You think perhaps he took your request slightly too literally and the fact that even his feet are in the same position as before you left is reminiscent of a puppy commanded to stay, but if anyone here is at liberty to start poking fun, you think that it certainly isn’t you. Instead of trying your luck, you lock the office door and walk up to him, returning his polite, yet slightly awkward smile.

“You’re not, like, super busy right now or anything, are you?” You ask him. 

His brows crease and his eyes shift side-to-side before they land back at you. He shakes his head.

“Did you maybe wanna… take a walk?” 

Vernon nods this time, still not moving or even pulling his hands out of his jeans. His elbows are locked out and the length of his arms means his shoulders are raised quite some way. He could not be more uncomfortable looking if he tried, but he doesn’t say no and nothing on his face gives away that he wants to reject your proposition, either, so you’re the one to take that tentative first step towards the door. When you do, he follows. 

You left the store at least ninety seconds ago and still, neither of you have said anything yet. Honestly, it’s taking all you’ve got not to just burst and let it all out; it’s building and building and your stomach feels tight, but it’s less of a knot and more like a tightly-coiled spring. His eyes are dipped to the ground, incredibly aware of every step he takes, in what you realise now are a gorgeous pair of platform boots tucked up beneath his baggy jeans. He’s at least an inch and a half taller than the last time you saw him. 

“Your friend,” Vernon starts finally, pausing before he continues.  “Is he always so… you know?”

“What did he say?” You ask, peeking over to him. Trust Chan to start getting —

He hurries to shake his head. “Nothing. He just… kept looking at me. In a weird way, like…”

“Like he knows something you don’t, and he’s not gonna tell you, but he wants you to know that he knows it anyway?” You supply.

“Yeah— exactly like that.”

“Mm. That’s just… Chan.”

“Huh.”

“It’s worse when they’re together,” you say. He breathes out a chuckle and you feel his elbow bump into your upper arm. The distance he put between you when you fell into step outside the store has reduced, you realise now; you’re not sure when, or if it was on purpose. Did he move closer once you started speaking? Was it just so he could hear you better? Or…

Either way, despite being side-by-side, he still feels a hundred miles away from you. This isn’t enough.

“You get used to them, though,” you add, trying to stay on track. “I swear.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Jokes aside, he still won’t look at you for longer than a few seconds, which tugs at something deep in your chest. Discomfort clings to you, and even if it does seem like you’re making some progress, you can still feel unease radiating off him. A cheap laugh at the expense of your friends who aren’t here to defend themselves won’t fix that which you took a wrecking ball to a few nights ago. This needs to be heartfelt and genuine, and more importantly it needs to come out right. 

But when you open your mouth to speak, still searching your brain for the right way to explain why you acted the way you did, there’s nothing. 

How wonderful would it be for the perfect explanation to just tumble from your lips calmly and evenly, and for it to make everything okay? But the reality is that your throat runs dry as petrol fumes make their way through your parted lips. You hold your tongue again just a second later, sighing quietly. 

You’re starting to feel like a lost cause when Vernon breaks the silence for you, again. He slows his steps to a halt when he eventually says, “so.”

“So,” you repeat, freezing mid-stride as you go completely tense. It’s like you’re staring into oblivion’s wide open mouth. “I-… don’t really know where to start. I’m sorry.”

“The beginning’s usually pretty good?” He offers.

You nod. “How much did you want to know?”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with telling me.”

If anyone on this Earth deserves a medal for their patience, it’s Vernon. You still haven’t turned to face him yet, your eyes fixated on the traffic signal some fifty yards away from you and you’re pretty sure if someone poked you too hard, you’d shatter into a million tiny pieces. But, as impossible as it seems all the while you try to get your thoughts in a reasonable order, you manage to swallow your nerves. 

It’s crunch time. It’s now or never.

The explanation you give him is messy. Disjointed. But once you start, it becomes difficult to stop: you end up sparing very little detail and circle back on yourself no less than three times. You tell him about how you were engaged and about the breakup, the run-in, your shitty date, gesturing with your hands to emphasise the most important parts. When you start to move again, Vernon makes his steps bigger until he’s walking alongside you. He never interrupts you. He acknowledges every sentence when you pause for breath. Encourages you to keep going when you fall over your words. 

“… and—... I guess I just lost my head. But it wasn’t your fault.” You swallow hard before you continue, “I’m… really sorry.”

He nods slowly, taking his time to digest everything.

“Don’t be,” he says, lightly bumping into your side. It’s a very small reassurance that he’s not going to walk away, but it means much more to you than you’re sure he meant it to. “I get it.”

“I—”

“No, like. I get it.” 

“Yeah?” You ask, only understanding when you catch the very pointed look in his eyes. 

“For sure.”

Of course, it makes sense. Vernon’s young. Attractive. Nice. Talented. He must have been with people before. Hell, you think he surely leaves a trail of broken hearts everywhere he goes. He gets it. 

“We dated for like… five? Years. Her name was Nari,” he tells you. 

A few seconds later, you watch him start to shrug off his jacket on one side and expose one of his toned arms to you. You’re about to tell him he doesn’t need to air his dirty laundry out if he doesn’t want to when he twists at his elbow; you catch sight of a tattoo you remember having seen the night he wore that black singlet on stage. Two lily flowers blooming up the inside of his bicep. 

It’s so pretty. Intricate. The line work is beautiful, the petals shaded with hundreds of little dots. You wanted to ask about it that night, but you never found the right chance, and now—

Lily?

It takes you longer than you’re willing to admit to join the dots, but when the penny finally drops, so does your jaw. Vernon slides back into his sleeve with a big, entertained smile and a little shrug. 

“Mhm.”

“Oh my God?”

“I know.”

It’s not that you’re laughing, per se. This isn’t your baggage to laugh at, no matter how unbothered Vernon seems to be by what he’s just revealed. But you do rub your hand over your face and cover your lips, shaking your head in disbelief as a breath that contains the edges of a bemused chuckle escapes you. Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to mind; if anything, it appears to give him a boost to keep talking.

“I got that on our third anniversary,” he goes on to explain. “A couple years later… She called it quits. Turns out there was another guy. I thought about lasering it, but… apparently that hurts worse than getting the tattoo in the first place, so…”

“That’s…”

“It’s whatever,” Vernon says, shaking his head. “They’re my mom’s favourite flowers too. That’s what almost everyone else thinks it’s for.”

You haven’t looked back up at his face since the unveiling, not until now. When your eyes meet again, Vernon tilts his head in the direction you’re walking and continues down the street, spinning now so he’s walking backwards but still facing you. “I just mean... It’s okay. I get it.”

The moment you’ve caught up to him and you’re back by his side, he turns to face front, just in time to avoid a collision with a streetlamp. The lingering awkwardness starts to fade to nothing; you can see it in the way he holds himself, and you can feel it in the way you do, too. Everything relaxes. Your neck, your shoulders, your fists. It all ebbs away. 

“It really wasn’t anything you did,” you clarify once more. 

“So you keep telling me,” Vernon quips, tips of his ears turning pinker by the moment. “It’s okay, I swear. Do you want me to walk you home?”

You accept his offer and lead him down a side-street, picking up a completely unrelated conversation now to purify the air. Before you really know it (what was that everyone always said about time flying?), you come to a stop outside your building. Vernon’s sentence fades away when you stop moving; instead he stills, glancing sideways, and you nod confirmation at him with a lopsided smile. 

“This is me,” you say, reaching into your back pocket for your keys. “So…”

“So,” Vernon echoes, glancing around again. “Can I like, lay my cards out, real quick?”

You nod. 

“I like you.” He shrugs, now toying with the leather bracelet around his wrist. “Like, a lot. But…”

But. You feel like you should have seen this coming. But. But. Of course there’s a— 

“I’ve got some shows coming up out of town and I need to see some family, I’m not gonna be here from tomorrow for like, three weeks...”

Oh. 

Well. On one hand, it’s not what you thought. It’s not a flat-out rejection. It’s not a shut down. On the other? You bite the inside of your cheek and look at your hands, playing with your keys to keep them busy. Under any other lens, three weeks isn’t really a very long time at all. You’re pretty sure that the milk you bought yesterday is going to last longer than that. But three weeks… this early into things? 

That’s longer than you’ve even known him.  

“… and I thought, if you wanted — I could… take you out. When I get back. For real. Maybe.”

Oh.

“Like…?”

“Like… on a date,” he confirms, rubbing the back of his neck. “One where I’m not like… fresh off stage and all gross and shit.”

Relief replaces anxiety on both his face and yours when you let out a quiet laugh. 

“I’d really like that,” you say, twitching fingers suddenly still. “Yeah.”

“I’m not asking you to like, wait around, or anything,” he says as he pulls his phone out of his pocket, fumbles with it, and just barely manages to soften the fall with the toe of his boot before it lands screen-up on the concrete. “We’ll just see how it goes. And it gives you some time to… deal with things. Whatever you’ve gotta do.”

You nod, crossing your arms over your chest as he bends low to pick his phone back up, smoothing his thumb over the small scuff on the protective case. It seems remarkably undamaged otherwise. 

“And if you’re still interested, then…”

“Interested?” You ask with a small grin. 

“Aren’t you?” Vernon asks.

“I—...” You think about playing coy, but when he’s been so open with you about where his head’s at, it feels so silly and childish to bother pretending. That playful ‘I might be’ gets swallowed back. Instead – “Yeah. I am.”

“Cool. Then we’ll figure it out. At your pace, okay?” 

“Okay.”

He grabs his earphones out of his other pocket, slides one in, and is about to step back away from you when you do something you don’t really expect yourself to. Something you’ve never done to a man you can barely even say you’re ‘seeing’. You close the space between you and, as if to lock in your words, push forward onto your toes to press a kiss to his cheek. 

“Thank you,” you say when you fall back down to your heels. If he wasn’t so dumbstruck, you feel like he’d be about to ask what you were thanking him for; as it stands though, he’s frozen, blushing, and the only reason you can tell he’s still alive is because he can’t stop blinking at you. “For… giving me another chance.”

He still can’t quite find his voice, so Vernon just shakes his head, clearing his throat. (No need, he wants to say.) Alas, his lips just open and close soundlessly.

“I’ll see you in a few weeks,” you supply for him. He takes in a deep, mind-clearing breath and nods his head.

“I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

You see the apples of his cheeks lift as he presses his thumb against his phone screen and restarts whatever song he was listening to when he walked into your store. A brilliant smile consumes his face. It only grows as he turns away from you and walks off down the street. 

For a second, you think it’s all very smooth. Movie-like, even.

Then, he stumbles over a crack in the pavement. When he glances back to pray you didn’t watch it happen, he catches you snickering into your fist. He shakes his head and continues on, leaving you to fumble with your key in the lock before you finally let yourself inside.

You overslept. 

Sort of. You heard your alarm go off straight away but you might have snoozed it, and when you heard it sound for a second time, you turned it off completely, telling yourself that you just needed one more minute. You just wanted to rest your eyes for a few more seconds. There wasn’t any danger of you going back to sleep.

Twenty minutes later, you practically fell off your mattress in a panic when you realised that there had, in fact, been a big fucking danger. 

You were still able to wash up well and make it to work on time, but you had to sacrifice your morning coffee stop after seeing that the queue at the register was going to take too long. For years, you’ve refused to consider yourself to be the kind of person who relies heavily on a caffeine kick first thing in the morning, but today? It’s barely ten thirty and you’re seriously flagging: like you’ve never known what energy is, like you’ll never feel it again. 

(You blame the fact that when you first looked at your phone today before rolling back over, there was no ‘good morning :)’ text to entice you out of bed. But you’re trying really hard not to think about why that is, nor why it was such a deciding factor.)

So, when the bell above your shop door jingles and you’re forced to stand upright (a change your back doesn’t thank you for when it has to readjust from the previous hunched position you had adopted over the countertop), you groan quietly. Nonetheless, your tired eyes crease at the corners as you smile at whoever it is that’s come across the threshold.

After a second, your eyes refocus; when you can finally make out their features, it’s as if someone gives you a shot of adrenaline.

“Oh my God,” You say breathlessly, brushing your hair back and moving to stand up fully unsupported. “I thought you weren’t back until Friday?”

“Change of plans,” Vernon grins, scratching the back of his neck. “We drove through the night. I got home like… an hour ago.”

This is the first time you’ve ever seen him dressed down, and hell, does he look incredible. Gone are the ripped jeans, scuffed boots, the leather jackets and chunky rings. Grey sweatpants and an oversized white hoodie (alternatively: the brightest outfit you’ve witnessed him in thus far) drown him, blurring out his usually so distinct frame. You pin both of these things as the reasons you hardly recognised him when your eyes were refusing to cooperate. Paired with what Seungkwan would call ‘dad-sneakers’ and completed by messy hair and tired, soft eyes?

If you could jump his bones right here, right now… God, you would. 

“But hey, it’s nice to see you, too,” he adds facetiously.

“Quiet down,” you groan, fighting the urge to run over and envelop him in a hug. You’re not sure that he’d mind if you did, but you also don’t quite know if you’re ‘there’, yet. “Obviously it’s good to-...”

His arms, both of which have been stuck behind his back since he arrived, now move around to the front, revealing to you a takeout cup and a little brown box from the coffee shop down the street. 

“Oh, shit. It is so good to see you.”

Vernon laughs, coming closer until he can set them both down on the counter. “If it’s wrong, Seungkwan gave me your order, so.”

You start to wonder how on Earth your employee and your… Vernon managed to have this conversation without you knowing. Does Seungkwan have his number? Did they happen across each other on one of their socials? Did Vernon call into the store while you were out in the bathroom a little while ago and ask? But whatever happened, you quickly stop caring to find out: popping the lid off your cup, the aroma of your favourite coffee immediately fills your senses. It’s so overwhelming that you think you might start to cry.

“Oh my God. You’re the best,” you sigh, wrapping your fingers around the cup and taking a long sip, eyes rolling back into your head. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Vernon laughs, rolling up his sleeves before folding his toned forearms over his chest. “I got you a-... okay, they only had those gluten free brownies in, and I’ll be honest, I don’t know if they taste the same as the normal ones but… like, he said you hadn’t eaten today and I know you said you liked brownies before, — if you don’t like those ones, it’s okay! I can go back, it’s–”

He trails off, cheeks turning pink when you tilt your head to one side and feel your brow go soft. He asks, “why… are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re so cute,” you say, putting the cup down gently so as not to splash your drink all over the counter. 

“Huh?”

“You really didn’t have to…”

“I wanted to,” Vernon says, shaking his head. 

You almost definitely hear a floorboard creak and quiet shushing sound from just around the corner towards the back room. You don’t call out your eavesdropping friends for trying to listen in on your conversation, though: it barely even crosses your mind. Besides... you can’t take your eyes off Vernon, even if you wanted to. He looks so soft. Like he needs to sleep for a whole twenty four hours, and he must feel like it too, but he came here first. 

“So,” he starts, tapping his right thumb against the inside of his left elbow. (The reason why he came so quickly starts to become evident. He just couldn’t wait to ask.) “You don’t have to commit to anything right now…” The silver of one of his rings glints with every tiny movement. “…but, I was just wondering–”

Smiling at him over the top of your coffee cup, it feels like your heart could burst.

“I was just… wondering… if you’d thought any more about letting me take you out?”

You’ve been texting him almost every day since he left. He’s sent you a hundred and one pictures of statues and cool buildings and nice looking food and the sky, and far more animals than you think you’ve ever actually seen in real life. You’ve spoken to him about your strange customers. What’s going on with your friends. Sent him recommendations for songs that you discovered on obscure albums that you pulled out to play over the speakers. 

One night after one of his shows, he called you. He was a little bit drunk at the time, chilling in his hotel room with a pizza as he informed you that he’d snuck out of an after-party super early but couldn’t get to sleep. With an audible pout, he went on to confess that he was feeling kind of lonely, that he just wanted to hear your voice: one thing led to another and you stayed up talking to him until he passed out at nearly 4 o’clock in the morning.

To put it simply… 

“I’d still really like that,” you say. It’s incredible to you that you can see every one of his features brighten up. 

“Okay,” he breathes, unwinding his arms and pushing his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants now instead. “Okay, cool. I’ll… text you later? We’ll figure something out?”

“All right,” you agree. “Now go rest up, okay?”

He laughs as he swears that he’ll go back home and get some sleep, and with that, Vernon takes his leave. You’re once again alone, but this time you have a drink that could only hope to make you feel as energised as he does, and a treat nowhere near as sweet as him. 

You aren’t complaining, though, and neither are the two men that miraculously reappear the moment the door closes again. 

The smile Vernon leaves on your face doesn’t falter for the rest of your day.

You suppose a big part of the reason you haven’t dated anyone in a while is because you can’t stand the ‘talking stage’. That weird little limbo where you’re never sure if it’s too early to make certain jokes, where you’re checking and second-guessing all your texts, where you can’t figure out if someone’s really into you or if they’re just blowing up your phone to pass the time. The awkward small talk. The ‘getting to know each other’ part. The ‘why haven’t they replied yet — was it something I said?’ anxiety. 

Thankfully, with Vernon, that’s not really something you have to worry about. 

While he was away, you learned that he’s the kind of guy who just spews random facts at you in the middle of his day and then forgets to check his messages for three hours. Sometimes those facts are interesting things about himself. Other times, you’ve known him to shoot you a text just to announce [ just found out tigers have striped skin as well as fur. wild ].

(On one such occasion, Chan caught you giggling at your phone in the middle of a quiet Thursday afternoon, zooming in on a picture of Vernon’s heart shaped birthmark. This put a swift end to checking your messages while you’re at work.)

[ btw, im allergic to peanuts ], he told you one evening. Completely unprompted, just after dinner time. You spilled half of your glass of juice down your front in panic when you put two and two together and scrambled to ask him if he was okay. [ near miss, dw about it! just felt important haha ], he replied, and your response was just a picture of your newly stained t-shirt and a request for him to never do that to you again. 

He can drive — at least, he has his licence — but he doesn’t have a car. He chooses public transport, and he tells you that it’s because he likes not having to worry about fuel prices and it’s ‘healing’ to zone out of reality on the train until he reaches his stop. He tells you that he came up with the melody and two verses of one of his favourite original songs on the bus to his parents house, and one time, he dropped a giant cockroach on a class field trip to the zoo because it tickled when it crawled over his palm and he didn’t like it. 

(You later discovered that this piece of information was triggered by the appearance of a large bug in his shower.)

Last night, as you settled into bed after a whole evening of back and forth, he told you that he has all five of the top scores at the piano game in the arcade downtown, and that he has an approximate 75% success rate on claw machines. When you replied saying you hadn’t been to an arcade in about two years, he was horrified. Enough to send 7 broken heart emojis back to back, as individual messages. [ shakespeare himself couldnt write a tragedy that sad ], he said. 

But, harrowed as he was by your admission, it did give him an idea. 

That idea is exactly how you end up standing side-by-side at a basketball shootout game on Friday night. It’s how he ends up winning one of those cute reversible octopuses — true enough, on a claw machine — which he gives to you immediately. It’s how you watch him hunch over a pinball machine for twenty five minutes before he loses his ball, how you end up tied after four games of air hockey, at which point he calls it quits while citing a ‘cramping hand’.

It’s also how you deliver his ass to him in not one, but two rounds of bowling.

“All right — all right,” Vernon laughs, holding both his hands up in defeat as your final ball takes out all ten pins at the end of the alley. “You made your point. Damn.”

You shrug your shoulders as you walk back in his direction, picking up your glass from the table and sipping your soda through your straw. 

(Though the arcade has an entire menu of cocktails, some of which you’ve never even heard of, the thought of navigating an evening alone with him under the influence of alcohol was totally unappealing after last time. Thankfully, Vernon agreed. You quietly think that being stone cold sober has made tonight even more enjoyable.)

“I told you,” you say when you finally sit down. He puts an arm around your shoulders straight away. Naturally, like it’s instinct. Like it’s a position he’s adopted a few hundred times before. “I’m undefeated.”

“We’ll see,” he says, tapping out a rhythm on the ball of your shoulder. “I still think you just got lucky.”

“So,” Vernon says once your leisurely stroll back lands you outside his place, kicking the toe of his left sneaker into the concrete. “What… are the chances that I get a do-over?”

You blink at him a few times, tilting your head. “What do you mean, a do-over?” 

Does he not think this went well? Gods, it’s probably the best first date you’ve ever had, but what on Earth else could he mean by that? Did you say something earlier, and not realise? Has he not had fun? What does he m–

“I got these new coffee beans,” he says. “While I was away — and I figured something out with the-… the machine? So— ”

Ah. There he is.

You smirk at him, patting the outside of his bicep and rolling your eyes. When you glance down, Vernon is pulling out his key, thumbing over the ridges down the one side. He reaches for the door, happy to take your teasing as confirmation that yes, you’ll come up. Yes, he gets his ‘do-over’...

…but leave it to you to fall for the world’s dorkiest rockstar. 

As he slips the key into his apartment door, there’s a steady pressure against the small of your back: the same one that’s been there ever since he gestured for you to step out of the elevator before him. One of his palms rests over the fabric of your t-shirt and you feel weirdly tingly because of it. He gently guides you inside once the door falls open and doesn’t move away when it’s locked again behind him. 

With an anticipatory shiver, you turn around to face him. You make a point to leave just a matter of inches between your chests. To have your eyes soft, patiently waiting.

Vernon’s hands are - for the first time ever - cold when his fingers hesitantly come up to either side of your face, tilting your head up so that he can see you better, unobstructed by any shadows. You gasp at the contrast between them and your flushed, warm cheeks. He swallows thickly at the sound.

“Is this… okay?” he asks, gaze darting between the space separating your eyes from your lips. “We can slow it down, if you want. I just—...”

Your own hands find home against his chest in response, fingers curling into the muscle beneath them. Not harshly, definitely not so much that it could hurt — just enough that it makes him puff himself up a little bigger. Enough to make him square his shoulders as he drags a thumb over the corner of your mouth. 

“Vernon,” you say quietly, pressing him backwards. Balling his t-shirt into your fists, you send him stumbling over his own feet before his shoulders find the wood of the front door. A quiet grunt escapes him on impact, but he just holds you closer. “Shut up ‘n’ kiss me. Please.”

Clumsiness aside, the moment he obediently ducks his head and presses his smiling mouth to yours, you feel weightless. Even when you tilt forward onto your toes to meet him halfway, it’s as if you’re not even touching the ground anymore: clouds beneath your feet have you floating. Everything about it is so very different from the last time.

It’s so much easier. Not just for you, either – you can feel it from him as well. Your collective baggage has been left out in the hall, barricading the door, shutting out the hesitation and nervousness and leaving you together, wholly alone, to just… be.

Vernon gets increasingly more brave as the seconds tick by. When you separate for air, his head tilts the other way, lips a little parted, hot breaths fanning over your skin as he meets you again, and again, and again. It’s the perfect give and take. Firm one second, waiting for you to chase him the next. The soft sounds he starts to make are amplified as his tongue presses against your bottom lip: he tests the waters, groaning into the heat of your mouth when you so happily invite him into it. He drinks you up for all you’re worth. 

One of your hands uncurls from his chest and moves up to his head instead, threading into his hair at the top of his neck. It feels just as soft as it’s always looked, sliding through your fingers. A gentle pull makes him whine. He draws away from you. His lips are pink and shine with the gloss you touched up in the elevator’s mirror, his lids are heavy, his pupils blown, and looking up at him feels like staring into the sun; you physically can’t keep your eyes open, but it’s so hard to look away. 

You tuck yourself into his neck as a compromise, laying gentle pecks everywhere you can reach. His aftershave leaves a bitter taste on your tongue as you touch the tip to a stretch of skin just beneath the harsh cut of his jawline, but the way he shudders and drops his hold down to your waist makes the sting in the back of your mouth all worth it. You only stop when one of his hands sinks lower still and he squeezes at your ass, making your eyes roll back.

He mistakes your surprise for hesitation, though.

“Is this… okay?” he asks, tipping his head back and pressing his crown into the door. Though he doesn’t withdraw his palm from your backside, he also doesn’t pinch at you again. You press your hips backwards, pushing into his touch to encourage him, with this green light he starts to knead at your cheek over the top of your skirt.

“You have no idea how hard it is to keep my hands to myself around you, do you?” You say, slipping one up the hem of his t-shirt as if to prove your point, splaying your fingers out over his stomach. 

He takes a shallow breath, hovering with it in his lungs, holding back from saying something. You get there before he can.

“I want you,” you say certainly, pulling back from where you’ve been nestled into his shoulder so that you can look him in the eyes again. He releases that breath and his face flushes when his eyes find yours, moving both of his hands back up to your waist, tightly gripping at you as if his life depends on it as he nods. 

“I just… I really don’t wanna mess this up,” he adds quietly. “I—”

When you kiss him again, hoping to further assure that you’re just as into this as he is, he reciprocates, sure. You can tell straight away that there’s a little less bite though — a stiffness to him. He doesn’t relax into you the same way he did a few minutes ago. 

“What’s wrong?” you ask, falling back onto your heels. Is this because of the way things went last time, or are you going too fast for him? Selfishly, you hadn’t considered that could be a barrier. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want, you know that right? It’s okay.”

You make to step away from Vernon, unwinding your arms from around him to give him some space but he refuses to let you go too far. His hold on you is just as firm as ever.

“Trust me, I want to,” he says. “It’s just–...”

You stay silent, waiting for him to finish. He chews at his bottom lip, his blush deepening right in front of your eyes. To try and steady him, you lay one of your palms over each of his biceps, saying, “Whatever it is – it’s all right.”

“I just… haven’t been with anyone since…”

And when you laugh, it’s not at him (at least, not for the reason a fly on the wall might initially assume). You drop your forehead down onto the muscle of his chest, feeling his heart’s erratic rhythm underneath his clothes as you loop one arm back up around his neck.

“I thought you were about to tell me something awful,” you chide him through your giggles, lightly swatting at his shoulder. He starts to loosen up beneath you, his own body beginning to shake with laughter too. Those strong arms pull you flush against him, the gentle shift of his weight from one foot to another rocking you both side-to-side. “Like– like you were secretly married or you realised you didn’t actually like me, or something. Jesus.”

He stays quiet for another few seconds, but even without speaking, you can feel how he shakes his head above you. You look back up at his face and brush his hair out of his eyes, fingers lingering on his brow when you’re done.

“It’s okay,” you tell him for the third time. The last wisps of anxiety start to fade from his eyes, replaced with the same look he’s been wearing since he showed up at your apartment door earlier this evening. “I don’t care — I promise, I’ll go easy on you.”

The kiss that follows lands hard and with it, Vernon succeeds in wiping your brain empty. You can barely remember what you were even giggling about a few seconds later. 

“Don’t want you to go easy,” he insists against your lips. Then, he’s wallowing up your breathy sighs as he licks into your mouth again, pressing your tongue with his own, reminding you that he’s absolutely not incompetent, just rusty. 

When you make it into his bedroom, confessions and various articles of your clothing forgotten out in the hallway, you separate from each other long enough for you to be able to to lay one hand on his bare chest and push him down onto the mattress. He bounces on the foam and pushes up on one elbow, watching as you sink down to your knees and press kisses down his stomach while your hands deftly take care of the button on his jeans. 

“Tell me if you want me to stop, okay?” You say to him as he lifts his hips up and lets you pull both his jeans and his boxers down in one sharp movement. 

“M’not gonna want you to,” he laughs breathlessly, pushing a hand through his hair as he kicks the remainder of his clothes all the way off and nudges them away to the side. “But yeah. Okay.”

He looks so pretty like this and you can’t help but think he’s even prettier when the first time you curl your fingers around his length, his jaw falls slack and his fingers curl into the bedding underneath him. You drink him in and he watches you do it; your mouth is watering, desperate to feel him press down on your tongue, and you feel a pull towards him that you’ve never felt towards anyone before. 

“God,” you whisper, shuffling on your knees to get a little closer. 

“Okay?” Vernon asks. He tilts his head to the side and you nod up at him.

“Just… had a feeling you’d be…” you trail off, tugging a few times to feel its thickness in your fingers. Why are you mesmerised by it, a little? What the hell has gotten into you? “But it’s actually bigger, and—”

He laughs quietly and falls back onto the bed, crossing an arm over his eyes. “Shut up,” he groans. 

“Yes, sir.”

You lean towards him and gather saliva on your tongue, dragging it from base to tip before closing your lips around the head. He gasps softly and holds onto his next breath, angling his head back further; you give a satisfied hum and slide a little further down. 

The glide is made smoother by the spit your tongue left behind and that which mixes with his pre-cum in your mouth. As you start to bob up and down, some dribbles out past your lips so you start to move your hand, too, smearing the mess all over his cock. When it bumps the back of your throat — and on assessment, you realise there’s daylight between your lips and your fist — you squeeze your eyes closed and whimper softly, holding him in place while you adjust before you can take him deeper. 

“Fuck— just like that,” he gasps out in a shattered groan when you start to move a little more fluidly, no longer too intimidated by your gag reflex preventing him from slipping down your throat. Your hand and your mouth work in tandem to get him riled. Every sound he makes feels like someone injects lust straight into your veins. When you look up at him from between your dewy lashes, you ponder that you’d watch him fall apart from this angle a hundred times a night forever and still not get bored. 

Your jaw starts to ache from the thickness of having him in your mouth and the way he’s restraining himself from fucking his hips up to meet you tells you that he’s too polite to ask you for more. You suck harshly one last time before pulling away with a ‘pop’, using only your hand to pump his length as you shift down to gently suck one of his balls into your mouth. 

The sound he makes is so fucking melodic. You think he’s made a similar one before when he lifts into a falsetto, and you’ve never felt more powerful than you do right now. Knowing you have someone with such a commanding presence eating out of your palm could really do something dangerous to your ego. It’s a bit of a miracle, therefore, that you recognise his desperate tapping at your shoulder, but the second you feel it you settle back from him, looking up at his impossibly tense abs and his blissed-out face.

You catch on quickly and feel your features split into a grin at the realisation. When it takes him a second, you know it’s because he’s still trying to remember the mechanisms it takes to breathe. Bless his heart. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, pushing himself to sit upright and running a hand through his hair. “It-… fuck, that was so…”

“What happened to ‘I don’t want you to go easy’ huh?” you tease, resting your chin on the top of his left thigh, grinning up at him. 

“I’m gonna come if you keep going like that,” he chuckles, shaking his head in disbelief at himself. “And trust me — I want to, but…” He swallows hard. “Not yet.”

You nod slowly up at him, starting to get up off the floor. You stop in your tracks when he says, “I’ve gotta taste you first. Please.”

Maybe it speaks too much to the quality of some of your previous lovers, but his desperation takes you a bit by surprise. You blink at him, ignoring how your thighs burn with the position you’ve frozen in. 

“If— that’s okay?” He adds. “I’ve… been thinking about it? A lot. Especially since-”

“Shut up,” you breathe, finally standing all the way up. He shuffles back further onto the bed and you quickly move to straddle across his hips, one hand coming up to hold his jaw in place when you’re in place. “Of course it’s okay.”

You lean in for an impossibly needy kiss, only breaking away when you physically can’t breathe anymore. Vernon’s eyes flutter open at the same time as yours do and as you reach behind yourself with one hand to unclasp your bra, he looks at you like you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him.  

(He tells you that you are no fewer than three times before you fall asleep a few hours later.)

thank u so much for reading, i hope you enjoyed it! as always, likes, reblogs, comments & feedback are so so appreciated. there's approx a scene and a half left for part 3 and then we're all done with this baby! stay tuned for that, coming soon.<3 p.s. no i will not apologise to jaehyun, this is what he gets for making me feel insane. thanks !

[yukidragon]

May we have a story about Jack's clingy side and uses his puppy dog eyes to make MC to cuddle with him longer? (He uses the puppy dog eyes whenever he wants something and it works 100% of the time) Jack kind of reminds me of a giant puppy.

I love this idea! Jack definitely knows how to channel puppy energy to his advantage, and my MC Alice definitely falls for it every time.

In fact, I love this idea so much that it inspired me to turn it into a quick writing prompt. I also remembered that I owe everyone a nice little Jack x reader fic from the poll I made last year, so I wrote this writing exercise in 1st person gender neutral perspective.

So here it is, just a short but sweet first draft story about clingy Jack giving his sunshine some puppy dog eyes and pleading to get a bit more cuddle time. I don't think any real warnings apply, though it does get a little suggestive. Also, I think this might count as GrovelCore?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my writing, and consider leaving a comment please!💕

@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars @cheriihoney @illary-kore @okamiliqueur @kurokrisps

...

It was nice to have moments like this, just the two of us on the couch cuddled up together. The way Jack wrapped me up in his big, strong arms made me feel so safe, so content. Even though I was tucked comfortably in his lap, he practically surrounded me with his warmth. It was the perfect way to spend a day off from work.

The show on TV was entertaining, but it wasn’t enough to draw my attention away from Jack for long. He didn’t seem to be paying attention to it at all. Every time I looked up at him, I never failed to see those beautiful dark brown eyes of his gazing back at me. His mouth was shaped in a gentle curve of a smile, his expression almost dreamy as he admired me with so much love and adoration in his eyes that it sent my heart racing. I had to look away when the butterflies in my chest fluttered so hard they were ready to burst out of me.

Fuck, I was so down bad for this man, I was down atrocious.

A gloved finger brushed against my cheek, slowly tracing the contours of my face until reaching my chin. The sensation sent a delicious shiver down my spine, and my eyes returned to Jack as he gently guided my face back towards him.

“Looks like the show’s over,” Jack said. I blinked, caught off-guard, before my eyes darted to the screen to see the credits scrolling by. His honeyed voice drew me back before I could get distracted from his loving gaze for long. “What do you want to do now, sunshine?”

The first thought that popped into my head made my cheeks burn and brought back those damn butterflies. The second thought reminded me to check the time.

Ah damn it. Curse must-watch binge-worthy television. Why must I always fall for your siren song of “just one more episode”?

“Not run errands, that’s for sure, but it’s getting late,” I said with a heavy sigh, banishing the butterflies and steamy thoughts to whence they came. “Groceries aren’t going to buy themselves, and I’ve got a bunch of other stuff I should get out of the way while I’m out too.” I sighed again, shoulders slumping.

Being a responsible adult dealing with all the responsible adult bullshit sucked sometimes. A lot of the time. Actually probably most of the time considering how many hours in a day got eaten up by a cringy job and entitled customers.

I twisted away from Jack and tried to stand, but his large muscular arms kept me locked up tighter than iron bars. I turned back to him with a questioning look, only to see him pouting at me.

“I know it’s important to be responsible, sunshine, but don’t you think you’ve been pushing yourself too hard lately?” he asked. “We have plenty of food to last a few more days, and you’ve been working overtime for the past five nights in a row. You come home too exhausted to do anything but sleep, then you go right back to work. It’s not good for you.”

“I know,” I said with a helpless shrug. “But what can I do about it? Bills aren’t going to pay themselves either.”

Jack adjusted his hold on me, not enough that I could slip free, but I could feel his hands glide slowly along my back, sending a shiver up my spine. “I know, but it’s just been so long since we’ve had any cuddle time,” he said, his pout making its way into his voice now.

I couldn’t help but chuckle a little at the way his lower lip jutted out just a little further. “You see me every day,” I teased, trying to lighten up the mood. “Besides, we woke up cuddling this morning, didn’t we? You sleep with me every night.”

“You’ve been too tired to cuddle lately,” Jack said, whining a little. “Even this morning, you didn’t really wake up until halfway through breakfast. This is the first chance in days that I’ve had to really have you all to myself.” He dipped his head down, closer to mine, and I couldn’t help but notice the way the TV’s gentle glow made his dark eyes shine. “I missed you, sunshine.”

His big soulful eyes tugged at my heartstrings, and his gentle caress along my back made me want to melt into him. “I missed you too,” I admitted after a moment. We couldn’t exactly talk when other people were around, and work had been too busy for us to even sneak a kiss without the risk of getting caught in the act.

 I was pretty sure Jack wouldn’t mind even if someone else could see him making out with me. In fact, I had a sneaking suspicion that he might even enjoy getting caught. Sometimes this man acted like he had no idea what it meant to feel shame.

Then again, Jack was always painted up like a clown 24/7. If he wasn’t embarrassed by the bright face paint or his silly jokes, then he probably didn’t know the meaning of the word.

Sometimes I wished that I could say the same. The idea of being seen making weird faces while holding onto the air left me feeling a level of cringe that not even the greeting at my job could match. It probably would be a kiss with tongue too knowing Jack.

The thought left me burning, both with mortification and the memory of the way his kisses made me feel.

Maybe it would be worth the embarrassment considering how good of a kisser Jack was.

As if reading my mind, Jack brushed his lips against mine, just a peck, but it was enough to snap my attention entirely to my boyfriend. “Then stay with me,” he said with a hint of desperation to his breathy voice. “Please?” He planted another kiss on my lips, just a little longer but still only a tantalizing taste of what he could offer me. “I need you.”

Jack finished off the last of my resistance by saying my name in that same pleading tone while looking at me with so much love and need in his beautiful dark brown eyes. His desperate voice and puppy dog eyes made me melt like cotton candy in water.

I gave in to him. I couldn’t help it. I was weak to him when he begged me like this, and I needed Jack just as badly as he needed me.

“Jack,” I sighed as I looped my arms around his neck and drew Jack in for another kiss. I could feel him smile against my lips, and he murmured my name again before his tongue slid into my mouth to get a taste of me.

Soon I was pinned against the couch, breathless and panting, with Jack looming above me. His arms were a cage that secured me there and ensured that I wasn’t leaving anytime soon. Not that I wanted to with the way his mouth moved along my neck, hot and wet. I couldn’t help but moan his name as he sucked on my skin, arching up into him.

Even before Jack started tugging at my shirt, I had a feeling that I wasn’t getting any errands done today, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. Every touch, every kiss, and every murmur of my name along with sweet praise made the world around us fade away, until nothing else existed but the two of us and our love.

[amyispxnk]

Best Idea You’ve Ever Had

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader

Summary: Joel’s job is boring so you help make it a little more exciting ;)

A/N: I actually don’t have anything to say this time (goes on to ramble) I kind of like it and I’m like ‘oh I wrote a decent smut for once’ but I feel like I’m gonna read this again tomorrow and be like ew. I don’t really feel like I did this justice if you get what I’m saying. Feels very basic boring but anyway please read lmk and all the shit!!

Word count: 1.5k

Warnings: established relationship, SMUT - blowjob, face-fucking, cum eating -, pet names, kissing, good girl used once, mm i think that’s it

DO NOT COPY THIS WORK IN ANY WAY PLS AND TY.

Joel adjusted the reading glasses which were close to falling off his nose, head tipping downwards as he tried to not fall asleep during this damned meeting and actually take notes which he needed for later.

His job was great, paid well, had reasonable enough hours - compared to his last job, where he could be working until anytime between 5 and midnight - and wasn’t too difficult, but god was it boring. He’d much rather be doing anything at all with you. You, who were probably sat downstairs, nose buried in one of those books you always read, legs curled beneath you as you laid on the couch, without him. It was the weekend, you were supposed to be spending time together and instead he was forced into work again, missing out on spending time with you again.

He pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh, looking back up to the computer screen when he heard a quiet knock on his office door.

“Joel?” Your small voice asked from behind it, keeping caution to not disturb him too much during his meeting.

He checked his microphone was muted before turning slightly. “Yeah, sweetheart?” He replied, watching as you walked in and gently shut the door behind you. You walked past his chair and sat on the small couch which was to the left of his desk, just behind it.

“You ‘member what we were talking about last night?” You asked.

He pondered it for a moment, furrowing his brows and cursing his age for not remembering that thing you were discussing the night before. You always talked a lot at night, save for a few times when he’d been close to sleeping on the couch and you could barely manage sleeping back-to-back, so his mind was replaying the most recent, lengthy conversation you’d had. When he remembered, his expression flickered with surprise before his lips curved into a smirk.

Last night, you two had talked about plans for the weekend during dinner when his meeting came up.

“I wanted to spend the whole weekend with you, we barely get time anymore..” He said with a frown as he finished telling you about the meeting and how long it would certainly take.

“Because we’re workin’ our asses off.” You quipped, trying to lighten his mood a little bit and internally melting at just how distraught he seemed at not being able to be with you the entire day tomorrow.

“That’s true.” He agreed with a little smile.

You let a moment of silence pass as you both finished eating quietly, when a devilish thought crossed your mind - a grin broadening on your face to pair with it.

“What you smirkin’ ‘bout?” He questioned as he took a sip of his water and stood up to go put your dishes away, you following behind him into the kitchen.

“Your meeting’s gonna last pretty much the whole day then?” Dodging the question as you still mulled over your idea in your head, not wanting to straight up ask him in case it made him feel awkward.

He nodded, uncertainty now painting all of his features as he looked at you. “What evil plot’re you cookin’ up in there?” He tapped on the side of your skull before his arms crossed over his chest and he leaned back against the counter, watching you and waiting for you to speak.

“What if I sucked you off during the meeting?” You blurted out, unable to stop yourself from laughing after you said it. “Sorry- if it’s weird, I just thought it might be fun, you’re always saying your job is so boring and annoying and-”

He quickly cut you off from your rambling. “Best fuckin’ idea you’ve ever had.” He told you, mind reeling at the prospect and his eyes genuinely seeming to light up as he thought harder and harder about it (something else getting harder and harder with it).

You were not expecting such an enthusiastic answer, nor such an enthusiastic kiss from him which made you feel like you were being swooped off your feet.

You giggled into the kiss as he finally broke apart from you, chest rising and falling heavily. “That’s settled then, I’ll add it to my checklist for tomorrow.” You smiled before going to get a glass of water and getting ready for bed.

“Yeah. I remember.” He said slowly, eyes narrowing as he thought it over in his head. “I gotta speak too though, might make it difficult.”

You walked up to him, lips pushed forward in a pout as you leaned forward to look over his shoulder, confirming his camera was off, before leaning forward and pressing a kiss to his lips. “Please, Joel. Jus’ wanna make you feel good.” You spoke in a sultry tone.

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as his jaw clenched and praying to the lord nothing would go wrong, also asking for some more resistance against you because you could honestly get him to do anything anytime you wanted just like that.

“Okay.” He nodded, pants growing tighter as he watched you lower yourself beneath his desk, making sure you didn’t knock your head and settling between his legs. He adjusted his positioning in the chair so he could spread his legs a little wider for you, giving you the go-ahead.

You reached for the waistband of his pants, pulling them down and letting them pool around his ankles as you took his throbbing cock in hand, pumping him a few times and savouring the sight of him literally tearing the fabric of his office chair, digging his nails into it as he resisted the urge to move, grab you, touch you, pull you closer - anything.

You pressed kisses around his groin, a hand reaching up to massage his balls gently as you teased him and waited until it was his turn to speak.

He groaned at your touch, brows furrowed as he panted heavily. It was his turn to speak now, and he cautiously turned on his mic, putting his left hand on yours to still your movements for a moment as his right shakily grabbed his notes and he cleared his throat, starting to give the run-down on all the work that had been completed or needed to be done from the past fortnight.

You waited for a moment, listening to him talk before pressing a small kiss to his tip, making his cock jump in response as he choked on his words, eyes widening as he tried to mentally prepare himself for this.

Your lips gently closed around the flushed head of his cock and you sucked, making him cough abruptly as he tried to cover his moan. This was going perfectly.

You ease the rest of his length down your throat, nose coming flush to the coarse hair at its base as you begin to move back slowly, still toying with his balls as you do so.

“God- damnit.” He grits, having just come to the end of his bit, immediately turning his camera and mic off and grabbing a fistful of your hair. He leans back so he can get a better view of you and notices that one of your hands slipped down past your shorts and into your panties, your finger rubbing harsh circles onto your clit as you blowed him.

“Fuck.” He groaned, meeting your eyes. “You get off on this? Sucking my cock?”

You nodded so quickly your head could fall off, eager for him to release his grip so you could get back to what you started, but he had other plans.

“Y’gonna let me fuck this pretty throat, sweetheart?” He asked, pulling your head backward a little so you could give him proper consent.

“Y-yes, Joel. Please.” You breathed, head spinning as he immediately shoved his dick back into your mouth, making you work extra hard to not gag around his length as he began fucking it with earnest. His head fell back against the seat as his hips started moving on their own accord, chasing the wet heat of your mouth as he got closer and closer to his climax, thrusting one final time before stilling and spilling his hot load down your throat with a moan of your name.

You swallowed it all, sticking your tongue out to show him.

“Fuck, such a good girl for me, aren’t ya?” He groaned at the sight of you, pushing his chair back so you could get up from beneath the desk. His meeting finished and the call had ended, his computer screen now completely black and reflecting the pair of you in it.

Your legs wobbled slightly as you got up, and you could feel your heartbeat in your pussy as you stood between his spread legs, waiting for him to speak.

He pushed himself out of his chair and met your lips in a passionate kiss, tongue immediately darting out to meet yours as his hands roamed your body, one of them pulling your shorts down and getting them off you before he picked you up and started walking to your bedroom.

“Let me repay the favour, darlin’”.

Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed!! Likes, comments, and reblogs are always appreciated and requests are open! 💞

[factual-fantasy]

Greetings Factual! I just realized I completely forgot to congratulate you in my last Ask- so although it's a tad late, allow me to say, great job getting to yet another milestone in the form of 27,000 followers! As I've said before, you deserve every single one and more- your works, both big and small, make bad days brighter and good days even better! I've especially enjoyed the pixel art gags these past few days- "human sans" and "Bingus" in particular- and it seems like many others have too- at this rate, 30,000 is just a few steps away! Almost their!

Also, thanks a million for responding so kindly to my idea regarding the gangs reunion with patty and meeting with Baragara! I'm glad you like it, and regardless of what details you decide on, I just hope we get to see the moment illustrated some day, as emotional as it is epic!

As for my actual Ask today- I was wondering about Grimaces Gigantamax status. As you probably know, some Pokemon species, including Gengar, can take mega evolution to the next level and temporarily grow to Kaiju sizes when exposed to certain types of legendary energy. However, of the 26 compatible species, not all members have the genes necessary to do so. So, even though he is unlikely to be exposed to the energy required to Gigantamax, if he was, would Grimace be among the lucky few of his kind to react? Or does he lack the Gigantamax genes- which, if he does, certainly wouldn't make him any less awesome!

Oh, and also, small goofy side ask I just thought of- since the group usually seems to sleep together, do any of its six ( later eight ) members snore? And if so, have the others grown accustomed to the noise? Or do they "throw a pillow at the problem" so to speak?

(27,000 followers) (Human sans) (Bingus)

THANK YOU SO MUCH!! :DD I'm glad to hear that you've been liking my pixel stuff!! :DDD

As for the Baragara ask, awe! No problem!! :D I've been thinking about his story and how I would draw it.. it just seems like a hefty project to take on in my current state.. <XD

Now hmm.. Gigantimaxing.. Funnily enough the discord server an I actually talked about Grimace potentially Gigantimaxing or mega evolving. You know, for angst reasons XD But the general take away I got is it would requite too specific of an environment and situation for him to mega evolve on accident. If mega evolving on accident is even possible- (I say accident because the group are not intended to know what megastones are or how they work. So its not like Grimace could mega evolve intentionally-)

Gigantimaxing had a similar problem. Requiring too specific of an environment/situation for him to Gigantimax unintentionally. They're not in/from the Galar region, so they don't have access the things needed to Gigantimax.. and since Grimace isn't from Galar, I thought it would stand to reason that he wouldn't have the gigantimax genes..(do only galar region pokemon have the genes..?)

And even if they were in Galar and Grimace had the genes, Gloria would be a roadblock.

If they found like.. a gigantimax den.? She would surly sense the powerful aura and be sketched out. Thus steering the group away. And since Gloria has never steered them wrong before.. no body would disobey her.

It kind'a sucks that I cant find a way for these two scenarios to work out! 😭 I had a lot of fun imagining Grimace mega evolving in a panic to protect the group and then needing Sylvester to talk him down. But needing a megastone, and a keystone..? And somehow having Gloria not get sussed out by the stones powerful aura and not taking it away from Grimace just seems pretty far fetched. Darn you Gloria for being so observant and caring for your friends. 😔

I'm open to ideas of how I can make either idea less specific and more possible though.. 👀👀

As for your last ask, I'd like to say that thankfully none of them snore <XD it would be pretty hard to stay hidden in the forest if you snore!

[phantomrose96]

hi your short story is giving me absolute brainworms it’s DAMN good. I don’t have anything of real note to add so I’ll just ask: is there anything you really want to say about the story but haven’t yet (like trivia or whatnot)?

(938 Seconds Per Second)

Probably that I'd very nearly abandoned it!

The idea started from an article I was reading about time dilation - the gist of it being "okay but what's to stop you from accelerating infinitely? Up to and past the speed of light?" and the conclusion was kind of "you sort of can... from YOUR frame, from YOUR perception of time, potentially. but from a resting frame, you will appear to only ever approach the speed of light." So even if you could perceive yourself traveling 100 light years in a month... to every resting body, 100 years have passed.

So I was like cool! Fucked up potential! I really liked the concept of "you can notice your mistake after 5 minutes and already be 100 years too late to fix it."

I toyed with a few ideas and ended up gravitating towards "what if one shipmate intentionally leaves another shipmate behind... and by the time this is discovered days later, the left-behind shipmate is long dead." I also settled on "what if your shipmate sucked so bad that he causes you to snap and leave him behind"

So I started writing with that as the core idea. Main character Mendoza has the Worst Coworker in the World Universe, and he snaps and leaves Carson behind on a planet.

...But then I was a little lost. I was struggling with the substance. The "what makes this interesting" and the "what ties this all together." Sure I could just write Carson being an ass for 3,000 words and then... Mendoza leaves him behind the end?

I was even struggling with the first draft because part of me was like "what's even enjoyable about reading about a completely insufferable person...?" Even Mendoza himself is no peach. Maybe the whole concept was just unpalatable. I kinda just... ditched it where it was.

Then I came back to it this weekend and decided to kind of rethink it, fresh. And the absolute biggest difference between the early stumbling draft and what I ended up with was Sampson. He actually solved so much. (He existed in the early draft, but not importantly.) He introduced the character stakes and the tying thread to the story I was missing.

Now it wasn't just Carson annoying Mendoza. Once Sampson's tome enters the story, the stakes change. Mendoza is now in the middle of Carson actively destroying the thing Sampson is even alive for. Mendoza is now in a position of actively needing to make choices--he could intervene and try to save Sampson's tome. He could tattle. He could do anything--but he doesn't. Because "not letting Carson win" is the single most important thing. Mendoza doesn't need to be any kind of hero. He chooses not to be.

And now the reader is captive to this conflict, privy to everything Mendoza knows, and does not act on, as Sampson unravels in the background.

And now we have a thread that leads to Carson and Mendoza ending up on-planet together. Carson isn't out there for shits and giggles, he's out there because the plot point about Sampson's tome led to this. Now Carson knows about the cargo, and now he's offering Mendoza the chance to not just be passive witness, but be accomplice to Sampson's destruction.

And it's enticing. It's unimaginable wealth, and it's getting off the shitty ship, and it's never seeing Carson again. Mendoza has the chance to stick to his every-man-for-himself ideals and go along with Carson. And it's interesting to explore Carson's reasoning for why they deserve this! They're the ones who sacrificed 300 years for this journey! Don't they deserve this over some fucker who wasn't even born when this mission started?

And then it reaches one pivotal moment--Carson's gleeful declaration that Sampson will totally kill himself once he discovers what they've stolen. Because now there are consequences to this action. If Mendoza follows through with this, it's with the knowledge that he's gotten Sampson killed. (And maybe he shouldn't care. Maybe it doesn't matter. As he's asserted this whole time.)

Mendoza doesn't do it. He pulls up the ladder after Carson.

He doesn't let Carson win.

And then the ending... the ending where Sampson very much was witness to Mendoza following Carson out of the ship. If Sampson were every-man-for-himself, he could just comply and tell Major Kensington what he saw. Mendoza knew Carson was outside the ship. Mendoza came back. Carson didn't. The ship took off. Sampson knows this all.

But, Sampson has an idea of what, may, have happened. He knows he accidentally revealed too much to Carson. He knows Carson stole the tome which contains information about the cargo. Sampson, maybe, knows what decision Mendoza made.

So Sampson lies to Kensington. Sampson will swear on his life he never saw Mendoza that evening. No one will ever know.

And just!!! It was delightful to find the piece that ties the WHOLE story through. It's not just "your coworker sucks and you booted him to live out 40 years on a planet for your next 2 weeks". It's character-driven now. It's about choices and consequences and the fucked up implications that the time-dilation travel throws in.

[trenchcoatimpala]

Don't Fade

More of the same. Read also on archive

Dean wasn’t going to admit that it was awkward. Cas had been back for three days and he hadn’t been able to say anything. He didn’t know what to say, or how to say it, or if he could even find the words to make sense of what was going on in his head. Cas was patient, he didn’t ask for anything, didn’t bring up that day and Dean didn’t know if he was disappointed about it or relieved. 

He’d hugged Cas within an inch of his newfound life when the ritual had worked and the angel had appeared before him and Sam in the library. He may have cried but Sam wouldn’t know that and Cas knew well enough not to mention it, and why shouldn’t he cry? When a guy confesses his love to you and then dies you’re allowed to cry when he comes back. 

The problem with it all was that Dean didn’t actually know how he felt about Cas. He knew he cared about him, deeply, more than he’d ever cared about anyone except for Sam, but he also knew that he didn’t love Cas like he loved Sam. He said he did. Always calling Cas brother and friend, but there was something scratching at the surface of those words, something unspoken that Dean tried to suck the air from so it withered and died and he could leave it buried. 

But it was like that feeling thrived on being smothered,it was even more desperate the longer he let it simmer, suffocating under dirt and grit as worms tried to eat it, but it only grew stronger. A pull in his heart that yanked him by a chain, dragging him up and down a proverbial road, and he couldn’t shake it, couldn’t drown it, couldn’t burn it to the ground, it clung to him like a parasite, and he should admit it was a welcome one, but he couldn’t. Admitting it made it real and if it was real he could lose it. He’d already lost Cas, too many times, and each time was as unbearable as the last, as if he was the one suffocating, buried in his own grave with panic brawling in his chest as he tried to dig himself out. 

And he knew what that was like. The first time Cas had touched him had been to put him back in his grave and since then Dean had been gravitating towards him, wanting that touch to consume him. He’d often found himself staring at the handprint on his shoulder in the days following Cas’ sacrifice. It was a faint outline now, weathered by time. And terror had crashed into him as he realized this time Cas being gone might be for real, and this would be the first place Castiel, Angel of the Lord had touched him, as well as the last, and the remnants of that first time were all but a few bumps on pink flesh, and the shadow of the last time was fading fast in crusted blood on a jacket he couldn’t bear to throw away. 

Tears had poured hot and unsteady down his cheeks as he looked at the handprint he’d bore for the past twelve years. He didn’t have anyone left to pray to or believe in, but in that moment, staring at the reflection of what he had left of his best friend, the words came out of him, a wretched sob curled up in a plea; the sister of a prayer: “Don’t fade.” 

“Please don’t fade, don’t go, you can’t leave me,” Dean begged. “Not all of you, please, this is all I have left.” 

Don’t fade.

Don’t fade.

Don’t fade.

He had chanted over and over again, and yeah, okay, maybe Dean did know how he felt about Cas, and maybe that was why it was so awkward to be around him. What if Cas had changed his mind in the empty? What if he didn’t love him anymore? What if he didn’t know how? What if Dean didn’t know how to let someone in like that? What if an angel and human couldn’t even be together? Was there some kind of law against it? There probably should be. But Dean also didn’t want to care about all that because for once in his life he had a shot at something that would make him happy and shouldn’t he take it? Didn’t he deserve it? After everything he’d been through, everywhere his body had been dragged across the Earth by an Archangel, all the times his psyche had been toyed with, didn’t he deserve to let himself love? 

“Dean?” 

Dean looked up to see Cas in his doorway and he realized he was sitting with his hand cradling his shoulder, the shoulder that was home to Cas’ burning touch. “Oh, uh, hey,” he said awkwardly, shifting on the bed. 

“Are you alright?” 

“Yeah, ‘course,” Dean replied, forcing a smile. 

Cas sighed, long suffering and sad. “Please don’t lie to me.” 

“Cas-” 

“No, Dean, if this is about what I said to you before I-” 

“Before you died?” Dean finished for him, standing up so he could confront the angel. “Yeah, you know what, Cas, it is about what you said. How could you say that to me?” 

“I didn’t think I would see you again,” Cas said quietly, barely managing to look at Dean. 

Dean turned away from him, anger burning suddenly in his veins. “Is that supposed to make it better? What, you don’t think I can handle you being in love with me, so you leave it to a deathbed confession so you don’t have to find out!?” 

“I knew you didn’t feel the same way,” Cas replied defensively. “I didn’t see any point in bringing it up to you sooner.” 

Dean couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Wait, so you just decided for me how I felt?” The confusion on Cas’ face only spurred Dean on. “You’re an idiot,” he snapped. “You don’t even know- God, Cas, you drive me fucking insane!” 

“I don’t understand,” Cas said, tilting his head to survey Dean. 

“How I feel about you,” Dean began, trying to reign himself in, “Cas, man, there aren’t words.” He shrugged off his flannel and pushed up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal the handprint, “You gave me this, before we even properly met, and it’s all I had of you, every single time I lost you, it was the only thing I had left, and every day it gets harder and harder to see and you have no idea how much that hurts me. Because it’s like watching you fade away as if you never existed, as if we never had anything between us. And when you were gone I tried to remember what you sounded like, what it felt like when you healed me, how my name sounded when you said it, and I prayed for you back. I wanted it so badly I was dizzy with it. And now you’re here, and you dare to tell me you don’t think I love you back?”

Cas was staring at him, shock emanating from his very being. “I never thought- Dean, I don’t know what to say.” 

“I have a lot of issues, which you know,” Dean said as he drew closer to Cas, “and one of those issues is not being very good at saying how I feel, or letting myself want things, but I want you, Cas. I don’t know when it started but I do, and I don’t know who I am without that want.” Cas was close now, his eyes blown wide in surprise and lust. “Touch me,” Dean begged, his lips mere inches from Cas’, “touch me like it’s the first time.” 

Cas surged forward, one hand coming up to cup Dean’s cheek and the other to land on his shoulder. Fire surged through the contact and Dean felt the burn of Cas’ hand imprinting on his skin, refreshing a mark that had come to be Dean’s greatest companion, and the kiss that followed was a promise shaped in the hot brand of tongues sliding against tongues and prayers finally being answered.

tag list, ask to be added or removed

@undeadcas @tearsofgrace @hellerstiel @casgetoutofmyass0907 @wantstoflyafraidtofall @gayhuckleberryinatrenchcoat @thepixelagora@thelahatiel  @im-sam-fucking-winchester@piebook67 @bestiarum@theedeangirl@november5th@bixlasagna@ancient-fangirl@famouspsychicpizzabandit@you-cant-spell-subtext-without@bumbledumble1@cascigarette@addicted2demons @our-stars-graveside @fivefeetfangirl @evillittleguy

[gay-wh0re-slut]

Hi! Can you write some angst + NSFW ending with the prompt

“You think I wanted this to happen? You think I, of all people, wanted to fall in love with you? This is why I knew I shouldn’t have gotten close to you.”

oooohohohohooo this is a good oneeee

idk if i can think of a way of ending with this but maybe somewhere in the beginning or middle/end ish? i hope that’s alright? it’ll still be angsty tho don’t worryyyy (i hope) hehe but thank you for the request!!

after writing: i kinda broke up what you wanted to be said and added a few things, i hope that’s okay

Please

content: rhea ripley x fem reader, angst, NSFW but pretty vanilla unfortch :/ sorry friends

Working backstage at WWE has its perks: getting to talk with the superstars, seeing how everything is put up and taken down, getting to go behind the scenes of the show; but it also has its downsides. You’re up late at night after the show taking everything down, cleaning up after everyone, making sure everything is put back in its place in the trucks to move to the next city. You’re always tired because of the schedule they have you on. Very rarely do you get time for yourself so you haven’t even thought of trying to have any kind of relationship.

Lately, you’ve been a bit on edge. Is it the lack of sleep? Probably. Is it the crush you have on THE Rhea Ripley when you swore to yourself you would never date a coworker? Most likely.

You’ve never voiced that you had this, but a lot of your coworkers have told you multiple times that you suck at hiding it. The way you stumble your words around her, or how your face gets red when she’s brought up in conversation, or how you refuse to talk to or about her in case of messing everything up. You’ve never had a crush last this long and it was eating you alive. It was hard to work sometimes because you would just stare, she was so captivating.

Unfortunately, one day the goth wrestler caught you staring and decided it would be a good idea to talk to you. “Hey, (y/n), you alright?”

“Huh?” your face became red, “oh yeah sorry, got caught in a daze.”

“Don’t apologize, I can tell you’re tired,” she sounded so caring, this was not helping your case, “they work you all too hard back here.”

You nervously laugh it off, “yeah, but that’s show biz.”

“Tell me about it,” she sighs, “You sure you’re okay?”

“Oh, psshh! Yeah totally,” you wave her pity away landing your hands on your hips.

“I know I’m scary looking but I’m always here if you want to talk. I know how it can be, trust me,” she takes out her phone, “let me get your number in case you want to chat.”

Oh god, oh fuck.

“Y-yeah for sure,” you hesitate grabbing the phone. You shake as you type your number in, you see that she already has your name typed out with the bubbles emoji next to it. “Why the bubbles?”

“You’re always bubbly,” she says casually with a small smile.

“Right,” you smile as you hand back the phone, “thank you.”

“For what?”

“Checking up on me.”

“Us tired people gotta stay together,” she laughs, “I’ll see ya around, yeah?”

“I’ll be here!” You give her a weak thumbs up as you watch her walk away.

“God,” you groan as you begin to fan yourself. You got nervously hot trying to muster up any sort of coherent sentence. Hopefully you didn’t sound too weird, you kinda blacked out for a second. “My number?!” you whisper to yourself, “that’s crazy.”

You could barely think about anything else the rest of the day constantly checking your phone to see if she texted you. Luckily, nothing happened. You were relieved when you went to the hotel that night and saw that she hadn’t texted you because that meant you couldn’t mess it up. You kept telling yourself that this was a silly crush that will go away soon…but you’ve said that for the past three months.

You didn’t realize the time until you heard your phone ding at 2:43am.

hey, it’s rhea

Of course her texts are all lowercase. You lay staring at the screen. Do you answer? Do you lie tomorrow and say that you actually fell asleep?

hey! what’s up

You decide to text back, what’s the use in lying, you thought.

i knew you’d be awake

you caught me

these hotel beds aren’t the best for people who can’t sleep huh

idk mine’s pretty comfy

Was that flirting? You weren’t sure, but hopefully she didn’t take it that way. The last thing you need is for her to start having a crush on you.

damn, you’re lucky. maybe i should come sleep with you then haha

Oh no, what do I say? Yes? Is she joking? Surely she’s just joking…fuck.

if i’m lucky again, maybe the next hotel we can share a room

Oh yeah good save…totally not flirting.

sounds like a plan

good. well i’m going to try to sleep hopefully

me too, we both have a long travel day tomorrow

goodnight ripley

sleep well (y/n)

You’ve only just realized that you’ve been cheesing at your phone this whole interaction. She’s taken over your entire being.

It was now 3:15am and you had a flight at 7:30am, so you might as well just lay there with your eyes closed in hopes of getting some sort of rest.

The week has passed, it was Monday again. Though the show starts at seven at night, crew had to be there at ten in the morning to make sure everything was ready before the stars showed up at two. You and Rhea hadn’t texted much, just some hello’s here and there with a few how’s your day’s, though she was on your mind constantly.

As the time drew closer and closer for the australian to walk through the door, you avoided that door at all costs. You tried to do anything to get you away from her path to her dressing room. Sweeping, wiping, snacking, literally anything.

“How’s the bed?” her accent flew threw the air behind you.

“W-what?” you turn around quickly.

She meets your gaze and stops a few feet in front of you with her little booty shorts and big tshirt, no makeup with her beefy arms crossed, “did you get lucky?”

You widen your eyes as you were taken aback, trying to process what she just said for a good few seconds before you realize what she was talking about, “oh!” you sigh in relief, “sorry! Yeah, no, got the lumpiest in the whole building probably,” you chuckle.

“Damn, seems like we switched sides this time around-,” she smirked.

You cut her off before anything else could happen, “Ha! I guess so,” you take a carrot from the snack table and chomp down, “I- uh… gotta go mop… th-the back hallway, see you later!” you lied. You basically ran away from her. You’ve already mopped that hallway… twice. Something about her in the shorts and tshirt made you so nervous.

Time went on, the show went on, the audience left, and luckily you’ve avoided the buff goth the whole night successfully.

“Hey, (y/n), Rhea’s looking for you. She’s in her room,” one of the PA’s said, nervously, “she seems a bit upset.”

Oh no, was all you could think. Repeating it in your head with every step, getting louder and louder, until you finally reached her door. You take a long deep breath before knocking lightly.

“It’s open,” she yelled through the wood.

So you walk in, closing the door behind you, you stand right behind the threshold not wanting to go any closer. She was already back in her tshirt, but this time she was wearing sweatpants. Her makeup was still on though with her hair rough with sweat.

“Are you avoiding me?” she asked bluntly.

“No,” you answer a little too quickly.

“You sure? Cause it sure does seem like it,” her arms crossed with anger.

“I’m pretty sure,” you lie again.

“Then why haven’t I seen you all day?” she sneaks closer to you.

“I’ve been…working, it was busy today,” you step back.

“You just so happened to be extra busy today,” she stood wide in front of you, basically pushing you against the door.

You couldn’t think, she was so close you could smell the faint cologne she put on earlier that was left on the shirt. You settle for a small nod, holding your breath, hoping she would take that as an answer.

She didn’t, “I don’t believe you,” she growled.

“Well, I-”

“What? You think you can be friendly one day and the next you just completely ignore me?” she threw her hands up in surrender before landing them on her hips.

Your heart was beating a million miles a minute, you could barely breathe, “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t thin-”

“Yeah, you didn’t think. You didn’t think how I would feel, did you?” she stepped back a little as she turned away from you shaking her head.

You didn’t dare say anything.

A few moments passed of her staring at the wall with her jaw clenched and you plastered to the door deciding whether or not to make a run for it.

She dropped her chin to her chest with a big sigh, “look,” she started calmly, which was scarier than earlier somehow, “being me,” she gestured towards herself turning back to you, “it’s hard to make friends, so when you were one of the only people that were nice to me I thought we had something going.”

“Rhea…” you drop your guard, but only a little.

“Please,” she held her hand up and you shut your mouth immediately. “I try so hard to be nice to everyone. I’ve been betrayed so many times it’s hard to let the walls down.”

Now you’re the one stepping towards her in hopes of creating some sort of comfort.

“I don’t want to be let down again,” she admits.

“I understand,” you whisper.

She didn’t take the comfort, “How could you? Everyone loves you! I’ve never seen you not make a friend. You’re so nice and caring,” her voice raised again. “So when you didn’t talk to me all day, I knew it was something I did. And I can’t bare to have another ‘friend’, ” she air quoted, “leave me because of…me.”

Your heart sank at her words. You did think of her as a friend except you wanted her to be more than a friend, which was the problem. You scoured your brain thinking of something to say that would make her feel better, until it clicked.

“You think I wanted this to happen?” you finally say.

“What?” she barks.

“I like you, Rhea, a little too much actually,” your heart was beating indescribably fast.

She just stared in surprise.

“You think I, of all people, wanted to fall in love with you?”

“In lov-” she began to question.

“This is why I knew I shouldn’t have gotten close to you. I would’ve gotten too close and I was afraid that you wouldn’t love me back,” you finally admit with a sigh. Your eyes begin to form tears but you try your best to suck them back in.

The purple eyeshadow blinks. Without a second thought, she rushed towards you grabbing your face, pulling you in for a deep kiss. After a few seconds, you push her away. Piercing blue eyes were just as surprised as yours as if she didn’t know she was going to do that either.

Still holding your jaw, “I- I’m sorry. I shouldn’t hav-”

You pull her back in by her waist to kiss her once more. Your lips moving gracefully against hers. You knew the black lipstick was smearing, but you couldn’t care less. She gently walked you backwards towards the door with a small push to pin you against it. One of her hands found its way to your back pulling you in as close as possible. Heavy breaths filled the room as lips continued to dance.

Her hand sneaked its way to the button of your pants, “can I…” she panted.

You nod your head, “mhmm,” you whine, as you go back to kissing her.

She swiftly undoes the button and sneaks her hand in, but not in your underwear. She was gently caressing your center, when small moans fell out of you. Her free hand grabbed your neck and tilted your head to the side to allow her to kiss your neck, leaving black marks as she went.

“Is this okay?” the accent whispered.

“Yess,” you breathe, “do whatever…you want to me.”

“Oh?” she kisses up your neck between words, “how about…I just… give you a taste… of what could happen…then later…I’ll show you…what I can really do,” by now her pace has quickened and the familiar knot in your stomach is quickly being untangled.

You could only nod your head in response, not wanting to moan too loud in fear of someone hearing you from the other side of the door. Your lips catch hers once more as you whine into her mouth.

It didn’t take long for you to almost come undone. Your hips were slightly riding her hand as she moved perfectly against you, “that’s it, love, don’t hold back,” she held your neck a little harder than gentle, secure against the door.

The oxygen left your lungs and the knot finally loosened as you slammed your head against the door. “Fuuuck,” you moan. Your legs were weakening by the second as she tried her best to hold you up. You scratched your way down her back as she chuckled in your ear at the slight pain.

As you came back to earth, your lips met hers a few more times before she removed her hand and buttoned your pants back up for you.

She let you catch your breath still holding you against the door but her hands were now at your waist with most of her body flush with yours. “Now, do you want me to come to your room or you come to mine?”

“I thought you had the nice bed this time,” you breathe.

“Oh yeah,” she smirked knowing what the answer was already, “my room it is then. See you there,” she kissed you once more before removing herself from you. She grabs her bags and gestures towards the door.

You open the door and let her through, following behind her. “I’ll meet you at the hotel, I have to grab my stuff,” you walk the opposite way.

“Don’t take too long, or we’ll be up all night,” she winked towards you.

“See you soon, Ripley.”

[becholeforever]

Forbidden Fruit

Pairing: Milf!/Neighbor Wanda Maximoff x CollegeFemReader

Word Count: 991

Warnings: Kind of smut? Dirty thoughts, undressing, forbidden love, getting caught, older neighbor, both characters are of age (reader is 19 and Wanda is in her late 30s) not proofread

Summary: You're just trying to get through college but cannot stop thinking about you're Milf neighbor. What happens when she finally decides to make the first move?

-----------------

You let out a sigh of relief as Wanda’s hand slowly descends from your chest to your clothed center 

Waiting for the sensation of her soft fingers rubbing your bundle of nerves you close your eyes in satisfaction as she makes the connection while sucking on your neck 

“Mommy’s gonna make you feel so good” she says against your neck 

“Please do” you moan out and she smirks against your neck

Your eyes snap open when the bell rings and you notice everyone packing up and leaving the classroom 

You notice your professor staring at you with an upset look on her face, which is odd because professor Romanoff is one of the nicest professors you’ve ever had. Sure she’s strict but she has a soft spot for you, she cares for you in a motherly way. 

You start to feel guilty as you descend towards her, feeling like you are the reason she looks so upset. 

“Are you alright y/n?” She asks as you approach her desk

“Of course, why do you ask?”

“Well I’ve noticed you’ve been out of it for the past few days.” She says concerned 

“Yeah” You say sheepishly rubbing the back of your neck “I’ve had some things on my mind but I’m ok” You state with a small smile 

“Well I just want you to know that I care about you and if you need anything let me know” 

“I will professor” You say smiling 

“now go enjoy your weekend” she states smiling 

“I will” you say as you grab your stuff and walk out the door.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As you turn onto your street you feel your heart leap when you notice your neighbor Wanda out on her front lawn watering her plants.

You’ve had a crush on your neighbor ever since you and your mother moved next door to her after your parents divorce three years ago.

She’s a smart and independent woman that you just could not take your eyes off of ever since you saw her. 

You pull into the driveway and step out of the car when you look over and see Wanda smiling at you. You give her a smile back and start making your way towards the front door 

“Have a good day at school today y/n?” She asks making you stop and turn towards her

“I guess you could say that Mrs. Maximoff.” 

There was only one thing you hated about Wanda Maximoff and that was her husband Vision.

You loathed the man and you knew he wasn’t good enough for the goddess he calls his wife.

But there wasn’t much you could do about it. They have been married for 10 years and while you believe that he cheats on her you have no actual proof to back it up.  

“Well, I hope you enjoy your weekend sweetheart.” 

“I’ll try” You say sheepishly as your eyes cascade down the women's physique 

You only notice that you’re staring too long when you look back up and see her staring at you smirking.

“I should probably go inside now.” you say rubbing your neck and staring down at the ground. Suddenly finding the concrete very interesting.

“Okay, enjoy the rest of your day darling.” She smiles as she continues to water her plants.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You enter your home swiftly and say hi to your mom as you make your way upstairs to your room. As you pass by the front hallway window you stop to stare at the woman you admire so much as she starts to put her equipment away. 

You watch as she bends down away from you almost on purpose giving you the chance to admire the curve of her ass. Imaging the way it would feel in your hands, the way you could smack it so easily and imagine the moan the older woman would release. You break from the image when you look back up and notice Wanda’s eyes boring into yours, eyes widening as you bolt from the window to your room. Not noticing the smirk on the older woman's face as she makes her way inside. 

Inside your room, you try to take your mind off of the recent events by drawing in your journal. It doesn’t help though as your mind continues to drift to your milf neighbor. Just then you look up from your journal and see Wanda facing away from you  in her window removing her dirty clothing from the day's hard work. You know it's wrong, you know you shouldn’t but you move closer to your window, eyes slowly cascading down her porcelain skin. 

You almost get whiplash as you're thrown back into those dirty images of the older woman on top of you moaning your name, looking back to see Wanda staring at you, you start to blush. Your legs going to run away from the woman but something in your brain tells you not to. You both stand there staring into each other's eyes in a comfortable silence before Wanda slowly lifts her hand over her half naked body and moves it around to her back to unclip her bra. Your eyes widen as her bra drops to the floor and you are confronted with the perfect image of her wide full breasts. 

You look back up at her with a blush as she smirks at you and lifts her eyebrow up at you in a challenge. You take the bait as you slowly lift your shirt up over your head and reach behind your back to unclip your bra. You watch as her eyes drift down your body and her bottom lip gets caught between teeth. You start to unbutton your pants and pull them down as you watch her hand descend underneath her waistband wondering if you should do the same. 

“Hey y/n have you seen my phone?” Your mom asks as she bursts the door open and walks in. 

Part 2 ??

[turbulentscrawl]

I hope you dont mind me sending a req and it should be angsty right?

I absolutely adore your modern reader and i very much like andrew. So do you mind me sending a request about the modern reader with andrew part 2? To connect with the angsty part, personally i want you to write something about how the modern reader feels lonely for being the only one who comes from the modern timeline, like feeling alienated or estrangement from everyone who comes from the past and struggling with the no internet or new media to consume (personally i think anyone who is from our time could probably feel a withdrawal of internet. I know i do. It suck and i look crazy when it happened.)

Ooo.. considering how our mannerism, fashion, and hygiene routine differ a lot from the past can also cause friction with others can be a good angsty idea. And also food, assuming the reader come from a well off family, their food would looked like what royalty ate. With salt, pepper, cinnamon cost a fortune back in time. You can go wild, i am sorry if this is a long req, i merely gives suggestion. Dont mind me if you dont want to write it.

I think this is the longest individual scene I've written so far! I got carried away ahaha. Actually, this might need to become a multi-part series. ewe

Warnings: fem reader (it was relevant for this), hurt and comfort

Another day of staring at the wall. Or the garden, as this particular moment would have it.

It had been about three months since your arrival now, according to Freddy. (Tracking the days was the one thing he was good for outside of matches, as far as you were concerned. The guy was meticulous with records-keeping, you’d give him that. But he was also a dick.) Three months of boredom, monotony, and a critical lack of stimuli.

The first few weeks had been fine, if only because you were too busy trying to survive a potential witch hunt. Turns out, being hated and blamed for everything has a way of distracting the mind from its homesickness. But the worst of that had passed now, leaving you to take in the reality of your situation: you were more removed from your old life than anyone else here. Your entire way of life was gone.

There was no internet, no television. There was a library, but it was only ever added to at the whim of the man named Orpheus. There were no cars, and there was nowhere to go. There wasn’t even a washing machine—everyone took turns doing their clothes by hand. The stove in the kitchen was gas, and fickle. The doctor, Emily, and Luca made efforts to introduce you to the ways of this more ‘primitive’ environment, but the sheer disappointment of it all made it hard to make an effort. The hygiene standards were different, too, and it was jarring to see what some of these people considered ‘clean.’

“What are you doing out here?” A voice calls. You jump a bit, rattling the chains of the bench swing you’ve occupied. When you turn around, the ‘Gravekeeper’ is behind you in his dark casual wear. The moon is but a sliver in the sky, so if it weren’t for the paleness of his face and hair you might not have seen him at all in the darkness.

“What does it look like?” you ask in response and face forward again. ‘Andrew’ isn’t a bad person, from what you can tell. He doesn’t seem to hate you like some of the others do. But he’s defensive, sticks his foot in his mouth a lot, and you’re too tired for an argument.

“…It’s past curfew,” he says, voice moving around the swing slowly. He’s in your periphery now, hands folded over his chest like he’s still holding that shovel of his. It’s some kind of comfort item for him, you think, but he doesn’t have it with him.

“Luca said that’s just a suggestion,” you reply. “And even if it’s not, you’re out here too.” Andrew pauses after you say that, awkwardly shuffling in his spot, looking between you and the garden. There are no birds, no crickets out. You can hear him swallow thickly in the silence.

“I saw you from the upstairs window,” he says slowly. “I…thought I should come check.”

“Why?” You’re waiting for a ball to drop. To be tricked.

“You’ve been quiet lately,” Andrew says, wiping his hands on his pants. Sweat, maybe. “When you first showed up…I thought you were really loud. You and that little box both…. You used to play that terr— eh, that music on it all the time. But I haven’t heard it in a while.” Your eyes are drawn to him as he explains. You can’t help it, you’re stunned. Not many of the other survivors bothered to show concern for you, and they often weren’t around because they had their on things to attend to. Luca had his inventions, Ada had Emil’s treatments, Luchino his research. You didn’t know Andrew paid any mind to you. He mostly kept to himself.

“I’m stewing,” you whisper, answering his initial question.

“…Do you…need to talk about it?” he asks.

“You don’t want to hear it,” you reply quickly. Andrew scoffs, a flash of his attitude returning.

“I asked didn’t I? I may not understand half the stuff you say but that doesn’t mean by ears don’t work,” he snaps weakly. It sounds like something someone back home would say. It sounds genuine. You look at Andrew again, now with tears in your eyes and a lump in your throat.

“I feel gross,” you croak. Andrew was scowling for a second, but your words shock his face back into something more relaxed. He shifts around again, awkward, unsure, and steps towards the bench. You stop rocking it long enough to let him join you and he sits closer than you would have expected. “I hate it here.” Andrew nods, watching your face, your fidgeting hands, your bouncing knees, and everything spills out like vomit.

“It’s all gone. Everything I knew. There’s nothing to do here besides survive, necessities and shit, and everyone fucking hates me here. No one talks like I’m used to, or behaves like I’m used to, or treats me like I’m used to—but I’m the odd one out so it feels like it’s all my fault that I don’t fit in. I miss my friends, my clothes, my room, my food. I miss my movies, I miss my technology, I miss my products—you guys don’t even treat hygiene the same way we did back home for fuck’s sake--” You’d learned early on that it was considered odd to bathe daily. Water reserves weren’t a concern in the manor, but everyone mostly stuck to the routines they knew. The only saving grace was that you hadn’t had a menstrual cycle since before you arrived. One less thing to worry about, at least.

“—and thank god, because none of you even KNOW what a tampon is!” Andrew makes a face that’s something between embarrassment and horror. You can tell from the way he’s subtly looking himself over that he wonders if he seems gross to you, but you’re too deep in your own misery to bring it up right now.

“And I’m sick of how some of them men here treat me! I don’t give a fuck what it was like for you all, I’m an equal to you all, god damn it, not a punching bag, or a whore, or unpaid maid! Like—I get that you all don’t realize what you’re doing—I get you haven’t been told it’s bad yet, but I’m gonna crack Edgar’s glass jaw if he suggests I wear a skirt ‘like the other ladies’ one more time!”

“If it helps,” Andrew says quietly, “I think that’s just him liking skirts. He’d probably wear one himself if he had an excuse.”

“I don’t care,” you gasp, grabbing Andrew’s forearm suddenly. He tenses under your touch, blushes. “It’s—it’s just all of it together! Look, I-I already feel bad being so angry! I understand why I seem scary, and I understand the world was a different place for me, but I hate that I have to say goodbye to all of it just because no one wants to learn about how things were for me! Fuckin—Emily was interested in how I lived through Covid, but all that got me was being treated like a plague rat. You guys don’t even get sick here! And Norton asked about the economy, but now he thinks I’m some rich bitch when I wasn’t even middle class! And Fiona acts like I’m some beast because of how I talk and curse so much! And Kevin asks about me feeling safe, but then he treats me like a damsel who needs constant rescue! I just…I just….it’s always something! I just want someone to treat me like I’m normal again.”

You crumple into full sobs, forehead landing on Andrew’s sturdy shoulder. He’s completely silent while you break down. His free hand eventually comes up to hold the back of your neck, a gesture that tells you it’s fine for you to be there, against him. Andrew is not a man of many comforting words, but this is enough, you decide. It’s an effort, which feels like more than you’ve gotten in some time.

You don’t know how long you stay like that, but when you finally calm down Andrew suggests you get some sleep.

“I’m not tired,” you croak. You are. It’s a lie. But if you sleep it will be tomorrow instead of being this moment of rare comfort. Andrew hums an acknowledgement.

“Alright. Neither am I," he says.

You think that’s a lie, too.

[prince-liest]

what I love most about your 666 vox is that even though he and alastor make an olympic sport out of bending the boundaries of "safe and sane" sex, he seems to VERY firmly believe in the "consensual" part... him letting go of alastor the SECOND he uses his safe word, holding himself back when alastor can't handle touch during his rut, all that stuff. so what would his reaction be if the events of bus stop happened in the same verse and he learned about what valentino did? I know you mentioned it in another ask before but it's been rotating in my mind for days lol - ✨

Alright, y'all get the long and serious answer for this one! >:) Buckle up, buttercups! And thank you SO much for your kind words! <3

I genuinely think that Vox is a fairly shitty person who does not typically particularly care about the violation of consent. He is so free not just with lying, selling spyware, and enabling enabling Valentino, but also with dominating people's will with his hypnosis in his introduction. I think that, if anything, he gets a power trip out of it and he sees what Valentino does, generally, as an extension of that! They're the Vees! They're powerful, they're winning, they have Pentagram City wrapped around their fingers!

However, in 666, his view of Alastor and the fact that Alastor lets him do things is obsessive and borderline worshipful, in, like, a fucked up sadomasochistic way! 666 is written from Alastor's POV so you get to see a lot of his own emotional progression with regard to how he views Vox, but on Vox's end, he's also seeing Alastor differently. He would not be able to genuinely think that he's fallen in love with Alastor if he wasn't able to get past being worshipfully infatuated with him first. He's still obsessive, but especially after O.T.O Special 6.66, Now Streaming: The Birds and the Bees, Natural Wonders! (aka. the rut fic, I know, my fucking titles—) where Alastor starts offering Vox more genuine vulnerability without the looming threat of his shadow, he sees Alastor as more of an actual person rather than a celebrity figure to fight or fuck or both.

Which means that, before Vox made that transition, he would probably be pissed that Valentino ruined his chances to get up to more shit with Alastor. He is very careful with regards to Alastor's consent in the first two installations of 666 because he's extremely aware of how easily Alastor could withdraw it, and how little Vox could do about that. He's not willing to lose Alastor after the taste he's finally had! He's practically manic about finally getting what he wants!

After he's developed more genuine feelings for Alastor (and Alastor has moved solidly into being one of the relatively few people that Vox registers as not just being an NPC or untouchable raid boss in his life), he would be... absolutely fucking mortified, I think. The empathy would fucking suck! That's why he prefers not to have it for most people!

But the thing is, he also loves Val. He has history with Val. And he knows what Val is like. I think he would be less actually, genuinely, overtly angry at Valentino in this scenario than he would have been if he'd just seen Val as ruining his big break with Alastor. He'd make a show of it, sure, but how the hell can he really blame Valentino when he genuinely wouldn't have given (has never given) half of a shit if it had actually been Angel Dust?

And he also knows what Alastor is like. I think his decision would be forced by the fact that despite what happened, Alastor is alive and Valentino is very much about to not be. In a triage situation, one of those people is by default a higher priority.

Alastor, of course, would never forgive that. He would also never forgive the fact that Vox knows what happened—and knows it in a universe where Alastor had dared allow Vox liberties and slowly, eventually, trusted him not to abuse them.

Like I said! It would absolutely nuke the relationship, and I think Alastor would put a great deal of effort into turning all of V Tower and its inhabitants, likely especially Vox, even moreso than Valentino, into so much rubble and a wet smear on the ground.