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fervidgrey · 4 months ago

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Ok I'm obssed with Jo. I have a request. Reader is being annoyed by some creepy guy in the street and Togame just sneaks up and puts him in a sleeper hold. Dude taps out but Jo makes him take a nap anyway. If he did some shit like that in front of me, I'd drool. I love him. Send help 😩❤️❤️

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 Please enjoy my love! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

LONG DAY, LONGER NIGHT

Pairing: Togame Jo x Reader

Rating: Mature.

Word count: 6400~

Note: Assault in the beginning (not with Togame), no use of y/n, no beta, biting, mating press, drinking, cream pie, overstimulation.

The beeping of your phone timer was the signal your closing tasks needed to end soon. You swipe at the timer, and set one more for the next 10 minutes- then you would be free. You had spent all day working at a cafe alone, both of your coworkers calling out over some family emergency for the 5th time in two weeks. While you understood people had stressful lives working alone until closing was awful in this area, especially on a Friday night.

With a huff you quickly close out the register, seal up the money earned, then drop it in the safe in the back office. Taking one last glance around you, smile as your timer goes off. While you did not appreciate doing this work alone, you were rather fast at it. You walk over to your phone, swipe off the final timer then head over to the company computer to clock out. Your punch reads OUT: 10:48PM making your grumble, the store had closed back at 9PM. A huge sigh escapes your lips as you come to terms with it being partytime on the streets at the moment. Tons of people would be bar hopping right now, and your tiny apartment happened to be next to a long string of bars.

As you reluctantly lock yourself out of the cafe's front door, and safely, then face the darkening street. You can already hear the distant thump of music and the buzz of tipsy laughter floating through the cool night air. Immediately, a drunk man bumps into your arm, muttering something about his kids but continues on without speaking to you. You stare at the man making sure he doesn’t turn around. With a soft huff you glare at nothing in particular, fully annoyed at the world before setting a steady pace to your home. There was a small part of you that would love to sit down and drink with someone, but your solo shift zapped away all of your energy, and you had no one to call. So now, all you want now is a hot shower, some snacks, and the comfort of your bed.

After several minutes of walking down the poorly-lit sidewalk you finally see the street your modest second-floor apartment resides on. However as you get closer, the louder the party sounds become. Groups of rowdy bar patrons stumble past, a small handful spill their drinks while loudly sharing drunk stories. Your spine stiffens as you prepare to enter the fray. While you didn’t think anyone would bother you, it has happened several times- and each time ended with the police being called to walk you the rest of the way home.

With a deep breath you step forward and march into the crowd, trying to blend in. You weave, and dodge a few hands that come your way with ease, after all, most of them were already piss drunk. You glance up, noting the bar you are passing, 10 left to go. You step over a man's legs as he lays on the ground, mumbling to himself, and this seems to be where your smooth travels end. While looking down at the man’s legs you do not notice the man walking right at you, likely assuming you would move- and slam into him. The collision was enough to make you blink, and feel a bit dazed but his hand snapped you back to reality. You look at the man confused, even angry as he grabs your forearm with enough force to make your body curve down- trying to relieve pressure.

"Hey, fucking watch where you're goin’!" the man slurs, his grip tightening on your arm. You wince, trying to pull away, but his strength holds you in place.

"I'm sorry." you mutter, not wanting to escalate the situation. "I didn’t see you."

His blood shot eyes narrow as he looks you up and down. "Wait a minute," he says, swaying slightly. "Don't I know you from somewhere?" Your heart races as you scan the crowd, hoping someone will notice and intervene. But everyone seems lost in their own drunken revelry.

"No, I don't think so." you say firmly, attempting to twist your arm free. "I need to get home. Please let me go." you beg, trying to appeal to his better nature, but finding nothing.

“No, I have seen you before. Are you a pornstar?” He asks with a wide grin, pulling you in close. The smell of his breath makes you retch and you attempt to yank free again.

“No, get the fuck off of me!” You nearly spit at him, focusing on removing his hand. The impact of his slap does free you, but not as you had hoped. The size difference between you and him becomes all the more apparent as your body hits the ground. Your head wobbles on your shoulder as you struggle to get your bearings back. Just as your mind got less foggy his arm was back on your forearm, dragging you into the alley around the corner.

Panic surges through you as the man drags you deeper into the alley, away from the crowded street. Your heart pounds in your ears, drowning out the sounds of the nearby bars. You struggle against his grip, legs finally back into position enough to slow him down, but his drunken state seems to have only amplified his strength.

"Let go!" you shout, hoping someone will hear you over the noise of the nightlife. Tears are spilling down your cheeks as he laughs, digging his blunt nails into your arm.

“To think I have a moment with my favorite pornstar!” He rambles to himself, already jingling the buckle of his pants. Horror washes over you. You knew these things could happen- sometimes, awful people happen. But you didn’t want these things happening, not if you could help it. You stomp on the man's foot as hard as possible, and yell at him all while yanking the arm he was holding towards your own body.

For a moment it felt like your efforts would be rewarded but all it did was make him angry. The second slap feels closer to a punch. For a brief moment it feels like your head might fall off. You crash into the concrete wall behind you groaning out in pain. Your vision blurs as your head throbs from the impact. The world spins, and for a moment, you think you might pass out.

The sound of a zipper is what begins to make the bile shift in your stomach. Your arms hug against your body, overwhelmed by the physical pain and mental trauma happening at the same time.

“Please, don’t-” was all you got out before a blur of orange, and the man hit the ground. The sound that left your attacker's mouth was horrifying. Your attacker wails for a moment before he starts to gurgle. A tall man with black hair, and green eyes stares down at your attacker with a look you’ve never seen before. He looked far too calm for a man choking another human being with enough force to possibly kill. Your attackers fingers reached out for you seeking aid, making you squirm- did you really care if this man died? You looked back at your violent defender, and spoke before thinking.

“Um, I think he’s trying to tap out.” You offer while watching your attacker struggle unsuccessfully against the man's head lock. To your surprise the defender smirks and squeezes harder.

“Nah, better if he naps all this off.” His voice is deeper than you thought, his cadence was oddly relaxed despite holding a large struggling man in his grip.

You watch in stunned silence as your attacker's struggles grow weaker, his movements becoming sluggish until finally, his body goes limp. The stranger releases his hold, letting the unconscious man fall face first to the ground. He turns to face you, his green eyes now scanning you.

"Rough night." he states casually, his voice softer now. "Did he hurt you?"

You nod, still trembling from the ordeal. "I think I'm okay. Just shaken up." Your cheek stings where you were struck, and your head throbs from hitting the wall, but you didn’t think he would care all that much, considering he just dropped a man on his face.

The stranger takes a step closer, his hands raised slightly as if to show he means no harm. "Names Togame Jo. Figured you needed a hand." He reaches down, latching onto your arm.

Normally you’d love his attention, he was incredibly attractive, but right now your nerves were shot. As he hoists you off the ground a hiss leaves your lips and you push his arm away. “Watch it.” You hadn’t meant to be so rude but the arm he had grabbed was extremely tender, all your adrenaline long gone. His posture switches immediately, his full height suddenly looming over you as he steps in close. For a moment it looks like he will slap you like the man before him, but instead his fingers grip your wrist, pulling you arm towards himself, he examines your forearm with a frown.

Togame's frown deepens as he inspects the bruises forming on your arm. His touch is surprisingly gentle as he turns your wrist, examining the damage.

"Bastard really did a number on you." he mutters, his green eyes flicking up to meet yours. "You need medical attention?"

You shake your head, wincing slightly at the movement. "No, I'll be fine. I just want to go home."

Togame nods, releasing your arm. "I'll walk you there." he offers, though it felt like an unrefusable offer.

For a moment, you hesitate- weighing the risks. After what just happened, the idea of trusting a stranger seems foolish. But something about Togame Jo's demeanor puts you at ease. Maybe it's the way he effortlessly took down your attacker, or the gentleness in his touch as he examined your injuries. Whatever it is, you find yourself nodding.

"It's not far." you say, gesturing vaguely down the street. "Just a few more blocks."

Togame falls into step beside you as you leave the alley, his tall frame creating a buffer between you and the rowdy crowds still milling about. You can't help but notice how people seem to give him a wide berth, their eyes darting away when they catch sight of him. Once you had calmed down more things made sense. His jersey was famous around these parts. While you didn’t know who he was specifically, the Shishitoren emblem was unmistakable.

"So," Togame says after a few moments of silence, "what's a nice person like you doing out so late in this neighborhood?"

You sigh, rubbing your sore cheek. "I just got off work.”

"Work, huh?" Togame raises an eyebrow, his green eyes glinting with curiosity. "Must be a late shift."

You nod, feeling a mix of exhaustion and lingering anxiety wash over you. "Yeah, I work at the cafe a few blocks back. Had to close up alone tonight."

Togame whistles low. "Tough gig. Especially in this area."

As you walk, you can't help but steal glances at your unexpected savior. His relaxed demeanor contrasts sharply with the dangerous aura he exudes. You wonder what kind of life he leads, being part of the notorious Shishitoren.

"So," you venture, curiosity getting the better of you, "do you often rescue people in dark alleys?"

A smirk plays at the corner of Togame's lips. "Only the cute ones," he quips, then chuckles at your startled expression. "Nah, I was just in the right place at the right time."

You feel a blush creep up your neck, unsure how to respond to his casual flirtation. "Well, thank you," you pause for a moment, reliving the hits to your face all over again. "I appreciate your help.” You manage to mumble out. He smiles, humming back in response.

As you approach your apartment building, a sense of relief washes over you. The familiar sight of the worn brick facade and flickering porch light feels like a sanctuary after the night's ordeal. You pause at the bottom of the steps, turning to face Togame.

"This is me." you say, gesturing towards the building. "Thanks again for walking me home."

Togame nods, his green eyes scanning the area before settling back on you. "No problem. You gonna be alright from here?"

You hesitate, suddenly aware of how empty and quiet your apartment will be. The events of the night replay in your mind, sending a shiver down your spine. "Yeah, I'll be fine," you lie, forcing a smile.

Togame's eyebrow quirks up, clearly not buying your act. "You sure about that? You look like you could use some company."

Your heart races at his suggestion. Part of you wants to invite him up, to not be alone with your thoughts. But another part reminds you that he's still a stranger, albeit one who saved you.

"I don't know..." you start, uncertainty filling your voice.

Togame holds up his hands, a disarming smile on his face. "Hey, no pressure. Just thought you might want someone to talk to after all that. But if you'd rather be alone, I get it."

You bite your lip, weighing the options. The thought of facing the empty apartment alone suddenly seems unbearable. "Actually, care for a drink?" you ask sheepishly.

Togame's eyes light up, a hint of surprise in his expression. "Wouldn't say no." he says with a casual shrug, but you catch the subtle eagerness in his tone.

You lead him up the creaky stairs to your second-floor apartment, fumbling slightly with your keys as you unlock the door. The familiar scent of home washes over you as you step inside, bringing a sense of comfort after the night's chaos.

"It's not much." you say, flicking on the lights and gesturing around the modest space, "but it's home."

Togame follows you in, his tall frame comically filling up the small living room. His green eyes scan the space, taking in the mismatched furniture and the small collection of plants on the windowsill. "It's cozy, I like it." he says, a hint of approval in his voice.

You head to the kitchen, grateful for the chance to collect yourself. "Make yourself comfortable." you call over your shoulder. "What's your poison?"

"Whatever you're having," Togame replies, settling onto your worn couch.

You pull two beers from the fridge, popping the caps off before returning to the living room. Togame accepts the bottle with a small nod, his fingers brushing yours as he takes it. The brief contact sends images of his hands on you, reminding you of how long it's been since you got laid.

You sit beside him on the couch, leaving a respectable distance between you. An awkward silence falls between you both, the room suddenly smaller than you remembered from this morning.

As you sip your beer, you can't help but steal glances at Togame. He was certainly taller than the average man, and his arms will thick as hell. You notice his eyes roaming over the various knick-knacks and photos adorning your walls.

"So," Togame says, breaking the silence, "you always invite strange men up to your apartment after they rescue you?"

You choke a little on your beer, caught off guard by his directness. "No," you sputter out, "this is definitely a first."

Togame chuckles, a deep rumble that sends a shiver down your spine. "I'm honored." he says with a wink.

You feel your cheeks flush and quickly take another swig of beer to hide your reaction. "What about you?" you ask, trying to regain your composure. "Do you often end up in strangers' apartments after playing hero?"

"Nah," Togame replies, leaning back into the couch. "Usually I'm the one people are running from, not towards."

His casual admission of his dangerous reputation should probably alarm you, but instead, you find yourself intrigued. "Because of Shishitoren?" you ask, gesturing to his jersey.

Togame's eyes narrow slightly, a flicker of something dangerous passing over his face before his relaxed demeanor returns. "You know about us, huh?"

You shrug, suddenly feeling self-conscious. "Not much, really. Just that you guys have a reputation around here."

Togame's expression softens, a hint of amusement in his eyes. "A reputation, huh? Well, can't say it's undeserved." He takes a long swig of his beer, his gaze never leaving yours. "But tonight, I'm just a guy having a drink with a cute barista. That alright with you?"

Your heart skips a beat at his words. The way he looks at you makes you feel seen in a way you haven't in a long time. "Yeah." you say softly, "that's alright with me."

As the night wears on, you find yourself relaxing more in Togame's presence. The conversation flows easily, ranging from your work at the cafe to his vague allusions to life in Shishitoren. You can't help but be drawn in by his charisma, the way his green eyes light up when he laughs, the casual grace with which he moves.

Before you know it, you're on your third beer, a pleasant warmth spreading through your body. The events from earlier in the night feel distant now, like a bad dream fading in the light of day. You find yourself studying Togame's profile as he recounts a particularly funny story about a misunderstanding at a local ramen shop.

"What?" he asks, catching you staring at his arms.

"Nothing," you say, a little too quickly.

Togame's lips curl into a knowing smirk. "Admiring the view?" he teases, flexing his arm slightly.

You feel your face flush, equal parts embarrassment and attraction. "Maybe." You admit, the alcohol makes you bolder than usual. "You did use those arms to save me earlier."

Togame's smirk widens into a grin. "Well, they're not just for show," he says, leaning in closer. His voice drops lower, sending a shiver down your spine. "Want a closer look?"

Your breath catches in your throat as he closes the distance between you on the couch. The warmth radiating from his body makes your skin tingle with anticipation. You find yourself nodding, unable to form words as Togame's hand gently cups your cheek.

"You sure about this?" he murmurs, his thumb tracing your jawline. "After everything that happened tonight..."

The concern in his eyes touches you, melting away any lingering reservations. "I'm sure." you whisper, leaning into his touch.

Togame's lips meet yours in a kiss that starts soft but quickly deepens with intensity. His strong arms wrap around you, pulling you flush against his chest. You lean into the embrace, your fingers tangling in his dark hair as the kiss grows more passionate.

When you finally break apart, both breathing heavily, Togame rests his forehead against yours. "Damn," he says with a low chuckle. "If I'd known saving cute baristas led to this, I'd have done it sooner."

You laugh deeply enjoying his charming banter."Well, I'm glad it was me you saved." you reply, tracing patterns on his chest through his shirt.

Togame's eyes fill with desire as he watches your fingers trail across his chest. In one fluid motion, he pulls you onto his lap, his strong hands gripping your hips. "Me too." he murmurs, his lips finding the sensitive spot on your neck.

A soft gasp escapes you as he trails kisses down your neck and collar bone. Your fingers tighten in his hair, pulling him closer. The solid warmth of his body against yours makes you feel safe and wanted in a way you haven't experienced in a long time.

"Togame." you breathe, arching into him as his hands slip under your shirt, caressing the bare skin of your lower back.

He pulls back slightly, his green eyes dark searching your face. "You okay?" he asks slowly, his thumbs tracing circles on your hips. "We can stop if you want."

The tenderness in his voice, contrasting with the dangerous aura he exudes, makes the heat in your core double. You cup his face in your hands, marveling at how someone who had so effortlessly taken down your attacker could be so gentle with you.

"Just, fuck me." you demand of him, leaning in to capture his lips in another kiss.

A low growl rumbles in Togame's chest as he stands suddenly, lifting you with him. Your legs wrap instinctively around his waist as he carries you towards the bedroom, his strong arms support you effortlessly. He kicks the door closed behind him then gently lowers you onto the bed, his body hovering over yours.

"You're sure about this?" he asks one last time, his green eyes searching yours intently.

You nod, pulling him closer. "Stop asking." you breathe against his lips before kissing him deeply.

Togame responds with fervor, his hands roaming your body as he settles between your legs. You tug at his shirt, eager to feel his skin against yours. He breaks the kiss just long enough to pull it off, revealing a toned chest marked with a few light scattered scars.

Your fingers trace the lines of his muscles, marveling at the strength contained within. Togame watches your hands explore, his eyes darkening with desire. He makes quick work of your own shirt, his calloused hands gentle as they map your newly exposed skin.

"Beautiful." he murmurs, pressing hot kisses along your collarbone.

You arch into him, gasping as his lips find an extra sensitive spot on your neck. Your hands tangle in his hair again, holding him close as he lavishes attention upon you. The rest of your clothes soon join the pile on the floor, leaving nothing between your bodies.

Togame takes his time, his touches alternating between gentle caresses and firm grasps that leave you breathless. His touch is electric, sending shivers down your spine and igniting a fire between your legs.

"Jo." you gasp, arching into him as his mouth finds your breast. He leaves hot kisses along your skin, sending sparks of pleasure through you. His hand trails down your stomach, teasing at the curve of your thighs. You spread your legs wider, silently begging for more.

He lifts his head, making eye contact with a smirk. "Tell me what you want." he commands, his fingers tracing tantalizing patterns on your inner thigh.

"You." you breathe, pulling him closer. "I want you inside me."

A low growl rumbles in Togame's chest as he positions himself between your legs. He enters you slowly, giving you time to adjust to his size. You moan at the delicious stretch, your nails digging into his shoulders.

"Fuck," Togame groans, his forehead resting against your shoulder as he stills inside you. "You feel amazing."

While his size was impressive, years of self care had prepared you for him. A moan fills the room as your body accepts him with ease. You wanted to share also how incredible he felt but all you could focus on was his cock spreading you wide. Instead you roll your hips, urging him to move.

Togame takes the hint, setting a steady rhythm that has you gasping with each thrust. His strong hands grip your hips, pulling you closer with each movement. The room fills with the sounds of your shared pleasure, soft moans and gasps mingling with the rustle of sheets.

Togame's powerful body moves against yours, his hips rolling in a hypnotic rhythm. You cling to his broad shoulders, loving the sensations coursing through you. His lips find yours in a passionate kiss as he drives deeper, hitting just the right spot to make you cry out in pleasure against his lips.

"That's it." he murmurs against your neck, his breath hot on your skin. "Let me hear you."

You moan louder, unashamed as waves of pleasure wash over you. Togame's pace increases, his movements becoming more urgent. You can feel yourself getting close, teetering on the edge of release.

Togame's pace increases, driving deeper into you with each thrust. You wrap your legs around his waist, changing the angle and crying out as he hits a spot that sends shockwaves of pleasure through your body.

"Right there," you pant, your fingers digging into his back. "Don't stop."

Togame grunts in acknowledgment, his rhythm becoming more intense. You can feel the tension building to a breaking point, a coiling heat in your core that threatens to snap any second.

"Jo, I'm close," you gasp, your body trembling beneath him. “Fuckfuckfuckfuck” you mutter, barely able to keep yourself together.

He slides a hand between your bodies, his rough fingers press into your clit, rubbing in tandem with his thrust. The added stimulation pushes you over the edge harshly. You cry out Togame's name as waves of pleasure crash into you, your body arching off the bed. The sight of your pleasure sends Togame over the edge as well. He buries his face in your neck, groaning deeply as he finds his own release inside you. Normally, you’d yell at a man for not asking to come inside you but just this once you’d let it go- after all he was your hero.

For a moment, you both lie there, breathing heavily, bodies intertwined. Togame presses a gentle kiss to your forehead before carefully pulling out and collapsing beside you. He gathers you into his arms, your head resting on his chest.

"Fuck, I needed that." you puff out, still catching your breath.

"Same." Togame chuckles softly, his chest rumbling beneath your cheek. His fingers trace lazy patterns on your back, sending pleasant tingles across your skin. You lie there in comfortable silence for a few moments, basking in the afterglow.

You nuzzle closer, inhaling his scent - a mix of his exertion, and cologne. It reminded you of fresh brewed black tea and musk. If you were honest, you hoped his scent would linger on your sheets for a while, it was intoxicating.

"So," you venture, propping yourself up on an elbow to look at Togame. "Does this mean I get protection from the notorious Shishitoren now?"

His green eyes sparkle with amusement. "Careful what you wish for." he teases, his fingers tapping the bottom of your chin, "Once you're under our protection, there's no going back."

You lean into his touch, a small smile playing on your lips. "Promise?"

Togame's expression turns serious for a moment. "I can."

"I wouldn’t mind seeing you around." you reply softly, thinking of the long hours and difficult walk home every Friday night.

Togame's eyes shift at your words, but his face is unreadable. He pulls you closer, his lips brushing against your cheek. "I wouldn't mind that either." he murmurs.

You settle back against his chest, feeling safe. The events of the night - the fear, the violence, and now this unexpected connection - swirl in your mind. Part of you wonders if you're making a mistake, getting involved with someone like Togame Jo. But as his strong arms wrap around you, you find it hard to care.

"So," you say, tracing patterns on his chest "do I get a cool jacket like yours?"

Togame laughs, the sound rumbling through his chest. "Nah, the jacket's for members only. But you’ll get my protection." he pauses, his hand running up and down your arm. "It means no one messes with you. Not if they know what's good for them."

You shiver at the hint of danger in his voice, completely thrilled by your new guard dog. "And what about you?" you ask, looking up to meet his gaze. "Will I be seeing more of you?"

Togame's lips curl into a smirk. "That can be arranged," he says, his hand sliding down to cup your ass. "Someone's gotta make sure you get home safe from those late shifts, right?"

"I'd like that." you murmur, a smile playing on your lips. The thought of Togame waiting for you after your late shifts makes you giddy.

He pulls you closer, his lips brushing against your ear. "Good. Because I'm not done with you yet."

His words ignite a fresh wave of desire in you. You shift, straddling his hips and looking down at him with a mischievous grin. "Oh really? And what did you have in mind?"

Togame's hands settle on your waist, his thumbs tracing circles on your skin. "Well," he says, his voice low and husky, "Let me show you a few more of my talents."

You lean down, your lips hovering just above his. "Show me what you’ve got." you tease, a smirk playing on your lips. Your hips grind down on his semi-hard cock, torturing him.

In one swift motion, Togame flips you onto your back, pinning your hands above your head. His green eyes are clouded with desire as he looks down at you. "Challenging me?"

Togame's sudden move catches you off guard, sending a buzz of excitement through your body. You gasp, looking up into his intense gaze. The weight of his body pressing you into the mattress makes your pussy wet again. Just the display of his strength makes your body ache for him.

"Maybe I am." you say breathlessly, a hint of defiance in your tone. "What are you going to do about it?"

A slow, dangerous smile spreads across Togame's face. "Oh, I've got a few ideas." he murmurs, his free hand trailing down your body. His touch is feather-light, teasing, making you squirm beneath him.

You arch into his touch, craving more. "Care to share?" you ask, your voice raw.

Instead of answering, Togame captures your lips in a wet kiss. His tongue explores your mouth as his hand continues its tantalizing journey down your body. When he reaches the valley of your thighs and rubs them gently, you moan into the kiss, spreading your legs wider in invitation.

Togame breaks the kiss, his lips trailing down your neck. "Patience." he murmurs against your skin, nipping lightly at your collarbone. "I plan to take my time with you."

His words send a shiver down your spine. You tug at your pinned hands, wanting to touch him, but he holds firm. "Jo.." you whine, frustrated by his teasing.

Togame chuckles at your whine, his breath hot against your skin. "Ah ah, not yet." he murmurs, his free hand ghosting over your inner thigh. "I want to hear you beg for it."

His fingers trace patterns on your sensitive skin, purposefully avoiding where you need him most. You squirm beneath him, desperate for more contact. "Please!" you gasp, your hips lifting off the bed seeking friction.

"Please what?" Togame asks, his voice low and husky. His lips trail down your neck, leaving a trail of fire in their wake.

"Touch me, please." you breathe, your body trembling with need. "Please, Jo, I need you."

Togame hums against your skin, considering your plea. "Since you asked so nicely." he says, finally releasing your hands.

Before you can react, he's sliding down your body, settling between your legs. His strong hands grip your thighs, spreading you wide. You prop yourself up on your elbows, watching with hooded eyes as he lowers his head. You had never had a man eat you out after he came inside you, but it was incredibly fucking hot Togame was unbothered by such filthy work.

The first swipe of his tongue against your sensitive clit has you crying out in pleasure. Togame's skilled mouth works you expertly, alternating between broad strokes and focused attention on your clit. Your hands fly to his hair, gripping tightly as waves of pleasure wash over you.

"Fuck, Jo.." you moan, your hips rolling against his face.

Togame's tongue works magic between your thighs, sending waves of pleasure coursing through your body. His strong hands grip your hips, holding you in place as he devours you with singular focus. You writhe beneath him, gasping and moaning as he brings you closer and closer to the edge.

"Jo.." you pant, your fingers tangling in his dark hair. "I'm so close."

He hums against you, the vibration sending sparks of sensation through your dripping pussy. His tongue circles your clit with increased pressure, and you feel the tension building to a breaking point. Just as you're about to tumble over the edge, Togame pulls back, his tongue hovering just above you clit. You whimper at the loss of contact, your hips chasing his mouth unsuccessful.

"Not yet," he murmurs, his breath hot against your sensitive flesh. "I want more."

Before you can protest, he slides two fingers inside you, curling them to hit your g spot. His mouth returns to your clit, sucking gently as his fingers work you from the inside. The dual stimulation is overwhelming, and you feel yourself rapidly approaching climax once again.

"Please, fuck" you beg, not entirely sure what you're asking for. "Jo, please."

Togame's eyes lock with yours, dark with desire. "Come for me." he demands, his voice low and husky. His words, combined with the relentless attention of his mouth and fingers, send you careening over violently. Your thighs snap closed against his body, struggling against his still moving fingers. Your pants come out hard while your hands fly up to search for leverage. He chuckles as he continues to pump his fingers into your tender pussy.

Your body trembles with aftershocks as Togame slowly withdraws his fingers. He presses a gentle kiss to your inner thigh before moving back up your body. His lips capture yours in a deep kiss, letting you taste a bodily fluid cocktail on his tongue.

"Fuck." you pant when he finally pulls away, still breathless from your intense orgasm.

"Doing alright?" Togame finishes with a smirk, his green eyes still mischievous. He positions himself between your legs, the hard length of his cock pressing against your sensitive flesh.

You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him closer. "Never better, I got all night." you challenge, with a cheeky grin.

Togame's response is to thrust into you in one smooth motion, filling you completely. You both groan at the sensation, your bodies fitting together perfectly.

He sets a brutal rhythm, each thrust going deeper than the last. His hands find your thighs and press them down hard against your body. The man was putting you into a full mating press and it was glorious. Your mind was beginning to blur, completely overworked by your moans, panting, and the pressure from his heavy body.

Togame's powerful thrusts drive you into the mattress, each movement sending shockwaves of pleasure and pain through your overstimulated body. The new angle allows him to hit spots deep inside you that make your toes curl and your vision blur. Your hands scramble for purchase on his sweat-slicked back as you struggle to match his intense rhythm.

"You feel so fucking good." Togame grunts, his voice strained with effort. His green eyes are glassy as they lock onto yours, watching every expression of pleasure that crosses your face.

You can barely form coherent thoughts, let alone words. Each thrust pushes you in a direction of an orgasm you don’t think is reachable. "Jo" you manage to gasp out, "I can’t.." your words are cut off by an incredibly hard thrust.

His hips slam against yours with bruising force. His long body arches towards you, for a moment you think he is going to kiss you but instead his teeth sink into the tender flesh of your neck. He laps at the bite, groaning with abandon while finding a new place to sink his teeth into.

The dual stimulation becomes too much. With a cry that's almost a scream, you come undone beneath him. Your body arches off the bed, trembling violently as waves of intense pleasure crash over you again. Togame doesn't let up, fucking you through your orgasm, and prolonging the sensation until tears begin to form in your water line.

Your vision blurs as the intense orgasm washes away all thoughts, and leaves your body trembling uncontrollably beneath Togame's powerful form. He continues to thrust into you relentlessly, drawing out his pleasure but pushing you to almost unbearable heights.

"That's it," he growls, his voice ragged. "Take it all." he moans out

You cling to him desperately, your nails digging into his damp back as you try relaxing into his thrusts. Just when you think you can't take anymore, Togame's rhythm falters. With a deep groan, he buries himself to the hilt inside you, his body shuddering as he finds his own release.

For a long moment, you both lie there panting, bodies intertwined and slick with sweat. Togame's weight presses you into the mattress making it difficult to breathe. He presses a gentle kiss to your forehead before slowly pulling out and collapsing beside you.

"Fuck." you breathe, still trying to catch your breath. Your body feels boneless, pleasantly sore in all the right places, and some areas a bit less pleasant. Togame chuckles, pulling you against his chest. "Might have to save you nightly." he groans into your neck. His tongue laps out again, soothing the deep bites he had placed in your neck, which were already forming shiny red and purple spots.

You nuzzle into his warmth, feeling utterly spent but enjoying his mouth's attention. "I think you broke me." you mumble against his skin, only half-joking.

Togame chuckles, his chest rumbling against you. "Nah, you're tougher than that." he says, his fingers tracing soothing patterns on your back. You smile, nodding in agreement with his assessment of you, granted your sore cervix had different opinions.

As your breathing slows and your heartbeat returns to normal, a comfortable silence falls between you. Togame's hand continues its gentle caress along your spine, occasionally drifting to brush against the marks he left on your neck.

"So," you murmur after a while, tilting your head to look up at him. "Is this a one-time thing, or...?"

Togame's green eyes meet yours, a hint of vulnerability flashing across his face before his usual confident smirk returns. "Depends," he says, his voice low. "You want it to be?"

You consider his question, weighing the potential complications against the undeniable connection you feel with him. "No," you admit softly. "I'd like to see you again."

Relief flickers in Togame's eyes, quickly masked by a playful grin. "Good," he says, pulling you closer. "Because I wasn't planning on letting you go that easily."

#wind breaker #togame jo #jo togame #shishitoren #togame jo x reader #fanfic #togame jo smut #smut

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spooky-lil-spider-enjoyer · 6 months ago

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Peter Parker HCs

- He totally needs glasses but prefers contacts cause he doesn't want to get made fun of even more for being a nerd

- Listens to p!atd. Originally discovered them cause of High Hopes and now loves them. Everybody Talks by Neon Trees and Notion by The Rare Occasions are runner up's, but he loves the death of a bachelor album.

-Has all the avengers merch ever, but especially Tony Starks. Like all of them. That's the secret reason we see him having such terrible quality computers in civil war. He just blows all of his money on cool limited edition avengers shit.

- Collects his own merch as well *cough* nerd *cough*

- Eats raw ramen while using the packet as sprinkles (we used to do this when I was younger at school cuz they wouldn't let us use the microwave to heat up water and I can totally imagine him doing this)

-Has passed out at his desk while studying (all the time in fact) and will show up to school the next day with ink smudged on his face showing half of his calculous homework on his face and his hair looks like a cat sleeps in it regularly.

-He seems like the type of kid who would be absolutely amazing at math, an absolute child prodigy, and not be able to write a story in ela for the life of him.

- Wears Crocs. Him and Ned try and collect the coolest charms, it's like a weird competition between the two.

-His mom taught him how to sew when he was younger (like seven or something) so he was able to patch up all of his own stuffed animals when they'd rip. He didn't know how important that skill would be until she died. He still looks over some of the fabric they would practice on when he is sad.

-May obviously taught him Italian and he grew up eating a ton of traditional Italian food prepared lovingly by May and Uncle Ben

-Once he and Tony get a bit closer they will speak Italian over the coms on missions or talk shit with each other right in front of the team. Peter loves it cause he only ever really gets to speak it with May, Tony loves tolerates it because it makes him miss him mom and helps him feel reconnected to a part of himself he thought he lost in that damn car crash when he sees it makes the kid happy. It drives everyone else crazy though.

Thanks for reading, lmk if you want a pt.2

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lambilegs · 8 months ago

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does it happen in a season? (part two: WINTER)

in her senior year of university, lee is ready for nothing more but yet another monotonous cycle of meeting her new roommate, adjusting, then living in separate spheres for the rest of the year. the last thing she's prepared for is: curiosity.

last chapter (FALL) | next chapter (SPRING)

soundtrack: fake plastic tree - radiohead (this is the song I was referring to here :') listened to it a shit ton when writing this chap and I feel the entire atmosphere of it really reminds me of this chapter); linger - the cranberries; lovers rock - tv girl; cherry wine - grentperez; telephones - vacations; eternal flame - the bangles

(contains: even MORE slowburn shit, more pining, 16.4K words (I know... I hate it too), set in the nineties, college!au lee, content warning for: anxiety, depictions of a panic attack, internalized homophobia, religious trauma, religion jokes)

🇵🇸 reading/watch list for palestine + organizations | more media on palestine | decolonize palestine

----

WINTER. SOMETIME IN THE 1990s.

when you hear the key clicking into the lock, you immediately shoot up from your lying position on the couch, flinging your legs over the edge and patting your hair down. fuck, fuck. your fingers mindlessly twitch and move for a second, not knowing what to do, before finally settling on leaning into the couch and crossing your legs. yes, this feels natural. at least you hope so.

when lee walks through the door, you feel the entire facade slip. a smile, one that was always inevitable, immediately tugs on your lips. you’re powerless to the urge. especially when it’s been four days since you last saw her. especially when, for once, her hair is in something other than a ponytail, lying limp on her back as a neat braid. especially when, after catching sight of you, she smiles. it’s small, barely there, but she actually fucking smiles. you can practically sing like a canary.

she sets her duffel bag near the door, sliding her shoes off and placing them on the rack. you wince at the sight of your dirty sneakers half-hazardly lying on the floor. you wonder if she ever hates some of your less-than-clean habits. if they make her cringe or think less of you. god, the mere idea makes you shrivel up in self-consciousness.

but, lee says nothing, silently meeting you on the couch and sitting on the other side, tucked into the corner and far from you, as per usual. even when you guys watched the two movies you picked out from the video store, in a back-to-back feature filled with inquisitive staring from lee, attempts at chattering from you, and some eerily accurate guesses as to what happens in The Shining from her, she sat far from you. at this point, you know she’s most likely like that with everyone, and it’s nothing personal. she doesn’t seem to be the most comfortable with touch or intimacy. but, still, you can’t help but wonder what it’d be like to feel the warmth of her nearby.

“so, how was it?” you ask, turning your body to her.

eyes on her lap, she gives you a small nod. “it was okay.”

you cock your head at her. “how’s your mom?”

“she’s alright.” her voice sounds timid, almost as though the admission carries more significance than just a casual report. “she’s been taking walks, which is good for her.”

you smile gently at her little concern. she’s so sweet. “it is. did you enjoy yourself?”

her gaze slides from her lap to the cushion between you two, which almost feels like a threshold in that moment. her lips part for a second, before closing, then parting again. “no. not really.”

you blink in surprise at her brutal honesty. you aren’t an idiot, you know that most college students don’t exactly delight in visiting home. but, most would also have the self-consciousness, or sense of obligation to their family, to lie about it. you wonder if lee doesn’t lie due to her natural tendency to forgo social cues, or if it’s something more. if things are just that bad – so bad that she doesn’t even have it in her to either muster a lie or continue preserving the protective instinct for her family.

you pause to consider how to proceed, before tentatively settling on, “why? is everything okay?”

the corner of her lip pinches into a small twist, eyelids fluttering hard. “um, yeah. we just… it’s complicated.”

you lean your head on your palm, elbow braced on the edge of the couch. “I have time.”

her head darts in your direction for a split second, before turning to the television. “I… I don’t go there often. not as much as I should. I don’t like going there. but, I always do, for one reason or the other. even when it’s not completely necessary.”

“maybe because it’s comforting and safe?” you supply, tilting your head at her. “even if it’s a place that you’re not so fond of, you grew up there, with your mom. so, you always want to return to it.” even you could sympathize with such a feeling. university, and living with a roommate, brings along a thrill of independence. sometimes, it seems so romantic, like you’re the protagonist of a coming-of-age film, making your way in the world. but, sometimes, during the lonely nights, when you’re up studying late, mind whirling with thoughts of your future, you wish you were back home. you wish that on top of the stress and anxiety, you didn’t have to take care of yourself. you wish you could just melt into the hands and care of someone else.

she’s silent, and you know that means she’s taking a few moments to process your words. finally, she speaks. “maybe. but, it’s also about my mom. I spent so much of my life wondering what it’d be like to be on my own, and already feeling that way a lot of the time. then, I left for school, and I’ve spent these four years feeling like…” she continues, her voice lowering to a whisper, “that life followed me here.”

your voice becomes as small as hers. to see her speak about something so personal, with such tender vulnerability, twists something in your chest. you’re grateful, of course you are, but part of learning more about her comes with the ache of discovering the complications of what she faces. it’s surprising, and humanizing, but also stirs a deep sympathy in you. “why do you think you feel that way?”

her voice cracks – it’s so soft you could’ve easily missed it. “I don’t know. guilt, maybe. or obligation. the responsibility that comes from her being my first…” she sighs heavily, eyes clamping shut tightly.

you keep your voice low, almost feeling like you’re approaching a wounded animal. “your first..?”

“friend.” she sucks in a trembling breath. “it feels wrong to stay away for so long. it also feels weird to not talk to her for a while. but, at the same time, I hate going there.”

you pick at a loose strand of your guys’ sofa, lost in her words. you understand her situation acutely. you, too, have people in your life whom you only really call or meet up with for the sake of retaining a past bond you both are just desperately trying to preserve. there’s no true love or fondness – rather, there’s just a pretense coating the entire meeting, causing it to drip in a kind of insincerity that’s bred through necessity.

“I’m sorry,” you gently say, sensing from her tense shoulders that it must be a sore subject for her. “it must be difficult, to have so many conflicting feelings about the situation. especially since she’s your mom and all. it makes sense you want to talk to her, though, you know? you grew up with her. even if logically, you know the relationship isn’t the smoothest, it’s normal you still go back. for whatever reason – comfort, safety, obligation.”

her nostrils flare for a millisecond, and you start with the sudden thought of will she cry? you almost wish she would – maybe if she let herself cry, she’d let herself be held. and maybe if she let herself be held, she’d have some of the burdens that seem to plague her off her mind. you wish she’d just let it release. maybe she does, but just not with you. the thought causes a bit of a sting, but you know it’s ridiculous of you to be upset over it. regardless, you just hope she gets a release.

finally, she speaks, quietly mumbling, “thanks.” her voice raises to a clearer level. “I just… I don’t know.” she blinks back at the television before abruptly standing up. “I’ll just change.” she stills, glancing at your knees. “we can watch something after?”

she may as well ask you if you’re planning to breathe. the fact that she actually enjoys watching things with you to the point of asking for it makes your chest warm. for a moment, such an idea feels surreal. two months ago, you barely got a word out of her, and now, on this cold november night, she’s going out of her way to watch something with you. it feels almost impossible to comprehend.

you nod eagerly. “yes, yes, of course.”

her lips clamp together in a tight, formal smile before grabbing her duffel bag and heading to her bedroom.

and as usual, you look out for her as she leaves.

–

lee knows it probably sounds a bit odd, but if she likes the class, she actually enjoys studying. there’s something in her brain that gets itched and satisfied through letting so much information travel into her brain. she likes how methodical it gets – the research, the note-taking, the reading. it’s a part of the world she can make sense of. there’s a neat, structured process, and she just allows herself to get swept up in it and feel the rush of learning something new.

there’s one particular library on campus, filled with wood and carvings into the wall, that she frequents almost everyday. sometimes, even when she doesn’t have much work to do, she’ll just get started on next week’s work just for the sake of spending some time unwinding there. it’s almost relaxing to focus on one subject and dedicate her mind to nothing but it for a few hours. it’s almost a trancelike activity, like a puzzle – once she gets sucked in, it’s hard to stop.

she rarely studies with other people. she’s fond of her friends, she is, but god, she can’t help but admit (both to herself and their faces) that they are awful study buddies. they always find it amusing to see lee so focused and will ball up the paper wrappings of their straws and throw it at her face, or the two of them will talk and giggle so much they get asked to leave. she’ll usually only put up with them if the work she needs to do isn’t demanding. other than that, she enjoys doing her work in solitude.

which is why she’s so conflicted when she one day sees you approaching her, bright smile and crinkled eyes. she swallows hard at the sight, forcing her gaze back down to her work. when you slide into the seat across from her, she feels her jaw tense, racking her brain for the right thing to say.

“what are you doing here?”

your face falters, and something in her aches at the sight. her words sound fumbling and messy to her, but she forces her way through them. “no, I didn’t… I was just asking.” it’s weird. sometimes, she’s able to catch what she thinks are expressions of hurt or annoyance caused by her flat tone or blunt words. but, more often than not, it feels like even more of a struggle to navigate asking someone about such facial expressions, either by pointing it out or just drawing her own conclusions. even if she feels a twinge of guilt, most of the time, she’s entirely lost in knowing for certain if the other person in question really is hurt, and if so, what is and isn’t okay to do in response. it’s not often that she leans into the immediate urge to clarify herself – anxiety and uncertainty usually prevent that. but, she supposes now is one of those times.

“I just, I don’t want to be bothering you or anything.”

she blinks hard, eyes frozen on the papers in front of her. “no, you’re not.” logically, she’s never properly studied with you, so she truly doesn’t know if you would be a bother. emotionally, though, the possibility that you could be one isn’t enough of a reason to make her decline sitting with you. she wants to say yes. she just isn’t sure if she’s successfully conveying that to you. “you’re not.”

she tentatively looks up, bracing herself for an expression of hurt or anger. but, you just seem worried, lines deepened into your forehead and mouth folded in. at least that's what it seems like to her, especially in the context of your words.

she mulls on what to do for a few seconds before deciding to close her textbook, folding her arms over it. “what… what are you working on?”

you blink up at her, eyes a bit wide. she patiently waits on you, her foot wiggling under the table from where it’s crossed over her other. “I have a presentation for my feminism class.”

she nods slowly. her mind starts stirring with questions about your class, curiosity simmering in her. but, she holds back, wanting to try to assure you in some way that she wants you here. “what is your presentation on?”

“we’ve been focusing on media in this unit, so I’m doing it on the exploitation and archetypes of women in horror.”

she pauses, mind lingering on your words. she doesn’t know much of horror, so she isn’t sure of the many examples that exist, but she isn’t surprised at the notion. in most media, she tends to see caricatures made of women, a practice that itches at her in an aggravating way. she herself has received comments from peers on the type of stereotypes she’s expected to encapsulate as a cop, all because of her gender. comments that irk her so much she could never be bothered to respond.

“that’s interesting,” she muses. “I, well, didn’t realize it happens so much in horror.”

“oh,” you scoff, a bitter shrill ringing your laugh, and despite the subject manner, some of the tension slides from her shoulders at seeing you at ease again, “trust me. it happens all too much.”

“why do you think it happens?” she finds herself itching to know what you think, how you feel. it feels like a soft grip at her throat, coaxing and urging her to seek more of your thoughts.

you tap your pen on your notes. “I think it says a lot about how we find women in horror easy to discard, since they’re not even seen as whole, complex characters. and how we see the violence against them as more thrilling due to the power dynamic if the killer is a man.”

“hm.” her mouth twitches at the information. “almost like they’re not even seen as useful unless they’re just used as a victim.”

“victim to a man, which just further produces the reputation of the killer,” you enunciate, pointing a finger at her, leaning back in your chair with a smile, evidently satisfied by your conclusion.

her lip quirks up. it’s not like she hasn’t picked up on your passion before – the wistfulness in your sigh when listening to a song you like, the way your eyes light up and flick to her (without subtlety) when you show her a film. she knows it exists. but, still, she finds herself feeling respect at the way you eagerly speak of your assignment.

“it sounds interesting.” her jaw shifts as she contemplates on her next words, wondering if it’s too forward. “when is it?”

you flip through the pages of your notebook, finger skimming a page before coming to a stop. “december sixteenth.”

she hums in response, silently willing herself to just do it. just ask it. “in the social studies building?”

“yeah…” the word drawls out, and your lips curl into a wide grin. she blinks at the sight of it. do you suspect her? “room 225.”

okay, so, you probably do suspect her. why else would you willingly supply the room number? she feels a twinge of disappointment at her own lack of secrecy, but you look so happy, so she supposes her failure isn’t too bad. she nods, a stubborn piece of her still not wanting to give anymore information away. “okay.”

you beam. “okay.”

–

you can feel it happening. the slow, dreary days filled with nothing but work piled on top of work. you try to rid yourself of the feeling and just relax, but it’s there, always scratching at the back of your head, like a neglected cat trying to cry out and itch its way through the door. deadlines, exams, quotations to cite in the library, work. so much work.

you can see it weighing on lee, too. she doesn’t talk about it as much, but after two and a half months of living together, you can see the signs of it. the undereye circles that are darker than usual, greying her eyes. she’s yawning more than usual during her morning coffee, which has doubled in the amount of mugs she usually drinks. between that, and the instant noodles you hear her making at 2:00AM, you’re convinced she has a stomach of steel.

sometimes, when you’re awake in your room, listening to music, or skimming your notes, you can hear her on the phone with her mom. as guilty as it makes you to admit, you’ve been more and more curious about her home life since she got back from halloween weekend. she never contacted you during the trip, and her brief retelling of the four days on the night of her return was all you had received. you don’t mean to eavesdrop, but the walls are too thin to avoid her voice, and your ears catch onto things you never noticed before.

there are lots of pauses. the strain in her voice tightens even more than usual, making her voice sound harder, firmer. but, somehow, she never sounds loud or harsh. it’s always just tentative questions of are you okay? or what are you doing in the house? she offers more information to her mom than she does anyone else – or maybe it’s just you she doesn’t offer it to, and she’s like that with anyone else she cares about. you shake off the thought, and will away the bleeding jealousy caused by it.

lee actually tells her mom about how busy she is, how she can’t sleep because she needs to get an assignment done, how it looks like it’s going to snow soon. she asks if it’s snowing in oregon, and it leads to a yeah, I’ll be there in winter break. you wonder what makes her more open with her mom – if it’s genuine love and adoration, even the kind that lingers before the surface, or simply shared history. if her mom who she’s known her entire life receives uncoaxed admissions of her wellness, you wonder how long will you have to know her before she gives you that too?

she sounds like a good daughter. always patient, always gentle and never missing a call. it’s been like that since september. you didn’t always bear witness to it, but you know it’s a constant in her life. she always ends the calls with a promise of another. it makes you feel a softness inside, to see her being so caring and tender. you had suspected for weeks that it was there, that tenderness, but the confirmation makes you all the more glad to know.

it makes you linger on yourself. are you a good child? you try, in your own ways, to be so. sometimes, this small apartment with lee feels like an entrapment of adulthood you weren’t ever ready for, and all you want to do is crawl back home and bury your nose in the familiar scent of your stained bedsheets. other times, the apartment feels like the first time your foot has ever been planted on the grass after years locked away. you don’t even realize how much of a sanctuary independence is until you visit home, and when you do, it’s a bittersweet mixture of sweetly lying in the palms holding your past, but also being reminded of exactly why you pushed the fingers away before they could hold on too tightly.

a week later, you attend a protest happening for Palestine. while your friend was supposed to join you, the november chill seemed to have unexpectedly preyed upon her, rendering her sick and curled into bed. you had only discovered the news by the time you had reached campus and received a page from her, confirming her absence on the payphone. the last minute change left you with no time to call upon any other peers or friends, and so, you stand alone, shyly holding up your sign.

but, it doesn’t feel lonely. even though you’re technically by yourself, the thrum of mutual support for a similar cause feels like a sort of bloodstream, with each participating member being part of the vein. it makes you feel anything but lonely, the string of solidarity tying you to the crowd in a way that’s indescribable. even though you know you probably would have been a bit nervous to have attended alone had you discovered your friend’s sickness earlier, you can’t help but feel it’s a blessing in disguise that the change of plans were reported so last minute. somehow, being alone gives you even more of an opportunity to observe your surroundings, read the other signs, and watch the power burning in everyone’s eyes – an experience that makes your body feel revived, as though a shock was sent through it. the chants are like a defibrillator, pressing into your chest and restarting the life within you after a week of nothing but hopelessness. you can’t help but allow it to lead to another subject of pondering – sometimes. things can feel so hopeless, so fast, just with the addition of another assignment or test. what is it like to have the kind of resilience reserved for conditions that, to you, can only exist in a figment of your imagination? how much strength does it take for that?

the protest leaves you feeling a sense of fulfillment. you know it doesn’t really matter how it makes you feel – what matters is to show up and contribute to spreading the word and making it known what should and shouldn’t be tolerated. but, still, you leave it with a sense of faith in humanity, and community, restored, one that leaves you uplifted and almost running off a high. but, you know that’s not the point. it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t get out of this – what matters is to help who truly needs it.

when you’ve walked through the march for two hours, your toes numb from the cold and hands aching, you step into a pizza shop, stomach grumbling. you stand in line, eyes roving over protestors who had the same idea as you, exchanging polite smiles, and watching the crowd continue to move like wave through the window.

you blink when you see the flash of light brown hair, wrapped into a ponytail.

almost as though it’s some sort of bodily instinct, like breathing or licking your lips, you exit the line and rush through the door, pushing it open and yelling, “lee!”

the cold air immediately whips against your face, white snowflakes beginning to dot along the trails of wind as you make your way to her. even though you knew it was lee from the get go, the soft doe eyes and tough jaw immediately recognizable after nearly three months together, you can’t help the pang of relief from knowing it’s her.

she blinks at you, lips just barely parting as you walk over, nervous laughter beginning to tickle at your mouth. “hi.”

you smile back. “hey.” you look around, the chants of the protest ringing around you both. “are you here for the…?”

she nods. “yeah.”

you pop your lips. “alone?”

“no, um…” her eyes shift to behind you, and you turn to find two girls approaching you both. the same girls you always see lee walking around campus with. you stiffen, nervous butterflies erupting in your stomach. “I’m here with my friends.”

“oh, hi,” you greet, exchanging smiles with the two girls. their eyebrows are raised in curiosity, gaze darting between you and lee, clearly awaiting an introduction.

you glance warily at lee, and that seems to do the trick, her eyes finally lifting to you three and blinking hard. she pauses before saying, “these are my friends, amaya and maria.”

when she introduces you, amaya’s eyes widen. “oh! so, you’re the roommate!”

her open, friendly tone helps in making you feel more at ease, though her words pique your curiosity. your eyes flick from her to lee, teasingly saying, “yeah, why? has lee been spreading rumors about me?”

maria snorts, patting a hand on lee’s shoulder. lee doesn’t pull back or flinch, and just lets the touch happen. something in you softens at the sight. “oh, please, we’ve been trying to get her to talk more about any roommate irks she’s dealt with from you, but either she’s nicer to you than any other roommate, or you’re just that good to live with.”

the words nearly send you into a euphoric bliss, an embarrassingly high-pitched giggle spilling out. “no, no, I think I’m just that perfect to live with.”

lee rolls her eyes, mouth twitching.

amaya nods at you. “so, you’re here for the protest?”

you lift your rolled up poster. “yeah, I came in right after class.”

she makes small talk with you, asking about your major and the classes you’re taking. when you mention your mythology course on tuesdays, her eyes brighten. “oh, I’m in that class, too! don’t be a stranger, come say hi next time.”

you can’t help but smile widely. “yeah, of course, I’ll make sure to.” it’s strange, really, to think that all this time, someone so intimately connected to lee was sharing the same space as you every tuesday. it’s silly, but it feels almost reverent, in a way, to be near someone so close to lee. lee’s such a difficult person to peel away the layers of, and so, seeing and being near someone who has already done that feels like standing next to a champion of some sorts.

maria, who’s been standing near lee and talking lowly to her the entire time, lee’s only response being some hums and nods, pokes her head out to you. “why don’t we all get food together?”

you hesitate, suddenly keenly aware of being the odd one out. “oh, well, only if it’s okay – I don’t want to interrupt or anything–”

“you won’t,” lee softly interjects, eyes locking with yours. the moment has your stomach tightening, and all you can do is nod, your cheeks warming from something other than the biting, feverish cold.

–

lee doesn’t know what she had been expecting for the day, but it definitely wasn’t this. the protest? yes, of course, she had adjusted her entire week’s worth of work to ensure she could attend today. seeing you? nothing had prepared her for that.

she nervously glances at her friends as they seat themselves at a table to save it when you and her head into the line. she doesn’t know how to feel about this unexpected crossover. her moments with you have felt private, in a way, something only involving the two of you. to merge one of those moments with her friends feels a bit surreal after nothing but conversations between you two being reserved to the privacy of your home, and bubbles of separation from your public surroundings.

still, something stirs in her at the sight of you interacting with her friends. it feels like something is off, like something has shifted, but, it’s not entirely unwelcome. it feels strangely nice to watch you interact with her friends, to see the people she cares about interacting. she blinks at the thought. she supposes she really does care for you.

it’s an experience foreign to her. as a child, she sometimes had people over, but as she grew older, and her mother’s grip on both lee, and every item that passed the threshold into their home, grew exponentially, she found herself unable to handle the humiliation of letting people into such a home. in her teenage and adult life, only two or three people had actually met her mother. her high school girlfriend, or well, whatever she was to lee, did come by once. she had insisted on meeting the mother of the girl she was involved with, and with burning ears and a nauseating sense of anxiety, lee had led her through the snow and into their lonely home. the experience had brought both comfort and pain. the conditions of her home had been a private, shameful secret between her and ruth for so long, and to open it to someone else made her feel like any justifications or comfort she could have provided for herself were now shattered. any illusions she could have convinced herself of were broken now that someone else bore witness to the sight she had been forced to become accustomed to. but, still, what she had received were soothing rubs on her palm, tender kisses at the desk while they were basked in the grey shine of winter, and an assuring hug. it had both eased and lengthened her shame in ways she did not even know how to untangle. because while she felt shame for their home, what triumphed it was her shame for looking down on her home, her mother, in that kind of way. for it's not her mom's fault that this happened. that she coped in this way.

when she glances at you, she starts at the sight of you watching her. her head immediately snaps away. she wonders what you see when you look at her.

“I’m surprised you’re here.”

she stares at your dirty sneakers, curiosity burning through. “why?” was it the crowds? the movement itself?

“well, you seem to hate crowds.”

the corner of her lips twitch. the assumption is both correct and fair to have made, considering you had seen her struggle in the subway station. at the entrance of that memory, she can’t help but shift in her spot, insecurity gnawing at the back of her mind – do you think she’s weak? “I do. but, this matters. and I have ways to… manage.”

when she hesitantly raises her eyes to you, she gulps at seeing your small smile. she looks away, something twisting in her stomach at the sight. you seem to do that a lot – smile, that is. is it like that with everyone, or just her? she shakes away the thought. it doesn’t matter. but, still, her mind keeps straying to your hair, slightly disarrayed from the wind, and the way your eyes seem brighter from being outside.

“that’s really decent of you, lee.”

she says nothing at the praise. it’s not decent of her, it’s simply the right thing to do.

“so,” you drawl, the two of you stepping forward as the line shortens, “what kind of things do you guys do to manage?”

it’s too direct a question for her to evade it. so, with a tight breath, embarrassment crawling through her, she mutters, “we, um… stay to the edge of the crowd. it’s less crowded there. and whenever we – I – start feeling like it’s a lot, we take a momentary break by heading inside somewhere.” speaking the words out loud floods her with a sense of gratitude. not everyone was as patient as the two constants in her life. she knows how lucky she is.

you hum in response, the noise neutral enough to give her a bit of relief. “that’s sweet. they seem sweet.”

she quietly nods in agreement. sweet feels all too simple a word to really describe the care they treated her with. it’s the kind of patience and understanding she had learned to not expect years ago. and then, they came in, and insisted – no, demanded – that she tolerate nothing else but the utmost patience. she doesn’t actually put their lessons into fruition, of course, but their insistence always gave her an overwhelmingly appreciative feeling.

“why don’t you bring them to the apartment?”

her mouth tics at the sound of your voice so small. she realizes how it must’ve come off to you. maybe you thought she was embarrassed of your guys’ place, or of you. she sighs at the thought, staring at your shoes. eye contact is always, well, less than easy for her, but knowing you might be hurt makes it even harder. why was she messing up so much lately?

“it’s not like that,” she says, her voice quiet amidst the bustle of the tables and customers. “I’m just not used to having them at my place. I’ve never really done it.” it’s the truth. her past apartments, what with the blank walls, new roommates and seclusion to her room, never really felt like places to invite her friends to. she also often felt uncomfortable with asking her roommates if it was okay, and besides, she preferred going to someplace else where it could be just the three of them, and in a space bigger than her tiny bedroom. with time, she just got used to things being like that, and continued to never invite them over. even now.

and maybe she still isn’t used to the idea of inviting people over to her place of residence. maybe to her, the idea of home will forever be inexplicably linked to discomfort and solitude.

“why have you never done it?”

her thoughts slide back to you, and she carefully ponders how to place her words in the most respectful way. “well, I always just wanted privacy with them. and no place I ever lived in felt… I don’t know, comfortable enough.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t bother you guys.”

she immediately shakes her head, worry seizing her. she doesn’t want you thinking that. “no, I know you wouldn’t. I just mean, I’ve gotten used to it being this way due to past apartments, so that’s why I don’t bring them over now.” maybe at the beginning, she was unsure if you’d be bothersome. but, now, it’s really just something she avoids out of habit, and the additional awkwardness she feels at doing it after having already lived together for three months. there’s also something vulnerable about knowing you’ll see her with her friends. she can’t help but be cognizant of how different she must seem around them.

you shrug, your shoulders relaxing at her answer, which causes her to feel more steadied in relief. “then, get un-used to it. I wanna see what you’re like with friends.”

her mouth twitches, raising an eyebrow. “have you forgotten they’re about four metres away?”

“yes, but we are in a crowded place, meaning someone–” you jab a finger to her arm, which sends her stiffening, “– won’t be relaxed.”

she hums, unable to resist the small smile creeping onto her face. it’s a bit unnerving, honestly, to hear you easily express knowledge about her. but, it also makes things feel a bit easier, more familiar. “so, you think you know me?”

“not fully.” she nods, suddenly freezing at your next words. “but, I’d like to.”

her mouth feels dry. she swallows hard, breaths shaky at the declaration. she doesn’t know why someone would want to know her, and she was used to not wanting to be known. so, why did your words leave her feeling relieved? did she want you to know her? after a pause, she decides that she does.

she glances at you, blinking hard. “um, okay.”

–

you nearly bark out a laugh. she’s so awkward. how can you not be endeared by her? you try not to think too hard about her dry responses. it’s been clear since the get go that she struggles with, and isn’t keen on, social interactions. and one would think that the longer you know her for, the more frequently you witness proof of this insight, the less concerned and paranoid you’d be of what she thinks of you. but, still, you worry every now and then. there’s something there, you know so. you feel something for her. and you don’t want to get ahead of yourself and make assumptions of her feelings, but you desperately hope she at least generally likes you. but, your feelings seem to constantly stir up worries that she might not, especially since you so badly want more of her. more conversation, more moments, anything.

“is that okay?” you wryly ask..

she peaks at you. “yeah.”

your shoulders sag. please, anything.

“we can… both get to know each other more.”

if it’s scientifically possible for a singular sentence to make a person’s heart light as a feather, that’s what you’re experiencing. you whip to her with a cheek-aching smile. “really?”

she flinches at your sudden turn, then tightly nods. “really.”

her voice is firm with the promise of it, and you feel there’s no other option but to believe her. “I’m flattered.”

you could nearly facepalm the moment you say it. jesus, how desperate do you sound?

she scoffs lightly, lips upturning. “it’s not that surprising, is it?”

you give her a pointed look. “maybe it wouldn’t be if I could read your mind, but sadly, all this college education hasn’t given me telepathy skills.”

her tone is lightened with a teasing lilt. “I’m sure they never made such a claim in the fine print, so you have no one to blame but yourself.”

you can’t help but grin, even at her sarcastic comment. “is this your offer to do all my paperwork from now?”

she shakes her head. “no.” she glances at you. “practice makes perfect.”

you snort. “someone has jokes.” not that you minded at all. part of you is always childishly ecstatic when she reveals her comfort around you through a joke.

she stares ahead to the counter, and you can see her mouth twist in amusement. your stomach practically flutters at the sight. it looks so close to a smirk, and that notion only has your mind hurled with images of lee cocky and arrogant. god, what a sight that would be. how would she look leaning over you with her mouth twisted like that, looking down on you? the thought nearly has you shivering.

you look to her again. her eyes twinkle with what feels like mischief. it feels so foreign a sight on her, but you drink it in, gaze lapping her up. “yeah, I can usually supply them around a half-year into acquaintanceship.”

you bump her shoulder, noting the firm strength of it. “I’m getting them after three months only, so does that make me special?”

her laugh lines deepen as her smile widens. she gives you a side glance. “if that makes you feel good about yourself, sure.”

you roll your eyes, muttering, “asshole,” with no real malice laced. malice for lee? never.

when you guys wait at the high tables and stools for your order to be completed, lee nodding for you to take the stool, leaning her back on the edge of the table, you spot her wringing her hands around her abdomen.

“cold?”

she tears her eyes away from the oven. “hm?”

your eyes fix on her hands with raised brows. “cold?”

“oh.” she glances down sheepishly, shrugging. “a bit. it’s okay.”

you really don’t know what the fuck possesses you in that moment, but this sudden need to dote on her surges through you, wrapping and squeezing without relent. you want to do something, anything, to help her in that moment. so, you sigh, removing your mittens, which have kept your hands toasty warm, then tentatively ask, “can I…?” as your hands slowly extend to hers.

her eyes widen imperceptibly, flicking between your face and hands. her lips part, then close, and suddenly you’re washed with the humiliating feeling that maybe it was the wrong thing to ask. you know how she is about touch – shit, what if she feels disrespected?

your mind is whirling in a panicked tornado of these thoughts when her small voice bursts through. “okay.”

her body is stiff, eyes observing you carefully. it doesn’t feel all too okay. “are you sure?”

she nods, to your surprise. despite her tense stature, she seems certain of her decision, and bearing witness to that makes something eager tug at you, wondering at its meaning. “I’m sure.”

with her confirmation, you shakily grab for her hands, nearly hissing when your skin makes contact with hers. this is so different from that time at the station – that touch was some sort of survival instinct, and this was nothing but pure want. her skin is so cold, poor thing. without the push and pull of an agonizingly large crowd, you can truly feel her hands – the smooth crevices of the lines on her fingers, the way her veins protrude at the back, a deep blue, how bony and long she is.

you rub your palms over her hands, focusing on the task of bringing some warmth to her. you avoid her sharp gaze, which you can feel is examining you, distracting yourself with the twists and rubs of your hands.

when you pull back to blow hot, moist air into your cupped palms, you finally dare to take a peak at her. you nearly suck in a breath at the way she’s staring at you. her dark eyes are honed in on you in the same way she does her readings, almost as though she’s studying you to memory. her jaw is set, mouth in a pressed line. but, her eyes – god, her eyes. they’re latched onto you as though you’re some destination on a map, or a pocket of light at the end of a tunnel. or perhaps you’re just succumbing to wishful thinking.

you wordlessly reach for her hands and she quietly lifts them, patiently allowing you to continue your ministrations, your breaths still trembling. “you’re a good patient,” you joke, the words too breathy for your liking.

she hums thoughtfully, eyes still focused on you. “I heard complacency sometimes helps when involved with odd people.” her lip quirks up.

you bite back a laugh. “shut up. I know you’re enjoying this.”

she gives you a small nod, an earnest smile spreading. “it’s nice.”

the two words, albeit as simple as they are, cause a bloom of satisfaction deep in you.

“am I interrupting?”

you both jerk from each other at the third voice, and you swivel around to find maria standing there, arms crossed with a smirk curling her lips.

“we were just waiting for food,” you nearly squeak, whirling to lee, who’s watching the entire interaction with a blank expression. you sigh, turning back to maria. “we’ll be there in a sec.”

maria’s eyes drift to the counter, and the large pizza box sitting on it. she adjusts her glasses, leaning over to read the paper stuck to it. “you mean this order?”

you splutter, wincing. “I… I guess so.”

maria’s smile widens, and she picks the box up. “whenever you guys are ready.”

as she walks away, your head cocks to lee, who’s staring at maria’s departing figure with slow blinks, as though she’s processing what just happened. “um, you should probably get some gloves,” you mumble, trying to move past the awkward moment.

“I have. I just didn’t bring them here.”

you chortle. “okay, then get better survival instincts.”

she softly snickers, lifting herself from the edge of the table. “yeah, those might actually be handy for a future of law enforcement.”

“glad to be of service.”

sharing jokes with her – you can’t help but feel lucky. suddenly, you don’t feel as estranged from what her friends must experience with her when you two sit with them. that, however, changes when you witness their easy banter filled with a shared history you can’t compare to, but still, they never neglect to give you context and keep you in the loop. it’s sweet, and you can’t help but feel glad that lee has such friends at her side. you can tell she feels lucky too, from the way her eyes fondly linger on them when they recall a funny story.

when you feel her gaze shift to you, you can’t but hope it carries even half of that fondness.

–

“lee?”

lee stiffens at your voice. you can’t see her. not like this.

it all started when her forensics class pushed all their reading up by a week, meaning she’d have to do double her usual amount. already, that wasn’t good. lee latched onto her routine like a lifeline, especially when it came to academics. spontaneity never worked well with her. and so, she panicked. panicked over the significant shift this extra reading would cause, panicked over the limited time she’d now have to prepare for that friday’s exam. she needed to study for it, but she also needed to do the doubled readings, since her forensics exam was the next monday.

she felt scrambled for the rest of the week. she tried to force herself to stay up and get as much reading for her forensics class done as possible, but whenever it became apparent just how little progress she had made, that sent a flood of chest-tightening anxiety through her, which would shatter her focus for the time it chose to linger by.

the reading was put aside on thursday in favour of spending the entire day cramming for friday’s exam, even skipping class that day in order to do so. she barely ate anything, and drank copious amounts of coffee, the lack of sleep from the past few days catching up fast with her.

she did the exam, felt satisfied with it, then continued her relentless schedule of catching up on the readings for monday’s forensic exam. she had a long shift at the library on saturday, but still gave herself no break, immediately heading home and continuing to work, the process extended even more by her bouts of intense anxiety and drowsiness.

your eyes were on her everytime she came out for a refill of coffee, or to eat something small with her books by her side. you had asked several times if you could help, if she needed anything, and the soft look in your eyes made her feel like she was on the examination table. it was nice of you… really nice, she couldn’t deny it. but, she wanted to prove something to herself. and in all seriousness, she’s too accustomed to her specific regime of studying that she didn’t want to undergo the process of learning how you study and potentially dealing with the stress and socially-infused situations of realizing your methods aren’t compatible with hers. so, she politely declined. when you nodded in understanding, a slight frown on your face, she was gripped with the desire to forgo studying for a few minutes to make it disappear. but, she couldn’t. it felt like she couldn’t do anything for herself.

on sunday night, it felt like things were finally taking a somewhat positive turn. she only had one reading left, and it was the shortest one, so she would wake up early on monday, skim it, then go over her notes once more before the 9:00AM exam. she went to sleep with those assuring thoughts on her mind.

except, she forgot to set her alarm. and then, she slept in.

this led to her laying on her bed for ten minutes, the struggle to breathe squeezing at her chest, forcing herself to release the air in steady, consistent breaths. her eyes were blown out and her hands were wringing and pulling at each other, body feeling like it was suddenly afloat and not really attached to earth.

after she took a cold, cold shower, trying to make her body feel something other than sheer fear, she dressed and went straight to campus. she awkwardly stood at her professor’s desk, fingers thrumming against her black coat, quietly explaining what had happened and asking for another chance. she wondered if she should beg, plead, list her credentials – but, decided straight and to the point would do better in preventing a waste of either of their time. besides, she could never convincingly do some of those things in the first place, so why try? she felt sure in how she proceeded.

at least, until he said, “you don’t seem that desirous to retake it. and even if you were, I don’t give redos unless there was prior notice or a medical condition involved. if I allowed every student to miss an exam with the excuse of sleeping in, this classroom would be empty on exam day, miss harker.”

she came home. had another… attack, so it seems to be. then, sat on her floor, back braced against her bed, staring blankly at the wall, trying to intentionally even out her breaths.

it’s now been two hours, and her mind is whirling with thoughts. she knows it’s not objectively that big a deal. she took a lighter load for the spring semester, so if she fails her forensics class, she can just retake it then. but, still, disappointment and shame seep through her. she’s meant to do better than this. she’s meant to be a good student, one who people can take pride in. one who she herself can take pride in. her friends, even you, have always praised her for her focus, her responsibility. how will she face anyone? is this what she left her mom in oregon for?

and that – that is the thought that breaks her. tears slip down her face, and she silently lets them roll down. the image of ruth harker in her head, living in their tarnished home, just waiting for her daughter to return home every break, every long weekend. the mother she left to fend for herself, equally parts ashamed of her decision and happy to leave. and here she is, being neglectful of her alarms, sleeping in, missing an exam. she should’ve done better, should’ve made her decision to leave worth something. worth something that at least can carry the same weight of the shame, panic and guilt that plagues her everyday when she thinks of her mother back home, all alone.

she starts when you knock at the door, your voice ringing on the other side. “lee? are you in there?”

she’s always home around this time, you both know that. the question is merely a formality.

“yeah,” she mutters, her voice raspy.

“can I come in?”

she tenses up, eyes scanning her bedroom. it’ll be the first time you’ve seen it if she says yes. it’s clean – no late nights can erase her aversion to a mess.

it’ll also be the first time you’ve seen her in such a state. she wipes the back of her hand along her face. part of her just wants to be left alone, so she can cope with these emotions as she always does. just silently letting them exist, and ride them out in the silence of her room and the chaos of her mind. but, another part of her, a part that’s growing more and more apparent, wants someone here to tell her it’s okay, that things will be alright. she wishes she could call her mom. she wishes she could tell her mom these things, and admit just how lonely she is here, how hard things are.

she’s suddenly struck by such an acute sense of loneliness that she begins to truly linger on letting you in. not solely because of feeling alone – but, also, because it’s you. you, who has seen her panic on the subway. you, who has treated every facet of her with understanding.

she hesitates, then tentatively says, “yes.”

when you enter, your eyes curiously peer around the room and she suddenly feels self-conscious. there’s not much in here at all – no art, no photos, not many trinkets. what do you think of that?

your inquisitive search doesn’t last for long before your gaze finds her, and your eyebrows immediately furrow. “oh my god, what happened?”

she freezes as you sit next to her. “I, um…” her nostrils flare as she inhales a short breath. “I forgot to set an alarm. I didn’t wake up in time for my exam. my professor won’t let me retake it, so I'll probably fail.” the last word comes out as a shaky breath, and she avoids you, humiliation drowning out any other emotion.

“what the fuck?” you hiss. “why?”

her voice lowers. “he said it’s not a valid excuse.”

“yes, it is!” you press, your voice reaching a higher octave. “you’ve been working yourself to death, and it was a genuine mistake, and–”

“I have no way to prove that,” she gently intervenes, finally locking eyes with you. she doesn’t know how she looks, but however she does manages to make you falter. she doesn’t want you to falter, though, not because of her. so, she adds, “but, yeah, I get feeling upset.”

“are you not?”

“I’m embarrassed,” she whispers, eyeing her brown socks. it feels so hard to admit such an honest feeling, and she cringes at it.

“don’t be,” you immediately respond, the words hard and earnest. “we all have slip-ups like this. uni is fucking hard, and you’d be shocked at how many classes I’ve skipped, how many times I’ve missed handing in an assignment and had to weasel my way through it. we all have moments like that – yours just happened to be on an exam day. you’re probably worn out, and the fact you slept in is a clearcut sign you’re overtired. and that’s because you have been working hard. too hard, if you ask me,” you add quietly. “it’s not embarrassing at all. you were just tired and an accident happened. that’s it.”

that’s it. you make it sound so simple. weakly, she murmurs, “but, I should’ve done better or at least more.”

“more than studying every single waking moment of the week?” you question gently, and that makes her mouth tighten, a burst of stubbornness making it hard to accept how right you are. “it was an accident, lee.”

“I should’ve been more responsible.”

“you are, like, one of the most responsible students I’ve met. this wasn’t a case of you being irresponsible. if you hadn’t been so overtired, you would’ve remembered it. meaning that this is just a case of you being overtired.”

she sighs, turning away. you’re right, of course you are, but it’s hard to accept such a weighty mistake without placing the responsibility on herself.

you snicker, poking her arm. “stop being stubborn.”

“I’m not.”

“uh huh.” you pause, and she feels your eyes on her. in the aftermath of her vulnerable confession, she feels like curling in on herself and hiding away. “what will happen, though? if you fail?” the last words are quiet.

she breathes in shakily. “I have enough room to shift it to my next semester.”

a whoosh of air exits you. “thank god. see?” you tilt your head down, forcing her adrift gaze to meet yours. she gulps down at the sight of your smile. “it’ll all work out.”

she nods, eyes fluttering shut, trying to absorb your words. it’ll all work out.

“can I hug you?”

her eyes snap open, surprise coursing through her. it’s a sudden request, but she supposes not totally unreasonable. people usually hug those they’re comforting. she waits for the familiar sense of discomfort to rouse her into a polite decline. but, it doesn’t come. she takes a moment to digest this. it doesn’t come, just as it doesn’t with her friends or her mom. should she give in, then?

partially curious, partially craving more comfort (though, she’ll never admit it), she says, “um, sure.”

you shift closer to her, so that your arms brush together, the fabric of your long sleeves doing nothing to lessen her awkwardness about it. your arms freeze midway, and she braces herself for it. finally, you wrap one arm around the back of her shoulders, and the other around the front of her neck, your grip loose and gentle. you pull her in, and she lets herself lean into your body heat, resting her head on her shoulder, tucked into the curve of your neck. the scent of your soap fills her noses, and she feels the cold of her cheeks lessen against your warm skin and the fabric of your sweater. her body is tense and hard in your embrace at first, but after a few moments of you rubbing her arm, she relaxes, body loosening and sagging into you, the exhaustion of the past few days hitting her with full force.

and so, you two sit like that for a long while, the pale, white light of the winter day filling her room and casting its glow on you both.

–

when you wake up, you immediately flinch at the sight of lee’s face right next to yours. after some bleary, confused pondering, you remember what happened just hours before. you insisting she lay in her bed, then asking tentatively if you can hang out in her room, her just as hesitantly accepting the offer. listening to your walkman as she fell asleep soundly, watching as she curled into the cutest fetus position. and, of course, inevitably, falling asleep yourself, sinking down into her beige blanket.

she’s still asleep, her hands resting by her face, knees lifted to her stomach. you smile at the sight. she sleeps like a little kid, so innocently. her fingers twitch and fidget, and you wonder what she’s dreaming about. you hope her subconscious musings are far from exams, school and the anxiety.

her breaths are deep and steady, long lashes curved in the loveliest way. does she even realize how pretty she is?

your hand practically itches to raise and intertwine your fingers with her long ones. she felt so smooth and right in your hands the day you warmed them. you want more. but, no, you won’t take. not like this, when she’s still asleep.

you slide your most recent mixtape into your walkman, autumn leaves doodled all over the case. Linger by The Cranberries flows into your ears as your eyes take in lee’s room. she’s minimalist, to say the least. it’s not all that surprising, but you wonder why she has such a lack of personal objects. your eyes move to her desk, curiously taking in her copy of the bible. is she religious? from how she made it sound, it had seemed like she was only raised religious. but, perhaps you were wrong and had judged wrongly due to her being a lesbian. she very much could still be religious, you suppose.

you wonder if she’d find your own stances on faith off-putting if it turns out she really is religious. you no longer find yourself particularly attached to any belief system, and the question of whether god exists or not is one you sometimes contemplate on, but still have no real answer for. sometimes, when you find yourself silently praying to some invisible force in a time of need, you’re faced with the question of whether or not that god is someone, or something, you truly want to believe in, or just feel obligated to. like, this silent existence lurking over your shoulder, waiting for you to finally believe in them.

you find yourself so entrapped in the whirlwind of contemplation that you don’t even notice lee waking until she shifts near you, legs stretching out. her eyes are wide as she takes in your figure, which is probably shadowed now from the dim light of the sun setting so early. she seems surprised at the sight of you at first, before understanding seems to dawn on her face. her ponytail is mused, so much of her hair falling out as she rolls onto her back, her turtleneck rising up her stomach. you gaze into your lap, trying not to stare. god, how easy it would be to roll over her in her small mattress, watching her hair become more disarrayed.

you force yourself to speak. “rested well, sleepyhead?”

she releases some indiscernible, mumbled words, groaning.

you laugh. “come again?”

“mm. I slept well.” she rasps her fingers along her stomach, eyes pausing on your knee. “thank you. for before, and for staying.”

“anytime.” and you mean it. you know she’s not one to confide in someone easily, so part of you is immensely honoured she stored such trust in you today.

she sits up, resting her back on the headboard. “you drool in your sleep, you know?”

you immediately reel back, scoffing. “how would you know? you were passed out when I fell asleep.”

her lips quirk up. “I woke up at one point. you were making a puddle all over the pillow.”

you bristle at the comment. “you know, the ‘thank you’ would’ve sufficed.”

she chuckles quietly, sagging back. “just… keeping you on your toes.”

“someone certainly seems to be in a better mood now.”

“I am. thank you.”

the words are quiet, said with genuine gratitude. you soften at them. god. you’re such a fool for her. “you’re welcome.”

you lift yourself from the bed, rising on your toes to stretch long and hard, pulling your arms back. you shut your eyes in satisfaction, and when you open them, you giggle at the sight of lee staring at her wall, pointedly turned away from you. “such a gentleman you are, harker.”

she rolls her eyes. “are you finished?”

“mhm, yeah.”

she turns back to you, and desire stirs in your abdomen again at the sight of her intense gaze, feeling as though it could burn right through you. you’d do anything to have the focus of that gaze sharpened by desire. if you pretend hard enough, you can maybe fool yourself into believing that’s what it is right now.

you force your focus to the window in her bedroom. it’s snowing, the darkening evening flowing with tiny flakes and sending your neighbourhood into a little fairy land. you watch it in wonder for a few moments before meeting her gaze. “do you want to go for a walk?”

the street lamps cast a golden glow on the street, the snowflakes more apparent under their light. the streets are coated in a blanket of milky-white snow, almost like a soft cushion you could fall into. you know you ought to be rehearsing for tomorrow’s presentation, not taking a stroll with lee, but you can’t help but give into this moment with her. besides, after the presentation, you’re a free bird and done with the semester – that knowledge gives you a sense of freedom in choosing how to spend your time now.

you two walk quietly like that for an hour or so, feet kicking up the snow. you stop once at a stall near campus for some warmed donuts and coffee. you joke with her that this is preparing her for her FBI-diet, and she laughs lightly.

“my house back at oregon looks like this. with the snow and everything.”

“it sounds beautiful.”

she nods, eyes roving along the white plane extending from the bench you two are seated on. “it is.”

“do you miss it?”

“sometimes.” she sighs quietly. “other times, I’m just glad to have left. but, around christmastime, it was nice. just covered in snow, only her and I.”

“your mom?”

she nods, lips pursing. “yeah, my mom.” she fiddles with the sleeve of her jacket. “and you? do you miss home?”

“sometimes,” you repeat after her. “I don’t know. sometimes I feel like being an adult is just such a burden, and I want nothing more than to go back home and continue being without responsibility. but, I know with that, comes less autonomy too, so it has its pros and cons.”

she hums thoughtfully. “it’ll get easier with time. right now, it still feels new, but I’m sure you’ll adjust.”

“thanks.”

she nods, letting the silence simmer before speaking again. “it’s easy to miss home when away, even if you know it’s hard there.”

you laugh, no real joy attached to the noise. “yeah, nostalgia just makes everything seem nicer.”

“but, like you said, familiarity too. when you’re always moving and meeting people, constantly dealing with something new, the home you grew up in can feel a lot more comforting. even if it… stifled you back then.”

“yeah,” you agree in a whisper.

she closes her eyes, letting the chilled breeze brush along her face. in the white light of the moon, her cheeks are kissed with the faintest pink, those hard lips softened in the calm of the night. it reminds you of that night at the party when the two of you got high, and you felt like all her worries had dissipated.

“I wish I had a camera, so I could photograph this moment,” you blurt out, your words breaking the silence and sending you slightly cringing.

she keeps her eyes closed. “when do you get paid next? maybe you can find a used one.”

you snort at her practical answer. “it was meant to be a tender sentiment.”

“oh, I see.” she smiles lightly before her face eases back into one of relaxation. “it was.”

you’re suddenly struck with an idea, one that makes your cheeks ache with amusement. you start quietly reaching down to the ground, picking up a ball of snow and patting it into shape.

“what are you doing?” she questions, eyes still shut.

in a flurry of adrenaline, you throw the snowball at her chest. she jerks back, eyes flying open and skimming along her chest in surprise before meeting yours. her face is blank, and you wouldn’t be able to detect even a wisp of the thoughts in her head had it not been for her slowly standing up, idly scooping up the snow gathered on the bench’s arm. “maybe you should start running.”

you don’t think twice, scurrying away through the snow-covered field, laughing in wild anticipation. you turn back, yelping at the sight of lee easily catching up to you. damn her for jogging all the time.

her aim is all too perfect, her snowball smacking right into your back in a whirl of flakes. you stumble at the impact, still squealing in delight.

and so, you two continue like that for a while, until you’re both drenched and tired, the walk home filled with attempts at a rematch from you, and lee trying to escape your efforts.

the next day, your friend in your feminism class is practically shaking your shoulders, encouraging you without a moment’s pause. your stomach is swarming with buzzing bees of anxiety, filling you to the brim with worried thoughts.

“you can do it,” she says, nails tight in your shoulder. “I’ll be watching the entire time, and I’ll clap so loudly at the end, and–”

“ow, ow, my shoulders,” you whine, writhing out of her grip.

“oh, sorry,” she sheepishly says, sliding her hands down to your forearms, clutching tightly. “just know, I’ll be right at the front the entire time.”

“yes, mom.” you drawl out teasingly, your heart flooding with gratitude and affection.

when your name is called by the professor, you smooth down the creases on your shirt, exchanging firm nods with your friend and heading up on the small platformed stage in your lecture hall. your eyes scan the crowd hopefully. you thought lee’s question from a few weeks ago was asked with the intent of attending your presentation. then, again, you had been the one to supply the information about your room number, so maybe her question regarding the building was pure curiosity or just a formality. a small part of you feels wounded at the harsh reality. why did you always get your hopes up so damn much?

shaking the thoughts, and its accompanying sadness, off, you introduce yourself, and say, “and today, I’ll be discussing the portrayal of women and femininity within horror films.” you force yourself to skim your eyes over the crowd, but whenever you make eye contact with someone, you internally wince. nerves are still fluttering in your gut, but you try your best to ignore them, especially after you undergo the mild humiliation of finding yourself distracted by your thoughts for too long a moment, your professor’s clearing of her throat urging you to look back down on your cue cards.

your eyes dart up when the backdoor creaks open, and your heart nearly zips up your throat at the sight of lee. she’s in a button-up and slacks as per usual, her long black trench coat wrapping around her. when some people look to the back due to the noise, you can see her jaw lock, probably feeling embarrassed at being the subject of attention. but, then, she locks eyes with you, and her lips press into a small smile, giving you a nod – whether it’s one of encouragement or acknowledgement, you don’t know. but, she’s here. that’s all that matters. she sits in the back row, arms crossed over the desk, leaning in, eyes focused on you.

you breathe in deeply, feeling as though it’s almost possible to vividly experience the expansion of your lungs in that moment, then continue speaking. “now, we’ll start off by exploring different archetypes…”

as you speak, you intentionally will your eyes to continue skipping along your peers’ faces. whenever you falter in your words, or feel suddenly struck with a feeling of awkwardness, your eyes latch onto your friend, and, of course, lee. lee who watches you carefully the entire presentation, slowly nodding to your points.

when you move to the good representation of women in horror, you add, “an example of a complex female lead in horror is clarice starling from The Silence of the Lambs,” purposely making eye contact with lee, whose lips curl into a soft grin.

when you’re done, and have been sufficiently congratulated and praised by your friend, which triggers a tight hug between you two, you shuffle up the steps to lee, who’s standing up as you approach, her smile wide. “hi. you came.”

she shrugs. “I wanted to see.” she looks up, cocking her head, a stream of hair brushing past her cheek. you want to move it away so bad. “besides, you knew I was coming.”

“no,” you corrected. “I hoped you’d come. but, you had me wondering there for a second.” you feel suddenly bashful at the confession, at letting her know you had truly harboured a desire for her to come.

she seems to feel the same way, hands fidgeting with her sleeve. “sorry. the subway ran late, and I, uh – I brought you this.”

she hands you a chocolate bar, and you could nearly jump her bones right there. you nearly sigh at your own thought – god, you’re deranged. you turn the bar in your hands, rubbing the plastic. “hershey’s cookies and cream?”

she gestures awkwardly at it, movements stilted and stiff. “maria said it was good. it’s a new flavour.”

“we can share it, then.”

her mouth twitches. “okay.”

you drag your friend to the back row, and the three of you sit together for the rest of the presentations. friendly as ever, your friend jokes with lee about any horrible living habits you have, and you know she must be doing a pretty good job, because lee actually jokes back, which incites many well-deserved arm smacks from you.

afterwards, you and lee take the subway, then walk the rest of the way together. the sun is out, shining a warm, golden line on the glittering frost of the snow. you walk together in peaceful quiet, breaking the chocolate bar into two pieces for you to share.

the only interruption is your sudden halt, lee’s shoulder smacking against yours as she stops too late. her eyebrows draw in. “what’s wrong?”

you point at the window display to a stationery store, a mini christmas tree aglow and glittering through the glass. “we should get a tree.”

the lines on her forehead deepen. “why? we both won’t be in the apartment for christmas.”

you pout, the reminder a sad one to you. “I know, but it’ll look festive, plus we can keep it after break.”

“after christmas? what’s the point?”

“it’ll look festive, lee!”

she seems genuinely perplexed. “but, the tree isn’t there just to look festive.”

you roll your eyes, crossing your arms. “is this a catholic thing?”

she snickers softly. “no, it’s just a factual thing.”

“that’s so boring, lee.”

she huffs a sigh, glancing at the tree. “but, won’t it be a waste?”

you continue pouting, emphasizing the act with a kick to the snow. “please?”

she sighs again, staring at you warily.

–

lee doesn’t know how she got herself into this, but all she knows is that she did, and now, you’re being infinitely indecisive about which tree to choose. you’re currently standing between two miniature ones, eyes roving between each thoughtfully. she had agreed to this outing under the assumption it’d only drag her out of the apartment for an hour or so. she checks her watch – between your visit to a cafe and the languid patience at which you’re choosing a tree, it’s been two.

she leans against the wall. “can you pick one soon? I want to go home.”

“please, grandpa, I need silence to think.”

amusement bubbles in her. “I’ve been silent for the past half hour, so I don’t know if I believe that.”

“I have been thinking!” you exclaim. “and you aren’t helping me make the choice, so…”

she sighs, sliding from the wall and picking up the lighter of the two trees, which is a lot more gangly with large gaps in between the branches, walking to the cash register.

“wait,” she hears you softly call out. she turns to find you staring longingly at the rich green, full, thick miniature tree. she supposes it fits more of the traditional standard, but the choice doesn’t matter much to her. “you don’t like this one?”

she walks back silently, swapping the trees and carrying the other one to the counter. as exasperated as she might feel, she finds herself unable to ignore any signs of dejection from you, whether it be a pout or whiny tone. jesus, she even pays for half of the tree, despite your many protestations. but, she ignores you and quietly insists to the cashier to split it in half. she knows you’re just as broke as she is, and she isn’t about to let you pay for it all on your own. and as contradictory as it might seem to her lack of enthusiasm for purchasing a tree, it’s still something you’ll both… enjoy – or whatever it is you planned to do with the tree post-christmas. it doesn’t feel right for you to shoulder the cost on your own.

another hour later of choosing lights (lee chooses golden, while you choose multi-coloured) and ornaments (she chooses one pack of classic, plain ones that are green, red and golden; you go for more more sparkling, ornamental ones for some “contrast,” as you say), you are back at the apartment, decorating it together. lee tried to initially assemble it, but you pushed her to the couch, telling her to relax and let you do it. she isn’t sure how exactly you expect her to relax, with all your stumbling and struggling in putting the parts together. after watching you curiously for a half hour, she finally gets up, silently shuffling in your way and getting on her knees to put it together. you shove lightly at her, begging her to move, but she ignores you, getting to work. she’s good at this kind of stuff – taking pieces of something and assembling it together, putting her mind to work in figuring out something that has a process and structure. in ten minutes, she’s got it done, looking up at you with a small smile, satisfaction and pride trilling through her.

you release a petulant huff, crossing your arms. “you had it easier because you noticed all my mistakes.”

“mhm,” she hums mindlessly, eyes scanning the tree, rearranging the branches.

“look who’s being so picky now, miss what’s-the-point-of-a-tree.”

“if we’re going to be keeping it past christmas, we might as well make it sufficiently nice.”

“‘sufficiently nice,’” you repeat mockingly with a laugh. you, then, bump her shoulder with your hand. “you did damn good, I gotta admit.”

pride swells in her chest at your praise. “thank you.”

you two wrap the lights around it together and she feels like a child having a playdate, the two of you stepping over each other whenever you cross paths when circling around the tree. she can’t remember the last time she put up and decorated a tree with someone like this. maybe it was with her mother back in high school. there wasn’t all that much space in their home, but still, every christmas, lee dragged out the tree from her mom’s closet. her mom would usually watch her blankly for the first few minutes, before eventually joining her, her slow movements stilting the process by an hour. they didn’t talk much when doing it, but occasionally, her mom would reminisce on an ornament she had received from lee’s father, or lee would laugh at her mom dropping something, and for a split second, as short and fleeting as a star winking into oblivion, it’d feel like her and her mother again. her mother who held her as a child and used to dry orange slices with her so they could hang them on the windows together. in those moments, things felt normal again. through those last years of high school, when her mother started fading away more and more, lee wasn’t all that sure why she insisted on bringing out the christmas tree so much. now, on reflection, she’s sure it’s because of what you two had spoken of. she missed the familiarity of her mom. maybe that’s why she hasn’t even resisted going back to oregon for winter break all these years. sure, a lot of it is about practicality -- she wants to check on her mom and ensure she's eating well, as well as look after her mother's safety. but, maybe another part of her simply wants to spend christmas with her mom, and maybe, just maybe, get to feel like a daughter with her mother again. to have some of the tension, and pauses, and shame, go away, even if just for a day.

“when do you leave?” you ask her, carefully hooking on an ornament.

she stares at you through the branches, your ministrations and the branches both providing her with some subtlety. the soft light of the lights shadow over your face, softening all the edges. she forgets what she’s meant to be doing for a moment, sinking into the sight. when your eyes flick up to hers, she immediately looks down, clearing her throat. “um, what did you ask?”

she feels her face heat up at your soft laugh. “I asked when you’re leaving for home?”

she falters. “two days from now.” she’s known this piece of information for weeks – she planned the trip all the way back in november. but, now that it’s approaching, some sort of discomfort lingers in her. the idea that she’ll be away from the apartment, from you, makes her feel more off than she had expected.

“and you come back on?”

“the fifteenth.” she blinks hard at the tree. it seems like so long, all of a sudden.

“so, you won’t be here for your birthday?”

her head snaps up. she had never told you of her birthday, nor mentioned that she was staying the entire break because her mom wanted her in oregon for it. she doesn’t want any sort of big deal made for her birthday. “how did you–?”

“amaya told me,” you cut in with what she can only describe as a playfully evil chuckle. “you thought you could hide it from me?”

her lips press together. “she shouldn’t have told you. I’m not set on celebrating it much.”

“fine, fine. so humble,” you drawl out with a smile.

she sighs. “it’s not that. I just don’t like… the attention. or people going out of their way.”

“you do realize that if people go out of their way, it’s not because you’re holding them at gunpoint, right?”

confusion seeps into her mind. “what do you mean? I don’t own a gun.”

you giggle, shaking your head. “no, no, I mean, if people do something nice for you, it’s not because you’re forcing them. it’s because they want to.”

“still. I don’t know, it just feels like a lot.” lee has friends, but she still experiences bouts of discomfort at being doted on, especially for something that takes as much effort as a birthday celebration. the gifts, the cake, the balloons. she doesn’t know exactly why it makes her so uncomfortable. maybe it’s a multitude of things. the fact that for most of her life, her birthday was a private celebration with just her and her mom, disconnected from everyone else. or maybe it’s because she’s just generally not used to people other than her mom treating her with such tenderness. or maybe in these recent years, she just gotten so used to being the one depended on at home, the one to provide the basic care to another person, that it seems wrong vice versa. maybe part of her is still the wounded child who feels connection, and the gifts that come with it, just aren’t in the cards for her. no matter how many people try to prove it otherwise.

“okay, well, will you accept at least one birthday gesture from me? since you won’t be here.”

your eyes have that pleading look, and her resolve slowly wanes. “fine. what gesture?”

you clap your hands, racing to your bedroom. she lowers her hands from the tree, twiddling them together, nerves suddenly spiked in anticipation. she also hates surprises. so, maybe that’s another reason.

you return with a box neatly wrapped in red wrapping paper with shimmering gold stripes, an elaborate bow placed on top. lee nearly stutters at the sight, suddenly overcome with mixed emotions of surprise, awe and discomfort. she gulps, waiting for you to proceed.

“happy early birthday,” you say, head ducked down, thrusting the gift at her abruptly. she easily catches it, ignoring the tingling feeling her fingers get when they brush yours. “don’t open it till the fourteenth, though.”

“I… okay.” she cradles it gently, staring down at it. her fingers skimm over the wrapping, the creases on the paper indicating your repetitive attempts at folding. you did this just for her? she feels all the more uncomfortable under your gaze now, acutely aware of the fact that her face probably isn’t best translating the gratitude pulsing through her. she looks up, intentionally willing herself to stare at you. “thank you.”

she’s relieved when you seem more than satisfied with that, a wide smile cracking through your face. as she puts the gift down, she wonders if she ought to give you your gift now. it’s laying in her drawers at this moment, but she still hasn’t prepared its presentation, which will undoubtedly pale in comparison to yours, but still. she knows you’d enjoy the anticipation of her gift being hidden in wrapping.

she places the present on the table your guys’ tree sits upon, feeling desperate to change the topic to ward off the awkwardness of saying nothing more about your gesture. “when will you leave?”

“the day after you.”

she nods, suddenly feeling a sense of something akin to guilt at leaving your guys’ apartment alone without either of you here. but, obviously, she knows it’s impractical to stay back just because it feels wrong. and it’s just as impractical to ask you to stay back with her. she knows that.

but, still, it feels unsettling to think of leaving, especially as you two finally finish the tree and admire it, then go to the movie store for the tape of Home Alone, then watch it together on the couch. she won’t admit it to you, but you were right. the tree really is nice – a sentiment she can’t help but muse on as it glitters in its corner of your guys’ apartment.

–

the day lee leaves, she plans to take the 5:00AM train, insisting you don’t have to wake at 4:00AM to see her off. but, you do so anyways, groggy and bleary-eyed, watching her as she slings her duffel bag over her shoulder.

“oh, you don’t need your walkman?” you ask, pointing to its spot on the coffee table.

her eyes dart to it, widening a bit. “oh, right.”

you retrieve it and the two tapes next to it. one is kate bush, and your eyebrows furrow at the sight of the Radiohead one. you turn to her, waving it. “you listen to them?”

“no.” her lips fold, eyes hooked onto the tapes. “I bought it after we heard that song at the party.”

surprise surges through you, and a desperation to know more clings onto your next words. “why?”

“you liked the group, so I thought they might be good.”

you try not to grin too hard. liking lee is so easy. it’s a thought that suddenly strikes you in that moment. she’s not someone whose fatal flaws you need to ignore or minimize to feel at ease with her. she’s not someone who only gives you droplets of kindness to drink up like a starved man at a lake. she’s not mean, or cruel, or even annoying. she’s just lee. hard at the edge, infinitely soft inside, undoubtedly awkward, and oh-so considerate and sweet.

you hand her back the tapes, still in awe, chest churning with affection. “that’s really… thank you, lee.”

she gives you a single tilt of her head, wrapping the headphones around her neck and tucking the walkman into her pocket. her hand lingers on the doorknob, eyes frozen on your shoulder. “I should, um, get going.”

don’t leave, you suddenly ache to say. listen to the tape with me and tell me what you think of every song.

but, you can’t. it’s too selfish and stupid a request, especially since you, too, are leaving tomorrow. so, you swallow down the words and say, “I hope you get there safely. also, you can call this time, you know? you never did last time.”

“um, yeah. okay, I will.” her gaze shifts to yours, eyebrows drawn in in a steady, hard promise. “I will.”

“good. so, I guess I’ll see you soon? after the break.”

after three weeks. the unspoken words linger between the two of you. you ignore their presence in the air, trying to be encouraging. she repeats, “after the break.”

she gives you one last long look, her eyes roving along your face, and it feels as intimate as a kiss or hug. then, she nods once more, turning and leaving your guys’ apartment.

in your sleep-deprived state, the emptiness you feel in the space as soon as she departs makes you nearly want to cry. you pad back to your room, the silence deafening, wishing over and over again that she forgets something and you can hear the familiar turn of her key.

but, it’s lee, and you know that even if she did forget something, she’d ensure she makes that train for her mom.

you turn on Pablo Honey, curling into your bed and hoping she, too, is listening to the tape. at least then, it can feel like the two of you are listening to it together.

when you wake up again after sleeping in all too late, weeks of packed schedules and due dates compounded into what feels like an everlasting slumber, you lay on your back for a while. lee was just a stranger four months ago. now, she’s someone whose absence makes you ache and the apartment feel abandoned.

you go through your normal motions of the day, making coffee and breakfast, then sitting down to finish the second half of Home Alone 2 that you didn’t get to complete with her the day before. it feels different, and weird, to not have her there, rolling her eyes at your commentary. you sag into the couch, sulking, longingly staring at your guys’ christmas tree.

but, something seems off. your eyes flick down and you leap out of your seat at the sight of a box neatly wrapped in plain brown paper. on top of it, your name is scrawled in lee’s handwriting, a little note on top. you gingerly pick it up, holding it like some ancient artefact.

I know you’ll probably be too excited to wait for Christmas before opening this, so you have the ex-Catholic’s permission to do so whenever you want. I’m not really good with this kind of stuff, but thank you for being my friend. I hope your break and trip home go well.

you laugh at the note, nearly kissing it out of the sheer joy bursting through your body and sending you so much energy that your prior sadness feels like a lifetime away. you set the note down, immediately setting to carefully unwrapping the gift. you’d rather do it alone in the privacy of the apartment, away from any prying eyes at your childhood home, anyways.

when you behold the gift in your hands, your eyes gush with tears, dry lips aching with how hard you grin.

it’s a film camera.

–

whenever lee visits, her mom embraces her as though it’s been years. lee feels both accustomed to and like a craving in her is sated by her mom’s affection. her mom pets her hair like she’s a child again, and she asks after lee’s classes, even lee’s roommate. lee gives her a rundown of the former, but chooses to vaguely allude to the latter. she’s scared of what her mother will see on her face if she speaks of you. most of all, she’s terrified of what she herself will feel if she talks about you. will she feel shame under the gaze of her mother? fear? she doesn’t want to feel those things when talking about you.

on christmas day, her mom has them sit together in the living room, the television softly playing in the background, and read some prayers together. lee knows them all – they’re practically engraved into her memory from all the years spent hearing them in church and having private sessions just like this with her mother. when her mom reads them, lee is torn between spacing out and getting lost in her own thoughts to ignore the numbing words, or soaking up this moment. her mother’s voice, the worn out bible, the childhood floor she used to sit and lie upon when falling asleep with her head in her mother’s lap.

“will you visit church today?” her mom asks.

lee hesitates. “alone?”

her mom slowly blinks at her. “we can go together.”

even if she had been asked to go alone, lee would’ve still done so. one might say that she could simply lie, but there’s something about being in such close proximity to her mother that makes it harder to lie. at the apartment, she can easily tell her mom that she’s still praying. but, when confined to these walls, with her mother’s wide, trusting eyes on her, lee finds that it’s impossible to fib.

and so, they go to church, lee pretends to pray with her mom, and then she sits with her, watching the television, letting her mom pat down her back. when her head is guided into her lap, she has to suck in the tears.

two weeks later, it’s near to mid-january, and lee can’t wait to leave her house. she’s started to take extra long walks through her old neighbourhood, and spend long hours in the library, just so she can escape the walls of her mother’s home, feeling like they’re closing in on her with the stacks upon stacks of items. her mom at least has the consideration to never store anything in lee’s bedroom, so she finds herself there a lot of the time, reading and listening to music. she can’t evade the guilt that doing these things causes her. she’s finally here for more than a few days in what’s been over a quarter of a year – and already, after two weeks, she can barely stomach staying inside for too long. how did she ever live here?

the guilt is made even stronger by how much her mom clings onto her. lee knows that she is missed when she is away at school. it had always been just the two of them in their pale, white home since she was born. no family, no friends. her mother had grown to distrust the world a long time ago after she had gotten brutally cut off, so as a child, lee had always been used to their isolated life. but, after enduring a lot, too much in the aftermath of that one night, during lee’s childhood, her mom had started to pull back from what was once normalcy. she stopped throwing anything away, and got upset if lee tried to. she started to have this haze veiling around her, and so often, got lost in her own thoughts – but, in a way that made lee feel like she was lost and couldn’t escape. she latched onto lee tighter and tighter, for now it was not just solitary and a rejection of the world driving her to grasp desperately at her daughter, but paranoia too. fear of being alone, stranded, and fear of lee being out there, with people. fear of something happening again -- or maybe that was just lee.

sometimes, lee feels that the hoarding is her mother’s way of trying to go back to a time before what occurred to make her this way. maybe it’s her way of trying to go back to when lee was still a kid, and she didn’t have to watch her leave all the time. perhaps it's her mother's way of trying to regain control after feeling the loss of security that night. at least, that's what lee suspects happened that night. it must be, considering how heightened her mom's paranoia became after.

lee tries not to dwell on it much. but, it becomes near impossible to accomplish such a task when back at home.

when it’s the twelfth of january, she gets a phone call when cooking mac and cheese in their kitchen, trying hard to not focus on the mess surrounding her and just how crowded in and disarrayed she feels from it. it’s such a contrast from her bedroom in the apartment that she always, relentlessly keeps empty and pristine.

she picks up the phone. “hello?”

“hi.”

it’s your voice. the tension in lee’s shoulders loosen – but, just a bit. “hey. all okay?” it’s not all that bizarre that you called. she’s spoken to you a handful of times over the break, the first call initiated by her to tell you she arrived safely. the rest were interchangeably done, her initiating the one on christmas, and you wishing her happy new year’s.

“um, not really.”

she stiffens. “why? what’s wrong?”

your voice is small, timid. “well, I came to the apartment today, just to prepare some stuff for next monday’s classes. and I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’ve never come back to our place empty after time away. but, I feel kind of scared.”

her eyebrows furrow, worry burning through her. “why, did you hear anything? did something happen?”

“no, no. I mean, I checked every room. but, I don’t know, I still feel anxious.”

her eyes flick to the cat-shaped clock in their kitchen. her mom’s car is just outside. “should I come back?”

“lee!” you gasp out with a laugh. “it’d be hours of driving for you.”

“yeah, but you’re scared,” she says flatly. suddenly, that’s all that matters. that, and the fact that she can get to you. even if she drives back to oregon for her birthday, she’ll manage.

“no, no, please, don’t leave your mom. I promise, it’s okay. I just – I just wanted someone on the phone.”

lee softens at your insistence. you could be nice – so nice – sometimes. she sets the keys she had retrieved back on the kitchen counter. part of her itches to ask, someone or me?, but she resists. it shouldn’t even matter to her. yet, still, the curiosity gnaws at her. “what made you call me?”

“I don’t know. I just thought of you.”

she wants to ask more, but decides against it. it’s too much, too open. “okay. well, what do you want to do?”

you yawn loudly, and she smiles at the noise. “I’m kind of tired. but, that’s what made me scared. the apartment is so dark and it feels so isolated right now.”

she racks through her brain for a few seconds, trying to find a solution. “I have some lamps in my room. they’re dim enough to sleep with. unplug whichever you want and take it to your room.”

“really?”

“mhm.”

after a few minutes of rustling and soft clattering, she can hear the shuffle of fabric and can picture you curling into bed. she wonders how you look tucked into the blankets on this winter night. “are you in bed?”

“yeah.”

she hesitates, another idea sliding into her mind. it’s more intimate than her last, so she pauses, taking a moment to carefully choose her words. “we can… stay on the call for a bit. I’m talking on a wired phone, so I’d have to hang up later. but, I can stay till then.”

your voice crackles on the other end, but still, she can hear the softness. “really?”

“mm,” she hums.

“okay, yeah, that’d be nice. what time will you sleep?”

“not for another few hours.” it was only 10:00PM – she knows she still has a few hours left in her to spare. “I’ll be right here.”

“thank you, lee.”

she nods, even if you can’t see her. “yeah.” she feels a bit embarrassed at how grateful you sound. it really isn’t that big a deal.

when your breathing evens out, and melts into soft snores, she sets the receiver down on the counter, continuing to cook. when she’s done, she drags a creaking, wooden chair to the counter, seating herself there, and remains in place, just as promised.

when the clock hits 1:00AM, and her body begins to sink into a tired, bodiless feeling, she tightens her hold on the receiver. she doesn’t want to hang up. but, why? you two aren’t even speaking on the call.

she stares at the phone, perplexed. why? why did she want to remain on the call? why did it feel so wrong to hang up? the pondering only leads to more questions. why did she not want to mention you to her mom? why did bringing you up feel more weighted than it was with any of her other friends? she knows with them, there’s no romance involved, so logically, she doesn’t need to worry about bringing them up. which means, if she was hesitating to bring you up, that’d naturally indicate…

she gulps down, staring at the phone, her breaths getting shaky.

shit.

----

tags ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂)⸝♡ @allofyourthings @mykaelaaa @bloshik @drain-bby @makipedia

#lee harker x reader #lee harker #lee harker fanfiction #longlegs fanfiction #longlegs 2024 #maika monroe #s.writing #does it happen in a season?#college!au lee ♡

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godlygreta · 1 year ago

Text

god is fair | j. t. kiszka

title | god is fair

word count | 7.7k

warnings | swearing, mentions of alcohol - nothing too terrible... yet ;)

author's note | i've had this in the chamber for some time now, i just lost the inspo to write, which is why i haven't in a long time. this isn't a promise that i'll post more fics as they come to me, seeing as i'm a senior in college who has a fuck ton of other things to do. there will be a part 2 to this fic, but i couldn't tell you when it's coming :)

also, very much so listening to god is fair, sexy nasty by mac miller while writing this & starting the next part, so take that as you will ;)

unedited as hell so pls excuse any mistakes !

You always had this rivalry since the beginning of freshman year. This guy, Jake, would never show up to any of the classes the two of you had together, but always got the highest grades on every single goddamn exam that your Intro to Bio professor gave out. It infuriated you.

You figured that in the spring semester, you would be freed from the disappearing boy, but you weren’t. While the teacher called roll, everyone shouted out here. She landed upon his name, calling out to the class and looking through the rows of students. He had been there for orientation, sitting in one of the middle rows, slouched in his seat.

You planned to confront him the next day you had class together, on Wednesday, but Jake was nowhere to be found. Your roommate and your friends had heard your exhaustive theories as to why he was never in class. “Babe, you sound insane. Just let it go.”

But you couldn’t.

Competition lived deep within your roots, having an entire competition with the second top student in your graduating class in high school. Though the rage held between each other was never taken far outside of the academic realm, the two of you never thought to be friends and encourage one another. Thankfully, the two of you resolved the competition when the two of you realized you would be going into two very separate fields of study in college.

Camren, who knew she was going to be a chemist from the time she first learned about chemistry, had told you she loved the competition – made it fun and kept things interesting. And there you were, going to school for Pre-Med with the same feeling. The two of you kept in contact, updating each other on the strive for greatness in college as well.

You kept a close relationship with a lot of your teachers, making sure to get on their good side before classes had really begun. You emailed most of them, especially your Anatomy and Physiology professor, Dr. Sahnya Heinz.

She was incredibly skilled in her field, leaving the active medical field to teach the new and future minds of medicine. It was a cliche line she delivered on the first day, but it encouraged that familiar competitive fire that dwelled within you.

You don’t quite remember how you came to figure out that Jake was ahead of you, but you had found out somehow from your professor, although it was an accident.

It made everything in you burn with anger and frustration. Anytime someone mentioned him, or mentioned the fact that you were second, you clenched your jaw and your teeth gritted together. Your friends had an inside joke that you were only mad because you had a huge crush on him.

“I barely even know what he looks like, Mel! I fucking hate the guy. Don’t start shit.” You’d plead, beer can in your hand in the lounge of some fraternity floor.

Over the next few semesters, you kept trying your hardest, spending most of your free time in the library, reading everything that you could to prepare for every exam. You wrote papers early, having them done at least three weeks in advance. As soon as you would be told about a new one, you’d immediately start finding sources.

You sauntered around campus, thinking that you would be way ahead of him. He still never showed up to any classes, aside from orientation and exam periods. You’d stare at him for a few moments while the teacher passed out the exam, looking over his face as much as you could.

His long hair would obscure your vision on occasion, making it hard to catch any of his features at all. From what you could see though, he had nice, full lips. His nose was something you could have stared at the entire exam period.

You watched him as he licked his lips, whispering a thank you to Heinz before grabbing his pencil from his desk and getting to work. You looked away from him as soon as Heinz put your exam on your desk, offering her a small smile and a quick thank you before getting to work.

It was almost spring break, meaning some of your assignments had been slowing, some of them had been increasing. A group of your friends from different majors told you about one of the lounge parties a fraternity on campus was throwing. “Sigma Tau has the worst lounge parties, Tamia. You know this.”

“They’re joining forces with the Delta’s though, so it’ll be better than normal! You have to come, you’ve always got your nose in a book. You haven’t drank with us in so long, I forget what you’re like when you’re drunk.”

“I don’t know… I need to work on this Midterm paper I have in Kainz’s class, it’s due next week.”

“Babe, it’s been done for weeks! You just keep editing it trying to find mistakes and there are none! I’ve literally read it five times. Please, go out with us, just tonight?”

You looked between Tamia and Mel, knowing in the end you would give into them anyways. “Ugh, fine! Tonight, and tonight only, just this once. If I don’t like it, though, I’m leaving and going to bed early.”

“You’ll have so much fun, I swear!” Mel and Tamia looked between each other, sharing expressions of excitement and happiness on their faces. You rolled your eyes, standing up from your chair.

You let them raid your closet, trying to throw something together quickly. Most of the time, Tamia and Mel never obeyed the dress code for the lounge parties, hating the idea of giving into the male gaze of the fraternity brothers. Tonight, however, was a bit different. The theme was Western, meaning it was cowboy hats and very tiny shorts.

You looked over the outfit that laid out in front of you, straw cowboy hat that Tamia had bought from Amazon (one for each of you), a pair of short shorts that may or may not show your ass a bit, and a red bandana top that Mel let you borrow last semester that you forgot to return. “I don’t know about this. I don’t even have the right shoes.”

“You forget we wear the same size, bitch, you’re going. No backing out.” They joked, tossing you a pair of white boots. “Just put that shit on while we heat up the curling iron, okay?”

“Fine, fine, okay.” You peel off your shirt, throwing on the one they picked out. Next to go were your pajama pants, which were replaced by the shorts. You kept the same socks on, knowing that nobody would see them anyways with the boots going up to the middle of your calf muscle. “I look fucking ridiculous.”

“You look fucking hot, now sit down while we do your hair and makeup,” Mel spoke, pulling out your desk chair while Tamia smiled wickedly with the curling wand in hand. You were nervous, looking at the both of them, but the good kind that settled under your skin and was left hidden behind the smallest smile.

You talked about upcoming exams with them while they did your hair and makeup, much to their dismay. They attempted to fill you in on the various drama situations going on around campus while you had been heavily plugged into your textbooks. You gasped often, finding shock and awe in some of the things they had been telling you about classmates.

They spoke about Jake, letting it slip that he had been planning on attending the party, joined at the hip with one of the girls he had been rumored to have been dating. One of the many. “Ugh, he just sounds like a douche. Gives me even more reason to hate him.”

“We’re not feeding into your delusion that he’s some douchebag. Dropping it.” Tamia spoke, putting her hands up in a surrender. Mel laughed, pulling away from you with an eyeliner pen in hand. “Maybe we’ll get you drunk enough to admit you like him.”

“I don’t like him, and I thought we were dropping the topic.” You looked at Tamia in the mirror, watching her face deadpan as she looked back at you.

“I have something hot in my hands, don’t be rude to me.” The three of you laughed, getting back into the rhythm of getting ready. You let them do their thing to you, curling the last bit of your hair and putting the finishing touches of highlighter on your brow bone.

You looked at yourself in the mirror, marveling at the job they did. You thanked them for getting you all dolled up, watching them change into their outfits. It was mostly just them taking off the sweats they were wearing, throwing them over the back of your desk chair. You took a few pictures with them in your mirror before finally deciding to head out.

The party had started a half an hour ago, walking into the party late like most people did. The three of you got in easily with matching the dress code, immediately looking for the drinks table. The boys in charge handed the three of you a free shot of anything you wanted. Mel chose for you, starting the night out roughly with a shot of Svedka.

You grabbed a Sprite from one of the boys in one hand, the shot of Svedka in the other. The three of you tapped your glasses together before downing the shot. The alcohol burned as it slipped down your throat, trying to soothe it with the taste and coolness of the Sprite. You shook a bit, throwing the cup away in a nearby trash can.

“That was fucking gross, I hate you so much for choosing Svedka.”

“I could’ve chosen something even more nasty, like Jack.” Mel laughed, leading the three of you over to a section in the lounge where you could stand a decent enough distance away from one another, instead of being piled on top of one another.

“I would have rather taken a shot of Jack, Mel.” You spoke, sipping more of your Sprite. Tamia pointed out a few of the people they had talked about earlier, letting you put names to faces.

In the midst, two of the Sigma brothers decided to start a dance battle, capturing the attention of those around them. Everyone joined in, gathering around the two guys. Mel and Tamia joined too, but you had slipped out of their grasp by telling them you had to use the bathroom.

You were happy to escape the party, sneaking out with a bottle of Smirnoff the boys had left unattended. You walked outside, taking a deep breath in. You were thankful to be met with the smell of fresh air, not smelling sweat and booze everywhere. Your peace and tranquility was ruined by someone’s voice, “Well, don’t you look adorable.”

Your head snapped towards the voice, seeing Jake sitting up against the bike rack with a cigarette between his fingers. “Shut up.”

“What? I can’t compliment you?”

“No,” you started, crossing your arms with the bottle still in your hand. “No, you can’t.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I hate you.” Jake looked at you, up and down, taking a drag of his cigarette. You screwed off the cap of the bottle, taking a pull. You tried your hardest to not make a face, looking away slightly when the familiar sting settled in your throat.

“Why do you hate me? I’ve never spoken to you before.”

“Do I have to have a reason?” You asked, walking closer to him.

“Suppose not. But if I knew why you hated me,” he tossed his cigarette butt on the ground, stomping on it with his boot. “Then maybe I could find a way to make you not hate me.”

“Unless you flunk your next exam, I guarantee that won’t happen.”

“Oh, I get it.” He chuckled, standing up from the bike rack he was leaning against. He grabbed his cigarette butt up from the ground, tossing it into the nearest garbage can. He turned towards you, staring at you with his brown eyes. “You’re just mad because I’m smarter than you.”

“You’re never in class. You shouldn’t be ahead of me.” You glared at him, lips moving into a frown.

“Just because I’m never there doesn’t mean I’m not getting the information. I work five, sometimes six days a week. We only have class three days a week. Typically, I gotta work those days. Heinz sends me the powerpoints and the assignment notes so I never miss anything.”

“Oh yeah? Where do you even work then?” You asked.

He chuckled, fingers brushing yours that were wrapped around the bottle. “Now if I told you that, it would ruin all the fun,” he looked you up and down once more, licking his lips slightly. “Well, maybe I’ll see you and your bottle inside.”

You waited til the doors closed behind him to roll your eyes, and huff outwardly. You took the bottle of Smirnoff, turned on your heels and walked towards your dorm hall. You hated Jake. You really hated Jake.

—

Your midterms came and went. The stress decreased slightly, but only to be raised again as the end of the semester loomed around. Assignments started piling up, various papers and presentations due all around the same week. Since the end of Spring Break, you had been holed up in your room, left to your mountains of homework.

Your Microbio class had a presentation due that coincided with the research project you had been working on all semester long. Human Anatomy and Physiology (or affectionately known as BIO 312) had a major cumulative exam on the entire semester, which stressed you out more than any other homework assignment or exam you had.

Thankfully, your school held an all day event that attempted to boost the morale of the students on campus. Filled with a bunch of free things, you took advantage of everything offered.

Lined up on tables were various student organizations set up, with their own little games and prizes. A few of them had speakers that played the music they wanted to listen to, all speakers attempting to outman the other. However, the one that ended up winning was a tie dye station located in the lawn, handing out free t-shirts to dye.

One of the guys at the tie dye station had a wide smile on his face while his hands were dripping with dye. Setting your prizes down at a table where Tamia and Mel had put their things, you walked over to him. He welcomed you over with a smile, “Hey! Lookin’ to tie dye?”

“Yeah, I’m a medium.” You smiled at him, blocking the sun with your hand. He called over to Benny, asking him to pull a medium out for you. Benny handed you the shirt with a smile. “I’ve never dyed anything before.”

“Never?! That’s a crime against mankind, darlin’, let’s get this shirt dyed.” He spoke, talking you over the colors in each of the buckets. He explained to you some basic color theory, although you had remembered that from your high school painting class, you didn’t stop him; he was pretty when he spoke.

The curls on his head stuck out from the shaved sides, the gold of his earrings stood out underneath the blistering April sun. He licked his lips often, using the back of his hand to wipe sweat from his forehead. He helped you pick out the style you wanted, making sure the rubber bands were placed exactly where you wanted them. “I’ll dip them in the bucket for you so you don’t get your hands dirty.”

“Thank you. I could’ve managed on my own, but I definitely appreciate it.”

“Of course. What’s your name?” You offer up to him, before he lets out a chuckle. You question him with a pull of your eyebrows. “Jake talks about you.”

“You know Jake?”

“Yeah, he’s my twin.” As soon as the word left his mouth, you could see the resemblance; you almost scolded yourself for not realizing it sooner. They were similar, especially in their features and their eyes, although the two of them had very distinct color differences. Josh, as he told you after dropping the bomb on you, had warmer eyes, filled with caramel colored hues of brown in relation to Jake’s colder tones; his eyes were a darker shade of brown, with the occasional gleam of flirtation laced within the reflection.

He spoke quite differently from Jake, mostly just with the sound of his voice. It matched their eyes, their personalities. Josh’s bright, bubbly stature followed in his voice, almost theatrical as he spoke. “I guess that makes sense, you two do kind of look alike. Minus the hair, of course.”

“Well, of course. Mine’s better,” you liked that about him - how kind his tone was. You attempted to grill him about what Jake was saying about you, curiosity flowing violently through your bloodstream as if it lit your body on fire. “He just says that you’re second in the Bio class you have with him, and that it makes you mad.”

“It does, Jake’s never there. I’ve seen him three times, and two of those times were for exams.” Josh wrung out the part that had been soaking in the dye for a bit, watching the water fall back into the bucket.

“Yeah, it’s cause he’s working all the time, if I’m honest. Jake stays home during the week to work at the nursing home in our hometown. We don’t really have a large CNA population, most of the people who work there are highschool kids, so Jake’s really been their guy. Especially since high school, as soon as he graduated he moved to full time. All the old ladies love him.” He snorts, dipping your shirt into the blue dye.

“I didn’t know that.” You thought he was lying about where he was, which is why guilt started to eat away at you. You felt terrible for making assumptions, but you couldn’t take any of that back now.

“Jake doesn’t talk to a lot of people, but we love him anyway.” You chewed at your bottom lip, rethinking your opinion of Jake. “You goin’ to the concert later tonight?”

“Hadn’t decided. Mel and Tamia want to, so I’ll probably end up going. Are you?”

“Yeah, I think I’ll probably go.”

“Do you know who’s playing?”

“Some local band I think? I’ve heard a lot of the girls think the frontman’s pretty handsome.” He spoke with a smirk. You promised him you’d go, just to see if the girls had been right. He handed you your t-shirt to hold while he grabbed you a plastic bag. He also handed you a piece of paper with instructions on how to take care of your new tie dye.

“Make sure when you wash it, you wash it by itself. Otherwise, you’ll dye all of your other clothes and believe me, you don’t want that,” he chuckled, as if he was speaking from experience.

You thanked him with a warm smile, waving to him before returning to your room. As soon as you got back, you opened your window, allowing the air flow to travel inside. It kept you cool, allowing you to walk around comfortably with a t-shirt and shorts on. You put your plastic bag in the closet of your room, writing on your white board to remember to take it out and wash it tomorrow.

You texted Mel and Tamia, knowing that Mel would probably have some smart comeback about why you want to go to the concert. It wasn’t that you didn’t join them on nights out, you just had a lot riding on your academic success. Not only because you were the first one in your family to go to college, but also because of your mass of scholarships that only continued to flow if your GPA was at a suitable level. Anything below a 3.2, and you would lose almost all of them.

To: The 3 Dumb Sluts

Are we going to the concert tonight?

From: The 3 Dumb Sluts - Mel

Are you offering to come with us without us needing to beg and plead for you to join?

To: The 3 Dumb Sluts

Don’t make me take it back, Mel

From: The 3 Dumb Sluts - Tamia

We’re absolutely going. Come to mine whenever you want to get ready :)

To: The 3 Dumb Sluts

The doors open at 8 right? I’ll be over about 5:30-6ish. Gotta finish up this paper for Heinz real quick

You locked your phone before they could scold you for doing homework on a day that was designated for relaxation and recuperation. You pulled out your Anat and Physio binder, pulling out the sources you printed off in the library. You ran through the last one with a blue highlighter between your teeth.

You set an alarm on your phone for five o’clock, saving enough time for you to shower. You were about halfway through the last page when your timer went off. You silenced it, attempting to hurriedly finish highlighting the page. The article was placed onto your desk, highlighter returned to the cup on your desk filled with various writing utensils.

You pulled out your shower caddy, putting it on top of your dresser before pulling out your robe. You laid it over the edge of your bed, removing all of your clothes. You threw them into your hamper and put on your robe. You slipped on your slides, grabbed your caddy and traveled to the bathroom.

Underneath the uneven streams from the showerhead, you thought about Jake.

Maybe your first impressions of him were wrong. When Josh told you about the nursing home back in their hometown, you felt instantaneously bad for assuming that he just never showed up. You knew from what Jake had told you, that he had work, but you figured that was just an excuse.

You bit at the skin of your lips, hands on your shoulders as you soaked the warmth of the water in. You were pulled out of your thoughts very quickly as someone flushed the toilet, making the water fade in from super hot to super fucking cold. You hated the school’s water system.

You finished your shower quickly, drying off with the towel slightly before putting your robe on and throwing your hair up into your towel. You walked back into your room, locking it behind you. You set your caddy back where it originally was.

You threw on a pair of jean shorts that hadn’t seen the light of day since early October, pairing it with a long sleeve shirt that you had gotten back in high school for Christmas. It was plain, brown, but hugged your body well. The sweatshirt debate lasted a few seconds before you remembered how hot it was going to be outside. A record temperature for mid-April, almost 80 degrees outside.

When you checked your phone getting back from the shower, it was just barely five thirty. You texted the groupchat again, asking if it would be cool to come over a half an hour earlier than you had originally said. You knew it was a dumb question, you would always be welcome in their room. You chuckled at Mel’s response of, “Are you fucking dumb? Of course you can come over. Bring wine if you have any left! No carry-in’s allowed at the concert.”

You put your phone down for a second and slipped on a pair of shoes that were comfortable enough for you to stand in for a long time. They used to be white, but had gotten progressively dirty from the years of use. You shoved your phone in your back pocket and slid a few different bottles of wine into your backpack, separated by extra clothing so the bottles didn’t clink together.

You walked down the stairs, out the door and over to the other dorm building across the walkway. You scanned your keycard to get into the building, walking through the hallways waving to the RA on duty, McKenna. She had been in a few of your classes and was always incredibly nice.

Her room this year was actually a few down from where you were living. McKenna was a great RA, knowing exactly how to handle the rowdiness of the floor while still keeping the resident’s respect. She didn’t bother them unless she needed to, and they didn’t bother her unless needed. She kept it underwraps about the underage drinking that would inevitably happen, mostly by telling the floor they could do what they want, as long as they were quiet by quiet hours (which was around ten thirty on the weekdays, and one in the morning on the weekends).

You took the elevator to the second floor of East Sunderland, getting off as soon as the doors opened. The booths that had previously been up had begun to dissipate, bringing the plastic tables back into the buildings they belonged in. You took a last glance at the people cleaning before heading into Mel and Tamia’s dorm building.

You knocked on the door, coming as soon as you announced yourself to Mel and Tamia. The girls laughed as you walked in, looking at a picture of Mel from when they were a kid. The two of them showed it to you as you settled your bag onto Mel’s chair in the corner of their room. “Your buck teeth! Oh my God, you were adorable, Mel.”

“Oh shut up, I bet you didn’t look any better.” Mel spoke to Tamia, making the three of you laugh. “Anyways, what wine did you bring?”

“The Barefoot we didn’t finish the other weekend, and then I still had some Rose, so I brought those over too. I wasn’t sure what we were feeling.” Tamia pulled some glasses from her shelves, passing them out to the two of you. You filled their glasses with the Rose you brought.

The three of you talked specifics on the plans for tonight, hitting up another fraternity party as soon as the concert ended. There were two separate ones going on at the same time, so the two of you weighed your options over which one to go to. “The Sigs are throwing one, but I’d rather die. Delta’s throwing one, too, we’ll go to theirs instead. And maybe see if anyone’s at the Sig party that we like and stop there before heading back to the dorms.”

You walked down with them to the Athletic Department, hoping to have gotten there early enough to get a good spot. As soon as the doors opened, you were filtered through the doors, making sure that you were students with the college. The three of you half ran to the barricade, settling yourselves against it on the right side, although still somewhat in the middle.

The show wouldn’t start for quite some time yet, the three of you talked amongst yourselves about upcoming finals, what you had to do for various classes. You also found a few people around you to chat to while you waited, hearing laughter roaring through various parts of the crowd.

A few students from the Admissions Office had taken the stage, playing a random playlist of music that matched what the band was going to be playing. Rock thundered through the speakers, filling audience members with anticipation. Rochel addressed the student body, “Hello everyone!” welcomed by the sounds of cheers and screaming.

“We’ve got about fifteen minutes before the band comes on stage, so help us warm them up to the stage!” Everyone clapped, although some of the girls around you looked unenthused as they stared down at their phones. You checked yours for any text messages from any family members. You had nothing, so you put it back in your pocket.

Around four songs played before Rochel turned the microphone on again. Everyone shouted before she talked. “Well, it’s that time! Please, give a warm welcome to Greta Van Fleet!”

Rochel and the two other students walked off the stage, passing by what you had assumed to be one of the band members. He sat behind the drums, smiling and waving off into the crowd. You cheered for him along with Tamia and Mel, cheering just as loud when their bassist walked onto the stage. Both of their hair was longer, goofy smiles on their faces as they got situated with their instruments.

Your mouth hung open as you watched the last two boys walk on stage, seeing the twins. Jake’s eyes scanned the crowd as he slung his guitar over his shoulder. He found you after a moment, sending a smirk your way. You closed your mouth, glaring at him. Mel laughed at you, noticing your demeanor shift. “How we doin’ tonight everyone?”

Everyone cheered. “A lot of you might know me and Jake, seen us on campus and stuff. It’s wonderful to see all of you here, coming to support us as we celebrate the onslaught of spring! It’s been a particularly warm one today, so make sure to drink water! There’s plenty to go around.”

Jake started them off, pick between his fingers as he strummed the beginning chords to one of their songs. Some of the girls had begun to scream, shouting at Jake’s response to Josh’s little speech before he began playing. His signature smirk formed, watching the girls go crazy, eyes scanning the crowd before he found you again.

As Jake continued to play, he looked over to you any time he could. It was hard to tear your eyes away from him, enthralled by the way he looked on stage. You tried your hardest, truly, to look at any of the other boys on the stage aside from Jake but you just couldn’t. He fit the stage just right, bringing the attention away from Josh and demanding to be seen by the entirety of the crowd. He belonged up there.

Jake went to the center of the stage during his solo. Josh lingered around the drummer, keeping to himself, drinking whatever was in his cup. They kept on playing as Jake took the spotlight, everyone cheering and screaming for him. You kept silent, wanting to hear him play. His fingers worked against the frets of the guitar, not before sliding down and up it quickly.

You tried to hide the awe you were in, but your friends knew. They saw it written all over your face. The frustration and annoyance you felt when you first spotted Jake on stage dissipated the second his guitar solo began. You swallowed thickly, watching as his attention turned from his guitar to you, pointing it in your direction. Your cheeks flushed, and your thighs pressed together.

This was going to be a long night.

The second the concert was over, Josh thanked everyone for coming. His smile was wide as he waved goodbye to everyone, walking off next to Jake who had his guitar by the neck before he passed it off to one of the stage hands. Josh put his hands on his shoulders as they walked off stage.

You stuck around mostly waiting for the crowd to die down before trying to leave the building. Mel and Tamia talked about the show, saying that it was fucking dope, commenting on how excellent Jake’s playing was. You didn’t speak about Jake’s playing, mostly praising Josh for his spectacular performance. “I never expected that voice to come out of him, how heavenly.”

“Talking about me?” Jake cuts through your conversation, walking over to you with Josh not far behind. You roll your eyes. Tamia and Mel congratulate him on such an amazing performance, gushing about how sweet his guitar looks. “Why thank you, ladies.”

“Mel! I didn’t think you were going to be able to come.” He gushed, wiping his hands on the sides of his khaki shorts he had changed into.

“Yeah, well, Miss Quiet over here wanted to see her archnemesis, didn’t you?”

“I-I–” You turned your head slightly towards Jake, who had an amused smirk written all over his face. “I did not, Mellie, stop lying.”

“By the redness of your cheeks, sweetheart, I’d say she was telling the truth.” You had barely noticed that Mel, Tamia and Josh had slipped away from the two of you, leaving you alone.

“I didn’t even know you were playing.” You admitted shyly, hiding underneath a guise of innocence.

“Even if you did, you looked pretty hot and bothered by my playing.” You held the back of your arms, trying hard to maintain eye contact with him. You looked into his eyes, they were staring straight at you.

“Yeah, sure. I actually came because Josh said he was going. He neglected to mention that he was going to be singing,” you looked at Josh who wore a smile that read ‘guilty as charged’ before patting you on the shoulder.

“Hey, you didn’t ask. You just asked if I was going.” You rolled your eyes and chuckled slightly. “Anyways, Sam and Danny are gonna spend the night in my room, so I’ll have to find somewhere else to be tonight. Are you guys going to either of the frat parties tonight?”

“We’re going to the Delta party. The Sigs’ reputation is not the best, and I don’t feel like seeing whether or not it’s right.”

“That is completely understandable. I shall see you ladies there then. You coming, Jake? We still have a lot to put away.”

“Yeah, in a second,” he turned towards Josh who had begun to walk away, waving him off before turning back to the three of you. “I hope you guys enjoyed the show, maybe I’ll catch up with you at the party.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah, actually, I would.” He smiled at you before joining the other boys cleaning up their amps and cords.

“Jesus Christ, the two of you just need to fuck or something. I don’t think I can handle another interaction like that,” Mel joked, making a gagging face when she finishes her sentence. You pushed at her arm, turning around and walking out of the gym.

Tamia and Mel giggled profusely about your and Jake’s rivalry. The two even started making bets on when the two of you would finally ‘get it on’, as Tamia put it. You just rolled your eyes at the conversation, changing the subject to something different.

—

The party, though filled with lots of fun and drinking, was a bust. While Josh had shown up with his younger brother and his brother’s friend, as you learned, in tow, Jake was nowhere to be found. You thought to ask Josh why he wasn’t there, but he was too busy dancing with Micah. Through the grapevine, you learned that Micah and Josh had been together since high school.

You stayed around the party for almost two hours before you wanted to go back. A small part of you had wished Jake had actually come. You wondered if maybe the two of you would get along if you put your competitive nature aside. You tried not to dwell on thoughts of Jake’s absence for too long, wanting to enjoy the rest of the night with your girls. But when you had enough of the party, you shouted in Mel’s ear to let her know you wanted to leave.

Mel and Tamia had made sure you got back alright about two hours into the party. Your legs were tired and your feet had begun to hurt. The two of them stumbled with you back to the door of your building, making sure you were inside before leaving to go back. They almost came in with you, until you insisted otherwise.

Laying on your bed with your head pointed towards the ceiling you started thinking about Jake again. What was his reason for not being at the party? Did he just make those comments beforehand just to rile you up? It seemed like the only valid reason your impaired mind could come up with.

You grabbed your phone, almost dropping it on the floor. You sluggishly opened Instagram, and searched for Jake’s profile. You scrolled through, looking at the few photos he did have on his page. Most of the pictures he had were of his guitar, or places he’s traveled. You were sent into a panic when you realized you had accidentally liked an older picture of Jake’s, one from freshman year of college. Hurriedly, you unliked it and immediately locked your phone.

That had been a few days ago.

Now it was Wednesday and your first final exam was here. It was for the class you shared with Jake, BIO 312. It wasn’t exactly final exam time, but Professor Heinz was going to be away at a conference for a week starting Friday. You didn’t mind, though, since it spaced out your other finals enough to have a decent amount of time to study for them.

You sat at your desk, looking over your notecards one last time before the exam began. A frequent look around the room and you noticed Jake walking in, going to a random seat a couple rows in front of you. He set his bag down next to him, before bending down to grab his laptop. He noticed you watching him and sent a wink your way.

You looked away as you tried to hide the rush of rosy skin that fanned over your cheeks and heated up your ears. You tried to ignore him again until at least when the test started, embarrassed that you got caught looking at him. Your phone pinged and you pulled it out of your bag to look at it, as well as turn it on silent.

jacobtkiszka wants to send you a message.

You swallowed and hit the notification taking you straight to the message.

“Person who turns their test in last pays for coffee?”

Your lips curved into a small smile, feeling your fingers type the first thing that comes to your head.

“Hope you brought your wallet with you, Kiszka.”

You put your phone on Do Not Disturb and shoved it back into your bag. The professor walked through the door, setting her things down on the desk in the front of the room. Her coffee mug still had steam coming from it, freshly poured. A quick look of her watch after getting settled and it was time to start the exam. “Okay, everyone. It’s time for class. Take out your laptops and begin your exam. You may leave when you have finished. Thank you for a great semester, and good luck.”

The questions on the exam were all ones that you knew and had studied for for weeks. It was strenuous, trying to remember everything on the cumulative exam. You had hoped it would go quickly and you would answer them faster than Jake could. Occasionally, you turned to look at Jake, seeing if maybe he was trying to look at you too.

With one question left of your exam, you click the answer and press submit after a minute of debate. You had a bad habit of second guessing yourself occasionally; it was actually the bane of your testing experiences. You hated when you felt confident about an answer, until you really sat with the other possible answers it could be.

You put your laptop back into your bag, zipped it up and noticed that Jake had already left. You cursed to yourself, knowing that now you had to buy Jake a coffee. You waved goodbye to your professor with a smile and walked out the doors. Jake sat outside of the classroom at one of the tables they had throughout the building. “Whatcha reading?”

“Josh recommended it to me, but I’m going to be honest, I fucking hate this book.” He laughed, shoving it into his bag. “You know any good coffee shops around here? I’m kind of tired of Starbucks.”

“I just so happen to know the best coffee shop in town, but it is a bit of a walk, if you don’t mind that?” You asked, walking through the door that Jake was holding before muttering a thank you to him.

“I could also drive, if you’re okay with that.”

“I’m more than okay with that,” you chuckle, letting him know that your dorm building had enough stairs; any chance you could get to use an elevator, or get driven somewhere, you would take that opportunity in a heartbeat.

The drive was short in comparison to the twenty minute walk it would have taken to get to the shop. Jake tried to offer the radio to you, but you let him play what he wanted to listen to. You didn’t know exactly who was playing, but the blues music that played through the speakers was a breath of fresh air.

Your typical shuffle had a plethora of music from differing genres, whether that be rap or old country. You hadn’t known much when it came to blues music, especially the difference between good blues music and bad. Eventually, you got the courage to ask who was playing and Jake answered, letting you know that the song was by Buddy Guy. “It’s called She Suits Me To A T. I tried for weeks to learn this song when I first started playing music more seriously.”

“This is the coffee shop, at the next corner.” You watched his hand as he made a right turn, noticing him steering with just the palm of his hand. Letting the leather steering wheel glide back to its original position in his hand, elbow propped on the door with the window rolled down.

It’s all you thought about on your way into the coffee shop, completely relying on autopilot. Your responses to Jake were almost textbook, one word sentences that could continue the conversation without much effort. “What’re you thinking of getting?”

“Oh, um, I’m not sure. I usually have them surprise me,” you admit, shoving your hands into your jacket. “Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not. That’s the gamble you take.”

“I like that a lot, actually. I think I’ll have them surprise me too, if you don’t mind.”

“No, not at all.” You smiled at Jake before he went to order for the two of you. You found a place to sit in the meantime, offering a spot towards the windows so you could watch people come and go, each on their own paths of life.

By the time Jake sat down, both of the coffees were in his hand. After a few questions, Jake set the iced drink down in front of you, and the hot drink in front of himself. “Yours is an iced chai, with brown sugar syrup and vanilla. Mine is some sort of tea, I wasn’t really paying attention to what she was saying. I just wanted to remember what she put in yours in case you liked it.”

“Oh,” you spoke, bringing the cup towards you. “Thank you, that’s really sweet. Do you like your drink?”

“You know, it’s really not bad. I wouldn’t have gotten it otherwise, but it’s really not bad.”

“You hate it.”

“I hate it. It’s not good.” The two of you chuckled before you offered him a sip of your drink. “Mhmm,” he moaned. “That’s good, oh my God.”

The two of you continued small talk, whether it was over the classes you had previously taken, memories of parties from past years – anything. You shared previous high school experiences, mostly about the ridiculous things that were considered parties in your teenage years.

Conversation with Jake was surprisingly a lot easier than you thought it would be. Especially since you’ve hated him pretty much your entire college career. You figured he’d be stuck up, aware of his academic achievements and ready to flaunt them in front of anyone who’d listen.

He was the opposite. His sentences were wrapped with kindness, and the reflection in his voice seemed nothing but positive. His voice was like silk, he could’ve talked you into damn near anything as long as his voice sounded like that. It hurt when the conversation slowed, spending a few moments to take in the scene around you two, as well as finally being able to drink more of your drink (which was very delicious, it was almost like crack).

“How long have you been playing guitar?” You asked after the silence became almost uncomfortable to sit with.

“Oh jeez. I’ve been playing since I was… like three? Yeah, three.” You stared at him with eyes slightly wide, mouth agape. “What?”

“N-Nothing, that’s just a really long time. You’re what, 21 now?” He clarified that he was only twenty, his birthday roughly a week away. You poked fun at him, mentioning how you were older, even if it was by less than a year.

“Josh is throwing us a birthday party, if you want to come. Since it’ll be our 21st, we’re having it at our parents cabin on Lake Michigan. You’re welcome to bring Mel and Tamia if you’d like. Sam and Danny are going to be there, even though they’re underage, but we’re gonna pretend like they’re older.” Jake spoke with one last sip of his drink, letting the empty cup echo on the table as he set it down.

“I will let Mel and Mia know. I can’t make any sure decisions without talking to them first, but I’m pretty damn sure that they’ll say they would love to go.”

“Yeah, I don’t think they’ll say no either. They seem pretty adamant that you have a little crush on me or something,” he said, putting your cups inside of a bus tub to be picked up and washed.

“I don’t have a crush on you,” you laughed, walking out of the coffee shop with Jake. “I actually hate you, remember?”

“You may say that you hate me, but you’re not really good at showing it.”

#jake kiszka fanfic #jake kiszka fanfiction #godlygretawrites #godlygreta #pretty boy #jake kiszka x reader #jake kiszka x y/n

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feroshgirlsims · 5 months ago

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The Save File Chronicles Catch-Up Post #1

Happy 2025! After a long winter nap, I’ve finally got some chapters ready that will start coming out next week. But since it’s been a while and I’ve got some new followers, I figured it was a good time for a summary post. If you want to dive into the story with the next chapter, this is your guide.

Before you embark—

The Save File Chronicles is a “slice of life with a side of bloodshed” story. By that, I mean you should be prepared for occult shit and everyday life drama, along with plenty of violence, bloodshed, and mayhem. Also, sex. This is a paranormal romance about deeply unhinged, morally gray characters who get happy endings.

In other words, mature themes for 18+ with a plot that is wacky, cozy, and sometimes dark.

It’s totally okay if this is not your vibe, and you want to nope out now! I’m not offended. But if this sounds like your thing, read on.

The Premise

Our story begins with an excerpt from The Afterlife for Gods and Monsters. In it, Time and her wife, The Universe, welcome a new set of gods and monsters to the great beyond. It’s called The Space Between Universes because there are multiple worlds, each an alternate version of each other—as if someone had multiple save files with the same set of characters…

The space between universes isn’t anything so dreamy as the old myths portend. There’s no feeling of weightlessness or enchanting choral music, and certainly, no gossamer hands gently guiding you toward a welcoming light.

The important thing to know here is that everything dies, including worlds. Each time one does, the Divine Creators shunt off its gods, monsters, and other powerful supernaturals to a special version of the Hereafter while they decide their fate. There is always a new world to be reborn into, but there are no promises about who—

—Or what you’ll be.

This time, the Divine Creators welcomed four beings: Alice Martin (the God of Death), Miko Ojo (Fate Itself), William Redding (King of the Vampires), and Vladislaus Straud (Fear Itself) are all processed and sent to a new universe with no memories of their former powers.

But it is not a world without magic ‌or mystery, and the call to follow the otherworldly is strong.

The Characters

The Save File Chronicles is a massive story with tons of characters, but the first arc revolves around this group:

Alice Martin is trying hard not to let her ganja habit impede her classes. After surviving an abusive relationship, she finally feels ready to date again and joins Cupid’s Corner. She immediately connects with a deeply odd law school student named Vladislaus Straud.

Meanwhile, her best friend and roommate, Miko Ojo, is struggling with the pressure of being a TA, and an intrusive voice that just won’t leave her alone. Mortifyingly, she gets a UTI while hearing her fellow TAs gossip about her in the bathroom.

Across campus, dying from boredom on a library tour, William Redding uses his boyfriend as an excuse to skip out from under the watchful eye of his socialite mother and politician father. His actual plans, however, involve planning a hookup with a man who isn’t his boyfriend and meeting up with his best friend, Vladislaus Straud.

Vlad is new to Cupid’s Corner, too. A self-professed curmudgeon who finds sims and social situations completely overwhelming, he is also trying to put himself out there again after a nasty breakup.

Actually, Jacob’s exact words were that Vlad lacked a conscience and a heart. The first part was accurate, but the second part? The second part filled Vlad with an unending desire to flay open his chest and see if it was true.

Vlad connects with Alice and so the lives of these four “random” sims become entwined.

Later, a mysterious fae named Akira Kibo enrolls in classes on an assignment from La Cosa Simstra, a supernatural organized crime family headed up by The Devil Himself, Jacques Villareal. Akira is all the things you’ve heard about the fae: beautiful, cruel, enigmatic—

—And a raging asshole who becomes obsessed with Alice and Vlad.

The Plot

We meet our lovely characters as they are making their way through graduate school at Britechester University. Alice is desperate to avoid failing out of school by pulling off a photography project about a secret society on campus. She drags Miko to observe one of their secret meet-ups, and things get…weird as shit.

The members of the secret society take notice of their two stalkers and give chase.

Alice and Miko escape, but not before a nearby werewolf observes the whole situation and reports back to Jacques.

Jacques is curious about why the secret society would chase these two sims, but not kill them. He orders Akira to enroll in college and monitor Miko and Alice, hoping to discover some secrets he can use to destroy spellcaster society, which he blames for the death of his wife.

Alice vows not to give up on uncovering the secrets of the weird cult on campus, but she has to balance her ambition with her dating life. She agrees to meet with Vlad, who is completely stressed out about the whole thing.

“I told you. I have a date, and after a series of messages in which she defended her gloriously wrong Tea & Treachery opinions and rebuked my use of the word ‘precipitous’ at least three times, I have decided that she is, in fact, perfect. So I…I don’t want her to be disappointed by me.”

While Alice and Miko were running from dastardly cloaked figures, he was easing his boredom by causing chaos at Lairs and Llamas. During the game, he purposefully picks a fight with William’s boyfriend, Christopher. After being chastised and helping his sister bury the body of an intruder, he spends the week stressing over what to wear.

Eventually, the date happens, and Vlad and Alice discover that while they are both complete weirdos, they are weirdos in a way that works for both of them.

“If you had any supernatural power, what would it be?” “Paralyzing sims with fear and the ability to become a sentient mist so I could leave any conversation.” He taps a finger to his lip, “And enough strength to crush someone’s bones.” “Messy,” Alice giggles. “What are you gonna do with all that bone dust?”

They decide to keep dating and depart the record store they were hanging out in with no idea that the sim Alice thought was stalking them was the ghost of a dead student who had been missing for months.

They also didn’t notice Akira carefully stalking them and using his glamour to hide his tracks. Akira confronts the ghost of the dead student, hoping to get details about what Vlad and Alice discussed. It goes poorly because, as previously mentioned, Akira is an asshole.

He leaves and takes a call from his sister, Titania (yes, that Titania), and is subsequently struck by supernatural lightning because, as everyone knows—

Miko and William, meanwhile, are dealing with their own drama. William’s boyfriend breaks up with him after the fight with Vlad (partially because of the fight, partially because of the booty calls with sims that aren’t him).

The size of William’s ego makes this difficult to process.

Miko is cracking under the pressure, as well. After nearly passing out from her UTI, her fellow TA, Emmett Pollock, helps her recover.

The voice in her head becomes slightly more supportive after that, encouraging her to spend more time with Emmett, stay the hell away from Vlad, and informs her she is not a sim.

It's the perfect time for a run-in with Akira who doesn’t look or act like any sim Miko ever met.

Coincidentally, Emmett shows up again, and Akira disappears. Grateful for the intervention, and feeling a little crush, she goes for coffee with Emmett and accepts his help to get a job at an Apothecary Shop in Glimmerbrook.

The run-in with Miko freaks Akira out too, or at least makes him frustrated. A fae’s glamour is impenetrable, and he can’t figure out how she saw through it.

It doesn’t help that he had the strangest dream about two women calling themselves Time and the Universe. He made some sort of deal with them to be reborn into this world, but the details are hazy and make little sense.

The next morning, Akira finds Alice poking around in his backyard. After confronting her over her dangerous method of getting photos of a poisonous plant, he agrees to spend the afternoon with her on campus.

He can’t deny the way he feels drawn to her, possessive even, and so even though it breaks every rule he has in place to protect himself, he makes a promise to her.

It’s a promise to watch a dumb-ass reality tv show, but still, he’s desperate to see her again.

After fighting a pack of goblins and running down a sim in the Devil’s debt, he pops over to Henford-on-Bagley to observe his other obsession: Vlad.

Maybe familiarity is what draws him to Vladislaus. Akira finds him beautiful in a way that’s very different from Alice. She’s all sunshine and fire with curls he wants to wrap around his fingers and lips he wants to bite. But Vladislaus is like the fae—compelling but dangerous. Even with a black eye, he’s so unnaturally pretty that his features seem to be arranged wrong.

Akira is sure that he is using his glamour, but unbeknownst to him, Vlad sees right through it.

Seeing a supernatural creature sends Vlad into a spiral.

Getting Vlad out of his obsessive tailspin is a strange process. His father and grandfather hunt him in the woods with actual weapons.

They tell him he needs a boss to keep him from burning the world to the ground.

And Vlad’s attitude toward injuries is odd, too:

Once, someone broke the shank of a screwdriver off in his arm. He could have just let it disappear, but his parents were insistent, so like everything else that he does because it's “what sims do,” he sliced open his bicep and dug it out.

He returns to campus after his breakdown and immediately seeks Alice and offers to help her with research about the secret society. When she makes a joke about being his boss, Vlad decides that she should definitely be in charge.

The delight etched across Alice’s face at the idea of being in charge of him is enough to send Vlad into the stratosphere. It also spawns a fantasy that makes his pulse race. Something inside him unwinds and stretches. It wraps fingers around his rib cage and peers out past his heart, pleased and bound. “Yes, I do very well with specific instructions. Feel free to demand whatever you want.”

And now you’re caught up!

Obviously, this isn’t every single detail, but it should let you jump in when Chapter 9 comes out later this week. We’ll be picking up right where things left off in the room with Vlad getting his…uh…boss.

If you’re interested in reading everything in order, you can start here.

If you want to read about Jacques Villareal and La Cosa Simstra’s feud with the spellcasters as a standalone, you can read it here.

And last but not least, I release side stories about households outside of my current set of main characters. If they become relevant to the plot, I link them, but otherwise, they are just a glimpse into the world outside of these lunatics I write about.

Although if you read them, you’ll end up with insights that our main characters don’t have. You can check them out here.

#ts4 #simblr #The Save File Chronicles #Season 1 #catch up chronicles #i think writing this took all my brain cells #but i hope it helps

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stray-cat-21 · 2 years ago

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The Pariah and the Freak

Part 2: Meeting the Baby and Rumors Spread

Summary: Eddie and (y/n) see their baby for the first time

“Shit does this look okay should I change? I’ve gotta couple button ups from shows and stuff I could wear. Do we have time to run back to the trailer?”

“Eddie honey we’re just doing an ultrasound there’s no dress code”

“Yeah but we’re meeting our baby for the first time I wanna make a good impression”

Eddie sounds genuinely concerned while staring into the full length mirror in (y/n)’s room. He messes with his hair, adjusts his plain black shirt tucking it in and untucking it, and tampering with his jacket’s zipper. (Y/n) steps away from her closet watching her boyfriend nervously fiddle with his clothes. Not only was he worried about his appearance but even in private he had referred to the baby as his own. Smiling she made her way over to Eddie wrapping her arms around his waist earning a soft smile from him.

“You look fine baby I promise, it’s not like the baby can see you” (y/n) responds voice airy and feathery light. Eddie exhales turning around to wrap her in a tight hug. He holds her close resting her forehead against his chin so he can plant a kiss there. “I know I just want to do this all right start to finish. You deserve that, you both do” he breathes.

(Y/n) smiles warmly looking up to give him a kiss. Slow sweet and laced with appreciation. “You look amazing and I know the baby will agree. I mean how could they not with that hair” she teases playing with a strand of his brown waves. Eddie chuckles relaxing more. “And the sweet ol tatties don’t forget those” he jokes earning a laugh from (Y/n).

“Those too baby” (y/n) agrees. “Alright we better get on the road we got a bit of a drive” Eddie says glancing over at the clock. (Y/n) agrees grabbing her purse. (Y/n) was 18 so getting a doctors appointment without parental knowledge or consent wasn’t hard but in order to not get caught they had to make the appointment the next town over. Eddie offers out his arm leading them out to his van.

He pulls the van’s passenger door open with a loud squeak. There’s a bit of a step so Eddie helps her up into her seat. “Oh you can uh stick the camera in the back” Eddie suggests spotting it sitting on the seat. (Y/n) pulls it into her lap instead as Eddie makes his way over to his own seat. “What’s this for?” She questions once he’s in the van.

“I uh wanted to capture the moment” Eddie laughs a little embarrassed. (Y/n) smiles again and leans over to kiss him on the cheek. “I don’t have too many photos from when I was little, they’re mostly from after I moved in with Wayne. I want things to be different for our kid y’know” he shrugs. “Then our baby will have tons of photos, not just of them but our little family” (y/n) agrees.

Spending her Sunday with her legs in stirrups with Eddie Munson at her side was definitely not on (y/n)’s agenda for her senior year. It’s an uncomfortable position to be in but with Eddie holding her hand it doesn’t feel too bad. He presses a soft reassuring kiss to her palm offering her a warm smile. “You ready to meet our baby?” Eddie asks. “So ready” (y/n) breathes.

A doctor dressed in baby pink scrubs enters with a clipboard in hand. “Hello my name is Dr. Aditi and you must be (y/n)” she says reading from the chart. “Yes, and this is Eddie he’s the father” (y/n) explains. “Hi” Eddie says nervousness evident his voice.

Doctor Aditi asks a lot of questions and explains some medical things. Eddie makes a note of exactly what vitamins (y/n) needs to take along with what exactly to avoid. Anytime she seems to get overwhelmed or worried Eddie gives her hand a reassuring squeeze. It’s a lot to take in but Eddie takes it seriously wanting to do as he said and do everything right.

Finally it's time for the ultrasound. Dr. Aditi prepares the machine, gently putting the cold gel on (y/n)'s belly and positioning the wand. As the screen flickers to life, Eddie holds his breath. The room is filled with a soft whooshing sound as the doctor moves the wand around, searching for the baby. And just like that there it is, a tiny, fuzzy image appears on the screen.

Eddie's eyes widen with wonder, and (y/n) gasps, tears threatening to spill from their eyes. They clutch each other's hands even tighter as Dr. Aditi points out where there baby is. "It's beautiful," Eddie whispers, his voice filled with awe. Tears stream down (y/n)'s face as she nods in agreement. "Our baby," she murmurs voice choked with emotion.

Eddie pulls his eyes away briefly enough to kiss her (y/n) on the head. “And this,” Dr. Aditi says flicking another switch “is your baby’s heartbeat.” A small but steady thumping sound fills the room. Forget Metallica, screw Dio, and Megadeath may as well throw in the towel. This sound right here was Eddie’s new favorite sound.

The next few moments are a blur as Dr. Aditi continues the ultrasound procedure. The whole time Eddie can't take his eyes off the screen. His heart bursting with love for the tiny life growing inside (y/n). The image is etching itself into his memory taking place among Eddie’s favorite things. It’s a moment he wants to remember forever.

After what feels like an eternity Dr. Aditi finishes up and cleans (y/n)'s belly. As they all gather their belongings, Eddie remembers the small camera now tucked under his leather jacket. “Uh hey before we go I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind taking a photo of us?” Eddie asks. The doctor happily obliges accepting the camera. Eddie wraps his arm around (y/n)‘s shoulders and they both hold the ultrasound in front of them.

Leaving the doctor's office Eddie and (y/n) share a huge smile. There’s an indescribable sensation of love and connection they’re both experiencing. They sit in the van, staring at the ultrasound image, unable to contain their excitement. It feels unreal as Eddie stares at the black and white photo in his hands.

“They’re beautiful”

“I know it’s unbelievable”

“Wasn’t that the most metal thing you’ve ever heard?

“Seriously this is amazing you’re amazing” Eddie breathes out. He kisses her head and her cheek and her lips. (Y/n) let’s out a teary laugh. “Seriously (y/n), amazing” Eddie grins.

As they drive back towards home they’re both just a little somber. Once they get home there’s no celebrations to be had, no spreading the joyful news. They do end up stopping by a little store that sells baby clothes. Eddie insists on picking out a tiny onesie with the words "Daddy's Little Rockstar" printed on it. It's a small gesture, but it symbolizes his unwavering commitment to being the best father he can be.

Eddie’s copy of the ultrasound stays safe in his wallet. Every time he opens his wallet and sees the picture he can't help but smile like an idiot. It represents everything he went through to make this happen. How far he had come since just daydreaming about (y/n) from across the room.

On Monday morning Eddie strutted through the halls of his high school, a grin plastered across his face. His classmates couldn't help but notice the exuberant expression on his face, and whispers began to circulate. By third period rumors had emerged, each more outlandish than the last. According to the grapevine Eddie had sacrificed a virgin over the weekend and that was the cause of his unusually good mood.

Determined to get to the bottom of things Gareth intercepted him at his locker. Gareth stood his ground blocking Eddie's path while Jeff and Paul joined crowding Eddie."What's going on with you Eddie are you high or somethin?" Gareth demanded, his tone laced with confusion.

Confusion etched across his face Eddie shook his head. "What are you guys talking about? No I'm not high” he replied. Frustrated, Eddie nudged Gareth attempting to pass him. They all knew that Gareth or any of them for that matter, rarely stood their ground against Eddie's strong will.

"Not so fast, we want answers," Gareth said, his voice firm. With a sigh, Eddie cast a discreet glance around before leading his friends into the nearby bathroom. Once inside, Eddie rummaged through his pocket, pulling out his wallet. He carefully pulled out photograph and handed it to Gareth who held it gingerly. Jeff and Paul craned their necks to get a glimpse of what had caused Eddie's unusual behavior.

“What is it?” Jeff asks. Eddie huffed, maintaining his infectious smile. "It's an ultrasound, so be careful with it dicks," he said, his tone slightly annoyed. Jeff's eyes widened, and the color drained from Gareth's face. Meanwhile, Paul's jaw dropped in disbelief.

Drowning in a sea of panic, Gareth blurted out, "Do you have cancer? Are you dying?" The boys began talking over each other, fueled by their fears and confusion. Eddie shouted, desperate to silence their cacophony.

“Enough!” He commanded voice booming. The boys stop talking. "It's not mine, you idiots," Eddie revealed, his smile still intact. "It's (Y/n)'s. She's pregnant." Gareth, Jeff, and Paul froze, their eyes wide with shock.

“Whose is it” Jeff’s voice trembles as he asks the question no one else was brave enough to. "Mine, obviously," Eddie replied confidently, his smile finally fading. The reality of the situation seemed to hit the trio all at once, and they stood there, speechless.

Once the initial shock wears off, Jeff and Gareth exchange knowing glances while Paul tries to process the news. "How did this happen?" Paul finally asks. Eddie shrugs, a playful smirk on his face. "I guess I have some moves outside of DND" he says, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

Gareth shakes his head, a mix of disbelief and amusement on his face. "Well, congrats, man. It's a life-changer, for sure," he says, patting Eddie on the back. Jeff, still processing everything, finally speaks up. "What are you gonna do, Eddie?"

Eddie's grin fades slightly, replaced with a more serious expression. "Well, I've talked to (Y/n), and we've decided to keep it. It won't be easy, but we'll figure it out." Paul, who has been quiet throughout the conversation, finally finds his voice. "That's a big responsibility, man, are you sure you're up for it?" he asks.

Eddie nods, determination in his eyes. "I may have been acting crazy all morning, but this, this is real. This is something I'm willing to give my all for." As the shock subsided Gareth reached out to pat Eddie's back, a mix of concern and understanding in his eyes. "Hey man, we're here for you," he said sincerely. Jeff nodded, his initial panic giving way to a sense of loyalty. "Yeah, Eddie. We'll support you through this."

"What do you need from us, Eddie?" Gareth asked, his voice filled with genuine concern. Eddie took a deep breath, overwhelmed by the unwavering support of his friends. "I just need you guys to be there for me and (Y/n)," he said, his smile softening. "I don’t imagine our very accepting town will be pleasant when they find out.” The boys exchanged nods, understanding the weight of their friend's words.

Eddie was on his way out of his last period smiling at the thought

“Eddie you’re gonna wanna come see this” Jeff says out of breath as he jogs up to his friends. Eddie wordlessly follows his bandmates down the hall. There’s a small gathering of some of their peers stood around a particular locker whispering. It would be nothing new for a member of Hellfire’s locker to get vandalized but Eddie knew that this one didn’t belong to any of them.

(Y/n)‘s locker was now littered with cruel scribblings done with different colored sharpies. Words like slut, freak’s whore, trailer park tramp were plastered on the metal along with magazine articles talking about teen pregnancy. “Shit” Eddie breathed running a hand through his hair. “Looks like word got out” Gareth sighed. “Can you two get this cleaned up I gotta find her” Eddie asked looking towards Gareth and Jeff.

“Don’t worry about it man we’ve got this” Jeff assures him. Eddie

When he spots (Y/n) she’s making her way down the hall. Dressed in her cheer uniform, books clutched to her chest as she nervously looks around. For once the nagging feeling of eyes following someone around is right

Eddie hurries over to her placing his hands on her shoulders. “Hey Eddie” she greets pulling her eyes away from a group of whispering students. “Hey sweetheart why don’t we go outside and talk alright?” He tries desperately hoping to shield her from school’s cruelty. “Talk, talk about what?” She hums. “Oh I don’t know I’m sure we’ll think of something” he says attempting to lead her towards door.

She allows him to practically push her down the hall confused by the urgency. They pass a small group of students who are huddled close together. “Whore” one of them covers up poorly with a cough. Eddie and (y/n) freeze and he winces. She turns around facing him already frowning.

“Oh god they know” (y/n) gasps. Already her eyes are watery with worry. “Yeah I guess so” Eddie sighs. “Oh god oh no, no no no” she cries spinning around seeing all the eyes on her. “C’mon let’s go outside alright baby let’s talk” Eddie pleads.

Unfortunately right now she doesn’t hear her boyfriend’s requests. All (y/n) hears is the whispers and quiet conversations the laughter and taunts. Everyone in the hallway is staring on at the two. She slowly turns around seeing classmates, cheer squad members, and even friends are watching, talking, judging. Eddie carefully grabs her face in his hands making her look at him.

“Hey it’s gonna be alright okay I promise”

“Everyone knows Eddie, everyone”

“I don’t think it’s gotten around to everyone yet but it’s definitely been around”

“This is bad so bad!”

“I know it’s bad right now but we’ll figure out. We knew this would happen eventually right?”

“Not this soon I thought we’d have time, I thought it wouldn’t be till I started showing at least”

A tear escapes her eye and Eddie is quick to wipe it away. His heart aches at how worried and upset she looks. Eddie is an old fashioned man who desperately wishes to protect her both in the physical sense and emotional. He wraps his arms around her pulling her body flush with his. This time (y/n) isn’t sobbing just silently crying motionless in his arms, if given the choice Eddie thinks he’d prefer the first option.

“Anyone who has anything to say will have to deal with me alright? And not just me but the guys too they’ve got your back”

“The guys already know?”

“Yeah Gareth heard from someone last period”

“Oh god Eddie do they hate me? Do they think I’m some floozy or something”

Eddie let’s out a small breathy laugh pulling her face away to look in her eyes. “No, no, no sweetheart they don’t think you’re a floozy. They’re having a hard time believing that I slept with you but y’know no surprise there” Eddie shrugs. That earns him a weak smile from (Y/n). Eddie takes that as a good sign wiping her face.

(Y/n) let’s put a small gasp. “Oh and you Eddie they’re probably saying all kind of things about you” she frets. “So it’s business as usual then” Eddie shrugs. (Y/n) shakes her head looking away from Eddie. Her eyes land on Chrissy rushing down the hall with her arms full of paper towels.

“Wait you were trying to lead me outside before” (y/n) points out looking back to Eddie. His face falls and he looks back for just a brief second. “Uh was I?” He asked. (Y/n) peaks behind him before quickly walking in the same direction that Chrissy just left in. “Sweetheart wait please” Eddie calls jogging behind her.

The crowd gathered around the lockers is much larger now. It’s become quite the spectacle in a matter of minutes. (Y/n) politely pushed through the crowd muttering apologies. The whispering gets less subtle as they realize that (Y/n) is making her way through.

“I’m telling you man It’s not coming off!” Gareth hissed. “Scrub harder then” Jeff huffed. “Both of you keep wiping” Chrissy instructs. The two guys are aggressively wiping the marker away while Chrissy pulls down the magazine articles and pictures. Gareth is the first to notice her presence standing up in an attempt to cover the locker with his body.

“(Y/n) hey um we were just uh working on a project for um for class” Chrissy nervously starts to explain. “For home economics!” Gareth quickly adds. “Yes, for home economics!” Chrissy cheers. It’s definitely a lie and a bad one at that since Gareth isn’t even in the same grade and Jeff doesn’t take home economics. Still the blonde smiles in hopes of convincing her friend it’s the truth.

(Y/n) doesn’t respond stepping closer to her locker. Tears gloss over her eyes once more as they look over the metal surface. She had seen on many occasions how cruel students could be and had even tried to stop it quite a few of those times. Never before had such behavior been directed at her. (Y/n) was even positive that a few of the handwritings looked familiar enough to pinpoint which cheerleader wrote it.

People she called friends, team mates, girls who had the nerve to call themselves her sisters had turned on her. They didn’t even have any proof if what they had heard was true or not and they still stabbed her in the back over it. Over something that ultimately wasn’t even her choice. The crowd was still talking in less hushed whispers. Each unfriendly voice sticking out more and more.

“I always knew she was a slut I’ve been saying it for years”

“She must have some serious issues to settle for Munson”

“How pathetic”

“Do you think she did it on purpose like she was worried of ending up alone? I mean when was the last time you saw her date someone?”

Vision blurry, ears ringing (y/n) spun around. This time she moved through the crowd much less apologetically. There were no mumbled apologies or excuse need mes. She knew Chrissy was desperately calling her name but right now she just needed out. (Y/n) didn’t stop running till she was out the door and far away from the building.

As she tries to steady her breathing, the tears continue to flow freely. It feels like her entire world has come crashing down in a matter of minutes. All she wanted was a normal high school experience, but instead, she's faced with humiliation and betrayal from those she thought were her friends.

Eddie finally catches up to her, his face full of concern and worry. "Sweetheart, are you okay?" he asks, breathless from running after her. (Y/n) looks up at him, her eyes red and puffy. "No, Eddie, I'm not okay," she sobs. "How could they do this to me? I thought they were my friends I thought they had my back."

Eddie wraps his arms around her, pulling her close. "I know, I know. It's not fair, and it's not right. But listen to me, we're going to get through this together. I promise you, I won't let anyone hurt you."

She clings to him, finding solace in his words and the comfort of his embrace. Eddie is her rock, her anchor in this storm of chaos. Together, they'll navigate through this difficult time, supporting each other every step of the way.

“I know I’m just me but no matter what I’m not going anywhere” Eddie announces quietly anyway. The comment of ‘just him’ strikes (y/n) as funny. In fact the term is funny enough to make her breathe out a quiet laugh. “What’s funny sweets?” Eddie asks. (Y/n) wipes the tears from her cheeks.

“Just you, it’s funny as if you’re nothing special it’s just you” she answers. Eddie’s eyebrows furrow in confusion and his head tilts a little. “I just mean you aren’t just you Eddie not to me anyways” (y/n) continues with a gentle smile. Eddie smiles wiping tears away from her cheeks. “You doing okay?” He asks.

(Y/n) exhales looking down. Her life had flipped upside down over the last week. Everything was changing and it was changing fast. Then there was the good part that had come out of all this, Eddie. Her saving grace, her rock, her best friend.

She looked up to meet his eye again really studying him this time. (Y/n) takes in a deep before nodding. “Yeah actually I’m doing better, like you said they’d find out eventually” she shrugs with a small smile. “It’s okay if you’re not, you don’t have to pretend with me” Eddie promises squeezing her hands. This time (y/n) says nothing instead leaning up to kiss him.

Eddie accepts the kiss moving one of his hands to cup her face. It’s slow and sweet, made entirely out of gratitude and appreciation. When they pull apart her smile is a little more real. “Yeah I’m good Eds promise” she sighs. Eddie nods relieved.

“Besides my big scary boyfriend is gonna beat up anyone who says anything” (y/n) teases nudging his arm. Eddie snorts shaking his head a little. He leans down to connect their lips again.

There’s the sound of leaves crunching makes them turn around. Chrissy stands nervously a couple feet away. “Hey um I just came to check on you” she smiles nervously. “I better go help those idiots clean up your locker, meet me over there when you’re done?” Eddie asks getting up from the table.

(Y/n) nods leaning up to kiss him again. “Thank you again Eddie” she says softly. Eddie shakes his head smiling. “Don’t mention it sweets” he promises getting up from the table. Chrissy offers him a polite nod taking his place while Eddie heads back towards the school.

(Y/n) and Chrissy had always been inseparable. They grew up together, experiencing all of life's milestones side by side. From picking out their first movie crushes to sharing the excitement of their first real kisses, they had always been there for each other. But now, they were facing a completely new challenge - an unexpected teen pregnancy. This was not something they could find the solution to in Sassy or Seventeen magazine.

Sitting at the table (Y/n) mustered up the courage to confirm the news with her best friend. It wasn't an easy conversation to start, but she knew she needed Chrissy's support. “So,” Chrissy breathes with a small nervous smile “it’s true then?” (Y/n) took in a breath bracing herself. "Yeah CC, it's true, I'm, uh, pregnant."

Chrissy's eyes widened clearly shocked by the revelation. "Wow, that's huge, like, really really huge" she managed to say. (Y/n) nodded, feeling the weight of the situation. "I know," she replied softly. "And it's Eddie's."

Chrissy's eyes filled with concern as she asked about the circumstances. "When did that happen? You guys just started dating!" (Y/n) hesitated for a moment before recalling the night of Josh's party. “Do you remember Josh’s party?”

Chrissy thought back for a second. “Well yeah I remember you guys hanging out but you were really drunk” she explained. Suddenly Chrissy gasped, gripping (Y/n)'s arm. "Oh my god, did he take advantage of you?" There was a mix of concern and anger in her voice."No, no, it wasn't anything like that" (Y/n) reassured her, placing a hand over Chrissy's.

The tension in Chrissy's face eased as she let out a relieved breath.Curiosity getting the better of her Chrissy asked "So how did this happen, then?" "Well, after I passed out, he couldn't find you, and he didn't know where I lived, so he brought me to his place. He was really sweet and took care of me. I don't know, CC it just happened” (y/n) explained.

Chrissy's surprise turned into a smile as she said "Wow, Eddie Munson." "Eddie Munson” (Y/n) repeated with a small smile. "And you know what? I'm happier than I've been in a long time” (y/n) confirmed.

Chrissy's excitement couldn't be contained as she hugged (Y/n) tightly. “I'm so happy for you babe” she whispered. "Thank you, CC really” With a grin, Chrissy demanded to know all the details. She wanted to hear everything about this unexpected turn of events.

As (Y/n) recounted waking up in Eddie's bed and his sweet gestures to take care of her Chrissy listened intently. "Wow he sounds great”Chrissy gushed, thinking of how different Eddie was from her own boyfriend, Jason. "He's so different from the rest of the guys around here.”(Y/n) nodded, knowing how special Eddie was. "He's really something CC, despite his tough exterior, he's truly so sweet."

As they continued to talk (Y/n) shared more about their day together, how they laughed and ate breakfast. She couldn't help but gush about Eddie's uncle Wayne, who she found to be surprisingly similar to him."He always looks so serious and gruff," Chrissy remarked."Yeah, I think that's just how he has to be you know”(Y/n) replied. "Eddie has a lot to deal with at school, so he has to put up this tough front."

Chrissy nodded in understanding before asking about the moment Eddie dropped (Y/n) off at her house. "Did he kiss you at the door?" she inquired. (Y/n) laughed. "No, he's too old school for that, we exchanged numbers instead, and that's when we decided to meet up again later."

"Wow" Chrissy said, completely captivated by the story unfolding before her. "Exactly, big wow” (Y/n) agreed, feeling grateful for her supportive best friend by her side.

“Well he obviously couldn’t find you after I passed out and he didn’t know where I lived so he brought me to his place. I don’t know he was really sweet and charming and he took care of me. It just happened CC I don’t know.”

“Then I can’t wait to be an aunt”

“You’ll be the best aunt”

“Oh I should make them a blanket! Of course I’ll need to wait till I know if it’s a boy or girl. Or I could pick something like yellow or green? What are the Hellfire colors?”

“Whatever you pick will be great Chrissy”

Arm in arm, Chrissy and (y/n) made their way back into the school, a sense of normality slowly returning. The hallway had mostly cleared now, leaving just a few random students heading one way or another. The chaos of earlier seemed like a distant memory at least for the time being. At her locker, the guys had mostly finished cleaning up the vandalized mess, with just a few remaining markings and unreadable words. They were in the middle of a heavy debate about some musician versus another when they spotted the girls approaching.

"Hi baby” (y/n) greeted, pulling away from Chrissy who had to catch her ride. "Hey sweetheart, your locker's mostly cleaned up” Eddie said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. His eyes flickered with genuine concern. "Thank you for this, guys. I really appreciate it” (y/n) sighed, glancing at her locker which now looked almost normal once again.

Gareth and Jeff, who had been sitting on the ground, immediately got up, slightly shoving each other for who would get up first. Their banter was lighthearted, a stark contrast to the events of the day. "I think this makes you an official member of the club” Gareth grinned a teasing glint in his eyes."Yeah this counts as your initiation” Jeff agreed a smirk playing on his lips.

"Welcome to Hellfire, (y/n) (y/l/n)” Eddie declared with a wide grin, his voice filled with pride. (Y/n) couldn't help but smile back, her expression real and earnest. It was honestly a weird feeling for her. She had watched as her social life crumbled into pieces after the rumors and malicious lies spread about her. But with Eddie and her newfound friends, it honestly didn't feel so bad.

Eddie and (Y/n) decide to unwind after school by watching an old tape. As they lay together on the couch, snuggled up the warmth of their love filled the room.Eddie finally breaks the comfortable silence drawing (Y/N)'s attention away from the tape. "You know, with everyone around school finding out about us, we might want to tell our parents soon” he pointed out concern tugging at the corners of his lips.

(Y/N)'s face fell, and a wave of dread washed over her. "They're gonna be so mad, Eddie” she whispered her voice trembling with anxiety. The thought of disappointing her parents weighed heavily on her heart. Eddie gently tilted her chin up, his eyes filled with tenderness. "They'll be even more pissed if we let them hear it from someone else” he replied, pressing a soft kiss against her lips.

"I know, but this has all been so happy” (Y/N) admitted, her voice laced with fear. "I'm just not ready to lose that yet." Eddie pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her protectively. "Maybe it won't be as bad as you think," he reassured her, brushing his fingers over her hair. "They may be mad at first, but they'll come around I’m sure.”

Tears welled up in (Y/N)'s eyes as she gazed into Eddie's deep, caring eyes. "Their daughter is pregnant, Eds" she spoke softly, her voice thick with emotion. "They're gonna be pissed." Eddie tenderly wiped away her tears, his heart aching for the pain she felt. "We'll face them together," he promised.

(Y/N) took a deep breath, finding comfort in Eddie's words. “Okay you’re right we’ll tell them” (y/n) breathes looking up at Eddie. “Wayne’s off on Wednesday we could do dinner” Eddie points out. “Dinner on Wednesday it is” (y/n) sighs.

#eddie stranger things #eddie munson x reader #stranger things x reader #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson/reader #eddie munson/you #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x cheerleader!reader #eddie munson x popular!reader #eddie munson x fem!reader fluff #dark eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x pregnant!reader #dad eddie munson #thepariahandthefreak

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my-supernatural-rewatch · 8 months ago

Text

Episode Three: Dead in the Water

Dean Winchester in the Supernatural episode Dead in the Water

This is one of my favorite season one episodes and a really important episode for understanding Dean in general.

Dean and Sam travel to Wisconsin to investigate a series of suspicious drownings.

Let's get to it:

So first off, we're in a diner and Dean is reading a newspaper, looking for a job. This is the first job they actively seek out instead of having been sent by John and Sam expresses his annoyance about Dean wanting to go check it out because the trail to John is 'getting cold.' (News for you, Sam, you have no trail. Y'all are just driving around hoping he'll pop up in front of the car.)

Dean's response is a little eerie to me. "We're gonna kill everything bad between here and there." (There being wherever John is.) Eerie in that now for two episodes we've established that one of the things driving Dean is to literally KILL. Thanks, John.

Also noteworthy: Dean flirts with the waitress here in one of his more innocent ways, mostly with just a look when she talks to him and Sam, again, gets visibly pissed and snaps at the waitress.

I suppose this consistent annoyance with Dean flirting with women, even as innocently as he's been doing so far, is part of what fueled the wincest believers, especially at this point in the show, but JFC no. It's so obvious Sam just wants Dean to be as miserable as he is. I don't think it's a purity thing. I don't think Sam is personally offended that his brother enjoys sex, I think at this point he believes Dean doesn't have a right to be happy and it pisses him off whenever Dean tries to find joy in the smallest thing.

So Dean and Sam go to Wisconsin and meet with the sheriff. Then we get to the good stuff. Andrea and Lucas, the sheriff's widowed daughter and grandson, walk in and Dean is obviously interested in her but goes straight to the kid, trying to engage him. Doesn't work, kid bolts to his mom and Dean sweet talks her into showing them where the closest motel is.

He tries flirting with her through her son. "Cute kid." "Kids are the best." But she immediately clocks him as being full of shit and playfully calls him out on it - impressing him. A running theme so far is that Dean actually LIKES it when women don't fall for the bullshit. For all the criticisms of him and his relationships with random women, he's shown a ton of respect for them over these last two episodes.

Now we're getting deep into what makes Dean tick. When they find out through Sam doing an internet search that Lucas witnessed his father's death, it hits Dean hard and he tells Sam, "Watching one of your parents die isn't something you just get over."

We get a couple of quotes like this in this episode. Dean's talking about Lucas but he's talking about himself too and at first you don't think Sam gets it but in the next scene when they approach Andrea at the park and Dean asks if he can say hi to Lucas, when he goes to the boy, Andrea tells Sam to tell Dean the "Jerry Maguire" act isn't going to work and Sam earnestly responds that he doesn't think that's what Dean is doing.

And now we get to see Dean in a way that the first two episodes really didn't prepare us for. He approaches Lucas gently, talks to him like a person, even talks about how they had the same toys (green toy soldiers! foreshadowing four seasons early! "I used to love these things.") and when he gets no response asks if he can draw with him. He continues talking to him, even though Lucas doesn't respond, and he draws Lucas a stick figure picture of his family while sharing that he knows how Lucas feels because he saw something when he was Lucas' age too...assuring Lucas that if he shares what he saw Dean will believe him.

When Dean was flirting with Andrea and said he loved kids, Sam chided him by demanding he name kids he knew. I feel like Sam purposely ignores the fact that Dean is FOUR years older than him and spent most of his life caring for Sam. Dean knows kids...Dean knows Sam and Dean knows how to talk to and act around kids because of taking care of Sam. THIS IS WHY LUCAS CONNECTS WITH DEAN. Beacause Dean is the one who reached out and because Lucas felt his sincerity. Sam can sit on a tack here.

When Lucas doesn't react immediately, Dean goes back to Sam and Andrea and she expresses concern about her son, prompting Dean to say something else that applies to both he and Lucas, "Kids are strong. You'd be surprised at what they can deal with."

Then Lucas shows up with a picture of a house and shoves it at Dean, who is visibly touched while Andrea is stunned.

Then stuff happens on the show like it always does and Dean talks Andrea into letting him talk to Lucas again. We get another good bonding moment with Dean and Lucas, this time with Sam as a witness.*

Dean tries to get through to Lucas, thanking him for the picture of the house, telling him he helped, and saying he needs his help again. Lucas is seemingly not listening and Dean gives us this gem:

"You're scared. It's okay. I understand. See, when I was your age, I saw something real bad happen to my mom, and I was scared, too. I didn't feel like talking, just like you. But see, my mom—I know she wanted me to be brave. I think about that every day. And I do my best to be brave. And maybe, your dad wants you to be brave too."

And this kind of blows Sam away. It also works on Lucas because Lucas gives Dean another drawing that ends up helping them.

*Sam witnessing Dean opening up to Lucas KIND of works in the episode because Sam doesn't end up actually apologizing to Dean for being such a dick but he does acknowledge that he didn't realize some of Dean's trauma regarding their mother.** BUT it doesn't last because a long-standing issue I have with Sam (who, incidentally, I actually DO like as a character) is that he never allows for Dean to feel his feelings. It's always an inconvenience or something to mock when Dean tries to let his guard down. Is it any wonder Dean is always demanding 'no chick flick moments?'

**Which Dean immediately shuts down with "We're not gonna have to hug are we?"

One of the notes I took is about when the sheriff demands Dean and Sam leave town and Lucas tries to cling to Dean because he doesn't want him to leave. I wrote "Same, kid, same."

Sam just wants to fucking fly because he thinks with all the baddies dead the spirit is at rest, but Dean is driving distracted because he can't get Lucas out of his mind.

"I just don't want to leave this town until I know the kid's okay."

And Sam responds by saying something that is supposed to relay to the audience who Dean really is, except we have already seen who Dean really is, so it just sounds stupid:

"Who are you and what have you done with my brother?"

Dean just responds with a "Shut up" but I responded with a "Fuck you."

When they get back to Andrea's house it didn't go unnoticed by me that while Sam is doing all the hard work to get her out of the tub that is trying to drown her, Dean is in the hallway protecting Lucas.

BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HE FUCKING DOES, SAM.

Another interesting quote from Dean when they are talking about the past, "Nothing stays buried." Oh, Dean, at this point you have no idea how right you are.

We get this melodramatic moment while Dean and Sam are both diving into the water trying to save Lucas where Sam comes up from under the water and sadly shakes his head at Lucas' mom just so we can get the heroic shot of Dean darting up from under the water with Lucas in his arms.

Dean saved the kid.

But at the end of the episode, Dean is still not happy because he couldn't save the sheriff (who we find out was one of the bad guys) and Sam comes up with this doozy:

"We're not gonna save everybody."

I swear soulless Sam wasn't too far a stretch from regular Sam.

But I digress.

Sam apologizes to Andrea (not Dean...Andrea) and Andrea gets a line that just screams THIS IS HOW DEAN FEELS ABOUT JOHN:

"Dad loved me. He loved Lucas. No matter what he did, I have to hold on to that."

We get two cute Dean/Lucas moments: Lucas insisted on making sandwiches for Dean to take with him on the road and Dean taught Lucas (who is suddenly speaking again) to say "Zeppelin Rules!" (Folowed by a high-five. Maybe the only high-five Dean gets in the series.)

Oh Dean. We don't know it yet, but they did you so dirty.

Some notes for posterity:

In this episode, the 'monster' is a child who was killed by two of his bullies (one being the sheriff, Lucas' grandfather). So the bad guy is actually the good guy and some of the victims are the bad guys.

We get our first scene where Dean and Sam are digging with shovels. In this case, they aren't digging up a grave, but they dig up the dead boy's bicycle after Lucas shows them where it is buried.

The significant music from this episode comes from Ratt - Round and Round, Bad Company - Movin' On, and if you listen REALLY hard in the car you can hear Billy Squier - Too Daze Gone.

The brothers pose as agents from the U.S. Wildlife Service and give their names as Agent Ford (Dean) and Agent Hamill (Sam) but use their real first names when they introduce themselves to Andrea.

This hunt takes place at Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin.

Dean wears John’s jacket in this episode.

Second episode in which a woman the Winchesters have helped gives Dean the thank you kiss. This time on the lips.

Recognizable Guest Star in this episode: Daniel Hugh Kelly

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randomreadingtimewithtsuki · 2 years ago

Note

Hello dear Thank you very much for writing my request about otogawa furuoki x Lieutenant reader, just wondering if you could write part 2 about them. I read the post every day because it is really wonderful. It has become a part of my daily life 😅

Only if you want to write part 2, but if you don't want to, that's okay, I understand you!!!

Hi! Of course i can! I am glad you enjoyed it!

I just hope i can live up to expectation !! Not quite a part 2 i guess? but more HC for sure XD

Thank you for requesting!

Link to the first part here!

TW: I guess mentions of battle and injuries.

Tsuki's Note: Once again, The Original Gotei 13 is written by my perception of them. If more official content gets around, my portait of them might be wrong.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

As i said on the last batch of HC, you slowly grew closer to Furuoki.

You guys got more and more comfortable about spending time together and soon enough your relatioship got to the ?? status.

This means that you weren't just captain and lieutenant, nor friends, but also not lovers.

Something inbetween those.

Unfortunally neither of you had the time or knew how to approach the topic, as the war with the Quincies was getting closer and closer.

You both just had some awkward proximity moments.

When the war happened you could tell Furuoki was worried about you.

Not like he didn't trust you or didn't put faith on your fighting skills, just a worry he couldn't help. What if you get hurt? what if you get stuck under some building?

You were worried as well, your captain would become one of the main targets now.

As expected of any battle field you guys got apart.

After a sequences of rough fights, many dead comrades and terrible injuries, you could find your captain again.

Furuoki wasn't in one piece either, but he seemed to be ok-ish.

As soon as you spotted him, you called out and threw your arms around his neck.

The man was a bit taken aback by the sudden hug, but he returned your affection.

He held you very tighly, as if you would disappear in thin air. You felt as if your ribs would break.

He nuzzled on the crook of your neck, none of you said anything.

Your moment was broken by some screaming and explosions, but the war was near an end.

When it was all warped up and preparation to mourn and respect the dead was done, you found Furuoki seated on what used to be the 10th division's yard.

You sat next to him, leaning on his shoulder and let out a sigh.

The silence was comfortable.

Your captain soon complained the work it would take to rebuild the structure, specially with less people now.

You couldn't help but giggle and offer your help.

That is when Furuoki took this moment to ask if you were really going to stay around.

You had no doubt when answering that as a lieutenant, you wouldn't leave.

But you were cut short mid setence when he asked:

"No, not the squad. I meant.... around... Me"

You blinked. You stuttered a " Well, yes. I will stay around.... you" while feeling your cheeks burn.

Furuoki nodded and had a small smile on his face.

From there onwards you got a feeling you had an upgrade of relationships status.

Don't get me wrong, you guys had shit ton of work ahead.

Slowly but surely you rebuild the 10th squad again and also added a room.

A room to just sit back and enjoy some tea together.

You both chatted alot about the new layout. So a few jokes about you two renovating your home popped up.

After everything was settle, new room and all, you had your next relaionship status upgrade: you officially became the new Tutor for new joiners and the captain spouse.

It was quite funny to see all the new comers face when they realized that you weren't just the lieutenant.

Especially because you and Furuoki weren't that much of PDA, but it was noticible you had a different treatment.

Kinda VIP.

Whenever you had a peaceful moment for the two of you, You sighed and smiled.

It was such a nice feeling to be back home.

Furuoki would pat your head and smile sweetly.

Here you, watching the stars together, peacefully and quietly.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for reading!

I did not proof read this! Sorry!

#bleach x reader #bleach #furuoki otogawa x reader #furuoki otogawa

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invisiblegarters · 1 year ago

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23.5 Episode 9

Last week: sapphic teachers, Aylin and Luna being adorable and confessing in morse code, kisses!

I dunno man. Eight hours a day could mean that we work two of them. I feel like I could handle that.

I say this every episode, but Sun and Ongsa really are cute.

Latte is still best dog.

I would snatch up the chance to do an exchange program if I were Ongsa. I did not have the opportunity as a teen but man, that would have been so great.

Oh Aylin. I love her. Those awkward smiles i'm dying.

Ongsa absolutely can't ride a bike.

I am so glad that Sun decided to start with a bicycle instead of a scooter.

Okay I know they gotta do their advertising thing so I'm not gonna say a word about the makeup ad. I'm not.

Okay one thing: I do think it's cute that Aylin wants to look cute for Luna. Not that she need the makeup for that, but you know.

Hahaha Sun I love you. I love that she's like "well my girlfriend moves faster than you two, I'm so lucky."

...is that not how it went?

Aw poor Alpha. I bet she feels so out of the loop.

I do love how concerned they all are for her. This show is so damn cute and lovely.

I'm sorry but can they just keep putting Ciize in those sleeveless shirts? Please? For me?

Aw that advice was good.

Okay this looks like an intervention though.

Dammit, Alpha! What did your teachers just tell you? Although to be fair I get her feeling cornered.

Oh my gosh this girl is so cute. Is she making octupi out of the sausages? ADORABLE.

Aw this family stuff is so great.

LOL okay this is hilarious. I think it's great Ongsa isn't going to have more time than one day to prepare. Girl is gonna stress herself into a heart attack if she gets any more time.

Ton is killing me with the second hand embarrassment my god. I am beginning to think that he only wants what he can't have. Or that he deliberately pursues girls that he knows aren't gonna ever take him seriously. I read a theory that he might be ace (or aro, or both) and my goodness I'd love that but I'm trying not to get my hopes up because I still feel like TonCharoen is gonna happen.

Welp that went well. I don't think Ton was being malicious because he's just not that type, but also Aylin just isn't comfortable. I don't think that Luna is in the wrong to want her to open up to her friends a little, but poor Aylin must feel so pushed.

Although a part of me does wonder if part of Aylin's thing is that she does want friends, but she's so used to being treated like shit for just being herself that she's ultimately decided not trying at all is better.

Oh hey this is very sensual for this show. Good for them!

I'm sorry I just got all caught up in my Aylin feelings again. She's hands down my favorite, I feel for her so much.

Next week: MORE NIDA AND BAMBAM. Bambam please get hit with a clue by four before this show is over I am begging you.

#23.5 #23.5 the series #episode 9

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motionpicturesforcarrie · 1 year ago

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stressful week... all yearbook pages are due on friday and it feels like barely any of us are actually working on it. ive put sm effort into it when i didnt even intend to join in the first place but now i feel like im part of sthn at least. stats final in preparation for the AP test is on friday and i am NOT ready. plus i have to take the final after school and itll end at like 7 pm. then the next day i have a choir competition which i have to get up early for and it lasts the whole day. ive had choir practices every day after school its so tiring. i cant just not show up because i have a solo for both of the songs we're performing. also taking graduation photos tomorrow and more choir practice in costume so i have to bring a shit ton of stuff to school. on friday we're having a party themed off the book we read in AP lit and i was gonna bring my classical guitar but im bringing sm stuff and leaving school late so probably just gonna borrow my choir director's shitty tiny guitar or my boyfriend's electric. guitar..

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dreamwritesimagines · 2 years ago

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It’s CMA-

I’m already planning to yell at you and I haven’t even started the chapter yet. in preparation: DREAM WHAT THE FUCK. Okay now that that’s out of the way, im going to go read it.

Ugh I hate her dad so much.

Aw sister bonding! And their aunt and uncle being protective; you love to see it.

I don’t love the idea that Josie thinks that part of the reason clover got married is to protect herself from their parents because I’m worried she’ll say that to Benedict and crush him. I mean he already thinks that she’s only with him to avoid angering the ton but still.

FUCK CLOVER DONT LIE TO HIM. YOU NEED TO TALK TO HIM!!!!!!!!!! DONT TRY TO PROTECT HIS FEELINGS PROTECT YOURSELF. Ugh Ben is going to be so upset when he finds out.

Going from holding her own wrist out of fear to squeezing his for reassurance (for his or hers, I couldn’t really say). I love the thought that instead of squeezing hands or whatever they squeeze each other’s wrists. The entire concept is so poetic I just-

SCREAMING FUCK CLOVER NO FUCK NO FUCK NO FUCK NO FUCK NO FUCK NO NO NO NO DONT SELF DESTRUCT FUCK FUCK FUCK

(I am hoping and praying that she has more of the seeds somewhere but I am so scared. This is going to crush Ben and her when she realizes what she’s done)

I wonder if instead of a party, it was a nice dinner for the two of them because he noticed she was sad….

Fuckkkk Ben didn’t come home?????? This is so devastating dream fuck no. I’m not even done reading and I’m already screaming for the next chapter

Shit she’s tearing him apart. Holy fuck clover I get that you’re stressed but for the love of god shut the fuck up.

Look I love to commend you for your ability to write drama and emotional scenes without making it a soap opera which is still definitely the case, but this is so much worse than a soap opera. This feels like being personally stabbed in the gut over and over and over again.

This is painful and raw and personal and emotional and tragic. My heart is absolutely aching for them right now. And the absolute whiplash that Ben went through………. He’s going to be a wreck

I actually think that contrary to what clover thinks that he will actually stop creating art because he’ll be too upset, which I think would be a really interesting twist. Instead of the pain she causes being the reason for her art, she’ll have to realize that it’s because of the joy she brings to his life.

And it’s true that by any measure he’s had an easier life than her, but to say that his pain and suffering isn’t just as valid is so cruel and invalidating; suffering is not a competition.

Also Ben has been through a lot. Besides the obvious part of his dad dying, he’s constantly being told how he’s the spare, how he’s second string and not as important.

He’s being told that how he loves his life doesn’t really matter compared to Anthony. He’s like the personification of the ‘nothing matters (/pos) vs nothing matters (/neg)’. I’m sure he’s struggled with the latter at some points as well. Even when he’s come to terms with it, there are still moments like when Anthony went to the duel where he has a crisis of faith.

Ugh idk why you said we might be mad at Ben…. Maybe in future chapters but def not this one. I can exactly blame clover but I’m kind of going to blame clover….

CMA hi darliiiing! ❤️

Lolll oh I knew you would be yelling at me for sure 😂

Josie and Clover will always be there for each other❤️ So will their aunt and uncle ❤️

Oh I don't think Josie thinks that or will tell Benedict that, no worries🥰 She thinks Clover married for love, but still thinks it's also an advantage that she married especially now that her parents can't drag her back to their home 😏

Squeezing wrist thing yeeees! ❤️ It's their way of holding hands and it'll be adorable 🥰

I think she planted all the seeds in the vase actually 😏 Buuut will the gardener throw the vase away? 😏 Or will he keep it?😁

Nopeeee, he was too busy partying so he didn't come home 😈

Clover did NOT hold back 💔

Omg darliiiing this is so sweet of you! ❤️ I really enjoy angst and it's wonderful to hear that I could reflect those emotions ❤️😍

That would definitely be an interesting twist and it would shock Clover! 😱

And it’s true that by any measure he’s had an easier life than her, but to say that his pain and suffering isn’t just as valid is so cruel and invalidating; suffering is not a competition. This is so true!

But Clover thinks it is 😏 That's what she told Benedict about her and Josie's childhood, how Josie had it worse than her 💔 So I think she made herself believe it, and now that she snapped, she ended up saying all that to Benedict 💔

And that's another thing Clover needs to realize, that Benedict's life wasn't "perfect" even if it looked like it was ❤️

They will both be so so heartbroken in the next chapter 😏😈

Thank you so so much for this! ❤️❤️❤️

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onlyjaeyun · 1 year ago

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loved loved loved the recent chap baby!! it’s so heart warming to see y/n talk with her girls again💞 i love how they can’t manage to stay on one topic bc that’s literally how my friends and i are in our gc too😭 AND MINGYU BEING Y/N’S BODYGUARD IS SOOOO SEXY WOWW i screamed into my pillow when i read that part

i’m preparing myself for this next wave of angst and i’m genuinely terrified🥲 but i know you’re a happy ending gal so im not too worried but also still worried LMAO

hope ur taking care of urself baby sending a big kiss ur way mwahh💋

- 💌

AAAH BABY!!!!!🥺 thank you SO much 🥺 and im so glad you guys enjoyed my choixe of bodyguard as much as i do 🤭🤭

and dont ever worry about me breaking y'all's heart and leaving it at that bc i could NEVERRRRR🤕 i just put you through a shit ton of pain and then heal it all at once you know 😮‍💨

sending you a kiss baby, i hope you have a great day 💞

#; mailbox 📬#; strictly business

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jirishnesensei · 3 months ago

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Mirio Togata x Reader | Isekai AU | Long Fic [18+]

Warming up to you ch5. Quirks? Not my style.

⊱ Pairings - mirio 3rd year student x reader

⊱ About - Boku No Hero Academia was your favourite anime. You watched it every week when a new episode came out, but what if you were transported into the world? Having no clue how you got there and you're being accused of being a part of the League Of Villians. Suffice to say, it's not the best way to start the show.

⊱ Warnings/tags - 18+ (eventually), fluff(for the most part), angst, smut, fem reader, romance, pining, SLOW BURN, swearing, friends to lovers, death, jealousy, she falls first he falls harder, mirio is mean (with reason), first everything, sassy mirio, fangirl reader, unrequited love

⊱ status - ongoing

⊱ chapters - 5/x

⊱ word count - 2.8k

⊱ Masterlist

Your eyes are barely open, pushing the bathroom door that's adjacent to your room and next to Mirio's. Sluggishly dragging your feet along the tiled floor and to the mirror so you could brush your teeth, but when you look at the reflection you shriek in fright at the gastly sight of you. You almost forgot how exaggerative animes were. You looked like a bear. Glistening with drool at the corner of your mouth, bush for hair and off the shoulder shirt. You don't even move around that much in your sleep.

Sighing, you open the cabinet to take your toothbrush out but freeze seeing Mirio's beside yours in a cute plastic cup that has the word 'Lemillion' heat pressed onto it. Your heart beats just a little bit faster knowing that he's settled your things beside his, despite his, per say, dislike towards you.

Even hearing the clanking of pottery and the faucet running in the kitchen, knowing that he's in there preparing breakfast makes your cheeks flush. You shake your head, trying to not get distracted by all these very distracting ideas.

Last night when you both had gotten back from your shopping, which was an actual haul of every possible nessecity imaginable, you went straight to your room to really cozy up the place in hopes that it can become your safe haven when shit gets too non-fictional here, leaving Mirio to his devices after he had been subjected to spending the entire afternoon with you. Bless him though, he was more than helpful carrying all of your bags to your room, even offered his hand to help unpack if you wanted, but you could see the indecisive look on his face when he did, he's not very good at hiding his emotions, plus he had said there was a ton of homework waiting for him tackle so you left him be and haven't seen him since.

Sadly, the thought did cross your mind how your circumstance is far from those fanfictions you would always read where the host is toothachingly sweet and there's only one bed that forces you both to sleep together and feed off of each others body warmth. You even took the liberty of sneaking out of your room in the dead of night to find his spare blankets because, man, he does not cover his bedding abundantly.

That must be a little over 12 hours ago, and still, every second feels like a lifelong fever dream. You're still waiting for that lamp to look funny.

After lathering a decent amount of toothpaste on your brush, ankles crossed over the other and leaning on the white, cold basin for stability, you don't register that the apartment is now dead silent with all the noise being produced in the bathroom, not until the bathroom door slams open, startling you back with a shriek as you watch Mirio waltz in, clad in his uniform without the blazer and ignoring your existence like a man on a mission, crouching down at the cabinets beneath the basin where he starts rummaging for something.

"E-excuse me?" You stare dumbfounded as if you were the one that was intruding, toothbrush hanging from your mouth when he stops what he's doing to look up at you and finally dings with the realization that this was not normal. You could have been naked for crying out loud!

"Oh! Sorry, Mornin'." and he's back to rummaging. You swear you felt your eye twitch. "Ah! There it is." he pulls out a thick textbook with the words 'advanced heroics' written in caps on the front. Why his book was in the bathroom you don't ask, but he does the courtesy of over explaining the situation to you anyway as he stood up and you stood there half wondering why you haven't kicked him out yet.

"I tried revising while I was in here, looks like I forgot about the textbook when I put it away so it wouldn't get wet when I showered."

Oh, you tried hard to not picture him showering, more over, that he even took the time to protect it from the water when it clearly looked like it was on it's last legs. Every page dog eared, the spine taped back one too many times and faded, it'd be more plausible if he had just left it there and forgot about it for months on end. He looks into the mirror heedlessly then his eyes find yours and for the second time since interrupting you, he bounces with the realization that he should probably leave and apologizes while he's half way out the door.

"Sorry! the lock works if you didn't know." And he's gone, the silence making you wonder if you had just imagined that entire thing. Are mornings always going to be this sporadic?

You picked out an outfit that you had gotten the previous day and made your way to the kitchen where your nose was instantly taken away by the smell of breakfast, inhaling and bunching your hair over your shoulder. Mirio's at the stove where his dress shirt sleeves are rolled up and he has an apron on that you're eager to see the front of.

"Did you make some for me or will I have to dig for scraps?" Mirio looked up from his pan where he had been adding chopped chillies and sees you sit down behind him. Eyes glazing over your outfit.

"I thought about it, but figured if I don't feed you, you might go feral on me." He continues with the meal.

That I would. Thank god he's not so uptight anymore, am I right?

"You know, living under the same roof, I don't think I've told you my name yet." You say.

"And what is your name?" He asks, still focused.

"It's (y/n) (l/n)." Just as you smile, he sets your breakfast down infront of you where you can see his apron comically, but accurately say 'I'm an egg-cellent chef!' with an egg chef holding a bacon spatula.

You want to comment on it but you're soon too distracted by the mouth watering meal before you, salivating at the sheen it had. You take your utensils and start scarfing down the meal like you've never eaten before.

"Do you have any juice?" You ask with a mouth full.

Mirio's tender eyes look up from his meal and widen at the sight of how much you've eaten already. "Don't eat so fast! you're going to choke."

You stop chewing instantly, cheeks tinting a pale pink as he sighs, pointing at the fridge. "It's in the fridge. On the door."

You swallow your food hastily, distracted by how worried he actually sounded there before you nod and leave to grip the fridges metal handle. That icey breeze from the fridge does wonders on your burning cheeks, eyes settling on the door where the various condiments are. A little lower and you see the juice there. You pick the carton up but it feels pretty empty in your hand.

"You're nearly out of this." You hold it up for Mirio to see and he only hums in response with a mouth full of food. You walk over to the cabinets that are behind him, swallowing for some reason when you struggle to reach for a glass, but you stiffen when Mirio's arm comes over, comically larger than yours, the faint scent of his laundry detergent consuming you as he takes a cup down from the rim with ease, handing it to you.

"T-thanks." You clutch it to your chest.

"You're welcome.' He mumbles around his mouth full. Turning back around while you close the cabinet door. You couldn't help but think about how domestic everything feels. Settling back down in your seat where you pour yourself a glass.

Mirio has the U.A textbook from the bathroom beside him as he ate, rice bowl in one hand and chopsticks in the other, skimming over some highlighted lines while you take a sip of your juice, briefly knitting your brows as you drank because it tasted really good, you almost downed the whole thing. He has a super old radio sitting on the window sill above the sink that you think must have come with the apartment, playing local news about this weeks latest hero saves. Honestly, you'd probably be dying on the floor if Mirio was not hell-bent on ignoring your very existence. Who knows, maybe that's a blessing in disguise because if he had been acting like his usual self you'd likely foam at the mouth. Hm...maybe that's a chance you're willing to take.

"You know, I really think you and I would get along really well if you gave me a chance-"

"Eat, Villian." He cuts you off, making a point of turning the page as he ignores the way you push your tongue to your teeth, irked.

"Still rolling with that name, huh? Geez, fine...I just thought I'd let you know that your food kinda tastes like up dog." You start to pick at your food.

A beat of silence passes. You can see he's no longer following the words on his page. "...What's up dog?"

And you give him possibly the most smug smile ever, leaning on your fist. "Oh nothin' much, what about you?"

And he freezes. Like his brain is short-circuiting. The moment just before a sneeze. Going against his very nature to laugh out loud at your brilliant joke and you're honestly surprised at how hard he's trying to supress it, releasing a heavy breath like the palpahable need to buckle over had subsided.

"Really? You won't even laugh?" You exasperate and he just continues with his food like you weren't about to make his day.

"That was close... is your quirk gaining control over someone when they laugh?"

You deadpan, "You are special. No really, I think you're really special."

After you both finished up, Mirio grabbed his campus bag and together you guys headed out onto the busy streets, but not before you urged Mirio to buy more of that juice because it's officially your new favourite drink.

Now as you can imagine, Mirio is pretty tall, we're talking 180cm tall because you have no idea what that is in ft. Point being, you had to semi-speed walk just to keep up with him and when you did it felt like he was picking up in pace just to piss you off again.

"Are you doing this on purpose?" You panted beside him.

"huh, doing what?" He doesn't even bother looking at you when he answers, but now that you're looking at him, you notice the subtle concentration on his face and how his lips seem to move as though he's saying something. He's probably trying to recall his notes from this morning.

Ah. You decide to say nothing after that, that is until you realize you're still walking the furthest you've ever walked from Mirio's apartment. "Wait, are we walking to U.A?" You perk because as far as your eyes can see, it's just city.

"We're walking to the train station. Then we'll take that to get to U.A."

"Oh. Okay, cool...and how far is that exactly?" Mirio glances at your worried expression that he really can't pin the reason for.

"Only 30 minutes."

"Only? Phew, not to alarm you, but I can't guarantee that I won't die by 10." Flashbacks of the walks you used to take to your own campus flicker through your mind. You don't notice Mirio's lips tug ever so slightly as he looks ahead.

"Would you like me to carry you, princess?"

And at the question your face instantly pulls in disapprovement. At this point you weren't surprised by his sassy remarks anymore, still, they sounded awful coming from him. "If I'm the princess then that makes you my humble servant."

In response his eye twitches and you have to bite back your laugh because he may just leave you behind to find your way yourself.

After a long walk and an hour train ride where you truly gushed over all the peculiar looking people, you had finally reached the grand school U.A, to which you had to deny being given such a privilege of walking through the massive steel gates without truly appreciating it first. Mirio stopped when he couldn't hear your footsteps anymore and turned around to find you waiting by the entrance, no, gawking at who knows what.

"I'm starting to think you just pretend to not know anything." He says, clearly over your little antics and it's not even past 7 yet.

"Shh! This is a special moment for me. One cannot simply walk through the gates of U.Aaayyy!" you yelp when Mirio drags you through the gates by your wrist. You weren't too bothered by it since you were in a trance by the beauty of the place anyway. Taking it in in 2x speed. The grass was freshly mowed, all the trees hemmed, Sakura petals floating around mid air like a damn k-drama. Then, you look up at the gigantic building that Mirio was dragging you towards. More like just holding your wrist in case you veer off the path which you definitley would do if he had to let go.

The building was a literal sky scraper. Reflecting the city behind you perfectly and looks like what you would imagine to be the embodiment of what a hero should be. Tall, fearless and unbreakable.

You're so engrossed you don't even register the one comment someone gave in passing, let alone Mirio's response.

"Hey Togata! Woah, is that the villian girl?!"

Mirio doesn’t even flinch, but his grip on your wrist tightens slightly as he glances back over his shoulder with a friendly grin.

“Yo! no need to jump to conclusions. She’s with me.” he says casually, flashing a wink at the student, but it’s clear he’s putting an end to the conversation.

Before you know it, you're standing in front of a door, but peering down the hallway because you just cannot get over this, until Mirio flicks your forehead. You yelp, about to scold him, when at the corner of your eye you see Class 1A written in bold, red letters. A clear indication of what will be presented to you in a matter of minutes. Your body starts tingling with delight. Your smile unperturbed. You could already hear talking from the other side. So tempted to just barge in and see everyone right infront of you, but Mirio knocked on the door first, his hand still around your wrist as if knowing what you were thinking.

A few seconds later the door swung open, revealing a tired looking Aizawa staring back at you. And he was tall. You're talking 6 feet tall. It's no wonder the doors are so long. You had to use every bone in your body to not squeal in joy. Or faint. You were unpredictable right now.

You also tried to take a peek inside of the class, but Mirio pushed your face back with the back of his hand which muffled you grunt as Aizawa shut the door behind him before you could see anything.

You looked up at Mirio with a tick on the side of your head.

"Why? At least tell me why." You demanded.

"We don't know what your quirk could be." Aizawa answers for him. Making you look at him with practically stars in your eyes. "You could tell us everything about their lives just by looking at them for all we know, so we need to check if you have a quirk first before we can believe in anything you're saying."

You sigh in disappointment when you hear his reasoning, now not being able to meet Class 1A just yet. You could understand why, but it was still such a tease to make you stand right infront of the class door. "I guess that makes sense."

"Head to class third year." Aizawa tells Mirio and he obliges no problem without even saying goodbye to you.

"Yes sir!"

Is it sad that you solemnly watch him walk away for a few seconds, for a brief moment wondering if he'd ever trust you at all before you looked back into Aizawas' red stained eyes.

"So where to EraserHead?"

"The hospital."

~~~

After 10 minutes of walking with Aizawa you were beginning to get bored of the silence.

"So does this mean we're getting an x-ray of my pinky toe?" You asked randomly. Aizawa didn't answer you so you tried to ask a different question.

"If I really did have a quirk, why don't you just erase it with your quirk? Wouldn't it make life easier-"

"Your quirk could range between bending 1 finger backwards or total destruction. We can't afford the luxury of allowing you to just walk into our students class without knowing anything about you." Aizawa explained sternly. You felt bad for asking the question now. They really were just being cautious since they have a lot of reason to believe that the villains are moving again. You decided to ask a much more light hearted question next.

"Did present mic really give you the name EraserHead?"

Aizawa audibly sighed, slumping against the excited look on your face. You truly had no control over what you asked these people. They were mere figments of your imagination just two days ago! Now you had the chance of asking them all sorts of questions? You couldn't pass that opportunity up. Thus your irritable questions continued to come one after the other until you reached the hospital.

When you get there and do the test you and Aizawa are told to wait inside a room for the x-ray of your pinky toe to show. You loved that idea in the anime.

"Okay so the results are just as we predicted," the doctor came in with a clipboard in his hand. "Miss (y/n) is definitely quirkless."

"Hah!" You point a finger at Aizawa who stares at you blankly. You realize how awkward that is considering he hasn't been the one hammering you on having a quirk, curse you Mirio, then you shamefully lower your head. Allowing him to speak with the medical professional.

He says some things, asking for a copy of the test before mumbling a thank you then gesturing for you to follow him again.

"Does this mean I can speak to the class now?" You asked rather impatiently.

"Not yet."

"Oh c'mon, why not?" You whine. "The sooner I can prove that what I'm saying is true then the sooner I'll be able to help with the shie hassaikai investigation!" You tried to persuade, but Aizawa was as stiff as a board. You were not going to get anywhere with him for sure, understandably so considering he teaches kids for a living. He probably has the answer 'No' laminated on a business card.

Aizawa then leads you back into U.A and into what looked like the teachers quarters. Your heart started to race again. Were you going to actually see All Might? If you were, you didn't know if you'd be able to control the fangirling this time.

"She doesn't have a quirk." Aizawa says, making the chair infront of you turn to reveal Principle Nezu. Your cheeks blow up, physically trying to keep your words in.

Keep calm, keep calm, keep calm.

HE'S SO CUTE.

oh my god, calm down.

"So is this the one that fell from the sky? I'm principle-"

"-Nezu! Oh my gosh you were so cute when you used your quirk against Kaminari and Ashido! That episode was hilarious!" You blew up. Shaking the tiny paw presented to you in your hand. He was just an iddy biddy little mouse! How could you not lose your shit?

Principle Nezu was surprisingly okay with the sudden outburst as he nervously laughed at all the attention you were giving him.

"Well thank you. I do try."

Aizawa starts to cut you off, seemingly used to your random outbursts. "Do you want me to take her to the class?"

Nezu sighed as he closed his eyes to think. You didn't seem like a threat and the sooner they can figure out who you are, the better.

"Okay you can take her. Just restrain her first Aizawa."

"Eh? Restrain?" You lean away, looking between Nezu and Aizawa with a tugged lip before being pulled away. You found it awfully silly how they were going to restrain you, since you couldn't hurt a fly even if you wanted to. The amount of precaution they were actually taking over an obsessive fangirl makes you want to write about it on a forum.

The door to class 1A finally opened and Aizawa walked in first. You asked if you could still wait by the door, wanting to make atleast some kind of entrance to your all time favourite gang.

"Quiet down." He somehow yells softly. "This is the girl that will tell us a few things about your past."

Aizawa started tugging on his cloth which was the signal for you to emerge from the door, but you were completely wrapped and bound from shoulders to ankles with Aizawas binding cloth so naturally you hopped right in. A wide grin presented to the class and your stomach doing constant flips at the sight of class 1A.

"Whats up!"

⊱ Take me to the next chapter!

⊱ I want to see prev chap!

Taglist - @the-faceless-bride @distinguishedoafbiscuitopera @lostsomewhereinthegarden @baileebrown @elementalbear @ava-cjkk @photographygall Dividers by - enchanthings-a

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