#so i negotiated it down to monday wednesday and friday

[tardis--dreams]

I'm gonna forget to send that counselor that email tomorrow morning i can feel it

[all-risejd]

A New Judgment Chapter 4: Protective Men and Matching Energy (Poly Judgment Day Fic)

Written by Scarletxraine who can’t seem to remember to post to this godforsaken hellsite so has me post here for your enjoyment!

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7.

"I'll do it" She tells Triple H.

"Excellent. Don't tell anyone yet I want their genuine reactions on Friday. Im booking you a flight now. You will fly out tomorrow. Once you land I am having you brought to the performance center for your evaluation and to begin your training. There we will go over the plan. You will fly out separately on Thursday to be there for smackdown and will be in a separate hotel. Once you debut you will be paired with your stable mates." He explains,

"Sir, before I sign this I have one question." She states.

"Ask it?" He prompts

"Will I be expected to kiss or be physical for the storylines?" She asks her voice more timid than she would like it to be with her new boss.

"It is a strong possibility, Nessa. But if it doesn't seem natural, we will scrap it so if you aren't comfortable it can be negotiated. We'll go over the details when I see you Wednesday, tomorrow is just training and testing." He offers. She says goodbye and hangs up the phone and begins packing, knowing she has to pack for at least 2 weeks. She pauses as the phone rings.

Dom's name flashes across the screen, she lets it ring knowing she is at risk of slipping up and letting him know if she answers. She isn't at all surprised when the phone rings again and it is a different member of the Judgement Day, and one she doesn't expect. She answers the phone apprehensively,

"Hello."

"Hello, Luv, Dom Dom is freaking out because you won't answer him." Finn's voice comes through and Nessa starts biting her thumbnail.

"I just can't talk to him right now, he went from being a ghost to literally blowing up my phone every day. It's too much, I need air, I need to think, to breathe." She explains, pacing across the room trying to keep from saying what she can't.

"Look he asked me to call and I am sorry he is so overbearing with this. I'll have a talk with him. But luv." He says, trying to make sure he has her attention.

"Yeah,"

"He still cares deeply for you and wants to earn your forgiveness. He wants you to be a part of his life even as just a friend. He just doesn't know how to communicate that without smothering you."

"Thanks, Finn, you know I wouldn't peg you as the voice of reason." She compliments

"Darlin, you could peg me as anything you want!" He responds and Nessa can't say anything besides the squeak of air that just left her. "Calm down luv I'm just joking, you are too easy to rile up", His accent seems thicker as he speaks.

"You all are going to be the death of me, I just know it." She finally manages to choke out and Finn laughs.

"Look, we hope you enjoyed the show and also hope you decide to join us. If not just keep in touch, for Dom's sake." He asks with true concern in his voice which makes Nessa nod in agreement even though he can't see it. "Are you nodding even though I can't see it?" He asks, letting out a laugh again.

"Uh yeah, I was, sorry."

"It's ok, look I'm gonna go so we can get some rest, we have an early flight out tomorrow and we are staying at Dom's place just giving you fair warning. I'll keep him from going to your place so you can have your space." He promises and Nessa smiles, some of the anxiety leaving her body.

"Thank you, Finn, that is really sweet."

"No problem princess, have a good night." He hangs up the phone and Nessa is thankful for what he promised even though she won't be home. She tosses her phone on the bed and continues packing wondering what mess Rey has gotten her into. Her alarm goes off early in the morning and she continues to lay in bed, scrolling through her unread messages from the day before.

From Dom Dom-

Monday 8:45 am

I'm sorry mi cileto I can't say I'm sorry enough for what I did. There is no excuse.

Monday 9:30 am

Are you ok? I haven't heard from you since yesterday.

Monday 10 am

Nessa I am starting to get worried.

Monday 11am

Mi sol, I want to make sure you are ok and to set up a time to talk. You deserve to know why I did what I did. I want to know what to do to make things right and at least be your friend.

Monday 11:30 am

I deserve this

Monday 12pm

Mi vida, you are probably at work and I don't know why I didn't think about that, I am sorry for the constant messages. I'll try again when you are supposed to be off work.

From- tall dark and broody

Monday 11:30 am

Chiqui I'm sorry Dom Dom is blowing up your phone, I took care of it. Enjoy.

From Dom Dom

Monday 7pm

Enjoy the show Reinita, just give me a chance to earn your forgiveness, please.

Nessa rolls her eyes and decides to leave him on read a taste of what he did to her, she is going to see him later that week anyway and she will hear him out then. Until then he can suffer. She knows Finn has her back on this. She notices she has some time to kill before she has to leave for the airport, so she decides to call Rhea

"Good Morning Doll, to what do I owe this honor?" she asks, letting out a Yawn.

"Sorry if I woke you Demi, but I told Finn and I am going to tell you. I need space, I need time. Dom is blowing up my phone and I need space to think. He wants me to forgive him and I will, I have, but I need space and he needs to earn my trust."

"Oh sweetpea, of course, I'll make sure he gives you that space. Do you need that from all of us? If so, we will do that too. We don't want to pressure you." Rhea agrees.

"Thank you, and no you guys don't blow up my phone and call me at work" Nessa sighs.

"Well, that's good then. We are about to head to the airport. I'm assuming Finn told you we are staying with Dom Dom this week. Maybe we can meet up for lunch just as friends, no pressure." Rhea asks.

"Uh, not this time Demi. I'm not quite ready, my head is all over the place but next time I promise ok?" Nessa lies trying to keep her ass covered so she doesn't get in trouble. She can hear Rhea's smile drop as she responds.

"Oh ok. I'm sorry. No, yeah, I'll let you know next time we are in town. Talk to you later"

"No No Demi It's not like that!" She panics hoping Rhea doesn't hang up.

"It's fine really Nes." Comes Rhea's voice still clearly disappointed.

"No really, I'm not going to be in town when you are here."

"Why?" Rhea asks, sounding a little less disappointed. Nessa doesn't answer, however. "Why won't you be in town? Don't you have to work?..." She trails off at the end. It takes her a moment but the answer clicks in her head. "Oh my god", She whispers, "No fucking way doll!"

"Shhhh, I had no choice, all the calls got me in trouble and the meddling put a target on my back." Nessa tries to shush her and continues, "It is supposed to be a secret to get genuine reactions so please don't spill to the rest of them. Especially Dom. After WrestleMania, he can't always control his expressions." She begs glad at least she didn't hurt her feelings.

"Of course, our little secret sweetheart. I gotta go, the boys are coming" she quickly ends the call.

____________________________________________________________________

Rhea hangs up the phone and quickly slides it in her pocket. Dom walks up and kisses her cheek.

"Who was that Mami?"

"My Mum checking up on me" She answers immediately covering for Nessa.

"Then what is your little secret," Damien asks, grabbing Rhea's bag from her hand and handing it over to Finn.

"She is going to get ice cream without my dad because she needs "me" time" Finn scoffs not believing it but doesn't question it further, Dominik accepts the excuse immediately while Damien is also skeptical and pulls out his phone.

_____________________________________________________________

Nessa starts her car as she gets a text message and decides to open it before driving off.

From- Tall Dark and Broody

"Am I going to see your gorgeous face on Friday Mamita?"

Nessa knows no answer will mean yes again if she doesn't answer and cover so she answers,

"No, I have a shift up until the show starts. I'll be late tuning in, but I look forward to seeing what you guys will do. Stay safe and keep Dom safe please." She asks hoping he buys it.

"Of course Mariposa, you too. Don't let those human Petri dishes get you sick, we want you healthy and happy."

Nessa rolls her eyes and doesn't respond to that and starts her drive to the airport knowing Olivia is going to pick her car up.

Nessa gets back to her hotel room near midnight, walking with a slight limp, sore from all the tests they put her through and her training. She checks her phone for the first time in hours and feels bad about some of the missed messages.

She responds to Olivia and Rhea and shoots a quick generic response to the rest, apologizing saying she was kept late at work which isn't exactly a lie.

"Oh my god how do you do this all the time?" Nessa complains to Rhea

"You get used to it eventually, are you ok?" Rhea answers,

"Yes, just sore. I passed the necessary tests and had my first training session. I have to do it again tomorrow and fly out Thursday. Also, I think I've been had. Luis and Finn have texted me asking if I am going to be there Friday. I told them I am working a later shift but I don't think they believe me. I don't want to get in trouble if they don't seem surprised when I show up." She answers, ranting. Rhea must be able to tell she is spiraling because her phone starts to ring.

"Hey." She groans.

"They may be suspicious but they don't know, they won't give you up. Trust me you won't get in trouble. He is looking more for Dom Dom's reaction anyway. So calm down, you got this." Rhea comforts her.

"If you are sure. Thank you for listening." "Anytime Nes, now tell me what story he wants to go for." She pries.

"Oh no that is all you are getting, I'm going to bed, I have another long day tomorrow then a flight to catch Thursday to make sure I am in town for the show. Goodnight Demi." Nessa avoids the question, not having processed what she was told enough to explain.

Friday morning she is awoken by her phone ringing before her alarm was set to go off. Without thinking or checking the caller id she answers it.

"Finally, Mi Corazon I have been so worried." He sighs in relief and something in Nessa snaps, she is not awake enough to control her mouth.

"You weren't worried when you ghosted me, Dominik. I'm just doing the same to you. I need space and time to think I know Finn has told you. You want my forgiveness, don't smother me, you can't go from nothing to the complete opposite and blow up my phone." She throws her arm over her eyes and continues. "And I'm not your heart or any of the other nicknames to you anymore, I am Nessa or Nes. You don't have that right anymore. You lost it when you dumped me over text and then proceed to ghost me for half a year." There is silence on the other end to the point where she thinks he hung up until she hears him take a shaky breath.

"I have no excuse for what I did Nes. I want to make it right. If you want space you got it. Just tell me what else to do." He tells her, his voice softer than she has ever heard it and her heart aches for him.

"Dom you are clearly trying and for that, I give you credit, you are working to it. And when I say space I don't mean go ghost again. Just not so much ok please." She explains as her alarm starts going off on her phone.

"Oh, I'm sorry for waking you, I know you have to work late. Hopefully, you can catch some of the show tonight." He sounds like guilt is filling him.

"It's ok Dom, some of the kids will have it on in their room so I'll be able to catch some of it. Kill it out there for me ok?" She offers the small peace offering feeling bad at how harsh she was a few minutes earlier.

"Look when we are back in town I want to give you an explanation. You deserve that much, could we meet up for lunch, you choose where." He asks, stopping her from hanging up. She chews on her lip for a moment before answering,

"Yeah, that would be fine Dom. I'll see you around." She ends the call and groans as she gets out of bed and gets dressed and grabs her bag ready for her ride to the arena.

___________________________________________________________________

Ness is pacing in the backstage office they have her in, having just changed into the clothes they picked out of her suitcase so she would match the Judgement Day to hammer home where her allegiances are. She is pulled out of her thoughts by a knock on the door and a voice on the other side.

"Are you decent?" Comes the voice of Triple H.

"Uh yeah come in," She stutters, her nerves making her hands shake.

"How are you doing, nervous?" He chuckles seeing her wring her hands in an attempt to self-soothe.

"Yeah actually, any advice?"

"Just be yourself. You know what to do and say. For all promos. Are you comfortable with the physicality of the plan? Did you practice enough this week?" He asks wanting to make sure she is going to be safe.

"Yes, I am fine with it."

"Good, you are going to be escorted to your place in the crowd so you can get noticed at your queue.. And once again welcome to the family" He holds out his hand to shake and she meets it feeling better from their talk.

She follows the employee Triple H brought to escort her to her seat, surprised at how fast he is making her move and the fact that she sees no superstars. It only takes a few minutes before she is in her seat a guard on either side of her, the crowd starting to roll in. She is shocked again by how many fans are noticing her as they fill in the seats around her. They are whispering to each other before smiling at her and waving. She sheepishly waves back, not used to the attention.

The show eventually starts, with Nessa trying to avoid attention and keep her head down as much as possible so an accidental camera shot can't give her away to the Judgment Day backstage. Eventually, Triple H's music starts and Nessa sighs in relief, all the anxious energy building up and she gulps trying to keep her mouth from drying out. She only half pays attention to what he says as he talks about the future and the draft coming up. Soon enough he introduces The Judgment Day and steps out of the ring as their music starts. Nessa stands up with the crowd which is a mix of cheers and boos.

She watches as Triple H shakes each member of The Judgement Day's hand before disappearing backstage. She is thankful the crowd remained on their feet so this next part would be easier for her. She makes her way to the barricade as they enter the ring and grab mics. She rests her hands on the barricade ignoring the people patting her shoulder and cheering as Rhea tells everybody to rise for her.

Nessa chuckles to herself the boys haven't noticed her yet. Rhea finishes speaking and Nessa knows that Finn is next talking about his match with Edge. How he is still standing and Edge is nowhere to be seen. It is finally Dom's turn he raises the mic to his mouth and the crowd boos so loud she can barely hear what he is saying so he pauses until they stop so he can try again.

"I decided not to show aggression towards my dad." The crowd boos more so Nessa takes the opportunity. She has the guard with her help her onto the barricade where she sits swinging her legs until the people in the ring notice her, the people behind her laugh while the rest of the crowd Boo's Dominik as he tries to talk.

"Hey we got all night!" Finn addresses the crowd looking around at them. He is the first to notice Nessa sitting on the barricade and he smacks Damien's shoulder pointing her out as Dom tries to speak again.

"I'll stand here all night!" Dom yells into the Mic and Nessa can still barely hear him so she exaggeratingly cups her ear smirking. The crowd quiets down again and she sees that Dom notices her on the barricade, his eyes wide and mouth open in shock. Rhea is doubled over laughing seeing Nessa wearing the She's My Mami t-shirt cut how she normally wears it like a sports bra, a purple bandana tied to her wrist.

Damien gestures for Nessa to join them in the ring, the crowd cheering wondering what is going to come next. She hops off the barricade and up the steel steps. Both Dominik and Damien sit on the middle rope and push up the top rope to create an easier opening for Nessa to get in the ring. She pauses on the apron unsure of which way to face when entering the ring. She looks between Dominik and Damien and chooses to face Damien, knowing if she looked at Dominik she might stumble. She locks eyes with Damien and the corners of his lips twitch like he is trying to suppress a smile. Nessa doesn't hide hers as she stands up in the ring. Damien offers his arm again and leads her over to stand by Rhea as Dom tries to speak again over the crowd chanting

"You suck"

"You know who sucks. A father who tells you to break up with the woman you love. A father who lays his hands on his only son. I held back at Wrestlemania. I pulled my punches because I knew at the end of the day, I could not hurt my own father. Especially in front of Mamita, who loves him like a father. I love my dad. I couldn't hurt him even though he caused me to hurt such a lovely woman. But I can't say the same for him. He brought my Mamita to hurt me, to manipulate me and it hurt her. Because when I stood in front of him I could see the anger in his eyes." He continues on in Spanish complaining about what kind of father spanks his son on tv and switches back to English and holds an arm out to Nessa. Nessa looks to Rhea who nods in permission, so she walks over and smiles as he wraps his arm around her shoulders. "But I understand where the lines are drawn dad and as far as we are concerned. You and the rest of my family can go to hell and take Bad Bunny and the rest of your little friends with you." He whispers in Nessa's ear as the crowd continues to boo. "Thank you" He kisses her temple.

Together they watch as the replay shows on the titantron and Rhea laughs as Bunny goes through the table. Nessa can't help but laugh as well, Rhea's joy being contagious. Rhea lifts the mic to her mouth again addressing Nessa, "Good choice mini me"

Instead of saying anything Nessa instead mimics Rhea and sticks out her tongue and Rhea matches the energy to cheers from the crowd. Damien's deep chuckle sends shivers down Nessa's spine before he starts speaking and she doesn't take her eyes off him as directed.

As soon as he is finished speaking Rey's music comes on and the match is announced. Nessa steps out of Dominik's arms and takes a step back as the LWO enters the ring. Rey steps towards Nessa to talk to her like he promised on Raw, only for Rhea and Dominik to step in front of her. Damien pulls her behind him and Finn as well. Keeping his hand on her wrist.

After a tense minute, Damien turns to Nessa, "Come, Mamita, Let's get you away from them so the match can start." He gently guides her to the ropes where Finn is already on the other side. Damien opens the ropes for her again and she gets out and Finn holds his hand out to help her down the stairs. Rhea jumps out of the ring and stands by Nessa and the match begins.

[forcedtogrow]

I've been going to the gym for a few months now, can I message you to ask about tips/routines?

Please feel free to message me if u want more specifics. I personally run a traditional Push Pull Legs split, with 2 days a week for push right now

So for example

Sunday- legs

Monday-push

Tuesday-off

Wednesday-pull

Thursday-off

Friday-push

Saturday-off and/or abs circuit day/myoreps to absolute failure (at home workout)

Legs:

I keep it simple

Barbell squats 5x5

Hip thrusts 4x10-12

Leg press-this one is a little odd. I do one set for 10 reps and then rest 20 seconds and do 10 more reps of that same weight; I do this twice (so, 4 sets total). Use a lower weight as needed

Calf press(whatever machine is available) 5x14-20

Leg extensions 2x12-15 or a drop set

Push:

Barbell bench press- 7 set doing a pyramid style of adding weight and lowering weight throughout the sets (think=structure of the app nSuns) I do this to failure for each weight and don’t care about 1RM at all

Decline bench 3 sets to failure

Incline bench 3 sets to failure (usually 10-12)

Seated shoulder press (arms should be slightly angled in, not straight out) 4x8-12

Dumbbell lateral raise 3 to failure (8-12)

Overhead press 3-5 sets

Reverse cable fly (ESSENTIAL for big shoulders, do not skip. This will likely be very difficult at first bc these muscle are not used often and you should use a low weight to start) 3x10-12 or to failure if I want my upper body to look thiiiccc if im going out after or whtevr

Tricep dip 3 sets to failure (hits short head of Tricep)

Tricep overhead extension 3 sets to failure (hits long head of Tricep)

yeah I know my push day is crazy, but it works. not great for beginners to do this much, so I’d cut out decline bench and pick btwn seated shoulder press and overhead press to avoid injury

Pull:

Deadlift 5x5

Bent over barbell row 3x8-12

T-bar 3x10-12

Lat pull down (wide grip) 3 sets to failure (8-12 at least)

Lat pull down (v bar or close grip) 3 sets to failure, lower weight as needed to get reps in with good form

Cable row (wide grip) 3x12+ make sure you are pull the bar to the bottom of your rib cage to engage your entire back

Back extension (weighted) 2x20 if possible, just body weight if you’ve never done this

Preacher curl 4 sets to absolute failure (must be failure for growth here) at a weight you can do at least 12 reps of while maintaining form

Cross body curl 2x8-12

Cable hammer curl drop set

(I switch up bicep exercises, these are just my current)

This is my basic run-down; I try to avoid accessory movements and stick with compound lifts. For me, hitting all 3 benches is non-negotiable, but I am neurotic. Some good beginner resources are athleanx, who is my favorite exercise yt. FTM fitness has great pages as well, and I can show more info if needed.

[ms-m-astrologer]

Transiting Venus enters Capricorn

Tuesday, January 23 - Friday, February 16, 2024

Venus transits are back to being on the “brisk” side, lasting about 25 days in total length, for the rest of 2024. She’s a trigger now, not an instigator. Transiting Venus will mean a little bit more if you happen to be Venusian (Sun, Moon, &/or an angle in Taurus or Libra; Sun &/or Moon in the 2nd or 7th Houses; natal Venus in close aspect to the Sun, Moon, &/or an angle). But for the rest of us, Venus will need to set off something the slower-moving planets are trying to instigate.

After the adventures of the “Wild Wild West” Venus/Sagittarius, we’re looking for a little control and discipline. Less flailing around, more planning and strategizing. This can be a very snobbish time, especially if our natal Venuses (Veni?) tend to operate on the shallower side.

Bear in mind that the transiting South Node - where we’re getting something wrong - is in Libra, which is ruled by Venus. We need to be a little critical of Venus themes and processes right now, and use Venus’ transits as opportunities to clean up our act.

Art - We can get very snobbish and turn art into a way to enforce “class” divisions. Or, going the “Capricorn miser” route, we disdain all artistic expression as a waste of time, money, and effort. In more positive use of the energy, we put a lot of planning into our artistic expression, and we’re patient and careful about the execution. This is good for launching longer-term projects. (Like the next blanket I plan to crochet.)

Beauty - Sometimes we’ll go out of our way to get ugly; we can’t resist showing our contempt for “appearances.” Other times we twist that Capricorn key phrase “I use” and wield our beauty as a weapon of manipulation. We can try to move beyond a definition of “beauty” as what’s on the surface - &/or make every effort to find the beauty in nature.

Love - This can get transactional: “What’s in it for me?” Sometimes we play games: “If I behave horribly, will they still love me?” This can be an opportunity to prove that love is responsible, patient, and in it for the long haul.

Money - The stereotypes are the miser with all the cash stuffed in the mattress, and the CFO intent on eternally-increasing profits. Dragonish, really, petty little Smaugs all of them. Better to invest with the longer-term in view: we can make improvements to the home, the wardrobe, etc.

Give about a day or so on either side of the following aspects - maybe longer if any of them connect with something in your birth chart.

Saturday, January 27 - Sunday, January 28:

Venus/Capricorn sextile Saturn/Pisces, 6°00’

Venus/Capricorm trine Jupiter/Taurus, 6°59’

Really, really nice; if this dings something in your birth chart I am extremely jealous! The three planets are in a three-way mutual reception - Venus/Cap is disposited by Saturn/Pisces, which is disposited by Jupiter/Taurus, which is disposited by Venus/Cap. This strengthens the aspects considerably. Hard work and good luck join hands.

Monday, February 5 - Venus/Capricorn square Chiron/Eris, 16°10’. Hurt feelings. We may be too cold, emotionally; we may bargain and negotiate in bad faith. If we’ve hurt someone, we should swallow our pride and make amends.

Wednesday, February 7:

Venus/Capricorn square North Node/Aries and South Node/Libra, 18°53’

Venus/Capricorn trine Uranus/Taurus, 19°08’

Venus/Capricorn trine Juno Rx/Virgo, 19°23’

We have an Earth sign grand trine but Venus is square the Nodes. And remember that Venus rules Libra, which is the South Node’s sign. Some of us are going to realize how we get in our own way every time we “go along to get along,” while others will double down on that. Flowing aspects (like trines) aren’t necessarily good aspects - with this one, any social-climbing is going to come back and bite us in the butt. Instead of trying to scheme and manipulate our way into some kind of high-status relationship, let’s try to find ways to improve everyone’s status quo.

Sunday, February 11 - Venus/Capricorn square Eris/Aries, 24°14’. We’re frustrated - perhaps because we didn’t get our own way; perhaps we tried to manipulate matters and got caught; perhaps because “nobody appreciates all the sacrifices I’ve made for them.” Maybe we could learn to do someone a favor without ulterior motives?

Tuesday, February 13 - Venus/Capricorn sextile Neptune/Pisces, 26°09’. Really beautiful. We’re able to put those Neptunian daydreams and fantasies into concrete form. A very romantic Valentine’s Day Eve, with a traditional flavoring.

Note that Venus will enter Aquarius with the proverbial bang: a conjunction to Pluto.

[andydrysdalerogers]

Yours Submissively ~ Compromise

Steve Rogers X OFC Isabella Davis

Summary: Five Years after the events of Civil War, Steve Rogers has moved on from avenging and has started his own business, Grant Inc. He has a secret that would turn his world upside down. And he's good at keep that secret. Until he meets the woman with violet eyes that could bring him to his knees. Now his mission is to make her, his. But she is the key that could bring the world into balance... or chaos.

And she has no idea.

Series Warnings: slow burn at the beginning, smut, angst, sexual themes of BDSM, dom/sub dynamics, kidnapping, loss of virginity, (and a bunch of others that will come up)

A/N: the taglist is open!

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

I do NOT give permission for my work to be translated or reposted on here or any other site, even if you give me credit. DO NOT REPOST MY FICS. Reblogs, comments, likes, and feedback ALWAYS appreciated

Previous: Hindsight

Series Masterlist ~ Main Masterlist

Riding in the SUV Monday morning, Belle was lost in her thoughts.  She and Steve had spent the remainder of the weekend in bed or moving her stuff from her room to his.  

“I’ll have someone come in and make a bigger closet for us,” Steve said as he placed her dresses on the rack.  

“What’s a matter? Don’t like everything stuffed in here,” Belle teased.  “I don’t need these gowns in here when I don’t go to these events a lot.  We can keep it in the other closet. Besides,” she huffed as he struggled with her jackets, “I still have my apartment and my clothes there. Its not like…”  

“What are you saying?”  Steve stopped in his tracks.  

“I have my own place, Steve.  I’m just here on the weekends so I just need to leave what I need in your room.”  

“But I want you here.”  

“And I want to be here but I do start work on Monday.”  Belle reached up and touched Steve’s face.  “Don’t want you to be sick of me.”  

Steve kissed her softly. “But I lost you for a month.” He mumbled against her lips. “Need you here.”  

“I know amore. I’ll be here every Friday until Sunday.”  

“Monday.”  

“Steve...” 

“C’mon Belle.” 

Belle sighed.   “What will I do for lunch and clothes and stuff?”  

“Mrs. Lewis can make you lunch. And the closet can be sorted out. Bucky can run you to work. Please Belle, please.  Stay with me.”  

Belle paced away as she folded some of her clothes.  She thought for a moment. “I’ll make you a deal.  I’ll stay until Monday but you come stay with me on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”  

“Bucky is not going to agree.”  

“Bucky is gonna want to stay.  Which he already does with Lila.  Compromise Rogers.”  

“Since when do you call me Rogers?” 

“Since when are you this clingy? Friday night, Saturday night Sunday night here.  Tuesday night and Thursday night with me.  That only leaves Monday and Wednesday on our own.  To do the things we have to do by ourselves.”  

“Like what?” 

“Like grading papers for me or if you have to have long meetings.  I promise, I’m not going anywhere but this works.”  

Steve crossed his arms and looked at his girlfriend.  Girlfriend.  That was the first time he even thought about her status. “Fine. Deal.”  

“Pleasure negotiating with you Mr. Rogers.”   Belle extended her hand for him to shake.   He took it  and pulled her closer.  

“We agree with a kiss, Miss Davis, not a handshake.”   He dipped her and kissed her hard, leaving her breathless.   

Monday came and Belle woke up to the smell of food in the air.  She stretched and rolled onto Steve’s chest.  He sighed and wrapped his arm around her. “Go back to sleep Belle.”  

“Can’t. Hungry.”  

Steve chuckled.   “Mrs. Lewis must be baking this morning.” He kissed the top of her head and looked over at the clock. 630 AM.  “What time do you need to be at work, sweet pea?” 

“Orientation is at 9.”   She yawned.  

“Perfect.  We have some time.”  Steve rolled them over, so he was on top of her. “I can have a snack before breakfast.”  

“Didn’t you have enough over the weekend?” 

“Enough of you? Never.” He started to kiss that spot he knew on her neck, causing her to arch her back. He ran his hands over her silk top, teasing her nipple as he moved further down.  

“Steve, we don’t have time,” she panted. 

“We have time for me to make you feel good, sweet pea.  Let me make you feel good.”  His hands slipped under her shorts and panties, swirling around to spread her wetness around.  “Besides, your body is telling me you want this.”  

“I always…shit…always want you. Ahh,” she cried as he sank a finger in her.  

“Good, because this belongs to me, got that princess?”  The switch he flipped was sudden and hot.  

“Yes.”  

“Yes what?” As he twisted his fingers in her, drawing out a long cry of pleasure 

“Yes sir!” 

Steve pumped his fingers, his thumb rubbing her clit, his cock throbbing for release.  “Cum for me princess.  Cum all over my fingers.” He rubbed against that sweet spot in her cunt as she cried out her release.  He worked her through the pulses, bring her down before removing his fingers and licking them clean.  “So sweet.  but I need you still.”  He pulled down her panties and shorts and made quick work of his own pajamas.  In one move, he was in her.  

“Oh Stevie,” she wailed.  He moved slowly in her, enjoying her warmth. 

“So tight, god no matter how many times I'm here, I love it.”  He was slow but thrusted hard, causing Belle to wail each time.  

“Baby please!” Belle cried.  Steve could feel her squeezing him hard and he sped up his hips.  

“Let go baby.  Do it for me.”  Belle cried again as she came, and Steve released into her, “Fuck!” 

He slowed and caught his breathe on top of her.  “Are you ok?” 

“I’m perfect.” Belle smiled.  “Best wake up call.”  

“Hmm, I love you.”  He kissed her slow.  

“I love you.”  

Belle exited the master suite after a shower and getting ready for work and almost ran into an older looking woman.  “Oh, I’m so sorry.”  

“It’s quite alright Miss Davis.  I was just going to gather the dirty laundry.  Can I get you anything?” 

“How... how do you know my name?” 

“Oh, apologies.  I’m Mrs. Lewis, Mr. Rogers’ housekeeper.  Its nice to meet you.”  

“Its nice to meet you too.  Sorry for, uh, using your supplies.”  

“Nonsense. I always leave the pantry stuffed just in case.  Mr. Barnes and Mr. Rogers usually eat out but I've been glad to see they have been getting home cooked meals.”  

Belle blushed involuntarily, enjoying the company of another woman who was not after her boyfriend.  “Well, your kitchen is amazing.”  

“Thank you.  Did you need anything?” 

“I was just going to make breakfast.”  

“Oh, I have fresh muffins on the counter.  Would you like anything to go with that?  Eggs, omelet, pancakes?”  

Belle wasn’t sure what to say when Steve walked out, fresh shirt and crisp slacks but missing his tie and jacket.  “We’ll have some scrambled eggs and bacon, Mrs. Lewis.”  

“I’ll be right there.  Let me grab the clothes.”  

“Thank you.”  Steve smiled at the woman before turning to Belle.  “Coffee, sweet pea?” 

“Umm, sure. Yes, ok, coffee,” she rambled.  Steve chuckled before silencing her with a kiss.  

“It’s ok my Belle. Breathe.”  

Belle took a deep breath.  “Was not expecting to meet new people first thing in the morning.” She started to walk to the kitchen. 

“What are you going to do when you get to work?” Steve teased 

Belle stopped.  “Oh god.”  

“Ok I’m sorry sweet pea I didn’t mean to scare you.  You’re going to be great today. And you can always call me if you need too.”  

“Ok, right.” Belle closed her eyes. “Its fine.”  She continued towards the kitchen, tripping on her feet.   

“You ok there, sweetheart?” Bucky called as he came out from his room.  

“I’m fine,” she squeaked.  “No problem.  Just meeting new people, new job today.  I’m fine.”  

“Oh lord.” Bucky laughed.  “Think she’ll make it, Steve?” 

“Too soon to tell,” Steve replied, smirking at his girlfriend.  

That got her to open her eyes.  “I’m fine,” she insisted.  “Just need food and coffee.”  She sat at the island in the kitchen as Steve prepared their coffees.  Mrs. Lewis came back in started cooking as Belle sipped the precious caffeine in front of her.  Her phone buzzed.  

SL: Ready for the first day 

Belle smiled and typed out a reply.  

B: as ever.   SL: coffee before work?  B: can’t today.  Maybe Thursday?  SL: Sure.  see you at work fellow teacher 

“Who was that?” Steve asked, taking a sip.  

“The secretary from the school.  Confirming my schedule.”  Belle didn’t know why she lied.  She knew Steve has an issue with Scott about the way he had treated her in the past.  She just didn’t want to add to the drama.  

Mrs. Lewis served breakfast to the three of them and they ate while having small talk.  As Bucky dropped Belle off in front of the school, Steve pulled her in for one last kiss.  “Have a great first day sweet pea.”  

“Thanks, hot shot.  Rule the world for me.”  She winked and smiled.  She climbed out with her bag and her lunch that Mrs Lewis provided.  She went in and headed straight for the office.  “Hello, I’m Isabella Davis.”   

“Oh Miss Davis, welcome,” a lady with blonde hair pulled into a severe bun.  “I’m Christiana Smith, the school secretary.  Here is your schedule for training.  You and the other new teachers will be meeting down in the auditorium, just here.” She pointed to a spot on the map.  “I’ll be here to help with what I can but you’ll be meeting the headmaster first.”  

“Ok, thank you Miss Smith.”  Belle headed for the auditorium and found a few desks set up with books and papers neatly piled.  She as looked to see if any were occupied, a hand grazed her back.  “Hey Belle.”  

“Hi Scott,” she sighed with relief.  “How are you?” 

“Good, excited for this training.  Hope told me to tell you hi.”  

“How is she?  Is she liking Columbia yet?” 

“Yeah, summer school just started, and she likes keeping busy.  Says she’ll be done with law school in two years instead of three.”  

“I believe it.  Umm, where are you sitting?”  

“Right in the middle, so I can focus.  Sit next to me.”  Scott pulled her to the front, and they sat chatting until an intimidating man walked in with Miss Smith.  

“Good morning, new teachers.  My name is David Zolinski, headmaster for the Manhattan School of the Arts.  Thank you for coming in for training.  The next couple of months will be just to get you into how we want to shape the student’s education.  We are a non-traditional environment for learning so be open to how you teach our students.”  

The day was about how the school was founded and how the school is paid for.  The elite of New York sent their children here and Belle was eager to get to teaching side.   Lunch was easy with Scott getting lunch from the school and eating with Belle before the day was called and Bucky was waiting outside for her to take her back to her own apartment.  

“So, how was school?” Bucky teased.  

She rolled her eyes. “Boring.  All lectures on how the school was founded and what the foundation we need to set for the students.  All blah,” Belle said.  

“How was Scott?” 

“How did you know about him?” 

“Lila.” Simple answer.  

Belle sighed.  “He’s fine.  Was telling me about the shit Hope is going through in law school.  He’s going to be teaching 2nd grade while I’m teaching 1st.”  

“So you’ll be in the same circle?” 

“Yeah.”  She saw the sideways glance Bucky gave her.  “I’ll tell Steve tomorrow at dinner.  I don’t know how immersive we’ll be in each other’s curriculum.” 

“Whatever you say.  Just remember what he did to you.”  

“That was months ago and he’s with Hope now.  Like in love with her.”  

Bucky walked her up to her apartment.  Lila had also started her new job but it was more traditional hours.  “Wanna a snack?” 

“No, have to get back to the office.  Steve has a meeting with investors at some hotel.  Will be working late.  Will you be ok?” 

“Yes James.” Belle rolled her eyes.  “The building does have a doorman and I’ll lock the door.”  

Bucky smiled.  “I’m just doing my job sweetheart. I promised remember?” 

“I remember.  Thank you.”  

The remainder of the day was quiet, with Belle just cooking dinner for herself and Lila and then organizing her room so that Steve could have a place for his things when he stayed over.  The next day was more of the same except she got to walk to work this day with Steve having an early morning meeting.  But she texted him and Bucky when she was safely inside the school.  

“So Belle, about coffee?” Scott asked.  

“Yeah, Thursday, meet at the shop or?” 

“No, I’ll meet you at your place.  Hope and I were over on the weekend so I know where it is.”  

“Perfect.”   

Tuesday night was sweet, Steve having picked Belle up after school and having dinner at a quiet little bistro.  He looked so oversized in her smaller apartment but made himself right at home.  Lila and Bucky joined them in the living room for a glass of wine and going over their days.  Belle mentioned that Scott was working with her again.  Steve said nothing, keeping his face neutral at the news.  He was fuming underneath, not liking how close Scott was getting to his girl, again.  

Wednesday morning and Belle was putting the finishing touches to her hair when the doorbell rang.  “That’s strange,” she mumbled.  

“You expecting anyone sweet pea?”  Steve was still in his pajamas but no shirt.  

“No, hot shot. Could you get that for me?”  

“Sure, sweet pea.”  Steve made his way out to the front, flipping the coffee maker on his way.  He ran a hand in his hair to tame it and opened the front door.  Shock and jealousy ran through his body.  “Mr. Lang.”  

“Uh, Captain, sorry Mr. Rogers. Hi. Wow. Sorry. Good morning.” Scott could only see the muscles in front of him.  

“Can I help you?”  Steve tensed at the man in front.  The man who had assaulted Belle and then insulted her.  He remembered the tears, the heartache, the pain Belle was in from his actions.  

“I was picking Belle up so we could go for coffee.”   

“Then by all mean, come on in,” Steve said, keeping his tone even.  “Let me get Belle.”  He moved back to Belle’s room.  Belle was slipping on her shoes.  

“Who was at the door?”  

“Scott.”  Steve tensed his jaw.  

“Scott?  What is Scott doing here?” Belle was surprised.  

“He said you had a coffee date. Am I missing something?”  

Belle cringed.  “That was supposed to be tomorrow.” 

“We’re keeping secrets now. Didn’t realize.”  Steve moved to grab his shirt and his bag.  

“No! No, I’m sorry.  I was going to tell you but I know how much you disapprove of Scott.  But I have to work with him and I thought it would be easier if we just…”  

“Just what Isabella.  See him on the side?”  

“No! I just didn’t want you to be worried or mad.  He’s my friend amore.  Just my friend.  Please don’t be angry.” Belle moved so he was right in front of her.  She laid her head on his chest.  “Don’t be mad, please, love. Please?” 

“I can’t do this right now Isabella.”  Steve grabbed his bag and went to Lila’s room.  “Bucky! I’m taking a cab to the apartment.  I’ll wait for you there.”  He turned and headed back to the front.  “Mr. Lang,” he said gruffly before exiting the apartment, leaving Belle shocked in the doorway.  

“Everything ok?” 

“I said Thursday Scott not Wednesday.”  Belle turned her anger towards him.  

“Oh.  My bad.  I didn’t mean…” 

“You never mean to do anything.  Can you just… just go.  I need space.”  Belle turned to her room and slammed the door.  She crawled into her chair, tears now free falling.  She pulled her phone and messaged Steve.  

B: I’m so sorry.    SR:  We’ll talk about this later.   B: Please come back  SR: I’ll see you on Friday Isabella

NEXT

Taglist:

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[anonymousewrites]

Logos and Pathos (Book 2) Chapter One

Spock x Empath! Reader

Chapter One: Androids Kidnapping

Summary: On a routine mission, the Enterprise has been captured by androids, and it seems Harry Mudd is behind it.

Mouse/Author's Note: Welcome to Logos and Pathos Book 2! To my returning readers: welcome back, and to my new readers: welcome! I'm happy to have you all! Thiis book will follow the events of some of the episodes of Season Two. Updates are Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I hope you guys will enjoy, and please comment down below. Anyone who's read my stories before knows I love replying to comments and engaging with readers. So please, sit back, have fun, and enjoy!

            Captain’s Log: After having been taken over by an android, the Enterprise has been underway at warp seven for four days. Now we are entering orbit around a planet which has never been chartered.

            The android, after four long days of silence, powered back up and unfolded his arms. “Captain Kirk.” Everyone turned to him in shock. “The following individuals will be transported down to our planet. Yourself, Science Officer, Negotiations and Communications Officer, Medical Officer, Communications Officer, and Navigator.”

            “Any meetings or discussions can be held aboard the Enterprise,” said Kirk determinedly.

            “If you do not come with me, your engines will be destroyed, and you will remain in orbit here…forever,” said the android.

            Kirk raised an eyebrow. “I must say, that’s a gracious invitation.”

            “There is a word—among us, there is no corresponding meaning—but it seems to mean something to you humans,” said the android.

            “What word?” asked (Y/N).

            “ ‘Please,’ ” said the android.

            The Bridge members blinked. Their intruder was a polite one.

            “Well, then, with that request, I guess we have no choice,” said Kirk, sighing.

l

            A few minutes later, (Y/N), Spock, Kirk, Uhura, Bones, Chekov, and the android beamed down to the planet the Enterprise had been taken too.

            “Our planet’s surface is what you classify as K-type—adaptable for humans by use of pressure domes and life-support systems,” said the android. He walked over to two other androids standing before doors. They were identical women with heels and draped peach dresses. “I have brought them.”

            “He is waiting,” said one android woman. She looked at the group as the doors slid open. “If you will follow us, please.”

            They walked in and found a man they thought they had handled a while ago. Harry Mudd sat in a makeshift throne flanked with two more women androids on either side of him, drinking wine from a golden flask.

            Are you kidding me? thought (Y/N). After he used those Venus Drugs I thought we had got him put away for a while.

            “I don’t believe it,” remarked Kirk.

            “Welcome aboard, Kirk! Been a long time, eh?” said Mudd jovially.

            “Harry Mudd!” exclaimed Kirk.

            “Well, to be completely accurate, laddie-buck, you should refer to me as Mudd the First—ruler of this entire sovereign planet,” said Mudd proudly.

            “Ruler?” questioned Kirk. “Mudd, I want control of my ship returned immediately. We have no intention of staying as your guests.”

            “Well, I’m afraid there’s a bit of a problem there,” said Mudd.

            Kirk narrowed his eyes and pulled out his communicator. “Kirk to Enterprise.” Nothing.

            “Alice,” said Mudd to the android on his left with the number “99” on her necklace.

            “Kirk to Enterprise,” said Kirk again, but Alice 99 reached out and crushed the communicator with one hand.

            That’s not good, thought (Y/N).

            “Now, now, now, now, Jamie Boy, let’s have no unauthorized communications,” said Mudd, smiling condescendingly.

            “You know this man, Captain?” asked Chekov. Kirk nodded. “Do I know him?”

            “Harcourt Fenton Mudd, thief,” said (Y/N), crossing their arms. “A veritable conman. He belongs in jail.” They cocked their head. “I thought we left you there.”

            Spock raised an eyebrow. “Yes, we handed him over to authorities for illegal use of Venus drugs and scamming the Rigel mining planet,” he said.

            “Thereby hangs a tale,” sighed Mudd. “Yes…But, hm, look around you. Quite a place here, isn’t it? I hope you’re all going to enjoy it.”

            “Mudd! I want that trained machine of yours—” began Kirk.

            “Norman,” interrupted Mudd unhelpfully.

            “—‘Norman’ to deactivate the trigger mechanism and free my ship,” finished Kirk.

            “I shall do that, Kirk, when I’m ready,” said Mudd. “I’m telling you now. And I do the telling on this planet, Kirk, old boy! You do the listening!”

            (Y/N) cocked their head and appraised Mudd. For all his bravado, nerves flitted around him in a misty haze. Something was more off here than met the eye. Spock noticed their gaze and raised an eyebrow. As soon as they had a moment without Mudd or the androids hanging over them, he would ask what they observed so they could compile all information. If they were lucky, however, all would be revealed sooner rather than later.

            “Alright, I’ll listen,” said Kirk. “What are you telling?”

            “Oh, merely that you might as well start enjoying yourselves! It’s really a very, very nice place, and you’re all going to be here, uh, quite probably, for the rest of your lives,” said Mudd.

            As the Enterprise’s crews’ eyes widened (except for Spock, who just folded his arms in contemplation), Mudd leaned back in his throne and laughed wildly. Norman and the two Alices watched silently.

            (Y/N) was the first to snap out of it. “Mudd, you’re an outlaw. You can’t keep us here. Give us back navigational control of the Enterprise and free us and our ship, otherwise you’ll be in even more legal trouble than you are now,” they said, appealing to Mudd’s fear of jail.

            Mudd just grinned. “Sorry, that’d be against my law. Decreed by Mudd the First. Voted in by the resident population.” He grinned at the Alice’s next to him. “Lovely, aren’t they? You must admit, Kirk, that I still retain my eye for beauty. I decreed that I should always be surrounded by it, and my decrees always come to pass.” He gestured to the doors, and four more Alices walked in to stand on either side of him. “I’ve had five hundred of them made up to attend me.”

            (Y/N) nearly gagged at the fog of his smugness, ego, and attraction to the Alices. Mudd is…the worst.

            “All of them identical, beautiful, compliant, obedient,” continued Mudd proudly.

            Spock raised an eyebrow. “Five hundred of the same model? That seems rather redundant.”

            “I have a fondness for this particular model, Mr. Spock, which you, unfortunately, are ill-equipped to appreciate,” said Mudd, smirking.

            Spock did not dignify the dig with a response, especially since he knew the truth. He could appreciate fondness. His eyes slid to (Y/N) before focusing back on Mudd.

            Kirk sighed. “Alright, Harry. Explain. How did you get here? We left you in custody after that affair on the Rigel mining planet.”

            Mudd leaned back. “Ah, yes. Well, I organized a technical information service. Bringing modern industrial techniques to backward planets. Making available certain valuable patents to struggling young civilizations throughout the galaxy.”

            “Did you pay royalties to the owners of those patents?” challenged Kirk.

            Mudd chuckled awkwardly. “Well, actually, Kirk, as a defender of the free enterprise system, I found myself in a rather ambiguous conflict, as a matter of principle.”

            “He did not pay the royalties,” translated Spock.

            “Knowledge, sir, should be free to all!” declared Mudd in an effort to seem like the better person.

            “Who caught you?” said (Y/N), hands on their hips.

            “That is an outrageous assumption!” cried Mudd.

            “You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t been caught. So, who caught you?” asked (Y/N) again.

            Mudd coughed. “I-I sold the Denebians, uh…all the rights to a Vulcan fuel synthesizer,” he admitted.

            “And the Denebians told the Vulcans,” said (Y/N), nodding.

            “How’d you know?”

            “Lucky guess.”

            “Oh. It’s typical police mentality,” said Mudd, huffing. “They’ve got no sense of humor. They arrested me!”

            “Oh, I find that shocking,” said Bones sarcastically.

            “Do you know what the penalty for fraud is on Deneb V?” asked Mudd.

            “The guilty party has his choice,” said Spock. “Death by electrocution, death by gas, death by phaser, death by hanging—”

            Mudd shuddered. “The key word in your entire peroration, Mr. Spock, was…death. Barbarians. Well, of course, I left.”

            “He broke jail,” said Kirk, rolling his eyes.

            “I borrowed transportation.”

            “Stole a ship?” suggested (Y/N).

            “The-the patrol reacted in a hostile manner.”

            “They fired at him,” said Kirk.

            “They’ve got no respect for private property. They damaged the bloody spaceship!” cried Mudd. “Well, I, I got away, but I-I couldn’t navigate, so I wandered out through unmapped space, and here I found…Mudd.” He smiled at the recollection of “his” planet.

            “You went to substantial risk and effort to bring a starship here,” said Spock. “Logically, you must have compelling motive.” He was probing for information.

            “Spock, you’re going to love it here. They all talk just the way you do,” said Mudd, sighing.

            Spock raised his eyebrow but didn’t dignify Mudd with a response.

            “Go on, get on with it, Mudd,” said Kirk.

            “Yes, well, right, laddie-buck,” said Mudd. “Well, so, here I am, in a planet with over 200,000 hardworking, happy androids, all of whom exist merely to serve my every whim. It’s absolute…paradise.”

            The pause was telling, as was the slight sadness tinging Mudd’s emotions as (Y/N) watched him speak. “What is your problem, then?” asked (Y/N).

            “They won’t let me go!” cried Mudd, jumping up from his throne.

            There we go, thought (Y/N). So that’s what’s going on.

            “They want to study me,” mourned Mudd. “They want to learn more about humanoid beings.”

            “They picked a fine representative,” remarked Kirk ironically.

            “Watch your tongue, lad,” said Mudd. “You’re talking about Mudd the First.”

            “Hopefully also Mudd the Last,” commented (Y/N), and Mudd scowled at them.

            “Well…anyway, I ran out of ideas,” he said. “I simply ran out of things for them to do. And they insisted that I bring them more humanoids. They need humanoids to serve, to study. So, I had to promise them a prime sample—a starship captain. Bright, loyal, fearless and imaginative. Any captain would have done. I was just lucky enough to get you. So, you are going to take over for me here, and I get off this rock and back to civilization.”

            Finally, his nerves made sense. He had been trying to conceal his true plans

            “I think not, Mudd,” said Kirk.

            “You misunderstand me, lad. I’m not asking you. I’m telling you,” said Mudd. “You’ve no choice.” He turned to the Alices. “Show them to their quarters.”

            “Yes, my Lord Mudd,” they answered in perfect harmony. “This way, please,” said Alice 99 to the crew.

            Before they could leave, though, Bones paused before a panel of dark glass in the wall. “What’s this?”

            “Ah,” said Mudd proudly. “That, gentleman, is a shrine to the memory of my beloved Stella.”

            “Who?” prompted (Y/N).

            “Stella—my wife,” said Mudd, flicking a switch. The panel opened to show a woman with red hair inside.

            “Dead?” asked Bones.

            “Oh, no, no, no, no,” said Mudd, shaking his head. “Merely deserted. You see, behind every great man, there is a woman urging him on, and so it was with my Stella. She urged me on into outer space—not that she meant to—but with her continual, eternal, confounded nagging…” He took a deep breath and continued with a smile. “Well, I think of her constantly, and every time I do, I go further out into space.”

            “That’s very interesting,” remarked Bones with a smirk. “You leave your wife, and then bring her along.”

            “I had the androids construct a perfect replica of Stella, so that I could gaze upon her and rejoice in her absence,” said Mudd happily. “Attend.” He turned to Stella. “Stella, dear.”

            “Mmm, Harcourt!” came the harsh voice of the Stella android. “Harcourt Fenton Mudd, what have you been up to?! Nothing good, I’m sure. Well, let me tell you, you lazy, good-for-nothing—”

            “Shut up!” ordered Mudd. He pressed the switch and the glass closed again.

            I think I’d love to see him just getting yelled at for hours by her, thought (Y/N). Annoy him as much as he annoys me.

            “Marvelous, hmm?” said Mudd in satisfaction. “I finally have the last word with her…and with you.” He gestured to Alice 99 and Norman. “Take them to their rooms.”

l

            “You will find this quite comfortable,” said Alice 99. “If there is anything you need—”

            “Yes—my ship,” said Kirk sharply.

            “We are not programmed to respond in that area,” said Alice 46.

            “Norman,” said Kirk. “Who created you?”

            “The Makers designed us,” said Norman. “They came from the galaxy of Andromeda.”

            “Then your makers weren’t humanoid,” said Bones, furrowing his brow.

            “They were, as you say, quite humanoid, but, unlike your civilization, robots were common,” said Norman. “We performed the necessary service functions and freed our Makers to evolve a perfect social order.”

            “What happened to them?” asked (Y/N).

            “Our home planet’s sun became a nova. Only a few exploratory outposts survived. This unit…myself…was part of one such outpost in your galaxy,” said Norman.

            “Then some of your Makers survived,” said Kirk.

            “No, Captain,” replied Norman. “They died over a stretch of time.”

            “Whom do you serve now?” asked Spock.

            “We serve Harry Mudd,” answered the androids in tandem.

            “He has given us purpose,” said Alice 1.

            “It is necessary to have purpose,” said Alice 2.

            “We lacked it for a long time,” said Norman. He turned and walked away.

            “We have a very extensive library section for your amusement,” said Alice 46.

            “Our research laboratories and workshops are extremely well-equipped,” said Alice 99.

            “You are free to visit them,” said Alice 2.

            “Alright, we might later,” said Kirk. “In the meantime, would you mind leaving us?”

            “Why should we leave you?” asked the Alices together.

            “Because…we don’t like you,” responded Kirk. “Now—” he gestured for them to leave “—buh, buh, buh, buh.” The Alices blinked and walked away. “Well, everyone, opinions?”

            “I think we’re in a lot of trouble,” said Chekov, and Uhura nodded with a sigh.

            “That’s a great help, Mr. Chekov. Bones?” asked Kirk.

            “Well, I think Mr. Chekov’s right. We are in a lot of trouble,” said Bones.

            “(L/N)?” sighed Kirk.

            They nodded. “Oh, we’re definitely in a lot of trouble.”

            “Spock? And if you say we’re in a lot of trouble…” began Kirk.

            “We are,” agreed Spock. Kirk sighed, but Spock continued speaking. “And we must direct our attack to the heart of the matter. Obviously, this many androids cannot operate independently. There must be a central control system which guides the entire android population.”

            Kirk nodded. “Try and find it. The rest of you look around, learn everything you can. I’ll see what else I can find out from Mr. Mudd.”

            Spock turned to (Y/N). “Would you like to accompany me?”

            (Y/N) nodded and smiled. “Let’s find that central control system.”

Taglist:

@a-ofzest

@grippleback-galaxy

@genderfluid-anime-goth

@groovy-lady

@im-making-an-effort

@unending-screaming

[oscarsgym]

7 Full Body Exercises to Get Lean and Lose Body Fat

When your schedule is tight, need to lose fat ASAP, incorporating these 7 essential exercises into your daily routine is non-negotiable. These strategic moves efficiently engage multiple muscle groups, ensuring you achieve impressive results without dedicating endless hours to your workouts. It's all about embracing functional training, where each exercise activates numerous muscle groups simultaneously, thus becoming essential for fat loss.

This unique approach to training doesn't just revamp your muscle definition; it's a dynamic tool for boosting overall strength. By maximizing the utility of your workout time, these exercises not only help you slim down faster but also enhance your physical prowess. It's the ultimate win-win for those striving to achieve rapid fat loss and significant fitness gains. So, make every minute count and let functional training be your way to success! 💪

Remember, every small effort counts and consistency is key. You got this! 💪

**If you want to be notified when I upload a new video, make sure to subscribe to our channel. I upload new videos every Monday, Wednesday and Friday! 💪

[nbmsports]

Strike Prevents Actors From Promoting Films at Premieres or Festivals

It has already been a difficult year for movie theaters, with the North American box office down roughly 20 percent from last year. And that was when actors could promote their films.With SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, on strike as of Friday, its 160,000 members are officially barred not only from acting in projects involving the major Hollywood studios but also from engaging in any publicity efforts for films and TV shows that have already been completed.That means no appearances, either online or in person, including at the Comic-Con International next week in San Diego, many of the fall film festivals, and any movie premieres or television promotional events. SAG-AFTRA officials convened conference calls with Hollywood’s top agencies and publicists this week to explain the strike rules for both the production and the promotion of coming projects. And on Thursday, after announcing the strike, the union released its rules for its membership.“It’s going to be expensive, because the only other way to compensate for the lack of publicity is to buy more noise,” Terry Press, a top Hollywood marketer, said. “When you don’t have any form of publicity, which is free to a certain extent, you have to try to make up that noise.“Ultimately, that’s expensive,” he continued, “especially in the summer, where there’s very little advertising that you can actually buy that’s going to capture large groups of people.”It’s also going to be awkward. That was apparent even before the actors’ union announced on Thursday that it had approved a strike. A few hours earlier, the director Christopher Nolan’s starry “Oppenheimer” was premiering in London.“Oppenheimer” is one of the summer’s most anticipated films, a movie that theater owners have been pointing to — along with Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and the latest “Mission: Impossible” chapter with Tom Cruise — as one that could pump some life into a struggling business.But at the premiere at the Odeon Theater in Leicester Square, it was clear that the strike would have an impact. First the event was moved up an hour, so that the cast full of boldface names — including Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh and Cillian Murphy — would be able to walk the red carpet. Then they all left before the screening started, in solidarity with the union.“They are off to write their picket signs,” Mr. Nolan quipped to the crowd of 800 people.Universal Pictures said that it would still hold its New York premiere of “Oppenheimer” on Monday but that none of the actors would attend.The lack of buzzy premieres and the usual round of publicity for films is troubling for a movie theater industry that has been hoping business would increase in the second half of the year.The strike is also concerning for the fall film festival circuit, which counts on actors appearing in person to promote their prestige films geared toward the awards season. “The whole festival circuit, those movies are nothing but publicity driven,” Ms. Press said.Normally actors on the hunt for Oscar gold make the pilgrimage to Italy for the Venice International Film Festival at the end of August, then head to Colorado for the Telluride Film Festival and then Canada for the Toronto International Film Festival — the three early stops on the campaign trail.“The grammar of releasing those movies requires the festival circuit,” Ms. Press said. “That is when, I think, you’re going to start to run into serious repercussions.”Television is also affected. Despite the Emmy nominations announced on Wednesday, none of the actors nominated will be able to promote their work. When asked how the awards show — which is scheduled for September but likely to be postponed if the walkout is prolonged — will be affected by the strike, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union’s chief negotiator, said: “Our strike rules will not allow any form of promotion for television series, or streaming series that have been produced under these contracts. My expectation is that it will bring any actor participation in Emmy campaigning to a close.” Source link Read the full article

[smallgodseries]

[image description: A friendly-looking character with short cropped black hair is shown in a classic oval frame. He makes scissor-hands while a Rock and a piece of Paper make faces outside the frame above him. Text reads, “132, Édouard de Rochambeau ~ The Small God of Bloodless Dispute Resolution”]

• • • • •

You don’t have to fight.  It’s okay.

Seriously.  Fighting isn’t going to make you serious, or a badass, or whatever you’ve decided it means to be a “real man”—and why are people still getting hung up on that, anyway?  You ever met anyone you think is a “real man”?  Is that the guy you dream about growing up to be?  Huh?

Yeah, yeah, kid, I know you’re a big scary adult.  But all you humans, you look like kids to me, because the ones of you that stay around the longest, you don’t manage a tenth of the time I’ve been here, and since you keep beating the ever-living crap outta each other down there, I don’t think I’m going anywhere any time soon, if you get what I mean.

And anyway, you humans get to keep growing up for your whole lives, and that’s pretty amazing.  Except for a few of the amphibious gods, we don’t manage that sort of thing.  The chance to grow up to be someone different tomorrow than you are today, now that’s divine.  Miracles are nothing compared to maturing.

I believe in you.

So yeah, we play games to settle scores.  We talk things out.  We roll dice and we negotiate and we argue and we do everything but fight, because you’re too good for that.  You got that?  You’re too good for that, you constantly growing, constantly changing little spark of eternity.  So c’mon.  Let’s dance it out, or if that’s not conclusive enough, we can play Scrabble to decide who’s right and who’s wrong.  Whatever makes you happy.  Whatever keeps you from bleeding on the street.

This is the way we do things, among the divine.  You don’t have to fight.

I promise, it’s okay.

• • • • •

Join Lee Moyer (Icon) and Seanan McGuire (Story) Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a guide to the many small deities who manage our modern world:

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Twitter: https://twitter.com/smallgodseries

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Homepage: http://smallgodseries.com

[maybege]

Calm - Part 5

Summary: The last day of negotiations arrives and so does your last chance to tell Paz how you feel. (Part 5 of the Calm Series)

Pairing: alpha!Paz Vizsla x fem!omega!Reader

Wordcount: 9.3k | Rating: E (18+ only!)

Warnings: A/B/O dynamics, explicit sexual content, scenting, oral sex (f receiving), knotting, cream pies, multiples orgasms, finger sucking, mating bites,

Here it is! What better way to kick off the birthday bash/AU Week than with the final part to this little alpha!Paz series? I am so happy that you all liked it so much. Once again, I’d like to take the chance and shout out the lovely @mostly-megan as well as Boba Tea Anon and the countless nameless anons from the old blog that helped to shape the story into what it is now. I am really excited to share this final part with you and I hope you like it! As always, let me know what you think!

Also, just a reminder that there will be something posted every day this week on my tumblr (with full works on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday that will also be cross posted on AO3)

masterlist | crossposted on AO3

You had fallen asleep again.

You had no idea how it could happen this often or why but you knew the sun had already gone done by how the temperature had dropped even in the main tent. As your eyes fluttered open, you noticed that everyone had already left.

It was only you and Paz left at the table and in the tent. It looked so much bigger without everyone there, the table massive without anyone sitting at it.

But what you noticed first was how everything was hazy with pleasure. The second thing you noticed was how Paz’s cock kept moving in and out of you, your hands gripping his forearm tightly whose hand was buried between your thighs.

“This was the last round of negotiations,” he informed you, his thumb brushing over your clit, “We will leave for the hunt soon.”

You feverishly tried to think through the pleasure of him inside you, constantly working on your clit. Chants had told you all about the traditions that would need to be observed once the council had come to an agreement. How the alphas would go on a big hunt and how there would be a big feast before the tribes would part ways again.

Which meant that he would be gone.

Your alpha would be gone.

“But – but when will you come back?” you frowned, your hips twitching from the stimulation and you gasped when you felt your nipples rub against the fabric of your gown.

“In a day’s time,” he answered, his voice full of regret and you whimpered when his cock surged up in you, “I don’t want to stay away from you any longer, omega. I am so sorry. W-wanted to spend more time with you before I needed to leave.”

“Is – is that why you’re trying to make me come?” you gasped out, throwing your head back against his shoulder. Your walls were clamping around him and you felt your core tense, the heat building up.

“Yes,” he growled, his thumb rubbing tighter circles over your clit as his other hand wandered up to your chest, “You were so good for me, omega, always took my cock so well, made me feel so good. You deserve to come now, don’t you think? Don’t you want to come around me?”

“Uh-huh,” you nodded, swallowing hard to try and get more words out. But all you managed was a whine as your thighs tensed. Paz had your legs hooked over his, his legs remaining strong and keep yours apart as he kept thrusting into you.

You keened, your back arching and he pinched your nipple between his thumb and forefinger. His helmet came down to the crook of your neck but you could barely feel the cold metal against your skin as you came around him. Stars, it felt so good. He felt so good.

Squeezing around his cock you could feel his movements get more frantic, his hands roaming over your skin while your walls kept working him.

“Can I come inside you?” he asked breathlessly even as he worked you through your high, “Don’t have the time to knot you, omega, but I could fill you up good.”

“Uh-huh,” you nodded dazedly, your body sacking back against his, “Please, alpha, please come inside me.”

He growled, his hands tightening around your form and suddenly he was fucking up into you. You squeaked, your hand gripping his forearm over your middle tightly to not fall off him from the sheer force of his movements.

You could feel him rub against your walls, hitting a very sensitive spot that made your walls flutter around him again.

He groaned, the sound making you shiver, and spilled his release in your cunt.

Out of breath, you rested against him, your hand coming up to cup the beskar cheek of his helmet. Paz hummed, his free hand wiping your juices on his pants before gently brushing over your scent gland. You closed your eyes, wishing it could stay like this forever.

“Do – do you really have to go?” you asked, your forehead pressed against his chin and trying to not sound too whiny.

“I’m afraid so,” he sighed, “It is an important tradition, all of us providing for our omegas – together. And just think about how nice the feast will be. You will hardly know I am gone and then we will be together again.”

You wanted to protest that you would know very well when he was gone by the tugging in your chest and how empty and cold you would feel. But you also did not want to annoy him – to be too much. This cocktail of feelings was overwhelming you but how could you know if he felt the same way?

Your silence must have spoken for itself because while Paz did not say anything for a while he also made no moves to get up.

Not one to challenge destiny, you simply sat with him, enjoying his proximity while listening to the preparations that were made outside. It would only be a matter of time before someone would come looking for him.

A soft clank brought you out of your reverie and you spotted the gleaming beskar in his hand in front of you.

He had taken his helmet off.

“Paz,” you gasped, turning your face to see him, “people could see.”

But the man in front of you shook his head, dark eyes looking at you softly. “I don’t care,” he murmured, pushing his forehead against yours, “I need to kiss you, mesh’la. Before I go. Just once,” his lips ghosted over yours and your eyes fluttered shut, “Please.”

His voice was so soft and you could smell the need in him. Like his heart was tugging him towards you just as much as your heart was tugging you towards him.

So, you nodded.

The kiss was soft and slow and it made shivers run down your spine – the good kind. As opposed to the kisses that had filled the night and your time in bed with him with passion, this one felt like he was savouring it – savouring you.

His lips were impossibly soft against yours as he tilted his head to slot your mouths together. Again and again and again, he kissed you, sometimes full on the mouth, sometimes just the corner of it or your cheek. He peppered your entire face with kisses before his hands framed your face and pulled you against him fully. Only then did he swipe his tongue over the seam of your lips, asking for entrance which you readily granted him.

Everything was warm and hazy and comfortable and for a moment you felt like there was no distinction between where your body ended and his started. You just wanted to be with him. The way his tongue danced with yours, how his hands sat heavily at your hips, his fingers occasionally digging deeper into the flesh – all of it made you lament that he had to go that much more.

You were both out of breath when you parted from each other.

“I will escort you back to our tent,” he said in a hush, his lips still moving against yours, “And I promise I will be back as soon as I can, all right, omega?”

“All right,” you whispered.

*

Loud noises woke you up and for a split second, you thought you were under attack again. That the enemies had come to hurt you and take the foundlings and set fire to where you lived. Only that would explain the heavy footsteps of the warriors between the tents, the smell of adrenaline in the air.

But who would attack you when both your clan andthe Pollux were here?

That was when reality came crashing down around you and you sat up straight in your bed. Many alphas between the tents must mean that they were coming back.

You shifted onto your knees, your blanket falling to the mattress as you frantically searched for something to throw on in the dark. Your mind was still muddled from sleep but you were awake enough to realize the most important thing.

The alphas were back. Paz was back.

The flap was almost ripped open and with the moonlight behind him, you could recognize Paz’s shape standing in the doorway. Both of you froze. For a moment no one said anything and you could see the other alphas passing behind him, making their way to their own tents for the night.

“Alpha,” you breathed out and before you could even make a move off the bed, he had ripped his helmet off, the beskar landing on the carpet with a dull sound as he strode towards you. The fabric of the tent fell closed again and darkness enveloped you but you could hear and smell him enough to know that he was standing in front of you.

His hands cupped your face and then he pulled you up and towards him, greedily pressing his lips against yours and you melted into him. He was warm and safe, his chest heaving from exhaustion and you could feel the sweat trickling at the back of his neck.

His mouth moved against yours urgently, passionately, and you could hardly keep up with him as he dominated the kiss. His teeth tugged at your bottom lip, making you gasped and then his tongue licked into you, his teeth clashing against yours and you whimpered – overwhelmed by him and still not getting enough.

“Remind me to never leave you again,” he grunted, his breath fanning over your face and you made it a point to press a soft kiss to his jaw, “I couldn’t bear it, omega. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat – all I could think about was you.”

You frowned, worry knitting your brows, and you sunk back into the bed, pulling him with you. The mattress dipped with his weight and you leant your forehead against his upper arm, trying to let him know that you were here and you were safe.

His movements were slow as he started to discard his beskar armour, simply leaving it on the soft carpets.

“I am sorry, alpha,” you whispered, your heart hurting for him.

“There is no need to apologize, little one,” he murmured, turning his head to press a soft kiss against your lips, “It is not your fault. I am just happy to have you close again.”

He bent down to get rid of his shoes. When he pulled back up, he let out a groan and you tensed, pulling away from him. His scent was tinged with just the slightest note of discomfort but that was enough to alarm you.

“Are you in pain?” you asked in a panic, immediately starting to run your hands over his back and sides to see if he had any wounds you might have missed in the darkness, “Are you hurt?”

“No, I –“ he grunted when you touched a tender spot on his back, “I’m just a little sore, is all.”

Your eyebrows knotted together and you

“Let me help you,” you asked him, sitting up on your knees and pushing him back into the mattress, “You need to lie on your front, c’mon.”

Paz’s chuckle vibrated through his whole body and you could feel his back mover under your hands. Despite his pain in the air, he felt warm to the touch and you could smell this unfamiliar note that made your heart skip a beat.

“My little omega is trying to give the orders now?” he joked, nonetheless turning so he could comfortably lie on his front.

You straddled his hips, running your hands over his strong back and he hummed. Without saying another word, you started to work your hands on his back, rubbing and kneading and massaging the skin. For the first few moments, Paz was tense under you, muttering something about how no one had done this for him before.

“Then let me do it now,” you had whispered in response, leaning forward to brush your lips over his shoulder blade while your knuckles dug into his lower back, “Let me make you feel good, alpha.”

Ever since then you could feel how the alpha underneath you slowly relaxed into the mattress, his muscles melting under your ministrations. It did not take much longer until you could hear his breathing even out, the smell of pain dissipating and being replaced by pure comfort.

You smiled.

*

The sun was already high in the sky when you woke up. You were on your front, Paz’s heavy arm draped over your back, his fingers drawing patterns on the side of your breast. “We can sleep in,” he murmured, his voice still full of sleep, “The preparation of the feast is nothing we have to concern ourselves with.”

As soon as his words had left his mouth you had melted back into his arms, looking up at him with warm eyes. This was one of the rare occasions where you could simply look at him in an effort to burn every line of his face into your mind.

You knew time was running out. The final feast would be tonight and then you would never see him again.

A line must have formed between your brows because Paz smoothed his thumb over it, dark eyes roaming over your face as he smiled softly. “What are you thinking about, love?”

Love.

Your heart skipped a beat and you feverishly tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t reveal all your secret feelings for him.

“Nothing,” you lamely brought out, a smile forming on your lips when his thumb brushed over your brow bone down to the apple of your cheek. He was so gentle with you …

“I am excited for you to taste the meat I caught,” Paz said, his breath washing over your face as his thumb kept moving, “It is an honour to provide for the council,” he explained, before softly adding, “it is an honour to provide for you.”

Warmth filled you as you smile dup at him. With how he was resting on his elbow by your side, he looked much more comfortable than you had ever seen him – except maybe the time during which you had been joined together by his knot. There were only the faintest lines on his face and he looked rested and happy.

“You always provided for me, Paz,” you smiled, your hands cupping his face and kissing him.

Paz chuckled into the kiss before reciprocating it, his other hand coming to rest next to your face. His teeth nipped at your bottom lip, tagging it away and you gasped when you felt his hands wander to your middle, keeping you trapped underneath him.

“There will be a big feast today,” he said, even though you already knew it, “I know you came here as my calmer but … I would be honoured if you were to sit with me as a mate.”

Air rushed out of your lungs and you nodded so quickly, it dizzied you. Paz wanted you to sit as his mate. To sit in his lap, to … to be fed by him and to choose the cuts of meats for you. All of this was an intimate gesture between mated couples. The fact that he wanted that with you made you swoon.

“Are you sure?” you asked feebly, trying to keep the hope out of your voice but Paz only threw a look down at your neck where you knew his warrior seal was resting on your chest.

“I have never been so sure about anything in my life, omega,” he replied, his face serious before he leant down to capture your lips in another kiss.

You were sure that by now the smell of your exhilaration had filled up the entire tent but Paz did not seem to be bothered by it. On the contrary, actually. His lips were playful against yours, teeth tugging at your bottom lip and his tongue dipping inside your mouth occasionally to taste you while your hands wandered up along his warm back to the nape of his neck, playing with the hairs there.

When his stubble brushed over your neck, Paz’s lips now focussing on that spot behind your ear just over your scent gland, you giggled, pulling him closer.

“Stars, you smell intoxicating,” he groaned, the tip of his nose scenting you and your eyes flew pen as your laughter got stuck in your throat. The tingles that went through your body were all you could experience, all you could focus on and you saw – not felt – how your fingers trembled as you put your hands on his shoulder.

Something was different.

“Could – Do it again, alpha,” your voice was hoarse, “Please.”

You could sense Paz’s hesitation over your untypical reaction but he did as you asked him, gently scenting you again, this time letting his lips graze that sensitive spot as well and you swore you saw stars. Your hands tensed on his shoulders, trying to keep him close and Paz hummed as he finally caught up with what was happening.

“You like this?” he whispered teasingly, one hand coming up to cup the side of your neck and keep you pressed against him, “Like your alpha scenting you?”

“Uh-huh,” you brought out, your back arching, “My alpha.”

There was a glimmer in Paz’s eyes as he sat up, straddling you. You knew he was intentionally keeping his full weight off you but you were sure you wouldn’t have even noticed if he hadn’t. all you could focus on was how massive he was, his broad shoulders and back blocking out the light coming from the entrance of the tent.

You whined at the loss of his lips on your scent gland and saw the smile forming on Paz’s lips in real time. His eyes wandered over your from, from your face to your neck, to your exposed chest down to where the blanket was only partly covering you.

“I love seeing you like this, omega,” he rumbled, taking hold of your hand and pulling it up to his lips, “All dishevelled in my bed. Smelling all happy and content,” his lips grazed over your inner wrist, calloused fingers brushing over your knuckles, “All for me.”

“All for you,” you agreed quietly, your heart beating in your chest so loudly you knew he must have heard, “Only for you, alpha.”

*

Being truly dressed for the first time in weeks was almost uncomfortable.

The dress you were wearing was made of fabric much heavier than your dressing gown and you kept tugging at the neckline that seemed to constrain you even with how deep it was cut. Everything seemed to weigh you down and a sound of frustration left you when you spotted a thread coming loose as your sleeve.

Paz chuckled at your frown. He was not wearing his helmet yet, instead choosing to watch you get dressed while he sat on the bed, his eyes following your every move. “C’mere, omega,” he rumbled and you complied, letting him guide you to sit on his thigh.

His warm hand reached out, immediately gliding to your chest and underneath the fabric of your dress. The dress might be heavier but the neckline was lower than what you usually wore at home. Maybe because you wanted him to have easy access. Maybe because you wanted some sort of remnant of the last few days.

Either way both of you moaned when his hand cupped your tit, his thumb immediately brushing over your nipple as his other hand simply snapped the loose thread off your dress.

“Kriff, omega,” he whispered, his lips dropping to your neck, your scent gland tingling, “I don’t think I’ll be able to keep my hands off you.”

“I’m counting on it,” you breathed out with a smile, letting yourself rest against him, “How long until we need to leave?”

“A few minutes,” he replied, not pulling his lips from your skin and instead let them wander up your neck to your jaw, his teeth nipping at the skin while his hand squeezed the soft flesh of your breast, “Just a few more minutes.”

You giggled, his stubble tickling your jaw as he mouthed against your neck, goosebumps erupting on your skin as he brushed over your scent gland. It was so easy to pretend that he had already marked you, that he was simply scenting you for those who were too blind to see your marked throat.

But as he parted from you, his lips swollen from your kisses and you breathless from the pleasure he gave you, your thoughts came back to reality. He had not marked you. He was not your alpha.

Unless you finally gathered the courage today to ask it of him.

If Paz noticed the way your thoughts drifted, he did not mention it. Instead, he let his eyes roam over you one last time, a smile on his lips, before putting n his helmet, the mechanics hissing in the silent room.

“Are you ready?” he asked, holding out his arm which you gladly took.

“Born ready.”

*

Much like the first day of negations, you simply followed the masses to the communal tent where the feast would take place. Even from afar, you spotted Chants and his alpha, talking amicably not far from where Sluice and Altarf walked before they had opened the tent together with The Armourer, officially starting the festivities as people streamed towards the tables. The air was full of laughter and chatter and you could feel the happiness from everyone around you.

The table where the negotiations had taken place had now been transformed into a banquet and you were sure you had never seen that much food all at once. It smelled divine and you were happy for all the conversations around you or else everyone would have heard your stomach rumble.

Paz chuckled, carefully guiding you towards the seat that had been yours throughout your stay. It felt like second nature when he pulled you sideways into his lap and you officially took the seat as his mate. You felt Chants’ eyes on you – him being seated right next to the alpha he had calmed during the negotiations – and you spotted Sluice elbowing Altarf in the middle and nodding towards you.

“They are all looking,” you whispered to Paz, watching as his hand came up to your neck, bare fingers running over your scent gland almost reverently, “Why are they all looking?”

“Don’t be nervous,” he tried to calm you, his voice raspy through the helmet, “They are just happy for us – for you to be sitting as my mate. It is not … it’s not often that this happens. They’re just curious.”

“I can already sense the gossip,” you joked, turning to look at him. Your hand came up to cup his beskar cheek and you pressed your forehead against his. Paz chuckled, his hand splaying over your back and keep you even closer.

“I can’t wait to feel your skin again,” he grumbled, his fingers slightly gripping the fabric of your dress.

“I can’t wait to see you again,” you whispered in turn, your lips tugging up in a smile, “I want a thousand kisses when this is over.”

“And a thousand kisses you shall get, love,” he chuckled, “I swear.”

You wanted to continue the banter, wanted to drop your head to his neck and plant kisses all along his jawline and smell his happiness on you. There was nothing that you wanted more than to spend every last minute you had left of his trip in his arms. You wanted to hear him laugh, feel his smile against your skin and his lips against yours.

You wanted him.

Paz inhaled, obviously wanting to say something when you heard a commotion at the other end of the room. You turned your face to see the council members cheering on The Armourer and Altarf, both sitting at the head of the table and raising the glasses.

“This feast is to celebrate the successful negotiations of our two clans,” The Armourer announced, “It is to thank each and every one of our council members who worked tirelessly towards a solution – preserving an alliance that has lasted for centuries.”

More cheers of agreement and you smiled at Paz, clapping just for him.

Altarf cleared his throat, waiting for the voices to die down, “And it is to pay tribute to the ones who supported us all throughout this exhausting time,” he looked towards Sluice who was standing right beside him, smiling brighter than the sun, “We would not be here if it weren’t for our mates, our calmers, every one of you who took it upon themselves to do the work that we never could. Thank you. Our clans owe you their deepest admiration.”

The tent erupted into applause and cheers. Paz’s hands tightened around your middle, and you smiled, knowing that he wanted you to know that he thought of you. He wanted to thank you. It only hit you now that your time as a calmer was officially over. With how nervous you had been to accept this position, now all you felt was pride and gladness that you had accepted and you had succeeded.

Now that the opening words had been spoken, the buffet was officially opened and you could have laughed at the sight of everyone lunging for the food.

The tastiest pieces of meat you had ever smelled were cut and your stomach grumbled as you saw the side dishes being piled on as many plates as possible. Everyone was passing around the plates, being able to choose what pieces they wanted for their own plates.

Only the highest-ranking council members had their own people waiting on them – aspiring warriors of each clan that were eager to please – and you watched as Altarf and The Armourer point to the things they wanted on their plate, getting the prime cuts for them and their companions.

Paz, too, belonged to those select few and you smiled as he instructed the young apprentice on which meat to cut which way so it could land on your plate. You did not move from your position in his lap, the proximity reminding you of what these last few days had consisted of.

When the full plate was given to him, Paz kept it in his hands instead of offering it to you. Curiously you peeked at his selection, a few slices of roasted meat, some vegetables with a sauce that smelled divine as well as a few grapes that he knew were your favourite.

Rough fingers held up a piece of meat in front of your lips and you obediently opened your mouth, letting him place the bite on your tongue. Heat shot up your cheeks at the gesture and you could feel your scent gland pulsing. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see Altarf doing the same for Sluice, feeding her his selected bites. You knew it was an intimate gesture between mates, feeding and thus providing for one another. But to have Paz do this for you felt like something else entirely.

Intimate seemed too weak a word to describe the bond you felt towards him. The love you had for him. Because Paz had been hunting the entire day and night to provide for the feast and he made you feel like he had done it all for you.

He had done everything for you.

You swallowed back your bite, your chest feeling tight with love and watched as he tilted his head, his fingers hovering over the plate. He kept pondering the food choices for quite a while and you wriggled in his lap, your fingers brushing over his scent gland you get his attention.

“I appreciate you choosing the best things for me,” you teased him, “But if you don’t choose any faster I will have Chants send over some of his plate.”

Paz laughed heartily, his body moving behind yours and you grinned, smelling how happy he was. “I am sorry, mesh’la,” he apologized, “I did not want to keep my omega waiting.”

Another instance in which his words made your heart skip a beat. My omega. Stars, how could he talk like that and not expect you to fall even more in love with him?

His fingers finally settled on the best-looking piece of meat and your mouth watered at the smell. The crust looked absolutely delicious, better than anything you had seen at home and you wondered for a moment if the ground up spices were something the Pollux had brought with them.

“Taste this,” he mumbled, offering it to you, “That’s the one I caught. I hope you’ll like it.” There was pride in his voice and you felt giddy with how much he wanted to provide for you.

Your teeth grazed his fingertips as you took it in your mouth and you shivered when his thumb brushed over your bottom lip as you started to chew. It tasted absolutely heavenly and you moaned, your eyes closing as you tried to get every taste you could.

Without looking you knew Paz was watching your every reaction, wanting you happy and sated. You could feel his suspension in the way his muscles had tensed, how his thighs had stiffened and when you had swallowed down the last bit, you made it a point to grab his hand and lead it to your mouth.

“It tastes divine,” you smiled, pressing a kiss to his knuckles, “Thank you, alpha.”

He hummed, his helmet coming to rest against your temple and you could hear him let out a deep breath. You could feel how he relaxed around you, clearly relieved and happy and you leant back just the tiniest bit, baring your throat for him.

“Another one?” you asked, innocently smiling up at him and he laughed, reaching for another bite on the plate and you opened your mouth. Oh yes, you could live like that forever, resting in your alpha’s arms and get fed the most delicious food by him.

It continued like that for a while, living in your own bubble without concern for anyone or anything else. But as time passed and you spotted more couples leaving the tent, it occurred to you that for all the food Paz had provided for you, he had not taken off his helmet for even a second.

You frowned, sitting up on his lap and he followed suit, previously having been slumped in his chair as he had lazily traced patterns over your neck. “What’s wrong, omega?”

“You did not eat anything,” you muttered, feeling as your eyes roamed over the table, “I was sitting here, letting you feed me and you did not eat anything, alpha, and I –“

“Hey,” he rumbled, his hand grabbing yours, “Don’t be distressed, love, please don’t feel bad. I just wanted to care for you. I will eat later, I promise.”

You spotted an empty bowl, starting to assemble some berries and slices of meat into it, determined to remedy your mistake now that you had noticed it. Although it was clear from how he kept grumbling in protest that Paz did not see you making any mistakes.

But you were not to be deterred from your mission and only when the bowl was sufficiently full did you lean back against him.

“You always care so much for me, alpha,” you whispered, slipping a piece of meat under his helmet and holding it to his lips, “for once, let me take care of you.”

His lips brushed against your fingertips when he gripped the meat between his teeth and you could see his throat bobbing as he swallowed the food. Paz’s hands tightened on your form, pulling you closer to him.

“Thank you, mesh’la,” he murmured, this time not protesting as you picked up another piece for him, “I don’t know how I deserve you.”

You wanted to tell him that he more than deserved someone caring for him but you bit your tongue, knowing that once the words would come out you would be in danger of confessing all your feelings to him.

And in this tent, you could not bear the rejection.

Somewhere behind you, Altarf and Sluice laughed and you absentmindedly turned your head, feeling Paz take the next piece of food into his mouth. You spotted Sluice taking a sip from her cup, the older woman meeting your gaze and smiling encouragingly at you.

You smiled back, feeling your heart flutter at the knowing look in her eyes. She raised her cup at you and you nodded back in greeting, wondering if you would have the time to talk to her before you left for your home. She had been so nice to you, it felt like being there as a calmer or as a mate was a bonding experience.

You squeaked when you felt Paz’s teeth teasingly bite into your fingertip and you could feel him smile against your skin, could even imagine the teasing twinkle in his eyes if he was not wearing his helmet. His fingers wrapped around your wrist, keeping your hand to his mouth as he pressed the softest kiss to your fingertips.

“What are thinking of, omega?” he rumbled, “You had that look in your eyes.”

“Nothing,” you shook your head before offering him the bright blue berry, “Here, try this. You will like it, I promise.”

He bit into the fruit heartily, the juice dribbling down your fingertips and you gasped when his tongue followed the little drop, sucking your finger into his mouth with a vigour that made your thighs clench.

“I’ll like it more if I can lick it off you,” he grumbled finally and you giggled, pulling for hand back to your chest before playing it on his.

“There is time for that later,” you reminded him, noting how his helmet tilted down, his eyes surely focussing on your low neckline.

“In that case,” Paz leant forward, his forehead pressing against yours, “I can’t wait for later.”

*

Many hours and drinks later, you had left your place at the table.

“This was lovely,” you smiled, hooking your arm through Paz’s on your way back to your tent, “Although I don’t think I'll be able to eat for days.”

“Then you know it was a good feast,” Paz nodded next to you, the lights of the lanterns reflecting on his helmet, “And I promise as soon as you have some food from home in front of you that appetite will be right back.”

Home.

You knew that the end of the feast meant that tomorrow you would be on your way home if not already there. You would help to rebuild the village, you would start to think of a way to catch up on the syllabus with the foundlings, you would start to get back into your everyday life.

Knowing that this was the last night you had together with Paz made you hurt and hold onto your alpha just a little bit tighter. You might be too cowardly to talk to him about it now but you also knew that time was running out.

Paz seemed to notice your despair, his hand landing on top of yours and squeezing gently as he led you back to your tent. “What are you thinking about, mesh’la?” he asked, nodding at a passing council member, “You smell worried.”

“It’s nothing,” you shook your head, knowing that he would not be convinced for long, “We – we can talk about it later, okay?”

“Later then, love,” he rumbled and your heart skipped a beat at the pet name.

Love.

Did he really see you like that? As his love? It sounded as if it had just slipped out without a thought, maybe it was a mistake? Or maybe he was seeing you as you were seeing him – the kind of love you only discovered once in a lifetime.

Coming back to your tent had you enveloped in a smell that smelled of both of you. You had barely noticed how the mix of you had taken the place of home in your brain but as Paz tied the behind you, you froze. Because this was home.

He was home.

Fear gripped your heart and you tried to swallow back the anxiety that build up in your chest. You felt sick to your stomach as you tried to gather the courage to talk to him. To tell him. But all you managed to do was start to fold the clothes into a bag.

“What are you doing, omega? You don’t have to pack,” Paz told you, sounded confused as he stepped behind you, his hands finding their place on your hips, “You don’t have to worry about any of that. We will have plenty of time tomorrow and I sure as stars won’t let you do it alone.”

“I know it’s just,” you sighed, your hands falling away from the fabric, “I’m nervous, I guess.”

“Why?”

“Because – Because I –“ you faltered, fear and doubt taking over and making the words die on your tongue.

Everything in you screamed for you to get out of there, away from him so you could pretend that you left on good terms. As long as you did not tell him about your feelings, he The rejection you would face. The shame. If you were wrong then these last few days, perfect as they were, would forever be tainted by the emotional distress you would be suffering if he did not return your feelings.

Paz muttered something under his breath, raising his helmet above his head and you found yourself immediately looking at him, your eyes searching his for any sign of either rejection or encouragement. But all you found was worry and it made your heart clench in a way that clearly did not help you in your endeavours.

“Omega,” he growled, his fingers tilting up your chin so you were forced to look at him. The way his brows were furrowed made you think he was angry but he did not smell like it. He smelled like fear and panic and worry and – and hope.

“Tell me,” he ordered lowly, “Tell me what you feel.”

“I … I really like you,” you whispered, avoiding his gaze and instead focusing on the way his stubble faded into the skin of his neck, “Even before this. Even – even before we really talked, I – I liked you. And now I feel … I feel …”

“Yes?” he asked, his breath fanning over your face and stars he was so close his nose brushed against yours and you wanted to kiss him again and again but you knew. You knew you needed to be truthful with him. If you did not take your chance now, it would all be over. You would arrive home and he could find another omega to mate. He could find someone better than you, someone softer and prettier and lovelier than you.

“I feel like I like you more than just … like,” you explained lamely, your heart beating so strongly in your chest, it hurt. “I – Kriff, alpha, I don’t know what to say but I need you to know how safe you make me feel and how cherished and how loved and I –“

Your throat tightened up and you felt tears of frustration and nervousness prick in the corner of your eyes. Now that you had the chance to talk to him about it, your brain refused to come up with the right words no matter how much you wanted to tell him just how loved he made you feel. How warm you felt when he was smiling at you or how your heart skipped a beat whenever his nose brushed over your scent gland.

“I wish you could feel what I feel for you,” you confessed, throwing any fears overboard, “I’m not good at – at any of this, Paz, but I love you.“

There, you thought, Here it is. There was no taking it back now.

Paz’s hand came up to the back of your neck, his fingers splaying over the warm skin there. His eyes were burning into yours and you swallowed harshly, not brave enough to look away from him. His gaze was piercing and you could feel the excitement prickle on your skin.

“Omega,” he whispered, his forehead falling against yours, “I thought it was so obvious, I thought you knew, I thought you could smell how I –“

“What?” you asked eagerly, feeling excitement and hope build up in your chest, “How you what?”

“How I love you,” he whispered against your lips before pressing a soft kiss against them, “I love you, omega. Always have, always will.”

You could not help the smile that spread over your lips, hardly believing his words. Paz loved you. He loved you. He had said so himself.

“You love me?” you asked, feeling happy tears collect in the corners of your eyes, “You really love me?”

“Yes, I do,” he whispered and you swore you saw tears glimmer in his eyes as well, “I love you so much, my love. My omega. What would I do without you?”

With all of the tension and fear falling away from you all at once, you could only laugh and throw your arms around him. Tears were running down your cheeks as your body tried to deal with these overwhelming feelings of pure happiness. Paz Vizsla, the man you had believed to love hopelessly, loved you back.

He loved you.

“I love you,” you managed to bring out between bouts of laughter, running your nose along his scent gland. Paz’s arms tightened around your middle, keeping your body close to his. He made a step forward, slowly crowding you backwards to the bed until your knees hit the corner of it.

You fell back with a squeak that turned into a sigh when Paz’s big body draped over yours. His forearms caged you in, his nose bumping against yours. His erection was prominent even through his pants and you arched your back subtly, trying to get closer to him.

“Tell me,” he whispered against your lips, “Does that feel good?”

“Uh-huh,” you nodded, “Feels really good.”

“I’m gonna knot you and then I am going to mark you right here,” his breath fanned over your neck and you pressed your head back into your pillow, “I’m going to mate you, love, how does that sound?”

Divine.

“Sounds perfect,” you gasped out, baring your throat for him and not even a second went by before Paz planted the first kiss there, his teeth nipping at the sensitive spot while you spread your legs for him.

Your clothes came off in no time as did his, hands and mouths wandering along every newly revealed patch of skin that was laid bare.

“I love you so much,” he murmured again, kissing his way down your belly while his hands played with your nipples. You arched your back, hardly knowing what to focus on when everything he did seemed to evoke so much pleasure all at once.

“L-love you too,” you replied, your hands coming to his hair and holding him to you. His teeth nipped at the thin skin above your mound and you gasped, feeling your folds grow slicker by the minute.

You wanted to say something else, something flirty and witty to make him laugh against you but then his mouth opened and his thumbs came up to spread your lips apart and his tongue –

“Oh!”

He chuckled, the vibrations sent through our core and you gasped when his tongue dipped between your folds again. “You liked that, huh?”

“Uh-huh,” you nodded eagerly, following his cue to spread your legs even further.

Paz ate you out like a man starved, completely devouring you. His big hands holding you apart as he sucked and licked and kisses, his teeth sometimes ever so slightly grazing over your clit and making you see stars in a completely new way.

His hand came down to spread over your lower belly, his thumb reaching and playing with your clit. Paired with his tongue dipping inside your dripping folds it was all you could do not to implode on the spot. Everything felt thick and dripping and hot and heavy and –

Paz looked up at you, dark eyes meeting yours while he was burying his face between your legs and stars, what a sight. What a man.

You moaned, throwing your head back ad a particular suck against your clit and then his other hand came between your legs, one and then two fingers pushing into you, stretching you, preparing you for him.

“C’mon,” he growled, “Come for me, love, I can feel you getting close.”

The orgasm was like a slowly building wave before it completely crushed you, your fingers pulling on his hair as you writhed under his tongue. And still, you felt your walls pulsing as he licked everything up you had to give him, his fingers slowly spreading your wetness around.

“Oh,” you breathed out, relaxing into the pillows as he helped you through the aftershock, “Oh, that was good – that – that was really good.”

Your alpha laughed, pressing kisses to your inner thighs before wandering up your belly and your chest before coming to rest above you. His chin was glistening with your juices and it would have made you squirm with embarrassment if it had not been for the distraction in form of his erection against your belly.

“I am glad to hear that, love,” he murmured, dipping down to kiss you softly, “Do you still feel up to take me?”

You glanced down briefly, feeling his heavy cock against your belly, flushed and leaking and his knot was already swollen just the tiniest bit but it still made you clench around nothing. Stars, you could not wait to have him inside you again.

“Yes,” you nodded, meeting his eyes with a mischievous grin as you rubbed your calf against his hip, opening yourself up to him, “I can take it. Please, Paz, I can take it.”

Your alpha – because that was what he was now, your alpha – growled, pushing into you in one surge and you both moaned. Your walls stretched around him, barely accommodating him before Paz started to work his cock into you again and again.

He managed to hit all the right spots and you hardly knew what to do with yourself, your eyes rolling back in your head from pleasure as your hands tried to find purchase on his shoulders. Everything was just too good, too much, and you could feel our thighs trembling as you tried to keep yourself from coming too early.

But Paz looked down at you, a snarl on his lips as he realized what you were doing. In the very last moment, your orgasm already on the verge of crushing you, he flipped you around so you were on top. His hands were on your hips, holding you to him as he thrust up into you, his hips working tirelessly.

You squeaked, your tits bouncing with the movements but Paz did not seem to be bothered. There was a little knot between his eyebrows and he groaned, your walls clamping around him every time he touched that spot. And he touched that spot every time.

“Look so pretty like this,” he growled, one hand coming up to cup your tit, “Can’t wait to fuck you in our own bed just like this.”

“Yes,” you whimpered, swilling your own hips to meet his thrusts, “I want that, alpha, I want all of it. Please knot me, please mate me, I – I want – I want all of it, alpha, Paz, please, I – oh!”

His hand wrapped around your neck, slightly squeezing and your eyes fell shut as your mouth fell open. The orgasm that reached sent tingles through your entire body, your core pulsing and clenching and clamping as you felt all tension leave your muscles. No sound left your mouth except for a gasp as you felt Paz’s knot swell within you.

For the first few thrusts he kept going, his knot catching on your entrance now and again until it was too big to leave you and instead kept you tied to him as he found his own release, spurts of hot come filling you to the brim until you were almost afraid of how much he was coming inside you.

Completely out of breath, you rested against him, your chest squished against his as you looked at him. Your hand came up to his face, gently tracing a line over his eyebrows and down his cheek. Never had you felt this full, never had you felt this loved.

“You’re beautiful, alpha,” you whispered reverently, leaning forward to kiss him. His knot pulled at your walls and you winced, carefully rocking back on him, gasping when you felt his cock twitch inside you.

Paz’s chest rumbled and his big hands came up to your back, his fingers spreading over your shoulder blades.

“Make yourself come again,” he growled, nipping at your collarbone.

“Wh- But alpha,” you whined, your forehead leaning against his chest, “You – you said – you said you would mark me when I’m on your knot.”

He nuzzled your neck, his teeth grazing over your scent gland and your hips twitched, your walls clamping around his enormous knot. “And I will, my pretty little omega,” he promised, a twinkle in his eyes as his hand cupped the back of your neck, making you look at him, “Right after you made yourself come on my knot.”

You pouted, feeling an unusual defiance spike up in you. But Paz only chuckled, his finger tapping your chin before coming up to your mouth.

“Here,” he murmured encouragingly, pressing his fingers against your lips. Immediately, your mouth fell open, your tongue swirling around the rough pads of skin as you sucked on his fingers. “Good omega,” he praised you eagerly, pushing his fingers deeper in your mouth, “Wonderful ‘mega.”

You hummed, your eyes closing.

His other hand squeezed your tit, massaging the flesh as his thumb swiped over your sensitive nipple. You felt stuffed and overstimulated in every sense of the word, like you were just moulding in his hands, waiting for him to please you as his fingers kept thrusting in and out of your mouth.

You did not know what it exactly it was that made you clench around him, your pussy weeping around his cock. But Paz seemed to have an idea.

“Someone likes to have their throat stuffed, hm?” he teased you, his fingers slightly pressing on your tongue, “Just look at how pliant you are for me, how good you’re being, omega.”

You tried to smile around him, but his fingers moved again and as your drool dribbled out of the corner of your mouth, you could feel your wetness collecting between your thighs, one stubborn drop making its way past his knot.

“But if you insist,” he teased you, “I can use my fingers to make you come,” and pulled his hand from your mouth.

“Nuh-uh,” you whined, your mouth chasing his fingers, your tongue swirling around the length of them.

Paz chuckled, wholly satisfied, “You want to have your mouth full when you come, hm?”

You hummed around him, sucking on the digits again while your hand wandered south over your belly to between your thighs. You could feel how his cock was splitting your apart, your lips spread around him as almost nothing of your juices escaped around his knot.

Your fingers circled your clit and you breathed in sharply, your back arching. Everything felt hazy around you, the air hot and your thoughts dripping slowly like honey

“Good girl,” he praised you, his eyes fixed on where you were pleasuring yourself, his nose brushing against yours, “Look so pretty when you clench around me. C’mon, come for me. Come around me and I can mark you, omega.”

Stars, you wanted nothing more than for him to mark you.

As your movements grew quicker, more urgent, you started to grind against him in tiny movements. You were dripping wet even with his knot stuffing you and you whined around his fingers when your clit rubbed against the skin of his lower stomach.

You could already feel the knot in your core tightening and your hips twitched, again and again, edging towards the release that you craved with every pore.

Paz seemed to notice how close you were because he sat up, his chest pressed against yours, and pushed his fingers even deeper in your mouth. You gasped, tears collecting in your eyes and you moaned around him, the sounds muffled by his fingers.

When his teeth sunk into your scent gland, breaking the skin, you saw stars.

You barely knew what to do, feeling dizzy and nauseous and confused as your hands tightened around his biceps, grasping at anything that could offer you some more stability. The feeling was so intense it almost hurt, your heart clenching painfully as your walls clenched around him and you whimpered, trying to cling to him even tighter.

Paz hummed, his tongue soothing the mark his teeth had left immediately and he planted the softest kiss on your throat. His big hands ran over your back, calming you and keep you warm and you relaxed. The pain subsided almost immediately, instead being replaced by and you felt yourself relax against him.

“I love you,” Paz whispered, his nose running along your jaw line, “Does it hurt?”

“Not anymore,” you sighed, “Not when you kiss it.”

He chuckled, the sound low in his throat and you felt your cheeks warm up with giddiness. “Then I will have to kiss it every day,” he whispered, pressing his lips against the sore spot, “Every time I see it,” another soft kiss, this time with his tongue darting out, “Every time I want you to know how much I love you.”

How could one man be so dreamy?

You wriggled on top f him, both of you wincing when his knot pulled at your walls and Paz’s hands shot to your hips, holding you firmly on top of him. “Don’t hurt yourself,” he asked, his eyes warm as he took you in, “Don’t hurt yourself, love.”

Smiling, you put your hands on his chest, letting them rest there and feeling his heart beat underneath your palm. He looked and smelled of sex, his skin sweaty and his eyes soft and his lips plumper than usual. You had never seen and perceived anything more beautiful.

“I would never hurt myself,” you replied easily, slowly leaning towards him to kiss his jaw, “Besides, I know you will do anything to keep me from pain.”

“Right you are,” he murmured, tilting his head until your lips met his mouth and pulling you in for a kiss, “Stars, you are lovely.”

“You aren’t too bad yourself,” you joked, your fingers running over his skin until you could grasp his shoulders. He kissed you again, his tongue running over the seam of your lips, asking for entrance. You melted against him, your chest resting completely against his as you enjoyed his caresses on your skin.

“I love you, alpha,” you said breathlessly when you pulled apart. Your chest was heaving with your breaths and you rested your forehead against him, not taking your eyes off him, “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too, omega,” he replied, huffing out a laugh.

“What is it?”

“I just can’t wait to see Sluice’s I told you face when we tell her she was right,” he whispered against your lips, “You were never my calmer. You were always my omega.”

[billionairebabes]

Trophy Wife Aesthetics for Black Women

“Hi! What do you think are the non-negotiables of being a trophy wife? Aesthetically. For black women. I think white women have a different level up journey.”

I was asked this question in a chat but I wrote so much information that I figured I should share my response with you all as well. I’ll try to make this as concise as possible. 

I’ll start by saying that aesthetically, Black women have to be more than cute. White women are considered beautiful just for being white, we don’t get that privilege, you know? However, being beautiful isn’t the end all be all. There are plenty of black trophy wives that aren’t naturally “beautiful” but they present well. Presentation is everything kind of like food. It may taste great but you may not even want to touch it if it’s presented poorly. 

Here are my personal non-negotiables: 

1. Keep your hair done. This doesn’t mean keep your hair in a weave or wig 24/7. You can be natural too. One of the more affluent men I dated actually preferred my natural hair over wigs. But make sure it’s well taken care of, always. Deep condition, moisturize, detangle etc. Use clips in if you need the extra volume. If you’re going to do weaves and wigs, make sure your closure is “undetectable”. Keep flyaways in order with an oil or mousse. Carry a brush and comb with everywhere to touch up every now and then but not in front of him if possible.

2. Your skin has to be pretty taken care of as well. If you’re his wife, you’re going to be waking up to him every morning. I don’t believe in waking up earlier than my man to put on light makeup and stuff. Men aren’t even worth that lol. But DO try to achieve great skin so that you still are pretty when you wake up. Doesn’t have to be perfect. Many people don’t have perfect skin. But make sure you’re washing, toning, moisturizing blah blah. I’m starting to follow the 10-step Korean skincare routine. It’s on my blog If you guys want to check it out. I’ve been investing a significant amount of time in learning what acids do what and how they can address my specific concerns. Good skin overall just makes you look wealthier too. So on “no-makeup” days, you can just do eyebrows, and lipgloss and mascara if you don’t have lash extensions and still look put together. Affluent men tend to enjoy outdoor activities, there will be times when you don’t wanna be in a full face but you can if you want to. The same goes for skin on the rest of your body as well. I shower about two times a day so I moisturize my body two times a day. To moisturize I use a mixture of oils, shea butter and regular lotion. I moisturize my hands every time I wash them too. Once or twice a week, I do a full-body exfoliation. I have a dry brush that I use and occasionally, I opt for a scrub instead. 

3. Take care of your teeth - Straight white teeth against melanated skin is >>>>. Plus it makes you look prettier, more put together, and of course, wealthier. Straightening teeth is expensive but a worthy investment. If you can’t straighten now, just whiten and take good care of your teeth in the meanwhile. Brush twice daily, floss daily, and whiten throughout the week. 

4. Keep your nails done. Can’t be too long or else we’re considered “ghetto” I usually go about medium length but a lot of blogs will suggest short. My man loved my medium length nails lol. I usually go for softer colors like baby pink, sometimes white. If I’m not able to go to the salon, I clean and file my nails down to an even length and paint them with a clear polish. It’s hard to make a mess of clear polish and my nails still look nice and shiny. I pop collagen pills to improve their strength because I naturally have weaker nails that break pretty easily. 

5. Wardrobe. Try to build a timeless wardrobe with a lot of basics you can build on and mix and match. For example, blazers are a staple for me. I wear them with jeans but I can mix them with trousers too. Then I have hella basic bodysuits I can wear with either combo. An easy trick for me is to buy a ton of neutrals. I’m not a big color person so it’s easy for me to shop this way. However, do not let my preferences deter you. Black women own color, if this is your style, go for it full throttle but be tasteful. I usually go more colorful on vacations. There are tons of articles out there on how to build a good wardrobe though. 

6. Stay in shape - I won’t say there’s a specific body type you need to have but take care of your body. I’m still working on working out consistently but because of skinny privilege I’ve been able to lack in that department and still be perceived as “fit”. Currently, I try to do flexibility stretching and exercise on Monday, Wednesday & Fridays. Stretch on weekends. If you get cosmetic surgery like a BBL, breast job etc. make sure it’s fitting for your frame. 

7. Lastly, this doesn’t apply to aesthetics but I feel as though black women have to DO SOMETHING to be snatched up as trophy wives. We don’t get pulled into that position just for being pretty as often as white woman do. For example, Alexis O. Of Reddit wifed Serena Williams who is the best tennis player in the world. Not some random girl he thought was cute. Prince Harry wifed Megan Markle who was not only a successful actress but also had an outstanding educational background to match. Janet Jackson married billionaire businessman, Wissam Al Mana. Now of course, many of us aren’t that successful yet but hopefully you get the point. Men in positions of higher status want to know that you can fit into his lifestyle and don’t have beans for brains. Having something going for yourself also gives him something to invest in. Men like to feel needed or helpful but not used. 

Additionally, owning a business or working in corporate greater increases your chances of mingling with men in positions to make you a trophy wife. There’s a reason why college sugar babies are so successful but for women past that stage, have a career, have a small business. Do SOMETHING. It also creates a safety net for you as well. Men can be unpredictable and can do horrible things. I read an article once about a man who hid his entire fortune in offshore shell companies when him and his wife were divorcing so that she wouldn’t be able to get anything. It took her lawyer literal years to untangle that web of shell accounts he spun. Running your own business or even having a solid set of skills saves you in the event of the worst of the worst. Your life shouldn’t crumble to pieces if this man decides to divorce you. Same goes for even being the spoiled girlfriend of a wealthy man. Having a wealthy boyfriend or husband is one thing, knowing how to use him as a resource is another. Girls who truly win at this game walk away from these relationships with more than a few handbags and a baby. 

Good Luck Ladies! 🥂

[stephspurs]

A Family Affair | Euro 2020 Football Fanfiction

hey besties!! here is part 8! Part 8 see's Amelia in a change of colours, her friendship with Jorgi explored more, an awkward Chelsea player and a cheeky Villa boy. Please enjoy & send me your thoughts! Love always, Steph xx

Part 8. | parte otto

word count;  1569 writing tools; third person until dashed line, first person thereafter. next update; Wednesday 11/08 5pm AEST. Updates are three times/week (Monday, Wednesday & Friday)! tags (as requested by users); @footballffbarbiex @obsesseds-world @abysshaven link to fic masterlist here

Landing in the rarely-sunny but always wonderful London town, Amelia was swiftly picked up from the airport by a man in a blacked out Mercedes van and driven away to her new club-appointed accommodation in the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The 24 year old couldn’t help but feel a sense of home resonating through her body. Yes, Italy was also her home for the last 3 years, but there was something in the air in London that really made her believe that this is where she was meant to be.

Whilst happy that her quintessentially-British townhouse was a mere stones throw from Stamford Bridge and her family home just on the other side of the park in Holland Park she was still a 30+ minute commute, without traffic & one way, from Cobham. Beggars can’t be choosers, at least this way she was close to the hustle and bustle of London City, as well as her family and old friends.

A few days had passed since her talk with Fede, her swift departure from bella Italia saw only a small gathering occur at her apartment with some of the juventus boys on the eve before her flight. Constant check-ins from La Cosa Nostra whatsapp group chat, of course the word had spread to the rest of the Italian national team before she had even returned home from Fede’s place, meant that she was never left alone to her thoughts for too long.

Keeping the promise he had made when she phoned to tell him the news, Jorgi was knocking on her front door at 7:30am the following Monday morning, ready to drive the both of them to Cobham for Amelia’s first full day of work. He was the only person who knew she was taking this offer, other than the professional staff at Chelsea FC who had to organise her contract, so it was very much a nerve-wracking drive to the suburban training ground.

“Sapevo che stavi bene con il blu Azzurri, ma il blu Chelsea è un'altra benedizione che mi è stata conferita” (i knew you looked good in Azzurri blue, but Chelsea blue is another blessing bestowed upon me) Jorgi exclaimed as she opened the door to his car and slid in, having stopped right in front of her house in a no-park zone.

“Morning Jorgi, Thanks so much for picking me up - i’ll sort out a car this weekend i suppose”

“It's not a problem, I'm only a couple of streets away anyway so it's not out of my way.”

The pair caught up on the past couple of weeks without each other, speaking on the Fede situation and Amelia’s feelings. The best thing about Jorgi was how he was able to see both sides of the story. He valued Amelia's opinion and feelings as much as his long-time friend, Fede. He knew how hard it was for both parties to come to an amicable separation & he was making a mental note to call his italian pal to thank him for letting the girl go.

Amelia’s first day at Cobham was heavily administrative, spending a lot of time sorting out paperwork, meeting the team of staff she would be joining, getting her uniform, sorting out her office. After a quick bite to eat with the head analyst, Paolo (she just couldn’t seem to escape the Italians altogether), she collected her leather bound notebook and followed her colleague to the first team wing of Cobham. Whilst she was strictly working with the first team, she had expressed interest early on & stipulated it in her formal acceptance, that she wanted the opportunity to work with the academy players and the freedom to dip into the talent pool of Chelsea youth, to assist in perfecting her tactical plays.

She couldn’t deny that the blue of her uniform was the perfect shade to bring out the blue in her more-often-than-not grey eyes, she felt comfortable in it, she felt part of the team. Pushing open the door ahead of them, Paolo stood to the side like a true gentleman and gestured to Amelia through the door first.

______________________________________________________________

Walking in, I noticed that the scene in front of me was similar to the first time I met with some of these players. With their backs to me, facing the front, listening to every word that Tuchel was saying to them. I snuck in, stood to the side and waited for my introduction which came very shortly after.

“I want you all to meet the new tactical analyst that the club has appointed following a very successful european campaign this past summer, Amelia White” Thomas directed towards me, and just like that, a slight bit of deja-vu settled in as i watched 30+ sets of eyes turn to look at me. Some were happy to see me, some were polite and offered a small smile, and just one set looked a little shocked and very guilty.

“I trust you all will treat her with the respect that you show me, Paolo and all other members of this professional staff. We had to fight tooth and nail for this girl to join us and I can’t express how lucky we all are to be learning from her.” Tuchel dismissed his team, Jorgi pushing through the chairs to get to me.

“Amelia! What a surprise! Why didn’t you tell me about this!” Jorgi rushed over to me and wrapped me in a hug that I didn't return. Less than impressed with the boy's antics and sarcasm.

“Oh be quiet, you drove us both here today.” I spoke with a smile and rolled my eyes.

“Always the trouble maker Jorgi!” Mason Mount spoke from behind him.

“Amelia, nice to see you again! Can’t believe you didn’t tell us in the group chat!” Mason continued as he greeted me hello.

“Haha yeah, it all happened very quickly & to be honest, my decision wasn’t final until a couple of days ago. I had a few opportunities and I had to weigh up my options, Chelsea were willing to go a bit above the other clubs so it became obvious. Besides, someone once told me I would look good in the Chelsea blue” That someone also being the person who avoided my messages, and who is currently avoiding my eyes.

Later that evening.

“As if I deserved to know you picked the blues on sky sport?” Jack questioned the girl over facetime that evening, keeping their friendship tradition alive and cooking together.

“It all happened so quickly Jack, I was in talks with a few clubs and there was a bit of a tussle and negotiation stage and then I just had to pick one. Chelsea offered me the opportunity to foster the youth team talent and no one else was willing to cross-contaminate their professional staff” Amelia hurried down the phone, afraid that she hurt the brummie lad’s feelings.

“Calm down Mils, it's fine! I’m only playin wiv’ya. I’m happy for you - and me too, now I can come visit ya and have a place to stay in the city” He joked back to her. Jack had a certain way of calming the girl down, he reminded her a lot of Fede. He could read her before she came to terms with her own thoughts and feelings.

“Are you trying to tell me that you, with all of your friends and all of your money, need to rely on little old me for a place to stay in the city?” The joking tone went back to normal with the two flirtatious friends.

“No, I'm just saying that I'm happy you’re in the city. Ya know, it’s only a 2 hour drive. I could easily come down on a Friday after training and be back before a Sunday game…”

“2 hours is far too long to be in the car just to spend the day with me”

“That's where you’re wrong, it would be two nights and one whole day. Besides, 2 hours in the car is better than having to fly to get to you. I was prepared to do the latter anyway before your big move back to London” Oh did her heart swoon inside her chest, a quick blush spread across her cheeks and a little chuckle left her lips - unable to find the right words to say back to him.

Amelia knew the dangers of the situationship, this was exactly how it happened with Fede. She couldn’t help that she was naturally playful and flirtatious, she often didn't know she was doing it. Normal conversations to her often appeared like a hardcore flirt-fest to anyone who happened to be around the girl. She didn’t want to cross that line with Jack, she knew better than to do that, especially with how she hurt Fede in the end. She didn’t know where she was going to be in a few years, nor where he was going to be.

What she also recognised in the older lad that Fede also possessed, and she would be surprised if he didnt considering he is a professional football player, is that he was determined. Too determined that sometimes it was more about the chase and the challenge, rather than the aftermath or the reward. She knew Jack wouldn’t give up on her and would always be there for her. Was it bad that she enjoyed it?

Part 9. | nona parte

[kevin--of-desert-bluffs]

WTNV Quick Rundown - 3 - Station Management

Welcome back, reader! WTNV Quick Rundown is a little thing I'm doing in which I make a (hopefully neat) bulletpoint list of lore, facts, quotes and interesting little things from each episode. Why? So new fans can quickly catch up and so old fans can have a browse and remember some forgotten facts.

The arctic is lit by the midnight sun. The surface of the moon is lit by the face of the Earth. Our little town is lit too, by lights just above we cannot explain. Welcome to Night Vale.

Station Management is introduced. It's contract negotiation season with them. This is done by reading the envelopes which are slipped under the door, and then shouting through the door and hoping that they hear. Nobody in the station has ever seen Station Management, just their enormous size and tendrils behind the frosted glass.

The radio host is given an envelope after describing even that much about them and fears he may have said too much but 'he's a reporter at heart'. After opening the envelope he is audibly shook, and cuts to the 7 day outlook. He is hoping it's not another 'HR retraining session in the Dark Box'.

The 7 day outlook gives a colour to the sky on each day. Monday: Turquoise.  Tuesday: Taupe. Wednesday: Robins egg. Thursday: Turquoise-Taupe. Friday: Coal dust. Saturday: Coal dust, with chances of indigo in the late afternoon. Sunday: Void. - somewhat popular quote.

The radio host urges listeners to write in to stop Station Management angrily shutting down the show (or the radio hosts life) which he will shout through the door and hope their hear and agree. They are mad for having their behaviour and appearance even vaguely described. A recording of today's sponsor is played whilst the radio host deals with Station Management.

Station Management has left their office (when they move, there is the sound of clicking footsteps and the sound of steam being released) , which has caused the radio host to hide under his desk with his microphone in terrible fear.

He urges listeners to stop writing in, if they have been (this may be the first time we're introduced to the idea that more time passes in universe than out of it) Jerry Hartman, an intern, is introduced and presumably killed (or absorbed into Station Management's mass). Eventually the radio host signs off saying he will make a break for the door.

Weather: "Bill & Annie" by Chuck Brodsky, chuckbrodsky.com

Leann Hart is introduced. She is the publishing editor of 'The Night Vale Daily Journal' which is reducing it's number of printed copies due to a decline in the literate population.

The Night Vale Business Association has opened a new Night Vale Stadium next to the previously mentioned NVHWRA.

There is an annual parade of Hooded Figures on November 10th, which is the only day the stadium will be open. We are told that The Hooded Figures not only lurk in the Dog Park, but also in the elementary school playground. They also occasionally openly steal babies and nobody tries to stop them.

The Council reminds us that any litter marked with a red flag is not to be picked up or approached. “No flag – goes in the bag. Red flag- run.”

Books have stopped working in Night Vale, which the scientists are investigating. They're described as biting, sparking, emitting lethal gas and having a meat smell. The City Council states they have always felt that books were dangerous.

Sources says that the Used and Discount Sporting Goods store on Flint Dr. is a front for the World Government. Intern Chad is sent to investigate, but does not return. There is a running gag of radio interns being killed off, and the radio host apologising for the death but in a rather unconvincing manner.

There is a sports store in NV called Play Ball! which is a front for the Sheriff's Secret Police, 'so it can be trusted'.

Larry Leroy (out on the edge of town) has noticed a fear creeping into and then passing through the town. It did not affect Old Woman Josie, presumably because of her Angelic Protection.

This fear is felt by the radio host, who was frozen with it and too afraid to move but he attributes this to possibly being to do with the envelope he received earlier in the episode. Also, he's battling Lyme Disease.

The creeping fear passes and the radio host sincerely wishes that it will go to Desert Bluffs next and 'serves them right'.

Telly the Barber is introduced. His store is on the corner of SW 5th St and Old Musk Rd. He is described as 5'9'' with a small moustache and thick potbelly. The radio host is spitting a great amount of malice towards Telly for giving Carlos a haircut. His hair is repeatedly described as perfect, as well as being thick, black and with grey at the temples. This hatred is a running joke for a while.

Big Rico's is once more mentioned and praised, especially since it's the only pizza place that hasn't mysteriously burnt down.

There is an employee lounge under the Night Vale Mall, where the radio station is hosting a thanksgiving party, and a Thanksgiving Day Dead Citizen Impersonation Contest from 11am till 9:45pm (with a cash bar and two Twister boards).

This is the first episode where he signs off with 'Goodnight, Night Vale, goodnight'.

Proverb: There’s a special place in Hell. It’s really hip. Very exclusive.

[tundrainafrica]

Title: Lovebug (8/12)

Summary:  

“It might be a bug.”

“A bug?”

“Sometimes the developers of this application make mistakes. This is our first time meeting I’m sure so…Isn’t it a bit weird that we just met for the first time and it rings like this? And for two strangers to coincidentally ring each other’s alarms?“

Levi is the developer of the Love Alarm App and Hange is married to Zeke.

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Notes: Feedback is very much appreciated :D

Levi put a hard deadline for Wednesday

“Wednesday” he said it again because he couldn’t be too certain how he said it the first time. He was conscious if he were too stiff, it might almost seem awkward. If he were too relaxed, maybe the urgency wouldn’t get across.

The challenge was finding the balance and when his team nodded, their faces unchanging, he realized it had been an easy task. They had gone through that same pattern before, especially before a large-scale quality assurance test, a recalibration of the application.

And the one on Monday was much larger, covering not just fifty volunteers, maybe even hundreds. When it was Zeke’s own connections that had managed to get that many volunteers, they couldn’t afford to delay it.

Levi cleared his throat and continued. “All fixes should be completed by Wednesday. All QA and regression tests by Friday,” Levi added. “The large scale QA test will be happening on Monday. No negotiations. No chances of rescheduling. ”

Aside from the number of volunteers, that QA test should not be anything different. Nothing much changed except perhaps the fact that Levi was in a constant state of compartmentalizing. He was working partly with outsourced labor to complete the code and to make sure someone was testing their new application. He was also working with his own team to make sure they were still addressing issues and realising fixes for the love alarm.

He liked the busy-ness, the need to be constantly thinking about work. Sometimes though, there were more distracting prospects that forced their way into his limited brainspace. And for some reason, his brain space was so willing to accommodate it.

More specifically, to accommodate her. Well, he had no choice anyway. After all, it was her application. It was his brain child but by extension, it was her and Zeke’s property.

He was constantly in a state of stress and Hange’s presence only made things more stressful. But somehow, his brain demanded he forced that extra piece of information, that piece of responsibility, that piece of Hange somewhere in his brain.

Just like he couldn’t say no to Zeke and Hange, he couldn’t say no to the manifestations of his own mind.

She never gave him a chance to say no. After all, she liked working in his office. She had made herself at home on the desk next to him and everyday he was reminded of that extra compartment his brain had created just for him.

All he had to do was enter the room and enjoy the view of her hunched over her laptop like she always was.

First thing in the morning, she was there. After meetings and standups with his team, he would go back to his office like always, and she was there.

That time, all test devices were lined on the desk, the whiteboard that only that morning had been covered with scribbles was replaced with something a little more coherent.

“You’re testing?” Levi sat next to her, counting ten devices before deciding it would be a waste of time to count further. He looked back up at her.

Hange nodded. “You updated the build last Friday right?”

“Just some fixes,” Levi said. The fixes came slowly, with more data being added, with the algorithm being tested here and there. It was still far from perfect though. He scanned the whiteboard just to get an inkling of her own progress. “How many pseudo emails do you have?” He could have counted it himself but once again, he gave up after ten.

“Enough to test on this many devices,” Hange said.

He read them out loud, taking note of the checkmarks..

Wingsoffreedom123

Wingsoffreedom213

Wingsoffreedom231

Wingsoffreedom321

Wingsoffreedom312

Wingsoffreedom132

“Creative,” Levi commented.

“Look, I just need a bunch of emails that are easy to remember so might as well stick to the same combination,” Hange said. “ You get it, Humanity’s strongest?”

Levi cringed inwardly. He should really go around changing that name. “Do you actually use those emails?” He asked.

“Sometimes, when applying for free trials, when making more than one account in websites.” Hange said. “I like keeping my own consumption patterns not connected to ‘Hange Zoe,’ if you know what I mean.”

“At least you’re able to make use of those emails for testing.” Levi pulled his chair a little closer to her and looked over her shoulder. “Is it working better?”

“It rings,” Hange said. “The last five times I tested, they said I was happy.” She chose that moment to click ‘activate’ on the next alarm. As expected, it rang again, the words ‘happy” flashed in the middle of the screen with an ugly smiley face in Arial font right under it.

It was a blatantly horrible sign that maybe they had spent a little too much time on the back end. Front end and user interface could be fixed a little later anyway, Levi reminded himself. He brought out his own test device and pressed the activate button.

The word ‘happy’ flashed across the screen. “Looks like they fixed a lot of the kinks,” Levi said.

“Are you happy?” Hange asked.

Those types of questions were the ones that had him a little more self aware. He didn’t answer immediately, instead, he left his natural instincts speak for themselves. A smile threatened to creep up his lips overwhelming the small part of him that wanted to push it down into something more subtle.

“Levi, are you happy?” Hange pressed, a hint of a laugh in her voice.

He was. He couldn't tell exactly why. Overall, it had seemed much easier, to just let the smile climb up his face so he gave it facility, freedom to move.

And soon, he didn’t regret it. Maybe because his own smile had been the reason Hange’s eyes got bigger before her features softened into something comfortable within a few seconds.

Before Levi could appreciate them a little more, her eyes suddenly narrowed, as if studying him. He noted all of it in her expression, the triumph, the victory lap in her expression, and the sneer particularly evident in her eyes.

He didn’t want her to win that little game they had for themselves. So he turned back, allowing time for the smile to fall into something less embarrassing. “Well, if the application says I’m happy, maybe I am.” He stood up again, holding his laptop to his side. “I’m going out for a break.”

***

Summer was ending soon.

And for Levi, the end was usually accompanied by the relief that he wouldn’t have to brave public transportation under the sweltering heat while dealing with an office dress code.

Strangely, he also found himself a little melancholic as he noted that red leaves were starting to sprout more frequently among the branches. He considered it almost an obligation to take a walk twice or thrice a week, especially during those last few weeks.

He would sit on one of the benches by the garden. To save time, he would bring his laptop every single time and he would always allow himself short in-betweens to enjoy his surroundings after long minutes of staring at the screen.

Like always, the trees were above him and the flowers were in front of him. When he looked down, he even enjoyed the grass and the cobblestone lined paths.

“You take the same route every time.”

Levi looked up, an instinctive reaction to that very familiar, almost intimate voice. “You followed me?”

“What if I wanted to take a walk too?” Hange asked.

“You're welcome to take a walk. I’m just gonna do some work here before going back inside,” Levi said. He looked back at the screen in front of him, trying to find something to make progress with as he monitored the workflow tracker.

Nothing much had changed or was expected to change, his own staff was probably on lunch break. He trusted them enough to be certain they would get most of their work done by Wednesday. And consequently, he was left with nothing much else to do but maybe take a lunch break too.

Hange sat right next to him on the bench and Levi pulled away, far enough to put a good few inches between them. “You’re going out more often now,” Hange said.

“I noticed I’ve been spending too much time indoors. I never really got to enjoy summer for what it was. We only get it three months a year.”

Hange gave him a knowing look. “And you only noticed it now? After living in this city your whole life?” She asked. “You’ve lived here your whole life right?”

“Yeah,” Levi said.

Hange shrugged. “You just never struck me as the type to enjoy weather, or nature in general. Back in the golf course, back in the ocean, you didn’t look like you wanted to be there,” she noted.

“Maybe it’s a recent thing,” Levi said. He kept it vague, not wanting to probe any complex topics when he was grappling with more important complex things.

Hange though, was a black hole of knowledge, a bundle overflowing with curiosity. “What makes it pretty? Why do you like taking walks?”

“Do we have to have a reason?”

“Well ever since I started to work closely with you, I started to notice something too,” Hange said. “You seem happier.”

“Maybe because Zeke is always busy.”

Hange snorted. “You really hate him don’t you?” She leaned a little closer. “And aren’t you at all nervous admitting it to me?” An overly playful demeanor accompanied such intimidating words. It was more laughable than terrifying.

Levi shook his head, unfazed. “I trust you wouldn’t tell him.”

“I wouldn’t,” she admitted. “I don’t blame you though.” She only had to give him an almost pitied look for him to read her mind.

He articulated it for her. “I never really recovered from those two all-nighters cramming an application.” That had been more than three months ago but the memory still burned as a faint memory of excruciating exhaustion and an unpleasant caffeine buzz that took weeks to brush off.

“You managed to impress the hospital admin at least. And we got the funds,” Hange said.

Does that make Zeke any more of an insufferable person? He had hoped to ask that with the face he gave Hange then, one eyebrow raised. If it didn’t send the message, he could easily say it out loud. That one pleasantry Zeke afforded him though that day in front of the convenience store echoed in his head. Even just coming up with an insult sent a wave of guilt through him.

A wave of guilt I don’t need to feel. Levi reminded himself, willing to recall the other instances the blond had been abrasive. Zeke was either a master manipulator or misunderstood. He was a billionaire though, so Levi decided to err on the side of ‘manipulator.’

“The funds go to the company, to the outsourcing activities and to server space,” Levi corrected.

“Don’t you have company shares?” Hange asked.

“A stock option,” Levi clarified. “Something I chose not to take. I’d rather get my money as is. I don’t trust myself to grow something of that much value.” He kept his answers vague, since he never did read the contract closely anyway, it was Erwin who went through the benefits with him.

“Well everyone else in the company who runs on stock options seems to trust you. Zeke’s own investment is riding on your own ability to make a good product...” My PhD dreams are riding on your product. Hange didn’t say that last part out loud but Levi heard it loud and clear.

“Well this pseudo love alarm project, it’s still far from perfect.” For emphasis, he opened up the new project entitled ‘emotion alarm project’ on his dashboard and slipped the laptop screen over to Hange. “Thirty percent done. We barely fixed the interface, just getting the required testing and data done is taking up a lot of resources.”

“I know that and I expected it,” Hange said. “You know, a PhD sometimes takes decades to complete and I’m ready to take that much time.”

“I just wanna manage your expectations. Besides, something about the testing still bothers me.”

“What about it?”

“Remember the first night I made the application?” He stifled a wince at the painful memory. “It didn’t ring… until you came in.”

“Maybe it was a bug?” Hange suggested. “It shouldn’t be too much of an issue right? Since you made a lot of improvements after.”

“I did,” Levi said.

“And it never happened again with the later builds.”

“It doesn’t but it works too much like the love alarm. Do you notice, it always rings when we’re nearby?”

“When we’ve already loaded millions worth of data points. When we’ve overseen that much testing with other people. I don’t think you have to think too hard about it. We just keep improving the application right? Same as the love alarm,” Hange explained.

“Maybe I’m just being cynical. It doesn’t work once and I can never trust it again,” Levi muttered as he scrolled through the tasks for the next release for the upteenth time since a while ago.

“I guess that’s what happens when you’re the one who came up with the project. You can never trust your own abilities to develop?"

"Or because I worked on it, at three in the morning, I tested it. I know how many shortcuts I took with it…" Levi trailed off as he started to focus a little more on the numbers, the titles on the task trackers.

"You know they did the research, the testing, if it works for them, if they have a good success rate, then maybe it works for us too? Maybe the app is right, we're happy when we’re next to each other. Sometimes we’re sad when we’re next to each other and sometimes we're angry. If this application is detecting moods like this… similarly to the love alarm, maybe it means we could--- "

"Get along?" Levi finished it for her. There were only so many things that code could mean anyway.

"Get along.... Or to get to know each other more." Hange said, her voice softer than a second ago. The smile took longer to leave her lips.

Hange though had always been good at composing herself but Levi had months to figure out patterns and trends in the way she navigated the more sensitive topics. He couldn't help but notice the heavy tension, even under the light summer breeze.

Those moments happened too often that Levi had prepared an escape route every time. Business talk. And they had a lot to talk about. "Hange, I wanna ask something about the front end," Levi scrolled back up, towards the top of the task trackers. Dealing with front end was a mammoth task, rifed with two many sub tasks but it was definitely one of the last priorities, if it was even a priority. Levi wasn’t the type to particularly mind releasing an application with a white background and an interface that used the very underwhelming Arial font.

But it was Hange and Zeke’s application.

"Ask away," Hange said.

It came easily after that. The ticket on his workflow tracker had an inkling of a script to follow. "What colors would you associate with emotions?" He asked.

"What?" Hange furrowed her brows.

Levi cleared his throat. Nevermind, it wasn't easy to come up with the question without a little more expounding. "Like would you say red is anger? Blue is sadness? Yellow is happiness?"

"Wait? Why?" Hange asked again. Her lips were curled up just a little higher.

"I'm thinking of the front end of the application. What colors do you see for each emotion?"

"Yellow for happiness," Hange answered easily.

"Not orange?" Levi challenged. He had opened up the task and started to take notes.

"Orange is way too angry for me."

"Red seems much angrier," Levi said

"Red is anger definitely but I'm not seeing bright red, I'm seeing something like orange."

Levi opened up a color wheel. " So this red?" Levi asked.

"No, bright reddish orange," Hange corrected. It may have been a coincidence or just a trick of convenience but a red leaf had fallen on her lap at that moment. Hange picked it up, and twirled it and held it in front of Levi like a token.

“So... autumn red?” Levi asked.

Hange dropped the leaf on his lap. “I guess.” She raised her eyebrow. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

Was he giving her a strange look? His mind sometimes formed opinions as he spoke and Hange had always been receptive anyway so he verbalized it, just for her. “When I’m angry, I see red,” Levi admitted.

“I haven't felt really angry in a while, so I wouldn’t know,” Hange said. “Maybe it changed.”

“Sadness?” Levi asked.

Hange turned to him questioningly. “Tell me yours first.”

“Grey,” Levi said automatically.

“Blue,” Hange said, as if it were the truest fact in the world.

A fact Levi was compelled to question. “Why blue?”

“Why not blue?”

“Blue doesn’t seem sad….”

“Why not?” Hange pressed.

“It seems…” Levi started, only realizing seconds later, he was unable to come up with the right words.

“Too nice?” Hange suggested.

“It’s a nice color. It makes me feel good just looking at it.” It was a pathetic response. With such a complex thought, to even force out of his mouth, he had to channel his inner child, through the most child-like attempts at articulation.

“Okay, I know it doesn’t feel good to be sad but.. don’t you think sadness is a beautiful feeling?” Hange asked.

“No.” It should have been a natural answer. Somehow, Levi felt like there was something else worth listening to.

Hange saw reason to continue at least. “You wouldn’t be feeling sad, if you never felt happy in the first place, if you’ve never felt desire or love. There are feelings much worse than being sad for sure.”

“Like what?”

“Not feeling at all maybe?” Hange surmised. “So maybe the strongest feelings, whether good or bad, are still nice… maybe something worth indulging.”

And it was turning into a philosophy lesson. How many hours had he wasted listening to Hange prattle on about emotions and concepts of love? They weren’t hours wasted for sure, but they did leave him feeling just a little sad at times. Once again, he went back to business talk. Levi looked back at his workflow tracker. “So ‘blue sad, yellow happy, red angry…”

“Do you really think sadness is grey?” Hange asked.

Levi looked up from his laptop and straight towards Hange. "Look, I don't think much about what color my emotions are…” He trailed off. He could have said more maybe. Speaking while reflecting turned out to be a daunting task at that moment.

Maybe sadness was grey. That had seemed like the most natural conclusion at first. He focused for a little longer on the view in front of him, the view of Hange and behind her the open grounds that made way for blue sky and the blue burned into his eyes, enough to make him feel something in his chest then down to his stomach. Before he knew it, he started to entertain Hange’s own idea.

When Hange looked back at him, the open sky behind her, he felt stinging at the back of his eyes, he let his face fall.

The color overall had been burning at first. The more he stared, the more he noticed its more lasting qualities. It turned out blue wasn’t burning, it was subdued, mild. At the same time, the clear endless shade of blue in the sky behind her did wonders to accentuate her features. Enough of a reminder to leave another twinge in his chest, that time it was slightly painful.

A twinge of sadness. Emotions may be difficult to comprehend but whatever clarity that washed over him then had been enough of a motivator to speak up. “I think you’re right, sadness is blue,” he said. A beautiful blue.

He found himself searching for the prettiest shades on the color wheel, looking back up at the sky, then to the yellow streaks from the sun that hit the pavement. He then turned his head towards the garden where red roses grew. From a distance, from above, they were supposed to form a heart.

“Yeah, red and yellow too. Red hurts, it’s glaring, Sometimes yellow is too bright but all together, they make the garden beautiful. Like this courtyard,” Hange said. She stretched her legs out onto the stony path just in front of the bench and shifted her weight to the palms of her hands.

“Yeah, it is.” Levi nodded.

“It’s colorful,” Hange said. “Bright reds, bright greens, bright blues, bright yellows. They’ll all only be here together until the end of summer.” She wrapped her arms around herself, a wistful smile on her face.

“You like summer?” Levi asked. “It’s fucking hot.”

“I like summer and spring. What can I say? I like seasons with a lot more variety of color,” she answered. “ I always get a little sad when summer ends. Surprisingly though, I’m sadder than usual about this summer ending.”

“Why?”

Hange shrugged. “I can’t even explain it for myself. It’s ridiculous that I’m this sad about summer ending. I usually get like this when I’m out of the city but I haven’t even been out in the countryside in a while but somehow, I’m already imaging the larger, wider landscapes up north. I’m imagining how quickly the trees go bald… Green then red then blue. And how quickly skies turn from blue to just a constant gray and when the lakes just freeze over, turning from blue to a more of black… It’s sad to imagine.”

“I can imagine it,” Levi said. He didn’t leave the city often since there wasn’t much spare funds to work with. He was capable of empathizing though, after all the twinge of sadness remained and it had been surprisingly easy to channel it elsewhere.

“There are places up north that have the most beautiful springs and summers but when the leaves change… everything dies much more quickly.” Hange lowered her head.

“Maybe one day, I’ll check it out,” Levi said. He found himself picturing the logistics of a trip already. Having never used his leaves, having built up disposable income through a lack of drive to even form a life outside work, he realized he did have leeway to indulge just a bit. Somehow, Hange’s own thoughts were enough to inspire.

“You haven’t been up north?” Hange gaped.

“I didn’t have much money growing up and there’s no reason to.”

“I should take you up north. You know, the gardens up there, the rolling hillsides. They remind me of Pemberley,” Hange said.

“Pemberley?”

“Pemberley! Mister Darcy’s estate.”

Levi groaned inward. That book again.

“Elizabeth visited towards the end of the book and there are a bunch of old houses around there and when I would walk on the fields, I like to pretend I’m in the book.”

“Relive your rags to riches fantasy?” Levi asked bitterly.

Hange pouted. “It’s not just that. Besides, I wasn’t poor, you know. My parents managed to pay tuition to a good college with no debt.”

Not as rich as Zeke definitely. The banter might just get out of control so Levi went with a conservative digression. “Maybe I’ll go there one weekend, up north before summer really ends.”

“Maybe, I’ll take you there myself,” She said, an excited grin on her face. “Maybe after this weekend or next year if we’re too late. I told Zeke about how I was feeling lately, so for my birthday, he promised he’ll take me up north so we’re going this weekend.”

Levi choked. “Wait, birthday? When’s your birthday?” It turned out to be a burning question, a small fact Levi felt obligated to know. So the answer couldn’t have come any slower.

When Hange opened her mouth ready to speak, the universe decided for them that it definitely could come a little later. His phone rang, breaking that brief silence, prolonging the painful anticipation.

Petra Ral. For some reason, he expected the worst when any of his subordinates called. He answered the phone. “Petra, is everything okay?”

“Sorry about calling. I tried texting you but you weren’t replying.” Petra went straight to the point soon after that. “Some of the members of the other project offered to help out with testing. Do we have enough phones?”

They did have enough test devices, the pile on Hange’s desk was enough proof of that. “Yes we do,” Levi said. They were all in his office. He turned to Hange questioningly. It was her blank face that reminded him, they’d have to look through the phones themselves to see what devices they could wipe.

“I’ll meet you by the office,” Levi said. “Hange and I are going back now.”

He hung up the phone and turned to Hange. “Petra is gonna borrow some of the test devices. You’re okay with that?”

“Sure, I’ll help you wipe them,” Hange said. “Are we going back now?” She seemed hesitant, a closer look and Levi could see a hint of disappointment.

He closed his laptop. “We have to get back to work right?”

“You never even stopped working,” Hange accused.

“I stopped long enough to listen to you ramble on about that damned book and your nice vacations.”

Hange walked on, seeming deep in thought. “Hey Levi… What do you think of Petra?” It was an abrupt digression.

“What about Petra?”

“Have you ever considered dating her?”

Levi stifled a choke, letting it out as a peaceful clearing of the throat. “Why are you asking that?”

Hange shrugged, as she walked ahead. . “Nothing, she seems like a nice person and she seems to like you… Besides, she rings your alarm.” She looked back at him, a playful grin on her face.

Levi sighed. That wasn’t a question he would have liked to broach.

“Well?” Hange pressed.

But maybe he could give some vague answer in exchange for some information. “I’ll tell you. If you tell me something."

"Tell you what?"

"What are your plans for your birthday?”

***

Levi was tricked, treated, bamboozled. Hange had a way with words, a way of just pushing the right buttons. It could have been that or it could have been a series of convenient circumstances and conversation topics that had Levi there, at the front of the mall after work with Petra right next to him.

On the bright side, he had Hange’s birthdate, her plans for that Friday all the way until the weekend. That was enough to satisfy his own curiosity. Over time though he realized, that was all it did.

Was it worth it?

Back when he and Hange had been discussing it, it seemed like a good exchange, she satisfied his curiosity, he satisfied hers. Hange had given her due information. In exchange, she received information on Petra, the long QAs, her alarm ringing, the amount of effort Petra put into her job and just the occasional present that made their way to his desk.

While Hange’s own information went so far as to give the name of the restaurant, the time and the route of their roadtrip, Levi’s own information evolved into something else. Before he even knew it, Hange had created a new agenda of her own.

Your love alarm would ring with Petra right?

It did. Of course, in front of the mall, surrounded by other people wasn’t the best place to test it. There was no reason to either. Ever since Petra joined them more than a year back, the love alarm had always rang and Petra had enough professionalism, enough of a handle on her own feelings to mark it as ‘accurate.’

Admirable? Definitely. Date worthy? Did he ever consider dating her long enough to deem her date worthy? ‘Maybe not’ to both questions.

Have you ever considered dating Petra?  Hange brought up that question during their conversation and Levi felt almost guilty for the straight up ‘no,’ and the shallow ‘she’s too young for my taste’ reason.

She could have been too young. Still, Hange seemed more like a counselor for that exchange and she made some good points.

Assuming the love alarm didn’t have a bug, and the reading was accurate… Hange first set her premise.

The premise could have been accurate. No, it definitely was. Petra’s own approach towards him only served to extinguish any doubts.

Levi and Petra settled for an early dinner at some restaurant towards the end of the mall. Not for the food, nor for the pricing but for the convenience of being able to sit down after the twenty minute walk and a long day up on their feet back in the office.

And Petra had been excited to sit down in front of him. She rushed ahead and slipped into the booth, even before Levi had slipped himself into the small gap between table and chair. He allowed himself enough focus to scan through the menu and digest the names of the dishes at least. He hadn't bothered to even spare a good look at the board outside nor what the hell the other customers were eating and thus, he was excruciatingly slow.

On top of that, he was exhausted from a day of work and most days, he wouldn’t have bothered to go on a date, not with a colleague at that.

It’s not a date. Levi reminded himself. He shouldn’t be dating subordinates. That was another source of stress at that moment.

A few times Levi looked up at the menu, making some ingenious excuse about how he couldn’t decide and how he needed some blank space to help clear his mind before he tried to decide again. Every single time he looked up, he had to internally make an excuse because Petra was staring right at him.

“Have you decided what you want to get?” Petra asked, her voice was a song. She propped her elbows on the table, a rude gesture in most places. She managed to subdue rudeness by propping her chin on top, a look of seemingly genuine interest in her face.

Seemingly. Who the hell was he kidding, she probably was genuine about it. If it wasn’t his own instinct that could be relied on, he could at least trust the love alarm that had rung with no fail since she joined the company in the first place.

“I’ll get the fried chicken meal.” Levi didn’t particularly like fried chicken. He had been a little too self conscious of how long he had stared at her and back at the menu, how long the awkward silence between them lasted and he soon realized, he had to order quickly, even if he didn’t know yet what else he was missing.

“You wanna get tea? We could share a pot,” Petra suggested as she put down her own menu.

Levi could have finished a pot on his own. He wasn’t telling her that though, especially not right after too many close encounters with what could have been inappropriate. “Sure.” Levi nodded a little faster, hoping that was enough to feign excitement.

The waiter came and went with the menus on hand and Petra started to ask questions, questions that were invasive enough that Levi had a hard time thinking two things at once.

They weren’t too personal. In fact, they weren’t about him anyway. Levi started to figure that for himself when he got his bearings. “What about Hange?” Levi asked. He was stalling, finding ways to untangle his hairball of thoughts.

“You were asking me right? About any advice on what to give Hange for her birthday?” Petra asked.

“Yes, I did.” Why did he forget?

Assuming the love alarm didn’t have a bug, and the reading was accurate, that means this ‘love’ between me and Zeke is one sided.

“Well, we could check out a few shops nearby. You could buy her something that could help her with organization. Diaries, bookmarks, pencil cases, wallets…” The list went on and the contents had started to become unbearably boring. Really, would Hange have enjoyed those?

But I don’t think it’s one sided. Love is a choice right? I can choose to love him. So if you and Petra---

Me and Petra. There were too many things wrong with it, a boss and a direct report, a conflict of interest.

But she seems genuine. She seems like a good person. And maybe she could be worth pursuing.

She’s my direct report. He argued then.

But if you decide to pursue a relationship, you can always just reshuffle, right?

Petra continued to talk. “Does she like tea? We could give her a tea bag. The one I bought you last Christmas… it took me months to find it…” She brought out her phone and started to scroll, seeming too deep in thought. She furrowed her brows and bit her lip, as if the extra effort hurt..

An unnecessarily vigorous effort over a simple request from him. Guilt was an unwelcome feeling but it was also incredibly tenacious, like a cockroach. His mind was becoming more receptive to painful speculation as he watched Petra grapple over her choices, and he wasn’t at all being helpful.

Guilt was the rising action. Then everything fell into place soon after, not into place, more like a chaotic order, like a ton of bricks.

And that order made his feelings more intelligible.

He didn’t want to be in a relationship with Petra. That was all there is to it.

Love is a choice right? A tiny glimmer of protest made itself known in the silence. Those were words from Hange, echoed multiple times before in an exact tone and manner only Hange could ever pull off.

Can I choose to love Petra? Levi asked himself then.

Petra was a nice girl. She was helpful. She worked hard. She was competent. More importantly, she was single and she wasn’t married to his very rich client.

Most importantly though, in the grand scheme of all his experiences and emotions, Levi had to point out to himself, she wasn’t Hange.

Why don’t you give her a chance? Hange had asked that then. She goaded him, nudged him and pushed him out of his own office, to follow after Petra had left the office with the devices.

It's frowned upon, boss colleague relationship. Levi had argued.

Something tells me she likes you. Hange continued, as if she never heard of the unspoken taboos of office relationships. Maybe she hadn’t.

Besides, I noticed… You know, you look a lot happier. How that had ended up the conclusion of their conversation, Levi couldn't exactly tell. He remembered looking up at Hange, to hell with how far down his jaw dropped or how wide his eyes were. There was just something special about Hange pointing out something and how quickly something could easily become a certain reality when someone just verbalized it.

Maybe he was happier, maybe he started to appreciate nature a lot more. Maybe he had started to see more color the past few months.

His own recall of Hange, his own thoughts that flew back to her had him perceptive of the variety on his plate, the decorations on the shop for just a split second and when he looked up to Petra, a part of him was at the least attempting to appreciate.

Petra was a redhead, her hair fell in a neat bob that barely brushed her shoulders. Red was a nice color on hair, and Levi only noticed it then. He stared for a while longer, trying to find something to feel, something to think beyond ‘nice.’

Petra’s eyes shot up and she met his gaze. “This is it!”

“What?” Levi asked, almost instinctively. He felt a tad self conscious analyzing the shade of someone’s hair.

“I found the tea, the one I gave you last Christmas. You really liked it right?” Petra asked.

“The Jasmine Pearls?” He did remember the tea then he remembered telling her he really did enjoy it. A part of him had maybe forgotten for a split second that it was Petra who gave it so the question had shaken him more than necessary.

“I was only able to get it from a shipment last time. I had to book three months to get it. But they’re on sale now and---”

“She might prefer coffee though...” Levi said. His own intention had been to find the perfect present, but he ended up feeling guilty as soon as he saw Petra’s reaction.

Her face fell. She turned back to her phone for just a second before fixing her eyes back to his. She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for that, I can’t believe I got so excited.” A blush crept up her face.

“No. Don’t think about it like that.” Levi attempted to maintain at least a ghost of a laugh in his tone. The last thing he wanted to do was keep Petra unnecessarily uncomfortable, especially after everything that had happened until that moment.

The air was heavy and he wondered if she noticed it too. She was probably too preoccupied with her own self proclaimed mistakes, very evident by the beet red of her face.

“Let’s go around first. We might come up with something better if we ask around the shops,” Levi suggested. It had been more to comfort her than anything else. The suggestions of a while ago, the list of items had only served to make Levi think a little deeper about it, to the point of acceptance.

Even before they had finished their food, Levi had already concluded for himself, whatever he gave Hange, whether it be a wallet, tea, a small trinket, Zeke had probably come up with a more expensive version, something he probably would have never considered buying himself.

Levi didn’t leave though. Soon after they finished eating, he still accompanied Petra to every shop. He made a facade for himself, a window shopper buying a birthday gift for a good friend, he asked enough questions to engage Petra, everything ending with the conclusion, “I’ll think about it.”

Overtime, he realized he wasn’t thinking too much of what was in front of him. His mind was elsewhere.

Besides, I noticed… You know, you look a lot happier. Hange was smiling when she said it, but the smile didn’t curl the same way the others did. She crinkled her eyes as she spoke but Levi could almost point out the sadness in them.

And he saw it every time he recalled that. What does that have to do with dating Petra?

I like seeing you happy and I think if you found someone to love, maybe you’ll stay like this much longer.

Like what?

More pleasant? Smiling more often? Appreciating stuff outside work?

Hange talked for longer after that but that had worked to motivate him to invite Petra out to get to know her, to ask for advice for a gift for Hange. Somehow, a part of him wanted to take Hange’s advice, stay ‘happy’ so in his own way, he could prove her right and maybe by extension, make her happy too.

But was entertaining a relationship with Petra the right way?

The question burned for longer. Even after they exhausted all the shops and all the ideas that came with it. It was around eight in the evening when they stood by the train station under the mall, exchanging goodbyes. “Make sure to get home safe.” A part of him had considered taking her home. Their trains went in completely opposite directions though.

“Will do,” Petra said.

“We have a long day ahead tomorrow.” They always had a long day ahead but at that point, Levi was foraging for something a boss would say.

“Yeah, I'll make sure to get the testing done tomorrow," Petra said. "What happened today, it definitely gave me the motivation. I had a lot of fun.”

“Me too.” His response was automatic, something he didn’t want to think too much of.

They separated soon after and when Levi boarded the train home, he entertained the question again.

Was entertaining a relationship with Petra the right way to be happy?

I think entertaining love is an opportunity to be happy at least. Hange argued. You don’t have to jump into it but I think building a relationship with someone teaches you a lot and love, it makes life colorful.

Colorful? The trains were grey, the suits of all the passengers were shades of black, grey and the occasional blue. An almost alarming transformation from the gardens, after long days of working with Hange.

A copy of the emotions alarm was downloaded onto his phone and in the silence of the long ride home, he opened it again. He clicked ‘activate,’ the application loaded, no emotion was detected.

It was a fun night right? Levi concluded, there really was some more to improve on in the application. With the amount of testing done, and the amount of data loaded, he also had to entertain the idea that maybe it wasn’t an issue with the application.

Maybe it was his own issue with appreciating, with being open to love. “That’s what you were saying, right Hange?” He whispered to himself. A second later, he thought maybe he had said it loud enough to sound like an idiot.

Before nervousness and overthinking could take over again, he willed himself to mull over Hange’s words like always.

Love is a choice and just be open to it. Even if he didn’t believe it for himself.

***

It turned out, Erwin also knew about Hange’s birthday. And he suggested a basket of fruit as a gift.

Levi had been a little surprised. For one, maintaining partner and customer relations was never part of his job so how the hell was he to know that baskets of fruits and cakes were customary.

And secondly, he was just a little indignant. Erwin was his boss though so he couldn’t tell him that. He complied before going back to his office and booting up his laptop. It felt odd.

The laptop pinged with a characteristic echo and it was much louder in the silence, the almost deafening silence. After all, most days, Hange would have been there to chatter his ear off about her own experience testing.

That day, she had taken the day off. A birthday leave. Just for herself. She took September four and September five off. The fourth was to prepare for the long trip. Then on the fifth, she had dinner with Zeke, in an Italian restaurant on the first floor of a luxury hotel near the city center.

He knew the details, he knew the name. But it has nothing to do with you. He constantly reminded himself, it was only on a good to know basis. Still, he entertained the idea that maybe he could stop by the city center on the train on the way home, just for the modicum of a probability that he did run into them. It was not like he had anything else to do on a Friday night anyway.

But you can think about that tomorrow. Levi scolded himself. Somehow, Hange not being there was making it more difficult to focus. After all, she had been there, every single day before.

Also, how could he entertain multiple other ideas about Hange’s birthday when he didn’t even have a present for her? He had managed to put off Petra’s suggestions lightly, by some distraction from work. He had managed to make a good excuse of the fruit basket, saying that it was better to give a gift as a company.

Really, it had been his own insecurity stopping from putting any money into anything. Zeke could buy Hange a billion wallets, a billion tea bags, a billion fruits basket if it suited him. Then it begged the question for Levi, what could he give that Zeke couldn’t?

The emotion alarm. The answer didn’t come quickly. It came after staring at the desktop screen for long enough to lose grip on the time but after a long moment of doing nothing, Levi eventually brought out a test device and opened the server.

There were three basic emotions. Anger, Sadness and Happieness. Those were the three Hange put into her plan. They were to create the application, test it among patients and study it to see how it could help with more accurate prognosis.

And if he went the extra mile, maybe he could just give it as a late birthday surprise. Or maybe he might end up never finishing it. At least I’d try. That last thought lingered for a second longer and it did its part to send a burst of confidence through him.

He looked through his workflow tracker. No assigned bugs to look into. So he opened a new document, pulled out a paper.

“Hange Zoe, you wanted to test emotions right?” He asked no one in particular. When he was asking questions out loud, ideas ended up flowing much faster. He pulled out a small paper from the post-it stack at the corner of his desk.

“What if we connect it to the web, make a dashboard to display reports, so maybe psychologists have something to look at after testing?” He could have said it out loud. Maybe he didn’t. He had said it loud enough in his head at least to keep his gears moving. “What if we find a way to quantify it?” That last part was ambitious. It would need Hange’s input for sure so he grappled with two ideas, surprising Hange and just suggesting it like a developer.

His ideas were risks, born of long hours of googling enough to maybe bullshit years of studying psychology. Maybe Hange wouldn’t agree, maybe she would. He copied the necessary code from the alarm anyway and decided to just play around with it.

It was a birthday present only he could give anyway.

Another idea popped into his head after an hour more of googling, a much more doable idea. Even before he made sense of it, he pulled another post-it from the side and wrote out the three emotions. Underneath them, he wrote the colors. Red. Blue. Yellow.

Yellow and red became orange. Red and blue became purple. Yellow and blue became green.

He wasn’t a psychologist, he wasn’t a philosopher. He was merely a developer. He was an experienced one at that and with the right amount of free time and the right amount of motivation, he managed at least to pull out a framework and recall the color of the leaf on Hange’s lap.

Red. Yellow. Blue. Orange. Green. Purple. He had enough time to work on some front end tasks that day.

***

He finished it on Friday, the fifth of September, at around noon and maybe he had done a few hours of overtime to get it done, arriving home at midnight just the night before.

It wasn’t perfect but the colors showed up as a big dot under the emotion, and the application would flash in bright shades of red, yellow, blue, orange, green and purple, the latter three a mix of the basic emotions.

It had been a small act of just manipulating the data, loading Hange’s USB full of data to get it to work. Whether it would be accurate, he couldn’t tell but it would be something good to bring up on Monday maybe, a risky birthday present but still, a little risk seemed better than omission when it came to Hange.

The last few parts were a little tests on his end, while testing in between, while signing off necessary decisions for the testing on Monday.

The testing never worked, no emotions flashed onto the screen the few times he tested and every single time, he reminded himself, it wasn’t perfect but maybe Hange would still appreciate it.

By five, he was out, right on time and with his own personal project completed and downloaded into his phone, his workflow tracker empty, and everything ready for the large scale QA event on Monday and he thought himself a little deserving of a little stroll at the city center on a Friday night.

At around thirty minutes past five, he boarded the train, the same route home, stopping five stops shy of his usual stop.

The station at the city center on a Friday night was bustling. It had taken him a good one minute to even push himself out of the train. He only ever managed to get a glimpse of the shops, the city lights beyond the crowds not when he stepped out of the station, but a few blocks after that when for a good few minutes the crowds dissipated into something a little more breathable.

The luxury hotel Hange had mentioned was one, if not the best one in the city and Levi easily picked it out as he stood towards one of the less saturated parts of the crosswalk. It was a skyscraper, the windows were of the modern kind that reflected city lights in a unique way and they covered the building from top to bottom. And even from just his peripherals, he could pick the building out by the strange iridescent flashes of color.

The view was very much worth the price and Levi only had to walk ahead, catch it as a small glimmer behind buildings and crowds to know he was going the right direction, despite having to ride through the crowds.

He arrived at the block, the building only a few feet away, close enough that he had to strain his neck to get a glance of the skyscraper at the top. He looked back down at his phone.

6:30. Hange said they had a reservation for seven. He wondered why he was putting himself through that torture. Would he even get to talk to her? Eventually he realized, might as well make use of that information just to satisfy his curiosity again.

The restaurant was a small place, with glass windows, and if Levi stared long enough he could make out every single face there. For a Friday, it was still empty and he was able to conclude without much of a long glance that Hange wasn’t there.

So he took a good long stroll around the block. He entered leather shops, boutiques that sold branded clothing, staying long enough that the salesman had thought he would have bought.

Thirty minutes passed with a few bumps along the way. Sometimes minutes lasted years, sometimes they lasted split seconds but the bumpy wait was long enough for him to realize that he was doing something completely stupid.

It was Hange's birthday. That was Hange and Zeke's night. All he could give her that day was a greeting, and maybe a basket of fruits, care of Erwin.

So he planned a birthday message, saving it in the drafts. He didn’t have to give her the modified birthday application as a present. He could always prepare a script to pitch his suggested changes for the application on Monday. Disappointment and surrender had him lethargic and for a while after exiting the last store, Levi leaned back on some free brick wall where the space was for rent, a good distance away from the sea of people but still close enough that if he just stretched out his arm, he might just get dragged in.

He leaned back and stared, allowing himself that bout of reprieve as he watched the crowds go by. Crowds of people weren’t anything new, he dealt with those everyday trying to squeeze into the trains during rush hour every morning.

Crowds on a Friday, in the center of the city weren’t something he was completely used to though. He hated crowds and he always strategically timed his personal shopping trips to late afternoons on weekdays, particularly when it was much easier to maintain a comfortable distance from strangers.

When he was observing, time went by at a sluggish pace. For a while, Levi was hypnotized by the strange cadence that accompanied the view. The longer he stared, the more perceptive he became. There was a very big difference between crowds on a weekday during rush hour and crowds on a Friday night moving through a shopping district.

When he was close enough, he immediately picked it out, like a very small diamond in a sea of coal, invisible at first but from the right angle, it suddenly became crystal clear. Crowds in rush hour comprised hard, focused individuals. They were like streams: movements were loud, hard wired towards one direction.

Crowds on a Friday night were more like a river, they were moving but only barely, very subtly. Of course they would, the faces were relaxed, the people were rarely alone. Some clusters in the crowds came as one family, others came in groups of friends and others came in couples.

The more faces Levi scanned, the heavier he became. It dawned on him soon after he was alone in crowd of people and he was fucking lonely. For a second he considered testing his application, he decided soon after that he probably didn’t want a bunch of code rubbing his own loneliness and singleness in his face. For another second, he almost considered inviting Petra over.

Shaking both temporal thoughts away, Levi turned the corner and back to the main road, making some excuse that the main road which passed the five star hotel was the closest way back to the station. It was a valid conclusion at least, the main road was wide enough, and the shops were few and far in between that social distancing wasn’t too big of an issue.

There was another conclusion Levi liked to entertain though. He checked his watch. 7:30.

Hange had said before, the reservation was at seven. He dove into a crowd, while catching a glimpse of the restaurant to the window. Hange was surprisingly easy to spot, maybe because Levi had first swept through the seats on the corner with his vision. He spotted the brown hair, the glasses and a dark purple cocktail dress. Notably, there was no blond companion in front of her.

Zeke was in the toilet, his rational mind justified. “Have fun, Hange,” Levi said. At least he got to see her on her birthday, he allowed himself a passing thought on how well she had dressed up that night, similar to months ago when he had completed the test app. Then he brushed that thought away, looked straight ahead. He stayed with the sea of people, long enough to pass the hotel and as soon as he was a good distance away, he broke away, taking the underground path to the station.

It was still early and the station entrance was surprisingly more peaceful than above ground. He had enough space to open up his phone and check the birthday greeting in his drafts box.

Happy birthday Hange! Excited to continue working with you. See you on Monday for app testing. Btw, thanks for volunteering for the calibration on Monday.

He evaluated for himself that the text was a good balance between casual and professional. Satisfied, Levi clicked send and pocketed his phone as he made his way to the ticket gate.

The next time he opened his phone was in the train, three train stops in when he was lucky enough to catch an empty seat.

Thanks, Levi :)

It was too short of a message for Levi to read through and he was almost disappointed at such a turn out.

What did you expect, an ‘I love you?’ The tremble in his lips was enough evidence, that maybe a part of him did, as embarrassing, as ridiculous of a prospect as it was. He hovered his thumb over the keyboard, letting the weight of the incomprehensible emotions pass before he typed.

See you on Monday. That’s what he had wanted to type, just to keep the conversation going. Hange was still typing though.

Levi was staring at the bubbles above the message box for a good long few minutes. Minutes, it definitely took minutes. Hange was typing long enough for a station to announce a next stop, enough for the train to empty at that stop, enough for it to refill and enough for the conductor to announce the next stop,

The text eventually came. Where are you right now?

How the hell had that taken minutes to write, Levi didn’t know. He wasn’t eager to reciprocate though.

He replied within a few seconds. Why?

Hange took a little longer to reply. The bubble on the screen continued to bounce as Hange Zoe continued to type.

Nothing much. I was just curious. It had taken almost another train stop for Hange to type those six words.

A split second later, another message appeared underneath. Sorry for bothering you. So Hange wasn’t just a slow typer.

It was still eight in the evening, too early that for most, the night hadn’t even started. So Levi took a risk. He left the train at the next stop, boarded the other train that ran through that same line, the train that would bring him back to the city center.

Hange, you okay? He texted.

Hange didn’t reply. There was no bouncing of bubbles above the message box, but he continued to stare, just in case. And that little motion on the screen was a fickle thing.

Sometimes it appeared, sometimes it didn’t.

Hange Zoe is typing.... And sometimes, he stared at it for long enough that it seared into his vision even a minute after it was long gone from the screen.

She never did type anything and maybe he had waited too long for a response. By the time he arrived at the right station again, he tapped his card and exited the ticket gate and ran through the underground. When he reached above ground, he tried to maintain the same speed. That involved pushing through crowds and being a small man, he realized it wasn’t too much of a bother to anyone. After all, with the amount of people huddled in the crowds under the cool air of late summer, he wasn’t the only one pushing.

He didn’t have time to check his phone. And soon, he realized he didn’t need to. He arrived back at the hotel to find Hange hunched over, unmoving in the same seat she had been just a few hours back.

Zeke is in the toilet. Levi told himself. He waited a minute, then another. And when he looked closely, he realized, Hange was on her phone. He opened his phone to see the bubbles bounce again.

Hange Zoe is typing…

Levi was counting minutes, and the bubble never disappeared. He looked back up at the glass door to see Hange was still not moving, still slouched, her head bent over. To the phone on her lap maybe?

He looked back at his phone and concluded then, Hange had been typing for ten minutes.

Maybe Zeke is taking a shit. He set an alarm for ten minutes. The hotel and restaurant bathroom wouldn’t be too far. And no one took a shit for more than twenty minutes right? If Zeke didn’t come back in ten minutes, maybe that meant she was alone.

Ten minutes went by quickly. And a few times Hange had typed, a few times she had laid her phone on the table and leaned back on the chair. A waiter had offered wine once and Hange shook her head.

It would be rude to barge in but at the same time, there were answers he was desperate to get. He sent a message. Are you alone?

The typing stopped for a second. Then it continued for a minute. Then it stopped. Finally, like the sunshine after the rain, a chat bubble appeared and Levi savored the sound for a split second before he took in the contents.

Just one word. Yeah

Where’s Zeke?

He’s not coming tonight.

Levi leaned on the wall just next to the window and typed one message. You need someone there with you?

A few times he glanced back to see a waiter near her, handing Hange a small tray. The bill? He guessed. Hange should be going out soon but she continued to sit, for a few seconds longer.

Her reply came within those few seconds. I don’t wanna be alone tonight.

Levi leaned back on the wall and he closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, grappling with the conflict. Should he be happy? Sad?

His phone continued to buzz. Hange had left messages in succession.

Can I stop by?

I know a lot of places won’t be open.

We can get fast food.

Somewhere near your place maybe?

Anywhere that would be convenient for you.

Only if you’re not busy though.

Don’t feel obliged.

A string of messages, longer than he expected.

Exit the shop. Turn right and follow the sidewalk. Don’t cross the street. He was shit at the directions, but he decided for himself, she would ask anyway if she got lost.

It turned out, at the least, the directions sufficed. Soon he was hearing the clack of leather shoes, the rustle of a light autumn coat and Hange’s voice.

“What are you doing here?” Her voice was loud and clear even when it was competing with the sea of crowds, the other background conversations, the ads and the sound of traffic. Of course it would be, she was right next to him.

“Are you okay?” Levi asked. It wasn’t the best greeting but it felt like the most natural thing to say.

After all, Hange was smiling but it was an unusual smile. It was one of those smiles that seemed to be carrying a heavy weight. He figured it out after staring for a while longer. it was the weight of her cheeks, the prickling of her eyes. If she let the smile go, maybe everything would have fallen with it.

He gripped her by the hand. “You wanna go somewhere?”

“Let’s get out of here,” Hange said, a noticeable crack in her voice.

Maybe that had been enough to break the fragile smile on her face. In the crowds of people, in the middle of a busy street, there was no time for Levi to check. He thought it the best move to pull and maybe she thought it the best move to follow. She was obedient, predictable and light and he easily brought her farther from the center, towards the quieter parts of the city.

Five minutes of brisk walking, or maybe it was ten and soon, they reached an area with clusters of apartment buildings, residences. There were still small shops, a few restaurants and hole in the wall food stalls, some with lines spilling out all the way until the sidewalk.

At first, it seemed hopeless to find some place just for both of them. With time, Levi started to imagine one particular place that wouldn’t have so many people that late at night.

It should be bedtime for kids already anyway. He thought to himself. And when he articulated it, he was sure, there should be one. And there should be no people.

He just had to find one.

Five more minutes of following the winding roads between apartment buildings and he found one, a comfortable distance away from apartments. They could easily manage a soft conversation with no risk of being heard. He sat back on the swing, taking in the slide, the sandbox a few feet away, the monkey bars and high rise apartment buildings with most windows already illuminated just above them.

Hange had taken the seat beside him.

“Are you okay?” Levi asked again.

“I’m fine,” Hange spat out, only proving she was definitely not fine. There was enough light from the one street light on the corner, the shades of orange, red and white coming from the window and they had all worked together to show a glimmer of Hange’s face, even with her head bent down.

“Are you crying?”

The answer came in heaved breaths. The question must have made her more conscious. She bent down further on the swing. Her bangs covered her face and whatever glimmer he had seen a while ago was forgotten. Eventually, she gathered herself. “Levi, if you ask people why they’re crying, sometimes they just start crying.” She let out another breath.

That didn’t convince him to stop. “Why are you crying?”

“You don’t ask people that.” That time, the words came out a little more seamlessly.

“You asked me if I was crying back then… Back in the office.” Levi never forgot that harrowing experience and it was an easy memory to bring up.

There was silence for a second, save for a few more ragged breaths, the creak of the swing and maybe a few barking dogs from the distance.

Hange broke it herself, her voice much clearer than a while ago. “Sorry, I’m just tired,” she said. “Really tired.”

“Zeke ditched?” Maybe ditch wasn’t the right term. By the time he considered that, the words were long gone from his mouth.

“I knew he wasn’t coming,” Hange said. She pushed on the swing just a little bit, enough to have her swaying.

“Why did you wait?”

“We had a reservation.”

“But if he told you…”

“He told me to cancel it.”

“And your road trip?”

“He said not this weekend. He has a few more meetings and he couldn’t come home on time.” Hange’s voice was alarmingly serious, a sign of acceptance maybe?

Levi hoped not. In a feeble attempt to lighten the mood, he spoke up. “Happy Birthday.”

“I’d rather not think it’s my birthday.” Hange let out a pitiful excuse of a laugh. “How many birthdays do people even get, and here I am wasting one of them being sad.”

“I’m not the best company but I can try to do my part to help make it better,” Levi pulled out his phone and opened his email, opening the apk file he had been working on since that morning. He copied the download link and pasted it on Hange’s message box.

The message was sent quickly and the popping sound from Hange’s phone filled the silence of the empty playground.

“Happy birthday,” Levi said once again with a little more flourish.

“I told you, don’t remind me. Let’s just sit here and talk.” Hange gripped the chains of the swing and leaned back.

“Check your damn phone Hange.”

“Nah… My phone has been chocked full of disappointments since this morning.”

“I sent you your birthday gift through your phone.”

“It can wait until later,” Hange argued.

She was like a five year old child and Levi was starting to give up on even keeping the surprise.“I modified the app,” he said.

“What?” That had gotten Hange’s attention. She pulled out her phone.

“I created another copy of it, played around with the code.”

“Why?” She seemed curious more than anything. Curious was better than sad at least.

“As a birthday gift,” Levi said. “Just open the damn phone.”

Hange picked it up from her lap. A clicking sound as she unlocked the phone then silence and maybe a hint of humming as Hange fiddled with her phone. “I just download it right?”

“No shit Sherlock.” It was a stupid question. Hange had downloaded apk files more times than he could even count.

“Well, you said it’s a new app,” Hange said in defense.

“It is and it isn’t.” Levi moved his head, and it settled as a mix between a shake and a nod. “It’s not part of the original research plan… and I didn’t have much time to test it so it’s not perfect.” He unlocked his own phone and opened the emotions alarm. He stared at it for a second, hovering his thumb over the activate button then he looked over at Hange’s phone. “No need for an email. Just open it.”

“Nothing’s changed,” Hange said.

“Well, I added colors now,” Levi shrugged. “And I tried adding more emotions by playing around with the data, but who knows if they’ll show up.” At that point, he was self conscious enough that he saw it as an obligation enough to manage expectations.

He heard the familiar sound and he was sure Hange had activated it. He activated his own and leaned back on the swing and pushed just a little bit, enough to occupy himself while the alarm read them both.

Hange’s phone rang first.

“What did you get?”

“You added purple?” Hange asked. “What the hell does this mean?”

“Red and blue. So if red is anger and blue is sadness…” Levi started.

“Go on…” Hange said.

“I’m not a philosopher nor a psychologist. You say something.”

“Loathing?” She suggested. “A combination of anger and sadness… It sounds like loathing to me, or indignance.”

His own phone rang, he put the screen up. “I got green. Blue and yellow. Sad and happy. Can someone be sad and happy at the same time?”

“Acceptance,” Hange answered. “Or desire.”

“Those are opposites.” “Opposite sides of the spectrum but they’re the same feelings, they both involve happiness and sadness. Acceptance is sad happiness. Desire is happy sadness.”

He almost regretted asking for Hange’s feedback. He felt her speculation at the pit of his stomach and he only realized when his phone fell to the ground that he froze, lost his balance on the swing for a second. “This hasn’t been tested though so it’s all for fun.” A pathetic disclaimer but it didn’t seem to work. He looked up to see Hange was staring at him.

The tears had dried and her eyes were a bit brighter and she seemed more inquisitive than sad. “You know... " Hange started off slow,  breathless from amazement maybe. She was still fiddling, staring at her own screen. "This might be a good idea for the app. Let's test this again on Monday. Maybe we could add this."

“Maybe. We’re gonna have to revise the plan if we do.”

“Or we can keep it just a personal project but let’s think about it Monday.” Hange stood up. It’s getting late.” She put her hands up and stretched, swaying from side to side.

“Yeah, it’s getting cold too,” Levi said. Summer was ending soon.

“Happy Birthday to me,” she added, the venom from a while ago apparent. She pocketed her phone then held her sweater close. “Zeke said to wait a few weeks. I guess I’m gonna have to wait until next year to enjoy summer up north again. Maybe we can go south instead.” She kept her voice cheery, an attempt to lighten the mood.

A seemingly unsuccessful attempt. “You still wanna see summer up north?” Levi asked.

“I wouldn’t mind waiting. I guess what hurts about it is, I’ve been psyching myself up for days. I bought new clothes. I’ve been packing and I’ve already created a route for us,” Hange said.

“Yeah, you were talking about it a few days back, about how this one garden reminds you of Pemberley.” Levi asked.

“Well, last time I went there was a few years ago… There’s an area that reminds me of Pemberley, another one that reminds me of the Rosing garden---” Hange trailed off.

“I wanna see them all,” Levi said. He never finished the book and he wondered if she noticed. Regardless, he wanted to see it anyway. If there was something Hange could talk about for hours, something that had left her a lump of disappointment, he wanted to see it for himself.

“Really?” She said. “But with testing on monday… And you don’t seem like the type to---” Even under the dark night, Hange looked flustered, the pink in her cheeks still apparent.

“As long as we’re back before Monday right?” He didn’t know if she would agree. He didn’t expect her to but when Hange was already hovering such a prospect up in the air. When she had misunderstood that last statement to have been an invite, he might as well just play along. And enjoy it. “I don’t see any problem going with you,” he added that last part just to make it a little clearer.

"Like this weekend?" Hange asked, a look of disbelief on her face.

"This weekend." Levi nodded.

“Then let’s go. When do you think you’ll be ready?”

“We could leave right now.”

[yehet-about-it]

I Like Me Better | 24b - A Night to Remember

~ A Wayv Social Media AU Series ~

< Prev || Series Masterlist || Next >

Synopsis: You’ve just moved into a new apartment with your best friend Yangyang, but you’re immediately faced with a problem: your incredibly noisy upstairs neighbour Xiao Dejun, or to friends, Xiaojun. You spend the first few weeks of your acquaintance hating his guts, but after a sincere apology and a fascinating revelation about his passions and motivations you slowly begin to see past his cold exterior to discover the real him. What will happen as you get closer to this troubled boy and how will those closest to you react?

Pairing: Reader x Xiao Jun

Themes and Warnings: Explicit language, mild sexual content, mild violence and references to drinking/alcohol. Deals with themes of toxic masculinity, insecurity, gaslighting (sort of), and jealousy…

Start Date: 5th Nov 2020

~ Updates now every Monday, Wednesday & Friday @ 9pm GMT/3pm CST

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Word Count: 1.6k (i swear i did not mean for it to be this long lmao) Warnings: Tbh this is just a whole load of fluff. I may or may not have gotten a bit carried away...

You arrived back at your apartment in high spirits, laughing with yangyang as he tripped up the steps, falling onto your landing with a thud. “Agh that never happened!” Yangyang cackled, dragging himself up off the floor and brushing off his pants. “You moron,” you joked, sidling past him towards your door, fishing the key out of your coat pocket.

You sighed, chuckling to yourself as you slid the key in the lock, swinging the door open and standing against it to allow Yangyang in. “Go get some water and get yourself to bed, you mess” you called after Yangyang as he wandered into your apartment and down the hall to your kitchen, yapping on to himself about something or other. “I’m just going to go get Bella!” Letting Yangyang sort himself out, you shut the door behind you after dropping your bag in the hall and ambled up the stairs with a smile plastered on your face.

“Hey,” Xiaojun greeted, grinning at you as he answered the door. “Hey!” You grinned back at him, shuffling into his apartment as he let you in, shutting the door behind you. “Looks like you had a good day,” Xiaojun stated as he led you through into the living room. “Yeah, honestly it was amazing! Everything went so well, and well, I just feel super happy right now,” you babbled, still high from the day’s excitement, the adrenaline and the buzz of the two cocktails not yet having worn off. “How was your day? Did Bella behave?” You came to a stop by the dining table. “Yeah, she’s been perfect! We went for a couple of walks like you said, and she’s eaten plenty. She’s sleeping again now,” Xiaojun answered, nodding to the sofa where bella was curled up on another blanket. You cooed at the sight, uwu-ing over you and Yangyang’s little baby and how well she seemed to get on with Xiaojun. “Thanks for this Dejun, it means a lot” you said quietly, stepping closer to him so you could wrap your arms around his neck and press a small kiss to his lips. Xiaojun’s arms baring his rolled up hoodie sleeves, looped around your waist in response, settling your body against his in a warm embrace. “No problem, I’m glad you had a good day”.

You didn’t know whether it was just the adrenaline still in your system or the fact that you were now undeniably romantically attracted to Xiaojun, but unable to fight the urge, you pressed your lips to his again, this time with more passion, your body pressing against him as your lips danced with his. Thankfully, Xiaojun returned the kiss with just as much passion, his hands sliding up your waist as you opened your mouth, letting his tongue slide in, moving perfecty against yours.

As your hands gripped feverishly at Xiaojun’s collar, he moved you so you were pressed up against the table, and moving his hands to the back of your thighs he hoisted you up to sit on it, slotting nicely into the space between your legs. Soon, every part of your body was on fire with want, and you knew this was it. You wanted him.

Pulling away from the kiss, you looked up into his deep brown eyes with a newfound determination. “I think I’m ready” you whispered breathlessly, unable to deny the throbbing in your core. “You’re sure?” Xiaojun voiced, just as your jacket began slipping down your shoulders, and you shrugged it off, showing you were ready to be his for the night. “Yes.” You nodded, and with that you were in the air, being carried towards the bedroom for a night to remember.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning, you were awoken by the familiar feeling of something moving across your torso, and opened your eyes to see Bella had made her way into the bedroom and was clambering over you towards your face, wanting attention. “Hey girl!” you whispered, giggling as you picked her up off your stomach to cuddle her closer to your chest. “Thank you for being such a good girl yesterday, we’ll go home soon and get you some breakfast, don’t you worry” you cooed at her, petting her small, soft head. Looking around, you realised Xiaojun was still asleep, his chest steadily rising and falling with his breath, his expression looking unusually peaceful. A smirk emerged on your face as an idea popped into your head. “Hey Bella,” you whispered. “Why don’t we wake up Dejun huh?” Wiggling yourself to sit up slightly, you picked Bella up again and set her down right by Xiaojun’s face, and as you suspected, she began nuzzling against him, licking his face as she often did to you or Yangyang in the morning.

Xiaojun’s face twitched and his eyes flickered open as he responded to Bella’s attacks. “Wha-?!“ he started, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the light and he realised what was going on. “Oh, hey Bella.” Xiaojun chuckled, raising his hands in an attempt to pick Bella up and stop her from slobbering all over his face. You giggled and your heart swelled as you watched your new beau play with your doggo, not even mad she’d woken him up and witnessing this, you felt a sense of joy. You realised that giving Xiaojun a chance to show you his true self may have been one of the bet decisions you’d ever made, because right now, you were falling head over heels for him.

“Morning,” you laughed as Bella finally ceased her attacks, opting to curl up under the covers between the two of you while Xiaojun turned to you, realising you were awake already. “Heh, morning,” he said rolling over properly to look at you, reaching out to pet Bella. “Sorry about that,” you chuckled, absolutely not sorry at all. “She came in here and I couldn’t resist”. Xiaojun smiled. “Well there’s worse ways to wake up…” he uttered, gazing at you softly, his attention now all on you instead of Bella.

You stared back at him temporarily dazed by the romanticness of the moment and Xiaojun reached out, brushing a few stray hairs out of your face. “True…” you breathed, mentally scolding your heart for pounding so damn loud. It was a small gesture compared to the activities of last night, but nevertheless it sent your head spinning. With Bella snuggled between you and Xiaojun looking at you with such adoring eyes, you couldn’t help but imagine that this was exactly how life might be everyday if Xiaojun asked you to be his girlfriend, and you definitely didn’t dislike that idea, but there were certainly a few hurdles you needed to get over before that could happen. One being to tell Kun about your newfound relationship with the boy he despised and hope he didn’t try to throttle him or get him evicted.

“How are you feeling?” Xiaojun questioned as you sat up, pulling yourself out of your thoughts. Thankfully you needn’t feel self conscious as the comforter fell away, since Xiaojun had lent you one of his grey shirts to sleep in, wanting to make sure you were warm and comfortable. “Hm pretty good”, you hummed, not hiding the knowing smile that adorned your face. You knew exactly what he meant by that. Xiaojun mirrored your actions, sitting up as he spoke. “Well, I think that was a pretty good way to celebrate…” You giggled, “yeah, it was.”

Feeling Bella pawing at you again you sighed, realising you needed to get her home for food and take her out so she didn’t end up pooping in Xiaojun’s apartment. “I hate to leave, but this one needs feeding, and walking” you said, scooping Bella up in your arms. “Sure” Xiaojun replied lifting the covers to reveal his toned, tank-top clad torso, before climbing out of bed and slipping into his sliders. You followed suit, putting Bella back on the floor and proceeding to gather your belongings as Xiaojun helped, handing you your coat and pants. You didn’t bother changing, because it was only a flight of stairs back to yours and you knew Yangyang would be out, so you’d be able to slip back and into the shower without arousing suspicion.

Walking out into the living room you stuffed your clothes into the bag of toys and essentials you’d left for xiaojun to bring up for Bella which he’d already packed neatly away last night. “You got everything baby?” Xiaojun called from the kitchen island where he was filling up his water bottle. ‘Baby?’ You thought. You could get used to that. He’d said it a number of times last night, but hearing him call you that in such a relaxed context felt especially nice.

“I think so!” you replied cheerfully, slinging the bag over your shoulder. “If not you can come get it later” Xiaojun iterated, having gulped down some water, sauntering back over to you and stopping just in front of you, followed by a chipper looking Bella. “Yeah sure. Thanks again for looking after her” you said, pressing a small kiss to Xiaojun’s lips, before bending down to scoop Bella up so she didn’t have to negotiate the stairs on your way back down to your place. “No problem,” xiaojun replied modestly, walking with you to the door. “I’ll see you later then?” “Yeah, I have a couple days off, so just text me if you wanna hang out.” You replied, before Xiaojun gave you another kiss, Bella sandwiched between the two of you. “Sure” he said pulling away and opening the door for you. “Bye then!” you cheered, before heading back down the stairs to your apartment.

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[ms-m-astrologer]

Transiting Mercury stations direct!

Timeline (current events in bold)

Friday, January 15, 07:56 UT - Mercury enters pre-Rx shadow, 11:01 Aquarius

Wednesday, January 27 - Mercury enters “Storm” (moving less than one degree per day; this is like the actual retrograde getting an early start, sigh)

Saturday, January 30, 15:52 UT - Mercury stations retrograde, 26:29 Aquarius

Monday, February 8, 13:48 UT - Sun-Mercury inferior conjunction, 20:01 Aquarius

Sunday, February 21, 00:52 UT  - Mercury stations direct, 11:01 Aquarius

Saturday, February 27 - Mercury exits “Storm” (this is when the retrograde will “feel” like it’s over)

Friday, March 12, 05:09 UT - Mercury exits post-Rx shadow, 26:29 Aquarius

Mercury’s function in our charts is to serve as our inner computer program, which we can boil down to: 

Input -> Process -> Output

That means we can equate Mercury’s retrograde periods to “debugging,” or to upgrading the software. Something about the ways we learn, think, and communicate needs work. If you think about Merc Rx this way, it’s much easier to deal with!

So - I don’t think this was a particularly awful Mercury retrograde, do you? There were the usual computer snafus, but nothing really horrible. Nothing that made anybody’s life difficult for longer than thirty minutes, tops. Maybe it was because both the benefics (Venus and Jupiter) are in Aquarius, too? Although Saturn is there as well - but perhaps Venus and Jupiter together means that Saturn was overruled.

Anyway, most of the aspects happening while Mercury is in its post-retrograde shadow, happen with Lady Asteroids, Chiron, Neptune, Pluto, Eris, and the Nodes. We can’t see any of them with our naked eye, and I’m wondering if their effects will be more subconscious. The one and only “visible” planet involved is Jupiter: there’s a third and final conjunction between the two. What do you all think?

Tuesday, March 2, 05:58 UT - Vesta Rx/Virgo inconjunct Mercury/Aquarius, 15:02 (15 degrees 2 minutes)

Third of three. By this time, Mercury is not only direct, it has left its “Storm” phase, where it moves less than 40 minutes a day. We’re probably all thinking, “Why isn’t anything straightened out yet?” There could be some situation we still need to “adjust” a bit.

Placements affected lie between 14:02 and 16:02 of all signs; Aries and Cancer may feel it especially keenly.

Tuesday, March 2, 23:33 UT - North Node/Gemini trine Mercury/Aquarius; South Node/Sagittarius sextile Mercury/Aquarius, 15:38

Third of three. We can get some crucial piece of information now, and/or something is clarified, so that we can move on with whatever Mercury-type things we have going on. As with all the flowing aspects, we really need to be paying attention - they can flow right past us, and we’re none the wiser.

Placements affected lie between 14:38 and 16:38 of the yang signs Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, and Aquarius.

Friday, March 5, 03:27 UT - Jupiter/Aquarius conjunct Mercury/Aquarius, 17:32

Third of three. These were first conjunct on January 11, and next on February 14. These third and final aspects always bring closure of some kind. Whatever that amazing, mind-blowing idea was, we’re now finally in a position to nurture and grow the seed. The Moon in Sagittarius (Jupiter’s sign) will sextile this conjunction over the 5th/6th; we may acquire some remarkably wonderful long-term intellectual goal.

Placements affected lie between 16:32 and 18:32 of all signs, and between 1:32 and 3:32 of the cardinal signs Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn.

Monday, March 8, 02:11 UT - Mercury/Aquarius semi-sextile Neptune/Pisces, 20:31

Third of three. This is another one that we may not really “feel,” although it’s more because of Neptune’s fog. It is also a waning, 12th-House semi-sextile, which kind of doubles down on the fog and confusion. Again, the Moon (in Capricorn by now) will act as a kind of trigger for anything that happens. Make sure both sides of your brain are tuned in, if you want to take advantage of this one.

Placements affected lie between 19:31 and 21:31 of all signs.

Monday, March 8, 09:58 UT - Ceres/5:52 Aries semi-square Mercury/20:52 Aquarius

While Ceres was in Pisces and Mercury was in pre-retrograde shadow and then retrograde, the two planets made a semi-sextile. Therefore this semi-square may come as something of an unpleasant jolt. Did we forget something important? Keep in mind that Ceres is also approaching Chiron - which did make three semi-squares to Mercury. There may be some apologizing to do.

Placements affected lie between 19:52 and 21:52 of the fixed signs Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius; and between 4:52 and 6:52 of the cardinal signs Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn.

Monday, March 8, 13:28 UT - Juno/Sagittarius sextile Mercury/Aquarius, 21:01

Third of three. Given the “nasty surprise!” nature of the previous aspect, we may well be in need of some skills at negotiation. We have (I hope) learned to communicate with our partners, or at least to trust our partners a little bit.

Placements affected lie between 20:01 and 22:01 of the yang signs Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, and Aquarius.

Wednesday, March 10, 02:10 UT - Chiron/7:44 Aries semi-square Mercury/22:44 Aquarius

Third of three. In order to be able to move on to the bigger and better future, we’ll have to let some things go - and this semi-square seems to be all about that bittersweet realization. I’m not sure what’s harder to accept: something that helped you, and that you cherish, isn’t going to help someone else; or your wounded ego refusing to acknowledge that not everyone has to like the same things you like.

Placements lie between 21:44 and 23:44 of the fixed signs Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius; and between 6:44 and 8:44 of the cardinal signs Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn.

Wednesday, March 10, 23:01 UT - Eris/Aries sextile Mercury/Aquarius, 23:45

Third of three. Whatever was ticking us off, as we went into this retrograde, we can now express clearly (if not always politely). If we’re tired of putting up with bullshit, I think this can be the day when we stop putting up with it. Aries is hot, and Aquarius is cold - if we’ve been working on doing both at once, if there is something we are that angry about - we may finally be able to pull it off today.

Placements lie between 22:45 and 24:45 of the yang signs Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, and Aquarius.

Saturday, March 13, 01:41 UT - Pluto/Capricorn semi-sextile Mercury/Aquarius, 26:18

Third of three. Again, this is pretty subtle, and we’d have to be making a conscious effort to tap in to the energy. But, after all the trials and tribulations of the past two months, do you feel smarter? Is your mind a little deeper, a little more powerful? If so, and even if not, what are you going to do about it?

Placements affected lie between 25:18 and 27:18 of all signs.

__________________

For planning ahead purposes, the next Mercury retrograde will be between May 14 and July 7, between 16:08 and 24:43 Gemini.