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karajaynetoday · 7 months

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nothing's going right, and everything's a mess, and no one likes to be alone | jack hughes

author's note: don't ask me how the university semester timeline in this works. i have simply given reader a three week break in march bc why not. this is fanfiction okay, anything can happen 😂 no one proofread this for me so soz for any typos!

word count: 3.4k words

warnings: none that i can think of? but lmk if i've missed anything. soz if the ending makes you mad LOL i do love a cliffhanger

read part one here

read part two here

(This is a fem reader insert)

More writing here (soz that the masterlist is not up to date lol) | send thoughts/feedback/suggestions here

Somehow, the ill feeling of waiting until summer to see Jack again began to fade with each passing day. The itch to text him every time something exciting or infuriating happened to you began to lessen. The thoughts of him when you saw a funny meme he’d like, or your shared favourite foods on special at the grocery store, quietly stopped happening as frequently.

But then there were the things that didn’t stop. The sharp pain in your chest whenever Jack’s smiling face popped up on your social media feed. The butterflies in your stomach whenever your parents brought him up in conversation, fuelled by whatever the latest updates were from their group message thread with Jim and Ellen. The joy that would wash over you when you heard about a Devils win or a Jack Hughes goal, followed almost always by a wave of sadness that you were hearing about it second or third hand, rather than from Jack himself.

You were the one who’d asked for space. You needed time, you’d said. Given the blow up of All-Star weekend, all Jack was doing was respecting your wishes; but a huge part of you not so secretly wished he’d be a bit more disrespectful and reach out. Your mind was a mess of conflicting thoughts, and your heart wasn’t sure which emotion to feel or where to go next.

Since kindergarten, you’d barely gone more than a few days without seeing or communicating with Jack in some way. Now you were nearly a month without a word, and even though you were still mad at how he’d treated you, you were craving a return to the friendship you’d become so accustomed to. Jack knew you better than anyone, could basically read your mind with a single look, and although you had plenty of friends at college and still around in Toronto from high school, none came close to the camaraderie you shared with Jack. He was someone you could talk to for hours, or sit next to in silence for the same amount of time, it didn’t matter. With Jack, you could be utterly and entirely yourself, no complications. Now it felt like you were always pretending. And it was exhausting.

It was about 9pm on a Thursday night when you found yourself pushing through that exhaustion to try and complete yet another university assignment. For motherfucking economics. You couldn’t wait until you’d completed all of your compulsory economics credits because it was the absolute opposite of your cup of tea, when it came to academic subjects. This assignment was your last one, and you weren’t sure whether to cheer or cry at the idea of hitting the submit button on the online portal. Maybe you should’ve bought a confetti cannon to celebrate. Or a box of wine. Or booked yourself a flight somewhere fun, given you had a break from classes soon.

As soon as the thought of a trip crossed your mind, your phone began to buzz with an incoming video call. A video call from… Luke. Luke Hughes.

Your face scrunched in confusion, as you swiped to answer the call, met with Luke’s smiling face and messy curls.

“Hey sunshine! Long time no see. How have you been?” Luke spoke cheerily. Almost too cheerily.

You were immediately suspicious and narrowed your eyes at the youngest Hughes.

Luke was 3 years old when you met for the first time; he could barely remember a life without you in it. Given how inseparable you and Jack were, Luke became your de facto little brother, always tagging along where he could and joining in your adventures. Later on, when he became a teenager, you were the one Luke would come to when he was having issues with his friends, or trying to build up the courage to ask out the cute girl in his math class, or missing his brothers when they moved away. You were his second call after Ellen when he felt homesick at Michigan, and you were his first call when he had fucked up something that he felt his brothers would never let him live down. Emotional support and damage control, with a healthy dose of teasing and laughs thrown in. That was the dynamic between you and Luke. It also meant you could read him to filth when he was lying to you, and your honesty radar was through the roof at this sudden video call.

“I’m fine, Moose. Just trying to wrap up my final assignment before the break without losing my entire mind.” You offered weakly, half-expecting Luke to make a joke about your mind having been lost years ago, but the joke never came.

Instead, you saw the concern flicker across Luke’s face, just for a moment, before he forced a smile.

“How long is your break for? Any plans?”

“Three weeks, and not really. I promised my mother I’d spend a few days helping her with planning for their anniversary party in June, but that probably won’t happen until right before I go back to school.” You chatted absently, hitting save on your essay and standing up from the couch, bringing your phone with you as you moved into the kitchen to make yourself a drink.

You propped the phone up against the vase on your kitchen bench, reaching up into the cabinet to retrieve a glass.

“Well, you should come visit. We’ve got like 5 home games in a row or something ridiculous coming up. It’d be fun!” Luke’s tone was cheerful, but cautious, like he wasn’t sure how you were going to react.

You hummed in response, moving slightly out of view of your phone to get some ice cubes from your freezer and a soda from the fridge.

“Besides, I heard a rumour that you’ve got an airline voucher to use. I’d hate for it to expire or something.”

You could feel your heart starting to beat faster. Luke knew about the voucher. Did that mean Jack had told him about your fight?

“The voucher won’t expire for three years. I’m sure I’ll manage to use it before then.” You deadpanned, stepping back into frame to see Luke rolling his eyes at you.

“Yeah, sure, but will I survive that long without seeing you? Absolutely not. Come on, sugar. Please? Even if it’s just a weekend?” Luke had moved into full begging mode, with puppy dog eyes and everything.

You sighed, fidgeting with the straw in your drink and avoiding his gaze.

“I don’t… we haven’t talked at all, Luke. I don’t know what he’ll do if I just show up there.” You half-whispered, feeling that all-too-familiar wave of sadness coursing through your veins.

“He talked about you tonight at dinner. Says he misses you. But he doesn’t want to push, or not give you the space you wanted. But right now, he’s on the couch watching Gossip Girl, so…” Luke stated matter-of-factly, staring you down with a knowing look on your face.

Gossip Girl was something you’d insisted Jack get into when you were teenagers, as long as he “wanted to be called your official best friend”. And The OC. And Gilmore Girls. And One Tree Hill. And basically any other teen drama series you could think of. Collectively, those shows had thousands of episodes, and you always found yourself settling down to watch them whenever you were missing Jack more than usual. You’d never realised before that he did the same.

“Should… should we tell him I’m coming? I don’t want him to get upset by a bad surprise.”

“Not at all, sugar. Book the flight and send me the details, I’ll sort out the rest.” Luke’s beaming smile made a smile of your own creep onto your face, as you nodded at him and went to retrieve your laptop from the couch to log onto the airline website.

“Now that that’s sorted, I was wondering, what does it mean when a girl asks me what my sun, moon and rising are? Should I be worried? Or is it a good thing?”

–

Two days later, you were done with your semester and on your way to the airport. Luke had suggested you book a one-way flight, “That way, you can go home whenever you like!”, but you were starting to feel like the whole thing was a mistake.

Nonetheless, you pushed through those feelings and boarded your flight. The whole ordeal took less than two hours, and soon enough you found yourself navigating the arrivals area at Newark airport. You spotted Luke’s lanky figure, clad in a Michigan sweatshirt, with his back to you. You couldn’t help but creep up on him and poke his side, cracking up with laughter as Luke jumped at least three feet into the air. He’d always been the easiest to scare, ever since you were kids.

Luke cussed you out, and then pulled you into a bone-crushing hug.

“Missed your face, sugarplum.” Luke murmured, as you pulled away from each other and he rested his hands on your shoulders, studying you.

“Aw, Lukey. I’d say I’d missed yours too, but we really gotta do something about that hair.” You poked your tongue out as the youngest Hughes brother’s jaw dropped in mock offense.

You retrieved your bag from the luggage carousel, and headed out to where Luke had parked. The two of you fell into easy conversation as Luke navigated through the New Jersey streets back to the apartment he shared with Jack.

You managed to bury most of the nerves, but they came bubbling back to the surface when Luke pulled into the parking garage at the bottom of his building.

“Is… um… Is Jack home? Alone?” You managed to squeak out, and Luke looked at you like you were crazy.

Ever since All-Star weekend, you’d been having a recurring nightmare about Jack and the girl from the messages you’d accidentally become privy to. In particular, it was a scenario where you would come home from wherever you’d been out, and opened the apartment door to find them… entangled, on every possible surface you could think of. You felt yourself starting to feel ill as the images from your nightmares started to flash back into your mind.

“He’s alone. Ever since… ever since he came home early from All-Star, he’s been alone. None of the… usual visitors have been over. And he hasn’t been going to theirs, either. Not even when we’re on a roadie.” Luke said carefully, and you could tell he was trying not to upset you.

You could also tell that he was being honest. Because you could always tell when he was lying. But your mind was running a million miles a minute. Jack hadn’t… for a month? Because of his fight with you? You loved Jack, but you also knew (despite wishing that you didn’t know at all) that it had been years since he’d gone that long without intimacy. In fact, it was probably the longest since losing his virginity that Jack hadn’t fulfilled his desires.

Your mind was starting to wander into the gutter, and you pressed your eyes closed to bring yourself back to Earth. All you could do was nod at Luke, before you both hopped out of the car and into the elevator. Luke insisted on carrying your luggage, so you found yourself fidgeting incessantly with your hands as the elevator climbed to the correct floor.

You trailed behind Luke as he strode towards the apartment door and unlocked it, stepping inside and putting your bag down. He looked back and waved you into the apartment, pressing a finger to his lips. You tiptoed across the doorway, and your heart softened at the scene before you.

You could see the back of Jack’s head leaned up against the couch, and an episode of Gilmore Girls playing on the TV mounted on the wall. In fact, it was one of your favourite episodes; where Jess comes back and shows Rory the book he wrote, and calls her out for dropping out of Yale. You smiled ruefully as you thought about the parallels between that episode and your current situation with Jack, as the argument between Jess and Rory played out on the screen.

What do you mean?

You know what I mean! I know you. I know you better than anyone! This isn't you!

…

This isn't you! This! You going out with this jerk, with the Porsche! We made fun of guys like this!

You caught him on a bad night.

This isn't about him! Okay? Screw him! What's going on with you? This isn't you, Rory. You know it isn't. What's going on?

I don't know. I don't know…

“Are we Team Jess or Team Rory this time, Jacky?” Luke called out, making you jump.

“Team Jess all the way, obviously. Where have you bee-” Jack stopped dead in his tracks as he turned to face his brother, and instead saw you in the middle of his living room.

Jack’s face was a revelation. Confusion, at first. Then the briefest flash of hurt and anguish. Then a smile. Then caution and uncertainty, as he slowly stepped towards you.

You let a breath you hadn’t realised you were holding, and quickly moved across the room, clumsily throwing your arms around your best friend. You felt Jack freeze momentarily, almost as if he was shocked at your touch, but that soon passed and you felt his hands slide around your waist and squeeze, bringing your bodies as close together as possible.

You nestled your head on Jack’s shoulder, breathing in his scent. His thumbs softly rubbed up and down your side, and you felt him press a soft kiss into your hair. You stayed like that for a minute, or maybe longer, relaxing into the embrace.

The sound of the apartment door slamming shut made you jolt, and you rolled your eyes as you realised that Luke had tried to sneak way unnoticed and failed miserably.

“Hi.” Jack whispered, pulling back from you slightly but keeping his hands locked around you.

“Hi.” You whispered back, reaching up to brush his hair out of his eyes.

“Is it still shit hair? Or better now it’s longer?” Jack teased, rolling his tongue between his teeth.

“Better. But only slightly.” You teased back, your hands slipping down to the back of his neck comfortably.

The warmth of the surprise arrival was starting to fade. The dread you’d felt over addressing your fight with Jack was starting to set in, fast. The guilt you felt for being the catalyst for over a month for not speaking to your best friend was washing over you. Your heart rate was through the roof, and your palms were beginning to sweat.

Jack sensed your change in mood, and pulled away from you to look you up and down.

“Are you hungry? Do you want to shower? Or take a nap?” He was nervous, too.

“I ate before my flight. And showered this morning. And it’s 11am, so I think I’m good on the nap front. But I do think we should… we should talk. About everything.” You were basically tripping over your words at this point, but Jack’s reassuring nod helped to calm your nerves.

Wordlessly, Jack took your hand and led you over to the couch, gesturing for you to sit. You sat down and faced him, crossing your legs and resting your hands on your knees, still fidgeting with your hoodie sleeves.

“I’m sorry - “ You both said unanimously, a gentle laughter filling the room.

“I’m sorry I needed so much time apart, J. It fucking sucked, and it was my fault, and I just didn’t -” You began to ramble, only stopping when Jack leaned over and squeezed your knee reassuringly.

“You only needed that time because I was an asshole, sugar. It’s on me, really. I had no right to treat you like an occasional friend, or something that I shouldn’t prioritise -” Jack paused as you cringed, remembering the text messages that referred to his time with you as “boring family bullshit”.

“I was thinking with my dick, not with my head, and that’s not fair on anyone.” You shot Jack a weird look, and he looked sheepish in return.

“Quinn… Quinn said that to me. After you told him to tell me about the messages. He’s right, thought. It wasn’t fair.” Jack continued, pausing to take a deep breath.

“This whole… thing, this life -” Jack gestured broadly at the apartment around you, and you glanced around properly for the first time. Framed jerseys of Luke and Jack’s adorned the walls.Various photos of the Hughes family scattered about the place. The fridge, with a gas bill stuck to it, along with a polaroid of you and Jack from last Christmas. And a photo from your senior prom. And a group photo of everyone from last summer at the lake house, Jack’s mouth open in laughter with his arm slung over your bikini-clad shoulders.

“It’s all I thought I ever wanted. And it’s amazing, and I’m so grateful. But it’s worth nothing to me, the money, the girls -” You felt yourself involuntarily cringe again. “The fame, the accolades, it’s worth nothing to me without the people that I love by my side. And if those people don’t know how much I love and appreciate them, because I treat them like shit, then that’s on me. No one else. Me.”

You sat quietly, taking in Jack’s emphatic statement. You weren’t quite sure what to say. So instead, you gently reached over and took Jack’s hand in yours, lacing your fingers through his and squeezing softly, for a moment while you gathered your thoughts.

“I know the life you live, Jack. You don’t have to be sorry for it. Playing hockey was all you ever dreamed of, and I honestly can’t blame you for… enjoying… all the perks it comes with.” You swallowed the wave of nausea that hit you, before continuing.

“I don’t… I don’t know what life looks like without you in it. The last month was such a bizarre experience, and not one that I ever want to repeat, but I also… I need to… Can I be honest?” You spoke softly, glancing up from your hands to meet Jack’s gaze, and he nodded encouragingly at you.

“I wasn’t just upset because you made me feel like I was inconveniencing you, or cock-blocking you -” It was Jack’s turn to cringe. “I think I was upset because I was jealous. Because that will never, ever be me. And I think… I think I want it to be? Maybe? Fuck, I don’t know!” You dropped Jack’s hand and stood up from the couch, and started to pace the room.

“Sugar, please sit down.” Jack pleaded, and you paused, looking back at him on the couch. One look was all you needed, and you narrowed your eyes at the smirk on his dumb face.

“Why are you smirking? I am experiencing emotional distress, you asshole.” You seethed, running your hands through your hair in frustration.

“Tell me more about this jealousy thing. I’m intrigued.” Jack’s tone was light and teasing, and washed over you like sour milk. Your head whipped in his direction and your face must’ve said a thousand words, because Jack’s smirk soon disappeared and he hurriedly stood up and walked over, reaching out to touch you.

“See, this -” You jabbed a finger into Jack’s chest. “This is why I have avoided this conversation for almost my entire life. Because you think it’s hilarious that we could ever go down that path. That we could ever be something more than what we are. Because I’m not good enough,or pretty enough, or just enough and I never will be, and I hate it. I hate it so much.” Your voice cracked on the last few words, and you felt the hot tears start to bubble out of your eyes and stream down your face.

Jack didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. He pulled you into a hug, bringing his hand up to your face and gently brushing away the tears with his thumbs.

“Breathe, sugar. You need to calm down.” Jack said quietly, willing you to calm. That just made you cry harder.

You were about to pull away, when you felt Jack cup your face with both hands, before leaning in to kiss you.

#jack hughes #jack hughes x reader #jack hughes imagine #jack hughes one shot #new jersey devils #luke hughes #luke hughes imagine #quinn hughes imagine #my writing #nhl fanfiction

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enterwittyjokehere · 4 months

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hii, i’m soz idk ur request rules i couldn’t find them 😖. if any of this is out of boundaries lmk! I was wondering if I could request an angst/comfort-> smut on Gale?

Professor!Gale with his student (afab!reader) at wizard college yk. the student is super good with the work but they get depressed and miss class. Gale is concerned bc he adores all his students! he checks up on reader and helps them into a better headspace. one thing leads to another and reader opts to “return the favor” yk.

Gale is not Mystra in this!!! College professor! The groomed does not become the groomer! everything reader does is not because Gale has sum sort of power over them. they just like him! teacher crush fr!

anyways! sorry for ranting. if I could write for shit i’d do it but ur stories are SOOO good!

Sorry it took a bit to get out, life got in the way, I'm gonna be trying to update more frequently I have two more requests to push out and ab three drafts that I've started and haven't finished.

You didn't mention what gender or pronouns to use so I assumed afab, sorry if that's incorrect. I did have some fun with this one, the more I get into my Baldur's Gate playthrough the more I adore this man lol.

So enjoy~

After Class

Professor! Gale (of waterdeep) Dekarios x Afab! reader smut

⚠️Warnings⚠️

[College professor x student]

[Mutual pining]

[Dealing with issues via self isolation]

[Hurt > comfort]

[Alluding to masturbation]

[Teasing]

[No foreplay]

[Doggy]

[Breeding press]

[Mention of aftercare]

[18+ only]

“Deep breaths, you can do it.” Your professor, Gale Dekarios, stood behind you, holding your arm up.

-He had offered to help you practice a difficult spell you've been having trouble with. After class was over you had approached his desk and explained what spell you had been struggling with.

Like the kind man that he was he accepted, telling you that while it was a troublesome spell you had enough mettle to learn it-

You said the incantation and with the added power of your professor you successfully casted the spell you had been having a bit of a hard time with. Your eyes widened as you beamed, looking up at your professor who had a sparkle in his eye.

“See, I told you, you could do it!” he smiled down at you, you stared into his eyes and your heart raced. You enjoyed the tenderness in the moment, before a small magickal ringing gained both of your attention. It sounded from Gale’s desk, he sighed, looked past you and turning the ringing off, “Sadly, that marks the end of our after class session.”

He put a couple scrolls he had laid across his desk into a small bag, you spoke in a small voice, “it's a little early, yeah?”

“Umm yeah.. I have a few things I need to take care of.” Gale stumbled over the question, his eyes traced up your body and gave you a small smile, “But you did wonderful, like always, you'll get it yet.”

A smile pulled at your lips, face heating from the remark, “I hope so.”

You had turned to grab your bag, being halted by Gale's voice, “Don't leave yet, I'll walk you out.”

You nodded your bag falling onto your shoulder, the scrolls inside ruffled as you moved. Gale finished gathering his things, wrapping a small amulet around his neck before walking up to you.

He opened the door for you, smiling as you walked through. Walking through the hallway of the college, Gale seemed on edge but made small talk well enough to hide his obscured feelings.

“You've studied for that upcoming exam, yeah?” He asked, opening a larger set of doors.

“Yes, sir. My arcane lock is the best in the class.” You cheered, smiling up at him.

For the first time all day Gale didn't have a smile on his face, usually his tied back hair was accompanied with a goofy smile and a kind demeanor. Your heart ached, you wanted to know what was going on, your fear for your professor sprouted little seeds of worry into your mind.

Both of you arrived at the waypoint, you went your separate ways. That was the last time Gale had seen you, when the next day arrived and you weren't in class, he had shook it off to you weren't feeling good.

Day after day, until the day of the exam, you still had not shown face. Gale was worried and you being absent the day of the exam on the best spell in your arsenal only made his fear more present.

He had asked other students if they had heard from you, all only shook their heads, meaning you've basically disappeared without a trace.

The professor's fear only grew as days went by, you had still not returned. Gale's fear trickled into full blown paranoia as the days went on, keeping him up at night and making him sick to where he couldn't keep food down. Gale had a soft spot for all of his students, even the naughty ones, yet you were one of his prized pupils. You were older than most of the rest of the class, eager to learn and listen, good at taking criticism, Gale was by no means a divination-heavy wizard and, yet even, he could see that you would go on to achieve great feats.

Perhaps that was why he did it, Gale just needed to rationalize what part of him initiated the idea. Here he was fully in action, knocking on your door, away from the university, in his regular clothes. His face was deep and tired, stress had begun to sink into every fiber of him.

His knuckles knocked sharply against the dark wood of your door, a deep sigh released as he nervously waited for an answer.

Almost perking up when he heard the soft, “Just a second.” that you had yelled in response. Scattered scuttering noises sounded from inside the apartment, Gale had no idea what you were doing, but hearing your voice brought a smile to his tired face.

When the door finally creaked open, your eyes widened in shock, “Professor-?”

You looked behind him, seeing that he was alone, “What are you doing here?”

Gale couldn't speak for a moment, he took the sight of you in. Before he frowned and began to explain, “You've been absent from your classes, at first I assumed you had fallen ill but after a few more absences and no hide nor hare of you, I became… Worried.”

A small smile shown as your face lit up, “Well, I'm fine, just going through a ‘rough patch’.” You turned slightly, welcoming your professor into your home.

He followed suit, walking in, “I really shouldn't stay long, I've quite a lot of work to do.”

“You should at least stay for a cup, I just put the kettle on.” You followed your professor deeper into your home.

Gale glanced around the small rooms, taking in all of your decorations, finally coming to a small couch. He sat on the edge of the couch, waiting as you sat in an armchair across from him.

“Is it pointless to ask for you to come back to class?” Gale asked, leaning forward.

“... No.” The word was released in a breath, “I just can't… not right now.”

“Why not?” Gale asked, but slowly retracted leaning backwards, “I don't mean to pry, I just want to help, your education is important to me… You are important to me.”

“It's just hard. Right now, I have a lot going on.” You said, sighing.

Gale opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by a stout whistle from the kettle, you lifted a hand, “Excuse me.”

Standing to your feet, you left Gale in the room by himself. Coming back with a small metal tray of fancy cups, setting it down on the table that separated the two of you.

“Sugar is in here, please, take what you want.” You instructed, lifting the top off of a small ceramic container.

“Thank you.” Gale said, looking at you instead of the tea.

“We would really love to have you back in class, you can take the exam you missed and make up the work.” Gale started, ignorant to the way your heart sank as he muttered on, “with your natural talent, you'd have no issues getting back on track.”

“Yes. My Talent.. is why I'm not going back to wizard school, Professor Dekarios.” You paused from your explanations, taking a long sip of your tea, “I've recently felt like my whole world view has come crashing down around me, my whole life I've been naturally so good at spells and magick. I thought I had to be a wizard… I didn't know any other way…”

Gales eyes peered into your own, “It's not the magick you have a problem with… it's you, you think you may be…”

“A sorcerer… it's only a theory, however.”

“My class would still be open to you. I will help you grow however you see necessary and I'm sure a couple books and scrolls wouldn't hurt your newfound identity.” Gale's smug simper helped ease your pain.

Hells him just being there helped you feel immensely better, “if I was to come back to class and still go my own path, wouldn't it be like betraying the weave?”

“The weave is something we utilize, you cannot simply betray it and I'm sure the magick you hold will not mind what path you go down.” Gale said, reaching out to hold your hand.

“Thank you, professor.” You said, smiling at him.

Gale stuck around and talked with you for a while, not all about magick, but he does have a large interest in the subject. Once the sky had turned dark purple and was littered with the freckles of stars, he thought it best to head to his own home. He chuckled as he walked out your door, turning to give you a small smile, his eyes beaming, “Thank you for having me… And thank you even more for sharing your troubles with me. The fact that I was able to help means more to me than you could ever comprehend.”

“Please, professor, I should be the one thanking you… I was really going through it…” you spoke, rubbing the back of your neck.

After your exchanged goodbye's Gale left, and once again your home was silent, you were alone. Only your thoughts to keep you company now, you thought back to how his hands fit around the small teacup he was holding. How comforting it felt when he grabbed your hand, how for once, his eyes were solely focused on you… You wished it could be like that more, how you craved him deep at night.

But fantasies are usually just that, fantasy, fiction… fake. Tonight, however they were your comfort, you writhed beneath the covers imagining Gale giving into you. You wondered what pet names he would give you, what habits he would have when he loved you deeply.

The next day you went back to school, sitting at your abandoned desk, your satchel fell from your shoulder and students began to whisper. Looking over at you and facing one another once again, pointing and speaking indistinctly. It was to be expected it didn't affect you in anyway… however, when Gale stepped up to his pedestal, looking straight at you and fighting to keep a smile down, then you felt something.

The fires of the nine hells burned inside your stomach, a hand found its way to your cheek, to prop your head up and hide the reddening that quickly spread over your face. Gale went on with class like usual, teaching, talking, rambling, whatever way you chose to say it, it was always the same. You enjoyed it, being such a well learned man was attractive and the way the words rolled off his tongue like a liquid nectar made the experience much better.

Once class was over and you had tucked a couple of your scrolls into your satchel, Gale spoke up, “Ms. (Y/n)”

You quickly turned to face him, locking eyes with him, “stay after class and we'll discuss your make ups, yeah?”

You nodded, “Yes, sir.”

“Wonderful.” He said, you stayed at your desk as students piled out, after the last one you stood up approaching his own desk.

“You're feeling better, I hope.” He spoke, his voice now softer, than when he was teaching.

You nodded, smiling, “Yeah, you helped me a lot, professor, I'm very thankful.”

“Please, as I stated before… I'm just glad I could help.” His large hand once again found your own, giving a reassuring squeeze. It was a kind gesture, but it was one that ignited that fire in you.

“I'll have to repay you, some day..” You spoke, smiling slightly at the thought that popped into your head.

“No, no, no need, You being here is repayment enough.” He spoke smiling, only to cock an eyebrow at the blush you now wore.

“Yes, but it would help me feel better about the whole situation…”

Gale paused before speaking again, “what did you have in mind?”

“I could always help you out… You know… to return the favor?” Your eyes flickering up to meet Gale's own. Your teeth latched onto your lip, pulling it into your mouth looking at his hand on your own. For a moment Gale's eyes widened before he pulled his hand away.

A myriad of inappropriate thoughts flooded the professor’s mind, evident only by the red hue his face took on. A small smile played at his lips a sweet contrast to the simper that littered your own plush ones. Shaking his head, Gale's big brown eyes bore into you, “As much as I would absolutely adore that…” He paused, wincing at the words he was about to say, “ I cannot. If anyone found out I wo-”

“No one has to know, Sir.” You interjected, keeping eye contact, your confident facade faltered for a moment. Beginning to move away from your teacher, you nodded slightly, “-but I understand, you do have more at stake here than I do..”

Gale's eyes flickered through emotions at lightning speed, confusion seeped into his features followed by shock and finally he landed on regret, “W-Well. Let's not be hasty now..”

His hand reached out to you again, as you raised an eyebrow, curiously, at your teacher, “Professor, what exactly are you getting at?”

“If it's strictly a one time thing and no one would know then… I assume it would be okay to-” softly stumbling over his words Gale's eyes landed on your soft figure, biting his lip, praying that you understood his incessant ramblings.

You nodded slightly smiling brightly, “Just tell me when and where and I'm there, professor.”

“I have two more lectures today, you can meet me after and we can go to my tower, if you would like.”

“Yes!” You said, loudly, your excitement causing gale to Shush you. Apologizing you still nodded, “Yes, I would love that, sir.”

The rest of your day dragged on as your mind found itself hoping for what was to come, when the time had arrived you met Gale outside of his room. Leaning against the wall, you hadn't even noticed him, you were reading a scroll and focusing on the movements it instructed. Only for gale to grab the parchment and gain your attention, “A bit of difficult Magick, right here… where'd you get this?”

He was so close to you, leaned against the door frame, his body facing you as he glanced over the spell. Absentmindedly taking his lip between his teeth, his eyes pensively traced the scroll. Before he glanced back over at you, handing it back to you.

“A little shop near my house, just a goal I'd like to set for myself.” You explained as the two of you began your walk, tucking the parchment back into your satchel.

“I could always help you..” Gale offered.

“I would like to figure it out on my own, I think.”

“That's understandable, when you get the hang of it you'll have to show me.”

“Of course, professor.”

“Please, for tonight, call me Gale.” Your heart skipped a beat.

“Okay, Gale.” A small and nervous laugh left with the name.

Once the two of you arrived at his door, ending the short commute, he flicked his hand and the door swung open. The candles lining the walls all flicked to life as you walked in, it was like a fancy library, bookshelves lined the walls and little trinkets sat on top of them. You were taking the scenery in as Gale dropped his bag, it fell to the ground with a thump.

“Before we begin, I can make some tea, if you would like.” He said, “and I have some biscuits.”

You nodded, following him into his kitchen, you sat in a small chair as he paced around the kitchen collecting small items and preparing the water. He was speaking to you about magick, but not in his usual teacher way. Now he was more like a friend indulging you in his interests, “but surely to a student as talented as you, my experiences probably seem trivial.”

“Of Course not, professor.” You said, replying without even thinking.

“What was that?” He said, stepping closer, now towering over where you were seated.

“Sorry, Gale, but it doesn't seem trivial, not in the least..” You spoke, swallowing deeply.

A simper had crawled onto his face, smirking down at you, before the whining tea kettle called for him. He quickly glanced over his shoulder before looking back at you, “Just one second, love.”

You nodded the word ‘yeah’ ghosting on your lips, but breathlessly, no words could escape you. It felt almost as if he enjoyed teasing you, between the moment with the scroll earlier now this, blissful agony one could call it.

Gale poured water into the two cups of tea, letting them steep. He walked back over to you. A finger ghosting on your chin, lifting your chin slightly, looking in your eyes, he smiled, “ready?”

Your heart skipped a beat, “F-For?”

“For tea…” He spoke, placing a kiss to your lips, “what else?”

He smiled as he brought a small tray closer to you, two tea cups and a plate of pastries sat on the tray.

You hastily drank your tea, meanwhile Gale sipped his, watching the ways you moved around in your seat. When he drank the rest of his drink he stood to his feet clearing the dishes away, “I'm going to clean this mess up, the bedroom is through the stairs and to the right, you can't miss it, get comfortable.”

“O-okay.” You said, scampering up the stairs, you walked into his bedroom, the bed in the center was huge, you laid down on it, the plush blankets were soft and cool. You began undressing and crawled under the blankets, laying down comfortably.

After a few moments of you laying there, the door swung open, Gale was also undressed, he crawled over the bed, laying over the blankets on top of you.

Placing small kisses on your lips and trailing them down your neck, “Get up, and on your knees.” He growled.

You did as he said, standing on your knees, he pushed you down onto your hands and knees, getting behind you he slowly stroked himself before pressing into you. You moaned painfully, inhaling sharply, Gale did not give you time to adjust. He was driven feral by how warm and wet you felt, just for him. You were all for him and Gale was loving every part of it, his pace increased with every moan you gave him.

Roughly pushing into you, “Yes, take it just like that, such a good pupil.”

You moaned out beneath him, unable to form words as he ravaged you, placing kisses down your back, his hands held onto your forearms. The two of you rocking against one another, it wasn't long before your legs began to shake.

“Gale, please.”

Your quivering voice was clouded by your ecstacy as you constricted around Gale, who groaned as he continued to pump into you. Your legs gave out, falling onto the bed, Gale lowered too, laying on top of you, “Damn, already?”

Gale didn't stop, he milked your orgasm, rocking into you, stopping only to pull out and pat you on the leg. His hand traced your thigh. Before he rolled you over, you helped him, and Gale moved to stand up, still panting he pulled you closer to him.

You were now on your back, Gale leaned down over you, placing your thighs on his shoulders, he placed another soft kiss to your lips.

“Is this what you think about during class?” Gale asked, pressing back into you.

“S-sometimes…” you admitted, Gale began to rock into you, “Ah-! Gale.”

He pressed your legs to your chest, his face buried in your neck, kissing and biting at the sensitive area. The easy access to the sweet spot made your mouth water as Gale audibly moaned into the crevice of your neck.

His moans were loud and breathy, chasing his own release, his thrusts became sloppy and delayed.

“Kiss me.” He demanded, you obliged, taking his bottom lip between your own. Kissing him as he rocked into you, “Yes, Gods, look at what you bloody do to me.”

Finally, Gale thrusted, gripping the sheet beneath you tightly, and with a prolonged groan, he came. Chasing his orgasm, he sloppily rammed into you as your body milked him, clenching around as your orgasms met each other. Both of you gasping for air and mumbling swears beneath your breathless demeanor.

“You know, that was nice,” Gale said, pulling out and moving to lay beside you, “I appreciate it,”

Gale looked over at you, still panting, “I'll go run us a bath.”

“Umm… sir,” you spoke up catching your professor's attention, “this was just a one time thing, right?”

Gale nodded, “yeah.” He mused as he walked into the bathroom.

It was most certainly not a one time thing.

#baldur's gate 3 #gale of waterdeep #gale dekarios #gale dekarios x reader #gale dekarios smut #bg3 gale #bg3 smut #baldur's gate iii #baldurs gate gale #x reader #queer author #fanfic #gale romance #gale bg3 #professor Gale dekarios #professor dekarios

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dariaslookalike · 5 months

Text

Needing Miller pt 5.

Summary: It's a shit hole of a world that you're living in, and it gets even shittier when you're ambushed in your sleep. It's a slippery slope that leads you from being tucked cozily in your sleeping bag to joining the raiding group lead by the most infuriating (and intimidating) man you've ever met. You need to survive, above all else- either in this group (without smacking its leader over the head), or in the world alone after somehow escaping. Easier said than done, when your mind loses all sense of focus, tactics and skills the second that Joel Miller rolls up his sleeves and shows his godforsaken forearms.

Warnings: Violence, swearing, adult language, mature themes, eventual smut, female protagonist, no reference of y/n

Rating: 18+ MDNI

Word Count: 3.5k

A/N: woohoo update lol. hopefully another update by end of may but im just a girl and this world (completing assignments that i was given two months to do) is too hard :'3. no beta readers so soz for any mistakes

Next Chapter:

Masterlist

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You don’t talk to Joel for two weeks. Not one word.

It eats him up inside, and you relish in that knowledge. He’s stubborn but you’re worse. He still makes you walk beside him as the group traverses through the city, trying to minimise whatever conspiracy he thinks might occur with Tommy. You simply nod and walk beside him like a soldier led to the firing line.

You walk along an abandoned highway, large cement dividers down the centre and overgrown shrubbery covering the furthest lanes. The lanes are cracked, and rubbles juts out from where the barriers had crumbled under the onslaught of bombing and mayhem in the outbreak. There is no movement, or the bustle of never ending traffic, or incessant honking of horns that you recall. The chime of songbirds and whistle of the wind has replaced them. Now, it is simply quiet, and still.

You walk through the empty husks of cars, feeling only the pang of your blistered feet in your shoes. The skin tears and weeps against your shoes, and you feel it split further again, staining the worn, holey material of your socks. Every so often someone from the group will run towards you, and you tense, bracing yourself for a deadly grapple. Your knife is always within reach of your hand, but like a scornful lover, each time you touch it you are reminded of its shortcomings; reminded of the blade digging into a shoulder, tearing through your cheek, useless and flimsy in your palm. Instead they veer around you, talking to Joel and pointing back to cars that hadn’t yet been picked over. The cars offer little value outside of small finds- a matchbook that hadn’t moulded yet, a first aid kit only half open next to a too-small corpse, and to your delight, a heavy winter jacket.

Joel takes the jacket from the man who had found it, not so quite snatching but not asking either. The man doesn’t look surprised, or even offended, and his eyes flick to yours before he turns and follows his path back.

Joel turns to you, eyes boring into yours when he raises his hand, the jacket clutched in his fingers.

You reach forward and take it, trying not to brush against his fingers, or worse, look at the sheer size of his fucking hands in comparison to yours. You shake the jacket out before quickly putting it over your thin hoodie, which has seen better days. Dark black material and lined on the inside, it instantly breaks off the chill wind that had been ripping through you and you zip it up. This winter hadn’t started with blizzards or ice, but still your breath plumed in front of you in soft clouds.

Joel scoffs. “No ‘thank you’?”

You tilt your head at him and stare, but your mouth remains in a thin line.

He rolls his jaw, and glares at you, stepping closer to put distance between the both of you and the rest of the group. They’re still picking over the cars, certain that this area hadn’t been combed over properly by others. You see the dark mop of Tommy’s hair poking out from a faded blue sedan, but he’s simply scavenging.

Joel leans over you and you try not to startle when you realise how close he had gotten. He glares down at you, scowling.

“You’re not gonna be able to ignore me forever.”

Your eyebrows draw in and your gaze hardens with what you hope he reads as Bite me Miller .

He reads you loud and clear, and scoffs, shaking his head. You try to keep your gaze angry, and stubborn, instead of taking him in now that he’s standing so close to you. You try not to memorise the way his tan jacket sits on his broad shoulders, or how his beard has grown longer, or the crease in between in brow as he glares at you, or the rise and fall of his chest as he thrums with annoyance. You try not to.

“Let it go, Dollface.” He spits, a wolfish flash of his teeth. “Get over yourself.”

You say nothing, and he stares at you for a second too long as if he really thought that pathetic attempt would break your vow of silence. He turns, storming off down the highway.

He tries again two days later, when you sit beside Tommy at the fire. The group has settled for the week in a dishevelled restaurant, and you warm your hands at a flaming pile of broken chairs and table legs. Earlier, when you had pointed at a scurrying rat, two of the men had grinned. Now, a skewer of fat rodents roasts atop the flames, and Tommy laughs at you when you scrunch your nose up.

“Drumstick or wing?” He asks, elbowing you in the side and pointing at the rats.

You wretch, even if your mouth waters. “Surprise me. I’d rather not know what I’m eating.”

Tommy laughs, raising a hand to scratch at the stubble that was growing across his face. “Not exactly ‘finger licking good’ but damn it’ll do.”

You laugh in agreement but the moment of hunger is quickly forgotten when Joel comes to stand beside you. You look up at him, and quickly wipe off any trace of a smile.

“Clean your knife and come to the back.” His words are gruff and short, and he doesn’t stay to tower over you, instead turning on his heel and striding out of the swinging staff door to the back of the kitchen.

You glance at Tommy, but he shrugs. “No clue. Better do as the boss says.”

You roll your eyes, but push yourself to your feet, ignoring the curious stares of the group. You untuck your knife from your jeans and wipe it down with your shirt- there’s nothing else to be done.

The door swings behind you, and the kitchen is a lot less impressive then you’d imagined. Dusty, and very much stained, stainless steel countertops and stoves, and littered rubbish that seemed to be present everywhere in the abandoned city.

Ryan leans against a countertop and offers you a small nod of his head. You open your mouth to speak but quickly close it when you see Joel, leaning against the large mirrored wall with his arms crossed over his chest.

You get an unsettling feeling in your gut, twisting and rolling around within you. It tells you that the both of them are crazy and are going to stick you on a skewer to roast beside the rats, but Ryan pats the countertop beside him. “C’mon. I’ll take out your stitches.”

You only remember your cheek then. The pain and swelling were a faded noise in the background of your body, and it no longer bled or weeped through the dressing bandaged to your face. Your tongue instinctively touches the inner side of the wound, feeling the jagged flesh and thread that was sewn through.

You nod, and walk over to Ryan, pushing yourself up to sit on the counter. Your legs dangle over the edge and looking down, you remember your knife. Oh.

You look back to Ryan, who waits expectantly and you hesitantly offer it to him. He takes it, thanking you quietly and moving closer.

“It’ll feel weird when I pull them out, but it shouldn’t hurt.”

You nod and he reaches to you, peeling back the tape and taking off the dressing, but you can’t find it in you to watch as he works. Instead your eyes wander off.

They land on Joel, and you curse internally. He wasn’t just casually leaning against the wall, he had picked the one spot in the room that would be directly in front of you.

So, if you wouldn’t speak to him, he would force you to at least look at him.

He looks straight at you, his dark eyes almost black in the dim kitchen. His hand grips his bicep, the fingers taut over the muscle. You almost want to laugh with how desperately he is trying to be impassive and brooding, but instead you just hold his gaze. You force yourself to not wince or flinch as Ryan brings your knife to your face and notches the tip under the knotted thread.

“Healed up well.” He murmurs beside you, but he is focused on his task at hand. You barely even register blinking as he cuts each stitch meticulously, and pulls the thread through your cheek. There’s a slight dribble of blood, but no torrential flow.

Ryan huffs out a sigh, and you flick your gaze to him. He smiles, and you can imagine him now, working in some hospital, all white coat and combed hair, as he says “Alright, all done. Just don’t mess with it, and it’ll be fine.”

Your lips tug up and you dip your head in thanks. He doesn’t wait for a flowery response, and instead claps his hands together, turning and walking out of the kitchen. You look back at Joel, and his head is tilted, still observing you.

Something coils and tightens deep within you, spurred on by the silence and tension stretching between the both of you. You grab your knife and push yourself off the countertop, standing.

“You look good without the patch, Dollface.”

His voice is quiet, and you wouldn’t have been sure that he had even spoken if it weren’t for tighter, tenser grip on his bicep. Your traitorous eyes dip down to his lips, and like a tonne of bricks, the memory of him against you, his hands on you, his lips on yours, is slammed into you. He knows what you’re thinking about, based on the slight tilt of his head and how his own gaze drops for a fraction of a second, before coming back to your eyes.

He notices the shift in you as well, when you not only recall the memory of the kiss, but afterwards. Recalling his regret, his embarrassment. Recalling how repulsive you must be to him that only a near death experience could overload his brain with so many endorphins to make him think that kissing you even resembled a good idea.

Your gaze breaks from his to over his shoulder, and you lock eyes with yourself. A dark jagged scar runs down your right cheek, from the apple to an inch above your jaw. Terry’s last words were a promise to make you ugly, to scar you so everyone else would see it. You flush with shame and hatred, and something makes the back of your neck burn when you think of Joel, and his stubbled beard speckled with your blood.

Joel was trying to bait you. Trying to anger you, trying to rile you up and get you to break your petty silent treatment by yelling and screaming at him.

You stare at the scar, at the red hue, at the path it carves down your face. And you force yourself to breathe, to not curse yourself, to not cuss out Terry’s ghost in Hell, to not cry and give in to the misery that this wound had given you.

You drag your gaze back to Joel, and his eyes are still on you. Still watching.

“I mean it.” His voice is rumbling, echoing quietly off the steel. “You’re beautiful.”

Baiting you. Lying to you. Trying to get a rise out of you.

Bite me Miller .

You turn and push past the kitchen doors, returning to the fire to sit beside Tommy and the charring rats.

You don’t speak to him for another three weeks. It allows for a lot of inner contemplation as you walk beside him in silence.

You decide to stay, for now, or at least until you figure out what else you could do, where else you could go, who else you could be. No longer were you waiting for Ryan to free you from your stitches or for your cheek to heal past the stage susceptible to infection. Now, you were here of your own accord, and this was wholly new, uncharted territory to walk through.

But… this was a good arrangement, and it benefitted you. You got food, warmth, a somewhat trusting eye over your shoulder as you slept, and all you had to do was follow whatever instructions were barked at you- and so far it was nothing. Just weeks of distancing yourself from the area of the city that had grown infected, weeks of stocking up for the winter.

Some of the men had been sent elsewhere by Joel. He had ordered them while you were trying, and failing, to fall asleep in a corner. Even still, he had kept his voice low, his words hushed. Days later, the men returned with dried splatters of blood on their clothes, but with new supplies. They don’t leer at you, or really acknowledge your presence at all, but the sight of them, with split knuckles and worn faces sent a disturbing chill down your spine. You didn’t want to ask where, or who they were from. So far, Joel hadn’t instructed you to do anything except walk beside him.

You had to admit, to the small (or very large) petty part of you, that this situation benefitted you more than just addressing your basic needs. It gives you ample opportunities for great personal satisfaction each time you annoy Joel.

You like to believe your silence is driving him insane by the time the group moves again, never settling in one exact spot in the city. You live for it, for the stupid scowl on his face, for the roll of his eyes, for the muttering as he near-sulks beside you.

He’s clearly more annoyed after hearing you talk to Tommy for the past week. After you had gotten your stitches out and returned to the fire, Tommy had whistled, low and loud.

“Damn, Dollface.” He said, and you didn’t find the same mocking that Joel had. “Looking good.”

Not beautiful , simply good. It reminded you of the rat skewers, and shitty, long gone KFC slogans. You rolled your eyes. “That’s the best you can do? ‘Looking good’?”

He laughed, leaning in close to you again. “I’m a simple man- I say it how it is.”

You try not to compare him to his brother, who speaks even less and means even more.

Joel hadn’t returned to sit by the fire, or ominously brood right next to you like you thought he might. You don’t see him at all that night, not after what he said to you in the back kitchen or rather what you didn’t say to him. Only when you tried to sleep, doing so fitfully and waking up still tired and worn in the early morning, did you see him. He sat by Ryan on the only remaining dining table left, hunched over with his palms clasped between his knees. But he watched, dark eyes trained on you like a hunter to prey. You didn’t shake his focus even after you had sluggishly escaped your sleeping bag.

Now, still being forced to buddy up with him as you travel, you don’t say a word. You tug the hood of your flimsy hoodie up, and zip your new jacket up all the way, shoving your hands deep in the pockets.

You turn your head slightly, looking at him from the corner of your eye. His gaze stays trained ahead, but you can feel his attention on you once more.

“How much longer?”

His voice is hushed, and nearly ripped away from you by the wind, but you still catch his words. You turn to him, faking confusion with furrowed brows. He steps closer, filling the space between the both of you, casting a glance behind him to the group. They’re too preoccupied by their own chattering teeth to pay attention to the two of you.

He looks down at you, his face stony. “How much longer are you gonna keep this up?”

You look up at him with your most innocent doe eyes. Keep what up?

His jaw clenches, and his nostrils flare as he hisses. “How much longer are you gonna keep being a brat?”

You pout out your bottom lip just to sell it, and he scoffs, shaking his head as looks out to the street in front of you.

“You wanna act like a brat ,” He growls, gaze dark. “Then I’ll treat you like one.”

That godforsaken feeling in your stomach, that you had fought and wrangled and just about killed with your own bare hands, teeth, and sheer willpower, comes to life at his words. You swallow at the pulse that jumps from your neck to right between your legs.

You roll your eyes at him.

Do your worst is what you say with a cocky tilt of your head.

Please do your worst is what that feeling between your legs begs.

He steps closer, and you instinctively step back slightly, keeping distance. He doesn’t let you go far, stepping with you until he’s looking down his nose at you, sneering.

“No more of this bullshit. You’re in this group. You’re in my group.”

His tones bites, and his words sting. You weren’t dead because of him. You had food because of him. You were part of this group because of him.

You were still here, even when you could have left. Even when you could have thanked Ryan for pulling out your stitches, and waltzed off on your own. You could have pretended you didn’t owe a debt, or some level of twisted subordination and gratitude to Joel before. Now? You were stuck with this insufferably moody man, and he was your boss. Leader. Protector. Dickhead who had kissed you unforgettably and then wanted you to forget it. All of the above.

And you were pissing him off.

“You’re with me from now on.” He says, voice harsher than before, and your attention snaps back to him. You thought he was going to kick you out, or pull rank and tell you to respect him. Not whatever he said.

He sees your wide-blown look and scoffs, nodding his head.

“Not just travel. Morning, day and night, you’re gonna stick with me until you can realise I’m doing you a fucking favour .” He bites. “‘M not gonna have you turning my fucking crew against me ’cause of your pissy attitude.”

You are fuming with anger. Just because you talked to Tommy and not him, just because you tried having one friend in this miserable, testosterone cluster fuck raiding group, Joel would say you’re trying to turn them against him?

You bite your tongue. Literally. You have to clamp your teeth down, and you bite harder when he continues.

“C’mon.” He barks, jerking his head towards the road.

You follow like a soldier, staying by his side, and keeping your head held high. You just chant to yourself silently. Boss. Leader. Protector. Dickhead. Dickhead. Dickhead.

He stays true to his word.

He doesn’t let you slow down pace, even when your feet bleed and parts of your shoe literally give out. Instead, he just looks at you, and in response to your silence, tells you to hurry up. Behind you, the group trudges along. Tommy veers closer to you, but with one foreboding glare from Joel, he rolls his eyes and backs off. Even his own brother wasn’t willing to piss him off more when he was this moody.

The city still sprawls ahead, and as the sun begins to set you assume you’ll continue travelling through the night, and you groan to yourself silently. Joel, persistent to prove you wrong, turns into a rundown pub on a corner as night falls.

You follow behind him wearily, and tempted to let the group trail him in first. He senses your hesitation somehow, and glares at you over his shoulder.

“Get going, Dollface.”

Your thumb flicks over your knife and you’re tempted to stab him, and show him just how bratty you can be. You resist however, and settle for holding it in your palm as you enter the pub. Wooden bar stools, tables and chairs collapsed in a pile in the furthest corner, as if the group had been here before and tidied up. The bar itself is empty, and the back wall mirror shattered. It is, thankfully, empty and you scan around the room, settling your pack and sleeping bag down against a wall. Satisfied, you slip your knife back into your jeans.

Joel doesn’t hide the fact that he watches you. When you turn to him, he doesn’t look away, and instead raises an eyebrow.

Tommy smiles at you across the room, and your eyes flick to him, lips involuntarily tugging up.

Your gaze flicks back to Joel, but his face remains stony. He jerks his head to a staircase, like you’re an obedient dog waiting on his command.

You tuck your tail between your legs and follow him.

The group’s eyes trail after you as you pass through them. Only Tommy steps into your path, and his hand grabs your elbow, stopping you.

“You all good, Dollface?”

His eyebrows are drawn tight together, and the beard he’s been growing in the winter makes him look older, more serious. He leans in closer, aware of the ears and eyes pinned to you as his voice lowers.

“He’s my brother, I know but…you say the word, and I’m beside you.”

You nod your head, swallowing and looking away from his eyes. “Thanks.”

Tommy opens his mouth to say something, but he closes it again and his hand retreats from your arm. You offer him a thin lipped smile, and then you step around him, to Joel who looks like he wants to murder you.

Joel doesn’t say anything, and instead turns, striding up the rickety and splintered staircase.

You glare daggers into his stupidly broad back, into the shoulder you want to scratch up, into the scalp you want to tug at. Dickhead, dickhead, dickhead, dickhead, dickhead.

You barely reach the landing by the time he’s pushing open a door. He stills scans the room, ever hypervigilant of some unknown threat.

Your eyes widen at the room. Specifically at the bedroom, where a faded, mildew smelling bed sits in the middle, surrounded by splintered, but intact drawers and a wardrobe. What the fuck?

You turn to him, nearly opening your mouth to say exactly so, but then in a split second his forearm is lodged against your throat and your back is slammed to the wall.

You garble out some sound in shock, and he reers his head in, sneering with his canines showing.

“What the fuck are you doing with Tommy?”

You sputter a bit more, and kick out at him, spearing your knee into his groin. He shifts his hips, and you land a blow against his sturdy thigh instead. He applies more pressure to your throat, not enough that you even get dizzy, but with enough power that you can’t break out of his hold.

“Speak.” He growls, eyes dark. “Enough with the silent treatment bullshit, answer my question.”

Your hand grips your knife and you yank it out of your jeans, angling it into the soft part of his stomach. He feels the edge of the blade, and he seethes.

“I fucking dare you. See what happens.”

Your other hand reaches up, and he shifts, bracing for the impact of your fist to his face. Instead you tap against his forearm, scowling at him the best you can while he nearly crushes your windpipe.

His eyes flick back to yours and you can see he wants to keep you pinned, angry and fuming with you. A gentle reminder by the sharp tip of your knife has him growling, but he eases the pressure against you.

“Speak. Now.”

You glare at him, but as much as you would like to gut him like a fish, you know that wouldn’t stop him from cracking your head open against the brick. You had been treading water since day one- while Tommy was your friend, Joel was everything but that. You weren’t going to push him to show you, again, just why everyone bowed their heads to him.

“Nothing’s fucking happening with Tommy.” You spit, the first words you’ve spoken to him in weeks.

“Yeah?” He leans in closer, mere inches away from you. “Tell me why there’s talk he wants out. Only since you’ve been here, buddying up to him.”

You don’t hide your confusion. In some part, you thought Joel was implying a relationship between you and his brother. But now, you’re completely lost.

“I don’t know what you’re on about, Miller.”

He sneers. “You hate me. Not hard to assume you’d try and make my brother do the same.”

You try your best to look down your nose at him, even with his forearm still pinned to your throat. “I’m pissed off with you Miller. I’m not trying to turn your brother against you.”

He stares into your eyes for a moment, the dark brown hard and unyielding beneath his brow.

“That’s it? You’re just being a fucking brat?”

You swallow, the movement painful against his forearm. You dig the tip of your blade into his gut, reminding him of its presence. He doesn't flinch, and simply stares at you, waiting for your response.

"There's no conspiring or fucking crazy conspiracy, Miller. I just didn't want to talk to you."

He clenches his jaw, his tongue running along his teeth. His eyes dart down to your cheek, and follow your scar to your lips, where his gaze lingers.

You expect it to soften him, to wipe away the brutal anger radiating off him. Instead, the pressure is back against your windpipe and he growls.

“I told you to let it go. Get over yourself. We kissed.”

"Exactly."

He rolls his eyes. "You've been ignoring me for weeks because we kissed? Jesus, Dollface you're in for a real fucking shock- that meant nothing."

You swallow, glaring at him. Willing yourself to not let tears well up. He continues.

"This isn't some fairytale- I'm not sure what kinda bedtime stories you got told growing up, but there's no happy ending out here. That died the day of the goddamn outbreak." His gaze is thunderous.

"Fuck. You." Like you hadn’t lived through the fucking outbreak too- like you were some stupid schoolgirl, with a sickening crush on him.

"Brat. ” He spits.

Dickhead. Dickhead. Dickhead.

"Just cause you think you can walk around, doing what you want, doesn't mean you can, Miller." You seethe, anger flooding out of you. "You might not give a damn, but I do."

"Why?! It was a kiss!" He barks. "So what? It’s not like you’ve never-

Like a rabbit trying to hide its wounded paw from a lion, you flinch back. A mistake that shows your hand more than hides it. His eyes widen slightly, and for a moment, all his anger and ire disappears, and it’s only your shared breathing to be heard, heavy and heaving.

“Oh.” He says.

Oh. Oh is his simple response to realising he was your first kiss. Oh is his one-worded response to realising that he had told you it was a mistake, that it shouldn’t have happened. Oh is what keeps ricocheting off the walls of your skull, over and over, as you watch in real time just how quickly he realises how much of a mistake it really was.

“Oh.” You whisper back to him.

He stares at you, his mouth open slightly. You press your lips together, draw your eyebrows in, making sure you do not shed one goddamned tear in front of this man.

His eyes dip down to your lips. “That was- I was your…” He trails off.

You can’t even nod your head, afraid the movement will break the careful strain you have on yourself. You just stare back at him.

His forearm is still at your throat. Your knife is still at his stomach. And yet, he leans in closer, breath fanning over yours, his gaze still pinned to your lips.

“No.”

That word breaks his focus, and his gaze snaps to yours.

“No, Miller. I’m not doing this with you. I’m not gonna be your little chew toy, waiting around until you decide to play with me again.” You shake your head, but there’s no anger or even sadness. You just find yourself hollow. “Fine. I’m over it, I’ll stop being shitty to you, whatever- but we’re not doing this. Ever.”

You draw back your knife, and in his quiet shock, you shove his arm off you, basically throwing yourself through the door. You pause on the flight of stairs, clinging to the damaged railing. He doesn’t follow you down, and you allow yourself this moment to suck in a heaving breath.

One breath. That is all you will commit to being upset over Miller.

You swallow, raising your head. No tears fall, and you won’t let them. Boss. Leader. Protector. Dickhead. He didn’t want to be your lover, he wanted to pick you up when he wanted and shove you to the side when he was bored. That was fine by you- like he said it was just a kiss, nothing more. You’d see where this raiding group led you, and that was it; you were not going to allow yourself to get your heart involved with him, you were not going to allow yourself to get hurt from a man who clearly didn’t want the same as you.

You don’t kick the staircase wall, as much as you want to. You set your shoulders back, and you step down each step, willing assurance into your feet.

You take your expected position, sitting beside your pack and sleeping bag. You join in a poker game, where you bet on dusty bottle caps and placemats. You observe the group, trying to memorise the faces and laughs and scowls as much as you can, rather than focus the thoughts flurrying around your mind. Tommy picks up on your mood, but he doesn’t say anything; instead, jabbing you in the ribs at certain jokes and trying to peer over your shoulder to see your deck.

You expect Joel to not come back downstairs, to instead sulk in that room all night.

Everyone else does too, because they nearly snap their necks in shock when the stairs creak. You force your gaze to stay pinned to the faded cards in your hand, to not look at him, to give him that satisfaction.

The tension is thick in the air, and some of the men try to start conversation back up again. Their words are hushed though, letting them still give some attention to the drama unfolding in front of them.

“Dollface.”

You grind your teeth as you clench your draw, dragging your gaze over everyone and back towards the stairwell.

He tilts his head to the stairs behind him, his hair messy and ruffled like he’d spent the past few hours running his hands through it. The offer isn’t as demanding as before, and something in his eyes is softer; even if his shoulders are still set back, even if he doesn’t beg in front of the group.

You pass your hand of cards to Tommy, who whistles loudly, displaying them to the group who erupts in a clamour of disbelief at how you were dealt them. You use the moment of eruption to walk up to Joel. He doesn’t lead you up the staircase, so you brush past him and walk up them.

When you get to the landing you realise you should’ve let him lead you, because now you’re unsure what door to go into. You don’t worry long however, when he catches up to you and pushes open the bedroom door once more.

You hesitate by the landing, and he looks over his shoulder at you.

“Attacking me again, so soon?” You glare at him.

He doesn’t quite roll his eyes, but rather seems to be looking above for something to give him strength.

“Don’t push it.”

You shake your head, crossing your arms over your chest, and his eyes track the movement. “Miller, I’m doing my best to…” You lick your lips, trying to figure out how to say the words. “Respect you. As whatever boss you are to me now. But right now, I don’t want to be near you.”

“As your boss ,” He says, clearly trying to hold back anger. “Get in. Now.”

Dickhead. Dickhead. Dickhead .

Your knife was still in your jeans. This time, you were ready for any lunge or grab from him.

You nod, stepping into the room and he closes the door behind you. You put distance between the two of you, and he notices as you walk across the room, leaning against a broken radiator and boarded up window. Now, with no light streaming in at all, the room is dark, lit only by a candle atop a dress, and he is a shadowy figure across from you. He leans against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. You think he must look a lot more intimidating, and stupidly attractive, when he does that compared to when you did.

“So what, Miller?” You break the silence, glaring at him. “We count down from three and see who can kill the other first?”

He scoffs, shaking his head. “No.”

“So…”

“I meant what I said earlier.”

“What part? That I’m a fucking brat?”

“Yeah, that part too Dollface.” His eyes darken, and the muscle in his forearm flexes. Your hands itch to throw your blade and see how far it will sink between his eyes. He sighs. “I said you were with me from now on. Mornin’, day an’ night.”

Your gaze breaks from his and you look around the room, suddenly caged. “You can’t be fucking serious.”

“You can sleep on the bed or the floor or hell, the goddamn closet. I don’t give a shit.”

“Downstairs.” You bite out.

“No.” He shakes his head, glaring at you. “I trust you enough that I’m not throwing your ass to the curb.”

“But not enough to stay by Tommy?”

He nods. “Right on the money, sweetheart.”

You want to rip his teeth out when he calls you that, and a glimmer in his eyes tells you that he knows.

“After everything,” You jerk your head to the side of the door, where only hours ago he had you pinned. “You wanna play BFFs?”

He rolls his eyes. “No. Partners.” He stares at you, holding you still with his gaze, his Southern accent rolling out between you. “We’re out tomorrow. You need to learn how to work in this group- I need to keep an eye on you. It’ll work for us both.”

“Highly doubt it.” You snap.

“Yeah, well if you drop the attitude you won’t have to worry about a hair on your pretty head.” He spits.

You both stare at each other, clenching your jaws, fuming.

“You know what you’re signing yourself up for?” You hiss. “You might think you’re punishing me- but it’s you who’s stuck with me .”

“Quit being a goddamn brat and I wouldn’t have to punish you.” He steps forward, sneering.

“Eat shit, Miller.”

His eyes dart down to your neck, and he looks like he’s contemplating strangling you or trying to throttle you. Instead, he takes three heavy breaths, and jerks his head to the bed.

“It’s late. You wanna argue, leave it for the mornin’.”

And with that he sits on the edge of the bed, and begins unlacing his heavy boots. He kicks them off, and in a fluid motion, reaches down and tugs his shirt off. You freeze, and wonder if you actually died, and this was a state of hellish purgatory, meant to punish you on loop, for eternity. Your eyes are glued to him. His broad fucking shoulders- what kind of workout could he even do to look like that, and run on a halfarsed can of soup every few days? He’s not well defined, but his muscles flex with each movement, drawing your eyes to his biceps. His stomach is softer, a trail of hair leading down to his jeans. His jeans. His jeans, which his hands are atop right now, unzipping.

“Take a picture. It’ll last longer, Dollface.”

“Fuck off.” You roll your eyes, snapping your gaze away to stare at a part of the cracked wall and feeling the heat radiating off your cheeks. “It’s the middle of winter, Miller. Are you some kind of pervert?”

You don’t look back to him, but you can hear his exhale as he moves, and the shuffle of fabric. “I run hot.”

If anything, you shiver. When a few more seconds of silence have passed, you feel safer in looking over and not being attacked by the sight of his bare neck.

He’s under the thick covers of the bed, and you bite back a coo. He looks younger, softer- not a man who would hate you, swear at you, and keep you beside him because he thinks you’ll corrupt all that he loves.

He huffs. “Like I said. Bed, floor, closet, I don’t care.”

Your sleeping back was downstair, but when was the last time you actually slept on a mattress?

You don’t move.

“What if I stab you in your sleep?”

“What I stab you in yours?” He rolls his eyes.

You chew his words for a moment before you sigh. “No stabbing, from either of us. Deal?”

Joel scoffs, clearly thinking an agreement would be pointless and looks towards the ceiling but when you glare at him, he sighs.

“Deal.”

You nod, and step closer to the bed. You shuck off your winter jacket, still keep your hoodie tight around you. You keep your knife tucked into your pants, but you’re content to not sleep with it in your hands. You kick off your boots, a lot less gracefully than he had, and you hear him cover a chuckle with a cough. You can’t look at him as you step closer, lifting up the blanket and getting into bed. You tug the blanket up to your chin, instantly warmer and sink in the mattress. It smells like mothballs and dust, but no springs jut out at you and it doesn’t collapse; at this point, it was like sleeping on a cloud.

Neither of you say anything or even move for at least three minutes. You flinch when he finally does, but he simply raises himself on his elbow to lean over, blowing the candle out and washing the room completely in darkness.

“Go near me and you’ll wish I stabbed you, Miller.”

He huffs, and you can imagine him rolling his eyes in the dark. “No worries, Dollface.”

Silence wraps around the two of you once more.

“I sleep talk.” You whisper to him.

“I know.”

Your head snaps in his direction, your eyes trying to see the shape of his face in the dark. “What do you mean, ‘you know’?”

The sheets shuffle, and you can imagine him shrugging. “Not like everyone has their own room.”

Once more, quiet falls, and once more you break it. “What about you?”

“What about me?” His voice is lower, more groggy already.

“Do you sleep talk? Or are you just one of those serial snorers? Or-”

“This isn’t a sleepover.” He snaps. “We’re not playing 21 questions. Go to sleep.”

You stick your tongue out at him in the dark.

You’re not as restless as you thought you might be. Instead, once you’ve successfully blocked out the fact that you’ve nearly stabbed Joel, told him you wanted nothing from him, and are now sleeping in the same bed as him, it’s easier to fall asleep.

Considering the fact that you hadn’t been in a real bed in months, and with the chilled winter air seeping throughout the shambling pub, the thick blanket and soft pillow were simply lulling you into a deep sleep.

#tlou #tlou fic #the last of us #the last of us fanfic #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #joel miller fanfic #joel miller fic #joel miller x f!reader

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becdecorbin · 22 days

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soz for not sharing Saturday's comic update on socmed yet, I went to a comics festival lol

anyway, tea time!

#traum comic

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blossoms-phan · 30 days

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hi friends! since it’s been 3 months I thought I’d do a little updated about me :p

you can call me blossoms! 🌸 comes from the url obviously which I decided on in seconds when sitting in the middle of my bed making this blog at 3am bc I love dan and phil and cherry blossoms/japan/japhan etc etc

(as a side note I don’t share a lot of personally identifying info on here for a lot of reasons, don’t wanna be found out + professional reasons and tumblr is a great platform for having being a phannie as my main identity but I will occasionally overshare in the tags or random posts. for the most vague details I’m canadian and a poc ig? if you want to be friends or discuss anything in more detail im happy to share in dms just not in the general void lol)

some past fandoms I’ve been a part of tumblr or otherwise: avengers/marvel (this was in the peak in like 2016 and I followed it probably up until 2020 but dgaf anymore soz), marvel’s daredevil (their best show still love it), one direction/harry styles (harry was prob my biggest interest/fandom I was heavily involved in until like 2022 ish, i followed a bunch of accounts on my other blog and fan pages, went to his first solo tour in 2018, basically followed his every move- ik he’s not some underground artist but I lost interest when he kinda boomed and became SUPER popular I miss the early days of his solo era lol but still like his music), criminal minds, I think those are the main ones obv I lurk anytime I have a special interest lol

artists I like: twenty one pilots, arctic monkeys, the 1975, hozier, frank ocean, bad suns, muse, sufjan stevens, lana del rey, wallows, ed sheeran, lorde, zayn/hs/niall horan, paramore, the smiths, 5sos, kendrick lamar, fka twigs, fleetwood mac (this is off the top of my head just main ones ig there’s lots of other artists with specific songs I like and I also listen to my playlists from middle school often with p!atd and fob just the older stuff tho)

fave tv: derry girls, criminal minds, the office, gilmore girls, brooklyn 99, community, freaks and geeks, gossip girl, new girl, the end of the fucking world (short but a personal fave), fleabag, mindhunter- I like basic nbc sitcoms ok what can I say but currently watching Buffy and there’s lots of things on my watchlist like twin peaks I just never have time (aka always watching YouTube/dnp)

i like to think of myself as a cinephile when I really don’t watch as many movies as I’d like to bc of the same reasons listed above but I keep up with what’s happening in the film world and yeah some of my faves include: little women, sing street, before sunrise, aftersun, clueless, call me by your name, the perks of being a wallflower, big hero 6, la la land, zodiac, the social network, scream, the batman, bones and all, knives out, hp/twilight series

random interests: the scream franchise/saw/horror, until dawn (the game), youtube video essays, true crime content/criminology (in the most respectful way I promise I studied it and mean like actual data and researched podcasts not the weirdos that idolize certain people cough cough), perfumes/cosmetics, art, fashion, baking/food in gen, journaling, pinterest, reading (literary fiction/mystery/some ya)

idk what you were expecting this is literally all media but we’re all media consumers here lmao and I thought this might be a fun way to connect with other phannies if we share similar interests outside of dnp :3

#about me #blossoms trivia #me.txt #music #film #tv series #crying over everyone’s responses to my post before btw assuming most of you will see this ily all sm #i don’t wanna keep yapping anout myself so plz take this as an invite to tell me more about u :3

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sceletaflores · 11 months

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what kind of prompts r u NOT okay with writing?

hi!! this is a great question, thanks sm for asking!

some of my hard no’s are:

- incest (even step-family stuff soz)

- most bodily fluids (except maybe spit and blood)

- age-play

- pedophilia

- non-con/r*pe

-accidental pregnancy trope or full on pregnancy (will only write heat of the moment dirty talk pertaining to it lmao)

edit: i WILL NOT write for real people, only fictional characters so please do not send in req's for any actors! i will delete them.

also i’m not sure how likely this is to be asked of me, but i probably won’t write any A/B/O stuff lol it’s not a “hard no” per say but i don’t ever see myself doing it lols

those are all i can think of off the top of my head but if anything changes i’ll be sure to update!!!

remember my ask box is open!! don’t be shy 🥰

#natalia writes!#this list will grow i’m sure #i just can’t think of stuff right now lol #anyways send in asks for fics!#or just talk to me!!#i need more tumblr friends!#don’t be shy #hehe #smut #fan fiction

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dailytunes6 · 10 months

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12.11.23 song of the day

i like me by dexter the newsagent

#soz for not updating lol #i had finals #very stressful #i passed all my classes tho so thats nice #but i had to delete social media for a bit #anyway #love this song #postive vibes #makes me feel good #jillianlistens #song of the day #spotify

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cookiecomics · 4 months

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(warning from future me: this is very long, soz)

heyy!! i'm about to start another reread of atott but although im trying to get better at this, im bad at leaving comments (i get too invested in the action & dont mark down my thoughts... so when i get to the comment part i don't remember all or anything i wanted to talk abt + i'm ruminating on what just happened. that's true for the updates i've been following and doubly so for binge-reading sessions) so i just wanted to say some things directly to you, right now, before i forget - i adore the colosseum to this day. i was invested from moment one and the way you described everything was so impactful. to this day i also remember the way ren was panicked & aiming to return home despite his concussion, it felt very visceral and real. also the entirety heresy ring, akechi finding out he was in the fraud ring (this cracked me up iirc. that boy read you akechi), the toy grandma wanted to give ren & akechi managed to get to him (and ren/arsene crying bc of it....), the river, the hanged man game.... gods, you captivated me so much even within those first chapters.

another moment that is very present in my memory is the whole section where ren is in shido's palace, hiding from akechi w/o knowing it's him, finding out he was the "birdman" and then the aftermath, akechi's high fever, the way ren did his best to take care of him, how he told him he'd do the hit on the principal for him. it was all so good!! like i found ur fics from the accomplice tag iirc so i wasn't surprised when it happened, but it was all so exciting still! my memory sucks so i can't even paraphrase what ren told akechi before leaving to do it, but i do remember how akechi was still convinced (and kinda hoped) ren wouldn't actually get involved & he'd just end up dead. then ren came back, with new glasses to boot! lol

ohh also that moment where ren crossdressed and akechi was definitely attracted but ofc he can't Say It so he just critiques his makeup capabilities instead....... i was like. of course. of couse you would.

and i found atott shortly after finding out i'm arospec despite being very interested in making fictional characters kiss & romantic scenes in general, so it was very interesting to read akechi believe he was aromantic & have to deal with Actually Having Romantic Feelings Fuck This lmaoooo tho tbf i'd actually react similarly if i found out i was demisexual instead of completely ace like i think i am, so i also identified with it in that sense, since i've know about that part of my identity much longer than being arospec lol

ah. this is very long but i have more i want to say... so im gonna keep talking lol. ren realizing he was cluster-b helped me realize & come to terms with my low empathy. i remember when first reading akechi suggest ren get himself checked for sociopathy i was a bit skeptical bc i worried it'd be just edgy stuff, but i'd been trusting your writing & decisions so i decided to be optimistic & i rlly liked how you handled it, and, again, it helped me come to terms with the parts of me that also wouldn't be seen favourably by some of these ppl who insist they're mental health advocates lol

also, i rlly like akesumi so when sumi realized he was munin i was giddy. her own smile about it made me happy too.... oh this makes me remember the scene of futaba finding out ren is her online friend too gods such good scenes!!!! and finding the palace keywords. which made me remember the bad ending chapter in maruki's reality which i only managed to read on my 3rd read of the fic & then was immediately invested into too.....

anyway, what i want to say is, thank you so much for writing atott. it is almost constantly running through the like, background of my thoughts, and the story has been very important & dear to me. i hope you know it is genuinely engraved within me at this point. i love it so much. ♡

GOSH what a beautiful thing to come back to ;3; thank you so so much for your kind words and for trusting me as well dsfkjhsdfjk as someone who is cluster b AND on the a-spec merrygoround, I'm glad my handling of the topics have been great for you ;3; thank you for telling me all that you love about the fic ;3; hoping to get an update soon for Goro's birthday <3

Again, any and all love for Ren's palace makes me giddy since it is by far the aspect of the fic that took the longest to plan ;3; and there's no such thing as "too long" comments or asks for me by the way please know this is very sweet to read, i hope you have a great day! and look forward to people having a hashtagbadtime next chapter sdkjfhjkf

#atott

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tubbo--updates · 9 months

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Tubbo has clips (from past streams) in Coffezillas newest video which is about the company Revolt and how it is scamming creators! Good watch to learn more of what happened if you did buy tubbo merch or if you want to know why Tubbo hates the brand.

im trying to find time to do an update for this (id like to watch the whole thing and tag whoever is in it, and also just watch to understand more abt whats going on) but am a bit busy with a few things atm!

should hopefully have some freetime within the next day or so, but go check it out on youtube yourself if you wanna see it sooner!

(also i got this ask on like the 27th soz for being behind lol)

#ModSpeaks #ask #i also just keep forgetting to do it cuz im just a little forgetful silly guy #but also got a few personal things im trying to tackle which has been Oh So Fun <- lies theyre not fun #anyways yeah expect this within the day or maybe some time tomorrow? heres hoping to sooner tho lol

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ohthemis · 2 years

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Hihi! I saw your requests were open, but you currently have 18 already so just put this request to this side if it’s too much for you! Take your time!! I was wondering if I could request a Artem x trader where reader is feeling a bit insecure since she isn’t able to spend time with Artem, due to her work (maybe detective work(?) so she feels a bit neglected due to that and gets jealous since Artem has been busy with work as well and his time with Rosa (even though Rosa has feelings for someone else) Maybe just Artem and trader consulting each other fluff! They can already be in a relationship or pre relationship!!!

— time well spent

character: artem wing a/n: HI ITS BEEN A WHOLE MONTH LOL school is piling up on me soz </3 sypnosis: you miss artem even when he’s only a room away.

crime seemed to be in the air, and it sucked. objectively, it sucked because people seemed to be dropping left and right. subjectively, it sucked because that meant neither you nor artem had any time to rest, much less, rest together.

other than a few quick pecks and fleeting, apologetic glances at each other at yet another cancelled dinner reservation, your life seemed to be so devoid of love. so devoid of artem. so, in one of the rarer 5 minutes of silence, you quickly rush into his office.

“y/n?” he looks up and you swear he looks better and better. he makes stress look good.

“i miss you.” you utter, collapsing on the sofa adjacent to his office table.

you receive an empathetic, affectionate smile as he looks up from the pile of papers scattered on his desk. “i miss you too. if i could get away from all of this, you know i would.”

before you could respond, a knock rings out. you sigh reluctantly. celestine’s grimacing smile told you all you needed to know. “i know its your break right now, y/n, but we just got more updates on multiple cases and even the interns are full right now.”

“yeah, alright. i’ll be there.” you send artem a small smile, and his eyes follow your body leave his room. admittedly, it was breaking a part of him to not be able to spend even a good minute with you uninterrupted.

when you return to your apartment, you almost collapse from the sheer exhaustion of it all. and a few hours later you hear a knock on your door. you’d just gotten one of those video monitor doorbell things, so that’s one thing you have going for you. -1 boyfriend +1 cool doorbell

you sigh, drowsily walking to the door. lo and behold, artem stood there, waving at the camera - eyebags, papers, and all. you quickly let him in.

“hi, love.”

“oh my god. artem, it’s like,” you glance at the clock, “12. what are you doing here?”

“sorry, were you asleep?”

“no, i didn’t mean it like that! why aren’t you asleep??”

he looks at you sheepishly. “i just got off.”

“what??”

“let me sleep here, ok? i don’t want to drive home today.”

before you agree, his body gets the better of him and he falls asleep right there. standing up, and head resting on your shoulder. and as much as it hurts your heart to do so, you’re forced to wake him up so he could at least get to the bed.

“let’s head to the bed, okay?”

“as long as you’re there.”

#Tears of Themis #tears of themis x reader #tears of themis artem #artem x reader #tot #tot x reader #artem wing #zuo ran #zuo ran x reader

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boxwinebaddie · 2 months

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hi uncle nina!! i hope youre doing okay! i would love a life update. i was also wondering who you think initiates more, jerseykyle or ravenstan? and thats for everything. like kisses, cuddles, and sbst 🤭

eeeee! allo, moya nonneshka! c': <3 xxxx

but before i tornado-type myself into a tizzy and lose my train of thot: thank you so SO much for checking on me, babycakes! :) MWAH!!!

like ( i'm soz ), but the fact that, oof...has it been Several Weeks Now? ( yikes! execute-ive dysfuncle nina strikes again! :/ ) where day in and day out, the only thing i've been servin y'all up is...a big, heapin bowl of: 'go on girl! Give Us NOTHING!,' -- and you were Still willing to take time out of your busy irlife to worry about mine?! tldr; Angel Behavior! heaven wants you back btw, but that's too bad; i'm keeping you. <3

also tysm for the rest of your v precious message as well, lovie~ your... press(h)age? oop...that is,, horrifYINg? ok, what about: thank for your...messcious? ur preshmesh! ya mesh, presh! ...your blessage? you know like *marj vc* your...blessed mess? ( can we tell that i spend too much gd time assisting k-garten and trying to say things like:

'wooooah there, girlpool! no need to get atatudie w/ me, jude-ring! i mean, gee, if i didn't know any better...i'd say it sounds like someone caught...A BAAAD Vibe! uh oh! cowabummer, dude! but thats ok! just be sure to grab a tissue and blow ur nose bc i didnt achoochooocaChoose the rules; i just enforce 'em, booboo kitty!' <3

kssds like...can you tell my skull tell is gettin so soft that you'll prolly be able to stick a straw thru it soon? ( can't lie tho, bbkit is my fav like *me but over it* alr! no cryin in baseball, booboo kitty! Game Time! )

but anyways! onto my life update ( ft. how i've doing for the past few weeks ) which, when i tell y'all i have been waiting for a slow-ment to come along so i can just...catch my breath and catch up, but its been

...A MESS.

sigh.

( alright, fair warning, i HAVE TO ANSWER YOU CANON HC QUES IN ANOTHER ASK BUT I KNOW THE ANSWER!!!! so i will get it done asap, my friend, but i have to seperate them...so this is just nina talks abt skool and how she's been doin...ravesey can go in diff ask. )

but anyways, in essence; i'm busy pretty much every day from 5am in the morning when i am up until probably 4-5pm everyday depending on what prep i have to work out with my lead teacher ( who is a very sweet mid forties early fifty y/old lady who always makes sure i eat breakfast ), as well as getting to and from my job site particularly towards the end of the day...which is not easy when ur a lame, boof, no driving ass bitch like me.

( which, i know talk a lot of shit on myself about it...but oddly enough; i am proud of myself for knowing my limits, valuing my comfort and being the ceo of the bus and slaying on public transport. xx )

but all this to say, i love my job! my lead teacher ( aka educ major slang for the teacher who's class you assist in ) is literally such a nice lady and she has been teaching me so much! i was having a little difficulty getting in the groove because the summer camp kinders aka the children actually taking kindergarten in the fall are pre-kinder basically so they're like...t-k or preschool, almost? which....ooooough.

( i must confess ) i have a age/limit with teaching.

and it's having to do bathroom/mommy anything.

like i’m…ur aunt/unc, your older sister, mom's sbf, but i am noooooot your mom, lol! i am not super maternal. like there was a little girl who on week one was askin for mommy ( which was already driving me NUTS ) but on week three was still doing it and crying i was like...

*me on the playground vc* hEY BATTA BATTA SWING BATTA!!! YOU WANNA GO HOME BB? ME TOO GIRL! YKNOW WHAT? IF U HIT A HOME RUN RN AND YOU CAN GO HOME OTHERWISE! nO CRYIN IN BASEBALL BOOBOO!KITTYGIRL!! STAND UP SOLDIER!!

...but yeah, idk. kindergarten/pre-k has been fun, but i'm more of an older sister-adjacent type teacher who likes to wear crazy outfits, draw you pictures even if i pop a blood vessel in my eye drawing all night bc i think its nice when the kids get excited haha, if you talk while i'm talking, i really will pretend to get my stuff and leave like 'i'm sorry, i thought you were gonna teach the class!', wear all the stickers on my face...all of them especially the really big ones,

will tell u the picture u drew for me is so much better than the baloney pizza whatev that one blue ninja turtle painted, idk, and fall to my knees like ( bonus points if i have no idea what it is ), but if you give me attitude later about putting the toys away and taking your letters out, ill pretend to EAT the sticker i was gonna put on ur work.

( uncle nina stop being a CLOWN, i cannot stop, like omfg so the other day...a TINY five old girl's jacket was brought in for this girl in my class....and tell me why i said! Oh Sorry! That's Mine! ;) AND PRETENDED TO PUT IT ON AND MODEL IT???? HEEELP. my KIDS were dYING!!! my lead teacher was lafffffin, skds. that jacketless little girl was like >:( miss nina thats My Jacket! and i was like, you know what, baby! you are so right...Mine Is Smaller. <3 KLHSLKHKLDSD )

i...did not always use to be like this. i used to be a mousy, nervous gal, who let the sweet, lovely, very loud children walk all over me...BUT! i've been around the block! aka! i've have a block thrown at my head! AND A STAPLER!!!!!! ( that was my favorite kid btw, thx, stink! )

but yeah, a soft-spoken queen in my class asked me if you just 'stop feeling anxious when you're an adult' and i was like N! O! baby! it doesn't get easier when your an adult, but in order to teach you guys things, i have to be brave enough to talk to you and try my hardest! i still get super nervous talking to new people, i get nervous when i think i put my sock on wrong...but that doesn't mean, we should give up! i think you should go right up to a new friend and tell them hi, my name is Blank and my sock feels funny. do u wanna look at it. BOOM.

but also just because...ah, jeez. very cute, the children are...but the nina i was two years ago would be picking kids markers off the floor, packing my kids backups up for them, carrying their things...no, girl. they know better than that. like i specifically have a little girl, who istg, is very stan coded because she wants to do the right thing, but she's a really bad listener, i have to tell her stuff like 749374093 times,

wants me to help her with everything because she's nervous she's gonna mess up ( which, baby i love u but i can't print every letter for you ) and wears impractical things to school, ( which i feel like stan would do...like take 749374930 light up toys and weird pens ) so you know i gotta give her the little 'girl, you can do; i believe in you' and then come back when she's done and go oKAAaY mAdaME??! MISS INDEPENDENT OVER HERE GETS TWO STICKERS FROM ME!!!!!

and conversely, we got kyle coded kids, like, i had a little girl ( my class has had a lotta girls rotate into it idk ) who was smarter than god, but my gooooodness, THAT LITTLE GIRL TRIED IT EVERYDAY! ( she’s a ken n cart too ) i popped my eye blood vessel for that lil lady! bc she RUSHED ME! but no, she was a smart cookie, so she knew that so she used to give to try and cut deals with me, or put stuff on other kids tables or whiiiine and baby, i might have been born at night but...

NOT YESTERDAY NIGHT!

she is going to dismantle whatever kindergarten class she gets put into...best of luck. she is probably going to be our president someday. her vocabulary was bigger than mine. sending light out to that girl.

but okay, i have to end this soon but...i am doing a lot! we have a different theme in my class every week: last week was dinosaurs! we did safari animals, bugs, deep sea creatures, next week....*sigh*

Is Sports. ( y....ay! )

so if i am not around...I AM PROBABLY TIRED! like i didn't want to get into it too much bc it's a lot but the week that i lead teach, like...i did not sleep for two days...i was very sick, it was very, very bad. which is not to say that's gonna happen again but...it's like, i want to post and i want to be present, but when i throw all my energy out there to the little people, i come home spent most of the time...so it's hard to get my fingers to crawl across the computer to do an ask meme or be present when i should rly cook dinner or do some dishes, yknow?

all this to SAY...i am here, but i am...There. i also took such a long break from writing, i am a little scared that i don't know...how to anymore? aaaaa??? but i think i should probably sit down and write ONE THING ONLY ( so if u have one thing u really wanna see hmu ),

i'll probably pop in to do updates every so often, maybe an hc ask a bigger ask if i finish it, but i am busy again starting monday. i will try to keep giving u an rm fun fact if i can remember, but please know, i would love to be here and i wish i could write more...but it's a lot all at once...also? i really did enjoy my break. <3 always take breaks. if i am not around, i promise i am okay! i am probably just being teacher nina, trying to better my life or i am a little tired and need a second.

either way don't be a stranger, and send me stuff any time! i am going to try and go back to answering stuff that's in there again.

-uncle teacher nina, ceo of boo boo kitty...

...girls, boys and children....

Everywhere.

p.s. i hope this wasn't too much info, haha! i hope it was fun its nice to be able to tell you guys about parts of my life! if you ever want pictures or have questions, as long as they aren't too invasive, specifically bc of my student's safety, i will answer em! <3

#idk what this is even but im too tired to try and fix it #i hope you enjoyed nina acts a fool in kindergarten #bc i am such a menace #i keep telling the rant girls about things i did #i pretended i forgot what the letter q was once #i love when kids are like miss nina ur not gonna believe this and i just sit there and go NO WAY THATS REAL #what is skipping #like when u skip a song and then i pretend like i dont know how to skip and im like guys dont laugh its hard #please dont point and laugh thats so mean wait guys im doing it! oh wait i just...jumped a lot...GUYS WAIT LOOKSNKDL #i am not afraid to embarass myself and that is my flex #i and also not afraid to be like my sweet summer sunshine child u are my sunshine my only sunshine...will u please #stop speaking to me with ur beautiful lovely voice aND LET ME FINISH GIVING MY INSTRUCTION???? thank u king #but i love em my lil people angels always #boobookittygirl u will always be famous #the jacket was so good i was like wow its usually so much small than this this jacket is Huge wow normally it fits perfect #i need to go to jail

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