#station eleven au

[kananjarus]

for all the homes and haunts of men // buddie // apocalypse au

chapter thirteen

His eyes pressed against the black, desperate to find something familiar. He gasped for air, struggling to get his bearings. Just as he expected, Hen was beside him, reaching out.

“I got you, I’m right here,” she said from her own bedroll. He reached out blindly, swimming in the confines of his sleeping bag. Hen’s skin was still sleepwarm when she touched him.

“Sorry,” Eddie said, gasping around his own heaving breath. Guilt-sick and hating the frantic thumping sound of his own heart, too loud in this small space. 

Hen wasn’t saying anything at all, just sat calmly and rubbed the skin of his wrists and hands, dry calluses bumping along his own. The familiarity of it soothed him better than any words could.

read on ao3

[laiqualaurelote]

chapter six: returning were as tedious as go o’er

“So, uh,” said Ted, “how’s it going?”

“How’s it going?” parroted Rebecca. “How is it going? Oh God, you mean that as an actual question, don’t you – you really want to know.” She pressed her fingertips together in a parody of calm. “It’s not going very well, Ted. We are in a bit of a pickle, you see.”

“Well,” said Ted, “you certainly look well-preserved.”

Rebecca stared at him.

“That was a pickle joke,” added Ted. “Sorry. I gotta stop making those. Folks ain’t gonna want to hear pickle jokes in the apocalypse.”

“Leaves a sour taste in the mouth,” said his companion with a straight face.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Rebecca. “We could all use a little humour at crunch time.”

It takes five years, an apocalypse and a fair bit of Shakespeare for Rebecca Mannion to find her way back to Rebecca Welton. A Station Eleven post-apocalyptic theatre AU in which, in the aftermath of a devastating pandemic, American comedy actor Ted Lasso winds up leading a travelling Shakespearean troupe across the ruins of England (no knowledge of Station Eleven necessary to read).

[rotzaprachim]

i probably won’t go there directly but ACTUALLY the idea of an andor station eleven au where luthen played king lear, was king lear, and bix, vel, and cinta were the goneril, regan, and cordelia actresses... now THAT. that’s haunting me. 

(kleya was the almost disturbingly efficient Stage Manager who marked out all the places and put people in them. taramyn played albany and gorn played cornwall. skeen played edgar and cassian was the last-minute casting choice to play edmund and skeen wanted to murder him over that. skeen delivered the “the oldest hath borne most; we that are young / Shall never see so much, nor live so long” that ends the play. nemik was the one person who’d ever ever taken an actual shakespeare class and felt he Understood what the bard was like, actually saying better than anyone. mon mothma was the director because she needed a way to Spice Up Her Life and believes just sooooo much in the power of the Public Arts as you know like, charity.) 

[delisocks]

something something mr driscoll “there is no before” pinkman. maybe.

[citruscitrushope]

The most self-indulgent au I've ever thought of:

Project Sekai x Station Eleven. WxS are the Traveling Symphony.

[riotgrrrlboss]

i made a poster for a production of macbeth put on by a gaggle of original characters and i’d just like someone to look at it honestly

[intrepidacious]

a million summers

summary: Something shifts between you and Bucky when he comes back home from college.

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

word count: 3k

warnings: modern AU; childhood friends to lovers; alcohol consumption; making out; the rare occurence of me writing something that's almost exclusively fluff. please note that my blog is rated 18+. minors dni. ageless/empty blogs will be blocked without warning.

prompt: @allcapsbingo O1: "You've changed."

a/n: i didn't plan on posting anything today but something came over me. happy valentine's day, everyone!! this one's for @jesterstrange – remember when you sent me two songs for my sleepover and i completely ignored one of them? this is why 💛

masterlist | read on ao3

The air in the car is buzzing with late night heat and the crackling of the radio rapidly switching between stations, but you can’t seem to mind. Your heart is pounding in tune because less than two hours ago, you were kissing Bucky Barnes.

The Bucky Barnes, whose hand is currently gripping the steering wheel just a little too tightly. Valedictorian, baseball legend, first boy you ever fell in love with, prodigal third of your trio, Bucky Barnes.

Shit, if Steve found out about this, you’re not sure if he would laugh or kill both of you.

You wonder if the same thing is currently going through Bucky’s mind, because when you steal a sideways glance at him, he’s biting the inside of his lip, like he always does when he’s wrapped in thought.

It’s funny, in a way. You’ve noticed these little things about him since you were eleven years old, innocently collecting tiny facts about James Buchanan Barnes in your mind like other children kept pebbles or leaves they found on a walk. Like how his hair would stick up and begin to curl in his neck when it was about to rain. Or how he always got the first splatter of freckles in May, after months and months of them hiding away from the cold.

They’re there now, dancing across his cheekbones and down the bridge of his nose, and when the sunrise hits them at the right angle, they point out all the places you want to kiss; underneath his eye and on the tip of his nose, and, most importantly, right at the corner of his mouth, where his smile starts.

Your heart still can’t believe he’d actually let you do just that.

(He would, he would. He has.)

Your phone vibrates again and you ignore it. Reality might be on the other end, and you’re not ready for that quite yet.

There’s a slight tick in Bucky’s jaw when you peek at him again, barely noticeable to anyone who doesn’t know him quite as well as you do, and it sets your cheeks on fire. You roll the window down to feel the wind in your hair. Maybe it’ll cool your face a little.

You haven’t talked to each other at all ever since you got in the car, Bucky concentrating on the road, you counting the cars you pass. There’s not a lot of them, not at this hour, so the activity doesn’t exactly help to calm your mind, but you don’t trust your voice enough to start a conversation quite yet.

(Still, he hasn’t let go of your hand since you got in the car, either.)

It’s strange, this silence between you, not uncomfortable but unusual, because even though you’ve filled countless hours just quietly doing your own thing next to one another, it’s never been with this tension that’s making the air between you thick enough to cut.

The radio finally settles on a station, and there’s a spark of recognition at the song that manifests in Bucky squeezing your hand a little more tightly, and you finally break the silence with a quiet laugh and a warning, "Don’t."

"I didn’t say anything," Bucky says with a smile in his voice.

"Your thoughts are very loud."

"My thoughts are none of your business." He lifts your hand to his lips and presses a small kiss to your knuckles. Your breath hitches. "Besides, you were very cute."

"Slow down," you say, "I want to throw myself out of the car."

Bucky has the audacity to laugh. "Come on. Everyone had a phase in middle school."

"Everyone who knew me in middle school needs to die," you groan.

"Is that a threat, Y/L/N?"

You take in his cocky grin, tapping a finger against your chin in fake contemplation. "Maybe."

"Oh yeah?" he says, and you swear his smile grows even more crooked as you echo his words back at him.

(You want to trace it with your fingers and then taste it again.)

"So this is what we’ve come to," he says, his face exaggeratedly appalled as he shakes his head. "You’ve changed."

"I’m afraid there can’t be any exceptions," you say, squeezing his hand. "Especially not if this 'short drive over' takes much longer," you say, turning to the window again. The clouds look heavy with the reminder of rain.

Bucky rubs soft circles into the back of your hand with his thumb, and the gentleness of the action makes you press your lips together to hide the giddyness threatening to spill over. "Almost there," he says, and continues driving.

A little faster than before, maybe.

***

You’d seen this look in Bucky’s eyes before, but it’d never been directed at you. Pupils blown wide, hair sticking to his forehead, gaze unwavering and so intense you felt like you were being stripped naked in the middle of the crowd.

(And during his own homecoming party, no less.)

You forced your gaze away, trying to focus on whatever story Wanda was telling intently, but it was impossible to do anything other than nodding and humming and taking another sip of your drink whenever there was a breath for you to do so.

When you dared another glimpse in his direction, Bucky was still watching you, even though he was doing a much better job at pretending to listen, one of Steve’s arms still slung around his shoulders, his lips widening into a smile at the same time the rest of the group started to laugh while you were just out of sync with everyone else.

Not that you were staring at his lips.

It’d been so long since you’d last seen him in person. He was supposed to go off to college with Steve, but instead ended up going to an entirely different part of the country, and despite the fact that the three of you once shared every spare minute, there was only so many lagging phone calls at odd hours a friendship like the one you used to have with Bucky could take.

It broke your heart, of course, but maybe it was for the better. After all, your feelings for him had been drifting towards something different to friendship for a while at that point, something softer and more precious, something hidden away in stolen glances and late night journal entries.

Him literally being out of reach had made it easier, in a way, even though you’d never quite managed to move on from the color of his eyes.

(How could you have?)

Now, seeing him right in front of you again, they seemed so much brighter than they did in your memories; like someone had broken off two pieces of a clear summer sky and put them in the center of his face. It was honestly unfair.

You managed to steal away to the upstairs bathroom for a few minutes, not bothering to turn the light on, splashing your face with cold water to try and get a grip on. You weren’t quite drunk, but tipsy enough to recognize the light haze in your eyes as you stared at your reflection in the mirror, angling yourself in the thin strip of moonlight falling in through the window, trying to see if there was anything different about you.

Anything that Bucky might have picked up on tonight, of all nights.

There was a knock at the door, so you quickly fixed your hair with a small sigh and mentally prepared to continue the night with a smile, determined to enjoy yourself, weird and totally not heart palpitation inducing looks from former best friends be damned.

As soon as you swung the door open, though, your confidence was immediately shattered when you almost barreled into someone standing right on the other side, leaning against the frame, hands in his pockets, smile blinding.

Like he’d been waiting for you.

"Y/L/N."

(Your name still sounded like honey on his tongue.)

"Barnes." You raised your eyebrows when he didn’t move to let you pass. "Can I help you with something?"

"Maybe," he said, and then he pulled you back into the room with him, locking the door behind the two of you.

You leaned against it, arms crossed in front of your chest, swallowing heavily. Bucky hovered very close by for a moment before he retreated, pushing both hands through his hair and then hiding them in the pockets of his leather jacket.

"Right," you said, your head spinning slightly. "This isn’t ominous at all."

Bucky chuckled quietly, his eyes searching for something. "You look great," he finally said.

With a snort, you tilted your head and looked at his feet, not really believing his compliment. Your fingers were itching to unlock the door and just slip back into the party on the other side, but at the same time, you found you couldn’t move.

(You’d never been able to move away from him.)

"Look at that," you said, nudging your shoe against his. "You haven’t changed."

"Not really."

There was a strange edge to the smile in his voice, like he was trying to swallow something down. Maybe it was more clear on his face, but you couldn’t look up at him.

It was strange, the small details you remembered from years ago. Even when you and Bucky had begun to drift apart (because bottling up your feelings all the time could only ever have gone well for a short while), you would still spend most lunch breaks with him and Steve. How many times had you joined them on the tiny, dried up shrivel of lawn next to the library, being silly together and trying to stretch those thirty minutes into infinity, your sneakers always, always untied.

Steve had sprained his ankle in college when he tripped over his own feet, and so he’d started to tie them like the proper adult he pretended to be, and because the two of them had a habit of always copying the other, you’d just assumed that Bucky would have eventually grown out of the whole thing as well.

(Unlike you.)

Seemed like some things had stayed the same, after all.

And as if that stupid little observation had returned both of you back to the days that were, talking was suddenly so easy. You drifted closer to each other and apart again, like you were moving to a song much slower than the one still audible through the bathroom walls.

Later, you wouldn’t even be able to recall what you’d said. Some teasing remark, probably, a snarky comment like the ones you used to hide your feelings behind when you were fifteen and he was the prettiest boy you’d ever seen.

Whatever it was you’d said, Bucky chuckled again. As if he thought you funny. "I can’t believe I …" He trailed off, shaking his head, dragging a hand through his hair again.

Your eyes tracked the movement. A single curl kept sticking up near the top of his head, like it always had when you both were younger. "You what?" you said, almost entranced by it.

"Nothing," he said, looking over his shoulder like he expected someone to come up to him. There was no one there, but he kept moving like he was struggling against some unseen force.

"You what?" you laughed, thoroughly intrigued now.

He shook his head, but it spilled out anyway, like some tidal wave he couldn’t keep contained. "I used to have a crush on you in high school, alright?"

A pause, a break, a screeching record halt.

"No, you didn’t."

(He didn’t.)

"Uhm, yeah I did." He sighed heavily. "Look, you were never supposed to find out."

Your heart was pounding so loudly you could feel it in your ears. "Why not?"

"Because you’re …. You were my best friend. That was more important." The past tense really shouldn’t have broken your heart the way it did, because you’d known. Of course you’d known.

"And what about now?" you said, your hands clutched tightly around yourself." We’re not best friends anymore, are we? So … what are we now?"

He stared at you very intently, and his voice broke a little when he said, "I’m not sure what you want me to be."

There was a pause, and you realized Bucky’s face had turned even redder. You could barely look away from his eyes, though. It was almost impossible to make out their color in the semi-darkness of the bathroom, but there was a softness to them that made your skin prickle with goosebumps.

"Are you drunk or something?" you asked, feeling very, very sober yourself.

"What?" he said, almost offended by your suggestion. "Of course not."

"Good."

You stared at him for a moment longer, and then you kissed him.

You’d imagined kissing Bucky Barnes so many times before, but the real thing was so much better than even your wildest dreams could have predicted. He kissed you like he had all the time in the world and still didn’t want to waste a single second. Your hands circled around his waist to press him ever closer to you, and he made a noise at the back of his throat that made your brain short-circuit.

His hands trailed across your shoulder blades, gently pulling you with him as he took a step backwards and his back hit the wall with a low thud, his mouth never once leaving yours. He tasted like coffee and salt and something that was so distinctly him it took your breath away.

When you finally came up gasping for air, Bucky whined in disapproval, peppering smaller kisses along your cheeks, your jawbone, your neck. You grabbed his shoulder for support as your knees threatened to buckle, the fingers of your other hand grabbing a fistful of his hair.

"Shit, Y/N," he mumbled against your pulse, and the low timbre of his voice was enough to make your eyes flutter shut again. "You’ve got no idea how long …"

He didn’t finish talking, his lips finding yours again with a hum that made your grip on him tighten involuntarily, his hands large and solid around your middle. There was no telling how much time you lost to that kiss. Hours, maybe, an eternity of both of you trying to get as close to each other as possible.

At one point, Bucky tapped your thigh, as if he was trying to get you to jump and wrap your legs around his waist, and you were about to, honestly, but just then you were interrupted by a sudden and incessant knock at the door.

"Whoever’s in there, can you hurry up? There’s a line out here!"

You broke apart with an embarrassed snort. "Just a minute!" you called, somehow managing not to sound quite as short-winded as you felt. You steadied yourself against Bucky’s chest, feeling his heartbeat drum a mad rhythm underneath the thin fabric of his shirt. "I do not wanna go out there," you mumbled.

"Neither do I," he said, and his voice sounded so low and so wrecked you had to kiss him again. Just a small peck on the lips, this time, but you still came up light-headed. "Wanna get out of here?"

(More than anything.)

"I can’t," you sighed apologetically. "Nat’s not even here yet and I told her I’d help with the cake."

"I don’t give a shit about the cake."

You giggled. "I promised, though"

Bucky groaned, pressing his forehead against yours. The person on the other side of the door started knocking again. "She has an hour," he mumbled and sealed it with a quick kiss before you could say anything else. "Tops."

You left that bathroom with your head held high and an incredulous smile on your face. Outside, a clash of thunder shook the window panes.

***

It crosses your mind, then, when the car slows and the gas gauge finally stops blinking, that your younger self would have killed to be in your shoes. Or rather, bare feet pulled up on the passenger seat, Bucky’s fingers entertwining with yours, feeling tired and wide awake at the same time as nervous excitement curls up in your chest.

How many summer night did you use to lie awake in bed, imagining a scenario just like this?

(A million, at least.)

The summer air carries the smell of the ocean, and if you looked out the windscreen, you could probably see the waves crashing against the shoreline as the sun starts to rise, a picture perfect view like something out of a fucking dream. You’re still not quite convinced you haven’t fallen asleep on Wanda’s shoulder earlier in the evening, your subconscious making all of this up out of some long buried yearning from years ago.

You don’t want to look outside, though. You don’t want to look anywhere but at the boy beside you, whose hair is still tousled from your touch and who looks at you like he’s on cloud nine and absolutely terrified at the very same time.

"Do you feel kinda nervous or is it just me?" Bucky says, and you laugh.

"Yes. What’s up with that?"

It’s like the manic, pent up energy that made your kiss in the bathroom feel like you got struck by lightning has vanished from your bodies, making room for something more quiet. More anxious. A question whispered at the back of your mind that makes your hold on his hand tighten.

What now?

(Reality stopped calling a while ago, but it’s only a matter of time.)

"I guess it’s a good sign." Anticipation makes the blue of his eyes shimmer. "Means neither of us wants to fuck this up."

You smile tentatively. "Is there something we could potentially fuck up?"

Bucky swallows, tilting his head. "I hope there is."

(You want to run away with him. You want to stay with him. You’d wait a million summers more to get here.)

"Me too."

When he leans in this time, it’s sweeter than before, slower, less a declaration and more a promise. Neither of you would have to wait anymore.

thank you for reading!! if you want to see more of my writing, check out my masterlist or follow @intrepidacious-fics for update notifications!!

[kiwisbell]

Whiskey Sour

chapter three: painkiller

Reuniting with your estranged father while you finish college in Austin has unintended consequences. His best friend, for one.

series masterlist

pairing: joel miller x f!reader

rating: 18+ (mdni)

series tags and warnings: dbf!joel being extremely criminally attractive, big ol' age gap (40s/early 20s), unprotected piv (do not follow the leader), creampie, multiple sex positions, multiple orgasms, oral sex (m and f receiving), dry humping, spitting, biting, joel miller is a MUNCH, very appropriate use of a showerhead, consensual somnophilia, yoga, heavy emphasis on payphones, daddy issues, family reunions, angst, dead mom, grief and mourning, father/daughter relationship, bartending, reader is a woman in STEM (author is not), being a student in university deserves a warning probably, attempted drugging (roofies), college boys suck, possessive sex, possessive joel, protective joel, obligatory warning for joel's salt-and-pepper hair, masturbation, wet dreams, no outbreak AU, hurt/comfort, healing, no sarah or ellie, stargazing, face-sitting, pining/yearning, happy ending

word count: ~ 5.6k

chapter 3: painkiller

Stargazing, and knowing wrong from right.

Joel doesn't quite trust your car not to blow up, so he drives you both out near Devil’s Cove when the clock strikes eleven. 

You sit next to him on the truck bench, in your little skirt, and he tries not to look at the way it slips up your thighs. He cannot stop thinking about your words: Don't think you aren't getting a gift after everything you've done to help me. Part of him is thrilled to know you think about him enough to get eager about celebrating his birthday. Another part of him doesn't want to celebrate getting older. He’s old enough. 

A third part doesn't give a shit about a present, when he's got you right here, right next to him. 

“You were right,” he says. “I do like the telescope.”

“Did you spend a lot of time in the country?”

He drums his fingers on the steering wheel even though the truck radio is apparently tuned to a local station that does not play music. The announcer’s voice drones on about the Longhorns’ losing streak. “When I was a kid,” says Joel. “My parents had a farmhouse—raised cows, chickens, sheep, all of it. They had a business goin’ for the locals who wanted eggs or fresh meat.”

You can picture it: a younger Joel, dressed in a farmer’s flannel and a cowboy hat, herding sheep and tending to customers with that same charming smile you know now. “Do you have any siblings?”

“Younger brother. Tommy.” Joel briefly glances your way. “Lost my dad when I was ten. After that, Mom, Tommy, and I ran the place ourselves. I dropped out of high school to do it full-time when she got sick.”

You feel a twinge in your chest. “You, too, huh?”

He sighs through his nose. “Yeah. I would've been about your age.”

“Funny, the way things work out.” You lean back in your seat and turn your head back to the windshield. “But that does sound nice. A life away from all the madness. Just… quiet. Simple.”

“You'd like that?” Joel chuckles. “Thought you were a city girl.”

“I’m not saying I want to milk cows all day,” you tell him with a laugh. “Mom and I used to drive to the east coast in the summertime when I was in high school. We’d visit all the coastal towns and the little restaurants, go whale-watching. That was the only time we could really relax, outside the big city. I looked forward to those vacations most, before she got sick.”

Joel recognises the melancholy tone your voice takes when you talk about your mother. He hears it in his own voice. “She sounds like a good mom.”

“She was.” Your eyes flick to him again, and this time, he's looking at you. “I’m sorry, Joel. I would've liked to meet her.”

“I'd like that, too.” He fixes his eyes back on the road. “You, uh… you hear from Liam lately?”

“And we were having such a nice conversation,” you tease. “He lives with me, Joel. I’m bound to hear from him on a regular basis. Practically daily.”

Not the right answer. His hands tighten around the wheel. “I don’t like him.”

“I couldn't tell.” You pull your knees up to your chest and hug yourself into a tight ball. “You know I’ve never had a real boyfriend?”

Joel scoffs. “Excuse me if I have a hard time believin’ that.”

“I’m being serious!” 

“Nah. No way.” Joel shakes his head. “Those idiot high school boys were linin’ up at your door the way these idiot college boys are. You’re too pretty to have never had a fuckin’ boyfriend.”

Your cheeks feel white-hot. “Joel. That’s ridiculous.”

“I ain’t lyin’.” His grin is boyish when he looks at you again and your nerves flutter. “Guys have a way of knowin’ things.”

“Oh, you're so full of shit.” You smack him gently in the arm. “If they were all so interested, why'd they never tell me?”

“Because they were boys.” He gives you a pointed look. “And so is that asshole you live with. He thinks he's got a right to you ‘cause you live with him.”

“No, he—”

“Yes, he does. Any guy would be lucky as shit to have you.”

You lift your brows, opening your mouth to retort, but Joel just looks away, that crooked smirk pissing you off as much as it makes your heart pound with girlish anxiety. “We’re here.”

You slump back in your seat as he parks in a dirt lot by the edge of the water. Just down the road, by the docks, there will be college kids gearing up to celebrate the Longhorns’ first win of the season, and some just wanting an excuse to get hammered. You hop out of the truck as Joel unlatches the gate at the back. “Should be a good view here…”

He trails off when he looks up to find you staring at the midnight sky. The light of the stars reflects in your eyes and the curve of your neck shimmers with a faint layer of sweat in the humid air. When you swallow, he watches your throat hollow, and he wonders how a man is supposed to forget you. If a man can ever see your face, your body, your wondrous, awe-struck smile, and rest peacefully. 

“They’re beautiful,” you gasp. “Just like… like the coast in summertime.”

Joel surprises himself when he joins you at your side and reaches for your hand. “It’ll look better if you're laying down,” he says softly. “C’mon.”

You put your hand in his. The touch shifts his axis. The touch is an electric shock to his entire body, restructuring his pathways, reconfiguring his brain. The touch, he thinks, will forever change the way he sees you. It will change everything. 

“Joel.”

“Mmm.” He realises he hasn't moved. His fingers engulf yours, your skin so soft under his rough palms that he worries he'll somehow ruin it. 

“Thank you.” It’s a whisper, your pretty lips parting in the shape of a gratitude he will never deserve but will spend his moments earning as best he can. Your eyes are fixed on your joined hands, the way your thumb caresses the space between his thumb and forefinger. 

He leads you toward the back of the truck. You crawl up yourself, and it's ungentlemanly of him not to help you up, but he cannot touch you again. The world will fall out from beneath his feet. 

But it still does. When you shift so you're lying on your back, barely a foot from him, the earth blinks out of existence. All that remains is the faint heave of your chest, skin scattering moonlight, and the way you meet his eyes in the void. 

“Gotta look up to see the stars, baby.” His voice is rough. 

Your head turns and you face the sky above, but he doesn't move. Not quite yet. He savours the image of your profile, the silvery light on your face, the contentment in your eyes. Your lashes are spidery and your hair fans out beneath you, and all he wants to do is reach out. Touch. Guide you beneath him. Gaze into your eyes as he undresses you. Watch your bones melt for him, your troubles flee your brain, your mouth drop open in a long, dark whine. His name. 

“That one’s Venus.” You point to a bright star overhead, and then another. “And that’s Polaris. Those are the only two I really know. And you aren't looking at the stars.”

Joel swallows hard. “No. I’m not.”

“I like it when you call me that.” Your eyes meet his again. Your noses are inches apart. 

“Call you what?”

Your breath is a warm puff of air. “Baby.”

He’s losing control of his own body. His fingers crave the warmth of your skin, the heat between your thighs, the knowledge of what's under that fucking skirt. His whole body craves your closeness, needs your attention, will die without you curled up against him. His body seeks the ruination of yours. His heart seeks the comfort he knows he can give you. 

“That so?” He can barely get it out. 

Your eyes are wide, buttery soft, needy. “Yeah,” you sigh. “It feels good.”

Jesus Christ. “I…” His mouth is so fucking dry he can hardly swallow anymore. “I didn’t mean for—”

“I know.” He’s going to do it. He’s going to throw all of it away and touch you. He’s going to—

Your head turns back toward the sky, and your eyes flutter shut. He can see a small pearl trail down your cheek, and he realises it's a tear. “I’m sorry,” you say, your voice breaking. “This is your pre-birthday. You should be giving me ideas for a better gift.”

Joel’s own voice isn't faring much better. His laugh comes out like a hoarse whisper. “This…” He finally looks up at the stars and finds Venus. “This is all I could ask for.”

“Don’t lie to me, Miller.” There’s the playful tone he likes so much. “I’ve got your number.”

“I mean it.” He folds his hands over his stomach. “It’s peaceful out here. Reminds me of home.”

“Do you think your mom would've liked it here?” you ask. 

“She would,” says Joel. 

You sniffle. “Yeah, mine, too.”

Around him, the crickets chirp and the air is stagnant. It feels like a snapshot of time. Except that you're here, next to him, the warmth of your body rolling in waves over his nerves like a hundred cresting waves. 

“Boys never liked me.”

Joel can't help but look at you in disbelief.

“I’m telling you the truth.” You shrug. “When I had my first crush on a boy, I avoided him like the plague, because I didn’t want to be rejected. Then I set him up with my best friend.”

Joel blinks. You laugh like you can feel his amusement. “You don't have to tell me how stupid it was. I know. I just figured, if I didn’t go for it, I’d never get hurt.”

“And what happened every time after that?” asks Joel. 

“I was always too busy. I never let myself go to parties because there was always an excuse. Work, school, Mom. I had more important things to do, bigger things to worry about. Last time I went on a date, Mom convinced me to reschedule our usual hospital visit so I could go out with him. Halfway through, the hospital called me.” Your breath shudders out of you. “By the time I got there, she was mostly gone. I lost my last moments with her.”

Joel’s heart surges forward, lurching out of his chest. His hand finds a stray wisp of hair and tucks it behind your ear. It isn't in your eyes or blocking his view; he just wants to. He wants to be the one who's right here when you’re sad. He wants you to never feel like you have to put your own life in restraints—never again. “That was not your fault.”

“He was a total dud, too.” You laugh mirthlessly. “They’ve all been duds.”

And me? he wants to ask. If I put my hand here and I put my mouth there, would you deny me? Would you shove me away? Or would you let me treat you the way you deserve? 

He wants to be your guiding hand. He’ll give you what you need. He’ll be as firm as you want and he’ll be gentle all the other times. He’ll show you just how wanted you are. 

“You’ll find better,” he says instead. “Can’t promise they won't be fielded beforehand.”

You laugh, facing him again. “Is that so, Miller? You gonna background check them all?”

Fuck yes, I will. Joel shrugs, all pouty and grumpy again, and you just want to grace those patches of grey in his beard. 

Yes, it will cross a line. Yes, it will ache so beautifully to touch him the way you want. You don't know how to reconcile these two parts of you: the part that's here to rebuild a life, and the part that wants to simply forget how difficult that life can be and drown yourself in the sweet tang of being alone with him. 

“Oh! I forgot.” You bolt upright, scrambling off the truck bed so fast it gives Joel whiplash. You reach into the passenger’s side and pull out your bag. “I stole this from the kitchen. Thought you might be hungry after one cup of coffee.”

You produce a styrofoam container with a piece of chocolate cake inside. “I may have also asked Dad what kind of cake I should bake for your birthday.” You bite your bottom lip. “This’ll have to tide us over until the real thing.”

He doesn't know how to cope with the amount of affection surging up his throat, overfilling his bloodstream. Your mouth is so fucking close. How would it taste? Your dark, sexy perfume smells so good, your hair so soft and a little wind blown from the car ride. You would be so perfect, so beautiful, so soft to touch. 

You watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. He’s pine and sawdust and a little bit of mint. He’s manly, dark and a bit of grey, strong and broad. Capable. “You don't have to eat it,” you tell him, “but I brought two forks, just in case.”

His chest squeezes. “C’mon up here, baby.”

You climb back up onto the truck bed and situate yourself next to him, both of you sitting up against the back window. You hold the container as you both dig in, the cake a little too soft but still good. Still chocolate. And he's sharing it with you. 

It’s not even his birthday yet. 

“How’s that Daily Texan gig workin’ out for you?” he asks. 

Your eyes light up. He remembered? “I’ve been put in charge of the Student Wellness section. I don't know why the fuck they thought that was a good idea.”

“Gives you an opportunity to learn how to relax.”

You roll your eyes fondly. “Any suggestions?”

“This is a good start,” offers Joel. “Stargazing.”

You pocket that idea. “At least I didn't get put on Sports.”

“Y’know I was on the swim team in high school?”

“With those shoulders? Doesn’t surprise me one bit.” You lift your eyebrows at him and all Joel can think is, I want you, I want you, I want you. 

When you both decide it's time to head back home, Joel eats the last bite of cake at your request and you slide back into the passenger’s seat. “Thank you,” he says sincerely. “That was a hell of a lot more fun than trying to sleep.”

“No, it wasn't,” you laugh. “But I’m glad I could help, even a little. You don't sleep well?”

Lately, baby, it's because of you. “Pretty much not at all.”

Your brows knit together, but Joel shakes his head. “Don’t need it much, anyway. I get by just fine.”

“You tell me that when you pass out at the wheel because the caffeine wore off. Do you want me to drive?”

“You still have to drive home on a shitty alternator,” he argues, a little more worried about the state of your car than he's letting on. “I’ll be okay. I’ve gone longer on less sleep.”

You chew on your lip, and Joel brushes the rough pad of his thumb over your chin. “I’ll be okay,” he repeats. “Just buckle up.”

“Okay,” you whisper. “Just don't kill us.”

I haven’t tasted you, he thinks. Dying won’t do just yet. 

~

In his dream, you’re wearing the black thong. Nothing else. 

You knock on his bedroom door and he lets you in. He doesn't know why. He shouldn't. But he does. And you're there, your pretty tits sitting so perfectly for him, your hands demurely clasped behind your back, your eyes looking up at him expectantly. Wanting. Dark. 

He takes control. He pulls you against him, his chest against your back, tilting your head back, exploring your skin with his mouth, dipping his fingers into the flimsy waistband of that godforsaken thong and ripping it in two. 

In his dream, you're naked. Joel grabs handfuls of your ass while his hips batter you from behind, your slick, hot pussy sucking him in so deep that his whole body may disappear into yours. It's a dream. It doesn't make sense. But sense knocks at his ribs and cracks them in order to escape. Your mewls and moans as you take his cock replace any inkling of conscience, consciousness. You melt into the mattress and forget your worries with every thrust. He makes you forget. 

That's it. That's it, baby. You can take me. My good girl. So fuckin’ good, baby, that’s—

He’s awake. Joel grunts, shucking away his covers. His cock is tenting his boxers, which he scrambles to get off as he burns from the inside out. His cock slaps against his stomach, precum pooling at his navel. He hisses, grasping his shaft at the base, his hips bucking helplessly into his hand. His head tips back against the pillows as he begins to jerk himself off to the image of you underneath him. Moaning. Whining. Joel, Joel, yes, oh, my—

“Fuck.” He grits his teeth, spitting into his hand and twisting his hand around the head of his cock. Your mouth parts around the tip and your tongue darts out to lap up the precum on his slit, and he grunts your name. It’s fucking filthy. He’s filthy. “Goddamn—”

Holding you, cradling your head, watching your mouth take him, the tip prodding your throat. Your watery eyes, your needy, leaking pussy, your knees folded so primly under you. As if his cock isn’t down your fucking throat. “Jesus,” he growls, jerking faster, the pressure building in his ears and his throat and his stomach, his balls pulling up—

His cum spills over his hand and stomach as he groans your name, long and loud, to the empty room. He pants, staring up at the ceiling. Running his clean hand over his face, he shakes his head. Mike would kill him if he knew. And he’d fucking deserve it. 

Because Joel knows that he doesn't just need any warm body. He doesn't need to forget you by finding someone else. It isn't just a vague need. 

It is you. 

~

“Is this seat taken?”

Your head jerks up so fast your neck twinges. There's a guy looking at you with a sheepish smile, gesturing to the seat on your left. “Sorry,” he says. “I didn't mean to… interrupt.”

“No! No, I’m sorry. Please, feel free.” 

He slides into the seat and pulls out his books. “I’m Steve, by the way.”

You're a little surprised to see him offer his hand to you. People your age still shake hands with one another? Giving him a smile, you introduce yourself. “You just had to catch me while I was lost in thought. I’m usually a lot more suave.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” says Steve. He has a charming smile; he's about your age, with dark hair and a lean figure, and a pair of kind blue eyes. “Have you started studying for the midterm?”

You snort. “Please. If I think about it for one second, I’ll be breaking all the rules of my article.”

Steve laughs, assessing you with a brief once-over. “I recognise your name. You edit for the paper, right?”

“Guilty.”

“Only if it were bad. I liked your last piece.” He places his hand over his heart. “Your dad taught you this?”

You smile. He actually read your latest article. “He did,” you say brightly. “I was freaking out over the move here, and he told me how to ground myself.”

Steve grins. “Well, it's good to know the paper has someone of quality writing for them.”

You roll your eyes. “Smooth.”

“I know. Practised it over the last couple minutes in my head.” Steve taps his pen on his notebook. His notes are neat and his handwriting is small. “Hey, if you ever decide to brave the hell that is the study guide, I’d be happy to do it with you. Okay, more like reluctant, but happy to do it with you.”

You really could use the study buddy. “Yeah. That would be great.”

“Thank God,” sighs Steve. “I thought I’d have to beg.”

“Oh, you still can, if you want.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he says with a laugh, turning to face the front of the room as the professor walks in. Wordlessly, he writes down a phone number on the corner of his page and rips it out, sliding it over to you. You stuff the scrap of paper in your bag. 

Neither Joel nor your father show up at the bar tonight. They both have to get up early to drive across town for the job, but work is a little less alive without the company. Rob still makes sure to walk you to your car when your shift ends at eleven, and it only takes three turns of the key for the engine to start. 

The problem is that halfway through the journey home, a torrential downpour starts slicing rain in a diagonal path to your windshield, and your engine sputters until the lights go out. “Fuck!” you cry out, turning the key again and again without luck. Your car is dead. 

You climb out of the driver’s seat and wave your apology to the people behind you as you run to the bumper and begin to push in the direction of the road’s shoulder. “Come on,” you beg, shoving and digging your heels into the ground. 

Several cars behind you begin to honk their horns, and it only makes your eyes fill with tears. The rain lashes you in the face and soaks your hair through to your scalp, your clothes drenched in freezing-cold water. You don't even have a jacket to stay warm. 

“Come on!”

The car gives when you manage to get the front right wheel on the shoulder. Not a single person gets out to help you push the rest of the way, instead deciding to veer their cars around you once there's enough room. Still, they don't care enough not to splash you in the deepening puddles as they race by. 

“Don’t worry about me,” you scream, your voice getting lost in the pounding of rain on the ground. 

Shit, shit, shit. You're too far away from home to walk the rest of the way, and there isn't a payphone in sight. So, you wrestle your keys from the car out of spite, gather your bag with your work uniform, and make a decision. 

~

He’s making dinner when there’s a knock on his front door. He cleans his hands of raw chicken and heads toward the door. It’s pouring rain; what the hell kind of solicitor wants his business this badly? 

The door swings open, and you're standing on Joel’s porch, dripping wet from your head to toes, clutching your bag close to your chest. “H—hi.”

The look in your eye is so resigned, so sad, that he can't for a second think about how it looks for you to show up at his home so late at night. “Jesus,” he says. “What the fuck happened?”

“My car br—broke down. Dad isn’t h—home, and I had to wa—walk.” Your entire body is racked with relentless shivers as you hug yourself. “Do you m—mind if I use your dryer?” 

Joel’s heart cleaves in two at the sight of your soaked-through jeans, your drenched sweatshirt, and his blood simmers at the thought of you having to walk home without anyone to keep you safe. 

“C’mere, baby,” he says, brows pinching as he ushers you inside and envelops you in his arms. Your whole body sags into him, and he doesn't give a shit that rainwater is seeping through his clothes. You’re cold and he’s warm, and you can relax. Fuck, just being held like this makes you sniffle, forgetting the cold, damp walk and the pile of work you haven't done and the money you don't have in favour of imprinting the feeling of his hard chest and his soft belly pressed against you. 

“Joel…”

Your weak, soft voice rattles in his brain and tastes like honey on his tongue. He pulls away to cup your face in his hands, moving your damp hair from your face. “You’ll catch a cold. “Let’s get you out of those clothes, okay?”

You nod, slipping off your shoes and letting him lead you to his bedroom. “Take whatever you want,” he tells you, gesturing toward his closet where all his shirts are hanging up. “Pants are in the drawer there. You want coffee? I’m just making dinner.”

Despite yourself, a little laugh slips out. “You’re making d—dinner at mid—midnight.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I was waitin’ for you.” His hands caress your arms, up and down, up and down, watching the tension in your shoulders ebb away. “I’ll let you shower.”

“I d—don't want to stay,” you tell him. “I mean, I do, b—but it’s s—so late.”

He shakes his head, pressing his lips to the crown of your head. “Shhh, baby. You've never been a bother and that hasn't changed now.”

“Joel.” He turns at the doorway to face you again. “Thank you.”

He leaves without another word because he doesn't trust himself not to rush back inside and gather you up in his arms once more. You're in his goddamn bedroom. You're feet away from the bed where he jerked off to a dream of you last night. And you can never know. You will never know—no matter how many lines he crosses. 

After your shower, you pick out a too-big sweatshirt emblazoned with his company logo and a pair of grey sweatpants. Your cheeks feel warm knowing that he's worn these, maybe even slept inside them, and you dry your hair in a towel. You feel clean, less miserable, and bone-tired, but you still hesitate before you turn the knob and leave Joel’s bedroom. 

He’s in the kitchen—you can smell chicken, steamed broccoli, maybe cheese?—and your mouth waters. You didn't know you were hungry until now. Joel’s gaze finds you when he hears footsteps. 

You. Wearing his clothes. Dressed in his sweatpants. You even fucking smell like him, your hair cleaned with his shampoo and your body washed with his soap. He may keel over. Blood rushes to his cock, filling it out in his own sweatpants, and if you notice, you don't say a word. 

Settling into the chair at the little, circular dining table, you meet his eyes across the way. “This looks good, Joel. Thank you.”

“Where’s your car?” he asks, his voice hoarse. 

“On the shoulder of a road somewhere,” you reply. “Your neighbourhood was closest, and there aren't exactly many payphones in the suburbs. I’ll call a tow truck in the morning.”

“You pushed your own car to the side of the road?” Joel’s angry instincts are prickling again, his ears burning at the thought of you alone in the dark and the rain, helpless to get anywhere but to him. “Did someone help you?”

Your eyes find a fascinating spot on the table, your silence giving him all the answers he needs. Your clothes were even flecked with mud when you came to him, meaning you'd been splashed by passing cars. Joel’s jaw ticks, his fingers flexing into fists. 

He couldn't fix this. He couldn't be there when you needed help. He couldn't even know about it until the damage was already done. “Fuck, baby.”

“It’s okay.” You meet his eyes again, giving him a sad smile. “I’m all right.”

He sighs harshly through his nose. “Come here.” 

You follow orders beautifully, closing the distance between you and him. Slowly, so slowly, you bracket his thighs with yours and lower yourself onto his lap, your arms winding around his neck. 

He knows you can feel the insistent press of his cock against your thigh. He knows the telltale widening of your pupils, the darkness in your eyes—the thrilling catch of your breath when he finally lifts his hand to the small of your back, fitting you against him. 

There is no going back from a thing like this. 

“You're upset,” he says into the thinning air. It feels like a slight. “You don't want me. Not like this.”

You don't reply. You just begin to move. 

“Jesus.” His hands find your hips on instinct, squeezing hard as if he can get you to stop. “Shit. What are you—”

“I want you,” you whisper as your hips gyrate slowly over his stiff cock. You never break eye contact. “I want all of you.”

Your forehead drops to his, your noses brushing as he keeps pulling you closer, guiding your hips over him, betraying the words that leave his mouth. The heat between your thighs warms his body, your cunt dragging over his length and your mouth dropping open at the sparks of pleasure against your clit. 

Joel grits his teeth, helping you move. “Fuck. Fuckin’ hell, baby.” His cock twitches, leaning precum into his boxers. “That’s it. Take what you want. Take what you need, baby girl.” 

He will drink your soft moans down and guide your whimpering voice into his mouth. But you need to come first. You need to take, so he can give. “So fuckin’ good,” he grunts. 

“Joel.” It’s a mewl, quiet and pitched high. 

He thinks about the truck bed, the stars, the times he wanted and wanted but never took. But it's never been about him. This is you, baring yourself for a man who will hold you and admire you and expect nothing in return. He doesn't. He wants you to know it. 

This is about you. He can be selfish later. 

He can feel that you're close, your hips stuttering and your breath catching on every intake. “I know. I’ve got you. Just keep goin’.”

Maybe it's his voice. Maybe it's the consistent pressure against your clit. Maybe it's the need to be warm and safe and pliable in his arms. You come, grasping the back of his neck, your fingers tangling in his messy hair as your other hand clutches his shoulder. But he's got you. He won't let you fall. 

“That’s it, sweetheart.” He holds you close as you shiver, the cold pulsing out of your body and warmth settling deep inside. Your brain is a bit fuzzy, your eyes a little unfocused. His hand cups your cheek, pulling you away so he can look at you from a better angle. The sounds and sights of your orgasm will linger on the ceiling of his brain like a light that's always on. 

You just came on his lap. You've never even kissed him, and the mere feel of his body ground you into a fine golden powder. “I meant it,” you tell him, combing his tousled hair away from his eyes. “I want all of you.”

“You’ve got me,” he says, and he means it. You’ve both tangled a hundred lines into one another; the mess you've both made is unrecognisable. A Gordian knot. But this is real, and it's clear. This is true and present and whatever happens next is inconsequential compared to the peace he feels when he has his hands on your body. 

There are no muddied waters when he looks into your eyes. 

“When's the last time you ate?” he asks. 

An answering rumble in your stomach makes him chuckle. You giggle, still somewhat high from your orgasm. “Today. Yesterday. What time is it?”

He squeezes your thighs and gestures with his chin toward your side of the table. “Eat.”

“But…” Your eyes drop to the space between you, where his cock visibly strains against his sweatpants. You take your lip between your teeth. “You're hard.”

“Yeah, I am. You’re a sexy fuckin’ woman who just used me to get off.” His thumb traces your bottom lip. “I’m old, baby. I can be patient.”

You pout, but he pats your ass and lifts you off him. Your legs tremble as you lower onto your chair. It’s a plain dinner, and it’s not steaming hot anymore, but at least he can cook. And it tastes so much better after an orgasm. After the hellish night you've had. Joel watches you while you eat, and you watch him, too. 

“I’ll drive you home,” he says, breaking the silence. “And I’ll call the tower in the morning.” You swallow a piece of broccoli. Joel points his fork at you. “And don’t argue.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Yeah, you were.” He’s right. “You’ve got enough to worry about.”

You look at him awhile. His cheeks feel warm under your scrutiny, the way you openly admire his face, his body, his hands. “I think you're my hero, Joel Miller.”

Jesus, if that doesn’t make his chest puff up a bit. “That so?”

You take a sip of his lukewarm coffee. “Will you let me show you?”

Under the table, your foot trails up his ankle. Joel breathes in hard. As much as he wants to bend you over the fucking table and pound you senseless, you need to rest. And he needs to make sure you get safely home, where your father will never hold suspicion of the things Joel has done to his daughter. He’ll fashion a story that's close to the truth. He gave you his clothes and drove you home, and he did not let you grind on his cock until you came on top of him. 

“I won't tell him,” you say softly. “I won’t.”

Joel senses your unease, your hesitation. “I know, baby. I trust you.”

The smile creeps up your face and fills his ribcage with warm light until it's seeping through the bones. “I know what I’m going to give you for your birthday.”

[kananjarus]

for all the haunts and homes of men // buddie // apocalypse au

chapter eleven

Here was the end of the line, the last stop at this corner of the country. A few engine cars were parked in front of metal barriers, empty and silent. Only one still fully lit. Double decker, Amtrak. Sleek and silver. A small crowd of medical personnel and suits were gathered near the front of it, talking through a radio. Movement further down, quick flashes of light. Blackout curtains were being pulled aside in several windows, faces peering out at the growing spectacle.

“Jesus,” a voice breathed next to him. Maurice had appeared out of nowhere, similarly dressed as Eddie and toting what looked like all the supplies from the ambulance in one bag. “They haven’t started getting people off the train, yet?”

It didn’t appear as if anyone had vacated even one of the cars. Eddie could see the conductor at the top most window, speaking down at the people gathered below. Through a closed window. His face ducked and blurred, hand going to mouth. Stilled. Eddie’s blood seemed to slowly freeze inside him. He was beginning to understand, but also, maybe he hadn’t realized what he was seeing before because in reality, he hadn’t really wanted to.

“I don’t think they’re going to let them off,” Eddie said eventually. From where he was standing, two train tracks and a platform away, coughing could be heard like crackling paper over the radio.

read on ao3

[laiqualaurelote]

chapter seven: a little more than kin, and less than kind

“There’s an old joke in theatre,” says Ted. “If your director, your lead actor and your stage manager are in a burning house right before your show is about to start, who do you save first?”

Trent hazards: “The lead actor?”

“Exactamundo, Aureliano Segundo! By the time the show’s about to go on, you don’t need the director any more, and your stage manager can take care of themself, or they wouldn’t be your stage manager.” He claps Nate on the back. “Ain’t that right, Nate the Great?”

Nate ducks his head modestly. “That’s right.”

In the wake of the apocalypse, American comedy actor Ted Lasso winds up leading a Shakespearean troupe across the ruins of England. A Station Eleven post-apocalyptic theatre AU (no knowledge of Station Eleven necessary to read).

[zeninsama-moved]

pay up!

gojo satoru x female reader

satoru's poor time management has you working overtime, and this cheap bastard has something other than cash to pay you with (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

note from author mercury: this is my entry for our slimeball collab over on @bastardblvd , figured the host of the slimiest event on this corner of the internet should probably contribute a lil somethin. let's pretend like i'm not shitting bricks bc this is my first time writing for gojo <3 ending is a little abrupt but i needed to get this out asap or i'd be scrutinizing it for the next five months

content warnings: female reader, unprotected sex, oral and fingering (reader receiving), overuse of the word 'cute', praise and obnoxious petnames (reader receiving), needing to keep quiet, fucking on the couch while the kids are asleep down the hall so if that's a concern for you please don't touch, panty fetish if you squint, cumshot?, implied you've fucked before, unfair compensation for your labor lmao, multiple references to the slimeball au so that may be super jarring if you aren't familiar.

↳ word count: 3.9k

It's almost eleven, which means Satoru is... very late.

Shit happens, you get it. Maybe work ran later than expected, or the train hit a freeloader on the way back to Grimetown, but still. You can’t help but feel bothered by the lack of text message from your pseudo-employer.

You would never complain about Megumi and Tsumiki. They're absolute angels, and caring for them has never felt like work. Besides, your only other options were a waitressing job at Franky’s or the graveyard shift at the gas station, which you heard is filled with... interesting characters at that time of night. Caring for the coolest elementary schoolers alive seemed like a no-brainer. The arrangement worked out in your favor as well. Satoru ended up moving you into his apartment complex due to his demanding schedule, wanting you to always be close – like two apartments down the hall close.

Contrary to the name, the Luxury Condos on Bastard Boulevard weren’t much of an upgrade from your last apartment. The landlord must be loaded because it’s a miracle this place passed inspection, but you’ll gladly accept updated appliances and neighbors without a small army of pet rats. Even the offensively high rent doesn’t bother you because your pseudo-employer paid it all in cash. 

(You tried asking Satoru exactly where he got all this money from, to which he said, “It ain’t easy being the sexiest designer sunglasses model on this side of town. You gotta work hard to play hard!”)

Anyways, whatever is holding him, you hope it’s a good excuse.

In the meantime, you’ve taken up camp on his sofa, wrapped in a throw blanket that smells vaguely of Satoru's disgustingly expensive cologne. You were too lazy to change the channel from whatever cartoon Megumi was watching before bedtime, laughing through your nose every now and then. It’s not that bad, but still… You’d really, really like to go back to your apartment and hit the hay.

Maybe a little snooze won’t hurt, but of course, right as you close your eyes...

The smart lock clicks behind you. It’s a quarter past eleven when Satoru enters the apartment, looking gorgeous and unbothered, sunglasses low on his nose and DAISO cat-print tote bag slung over his arm.

"Daddy's home!" 

"Shh!" you're glaring from the couch, lips drawn in a frown. "Megumi and Tsumiki are sleeping! Where the hell were you? You couldn't give me a heads up?" 

"Sorry, babycakes. They loved what I was giving 'em, so the shoot ran overtime." Satoru grins at you, pulling the sunglasses off his face and ditching them in the catch-all along with his keys. His shoes are toed off and left by the front door. "Why, you miss me that bad?" 

You're tempted to throw one of the many decorative pillows right at his big, dumb head. Instead you sink back into the couch, pulling the blanket tighter around your frame, grouchy. "Whatever," you sigh. "You're four hours late, so you better pay up." 

Satoru sucks in air through his teeth. "Yeah, about that..."

You don't like where this conversation is heading. 

"Some big guy outside the train station jacked my wallet on the way home. You'll never believe it, he had this fuckin'... worm? On his shoulder? Shit, it was crazy. So I don't have the cash to pay you, but–" 

You glance over your shoulder at the man now rummaging through his bag behind you, eyes and tone full of warning. "Satoru..."

An opened package is waved in your face by a beaming idiot.

"– Ichigo daifuku! Your favorite!"

He's so full of shit. There’s one piece of mochi left, does he really think his already-eaten train snack will fix this? Probably, and as much as you'd hate to admit it, you do like strawberry daifuku mochi. Dammit.  

Despite your annoyance, you don't get up from your spot on the couch. You're tempted to storm out, blow past Satoru and grab your things, maybe give him a good shove while you do it. However, you're tired, and no grand display of your frustrations would change the fact that you'd be returning tomorrow to pick up his kids from school. Also, your apartment is literally two doors down, so you wouldn't truly be escaping Satoru – you'll still feel his annoying energy seeping through the absurdly large gap under your door while you sit there, in the apartment that he bought you, stewing in your annoyance and eating your feelings in a single daifuku mochi. 

God, you might hate this man. You don't even wanna look at him, but despite feeling this way, you let Satoru move closer, ditching the bag of sweets in favor of pinching your puffed-out cheek in his fingers.

“Aw, come on,” he pouts, redirecting your face towards his in an attempt to get you to look at him, but you don’t give him the satisfaction. You force yourself to look anywhere else but the man above you and stubbornly pretend you can’t feel the cool puffs of his mint-gum breath, or notice his devious grin from the corner of your eye. “Don’t be mad at me, babycakes. Is there anything I can do to make it better?” 

“You can go to the ATM and get me some cash."

“Yeah, besides that.”

On the subject of things you hate about Satoru, you hate how quickly he switches up on you. One minute, he's the most annoying man you've ever had the misfortune of knowing. The next, he's smooth and serious. The kind of man that confidently leans in and ghosts his lips over your neck, intentionally fanning his breath over your skin because you made the mistake of telling him you're ticklish there.

"There must be some way for me to make this up to you," Satoru murmurs into your neck, the low vibrations of his voice making you shiver. It's then that you finally cave, eyes slowly meeting his, brilliant blues hidden behind heavy lids.

Unfortunately, he's very handsome.

"Okay," you huff. "Fine."

He kisses your cheek, then your nose, and then he kisses you.

You hate to admit it, but Satoru knows how to kiss. His lips are warm and soft, meshing with yours with confidence, tongue easing into your mouth in a practiced motion.

He momentarily breaks the kiss to join you on the couch, kneeling on the cushion beside you and leaning back in, cradling your cheek in his hand, murmuring against your lips before kissing them again.

"Let me show you just how much I appreciate you."

Satoru reaches down and rests his hand between your thighs, cupping your pussy through the rough fabric of your shorts. You bite your lip at the sensation, stifling a needy whimper, but he knows. Your grouchy demeanor melted so easily for him.

How cute, his little tsundere.

He squeezes you softly, then rubs four fingers up and down, keeping his pace slow.

"You know I can't do it without you, right?"

Your hips lift off the couch, chasing his hand as it continues its unbothered pace. Satoru rewards you by focusing the stimulation on your clit, switching to tighter, firmer circles over the sensitive bud.

"You're just saying that," you mutter.

"Nuh uh," Satoru teases. "I've never seen anyone be so good with my kids. They love you, you know. Maybe more than they love me."

That's not too difficult, you want to quip, but opt to bite your tongue instead. Satoru's touch feels way too good, you don't want him to stop or risk having your orgasm put off just over a snark. Instead, you curl your fingers into the nape of his neck, fidgeting with the shorter tufts of hair there. 

Satoru kisses you again. His hand stops playing with your clit just to skim higher, unfasten the button and zipper on your shorts so he can touch you where you both want it most.

"And you know," he murmurs between kisses, fingers sneaking under the loosened waist of your shorts, then your panties, until you feel his fingers make contact with your bare clit. He watches your reactions closely, smiling when you gasp and buck up into his touch. "I like you too. How can I not? You're too damn cute."

His slender middle finger skims your folds, feeling the wetness there, letting it gather and get him all slick, making it easier when it finally pushes inside you. Just one finger already feels like so much, almost too much. He feels your walls bear down, his cock twitching lazily in his pants. How long has it been since he’s had you last? 

You let him have you once before, back when he spent the whole day helping you move into your new apartment, carrying all those heavy boxes for you like the gentleman he is – and you, being the sweet peach you are, insisted on making him dinner as a thank you.

You reminded Satoru of a cute little housewife, puttering around the kitchen in your apron, though nothing was cuter than the sight of you sinking onto his dick that night, your hands and pussy clinging to him like you couldn’t get enough.

Every time he jerks off, he thinks of that adorable, pinched look on your face when the fat head of his dick first speared you open. 

It's kind of embarrassing, the hold you have on him. 

When you're taking his finger with ease, Satoru presses a second into your cunt, further stretching it out. "Come on, baby, open up for me," he coaxes, voice low and sultry. "Fuck, you don't know how bad I missed this pussy. Gonna let me fuck it again? Hm?"

"Uh huh," you're nodding, dazed, and the sight of you makes Satoru grin. The heel of his palm presses into your clit, providing the right amount of pressure when combined with his fingers.

"Yeah? Gonna let me have this cute pussy to myself?" 

Cruelly, the motion stops.

The lack of stimulation makes you pout.

Satoru's fingers glide out of you with an embarrassingly loud squelch, intentionally brushing along your clit as they withdraw from your shorts and panties. His hand emerges, fingers glistening with clear threads of arousal webbed between them, and before you can think, he slips them past your lips and presses firmly on your tongue, prompting you to suck.

"Tastes good?" Satoru coos, delighted at your eagerness. "Let me taste now, okay, cutie?" 

Shyly, you nod. His fingers withdraw from your mouth, leaving a dribble of spit on your bottom lip. 

Satoru repositions himself to kneel on the floor in front of you, tugging you by the hips so your bottom half comes right to the edge of the couch, dangerously close to his face. He leans in and presses a soft kiss to your cunt, the sensation muted by your shorts, but it still makes you gasp. His fingers hook into your shorts and you lift your hips to help him pull them off, but he makes no effort to remove your panties with them. Instead, he fixates on the little wet patch right in the center, caressing it with his finger. Admiring it.

Fuck, you’re so cute. He can’t wait to get his mouth on you. 

"Need to keep quiet, okay?" Satoru instructs, peering up at you through his lashes, watching you take your bottom lip between your teeth and nod. The last thing you need is to disturb the two rugrats asleep down the hall, even if you could pry yourself off Satoru and pull your shorts back on in record time. You don't want this moment to stop, not when the promise of his mouth on your cunt is so deliciously close.

You look so sweet like this, he thinks. Chest heaving, eyes wide and eager, one hand fisting the hem of your shirt, holding it over your stomach for a better view. Satoru smiles up at you, maintaining eye contact as he presses a kiss to your inner thigh.

“What a beautiful girl.”

Satoru buries his face in the soft warmth between your legs. His nose presses into your clit, taking in your scent as his tongue ventures lower, finally getting a taste of your pussy and he shamelessly moans. It’s faint through the fabric. He knows he could taste you better without them, but something about eating pussy through a cute pair of panties never fails to get him so fucking hard. He likes watching them get wetter and wetter, until they're completely soaked from arousal and saliva and clinging to the shape of the pretty pussy underneath.

Your other hand flies down immediately, resting on the back of Satoru’s head to urge him closer, and of course he’ll indulge you. He’ll eat you just the same, dragging his tongue in broad strokes up to your clit, then sucking it into his mouth.

The muted sensation makes you whine. It’s not enough, yet so good. Enough to make your little pussy flutter under your panties. You push his head harder against your cunt, desperate to keep the kissing suction over your clit. You’re certain you could cum like this, between the pressure of Satoru’s tongue and the vibrations when he moans against you. 

A string of saliva connects Satoru’s swollen lips to your panties when he pulls back for air, but this time he pulls the soaked fabric aside, finally getting an eyeful of your pussy.

“Well hi, gorgeous,” he lovingly coos, pressing a light kiss over your clit. “Did you miss me?” 

Is he… really talking to your pussy? 

Scratch that, you hate him again. 

“What are you doing?” You ask, breathless. 

“What do you mean? We’re having a moment,” Satoru replies, voice still sweet and airy, the same way one would talk to a cute little pet. 

If you didn’t need him so badly, you’d kick him right in his dumb face.

Fortunately, Satoru cuts his little bit short and dives back in, tongue sweeping through your folds, finally getting his first real taste of your pussy. You taste even better than he could imagine. 

You release a breath you didn’t even know you were holding, body melting into the couch. Your fingers tangle in soft white hair, urging his head deeper, wanting to feel more of his mouth and Satoru obliges. His tongue dips into your cunt, fucking you with it, then drags up to your clit to lick in slow circles.  

He really, really wants to be inside you right now. His dick is throbbing so hard, he’s amazed he hasn’t passed out yet, but Satoru’s always been a man with a sweet tooth. He doesn’t mind setting his needs aside a while longer if it means eating out some pretty pussy. 

Maybe not too much longer though.

His fingers join between your legs, still slick from your saliva and arousal, and slip easily into your cunt. Making you cum is easy for him, his fingers thrust deep with each lazy roll of his wrist, stimulating that spot inside you with ease. Though, he can tell you're craving more of a stretch, so Satoru, being the chivalrous, generous, oh-so-kind man that he is, gives you a third finger.

Your jaw drops at the intrusion, pussy now spread wide to accommodate the stretch of three fingers as they curl and stroke your sensitive walls, drawing out more wetness and arousal until it drips down his wrist in clear drops.

Satoru knows you're close when you let out a particularly desperate moan, your hips stuttering and walls fluttering so perfectly on his fingers, clit pulsing against his tongue.

"Satoru, I'm–" you warn, trying to keep your voice low.

"I know, baby," he coos in encouragement. "Feels so good, doesn't it? Go ahead, pretty baby. Cum on my tongue if you need to."

You don't need any further coaxing. When you cum, you cum hard, hand smacking over your mouth to muffle your cries as Satoru keeps fucking you through your orgasm, fingers thrusting and tongue lapping up every drop of arousal your sensitive pussy drools out, just for him.

He rests his head on your inner thigh, watching fondly as you come down from your high. His fingers still thrust into you but his pace has slowed significantly, working you through it until your walls stop contracting. Your arousal coats his entire hand when it withdraws from your cunt, even pooling on the couch beneath you. It'll be a bitch to clean, but Satoru can't bring himself to care about that now. His dick might explode if it's not buried in your cunt in the next thirty seconds.

Even as you lay there, chest heaving, you still crave more. Your hands are greedy, grabbing at Satoru while he makes his way up and eases you back against the couch.

“Easy there, tiger,” he chuckles, hooking his fingers into your soaked panties and peeling them down your legs. "Let's take these off you first."

Your panties are discarded somewhere – probably his pocket, that pervert – before Satoru goes in for another kiss, letting you taste yourself on his tongue. One hand rests beside your head, supporting his weight. The other reaches down and palms his dick through his pants. "You need my dick that badly? Hm? Turn around." 

You oblige, rolling over to lay on your stomach and pretending the sound of his belt unfastening doesn't make you warm with anticipation. Satoru shifts to straddle your thighs, placing one of the cushions to rest under your hips, keeping you nice and comfortable while also elevating your ass to be closer to his dick. A win-win.

"Shit," he sighs, pulling his dick from his briefs and jerking it slowly, slicking himself up with your wetness. Precum beads at the tip and he rubs it against your folds, mixing your messes. "It's been a while, huh?" 

"Satoru," you whine, pushing back against him, wiggling your hips slightly in a silent request for him to quit teasing you and get on with it.

Maybe that makes you greedy. After all, he was just nice enough to let you cum on his fingers and tongue, but you don't care. It doesn't hurt to be selfish every once in a while, especially with Satoru of all people.

When Satoru finally presses the thick head of his dick into you, it feels like you’re being split in two. He's immediately met with resistance, your cunt bearing down, struggling to accommodate it even with all the prep he gave you. So he starts slow and shallow, dragging his heavy dick in and out, bullying your cunt into relaxing and letting more of him fit. He pulls out and taps the head against your entrance again. "Come on, sweetie, open up for me~" 

He eases into your cunt again, but this time Satoru leans in, his opposite hand settling on the other side of your head, smothering you with his weight in the best way possible. His body blankets yours, pinning your back under his chest and ass against his hips. His dick pushes into you with more persistence, inch after inch sinking deeper until he's buried to the hilt.

Your eyes roll back, mouth hanging open in a silent scream. You're probably drooling all over his couch, but it's hard to feel shame when he's filling you out so nicely. He's so deep, it's like he's forcing the air out of your lungs and replacing it with his dick.

His lips ghost over your shoulder, kissing it sweetly, then he starts to move. Slow, deep thrusts, only withdrawing an inch before he's chasing that warmth again. He fucks you as hard as he can without being too noisy, limiting the smack of his hips against your ass, even though he really wants to see it bounce from the force of his thrusts. If he could, he’d be making you scream right now, watch some pretty tears stream down your face because of what his dick does to you. Yeah, that would be cute.

Satoru ruts ruthlessly into the tight heat of your cunt, chasing the orgasm he’s needed so fucking desperately. Balls slap against your clit, heavy with all his pent-up release. He takes advantage of your open mouth and forces two fingers inside, pressing down firmly on your tongue and delighting in the way you slobber around them, in the way your cheeks subconsciously hollow and suck them deeper, still tasting your pussy on them.

Sucking on his fingers keeps you quiet, gives you something else to focus on if not the relentless pounding against your cervix, or how close you’re getting to snapping and cumming all over his dick.

“Shit, you’re so perfect,” Satoru huffs against your neck. "I can feel you squeezing me, baby, I know this little pussy wants to cum."

It’s hard to moan his name when his stupidly long fingers are prodding the back of your throat. You’re babbling, crying out for Thatowu to keep fucking you, it feels so good, and he’s grinning like an idiot above you. Yeah, baby? It feels good?

Satoru’s fingers withdraw from your mouth only to snake underneath your body and stake claim on your clit, massaging in slow circles, coaxing you closer to your orgasm. You can’t take it anymore. Your body goes limp, cheek smashed into the cushion, gaping mouth smearing drool all over the fabric while your cunt creams around his dick.

“Shit, that’s it, baby,” Satoru moans, feeling your cunt squeeze around his dick like it's trying to swallow him whole. “Shit, you’re gonna make me cum. Is that what you want, baby? You want me to fill this pussy up?”

You’re too fucked out to answer, but that’s okay, because Satoru wasn’t really asking. More like letting you know he’s seconds away from driving his dick as deep as possible and unloading right against your cervix. God, he’d really like that, but he can't risk having any more rugrats right now. Not when his career as the only sexiest designer sunglasses model in Grimetown is taking off.

Instead, he pulls out of your cunt and manhandles you onto your back, quickly stroking his dick, filling the living room with the lewd sounds of your wetness squelching around him. You're laying there, dazed, legs spread wide and pussy exposed, all swollen and leaky and clenching around the air. The sight of your debauched face sends Satoru over the edge. He releases with a groan, cum splattering on your lower stomach, inner thighs, all over your pussy, before pressing the head right against your clit and letting the rest of his load drip.

You both need a minute after that. Maybe several minutes. 

Blood still rushes in your ears when you come to. You push yourself up on shaking arms, Winnie the Pooh-ing it with your tee shirt and lack of panties. You're a mess, all sweaty with his cum painting your lower half, even parts of the couch underneath you. Maybe he'll offer up his shirt as a cumrag so you don't have to do the walk of shame to the bathroom.

You watch Satoru, who is already back to his normal, irritating self, snatch his bag off the side table, already craving a little something sweet. He chomps into the last strawberry daifuku mochi in the packet and you frown.

“Hey, I thought that was for me."

“We can still share,” Satoru teases, waving the mochi-half in your face with a grin.

Huffing, your eyes drop back down to the open bag on his lap and… wait a minute. Has that been here this whole time?

“Satoru, is that your wallet?” 

He looks down, a little rice flour on his chin.

“Oh, shit! Where did that come from?” 

[rotzaprachim]

*sits down to write zombie apocalypse au* a week later *ok so what if what the characters actually needed to reckon with were the sheer jaw dropping artistic power of Arturo Márquez‘s  Danzón No. 2? What if what this zombie apocalypse au REALLY needed was some King Lear Lore???? 

[butmakeitgayblog]

for the reverse trope writing: divorce of convenience (something new or an au of your choice, both sound fun!)

Her eyes watch as the ink bleeds slowly into the paper. They watch neat, slanted script combine in the fragmented loops and dashes that make up that achingly familiar signature. X marks the spot. On the dotted line. Not a single scribble out of place; right where the lawyer had highlighted it in garish neon yellow.

Forever and ever.

They were eleven, and it's promising to always be best friends. The kind that stick together through thick and thin. Like white on rice, as their teacher  often said. 

Forever and ever.

They were fifteen, and it's smiling with the awkwardness of young love. The kind that sets fire to racing hearts from a first kiss stolen behind their school's abandoned gymnasium. 

Forever and ever.

They were seventeen, and it's shaking hands that still can't believe they get to touch their best friends that way. The kind of way that makes them both let out hungry sounds and pretty moans in the backseat of her dad's station wagon.

Forever and ever.

They were nineteen, and it's stiff-jawed goodbyes through desperate kisses. The kind rotten with promises that this isn't the end. That it's just a ‘see you later’, but never goodbye. Not for them.

Forever and ever.

They were twenty-eight, and it's handwritten vows and white satin gowns with matching bridal bouquets. The kind that they picked out together to remind them that all this was worth it, that it's finally the day they'd been planning for since their junior year in college. The culmination of sleepless nights and teary phone calls from three states away.

Forever and ever.

They were thirty, and it's whispering in the nursery  of their freshly furnished house, standing wrapped in each other's arms at the edge of an adorably small bassinet. The kind decked out in purple frills with sunshine yellow along the trim, because they'd agreed from the first plus sign to not know the sex. It's fingers running through brown curls carefully enough not to wake their baby up, while watching lashes twitch in dreaming that hide those baby blue eyes. The exact shape and shade that'd had them both wrapped around a tiny pinky from the start. 

Forever and ever.

They are fifty-four, and it's an empty nest that's too quiet in the house that sometimes feels too big. The kind they'd joked about missing for years, but now that it's here, they don't entirely know what to do with it. 

It's medical bills, and denied claims for benefits, and meetings with stuffy lawyers who explain the finer points of income brackets. It's physical therapy visits and losing her job at the hospital and endless prescriptions that never seem to be covered by their insurance. It's everything, and all the time, because life refuses to slow down for even one damn second, despite a hip that simply will not work anymore. 

They are fifty-four, and Clarke never thought she'd be here. That they'd make this kind of choice. Never thought she'd feel quite this stuck. Quite this useless. Never thought she'd be in this situation at all.

But it's clean and it's neat, just the way they like it. A mutual agreement for them both. A fresh start after the accident, one that'll let them move on with their lives, instead of trying to hang on to this thing that only leaves them drowning. 

At least that's what they'd agreed. 

She watches her wife— her ex-wife, dot the i's of her name with an overly dramatic flourish. Watches her click the pen with her thumb and toss it aside with a sigh from deep in her bones.

She smiles and feels her chest squeeze with that familiar pang of deep friendship and love.

“Cheers,” Clarke says, holding up her flute of champagne. 

She'd had to hobble through four different specialty liquor stores just to find it, but it'd felt fitting to toast the signing of their divorce papers with the same bubbly they'd shared on their wedding day.

Lexa picks up her glass and clinks it soundly against hers, only managing the barest sip around a smile of her own. “Cheers, single lady.”

“Mm. This is good.”

“Even better than I remember from the first time,” Lexa agrees as her gaze makes a lazy rake over Clarke's body.

It's not lost on Clarke how ridiculous it is to be blushing over the signed stack of her divorce papers, but something about the way Lexa looks at her has always set her on fire. 

“So,” she tries, casually, setting aside her cane and leaning heavier against the kitchen table, “what are you going to do next?”

Lexa takes another sip of her champagne, watching her closely over the rim. She swallows with a flex of that elegant throat and shuffles closer, sets her glass down on Clarke's other side, effectively boxing her in. 

“Go to Disneyland.”

The sound of Clarke's snort rings through the kitchen. “Smartass.”

“What about you?” Lexa asks with a bite to her lips, hands still bracketing the sides of Clarke's waist and eyes twinkling with mischief. “Any big plans for the future, newly divorced Ms. Griffin?”

Clarke scoffs. “Nice try. But it's still ‘Ms. Griffin-Woods’ to you.”

“Oh? Is that right?”

“Uhuh,” Clarke nods and loops her arms around Lexa's shoulders. “Sorry not sorry, but I'm never giving that one back.”

Lexa hums and presses closer. Paints her body to Clarke's curves and breathes her in the same way she has for forty years. 

“Greedy, but I think I can live with that.”

“Such a hardship. I seem to remember you loving that about me.”

“Among so many things.”

Clarke moans when Lexa's lips find the hollow dip of her neck, relaxing into the wet warmth of a plump, suckling kiss. Champagne has always made Lexa brazenly affectionate. She tips head back to grant more room and sucks in a gasp at the nibble of teeth. Tangles her fingers in greying, brunette hair that only serves to make her bombshell of a wife look that much more distinguished. 

Well. Her ex-wife, that is…

Hands trail down Clarke's hips and wrap tight around her thighs and before she can yelp a single word she's lifted onto the table. 

Lexa lets out a half-laughed grunt when she gets Clarke settled in place, looking equally as amused as she does grateful that the little maneuver actually still worked after so many years.

“You good, baby?” Clarke chuckles along with her, mindlessly going to rub the shoulder that had started being a pain around birthday forty-seven. “Didn't pop anything, did you?”

“No, I'm good, I'm good,” Lexa says, smiling and shaking off her ill-coordinated prowess like the champ that she is. “That just used to be easier.”

“Is that a crack about my weight?”

“More like a crack about me being old.”

“Oh. Well then yeah.”

“Rude,” Lexa gasps, taking the hips in her hands and pulling them closer. Pressing Clarke firmly against her stomach. “There's still giddy up in this old girl, I'll have you know.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

“My, my, Ms. Woods—”

“Griffin-Woods,” Lexa's quick to correct. Suddenly serious in how intensely she stares Clarke in the eyes. “You're not getting that back either.”

They share a look because things like this have never required words. Not for them. But with everything and all of it, with the ink still drying on the paper beside them, Clarke gives in to her last bit of worry. 

“You're still my girl,” she whispers. Swallows. Feels a stinging prickle along her eyes at the sudden need to feel this connection with her favorite person in the world. “Even with me, and having to do all this… You know we're still us, right? You're still my girl?”

Clarke melts into the kiss she knows is coming because she knows this woman better than anybody, and it feels more like a promise that nothing could ever break them than any piece of paper ever could. She wraps her good leg around Lexa's hip and deepens it, kisses back with every ounce of love her heart has to offer. Cherishes each massage of tongue and slide of lips that have met thousands of times before. 

Lexa kisses her once, twice more, and pulls back with a soothing smile.

“Always, love… Forever and ever.”

[lovelylogans]

the parent trap

the masterpost

“So,” Remus says slowly. “If your Dad is my Dad…”

“...and your Pa is my Papa…”

Remus stares at the seam of the wedding photo, made whole again after more than a decade. His Pa, Patton, familiar with his cowboy-handsome, weather-beaten face and his dimpled grin and his big, calloused hand resting over his new husband’s, even if Remus has never seen him look this smitten ever. 

“And we’re both born on October 11… then, Roman. You and I are… like… brothers.”

And his Dad—Janus—smiling coyly, handsome in the way of magazine models, so completely a stranger to Remus with just this scrap of a photograph to serve as any way to know him, really know him. The way Roman knows him. The way Remus has been dying to know him all his life.

“Remus,” Roman breathes out, disbelieving. “We aren’t just brothers. We’re twins.”

Remus wonders, in a daze, if seeing the opposite life he could have had is as strange for Roman as it is for him… if they’d just been switched at birth, it’s the life Remus could have had, knowing his Dad instead of his Pa, but then…

But then it clicks.

“Roman,” he says, turning to grin at his brother—his brother! “I have a completely perfect, totally awesome idea!”

or: it's a parent trap AU for @tss-storytime with fanart by @tastic-in-its-finest!

warnings: pranks and practical jokes, smoking, drinking, brief mentions of underage drinking (in the context of a child trying a sip of wine), sibling rivalry and bonding, please let me know if i've missed any!

pairings: janus/patton, logan/virgil, brief patton/male oc

word count: 80k

notes: a few notes before we begin: first, thanks so much to morgan for their fanart for this fic!!! it's so cute, please like and reblog and do all that fun stuff!!! second, thanks to the folks over at the big bang for organizing this whole event—i know firsthand how complicated that can get, and you are so appreciated!!! this is technically a '90s au, but a '90s au in terms of the fashion and lack of social media/cell phones, not any of the homophobia. i hope you all enjoy!!!!

chapter one: prologue Across the world from each other, two very different families help two very similar boys pack their bags.

chapter two: welcome to camp walden! Welcome to what we like to think of as the most beautiful spot on God's green earth—Camp Walden.

chapter three: en garde The boys come to blows. (With practice épées, but in their minds, it’s equally as serious.)

chapter four: riposte The boys come to blows. (With words and stitching.)

chapter five: black card The boys come to blows. (With a temporary reversal of gravity, oodles of chocolate sauce, and finally, some semblance of adult interference.)

chapter six: isolation station The boys spend a great deal of their time considering coming to blows. Until suddenly, they don’t want to fight at all anymore.

chapter seven: operation augustus The realization of having an identical twin does quite a bit to spur some out-of-the-box levels of creativity.

chapter eight: let's get down to business! The boys begin to plot. Camp Walden trembles in fear.

chapter nine: to defeat… the family civil divisions of napa and london respectively! The boys plot. The world all over ought to be trembling in fear.

chapter ten: domine dirige nos Remus spends a great deal of time weighing the most British way to say hello. He’s going to have to repress throwing in a what’s all this then, guv’nor? the entire time.

chapter eleven: eureka! Roman spends a great deal of time weighing the most American way to say hello. He thinks he probably shouldn’t come right out of the gate with howdy, y’all!

chapter twelve: a wench in the works This absolutely was not in their multitude of blueprints!

chapter thirteen: riding is magic and friendship is power and love is everything to everyone Roman gets to meet his pony. He should, by all rights, be much more excited about it, but someone had to go and ruin it for him.

chapter fourteen: in which virgil attempts to hold a poker face (and fails miserably) Virgil curses being so observant.

chapter fifteen: all of my change spent on you Remus has a particularly fun run-in. Well. Fun for him.

chapter sixteen: so your sons have swapped places and are in foreign countries This particular subject was not covered in the parenting books.

chapter seventeen: hopped off the plane at lax with a dream of civil reconciliation with my ex-husband Remus plots. Grandfather aids and abets. Janus panics. Logan suffers them all.

chapter eighteen: small world and getting smaller Janus is officially the father of the two most troublesome twins in the galaxy.

chapter nineteen: you got me tripping, stumbling! sinking, fumbling! Patton makes a splash.

chapter twenty: the queen elizabeth the second the second The twins attempt to revive the past. The parents wish to change it.

chapter twenty-one: i said a boom chicka boom! Logan’s swept off his feet. As is Maddox, in an entirely different way.

chapter twenty-two: i said a boom GO TO YOUR ROOM The twins’ plots bear oh-so-satisfying fruit.

chapter twenty-three: where dreams have no end A hello, a goodbye.

chapter twenty-four: the concorde(ance) A goodbye, a hello.

chapter twenty-five: epilogue Two very similar boys help their two very different families assimilate into one.

[orobaxis]

No. 20 for Ominis? I really loved the oneshot you wrote c:

thanks a lot professor black

ominis gaunt x reader arranged marriage au

summary: your crush on ominis gaunt comes to a head when professor black uncharacteristically gives ominis advice.

word count: almost 3k!

also a prompt: "it hurts me, just how much i ache for you."; slytherin!reader

you like to think that your crush on ominis gaunt isn’t that obvious. after all, he only knows you because of that arrangement your families decided on when you were kids. the only times you had interacted with him were when you asked him a couple of time if anne was around (she is your friend and partner in some classes), and when he would say a polite “hello” to you in herbology (your potting stations are across each other). some interactions too whenever anne would drag you around, but you wouldn’t consider yourself friends. he was very particular to people he considers friends, and for now, it was only the sallow twins. even lucan brattleby was just an “acquaintance”. now, you are starting to think that either: 1) anne is a seer, or 2) your crush isn’t as inconspicuous as you previously thought.

anne sends you a knowing smile whenever he and sebastian enter a classroom or sit close to you in the great hall. always nudging you with her elbow and waggling her eyebrows teasingly whenever ominis opens his mouth to talk. snaps her fingers in our face when you would stare absentmindedly at the boy who doesn’t know better.

“are you some sort of seer?” you ask anne, who laughs at that. you now walk to transfiguration, where you and anne share a desk and sebastian and ominis share a desk beside you. you try not to make it too obvious when you try to catch glimpses of the gaunt boy, often finding yourself smiling whenever he and sebastian mutter something to each other and snicker (much to professor weasley’s chagrin).

“why do you ask?” anne questions. “is it because i know of your infatuation with mr. ominis gaunt?”

“hush, you!” you scold her, feeling heat rising from your neck to your cheeks. she laughs at how flustered you must look. “i would have denied it but you always tease me whenever he’s around.” you pout and she nudges you in an attempt to console you.

“come on, y/n,” she says, “i think ominis is the only one who cannot see how much you like him. but only because he literally cannot see you staring.”

you purse your lips and say nothing. the silly little schoolgirl crush started when you were just in your first year. your parents wrote to you that your betrothed also started school at hogwarts as a first year, and that he and his family are renowned for being direct descendants of salazar slytherin himself. you were so excited when you found out, hoping to catch a glimpse of your betrothed and intrigued more than ever knowing his family background. he must be some stoic and powerful wizard then, you thought to yourself. someone who takes his family name seriously, top of the class and able to do very advanced magic.

nope, you first found ominis and sebastian sallow (his best friend) in the courtyard, crouching on the ground in concentration. curious, you approached them and he and sebastian let out a shriek in surprise when you piped up, “what are you doing?”

“ah! we didn’t notice you!” sebastian exclaimed! “ominis, why didn’t you notice her?”

“i was concentrating!” ominis, short and with a high-pitched voice at eleven, whined, “we were trying to catch bugs, you know!”

anne had hopped to your side by then, watching as her friends stood up, not wiping their robes that were partially covered in grass and mud, “what were you going to do with the bugs?”

“well, levitate them of course!” ominis answers excitedly, “we wanna see them fly!”

your eleven year old self was so confused, trying to come to terms with the fact that ominis was…not what you thought he was. you imagined him to be a powerful wizard, but he was just…like you. he was just a kid. you apologized for disturbing them, now feeling bad for distracting them.

“you can make it up to us by helping us find some,” ominis suggested, “two heads are better than one.”

“technically four heads are better than one,” sebastian commented.

you and anne exchanged looks before grinning, settling yourselves on the grass to find the bugs that ominis and sebastian desperately wanted to find.

-

it was during the third year when you were shocked to see ominis again. no longer was there a short and high-pitched sounding little guy, he somehow got stretched during the summer, now taller than you and anne (sebastian also stretched a bit and now stood tallest of the trio). his voice got deeper and he started to style his hair. you remember staring at him in shock as you sat across him at the great hall, a chicken leg on your hand stopping halfway to your mouth.

sebastian must have noticed your staring, teasingly cleared his throat, “y/n, we were asking how your summer was.”

“oh,” you shook your head, trying to dispel the thoughts and daydreams, “it was good. your…your voices sound different.”

ominis grins at that, “mine is. sebastian’s voice cracks.”

“no it doeSN’T,” his voice cracked halfway and you four laughed. you bit a chunk out of your chicken leg, still eyeing ominis. his beauty marks look prominent now. he also started walking a lot more differently–confidently. and his smiles–

you coughed, choking on your chicken. anne laughed and started patting you on your back hard. “focus y/n,” she continued laughing.

-

the current week is getting a bit hectic. you have many things to do, lots of essays to write, and because of curfew, you cannot be in the library for as long as you wanted. this leads to you trying to finish all your work in the slytherin common room, hunkering down with other students, mostly other fifth years, as you prepare for your O.W.L.S. after a few late nights, you found out that you need a lot of food to keep your mind stimulated and make sure that you don’t fall asleep until you finish whatever you need to get done. so you had taken it upon yourself to stop by the kitchens after dinner to stock up on as many sweets, pastries, and other delicacies as you can to bring to the dungeon. you tickle the pear, which laughed and turned into a doorknob, and go into the kitchens, expecting to see nothing but house elves floundering about. while you know that the location of the kitchens is not exactly a secret, you are still surprised when you find ominis inside. he is chatting with a house elf, who is carrying a tray of cupcakes.

“mistress y/n!” lorry, a house elf you had befriended, pops next to you, carrying a hefty tray of assorted goods. “lorry has prepared lots of food for mistress y/n who needs to study for O.W.L.S!”

ominis turns to you and lorry, his eyebrow raising. “i didn’t know you knew where the kitchens are.”

you wound your hands together, turning pink. very rarely do you get to talk to ominis alone, and despite knowing him for five years now, you still find yourself nervous. “oh, yes…i accidentally found it in our second year when i got lost.”

he grins, “i found it during our first year.” the elves excuse themselves as they return to their work and you are about to also excuse yourself to leave and return to the common room, but ominis is already standing beside you and greeting the elves goodbye. “thank you for the food,” he tells them.

“of course master ominis sir!”

you swear he flushes at that, and he ducks his head with a smile as the door closes behind you. “i notice that you stay up late in the common rooms. are you busy preparing for O.W.L.S?”

you hum in confirmation, “yes. and we have so many assignments to be done soon.” you sigh, “i haven’t even started on the herbology assignment.”

he pipes up, “me too, i haven’t started it either.”

the descent to the common room is followed by a comfortable silence. you relish the moment now, knowing that you will be thinking about this tonight. you are walking close together that you can smell him, feel the swishing of his robes, and hear his breathing. oh he is so close to you that you can just grab his hand and–

“y/n?”

you blink, and notice that he is tilting his head in your direction. he must have asked you something!

“oh! sorry, what was that? i’m just…distracted.”

ominis’ smile is soft. “i asked if you would like to work on the herbology assignment together tomorrow. we can go to the greenhouses.”

your breath hitches at his words. together? just you and him? or you and him and the sallow twins? ominis asked you to work with him tomorrow? trying not to scream out loud in excitement, you try to sound as nonchalant as possible, “sure. we can do that.”

“i’ll see you tomorrow then.” he nods at you, a smile still on his face. one, two, three, four…he has so many beauty marks, who knows that they look so good on his face. are they beauty marks because they make him look so beautiful? or are they just marks that now look beautiful because they are on his face? the smile he wears on his face makes him even more attractive, you just want to squish his cheeks and–

focus, y/n, focus!

“good night y/n,” he bids you with a grin and a small bow before proceeding to his dormitory. you stand there in the middle of the common room, mouth agape, heart racing, head pounding, and so so infatuated and in love.

the next morning, you find yourself and ominis on your way to the greenhouses when you see the headmaster strutting in your direction. “headmaster black is coming!” you whisper to ominis beside you. he frowns, his wand up to guide him, and wonders to himself, “the headmaster? here? what could he want?

“mr gaunt! miss y/n,” the headmaster exclaims, you try to look as passive as ever while your mind wonders what he is doing here talking to students, “where do you two think you’re going?”

“i beg your pardon sir,” ominis starts politely, “we’re simply on our way outside.”

the headmaster scoffs, “taking the day off to go on dates, eh?” you shake your head at that, quickly turning redder than a tomato at this suggestion, “typical students, wasting the hours away.”

“headmaster,” you chime in, “we–we actually have to write twenty pages on dittany and its uses. we were just heading to the greenhouse.” you don’t know why you try to vehemently defend yourself against headmaster black’s accusations, but the implication that you two are on a date still rings in your head.

“ah, yes,” black assents, “mixed with…um…bubotuber pus…makes a fine…er–mustache paste.” he glances at you and quickly clears his throat, “yes, mustache paste…i find.”

you scratch your head in confusion, while ominis’ frown deepens, “are you alright, sir?” he asks the headmaster. “you don’t seem yourself.”

you remember hearing from anne that ominis’ family along with other prominent pureblood families all know each other. ominis has probably met the headmaster outside of hogwarts, in house parties and whatnot. you wonder how your parents managed to make an arrangement with a family as prominent as the gaunts, then, seeing as your family is not that well-known, nor does it come from some powerful bloodline.

“i assure you i am quite healthy, gaunt,” black sticks his head up in annoyance, “if i need a medical diagnosis, i shall head to st. mungo’s.” turning to you, he huffs, preparing to leave, “better keep your future husband in check, l/n, lest he gets too nosy.” he straightens his coat and speeds off.

now that makes you even more embarrassed. you have always been afraid of even thinking about the betrothal around ominis, especially when you found out that he and his family do not see eye to eye. you think you are both forced into this predicament, and knowing that he doesn’t approve of his family’s views, it also goes to show that he is not happy about the arrangement. so despite telling the twins, you begged them not to bring it up with ominis, afraid that he will all be reminded of this precarious engagement and pull away from you. you cringe as you and ominis quietly walk away, afraid that he will excuse himself and never talk to you again.

“something is very wrong with professor black.” he exclaims, and you deflate at his words, wounded. you open your mouth to apologize, when he continues, “dittany and bobutuber pus? mustache paste?”

you cannot help the giggle that escapes your mouth at his very confused expression. “maybe he was giving you some advice on how to properly care for your mustache should you decide to have one when you’re older.”

ominis grunts at that. “i don’t know if i want a mustache, or want to look anything like professor black.” he chuckles at your teasing, “when i start growing a mustache and beard when we’re older, you’ll help me shave it off, won’t you?”

you feel yourself almost spontaneously combusting at the thought. he just gave you a very detailed picture that sends you right into a daydream: you and ominis, finally wed, you laughing as you lather his face with shaving cream and slowly shaving him while he rests his arms around your waist. you cough loudly which startled ominis, and begin fanning yourself as you start sweating and getting hot in embarrassment.

-

you are eight pages into your dittany essay when you find yourself staring at him. after five years, it is safe to say that you are now helplessly inlove with ominis gaunt. however, the nagging feeling in your heart is telling you that it may not work out, because you know that he disagrees with his family. he more than likely does not approve of your betrothal.

“i…want to apologize,” you tell him.

he hums questioningly, looking up from his parchment to look in your direction. “why? did you finish your assignment before me?”

“uh, no.”

“are you leaving?”

not unless you want me to. “no, i’m not done yet. only 8 pages.”

“oh,” ominis smiles, “then what are you sorry for?”

swallowing quietly, you take a deep breath. you respect ominis too much to not apologize. for black’s remark, for your family arranging a marriage between you and him at a young age, for everything. “well…for one, i apologize for what professor black said.”

“about you keeping me in check?” he raises his eyebrows.

despite not seeing you, you still turn away from him in embarrassment. “yes. i’m sorry. i know you probably don’t want to talk about the…o–our arrangement–the betrothal, i mean. and i’m sorry that he brought it up.”

you exhale, still turned away. you wonder what he is thinking about. will he forgive you? or will he finally let you hear a piece of his mind. ominis is quiet for a moment, and you think he decided to ignore your comment, and you sigh, about to resume your work in silence, when,

“why…why do you think that i don’t like being betrothed to you?”

“well,” you clear your throat as you turn to face him away (he looks so gorgeous, even with the confused look on his face, eyebrows knitting together and lips pursing), “our families decided on our fates at such a young age. and i…i know you don’t share the same sentiments as your family. so…i know you don’t like me, and i just…i’m sorry that we’re both in this predicament.”

ominis nods slowly, taking in your words. you anxiously wait for him to speak up. your parchment is now smudged as the ink falls down from your quill in silent drops.

he mutters something so quietly that you didn’t catch it. “what?” you ask him, noting the boyish smile on his face, “what are you smiling at?” what is so funny? is he finding you pathetic, for voicing your insecurities? is that why is he laughing?

shaking his head, he chuckles, “you’re silly.”

“i’m…silly?”

“if i didn’t want the betrothal, i would have forced them to dissolve it by now.”

one, two, three, four, five, six beauty marks on his face. you blink rapidly, trying to process his words. “wait…what? ominis…what are you saying?”

you try not to hope. but you also pray that you understand what he meant by his words. heart now pounding hard against your chest, you feel your breath being rushed out from your lungs when ominis extends a hand across your potting station, reaching you slowly. his hand is careful, methodical, trying to feel the air and listen to the sounds of your breathing (you know that he can hear your quiet panting).

his hand stops when he touches your cheek. it’s rough, warm, and much bigger than yours. you gulp, eyes wide as you find your eyes glued to his face, unable to look away, captivated by the teasing, mischievous grin on his face. “it means, y/n, that as long as you’re okay with it, i would want you to help shave off my beard and mustache when we’re older.”

his grin widens when he feels your smile against his hand, and you bring a hand up to cup the hand on your cheeks, “i’d like that.”

he sighs, relief evident in his laughter, “it used to hurt me, just how much i ache for you. now,” a thumb caresses your cheek and you close your eyes as you bask in his presence, “now, it’s not so bad.”

-

anon, you're the very first one to send me a message and im so sorry for putting this off for so long! this went into a totally different direction, i had like a 5k+ and counting story on this but i didn't like the direction it was going so i abandoned it and wrote this!

i hope you all like it! pls let me know your thoughts! <3 once again, thank you for all the love and support!

tala <3

[tennessoui]

I'm begging on my hands and knees for more Twilight au, and those are words I never thought I'd say! Anakin being able to resist compulsion, and Obi-Wan seeming instantly obsessed, and poor Shmi! Pretty please 🥺🙏

hey!! sure! here's some more!

(2.5k)

Having a sheriff for a mom sucked a lot when he was a kid growing up in a small town. There was probably nothing Anakin was rebelling against more at eleven, at thirteen, at seventeen than the rule of law his mother represented. 

All things considered, she was pretty good at separating her home life from her worklife. It was Anakin who was bad at respecting the separation, Anakin who couldn’t keep son out of delinquent.  There’s only so many times he could be pulled out of wreckage and bars and buildings with Keep Out No Trespassing signs on them before he got The Sheriff at home and out in public.

He’d hated it growing up and had come to grudgingly respect it later and in fits and starts. His dad dying had, terribly and ironically, helped a lot. His mother had had a stroke just before and then Anakin had been faced with the possibility of being an orphan, and the terror of that had mellowed him out.

Sorta.

He still hates a lot of things about his mother’s job. Especially the fact that she’s the sheriff of a very small town.

And when people talk, she listens.

The thing about small towns is that everyone’s always fucking talking. And other people are always fucking lsitening so they can talk later. One big fucking community, which means when Anakin comes home from his weird doctor’s appointment with Dr. Kenobi, a few hours later because he took a detour biking along the edge of the seaside cliffs just to spit in the good doctor’s metaphorical face, Shmi Skywalker already knows more than Anakin ever planned to tell her.

Like, for instance, “Sheila says that Dr. Kenobi thought it would behoove you to spend some time at the local library volunteering.”

Anakin pauses, backpack half-slung off his shoulders. He hangs his stuff up slowly, careful to keep his tone very light. “Did Sheila say what I told him after he said that?” 

His mom’s silence is very loud.

“I don’t want to do i—”

“I asked the new librarian about it on my way home from the station. She thinks it’s a wonderful idea. Apparently we used to have a program like that in the forties but it died out during the war.”

“Mom, come on—”

“It’ll look good on resumes, saying you created and supported a local reading program.”

“Yeah, but I’m a bit too old to be applying for babysitting positio—”

“It’ll look good for me as well,” Shmi says in her sheriff voice. “Elections are coming up soon. It’ll be good, if my kid was involved in the community.”

Anakin’s glad that his back is still turned to the living room, where his mom is sitting. “Are you gonna run again?” he asks, paying special attention to his tone this time.

“Why wouldn’t I?” his mom replies. “I’ve been sheriff for a decade and a half.”

Anakin lets his eyes fall closed for a second, knowing that his face can’t be seen. This is how they end up half the time: Shmi’s ardent belief that she is invincible, going up against Anakin’s desperate desire for her to be so.

And they just don’t talk about it. As if they’re actually in agreement.

He knows how this is going to shake out.

“Do you have any plans tomorrow?” His mother asks.

Anakin’s eyes remain closed. “I guess so,” he says.

—--------

Mrs. Kenobi—call me Satine—is sort of scary up close. She’s tall. She glides between bookshelves. Anakin’s never met someone who glides before. And she’s so intensely, incredibly, blindingly perfect that Anakin would rather be anywhere but in her vicinity. There’s something incredibly unnerving about the symmetry of her face, the sharpness of her cheekbones. She’s obviously an absolute knock-out, just drop-dead gorgeous, but it makes Anakin’s skin crawl and his heart beat fast, but not in a good way or a normal teenage boy way.

Anakin tries to keep the unease off his face as Satine leads him through a tour of the library, a gentle hand on his forearm. That’s another thing Anakin doesn’t really like. She’s wearing satin gloves. He doesn’t know anyone who wears gloves anymore.

It’s just all a bit…unsettling.

“I put in a few words around the school yesterday afternoon,” Satine tells him. They pass by the mystery section, the fantasy section, and take a hard right into the young adult section. The shelves are smaller here, and Anakin feels rather stupidly gigantic as he and Satine walk through them. “To some parents picking their children up after school. They agreed it would be good exposure to bring them to the library for an hour or so of reading before supper.”

Anakin highly doubts it will be, but Satine hasn’t really asked him.

She sweeps past his figure and pushes open a pair of double doors with a flourish better suited for a Russian tsarina hosting an elaborate ball than a small town librarian showing off a small, cramped, and dusty room filled with padded seats and threadbare rugs.

And then, as if she has been waiting to put the last nail in the proverbial coffin, Satine adds, “A few students from the local high school will be here as well.”

“Sorry,” Anakin says, “are you saying I’m going to be reading to high school students? Can’t they do that themselves?”

After all, Anakin went to high school here. Academics hadn’t been too rigorously challenging, but they’d taught the fucking basics.

Satine raises one perfectly plucked eyebrow in his direction. “They’ll be volunteering as well.”

Oh. Right.

“It looks good on their college applications,” Satine waves a hand through the air and the words linger there. Anakin looks out the rather dirty window, jaw clenching. “I’ve already chosen a handful of books I think the young ones will enjoy.”

Anakin, committed to his fate, pads over to the titles placed carefully ontop of a short, stout side table. 

“Peter the Rabbit,” he reads off the top. “Peter Pan. Alice in Wonderland. Treasure Island. The Prince and the Pauper—look, you’re the librarian here, but don’t you have anything written this century maybe? Harry Potter, even.”

“These are classics,” Satine tells him, her nose raised into the air as if she has encountered something particularly foul-smelling. She turns away, presumably to return to the front desk so she can welcome half the fucking town inside the library so Anakin can read them fucking Anne of Green Gables and become a better person.

“These are fucking boring,” he mutters to himself, flicking the cover of the first book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz open. Publication date: 1900. “I’d rather be in Kenobi’s office getting lectured at.”

There’s a sharp noise of disapproval from the doorway, and Anakin’s head snaps up to see the tail end of a very heated look from the librarian before the door closes behind her.

He shivers, alone in the emply room, and it takes several long minutes for his heart to settle back into its normal pace. 

—----------

After the fourth kid sneezes, Anakin closes his book with a snap and stands from the very small chair they’ve got him sitting on. “Come on,” he tells the cluster of children he’s been assigned to. “We’re getting out of here.”

“Are you kidnapping us?” One of them, a snot-nosed kid who’d started the sneezing says, rubbing at her cheek beneath her glasses. “Cause mommy says that’s not allowed.”

“I’m not kidnapping you,” Anakin snaps back, barely holding in his natural follow-up to the sentence which is of course, I don’t want to be around any of you in the first place. “Also, just for future reference, you shouldn’t ask if someone’s kidnapping you after you already start following them.”

The girl scowls and reaches up her hand to hold onto Anakin’s. 

For the love of Christ.

“We’re just going to go into the main part of the library,” Anakin tells his children, all six of them. “They have windows out there.”

They have windows out there and they also have parents. Parents who absolutely should be doing other things with their lives and precious hour of extra freetime.

Parents who are clustered instead around the library’s front desk as the town’s newest librarian holds court.

“Is reading time over?” one of the kids asks him, turning his head to look up at Anakin.

Anakin thinks about it. “Do you want reading time to be over?”

The kid thinks about it back. “Yeah,” he decides. “You don’t do the voices good.”

“It’s a boring book,” Anakin tells the kid. “Voices aren’t going to make it better.”

“Voices always make it better,” another kid says. “They make everything better.”

“Oh look,” Anakin says. “Is that your father?”

He gestures vaguely towards the cluster of drooling middle-aged somethings focused on Satine.

The kid peeks around his thigh and then shakes his head. “No,” he says. “That’s Dr. Obi.”

“Dr. Obi!” The kid holding Anakin’s hand says, and she lets go.

Anakin gets a bad feeling about this, a feeling that only doubles when he turns around to see Dr. Kenobi sauntering towards him, hands tucked into the pockets of a long dark jacket that makes him look even more pale than he already is.

He scowls automatically as the man gets closer. “Dr. Obi.”

Dr. Kenobi spares him a look that’s far too amused for Anakin’s pleasure before he crouches down to the level of the kids. “Hello there, young ones,” he says, opening his arms to accept a hug from the traitor of a girl Anakin’s just spent thirty minutes reading to. “Are you eating all your vegetables? Even the brussel sprouts?”

“I like brussel sprouts,” one of the kids reports sounding proud, and that starts a cacophony of opinions about brussel sprouts from all around Anakin.

“Wow! One of mine just absolutely hates them,” Dr. Kenobi says. “She refuses to eat them, so you’re very brave, Michele.” He lets go of the girl and turns his golden-brown gaze up to Anakin. “And what does Mr. Skywalker think?” he asks, raising a hand for Anakin to take. It’s very obvious he’s asking for a hand up and Anakin is obeying before he thinks about it. He snatches his hand free almost too soon, but Dr. Kenobi doesn’t even have the grace to lose his balance and fall over. 

His hand is like ice in Anakin’s, and Anakin stuffs his fingers into the pocket of his jacket automatically a second later.

“Do brussel sprouts help with circulation?” he’s biting out before he can stop himself. “Cause you may need some then.”

Kenobi’s head tilts very slightly to the side as his eyes catch and hold onto Anakin’s. “Oh?” he asks lightly. 

“You’re cold,” is all Anakin mutters in return. He swipes his other hand against the back of his neck. “”S poor circlutation, isn’t it? Something in your diet maybe?” Dr. Kenobi blinks at him and then breaks into a wide smile. “I can assure my diet is very…circulation-mindful,” he says. “Blood health positive.”

Anakin’s mouth thins into a line. He guesses that’s what he gets for trying to give health advice to a doctor, especially a doctor like Kenobi who just so happens to be devastatingly attractive and also smart.

And also an asshole. And also married.

Speaking of which. “Are you here to fend off your wife’s admirers with a scalpel?” Kenobi’s eyebrows raise. “Young ones,” he turns his head away from Anakin, down to the children.

The strangest feeling breaks of Anakin the second Kenobi looks away, almost as if a strange pressure he hadn’t even realized had been building was suddenly dissolved.

The very small beginnings of a headache begin to thrum in his temples.

“Young ones, it’s time to find your parents, isn’t it?” Kenobi says, and like fucking magic, the crowd of six children around Anakin disperse, children swarming away from him towards the group of adults surrounding the front desk.

“Can you teach me how to do that?” Anakin blurts out, even though he’d meant to ignore Kenobi now that he doesn’t have to make nice in front of small kids. Not that he was really making nice in the first place. But now he definitely doesn’t have to.

Kenobi gives him a half-smile, eyes heavy-lidded. “It’s a special sort of skill that takes, above all else, much practice.”

Anakin scowls. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Does Kenobi think he can’t commit himself to something even as mundane as a fucking commanding persona? Does he think he doesn’t have it in him to be–-

Kenobi’s eyebrows go up again. “Has anyone ever told you that you are exceedingly defensive?” 

“You’re extremely nosey,” Anakin snaps back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Don’t you have better things to focus on right now anyway?”

He gestures loosely towards Satine, who has started playing with one of the mother’s bracelets as the other woman stands and looks at her rather dumbfounded.

Kenobi follows his gaze and then lets out a huff of laughter. “Satine can take care of herself,” he says, even though it hadn’t really been Satine that Anakin was worried about.

He’s about to open his mouth to say so when Kenobi turns back to him. His eyes are piercing, a dark, captivating sort of gold. 

“Do you find my wife beautiful, Anakin?” he asks.

Anakin blinks. His headache is getting worse, which is probably down to what can only be a trick-question fashioned to look like a grenade lobbed at his feet. “I don’t think there’s a good answer to that,” he mutters, rubbing absently at his forehead. “What the fuck.”

“An honest answer is a good one,” Kenobi says lightly. “Tell me honestly.”

The words feel pulled from Anakin’s stomach, and he’s opening his mouth before he realizes it. “No,” he says. 

Kenobi’s eyebrows crinkle together. “No?”

Anakin curses his stupid impulse control. “She’s beautiful,” he adds quickly. “Really. But…it makes me uncomfortable.”

Kenobi’s lips purse, and then there’s something like disappointment in his eyes as he examines Anakin. “Ah yes,” he murmurs. “I’ve been told my wife can make countless young men feel rather uncomfortable. It’s normal in men your age, Anakin. Sexual ar—”

“Uncanny,” Anakin blurts out. He doesn’t mean to, but he also doesn’t want to listen to  Kenobi trying to lecture him on fucking arousal in the public library. When it’s not even relevant. “She’s so beautiful, it’s uncanny.”

“Uncanny.”

“Yeah, like. Monstrous.”

Kenobi’s mouth falls open, pink lips parted in what looks like honest surprise.

Anakin’s own eyes widen as it hits him that he’s just called Kenobi’s wife a monster to Kenobi’s face.

“Shit,” he says. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m going to go.” 

He throws a look at Kenobi, whose eyes are lit with something a lot like interest and then across the library to where Satine’s head is turned, cocked, and eyebrows up high on her forehead, as if she’s just heard everything he’s said.

He decides rather immediately that he’s going to take the backdoor exit.