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#taking this photo and Immediately seeing like five things i need to correct
ichorblossoms · 10 months
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i gotta draw with ballpoint every so often or i'll die also this isn't finished yet but i wanna show ppl yeehaw
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shadesoflsk · 9 months
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Number 71 with re2r Leon could be so silly *twirls hair and blushes*
hiiiii anon😼 That idea is so cute please I'm melting. For this one, I immediately thought about an amusement park date (is that the correct name ? lol), and that led to a photo booth kiss! And you're sooo right this idea with re2r Leon is so silly he's just ike that! I hope you like it, take care. !!
71. “Kiss me, quick!” summary: re2r leon kennedy x gn reader, just straight up tooth rotting fluff wc: 1.0k
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After accepting a job as a cop in Raccoon City, he knew that time wouldn’t be enough to be with you. That’s why, every time he has days off, he does his best to make it up for you.
Leon had decided to surprise you this time. The only clue he gave you was “wear something comfortable” and while it was an ambiguous sentence, you obliged. You took one last glance at the mirror, making sure you looked the part when Leon whistled.
“Ready to go?”
It hadn’t been a long drive, at least you thought so until Leon stopped the car in the middle of the road. Confused, you turned your head as you observed Leon rummaging through his pockets. Eventually, he found what he was searching for.
“A blindfold?” Your voice carried a sense of curiosity in it.
“Do you trust me?”
“Hell no.”
“Darling…please.” He whined, his lips forming a pout as exasperation filled his speech. It was funny to tease your boyfriend every chance you get, but now you spare him the embarrassment. 
“Ok, no need to cry.” You took the blindfold and Leon made sure to check that you couldn’t see anything.
“How many fingers do I have?” He said as he lifted his hand, forming a three.
“Four. Now drive.” You couldn’t hide the silly smile that was forming on your face.
And with that, Leon’s hand gripped the steering wheel again.
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When you finally arrive, Leon helps you get out of the car and the first thing you notice —besides the chill air— is kids screaming and giggles filling the atmosphere. At first, you thought Leon had brought you to a concert. But then again, kids wouldn’t be at a concert at this time of the night even if it is still early.
“Can I take it off?”
“Yes, let me help you.”
Leon gets in front of you and takes off the blindfold that prevented you from seeing anything. The previous darkness that blurred your vision is now disappearing as your eyes adjust to the neon lights that the scenario before you offers.
“Ta-da!” Leon’s lips curve into a cheerful smile as he extends his arms, showing you his greatest idea. He has been planning this date for days. Ever since he read this new fair was coming to town, he just knew he had to take you there.
He is the epitome of a good boyfriend, dates are always a must when he has free time. And even when he couldn’t be with you, he would leave surprises. A sticky note telling you how much he loves you? Done. Having flowers delivered to your front door? Of course.
“Leon I...” You let out a breathy laugh. Your eyes dart back from the scenario of countless games and rides lying in front of you, to Leon's eyes which look at you with a devotion and love that just makes your heart weak. “Thank you…”
And, as a way to show your gratitude, you wrap your arms around his waist and hug him, letting the warmth of your bodies embrace both of you. He places a kiss on your forehead and motions you to follow him.
You don’t know who was more excited, you or Leon. But with the way he kept tugging your hand each time he saw a ride he wanted to try, you may as well say him. He kept his vice grip on you all the way from the roller coaster, to the ferris wheel and to finally the haunted house.
After scaring the shit out of both of you, you decide to sit down for a while, catching your breaths as adrenaline still pumps through your veins. Your eyes, eventually, fall on a photo booth a few meters away from where you’re sitting.
Now it was Leon’s turn to be dragged around.
You both laugh in unison as you waste no time in getting into the booth, almost forgetting to insert the five dollar bill that the machine needed to work. Leon closes the red curtain and instantly pulls you closer.
You sit down, struggling to fit into the narrow and tight space the photo booth provided. Leon and you try fixing each other’s hair amidst the giggling fit you were in. The countdown for the photos starts.
“Leon! Stop laughing.” You mutter as you try to maintain a sweet smile for the picture. Leon, on the other hand, moved at the very exact moment when the machine snapped a photo. “For God’s sake Leon…” And as much as you feign annoyance, you are grateful for this little memory you are creating with him.
For the second picture, you both show a beaming and pearly white smile to the camera, pressing your cheeks to one another. However, as the first photo is probably blurry due to Leon’s inability to stay still, you decide to have the perfect picture just for yourself.
“Kiss me, quick!”
He almost didn’t hear you when your words left your lips. However, your instructions are followed to the letter, and Leon in a swift motion grabs your face. You smile between the kiss as you hear the camera making a click sound. 
You don’t pull away right away, letting the romantic display of affection linger for a few seconds before the machine decides to break the sweet and tender moment.
“Thank you. You can now leave the photo booth. Please don’t forget to collect your pictures.”
“Don’t pay attention—”
“Thank you. You can now leave the photo booth. Please don’t forget to collect your pictures.”
“Jesus… I get it” Leon mutters as he reluctantly pulls away from the kiss. A dumb smile is plastered on his face as you admire his expression. You both walk out of the photo booth with your fingers interlaced, ready to see the results.
Needlessly to say, Leon stole that picture from you just to brag about what a pretty partner he has whenever he gets asked if he has a special one or not.
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shewreckz · 2 years
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Interview
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Shannon: So let me get things straight...
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Shannon: You graduated from Tastyville High around five years ago, correct?
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Mindy: Oh my gosh, that was five years ago already? Geez, that means I'm already getting old. I don’t have any white hairs, do I?
Shannon: Uhh...no? I don't think so. But that's not really important. I just need to ask you a few simple questions about your high school. It won't take longer than a few minutes.
Mindy: Oh, totally! I can give you aaaaalll the juicy gossip. I was friends with, like, everyone so I know everyone's dirty secrets! Don't tell anyone I told you any of this, though. Soooo...what do you wanna hear. Crushes? Breakups? HEARTBREAK??
Shannon: Well, we don't really write about gossip at Nowtime News, but uh...thank you for the offer?
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Shannon: All I need you to do is look through this year book photo and name all the people you see, alright?
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Mindy: Oh. My. Gosh! This brings back so many old memories!
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Mindy: I remember this like it was yesterday! There’s actually a whole story behind this photo, y’know?
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Mindy: So basically Sue and Timm were having this huge fight because Timm is so nonconfrontational and a pussy about everything and it was kinda like creating this huge rift in the friend group and then people were taking sides and stuff like Cecilia thought Sue was being too harsh on Timm but then Indigo totally agreed with Sue but then Mary thought Sue was being too harsh but she didn't really wanna say anything cause she had this massive obvious crush on her at the time and-
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Shannon: MINDY!! Like I said, I don't write about gossip! I just need to know if you know them or not!!
Mindy: Ok geeeeez, sorry!!
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Mindy: Yeah, so like, that's me, that's Indigo, Timm, Cecilia, Sue, Mary, James, Connor, and...
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Mindy: Uh...
Shannon: What? What is it?
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Mindy: That's...uhhhmmm...uh. Gosh, I know everyone, how come I don't remember this guy's name?
Mindy: Wait, wait, don't tell me, it's on the tip of my tongue! Ok...that's....Wesley? No. William? It starts with a w, right? Am I close?
Shannon: ...Not even remotely
Mindy: No wait I totally got this! It was an f name, right? Ferdinand? Francisco? Wait...was it Finley? Yes, that's totally it, isn't it? He looks like a Finley!
Shannon: Mindy, do you know the guy or are you just guessing random names??
Mindy: Sigh...ok. I don't know him. I think I vaguely remember seeing him around, but...that's it.
Shannon: Are you sure? Is there really no information you can give me about him?
Mindy: Well...I guess there is one thing...
Mindy: I never spoke to him, but whenever I switched classes, we'd pass each other occasionally on the way to seventh period
Mindy: And sometimes, I'd look back at him. And he'd look back at me.
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Mindy: He had this creepy vacant stare. Like he wasn't really there at all.
Mindy: Or maybe his glasses were just really fogged up, or something.
Mindy: But uh, apart from that, nothing else really comes to mind. Sorry!
Shannon: ...Hm. Interesting.
Shannon: Well, alright. I think that's all I needed to know. Thank you, Mindy.
Mindy: Awww, you have to go already? But I didn't even get to tell you about the time that Sue broke a guy's nose because he looked at Mary weird! Or the time that-
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Shannon: Oh wow! Look at the time! So much important reporter stuff I have to do. Which is very urgent and needs to be taken care of immediately. Okbyethanks.
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Just as I suspected...no friends, no connections, nothing. It lines up with the testimonies of everyone else I interviewed, but that's what makes it all the more puzzling. Why do all of the personal anecdotes of his life completely contradict all the evidence I've come across? If he's lying about certain aspects of his past, is it possible that he's lying about more things as well? And most importantly, what is he getting out of this? Are these simple white lies, or do they conceal a more sinister truth that he doesn't want me to uncover?
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Whoever you are "Moe"...I'm going to get to the bottom of this.
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abitterboy · 2 years
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Valentine's Day Baby
Reader x Han Jisung Smut
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Summary: You have a little surprise for your boyfriend for Valentine’s Day.
Pairing: DomFem Reader X SubJisung
Genre: Smut
Word Count: 4.3K
Warnings: DomSub dynamic, teasing, swearing, punishments, degrading kink, praising kink, nicknames like baby, good boy, pervert, and bitch, licking, oral m and f receiving, slapping, preexisting rules in dynamic, edging, sex without protection, riding, cum eating, overstimulation (I think that’s all but correct me if I’m wrong!)
Shopping online was a pastime of yours that you enjoyed partaking in almost every day. Of course, your bank account didn’t allow you to purchase something every day, but it didn’t stop you from looking. Today you were looking at something special for Valentine’s Day. You were looking for red lingerie. Jisung has always thought you looked the most beautiful in red and you figured why not get something sexy in his favorite color for you? There were many selections on the website you clicked on, and it was slightly overwhelming. You didn’t want to get something that would be too hard to put on or too hard to take off. The whole point of the lingerie is to be seductive, not to be confused with strings and random fabric. You added a few sets to your wish list and after you had accumulated about six, you went to your wish list and looked through them to decide which you liked. After looking for about 10 minutes and realizing there was a buy one, get one half off sale on the site, you decided on two sets. After all, you could always use the other set at a different time. You put in your credit card information and ordered them, anticipating their arrival for the day before Valentine’s Day.
February 13th
The package arrived at your front door and the moment you saw the delivery truck leave you ran out to grab it. Once you had the box in your room, you ripped it open and took out your purchase. You wanted to try it on to make sure you knew how it would work on your body. You tried on the first set and because it took you about 10 minutes to figure it out, you decided it would not be the set you wear tomorrow. Moving onto the next set, you found it much easier but it could be due to your newfound experience having put the other one on just a couple minutes before. It hugged your body perfectly and accentuated everything you needed it to. It wasn’t the most supportive but it looked beautiful. 
You stood in your mirror and admired yourself for a minute. Seeing how good you looked, you snapped a photo of yourself, but not of your full body, just of your upper thigh that had a garter on it that attached to thigh highs, and the waistband of the lacey underwear. You captioned it “I have a surprise for you tomorrow baby boy” and sent it to Jisung.
About five minutes later, you saw that Jisung had opened your messages. When he didn’t text back immediately, you knew that he was stunned. You and Jisung have done many things sexually but you’ve never worn lingerie for him. He had expressed wanting to buy you a set a couple of months ago when he saw one at a store that you were shopping at, but you reassured him that he didn’t have to. He asked if you were sure and when you said yes, he kind of made it sound like he was joking the whole time. You knew damn well he wasn’t joking and his lack of response proved that. A couple more minutes passed and you had a feeling his eyes stayed on the photo the whole time. You texted him again and when it said read immediately, you knew that you were right. 
“Are you flustered, baby? Like what you see?”
He started typing a few seconds later.
“Yes I am and yes I do. 
I need to see more.”
You scoffed and smiled at his request.
“Not even a please? How rude.
Bad boys don’t get what they want.
Your impatience is disgusting”
When you hit send, you weren’t even given 10 seconds before he immediately typed back.
“Please.”
“I'm sorry for being rude.”
“I’ll be patient. Thank you for showing me.”
You smiled at his instant submission. He knew he couldn’t win, and he knew that you could do whatever you wanted to him. That includes doing absolutely nothing. You loved the power you had over your boyfriend in sexual aspects. You sent him a text back.
“Good boy. 
I’ll make sure to reward you tomorrow.❤️”
February 14th
Jisung was going to take you out to dinner so you had to get ready. You took a shower and washed your hair. Once you got out, you did some skincare and applied a little bit of makeup to your face. You slipped on the lingerie and then put on a little red dress. The length of the dress showed the thigh highs, but almost made them look like tights, so you were kind of grateful for that. While you wanted to tease Jisung, you didn’t want everybody to know. It would be kind of embarrassing for people in a restaurant to know that underneath your casual date night dress, you had on a set of lingerie. You threw on a small jacket and sat on your couch waiting for Jisung to message you that he was there. Once Jisung arrived, he messaged you and you got up to walk to the door of his car. When you got out your front door you could see he was waiting at your car door to open it for you. Jisung saw you and his eyes widened and a small gap formed between his lips. He was dazed by you and that’s exactly what you wanted him to be. You walked up to him and gently placed a kiss on his parted lips.
“Are you wearing-?”
His voice almost broke at his last word, and he choked up as if the word lingerie was a curse word he wasn’t allowed to say. You looked him in the eyes and raised your finger to your lips, motioning for him to keep quiet and mind his business, until you were ready to show him. He understood and proceeded to open the car door for you to get in. Once you were seated, he closed it and made his way to the driver's seat. The drive to the restaurant was no longer than 15 minutes and while you two conversed, as usual, there was a nervous look on Jisung‘s face anytime you caught his eyes on you.
The restaurant was beautiful. They had decorated for Valentine’s Day, but instead of tacky paper hearts and pink streamers, they had very classy decorations that fit the expensive aesthetic the restaurant already possessed. Dinner went great and by the time you two finished eating, you had already managed to tease Jisung little by little. Simply by placing a hand on his lap and rubbing his thigh or speaking really close to his ear so your breath lightly touched his sensitive earlobes, you knew exactly how to make the boy tick. Lucky for him, he remembered the rule you had established. He was not allowed to touch you no matter how much you teased him. Seeing as he listened to that rule, you knew you would have to reward him, and you were more than happy to.
“Let’s go baby so you can get your reward for being so good tonight.”
Jisung quickly paid the bill and got into the car. You try not to distract him on the car ride home, not wanting him to look away from the road and endanger the both of you. You kept your hand on Jisungs right thigh though, asserting your dominance, without saying even a word.
Once you got to your apartment, you unlock your door and grabbed Jisung. You used his body to close the door as you pressed him against it. His tie tangled between your fingers and wrapped around your hand as you bought his face down toward yours.
“ Would you like your reward now baby boy?”
Jisung let out a breath and responded by shaking his head yes. You held his chin in your hand and reminded Jisung of your other rule. 
“You answer me when I ask you a question. So speak baby.”
“Yes, I want it.”
“Say please.”
“Please.”
Jisungs voice came out in a whimper as he moved the rest of his body closer to you hoping to finally feel your body against his. With his answer, you proceeded to smash your lips onto his, crashing both of you back against the front door. You raised your left leg up around his waist and tapped his hip, motioning for him to lift you. Jising quickly lifted you by your legs and you parted with his lips to breathlessly utter the word “room” to direct him to where you wanted to go. The kiss resumed as he walked to your room but once Jisung got there, you pulled away again and jumped off of him, leaving him in your doorframe confused. 
You grabbed his tie and sat Jisung down on the edge of your bed.
“Wait here, baby.”
When you hopped off of Jisung, you had dropped your purse at the door frame so you walked back to get it and get out your phone. He looked at you lost, thinking “why would you need your phone right now?” Jisung waited though, knowing that no matter how impatient he is he still can’t do anything without your permission. 
Your phone suddenly started playing music and Jisung realized you were setting the mood. The music was smooth and slow and sexy. You connected the music to your room speakers not even a second later and then proceeded to place your device down on your dresser. Locking eyes with Jisung, you made your way over to the boy that looked at you with his desperate puppy dog eyes. 
“Aw baby look at you. I haven’t even touched you and you already look wrecked.”
He leaned into you and you pushed him away, keeping him sitting upright. 
“Remember the rules, baby. You can't touch me unless I let you.”
Jisung let out a breath and nodded his head in confirmation. With that, you slowly hiked up your dress a bit more and climbed onto his lap. He was already painfully hard so you could feel his dick underneath you as you moved your hips slowly on top of him. 
“You’re so hard, baby. Do I turn you on this much just from kissing you? How pathetic.”
You whispered in Jisungs ear and he rolled his head back as his eyes rolled back too. You bit the bottom of his ear and then licked up the earlobe, feeling him shiver right after. 
“Answer me, baby.”
“Yes. You turn me on so much from any touch you give me.”
You smiled and kissed from his ear to his lips but didn't kiss them. You pulled away just before and grabbed his face once more.
“Are you pathetic?”
Your smirk was practically evil and your eyes burned into Jisung as his dick twitched and he responded.
“Yes. Yes, I’m so pathetic. I'm your pathetic bitch.”
“Yes, yes you are. Good boy.”
Jisung moaned because as you spoke, you rolled your hips on his clothed cock again. Your tongue found its way to his neck as you licked and sucked on his pretty skin, hoping to mark him as yours as you’ve done so many times before. The sensation sent his head back even further, almost knocking him off balance. You caught him by his hair and pulled him back up to face you.
“I’m gonna ruin you, baby.”
You started stripping off his clothes, starting with Jisungs tie and then unbuttoning his shirt slowly. Every time you unbuttoned a button, you kissed down his torso, sending shivers down his body. You made sure earlier to keep your fan on in your room to make the room cool by the time you got back home. This made sure that your warm lips would affect him more and cause Jisung to writhe under you. Once the top half of him was fully naked, you hopped off of his lap and proceeded to undo his pants. You wanted to strip him completely.
As you pulled down Jisungs pants, you made sure to graze your fingers on every part of his skin that you could; you even placed kisses, right on top of his still-clothed erection. He kept his hands behind him, both to hold himself up and to keep him from touching you. With your head lowered towards his dick, you decided to take your teeth and use them to pull down the waistband of his boxers. He was now completely naked and entirely exposed in front of you. 
You loved it.
He loved it. 
You stepped back from Jisung to look at him in his naked form. You always knew Jisung was beautiful, but there was nothing more beautiful than seeing him desperate and naked on your bed. His dick stood up and you couldn't help but look at it before looking into his eyes again. His chest heaved as he continued to breathe heavily, anticipating your next move. 
You decided it was time to give him what you know he wanted. You turned away from him and looked back, locking eye contact. His gaze seemed almost nervous as he looked back at you. Your eye then lowered to your back as you stripped off your jacket and watched it drop to the floor. Jisungs eyes also followed the fabric as it hit the ground. He looks back up once it lands and you proceed to take off the straps of your dress slowly, peeling them from your shoulders and pulling your arms out from them. The dress has a zipper so you slowly unzip it to partially expose your back to Jisungs gaze. Once it's unzipped fully, you cling it to your body before releasing it. It falls right at your feet and Jisungs eyes didn't follow the cloth this time, instead, they stayed directly on your body. 
The red lingerie looked beautiful and left nothing to the imagination. Your ass was completely out of the thong and the thigh highs looked so sexy to Jisung. He wanted to just fuck your thighs when he saw them in the red garments which was something he's never even thought about doing before now. He had to stop himself from grabbing you but his hands shifted before he could think and you heard.
“You wanna touch me, baby? You wanna feel me up? What a fucking pervert. Are you a pervert baby?”
“No, I'm not.”
“Oh really? So you don't wanna touch me even though I said you can't?”
Jisung didn't know what answer you wanted and knew that the wrong answer could be bad for him.
“Yes I do wanna touch you. 
“So you are a pervert?”
“Yes, I am a pervert”
“Good boy, being so honest. You can touch me wherever you want for one song.”
Jisung couldn’t believe it.
“Oh look ones starting now, go ahead baby.”
Jisung took this as an opportunity to grab you by your thighs, pulling you towards him. He wanted to feel the lace on your body so he did that first. Groping every part he could while kissing you, you couldn’t help but moan into his mouth and tease him some more. 
“Look at you so eager. What a selfish little pervert you are wanting to touch me all over.”
Your tantalizing words didn't stop Jisung at all as he squeezed your thighs. Then he started to rub his fingers over your right nipple through the bra and grab the other breast with his other hand. You moaned a bit and chuckled at Jisungs desperation and that's when he placed your clothed breast in his mouth. His tongue ran over your nipples and his teeth bit down on the clothes skin. In your pleasure, you arch your back and moan his name.
“Ah- Jisung.”
He looks up at you with his pleading eyes hoping that him using his mouth is okay since you didn't exactly state that it was. 
Your pleasure made you temporarily forget but your dominance didn’t. You slapped Jisung across the face, forcing him to let go of your chest.
“That wasn't very obedient of you. You’re not being a good boy. And to think I let you touch me. Get on your knees, bitch.”
Jisung fell off the bed to his knees and looked up at you, You raised your leg to rest your foot on the bed, exposing your barely clothed pussy to Jisung who was practically drooling. 
“Since you were impatient, I'm not gonna please you just yet. I had planned to suck your cock but your impatience stained my bra and now it's the wrong color. You're gonna need to make my panties match.”
You slapped him again before grabbing his jaw and lowering your head to him to speak in his face.
“Go on baby. Make it match.”
Your hand grabbed the back of Jisungs head and forced him to put his face into your pussy. He took the hint and started licking up your cunt right over the thong. A moan combined with a laugh as you felt him lapping at you desperately, wanting to taste you on his tongue. You pulled him away from your crotch by his hair and moved your panties aside so he could get full access. You pulled him to face you and spoke.
“What do we say?”
“Thank you for letting me touch you and please you.”
“You're welcome baby now get back to it.”
Jisung quickly latched onto your clit, sucking it and flicking it with his tongue. You’ve cum on his face many times before due to his skillful tongue and loved how eager he was to fuck you with it. He licked stripes up your folds and stuck his tongue in your hole, flicking inside of it and burying himself as deep in you as he could. His hair was still held by your hand and every time Jisung hit your sweet spot, you latched on harder causing him to moan which only made you feel better. The vibrations made you get closer than you expected as you felt your lower body start shaking over him. He kept relentlessly flicking your clit with his tongue and making you shake, knowing exactly what he was doing and wanting to please you so you would be proud and please him. 
“Baby I'm cumming, don't stop.”
A few seconds later you pushed his head fully into your pussy and came all over his face. His tongue cleaned you up as you came, helping you ride out your orgasm and then over-stimming you. You pulled him away from your crotch and saw his face a mess with watery eyes and your cum all over his mouth, dripping down his chin and onto his neck. He smiled at you and you smiled back at him.
“Good boy. Now get on the bed.”
Jisung got up from the floor, slight redness visible on his knees, and sat back on the bed. You threw his body back and made him lay down fully. Jisungs eyes stayed on you as you lowered your head to his thighs. You placed soft kisses on his inner thighs and sucked lightly to create little red marks on him. When you got to his dick, you looked him in the eyes before licking a strip up his cock. He winced in pleasure and his back arched a bit at the contact. You put your tongue back on his cock but only to lick stripes up it, knowing that it would tease him and make him more desperate to be in your mouth.
“Pl-please.”
His whine was low but you heard him clearly. You grabbed his dick with your hand, roughly, and he jolted up with a whine.
“Use your words, baby. What do you want?”
“Please. Please suck me off.”
The desperation made you smile wickedly at the boy you had in your full control. His voice shook and it caused you to get wetter and wetter. In the blink of an eye, you wrapped your lips around Jisung. 
“Ah! Thank you- thank you so much!”
Jisungs moans got louder as you sucked his cock further down your throat, swallowing around him and moaning to send vibrations. You kept going up and down on his dick and loved watching his body writhe under you when you fully deepthroated him. He was shaking and you knew he was close so you did what you do every time he's about to cum from a blowjob.
You let go.
Jisungs whines were almost childish as he started losing his build-up. His face was scrunched up and tears welled up in his eyes. You climbed up his body to his face and put your hands on his cheeks as you fake pouted at him. Your tongue licked up his face as you took away his tears and his mouth parted in pleasure at you licking him. Jisung opened his eyes to see you smiling at him.
“I’m gonna ride you now. Your reward for being so good is that you get to cum inside me. You ready baby? What do we say?”
“Yes. Yes, I'm ready. Thank you, thank you.”
You climbed back down his body and stood in front of him to fully undress. Once you were fully naked you climbed back onto him and hovered your core above his cock. You took your hand and grabbed his dick, running it along your slit before teasingly lowering yourself to only take in his tip before raising yourself off of him again. You did that a couple more times then slammed yourself down on Jisungs dick fully. He moaned out loudly and his eyes shut harshly before opening again to allow himself to see you resting on his dick. Jisungs eyes were barely open but the view he saw was hot enough to make him cum on the spot.
You started riding his dick, moving up and down and rolling your hips every now and then. You started out slow, teasing him a bit as you moved forward to suck on his chest. His nipples were always sensitive so you bit down on his left as you pinched his right. His breathy moans were music to your ears so you started to pick up your pace and moved your hips faster. His size was perfect for you, filling you up perfectly and causing you to moan along with him. The jolts of his body made it a bit hard for you to keep yourself latched on his chest so you stopped sucking on him and sat back up to ride him faster.
Your speed picked up and Jisung grabbed your thighs in reaction. You let this slide because what you had in store for him would be punishment enough for his misbehavior. He held your thighs as you bounced up and down on his cock. He could feel himself on the edge and whined louder before speaking. 
“Ple-please let me cum I-i’m gonna cum!”
You didn't respond at first and kept riding him, knowing he would hold it until you said he was allowed to. His face scrunched up and you pitied him. 
“Go ahead, baby. Cum for me.”
He gripped your thighs and moved his hips into you a couple of times, matching your pace, and came inside of you. Your core was filled with his cum as he continued to shoot inside of you and you stopped moving. He groaned until he let out his last bit of cum. Then you started moving again. 
His torso shot up, catching him off guard. He put his hands behind him and rested on his elbows. Jisungs abs flexed as you kept viciously slamming down on him, causing his overstimulation to intensify. 
“Ah! Stop.”
His voice was weak and desperate but you knew if he really wanted it to stop that he would use your safe word. You kept slamming down on him, taking his cock in as much as you could. His dick got hard again but it was almost painful for Jisung. Your movements caused tears to fall from his eyes and he could do nothing to stop you from riding him till you were satisfied. 
“I’m gonna-“
“I told you you're allowed to cum. That's your reward baby. So cum.”
He came for a second time in your cunt and you rode him for his entire release and then came on his cock. Your orgasm shot through you as you threw your head back and scratched Jisungs stomach. He fell back and groaned at you flexing around his sensitive cock, completely fucked out.
When you were done cumming, you lifted yourself off his dick and stayed hovering to watch the cum Jisung shot into you fall over his dick. You stuck your fingers in your pussy and took some of his cum mixed with yours out before shoving it in his mouth. Jisung moaned around your fingers and cleaned them off with his tongue. 
“Good boy.”
You got off of him and put your hand on his cheek before kissing him and tasting the cum on his lips. 
“You did so good, baby. Happy Valentine's Day.”
Jisung smiled up at you and put his hand on your face too. His tired eyes looked almost closed and he hummed happily before speaking.
“Happy Valentine's Day, Love.”
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violivs · 5 months
Text
NMTDaily: Football Antics Part Two
- Aww I forgot about Ursula’s friendship with Dogberry and Verges. They’re so cute. Stealing the muffins.
- I just really love how Ursula bonds with people by helping with their video blogs. And she bonds with Hero over baking. Ursula makes things and helps other people make things and that makes her happy. I love that. She’s a sweetheart.
- All this is another example of how judgmental Beatrice can be, saying the year nines are weird and Ursula shouldn’t hang out with them. She says what she’s feeling and doesn’t think first.
- Pedro! The Prince of Messina! I love the Summer Lovin moment, he really always was a theater kid. It’s very cute. It is, of course, also foreshadowing.
- Pedro immediately brings up Ben. Is he testing Bea’s reaction to see if she seems interested in Ben, similar to the way Ben is about to be all “is Pedro your boyfriend?” I see you, Pedro.
- “How’s Benedick? Still pirouetting through life?” One of my favorite little lines there, lol. It’s just life, so keep dancing through! (Speaking of being a theater kid, lol)
- “He changes friends as often as he changes shirts” is not supposed to make me so sad! Ben always being too scared to show his real self, hiding behind being the loudest and the funny one, hopping from friend to friend and never building too deep a connection with anyone because he doesn’t believe it will last. Because when it does get deep, he gets scared and pulls away. And to an outside view it just looks like he’s fickle and doesn’t care. Just so much meaning there. AND he fails to notice that he’s been Pedro’s friend for like five years now, so some of his friendships do last! Having an “I can’t keep a friendship” complex AND at least one years-long friendship you take for granted at the same time is a massive social anxiety mood. I did not develop that headcanon for him until the promo photos for Lolilo came out, but there was still evidence in NMTD!
- And Bea audibly groaning and being annoyed that Ben’s new best friend is Claudio, because she wants Hero to be happy but she does not want Ben hanging around them more.
- “You did the thing! You’ve gotta be ready for anything Claudio!” Ugh I cringe every time lol but also Ben is adorable at the same time?
- Sometimes you really need the subtitles, because I have never noticed Bea and Pedro’s little exchange there before! B: “Honestly that’s so typical.” P: “They’re always getting on top of each other.” That’s one for the Ben/Claudio crush truthers for sure, lol
- cringeeeee ugh Ben why do you sound like you’re about to hit on Hero I’m uncomfortable. Hilarious that he’s apparently forgotten who Hero is though, given that he definitely remembers Beatrice.
- He apparently also has never heard of YouTube before this moment. And we’re off to the “everything you say is SO wrong and annoying, I HAVE to correct you” races!
- Pedro with the self-preservation instinct just immediately making a run for it. He has been here in between these two arguing before and he did not like it.
- I was wondering why Bea didn’t make an excuse to avoid Ben by going off with Pedro just then, but I realized it’s because of the camera and tripod! She couldn’t leave without her stuff. Trapped by the vlog! Lol
- Ben’s immediate emotional response on seeing Bea again just being “I’m extremely threatened by the idea that you might have a boyfriend, please tell me you don’t.” like. Buddy. Pal. Who were you ever fooling? Incredible.
- And speaking of cringe. We are getting the establishment of Benedick seeming to be just another one of the misogynist guys, because every time he talks about women I cringe so hard I can’t look at the screen. I hope Beatrice makes fun of him for “I could explode your universe” literally all the time after they start dating.
- She is so not having it, and her disinterest just makes him go even harder trying to get under her skin. I love these annoying teenagers SO. MUCH. *cracks up laughing*
- Poor Ursula, not as quick as Pedro to avoid being stuck in the middle. Lol
- But the thing is, Bea just took the wind right out of Ben’s sails because “you’ve never scored anything off the football pitch” is TRUE. He talks big, but he’s actually not very experienced at all. That’s how I interpret the flustered “you’d be surprised about what I know”, anyway. And it’s a smart adaptation for a teenage version of Mr “Ladies Love Me But I Love None” from the play, if so.
- Bea sees right through him. He can’t hide behind bravado with her, she already knows it’s bullshit. And that’s why realizing he loves her is going to be so scary for him.
- And he storms off, leaving Beatrice pleased as punch because she wins by default. If she pushes his buttons long enough, he gives up. “You always end on a jade’s trick” indeed. And she ends smiling, because she likes sparring with him (and winning). The day wouldn’t be complete for her without it.
- Someone in the comments points out that Ben forgot to pick up his football uniform shirt that he dropped, and I don’t know what’s funnier, him waiting for her to leave and slinking back to grab it, or her taking it home and then tossing it on his desk the next day at school with another insult about how gross it is, setting off another argument (while all their classmates roll their eyes).
- And then there’s the fact that Beatrice, who just hates Ben so much, can’t stop herself from replying to a comment about him in the comment section with a complaining link to his new YouTube channel! They are obsessed with each other! It is wild. (Also a very in-character way for TCW to use Bea to make sure that the audience knows to follow Ben’s channel for his part of the story.)
- All I can think of is that tumblr post about looking at your enemies to lovers ship in their “I hate your stupid face” phase and cackling like “ohhhh just you wait, you are gonna LOVE that stupid face!” They’re gonna love each other SO much, and they’re gonna be SO mad about it! It just makes me so happy!!! 🥰
💖🥭🦩
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amugoffandoms · 1 year
Text
hello it's me again!! I have calmed down from my shock (it lasted for five hours) and now it's time for me to discuss three little details I have yet to seen discussed that much (either small or big)!
be wary! A couple images down is a photo of mahiru's boyfriend hanging, I put everything under the cut just in case ^^
Detail 1:
Mahiru must have been copying her boyfriend's actions and going a little further. I already saw a post about this, but the amount of cake when her boyfriend gives her the cake compared to hers is much less.
(Boyfriend's on the left, Mahiru's on the right)
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Another thing is Mahiru's boyfriend waking her up. Like, you can see she's falling asleep and then
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Compare this to:
So, she must be copying what he's doing (and I think someone said that she did it because she wanted to cheer her boyfriend up like when he did that for her.)
Detail 2!
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Sorry for the really bad arrow, but I need an explanation for that red stain. It's clearly not dirt, as dirt seems to be the little scratches on their clothing.
But, it appears so much throughout this part of the mv, take a look:
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(You can barely see it, it's underneath the lyrics.)
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Once again, barely visible, just take a look right underneath that little folded coat part.
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It's much visible in this scene.
Anyways, I need to know about this little detail. My eyes are directed immediately to the center of the screen and all I see is that stain. It can't be shading, the shading is an entirely different color.
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The only thing is that uh... it doesn't appear on his dead body.
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(Oh my ducking God I did not just make this look like a long guy pls why)
I used an invert filter on ibis and there wasn't any different color where I saw the stain. Very confused, where did it go?
Does this mean the boyfriend died a different time? This stain better not be the crux of a verdict I'll lose it /j
Final Detail!
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The food.
We know Mahiru's in the exact same clothes as Day 16 (if this is wrong, correct me).
Someone mentioned in a YouTube comment if this food was actually real and I don't wanna say anything on that because it's possible they could've become homeless and stayed in their clothes.
But, if we assume it's on the same day, why is Mahiru's boyfriend starving?
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cevansbrat0007 · 2 years
Text
Hold Me
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Summary: You comfort Andy while he’s dealing with a very difficult case. 
Warnings: Light Angst, Distressed Andy Barber, Supportive Reader, Cursing, Cuddles, Pet Names, Dark themes, Mentions of Abuse of Children, Violence, Death, Minors DNI
A/N: So, there was a reader who requested that I write about Reader and Andy cuddling. This fic has some dark things, based on what Andy is dealing with. Abuse of children is mentioned. Including rape and death. Please heed the warning. Part of my ongoing Growing Pains Series. As always, I’d love your feedback, so please let me know what you think. Semi-proofread. Not beta’d. All mistakes are my own.
___
“Baby?” You hear your husband call out. “Y/N, where are you?” Oh, he was home a little earlier than normal.
“I’m upstairs, Andy!” You were in the middle of folding laundry and putting it away. And then you hear him climb the stairs. It was rather hard to miss the sound of his heavy footsteps. 
“Hi, honey!” You eagerly greet him. “How are -?
You’re forced to pause when you notice the look in his eyes. They look…haunted. Something was wrong here.
“Andy, are you…are you okay?”
Your man just looks at you. And then you see his eyes well up with tears. 
No, he was not okay. Clearly.
You go to him. Your hands immediately wrapping themselves around his trim waist. 
“What is it, baby? What is it?” You rarely ever saw him like this.
He just shakes his head and buries his face into your shoulder. One of your hands goes to rub his back, gently stroking. “Okay, you don’t have to talk about it now. But at least tell me what you need. Can you do that for me? Can you tell me what you need?”
“Just hold me.” He whispers. “Please.”
“You’ve got it, honey.” You take his big hand and lead him towards the bed. “Take off your shirt.” You tell him as you do the same before climbing in. “Come here.” You hold your arms out to him. 
Andy does as you ask, quickly removing his light blue button down shirt before climbing into bed and under the covers with you. Once he’s in, he inches down to rest his head on your belly, one of his hands resting on your hip. 
You run your fingers through his tawny locks, letting your nails softly scratch his scalp.
“Can you tell me what’s wrong, Andy?” 
“In a moment.” He mumbles. “In a moment.” You nod, keeping your hand in his hair. Your Big Man needed you right now. 
After a few moments he begins to talk. His voice is low and solemn. 
“It’s this case I’m working on, Y/N. It’s this fucking case.” He whispers against the warm skin of your stomach. “Honey, it’s awful. And it’s not that I haven’t dealt with awful before, but…” Andy trails off.
“But what, Andrew?” 
“This case is evil in its purest form.” He murmurs, his hand gripping you tightly.
Your hand goes down to massage his tense neck. “Can you tell me about it? Or is that too hard?”
“I had to look at evidence photos today. This man…this man he -” Andy takes a deep breath. “He’s been charged with raping and sodomizing five children. Four boys and one girl, and the youngest was three-years-old. The same age as Bianca. As our BiBi.”
Oh, Jesus Christ.
“The things he did to them. The way he hurt them. Having to look at those photos…baby, he beat them. The images were graphic.” You feel wet tears on your skin.
“And don’t get me wrong. I’m going to make sure I put his ass away for fucking life. I’m going to make sure I find the roughest, most brutal correctional institute to send him to…but today I wanted to kill him. I wanted to take him out back and beat the shit out of him until he stopped breathing.”
Another deep breath. 
“Because all I could think about was Bianca. The way he hurt that little girl especially…”
“Andy, baby.” You coo at him. “Andy, I’m so sorry.”
“Y/N, it was horrible. And nothing I ever see as the District Attorney is ever good. It’s never nice. But sometimes it takes a fucking toll, you know? And today, all I could think about was getting home to my wife and my child.”
Andy snuggles even deeper into you. “My baby.” He murmurs. “That could’ve just as easily been my BiBi.”
You go to rub his back. “This is all horrible, Andy. And I’m sorry that this is part of your job. But you’re going to win this one. And you’re going to put this piece of shit away so he can’t harm anyone else ever again. And we both know that once other prisoners find out about his crimes, about what he did, he’ll have a price on his head.”
“I know, but even with victories sometimes comes pain. One of the little boys didn’t make it.” He starts to weep then. It’s quiet and soft.
“Come up here,” you whisper. “Come up here to my chest, my love.” Your man complies, nestling his face into your shoulder. “Today was hard, but it’s over now, Big Man. Tomorrow is a new day. And it’s going to be better. I don’t know how, but I believe that it will be.” You tell him as you wrap your arms around his big body. 
Right now, your husband needed comfort. And your heart hurt for him.
“When you’re through, Andy, this man will never be able to touch another child again. Let alone our daughter. You’re doing the right work, and sometimes the right work is painful. But I’m here with you. I’ve got you the way you’ve always got me. So just rest for a moment, my sweet man. Just rest. And then when you wake up, I’ll feed you. We’ve got steak sandwiches downstairs.”
You feel his eyes flutter closed.
“But right now I want you to rest and throw away the crap from today. And I’ll hold you while you do it, because even Daddies need to be held sometimes too.”
“Thank you.” His deep voice rumbles against your chest. “And I’m sorry.”
You sigh. “Do not ever be sorry about telling me how you feel, or what you’re going through. This is what your wife is here for. I’m here to help hold you up when you feel like falling down. And I’m not as big as you, so sometimes we might end up taking a knee, but we’ll do it together.”
You feel his breathing even out as he begins to fall asleep. Good. “I will always hold you down, Andrew Barber. You have my word on that.” You whisper into his ear.
“Always.”
END
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dameronology · 3 years
Text
you have my number {bucky barnes x reader}
summary: bucky barnes' memory is a little selective, thanks to all the brainwashing - but one thing he'll never forget is his love for you, even if you're a complete & utter pain in the ass. his ass. (based on deja vu by olivia rodigro)
^even tho this fic refers to bucky as having a new gf, the reader is still g.n :)
this is spoiler free! enjoyyy
- jazz xx
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Your relationship with Bucky Barnes had been nothing short of a train wreck.
And frankly, that was putting it nicely.
It had been a short & passionate affair; intense and sweet and filled with so much emotion in such high concentrations that you'd both almost drowned in it. For every euphoric moment, there had been one so low that you'd scraped your knees on the ground. Climbing a ladder to heaven whilst simultaneously digging your own graves had taken its toll on you both, and eventually, you had no choice but to go your separate ways. It had been for your own sanity, really.
So there he was, tucked away in a neat little box in your brain, labelled don't touch, ever. Even when you were completely wasted, surrounded by your friends and their respective lovers, you never dared to venture back down that particular memory lane. Forgetting all the bad parts and selectively remembering the good parts was easy enough to do, but you had the common sense to remember why you'd broken up in the first place. Because Bucky Barnes, despite being easy on the eyes and having a charming sense of humour, was a pain in your fucking ass. He managed to press every one of your buttons without even trying and his ability to bring out the best in you was completely and entirely wiped out by his tendency to bring out the worst. That wasn't even getting started on his emotional hold-ups; a can of worms neither of you had dared to open until it became the very reason for your demise.
Six months had passed, and you'd managed to expertly avoid him. You worked different missions and Sam Wilson, god bless his sweet soul, went the extra mile to ensure your paths never crossed in a professional sense. On a personal level, however? That was a little more difficult. New York City felt a lot smaller after your break up. You found yourself occasionally ducking under your hood when you saw him on the F-train, or rushing to cross the road when you saw him coming towards you on the street.
That was when you had the whole city to lose yourself in; streets and shops and little food carts to distract yourself with should you need to. Being confined to the same room for a work party was a different story entirely, and one you didn't want to read. Yet, thanks to some insistence from your boss and a little grovelling from your colleagues, you found yourself rocking up to the former Avengers tower on a Friday night.
"So you do exist outside of your work uniform?" Sam Wilson greeted you with a quirked eyebrow.
"Yeah, yeah - nice to see you too, Wilson."
Despite your initial attempts to elbow him in the rips, he wrestled you off of him and pulled you into a tight hug. Sam was one of your favourite colleagues and oldest friends - he'd witnessed the rise and fall of your relationship with Bucky, and been there for you both during the break-up. That had been an exhausting few days, running between your respective apartments in an attempt to offer emotional support to you both.
"D'you want some champagne?" He asked.
"I'm good, but thank-"
You froze, eyes widening at the sight of James Barnes across the room. He looked quintessentially the same, bar for the fact his hair was a little longer and he had a fresh, pink scar under his left eye. Having ditched his usual attire for a black blazer, he looked good. Annoyingly so, in fact. It made you secretly grateful that you'd chosen to dress up a little more than usual too.
"- on second thoughts." You took the flute of champagne from Sam, also grabbing a shot of vodka from the same trey. It was gone in seconds.
"Need I ask?" Sam gave you a playful frown. His brown eyes followed your gaze over his shoulder, landing on the man you'd been staring at. "Ah. I need not."
"Sorry." You murmured. "We haven't actually spoken since, y'know."
"Since you had a break-up that made Ross and Rachel look good?"
"I don't think Bucky has ever seen Friends." You quipped.
"His loss." Sam shrugged. "You should talk to him."
"Nope." You snorted. "Absolutely not. I don't even know if he's moved on."
"Judging by the pretty blonde on his arm, I think he has," Sam replied. "Would you look at that! They're headed right for us."
That was a lot of information to process at once. You would have needed a week alone for your poor, tired brain to deal with the fact that Bucky had someone else on his arm, and a further three days to big yourself up enough to talk to him. Alas, that was not the case tonight. Instead, you had about five seconds between Sam finishing his sentence and your ex-boyfriend reaching you. It was just as well you found the energy within that timeframe to down your champagne.
You could see the woman on his arm clearer now. To give credit where credit was due, she stunning. She looked like the sort of girl who smelt of strawberries and Chanel, and grew her own vegetables on the fire escape. The kind of person you swore to be with every New Year that came, but quickly ditched after a week, returning to drinking coffee from the Starbucks under your apartment rather than going to the organic, vegan place a few blocks over. There was an ethereal glow about her and fuck. You were mad.
"Sam!" Bucky called out to his friend - for a minute, you thought he was ignoring you, before you realised he genuinely didn't recognise you. Your name rolled off his tongue with a tone of uncertainty, as though he was learning a new language and still learning how to pronounce things. "Wow. You look...different."
"So do you." You shot back. "Who's your friend?"
"This is Katie." He awkwardly smiled. "My...my girlfriend."
"It's nice to meet you." You forced an equally pained grin, taking her hand in a shake.
"How do you and Bucky know each other?" She asked.
"Work." Bucky quickly said. You thinned your eyes at him, almost in disbelief.
"So you're an Avenger like these two?" Katie asked, clearly not picking up on the tension. "That's so cool."
"Not in an official capacity." You replied. "But they'd be fucked without me."
--
The night only got longer from there, really.
There wasn't enough champagne in the world to help the void in your soul. It was a gaping wound that Bucky Barnes had both filled and widened - and tonight, he was doing the latter. It sounded as though him and Katie were having a grand ol' time of it. From the parts of the conversation that you'd actually bothered to listen to, you'd gathered that she'd arrived in New York from London just over three months ago. That meant she had a fucking accent. Of course she did. It made everything she said a thousand times more interesting.
"We were in Paris, in this little cafe. What was it called, babe? Maison de vie?"
"Maison de l'amour, doll." Bucky corrected her. It had only sounded right when he was calling you that.
Your eyes shot up from your drink, immediately staring daggers at them both. The slimy bastard. You had been the one to show him that place. You'd been in Paris for a mission, and after realising it was your four-month anniversary, you'd taken him there for pancakes. It had been a slow morning, filled with hazy eyes and pink skies, and it had ended with him dropping the L-bomb for the first time. The photo you'd taken of Bucky, sat beside a pile of pancakes the same size of him and with whipped cream on his chin, had been your phone background until the day you broke up.
"I've been there." You didn't break away from his gaze, holding cold blue eyes in a trance that he found to be almost suffocating.
"Oh, nice!" Katie beamed. "Did you enjoy it?"
"Yeah." You sniffed. "The company was shit, though."
"Oh, man." She replied. "I'm sorry to hear that."
"It's not your fault." You gave her a sweet smile - to Bucky, it was a look of venom. "So, tell me more about your trip to Paris."
He quickly cleared his throat. "We didn't do much. Just a weekend getaway-"
"- are you forgetting that we saw Billy Joel?" Katie cut him off with a laugh. "The Billy Joel!"
"Right." It looked as though his mouth had gone completely dry.
"He told me he loved me for the first time to Uptown Girl-"
"-excuse me for a moment." You shoved your glass in her hand, before backing away from your little huddle.
Your brain was focused on getting away and only on getting away. The room suddenly felt a thousand times hotter, and a thousand times smaller too, as though the walls were closing in on you. Maybe that wouldn't have been so bad if they'd just collapsed around you and swallowed you fucking whole. Anything to get away from this situation.
Making a beeline for the balcony doors, you elbowed them open and stepped outside. The cold air of the rooftop gardens was a welcome contrast to the stuffy indoors, biting, night air hitting your face like an icy hug. The sounds of the city rung below you - sirens and yells and tourists - and tangled into the faint sound of the music, all parts of a world that your brain was working overtime to block out.
You focused on the city instead, using the bright lights of the surrounding buildings to anchor you to reality. None of it really even made sense - you were over Bucky. Had been for a long time. It was just the thought of him doing all the things that he'd done with you, with someone else. It made you feel a little bad for Katie, too.
"I was going to tell you about Billy Joel."
You glanced over your shoulder, giving a derivative snort. "Piss off, Bucky."
"I'm serious." He ignored your demand, cautiously approaching you.
"I brought you those tickets!" You turned around to face him. "We were meant to go together. Billy Joel was our thing."
"We broke up!' He reminded you. "Like I said, I was going to tell you that we went together-"
"- I don't care." You cut him off. "I genuinely don't care."
"That was a lot of storming off for someone who doesn't care."
"Okay, maybe I care a little bit." You huffed, taking a seat on a bench. "It's not even that you're with someone else, it's that you're doing all the things we did. The nicknames, the pancake place, the concert."
"I..." Bucky took a seat beside you, pondering for a moment.
"And declaring your love for someone to Uptown Girl is fucking weird." You muttered.
"Do you have a better suggestion?"
"Vienna, obviously."
"You're such a pain in the ass." Bucky replied. "But for what it's worth, I wasn't thinking of Katie in that moment."
You glanced up at him, frowning. "What do you mean?"
"D'you remember that morning when we were in New Orleans?" He asked. "And we had a few hours to kill before our flight, so you started dancing around the hotel room to Uptown Girl?"
"I remember." You softly smiled.
"That was when I realised I loved you." He admitted. "I was replaying that in my head at the concert, and it just kinda came out, and Katie heard."
"Damn." You muttered. "Sucks to be her, huh?"
"I like Katie." He said. "Truth be told, doll, I'm still stuck in the past a little bit. With you, and with what we had."
"We fucking hated each other by the end, Buck."
"I know, but I mean all the stuff before that." He explained. "You were the first person who saw me for who I am and not what I've done. The first person that actually made me feel loved and worthy."
"I do try."
He lightly elbowed you "I'm serious. I think I'm just projecting my longing for what we had onto my current relationship."
"You're being painfully honest tonight." You observed. "It's fucking weird."
"Who taught me to be painfully honest?"
"Right." You rolled your eyes. "So this is how Frankenstein felt when he created his monster."
"You're the worst," Bucky muttered. "I genuinely am sorry, though. I shouldn't be recycling our memories. I should make new ones.'
Dusting off your trousers, you stood up. "You're right."
"Thank you, though."
"For what?"
"For finding me first," He replied, "and for teaching me what love is."
"Well, if you ever need to be reminded? You have my number."
786 notes · View notes
miekasa · 4 years
Text
daylight’s wasting (you better kiss me)
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↯ pairing: eren jaeger x reader
↯ genre and warnings: college au, fluff, someone please be gentle with this boy i’m begging you, jean and eren pretending they don’t give a fuck about each other whilst actually being best bros for the win
↯ word count: 2k
↯ summary: based off of that reddit post about some guy talking about his girlfriend washing his hair for the first time + hoping it fills a request for someone asking for reader playing with eren’s hair for the first time :’)
↯ notes: this is cross-posted and edited slightly from another blog in a completely separate fandom, so if you’ve seen it before, no you didn’t </2
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Jean can’t say that he immediately noticed a pep in Eren’s step when the green-eyed boy met him in the library, but what he does notice is the stupid, dopey looking grin and starry-eyed gaze in his eyes that he’s sporting while he’s not doing his part for their project. And while Jean considers himself relatively attractive, he knows for sure Eren isn’t shy about making it known that he doesn’t; so the brunette doubts the literal heart eyes Eren has are for him.
“Eren? Eren, bro, are you good?” Jean calls, a dark eyebrow raised above his left eye. Eren barely registers the calls of his name, and it takes Jean waving his hands in front of the shorter’s face for him to wake from his trance, looking up at Jean with that same, longing smile (that’s, admittedly, starting to creep him the fuck out).
“Yeah,” Eren sighs, something reminiscent of a lovelorn cartoon prince, as he rests his elbow atop his notebook and his chin the palm of his hand, “I’m good.”
Jean looks at him, skeptical and confused. He shifts in his seat, but Eren’s eyes don’t follow—he just stares ahead, lost in thought and completely unaware of everything around him. He looks like a lovesick little bitch if you ask Jean. Or completely sloshed.
Slowly, Jean leads forward, eyebrows pinched, looking for streaks of red in Eren’s eyes, “Are you stoned right now?”
“What?” Eren pulls back, almost offended, “No, I’m not high—Jean, what the fuck?”
Jean simply shrugs, leaning back into his seat, “I dunno. Yesterday you were so stressed about your acrobatic salt cycle samples—”
“—Acetylsalicylic acid. It’s basically Asprin, and I wasn’t stressed, they just weren’t crystallizing the they way they’re supposed to—”
“I don’t fucking care. But now you look mellow as hell,” Jean cuts him off, “Just thought maybe you rolled a good one before coming here or something. Not that I’m judging, of course. But you’re much more of a lightweight than you think, so try not to go—”
“‘M not a fucking lightweight,” Eren groans, “You and Reiner are just heavy bodied.”
“Just admit you can’t hold your shit, Jaeger.”
“I’m not admitting shit. Mikasa makes strong drinks, that’s all.”
Jean grits his teeth at Eren’s stubborn antics, but lets it go. It’s not like the conversation was going anywhere, anyways. “If you’re not baked, then what’s got your head in the clouds?”
Eren shifts in his seat now, pulling his hand off the table, and into his lap. Jean’s suspicious eyebrow is quirked again, and that slightly creeped-out feeling is back when he spots Eren’s ears going red.
Jesus Christ, he just asked a simple question.
“Not that I care,” Jean tacks on, feigning disinterest, “But if it’s gonna keep you from doing your half of the project, just spill it already so we can get this shit over with.”
Eren rolls his eyes, but that blush is still there. He looks like he contemplates waving it off for a minute, before he sighs. “(Y/N) and I showered together yesterday,” he finally blurts.
Jean blinks. “Oh. So you got laid—”
“—No, no, it wasn’t like that!” Eren corrects him, the red on his ears spreading to his cheeks slowly, with every word that spills out of his mouth. Eren stutters, a hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck, “She just… She washed my hair.”
Eren sighs, flustered and frustrated, and annoyed that he looks like this in front of Jean’s horse-faced ass of all people; but he knows, that no matter how much shit Jean talks, he can rely on him. For better or (often times) for worse.
And Jean, for as hotheaded as he can get, and for as much as Eren annoys the shit of out him, knows how to read a room; and in this moment, he can see that Eren is actually coming to him with genuine emotions, other than masked anger and abrasiveness. So, the both of them concede; pull back from their usual pointed commentary, and listen to what the other has to say. 
“Ah,” Jean comments, lamely; an embarrassed blush of his own growing on his face at his stupidity. The two sit in silence for a moment, before Jean speaks up again, “It’s, uh… It’s nice, right?”
Eren’s eyes snap to him, wide. He almost completely forgot that Jean’s in a committed relationship, too. The two don’t often go to each other for relationship advice, or… relationship venting, but Eren makes a mental note that maybe, just maybe, he should.  
“Yeah,” Eren admits, “I don’t, uh, I don’t know how to explain it. It was just—”
“Relaxing?”
“Yeah. Like all the bullshit from school just melted away all of a sudden,” Eren confesses, “All she fucking did was wash my hair and hum for, like, five minutes, but I feel like… I don’t know. Good.”
Jean hums, acknowledging Eren’s words and mulling them over. “Loved,” he chimes in with an awkward cough, “Pretty sure that’s the word you’re looking for, Jaeger.”
Eren chokes on air, his eyes darting around the room. So, yeah, it’s still a little awkward, talking with Jean of all people about his relationship, and love, and all that gushy stuff; but, even Eren can admit, it’s comforting to know that someone knows what he’s feeling—even if that someone is Jean.
“You should tell her. Girls like that shit, when you tell em what you’re thinking, you know?” Jean comments, picking up his pen to resume scribbling in his notebook. He sounds nonchalant, but from the redness on his face, Eren can tell he’s just as flustered, and probably thinking about his own girlfriend. “Besides, you’ve been together for a long ass time now. Don’t know what you’re waiting for at this point.”
“Yeah,” Eren coughs, pretending to resume his own homework, “Yeah, I think I will.”
“Good,” Jean nods, “Now will you fucking paste your paragraph in the Google Doc so I can rewrite it and make it coherent.”
“Fuck you, it’s coherent as is.”
“As if. I’ve read your shit before, and it sounds like it was written by six year old on meth. You science majors can’t write to save your life.”
“Tough talk from someone who can’t do basic addition.”
“Derivatives and shit aren’t basic addition, they were created by a man who died a virgin. Tells me everything I need to know about them and you.”
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Three days later, Eren finds himself alone in your off-campus apartment, laying on your bed, stomach to the mattress, while he tries to convince himself to study for his upcoming biology exam. He finds looking around your room to be much more interesting, though, and takes the time to notice things he hadn’t before.
There’s a small strip of images of the two of your in a clear mason jar on your nightstand—the newest addition to your collection—from the photo booth at the ice-skating rink you went to last week. Eren doesn’t know why you insist on going to every photo booth you come across, but who is he to deny you the pictures.
When he looks to your closet, he isn’t surprised to see two of his hoodies, one of his warm-up soccer uniforms, and last season’s hockey jersey hanging up. What does surprise him, is the way they’re all hung up next to each other, like they have their own little section amongst your clothing; like they were reserved, special almost. He bets they’re all probably washed and clean, too; because you take care of his things like that.
He thinks about how he has a few pairs of sweatpants and pajamas—hell, even a pair of slacks and a button-down from one of your fancier dates—all tucked away in his very own drawer in your dresser. The bucket hats thats you claim are oh-so ugly still have their own place in your room, hanging next to your belts. Even his psychology textbook sits on your desk, clearly set aside for him and taken care of, but still integrated amongst your other belongings. 
You seem to be the only person who thinks Eren and all his baggage can have a place in your life. You seem to always have space for things to fit in, no matter how stupid, or ugly, or tattered they are; no matter how emotional, or lost, or impulsive he is. Nothing is out of place here, himself included. 
Lost in his thoughts, Eren doesn’t register the sound of your front door opening, or your footsteps growing louder. In fact, he doesn’t register that you’re home at all, until you come padding into your bedroom, shaking your backpack off of your shoulders and setting it next to his on the ground.
“Hey, baby,” you greet him, almost offhandedly, as you place your coffee down on your desk. He doesn’t mind—actually the element of practiced casualness in your tone brings a kind of warmth to him, and makes his stomach flutter. 
“Hey,” he smiles, a stupidly fond look in his eye as his watched you shimmy your jacket off of your shoulders. 
Eren sits himself upwards, shifting so that his long legs dangle off the edge of your bed as he watching your silhouette move throughout your bedroom. When you’re finished removing all your layers and jewelry, you finally look to him, greeting him a second time as you walk towards him and your bed.
Eren cages you in when you reach him, his ankles wrapped on top of each other as he secures you standing between his legs. He wraps his arms loosely around your waist, while your fingers crawl up the nape of his neck.
“Your hair’s dry,” you hum, your fingers raking through his brown locks as if to make your point, “You didn’t shower yet?”
Eren shakes his head lightly, craning his neck forwards to tuck the cold tip of his nose into your collar. He holds you a little tighter when you smooth his hair down, one of your hands resting against the back of his neck, and lightly scraping at the hairs near his nape.
“How come?” you question innocently, “I thought your classes ended a few hours ago—did your lab go late again? You should tell your TA you have a life outside of trying to culture bacteria in a dish, you know.”
Eren chuckles lightly, but feels the concern in your voice tug heavily at his heart strings. You seem to really hate his lab TA.
“Wasn’t him this time,” Eren mumbles against your skin, “Was waiting for you.”
“Yeah? That gonna be a regular thing, now?”
“Wouldn’t mind,” Eren confesses, words barely audible as he buries his face into your neck. He tries tickle you with his eyelashes, shift the heat towards you, but you move out of reach too quickly; your hands on his shoulders, forcing him to sit upright.
He has to look up you, just slightly, and he hopes he doesn’t look like a complete blushing idiot. If he does, you don’t seem to mind, if the way you cup his face between your hands is any indication.
“Well then, come on. I bought two new loofahs yesterday.”
Eren follows you to the bathroom with a smile, borderline giggling with excitement all the way to the shower. When it comes down to it, he relishes in the feeling of your fingertips against his scalp, suds of shampoo cascading down his neck as you find amusement in coiling his hair into a bubbly mohawk.
It’s so mundane, so simple, yet overwhelmingly intimate the way you’re taking care of him—the way you always take care of him. It fills Eren to the brim with emotions he can’t even begin to convey with words.
And when you’ve had you’re fun, and made sure his hair is throughly clean and smells like apples, you take your body wash on the ball of his (his! his very own!) loofah, and scrub away at his back, down his shoulders, across his torso; and Eren can’t stop the tears from falling.
He realizes his must look bizzare, to be standing the middle of your shower, crying like a baby with soap and suds all over his body, but he can’t help himself.
“Eren? Baby, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, nothing,” he assures you, hiccuping between his words and sniffling away any more tears that threaten to fall. You don’t seem convinced, and once again, Eren feels his heart swell at just the sheer thought at you’d hold even an ounce of concern for him the way you do.
“You’re crying, Eren,” you point out, voice soft, but clearly concerned, as you reach your hands up to cup his face again, “Did I hurt you? What’s wr—”
Eren cuts you off by wrapping you in a hug, hoping—praying—you know that you could never hurt him. The two of you spend nearly five whole minutes like that, your arms wrapped around each other’s middles, with warm water pouring over your naked skin. Eren can feel you pressing shallow kisses into his chest, and he feels his heart physically swell every time your lips make contact with his skin.
It’s on the fifth, quiet press of your lips that Eren knows he can’t hold it in anymore; pulls away from your embrace to look you in your eyes.
“I love you,” he finally confesses, with wet hair stuck to his forehead, and teary eyes. It’s hardly a picture perfect moment, but Eren can’t bring himself to care; he needs you to know.
But, of course, you already did. “I know, Eren,” you say with a smile, kissing his chin, and then on the tips of your toes, his lips, “And I love you more.”
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libraford · 3 years
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I owe you all a story about kittens. But its about... a little more than kittens. It's a long one.
I want to tell you all about the kittens, which took place in 2019. But in order to do so, I have to take you back even further, to March of 2018, and concludes in 2021. Because it's about kittens, but it's also about business and all the things that can go wrong.
In March 2018, tragedy struck. The owner of the flower shop died unexpectedly, leaving the business to four capable managers. One of those managers was the man that had hired me, leaving a power vacuum at our location. Grandpa was not the first choice to take the lead, but she stepped up and she became manager. In my opinion, there was no better person for the role: she had only ever worked in the flower industry (assuming we're not counting the one week in 1976 when she worked at a pizza parlor,) and as such she knew the business inside and out.
Prior to this, she had taught all of the designers and practically ran the place when the boss was out, so it was the next logical step. And it was good.
Of course, we had our ups and downs. What I did not realize when I joined the flower shop is that the flower industry is volatile- there are so many variables that went into the creation of floral pieces and if there is one misstep you can be set back anywhere from a day to several thousand dollars. There are late deliveries, there are frightening brides, there are missing piñatas… van fires, flower snobs, color corrections, failed psychics, friends, enemies…
You can set the bar so very low and yet…
The rise and fall of drama at this particular flower shop could be dictated into hours and minutes because sometimes you need to hire people just to fill that space. Grandpa was on record by saying 'if they can walk, talk, and spell their name, hire them.' Even so, we were critically understaffed most of the time because if you hire anyone you're going to get a lot of quitters.
It's a tough cycle to break, and our power was limited.
And we had bigger fish to fry: we had an average of thirty funerals, two weddings, and well over six hundred deliveries per week. Business was booming and we just had to keep up- if you make it one week after the next it doesn't feel so bad.
By March of the following year, the four owners had whittled down to two: my former boss and the former webmaster. We had a district manager now, some kind of accounts position… things like that. It was kind of astonishing that before this, all the work had been done by a single man. But the secrets to his success had died with him.
Things were looking good, actually: the flower business was full of life! We were doing all kinds of special events, starting contracts with businesses and getting our name out there. Drama still plagued us, but as far as I'm aware, that's par for the course for flower shops.
Then, in May 2019, tragedy struck. A tornado ripped straight down the street of our headquarters, demolishing the greenhouse and the historical building that it all started in. No one was injured, but the damages were devastating. Despite all this, we kept working.
We worked hard. And hard. And hard.
And though the new warehouse wasn't slated to be finished until 2021, we reached an equilibrium where things were okay.
But before I get to that, I made a promise to you.
It was a hot day in August and I was walking into my closing shift at 10am. After two years of working with roughly the same people, you got to learning how to tell when something was happening. I walked in to everyone staring at me and acting 'natural.' It never looks natural.
In the back of the store, there was a box that Cherry was standing very purposely in front of.
"What's in the-"
"Sh!" Grandpa spied through the window in the cooler door as someone swung out with a purchase. "Did you find something you like," she asked the customer, trotting over to help him at the register.
"What's happening," I asked Blue.
"Nothings happening, it just kind of… happened."
"Blue… what does that MEAN?"
"There's a customer here, I can't talk about it."
I am bursting at the seams to know what's going on.
Grandpa fared the customer well and went back to her station behind the computer. "Open the box," she said.
Ominous, but okay. I go over to the box and Cherry steps aside. There's something moving inside the box and I wonder if Pam's daughter had folded herself into a box to ride out a panic attack again. I carefully opened the flaps of the box and accidentally disturbed the sleep of-
Four.
Tiny.
KITTENS!
Oh my god, it was the most adorable thing in the world and the poor things were screaming because they had only known the world for a few weeks and everything was strange and blurry and all they knew to do was cuddle for warmth and scream. The box consisted of two black kittens, one tuxedo kitten, and a white seal-point with terminal eye goop.
They immediately started climbing up my arm.
"Not that I'm not thrilled, but… why?"
"Stray cat left her babies out by my pond and wasn't just gonna leave the little fuckers," Grandpa said. The seal-point made it all the way up my shoulder to scream in my ear and stare at me with one clear blue eye. "That one's name is Pop-eye. He's my favorite."
"Jake doesn't get along with them," I surmised. Jake was Grandpa's Australian Shepherd. He was old, blind, deaf, and losing his sense of smell. And he was ornery.
"First thing he did was sit on Pop-eye. So they're gonna be at the shop during the day until we can get them all homed. Know anyone that needs a kitten?"
So, for awhile, we had shop cats. One of the all black twins had been claimed the very next day, but the rest of them were with us for some time. We got very good at feeding them all every hour on the hour and eventually they settled into accepting that 'mom' was seven different people.
In the meantime, we had to hide the three of them from visiting management.
This was not my first round with cat-related crimes.
The district manager, Puppet, was due to come for a visit any time that week. He was supposed to come once a month for a routine check in, and there were only ten days left in August. Likewise, we had to hide the kittens from the customers on the off chance that one of them was a secret shopper.
Backtracking once more to explain: the company had shelled out money to pay a third party to send secret shoppers to grade us on a rubric and also whatever they thought was appropriate. The grades were cleanliness, customer service, how knowledgeable we were of products, things like that. If we got above 90%, there would be a bonus in our next paycheck.
Sounds great, right?
The spies could decide that anything wasn't up to their standard. One woman went on and on about our 'black wall,' which was the outside of our cooler and I'm sorry but… that's not changing. There was a complaint that the table at the front used to showcase our bridal seemed out of place and odd. There dirt in the flower pots… where dirt goes. Corporate reads those comments.
So keeping the children out of sight of the customers and any visiting management became our priority.
'So just keep them in the break room,' I hear you, the reader, suggest.
If you've never owned cats, it is imperative for you to know that they are mostly comprised of spine, and only the smallest of openings will deter them from squeezing into parts unknown. Cats are semi-solids. Kittens are semi-solids with a sense of adventure and little tiny needles for fingernails.
And you can't just tape the box shut.
So… they got out. Well, two of them got out. The tuxedo awoke to find that her brothers had gone exploring without her and did the sensible thing, which was cry about it.
Mood.
I have named this cat Brood X Cicada. The black one can be named Abyss. I'm great at naming cats.
Lucky for us, they're only a few weeks old and walk kind of like little tin soldiers. It took all of five minutes to pry Pop-eye from a piece of Styrofoam and locate Abyss exploring an old toolbox. However, by the time I'm done cat collecting, Brood X Cicada had toddled off in search of her brothers and I'm out of hands to hold kittens in. I stuffed Abyss into my apron pocket and tried to save X from eating plastic.
It is at this moment that Cherry came in to tell me that Puppet the District Manager was on his way, and saw that I was helplessly juggling kittens. Abyss was climbing out of my pocket, eager to join his siblings in the high and exalted position that was my hands.
"We need these kittens out of here," I said. "Who hasn't been on lunch yet?"
Cherry dodged her head back into the workshop. "Hey Key, you been on lunch?" Pause. "You wanna go now?"
Key came into the back room and I handed her the box of kittens. "Take these, in your car. Go to burger King or something, I don't care. Puppet cannot see these. If anyone asks, you're on a route."
Key held the box and took a moment to appreciate the series of events that lead to her being handed a box of kittens in a 'Take this, don't ask questions' kind of matter.
Puppet was in the front door as Key was out the back and we successfully avoided a serious mistake. His visit was only an hour and she walked back in without anyone the wiser.
We made it through the big challenge, now to continue looking for homes for them. Ms. Crow found a friend of a friend of a friend that was excited to take Abyss from us. After some interrogating my friends, I found someone who knew someone who could take Pop-eye and Brood X Cicada. (They were renamed Hocus and Pocus.)
Grandpa cried for every single one of them that had to go. And I remembered my very first day of working there when she introduced herself as 'The Tinman.' What a liar, the softy.
Our days went on kitten-free, the management none the wiser.
It was December when I got the feeling that I should be taking photos of my work to build a portfolio. Something wasn't right, I felt. I couldn't say what it was that put me on edge, but I could only say that all was not well. I took photos of everything that I was proud of, and I was proud of a lot of things. By February, I had over fifty items that I could show off to a potential studio. And I thought- in March, I should start looking to see if other shops are hiring.
And in March 2020, tragedy struck. Our state went into lockdown on March 13, dictating that all non-essential businesses close and non-essential staff be laid off. There were two days where none of us knew what was happening, if we had jobs or if that job was safe.
They laid off all but three designers and Grandpa but kept most the drivers, changed our hours to 8-5, closed Sundays. Canceled weddings. No walk-ins. The three designers were Blue, Red, and me.
Blue was worried about her children. She resigned.
Red's wife was worried about him and harassed him into quitting.
And then there was one.
There's a series of poems I wrote in my journal about being an essential worker during lockdown. There's adorable little doodles of skeletons around the margins, festooned with flowers. They all go something like this:
We are the Skeleton Crew.
We once were seven but now are two
We don't know what to do
So we just work, work, work.
Many may wonder how a flower shop would be considered an essential business. The answer is funerals. We were allowed to remain open because of our relationship with the funeral industry. And sad to say: the industry was booming.
And I did all of it. I made every spray, every 'get well soon' vase, every 'happy quarantine' bouquet. I called angry brides to see if they could postpone, I dealt with everyone's grief and uncertainty.
All the flowers that arrived at US Customs through Italy were destroyed because we didn't know whether coronavirus was transmitted through physical contact and there's no way to sanitize flowers. Not without killing them.
It was me and Grandpa. That was it. Ten funerals a day, and everything else. Flowers were more important than ever: you couldn't be there, so you sent flowers. And flowers and flowers and flowers…
I couldn't leave now. I was important, I was needed.
The work became overwhelming for both of us and we began hiring back some of our staff. Some came back right away, bored out of their skulls having to spend time at home. Can't relate. Key never responded, Cherry was pregnant and shouldn't be out of the house.
Dandy came back, Kali came back, Astra came back. Eventually, Blue. After a month of just me and Grandpa, there was almost a full crew and it was enough for us to get through an average week. It took us a month on our bare knuckles but we finally weren't shouldering the responsibility of seven people.
But we still didn't know jack shit about the future there.
In May, the 'economy opened up,' which is a strategic way of saying that people got tired of never leaving the house and stores were pressured to open back up again before a vaccine was released under threat of… you know what? This isn't a story about how America responded to the coronavirus poorly and you can probably find a better thinkpiece about it written by someone with facts and feelings if you want to squeeze yourself behind a pay wall.
This is about workers rights and kittens, two things that are far more important than the economy.
We got 'Hero Pay,' which was two dollars extra per hour and damn did I grasp onto that with the tendons in my wrists. I had never been paid $12 an hour for anything in my life. They started talking about permanent raises, and benefits, 401K, pregnancy leave… and I started thinking… maybe I could stay. Maybe I can stay here for awhile and it won't be so bad now that I'm getting paid actual human wages. Maybe it will be okay.
Life returned to an uneasy normal while we navigated mask laws, sanitation regulations, safety screens, and daily temperature checks. There are stories to tell about some less than great customers we'd had as people realized that they weren't coping with the pandemic as well as they thought, but they deserve their own entries.
We had a revolving door of open positions. If it wasn't a designer it was a driver or both. People weren't ready to come back to work yet but we still had a business to run. People asked if they could perform this job remotely. I'm not sure how one does flowers from home.
It was August when we started feeling the roots of our problems seep into the foundation.
Grandpa's pride and joy was her funerals. She had spent thirteen years building a relationship with the funeral homes in the area to make sure they trust us and our work. If anything was wrong, even a hair out of place, they knew they could call us and have it fixed before the visitation.
"We want unity across the board on our products," Puppet said. "If you're doing the sprays one way and others don't look the same, it doesn't look very good for Oldman Funeral Home, which has locations in all our cities, does it?" He swept his bangs out of his eyes, which was strange tell but we weren't sure for what.
"Okay," Grandpa said. "Schedule a time for me to go down and I'll teach them the way we do them."
"Okay, then."
She went down, prepared to show the crew in the warehouse what 40 years in the business was capable of, only to be met with a strange kind of resistance.
Their head designer greeted her and immediately started instructing her on how he makes sprays. Grandpa, confused, blinked at him with no words. When he was finished, she picked up her clippers and began making her own.
"That's not how we do it," he said. She was met with criticism after criticism. "That's not enough flowers, you're putting them in wrong, you're still making it one-sided. Why did you put the bow there, this looks nothing like our products."
She stood back after his barrage of blows to the ego. "I guess I'm a little confused."
"I'll say."
"Am I teaching you or are you teaching me?"
"I'm teaching you," he said. "Since they're going to all be made here from now on, they want me to show you how we make them in case of emergency."
She let that simmer. "That's not what I was told."
"You didn't think you were supposed to show me how you do it, did you? That doesn't make any sense. Why would we want to look like yours?"
"Oh, I dunno… maybe because we've kept up 30 accounts for 13 years and your location just lost your very last one because you can't make their delivery times and they're across the damn street."
This was how we learned that corporate was planning on taking our funerals from us.
Funerals were something I was immensely proud of. My ability to turn out a thousand dollar funeral order with limited stock was a subject of envy. I could take a phone order, make the flowers, and the deliver it all by myself within an hour. I was good. We were all good. And we trained anyone that stayed longer than two months how to do this because we wanted every person to be able to fix any problem.
And they wanted to take that away from us.
And they did. Because who was going to stop them?
'But what does that matter to you,' I hear you, the reader, ask. 'Surely this meant less work for you!'
Ah, but for the sprays to get to us, they had to come on a truck. Making them in-house meant that we knew we had them. We had to put our trust in corporate to deliver the goods to us by 7 am or we would have to make them day of.
There were days when the truck didn't come, or where only half the pieces were delivered, or a spray got left in the workshop an hour away. At least once a week, often more.
But you know… we adapted. You just schedule more openers to make sure no one is doing it alone and hope to God that you have all the flowers you need to make it. Which you could never anticipate how many flowers you would actually need because them taking our funerals was supposed to reduce the amount of stock flowers we got as well.
Mornings were nightmares, but we adapted.
Another visit, Puppet told Grandpa that she should get all weekends off. All the other managers do. He suggested that I learn to run routes so she can have weekends, and I said okay. I'll learn it.
I got real acquainted with the map of Ohio, and I hated it. I was a weekend manager with no real managerial power. If someone needed a refund, I had to write a note for Grandpa to email the accounts manager because she wouldn't take requests from anyone that wasn't a manager. Everything just waited until Monday. What was the point of me? I couldn't design while managing and I couldn't fix what was broken, so why even have a weekend manager? Let the animals loose in the zoo and it probably would have been a better fit.
But I powered through. I adapted.
Throughout all this, spreadsheets. Spreadsheets, spreadsheets, spreadsheets. Completely pointless spreadsheets that we were bound to fill out all day every day. They had simple purposes: inventory. You filled one out to take count of the specials so you knew how many there were. Then you had to count again to put them in the system so that they knew how much we had. Then you had to go back and count them again and put that number in the computer so they knew how much to make and send tomorrow.
I spent an hour each day counting and recounting the flowers in the far-off and futile hope that the counts would remain accurate to the end of the day (which they did not because the call center consistently used the wrong codes) and that the stock would be replenished properly in the morning (it was not.)
An hour was lost each day to this and it accomplished nothing, yet they always yelled at Grandpa if the counts were off or it was late. Why stress a system that does jack shit?
And every time there was a new feature or there was a new… thing, oh look! Another goddamned redundant spreadsheet that served no purpose.
But we adapted. We created a rhythm.
Show up early at 6:30 to make sure everything got in, make everything that didn't, get the drivers routed, pull routes for the third party deliveries, process same-day orders, data entry for the funeral consolidated. Then at 7, when the phones start ringing…
Okay, so before I forget:
Instead of installing a new phone line and hiring a few more call center people like a normal company would, our headquarters decided it would save us money if call overflow rerouted to the next available phone line, regardless of which location the phone was at. So we would get calls for the Kentucky store asking questions about what that store has and for the sake of preserving confidence in our brand we were supposed to pretend that we were the Kentucky store. We're just supposed to know or assume to know what each store had in stock because there's no way that could ever backfire.
It was… another thing to yell at us for. And boy did they, because they were listening in on our calls. Not to like… coach us on how to do better, but to tell us we were wrong. Sometimes they would call one of us on the other line to tell someone currently on the main one that they said something wrong. They also would straight up lie and scold us for calls we didn't take. The phones system, was simply a mess.
...so when the phones started up at 7am, and one person is designing, one person is taking unending phone orders, Grandpa is doing damage control. By 8, we have most of last nights orders figured out and it's time to start on same day orders and tomorrow's orders. It's too early to do inventory now because they'll yell at us for doing it too early.
By 9 we have our second wave of same day orders and next day orders, the rest of the world realizes we're open and starts walking in. That requires the attention of an entire person. We're at this point also taking out trash, breaking down boxes, disinfecting, sweeping the cooler.
Typically, there were only two openers on any given day, which meant most of this was all being handled by Blue or me.
By 10 we've caught up, we can do the inventory now without getting yelled at by the four heads at corporate. We're on route #3 by now and someone probably had to go to the same place twice because the orders came in late.
At 11, a crisis has probably happened. Something dropped, something wilted, something wasn't what they imagined. Someone has to go fix it, and that someone was usually me because I knew my way around town better than the other transplants.
This typically returned me to the shop around 1pm, which meant it was time for lunch, bringing me to 2. 3 o'clock was the cutoff for any next day orders to be sent to corporate, which meant that if there were any funeral orders taken for the morning, they would have to be made in-house. This included sprays, which takes half an hour to an hour depending on how complicated it was and if we had the materials and how much else we needed to make for the next day. Or how busy we were.
There was always something called in at the last minute, taking us to 4 and then 5 o'clock, when the openers went home and the same-day orders were cut off.
But see, that was when we stopped taking orders, not when we stopped processing orders. So if an order was placed for the same day at 4:59, it may not go through until 5:30. And by 5:30, chances are you've sent your drivers home for the day. Which means calling the customer to apologize and explain why something can't be sent out today, and no one wants to hear that they fucked up by sending it out late.
So, on more than one occasion, I had to personally deliver flowers on my way home from work in my personal car, thirty minutes out of my way because if we miss a delivery by God will we hear about it. And it was always some damn $25 arrangement with 'God Loves You' written on the tag, hardly worth the gas to Johnstown.
The irony of it being delivered by the witch was lost on no one.
If that didn't happen and the screen was clear, the night was easy and all we had to do was clean up and watch the door.
Unless a last minute order for the next day came in, which was about half the time. All of this for $11 an hour. (Once they got rid of the Hero Pay, it went back down to $11.)
That was an average, unexciting day for us. You got used to those kinds of stresses, but every day I came home and I was so tired and sore that I couldn't move. I started walking with a cane, had a low-grade fever most days, and my hands looked like I'd taken to them with a cheese grater.
But I powered through. I adapted.
Then it was December. The owners had always been generous with Christmas bonuses, handing everyone an envelope of cash. Mine was $500. This was the largest amount of cash that anyone had ever handed me (feel bad for me later.)
And then it was Grandpa's turn, but there were no envelopes left. It had to be a mistake, she thought. She didn't get paid very much for all the work she put into the shop, so she was counting on that bonus to buy presents for her grandchildren. It… it… had to be a mistake, right?
"I didn't get a bonus," she said. "I thought the accountability didn't take effect until January," she said to Puppet.
Before he opens his mouth again, I have to explain yet another thing.
In September, there was a meeting. Now that we were working on benefits and bonus programs and other things to make sure the staff stays, they needed to put in accountability measures for the managers. Effective January 1, managers are reflected by the income of their store, the number of returns, accidents in company vehicles, and high turnover rates.
Pick one of those attributes and decide its bullshit to begin with, and I'm about to show you the entire steer.
"We had to make an example of someone," he said. "So that the other managers know we're serious."
She was being personally punished for a car wreck that happened in 2019 even though she fired the guy that was in it. We had too many returns, he said, but most of them were sent to us from corporate. She was personally held responsible for the high turnover rate during an economic crisis AND a goddamned pandemic… because they needed to make an example out of someone.
And her grandkids didn't get presents this year because of it.
She cried. The last time I saw her cry was when we were saying goodbye to the kittens. It's not the same.
But she got up every day and listened to them scream at her while we counted and counted and recounted the fucking Christmas specials because the numbers weren't right and we couldn't make them right because someone in the call center couldn't figure out the codes and in their eyes it was our fault, too- we had to be stealing the flowers or something.
"It sucks and then its over," she said. It was how she dealt with holidays: "It sucks and then its over."
We were all angry for her. I got asked to go to the headquarters and help them mass produce more fucking specials and I offered the beat them up for her and she told me not to get involved. Head down, do the work, get it done.
One of the call center girls died of a heart attack a few days before I was due to help them mass. We were supposed to go to her funeral, but we all missed it because there was so much work to do.
Wait, let me back up… again. The company gave us all life insurance. The number we were quoted on our life insurance policy was $10,000, which seems like a lot but in the funeral business it's not. Your average funeral will eat up most of that, if not all. It's very expensive to die right now.
At least… we all thought it was $10k. I was certainly told $10k.
Turns out it was $1k, which isn't enough to buy you a box for your remains. The call center crew ended up crowdsourcing the rest- she didn't have much family.
And none of us could go to the funeral because we were working.
I worked two twelve hour shifts in that warehouse making the same goddamn centerpiece over and over again while a Frenchman in a scarf told me I was doing it wrong, while everyone was grieving on a time crunch.
I really should have beaten them up.
But we got through Christmas, for what it was worth. We found Grandpa some sales that she could get gifts from and we all worked together to make sure we were okay through it. I mean, we weren't- it was blind leading the blind. But we tried.
And then it ended. "It sucks and then its over," she'd always say.
And into January we go and we're back into the stupidity of trying to fight with hq about funerals. I'm constantly told that if we needed certain things we should have ordered them.
I… did. I did. I ordered everything we needed every damn day and it still never came because the left hand and the right hand can't even coordinate enough to pull off a high-five. But it can't be their fault. It has to be Grandpa's somehow.
Now during the week of Christmas, Grandpa had to take an extra day off because she got sick. It wasn't Covid, thank goodness. I can imagine it was a stress-related issue, but it's not my business. Due to the holiday, this put her at under 40 hours for the week.
So they paid her hourly.
...which is extremely illegal to do to a salaried employee, especially one that works way more than 40 hours a week with no overtime.
And then they told her that she'd already lost her quarterly bonus because of a fender-bender that happened on my watch, and because she lost 39 employees last quarter.
I write everything down. I keep a journal. I cannot find 39 employees, even going back the entire year… during a pandemic. They have to be making this up. They have to be because there is no way they can hold the dude that was fired for literally sleeping in the men's room against her.
And I was close to just telling them all that… when my grandma died.
I'm not getting into it, really. Because you know… she was 96 years old and… it happens. It's sad, but it happens. But the relevant point to make is that I was given an… inheritance. It wasn't a lot. Grandma wasn't loaded. But it would be enough for me to keep afloat for awhile if I ever needed to.
When I told my girlfriend, she said: 'you could quit your job.'
And I didn't want to think about that because the flower shop needed me. I was important there. I was special. And Valentine’s Day was just around the corner.
But I was thinking about it. I thought about it every day.
A week before Valentines Day, Grandpa was inconsolable. She had to leave work because her dog, Jake, wouldn't stop bleeding. She needed to get him to the vet.
Two hours pass and Blue gets a message asking her to come help her move the dog. Grandpa lives alone and she's not very strong.
Blue doesn't like dogs. She was bitten by one the first time she ever made a delivery.
And I am known for exceptional physical strength. So I went.
When I arrived, Grandpa was a mess. I had never seen her cry so much, and it wouldn't stop. And I was trying to be strong, but it's hard. Jake was still alive, but bleeding. He was confused and upset, and blind and deaf. He barked, he growled, and he lunged… but always pulled back when his legs buckled from the pain.
I had her grab a blanket and we rolled him onto it, using that to lift him. He thrashed and growled and snapped at me while we walked him towards the door, but he wasn't getting out of the wrap we had him in.
As we're out the door, I noticed a man at the neighboring house. He raised his hand in greeting, but lowered it in confusion.
"Grandpa, is it alright if I get him to come help while you bring the car around?"
The best she could do was nod.
"Yeah, sorry, to bug you but can I ask for a little help here?" He looks at what we're doing and drops his trash can lid to come help. "Yeah, just take that end there and we're gonna ease him into the car when she comes around."
He nodded, took the ends, and we tucked a very confused Jake into the back seat. I thanked the neighbor, Grandpa sped off, and I went back to work feeling extremely odd about it.
That was the first time that I'd ever met the dog: on his way to be put down.
I know it seems weird to tell that story, but there's a reason. Part of it is symbolic. Part of it has to do with kittens. But we're not there just yet.
So now it's February and it is crunch time for Valentine’s Day. We have no earthly idea what this holiday is going to look like because past experiences have us anticipating a large number of walk ins, but state regulations have put a limit of six customers inside the store at any one time. We were never given any… instructions on how to enforce that rule, so we just kind of vaguely set out roles for who has to be the bouncer at the flower shop.
But before all of that, we had to make 275 two-dozen red rose arrangements in bowls. Based on our sales last year and general growth, we were expecting something close to five hundred deliveries on our busiest day. If I wasn't making them, I was counting them. And I was counting, and I was counting, and I was counting… every hour, just like it was at Christmas. We used up every single red rose in the place and came up short.
To which we were scolded: we must have used the roses they sent us for other orders because there was no way the error could have been on their end! Their inventory was impervious to mistakes. Somewhere between the warehouse and our store, twenty-five packs of roses went missing! And why is it only our store that has these problems? Clearly it must be our fault- a store full of thieves and liars and delinquents.
They ended up sending more just because… you know… they care. I guess.
And every hour, they needed a number of something and I counted, and counted and counted…
I think it was February 8 that I started crying every day. When I slept I was stiff as a board because I made so many mistakes throughout the day that the idea of coming to work the next day just to make more mistakes made me lock up entirely. There was no way to relax. There was no winding down from a hard day of work because my body could not move anymore.
I felt like I was made of splintering wood.
I had a dream around this time that I quit my job. I was so happy. I thought about it almost every hour.
So I stayed out of the way at work, picking up cleaning projects because at least there I could be useful and it was dark enough in the cooler that if I started crying no one had to see it.
That cooler was so clean. I wouldn't recommend eating off of it because I used an entire bottle of bleach to clean the floor.
If we're not counting the constant barrage of demands from corporate to count, count, count; Valentine’s Day was worryingly uneventful. Previous holidays were chaotic: filling the requests of the most desperate and clueless men with deep pockets and expensive tastes. Corralling the temporary drivers and make sure no one gets into any crashes or… uh...tries to sell unregulated merchandise from their trunks. Trying to decide what "Malibu Barbie Pink" meant for that one customer who comes in every six months and orders it but has rejected every color pink on the spectrum that our store has ever offered.
On this one… nothing important happened.
We were… slow.
Grandpa started sending people home early because there weren't many orders. We ran out of projects to do.
Sounds great, right?
...heh…
Corporate would like to know why our store is under projected sales by over 200, as if we have any say in how many people buy from us. Like we personally called all our typical customer base and told them not to come to this store. "Yes, hello Mrs. Penderghast? I'm sorry we can't fill your Valentine's Day order this year because we suck balls and don't want your business. Have a nice weekend. Say hi to the grandkids for me."
I don't… fucking KNOW! I don't work in PR! I'd ask the people in that department if they know what happened but… that's the owners. So who really is the fuckup here? Not me, that's for fucking certain! I cleaned the cooler. That's all I did all weekend was clean the Gods damned cooler because there wasn't enough work to go around so I made work for myself.
And then: "Why are the counts off," asked Mt. Rushmore. See, we called them that because between the owners, Puppet, and the head designer we had four white men looking down at us while we did all the work and built their success on the backs of their forefathers. Well… to me it was anyway. To everyone else it was four dudes that looked down on you.
"Why are the counts off?"
Oh, the COUNTS are off? Well, let me just drop everything I'm doing right now and count them for the third time in the past hour because that takes fucking priority.
"There's 95 specials missing from your inventory. Where are they?"
...okay, 95 is a lot. But it was also kind of hard to know how they were 'missing' when we'd sold all of the 275 that we made. How can they be missing if we sold them.
"We need to know where they are."
We don't know where they are. Because we sold all of them. The math didn't add up.
But they hounded us about it like we'd stolen them and resold them on the street corner. Which, to their defense, had happened once (but Sugar stopped doing that when her corner was taken over by the woman who accused Jay of being a demon.) But 95 is a huge number, and these arrangements were a foot wide and two feet tall. Someone would have noticed if a 100x200 foot square opened up in the cooler.
We literally could not know what the fuck they were talking about.
And the truth was extremely stupid: those 95 pieces were redeliveries. When someone has an issue with their order, like it didn't come or it was left out in the snow and got damaged or… someone put the name of their ex on the card instead of their wife… we send a replacement. But depending on who took the phone call, a person might use the wrong code and put it in for 'redeliver' instead- which counts it as another order.
We weren't missing 95 arrangements. We had 95 redeliveries. They hounded us about inventory for two days over a clerical error.
I decided I'd had it. We were going on a full week of crying every time I had a moment alone. They had made us feel like everything that went wrong was our fault: from low turnout to high turnover, missed deliveries and trashed sprays, lost accounts and new grievances…
But did they ever say a Gods damned thing about how hard we worked? How good we were? About how great a team we were under pressure? We once pulled together an entire wedding in fifteen minutes. My ass carried this store through the pandemic. I have done… so much.
So fucking much.
And yet it's our fault.
I had been reasoning with myself that I would stick around for the aftermath when Grandpa was eventually fired: we'd all felt it was coming. But I got that little bit of cash and all my joints were screaming and every time we got negative feedback a part of me died.
The following Tuesday had seen a massive snowstorm. Things that weren't already closed due to the pandemic were closed due to weather.
But we still had to be there. Because someone had to be there to make all the funeral pieces.
Because there wouldn't be a truck the next day, which meant that all of the funeral pieces that we'd sent to the headquarters needed to be made in-house. Which, once again, could have been avoided if we had kept the funeral orders in-house to begin with.
I waited until everyone had cleared out before I said it.
"Grandpa, I have to quit."
I don't think anyone ever looked so disappointed in me in my life.
"Why?"
"The way they treat people here is terrible and I can't see myself doing another Mother's Day for this company. They're so… mean! And for no damn reason! I have cried every day for the past week because I see the way they treat you and I'm… I'm tired."
I thought she was going to cry, but she nodded. "I can't stop you," she said. "I shouldn't stop you. If it's affecting your mental health like this, I'll miss you but its for the best. You know they'll want a written notice."
"And you know I'll tell them the truth," I said.
"...it's not me, is it?"
"If I worked for just you and those fuckers were out of the picture, I would stay. And you can count on me to tell them that."
"Any flower shop you apply to would be lucky to have you."
So I drafted up a resignation letter telling them exactly how I feel: that the way they run this company was asinine and they treated their employees like garbage. They received it on Thursday. Everyone at the shop knew by then. They were upset…
...but they understood.
Puppet did not understand. He emailed Grandpa asking her what she's doing that her people keep leaving.
He didn't see it. He didn't see that he was part of the problem. It always had to be someone else's fault. I explicitly said in my letter whose fault it was and he still didn't take any responsibility.
But suddenly I'm one of their best designers, and he begged me to reconsider, take some time off to think about it. They desperately wanted me to stay and they were willing to bargain, I just needed demands.
No one's ever… begged me before. I don't know if I like that.
This is when it dawned on me that I was next in line. It all made sense now: training me to route, making me do all the extra work, and now they want me to stay?
They were planning on getting rid of Grandpa and promoting me to manager. In a perfect world where Grandpa resigns willingly and I’m promoted on my merits as a designer and the company wasn’t very quickly circling the drain, I would be excited. But I wasn’t. I was frightened. I watched them take a confident, extremely talented woman and turn her into the whipping boy of the flower shop. And if I were in her position, I would have quit. But I don’t have the strength to stand up to the people that are signing my paycheck.
Why… am I at a place where the idea of moving upward makes me more scared than excited?
Flattering, but no. I've seen how you treat your people. My demands are to treat them better.
It was the longest week for me: making lists of pros and cons. I had made a lot of friends there and there's stuff that I will never forget. But the fact that the only people who didn't understand why I was leaving were the people who had the most to lose really hit me in the knees. I could tell them every day for the rest of their lives why they suck and it wouldn't matter because nothing was ever their fault.
And at 7:00 on Friday, I turned in my key.
I didn't have a plan, I didn't have anything lined up. This was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make and I was just kind of… throwing myself at it.
I don't do that. I always have a plan. I look into every possible scenario and I try to make the smart choice. And this time…
I didn't.
It was probably stupid.
But I slept for 12 hours the next night and I could feel my bones settling into their rightful places. I didn't realize how many health problems were caused by standing for 9 hours a day, 11 days a week until I was home all the time to notice them changing. I will always have a limp from trying to pretend I don't have a limp. I'm pretty sure that ulcer is chronic. But my back isn't seizing up and I don't cry every day anymore.
That's something, I think.
About a week after my departure, I got a text from Grandpa that said:
"Hey guess what."
"What," I replied.
The next text was a picture of a week's old seal-point kitten with terminal eye-goo, wrapped in a towel.
"Pop-eye!?"
"I'm keeping this one," she said. The strays had dropped a litter of identical baby kittens by her pond. Two years later, with Jake put down, she could finally have Pop-eye, even if it was version 2.0.
The next text was a few days later. "Puppet fired me."
"What!? Why?"
"Too many accidents, too high turnaround. The new people suck, he says no one wants to work with me."
"Are you okay? How are you doing?"
"I'm okay." She paused and the loading screen did its little dot dance. "I'm playing with my kitten."
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cinnamonrusts · 4 years
Text
sparda twins -- reactions
The Sparda twins reactions that you're pregnant with not just one, but two of their children.
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DANTE-
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You paced the bathroom several times as you gnawed on your thumbnail. Your eyes did not leave the plastic stick that was sitting on the edge of the sink near the toilet. The packaging read that results would be ready in five minutes, but the wait had it feeling like five hours.
Dante had left on a run for some take out and you knew that it was all the way across town, so it left you some free time to figure out your "little" situation. You hadn't told him anything. How could you? The two of you were not in an exactly "family friendly" business. Last thing Dante would need to worry about was a mini Sparda.
You had enough of waiting and snatched the test from the counter. Your eyes narrowed as they fixated on the single horizontal pink line, but widened when it turned into a plus. The blood in your body ran cold and your throat grew dry. It was as if the + sign mocked you and your stomach felt sick. You knew it would happen, Dante called himself the pull out king. Yeah - fucking - right, and this proved him to be very wrong.
The evidence needed to be disposed of, so you wrapped it several times in some toilet paper and shoved it in the trash can. Dante hardly took the trash out and it would be unlikely that he would decide to scour the garbage, so you felt safe. Now all you would have to do is just keep it a secret until you decided how to approach it.
It didn't last long and soon Nico was on the other end of the phone. She let out a happy, "'Eller!" but was greeted by a loud sob along with unintelligible babble. "Woah! Woah! [Y/N], you gotta repeat yourself. I couldn't make out a damn thing! You okay?" the brunette asked, concerned. "I'M PREGNANT!" your sobs now made sense. "Oh, shit," she replied. "Yeah, oh shit is right."
"Did you tell Dante yet?"
You scoffed, "No. I don't think I can," as you spoke on the phone in the kitchen, your eyes fixed on a photo on the fridge of you and your devil hunter boyfriend. The two of you looked so happy and Dante's smile was so bright, the vibes that radiated from the picture kind of gave you some assurance. Maybe Dante would react well to the news and maybe he'd give the same smile of glee at the idea of being a father.
"But you're going to have to at some point. How you goin' to explain a giant belly here in a few months?" Nico was right, there was no way around it. You pinched the bridge of your nose and closed your eyes tight, "Could you maybe -- I dunno, take me to the doctor?" Nico replied, "I'll be there in a jiff!"
Just as you hung up, Dante walked in with two large bags that smelled of Chinese food. "Food is here and beer is in the fridge!" he waddled into the kitchen and his happy expression turned to one of concern when he noticed you looked upset. "Hey, darlin', you alright?" he set the bags down on the floor and slid to your side, his arms around your waist. His musk along with the heavy smell of greasy Chinese food almost threw you over the edge and caused you to gag. You placed your hand on his chest to prevent him from getting closer. His brows furrowed as he tried to understand what was wrong but the loud horn of Nico's van interrupted. "I'm going out with Nico. I'll be back," you brushed past him, grabbed your coat, and dashed out the door.
You were able to take a breath once you jumped into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut. Your head rested on the back of the seat and your eyes closed, "Thanks for the ride." Nico placed a hand on your thigh and nodded, "No problem, girlfriend."
Several hours passed and you weren't home yet. Dante's mind raced with different things he could've done to make you so upset. Was it because he hadn't taken the trash out? He would do that soon. Was it because he hadn't shown his appreciation for you relationship lately? He would go tonight to get you some flowers. So, the man did just that. Dante took the overflowed trash out. Then he made sure to hurry, so, that he would be home before you. Dante chose a bouquet of white roses and a goofy card. The card had two hot dogs on the front who held hands with smiles on their faces. It read, "Hot dog! You make me happy!" Dante got a kick out of it and figured you would too. The devil hunter wrote a quick, cheesy blurb in a scribbled mess and signed with his name plus a heart.
He opened the door and was surprised to see you in a chair near the entrance. You seemed to be in a trance and were startled by Dante’s sudden appearance. “I got you these!” he handed his gifts over but his happiness was dropped when you didn’t seem very happy to receive them.
“Dante, I have something I need to tell you.” you found it hard to keep your eyes on his. “Well, here it goes---,” your nose inhaled, then exhaled deeply, “I’m pregnant.”
Dante’s face was void of emotion before he burst into laughter. You grew angry and your facial expressions matched it. “That’s a good one, babe. Whew!,” he clapped his hands and winced a bit with his hand on his side, “Ow! That laugh made me pull a muscle.”
“I’m serious, Dante. I’m pregnant.” you reiterated. “With --- emotion?” he asked as his eyes shifted side to side.
“What? No! With a baby!”
Once Dante heard it for the third time, he realized it all. He was going to be a father and you were going to be the one who would usher in another lineage of the Sparda bloodline. Dante rushed to your side and took a knee as he kneeled beside you. His palm immediately made its way to your stomach as he pictured the life that was within. “Hey there, little buddy.” You cleared your throat into a closed fist which drew his attention to your face. Your right hand raised slowly and you twiddled your two first fingers in the air with a small smile.
That same grin that shined in the photo on your fridge grew across his lips. Both of his hands grabbed either side of your lower torso and he stared at your stomach. “You mean, there’s two of me in there?!” His expressions were warm and overjoyed, relief crashed over you as this situation turned out better than you thought. 
“I’m gonna really need to get outta debt.”
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VERGIL-
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Your body spoke to you and told you that something was going on. Every morning you felt ill and you could devour anything in sight until nausea overtook you. Lady asked if there was any possibility that you could be pregnant. A snort left your nostrils, “Impossible. Vergil and I don’t have sex enough for that to happen.” your mate was normally not home, you often slept in an empty bed more than one occupied by his strong body. But anytime he was, the act of intimacy could tear the walls down of his brother’s building. He was a focused and controlled man, he knew what he needed to do to prevent another child in his life. You were okay with that, your job was not one that was prime for being a parent. So, there was no doubt in your mind that this was nothing but a simple stomach bug.
“I don’t know, all your symptoms point to it, [Y/N]. Maybe you should take a test,” she attempted to reason with you and you eventually gave in.
The entire time you played it off as just something you did for Lady so that she would get off your back about it. You sat on the closed toilet lid and held the test loosely in between your fingers. The box read that it would take about ten minutes for a result, so you avoided looking at it until roughly around that. But your heart dropped into your stomach when the test did not read negative, but positive. “Shit --- Lady was right.” your cursed and your head dropped between your knees as your mind raced.
Vergil just found out that he had a son, Nero, and now you would throw him the information that he would have now an infant on the way. It was a conversation that you did not want to have. Vergil was a reserved man who did not show you his emotions often or expressed them publicly. You knew he loved you but it took quite sometime for him to open up to you about the fact. He put back his one track set mind toward power and made you a priority in his life. However, he had issues with being around his brother, son, and the other’s -- so he often went off on his own. You learned that this was something he wanted and you did not want to force yourself to go with him always. 
So, this news would not be easy to break to him when he would return in about a week. With the test clenched in your hand, you opened the door to leave the bathroom to only be greeted by Lady who was leaned against the walls with arms crossed. “So, what’s the prognosis?” she pushed herself from the wall and followed you as you pushed past her. You tossed the test into the air with your fingers and she caught it, “What do you think?” you answered before she was able to see for herself. The female was shocked to see that she was correct but didn’t want to say that she told you so.
You were about to slam your room door shut but her boot stopped it, “What’re you going to tell Vergil?” Your back was turned toward her and you faced the window as you observed the rain that pattered against the window. “Fuck if I know. How do you tell someone like him that he’s going to be a father... again.” Lady was silent, you turned on your heels to face her, “Exactly.”
Lady took your hand in hers and gave you a comforting smile, “Hey, he won’t be home for like what-- another week? Let’s get you to the doctor, we’ll figure something out.” You smiled faintly in return, “You’re a hell of a lady, Lady,” she batted her eyelashes, “Oh, I know.~”
A Week Later --
Lady was in your room with you and the door was closed, the two of you spoke of your plan of how you would drop the bomb on your half demon boyfriend.
“Do you really think Vergil will accept it?” you asked just as the white haired man opened the door, “Accept what?” he asked coolly. Lady closed her mouth and first looked at Vergil, then to you, “I’ll just let you guys have some alone time,” she slinked past the Sparda man and closed the door behind her. His gaze never left you and his strong features were unmoved.
You attempted to embrace him as you wrapped your arms around his neck but he gave you a slight push away before you could place a kiss on his cheek. “Will you tell me what you were talking about?” You bit your lower lip and hesitated to confess to him. Vergil took hold of your chin with his fingertips, “Speak.”
You swallowed hard, his blue eyes did not waver and they were just so beautiful that you couldn’t hold it in any longer. “I’m --- pregnant,” you whispered. It was like time moved to slow motion, Vergil observed each syllable that came from your lips. Pregnant? Pregnant. Pregnant.
 A twitch in Vergil’s furrowed brows caught your attention, it proceeded to twitch several times before he closed his eyes and released his grip on your chin. “How?” You shrugged, “I thought we were careful every time, even with our more adventurous hookups.” He didn’t speak and just listened, “Why?”
“Why?” you repeated, “That’s what happens, Vergil. I can’t really make it anymore clear.” As per usual, you couldn’t read him and his thoughts were a mystery to you.
“So, I’ll be a father once again. At least I’m currently aware of this one.” he sighed.
“Two,” you interjected. It was as if you could see his ears perk up when you mentioned a number higher than he assumed. “Two? Another set of Sparda twins...” he was quiet before you could see a small smile on his lips. Vergil called for you to come to him, which you obeyed.
He wrapped his right arm around your upper half. His left hand rested on your stomach with a loved filled touch. His chin rested on top of your head as he imagined what they looked like and what life would be like in several months.
He thought to himself, maybe -- just maybe -- he truly deserved a happy life, despite all the things he had done. He now felt a stronger urge to want to be around you, the babies, and even Dante more. 
“Do I deserve this happiness, [Y/N]?” 
Your hand rested on his that was still on your stomach, “Of course. You always have.”
540 notes · View notes
uncpanda · 3 years
Note
hello! if your head cannons are still open, how about “being spencer reid’s older sibling” 🧐 thanks for your wonderful writing! 💖
I actually, really love this idea, and part of me wants to turn it into a fic? Not sure if I will, but the gears are turning. 
Warning: Parentification, references to episodes, and hospital stuff, divorce. 
You are around five years old when Spencer is born. Your mom hadn’t had her schizophrenic break yet. She has it shortly after you’re born. Spencer is an accident, a blessing, but an accident. You love him from the moment you see him; he’s your baby. That’s what you say. William tries to correct you. 
As things get worse with your mom and dad it becomes more and more true though. By the time he’s five and you’re ten you handle a lot of things for him. Even on her medication, your mom is a little scatterbrained, and your dad is absent. 
You cry for several days when your dad leaves, and Spencer doesn’t let you out of his sight. You tend to most of Spencer’s emotional needs after that; hugs and cuddles and tucking him in at night. 
Your brother is a boy genius. That means you get into some fights defending him. You’re smart yourself, but you’re not a child prodigy. You protest when your mom sends Spence to high school mainly because you know kids are going to be mean. 
You walk him to most of his classes and you even share a few with him. He eats lunch with you and your friends, and he becomes their adopted baby brother too. It provides him with a little extra protection. 
When someone tells him that he’s ruining your life by being there. He goes silent and avoids you for several days. When you find out, you yell at the person and dress them down in front of the entire school. You get detention. It was worth it. 
You graduate together. He goes off to Cal-tech, and you go to a school nearby. His school puts you in an apartment together. Your college years are spent studying and making sure Spencer doesn’t burn out. He has a PHD by the time your first four years are done. He gets several more as you move into your chosen work field. 
When he tells you he’s joining the FBI you freeze a little bit. Because Spence is your kid. You’ve protected him for this long, and you can’t protect him there. Plus your job is here . . .and Spence sees it. the war in your eyes as you quickly move into planning out where to go. He takes your hand and reassures you, “I’ll be okay. It’s time . . . it’s time for you to have a life of your own.” You cry at that and reassure him you don’t mind. He tells you, you’ve sacrificed enough.
You enjoy having a life. You’re able to go out with friends, and date and just kind of enjoy things. Then you get a call from the FBI letting you know that Spencer had been kidnapped and tortured by someone name Tobias Hankle. It’s bad. 
When you see him in that hospital room, your blood turns cold. He’s broken, and he actually let’s out a few tears at the sight of you. You brush his hair back from his face, and realize there are two other people in the room. With a hoarse voice Spence says, “This is my sister/brother/ sibling Y/N.” 
You know who these people are: Aaron Hotchner and Jason Gideon. Spencer has sent you numerous photos and letters. Agent Hotchner is the one to pull you out of the room. You understand Spencer’s letters immediately. He cares, a lot, but he tries to protect himself behind an indifferent facade. He tells you a few of the details, including the drugs. And you know that’s not good. Addiction runs in the family. 
“Is there a program we can put him in, to detox? To monitor this?” 
He hesitates, “I can arrange something. Keep it off the books.” 
“Thank you.” 
You go back into his room, and he gives you that look. You settle on the side of the bed, and he just cuddles in. He’s out in a minute. You stroke his hair, like you did when he was a kid, and Agent Gideon, the only other person in the room says, “You raise him?” 
You nod, “Yep.” 
“Couldn’t have been easy.” 
Your lips twitch, “No, but it was worth it.” 
He smiles, “He’s a good kid. He’s brilliant, and unashamed about it. You did a good job.” the unspoken, he’s going to need you now, hangs in the air. 
“I’ll start making calls tomorrow.” 
He nods, “What do you do? I can make some calls.” 
You whisper your profession, and you detail the plan to Spencer when he wakes up. You can see the urge to argue in his eyes, and he does. He lays out the obvious that he’s an adult, with several degrees, and a bunch of other things. You lay out the fact that you both have addictive personalities, and you put in too much work to watch throw everything away. Eventually, you beg. You beg him to stop things now before they can get bad. He reluctantly agrees. 
You stay in his apartment for a few weeks. Apparently, knowing people in the FBI can get you out of your lease and into a good paying job fairly quickly. You monitor Spencer from a distance, and you let out a little sigh of relief when he seems to return to normal. 
You find out from Gideon that isn’t true. He flies you down to New Orleans after they finish a case. And you meet him in a Jazz bar, where you see him and Spencer. Your brother has tears running down his face, and the moment he sees you, he apologizes. You assure him he has nothing to apologize for. 
That night, you meet the rest of the team. They’re nice people, kind people, and it’s good to know Spence has a support system. Withdrawal and detox is a bitch. Spencer is nothing short of grumpy. And eventually you have to tap out. You text Gideon, who comes over with Hotch and Morgan in tow. 
They take one look at you and Gideon orders Morgan to take you home. You give Spence, who’s pacing one last look, and head out. You don’t know agent Morgan too well, but you know Spencer is fond of him. You tell him so. He grins. 
“Did you really raise pretty boy?” 
“For the most part. Mom was able to take care of earning the money. Spencer did the bills, he was better at it, I handled everything else.” 
“I don’t think I could have done it.” 
“You’d be surprised by the things you can do for those you love. Plus Spence was a fairly easy kid.” 
“I doubt that.” 
Morgan walks you up and gives you his number. You add him to the list of FBI members you’re getting to know. After that, you find yourself being drawn into more and more team activities. You mainly find yourself texting with Hotch, Morgan, and Gideon. 
And then things happen, and you just know. 
You wait outside the cabin for him, and you can tell he surprised to see you there. He smiles, “You should have been a profiler.” 
“I don’t have the stomach for it.” 
Gideon nods, “I have to. . . “
“I’m not stopping you, and neither will he. But doing it this way, leaving a letter. It will kill him Gideon. It’s the same way our dad left.” 
“I have to cut contact otherwise . . .” 
“You’ll get pulled back in. The thing about Spence though? I raised him to respect boundaries. You tell him not to talk about cases, he’ll talk to you about numerous other books he’s read.” 
There’s a moment of silence before he asks, “Give me a ride?” 
“Sure.” 
You wait outside while he explains things to Spencer. When he comes back down, he says, “Thanks for making me do this.” 
You pull away from the curb, ready to drive him home, “No problem.” 
“I always wanted a daughter. My wife. . . I was gone too much and we already had Stephen.” Your lips twitch, and when he adds, “He’s single by the way. You two would get along well.” You laugh. 
You drop him off and say, “Keep in touch.” 
“I’ll send post cards.” and then he’s gone. 
When you get back to your apartment, you have a text waiting from Spencer, “Thank you.” 
You send back a heart. 
The day Spencer tells you about the interview with the serial killer, your blood boils. He tries to stop you, he really does, but you shrug him off. You’re on a mission. Just like in high school when those jocks tied Spencer to a pole. 
You burst into Aaron Hotchner’s office with a vengeance. You, do at least close the door behind you, and then you yell, and fuss, and scream, and he takes it. He takes it all, and chest heaving you ask, “Why the hell aren’t you fighting back?” 
“Because I deserve it.” 
You blink, once twice, three times and settle in the chair, “What happened?” 
He hesitates, and you pull the card, “You put my brother in danger, tell me what happened.” 
His eyes go dark, “You’re blackmailing an FBI agent?” 
“When he’s being emotionally stupid? Yeah. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been keeping Spencer’s secrets for a while. Mom still doesn’t know it was him who broke grandma’s vase.” 
His lips twitch, and slowly, very slowly, he tells you about Haley. You listen, and when he’s done he looks at you expectantly. 
“You’re not in love with her anymore?” His eyes go wide and before he can chastise you, you say, “You love her, but you’re not IN love with her. If you were, you would have chosen her over the job. But for you . . . this job drives you. . . doing what’s right. . . trying to save everyone. . . you take it all on your shoulders. Something tells me, that if it was Jack asking you to step back, you would, but I think deep down, you’re scared of who you would be and what you would do without this job.
“And on the other end of the spectrum, Haley is doing what’s right for her. She married a prosecutor, which comes with some danger and late hours, but not like this. She’s doing what’s best for her, and you’re doing what’s best for you, and in the process I think Jack will be happier for it.”  
He hesitates before asking, “So, I’m not like your dad?” 
You cock your head a bit, “You planning to leave his life, without any warning?”
“No.” 
 “You going to stop contributing to the household?”
“No.” 
“If Haley decided to run away to the circus tomorrow, and leave Jack with you, forcing you to quit the FBI, would you do it?” 
“Yes.” 
You shrug, “You said all of that, with no hesitation,” you smile, “You’re nothing like my dad. The man was only a few miles away, and he never reached out. I never told Spencer that.” 
“He won’t hear it from me.” 
You stand up, and stare at him for a second, he stares back. You move slowly around the desk, and wrap your arms around him. He hesitates before returning the hug. When you pull back you say, “You just looked like you needed a hug.” 
“Thank you.” 
You come out of his office and find Morgan waiting for you, “Everything okay?” 
“Sometimes people just need hugs. Want one?” 
He grins, “I’ll never turn down a good hug.” 
You find your own life in DC eventually. Most of the time you’re also fielding texts from Hotch and Morgan. Spencer sends you some sort of quote every morning. But it’s nice to have a support system. 
You’re somewhat surprised when one evening Morgan stops by your place. You’re dressed for bed, but usher him inside. He hesitates before he says, “Hotch said you’re a good person to talk to.” 
“I’ve been told I’m alright.”  
You sit in silence for several hours before he alludes to his past trauma. You move to the couch then, and pull him into your arms. He just snuggles in, and when he cries, you don’t say anything. You’re just there. 
You’re invited out with Penelope, JJ, and Emily, they claim they don’t know you well enough. You’d agree. It’s fun getting out of the house, and letting loose. For once, you don’t have to be the responsible party. You wake up on a couch, hungover with Spencer smiling down at you. 
“What?” 
“It’s just nice to be the responsible sibling for once.” You squint, and a second later Hotch, Morgan, and Rossi come out too. 
“Why are they here?” 
Hotch snorts, “I was called when the four of you ended up drunk. I needed reinforcements, when it became clear that we weren’t going to be able to get you home individually.” 
You groan when Morgan opens the curtains, “MEAN!” 
Hotch passes you a water bottle, “Drink that while we go wake the others up.” 
You take a few swallows, “Where are we?” 
“Rossi’s house. Only place big enough to fit all of us.” 
As if called, Dave appears with a plate of eggs.” 
You deadpan, “I hate everyone.” 
Morgan laughs, “Didn’t you party in college?” 
Spencer shakes his head, “She was home with me. She couldn’t check my homework, the math was too advanced, but she would watch movies with me and play video games.” 
Your lips twitch, “And who still has the highest score on Mario Cart.” 
Spencer’s eyes narrow, “You cheat. I don’t know how, but you cheat!” He stomps off a second later, and Morgan stares at you. 
You shrug, “I do cheat.” 
He just laughs, and you can’t help but feel, you’ve found a home. 
AN: Part of me really wants to like continue this as a fic from here? Thoughts? I’m tempted to have reader end up with Hotch or Morgan? Additional thoughts? 
287 notes · View notes
keanureevesisbae · 3 years
Text
But professor... - c.1
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Summary: Penny Townsend is going to attend her first criminology class. What she didn’t expect was professor Walter Marshall.
Professor!Walter Marshall x Penny Townsend (Asian ofc)
Wordcount: 3.3k
Warnings: Mentions of murder and blood
A/N: I hope you enjoy this Professor!AU -- can you imagine? Walter Marshall as a professor? 🤤
Masterlist // But professor... masterlist // Next chapter
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✎ ✎ ✎
My parents hoped that I would become a doctor. I get it—being friends with a lot of successful parents with equally successful children, must’ve raised their standard for me. They however must’ve known that medicine wasn’t it for me and going to law school isn’t my forte either. It must’ve been hard on them, knowing I wasn’t that intellectually gifted, though they tried their best for me to be.
They did a lot for me. At the ripe age of two to five hours, I was placed at the entrance of a church in Maryland. The pastor and his wife discovered me and brought me to the hospital, only to found out I wasn’t just a couple weeks premature, but also had a lot of heroin in my system.
My birth parents barely gave me a chance the second I was born (probably when I was conceived, but okay) and that is why I am so grateful that my adoptive parents care so much about me.
And that’s why I want to make them proud and studying psychology is my best chance at being the successful daughter they deserve, but man does it feel wrong to be here. I know there is another student out there who deserves to be here, who actually wants to do this, yet here I am taking their place.
Psychology wasn’t the greatest choice already, but having to take criminology was an even bigger mistake. I walk into the lecture hall for the first criminology class. My hands shake because of the nerves, they’re even clammy. I’m not good at making friends, so seeing those cliques that has formed after only two weeks of university, makes me slightly jealous and really alone.
I never really fitted in. My teachers would describe me as a sweet young girl, who is painfully shy.
That, of course, is if they even noticed me at all.
It can be hard to fit in, especially when you feel out of place the second you enter a room, like I have felt since I can remember.
‘Take a seat,’ I hear a deep voice say and I look up, to meet the eyes of the professor. He is unlike all of my other professors. He isn’t in a suit or at least some decent slacks. His denim jeans hugs his thick thighs, as he wears a sweater on top. His curls are disheveled and slightly frizzy and his beard is asymmetrical. A deep frown in between his brows.
‘Me?’ I ask in a soft tone.
He nods. ‘You,’ he confirms.
I walk passed him to choose a seat in the back. I take place and look around me, only to meet the eyes of the professor again. While I wonder what made him choose teaching, since he doesn’t look like someone who was born to teach, I also ponder about the fact he is looking at me again.
Why would he do that?
I grab my laptop and open it, opening a new document. I’ve been going to NYU for two weeks now, yet this is my first criminology class. I run my fingers through my hair, pushing up the glasses on my nose bridge.
‘Okay everyone,’ I hear the professor say, when it’s time for the class to start. ‘There is a sheet going around. Find the spot you’re sitting now and write down your name. If I find out you are messing with me, you have failed your class immediately.’
He is not beating around the bush.
‘I’m detective Walter Marshall. I have worked for the MPD, the Minneapolis Police Department. For this semester there are three subjects we’ll cover. Victimology, crime analysis and the psychology of criminal behavior.’
This is not at all what I want to learn. This is too gore for me. I should’ve stood up to my parents and go to cosmetology school like I originally wanted. It’s better for me anyways.
I’m so stupid.
The paper ends up on my table and I try to find my place on it. I write down ‘Penelope Townsend’ and slide it to the person two tables over. Professor Marshall explains how we have a weekly lecture of two hours and how he is available for questions every Friday, since he’ll be in his office.
‘Does anyone have any questions?’
A guy raises his hand. ‘Why aren’t you working for the MPD anymore, sir?’
Professor Marshall sits on the edge of his desk, crossing his muscular arms in front of his chest. ‘I was put on leave.’
‘Why?’
‘There were some issues,’ he says. ‘Between me and suspects.’
I have no idea what he is implying, but the silence in the classroom is so thick, that I have a clue what types of issues came with said suspects.
‘Really?’ the guy asks.
The professor only raises his eyebrows, which obviously means he isn’t joking. You don’t need to have studied Psychology to figure that out. ‘Any more questions?
‘Do we work in pairs for the assignment?’ a girl asks.
He shakes his head. ‘No, individual works only.’
I let out a sigh of relief. Thank the stars, I don’t want to work with others. Really, I don’t.
‘Okay, if that’s all, let me start right away. What do these women have in common?’ He presses a button on his presenter and the screen behind him changes. Three pictures of women appear on the screen. It’s their driver’s license photo.
‘They’re women,’ a guy says, causing a few to laugh.
Professor Marshall grabs the paper with names and says: ‘Does anyone have something less obvious to comment than mister Fitzgerald?’ He seems not amused at all by the words of Fitzgerald.
‘Brown hair, blue eyes,’ a girl says.
He nods. ‘And?’
‘They’re pretty,’ another girl says.
‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ he notes. His eyes scan the paper and he looks up. ‘Miss Townsend, do you have something to add?’
Our eyes meet again and I realize that I’m the only miss Townsend in the class. I clear my throat and look at the pictures. Say something smart, Penny. Say something intelligent. Really intelligent.
The obvious things have already been said, so I should stay away from those things.
I swallow hard, press my glasses better on my nose and say: ‘Their left eyelid is slightly droopy.’
I hear some people chuckle a bit, making me feel everything but intelligent.
‘Quiet,’ professor Marshall says and the chuckles die down instantly. ‘Their droopy left eyelid is what made them appealing to the killer.’ He looks up from the other side of class, right at me. His slightly annoyed gaze dissolves for a few moments into a soft one. ‘Miss Townsend made an excellent point here. It took an entire police department to come to that conclusion over the course of two months.’
Oh my goodness, I made an excellent point.
The slides change and I see another picture. This time it’s of a man. It’s a mugshot. I bet he is the killer.
‘Miss Townsend, since you are on a roll,’ the professor continues and I nearly groan. Really? He wants me to answer another questions? ‘What’s do you notice about this man?’
I scan his entire face. He has a crooked nose, blemishes on his forehead and thin lips. He looks like a killer. This would be the type of man I would avoid if I came across him.
‘His left eyelid is also droopy,’ I say.
Is that a tiny smirk on his lips? ‘Correct.’ While professor Marshall continues to explain about how his own appearance is unknowingly influencing his choice of victims, I can’t help but beam a little with pride. ‘Because,’ he continues, ‘if you understand your victims, you can understand your killer.’ The slideshow changes to one word. ‘Welcome to victimology.’
✎ ✎ ✎
Time spend in a lecture hall while professor Marshall teaches flies by. Though he is a bit grumpy and not very welcoming, he is interesting and smart. Much better than my other teachers. I put everything in my backpack, before I get up from my seat. I’m one of the last students to leave the place, mostly because I don’t want to be swarmed by the cliques.
‘Miss Townsend,’ professor Marshall says, causing me to stop misstep as I already passed him.
I turn around. ‘Yes?’ I ask.
He doesn’t look up from his notes. ‘You did well in class today.’
Is this man giving me a compliment? He might be the first one in a teacher like position to ever notice me, let alone give me a compliment. ‘I did?’
‘Yeah,’ he says, now looking up from his notes. ‘Don’t hesitate to say something in class next time. You have great insight.’
‘Or just luck,’ I say.
Professor Marshall shakes his head. ‘No, this isn’t about luck, this is good insight. So, can you promise me to raise your hand next class?’
I bite my lip, before shaking my head. ‘No, I can’t.’
‘Why can’t you?’
‘What I said: this was luck and it probably won’t happen again. I have to go. I reserved a spot at the library. If that is all, sir?’
He doesn’t say anything, simply looks at me. It takes a second, maybe two before he nods. ‘If you have questions,’ he says, ‘you know how to contact me.’
I nod, before I walk out of the hall. I see students gathering in front of the door and I quickly slip through them and make my way to the library. I’ve been going to classes for around two weeks now and I’m still up to date as we speak. I decide to at least make a beginning with the assignments of my criminology class, because the sooner I start, the less work and stress I’ll experience later on, because I most definitely will stress about it.
It’s been quite awhile since I opened a book for school for assignments or preparing for exams. After high school, I decided to take a gap year, which ended in two. I’ve traveled with all sorts of groups to different countries, worked at an international cafe in Japan for awhile. It did help me with my social skills. I was happy, social and totally in my element. Those wonderful skills were all forgotten the second I stepped foot back in the USA again.
It was my parents that pushed for going back to college and once they figured out that medicine or law wasn’t up my alley, they agreed psychology, though it wasn’t my thing either.
It’s okay, sure, but… Gosh, I miss the freedom I had during the gap years. I’m not stupid, but is the academical life for me? I have looked at cosmetology school and boy do I wish I was there at the moment.
And not here.
✎ ✎ ✎
I don’t know how long I have been at the library, but my eyes are tired by the time I close my laptop. Besides working on my assignment, I also texted my parents to tell them everything is going fine and checked out multiple cosmetology schools here in the area.
Originally I’m from Maryland, meaning it’s only a three hour drive to see my parents and for them to check in on me. I considered lying about my major, about attending NYU and just go to cosmetology school, but mom and dad are paying my tuition, which is another loophole in my plan.
I put the laptop in my backpack and walk out of the library. Every second my mind wasn’t occupied with university related things, it went straight back to my first criminology class, more specifically my professor. His words. It’s one thing he said those things to me, but another that he looked so handsome while saying it.
‘There she is,’ I hear from behind me as I walk through the hallways to the exit. I turn around to discover it’s Fitzgerald. I forgot his first name, which is weird since we share a lot of the same classes together. He isn’t easy to miss. Pleasant on the eyes, that’s for sure, but he is loud, thinks he is hilarious and that makes him kinda annoying. ‘Miss Townsend,’ he says in a mocking tone.
Okay, change kinda annoying to absolutely insufferable.
‘Hm?’
Fitzgerald walks next to me and he comes a lot closer than I prefer. ‘You’re already the teacher’s pet,’ he continues. ‘Bet the man has a thing for Asian chicks.’
I have no idea how to respond to that implication. My instinct says to get out of here, but the exit is right ahead of me and from the looks of it, Fitzgerald is going there as well. So there is no escape.
‘But let’s say it’s beginners luck,’ he says, ‘because it was actually the first time I heard you speak.’
‘You mind leaving me alone?’ I ask.
‘Why is that, sugar boo?’
Okay, now I’m gonna vomit. Goosebumps run over my spine and the hairs in my neck are standing straight up. I bet this guy’s dad is rich, therefore the only reason he is here. ‘I don’t want you here.’
‘You don’t want me here?’ He starts to chuckle. ‘Sweetheart, everyone wants me here.’
Not me.
‘Fitzgerald, are you deaf?’
It’s professor Marshall.
His eyes enlarge when he realizes that too. ‘No, sir,’ he quickly says.
‘She said she doesn’t want you here.’ He stands in front of the two of us, looking everything but amused. ‘You know, back when I was working, I encountered a lot of guys like you. Did you know they usually peak in high school, do okay in college, but the second they end up locked up in jail—and I promise you, they most often will—they aren’t so tough anymore. They usually end up as someone’s bitch.’
To hear this entire monologue and the word bitch from a professor, was not at all what I was expecting. Fitzgerald’s face is drained from all its color. While Fitzgerald looks like he shat himself, I am utterly amazed. I wish I was this intimidating, I think to myself.
Fitzgerald clears his throat, eyes darting around the hallway, almost as if he is trying to find the closest exit. He shoots out of this place very quickly, meaning I’m left with only our professor.
‘Thank you, sir,’ I say.
Professor Marshall simply nods. ‘You know, if you lowered your shoulders, you’d appear more confident.’
Why do I feel so offended? ‘Oh…’
‘It’s advice, miss Townsend, not criticism.’
‘Oh,’ I say again, this time in a whisper like tone. He could’ve brought it up a bit nicer though. No need to hurt my feelings like that.
Professor Marshall and I both walk towards the exit and I notice it’s raining. Great, guess who didn’t bring her umbrella and also isn’t wearing a jacket with a hood?
Absolutely fantastic.
‘Here,’ the professor says, holding out his umbrella for me.
Is this truly happening? ‘Oh, sir, that’s not necessary.’
‘I insist.’
With some hesitation I grab the umbrella from him and smile. ‘Thank you, professor.’
He politely nods and walks off, leaving me with the umbrella and a little bit confused. Though he looks so handsome and slightly intimidating, he still is nice to me. The only teacher ever. Maybe Fitzgerald is right and—
No, no, no, don’t think like that. It’s not that every man who is nice to me all of the sudden has this fetish. That can’t be it, right?
Maybe, despite my aversion, I am actually good at the whole criminology thing and isn’t it a one time thing. Luck. Maybe I do have something I am good at.
✎ ✎ ✎
That Friday I am still on campus after I spend my entire afternoon in the library. Since I have a question about the criminology assignment, I decide walk to the office of professor Marshall. To kill two birds with one stone, I brought his umbrella with me so I can give it back. I knock on the door and hear a low: ‘Come in.’
I open the door and am met with the professor, who is sitting behind is desk. ‘Sir, I have a question about the assignment.’
He leans back in his chair and gestures me to come in. I close the door behind me and expect to sit, until I notice there isn’t a chair anywhere for me to sit on. How unwelcome of him, I think to myself. Does that mean I have to remain standing?
‘What’s your question, miss Townsend?’
‘I didn’t know which format I had to use for the entire assignment. It’s not really that big of a deal, but I was here in the building and I thought that I could…’ Nice way of getting off track, Penny. As they said in high school musical: ‘Get’cha your head in the game’ and this is  not the game. ‘Never mind. Which format should I use?’
‘That’s up to you,’ he says.
That’s it? That’s the answer he is gonna give me?
‘Right,’ I mumble.
‘Other questions, miss Townsend?’
Yes. I let out a deep sigh. ‘The assignment is just harder than I thought,’ I admit. ‘I don’t really understand it.’
Professor Marshall stands up and holds out his hand. ‘Sit, I’ll try to explain it.’
‘In your chair?’
He simply nods and I walk around the desk, to take a seat, while he leans against the windowsill. Oh, the leather is warm… What a body heat does this man produce. ‘Okay, the point of the assignment is to use some of the example files of—staged—murders. Based on the file you choose, you choose a format. You write out the victimology, try to narrate who the killer is, writing down all your findings and there are things I’m gonna talk about in next classes.’
I nod. ‘That makes it easier, thank you, sir.’
‘You’re already working on the assignment?’ he asks. Why does he sound genuinely surprised?
I nod again. ‘I am. I find it easier to work a bit every day, than to cram it all in one day.’ I realize how that sounds. ‘That sounds dorky.’
‘It doesn’t really. It’s a whole lot better than what I did back in the days,’ he says. ‘What did you think of the class?’
Is he asking for my opinion? ‘Your class was very interesting. Slightly morbid though, but fascinating.’
‘Morbid?’ the professor asks. ‘There was nothing morbid about my class.’
I scrunch up my nose. ‘It was kinda scary. With the blood patterns and all. The peek into the murderer’s mind?’ I shiver. ‘Don’t know, felt too personal and too much into the killer’s brain.’
‘The class you’re taking is criminology,’ he says, ‘you should’ve known.’
I shrug, not knowing what to say to him. He is right…
‘Miss Townsend—’
‘Penny,’ I say. ‘It’s Penny. Penelope officially, but people barely call me that.’ People barely call out for me ever, but that’s a different topic. Total different topic.
‘Penny,’ he says, ‘could’ve known.’
I don’t know what he is implying, but I realize I am totally overstaying. ‘I’m sorry, I should go. Thanks for helping me out. Oh, I brought you back your umbrella. I don’t need it anyways.’
Professor Marshall nods. ‘Okay.’
‘I should go. It’s getting kinda dark already.’
‘Let me guess, you don’t do well in the dark.’
I smile almost out of guilt. ‘That obvious?’
For a brief moment I spot a smirk on his face. ‘I’m a detective, I spot these things.’
Okay, not gonna lie, but that’s pretty funny. ‘See you next class, professor,’ I say, standing up from his chair and I walk towards the door.
‘See you next class, Penny.’
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munsonenthisiast · 3 years
Text
Then & Forever
A/N: I wrote this in like five days and had my bestie edit. This is my first time writing anything, but I love Josh so-
Summary: Since you started working for GVF, you and Josh had grown close to each other over the years. This time you hope your feelings don't get in the way of ruining everything you built.
Contains: Smut, drinking, smoking, cursing
WC: 10.9k
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"So you're saying that. . . you've never played an instrument before?" Sam pointed at his bass. You laughed at the question, sipping your beer. "Correct." Sam furrowed his face in confusion. "Then why do you have a degree IN music if you can't play?" Josh hit Sam on the shoulder with a pencil making a small face. You shrugged your shoulders, swishing the alcohol around your mouth. "I don't know, It's just something I've never wanted to do, you know. I guess it's one thing knowing about an instrument rather than playing it."
Everyone nodded in agreement. "Well, if you did play anything I'm sure you'd be really good at it." Josh smiled towards you. He went back to writing in his journal while everyone else went back to respectively playing their own instruments.
But for you, it seemed a long way home. Never did it cross your mind that you would basically be living with four different people from time to time. Especially not so quickly. Greta Van Fleet was your first job, and really, first anything. From high school until now, you were alone. Which made you a little grumpy when working with people, but none the less you warmed up to them quickly. Especially Josh, who always seemed attached to the hip with you.
Josh may have annoyed you a tiny bit at first, but his euphoric mind is what intrigued you in the first place. He always seemed so wise, knowing the right answer to everything. And the way he wrote the lyrics to songs, just naturally appeared to him somehow. It was truly magic.
Jake smacked you on the arm, calling for your attention. "Ok, what do you think of this." He pulled the guitar over his lap, playing the notes he came up with. You quickly wrote down the notes he played, looking out for any correction. "So what do you think?" He asked, flailing his arms around. Running your pencil down the piece of paper, you started to shake your head. "I think it sounds pretty good," you said looking at Josh, who also nodded his head in compliance. "What would also sound cool is if you gave it a little vibrato during a live show."
Jake smiled writing the commentary down on a sticky note. "You know, for not knowing how to play, you really are smart with this kind of stuff." You glared your eyes at him, snickering just a little bit. Everyone worked for a couple of more hours, before calling it a night. Danny and Sam were practically sleeping on each other.
You shook Sam awake, snatching his car keys from his hand. "We'll both be dead if you drive, and were the most important in the band. Well, besides Danny. And Jake. And Josh." You twirled the keys around your finger while Sam stretched to get awake. Josh flipped all the pages over in his journal, turning to you. "We got pretty far today, don't you think?" Josh smiled at his brothers, who were already arguing about something. "Yeah. Maybe we'll get better stuff done tomorrow, you know. This is supposed to be the 'fun' part," you said using air quotations, "but the most boring part out of everything. But maybe, in the end, it'll all be worth it." you hit Josh's arm softly.
"Are you going with Sam?" you nodded quickly. "Yeah, I kind of promised him I would help him with some stuff in the morning." Josh looked sadder than ever. You smiled at Josh, noticing Sam waiting by the door with Jake and Danny. "I'll see you later." You gave Josh a quick kiss on the head.
"Let's go." you wiggled a finger at Sam, practically dragging him to the car. The ride to Sam's house was fairly quiet other than the little snores coming from him. It was nice to get a moment or two of peace to yourself. Working and living with four grown men gave no room for privacy. Everything is shared between you all. Which you had to admit, scared you a little at first because you've always grown up with a sister and maybe a few girlfriends here and there; but you were never as close to them, then as you were to the band.
The house was quiet when you walked in, dark and dim from the night sky. Sam immediately walked to his bedroom, and passed out on his bed. Which left you alone in the kitchen. Putting some of the items away in cabinets, you looked around at all the brothers' family photos, including some of Danny. It made you smile to yourself to see some of them so young and happy. Maybe a little vulnerable too. You were a little envious of how confident some of them had been with their work, just being able to put themselves out there, accepting failure. Not you though. Failure made you angry, furious even. Sometimes it got so bad, you'd hide away for days without any contact with the outside world.
After putting all the trash away, you headed back to the spare room. You turned on all the lights, changing into some warmer clothing. Crawling under the sheets, sleep came easy that night.
-
When you woke up, the blinds had been left the night before causing you to shoot out of bed. Quickly rubbing your eyes, you went to the bathroom to clean up a bit. When you walked towards the kitchen, your feet padded beneath you. Sam still wasn't up, which was pretty normal. You started some coffee and cooked breakfast for the two of you. Though, something triggered you to open a forbidden drawer and bum a cigarette. Quickly lighting it, you messed around with food until it was cooked.
"A cigarette at 8 in the morning?" Sam questioned groggily, clad in just sweatpants. "Well, you know me; I only smoke when I'm forgetting something." You both said in unison. You quickly waved him off, pouring food onto a plate for both of you. "I wonder WHO you're forgetting." You scrunched your face, looking around the room. "What do you mean who?" Sam scoffed. "Josh," You quickly rolled your eyes, slamming the plate down on the table "Eat the fucking food you loser." You both contently ate in peace while making some playful banter here and there. "So what exactly do you need help with?" Sam pulled out a cigarette from the cartridge, silently lighting.
"I need help with a decision." Sam stared at you while you nodded your in question, pretending like you at least understood what he was talking about. "Look, I just want you to go with me to buy another bass, ok. And I want to go to the record store." Narrowing your eyes, you pulled the cigarette from him. "I feel like this is something completely different than what you're telling me." Sam shook his head slowly. "Nope. I still want to keep the mint-colored bass, but I just want to have a cool collection, you know. Oh, let's buy something expensive!" He pointed the smoke at you, while you collected the dishes to put in the sink. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, please. We can not go broke. Not like last time." You shuddered at the thought.
"Thanks for the food. I'm gonna get ready." You flinched your eyebrows and kept washing the dishes, putting them in the dishwasher. You quickly went back to the room for a change of clothes. By the time you were done, Sam was waiting at the door for you. Grabbing your coat and your shoes, you both headed out the door. Sam was walking coolly beside you, as you both looked around the town. Shops were lining down the small street, with cars passing through. He put his arm around your shoulder as you both passed through large crowds. Finally finding the music shop, you both walked in, heading to a certain section.
"So remind me," He paused to look at a sleek grey bass, flipping it over a couple of times. "Why don't you ever get with Josh? I mean he obviously likes you." You scoffed a little bit at his statement. "I thought we were here for you Sam, not to talk about me." You picked up a dark wood bass, showing it to Sam. "I mean with that same logic why don't I ever get with you? I mean we're close, right?" He rolled his eyes, still playing with the instrument you showed him.
"I think I like this one." Sam brought it up to the counter, talking to the girl up front. Who seemed to really enjoy the conversation they were having. Turning on your heel, you waited by the door playing with some random drum sticks. Sam eventually walked over and led you out. "It'll be delivered in a couple of weeks. I bought a whole new one." You pursed your lips smiling at Sam. "Did you also manage to snag that poor girl's number?"
Sam pushed you upside the head as you walked into the record store. You both parted ways looking at different sections. You flipped through vintage albums, picking out random ones you thought everyone would enjoy. After looking through some more, Sam found you and walked to the front to pay. "You found quite a lot there," Sam said, peeking through the ones in your hand.
"Yeah, figured I could add a bit to my very depressing collection." you chuckled, looking at one of the sleek covers. "Don't you have like two?" you glared back at Sam. "Which I believe are both of your band's albums." Sam laughed. You both paid, bags in hand.
"So what now?" you asked Sam as you both mindlessly walked around. "Probably go home. Want me to take you back?" You nodded in agreement and headed back to his car.
-
After saying goodbye to Sam, you walked back up the stairs to your apartment. When you opened the door, Josh appeared from your room, causing you to nearly break the table in the hallway.
"What the hell Josh!" He shrugged his shoulders, making his way to the couch. "What are you doing here?"
"I was waiting until you got back from hanging out with my brother. What were you two doing anyway?" Pouring a glass of water from the sink, you took a sip, and made your way to the couch next to Josh. You leaned your head back on the cushion, staring at the ceiling. "Sam bought a pretty hefty bass, and bought more records." You looked over at Josh. "What about you?"
"Well you know," he sighed. "Tried to work on writing up some new lyrics. Even went over to Danny's and Jake's to work some stuff out. It's coming along nicely." Setting the cup down on the coffee table, you looped an arm around Josh's, leaning your head on his shoulder. "Good. It'll come out beautifully in the end," you said patting his hand. You sniffed, sitting up in your seat. "Are you staying for dinner?" Josh hummed looking up at you. "Oh yeah. I was actually wondering if I could stay for the night; get's kind of lonely at my place." You nodded.
"Yeah, that's fine." You walked over to the kitchen. "Anything in mind you want to eat?" you asked. "Uh, how about that chicken. The one you make with the rice, mushrooms, and asparagus." You started to pull out the pots and pans, placing them on the stove. You leaned back on the counter watching everything cook. To be quite frank, you didn't know how you would handle Josh staying over. Of course, you and Josh were rather close, it even shocked people that you knew each other so well. After all, he knew you better than your own blood.
Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing. On one hand, it would give you time to think some things over and ponder the questions Sam had asked you earlier today. And then you could for sure decide what you wanted to do. You grabbed some plates and moved the food over to the table. Josh was already seated, patiently awaiting your arrival.
"Looks good, as always." he complimented, raising his hands towards you. "Thanks, Josh." you smiled.
"So," he said, chewing his food. "What happened at the music store?" Rolling your eyes at the thought of Sam annoying you, you told him about how he was flirting with the girl at the front desk. "I mean just giggling, and laughing, it was like watching teenagers make out." You made a small coughing noise thinking about Sam flirting with that poor girl. "But, you know, as they say, there's someone for everyone," you said sarcastically, shaking your head. Josh let out a high-pitched laugh at Sam. "That's Sam for you. He bore you with anything else?"
You thought about all the moments were Sam had bullied you over liking Josh or falling in love with Josh. Of course, you loved Josh but you weren't sure whether you were 'in love' with him per se. He was practically your other half. Nobody else could compare to that. But it was hard to decipher whether you even liked him like that. "You know. The usual; stuff about when you all were younger and more embarrassing moments."
Josh covered his face with his hands, groaning. "I hope it wasn't all too bad." He shook his head, eating the last bits of food. "Not at all, actually." As you both finished your plates, you sat in comfortable silence. That was until Josh spoke out about something.
"Hey remember that time- ugh geez, when was it," he asked, pressing on his face. "Probably around the time I first met you, and I pretty much knew then you hated my fucking guts, man" You let out a breath at the thought of Josh thinking you hated him. "But that was also the time I kept catching you listening to the album at the time. Just over and over and over again." Josh just shook his head thinking of you. "I didn't- hate you," you confessed. "I just really didn't know how to be around people so much. I did like that album though." you laughed, pointing at Josh. Who also laughed along with you. "Look, I'm sorry I made you feel that way; I just, I've never really had close friends like you." Before he could say anything back, you picked up the plates, placing them in the sink.
From inside the kitchen, you could hear him talking to his brothers on the phone. The usual screaming, laughing, and anger from whatever stupid joke someone told. It honestly made you wish you were closer to your own sister. Whom you haven't spoken to in the past ten years. After you finished off with the dishes, you walked to your bedroom. Which was hard to admit, but you had an entire wall full of Greta Van Fleet photos from when you first started working with them because you had a hard time telling who was who.
"Oh, I remember these photos!" Josh exclaimed as walked into your room. He marveled at all the photos you had printed out and plastered on the wall. Some even had labels of all the boy's names. "Yeah, a little creepy, don't you think?"
Josh shrugged. "I'll give you the benefit of the doubt because you didn't know who we were, and I know some people have a hard time differentiating between us twins." You turned around and opened up the bag full of record vinyl, handing some to Josh. "Here, I bought some for you earlier, and I figured I could use some- given the only two I have are from your band." He giggled, flipping through the different albums. "Oh, Bob Dylan! What a legend and old Michael Jackson! Very good stuff." You patted his shoulder as you put away all the other albums on a shelf.
"So, the spare bedroom should be good-" Josh cut you off. "I was hoping to sleep with you, actually. Unless that makes you too uncomfortable." You nearly choked on your own spit when Josh asked you that. You really didn't think he'd be that lonely. "Um, no that's fine. I'm sure I have someone's clothes here you can use." He grinned.
"Thanks." You handed him some spare clothes and left him to change in the bathroom. When you returned he was already tucked in, facing the wall with the pictures. Turning off the light, you quietly slid in next to him. You'd never really been in this much of an intimate situation, no less next to Josh. It wasn't awkward, but it was just hard to decipher the feelings of the both of you, and where he was going with his suggestion. "Can I ask you something?" Josh whispered. He turned around to face you closer.
"What was your initial thought when you first met me?" You laughed a little to yourself. "When I first met you I wanted to be exactly like you." Josh propped himself up on his elbow, leaning even closer to you.
"What about me?" he asked. "I don't know. You were always so confident, and the way you carried yourself; just, it made me so mad and angry that I couldn't be like that. Maybe that's why it came off that I hated you a little bit." Josh laid back down.
"Listen, you'll always be the best thing that happened to me. When I first met you, I thought you had the most brilliant mind out of everyone I ever met. Except for Danny. He's got an excellent brain." You smacked his arm laughing out loud.
"Thank you, Josh." You rolled over onto your side, hoping to fall asleep soon. Before you did though, you felt Josh slip an arm around your side; his face falling into the back of your neck. Soon, both of you fell asleep together.
-
When morning came the next day, Josh was still entangled in your back, but this time his arm was hugging you tighter. At any slight movement, he just pulled you closer. Finally giving up from moving away from Josh, you laid there silently in his arms. You silently traced the creases in his hand, thinking absentmindedly. He stirred a tiny bit but never woke. You took this time to turn around and look at him. His arm still wrapped around tightly on your shoulder; causing you to bury your face into his chest.
Inhaling his warm scent, you just about closed your eyes imagining a world where you were in love with him, and he loved you back. At this moment, he started to finally wake up. You decided to keep your eyes closed, too embarrassed to see what his reaction would be to find you both like this. You could feel Josh's eyes looking around the room before they made their way down to you. Feeling the certainty of him staring down at you made you panic a little. But then you could feel his hand start to part through your hair, moving it out of your face. His movement followed by leaning forward, giving you a long slow kiss on the forehead.
Then there was the fine sensation of his lips lingering on your skin. He started whispering your name, shaking you awake. You slowly blinked your eyes to make it look like you hadn't really been awake all this time. He smiled brightly when you both made eye contact. "Good morning," he said softly. You smiled, placing a hand on his chest. "Good morning Josh."
Letting out a little yawn, you turned over and sat up on the side of the bed. You sipped on some water that had been on you bedside for a while, then stretched out. "What do you plan on doing today?" you asked groggily. "Everyone wanted to meet up today and go over some stuff. Wanna join?" you quickly nodded your head.
"Great. Well then, I'll go take a shower and get ready." He walked away silently, leaving you all alone once more. Deciding against the better of things, you too got up to shower. While waiting for the water to heat up, you traced against the spots where Josh's hand had been.
It's like there was a space left on you, but you could only feel the invisible touch leftover from him. Jumping in the shower felt like you were committing a terrible sin. The handprint of Josh washed away as every drop of water hit your body. But it felt just as warm and comforting as him. After quickly getting dressed, you met Josh at the front door who was holding it open for you. The crisp autumn air surprised you in the face when you walked outside. The sidewalks weren't too busy but crowded to perfection
You both got in the car and drove to the studio. Everyone was already there by the time you two made it; For some reason, Josh had wanted to stop to get everyone coffee and a bagel, which you really couldn't say no to. Sam raised his eyebrows at you when you walked in with Josh pretty late. You hit him on the arm lightly. Sam rubbed the part of his arm, cursing you off. Everyone, including you, walked into a backroom set with all the instruments anyone could think of, and two very well-loved on couches.
The lights in the room were set to a dim, vintage-style brown, illuminating everyone's tan features. Josh handed the food out, starting the conversation. It varied from topic to topic.
"How is everyone?"
"Are there new ideas anyone wants to talk about?"
"How about we do this instead of that."
Josh snapped his fingers in front of your face, waving his hand around. "Hey silly, I asked you a question." you looked up quickly, meeting everyone's gaze. "Huh?"
"I said do you have any ideas on what we should wear?" You pulled out a small sketchbook from your jacket pocket showing Josh, and the rest of the band on the different aesthetics for clothing. "I was thinking about stitching some nudity art on the back for Josh. I'll probably go shopping for some silk and thread. I found this really cool jacket piece for Jake; I'll add some things on it, and a shiny blazer for Sam. As for Danny, I found these really nice pants, but I have to tailor them. I'm still trying to find a smooth shirt to go with."
You wrote down some reminder notes giving the rest some time to process anything and get started. Josh sat next to you on one of the couches, pulling out his note journal. He pointed out some of the lyrics, whispering to himself before showing it to you. "I came up with these this morning." your cheeks turned red, though you doubt Josh could see given how dark it was. You read through the lines in each glorious manner. They each had a delicate touch to them, written with something personal
It reminded you of something ethereal. Like being in outer space, and getting to look at all the planets from afar. "What are you thinking?" Josh asked. You let out a short breath before answering. "I think it's good. Really good in fact. I can feel it's personal to you, you know."
Before he could respond, there was a line of curses causing you both to look up. Jake was yelling at himself and the guitar in his hands with a tiny string poking out from the neck of the guitar.
"This fucking piece of shit keeps breaking," he he groaned, with gritted teeth. Rolling your eyes, you went to the other grabbing some new guitar strings. Handing them back Jake, he mumbled out a thank you. "Guess what, it's not that hard to get up and get new strings, Jake. I just did it by myself." Everyone laughed at your taunting to Jake, getting rid of his frustrated mood.
"Well, you're the best." He poked your shoulder. You headed back to another room to think about some more things. Possibly about Josh; but the majority for the band. Really working with them, never gave you time to put yourself out there. Which wasn't a terrible thing. In fact, you preferred not to out. You've always had a one-track mind. Focused too much on one thing, forgetting completely about anything else. It's probably why you'd failed out of most schools during your high school and college career. It always ended up being too much for your brain to handle.
Maybe that's what you feared most. Things always getting in the way; either making you angry, or angry enough to run away and never look back. You didn't want that with Josh. Nor did you want that for this band. You made some more scratch notes, listening to the muffled sound of music. After a while, you doodled in your notebook for some clothing ideas. Stitching had been one of the many skills that stuck with you since when. You never really knew where you learned to do such a thing.
Josh always told you how marvelous your work was. That it belonged in a museum of some sort. He knew somehow that you'd do great things with art. When sketching became boring, you shopped around online for some fabric, and thread, ordering what you needed. When finished some smaller portions of work, you fell back on the couch pushing your hair out of your face. Josh walked in at the right time, pulling you back into the studio.
"We hashed some things out, figured what don't and do want for some of the songs. Think we'll be ready to record in a few weeks." All the boys cheered each other on, pushing each other around. "I think this calls for a celebration over some drinks."
"Great idea. There's a bar a couple of blocks from here. What do you say?" Everyone hummed in agreement, piling out the door. Josh had a hand on your back as he walked you out through all the doors.
-
When you walked inside there were a few people seated around. It wasn't overbearing crazy. Everyone took a seat at the bar ordering drinks. You had already taken a couple of tequila shots to loosen up for the night. "So tell me," Josh slouched down in his seat. "What do you think the future holds for this band." You giggled, already a little drunk.
"What I think doesn't matter Josh. I think that you'll be successful in whatever you choose to do. I think it's you as the leader to help everyone along. In my opinion, they're here to support you and your ideas. I mean, of course, they have their own input but you get what I'm saying." Josh nodded along, sipping his drink. "That's quite a mouthful, but yeah. I'd do anything for these people. For Christ's sake, three of them are my brothers. And Danny I've known for like ever." He pointed to them, which they were all fighting about something.
Josh shook his head, looking down at the floor. He placed a hand on your shoulder as he left for another drink. Sam soon replaced Josh, slouching in the same position. "What were you two talking about." He waved a finger around your face. To which, you quickly swatted away. "He loves you, Sam. We love you. I love you, Sam."
Sam pursed his lips, squinting his eyes. "You're that drunk already?" You hummed looking at your watch seeing as only twenty minutes had passed. "Well Sam, the night's still young, so I'm willing to get fucking wasted if you are." He quickly nodded his head, ordering the two of you more drinks. As the night went on, all of you managed to play twelve rounds of pool (none of which you won), a game of cards, and meet totally random people. You, including the boys, were completely wasted and it wasn't even one in the morning. Danny and Jake had left to go god knows where, leaving you, Sam, and Josh talking to some random girl at a table. Looking over at Josh, you felt your heart hurt a little.
Sometimes you wish you had the assertiveness that Josh had to talk to him. Deep down you knew he would never reject you. He would randomly bring up why you never got together, but you always dismissed the conversation too scared of what might happen. Sam slipped next to you, turning his chair around to face you. He followed your line of sight, his eyes landing on Josh laughing with the same girl who's been here for hours.
"Look, if it pisses you off that much, talk to him later. It's not like he's gonna hate you for the rest of his life. He practically loves you to death." You shook your head, taking another drink of your beer. "I'm just- I'm not mad- I'll just never be able to be that person who can just randomly walk up to a person and fall 'in love' with them." You cried. Every time you think about it, you just want to go to bed and hide. "But how come I never end up with people like you or Jake or even sweet people like Danny. Why does it have to be Josh?"
Sam sat up in his chair, turning it back around to face the bar. "Why don't you try it. Maybe you fighting inside that big head of yours really doesn't like Josh after all." Sam said as he cradled your face, shaking it around. "Really?" Sam shrugged. "What's the worse that can happen? If something happens, so be it. Never hurts to try anything."
Sam bent down quickly, kissing you softly. His lips felt smooth against yours like running a hand over pliable silk. He swiftly ran a hand through your hair, pulling your face closer to his. Finally, he pulled away, smiling down at you.
"Nope." you shook your head. "Well hey, at least we know." He patted your shoulder, walking away towards a game of cards being played.
-
The next day you woke up with an intense headache. There was some leftover water and Ibuprofen on your nightstand. You didn't know how you made it back home or really remember anything at all from the night before.
You downed the pill and some water, making your way slowly to the bathroom, balancing yourself on a wall. You turned on the shower letting the hot water settle the uneasiness in your stomach. The pounding inside your head kept going on for what felt like hours. It didn't help either that you were trying so hard to remember the night before. Of course, you knew that you drank more than you could handle. Then there was Sam. But it all stopped there.
The shower helped a little bit. You danced around to find some clothes to get ready, or at least look decent. After getting ready, you drove back to Sam's. When he opened the door, you noticed Jake and Danny were there already. Except for no Josh. Not that it was out of the ordinary, it was just something you expected.
You made your way through his kitchen, pulling out a cigarette. "I don't think you really wanna be smoking that right now." You glared at him before putting the smoke out. "Um, do you remember what happened last night?" You asked, rubbing the small spot on your head in hopes to get rid of the pain. Sam bit into a piece of food, answering with his mouth full. "We kissed. Yeah," he nodded in assurance. "Yeah, we kissed." You let your head fall into your hands, groaning.
"How'd I get home?" Sam hummed, pointing his piece of food at you. "Josh. Although, he seemed pretty pissed at me. You were also super drunk." Right, you thought. Of course, this would happen to you. Partially you blamed yourself for being so stuck-up and bitchy most of the time, but part of you wishes Sam just pushed you away. Why were you so indecisive all the damn time? For once, it would be nice if you could make a whole-hearted decision without going out and fucking everything up.
You scratched around your eye, watching Sam as he went to go sit next to Jake.
4 weeks later. . .
It really had been almost a whole month that you had gone without talking to Josh. Some nights you wish you could pick up your phone and just text him, but you know it would go unnoticed. It hurt just a little bit. Every day you blamed yourself for screwing things up. When was it not your fault that something went wrong?
You sat bored at home. You tried to catch up on different things like laundry, cleaning, reorganizing literally everything, but nothing seemed to work. You muffled curses under your breath at nothing. That was until you got a text from Jake saying that everyone needed your 'strong womanly brain' to work with. Over the four-week period, you hadn't really talked with the other band members except for Danny (who seriously cares for anybody and everything), and Sam who just random stuff.
You flipped through a random magazine, flipping through the pages reading about the different styles and how to flaunt them. That was until a text from Sam disturbed you saying that everyone needed you at the studio ASAP.
You ran to your door faster than ever, quickly putting on your coat and shoes. When you arrived, no one was seen at first, so you went to the back and everyone was gathered around in a large, huddled circle. Jake was the first to greet you, Sam following close behind.
"Hey! I haven't seen you in a long time." Jake towered over you, pulling you into his side. "Yeah, my mom called. Wanted me to go see her." you lied, looking at Sam, who had just turned in the other direction. "Well, I hope she's doing good. Look, I wanted to see your opinion on some things. Just general stuff, okay?" you nodded. He led you back to a table and passed some papers around, and a little CD that had pre-recorded music. Before any of you could speak though, a door creaked loudly, and out came Josh with a petite girl beside him. His smile immediately disappeared when his eyes landed on you.
The girl looked. . . nice. In other words, she looked like a pleasant enough girl Josh would pick from a crowd. She had a tan, rich skin like his. With wavy, brown hair. Unlike Josh, she had more hazel-green eyes. Everyone stood there awkwardly, looking around at each other. You scratched the top of your head, eyes facing down towards the table. Jake cleared his throat before grabbing a seat for Josh, and the girl.
And of course, to make more room they were both seated in between you and Jake, making her sit right next to you. You smiled nervously towards her as she got herself situated. For a while, you stared at the velvet walls as Jake led on the conversation. You felt a little poke on your arm and noticed she was trying to talk to you.
"Hi, I'm Logan," she whispered. The one thing you noticed about Logan was her smile. It reminded you of Josh. His naturally bright teeth could make anyone instantly happier. "Y/N," you said curtly. You weren't the one to start a conversation, but luckily she made it easy.
"So, how do you know Josh?" she asked, pointing to him. You played around with your nails, turning to look at her. "Uh, I work for him," Not 'I'm his best friend or anything. Totally just ruined the relationship I had by kissing his younger brother because I'm really in love with the man your dating' "And them too, of course." you gave a hesitant laugh, pointing to the rest of them. She bit her lip, turning to listen to the conversation, and then back to you.
"How long have you known all of them, or like worked for them I guess?"
"Around three years. This will be my fourth I think." she nodded with your answer. Finally, she turned back around to listen to what Josh was saying.
You looked back down at the disc, swirling it around on the table. This is hard, you thought. It's all you can think about. Logan's so kind towards you; not the weirdly hostile type. She's not annoying, not inconclusive about anything. Logan's perfect in her own way. She's perfect to Josh. Something you've always wanted, but you, yourself stopped you from having.
"So, uh Y/N, can you take a listen to the CD?" Jake asked you. "Yeah. It'll just be a little later though. I have to finish some other stuff." There was silence as everyone stared at you. Including Josh, who seemed to have a permanent look on you.
"I can listen; if you're busy," Logan speaking up caught you by surprise. It may have angered you a bit because that was your job, to listen. You just looked back at Sam anxiously, who shook his head at you.
"Oh, my bad," Josh said loudly. "This is my girlfriend- Logan. Who you have all met before, but not Y/N. Forgot to introduce you two." If everyone hadn't been in the room right now, you would've gotten up and hit him right across the head. Logan kindly smiled back at you. "Yeah, we were talking earlier," She said pointing to you. "Well, as I said, I can listen if you can't."
If it was anybody else, you would've said something back already. But who were you to yell at this kind, beautiful woman next to you? Though, Sam must've read you wrong since quietly grabbed your wrist. "Sure," you said, handing the CD to Logan. Sitting back in your chair, defeated, what else were you supposed to do?
-
Another lousy week passed, and you wanted to jump off a roof. It had been raining for the past few days, never letting up once. No one had really made contact with you except Danny (you secretly loved him to death), and Sam. You were pretty sure the rest had picked up on the tense atmosphere and didn't want to bother you. No doubt, you probably wouldn't want to speak with yourself either.
You shrugged off a sweater, playing with the end of your sheets. Life was so boring now without any entertainment from anyone. You eventually rolled over on your back, staring a hole into the ceiling. You went over every excuse and explanation you could give to Josh. You understood why he was mad, you figured that much. But sometimes you wish he had his smart wisdom back to understand you better.
You fell to the floor sometime later, reading something random off the shelf. You flipped through the pages mindlessly before you heard some knocking at your door. You ran quickly, opening the door to find Sam standing there with bottles of gin and tequila in his hand. Laughing quietly, you led him inside, finding some bottles for drinks.
"What brings you around?" you raised your eyebrows, pouring some tequila for you and Sam. "Josh," he cleared his throat, taking a few sips. "What about Josh?" Trying to hold your breath, made you curious as to why Josh's younger brother was so angry at him. In fact, you wanted to burst out laughing. "He's so stubborn with everything, and the way he talks about you. God- it's like- I've never seen so much hatred from him." Sam shook his head downing the rest of his drink. He poured some more in his cup and your cup.
You took Sam's hand leading him to your room. You put on Labi Siffre, an old, classic album. You also turned on one of your dim colored lights. They lit up Sam's cheekbones perfectly, making his pale skin glow flawlessly. It looked smooth enough to run a finger over and feel the gentle, velvety skin of Sam.
"How does he talk about me?" Sam closed his eyes, thinking. "He just doesn't let go of the subject. Anytime you or I come up, it's just this rage of fury from him. He almost shuts down essentially. You know," he burped. "They all went out tonight."
You hummed at that. "They all went out, leaving behind you and me." You scoffed at the thought of Josh with Logan at your favorite bar or restaurant. "I'm so sorry Sam." You rubbed his arm, looking down at the floor next to your bed. "That was you and your brother's relationship, and I just," you flicked your hands, making a whoosh sound. Sam laughed, leaning into your side. "Don't worry about it. I like helping you out. Josh can be a little much sometimes."
You elbowed him in the side thinking about something. "Hey whatever happened to the girl from the music shop? You ever talk to her lately?"
"Yeah," he huffed out. "We've been talking lately. She wants to meet up sometime soon, but I don't know." You cocked your head to the side. "Why not. You clearly like her and she really likes you. I don't remember when the last time some actually liked you." Sam pretended he was hurt, pushing you to the side. "I'll ask her sometime when I'm not busy. She's nice."
"And pretty?" you questioned. Sam let out a laugh, swirling the alcohol in his cup. "Very pretty." You both let out sighs sitting in comfortable silence. Although, your mind was occupied with thoughts of Josh, swirling around and never-ending. There were times you just wanted to get up and say fuck it and try to at least explain. But of course, the rejection of him never wanting to be your friend again would kill you. Maybe this was the universe's cruel way of saying you and Josh were never meant to be together in the first place.
If so, you hated it.
-
Surprisingly, Sam was the first to wake up. Which rarely happens considering how well you knew him. The poor boy slept through everything. He started shaking you awake, poking and tickling your sides. "Are you dead, jeez?" You quickly rubbed your eyes, sitting up. "Sorry, the alcohol must've really knocked me out." Sam stifled a yawn, sitting on the edge of your bed. "Well, we can do one of two things today," he noted. "We can either go to the studio and face my brother, or we can- do nothing else. That's really it. I kind of swore I would be there today."
You couldn't stay inside any longer. You decided against the greater good to tag along with Sam. Maybe you could talk with Josh, and clear the air. "Can I go with you?" Sam nodded feverishly. "Of course; that's like your job."
"It doesn't feel like it. Logan's pretty much taking over, so what's the point of me." You scoffed thinking of the mellow girl who seemed to get along with everyone. You hated to slander her, but you just wanted Josh back. You and Sam left in a rush, hastily driving to the studio. You walked inside with a cigarette dangling from your lips, smoke escaping through your nose. Sweat seeped from your palms making you excited and nervous at the same time. You felt like an outsider coming in on your job. Thinking about seeing Josh made it worse.
"Hello, Hello Y/N" Danny strutted over, hairs sticking to his forehead. He pulled you in for a tight hug, nearly suffocating you. "Hey, Daniel." you moved the hairs around his face so you could see him better. "Long time, no see, man." He laughed walking back to his seat behind the drum kit. You followed Sam to the other rooms where Jake and Josh might be hiding. Sure enough, Josh was standing next to his twin, listening to a riff he was playing. They immediately stopped talking to each other. Josh scoffed at you as Sam led you inside, beside him.
"Look what the cat dragged in!" Josh said it lowly, spitting it towards you. Your eyes looked down, not daring to ever lookup. "Hey Josh," Sam patted him on the shoulder. You looked awkwardly around the room looking for a means to escape. When you realized there wasn't one, you looked back at Josh. He quietly talked to Jake about something before turning to you. You tried to look away fast enough, but his eyes caught yours. Josh started to stalk close to you, exhaling a breath. "Hey," you thought he might've not heard you, but his response caught you off guard.
"Hey, Y/N" He sniffled a little bit before turning towards you. "Care to take a walk with me? Could use some fresh air." You nodded your head silently, following after him. If your anxiety hadn't kicked in yet, it sure as hell did now. Josh was never a person to scare you. He was too light and giddy for him to be somewhat freighting.
He walked slightly behind you with a hand on the small of your back. Josh eventually let go of you when you both made it to the sidewalk. The people around you made the silence slightly more comfortable but you wished you had something to think about other than Josh. After a few more moments of silence, you decided to speak up, but Josh beat you to it. "I'm sorry for being an ass," he cleared it all out on one breath. You scoffed at him. "I think you were being more than an ass, Josh." He suddenly slowed his walking to match your pace.
"You pretty much left me in the wind. I thought I lost my best friend," you nudged him softly in the ribcage, laughing. He held a hand over his chest, heaving out a relieved breath. "I thought you were going to hate me forever." You pointed at him before saying: "Pull anything like that again, and I'll do more than just hate you forever."
Josh held his hands up abruptly like you had caught him stealing something. "I promise." You smirked. The both of you walked around endlessly making small talk here and there. Part of you was glad that you and Josh had cleared the air. Although, you hadn't really talked with him about Sam. It embarrassed you just thinking about the whole situation.
After you made a full round of the streets, Josh walked you back inside the studio. It was hours before anyone ever got to go home. The moon had fully risen and was shining brightly in the sky. You stared up like a child, holding on tightly to your coat. When you were making your way towards Sam's car Josh had grabbed you by the elbow.
"Y/N," Josh fiddled around with the collar of his jacket, looking down at the concrete. Even though it was pitch black outside, you could tell Josh's face was heating up. "I was wondering if you wanted to come back with me? I know Sam was taking you home, but I still feel like we need to talk." A small smile started to quickly form. You nodded not thinking about the harm that could come from staying with Josh.
"Yeah, sure." you let a hesitant sigh before following him once more. When you arrived inside Josh's home it felt almost foreign. There were slightly disheveled things around, but nothing had really changed. It still had all the same scattered records on the coffee table as well as random books set around the countertops. Josh flipped on the light switch and went towards the kitchen. He came back out and handed you a cup of water before taking off his coat.
"I know, it's been a long time since we spoke," he started. "or even hung out together."
You nodded, sipping some of the water. "Yeah, I kind of missed that."
-
After you and Josh got situated, he led you back to his room. There was a dim lamp, along with some new fairy lights scattered around the ceiling. "Fairy lights?" You pointed to the little bulbs sparkling brightly. "Oh, yeah," Josh was picking out a record, finally placing it on the player. It was an album you hadn't heard before, but it seemed to fit the mood well enough. Looking around for a little bit longer you come to find some old pictures on the floor. Squatting down, you noticed they were photos of his brothers and Daniel when they were younger. But what really caught your attention was a stack neatly dedicated to you.
Some of the photos had showcased some of you and Josh's late adventures, and the concerts you had appeared to. One in particular in which Josh had his arms wrapped around your middle, seated around a bonfire. That was a night you remember very clearly. That was when you realized how much you loved Josh. He never left your side and coddled you close to him. The memory warmed your heart making it beat a tiny bit faster.
"That was a very hot summer night if I remember correctly." Josh peered over your shoulder, studying the picture. "Yeah, it was. Then I passed out inside the van right after that," you laughed loudly, tossing your head back. Running a finger over your face in the picture still reminiscing on the sweet memory, you could feel Josh watching you from across the room.
"Can you come up here for a sec?" Josh patted his mattress, motioning to you. You could tell he was nervous still when he started to fumble around with his nails, not making much eye contact. "Do you remember when I asked you why you envied me so much?" He let out a slow breath, nudging you a little bit with his elbow. You realized the change in the situation and started to mirror his nervous tics.
"Yeah, I just- wish I could carry myself like you. You're always the most confident person in the room; you know things Josh that no one could ever know." The two of you sat in silence for a little bit after you answered. Josh hesitated before speaking again but continued on after pondering for a bit. "Well, I never felt that way around you. For the longest time, I would beat myself up just thinking about how wonderful you are Y/N. The way you think of me is how I always thought of you. Just not as confident because of how quiet you are sometimes." He laughed out the last part making you smile back.
"God, sometimes I just want to cry because of how amazing you are Y/N. Everything you've done for this band, everything you've done for me; I just - I love you." You slowly turned your head to look at Josh, replaying the words over and over again in your head.
He loves you.
"I'm going to assume you mean in it in that way Josh or this would be very embarrassing." Josh snickered, putting both hands on the side of your face. "I mean it in every way possible." He finally pressed his lips to yours, feeling the velvet touch of each other. Josh ran his fingers through your hair, pressing his tongue in an open-mouthed kiss. You moaned quietly when he started to press kisses along your jaw, down to your neck. You could feel his hands start to travel down to your waist, hugging you tightly as it showed in the picture.
Josh continued to bite down on your skin and sucked, leaving bright red marks behind. His fingers squeezed down on your hips before traveling under your shirt. He placed a knee between your legs, pushing you further into the mattress. You looked at each other momentarily as Josh slipped you out of your shirt. He ran his hands over your stomach making you flinch at the sudden touch.
"Josh," His name came out as a whine as Josh slipped off your bra, throwing it towards the floor. You caught the look of awe when his eyes landed on your breasts, your chest heaving slightly. He returned to kissing down your neck making his way down your collar bone. Your hands made their way to his hair, tugging at it when his mouth made contact with your nipple.
He sucked gently, swirling his tongue around the hardened bud. All you could think about was the euphoric thoughts running through your brain. All you could see were stars, showing up in random directions making you lost in the feeling. Josh continued for a while before slowly traveling down to your legs.
Josh looked at you for approval, to which you vaguely nodded in return, before pulling off your pants. You shuddered at the delicate touch of his fingers ghosting along your skin. His hands traveled back up your calves, pressing at your thighs. The room suddenly became too hot as his fingers wrapped around the strap of your underwear, pulling them down your legs. Your breathing was so ragged by now that you thought Josh might've pointed it out already, but he continued to stare down at you with the most mesmerizing look in his eyes. You knew at this point if this had been anyone else, you probably would've wanted to hide under the bed. Something so comforting about Josh made it feel natural to in his grasps.
Josh started down at your ankles, pressing hard kisses up your legs. He hovered over your pelvis just before kissing around your clit. Your legs immediately started to close at the feeling, but his hand pushed them back farther. "Josh, oh my god!" You moaned out into nothing. He continued sucking hard on your clit making the stars in your head come closer to earth.
"Josh, please," Your hands pulled at his curls as he lapped around your center. "You're so fucking wet for me Y/N. Jesus," He moaned into your heat making you squirm on the bed.
"Please Josh, use your fingers, please." You whined mercilessly at the thought of coming around his fingers. It wasn't long before you felt two fingers drag inside of you, along with the feeling of him sucking your clit. You could feel yourself getting nearer to your orgasm as he curled his fingers against your g-spot. "Josh, don't fucking stop!"
At the perfect moment, everything seemed to fall apart in the most beautiful way. You leaned your head back into the pillow as your vision turned white with little black dots appearing randomly. Josh's breath fanned over your heat before he stood up to take off some of his clothes.
"Can't really have sex if I'm still dressed like I'm going to fucking prom or something, Jesus." You giggled loudly while you watched him crawl back over you. Josh pressed a soft kiss to your lips, grinding his hips against you. Your hand slowly ran over his chest, grabbing onto his belt. You fumbled around until you managed to get it undone along with his pants. Josh stared at your face, admiring your features. "I don't think I'll be able to take you seriously for much longer if you don't do something," you whispered.
"Oh yeah?" Josh raised an eyebrow, smiling at you. You slowly reached past his briefs making contact with his hard-on, causing him to moan quietly and start kissing you again.
"Uh, I don't think I have any condoms on me; I didn't really envision fucking you tonight." You smirked, wrapping your arms around his neck. "It's okay. I'm on the pill." You pulled his underwear down, hiking your legs around his hips loosely. You could feel yourself getting wetter as he passively rolled his forefinger over your clit. You kissed him hard, sucking on his tongue. "Fuck me, please," you begged. Josh looked deeply into your eyes, then grabbing your legs and wrapping them around his hips, tightly. He teased you, rubbing himself up and down your center.
You exhaled as he entered you, wrapping a hand around his bicep to steady yourself. Josh's head fell into your neck, feeling his warm breath as he trusted in slowly. He lifted his head to kiss you; He used his hand to move the hairs out of your face, wrapping it around your cranium. "You are so- prepossessing." He whispered, his thrust becoming faster.
Your nails dug into his shoulder blades after he set such a brutal pace that you didn't think you'd be able to keep up with. You took note of how his curls stuck to his forehead. Whenever he thrust in, you could feel yourself getting closer and closer. His thrust started to shake the bed only spurring you on more. Your hands grabbed at his torso, holding onto him tightly.
"Josh," you breathed out, words lost as they left your mouth. "Don't stop." Josh looked between your bodies as they pressed together. He thrust in deep, pressing you into the bed further. You cursed under your breath, trying to hold back the moans only releasing small high-pitched whines. Your head fell back against the pillow, all the tension releasing your body slowly. "Fuck," Josh moaned into your collarbone. He tightened his grip on your thigh, quickening his thrusts.
You ran your fingers along the nape of his neck, feeling the little hairs stick to his body. Josh moaned, feeling him cum deep inside you. His head fell into your neck as you both tried to catch your breath. Josh smiled, pressing kisses to your chest before laying down next to you.
"Fuck you're amazing," Josh mumbled into your ear. He wrapped an arm around your shoulder pulling your head to his chest. His hands ran down your arm, squeezing the tiny bit of flesh. "Tell me something I don't already know Joshua." You flipped over onto your side, Josh following in pursuit. He tightened his arm once more around your stomach this time. He pressed small kisses along your shoulder, laying his face into your hair.
"I love you," He mumbled.
"I love you too." You placed your hand over his, peace finding you easy tonight.
-
When you woke up the next morning, Josh still had you in his arms, snoring softly. Like you, he liked to get up when it was still dark out, but given last night you couldn't blame either of yourselves for wanting to sleep in. Josh woke up sometime after, pressing small kisses into the nape of your neck down to your shoulder blades.
"Good morning," he said quietly, wrapping his legs around yours, pulling his body closer to yours.
"Morning Josh." You closed your eyes allowing the quiet of the room to comfort you. It seemed pretty peaceful outside, from what you could hear at least. But your mind was running a thousand miles a minute. How did a three-year friendship change so drastically? If someone told you that three years later you'd be sleeping with Josh, you probably start cursing them out at the bare minimum. Josh infuriated you at the beginning, but what changed that you couldn't get enough? Maybe it was his style? Everyone loves Josh's style. He doesn't really care what goes together, as long as it fits him and his outrageous personality. Speaking of which, Josh's personality was unspoken of. People turned heads when he walked through doors because he was always the life of the party. Normal people just naturally gravitate towards him. Heck, you couldn't even keep up the 'holding a grudge' façade for too long because Josh helped you. Maybe you thanked him for that instead.
"I think we need to get up," you said, patting his hand. He protested that you two keep sleeping longer because it's too early. "Josh it's like," you squinted your eyes towards the clock. "Nine am." You yelled, pushing his arm of you.
You ran into the bathroom to pee before jumping in the shower. After taking some time cleaning yourself and changing into something more comfortable (which ended up being one of Josh's old college sweatshirts because he insisted you looked really good in them) you both left to the studio. Of course, the first one to greet you was your favorite out of the four, Daniel. After he finished talking with Josh, he led the both of you to a back room. It was a large decorated room that you hadn't really been in much. The walls were in stripes of inverted red along with carpet having a velvet touch to it. Plaques labeled the wall with other types of scandalous music art.
Jake and Sam walked in together already arguing about something. "Lookey here," Jake pulled you into a side hug, and Sam passed you a drink. "I thought my smoking habits were bad, but drinking at ten in the morning?" you tutted Sam away from you, taking a seat at a large table. "It helps me think more clearly."
Josh took a seat next to you, placing a hand on your thigh. "Hey, you never showed me the finish drawing for your clothing ideas." You raised your eyebrows and said: "I wonder why." You cocked your head to the side, and Josh frowned at you. Snickering to yourself, you handed him a sketchbook. "These are- really good, Y/N. I forgot you could draw so well." You doodled around the paper of a sketched-out Josh in what would be fashion attire for next year. "One of my many hobbies."
He patted your leg before turning his attention to his twin. Sam waltzed over to your side, a cigarette hanging from his lips. "Is that my brother's sweatshirt?" You glared at him before answering a subtle yes. Sam gasped in a fake manner, holding a hand across his heart.
"Are you two in love with each other finally?" Sam laughed at you giving him a side-eye. "Good. you make Josh happy." Content with that, he left to go sit next to Danny. You played around with the drawing some more, later on, moving to a computer to work there. Everyone left you alone to go play in another room which seems to help numb the background noise. Though, it didn't last long until Josh walked through the door. He strutted over to you, rubbing a hand on your back before sitting down.
"How's it goin' in there?" You closed the laptop, turning your attention towards him. Josh talked about how everything's coming along nicely, and Jake is stubborn about everything or how Sam is always messing up. You hummed, following along. Not that you would ever tell Josh, but sometimes you never would really listen to what he was saying, but you loved to watch his hand movements or the expressions on his face. It added to his character. "I meant to ask you some time ago, but uh- whatever happened to Logan?" Josh immediately froze, looking down to the floor like a scolded puppy.
"I told her I would talk to her later this week." You shook your head, crossing your arms. "What?"
"Nothing; I was just thinking we wouldn't be in this mess if it weren't for me oodling with your brother." Josh laughed at your choice of words, placing his hand softly on yours. "I think it was both us Y/N."
'Well, in my defense Sam is kind of hot now that I think about it." Josh slapped your shoulder. "Mmmm, you're right Sam does have that 'sense' to him." Time seemed to fly by the five of you, constantly arguing, laughing, or just goofing off with each other. It felt good to be back with everybody, and not walking around on eggshells. Sometimes the moment was so pleasant, you never wanted it to end.
-
It was eerily quiet when you walked inside Josh's home. It was nighttime, and the moon was full, shining brightly through the curtains. "Don't you ever wish you could see the stars?" Josh asked randomly.
"Light pollution man," He mumbled out, yeah, heading towards his bedroom. You peeked outside the window one more time, catching a glimpse of the clouds in the sky. Josh had changed into some comfier clothing and slid under the covers. You followed in pursuit, still wearing his old college t-shirt. "Where do you think we'll be in ten years?" The question had taken you by surprise. You knew he had a tendency to think a lot about the future, which was kind of admirable, but you had a hard time figuring out what the future would hold for you.
"That's hard to tell; Not unless I kill you first, but uh, I think we'll still be together, and so will the band. I guess it's just up to the rest of us." Josh hummed at your input. He flipped over on his side to look at you. "I hope we're together forever." Your face started to blush, although you doubt Josh could see, this time you wished he did.
"Me too." Your voice came out with full confidence knowing every ounce of you could never let him go. "Hey, do you think you'd ever let me wear your outfits after this next tour? They're kind of stylish if I say so myself." Josh laughed out loud. "I don't think they'd fit you, honey." You scoffed, pouting.
"Josh, I hate to break it to you but you're not that big." A playful laugh escaped your mouth while you pinched his arm. He pushed you back in return. "I meant your height." He shook his head. You turned around, allowing Josh to trap you in his arms.
"I hope I get to see you in heaven. If there is one." The sound of his voice made you want to cry. It was soft whisper that it felt so delicate at this moment.
"I think if you've seen me then, you will see me forever."
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littlemisspascal · 4 years
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Death and an Angel part 3
Death!Din and Cupid F!Reader
Summary: You and Din have an unexpected heart-to-heart about what it means to be Death and a Cupid on route to a planet where Din’s potential soulmate lives.
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,500
Warnings: Pining, smidge of angst, more plot development, Razor Crest (RIP I miss you darling!), a made-up home world for the reader (yes, yes, there’s like a million I could have picked but my brain said NOPE)
Author Note: Ahhhh, the comments are so amazing from you all! Thank you everyone out there sparing time to check out my little universe, it makes me sooo happy you have no idea! As always, I hope you enjoy this new segment as I try to plot this story out and get these two idiots to acknowledge there just might be something between them. 
Also special thanks to @codenamewitcher​​ for including the first two parts on Weekly Fanfic Recs. Be sure to go check out the list for a whole bunch of fantastic stories!
Links to Part 1, Part 2 and Part 4
Photo Inspiration: (What I imagine is beneath the armor in this scene...*dreamy sigh*)
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There is a distinct silence that can only be found in hyperspace when the stars outside resemble sparkling streaks of silver tinsel and your breath is trapped within your lungs as you’re awestruck by the sheer beauty of it all. You experience this silence aboard the Razor Crest, sitting in the cockpit behind Din as he pilots his beloved gunship. It isn’t the first time you’ve been a passenger, having traveled with Din on two previous ventures where your Cupid services were required on planets far away from your home on Umbriel.
Off-world assignments for you were generally rare since your bosses were more inclined to choose Cupids of higher ranking to handle those clients, but sometimes you were the only available option left. Which, come to think of it, is exactly how you became the one roped into meeting with Death every full moon. Your bosses decided someone needed to check up on him to make sure he wasn’t reaping anyone before their fated time and thus messing with the natural order of things. You privately have reached the conclusion it was a decision made during a fit of paranoia as you had yet to find any evidence suggesting Din ever broke a single one of the universe’s rules, let alone even considered the mere possibility.
When you did travel for assignments, you never stopped feeling like a goldfish being dumped out of your familiar little bowl and into a massive ocean full of strange oddities. You would often find yourself wasting time trying to successfully navigate the unknown world when you should have been focused on tracking down your client’s soulmate.
That’s why Din had offered to start traveling with you. Actually, in his own words it was because, “You think about love so much you don’t see trouble until it’s an inch in front of you. Someone’s got to be there to look after you.”
You’d tried to argue, told him you had never experienced trouble and that if you did then you could handle it with your bow. All Cupid’s were required to master archery for self-defense purposes, though Din’s responding snort of derision made you suspect he wasn’t convinced of your skills. You wondered if he thought, just as humans incorrectly did, a Cupid only used their bow to spread love and lust. Or maybe he just thought you weren’t capable of such finesse. It was an insulting assumption, fueling you with the burning desire to prove him wrong. One day, you keep telling yourself, a repetitive chant. One day you’ll show him just how capable you are with your weapon and you imagine his look of shock, whether worn openly on his face or hidden beneath the visor of his helmet, will be utterly priceless.
But in the meantime, you’re in no hurry to encounter trouble. Finding enjoyment in taking these trips with him on his ship instead.
The Razor Crest had actually been a complete surprise to you when Din first welcomed you on it; primarily because the notion of him using such a primitive form of transportation despite the powers he possessed as Death was too outrageous to wrap your head around. However, it took less than ten minutes soaring through space for you to discover just how many details of the universe you were missing by relying on your Cupid abilities to teleport yourself between locations. Never would you have imagined Death to be the one to teach you to love the slowness of travel, to let your eyes linger on all the beautiful wonders along the way. But that’s exactly what happened.
You turn your head away from the window to look at Din. From your angle, all you glimpse is the back of his helmet, reflecting the passing starlight. Soon you’ll be introducing Din to the first immortal on your list of potential soulmates.
Death, you quickly correct yourself. He’s only Din when he’s around you.
You initially thought he elected to wear his armor because you told him he could to ease his comfort, but now you think it’s because this is him meeting his potential soulmate as himself. It is easy to forget sometimes this is the image of Death—a warrior enshrouded in beskar, cunning and ruthless—that is recognized throughout the universe. And feared.
If the handsome face he concealed was known instead, you wonder if mortals would readily choose to embrace the ending of their lifetime, rather than foolishly seek to run from its inevitability.
“What is it?” Din’s baritone voice startles you as it shatters the quietness. The modulator within his helmet gives his tone a low raspiness that never fails to send a chill down your spine when you hear it.
“Huh?” You respond ineloquently.
“You’ve been staring at the back of my head for the last five minutes, angel. I figured you had something worth saying.”
“Oh, no. I was just thinking about you.”
Immediately you wish a meteor would collide with the ship, providing you with the necessary distraction to escape and find somewhere you can hide until the end of time.
“...What about me were you thinking?” Din wonders after a solid thirty seconds of pure silence, voice somehow conveying an equally blended mixture of intrigue and wariness. He flips on the ship’s autopilot and turns in his seat to pin you with his gaze, apparently unwilling to let you try and weasel yourself out of the conversation.
You roll the question around in your mind, wanting to give an answer that satisfies him without it also embarrassing yourself further.
“I was thinking how much of an enigma you are,” you murmur at last, leaning back in the chair with your arms crossing over your stomach. “You wield such incredible powers and yet you choose to wear a human face, to call this man-made ship your home and to also spend your spare time living amongst those you will eventually reap. Why are these your choices?”
He tilts his head, and you just know there is a little crease of bewilderment appearing between his eyebrows right now even if you can’t see it. For as much as he is a puzzle you can’t put together, he is also at times an open book that you will never tire of reading.
“I would think you, more than most beings, would understand the discomfort that stems from loneliness and the lengths one will go to ease it,” he says, not unkindly. He mirrors your position, maneuvering himself until he’s comfortable in his seat and totally oblivious to the dilating of your pupils as you observe every subtle shift of his armor-clad body. “Isn’t that the true purpose of Cupids? To spare individuals the ache of living a life of solitude by introducing them to someone to love so they no longer feel it.”
“That’s a poetic way of putting it,” you answer, smiling softly and shrugging your shoulders. “My superiors would just quote our mantra back at me when I used to ask. Amor vincit omnia.”
“Love conquers all.”
You shouldn’t be surprised he’s able to translate such an ancient and obscure language, but your eyes widen regardless. “That’s right.”
His voice is unusually soft when he asks, “Do you like being a Cupid?”
You stare at him, caught off guard by how easily he’s changed the topic of the conversation from himself to you. You’re used to taking orders and being thanked for your services, but no one has ever asked you if you liked doing any of it.
“I’m good at it,” you finally say, even though it’s not really an answer.
He nods his head still, as if he understands. A part of you thinks he actually does.
You lick your lips, eyeing him hesitantly. “Do you...like being Death?”
“I’m good at it,” he echoes, but your words sound somber coming from his lips.
The cockpit fills with hushed silence again, but there’s a unique tenderness unlike ever before. Minutes seem to stretch on for entire seasons as you watch one another, content to simply coexist and revel in each other’s presences.
It would be so easy to slip off his helmet and kiss him right now.
You stiffen, stunned at your own thought, but you aren’t given the chance to analyze it further as an alarm on the ship’s control panel announces with a resounding beep you’ve reached your destination.
Din spins in his seat, reclaiming control of the steering to begin the ship’s landing process. You look out the front window at the large green-blue planet drawing nearer with every anxious tick of your heartbeat.
“We’re here,” you say needlessly, forcing excitement into your voice. Fake it till you make it, isn’t that the human expression?
“Who is it we’re meeting on this backwater skug hole?” Din asks, pressing a series of buttons above his head.
You kick the back of his seat. “Be nice,” you scold when he shoots you a look. He mutters something unintelligible under his breath as he turns back around, prompting you to roll your eyes. “She’s a goddess of springtime and motherhood. The locals call her Omera.”
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cheri-translates · 3 years
Text
[CN] Summer 2021 Moments
🍒 Warning: Contains detailed spoilers for Moments not yet released in EN 🍒
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Gavin’s Post: Every summer, it seems the air-conditioner has to be spoilt once.
MC: Shouldn’t you be the last last last person in the world who needs an air-conditioner?
Gavin: There’s a difference between manual labour and automation.
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Gavin’s Post: Every summer, it seems the air-conditioner has to be spoilt once.
MC: What a coincidence - the air-conditioner in my house is also spoilt!
Gavin: It seems that this evening is suitable for a drive.
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Gavin’s Post: Every summer, it seems the air-conditioner has to be spoilt once.
MC: Come over to my place - I’ll let you enjoy extreme coolness!
Gavin: Aside from me, is there anything else to bring?
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Gavin’s Post: It tastes really delicious. Number one in my heart.
MC: Because I made it!!
Gavin: I still want to eat it tomorrow. Is that okay?
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Gavin’s Post: It tastes really delicious. Number one in my heart.
MC: What a dashing candid shot. I’m the best photographer~
Gavin: The photos I take of you are also very cute. We both rank the best.
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Gavin’s Post: It tastes really delicious. Number one in my heart.
MC: One for you, one for me, perfect~
Gavin: But this isn’t the only thing I want. See you tonight.
-
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Victor’s Post: The day before yesterday was lychee, yesterday was strawberry, and today is mango. A certain person’s definition of trying a new shop equates to one cup a day.
MC: Many thanks to my good companion whose second cup is 50% off!
Victor: I’m also grateful that you’ve made me a silver card member of this shop within a week.
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Victor’s Post: The day before yesterday was lychee, yesterday was strawberry, and today is mango. A certain person’s definition of trying a new shop equates to one cup a day.
MC: When the discount period of this new shop is over, I won’t drink as much.
Victor: I’ll remember your words.
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Victor’s Post: The day before yesterday was lychee, yesterday was strawberry, and today is mango. A certain person’s definition of trying a new shop equates to one cup a day.
MC: It’s the fault of summer fruits for not being delicious.
Victor: It’s also the fault of milk tea for being delicious, correct?
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Victor’s Post: As punishment for being late, your milk tea has been confiscated.
MC: I’m on the way, I’m really on the way...
Victor: No need to hurry. Considering the long queue, you wouldn’t be able to buy a second cup before entering the cinema.
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Victor’s Post: As punishment for being late, your milk tea has been confiscated.
MC: !! You weren’t this cruel in the past!
Victor: Why don’t you recall an even earlier past?
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Victor’s Post: As punishment for being late, your milk tea has been confiscated.
MC: Sob sob. In that case, taste it properly... is it really as delicious as the online reviews...
Victor: If you don’t reach in five minutes, the second cup will be gone too.
-
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Kiro’s Post: The shaved ice is ready, and avoiding the summer heat officially begins.
MC: What an exquisite dessert... I want to try it too!
Kiro: I’ll bring you there next time! It’s a deal!
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Kiro’s Post: The shaved ice is ready, and avoiding the summer heat officially begins.
MC: Let me guess - is it peach flavoured?
Kiro: Ding ding ding, your answer is correct! The prize is a hug. Wait for it to appear once I’m back from the filming site!
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Kiro’s Post: The shaved ice is ready, and avoiding the summer heat officially begins.
MC: It isn’t August yet. Is it too early?
Kiro: Haha, it’s just a prop for filming! When will Miss Chips visit me at work?
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Kiro’s Post: After a fleeting happiness, the trainer in the gym smiled grimly as he waved at me.
MC: I just found many healthy recipes. I could cook them for you!
Kiro: With your words, I immediately fled from the gym.
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Kiro’s Post: After a fleeting happiness, the trainer in the gym smiled grimly as he waved at me.
MC: It’s okay, you might dream about the peach flavoured shaved ice tonight!
Kiro: With such sweet words, I sincerely invite you to drop by my dream too~
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Kiro’s Post: After a fleeting happiness, the trainer in the gym smiled grimly as he waved at me.
MC: It’s okay, efforts will not be wasted. We can just exercise after eating!
Kiro: That makes sense. In that case, I’ll listen to you and take another secret bite!
-
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Lucien’s Post: While working at home, I suddenly had a dessert next to me.
MC: Chef MC made it. Is it delicious?
Lucien: Since it’s the work of the chef, of course it’s delicious.
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Lucien’s Post: While working at home, I suddenly had a dessert next to me.
MC: Professor Lucien has been working hard. This is a consolation dessert I prepared.
Lucien: Aside from desserts, could I look forward to another form of consolation?
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Lucien’s Post: While working at home, I suddenly had a dessert next to me.
MC: The peppermint on top was plucked from your balcony. (softly)
Lucien: I think my balcony has grown used to the visits from a certain “uninvited guest”.
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Lucien’s Post: We could finish this cup together, then take a tiny break together.
MC: But I prepared this cup specially for you.
Lucien: But I want to share it with you.
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Lucien’s Post: We could finish this cup together, then take a tiny break together.
MC: Sure. I studied how to make this for an entire morning, so it’s time for a break.
Lucien: To show my appreciation for your hard work, teach me how to make it next time.
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Lucien’s Post: We could finish this cup together, then take a tiny break together.
MC: Even though they taste the same, why is the one in your hand more delicious?
Lucien: It’s likely because you’ve added the flavour of “love” into it.
-
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Shaw’s Post: Is this what they call “popsicles bring happiness to summer”?
MC: Hearing you says this makes me want to be happy again~
Shaw: You’ve had a little too much happiness today. It’s my turn.
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Shaw’s Post: Is this what they call “popsicles bring happiness to summer”?
MC: The hard work of air-conditioning is a huge factor too!
Shaw: What about the hard work of the person who turned the air-conditioning on and bought popsicles for you?
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Shaw’s Post: Is this what they call “popsicles bring happiness to summer”?
MC: Just imagine the feeling of eating a sweet and refreshing popsicle while sweating profusely.
Shaw: It feels like diarrhea.
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Shaw’s Post: Sure enough, the last stick tastes even better.
MC: Don’t you know that sharing good things makes them even more delicious?
Shaw: Really? Come over and let me try.
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Shaw’s Post: Sure enough, the last stick tastes even better.
MC: Didn’t we agree that you’d leave that stick to me?
Shaw: Did you agree that with yourself?
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Shaw’s Post: Sure enough, the last stick tastes even better.
MC: Young hero, put it down! We can talk things through!
Shaw: It’s already in my mouth. Next time, negotiate earlier.
-
[ KARMAS ]
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