#the good fight fanfiction

[cissyenthusiast010155]

Doors Closing ~Diane Lockhart xFem Reader

Summary— Reader starts at Stern Lockhart & Gardner and finds herself under Diane’s wing. What happens when Reader develops more than professional feelings for the woman…?

Mommy… Master List

Requests & Prompt-List

Warnings: fluff and angst, unrequited feelings, lawyers, the good wife/the good fight universe, unhappy ending (is it? In some ways yeah…), etc.

Enjoy (;

2009 brought a fresh wind to Chicago. You had lived outside the city for your entire life. But you had recently moved into the city, having grown up in the suburbs and this was your big new change. What drove you to move was a job that you had been chasing before the crash. It was a Secretary position at Stern, Lockhart & Gardner. Secretary was just to get you in the door, from there, you aspired to eventually become an assistant and one day a lawyer.

Female lawyers existed but unfortunately the life of law still was very much a boys club. When your husband had still been alive, he had given you his law books to learn from. After he passed, you had resolved to pursue your dream. And after many grueling hours of studying, interviewing, and connection making, you ended up with the position. You moved into her tiny Chicago apartment the very next weekend and began working that Monday.

The job while it was a dream come true most definitely came with its own challenges. You found the environment of Stern, Lockhart & Gardner to be quite male dominant and even hostile at times. Your late husband had warned you of this however, and you had insisted that you would persevere. It had now been 4 years since your husband had passed. There would always be a part of you that would miss him, but he had made you promise not to get hung up on him in the event of his death, and you were determined to keep yourself to your word.

You quickly got into a rhythm at Stern, Lockhart & Gardner. You would arrive at work everyday at least 30 to 45 minutes earlier than was expected of you (this would be pushed even earlier as time past). And you would stay as late as it was asked of you. You had gotten more desensitized to the blatant sexism over time and tried to not take it to heart. All of your bosses were men. With the exception of a small portion of female secretaries and receptionists. You quickly discovered that those women were not your people. They had no ambition, at least your male colleagues had ambition. The one exception to the flock at the firm was the only female Name Partner, Diane Lockhart. Your favorite days were the ones where you got to interact with Ms. Lockhart.

Diane Lockhart held herself to a certain standard that no one else at Stern, Lockhart & Gardner seemed to uphold. She had worked hard to get where she was today, not many women were such renown lawyers, especially not at such a renown firm. On top of being excellent at her job, the woman always behaved with an etiquette and manner of kindness. She didn’t make the same racy jokes as her male counterparts, she didn’t gossip and giggle like your female colleagues. She was direct and to the point. She had ambition. She had guts.

When the time came around for promotions and bonuses, Diane requested you to be her personal assistant. You had been flattered, and you of course accepted. There was a mutual understanding of drive and work ethic between the two of you. You had held Diane up on a pedestal ever since you’d begun at the firm, but now for the first time, you got to know the woman behind the success.

You were now the buffer between Diane Lockhart and the rest of the firm. You ran the busy woman’s schedule, ran to grab her lunch and/or dinner, took and cataloged meetings. Both you and Diane began to relax into the routine of your working together. You got used to spending late nights together in the office, as you would insist that Diane eat. You got used to early morning coffee conversations, so early that most of the firm wasn’t even in yet.

Slowly over the years, the women began to become closer. One day, you learned that Diane had a significant other, one that she confided in you she was hoping would propose to her soon. You had immediately congratulated the other woman. But you had for some reason gotten a strange tightness in your stomache. Tight enough as to where you ended up rushing to the bathroom to throw up your lunch.

After that day, something was off with you. Your time with Diane became brighter and an even bigger highlight to your day. But your time without the other woman, it became dismal and distraught. You couldn’t sleep anymore, her mind racing with memories of Diane. You realized that the tight knot in your stomache was now a permanent thing. You had to fight to eat every day. On days where you didn’t see Ms. Lockhart, you would cry for hours on end. You drew back, if you weren’t in the office, you were in her apartment, curled up and frozen.

This went on for weeks. Until one final early morning, you drudged herself into work. Just at the sight of the other woman, you began to already perk up. You set her things down at your desk, before entering the lawyer’s office with her morning coffee. But as you extended the cup to Diane and greeted her, that was when you saw the ring on the woman’s left hand. You haphazardly dropped the coffee all over Diane’s desk, having completely forgotten about the hot drink.

Within moments, you regained her awareness and began to apologize for your clumsiness. You swiftly cleaned up the mess, before Diane began to tell you about her engagement. Your eyes softened in a mixture of happiness for her but despair for yourself. You intended to congratulate the other woman, watching her squeal about her fiancé and her future wedding. You felt like she’d been stabbed in the gut and someone had twisted the knife inside your intestines for good measure. You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t think. Your thoughts were too jumbled. The only thing you could make out, the only thing you could get out were three pesky little words: “I love you.”

How had this happened? How had your feelings slipped away from you so mistakenly? How had you messed it all up so bad? This wasn’t what your late husband had wanted for you. Was it? This wasn’t what Diane wanted, for herself or for you. But that was what you wanted, what you wanted was a fantasy however. You hadn’t wanted this. You had wanted so much more than what you had and you had taken a wrong turn somewhere. Somewhere along the way, your sights for your career changed to sights on a specific female lawyer. How could you have let herself get so far?

You tried to resign that day. But Diane wouldn’t hear of it, insisting she needed you and your good work and that she was willing to forget the transgression. The next week you took the bar. Two months later, Ms. Diane Lockhart happily became Mrs. Diane Lockhart-McVeigh, someone who you didn’t even seem to know anymore. Diane Lockhart now only existed in the figment of your imagination.

~~~

Diane Lockhart Masterlist ~Coming Soon (;

[liviz223]

Day 2 Prompt 2 of McHart Week 2023 has been posted. Now go read it!

[storiesofsvu]

Journey to the Past Ch 23

Bryan Kneef x reader

It was very safe to say that the next week was one hell of an awkward one. You were irritated that you weren’t able to get into a doctor right away, wanting to get this sorted out as soon as possible but the earliest appointment you could snag was Friday at four in the afternoon. The pessimist side of you was certain that the tests had been flukes, that this was a warning sign of something worse going on in your reproductive system, another bad cyst or something of the like. Maybe the tests had been expired, you’d forgotten to even check until you were sitting in your office on Monday pretending to work. You were thankful at least that you still had your apartment, able to spend some extra hours in the office and blame the late night and not wanting to drive across town to avoid Bryan, not wanting to let him know and thus panic before you had confirmation. You hated it, having to spend a full week in limbo, but your hope wasn’t very high considering your history and none of that was affecting anything positively.

You were even more thankful with just how patient he was with you, giving you the space without asking too many questions, accepting the excuse of a long hard week of work, overwhelmed with cases. He still went out of his way to drive up to your firm, making sure you had lunch (and a fresh coffee you pretended to sip at while he was still there) and were taken care of. You knew that he loved you no matter what and was just hoping that would extend to your current stipulation. You’d spent a couple of nights at his place (that was now both of yours), but retired to bed early, the exhaustion setting in heavily being a nice excuse to avoid the nightly wine.

Which is exactly why on Friday Bryan had left work early to make sure the apartment was not only clean, but as close to spotless as he could get it. He knew he’d been lagging in that department this week and felt bad about it, so he did as much as he could. Laundry was tossed into the machines, sheets were changed and refreshed, the living room was tidied and vacuumed and the pile up of coffee mugs in the sink got put in the dishwasher and ran through. He’d stopped at the grocery store on the way home, picking up things for a lavish dinner including appetizers and a pricey bottle of Argentinian wine. He knew you’d had a long stressful week and wanted to make sure you were well taken care of, and he figured you probably wouldn’t want to go out tonight after it all. The appetizers were easy to take care of, setting the display up on the kitchen island so he could start on the main course, wanting it to be ready as close as possible to when you got home.

Once the chicken was in the oven he poured out a glass of leftover wine from the previous night for himself while he waited, retreating further into the house to change into something more comfortable before swapping over a load of laundry. A case file lay open on the island that he was going over when he heard the front door open and the tell tale sign of your heels on the hardwood. You rounded the corner of the hallway and let out a small sigh, a tiny smile on your cheeks when Bryan’s eyes met yours.

“Hey.” He greeted with a warm grin and you hummed in response, dropping your bag and blazer onto the couch, practically kicking off your heels before letting out a groan at the shoes no longer pinching at your feet and making a beeline to Bryan.

“Hi.” You murmured into the crook of his neck, appreciating the way his arms tightly wound around you, letting you rest in his embrace for a few moments as you let out a couple of breaths, his lips brushing against your hairline.

“Long day?”

“Long week.” You replied, finally letting go, accepting the gentle kiss he gave you.

“Well, here.” He reached around you, pouring a glass of the lavish wine out for you, handing you the glass and you let out a little sigh, turning in his arms to face the island.

“What is all this?” You asked, your brow furrowing. You could smell that he was cooking dinner from the moment you’d set foot in the apartment but hadn’t taken into account the platters set up on the island. Bryan let out a soft chuckle, wrapping you in his arms from behind, his lips kissing at your neck gently.

“I felt like you were having a bit of a rough go this week.” He murmured, his words broken up by kisses, “wanted to treat you but I figured you wouldn’t want to go out, so why not bring the fancy restaurant to you?”

“You’re too sweet.” You picked up his hand in yours, brushing your lips across his knuckles and he gently squeezed at you. Your eyes glided across the island and you couldn’t help but let out an ironic laugh at the sight, Bryan had set up a plate of oysters, a homemade charcuterie and cheese board beside it and of course, the wine.

“What?” He asked, teeth nipping at your skin, “you already knew I could cook, is this that much of a surprise to you? You know I love you.” His lips trailed across your skin as he spoke.

“I don’t know how you managed to fucking do it, but I can’t eat any of this.” You stifled another laugh, Bryan still distracted in nuzzling against your skin.

“Oh c’mon.” He chuckled, “you love oysters.”

“I do.” You nodded, “doesn’t mean I can eat them.”

“You know they’re an aphrodisiac?” He muttered, finally turning you half in his arms so he was facing you, your sides to the island as he cupped at your cheek, lips chasing after yours.

“You really think you need an aphrodisiac to get me in bed?”

“No but figured it couldn’t hurt.” One of his hands vanished from your waist, drizzling some hot sauce onto an oyster that he then sucked back, “they’re fresh, and fucking delicious.”

“Bry…” you laughed, unable to keep the grin off your cheeks at the devilish look in his eyes as he continued to tease you, shifting you in his arms again so you were facing the island and all the bits and bites.

“Try the cheese, that lavender honey goes fantastically with the blue.” He nuzzled into the crook of your neck again, “it took me an hour to figure out the fucking salami roses.” His hand started to reach out for the soft cheese and you finally found your words again.

“Give me the gruyere.”

“Knew I’d get you somehow.” He chuckled, picking up a cube and guiding it to your mouth before he shifted again to face you, his hip resting against the island, “it pairs perfectly with the wine.” He picked up your glass and your fingers gently pushed it back to the island and he let out a scoff of a laugh. “What?”

“Out of the things on this island, there’s approximately five things I can eat and that includes the pickles.”

“Did you eat already?” His brow furrowed, “Larissa said you’d left work early for something.”

“No. I—”

“Dinner’s almost ready,” he smiled, pecking your cheek softly, “settle in, have some wine, trust me, it’s a good bottle.” He slid the glass toward you again and you let out a small laugh,

“Bry, I can’t.”

“You had rough week, let the past be in the past, have some incredible wine.” He laughed, stepping toward the stove when the timer went off to move a pot off a burner. “it’s what you deserve.” He moved back to you, an arm winding around your waist while he took a sip of his own wine, “I’ve got to be able to spoil my girl, that’s all I was trying to do sweetheart.”

“I know.” You smiled softly, accepting the kiss he left on your lips.

“I’m fine if you ate without me,” his lips started to trail across your jaw, “I can eat later… cause I can definitely think of something I’d rather eat right now instead.”

“Bry!” You laughed, hands attempting to grasp at his body as his mouth began to make its way down your neck.

“What’d’you say, have some wine and relax then let me make you even more relaxed? Hmm? Enjoy the food later after you’ve worked up an appetite again?”

“Bryan…” you nudged at his chin and all he did in return was attempt to hand you the glass of wine again before burying himself in the crook of your neck, “Bry…” you couldn’t help but giggle at the sensation of his beard scratching against your skin, “Bryan, c’mon.”

“Take a sip and I’ll stop.” He murmured, his tongue soothing the spot he’d just bit and your fingers threaded into his hair in a very unsuccessful attempt to tug him off you.

“Bryan…I’m pregnant.”

The words slipped from your lips; it wasn’t exactly how you’d been planning on telling him but it seemed to be the only way to gain his full attention. Even then it took a few moments for him to actually hear you, his lips continuing to kiss at your skin before you finally felt his body tense for a second before he pulled his face from the crook of your neck.

“Wait… can you seriously not eat cheese while you’re pregnant?” He asked, a worried look on his face and you couldn’t help the bark of a laugh.

“Is that seriously your first question here?” You asked, watching the way his eyes suddenly darted from yours down to your stomach and back up. He felt the all too familiar sensation suddenly burning in his gut and start to creep up his throat as he scrambled through his thoughts to try and form proper words.

“You’re pregnant?” He asked quietly and you nodded, he felt a pang within him at the fact that you didn’t have an excited smile on your face, nor did you look like you were panicking, you were stoic, nearly unreadable in the moment. “Are… are you sure?”

“Yeah.” You let out a small breath, “Kim was freaking out last week ‘cause she was late, I took a test with her to help calm her nerves.”

“You’ve known all week?” Bryan stilled in front of you, a moment of irritation flashing over his features and you gave him a knowing glance as you let out a huff.

“No.” You shook your head, gently squeezing at his hand “I was certain it was a false positive. I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for sure. I didn’t want to freak you out for no reason and I mean, there might still not be any reason to freak out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well I may have cleared the twelve week mark but considering my age and history, who knows how things’ll turn out.” You watched as his brow furrowed, the wheels turning in his head, “what?” Your voice suddenly soft, timid as it left your lips, worry etching its way across your face before Bryan glanced back up at you.

“You’re three months along?”

“Almost four.” You replied, wringing your hands, “listen…” your hand met his lapel gently, “I know there’s a lot to unpack here…” you felt the butterflies building in your gut, terrified that you were about to lose the man you loved because of your decision. “Even if I wanted to, it’s too late to terminate. But this is what I’ve always wanted, a baby, a family… I thought I’d lost that opportunity nearly a decade ago.” Tears began to blur into your eyes, “but sometimes life kicks our asses in the greatest way and gives us the second chance we never thought we’d have. I’m having this baby. And I know that might not be what you imagined for your future, so I understand if this is the end for us.”

Bryan looked up at you with an unreadable expression on his face, you could see the slight pain deep in his eyes but weren’t sure exactly where it was coming from. He on the other hand saw nothing but worry in yours, knowing just how many things you were probably terrified of right now. His hand shifted to cup at your cheek, thumb stroking at your skin gently before he spoke.

“I told you I wanted a future with you.” He said gently, his voice impeccably soft as his chest swelled, “no matter what kind of future that is, I still want it.” He felt you let out a breath, your shoulders sagging in relief as your body relaxed in front of him, “I may have a lot of reluctance in myself as a father but I know you’ll be the most incredible mother in the entire world. It may take some baby steps on my behalf but I know you’ll be able to help me become the parent our baby deserves.”

“Our baby…” You nearly whispered, looking up at him with a happy smile.

“We’re having a baby…” He let out a bright laugh and you shrieked as he suddenly pulled you to him in a tight hug, lifting you up off the floor as you laughed. He only let go of you when the timer for the oven went off and he let out a quiet swear, reluctantly stepping away from you to pull the tray from the oven and grab plates from the cupboard as you crossed through the room. You grabbed your purse, crossing back over to the island.

“Smells amazing.”

“Oh fuck.” Bryan swore, his head shooting in your direction, “can you have cream cheese? It’s cooked?” You couldn’t help but laugh at his sheer innocence on the subject at hand considering just how brilliant his brain was when it came to the legal world.

“Yes I can.”

“You said almost four months…” Despite being calm Bryan also felt his mind going a million miles a minute as it raced through everything he did know about babies and pregnancy, “isn’t that when people start telling people?”

“Yeah,” you let out a small sigh, “but I’d really rather not do that yet.” He noticed the shyness in your voice, the way you nearly wrapped around yourself as you leant against the island and he stepped toward you, tilting your chin up to find a misting of tears in your eyes, a frown tugging at the corner of your lips.

“Hey… hey…” he assured softly, a hand resting on your hip, “I thought this was supposed to be a happy thing, why the melancholy face?”

“I’m scared.” You admitted after a minute, your voice doing its best not to shake, “I’m in my forties, I had a huge struggle getting pregnant before…this probably isn’t going to be an easy walk in the park or anything… all the risks are higher, I swear I got a bigger stack of brochures about the risks than the positives.”

“Are there any they’re particularly worried about right now?” He asked and you shook your head, “was it just a pregnancy test today?”

“It was the one thing after another. I explained the test I took, my history, they did another test, a blood test and then rushed me for an ultrasound.” You reached out, grabbing at his arm, “I’m sorry I didn’t call you I just didn’t have time and didn’t know how to explain everything over the phone, I would’ve much rather had you been there.”

“They did an ultrasound?”

“Yeah…” your hands slipped into your purse, flitting through until you pulled the small black and white photograph from within it, placing it down on the island in front of Bryan, “so far it’s one happy healthy baby…”

“Oh shit…” he almost timidly reached out for it, picking it up off the counter before his eyes flitted between it and your stomach, finally meeting your gaze as his hand reached out to stroke at your cheek, “and mom?”

“Healthy.” You nodded, the smile unable to be restrained as you nodded and Bryan let out a sigh of relief, kissing your forehead before he turned around, pinning the ultrasound to the fridge with a magnet and turned back to you, cupping your cheeks.

“Then we take the rest of this one day at a time.” He kissed you softly, “I’ll do everything I can to catch myself up to speed, but in the meantime we’ve got the money, we’ve got the connections, you’re going to have the best doctors in the country, we’ll run every test that’s safe for the baby and we’re going to do this.”

“Are you sure?” Tears began to blur into your eyes as a tiny laugh escaped your lips, “you really want this?”

“I do.” He kissed you gently, “you’re my future. And now this little bean is too.” One of his hands dropped to your stomach, resting gently there for a moment before your hand curved over top of his, fingers slipping between his.

“We’re having a baby….” You whispered, pure adoration pouring from your eyes up to his as he smiled back down at you, feeling his chest about to explode with the total and complete love wrapping around the two of you in that moment, only able to press a tender kiss to your lips before he replied.

“We’re having a baby.”

_____________________________

@detective-giggles @plaidbooks @thatesqcrush @witches-unruly-heart @beccabarba @bisexual-dreamer02 @amelia-song-pond @madamsnape921 @whimsicallymad @mrsrafaelbarba @mysticfalls01 @ssaic-jareau @caracalwithchips @barbasbodaciousbeard @alwaysachorusgirll @beardedbarba @michael-rooker @rafivadafreddy @lustvolle-liebe @anlin2058 @fandom-princess-forevermore @tinyboxxtink @alexusonfire @xovalliegirlxo @somethingimaginative17 @momlifebehard @misscharlielulu @fighterkimburgess

[tropes-and-tales-archives]

Bryan Kneef:  Breaking Point, Part Nine

Word Count:  6786

TW:  Angst (job loss; DUI; family estrangement); fluff (reconciliation); smut (PiV, unprotected).  18+ only.

AN:  Part nine of a nine part series.  Other parts can be found here.

The night of the STR Laurie holiday party, you had asked Bryan Kneef if he had a rock bottom.  The implication in your tone was that no, he didn’t have one.  But that wasn’t true.

Bryan Kneef had a rock bottom.  In truth, he had been working his way to it for years and years, but the real, final skid started only a few days after your disastrous hookup the night of the party.

He had thought that it was odd how no one in his group chat had mentioned the plans for St. Kitts for the year.  The morning after your hookup, he sent out a few texts as feelers.  It was a day or two later when he got a reply – a halting series of texts from his stepbrother, gently explaining that everyone would prefer if he didn’t come this year.  

“Maybe next year?” Kyle texted.

Bryan didn’t respond to that.  He managed to cobble together a last-minute trip to Maui, but it was lonely.  The spectacular sunsets, the sea breezes all reminded him of you now, and you weren’t there.  No one was there but him.

Kyle’s gentle rebuff around St. Kitts was just a precursor.  Bryan’s stepbrother met him for lunch early in January, and over seared bay scallops, he informed Bryan that unfortunately, he wasn’t invited to the spring nuptials between Kyle and Jessa.  

Normally Bryan wouldn’t care, since weddings were just bullshit anyway.  He was still hurting from St. Kitts, though, and honestly – Kyle was an only child too, and Bryan was the closest thing he had to a brother.  Why wasn’t he invited?

“Jessa is really close with her cousin,” Kyle said after hesitating a moment.  He glanced up at Bryan and took in his blank face, then sighed in exasperation.  “You took her home after the engagement party.”

The memory was a little hazy; Bryan had been mostly tipsy and a little drunk.  “Oh.  Yeah.”

“Oh, yeah,” Kyle mimicked.  “Jesus, Bry.  You don’t even remember, do you?  You had sex with Jessa’s cousin and then kicked her out immediately like a complete douche.”  Kyle shook his head.  “I’m sorry about the wedding, but Jessa doesn’t want any drama.  I don’t want any drama.”

-----

If that were the end of it, Bryan would have been fine.

So he was mostly estranged from his remaining family.  Fine.

So he had grown apart from his oldest friends.  Fine.

It wasn’t the end of it, though.  Bryan had a long way to fall to hit his rock bottom, and because he was an asshole who drove everyone away from him, he was alone for all of it.

*****

When you got home after the disastrous night with Bryan, you took the weekend to give your life a long, appraising look.  Ever the planner, you wrote out a list of things you wanted to achieve in the upcoming year, and at some point on Saturday night (after you finished off half a bottle of Moscato), you made a snap decision.  When you woke up on Sunday morning, late, your email was full of confirmations – airplane tickets, vacation rental.

It wasn’t the worst thing you could have drunk-bought.

Everything else with Bryan Kneef aside, the trip to St. Kitts got into your bloodstream and never left.  It was the travel bug, for a woman who had never traveled further than Missouri her entire life before.  You had been born and raised in Chicago.  You attended college there, and you found a job there.  But St. Kitts had reminded you that the world was big and diverse and beautiful, and if that was the lesson you took from your interlude of madness with Bryan….there were worse lessons to take away from it.

You spent you holiday break in Rincon, Puerto Rico which felt fitting.  “Rincon” meant corner, and it felt like exactly the right place for you to see out the old year.  You found a small studio apartment that overlooked the ocean, and because Bryan and his too-cool-for-school friends were absent, you did everything.  You snorkeled.  You tried surfing, and you discovered that you did not have the balance for surfing.  You went for hikes and got your first massage.  You went horseback riding.

And when you got home to Chicago, you got to work on the rest of your new year’s to-do list.

First thing was first:  find a new job.

The truth was, STR Laurie bought out your firm years ago.  It was fine as a company, paid well enough, but there were too many inconsistencies between departments.  Some groups got bonuses, plenty of days off, the occasional catered lunches….other groups, not so much.  The senior litigators seemed to do whatever they wanted with little more than slaps on the wrist from H.R.

There was something deeply unsettling about your work.  You had somehow fell into a corridor of the law where you helped the very rich defend themselves and their money and property, as if they couldn’t spare a hit to their outrageous fortunes when they behaved terribly.  It made you uncomfortable.  You had grown up in that hazy place of working class and lower middle class:  your mother had been a housewife, and your father a carpenter.  You had attended public school.  Your college career had been funded by Pell grants and a generous scholarship.

So you left STR Laurie after securing a coveted role with the Exoneration Project.  Your new boss never sneered at you and called you just a paralegal.

Second thing:  find a new place to live.

You had been living in Wicker Park for a while now, and you always rented because you were holding out on the hope of finding someone, getting married, buying a place together.  So much of your parents’ unequal marriage had seeped into your subconscious without you even realizing it.  You’d been waiting on a man before you allowed your life to really start.

You were limited in what you could afford in Chicagoland with your salary, but when you found the place in Ravenswood, you knew it was the one.  It was love at first sight.  You had been waiting on a person, but it was a house instead – a well-sized place that had been stripped to the bones by an ambitious amateur house-flipper before the mortgage caught up to them and it went into foreclosure.  But it had a nice, small backyard and everything was updated – electric, roof, plumbing.  

And you had been your father’s little helper for all of your childhood, so you knew how to hang drywall and install tile.

You made an offer, and you were stunned when it was accepted.

By the end of summer, you had a new job, a new house.  The house wasn’t done, of course – most of it was still torn down to the studs – but it was livable.  You had a functional bathroom and kitchen, and you were camped out in a guest room while you worked on your bedroom.

In September, with the shortened days and the chilly nights, you got lonely.  Instead of going out and finding some broken asshole to try and fix, you just adopted a dog.  A dog, you found, was infinitely more trainable than a man and far more loyal.  You named the scrappy mutt Joey, mostly because you loved how confused people seemed to get about a dog with a human name.

You weren’t sure how much of your life overhaul was organic and how much was caused by Bryan.  Certainly, you had been drifting through life since your mother died the year after you graduated from college.  Your dissatisfaction – a growing frustration with your life – had only grown every year since.  But it was something about that awful final night with Bryan that seemed to spark the change, and by the start of October, your anger and frustration at the man had burned off like fog rolling off of the lake.

If you ever saw him again, you might even thank him.

*****

STR Laurie let Bryan go in March.  “Let go” was a polite euphemism for “fired unceremoniously,” which is to say:  Bryan Kneef was marched into H.R. one morning, read a list of unforgivable sins, and then marched out of the building with a security detail.

On the list of sins was one glaring omission – blackmailing an employee into a holiday vacation – so he knew that secret was safe.

In the end, it came down to his abrasive behavior.  Lawyers – especially really good ones like him – got away with a lot.  Other industries wouldn’t entertain an employee like him:  the casual cruelty and the more intentional cruelty.  His department had bled personnel until he was completely staffed with people like him, namely, douchy frat boys.  It was fun at first, but the lesson came too late to save Bryan’s job:  people like him were fucking exhausting to deal with.

Bryan wondered if you’d gloat once you heard, but he didn’t think you would.  You were, at your core, a kind person.  A thoughtful person.  At worst, you’d shake your head knowingly at the news of his demise.

It was harder for him to find a job than he realized.  He used to be pursued by headhunters; now he was calling people in his alumni network for crumbs.  There seemed to be millions of lawyers in Chicago, but the legal community was still tiny.  Everyone knew he’d been canned by STR Laurie.

He got the DUI in April.  

To be fair, he wasn’t drunk.  Not drunk drunk.  He’d only had a few drinks, but they had been on an empty stomach, and when he blew through the red light on Michigan Avenue, he had been a prime target for the cop sitting there.

But those were excuses, and as part of his plea deal, he had to deal with his problems.  The chirpy little ASA wanted him to commit to AA, but Bryan negotiated for a private therapist instead.  He had thought, incorrectly, that he could charm his way through therapy.  

No chance – he ended up with an older man who looked like a kindly Santa but who fucking tore through all of Bryan’s glib snark within the first ten minutes of their first session.

Here was Bryan Kneef’s rock bottom:  unemployed, friendless, estranged from his family, with a suspended driver’s license.  He had a failed engagement because he’d been a cheating bastard, and after that, all he had was a string of failed affairs and half-relationships.  Anytime a good woman made him feel something, he pushed her away.  You had been the latest, but you certainly weren’t the only one.

The nice thing about rock bottom, however, is that there is nowhere to go but up.  Sure, it was a cliché, but Bryan Kneef was sufficiently humbled now.  A little cliché was fine by him.

-----

It was almost the end of October when Bryan saw you again.  He had found a job – finally – with the state attorney’s office in Cook County.  Ironic, that.  Bryan used to represent the rich and powerful of Chicago.  Now he prosecuted them as an ASA.

He was at the courthouse, loitering around the lobby.  It was one of the more difficult moments; he always wanted to celebrate a victory with a drink, but he knew it was dangerous to celebrate alone.  Bryan wasn’t dry by any stretch, but he had identified (with his therapist’s help) harmful patterns.  He had rules now – never drink alone aside from a glass of red wine before bed.  Never drink more than two drinks in one sitting.  And so forth.

Never get so blindingly drunk as to drive away the one woman who seemed to enjoy being with him.

It was stupid, but when Bryan won a guilty verdict, he always wanted to reach out to let you know.  He thought that you, out of everyone he knew, would be pleased by his sudden shift to the right side of the law.  

It was like a scene out of a movie.  He stood in the lobby, fiddling with his phone uselessly, and thought of you.  And like magic – there you were.  It was so unexpected that he had to do a double take.

You looked beautiful in a vaguely-retro looking tweed suit – the skirt hit right at your knee, and the coat was perfectly cut to your form.  In the biggest surprise, your feet were clad in a pair of patent leather pumps instead of your usual colorful flats.  You looked like a lawyer, but Bryan knew the timeline wasn’t right.  You couldn’t have graduated from law school and sat for the bar all in the span of ten months.  You hadn’t even showed interest in becoming a lawyer.

You were standing and talking with an older woman that he didn’t recognize.  Did STR Laurie acquire a new firm?  Whatever you had been at the courthouse for had ended well, judging by the broad smile on your face.  

When you worked for him, you could feel him staring at you about half of the time.  You must have felt the weight of his gaze now, because you turned your head and scanned the lobby – and saw him.

It wasn’t that your smile fell, exactly.  It was more like it receded a little, like the outgoing tide.  The smile left your eyes, but stayed on your lips where it hardened just a fraction.  The woman with you caught your gaze, and she said her farewells and left you standing there.

*****

There was no good reason for you to get a drink with Bryan, but you weren’t the same person you had been a year ago.  From the looks of him, Bryan wasn’t the same person either.

He looked much the same – maybe a shade thinner, but nothing extreme.  His expression was markedly different.  When he walked over to you, there was no sneer or frown on his face.  He looked….happy to see you.

There was a nearby martini bar that was a favorite of the courthouse set, so that’s where you went.  Surprise number one:  Bryan ordered a mineral water.  In the entire time you’d known him, you had never seen him drink something that wasn’t alcohol.  You had always just assumed he stayed hydrated by the miniscule amount of water that melted from the ice in his whiskey.

Surprise number two:  he was charming, and not in his usual asshole way.  He was…nice.  You wanted to reach out and touch him, see if he was real and not some android replacement.  For all the time you’d spent with him, he had never once showed an interest in your life.  Now, he was asking you a ton of questions.  He seemed genuinely interested, so you told him all about your new job, your new house.

Surprise number three:  Bryan told you about his life.  He was probably hedging a bit, but he was shockingly honest.  He had been fired.  He had gotten a DUI.  He was in therapy.

The final surprise of the evening was when he apologized to you.  It was a genuine apology, not the half-assed sorry’s he gave you at the holiday party.  He looked you dead in the eye and apologized.

“I treated you terribly,” he said.  “And there’s no excuse for it.”  He glanced down at his glass of water, toyed with the wedge of lime on the rim.

It was weird seeing him so uncharacteristically humble.  “It’s okay,” you replied.

“It’s not okay,” he said with a firm shake of his head.  “I blackmailed you.”

“It wasn’t blackmail.”

“It was though.  I weaponized your kindness for your coworkers to force you into a holiday with me.  Forced you to pretend to be my girlfriend.”  He slumped a little, his shoulders rounded in apparent shame.  “Forced you…” He trailed off and didn’t finish the sentence, but his intent was obvious.

“Hey.”  You reached out and tapped the back of his hand.  “You didn’t force me to do anything.  I could have gone to H.R.  The vacation to St. Kitts felt like a mutually beneficial thing.”  You paused until he looked up at you, and you added, “and you definitely didn’t force me to sleep with you.”

It made him smile.  It was a small smile, but probably the first real one you’d ever seen on his face.  

“You’re too nice for your own good,” he said.

He was probably right in that regard.  When you both went to leave and stood out on the sidewalk in the chilly autumn evening, he hesitated a moment and then reached for you.  You stepped into his outstretched arms and let him pull you into a warm hug.  His behavior was completely different, but he smelled exactly the same – the cologne that smelled like an expensive, musky wood fire.

“I’d like to call you sometime,” he said once he finally released you.  Bryan Kneef probably never looked uncertain in his life, but he seemed almost shy now.  Shy-adjacent.

“I’d like that too,” you told him.  

*****

Bryan knew he didn’t deserve anything from you – not your time, not your forgiveness – but you gave him both.

It was strange, dating a woman.  Dating in his previous life meant buy them some drinks, then fuck them, then repeat until someone got bored or found greener pastures.

Bryan knew he could likely charm you back into bed, but he had spent too much time in therapy picking apart his relationships with women.  How he focused on shallow encounters.  How he fled from connection, feeling.  How it all traced back to his mother’s untimely death from cancer in his childhood.

He eased into things with you now.  It was the most difficult thing he ever had to do, delaying intimacy, but he did it because he wanted intimacy.  He didn’t want to just fuck you.  He wanted what he almost had in St. Kitts.

For the rest of October, he kept everything in first gear.  There were a few lunches during the workweek and a few dinners.  One Sunday night, he was feeling especially low – his bad feelings stirred up in anticipation for Monday afternoon’s therapy appointment – so he called you.  You took his call, and you talked with him for two hours, listening to everything he spewed at you, offering support.  Your mother had died from cancer too in the year after you graduated from college, and Bryan felt a warm (albeit sad) kinship with you over it.  Both of you, motherless.  Both of you with fathers who remarried too quickly and ignored their children’s needs.

By November, you were the one who moved things forward a little.  You invited him to your house, and the old Bryan would have openly mocked you for how unfinished it was.  New Bryan could see the potential, and more than that – he saw the gleam you got in your eyes as you showed him what you’d done already and what you planned to do.  

He wasn’t even jealous when the two of you sat on your couch and your mangy mutt crowded him out and got between you.  It was a first for him – a shelter dog cock-blocking him.

By the end of November, though, he was invited to spend the night at your place, and you shut your bedroom door firmly in your dog’s face (but only after handing him a huge rawhide bone in apology, and promising him an extra-long walk the next day).  

And then when you turned to face him, to step into his waiting arms, there it was – that fucking smile like he was the only person in the world that you wanted to see.

*****

Before, the two of you had fought:  the snowball fight, his drunken rant on New Year’s Eve, your own emotional raging at the STR Laurie holiday party.  Your first fight as a couple came in December.  You hadn’t realized that you were a couple now, but the fight revealed the fact to you.

You had started the tradition of traveling for your holiday breaks.  Your father had remarried a full month into his widowerhood years ago and started a second family, and neither you nor your sister really fit in with them.  Your sister was married with a kid, and she spent her holidays with her in-laws.  With no one to spend the holidays with, and after the thrill of going to St. Kitts, you traveled.  

Last year you had gone to Puerto Rico on a whim, but this year, you had planned a little better.  You had chosen the Maldives all the way back in June.  The plane tickets were booked, the little rental on the beach was booked.

When Bryan broached the subject of the holidays, you told him about the Maldives, and his face got that stony quality you remembered from working with him.  Before you knew it, the fight was upon you.  He wanted you to cancel your plans and join him in St. Kitts.  You wanted him to get real – why would you go back to St. Kitts and relive that?  No infinity pool was that good.

The real issue wasn’t St. Kitts.  The real issue was that he wanted to spend the holidays with you.  It didn’t matter where.  That fact hit you like a load of bricks.

Therapy wasn’t lost on the man.  You’d give him that much.  You watched him as he physically took a step away from you, and you swore you could see his therapist’s words rolling through his head as the silence descended between the two of you.  You gave him all the time he needed.

When he finally stepped back towards you, he took a deep breath and held out his hands in a conciliatory motion.  In a move that probably pained him – the man who never needed anything or anyone – he looked you dead in the eyes and asked if he could join you in the Maldives.

“Bryan, I…” You hesitated to answer him; you had to get the right tone.  “I’d be happy for you to join me, but – “

“But,” he echoed, and his face looked set and stony again.

“But…the place I rented is not…not some villa on the hillside.  It’s just a small little cottage.”

“So?”

You stared at him a long moment.  This was the man who had deep and strong opinions about the top notes of his whiskey.  This was the man who once dressed down a paralegal for having a four-in-hand tie knot instead of a half-Windsor.  This was a man who openly sneered at any cut of beef that hadn’t been hand-massaged from womb to slaughterhouse.

This was the man who mocked your glee and wonder of the world.  Sure, he seemed different now, but how would he feel when he saw the vacation you had planned?  The tiny cottage with no infinity pool, no waterfall showerhead, no giant Viking range in the kitchen?

Bryan must have read the expression on your face and understood its source because he snorted and gestured around him.  “Baby, you don’t even have walls in half of your house.  Whatever you rented in the Maldives is fine.”

You crossed your arms.  “I don’t believe you.”

Some vestiges of the old Bryan remained.  He was still a smarmy bastard sometimes, and he fixed you with a fully vulpine smile that only softened once you uncrossed your arms and let him pull you into an embrace.  It seemed like it was easier to talk to you sometimes when he didn’t have to look at you, so you weren’t shocked when he muttered against your head, so low that you nearly missed it.  

“I just want to spend the holiday with you,” he mumbled softly.  When you joked that he sounded like he was veering into boyfriend territory, he tightened his arms around you and replied, “would that be so bad?”

Sometimes you wondered if you had really drowned in St. Kitts and everything that followed was some sort of purgatory-based test to gain entry into heaven.  It made your head spin, the unreality of the situation.  At this time two years ago, you were so furious with your asshole boss that you drilled him in his smug, handsome face with snowballs.  Now he was holding you tight to him and asking you in a roundabout way to be his girlfriend.

You heaved a sigh of mock-weariness and extricated yourself from his arms.  “Fine,” you told him with a forefinger poking him in his sternum.  “But the minute you start complaining about the accommodations, you’re getting slapped.”

You had always suspected that Bryan had some pain or humiliation fetish.  You hadn’t missed how his eyes had darkened in lust, for example, the time you slapped him in his office.  He verified your suspicions now – his deep green eyes narrowed a little, and his voice dropped a quarter octave.  

“Promise?” he asked.

*****

What a change from two years ago.  Bryan remembered your first airplane flight, how icy your hand was in his and how you had huddled against him involuntarily.  Now you breezed right down the plane’s center aisle and ignored the flight attendants’ safety demonstration like a veteran traveler.

You were nervous though.  Bryan could feel the tension radiating off of you, and he felt a sting of shame about it.  He was the cause.  You mostly only knew him as an irredeemable snob and a consummate asshole, and your carefully planned vacation seemed shabby in your eyes now that he was tagging along.

He couldn’t tell you otherwise.  He just had to show you.

The private cottage you had rented was small, but it was lovely.  There was no pool, but there was a Jacuzzi and a huge bed and it was right on the beach.  You watched him look everything over, and judging by the way your jaw was set, you were just waiting for criticism.  Hell, your itchy right palm was practically twitching to deliver a blow.

“Seems small,” he said casually, and sure enough, you lifted your arm and hit him.  It wasn’t hard at all, just a light pat to his cheek, and you held your hand there to cup his face.  The look on your face – the soft smile, the hopefully rise of your eyebrows – was irresistible.  Bryan stepped forward and dipped his head to kiss you, and even though you had been traveling for over a day, he didn’t stop for quite a while.

-----

You and Bryan seemed to have different philosophies surrounding vacations. Bryan wanted to lie on the pure white beach and stare at the ocean that was so blue it made his eyes ache.  You had an agenda.

It was just your zeal for life, and after a bit of grumbling, Bryan leaned into it.  He skipped from island to island with you, went snorkeling, rode on horses, chatted with the locals.  It was refreshing to experience the world with you, since you were so unabashedly in love with the world.  At your side, Bryan shed a little more of his tough outer shell.

If the days were fun, the evenings were magical.  It was the same sort of spell from St. Kitts, only more honest.  You weren’t his fake girlfriend – you were his real one.  He wasn’t trying to make anyone jealous – he was only trying to convey how much he cared about you.

How much he loved you, even if he couldn’t quite say the words out loud.

You were both settled into the jacuzzi for the evening after a light dinner.  You had been shipwreck diving that day, an endeavor that revealed how out of shape Bryan was.  He lowered himself into the jacuzzi with a tortured groan, and you followed him a moment later with a pair of glasses and a bottle of wine.  Over the past few months, he had taught you the complicated calculus around what and how much he would drink, so now you both sipped at the shiraz and watched the sun sink in the west.

There was one similarity to St. Kitts, and it was how you got a little melancholy at sunset.  You still got that faraway look on your face, and you still sighed a little.  Bryan asked about it once and you seemed surprised and unaware that you did it.  He didn’t press – he only watched you, and if you seemed a little sadder some nights versus others, he only held you a little closer to remind you that he was there.

That’s what he did tonight as the sun set – he took your wrist and tugged you over to him until you were nestled against him.  He drew his fingertips up and down your arm until you gave an involuntary shudder against him.

The swimsuit you were in was familiar.  It was the same one you practically lived in during St. Kitts, which was fortuitous – Bryan already knew how to get you out of it.  As the sun set and as darkness settled over the island, he toyed with the knotted straps behind your neck, letting his fingers slip into your damp hair until your breathing was uneven and you were squirming against him.

The water gave a bit of buoyancy, and it was easy to maneuver you into his lap.  It was his favorite position, you sitting on his lap with his cock buried in you, you just a fraction above him so that he could access your face or your tits just as easily.

After his awkward foray into asking you to be his girlfriend back in Chicago, the hard conversation about birth control ensued.  You were still hurt by his accusations, rightfully so, and Bryan had to sit and listen to all of it.  Then, haltingly, the real truth came out.

“I don’t think I want kids,” you had told him, and you looked terrified once the words were out of your mouth.

“That is not a deal-breaker for me,” he had replied.  “At all.”

Then, because he hadn’t snapped at you or called you a monster for lacking maternal feelings, you admitted that it wasn’t that you didn’t think you didn’t want kids – you knew you didn’t.

Bryan admitted as much to you, and it was the most honest either of you had ever been with the other.  Or with anyone, possibly.

For now, in the Maldives, the box of condoms in Bryan’s carry-on luggage remained untouched.  You had an IUD, and Bryan already had an appointment in Chicago for a vasectomy for when he returned.  The difficult conversation was behind you, as well as a heartfelt apology for the St. Kitts blow-up, so in the jacuzzi, you wriggled out of your swimsuit bottoms and resettled in his lap.  His cock was rock-hard, straining against his trunks, and it twitched against your hand when you reached down to free it from its constraints.

You pumped his length in your hand almost lazily as you lined yourself up to him.  You notched the tip of his cock against your entrance and removed your hand.  You placed a hand on each side of his face to hold him firm, kiss him deeply, as you lowered yourself onto him.

Fuck, it was romantic bullshit like this that Bryan always avoided in the past, but it killed him when it was you doing it.  It was sensory overload – the feel of your fingertips against his bearded cheeks, the feel of your tongue licking into his mouth, the feel of your slippery cunt taking every inch of him until your ass was settled on his lap.  You moaned into his mouth when he finally bottomed out and the crown of his cock nudged against the end of you.  You moaned again when he wrapped his arms around your waist and drew you down another fraction onto him.

He let you set the pace, and you went slow.  The pace in Chicago was always a bit more playful, more frenetic, but island life slowed you down in your love-making.  You rode him at a languid speed, the look on your face dreamy at the sensations you were feeling.  For Bryan, it was like heaven being buried in you.  He fit you perfectly - the analogy of a lock and a key came to mind like a damned cliché.  He loved how your arousal coated his intruding length the closer he brought you to orgasm; he loved how well your feverish flesh gripped him when you finally did come.

Over and over, he brought you to the edge and pushed you over it.  Bit back his own release that threatened at the edges of his vision like an impending blackout.  Once he made you come once, he found it was easy to bring about a second, a third.  You got so sensitive – your swollen clit dragging against the root of his cock, your quivering cunt never recovering from its aftershocks before coming again.  Even your tits got more and more responsive, until all it took was a brush of his lips – a bit of friction from his beard – to make you arch against him.

“Are you close?” you panted against his neck.  You had come a third time and then collapsed against him, your head nestled in the space between his head and his shoulder.  Your tits, tipped with diamond hard nipples, were pressed against his chest.  You had stopped riding him, completely exhausted, so Bryan pressed his hips up into you and smirked at the tortured little whine in your voice, the shaky, uneven way you were breathing against him.

“You’ve got one more,” he told you, and you laughed weakly against him.  When you tried to protest, he took one wrist and then the other into one of his hands.  He held them behind your back, a tame move of possession to remind you that while you may be on top, he was still in control.  A fact you happily agreed with, judging by how hard you always arched against him when he did it.

Bryan slid down in the jacuzzi a little, just enough to stretch his legs out and press his feet against the opposite side.  It allowed him to thrust up into you – one hand gripping both of your wrists behind your back, the other wrapped around the back of your neck.  His hand was big enough to cup your entire head, and he pressed the tip of his thumb into your soft cheek, kept you from turning your face away from him.  

Your eyes had that unfocused, fucked-senseless quality to them, and Bryan usually preened when he saw them like that.  It meant he had fucked you so well that he had completely short-circuited your brain.

“Look at me,” he ordered, and he had to turn your face back to him when you tried to look away.  Sometimes – since St. Kitts – you turned away from him when you were feeling too much.  He didn’t want that anymore.  He wanted you to look right at him and feel everything.

“Fucking look at me,” he repeated.  He was rewarded a moment later when you finally did, and he pressed his hips up into you and watched as your mouth fell open at the thrust.  It was something about your face – so open and so beautiful, especially in the afterglow your orgasms – that made Bryan feel suddenly sick, like he couldn’t draw a breath.  His throat felt tight and he swallowed hard.  It had been a terrible start of the year.  Cut off from his family, cut off from his friends. Unemployed and with a DUI and all his own doing.

But fuck was it all worth it to be here with you now.  It wasn’t just the sex, though that was certainly part of it.  It was the connection with you, the way you looked at him now.  Bryan Kneef openly sneered at love, at bullshit like soulmates, but damned if he didn’t think he’d found the one person for him in the entire world, and she was perched in his lap right now.

And not just that:  she had extended her forgiveness to him for the unforgivable.  She had let him back into her life when anyone else would have moved on and left him out in the cold.

“I love you,” Bryan said, and he said it so defensively that your eyes widened at both the words and at his tone.  He saw you open your mouth to reply, but he shifted his hand and covered your mouth.

“Don’t fucking say anything,” he continued.  “You’re too damned nice.  I don’t – don’t want you to say it back to me because you think you have to.  Just….just keep your mouth shut.  And know that I love you.”

He felt your lips curve into a smile against his palm, so he removed his hand and pulled you in so that he could kiss you.  He still felt sick – his heart was pounding in his chest – but he could discuss it with his therapist when he returned to Chicago.

Bryan never got that final orgasm out of you, but you never complained about it.  You held his head firm in your hands and kissed him, your mouth slanting against his with an intensity that stole his breath away.  That, paired with his confession and the incredible heat of your clenching cunt, made him unravel completely.  He felt that delicious tension in his gut, felt the moment it snapped.  His hips jutted up into you on their own accord, and he groaned your name into your mouth as he gave one, final thrust and filled you with his release.

You were silent as you nestled against him afterwards, and you were silent when you dismounted him.  You allowed him to lead you inside, and you showered together before bed.  Bryan was exhausted from the day’s activities, but more so from the confession.  It drained him to even admit to himself that he had feelings, let alone say them out loud.  Your silence wasn’t helping.

You put your hands on his shoulders and turned him around, and you scrubbed his back for him.  Such a simple gesture, but it made him want to cry.  

Maybe you sensed his inner turmoil.  You reached for the shampoo and gestured for him to bend down a little, and you lathered up his hair.  That did make him tear up, your gentle fingers massaging his scalp, over and over until all the sea salt and sand was out of his hair.

“Am I allowed to speak now?” you asked quietly as you rinsed his hair for the final time.  Bryan wiped the water out of his eyes and looked at you.  You were smiling at him, a little teasing.

“You are allowed,” he replied with a regal wave of his hand, and you feigned that you were going to smack his hand out of your face.  But your smile faded, and you looked at him with a solemn expression that made his heart sink.

“I love you too,” is all you said.

It made Bryan just as sick to hear you say it, but with enough therapy, he eventually would learn that the sick feeling – the tightness in his throat, the racing pulse – well, that was love.  It only felt like an illness to him because it was so foreign.

But all that insight was months and even years away.  All in the future, with you by his side – your house in Ravenswood finally finished, Bryan’s condo sold as he moved in with you.  You would eventually add to your family – another shelter dog, one for Bryan this time because Joey would always be your dog and never quite his.  When the second dog drifted more to you, Bryan wouldn’t even be hurt by it.  

Of course they loved you best.  You were the best.  

But that was in the future, and right now, you were watching him carefully in the shower of a Maldives guest cottage, and it was all only the beginning.  Bryan barely had the language to express his feelings (he’d eventually learn it, though he’d never quite be fluent), so he just gave you a nod of acknowledgement.  

And then kissed you.  When he tilted his head to capture your mouth with his, he caught that usual happy smile etched across your lips.

He only hoped you could see the same smile mirrored on his own mouth, just as happy to kiss you.  Like you were the only person he wanted to be with because, it had to be said, that was the honest truth.

[striving-artist]

We need to fricking stop with this CinemaSins TVTropes style crap in fandom. Actually, we need to stop that attitude in all creative fields, but I'm talking about fic right now.

I have seen many posts ragging on over-used phrases in fanfic, and yes, I find 'cerulean orbs' deeply strange, but if I ever said anything hateful on the topic I wish I hadn't.

You know why we say 'smirk' a lot in fic? cause its faster than 'gave a tiny smile to one side with their lips closed, a little cocky and provocative' Smirk is an easy way of saying it. It's the correct word. We say it in fic a lot because people smirk a lot in real life. Go people watch, its all over. Also. Bring me a true synonym for smirk, and I'll use that instead, but these ain't it.

If you have a better way of saying 'took off his shoes without untying them, just levered the heel with the toe of the other' that isn't saying 'he toed off his shoes' I'd love to hear it. Cause that phrase is perfect for it.

'Huffed a laugh'? Yeah, they did. Cause I'm not going to spend extra words describing how they 'exhaled through their nose once, amused, but not enough to fully laugh aloud' Its a specific action. You think people don't do that all day? five bucks says its exactly what you do when you see a meme most of the time. You didn't lol. You huffed a laugh.

The idea that something that's been used before is inherently less valuable is ridiculous. Same with the inverse.

If the phrase you want to use is common or widely used, but is the best way to communicate it? Use it. Don't fall for this trap that is currently consuming hollywood. You don't have to have a clever twist just because 'they survived and were happy' is a trope. You don't have to use some insane alternate phrase just because someone thinks fandom uses 'smirk' too much.

And, as always, if someone gives you hell and you don't want to fight them? let me know, cause I volunteer.

[tlou-reid]

Hiii! I absolutely love your writing and I was wondering if you could write something about Spencer reid and reader who have just started dating and they get into their first ever argument and it’s a bit angsty but cute(?) cause he gets all worried while reader is more experienced in the relationship department so she (or gn!reader, your choice) doesn’t worry as much cause she knows it doesn’t mean they’re over? And then he gets all pouty and clingy when they make up cause he hated being far from her sm🫶 I know its very specific and idk weird so its totally okay if you don’t wanna write it but I’d really appreciate it!!!

as an insecure certified lover girl i love this request and i am so sorry it took me so long to get to <3

spencer was not expecting you to leave. to argue, to complain, even to berate, but to leave? the thought the didn’t even cross his mind.

the argument had started over something stupid, probably like a teasing remark that had gone too far, or the fact that he had been nagging you about doing the dishes. he wasn’t sure. all that filled his mind now was the fact that you walked out the door and slammed it behind you. he wasn’t sure where you went to, or if you were coming back.

yet, he was frozen in place. his knees had begun to shake as tears started to well up in his eyes. for a genius, you are really fucking stupid, he thought. he couldn’t believe he blew things with you, already.

you two hadn’t officially been together long. only around 3 months, but had spent much more time together prior to that. he was truly falling for you, something he wasn’t expecting to do. he loved the way you laughed and the way you listened to him. he loved that you were always there to greet him with a wide smile and a tight hug when you he came back from cases. he loved being around you and he loved the positive energy you put out.

and he just ruined all of that over some stupid argument.

spencer was rarely one to be unsure. after all, he is a genius, so there wasn’t many things he didn’t know. but, standing alone in front of his apartment door, he was clueless. should he run after you? should he wait it out? should he start packing up all of the things you’ve left at his apartment over these three months? he didn’t know.

so, like with most things he didn’t know, he was going to research. sure, to the common person googling “what to do after a fight with your girlfriend” would be corny, maybe even a little dumb, but not to spencer. when he couldn’t figure stuff out, he found other sources that could. so that’s what he was trying to do now.

much to spencer’s dismay, he was met with a whole bunch of editorials. not a single academic paper, dissertation, or research project had been conducted on the topic. so, he took what he could get and began reading over the newest People Magazine article titled “steps to making your girlfriend happy after being a bad boyfriend”.

he wasn’t sure how long he’d been reading, or how many different pop culture magazine websites he’d accidentally signed up for on his old desktop by the time his phone rang. it startled him, but he moved quickly to get it, assuming it was hotch calling him to come in for a case.

his heart sped up but his stomach dropped when he saw your first name, with the little otter emoji next to it. you had picked it, spencer didn’t even know there was an otter emoji.

his thumb slid over the answer button as quickly as he could move it, but once he brought the phone up to his ear, spencer couldn’t find any words.

the line was silent for a minute. you weren’t sure if he was even breathing on the other side. you wanted to give yourself time to cool off, separate from spencer. his little remark about your poor cooking skills had gotten to you, and you didn’t want it to become a massive argument. you didn’t know that spencer had spiraled after you left.

“are you going to come over or what?” you couldn’t help but let the residual anger you were holding slip out. despite this, spencer’s breath caught in his throat. you heard him take a deep exhale before saying, “you want me to come over?”

the desperation in his voice was so apparent, it broke your heart. any anger you were holding onto, or any bitterness about the comment he made completely wiped away when you heard spencer’s voice. you guessed that he had probably been crying. you softened your tone, and spoke slowly as you answered him, “of course i want you to come over, spence. we don’t get to have two sleepovers in a row very often.”

spencer’s hand was shaking as he listened to your words. he thought for sure you were going to break up with him. all he said was, “i’m on my way.” before hanging up.

you shouldn’t have been surprised at spencer throwing himself in your arms when you opened the door for him. he always craved physical touch, despite his fear of germs. he knew you and he cherished you, and all he wanted was to be close to you.

your hand snaked around his back as he buried his head in your shoulder. you tried to pretend you couldn’t feel the tears escaping from him. he wasn’t sobbing, there was just other way for him to have the emotional release he needed than to allow his tears to fall. your hand rubbed lovingly over his back, letting him adjust to being back with you.

“i’m so sorry,” he muttered against you. his hands were balled up between you two and you could feel him nervously squeezing his fists tighter. “spencer, it’s okay,” you assured.

you pulled away from him, only to wipe his tears away and move his hair out of his face. despite his height, he looked so tiny and vulnerable. “i didn’t mean to upset you,” he whined. “it’s okay,” you repeated, grabbing his hand to move him to the sofa.

you sat across from him, but he stared at the floor. “i thought you were breaking up with me,” he muttered. his voice was quiet and gentle. you couldn’t help but laugh at his statement. “why would i do that?” you moved closer to him, tucking his hair behind his ear to get him to look at you. “i-i don’t know! you just left and you were angry and i thought you weren’t coming back,” tears were filling up his eyes again as he finally met your gaze.

“spence,” you cooed, “couples fight and sometimes they need space. a little argument like that is nothing. we’re okay,” you promised him. he nodded, then reached out to pull you into his chest. “i don’t like when you storm out like that,” he said. “‘m sorry,” you mumbled against him. he just nodded and pressed a kiss to the top of your head.

[tiny-crescent]

ruby

did a little scene rewrite fic for the iconic Misa/Kiyomi dinner scene.

♡

(in which two women who hate each other but don't really hate each other, but can't figure out why, or maybe they know exactly why and don't want to admit it, end up having sex on the floor. is maybe... what it boils down to.)

[sky-kiss]

A/N: Blatant Asmodeus propaganda. After betraying Raphael in the HoH to save Baldur's Gate, they steal his corpse back from Meph and entreat Asmodeus. Also. A Dracula gif. To push my agenda.

Raph x GN!Tav: A Pact Struck, A Contract Sealed

Ages have passed, and empires have risen and fallen since a mortal last attempted to bind his Aspect. Asmodeus feels a tickling in the back of his psyche, barely a drag at his near-infinite energy. His awareness fragments and then shifts, searching for the source of the petition. The words come second, the feelings first. 

Desperation. Pain. A soul-deep grief. Physical hurt, too, but it's a stinging afterthought. The Lord of the Nine Hells cocks his head to the side, eyes closed. They are petitioning his avatar. They whisper in the darkness. A chill winter breeze howls around them, bowing the branches of dead trees. How fitting, he thinks, that this little creature should surround itself with such things. They wear death like a shroud. 

He is not in the habit of entertaining such low-hanging fruit…but there is a touch of something in their desperation, a sweetness Asmodeus has not sampled in many years. It amuses him. And he is not above indulging his amusement—the Archdevil motions with his right hand, passing a fraction of his awareness to the Aspect. The darkness of his throne room fades in favor of a moonlit night—the sickly sweet tang of blood colors the air. 

Ah, and there is his petitioner. They sit with their back pressed to an ancient white birch, skin badly frostbitten. Cania's stink lingers across their skin, brimstone and hellfire marrying together. They curl around their prize, clutching a badly mangled figure to their chest. Asmodeus hums, kneeling. Its wings are broken. So many bones shattered. 

"Tell me, child." His voice is low and pleasant in the chill air, a warmth chasing along the baritone. "Do you know whose name you have called? The attention you would court?" 

They nod, grip tightening on their prince. Tears cut through the mess of dirt on their skin. Crying, he thinks, and what a charming little oddity. Who shed tears for a devil? How curious. How delightful. "Lord Asmodeus, Prince of the Darkness. Lord of Lies." 

"Indeed, I am. Pretty titles, aren't they?" 

"I thought…" they catch themselves. Asmodeus notes the tremor in their right hand and the way they struggle to stay upright. His presence is overpowering at the best of times; the wounded little creature is fighting valiantly not to succumb to darkness, mind breaking under the weight of his Aspect's attention.

"My apologies, little one. It has been some since I treated with your kind. Allow me." He reaches out with one clawed hand, tapping his nail to the center of their forehead. The ward will protect them from the worst of it. They blink at him. "Continue, please." 

Their right hand tightens in the corpse's dark hair. "My Lord, I had hoped to make a deal with you. I know…I am beneath your attention…"

"Most are. The benefit of being a god, I suppose. But it has never stopped me in the past." 

Despite themself, they smile. Shuffling, the adventurer turns their burden outwards. Though badly burned, cheekbones shattered, he recognizes the features—so much of the father in the son, an agony to both parties. Mephistopheles' boy stares blankly forward—a hollow shell of himself, a waste of potential.  

It pains the Prince to see so promising a resource wasted. 

"I made a mistake. I…" they swallow. "There was something that had to be done. And it came at a cost. Raphael…” 

"The boy is known to me, child. If I may?" They hesitate. Asmodeus forces his temper down, the air around them heating. He is a god and not in the habit of being denied. But the Hero of Baldur's Gate relents, shifting their burden into his arms. The Lord of the Ninth cups his hand over the pretender-king's mouth, his forehead. Asmodeus shuts his eyes. "Such a waste." 

"Can you help him?"

"Do you doubt me, little one?" They shift back, dropping their eyes at the sharpness of his tone—a warning, barely veiled. "Mephistopheles has devoured that which he gave—the infernal. The mortal soul…is uncontested. Lost somewhere in Avernus. It could be located…for a price."

"Anything." 

Asmodeus chuckles. He is not ignorant of the sudden rush of color in the little creature's cheeks or how the sound makes them avert their eyes. This guise is pleasant, after all, tall and angular and dark. The wind catches in the blackness of his hair, the long strands falling well below his shoulders. "How dearly naive. I've half a mind to take advantage of such generosity." They shiver under the force of his stare, reality undoubtedly going dark around the edges. He hums. "But…the alternative could prove a more pleasurable distraction still." 

The Lord of the Ninth stands, holding out his hand. The hero, Tav, sets their palm in his. He helps them to their feet, settling his other hand on their shoulders. So close, he can feel the weight of their exhaustion and desperation rolling off them, an ambrosia. The depth of their affection for the boy-king. Interesting and useful. Asmodeus touches their cheek. 

"I will treat with you, little one, and more fairly than I ought. Your dear one's potential: a few more centuries, a stern hand, and Raphael might have made a powerful piece on the board. His sire is…" Asmodeus tapped his chin. "Increasingly irrelevant. Immutable and tiresome." 

Tav stares up at him, such a little thing. And there is potential there, too, the ability to warp and mold this boy-king into something suitable to his grand design. He touches their cheek with a claw. "I will give the means to locate Raphael's soul. In retrieving it, you will prove your worth and dedication. I have no use for the faint of heart. Is this clear?" 

"Yes, my Lord." 

"Clever pet, very clever." He smiles, chucking them under the chin. "You bring the boy to my court in Nessus, where he shall be given the means to decide his fate. Is that clear?" 

"Yes."

What an amusing twist of fate. He bends, collecting the Prince's mangled body in his arms. Tav looks ready to protest, to fight for their dear one (and again, how delightful; Asmodeus cannot help but feel charmed), only to remember what precisely stands before them: a god in truth, the Lord of all the Nine Hells. Asmodeus smiles at them, bowing his head. "I shall keep him for you, little one. You have my oath. Collect his soul, and we will meet again." 

He leaves them without another word, a touch of the dramatic, a hint of mystery to whet their palette. Asmodeus inspects the corpse in his arm. 

Sweet Prince, broken and bloodied. 

Asmodeus will make him whole again. 

[youryurigoddess]

On love and sacrifices

There’s so much more to this scapegoating business and big sacrifices referenced in the Good Omens narrative than the literal goats. And they’re only getting bigger, louder, final.

But let’s take it slow and start with the beginning, quite literally — i.e., with the Good Omens 2 title sequence. As we follow Aziraphale and Crowley on their journey, the universe warps and their usual left and right side positioning switches during the magic show (not accidentally an act of trust and sacrifice required both from the angel and the demon). They stay so throughout the next scene, which is their little dance in the air, and after they seemingly get settled on the A. Z. Fell and Co.’s roof and back to normal, the flipped sky in the background suggests that something’s not quite right yet. In the central part of the shot looms a large, humanlike shadow of the Elephant Trunk Nebula.

The nebula is a part of a constellation called Cepheus, after an Ethiopian king from the Greek mythology who agreed to sacrifice his only daughter in order to appease the gods and end a local calamity started by her mother and his wife, Cassiopeia (talk about generational responsibility). With time and a delightfully ironic twist of fate, the name of said daughter, Andromeda, became more famous than that of her father. Although she was chained up to a rock and offered to the sea serpent Cetus, the girl was spotted by the warrior Perseus, casually flying over the sea — either on the back of the Pegasus or thanks to a pair of winged sandals — after his victory over Medusa. He fell in love on the spot, defeated the serpent (with the help of a magical sword or Medusa’s severed head, depending on the varying sources), and freed the princess. That’s not exactly where their story ends, but we won’t be getting into the rest here.

Not surprisingly, Neil has mentioned two parallel child sacrifice stories from the biblical context back in August. The first is one of the big ones — The Binding of Isaac. God's command to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, was a test of Abraham's faith. The angel of the Lord intervenes and provides a ram to be sacrificed in the boy’s place.

The second one isn’t nearly as popular, but you might have heard a variant of it in fairy tales or as the Law of Surprise invoked in The Witcher saga. In exchange for Israel’s victory over its enemies in battle, Jephthah had rashly promised God to repay the debt with the first thing seen on his return back home. The victorious warrior didn’t suspect to see his only child moving innocently "to meet him with timbrels and with dances" though. In horror, Jephthah covered his eyes with his cloak, but to no avail: ultimately, he was forced to honor his vow to God, and the girl was sacrificed. As grisly as it might look like in the Old Master’s paintings, it’s important to remember that human sacrifices weren’t limited to physical offerings only — Jephthah’s daughter might have been offered to God in the sense of officially shunning her family and dedicating her life to service instead, probably sequestered in a temple somewhere.

Interestingly, the main character of a big chunk of the Bible and the reason for the Second Coming happens to be THE most influential child sacrifice in the modern history. You know, a certain 33-year-old carpenter sent by his Heavenly Father to die on a cross for the sins of the mankind? Someone better call Aubrey Thyme ASAP.

Circling back to Aziraphale, he could be also seen as a representative of the concept of filial piety, since Eden willing to personally take a Fall not only for the humanity’s collective or individual transgressions, but the shortcomings of his Ineffable Parental Figure as well. Our favorite angel angel always fights for what is right and good, sure, but why would that be even a thing if God was truly omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent?

If Aziraphale’s medal is anything to go by, it looks like we might get an answer from the way it’s introducing another mythological narrative into the game, that is the story of Daedalus and Icarus. The most absorbing thing about this is the stark contrast to the recurring child sacrifice references for S3 mentioned in this post — Daedalus isn’t a father who wanted to sacrifice his son, it was his attempt to save him from imprisonment that ultimately drove Icarus to his death. The boy ignored his father’s explicit instructions, committing the grave and culturally universal sin of disobedience to one's parents that simply couldn’t go unpunished, one way or another.

But Icarus’s transgression could be seen both as high-flying ambition and striving for personal accomplishment as well as humanitarian sacrifice for knowledge and humanity’s advancement in general.

Similarly to a certain angel who left everything for what superficially seems like a work promotion, but is the ultimate act of love — both for his demon and the children they have been protecting and nurturing together for six thousand years. From the very Beginning, his white wings have been shielding everything he holds dear in this world.

[twistiraki]

🎀Headcanons how Twisted Wonderland boys met you and what kind of family you'd have 🎀 Scarabia and Pomefiore

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗ TᗯIᔕTEᗪ ᗯOᑎᗪEᖇᒪᗩᑎᗪ Characters Kalim, Jamil, Vil, Rook, Epel x F!Reader Warnings none ‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗

🦦Kalim Al-Asim

Y/n’s got introduced by Kalim's father as a suitable marriage candidate due to her wealthy family background, Y/n and Kalim began their relationship as friends. However, as they spent more time together, they realized their connection ran much deeper. Kalim's cheerful nature complemented Y/n's intelligence, and she completed him in ways he never expected. They fell in love for who they truly were, appreciating each other's dreams and ambitions, forming a strong and loving partnership.

Y/n and Kalim have a bustling and joyful household with currently five children. They are blessed with three boys named Wasim, Omar, and Amir, and two girls named Laiha and Almira . Currently, Y/n is pregnant with twin girls, and the family eagerly awaits their arrival. Kalim's genuinely friendly and cheerful nature makes him the perfect father, always ready to play with his kids and make them smile. Despite his occasional clumsiness, he is a loving and supportive parent. The family enjoys many joyous moments together, and Kalim encourages his children to pursue their passions, just as Y/n supports him in his role as the head of the household.

🐍Jamil Viper

Y/n and Jamil met at a lively party. A moment of frustration led to a one-night stand, but little did they know it was the spark that ignited in something more. They might not have been looking for a relationship, but fate had other plans.Y/n was pregnant. As they embraced parenthood, they discovered their connection. With each passing day, their hearts danced to the rhythm of love, and now, their little family was the most beautiful melody in their lives.

Jamil and Y/n have one bright and talented son named Malik. Y/n is the person Jamil trusts the most, and she understands his passion for dancing and his desire to show his true self. Jamil's feelings for Y/n run deep, and though he may be good at hiding them, she can see through his façade. They are a tight-knit and loving family, cherishing the time they spend together and creating beautiful memories.

🪞Vil Schoenheit

Y/n's first impression of Vil wasn't favorable. When Y/n first delivered flowers to Vil from her flower shop, they seemed like opposites. Vil found Y/n's dungarees and mud on her face a little amusingly messy, while Y/n thought Vil was a bit too vain and egoistic.However, as they interacted more while Y/n delivered flowers to Vil from her shop, they discovered their shared traits of hard work and ambition. Their initial animosity turned into mutual respect, and they began to like each other more. Vil surprised Y/n with flowers and asked her out on a date, forming a special connection between them.

Vil and Y/n have a daughter named Annalise, who inherits her father's beauty and elegance. Y/n appreciates Vil's effort in making their home a beautiful and comfortable place. He values Annalise's opinions and takes care of her with a motherly touch. Vil's forceful nature is softened by Y/n's calming presence. They are both loving and attentive parents, doting on Annalise and supporting her dreams.

🏹Rook Hunt

Y/n noticed Rook around town and the library where she worked, and soon, she found poems expressing his admiration on her desk. While Rook's initial presence felt eerie, he opened up about his feelings for Y/n, making her curious.  Amidst curious gazes and secret poems, Y/n and Rook's story unfolded in the most whimsical way. One day, Y/n found Rook standing smiling in her garden. Though she found it a tad creepy, his genuine confession of liking her melted her heart. As they spent more time together, Y/n couldn't resist the enchantment of Rook's affectionate heart, and she grew more and more fond of him.

Y/n and Rook have a dynamic family with three children – one girl and two boys. Their daughter is named Odette, reflecting the beauty and wonder that Rook is fascinated with. The two boys are named Orion and Atlas, each having their unique curiosities and interests. Rook's fascination with beauty extends to the curiosity he shares with his children, and they often explore peculiar interests together. Y/n's nurturing nature allows their family to grow and thrive. Rook is a genuine and loving father, always there for his kids and eager to encourage their passions.

🍎Epel Felmier

During a visit to Harveston, Y/n met Epel through the cousin, from the hairdresser's uncle, who was the neighbor of Epel's grandmother. When Y/n visited Harveston for a family visit, she had no idea that her heart was about to take a wild adventure. She met Epel, who was eager to show her around the town. But as soon as he laid eyes on Y/n, he was smitten! Attempting to be cool and flirty, Epel's accent slipped, revealing his true, country self. Y/n couldn't help but giggle, and her laughter became music to his ears. Their picnic in the apple garden became a delightful chapter in their story of sweet, countryside romance.

Epel and Y/n have two wild and energetic boys named Wiliam and Brody. Y/n appreciates Epel's dainty charm and his desire to be more manly. She encourages him to express himself freely and supports him in solving issues head-on. As parents, they embrace the challenges and joys of raising their boys. Epel's competitive spirit is balanced by Y/n's patience, creating a harmonious family environment where love and laughter abound.

You can find the other parts here! Hearstlabyul Savanaclaw/Octavinelle Scarabia/Pomefiore (You are here) Ignihyde/Diasomnia

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

Favorite niche book genre

[lilmaymayy]

oh my lordy OH MY GOD I SAW THIS IN CLASS AND I GENUINELY DROPPED DEADD MY JAW WAS ON THE FLOOR

bro i am such a slut THE AMRS THE JAW THE HANDSSS omfg just him in general

[liviz223]

France Adventures Chapter 9! The cubs explore the woods while our favourite couple get up to some grown-up stuff.

Thanks to the betas, and all the kudos, hits, and comments so far.

I hope y'all enjoy!

[storiesofsvu]

Journey to the Past Ch 1

Bryan Kneef x reader Warnings: language, that's about it so far. this one's kinda a prologue. If it looks familiar it's because ch 1 was posted a while ago when i didn't know where the story was going, but don't worry, i've got things up and running now. Lol.

Bryan was annoyed, as per usual. It was Friday, it had been a long week and he had wanted to be out of the office early to prowl his way through a couple bars with more than a couple glasses of scotch. Hopefully finding someone to pass a few hours with in the bedroom before bailing so he could wake up on his own.

But today, he had to wait. Diane had shifted meetings around with him, pushing his own back by over an hour already. At least it wasn’t an actual meeting, more of a rather quick conversation, he’d hopefully still be able to make happy hour at at least one of his usual watering holes. He was more than tempted to pour himself a glass of scotch while he waited but figured Diane would smell it on his breath and the last thing he needed was another reprimand from the woman.

He caught sight of the lawyer who was clogging up his schedule coming out of Diane’s office, giving her a firm handshake and a polite smile. He thought she looked familiar, his forehead furrowing as he tried to place where from. He hoped she wasn’t some conquest from a drunken night if she was going to be around the office more frequently. At least she was well dressed, a perfectly tailored pencil skirt with matching blazer, a coloured button up on underneath with just the right amount of buttons undone to tease but not be inappropriate. She wasn’t some mousy paralegal like half the office was. He watched the way she walked toward his office on her way out, the little bounce in her step pulling bounces elsewhere that he was more than intrigued with.

You were a step away from turning when your head finally glanced up through the doorway of his office, the small grin on your lips slipped off and for a minute Bryan thought he was in for it. Then your head tilted as you took in his appearance before your lips broke into a grin and you paused, leaning against his door frame.

“Bryan?” Your voice was just as silky as it had been all those years ago and he nearly melted, “bashful Bry? What the fuck?” You laughed.

“Y/N? What’re you doing here?” He had to gulp back before he spoke, feeling almost as young and innocent as he did back in school.

“Talking deals with Lockhart.” Your head lolled towards the office you’d just exited, “I didn’t realize you’d settled in Chicago.”

“I thought you went to New York?” He asked in return, remembering your last conversations in Cambridge. You’d kept in contact through social media, but that had slowly fizzled out as the years went on and you got buried into your careers.

“I was.” You shrugged, “better salary out here. Horrible pizza though.” You teased, pulling a small laugh from Bryan.

“You’ve just gotta know the right places.” He managed to get his courage back, remembering who he was, the reputation he held now, shooting you a wink.

“Aw, you know a place Kneef?”

“More than a few.” He grinned up at you and you let out an adorable giggle, “we should go tonight.”

“You know I’d love to.”

“Really?” He glanced up with such surprise that you chuckled.

“Yeah, but I can’t tonight. I’ve got plans, but..” you paused as you dug through your bag, pulling out a business card, stepping through the office and passing it to Bryan. “My cell’s on the back, I’d love to catch up. It’s been too long.”

“It really has.” Bryan smiled at you, pocketing the card.

“I’ve gotta run, motions to file before the day’s up.” You gestured to the file in your hand. “I look forward to hearing from you.” You smiled softly, “nice beard.” You winked and whisked yourself out of the office, leaving nothing but the smell of your perfume in the space.

Bryan couldn’t help it, leaning back in his chair as he pulled the card out of his pocket, turning it within his fingers. Looking at the way your embezzled name seemed to glisten in the light of his office, he was amazed at the chance of running into you again. Wondering just how much you’d changed after all these years, if you’d changed as much as he had or were still relatively the same person.

The two of you had gone to Harvard together, back when he felt like a literal fetus. Sure, he’d had a healthy, wealthy nice life growing up, but he was nowhere near the man he was today. The nickname you’d called him ‘Bashful Bry’ was known around campus, he’d been this soft, shy, inexperienced kid. It took him at least the entire first year of law school to get fully on his feet, and even then he was never as confident and brash as he was today, and he certainly wasn’t the asshole he’d become to be known as around the firm.

Meanwhile there was you.

You were the one that befriended him first, half shy, more so coy, small grin on your cheeks as you introduced yourself, extending a hand to shake. You had more than your fair share of classes together, and often grouped up for projects, spending the rest of your free time studying together, testing each other, playing mock court room to up your skills and wit.

You were always so kind to him, so friendly and open, there was more than just a part of him that had slowly fallen for you. First you were just a friend, but your passion, the ambition and power he could see behind your eyes, the amount of knowledge on the law that you held, the way you talked about your future career? It all made him want you more. But back in law school, he wasn’t the same kid, he was this shy little thing, he didn’t have the balls to ask you out, to ever make a move. That little grin you’d shoot him over a late night of studying? That gleam in your eye when you crushed him in a mock debate? It drove him crazy, gave his stomach butterflies, and back in the day? He had absolutely no idea how to deal with that.

You? You were the one that got away.

And now you were back in his life. Problem being? He’d made a reputation for himself, everyone hated him, thought he was a pompous asshole who valued sex, booze and winning cases over everything else. He didn’t care who he hurt along the way, he just wanted to succeed, and you knew nothing about that side of him. He knew there was a pretty high chance that you were still that somewhat innocent girl from school, there was no way you’d grown into as much of a jaded human as he had been. He suddenly felt himself in a panic, wondering if you’d be able to accept him for who he was now, better yet, if he would be able to change. He’d held such heavy secrets of his feelings for you back at Harvard, he wasn’t going to give up the chance to shoot his shot now, the only question was going to be if it would work. Whether he could be the man that you deserved after all these years, or whether he’d lose you the second you found out who he was now, he could only hope that he could try and do this.

He let out a huff of a sigh, pocketing your card before pushing back from his desk, at least for now he could worry about the meeting with Diane and distract himself from that before he had the chance to debate over how soon was too soon to call you.

________________ @newyorker14 @detective-giggles @teamsladsandgents @thatesqcrush @witches-unruly-heart @beccabarba @bisexual-dreamer02 @amelia-song-pond @madamsnape921 @whimsicallymad @mrsrafaelbarba @mysticfalls01 @ssaic-jareau @caracalwithchips @barbasbodaciousbeard @alwaysachorusgirl @beardedbarba @michael-rooker @rafivadafreddy @lustvolle-liebe @anlin2058 @fandom-princess-forevermore @tinyboxxtink @alexusonfire @xovalliegir2lxo @nobody-important1212 @somethingimaginative17 @misscharlielulu @momlifebehard

[tropes-and-tales-archives]

Bryan Kneef:  Breaking Point, Part Eight

Word Count:  5330

TW:  Heavy angst; smut (an attempt at oral, f!receiving; PiV, protected). 18+ only.

AN:  Part eight of a nine part series.  Other parts can be found here.

There seemed to be a tacit agreement between Bryan and his friends.  No one brought up your hasty New Year’s Eve departure, and he didn’t either.  The lone acknowledgement of the drunken fight was a throwaway comment by Kyle the next day.  

“You ruined it, you know,” he told Bryan.  “I was planning on proposing on New Year’s Eve.”

Bryan snorted but wisely said nothing.  Kyle only shook his head.  Opened his mouth to say something, then snapped it shut as if he thought better of it.  But then he shook his head and said it anyway.

“You’re a real piece of shit, you know that?”  He shook his head again and then stood up and stalked away.

Bryan didn’t reply.  What could he even say to that?  That he was sorry?  That he regretted it?  That he’d go back in time if he could?  He hadn’t meant to ruin some grand moment between his stepbrother and his girlfriend.  He also hadn’t meant to ruin the thing with you, as undefinable as it had been.  But he had, so why dwell on it?

He was looking forward to returning to Chicago with his sanity finally restored.

-----

Bryan Kneef had his fair share of messy breakups.  Cara, obviously, but plenty after her:  women who tossed drinks at him, who caused scenes.  There was an ex who stalked him for a solid six months.  There was a hook-up who crashed an STR Laurie client luncheon.  

The first day back in the new year, and Bryan was curious how you would react.  You weren’t the type to cry (though he had a vague, uncomfortable memory of you crying on New Year’s Eve), but you were the type to slap him.  Had slapped him before, in fact.  He had actually quite liked it, your palm striking out like a viper, lightning-quick, to hold him to account for his poor behavior.  Bryan almost hoped you would march into his office your first morning back and deal him a stinging blow.

You didn’t slap him.  You barely even acknowledged him that first morning back.  You toed off your snow boots, shrugged out of your heavy wool coat.  You exchanged pleasantries with your fellow coworkers as they filed in.

All you had for Bryan was you usual cursory nod of greeting.  Then you sat down and logged into your computer as if it were just any other day after just any other holiday.

It stung.  In fact, it hurt, and Bryan Kneef was never hurt anymore.  At least not by a woman.

If you could surprise him with your nonchalance, he could surprise you too:  he called in some favors, pulled some strings – and he got you a new placement by the second week of January.  

H.R. handled those sorts of things.  Bryan knew the timeline of your transfer – a single week to wrap up your work with him before you left.  He never called you into his office, and you never knocked on his door to invite yourself in, though he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want you to.

Your final Friday came and went.  Your coworkers took you out to a long lunch that Bryan let slide.  At the end of the day, you packed up your scant belongings and left without a backwards glance for him.

In the two weeks since St. Kitts, he had only said a handful of words to you about some client contracts you were drafting.  You hadn’t said a single word back to him, responding with your usual mute nods that hit him now like a cudgel.

It meant that as you left his department that Friday, the last words you had spoken to him remained the ones from New Year’s Eve, the ones that only returned to him after he sobered up and tried to piece the moment back together in the days that followed.

The funny thing was, Bryan swore – between your tears and his whiskey-fueled rage – that you had said you loved him.  It was stupid, and it obviously was a false memory.  Of course you didn’t love him.  You didn’t even say goodbye before you left for your new assignment.  

It had to be wishful thinking on his part and frankly, that was a more disturbing thought:  Bryan Kneef, wishing to be loved.

-----

February, March.  Bryan didn’t see you at all.  There was no cliched moment where he rounded a corner at work and ran into you.  He didn’t catch your gaze across a restaurant.

There were no moments like that because this wasn’t a romantic comedy or a fucking fairy tale and besides – whatever it had been was over now.

April came, and Kyle finally proposed to his girlfriend, Jessa.  There was an engagement party, and there was anxiety (hope?) that you might be there.  Bryan spun out an entire alternate history where he misremembered your time in St. Kitts.  Hadn’t you and Jessa been friendly?  Had you become friends?

Apparently not:  you weren’t at the party.  Of course you weren’t.  Bryan sat and watched his stepbrother and his fiancée.  If he felt anything at seeing the happy couple, maybe a sadness that he would likely never feel that connection with anyone….well, he ignored it.

And when he couldn’t ignore it anymore, he took one of Jessa’s cousins home for the night.

-----

May, then June.  Bryan saw you one day in the lobby of the building, though you didn’t see him.  It was STR Laurie day at Wrigley Field, though Bryan never went.  He was only waiting for Charles to join him for a late lunch when you walked through the lobby with a gaggle of other employees, your sneakers squeaking on the marble floor.

Bryan had needled you about your looks before, cruelly taunting you until you snapped one night and slapped him.  It was true that you didn’t have the meticulous care that his usual conquests did – the perfect makeup, perfect hair, perfect wardrobe that made his usual woman more of an ornament than a partner.  Fair enough.  But you did have something about you.  An ease maybe, or a preference for comfort that translated to ease, which translated to confidence.  

As you walked across the lobby, clearly excited for the baseball game, he couldn’t help but watch you.  And he noticed other people watching you too:  the shorts that showed off a generous amount of your thighs, the royal blue jersey, your hair swept up under a hat.  The wide grin.

Charles walked up to Bryan then and followed his gaze, but he misunderstood it.  The other man scoffed.

“Can you imagine being that excited to go sit in the nosebleed seats?” he asked with his usual faint sneer.

Bryan could not imagine it, but he remembered the childlike glee you always had, from baseball games to seeing the ocean for the first time.  He wondered what it might be like to be with someone who wasn’t completely jaded.  

-----

August:  Bryan had a girlfriend.  Merriweather was a social media influencer, which meant that she took a lot of artful photos of her food and drink and lived off of a substantial trust fund.

Bryan didn’t judge.  Merriweather was the perfect blend of hot and vapid, his usual preference, and he spent the entire end of the summer with her:  either at his condo or at her Lincoln Park townhouse.

He called her his girlfriend, but he wasn’t blind to the reality of the situation.  This was never going to go anywhere beyond where it was.  He knew he bored her after long stretches together.  She certainly bored him.  

The sex wasn’t even that great, if he were honest with himself.  None of the sex was anymore, and he knew why – he was holding up those days in St. Kitts as the gold standard.  It was funny because at the time, in those moments with you, he hadn’t felt that the sex was that amazing.  He had certainly had more adventuresome partners, more flexible partners, partners with more stamina.

But had he ever had a partner like you?  Someone who smiled – genuinely – when they turned their face to kiss him?  Or someone who was so enthusiastic in bed with him, as if he were someone they really wanted?

Bryan tried to capture that feeling with Merriweather once.  You’d had a way of running your fingers through his hair, and he had stopped you every time, stilling your hand at the intimately tender gesture.  In retrospect, he wished he hadn’t stopped you.

One night with Merriweather, mid-coitus, he took her hand and placed it on his head.  She didn’t understand his meaning, and Bryan was too proud to clarify when she twisted a handful of his hair and pulled it, hard.

They broke up in September.  Bryan didn’t mourn it.

-----

October passed.  November passed.  The first snowfall came and went, and then the first snow storm.  It was impossible for Bryan to leave the building in winter without thinking of you.  That’s when it all started, hadn’t it?  That snowball fight.  Most couples had some meet-cute; you and Bryan had a snowball fight borne out of your frustration with his asshole behavior.  

Not that there was any “you and Bryan” anymore.

-----

The stupid STR Laurie holiday party.  It was completely unavoidable.  The senior partners were there, so Bryan had to be there.

He couldn’t help but remember the prior year’s party, how you had tried to sit with him when all he wanted to do was sulk in a dark corner.  He knew he wouldn’t be offered any such courtesy this year, and it made him sad.

You sat with your new group at a table near his, and Bryan didn’t even bother to hide his staring.  You had been oblivious to his gaze at least half of the time when you worked for him anyway.  You seemed oblivious now, so he could look his fill.  He watched as you chatted animatedly with your coworkers, as you sipped at your wine, as you ate (but turned your nose at the chorizo pasta which was, by his estimation, terribly bland anyway).  

It had been madness a year ago, and it was madness now too.  The holidays always made Bryan susceptible to emotions, and this year was no different.  Halfway through the night, as the lights were lowered and as people got looser from the open bar, you wandered off.  Of course you did – you were adventuresome, and the entire museum was STR Laurie’s for the night.  Everyone else was happy to stay in the rotunda to dance and drink.  Not you, though.

Bryan followed you.

He realized too late how it probably felt from your standpoint, being followed into a quiet, unpopulated part of the museum.  He saw the moment you realized that you were being followed – how you slowed your steps, how you squared your shoulders and cocked your head a little.  He almost turned around and left, but instead, you turned around.  And faced him.

He expected exactly what he deserved, exactly what he had given you a year ago:  an alcohol-fueled rant.  Instead…well, you always seemed to surprise him.

“You finally ready to talk about custody arrangements?” you asked, and you said it so dead-pan that Bryan’s stomach dropped.  When he didn’t reply, the corner of your mouth twitched into a semblance of a smile.  “You know, for Bryan Junior,” you added, the sarcastic lilt unmistakable.

It was a rare feeling, shame.  Bryan never ruminated on his actions enough to feel it, but it washed over him now and made him a little nauseous.  He had nearly forgotten the core issue at that fight on New Year’s Eve.  It was utterly ridiculous in retrospect.

“You owe a lot in child support,” you continued.  You were smiling now – not quite the warm, inviting smile he was used to – but not far from it either.  But you crossed your arms as you faced him.  A confusing mix of body language.

“You have a lawyer yet?” he asked, and you snorted in reply.

“What do you want, Kneef?”  Kneef.  Not Bryan.

He ignored your question.  “Where are you going?”

You narrowed your eyes at him for a moment before answering.  “I’m going to check out the Fairy Castle.  It’s a miniature castle, or a dollhouse, I guess.  There’s a million details that I never get to see when this place is open to the public.”

What a fucking dork.  You probably had scouted out the museum and planned which exhibits to look at ahead of time.  Wasn’t it just like you though?  You were the only person that Bryan knew who so obviously loved to experience new things.

You turned to make your way to the dollhouse, and Bryan strode forward to walk beside you.  You gave a small sigh, resigned, and he ignored it.

Down a stairwell and down another hallway, and Bryan was close enough to smell you again – that green vetiver smell that only seemed to work on you.  In your cocktail dress, a generous amount of your skin was revealed.  Bryan wondered how you might taste if he put his mouth on the soft skin of your throat.  In St. Kitts, you had tasted like the salt from the sea breeze.

He could blame last year on the otherness of those days with you – the tropical sun, falling asleep beside you to the sound of the surf.  What could he blame now on?  The otherness of some stupid dollhouse castle?  How another year had passed with him being alone?  How every sexual encounter since last year fell short because of you – a fucking cheerfully earnest woman who had pressed her face against the airplane window like a child when she first caught sight of the ocean?

You were bent over a little and studying the miniature garden when he reached for you.  He knew he was risking a slap to the face (a risk he was willing to take), and he knew you wouldn’t reach back for him with that easy smile you had.

You didn’t slap him, and you didn’t smile.  The moment his hand circled your wrist, you stiffened and yanked your arm from his grasp.

“What the hell are you doing?” you asked as you took a step backwards from him.  You folded your arm against your chest and rubbed at your wrist where he had touched you as if you were trying to scrub away his touch.  So he reached for you again.

He got so close, his face close enough to yours that he could see how your pupils were wide, an unmistakable sign that you wanted him too.  But your body language was confusing, and you reached out with that viper-quick hand.  You didn’t slap him, but you did grasp his face and hold it away from you.

“What the fuck is your problem?” you asked again, and this time, your voice had that low, angry quality to it.  Like when you had rubbed snow in his face.  Like when you had slapped him in his office.  

“I just – “ he started, but you cut him off.  Your question was obviously rhetorical, because you answered for him.  

And you had a lot to say.  A year’s worth of thoughts, in fact.  Bryan had thought you indifferent, and it had never occurred to him that you may have been suffering after St. Kitts – and holding it all in to make it seem like you were okay.

“You don’t get to kiss me,” you hissed, and your fingers held his face firm as you glared at him.  “You don’t get anything from me.”

“I just – “ he said again.  Again, you cut him off.

“You just nothing.”  Your grasp on his face tightened a degree as you leaned in closer.  “You fucking asshole.  I thought you were a jerk, but you are so much worse.  There’s no rock-bottom for you, is there?”

He reached up to circle the wrist of your hand that held him, and he noted how your pulse was juddering under his fingers.  You had been so coolly collected back in January, but your eyes were a little glassy now with tears.  He had hurt you after all, which meant….he had meant something to you.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

You released his face and jerked your arm out of his grip again.  “Bullshit.  You’re not sorry for anything.”

“I am sorry.”

“If you were sorry, you would have reached out.  It’s been an entire year, Bryan.  An entire year since you used me, treated me like shit, screamed at me that I was trying to…to…fucking baby-trap you.”  

“I know.”  Shame, that foreign feeling, washed through him as he watched a tear course down the side of your nose before you angrily wiped it away.  He didn’t care about you, but it did make him feel bad to have hurt you…

“I’d never have a kid with you,” you told him with an increasingly shaky voice.  “Are you kidding me?”  You pointed to yourself, jabbing yourself in the chest with your thumb.  “I know what it’s like to have a father who’s a…a fucking narcissistic asshole.  I’d never wish that life on any kid of mine.”

That stung, but it also piqued his interest.  Bryan knew nothing of your personal life.  He had pictured the quintessential nuclear family with two parents, a sibling or two, a dog and a two-story house in the suburbs.  Apparently there was a darker truth, and maybe your relentless cheerfulness was a bug, not a feature of your upbringing.

You realized what you had said after the fact.  Your face flushed a little, and you dropped your head.  In a voice that was heartbreakingly defeated, you only said, “just forget it.”  And tried to push past him to leave.

He couldn’t help but pull you into his arms.  You were right:  it had been an entire year.  An entire year with no apologies from him, but also a year since a chance reassignment had brought you into his life.  A year since his madcap plan to pass you off as his fake girlfriend.  A year since he fell asleep in your arms, your even breathing lulling him into the best sleep he’d had in a long time.

It was an awkward hug.  You were stiff and unyielding in his arms, but you didn’t push him away.  He heard your shaky intake of breath when he held you gently but firmly against his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered into your hair, and the more times he said it, the less foreign it sounded coming from his mouth.  So he repeated it, over and over until it broke something in you, and you started crying in earnest.

It was far worse to make you cry when he was sober.  At least on New Year’s Eve, he had been near black-out drunk and barely remembered you sobbing.

The absolute worst was knowing he was the cause of it.  Bryan had made plenty of women cry over the years, but somehow you were the worst.  Every relationship – from one night stands to whatever he’d had with you – was a battlefield to him.  It was a struggle to see who gave in, who fought back, who waved the white flag first.

But you hadn’t played by those rules like other women had.  You had played along with the fake girlfriend aspect, but everything else had been too real – too sincere, too heartfelt.  As a lover, you hadn’t been a combatant like other women.  You had been…well…a partner.  

“Come on,” he said as he rubbed your back.  “Stop crying.”

That only made you cry harder.

There was no way to know how long the two of you stood there:  him holding you, you crying, all in front of a scale-model castle dollhouse.  You eventually pushed yourself away from him, and even though your eyes were bloodshot and swollen, your irises still glittered from the tears in the low light of the exhibit.  

Fuck, you were beautiful.  He had been cruel to tell you otherwise, an asshole technique he used sometimes to wear down a person’s confidence.  Even a middling therapist would point out that he was the one with low confidence and that his peacocking was just a thin veneer that hid a deeply insecure man.  

That didn’t matter now.  What mattered was that you were pulling away from him, and he finally had you so close.

So he pulled you back to him and kissed you.  And waited for the inevitable slap that would follow.

A slap that never happened.  You froze against him, but fuck, your lips were just as soft as he remembered, and when he parted his own lips against yours, he heard your sigh – and then you kissed him back.

*****

His place was closer, so that is where you went.

You were silent on the car ride there, to the point where Bryan had to ask three times if you were still okay with this.  You knew he was trying to gauge your mood, your sobriety.  You only wished you were wasted, but you were painfully sober.

You knew it was the worst idea you ever had.  You knew it wasn’t healthy; it was toxic at its worst, codependence at its best.  

You knew your own self best:  you were lonely (as you always were this time of year), and you were drawn to assholes because you thought you could fix them.  Like your mother before you, and her mother before her.  You were just the heir to a legacy of kind women who thought kindness could reform monsters, like some stupid Disney princess.

You knew Bryan less well, but you still had a read on him.  He was obviously lonely too.  And you weren’t his usual type (as he had pointed out over and over before), so you were just a novelty to him.

So you were both lonely.  Fine.  People fucked for flimsier reasons than that.  You hushed your judgmental frontal lobe, or wherever decision-making was housed in the brain (you weren’t sure – you were a damned paralegal, not a neuroscientist).  You could wallow and cringe at your poor choices in the morning.

Bryan’s condo was a mid-century modern slash minimalism nightmare.  It was all stainless steel and smoked glass and clean lines, and it made your heart ache a little to picture him alone here.  No wonder he was such an asshole.  It might make you act like an off-brand Bond villain to live in such an empty space too.

His bed was comfortable though.  

Bryan had tried to strip you out of your clothing himself, but he went too slow.  Maybe he was trying some new leisurely move, but it’s the last thing you wanted.  Instead, you shimmied out of your dress, shed your bra and panties until you were bare in front of him.  And then you laid down on the bed to wait for him.

He took his own clothes off – only slowing to watch as you stretched across his five thousand thread count sheets or whatever – and the look in his eyes was unreadable.  The usual wolfish, faintly feral gleam, maybe.  But there was something else there you couldn’t quite get a read on.

You didn’t care.  And when he climbed onto the bed and crushed you deliciously under his solid weight, you cared even less than that.  

But the sex was…not great.

In St. Kitts, the two of you seemed to be on the same wavelength.  It had been hard to describe, the sex you’d had in that fake relationship.  Bryan had been more subdued, and you had been a little bolder than usual.  It translated to more equitable moments, where one initiated but the other responded and you both met in some magical middle space.  You thought about those moments more than you wanted to admit, how he had always known when to fuck you harder or when to just sit and let you take what you needed from him.

Now, in his sadly empty condo, it was not like St. Kitts at all.  You just wanted to get fucked – hard, impersonal.  Get off, and then flee.  A true hook-up, and the kind you could regret in the morning because you knew the guy was bad news.

Bryan was on a different wavelength, apparently.  His mouth – that mean mouth that mostly just said cruel things to you – worked its way across your face, down your neck, back to your mouth.  Then down to your breasts, uncharacteristically tender.  The man had bruised you there on purpose before.  Now he only kissed you, worked his tongue against your nipples until they ached from his ministrations.

Then he moved lower.  Worked his mouth lower.

He had never gone down on you in St. Kitts.  Truthfully, you weren’t a fan of it and rarely had it offered to you by past lovers.  The few that had offered had complained, and it felt like more trouble than it was worth.  But Bryan’s mouth, cruel as it was, was talented, and you were tempted to let him.

“You don’t have to,” you told him weakly.  He was kissing his way across your stomach, and his big hands grasped your thighs as he spread them wider and settled in between them.  He ceased when you spoke and looked up at you from his vantage point.

“I want to,” he said, and he had that damned low growl that made your core clench painfully.  “I want this sweet pussy to fucking soak my beard.”

You groaned at his filthy words and dropped your head back down onto the pillow, and you let him maneuver you how he wanted.  He kissed his way lower, from your stomach to your hips, and then he slid down more between your legs and kissed the soft skin of your inner thighs.  Then a sting, on each one – as he sucked a mark on each, then soothed them with his tongue.

Then he reached up and grabbed your hand, and he placed it on the back of his head, and something about the motion made you seize up.

“Wait,” you said, and you felt a strange panic bubbling up inside you.  “Stop.”

He did stop, and the look on his face was unnervingly concerned.  As if he cared.  You slipped your hand off of his head and cupped his cheek instead, led his face back up to yours as he sighed in resignation and rejoined you.  Pressed a gentle kiss onto your mouth as your panic died down.

“I want to go down on you,” he said, and he sounded plaintive.  Whiny, almost.  

It was too intimate, but you couldn’t tell him that.  His bright green eyes were peering at you too closely, like he was trying to discern your reluctance.  You couldn’t tell him that having his mouth on you there felt way more close than anything else.  And you didn’t want to be close to him – you just wanted to get fucked and then leave.

“I’m already ready,” you lied.  There was a beat, and Bryan finally nodded.  He kissed you again, deeper this time, and you felt the heavy weight of his cock as he moved his hips, nudging against you, prodding at your slick entrance.

“You need to put on a condom,” you told him.  “And you know why.”

Those stupid green eyes again, gazing at you sadly.  Another nod, and Bryan reminded you of a whipped puppy when he reached into his bedside stand and pulled out a condom, then rolled it onto himself.  Resettled between your spread legs and kissed you again.

It made you a little angry, that sad woebegone look he shot you, as if he wasn’t the architect of his own misery.  Sure, you’d rather fuck without the condom too, but he was the one who had accused you of terrible things.  He was the one who called you a scheming cunt because he thought you wanted his money enough to bring another life into the equation.

He was the one who had always pointed out how much you weren’t his type – and then he had been the one to measure you against his usual type anyway.

That anger was what held you back from getting lost in the moment.  Bryan slid into you, so slowly that you knew he was savoring it, and he gave a choked groan when he finally was fully seated inside you.  He was perfectly sized, curved just enough to hit that spot inside you that made you want to cry, but he couldn’t get you there this time.

You were too angry (at him and frankly, at yourself too), and he was too…touchy.  He rocked his hips into you, keeping his thrusts slow and deep, too tender for what you wanted.  Then he laid his hand (and fuck, you loved his hands normally) alongside your face and forced you to look at him.

Then he did some weird move, pressed his forehead to yours as he fucked you, panting against your lips and gazing into your eyes.  And then he did it again – that other weird move where he took your hand and laid it on his head.  He probably wanted you to pull his hair, but when your hand moved on its own and threaded your fingers through his perfectly coiffed hair, he gave a deep groan like he was in pain.

And then he came.

*****

Bryan knew it wasn’t going great the moment you stopped him from going down on you.  He wanted nothing more than to taste you, but you had stopped him.  And it went downhill from there.

He wasn’t sure what it was.  He never had complaints from women in the past, and though you weren’t complaining now, you sure as hell hadn’t enjoyed yourself.  He could tell by how quickly you got dressed, how you didn’t even try to meet his eye.

It was also painfully apparent that you hadn’t come.  Bryan knew it, because while he hadn’t felt that tell-tale trembling, the way your cunt gripped him, you also hadn’t hissed praise in his ear like in St. Kitts.  All the times there, you had come against him, and you had always whispered in his ear how good he made you feel, how well he fucked you.

“Will you stay?” he asked, though he knew it was futile.  You were in your dress already, doing a little shimmy as you tried to zip it up on your own.  “I can make it up to you.”

You shook your head and refused to look at him, though you let him stand behind you so that he could finish zipping up your dress.  He laid his hands on your shoulders once the dress was fastened, but you shrugged out of his embrace.

“Please stay,” he said.  He didn’t even care that he sounded whiny.

You shook your head again.  “This was a mistake, Bryan.”

Of course it was, but it fucking hurt to hear you say it.  “So what, this was just some hate-fuck for you?” he asked, and his tone made you snap your head up to look at him.

“Yeah, that’s what it was,” you said.  

“I guess I deserve it.”

You laughed, a bitter sound without any humor to it.  “I don’t hate you, Bryan.  You’re just….you.  Heartless.  Asshole. Whatever.  You are what you are.”  You sighed and gave a helpless shrug.  “I hate myself.  I should have known better.”

That hurt even more.  He crossed his arms and glared at you.  “You don’t know shit.”

You gave that helpless shrug again, as if to agree with him.  But you didn’t say anything else.  You only walked out of his bedroom, put your coat back on, grabbed your purse.  And walked out of his condo.

Bryan was left, as always, alone.

[striving-artist]

Turns out one of the most incredibly gifted fic authors I have ever had the pleasure of reading deleted because they were getting hate and vitriol.

so first off, don't do that. Ever. There is nothing a person can do to a character in a fictional story that justifies you being cruel to the Actual Human Being who wrote it. There is no parallel you can draw, no straw man argument, and no purity checklist that justifies a witch hunt against a creator of fiction.

Second, and much more importantly: Since you're reading this. How's about we all go leave some kind comments on beloved fics. New fics, old fics, whatever you love. Especially if it isn't super famous or beloved because the content is niche. Even if you've commented before. Even if you've commented on every chapter before. The author will love to see that you came back. They will love that you cared and that you valued what they made.

Go on. Go to Ao3 or their blog or wherever they post, and go say nice things to them, because as incredible as fic writers are, and as much as we joke about 'sorry the chapter posted late, cthullu interrupted my wedding this morning' fic writers remain people, with emotions, who can be hurt. Go show them some love that they can remember when hurtful people try to tear them down.