#to be clear here it's not a “i want to get her number” kind of situation it's just a nice time seeing her act and stuff :3

[luveline]

hotch's little sister x spencer perhaps?

—Hotch’s sister graduates college, and Spencer is immediately smitten. fem, 1.6k

“She’s pregnant.” Emily shakes her bag of chips around. “But it’s not his baby.” 

Spencer frowns down at his sandwich. Rye bread is hard to cut, and the plastic knife isn’t putting up a good fight. “That’s awful,” he says. “He must be heartbroken.” 

“He’s distraught. Now he can’t decide if he wants to stay and raise the new baby with their first, or leave her and have split custody.” 

“What channel did you say it was on?” 

“It’s on NightDrama. I’ll find out the number.” 

Emily folds the empty packet of chips into a rectangle, then that rectangle into a triangle, folding the edges inside of a fold to create a parcel perfect for flicking at him. Spencer waits for it, tensing, but what he sees behind Emily steals his attention. 

She whips her head to follow him. 

You are, as Spencer watches you walk in, without a doubt one of the prettiest girls he’s ever seen. And it’s not like you’re a model, you don’t walk with any such confidence, but it strikes him immediately. You’re pretty. And he’s never seen you in the office before. 

They get visitors occasionally but the majority of people so deep into this office would've been checked at security and cleared to come up here. You hold a visitors badge in your hand, which you promptly clip onto your shirt when you see people looking at you. Your frown makes you prettier. Something about the way you stand seems familiar, but Spencer can’t put his finger on what it is. 

“Should we go help?” Emily asks. 

“Who do you think she’s for?” Spencer asks back. He’s thinking you’re here to speak to JJ. They have people like this occasionally who JJ knows from past cases, drifting in on a hope that there’s more detail to be found. 

Emily stands up from her chair. Spencer follows suit. When you see her facing toward you, some of your apprehension melts into relief. 

“Hi,” you say breathily, summoning a smile that, again, seems familiar. Not in looks, but practise, maybe. 

“Hi there, can we help? You look lost,” Emily says. 

She sounds more friendly than Spencer could’ve hoped to achieve. He doesn’t even wanna think about it, from how pretty you are he would’ve stumbled over even the most basic hello. 

“I’m here to see Aaron Hotchner. He told me his office is up the stairs, is that still one of these ones,” —you nod gently at the stairs that do, in fact, lead to his office— “or somewhere else?” 

“That’s the right one, the very first door.” 

“Okay,” you give a soft laugh. “Thank you. This place makes me nervous.” 

You leave to travel up the steps. Emily and Spencer watch without any casualness as you approach Hotch’s office door, and give a little knock. 

It’s more surprising to see it tugged open so quickly after. Hotch usually says, “Come in.” 

“Oh, you’re here,” Hotch says. It’s to Spencer’s shock and Emily’s clear joy when he leans in for a hug. The bearhug kind, no politeness or manners about their intimidating boss as his arms cross behind your shoulders and he pulls you in. “You’re late.” He squeezes you. 

You let it happen. “I hate your building.” 

“What the hell?” Emily whispers. 

“I’m so happy to see you. Come on, come in, I ordered lunch for us already.” 

Emily is shameless. She takes Spencer by the wrist and encourages him to the wall below Hotch’s office as he ushers you inside. The door remains ajar, perfect for snooping, and Spencer doesn’t know what it is but he lets Emily drag him forward anyhow. 

“If that’s his girlfriend, he should be ashamed,” Emily whispers. 

Spencer raises his brows. “Did you think that was romantic?” 

“I’ve never seen him show affection to anyone who wasn’t Haley, and when was the last time she was here?” 

Spencer tosses it around in his mind. Sure, it was quite affectionate by Hotch’s standards, but the hug was so… uncareful. He’d grabbed you and hugged you like he was gonna shake you around for fun, like a dad hugs his daughter. “How old is Hotch?” Spencer asks. 

“You don’t think that’s his secret kid.” 

“No,” Spencer says, though he sort of does. 

Emily gestures for him to hush as your laugh drifts down from the office. “You did?” you’re asking. “It’s so nice to be home.” 

“Of course I did. It’s like I promised, okay? You finished college like I asked you too, you’ve done so well, and now I’m gonna make sure you’re happy. Like I tried to do for Sean.” 

“Sean,” you sigh. “He didn’t even answer my grad card.” 

“I don’t know what to say about him, I really don’t.” 

A small pause. “Well, at least you answered.” 

“You know I would’ve come to watch you walk–”

“But you couldn’t. It’s fine, Aaron, I wasn’t really expecting you to make it.” 

“I’m sorry. Really. And I’m proud of you, after everything.”

“Thank you… The bag was better than you being there anyways. Coach?” You laugh breathily. “My friends keep asking me if you can be their big brother too.” 

Emily and Spencer turn to each other, mouths agape, Emily slapping his arm as they struggle to make no noise. Since when does Aaron have a sister? A young sister freshly graduated? 

Hotch laughs too. “Come and sit before your lunch gets cold.” 

Emily gets out her phone to text Morgan, she and Spencer pressed to the wall with their heads ducked. Hotch is a total enigma, because what the hell sort of secret is that?

When Morgan appears, it’s with all the answers. He rolls his eyes at their clear position of eavesdropping but leans against Emily’s desk to give them the information they’re craving anyways. “She’s adopted. Hotch was already in college at the time, but they’re close. They get along a lot better than Hotch does with Sean, that’s for sure.” 

“He sounds protective,” Emily says, side-eying the office. 

“Look, it’s not my business, but I just know it was bad when she was a teenager. Hotch is a drill sergeant for a reason.” Ah, Spencer thinks. The Hotchner father. 

Spencer picks at his hands. It explains the conversation he shouldn’t have been listening to, to a degree. He feels the guilt of knowing something he wasn’t meant to like a sodden weight, retreating swiftly to his desk and his forgotten sandwich.

It’s nice to hear Hotch laughing, but it’s your laugh that draws him in again while he tries so hard not to listen. It’s as attractive to Spencer as your frown had been when you walked in. He thinks about how you finished college, how you’re here, and he wonders if he’ll see more of you —how often will you come in for lunch? Spencer checks his hair in his sleeping monitor and feels like an idiot. 

“I’m sorry,” Hotch says a little while later, elbowing open the door with his back to the office, “we’ll have dinner soon, honey, I promise.” 

You reach up to give him another quick hug. “It’s fine. It’s just nice to be in the same city again.” 

Hotch guides you down to the bullpen with the same pride with which he introduced Jack. It’s unmissable, the love he has for you in just one touch against your shoulder. “Y/N,” he says, pausing at the bullpen, “Derek Morgan you’ve met. This is Emily Prentiss and Spencer Reid.” 

“Spencer Reid?” you ask suddenly, looking up into Hotch’s face like he’s lying, your brows pulled together in indignation, before you turn back to Spencer reverently. “You’re Dr. Spencer Reid?” 

He gets caught on his own breath. “Uh, yes?” 

“The Dr. Spencer Reid who wrote Methods of Continued Fraction Expansions?” 

Spencer feels heat like a kiss to each cheek. “Yes.” 

You turn to Hotch with a suspicious pout. “When I told you about the paper I was reading by a Dr. Reid a few months ago, you didn’t stop to think it could be your Dr. Reid? Or you just don’t like me?” 

That’s a sister’s scorn if Spencer’s ever heard it. 

“I thought you said Rain.” 

“I don’t think you did.” You turn back to Spencer. “I can’t believe it, I emailed you about Jacobi elliptical functions, you were so helpful, I owe you my degree.” You put your hand out with a beaming, beautiful smile, Spencer’s stomach totally flips. “It’s amazing to meet you in person.” 

He’s a germaphobe, he is, and that doesn’t just go away when you meet someone lovely, but he shakes your hand. You surprise him too quickly to think beyond taking your hand letting it happen. You’re, like, glowing. 

Hotch gives him a funny look. Mostly impassive, but not quite. 

Spencer abruptly lets you go. “I don’t think you would’ve needed my help to get there in the end. You clearly knew what you were doing.”  

Hotch’s eyebrows silently rise. 

You turn back to Hotch again, your smile catching. “I like your friends.” 

He smiles. “Let me walk you down to the lobby, honey.” 

You let him guide you away, giving the present members of the BAU a wave with just your fingers before you go. 

Morgan and Emily look at him heavily. “Spencer,” Emily says. “What was that?” 

He doesn’t want to say what he thinks it was, so he doesn’t. “She was nice.” 

Morgan’s laughter is immediate. Spencer has to walk off to the kitchen for a cup of tea he doesn’t drink to escape him and the connotation of his laughing. Spencer hopes he’ll see you again soon, though if he’s half a good a profiler as he thinks he is, he might end up in trouble with your brother.

[maiko-san]

The Chain + TP! Reader (4/?)

< Part 3

Plot : You are Twilight's childhood best friend, who like Twilight can turn into an animal, that is a crow. You just happen to follow Twilight into the portal in your crow form and meet the Chain.

Reader's clothes - A grey long sleeved shirt, frilled ribbon and a black overall dress.

Note : You and Twilight went out on a small date and being cute.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Look out!"

Clang!

You watch as the group of heroes fighting off the monsters, the attack was sudden but these people were quick on their feet to retaliate. You're flying high up in the air, circling around and observing the battlefield.

You see a moblin creeping up behind the younger hero, 'Wind!' you caw out to him alerting the boy who turns around and blocks its mace. "Hyah!" the boy pushes the moblin back as Warriors comes in, plunging his sword into the monster's chest.

"Are you alright?" he asked the boy, Wind smiles. "I'm fine, captain!" he said, his blue eyes look up to you and wave. "Thanks for the heads up, (Y/n)!" he shouted.

It didn't take long for them to clear out the monsters, leaving none to escape their sight. Everyone is exhausted and drenched in monster blood, "Ah, great. My clothes are ruined" Legend sighed as he cringed at the sight of blood on his tunic.

"Guess, we have a laundry day" Hryule smiles, wiping away from blood from his hand.

"The monsters have gotten stronger faster than I expected" Warriors said, swinging his sword to get rid of the blood. "Even if they are getting stronger, their numbers have increases too. I'm worried that we might get overwhelmed in the future battle" Time said, turning to the group "Might as well resupply important needs, especially potions" Time said.

"I will handle the potions" Hyrule said. "Then, I shall start sharpening everyone's weapons!" Four said before trailing off, "After I get myself clean off, hehe" he said. "Alright, after we wash ourselves. We will head to the nearest town. Hryule will handle the potions and Four with the weapons as always. Twilight, Legend and I will rent rooms for all of us and the others will find much needed supplies" Time said. "Yes, sir!" they shouted after receiving their duties.

Twilight looks up to you and holds out his hand, "(Y/n), come here!" he calls out, you shake your head as you eye his blood covered hand. 'I am not landing on that!' you said. 'and you smell too! All of you!'.

True, the smell of blood is everywhere and you don't want to be near it, not wanting to have that scent of you.

'Anyways....I can see a huge waterfall from here, follow me!' you said to Twilight, turning around and flying towards the waterfall. "What did she say to you?" Sky questioned Twilight, the group always sees Twilight talking to the bird and understands her crows. "She sees a waterfall not far from here and wants us to follow her" Twilight said.

"Let's hurry up before the blood dries up" Legend said as he walked ahead.

.

.

After they washed themselves up, they headed towards the nearest town and split up into groups. The inn keeper doesn't allow pets in the room much to Twilight's dismay but you assure him that you're fine with it, you told him that you want to take a look around the town.

"I'm going to take a stroll around and see what the pups are up to, Time" Twilight said, making an excuse so that he and you can walk together. "Sure, tell them to return before sunset" Time said. Twilight nods as he walks out the inn with you as he enters an alleyway so you could transform back into a human. You close your eyes as you feel your body shifts and you return into your human form.

"This place looks amazing, let's check everything out!" you smiled up at him. You were excited, it has been days you haven't been to Castle Town— no wait, this one is a different kind of Castle Town! You wonder what stuff they have around!

Twilight hesitates a bit, but seeing you this happy makes all of his worries melt away. "Alright, let's go" he said, holding out his arm for you to hold. You giggle and hug his arm, "Let's go!" you cheered. You drag the blonde to the town centre and see all the stalls, the music is playing and people are having fun.

Twilight's keen sense of smell picks up the others, well mostly Warrior, Four, Wind and Sky. He sees them through the window of a tavern and are enjoying themselves, they seem to be occupied with betting against each other on a drinking competition.

"Link, look! Look!" your voice caught his attention, you're tugging on his arm as you point out that sells twinkling trinkets, colourful pins and more. "They're so pretty and shiny!" you said, eyes sparkling at the sight of the trinkets but something caught your eyes. "Oh, look at this one!" you said picking up a cute wolf brooch pin and showing it to Twilight. "It's cute, right? Just like you" you said, giving him a cute smile.

Twilight couldn't help but cover his face with his hand, hiding his red face. As you're occupied yourself admiring the brooch in your hand, his eyes land on a box that has a beautiful flower hairclip. "Ah it seems you have a really good eye, ay?" Twilight looks up to the clerk.

"Hm, do you want to buy it as a gift for the lovely lady?" the clerk questioned. "It's really beautiful isn't? It was crafted by the finest smith in town! A very delicate process, the jewels are 100% pure!" the clerk explained as he leans close to Twilight, causing him to lean back. "All women love these things! Just imagine how happy she be!" he said. "Here, take a closer look!" the clerk holds out the box close to Twilight.

His nose twitch as Twilight narrows his eyes, 'A fake....' he thought. He smelled a lot of jewellery and can now differentiate between a real and a fake. Clearly this man is scamming people to buy them....

"How much does it cost?" he asked the clerk. "That would be 10,000 rupees" Twilight gawk at the price.

"I think I pass. I'm just—" the clerk suddenly takes Twilight's hands, "Oh no! There is more for you to see! Come, come!" Twilight tries to hide his irritation, "Sir, please. I am not interested in buying" he said sternly as he pulls his hand away. "Besides we're here to have fu— (Y/n)?" as Twilight turns, you were nowhere in sight.

"(Y/n)?!" he said in panic.

"Oh, no. It seems the lady ran away" the clerk mocks, "Shut up!" Twilight barks at the clerk as the man cowers in fear at the rage in Twilight's expression. The blonde looks through the crowds trying to find the (h/c) haired.

.

.

You stand here, quite awkwardly. Your (e/c) eyes clashes with blue ones. 'I thought he was my Link....' you thought, sweating bullets. His sharp blue eyes stare at you, his gaze looks down at your hands linking with his arm. "Hey, miss. Are you looking for someone?" he asked raising an eyebrow, Legend was it?

"I-I...uh..uh- umm..." you stutter as you slowly release his arm, about this Legend, he's quite intimidating and doesn't have a really welcoming aura but you know that he's kindhearted.

"I-I got the wrong person! I am so sorry!" you said, before sprinting away, leaving the vet quite confused.

.

You hold your chest as you try to calm yourself down, your face is red from embarrassment. Oh, Hylia. What were you doing? You didn't realise that you stray away from the trinket stall and went to another one, you thought you followed Twilight but it wasn't him!

"This is so embarrassing— gwuh!" you suddenly trip yourself on a small pebble which causes you to fall on the ground. You lay there, "Gyaaaa! I am so stupid! What kind of a wife who can't recognize her own husband?!" you cried, punching the ground repeatedly.

"Hey, miss. Are you alright? Are you hurt?" a voice said, you slowly lift your head up. Your eyes are brimming with tears, "I'm fine...I just..." your vision clears and you finally see who's right in front of you.

Hryule, his eyes are laced with worry. "Here" he said with a gentle smile holding his hand out for you to take. You take his hand as he helps you on your feet, you hiss in pain and look down to see that you scratched your knee.

"Let me help" he said as he kneels down. You wave your hands around trying to stop him, "Please, it's just a little scratch! You don't have to—". He takes out something from his bag, a small container that has a medicine cream. "I insist, I can't let a beautiful lady like you walking around with an injured knee" he said, your lips went flat as you let him do his job. "I hope this helps! I made this one myself from the herbs I found during my travels" he said. He wipes the cream gently on your scratch knee, it was cool and it makes the pain goes away. He takes out a bandage and wraps it around your knee.

You look at him, "Thank you so much!" you said, "No problem! I'm happy to help!" he said. You shift on your feet as you slowly turn around, "Thank you again!" you said, walking away like a mechanically and as you turn around the corner, you finally loosen yourself up.

'I hope I don't encounter any more of them, if so I will lose my mind—' suddenly the window near your crashes causes you to let out a scream of fear.

A man sprawls on the ground, clearly drunk. You turn your head slowly and see that the tavern is on full brawl mode. "Come on me!!!!" a scream was heard and you see Warrior, who is quite drunk and is brawling with a random person. Sky is passed out on the table, Wind is cheering on the brawl chanting "Fight! Fight! Fight!", while Four is spurting nonsense while holding a mug full of beer.

"Hey, lady!" the hair on your body stands up and you turn your head to see a man, looking down on you. He's reeked with alcohol and cigarettes. "You're pretty, let's hang out. I'll pay for your drinks and *hic* make you have a good time" he said, winking at you causing you to cringe. "No thank you" you said as you try to slip past him, but he grabs your arm tightly. "Hey, where are you going? I'm offering you a free drink!" he said, trying to tug you close to him.

"I said, no! Let me go!" you said, trying to pry his hand off but he kept a really tight grip. "Come on~!" he tugs you harshly causing you to yelp in pain, "Let me go!" you shouted, kicking the man's leg but it didn't affect him that much.

Out of nowhere, someone punches the man and knocks the teeth out of him, he collapses on the ground with a loud thud. "Leave her alone!" it was Legend. He turns to you, "He didn't do anything to you, right?" he asked as you shakes you head.

Legend let out a sigh, "It's dangerous to be close to the tavern especially that..." he pointed out to the chaos inside the tavern. "Thank you for saving me, I appreciate your help" you said. "Hmpf.." Legend huffed, turning his gaze away. "Be careful next time okay...." he said quietly. Your eyes lock with his, you couldn't help but give him a smile.

"You're really sweet of you!" you said. Legend blinks as red blush dusting his cheek, he looks away. "Shut up and just go before more weirdos come out! I ain't saving your sorry ass, ya know" he said. He opens one eye to you still standing there, smiling. Legend clicks his tongue, "Geez..." he said as he walk into the tavern.

You make your way to a more crowded area and away from dark alleys, "(Y/n) there you are!" it was Twilight. He let out a sigh of relief once he finally found you, he pulled you into a hug "I thought I lost you....you were missing for an hour" he said. "Did I get lost that long?" you feel like minutes but didn't think you were missing for about an hour.

"I'm sorry for straying away" you apologize to Twilight, "It's okay, love. You didn't do it on purpose" he said, gently tucking your behind your ear. He cups your chin and tilts your head up, "How about we have a little dance?" he asked as you smiled, "Sure!". Twilight pulls you to the center of the town where people are dancing to the music.

Both of you have a fun time together, at the same time you told him what had happened. Twilight didn't like what he heard when you told him about the creep.

"Where is he? Let me give him another punch!" he said. You assure him that Legend saves you and you are fine.

"Still, I want to punch him for hurting my wife!"

[ End of Part ]

[eepwriting]

Hi! Could I request a III X reader where they’re traveling with the band on a plane but III comforts reader who is afraid of flying?

Seat Buddy ✶ III x GN! Reader

Warnings: honestly none, just sweet iii. unless you’re super afraid of flying, then some bits might be uncomfortable to read.

Thank you so much for your request!! Such a cute idea 🤍

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You had joined the Sleep Token team at the beginning of the year. You were brought on as assistant and were ecstatic to tour with them. Finally getting to do what you love, traveling with a band you liked also being a huge plus.

In your excitement, you had somehow forgotten the most crucial part of touring. Traveling. When you thought about touring musicians, a big, roomy tour bus always popped into your mind. So when flight details were sent to your phone by the tour manager, you suddenly were okay with staying behind.

Alas, here you are, standing in line to board a plane. You somehow managed to keep your cool through TSA and the hour and a half chunk of time waiting to board. You had the band and the rest of the team to keep you company, take your mind off things, but as you stepped closer to the door of the plane, you felt very alone in your fear.

You hadn’t told anyone you were traveling with about this fear you had. You were determined on getting over it. Or at least, only having a slight freak out.

“What seat you got?”

You spin around to see iii standing behind you. His ticket held up between two fingers. He leans over you slightly, looking down at your ticket.

“Oh, uh, 10e.” You smile up at him, waving the piece of paper.

You hear him pull air through his teeth in a hiss. “Ohh, it looks like you’re stuck with me. Sorry about that. 10d.”

You laugh, moving up in the line. “Should be an interesting flight then.” You try to keep your voice steady as you get closer to the door.

III had always been kind to you, saying hi every time he passed you, always including you in conversations, had even recently started texting you posts he found funny. Although you hadn’t known him very long, you were glad to have a friend in close range.

You move up a final time, the energetic flight attendant at the door giving you a warm smile, welcoming you aboard.

You walk down the aisle, eyes scanning the numbers above the seats until you find row 10. A lone woman occupies the window seat and you give her a polite smile as you sit down next to her. You push your small backpack under the seat in front of you as iii stops in the aisle.

He puts his bag in the overhead compartment before taking his seat next you. You think he smiles over at you with the way his eyes crinkle.

You fasten your seatbelt after getting as comfortable as you can, pulling the strap tight. You want to reach for the safety manual that’s tucked into the seat pocket in front of you but you don’t want to freak yourself out even more than you already are. You clasp your hands in your lap and close your eyes, taking a deep breath.

“Hey, you okay?” III’s thigh bumps your knee. You turn to look at him. He’s slouching forward slightly to get a good look at your face. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

You try to smile at him. “I’m just a little afraid of flying, that’s all.” You clear your throat.

“Oh. I get it. First time?” He turns in his seat to fully look at you. You nod at him, your hands clenching and unclenching in your lap. “Well, the first time is always the scariest. I used to be scared to fly actually.” He leans in a little closer as he says this, as if it’s a secret.

“Really? And you got over it?”

“Eventually, yeah.” He nods. “Comes with the territory of the job so I kinda had to.” He shrugs his shoulders slightly.

“So, you’re just not scared to fly anymore?” You shake your head in question.

“Nope. Only thing I’m scared of is how much leg room I’ll have. I swear it gets less and less every time.” You both look down to his knees that are uncomfortably pushed up against the seat in front of him.

You laugh at his joke, feeling a small sliver of your anxiety slip away. III’s relaxed and playful nature calming your nerves.

Your head snaps up when you hear the pilot come over the intercom, greeting the passengers, telling you where you’re going, and laying out a general time frame of your flight. He introduces the flight attendant who greeted you at the door, letting her take over to demonstrate safety precautions.

III lets you lean over his lap to look down the aisle. You want to see everything she’s demonstrating, writing a mental note of all the exits. A somewhat foolproof plan of escape lingers in the back of your mind.

You check your seatbelt for the 10th time when the pilot announces that the plane would be making it’s way down the tarmac towards the runway.

III notices your uneasiness and leans over to you again. “I like to think about it like this.” His voice is quiet and calm. “What kind of stories do you hear about plane rides?” He tilts his head, eyes scanning your face.

You think for a moment before answering. “The bad, horribly terrifying ones.”

He laughs. “That’s right. You don’t hear about the thousands of successful flights that take off and land every single day. Anyone would be scared of flying if they only ever heard the bad stories.”

That is true, and it’s coming from someone who truly understands your fear. You smile at him, replaying his words in your head to calm yourself down.

The plane rolls its way to the runway, you and iii making small talk the whole time. The plane comes to a stop and it feels like an hour of waiting before the pilot announces takeoff.

You shut your eyes again, taking deep breaths when the tires start moving again, picking up speed. “You can hold my hand if that’ll help.” III’s voice is quiet next you, his shoulder leaning into yours. You quickly nod and hold your hand out, which he gladly accepts, letting you drag it to your lap. You squeeze his hand hard when the front tires lift off the ground and he squeezes back when the plane is fully off the ground.

You only open your eyes when you hear the pilot come over again, announcing an ETA and thanking everyone for flying with the airline. You look over at iii to see him watching you. “Wasn’t so bad, right? It sounds scarier than it actually is.” His hand squeezes yours again.

You nod and smile at him. You’re actually in a plane, in the air, still alive. “I guess not, no.”

You quickly learn that actual air time isn’t the part you’re scared of, just the takeoff and landing. Luckily, you don’t experience any turbulence, so you’ll have to fight that battle another day.

You find yourself able to actually relax most of the flight. III definitely helps, always keeping conversation flowing, cracking jokes, working quickly to distract you if he notices your anxiety creeping back in. He lets you grab his forearm or bicep at any sound or movement that’s even slightly out of the ordinary. Never laughing at you or making jokes at your expense.

He orders you drinks and snacks if you want them, lends you an earbud, showing you some of his favorite songs at the moment. Flips through the provided magazines with you, pointing out articles he might find interesting or tapping on pictures of travel destinations he’d like to visit someday.

You’re almost surprised when you hear the ding of the seatbelt sign and pilot announce that you’d be landing in 15 minutes or so. Time having flew by, no pun intended.

You make sure all your belongings are in order, excited to be on the ground again. This experience was not nearly as terrifying as you thought it would be, but you still had lading to get through before you could feel totally relieved.

“I’m glad you’re the one I got to sit next to, you know.” You smile at iii, bumping his leg with your knee.

“Oh wow, I’m so flattered.” He brings his hand up to his chest, his eyelashes fluttering dramatically.

You giggle and lightly swat his shoulder. “I’m serious! You were very helpful and kind today.”

He sheepishly shrugs, looking away from you, but offers you his hand. You gladly take it, holding it in your lap again. Squeezing hard when the plane jostles, front tires hitting the ground. He squeezes back when the plane comes to slow roll.

“I don’t mind being your seat buddy from now on.” He squeezes your hand twice, a smile reaching his eyes.

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This was cuteeee and fun to write. Thank you again for the request! 🤍

As always, if you like to see anything please let me know!

K. Bye bye.

[kipperlillyforpresident]

Okay so number one. Super cool that you wrote your paper on the American dream. Single-handedly it is my favorite antag from any season.

And two. Well it is true the back to back filming probably definitely made them have less nuance for this. I absolutely agree with your statement. If your players can't engage in a story something is probably wrong. Honestly I've just come to the conclusion that the reason that episode 19 felt so weird. Is because it felt more like it was the intrepid heroes killing the rat grinders. Instead of the bad kids killing the rat grinders. Like I don't know if I'm just going crazy here?? I know it happens where your characters blend together so much in your mind That it's hard to differentiate the character from the player. But things felt so mean spirited in like a unique way. Like a unique way that you can only get from hating a villain as the viewer. Instead of like the character. Because besides Kristen trying to see if Buddy was still in there. It felt as if, the bad kids. Who have notoriously all been put into difficult situations at different times because of various adults. Saw what is basically just them without the support system. And hit it with a nuke. It's not like a Johnny spells type thing where You can be like "this guy sucks. kill his ass." Cause besides Kipper Lily. We don't actually know any of the rat grinders motivations. Like people can say that the rat grinders were just power hungry All they want. But the more likely answer is probably, Porter saw a group of vulnerable children who were actively unsatisfied with the situation they had been put in. And prayed on that!

It's frustrating definitely. But there is always fix it fics. And these final episodes aren't going to stop me from loving the rat grinders. I do not care what anyone in the fandom says. Because half of the time they're just spitting the same misogynistic bullshit we got with saccharina frostwhip. I'm genuinely hoping That at least the adventuring party clears up some things??. But my hopes are low unfortunately. Mary Ann forever though. She got that dog in her

a) IT WAS REALLY COOL!! i also wrote a final paper in a different class about the cubbys . Communications is kind of fake as hell as a major (if youre thinking of becoming a comm major dont </3 its great for student athletes who dont need jobs. as for me. um. well. 1 year out of college no new job), but it meant I was able to write a lot of interesting papers and my professors gave me room to run with it.

b) That's a really interesting thesis, and I haven't thought about it before, but that honestly makes a lot of sense...? Like, in that Really Uncomfortable Speech that was given before Ruben died, he was blamed for wasting a season on him. Which is an extremely meta/IH thing. It makes no sense for Fig to say that. But it does make sense for Emily to say that.

[irritablepoe]

Not to be queer on main but there's this one actress that is (unfortunately only sometimes) part of the readings I go to and she's just. so. beautiful. Seriously, do you know that feeling where someone is just so pretty that you look at them and it feels like a blessing to your eyes? And the way she speaks is so hypnotic, too. I even had the chance to talk to her very shortly (just a "was a good show" but yk she smiled very bright and said thank you and she's just dhdhskjs so sweet and kind ahhhh)

[rose-pearls]

The perils of love

Summary: being in love with Luke seemed to be a bad idea as you realise that he doesn't seem to be interested. But as you get ready to move on from love entirely your father decides to appear and two people fall for you.

Main Taglist : @avada-kedavra-bitch-187, @nyx2021, @thestarspangledcaptain, @kmc1989 (open)

Part 2

Luke Castellan, everyone knew him at camp either for his sword skills or just his kind smiles for every camper that walked into the Hermes cabin. You had fallen for him the moment you met him, sweet brown eyes and a kind smile had you into a puddle. 

You had been twelve, wandering around the Hermes cabin, waiting desperately for your parent to claim you but the days went by, and you still were there. The little girls crush however didn’t went by but grew stronger every day you saw the boy who slowly turned into a man that had all the girls going crazy over him.  

He had been kind to you but there was always a look that you couldn’t decipher, until today that was.

“So, where is your number one fan Luke?”, you hear Chris say in a teasing tone and after a moment you hear Chris say your name, as if to make it clear it was you. 

“I don’t know and frankly I don’t have the time to care right now,” Luke says after letting out a sigh, but you felt your chest tighten at the words. Chris snorts at the words and you don’t expect what he says next.

“You know that there is a betting pool as to when the both of you are going to date,” you don’t know how Luke reacts, as you are practically one with the wall, but you hear him snort.

“Please, she is a sweet girl, but I would never date her. I don’t know how to explain it but sometimes she can just be a little-”, he seems to be trying to find his words and as you wait for it you feel tears brimming in your eyes at his previous statement.

“Clingy? I mean she is practically everywhere you are.”, the words are like a bullet to your heart, particularly when you hear Luke agree.

“I know right, I mean I know that she is still part of the Hermes cabin as she hasn’t been claimed yet but still,” you try to blink the tears away, not willing to cry as you hear the words being said by the man you had always looked up to. 

“Maybe she will never be claimed, I mean after three years,” Chris says, and you can hear the grimace in his voice, he says it with such carelessness as if you haven’t been thinking about the same thing every night for the past three years, wondering what was wrong with you.

“We’ll see what happens I guess, but maybe it would be good for her to be in another cabin,” Luke says, he looks like he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, but Chris adds one last phrase to their conversation.

“Or better for you,” there is a quiet hum of agreement and that is the only thing you need before leaving the cabin quietly, the book that you had come for quickly forgotten.

You knew it was pitiful, the fact that they all seemed to know that you liked the Hermes boy and that they all pitied you for it. Because in the end the boy would never go for you, he had a hundred girls waiting for him and yet here you were hoping for the impossible.

Tears are brimming in your eyes, but you quickly brush them away, not wanting to cry after what had happened, you needed to be strong now. It was time for you to get over that stupid crush and get on with your life, maybe if you trained more your godly parent would finally recognize you and claim you.

“What are you doing here all alone?”, you suddenly hear someone say behind you and you turn around to find Annabeth looking at you with worried eyes.

“Thinking, the lake always seems to sooth me,” you say, the words coming a bit weaker than you intended them too. The girl simply nods at your words before sitting down next to you.

“What about you?”, you quietly ask her, and she lets out a sigh.

“Needed to get out a little bit, I can only strategise so much before going crazy,” she says with a small smile, and you can’t help but smile at her words.

“I’m sure your strategy will be incredible, as always,” you tell her and she simply nods, looking too far into her thoughts.

“Chiron is thinking of splitting up the Hermes cabin,” she suddenly says, and you turn to look at her in surprise.

“Really? How so?”, you can’t help but ask, wondering if this is maybe your chance to get a bit away from a certain Hermes boy.

“He thinks that the unclaimed children and children of minor gods should get the chance to chose in which team they want to be,” she looks conflicted, and you can understand why, this could mean less people for the blue team, her team.

“It seems like a kind gesture,” you can’t help but say and Annabeth nods in agreement.

“It is, although he could’ve said it sooner, now we all need to find a different strategy and we are going crazy with figuring out who will be on our team,” she seems overwhelmed, and you can’t help but put your hand on her shoulder trying to calm her down.

“Hey, calm down it will all be alright,” you tell her, and she takes a deep breath before slowly nodding in agreement.

“I know, I just don’t want to lose,” she says with a pout, and you can finally see the twelve-year-old she really is, that childlike excitement at the thought of capture the flag.

The both of you are deep in thought before her voice breaks the silence, her voice small as she talks.

“Which team are you choosing?”, it was probably a valid question to ask, you were unclaimed so you could technically choose which team to be on, but you just couldn’t get the previous conversation you had heard out of your head.

“The fact that you aren’t saying anything makes me think that you are going to go on the red team,” it seems like she is trying to tease you but there is some sort of hurt woven into her words.

“Don’t take it personally,” you can’t help but say, as much as you would’ve liked staying on the blue team you just couldn’t bear to be that close to Luke after what you had heard. You didn’t know what you would be doing tonight as you were sleeping in the same cabin as always, but he wouldn’t pay attention to you not unless you went to him.

“Did something happened with Luke?”, the carefully asked question makes you look at Annabeth with wide eyes, she had an understanding look in her eyes and you couldn’t help but curse the fact that she was Athena’s daughter.

“Nothing happened, I just realised that maybe I should get to know other people and that maybe it would get me out of my comfort zone,” there are a lot of things unsaid, Annabeth knows it too. Luckily, she doesn’t know of the conversation you had heard, or the fact that the words had cut you deeper than you could’ve ever thought they would. 

“You should probably tell Chiron and the red team, I heard that they were planning a strategy evening to talk about what they were going to do tomorrow,” you try to find anger in Annabeth’s eyes but there is only understanding and a lingering sadness that seems to disappear as you get up.

“Good idea, I will be doing that right now. Good luck on the strategy and don’t drive yourself crazy Annabeth you will do great,” you tell her, and a sweet smile appears on her lips as she nods slowly making you smile at her.

“Don’t be a stranger!”, she yells as you are about to leave, and you turn around to smile at her.

“I won’t!”, she looks reassured at the words before turning back to the water, leaving you to go towards Chiron office. 

--

“A little birdie told me you were on the red team,” you hear someone say and turn around to find Clarisse smirking at you.

“Would that little birdie be Chiron?”, you ask, feeling breathless after trying to stab the dummy about a hundredth time with your sword.

“I don’t reveal my sources princess,” she says with a smirk while you feel your cheeks heat up, you tell yourself it’s because of the work out you just did.

“We have a meeting tonight, after dinner at the Ares cabin,” she says while looking around the rink before picking up a sword.

“I’ll be there,” you tell her, expecting the girl to leave you alone but she just comes closer to you.

“After that there is a movie night and a sleepover, one of the Aphrodite kids managed to convince Chiron to allow it,” the words leave you confused for a moment, how would you even have a movie night with all these people.

“Only a few people are invited for that part,” she clarifies, and you feel breathless at the sight of her warm brown eyes, seemingly forgetting about other brown eyes.

“How come I am invited?”, you can’t help but ask, wondering why the Ares girl suddenly seemed sweet to you when she was practically attacking anyone else. 

“Don’t ask too many questions or you’ll be uninvited princess,” the nickname rolls of her tongue in a way that makes your cheeks go red, once again.

“Fine I’ll stop asking questions and just come with my pajama’s,” you tell her, and a satisfied grin makes his way on her lips.

“Good, now back to serious stuff you were holding your sword the wrong way,” she says like it’s a fact, as if she was pointing out that the sky was blue.

“No, I wasn’t!”, you can’t help but say looking at her with wide eyes.

“Yes, it is, let me help you fix it. I need the best people on my team after all,” you get ready to object but as you feel her get behind you putting her hand over yours on the sword to put your hand correctly you find yourself speechless.

The next hour is spent fighting against each other, but you can’t stop laughing as Clarisse tells you stories of her siblings to try and distract you, which ultimately works as you often end up on your ass. You don’t even seem to notice another pair of brown eyes looking at you, farther away, brows furrowed as he looks at the scene in front of him.

--

“Welcome to the exclusive sleepover,” you hear a soft voice say and you turn around to find Silena smiling kindly at you, two glasses in her hands before giving one to you.

“Thank you, guess they really were exclusive as I had never heard of them before,” you say, feeling a bit nervous as you look around the room only to find Clarisse in a heated discussion with another Aphrodite girl.

“Clarisse only invites people that she trusts or likes, which isn’t many, but she does cares for them,” Silena smiles at the Ares girl in front of you and you can’t help but do the same, Clarisse always seemed to be angry but in that moment, she seemed far more softer.

“I’m glad she trusts me,” you say, somehow missing the look Silena gives you, a look of confusion as you seem to have missed her clue on Clarisse liking you.

Clarisse had always been discrete about it, but Silena had caught her looking at you far too often to not know about it. Her fingers always seemed to itch when you were sword fighting, as if she was itching to get your posture right and to be able to touch you even for just a few seconds. You only had eyes for the Castellan boy, or it seemed that way until yesterday when Chiron told them that you would be on their team. Silena didn’t ask much of her mother but in that moment, she couldn’t help but ask her mother for help to get the both of you together. Clarisse deserved her happy ending and you deserved someone who would love you for who you were.

She gets woken from her thoughts as she hears Clarisse talking to you, there is a nervousness in her gestures as she pushes her hair behind her ear, but you don’t seem to realize it as you recount a story. Silena quietly gets up from her spot, and sends and encouraging look towards Clarisse, who seems a bit more at ease now. 

--

Capture the flag is a mess, more than the last time but you try not to let your mind wander too long. A boy that you think is from the Hephaestus cabin runs towards you and you sigh in annoyance before starting to fight against him, quickly ‘killing’ him and making him surrender. 

You had been tasked with trying to find the blue flag, but it seemed as if Annabeth had found a really good spot this time, and she had put more people in defense. After a while you wondered if you had the wrong hunch until you saw something blue flickering in the reflection of your sword. As you turned to look behind you, you saw the blue flag but weirdly there was no one around it.

“This feels like a trap,” you can’t help but whisper under your breath as you try to hide behind the bushes but a blade against your neck makes you stop in your steps.

“Sorry, but I need to do this,” you hear someone say and you turn around to find a sheepish Percy looking at you.

“Hi Percy,” you say with a kind smile and the boy smiles back, looking reassured that you aren’t mad or swinging your sword at him.

“How are you doing?”, you can’t help but ask, you hadn’t seen him since he had been claimed by Poseidon, but the boy seemed healthy.

“Good, well as good as you can when you learn that your father is one of the big three’s and that your life will be a hellhole,” he says with a roll of his eyes, and you can’t help but snort.

“Still as sarcastic I see,” you can’t help but say while laughing and a sheepish grin forms itself on his lips.

“Can’t help it,” he says while shrugging his shoulders.

“It’s a shame you aren’t on our team,” he says quietly, and you smile softly, the two of you had talked a lot when he had arrived, and you felt close to him.

“Maybe next time,” you tell him and the boy smiles at the answer before asking you a question and the two of you talk for a moment before you hear a battle cry and see the red team suddenly making their way in the clearing, the blue team also appearing.

Percy and you look at each other with wide eyes before you take out your sword.

“If you don’t say anything about this, I won’t say anything,” Percy nods quickly and the both of you break away from the tree you were behind before joining your team as Percy joins his.

An Apollo girl comes running towards you, but you quickly manage to disarm her, others following behind her, but you are in such a haze that you don’t realize how close you are getting to the flag. That is until you are met with a familiar blade, Luke’s. 

The boy is looking at you, slightly out of breath from the fighting just like you.

“You can always abandon now sweetheart,” he says and can’t help but blush slightly at the familiar nickname. 

“No chance Castellan, give me your worst,” this seems to make the boy laugh before he quickly wields his swords, yours clashing against his in familiar movements. You had fought many times against Luke as he had taught you how to fight but you had a new trick up your sleeve that Clarisse had taught you. She had told you that his left leg was his weakness, a bruise that had never really fully recovered. 

So, when the opportunity presents itself, you wield your sword against his left leg, making sure not to hurt him too much. But as you hit the spot Luke winces in pain and his sword leaves his hand. You don’t think at that point and simply continue straight to the flag, whispering a soft ‘sorry’ as you go to the Hermes boy.

You manage to take the flag before seeing Percy coming towards you with his sword, you expect the hit, but he seems transfixed, looking at something above you. There is a loud silence, on a battlefield that was filled with battle cries just a second ago.

Chiron’s voice suddenly comes up, suddenly saying your name.

“Daughter of Zeus, king of the gods,” the rest of his words are lost as you look up, only to see the symbol of Zeus above your head, your father’s symbol.

You didn’t know how to feel, you had been waiting for so long but now that it was happening you just felt lost. Why was he claiming you right now?

“Congratulations! Seems like we are cousins now,” you suddenly hear Percy say, he has a bright smile on his lips, but there is also sadness in his eyes. It takes you a few seconds to understand why, you were now a child of the big three, which meant your life was about to be a hellhole as Percy had said.

“Always though there was something familiar between the two of us,” you try to say in a teasing tone, but it falls flat, Percy nodding in understanding.

As you turn around to look at the rest of the camp you see Luke looking at you with wide brown eyes, as if he was seeing you for the first time. You turn your gaze towards Clarisse who is looking at you with a proud smile and something else that you can’t quite understand.

There was surely a lot of trouble coming but not the one you were expecting, it would be far more complicated than monsters or a father that decided to appear after fifteen years. Matters of the heart were after all the most complicated of all, particularly between a daughter of Zeus, a daughter of Ares and a son of Hermes. 

[dycefic]

Tom Saves The World

Everyone knows that it’s super-heroes who save the world. They fight the aliens, or the monsters, or the bad guys. And mostly, that’s true.

But not always.

I’m a psychic. The thing is, my range isn’t that great. I don’t have much detail more than about 36 hours out, 48 for something really big. I’d had a nebulous sort of bad feeling for about a week before this one finally hit, and it was big. Something very tough and very supernatural was going to come up out of the harbor of Nova Roma, and the death-toll was going to be high. Crazy high.

I did all I could. I told the Unaligned Supers Job Placement Agency, and they put the word out to everyone on both sides of the Line. The Henchman’s Union don’t like natural disasters any more than anyone else, and they’re often quite helpful against eldritch horrors and stuff like that. Things that don’t hire henchmen and ruin the property values.

The trouble was, nobody big was around. The only really big team of heavy hitters on the West Coast were away dealing with some sort of doomsday cult - I never was clear on what that was about - and Guarde and Dog Fox were out of touch and even Mx Frantique was out of town at someone’s wedding. It was going to happen in less than two days and we couldn’t find anyone to help and I was seriously considering calling in some kind of bomb threat or something to get people away from the docks, at least.

And then, about eighteen hours out, it just… went away.

Which never, ever happens.

My powers might be short range, but they’re reliable. I don’t get stuff wrong, and I hadn’t been able to find any way to prevent what was going to happen, or even been able to identify anyone who could. But someone did. Someone had done something to stop the threat, something that happened literally while I was opening my car door. When I reached for the handle, thousands of people were going to die. By the time the door was open, there was no threat at all.

At first I thought it must have been a ranged thing. Like, whatever I’d been seeing (all those teeth, I saw them in nightmares for months after) had been distracted by something tasty on its way here and gotten off track, that it’d come up somewhere up or down the coast. My range isn’t that big, either. Anything outside about thirty miles might as well be on Mars for all I know about it. So we kept a watch out, and warned the chapters of the Union and the Agency in other cities.

But nothing happened. Nothing at all. I couldn’t explain it, and I was really unpopular for a while. Supers do NOT like people who cry wolf. There’s enough freaky shit we have to deal with without someone panicking everyone with a dire prophecy that fizzles out.

Thank all the gods that Tunny showed up. Nobody’s really sure what Tunny actually is - sentient fish creature, some kind of really mutated human, an alien, or what. She changes her story a lot. But she’s pretty friendly, especially for a twenty-foot-long horror-movie-mermaid-thing with four arms, so when she came into harbor to pick up some supplies a guy from the Agency went out to tell her what I’d seen. I’d gotten a wharf and dock number, so she went down to check.

I don’t think anyone had ever seen Tunny scared before. Her English wasn’t good enough to really explain what she’d found hibernating down there, but it was something very old and very powerful and very dangerous, and if it’d been woken up my vision would just have been the start of the crisis.

She rounded up a bunch of whales to help her move it, once she was sure it hadn’t been agitated and wasn’t likely to rouse if moved carefully. They towed it out before dawn, not wanting to scare the civilians, and when I saw the footage from the helicopter the Union sent up, when I saw how big the swell was, how many whales were pulling, I swear I nearly crapped myself. No wonder I’d been getting hints a week in advance. Somehow we dumbass humans had built a whole fucking city almost on top of some kind of Ancient Old… THING, and eroded the sea-bottom until it was exposed, and if someone hadn’t done whatever it was we’d all have been dead long before Tunny arrived. And not just all as in ‘all of Nova Roma’, it could have taken out half of the continent... or all of it.

It took me years to find out what happened. YEARS. It turned into a kind of hobby, tracking everything that might possibly have come into contact with Wharf 38 on that particular day.  

And what I found, eventually, was a city employee named Thomas Briggs.

I’d found out early on that 38 wasn’t in good repair. Not that bad, but not great. It was old, things were getting a bit saggy in a few places, but there’d been no sign that anything was likely to fall off on the day. It had sat there for a couple of years after the crisis that never happened,, doing its job without problems then been rebuilt without any drama at all.

Entirely, completely, and totally because of Thomas Briggs.

The story, when I finally pieced it together, went like this.

There’d been some project or other to build some sort of high-budget science project over on the other side of the harbor, hanging it off’ve Pier 8, the furthest out on that side. Something about tracking sea-life or ships or something. My conversational English is near perfect, I’ve been here for years, but I don’t speak science nerd in ANY language. It’d all been approved, some university was covering most of the cost, it was all gonna be fine. And it was gonna be over on 8 because that side of the harbor is the shallow end. It’s where the sailboats go. All the big stuff that would block visual sensors and deafen the thing with engine noise was over in the thirties, in the real deep water.

They were almost ready to install the thing when a bunch of rich dudes suddenly got their panties in a bunch over having a big sciency tower thing ruining the view from their yachts, and tried to get it moved.

To, and I’m sure you guessed this, Wharf 38.

Which was completely insane. It wouldn’t be able to do its job over there, it’d be way more in the way, and (although they couldn’t have known it) the installation would definitely have woken up the Thing sleeping by the wharf and we all would have died. But rich dudes with yachts don’t care about that stuff. They’d bitched out and bribed up their friends on the city council, and those friends had done their thing, and the scientists had been left in the dark, and it’d almost gone through. They’d figured to install it right away, so that when the science guys found out it’d be too late and they’d either have to pay a lot to move it or just use it where it was.

Enter Thomas Briggs.

Mr Briggs, Tom to his friends, didn’t give a crap about the yachts or the science. He was a senior money guy for the commercial wharfs, the one who figured out things like how much money they’d take in in a quarter, and what the repair budget should be, stuff like that. He found out about this thing two days before the disaster would have happened, and sat down and did the math.

Then he sent out an email to the guys trying to push this through, and he ripped into them like they’d threatened to knife his mother. I got my hands on that email, and I didn’t understand a lot of it any more than the council guys would have. It was ALL numbers. But at the top he wrote it out in plain English. Pier 8 was new, and rated to handle the weight of the thingy. Wharf 38 was going to be scrapped in a few years, and it was NOT rated for that kind of structure. Pier 8 had plenty of room around it. Wharf 38 was already a tight fit for the big commercial ships, and adding a structure sticking out on one side would block off at least half of the wharf to those ships completely.

Bottom line, putting the thing on Wharf 38 would cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars more per year than putting it on 8, AND the city would have to eat the cost if 38 collapsed under it which it could easily do, AND the city would have to pay to move it in a couple of years anyway when 38 was due to be rebuilt.

And he cc-ed every important person he had an email address for, including the mayor, the anti-corruption people, and several reporters.

He must have sent that email right when I was opening my car door.

The whole plan collapsed right there, and some people got fired. There was no news story because the whole plan got killed before the reporters even got to the right office. The installation was started on Wharf 8 a few weeks later and I never connected it to a commercial wharf on the other side of the harbor.

One email, and a man who I never could have located in time, a man who had no powers at all, a man who was just conscientiously doing his job looking after the city’s money saved the city, and the continent, and maybe even the world.

Who could have predicted that? Not me, that’s for damn sure.

I can’t deny that I went home and got drunk off my ass that night. Just thinking about how close that had been made my hands shake. One man. One honest man who’d done the math.

I put the word out, once the hangover wore off. What had happened. That Thomas Briggs was the reason we were all alive and everyone better make his life real nice from now on, because he’d done what none of us could do and nobody but the supers would ever even know it.

He’s got a lot of luck coming to him, I can tell you. We don’t forget debts like that.

And I knew that’d freak him out, because honest men don’t like it when people start doing them a lot of favors for no apparent reason, so I tracked him down at the little bar where he likes to have a quiet beer on Friday nights before he goes home. Hell, I was the one who’d gone through it all, back then. I should get to tell him.

I sat down beside him at the bar and looked at him. I saw a thin, small, balding man who looked like he worried too much and didn’t get enough sleep, with lines around his eyes. Yeah, he looked like a man who’d do the math. “Thomas Briggs?”

He blinked at me through his glasses. “Yes? Do I know you?”

“No, you don’t. My name’s Barkhado Omar, and I’ve been looking for you for a long time.” I offered him my hand and he shook it, still looking confused. Which was fair, ‘cause I doubt a lot of seven foot tall Somali women came up to him in bars even when he was young. He’s got to be close to retirement now.

He frowned. “Looking for me? Why?”

I smiled at him. “Tom, let me buy you a drink and tell you about the day you saved the world.”

It’s usually us who save the city, or the world. We have all the intel, all the advantages, all the powers.

But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s someone like Tom Briggs, doing the right thing at the right time and never knowing that he changed the course of history.

Wild, huh?

--

This story is a direct result of me and my ex chatting about how different the entire Marvel Universe would have been if Jean’s first ‘resurrection’ - being found in a life pod under a wharf, IIRC - had happened at like... any other time. Earlier. Later. It would have changed SO MUCH.

And we speculated about how it could happen, how someone just puttering around in middle management might have unknowingly saved countless lives, prevented Madelyne’s corruption, the legacy virus, all of it, just by postponing that particular set of repairs a bit longer.... and I couldn’t resist writing a version of the story in which Tom does, in fact, save the world.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Clownfall: Endgame

I am calling it that in the full knowledge that batshit things may yet happen, but listen. Listen. We have a year left before the general election. I am hedging my bets and assuming all that comes in that year will be Tory manoeuvring ahead of that. Let's all hope for a nice quiet year in which everything can fall neatly under that banner, that won't ruin this naming convention.

Previous Reading

Important Terminology - Required Reading

What is a Whip?

How do Whips work?

Shadow Cabinet

Front Benchers, Back Benchers and the Cabinet

What do we need to call an early General Election?

The Adventures of Big Dog the Clown - Suggested Reading

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Elanor’s Guide to Liz Truss - Suggested Reading

Character-based prequel

The Premiership of Liz Truss

The Next Steps - Suggested Reading

The post-Truss contenders

Bye Matt

BoJo Resigns as MP

Alright, that's probably everything. Just nice to have it all in one place, innit? If you would like a nice soothing soundtrack to your reading, here's my recommendation. On with the show!

Clownfall: Endgame

Wednesday

So, let's start with charismatic and charming Home Secretary Suella Braverman! You may remember her from such hits as "Quitting before she could be fired after breaking the law only to be rehired by Sunak almost immediately and without consequence to appease the right wing nutjobs in the party", and "Claiming Pakistani men have a culture that makes them work in abuse rings to target vulnerable white English girls" (I should add that, if you are unfamiliar with Suella Braverman, regardless of what that quote implies, she is not, in fact, white); recently she made the news because she announced that being homeless is a "lifestyle choice". So true, Suella! They could give it up any time they wanted. They could, for example, get together and break in and steal your fucking house.

But in particular, here we're focussing on her recent stance towards the multiple huge pro-Palestine marches that have been taking place in London. So far she has indicated that she wants people who wave Palestinian flags to be arrested, so that's very measured and rational of her; but, last Wednesday (Nov 8th), she decided to write a lil opinion piece in the Times all about how mean and biased and liberal the police are. This is an absolutely fascinating assertion to I suspect literally anyone who has ever been involved with the police. But no! Quoth Suella, aggressive right-wing protesters are "rightly met with a stern response", while "pro-Palestinian mobs" are "largely ignored".

And, she claims, the march on Saturday isn’t simply a cry for help for Gaza, but an "assertion of primacy by certain groups - particularly Islamists - of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland".

Imagine how well all that went down.

Thursday

You are underestimating how that went down, because it emerges that Suella deVille did not, in fact, get any form of validated sign-off or permission from Number 10 before squirting her ill-informed liquid horseshit all over the front desk of the Times news room, and that, Tumblrs, you'll be surprised to learn, is actually quite an important and compulsory part of criticising the police when you are the Home Secretary. Like, there is a Ministerial Code about this. It is very clear. It is in Article 8.2, Tumblrs. Thou Shalt Have Permission From Number 10 Before Making Media Interventions.

“The content was not agreed with Number 10,” a spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told reporters, referring to the prime minister’s Downing Street office. The ministerial code is clear that any ministerial media interventions need approval from No 10.

-AlJazeera

And the Tories are furious! The bloodbath forms quickly and loudly and the hounds start baying! Clown noses are flying everywhere! The factions are drawn! Because even now, there are Tories too stupid to understand that whether you agree with someone or not they still have to follow the rules! Also the other parties realise they can offer some actual opposition here, given that Suella has essentially dragged a barrel into the middle of the House of Commons dressed in a fish costume, handed around a set of loaded rifles, and then crawled inside to wait. The result is that the calls for her resignation are both deafening and pleasingly cross-party.

"(This is a) dangerous attempt to undermine respect for police", says Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper. "(It's) irresponsible," says London mayor Sadiq Khan. "The PM's weakness when it comes to standing up to Suella is the most shocking thing in all this," claims a senior Labour source.

They're wrong, of course. The most shocking thing is Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey realising he can actually appear in the paper if he plays this right and so surfaces to attempt some politics. "(Sunak) must finally act with integrity by sacking his out-of-control home secretary!" he declares, frightening many MPs who had forgotten he was even in the room with them.

Meanwhile, several Tories approach the BBC anonymously.

"The home secretary's awfulness is now a reflection on the prime minister. Keeping her in post is damaging him," says one. Another straight-up describes her as "unhinged". Another claims the comparison with Northern Ireland is "wholly offensive and ignorant", and really, all of this is permanently triggering that "Heartbreaking: the worst person you know just made a great point" reaction image.

Saturday

Hey, speaking of reaction images, look, Labour has a go:

Well. They tried.

BUT! Do you want to know the INTERESTING bit??!

Enter: Nadine Dorries! Mad shrieking pink harpy who spends her days maintaining a BoJo shrine in her bedroom! Always the most hinged of politicians, let's see what she has to say.

Former cabinet minister Nadine Dorries claimed Ms Braverman was trying to get sacked to give her a platform of martyrdom in service of the right-wing. "The competition is on now for who is going to be the leader of the opposition," Ms Dorries told the BBC.

???!??!?

PERTINENT POLITICAL OBSERVATION FROM DORRIES?!?!?? The most shocking part of this whole affair. Remember that time she yelled at a journalist during an interview about Boris Johnson's latest scandal when he asked her how Johnson was feeling about the whole thing and inadvertently implied they were having an affair when No One Asked? God, wonders never cease. She's even acknowledging the Tories can't win the next GE, look. I'd say this is growth, except I am 100% positive she's just being catty about BlowJo being fired again.

Anyway, the real Saturday issue: it's Armistice Day, and there's a pro-Palestine march planned.

Now, to give context, Armistice Day has a creepy level of patriotic state-worship attached to it in the UK. Some time in October everyone on telly suddenly starts wearing a poppy, and if you don't you get hanged, drawn and quartered by (a) the British press, and then (b) a baying mob outside your living room. You most be performatively sad. You must perform reverence and hero worship and say things like "Never again" all while whole-heartedly supporting current wars. You must talk about "our brave boys", and share the works of dead poets from the trenches, and then completely fail to absorb any of their lessons. If anyone tries to wear the white poppy to distance themselves from the current political appropriation while still commemorating the millions of conscripted casualties, you accuse them of being "woke" and pissing on the worthy dead of WW1. It's a whole thing, and politicians love using it as an excuse to point fingers and mock each other for being insufficiently patriotic if they wear the wrong tie to the ceremonies, or choose to walk with actual veterans rather than a head of the current army, or any number of other things. And then on November the 12th they'll order a drone strike or something.

So, off the bat, you can see how a pro-Palestine rally on the same day was likely to be seen as provocative to some.

"Some" included Sunak! He didn’t (publicly at least) ask the police to ban the protest, but did call on organisers to call it off, claiming the choice of date was “provocative and disrespectful”, because as I say, a march calling for the ceasefire of a genocide is super disrespectful to every sad dead poet in a trench who dreamed of a ceasefire so they could live, or something.

But the inevitable therefore happens, which is that far-right activists agree that it's disrespectful, and so decide to violently target the march to show their respect for the idea of peace on Armistice Day, or something.

Here's the planned route by the organisers:

Note, though, that the Armistice ceremony happens at the Cenotaph - visibly nowhere near the march. These two events actually wouldn't have overlapped, if it weren't for far-right protestors deliberately linking them to stop them being disrespectfully linked, or something.

And that's exactly what happened. From the Guardian:

Perhaps the most striking incident, though, was when far-right protesters charged past police who sought to hold them back from the Cenotaph. In this video, a man shouts “this is fucking our country” in celebration. Whereas the pro-Palestine march had been excluded from the area as a precaution, the far right was not; by overwhelming the police, they supposedly sought to defend the site from an enemy that simply wasn’t there.

(that's quite a good article of the whole thing, actually, I recommend giving it a read.)

Crucially to the clown show, though, several politicians and others accused Suella deVille of emboldening the far-right, which... well, several of the far-right protestors straight up said was the case on the day, so hard to disagree, really.

Rumours of a reshuffle in Whitehall circumnavigate the land so fast the truth gets sucked into a tornado and is declared MIA.  Here's the thing! I've covered a few Cabinet reshuffles by now, Tumblrs, you know the drill. Reshuffles are always deniable until they actually happen – so if, say, a reshuffle was going to happen on Monday 13 November 2023, there’d be no need to publicise it in advance. That way, if things change and politics happen, you don't need to retract anything :)

Because, remember: reshuffles are always controversial.  Yes, some people get demoted, and those people will often kick off, and some people who don't deserve it get promoted, and lots of people kick off.  But the big thing is that a lot more people get overlooked for promotion.

His most ardent supporters would say that Rishi Sunak is a cautious man (if you'll allow me a moment to express my own view on the matter, Tumblrs, if you'll forgive this crumb of personal opinion amongst my otherwise impeccable journalling of greatest integrity, I once did a teambuilding task with my students where they had to build the best possible bridge out of uncooked spaghetti and pieces of marshmallow, and I personally would liken the structural integrity of his spine to the losing team's entry), and reshuffles will spread a lot of disappointment to Tory MPs who lose – or fail to gain – a cabinet position.

So, all in all... regardless of Suella's idiocy...

There's no guarantee of a reshuffle. Rumours are just that - whether they prove to be true or not remains to be seen.

Week Commencing Monday 13th November, 2023

New week, new challenges! And it's going to be a big week this week. On Wednesday (tomorrow, at time of writing), three big things are going to be announced, and these announcements will colour everything else this week:

One.  The Supreme Court decide whether the government will be allowed to enact their plan to send some migrants claiming asylum in the UK to Rwanda, a signature Braverman plan that human rights campaigners (including many in Rwanda) have been trying to block for ages.

It’s a massive deal anyway – a flagship government idea that’s been bogged down in the court, and we’ll finally have an answer one way or another.  For what it’s worth, the Tories aren’t confident about winning it, either.  The optimists among them reckon it’s a 50/50 chance, the pessimists reckon it’s 70/30 against, so it's iffy at best.

But here's the thing!

Plenty of Tories have always disliked Suella.  Others could handle the odd outburst she has, but can’t stomach the sheer number of them lately - the Lib Dem non-entity man was absolutely right that she is rapidly growing out of control and just does not know when to shut the entire fuck up.

Which means! If the Supreme Court allows the Rwanda plan, Braverman could become emboldened, like a far-right protest injuring police officers to defend the cenotaph from people who are nowhere near it and have no interest in it.  Do we want an emboldened Braverman?? Well; no, obviously. I also don't want dysentery, or rotten meat, or a serial killer in my neighbourhood. But it's a question even Tories are asking themselves, which is notable.

Plus, even if the court allows it, there will still be months of planning, and lawyers might still prevent the plans in the long run...  But psychologically, the issue is this: the government wants this win, but probably doesn’t benefit from Braverman feeling victorious.

Two.  We’ll get inflation figures.  The government promised to halve inflation, and it seems likely they’ve managed this.  Expect them to massively celebrate this, to distract from the promises they haven’t kept e.g. waiting lists in England, competent governance, etc.

Three.  Voting on a ceasefire in Israel seems likely for Wednesday.  It’s the SNP’s idea, and it won’t affect government policy (they won’t support a ceasefire – they claim it’ll empower Hamas).

But it’s a big deal for Labour, even more so than the Tories.  A Shadow minister has already resigned over the war.  A bunch of frontbenchers want a ceasefire, but that isn’t Keir Starmer’s policy, a man who is calling for the colours of the Israel flag to be shown at sports matches to show that "we stand in solidarity with Israel", because you can really count on Starmer to fuck up everything he touches.  So what do they do?  Abstain?  Claim they had a prior commitment??  We might see more resignations, basically.  Big day for Starmer.

So! With all that in mind...

Monday

8.43am

Oh look. Timestamps are back. I wonder if that suggests anything?

Suella Braverman is sacked as Home Secretary.

But! Sunak is accused of waiting too long! Which he demonstrably did!

He should have made the decision after the illegal article that she shouldn't have written and triggered a far-right rally on fucking Armistice Day.  Instead, remember that 'cautious' descriptor I talked about?? He waited until the tide had turned against her completely, and now looks like he (a) was too much of a useless wimp to fire her until he was sure people would still like him and pat his dick and tell him he's a Good PM, and (b) only fired her because he caved in to that appalling lefty liberal cabal that somehow these days includes the Metropolitan Police of all fucking people, and she'd have been able to stay otherwise.

Shout out to the best comment from Reddit:

u/nowonmai666: Doesn't she normally get sacked on a Friday so she can have the weekend off before being reappointed?

Anyway, that's the big risk now: Braverman’s supporters can claim she was only fired because Sunak caved in to the left.

8.56am

Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns claims Sunak only sacked Braverman because he caved in to the left.

9.00am

Neil O'Brian, Pharmacy Minister, quits to live out his stated dream of being a back-bencher with less power.

*sus*

9.09am

Nick Gibb, Schools Minister, quits to live out his stated dream of being more diplomatic, or something.

*sus*

9.42am

The Lib Dems decide to build on the success of their leader getting to be on telly for his one comment on Thursday and call for a general election.  Says Ed Davey: “It was the Prime Minister’s sheer cowardice that kept her in the job even for this long. We are witnessing a broken party and a broken government, both of which are breaking this country.”

Good job! They're having such a good few days.

Anyway remember the Tories don’t have to have a general election until December 2024, though, thanks to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (2011), which was passed by the coalition government of Tories and, um, Lib Dems.  In which Ed Davey served for three years.

Hmm.

9.43am 

James Cleverly (remember him?) returns to the Cabinet and is appointed Home Secretary. The party attempts to appear trendy by experimenting with emojis:

This appointment is probably because Tory strategists wanted him in a domestic role to help the party’s chances in the next election; as Surprising Political Pundit Nadine Dorries told us, of all fucking people, the race is now on to lead the opposition.

But hey, this is not likely to lead to any more changes -

10.03am

FORMER PRIME MINISTER, BREXIT-TRIGGERER AND PIG-FUCKER DAVID CAMERON BECOMES FOREIGN SECRETARY

!!!!!!!!!!!!

And look! Another emoji! They're so hip!

(Side note... the balls on this one are astounding, actually. The UK political system has been in chaos ever since Cameron, and he was the first domino. This is not a well-loved former hero that will be greeted warmly by the unwashed masses.)

Awkward though, since just last month Sunak claimed that we’d lived through “30 years of a political system that incentivizes the easy decision, not the right one.”  It would be a terrible shame if a journalist was to ask David Cameron whether he agreed with the Prime Minister on that, given that Cameron’s job is to support the Prime Minister now.

Especially since Cameron took to Twitter last month to explicitly criticise Sunak for breaking the Tory promise to deliver High Speed 2.

(Cameron tweeted this criticism last month.  Labour MP Angela Rayner however promptly retweets it now lol suck a dick Dave, but try a human one this time)

Also, fun fact, Cameron has just come out of a large-scale lobbying and corruption scandal. Given the state of Sunak, though, that's actually probably what got him the job.

BUT!!! Here's an even funner fact: the man is not an MP. He left politics after he accidentally triggered Brexit and then it came out he'd once face fucked a dead pig's head while it was held on the lap of another Tory; he's been living it up in the lucrative world of after-dinner speaking, as these people do.

So can you do that?? Can you hold a Cabinet position if no one at all has voted for you??

Yes, turns out.

Don't be alarmed by that, though:

But, convention holds that anyone who becomes a Cabinet member while not being an MP needs to be a Peer - that way, if they do bad and naughty things, they can't be held accountable by the House of Commons but they can be held accountable by the House of Lords. Only problem is, Hameron is not a lord...

10.13am

The reshuffle, bafflingly, continues. Jeremy Hunt will remain as chancellor.

For the first time since 2010, the top four positions in government – Prime Minister (Sunak), Chancellor of the Exchequer (Hunt), Home Secretary (Cleverly) and Foreign Secretary (Cameron) – are all held by men.

10.18am

Lots of people tweeting about the historic context of Cameron’s appointment.  Here’s my favourite:

10.48am

David Cameron is given a life peerage, so his proper name now is Lord Piggledick.

10.52am

Health secretary Will Quince quits.  He wasn’t planning to stand for re-election anyway though, so this one is probably not a shock. But it's important that no one else resi-

11.04am

Decarbonisation minister Jesse Norman resigns.

...

...

...

Time for a

✨Conspiracy Theory✨

Between Quince and Norman – as well as Neil O’Brien and Nick Gibb – we’re seeing several mid-ranking ministers resign, despite being generally regarded as fairly competent.

It’s possible they were fired in private, and they’re publicly resigning to save face.  But here’s another theory.

MPs aren’t allowed to seek commercial employment for six months after resigning from the government.

So hypothetically, if you were going to lose your seat in a general election, you’d want to have resigned six months earlier so you can still get a job.

If that’s what these guys are doing, it suggests we’re on track for a May 2024 election...?

11.05am

11.12am

Remember Cameron's financial scandal? Quick background here: David Cameron was specifically vice-chair of a £1bn China-UK investment fund.

So let’s see what throwback former leader Iain Duncan Smith thinks of Cameron’s return:

“I am astonished at this appointment. It seems to send a signal to China that we are pursuing business with them at all costs and any costs. Those who have been sanctioned now feel more abandoned than at any time. Those facing genocide and persecution will feel more abandoned than at any time.”

I cannot believe I am about to say this.

But.

I agree with Iain Duncan Smith *spits on floor*

11.50am

Former Tory deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine is asked to sum up the return of Cameron, and says it’s the “clearest signal that the sort of right wing lurch that we’ve seen and the anti-European movement that we’ve seen has been put to bed, and that will get a message across to people”.

12.13pm

A Tory MP is worried that Cameron’s return will turn back the clock on Brexit and Johnson’s election.

“It is very alarming. I am predicting a softening on small boats, a softening on legal migration. I would not be surprised if the ban on conversion therapy returns.”

... Don’t threaten me with a good time.

Anyway, let’s see how the public actually sees Cameron compared with other PMs!

Yeah, not sure people will mind if Cameron’s not Boris Johnson.

12.43pm

ITV political editor Robert Peston walks past a minister of state.  The minister’s on the phone, but takes a moment to heatedly shout at Peston, “The PM just sacked me!”

I guess some days are easier than others as a journalist

12.47pm

Therese Coffey resigns as environment secretary!!!!

*choirs of heavenly angels sing*

You'll remember her of course, Tumblrs - she was one of the thugs manhandling people into the 'right' voting lobbies to force their vote on the day of Liz Truss' fracking law. Rumour has it she still has the Whip handle in her ass.

A lot of people seem to be resigning today! But don't be fooled. In almost every case, it’ll be because they were told to resign.  They’ve been sacked, but they resign to save face. A last mercy from their benevolent leader.

My guess: Tessie here is terrible at media skills, so – get rid of her before she hurts general election chances. This, too, is a pattern.

12.52pm

Rachel Maclean sacked as Housing Minister! Fun fact, numbers fans: it took Doctor Who 33 years to make it to eight Doctors, but since the 2019 election, the Tories managed eight Housing Ministers in just under 4 years

trololol

1.15pm

Jeremy Quin quits as Minister for the Cabinet Office.

1.37pm

Times Political Editor Steven Swinford reports that No 10 is struggling to find a new housing minister (owing to rumours the job is cursed). Several people have turned it down, including Jeremy Quin. It is incredible to me that they didn't line someone up before sacking the last guy.

Kemi Badenoch and Michael Gove are apparently unhappy that Rachel Maclean was removed from the role. I for one do not care about the opinions of Kemi Badenoch or Michael Gove.

2.04pm

Health Secretary Steve Barclay becomes Environment Secretary.  This is effectively a demotion for him. It is our 5th Environment Secretary in four years. Chasing that Housing Minister record! It took 19 years for Doctor Who to have five Doctors

2.15pm

Richard Holden appointed new Conservative Party chairman.

A 2019-intake Tory MP, he led the charge against Sir Keir Starmer over Beergate, which did damage Starmer a bit (albeit not much, given that it turned out Starmer had complied with lockdown regs, and the accusation was nakedly to try and distract from Partygate).  So this appointment looks like more strategy to win the next election - someone not known enough to be hated, with what passes in the modern Tory party for a proven track record.

This could be a sign that the Tories intend to at least try to shore up the Red Wall votes? As unlikely as the Tories are to keep those seats.

That said, Holden’s seat disappears in a boundary change next election, sooooo … we'll see what they do there.

2.24pm

Victoria Atkins appointed Health Secretary, replacing Steve Barclay who’s moved to Environment Secretary. She's a relative unknown but also considered actually competent. Massive middle finger to Steve Barclay

2.37pm

Laura Trott (formerly in pensions) promoted to Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

2.42pm

Science minister George Freeman resigns.

3.18pm

YouGov conducts a snap poll: is the appointment of David Cameron as Foreign Secretary a good decision or a bad decision?

Good decision: 24%

Bad decision: 38%

Don't know: 38%

So that's going well

3.24pm

Greg Hands is made a business minister after losing the Tory chairman role.

John Glen moves from chief secretary to the Treasury to become the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General.

3.39pm

With Cameron being a Lord now, he’ll be based in the House of Lords rather than the Commons.  The most recent Cabinet Minister to be based in the Lords was former Brexit minister Lord Frost, who did weigh in on the matter:

“[T]hough I was not running a whole Department too. I don’t think it works well to have a lead Cabinet Minister answering questions and defending their Department solely in the Lords. The Lords is not a fully party political environment - nor should it be - and voters are owed proper political scrutiny. In our system, that can only happen in the Commons.”

I cannot believe I am about to say this.

But.

I agree with Lord Frost *spits on floor*

The SNP had already called this out, with MP Stephen Flynn claiming, “The UK is not a serious country.”

4.21pm

Conservative MP Lee Rowley appointed the 16th housing minister in the past 13 years. Even counting David Tennant twice, that's more than all the Doctors Who we've ever had, and that took almost 60 years.

5.16pm

Sky News’s Tamara Cohen reports that Sunak sacked Braverman by phone this morning!  Downing Street says there won’t be any exchange of letters between them - this is almost unheard of. Politics runs on paper trails! Everything happens through formal letters! By phone!

It means we’re denied insight into their differences.  But Cohen reckons we’re likely to hear from Braverman on Wednesday, as the Supreme Court rules on the Rwanda scheme.

6.03pm

Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns, former Education Minister, submits no-confidence letter in Rishi Sunak.

It's almost like, in the absence of Dorries, she's decided that someone needs to step up and have a tantrum and that someone might as well be her. It is, actually, an extremely funny letter, as these letters go. Normally they're written with a sort of furious earnestness wrapped in formal language. I presume that Andrea Jenkyns MP, former Education Minister, was aiming for something similar, and the first paragraph manages it. But by the end you sort of start to wonder if this was supposed to be a letter she wrote with her therapist to get her feelings out:

My favourite line, when pulled in isolation, is "Yes Boris Johnson, the man who won the Conservative Party a massive majority, was unforgivable enough."

Yeah, Andrea babes. You're bang on there.

6.05pm

Esther McVey is appointed as Cabinet Office minister.  Not a full cabinet member, but she will attend cabinet meetings.

This is notable: unlike a lot of today’s appointments, she’s on the right of the party.  Her role will be to represent the government on TV and radio as much as possible, talking about gender/culture/British colonial history issues (i.e. she’s anti-woke and a screaming bigot).

In other words, with Braverman gone, McVey is an offering for the populist right of the party to try to appease them.

6.15pm

Sunak tweets about the new cabinet, claiming they’ll make “the right decisions for our great country, not the easy ones.”  So it looks like that’s the new slogan, and we're pressing on with austerity

6.27pm

Tim Loughton, a Tory MP on the “One Nation” wing (i.e the David Cameron side) responds to Andrea Jenkyns’s letter of no-confidence by tweeting:

“Where can we submit a letter of no confidence in the Pantomime Dame?”

(It’s Andrea he’s publicly referring to as a pantomime dame there. A lil joke from the Tories for you)

6.31pm

Paul Scully sacked as minister for London. Didn't know that one was a position.

9.43pm

Sunak says that only a two-state solution will allow a new future for Israel/Palestine.  This is, um, not what the Prime Minister of Israel wants.  Who knows whether the Prime Minister of Israel will survive this crisis anyway – but these are big words from Sunak.  Cameron’s influence? Maybe? Interesting either way

10.03pm

And then - PLOT TWIST!!!

According to ITV political editor Robert Peston, a senior government source reveals that Cameron was approached on TUESDAY. 

Which means plans were underway to get rid of Braverman not only before the far-right violence on Saturday, but before her anti-police article on Wednesday.  It seems she lost her job not because of what she said about police after all; but because she claimed homelessness was a lifestyle choice.

Well well.

11.05pm

And the day finishes with Andrea Leadsom back in government (as Under Secretary of State for Health and Social Care) which nobody saw coming!  Pretty demeaning to the other 300 Tory MPs who could have been given this.

The final response from numerous Tories: they are feeling jilted and insulted because David Cameron being brought back when he's NOT EVEN AN MP, RISHI suggests that they themselves are not good enough to be in government.

No one tell them

[flamingpudding]

I have a theory!

Duke groaned, his head tumping against his desk on his side of the room. He had heard these words often enough by now to know that his roommate was going to start ranting about something strange but weirdly fascinating again.

The last time his roommate started with that, he went on a rant how all rich people have a secret basement below their homes or some secretly identities with a bulletpoint list of what to look out for as a warning. Which Duke had a hard time not laughing about as he thought about Bruce, who ended up checking a lot of the bulletpoints.

"Danny what is it now?" Duke ended up asking after all. He knew he wouldn't be able to stop his roommate. No one aside from his sister apparently could, Danny even gave her number to Duke as an emergency number in case Danny ever gets so caught up in his own thoughts that even he himself couldn't stop himself anymore. Yeah that was weird to watch Danny trying to stop himself, but it was fascinating that his sister only needed to say his name twice over the speaker.

"Duke hear me out!" Okay of to a good start, so this meant Danny wasn't a hundred percent behind his own theory.

"Red Hood is a ghost or part ghost!"

If Duke had been drinking something, he would have taken a spit take here. For some reasons he had the image of Jason wearing a bed sheet saying the most deadpan 'Boo' in his head when Danny said that. He coughed, trying to hide that amusement. "What makes you say that?"

"You know how you 'saw' that I am a 'Meta'?" Danny ask him in return and Duke nodded still feeling a but weird with how Danny sounded when he refred to himself as Meta but also vividly remembering how his roommate pretty much blinded him on the day he moved into the dorms. "I can kind of see something similar. Like I explained how I have a ghost sense and all that, right?"

"Yea, you did." Duke nodded along, he new his roommate became a Meta through a lab accident. Once Duke had asked him and they had the cleared the air about both of them being Metas, Danny had somewhat opened up a bit on his whole weird family and Duke thought his family wasn't normal but compared to the Fentons the Batfamily might as well could be.

"Well last night I ran into him when I went scrap collecting for my engineering project!"

"DANNY!" Duke couldn't help but scowl. One the school was providing materials, Danny didn't need to do that and two, if he met Red Hood aka Jason that meant Danny wandered far enough to end up near or in Crime Alley! He would need to bug Jason later to find out more about that.

"I know, I know." His roommate waved him off. "Anyway, my ghost sense tingled. Soooo Red Hood got to be a ghost or part ghost, considering he hit a wall instead of phasing through it when he chased me..."

"Danny!" Duke scowled him again, hidding his amusement behind it. Now, he really had to get THAT story out of Jason later, plus he wanted to see if there maybe was possible video proof of Jason running into a wall chasing after Danny.

"Anyway! I got more than just that! Listen here, you know how I told you about some of my parents' inventions..." Danny instead continued finally starting his rant.

[sorrelchestnut]

I've seen a fair number of posts both here and on reddit that question why Tav (or the Dark Urge) would end up as a group leader for any other reason that "game mechanics say so." There's the requisite "okay, well if you play a high charisma character I guess it makes sense," or on the other end of the spectrum, "if you're playing Durge and murder someone right off the bat everyone would be too scared to tell you no." And I get where people are going with this! I really do. But it also fundamentally misunderstands a facet of human nature, which is that the vast majority of people do not actually want to be in charge, because that means being held responsible for the outcome. Accordingly, most people will dither when a group consensus is needed: have none of you ever tried to get a group of friends to agree where to go for dinner? Yeah, it's like that, but waaaay worse.

A lot of times "leadership" is just the willingness to say, "fuck it, y'all do what you want, but I'm doing this." I see it all the time in a corporate environment, where people will go back and forth on group meetings without anyone making a decision until finally one brave soul goes "in my opinion the clear answer is x" and then everyone gratefully goes along with it. Because now it's not their responsibility when something goes wrong! They're just following along with someone else's suggestion, and maybe it works or maybe it doesn't, but at the end of the day they don't have to worry about the consequences unless they're personally affected. In which case they might step up and argue back, and then they're stuck being a leader, too. Welcome to adulthood!

Lae'zel is the only one who ever even tries to exert some kind of control, when she tells you to follow her lead on the ship, or calls you her subordinate in the Grove. But, crucially, she doesn't ever make any serious attempt to take control: you can just tell her, "lol, no," and she sort of confusedly gives way, because she doesn't know how to handle this scenario. In her world there are commanders and subordinates, and everyone knows where they stand and falls in line. She's never actually had to take control of a situation and so at the first sign of resistance she falls back on the dynamic that's familiar to her, which is executing the commands of someone older and more experienced. She goes through a lot of growth over the game, to the point that she can take over as a resistance leader in her own right by the end, but at the beginning she's a wet-behind-her-ears private with some decent combat chops and it shows.

Otherwise, your party consists of:

Shadowheart, who's trained in infiltration and assassination and does NOT want a lot of attention brought to her or her mission for a variety of reasons;

Astarion, who has literally been a slave for two centuries and canonically takes a while to realize that he can exert an opinion beyond complaining about it;

Gale, whose only friend is his cat and couldn't project-manage his way out of a wet paper bag;

Wyll, who was probably trained for command at one point but has been doing the lone-hero thing for a decade and has a very large secret that he's trying to conceal; and,

Karlach, who's only ever been a bodyguard and a soldier and is genuinely just happy to be here.

Honestly, it would be more a surprise if Tav/Durge didn't end up as their unofficial leader, given the general power dynamics at play. The first time Tav/Durge says something like, "fuck it, we need to do something instead of stand around arguing about it, let's go check out those ruins over there," it's a done deal. They're The Captain Now! As long as they don't make decisions that fundamentally oppose something dear and important to the other group members, they're not even going to get any argument. Because at the end of the day, not one of these walking disasters has enough trust in themselves and their decision-making skills to feel any kind of certainty that they can choose the right path forward. If someone else is going to take that decision out of their hands? They're going to follow, no questions asked, right up until the moment they can't.

[exhaslo]

Kinktober Day 28-Gynecologist!Miguel x Nervous!Reader (Teasing/Fingering)

*Requested by reader ;) Also, early update due to working both jobs tmw*

        It was that time of year again for you. It was always a nerve racking experience since you always worried about anything being wrong with you. After a long shower, you changed into a fresh pair of clothing, ready for your appointment. The fear of you smelling or sweating or anything for that matter made you nervous. It was just a regular checkup. Nothing changed from last year, so there was going to be nothing wrong.

        Besides, your friend, Lyla, worked at the gynecologist as an assistant. She always helped you calm down. Lyla even tried to set you up with one of her friends. A handsome man named, Miguel O'Hara. You had dated him a few times and found him very attractive. If only you weren't so timid. During those dates you barely uttered a word, just a small squeak here or there. You were honestly surprised that he even asked you out a few more times. 

        You were starting to get comfortable with him. Perhaps on your next date you could ask him about his job and his likes. Miguel was so kind. He was defiantly your type. You even thought about him at night. Gasping lowly, you slapped your cheeks. Now was not a good time to think about Miguel. It would be embarrassing to be wet for your checkup.

"(Y/n)~ Come on in!" Lyla chirped, motioning you inside.

        You took your regularly deep breathes, slowly following Lyla's lead. You friend gave you a quick hug before leading you into a private room. Lyla hummed as she closed the door and asked the routine questions.

"Alright, and did the front desk girl tell you about the new gyno? I hope so,"

"S-She did. I was okay with it being...a male," You whispered, trying to hide your stutter. Lyla just curled her lips into a smile,

"Don't worry, (Y/n)! You'll be perfectly fine! Anyway, how's it going with Miguel?" She asked, changing the topic. Your eyes lit up,

"T-Thank you again for giving me his n-number! He...He is really kind...and sweet. He doesn't r-rush me when I try...try to talk to him," You explained, "He doesn't mind me texting him....instead."

"I told you he was a good one!" Lyla grinned from ear to ear, "He likes you a lot too~"

"H-He does?!"

        Lyla chuckled at your flustered expression. Upon hearing a knock at the door, Lyla hummed as she got you ready. You were getting nervous again. She helped you relax before opening the door.

"Hello, Miss-(Y/n)??" Miguel paused as he stared at you. You squeaked in response before turning to Lyla.

"Oh, totally forgot to mention that Miguel is your new doctor~" She said with a wide grin, "Now I know I'm supposed to stay in here with you both, buuuuuut you guys know each other~ Bye!"

        Just like that, Lyla left both you and Miguel alone. Your face was a million shades of red as you tried to fit your gown, recalling that you were naked in front of the man you were dating. Miguel cleared his throat as he took a seat by the computer. He glanced over your files before turning towards you.

"This must be awkward," He started and read your body language, "Would you like your phone to text me?"

        You nodded violently in response. Miguel resisted a chuckle and went to your pile of clothes on the separate chair and looked for your phone. He glanced at your panties, restraining himself. He gave you the phone and grabbed his, waiting for your response. A smile on his face as he watched you. You were so cute. Someone worth his time. Someone worth his love. Miguel would do anything to keep you happy and relaxed.

'Did you know I was going to be your patient?' You texted him. Miguel glanced at the message,

"No, I just started here two days ago. I don't want to make you uncomfortable, I can get another doctor." He replied. You hesitated before typing,

'No, it's okay. I was just surprised. Sorry if I made you uncomfortable.'

"Not at all," Miguel chuckled lowly and stood from his seat, "Just let me know when you want me to start. I'll take as much time as you need."

        Your eyes soften as you looked at Miguel. You remembered when you first met him. He was so tall and seemed so threatening. Putting your phone to the side, you played with your fingers as you took a deep breathe. You looked into Miguel's eyes and gave him a nod, allowing him to start.

        Miguel was slow and gentle. He asked you to raise your right arm before moving your gown. He watched your facial expressions, making sure that everything was okay. You whimpered quietly as his large hand took ahold of your breast, gently massaging it to check for any lumps. Normally, you would just tremble as the doctor checked you, but this was different. This was Miguel touching you. Something you only dreamed of. Not only was he making you shake from nervousness, but also giving you those dirty thoughts.

"All good on this side, now for the other." Miguel's hand gently trailed your back as he repeated the process on your other breast, "You're shaking, are you okay?"

"Y-Yes," You whispered lowly.

        You inhaled deeply as you tried not to focus on Miguel touching you. He was just doing his job. So what if his large hands felt good as they massaged your breasts. So what if he was more gentle with you than your previous doctors. So what if he smelled amazing? You were here for a check up, not to fantasize on him railing you. It wasn't like you were up for such a task anyway.

"Alright, you're all good there, no lumps. Now for the main part, just let me know when you're ready by propping your legs up for me, okay?" Miguel told you, rubbing your shoulder.

        God, he was so fine. You gave him a nod, watching as he got his gloves and tool ready. Now this, you were embarrassed about. You always hated this part. You could feel your heart about to leap out of your chest. Miguel was about to look at your pussy. You haven't even kissed the man yet and you were about to skip a bunch of steps. It was hard to think about his job now. All you could focus on was Miguel examining your wet pussy.

"U-Um," You gulped, reaching for your phone. Miguel handed it to you,

"Want some water?" He offered.

'No, I'm just...please be gentle with me. I know this is your job, but I can't help but feel even more nervous since we're dating.' You texted him. Miguel looked at his phone and chuckled lowly,

"Have I ever told you how cute you are?" He said, switching his glove, "I won't judge. How could I?" He gave you that sweet smile you loved.

        Nodding once more as he stole your breathe away, you got ready. You placed your feet in the little prompt set up they have and spread your legs. A shiver ran up your spine as the cold air hit your pussy. Miguel tighten his gloves and sat on his chair, rolling towards you. You bit your lower lip as he sat directly in front of your cunt, spreading your legs out even more. This was just a check up. Just a check up and nothing more.

        Miguel withheld a groan as he noticed your cunt already wet. Despite your nervousness, it seemed like you were practically excited for him to be looking at you, to be touching you. This was turning him on. Normally, Miguel would get these over with since every other girl would not hesitate to spread their legs for him. Miguel was loving this change of pace. He was loving everything you did. Miguel wanted to hear your voice. A voice only for his ears.

"Alright, let me know if anything feels uncomfortable. I'm just going to feel around for anything, okay?"

"O-Okay," You stuttered.

        Miguel had to bite his cheek. He proceeded to enter a finger inside you, with holding a groan at how tight you were. So wet and so tight, just for him. As he felt around your velvet walls for anything strange, Miguel could not help but hear a quiet whimper coming from you. He glanced at your expression, watching as you closed your eyes and biting your lower lip. God, Miguel was going to lose his patience with you. He knew that you were only like this because it was him. Lyla had told him about how difficult it was for other doctors to even touch your breasts. The fact that you were letting him do this was just so tempting.

"How are you doing?" Miguel asked. You gasped lowly as he pressed his finger up,

"F-Fine," You said, shaking from his touch.

        Miguel's finger was just exploring your insides for anything out of the ordinary. It wasn't like he was actually fingering you. However, his finger was so thick and it was making you hot. You tried to think of something else, but the idea of Miguel doing more was turning you on. You whimpered lowly as you felt yourself clench against his finger. Why did these thoughts have to come now? Miguel was just doing his job and here you were getting horny.

"I'm going to insert the tool now. It will feel uncomfortable for only a second, okay?" He told you.

        You just nodded in response and followed his orders. Once he finished with the tool, Miguel approached you. He was so close. Miguel took his gloves off, bringing his hand to your cheek,

"You did so good for me. Are you okay?" He asked you. 

"Y-Yes," You told him and rubbed your legs slightly, "U-Um...S-Sorry...But...I..."

        Miguel raised a brow and read your body language. Your perky nipples and the juices that were streaming down your cunt were just all so tempting. He glanced into your eyes that screamed, 'fuck me'. Knowing that he couldn't or he would lose his job, Miguel inhaled deeply. He leaned down to peck your lips,

"Can I just say, that you are so goddamn tempting?" He whispered, enjoying your expressions, "I know what you want, and I can't give it to you here...But I can help release that tension."

"P-Please?" You nearly squeaked.

        Miguel nearly cussed. He returned to his chair, sitting directly in front of your poor, lonely cunt. He leaned forward and blew against it, watching you twitch. A smile formed against his lips as he entered two fingers this time. He stood up and pumped his fingers inside you, watching your face contort in pleasure. You were so tight for him. So needy. 

"I want to hear your voice later tonight, could you do that for me?" Miguel whispered in your ear as his fingers pumped into you.

"Hah...hah....Y-Yes....I can," You whimpered a soft moan, raising your hips slightly. 

        Miguel hummed happily and curled his fingers right at your sweet spot. Your body arched as you grinded your hips against his hand. Miguel quickly swallowed your moans with a kiss, not wanting anyone to hear you. As much as he wanted to hear those sweet moans, he knew that if he did, he would fuck you right here and now. Feeling your pussy tighten against his fingers, Miguel curled his fingers again. You held onto him as you reached your orgasm.

"That's it. That's my good girl," Miguel whispered, removing his fingers and licking them, "Taste so sweet. I'll have to reward you later,"

"M-Mig," You whispered, panting softly as you sat up. You reached for you phone, 'Want to come over to my place after work?' You texted him. Miguel glanced at his phone,

"Wouldn't miss it for the world." He leaned down to kiss you again, "Get dressed. I'll see you later."

        You smiled softly as Miguel left. Quickly putting your clothes back on, you noticed that your panties were missing. Your face turned a million shades of red, knowing that Miguel must have swiped them. You whined softly before grabbing your phone.

'Please bring my panties back!'

'Sure, when I see you tonight.'

[luveline]

hi jadey! if you are up for it, do you think you could write reader unexpectedly doing smth nice for coworker!james, maybe she’s being kind of shy and trying not to make it a big deal while he’s trying v hard to not be all giggly heart eyes kiss kiss at her LOL thank you in advance and ilysm <3

tysm ilysm <3 fem

“Hey, killer.”

You sidestep past James bag into the nook of your desk. “Killer?” you ask, quick to drop your bag onto your chair and unbutton your coat.

“Beth told me you killed a spider in the break room. That’s not cool.”

“It was looking at me funny.” You shed your coat. “Where’s Remus?”

“Coffee.”

James doesn’t give you half as much attention as you’d wanted, turning back to his computer with an impassive expression. You swallow a cough and grab your bag, desk chair creaking as you sit. There’s a memo from Remus already tacked to your desk that asks you nicely to send him a long list of files, each written in careful print, and then a second that says good morning.

You smile at it and set them aside.

Though James doesn’t like you much, and you’re not totally sold on him, you’re starting to feel like you’re part of a team. It’s a hearty feeling to belong somewhere, to know you’re valuable, even if you’re only punching numbers in and swapping spreadsheets. So you’d seen the green tube boxes in the shops and you’d decided on a whim to get them. Perhaps it would inspire some sweetness from James. If he stops putting your mug in the freezer, you’ll be happy.

“I got you something.”

James tilts his head to the side but doesn’t look up. “Huh?”

The office lights aren’t as complimentary to his brown skin as the sun where it’s rising outside of your window. It warms his face and neck, and lightens the dark mop of his hair, his flyaways like silver scrapings.

You take one of the boxes from your bag and place it on the edge of his desk. You’ll give the second to Remus when he comes back.

“It’s one of your Smiskis,” you say, “but they’re exercise ones. I know you lift weights, there’s one with dumbbells. I want the hula hoop one.”

“Where did you get this?” he asks, looking at you with clear surprise. His thick brows rise. His smile is unmissable.

“They were three for two at Sainsbury’s. I got one for me and one for Remus, as well.”

James curls a lovely hand around the box. You pretend not to watch, quickly diverting your gaze to your bag to grab a Smiski for yourself. You can’t look up, can’t explain why on earth you thought it would be a good idea, really. You saw them and you thought of him and you’re entitled to lie about the two for three thing, it’s none of his business how much money you spend.

You dig your nail into the lid and rip it open.

“You look awfully smiley, Jamie,” Remus greets, approaching from your side to round the desks and place down his big mug of coffee. You chance a glance at the both of them and catch a half second of James’ ridiculous smile. “What made you so happy so early in the morning?”

“Nothing. Uh, just killer over here brought us some presents.” James tips the bag from inside of his box onto the desk mat.

“Really?” Remus asks.

You offer him his box over your monitors.

“Thank you,” he says. “What’s the occasion?”

“It’s nothing,” you say with a hurried shake of the head, looking down at your own mystery Smiski. They’re nondescript little people who glow with a green UV sheen, and you hadn’t seen the appeal to begin with, but each morning you make sure to fix James’ if he’s toppled over. He never tells you off for it. “I just want one for myself, that’s all.”

You open them in tandem. Your figurine is sitting with its legs out in a v-shape and arms stretching down to its toes. Remus’ is slightly smaller perched on a yoga ball. James, apparently having all the luck in the world, unveils a Smiski struggling to lift a dumbbell from the ground.

“I love him,” you say with a pleased laugh.

“He’s brilliant,” Remus says.

“Thank you so much.”

Your smile gets caught on your mouth. James’ tone isn’t strange but unfamiliar —he speaks without a hint of irony. His grin is full of an emotion you don’t recognise. Too happy. Too friendly.

“You’re welcome,” you say.

They’re both kind enough to ignore your mild breathlessness. “No, seriously, thank you, she’s so cool. I didn’t know we could get these ones yet over here.” James puts his weightlifting Smiski in pride of place atop his outgoings. “Sirius is going to be jealous. I'm sending him a photo.”

You feel Remus’ eyes on you. He stares until you look at him, eyebrows wriggling. “Thank you for my toy,” he says.

“They’re not toys, lovely Moony, they’re figurines,” James says, leaning down and angling his phone. He snaps a few photos from different positions. He can’t seem to stop smiling. “Aw, look at her. She’s sick as hell. She’s gonna get so swole.”

You wrinkle your nose and sweep your rubbish into the wastebasket. Swole isn’t the word you’d use. Ever. But if it makes him happy…

“This is the best thing that’s happened to me all week,” James mumbles to himself, before clearing his throat extra thoroughly. “This doesn’t change the fact that you killed that poor spider, you know. What was it doing to you?”

“I crushed her by accident opening a cupboard door.”

“Likely story.”

[freedomfireflies]

Teach Me*

Summary: Harry needs a little practice in the art of Eating Pussy, and who better to ask for help than his best friend?

You.

Word Count: 5.4k

“...I’m sorry, you need to what?”

“I need…” Harry repeats, “...to eat you out.”

You blink at the man standing alarmingly still in the hallway outside of your door. “Is it crack? Is that what you smoke? Do you smoke crack?”

He smirks at the familiar joke before he’s brushing past you and striding into your apartment. “All right, fine. I just thought I’d ask.”

“Ask what?” you huff as you shut the door and face him. “I still don’t understand what it is you want.”

“I want to eat you out,” he says yet again as your expression falls flat. “Look I need…the practice.”

“Practice…”

“Practice.” He nods before flopping down onto the sofa. “You remember Tina, right?”

“Tall, hot, and out of your league?” you recall as you walk over to him. “Yes, I remember.”

He fights a smile. “Yeah, well…she agreed to let me take her out and I just…I want to make sure I’m prepared.”

“...prepared.”

“Prepared.” His eyes follow you as you take a seat beside him. “Come on, you know I don’t have a lot of experience with that shit, and I want to make sure I’m…you know, at least capable of making her come. And I have no other way to get…better.”

“Oh, so, naturally I’m your second-best option,” you snort playfully as you pull your knees to your chest. “But how would eating me out help you make her come? Not all girls like the same stuff, you know. Lesson number one.”

“Because I need someone to help me make my technique a little…smoother, I guess. Tell me what feels good and what doesn’t so I know,” he explains, without a hint of embarrassment, and truthfully, you’re a little impressed.

Harry has always been…bold, you would say. Assertive, confident, borderline egotistical. He’s never had a problem making friends or getting a girlfriend, so learning that his sexual experience didn’t expand as far as you thought it did was kind of a surprise.

You do admire him for wanting to be good for her. In fact, the thought is almost sweet, although you have no idea where he got the idea to ask you.

Sure, you’re his best friend, but…that’s kind of fucking…weird. Right? You guys don’t do that. You don’t even like to hug.

You run your tongue over your bottom lip and look for the deception within his expression. He could be messing with you. It wouldn’t be the first time and you certainly wouldn’t put it past him.

But there’s something…earnest in the way he speaks. In the way his eyes hold onto yours as he awaits your response, hopeful and desperate.

“So…wait, hold on.” You clear your throat and straighten up. “You…you honestly want…to eat me out…just to see if I like it?”

“Kind of, yeah,” he agrees as one shoulder bobs up in a nonchalant shrug. “I’ve got a few ideas on what to do, I just…I need someone—I need you—to tell me if it feels good or not. So I can practice and make sure she’ll like it.”

Your teeth begin to absentmindedly knaw on the inside of your cheek. Truthfully, you have no idea how to feel about this. The request is outrageous and weird and it goes way past the duties of friendship.

But you’ve known him forever and you trust him and honestly? You feel a little bad for the guy.

Sure, the best way for him to get the practice he needs would be with her, but you know him. He doesn’t like to admit he doesn’t know something and he absolutely despises feeling unprepared. 

He’s a perfectionist.

And you are a little flattered that he feels safe enough with you to showcase his inexperience and that thought alone begins to wash your reservations away.

“So…all I’d have to do is just…sit here? And tell you yes or no?” you clarify, and he nods.

“Yeah. I won’t make you come, don’t worry. I know that’s…going a little farther than we need,” he says. “I just…wanna play with you a little.”

You smirk. “Wouldn’t not making me come defeat the purpose?”

He exhales a laugh as he leans back. “I just want to make sure I can. Besides, doesn’t it open up a bunch of emotions and shit? It attaches you to the person? I mean, do you really wanna live with the knowledge that you came because of me?”

“...no,” you admit. “Okay, that’s fair. So…if I agree…you’re not gonna drag this out, right? Just to annoy me?”

He chuckles again. “Well, I wanna make sure I’m doing it right…but no, I won’t drag it past that. I’ll stop whenever you want.”

Your fingers pull at a loose strand on your jeans. You aren’t seriously considering this, are you? “And if I say yes…how would we…I mean, what would we do?”

He thinks about this for only a moment, suggesting that he already came with a plan. Typical. “I guess we go somewhere you feel comfortable…we start slow. You tell me what you’re okay with, what you’re not okay with…and then I’ll just…get started.”

You look at him. Really look at him. He’s relaxed. Almost too relaxed considering the line he’s suggesting you both cross. A line you can never uncross.

And as you stare at those familiar features you’ve known for years…you feel your body exhale a deep breath. You’re doubtful, sure…but he’s always been rather exceptional at providing you comfort, just through a look alone.

Exactly like he is now.

His mouth quirks up in a smirk as he bumps his knuckles against your knee teasingly. “We don’t have to, Bee. I just…thought I’d ask.”

You roll your lips into your mouth as you hesitate, the familiar nickname calming you ever-so-slightly. “I didn’t…I’m not saying no, I just…I don’t know. It’s weird.”

“I know,” he agrees with a nod. “Look, just…forget I said anything. I’ll Google it, it’s fine. Let’s just watch Schitt’s Creek or something, yeah?”

With that, he turns toward the TV, grabs the remote, and begins to flip through the channels, leaving the conversation behind.

But you aren’t as quick to let the idea go. After all, he planted the seed, and now you’re starting to wonder. You’re starting to…accept.

Maybe things will be weird. And maybe you won’t be able to go back to how you used to be. But at least you’ll have helped him…? And that’s…something that friends do.

…right?

“I have never heard someone say so many wrong things…one after the other…consecutively…in a row,” David says to your right as Harry smiles and glances over to see if you’re listening.

But you’re not.

At least, not to David.

“Okay,” you murmur, quiet enough that it becomes lost beneath the next line on the show.

Harry, confused, raises a brow and begins to lower the volume. “Sorry, what?”

“Okay,” you repeat, a little more confidently than you had before. “Okay, I agree to your proposal. Just this once.”

He blinks. “Wait, seriously?”

“Seriously.” You nod. “What? Don’t look at me like that, I’m charitable. And cool, and a really good friend. So…don’t forget that the next time I ask you to buy the popcorn at the movie.”

His eyes roll but he laughs as he tosses the remote aside. “All right, that’s fair. Deal.”

You both go quiet.

Funny…for some reason, you thought agreeing would be all there was to it.

His eyes soften as he looks you over. “So…you’re in charge, okay? You just…tell me where you wanna go, what you’re comfortable with…whatever you want, yeah?”

You nod faintly before glancing toward your room. “Um…I guess we can do it on the bed. There’s probably more room, so it would be a little easier…I guess.”

He nods, too, before slowly moving for the edge of the couch. But he doesn’t stand until you do, eyeing you closely as if gauging your reaction.

You aren’t sure why you feel so…timid. You’re not exactly nervous, maybe just…apprehensive. But, it’s Harry, and he will always be the boy that got a blueberry stuck up his nose and snorted purple snot to you.

And it can’t get more embarrassing than that. 

He follows you into the bedroom. The same bedroom he’s seen a million times, although now, it’s like a completely different space.

With an awkward clear of your throat, you take a seat on the corner of the mattress, head tilting back as you look up at him expectantly. “Uh…now what?”

“You tell me,” he says softly, hands finding refuge in his pockets. “Where do you wanna be? Against the pillows? Might be more comfortable.”

You glance over your shoulder at the headboard. “Yeah, I guess that’s…a good idea.”

He smiles again, stepping back to allow you the room to crawl back. 

Once you’re in position and settled, he takes your spot on the edge of the bed. “Still good?”

You nod, arms resting atop your stomach, almost as if to hide yourself. “Yup.”

“Do you wanna pick a safeword?”

Your brows raise. “I mean…I think ‘stop’ will do just fine.”

He snorts his amusement. “Fair.”

Again, you both grow quiet, and you wish you could find your nerve. In the many years you two have known each other, not once have you ever been this shy. Or quiet. In fact, you don’t believe there’s ever been a second of silence between you, and you have no idea what to do with it.

He straightens up, taking the reins when he notices you don’t plan to. “Do you have your phone?”

Confused, you reach into your pocket and wiggle the cell phone free.

He nods. “Okay, I want you to pull up your favorite porn.”

Your lips part as you blink. “...I’m sorry, what now?”

"Well, I’m willing to bet you’re not exactly turned on right now, right?” he explains, nodding his chin at you with a teasing glint in his eye. “And I’m just thinking that might be a little harder to work with. For both of us.”

Unfortunately, he’s right. You’re about as dry as the Sahara desert, so you admit defeat and swipe up on your screen.

Now, while you and him have both exchanged some of your favorite videos before, pulling up one now…in front of him…feels like a whole new ballgame.

You quickly readjust the volume before looking for the ones you know normally do the trick, refusing to sneak a glance at the man now scooting a bit closer to you. 

But you do hear him smile. “Find it?”

Your eyes land on the familiar thumbnail you’ve seen a hundred times before as you whisper, “Yeah.”

“Good,” he hums, hands coming to rest near your outstretched legs. “Can I take your jeans off? Just your jeans.”

You peek out from around the screen of your phone, catching the curious but hopeful look on his face. “...sure.”

He nods his understanding before shifting closer so he can reach for your zipper to guide it down.

You debate watching him but choose instead to click play on the video and force your attention elsewhere. Maybe this will go smoother if you just…don’t look at him. 

Ever.

You feel the air hit your legs as his fingers curl around the fabric at your hips to pull it down. He’s deliberate, making sure he doesn’t accidentally graze something he’s not supposed to (ironically enough), but you appreciate the gesture. 

He gently tugs the material down to your ankles before effortlessly tossing it aside, and you feel yourself swallow.

This isn’t your first time, so you thought you’d know what to expect. But you don’t know what to expect from him. He seems to have a plan (thank God), and you catch the way he eyes your underwear before he glances up at you.

“Ready?” he murmurs, the cadence of his voice rather reassuring. “I’ll just play with you a bit for now, yeah?”

Again, you swallow thickly, forcing the nerves aside. “Yeah, go.”

And from that point on, you decide to proceed with a more clinical mindset. This is practice, exactly like he said. It doesn’t mean anything to either of you, and once it’s over, you doubt you’ll ever mention it again.

It’s just practice.

A cunt is a cunt, a tongue is a tongue, a hand is a hand. Doesn’t matter who they belong to. Pleasure is pleasure, and that’s all there is to it.

You return your attention to your phone as the bed dips, signaling that he’s getting himself into position. You wonder what he means when he says he wants to play with you, and you also wonder if he’ll actually be any good.

But before you can worry that you’ll have to tell him that he’s terrible…he touches you.

You feel his palm, gently smoothing up your right leg, slowly but with purpose. Your breath hitches as you blink at the images flashing across the screen in front of you. You have no idea if you’ll be able to get out of your own head long enough to feel turned on, but you don’t worry about it quite yet.

Then…you feel his thumb.

Your entire body goes still as the pad of his finger brushes down the front of your underwear, right over your clit. There’s just enough pressure to capture your attention but not so much that it feels uncomfortable.

Your chest deflates with a deep breath as you begin to move your focus from the porn to him.

He does it again, a little harder this time around. It’s teasing, almost. Exactly like he said it would be. He’s simply playing with your body and seeing how it reacts. And every time you twitch or your legs begin to tense, you hear him smile, as if making a mental note of it.

For a few minutes, this is all he does. He runs his fingers up and down the fabric in slow but teasing patterns, pressing and sometimes circling as you feel an ache begin to form.

The sounds coming from your phone are successful in urging your body to bend to such salacious intentions. You can feel your muscles unwind as your mind begins to release those doubtful premonitions.

With a flutter of your lashes, you move your phone to the side so you can get a glimpse of the boy between your legs.

He doesn’t seem to notice. Either that or he pretends not to. And for a moment, you aren’t sure what to make of the sight before you. Harry, your best friend, in a staring contest with your cunt and you want to be put off…but you’re not. 

“How’s that?” he murmurs after a moment, his other hand softly stroking the skin of your thigh as he pulls your legs further apart.

Your voice betrays you as you breathe, “Good.”

He looks up. Smiles. “Noted.”

He does it some more, thumbing over your clit before pressing into it and guiding it in a circle. You squirm each time, the faintest of whimpers getting stuck in the back of your throat. 

He seems proud, and you almost want to be annoyed, but you just don’t have the mental capacity to be in this moment.

Maybe when it’s over.

And then, he does something you hadn’t expected.

He dips down…and presses a soft kiss to your inner thigh. Not too close but not too far, and as he does, his eyes find yours.

Shit. “Okay, I’m ready,” you whisper quickly, hips subtly bucking up. “I’m…I think I’m good now.”

His brow raises as he drops his hand and you have to fight the urge to whine. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” You chew on your bottom lip. “I mean, if you are.”

“I am,” he says, glancing back down at your waist. “Yeah, I am.”

So you nod, and anxiously await his next move.

He reaches again for your body, and you want to sigh with relief as he slips his fingers under the band of your underwear to peel it down. 

The cool air is rather chilling and it’s then that you’re made aware of the mess already forming between your thighs. You knew you’d begun to enjoy yourself but you’re surprised by just how much. 

Whether that was because of him or because of the video…you don’t exactly know.

Once the lace has been flicked to the side, he readjusts onto his knees and formulates a plan.

He makes you wait. Watch. Watch as he once again takes your legs in his hands to guide them apart and settle between them.

Watch as he outstretches his palm so he can run it along your hip before moving lower.

Watch as he takes his thumb and brings it back to your clit which is now exposed to his skin.

And the contact is sinful. You’re worked up enough that the immediate connection makes your head drop back, and while you’d like to be embarrassed…you just don’t care.

He drags it down. Down. Presses, rubs, and dips into the wetness that waits for him.

He’s concentrated, and the look on his face is rather adorable. He’s learning. Studying. Observing each and every reaction you offer him as he continues to tease you.

Once in a while, he’ll venture a glance up, perhaps for approval, and you’ll nod quickly. Then, he’ll return to the task at hand as he looks for new ways to make you gasp.

He slides the tip of his finger in without warning and when you whimper, he stills and raises his brow.

You can tell he was aiming for the element of surprise, choosing not to warn you in order to receive this very response, but he’s not sure if that was a sound of approval or unease, so you rush to clarify.

“No, it’s fine,” you mumble. “It’s fine, it’s good.”

“Are you su—”

“Yes, it’s good. Go.”

Encouraged, he pushes in. He’s still wary of your enjoyment but he seems to focus more on the movement of his hand than your expressions. And that’s all right with you. You’re happy to simply sit and…judge. Which is what he’s asked you to do, and you plan to uphold your end of the deal.

He stops when he’s reached his knuckle, finger curling slightly before he’s gently pulling back. He repeats the action a time or two more and the fullness that accompanies the stretch is quite enjoyable.

Your eyes move to the ceiling as you fight the urge to watch him. You’re not that comfortable yet and perhaps watching him would ruin the fun. So, for now, you stare at the white paint above you as he begins to pump his hand a bit faster.

When he adds a second finger, you gasp, and he uses this as leverage to expand his search.

And you know exactly what he’s looking for, the crease between his brows indicative of his captivation.

But just when you’re getting ready to offer some help, he drives in and curls up until the tips of his fingers brush against that particular point of ecstasy.

You inhale a sharp breath and writhe away, faintly panting, “Shit…that.”

Intrigued, he perks up, although he doesn’t relax his pace. “That?”

He does it again and your eyes squeeze shut. “Yeah…yeah, it’s…mhm.”

A smile dances across his lips as he scoots a little closer to watch his own hand as he repeats the action.

You begin to slump down the mattress, limbs turning to jello as he guides your body up toward that familiar ledge, and you hear him hum his approval.

“Good,” he murmurs, you assume in an attempt to soothe you. “Very good, m’proud of you. Seem to be doing really well.”

You stumble over a scoff. “Yeah, well…so are you.”

The grin grows. “Still doing okay?”

“Yes,” you whisper when his thumb ghosts over your clit. “Yeah, I…fuck. I’m…is this all you’re gonna do…then? I thought…I thought you wanted…to…with…the other…”

Nothing that comes out of your mouth is coherent but he seems to understand. “Yeah, I just wasn’t sure if you were ready.”

“I am,” you correct quickly. “I’m…yeah, I’m fine. You can…you’re good. Just do it.”

He dips his head down but doesn’t quite connect as he continues to watch you carefully. “Bee?”

“...wha—shit—what?”

“Thank you.”

Your eyes roll playfully, although perhaps that’s just from the pleasure. “Yeah, yeah, I’m…I’m a fucking saint. Just…fucking do it, okay?”

So…he does.

Those lips you used to stare at move down to your clit and he brushes his mouth over your body for just a moment before you see his tongue.

He takes a moment to decide exactly what he wants to do before he’s pressing that tongue into you and dragging it up from his hand.

You’re so wound up that it doesn’t take much more for you to arch off the bed in search of that feeling. He’s hardly done anything but your head is rolling back across the pillow as your fingers dig into the blanket beneath you.

He nips at you gently, continuing to pump your arousal in and out as it coats his hand, and your mind instantly falls completely blank.

The sounds…god, the sounds. The sound of you, the sound of him, the sound of your body falling apart beneath him.

He’s good. He’s very good, and you almost wonder if he was lying about his inexperience. There’s no way he learned this from porn…at least, you can’t see how. But, he is a perfectionist. Maybe it just comes naturally to him.

“Awfully quiet up there,” you hear him say, and the vibration of the deep tone of voice sparks a chill down your spine. “That bad?”

No! you want to scream but you simply shake your head. “It’s…it’s good. You’re…this is great. This is all…you know…standard…good…stuff.”

When he smiles, your cheeks grow hot. “Guess I have a good teacher.”

“Please,” you huff, pressing your palm to your forehead. “You always—god, always know what you’re doing. I had nothing to do with it.”

He shrugs as his eyes flick across the mess in front of him. “Had more to do with it than you think.”

He dives back in, licking a stripe up before driving his fingers in further. And there’s so much happening. So much that it makes you crazy. There’s him, and there’s you, and there’s that reminder of need that continues to grow. You can’t focus in on any one thing, and honestly...you’re okay with that. 

When he sucks you into his mouth, you have to fight the urge to grab onto him, twisting the duvet around your knuckles as you reel. 

“Don’t,” he mumbles, and you work to figure out what he’s referring to. Did you do something wrong? “Don’t grab the blanket. Grab me.”

You blink down at him. “I’m…no, it’s fine. I was just—”

“Bee, I’m not asking,” he interrupts, rather resolutely. “You wanna do it, so do it. Promise, I don’t mind.”

You certainly aren’t a stranger to this more…authoritative side of him. Although now, you might even…like it? At least, in this context.

“Come on,” he repeats, pulling back only to shoot you a stern look. “She will. And it’ll show me what you like. Don’t be a pussy, just do it. You won’t hurt me.”

And you almost want to fight him, but he’s right, and you can’t argue that. 

So, the moment he returns to his focused work, you reach for those chocolate brown curls and give them a nice tug.

He makes a noise of approval that nearly kills you, lapping at your folds like he’s depraved and you’re his only remedy.

Tina is gonna love it.

He finds a certain rhythm that you respond to well and zeros in. His cheeks hollow every time he sucks on you only to quickly pop off as he presses his tongue beside his fingers. 

Your nails scratch down his scalp and he seems to like it, his other hand grasping onto your thigh so hard you imagine it’ll bruise.

And for just a moment, you actually don’t mind. You concede to the satisfaction he’s offering and you indulge in it. You find gratification in the fact that you accepted and you even decide that maybe…this was a good idea.

“Are you close?” he asks once your whimpers scale up an octave.

You nod quickly. “Yes…yeah, I’m…yeah.”

“Good,” he muses proudly before he’s suddenly removing his hand from your body and pulling away.

You nearly disappear through the mattress as you choke on a dejected whine and look down at him. “What…what happened?”

He breathes out a laugh as he settles onto his knees. “Nothing, I’m just keeping my word.”

His word.

Right.

“You…oh,” you whisper, fighting your disappointment. “Yeah. Well…that was…you did good. That was all…you know, very well done. She’ll like it, you’ll be fine.”

He seems pleased with your approval before his eyes begin to narrow in thought. He watches you haphazardly reach for a throw blanket to cover yourself, but just as you’re getting ready to toss it over your legs, he snatches onto your wrist.

You both still as he studies you. “Bee?”

“...what?”

He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. “If there’s something you want to ask me…then ask me.”

You blink. “What…what do you mean?”

With his hold still on your arm, he leans closer. “Bee…we agreed, yeah? M’trying to be a good student, but I can’t be if you don’t tell me what you want.”

Your breath hitches the closer he gets. “Har, I don’t know what you’re—”

“Do you wanna come?”

Well…shit. “I…” You begin to shift nervously under his pointed stare. “I was just…”

His expression softens although there’s a hint of smugness swimming behind his smile. “Do you want me…to make you come?” he clarifies as your stomach twists into a knot.

Feigning exasperation, you huff a stray hair from your eye. “Well, what do you think? Obviously nobody likes being edged.”

He’s amused as he begins to lower back down, fingers still wrapped around your wrist. “Then what do you need to do?”

You huff again, shooting a quick glare his way as you watch him drop his gaze to your sensitive cunt. “Harry…come on.”

He clicks his tongue and cocks his head. “Nope, that’s not it.”

You open your mouth, a quippy remark locked and loaded, but right before you can use it…he puckers his lips and blows on your clit.

Your muscles recoil and your throat seems to close up as you pull against his hold. “You fucking asshole, you did that on purpose.”

“Obviously.” He tosses you a wink. “You wanna try again?”

No, I wanna kill you, you think but don’t say. “Harry…please.”

You briefly notice the way his eyelashes flutter at the sound of his name but he doesn’t comment on it. “Please what?”

“Harry—”

“Come on, Bee, you can do it.”

“I just…I…this isn’t…”

“Almost there, that’s it. Be a good girl and ask me.”

Oh, that sadistic fucker. You’d berate him for such a nickname if it didn’t turn you on so goddamn much, especially with the state you're in. You might even wanna hear it again and truth be told, the thought blows your mind.

You swallow a shaky breath. “Harry?”

“Yes?”

“...please make me come.”

A wide smile bursts across his face. “Attagirl.”

And with that…he continues.

You’re thrust back up the precipice of pleasure as he slips three fingers into your aching, dripping cunt. 

And it’s purposeful and practiced and he’s such a liar because he knows exactly what he’s doing, at least to you, and you want to smack him.

But you also want to grab onto his hair and his arm and every inch of his body and never let go because he’s so good for making you feel this way. The best friend you could ever have and why on Earth didn’t you guys try this earlier?

Each curl, each twist, each push in. You feel so full and he feels so good and it’s only his hand and then suddenly…it’s his mouth, too.

And the moment he presses his tongue against you, you lose it. You roll your hips against his face, and lift your back from the bed, and drop your mouth open as a desperate moan falls free.

And it goes, and goes, and goes. Stronger and longer than any other one you’ve ever had and this time, you think it really does kill you.

But he doesn’t stop, not even when you’ve begun to settle. He pushes against the sensitive nerves until tears spring to your eyes. He teases and he tortures and he demands a second orgasm out of you before you can even fight it.

This time, he grabs onto your hips, one hand on either side, to lift you and place you where he wants.

And he tastes you. Savors you on his tongue as if this is for his enjoyment, not yours.

And you look down at him, and you see the flush in his cheeks, and the messy way his hair falls into his eyes, and the veins in his arms as he holds you.

And you lose it. Completely and utterly and permanently.

You disappear into your own head for a moment until his ministrations relax and he slowly—very slowly—begins to let go.

As you fight to catch your breath, you watch him run his thumb across his lip. He’s going to wipe you away, you imagine, but then, to your surprise, he sucks his thumb into his mouth.

When he notices you watching, he raises a brow. “Want some?”

And you can only lay there and stare at him, dumbfounded and blissed-out

He laughs to himself when he notices the spacey expression on your face, moving to hover over your body until he’s only inches away. “Can I try something else?”

“What?” you ask breathlessly.

He smiles. “Kissing you.”

Your eyes widen. “...why?”

He shrugs. “I mean, it’s only polite after something like that, no? Like…a parting gift.”

Your eyes narrow. “How sweet. No, really, that was so romantic. Don’t stop, give me another compliment—”

He presses his lips to yours. And it’s rushed and it’s messy and it’s the perfect parting gift.

It’s him.

And you don’t mind that.

You both grin when he pulls back, chuckling to yourselves as he flops over onto the bed beside you.

He helps you toss the blanket over your legs before he’s turning onto his side, head in his hand as he studies you. “All right, Teach. What do you say?”

You pretend to think. “Well…your dirty talk could use some work.”

He smirks. “Okay.”

“And your incessant need to make me spell it out lost you a few points.”

“Sure, sure.”

“But, overall…that was really good,” you admit, and he beams. “Like…better than I expected, and I kind of think you lied about not knowing what to do.”

He shakes his head playfully as he glances off into your room. “Good to know you had so much faith in me.”

“Oh, I didn’t. Not even a little.”

He snorts. “Well, I meant what I said. I only knew what to do because of you.”

“Yeah right. I didn’t tell you any of that.”

“You did,” he argues, turning his attention back to you. “Not with words, no. But with the sounds you made. The way your breath would catch or the way you’d squirm. Or when your nose would crinkle up ’cause you were trying really hard not to like it.”

Shit…had he noticed that? “I…okay, in my defense…I like almost anything. And I wanted to make you work for it.”

“Oh, is that right?”

“Yeah.”

He rolls over onto his back, grinning up at the ceiling. “All right, well…I still appreciate it.”

“Hey, don’t get all sappy on me now.”

“Fuck off,” he groans. “I mean it, Bee. I was honestly…okay, don’t fucking laugh, but…I was kind of nervous about it. About whether or not she’d like it. Whether or not you’d like it, and…I’m glad you said yes. I’m glad it was you because…you know. It’s you. And I always feel better around you.”

You work to restrain your smile as you look up at the fan spinning above you. “I feel better around you, too.”

He hums.

“Especially after that. I mean…that was good,” you add and he shakes his head again. “She’s gonna love it.”

He turns to you. “Honestly?”

“Honestly.” You meet his eye. “Really, Har, you have nothing to worry about. She’ll show you what she likes just like I did. You know what to do, you just have to listen. And then…you can call me and tell me all about it.”

“Deal,” he agrees eagerly, sticking his pinky between you.

You take it and squeeze. “And I already know what next week's lesson is gonna be.”

Amused, he says, “Oh, yeah? And what’s that?”

You grin.

“How To Eat Ass 101.”

Next part:

~ Show Me* (Pt. 2)

~ Full Teach Me Masterlist (with all the other parts plus extras!)

~ Other Harry Blurbs

~ Full Masterlist

[daycourtofficial]

Falling in Love on the Fourth Floor

Azriel x reader

Summary: you move in with a guy you kind of know who happens to have a really hot brother.

Author’s Note: this is part 1 baby!! Likely 5-6 parts, that is currently what I have planned for this. This part is shorter to set things up for later okay love you 😘

(Part 2)

“Mor I don’t know about living with your long term hook up.”

She rolls her eyes, her blonde hair blowing in the wind over facetime. “He’s great - he’s super sweet, super funny, and he’s really hot. Besides, you’ve already signed the lease. It’s too late to back out now.”

You sit in the u-haul you rented, filled to the brim with your belongings, waiting for the leasing office to open so you can grab your keys. You had just pulled up, deciding to call Mor while you wait the ten minutes for them to arrive.

“I don’t know, Mor. What if this was a mistake?”

You chew your lip while thinking about all the ways this could go poorly. She smiles, her face taking up the screen of your phone. “Sweetie, it’s going to be fine. I’ve known him for a long time. He’s friends with my cousin. Worst case scenario you move out at the end of the year into a new apartment.”

She was right, of course. At worst it would be a year. You’ve met Cassian a few times, Mor bringing him to a couple parties and casual get togethers. You were always awed by his warm presence and ease around anybody, qualities that are great when you’re moving in with someone you hardly know.

You nod your head agreeing, but spot someone walking towards the leasing office. “Hey I gotta go Mor - leasing office person is here. I’ll call you tonight?”

She shakes her head, “I can’t tonight - stupid dinner with stupid family. I’ll have pizzas sent to your place, how’s that?”

You smile, her absence one out of familial obligation. She hated her parents, but they also funded her degree so you couldn’t be upset at the one-off events she had to attend to appease them. You also know she tried to get out of the event tonight, but ultimately you’re glad that there’s a now zero chance your new roommate and your best friend will have sex while you’re moving in.

You pick up the keys, sign last minute paperwork, and hop into the elevator to ride up to the fourth floor. You keep reciting the apartment number to yourself, having double checked with the office and with Mor. You find it, situated at the end of the hall with one other apartment next to it.

You run through how this could go in your head - you could unlock the door and have Cassian be pissed off because he wasn’t sure when you’d be arriving. You could wait for him to come out and act like you were just walking up at the same time. Or you could knock on the door, which you find yourself doing.

The door swings in a moment after your knock and you find Cassian looking at you, a confused expression on his face. Despite the early hour, Cassian doesn’t look like he just woke up. In fact, his hair is tied up in a half bun, he’s dressed in a shirt with the sleeves ripped off (allowing his tattooed biceps to be on full display) and some sweatpants, and you can smell bacon and eggs wafting through the door.

“Why’d you knock - did they forget to give you a key?”

Your cheeks heat with embarrassment, this whole situation leaving you uncertain of what to do at each turn. You look up at him as he stands in the doorframe waiting for your answer. Cassian’s a big guy, easily clearing a foot and several hundred pounds of muscles on you.

“Uh- no they did, I just didn’t want to disturb you.”

He looks at you and you’re certain he can feel the nerves radiating off of you. He chuckles and tells you, “not much disturbs me.”

He opens the door more, allowing you to come in. You hadn’t toured the place before signing a lease, your desperation leading you here without many other options. Living in a college town had it’s benefits, however finding a new place to live in July was not one of them. Not a single complex had a room for you. It was either stay with Cassian or crash on Feyre’s couch in her studio apartment.

The place is decently nice - to your left you see the living room with two couches that face quite possibly one of the largest televisions you’ve ever seen. You peer to your right, the kitchen a little bare but clean. You spy the pan and plate that Cassian had clearly just used to eat his breakfast.

“I can give you a tour,” he tells you, “it’s not much but it’s home.”

You take note of the in-unit washer dryer in a closet off the kitchen facing the front door. “Just don’t leave things in the washing machine,” Cassian told you, “pet peeve of mine is wet laundry sitting. Smells awful.”

He shows you where to find all three remotes for the tv and what each remote does, information your brain likely will never remember. He pulls up to one door, opening it slightly. “This is my room,” he says softly due to you being right behind him. He walks to another door, opening it to show a small bathroom. “This is the extra bathroom - this is usually where guests go.”

You two reach the final door, and as he’s opening it he tells you, “and this will be your room.”

You step in and look around the bare room, feeling so small in such a vast and empty space. The room’s not large by any means, but it’s yours. It’s your first step into independence and that feels vast. There’s no furniture, just a router on the floor that makes you chuckle. The blinds are drawn, the soft light peaking through illuminating the cream colored walls.

It feels like freedom. It feels like this place could be a home.

Cassian, the saint of a man that he is, offers to help bring up your boxes. The two of you make quick work of bringing up all of your worldly possessions, frequent occupants of the building’s sole elevator.

He even helps you bring up the bed frame and mattress you had to buy, just barely fitting into the elevator with both.

The two of you passed the time idly, occasional words spoken between you. Sometimes he’d laugh about the organization of your boxes - one box reading both “tampons” and “fall semester textbooks”.

Eventually everything is up in your room, the space cluttered with your boxes and various things. Cassian offered to help you with the bed frame, and when you asked him if he was doing anything else today, he told you, “I cleared my schedule. Wanted to help my new roommate settle.” He winked at you and you smiled back. You suddenly recall Mor describing Cassian as a “generous lover” once and you can totally see it. The man’s love language was clearly acts of service if today was anything to go by.

The two of you set up the bed frame, bickering over the instructions. No one, not even sweet, gentle giant Cassian is immune to the frustrations of lackluster instructions.

As you’re picking up the mattress and placing it in the frame, Cassian starts speaking. “I should probably mention that my brothers live next door. They’ll probably be over now and again.”

That piques your interest. Setting down the mattress with a huff you ask, “why don’t you live with them?”

Cassian shrugs, looking away from you, “I was initially offered a scholarship at another school, but I got injured, lost my scholarship, so came to my back up school. By then my brothers already had their own place, but they were able to set me up in the same building. That was three years ago and moving is a bitch so we’ve just kept this arrangement. Sometimes whenever Az and Rhys are butting heads I let one of them stay here in my room and I take theirs, but otherwise it’s worked out pretty well.”

You look at him, and you know there’s a bit more to the story by how sad his eyes look at the memory. He offered a piece of himself, so you offer a piece of yourself in return.

“My parents kicked me out,” you tell him, scratching the back of your neck. “They uh don’t really approve of me or my plans, so I got the boot.”

You rub your arms, making yourself as small as they make you feel. “They um weren’t very good parents and I finally stood up for myself and they didn’t like that. They have since disowned me and don’t really want anything to do with me.”

You bounced up and down on your toes during your admission and Cassian’s eyes soften as he looks at you, practically a stranger. You two had met a handful of times, his fling with Mor lasting a few months. He walks out of the room, and you’re worried you’ve offered too much, until you hear the fridge door open and close and he returns with two beer bottles. He opens both with his teeth, causing you to inhale sharply, thinking about a chipped tooth. He hands one to you, holding his out to toast. He speaks after your two glasses make a soft clink.

“Mor knew I had a spare room. The leasing office only charges me for my room, so it’s no big deal. Haven’t done much with it, except use the shower when my drain was clogged.”

He takes a sip and looks around your new room before continuing. “She begged me to let you come here. Told me you were one of the kindest, hardest working people she knew.”

You smile, looking up at your new roommate, “she said that?”

“She also said you had a great ass and an incredible rack.”

You throw your head back laughing. “That sounds like Mor.”

The two of you drink in silence, the weariness of the past few weeks creeping into your bones. Maybe Cassian won’t be so bad to live with after all.

Several hours later you and Cassian were setting up one of your bookshelves when someone walked through the door, a delicious smell permeating the apartment.

“Cass, I’m here with pizzas. When’s the “great rack” supposed to get here?”

You and Cassian are on the floor of your room and before he can respond, you yell back, “the great rack got here about five hours ago.”

You hear muttered cursing when a beautiful male walks in, his short cropped black hair pushed back. Rhysand - Mor’s cousin. You recognized his almost violet eyes and sharp features from her family photos littering her desk, as well as her determination to convince your friend Feyre to go on a date with him. He was taller in person, but not as tall as Cassian.

“My apologies, you know how Mor can get with her physical descriptions of people.”

You laugh, screwing in a shelf. “All is forgiven. There are much worse things to be known as or called. Mor has quite the mouth on her - you should hear her talk about Cassian.” You say, pointing your head in his direction.

His head raises from the instruction booklet he’s reading to ask, “what does she say about me?”

“I believe the words “tree trunk” have been used to describe certain body parts on multiple occasions.”

Your new guest barks a laugh, shaking his head. “Well, I brought pizzas should either of you desire them.”

“That’s really sweet but I couldn’t impose-“

Cassian cuts you off, holding a hand up to stop your sentence. “Too late. You’ve imposed. Guess you have to eat the pizza. Besides I hear the best way to keep a great rack is to keep it fed.”

You smile, thinking that maybe this won’t be so hard. It was a rash decision, living with Cassian. You couldn’t stay at home, your parents had made that abundantly clear. Your plans had been to live with them until you graduated in the spring, wanting to save money on housing.

After all the shelves and furniture were set up in your room, you found yourself sitting on the couch with Cassian and Rhysand, pizza boxes on the coffee table in front of you. Rhys, he had told you to call him, had started a movie that was the third in a series. He spent twenty minutes explaining to you the plot of the first two movies. They sounded like generic action movies to you, but you let him go on about the intricacies of the plot and how cool the main character was.

Halfway through the movie the front door opens and closes softly, and all three of you turn to look at the tall man who entered. He was fit, not as muscular as Cassian was, but still toned, even through his shirt. Onyx curls adorned the top of his head, coming close to blocking his hazel eyes. You’re not sure if you’re even breathing looking at him as he looks around the room.

“Azzy, meet my roommate.”

Azzy, as Cassian called him, looked to Cassian to scold him for the nickname before his eyes met yours.

“Azriel’s fine.”

“Oh, okay,” you laugh, telling him your name with a little wave of your hand. His eyes are still on yours, as if he’s trying to commit to memory the name to the face.

“Mor’s friend, right?”

“Yeah, great ass, incredible rack,” Cassian responds, mining out an hourglass figure with his hands. You kick his foot, telling him “is this how you’re going to introduce me from now on.”

He winces as your foot makes contact with his shin, rubbing the afflicted area. “I mean it tells you everything you need to know about someone. You guys can just start calling me ‘big peen’.”

Rhys chuckles, then starts taking a sip of his drink as you tell Cassian, “I think they’d just call you big head, mysterious third nipple.”

Cassian gasps, eyes widening as Rhys spits out his drink, “I can’t BELIEVE Mor told you that about me!”

Rhys gets up, walking to the linen closet to grab a towel to dry off his shirt. Azriel walks to the fridge, grabbing a beer before heading to sit next to Cassian on the other couch as the two of you continue to bicker. As he walks past, you swear you feel every bit of contact as his legs brush past yours.

And if Azriel’s eyes lingered on you as he sat down - you might just have made that up too.

[rafeandonlyrafe]

best friends dad part three

words: 900

warnings: 18+ only!, extreme age gap, cheating, semi public sex?, kind of caught, p in v sex, unprotected sex, daddy kink

part one / part two / part three

“what were you doing in there again?” your friend stares at you, like she knows the truth but her mind won't let her accept it.

“in where?” you question, looking at your nails like her probing doesn't bother you, like it isn't clear of her suspicion growing, asking about the incident that happened last week.

“in the bathroom. with my dad.” she clarifies.

“oh, i told you already, didn't i?” you scrunch your brows together, like she's the weird one for asking. “i got a splinter in my foot and he was helping get it out.”

you're not sure it's the best story, but it's the first one you came up with when she caught you, rafes cum flooding inside you despite his daughter just feet away, separated by a thin wooden door.

“okay.” she mumbles. 

you know despite her questions that she wouldn't dare accuse you or flat out ask if you're fucking her father. you've been through too much together, and she's far too naive.

it's why you're not worried about slipping out of her room when she falls asleep that night, sharing a bed like you always do for your sleepovers.

hallway. you message rafe. you remember the first time you got his number, it was middle school softball season. you would occasionally text him asking for rides home when he picked up his daughter.

rafe is out of his room in a second, a panicked look on his face.

“she could have been awake.” he whispers, eyes wide.

“but she wasn't.” you roll your eyes, not sure what the dramatics are about when his wife didn't see the text.

“what do you want? i told you we can't keep doing this, we almost got caught.”

“i want you to fuck me.” you pull your pajama shorts down your legs, showing rafe that you're wearing nothing underneath. “right here in this hallway.”

“god, this is so fucking wrong.” rafe shakes his head, voice still a whisper as he pulls his cock out from his pants, not disrobing as much as you out of fear of getting caught.

“you say that every time.” you roll your eyes. “yet still cum inside me.”

“shut up.” rafe grunts, pushing you against the wall, your best friends room on the other side, a fact rafe knows too well as he tries his best to be quiet.

rafe picks you up easily, your legs wrapping around his waist as his already hard cock lines up with your entrance. truth is, he is constantly half hard when he knows you're over, just waiting for you to entice him into sex.

“when was the last time you fucked someone like this, huh?” you smirk as rafe pushes inside of you, your walls being stretched by his length.

“was it when your wife was my age?” you ask. truth is, you don't even know when rafe and his wife met and if it was that young, but you love the way he fucks you faster every time you bring up his marriage.

“your pussy-” rafe grunts out, struggling to keep himself quiet. “your pussy is so fucking good.”

“mhm.” you nod. “and your cock is perfect, daddy. love having you inside me.”

rafe shoves his head into your shoulder to hold back his moans as his hips rock into yours, your nails pressing into his back over his shirt, hoping you leave marks he has to stammer to explain to his wife.

you wonder what it would take for them to divorce. what his wife's reaction would be if she caught you in the act. would it be enough to break up the family?

“touch my clit.” you command. rafe quickly listens, moving his hands from holding your hips up to wrapping one around your waist, the other moving between your legs, rubbing his thumb over your clit.

“that's so good, daddy. gonna cum for me?”

“yeah, close.” rafe warns, his cock pulsing inside of you.

“good.” you smile. “cum inside me. fill up my tight young pussy.”

rafe presses his mouth further into your skin as he moans, cum pumping inside of you in a steady stream, triggering your own orgasm as his warmth spreads, not as quiet with your moans as his thumb continues to stroke your clit through your high.

“fucking hell, that was too risky.” rafe shakes his head. “we can't keep fucking like this.”

“you'll keep coming for me every time i call. you're mine.” you tell rafe as he slowly lowers you, making sure you don't wobble as he sets your feet back firmly on the floor.

“im yours.” rafe says sadly, tucking his cock back into his pants while you pull your shorts back on, knowing you're about to ruin them with cum.

“now give me a kiss goodnight, daddy.” you pucker your lips, rafe pressing a chaste kiss against them. you don't wait to see him go back into his shared bedroom with his wife as you sneak back into his daughters room.

as you lay down back next to her in bed, your eyes adjust to the low light, suddenly haunting your movements when you realize she's awake and staring at you, a hurt look in her eyes.

she knows.

you continue your actions, letting out a sigh of relief when she doesn't say anything. doesn't confess. doesn't get mad, simply rolls over so her back is to you.

you smirk to yourself. she may know, but she won't tell.

taglist: @urfavnoirette @drewstarkeyslut @forstarkey @f4ll-for-you @dilvcv @drudyslut @jjmaybankswifes-blog @rafescokenostril @jjsmarijuana @seeingstarks @angelofcigs @cece45450 @bratetteprincess @vanessa-rafesgirl @michelleisheres-blog @outerbankspov @drewstarkeyswifehoe @cutielando @kamninaries @buckyswhxre @rafeinterlude @bellbottombaby @deeaardiary @rubixgsworld @wearemadeofstardust0 @leighbronk @starkeysheart @pradabambie @tobesolovelysstuff @alexiskirkland @rafestar @brioffthegrid @juniebugg @magicalyoura @die4niyahhh @mysticallystilinski @https-luvvia @aerangi @folklorsweet

[sleepyconfusedpotato]

Catch My Breath

The first kiss.

Set in Christmas Eve 2022, after the events of Call of Duty Modern Warfare II.

Pairing : Simon “Ghost” Riley x Charlotte “Jade” Le Jardin (OC), Kyle "Gaz" Garrick x Eleanor "Ladybug" Graham (OC) Characters : Simon "Ghost" Riley, Charlotte "Jade" Le Jardin (OC), Captain John Price, Johnny "Soap" MacTavish, Kyle "Gaz" Garrick Eleanor "Ladybug" Graham (OC), Alejandro Vargas Word Count : ~ 9600 Warning : Fluff with a slight bit of angst, a touch of hurt/comfort, and good ol’ cursings.

Bulky McT 🧼 : ‘Dont forget to come to cpt prices house today.’

You : ‘Of course not. I’m still at the orphanage for christmas gifts exchange. As soon as I'm done I'll be there :)’

Bulky McT 🧼 : ‘Good’

Bulky McT 🧼 : ‘Gaz is making some bangin biscuits and scones’

Jade smiled at her phone as she chatted with Soap. Her mouth already watering from imagining the taste of Gaz’s cooking on her tongue. According to Soap’s and Ladybug’s testimony, his chocolate biscuits were second to none.

You : ‘Wouldn't miss it even if I die.’

Bulky McT 🧼 : ‘Alright. See ya.’

She bit her lip. There's one more question she wanted to ask though. She contemplated asking Soap this or not. 

Her thumbs moved across the screen slowly. 

You : ‘Is Ghost coming?’

When Soap had invited her to the dinner five days prior, all Jade could think about was whether or not Ghost would be joining. Their one week together in Las Almas made her feel… something. Something really, really good. Something she hadn’t felt in what felt like an eternity. He earned a friend in Alejandro, Rudy, Soap, and Ghost, especially, whom she’d thought of as a real piece of work back in Verdansk. Oh, how foolish she was. 

He was the best part about Las Almas. 

Dammit. What was she thinking?!

By the end of Chicago, after they eliminated Hassan, Ghost and Jade had traded phone numbers. Jade had his numbers and named it “💀💢 Beanpole 💀💢”, after the nickname she gave to him before they knew each other’s name. They haven’t texted at all. Ghost wasn’t the kind to text first, that much was clear to everyone who knew him. And neither was Jade. In fact, she didn’t know what to text him first. A “hi”? A… 

What else? 

What do people text each other when they’re trying to get to know each other? She had no goddamn clue. Well, she knew what to text when she wanted to get intel from an unassuming target, but she didn’t want intel from Ghost. 

She just wanted to know if he was okay, if he was fine, if the gash on his shoulder was healing well. Because of course, in her 29 years of life, a serious romance wasn’t a luxury that she could afford in her line of work in MI6. She took that lesson from her parents who literally had to ‘die’ first in order to even start. The point is, none of them texted first. They’re just another series of numbers in their contact list. 

An animation of dots showed up, indicating that Soap was typing. 

He’d typed for a few seconds before the animation stopped for a moment, and then started typing again. He must be changing his response. 

Bulky McT 🧼 : ‘If there's food he should be there.’

Oh? ‘... should be there’. That meant Ghost was not with Soap at the moment, and he didn’t know whether or not Ghost would be coming along. A week in Las Almas was enough for Jade to know that Ghost had grown closer to Soap as a friend-brother figure. The fact that Soap might not know his whereabouts was not a surprise, though. He’s the Ghost after all. 

But she couldn’t help but think, where was he? 

What did Soap type?

“Chacha! Can you help me a bit here? We're about to start the event!” 

Jade looked up from her phone, her ginger hair falling on her shoulders as she tucked her phone back in her pocket, swiftly walking over to one of her co-workers, Esther, an elderly soft-looking lady who volunteered for the orphanage - her former orphanage. This place held a lot of bittersweet memories, and it made her who she was. 

Her legs brought her to one of the high ladders leaning onto one of the walls of the dining hall. She took many mistletoes from the decoration boxes and swiftly climbed the ladder, hanging the vegetation one by one with ease. 

“Do we need this many mistletoes?” Jade asked while her hands worked. “At this point we’re gonna kiss someone by accident.”

“Of course not, what are you talkin’ about?!” Esther’s loud laugh almost broke Jade’s ears. “It’s Christmas, Chacha. The church had an overflow of mistletoes from the donations. If there's a day where we can add as many mistletoes as we can, it’s now. Let's call the kids over.” 

“Alright. Let's start this shall we?” 

—

The sound of Jade’s boots rang throughout the pavement as she hurried over to Price’s house. She travelled by public transportation from Surrey as she didn't have a car with her (plus she’s not much for driving safely - fake driving licence and… all that). She looked down at her watch to see 7 PM as the cold night finally settled. Each of her breaths turned to clouds in the air, shivering as she didn't have her outer jacket with her right now. She’s never one to be unprepared, but after one of the kids got too excited about getting a Lego toy and spilt a whole glass of apple juice onto her jacket, Jade had to fight through the cold with her trusty turtleneck and only one layer of thin knitted jacket as an outer, clutching the soaked coat close to her chest.

Finally, after what felt like an hour of walking, Jade reached the front of Price's house, immediately knocking on the wooden door three times. She looked up at the massive three-story building made out of bricks, that had a good space in the front yard. The building looked old like a family heirloom, but she could tell that it was pretty much taken care of. There’s a pair of trees that had shed all their leaves for the winter and had a decent amount of vegetation on either side of the doors.  

Jade looked back at the front yard. There were three cars parked in front, and she assumed that one of them belonged to Price, the other two should belong to either Gaz’s, Soap’s, or Ghost’s. 

The wooden door opened. She expected Price as the owner of the house to welcome her, instead, it was Eleanor, Gaz’s very own Ladybug who immediately screeched on top of her head. “JAAAADEEE!!! You’ve finally arrived!” The medic bursted out of the door hugging her figure so tight Jade might’ve folded. A beautiful burgundy sweater around a tan shirt wrapped her figure perfectly, and of course, with her wavy dirty blonde hair tied on the back with the ribbon Gaz gave her, worn out as it could be.

“Hey Lady! I miss you so much!!” The ginger greeted warmly all the while trying her best to stay balanced on her feet or else she’d fall five steps down to the ground on her back. As Lady pulled away, she gave room for Jade to step inside the warm house, taking a glance at Jade’s look. 

“Whoa. You only wear two layers? You’re shivering!” 

“Yeah. Apple juice all over my jacket, but don’t mind it.” She chuckled as she took off her jacket and coat to hang them on a standing coat hanger on the side of the door, “Have the others arrived?”

“You’re the last one. I came early with Kyle to bake the cookies and help Price with the food. Soap came second bringing sacks of snacks and drinks, and Ghost had just arrived before you, about 45 minutes ago.”

That caught Jade’s attention, her heart beat a little faster just at the mention of his name. “Just? Isn’t the Captain’s invitation at 5 PM?” 

 “Yeah. It looked like he was coming back from somewhere though.” 

Somewhere?

Lady’s eyes half blinked, looking at her teasingly. “...Am I sensing something here?”

“What? No. No. It's just that he’s um… usually an on-time kind of man.” Jade tried her best to act indifferent, looking away from her to observe the doorway decorations.

“Oh really? I see, I see.” Ladybug nodded, “Because I might have heard some stuff from Kyle~” 

Jade’s eyes opened wide at the statement, her mind already racing at the thought of what Gaz had said to his girlfriend. “What did he sa–”

 “There’s me trusty Ginger!”

A voice which she could identify from a mile away as Soap’s, called to her. Donning the green military-issued sweater above his uniform, which he rolled to the elbow, he walked in both women’s directions with a chocolate biscuit in hand. 

“Well hello there, Ocean Eyes.” Jade softly hugged Soap’s ever-bulky body while he patted her back several times. “How's your arm? Healing well?” She remembered how Soap got shot by Graves in Las Almas and how both of them, along with Ghost, had to survive the Shadow’s manhunt in the city. Even in Chicago he had to force through it. 

“You’re one to talk. How's your side?” Soap pointed at her left side while munching through his biscuit.

“You got hit?! Where?!” Ladybug, who’d been in Urzikstan to help Farah and Alex for nearly a year after Barkov’s demise, hadn't been updated much about Las Almas. Looked like Gaz left that tiny little detail. 

“She did get hit.” 

“No! No no. I didn't get hit per se. We were… breaking into the Las Almas prison to free Alejandro and the Vaqueros - a little bullet missed my hip, but it did leave a teeny tiny graze.” Jade made a little gesture with her thumb and index fingers.

“It wasn't.” Soap retorted, which made Ladybug look even more concerned. “You almost fell from the prison walls during our escape and LT had to catch you and carry yo–”

“ANYWAY.” Jade tried to dismiss the conversation away from Ladybug’s growing unease. “It was quite literally us four against a thousand. So we had our own hits. It was a month ago, right? I literally walked my way here! See? Now. Where's the man of the house?”

“Thought you want to camp in that doorway.” Price's gravelly voice called from the living room, his head peaking out from one of the walls. “Come in and close that damned door will ya? The forecast said it’s going to rain snow unless you muppets want to shovel the snow.” 

With Jade closing the door, they all walked together towards the interior of the house, where the warmth from the fireplace radiated throughout the room cozily. And holy shit. The word ‘family heirloom’ could perfectly describe the house. Some of the furniture looked like it was carved specifically for the house, soft carpets covered some parts of the wooden floor, and portraits of whom she assumed as the former Prices hung on the walls. The exterior of the house didn’t do the property justice at all. Soap had said that this was the Captain’s own house which he’d left mostly abandoned since he resided in Herefordshire. She wouldn’t lie, if Price turned out to be a secret old money she wouldn’t be surprised. 

Jade’s eyes found Gaz at the kitchen island wearing the same exact outfit as Soap and Price, but with an apron around his waist while he pulled out another batch of chocolate cookies from the oven. Gaz noticed her presence when Ladybug approached him and pointed her way. “Oh, Jade! Come here and eat the salmon. You’re not allergic to fish aren’t you?” This sight of Gaz was pretty surprising for her. He seemed more cheerful and open around Ladybug, contrasting to his serious demeanour in the field. It was refreshing, to say the least.

Jade put down her bag on one of the sofas where Price sat on the edge of it, shuffling a deck of cards in his hands skilfully. “Nope, no allergies. Have all of you eaten yet? Sorry I’m late.” 

“We have, and apparently my Ladybug over here is a vacuum cleaner of food.” Gaz was replied with an elbow to the rib by his partner. 

Taking her own plate of baked salmon, Jade watched from just enough distance as Price, Gaz, Soap, and Ladybug played a game of poker on the desk. The atmosphere was tense from the rivalry but hearty at the same time, their laughs filled the room as Price caught Soap hiding a card on his sleeves, which resulted in a 50 push-up penalty for the Scot. Apart from the chaos, Jade couldn’t help but find herself trying to find that one particular big man. 

The memories of sharing sleepless nights together on the rooftops of Fuerzas Especiales base rushed down her mind. Those moments made up the few moments of peace that they could muster up from the chaos of Las Almas. Just the both of them, the night sky, two cups of tea, and the lights from the city of souls. All those times they spent together completely with his mask on. Only when he decided to take off his mask in front of the 141 and Vaqueros did she ever see his face. 

She’s good with faces. That’s an absolute requirement for her job. That image of his face was ingrained in her brain. How the black paints surrounded his surprisingly soft eyes, how the sun reflected his whiskey brown eyes and light eyelashes, the scars on his cheeks from wearing the mask, and his strong jaw. 

Jade only wished she could enjoy the actual sight of it once more. 

The former MI6 turned her head a number of times, making up blueprints of Price’s residency inside her mind. This house didn’t have a rooftop, and from the looks of it, all the bedrooms are located on the upper floors. Ghost likes looking out at the scenery, so he might’ve gone upstairs, broke into one of the many bedrooms and looked out on of the balconies as he sipped on a cup of tea. Considering how Ghost was, he’d break into his captain’s house without anyone knowing about it just fine. 

All the while the others were playing, Jade finished her plate of grilled salmon and found her way towards the kitchen sink to wash the dishes. She came the latest, the least she could do was helping cleaning the kitchen area. That task came to a halt when her phone vibrated. She was confused at first, but when her eyes read ‘Col. Vargas 🤠’ on the screen, Jade immediately accepted the video call. 

“Hola, Coronel! Como estas?”

“Hola, Compa! Muy bien, muy bien.” Alejandro's gravelly voice greeted her excitedly as his video showed on Jade’s screen. She could tell that the sun was still up in Mexico judging by the light on his face. He looks like he’s standing just outside his family’s house. Quite rare to see the colonel in other attire than his military ones, but as Jade saw his blue shirt tucked inside his blue jeans, she couldn’t help the snicker that came out of her mouth. She remembered that Alejandro had revealed to her privately that he had two beautiful daughters who lived in Mexico City with their maternal grandparents. “I’m in Mexico City with my family to celebrate Christmas. We’re about to head to church for the Christmas Eve sermon.” Alejandro continued in Spanish, but something caught his eye. “Wait, Jade. Where are you? Is that Soap?”

Jade lifted the phone above her head to help him see the place clearly, “Yes, that’s Soap, Captain Price, Gaz, and that’s Eleanor, Gaz’s girlfriend.” She said in his language. Her fingers pointed at each soldier as they slammed their cards on the table, chaos ensuing in the middle of them. “This is Captain Price's house in London. He invited us all for dinner, and now that it’s done, they’re playing poker, aggressively.”

Now it’s Alejandro’s turn to laugh. “I’m assuming they’re on their second bottle of whatever alcohol they’re consuming.”

“Yep. Looks like Captain Price is richer than he lets on. He has 4 bottles of wine from the 1800s! Can you believe it?!” 

Jade and Alejandro continued their video call, sitting in her former position on the sofa. Despite Soap’s slight dislike that they were conversing in Spanish as he couldn’t understand what they were talking about, Jade kept on going. Jade learned that Rudy stayed in Las Almas to rebuild and restore the city after the Shadows wreaked havoc, encouraging Alejandro to leave the city and unite with his family. 

“So. Onto the most important topic…” Alejandro’s voice sounded deeper and his eyebrows lifted. Jade had learned after a thrilling week working together that those were a sign that he was onto something cheeky. “Where’s the Ghost?” 

Again, Jade’s heart beat faster at the mention of his name, and her stomach grew warmer. Damn it. “Um, I don’t know where he is. He is here somewhere in Price’s house, but… I haven’t seen him yet.”

“He’s there? Have you tried the rooftops?”

“This house doesn’t have a rooftop. It does have a lot of rooms with balconies, though. But I didn’t see any open window from the outside.” Her head started to look side to side, “ I don’t know if this house has a back or side entrance, he might be somewh– Alejandro!!” Jade stopped when she realized that Alejandro was laughing his belly off. 

“You’re looking for him too, don’t you?” The colonel guffawed. “Aaah, You should’ve seen your face when you were explaining where he is to me.”

“That’s–” 

“Look. I wished you luck with him back in Las Almas. It’s only natural that I asked for ‘updates’!”

“Keep fighting the good fight, hermano.”  “To the bitter end, my brother.” Soap handshook the Mexican colonel and sergeant as they were about to leave Las Almas. He then turned around and tapped Ghost’s shoulders twice, heading towards the rear end of the aircraft to unite with Price and Gaz. The lieutenant though, stood still on the tarmac a few steps behind Jade.  “Good luck amigos y amiga.” Jade hugged Rudy warmly, tapping her back a few times before holding out her hand to handshake Alejandro. Instead of a handshake, Jade saw a wide grin on Alejandro’s face and opened his arms wide, indicating that he was waiting for a hug as well. “Come here, Hermana!” Jade chuckled, expecting that a handshake wouldn’t be enough for the Mexican. She obliged by stepping forward and warped her arms around Alejandro’s figure.  What Jade didn’t see though, was how Ghost’s body tensed slightly behind her. Alejandro sneakily observed the man’s movement, looking visibly uncomfortable. No matter how skilled Ghost was at appearing as still as he could, Alejandro could see that this skill of his just disappeared when he was in Jade’s presence. Before Alejandro let go, he lowered his voice and spoke to Jade’s ear. “Que te vaya bien con el fantasma.” ‘Good luck with the Ghost.’ Jade blushed profusely when she translated that sentence in her mind, stepping away from the hug to punch his shoulder lightly “ey!!” She looked over to his side, finding that Rodolfo was also grinning ear to ear.  “I mean it, Jade.” Alejandro spoke in Spanish, tilting his head as a sign that he was serious. Jade’s head nodded in surrender a few times. As much as they wanted to converse more, her job wasn’t over yet. Her legs started to walk backwards, “Gracias, Alejandro, Rudy. Cuidate.”   Alejandro observed as she turned around, finding Ghost’s waiting figure right in front of her. She then tapped his chest plate once, jogging her way towards Price, Gaz, and Soap on the aircraft. That sight made the colonel scoff, glancing at Rudy, who looked as amused as he was. Just as Ghost was about to turn around as well to join his teammates, Alejandro called to his name. “Ghost!”  The lieutenant turned around.  “No te pierdas carnal!” “A huevo!”

“The both of you have forced me and Rudy to watch a telenovela the entire time! Please tell me that you’ve at least done something together after Chicago.”

“We traded numbers…” She said nervously.

“And then? Did he text first?”

Jade grimaced, expecting that Alejandro wouldn’t react well to her next response. “We… haven’t texted at all.”

“NO MAMEEESSS!!” Ale facepalmed on the video call like he just watched the Mexican national football team fail to score a goal in a World Cup match. “Ghost… I swear… you need to do better.” 

Jade stood up and walked over to the kitchen aisle yet again and put her phone on a leaning position on the wall, hoping that Alejandro’s shout of despair didn’t reach the other soldiers. “Well– what if he doesn’t want to continue this… whatever’s going on between us?” she grabbed a white mug and a cocoa mix, putting in 3 spoons of the choco powder inside. “You’ve seen how he is. I don’t want to hope too much.” Jade confessed to the colonel, pouring hot water on the mug and stirring the contents with a spoon until the sweet aroma hit her nose.

“Oh you don’t know that yet, right?” Ale replied, “Do you want to have a relationship with him?”

A relationship with Ghost? 

That sounded crazy to say, but if she's being honest with herself, yes. Yes, she did. 

“Yeah…” She started to walk towards the hallway on the side of the kitchen with the warm mug. The walkway looked narrow and led to the rear side of the house. She guessed that if this conversation was prolonged, they were going to need a place where Soap wasn’t shouting his lungs off. Her green eyes looked to the end of the room, where a wooden door similar to the front door was present in front of her. A back door perhaps?

“Okay. Now one of you needs to start. Ghost clearly isn’t starting because he’s a stupid, bad man. But maybe you can convince him that you’re worth his time.”

Worth his time? “How?” 

“Start by finding him.”

The former MI6 walked towards the back door and glanced over the glass parts where the outer side of the house was visible. Just then, she registered a man with a large frame, sitting on the stairs of the back porch. He wore the same attire as the rest of the SAS members - their military uniform covered with a military-issued sweater, and layered further with a familiar black jacket that she’d seen before in Chicago. The man had a mask over his head, but she could see that it was currently lifted up as he took a sip of what she assumed was bourbon. 

That’s definitely Ghost.

“Jade? What happened?” Alejandro asked curiously as she stopped speaking earlier.

“I found him.” She muttered.

Alejandro’s lips curved, slowly forming a smile. 

“The floor is yours, Jade.”

—

*5 hours earlier*

Johnny : 'LT. You’re coming, right?'

Ghost looked down at his phone, staring at the message that Johnny had sent him, not planning to text anything back. 

He hated Christmas. No, he didn’t hate decors, the bright lights, the red, green, and white that coloured the streets and buildings around him. No, he’s not petty like that. He’s indifferent to it. 

What he hated was how the month of December always reminded him of the darkest part of his life. 

He lowered his phone and tucked it inside his pocket, going back to the sight of his family’s gravestones right in front of him. His mother, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. 

Ghost remembered the blood; the foul stench hitting his nose as he stood frozen, witnessing the lifeless bodies of his family – all surrounded by the colourful lights of red, green, and blue from the Christmas tree that they were decorating. If only he realized sooner that his enemies wouldn’t settle with torturing him. If only he wasn’t so naive and thought that his battles were done as soon as he was home. How wrong he was. 

How fucking wrong he was. 

Ghost’s tears had dried out a long time ago. Every Christmas Eve he always visited their graves. He’d cry for the first three years, but now he’d settle with staring at the stones, not a word coming out of his mouth. Just him, alone with that memory.

His phone vibrated again. Johnny’s still messaging him about the dinner at Price’s house. Ghost closed his eyes in annoyance and sighed, taking his phone and turning it on to find a few messages.

Johnny : ‘Captain said not to disturb you during Christmas week’

Johnny : ‘Idk what you’re doing now’

Johnny : ‘but I hope you’re enjoying yourself’

Ghost moved his thumb on the keyboard screen, wanting to text Johnny that he was not coming and to stop messaging him. 

Johnny : ‘Also’

Johnny : ‘Jade’s coming’

His thumb paused right above the send key. 

Fuck. 

Why did his heart beat faster suddenly? What was this warmth in his stomach? His memories of his family’s death disappeared, and suddenly all the moments with Jade came down rushing through his mind. 

The moment when they met – where they shot at each other in Verdansk, leaving a permanent mark on his left ear – The sleepless nights in Las Almas, the meaningless conversations, their moments in battle together. How beautiful she was when she kept her calm during pressing and stressful situations, the grace in her movements…

Fuck. 

Fucking hell.

Ghost had read Price’s invitation two weeks before in their group chat. He already made up his mind from the beginning that he wasn’t coming. He never really enjoyed parties or any form of gathering at all. That’s how he’d been living for three decades of his life. Why did that one mention of her name from Johnny instantly change his resolve just like that? 

He didn’t reply to Johnny at all, only leaving the two blue check marks indicating that he’d read Johnny’s messages. 

And that… was how Ghost ended up sitting on Price’s back porch. The crescent moon was high in the sky. Little bits of snow started to fall down alongside the windy weather. For the first time of the day, he had his skull-painted balaclava up to his nose in order to take a sip from his glass of bourbon. 

When he had arrived at Price’s front yard with his sedan, Ghost saw the amused surprise in Price, Gaz, and Lady’s faces, but he also took a glimpse of Johnny’s smirk on his lips. The sergeant now knew the way to his heart, and it infuriated him. God damn him.

The sun was already long gone by that time, and he could see that the others were already in the midst of eating their dinner. 

He’d sneakily taken a glance around Price’s luxurious house.

No Jade yet. 

Ghost had conversed for a while with Price, took his own plate of baked salmon, poured himself a glass of bourbon, and excused himself to the back door. For an hour and a half, he sat right there, slowly sipping on his alcohol. Just as he thought that she wasn’t coming and that Johnny had lied to him, the wooden door behind his back opened.

He turned around and found the woman herself.

Jade. 

Her ginger hair was braided like usual, but stopped on the back of her head, letting the long hair run freely down her back and shoulders. The deep red turtleneck which usually looked out of place in warm weather such as Las Almas currently fitted perfectly on her figure. A green pair of wide pants hung from her hip, letting the fabric run freely downwards instead of wrapping around her legs like the jeans he’s used to seeing her wearing during their mission together.

Ghost caught her green eyes, reflected by the moonlight, and he could easily tell that she wore some sort of makeup. What the name was he couldn’t bother to remember, but she looked… beautiful.

His heart was already beating pretty fast from the alcohol, but now it’s going even faster, and don’t even start about the butterflies that were flying rampant inside his stomach right now. 

She only stared at him, her breaths turning to cloud along with the vapour from the cocoa mug she was holding. For a few seconds, they stayed like that, until Jade finally started.

“Why aren't you inside? It's cold.”

Can you miss someone’s voice? Apparently you can, judging by the unexplainable sense of relief that washed over him after he heard her voice. The last time he heard her voice was back in Chicago, a month ago. He then turned around again, facing Price's plain backyard to try hiding any signs from his exposed mouth that she might read. The former MI6 had this scary skill to read every body language of any person. Sure, he had a mask up to his nose, but he wouldn’t take any chances.

“I don't like parties.” He replied.

“It's cold.” 

“Better than whatever's going inside. And I have my friend right here to keep me warm.” He slightly lifted the bourbon glass, shaking it slightly to make the content swirl.

Jade hummed. She observed his glass and noticed the alcohol. For all their nights in Las Almas, Ghost always drank tea, never alcohol. Of course, they were in active duty, so drinking liquor could cost them so much, but he'd said himself that he pretty rarely drinks, since Ghost had confessed that he liked being in control of what he did. She wondered why he was drinking, but she let it go. Instead, Jade stepped two stairs down, and sat beside Ghost’s left, drinking her own cup of hot chocolate.

“Why are you here?” Now it's Ghost’s turn to start. 

She wondered how to answer that. If she's being honest, the answer would be ‘to be with you’, but she deleted that response in her mind.

“I… don't really like parties.”

“…You don't look the type.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What’s ‘my’ type?”

Ghost took another sip from the glass, “Likes being around people. Gets your energy from a communal space.”

The former MI6 scoffed. “Fooled you right there. Maybe it’s just me, but being around people automatically sets me in observation mode. Don’t get me wrong, I like people. It’s just tiring.”

“Hm.”

Another few seconds of silence, before she continued. “What about you? Why are you here?”

“Gets noisy inside, especially if Johnny's starting to lose his grip on reality.” Ghost immediately answered, almost like he expected Jade to ask him that. “He’s a screamer.”

“Hey how's your graze wound? It's healing well right?

Jade suddenly asked, which surprised Ghost. He glanced at Jade, finding the woman herself looking straight into his brown eyes. He should admit, her face so close to his caught him off-guard, releasing a breath he didn’t know he was holding, creating a cloud in the air. Ghost then took a sip from his glass again before answering. “Yeah. I changed the dressing every once in a while. It's just a scab now. “ To be honest, he kind of forgot about the wound on his right shoulder. It was disgustingly painful during their time in Las Almas and Chicago considering how he must carry the chestplate and his gears on that shoulder. The memory of Jade tending to that wound of his at the safehouse came rushing down his brain.

“Okay, that's a relief then. Just make sure you don't scratch it or it'll open again.”

“I know the drill, Midget, I’m not a kid. This isn't my first rodeo. What about you?”

“Wh-what about me?”

“Your hip.”

The former MI6 sucked both of her lips between her teeth. “It’s fine.”

“Fine how?”

Jade now looked at Ghost’s brown eyes, intensely gazing at her own. He wasn’t taking ‘It’s fine’ as an answer. He was always an intense person. She suddenly remembered the feeling of being safe in his hands when he carried her towards the van, arms under her shoulder and knees when she couldn’t bear the pain in her hip any longer. 

How Ghost had slept the whole night, in a sitting position on a chair beside her bed in the safehouse with his mask on, staying right by her side.

“Oi. Midget. I’m asking you.”

That snapped her out of her thoughts. “Huh? Yeah! It’s a bit itchy at times, but I can manage. It’s healing well.”

That answer seemed to finally satisfy him. “Hm.”

Jade went back to her hot chocolate, but Ghost didn’t leave her. He could see her shivering a little bit in the cold. The tip of her nose and ears had turned rosy.

“You cold?”

“Hm? No! No, not at all. Why?"

“You're shivering. And where's your jacket? A single layer of sweater won't help with this fucking weather.”

“Well– About that. I was at the orphanage for Christmas gift trading earlier before coming here. One of the kids got… too excited and spilt apple juice all over my jacket, so I had to take it off.” She admitted. 

“What, you're gonna freeze yourself to death here? It's 1 degree out.”

“I don't want to be insiiiide.” Jade whined, almost childish. A sight Ghost would never admit he found cute.

“Your survival instincts are out of the damn window. I thought you were a seasoned MI6 black agent.” Somehow he found more ways to ridicule her.

The ginger scowled, pouting her lips before standing up “…Whatever, I'm going inside”

“Fuckin’ hell– stay. Stay here. Sit back down.” Ghost’s swift hand grabbed her forearm a bit too harshly, prompting her to balance her hand as a drop of her hot chocolate spilt out to the white snow below. 

“Why? You want me to freeze to death?” Regardless, she sat back down, closer to his body now.

“You're the only company I've got that isn't annoying. So stay here.” Ghost unexpectedly moved his arms to take off his black jacket, revealing his green sweater underneath, and much to Jade’s surprise, his arms loomed over her and rested the dark clothing around her shoulders. Her bewilderment failed to hide itself when his hand patted her shoulder a couple of times to set it in place. “There. Better?”

Wow. It’s… warm. And most importantly, It’s his warmth. 

One of her hands left the warm mug, softly tracing her fingers along the hem of the jacket to tuck it closer to her chest. “...Better.”

Shit. Ghost didn’t know the sight of Jade beneath his jacket would create more butterflies to fly like bees inside his stomach. In an attempt to suppress it, he sighed, leaning back and closed his eyes to take a deep breath. 

…before he opened his eyes, finding a mistletoe hanging right above them, placed neatly. And purposefully. It’s like a damned grenade trap. “…Fuckin’ hell…”

“STOP SWEARING!!” Jade exclaimed, annoyed at his shortage of vocabulary. “You've said those words twice in the same mi– What are you looking at…?” Jade looked at Ghost, who was leaning back while his head hung backwards on his neck. 

She looked up as well, finding the mistletoe that made him swear. “…oh, blimey.” There was not a single Christmas decoration on the back side of the house but this one. Price was a person who had a high attention to detail, but Christmas decoration was not one of them. Heck, he barely decorated the house at all. That thing was hung far too strategically.

Both Ghost and Jade were thinking of the same thing.

Soap. 

Ghost sighed, “Just ignore it.” 

“But it's bad luck though.” Jade thoughtlessly said.

“You don't really believe that, do you.”

“Well I don't! It's hanging vegetation. Still, I'm saying it could be true.” Her hands gestured at the mistletoe above her.

“What, you want a kiss?”

The woman gasped, almost offendedly. “HUH? KISS YOU??”

“Who else is underneath this fucking mistletoe?” 

She joked, trying desperately to hide her panic at the thought of kissing him. “A ghost.”

“Fucking funny. Also what's with you? It's just one kiss.”

Jade stopped speaking. Her eyes widened as she pursed her lips. “Um…. I just don't…”

Confusion fell down Ghost’s half-masked expression, quickly reading her reaction, until he got to the conclusion. “...Don't fucking tell me you haven't had your first kiss yet.” 

When he saw how Jade couldn’t respond anymore, Ghost pinched his forehead.“Bloody hell... Then why did you say you want it?!”

“I NEVER SAID I WANT IT??? I just said that the bad luck thingy could be true!”

“Well fuck us for five hundred years then!” 

“DAMMIT– OKAY!! KISS ME!”

Those words perplexed him, not realizing that he was practically glaring at her that his eyes might come out of its socket. The ever-present black paint around his eyes didn’t help to ease the tension either. Jade herself didn’t know which thunder slapped her that she said those words. She wasn’t the kind of person to just spout things without thinking of the consequences first. 

Ghost observed Jade’s face, trying to read her expression, to see whether or not she was joking or serious. Because in the deepest part of his heart, he’d hoped that she was joking. But even deeper, he hoped that she wasn’t. “…you don't mean that.”

Jade wondered if her mouth had disconnected from her brain. What she was saying came out literally the opposite of what her instincts were. “You heard me. You can kiss me. Just a peck though.” What was she thinking? This was NOT what she wanted to say. Or was it? “How many women have you kissed?” Aaand now she’s prying onto his past? Great job, Jade. 

He used to be young, that’s for sure. Despite his father and brother mocking him and his mother for it, he used to go to school and met a few women during his learning days. Only two of them, though, and that was all before he got into military. He didn’t know what commitment was back in the day, and his ‘girlfriends’ didn’t know that either. “...a few.” 

“Were they experienced?”

“Probably so.” 

Okay, so he had some experience. That somehow made her feel easy. “Well… I have zero experience on the act. So… be gentle, okay?”

“…Fine.“ Ghost breathed as he put down his almost-empty glass on the stone staircase behind him, finding Jade doing the same. 

The coldness of the wind prickled her skin, making her realize that this was not a dream. He’s about to kiss her, and it’s from a mistletoe. Out of nowhere, she remembered the overflow of mistletoe that the orphanage received earlier. Could that be a sign? Either way, she snapped back to her current state, where Ghost was visibly looking at her lips, and that sight made her heart drum twice the speed. At this point, she might explode. “Okay. So… what do I do? Do I tilt my head a little, or do I open my lips just a little bit? Should I lean in to kiss you too?  Or like–”

“Just. Stay. Still.” Ghost shut her up before she could blabber more.

“Okay okay okay”. 

Jade watched Ghost secure his mask up to his nose, revealing his mouth. When she glanced at his lips, Jade could see a tinge of red on his cheek, but she could dismiss that as a reaction to the cold or from the alcohol he was drinking. When he leaned in slowly, Jade could see him so close, the closest he's ever been to her. His eyelashes were longer than she's ever realised, fluttering against his skin, the little healed scars on his face–

Jade sucked her lips into her teeth, "WAIT WAIT WAIT." Making the man flinch and pull away in confusion.

 "What?! Do you wanna do this or not?!" Ghost exclaimed.

"I do, I do! It's my first time! Just–”

“I said all you need to do is stay. Still.”

“I've never done this before, literally! I'm 29 and I've never kissed someone!”

Ghost fell silent as Jade hid her face on her palm.

“…I have never fallen for anyone before.” She confessed. “I wanted my first kiss to be with the one and only, and now… “ Her hands wildly gestured to the mistletoe above them, “someone happened to put a mistletoe right above us.”

Jade was a lot of things. A formidable fighter, a dependable ally, a brave operator who’d jump from a cliff with you, a spawn of the devil herself when she does her thing. However, at that moment, Ghost didn’t see any of those at all. All she saw was a vulnerable woman, curled up in a ball because she couldn’t fathom the concept of a single kiss.  

After a few moments of him letting her collect her thoughts, Ghost muttered, “…Jade, if you're not ready, then we can just pretend that it doesn't exist. You don't have to.”

“You know what?” She tapped both of her knees with a considerable force, like she just made up her mind about something. “I gotta start somewhere right? Besides, when I finally kiss my man, I need to work on my kissing game.”

Ghost couldn’t help the scoff out his mouth. And… ‘her man’, huh? That could be a dream. “'Kissing game'?”

“Yes! Gotta…know what it feels like, at least?”

Ghost observed her expressions yet again. The woman in front of her was looking at him like she’s about to surrender her life to his hands. What, was he about to shoot an apple above her head? To him this was just a kiss after all.

Or was it?

Jade wasn’t his girlfriends during his younger days. She’s an extraordinary woman like no other. 

“…Okay. Look. We're gonna do this slowly. I will do all the work while you can just stay there. Does that work with you?” Ghost started, looking at Jade in the eyes.

She put on the bravest face she could muster up and proceeded with a nod.

“Say it.” The deep timbre of his voice sent shivers down her spine, because of course, it wasn’t enough for him. 

“Okay, Ghost.”

“Good. Close your eyes, Jade. Just calm down. Trust me.

As she closed her eyes, she breathed the cold winter air deeply before letting them out. Now that her vision was no more, her other senses had heightened. The sharp cold air stabbing her skin, the faint sounds of Alejandro's guitar playing from inside of the house, the smell of hot cocoa on her hands, the faint scent of something that could only come from Ghost's jacket wrapped around her shoulders. 

For a good amount of time, she didn't feel anything other than her surroundings. Jade was expecting something on her lips. Anything from the man that was sitting right in front of her, but none came. She was about to open her eyes and call his name, until something touched her chin, lightly lifting her head to face upwards. And just then, Jade finally felt a soft, tender kiss on her forehead. His lips stayed there only for a second before they parted with her skin, yet it felt like she longed for it for more than eternity. No one has ever laid their lips on her skin before. No one. 

What she was expecting was something on her lips, not her forehead, so when Jade was about to open her eyelids, again, he stopped her by putting his fingers on her left cheek, tenderly sliding them from her rosy cheek to the back of her ear, taking the stray strands of her red hair with them. The hands that killed, that murdered many so more could live, were gingerly touching her face with an unexpected amount of softness. She didn’t know his hands were capable of doing such delicate movements, and neither did he. 

Before she could register what was happening, she felt him getting close again, and for the second time, her expectation betrayed her when Ghost kissed her cheek, just right under her eye. The kiss lasted longer than the one on her forehead, yet Jade couldn’t find any reason to complain. If anything, she wanted his lips to stay on her cheek longer than that. To feel him closer, to feel him more. 

Ghost’s fingers moved on backwards from behind her ear, going through the wilds of her undone hair and finding its place on the back of her head. Heart racing, Jade was expecting another kiss that was not in the designated place. However, when his deep, raspy voice softly said to her, “I’m going to kiss you now.”, she found herself giddy with her eyes closed. Part of her wanted to open her eyes and see what was going on right in front of her, but the other part stood strong against it, not wanting to ruin the moment. 

So when she felt him closing in, Jade gave all control over to him. She relaxed herself, letting Ghost gently pull her head closer to his, to at last, close the distance between their lips.

 It was the softest, slowest kiss possible, filled with unsureness on her part, yet with a sense of certainty and confidence from him, and because of that, Jade let him do his part, leading the kiss to the point that it was enjoyable and… lovely. 

The kiss lasted for only a mere 5 seconds at most, but it felt like hours. Ghost reluctantly pulled back and saw that Jade had already opened her green eyes. Her face was painted with shyness and shock, a pleasant one, as she saw that Ghost had removed his mask entirely, his face right in front of hers, his brown hair still a bit dishevelled from removing his balaclava.

Jade was a heavily trained warrior and an exceptionally skilled individual who stayed calm in times of distress and emergency on the battlefield, a force to be reckoned with, and could be an absolute menace when she wanted to be. Now, seeing the same woman like this – dazed, wide-eyed, a blushing mess, and taken aback by a simple kiss – The sight made him smile softly. 

If only she'd known how long he'd wanted to do that to her.

Palm still resting on the side of her neck, he asked her, “How was that for a first time?”

Jade looked like a robot losing its ability to function. There were no words in her brain to respond to his question. Scratch that. It looked like she didn’t even register what his question was. 

Seeing her so flabbergasted made him let out a deep chuckle. “Midget. I’m talking to you.”

That bastardized nickname snapped her out of her thoughts, making her blink rapidly, seemingly trying to sort her jumbled brain. Jade looked at the man who just claimed her first kiss right in his dark, brown eyes. 

He’s still right in front of her, face looking at her delightfully with a sweet smile, not like the usual dark, ready-to-kill gaze. It’s almost like looking at a different person entirely. 

“Uh… Umm–” Jade couldn’t form words.

Another chuckle, “You okay?”

"...this is a weird request, but" A pause, "Can you… do that again?"

Never in a thousand lifetimes, he would ever expect that answer from her. "...You want me to kiss you again?"

"Yeah. Can you do that?" She spoke with a low voice. "Please?"

His eyes opened wide at her request. Confused, but amazed at the same time. Did that request mean she liked it? Her expressions said that she did, though. Or did she just want to make sure? Nevertheless, Ghost decided to oblige and leaned in again to kiss her. 

Jade closed her eyes again and felt his lips against hers for the second time that night. His kiss was as soft and as tender as the first time. This one, though, she decided to take in the feeling of his rough lips, the way he tilted his head to fit hers, the way his large hand lightly pulled her in and softly kissed her. All the sensations she felt from his actions became ecstasy.

Her hands lifted their way up to find Ghost's cheeks. Jade could swear she heard a small gasp from the man. Fingers gliding along the side of his face, she could feel his stubbles grazing her skin. It was such a surreal sensation, to think that this is the face of the man who got branded as a ghost, a myth, who wears the mask to hide who he is. Right now, she's having her palm on the skin of his face, and he allowed her to. 

No one had touched the skin on his face in years. No one ever managed to get their hands on his face save for enemies who sought to kill him and punched his mask before meeting their demise with his knife. The only form of touch he remembered was of his father, who was all but loving.

With the tip of her thumb, Jade traced the scars on his face. Her warm hands instantly built a gentle fire on his skin. The feeling of such a tender touch was almost like meeting a stranger to him. But if it's a stranger, why did he find himself missing it so much? Why did he yearn for it so? Her touch ignited a warmth that he never knew he needed. 

At that time, the woman he was kissing felt more like home than anything and anyone ever did. He felt like he could just melt right there and then. Here Ghost thought that he was the one kissing her, but now it was like she was the one casting some sort of magic spell on him. 

Soon, their hands moved, Jade’s hands left his cheeks and found his wrist who was holding the back of her head. He almost forgot the feeling of someone’s hand on his own, but before he knew it, he felt her other hand grasping his sweater, right above his heart, crumpling the cloth. As they went on, he couldn’t just stay still anymore. Ghost’s other hand also found its way to her back, lightly pressing on her. He wanted her closer, he needed her close.

Ghost snapped himself out of his thoughts and pulled back, catching Jade off guard. 

The both of them looked into each other's eyes as they caught their breaths, not noticing that they'd been kissing for the last minute. Faces extremely red from racing hearts and rushing blood, clouds of cold air escaping their mouth from the cold, for a moment they thought they knew this was just because of a single mistletoe, yet deep down, they knew this was something more. 

Not hearing anything from one another, Ghost took his hand back from her neck and waist as Jade parted her hands from him to her lips with her hands. 

The man spoke first, "You need more?"

"Yes– I mean– No! That was enough." Words stumbled their way out of her mouth. "Uh… So… that happened. I just had my first kiss."

Ghost couldn't help the smile, "I just stole your first kiss."

"No. You didn't steal it." She denied, "If anything, I'm glad you are my first kiss."

Hearing those words, Ghost could feel his heart racing again, the world suddenly felt warmer. 

"I'm sorry you have to kiss me, though. You've always hated me." Jade continued with a laugh.

"Who says I hate you?" 

That made her look at him, and what she saw was the most gentle face she'd ever seen him. Again, she didn't know he was capable of that expression. "If I hated you, I wouldn't ask you to stay, wouldn't I?" 

That's a true statement. "You're right. So we're past the "stay away from me" phase now?" 

"Our first meeting was in Verdansk. Situation was out of control and we were off to a bad start." He explained, "And we just kissed. We're way past that now."

Smiling, Jade pursed her lips before saying, "So… are we still friends?" 

"Friends?" He glanced at her.

"Yep."

"Friends then." Confirmed Ghost. 

"Who just kissed each other."

"Because someone hung a fucking mistletoe on the back porch." He retorted while gesturing to the decoration above them. 

The woman laughed out loud before looking at the man, who was also having a chuckle of his own. 

That's the first time she heard him – saw him – this happy. Had he always been this… handsome? She'd only looked at his face once before, which was when he revealed himself to the team in the Los Vaqueros safehouse in Las Almas, and then, never again.

But if this was what Jade could see beneath the mask – his happy face, the crows feet on the corners of his eyes, the corners of his lips turning upwards, and the fact that she just learned that he had shallow dimples when smiling – then she wished the mask could just disappear. Forever.

Because after this… he would  put on that mask again. 

This might be the last time she saw him without the mask.

When would she see him without it again?

Out of nowhere, some unexplainable force of will inside her made Jade lean in and left a peck on Ghost's cheek. 

The SAS lieutenant instantly looked at the woman, flabbergasted. 

Jade herself gasped loudly, covering her face in disbelief of her own action. She couldn't see it, but in his eyes, her face was as red as her hair.

Why did she do that? What made her do that?!

They swore it was the most deafening silence in their lives. Both of them stayed like that for a good 10 seconds, seemingly trying to make sense of what the fuck just happened.

"Oh my God… OH MY GOD. I’M SORRY. I’M SORRY!” Jade uttered in absolute panic.

Ghost stayed still in silence, his eyes wide open glaring at hers. 

Oh shit. Shit shit shit. He’s mad. HE’S MAD. 

“It– It's freezing! I'm going inside!" Jade scrambled to stand up, taking the cocoa mug with her and went to the doorway, before remembering that she still had Ghost's jacket on her shoulder. 

"Ja- Lottie! Wait–" He was about to stand up to follow her, but his words got cut by his jacket flying straight to his face. When he removed the clothing, she'd already disappeared into the merry party inside. 

Touching the part where Jade kissed him, Ghost slowly stared back at the falling snow in front of the porch. He hadn't worn his jacket yet, and somehow he didn't feel cold at all.

It's so hot. 

It's too hot. 

He buried his face in his palms, before running them through his brown hair. She didn't have to do that, didn't she? There was a mistletoe, they kissed because of it, and that was it, right? 

Then what was that peck for? There wasn't any obligation involved that required her to kiss him again. 

Ghost could feel his heart pumping blood faster than it ever did, faster than when he was on the battlefield, faster than when he ran laps every day. Butterflies were rushing deep inside his stomach, flying all around his insides like it just wanted to break out of his body.

He didn't know why, but if the kiss and her touch were a gentle fire that built slowly, that little peck felt like he just got struck by a damn thunder. 

Violently.

And yet, he was so happy about that little peck - weirdly more so than the kiss - Too fucking happy. 

Ghost grasped the sweater right above his heart before muttering to himself, 

"Fuckin’ hell…" 

Jade didn't melt his cold heart. 

She set it on fire. 

—

Price couldn’t believe the situation he was in.

His sergeants, Kyle and Soap, along with Ladybug, leaning on the back door of his house, looking at Ghost and Jade kissing at his back porch. Fucking spectacular.

“See, Gaz?! I told you–”

“SHUT UP Mate they’re gonna hear your loud arse.” Gaz nudged the drunken Scot’s rib to silence him. 

Nevertheless, the plan worked. Gaz and Ladybug was the provider of the decorations since Price didn’t have any Christmas Decorations in this house in London. When Soap arrived with a mischievous look on his face and told the couple about “Operation Red Skull”, they were automatically IN on it. 

And who would’ve fucking guessed? They made his house a home ground for matchmaking, and they succeeded. They weren’t his best subordinates for nothing after all.

Suddenly, Price heard a loud gasp from the three in front of him. His captain persona suddenly kicked in and stepped forward, shoving both of his sergeants to see the situation clearly.

There they saw Jade and Ghost, looking at each other, with Jade’s face looking like she was absolutely shocked. 

“Oh my God… did she just sneak another kiss to him?!” Ladybug exclaimed with a whispering voice.

“FUCK! I didn’t have a clear visual.” Gaz followed.

“I think it was just a peck to his cheek??” Soap added.

“Everyone fall back!” Price commanded, and just like muscle memory, they all scrambled back to the living room, taking their respective deck of poker cards and sat around the messy table to pretend like they were still playing.

Soon after, Jade herself opened the back door with a face that none of them had ever seen before – a combination of shock and embarrassment.

“Jade? You okay?” Lady twisted her body to see Jade.

The former MI6 nodded uncontrollably like a shaking head doll. “Huh? Yeah. Yeah yeah, I’m okay.”

Gaz and Soap were covering their mouths with their deck of cards, unable to hide their smiles. It looked like they were about to break into a massive laughter any second now.

What broke it was Captain Price, who suddenly asked Jade,

“Really? What’s that black spot on your nose, then?”

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YEEEHHEHEEHEHHHEHE. Sorry for the long wait! Thank you for reading! Hope y'all enjoyed it! (❁´◡`❁)

Reblogs and comments are highly appreciated <3