#yeah my fucking food adventures

[caffeinelemur]

ur tag about being picky ruining vacations rings so true. i remember going on a trip with my best friend and he took me to an italian restaurant (pasta is my safe food) and because i couldnt make it myself i had to sit there with his whole family eating and me with nothing and they all questioned it so fucking awkward 😭

Yeah my stepdad has this crusade against my “eating habits” that’s grown in intensity and stupidity since I was like eight. At first it was something between eating with the family/making me eat healthy/vegetables? (Was forced to eat food I didn’t like for several years + has a strong gag reflex + literally cannot eat things I don’t like, why would you do that) Or something, but then it also became fights during trips bc I just wanted my safety/favorite and he wanted to eat at some random fucking place in a different state that doesn’t serve food I eat anyway, and then I got Diagnoses™️ and he decided I made all of them up and lied to my doctor to get idk what attention and meds? and when we told him my doctor diagnosed most of that without me prompting it he was like it’s bc nutrition like bitch I don’t think my samefood gave me bipolar.

Anyway, we barely go anywhere and whenever we do I can’t even get excited bc I’m just like. We’re gonna fight about food the entire time and eventually I’ll just tell them to go do whatever they want and I’ll not eat anything for lunch and stay in the car bc I’m tired and overwhelmed and take a car nap with my noise cancelling headphones on loud music playing all I wanted was to spend like seven to eleven dollars to eat a decent amount of food and get a big ass drink but no now we’re doing this. You can still go you your fucking choice I’m not making you eat my food leave me in the car with a ridiculous fast food order a huge soda and music and fuck off to your own food adventure I’ll be dandy, but no. (My spectrum in a different flavor mother tries her best to get me fed somehow and is probably the only one between the three of us keeping me alive, and all she gets is anxiety. Sorry mom.)

Also somewhere right before high school I gained a fun new eating disorder and between that and my always reliable forgetting-to-eat I kept dipping below into underweight, so my doctor told me not to worry about healthy vs junk or anything right then just try to focus on eating something even if it’s chips or whatever. I had a timer on my phone to remind me it was like 11 or 2 or smth maybe try a snack?? I brought a snack size bag of chips for lunch every day it’s all I could figure out. And mom heard this and was like ok, nightly McDonald’s runs aren’t a battle anymore bc she knew my cardinal rule of food is no matter what I can and will eat McDonald’s. Like even at my most ill can’t look at a cracker I can and will eat that hamburger and be fine. I got back up to barely technically but still healthy weight for a little while bc of it. Eat your samefood your doctor says it’s fine if anyone says otherwise throw a nearby object at them and run this is the moral of the story I think

In college I survived off fast food someone helped me get and vending machine payday bars. Like I can’t drive and I lost half my silverware in that move when I was seven so now I’m running on like three spoons max. I’m like a scrungly raccoon with opinions. Little garbage rat only takes pizza from that one place’s trash. Alley cat that is too tired to try anymore and keeps coming to your porch bc you gave me something out of pity once.

My things with my foods is I will have I Can Have This Specific Thing From This Specific Place, or I Like This Sort Of Food Generally But I Have Extreme Opinions About It. Sometimes they overlap. Examples: I mention McDonald’s. I only ever order the same thing. Very specific. It’s a Hamburger (I won’t go into detail). I can eat other hamburgers but Generally I don’t want to and have opinions about them. If you do it Correctly at home it’s fine. Other places I don’t really like. On the other hand, I Have Extreme Pizza Opinions but I have several places I’ll eat at that qualify. It’s one of the easiest of my samefoods probably to find in a pinch, we just do research and try. I really love pizza so maybe I’m more open to figuring it out than I am w hamburgers bc I’m not like I love hamburgers it’s I love specifically McDonald’s lol. I also have a samedrink and it’s Dr. Pepper, which sadly is bad for my long term health and I’ve had fights and lectures about this for eons as well, but it’s far too late now and I don’t give a shit.

[jerreeeeeee]

i feel like we don't talk about twosun enough. its inherently very interesting. this is the world that shaped our heroes. but the minutiae is easy to make up to suit your purposes and none of it ultimately matters to the narrative. trying to think of what we know about this world. there are 2 suns. a purple sky. it was a hard world (aren't all worlds?). there was a spaceship.

so what's the technological state of this world? hard to say. there's a spaceship, first of its kind, but how specific is that? is it the first flying ship at all, or only the first to leave the planar system? the light fell down a year before the starblaster took off, since the hunger came down right on that day. the ipre had the light for one year. how much did that contribute to their technological advancement? (i hate the idea of 'advancement' as if it's some inevitable linear progress but bear with me here, that's the easiest language to use). were they building ships beforehand? what else did they have?

here's how i tend to think of it: the ipre has the light. the ipre is already quite "advanced" for this world. here are things the ipre has, so by extension twosun has: bond engines, indoor plumbing, industrialized steel production. however i don't tend to think of twosun as a globalized world. so there are many places that do not have these things. and of course these are all things we think of as "advanced" but they also lack many things we think of as technological "advancement," like steam engines, or concrete. anyway.

i don't think its possible for the light of creation to have inspired all of this in only one year. this world was already well on its way. the ipre already existed, it already built spaceships. just not as ambitiously, and more rooted in magic than technology (the idea that magic is just science/technology you don't understand yet is very fun, but in this case i think magic is very much different, and has a longer history. although it can be used in tandem with tech, like in the bond engine).

and aside from technologically i tend to think of it as very politically fractured and chaotic. small regional governments with little reach, fraught and difficult trade, certainly no formal schooling systems (there are, like, wizard universities, all with different inscrutable systems, and then the ipre, and that's your choices for "education"). which is why there's more tech in some places than others.

the most interesting thing is, i think, the difference in lifespans among our crew. magnus, lucretia, and barry know only a more or less industrialized world (although i do tend to have barry grown up rural, that'd be one of those places all this tech hasn't quite reached yet), where there's an organization that sends spaceships with engines to different planes of this reality, and now with a little extra kick from the light, to different realities entirely. magnus has only ever showered with water from pipes indoors. he doesn't bat an eye at buildings made of all metal and glass. but lup and taako grew up in a medieval fantasy world. this shit's all, like, seventy years old max, and they've been around for nearly two centuries. they were bathing in big medieval washtubs as kids. their clothes were all handmade. merle too, although he grew up off the grid anyway. and probably davenport as well, but he would've been more immersed in tech, growing up in a gnomish warren. which is maybe why he was such a good pick for pilot of the starblaster.

but also: we see some of the same happen in faerun. even there it's not clear what the time period is. it's fantasy, all swords and sorcery. but there's trains and arcane engines and skyscrapers. again, not globalized, these things exist in isolated pockets. is it the light? did it still manage to have subtle influence all those years? is it just the luck of the millers finding a window into the plane of thought? is the real answer just that it's inconsistent in whatever way makes the most fun story? is it fun to play in the space of trying to make sense of it anyway?

[wellnesscard]

im the most carnivorous person ive ever met we really gotta kill this stereotype of boys like steaks n girls like cakes. the male spouse is addicted to raw vegetables im this technically dainty lady and all i ever crave is red meat. i love fruit n veg bc i do notice like the vitamin deficiency if i dont partake but its like my body reminds me to eat that. i want meat all the time. actually its really cool befriending the trappers up here bc i now get to eat beavers and black bears. theyre actually not that unique tasting but apparently the iron content is very elevated.

[jackies-ear]

There’s so much that needs to be cleaned up before we go on our trip but it’s all bros stuff, so I refuse to touch it, but I know it’s there and it’d be so quick to clean but it’s his shit so I’m just sitting here like

[corkinavoid]

DPxDC More Shit Fae!Danny Has Said While Living With Waynes

Dick, opening his arms wide and going for a hug: hey, Danny!

Danny, looking him in the eyes without blinking: did you know that centuries ago fae really liked to crawl inside human bodies and use them as nests? I heard human insides are really warm and squishy.

Dick, sweating, frozen in place: ...no?..

Danny, smiling and cheerfully jumping to hug Dick: I didn't either!

Jason, because he is feeling adventurous today: I have a question. Where do Fae come from?

Danny: Ah, so B hadn't had the Talk with you yet, what a shame. So when a woman and a man love each other very much-

Damian: Enough of your foolish jokes, I do not wish to hear the sex talk from you. To answer your question, Todd, Fae come from the dreams.

Jason, deadpan: ...really?

Danny, very awkwardly: Um. Dami. Brother to my soul. I'm so sorry.

Damian: What?

Danny: I told you we come from dreams only because you were four. That's not actually how it works. We just fuck.

Duke, narrowing his eyes at Danny suspiciously: So, for the past week and a half, I've been having this recurring dream about you eating my brain with a fork like spaghetti. I was wondering, is it, like, a you thing or a me thing?

Danny, very offended: Duke! Not every weird thing that happens in this house is my fault! That is very rude of you!

Cass, after Duke had apologized profusely and left: You.

Danny, rolling his eyes: Yeah, okay, I did do that. In my defense, his fear tastes like the perfect greasy cheeseburger, and I have to get my fair share of junk food somehow.

Cass: >:(

Danny: Okay, I'll stop. Eventually.

Bruce, in his nth attempt at gaining information from Danny: How do you know if someone is a Fae or not?

Danny: Throw a fish at them.

Bruce: ????

Danny, not even looking up from his phone: Fish are scared of the Fae. So if you throw a fish at someone and the fish gets scared, they are Fae.

Gotham Rogues a week later: We have no idea why Batman keeps throwing guppies at us, but we collectively suspect his new child is to blame.

Danny: Oh, I'm forbidden to enjoy caraoke nights.

Steph, who suggested he join: What? Why? Is it some kind of punishment for the pizza incident?

Tim: No, it's because if he starts singing, we all lose our grip on reality.

Damian: And our dignity.

Danny: They mean they start dancing whether they want it or not, and I have videos to prove it. Wanna see Jason twerking? Or I have one with Tim and Bruce waltzing through the manor.

Steph, as everyone else bemoans their fate: With great pleasure.

| <- prev | next ? |

@violet-foxe

[woso-dreamzzz]

Photo

Patri Guijarro x Hardersson!Reader

Natalia Guijarro (OC) x Hardersson!Reader

Part of The Big Adventures Universe

Summary: Patri teases your girlfriend

"And this is one of her eating a plushie. And this is one of-"

"Patri," Talia says," Seriously, stop. You're embarrassing me."

"Good," Patri says, nodding her head," As your sister-"

"We're literally cousins."

"-It's my job to embarrass you around your girlfriend." She winks. "And show her just how out of your league she is."

Talia rolls her eyes, arms crossed as she sags on Patri's sofa.

You laugh a little bit, reaching out to squeeze your girlfriend's knee.

"And this is Talia when we went ice skating when she was little. We took Pina with us and she wiped us both out."

Pina yells out her outrage from the kitchen but doesn't come out to defend herself. She's been slaving out the stove for the whole day trying out some new recipe for lunch.

It hasn't been going well and none of you are going to tell her you've already ordered lunch until it turns up.

It's safer that way.

The burnt smell was really taking over the room which is why Patri busted out the old photo albums to distract you.

"Oh! I like this one!" Talia leans over you to point and you smile. "It was when I was little. At one of Patri's matches."

"Frido's there," Patri says, pointing out your aunt to you.

"And I'm there." You point.

The room goes silent.

"What?" Talia sputters.

You frown. "That's me. Right there. See?"

The picture is old but it was captured on a good quality camera so it doesn't look like it's faded at all.

In the foreground is Patri and Talia. Talia's little in it, maybe around four or five.

Patri looks hot and sweaty, straight off of the pitch after a match. She's got Talia up on her hip, both of them doing a big thumbs up to the camera.

In the background is the rest of the team, most of them are blurry but a few of them are more in focus.

Pina stands a little to the left, head half turned as she talks to someone just out of view. To the right is your aunt Frido.

It looks like she's grinning but she's a bit too far away to know that for sure.

Next to her, is you.

You're little like Talia is, still just a kid but you'd seen enough photos of yourself at that age to be able to tell that it's you.

Frido's hand is on your head, ruffling your hair and you're wearing her Barcelona shirt.

It's funny to think that so many years later, she wears your Barcelona shirt instead.

"That's you?!" Talia asks," But...But...What?!"

"Yeah, that's me," You confirm, nodding," What's so shocking about it?"

"But that's you! And that's me!"

"Yes?"

"But...We were so close to each other! How come we never met?"

You laugh at Talia's astounded face. "I'm very shy," You tease," I was probably scared. And, you know, language barrier. We wouldn't have been able to communicate."

Talia pouts and Patri laughs.

"Maybe it's better this way," She says," Otherwise you'd have been pining after her since childhood. How many more sappy letters would you have written in that time?"

Talia's face turns red and you grin.

"Sappy letters?"

"Don't listen to h-"

"So many sappy letters!" Patri seems delighted to have more things to embarrass Talia with. "For a moment, I thought she would start writing poetry."

"Shut up! You're so annoying!"

But, of course, Patri didn't shut up. She rarely did when the alternative was embarrassing Talia so thoroughly.

"She didn't know your address so she never sent them but I'm sure she would have. She really poured out her heart."

"Oh, yeah? What did they say?"

Patri clears her throat. "Your eyes are-"

"That's enough!"

Talia launches herself over your body to tackle Patri to the ground, the two of them wrestling on the ground.

"Fuck!" You hear from the kitchen right as the fire alarm goes off.

The doorbell rings. The food is here.

You smile, snapping a photo of the picture, sending it off to your aunt as you pick your way through the carnage to get to the food.

[christhopersturniolo]

୨ LATE NIGHT ୧

summary: through the night, chris finds out y/n is a sleepwalker.

warnings: cussing, fluff

notes: english is not my first language, so i’m sorry for any mistake!

୨୧

CHRIS’S POV

After taking a late night hot shower, getting my pajama pants on, I walk back into my room. Seeing my girlfriend on the bed, almost asleep, what I wasn’t expecting, cause she wasn’t home when I went to shower, she probably just got out of her work.

“Hey cutie, I didn’t knew you were already here” I crawl into bed, laying next to her, making me be the big spoon. I wrap my arms around her waist, I snuggle closer, and I kiss her cheek.

“Hey..” She answers sleepy, with her eyes half opened. I nuzzle my face into the crook of her neck.

"Long day?" I ask, usually she is full of energy at anytime, even by the time she gets home.

"Yeah" she replies with a tired sigh, her voice filled with exhaustion.

Feeling her tiredness into the air, I can't help but want to make her feel better. I hate seeing her like this. I whisper softly, "Well, lucky you, I'm here to make everything better." I plant a ton of soft kisses on her jawline, small giggles lefts from her lips. Despite the long day she had, her laughter fills the room with warmth and joy, like It always does.

She turns around, facing me, looking into my eyes with love, leaning her head against my chest and putting her leg over mine, making us get even closer.

We completely fall asleep.

In the middle of the night, I randomly start waking up, only to find Y/n's side of the bed empty. I look at the clock on the bedside, exactly 2:30.

I rub my eyes confused and I look around, maybe she went to the kitchen? Or maybe to the bathroom?

I slowly sit on the edge of the bed and start getting up, going downstairs to the kitchen. As I get in the kitchen, I notice Y/n, standing there and looking inside the fridge.

“Hey babe.. Are you looking for food?” I say with a quiet voice, she doesn’t answer, she’s not even moving. I get closer to her “Y/n?” I take a look at her face, her eyes are fully closed, what the fuck?

My heart quickens with concern as I realize Y/n is sleepwalking. “Princess.. Lets go back to bed, alright?” With a sigh, I realize I'll need to be patient and gentle to guide her back to bed.

Wrapping my arms around her waist, I carefully lead her away from the fridge and towards the stairs.

“I need to take the train before it leaves..” She mumbles, making me laugh. “Yeah.. Yeah.. You can take the train once you get in bed..” I whisper. As we make our way back to our bedroom, Y/n's sleepwalking murmurs continue.

“Where is Chris?”

“I’m right here love.. Right here..” We finally get into our room, I close the door behind us.

“I wanna date Chris..” I gently lay her in bed, under the covers, and I lay next to her. She snuggles up to me, I hold her closely.

“Oh do you want to?” I giggle.

“Chris took me on a date.. Did he took you too?” I kiss her forehead. “Damn I wish he took me on a date” I play along with her sleepiness.

“And how was that date?” I say trying my best not to laugh.

"We went to.. Jupiter and.. We danced with unicorns.." She whispers. I automatically start laughing the most, but not enough to wake her up.

“Alright cupcake.. Let’s sleep..” I slowly start closing my eyes, surprisingly, she doesn’t say any other word.

By the morning, I wake up with her on top of me, giving me soft pecks on my lips, cupping my cheeks with her smooth hands. Automatically making me smile. I wrap one of my arms around her neck, pulling her closer and making us switch positions, getting me on top, never breaking the kiss. “Good morning..” I say now kissing her cheek.

“Good morning” She smiles.

"Do you remember what happened last night?" I chuckle, I know she doesn’t remember anything.

Y/n blinks a few times, her expression confused. "Last night?" she repeats to make sure.

"Last night" I confirm, nodding "You had a little sleepwalking adventure to the kitchen" I yawn.

Her eyes widen in surprise. "No I did not. Oh gosh, that's embarrassing" She affirms, hiding her face in her hands. Chucking slightly.

I can't help but laugh at her reaction. “And you said how you wanted to date me” I tease, only making her more embarrassed.

“I mean It’s not a lie tho” She takes her hands out of her face, smiling. “I do love dating you”

"I love dating you too" I reply, leaning in to press a light kiss to her lips. "Even if our dates involve dancing with unicorns on Jupiter."

“Oh my fucking good..” We laugh.

୨୧

im open for requests! 💭

[carolmunson]

18+ stoned!reader x stoned!eddie, some semi smut found this in my drafts from a couple days ago that i wrote when i was...also stoned. utter nonesense, most of it.

“Shh—hehe-shh, no, no, we have to be — hahaha — sh, sh, quiet,” he whisper yells, stumbling over himself while he nearly knocks a lamp off of a side table in Steve Harrington’s living room. The rest of the gang filled the guest bedrooms, leaving you both on the pull out couch.

His sweaty hand clasps yours as you finally make it to the kitchen, squinting in the light against the white tiles.

“Ugh, put the dimmer on,” you whine into another peal of ‘quiet’ giggles.

“Okay, okay,” he nods, leaning against the wall while he twists the light switch knob, the lights going to a low yellow.

“That’s better — shit,” he huffs, grinning.

“What?” you grin back,

“M’stoned as shit, babe,” he laughs, rubbing his swollen red eyes.

“Me—haha, me too,” you laugh back. You both make your way to the abandoned s’mores ingredients on the counter, the reason for the adventure to the kitchen.

“I don’t really get marshmallows,” he says, popping one into his mouth, “Li’ I get them, buh I don’ really get them.”

“True, true,” you nod, breaking a graham cracker in half, staring at the crumbs on the marble, “They’re like — oh my god — holy shit, they’re a fake food.”

“Babe, fuck — you’re so right,” he nods, “Like what’re they even made of?”

“Like…plastic, babe. I think they’re plastic,” you nod back, eyes as wide as they can go — and it’s not wide at all, “Like from space. They’re space plastic.”

“They’re totally space plastic,” he agrees, putting another one in his mouth, “Tasthy, shug-ry, spacthe, plasdic.”

“M’so thirsty,” you complain, turning the sink on with little grace, leaning forward to drink from the faucet.

“Aw, shit, me too — move,” Eddie grumbles, holding his hair back and hip bumping you out of the way.

“Hey!” you whine, hip bumping him back, knocking your forehead against his to get back to the water.

“You hey!” he laughs back, face half reproachful and half mischievous, “I’ll count to five and then hahaha, then it’s my turn.”

You drink quick while he counts down, taking turns in intervals of five until you both think you’ve been drinking water for hours.

“3, 4…”

“Okay enough, you’re waterboarding me,” you gasp after a gulp, turning the sink off.

“You don’t even know what that means.”

“No Ed, you don’t even know what that means.”

“No you,” he tuts, leaning in for a kiss.

“No you,” you tut back, letting him kiss you softly. Unsurprisingly, you both let out simultaneous groans, knowing you’re both on shaky ground if you keep at it. It takes little effort for him to convince you to sit up on the island counter so his hips can line up against yours, ringed and tattooed hands gripping your thighs without thought or care behind it, just need. Just bare need from the roots. He pushes forward, the hard on tenting his boxers pressing up flat against you. Two more breathy groans coming from between your kisses while he rocks against your panties.

“I don’t have a condom with me,” he whispers against your lips.

“Sss…hmmm, it’s okay,” you mumble out, swollen eyes now shut while your body tingles through with pleasure, “S’feelin’reallygood babe.”

“You all extra sensitive?” he asks, the giggles gone, just eyes that want you — brain focused now on chasing the pleasure in his groin.

“Yeah,” you whimper, his chest pressing up against yours when he brings his mouth to your neck. To your spot. The whine you let out is a little too loud and you both know it — enough that he covers your mouth while he keeps going, hips still grinding in a steady rhythm against you. He tugs you down back to the floor by your hips, turning you around without a second thought, oversized t-shirt rucked up to your waist.

“You want me?” he asks, pulling your panties to the side. You nod hurriedly.

“Please,” you whisper, hips wiggling — which makes him laugh, which makes you laugh, and then you look at the marshmallows on the counter and it’s space plastic all over again. Giggles and kisses while he gets ready to ease into you and put you both to bed exhausted.

“I hope the aliens don’t come,” you murmur between sloppy pecks, “For the space plastic.”

The light in the kitchen gets bright, bright, bright, “We’re getting abducted babe.”

“What’re you talking about?” Steve’s annoyed voice echos from the other end of the room, “You guys are being so loud.”

You and Eddie separate like embarrassed high schoolers who got caught kissing behind the bleachers. Like dad walked in on something he shouldn’t have.

“Sorry, Harrington,” Eddie smirks, “We were just—”

“Getting water!” you interrupt.

“Yeah I see that,” Steve huffs, crossing his arms, “It’s all over the floor.”

He’s not wrong, it is, the two of you looking at the tile like kids who are definitely in trouble.

“We’ll clean it up Steve, sorry,” Eddie assures, much more apologetic now.

“Just — go to bed guys,” he sighs, “Or I’m making you sleep in separate rooms next time.”

When he leaves you both toss each other a look, mocking Steve’s exasperated face with another silent outbreak of breathy giggles. After wiping up the water, you put away the snacks together and click the light off, settling back down in the pull out couch under the covers. The high now holding you down in a cozy grip, making your eyes lull and your breaths slow.

“M’sleepy,” you whisper under the crisp sheets.

“Me too,” he nods, intertwining his limbs with yours like he does every night. Curly hair creeping onto your face while he settles his head in the crook of your neck, “But babe?”

“Yeah?” you ask into the quiet of the room, eyes closed, sleep pulling you further and further away.

“M’gonna rail you when we get home tomorrow,” he mutters, half asleep.

“M’kay,” you nod, “Thass—that sounds good. I like that. I’ll get us a ticket.”

“Hm?”

“For the rail…for the railroad.”

“I’ve been workin’ on the rail road,” he sings quietly.

“All the live long day…” you both harmonize, more giggles, sleepy giggles.

“I’ve been workin’ on the rail road, just to pass the time away…”

“Guys,” Steve’s sharp whisper calls from the stairs, “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight Steve,” you mumble in unison, singing the song in quiet whispers — falling asleep before you even make it to the end.

[tootiecakes234]

Katsuki’s birthday

“Katsuki Bakugo, if your ass isn’t ready in the next 15 minutes, you’re gonna be sleeping at Eijirou’s house the rest of the week cuz you WONT be allowed in this house!” You tell him with pointed look.

“I told you, you shitty woman, that I don’t want to go to some stupid birthday brunch. I want to stay home and I want YOU to cook for me while I do nothing. It’s my fucking birthday.” He shouts back.

“But that’s what we did last year! And the year before that!” You try reasoning with him.

“Yeah it’s called tradition” he says even as he stands up and starts walking over to his closet.

“Well, love muffin, traditions were meant to be broken.” You go up to him and place a kiss on his cheek.

“What the hell ever. I’m not paying for a damn thing and I’m ordering the most expensive thing they have on this stupid menu. Don’t forget your purse.” He grumbles.

You’re dressed in a nice spring dress that’s a flower pattern and all flowy. You look so adorable and then you see Katsuki and hot damn! You forget how good this man looks when he’s not in a black t shirt and joggers. Not that he doesn’t look hot as hell in that but he looks edible right now all dressed up.

“Damn big man, you got a lady. If you do, I bet I’d do stuff with you that she wouldn’t dare.” Your voice oozes cheekiness.

“My girlfriend would put your loser ass to shame! Just last night she did this thing in bed-“

You clamp your hand over his mouth. “Ok ok I get it.” You can feel his smirk against your palm. “You always take stuff to far.”

“I always finish the shit you start.” He moves your hand and wraps his arms around your waist. “I like this dress by the way. The only thing getting me through this brunch is gonna be knowing I get to take it off later.”

He bends down and presses his lips to you.

You have to pull yourself away and grab his hand to pull him behind you. “Let’s go before we are late”

“You don’t think those shitty ass friends of yours are gonna be late too? I’ve never seen them be on time for a goddamn thing”

When you guys get to the car, you walk to the passenger side and open the door for him.

“My king” and you do a little bow.

“You’re so fucking insufferable”

The smile on your face doesn’t disappear as you climb into the drivers seat.

“Where is this place anyway?” He questions as your pull off.

“On the outskirts of town. It’s a place Eiji found a while ago. He said it’s 10/10”

“Oh fuck, are we really listening to recommendations from that red head idiot?? He would eat toast smeared with dirt if you covered it in protein powder.”

“ ‘Suki he’s not that bad.”

“Tch”

Eventually you pull up the place and you can see Katsuki looking at you like you’ve lost your mind.

“Did you dumb ass get lost? This is not a restaurant.”

“Surprise!!! It’s an adventure park! They have paintball, laser tag and zip lines and stuff. They also serve food but it’s like snack type things but I though that’d hold us over til we get home so I can cook.”

You are wearing the biggest grin and your excitement it’s practically bouncing off of you.

“Oh and I brought clothes for you to change in to. I didn’t wanna ruin the surprise by telling you to dress casual….. do you like it??” You ask him.

“You’re proud of yourself aren’t you?”

“Very”

“I…. Fucking love it. Are those tools still coming cuz I’ve got ass to kick.”

You bound over the seat and hug him. “Yep they are probably already inside. I told Mina to get here early to check us in.”

He slides his hand over your face and gives you a small smile before you places a kiss on your forehead.

“You did real good baby. Thank you”

“You’re welcome hot stuff. Not let’s get in there and give those guys a taste of Pro Hero Dynamight!”

“Hell yeah!”

This asshole won every game you guys played except for laser tag and thats only cuz you guys cheated! But he deserved it, he was getting too cocky for his own good.

BUT by the end of the night, he had you feeling like the real winner🤭

Katsuki Bakugo Masterlist

Tags: @dreamcastgirl99 @xxvendettaxx @sukunas-bratt @moonpieshawdy @theloveofnagiseishiroslife @mintsbubbletea @darkstarlight82 @anon-mouse223 @b134ch-m4h-ey3z @i-literally-cant-with-this @flowerbedbaby @kit-katsukii @blaize-hewwo @sweetblueworm @tippy-toes @superlegend216 @kxtsxkii @liliththeunqualifiedsimp @burgvndy @fluffismystaplefood @yoyolovesdaiki @zaiban2989

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 11: The Innocent Can Never Last]

A/N: Below are your guesses…let’s see how you did!!! 🥰😘 Only 2 chapters left 🥳

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon™️, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Wake Me Up When September Ends” by Green Day.

Word count: 5.3k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

“You could have gone to California with them,” Rio says as he flips open the fuel cap of a black Nissan Frontier, parked in the driveway of a two-story brick house on National Avenue, not far from where Route 95 branches north of Winnemucca like an artery from a heart.

You squint up at the cumulus clouds to avoid meeting his eyes. You keep thinking you’re going to cry and have to suffocate it, drown it, slit its throat. “I didn’t want to.”

“Sure you didn’t.” Sweat runs in rivulets down his face as he slides in the semitransparent siphoning hose, the one with the little pump on it that Jace had when you found him in Iowa. Aemond gave this to Cregan; he kept the hose without the pump for himself. A small, curious sacrifice. You are fanning Rio with a magazine, Bow International. You had grabbed it thinking of Daeron, then remembered he wasn’t here to give it to. “Jesus Christ, it’s so fucking hot…”

“Djibouti was hotter.”

“Djibouti had a beach. And an air conditioning unit in every window.”

Cregan is waiting by the Tahoe and leafing through a guidebook he found at the Maverik gas station. Ice is lying on the ground and panting beside him, her shaggy grey coat filthy with dust and sand. “The town was named for Chief Winnemucca, who was born in the 1820s in what would later become the Oregon Territory. It either means ‘the giver of spiritual gifts’ or ‘one moccasin,’ depending on the interpretation.”

Rio says: “Damn Cregan, you can read?”

Cregan frowns down at the guidebook with feigned regret. “I really wish Trump had built that wall.”

Rio guffaws. “Cregan, man, I told you. I was born here!”

He continues: “Winnemucca was a stop on the transcontinental railroad.”

“Great. Let’s get that up and running again.” Rio groans as he squeezes the pump on the siphoning hose with increasing frustration. “Absolutely nothing. Not a drop.”

“We probably have enough to get to Denio Junction,” you say gingerly, knowing he’s suffering. It has to be over 100 degrees.

“Yeah, and what if there’s no gas there? How the hell are we going to get to Adel, Oregon?”

“We could walk if we have to.”

“85 miles? In heat like this?”

“In basic training we had to run—”

“We had water in basic training, Chips!” he snaps; and Rio never snaps. “And real food, and corpsmen for if we passed out, and also there were no fucking zombies running around eating people, remember that part?!”

You stare down at the dirt. You can’t cry; you can’t waste the liquid.

“Wait, no, no, no, I’m sorry.” Rio lifts your chin so you aren’t able to hide from him. “I’m…you know…I should already be there. I could be in Odessa in six hours, I could be with Sophie and the baby before sundown, and instead we’re stuck here in the desert and I’m thinking…what if what should take hours ends up taking weeks? What if when I get there, I’m too late?”

You nod, you understand. Out on the road, Cregan keeps his face buried in his guidebook, trying to be polite and pretend he can’t hear you.

“And, I’m also thinking…” Rio says, soft and low. “That I don’t want to be the reason why you miss out on a chance at happiness when the world could literally be ending.”

You gaze up at him, dejected, pathetic. “I can’t handle any virgin jokes right now.”

“I know. I wasn’t going to make one.”

“I didn’t want to go with them to California,” you lie. And then a truth: “And I would never leave you. I promised.”

Rio smiles. “You promised not to let me die alone, and I don’t plan on dying. You’ve gotten me most of the way already.” He glances towards the Tahoe. “I think Axe Boy would have rather stayed with them too. When he was asleep last night I heard him mumbling something about Helaena.”

Cregan? Helaena? Interesting. “Aemond doesn’t want me.”

“Oh, come on. You know he and his one eye are sobbing into a can of SpaghettiOs right now.”

“Be nice,” you murmur morosely.

“Why? He can’t hear me,” Rio says. “Look, Aemond’s fucked up. And of course he is. He went from learning how to save lives and deliver babies to watching his friends die horrible, preventable, completely meaningless deaths. That’s gotta suck. It sucked for me, and I barely even knew them, and no one expected me to be able to do anything about it. Aemond’s the one people trusted to protect them, and he couldn’t. So why would he be able to protect you?”

I never wanted Aemond to protect me. I just wanted him to take me away from here, even for a minute, even for seconds, one hushed stolen moment at a time. “I wish I had said something different back in Battle Mountain.” I wish I had told him I love him. But I didn’t, and now it’s too late.

“You deserve to have the whole wholesome normal family thing, the husband and the kids and the warm fuzzy holiday traditions. I know you’ve always wanted that.”

“If I choose the wrong person, I’m going to end up alone and miserable. And I’ll turn into a monster like my mother.”

“Hey,” Rio says, like he’s ready to fight you. And then he uses your real name, something he’s done maybe five times since you met him, just like you almost never call him Bryan. “You will never be like your mother. Okay? It’s not possible. You don’t have it in you. You’re not a parasite, you’re not mean.”

You want to believe him. “Okay.”

Then Rio chuckles. “Actually, you’re going to end up like my mom. Living in the middle of the woods, making your own soap out of goat milk, growing weed and knitting sweaters.”

You smile wistfully. “I have no idea how to knit. I want to build things.” Then you remember something from when you were fishing on Lake McConaughy in Nebraska. “Aegon said I look like someone who knits. Whatever that means.”

“It means you’re from Kentucky.” Then Rio asks, tentative: “So…what do you think about Aegon?”

This seems random. “He’s cool. I like him, obviously. He’s, um…I don’t know how to describe it. He’s so sad but so warm. It’s impossible to feel nervous around him, which is nice.”

Rio nods, giving you a teasing smirk. “Alright then.”

“Why?”

“Well I was just thinking that if he grows up a little more, he might be good for you.”

“Rio, he’s thirty.”

He bursts out laughing. “So give it another decade and he’ll finally be baby daddy material.”

“I’m sure he’ll be preoccupied with his drug dealing and brothel empire by then.”

“You aren’t even the tiniest bit intrigued?”

“I’ve never really thought about him that way.” And there’s another dimension to it that wouldn’t occur to Rio: Aegon is an addict. You know what it’s like to have to depend on somebody like that. You would never allow yourself to fall in love with him, not the way he is now.

Rio sighs and pivots. “You want me to give you a baby?”

Now you’re giggling. Of course, he’s not serious, just like he wasn’t serious when you were trapped on that transmission tower together back in Pennsylvania. “Stop.”

“I’m super tall and charming, and I was a great electrician back when electricity existed, and I have luscious curly hair that you can readily observe since the U.S. Navy isn’t around to make me shave it off anymore.”

“Sorry, I don’t reproduce with Enrique Iglesias fans.”

“You are so racist, and yet I’d still be willing to help you out with a sperm donation. I’d blindfold myself and struggle through it somehow.” He’s grinning, but his dark eyes are kind. “As long as I’m alive, you will always have a family. And Sophie gets that. Her parents were fuckups too. That’s why she’s so close with mine even though they’re insane.”

“They’re exactly the right kind of insane for the way the world is now.”

“Remember when my dad went through his ‘wifi gives you cancer’ phase and would only communicate with me via Republican-president-themed postcards?”

“The Ronald Reagan one was neat. So many eagles.”

“Truly an excessive amount of eagles.” Rio goes for the porch. “I guess we’ll scrounge whatever we can inside and check the rest of the cars on the street before we head north.”

“I ain’t seen any others without the fuel cap already open,” Cregan says from the Tahoe, dispirited but trying not to show it.

“If we end up having to walk, we’re going to need water or Hawaiian Punch or something. A lot of it. Maybe we can find some of that Pedialyte stuff Aemond got for Jace when he was sick.” Rio pounds one closed fist against the front door. “Hey! Anybody home? We’re looking for supplies. Not trying to cause any problems. If somebody’s in there, just give a shout and we’d be happy to keep moving.”

You’ve followed Rio up onto the porch. “If there’s no water inside, canned fruit will work. You can drink the syrup for hydration, and all the sugar gives you calories.”

Back by the Tahoe, Cregan is leaning down to pet Ice. She’s still panting hard, foamy saliva dripping from her muzzle. “Y’all, we gotta get moving,” Cregan says. “Princess needs to be back in the truck with the AC, and I don’t want to waste gas by letting it idle.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re working on it.” Rio kicks the door once, hard enough that you hear the wood split near the hinges, dry and cracking. He backs up to prepare to give the door another blow, which is all it will take. Then there is a muffled voice from inside the house.

“Get the hell off my property!”

Immediately, you are stunned by the boom of an explosion, shards of wood flying like shrapnel, the steel barrel of a shotgun jutting from the fresh hole in the center of the door. Rio is scrambling off the porch and dragging you with him. With your free hand, you grab your M9 from its holster and begin shooting before the man inside can fire again, before he can kill Rio or Cregan or you. Your bullets pierce through the blackness of the gaping wound in the front door. You hear shrieks of agony; you see flecks of blood painting the wood. Now there are people shooting from the second-story windows, and you feel the wind of bullets clip by as Rio pulls you towards the Tahoe. The engine starts; Cregan is already in the driver’s seat. You return fire until your M9 makes only small, hollow clicks when you pull the trigger. And by then Rio is shoving you into the truck.

“Go, go, go!” Rio yells at Cregan the second he crawls in behind you and slams the door shut. Cregan swerves away from the curb and barrels down the street, tires squealing, gunshots still ringing out from the house. Ice is barking franticly.

“Rio, I’m out,” you say, terrified.

“What?”

“Bullets. I’m out of bullets.”

“We gotta go,” Rio concedes. There are scratches on his cheeks from splinters of wood, sweat turning from clear to blood-tinged pink as it drips down onto his shirt. “We gotta get out of Winnemucca. If we have to walk, we’ll walk. At least there’s no one north of here to worry about for a hundred miles. Not living and not dead either.”

From the backseat, you glance over at Cregan. “Oh my God, Cregan, you’re hurt.”

“I know.” His right forearm is covered in blood. It’s a graze wound, but deep; when he turns the steering wheel, you can glimpse the white of bone as his shredded muscles open like a mouth.

“You need stitches!”

“Oh yeah?” Cregan replies as the Tahoe bumps over corpses in the street, bodies mummified by the wind and the sun. “And which of you two would be better at that, you think?”

“We’ll get supplies to patch you up,” Rio says, peering out the window, searching for someplace to stop. “And enough food and water to last us through the desert. Right there, hop on Route 95, and we’ll find a store at the edge of town before we’re in No Man’s Land.” Cregan jerks the wheel; the Tahoe veers onto Route 95 heading north. Boarded-up houses and graffitied overpasses and gnarled bristlecone pine trees and lifeless traffic lights and looted storefronts pass by in a blur.

You turn to Rio. “What if those people try to follow us?”

“It’ll only take five minutes.”

“Rio…”

“We don’t have enough to drink. If we get stranded in the desert, we’ll die. I’m not dying out there. I didn’t cross 3,000 miles to drop dead just a few hundred away from Sophie.”

He’s right. There’s no other option. North of Winnemucca is a wasteland, a boneyard. “Okay,” you surrender, helping him look for stores. “But we have to be quick.”

“I can be real quick, baby. You’d know that if you took me up on my very selfless sperm donation offer.”

Cregan raises his eyebrows; you can see his reflection in the rearview mirror. “Y’all have a mighty strange relationship.”

Rio is pointing. “Right there, Riverside Grocery & Liquor. Let’s give that a try. Cregan? You see it? By the Taco Bell.”

“Of course you’d be attracted to Taco Bells,” Cregan says as the Tahoe zigzags across the parking lot, but his voice is woozy. Blood pours from the gash in his arm. What if the bullet severed a major artery? What if he’s bleeding to death?

You ask: “Cregan, do you feel okay?”

“I’m alright. Don’t you worry about me, Miss Chips. You got enough worries already.”

“You don’t look alright.”

His eyes meet yours in the rearview mirror; they are fearful. “I think I need to get pressure on it.”

“We’ll take care of you, buddy,” Rio says. And as soon as Cregan shifts the Tahoe into park, Rio is out the door and striding into the small grocery store, his Remington 12 gauge in his hands. It’s unloaded, but still good for blunt force trauma. The glass of one of the front doors has been shattered. Rio steps inside, his boots crunching on broken glass. You are right behind him; Cregan lifts Ice with his uninjured arm so she can get inside without cutting her paws.

Harsh desert sunlight streams in bright enough that you can see reasonably well, dusk or dawn instead of midday. The air tastes like dirt and decay. The shelves of alcohol have been picked clean, but cans and bottles and cardboard boxes have been left strewn haphazardly around the rest of the store. There are several circular racks of souvenir t-shirts: horses, mountains, pine trees, I was a buckaroo on the Cowboy Corridor, #DesertLife, Straight Outta Winnemucca. You yank a white shirt with a rattlesnake on it off its hanger and tie it tightly around Cregan’s bleeding forearm, closing the ragged ends of his wound.

Ice is whining and nudging at Cregan. “There’s one in here,” he warns.

“Yeah, I got it,” Rio says. She staggers out of the stockroom hissing and growling, the flesh on her face almost completely gone, her exposed skull stained with clotted blood, her teeth chattering. Long strands of blonde hair hang in patches from the back of her head. She is wearing a red vest with a nametag on it. Once upon a time, her parents called her Jasmine. Rio strikes the zombie with his Remington so hard it is decapitated, and the corpse crumples to the filthy tile floor as its head rolls over towards the cash register. Then he slings the shotgun over one of his shoulders and begins shopping.

Cregan is tall enough to see the tops of shelves where items have been missed; he pulls down bottles of Snapple, Gatorade, Yoohoo, Jarritos soda and stuffs them into his backpack. You are on your hands and knees sorting through the debris on the floor, everything coated with a layer of dust and sand. You find cans of mandarin oranges, boxes of graham crackers, tuna pouches, and packets of Tylenol. Cregan will need them. He needs more than that, but you can’t give it to him. You’ve never been to medical school. You grab more souvenir shirts to use as bandages later.

Maybe there are doctors in Odessa.

Rio says excitedly from the other side of the store: “Chips, they got Cheddar Whales!”

Maybe there’s a life worth living in Odessa.

“Just hurry up so we can go.”

“Yeah, yeah…” He’s filling his arms with boxes and bottles, making a lot of noise. Ice is pacing and whimpering, panting like she can hardly breathe, drooling gluey strings of saliva. The grocery store is an oven. Cregan pops open a can of Arizona iced tea and pours it into her mouth to be gulped greedily down. Still, Ice’s yellow wolfish eyes dart around the room, vigilant, rattled.

“I think there’s another zombie,” you say, watching her. You reach for your M9 before remembering it’s unloaded.

Cregan replies: “Sure she ain’t just overheated?”

Somewhere close, less than a mile away: gunshots out on the streets of Winnemucca.

“Ready, kids?” Rio says, his arms overflowing, half a Slim Jim hanging out of his mouth like a cigarette.

“Yes sir,” Cregan agrees. The t-shirt you knotted around his forearm is splotched with crimson, but the bleeding appears to have slowed. Fragments of glass shatter as he crosses through the doorway and out into the parking lot, carrying Ice as she struggles and barks.

Rio pauses as he passes one of the other t-shirt racks, circles of metal that gleam like halos. He’s rearranging his supplies so he has a free hand to grab a shirt he likes. There are more distant gunshots outside, and the squealing of tires. In the parking lot, Cregan is starting the Tahoe.

You say distractedly, noticing an empty Twizzlers wrapper on the floor and thinking of Jace: “Rio, let’s go.”

“Hold up, this one has an elephant on it—”

The hand juts out from below the rack and seizes his ankle, claws up his legs, rips and tears at him, grey flayed flesh and screeches from rotting vocal chords, something that used to be a man or a woman and is now only a monster, half a body, nothing from the waist down but shred of black necrotic muscle, skin, intestines, too close for Rio to push away, already clinging to him like graffiti on concrete, like a pair of stainless steel dog tags hanging from his neck. Without thinking, without hesitating, you are across the store and trying to get it off him, screaming as your fingers rake through disintegrating gore, so deep you can feel the zombie’s ribs like rungs of a ladder, trying to get a grip on it, trying to kill it. Now Cregan is back with his axe and he’s hacking at the skull as best he can without hitting Rio, and Ice is barking, and Cregan is yelling for you to get away before you’re bitten, but you don’t listen, you don’t care; all your life you were homesick until you found homes with Rio thousands of miles from where you were born, and if he’s gone then so is the only place you’ve ever belonged. There is a surge of blood, hot and metallic, rot and iron in the air, and you don’t know whose it is.

He can’t be gone. If he’s gone, who am I?

An arm hooks around your waist and drags you backwards, so roughly you lose your breath for a moment and cannot fight them; over your right shoulder, you see a hand holding a Glock. Aemond pulls the trigger and the zombie falls to the floor, a mangle of decomposition and exposed bones, because wherever the others ended up they found bullets and gasoline…and then they came back for you.

Aegon is stumbling over the rubble that litters the floor to get to Rio. You can hear Daeron and Rhaena’s voices out in the parking lot, and the blasts of Rhaena’s Ruger, the revolver she once didn’t know how to use. Cregan is trying to help Rio up, but he can’t stand. He is slumped against bare shelves and holding a hand to his throat, where he’s hemorrhaging from a gaping, ragged wound, torn arteries and lacerated veins. He’s been bitten, but his transformation won’t take long. He’s bleeding out. His dark eyes are on you, and beneath the glassy sheen of catastrophic blood loss is disbelief and fury and grief. He will never see Sophie again; he will never meet his child.

Your voice is a whisper, a phantom. “Bryan…”

“It only takes once, right?” he says, weak and guttural, already fading, blood on his lips. Then his eyes drift to Aemond. “Get her out of here.”

“No!” you shriek as Aemond pulls you towards the door, his arms locked around your waist, his lips to your ear as he begs you to come with him, that you have to leave, that it’s not safe here, that Rio doesn’t want you to see what has to happen next. Aegon is sobbing as he touches Rio’s face. Cregan bows his head; but he’s already looking at the Marlin .22 that hangs by its leather strap from Aegon’s shoulder. “No, I promised, I promised! I promised I wouldn’t let him die alone!”

“He’s not alone,” Aemond tells you, and he doesn’t let go when you struggle, when you scream. Burning sunlight floods over you, and you are in the parking lot. Rhaena and Daeron are shooting down zombies as they lurch towards the grocery store, drawn by the commotion, the symphony of the dead and dying. Luke is using a siphoning hose to fill the Tahoe’s tank with the remaining fuel in the Ford Expedition. Helaena is moving their supplies into the Tahoe, weeping softly to herself, her long ghost-pale hair flowing in the desert wind.

The racks, you think, you remember. You can see Helaena shining the flashlight into your eyes like you’re back on a living room floor in Iowa. I forgot to remind Rio to check under the racks. And now he’s gone.

You’re screaming that it’s your fault as Aemond forces you into the Tahoe, and you don’t care what anyone says to you: Luke trying to tell you that’s not true, Rhaena swearing that you’re safe now. There is a gunshot from inside the grocery store. Your heart and lungs have turned to iron like the anchor of a ship, cold and still and heavy, unmovable, unbearable. You cannot breathe through your sobs; you cannot see, cannot speak. You curl up on a seat and wish you were dead. All your life you have been compelled by a blind belief that there are better places even if you cannot imagine them, that sometimes when it feels like the world is ending the only way out is through. For the very first time, you want to give up. You want to let all the poisons of this earth seep into your bloodstream until they stop your pulse and everything goes quiet, quiet, quiet.

Aemond is pouring bottles of water over you so he can wash away the blood and sand and gore. He is searching your skin for bitemarks. People are climbing into the Tahoe and a key turns in the ignition. The wheels are spinning; shadows fall over your face through the windows as you sail beneath overpasses. You hear voices but not words. You feel Aemond’s hands on you and do not flinch away.

Someone is putting pills in your mouth and telling you to swallow. “What is it?” you ask.

“Tramadol,” Aegon says. “It will take you somewhere else.”

And it does, this poison he doesn’t know you are starving for; it erases the future and the past until you don’t exist, you never have, and this is a relief.

~~~~~~~~~~

Glimpses through fogged vision, disjointed flashes like dreams: Aemond cleaning and suturing Cregan’s arm, Helaena’s fingers threading through Ice’s shaggy grey fur, smoke from smoldering Marlboro Golds billowing from Aegon’s lips and out through an open window, coyotes watching the Tahoe pass from the shoulder of the highway, mountains and barbed wire, clouds and useless power lines, land that turns from flat and vast and vacant to steep hills thick with pine trees, so many they block out the sun.

You are dimly aware that the Tahoe is stopping frequently, long lulls to hunt for gasoline in small towns, one gallon here, three gallons there, discussions over which routes to take as Aegon scrutinizes his map. Aemond is always with you, coaxing you to take sips of Gatorade and nibbles of Ritz crackers, feeding you spoonfuls of chicken noodle soup straight from the can, and each night when you fall into numb unconsciousness in a dead stranger’s bed he sleeps on the floor in case you need him, and eventually you do. You jolt awake from a nightmare, not death but cursed immortality, a bite he missed somehow that turned you into a monster, into a murderer, your raw skin and muscles sloughing off your bones.

“You’re fine, you’re fine, look at your hands,” Aemond says, taking your wrists and holding them gently. “No bites. You’re going to be okay, I promise. Hey, hey…” He cradles your face, he pleads for you to believe him. “I swear to God, you’re going to be okay.”

“It should have been me,” you whisper in the red glow of the candlelight. “I don’t have a family that would miss me if I was gone.”

“Yes you do,” Aemond says fiercely; and it takes your drugged, horrorstruck mind a moment to realize who he means.

The next day the Tahoe runs out of gas, and you know this because Aemond wakes you with a palm resting lightly on your forehead and an apology sighed through your hair. “What’s wrong?” you murmur.

“We have to get out and walk for a while. Can you do that?”

You force yourself to sit up, blinking at him. “Where are we?”

“Kingvale, California. In the Sierra Nevada Mountains.”

“We’re going to the beach house,” you realize.

“Yeah,” Aemond says, smiling a little. “Yeah, we are. We’re going home.”

On Donner Pass Road, following in the centuries-old footsteps of doomed westward migrants, someone always walks with you as you shuffle along in a daze. Aemond tells you about California, Rhaena reads aloud from Mockingjay, Ice licks your knuckles, Aegon talks endlessly about golf and yachting even when you can’t respond. His burned leg is still bandaged, but healing, and he’s found a Converse sneaker a few sizes too big to wear on his left foot; Aemond treats and wraps his wounds each morning and night, and Rhaena observes and takes notes so she can learn how to do it.

One afternoon just north of Beale Air Force Base, Daeron sneaks a Marlboro Gold out of Aegon’s backpack when no one is watching and lights it as he lingers in the back of the group. Aegon smells the smoke immediately and whirls, runs to him, snatches the cigarette from between Daeron’s lips and stomps it into the pavement.

“You’re not going to be like me!” Aegon shouts at him in the middle of the road. “Goddammit, you’re going to be safe, and you’re going to be happy, and you’re going to know that people care about you because I’ll break your fucking arm if I ever see you smoking again. You don’t get to poison yourself. You’re going to live to be a hundred years old. Got it?”

“Got it,” Daeron echoes, startled, petrified; and then Aegon hugs him, hanging on for a very long time.

~~~~~~~~~~

It is midnight in Meridian, a miniscule town founded in the 1850s on the banks of the Sacramento River, a relic from a time when travel meant ferries and railroads and wagon trains. Here, well outside the state capital, there are no sounds except the breeze through the trees—blue oaks, sycamores, willows, white alders—and the hoots of owls. The house is old, built in the 1950s or 60s, creaking steps and a screened-in front porch where Cregan and Daeron are playing Uno while keeping watch. The moon is new and invisible. The stars are bright.

Aemond appears in the doorway of your room. You are on the edge of the bed and staring at the wallpaper, flickering candlelight and scenes of galloping horses. Aemond is not letting you have any more Tramadol. He’s also not letting anyone load your Beretta, although you saw a box of 9mm bullets in Helaena’s burlap messenger bag. Maybe he’s worried you’ll try to shoot yourself. Maybe he’s not too far off.

He closes the door, crosses the room, and sits down on the bed beside you. In the firelit quiet, Aemond says: “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to help you.”

“I can’t stay here. Take me somewhere else.”

At first, he doesn’t understand what you mean. Then you reach for him—for a life raft, for something to tether you to the earth—and the lines of your palm press against his scar, flesh he stitched back together himself, proof he can heal people, a reminder of how temporary any of you could be. Aemond lays his hand over yours and closes his eye, holding you there against his face, feeling your warmth and your forgiveness, your need to be close to him in a way that is suddenly so uncomplicated. There is no fear left in you. Perhaps there’s nothing left at all.

Aemond kisses you, and there are blooms of golden light through your darkness like what you call lightning bugs and he says are fireflies. You are entangled on the bed together, and all the sounds still ricocheting in your memory—screams, gunshots, bloodlust, hunger, anarchy—fade until they cease to exist. He is touching you, and you can feel lost pieces of yourself returning to you like rain soaking through parched earth, faith and resolve and desire. And now, and now…

Now Aemond is taking you far, far, far away, to bottomless blue water you can drown in, to where Diego Garcia lies marooned in the middle of the Indian Ocean, to the sun-glinting waves off the coasts of Chinhae, Corpus Christi, Key West, the Horn of Africa. He is between your thighs, and you want him through the pain, a razor-sharp fullness that seems so immaterial and so fleeting; and you lie to him over and over again because if he knows he’s hurting you he’ll stop, and in this world one cannot assume there will be second chances. Aemond stills once he’s inside you, giving you time to adjust but also overwhelmed by the intensity of it, his hands in your hair and trembling all over, kissing your face as the pain bleeds away and leaves a shade of craving you’ve never felt before, something deep and indistinct, something intangible like a spell or a myth. You move first, rolling your hips with a slow, cautious rhythm, and only then does Aemond follow you. It’s in his voice, in the reverence of his hands, in his iris like a clear secretless sky; you have taken him far away too.

“I love you,” Aemond says afterwards as his head rests on your belly, your fingers tangled in his damp hair and your skull hushed like calm seas. “And I can’t pretend I don’t anymore.”

“Good. I wouldn’t want you to.”

And in the morning, there is something different about the world: a hopefulness that makes you want to wake up, a radiance like moonlight on the wave crests of the Indian Ocean.

[enden-agolor]

i fucking LOVE the way you draw/write jesse, as someone with a chubby/buff build i kind of struggle with insecurities about my size but the way you draw him makes me feel very good. idk im describing it badly but i wanted to ask if your design for him is more chubby or muscly?

Dude thank you 🥺🩵 You described it very well.

It really depends on which time frame I'm drawing Jesse in actually.

In the beginning, I imagine Jesse is quite scrawny. I mean did you see his work out routine in the beginning? He was was doing sit ups and punching flowers. He was definitely lacking muscle (but had enough to be able to lift Reuben up and down that ladder) and as the first couple episodes progress, he stays scrawny but progressively becomes more scarred up until the Portal Hallway episodes.

The Portal Hallway episodes, it takes place many months after the events of the Witherstorm. Jesse and his friends are going on many more adventures, really honing their skills that they acquired over the past few months. Jesse is much more built now. He's buff and tough with the true heart of a hero. Although, once he and his friends get stuck in the Portal Hall, that's when things take a really devastating turn for him. Feeling hopeless and lost for weeks on end, he begins to feel withdrawn from the positivity he was feeling before he ended up stuck here. Traumatic events keep occuring, and with these events, Jesse is of course drawn to remember and replay the events of Reuben's death in his head. He keeps the most of these feelings to himself because his group is already feeling so disheartened about their current situation that the last thing he'd want for them is to know that he's breaking emotionally, so he ends up taking less care of himself. He starts eating with the idea that he has to stay strong for his friends, but even those moments are rare. Food is scarce depending on what portal they are in, so when he finds food, he'll take anything that will keep his energy and strengths up.

By the end of it all, he's actually put on a significant amount of muscle. But it's kind of like a 'at what cost?' scenario.

Things get a bit better for him between then and Season 2 where he's eating better again and keeping all that muscle, but once Season 2 comes and goes, and with everything that happens in the Sunshine Institute and the Underneath, he loses a lot of weight.

It's only after Season 2, where he stays in BeaconTown and eventually finds a love life with Lukas when he really begins putting on weight once again. He's done with hero work. He's done with going on crazy life threatening adventures. Now he just wants to live life for himself rather than putting others first. Lukas helps him a lot through this, with body positivity and lots of love and affectionate touch, it's all the reassurance Jesse has ever needed to feel okay with being himself again. So he ends up putting on that happy weight that couples typically adopt over time when they're in a healthy relationship. Lukas treats him so, so unbelievably well. Finally Jesse gets to eat food for himself without the idea of needing to keep himself strong and powerful once he's finally retired. He indulges himself in his sweet tooth and loves to eat cookies, cakes, and other baked goods that Lukas will bake or bring home. He also really enjoys the fact that he doesn't have to eat alone anymore. He loves sitting at the table and enjoying a meal with his hubby. And the best part, which is something Jesse was horribly self conscious about, is that Lukas loves and adores his pudge. He is so supportive of Jesse's eating habits, but he doesn't hesitate to sneak veggies and fruits into Jesse's lunch box for work.

So yeah uh Jesse is chubby, buff and loved at the end of it all 😍

Here's some lil doodles of him I have lying around. The first one is pretty old and could probably use a touch up since now I don't see much of a difference, but you get the point ☠️

[stylesloveclub]

Prose (part 2)

In which not many students attend Harry's office hours, and y/n's kind of burnt out.

+++

“What’s that drink you’re always drinking?” Harry asks, sitting across from y/n in his office.

She’s the only student to show up to his office hours this week (again), and had come to ask about the first essay that’s due next week. While she types on her computer, writing down all the notes that Harry just gave her on her first draft, Harry finds himself staring at the iced drink sitting next to her laptop.

“Oh, it’s just an iced chai. I’ve been getting two pumps of pumpkin spice syrup in it recently though, since Starbucks has their fall flavors now.”

“Hm. I’ve never tried the fall drinks.” He twirls his red pen between his fingers, leaning back in his chair comfortably. “M’always too scared to try new drinks, y’know? Like what if I don’t like it? Then I’d have wasted five bucks and I wouldn’t even have a coffee to get me through my day.” He pouts to himself at the thought of it, and y/n finds it terribly endearing.

She’s happy to know that Harry is seemingly very comfortable in her presence, prattling on and on about the simplest of things – like coffee orders and his favorite food places on campus. When she first walked in, the first thing he’d asked her was her favorite place to grab lunch on campus, since he was starving and one of the other TA’s had offered to drop off some food for him. His personal favorite was the bagel place (he could have a cream cheese bagel at any time of the day, he told her), but that place closes early, so he was stuck between getting mexican or sushi.

Y/n advised him to stick with the burritos – her ex-roommate once got food poisoning from the sushi. Never trust the on-campus sushi, she warned.

“M’kinda like that too,” she responds once she finishes up her essay outline. “I usually just always get the chai, ‘cos I know I’ll like it. But sometimes I’ll be adventurous with like, the syrups I add, because it doesn’t really make a difference. Like right now, I have pumpkin spice syrup in here, and I can barely taste it so even if I didn’t like it, it’d be fine.” She takes a sip to somehow prove her point. “I just like adding the pumpkin for the fall vibes.”

“Is fall your favorite season?” he asks. It’s been a lot of this – Harry asking her questions, getting to know her. She wonders if it’s because she’s the only one who shows up to his office hours and, therefore, is the only person whose ear he gets to talk off – or if he genuinely is interested in her. The thought of it makes her heart want to do a backflip, but she kindly tells her heart to CALM THE FUCK DOWN before she starts getting carried away in her train of thought. Harry’s just a nice guy! A nice guy, who talks to her about books, and shares his umbrella, and gives her rides home when it’s rainy outside – and has pretty pink lips, and pretty green eyes, and pretty brown curls.

“Yeah, I think so,” she hums.

Her crush on him seems to grow more and more every time she sees him, like those tall annoying weeds that you constantly have to dig out of a pretty flower garden. The type of weeds that seem to grow back even stronger each time you cut their roots and spray anti-weed chemicals on them to ensure that they don’t come back. She’s tried to smush those bothersome butterflies in her stomach, continuously reminding herself that he’s just her TA. That he’s just being nice. That he just calls her smart, and tells her that she’s doing a good job, and praises her discussion posts because that is literally what a Teaching Assistant is supposed to do. But whenever he smiles at her with that boyish dimple and his eyes glimmer all sweetly and romantically and thoughtfully – well she just can’t help it! She’s given up and has let the crush invade her brain like the invasive garden plant that it is.

It’s just a harmless little crush, she rationalizes. Just a little fantasy of kissing him here and there to get her through her boring lectures with Dr. Richmond – nothing wrong with that, right?

She clears her throat, “What’s your favorite season?”

He stares up at the ceiling, pursing his lips thoughtfully, “Hmm… probably spring. I like seeing the flowers bloom, especially after a snowy winter.”

Oh, of course he likes seeing the flowers bloom. He’s a walking piece of poetry.

+++

Harry stands at the front of the classroom, lecturing once again. It’s the same as before – fourty-ish college students hanging onto every word like his words are a waterfall and they’re a group of dehydrated travelers.

He loves teaching, loves seeing the way his students’ eyes light up with wonder when he explains a certain theme or points out a new motif. He’s more than happy to hold their hand through the novel, be their guiding light through the Romantic era. Their questions make his day, and he’s beyond happy to see that, now that they’re a few weeks into their course, the students are opening up.

“Victor is so caught up in his experiment,” Harry lectures, “that he begins to ignore nature. Victor says– ‘The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit. It was the most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest, or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage: but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature.’ So what role does nature – or should I say – the lack of nature, play for Victor?”

Four hands shoot up into the air (relieving considering how last week he could barely get anyone to say anything). “Katie, right?” He smiles when she nods, and gives an exaggerated, celebratory fist pump that makes all of his students chuckle. “Told you I’d start getting your names down! Go ahead, Katie.”

Although he’s laughing and smiling – practically beaming since he and his students are getting along and actually discussing (instead of just him lecturing them) – he can’t help but feel a little pinch of sadness in the back of his mind. As his eyes scan over the seats, he can’t manage to find y/n in the class. He’d searched for her three times already – wondering if he accidentally missed her, or if she was hidden behind one of the tall boys near the front – but he couldn’t find his star student. He missed catching her eye, giving her sly winks and watching her duck her head down stifle a laugh. It kept him entertained whenever he had to sit through Dr. Richmond’s lectures, and he liked hearing her talk. Not only does she add amazing thoughts to their class discussions, but she also is just… nice to listen to.

“Good… I love how you said that Katie,” Harry carries on, “He embodies the corruption of nature in the quest for glory. And we already know how highly the Romantics regard the beauty of nature – their artwork is meant to connect us with the world, isn’t it?”

He wonders if she’s okay. She isn’t hurt or anything, is she? Did something happen to her on her walk to class?

“He’s disrupting the natural cycle of life, basically destroying nature, by trying to play God and create life himself–”

Y/n, as quietly as she can, sneaks into the classroom. She’s 15 minutes late, which isn’t late enough to just completely ditch the lecture, but still late enough to raise a few eyebrows. Of course, being the clumsy duck she is, she accidentally knocks the trash can over with a loud bang. She winces at how loud the sound is, and feels her cheeks turn hot when all eyes turn to look at her.

Harry turns as well, and can’t help but smile to himself – there she is.

He continues with his lecture, as if nothing happened, but watches as she hurries over to her set spot in the third row. She messily pushes her hair out of her face as she sits down, pulling the pull-out desk in front of her and grabbing her laptop from her bag. She types in her password quickly, and pushes the sleeves of her white cardigan up her arms so that they aren’t in the way. Her eyes briefly flicker upwards to the projector to see what she missed – but instead she accidentally catches Harry’s gaze, who’s already looking at her.

All of a sudden, Harry loses his train of thought. His eyes flicker between hers, and she stares back at him. They’re stuck like that for a moment – just the briefest moment – before he realizes that words are no longer coming out of his mouth and that the rest of the class is staring at him expectantly.

His cheeks tint pink. “Um… sorry, what was I saying?” He chuckles at himself embarrassedly, shaking his head at himself – it’s not often that he stutters over his words. But, luckily, it was brief enough to just pass as a slight fumble. Nothing too suspicious.

Harry tears his eyes away from y/n and resumes with his lecture. But somehow, as delusional as she might be, y/n can tell that that moment was something more than just a slight stumble.

+++

“I got this for you,” y/n says, standing in front of Harry’s desk, placing the iced drink down next to his pile of papers.

Harry furrows his eyebrows and sits up straighter. “What?”

“It’s a pumpkin iced chai… the same one I usually get. I thought, since last time you said you didn’t wanna waste five bucks trying a new drink–”

“Are you mental?” he interrupts.

She blinks. “Huh?”

“Why would you go on and waste five of your dollars instead?” he huffs. “Christ, y/n, don’t be silly, m’not letting you buy me a coffee. How much was it, let me pay you back–” he’s reaching into his back pocket for his wallet, but y/n is quick to refuse.

“No, don’t worry I didn’t pay for it! Starbucks has this thing– it’s like, if you buy one fall drink you can get a second one for free, but it’s only on Thursdays after 12. And I was gonna get one for myself anyway, so I was like– might as well just get the second one for free so that you can try it and not waste five dollars.”

He pauses, his wallet half open and a five dollar bill pinched between her fingers. He squints at her, “Are you lying?”

She gives an exasperated huff, “Why would I lie?!”

“I dunno, maybe you’re trying to butter me up with drinks and stuff so that I’ll grade your essays easier – which won’t work by the way! M’not easy to bribe!”

She rolls her eyes and plops into the seat across from him. “Please. If I was gonna try and butter you up, it would’ve started five weeks ago, when classes actually started. And I probably wouldn’t be in your office hours every week groveling over these stupid essays.” She lets her bag fall to the floor and blows the hair out of her face. “Y’know, Dr. Richmond does not explain the politics of 18th Century Europe well enough to expect me to write an entire essay on ‘the effects of globalization on romantic era literature.’ I signed up for a literature class, not European history. When are we gonna start writing essays on Frankenstein and feminism?”

Harry goes to respond, but right at that moment he takes a tentative sip of the drink that y/n had forced onto his desk. He cannot hide the grimace that graces his face.

Her eyes round out and her eyebrows pinch. “You don’t like it?” she says with a pout.

His lips smack together a few times, trying to get used to the taste of pumpkin in his mouth – but he actually really cannot stand it. “God,” he says, his nose wrinkles and his tongue aching for some water to wash away the pumpkin-y after taste. “What a waste of five dollars.”

“Oh my gosh– I did not spend five dollars on a drink for you!”

“Yeah, yeah,” he pushes the drink to the edge of his desk, the sight of it making his tummy turn a little bit (he really did not like that pumpkin flavor mixed with milk). He then states the obvious, “You were late today.”

“Yeah. I overslept.”

He tsks, “What happened to the punctual Miss y/n who showed up twenty minutes early on the first day of classes?”

She sighs, “Dunno. Was up kinda late last night. And then I guess I snoozed through my alarm.”

It’s only then that he notices the dark circles under her eyes, and how her face is missing that usual radiant glow. He’s so caught up in her smile and her eyes, that he nearly missed the exhaustion leaking off her body. “How late?” he inquires.

“Um… like 3 in the morning.” Harry gapes at her, and she shrugs.

“Tha’s not healthy,” he scolds like a father. “Why’re you staying up so late, hm? Should be in bed for at least 6-8 hours, don’t you know that?”

“I know,” she rubs at her eyes tiredly. “I just have a psych midterm next week that m’really freaked out about. I like– fell behind on the lectures, so m’trying to learn like the past three weeks of material in a few days.”

Harry feels his heart ache, sympathizing for this poor, tired, hard-working girl. He knows the struggles of undergrad – he was pulling all nighters too, back in his day, and he never dared to go above 16 units. He wonders how she’s surviving, taking 20 units while still being at the top of her classes – well, she’s at the top of this class, he knows for certain. His star student.

Her eyes are still hidden behind her hands, knuckling at her eyelids, but she pulls them away slowly when she feels Harry’s hand at her knee. She looks at him, and he’s suddenly aware of how red and glossy her eyes are. “Just don’t overdo the studying, okay?” he says with soft eyes and a gentle voice. His thumb rubs overtop her knee softly, saying a hundred words that he can’t say out loud just quite yet.

She nods, and swallows thickly. “Okay.”

He smiles. “So you want a crash course in European History? I can do that for you. Dunno why more people don’t show up to my office hours, m’literally about to tell you exactly what to write…”

+++

Y/n is exhausted.

Actually, exhausted doesn’t cut it. She is at her breaking point.

With midterms week upon her, she’s been drowning herself in her school work, trying to keep up with her lectures and recap everything that she’s learned up until this point. Kind of difficult, when she’s fallen so dreadfully behind and barely knows what’s going on in her stats class. And – to make things worse, not only does she have both her stats and psych midterm this Friday, but she also needs to finish this stupid Globalization essay by tomorrow’s deadline.

Seven pages about The Effects of Globalization on British Romantic Literature. She currently has three pages written.

She’s screwed.

It’s not like she was trying to get behind! She tried so hard to stay on top of her studies. She promised herself that she’d finish the globalization essay last night – went to starbucks with her noise canceling headphones, got herself an iced pumpkin chai as a motivational treat, and sat down to turn all her notes into a beautiful, magical essay on Romanticism that would make Dr. Richmond weep.

But… the words just weren’t wording! Her brain refused to cooperate with her, despite the fact that she stayed at the Starbucks literally up until they kicked her out. She read her sources, went over her excerpts, wrote and rewrote her thesis over and over again… and only got three out of the seven pages done. She doesn’t know whether to blame Dr. Richmond for assigning such a stupid essay, or just her own sleep-deprived brain.

She’d gotten maybe five hours of sleep last night. And the night before that, too. Harry’s words ring loudly in her head, scolding her to get at least six hours of sleep every night… but she just has so much work to do! She has to do her psych readings, her stats homework, the midterm practice her stats professor posted, and this essay… It's a lot. Plus having to actually attend all of her classes and go to work (she works at the campus bookstore) on top of all her homework and studying? She barely has time to eat!!!

Her tummy grumbles miserably, a painful reminder of the fact that she had forgotten to pack herself a lunch this morning in her haste to get to class on time. The pain is nowhere as bad as her headache, though. It’s the kind of migraine you get when you barely got any sleep. Her head feels heavy, her heartbeat pounding in her ears, and her eyes sting every time she blinks. It’s horrible. She can barely focus on anything. Not her stats homework, not the essay open in front of her.

Not even Harry, who’s sitting to her left, helping her with her essay. In fact, she’s completely missed what he’s spent the past minute explaining to her.

She blinks at him slowly. “Sorry… can you say that again?”

Harry’s pretty face pinches, his eyebrows furrowed and eyes glimmering with concern. She’s so clearly off today… he can’t ignore her red-rimmed eyes and zoning out any longer. “…are you okay?” he asks timidly.

“Yeah, yeah,” she says quickly, brushing off his concern. “I’m fine.” But it’s like as soon as she says those two words, the dam holding her together collapses, and a river of emotion comes barreling through her. She looks down at the open document on her laptop, stares at the cursor blinking at her. The blank page taunting her. Tears well up in her eyes, and her heart starts to swell sadly. She’s not fine at all.

She quickly hides her face from Harry, looking down at her lap. She is NOT allowed to cry in front of him, she reprimands herself. She’s kept herself together all day, why is she starting to get emotional now, in the middle of his office hours? Couldn’t it have waited until she was alone in her shower?

She swallows around the lump in her throat, and presses her palms to her stinging eyes. As if that’ll keep her tears at bay. “Sorry,” she mumbles, trying to conceal her shaky voice, “let me just think for a second.”

“Hey…” Harry sees right through it. “Hey, come on. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she says, mostly trying to convince herself. She sniffles as quietly as she can and tries to rub the tears away. “Sorry, nothing. I’m fine.”

She reaches for her laptop, but Harry grabs her hand. “No.” He can’t ignore the glossy sheen of her eyes, or the quiet sniffles. He just can’t. “We need to take a break.”

“It’s really fine–” she tries to say, but she can barely get it out with how her throat is swelling. She stares down at the floor. Harry holds her hand.

“What’s wrong? Talk to me.” His hands are big and warm, encasing her’s, wholly. A cross tattoo sits between the slit of his thumb and second finger, twitching as his thumb grazes her knuckles.

“M’just tired,” she says dejectedly. “I was up super late last night and I just… didn’t even get anything done. And now I have to finish this, and I haven’t finished my stats homework, and I have two midterms on Friday.” Her heart starts to race as she realizes much she has to do, and how little time she has. She’s stretched herself thin. “There’s just so much I have to get done,” her voice cracks, “and I’m so tired.” A big fat tear rolls down her face, and drops onto her shirt – shamefully staining the thin material.

Harry gets out of his chair and kneels down in front of her, resting their joint hands in her lap as he stares up at her. More tears fill her eyes without her consent, and her cheeks burn with embarrassment. “Sorry,” she sniffles. She refuses to meet his gaze, despite how earnestly he’s looking into her sad eyes. Another drop falls from her lashes.

“Don’t apologize,” he murmurs sadly.

“I thought I could handle it all,” she bleats. “But I’m so unprepared for my midterms, and I need to finish this essay, and I promised you that I’d stay on top of my work, but I’m falling behind–”

“Don’t worry about the essay,” he interrupts. “I’ll get you an extension on your paper.”

She shakes her head. “Dr. Richmond doesn’t do extensions, though,” she blubbers.

“I’ll talk to him,” he says firmly. “M’the one grading it anyway.”

“But Harry–” she whines, shamelessly childlike, “I promised you that this wouldn’t happen. I told you I could handle it.”

“And you can handle it. I know you can.” His green eyes are wide and round as he looks up at her, earnest and pleading. “You come to office hours, and you study hard, and you’d stay up all night to finish this essay – but I don’t want you to. You don’t have to prove yourself to me. I know you can do it.”

She pouts, still not looking up at him. She stares instead at their joint hands in her lap blankly.

“You’re doing so good,” he coos, “You’re coming to office hours even when you have so much going on, and you’re taking so many units. I know you’re giving it your all. S’okay.”

He reaches a hand out to rest on her shoulder, and suddenly she feels the weight of the world fall off of her chest. A long, shaky breath leaves her, and she blinks her eyes shut, letting more tears cascade down her cheeks. “Oh, sweetheart,” Harry’s heart breaks. He leans up to wrap his arms around her shoulders, a soft hug, and she rests her forehead on his shoulder, letting the tears silently fall. His hands rub big, soothing circles on her back, and he shushes her softly, “It’s alright.”

His blue dress shirt feels cool against her face, crisp and fresh, and he smells like vanilla and smoked wood. She doesn’t want to abandon his firm chest, his warm embrace, but he pulls back and looks into her eyes. For the first time, she meets his gaze. “No more crying, okay?”

She sniffles, and wipes the wetness off her cheeks. “M’kay.”

A soft smile smooths out the worried lines on his face. “Here’s what we’re gonna do,” he says, his hands slapping his thighs as he stands back up. “You’re going to take a nap–” he closes his office door and locks it with a click.

“A nap?” her watery voice exclaims. “But– I need to study!”

He gives her a firm look. “You’re not gonna get any studying done if your brain isn’t well rested.” From one of the bottom drawers of his desk, he pulls out a blanket (he sometimes will take a nap in his office if he needs a break from grading). “Take a nap. I’ll wake you in an hour and then y’can study in here.”

+++

You know that peaceful feeling that surrounds a room when a baby is taking a nap? How everyone tiptoes around the crib, their voices barely surpassing a whisper in fear of waking the sleeping baby. How parents will stand around, just watching the baby nap, smiling to themselves when their baby twitches in its sleep. How the world just seems more… peaceful?

That’s how Harry feels right now.

Y/n is on his couch, his cozy gray blanket pulled up to her chin. Her cheeks are puffed, her tired eyes shut with her eyelashes resting delicately on the tops of her cheeks. She looks angelic, the most relaxed he’s ever seen her be, with no midterms stressing her out. No papers due, no furrowed eyebrows, no crying. Like a sleeping baby, cherubic and sweet. He’s been tiptoeing around her for the past hour, grading papers as quietly as he can. He tried to be productive and just mind his business while she napped, but everytime he shuffled through one of the essays, he felt the urge to check on her, to make sure that he didn’t accidentally wake her up. And then he just wanted to… watch her. Not in a creepy way though!!! Not in a creepy way. In a kind of… sweet way. :( She was beautiful, especially when she slept.

His heart doesn’t want to wake her up – not when she looks so peaceful for the first time weeks. All the times he’s seen her since that very first week was her stressing and stressing and stressing – stressing about getting a permission code from Dr. Richmond, stressing about her exams, stressing about the rain. He’s never gotten to see her take a breath and be calm. She’s a hard worker, he can tell – which is a great trait that he admires in his students. But, with y/n… he just wants to make sure she’s okay, too.

He kneels down in front of the couch, and regretfully murmurs out, “y/n?” She doesn’t respond at all– she’s dead to the world. All the exhaustion that she’d accumulated this past week, all the hours of sleep she missed, are catching up with her now. He tries again, “Y/n… time to wake up.”

Her eyebrows furrow and her nose wrinkles, but she still refuses to open her eyes. The pull of sleepiness is too strong. It makes him chuckle. “Come on, bunny,” he says, in reference to her twitchy nose and pouty lips. “V’got a snack for you.”

Her sleepy eyes blink open, and immediately he can tell that she needed that nap. Her eyes are brighter, less red, and she stares up at him sweetly. “A snack?”

Of course that would get her to wake up. His dimple pokes his cheek. “S’not much. Just a granola bar. But it’ll help you while you study.”

She sits up, the blanket pooling around her waist, and rubs at her eye with her knuckle.

“Feeling better?” He asks, a hand on her knee.

She nods. She’d taken an Advil for her headache before she’d gone to sleep. That, with her nap, has made the prospect of studying a little bit more bearable.

When she looks around the room, she sees that Harry’s cleared up a portion of his desk for her to study at. Gone are his stacks of books, a bare square of wood right across from the stack of essays he’s currently grading. The usual foldable chair that he has students sit in during his office hours has been moved to the corner, and has been replaced with one of the more comfy, rolly chairs. He’s gone out of his way to make a sweet little study space for her while she napped in his office.

“Now… we’re gonna have to leave by 9,” Harry says, standing up and going round to his side of his desk. “Cos v’got to feed my cat. But that gives us at least… two hours of study time. N’then I can take you home. How does that sound?”

She blinks. “Harry… thank you.” She doesn’t know why he’s being so nice to her, or what she’s done to deserve such kind treatment. But it means the world.

He shrugs nonchalantly, but she doesn’t miss the dimple that pinches his cheek as he smiles to himself.

+++

They stay in his office until nightfall.

Harry’s nicely styled curls turn messy, his fingers tangling through his hair he graded the freshman papers (is he a harsh grader, or does this new generation truly not know how to write?). His eyebrows furrow behind his tortoise shell glasses, green eyes hard and serious. Y/n watches the way his lips purse, how he taps his red pen against his chin while he reads.

Her own brain is done with studying. After her nap, she started playing her classical music and sat down to finish her stats homework AND the practice midterm. Without the globalization essay to worry about, she managed to calm down and focus, get some of her work done, and catch up on the things she was so behind on. Does she feel any better about the exam? No. But at least she can say that she studied!

Harry manages to make a nice dent in the stack of ungraded papers as well, working well in the comfortable silence filtering between the two of them. There was no need for them to talk, and they didn’t distract each other either. Simply getting their work done next to each other, and enjoying each other’s presence (though neither one of them would outright admit how nice it is to just sit in silence with the other).

They pack up and head out together when it gets closer to nine. Harry holds the office door open for her and locks his door behind them, and they walk closely together towards the parking lot. It’s dark, the ground only lit by the few streetlights looming above them, and a shiver racks through y/n’s body from the cool autumnal air. She hadn’t planned on being on campus so late – she thought that she’d probably go straight home after office hours and pull an all-nighter to finish her essay – so therefore, she doesn’t have much of a jacket except for a lame cardigan over her shirt.

Harry, who usually is on campus until nightfall anyway, wishes he could do something for her when he notices the way she’s hugging herself, her cardigan pulled over her fingers. He wants to pull her to his side, wrap an arm around her and share his body warmth with her – but that would be entirely too unprofessional, he thinks. Instead he picks up his pace, forcing y/n to scurry in order to keep up with his long strides, and immediately turns on the heat for her.

He doesn’t need to ask for directions this time, knowing exactly where to turn and how to get to her apartment, and when he pulls up in front of her door, he turns to her quietly. “Listen. Don’t stress about the paper. Focus on studying for your exams, and then you can have the entire weekend to finish the paper, okay?”

“I feel… bad. Like, Dr. Richmond said no extensions, and you’re making these exceptions for me–”

“Don’t overthink it,” Harry interrupts. “Dr. Richmond just says that so people don’t just ask for extensions because they procrastinated. He will grant extensions when there’s a valid reason.”

“But, really it’s not a valid reason… everyone else has midterms.”

“But none of those other students have shown me how much they care about this class. I know you’re a hard worker, I know you aren’t just procrastinating.” He shrugs, “M’the one who makes the calls. And I think you deserve an extension.”

She sits there quietly, then says, “I-I just don’t want you to think I only came to your office hours to cry and make you give me an extension. I… come to your office hours for help. You’re like… helpful.” She says that last part awkwardly, and it makes him chuckle quietly.

“You can say I’m your favorite TA. I won’t tell.” His dimple pokes his cheek as he smirks at her teasingly, and she can’t help but giggle too. Her eyes twinkle as she looks at him with a small shake of her head. That wasn’t what she was getting at… but it is true.

They stare at each other for a moment too long. One of Harry’s hands rests on the wheel, while the other one comes up to play with his lip. Y/n’s hands sit politely in her lap, her bag sitting at her feet on the passenger’s seat floor. They’re both quiet, not knowing what to say. Yeah, they’re laughing and teasing each other, but something heavier lingers in the air around them. This tension… this magnetic energy. Neither y/n nor Harry know what’s causing it, or why the silence is suddenly so overwhelming. The smile on y/n’s face lingers in her eyes, which glimmer as she stares at Harry. And Harry, who had been smirking mischievously, now looks at y/n with a bit of a more serious air. He stares at her thoughtfully, his bottom lip pinched between his lips. His eyes wander down to her lips, pretty and heart shaped. She’s chewing the inside of her lip softly, and he wants to brush his thumb over her mouth and tell her to stop.

He catches himself, and quickly tears his eyes away before she notices. He clears his throat.

“Take care of y’self,” he says with a soft smile. “I want to see you well rested in class next week, okay?”

+++

HOPE U GUYS LOVED IT!!!!!! part 3 is up on my patreon already, and will come to tumblr next saturday (oct 21) pleeeeaaaase lmk what u rhink and give her a rb and a comment i love u guys so so much!!! more tarry to come!

Prose (part 3) is already posted on patreon! : In which y/n is Harry's favorite student, and she sort of somehow accidentally kisses him.

Prose Masterlist

[cathalbravecog]

this was gonna be my april 1st piece, but well, let's just say, i went a little overboard...! and now this is my most detailed art piece i've ever done ! i love the high roller you guys

more alt versions under cut! also i highly suggest you click and zoom in for Details

this entire piece was a whole adventure. i had to redraw the wallpaper because going into the fight april 1st made me learn OOPS! they changed it! and then i added detail. and aw fuck i can't leave THIS without detail. so i added more detail!

and i added more detail!

and i did this and that!

and uhmm yeah this basically took on and off all month to do and is genuinely my biggest piece i've ever done </3 in total this probably toon, genuinely, 2-3 days in total hours to finish. i am a bit slow with things so yeah. i am very proud of this and plan to use the version without HR in it as a background for things ^^.

also, the background was traced over a vrchat screenshot! only the lines, though, all the coloring is done myself! i've fooled people with THE BACKGROUND being a screenshot already so no, the coloring and shading is all done by me. just the lines were traced and altered in some places. this below is the reference screenshot! and also the sketch

so much back pain so much wrist pain so much forgotten food but also only sheer unbroken love and dedication to our dearest roller guy. you get me. IM making this a big deal bc to me it is a big deal and i am very proud of myself. i may not like a 100% how i drew hr in this but... it's still Very Swag

[aajjks]

Gojo Saturo as your Boyfriend (m)

note. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY DADDY I LOVE YOU SATORUUUUU

warnings. MËNTÏÖNS ÖF SĒX, swêêt göjö, lövěsïck göjö, mèntïöns öf jêâlöüsy.

having THEE gojo satoru as your boyfriend is an experience of lifetime for sure, it’s a whole fucking adventure.

And he’s not the typical type of a boyfriend, nah. He is satoru after all. He is hot and he knows that.

He’s a man who knows what he wants, and what he wants is you. So he is going to be very straightforward, of course he’s a confident man and he knows that he can charm you.

Who can resist that smile of his?

Truth is that Gojo will cherish you a lot, he is a very passionate lover, very sweet but cocky.

He will worship the ground you walk on but he is also very secure in himself.

He’s the type to notice the little things. He will definitely remember your birthday, your one month anniversary together, the day you both held hands for the first time and he’s really sneaky about it too.

Like he will play dumb infront of you, he would pretend like he has NO clue to what you’re talking about inside, he knows.

And he’s got a whole plan in his mind.

He just loves to surprise you.

He is the type to say you’re cute and he will compliment you on the most random of times. “Toru… hmm the food is good..” you’ll say while focusing on your food and he’s already staring at you.

“You’re so pretty yn.” WHILE YOU ARE LITERALLY EATING YOUR FOOD IN YOUR PYJAMAS.

And HIS EYES OH MY GOD.

They ARE MAGIC.

“Yn do you like my eyes?” See, he is a SUCKER for giving compliments and RECEIVING them too. And he’s not even shy to seek validation or attention from you.

He’s like tinkerbell you have to give him your attention or he’ll die.

“Yn oh my God yn give me your attention already, I feel like I’m suffocating.” He’d whine…. With his eyes all wide avd round, his lips curled up in a pout.

He’s is a baby in a man’s body sometimes.

He is a big sucker for cuddles, his hands will be all over your body, squeezing your skin, peppering butterfly kisses.

And he’s not shy to show you affection or how much he’s missed you. He’s the type to gush and brag about you to his friends x

And now when it comes to him being jealous, he’s often jealous, but harmless like pouting avd sulking if you sing give him attention or priorities your work over him

But when it comes to you receiving attention from people other than him… that bothers him.

“Hmm ynnnn… you are mine yeah?” His aura would shift completely cus he’s mostly cheery add cocky, annoying or affectionate.

But there are times where he’d just… feel threatened, you are everything to him and he doesn’t want to loose you.

And he makes that obvious through sex.

Your body is a temple and he’s going to worship it like his life depends on it.

Your pleasure = his pleasure.

Gojo Satoru is an addict, he can fuck you forever, he can eat you out forever. He can die between your legs.

And he even hopes that he will.

Gojo can be very rough, if frustrated, or jealous.

He will mark your body up, and he will cum in you raw, he will pull on your hair and will ask you to dig your nails into his back.

He’s an aggressive kisser, all teeth and tongue.

And he’s the type to smile in between kisses.

SEDUCTION MASTER. He will mostly be the one to initiate sex, he can’t sleep? Cockwarm him. you can’t sleep? He’s going to fuck you with his fingers.

He will love for you to check him out, he loves to know from your mouth just how desirable or and pretty he is.

CHECK HIM OUUUTTT

In short saturo is a great lover and a lovesick puppy. He will cherish you a lot.

[edwardallenpoe]

another bagginshield story idea because the writers block is still kicking my ass but I need to write it down.

What if Bilbo lies about his and Thorin's relationship and tells whoever asks that they're partners. HERE ME OUT! I know this sounds shitty BUT

What if he does it so that people can leave him alone. Or to get discounts/tax benefits (however taxes work in Middle Earth/The Shire). What if he uses his Scary Boyfriend Privileges. What if people already assumed they were together and he was too exchausted with Everything to correct anybody and at some point after wearing the mithril armor everyday and having braids Thorin put in and doing traditionay hobbity and Dwarvish courting customs he's says "fuck it we practically are at this point" lmao. Like they share food and spar together and both of them have continually refused marriage proposals and Bilbo's like "well if he doesn't know we're married then sucks to be him" about Thorin.

WAIT BETTER IDEA HIT WHILE I WAS WRITING THIS

BOTH of these cringefail losers lie. :00 Imagine: after months of living in Erebor and doing traditionally Dwarvish courting customs and Bilbo keeps being badgered about it he lies and tells people he's courting Thorin. And also uses this as a way to keep potential suitors from marrying Thorin. He's intercepting letters from suitors and being like "oh whoops sorry news must travel slow to Ered Luin but Thorin is already engaged:(( yep I know. Welp. Good day."

Then. For some reason both he and Thorin travel back to The Shire right. They're staying there for a month or two. rumors obviously start about why and where Bilbo had left. And while they're there they do traditionally hobbity courting customs and so nosy cousin's and neighbirs start badgering Thorin about their relationship and their adventure and Thorin's just like "yeah we got married back in Erebor. Yep right after he slayed a dragon. Yeah he was too cool to not marry. Yep."

And so someone like random like Drogo Gamgee or smt mentions what Thorin's been talking about to Bilbo and a dwarf from Ered Luin sends Thorin a raven and they both find out what the other was saying behind each other's backs and make out so hard Mordor explodes. Or something.

Idk it is like. 5:30 am rn. I had maybe an hour of sleep before I woke up in a cold sweat to write this down and read @/conkers-thecosy fanfics. You're welcome.

Edit: chapter one of Dragonfly is now here :>

[writingoddess1125]

Marillenfleck in Winter

König x FemReader

Fluffy Fluff Fluff!

Feed me Seymore Feed me!! <<< 🍖

"We can do this-"

You muttered to yourself and then down at your swollen stomach. Feeling the fluttering kicks of the child locked inside of you- assuming that was them agreeing.

"Hell yeah-"

Stepping forward with all the confidence you could muster as you carefully lowered the breaded pork cutlet into the hot oil and watching it carefully bubble as you let it settle.

Stepping back as the oil reacted for a moment before settling-

Two months ago before your husband left for his mission was lying in bed with you, his hand on your stomach as he reminisced-

'It is moments like this I almost wish to return to my Village just to show you off.. and share in some food with you' He mused, you looking at him in surprise.

'Wait we don't live near your home?' You say surprised, Having always assumed that König had chosen the secluded cabin 40 minutes from the closest village cause he was familiar with it. He chuckled at this and shook his head-

'No, I'm from near Dürnstein-'

Which was on the otherside of the country from were the two of you lived- You silently vowed to bring at least a taste of his home to him-

So for two months you'd been gathering ingredients and experimenting to make some folds from his home-town.

Did you have any real idea what you were doing?- No.

Did you know if these were ment to be eaten together?- Hell No.

Were you trying your best? Absolutely.

Speaking of trying your best- it was dead winter, 7inches of snow a day easy and what doesn't grow in winter?

Apricots-

So many Apricots in most of these recipes from near his home. Apricots cakes, wines, pastries, even in sauces with pork!

So you finding apricots was the most important thing. You tried the internet but didn't trust the quality from most places or they were dried which wouldn't have worked-

That's when you ventured out being forced to touch grass- Well snow in this case.

Market after market, looking in their freezer section to produce you couldnt find shit for the first 2 weeks of this adventure.

You were honestly thankful you were pregnant since when you went to the village closest to you asking for apricots in dead of winter- people assumed it was a desperate cry for a craving and a older women gave you a bag of them from her deep freeze she had saved. You of course paid her handsomely for the kind gift

This thrn started your dark road of trying to figure out these fucking recipes-

You tried every recipe and varient you could, pulling up photos of restaurants near your husband's origin and trying to match them-

Another blessing of being pregnant was being able to eat any failed attempts or trying recipes that wasn't going to be fed to König.

However the time had finally come! König was going to be home within the next hour, having called you the night before from his train station to tell you his arrival and you'd fluttered to make sure everything looked perfect.

"Alexa! Set a timer for 20 minutes!" You called out, flipping the cutlet seeing the even golden crust.

Reaching over you check the goulash stewing in the pot and saw it was almost done. Stirring it once before you checked on the bread dumplings and pulled them from the boiling water- You hadn't made these before in your experimental 2 months so you were excited!

Bacon Bread dumplings- Time to taste!

Taking a big bite you paused- truthfully confused over what the fuck you'd just put into your mouth. Chewing for a while as you tried to figure out if you'd done something wrong or if your taste was more off then you thought due to the baby- after the second bite you knew it was the baby and not the food especially whem you spooned some of the goulash ontop.

"...You know what, I'm just gonna blame you for this-" You said pointing at your stomach which earned another fluttering feeling as you finished the dumpling and stew sample.

Pulling the cutlets you let them sit on a wire rack as you plate the potatos and salad Konig liked- However your eyes landed on the centerpiece of this meal and what you were so focused one. The Marillenfleck Cake.

Still cooling as the beautiful Fluffy pastry showed off its shivered almost and the delicate apricots baked into its Fluffy self.

A summer apricot staple you'd manage to drag into winter!

You suddently heard the sound of the truck pulling up to your home, jumping in excitement you set the finished goulash down on the table and rushed around for the final touches.

Setting the plates down you mentally high-five yourself and rush to the front room as you hear König walk in. Grumbling about the snow outside as he kicked off his boots-

"Welcome Home Honey" You say cheerfully, wadling yourself over to your man- He had his mask off, most likely shoved away in his pockets in desperate need of a wash and he seemed to have showered at base since the black paint wasnt around his eyes-

Soft gray eyes greeted you and König gave a wide smile, reaching out and scooping you quickly in his arms and kissing your lips.

"I have missed you Liebling, You and the baby are well?" He asked softly as his gloved hand touched the swell of your stomach.

"Yes, We are fine. I'm so glad your home" You say cheerfully, feeling your eyes get misty already just by having him home.

"I have a surprise for you" You say cheerfully and jump, making the man chuckle at your physical excitement or attempt since the belly seemed to keep your feet planted.

"Oh?" He chimed amused, peeling off his coat and gloves as you pulled him to the kitchen and waiting set dining table.

When König saw all the food, his heart fluttered. He saw how much time this took, slowly stepping forward as he gazed over your heard work in total shock.

"(Y/N)- You did so much.. You should be resting not slaving in the kitchen" He said softly, looking at you in worry for your effort in the fantastic meal set on the table.

"I wanted to give you a nice surprise, You hungry?" You saw with a smile- Konig chuckling at this as he nodded, pulling out your chair so you could sit first before sitting himself.

Severing plates König couldn't help but laugh at the wide variety you'd made, from pork schnitzel and potato salad and the goulash and dumplings. Eating happily he hummed delight.

"I'm impressed! Very Gud Mein Liebling!" Demolishing the plates infront of him as the two of you sported casual conversation and König feeling your baby bump-

"And for dessert" You say cheerfully as you cut him a slice of the cake and set it before him. His face twisting in confusion.

"Liebling were did you get marillen {apricots} in winter?-" He asked genuinely confused as he cut into the pastry clearly doing a lot of mental math in trying to figure out how you manages this.

"It's a long story, but I got them!" You said cheerfully cutting open your own and taking a massive bite- Giving a laugh at how delicious it tasted and how you'd managed to not fuck anything up.

Raising a brow of this he hesitated ever so slightly before taking a bit of the dessert and paused, his eyes softening as an almost sad smile hit his lips.

"Konig?.." You say softly as he looked to you- His own eyes misty.

"I haven't had this cake since my Mutti made it for me before she passed-" He said softly, taking another bite of the dessert and smiling. Your heart Sinking at his words-

"I was always so scared to try it again since I knew it wouldn't taste the same" He smiled fondly as he reached out and pulled your seat close to him, love in his gaze.

"I don't know how- But youve made it taste just like the one she made" He said softly, wrapping his arm around you as he kissed your hair and you could feel the waves of emotion off of him.

"Danke my love" He said softly, lips still pressed to your hair as he held you tighter. Of course hormones not helping as tears rolled down your cheeks.

"Anytime"