#I really fucking wish they got the rights to Journey because - and this might be controversial- but I absolutely believe all the best

[little-paper-man]

Life still ain’t fair to me lately BUT! I do want to at least get part of my sword of the sea brainrot essay out there which also happens to involve my usual Journey brainrot.

 I know it’s mostly that I’ve basically become a Journey scavenger at this point, but I do find it highly suspicious that Journey’s name popped up in the trailer under the “visionary artists’ behind” part. because while it’s fairly common knowledge that Giant Squid was formed by employees splintering off of Thatgamecompany after Journey was made, even in GS’s trailers for their first game Abzu, Journey was not mentioned. Nor was Journey mentioned in trailers for The Pathless, just Abzu. But here, in a game that opens up with a Desert and mentions in the summary of “multiple cultures” its name pops up.

Now I’m not going to kid myself, as GS does not own the rights to Journey, that the wayfarers we know and love will just show up as they appear in their own game. However I do suspect that there’s at least going to be some form of them in SotS - whether that’s in a simple easter egg or repurposed designs/structures from old concepts from Journey’s development. I’m honestly not going to expect much.

No matter the slimness of it though, hooo boy does the brain go brrrrrrrrrrr at the thought!

#/D #I'm overall EXTREMELY excited for sword of the sea #as I absolutely adore Giant Squids' storytelling in their games #and their art direction and their game mechanics and- #goddamn everything! #I really fucking wish they got the rights to Journey because - and this might be controversial- but I absolutely believe all the best #employees with the better artistic skill in thatgamecompany went to GS #😭 #I will say my funniest prediction would be if To-chan's there and he's just dead on the ground like in chicken journey version of game lolol #Sword of the Sea #journey game #Hello Void i have words

[sourbinnie]

☆ interrupted tenderness ☆

♡ genre ¿? ♡ -> fluff ♡ pair ¿? ♡ -> hyung line!skz x gn!reader ♡ plot ¿? ♡ -> a member walks in when you're having a moment, how do they react? ♡ warnings ¿? ♡ -> none ♡ request ¿? ♡ -> yes!

maknae line

chan ✉

it wasn't often that you two got caught up in your own little world. you were mostly busy with work and that prevented you sometimes from actually being intimate with him, not really in a sexual way but leaning towards romance. chan really was an incredible boyfriend and supporting him through his journey was one of the best experiences you've ever had the pleasure to be a part of. so when you were in his dressing room as he got ready for his concert, you couldn't help but sigh as you looked at him.

"what's up?" he asked as he got closer to you and grabbed your hands. the sweet gesture of feeling your fingers intertwined. you didn't really know what to say, you were just daydreaming at this point because who wouldn't with a boyfriend like that?

"i just can't help but love you so much." you said as you looked at him eye to eye. you could see the happiness in his smile and then it disappeared as he leaned in for a kiss. you leaned in as well as you closed the gap to meet him and took his lips in yours.

"hyung? are you- i'm sorry, never mind!" jisung said as he opened and closed the door in a second. but then he opened it again to yell. "it's like seeing your parents kiss, never do that again."

the whole time chan couldn't help but look down embarrassed, he couldn't believe his kids' behavior sometimes. he leaned on your shoulder as he hid himself and you couldn't help but laugh the entire time, not feeling any shame at all. your boyfriend might be a shy little embarrassed ball but you loved him just like that. 

minho ✉

now he didn't really give a single fuck. he would steal kisses from you in front of the whole world without a care in the world. but sometimes he wished you two would have more private moments where he could actually show you the affection he craved so much to get in return. so when he finally got to be alone in the dorms, he invited you over and you two were laying on the couch just enjoying each other's company. you worked just like that at times where no words were said but it felt better than anything.

"i missed you (y/n)." he said as he got closer to you and laid his head on your lap. you stopped looking at your phone, leaving it to the side to bury your hands on his hair as you messed it up. "if you were anyone else, i would kill you right now."

"luckily it's me!" you said with a little giggle as you moved your hands from his hair to his face. grabbing his cheeks on your hands as you squished them. 

"if i did that to hyung, he would slaughter me." seungmin said from the kitchen and he got a death glare from minho. he really thought that the dorms were empty yet here he had one of his members looking at you two just now.

"not a word from you." minho said and seungmin did a gesture like he sealed his lips shut. you couldn't help but laugh at the interaction as you went back to bothering your boyfriend in the nicest way possible, of course. it's not like he could stop you anyways.

changbin ✉

now he wasn't really someone who got embarrassed easily. well at least that's what he liked to think, that he was just shameless especially with you. of course there were certain limits to the things you did in public but he couldn't resist you from time to time and he liked to show you off. you were his precious significant other for a reason and he wouldn't change you for anything. as he tried to come up with lyrics for one of his tracks, you were sitting in his lap and laying your head on his shoulder.

"are you comfortable?" changbin asked and you nodded, you were about to fall asleep at any moment so how could you not be comfortable? still changbin worried. it's like he needed to know all the time how you felt and that was very sweet of him.

"binnie you know we need to go home soon." you said as you kissed his cheek and that made him smile. he still got shy when you showed affection but that made you fall for him a little bit more each time.

"hey bin, are you done with the track? oh! sorry (y/n), didn't see you there." chan said as he got closer and saw you sitting on his member's lap. "i'll just go and we'll talk about it tomorrow changbin."

chan took a few steps back and then left with a little smile on his face. changbin knew that smile, it was more than happiness, he was proud. he truly did find the partner he wanted for the rest of his life and his bandmates knew that, you were a part of the family now and there was no turning back. 

hyunjin ✉

he was a sucker for showing his affection and love towards you everywhere. most of the time though he resisted and fought himself to not do it because he was scared that you would get sick of it. obviously you didn't and every chance you got to get closer to him, you would. he would appreciate your little love gestures for him but the displays of love in public would be the ones he remembered the most. like right now, he held you as he hugged you from behind and you felt so safe in his arms.

"thank you for coming by today." he whispered in my ear as you were standing in the set of one of his music videos. you just smiled as you looked at him, the sincerity in his eyes and his words always made your heart melt.

"you don't have to thank me, i always love visiting you." you said as he leaned in for a kiss. you couldn't help but feel yourself lost in the moment as you two kissed, totally forgetting where you were standing.

"hyunjin, (y/n), the children are watching!" felix said as he covered seungmin's eyes with one hand and jeongin's eyes with the other. you couldn't help but break the kiss off as you laughed.

hyunjin was so embarrassed but he didn't care as he met you for another kiss, shameless in his actions. earning a gasp from almost everyone on set but not caring about the eyes that were watching. he loved you so much and he didn't want to be ashamed of showing it anymore. 

#sourbinnie #skz imagines #skz reactions #skz scenarios #skz drabbles #skz x reader #stray kids drabbles #stray kids x reader #stray kids reactions #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #skz #stray kids #hyunjin x reader #chan x reader #changbin x reader #minho x reader #skz fluff #stray kids fluff

[kiwisbell]

Las Mañanas || Chapter 3 [javier peña]

She’s a waitress in a little café. He’s a DEA agent who likes the coffee. Just the coffee. That’s all. Or, slices of life (and sometimes pie) shared between Javi and his wife, including his tireless journey to making her his wife.

series masterlist | my masterlist

pairing: javier peña x f!reader

rating: 18+ (mdni)

tags/warnings: javi getting the fucking love he deserves, coffee shop AU if you squint really hard, technical infidelity, reader still has a shitty husband, soft and sweet!javi, protective!javi, extreme grumpy!javi, simp!javi tbh, alcohol, smoking, so much fluff, nobody fucks with javi's girl, overuse of spanish pet names, poorly-translated spanish, "she" pronoun used throughout, unprotected PIV (get used to this, these two are rabid), the L word turns javi on, stalking, anxiety, threats of violence, nightmares

word count: ~ 7k

chapter three: dreaming in technicolour

If Javier is grumpy when he can’t see her for a day, he’s miserable when she visits her mother in New York over Thanksgiving.

It's only a week, but he feels the loss in his home like she never lived here at all. Her clothes are gone because she packed them for the trip, and her toiletries are no longer next to his in the bathroom. He stays longer at work and makes excuses that he's close to something. He isn't—they never are. 

He’s memorised her arrival time and the gate where she’ll come home to him. He hates how cold the bed is when he wakes up. He feels like an ungrateful child, but he doesn't give a shit because he misses her, and he’s worried sick all the fucking time that something will go wrong. 

Murphy’s barely speaking to him by the time the week is halfway through; he's smart enough to know Javier’s wound up tight enough to blow at any second. They conduct raids and they burn through paperwork until their eyes cross, but Murphy doesn't tease him. 

Javier goes to the café. It's the sliver of routine he still possesses. He drinks the coffee and talks to Jorge, who he thinks may finally be warming up to him. He still gets called a cabrón three times in that half-hour period, but Jorge’s right; he is an asshole. 

“More coffee?” grunts the middle-aged man. His Spanish is coarse, like he's always angry, but Javier knows he treats her like she’s God’s gift to the world. He gets it. 

Javier checks his watch. He’s got time. “Please.”

“She's a good girl,” says Jorge, wiping down the table and pouring more coffee in the process. He’s surly and his brows are permanently horizontal over his dark eyes. “Visits her mother because she's been struggling after her father died. He was a good man, too.”

Javier frowns at his coffee cup. “How did he…”

“Cancer.” Jorge spits the word. “They couldn't have afforded the treatment even if they had caught it on time. I knew the bastard since high school. I was there when she was born.”

Javier suddenly feels repelled by the coffee in his mug. “She have any family besides her mom?”

Jorge’s eye twitching is all the answer he needs. “Wish I could go back and tell her never to come here.”

Javier snorts. “She’d never listen.”

To his surprise, Jorge lets out a laugh, rough and touched with years of smoking. “No, she wouldn't.”

~

She’s examining the ticket with her gate number like it might magically change before her eyes. When she's certain she’s memorised it, she rushes toward the right terminal, a smile growing on her pretty face. A man lowers the newspaper from his face and makes a call. 

“She's back, patrón.”

~

Javier is at the Bogotá airport an hour before her flight touches down. Buys an expensive coffee, lights a cigarette, and paces in front of her gate until he's certain a number of employees are eyeing him suspiciously. When he finally sees her, the ache in his chest eases up. 

"Javi!"

He's never heard someone so excited to see him in his life. She's already running at him, and he has to plant one foot behind him and spread his arms wide to catch her when she jumps. Tackles him like a rugby player, her ankles locking around his waist. She grabs his face and kisses it in fifty places. "Missed—you—so—much."

Feeling the weight of her against him, her softness and her warmth, Javier forgets how he ever relaxed before he knew her. If he even bothered to try. 

"Oh, baby," he says, heart clenching, taking off his sunglasses and placing them atop her head. "Honey… gotta let me breathe. Let me see you, c'mon."

He gives the back of her thigh a squeeze as he sets her on the floor. She grins up at him and he knows he's looking at the most beautiful thing in the world, right fucking in front of him. He reaches around her and grabs her waist, yanking her close. She gasps out her laugh. "So fucking beautiful," he whispers into her ear, kissing all the way from there to her mouth. He loves the way her knees buckle. "Missed you."

She slides her arms up around his neck. "You still need a haircut, viejo," she says fondly, scratching her nails along the nape of his neck. Javier leans into her touch. "You been taking care of yourself?"

He nods vehemently. "Bet your ass I have, baby."

She hums, looking not quite content. "And how late were you at the office last night?"

Javier pulls back for a moment. "Is that a new necklace?"

She just laughs and kisses him, deep. He wants to drown here. "Let's go home," she says.

Javier picks up her bags and eyes the long yellow sundress she's wearing, with a slit up the leg. It must be new. "That's a pretty dress, baby. It won't last the night."

She follows him with a bounce in her step as he moves around the truck, which is parked in the lot. He stuffs her bags in the car and grabs her hand, pulling her along. He's got plans for his girl tonight. He's not going to waste time.

He lights up another cigarette when he's in the car, already pulling her into his lap right from the driver's side. She yelps when she accidentally honks the horn with her ass on the way in, but then she just sinks right against him and throws her arms around his neck. She's so warm and inviting and all his, and it's no wonder he's been so fucking grumpy all week.

His hands are on her back, beneath her dress, lifting it as he goes. Her soft skin soothes his soul and stirs his cock. "Fucking beautiful," he says gruffly. "You're so fucking beautiful."

"So are you, amor," she whispers, cupping his face and kissing him real deep and slow. "So handsome, so strong. Missed you so much."

He nudges his nose against hers and says, "Keeping you awake all night, honey. Hope you aren't tired." She just smiles brightly at him.

"How was your week?" she chirps, sweet voice innocent as she kisses along his throat. She's teasing him, his little fucking fox, and it's a wonder he can even string words together when she begins to suck on his pulse.

"Mierda," he grunts, rocking up into her. Her breathy laugh heats up his blood. He blows out some smoke and flicks the cigarette out the window, just so he can return the favour, pulling her head back with a gentle hand in her hair and nipping at her jaw. She whimpers. "Two can play, cariño."

"Yeah?" She's breathing hard, her breasts pushing against his chest. He takes this as an opportunity to slide his hands around to her front and squeeze them under her dress. She sighs happily. "You missed my tits, didn't you, Javi?"

"Yeah, I did, honey," he mumbles, enjoying the jolt of her hips when he squeezes her again. "Missed all of you. Your body... Fuck, cielito."

“Someone could see.” Her breathy voice is so sexy it makes him dizzy with lust. And even though he doesn't want to give a shit about fucking her on his truck bench, risking someone seeing her naked, bare for him and only him, is wrong. Too many men have taken advantage of her body; Javier wants her to know how sacred it is to him. 

“Sí, sí,” he grunts, holding onto her hips. “Sé, bebita. I know. Tell me about your trip.”

She hums, leaning in and brushing her nose against his. He uses the proximity to kiss her again. “Mom’s doing better,” she tells him. “We talk about Papá and Nina, and it doesn't make her break down the way it used to. The big city keeps her distracted.”

Javier tucks her hair behind her ear. Hearing her talk so fondly about her family makes him miss his old man. Chucho will love her. “You two go shopping?”

She bites her lip and laces their fingers together. “We did. Got some lingerie, too. If you’re interested.”

She’s going to kill him. He shuts his eyes and lets his head fall back against the headrest. “I’m fuckin’ interested, honey.”

She slides off his lap and sits next to him on the bench of the truck, her legs still resting atop his thighs, laying her head on his shoulder. “I really did miss you,” she says softly. “Felt like a teenage girl again, moping over sleeping alone and daydreaming about our next date.”

He kisses her knuckles. “I’ve been a real asshole without you.”

“You’re an asshole with me, Javi.” She squeezes his hand fondly. “Wouldn’t change you for anything.” Her lips find his ear and she gently bites the lobe, making his cock jump in his jeans. “Mi guapo gruñón.”

He holds her thigh as he drives them back to his place. They make small talk and she fills him in on her trip, and he’s fucking happy. 

He kisses her hand when he parks in the driveway and opens the passenger door for her, but she's staring across the street with a frown on her face, halfway out the truck. Javier whips around to see what she's looking at, but she seems to snap out of it and squeezes his arm. “Just thought I saw something.”

Javier cups the back of her head and kisses her. “Get inside,” he says into her mouth. “And take off your dress.”

~

The day the Palace of Justice burns, she’s in bed with him.

It’s a lazy morning, the kind where they’ve been awake for twenty minutes but neither of them wants to get up. Drifting in and out, they lie next to one another and talk when they feel like it. He has one arm around her, tracing shapes on her bare back, while she rests her cheek on his heart and listens to it beat. His other hand caresses her arm mindlessly as he tries to find a reason to leave his bed. There’s work, for both of them, but it doesn’t seem good enough. Not when they’re both comfortable, naked, and warm under the bedsheets, basking in the early morning sunshine.

When there’s a knock at his door, they both groan, and she buries her face in his chest before she elects to untangle herself from him and stand up. Though he gets a view of her bare ass while she walks around the bed to retrieve her clothes, Javier groans at the loss of her. He throws an elbow over his eyes as she goes to look through the peephole.

“Put some pants on,” she hisses at him. “It’s Connie.”

“Murphy?” He frowns, grudgingly getting up and pulling on his jeans, not giving enough of a shit to bother with underwear. 

“No, viejo, the other Connie.” She opens the door when he’s decent. “Hi, Connie, it’s good to see you.”

“I’m sorry to barge in,” says Murphy’s wife. Javier spots another woman beside her, a brunette wearing the same scrubs as Connie. Javier thinks he recognises her. “Can she come in?”

His girl is a real saint, because she’s ushering the other woman inside before Javier can even pull his shirt all the way over his head. “What’s going on?” she asks Connie, who hurriedly tells them she’ll explain later, only to rush upstairs to her apartment, presumably to call her husband. 

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to disturb you,” says the stranger. She sounds like she means it. His girl goes to make some tea in the kitchen, ever the server. Javier bites down on his comment that he feels pretty fucking disturbed.

He’s still frowning, but he finally feels the spark of recognition. “You’re the woman who works with Connie at the hospital. Elisa.”

She nods, accepting the cup of steaming tea. Javier pulls his girl close while the woman in scrubs nods her thanks. “I wasn’t lying before, Agent Peña. About being a guerrillera.”

Javier rubs his hand down his face and feels the familiar tug for a cigarette. There’s a fucking communist in his apartment. The poor woman will be persecuted wherever she goes, and if it’s as urgent as Connie’s made it seem, she’s got information the DEA could use. Which makes it even more dangerous for her. 

His girl understands the gravity right away. She’s helping Elisa to the sofa and rubbing the woman’s arm in soothing circles while she introduces herself and asks if she’d like anything to eat. Then, her eyes meet Javier’s, and she jerks her gaze subtly in the direction of the bedroom. We need to talk.

“Javi,” she says softly when he closes the door, ensuring their privacy.

“I know,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Big fucking problem.”

She’s fretting, pulling her lip between her teeth and hugging herself. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let her inside without asking you first. It’s not my—”

“It is your home, baby,” he says firmly, unfurling her arms from her own waist. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“She’s in so much danger.” She shakes her head, staring at the door like she can see the woman through it. “We can keep her safe, right? I… I don’t want this to burn you, Javier. I couldn’t live with myself.”

“I’m not going to burn,” he mutters into her hair when he kisses the top of her head. “If she’s got information we can use, that means we finally have something. And that means we keep her safe. You know my code.”

She nods, brushing a knuckle over his chin. “You’re so good, Javi,” she tells him. There’s so much conviction in her voice he almost believes it himself. “If you promise me you’ll be safe, I can go to work without a hernia. You don’t have to mean it, but you should make it sound convincing.”

Javier kisses her deeply. “I’ll be safe,” he says. “I promise you I’ll be safe. You’ll come home and I’ll be right where you left me, cielito. I fucking promise.”

She smiles up at him. “Good.”

~

The television in the little café is emblazoned with live footage of the Palace of Justice siege. He watches her work around the gathering crowd, refilling pots of coffee and assuaging anxieties where she can. She's worried, too. He can tell by the crease in her brow. 

“Cabrón.” Luis snaps his fingers in his face. “Pay fucking attention. You're supposed to be watching her.”

“What do you think I’m doing, pendejo? Baking a fucking cake?” He smacks Luis in the chest. “It's not like watching her is hard. Don't you have a job to do?”

Luis returns to looking through his binoculars. From the roof, his vantage point is perfect. “Yeah, I got a fuckin’ job to do. It's called watching a hot woman serve coffee and getting so bored I might try sucking my own dick.”

He lifts his own binoculars. “If only she'd go back to her fucking apartment. That asshole never leaves her alone.”

“Because he's got a hard-on for her.” Luis snorts. “Isn't that why we’re here in the first place?”

“Just keep watching. If she goes back there—”

“Yeah, yeah. Christ, man, I’m not a moron; I know the drill,” grumbles Luis. “I’m fucking starving. You want lunch?”

He knows they'll be here a while. “Yeah. Why not.”

~

She wakes up to a crash.

It comes from the kitchen. She scrambles upward until her back hits the headboard. "Javier," she whispers, frantic. Her heart is pounding. "Javi, wake up."

He grumbles out a hmph, hand grasping to seek out her thigh in the darkness. He squeezes and says, "Vuelve a dormir, bebita (Go back to sleep)," not quite awake enough to form thoughts in English. She reaches down and begins to shake him when the sounds of footsteps come closer. There are people inside their home.

She keeps shaking, but he's intent on seeking her warmth, wrapping his arms around her waist and scrunching the material of her shift in his fingers. Why won't he wake up? "Fuck, Javier, wake up," she says, urgent, panicking. "Someone's in the house. Please—"

There's noise at their bedroom door. She freezes when it slowly creaks open, helpless, unable to move. Why can't she move? Why won't he wake up?

Three men, faces covered with black masks, have guns raised when they enter the room.

She's going to die.

Two of them take Javier, who finally awakes once his hands are no longer touching her. His eyes slowly come to life with terror when another man grabs her by the throat and presses a barrel to her temple. 

"NO!" Javier yells, struggling to no avail against the two men holding him on his knees. They've got a gun to his head, too, but he keeps thrashing around. He can't reach her, she's going to die, they'll both bleed alone and afraid in their own fucking home. She's still on the bed, grasping at the man's arm as it locks around her neck. "¡No ella! Not her!" cries Javier, his voice raspy with sleep and rage. "¡No ella! Hijo de puta, voy a matarte. ¡VOY A MATARTE! (Not her! You son of a bitch, I will kill you.)"

She keeps looking into his eyes, their livid horror, and whimpers, "Por favor... No lo lastimes (Don't hurt him). Por favor. Haré lo que sea (I'll do anything)."

"¿Qué tengo que hacer? (What should I do?)" says the man holding her to his friends. "¿Quién de ustedes debe morir primero? (Which one of you should die first?)"

The cold barrel on her temple digs harder, like he's trying to leave an imprint. She cries out, and Javier roars, struggling and writhing, knowing he can't help, knowing he's too late.

She just doesn't want him to watch her die.

"La puta debe mirar (the bitch should watch)," says another.

She cries harder. "NO! JAVIER!" she begs. "PLEASE, NO!"

A shot rings out, but she has closed her eyes. She waits to die. At least she'll join him. Her love. Her life. The man whispers in her ear before he presses the trigger.

“This is for Nicolás, bitch.”

~

When she awakes, she grabs for her throat, like she’s testing the flow of air to her lungs. Her hand migrates upward, from her jaw to her cheek to her forehead. She’s burning hot, sweat beading across her forehead. Next to her, Javier sleeps. Alive. 

This is the third dream she’s had in a week like this. Every time, she has to watch him die. 

~

She’s had the feeling for a week or so. Like someone is watching her. 

She doesn't tell Javier. He's worried enough about her as it is after the break-in. Even kissing good-bye before he leaves for work has become a dance of her pulling away and him pushing himself back into her. They've ended up in the storage room at the café a few times, kissing until she's breathless and she has to threaten him with no sex. When she does, he’ll pout like he always does and kiss her harder; then he’ll leave, and she’ll go about her day. 

When it happens, she usually sees a shadow. It appears in the corner of her eye, shaped vaguely like a dark blob or two, and when she whips her head around to look, it's gone. But the tingles that shoot down each knob of her spine are unmistakable. Someone is following her. 

She assumes Nicolás is trying to torment her. She doesn't put it past him to worm around his restraining order. If he knows she's with Javier, it’s only more ammunition for him; she'll never get divorced. Not when he can claim she's only trying to get away from him because she's having an affair. 

But Nicolás doesn’t know that she feels loved with Javier. She feels strong and beautiful and safe when she's wrapped up in him, and she knows she's in love. He’s it for her—the only man she ever wants to know this way. She knows all the freckles and little scars on his body, she knows how easy it is to talk with him like they’ve known each other forever, and she knows Nicolás would do anything to make sure his wife suffers for knowing another man. 

A stranger enters the café. He’s older, visibly older than Javier, with laugh lines and light hair that’s been combed over a few too many times. It’s obvious he’s balding, but he walks with enough charisma that she presumes most people decide not to tease him for it. His eyes are dark, but they’re bright, like a shark’s. He sits down in Javier’s seat at the counter. 

“Buenos dias,” he says. “Café, por favor.”

“Of course.” She gives him a bright smile and goes to work. The man’s eyes follow her as she follows routine, but she’s got the sense not to let him know she’s aware of his voyeuristic gaze. “It’s a hot one out there, ¿no?”

It’s her usual script. Most regulars don’t deviate from it even when they’re heard it a hundred times, or when it’s not so hot out. They indulge her, like it’s an inside joke. This man just slides the coffee cup toward him and watches her while he takes his first sip. 

“A friend recommended me,” he tells her, after she’s been holding his stare for uncomfortably long. “He was right; good coffee.”

She manages to keep her smile painted on as she continues with her usual lines. “Then I’ll make sure you pay full price.”

When he sets down the cup, it doesn’t make a louder noise than those mugs usually do. But the breeze outside has stilled; the crowd walking by has lulled; even the idle chatter in the café quiets down; and the noise makes her jump. The man’s smile looks like a sneer. Maybe that’s how he got those lines around his eyes. 

“Nicolás wants his money,” he says. 

She stiffens. “It’s a shame Nicolás can’t come here and ask for money himself. It’s almost like he can’t be near me.”

She knows taunting is a terrible idea. But he’s awfully brazen, coming into her place of work and demanding money on behalf of his snivelling boss. “Nicolás wants his money, bitch.”

A henchman and a broken record. They don’t come as smart as they used to.

“How much is he paying you?” she asks. “He’s clearly got enough money to keep you cheerfully employed. I don’t see why he needs mine.”

The man stands up and walks around the counter until he’s out of view of the other customers. She knows what’s about to come. She’s dealt with this exact sort of threat before. “Because if you don’t give him what he wants, he’s going to break your goddamn restraining order and take the money himself.” 

From his waistband emerges a pistol, its barrel pointed straight at her stomach. “Nicolás can’t take a bitch’s money if she’s dead. Do you really think they won’t trace it back to him?” She keeps her expression neutral for the sake of not causing a scene. “The jilted husband, angry enough to take revenge.”

“You think I’m going to shoot you?” he says with a scoff. “No, guapa, I’m going to shoot your man-whore DEA boyfriend. Something tells me that will convince you.” Something on her face must change, her expression shifting to mirror the spark of panic sending tremors through her body, because he laughs. Good-natured, like they’re friends swapping jokes. The gun disappears back into his waistband. “And you just told me it will.”

She’s frozen to the spot as he walks out, leaving the full mug behind. “Thanks for the coffee.”

~

She must look like she’s seen a ghost, because Javier is on her in a second when she gets home. He’s shirtless, his jeans low on his hips. Cigarette dangling from his lips, he assesses her with that deep frown of his. “You’re shaking, cielito.”

“Cold,” she says, though it comes out as a faint squeak.

“It’s eighty degrees outside.” Javier ducks his head so he can find her gaze and traps her with his dark eyes. “Did something happen?”

She can’t stand keeping her worries secret for a second longer, not when it’s now his life she’s endangering. “I think you’re in trouble, Javi.” The guilt makes her want to double over and retch. “It’s my fault. I’m… God, I’m sorry. It's all my fault.”

“Hey.” He crushes the cigarette and pulls her in, his chin resting on top of her head. “Baby, I’m okay. I’m safe.”

She clutches his chest, her nails digging into his pecs as she shudders, overwhelmed by the reality that he’s here with her. 

“I love you,” she tells him. Something true and real that she can hold onto.

For a moment, he doesn’t say a word, and she doesn’t mind. It’s real for her; that’s all she knows. “I love you,” she says, pulling back just to look in his eyes. “You’re the only way for me to go, Javier. It’s you, and I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner. It’s you, tesoro.”

When he kisses her, it takes eons. He steps close, their breaths mingling, his nose brushing hers. His fingers trace the dips in her back with such care, featherlight, that she shivers. Even when he touches his mouth to hers, it’s so gentle she could melt, and his lips taste like smoke, like the apple pie they shared this morning. He nudges her mouth open with his and her lips part willingly, letting him take control, tasting her tongue the way he wants. She sighs happily into his mouth when his hand pushes at her back, tugging her closer, his other hand cradling her face. It’s sweet, slow, aching—and when it’s over, he smiles. A real grin, his eyes crinkling and his teeth showing.

“I love you,” he says, resting his forehead against hers. “Fuckin’ love you so much, baby. Don’t fucking deserve you.”

She stands on her toes and slots her mouth back over his. It’s an assured kiss. “Bullshit,” she says, cupping his face with her hands. “You are everything I want.”

Javier’s grip on her waist tightens. “Whatever happened, mi cielo… We’ll fix it. We’ve done it before. We’ll fuckin’ do it again.” He walks them to the bedroom and kicks the door shut behind him. She’s up against the wall, in the dark, wrapping her arms up around his neck. “Not letting you go.”

Tears blur her vision, but it’s dark anyway. “You better not.”

He slips her sweater over her head and teases his fingers under the waistband of her skirt as he kisses her again. She lets the tears fall when he slips his hand lower and traces a line up her slit with his middle finger, shivering in his grasp. “Muy hermosa,” he muses, his voice a rasp in her ear. She has to hold onto his shoulder when he dips his finger inside her and bites her earlobe. 

He’s taking his time, making her feel everything. The scratch of his jeans against her thighs when he finally pulls her skirt down and sinks to his knees with it, kissing and sucking every inch of her legs until he reaches her ankles. The prickle of his moustache upon her sensitive flesh. The soothing kisses he gives to the bruises already there from the nights she begged him to mark her. He’s not marking her tonight. He’s taking it so slow she might die, her heartbeat kicking at her ribs, soft whines leaving her mouth. 

“Javi…”

He doesn’t say anything, but a hum leaves his mouth when his lips reach her inner thigh and he sees her wetness, all for him. “Javi, please,” she sighs, writhing badly enough to make him grip her thigh and pull it over his shoulder like he’s a fucking saddle. 

“Tell me you love me,” he says, his middle and ring fingers finding her pussy again, sinking in deep enough to brush up against a delicious, explosive spot. “Say it.”

“I… oh, fuck, I…” She bites her lip and releases it, her eyes opening to find him looking up at her in the darkness, eyes like black holes she’s already falling into. “I love you,” she whispers, her fingers scratching down the back of his head. 

He presses his face into her core and licks slowly, achingly slowly, up her centre. She pushes out a huff, hips rocking, and he squeezes her thigh, telling her he’ll make her feel good, just be patient. It’s overwhelming, keeping her eyes locked on his, watching him lick into her and taste her arousal while she fights to keep her head from tipping back against the wall. His nose brushes her clit and she makes such a pathetic noise it must make him feel bad for her. He groans into her cunt and wraps his lips around her clit. 

It feels so good she can barely see. Her head gives in, falling back as he closes his eyes and grips her thighs tighter, alternating between sucking and licking her clit, the noises of his slurps and grunts fucking obscene as he works her up so much she thinks she might pass out. Her hand grabs onto his hair for support but he doesn’t seem to mind. Her thighs tense and moans spill from her mouth shamelessly, and he knows she’s close because he lets her grind into his face as he pulls her clit back into his mouth. 

“I love you, I love you,” she gasps, the coil snapping, her bones melting as Javier holds her up, leaving her clit and lapping around it so he doesn’t overstimulate her. He squeezes her thigh with each pulse of her cunt and makes sure she can still stand before he rises. 

“Te amo,” he says, gripping her chin in his hand and kissing her breathless. “Te amo, mi cielo.”

She walks him backward until he falls into a sitting position at the end of the bed. She crawls onto it and straddles him, pushing her breasts into his chest as she kisses him, bites at him, and finally leans back to stare into his eyes, black in the dark. His hands find her hips and he nods. He knows exactly what she wants. 

“Up,” she whispers. He lifts his hips off the bed and she shucks down his jeans, climbing off him so she can take the rest of their clothes off. He’s reaching out to squeeze her breasts before she can get back onto his lap, and it makes her laugh. “Más despacio, vaquero (slow down).”

“So beautiful,” he grumbles. “Ride me, baby. Take what you want.”

She takes his cock, hard and leaking against his stomach, in her hand and slides it through her wetness before she finds her entrance and sinks down, as slowly as he teased her. He hisses, hips jerking, but she leans in and sucks on the skin beneath his earlobe. “Behave,” she says, giddy with control, especially when he gasps and groans, twitching inside her. 

Her clit is rubbing against the hairs at the base of his cock before she starts to move. Holding onto his shoulders for support, she lifts herself up and twists her hips before bringing them back down. His jaw is clenched so tight she doesn’t think he’s capable of opening his mouth, but she wants to draw it out of him. She repeats the trick a few more times, kissing him all the while, letting him relax into her, lips parting so she can taste her arousal on his tongue. 

She grinds and bounces on his cock, letting herself feel the depth of him, while he helps her move, one hand snaking around to her ass as the other makes a tangled mess of her hair. He yanks her head back and licks up the column of throat; it feels so good she cries out and stills on his cock for a moment before she can regain her composure. Even letting her ride, take control, Javier fucks like he’s the god of it. 

When she comes, she doesn’t expect it. It snaps through her like a firecracker, and she gasps, unable to make a sound let alone speak as she shudders against him and clamps down hard on his cock at the same time her teeth bite down on his shoulder. They’re both sweaty, slipping against one another, panting and heaving. He’s gasping for breath too, holding onto her as he keeps her grinding up and down, working her through her orgasm. Her nose pushes into his cheek, nipping at his jaw while she feels the tremors pass. 

He isn’t finished. When he can tell he’s squeezed every drop of her orgasm out of her, he flips them around and yanks her down so her hips are hanging off the bed. Then, he begins to fuck her. Hard. 

The sweetness is gone. She’s going numb with pleasure as he slides in and out of her slick cunt, her eyes rolling back into her head and small squeals leaving her mouth. He’s got an iron grip on her hips as he slams into her. “Mírame,” he grunts, reaching forward and grasping her jaw, tilting it so she has to look him in the eyes. “Muy bien, bebita. Dámelo. Dámelo, cielito. Shit, baby. So fucking good.”

He slides his hand down her throat, over her sternum, all the way down over her navel until he finds her clit and rubs slow circles over it. It’s so hard to keep looking at him, but she manages, letting her second orgasm crash down upon her at the same time he thrusts deep and grinds.

She almost slips off the bed when she finds her voice to cry out, gushing around him. His name leaves her mouth over and over again, her hands blindly grasping for something to hold onto. He lifts one leg onto the bed and drapes himself over her, still grinding deep enough that she sees stars, and he drops his head into the crook of her neck, teeth bared against her jaw when he spills his cum inside of her. 

“Fuck,” he huffs. “Fucking shit, honey.”

She giggles, high on three orgasms. “Yeah. Tell me about it.”

His eyes find hers in the dark. “I mean it,” he says, his voice a rasp. “I love you.”

She slides her fingers through his damp hair and wills herself not to cry. Everything is good here. Everything is right. They’ll figure it out together; they'll be okay. “I know.”

~

Javier’s on a mission. He doesn’t give a fuck who gets in his way; he’s fairly certain he’s willing to kill whoever tries.

For a moment, he’s even willing to kill Steve Murphy when he walks through the door to the evidence room and whispers, “Javi, what the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m breeding racehorses, Murphy. What does it look like?” He doesn’t look up from the file box, sifting through it like he’s digging for gold. In a way, he is. “Cabrón,” he adds under his breath.

“I mean”—Murphy stalks over and slams his hand down on the pile of manila folders—“these aren’t narco files. Meaning you aren’t authorised to look through ‘em.” He narrows his eyes at Javier. “She’s in trouble again, isn’t she.”

It isn’t a question, but Javier nods. He’s been fuming since she told him about the stranger in her café; he had come waltzing in only minutes after Javier left and plopped down right in his seat, meaning he’s been watching them. Watching her. She’s been flighty, distracted, but now Javier knows why. She’s being harassed, manipulated, and threatened by the man who claimed to love her. He’s not going to fucking let it slide. 

She’s terrified for his life, having nightmares where she’s forced to watch him die. And she still wakes up in the morning and chooses to love him. Him. He’s caused her pain and put her in danger, but she still claims he’s worth it. He may be an asshole, but he’s a man who likes to take action. And he’s going to prove to the woman he loves that she can trust him to fix this.

“He thinks she's his,” says Javier, tucking his cigarette between his teeth when he finds two more folders and shoves them under his arm. “He doesn't love her, but that doesn't matter to bastards like him. He wants to control her.”

“And you do love her.” Murphy stares a hole through Javier’s head. “Goddamn, you do. Shit, Javi. I mean, good for you; I like the girl a lot, and God knows my wife does too, but if she’s saying this fucker’s threatening your life, maybe you should listen to her.”

“I am listening to her.” Javier finds the last file in the box on Nicolás Reyes and stuffs them all in his bag. “I don’t want to end up in the bottom of a river, Steve. I just want to get this guy away from her. Permanently.”

Murphy rolls his eyes. “What do you think all this shit’s gonna get you, huh? Besides fired?”

Javier shrugs the bag onto his shoulder. “I gotta know this guy’s deal. If he’s a real threat, I’ll have reason to bring him to the police and get him put away.”

Murphy grabs his collar and shakes him a little. “If you don’t get fucking killed first. Jesus, Javi, you have to be smart about this.”

“If I don’t do something about it, no one will,” says Javier. “The fact he’s got files locked up in here means there’s something I can use. We know men like this, Steve. They have so much power they can’t be touched. I’m done. I’m not letting him hurt her.”

Murphy looks down at the ground between them. “Javi…”

“I’m walking out of here with these files, man,” he says. “If you don’t let me, you’ll have bigger fucking problems than your job. And you can be damn well sure your wife will never forgive you.”

Murphy steps aside and shakes his head. “What files?”

~

“I think—fuck, baby—you should move in. For—Christ—for good.”

She cries out when he grinds deep inside her, and he takes her wrists in one hand, pushing them above her head. Her hair is splayed over the pillows, a vision of a goddess as he pushes into her again and again, her glistening skin golden with morning sunlight. She pants, chest heaving. “Only if… ohhhh, Javi… if you’ll have me.”

“I’m taking you right now,” he says, hips stuttering when she laughs breathlessly and clenches around his cock. 

“Javi,” she whines, rolling her hips to meet his thrusts, her ankles locked around his waist. “Te amo, te amo, te amo. Eres tan bueno conmigo (You’re so good to me).”

He watches her ramble, the way she does when she’s close, transfixed by the freefall of praise and love from her mouth even as his own mind goes fuzzy with lust, engulfed by the feel of her body. Just because he can, he lowers himself on top of her, deepening the angle, and kisses her, licking into her mouth. “Fucking”—he thrusts hard and deep, enjoying the way her legs tighten around him to hold on—“love you. Mi amor. Mi cielo.”

Her eyes meet his and he lets go of her wrists so she can grab a handful of his hair as she reaches her orgasm. She moans, long and low, eyes rolling back in her head and pussy choking the fucking life out of his dick. He drops his head and bites down on her shoulder, keeping his thrusts shallow as he comes, spilling inside her in pulses. She sighs, content, letting him collapse on top of her and stroking his damp hair. Before her, he’d roll over and smoke when he was done. Before her, he didn’t know the peace of the afterglow. 

“I meant it,” he mumbles, tracing her nipple with his finger. “Move in with me, baby.”

“Are you sure?” she says softly. “I know you like your space, Javi. Do you really want me in your bed every night?”

“You’re already in my bed every night,” he points out. “I feel better knowing you’re safe with me here. I sleep better.” He tilts his head upward and gently bites her jaw. “Don’t want space.”

She hums, tapping his cheek with a finger like she’s pondering it. “Do I get the bathroom first in the morning?”

“You will have”—he kisses her cheek—“everything you want. No es fácil vivir conmigo, cielito, pero seré bueno contigo (I’m not easy to live with, but I’ll be good to you).”

“I already have everything I want,” she says earnestly. “But I need you to make a promise with me.”

He nods eagerly, ready to do anything she says even as he teases her nipple with his teeth. “Hmm.”

“We stay awake,” she says. “If you're going to be home late, I’m going to stay awake for you, and we’ll eat together. If I’m late, stay awake until I’m home.”

He thinks it's more than fair. He doesn't want to get like those couples who grumble at one another for being late, missing dinner, and go to sleep alone and angry. Like this, they'll go to bed together no matter what, no feelings hurt. She understands his life, the way it gets to him sometimes, how hopeless it can be. 

He's not going to fuck this up. He loves her. He loves every single cell and atom and heartbeat that makes her. He’s going to be good to her. 

“Yeah, baby,” he says. “I promise.”

~

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#kiwisbell's fics #las mañanas #javier peña fic #javier peña #javier peña smut #javier peña fanfiction #javier peña x reader #narcos #narcos fic #narcos fanfiction

[alteredpupil]

PICK A CARD - WHO'S THINKING ABOUT YOU?

Since I tried to make this short I only focused on the most potent energy.

PILE ONE

For some of you right off the bat your mom is thinking about you lmao... some of you this is a concerned or overprotective mother (figure). A ex lover, possibly a Capricorn or somebody born in winter, you could've recently fell out with this person. A teacher. I'm receiving a lot of energy but the one coming through the heaviest is somebody you use to hang out with a lot, either the lover or a best friend. This could be a soul connection or this person feels pulled to you by spirit. You entice this person imagination and they spend a lot of time daydreaming about how it would be like being with you or spending time with you. You're probably away from this person because they wish they can run into you. This person could even put you on a pedestal. I'm also hearing you guys could be manifesting each other. This connection might be destined to play out or you guys will be forced to get some type of closure. I came back to this pile to say you might have people stalking you that you don't even know about. They know you but you don't know them type deal - could be through this person or the internet. Maybe this person talks about you to them.

PILE TWO

This is somebody you left in the past and they got a lot to say. This person could be depressed or tired of life. This situation transpired very quickly, it might've been abrupt news that drifted you both apart. This could be a fire sign. I don't know why but I'm getting as a side message this person might have a poor diet or eat lots of junk food. There is something here one party is not seeing or purposely keeping a blind eye to, almost stubbornly. This could be you wanting to keep your peace and not have to deal with the drama you feel this individual comes with. This person wants to give you a gift or make you an offer. This individual could've cried over you before. I'm getting confirmation it's definitely an ex partner who has not given up on this situation yet. This person stalks your social media still or tries to go places you go to. You might've came from pile one. This person could also be a heavy worker because I'm getting very hot as I type this. You could've put this person on a emotional roller coaster but I don't think they show it pile two.

PILE THREE

This person wants to purposely stay hidden. It feels like this person thinks you made them feel sad or crossed them on purpose. This could be an enemy pile 3, either an outright enemy that's very passive aggressive about the situation or a friend who's not really your friend. This person might wanna use witchcraft against you or just spends a lot of time thinking about you and sending you a lot of energy. They have a lot of nasty words they wanna say to you or it's almost like they're waiting for you to make an ass out of yourself so they can remark or call you out. They basically wanna wait till you're at your lowest and shit on you when you're down. Don't let them see you sweat, pile three. Their feelings are hurt but I see you don't even realize this or they came at you first and found out real quick you weren't the one to fuck with. This could be a third party as well that's mad your with their ex or somebody they want, wants you. This person could also be jealous of your looks or what you have, they try to mirror you to get the same type of attention. This person hates how easily you manifest and how stable you seem. "They wanna take it all away" is what I'm hearing. If this is not a third party this is a masculine that feels slighted by you. I asked for protection messages for you guys and I'm getting staying grounded helps. It's almost like you're naturally fighting off this person in the astrals or being protected by whatever you're doing naturally, because you might not be paying them any mind (lights flickered as I wrote this). I'm also getting by focusing on your journey and what you're doing their energy is naturally getting transmuted. This person could also be bothered by how unfazed you are. Not to say you're weak alone pile 3, you're not, but this person might be more intimidated when they see you have people (who care about you) around you.

PILE FOUR

Hi, pile four! I'm already getting this is my influencer pile or you have a big following on a platform of some sort. Or you just have a lot of eyes on you in real life because you have so much coming in its almost mute.. what do I mean by that? You might''ve found a way to quiet all the "noise" and focus on your task while receiving so much attention. You're in your own world pile four and a lot of people admire that. I'm hearing somebody wants to give you an opportunity that is going to bring in a lot of money and/or attention. But this will take hard work and you might overthink this offer pile four. This person could be a hard worker themselves. You have at least two love interests or people who have their eyes on you, one is a fire sign that has his shit together, this person might be impulsive so it wouldn't surprise me if this masculine already made a move on you. One of these options might be the full package for you or as closest as it gets, if this person hasn't made a move yet it's because they have a lot at stake. They may even have multiple options themselves. Both men fancy you. Lastly I'm getting a fake friend who smiles in your face and bashes you behind your back, this could even be a family member. I feel like this person 'disapproves" of what your doing but if they could have some sort of position you're in - they would. This could be somebody you moved away from or came up with and they're mad you're doing better in some aspects of life.

#pick a card #pick a picture #pick a pile #tarot reading #psychic readings #pick an image #pac reading

[decks-writing-blog]

Whatever the Fuck Benrey Is: Chapter One: Never Stayed Dead

Summary: Following the events at Black Mesa, Gordon ends up learning more about Benrey. He might even end up liking him eventually.

[A/N] This was supposed to be a one shot about Gordon and Benrey starting to get along; the start of a slow burn that still feels complete as a stand alone. And then I was gonna do more one shots along their relationship journey, each feeling complete on its own. I've done this with ships before to great success but uh... that didn't happen here. It just kept going until I had to start splitting it into chapters at which point I was invested in it. I have nothing planned so it might end up meandering at some point but that's okay, I'm working on chapter 7 now and still going strong and still enjoying writing it so the journey will take us wherever it ends up taking us.

Also, I know that Benrey seems to most often be portrayed as basically not taking damage from things but like, in the series because of how G-mod works, blood still sprays from him sometimes so I have chosen to interpret that as he takes the damage but then heals from it really quick. Which lead to other ideas that end up being rather important to how I write Benrey.

~

Upon getting hired at Black Mesa, Gordon hadn’t thought too much about the housing provided to the employees. It was a top secret research facility out in the middle of the New Mexico dessert, mostly buried under it, and a long multi-hour drive from the next nearest bit of civilization. Said bit of civilization being nothing but a small town that didn’t even have an airport. So of course the job had come with a place to live, anything else would’ve caused getting to and from work to take longer than actual work or require him and everyone else to camp out in the dessert above the facility. Now though, upon fast walking away from the Chuck E. Cheese – with Tommy’s birthday party over, capping the nightmare at last, he was finally free – he really wished he had a place to stay in Tuefort too.

Whether the living area in Black Mesa was still intact or not was hard to say for sure. But even if it was, based off the state the rest of the facility he’d seen had been in, likely it had been overrun with aliens and military goons, leaving it a horrid mess. One he wouldn’t want to clean up or just live next to even if the option had been available to him. Which it wasn’t thanks to how long the drive down there was when he didn’t even have a car currently.

Did he even have a job at Black Mesa anymore? If so did he want to keep it after all that? Even if the answer to either of those was ‘yes’ he didn’t want go back right now for sure. Not until someone else cleaned up the mess. Which should take a while, meaning he had plenty of time to think about it for now.

Instead he kept walking, trying not to think about anything other than finding Tuefort’s one hotel, if he could just remember where it was. He should still have his wallet on him under the HEV suit and thus some money, hopefully enough to rent a room long enough to figure things out.

Dressed in a blood splattered suit of what was essentially orange armor and with a hand that was hopefully not too obviously a gun at first glance, he got curious looks from passersby as he made his way down the sidewalk. There were quite a few people about too; the town was abuzz. Likely that had something to do with the military flying over to get to Black Mesa. Luckily, despite their intrigue, no one stopped him to ask questions about who he was or what he thought about the military. Tuefort’s one claim to fame was being a weird place filled with weird people so he could hopefully continue to pass as a normal type of weird person that had nothing to do with anything important. So he avoided eye contact as much as possible and held his gun hand close to try to disguise it as such.

He’d have to do something about it eventually though. Walking around with a gun for an hand might not be illegal – this was America after all, gun laws were way more lax than was probably wise – but it sure was weird. People would ask about it for sure and he didn’t want to talk about it. Could anything be done about it though? Was taking it off and replacing it with proper prosthetic an option? … If not then he would have to…

“Hey.”

He jumped, snapping to face the ally he was passing by, pointing said gun arm at the figure leaning against the wall within. Quickly, he lowered it; he couldn’t just go around pointing his gun at anyone who startled him even if the voice had sounded uncomfortably familiar. Except well, it wasn’t just the voice that was familiar.

“Benrey!” Gordon snapped the gun back up. “Why aren’t you dead? You’re supposed to be dead.” It was a struggle to keep his voice down but he didn’t want to call undue attention.

“What? Who told you I was dead?” It sounded like a genuine question but with Benrey who could possibly tell if he was genuine about anything?

“No one. We killed you or… or I thought we did.” He should’ve known better though, huh? Benrey never stayed dead.

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re a cheater but I’m better now. So where you headed? Off to steal something?”

If Gordon shot him, how much trouble would he get in? … Probably more than was worth it considering Benrey couldn’t die, not permanently anyway. “No. I’m looking for a hotel ‘cause I need a place to sleep for a while before I try to find out if any part of Black Mesa’s still operational and if I also still have a job there if so. I don’t have time for you so I’m just gonna leave now.”

Maybe it was a mistake to turn his back on whatever the fuck Benrey was but Gordon didn’t really care anymore and did it anyway, resuming heading down the sidewalk. If Benrey wanted to kill him, he would do it and Gordon couldn’t do a single thing to stop him apparently. So he was just going to do his best to not let Benrey bother him and hope that would convince him to finally leave.

“You’re headed the wrong direction.”

Gordon skid to a halt, turning to look back at Benrey as he stepped out of the ally. “What?”

“Hotel’s down that way, on the other side of town.” Benrey pointed in the opposite direction Gordon had been heading.

“Are you sending me in that direction so I’ll walk all the way to that side of town, find no hotel, forcing me to walk all the way back to this side of town again before I finally find it?”

“No. Why would I do that?”

“Because you want to make my life a living hell.”

Benrey stared at him in silence for a several seconds. Had his eyes always been that yellow and Gordon was just now noticing or was it a new thing? “Whatever, I don’t care if you believe me or not. I’m just trying to help an old pal out. Which I didn’t have to do after you cheated to beat me up. Uncool, man, uncool.” Well at least he wasn’t unphased by his defeat. Not that him being bitter about it really helped Gordon much. If anything that was bad as it gave Benrey all the more reason to target him.

“You know what? Fine. If you know where the hotel is, take me there, lead the way.” Gordon flourished his good arm in the direction Benrey had said the hotel lay in.

“Why? You planning to steal something once you’re there?”

Far too tired to play this game, Gordon didn’t take the bait. In hindsight, he should’ve never responded to such nonsense, it’s clearly what Benrey wanted. Well, with defeating Benrey for good off the table, Gordon was done playing his games. He wasn’t going to be a fun target anymore. “If you don’t know the way, that’s fine. I’m fully capable of finding it on my own.” Though he would really rather just have someone bring him there, even if it was Benrey, so he could finally get a shower and a full night’s sleep that much sooner.

More of that silent thoughtful stare, his pupils narrowing to slits. How Gordon had ever missed the fact that Benrey wasn’t human was a mystery. What was he though? Gordon would love to know but at the same time it was Benrey. No doubt he’d make any attempt to study or experiment on him a massive pain in the ass.

“I’m waiting. You gonna lead the way or no.”

“Well uh… I don’t know where it is exactly,only that it’s on the side of town closest to Black Mesa, which is over that way.” He pointed again and it was indeed the direction Black Mesa lay in.

“Great, awesome, thanks for the help.” Gordon started in that direction. If it was a trick, he’d already been walking so long already it hardly mattered. And if not, it’d get him to a place he could rest that much sooner. So it was probably worth the risk.

“You’re welcome,” Benrey said as he fell in step with Gordon, sounding as if he hadn’t picked up on the frustration and sarcasm at all.

Gordon turned his head to look at him, intending to tell him to leave but bit back on it. It wouldn’t make him leave and might give him opening to be more annoying. So instead he clamped his mouth shut, turned to look solely where he was going and kept walking. His only hope of escaping Benrey was no longer being a fun thing to play with and that meant he had to do his best to ignore Benrey and all his attempts to be a nuisance.

The silence between them held for maybe a grand total of two whole minutes before Benrey broke it. “So when’s your hand gonna grow back?”

Gordon took a breath to respond but again bit back on it. He wasn’t raising to the bait. Benrey was trying to make him angry by bringing up his missing hand again.

“I mean I know humans heal slower and stuff, it’s why everyone’s always taking my juice, ‘cause they’re impatient and don’t wanna wait, but it’s been days now so it should be starting to come back, right? Unless it can’t ‘cause the gun’s there now. I could cut that off for you if you want. Unless you wanna keep the gun, it is pretty cool. You have to promise not to steal anything with it though.”

Gordon should stay quiet, really he should, Benrey was talking nonsense, again. But even with how exhausted he was by the events of the last week, or however long that nightmare had lasted, he couldn’t just not be curious. “What do you mean ‘everyone’s always taking your… juice’?”

“I mean they’re always taking my juice. What else could that sentence mean?”

“What are they taking your juice for?” And what did he even mean by ‘juice’? But one question at a time.

“To put in health packs and stuff so they can heal up real fast when they get a boo-boo. You should really pay better attention when people are talking.”

Gordon skidded to a halt, too shocked to be annoyed by the implication he hadn’t been paying attention. “You mean the healing stuff in the health stations and health packs that Black Mesa makes are filled with your… juice?”

Benrey continued on for a couple more steps before realizing Gordon had stopped. He turned back to face him. Before he could get a word out though, Gordon interrupted.

“And before you accuse me of not paying attention again, I am paying complete and total attention. I just want clarification because I was told it was just a compound one of the teams in Black Mesa invented in a lab. There was never any mention of any juice from any… whatever the fuck you are.”

Benrey frowned, smacking his lips a couple times in seeming thought. “I told them to tell people. But yeah, they take my juice, mix it from something to make it go further and last longer, then put it in the medkits and stuff.”

He could still be lying, trying to mess with Gordon through making him believe he’d injected himself with Benrey’s ‘juice’ a fuckton of times over the years and especially in the last week. But on the other hand, he did undoubtedly have some crazy regenerative properties, healing from gunshot wounds like it was no problem, so of course someone in Black Mesa would try to harness and use that if they could. And from what he knew, a not insubstantial amount of Black Mesa’s funding had come from selling those medkits, often through shady channels if the rumors were to believed.

The realization that Benrey had been at Black Mesa as far more than a security guard wasn’t surprising as he was the exact kind of thing many of the scientists there liked to poke, study, and use. What was surprising though was that they’d managed to contain him. Congrats to them, if only they’d managed to keep him locked up.

Shaking off the shock, Gordon resumed walking. Though he moved slower than before; he was tired and not done with this conversation. So this time, Benrey falling in step next to him was exactly what he wanted. “Okay, knowing I’ve been injected with your… juice is kinda gross. I guess how gross depends on what exactly you mean by ‘juice’. Is it your blood or… or… where do they draw it from?”

Benrey shrugged. “Why do you wanna know? Gonna try to steal some to grow your hand back faster?”

Would straight from the source be enough for such a thing? The medkits and health stations could do a lot, up to and including healing bullets wounds as he’d learned the hard way, but they couldn’t grow back lost limbs. That had been stressed pretty hard in training to prevent people from getting too reckless. But even straight from the source could… “No. I may not like you but stealing your blood or… whatever you mean by ‘juice’ wouldn’t be something I want to stoop to.” Even if he did have some right to because it was Benrey who had caused his arm to get chopped off in the first place. “Gotta try to return to having some sense of morality now that I’m outta that nightmare. Besides, I doubt it would work. Unlike whatever you are, human limbs don’t grow back once they’re cut off. If you’re quick and the cut is clean enough it can sometimes be reattached but that’s the most anyone’s ever been able to do even with the medkit goo.”

“Wait, what do you mean? Of course it’s gonna grow back, it just takes longer ‘cause all your healing stuff takes longer for some reason.” Did he really not know or was he messing with Gordon, trying to get an angry raise out of him? Either way the only thing making it easy to resist the temptation to shoot him in the face was the fact so many other people were around and would see.

“No. It’s never growing back. It physically can’t grow back. My hand’s gone for good and there’s nothing I do can do to change that.” It was old news by now but saying it out loud made it more real somehow. A tinge of panic threatened to crawl up his throat and take his breath and thought away. A part of his body was gone, chopped off and replaced with a gun of all things. A tool good only for hurting and killing.

He had to stop walking and step to the side to lean against a nearby building so he could focus on just breathing. In and out… in and out… he wasn’t having a panic attack today. He was far too exhausted to put up with that. He’d freak out about it again later! Right now he just needed a place to rest and relax and that was the only thing he was going to be thinking about until he got there. Nothing else in the world existed but that goal.

It took a couple minutes but he eventually steadied himself. Full blown panic attacked averted – for the moment at least – he took one last deep breath before looking up again. Benrey stood before him, his expression unreadable as the watched Gordon. “You for real? It ain’t gonna grow back?”

Gordon was tempted to resume walking and hopefully leave him behind but… “You seriously thought it would?”

“Yep. But… I guess that explains why it’s been taking so long, huh? Humans are even weaker than I thought. Oops.” There was an emotion in his voice that his natural monotone made hard to place. “Guess you’re just gonna have to be Gordon Gunhandman now, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Don’t think about it too much! Gordon pushed off the building and resumed walking towards hopefully the hotel. He could be angry at Benrey for thinking the whole thing was just a prank, causing nothing but mild inconvenience, later when he had more energy. The sun was starting to dip towards the horizon, the sky darkening. In another couple hours it would set and the cold would creep in. Hopefully he’d be clean and in a real bed by then. While they were still walking though and to change the subject… “Do you give them your… juice,” gosh, he couldn’t believe they were still calling it that, “willingly? Like do they pay you?”

Benrey was quiet for a few seconds before replying. “They let me go wherever I want in the facility ‘long as as I cooperate.” Implying they’d otherwise force him to and then keep him locked up in whatever kind of cage they’d invented that could hold him. So no, he didn’t do it willingly, he just didn’t want to say that right now. And honestly, Gordon couldn’t blame him. Who would want to admit that kind of thing to their enemy?

Silence settled between them after that. Gordon still had questions but was too tired to try to find a way to ask them that might actually get him some sort of answer from Benrey. And perhaps, maybe, just maybe, Benrey was finally feeling guilty enough about the hand thing to make him uncomfortable enough to want to stop talking for once. That sure would be nice. Either way they didn’t exchange another word until Benrey pointed out the hotel up ahead. Thank all that was still good in the world, he hadn’t been lying about the direction.

It was old and visibly rundown on the outside. The inside though looked more modern and even if the carpeted floor looked like it could do with a deep clean, it wasn’t bad. In all it was all exactly what one should expect from cheap hotel in a small town in the middle of nowhere. To Gordon though, it might as well be the gates of heaven.

He beelined for the receptionist’s desk, before he got there though…

“Hello Gordon!”

He stopped, turning to see Dr. Coomer, Bubby, and Tommy, seemingly waiting for him as they stood from the plush chairs set off to the side.

“What took you so long?” Bubby said before turning his glare onto Benrey. “And aren’t supposed to be dead.”

“He doesn’t stay dead, remember?” Gordon interrupted before Benrey could reply and probably start something. “It’s annoying but there’s nothing we can do about it so try not let it bother you and maybe eventually he’ll get bored and go away. But why are you guys here?”

It was Tommy who answered. “Because Mr. Freeman, Black Mesa, isn’t exactly a cozy place to live anymore right now so um… we came here, looking for rooms. We wanted to invite you too but um… you ran off so fast we didn’t even know which direction you went in. But uh… it makes sense you’d come here, right? ‘Cause it’s uh… the only hotel in town. So we were waiting for you.”

“We weren’t sure if you had money to pay for your own room,” Dr. Coomer added. “So we discussed it and decided we would wait for you here to ask if you need the financial assistance. So Gordon, do you have need for us to pay for a room for you? We haven’t paid for our own rooms yet because we thought you might want to be our neighbor after all we’ve been through together.”

Gordon wouldn’t have thought they’d take the time to think he might need help affording a place to sleep for the night. They’d even sat here and waited for him after he’d rushed off and left them behind at Chuck E. Cheese. People going so far out of their way for him wasn’t something he’d ever experienced before. It was almost enough to bring tears to his eyes.

“They waited,” Bubby cut in before Gordon could do more than take a deep breath to hold back the tears, “I wanted to hurry up and get a move on.”

“He was about to get up and go looking for you,” Tommy said in an almost whisper that Bubby had to have heard though he seemed to be set on pretending he hadn’t.

“Thanks. I…I appreciate it a lot, like… yeah. But um… I should still have my wallet on me and its got my debit card in it so I should be fine. It’s uh… under the suit though. Which, I’m probably gonna need help taking off since there’s not a thingy to take it off anywhere here for obvious reasons. So uh, actually…”

“I’ll pay for your room tonight,” Tommy cut in as he trailed off.

“Thanks, I owe you one.” A big one because gosh, Gordon would just about kill for a real bed right now.

“What ‘bout me?” Benrey of course hadn’t left. “Do I get a room too?”

“Of course, I’ll pay for a room for you too.” Tommy didn’t sound at all bothered by Benrey’s presence. Not too surprising, they’d seemed to have been friends before the resonance cascade. Apparently things hadn’t changed too much.

“Well, let’s hop to it.” Dr. Coomer didn’t seem bothered either as he started for the receptionist’s desk. “Daylight’s wasting, as they say.”

Welp, seems Gordon’s time with the Science Team wasn’t done yet. He… didn’t mind though. Despite everything, he had grown fond of them and they’d been through a lot together. And they were willing to wait for him and help him out and willing to talk to the receptionist to sort out the room situation, meaning he didn’t have to. What more could he possibly ask for in friends?

“We’re currently in the middle of a big renovation project,” the receptionist was saying as Gordon, trailing along at the back of the group, caught up. “Between that and everyone here to attend the Cacti Enthusiasts Conference, there are currently only three rooms available. So, um, some of you are going to have share for at least tonight. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“I’m sure we’ll figure it out.” Dr. Coomer was apparently in charge of the transaction. Maybe not the wisest but it was probably fine. He turned to look at Gordon. “Hello Gordon! It turns out, some of us are going to have to share a room.”

“That’s fine. I don’t care.” They’d all been sleeping in the same room since they’d met anyway. Sharing space for a little while longer wasn’t going to hurt any of them. Just as long as Gordon didn’t end up rooming with Benrey anyway.

“Dibs on bunking with Feetman.” It was almost as if Benrey had just read that thought and decided to ruin the mostly good vibes Gordon had just been feeling because of it. “Gotta make sure he don’t steal nothing.”

Gordon lifted his gun arm, pointing it at Benrey’s face. He held it there for a grand total of two seconds before lowering it though. “Fine. I don’t care.” Getting upset was what Benrey wanted from him and he wasn’t giving him that. Never again. … And besides, revealing he had a gun for an arm and Benrey was some kind of something that wasn’t human would call attention to them from the authorities. Bad in general but after how many US soldiers they’d killed, lying super low for probably the rest of their lives was wise. So he wasn’t going to cause a scene. Even if that meant putting up with god damn Benrey. If Benrey killed him in his sleep then so be it, he barely cared anymore as long as he got to sleep properly in a real bed for several hours beforehand.

~

After some discussion it was decided Dr. Coomer and Bubby would share a room too and Tommy would get one to himself because he was paying for two of them and, “Sunkist will want to share with me when she catches up.” They weren’t neighbors but they did luck into all being in the same hallway even if one of them was way at the end of it while the others two were closer to the opposite side.

They all gathered in the far room first, ostensibly to help Gordon take the HEV suit off. The only one really helping though was Tommy, though Bubby did talk through what he knew of the suit’s built in fail-safes should it need to be taken off manually which helped a lot. Dr. Coomer offered to take it off for three Play Coinstm but not wanting to go into debt in a currency he had no idea the rules of, Gordon had declined.

Partway through the process he regretted declining that offer. The suit was designed to be taken off by a machine, the means to take it off manually had been an afterthought. A just in case the world ended and thus said machine had no power and/or had been destroyed. Not exactly something anyone thought was likely to happen given Black Mesa largely being underground, making it suitable as an impromptu bomb shelter, complete with a host of backup generators not connected to the main power grid. His strong hand being replaced with a gun made it even more difficult, resulting in Tommy doing most of the work of taking it off. Making it a mortifying ordeal; he needed help getting undressed like some kind of giant toddler.

But finally after way too long, the suit was off and in a pile on the floor next to him. He suddenly felt much lighter and less sturdy, like a slight breeze could blow him over. His clothes were a rumbled, horrid, sweat stained mess but he was free at long, long last. “Thanks Tommy, I owe you big time.”

“Don’t… don’t worry about it Mr. Freeman. But, um, maybe you should take a shower before going to bed. Not that um… just, you know… a thought.”

“You stink,” Bubby said.

“I’m afraid he’s right, Gordon,” Coomer said, putting a hand on Gordon’s shoulder, “you smell like you’ve bathed in the concentrated stench of all the locker rooms in the world combined.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Gordon could tell them that they all stank too because they did but sans the suit, he did smell substantially worse. Other than the part at the waist that could be moved aside to allow the wearer to use the toilet, his body had been encased in metal for days with no break. During which he’d been running around and getting his literal hand cut off and having the single most stressful experience of his life, resulting in quite a lot of sweat that had had nowhere to go. So he did indeed reek to high heaven and as hard the bed had called to him earlier, it was now nothing compared to his need for a shower.

“I’ll uh, go do that now. Thanks again Tommy for paying for the room tonight and uh, helping get the armor off. We’ll talk more tomorrow morning, I guess. Goodnight.” With a chorus of good night from the three of them, Gordon stepped into the bathroom.

Hot showers were always nice but this one was downright magical. Even the hotel’s cheap soap and shampoo felt luxurious and smelled divine. It was awkward using his left hand but he was getting used it to and thus fairly quickly got some sort of a hang on it. He could adapt, he could make it through this. The nightmare was over, he’d survived it, everything was going to be okay now.

He washed himself multiple times, trying to get rid of every bit of dirt and grim that had stuck to his skin. Rinsing and repeating until he felt rubbed raw, then he just stood there under the hot water. It would’ve been easy to stay like that for hours and hours if not for the way the hot water easing his sore muscles also reminded him of his exhaustion. If it were the kind of shower that doubled as a tub, he’d likely have just lain down in it and gone to sleep. So it was probably for the best that it was just a stand up shower as that would’ve been dangerous and awful once the water ran cold.

Instead, with a longing sigh, he turned the water off and stepped out. The provided towels were scratchy but clean so he barely cared. Once he was about as dry as he cared to bother making himself, he took one look at his discarded clothing before putting on one of the hotel’s bathrobes instead. It was also stiff and scratchy but it was be better than going nude because he’d rather burn his old clothes than put them back on. Tomorrow he’d coordinate with the others to get them all clean clothing.

Upon stepping out of the bathroom after brushing his teeth with just his finger – the hotel had toothpaste but no toothbrushes so that was another thing he needed – he took two steps towards the bed before stopping. Somehow he’d forgotten Benrey had called dibs on bunking with him.

“You steal that?” He asked as he looked up from where he sat on one of the room’s two chair’s next to the room’s one bed. It was a big bed but still… oh no. Maybe, hopefully, he didn’t need to sleep though.

“No, it comes with the room. You can and should go take a shower now too.” Gordon gestured towards it.

Benrey lowered the remote he’d been presumably flipping through channels with based off the fact that the TV was and playing what looked to be a infomercial. “Huh? Why?”

To get him out of Gordon’s hair long enough for him to fall asleep but also…“’Cause you’re nasty.” Even if whatever he was didn’t sweat and thus body order wouldn’t be as much of an issue, he’d been through some pretty disgusting places in Black Mesa and thus needed cleansing regardless. “And don’t put those clothes back on either also because they’re nasty. There’s another couple bathrobes in there instead. We’ll get clean ones tomorrow sometime. And when you’re done, if you’re gonna kill me in my sleep, please do me a favor and at least wait until I’ve slept for like… five hours before you do it, okay?”

Benrey opened his mouth to respond but before he could get a single word out, Gordon snatched the remote from him, earning a, “Hey, rude,” instead of whatever he’d been going to say. He then turned off TV before flipping off the light and crawling into bed, keeping the remote with him to make it harder for Benrey to steal it back. Benrey said something else, his voice a protest, but as soon as Gordon’s head hit the pillow he was already starting to drift off, making his exact words indecipherable. He’d deal with Benrey tomorrow, right now he really, truly didn’t care anymore.

Chapter 2: But You Owe Me

#hlvrai #frenrey #benrey #gordon freeman hlvrai #half life vr but the ai is self aware

[rawliverandgoronspice]

I can kind of see why Hyrule reads as imperialistic to you in totk, but why do they read white? Sonia is brown and rauru is a black goat. What makes the difference between them and Ganondorf so bad?

Hey, thanks for the ask!

So... I have an answer, and it's kind of in layers. So I hope it's fine if I kind of go on Journey TM where I figure out my own feelings on the topic alongside you, the person reading! It's long! Kind of meandery! Sorry!!

Also, I had written a great version of this reply to this ask that Tumblr fucking ate and I'm furious about it, so this version is slightly more annoyed as a baseline because of Tumblr and not the ask itself. But I got stubborn and decided I would rewrite the whole thing tonight. So.

Here we go.

Layer One: My Basic and Unfiltered Gut Reaction

My first, potentially unwarranted gut-level reaction would be: I kind of think it's a stretch to consider them POC-coded. Sonia gives me more tanned Ariana Grande vibes than anything else, but that's... I mean, I'm aware that there are brown people with lushious blonde hair and blue eyes out there, that race as USA-infused Internet understands it is Complicated (I'm half-brazilian, and even though I'm very very white and don't consider myself biracial but bicultural, I had people discussing my ethnicity to my face a non-zero amounts of time, including quite recently, including in my own family! so I super get that it's more complicated than what I make it out to be here). But given vibes don't count as an argument, I completely get + accept if that reading on her ethicity is therefore dismissed. She could very well be brown. Fine by me.

(so, I feel like I have to add this borderline-conspiratory reason why I'm suspicious of her skin color being considered a factor here, which can 100% be dismissed but I still want to bring it to the table: I've been to several meetings and heard about many instances where "diverse traits" are being handed over to characters with the explicit purpose of using that diversity as shields against deeper criticisms of core aspects of the storytelling instead of fixing the storytelling itself, and honestly it could very well be the case here. I really hope it's just the team thinking Sonia would be prettier with a darker skin tone, because her design is genuinely lovely and I really like it, wish she didn't die like immediately and had a character arc of her own, but. Imagine the kneeling scene with two very white ladies and everything else, etc. It might be overly paranoid of me, but I can't help but squint a little bit in this specific instance, especially since the biracial trait here is so toned-down that it's barely there and barely committed to anything. Which would also make a good argument against this suspicion too tbh! Anyway. Just wanted to bring that up so you get the whole picture of where my brain is at.)

Rauru... Okay. Here's the thing: I can't unsee The Rauru. The original one I mean (and his Skyward Sword Gaebora counterpart), aka: the White Patriarch of all times.

(this has nothing to do with anything but Link's little recoil animation here is so funny to me, like he looks so shocked and his nose is so pointy)

I do think that removing the origins of this character from his DNA for TotK is kind of overly convenient when discussing this iteration, especially when his role in this game is basically a mixture of OoT Rauru and the Unnamed King of Hyrule (and every king of Hyrule that came after). I mean, okay sure maybe the Unnamed, Unseen King of Hyrule wasn't white but... it's obviously not true, right? And while I understand this is a different iteration of that character, many characters in the series maintain their base ethnicity across different reimaginings (even Blue Pig Ganon remains a gerudo at heart post OoT, at least in the way we keep on understanding him). And beyond this, given the fact that Rauru retains this energy of a Founding Father (in the largest possible sense), I feel that, at the very least, that patriarchal energy is extremely important to his character to a core degree.

But even so, yes. Rauru is now indeed a Goat Man. Not only is he a Goat Man, but he dresses in ways that are very inspired by mesoamerican cultures; undeniably so. So that would make him at least mesoamerican-coded, right?

I mean... I guess? I guess. Sure. But. I have now to introduce the Layer 2 of my argumentation, which is that...

Layer Two: Zonai Culture is Hylian Coded

So. Pretty bold claim I know. Let me explain.

Now I certainly do not want to say that mesoamerican civilizations are not *everywhere* in the aesthetic inspiration for the zonai culture in Tears of the Kingdom; I'm sure these real life references are overflooding the moodboards, from the color palet to the symbols to the artstyle, the costumes and the buildings. It's the main way the game communicates zonai-ness to us the player. And it's great! I wish they had went even harder in that direction (I think there's even pretty dramatic differences between the zonai ruins on the surface, much more interesting imo, than what was done with the actual zonai architecture at its peak).

But now, I will ask a question that I asked myself often while playing. What is zonai culture, beyond the feathers and the indented patterns and the swirls and the dangly bits? What characterizes it? I would say that zonai civilization is primarily interested in automation, technology, mining to develop said technology, and things that float in the sky. Beyond this, and from the limited perspective the game gives us through Rauru and Mineru, we see a society ruled by a patriarch (neutral term, it is just patriarchal in nature), married to a woman who is a priestess and doesn't seem to hold an equal amount of power (she doesn't speak as much, seems content to handle the religious side of things), who values collaboration and engineering prowesses, has an army, servants, robot servants, administrates other races through, to be docile and go the game's way, collaborativeness... It's Hyrule. It's just Hyrule, except older and with a different paintjob; but at heart, the style of society upheld by Rauru is very (eerily?) similar to what we get to know in the TotK/BotW era. Actually, this version of Hyrule seems extraordinarily similar to the Hyrule we get to see in BotW pre-Calamity: replace the zonai technology with the sheikah's, and what's the difference --except that this later version of Hyrule isn't trying to pass itself off as perfect? Zelda doesn't experience any kind of culture shock. Even the language seems to be basically the same. It is Hyrule, because it is. It's the origins of the kingdom. This is the whole point of the zonais: being that familiar thing that we know and love, except more pristine and more glorious and more mysterious so we can be sad when it gets destroyed.

So is it aesthetically inspired by mesoamerican cultures? Yes. Does it evoke specific details about said culture? The way politics and religion interconnect perhaps (unless we consider Rauru coming from the gods as such, but it's nooot super specific and not really elaborated upon)? What that culture valued, or what we assume it once valued? Cultural shortcuts we tend to make with these cultures, for better or for worse? I may be extremely uncultured here, and if that's the case I apologize, but I never really saw any of the aspects highlighted as the core pillars of the zonais commonly associated with either mesoamerican ancient civilizations, or current living native decendants of these civilizations. The biggest connexion or shortcut I see is the "mysterious ancient advanced civilization", which is pretty vague and was honestly more convincing in BotW.

Then of course, it doesn't invalidate that connection. But now, as a point of comparaison, to see what happens when Zelda takes active steps in coding one of their fantasy races... Let's take a look at the gerudos, shall we?

(Urbosa appreciation break. She's just so freakin cool look at her goooo!!! okay now we can keep going.)

I have said my whole spiel about the gerudos about a bajillion times now so I will try to make it quick. My tl;dr is: gerudos were always meant to be culturally disruptive. It's their whole point in the Zelda series. I won't rehash the whole thing about the crescent moon, the orientalism etc, but I think it's important to remember that they are meant to be considered foreign in a way no other Zelda race ever is. What I mean by this is, if we return to OoT: they are the only race hostile to Hyrule enough to not only consider and carry out an invasion, but to forbid entrance to their territory if you are not one of them. They have a different (apparenly evil-looking) god and their ears are rounded when everyone else is some sort of elf, their script is different, their cultural values are different, it's a weird semi-matriarchy where the man-king's occasional patriarchy has a very different social role than the king of Hyrule even if we don't get to see all the details... Won't return on the thievery and the 90s islamophobic kick of that time period, but the gerudos were very obviously crafted to be culturally deviant to the Hylian norm; their difference so great that getting accepted by them is an actual fighting and infiltration challenge. And even though they are much friendlier in TotK/BotW, they are still, by far the most innaccessible and different race out of all the rooster of, and it's worth mentioning, fish-people, bird-people and rock-people. They are the only one with their own language, their own strict rules that oppose your freedom as a player, a series of side-quests that directly address the subject of culture clash and differences; and, even then, they still parallel the real life western fantasy about the Orient TM (even more-so in TotK I would say, which I didn't love): the locked-in harem foreign men are forbidden to enter. This core idea is so entrenched that it becomes gameplay.

When it comes to Ganondorf, the parallel remains, more present than ever: in that game he gets to embody the foreign, cruel, brutal, cunning, manipulative, uncomfortably feminine at times, envious, physically intimidating, oppressive Man of the Desert in a long tradition of Men from the Desert and the rich legacy of literature and movies that portray them. It's not new to TotK, to be very clear: but TotK did double-down on the trope at the cost of Ganondorf's specificity as a character instead of questioning the trope that birthed him the way the series had tried to do in the past (even TP wasn't that bad, doing away with a lot of the baggage altogether --for better and for worse).

So to me... saying that zonais are mesoamerican-coded, in a world where we simply do not actively interact with these cultures all that much anymore (not at all to minimize the very real oppression of their descendants and the extreme and sickening violence their ancestors were met with to be extremely clear --I'm just saying that the violence wouldn't have worldwide cultural resonance in the same way and I don't think would have much reality in Japan unless, again, I'm saying dumb things and in that case please do correct me), or the extremely mild and non-invested way Zelda handled these cultures (to me it's much more costume than coding), positively too (good!), and comparing them to the active coding of the gerudos (and especially Ganondorf) as a means to equalize them as "basically the same thing" feels... a little off to me.

But! Now we're getting to the last layer!!

(you have no idea how long I searched for this gif, I typed "Ganondorf kneeling" in the gif search, like a fool, and parsed through much, much horniness to finally find my little dude anyway layer 3!!!)

Layer Three: It Isn't What Actually Matters Now Is It (at least according to me, the person writing this post)

Honestly, I don't really care whether Rauru and Sonia are white-coded or not. They could be, they could not be, cool by me either way. I don't really care if the zonai culture is meant to stand-in for mesoamerican cultures for Real for Sure or not, and heavily doubt it was done to increase diversity (otherwise Rauru wouldn't be, like, a Goat-Man but just a brown man). I do appreciate the visual diversity of the cast of NPCs, that hylians can look like a whole number of people and it's really cool Hyrule is moving into that direction instead of being very typecast into a sort of Japanese-ish representation of western middle ages/fantasy/fairy tale thing.

But at heart, what bothers me between this whole dynamic has less to do with whom is coded as whom than the fact that this game twisted itself into knots to tell a very suspiciously clean story about its complicated world and complicated history, and I feel like it's completely fine to ask for more than the bare minimum of visual representation and question the way these characters get to interact with each other and how their real life struggles are meaningfully talked about in the worlds Nintendo spend millions crafting? Sometimes, what they do is already great! Sometimes it's half-great! Most of the time, it could be so much better --especially when some of these subjects have been talked about to death for over 25 years (sorry to beat that dead horse one more time btw)

At the end of the day, the story itself is strange for many reasons. The power dynamic between the characters is attempting to be several things at once; maybe it's not on purpose, but either way, the world TotK paints is a strange one that only holds itself together if we accept to take it at face value. Which we don't have to.

And to me, TotK felt particularly shallow in that specific department of representation due to the whole... Imperialist Vibes thing (the other ask about this is queue'd, it's coming!), which nullified a lot of these efforts for me. It's not only about who's represented, but how they are represented as well, and, very importantly, why.

#asks #tloz #totk #totk spoilers #totk critical #rauru #sonia #ganondorf #zonai #gerudo #gerudos #when will my brain return from the imprisoning war.... #(<-- it's becoming a tag for the people who want to filter my totk replies out BECAUSE understandableeee) #I vainquished my extreme frustration with having this ask being swallowed by tumblr #rewrote a worse version #sorryyyy #I feel like I needed to ride that buzz or I never would reply #and I guess at least my opinion is written Somewhere #could probably be worded better in places #oh well!!!

[littlemisslipbalm]

Bottlerock

Josh Kiszka x Fem!reader

At the Bottlerock Festival in Napa, Josh meets a journalism student who is tenacious enough to get an interview with him after Greta Van Fleet's set. He is enamored by her vivacity and spirit and sweeps her into the whirlwind of his life for the weekend. Are his promises enough to keep them together or are they just too different?

Hey so this is really long so reading on desktop will likely be best (plus there's meant to be a part 2 that I haven't even written yet so...yeah!!!!) So exciting to finally be posting this and sharing it with y'all I really hope yall read it and let me know what you think!

Warnings: some angst, nothing too graphic, maybe self doubt, drinking, weed, SMUT (18+ as always) | Word Count: 21K | Photo credit: Instagram via Pinterest

As the Weight of Dreams guitar solo starts its slow descent, a girl pushes herself sideways along the back of the first row at the barricade. She offers a few “Sorry”’s and “Coming through”’s, just trying to get out. 

“I’m so sorry, I just need to get to the side right now.” She makes it past a few other fans, they give her slightly odd looks. 

She fibs a bit as she continues her work, “I don’t feel well,” she says when she starts to get push back.

“I might pass out,'' she says when some people give her a rough look. 

“I’m really sorry,” she pleads and they let her go. 

“Thank you,'' she calls and continues her journey out from the center of the pit. 

She had foregone her front and center spot on the barricade for the last five minutes of the Weight of Dreams encore because she needed to get to the side of the backstage. It was her mission to get an interview with one of the members of Greta Van Fleet. 

She needed to do this to prove to herself and everyone else that her dream of being a music journalist wasn’t in vain and she wasn’t in way over her head. 

If she got the interview and freelanced the piece she wrote from it to her school’s paper or even just the school radio’s paper, she would be so fucking happy. The radio station had turned her down for a dj position so she had turned them down when they asked her to just write content. 

They weren’t too happy with her about that, but they couldn’t pass up an exclusive interview with Greta Van Fleet if she offered it to them. It was such a good profile, Greta was higher profile than anyone else the radio had interviewed, and from a student on their campus just going up and getting it? They’d be idiots to pass it up. 

While she didn’t want to be an asshole, she was willing to admit she was a pretty great writer. An excellent one. One that was possibly better than any of the writers on the school’s website. 

So she shimmied through the crowd as she missed one of the most epic guitar solos she’d ever heard live. 

She looked down at her phone once she got out, she heard the guitar starting to fall out, the crowd was going wild and she was trying to catch her breath at the place where she was pretty sure the band would walk off stage. Her phone held the notes she had written down the night before and she was editing them, her fingers a flurry over the little digital keys. 

Some of her questions: 

How are you? How was that? What’s it like performing at a festival vs. your own concert? What’s your opinion of outdoor venues? How do you like Napa? Planning on going sightseeing? Are you going to be seeing any of the other artists? Or are there any you are excited or hopeful of seeing this weekend? What’s something you wish people cared more about? Do you think you convey that through your music? What’s one thing you’d particularly like to tell college students, like some life advice? Favorite song right now? Or the one that you’ve been listening to the most that you enjoy? What’s something you still want to do – beside movies (if it's Josh)?

She highlighted ones she wanted to ask first since she knew it was very likely she’d probably only get to ask one or two.

Then she hears the screams grow louder and she looks up. The band is leaving the stage and they’re coming straight towards her. Well, they really were going to turn the corner and head back to their tent and bus where they could relax now that their set was done. Or they were going to go somewhere secluded to watch Metallica but she wasn’t sure if that was necessarily their vibe right after a performance. 

The real work for her began now. Getting someone’s attention. 

Sam gets off first and when she yells his name he simply flashes a smile and waves. She smiles back and tries to say more but he’s already gone. Danny goes next and he doesn’t even hear her say his name as he’s calling out to Sam about something. 

Josh and Jake are trouncing off stage talking, rather yelling, into each other’s ears as they take off their ear pieces and sip from water bottles stagehands passed to them. 

She feels an overwhelming amount of anxiety that they won’t even glance her way since they’re wrapped up in each other. She yells Josh’s name first for some reason. His eyes look at her for a split second and it seems like he’s just going to wave and smile and go back to talking to Jake but she won’t let it happen. 

His eyes are on hers as she continues on with her words.

“Can I talk to you for a second? I’m sure people tell you this all the time, but it’s really important for me! It’ll only take a moment and then I’ll let you go on your way. Please.” 

She’s not sure if it’s her words or the desperation in her hoarse voice. Maybe he recognized her from the front row or maybe something was just looking out for her in that moment. Her tarot cards had hinted that today was an auspicious day and she had been hoping for this to be that fulfillment. 

Whatever it was, Josh gave her a second glance. He quirks his brow and he’s gleaming with sweat from performing his heart out while being outside in the warming May air. He takes a sip of his water and lets Jake walk in the same direction Sam and Danny went before him with a wave of his free hand and a tilt of his head. 

He reaches her with another step and he waves off some of the stage crew asking him if he was alright. 

“Hello there. What can I do for you?” He asks, his free hand pulls absently at the v-neck of his golden jumpsuit, it had glitter over its entirety and twinkled in the sun as the green stalks of flowers swirled around various parts of it. 

“Hi, oh my god, thank you so fucking much, you have no idea,” she rambles her sentence in a breath and Josh’s brows raise and his lips quirk up in a smile as she speaks, this time not as much as a yell since he’s closer and the screams from the crowd have died down a good bit. 

“Right, so,” she starts after gulping down some oxygen, “I’m a journalism student at my college and long story short I wanted to ask you a few questions so that I could write up a short piece on the festival and have some quotes from you because Greta Van Fleet is one of the best artists here. And personally, I love you guys and I really want to do music journalism when I graduate so if you helped me you would make my entire three years in college so far worth it and prove to everyone in my life that I’m not an idiot.”

Josh chuckles at her fast pace and her words. She was radiant, how could he not when to help her. She was a go-getter and he had seen her make her way out of the crowd during Weight of Dreams after she had spent the rest of their set singing along to every song and dancing in the most honest and free way he’d seen someone dance in a festival concert pit – she hand’t had her phone out or anything, just smiling, nodding and singing along. He had wondered absently where she had gone, so seeing her now. It felt fated that she had left just so she could try to talk to one of them. He wanted to help her out.

“Sounds like an offer I can’t refuse,” He smiles at her and she pushes away the flutter in her heart. 

She needed to focus on her job right now. She had strategically taken her edible earlier in the day so it would be waning right about now. Her body was calm, but her mind was lucid. She couldn’t let herself get distracted by the bouncy slightly wet curls atop his head or his perfectly sculpted jaw or any other part of him except his brain that she was going to pick as much as possible. 

“Okay,” She beams back at him and glances down at her phone and then holds it between them, “Do you mind if I record this? It’s just a transcriber so you don’t have to look at the top of my head while I write down everything you say. Usually I have to tell people not to worry about it but I feel like you’re probably used to being recorded right? ” 

“Of course, that’s fine. I’d much prefer to look in your eyes while I ramble on,” He chuckles and it's effortlessly charming. 

She tamps down her smile and glances down at her phone pressing the record button. Her body shuffles to lean on the railing and Josh is tempted to have security let her through, but knows that would be very out of the ordinary since she wasn’t official press and this was only supposed to take a moment. 

She switches to her questions on her phone and then glances up to look in Josh’s face again to give him a reassuring smile, she wanted to impress him as much as she wanted to impress everyone else. She didn’t want him to be bored with her questions. 

“First things first, how are you doing after that?” 

“I feel fantastic! We had a big old time up there,” He grins as she nods him on, “It was a wonderful show, great to celebrate with everyone here on such a beautiful day. See the smiles on all of their faces – yours included.” 

Her eyes widen slightly and she looks at him inquisitively, but decides it’s not important to the story. 

“What’s the most overwhelming emotion you have when you’re up on stage?” She continues, not a question she had written down, but for some reason it came to mind as he said how he felt. 

“Overwhelming?” Josh repeats, the question actually made him think. She counted this as a success. 

“Suppose love is the answer,” He starts and she deflates initially, but he continues, “Love’s a special one because it’s a shared experience of any positive emotion with someone you care about. Love is overwhelming up on the stage because it’s coming at you from everywhere. My brothers and Danny and I are all sharing the love and the audience is joining in on that love. Love for the music. Love for each other. It’s overwhelming…but only in the most welcome sense.” 

She grins, “Well said.” 

He nods back. 

“What’s it like performing at a festival versus one of your own concerts?” 

He responds well and she grins again. His answers are professional yet insightful to a lot of her main questions she wanted to ask. He seems to like the ones she asks as follow-ups to his responses that are just off the top of her head. His hands wave around dramatically when he gets into specific anecdotes that fit into his answers. 

He tells her who he wants to see this weekend and then asks her who else she wants to see. She has to confess that she only bought a ticket for Friday because the three-day one was too expensive for her. He nods in understanding, but quirks his brow when she says she would have liked to do all three days. Josh was so tempted to just give her some VIP tickets that he was sure he could drum up. The minutes tick by and he doesn’t complain that she’s held him up far longer than she’d initially said. 

She asks him what he thinks of Napa and if he’s planning on doing some sightseeing when they’re done at the festival. He looks down at her phone and then back up to her, he had almost forgotten that this was just an interview. He loved answering her questions and if he had been just talking to her, he would have invited her to show him around in a flirtatious manner, but remembered it was being recorded and she was asking as an interviewer. Instead, he gives a noncommittal “Hopefully, but we’ll see how much time we have before we head back to Nashville. We’re prepping for our Europe tour dates soon.” 

“Oh yeah,” She nods along, slightly disappointed at his answer, seeing some idea pass through his face and then be removed before settling on his answer. She decides not to mention she’d be in Ireland when they were and she had gotten tickets. Didn’t want to seem like an overzealous fan at this point, everything had been going so well. 

She goes through a few more questions and she’s surprised Josh has let her ask as many as he had. It had only been about ten minutes, but she could only imagine how much he probably wants to change and possibly shower (hopefully). She asks about his current listening and he goes in depth on one particular album that has caught his fancy. She makes a note to make sure she listens to it in detail when she gets the chance. 

He shares what he wishes more people knew about Greta Van Fleet’s music and how they try to communicate that message at her prompt and he’s in love with that question but refrains from going on too long of a tangent for once, she is unsure of what keeps him from doing it. 

“Alright,” She takes a deep breath, glancing around seeing some people looking on, possibly slightly jealous at all the attention she’d received from Josh for the last fifteen minutes. “Final-ish question.” 

“What makes it final-ish?” He laughs. 

“Well, if you say something interesting I might have a follow up question.” 

“So I should be offended if it’s the last question?” 

“No, then I think you’ve answered it sufficiently.”

“Oh, so I should be offended if it isn’t the last question?” He teases with a smirk quirking his lips to the side. 

She rolls her eyes playfully and almost feels heat rising to her cheeks at the careless flirtation laced in his words. He was extremely proficient at that. 

“No, you shouldn’t be offended at all. You should be flattered.” 

“Alright, flatter me,” He winks. Again, it’s all playful, but she can barely handle his personality. It was overwhelming. Josh was overwhelming. 

“What’s the best life advice you can give to a bunch of college kids right now? Can be something you’ve received or something you’ve come up with over the years.” 

He grins, “Don’t try to please everyone. Work on pleasing yourself. Personal pleasure will make life all the sweeter.” 

She feels her eyes widen as Josh stares into her soul and she’s not sure if he meant his advice to sound so astoundingly sexual, but she looks away from his intense gaze nonetheless. 

“And how would you advise someone who is trying to find their personal pleasure?” 

“Well,” He chuckles, and she can tell he’s got something raunchy to say, but it’s only in the most boyish way that she doesn’t hate it how she might on another man. “There’s two paths that one can go down and I don’t know if you want me to venture down one of them. It might not be very appropriate for a school paper.” 

“It’s a college paper. Everyone’s an adult,” She laughs lightly trying to get good quotes, but also be casual. 

“Alright then, I’ll tell both, just in case you want to keep the second to yourself,” He leans in and speaks lower at the end of that and she gives him a coy smile. She couldn’t believe what a player Josh seemed to be when most times he came off as so sexless, if she was giving her honest opinion. 

“Personal pleasure in life,” Josh starts, “I’d advise that you try new things and if you think you want to try something you should stick to it, even if it seems a little hard in the beginning. Don’t get deterred, there is happiness found in the act of trying.” He says it earnestly and she genuinely thinks he’s thought about this before. “And for the raunchier side of personal pleasure, well, I’d advise being more vocal with others and yourself; about what feels good and simply just letting those seemingly animalistic noises that want to come out, come out. Don’t hide how your body really feels when you’re experiencing pleasure.” 

“Right,” She clears her throat as Josh ducks his head for a moment and looks up at her through his lashes. “Well, that’s all I’ve got for you, Josh. Thank you so much for taking the time, I know I kept you longer than I said, but you had wonderful answers. It was hard not to keep asking you things.” 

He laughs and it’s as melodious as his voice always seems to be. He rests a hand over hers on the railing and her eyes flicker to look at it and then back to his face. 

“It’s only because you were such a wonderful interviewer, kept me on my toes,” He says it sincerely. He pats her hand twice and looks as if he wants to say more. 

He glances over his shoulder and sees his bandmates all hanging around with some of the crew and the people they had invited to the festival with them. He turns back to her and her eyes are wide and expectant, not sure what to do since his hand is still over hers. 

“I’ll let you go,” She starts.

“Would you like to ask my brothers and Danny some questions perchance?” 

She gasps and says the first thing she thinks, “Of fucking course I would!” Her hands fly up to cover her mouth, knocking Josh’s hand off of hers and her phone to the grass below them. A muffled “Oh my god” is audible from her covered mouth. Her eyes fall to the ground where her phone went. “So sorry,” She bends down to grab it and when she stands up Josh is still grinning at her. 

“You know you don’t need to apologize for swearing in front of me right?” His eyes twinkle with mischief. 

“No, I know…it’s just not very professional, y’know. And also it was more about the entire outburst than the nature of it.” She quirks her head at him, hoping he understands. 

He shakes his head in amusement and gestures to the security, who had been eyeing them this entire time, to let her through. Her eyes are still as wide as saucers and she’s not sure if she’s breathing normally so she focuses on that and then remembers she should text her friend, who was surely worrying about her now. 

She looks down at her phone and sees that it’s still recording so she stops that and thinks about how embarrassing that this last part after the interview was memorialized in her transcription app. She pushes that from her mind and types out a message to her friend saying, “getting taken backstage to interview gvf, wtf.” 

Chloe immediately responds, “bruh wtf!!!!”  

Her fingers flurry over the keyboard and say “i’ll try to get you in, but if i don’t text you back just watch metallica without me, i’m so fuckig sorry bro, but i couldn’t pass up the chance to interview all of them.” 

“no i get it, get us the afterparty invite doe” 

She hearts the last message and then turns to Josh, who’s eyes flicker to hers as she slips her phone into her back pocket of the black loose jeans she was wearing. 

“Who was that?” He inquires, the interest clear in inflection of his words. 

“My best friend who came with me. I was updating her on where I am. There’s not a chance she could possibly come back here as well?” 

He looks at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he seems to consider it. She presses on, her penchant for rambling becoming clear. 

“It’s just that I don’t want her to think I’ve abandoned her, but I also get it if you don’t want a bunch of people in your space either. Like you’ve already done me way too many favors for being a complete stranger. I probably owe you big time at this point.” 

He shakes his head insistently and his curls bounce around him. “No, no, no. You don’t owe me anything, please do not think of this as transactional. I offered for you to interview the others because I think you’re a good journalist and I wanna see you succeed now…” His eyes are wide and earnest, once more. 

She really hadn’t expected this to be the way Josh was. From interviews and anything she’d seen from him previously, she thought he was both boisterous and thoughtful, kind as well, but not so intrinsically good and sincere to a stranger – she didn’t think it was possible for someone of his caliber, as much as she liked the band, realistically, she had no idea who Josh really was. She assumed he’d be much more closed off when he wasn’t performing – both on stage and in interviews. Maybe he still was performing for her. 

“Tell your friend to come to the side of the stage and I’ll tell a PA to let her in.” 

She beams and thanks him with a string of gratitude and he laughs again. 

“You talk so quickly, you know that?” Josh asks. 

She couldn't help the embarrassment this time, he had met her maybe twenty minutes ago and he already formed an opinion of her. Instead of acting flustered though, she tries to mask it with a little flirtation. The banter seemed to come naturally with Josh. 

“So do you,” She states matter-of-factly. 

He cackles this time, louder than his other laughs had been so far with her. 

“I guess it’s a good trait for a journalist.” 

“And a front man,” She adds. 

“Depends on who you ask,” He says as they round on the rest of the band sitting around the front of a tour bus after they had taken a brief detour and given the information about her friend to a PA. 

“Depends on who you ask what?” His twin and the guitarist of the band, Jake, asks, looking up to Josh from the lawn chair he was resting in, his neck craning in a long fashion. A smile resting on his lips as he hopes to be able to tease his brother who had been missing from him for too long. 

Before Josh can answer, Sam, his younger brother and the bassist, pokes his head out of the door of the tour bus and yells at Josh. “There you are! We were beginning to think you’d run off with some groupie already…” His voice trails off when he sees a girl standing beside Josh. “And maybe we were a bit correct.” 

Josh scoffs and she wards off any embarrassment by offering a cautious smile, she scuffs the tip of her boot into the soft ground below them. 

“This is…” Then Josh stops and he realizes that he hadn’t even gotten her name and he looks to her sheepishly. A hand goes to the back of his neck, the tinge of embarrassment manifesting in his physicality. 

“Y/N. I’m a journalism student, not a groupie,” She clarifies, and waves her hand at the other three band members who had given her various onceovers. 

Sam hops down the last step of the tour bus and joins the group of them. Danny and Jake remained seated. All together like this they were far more intimidating and she looked back to Josh, who was still beside her, for reassurance. 

“Y/N asked me a few questions right after the show for a piece she’s doing on the festival and she was such a fantastic interviewer I told her you all would love to answer some questions as well,” Josh grins pointedly at the rest of the boys, imploring them to go along with it with his eyes. She notices how he made a point to say her name once he knew it.  

“Oh yeah,” Jake muses, his voice was so gravelly and unique yet so similar to Josh’s. “You’re the one he went to talk to when we came down from the stage.”

“Yep,” She smiles, trying to not come off as nervous. Maybe she’d shoot Chloe a text advising her not to come. She wasn’t sure how intimidating her friend might find this situation. 

They were all cheekbones and sharp lines, strong jawbones and sun-kissed skin, beautiful but wild hair. And they were so at ease, so zen, even after a show, she was in awe. 

“Are y’all always this calm thirty minutes after a performance?” She can’t help but ask. 

“Is that the first question?” Sam asks. 

Josh shoots him a look. 

“Um,” She begins. 

“We are if we smoke a lot of weed,” Jake answers instead with a slight chuckle, “Which is indeed what we’ve done.” 

“Indeed,” Sam echoes. 

She looks closer and sees the droopy red eyes on each of them, the tension in all of their muscles almost nonexistent. That made more sense, it also made her way less intimidated. They weren’t being jerks, they were just being highasses. 

“I don’t need to interview y’all if you’re high,” She says after a moment of thinking. “I feel like that wouldn’t be ethically right, especially since it was just sprung on you. Like if you chose to show up to an interview high that’s another story, but me interviewing you out of the blue when you’re already high…doesn’t sit right with me.” She splays her hands as she talks and then looks to Josh’s face as she finishes. He smiles reassuringly at her, the quirk in his soft lips quickly becoming something she felt dependent on. 

“What if you were high? Then would you interview us while we’re high?” Sam inquires, suddenly intrigued by her, deeming her to not be a groupie that Josh was just fronting as a journalist. 

She laughs at this and his mischievous tone. Her mind raced with thoughts. Smoking with Greta Van Fleet? Could she pass that up? She could claim it was immersive journalism if anyone called bullshit. Plenty of music journalists had smoked weed with rockstars before, at this point it should be a right of passage. 

“Are you saying you want to smoke me out and then get interviewed by me?” 

“If that’s what you want,” Sam smiles. 

Josh narrows his eyes at his little brother, but drops his expression when he feels her eyes go to his face. She looks to him for affirmation and it tugs at something inside him. They barely knew each other but she seemed to trust him. It made him feel good about himself. 

When Josh smiles positively, she nods, a grin now breaking onto her face, “Fuck yeah, let’s do this.” 

Sam disappears back into the tour bus and she pulls out her phone to text Chloe while Josh changes quickly and finds two more lawn chairs. He had told Sam to fuck off and find a chair of his own before he had gone into the bus for the weed supplies. Sam had rolled his eyes at his older brother, but agreed to it anyway. 

“Getting smoked out by gvf and then interviewing them i think…”

Chloe’s text pops in immediately: “no fuckin way”

Then another: “brooooo”

Another: “im gonna go get a drink and watch metallica i think bc one of them is literally gonna try to fuck you and i dont want to cock block, but text me updates PLS and be careful!!!”

Y/N smiles down at her phone and shakes her head before typing out a response after hearting Chloe’s last message: “one can only hope, if not tho, free weed and a fucking crazy interview, the paper is going to shit their pants…might need to leave the getting high asf with them out tho ;)”

Chloe: “tell me if one or more of them calls it fucking grass, i’ll die”

Y/N: “Midwesterners …” 

Josh returns to her side after placing down the two lawn chairs in front of them in a semi-circle. 

“Your friend?”

She hums, “Yeah she actually said she really wants to see Metallica’s set, so she won’t be joining us.” 

“Is that alright?” Josh asks seriously, leaning his head down to ask her more quietly. 

She quickly pushs away the butterflies that just fluttered inside of her when his breath hit the shell of her ear. 

“Yeah, of course. Should it not be?” 

“I just don’t want you to feel uncomfortable. Like you don’t have to smoke weed with us if you don’t want to, Sam’s just pushy sometimes and likes to get his way, youngest child syndrome and all… Do you even smoke?” Josh almost whispers the final question in complete seriousness. 

She cackles at this, but stifles it almost just as quickly as the laughter came out. “I’m sorry, I just haven’t been asked that in awhile. I was high off an edible for the majority of your set, I timed it so that I would be sober to hopefully interview one of you when I spoke with you.” 

Josh pinkens at her words, the memory of her dancing in the crowd once again flashing in his mind. No wonder she’d looked so happy. “Oh, well then. Let’s smoke some grass, huh?” 

She laughs and watches him sit down and pat the seat beside him. Jake and Danny also watch on as she smiles sweetly towards Josh and he reciprocates it. 

They eye each other and it’s like they know exactly what is going on. Normally, Josh didn’t create such an elaborate ruse to get what he wanted, but it certainly seemed like the route he was taking would get to the same end result: hooking up with a hot girl after the show. What they didn’t know or couldn’t possibly realize was just how special this hot girl was already becoming to Josh. 

“So,” Sam sits down on a different type of chair that he must have found inside the bus between Danny and Jake, “What made you want to go to school for journalism?” 

She debates on saying she didn’t come here to answer questions, she’s supposed to be the one asking them, but she refrained, seeing the genuine curiosity in most of their eyes. She needed to go with the flow. Something she was trying to be better at. 

“I didn’t initially start out as a journalism major. I was English first and found it boring as fuck. I just knew I wanted to be a writer.” 

Jake nods along to her answer and Josh watches her intently while she glances around at all of them. Sam produces a few joints and places one between his lips, breathing in and flicking a lighter to the end of it. He puffs at it for a long moment, then slips it between his slender fingers again and pulls it from his lips, the smoke billowing out past his lips. 

He passes to his left, Jake, and she notes it, finding the way someone smokes in a group extremely telling. By passing it to Jake, she was going to get the joint faster than if Sam had passed it to Danny, whether that was on purpose, she couldn’t be too sure. 

“And you want to do music journalism?” Sam asks as Jake leans back into his seat. 

She nods, feeling shaky under his entirely too intense droopy eyes. Jake takes only a little puff of the joint and passes it to her. She’s careful to avoid his finger tips, but it doesn’t seem like he cares much as he lazily holds it out to her. 

She felt the weight of everyone’s eyes on hers and she tried to picture her face as she put the joint between her lips. She never felt attractive when she was smoking from a joint just because her lips seemed to disappear and she was concentrating on not coughing up the smoke in its entirety. 

Strategically, she crosses her legs as she brings it to her lips, hoping that might draw some attention from her face. Her baggy black jeans probably weren’t that visually appealing to them compared to if she had worn shorts or a skirt. She cursed herself, but maintained that these pants were lucky despite how unsexy they might be. She often wore them when she got impromptu interviews so in her heart she had known she needed to wear them rather than one of her cuter short skirts or sheer tights and shorts that she had originally been thinking of wearing. 

Her maroon booted foot swings slightly as she splays her entire hand over the lower half of her face. Her second line of defense, the rings on her hand and her black painted nails would be more interesting than her face. 

She pulls away and glances to Josh before blowing the smoke behind her, not wanting to be rude. He’s been watching the entirety of her movements. The way she shifted in her seat and closed her eyes slightly as she took the hit. The glitter over her eyelids and white eyeliner she had under her eyes was all he could focus on now. It hadn’t distracted him when she had stood across from him at the gate, but now it was transfixing as her eyelashes fluttered and she looked at him not closer than before, but without a physical barrier between them. 

She leans forward to pass it to Josh, once again mindful of fingers touching, but he grins when they still brush since the joint had dwindled. He takes a couple hits and they go around from there with the first joint once more and then start on a second one. 

Sam continues to grill her with questions, but as the time goes on her laugh gets lighter and more intermingled with her responses. Her eyes droop to meet their level, the whites of her eyes don’t turn as red as theirs though. They never did that anymore which she thought was a blessing. 

“And why did you want to interview the Greta Van Fleet?” Sam finally asks and at this point she would admit that she was fully stoned from their weed – oftentimes she was dubious of out of state weed, but this worked plenty. 

“Because,” She laughs to herself and wants to tell them just how big of a fan she was, but still maintains some self control, “you’re the best band Bottlerock got and…the college girlies love y’all.” 

“Is that so?” Sam laughs, throwing his head back and his once more long hair with it. 

“Yes,” She insists, her eyes go to the other band members and see Danny is watching Sam, Jake is looking off into the open space, and Josh is still looking at her. She stares in his eyes, no longer inhibited by anxiety, “the spin on the classic rock sound, the meaningful lyrics, the cool outfits, the sex appeal. What more could a girl want out of a band, except maybe some more interesting names, but the band name makes up for it, I think.” 

Sam’s laugh is loud, similar to Josh’s yet on a slightly higher register. Jake manages a “Hey” at her dig about their basic names. 

“Is that all you want out of a band?” Sam prods. 

“Maybe it’s time for Y/N to start asking the questions?” Josh interrupts. 

She nods, feeling extremely stoned, she tries to ground herself, she takes a deep breath and it cools her screaming lungs. Josh had given her a water bottle when she’d asked for one, but it didn’t stop the dry paper feel of her mouth or the ache in the back of her throat no matter how much of the liquid she gulped down. 

“I agree,” She states and looks down at her phone, the questions in her notes app swirling in loopy waves now before her eyes in just the slightest way. “What’s the most overwhelming emotion you feel up on stage?” 

The same question she had asked Josh earlier was still floating around in her mind. She wanted to see if they had different answers. 

Jake hums eagerly, clearly interested in the question as he adjusts his seated position and strokes a finger around his lips. “Suppose ‘sublime' would just about sum it up?” 

Her eyebrows raise and she suppresses the laugh that threatens at her lips. She was both enamored by the response and grossed out. If any man outside of Greta Van Fleet had said that to her she likely would have rolled her eyes, but coming from his lips she was like ‘damn, that’s fucking insightful,’ especially since she was high. 

“Electrified,” Sam tries to say coolly, the word just sounds muddled around his mouth. 

She snickers, “I don’t know if that is exactly an emotion, but I’ll take it. 

“Happiness,” Danny responds easily and she returns a nice smile, she’s having a hard time thinking of what’s coming next right now. Maybe there was no need to worry about it. 

The next question comes out before she means it to. Well, she didn’t mean for it to come out at all. It wasn’t written on her notes app, it just popped into her head. Insidiously. 

“Are you ever jealous of one another?”

Everyone is silent for a beat too long, but she doesn’t notice it. Everything was foggy with weed. 

“What would we be jealous of with one another?” Jake asks slowly, like he’s not sure if he heard the question correctly. 

“I don’t know, you tell me. The answer can just be no, but…it doesn’t seem like it is.”

“Was she asking these hard of questions before?” Sam asks Josh. 

Josh laughs lightheartedly, sufficiently high, “Nah, but she keeps you on your toes, huh?” He doesn’t see the harm in the question because he trusts Y/N. It was clear to him that she wouldn’t use this question in her piece and it was more something that had piqued her interest. Hell, she wasn’t even recording this anymore, her transcription app was closed and forgotten about in the back pocket of her jeans. 

“I’d say I get a little miffed when some people leave me out of the band just because I’m not a biological brother, but the boys have never made me feel that way. It’s other people,” Danny lets out. 

She nods solemnly at him. 

Sam pipes up after a hum of contemplation, “I’ll always be the younger brother in people’s eyes. Deference always goes to Jake or Josh which can be…annoying, but like Daniel said, it’s not them, it’s other people.” 

She nods. Jake and Josh share a look. 

“Oh come on, you two are identical twins, I feel like all I usually hear from them is complaining about their other half.” 

Sam laughs, “I could certainly share my thoughts.” 

“No, no, no. That’s not how this works. It’s about self reflection,” She splays her hands in front of her in a slow manner as she says ‘self reflection’. 

“Okay, okay.” Sam holds up his hands in defense and she smiles back. 

She looks to Josh who is now worrying his bottom lip. When she turns to Jake, he’s tugging at his lip with his fingers. She feels a little bad, but it was just so fun making confident men get a little shaken. 

“Um, maybe how Josh can grow facial hair, pretty jealous of that. You’d think I could too, but it’s even patchier.” Jake conjures up his response. 

Josh laughs out a relieved laugh that gives away more than he possibly wanted it to and then breathes out his response before he loses his nerve, “Jake’s ability to be in a stable long distance relationship.” 

Jake arches a brow at Josh and she can tell that even if he was high now, Jake was going to follow up with his brother later to unpack what he had just said. She didn’t feel comfortable doing that since she barely knew them and the response had sent an uncomfortable bolt of anxiety through her, throwing off the high, but she was determined to keep ahold of it. 

“What’s one thing you wish people cared more about?” 

“How do you work that into your music?” 

“Can you describe the sensation of playing your instrument?” 

She runs through the different questions and gets better and better answers as she sticks to the less controversial ones. Sam waxes eloquent about playing bass with his feet, while Danny shares how drumming feels all encompassing, Jake tries to explain how he both disappears and is everywhere at once when he plays his solos, Josh talks about feeling connected to every living thing when he sings. 

She almost wants to cry as they describe it because she’s never felt those things before and likely never could. She was never one to stick with things that were hard, instruments were hard for her. Her hands are too small and weak to reach the different notes whether on the guitar or piano. Her voice never good enough and her mind not creative enough to set her poetry to song. 

They finish up the questions and Jake decides he does want to see Metallica play the second half of their set, Danny says he’ll go too. After a moment of hesitation, Sam stands to leave too, sending a wink her way and a pointed look at Josh. Josh asks her if she wants to go with them. 

Her head lulls onto her shoulder as she stares at Josh. Her eyes move lazily over the outline of his entire body, sweeping over details she never would have noticed in a picture or from her position below the stage earlier. His profile is illuminated as the sun starts to set and his skin is cast in gold. She smiles to herself and her eyelashes flutter once more as she savors the dying light and warmth as it recedes from the sky. 

She felt so happy with herself, she had gotten more than she had hoped for, the interview and now Josh seemed like he wanted to hang out with her rather than kick her to the curb. And while, ethically, it might be wrong to be doing whatever this was with Josh as a subject, she was still a student, afterall, fuck ups were bound to happen and as long as no one found out it would be fine. 

“No,” She mumbles finally, eyes still closed, “I’m content being here.” 

He nods even though she can’t see it. When she reopens her eyes, she still can’t take them off of Josh. She wanted to laugh at how unreal this situation felt, but it might just be because of how fuzzy the weed had made her feel. 

He looks at her after a moment of feeling her gaze on him. 

“Thank you,” She speaks out softly when it seems like he’s going to ask her what she was thinking. The buzz of people around them was filtered out of earshot, making it seem like everyone else was very far away and they were completely alone. 

“You did this all by yourself. You’re incredible.” 

“I never could have done it if you hadn’t been nice enough to walk over. You could have just ignored me or said you were too busy.” 

“Yeah but you didn’t really give me a choice with your speech and all.” 

“And all what?”

“All of you.” His hand comes out and waves in a down movement, gesturing at her figure, “Your look, your determination. I saw you slip through the crowd during Weight of Dreams. I had been curious as to where you had gone since you seemed to be enjoying the set so much. Seeing you call me over afterwards piqued my interest. I had to know what was up.” 

“Well I told you what was up, you still could have left after I explained myself,” She pushed, their eyes planting on each other’s as she ignored his vague compliment of her figure and personality. 

“Yeah but I like you.” 

“Yeah?” She grins, leaning forward on her knees, closer to Josh as she knocks them slightly in hops of brushing them against his. He nudges out his knee closest to hers so that they can touch. “I like you too.” 

Josh only hums in response. She waits for him to speak, the giddy excitement overtaking her relaxed body. 

“I don’t want you to think I do this all the time…” Josh starts, worrying his lower lip, “Sam made it out to sound like I’m always fucking groupies, but that’s not true. And even if it were, I really wouldn’t consider this to be similar. I like your mind.” 

She laughs. “You like my mind,” She repeats. 

Josh pinkens around his ears and over his cheeks, he looks especially boyish despite his facial hair and strong features. 

“I just meant…” 

“No, I know. I like your…mind, too. It just sounds so cheesy.” She laughs again and Josh rubs at the back of his neck and sighs like he’s trying to find the right thing to say. 

“What if we just forget about the whole ‘we’ve only just met’ thing and ‘you’re in a famous band that I just interviewed’ thing and like every other part of this situation? Just focus on each other.” She continues.

“I think I can do that,” Josh nods, slips a hand to her neck and pulls her face closer to his. 

She sighs at his warm touch and leans closer. His nose brushes against hers and it nudges at her cheek. Her eyes fall down to look at his pink lips, so close to touching hers. And she takes her own advice and forgets about literally everything else besides how Josh feels against her.

She lets herself get lost in his kiss, it’s warm and soft and a little bitter from the taste of smple and a beer on his tongue. It shouldn’t taste good, but she hopes to remember it for the rest of her life even though it’s happening as she thinks it. 

She often felt that sensation, remembering an event just as it was unfolding in real time. She looked forward to a time where she would be looking back on this and it made her try to store every single part of it to memory. 

Josh presses his mouth harder against hers and she sighs at how good it feels, at the fire of desire starting to kindle faster inside of her. Her hand falls down to rest on his knee that is facing hers and it grips him tightly, fearful of him pulling away and losing the sensation of his soft lips. His nimble fingers had snaked up her shoulder to the base of her neck and they splayed along the entirety of it in a dominant but careful way. He was holding her there, but it was clear that she could pull away at any time. 

She pushed into him for more, her mouth opening for him as he licked into her and they went back and forth in the kiss, staying connected while their hands moved around and explored each other’s bodies with a passionate care. 

Josh pulls back first and she’s grateful for the reprieve, not realizing just how much she needed air. She thinks about how he’s a singer and has a crazy lung capacity, he must have pulled back out of courtesy for her, which was endearing. 

He looks at her shyly and she wants to laugh at how vulnerable he seems for just making out with her in public after knowing her for only a couple of hours.  

“I really want…” Josh takes a deep breath, but as she noticed, he wasn’t out of breath in the first place. 

Her cheeks are flushed as he speaks and the hopeful look in her eyes communicates that she wants him just as much as he wants her. 

“I would really like,” Josh corrects, “If you’d show me around Napa tomorrow.” 

Her eyes widen and her mouth immediately opens to protest, but sees the softness in every bit of Josh’s features. She wasn’t planning on staying in Napa, she was going to spend the rest of her weekend in her hometown before heading back to school. Her hometown was about an hour and a half away and then her school was four hours from there. 

“I wasn’t planning on sticking around since I don’t have tickets for the other days,” She starts.

“I can get you and your friend tickets for Saturday and Sunday, if you want,” Josh supplies. 

“I’m not even from Napa, I don’t even know all that much about it,” She continues. 

“Then we could explore it together,” Josh tries, his eyes a hopeful warm honey brown. “C’mon, this is me trying to see you again.” 

“Josh,” She sighs at his conviction to make it work even in just this tiny thing, but she knew it would only hurt her more to continue hanging out with him if his interest in her was more than just a hookup. “One or two more days won’t make me hurt less when I never see you again… like this.” 

Josh sighs, but there’s a smile on his face. He takes one of her hands in his and rubs his thumb over it gently. 

“What if you looked at this situation where only the best case scenarios happen? You say yes to hanging out for the next few days. We listen to good music and drink good wine because, y’know, Napa is known for that stuff,” Josh begins a speech and she rolls her eyes playfully at him sharing such a widely known fact. “And then we part ways, but we have endless memories together and since only good things happen, we’re bound to see each other again. And we go on from there.” 

She giggles at his smile that bids her to say yes to him. Her head shakes a bit, trying to ward off the silliness she feels, the silliness of reality, but she wants to try this untethered optimism Josh is asking her to buy into. 

“Okay,” She relents with another nervous laugh.

-

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, what am I going to do?!” 

Chloe sighs with a roll of her eyes. “You’re going to shower, get dressed and then go out with the frontman of Greta Van Fleet. Dazzle him with your brilliance and make out with him again – or maybe more, that part is up to you.” 

“No,” Y/N trails out the word, her hands covering her face. “I can’t do this. I feel like I’m going to throw up.” 

“No, you’re not,” Chloe reassures. “Just stop thinking about it so hard. He asked you out. He convinced you to stay. He’s orchestrating all of this – he clearly wants you, so stop worrying.” 

“Okay.” 

She found herself saying okay to things that didn’t feel okay at all. Yes, she wanted to hang out with Josh again and do whatever that entailed, but she was scared. He was a famous musician and, like, this force to be reckoned with and she was just a 21-year-old college student who barely knew what she was going to do with her life. Sure, she had this tentative plan, but it moreso was a line she repeated when people asked, she wasn’t exactly sure if it was what she truly wanted. Josh had his life figured out at 26 and he was talented, successful, sure of himself and just all around wonderful. How was she supposed to measure up to his standards? 

Yesterday, she had been cool, but looking back on it she was convinced she was still a little high when interviewing him. Plus! This was different, this was like a date or something, whereas yesterday had been her proving a point, had been her going after a goal and achieving it. It wasn’t meant to be intimate – and sure, she had made out with him, but in her defense she was high and he’s hot. 

With all that in mind, she and Chloe got dressed for the day. Luckily, both of them were overpackers and had about three days worth of clothing with them. This was both a good and very very bad thing for Y/N. She was able to wear something else but she also was able to overthink her outfit about ten times based on the different combinations she could come up with. 

Eventually, she settled on the same slouchy black jeans as yesterday and a black halter vest that she thought was both impossibly cool and flattering. Her boobs looked especially good in it so that reassured her. Instead of her boots, she put on her mary jane Doc Martens and hoped they didn’t give her too much height next to Josh. She felt like the outfit wasn’t very Josh. It almost was more of Jake’s vibe or possibly Sam’s. Did she look too young? Would Josh not like it? Would he like that she hadn’t dressed to please him in the idea that it wasn’t light, bright, floral or anything remotely happy – things she assumed he liked when it came to clothes? She didn’t even really know him, fuck, did he like that on his partners? The irony wasn’t lost on her that by asking these questions she was negating the point that she hadn’t dressed with him in mind. 

As she walked to the patch of grass next to a specific wine booth Josh had said to meet at, these questions, worries and thoughts raced through her mind. When the booth was in sight and Josh’s curly hair was conspicuously bobbing beside it as he spoke with one of his brothers, she fought the urge to turn back and run – just to change her outfit. Did Josh want a frilly, lacey, flowy girl? She could do that. She liked that vibe too, but this had been what she settled on and now that she saw him in his white shirt and khakis, she was mad at herself for her choice. They were going to look like complete opposites. 

Chloe noticed her slowing down. “Keep it moving, girl,” She insisted. 

Y/N reluctantly kept moving towards them. She was more nervous now than she was yesterday. Admittedly, yesterday she had nothing to lose. Today, Josh knew who she was, he had expectations of her and what if she didn’t fulfill them… 

Josh calls her name after spotting her and before she can run away and hide. His face is bright and shiny as the sun washes over his tanned skin and beaming grin. It’s almost like his eyes twinkle with the sun sparkling off of his irises. She smiles back, timidly. In her head, she was telling herself to just act normal, but it had short circuited and she had no idea what normal was anymore. 

“Josh,” She greets and tries to suppress the wince that follows because she immediately feels lame for just saying his name back. 

“How are you today, ms. journalist extraordinaire?” Josh expounds before pulling her into a friendly hug that lingers to the right of friendly in the end. 

“Good,” She mumbles back into the collar of his shirt where her head was resting as he held her there, her body felt limp and clammy in his arms and she hoped he didn’t notice it. Once again her eyes slip shut in annoyance at her words. Why not anything more than just ‘good’. 

Her hands wrap at Josh’s waist since his arms had gone around her shoulders. Her hands rest at his lower back for a moment as warmth rises off of him while waves of chamomile, clean linen, nag champa and a little bit of weed invade her nose. Of course he smelled amazing and she was wearing a mix of an expensive perfume she had received as a high school graduation gift and a men’s cologne she had stolen from a guy’s apartment one time because she was drunk and thought it was funny and then ended up really liking the scent. Would Josh like a manly scent on her? 

Her eyes slip shut at the warm and soft sensations of Josh’s presence, but she’s pulled away from him by reality. She steps back from him upon realizing she needed to introduce her friend to him and Sam, who gave her a small smile and a casual nonchalant wave of his hand. 

“This is my friend and roommate, Chloe. Chloe, this is Josh and Sam – as you know,” She feels herself grimace at her words. Why did everything that came out of her mouth sound wrong to her? Of course Chloe knew who the guys were, she was just about as in love with them as Y/N was. 

Chloe laughs and says hello. Josh smiles sweetly at her and Sam nods his head and says hello back. 

“Nice to meet you, Chloe,” Josh starts, charming as ever. “Did you enjoy Metallica’s set last night?” 

Chloe responds affirmatively and casts a glance at Y/N, communicating her knowledge of what she and Josh did instead of going to the Metallica set. Josh doesn’t pick up on it and asks another question instead. 

“What’s it like having a journalist as a roommate? Does she ask a lot of questions?” 

“Besides when she’s trying to pick an outfit, not really,” Chloe laughs, once again shooting Y/N a look. 

Josh catches this one and looks over her outfit once more. “I think the outcome is lovely,” He smiles, reassuringly. “You look fantastic,” He rephrased to Y/N, in case his meaning wasn’t clear. 

She smiles in an uncharacteristically shy way, a laugh sounding from her closed lips as her eyes flicker between her friend and Josh. “Thanks,” she mumbles. 

There’s an awkward beat of silence – or maybe just a breath that she interprets as awkward, that she longs to fill. 

“Who did you want to see today?” She asks Josh, unable to let the silence go any longer. 

“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” He smiles. 

Chloe chimes in, getting bored of being a third wheel to them, “I’m going to go over to the twenty one pilots stage and hope by the time it’s their set I can be closer to the front.” 

“Oh,” Sam’s eyebrows perk up in interest, “I can just get us to the front of their stage if you want. I wanted to see them perform as well.” 

She regards Chloe and Sam’s exchange before turning to look at Josh who has a perplexed expression pass over his face for a moment and then lets it pass. 

Sure enough, Chloe is happily agreeing to the idea before Y/N can try and protest. She had been hoping to keep some safety of having other people around, so she didn’t have to be alone with Josh. If she wasn’t alone, there was less chances of it being her fault if things didn’t work out. 

“I’m not super into twenty one pilots,” She says once Chloe and Sam are out of earshot. 

Josh quips, “Neither is Sam, but he must like your friend. But not to worry, I’m sure he’ll be a gentleman.” 

She rolls her eyes and gives a quick ‘sure’, but she wasn’t too worried about Chloe going off with Sam – he was her favorite, after all. 

Josh circles back to their original discussion, reiterating her original question of who they wanted to see perform today. She notes his change in the question, who do ‘we’ want to see. 

She hums, “Well, I glanced over the lineup for today and I think the Black Crowes and Greensky Bluegrass would be cool to see. Also Rainbow Kitten Surprise.” 

“I was thinking the same exact thing,” He nods with a smile gracing his face. 

“Oh, were you?” 

“Well, if you want the truth, I was prepared to say that no matter what you said, but I, too, want to see the Black Crowes and Greensky Bluegrass. I’ve never had the pleasure of listening to…Rainbow Kitten Surprise, but I’m sure it will be an experience.” 

She grins at his cadence and the manner in which he regarded her as he spoke. He was mesmerizing. Her anxieties were forgotten as she looked at him and longed to just observe him. 

They agreed that leaving the festival would be a hassle and therefore would put it off until tomorrow. Instead, while the set times for the three bands were off in the distance, they were going to get drunk off of free wine and beer. Since Josh was talent, he got all his food and drink covered. And since Josh was Josh, he was charming enough to get her food and drink covered, as well. 

After the first wine bar, two glasses of wine - one red and one rosé and 45 minutes of stilted conversation, they walked around the festival on an especially grassy patch of land. They were almost shoulder to shoulder as they walked, Josh only slightly taller than her, but she didn’t mind. His hair made up for it with about three inches of extra volume. Their hands swung by their sides, almost brushing with every step, but she never took the plunge. 

Josh was carrying on the conversation almost completely by himself and she was content to listen. She didn’t want to say something to irrevocably change their time together. She felt his eyes on her as they ambled towards a beer tent that had looked fun and interesting and also had seating for them to rest for another 45 minutes. The bluegrass band’s set was at 1 pm and it was just about noon. 

“What’s wrong?” 

She giggles and looks at Josh who is still regarding her with a perplexed expression. “Nothing.” But her response is too quick. 

Josh stops walking. His hand jumps up to her upper arm, to hold her from walking away but also as a form of connection. 

“Seriously, did I say something?”

“Oh my god,” She rushes, this time in adamance and necessity to reassure Josh. “No! No, no, it’s not you. I’m just in my head, I guess.” 

“Why?” Josh immediately pushes, wanting to fix whatever is plaguing her mind. 

“I’m just…” She stops and sighs. Her head turns away from Josh, dropping his gaze and looking around the field they were in, instead. “Honestly?” She starts again and Josh nods. 

His eyes are anxious and kind, appraising the situation with the utmost care despite having no clue as to what she is about to say. 

“I’m a fucking mess, Josh,” She sighs. “I’m a third year college student and I have no idea what I’m gonna do with my life or how I’m gonna get there. I’m terrified and confused all the time. I live my life in weeks, waiting for the cycle to end so that I can hang out with my closest friends who aren’t actually that close and essentially do nothing because it’s always just the same.” 

She takes a deep breath before continuing since Josh has remained silent. “And you’re you,” She gestured exagerratedly at his frame. “You’ve got your shit figured out, you’re a famous fucking musician for fuck’s sake, and I’m over here trying not to implode with all the thoughts racing through my mind, hoping and praying that I don’t fuck this up because I just don’t know why you’re even bothering with me.”

“Bothering with you?” He repeats, his expression is sad in a way she had never seen before. “Oh, sweet girl. You don’t need to have everything figured out. It might not seem like it, but even I don’t have all my shit figured out. You’re not a mess, you’re human and you are living the human experience so you need to be patient with yourself. Be kind to yourself and trust me when I tell you that you aren’t going to fuck this up. I told you yesterday that I liked your mind…right before I kissed you, if I’m not mistaken. So let’s get out of that mind for a little and just be here, present with one another. It will feel really good.”

“I don’t get you.” She still feels defensive and unable to believe that Josh was really this open. 

“That’s because you don’t know me,” He responds in a slightly gruff voice. “Yet. Like you, I’m a far more complex person than just who I was when you met me yesterday.” 

She nods quickly, immediately realizing her mistake. “You’re right, I’m sorry if I implied that your life was perfect.”

“Don’t apologize,” Josh chuckles good-naturedly with a shake of his head. “Just promise me you’ll be present today.” 

“I promise.” She speaks softly, desperately wanting to be telling the truth, but a nagging part of her mind can’t comprehend why Josh wants anything to do with her. 

“Good. Now let’s go drink some free beer!” 

The day passes, filled with laughter and music and alcohol and anecdotes of their lives. She was sure Josh was the funniest person she had ever met with that terrible kind of dad humor that most people hate but she couldn’t get enough of it from him. Josh was certain that Y/N was the most interesting and complex person he had met in his life yet simple in the way she interacted with him – there was so much going on behind her eyes, he was enamored with unpacking it all, bit by bit. Once she stopped the worrying, she would beam at everything he said and gush about the things she loved, namely music and fashion. 

“I know it might sound materialistic or silly, and maybe it boils down to seeking beauty and then therefore pleasure,” She arches a brow at Josh, harking back to his comments yesterday when she had interviewed him. “But I think dressing up is the best thing you can do, especially if it’s just for the fun of it. It’s exciting and enthralling and I wish I could just play dress up all day like I did when I was in preschool.” 

He ducks his head down and smiles into his beer for a moment before taking a quick sip and shaking his head. His curls bobbed with the movement in an endearing fashion that made her want to pet his hair, but obviously she refrained. 

“I don’t think it’s materialistic or silly. Especially when you backed it up with the insight that it’s likely due to your love for beauty and pleasure and your childhood.” 

She twists her lips up, trying to hide her smile as she averts her gaze from Josh’s once more. He was just so sweet. “Thanks,” She whispers from across the picnic table they were sitting at after the first band's set. 

Josh had offered to get them to the front of the stage but she had said she wanted to hang out at the back on the grass, where they could watch the crowd and the band. No one bothered them as they swayed along to the bluegrass music and sipped at their plastic cups of beer. Josh had taken their cups from their hands when they were done and placed them beside them on the grass before extending his hand to her. She had placed her palm in his with uncertainty painting her features. He nodded back reassuringly, the light never once leaving his perfect golden brown eyes. 

He spun them around in the grass and they began to dance unabashedly between the interspersed people. She threw her head back in laughter as he dipped her and brought her back close to him with one large hand securely clutching at her waist. It was firm against the curve of her skin just above her hip. The point of contact was skin to skin as her top was cropped and her pants weren’t super high waisted. It felt like seering heat and ice simultaneously. 

He grinned back radiantly at her and she saw it before ducking her head into the crook of his neck. Her breath fanned over the skin at the base of his neck that was exposed as her grip on his shoulder pulled his shirt a little bit away from the divot in his collarbone. She’d kept her head there for the rest of their dancing, resting her chin on his shoulder for a while as well. Josh had hummed along to the songs and moved them around as the leader of their dancing, swaying his hips slightly to bring her out of her reverie. 

Back at the bench, she realizes Josh is speaking to her again and she nods with her eyes widening slightly to show she had been listening despite her daydreaming of a moment that had passed just a half hour ago. He was telling her that it was cute that she still enjoyed something that she did as a preschooler and shared that he had begun singing and performing when he was just a toddler as well. 

She hummed in agreement. “You’re a good dancer.” 

“You’re not so bad yourself,” He winks playfully and she swats at his hand resting on the table between them, moreso to just touch him than to chastise him for being flirty. Since the kiss yesterday, nothing too intimate had passed between them, save for the hug and the dancing. 

“I danced until I was a senior in high school,” She admits, contemplatively, almost conspiratorially since the next part felt like a bit of a secret to share with someone as famous as Josh – even if she tried not to think about that part of him for her own sanity. “I loved to perform too.” 

“You don’t say,” He lights up and once more she is shocked that he can look any more interested in their conversation. “You know what? I can actually see that.” 

She laughs lightly, as if she’s a little embarrassed by his compliment. “Yeah,” She pauses. “I’m sure you know better than I do, but the thrill of being on a stage and having people watching you do what you’ve practiced for so long and you’re a little nervous but you’re mostly excited to kill it and have them applaud you. That thrill of getting to be something more than just yourself – I don’t know if you think of it like that when you’re singing since you’re just yourself up there, but –” 

He nods along and bites at his lip while she speaks. “No I think so too, it’s exhilarating. I definitely am more than just myself up there. I feel invigorated and full of life but I also know what you’re talking about from acting, kind of taking on a different character that is more than me, but like it’s still me doing it, becoming it, y’know.” 

“Do you ever think you do it off stage?” She asks meekly, maybe scared of his answer. 

“Sure, definitely. I don’t know,” He walks through his answer aloud and she smiles softly at his uncertainty. After a moment. “Don’t we all? We’re all performers somedays.”

She hums her agreement, glad he thought similarly to her. The thought had been on her mind since she met Josh and how differently he would act in different moments. 

“You’re challenging, you know that?” 

“Most people don’t say it like it’s a compliment.”

Josh shakes his head and takes another swig of beer. She follows suit. 

“Most people don’t like to be challenged.”  

“And you do?” 

“Clearly.”

“Clearly,” She smiles back at Josh and they’re silent for a good while after that, just staring at each other with a thick air of tension and longing. 

They see Rainbow Kitten Surprise at the back of the crowd once more and she bops around happily while Josh smiles and enjoys it more than he expected. He whispers in her ear when they mess up chords or are off key, how he knew it she wasn’t sure but she believed him and nodded back conspiratorily. A fan stops him once during that set and she watches quietly as they interact. Josh is animated, possibly more than he was with her – if it were possible, as he takes genuine interest in what the person tells him and then takes a picture with them. He bids them farewell and once they’ve gone away he returns closer to her, telling her about his joy in meeting fans. Her brow creases in thought as he explains it, but she’s stuck on how his demeanor changed with them and then deflated to a slightly more controlled self when he was just with her.  

She lets him take her to the front of the stage for the Black Crowes set and she lets him hold her with his arms wrapped around her waist as they sway and bounce to the songs. They’re plenty tipsy and possibly fully drunk by then and she leans her head back onto his chest. She rests her hands on his forearms that are snaked close to her body and she can hear him breathe against her ear softly and raggedly when he’s out of breath from dancing them around. 

A more sultry song comes on and she purposefully settles into Josh’s chest a little more. His touch is electric as she moves his arms from around her waist to her hips. She can feel him smile into her hair as she presses further back into his firm body and he presses close to her. 

When one of Josh’s hands goes missing from her hip she’s close to turning around to see what was wrong, but is placated by his slender fingers playing along the base of her neck as he moves her hair out of the way. They return to her hip but she’s distracted by his plush lips on her neck as they sway, tangled up in one another. 

“Is this alright?” Josh asks lowly in her ear, before continuing with another kiss. 

“More than,” She breathes, peeking over her shoulder at him. “I’ve wanted you to kiss me again all day.” 

His lips quirk up into a pleased smile. “That can be arranged.” 

She giggles at his brows lifting in a way that is supposed to be seductive but seems a little hokey coming from Josh and all his lovely mannerisms. 

Once more, his lips are on hers and she melts into his touch, twisting around in his hold. His skin is fire against her compared to the cooling May air. Their tongues lick into each other's mouths and their sighs are soft against each other’s mouths, only heard by them due to the music being plenty loud around them. 

She tears her lips from Josh’s to kiss his strong jaw, something she had longed to do for a while. The hard spot of his jaw just below his earlobe is where she wants to kiss the most. And as she laves it with her tongue, Josh breathes hard through his nose as his hands hold her close to him, feeling her body soft and sweet against him. 

She bites at the hoop earring in his ear when it catches the light for a moment when her eyes slip open. 

“Careful,” Josh warns breathlessly when he hears the clank of her teeth against the metal and feels the slight tug. 

She lets go and smirks against the skin of his throat as she moves to a new landscape. 

She murmurs against his skin. “What? Do you not like that? Or do you like it a little too much?”

Josh hums in nonchalant agreement, attempting to keep his composure while she makes out with him in a relatively public place, even if it is dark and secluded.  

She continues kissing his neck, moving with ease as she sucks softly and Josh’s hand pets over her hair, content with letting her work until she nips at him slightly. 

“No, baby,” He softly grips the base of her neck and pulls her away from her position, bringing her eyes to meet his. 

She tips her eyebrows up in protest and he smiles in spite of himself, his lips splitting to show off the little gap between his teeth. He was too pretty, it wasn’t her fault she wanted to give him a love bite. 

“I can’t have visible marks,” He sighs, wishing he didn’t have to say it, wanting nothing more for her to continue and do whatever she wanted to him.

“Aren’t you done touring for awhile?”

“Yeah, I just don’t like visible marks where people might see and speculate.” 

“Speculate,” She repeats. “I understand,” She says before moving away, no longer wishing to continue down the path she was traveling, it couldn’t have gone much further in public anyway, especially if she couldn’t leave marks. 

Josh brings a finger to tip her chin up so that she’s looking at him once more. Her eyes look anywhere but his own. Across the bridge of his nose, his sunkissed and lightly freckle-smattered cheeks, the curls that fell over his forehead, his well-trimmed mustache, his hairy goatee that had been tickling her while they kissed. She didn’t look at his lips either, avoiding them as well. 

“Hey, look at me, please.” 

Her eyes meet his, reluctantly. Her face has a pouty expression as he regards her. The lights from the stage didn’t really illuminate her face as she faced away from it, but he could make out her expression nonetheless. Their intertwined bodies were wrapped up behind one of the large speakers, obscuring them from the majority of the crowds around them.

“It’s just a preference, it doesn’t mean I don’t want you, because trust me. I want you,” He chuckles as he tries to express himself clearly. 

She nods meekly, flushed at the authoritative tone he had had with her while she was clutched in his hold. She wanted to make him happy. 

“Will you kiss me again, sunshine? The little noises you make are so pretty in my ear,” He soothes, petting at the back of her head. His voice is gravelly with desire as he looks into her eyes. 

She feels herself brighten at the pet name Josh had chosen for her. He had waxed eloquent earlier about his love for the sun and everything it did for the world. For her to be his sunshine and to want her, she would glow for him.

“I feel like we need to leave,” She responds, still wanting more with Josh and sure that couldn’t happen when they were in public. 

Josh quirks his head and then picks up on her meaning. A smirk crawls onto his features, the alcohol in his system making him so very pleased that she was such a go-getter in every aspect of her life. “Is that so?” 

She nods and pecks his lips, ready to retreat after the quick kiss, but Josh pulls her back in for a longer kiss that she hums her approval into. Josh’s lips are insistent but she pulls back with a scrape of her teeth against his lower lip, growing impatient with the limited range of actions they could partake in while at the festival. 

He pushs down the groan that threatens at the back of his throat from her actions and she feels him attempt to control himself with a squeeze of his hands against her body, the base of her neck and her waist. 

He leans down and places his lips against her ear, whispering, “Are you going to take my advice from yesterday about personal pleasure.” 

“Certainly, Joshua.” Her fingers trail across his chest in a swirling pattern. 

“Fuck,” He breathes, his head falling between them. 

“What?” 

“Say it again.” 

“Certainly?” 

“No,” He rolls his eyes and shakes his head at her. “You’re a tease aren’t you, sunshine?” He presses against her and her breath hitches feeling his arousal harder than before. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Joshua,” She grins evilly at him. 

He laughs and pulls away from her, encircling his hand around her wrist and pulling them away from the stage. “Do you think your hotel or my hotel is closer?” 

“I thought you guys were staying on the tour bus?” 

“Oh, right,” Josh looks back at her and shakes his finger at her dramatically, realizing she was correct, as she jogs to trail behind his fast pace. They break out into a fit of giggles and she catches up, wrapping her arms around his right arm in a hug as they walk along quickly. Her body curls into his like she wants to become one with Josh and maybe she wishes she could. 

Inside the tour bus, a flurry of things happen. Josh doesn’t even have the chance to assure her that they’ll be alone to partake in the activities she’s been whispering in his ear during their fast-paced walk to the bus. 

She kisses him for a moment, with hot lips smearing against his in a hurried fashion. He forgets about what he wanted to mention after he had just slipped his phone out to confirm with his band group chat. 

Her hands tug at his shirt and he obliges happily, giggling at her eagerness. Delighted that she would want to have sex with him. He felt like he was 16 again, when his high school crush finally took charge and made it clear that she wanted to have sex with him. Josh loved when a woman made her wants clear — like he had told Y/N, being vocal about pleasure was a good thing. 

“What do you want, sunshine?” He asks when her hands are trailing at the waistband of his pants. 

Her eyes cast up at him mischievously and she blinks at him with a bit of a pout. Her hands run up his smooth chest, it’s toned but not too muscular and she wants to kiss, bite and lick over every inch if he’d let her.

“I want you, Josh,” She whispers.

“I’m all yours,” He responds just as softly, his head nodding to promise it was true. 

She squints her eyes at him, simultaneously endeared and annoyed that he’d say that. She wanted him to start taking charge, he seemed to be going along with everything she was doing but she wanted him to be more active with it. She wanted him to be the dominant one, it made her feel wanted, desired. 

“Josh, I want you to fuck me like you mean it.” 

“I’ll mean it.” He goes in for a hungry kiss, nodding his head insistently still and leaving her breathless. 

Her breath becomes heavier as she begins to anticipate Josh’s moves. Her fingers fumble with the button of his pants again and he pushes them off so that he can tug at her own top. The buttons come undone easily and he pushes it from her shoulders. The black lace bra that is revealed makes Josh’s jaw drop. She grinned and reached behind herself, unhooking the bra and removing it from her body. 

Josh’s lips flew to kiss between the valley of her tits. His warm lips suction against the skin, making her arch her back. The trail of his lips moves around her body, making the skin raise with goosebumps when the cool air touches where Josh had been. His large hands were wrapped around the bottom of her shoulder blades, keeping her close as he kissed her. 

A particular hard kiss from Josh’s lips on the underside of her left tit brought about the loudest moan she had made. Josh nipped at the skin and then leaned back on his heels to look up at her with a grin on his face. 

“Keep making those noises, baby. You sound like a fuckin’ angel.” 

“I need more, Josh. Please.” She pets at his hair, brushing back the unruly curls that had been happily tickling her as he kissed her. 

He nods. “Okay, sunshine, let’s get you on the bed then. How could I say no when you ask so sweet?” 

He walks her back until her knees bend at the feeling of the bed behind her. She’s kissing at his neck until she can’t anymore. Josh stops for a moment as he watches her sitting there, looking up at him. Her arms behind her, keeping her sitting up, her face flushed and adoring as she stared at him. Her breasts perfect and heaving as she took the chance to catch her breath. 

He finishes taking off his pants and she does the same with hers, leaving them in only their underwear as Josh crawls on top of her and pulls the curtain closed around them. One of Josh’s hands is cupping her jaw as he kisses her and the other trails down her body making her tremble. 

“Josh,” She sighs his name against his lips. 

His hand continues down, swirling over the cotton fabric and rubbing over her clothes cunt. 

“I bet you’re soaked, huh?” Josh questions, more to himself than anything, continuing to focus on teasing her over her panties. 

She nods, nonetheless, causing his thumb to bump against her lips. He glances up at her face with a watchful eye and presses his thumb against her lips firmly. She parts them and sucks it greedily into her mouth, swirling and laving her tongue over it. Josh smirks and continues his fingers’ assault on her continuously growing arousal. 

“All over me when we were in public, I felt you pressing you’re ass into me when we were dancing. Trying to get me hard where anyone could see, so fucking naughty. Did you get wet just from dancing, baby?” 

Her moan is muffled behind his thumb in her mouth, but he takes it as a yes. This was so hot, Josh finally seeing exactly what she wanted. 

“Yeah you did. Cause you’re kinda a slut when it comes down to it. Is that pussy insatiable? Such a needy cunt that you’d let me take you anywhere?”

“Fuck, yes! I need you.”

His nimble fingers finally slip under the fabric and glide through her folds, circling her clit and dipping into her entrance a little before pulling back and licking a bit of her juices off his hand. His groan is loud and shaking which just makes her want him more. The cloudy fog of alcohol had made her hornier and more submissive than usual, but she didn’t feel weird about it with Josh. 

“You taste delectable, angel.” 

She squeaks at the name which makes Josh’s smirk widen. 

“Here, taste yourself,” He removes his thumb and thrusts the other two digits into her mouth now, making her moan. “Fuck, angel. I’m gonna cum in my boxers if you keep making those sounds.” 

“Then fuck me, please.” 

“You’re sure you’re ready?” He tilts his head, teasing her slightly but also checking in to make sure they’d done enough foreplay. 

She nods and pulls him in for a kiss, tongues in each other’s mouths, dancing together and fighting for who’s in charge simultaneously. One of Josh’s hands trails down and yanks at her underwear, pulling them down around her knees and she wiggles them the rest of the way off before pulling up her knees and letting Josh’s body find a home between them. 

His boxers are next but not before he grinds his clothed cock over her quivering center, open, leaking and hot for him. He sits back on his knees for a second, one hand running up and down her thigh, soothing her shivering body and the other wrapped around his cock, it’s head twitching as he dragged it through her folds. A squelching noise sounds when he begins to push it faster around her clit and entrance. The heat between her legs is amazing, it already feels as if she’s going to explode, but she wants Josh inside of her. 

He relents from his teasing finally and pushes his cock head in and then slowly the rest of him, bottoming out and draping himself over her once more. The full feeling Josh gives her cunt is better than anyone of the few before. His body is wrapped around hers and hers is then wrapped around his cock. She whimpers for him to move and he starts at a steady speed, attempting to control himself when it feels so good inside her warm snug cunt. 

He speeds up when she begs him to, the slapping sound along with every sensation was so much but she was greedy and wanted more. Her moans are loud as he pounds into her. 

“Fuck,” Josh grunts, arm beside her face as she clutches as his biceps. “You’re pussy is so sweet to me, angel. So snug and warm, so inviting. Like you made it up special, just for me.” 

“Did you make it up special for me, baby?”

“Yes,” She moans and writhes “Just for you, Josh.”

“That’s right, angel. Thank you.”

He babbles about her pussy like it’s a cabin home for his cock and in her drunk heightened state it makes complete sense, its also a little endearing if he wasn’t fucking her obscenely at a festival on a tour bus, but that barely crossed her mind. This was Josh and he was making her see stars. 

“Josh,” She whines, hands gripping now at his shoulders and back, legs wrapping around his hips to push herself up to him. 

“Are you gonna cum? Gonna cum so pretty for me with that sweet cunt of yours. Can feel it choking my cock, wanting it to never leave. Believe me baby I don’t ever wanna leave.” 

She nods deliriously, moaning at his words. 

“Then go on, angel. Take it. It’s all yours. Yours for the taking, go on. Cum.” His affirmations and encouragement is so sweet and so hot coupled with his thumb rubbing tight circles into her puffy clit, she loses it, convulsing around Josh’s cock as it continues to pump into her. 

Her body shakes and her head rolls back, the orgasm coming in multiple waves as he fucks her through it. A hand goes up to her face, soothing her tensed expression as the pleasure washes over her. He continues to talk but she can barely hear it. He pulls out and cums on her stomach just when she flutters her eyes open, meaning she gets to see his own eyes flutter shut and pink lips drop open as he finishes. 

He smiles lopsidedly when he opens his eyes and sees her adoring gaze on him. 

“That was amazing, sunshine,” He gives her a peck on the lips before getting up to get them cleaned up. She nods and closes her eyes, feeling content and unbelievably tired. 

She tells herself not to fall asleep before Josh returns and maybe she doesn’t but the next thing she remembers is soft sheets and a peek of sunlight coming from somewhere. 

The next morning, she finds herself in an unfamiliar bed. It wasn’t the hotel bed that she had slept in the two previous nights either. 

“Fuck,” She sat up quickly and almost hit her head if an arm didn’t keep her from sitting up completely. Instead she just jostles back and forth with the new weight registering in her mind. 

Her eyes trailed from the hand on her shoulder, up the toned arm, over the connected shoulder and finally to the face of the owner of the arm, Josh. Josh... 

Josh fucking Kiszka. She’d fucked Josh Kiszka. In his tour bus. Right. Let’s remain calm. She took a deep inhale through her nose and out her mouth, trying to be as quiet as possible as he snoozed quietly beside her. His lips were slightly parted as he breathed evenly, his skin looked as soft as perfect beach sand.

Her body was covered in a t-shirt that wasn’t hers and wasn’t Josh’s either since she was sure he only owned white ones. This was an oversized raggedy faded black Queen shirt that smelled of strong men’s cologne and not at all Josh. She picked at the collar and brought it to her nose, sniffing it and wrinkling her nose. 

“What the fuck?” She whispered to herself which caused Josh to stir ever so slightly beside her. 

She sunk back to lying flat on the bed from her position on her elbows. 

“You awake, sweet pea?” He asks softly, groggily into her ear. 

She hums as if waking up and flutters her eyelashes open, in a way that she hopes is attractive. ‘Sweet pea’ had her preening into his touch when his hand slid from all the way across her body to touch her waist, beneath the thin sheet that covered them both. 

He was curled up against her and she shifted onto her side in a relatively awkward way due to the cramped sleeping situation they were in. Thankfully, it was spacious enough that she didn’t have any aches or pains from actually sleeping in it last night. Some soreness in her thighs and other places, but that was from the activities prior to the sleeping. 

A realization of a few things happens all at once for her. 

“Did your bandmates slash brothers hear us last night?! Where’s my phone? Did I remember to tell Chloe where I was and that I wasn’t coming back to the hotel? Fuck, do you know where my phone is?”

Josh smiles, like her freak out is amusing to him and he pats at her uncovered hip, stroking it softly, trying to soothe her. 

“It’s on the charger. You texted Chloe and I told my brothers to fuck off for half the night and texted them when they were free to return to the bus. You’re okay.” 

She breathes a sigh of relief and then flushes at the memories of last night. Of Josh in all his glory. Of the extra care he took with her, like no man had ever done before. Of the sounds she had made for him. Of the words he had said. 

“Was it any good?” 

“Jesus Christ Sam!” She shrieks and tucks her knees to her chest, which doesn’t really do anything, but makes her feel more covered up underneath the thin sheet. Josh’s hand slithers around her back to hold at her other hip, trying to comfort her once more. It certainly distracts her, his soft touch and undying warmth. 

Josh glares at the curtain around the bed, knowing his brother is likely standing in the hallway behind it. 

“Well, we’re all wondering,” Sam calls again. Jake was still in bed, but awake, and Danny was making coffee down the hall, but indeed they all were quite interested in hearing what had transpired the night before. All their ears perking up to Sam’s voice echoing through the cabin instead of the murmured voices they’d heard previously.  

Josh looks to Y/N with an apologetic smile and she returns it, before tucking her head into the crook of his shoulder, finding immense comfort in his body. He reluctantly pulls the curtain back to glare at Sam, who is grinning boyishly, like he just won a game. Josh throws a pillow at his own naked chest. Sam catches it easily with a ‘humph’ sound, but the smile never leaves his face. 

“C’mon get on with the story!” Jake’s voice comes from above them, followed by a peek of his head out from his bed’s curtain. His eyes are foggy with sleep and his hair was unruly and maybe a little tangled. 

“Are they always like this?” She murmurs to Josh, but loud enough for both Sam and Jake to hear. They snort. 

Josh chuckles good-naturedly, he loved his brothers despite how prying they could be. “Only my entire life.” 

“Nice shirt.” Sam interrupts their moment once more. 

She eyes his shirtless form, how confidently and smuggly he was standing there, eyeing the shirt she was wearing. She glanced at it, its worn blackness, the little tear at the shoulder likely from someone tugging at it constantly. “Is it his?” She asks Josh. 

“Yeah,” Josh laughs. “You were insistent on wearing it last night and I tried to tell you, but you hushed me and said to be a ‘good old fashioned lover boy’ and let you do what you want.” 

“Yeah that sounds like me.” She relents and rolls her eyes at Sam who raised his eyebrows at her teasingly. “If you’re not careful, I just might keep it.” 

Sam smiles at that and raises a palm, “By all means, keep your souvenir.”

She laughs genuinely and everyone smiles happily. Afterall, it had been a good night and the guys were happy to see Josh happy. It was just obligatory to give him a little shit for it. 

Josh tells her that he’s going to get ready and then take her back to her hotel. Before she can protest, he explains that it’s so she can change and get ready to go out into Napa together. She smiles and he pecks her on the lips before getting out of bed. He hands her jeans and original shirt from yesterday back to her. As he saunters off, she works to put her jeans back on, but keeps the Queen shirt on, the halter was cute albeit slightly uncomfortable and after last night, all she ever wanted was to feel blissfully comfortable. One night with Josh had taught her so much about herself that she had never known. It was euphoric. Even the morning shenanigans of Josh’s brothers couldn’t dampen her mood, her happiness. 

She climbs out of the tour bus bed and ambles towards the smell of coffee. Eager and interested in putting some of the dark liquid into her system. A slight headache from all of the alcohol consumed yesterday persisted despite her happiness and she hoped to dull it. The ache in her legs however and the tenderness along her neck and chest, she never wanted those sensations to leave. 

Danny and Sam were seated in the area where the coffee was and Sam was quick to jump up and grab her a cup, noticing her longing stare at their cups filled with the warmth. She thanked him and greeted Danny with a soft smile. After Sam hands her a mug filled to the brim with hot coffee, she thanks him once more and takes a seat beside Danny, opposite of Sam’s original seat. 

“So…” Sam settled back into his seat and cast his eyes towards her, with a tilt of his head, rather coquettishly. 

She rolls her eyes again, but smiles softly behind the lip of the coffee mug. “You’re not going to hear a word from me. If Josh wants to tell you, that’s up to him.” 

“Based on the marks I can see on your neck and that I can only imagine going…lower. He’ll have lots to say,” Sam winks. 

Danny laughs at his friend and shakes his head at Y/N. “Ignore Sam, he’s just jealous he didn’t find anyone to hook up with at the festival. It’s always a fun place to meet people.” 

She nods, trying to ignore the slight sting his words carried. They regarded her as a friend but then spoke of other people as mere conquests. It made her feel a little icky, because wasn’t that what she was to Josh? 

There’s a beat of silence after Sam made a sound of disapproval of Danny’s observation. She swallows some more coffee before glancing her eyes back down the corridor, hoping Josh would walk out soon. 

“He’s going to be awhile,” Danny interprets her gaze. “All that hair doesn’t fall into place on its own.” 

She laughs and nods understandingly. 

Danny starts again, feeling as if he had upset her somehow, but not exactly sure how. He asks about her work as a journalism student and she jumps into it, animated and happy to talk about something she was passionate about. Eventually, Josh reemerges from the back of the bus and graces them with his presence, bright and bubbly as always. 

“Ready, sunshine?” 

A smile spreads across her face, unwittingly. Her body naturally gravitated towards the thing, the man, who had been so kind and good to her the last few days. 

After she’s changed and ready for the day, informing Chloe of the plans. The three of them are ambling outside to her car since she told Josh they didn’t need to take the random rental the band had gotten. She liked to drive anyway. The boys meet them downtown, having someone drop them off instead of driving themselves. The town center had a green garden filled with willowy trees and a white gazebo. The sound of chirping birds was almost drowned out by the passing cars, but as they walked to the center the birds became clearer and her smile grew wider. It was nice to be outside of the festival in the fresh air that wasn’t overpowered by food trucks and alcohol. 

The boys asked questions about Northern California that Y/N tried to answer to her best ability. Chloe was from Southern California which they had a little more knowledge about, but they were vastly unaware of all the huge state had to offer. 

After getting coffees from a little café and ambling down the semi-quiet streets of downtown Napa, they came upon a ceramics store where you could paint premade pots and other ceramics. 

“Oh my god! We have to go in,” She beams upon reading the sign. “This is, like, my favorite thing from my childhood. Where I grew up there used to be one, but it closed when I was like nine.”

Josh had paused beside her and had his brows raised as he watched her excitement, loving to see her excited when she had been rather quiet the entire morning. He chalked it up to a mild hangover and being one of those people who needed a few cups of coffee to start their day, according to what she had told him previously. 

“Let’s go in, then.” 

She looks up to him with a hopeful expression that turns into glee when she sees he’s serious. In her excitement, she takes ahold of Josh’s hand and leads him into the shop trailing behind her. Everyone else smiles and follows behind with mumbles of agreement that it could be fun. Jake asked if there was alcohol involved or if there could be alcohol involved and she shot him a look of mock disdain, but couldn't keep the smile off her face, caught between her childhood self’s wholesomeness and her current self’s appreciation for a good drink.

“After you fire them, can they be shipped?” Josh asks innocently to the worker who was helping them, Alice. 

“Sure! We can ship ‘em anywhere in the continental U.S. for a small fee. Outside of that, the fee does get a bit bigger.” Alice replies, handing Jake the last piece the group needed, a frog mug he had asked for. 

Josh thanks her and then turns to Y/N who is seated across the table from him. “Do you want to paint one for each other and then we can have them shipped to each other afterwards?” 

Her head quirked to the side as she felt his foot press next to hers underneath the table. She wanted to take his hand and hold it, but he had dropped her hold immediately upon entering and seeing the worker approach them so she didn’t think he liked to be touchy in public where people could see. So she refrained. She bumps his foot back and Josh smiles a little wider, mirroring her tilted head. 

“Why not?” 

“Fantastic.” 

She tries to push away the angry butterflies in her stomach that hadn’t stopped fluttering all day since she had left Josh’s bed. She longed to be back in the safety of that bed, where Josh would touch her hip to remind her he was there to comfort her. Now she just dreaded this day ending as much as Josh had encouraged her to live in the present and not view it as a memory like she had told him she often did.

At the large table, the six of them get to work on painting their ceramics of choice. Josh’s, that would be Y/N’s eventually, was a plate with vegetables on it. Y/N’s, that would go to Josh, was a small catch-all dish for jewelry or anything. Jake’s was the frog mug. Sam had snagged an ashtray with raised stars on the outside. Danny had a bowl with etched in waves. Chloe picked out a small cup that she said she’d use as a shot glass, everyone had heartily agreed that she chose the best one. 

The music playing in the store was calming, yet upbeat enough for them to consistently work and not get too off track. It also wasn’t too poppy for the music snobs who sat within the confines of the store. As an aspiring music journalist, Y/N couldn’t claim that she wasn’t one of them. Only Chloe listened to anything that could resemble the top 20 of today. 

Conversations ebbed and flowed, but with Josh and Y/N on the edge of the table, they slipped off into their own conversations more often than not. 

“I’ve been wondering,” Josh says, glancing up from his plate that now had the outer edge painted with what would be a deep forest green. “How did you get out of the pit so quickly so that you were waiting at the side of the stage when we got off? I saw you move through with relative ease, but what could you have said to get through that crowd, it’s usually pretty difficult.” 

She smiles down at the catch all plate that was going to be lavender at the center, save for some spots where she was going to place little diamond stars. “I might have lied quite a bit…I said I thought I was going to pass out and that I felt sick. Plus, people are more willing to let you out of the front rather than let you in.” She shrugged and smiled a little when Josh shook his head at her in admiration. 

“Your journalistic integrity might get called into question if you always use a ruse to get what you want.” 

“Luckily, I told you the truth,” She simpered. 

“But you didn’t!” Josh widens his eyes, realizing another thing she had fibbed about, albeit, he wasn’t actually upset about it. “You said it’d be quick and look, I’ve been with you all weekend long.” 

“That was your choice,” She shrugged, smiling down at the dish. 

She felt the eyes of Jake on her, across the table, appraising the girl Josh had taken quite a liking too. He was perplexed that they were still hanging out with her. He didn’t mind, he liked her well enough, but the whole situation was odd and he really hadn’t had time to ask Josh about it, save for after the first night. 

Josh had told him about their kiss and how he’d told her he wanted to see her again. Jake had assumed she hadn’t wanted to hook up right away so Josh was being patient, but after last night he assumed it would have been a ‘see you later’ and not a ‘we’re all spending the day together’ kind of thing. Josh had also told him that he shouldn’t worry about what he had said during their high interview with her, about not being able to hold a serious long distance relationship. He had been pressed for an answer and he knew it was true, but he also didn’t want a serious long distance relationship, so what was the big issue with saying it. 

Jake had nodded and sighed and simply hoped for the best for his brother. He was a charmer, but Jake worried that Josh often laid it on too thick, misleading girls to think it was more than it was for Josh. He just hoped Y/N understood that this wasn’t something that could last longer than the weekend. 

The wind picks up when they exit the shop. Josh had insisted on paying the shipping costs for both of their pieces since he had been the one to suggest that they exchange them. Sam had teased Josh and asked if he’d pay for everyone’s, but Josh had cackled and heckled his little brother back. 

Jake raised a brow again at his twin’s kind gestures and wandered off ahead of the group down the street. They hadn’t decided where they were going next so he wanted to be in silence for a little. 

Y/N watched him walk off and if Josh notices her attention stray from him, he doesn’t say anything as he regales her with a story from when he had accidentally almost set his laptop on fire. She laughed and smiled and interjected words of amazement and concern at all the right times – a skill she had had all her life, but perfected as a journalism student for particularly boring interviews where she just needed one quote and had to listen to someone go on forever about something that didn’t matter to her. Not that what Josh was saying wasn’t of interest to her. She was just preoccupied with Jake’s strange behavior. She didn’t know him well, obviously, but she had gathered he was quiet but also kind and particularly boisterous with his brothers. She didn’t think her or Chloe should be the cause of this silent and almost sulking quality he was exuding. 

Her interest was piqued and she just wanted to know why. She wanted to understand, perpetually curious – it was a blessing for her future career, but potentially a curse in this situation. 

Jake stops his walking to peer into a window display. The winery it was promoting was one that someone had mentioned to him that they should try while they were here. Now that it had popped up again, he thought it could be a good activity – especially with the drinking included. 

“Y’all want to go wine tasting?” He asks, turning his head to stare at the group mildly once they had neared his figure. 

“That sounds like a fantastic idea, Jacob,” Sam supplies, eyes lighting up at the prospect of going to a winery. “You are such a wonderful patriarch,” Sam snickers and Jake rolls his eyes. 

“Hey!” Josh interjects, his ego showing itself. 

Danny sounds off in agreement of going to the winery, as does Chloe, who really didn’t care, especially since she wasn’t yet 21, cursed with a summer birthday, much to her chagrin. Most wineries probably wouldn’t care, but every so often there would be a server who would card everyone. 

Y/N agrees as well, of course, but notes the flicker of possible annoyance in Jake’s eyes when she voices said agreement with “I’d love to go. Acceptable forms of day drinking are my favorite pastimes.” 

The gravel crunches beneath her car as she pulls down the unpaved road that was leading them to the winery. Chloe had said she’d take over driving after the winery so that Y/N could drink to her heart’s content. She had grinned at her best friend and thanked her. 

Inside the winery’s tasting room, a host greeted them and immediately began to help them, getting them seated outside to enjoy the warm sunshine. The breeze was welcome outside now, when they were sitting on wicker couches and chairs with dark grey cushions accented with red throw pillows, all warmed by the sun. 

Y/N found herself seated directly next to Jake on the couch and Josh on her other side in a separate chair. Josh beams at her and asks her to remind him of her favorite type of wine. She responds with “‘Malbec’ or sometimes ‘Merlot’.” Josh nods before turning to their server, asking if any of the tastings included a Malbec. She smiled and tried to keep the heat from rising to her cheeks as the server’s eyes flickered from Josh to her, noting the clear relationship they seemed to have in the server’s eyes. 

Jake readjusted in his seat and flicked some of his hair off of his shoulder. His movement brings her attention to him, but he doesn’t regard her. His eyes shifting and flickering around the scenery, out at the green vineyards and blue sky. 

“Is something wrong?” She murmurs to him, while Josh is still occupied with deciding on which tasting the group was going to do, while Sam and Danny amused Chloe with a tour story. 

His eyes reluctantly find her face, but avoid maintaining eye contact for longer than a beat. 

“Not particularly, why do you ask?” 

The stare he finally gives her with his question almost feels like he’s completely turned the tables on her. She suddenly feels very small under his gaze and she immediately longs for when he was refusing to look at her because this is far more intimidating. His pointed nose is narrow and sharp like a beak of an elegant bird as he stares down at her. His eyes barely crinkle at the edges and his eyebrows furrow ever so slightly. Her eyes break from the stare to look down, catching on the glinting silver of his long necklace that lays against his naked tan chest, exposed due to his unbuttoned shirt that wrinkles beneath an unbuttoned vest. His vibe was very slutty pirate if she could name it and she actually loved it if he wasn’t looking at her with such intensity. 

“You’ve just seemed,” Her eyes return to his face, attempting to not back down, realizing Jake had just turned something on, a mechanism to further avoid her questioning. She decides to change her course of action. “Nevermind.”

Jake’s face turns satisfied, thinking he had successfully gotten her to leave him alone about what had been bothering him. 

The longest wine tasting option Josh could have picked commences with a Malbec coming up fifth. By the sixth wine, she was feeling slightly tipsy. Josh was grinning and telling a story that the boys were all a part of so she assumed it was only for her’s and Chloe’s benefits. His hands flew around him as he described a grand concert hall dinner they had attended previously and how they had met Elton John that night. She smiled and giggled when Josh mimicked Elton John’s British accent. 

“Jake, of course, is much better at doing a British accent than me,” Josh laughs. “I’ll concede to that. Will Mr. Reed be joining us at any point this afternoon?” He regards Jake for his question, who smiles back calmly and shakes his head negatively before draining his glass of Zinfindel. 

“No, I don’t think he will,” Jake’s regular voice sounds, “But I am going to go for a smoke, if that’s alright?” 

Josh nods, but approval wasn’t actually what Jake was looking for. He moves to stand, but before he can maneuver himself around Y/N, she stands as well. 

“You don’t mind if I join you?” She asks, innocently. “It’s a bad habit of mine, but if I’m not alone I don’t feel as guilty.” 

Josh smiles happily at his brother, seeing no reason for Jake to say no to her and being delighted at the prospect of the two of them getting to know each other a little better. 

Jake gestures for her to go ahead of him since it didn’t seem like he could refuse. 

They walk off together down a path that leads towards the vineyards. Everyone else rested with their wines, it gave them time to catch up, Danny and Josh were still only on the fourth wine and Sam was on the fifth. Only Y/N and Jake had been keeping the official pace, finishing their sixth before wandering off. The remaining group also decided to order some snacks to go along with the food. Chloe happily sipped at her Coke Zero. 

Jake fishes his pipe from the inside pocket of his vest and his box of tobacco, beginning to pack the pipe. She regards him beside her, expertly packing the bowl. 

She can’t help her yelp of laughter at the sight. His eyes flicker to her face that she tamps down into a tight lipped smile. “That’s so pretentious, I’m sorry.” 

He rolls his eyes and continues his process. “It’s all I’ve got. Don’t you know? Cigarettes kill.” 

She laughs genuinely at this while simultaneously slipping her crumpled pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket. “I think it’s all tobacco products, but whatever helps you sleep.” 

They pause to help shield each other’s smoking device of choice from the wind so that they can be lit. Surprisingly, Jake speaks first after the cigarette and pipe are burning. 

His hand toggles the pipe from his lips and allows the smoke to billow out from his mouth. It goes off in the opposite direction of her, thankfully. He had been careless, just allowing the smoke to seep from his lips, if the wind had blown the opposite direction it would have hit her directly in the face.

“Have you enjoyed your weekend?” He attempts to be casual as they continue down the path between the vines. 

She glances at him and how his eyes continue to survey the land, clearly not actually caring to hear what she has to say, but attempting to preoccupy her mouth with words that wouldn’t question his behavior again. 

 She hums in affirmation and blows the smoke from her lungs. 

“Jake,” She calls his name, hoping this will actually bring his eyes to her. It does. “Are you ever compelled to write?” 

Jake’s eyes flash wide in confusion, not fully understanding the question and confused as to where it came from. “Pardon?” 

She smiles to herself and then looks away from him to try and explain her question better. “I know you’re like the guitar guy and I honestly don’t know how much of the lyrics you write for the band, but beyond that, are you ever moved to write something down? Not like a to-do list or something like that, but to write down a story or a thought that bounces around your head until the only way to stop it is to write it down.” 

Jake immediately brightens. “Yes, often,” He breathes out. She had described something he experienced regularly but didn’t discuss with people because the few times he had broached the topic it had been shot down. He assumed most people didn’t feel that way. 

“I feel that constantly,” She continues and takes a drag of her cigarette. “Sometimes it’s exhausting right?” 

Jake nods when she looks to him for confirmation. 

“When I’m with Josh,” She pushes forward. “I don’t feel that compulsion. I feel peaceful. Don’t get me wrong, I still want to write things down, I want to remember every moment, every breath, every laugh with him, but it’s not so frantic. I know I’m younger than you guys and you might think I’m naive for entertaining the notion that Josh and I could continue whatever this is when we’re apart, but I’m okay with it being something when we’re together and then something else when we’re not. What I’m trying to say is, I would hate for you to be upset with me or your brother for something we’ve got under control. I was apprehensive to say ‘yes’ to Josh when I first met him, but now it feels so easy and it’s barely been three days.”  

Jake chuckles despite himself and her eyes flash to his face, disturbed that he would laugh when she had said something so serious. Had she completely misread his expressions and behavior today. 

“You’re incredibly astute for barely knowing me and my brother.”

“Is that actually a compliment or are you being facetious?” 

Jake laughs again with a little shake of his head before tipping his pipe over and blowing out the fulling smoked bowl of ash. “No, I mean it. I worry about him. Some people get misled by his charm and it ends up blowing up in his face at the end of the day because he’s so empathetic. He’ll beat himself up over a girl crying because he made all these big promises and grand gestures, all for it to end. He doesn’t do it maliciously, he’s just too intrinsically optimistic and loving. He’ll give a random girl an interview and then decide to introduce her to the rest of the band and sweep her off her feet, spend the entire weekend with her and make her fall in love. And I’m the one left to pick up the pieces when he feels terrible that he’s upset you, but since you already know what this is, I’m relieved.” 

She grimaces but attempts to keep it light. She hoped Jake had said this out of kindness, that he hadn’t intentionally just told her she wasn’t as special as she thought she was. That Josh did this all the time apparently and any promises he had made her were bound to be broken. She hoped that it wasn’t fully true either, that he hadn’t just reduced this weekend to another time he’d have to console his brother when she got upset that it was ending. Because in her eyes, it wasn’t ending, this was just a see you later. That’s what Josh had told her. Best possible outcomes only. 

“You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, Y/N. I think you’ve got good things coming to you in this life,” Jake bumps the elbow of her arm that wasn’t holding her cigarette butt that she didn’t want to drop in the dirt. “Thanks for talking to me, I feel much better.” 

“Yeah,” She replies, lost in her mind once more. “Course. I don’t like to see people upset.” 

They turn back and rejoin the group. Jake doesn’t notice her quieter state, now telling her his own story about traveling around California previously. She interjected when necessary, but otherwise her eyes wandered along the vines. The vibrant green was barren of any fruit, it dangled along the lines that had been placed to hold up the crop. The crop that would flower and fruit that would make the wine. Maybe following Jake down this path hadn’t been such a good idea. 

Josh beams at their return, not consciously noticing that Jake had been quiet before but certainly noting that he was brighter than before. Perhaps because he spent time with Josh’s new paramour which made him happy. He also didn’t seem to notice the lackluster quality that had overtaken said paramour upon her returning. He was good at seeing the happy things, at times to a fault. 

It also didn’t help that Y/N masked her displeasure with a sunny smile that mirrored Josh’s. 

After the winery, she does her best to continue the facade that had proved to be convincing for the last hour. However the wine was affecting her brain. She was tired and a bit sad. When she lags behind the group, Josh finally notices and slows to walk with her, letting the rest of the group wander ahead on the walk back to the car. It was a long winding road that they had walked down originally to get to the vineyard’s barn where the tastings took place. 

“How’re you feelin’, sunshine?” 

“Honestly?” She looks up at him, the sun shining on half of her face from the angle Josh looked at her. It bronzed her features as if she was ancient art and Josh truly regarded her as such. 

“A bit drunk,” She starts with a pout on her lips when he nods her on. He ‘aww’s at her and wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into him. She huffs and presses her head against his warm chest, finding it comforting yet also aggravating that he didn’t know why she was upset. But how could he when she hadn’t told him and had been acting like everything was fine? “Are you sure you want to continue things when we’re apart?” 

“You know I am,” Josh stops, leaning back to look in her eyes. He sees the sadness clearly now in her watery eyes. “Did you get in your head again?” 

“No,” She shakes her head and laughs humorlessly. “I actually wasn’t until Jake and I went on our walk –” 

“What did he say?” Josh intervenes, suddenly worried. He shakes his head, already upset at his brother for making Y/N upset. 

“It’s fine, Josh,” She puts a hand on his chest. “I don’t want you to be upset with him because of this, he didn’t realize he said something callous. It just made me feel like maybe you didn’t actually care about me all that much.” 

“But I do, trust me,” He says her name, pleading for her to believe him as she blinks back a few more tears. 

“I want to Josh,” She nods, “It just sounded like this happens a lot and I don’t want you to be upset because I’m upset because Jake said that’s always what happens and just…fuck. I don’t know. I just wish I could believe you, but I’m scared and I want to be chill about it but I’m just not chill.” 

The tears come faster and Josh hugs her to his chest because he feels realization wash over him. She was scared. She was scared of what he could do to her because she cared that much. He held her close and tried to soothe her upset state. Thankfully no one had come back to look for them, likely realizing they needed some time alone. 

“You don’t need to believe me right now, that’s fine. I’ll prove it to you, though. That this isn’t like the other times, that I’m not leading you on. I’m sorry there’s nothing I can do right now that will show you that, that will grant you peace of mind. But I hope you know, these past few days have imprinted themselves in my mind. I care for you deeply.” 

“Thanks,” She sniffles and attempts to will away the tears, no longer wishing for them to come out of her eyes. She didn’t even feel like crying they were just happening to her because of what they were talking about.” 

He kisses the top of her head and she gives him a watery smile. When they reach the car, no one asks what took them so long or why it looked like Y/N had been crying. Chloe gives her a backward glance from the driver’s seat and Josh glares at Jake a little, but stops when Y/N places her hand on his thigh. 

That night is soft and Josh kisses Y/N a few times, they hold one another but neither of them offer to stay the night. Josh promises to see her again. She nods and kisses just to the right of his lips. 

“Thank you for everything, Josh. I hope you’re right.” 

-

Ooops sorry... PLS tell me what you think, inbox is open or feel free to comment

Part 2

#josh kiszka x you #josh kiszka x reader #josh kiszka fluff #josh kiszka gvf #josh kiszka fan fic #josh kiszka fanfiction #gvf fic #greta van fleet fluff #greta van fleet fic #greta van fleet fan fiction #greta van fleet imagine #greta van fic #josh kiszka angst #josh kiszka smut #josh kiszka x y/n #gvf fanfiction #my writing

[sitp-recs]

HP Rec Fest, Day 31

Last day of @hprecfest and I AM NOT READY to say goodbye 😭 so sad to see this incredible coming to an end but also thrilled that I’ve had the chance to participate and found my reccing mojo again. Thank you @givereadersahug for this incredible initiative and to all the mods for for your hard work!!! Of course the last prompt is a banger, it was so hard to pick a fav amongst favs but to honour my commitment to rec fics that deserve more visibility I’m sharing two stunning works that showcase the beauty of short (3k) and medium (31k) form. No better way to close it out than reccing two stories that have been so very special for me ever since I first read them, and informed the way I see the ships and my respect for short-medium length. I can only hope this post will inspire more folks to check and experience these beauties by themselves. I hope you’ve had as much fun with the Rec Fest as I did! Wishing everyone a happy NYE and an amazing start to 2024 🥂

Day 31) a fav amongst favs:

Drarry

Still Life (orphaned, M, 3k)

No summary provided so I’ll quote:

if you’ve ever wondered if it’s possible to create a perfect short fic the answer is yes and the proof is right here. what a masterclass in short form! the gorgeous prose, the introspective tone, the slice-of-life atmosphere, the perfect pacing and unexpected ending - everything comes together so seamlessly it might feel casual at first but I promise it’s actually quite profound in meaning. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read Still Life and it still hits me in the solar plexus. every. fucking. time. Harry’s pov is a triumph, nuanced, hilariously oblivious and so charming as he navigates conflicting feelings about his growing attraction to Draco. it’s as if we are right there by his side, watching as he overanalyzes their casual-not-so-casual relationship and Draco’s not helping by being infuriatingly hot, tender and quirky (god what a compelling combo, and he has such brilliant lines too!). I am obsessed with their voices and with Harry’s mental gymnastics from horny denial to stunned resignation. this was such a transformative read for me because it’s one of the few fics that made my jaw drop with every paragraph, masterfully crafted to hit me right in the feels. by now I know by heart the lines that give me the “heartkick” - a physical reaction that makes my heart contract and expand with warmth at reading something that changes me in a permanent way. there’s nothing I could say to do this fic justice so I rest my case by stating that it’s a privilege to have the chance to read seefin’s works! what a legend.

Rare pair

A Fine Foray into Fashionable Fellatio by @wellhalesbells (Draco/Ron, E, 31.5k)

First comes tolerating, then comes shagging, then comes unintended consequences.

this is the fic that effectively and irreversibly pulled me into Dron 🪦 I remember being so completely mindblown and obsessed with this story that I immediately found 1824947 ways to mention and rec it every chance I got. holy shit, what a journey! before reading this fic I didn’t know it was possible to love them together and not even think about Harry. but here Ron and Draco are so fully realized, so well-matched in wit, charisma and personality I was promptly sold on the ship without ever comparing their dynamics to Drarry, after all Ron is so very different from Harry. this is quite the emotional rollercoaster, as chaotic, impulsive and intense as both characters; their chemistry and sexual tension are off the charts (the bathroom sex and smoke kink, my god!!!! 🥵) and the Mpreg plot works surprisingly well and in a very Dron way: jump head first, talk feelings later. love the mix of playful banter, horny smut and tentative sweet romance with a long-standing friendship in the background. this is such a FUN read and I really appreciate that the author took their time to develop both the plot and the characters, it certainly felt refreshing to me as I’m used to short rare pair fics. definitely a Dron classic that deserves to be read and reread many times!

#hprecfest2023 #day 31 #a fav amongst favs

[epickiya722]

REACTIONS TO EPISODE 23 - DEKU VS CLASS A

You know how it goes!

LAST EPISODE'S REACTIONS

I am so not prepared for this episode! 😃

That's right, Katsuki, call him out!

Whoa whoa whoa! Pause! Land Mine Blast... when can he do that?!

"You'd run away without even talking it out?" Yes! Sounds quite familiar... 👀

OH, KOJI KODAAAA!!! MY SUNSHINE!!!

Aaaaw, the flashback of Izuku and Hanta training together!!! Hanta's smile!! My heart!!

THESE KIDS ARE GONNA MAKE ME CRY!!!

Rikido using Eri though! "I won't lend you my food coloring for Eri's apple candy!"

"It's alright. Eri will be alright." NOT WITHOUT HER BIG BRO IZUKU THERE, YOU DAMN IDIOT!!!

That contraption Yaomomo made is by far the strangest ones yet and I must know how she even constructed that in her head.

A HYPNOSIS DEVICE!! How did he even know... wait, no, this is Izuku Midoriya I'm talking about. Of course, he would know.

This rabbit demon just broke the helmet... with force from his head... he headbutted the thing...

"Midoriya, let's take a shower!" THEY KEPT THE PART!!! 🤣🤣🤣 DENKI!!!

"But I sensed nothing at all." Because they're not trying to hurt you, they want you back, sweetie!

"So please... Stay away from me!" SEE WHAT YOU DID, AFO?! GOT MY GREEN SUNSHINE SEPARATING HIMSELF FROM THE PEOPLE HE CARES ABOUT!! FUCK YOU!!

Daiki Yamashita once again putting his heart into Izuku's voice. He sounds so hurt, so desperate. 😭😭😭

They're all doing a damn good job honestly, I'm very close to crying!

Here's Shoto with this giant ass ice wall!!

"Is your responsibility stopping you from shedding tears?" Yeah...

"You are our friend." Alright, Tsu got me. I'm crying now! 😭😭😭😭

Dictator... ugh that bitch.

Wait was this scene in the manga??

The kids just ran off because Izuku is important to them and that is so damn beautiful!

Look, Shoto, I know you're trying to keep him still, but... at this point you might give him hypothermia. Chill out... and I'm realizing the joke I did there.

ARE THEY PLAYING YOU SAY RUN?! THAT'S MY JAM!!!

YOU MISSED! HOW COULD YOU MISS?! HE WAS TEN FEET IN FRONT OF YOU!!

The class yelling "GO" together!!! No, folks, for real, I got tears!!

Katsuki!!! "Deku, I have things to tell you. There is something I must tell you! But right now, I'll let the guy who can withstand this speed do the talking first!"

GO, TENYA, GO!!!

THE HANDS!!! THE HANDS!!! 😭😭😭💙💙💙

"... it's those who will fight alongside him in the journey." The 2nd User gets it!! You damn right!!

"Let go." IZUKU, SHUT UP RIGHT NOW, YOUNG MAN!!

HE CRIED AT TENYA'S WORDS!!! HE CRIED!!

GAVE MY CLASS REP HIS TITLE SCREEN, HELL YES!! 💙💙💙

Oh, they put Katsuki's hero name!! NICE!!

NICE CATCH, KIRISHIMA!!! YOU GO, BOY!!

"But... I'm scared." Izuku... please...

Oh, Katsuki Bakugou walking up, I know where this is going. 👀

Ooooh, Katsuki, dude, man... you only said a single sentence and I'm crying a little harder.

He looks so soft...

"But I've always been the inferior." KATSUKI, PLEASE!!

Oh, the shots of them going from kids to teens... 😭😭😭

HE CALLED IZUKU!!! AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

He ran to catch Izuku... I'm going to lay down after this.

Izuku just lets himself settle in Katsuki's arms... yeah, that's how I feel. DRAINED.

Okay, not the colors I had been thinking for Thirteen's real face and body.

DAAAAAMN. I did not think the barrier would be that big!!! NEZU GOT BANK FOR REAL!!!

"I wish I could return everyone's kindness." You've done enough, sweetheart.

Fuck every single one of those people who said Izuku can't come into the school THAT HE FUCKING ATTENDS!! YOU SONS OF BITCHES, HE'S BEEN PUSHING HIMSELF TO PROTECT YOU!!! FUCK YOU!

Known fact, my least favorite people on the whole series is the "civilians".

"Who is there to protect the hero?" Ochaco, you best girl for a reason! (All the girls are really.)

This episode just... I can't... it was beautiful!!

#kiya watches #kiya reacts #just kiya's thoughts #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha s6 #bnha season 6 #bnha spoilers #midoriya izuku #bakugou katsuki #class 1a #class a #deku #iida tenya

[gachagon]

This volume was genuinely the best out all of them. I loved the journey that Ruby had to go through, the journey of a young hero who has a lot placed on her shoulders who is crumbling under the pressure, and who is given actual time to try and heal and get better from the trauma she has faced during all of this...it's a really beautiful arc of the Hero's Journey that I wish and hope more shows do in the future.

That ending song was beautiful as well, and I already know V9 is gonna be my new favorite ost after 8. I can kind of see why people might hate this, considering it's mostly a filler season we've been given to develop the protagonist more, however I love seasons like this where the writers decide to spend time and energy making the characters have more depth to them then they did before.

I also am a bit confused by why everyone thinks this is them just writing themselves out of a corner, considering we really didn't know where the Brothers came from, and all that stuff with Salem can still happen, it's just not really relevant to what Ruby and the gang are going through right now. The whole point of this season seems to be to take a break from the constant fear and dread that IS Salem, so it doesn't surprise me that we don't get to hear about her at all in this volume. Nothing has really changed besides Ruby's mental stability and her new outlook on life as a Huntress.

Before Ruby was pretty much the generic Hero who thoughtlessly fought to protect other people with no regard for her own well being, not because she felt like she had to, but because she personally feels obligated too. Which I think is why the countless failures she has faced really hurt her psyche and made her doubt her own self worth. When you're told to be perfect, you hold yourself to those standards, and if you fail every time it can really eat away at you. But Ruby actually got time, some confirmation and support from someone else that yeah this shits really fucking difficult. They're going up against the unkillable and that is NOT an easy task for a teenaged girl.

I feel like time and time again Ruby and many of the adults around her have just been pushing her to continue without really considering that she might get tired one day, that she might not want to be the one to fight Salem. So it takes an actual omnipotent being who creates life to tell her she DOES have a choice, and that at any moment or time she CAN stop if she wants to, that she can let someone else take that burden for just a moment if that's what she really needs.

And in the end Ruby chooses to just be herself, because she realizes that the ability to "choose" was what she needed in life. To be able to depend on other people, and fail without having everything crumble around her is the thing she needed to keep going. And now I can't wait to see how she faces off against Salem in Volume 10, she has a new resolve, one that isn't so easily broken by failure as well (which is what Salem thrives off of when beating people, crushing their ability to continue is what has kept Salem stronger then any foe in the show in my opinion.)

#rwby v9 #rwby volume 9 spoilers #rwby v9 spoilers #i cannot wait for volume 10 #if we ever GET volume 10 #lol

[echantedtoon]

Waning Obsession Ch12 Where We Go

(Warnings: mentions of killing, etc.

Important Info here on our most of the rest of the chapters might be mostly in Kokushibo's pov. Also this chapter will also be a bit shorter than the others.)

The rain showered down from above. The droplets hitting the trees. Seeping into the cracks in their bark and dripping from the leaves down to meet the wet ground. Usually rain was very peaceful. Sometimes even scary. But for now it was very cold.

Both literally in temperature and in sorrow.

He rarely if ever paid attention to the coldness of late autumn around him. He was far used to the sting of cold and the numbness of ice against his skin. His body had been hardened by years of brutal training to ensure that he never let it cross his mind as nothing but a passing thought and nothing more. Hands have gone numb in the cold. Calloused by hardened souls and minds. 

'Forget. You must forget what pain feels to you. Forget about what makes you feel pain. Do not let cold freeze you. Do not dare let fire burn you. Tired is not but a state of mind. Push on. You must block out what makes you weak. Do you wish to fail?'

A chestnut tree did not provide the best of shelters. The rain drip dropping from it's curling bars branches and running along golden brown leaves already about to fall. A single bead of water shined in the dim light and tumbled down down down from the rough bark. It's travel ended the moment it hit softened strands of mahogany hair. Running down the long strands going going going to the very ends. It's journey coming to a close as fabric swallowed it whole again. It's cold not getting to the one underneath the soft fabric. 

'Block out emotions. You must make yourself invulnerable to any feelings. Emotions make you weak, Michikatsu. Fear causes hesitation. Anger irrational minds. Curiosity stupidity. Happiness creates distractions. Love..Love Is a liability. Liabilities are weaknesses. Weaknesses are FAILURES! You must learn nothing but rational thoughts. Use your mind to make decisions instead of emotions. Use everything you are taught to make the right choices. Only then will you truly be invincible.'

Movements shifted underneath. Warm. It was warm. And safe. Eyes opened to peer in numbed bliss. Her warmth was like a dagger being stabbed into his chest and twisting until the outside was pierced through to the inner most deep depths and injected with warmth he never knew existed. It was..

A D D I C T I N G

'Do as you're told. Become the ultimate weapon. This is your fate. Your destiny. The entire reason you were placed here.'

"..Fuck your destiny."

A hand caressed her head against his chest. Her breaths soft but consistent. Curled against him now satisfied that shadowed monster inside him. Content whenever he got what he wanted. Finally. He had what he needed. All right in his grasp. Everything is completed. He sighed heavily gripping her close. His lips grazed the top of her head, placing a small but warm kiss to her head.

HIS. This was his. 

His life. His reason. His purpose. His love. His future wife. The woman who will be by his side. The one who will give him children. Y/n Tsugikuni. Haruhime was a name unworthy for her, but that was ok. It would be remedied soon enough. He loved her.

'Do you even know what love is?! You've never even experienced love! Your father treats you as nothing but the best option! He only values your strength and nothing more! Your mother barely knows her own son! And can your own twin really say he cares about you when you weren't even raised together?? Even your own people fear you! So how can you know what love is?!'

The eyes closed pressing further into her warmth. "No. Stop it."

'How do you even know that she loves you?! You destroyed her entire life in a matter of seconds because you were selfish and greedy! Even if she stays with you it's not out of love! It's only because she has no where else to go because you ruined everything just as you always do!'

"Your heart is beating irregular."

He froze. There was movement under his form and something pressed on his chest. So soft. Heart hammering away from where the palm pressed onto the skin. So warm. Her essence was intoxicating. Her touch scorching but burnt in a good way. He sighed in content. The thoughts were becoming too much. 

"Let go."

"...What?"

"Let me go."

"It's cold. Your body needs warmth-"

"Michikatsu, let me go."

He flinched as her lips spoke his name. It wasn't so much her voice as it was her tone that had him flinch but the tone it was spoken with. It was demanding and blunt. Not suitable for a woman her size but it was one that demanded attention. One that convinced him to reluctantly release his hold and allow her to lean up and away from his hold. Her face rang all the emotions that he dreaded to see in her.

Deep hidden anger. Regret. Guilt maybe?? But mostly exhaustion and sadness. 

A small wind had her shivering and pulling that sorry excuse for a coat tighter around her. He hated that old garb she had to wear just to keep warm. He'd gladly hold her and shield her from the elements but if he attempted to do that again now that she was awake, she'd only become angry at  him again. 

Turquoise eyes looked up at the dripping sky. "... It's raining. It sounds so.. peaceful." Her eyes did not again look back at him. "How long have we been traveling?"

"Five days." 

"Where are you taking me?"

"There is a small campsite where my father is currently residing in. It's not proper for a woman, but I can arrange better accommodations for you from there."

Now she did look at him. Wide eyed in fear and shock. "Lord Tsugikuni?! You never said anything about having to meet him!"

"I must. By now he must be very angry with me." No doubt his father would be VERY angry indeed but he'd bare the anger for the long term results after.

"I don't want to go anywhere near the Tsugikunis."

"You can bare to be around me."

"That was before you revealed yourself as Michikatsu Tsugikuni." Her eyes narrowed. If they were knives. He'd be dead. "You lied to me. You've lied to me the entire time I've known you!"

"I've never lied!...I keep my true identity a secret for safety. Would it have made you see me differently if I had told you who I was?" She did not answer and that was the deadliest blow of all. "I see..My name usually comes in the form of hatred. Why must you hate my clan name so?"

"Your family is ruthless in ruling, and cruel in nature."

"My father's rule yes, but his actions are not my own." Please don't compare him to his father. Please do not hate him. Please don't leave him! She CANT leave him!! "You did not seem to believe me to be like him before."

"Perhaps I could have believed that you were not the same before you took the lives of two men in the same night you shared my home and my bedside."

This again. He never regretted his actions but he was regretting the hastiness of his actions. "I do not regret that night with you. In fact my time with you only solidified my fondness in having you."

Her frown deepened. "Do you regret your other actions then? Taking those mens' lives."

His answer was simple, blunt, quick. "No. I don't. If given the chance I'd do it over the chance." A single knuckle pressed to her cheek taking her by surprised. "If they had not threatened you then they would have survived."

..Her head turned and she leaned away. "You did not have to kill them."

"..One made you clean his home like a pig and cut your hand. The other threatened to harm you and could have killed you if that knife had been stabbed into your cheek." If that disgusting pig had stabbed forward instead of swiping right with that knife, then she could've died and been taken from him! "If I hadn't what else would they do to you?" The hand lowered. "Everything I do is for survival Whether it be survival for myself or someone else." He slowly stood up and she almost forgot about how tall and imposing he was. "Come. We should be there within a few hours shortly."

"And if I refuse to go?" Her pout was as adorable as it was annoying. Lips purses in a way that he wanted to taste their sweetness on him again. "Then what will you do."

"I'll carry you."

"You wouldn't dare. What if I don't want you anymore?"

She should not have challenged him. It took no effort to lift her up by the back of her kimono and toss her up bridal style within his arms. Her squeals and shocked face afterwards while settled in his arms.

"I'm afraid that is no longer an option. If our union did not already seal us then fate has."

You somehow managed to convince Koku-.. Michikatsu to put you down on your own feet, but somehow that didn't make things better. At some point he dropped the haori coat over your shoulders as the rain picked up like that was supposed to make it better. Five days. You both had been traveling on foot for five days at most counting today. Most of it had been spent in a numb blurry state. You'd lost how many hours you've walked and how many you actually slept. But you haven't been treated badly by him. Many times you were given water collected from a stream, and you hadn't gone hungry. Michikatsu as it turns out was quite the skilled hunter and was able to skewer a quail flying through the air with ease just by throwing his sword in the air and standing still in the water long and silent enough to snatch fish out of the water with his bare hands cooking everything his hands caught over a homemade fire. You got the impression that he does this a lot. Was that why he always took so well to your food?

The charm of the stoic but shy demon you liked was shattered along with your life all in one night. And you were a numb unsure mess just wondering aimlessly after him for now- You blinked out of whatever stupor you were in when he suddenly stopped and you ended up bumping into his back. Blinking you stared at his bare back before looking up to his head. He didn't say anything but stood still. For second there was nothing but the rain still dripping down from the sky with the occasional thunder clap, it had picked up a little bit while you both walked. Then he spoke.

"You have to listen to what I'm about to say very carefully." The blunt and deep tone in which he spoke sent a shiver down your spine. "There is a camp just past these trees. You are to stay by my side and not leave it. Do not speak to anyone. Do not look at anyone. And do not acknowledge they're there. The only reason you're here is because I have business and then we're leaving. Don't speak to my father unless he directly acknowledges you first which is unlikely. Am I clear?"

You gulped. "I-..Y-Yes."

"Good. ..I promise you once this is over we will discuss your situation more properly. For now do as your told."

#demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #kokushibo #kimetsu gakuen #demon slayer kokushibo #kokushibo demon slayer #kny kokushibo #kokushibou #yandere kokushibo x reader #yandere kokushibo #kokushibo x you #kokushibo x reader #kokushibo x y/n #yandere kokushibou #demon slayer michikatsu #michikatsu x reader #michikatsu #tsugikuni michikatsu #kny michikatsu #michikatsu tsugikuni #yandere michikatsu tsugikuni #yandere michikatsu x reader #yandere mitchikatsu #Kny #Waning Obsession

[thestalwartheart]

I haven’t got a headcanon unfortunately but I just want to say I really appreciate how much you celebrate both Knives Out and Bond!! It kinda makes me sad that in the last few days so many people, in their attempt to celebrate Daniel’s performance as Benoit, talk down on what he did as Bond by saying he hated it or that he never should have taken on the role. Of course that one interview he did 7 years ago that got taken ridiculously out of context didn’t help at all 😭 but I just wished it was more common knowledge how involved he was in his Bond films creatively, because he really gave so much more of himself to this role than was required, and to me that doesn’t sound like someone who hates what they’re doing.

Hi Nonnie! Thanks for sending this in.

It’s irked me a bit too. I’ve found it’s mostly come from people who never bothered to watch him as Bond. It has to be, right? I’m not sure how, after seeing the films, you come away the conclusion that it was a bad career decision for him.

Since that one interview seven years ago, he’s done countless others where he’s talked about how proud he was of what he and the rest of the crew achieved with Bond. I’m so glad you mentioned him being involved creatively because if it weren’t for him, I don’t think we’d have ever seen that kind of nuanced, human, just-hanging-on, about-to-break-apart-at-the-seams, chaotic bisexual James Bond in the franchise at all. The character journey was astonishingly good, and that’s down in no small part to how much Daniel Craig cared about it. I believe he truly did care about the story those films told and how they told it, and the heart at the centre. He managed to respect over fifty years of tradition in that franchise while giving us a truly original, explosive ending to his last film and offering a huge “fuck you” to a lot of the things that made the franchise dated and irrelevant. And he did all of it while putting his family life on the backburner and throwing his body - literally - at the role. I respect and fear him enormously in equal measure for that lol. And you’re right - he wouldn’t have done any of it if he’d hated it.

He’s glad to be done with it for sure, but I’ve read about him crying in NTTD interviews about how much it all meant to him. Hated it my arse!

Anyway, I love him as Benoit Blanc, truly. The Knives Out franchise has be bewitched body and soul - I fucking love it. But his Bond years had me in a chokehold too. That’s just Daniel Craig, baby! He puts his whole pussy into everything he does.

One day I might do a masterlist of all his good Bond interviews and try to spread the word! In the meantime, if you have any quotes or links feel free to the add them to this post.

#daniel craig #ask box

[tomatoluvr69]

Sorry you’re experiencing sad events:(

Ah thank you, it is quite alright…I am good at grief, it’s familiar to me…the rest of this got slightly lengthy so I’m putting it beneath a cut because obviously I have no idea who reading this might not care to be reminded of loss.

I’m not lucky of course to have gone through a significant loss during adolescence…but I am very lucky that I took from that experience the epiphany that to begin to heal, you must feel it fully and let it ravage you as much as physically possible…while maintaining as much of a standard of care for yourself as possible. Maybe not “you” so much as me— that’s what I’ve found helps me. I think a lot about Victorian mourning customs, or the practice of sitting shivah, etc. (I know there are more worldwide, these are just the ones I’m most familiar with due to cultural proximity); and how much a period of battening down the hatches and hunkering down and giving yourself up as a tide of feelings beyond your control comes in to wash over you can/should be engrained within both the structures of society and within the way we think about our own emotional trajectories surrounding loss. I live with someone in death care, at an eco-burial cemetery, and something that has resonated with me from him & from other friends who have worked there is that the difference in closure journeys between people who go through a traditional American funerary process (i.e. taboo, compartmentalized, jarring…I have a lot of thoughts about funerals in this culture and the way they injure the living but that’s a long ol thang and I don’t have it in me right now) versus the families and close ones of the decedents at the green sanctuary who are getting fucking down and dirty with the process— they are digging the grave with him, they are picking out the headstones, they are watching their loved ones lowered manually in nothing but a shroud (and sometimes some garments inside it), they are picking up a shovel and placing the earth back on top, they are creating wreaths out of pine boughs and wildflowers six foot in diameter above the mound…these are the ones who come back to the sanctuary months later and speak about how being involved with their grief allowed…something to occur. All of this is secondhand for me, my friends **** and *** could say this so much better but I’m not going to tell them about tumblr lmfao.

This has gotten away from me. Point is that I have accepted long ago the need for grief, (and the concept of grief as the natural continuation of love) and I can look it square in the eye and face it head on. Does it still fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucking suck?? Yes. Is it easier for me if I transition intentionally into a languid state like a brumating lizard…also yes…which is where I’m at right now.

So I am doing alright (all things considered that is) & just must force myself at gunpoint to give myself extreme grace and allow for levels of rest and behaviors that I would not ordinarily indulge in routinely…I’m coming out of the worst of the shock & able to go about some of my normal activities. And also in this particular case I’d known it was coming for a long time, it just happened months earlier than expected, which is a whole nother feeling as well… Mostly I’m just listening to a lot of familiar and beloved comfort music, meal prepping big batches of things when I’ve got some energy so I can just eat from them when I’m feeling really rough, and pouring myself into garden prep which was the most beautiful and profound balm for me when I experienced the last death of a loved one in spring of 2020. This won’t be as difficult, I won’t get into specifics…but I anticipate a lot of garden time as like…stopgap therapy again. Anyways this sort of turned into a diary entry and I’ve done enough oversharing on my blog for the day…thanks for the kind wishes. I will be okay, but part and parcel with that for me is accepting that I won’t be okay for a while and just changing my expectations and standards for myself and my lifestyle into realistic ones, and also just straight up letting myself lie down feeling bad with generous frequency so it can have time to build and then dissipate naturally like it must if i would like to ever move on. If I feel it, then I can process it. It’s in trying to ignore it and shove it aside without confronting the truth of loss and change that the grief gets stuck and begins to morph and malinger into deep spiraling harm, in my incredibly limited (I’m super young and never lost a parent/sibling/partner/child) experience

#asks

[primewritessmut]

47, 49, 81, 99

Also I'm soooooo curious about the 1930s Albany research 👀👀👀

47. what story are you most proud of?

Oh, damn. You just came straight out and asked me to choose my favorite child. 😂

I’m honestly proud of (almost) everything I’ve written but all for different reasons. Each one of them walks around with a special little trophy. First finished fic. First multi-chapter. First first person pov. First “dark” work. Etc. But the one I’m MOST proud of right now is the story I wrote for Spooktober; it’s the first original story I’ve actually buckled down and finished from beginning to end.

So now that I’ve proven I can do it, watch out world, I guess.

49. do you want to be published some day?

Yes? No? I have complicated feelings about being published, mostly because I don’t want this thing I really enjoy, that brings some small measure of peace in (gestures broadly) all this, to become something I have to do.

But, I also like to sleep with a roof over my head and eat so wouldn’t it be nice if this thing I spend so much time on could help with that?

I’ve “““monetized””” an enjoyable skill of mine before and still haven’t recovered. Funny to say here, maybe, but the social media requirements alone to be successful in a field like writing/publishing makes me want to disappear into a cave and never be seen from again.

I could go on so, yeah. Complicated.

81. if you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of writing advice specific to you, what would it be?

Keep fucking writing, you industrial grade moron.

There was a looooong span of my life where I didn’t write anything at all. (Except those half-stories I’d tell myself to get my brain to chill enough to fall asleep.) When I look at the difference between things I wrote last year (when I got back into writing after way too long) versus stuff I wrote this year, the difference in quality is already so huge.

I just… I wish it was a skill I had kept up with instead of letting stupid adulthood raze everything to the ground.

99. was being a writer a dream of yours when you were little? or did it spring up when your older? or is it just a hobby?

It was never a dream of mine but, in a truly bizarro world twist, it was something both of my parents wanted me to pursue. Like, who does that? “No, Prime. Don’t go into astronomy or business admin, be a writer.”

Writing doesn’t really feel like a dream even now. It feels like coming home in a weird sense. Like breathing through a straw and then, finally, getting to fill your lungs all the way. So… I guess I wouldn’t call it a hobby so much as an imperative. That doesn’t mean anyone but seventeen people on Tumblr and 300 people on AO3 will ever get to read it, though.

In that sense, I suppose it’s a hobby?

Also I'm soooooo curious about the 1930s Albany research 👀👀👀

There’s this fic that takes place in the 1930s (shout-out to the Malevolent podcast) predicated on the fact that a Very Bad Thing™️ happened in Albany in the main character’s past. And he’s on this journey to find the thing he lost during the Very Bad Thing which takes him around various New York cities that eventually leads him back to Albany.

I’ve looked up census data, historical photos, distance between towns, the type of car someone might be driving and how fast it could travel, local churches (photos and floor plans), and then drew myself a dumb little map so I could trace his journey as I wrote it.

I don’t know if it’s made the story any better, but it’s definitely made me feel more comfortable when writing the scenery. 😂

#ask game #thank you for letting me info dump about 1930s new york #these were great questions #difficult to answer but great

[erigold13261]

Gonna say it. I prefer NSR to HFR.

HFR has a lot of replayability, and some great characters (especially design wise) but it's also really frustrating at times and just to get to the cool bosses you have to go through so much. Also like, it's hard to like some of the characters because of how they act (my main problem being Chai, it took until literally the end fight for me to even start liking him as a character).

Like NSR was able to make an asshole character like DJSS a lot more likable, and he's still a villain in their game! Also the fact that NSR just feels better with how they present their fight (for me it's easier to see NSR attacks coming at me than it is HFR attacks coming at me).

I do really like having full access to the camera though with HFR, that was a problem in NSR that I hated (looking at Tatiana's fight mainly in this regard). Also the parry system in NSR fucking sucks so bad, I feel like half the time the beat and the attacks don't sync up. However you can muscle memory NSR attacks while HFR I feel like you NEED the beat to counter/dodge attacks.

I get that the stages of HFR are a lot more numerous, and it's a lot more about the journey compared to NSR, but I do wish the level select was a bit better. Like at least let me skip to a boss instead of making me go through a whole phase just to have my heart skip a beat as Rekka slams her gloves together :3

Speaking of bosses, this is deviating from the point, but I wish we got more Roquefort. We got to see the other bosses a few times it felt like, or had a mini boss battle with them either directly or looking over the fight. However, and I might be remembering wrong, we only really get to hear Roquefort a few times and see like one cutscene. The rest is just his boss battle. Which I feel like is a shame. NSR gave kinda equal spotlight to all the bosses (Tatiana being a real exception for obvious reasons, though Eve did also get more limelight compared to the others). While HFR gives different bosses different amounts of the spotlight.

Like you'd think Mimosa would have a LOT more time considering she is supposed to be narcissistic/full of her self. But no, I' pretty sure Zanzo had more time than her, or at least it felt like it.

I think I have more to say but can't really think of anything right now. Overall, I like NSR more because my only complaints really are the approach stages and the parry, while with HFR I have a lot more problems to complain about. I do understand that HFR also has a LOT more to offer compared to NSR, which is probably why I have more negative things to say. I also might just be biased to NSR, but I have almost a day in HFR and almost a day and a half in NSR, so I think I am fair to compare them and say I prefer NSR more.

HFR is still really good. I LOVE the designs and the environment a lot! I just wish some things were done differently. Same with how I wish some things in NSR was done differently (please I want to move the camera around a little bit, or at least let me zoom out! I am sick of Tatiana hitting me from off screen!). But yeah, both games are good, but NSR is the one I prefer of the two.

#rambling #eritalks #noart #hi fi rush spoilers #like sometimes it feels like a chore #to go through h/fr #however i am still playing the game #because there is still so much to do #i haven't technically finished it yet #because of the doors i need to finish #while i've finished n/sr multiple times #the approach stages are the only part of n/sr i could do without

[evvlevie]

it's all about your mindset: my shifting journey (in every detail possible)

Hi, Hello, to all my beautiful spiritual people out there! My name is Evie and today I will share my shifting journey with you. Actually this Tumblr blog was created only to connect with people on this topic. So how did it all start for me?

In 2020 when the whole world was shutdown I basically found shifting like nearly everyone else: TikTok. I was scrolling through my for you page and came across a bunch of people who claim to have experienced the Hogwarts-life. I was intrigued and confused at the same time. Obviously I was curious, but my first reaction, was the same as everybody's else: No way on earth this is possible. The 3D is the only reality and all of them must be unable to separate lucid dreaming from real life. I know why this came up on my fyp: I am very invested in astrology and if you are interested in that area you probably believe in manifesting and shifting, too. I decided to give it a try. It was a very half-assed try tho. I laid flat on my back on my parents bed and did the raven method. It didn't work. Obviously. I didn't understand what shifting is plus I was doubting it heavily. After that I didn't try to shift for a very very long time again.

Now I might not have tried to shift anymore, but I got deeper into the topic of manifesting and the law of attraction. As many people, I was very suspicious of it at first. How the hell can you have everything you want, just by wishing for it? I told my friend about it, and we decided to try it. She had a crush on a girl back then and I was crushing on a guy, so we both manifested a certain Text-message from them. Funny thing is: it wasn't working for me. He never texted me, BUT MY FRIENDS CRUSH ON THE OTHER HAND texted her exactly what she had manifested with the 3-6-9-Method. Why did it work for her and not me? My friend has adhd and she was able to do the "letting go"-part way better than me, who constantly thought about it and sat by the phone impatiently, waiting for him to finally text me. I didn't really believe in manifesting either at that time and I made it way harder than it actually is.

Fast forward a couple of months: August 2020. I was on vacation and my crush on this guy didn't budge. I was still utterly obsessed with him, but I had all sorts of feelings of worry: Should I keep chasing him? What if he isn't worth it? So what did I do? I manifested a sign. Fuck it. I heard you could do that, so why I wouldn't I? I laid in my bed and I prayed to the universe: "Please universe, if he is the one for me, give me a sign!". I went to sleep after, and the next morning I nearly forgot, that I had manifested a sign the night before. NOW I know, that if you want to manifest a sign, you should be as specific as possible. Anyway, my parents and I went to go sightseeing in this foreign city we were in, and I couldn't believe it. We went to get ice-cream and there were two streets you could go down: left and right. My intuition told me to go left, so I told my parents hey lets go this way! I turn the corner and THERE. A huge, and I mean huge, sign that says: *my crushes name*'s Photo-shop. I took a picture in disbelief. This was THE incident, that made me believe in manifesting, because a year later I was actually dating him. I manifested my entire relationship with him, because I realized how real manifestation was.

What do I want so say with this experience? This was the incident that really kickstarted my belief in manifestation. I told myself: Look how easily this comes to me! I noticed that many times, when friends would mention certain things or names in my presence suddenly we would see them. I remember thinking that I haven't seen my friends mom for a long time and 10 minutes later she is in my bus and sitting down next to me, starting a conversation. I remember thinking about one of my old colleagues from my internship 2 years ago, and that I absolutely hated that woman. Not even an hour later I see this woman across the street from me. Mind you, I never seen her in that specific place before, and never again after that incident. My friends and I started calling me the magnet, because you'd only have to think about something or mention something in my presence and suddenly I would accidentally manifest it into reality. I considered myself a master manifestor. I passed all my Finals even tho I barely studied for them. I got my dream job, without really trying hard for it. I got my crush with only a simple thought. I never missed a bus ever again, because I simply tell myself: Oh the universe loves me, the busses always arrive exactly when I arrive. And they did. They fucking still do. I am even fully convinced that I accidentally manifested the death of my friends dog. Because her dog hated everyone and everything. It was one of those annoying Chihuahuas. Every time it barked at me or tried to bite me I told him to go die. And guess what he did 4 days later... Listen I am not proud of this, I am really sorry actually, but because of incidents like that I fully believe in my power.

So now it's 2022. My friend casually asks me wether or not I have ever heard about shifting. I told her that I even tried it once, but never really got into it after that. She was shook that I, the magnet, the master Manifestor, didn't shift left and right. She basically brought me back to the community of shifting, and got me interested in it again. I tried for a while. I tried some methods, but after a couple of weeks or so I gave up. I decided I didn't want it hard enough and went about my life.

In April 2022 I came across a trio of YouTubers. The Sturniolo's (I am sure basically everyone knows them at this point). I started watching their car-videos and I remember thinking: "Damn it would be so fucking fun to do this with them." I just wanted to be their friend and scream and yell in Matts Car with them. Eventually my wish, my desire to do that, grew so much, I decided to give shifting an honest try. Its May now and let me tell you I have tried everything there is to try. Every Method imaginable, Every Guided Meditation, Drank Water 'til I nearly peed myself, scripted 5 different times, and I woke up every day disappointed, that I was still in my CR room not smelling oranges and hearing rain drops. I was on reddit, I was on amino and Shiftok (which is arguably the worst place for information on shfting). Hell I was even on Pinterest. I was so goddamn frustrated. Everyone talks about how easy it is, but why am I here struggling so hard?

Suddenly I saw angel numbers. And I don‘t mean the usuals like 111, 333 etc. I was seeing to specific numbers EVERYWHERE. 37 and 17. I decided the universe is talking to me. I couldn't give up. Shifting is real, I could feel it in my heart. I knew I must be doing something wrong and I just couldn't figure out what it was.

I had tried every platform for help, and I felt lost. Until I remembered that Tumblr existed. And holy hell. This flipped everything for me. EVERYTHING. I started re-blogging all the posts that gave me insight on what I was doing wrong. ITS ALL ABOUT THE MINDSET.

and goddamn it is. I read through all those posts and it made so much sense. My Methods never worked, because deep inside I knew that it's not the methods that would make me shift. I realized that I would never shift if I made it so hard to do. If you treat it like an impossible task, if you come from a place of desperation and frustration you won't shift. You EXPECT it to be hard, which is why it IS hard. I remembered my manifestation journey. How it never worked because I treated manifestation as the hardest and most magical thing ever. And how I can now manifest anything I could ever ask for because I treat it like the easiest thing ever, and how I see myself as the master manifestor and manifest knowing I can manifest. I never doubt myself anymore. I realized that you have to greet shifting from the same place.

So Evie, does that mean you yelled with Nick about birds taking over the world, yet? No, and I know exactly why. 10 Minutes ago I was going through everything I had reblogged and tried to write myself a little summary, because up until now I had really struggled with my mindset (I'm such a virgo). I overcomplicated everything for myself. "What am I supposed to say in my mind again so that it'll start working?" or "Wait how am I supposed to treat it again? Like it already happened? Or Like it is coming?" I got caught up in all of it, as if there was a specific recipe to follow. I was taking my notes when I saw my phone light up. My coworker had asked me previously if I could cover her shift from 2pm-8pm instead of my own which was 12pm-6pm. I agreed to, but in my head I was secretly wishing to cover my own instead because I didn't want to work the closing shift. I glanced over at my phone and read, that she texted me, that I would cover my own shift tomorrow instead of hers. I read the message and I stopped taking notes. Wasn't it obvious? I am the master manifestor. I am the magnet. I only have to think of my wishes for them to come true. I know it was the universe who stopped me from taking those notes, by showing me that all you have to do is wanting it. INTENTION.

You truly just need to desire something. Your desires are yours they are promised. When would I finally understand? There is no correct sentence to say in your head every five minutes in order to shift. I have this entire history of me figuring out how easy manifesting is. Dude, I got Asthma, it is literally easier than taking a breath but here I was obsessing over methods and ways to think even though they were all explaining me what I was doing all along since 2020: Manifesting by just simply wanting to manifest.

They were all so right when they said, that there is no definite tipp that will finally make you shift. There is no recipe, no formula. Don‘t stress about shifting. I know I will shift. Because I want to. Don‘t get too caught up in what affirmation to use, or what law to use or how long it's taking or ANYTHING. Your desires are promised. That's all you need to know. All I have ever wanted manifested into my reality, without ever stressing over it, because I believed in my power, and made it easy. It is literally just as hard or just as easy as you make it to be. it's never been any different.

You will shift. Because you want to. And as long as you believe that THAT is all it takes, then that's the truth you are living.

If I can kill my friends dog by telling it to die, then you can shift. Seriously. Stop worrying. Say you will and believe it. Periodt. That's your mindset now.

a lot of love,

Evie <3

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