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notjustjavierpena · 2 months

Note

I have recently watched scenes from a marriage with oscar isaac and my mind which connects everything with hubby javi immediately went to this:

imagine wife’s and javi’s friends are going through a divorce, there’s cheating m, miscommunication etc and just a very hard time.

I feel like Javi and Wife would have a conversation about this due to the proximity of it happening to their friends. One about trust and if they’re happy. It’s not about insecurity or anything just them both communicating effectively and giving the other reassurance that this is not on the cards for them.

I just value their relationship so much.

Reassess

Series Masterpost | Main Masterpost

A/N: Hiya anon! I hope it’s okay that I tweaked your request slightly to fit my version of hubby and wife. Enjoy ❤️ Thanks so much for proofreading, @angelofsmalldeath-codeine !!!

Summary: You and Javier’s friends are going through a divorce, and it suddenly makes you wonder about your own marriage.

Pairing: Javier Peña x reader (no y/n)

Tags: +18, talk about divorce, talk about cheating, brief descriptions of piv sex with creampie, hurt/comfort, love!, mention of pregnancy and pregnant reader, cuddling, kisses, Javier is a great husband and you are anxious

Word count: 1.6k

Link to this work on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54352768

Reassess

Jonathan and Mira are getting a divorce. The news had been announced to you by Javier when he entered the dimly lit living room on a Thursday night, looking paler than a ghost after what you had wrongly assumed to be a same-as-always phone conversation about football, work and going out for a beer in the near future.

“No!” You had instinctively covered your mouth with your hand to suppress an animated gasp. Apparently, Mira had come clean about seeing another man a few days earlier and it only took shy of two days for their whole marriage to crumble. The thought was and is terrifying.

It seems to dampen the mood between you and your husband significantly. There are more pregnant silences, longer stares, more hurried kisses, and worried faces in the middle of your daily routines that become opportunities for reflection when doing something mundane as folding laundry. However, the elephant in the room becomes most unbearable when Javier rolls off of you after making love to you a week after the news hit.

He stares up at the ceiling and pants as he tries coming down from his high, reaching up to run his fingers through his slightly sweaty hair. You shift on your side of the bed to turn your body towards him, and gently lay a hand on his chest, “That was really good.”

“Hm? What?” He replies, “Oh right, yeah.”

“Honey,” you furrow your brow, “I don’t think I particularly like having sex with you if you’re not here with me.”

“Lo siento (I’m sorry),” his eyes find yours, his voice is genuine, “I can’t stop thinking about Jon and Mira.”

Your eyes soften at that. It is nice to know that he is as shaken by this happening as you are, and in such close proximity to your own marriage too even if it technically has nothing to do with you. It suddenly hits why it has been so hard to start up a conversation about it.

“Me either,” you sigh and scratch his chest gently with your nails and lay your head on his shoulder. He takes hold of your wrist and rubs the back of your hand with his thumb in soothing circles, “I can’t believe they ended up like that, who would have thought?”

“And Ava?” Javier sounds devastated and turns his head toward yours so he can rest his lips in your hair.

“She must be so confused,” you mumble back, lost in thought. Ava is Mira and Jonathan’s daughter who sometimes has play dates with Inés, and to think that she has to deal with her parents not being able to work as a couple, especially since Mira apparently had to go sleep with someone else, is a scenario that you find nauseating when your brain automatically starts imagining your own children in the same scenario. You don’t think Lucas would ever forgive you if you caused that much hurt to his father, “I don’t know what Mira was thinking. Ava has to deal with her mom having hurt her dad. Why would she put her through that?”

“Jonathan said she’s in love with this new guy,” Javier argues.

“I suppose sometimes you just fall in love with someone else,” you say without any emotion in your voice except for maybe a hint of disgust.

“Are you happy? With me?” The question has been looming over the both of you since the news hit. It was only a matter of time before one of you would start reassessing your own marriage.

You lift your head up to look Javier straight in the eyes, and even if you knew it was coming, you still feel taken aback by how much it makes your guts turn to even be told to consider it. The answer is so clear, “What? I—“

“That’s not an immediate yes,” he furrows his brow in concern.

“Don’t be absurd,” you say back, “I love you so much it’s ridiculous.”

“But do you ever worry about us?” He continues.

“This is the part where you say you love me too,” you joke without much humor in your voice.

“Are you kidding? I’m nothing without you,” he lifts the hand you still have on his chest to kiss your palm, “Te amo tanto (I love you so much) but I need you to answer the question.”

“I don’t ever worry about us, no,” you answer truthfully and Javier visibly relaxes, “I know you. I trust you. It doesn’t even occur to me that I could have anything different in my life, you know? It feels like I would always have found you somewhere else if not here.”

“Perhaps they looked for something else when things became routine,” he suggests, resting your hand against his cheek.

“It’s never routine for me to tell you I love you,” you tell him with a little smile, “There’s no going back to the way things were before you.”

“The idea of having anything else but this,” he trails off for a second, weighing his words and reaching out for you with his free hand. He cups the back of your knee to pull your leg over his naked body, “It’s just not in the cards for me. I’ll never love anyone the way that I love you.”

“Is this code for you’re stuck with me?” You crawl closer to kiss him on the mouth and tighten the leg around him, “Hm?”

“Sí (yes), you’re stuck with me, baby,” he says against your lips.

“Do you promise that?” You whisper after pulling back a little, smiling softly as you look down at his mouth. He initiates another kiss after nodding.

You kiss for a while without rushing it, deeply until you share each breath in your intense embrace. Despite just having had sex with him fifteen minutes ago, you want him again in a way that has him as hard as when you first got together. He fucks you open slowly with you on your back, makes you come on his cock with an almost pained tone in your whimper. He is everywhere on you, soaking you in love. The way he gasps along with you as he comes inside of you has your heart pounding in your chest.

“No quiero a nadie más que a ti (I don’t want anyone else other than you),” he says when basking in the afterglow. However, you have already gotten out of bed to get cleaned up in the bathroom. In contrast to your husband, your afterglow is replaced by anxiety that you have just promised isn’t there.

“I don’t want to end up like that,” you say while peeing with the door open. Javier moves on the bed to be able to look at you.

“We won’t, te lo prometo (I promise you that),” he is quick to answer. You try to give him a smile but he notices the way you falter, “Anything you want to talk about? Anything on your mind?"

“They used to be so happy,” you sigh deeply and get up after finishing your business. You move to the sink and start washing your hands, your back suddenly towards him, “Makes me wonder if we're strong enough to weather anything.”

You hear the weight of him shift on the mattress and a second later, the soft pads of his feet across the tiled bathroom floor. He is behind you, looking at you in the mirror. You feel grateful for the sincerity in his eyes.

“Baby,” he tuts, wrapping his strong arms around you from behind and resting his chin on your shoulder. One of his hands goes down to lay on your stomach right below your belly button. You have just started to show, and the both of you have already talked about how early it is that your belly has started protruding but none of you have any clue why yet as you haven’t had your first scan.

Javier kisses your bare shoulder, “This is my life, and I love it, and I would never hurt you… I trust you not to hurt me too.”

You silently turn off the tap to dry your hands but Javier doesn’t let you move. He lifts your chin so he can stare at you in the mirror, “I need you to trust me when I say that ten years with you have only made me want ten, twenty, thirty more. I love you. I choose you every day. Jonathan and Mira didn’t choose each other. We’re not them.”

“I love you too,” you shake your hands dry instead and then turn in your husband’s arms. You hug him close and he walks you out of the bathroom whilst still holding you tightly.

“Three kids so far,” he reminds you whilst guiding you back to bed, “A decade down the line. We must be doing something right.”

“But what if—“

“You worry too much, mi vida (my life),” he says and smacks your ass as you crawl back into your bed. You glare back at him but he just snickers while crawling in too, “Get comfortable and go to sleep.”

“I don’t know if I can,” you say truthfully.

“Of course, you can,” Javier joins you under the covers. He lays down close to you and without saying a word, reaches out to gently and repeatedly stroke his hand over your hair. The warmth of his palm soothes your worry, each caress easing away the weight in your chest.

You wonder if Mira left because Jonathan didn’t do this sort of thing anymore. Javier has done it for ten years. This fact makes sleep find you easily.

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janeyseymour · 5 months

Text

At Arm's Length pt 5

A request from an Anon that the reader is clingy and Melissa snaps about it.

*can probably be read on its own*

I will admit I wrote this somewhat tipsy, so it is relatively unedited- oopsies!

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.

WC: ~4.6k

From the moment the two of you woke up, Melissa was off. You could tell in the way that she didn’t immediately press a kiss to whatever part of your body was closest to her. You could tell in the way that she didn’t call you “amore” in her deep and husky morning voice. You could tell in the way that her eyes didn’t light up immediately at the sight of you in the morning.

You knew you weren’t the most attractive woman in the morning. Your hair always stuck up in a million different ways; you brought a new definition to the word bedhead. There was probably leftover makeup under your eyes from the previous day (you only wore makeup because Ava and the superintendent had observed you the previous day) despite the fact that did your nighttime facial routine. Your shirt was probably a crumpled up mess, and your sleeping shorts were sideways- you could feel that much. But Melissa had spent so much time assuring you that seeing you in the morning, bedhead and makeup and all, was the highlight of her day. She promised you that it was one of the most attractive things she could lay her eyes on because she was the only one who ever got to see you like this; see you before you brushed your hair and took the rest of your makeup off to leave you looking like yourself again.

“My natural beauty,” she would usually tell you as she wrapped her arms around your waist in the bathroom.

But not today. Today she groaned as your alarm went off, slamming her fist into it. She rolled out of bed, cursing the day already, and practically dragged herself off to the bathroom. She paid no attention to you at all.

Your eyebrows knit in confusion, obviously. You have no reason to think she’s upset with you, and even when she is, you never go to bed angry and she always makes sure to be extra affectionate the next day.

You hear the water start running in the bathroom- odd. She took a shower last night, or rather… the two of you showered together last night.

With a shrug, you head into the bathroom in search of your hairbrush and toothbrush.

“Mel?” you call quietly as you push the door open. She’s already in the shower and gives you half a grunt in response. Picking up on the fact that she isn’t in the mood to talk just yet, you leave her to shower in peace and fix yourself. You can’t see yourself after a few minutes because of the steam in the room now covering the mirrors, but you decide that you probably got the remnants of your makeup off anyway. You head downstairs and start making breakfast and two cups of coffee to try to turn her day around.

She comes downstairs looking rather unlike your girlfriend. Her hair isn’t cascading down her shoulders the way it usually does in its soft curls, and she’s switched out her usual leather jacket for a regular black sweatshirt.

“Hey, good morning babe,” you say quietly as you continue to tend to the bacon and eggs you have in a few pans. Her arms don’t wrap around you the way that they always do. This does not please you in the slightest. Turning around, you see her sitting at the island with her head in her hands. She’s rubbing her temples and clearly trying to soothe herself from whatever has her so worked up.

This was so unlike her. It worries you. You finish breakfast quickly, turning up the burner to make the food cook faster, before plating the food and bringing it to her. You waltz your way back to the counter to pour and fix the coffees you made.

Usually, your seat was your girlfriend’s lap while you ate breakfast. But today she doesn’t shift to allow you to sit on her. You slide into the seat next to her with a sigh.

“I made you breakfast,” you tell her gently, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling yourself just slightly closer. She shakes you off. You can’t quite keep the hurt off of your face.

“Thanks,” she mutters into her coffee.

“You okay?” You ask her as you start to eat.

“Fine,” she grumbles. “Why?”

“You just seem… off,” you tell your girlfriend gently. “I want to make sure you’re okay.” You don’t get a response, so you leave her to be. Hopefully, by the time you two finish breakfast and get into the car for work, she’ll be in a better mood.

She isn’t. Both hands grip the steering wheel, and she turns on the radio loudly so she doesn’t have to talk to you. When you let your hand rest on her knee, she almost flinches. You can’t pull your hand back quickly enough, and she just barely pulls her hand off the steering wheel to bat at you.

“Quit touching me, will ya?” she finally huffs.

You shrivel down in your seat and turn away from her. You choose to stare out the window instead of at the woman you’re in love with. Secretly, you begin to wonder if she’s as in love with you as she was just last night. What could’ve changed since just last night?

The two of you make your way into the school silently, and Barbara is already there when you enter the break room to put your lunches away. Melissa doesn’t make her way over to the coffee machine like she does so often- almost everyday. Instead, she takes a seat next to her friend in silence.

“Good morning,” you try to sound as cheery as you usually do to greet Barbara. But your smile just doesn’t reach your eyes the way she’s used to.

“Good morning, Y/N. Melissa,” she says cordially as she glances at the redhead. The redhead just gives a nod of the head and sighs into her hands. Barb gives you a questioning look, and you shrug as you make your way to the coffee machine. You make two cups of coffee and set one day in front of your girlfriend, sliding into your designated seat. You try to hold her hand as you sit, but she pulls away.

With a sigh, you stand. “Okay,” you say awkwardly. “I have a lot to get done today, so I think I’m going to sit out on watching the news for today. I’ll see you all later.”

Barbara gives you a gentle nod of the head, and Melissa won’t even look your way. You leave with a frown on your face.

When the little ones start to trickle in, you half expect to see the second grade teacher with a scowl on her face and a very clear sign to her students that she wasn’t having it today. But instead, she’s greeting them at the door with a grin and quite a few hugs or high fives.

So it’s something you did. And what the hell you did? You have no idea. But your heart hurts at the thought that you did something to upset your girlfriend to this degree.

Come lunch, you walk into the staffroom before Melissa- a rarity. You get all of her things out and set them at her spot before scribbling down on a post-it note, I love you. You hope she’s not in as bad of a mood as she was this morning. You grab your own things, brew two more cups of coffee, and sigh as you sit down.

Fifteen minutes pass, and neither her nor Barbara are in the staff room yet to gather their lunches.

“I thought I saw Melissa here today?” Gregory asks.

“She should be,” you say quietly with a shrug. “And if she left without me, I guess I’m taking the bus-”

“We can always take you home,” Janine tells you.

“Where’s Barb?” Jacob asks.

Everybody looks around.

“She didn’t come in to grab her lunch and work in her room?” Gregory asks. You shake your head. You saw her food in the refrigerator when you came in.

“If you’ll excuse me,” you say politely. “If they come in while I’m not here, I’m in the bathroom.” Your coworkers nod in understanding before you head out.

You head out and down the hall towards the kindergarten wing first. If the two veteran teachers aren’t there, you’ll check Melissa’s room, but they like to convene at Barb’s- it’s more secluded.

They aren’t there though, so you head for your girlfriend’s classroom. And just as you go to walk in, something stops you. You can hear the two friends conversing so quietly you can barely make out what they’re saying.

“I don’t- I don’t know Barb,” you hear her deep voice say, hesitation etched into her voice.

“I think it might help,” the kindergarten teacher tells her friend gently. “How is she supposed to know if you won’t tell her?”

“She already knows something is up,” Melissa mutters. “Damn girl is so good with reading me.”

“She’s just about the only person,” Barbara chuckles. “Just think about it, okay?”

You can only assume the second grade teacher nods because then you hear her ask if they can head into the break room for lunch.

“Girl, we were already there, and you pulled me down here to talk about your problems,” Barbara teases.

“Well,” Melissa huffs. “I had to get this all off my chest.”

“Let’s go get lunch.”

You scurry back down the hall and into your own classroom, just barely entering as the two pass your room.

“Y/N,” Barbara says sternly. “Skipping out on lunch?”

“N-no,” you fumble for a lie to tell. “I was just grabbing my glasses. My head has been hurting.” You think that lie might get Melissa to at least show you some sort of affection today- she always fusses over you when you have a headache or aren’t feeling well. But instead, she looks at you as if she hardly knows you. She’s back to ignoring you like she did when you first started working here. You hate this. You absolutely hate this.

“Well, maybe some more lunch will help you, dear,” Barbara tells you when your girlfriend doesn’t say anything to you, instead finding her shoes rather interesting.

As the three of you walk down the hall, you try to wiggle your way under Melissa’s arm, but she doesn’t let you. You sigh in frustration.

“Eat your lunch, kid,” Melissa instructs you. Kid. She hasn’t called you ‘kid’ since before the two of you started dating. Since then it’s been ‘hon’ or ‘babe’. Occasionally, she calls you ‘love’ or ‘amore’ when she’s in a romantic mood. But you haven’t been kid since… This one hurts.

You sit next to her at your table with her best friend, but not a word is spoken. You lay a hand on her shoulder, and she tenses before shrugging you off. Your heart breaks. Was being a little couple-y inside the school too much for her? But then… you think that she was like this at ho- at her house today.

The drive home is awkward, but you let her be for the most part. Maybe one of her students upset her today to further sour her mood.

“Babe,” you sigh softly as you lean towards her in the passenger seat.

“Y/N,” your girlfriend says. “Enough.”

“Enough of what?” you pout. “I’m just trying to-”

“Get off of me!” she finally snaps on you.

“H-huh?” your mouth drops open. She’s never flat out rejected your affection like this before.

“You’re so fuckin’ clingy!” Melissa yells at you as she almost runs a red-light. She slams on her brake just in time. And even though she’s yelling at you, her arm protectively goes out to stop you from slamming into the dash.

You turn bright red, and she huffs as she retracts her arm and turns back to the steering wheel.

“And now you’re trying to get the two of us killed!” she rolls her eyes. “Jesus Christ! I’ve survived enough hit lists, and I’m too good to die because of something so fuckin’ stupid!”

“M-Mel?” you look to her, eyes threatening to tear up.

“I mean, seriously!” she continues on. “You just can’t let me go! I thought you would’ve taken the hint this morning! Or are you that fuckin’ dense?!”

You take a shaky breath and turn to face the other way, a tear falling down your face. You wipe it quickly, not even bothering to hide how upset you are.

“And now you’re crying again,” Melissa grumbles. Then she takes a heavy breath and takes in your body language. “Hon, I’m sorry.”

You don’t turn to face her. You just stare out the window and watch as the apartment buildings and townhouses pass by. Your tears just continue to fall, and you don’t even bother to wipe them.

When Melissa pulls into her driveway, you practically book it. You grab your bags and stand at her front door before she’s even gotten out of the car. You wait impatiently, and once she unlocks her front door, you head into her bedroom to grab your things from the night before.

“Hey,” she whispers. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been in a-”

“I’ll just head out,” you tell her. “I think maybe we need to have a night apart. I’ll let you be.”

“Hon.”

“It’s fine, Mel,” you mutter as you grab your things and head for the door.

“Babe.”

“It’s fine,” you breathe out. “I’m just going to go home and… take a breather. Okay?”

She takes you by the waist gently and kisses you as softly as she can. “Promise we’re okay?”

“Sure,” you sigh as you pull away quickly. “I just need to get out of here for now.” Your girlfriend doesn’t argue, and she lets you head out quietly.

As you enter the apartment you rarely went into at this point, your dam breaks. Tears flow, and you don’t even try to contain the sniffles that leave your body. You thought that there was something with Melissa- that maybe you wouldn’t have to sign your lease again and could move in with her. But now? Now, you have no idea what she wants or doesn’t want.

“So did you talk to her?” Barb asks over the phone.

“I- I snapped at her,” Melissa tells her best friend. “I messed up, and now she’s… but I don’t know if I can admit to her that I’m terrified of losing her.”

“Did you tell her about last night?”

“You mean about how I fell asleep last night thinking about how I don’t know if I could ever go to bed without her again? Why would I think that she would go for-”

“Melissa,” the kindergarten teacher rolls her eyes, and Melissa can practically hear it. Then she hears a buzzing in her ear. “I’m getting another call. I’ll call you back.”

“O-Okay,” the redhead says quietly. She hears the line click before pouring herself a rather large glass of wine.

“Barb?” you whimper.

“Oh, sweetheart,” the kindergarten teacher sighs. “Honey, what happened?”

“M-Melissa… she- she yelled at me for being clingy when I was just- when I was just trying to make her day better, and I-” you sniffle. “I don’t even know what I did wrong in the first place! She’s been awful to me today! And then she called me ‘kid’ and asked me if I was ‘that dense’!”

“Oh, Y/N,” Barb feels nothing but sympathy for you. “I just- I thought this was going somewhere, and I guess.. I don’t know.”

“Do you need someone to come check on you? I can’t right now because I’m cooking dinner, but I’m sure I can get Janine or Jacob to-”

You stifle a laugh. “I don’t think I could handle either of them. I- I’m sorry I called. I just needed to get everything off my chest.”

“It’s okay,” Barb promises you. “Maybe you should just talk to her. Or let her have a day or two. You two will be okay.”

You nod hesitantly before saying your goodbye.

She calls Melissa back and tells her absolutely nothing about the conversation she just had with you. The two of you need to figure it out on your own.

The next morning, You go without your morning coffee, and your breakfast consisted of a disgusting instant oatmeal packet. You pull up to the school, and you park as far away from Melissa as you can.

You go back to how you acted when you first started working at Abbott, although now, you don’t have a salad to eat. You’re never at your apartment anyway, so you never have any spinach at your place anymore. Instead, you grab one of the stale sleeves of Ritz crackers and suppose that will have to make do.

Melissa notices as you stand outside your door to greet your kids, but you absolutely refuse to face her. She can tell your arms are crossed and your sweater is tightly pulled to your body. Most would think you’re just cold; it isn’t uncommon. But Melissa knows that’s what you look like when you’re upset. You’re still upset from yesterday’s events.

She leaves you be. You don’t go to lunch, and everybody asks where you are. She tells them that you’re probably just busy with parent emails and the spring conference schedule.

Little does she know, there’s been one particular parent that you haven’t told her about because you know about her jealous streak. This parent has been practically begging you to go out on a date with him. You’ve been handling it the best way that you could, but…. now she’s acting this way. Or… she acted this way. She might’ve tried to apologize, but it broke your heart the way she had acted towards you and the words she had spoken towards you.

—-

One night of not spending the night with Melissa somehow turned into nearly a week of not spending the night with her. You and your girlfriend have pretty much avoided each other since the day that she snapped on you. You’ve had minimal conversation, and you haven’t had a date since last week. It’s the week of spring conferences, and you really aren’t looking forward to having to meet with your students’ parents. Most of them have nothing but wonderful things to say to you, but the one parent that has been hitting on you since the beginning of the year has only doubled down.

You almost start to entertain the idea of going out with this parent. Melissa hasn’t so much as looked in your direction as you spoke to her, and neither have you. You begin to wonder if maybe you should give the man a shot. The two of you have pretty much ghosted each other, and you really aren’t sure what you and your… girlfriend (?) are anymore. Maybe there would never be a clean breakup, and it was just supposed to be inferred that the two of you were done.

“Melissa,” Barbara enters her friend’s room during one of their breaks that lines up.

“What d’ya want?” the redhead rolls her eyes.

“Sweetheart, that one parent is hitting on your-”

The kindergarten teacher doesn’t have to say anything more, because she is fuming down the hall.

Ava’s dad, who’s name is Jay as you’ve recently learned, has you pressed up against your desk. You’re clearly uncomfortable as you try to back yourself away from him.

Melissa’s ears almost blow with steam. Her face heats up, and she is about .02 seconds away from pulling him off of you and teaching him a-

“Ms. Y/N?” Melissa’s voice is low. Dangerous. She’s staring daggers at the “Are you okay?”

“I-” you don’t really know what to say. You really aren’t sure what to make of this conversation.

“Y/N,” Melissa says again. “Is he botherin’ you?” she asks. She looks scarily calm, but she looks like she’s about three seconds from throttling this man or grabbing her baseball bat and beating the absolute shit out of him.

“Y-yeah,” you say as evenly as possible, but your girlfriend can see the terror and plead for help in your eyes. When he turns to face Melissa, you mouth the words ‘help me’ as subtly as you can.

Thankfully, the second grade teacher knows exactly what you’re saying. For as quick as Ava’s dad was on you, he’s also off of you. You have no one to thank for that but Melissa Schemmenti. She says a few things to him so quietly, and you have no idea what she says, but you know she just pretty much threatened his life. He backs away quicker than he ever has.

“Leave her the fuck alone,” Melissa practically growls. “Don’t fucking touch my-” “Melissa!” you pull her away. You’re not ready to out yourself to the parents. You turn to the parent. “Mister Johns, your daughter is doing perfectly fine. I will see you at the move up ceremony. Thank you, and have a good night.”

He storms out, claiming that he’ll be emailing Ava about this. The two of you know for as shady as Ava can be, she will always have your back.

The redhead doesn’t pull away from you until he’s gone.

“Honey,” Melissa’s hands don’t move from your waist as she looks you over. “Are you okay? Did he-”

“I’m okay,” you mumble as you pull away from her. She pulls you close again.

“Baby,” she whispers, knowing just how much she’s missed you this past week.

“Melissa, just… get off of me,” you sigh and push away from her again. “I know what’s going on here, and I’ve accepted it. Just… break up with me.”

“Why’re you always so convinced I’m gonna break up with you?” She asks you.

You search for any way to get out of this conversation. But you don’t have any more conferences today, and neither does she. You’re stuck. “Can we at least do this with the door closed?”

She closes the door and comes back, pulling you in close as you sit in your chair behind your desk.

“I thought you hated me,” you whisper. “After you yelled at me and called me dense… I just figured-”

“What did you figure?” Melissa looks confused.

“It’s not the first time I’ve been called dense,” you admit, refusing to look at her. “An idiot.”

“Babe, you are brilliant.”

“Then why don’t I know what happened last week? Why did you call me dense yourself?” you ask her vulnerably. “Why do I have no idea why you went from worshipping my body to not being able to stand my touch in less than twelve hours?”

Your girlfriend takes a deep, shaky breath. “I got scared.”

“Well, if you’re scared,” you cough out. “Then, this isn’t going to-”

“I got scared because I fell asleep with my arms around you wondering if I could ever go without you? I got- I’ve been married before, Y/N. And I never felt this way for Joe the way I feel for you. I- I got scared. I got cold feet. I’ve hated this last week without you, and I know… I don’t- You’re… you’re you. You could have any person you want, and if you broke it off with me, I don’t know if I would survive it. I started to question why you would ever want anyone like… like me. So,” she takes a deep breath, and you can tell she’s starting to get choked up. “And so, I tried to distance myself from you so you couldn’t break my heart. Selfishly, I didn’t want you to break my heart. And then you started to play along with it, and- babe. I haven’t slept for more than two hours at a time this entire week. All I want is you,” she whispers. “I never wanted to let you go, but I needed to protect my heart. It’s been broken before, and if you broke it… I really don’t know if-”

You pull her in tightly. Again, your heart breaks. But it doesn’t break because of the reasons it had before. It breaks because you hear the sincerity in her voice when she tells you how terrified she is of losing you. You hear the truth and absolute exhaustion in her tone when she tells you that she hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in over a week. Your heart shatters in your chest when she admits to you that she doesn’t understand why you would want her.

“Amore,” she whispers as she rests her forehead against yours. “I can’t bear to lose you. Please don’t let me.”

You pretty much collapse into her arms. You’re unsure of the reason. It could be your fight or flight adrenaline finally leaving your body as Ava’s dad leaves (you’re positive she’ll be transferred out of you class if Melissa has anything to do with it), or if it’s from your girlfriend’s words. But you absolutely melt into her arms, shaking with a few rogue tears falling down your cheeks.

“You’re the dense one if you think I’m ever going to leave you,” you laugh through your thick tears and tight throat. You cling to her like your life depends on it, even if you being clingy was the thing that got you into this mess in the first place.

At that thought, you pull away. “I- I’m sorry. I’ll be less clingy.”

She looks at you with the saddest eyes. “Please don’t stop.”

“But that’s why we were fighting in the-”

“I love how affectionate you are,” she promises you, intertwining one hand with yours while the other rests on your ass, squeezing it gently. “I was just… an idiot,” she admits. “An absolute idiot blinded by my own fears. Please don’t stop being exactly who you are.”

“Even if I’m just a clingy, lovesick mess for you who cries almost weekly?”

“You’re clingy because you love me, and you cry weekly because you are so damn compassionate about the students,” she tells you. “That only makes me fall in love with you more.”

You nearly swoon at that comment. Actually, you do swoon. You capture her lips rather roughly, and it catches her off guard.

“Wow, Ms. Y/N,” your girlfriend can’t help but chuckle against you. “At least wait until we get home.”

“I haven’t been home in a week,” you say and pout pathetically. “I miss home.”

“Well,” she looks at you alluringly. “I don’t have any more conferences, and I can guarantee Ava already left for the day, so we should be in the clear?” “That sounds good enough to me,” you whisper as you wrap yourself up in her again. You’ve missed being this close to her for the last week. You never want to let go.

By the time the two of you actually make your way out of the building, the only people that are left are Janine and Gregory. Both of you know that Gregory is sitting in his classroom waiting for his girlfriend to be finished with her last conference, so the two of you are able to slip out with Melissa’s hand dangerously close to your ass on school grounds.

And when you come in for the second day of conferences and can’t quite walk normally, well… no one will outright say it, but they all know you and Melissa have made up.

#melissa schemmenti fanfic #melissa schemmenti x you #melissa schemmenti x reader #abbott elementary fanfic #abbott elementary fanfiction #melissa schemmenti

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slibraries · 10 months

Text

Right Where You Left Me

Anyway, here's some angst

Contains: Carmy being angsty, al-anon meetings, male m*stburbation, The Box, mentions of s*icide

Carmy’s back in Chicago for less than forty-eight hours before Sugar brings you up. “You should go see her, Carmy.” He bites back what he wants to say, (“fuck off, Sugar.”) and takes a deep breath so he doesn’t feel like he’s drowning.

(He still feels like he’s drowning.)

“I know.”

He doesn’t go see you, and you don’t come see him, and life goes on. He hires Sydney, because she’s fucking incredible, and he works on the menu, and he doesn’t miss you.

(Except when he does miss you, which is all fucking the time. It’s worst early in the morning when it feels like there’s a knife shoved under his ribs.)

((And if that ache settles under the finch tattoo on his rib cage, that’s nobody’s business.))

He goes to meetings and learns how to talk about Mikey and what happened and how to let people in. He’s at a meeting when he sees you for the first time since that Christmas he called you a bitch and then moved halfway across the world. You’re speaking, because the universe hates him, about your ex-husband’s suicide and him leaving the restaurant to his little brother.

“I didn’t divorce Mikey because I stopped loving him, I love him more than words. I divorced him because I couldn’t do this.” You gesture at the people sitting in front of you. The light catches the diamond ring around a chain on your neck and Carmy stops being able to breathe. He’s out of the room before you can finish your share.

He shoves you into a tiny box in his mind, labeled DO NOT OPEN in big, bold, red letters, and tries to forget.

(When he inevitably wakes up at night, his hand is resting on his rib cage, covering the finch tattoo he’d gotten on your eighteenth birthday because he would’ve done anything you’d asked, and he doesn’t fall back asleep.)

It’s Sydney who opens The Box, completely by accident. “Chef, somebody ordered a Finch special and Tina won’t tell me what it is,” (fuck, T’s still giving her trouble), “and I…it’s not on the menu so I’m just—“

“It’s an Italian beef sandwich with pickles, Lays crumbled on it, a Diet Coke, and a cookie.” Your order is etched onto his mind. Carmy can’t name the capital of Montana or give directions or diagram a sentence (whatever the fuck that means) but he knows your order. Sydney gives him a strange look.

“Is that all, Chef?”

“Yes, Chef. Thank you, Chef.”

He spends the rest of the shift trying to close The Box.

He goes home and dreams about being bracketed by silky smooth thighs. He dreams about hands in his hair and gasps of pleasure. The piercing cries of the fire alarm pull him back into the world of the living.

It takes him all of five minutes after CFD gives them the all clear to go back upstairs before he’s frustratedly shoving a hand into his boxers to palm himself. He’s still half hard from the dream and the memory of being wrapped inside you. His hand doesn’t compare but it sends sparks through his body nonetheless. Carmy doesn’t touch himself very often, too exhausted after work and too Catholic.

He always thinks of you when he does. His first everything. Your smile, your eyes, the twinkle in your eye when you give him shit about something, the way you move when you’re dancing around the kitchen. His strokes speed up as he imagines your face full of pleasure.

(The few times you’d had sex before he broke your heart and left were incredible for him. He’s certain you didn’t cum.)

Carmy spills into his hand and onto his chest. He lets the cum dry there, evidence of his shame.

It’s a Thursday when Carmy speaks to you for the first time since he came back to Chicago.

(Because fuck Thursdays)

He isn’t even supposed to work front of house. Richie’s out because Ava’s sick, Fak’s in the back trying to fix the AC, Tina had to go pick up Luis from school, and Sydney needs everyone else so he’s up front. It’s been a shit day from the start. It’s hot as fuck outside, so his apartment is sweltering. He’d been covered in sweat before he’d even stepped out into the summer heat. The Beef isn’t any cooler

”Carmen?”

And there you are, his worst nightmare and his most cherished dream, standing in front of him.

You smile and it’s as beautiful (maybe more?) as he remembers. He can tell right away that the grief has taken a toll on you. Your hair is a little duller than in the wedding photo he’d found in the office, your smile not as radiant, your eyes tired. You’re still absolutely, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. He’s been to parties with the top models in the world (at which he’d sat alone in the corner) and you still take the cake.

“Uh, hey Finch. Hey.”

You look around him at the grungy Beef. “Haven’t changed anything, have you? Good, as co-owner, I get a say on any major changes.” You’re grinning at him but he’s brain stuck on that word, co-owner. You’d owned it with Mikey, of course you had, you’d been his wife. You laughed. “‘M kidding, Carmen. I let Mikey have it in the divorce. You can do what you want with the Beef.” He really shouldn’t feel such relief that you wouldn’t be here, and he shouldn’t hate you calling him Carmen as much as he did.

“Finch, ya don’t hafta…you don’t have to call me Carmen.”

Your grin, that grin her loved so much, faltered. “I know. But you never…we haven’t…what are…” it wasn’t like you to have trouble finding your words, and he hated that he was the cause of it. “Carmen is safe.” That shouldn’t hurt as much as it did. “You know you’re always safe with me, Finch.” Your look wasn’t quite withering, but it made him feel impossibly small. “Am I, Carmen?” Before he could say yes, you are, or I still love you, Fak appeared at his shoulder and started talking your ear off.

You’re gone before he can take your order.

#the bear #the bear x reader #carmy x you #carmen berzatto x reader #carmen berzatto x you #carmy x reader #tw: mentions of suicide

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theworldofotps · 10 months

Text

Rewarding The Champ (NSFW)

Pairing: Seth Rollins x Male Reader Word Count: 1,230 Description: After Seth wins at MITB his boyfriend gives him a reward back in their hotel room.

Warning: Little smutty oral sex

Requested by anon, I hope you enjoy! Apologies if it’s a little rushed it’s been a while since I’ve wrote a MxM piece.

Thanks to @new-zealand-chic for giving me the last line I absolutely loved it and just tweaked it a little. ________ Tag list: @omg-im-such-a-masochist @melissahausen @new-zealand-chic @writtingrose @sjwrites22 @sassymox @mrsacklesevansmgk @xladyxfatex @biforrollynch @irish-newzealand-idian-dutch @demonqueen29 @itsicantbelievethis666 @lilred91 @rebellious-desires @claymorexpunisher @letsgivethisonemoreshot @ava-valerie @shortyiceheart @serpantscorpio8497 @thatpanpal @thatnerdwriter @wrestlersownmyheart @vebner37 @auburnwrites @aews-four-pillars @seeingstarks @whenimakeitshine1234 @legit9thlunaticwarrior @blaquekitty @ironshamelessyouth @unoficialy-married-to-ace-austin @ripleyswhore @melblacc @alliwant456 @elevennbloom @xbreezymeadowsmunsonx @mcreignsera If you wanna be added to the list lemme know. ________

Watching the screen closely, y/n stands watching with bated breath as his boyfriend laid in the ring. Seth’s match against Finn at Money In The Bank had been intense and a little stressful.

“Come on baby get the pin.”

He whispered watching Seth and Finn go at it, seeing Damian come out with the briefcase made him groan.

“Damian please for the love of everything not tonight.”

Y/n begged watching the drama unfold, seeing Finn take his attention off Seth made him bite his lip.

“Now's your chance!”

Watching as he moved when Finn went for the coup he held his breath watching the curb stomp. Listening to the crowd count to three Y/n cheered when Seth got the pin. Quickly going to the gorilla Y/n smiled seeing Seth be congratulated by Hunter and a few of his coworkers.

“I’m so proud of you that match was incredible.”

Seth turned laughing softly as y/n hugged him tightly pressing a kiss to his lips..

“Easy on the ribs babe but thank you that means a lot coming from you.”

“You’re welcome, wanna go back to the hotel so you can relax? We can celebrate a little if you’d like.”

“Yeah sounds good just let me change, I'll shower at the hotel.”

Y/n nodded his head as the two made their way back to the locker room, leaving Seth to go into the locker room. Y/n leans against the wall scrolling through social media reading some of the comments about Seth and Finn’s match..

“Okay love let’s go.”

Seth had his bag slung over his shoulder and took his boyfriend’s hand. Chatting, the two make their way out to Seth’s rental car. Placing his bag on the back seat Seth got behind the wheel and made the short drive back to the hotel. Y/n was excited to have Seth to himself for the night. Usually one of them was working late so this was a treat. Arriving in the parking lot Seth parked and the two grabbed their bags making their way inside the hotel and up to their room.

“I know I already said it but you did a terrific job tonight babe, truly that match was amazing.”

Y/n said softly leaning against the wall of the elevator as he watched Seth.

“Thank you, Finn is an incredible performer so any match with him is always a good one in my book.”

“Damian really had me worried if I’m honest.”

“I’m sure a lot of people felt the same way you did, baby.”

Seth chuckled, leaning over and pressing a kiss to his lips then spoke again.

“So what do you feel like doing?”

“I thought we could celebrate a little after your shower… I’d like to reward my champion for a job well done.”

Hearing the lust fill his voice Seth's smile quickly shifted to a smirk as the doors opened. Stepping off the elevator the two quickly made their way down the hall to their room. Y/n’s words echoing in Seth’s head, sliding the keycard he ushered him inside, closing the door behind them and turning the lock.

“You go get cleaned up and I’ll meet you in the bedroom when you’re finished.”

Turning with a wink y/n went to the kitchen while Seth made his way into the bathroom. Waiting to hear the door close y/n made his way to the bedroom as well pulling the covers down and grabbing a spare pillow. Just because he was giving head doesn’t mean his knees needed to suffer.

When the room was finally ready he removed his shirt and turned the lights off. Leaving just the glow from the bedside lamp to light the room.

“Wow I should win big title matches more often when you’re around.”

Seth said from the doorway, looking up y/n felt like the world stopped. Seth was, from his guess, completely nude apart from the towel riding low on his hips. His damp hair hung over a shoulder and the few drops of water he missed glistened against his skin. The sight was enough to make his mouth run dry and his pants become tighter.

“Are you going to say anything or are you just going to stare at me all night?”

“Sorry sorry just you look really good and it caught me off guard.”

Y/n smiled and watched his boyfriend slowly walk over to him, y/n’s fingers reach out touching Seth the moment he was close enough. Biting his lip he motioned towards the bed with a nod.

Seth sat down the towel slowly riding up exposing more of his thighs.

“Crawl to me.”

“What?”

“I said crawl, you can’t just expect me to let you have all the fun can you?”

Y/n slowly got to his knees and crawled over to the pillow, once settled he slowly slid his hands up Seth’s legs. The hair slightly tickled his palms. Reaching up he undid the knot on the towel, watching it fall away to reveal Seth’s hard cock.

“I haven’t even done anything yet and you’re already hard for me.”

Y/n chuckled as he leaned forward slowly flicking his tongue over the slit, collecting the small amount of precum that had gathered. Humming softly y/n swirled his tongue over the tip listening to the soft sighs and shaky breaths that Seth took in.

“I love the sight of you on your knees for me.”

Seth whispered watching as y/n’s mouth started taking him in. If there was one thing Seth loved to see more than anything was the image of his boyfriend choking on his cock. His lips stretched to fit more in his mouth the way drool collected at the corners of his lips, tears filling his eyes as he got farther down the shaft. He looked down right delectable.

Y/n began bobbing his head once he finally got down near the base, his throat slowly relaxing so Seth could easily slide in and out of his mouth. Hearing the moans and grunts from his boyfriend was enough to let y/n know that Seth was enjoying this. Blinking back the tears y/n pulled off to just the tip was left in his mouth. Giving his throat a moment to relax he used his hand to work Seth’s cock.

“You look so sexy with my cock in your mouth, your eyes all teary. Fuck the sight of you is enough to make me cum.”

He grunted out as he fell against the mattress, y/n continued to work his cock using both his mouth and hand to bring Seth right over the edge. Emptying his mouth y/n gets up crawling onto the bed. Looking at his boyfriend y/n couldn’t help but smile softly, seeing Seth laying there the afterglow of his orgasm evident on his face.

“I’m so proud of you babe, you deserve all the praise you got tonight.”

The younger man whispered as he watched the man laid out on the bed.

Seth sat up just enough to look at his boyfriend and smirked softly, pressing a kiss to his lips before quickly flipping them over.

“Again thank you love now how about instead of singing my praises right now I want to hear you screaming my name.”

#seth rollins #seth rollins x male reader #MxM #seth rollins fanfiction

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prettyboyavasilva · 9 months

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thinking about pretty boy ava and a poem by ocean vuong with this line that goes “he lay beside me and placed a word on the nape of my neck, where it melted into a bead of whiskey. Gold rust down my back. We had been sailing for months. Salt in our sentences. We had been sailing - but the edge of the world was nowhere in sight.”

something inarticulate in that about the idea of ava going on t and beatrice also coming to understand things about her gender. how binary stars often exchange mass, how they can appear as a single star until you look more closely; their light eclipsing each other into a single burning point.

just, pretty boy ava and the way he shifts bea’s notion of magnetic north. of gender, too. bea getting braver, wearing a binder under her t-shirt, ava’s fingers tracing patterns on her sternum when they’re out together, hand-in-hand and the scent of their different colognes mingling in the air like tongues.

ava with short-cropped blond hair artfully or artlessly tousled, sometimes darting strands of other colors shot through it in comet-tails. ava doing his first muscle-up and hurrying down off the bar, grinning wide and finding beatrice watching, beaming. ava kissing her there with all the fresh hard lines of her body flush against bea’s chest, hips, and ava telling her that even touching is different now. mourning how bea used to feel under his fingers but memorizing her again with this new phenomenology.

the halo’s response to things… glowy sections at ava’s throat where it’s inspecting the slight thickening of vocal cords (though ava’s not on a high enough dose or on it for long enough to dip his voice down far). bea watching in amazement, in fear because what if the halo doesn’t want ava anymore? (it does and they have that in common) glimmers of light in ava’s jaw, his chest, as the halo learns to tell between change and injury.

ava going out in a tank top and bea staring dry-mouthed at the new lines of muscle picked out on his arms. bea brushing her mouth over faintly stubbly spots on ava’s jaw. bottom growth one of the first things ava notices and beatrice having read about 900 articles about it so she’s ready but she isn’t.

not for the way ava arches into her hand, the newness of it all in bea’s mouth and against her fingers. and there’s always been divinity in ava but there’s something about this reclamation of body, the solidness of ava’s arms and his shoulders and the hunger that comes with it. beatrice watching ava mow through protein bars and buy those 32 oz bottles of chocolate milk in the store. oddly abashed in the face of this enormous appetite that extends to her, to everything, to life itself.

oh this is incredible. 10/10. no notes. knew it was gonna slap the moment i saw there's a section of poetry

i dont know if i straight up mentioned it here but butch bea and prettyboy ava exist in the same universe in my head. love love the part with the halo, the halo is def a little bit aware and alive to me and plays favourites.

just so in love with how both of them relearning each other. ava's expanding energy and appetite. their love... their gender. OUGH... thank you anon

#tbh butch bea is in every version of them in my head #this has been marinating in my head since i got it #anon #ask #original #writing #pretty boy ava #avatrice #ava #beatrice

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unshackled-if · 10 months

Note

💗 GROWING HEART - if they have a crush, is it noticable? what changes when they’re in love?

hey anon, I apologize for the delayed response. I had an issue with my inbox where I could see notifications, but no questions were visible. Thankfully, the issue has been fixed now. <3

Aurelian: Aurelian will not immediately show his emotions as he tries to comprehend and make sense of his feelings, considering he has never really encountered love before. As he falls in love, he will display more affection and attentiveness towards the person he is attracted to. As his feelings for them grow stronger, he will become more possessive and insistent on spending time with them.

Elara: at first, she may make an effort to appear professional and attentive in public, but as she falls in love, she will gradually become more candid and expressive towards the person she likes. This shift in behavior could lead to occasional episodes of distraction, where she will find herself daydreaming or losing focus on her work. But, she will quickly regain her composure and return to her tasks, with a determination to sort out her emotions at a later time.

Kazuo: given his reserved and guarded nature, it may be difficult to detect if he has a crush as he tends to keep his emotions to himself and struggles to express them, even to the person he cares about. However, as his feelings deepen over time, he will start to exhibit subtle changes in behavior. He will become more protective and expressive towards the person he loves, going above and beyond to ensure their safety and well-being. Despite his stoic facade, he will eventually become more emotionally vulnerable around the person he loves, allowing his guard to drop and be more open.

Aiden/Ava: you will 100% be able to tell if, A has a crush on someone, unless you are really oblivious. When A is around their crush, they will become more affectionate and clingy, and their behavior will change noticeably. They will become nervous or fidgety, and their face will turn red with embarrassment. Despite their best efforts to be subtle and maintain their composure, they will fail miserably, and their true feelings will be quite obvious to others. In fact, people in the kingdom, even children, will pick up on A's crush and tease them about it.

SC: they will be very tricky to know, since they’re very flirty in nature. So you wouldn’t know if they’re truly in love or is it all a trick?

MC to SC:

#asks #anon #thank you anon!#ro: aurelian #ro: aiden/ava #ro: kazuo #ro:elara #ro: sc

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sheetsonfire · 2 years

Text

Second Chances

Fandom: Chicago Med

Characters: Connor Rhodes x Reader

Genre: Angst, hurt/comfort, fluff

Warnings: swearing, car accident, injuries

Word Count: 1365

Requested By Anon: Hi ☺️ Could i request a Connor Rhodes imagine where the reader is his ex and also a nurse at the med. One time you get in a terrible car crash and get to the ER where Connor gets called to save you. You nearly die during the surgery but he saves you and stays with you all the time till you wake up. Then he keeps caring for you during your whole recovery and you slowly start getting your old feelings back, so you decide on a second chance. Hope this is ok ❤️

This is Part 1 - Part 2

You were a month into your newfound singleness, and depending on the day or the mood, it was either a blessing or curse. If you were being totally honest with yourself, you missed Connor endlessly, but that same inner honesty also reminded you that things just weren’t right for you and Connor at the time. He was still reconciling the things that had happened with Ava, with Robin moving away too… he had a lot to figure out, and you felt that your presence in his life was serving to distract him from the pain, but not much else.

He had tried to make the case that you weren’t just a distraction and though you didn’t doubt that he really believed that, you could see his heart wasn’t fully in it. You gave him a kiss on the cheek and told him that this wasn’t a “never”, this was just a “not yet” kind of thing. You advised him to really look and see what he wanted from the next part of his life, and you reassured yourself that if you were meant to be part of that you’d fall right back in there somewhere down the road.

Perhaps that was a naive outlook, somedays you chastised yourself for assuming that Connor would ever want you back after “breaking up” with him. But the split had been amicable, Connor didn’t fight you too much on the decision, his eyes betraying his mouth as you saw understanding and agreement in them.

And so that’s how it went, you cried your way through too many romantic comedies to count, listened to an ungodly amount of country music - which was your go-to comfort genre, and made good use of the new time with your friends at Molly’s. You didn’t hate Connor, you still very much cared for him, and you hoped he felt the same.

Work wasn’t as awkward as it could have been by all accounts, there would sometimes be shy smiles and nods of greeting in the corridors, you worked a few cases with him with little to no tension, and you found that for the most part, it was still okay to be by his side.

Chicago was now in the grip of winter’s cruelty in the midwest, you had just finished a lengthy and chaotic shift, full of road accidents, homeless people struggling out in the cold, and just general mayhem, despite Chicagoans being well-practised at dealing with this time of year.

You waved Monique and Maggie goodbye as you departed from your fellow nurses to get to your car. Shivering under the illumination of the parking lot lights your nose is numb, you’re desperate to get inside your car and start the heat. As you fiddle with your key to press the unlock button, you see a figure approaching. Squinting at the humanoid shape you can just about make out a familiar face in the contrasting shadow between artificial light and frigid darkness.

It was Connor.

You laugh a nervous laugh, relaxing at the sight of the surgeon. “Jesus, Con’, did you forget about nighttime and parking lot etiquette for women?”

He grimaces, chuckling apologetically himself, “Oh shit, Y/N, I’m sorry. I didn’t think at all, I just saw you leaving and I thought I’d say hey.”

You smile, looking around, feeling that rarely felt embarrassment around him, judging by his expression he seemed to be feeling the same, perhaps second guessing his decision to approach. You surprise yourself by not being quite sure what to say.

“Oh, well… hello then, ha… Wait, are you working now?” Connor didn’t typically work nights, but you hadn’t really been privy to his personal schedule of late, so who knew.

He scratches the top of his beanie covered head, nodding, “Ah yeah, Crockett went to visit family back in New Orleans, so I took up some of his shifts for the trauma service.”

“I see, that makes sense. Nice of you to offer…” Connor simply smiles and you get that butterfly feeling. You weren’t suddenly immune to him after all.

Unable to cope with even a beat of silence you gesture to your car, “...Well, I better get inside, and so should you, don’t want you freezing up before your shift even starts.”

You squirm under his gaze, he’s got that amused look on his face that you’d seen many times before, the “I just adore how cute are” look.

He snaps out of it and points in the direction of Med, “You’re right, I better. It was good seeing you, Y/N. Catch you later.” Offering you a departing wave.

“Good seeing you, Connor.” You call after him, suddenly getting that sinking feeling. Something you’d not felt in a little while since breaking up. You really did miss him, even if you thought this was all for the best…

Pulling out of the parking lot you have the heat cranked up, your fingers finally gaining feeling again inside your gloves, your nose tingling as the warm air defrosted it. You find you can’t take your mind off of Connor now, you didn’t know if it was the cold and your desire to cuddle up with someone, or if you just couldn’t shake the regret that sometimes snuck its way into your head.

True to your ritual of late, you had country music on in the car. More specifically a Garth Brooks playlist that had soothed you through many restless nights, drives and just any general moment where you were alone and idling.

You kept your eye on the flow of traffic as you tuned into the words of ‘Sometimes You’ve Got To Die To Live Again’, you almost laugh at yourself, feeling a little dramatic, yet giving it your all as you sing along.

Feels like starting over is the last thing I wanna do

Yeah, I'd keep it all the same if I could

'Cause everything I've ever been is all wrapped up in you

But somethin' tells me that a change would do us good

But sometimes you have to let your heart break

And sometimes the right choice is so hard to make

Tears spring into your eyes, taking a breath and a moment to compose yourself, your vision clearing as you move your car forward on North Halsted, no ‘a’, which always amused you still for obvious reasons. It reminded you of your dork of a friend, Will Halstead. You thought about the other doctor for a second, he had invited you out for drinks with him, Jay, and some of the others from Intelligence. They were friends you hadn’t seen in a while, and you could do with some cheering up. So you make a mental note to text Will when you got home, changing the gear as you keep the car moving, Garth still singing for you in the background.

You and the other cars in the lane behind you don’t see it coming until it's too late. The flash of headlights burns your retinas, the screeching of tires is all around, and the full force of a pickup truck slams into your side of the car, ramming the vehicle into the wall of an apartment building. The metal bows the car interior inwards, pinning your leg in as your head snaps from side to side, glass and shrapnel flying around in the space. More cars join the chaos as they don’t stand the chance to move out of the way, the impact of their weight only further pressing you against the building, the truck and the tree that completed the triangle.

Then, it stops.

Your vision swims violently, smoke and vapour roll through the vents of your car, coughing as you try and figure out if you’re still alive. The sound of shouts, horns, screams and sirens seem all so far away as your ears ring, an intense sharpness in your ribs makes you groan, hissing as your sensations start to rush back. The muffled sound of Garth still singing is the last thought that follows you into unconsciousness.

And sometimes it's no use saving your own skin

'Cause sometimes you've got to die to live again

End Of Part 1

A/N: There will definitely be a part 2, maybe even 3!

#connor rhodes x reader #chicago med #one chicago #second chances

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sapphicscholar · 2 years

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I think I remember you saying you were going to write a meta post about the second season compared to the first. Did you ever end up writing that? I love reading your posts!

Thanks, anon! I did not! Real life kind of caught up to me haha and I haven't had the time to go back and watch the two in one go. That being said, the one thing that I've been circling around a lot, basically since the middle of S2 is that the two seasons feel generically different.

To get a little teacher-y for a hot second: what genre does for readers/viewers/consumers is to set up certain expectations about what's coming and how it will be delivered. Obviously those expectations can be refused or subverted--part of the fun of being a writer, after all--but it's kind of like setting yourself on a given course and trusting that the vague outlines will help your readers or viewers follow along with the story you want to tell. (Because, right, if you went into Romeo and Juliet thinking it was a romcom instead of a tragedy, you'd be pretty bummed when they both died. Or if you went into Modern Family thinking it was a documentary, you'd be confused.)

With season 1--both through the show and the after-the-fact commentary from critics and fans alike--we got set up to think a certain way about the kind of show it was and the kind of story it wanted to tell. A lot of fans and critics talked about it as a dramedy, which set expectations for tone, and praised the character-driven approach it took to narrative work, which set us up to assume that level of deep interiority would be sustained. I personally read it as, in many ways, a spin on a traditional künstlerroman (a story about an artist's growth to maturity)--in this version, it was a story about two artists growing into their own creative potential alongside and through the intervention of the other (the "we make each other better and funnier" ethos that we all loved).

Given what we got in season 1, we* as a viewership (*realizing we is not and never will speak as a unified whole) expected more of the same from season 2. We expected the writers to explore what it would mean to take this developing creative project out from the little insular bubble Ava and Deborah had built together and onto the road. We expected the personal-level betrayal of the email to have deep, resonating impacts across the whole season. We expected more glimpses into Deborah and Ava's interior lives that would explain some of those actions or choices that might otherwise seem discordant or inexplicable (or, to use the critics' language, make them deeply unlikeable).

Instead, season 2 (particularly the first chunk of episodes) shifted tone and genre on us. (There are plenty of moments and things I like in S2, but I've already written about them in my ep-by-ep posts a lot.)

A lot of critics have written about season 2 as a journey story, but I'd actually push back pretty hard on that generic classifications for reasons I won't get into for the sake of length and nerdiness haha! I think instead season 2 was more of a picaresque - deeply episodic storytelling where each episode may have built to a vague journey outline but whose ramifications were largely confined. Picaresques trade in interesting, often ever-changing locales; new, eccentric characters; and vignette style plots. They deal in laughs and (mis)adventures and aren't particularly concerned with character growth and deep interiority. Obviously we did see characters confronting their moments of failure, but there wasn't the same kind of protracted reckoning or repercussions I think many of us expected. Instead of the character-driven storytelling of S1, it felt like the tour bus was literally and figuratively driving the second season. The stops dictated the plot, and the plot drove the characters into new situations where they were largely reacting.

And the thing is? It could largely be thought of as a success on those terms. But that disjunction between what many of us expected and what the show gave us makes it feel like it fell short (outside of more specific critiques of individual moments or plots). And I think so many of us really loved the second half of the season because, in many ways, it shifted more and more back to something closer in mood and dynamic to season 1. It started falling back into the kind of storytelling we expected of it.

Anyway, I don't know if this is at all of interest to you, and apologies if not haha, but for what it's worth we can call this my season 2 overarching meta!

#ask me anything #hacks hbo #my meta #hacks season 2 #genre theory #not a tag i thought i'd end up using on tumblr dot com but here we are

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falcqns · 2 years

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Girll have you already shifted? I’ve been trying for some time and honestly feel so unmotivated. I guess I kinda put in my head that I’m only going to shift through lucid dreaming or astral traveling, but I’m also a bit scared of both so maybe that’s blocking me? What do you usually do when shifting or trying to?

hey bby!! i have shifted! i got really lucky and shifted after about a month and a half i think? i dont know the exact time frame lol.

but when i do have struggles and setbacks with shifting, i use something called the body pendulum to find my shifting blockages (things that are stopping me from shifting)

to do this, i stand very still, and assign directions such as forward = yes, backwards = no, sideways = unclear

after i do that, i ask questions. but they have to be specific questions, such as "is it fear preventing me from shifting" or "am i having shifting doubts" and your body will tell you the answer by leaning in the direction of the answer.

if you're having doubts about shifting and whether it is real, i reccommend reading the CIA document on it. it goes through exactly what shifting is, and has a ton of evidence for it being real. some people doubt it, but i trust it because its the literal CIA. these are the same people who tried to kill Dan and Phil so i will never go against them LMAO.

another thing is to ignore anything you see on tiktok about it not being real. the people who dont believe it are just looking to put others down for their beliefs. don't interact with them, you won't get anywhere (believe me, its like arguing with a fucking brick wall LMAO)

i hope this helps, and if you have any other questions, please let me know and i'll answer!

#ava's anons #ava's a shifter #shifting to marvel #shifting consciousness #shiftingblr #reality shifting #shifting realities #shifting #shifting to the mcu #shifting help

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londonhalcyon · 2 years

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I saw the writers game and am curious about 38 and 43 mostly :)

Hello, Anon! 38 and 43 it is!

38. Weirdest story idea you’ve ever had

I started writing as a hobby when I was around 10 or 11, so if I attempted to rank every story idea my preteen brain had about Jedi that control time and ride dragons, or a political drama involving a kingdom of cats based on playing cards, or that one shape-shifting half-god with fangs, scales, claws, elf ears, and wings, we’d be here a while. But the weirdest idea I’ve had lately involves two investigators, a mob boss, a gentlemen’s club, a bouncer and a stripper that are undercover agents, and an electro swing gunfight (à la “Lone Digger”). It’s not NSFW, but I won’t write the details either.

43. What do you do if/when characters don’t follow the outline?

Most of the time, let them do what they want. Generally, my outline is vague enough that this doesn’t become a problem.

If for some reason the characters have veered away from a point on the outline but are still on track to fulfill other main plot points, I’ll change that detail on the outline. For example, Merula was originally supposed to (indirectly) help stop Mr. Darrow, but with everything that was happening, Lily and Mrs. Byrne ended up taking more initiative than I first planned, so it made less sense to bring Merula in. Similarly, Ava and Talbott were supposed to kiss at the end of “The Scarlett Cauldron” (and maybe even something more), but they didn’t recover from their rocky start fast enough, so I changed it to a brief peck on the cheek. I’d rather adjust the story than have the characters do something that doesn’t make sense.

On the rare occasion the characters veer away from a major plot point, I’ll try to figure out how to get them back on track. I’ve run into a small challenge in the latest chapter where I need Lily to move to a different part of the room so something can happen, but logically she wouldn’t move because she knows that would be stupid, so I need to come up with something to prompt her to move. This is a local scale example, but it still comes down to working with what makes sense for the character.

Thanks for the ask! These were great questions!

Answers from this ask game. 11, 13, 24, 29, 32, 40, and 48 have already been answered.

#ask the mad witch #the mad witch

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orlamccools · 2 years

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Answer all the book questions pls

ajdjdkskakal alrighty anon you asked for this!! this is gonna get long

1- Book you’ve reread the most times?

already answered here!

2- Top five books of all time?

This is an impossible question to answer so I’ll do top 5 that i think more people should read!

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould

Unbecoming by Rebecca Scherm

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

3- What is your favorite genre?

I’m a pretty versatile reader so I’ll read anything but probably fantasy

4- What sections of a bookstore do you browse?

Fantasy/Sci Fi —> Fiction —> YA —> Political Science/Current Affairs —> True Crime —> Mysteries/Thrillers —> Romance —> Anything else that compels me

5- Where do you buy books?

Well i am both blessed and cursed to work at a barnes and noble so typically there. if not, i’ll go to one of the independent bookstores in my town, or order online thru bookshop.org. I try to avoid am*zon as much as possible, and usually the only time i buy on there is if: a. the author publishes thru amazon exclusively or b. i cant find it anywhere else at a decent price point

6- What books have you read in the last month?

I’m still recovering from a slump so i haven’t read a ton this past month include:

Fairytales of the Macabre by Olivie Blake

Midsummers Night Dream by Olivie Blake

Birds of California by Katie Cortugno

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

7- Is there a series/book that got you into reading?

Not that I remember, to be honest! corny but ive been a reader since i was a small child so i dont know what really got me into it. all i know is that ive loved doing it for my entire life

8- What is the first book you remember reading yourself?

Magic Tree House Dinosaurs at Dawn. i was a HUGE MTH kid (had books 1-30 at one point!!) and i distinctly remember reading that book in one of the little seat cubbies they used to have at the east mountain public library

9- When do you tend to read the most?

I commute via bus and its about a 30 minute ride so usually then, which tends to be mid afternoon. i also try to read before bed, depending on how tired i am. also, whenever i have days off i try to go sit on a bench at my favorite park or on campus and read for several hours in the evening. this gets me out of the house, gets me vitamin d, and lets me tackle my tbr.

10- Do you have a guilty fave?

already answered here!

11- What non-fiction books do you like, if any?

already answered here!

12- Did you enjoy any compulsory high-school readings?

Yes!!! Some of my faves include Unwind by Neal Shusterman, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. My teachers assigned some good books tbh!

13- Do you have a goodreads?

Yes i do!! feel free to follow me :)

14- Do you ever mark/dog ear books you own?

already answered here!

15- Recommend and review a book

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang is a brilliant five star debut. It follows Fang Runin, a war orphan from the impoverished town of Tikany as she tests into an elite military academy. While there, she makes both friends and enemies and uncovers a world beyond our own and a power that she can barely comprehend. But these easy days don’t last, for the empire of Nikan is surrounded by enemies. As the story shifts from a simple coming of age to a brutal story about the horrors of war, Kuang is able to create emotional stakes that keep you glued to the pages and invested in the story. I read the last three hundred or so pages in one sitting, simply because i could not bear to leave the rest of the story for the morning. Rin is such a strong character, and one that i found myself empathizing with, even as she made the worst possible decisions (seriously babes genocide is NOT the answer). Her relationships with both Kitay and Nezha hurt me emotionally for different reasons, but one relationship that stands out above the rest is that with her commander and childhood crush Altan. Theres absolutely no way any sort of relationship with the two of them wouldnt be hella toxic, but damn did i understand rin’s feelings for and bond with him. The ending of the story had me wreaked in the most incredible and soul crushing way, and i could not wait to read The Dragon Republic. This isnt a book for everyone (seriously see the attached picture w all the trigger warnings) but its a book for me and one of my new all time favorites. Five out of five stars!

16- How many books have you read this year?

i have read 9/52 books this year which isnt great but it is what it is

17- Top five childrens books?

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

The Phantom Tollbooth by Jules Verne

Wildwood by Colin Meloy

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

18- Do you like historical books? Which time period?

Not a huge historical fiction fan, but like historical fantasy is elite and very up my alley! I don’t really think I have a favorite time period.

19- Most disliked popular book?

already answered here!

20- What are things you look for in a book?

thats hard. as previously stated i will read whatever i want but i guess some main things i look for are strong characters with distinct traits and voices, worlds with magic in them, and books where bad things happen but it mostly ends happily (this DOESNT apply to the poppy war rip)

#maddie mumbles #ask #anon #ask game #if the formatting of this is funky i will hit a pedestrian w a car #n e ways thanks for the ask!!!#also take a shot everytime i mention the poppy war 😭😭😭 im sorry the brainworms are too strong

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