Tumgik
#cutting myself off NOW because i could go on for a thousand words
beautyofsorrow · 22 days
Text
Tumblr media
building on this headcanon as posted here because i have spent so long rotating it in my head despite not having a plot to house it:
uhura is Not Into It at first but they eventually sway her into semi-regular attendance with the promise of overblown camp + comedy. i feel like she'd also be obsessed with pontypool due to the language aspects
hemmer doesn't like the violence but he'll discuss soundtracks and their efficacy ad infinitum in the mess hall
every halloween they try to binge the halloween franchise only to get two movies in and give up. they're obsessed with the franchise's refusal to respect its own canon though and talk so much about it that uhura assumes they've seen all the films at least five times
they keep a running spreadsheet of everything they've watched complete with stats and commentary. there's an entire column labeled "does the horse die?" if the answer is yes, they can't show it to captain pike
probably no one on that ship is normal about theo crain, but chapel and ortegas least of all
i have not decided what ortegas's favorite subgenre is but chapel's is one hundred and thirty-three percent the most Terrifying body horror. the fly (1986) is the one that got her into horror films
i can and will do so much with the alien franchise, but the fic i probably won't write yet think about so often is chapel + uhura post-1x09 curled up in uhura's bunk sharing a deeply platonic sort of grief while that first one plays
una chin-riley shockingly into horror films. no i will not elaborate.
speaking of una, i will never be over the chaos potential of in-universe explanations for satanic panic (2019)
spock has been banned from attending movie night because he talks too much and not in the fun kind of way, but he watches the films intently on his own time and then meets with them both to discuss
m'benga does not get it. at least once a year they make him sit through something they promise he'll like and he never comes out unscathed
pelia: "horror films? ah yes, what a delightful genre. have you see when a stranger calls? some of my best work" [cue shipwide uproar for the next three weeks]
films christine chapel cannot be normal about: lisa frankenstein, american mary, jennifer's body, return to oz
films erica ortegas cannot be normal about: the scream franchise, probably. and not just because of sidney's tank + boxers combo in the second one
[watching scream 5] ortegas: "why does that dude look so familiar?" chapel, 15 minutes later: "oh my god. it's boimler"
they've got a prepared speech about the superiority of practical effects and a special interest in replicating the grosser ones. captain pike finally asks sam kirk to cordon off a section of the science lab for them so they can stop causing shipwide alerts
that time they made una sit through So Many nightmare on elm streets despite the declining quality only for her to turn to them in the middle of dream master and roast them to a crisp by asking if it was going to get better or if their perception had been so skewed by their love of suit-up montages set to 80s dad rock that their judgment couldn't be trusted anymore
they do eventually win her back with new nightmare, tho
15 notes · View notes
lure-of-writing · 20 days
Text
Little Sister: Are you going to tell her or should I?
Summary: Morrigan forces Azriel to make a choice. Either she is going to tell you or he is
Word count: 2.7k
part one, part two, part three, part four , part five
Tumblr media
The rumbling ground beneath his feet was one indicator of what was about to come. The other indicator was the shaking paintings that were hung on the wall. Rhys may be the most powerful high lord to ever exist but your power easily rivaled his own. In anticipation of your arrival the quill pen that had just been in use was placed gently on the desk right next to the piece of paper it was just being used on. The force of the heavy wood doors being blown open almost sends the paper flying into his face, if not for his hand placed on top of it. “It’s always such a-” the words pleasure to see you died in his throat as you cut him off. “Ok what is the deal?” one of his perfectly groomed eyebrows raised slightly in questioning at your tired tone of voice. “Oh please let's not act like you don’t know what I am talking about.” the eyebrow didn’t lower even a centimeter. Marching over to the inviting seat in front of his desk you ungracefully plop yourself into the waiting chair. “Remember when Cassian accidentally knocked me out?” you watch as your brother wordlessly nodding in confusion. “Good.” you huff out letting the room fill with silence leaving your brother in a stronger state of confusion then before you started talking. At least before you came into his office Rhysand could have guessed about a thousand reasons as to what has you so upset but now he genuinely does not know where you are going with any of this. “ Go back like a week or two in time after me and Az returned from the summer court and both you and him were avoiding me. Why?” 
Rhysand knew why he was avoiding you but as for Azriel he's not too sure. Obviously he could take a very educated guess but that was about all he could do without asking. “I was busy.” Now the high lord watched as his little sister copied his earlier action of raising a perfectly shaped eyebrow in questioning. “Busy doing what exactly.” Silence once again engulfed the room as Rhysand weighed the pros and cons of telling you his reasoning for avoiding his own sister. A heavy sigh left his lips as he decided to tell you the nicer reason for his absence in your life. “When I walked in your room and saw Az helping you get dressed, that was obviously not something that I, as your older brother, wanted to see.” the continue on motion of your hand forced him to continue. “And as your older brother I obviously never want you to get hurt. In any version of the word. But as your brother I also realize, very reluctantly, at that might I add, that you deserve to live your own life. That means including having a romantic partner. So I was attempting to convince myself that if you pursued a relationship with Azriel that I would be ok.” 
A pregnant pause fell upon the room before you spoke up “That is why you’ve been avoiding me? Seriously?” The warm tone of your laughter brought a warm sensation  dancing up Rhysands neck and cheeks. Nobody else had the ability to embarrass him like his little sister does. “Rhys you know Azriel one hundred percent does not see me like that right? I mean yeah I like to use him to irritate you but he only does that because I asked him to.” your shoulders moved up and down in a shrugging motion. “While you may think that is true you have to remember for all of your life I have banned both you and those to pea brains of trying anything with each other so I needed some time to process even the mere thought of that happening.” you watched from across the desk as your brother pretended to gag. “I guess I no longer have to worry about Cass now that he has Nesta.” he added as an afterthought more to himself than to you.  “That explains why you have been avoiding me, even if it was because you were having a meltdown over nothing but what about Azriel? Why has he been avoiding me.?”  Moments of Rhysands conversation with Azriel played out in his mind. “I can only guess it's because after you paraded around summer” the sound of you scoffing interrupted his story. “Are you done being offended or can I continue.” Rhys watched as you rolled your eyes, taking that as his sign to continue on. “As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted. After you returned I talked to Az about the different times I have caught the two of you in interesting situations, to say the least, and asked him about your relationship with each other. And since I have always made it clear he was never to see you in any way other than platonically I would assume he took that as a sign to step back from being around you.” 
The quill pen you summoned was quickly thrown across the desk at your brother “You big overprotective bat! How many times do I need to tell you that Azriel does not see me like that.” Rhys easily caught the pen giving a not so hidden sly smile at your turn to be embarrassed. “No wonder why he's avoiding me. You made it awkward. I’m just his friend's little sister and nothing more. Now I’m sure you’ve given him the wrong idea of me.” A big belly laugh erupted from within Rhysand quickly filling in the room. “After almost five hundred years  I think it’s a little late for Az to just now get the wrong idea of you.” the words barely escaped in between the laughter “You are a menace!” Rhys just continued to laugh as you marched your way back out of his office “I love you too!” The echo of his shout follows you down the corridor as you make your way out of his house. 
The very next morning you made your way to the top of the house ready to start training. “Ah ah ah.” Cassian's voice tuts from across the open roof top. Your eyes scan the room until they land on the wiggling finger that matched the owners equally as wiggly head. “You are not to be training until Madja says you can.” scrunching your face you look at Nesta before making eye contact with the general again “And who are you? My mother?” A bellowing laughter swallows up the words that just slipped past your lips. “When it comes to training I sure am.” his larger than most bicep wraps around your shoulders tucking your body into his. Leading you to the entrance that leads back to the lower level of the house. Cassian had almost gotten you to the threshold of the door when you spotted Azriel from the corner of your eye. Quickly you twirl out of your training mothers warmth and strut over to the one and only shadowsinger. “You’ve been avoiding me. Why?” the fact you had to tilt your head slightly upwards had never irritated you like it did in that moment. You watched as his hazel eyes shuffled across the room taking note of every person who showed up to training this morning. “I haven’t been avoiding you.” you could tell he was being extra quiet on purpose “Oh really is that why Rhys told me-” the words died in your throat as strong hands wrapped around your torso and lifted you from the ground. “Now young one I don’t think interrogating someone is something Madja said you were ok to do yet. Plus training starts in two minutes so you can do your questioning at a later time.” Gently Cassian once more places you on the outside of the training area. Glowering you said nothing as Cassian chuckled at your lack of response before making his way back to the center of the area. 
You watched as Azriel gave Cassian an appreciative nod and Cassian just patted him on the back before starting training. Something was definitely going on, you just didn’t know what. For now at least. 
If there was one thing that living this long has given you it was an endless supply of patience. So for almost three hours you stood leaning against the wall watching both warriors show off different techniques following up with critiquing each other's quote unquote weak spots for techniques. Finally after everything was said and done did Cassian allow you to step foot in the official training area. Azriel was stood by himself drinking water when you appeared in front of him. “Why have you been avoiding me?” you could hear how hurt you sounded to your own ears and tried to not wince at the sound of the pathetic tone you displayed. You watched as the male's face fell before you. “I didn’t mean for you to feel like I was avoiding you. It’s just-” you observed as it appeared Azriel was having an internal debate with himself before sighing a reluctant sigh “ you know how Rhys gets when it comes to you. After we got back he asked if anything was going on between the two of us and I said no. I respect both you and Rhys. I never want to betray Rhysands trust so I haven’t been avoiding you per say but you know.” he ended with a hefty shoulder shrug. 
“So what I’m hearing is that you don’t hate me?” the facade of the shadowsinger broke in front of you to reveal a gentle, kind hearted male who would do anything for his family. The chuckle that fell from his lips brought a giggle to your own. “No, I don't hate you. I don't even think that's possible.” Azriel opens his arms as an invite to share a hug. Even though he was covered in sweat from head to toe you wrapped your arms around his torso pressing your cheek against his chest where his heart was beating. “Well that's good to know because I was starting to get concerned.”  Another chuckle made its way out of his throat and the vibrations of his laughter once again caused your own laughter. “So” you drag out the last vowel “Does that mean you will go shopping with me tomorrow?” you propped your chin against his chest and looked up at your closest friend. “If I must.”  His gentle teasing was met with an equally if not gentler kiss on the hairline of your forehead. 
Ever since your confrontation with Azriel things seemed to go back to normal but not completely back to normal. Something was off that you couldn’t put your finger on but it was without a doubt better than it used to be. The flow of the inner circle had almost returned back to completely normal. That would be until a few weeks later when at family dinner everything would change. 
It was very well known that dinners amongst the inner circle were tradition but it was lesser known that having a dinner where each personal either cooked or brought something to contribute to the dinner was also a tradition. 
This time around it was Feyre, Mor, Elain and yourself in the kitchen. Collectively as a good the three of you were trying your best not to destroy the High ladys kitchen. Elain had no such problems as she was often found making the best treats for the family on a daily basis. The oldest and youngest sister along with yourself had managed to make an edible dinner item, even though it was more challenging than the three of you would like to admit. While cooking was a neutral territory for yourself in terms of skills, it was cooking for three grown Illyrian bats and their accompanying companion along with the rest of the family that stretched your cooking abilities thin. It was a miracle the food was even edible on a good day. Let alone a day with nine hungry fae waiting to be fed. 
  After much work in the kitchen everyone had finally settled down around the table, only after much wrangling on both Feyres and yours behalf. Rhys was at the head of the table with your sister-in-law while you were seated in between Morrgian and Elain. Across from you was Amren, Azriel, Cassian and Nesta sitting in that order. 
Dinner was going as well as it normally did. Cass was making stupid jokes poking at Amren. Feyre was playing mediator, just in case they decided they wanted to destroy each other. And in turn destroy her house. Your brother was assisting Feyre in keeping the family under control and also dotting on her the whole time. Nesta and you were talking about books and Mor along with Elain were discussing different clothing options. 
The smell in the room was subtle at first but quickly you realized the brownies you had put in the oven prior to everyone sitting down were finally done. You just hopped they were burnt. With an abrupt “Oh! Crap!” you sent your chair sliding backwards and hurried off towards the hopefully unharmed cooked batter. After a few minutes of cutting and neatly placing the brownies on a platter you re-entered the dining room that was just as chaotic as when you had left. Cooking you may not be the best at but you were a pretty great baker. The Random desserts you make were always a hit amongst your family and you were sure these would be no different. 
“Anyone want a brownie? Of course Cass was the first to raise his hand and thus started your journey around the table handing out freshly baked goods. You had just rounded the corner of the table when you noticed that one person didn’t take a treat. Azriel. “Az? You don’t want a brownie?” you scrunched your brows together as you gently raise the platter you were holding as in an invitation. “No I’m ok” without realizing your face fell. “But you always eat anything I bake. You always say that I make the best desserts and you’ve never turned them down.” Azriel didn’t take his eyes off of you, instead they shifted between the platter of food back to your eyes before they repeated the process a few more times. “It’s-” his stutter catches you off guard causing you to raise an eyebrow in both confusion and questioning. 
“It’s just that I’m full right now and I-” once again you made a confused look and glanced down to his plate “That's only your second plate of food usually you eat three or four so I know you're not full. Why don’t you want one? Do you not like my baking?”  Once again you found yourself feeling extra hurt about a choice Azriel had made. Usually you were never this emotional but lately you couldn’t help it. Maybe it was the hit to the head that was causing you to be so emotional. As it wasn’t fully healed yet. The male was certainly free to do what he wants but this was new and confusing. “Oh help the brother and the mother.” you looked down to Morr where she had propped her elbows on the table and rested her head upon her hands. “What?”  Your confused tone causes a giggle to escape. “Do you really not understand why he won't eat the damn brownie?” Just as your cousin was about to explain, Azriel cut her off. “Morrigan don’t. It’s not your place to tell her.” 
Now this had your attention. What exactly was there to tell? And Why was Azriel being so secretive about it? After what felt like forever of the two of them going back and forth with each other you intervened. “Will somebody please tell me what is going on?” you didn’t shout but your question definitely wasn’t quiet either. You just needed to get their attention and it worked. “Are you going to tell her or should I?” Silence engulfed the room but Morrigan didn’t let it last too long. “The reason he won't accept your food is because you're his mate.” and in that moment everything stopped.
Taglist:
@kemillyfreitas @lana08 @willowpains @username199945 @tothestarsandwhateverend
@kylaisra @lilah-asteria @nickishadow139 @br0klynbby @blacktreacle22
@amysangel @mp-littlebit @mybestfriendmademe
413 notes · View notes
simplysturn · 2 months
Text
do you mean it? 💌
reader x christopher sturniolo
warnings: smut, fluff, unprotected p in v, choking, fwb, choking, slight agnst if u squint
mdni, this one isn’t for you.
“Fuck, you feel so good,” Chris mumbles as he thrusts his hips into mine harder and deeper with each stroke, one of his hands gripping my waist, the other on the headboard.
“Yes, baby, keep going. Mhm,” I moan into his ear.
“Don’t f-fucking call me that,” he utters between his harsh strokes.
I reach up to run my fingers through his hair and then I softly stroke his cheek. I pull his head down to make him look me in the eyes. “Baby,” I teasingly half-moan, maintaining eye contact. I wasn’t sure why Chris was suddenly against me using this pet name that was a common thing when we usually hook up, but never the less I knew it would stir him up. He grunts, displeased with my defiance as expected, and somehow speeds up even more, thrusting into me like an animal.
Chris's hand finds my throat and seeks approval with his eyes to add some pressure. I nod, and he pushes down, choking me, putting his entire body weight behind his movements. I am completely fucked out on his cock, and he knows it. He looks so fucking good on top of me, I can feel myself approaching my high, and Chris can feel it too.
“You gonna cum for me?” His hand moves to cup my face, slightly squeezing my cheeks together. “Use your words and answer me.”
“Chris, ugh, fuck yes. Don’t fucking stop.”
“Cum with me baby, fuck. Feels so fucking good, shit. I love you so much.”
Did he just say what I think he said? And he called me baby? Before I could even think to respond, we both hit our peaks simultaneously. He releases into me and I feel myself convulse on his cock. We both sigh as we’re coming down from our highs and he places a soft kiss on my neck and turns over to lay on his back beside me. We both lay in silence for what feels like an eternity.
"I'm just gonna clean up real quick. I'll be right back," I say softly. As I start to get up, Chris grabs my hand. "Are we ok?" His voice is shaky as he asks, obviously worried about what he said. My mind races, trying to come up with the least awkward way to have this conversation. All this was supposed to be was hooking up, friends with benefits. But it was clear he had caught feelings, and so had I.
After a few minutes, I come back into my room and Chris is standing at the end of my bed, getting dressed and putting on his jumper.
“Chris… what are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like why are you getting dressed like you’re going somewhere?”
“Because I am? I’m going home, like I always do after we hook up.”
I stare at him waiting for him to look back at me. His eyes finally land on mine.
“What?” he giggles, walking over to me and slips his hands around my waist. “What’s wrong, hm? Everything’s fine, ok. I promise.” He takes a deep breath and pulls my head into his chest. “We can just forget what I said.”
“What if I don’t want to?” I mumble into his chest.
“Y/n… you don’t have to say anything, I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable—“
I cut him off and look up at him. “I love you too.”
A soft smile starts to grow on his face and I swear I see his eyes sparkle.
"Really?" he asks, his voice soft. His grip around my waist tightens. "Because you can't just fucking say that if you don't mean it. And you can't call me baby anymore when we're having sex if we're not, you know, together, I guess. It's too much. But I don't want you to say you love me if you don't mean it—“ I cut him off again by grabbing his face and putting my lips on his as I pull his body closer to me. This kiss is different. We've kissed a thousand times before, but this time is different. My stomach is doing flips and I feel him smile into it which causes me to do the same. We pull away slightly, our foreheads still resting against each other’s.
“I mean it, Chris.”
He smiles, “I love you so much,” he whispers to me one more time.
“I love you too. Now can you please get undressed and hop back into bed with me?” I request, giggling.
“Mhm, but I need to ask you something real quick.” I slightly yet excitedly raise my eyebrows and smile waiting for his question—already knowing what he’s about to ask.
“Will you be my—Jesus fuck, I’ve never asked anyone this before,” he jokingly cringes and we both laugh together.
“Take your time, baby.”
“Will you be my girlfriend?”
notes !
*this is my own original writing. i do not give consent for my work to be published outside of tumblr. i do not give consent for anybody to steal or claim this story as their own*
this is a shorter one but i did cook this up in like 45 mins so please forgive me ! just a lil cute one bc i literally based this off a dream i had the other night 😭 like ????
ANYWAYSSSS ENJOY 🥰
tag list !
@sturncakez @sturnioloa @caroline12b @goandcomebsck @m2tts-slvf @ilovemattsworld @fleurnce @patscorner @freshloveforthefit @sturnioloshacker @mattnchrisworld @sturniolossss @solarsturniolo @strniohoeee
176 notes · View notes
recuira · 8 months
Text
after hours
Tumblr media Tumblr media
after hours : a live action buggy x fem!reader fanfiction
for some odd reason, you have no idea who he is. and he fucking loved that.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
chapter one chapter two chapter three
chapter four | suede. stalking. silly.
his pov;
"Your wanted poster."
Those three words settled in my mind as I stared at the distraught girl in front of me, watching as she fumbled with her hands, a nervous exterior brushing over her. She seemed to be so horrified with the fact that I was once a pirate sought after by thousands- wanted dead or alive, though much preferred dead. Many still wanted me dead but due to my brilliant idea of hiding out here, the chance of anyone getting my bounty was thin. I, however, didn't see it being as much of a big deal as she deemed it so. The real issue I found was tucked away in one of the books within the nightstand which I was so fucking thankful she didn't find. I'd rather her not have been looking around but if she were to find one of the two? I was glad she found the poster.
I tossed another slice of apple into my mouth then set the knife down on the cutting board. I approached Y/N but instantly halted when I noticed how nervous and uneasy she was. "What's wrong?"
"H-How many people did you kill?" She asked, her voice shaking.
"Does that really matter?" I asked, waving my hands up in the air to hopefully exaggerate my point. "It was almost a year ago."
"That doesn't change the fact that it happened!"
"I know, I know." Despite her discomfort, I took a seat next to her anyway. She tightened her arms around herself, almost to make sure there was as much distance between us without her actually moving. Clenching my jaw, I patted my hands upon my thighs. "I know it's a terrible thing, and there's nothing I can do to change that. It's in the past and if I could go back and alter things, I would. Being a pirate was all I knew. My old friend was one, too. Then we separated onto different things and-"
"Did he kill people?"
"Lots of pirates kill people. It's part of the hype, ya know? It's very unlikely to raid another ship without there being any casualties. But I stopped because I got tired of it. I wanted something more."
"It's a pretty big bounty. I mean- come on, fifteen million berries?"
"Don't think about turning me in now," I chuckled, wanting to add a bit of lightheartedness to this unfortunate predicament.
"I'm not like that. I know I'm in need of money but-"
"I didn't mean it like that, Y/N, come on. Give me some slack."
"Well, why exactly did you stop? Did you lose the thrill of stealing from others? O-Or did you get bored of killing innocent people?"
I rolled my eyes, scoffing. "We've all done some shit we're ashamed of. We're humans. I did a lot of fucked up shit," I said as I pointed at myself. "But I changed that. I moved and let all that go. I left my crew, made someone else the captain, and abandoned ship. I left all of that shit behind and came here."
"But why?"
"If I say this, I'll probably make things worse but I don't want to lie anymore," I said as I laid back, folding my hands over my chest. I stared up at the ceiling. "You've obviously heard of the One Piece, right?"
"Of course."
"Well, I was one of those pirates absolutely obsessed with finding it. Fuck, I even dreamt about it. It was the only thing I truly desired in life. It was the only thing I thought about. Not riches, women, alcohol- just the One Piece. I was making somewhat decent progress but then I heard that a group of Straw Hats-" I grimaced at the thought. "-made off with the map which they stole from one of the Marine bases. I happened to track them down and I managed to steal the map from some kid named Monkey D. Luffy. But all good things must come to an end and I lost it. I was back to square one. And then I discovered his bounty was thirty million berries." I frowned then sat up, turning to face Y/N. "Can you believe that? Some newby pirate-wannabe received a bounty double my own! Seeing that brought me back to reality. So I dropped everything then came here."
"All because of him?"
I nodded my head. Just the thought of that kid irked me. There was no one, other than Shanks, who I despised more than my own self.
"So, yeah, I know what I did was fucked up. But there's a reason I'm here now. There's a reason I've given you so much. It's because I want to be a better person, maybe redeem myself for what I've done. And I can do that by helping you, by making your life a little less miserable."
"Do you pity me?" The girl asked, finally meeting my gaze.
"What?" I laughed, almost obnoxiously. "Of course not. If anything, I envy you."
"Me?" Y/N pointed at herself. "You envy me?"
"You have no bad conscience. You've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to make up for. You have a clean slate."
She shrugged, a small smile creeping onto her lips. "Thank you."
"So, uh, do you hate me now?" I asked, forcing a frown to mimic a pouting child. She giggled at this and shook her head. I sighed in relief, wiping 'sweat' from my forehead. "Thank god. I don't know what I'd do with myself if you hated me."
"I knew you were a pirate but it's still shocking to learn about your past. It'll take me a bit to get used to it but I don't hate you."
"So, we're good?" I extended my hand.
"We're good." She shook it.
I felt as if a huge relief was lifted off my shoulders. And as long as she stayed out of the nightstand, there would be no more issues. But if I hid the book, then I would be even more safe. I pondered the possibilities before I watched as she rose from the confines of the bed and approached the counter. My eyes trailed down. The backs of her thighs were exposed and the shorts clung to her ass so divinely. I bit my lip and crossed my leg over my lap.
"I appreciate everything you've done for me," She mumbled as she started to chew on an apple, then began to cut into an orange. "I do have a question for you, though."
"Go ahead, shoot." As soon as she turned around, my eyes met hers and I smiled.
"Are devil fruits real? Or is that just an old tale? I've never seen one up close and I heard they cost a fortune, even for just one alone."
"They're real," I said with a small laugh. "I would know, I've eaten one."
Y/N nearly jumped before she darted over toward me, her hands grabbing at my shoulders. She still had a slice of half-chewed apple in her mouth which made her struggle to properly speak. "WHAT? You- NO! You didn't?!" She let go of my arms and instead planted her hands on my chest, shoving me back. I collapsed back against the bed, laughing. "You ate one?!"
"Years ago, when I was fifteen."
"You're lying!"
"I'm not. It was a mistake actually."
"What happened?"
I chuckled and pushed myself back up. "Give me an orange and I'll tell you."
If my reflexes weren't so quick, the fruit would've hit me in the face with how quick she threw it. But I caught it and began to pick apart the peel. "Easy, next time," I smirked and took a bite from it. "Well, when I was younger and was a pirate-in-training, the crew I was in raided this ginormous ship and hit the motherload. Not only gold and jewels and anything you could think of, but there was also a devil fruit. I found out how much they were worth and tried to steal it but I was caught in a predicament and I tried to hide it in my mouth."
"And?"
"I swallowed it whole."
She gasped, "And you're alive?"
"It doesn't kill you. It just takes your ability to swim when you're in the ocean, in salt water. It's like the sea turned its back on you."
"Did you get a power from it?"
I shrugged and winked at her, taking another bite. I licked the juices from my hand. "Guess."
"You can fly?"
"Ha! Nope."
"Read minds?"
"It's body-altering."
"Wait," The lovely maiden smirked, taking a seat on the bed. "Did it give you that red nose?" She snickered.
"Guess again," I said flatly, my expression turning cold as I stared at her. She gulped, clenching her jaw. I laughed and looked down at my lap, now using one hand to hold the orange. I continued to chew on it. But while she was distracted with her numerous attempts to guess what kind of body-altering power I had, I detached my left hand at the wrist. It floated behind the both of us and tapped on her right shoulder. Y/N jumped up, her head shooting to look at her side. Her eyes widened and her eyebrows furrowed together before she spotted my floating hand waving at her. She gasped and slapped it away. I broke out into a fit of laughter, my hand reconnecting to my wrist. "Impressive, huh?"
"You- what?" She was still flabbergasted.
"I ate the chop-chop fruit. It allows me to pretty much chop any part of my body. Like I can-" To avoid grossing her out, I chopped my left leg from my thigh instead of my head from my neck. She watched in amazement. I smiled at this. "I can disconnect anything from my body from my toes to my ears to my-"
"Even... ya know?"
I winked. "Oh, yeah. That, too."
"That's so cool. How come you haven't done it before around me?"
"I don't know. I just never found a reason to." Shrugging my shoulders, I allowed my leg to snap back. I continued to chew on the orange before finishing it and tossing the peel into a small bin to the left of the bedside table. Y/N finished hers as well. She wiped her hands down on her shirt.
"So, uh," I chewed on my bottom lip. "Do you think you and your mother will be okay?"
"Yeah. We fight all the time. Her drinking doesn't help."
I cringed. "Really?"
"Yeah, she's one of the reasons I hate it so much."
I pursed my lips and nodded my head. I knew I needed to cut back on it but it was something I've done for well over more than half my life. Though, I was destined to do it. Not only for myself, but for her, too. I'd do anything for Y/N. "So," I began, "what do you want to do today?"
"I need to go make up with my mother. That's a big to-do. I can't stand her ever being upset with me." The girl said as she stood up, slipping her shoes back onto her feet. "We can have dinner tonight if you want. Maybe you could meet her."
"Meet your mom?"
"Yeah, why not? She was wondering where all that money came from. She thought I stole it."
"Hell, I don't know. I'm not good with meeting new people."
"Will you, at least, consider it?"
"Sure," I smirked.
"Thank you." Y/N reached for the doorknob, giving it a strong and firm tug before it yanked open. A gush of cold wind washed over her, almost knocking her back. I tossed her my coat to which she whispered another 'thank you' then slipped it on. "I'll see you, Buggy."
"Bye," I murmured with a smile.
As soon as the door shut, I jumped down from the bed and pulled the drawer out from the nightstand, dropping it on the stone floor. I sorted through the numerous books and grabbed the novel I was so fucking thankful she didn't look through. As I opened the cover, the hollowed book had contents that almost spilled out. Papers among papers, among sketches fell out, wafting along the floor. Several notes about Y/N puddled on the floor. One, which was my favorite, was a letter I wrote to her- well, I refused to send it. If I sent it, any last fiber of my confidence would be crushed like a scrambled egg. My fingers lined the rigid edges as I unfolded it.
Messy paragraphs lined both the front and back of the page.
I smiled. How long ago did I write this? I haven't looked at it in so long. I usually added a sentence to it each time I saw Y/N, which is why it was so long. But I stopped pouring my thoughts and desires into it when I actually had the pleasure of speaking to her.
If she saw this, I would kill myself.
I'd purposely jump into the ocean with two anchors attached to my feet.
I looked over the first paragraph,
'I've never wanted something so badly in my life. To say I yearned for her would be a complete understatement. I longed for her, I yearned, I desired- In simple terms, I wanted her. I mean, how could I not? She was an angel. She was a siren. I would purposely listen to her enchanting song, allowing my boat to crash, just if it meant I could be graced by her presence, by her beauty. I was obsessed with her. If she found out my thoughts, my desires, she would never let herself be seen with me. I wouldn't blame her, though. I was obsessive. It was unhealthy, I knew that. But I didn't care. I wouldn't say I loved her because I didn't know what that felt like. I've never experienced it. But perhaps I did love her. I didn't know, I couldn't tell. All I knew was that she was the only treasure I wanted. Not the One Piece, no. Not even that could match up to her alluring person. If I had to travel every sea in order to find her, battle every sea snake in order to touch her, I would. I would in a heartbeat.'
I grimaced, cringing at what I was reading. Thank god, she didn't see this. I didn't even want to see this.
I tucked the papers back into the hollowed-out book, closing it. I slipped the other novels into the drawer then slid it into the nightstand. With the book of secrets, I needed to hide it somewhere she could never find it- where even I struggled to find it. I didn't want to throw it out for I would be completely discarding all of those moments we had together, although she couldn't reconcile them with me because at that time, I was nonexistent to her.
Maybe I could follow my own idea and form my own message in a bottle. I never mentioned her name, nor my own. To an outsider's perspective, it was anonymous.
I shook my head and slipped the book back into the bedside table. She wouldn't be back anytime soon so I had enough time to properly execute a fool-proof plan.
But right now?
I needed to go get another coat.
-=-
her pov;
My mother and I resolved things, just like always. And when she caught wind of a pirate suddenly becoming very fond of me, she begged me to invite him over for dinner. I didn’t think that was the best of ideas. Going out to dinner? Sure! But to have him over? At our house? I cringed at the idea.
She fell ill months ago. Nothing too major, but ever since she’s gotten better, she despises leaving the house and even made me bring her bed downstairs so she could sleep next to the kitchen just in case she had a hankering for something to eat. It was ridiculous, I knew that. But I couldn’t just tell her no. She was my own mother. While I was old enough, I definitely wasn't going to willingly disobey her.
She persisted that I go and grab Buggy so we could have him over for dinner, while I insisted we all go out to eat. She hated the idea and told me that it was her house, her rules.
I grimaced at the thought.
Now, I was just outside Buggy's home, knocking on the stone door. I hoped he was home, though there was no possibility of me being able to ask him prior to my arrival. I knew he was busy. He was a very busy man. I was surprised he made time for me.
With another knock, another silence fell. I groaned and backed up.
My eyes trailing down, I stared at the doorknob and chewed on my bottom lip. He wouldn't care if I waited inside, right? We trusted each other. He knew where I lived and I knew where he lived. As far as I knew, he never crossed any of my boundaries and I definitely didn't cross any of his- well, except for maybe 'snooping' through his nightstand.
Without thinking too much more about it, I grabbed the rusted doorknob, gave it a firm twist, then shoved it open. I almost fell through the doorway.
I caught my balance and stepped inside, closing the door behind me. Without the lantern being lit, it was rather dark, but the bright blue sky helped to illuminate the small room. He must've not been home since I left.
I looked around, admiring everything.
As I took a seat on the edge of the bed, I noticed a piece of paper laying on the floor. It wasn't there before.
I raised an eyebrow and reached to grab it but before I could, the door flung open, a certain blue-haired pirate standing in the entrance. When he noticed me, he smirked. I gulped.
"So, we're breaking and entering, are we?" The man grinned as he took a few paces forward.
"I'm sorry," I murmured, scratching the back of my neck. "I came over to ask you about dinner but you weren't here so I figured I would wait."
"No worries, I'm only teasing."
"So?" I folded my arms, leaning forwards.
"So what?" Buggy questioned as he slipped his coat off. Since when did he get a new coat? And why? I was only borrowing the one he lent me. I didn't plan on keeping it. But I guess now it was okay if I did.
"Dinner? Are you available?"
"Hmm, it depends. What time?"
"I don't know, sometime tonight? Only for two hours or so. My mother wanted to meet you. I told her about you."
"What did you tell her?"
"That you've been a friend of mine for a few weeks now and you've been fortunate enough to treat me and help me out," I said with a smile. "She thought you were my boyfriend." I chuckled.
"Heh, that's rich," Buggy said as he turned around to close the door.
"So? Can you?"
"I guess so. Just don't leave me alone with her. I really don't want to be bombarded with questions." The man said as he folded the jacket over his arm then slung it on the countertop. "Did you tell her about my nose?"
I laughed, confused. "No? Why would I?"
"It's my defining feature. It's hard not to notice it when you see me."
"I didn't tell her. I didn't think it was important. I even forget it's there."
The clown burst out in laughter, his eyes closing as he clutched his stomach and nearly fell back with his fit of giggles. I pursed my lips. "What's so funny?" I asked as I crossed my arms.
"It's cute how you're trying to be nice to me. With a nose like mine, how can you forget it's there?" He replied while wiping a tear from his eye.
I felt flustered with the first part of his monologue but I ignored it and shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know, I just do. It's not all I see whenever I look at you, ya know. It's not my main focus point when we speak. I look at your eyes, not your nose."
"And yet again, you prove to me that you're different than others."
I smiled. "Hope that's a good thing."
Buggy smirked, winking his left eye. "Of course it is."
The pirated approached me before he knelt down and picked up the piece of paper. He examined it for a moment then laughed to himself. "Grocery list," He explained as he shoved the paper into his pocket.
I paid no attention to the paper. It wasn't any of my business. "Speaking of groceries, want to go help me get food for dinner?"
"What's on the menu?"
"No idea, but let's just grab something so she won't be bitching later."
"Guess I'll be needing this again," The blue-haired man said as he reached to grab his jacket. He slipped his arms through and adjusted the collar. "We match now."
"Mine's more vintage than yours." I winked.
"Oh, so it's yours now?"
"No?" I gulped.
Buggy giggled. "It is. I got my own now so no worries about giving it back. Unless you'd like to trade from time to time."
"No, I like this one."
The man looked at me, an eyebrow cocked upward.
I paid his look no attention and instead looked down at the tattered suede coat I wore. I inhaled softly. It smelled like him.
A soft odor mixed with whiskey, coconut, and cinnamon. And while I hated the stench of alcohol, it worked for him.
I couldn't imagine him without it.
460 notes · View notes
klausysworld · 1 year
Note
A random idea, Klaus is really (murder spree) angry Elijah and Rebecca are trying to talk reader into leaving with them but she tells them no, that she knows Klaus won’t hurt her, they are both in shock as they watch her walk up to Klaus speak to him and he totally calms down.
Thanks.
Tumblr media
Because I love you
As I approached the abattoir i could hear glass breaking, a whole lot of screaming and a very distinctive yell, Klaus. Suddenly Rebekah came rushing out, the door swinging dramatically behind her as she ran towards me
“Y/n he’s gone mad, we need to leave now, come on in the car” she spoke in one breath grabbing onto my sleeve as tugging me along
“What happened? Is he okay?” I asked concerned. Suddenly Elijah appeared next to us covered in blood
“He’s prepared to kill every being in this city if not all of America itself for the best that we go away for a bit- you especially, you’re human” he took my hand and tried to coax me into the car
“No what? What happened? Did someone hurt him?” I question, another crash sounded, another scream.
“Look we just need to get out! It’s not safe when he’s like this!” Rebekah whisper yelled starting the car
“Jesus you two are meant to be a thousand years old, I’m going to see if he’s okay” i started walking back but Elijah was directly infront of me again
“Y/n i beg you to reconsider, he will hurt you” i frowned at him and moved around him
“He won’t lay a hand on me” i nodded to myself walking forward a little more confidently. I heard the car stop and both of their footsteps following behind
“He might drain you-“ Rebekah started
“He won’t” i cut her off
I walked in to see bodies nearly everywhere. I quickly ducked as a whole ass chair flew through the air and smashed into the wall behind me. I blinked a few times at it before making eye contact with an apprehensive Elijah who light shook his head ‘no’
I took a breath and turned back to the direction of pain filled terror. I stepped over and/or around the body parts leading to a fuming Klaus, blood splattered everywhere and a white oak stake in his hand that pointed at a man i had never seen who was crying a river
“Klaus?” I asked softly, his head whipped round to face me, his deathly expression dropping as he lowered his hand
“My love you need to go home” he told me, his adams apple bobbing
“Can you put the stake away…why do you even have it? I thought it was destroyed remember?” I asked stepping closer to which he moved backwards
“They want to kill me, it would seem that they discovered another. They need to pay for the harm they have caused and the lives they have threatened” his words grew harsher with each word, his gaze hardening
“Elijah and Rebekah are afraid, please calm down” i whispered and he growled
“My siblings are weak! They will not stand and defend themselves! Defend me! Or you! These people they threatened you! They will die and i do not care if i have to kill off the entire world to make sure every last pathetic excuse of an enemy is dead”
My lips pulled together in a thin line before i spoke again
“Look at him Niklaus, he’s crying, are you even sure that he was apart of this? There’s a dead old man in the corner, i do doubt an 80 year old human could have charged at you with white oak”
“He was collateral” he mumbled
“I thought you were going to try and limit the collateral” i took a few steps closer
“I can’t, not with this” he uttered
“Please, some of these people have families, they have people they love. Klaus i love you, if someone were to kill you and say it was collateral i would not accept that”
“That is why i need to kill everyone so it just cancels out” he frowned
“You’re making a bigger mess, just give me the stake, you trust me right? I’m going to put it somewhere safe so you can’t get hurt. Then you can stop because nobody can kill you without it” he sighed and looked at the weapon hesitantly
“But they can harm you” he whispered almost incoherently
“Then be with me, just stay with me” i held my hand out to him, he nodded nearly unnoticeably and dropped the stake in my hand.
“Let him go please” I instructed and he let go of the man infronts throat, letting him drop to the ground sobbing
“We’re going to go upstairs, calm down for 10 minutes and then I’m going to help you clean this up”
“We are not doing anything of the sort, you should never have to touch such horrible things” he growled
“This is not something anybody should have to do but you made the mess and you will clear it up and because i love you, and so i will help” i yelled back at him. He fell silent and his eyes dropped
“I’ll do it myself” he murmured
“We will help” Elijah called from behind us, i turned and smiled sadly at him, Rebekah was already lifting a body from the ground. Both looking both shocked, terrified and confused at the same time
“No, I’m afraid this is something he needs to do without you, please just relax, no more drama, take a day off” i took Klaus’s hand and pulled him up the stairs to the bathroom. I filled a bucket with warm water and grabbed a cloth
“There’s not much point in a shower until we’ve gotten rid of everything so ill just wash your face” I muttered seeing him glance to the shower
“Okay” he whispered lifting his head to make it easier to wipe clean
Once finished he looked at me silently for a minute or two
“Are you upset with me” he asked quietly
“No, I’m upset with the situation” I muttered
“You’re disappointed” he whispered
“I just don’t like all the death but i understand why you got angry, you just need to wait a minute and think before you act. Please don’t let me find you like that again, Elijah thought you would hurt me.” I stoked his cheek bones with my thumbs
“Did you…think i would hurt you?” He asked softly
“No, you wouldn’t touch me” I confirmed and he sighed, his head growing heavy in my hands as his eyes closed for a second
“I love you and i…i trust you” he uttered
“I trust you too, and you know that i love you. Now are you ready to grab a sponge for the floors…and walls and furniture and-“
“I got it, ill grab a few sponges” he muttered pushing his forehead to mine
“You know if you do it without complaining ill give you a reward later” i whispered to him
“What kind of reward?” He asked with a smile
“Perhaps you can take out your frustration on me? I may even get on my knees for you if you deserve such treatment” a low growl came from his throat as his arms circled my body
“Then we should really get started”
1K notes · View notes
christinarowie332 · 6 months
Text
stupid kids in love
part three to “stupid horny fucks”
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
warnings : angst , SMUT !!!! , kinda fluff . sub chris if u squint . cock warming . m! receiving , f!riding . SMUTTTTTTTT
—————-
“what?” i cut him off , it feels like a punch to the gut . a thousand different things race my mind , the loudest drowning the rest out . what the fuck does that mean .
“look i don’t fucking know what to say . it was a stupid thing to do i know but you don’t understand, i have literally been fucking fighting myself with the knowledge that i am literally obsessed with you . i’m talking like … i can’t actually imagine myself with someone that isn’t you , and i know u shouldn’t have a one time fuck with a friend or someone your in love with but i fucking did , and i’m sorry that i made it awkward and i’m sorry you don’t feel the same and i’m sorry i didn’t tell u before and i’m sorry that i don’t fucking regret it .” chris finishes his incessant ramble and i’m stood frozen . literally everything he has just said was insane . like it feels like a dream . maybe a nightmare.
“chris”
“and i’m sorry that it happened the way it did , i feel like fucking shit knowing that was your first time and it was bad , i wish i could go back and stop myself . i’m so fucking sorry” he cuts me off , basically pleading with me . i wouldn’t be suprised if he got down on his knees and started praying. with all of his apologies ,all i can think about is holding him , he has absolutely nothing to be sorry for , i feel the exact same as he does. so why the fuck am i still frozen. WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU STILL FROZEN .
“chris i love you”
“please just hear me out- wait what” he cuts himself off and meets my eyes . his eyebrows soften before they furrow in confusion. i step forward , taking his face in my hands , searching each of his eyes , watching the tears that were flowing over his cheeks stop . i didn’t notice until now ive been doing the same , they pool on my chin , dripping down my collarbones and soothing the same place he had kissed me a week ago .
“chris i have loved you for years . don’t u dare apologize for anything, i was insecure and overthinking. i don’t regret the sex if you don’t , it was fucking perfect. please don’t run away now .” i say quietly, i silently pray he understands. that he believes me .
“u were the one who ran away” he says , refusing to meet my eyes , it was as if he thought that if he looked up , i would disappear. i grabbed his chin and forced him to look at me , his usual confidence gone in my grip . “and i will spend forever trying to make it up to you chris .” i reply , my lip shaking under my teeth as i try and hold back a sob , he needs me as much as i need him . he’s wanted me as long as i’ve wanted him . i have nothing to worry about .
we stay in silence for a while , before i tug him forward into me . his arms latching around me tighter then ever . i’m not going anywhere, i want to say . but the pressure of his body against mine finally silences the voice in my head , i completely melt in his grip . the scent of his cologne and just him flood my senses as my face rubs against the soft material of his sweatshirt .
he tilts my head to look at him , the blue of his eyes almost gone as the darkness of my hallway makes him seem like a shadow . almost unreal to look at . but he is real . i know this because his lips touch mine in a way they never have before , slowly melting into his touch as his tongue softly caresses mine , his hands move from my back . slowly trailing to my face as he pulls me closer , deepening the kiss impossibly closer . i kiss him back with the same amount of passion. no . love . that’s the only word for how his lips move against mine . how his hand moves to my neck, his thumb brushing against my pulsing veins . he could have his hands wrapped around my neck and i would trust him . i would let him squeeze the last breath of air in my lungs just to have this be my last memory.
i walk him to the wall , my lips never leaving his , his back hits it and as soon as it does he flips us around , pinning my back against the cold object . his body is basically attached to mine as he presses his pelvis to me, slowly rolling his hips against mine as i match the movement. our pace quickens , the soft kiss turns into a hungry one , soft groans as we explore each others body like the first time , his hand reaches towards my thigh and trails towards my knee, lifting my leg as i wrap it around his waist . my hand that was once on his face makes it to his chest as i push him towards my living room , never once breaking contact with his lips .
the moment i feel him hault and hit the edge of the couch , i push him down . immediately straddling his lap and pushing his hair back through my fingers , feeling the soft strands gently slide over my skin . i re-attach our lips , he pulls away but i chase his lips still looking for contact . “y/n this isn’t-“ i kiss him again , cutting him off but he moves back and swerves my attempt to carry on .”y/n listen to me “ i look from his lips up to him, “i need you to know that this isn’t the only think i want . it’s not just for the sex , i want you . i need you. it’s always been you . i should have said that before but i was just-“
“stop apologizing.” i say putting my hands on his chest to i can see him properly, “chris , we were stupid horny fucks , it was both of us , i don’t fucking regret it so just kiss me!” within a second of my words leaving my throat, his lips were on mine again . his hands travel to my ass , lifting me as i grind against him , my hands grab my t-shirt , lifting it over my head . his eyes fly to my chest , before dunking his head into the skin and sucking dark marks into it making my head throw back and my hand to grab his messy hair . after a few seconds i tug on the brunette strands , making his lips detach from my throat and look at me with the most attractive expression i’ve ever seen . his lips were plump and pink, along with his nose and cheeks, his eyes droopy and black as his pupils dilate . his lips were slightly parted so i took the chance to slide my thumb against his bottom lip , pulling it down and watching him squirm underneath my core , feeling his very hard dick against my clothes .
“for someone who doesn’t care about the sex , your little friend sure does …” i whisper while moving my hand to his face , tracing his cheek bone with my thumb gently . moving my hips against the hard object prodding at my pelvis . he whines slightly at the movement, making my lips turn into a smirk , producing a breathy laugh from him . “are you okay with this?” i ask playing with the hem of his shirt , asking to take it off , he nods and starts to help me . i smack his hand , resulting in a very confused look from him , i ignore him and pull it over his head , throwing it to the ground and getting off his lap to kneel in front of the couch. “and …are you okay with this ?” i ask looking up at him through my eyelashes , putting two fingers under the band of his sweatpants , running it across the ragged elastic material . he nods quickly and i take my hand away . “chris , words please baby” i say sitting on my heels and waiting for him to answer me .
“yes, fuck please” he says , letting out the air he was holding in anticipation. i smile at him and place my fingers under the band again , pulling them down . he raises his hips letting the sweatpants free for me too move down his legs , letting them pool around his feet . my hand ghosts over his cock , slowly moving up and down the material of his boxers , feeling him twitch . ”please” he breathes out . “please what?” i reply , loving the power this gave me . i could practically feel the pool between my legs , it should be teasing him but all it’s doing is making me wetter . he doesn’t need to know that though .
“touch . please just touch me y/n” he says , attempting to pull his boxers down. i take the fabric from his hands and pulling it down the rest of the way . his dick springs up and almost hits me in the face , making us both laugh, but he quickly gets serious when i grab his dick with my hand and spit down on the tip . his head throws back , shakey breaths and whines from his throat as i kiss his tip , tongue rolling around the sensitive skin . i take half of him in my mouth, letting my hand work the rest . slowly sliding my head up and down his dick , my lips rolling over his veins as he takes my hair into a makeshift ponytail and pushes he down further . my nails drag into his skin as i try not to gag as his tip hits the back of my throat , leaving red marks down his thigh , lewd sounds coming from both of us as i moan around his cock.
he pulls me up by my hair arruptly , my chest sliding against his dick as i come up , making him shutter and whimper. “what?” i ask , thinking i did something wrong or that he was in pain, “i was literally about to cum down your throat?” he says breathlessly, tilting his head slightly and furrowing his eyebrows .
“and u think i didn’t want that?” i ask as confused as him . he just relaxes and smirks, looking down at my lips and kissing me slowly . i pull away , pushing my sweatpants and my underwear down together , wanting more then anything to feel him inside of me , i straddle him again , letting my folds slide against his dick . he grabs his dick and slides the tip up and down . “jesus y/n” he says , referring to the fact i am basically fucking dripping at this point , i just roll my eyes and change the subject, “you ready?” i say , he smiles . “shouldn’t i be the one saying that?” i just tilt my head at his words , raising my eyebrows. “yes y/n” he continues .
as soon as the words leave his mouth i sink down on him , too fast . i can literally feel myself burn , he notices and kisses my lips again , brushing the hair from my face with one hand , wrapping the other around my waist to lift me up . “you okay” he speaks with concern , i humm in reply and slowly start to lift myself on him . slowly the pain turns to pleasure. feeling him deep inside of me . rolling my hips to get a deeper feeling , i drop my head to the crook of his neck leaving open mouthed kisses on the skin , breathing heavy and letting soft moans fall from my lips as he starts to thrust upwards . his hands are on my waist , before moving to my ass , helping me lift myself on his dick , he grips it hard enough to leave bruises , but the feeling in my stomach overshadows that pain as i feel the knot slowly start to gain more tension.
“chris , mmh, fuck” i breathe out before putting my hands on his chest and pushing myself up to look at him .”chris- FUCK … chris i’m close.” he lets out a strained moan , before nodding frantically and bringing his hand down to my clit , running fast circles on the bundle of nerves . my nails dig into his chest as i half-ball my fists and run them down his chest . he bites his lip harshly , attempting to muffle his own noises, but ultimately the sounds that leave his throat are breathy groans as his dick twitches inside of me .
the room that encapsulates us are filled will loud grunts and high pitched moans as we both completely undone around each other . i clench around him after i feel his warmth shoot inside of me , painting my insides white as i come almost straight after him . a string of curses leave our mouths before i collapse on his chest. listening to his quickened heart beat in my ears , feeling his hands rub up and down my breath as we both come down from our highs .
after a while i go to get up but he stops me . “is anyone home tonight?” he asks me , running his fingers through my sweat drowned hair .
“no why?” i ask , relaxing into his touch . “let’s just sleep like this” he says grabbing a blanket and covering us both on the sofa . i nod and lie back down on his chest , resting my head on his shoulder , breathing in his scent on his neck . he grabs he around my shoulders and wraps his legs around me , swinging us to the side so we can lie down on the sofa properly. his dick slides out slightly so i take the opportunity to wrap my legs around him and push myself closer to him . he lets out a small whimper at the sensitivity and i giggle , apologize and kiss his neck as i get comfortable against his body again .
“hope you know we’re defo not gonna be friends after this” he says , making me look up to him .”ur my girl now , you know that?” he says smiling and placing a small kiss to my forehead .
“yeah i’d fucking think so”
—————
hope i did y’all proud ☝🏻 i feel like im going to hell for writing this .
taglist:
@mangosrar @soursturniolo @biimpanicking @kvtie444@kenzieiskoolaid @urmyslxt @chrisenthusiast @mattslolita @iheart2021chris @parkerssecrets @recklesssturniolo @lovingsturniolo @paper-crab @daddyslilchickenfingers @strniohoeee @ermdontmindthisaccount @sturnphilia @bluesturniolo333 @lustfulslxt @lunarsturniolo @chrisolivia4l @freshlovehacker @its-jennarose @kitaysworld @liz-stxrn @rac00ns-are-c00l4 @flowerxbunnie @mattsbratt @slut4chr1s @oversturn @mbbsgf @fredswh0re @nickenthusiast
222 notes · View notes
ichorai · 2 years
Text
amor ; namor.
Tumblr media
pairing ; namor x mutant!gn!reader
synopsis ; we know what it’s like to be punished for love.
words ; 1.1k
themes ; angst, fluff, mutant au, married au
warnings / includes ; no black panther: wakanda forever spoilers, reader is a mutant and can transform into a creature known as the mishipeshu, brief mentions of a conquistador and mutant bigotry, you and namor bicker like an old married couple <3
part two. main masterlist.
Tumblr media
The feathered serpent god—K’uk’ulkan. Leader, savior, ruler.
That’s what your people called him. But not you.
“Mi amor,” you called out, a small crease of worry divoting between your brows. You rose from the waters and into the expansive cave, glowing a faint green from the bioluminescent sea lanterns, striding up to your husband. “You have yet to eat today. I’m worried about you.”
He glanced towards you, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. His arms extended to you, wrapping an arm around your waist and roping you closer. “I’m sorry—I’ll be down shortly. There’s just a lot on my mind right now.” 
Humming in response, you placed a soft kiss to his cheek, then another to the side of his nose. A satisfied rumble thundered within his chest. With his free hand, he gestured to the rocky wall you were facing. 
You tilted your head upwards, observing his handiwork. It was a grand mural, painted with bright coral pigments and sponge-tipped brushes. Every stroke held a thousand memories, every color a symbolic tale. It was no wonder Namor spent hours upon hours here.
“That’s me,” you whispered, stepping closer to the wall. It wasn’t you in your human form—it was an intricate drawing of Mishipeshu, as the land-dwellers called you when you transformed. There were about a couple dozen humans with spears pointed towards the creature. A lump formed in your throat. You could feel a tar-like darkness stain your insides at the memory. The surface-people were once your friends, but that was a lifetime ago. 
“It was the day we met,” Namor susurrated, vibranium jewelry jingling as he strode towards the other side of the cave, where another painting resided. “When I found out you were not like the other Talokans—a mutant, like me.”
“That was not a pleasant memory. The humans I once trusted, betrayed me. They were hurting me and I… I thought you were going to do the same. I nearly killed you,” you sighed wistfully.
At that, Namor whirled around, arching a brow as he stalked back to you. “If I remember correctly, I almost killed you.” He leaned closer with a smug look etched over his features, only mirroring your steps every time you shuffled back. 
“I am nearly sure I was winning that fight.”
His low chuckle reverberated through the cave. “I beg to differ.”
“I broke your arm!”
“I cut your tail off.”
“And then I married you not long after,” you gruffed with a scowl, gently shoving his face away when he backed you into a corner. “Besides, my tail grew back a month later—no thanks to you.”
“And who was the one that proposed marriage?” Namor leered, grabbing your wrists to keep you from swatting him.
A low growl caught in your throat. “You are insufferable, my love.”
He barked out a laugh. “As are you, mi vida.”
Then, he kissed you. It was a kiss of contrasts—his cold jewelry pressing flush against your sweltering skin, and his lips rough as his nose softly slotted against yours. The silence was loud, nearly deafening, only thickening as he crowded you against the wall, the damp stone scratching almost painfully against the bare skin of your back. But you didn’t care.
“Amor,” you croaked, when his lips left yours, trailing down your jaw, to your quivering throat, to your heaving cleavage. He hummed in question, wordlessly asking you what was on your mind. “Why me? Why did you choose to save me?”
“Because I saw myself in you,” he replied easily, letting go of your wrists so he could press a frigid palm flat over your sternum. He could feel the frantic thumping over your heart pulse, only seeming to quicken the longer he stared at you. “Because you’re the only one that can truly understand me.”
“Because we’re mutants?”
Namor regarded you silently, before dipping his head to kiss you, much slower this time. When he pulled away, he whispered, “Because we know what it’s like to be punished for love.”
You studied him with wide eyes—the emerald luminescence cast arching shadows over his face, and for a moment you understood just why everybody called him a god. He certainly looked like one. 
But your love was not a god. He was a man—a man that lived through repeated nightmare after nightmare. A man who’d seen too much for a single lifetime. A man left with a legacy that he never asked for. 
A man with mutant powers—like yours.
Did that make you a god?
To the surface-dwellers, that made you a monster.
“I love you,” he muttered into you, lifting his head to meet your eyes steadily. They were narrowed, dark and observant, as if searching you for any sign of regret. He uttered those words very sparsely, usually in the dead of night when you were already sound asleep, or when one of you had to leave Talokan for a long period of time.
The land-roamers called him Namor, a man without love—but he had so much to give to you. The love he harbored for you laid heavy and stagnant within his chest, clinging to every bone of his ribcage, to every pump of his heart. It was tricky and unfamiliar to deal with at first—because the only time he’d ever loved someone this much was for his mother. He was not talented in the art of love, that was certain.
He was never one to be insecure. But with a name such as Namor so deeply ingrained into his being, he could only wonder if that was perhaps true. A Spanish conquistador used his dying breath to call him devil-born, undeserving of love. 
Was there truth to his words? Did he have your love in return? And if he did, would he deserve such love?
“You think so loudly,” you said, tilting your head. You kissed the corner of his mouth. Once, twice, thrice. He would do anything for a fourth. “I love you, amor. It’s like you said before—I was the one that wanted to marry you, remember?”
Your husband huffed, smiling fondly at the memory. “Mmh, very adamant about it, as well—”
“It’d be wise if you didn’t finish that thought, K’uk’ulkan.” 
Playfully, he narrowed his eyes. “You’ll have to make me, Mishipeshu.”
You surged forward and slanted your lips against his once more, and Namor reciprocated with an equally passionate vigor.
Yes, he thought, as your muffled laughter rang through the cave whilst you kissed him, throwing your arms over his neck, he had your love. And he most definitely deserved it, too.
3K notes · View notes
reysdriver · 1 year
Text
Keeping Secrets | P.P.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Your boyfriend Peter shows up at your window in the middle of the night and asks for your help — peter x gn!reader angst with happy ending
warnings: blood, injury, angst
words: 1.2k
Tumblr media
It was almost 1 o'clock in the morning, and you were still working on a report for school. You were sitting on your bed with your laptop on your legs, and you were starting to get tired. You were just about to put away all of your work and go to sleep, but then you felt your phone vibrating against your leg.
You picked it up, and saw that it was your boyfriend, Peter Parker, trying to call you.
You were confused as to why he was trying to call you this late, and then a scary thought poked itself into your exhausted mind that it was an emergency, so you answered the call.
"Hey, Peter, what's up? Are you alright?"
His voice sounded pained as he answered. "Yeah, I'm good."
"So why are you calling me at one in the morning?"
"Umm," he hesitated. "I need to drop by your place for something really quickly."
"Babe, it's really late and I was just about to go to sleep. I don't-"
"I'm out on the fire escape right now. I just need your first aid kit and maybe a place to crash for the night." 
"What?" You mumble, standing up and going to look out your window. 
Sure enough, your boyfriend was on the fire escape of your apartment, right outside your window. You quickly raised the bottom pane of your window, letting him come into your bedroom. As he passes you and sits on your floor, leaning against your bed, your eyes scan the injuries, blood, and bruises all over his body and face.
"Oh my god, Peter, what happened to you?" You asked him, sounding slightly out of breath due to your surprise and the fact that you haven't spoken in hours. 
"I'm fine, don't worry about me." He said, obviously avoiding your question.
"Don't worry about you?!" You almost shouted, but caught yourself and started whisper-yelling so your family wouldn't wake up.
"Yeah, like I said, (y/n/n), I just need your first aid kit and a place to sleep."
"No, you need to tell me what's going on right now." You demanded in a still hushed, but firm tone.
"I just need to clean myself up so nothing gets infected. I would go home but Aunt May can't know about this, and her night shift just ended, so she should be back home at any minute."
He stood up from your bed and headed towards your bedroom door. You quickly rushed in front of him and told him to stay.
"No, I'll get it. Just stay here for a second." You told him, heading out to your bathroom to find any first aid supplies you could find.
After a minute, you came back to your bedroom with your arms full of bandages and other medical supplies. When you walked in, quietly closing the door behind you, you found your boyfriend lying down on the ground against the footboard of your bed.
"Hey, you're back." He said in a hushed tone. "I didn't want to get blood on your bed, so I just sat on the floor."
"Thanks." You mumbled, crouching down next to him. "Arms up."
Peter brought his arms up over his head and you pulled off his dirtied shirt, placing it beside you both.
"Holy-" You gasped lightly as you saw the amount of small wounds and bruises that were covered before. You had seen him injured before—he's a clumsy kid who likes to skate, so of course—but never like this.
A thousand different thoughts raced through your head on how this all happened, but you weren't going to ask if he wasn't going to tell you and answer.
Pushing away the thoughts you now deemed irrelevant, you went back to helping him. You poured some rubbing alcohol onto a washcloth and started dabbing it onto his cuts.
As you cleaned his wounds, he thanked you multiple times, and you ignored him every single time.
As you rubbed over a particular cut of his, he winced, then quickly explained that it was just because a lot of alcohol soaked into his skin at once.
"Oh, now you'll explain why you're in pain?" You muttered under your breath in annoyance.
"What?" He asked, looking up into your eyes.
"Nothing." You brushed him off, without stopping the cleaning of the injuries on his chest. "I just don't get why you won't tell me what happened to you."
"I told you not to worry about me." He said, gently placing a finger on your jaw.
You brushed his finger away from you, and argued back, careful not to speak too loudly.
"But I am going to worry about you because you're my boyfriend! And my boyfriend shows up outside my window in the middle of the night, covered in blood and he tells me it's nothing? Of course I'm going to be upset over that!"
"Just trust me when I say there's a reason I can't tell you what's going on, okay?" Peter said.
"No, I'm not going to do that." You said, your eyes filling up with tears. "I'm going to help clean you up so you don't die, I'll give you a place to sleep, but I'm sleeping on the chair and I want you gone by tomorrow morning."
Wanting to dry your tears and hide your vulnerable face from the boy sitting in front of you, you stood up, trying to escape the situation. You felt Peter's familiar hand grab your wrist, stopping you from leaving him.
"(y/n), please just stay." He said with a sigh.
"No, Peter, unless it's you explaining everything, I don't want to talk right now."
"(y/n), I'm Spider-Man." He confessed.
You turned around and he let go of your hand. "What?" You asked him.
"Hand me my backpack." He said, pointing to the constantly-ripped bag that he dropped by your window. You picked it up and handed it to him.
He unzipped the second zipper on his bag and pulled out the red and blue suit that you, and about half of New York, had seen online and in some police reports on the news.
"I'm Spider-Man. I go around stopping criminals and helping good people, and I just got in a fight trying to take down some guys who were trying to rob a jewelry store a few blocks away."
"So you're not in the mob or some secret fight club?" You asked, drying your tears with the end of your sleeves.
"No, of course not." He said as you crouched down next to him again.
"Good." You said, kissing his forehead. "But don't ever lie to me again or I promise I'm going to leave you out on the fire escape next time you call me."
"Deal." Peter said, a new smile gracing your face.
Tumblr media
480 notes · View notes
mysticficti0n · 10 months
Note
hey doll can you do fem!reader dating Tom and she's a model and she gets asked to do a lingerie shoot and she's questioning to do it or not and Tom convinces her with little flirty comments and then on the day he comes to pick her up and she's still posing in this black lacy stuff on a bed and he's watching until she notices and he asks if they can take the pieces home????
love you 🤭
girl yes yes yes
∞༺♥༻✧✧༺♥༻∞  ∞༺♥༻✧✧༺♥༻∞ 
rip it off
warnings- flirty, angst??, model!gf+TomK
words- 744
Tumblr media
"okay thank you- bye" I cut the call and looked to see Tom giving me a questionable look "I've been asked to do a 'fall lingerie' shoot next Wednesday, but I don't know" yes I model but usually fully clothed, I'm not very confident about every inch of my body and Tom knew that "what if I just look like a idiot?"
"babe you wont look like an idiot, I've seen you In lingerie thousands of times and every time It happens oddly enough it ends up with you in my bed and that on the floor" he smiled moving from his place on the sofa to be closer to me "plus Y/n you are sexy as fuck, men are lucky to even look at you and I'm the luckiest because I get to come home to you and do this" he pressed his lips to mine and I couldn't back away from a kiss from Tom, who could?
"what If my dad see's it? god that also means my horrid step-mom too!" I cringed at the thought of those two seeing me nearly naked, dad hadn't been a large part of my life until I started gather fame at 16 for acting in adverts, then dating Tom in one of the most famous bands in Germany and now a world-known model
"so what of they see it? he has a gorgeous daughter who has a successful career unlike him who owned a car company that went bump and his wife looks like Jabba the hut so you have nothing to worry about" I laughed pressing a kiss to his cheek "I'm not wrong- but anyways I think you should do it babe I mean you're the fucking most beautiful girl I've ever seen and I know everyone else would agree"
"fine I'll do it, and thank you you're such a sweetheart when you want to be" I drew circled on his palm seeing him let a small laugh out
"yeah wait till I come see you on Wednesday"
∞༺♥༻✧✧༺♥༻∞  ∞༺♥༻✧✧༺♥༻∞
"thats it Y/n push that hip out hun" I was stood in a make-shift door frame with bright white lights making my skin glow while wrapped in a night black lacy piece "okay I think we need you on that bed, and how good can you arch?" I felt a blush come to my face as we walked to the bed
"pretty well..." I climbed onto the plush fabric and watched as they fixed the camera onto me "where do you want me to look? camera or just off it?" I asked Jenna who stood smiling at me
"erm look to the camera and then we can try other stuff but doll you look stunning right now- so ready?" I nodded sliding down the bed and pushing my ass up as much as I could and stared into the lens, the camera clicked a few times and people switched lighting and my make-up until I herd a familiar wolf whistle fill the room, I looked over to where Jenna and the editor were sat and saw in the shadow behind them was Tom sucking his lip, I blew him a kiss and carried on with my shoot, I found myself pushing my positions more as his eyes laid upon me
"okay can we get one of you in the shower? but change into that baby pink set first and Pablo will come lighten your make up because we want cutie in the shower vibe okay?" Salma rubbed my shoulder letting me off set to change, I walked to Tom who sat playing his lip pricing, I purposefully swayed my hips a little more and let a salutary smile come on my face
"afternoon" I hummed feeling his hands immediately go around my waist "you okay?" he stood towering over me pressing a kiss to my forehead
"I'm amazing" his eyes drew narrower, he lowered his head so his mouth was next to my ear "need some help getting this off my love?" his tone sent shivers down my body and all I could do was nod, his hand slipped down to the globe of my ass giving it a quick squeeze before looking to Jenna who had a smirk along her lips "can we take these home?" Tom asked referring to the lingerie "and maybe some spares in case" I hit my boyfriends shoulder as a red shade covered my face
"damn Y/n didn't see you as a girl to have her clothes ripped off" she giggled winking at me
"right well I'll go change" I quickly walked to the backroom and I herd heavy steps follow behind me
"don't fuck for too long!" Jenna called as Tom shut the door after him
224 notes · View notes
commonghost · 6 months
Text
100 Epitaphs thoughts!
Alright, so like I said yesterday, I unfortunately did NOT have the time to write out all my thoughts and had to wait until tonight to do so. No particular order to these, it's word vomit time.
(warning: this is LONG. it's not even all my thoughts. i cut myself off at parts. this song is so good guys.)
1) YURA AS THE SUN!
I'VE BEEN FUCKING SAYING AND IT KEEPS BEING THERE AND I KEEP GOING INSANE ABOUT IT. especially in conjunction with the fact that, yknow, the sun hurts sanya. the icarus symbology is THERE it is PRESENT i KNOW this is gonna down that awfully (sanya please dont die. but also that would be the perfect resolution. GOD) and i'm so ready for it.
ALSO: "ready to be blinded by the breaking day" -> "the visionless (sergei) leading the blind (sanya)", and we know she's got bad eyesight. doesn't mean it couldn't get worse. the lines "loose compromise / where the sun won't set / as long as i can set the stage" are also interesting wrt yura-as-the-sun, as you can take it both as sanya saying that as long as she has any kind of control she will stick with yura and help him in whatever insane plan he's got going on, but it's also her saying that she will always, always make the choice to put herself in danger.
yura is the bright relentless sun, and sanya's got very sensitive wings.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
2) the parallels between sergei and sanya!!!!
i think what really fucks me up about them is that, at their core, both of them just want to keep the people they care about the most safe. for sergei, that's sanya (and olga, but she's a grown woman who makes her own decisions while sanya's his little sister and also his only remaining family, so it's different), and for sanya it's yura (who, to her, represents freedom—"but the wiser you is [FREE]"—and an escape from her current life, which is everything she dreams of.) and it absolutely ruins their relationship!!!! and it ruins me!! every time!!!!
and on that note, "the tepid autumn day is starting to thaw" is 1. a genius a callback ("a thousand years ago it was a tepid autumn day" + "a day will come warm and bright when i tear down these dismal shelter walls"), and 2. a signifier that shit is about to Get Real. even if you don't read the explanation in the doc, we still understand that the action is going to pick up like crazy very soon. i believe someone also mentioned how it could represent sergei and sanya's relationship going downhill, although im not the expert on that so i wont do more than mention it.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
3) this was SUCH a good dive into sanya's character.
honestly her songs have consistently been my favorite of the lot and i think it's because her personality and her character are just. perfect for these kinds of character studies.
this entire song is at once her forcibly entering herself into the narrative after being so completely seperate from it for like, the entire series up to now (there were some very good posts by some very skilled people on this exact topic but alas i have lost the links to it, if anyone has them lmk) and ALSO an exploration of her trauma (almost everyone she knows seemingly dying on her or disappearing from her life in another sense) in such a fascinating way.
there is such a depth to all her actions here and the song explains why she clings on to yura as much as she does, and it's because he's (along with sergei, but she resents him for isolating her) all she has left, really! of course, there are the BG gang, but they aren't as involved in the story and sanya doesn't seem to be as close with them as she was with yura. it also gives another dimension to her wanting to join in rescuing KT: this isn't just her wanting to rebel and/or do something with her life (both of those things already being associated with anya & yura respectively) but her having the chance to get someone she cared about back into her life after they were taken from her. of course she'd want that, after a lifetime of losing people.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
a bit of an extension to that last point, i think it's also really incredible how ferry manages to portray how complicated sanya's relationship with yura is. i find these two shots in particular ->
Tumblr media Tumblr media
<- really interesting, because they are actually really similar! i think it's a great way of showing how sanya is both angry and resentful of some of yura's worst traits and refuses to stand for them, but that they are still at the end of it all friends who have fun together. they're just kids who have no idea what they're getting into! if you look closely at the second one, she's shushing him for being too loud. (hell, i'd be willing to bet that she probably felt similar to how she felt before yura snuck her out to her first party right then.)
her (budding) dynamic with dima is also quite fascinating, and manages to say so much about her, her thoughts about KT, and dima all at once. it's just masterful. her segment with him displays:
the fact that she deeply cares about KT, and wants this to go as perfectly as possible, even going so far as to put herself in more danger than necessary.
her absolute determination to get this done, even though she knows she won't make it out unscathed ("i'm aware no soul can enter / roam its halls / and come out clean")
her feelings about her family and how she perceives herself and the legacy she has been given ("and it's like that / and i'm like that / and i'll always bear this stone")
dima feeling actual empathy after meeting another mutant! poor guy has no idea what's going on. but i think it's a really important step in his character and might even get him to actually open up.
i need to stop with this section before it takes over the whole post.
4) KATA-FUCKING-BASIS! (and eurydice!)
(thank you light for teaching me that word)
not much to say about this one but the descent-into-the-underworld vibes are off the fucking charts! we got death imagery with katya already with THIS:
Tumblr media
and so, in a way… whoever makes the trip to the facility? to retrieve katya? the metaphorically dead girl? that's a trip to the underworld, baby! that's katabasis!
and you know who else goes through katabasis to retrieve a girl from the underworld and bring her back out?
that's right!
ORPHEUS!
which. like. we already kind of knew it, but.
this plan isn't gonna work out well, is it.
113 notes · View notes
Text
North To The Future [Chapter 15: Drive] [Series Finale]
Tumblr media
The year is now 2000. You are just beginning your veterinary practice in Juneau, Alaska. Aegon is a mysterious, troubled newcomer to town. You kind of hate him. You are also kind of obsessed with him. Falling for him might legitimately ruin your life…but can you help it? Oh, and there’s a serial killer on the loose known only as the Ice Fisher.
Chapter warnings: Language, alcoholism, addiction, murder, violence, character deaths.
Word count: 7.3k.
Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.
Taglist: @elsolario​ @ladylannisterxo​ @doingfondue​ @tclegane​ @quartzs-posts​ @liathelioness​ @aemcndtargaryen​ @thelittleswanao3​ @burningcoffeetimetravel​ @poohxlove​ @borikenlove​ @myspotofcraziness​ @travelingmypassion​ @graykageyama​ @skythighs​ @lauraneedstochill​ @darlingimafangirl​ @charenlie​ @thewew​ @eddies-bat-tattoos​ @minttea07​ @joliettes​ @trifoliumviridi​ @bornbetter​ @flowerpotmage​ @thewitch-lives​ @tempt-ress​ @padfooteyes​ @teenagecriminalmastermind​ @chelsey01​ @anditsmywholeheart​ @heliosscribbles​ @killerqueen-ofwillowgreen​ @narwhal-swimmingintheocean​ @tillyt04​ @cicaspair418​ @fan-goddess​ 
A/N: This is the fic I almost never wrote because I didn’t think anyone would be interested in some random, angsty, 1990s, Alaskan, crime-thriller AU. Thank you for proving me wrong. I hope you enjoy the ending. 💜
Almost everything about your existence is pure chance; it’s the most freeing and horrifying truth imaginable. There’s the genetic lottery and corporate downsizing, revolutions and hurricanes, plagues, asteroids, famines, faulty airplanes and malignant blooms of cells and drunk drivers. There are 100 billion planets in this galaxy and your atoms ended up on the one called Earth. After all that, do you really think what you want matters? So make all the choices you like, all the nail-biting deliberations and promises and vows, weigh costs and benefits, do research, roll dice, ask astrologers and palm readers, start over every New Year because that’s something we tell ourselves is possible. The fact that you exist at all is one big cosmic coin flip. If you think you’re the one driving, you’re dead fucking wrong. You’re the speck of dust on a windshield, the spin of a roulette wheel. You’re a flash of silver in the universe’s pinball machine.
I spend a lot of my time thinking about chance, okay? My family is one of the wealthiest in the Western Hemisphere, and I didn’t do anything to earn that. I was born first, and I definitely didn’t do anything to earn that, Jesus Christ, what a chromosomal fuckup. I inherited an affliction that others get to live without. I can’t imagine what it feels like to wake up and not be horrified by myself, my shortcomings, my failures: too small, too stupid, too wild, too weak. And the first time someone says something like that to you, you want to apologize, you want to drop to your knees and cling to them and beg for absolution, maybe even the first hundred times, the first thousand. And then it just starts to piss you off. Yeah, I know, I’ve heard it all before, why would you expect anything different? Isn’t this getting old, Mom? Maybe you’re the stupid one, Dad, if you think you could cut me and anything but disappointments would fall out. I’m not horrified by the fact that I’m an addict. The horror came first. The horror is what led to all the rest of it.
One day when I was in 10th Grade—I was slumped way down in my chair and drinking vodka out of an Evian water bottle—my American History teacher, purely by chance, assigned me to make a poster about Juneau, Alaska. Some other kid got Los Angeles (Hollywood! The Whisky a Go Go!) and another got Chicago (the Mob!) and another got Nashville (Johnny Cash!) and some jock moron I hated got Baltimore (um, crabs? the War of 1812…?), but I got fucking Juneau, Alaska. I thought this was so unjust that I never forgot it, the fact that I had to get up in front of the class with my pathetic Crayolas-and-magazine-cutouts poster and pretend that Juneau was a place that mattered, that microscopic cloud-covered relic of a late-1800s gold mining settlement on the shores of the Gastineau Channel. Juneau was never on my list of cities to run to. It just wasn’t. It didn’t have anything I wanted. But when I started thinking about places where I could really disappear, where no one would ever bother looking, where days are short and dark and incurious and irrelevant…well, that sounds like Juneau, right?
Let me tell you something about the night I left. I’ve been more messed up, yeah, and I’ve hurt people worse, and I’ve been closer to death, I’ve been one more powder-white gram on the scale away from oblivion; but I’ve never felt that fucking low. I can’t decide if I wish I’d never gone to Juneau at all. I can’t decide if it was a blessing or a curse.
My flight is a red-eye with a layover in Ketchikan, American Airlines, bound for Seattle. Sunfyre has the window seat. He’s wearing the bright red Service Dog vest that I once stole for him specifically for such occasions. My dog fly with the cargo? My dog?! Bill Clinton will be elected pope first. Sunfyre is chewing contently on Milk-Bones and watching the sun rise over the Pacific Ocean. He knows the drill. We’ll touchdown and deplane, and then…and then…
And then we’ll start over again somewhere new. I’ll find a flight board and pick a destination; Seattle is a hub, with spokes leading everywhere. I could go south, to Galveston, Lafayette, Biloxi, someplace where it gets hot, someplace where I can sweat her out of me, purge every cell that still remembers what she felt like. I could go west, fading into mountains or cornfields, vapid infinitesimal towns in Montana, Iowa, Idaho, Nebraska. I could go to New England or the Great Lakes or freaking Hawaii, sleep in hammocks, swim with sea turtles, drink my rum and Cokes out of coconut shells. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that nowhere really sounds good to me. My legs are suddenly tired of running. There’s an ache that rattles down to the bone.
I don’t have to tell you that I love her, right? It’s not so easy for me to say. But it’s true, and it’s beautiful, and it’s torture, and it’s a dream. It’s pain that flays you alive and then builds you back again, layers of fresh muscle and tendons and veins growing over ribs and vertebrae like a trellis thick with ivy. It’s not a high. It’s just the best life can get down here on earth. It’s the ocean, it’s the Northern Lights.
I’m swimming in a black hoodie that is three sizes too big; I haven’t slept and I’m pale and raccoon-eyed, looking like death, feeling worse. When the stewardess rolls by with her clattering cart just slim enough to fit through the aisle, I order a cup of water for Sunfyre and a double rum and Coke for myself. It arrives with two blood-red cherries bobbing in a caramel-dark carbonated sea. The guy in the next seat over gives me a judgmental little eyebrow raise.
“That doesn’t look like breakfast,” he says.
I bite off both cherries—juice dribbling down my chin, wiped away with a sleeve—and throw the stems over my shoulder. The lady sitting behind me yelps in disgust. “Because it’s dessert.”
The man smiles and shakes his head, one of those I shouldn’t find it funny but I do sort of looks. I inspire a lot of those. He’s maybe mid-thirties, long hair and ripped jeans, very punk rock, cool as hell. There is a constellation of pins on his denim jacket. One of them has a roman numeral 10 on it, a stark X nestled inside a triangle. Unity, Service, Recovery, the gold letters say. To Thine Own Self Be True. It’s an Alcoholics Anonymous pin. What are the chances?
He catches me staring, and I ask: “Does it really make you a better man?”
“It doesn’t make you better. It just makes you real.” He smiles again, patient and kind. “It makes your emotions and experiences real, your relationships real. And so you become whatever version of yourself you were always supposed to be. But you have to want it. Not your wife, not your parents or your kids, not your pastor, not your friends, not your parole officer. You.”
I speak without knowing what I’m going to say. “I want it.”
“Yes, I think you do.”
He sees a lot, I think, as the plane descends into the grey fogbank of Seattle. 20/20.
When we land, the man squeezes into a cab with me and Sunfyre—he sniffles into a Kleenex for a while before reluctantly admitting that he’s allergic to dogs—and pays the fare. The cab’s worn brakes squeal to a stop outside a residential treatment center on the banks of the Puget Sound. When we step out onto the sidewalk, I ask the man if he’s going to take me to get one last drink first. He laughs in my face. Fucking jerk.
He pulls out a black Sharpie and rummages through his pockets, his wallet. He can’t find a scrap of paper. He writes his phone number on the underside of my arm instead. “You call me, okay?” he says. “Call me when you get out. Call me before you get out, if you need to. I don’t care if it’s in five minutes, I don’t care if it’s at 2 a.m. You just make sure you call.”
“Why would you do this? I mean, you don’t even know me. You have no idea who I am.”
“Because once, years ago, someone did the same thing for me, and someone did it for her too. Maybe one day you’ll be able to pay it forward. I don’t care who you are or where you’ve been. It doesn’t matter to me. I’d like to think that we’re all more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”
And then he waits for me to go inside. He doesn’t leave until he watches me check in at reception on the other side of the rain-flecked glass. Outside, a brand new day is beginning. A misty sun rises as pieces of the sky fall.
Sunfyre trots into the lobby alongside me, panting cheerfully, shaking the perpetual Seattle drizzle from his fur. There’s a girl at the front desk, just a girl, and that’s the other thing that’s different now. She’s not a maybe-future-one-of-my-girls. She’s just like anyone else. I already have a girl. I mean, I don’t anymore, not really. But I still do.
I throw my things onto the counter: my single suitcase, my tattered wallet, my bundle of cash held together with rubber bands, my scraped-up electric guitar.
“Checking in?” the girl asks.
“Yeah.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes, I guess.”
She opens my wallet, reads my license, blinks in bewilderment. “Aegon…?”
I sigh dramatically. “It’s Greek.”
~~~~~~~~~~
You dream of him; and when you do, he’s always smiling. He’s reading your palm in an empty Taco Bell, he’s kissing you under the Northern Lights, he’s regaling your parents with stories—of lobster fishing in Portland, of cattle ranching in Denver—all through Thanksgiving dinner, he’s undressing you in his moonlit apartment, he’s climbing into your bed. He’s not angry, he’s not ruined, he’s not running away. He’s exactly as you remember him in his best moments. He’s all chaotic white-blond hair and weightless light, sharp laughter and bright eyes. And each morning there’s a splinter-thin moment before you remember that he’s gone. That’s the worst part, really. You always knew it would be. You can’t even begin to forget him.
Your friends want to help you, but they don’t know how. Neither do your parents. Your dad gets an atlas from the study, throws it down on the dining room table, and opens it to a map of the world. “Pick anyplace and we’ll go there,” he says. “We’ll close the vet clinic for two weeks and we’ll all go.” But you can’t give him a single name: not Athens, or Paris, or Buenos Ares, or Cairo, or New York City, or Rome, or Tokyo, or anywhere else for that matter. It’s the strangest thing. All your life you’ve been waiting to get out of Juneau, but now nowhere sounds good to you. And maybe that’s a lesson you wish you’d never learned: sometimes freedom is less about places than it is about people.
The blood on the equipment recovered from Trent’s apartment matches DNA from the first three victims. He is charged with eight counts of first-degree murder and held awaiting trial in the Lemon Creek Correctional Center. His family visits him faithfully each week. His lawyer is exasperated that he won’t plead guilty and spare his parents the humiliation and expense of a protracted court battle. But Trent’s story never changes: he’s innocent, he’s never killed anybody, he doesn’t understand how the blood could have been found on his belongings. He wants to know exactly what items the police tested; he and his lawyer are still waiting for the prosecutor to turn over all the details during discovery. In the midst of the scandal, the upheaval, you fade into the backdrop like the stars behind fog. People talk around you and through you. They offer gaps that you don’t care enough to fill in. Drinks clink, whispers fly, conspiracies are exchanged between pool shots. You watch the days grow longer and wait for the future to arrive. You don’t know what it will look like, you can’t even begin to fathom it. But surely there must be a future. Life goes on. It did for your mom after Jesse. It will for you too.
A week after Aegon leaves, there is a knock at your parents’ front door. You open it to find Aemond standing there in the muted amber-pink afternoon light. His hair is long and loose, his Armani suit immaculately tailored, his BlackBerry nestled in his right hand. He glances up from it at you and his jaw falls open. And only then do you realize how awful you must look.
You tell Aemond, your voice hushed and heavy, ankles in quick-drying cement: “I don’t know where he is.”
“No, I can see that,” Aemond replies, dull horror in his blue eye. Then he turns around and strides halfway down the driveway towards the street, where a cab idles as it waits for him, engine exhaust pouring into the air like smoke from a firepit.
“How’s your dad?” you call after him when you get your bearings.
He pauses under the dwindling light. “Alive. For now.” And then Aemond considers you for a while. “I suppose if I ever want to find you again, I know where to look.”
You nod. “I’ll be here.”
I’ll always be here.
A month crawls by like a wounded animal, dead leaves snared in the fur of its belly. The flesh on your thigh knits back together. The things that Aegon ordered show up in Juneau, packages left on the front porch and stuffed into the moose-shaped mailbox like Christmas gifts in a stocking. You pack these remnants of him—Zoobooks and cooking accessories, knives and Chia Pets—into a cardboard box and tuck it away in a dusty, cobwebbed corner of the attic, and you’re aware the entire time that this has happened before, almost exactly twenty years ago. When your dad puts a Third Eye Blind or Red Hot Chili Peppers or Oasis album on his record player, you find some excuse to leave the room. When you tack magazine cutouts of beaches and cityscapes to your bedroom walls, all you can think about is where Aegon might be now. You wonder where he works during the day, a surf shop or a construction site or a farm or a fishing boat; you wonder who he spends his nights with.
I’ll always be here. Even if I leave, I’ll always be here.
~~~~~~~~~~
Twenty years ago to the day, almost to the hour, a man fell into the Gastineau Channel and drowned. They found water in his lungs, though the autopsy was only a formality, an afterthought; Jesse had a reputation in Juneau, and no one was particularly surprised to see how his story ended. There were abrasions on his back and shoulders, contusions on his wrists, but so what? He probably tripped half a dozen times before he tumbled over some guardrail and into the frigid black water. There was a bloody mess of an impact wound on the side of his face, but who cares? The blood alcohol concentration doesn’t lie. The man was wasted, and more than that he was a waste. If his premature demise hadn’t been then, it would have been later, in a week or a month or a year. And when someone like that goes, there’s a sigh of relief that accompanies the misery, isn’t there? There’s the sense of a weight being lifted from a scale.
You’re sitting in Ursa Minor at the usual booth, but the bar is practically empty. It’s Valentine’s Day. Joyce is with Rob, Kimmie is with Brad; Heather’s parents have spirited her away on a short vacation to Sitka to try to take their minds off Trent’s imminent lifelong incarceration. Your mom and dad’s February 14th tradition is cooking a homemade Italian dinner together—pasta, bread with herbs and olive oil, caprese salad, tiramisu—and then settling in for a romantic Blockbuster rental. This year, it’s Runaway Bride. Your mom loves Julia Roberts. They didn’t ask for privacy, but you gave it to them anyway. Kimmie offered to drop you off at Ursa Minor and then drive you home after her date with Brad so you could drink away your sorrows without having to worry about calling a ride. So now Kimmie is getting wined, dined, and plied with boxed chocolates at the Red Dog Saloon while you drain appletinis and flip through one of Jesse’s journals, not knowing what you’re looking for.
Dale is washing pint glasses in the sink behind the bar and humming cheerfully along to a Cake CD. It’s just you and him tonight; evidently, Dale doesn’t have a hot date either. It was nice of him to eschew the usual Shania Twain or Sheryl Crow soundtrack. He’s trying to spare you from any crooning love songs. He must have forgotten that Cake has its own little slice of relevance in your memories of Aegon, those memories that refuse to fade, ink in your skin as dark as night.
Your fingerprints trace Jesse’s scrawling, handwritten letters. It’s his very last journal, the last words he ever wrote. His final entry is unremarkable, a lucid recollection of his latest woodcarving project: it’s a family of tiny bears, three of them. He says he wants the cub to have the same slope of your cheeks, the shape of your eyes. And it’s just like your mom said. It really did seem like he was getting better.
You flip to the next page, blank. The heading reads: Thursday, February 14th, 1980.
You go back a few days. And your gaze catches on words that you’ve read before, months ago, back when the journals were a new discovery like striking oil. The entry is from Saturday the 9th. It ends with an unceremonious bullet point of a reminder: dinner w/ Dale on Thursday.
You leaf forward to Thursday, to the blank page that tells you nothing. Back to the 9th, forward to the 14th, again, again. Valentine’s Day 1980, before Dale had married his wife, after your mom had stopped trying to make plans with Jesse, maybe even rebelled against them; just two unromantic, discarded men with a vacant slot in their calendars and troubles to drink into submission. Except that Jesse never came home.
Dinner with Dale, you think dizzily. Dinner with Dale on the night he died.
The opening notes of The Distance shout from the stereo. Everything suddenly feels very loud.
Reluctantly crouched at the starting line,
Engines pumping and thumping in time…
What had Aegon said about that song before you sang it together, stomping and staggering across the hardwood floor? It’s not about NASCAR, it’s about a journey!
Outside, it’s a rare clear night in Juneau. The Northern Lights are a kaleidoscopic ribbon against indigo night, the sky a mausoleum of stars. And you remember when Aegon sang Everlong, when he grabbed your hand, led you upstairs to the roof, kissed you for the first time under the ethereal, shimmering curtain of green and purple and blue…before Heather had interrupted to tell you that Dale was closing the bar. He was irritable, he was tired; he wanted to go home.
The arena is empty except for one man,
Still driving and striving as fast as he can…
And then they found a body, didn’t they? Yes, you can remember being in Aegon’s apartment and hearing the police cars zoom by. You remember the red-and-blue flashes on his face. You remember thinking they looked like sapphires and rubies, the ocean and blood.
The sun has gone down and the moon has come up
And long ago somebody left with the cup,
But he’s driving and striving and hugging the turns
And thinking of someone for whom he still burns…
Icy claws glide down the length of your spine. Memories play back with a focused clarity that you didn’t have before: Dale groggy and yawning just before they found the fifth victim at Christmas, and again before they found the eighth the same night Trent dragged you—shrieking, bleeding, virtually naked—out of your Jeep. You remember Dale at your parents’ New Year’s Eve party talking about how maybe the killer was an athlete with brain damage from CTE. You remember him offering to give Trent a box of his old equipment from when he was a park ranger. You remember him watching as Trent towered over you here in Ursa Minor with a cue stick clenched in his fist, demanding to know where you had been the night before, Dale’s eyes gleaming with disapproval and fascination and…and…oh god, opportunity.
He’s going the distance,
He’s going for speed,
She’s all alone (all alone)
All alone in her time of need…
And now Aegon’s long gone, but you’re still here. And so is the Ice Fisher.
You’re staring at Dale, eyes huge and glossy with terror. He glances up, gives you a brief casual smile, looks down at the pint glasses again. And then his eyes come back to you. He sees you and you see him, really see him, and it’s the first time in your life that you can recall him being a centerpiece instead of an ornament for gazes to skate over like ice, wallpaper or taxidermy deer heads or a mirror. And you watch as the thing that lives inside Dale stirs awake. It is a shadow with fangs, talons, barbs down its spine, a weblike scribble of a brain loud with the echoes of screams; and it unfurls and fills him completely, all the way to his fingerprints. It possesses him, it eclipses him.
It’s Dale, you realize like a bullet slicing through an aorta, spilling an ocean of hot blood. It was him twenty years ago and it’s him now.
You gasp and fumble for the cannister of bear mace still clipped to your purse. Dale crosses the room with staggering swiftness, like a wolf, like a storm, one pint glass still gripped in his hand. He reaches you just as your thumb presses down on the cannister’s release tab. The rust-colored mist spews not directly into his face but into the room; Dale is hacking and rasping, you both are, but he isn’t in too much pain to haul you out of the booth and onto the floor. You’re screaming, you’re clawing at him, your eyes feel like they’re on fire, tiny pinpoint infernos that drill down to the bone. You can feel the ice-cold juice and schnapps and vodka of your appletini, knocked off the table when you fell, soaking through the back of your sweater. You can feel pebbles of glass as they burrow into your flesh. You are dimly aware of a barstool tumbling over as you struggle with Dale.
“No!” you cry into the monstrous hand that he clamps over your mouth. “No—!”
Dale brings the bottom of the pint glass down on your head. The Distance lyrics—she’s hoping in time that her memories will fade—swirl around inside your fractured skull.
Silence descends like a curtain, shadows in, lights out.
~~~~~~~~~~
I knock, and he opens the door. The house smells like fresh bread and alfredo sauce, rosemary and crushed garlic. My rental—a Toyota 4Runner, I remember what she said about the Nova being a bad idea in Alaska—is parked in the driveway behind her Jeep. Sunfyre is standing beside me, eyes sparkling, smiling with that unburdened-by-intellect innocence that dogs have. There’s a bouquet of blue-dyed roses in my left hand, cool melancholy blooms of life like seawater, like bruises.
“Hi,” I say to her dad as he stands in the doorway. “It’s good to see you again.”
“It’s good to see you too, Aegon.” He’s not just staring at me in the artificial front porch light; he’s gawking, he’s damn near speechless. “Wow. Wow. It’s really good to see you.”
Yeah, I know I look different. The dark rings around my eyes have vanished, my face is less puffy, my hair is trimmed and healthy and mostly out of my face, I stand taller. I’m wearing a white turtleneck sweater and a leather jacket, black skinny jeans, my combat boots. I have a red chip in my pocket that I can’t fucking wait to show her: 1 month sober. On the first day, you think you’re going to die, and on the second day you wish you would. But you don’t. You live, and that starts out as a grisly inconvenience, and then you get a taste for it. “You can probably guess who I’m looking for.”
“Yeah, I reckon I can,” her dad says. “But she’s not here right now. She went to Ursa Minor.”
I grin, a crooked little curl of the lips. “I think I remember how to get there.”
I hop back into the 4Runner with Sunfyre and pull out into the street, snow and ice chomping under the tires. I had missed driving, I realize now. I got so used to almost never being able to do it that I forgot how good it feels to turn the wheel yourself, to watch the speedometer ramp up when you decide you want to fly. Ten minutes later, I swerve into Ursa Minor’s deserted parking lot and screech to a stop across three separate spaces.
“Oh, what the fuck!” I choke out as I step into the bar, coughing into my sleeve. The blue roses tumble out of my hand. Ursa Minor is empty, but there’s something in the air, something invisible that drives scorching, stinging needles into my eyes and my sinuses. Tears stream down my face; my exposed skin prickles and burns. Sunfyre sneezes over and over again and lingers in the doorway, gulping in fresh night wind from outside. There’s shattered glass and green liquid on the hardwood floor. There’s an upturned barstool. The stereo is playing Cake’s cover of Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps.
What the hell happened here—?
And then I see it: the cannister of bear mace that had rolled under the booth, the same one she and her friends always sat in.
She used the bear mace. She finally used it. But why?
There’s blood on the floor. There’s blood on the table too. There’s a tattered, olive-green journal opened to a blank page. The pieces slide closer and closer and then link together, an explosion in my mind like fireworks.
I bolt outside and study the snow-covered parking lot. There are fresh tire tracks there under the murky luminescence of the streetlights; they lead out to the main road and then north towards the lakes.
“No,” I whisper to no one but the fierce wind, the sky threaded with the opalescent Northern Lights. “No, no, no…”
I sprint back inside Ursa Minor, get the phone Dale keeps behind the bar, and call the cops. “Stay where you are,” the 911 dispatcher instructs me sternly. “Wait for the police, do not attempt to investigate yourself, do not attempt to intervene—”
“Yeah, fuck that,” I say, and slam the receiver into the cradle. Then I swipe the black 8 ball off the pool table.
I load Sunfyre into the 4Runner and spin out of the parking lot, following the parallel lines of tire tracks like the etching of veins beneath skin.
~~~~~~~~~~
There’s a sound, rough and grating; and then you realize that it’s you being dragged across the ice. When your eyes flutter open, you see the uninterrupted sky: indigo night, distant stars, the Northern Lights. Your clothes are wet with snow; it’s so cold that the fabric is freezing, stiff and crackling when you try to move. Dale is lugging you over the frozen lake by the collar of your sweater. It’s choking you, but of course that doesn’t matter much. He’s about to kill you anyway.
“It’s not right,” Dale mutters, and you’re aware through the disorientation and the fog-like cloud of pain that he’s not really talking to you. “Your mom’s a nice lady. It’s not right that she had to lose two people this way, she doesn’t deserve that. Oh well. It can’t be helped now, can it?”
You whimper something, disjointed helpless words. Please, hurts, don’t, please.
“It’s not me,” Dale says, as if it’s perfectly logical. “I mean, not really. It’s this part of me that I can’t cut out. I can only feed it so it goes away for a while. It quiets down sometimes, it hibernates like a bear in the winter…but it always comes back. And my god, is it hungry.”
You smack clumsily, futilely at his hands as he hauls you over the ice. Dale doesn’t seem to notice.
“You have to make it look like an accident. That’s the ticket, if you don’t want anybody to know. You shove a hiker from a ledge, a drunk into the ocean. I did that for a long time, never raised suspicion. Never pinged on anyone’s radar. Jesse was the hardest, though. Good lord, did he fight. Had to pour a bottle of Everclear down his throat. Had to make it look like he was drinking that night. He wasn’t, which was unusual. Kept saying he wanted to turn things around. I think you had something to do with that. Now this? You were never supposed to be here, ladybug. What a shame. What a goddamn shame.”
Consciousness is a river that you dip in and out of; blackness crumbles around the edges of your vision, collapses in, recedes, swells again like a wave. You moan, you beg, you struggle as much as you can. It’s not much. It might as well be nothing.
“Things were easier after I got married,” Dale continues. He has a large hiking backpack slung over his broad shoulders, you see now. It jostles from side to side as he drags you. You know what’s in there: a chisel to break the ice, fishing line to strangle you. “Having someone else there all the time, it was a distraction. And it kept that thing inside me…not tame, no, I wouldn’t say that. But chained up down in the basement, maybe. Now I’m alone again. And when the chains start rattling, there’s nothing to stop me from hearing them.”
You get your feet under you, twist around, and slam your fists into Dale’s chest as hard as you can. He laughs in a baritone rumble and shoves you back down onto the ice; your head hits the ground, and you can feel yourself fading again, the last wisps of sunlight at dusk.
“Sometimes you want to hide,” Dale says. “And sometimes you don’t. I was ready to stop hiding. I can’t tell you what a high it was every time they found a body. The news, the ceaseless chattering around town, the name they gave me…incredible. Exhilarating. I couldn’t sleep for days after each kill. I’d toss and turn all night imagining what the headlines would be. Let me tell you, ladybug. I’ve never tried heroin, and I never need to. It can’t possibly be better than this.”
What will happen to my parents? you think, heartbreak gutting you, dull knifes rearranging your organs. What will happen to Heather and Kimmie and Joyce? What will happen when Aegon finds out he left too soon?
“I knew I needed someone to pin it on,” Dale informs you calmly. “Didn’t take anyone who went to the bar, didn’t take anyone who could be traced back to me. And still, I knew they’d figure it out eventually if I didn’t give them another suspect. At first, I was thinking I might use Aegon. He was a little small, sure, but he showed up around the right time and he was an outsider. Then I saw the way Trent was with you…aggressive, menacing…and I knew it had to be him. It was almost too easy. I planted the seeds, and good lord did they grow.”
“They’ll know,” you croak. “If you kill me, the police will find my body and they’ll know Trent’s not the Ice Fisher.”
Hideously, horribly, Dale smiles down at you. “Oh, ladybug, I don’t think they’ll ever find you. They found the others because I wanted them to. And no one is looking for victims anymore. Once you sink, I’ll cover up the hole with ice and snow. No blood, no signs. People will assume you’re a runaway. It was just too much, wasn’t it? Trent getting arrested, Aegon leaving town. Maybe you ran off after him. Maybe you threw yourself in the channel. Who could say? No, your bones will become silt, your name will slowly disappear from Juneau. And in ten or twenty years, your parents will have you declared dead in absentia. That’s my best guess. That’s how it will go.”
“No,” you sob, battling against the hands knotted into the collar of your sweater. “No—!”
His knuckles bash the side of your head, and a black silence rolls in like high tide, engulfs you, drowns you. When you swim back up into consciousness again, Dale is a few yards from you and drilling a hole in the ice with his chisel. You try to crawl away and promptly collapse, frail and boneless. He glances over at you, chuckles pleasantly, and then begins using a hatchet to widen the opening.
No, you think, hooking your fingers into the snow and dragging yourself towards the forest. No, no, no…
Dale’s ready for you. He walks over, grabs both of your ankles, tugs you with terrifying ease to the hole in the ice. Then he has a length of fishing line in his hands, and he’s looping it around your throat again and again, and he’s tightening it until the needle-thin nylon wire bites into your flesh, spilling tendrils of blood. You know you don’t have a chance, but you try; you owe it to your parents to try. You claw at the fishing line and you struggle and you cry out in hoarse, useless screams—
And then you hear something that doesn’t make any sense. Through the darkness, through the wind, there are the barks of a dog. Sunfyre rockets into your dimming field of vision and jumps on Dale, snarling and growling and snapping at his hands, his face. Dale flings the dog away, and as he’s distracted, Aegon arrives. He’s holding—ludicrously—a black 8 ball from a pool table, and he smashes it into Dale’s head. A sick, wet, crushing sound ricochets, cracked bone cushioned by flesh, and Dale howls as he rolls onto his side and covers his head with his hands.
He peers up at Aegon, furious and pained and stunned. “You?!”
“Me.” Aegon’s voice is dark and low like thunder, like the iron gale of storms over the ocean. “And I’m a killer.”
He lunges at Dale, still wielding the 8 ball. Dale’s massive hand juts out and closes around Aegon’s wrist, and then he yanks him to the ground. They’re grappling on the snow and ice, they’re striking out with knuckles and elbows, they’re ripping at each other with their bare hands. You’re trying to unravel the fishing line still coiled around your throat, panting in deep, frantic breaths so you can see and think clearly, so you can scramble to your feet, so you can help Aegon. And then Dale gets away from him just long enough to grab you again, to wrap the ends of the fishing line around his fingers. He delivers one last macerating blow to your skull, pulls you by your throat to the gaping hole in the ice, and shoves you through.
The water is so cold it’s paralyzing. There is a thought that seizes you—so overwhelming, so strangely rational—that says all you have to do is stay where you are, to wait a little longer, and then you’ll never hurt again, you’ll never be disappointed or caged, you’ll never be anything. And you think of all the lives you could have lived, all the places you could have gone: cities and beaches and deserts and valleys, gardens and rivers, ruins and glass. You were always so afraid of really going after them. What the hell were you so afraid of? Everything worth fearing is right here in Juneau.
I can still do those things. I can still live. And I can still help Aegon.
You jolt out of your inertia and clamber madly for the surface. But you don’t hit frigid open air; you hit ice, ice too thick to break through, ice too thick for more than a murmur of light to penetrate. Your palms press against the semitransparent wall; bubbles of carbon dioxide spurt from your nose and mouth. You feel for the opening that Dale made, but you don’t know where it is. You are lost beneath the ice, running out of air, fading rapidly. Then you hear Jesse—and you aren’t sure how you know what his voice sounds like, but you do—speaking softly and kindly to you, comforting you, telling you which way to go.
I’m sorry that no one knows the truth, you say without speaking. I’m sorry we thought you destroyed yourself. I’m sorry you never got the chance to truly live.
You were all better off without me anyway, he answers, without any bitterness at all. And that’s true, isn’t it?
There is a great disruption that rocks through the water. New currents stir into existence, fresh waves spring out of the darkness. And then someone takes your hand and draws you towards a noise, muffled through the ice and water: a dog barking, you realize. Then your palms find the opening and you inhale brutally cold air into your aching lungs, the best you’ve ever tasted. Aegon helps pull you through the hole and out of the lake, out of the jaws of oblivion.
You lie together on the ice, breathing in gasps that turn to mist in the night wind. Dale’s body is sprawled several yards away. The hatchet he’d used to break up the ice is buried in his neck, spine severed, eyes slick and vacant. You can see reflections of the Northern Lights flickering in them.
“You came back,” you whisper to Aegon as whirling police sirens approach, the lights dancing on his face: blue like the ocean, red like fire and blood.
“Of course I came back, Appletini,” he says, laughing with frenzied relief, kissing your cheeks and forehead over and over again, lake water dripping from his hair. Sunfyre jumps around you both, yapping ecstatically, his tail wagging. “I couldn’t leave without my Juneau girl.”
~~~~~~~~~~
There’s wind, but it isn’t sharp like a blade. There’s a sky, but it isn’t cloaked in cloud cover or fog. The boats that bob in the surf are sailboats and cruisers, not fishing vessels. Dolphins crest out of the sun-speckled waves like someone coming up from a dream.
It’s June 9th, and you’re soaring down the Pacific Coast Highway in the red Ford Mustang convertible you rented after the plane touched down in Seattle. Aegon is in the driver’s seat, black sunglasses and white T-shirt, his hair whipping in the breeze. He has one hand on the wheel and the other behind your headrest. Sunfyre is in the backseat, grinning like only dogs can. You turn up the song on the radio: Drive by Incubus.
You and Aegon had stayed in Juneau long enough for your skull to heal, and for your parents to find someone else to take over the vet clinic. They settled on a 32-year-old from Detroit: Justin McNair, a former Marine like your dad, and he either has no family or a bad one because he never wants to talk about them. Perhaps it doesn’t really matter which it is; perhaps sometimes they’re just about the same thing. Your parents have already basically adopted him. He eats dinner with them three times a week and calls your dad when he needs help with house maintenance or scaring a moose away from his truck. And just before you went south, Aegon showed him how to make the world’s best hot chocolate.
You send postcards back to Juneau from each town you stop in. Heather’s bon voyage gift to you had been an indecently revealing swimsuit. Joyce appeared with—what else?—a stack of books fit for leisurely beach reading. And Kimmie gave you, however bizarrely, a compass. So you don’t get lost, she had said with an innocuous little smile. You honestly couldn’t tell if she was joking.
During his one month in jail, Trent learned how to meditate and do yoga. He’s still kind of a dumbass, but he’s also a supposedly devout vegan Buddhist, and he had the decency to leave you alone aside from an apology letter that he slid into the moose-shaped mailbox: handwritten, six pages, lots of spelling and grammatical errors. Oh, and he finally got that job with the Forest Service, probably mostly due to his high-profile wrongful detainment. Now hikers get to swoon over his muscles and hair flips.
You’ll go back to Juneau, of course. Maybe just for visits, maybe for more than that someday. But it will never feel like a cage again.
Aegon calls Aemond every two or three days, a habit he started when he was in rehab. At first it was by necessity—he needed someone to pay the $30,000 bill—but now you think he secretly looks forward to it. He updates Aemond about how the road trip is going and reassures him that the plan hasn’t changed: south to San Diego, and then cutting east across the country to Miami. You don’t know what exactly life will look like there, and neither does Aegon. That’s not the important thing about going. Part of AA is making amends, and Aegon has a lot of work to do in that respect. He wants to go back to Miami, he says. He’s ready to go back.
San Diego is exactly like Aegon once told you it would be. You weave through the rust-colored peaks of the Laguna Mountains and there’s the Pacific Ocean, glittering and sapphire-blue, peppered with surfers and sea lions. It’s hot and it’s beautiful beyond words and everything grows there: ivy, cactuses, palm trees, calla lilies, roses. And for the first time that you can remember, the world feels breathtakingly, impossibly big. You get carryout from an unassuming restaurant called The Taco Stand, and then Aegon parks the convertible in La Jolla. You walk down the steps carved into the cliffside, paper bags in your hands full of tacos and churros, Aegon carrying Sunfyre so the dog won’t slip.
You sit together on the golden sand and watch the 8:00 p.m. sun sink into the waves, Aegon’s arm around your waist, your fingers tucking his lock of silvery hair behind his ear. And then he takes your hand, kneads it until it’s sinuous and relaxed, and reads the lines of your palm in the amber dusk like firelight.
“It says you’re happy,” he tells you. “And that you’re free.”
“I am,” you reply, smiling as the ocean stretches out like the arm of a galaxy: the ancient past, the infinite future.
392 notes · View notes
totowlff · 11 months
Text
Tumblr media
a thirsty tuesday
➝ producing content for mercedes' social media is always a challenge, especially given the demand. however, having a desired boss is always a good asset.
➝ word count: 1,8k
➝ warnings: implied sexual acts, a lot of second-hand embarassment, boss-employee dynamics
➝ author’s note: well, it's been a long time since i was last here. unfortunately, i didn't have more time to dedicate myself the way i would like to my stories. however, i feel stronger and safer to come back here and continue writing. i hope you still want to read it.
— Y/N, this is completely ridiculous — Toto said, looking up from the sheet in his hand towards your face. His expression was serious, skepticism written in the way he raised his eyebrows at you.
You gave a smile, feeling a little embarrassed to be presenting that content idea to him. After recording a video analyzing the most striking images of the ten years he was at the head of the team, the idea was that he would react to some tweets that the marketing team had selected.
In this case, you.
— That's what our audience cares about, Toto.
— Are you serious? They want to see me reading — he hesitated, looking down at the paper again — Thirsty tweets?
— Sure, why do you think I would suggest that?
Toto sighed. He was definitely upset.
— I could fire you, you know? — the team principal murmured, the shadow of a smile on his face.
— You would never do that — you replied, full of confidence.
 — How can you be so sure?
— Because, without me, you only speak bullshit.
He laughed. That was an indisputable fact: without you by his side, Toto simply lost his filters, especially in front of the microphones. The images of you elbowing the team principal in the arm when he started a sentence that would probably generate thousands of clicks on specialized sites, as well as rude responses from other team bosses.
— Okay, you got a good point — Toto said, crossing his arms. Your eyes flickered for a few seconds to the veins that were prominent over his skin, before looking into his brown eyes again.
— So, let’s do it?
— Yeah. But if you have any bullshit…
— Toto, anything that isn't business or lap times is classified as bullshit for you.
— Well, bigger bullshit. I don't want my kids to see this and think I'm weird.
— It's easier for them to think the people who wrote these stuff weird — you muttered, as you took the sheet from his hand. Toto raised a suspicious eyebrow.
— Now I'm really worried about doing this, Y/N.
— It's going to be alright, now, sit there and just be a lovely person.
— I'm always a lovely person.
— Yeah, Christian Horner agrees with you — you said, laughing, as you walked to Stephen's side, who looked less than pleased with the camera angle. After requesting changes and having Toto sit on a bench so that half of his head wasn't cut off in the image, you handed over the sheets of printed tweets, asking him not to peek at the tweets.
— What if I peek?
— You’ll ruin everyone's recording day — you replied.
— That would be a shame — he muttered, giving her a mischievous little smile.
— Indeed. But I'm sure you'll be a good boy.
You had the impression that Toto had blushed, but you didn't have time to point that out before Stephen asked you to leave the set to start filming. After a few more instructions, he signaled that he was recording.
— Hi, I'm Toto Wolff and today, I'm going to read… What is it again?
— Thirsty tweets — you said, rolling your eyes.
— Oh yeah, thirsty tweets — he said, grinning at the camera. The image caused something strange to spread inside your chest.
After repeating the take twice more, Toto finally caught the first tweet, reading it silently for a few seconds, eyes widening.
— Out loud, Toto.
— I'm not going to read this, Y/N.
— You will — you yelled, from behind the camera.
— But it's ridiculous — he exclaimed.
— You said you'd read it, you'll read it.
Sighing, the team principal paused for a few seconds before reading what was on the sheet.
— "I don't even know how, but I want to suck Toto Wolff's arms".
— What do you think?
— Well, ridiculous.
— People like your arms — you said — Doesn't it make you happy?
— They’re arms.
— But they are pretty arms.
He blinked.
— Do you think my arms are pretty? — Toto questioned.
Your face heated up. You definitely weren't ready for that question.
— Doesn't matter, go to the next one.
He chuckled before looking down at the sheet in his hands.
— “Toto Wolff could come up to me, punch me in the face for any reason and, honestly, I would probably apologize to him” — Toto read, looking up at you — Well, I would never hit anyone, so I'm really sorry.
— Not even if they asked? — you asked in a teasing tone.
— I'm too polite a man for that.
— Too bad — you laughed — Next.
— “I would call Toto Wolff daddy in front of my own dad”. I just hope my kids never do this, it must be extremely embarrassing.
You couldn't hold back a laugh at that comment.
— I thought you didn't want them to watch this video.
— And they won't watch it, I'm sure of it — Toto replied, laughing — Imagine them watching their father reading things like “I'd let Toto break my back like a glowstick”?
— I would think it's cool. In fact, I'm thinking it's cool.
— Of course you do, you chose these tweets.
— Could you go on? — you asked, making him move on to the next sheet.
— “Me: I watch Drive To Survive for the content. The content: Toto Wolff”. We can't deny that I bring content to this series, can we?
— So much content that I spent almost a month listening to people asking me to change my car if I had a problem with it.
— Did Checo say it was fucked? — he asked with a mischievous smile.
— I think I'm going to have to speak to my drivers about that — you replied, chuckling — Go on to the next one.
— “I want my juice box to be Toto Wolff's new pillow” — he read, raising an eyebrow — But what's a juice box?
— Vagina — Stephen muttered, before realizing everyone was staring at him, Toto with a particularly shocked expression — What? I lived in the States, they say that, is a slang.
— Okay, I really didn't expect that — the team principal muttered — Did you know that, Y/N?
— No — you replied, trying to sound as innocent as possible. Of course you knew what it meant, you weren't an idiot. Besides, you knew it was going to surprise him. You just didn't expect him to look so shocked — But, are you surprised?
— I didn't expect something so — Toto hesitated for a few seconds — Explicit.
— Then you'll love the next ones.
Passing the sheet, you noticed the team principal's face turn red.
— Y/N, I can't say that.
— You can, I checked with our legal team.
— Y/N…
— Read it now.
— “I want Toto Wolff to destroy my insides” — he said, before looking up at you — This is awful.
— Well, it's what you do to them.
Toto stared at the sheet for a few seconds.
— I'm feeling flattered right now — he said, in a sort of sarcastic way.
The film crew erupted in laughter as the team boss looked at you, who shook your head.
— Well, let's go on — he said, moving on to the next page — "Toto Wolff is so hot, I want to have his babies”. Unfortunately it won't be possible, I stopped at the second one. But if I may say so, both my children are very beautiful so I take great pride in that.
— Actually, Rosi is adorable.
— Thanks to her mom's genes — Toto answered you, before moving on to the next tweet — “My sexuality is Toto Wolff”. I'm pretty sure there's no TW in the LGBTQIA+ acronym, but…
— Maybe it's been updated? — you suggested.
— I need to talk to the Racing Pride people about this — he said, smiling — Well, I think that's the last one, “The best part of working at Mercedes is saying 'yes, sir' to Toto. I will not elaborate”.
You couldn't help but smile when he looked up at you.
— I believe there are other advantages to working at Mercedes, but I pride myself on being a good boss — Toto said, before ending the video with one of those smiles that made your chest warm.
While the crew set up the studio for the recording with Lewis, which would take place in half an hour, you and Toto headed back to his office. The team leader had already removed the microphone that was attached to his shirt and was reading something intently on the phone before handing it to you. Inside the room, he walked around the pale wood table and stopped beside the chair.
— It was kind of fun recording — Toto said, bringing his hands to his chest and undoing the top button of his shirt — I thought this thirsty tweets thing was going to be a lot worse.
Your eyes dropped to his fingers, which deftly parted the shirt, revealing the firm muscles beneath.
— Well, I'm glad you like it — you managed to reply, your mouth dry as the fabric slid down his arms. You had seen him topless before, but the feeling was always the same. The heat in your face, the tingling in your belly, the heavier heartbeat in your chest.
— But, I have a question about a thing — he continued, grabbing the baby blue shirt he was wearing before the shoot and putting it on — That last tweet…
— Yeah?
— Did you write it?
You swallowed hard.
— All tweets were posted by real users, Toto…
— But the last one is yours.
— Of course not…
— Y/N, you know I follow you, right?
You blinked, staring at the team leader in disbelief.
— You don’t have…
— Yes I do. I use it to observe things, see what people are saying, these things — Toto replied, while closing the last buttons of his shirt — I follow Lewis, George, Mick, Jonathan from engineering, Kawka and I followed your account recently. I recognized the profile picture even though it was blurry on the printed sheet.
— I apologize profusely about this, Toto…
He laughed.
— No problem, Y/N…
— It's completely inappropriate to say that kind of thing on the internet, and what's more, considering you read…
— Y/N, it's okay — he cut her off as he put on his blazer — You seem like a lot of fun outside the office.
— You think so?
  I do. Although I have a question about that tweet.
— What would it be?
— Would you mind elaborating on why that's the best part of your job?
You felt your cheeks heat up.
— Is like I’ve said, I won't elaborate, Toto.
— Not even at dinner this Friday?
Your mind short-circuited, your mouth opening slightly.
You were sure this was a hallucination.
— Are you asking me out?
— Yeah — he replied, his voice full of confidence — What do you think?
“Yes, say yes, yes!”, someone screamed in the back of your mind, while you stared at him.
— With a condition.
— Which is?
— No pizza — you said — Every time we have dinner, you insist on having pizza and still complain about my order.
— Of course, you like that atrocity with pineapple…
— Just don't eat.
— It's still disgusting, Y/N — he said — But, okay, no pizza. Do you accept?
— Yeah, sure — you answered, feeling butterflies in your stomach.
322 notes · View notes
chelseachilly · 6 months
Text
when i'm feeling alone, you remind me of home
Tumblr media
pairing: reader x ben chilwell summary: you're stranded at uni by yourself for christmas with no flights going to london, but your boyfriend has other ideas warnings: nothing but fluff ❄️🫶🏼 word count: 2.5k
author’s note: here's another holiday one-shot! hoping to write at least one more before christmas. also btw there is no regard for the actual chelsea december fixtures or club rules in this story lol. title from christmas tree farm by taylor 🎄
-
You’ve always loved snow.
You loved playing in it as a little kid, making snowmen with your parents and going sledding with friends. You loved watching it from your window your first year of uni, seeing the blanket of white make Edinburgh look even more magical. You love bundling up to go ice skating and drinking hot chocolate as the snow falls around you.
But right now, you absolutely hate it. 
A massive snowstorm rolling through the UK has caused the cancellation all flights, including the one you were supposed to take from Edinburgh to London tonight. It’s your last year of university there, but you’ve never missed a Christmas at home with your family and your boyfriend.
Now, it’s two days until Christmas and you’re stranded alone in your little flat with absolutely no way of making it home.
“What? You can’t get a train?” Ben asks after you’ve explained your predicament to him sadly. 
As much as you feel bad about missing the holiday with your parents, you feel really bad about not being able to see Ben. With your busy schedules, you’ve hardly seen him in months, and you even missed his birthday a couple days ago because you had an exam. Now, you were supposed to finally have an entire week with him in London. 
You were going to go to Winter Wonderland and complain about tourists and end up going back to his to snuggle by the fireplace. You were going to have Christmas morning with your family and dinner with his, spending the whole day exchanging gifts and fond memories. You were going to watch his game on the 27th and bundle up in your warmest Chelsea gear to cheer your heart out for your man, which you’ve really missed doing lately. 
You miss everything about him, really. 
But instead, you’re going to be eating Indian takeaway leftovers and watching Love Actually to try to make yourself feel better.
“The trains are all full, I checked,” you sigh. 
“Well, let me see if I can charter a plane-“
“Ben,” you cut him off before he gets ahead of myself. Although it’s quite extravagant for him to spend tens of thousands of dollars getting you there, you know he would do it in a heartbeat. “All flights are grounded, not just mine. It’s not possible.”
“But…there must be something.”
You can picture his disappointed face right now, and it brings tears to your eyes just thinking about it. 
“I’m so sorry, baby,” you reply, sinking into your couch. “You know I would do anything to be there with you right now.”
“Don’t apologize to me, love, I can’t believe you’re going to spend Christmas alone,” Ben sighs. “This is so shit. I just wanna see you and hold you.”
“I know,” you exhale. “I miss you so much. The only thing that got me through exams was thinking about being home with you and playing with Oscar in the snow and baking cookies…”
You can feel yourself getting choked up, tears beginning to stream down your cheeks as you think about all you’ll be missing out on. You feel a bit silly, knowing there are people with far bigger problems in the world, but you’ve been working yourself to death for the past month to ace your finals and this trip home was the shining light at the end of the tunnel. 
“Oh, sweetheart,” Ben says sadly. “I miss you so much too. I wish there was something we could do.”
“Like control the weather?” you joke, trying to lighten the mood despite the tears running down your face.
“You know I would do it if I could,” he replies seriously. “I’m sorry this is happening, babe. Maybe the weather will clear up in a day or two and you’ll still be able to make it out for a few days, yeah?”
“Yeah, I suppose,” you breathe - some time with Ben and your family is better than nothing, but you’re still going to be alone for Christmas morning. “I should let you go, I don’t want to stop you from having a nice holiday too. Say hi to your mum and Alex for me when they get there, alright?”
“I will, baby,” Ben says. “I’ll text you later and call you in the morning, alright?”
“Alright,” you sniffle, wiping your tears away. “I love you.”
“I love you too. Bye, love.”
The moment Ben hangs up, you toss your cell onto the cushion beside you and bury your face in the pillow, groaning in frustration. 
After feeling sorry for yourself for a bit, you reluctantly get up and go to turn up the heat and change into something warmer, as the temperatures outside continue to drop. You grab Ben’s hoodie from your closet, a cozy grey one you stole last time you were in London. It barely smells like him anymore, since that was over a month ago and you’ve worn and washed it several times, but it’s still a small comfort to wear something of his.
You heat up your dinner and put on the film, although the romantic scenes and the shots of London only seem to make you more homesick. 
You text Ben during his favourite part, which is naturally Hugh Grant dancing around 10 Downing Street. 
The annual Love Actually rewatch isn’t the same without you babe. Hope you’re having fun with the fam ❤️
He takes a while to respond, which you hope means he’s having a better time than you are and enjoying being with his family. 
You’re just drifting off to sleep when his text finally comes in.
It’s not the same here without you either. Goodnight baby, talk in the morning 😘
-
You wake up to the sound of your phone ringing.
You briefly think it’s your alarm, but you don’t remember setting one, certainly not for 7AM, which is the current time according to your watch.
You blearily stretch your arms, a bit of a crick in your neck from falling asleep on the couch, and reach around haphazardly for your phone.
You see Ben’s name and contact photo on the screen and you quickly answer, worried something is wrong if he’s calling you at this time. 
“Ben? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine,” he assures you. “Can you go downstairs? There’s a delivery for you.”
“What?” you yawn, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes. “What on earth have you sent me at seven in the morning?”
“Just go check, I think you’ll like it,” Ben promises, and you can hear the smile tugging at his lips. “Quickly, babe. This is time sensitive.”
You roll your eyes fondly as you throw the blanket off yourself and slide on your slippers, leaving the warmth of your flat to go down the stairs and see what’s waiting for you outside the main doors. You can only imagine what ridiculous present your boyfriend had shipped to you overnight to try to make up for your failed Christmas. 
You tighten Ben’s hoodie around your body to brace yourself for the cold before opening the door, your eyes on the ground where you’re expecting the package to be.
Instead, you see a familiar pair of Nikes - and your eyes trail up to see the very familiar man wearing them. 
You’re not sure if you’re dreaming, so you blink a few times, only to be greeted with the same sight - your perfect, adorable boyfriend standing in front of you in his puffer jacket and hat, his cheeks red from the cold and his smile absolutely blinding. 
“Ben?” you gasp. “Why are you - how are you here?”
“I couldn’t let you spend Christmas alone.”
You meet him halfway as he drops his bags to the ground and opens his arms for you to throw yourself at him. You hug him as tight as you can, burying your nose in his neck and inhaling his scent. You can’t believe this is really happening.
“How the hell did you get here?” you ask as he squeezes your waist tightly and kisses the top of your head. 
“I drove,” Ben murmurs. 
You pull back to look at him, your eyes wide with disbelief.
“You drove? It’s, like, eight hours-“
“Twelve in a snowstorm, apparently,” Ben chuckles. “But definitely worth it for this.”
“You drove all night through a snowstorm for me?”
You can feel tears beginning to brim in your eyes once again, though these are tears of joy. You can’t believe how insanely lucky you are to have a man who loves you this much. 
“Of course I did, I would do anything for you,” Ben says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, brushing his nose against yours. “Now, if you don’t mind, it’s been a long night and I would really love a kiss.”
Without hesitation, you grab his face and kiss him passionately, sighing with joy at the feeling of being reunited with your boyfriend. You’re certain that this is the most romantic and wonderful thing anyone has ever done for you, and although you never expected the best kiss of your life to happen on your doorstep at 7am in a blizzard, this just might take the top spot.
“I love you so damn much,” you whisper against his lips when you finally pull away. “But I am also slightly mad at you for driving at night in poor conditions.”
Ben laughs and rolls his eyes a bit. “I promise I was safe, but can we go inside where it’s warmer before we argue about it?”
“Hmm, okay,” you grin, pecking his lips a few more times before helping him lug his bags up the stairs to your flat.
Once you’re inside and Ben’s taken off his shoes and coat, you waste no time in wrapping your arms around him and kissing him again. 
“You’re freezing, sweetheart,” you murmur as his cold hands slide under your - his - hoodie to feel your skin. “Want a tea? Or do you want to go straight to bed? You must be exhausted.”
“A tea and a cuddle would be perfect,” Ben smiles, pecking your forehead.
You tell him to go get comfy on the couch while you make tea for both of you, and when you return, he’s waiting for you with open arms and a sleepy grin on his face. 
You place both mugs on the coffee table and curl up next to him, your face in the crook of his neck and your arms and legs tangled. 
You let out a content sigh as your bodies recalibrate after so much time apart. You knew you needed this, but you didn’t know quite how much until right now. 
“I can’t believe you’re here,” you murmur, kissing his jaw. “What about your mum and Alex, though?”
“I told them how sad you sounded on the phone and they encouraged me to go, though my mum was slightly nervous about me making the drive-“
“As she should be,” you scold gently.
“I told you, I was very careful, and there were hardly any cars on the roads,” Ben promises once again. “Anyways, they were all for it. They knew I would’ve been miserable without you there.”
You hug him a bit tighter, hooking your leg around his. “Wait, you have a game in three days. Did the club really sign off on this?”
“I managed to persuade Poch to give me today off to go see my girl, I think he’s a bit of a softie at heart,” Ben jokes. “And we have tomorrow and the day after off for Christmas anyways. We’ll just have to drive back on the 26th, the roads are supposed to clear by then. I know it’s not the same as Christmas in London with both our families, but this is better than being apart, right?”
“Ben,” you say sincerely, cupping his cheek with one hand. “This is the most amazing thing anyone has ever done for me. A cozy Christmas with just the two of us sounds absolutely perfect. Thank you, baby.”
Your lips meet in another sweet kiss, one that quickly escalates as you feel your boyfriend’s hands on your hips and thighs for the first time in a month. You moan into his mouth as he tugs you into his lap. 
“I missed you so much,” you breathe between kisses, tugging his hat off to run your hands through his messy hair. 
“I can tell, hoodie thief,” Ben teases, fiddling with the soft material. “You look unreal in that, by the way. And I missed you more.”
You smile into another kiss, getting completely lost in him and his scent and his touch. Even after years together, you’re completely addicted to him. 
You’re ready to take it further and move to your bedroom, but you’re interrupted by a yawn from Ben. He tries to kiss you again afterward, but you laugh softly and hold his face. 
“You need sleep, Benjamin.”
He pouts slightly in protest, but you kiss him again quickly and it goes away.
“Babe, you’re exhausted,” you murmur softly. “We can go cuddle in my bed and continue this later.”
Ben sighs and nods as you climb off him and extend your hand to help him up. He doesn’t let go of your hand, though, instead pulling you into another warm hug. He’s so sleepy and adorable that you could nearly cry as he nuzzles his face into your hair. 
He’s always been a very tactile person, and you know that for every time you tell him how much you missed and love him, he will hold you a little bit longer or kiss your forehead to say the exact same thing.
When you finally pull apart, you take him by the hand and lead him into your bedroom. He strips down to his boxers, which is how he prefers to sleep even in the dead of winter. He says you run hot enough to keep him warm, though you’re not sure if that’s true or he just likes to maximize your skin-on-skin contact.
He’s much warmer now than when you found him on your doorstep, so it’s not a shock to your system when you climb into bed with him and he immediately pulls you into his chest.
“I promise once you’ve had a proper rest I’ll make the drive worth your while, baby,” you say with a slight smirk as you wrap your arm around him and nuzzle your face into his neck. 
Ben just tightens his grip on you and closes his eyes, a content smile on his face. 
“It was worth it the second you opened the door.”
As you watch your boyfriend drift off to sleep, feeling so full of love for him that you might burst, you make a mental note to make it extra worth it for him later just for that adorable comment. 
After you’ve both slept a few hours and spent another few making up for lost time, you spend the rest of Christmas Eve watching films and baking cookies. 
The next morning, you both wake up early and exchange presents in your festive pyjamas. It’s not the same as if you were in London with both your families, but it’s still perfect because you’re together. 
And a year later, when you’ve graduated and you’re celebrating your first Christmas in your new home with a diamond ring on your finger, it’s even better. 
i hope you enjoyed this story! and thank you for all your lovely comments on my last fic. if anyone wants to be added to a taglist for my ben fics in the future, please let me know! ❤️💚
144 notes · View notes
tteokdoroki · 2 years
Text
Tumblr media
“osamu, what the hell is your problem?”
osamu miya isn’t one to act out like this, he’s never one to run head first into a fight with no armour. he’s not brash and unreasonable like ‘tsumu. he’s supposed to be the better twin at this compared to the blonde scrub he should have eaten in the womb.
but when it comes to you, he loses all sense of rationality— the slightest change in your emotions still has osamu acting a fool after all this time.
“i was defending yer honour!” he announces adamantly, slur heavier than usual as he flinches away from the bag of frozen peas you have pressed into his swelling cheek. osamu hates frozen veg, it ruins the quality and taste of his product, so he prefers to start afresh every time to make sure everyone gets the very best of what he has to offer but boy is he glad that he kept the bag in his kitchen’s freezers from when he first started out.
he still can’t believe he got punched in his own damn shop.
your face twists as you peel back the defrosting packet, analysing the tender area on the younger miya twin’s face. still handsome, even when bruised like a softly ripened peach. “osamu miya,” he hates how his full name sounds on your tongue, bitter and still slightly resentful— nothing like the ‘samu’s he’s used to. “i do not need defending! god…you don’t change. you never do!” frustration sits caked on your features like a layer of sweat after a gruelling day in the kitchens. “when will you realise that i can be my own person outside of you? i can take care of myself. i don’t need you to back me up, tell me to sit this one out like you do with ‘tsumu. i don’t need protecting.” you shift awkwardly on your knees, the tiled floor in onigiri miya’s kitchen cutting into your skin. “and besides…i like him.”
osamu pushes the peas from your grip, brows knotted together as he scowls at you like what you’ve said isn’t true. you could tell him those words a thousand times and he’d selfishly ignore them because you’re way too good to go unprotected in this world.
“yer still s’fuckin’ naive,”
the curse word slipping from the restaurant owners lips surprises you— it upsets you, the hurt sweltering in your chest. “‘samu that’s not fair…”
“i don’t care if it is! i see the way ya grimace when he touches ya, the way ya avoid his gaze. how he treats ya like a fuckin’ pet rather than a human being!” the miya twin roars back, and if he was loud enough you’re sure he’d rattle the pots out to dry on the dish-rack. “that’s not love. you know that.”
your face scrunches up, expression foul and osamu knows he shouldn’t have said that.
“and you do?” he can hear the tired tremble in your voice, you’ve both been here before, stuck in a loop of the same argument. osamu shouldn’t cast judgement on the people you date, not when he ruined the concept of love and happiness for you in the first place. he gave you up when you’d done nothing but cherish him for years after the team went their separate ways.
he was the one to let you go.
he was the one desperate to see you again, dropping hints to kita to invite the old inarizaki manager to the reunion at his precious store in osaka after atsumu’s big game.
he was the one who threw the first punch at your now fiancé because the way he held you wasn’t right.
it was too tight, too rough for someone who deserved the world like you. osamu could read the twitch of pain on your face probably before you even felt it…because he still loved you, he still knew everything about you and he didn’t even have the right to. he probably deserved to get his shit rocked before aran and suna dragged your fiancé outside the shop ( atsumu would have ripped the guy’s head off too for hurting his brother…but kita was there and you’d pleaded with him not to ).
so osamu miya stays silent, becomes a little more reserved unlike his bastard brother and zips his lips once more— throwing away the key while he avoids your desperate gaze. “nothin’.” he mumbles simply, looking away from your wounded puppy dog eyes.
“of course,” you say quietly, even though he can hear the crack of tears in your voice. “because you could never love anyone outside of this stupid shop.”
and as you let it slip you’re crying up, and back away from him on the kitchen floor of onigiri miya, osamu realises…there’s no starting over with you. it’s far too late for that.
Tumblr media
918 notes · View notes
sourbinnie · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
title -> tu me dejaste de querer genre -> angst with a happy ending pair -> felix x gn!reader plot -> a messy breakup never led felix to lose hope over you or your relationship. warnings -> mentioned panic attack + cursing words -> 2180 lowercase intended
yo me creía que era el más cabrón
pero me estoy notando el corazón
estás apretando mucho, mami, déjalo
si quieres te doy la razón
yo lo único que quiero es largarme de aquí
me da igual dónde puedas elegir
algún día, dentro de poco me vo' a arrepentir
de haberte confesa'o lo que me hace sufrir
❥ ✉
i wasn't used to settling down before i met them. i liked the free life, the no strings attached kinda vibe and i thought having  a relationship would cut off the way i was handling things but you proved me wrong. when you asked me out, doubt consumed me but i gave in because those eyes are to die for. too bad now we're a thousand miles apart and i still see those eyes everywhere, that look you gave me when i complimented you, priceless and wouldn't see it anywhere else in the world. at the end of the day the eyes never lie and neither do i when asking you if long distance would work.
i know you didn't want this (y/n), neither did i. you had to go back to your home country and i had to stay in korea, following my career like it was the only thing that mattered, like i didn't let the love of my life go. i was hoping we could meet again in the future but the more i look at the chances, the blurrier they get and i don't think it's possible for me to even get a ticket to see you. 
"hey (y/n), it's felix again. please answer me whenever you get the chance." i said to my voicemail. not gonna lie the only reason i do this is because i get to hear your voice before it cuts off to leave a message. it's getting lonely here and i just want you back. even if it's just a videocall.
i was on tour right now, looking at the window in a foreign country while all my bandmates were out. i couldn't feel more empty than i did right now and i knew you wanted to come this time. you wanted to be there for me through every show, every city, everything and we had to split apart before that happened. you really wanted to meet my bandmates and i did not let you, why didn't i? you were the light of my life. no one made me happy like you did and i was told that i had a different kind of glow the days that i spent with you. 
you said i was too much while i said you were giving too little, you weren't letting me see what you truly felt. maybe i pressured you too much into it, maybe i just didn't know how to let go of the overwhelming emotion that it is loving you. it consumes my whole body the way that i just need you right now. physically, emotionally, verbally, anything i would do to get this feeling to stop as the hurricane consumed me. the worst part would be the fact that nobody knows that i'm feeling this way, i have to keep it all to myself and pretend that i never had a significant other in the first place.
that was really bad on my part wasn't it? keeping you a fucking secret and for what? you were the best thing that happened to me. i know a few years ago i would've said the band but right now i felt like i lost absolutely everything. the pain was unbearable, i haven't felt heartbreak since high school and this certainly felt worse than anything. it was like they had my heart in their hands and they were squeezing it, holding on to me, to a part that i thought i would never show anyone. i also knew that i was gonna regret leaving voicemails like a loser, hoping for them to come back to me like nothing happened in the middle.
i remember all too clearly what i said, what we went through and just how much we hurt each other. in this moment i did not care though, i felt like i was gonna have a panic attack all alone in my room. i felt like i  was suffocating and yet no tears were streaming down my face. i could not show any more pain because there was nothing else to show, the misery that i felt i was stuck in was too much. felt like i wasted all my tears, feeling like i can't do anything anymore to fix this was scary and there's nothing more scary than the unknown. what would the future hold for us? 90% of me is saying nothing but there's that 10% that keeps me holding on to a wave of feelings. that 10% insists that i call them again, again & again until they pick up.
so i did it one more time.
and they picked up.
❥ ✉
de punta en blanco para tu fiesta
he pasa'o tre' día' con la misma ropa puesta
loco por ti, perdiendo apuesta'
dime en quién piensa' cuando te acuestas
porque yo pienso en ti (son ilusione')
yo pienso en ti (son ilusione')
porque yo pienso en ti (son ilusione')
yo pienso en ti, son ilusione'
going out on the old familiar streets didn't feel like home anymore. even if i tried going from party to party, doing the most insane things to create a distraction in my mind and hoping that in the morning i don't regret anything, was nothing like i used to be. i was closed off, emotionally and physically, never the biggest fan of pda or affection in the form of words either. but then felix happened and i changed that, i suddenly wanted too much from him, wanting to be in his arms all the time. i got so scared of that feeling, of overwhelming him with my love that i decided to do the opposite. so no more kissing, hugs, cuddles, etc. and i thought i was doing the right thing by not being an overbearing significant other. 
god thinking about the reason why we broke up made me so mad. we both crossed limits we shouldn't have and yet now we were so far away from each other that when i arrived home, like i said before it just didn't feel right. i had to get used to not having him around, to his scent not being in the house, to the smell of his baking, to the clothes scattered around our bedroom, to the early morning kisses and to the late goodnight ones. it's not like i would have that right now when he's on tour. that's how i remembered once again that i was supposed to keep him company during this one and that made me so upset, i almost started crying again. 
he's in a completely different timezone than i am, he's having the best time of his life with his friends and i'm thinking that maybe all i did was so stupid. i put so much on the line when i told him that i was gonna break up with him and leave. i also said it in a moment of pure anger and hoping he would calm down (he didn't). that was the last time i saw him, i hoped that he was feeling better now.
even if i didn't feel like things ended right between us, i would never wish on his downfall. he did everything he could with the little time that he had to spend it with me. he told me his bandmates were watching him and suspecting things but that only got me excited to finally meet them. too bad i couldn't ever do that, show that i was worth of felix's love and let them know that he was receiving all of mine.
checking on my phone, i noticed all the missed calls and one coming in. as tired as i was and as unhappy as i felt, i needed one last chance to speak to him even if it was too late. i pressed the green button and put the phone up to my ear, hoping to hear his voice again after so long.
"(y/n), hi..." he said and god did i miss him. his deep voice told me that it was still pretty early for him while it was night time for me. "i hope you don't hang up." he said and i just shook my head even if he couldn't see it.
"lix, no i won't." i said firmly as i felt the tears build up. it was such an overwhelming feeling talking to him again. i did not even know where to start.
"i miss you. i'm sorry that i start the conversation like this but it's just what i've been feeling." knowing that he was missing me too as he said it, didn't make sense to me. i was hoping for him to be moving on and feeling better but i guess that it also explains why he's calling right now. "you always told me to say what i was feeling so here i am, i know there's a bigger chance for me to lose this battle but i miss you so fucking much."
"i miss you too." i said honestly and i could hear him take a deep breath and let go. he was always nervous when it came to these types of conversations. i laid down on my mattress as i still heard him breathing and processing what i just said, thinking of the right words to follow up with.
"we're so far apart right now that i see you in every city and not gonna lie, it hurts." he said laughing as i heard him sniff. that's what made my tears finally fall, hearing him so broken and on the verge of tears was gonna be the death of me. "god why did we do that? we weren't perfect but at least we tried to be. it's like i gave up the best part of me and now it seems impossible for us to come back. all of my friends feel that i'm different, hell even my family thinks i'm acting odd and yet i can't even explain what happened because i'm not sure myself." 
"people have been asking me what happened with me, the old me. i'm not sure what to say myself either and i don't think i can explain our whole relationship. even if it was short, i feel like i could write a whole story about it." i said through the pain and the tears. what i said was true, my family noticed my odd behavior but i didn't bother telling them what i truly felt and what happened in reality. i just put on a fake smile and lied through my teeth. "i feel so empty without you lix. feels like there's a hole in my heart that i'm never gonna be able to cover."
it got quiet suddenly and his words were still going through my head as i tried to understand him like he tried to understand me before. 
"can we at least try again? even if it's long distance. i know it's insane for me to ask this, i know it won't be the same and that you might not come back to korea but i wanna be able to at least call you mine." he said firmly like he didn't sound totally broken like me. 
"i don't know lix. i got so attached to you that it scares me and i really wanna say yes. but do you think this truly would work? 'cause i feel so weird even thinking about having a long distance relationship." i said honestly and hoping he would understand. "it's like the more i think about it, the less chances i see of it working out."
"i feel the same way unfortunately but i can't give up on us." it's like those words easily touched my heart when he said them. he wasn't always the best at expressing his feelings but tonight he was showing how he had grown and how much he cared about us, about me. "please let's try again and if it doesn't work out, i'll let you go."
i thought about it. thought about the unconditional love i had for him, thought about his eyes when we first met and how they eventually looked at me the most loving way possible. how he seemed to trust me with his feelings and i eventually learned that i didn't trust anyone else with mine. i thought about our late night talks, our secret dates, our baking together and finally i thought about the fights, the hiding around and the heartless things we could say. the break up was the last thing on my mind, packing my things and going nowhere 'cause that's what i felt i was doing at that moment. if i was going somewhere it would always be with him by my side.
"one more chance, please don't make me regret it." i said. i didn't have anything to lose at the end of the day.
"i won't." he simply said.
this could either be the best decision of my life or the wrong path taken.
"i love you (y/n)." he then said as he switched to video call and i looked at his face again, remembering every feature and reminding me how much i loved him. i was really hoping and praying this would be the right decision but as we looked at each other, i couldn't even think there was a wrong one.
188 notes · View notes
mslanna · 6 months
Note
Imagine telling Raphael that you’re not worried about the final battle because Tav don’t die in real life and all of this is just a video game 🤣
Raphael existential crises
I must preface this: I am horribly bad at keeping the prompts as given. Apologies. (The first try went off completely because I didn't even read the idea right. May do something with that some other day.) Anyway, here goes: unkillable Tav in Raphael's hands...
"How many?" Raphael asks again.
"Thousands." Tav shivers despite the heat of Avernus, the huge fireplace, and the devil at their side. "I remember thousands of deaths. Everything that could have gone wrong. I remember how it did."
"And yet you live."
Tav pulls their feet up to the seat of the chair and puts their head on their knees. Is it really life, when all you remember is death? They remember Lae'zel running them through with her sword. Astarion, overtaken by the euphoria of the moment draining them dead. Gale, friendly fire of one of his potent spells.
"I guess," they finally squeeze out.
"That is quite the advantage, my dear." Raphael leans in and puts an arm around his favourite client. "You are the one that always gets away. The on that lives – wins."
"But I feel myself dying all the time," Tav whimpers and presses their face into the offered shoulder. "I walk into a fight and even as I stand unbroken, I die. Pieces of me shelve off and fall dead. I remember dying by Haarlep's hand several a dozen times. Not all of them fighting."
As much as Raphael wants to prod that specific subject, he lets it go for now. "Are you dying right now?" he asks instead. And breathes a subtle sigh of relief when the human shakes their head against his arm. "Because I will not hurt you, little mouse."
For a moment, Tav relaxes, then their body tenses again, fighting demons Raphael cannot see. He needs to get through to them somehow. A factually immortal Tav will win the Crown of Karsus. It needs to be for him. But a technically immortal Tav has much more potential. A knife to cut through the hells with.
"What is it?" he asks as gentle as he can, wondering if putting a wing around the human would help or hinder. "Are you not safe here?"
"I remember when you killed me," Tav whispers almost inaudibly. "So angry."
"Why would I be angry at you?"
"Took the contract. Took the hammer. Took Mol's contract." Tav hiccups. "Not mad for killing Haarlep. You heartless cunt."
"They are a gift from my father and I cannot touch them." The words come out harder than planned. "But I did not kill you, little mouse. You did not do those things. We are good."
"Could have. Maybe thought about it," Tav admits.
Raphael leans back and forces Tav to look at him by taking their chin in his hand. "Thoughts are not deeds. There is no thought police, no thought crime, and I will never even think about punishing you for a thought. Do we understand each other."
Tav nods. Of course Raphael won't kill them. They're the one that lives. Always. Maybe, if they just antagonise him enough now, Raphael will be the exception. Maybe, this could be the end. They lean against the cambion as soon as he lets go of their head. A part of them didn't and falls into the fire heavily a few heartbeats later.
"You will be alright," Raphael assure them uselessly. But he does wipe at the tears falling from Tav's eyes so that is something. "Take as long as you need and know I am always here for you."
There are appointments in his day, deals to be finalised and clients waiting, But what rests in his arm right now, is worth more than any of those.
69 notes · View notes