#even if it means endlessly throwing shade at him | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

erenoir · 11 months

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𝐟𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮

💿 𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐: 𝚏𝚊𝚍𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚋𝚢 𝚖𝚊𝚣𝚣𝚢 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛

genre: single father!toji, slow burn, angst then fluff, nsfw, MDNI

warnings: 18+ dark content, alcoholism, breeding kink, daddy/mommy titles used, unprotected sex, oral sex, verbal fighting, discussions of abandonment, initial toxic relationship, light gun use.

featuring: toji x fem step-mom!reader

summary: you and toji had met each other at your worst, twin flames fueling each other’s bad habits. you spent weeks upon weeks as on-and-off fuck buddies, manipulating and using each other before throwing one another to the curb again. nothing could save the turbulent relationship of a touch-deprived woman and a man afraid of love, never daring to wave your white flags to one another… until the night toji dropped a bomb that would make or break the two of you forever. | find it on ao3: [☆]

word count: 14.9k

a/n: tell jesus that the bitch is back- i’m kidding! no but really, its been a long year (or more?) of me being away from this blog. i haven't done this in a while, but i have too many delusions and thoughts to not make them into stories, i missed writing too much. anyways, if you like this: reblog, comment, check out my other stuff, etc! luv u xx send toji thirsts in honor of szn 2

“Okay now Megs, daddy and I will be back tomorrow morning, okay?”

Your knees pressed into the cold floor as your fingers tangled themselves in your stepson’s wild, raven locks. The little boy stuck his bottom lip out in protest, your heart swelling at the sight of it. Your thumb met his velvety skin as you stopped a tear from rolling any further down his rouged cheek.

“I don’t want you and daddy to go!” He wailed, a tiny voice strained with big emotions. The glum boy ran into your open arms, clinging to you like velcro. The creamy silk of your blazer swept across the nape of his neck as you enveloped him into a cozy embrace.

“Oh Megumi, you’ll be alright! Your father and I will just be away for the night. Then tomorrow… I can make you all the pancakes in the world for dinner!” His eyebrows knit together and his rosy nose scrunched up as you shook his face in your hands. Little Megumi's messy, toothless grin punctured your heart so deeply. You adored the boy endlessly, even if he wasn’t your son by blood, a connection so spirited manifested itself between the two of you.

“Really mommy?! Do you really mean all of the pancakes in the world?” You let a gentle fingertip feather itself across the tip of Megumi’s nose as you rose to your feet to ruffle the boy’s hair, “Of course I mean it baby! Daddy will do whatever it takes to get you every last drop of pancake batter in the whole, wide, world… isn’t that right, honey?”

You shifted your weight to your left foot to get a good look at Toji, Megumi’s father. He planted himself in his usual crushed velvet armchair that rested in front of the fireplace, thighs sprawled out across the plush cushion. His cheek sunk into the palm of his hand as he ogled at his precious family.

All mine, Toji thought, all fucking mine.

The brooding man sauntered up to you two with ardency, his husky arms snaking around your waist, pulling your backside into his chest and placing a wet kiss to the crook of your neck. Toji rested his hand atop of Megumi’s hair, nearly drowning your little one’s head with its size. You gazed on dotingly as your lover’s biceps contracted when he picked up your son, cooing him into a comfortable silence. The fireplace illuminated the quaint living space an intimate shade of orange, fractals of light bouncing off of the most hidden corners of the room. The shadow of your lover danced across the walls as he rocked the raven-haired child to sleep. You massaged red fingernails into his burly shoulders, feeling the fabric of his black t-shirt ripple between your fingertips.

“We’re so lucky, aren’t we?” You purred into Toji’s neck as you two caressed the light of your lives, sound asleep in his arms. Toji peered over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of you, watching your maternal instincts consume your body as you outstretched your soft hands to the boy. Something within Toji burst in that moment, seeing his lover care for his child as if he were her own.

“Let me take him to bed, my love.” Dark eyes trailed your steps attentively, watching your hips sway as you cradled his son in your nimble arms, your tender hand nurturing the back of his head, holding it tightly to your chest. His pupils dilated when you started whispering lullabies into Megumi’s ear. A series of “Mommy loves you,” and “I’ve got you my baby,” made Toji’s jaw clench and every part of him swell with adoration.

—

You once arrived in Toji’s life as a fiery little creature. Wild, uncaring, and foaming at the mouth for attention. He didn’t see you as anything other than a friend with benefits. It was a fair exchange, Toji satiated your need for unhealthy attention as a girl disowned by her distant parents, and you satiated his need for a little rag doll as a hitman with a severe lack of emotional intelligence. He needed a woman that would do most anything to please him and receive the gratification she so desperately craved in return. Room 4C, that was the room you two would run away to every weekend.

It was a malignant relationship you had, you were unabashedly toxic to one another. Toji would show up drunk on most occasions, and you would allow him to do whatever he wanted to your feeble little body and enjoy every second of it. You would fight just to see who could scream louder, until the misty light from the sun rising sliced through the cracks of the thick curtains. The old motel would’ve kicked you two out if it weren’t for how much business you brought them. Your eyes stung with crazed tears, both of pleasure and pain, and Toji was the one that induced them every time. Every smack to the cheek was met with a tender kiss, and every “I hate you,” was met with a chorus of apologies. You loved each other in wicked ways, but you loved each other nonetheless. You pushed as Toji pulled, never could either of you find a moment of peace to let your fragile emotions rest.

That was until one night where you asked Toji to meet you in your usual room, at your usual time, 8 p.m. Only that night had you two finally waved your white flags and extinguished your venomous behavior to one another.

—

Your toes were painted a wine red as they ran through the fuzzy carpet below you, feet swinging over the twin-sized motel bed. Rain rushed the windows with fervor, the storm warning you had received this morning not clicking in your brain until that very moment. The muffled voices of the news anchors suffocated your eardrums as they grew louder. The silence in the room was painstaking and you didn’t know how much longer you could last solely listening to the rhythmic drips of the leaking bathroom sink. Your eyelids began to droop as the neon leds of the plastic alarm clock flicked from 8:59 to 9:00. The stiff sheets felt like royal silk at that moment, sleep threatening to consume your body. The room around you shut on and off, eyelids blinking slowly, and your mouth dipping into the slightest “o” shape. the cotton of your t-shirt rode up your thighs as you slid yourself under the covers. Toji isn’t coming tonight, truthfully, the thought grazed your mind when it had only been ten minutes after 8, Toji was never any more tardy than that. But as you watched the clock now switch from 9:04 to 9:05, the hint of betrayal that had felt like a pin prick before now felt like you’d just been gutted.

Your body was swallowed in the darkness of the motel room, though you did leave the news on, maybe the late night anchors could keep you company in your lover’s absence. In your dream you saw the dark eyes that taunted you into submission. How pathetic was it to dream about a man who couldn’t care less about you besides what you had underneath your underwear? In your dream you were running, your earthly body was riddled with cold sweats and shivering into oblivion, you heard pounding, it grew rapidly with every step you took, the beat of your heart staying in time, though the pounding felt too real to be fabricated through your imagination alone.

Then your body jolted awake to a vigorous gust of wind, and suddenly the banging became real, and whoever demanded that kind of attention from you at midnight was about to receive a pounding to their face. With your eyes cloudy and vision blurred, you tried to adjust to the dark blue of your surroundings.

“Ah, shit!” The stark yellow light of the bedside lamp blinded you, a shaky hand rested on your forehead to act as a shield to the harsh, artificial rays. The comforter of the rigid bed you laid on grew wet, rainwater dripping from the dark figure that stood above your tired body.

“T-Toji?” You stammered into the abyss, you had no courage to look up and see who had woken you up from your restless slumber. After all, you didn’t want the last thing you saw to be your murderer.

“No, it’s Megumi,” your hand snapped to your side to see from whom such a soft voice was emitted. Above you stood a small boy with porcelain skin and raven hair, he couldn’t have been more than 6 years old.

My god, you thought, he looks just like-

“Toji is my dad, he said to wait in this room while he- while he got m-more of his happy juice… s-so he pushed me through th-that window a-and n-now my knee is bleeding!”

The young boy who tried to remain stoic eventually broke into a fit of relentless tears. He's a child, he’s a- he’s Toji’s… Toji has a child. Your brain went through the motions, trying to ride every wave of the ocean it was thrown into.

Until one of those waves truly hit you- and you realized that there was a fucking child in your room.

And all of the sorrow you felt for the boy had turned into pure, unadulterated rage for his poor excuse of a father.

You peeled yourself from the bed and tripped over the legs of your jeans as you tried to shrug them on while making your way to the door. Your hand stopped at the knob before turning to the kid.

“Fuck… don’t go anywhere, okay kid?” You mumbled as you fished the pack of Marlboro's from the back pocket of your Levi’s and jammed one into your mouth, busting through the door and into the rainy parking lot… search frantically- ferally, for the one person you were dying to see most.

“Where the FUCK are you?! You asshole!” You screamed, voice cracking. “Show your fucking face you… you coward!” You were speechless, running to the middle of the parking lot, and scanning every dark car for someone hiding out- hiding from you. The rain sunk through your tank top, goosebumps pricking your skin, and then next you felt the tears. He was the last person you wanted to cry for, he didn’t deserve it, the fucker would probably enjoy it if you didn’t know him any better.

“Fuck you!” You seethed, bare feet taking you in circles around the flooded lot. “Fuck! You! I hate you!” The tears finally poked through, staining your cheeks with old mascara.

“You always do this shit Toji Fushiguro! I hope you’re fucking dead! You fucking deadbeat father!”

–

After twenty minutes of your parking lot charades, the motel manager had to nearly drag you back to your room- a freezing cold, screaming maniac. The boy- Megumi, was sitting next to you cross-legged on the bed with a patched up knee and an ice cream sandwich from the vending machine three rooms down. He hummed to the tune of the children’s show that played on the television, swaying back and forth in contentment. The fact that you were babysitting the child of the man that you were fuck buddies with amused you as you scoffed to yourself.

“You know… your dad didn’t tell me had a kid,” the little boy’s attention remained fixed on the screen, ignoring you completely while his dark eyes memorized the flashes of color and cartoons in front of him. Hm, he really is Toji’s kid.

“How's your knee, Megs?” Your fingers ran across the pink bandaid you’d stuck over his scrape, making sure the adhesive wasn’t lifting off of his damp skin. Vanilla filling seeped through Megumi’s tiny fingers. Chocolate crumbles littered his plump cheeks as he stuck the final bite of his ice cream sandwich in his mouth, stuffing his cheeks full.

“My knee is fine!” He mumbled through a full mouth, patting his sticky palm over his wound. Your mind toyed with the idea of whether or not now was a good time to mention his father again, but knowing Toji, if you didn’t mention him he wouldn’t even bother coming back. So keeping the boy’s best interest at heart, you casually brought up his father’s name for a second time.

“Megumi… can you tell me where your dad is?” You folded your hands in your lap as you awaited his response. Tears pricked at the boy’s gloomy eyes, a storm just as tumultuous was raging in him as it was outside. Messy palms wiped themselves across his white race car shirt, before they came up to wipe at his face.

“I-I told you… he s-said he was going to get more of his happy juice… he said to wait here with a lady named ___. Th-that’s what he said to do!”

Megumi’s quiet words turned into an erratic tantrum. Tears flooded his eyes as he snorted up a wad of snot, the race car on his shirt slowly starting to drive on wet roads. You were going to kill Toji. You didn’t give a crap about the way he treated you anymore, he had a child who was helpless. And god knows the child was helpless if the person Toji decided to leave him with was you.

The docile boy leaned sweetly into your arms, begging for some form of comfort, it was evident that he’d never received any from his own father before. The sleeves of your sweater moved hesitantly to wrap themselves around Megumi’s shaking body, afraid that if you were to embrace him fully the dam that’s been holding back all of your emotions would suddenly break. It wasn’t your place to nurture this child, it wasn’t your place to offer him another outlet for parental guidance. But as you sat at the edge of the motel bed with the little boy, it felt as if you were sitting at the edge of a cliff, and you could either sink or swim with Megumi’s life in your hands. The moment you felt his frail arms hug you back, the dam fell, and you were in too deep to stop giving a fuck now.

You brought a hand to his wild hair. It stuck up in all directions, he told you earlier that he stole some gel from his dad’s bathroom, and that Toji let him do it however he wanted to. You remember laughing at that, seemingly because it sounded like something Toji would say. Your cheek felt cool against the top of his head, his hair still drying from the torrential storm that brewed just outside the window. Every string inside of you that was holding your emotional state together at the seams had ripped in two as Megumi began to sob more violently than before. His red cheeks moved from right to left across your sweater, wiping snot, drool and tears all over you. With thoughts clouded and the slightest knowledge of how to take care of a child flying out the window, you began to panic. Toji had left his offspring, his flesh and blood, with you, his emotionally corrupted, immature, and attention deprived fuck buddy.

Why?

With tender hands you tuck the covers under Megumi’s petite body. Your heart crumbled completely when you saw how the tears dried on Megumi’s cheeks, how his breathing was congested with mucus, and how his swollen eyes twitched in his sleep. He was having a nightmare. The bed dipped in as you sat beside him and ran fragile fingers over his forehead, sweeping his long hair out of his eyes. For the first time that night you let tears fall from your eyes, as you gazed at the broken child with an instinct to care for him, to help him grow, if Toji wasn’t going to be there to do it. You watched as Megumi’s body relaxed under your touch, his breathing smooth, and his eyebrows drooping. A small smile formed on your face, it was time to fake happiness for this boy, if it meant that he would be okay.

“He’s a g-good kid r-ight?” Your head snapped up as Toji’s overbearing body stumbled through the window, his hand desperately grasping for some kind of support from the wall. God, you really needed to lock that fucking window or god knows what other Fushiguro would trip through it.

An animosity so intense boiled within you, clawing at your stomach, dying to be taken out on the drunken man stood in front of you. The tears returned to your eyes, his silhouette doubled as your vision blurred.

“D-don’t you fucking come near me you asshole,” you whispered, there were no words in the world that could’ve described how badly you wanted to scream at Toji until his eardrums popped. Alas you couldn’t… you couldn’t let Megumi see his father like this.

“Exc-use me but I'd l-like to see my-my son,” words slurred out of his wet lips, a line of saliva falling out of the corner of his mouth.

“Toji… don’t even think for a second I’d let you near him,” your delicate hands pushed against his steel chest, helplessly punching into him to stop him in his tracks. His strong hands wrapped themselves around your wrists tightly as he looked you in the eyes with an intoxicated heat.

“Toji… why? Why wouldn’t you tell me you had a fucking child? Is this who you ran away from every weekend we spent together?” Your hand shakily pointed to little Megumi’s sleeping body, “Do you understand how fucked up that makes me feel? How fucked up that makes you? God! I knew you were a piece of shit but Toji… this is rich, this is- this is the icing on the fucking cake… you disgust me!” You whispered as Toji’s hands repositioned themselves to cup your cheeks, his calloused thumbs coming to wipe the lines of mascara running down your face. Although blank and empty, his stare alone spoke a thousand words.

It told you that he was broken, that he was filled to the brink with regret, that he hated- no, absolutely loathed himself. Toji knew he was a piece of shit, he knew he was wrong for hiding his son from you, and he knew he was wrong for hiding you from his son. He had lasted long enough pushing everything under a compact rug until it couldn’t hold much more, and now every fucked up thing in his life was catching up to him, and you were watching it happen right in this depressing, wet, and cramped motel room.

“I-I didn’t know wh-where else to bring him, I-I mean look at me I can’t be with him right now…” Toji fell to his knees and gripped your calves with his hands, crying into the damp denim of your jeans. You stood stiff, frozen in place and in disbelief at what was happening. The brazen man that you knew so well, that dripped with confidence, with ego, with a sense of security, had shattered completely. Toji’s back muscles contracted as he dry heaved onto the floor, the contents of his stomach just missing your feet. He looked up at you with an empty expression. Snot was dripping out of his nose, his jaw was trembling and his face was littered with tears and red splotches.

“Toji-” You reached for him.

“No… please hear m- me out…”

“I'll listen to you… outside…” You fired, “I’m not- I refuse to do this here when your son is sleeping right there!” You hoisted his body up off the floor as the two of you staggered into the storm. He leaned his body up against the door to 4C as you closed it, boring holes into your head, desperate for you to say anything. You wrapped your sweater around you tighter as rain propelled towards your shivering bodies. You two must have looked mad… drenched, drunken and depressed, in the middle of a storm, enveloped in darkness, hugging yourselves as if that would be of any help. Only the light of the moon and from the other motel rooms made it possible for you to see Toji’s face. The sounds of his rabid sobs mixed with the intensity of the rain pelting the ground, the freezing winds icing over his face sobered him up a bit. Toji began speaking as you looked down at your bare feet once again being swallowed by the wet pavement.

“I don’t trust anyone else,” Toji burns a hole into the parking lot with his stare, watching it flood slowly, he didn't have the guts to look at you, not yet. The single traffic light across the street whipped back and forth in the wind, streaks of light painting the foggy air. You leaned up against the door next to Toji, your tiny body being engulfed by his large, shaking one.

“…I didn’t trust a-anyone else w-with Megumi, I’m a threat to my own fucking kid, can you believe that?” You thought about it for a second, and you could completely believe it, the fact that Toji hid his son from you for this long should’ve spoken for itself. Your somber silhouettes shivered against the outside of the motel, both of your minds racing to deliberate how you would work yourselves through this mess. You almost wanted to laugh, the last people on this earth you would expect to be parents were you and Toji. With the breath kicked out of you, you slid down to the pavement and let yourself hit the ground. You hugged your knees with your shuddering hands and watched the cars slowly maneuver their way around the dimly lit parking lot. Toji’s hand navigates its way to the top of your head and smooths his fingers over your hair.

“Toji… I just have so many questions-”

“So ask them,” for once you looked at him with soft eyes, his voice trembled every time he spoke, you could try to fill the shell of a fractured man with love, with empathy, but everything you could possibly give him would just seep through the cracks of his ego.

“…I keep my circles small… so I didn’t have many options of who to leave the kid with… you’re the only person that I’ve allowed myself to get close to…” He ran a hand over his face, his body began to sink down next to you, extending his legs flat to the ground as his pants soaked with rainwater, “and you haven’t rejected me yet so I threw one more thing on you… is that okay?”

Was it okay? Of all the fucked up things you and Toji have done together, you scoffed in disbelief as your hands began to trace circles on the flooding ground beneath you, swirling rainwater in between your fingers.

“…and his mother?” Your voice cracked as your heart sank at what you could only predict his answer would be. Toji's jaw stiffened, grinding it back and forth as he reached for a pack of soggy cigarettes from his back pocket.

“Shit,” he muttered. He rung out the pack of smokes in his strong hold, the damp paper pushing between the cracks of his fingers. You looked at him and he looked straight ahead, watching small ripples form in the puddles of water upon impact from the rain.

“She’s dead… died when he was just born,” your chest weakened at his words, eyes overwhelmed with sorrow. Toji's lips began to tremble as he tried to bite back his tears. He was tired of crying, tired of not being strong anymore, and tired of not being a good father, for that’s the strongest thing a man could ever be.

“…So the kid got stuck with me… he- I don’t deserve him, I don’t deserve to be a father to a kid as good as him…” In his most vulnerable state, you chalked up the courage to take his hand in yours and rub your thumb over his scarlet knuckles. You sat like that for a while, legs sprawled out over the drenched concrete, the ends of your feet grazing each other ever so softly.

“Toji…” your voice came out barely above a whisper, “…don’t say that… Megumi needs you,” Toji’s breath hitched in his chest as he coughed back the urge to cry anymore, “Megumi needs you to get better for him… that kid- he looks up to you so fucking much. He sat next to me for an hour talking about you alone.”

You pulled your knees into your chest and buried them under your sweater to shield your icy legs from the cold. You felt Toji’s blue eyes burn holes into the side of your head, he was desperate for any taste of guidance.

“You’re lying… the kid barely knows me, he”-

“So help him know you! Toji you can’t fucking give up on that kid… and you sure as hell can’t dump him on me and expect me to make up for the years you neglected him! I won’t fucking do it, not without you…” Your screams broke into a whisper.

You wanted Toji. You wanted him a month ago when he was just an asshole without a kid, and you want him now that he’s just an asshole with a kid. You shifted your body to sit closer to his, his silhouette swallowing yours in size as you curled up next to him on the concrete. Resting your head on his shoulder, he inched his hand towards yours to lift your knuckles to his lips and kiss them gently, one by one.

“Toji…” you continued, your eyes not leaving the ground, “I want to be with you, I want to love you- and if Megumi comes with you I’ll love him too… that’s what you’re asking of me, yeah?” You lifted your head to look at him, leaving your faces only inches apart as you gazed into each other’s eyes. Toji nodded his head slowly, he never asked for help, it was a sign of vulnerability. But the kid was the only exception for Toji, he always has been. He'd always absorb everything like a sponge until he physically couldn’t hold any more dirty water, tearing every time he had to ring out all of his baggage.

“You wanna know why you’re an asshole?” You’re probed, finally striking a light on one of his gnarly cigs and blowing the smoke onto his face. The scarred corner of his mouth twitched upward, enough for only you to notice.

“Pray tell, doll.” He chuckled in a husky voice, his calloused hand reaching for the cigarette you held before you smacked it away. He scoffed, “That came from my pack, you know?”

“The least you could do for me is bum me a cig, no?” You jabbed, the burning cherry hanging from your fingers as your hand bounced around with your words.

Silence.

“Well… you’re an asshole Fushiguro…” You continued without any more permission, hesitant to tell him what you wanted to. You feared you’d opened up too much already. Your tongue dragged over your teeth as you worked out your next sentence.

“You-“ You took a long drag, “You are a raging dick, actually. Because-” you paused to look over at him, and surprisingly enough, you had his complete attention. And his eyes weren’t hardened but- soft. And his breathing was less ragged than it was ten minutes ago. You swallowed hard as his eyes dropped to your mouth.

“You know you could hop on the next train out of here with no intention of seeing me again…” You whispered. “And I’d fucking love the shit out of that kid regardless, right?” He smirked at your choice of words, Toji tried hard not to love things, in the end everything he gets close to fades away and dies. But he believed that he loved you, and he loved the way you were prepared to drop everything to nurture the most secret part of his life. All he could do was stare at your face, gentle, warm, and glowing in the rain. Though it felt like the whole world was after him he felt safe next to you, and he despised the feeling, for it meant that he was prepared to give himself to someone for a second time, and he wasn’t ready to lose another.

“And that’s why I left him with you,” he smirked. He winced as you smacked him across the face, your eyes wide and feral.

“Yeah I know, I know that’s why you did it you fuck!” You scream-whispered, still mindful of Megumi just behind the door. “But don’t expect me to be- h-hot shit at this mother thing- I won’t hesitate to throw you under the bus if it means protecting him!”

You were standing now, and you were pacing, and reality was hitting you, and the adrenaline rush you were riding for the past thirty minutes was wearing off and you were scared. Your hand shook as you rose the dwindling cigarette to your lips, your body shaking from both the rain and the kiss of reality. Struggling to inhale from the damp bud, Toji cut off your train of thought.

“I know you won’t, that’s why I left him with you,” he said sternly, his figure now towering over yours. He grabbed his face in your hands, and it was just as much a loving act as it was a ‘I need you to get your head on straight and focus’ act. He pushed your cheeks in and shook your face ever so slightly, “You listen to me- That. Is. Why. I. Left. Him. With. You.”

He spoke roughly, dividing every word with a quick pause so you could get it through your head. He pressed his forehead to yours so you were eye to eye. “Hey,” he brushed some matted hair away from your wet forehead. You knew he saw the tears welling in your eyes, and you wish you could push him away so he could never see you cry again. But you couldn’t, you felt that you loved him far too much to do that. Your shoulders shook as you let them fall, you cursed yourself for letting it happen.

“Fucking listen to me,” Toji jabbed, “I left him with you because you- you don’t fear me. You will throw me under the bus, you’ll push me in front of a fucking train, for that kid,” he actually laughed at the thought, “I know no other person that will hold me accountable- even if it meant my bloody death.”

You shook yourself out of his hold, throwing your burnt out cigarette on the ground between you two, setting an imaginary border so you could think clearly away from him.

“Are you sober enough to hear me out?” You asked quietly but not lacking any ounce of aggression.

“Since you slapped the living shit out of me? I’d say I’m pretty okay,” Toji took one step towards you before you stopped him in his tracks.

“You stay over there and you listen to me,” you growled. You nervously rung out your hands, pulling on every knuckle and joint while you spoke.

“… I hope you don’t… run away.” You paused, “No- actually, you will not run away,” Your words left your mouth like you were prophesying commandments to a lost disciple. “He needs you with him, Toji. He is tired of you disappearing.”

Toji listened to you like your voice was the last thing he’d hear in his life, yet he wanted you to stop talking. The more you spoke the more bound to the tracks he felt, and he had never been bound to anything before, he did as he pleased, always. So Toji prayed you wouldn’t utter another word that would keep him here. He had to leave, if he stayed you would get hurt, that’s how it always went. But with every word that left your mouth you pulled him in and glued him to the ground he stood on.

He let out an exasperated sigh as you wrapped a hand in his hair, using it as leverage to push your foreheads back together. He was speechless, there was so much he could say to you, to convince you to kick him to the curb, but his words were stuck in his throat.

“I am tired of you disappearing,” the ropes that kept his body bound to the tracks drew tighter, and in the distance he saw the headlights of a train inching closer by the second.

“I know you think it’s hopeless, that it’s not even worth trying, but your son having any shot at living a normal life is worth fighting for… Toji, please-”

And then the train struck him, just as promised, this wouldn’t be the last one you pushed him in front of.

Your grip on Toji’s hair loosened as his lips crushed themselves onto yours. He pulled you closer, needed you closer, hugging you into his chest as you caressed the sides of his face with your hands, thumbs rubbing at his scarred cheekbones. You tasted like salvation. Toji knew deep down that you were his salvation.

“I’m not asking you to fix me, I’m way past that- I'm just asking you to be patient… for the kid.” He whispered against your lips, the tears that littered your cheeks dampened his. “I care…” he swallowed his words, “...I care about you- alot.”

“Jesus fuck, did it kill you to say that?” For the first time that night you laughed genuinely, and Toji’s mind was clear. It was carved in stone, he had claimed you and now he’s responsible for your life now, alongside Megumi’s. He raised his hands off your hips as if you were a fragile porcelain doll, too afraid to hurt you now that he’s held you- truly, held you. You looked at him questioningly, already missing the feeling of his skin against yours.

“I don't want you to get hurt… I don’t want Megumi to lose anyone else, he needs something I’m afraid I can’t give to him-”

“Shut up,” your eyebrows furrowed together as you shook his head gently, “Don’t go there… you dumb fuck,” bringing his lips to yours once more, he finally released under your touch, the feeling of you safe and in his arms put his restless thoughts to bed.

“I'm here, Megumi is sleeping soundly inside… we’re gonna be okay. Everything is a fucking mess. Because you did kind of fuck it, but we’ll figure it out,” you insisted, taking his hands in yours and placing them on your heart. Toji dropped his head to the crook of your neck and closed his eyes as the soft thump of your heartbeat grazed against his fingertips.

“Do you feel that? I’m alive you asshole… I’m not dead yet.”

—-

Toji knew you would stick around for a while.

He was right, because here you were, two years later, with Megumi cradled in your arms as you carried him up the winding steps of your Victorian home, placing soft kisses on his forehead and lulling him to sleep. Today was the anniversary of that night at the motel, when you met Megumi for the first time and decided to help Toji care for him even when you were entirely lost yourself. You haven’t been back there since, you three left the next morning on a train and never looked back. You told Toji that if you did it would be bad luck, so he kept moving forward for you and his son, to finally give him a life he deserved. But tonight you two thought it would be nice to visit one more time, on your anniversary, just for old time’s sake.

Toji watched as you tiptoed back down the steps and gave him a gentle thumbs up, signaling that Megumi had finally fallen asleep. Toji wrapped his arms around your waist and lifted you up into him, peppering kisses all over your blushing face. You placed a sloppy kiss onto his lips before jumping down and giving him a little twirl.

“C’mon baby, let’s go!” You wrapped your hand in his and dragged him to the door. His face relaxed into a content smile, after all this time, his little bird was still as free as ever.

—

Around your neck you donned a good locket that Toji had gotten you for your birthday, it moved up and down against your chest as you took deep breaths standing in front of an old friend. The door to room 4C looked just as you left it, with a few more cracks here and there. Your body shuddered as you looked down at the ground in front of it, still feeling the presence of your younger self clad in a drenched sweater, curled up next to a younger, drunken Toji. A warm smile spread across your face as you remembered how scared you two were, unsure of the world and without a plan, shivering in the pouring rain as you thought about your futures together.

Tonight the sky was clear, the only thing that surrounded you was the sound of cicadas singing. You looked up to your side as you felt Toji’s fingers intertwined with yours, holding onto your hand loosely. He looked down at you and smirked, although you two were much more mature and cared about whether you lost your lives or not for Megumi’s sake, deep down you two would always be the notorious fuck-ups that happened to fit perfectly together.

“Wanna wreck some havoc one last time?” he asked you. You giggled as your hand twirled the brass doorknob, entering the room that you and Toji made love in more times than you could count, the room that you got high in, got drunk in, the room that you fought in, that you threw television remotes at each other in… the room that you eventually fell in love in.

Your fingertips grazed the stiff blankets, the cherry red countertops, the cheap coffee maker, as you took every detail in. Everything was left just the way it was on the night. You let out a chuckle underneath your breath as you sunk your fingers into the mattress, remembering how Megumi’s body slept here soundly as you and Toji decided what the fuck you were to make of yourselves just outside.

“I'm glad you pushed Megumi in here that night…” you whispered as you lifted the blanket up, they could never remove the stain of his chocolate ice cream sandwich from the white sheets. Toji watched as you reminisced, taking in every inch of you, before your eyes finally met as you dragged your gaze across the tacky flower paintings that decorated the walls. Your eyes rested on his face as you drank the sight of him in. Toji was happy, he was at peace with what his life had turned out to be.

“The way it all happened was absolutely fucking ridiculous I hope you know that…” You rolled your eyes at him as he crossed his arms and leaned up against the kitschy wallpaper. “...but I wouldn't change a thing, it happened the way it did for a reason.”

He watched as your hips swayed back and forth underneath your black slip dress, his heartbeat speeding up as you draped your arms around his neck and leaned him further back into the wall. Toji, the hardened man that could effortlessly punch through anything that looked at him the wrong way, softened immediately when he was with you. You were his biggest source of strength, but his ultimate weakness nonetheless.

“Hold me, Toji,” you whispered as you brought your lips to his, feeling his brute arms tie themselves around your tiny waist, “…I love you baby,” you murmured as your lips moved against his.

“Thank you,” Toji had spoken for the first time since you two entered the room, too enamored with you to form any coherent words until this point. He watched as the orange light from the bedside table illuminated the back of your head, the halo of light framed your face like an angel.

“What?” you continued to pepper kisses all over his face, gently alternating back and forth from each cheek as your fingers played with his dark hair.

“For saving me… for loving Megumi… you didn’t have to fucking do that… you could’ve been free but you chose this life,” he pulled you up into him, shoving his face into your neck and taking in your scent. Toji was deathly afraid of losing you, so when he held you, he held you like it was going to be the last time he’d ever get to. You were his second chance at life, and if he could, he’d have you by his side forever.

“And I wouldn’t have chosen any different.” You croaked, your fingernails grazing the back of his neck.

“I wanted you then Toji and I still want you now, heaven and hell would have to meet on this earth to get me to stop loving you…” Your words were barely above a whisper, making sure they were for him and only him. Toji’s lips began to move against your neck and his hand tugged your head back by your hair, giving him more room to mark you.

“Toji, plea-“ You whined breathlessly, eyebrows furrowing together as everything inside you became bubbly and grew more sensitive with every touch.

“Have you ever thought about…” His lips paused against your neck, his grip on you tightening before he let up, “Fuck it, nevermind.” He shut himself down before he could even finish his thought. You nudged his head out from where it was hiding on your shoulder and forced him to look at you. You always found it funny that you held such a threatening man like putty in your hands.

“No… say it, tell me please,” you rested your hands on either side of his face, letting him know it was okay, you gleamed up at him as the flashes of the television reflected in your eyes, his heart swelled at the sight of you. Toji broke his eye contact with you, anxious of how you’d respond to his question. Toji was anxious. And you could feel it. And then his jaw clenched before his grip on you tightened once again, even now he couldn’t let the fortress that he hid inside break.

“Have you ever thought about… having another kid?” His eyes were dark, and a grin almost devious teased the corners of his mouth, and all of a sudden you felt how you did two years ago. And the Toji you fell for was standing there and he was so close to you and you were in his arms. He was teasing you like you were helpless teenagers in love. And though you loved Megumi so deeply- he was safe with the nanny at home… and you and Toji were just you and Toji again. You wanted him as fiercely as you did two years ago, and you wanted him to make love to you the way he did two years ago. Everything had been so gentle since you two were last here, and you watched Toji grow into an amazing father. You understood that he treated you like glass because he didn’t want to lose you like he has everyone else. And he was so good to you. But fuck, he was too good sometimes and you wanted that asshole back.

You pushed yourself into his chest and nudged his face in your direction with your nose, smiling softly as you watched a storm brew in his eyes alone. Your breasts nearly spilled out of the neckline of your dress as you pressed your chest to his. You felt him tense as you licked your way up from his neck to his ear, placing a kiss on the sensitive skin behind it.

“Toji… I think about it everyday,” you whispered, his grip around your waist tightened as he exhaled sharply, as if he was holding himself back.

“Do you think about a boy or girl?” He teased, beginning to trace his fingers on your thighs just below the hem of your dress. Your body instinctually moved into his, your words caught in your throat and your eyes lost in his. Toji smirked down at you, watching the way you curled around his finger so easily.

“Hey,” he snapped, taking your chin in a firm hold, “What did I ask you, princess? Stay with me.”

His other hand that remained just underneath your ass rose a few inches to give it a taught squeeze. He chuckled softly watching you twitch at the sensation. With your chin still in his hand he snapped your face to the left, pressing his nose against your cheek and inhaling deeply, before placing a hard, sloppy kiss to it.

“Tell me.” He pushed your face back so it was an inch away from his, “Do you want me to give you a boy or a girl?”

The stench of lust stained the walls, the carpets, the bedsheets, your clothes… it stuck to everything. This fucking room made the two of you feral. Toji had you melting in his hands and you wanted him to mold you to fit perfectly to him. Your hands traced down to his chest, feeling the muscles that pulled underneath his fitted black shirt. You took handfuls of the fabric into your fists as you smashed your lips to his, and he reciprocated immediately, like he was a robot built to respond to your commands. His hands flew everywhere, feeling every inch of you. They traced your thighs, slipped under your dress and up your spine, they traced the curves of your breasts and trailed up your neck, before stopping at the back of your head, bringing your face impossibly closer to his. He wanted you to mix together like a forbidden cocktail, whiskey and vodka, dark and light, never to be put together but when they are, they can be deadly.

You pushed from his unforgiving hold, to look up at him, the two of you breathing heavily, gasping for air like all that was left in the room was sucked out of it. You stumbled backwards as he watched you quizzically, wondering why the fuck you weren’t glued to him right now. You wanted him to see you, fully. So you stopped walking backwards until your legs hit the end of the bed.

Slowly, your fingers toyed with the hem of your dress, your cheeks heating as Toji smirked and crossed his arms. He watched you with a tilted head and his tongue poking at his cheek, in disbelief that you were his. But his smile dropped when you took hold of your dress and inched it up your soft skin, revealing the lace panties you had been wearing. Then you pushed the silk fabric past your belly button, and Toji could only imagine how that stomach would look big and swollen with his child. You stopped there, and slowly dragged your hands around your stomach, before they rested on top of your womb, your eyes never leaving one another.

“I don’t care about the gender of the baby… as long as it’s our baby and we take care of it together,” you whispered as you fixed your gaze on Toji’s chest, too nervous to look him in the eye. A primitive feeling ignited within him as he witnessed those words leave your mouth. Someone wanted him, not for dirty work, not to be used, but to love him and share a love with him, he never thought himself capable of feeling compassion for another like this in his life. He wanted to claim you in every sense of the word, fill you up, and burn his name onto your heart.

“You wanna give me a baby?” He growled from across the room, his shadows reached you from six feet away and enveloped your body, the vibrato of his voice shooting straight to your core. The idea of Toji marking you permanently made your insides curl, wet at the thought of it. Your eyes filled with lust and need, begging him to take you right here. He lost all of his senses as he looked at you turning into a needy little thing for him, breasts supple and on display as they heaved up and down. He imagined how they'd swell and fill with milk for his child, his gaze shot up to your lips, wet as you bit and licked at them, stains of the dark lip liner you had put on before you left, remaining on your skin like a ghost. Then they shot to your eyes, nearly tearing up with need, need to be touched and his completely. Something in you shifted when his gaze softened and his stance relaxed.

“Fuck… I wanna give you a baby Toji.” You whispered as you felt the first tear roll down your cheek, and within seconds Toji was up against you once more, lips molding to yours and his hands tangled in your hair. The weight and force of him pushed you back as you prepared to hit the bed. You took one of his hands from behind your head and placed it on your stomach, pausing from the kiss to look at him, saying all you needed to tell him with the one stare.

The rubber band inside of him snapped in that moment, he was madly in love with you, and the way you cared for Megumi so tenderly drove him up a wall. Watching you rock him to sleep, cook him breakfast in the morning, dance carelessly around the living room with him in your arms- he wanted to do it all over again with you, and start at the very beginning this time. He nodded frantically and wordlessly as he laid you back on the bed, pulling the heels off your feet as he crawled over you until he’d pushed you to the head of the bed, eyes never leaving yours. His lips met your collar bone, sucking on the skin that peaked beneath the strap of your dress, you wrapped a hand in his hair and pushed him into your chest as you whimpered, desperate for more.

He pulled his lips from your skin, placing a chaste kiss on the fresh bruise he mouthed onto your chest before placing a strong hand on your stomach, the other bringing itself to your head to make you look at him.

“Fuck, princess… tell me what you want again.” He whispered, pushing down on the soft skin of your stomach and tracing circles around your belly button with his thumb. Something about that movement turned you feral, as Toji hit all the right spots within you with his words. You crashed your lips into his as you growled into his throat, staking your claim on him. Toji was yours, and you wanted to make sure he knew it.

“M’hm…” You hummed as you rotate your hips into his thighs, “I wanna have your baby,” Toji squeezed your thighs before he pushed the rest of your dress up above your head, nearly panting as he watching your breasts spill out. He took one nipple into his mouth and the other in his hand, your body arching at the sudden change of pace. He sucked and twirled his tongue around the sensitive bud, the other hard and taught between the rough pads of his fingers. You always loved the way Toji could handle you, he was the only man that was ever able to give you exactly what you needed. It had always been that way, just you and him, becoming experts in each other’s bodies, memorizing every curve and trigger that made one another sing.

He lifted himself up from your breasts so that his face was hovering above yours and your head was trapped between his arms, he looked at you… and for a second you could’ve sworn you saw sadness wash over his face.

“Tell me what you want me to do to you and I'll do it, tonight you have me completely,” Toji whispered, tracing the contours of your face. You hid in his shadows, unsure what to make of that statement. Your breathing was ragged as you searched his face for the cause of the sudden gloom he casted over the bed you two occupied. You reached up to trace the dips of his jaw and cheekbones, back around his head before your fingers lingered over his lips.

“Toji, what’s wrong?” You asked wearily, “Don’t I have you completely every other night we spend together?” His gaze saddened, and this time it definitely had. You grew incredibly nervous, because despite the fact that you had Toji for two years… deep, deep down, you knew that he was a force that couldn’t be tamed.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he whispered, his forehead dropping to your shoulder. He laid his body weight on top of you, caging you into him as if to protect you from an impending doom.

“And because I can’t lose you…” Your breath hitched in your throat at his next set of words. You couldn’t let him finish.

“Toji… no.” You whispered, wrapping your arms around his back and hugging him into you.

“I’m sorry, I have to.” He shook in your hold, his hand wrapping around the back of your head and pushing it into his neck as you began to sob. You struggled to escape his grasp, you needed to fucking breathe.

“Toji… get the fuck off of me.” You bit through tears, but he wouldn’t budge.

“Let fucking go of me!” You pushed, squirming away when you felt him loosen up. You tripped your way out of the bed and hid yourself in the corner of the room, between the big TV and the bathroom. You sheltered your naked body by crossing your arms over your chest and your sobs became uncontrollable. You burned holes into his back as he knelt on the bed with his hands unfolded in his lap, he stared at them, empty and without you in them.

“I have to leave-“ He began.

“Shut up.” You whispered, begging him to stop.

“It’s the only way you and Megumi will be safe.” He pushed.

“I don’t fucking care-“

“You don’t care about my son?” He screamed into the void of the bedsheets, the palms of his hands digging at his weary eyes. The statement shook you, it clawed at the deepest parts of you and ripped them out. Left you gutted.

“How f-fucking dare you…” You choked, his back was still turned to you. You looked around the room in frantic disbelief, fists punching at your head. “You can at least turn around… and fucking LOOK AT ME… While you tell me that I don’t care about MY SON!”

You were towering above him now, for once in the years you had known this man the power dynamic had shifted. What was different was that you’d experienced another kind of love, and that love left you with a reflex that would cut anyone that threatened it. Toji had been training you up for this moment, the one where he would finally say he was leaving again, and you’d have to be there for Megumi on your own.

You shoved at his back and he didn’t budge, so you shoved again, and again he didn’t budge.

“He’s my son too….” You seethed, “ And I will not let you sit there with your back turned to me…” You continued as you rounded the bed so you were facing him. “Just so you can fucking tell me that I don’t care about him!”

He kneeled as still as a statue, the silence surrounding him almost sickening. And the more you stared at Toji, the more you wanted to laugh. You were not going to fall for his bullshit game again, because in the two years that you’ve loved him you’ve also learned him.

“You’re a coward, Toji…” You shot to kill. “If you meant what you said you can look me in the eye and say it again.”

Knowing he wouldn’t budge, you crawled onto the bed and kneeled beneath him, forcing yourself to look up into his eyes. They looked empty.

“Go ahead and tell me that I don’t love my son, Toji,” you smirked, eyes wild and alight as they were when Toji first set eyes upon you years ago, when he knew he had to have you. You grabbed his chin and tilted it upwards as you crawled into his lap, straddling him so he had nowhere to go, nothing else to look at but you, nothing else to feel but you. You put your lips to his and growled, nothing but heat laced in your words.

“Be a man… be a father… and tell me that I don’t love my fucking son.” A tear slipped down his cheek, and you could see mountains move in his eyes and you watched the walls of that fortress crack after two years. His hands fell to your hips, locking you in.

“I can’t,” he whispered, “I can’t tell you that.” Sorrow held heavy in his gaze, as he tried to kiss you with your lips on his. You wouldn’t let him, pushing his face back into place.

“Then tell me… why you would lie to me Toji,” you asked softly, your sadness, your embarrassment returning. “Why would you leave me again? Have I not been good enough-“

“No,” he cut you off, “No, never.”

“Then what is it! Tell me why you’re leaving- again!” You sobbed, your vision of him blurry now. Your hands wrapped around the back of his head as you pulled his body into your bare chest, feeling the wetness of his cheeks against your breasts. You dropped your head into the crook of his neck and sobbed, “What haven’t I done to make you see how much I love you?”

“It’s not what you didn’t do,” he resolved, “It’s what you did do.” You shook as his fingers kissed up and down your spine. “You have done everything- I could’ve asked for. I am scared of the way I love you… and I am scared of the way you love me.” He tried to pull your face from his neck but you were the immovable statue this time.

“Look at me,” He says sternly, forcing you from your hiding spot. He places a tender kiss to the corner of your mouth. “I have never loved someone so much. I can’t stay away from you and I think that’ll be our downfall if I don’t leave now. My plan was never to stay, I was going to leave you with Megumi… but god, you’re like a fucking magnet. Of course I stumbled in after him and when I saw you sitting on that bed with him… my fate with you was set in stone, princess.”

You were a blubbering baby, your hands holding his face as your thumbs rubbed his cheeks back and forth, like they were trying to memorize every scar and curve. You kissed his cheek as he continued, “It is everything you have made me… that’s the reason I have to leave. My work isn’t safe, once they know how soft I’ve become you will be the first people they target.”

“Toji, I d-don’t care!” You blurted out, “I don’t care… I can take care of myself, I can take care of Megumi. Teach me then, huh? Teach me to f-fight o-o-or use a gun… please Toji… I need you here.” You weren’t even sure of what you were saying, you were just saying anything to keep him here longer.

“You are all I have left-“ He pushed.

“As you are to me!” You bit back.

“Toji, you are all I have… please… please can we try?”

You practically begged, “What about our baby? Was that all just shit to get me to sleep with you one last time? Hm?”

“No, of course not!” He shot back, words fiery and filled with passion.

“So you were gonna what? Toji? Knock me up and leave?” You asked silently, holding your eye contact with him. “Because I really wanted- I really wanted to have that with you.”

He bit back tears, swallowing deeply as you drilled into him. He just shook his head, if he wanted to keep you in his life he had to do this. He had to let you go. He gently pushed you off of him one last time, wincing when he felt you reach for him, your hand gracing his.

“N-no Toji… no, please,” you begged, his heart tearing as he walked closer to the door, gathering his things slowly. He jolted when he felt your small body press into his back, hugging him from behind and shaking. It took everything in him to fight the urge to place his hand over yours. But feeling you slide to the floor behind him made him turn around to look at you. He had done it, he had broken you, and for the first time in his life he was disgusted that he had done that to someone.

“Get up,” he choked.

You refused.

“Get. Up!”

“No.”

“I’m not leaving you on the floor like this-“

“Then don’t fucking leave! You asshole!” You screamed at him wildly, smacking at his legs with weak jabs, the picture of a child throwing a tantrum.

“If you ever loved me or Megumi you would stay!” You cried, “You would stay… and you would try for us…”

“You can’t say that-“

“Yes I can because it’s true,” you shot your words at him like bullets leaving a gun, short and quick, one after the other.

“When I agreed to take Megumi under my care… I said I would do it only if you stayed with me. I said I wasn’t going to let you run away. And if you think for a second that I didn’t mean it then you really are fucking dense Fushiguro.”

Toji’s mouth quirked at the sound of you using his surname, you haven’t done that for a while. He set his sights on you for a reason all those years ago, he knew you were strong, he knew you were unwavering. He just never thought he’d meet someone as stubborn if not more stubborn than him. That’s why he knew you were the one he was going to leave Megumi with. And even now as he looked down at you he knew he made the right decision. You would chase him into the parking lot naked if he made a run for it and he knew that. No one was better for his family than you. His heart dropped when he felt your hand reach up to his, releasing him from his train of thought. You were beautiful. And he was sorry. And stupid for thinking that this wasn’t going to go over without a fight. He tightened his grip on your hand and knelt down to kiss it. Every knuckle. Every fingertip. And he knelt into your touch when you cradled his face.

You saw him make a swift movement from the corner of your eye, and you couldn’t move fast enough when you felt a piece of heavy metal weigh down your hand. In it Toji had placed a gun, you knew he always carried one but he’d keep it concealed around you. So you’d never actually seen it. To be holding it right now… you didn’t know what to do. You watched him as he moved to kneel behind you, his hand never leaving yours that held the revolver.

You gasped as he brought an arm around your waist, fixing your posture so you were upright. And he adjusted your arms so the gun was pointing at the door of the motel room. His hands laid loosely over yours and his head rested in the crook of your neck. Your breathing grew heavy when he traced from your hand all the way back to your upper arm, fixing its position and propping it up at a 90 degree angle.

“It’s like a dance, you see.” He whispered into your ear.

“If you hold it properly, and give it room to move,” he loosened your grip on the trigger.

“Not too tight, princess…” You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding.

“It’ll hit all the right steps…” His finger covered yours on the trigger and you felt your heart stop, “and you’ll shoot ‘em dead.”

“Bang!” Toji mimicked the sound of a gun as you jumped backwards into him and screamed, eyes squeezed shut. But you didn’t feel the reverb of the gun, you didn’t hear anything piercing the wooden door, only the vibration of Toji’s low chuckle in his throat. You turned around to see him propped up on both arms, staring at you in amusement while you stared at him in shock.

Your hands shook as you examined the gun in your hands, before looking back up at his smiling face. His hands covered yours as he slowly took it out of your grip.

“What the fuck, Toji?” You whispered, scared as if you’d actually shot something.

“Safety’s on, sweetheart.” He teased, wrapping an arm around your neck and bringing you into him to place a wet kiss on your mouth. “I’ll let you do the real thing once you start getting good.”

“What?” You stared at him in disbelief, but he didn’t miss that glimmer of excitement in your eyes.

“I’ll teach you how to use a gun, I’ll teach you to fight, I’ll teach you whatever you want to know… so we can keep our kid safe.” He whispered, looking down at you with a warm smile on his face.

“Yeah?”

“Yes…” He whispered, “…I love you.” He added.

“I love you too,” you almost didn’t believe it.

“I mean it… I love you.” He repeated, like he could read your mind. But you were still hurt, and angry, and everything bad you could feel you felt.

“I- prove it to me… that you mean it… I’ve proved myself to you enough tonight Toji… and I won’t stand to be made a fool,” your words bit, and you hope he felt them draw blood. Toji pulled you back into his chest and buried his face in your hair, taking in your scent.

“You want me to prove it?” He whispered. His hands start to trail up your thighs, his mouth begins to place kisses on your neck. You sighed at his touch, placing your hands over his on your body.

“Mhm,” you whimpered, leaning into his chest, your body becoming overly sensitive to his movements again. Toji’s hands pushed at your thighs, “Open up for me, princess.” You did as you were told, sliding your feet slowly so they could meet his boots on the carpeted floor, putting your clothed heat on display for him. He continued to draw circles on your thighs, more forcefully now, inching your legs open wider.

“T-Toji, please,” you choked out, growing impatient.

“Tell me what you want,” he whispered in your ear, sliding his hand under the waistband of your panties, his cold fingers scorched by your hot skin, “Come on… tell me, pretty girl. Had no problem biting my head off a moment ago.”

“Fuck you,” you seethed through gritted teeth, trying to amass any pleasure from rutting your hips upwards.

“Suppose I deserved that,” he chuckled, you could feel his chest shaking against your back. You leaned back into him and swung either of your legs over his highs, opening yourself up wide and demanding he touch you. “Dirty girl, that’s how you got tangled up with me in the first place- were just too damn needy…” His hand slipped under the crotch of your panties and you jerked as he placed his palm flat against you. Toji hissed at the wetness that met his skin, grabbing a handful of the slinky lace into his fist and tearing the cheap fabric off your body, “I’ll have to get you new ones.”

“Please, Toji, please,” you were practically whimpering, begging for him. Jolting as he slapped your waiting cunt once, catching you off guard as you hissed at him. You placed your hand around his forearm and guided it as he massaged the sting of his strike out.

“Tell me-“ He began again, letting his fingers slide up and down your folds, collecting all of the wetness before bringing them up to your mouth. You looked up at him behind you and he simply raised a brow, silently suggesting that you knew what to do. You took his hand in yours and dipped your mouth down onto the two fingers he pulled from beneath you, licking and sucking your arousal off of them.

“Good girl, now tell me…” He pulled his fingers from your mouth and shoved them back down to your weeping heat, this time pushing them in and curling them upwards, holding you in place as your body contracted.

“T-oji my god!” You gasped at the sudden movement. He shushed you, pressing his lips to your ear as his fingers writhed inside of you, “Shhh… tell me about how you’ve dreamed about giving me another baby,” Toji insisted, a glimmer of that ego shining through as he continued his ministrations, more aggressively this time, beginning to pump two fingers in and out of your cunt.

“Mph-fuck, Toji please-” His fingers continued, pushing in and out of you, kissing your ear when your head dropped back onto his shoulder.

“Tell me, pretty girl, and I’ll give you more,” he began to speed up, wrapping his spare arm around your torso to hold you flush against him, spreading his thighs further, ensuring that your legs spread with him. You moaned at the action, rutting your hips up into his hand as you gave him what he wanted.

“I- I’ve dreamed about it since we first bought the house together…” He began to place chaste kisses on your neck, sucking on the supple skin, adding a third finger inside of you. “Fuck… that’s too much To-”

“I think you can take it, how could you have my kids if you can’t even take three of my fingers, princess?” He started to pump slowly, letting you adjust to the size. “Now, go on.”

Your breathing was disorderly, your hands grabbing onto his thighs as you felt yourself swallow the girth of his fingers whole. “Ah- okay… w-we bought the house a-and, I think…” You thought back to the first time you set foot in the house after it was officially yours, you were in love with the Victorian architecture and since you loved it Toji loved it even more.

“I think watching you paint Megumi’s room that bright blue… seeing you covered in paint… making sure e-everything was perfect for him.” You hadn’t even noticed him speeding up, until he started circling your clit with his thumb and you could’ve sworn you were gonna explode. “Toji- please, I think I’m going to-”

“Not yet… finish,” he urged and you protested before you felt him land another strike to your clit, “Now.”

“Oh, my god!” Your eyes crossed when he resumed, your abdomen shaking at the sensation, “W-watching you made me realize t-that… t-that we were going to b-be okay-ah!” The arm around your torso made its way up to your breasts, pinching and twisting at your nipples. “...It made me realize t-that I want to be in this- w-with you…hmph… for a long t-time…” You looked up at him with pursed eyebrows and your mouth agape, finding him already staring at you. His face was warm, your entire being felt warm. And then he sped up, fingers pounding in and out of you, his mouth dropping back down to your neck to litter it with hickies, your legs grew stiff and you frantically jutted up into the palm of his hand.

“Toji- fuck! Please, please-”

“Tell. Me.” He growled, not letting up on his movements.

“I-I- oh fuck… I realized that I wanted to be with you… f-forever, To-ji. I wanted to h-have more kids w-with you a-and raise a f-amily…” Your eyes held his and you felt your toes curl and your insides turn. His mouth connected with yours, holding your jaw in place, as he growled into your mouth.

“Cum.”

You saw stars as his grip on your jaw tightened, swallowing all of your moans, all of your cries, and drinking them like they were a forbidden elixir. He held your legs open with his, pumping in and out of you relentlessly as he held your shaking body. You felt his length, hard against the small of your back, and you lost it completely when you felt him needily rutting up into you through his black denim. “Fuck Toji! I’m cumming. I’m cumming- ah!”

You two were a sweaty bundle of bodies, desperately rutting into each other, trying to be impossibly close to one another. You reached an arm around his neck and drew him into a wet kiss, hungrily biting and sucking on his lips, his tongue, any inch of him you could take in.

“More. Toji, please, I need you more.” You begged when his fingers finally released you. You wanted each other in ways you never had before, this time was… different. This time you two were consummating your own version of a fucked-up marriage. In sickness and health. In life and death. You would have each other completely. You felt how needy he was, the scent of your arousal on his mouth, on his hands, lingering everywhere, it turned him into an animal. You turned to face him and helped him out of his clothes. Peeling the shirt off his sweaty body as he kicked his boots off, licking a stripe up his abdomen with heaving breaths, your eyes never leaving him as you panted for him, need dripping off your tongue. Once you got to his neck, you began to leave bite marks along his collarbone, his jaw, your bare cunt rutting into his crotch, growling at the cotton boxer-briefs that kept skin from skin. Toji’s hands grazed over your body, tracing every curve and valley, letting you devour him, take him, do what you wanted with him.

“Take these off,” You breathed against his neck, fingers pulling at the waistband of the boxers, he chuckled, grabbing you by the back of the head and forcing your eyes to meet his, “As you wish, mama.”

Sure, there were partners before Toji, and the sex was fine. But no one had ever made you act the way he made you act. You were a partnership of two antagonists, just prodding and poking at each other to see who could make the other crazier. You were sure that tonight, Toji would win.

Mama.

You saw stars at the word and he knew it. Toji watched your eyes grow as dark as his in seconds, trailing his every movement as he lifted his hips up and slid his boxers down his legs. You watched his cock smack his stomach, so rock hard it looked like it hurt. You needed him in cynical, territorial ways. As did he to you.

“If you don’t put a baby in me right now Fushiguro…” His eyes widened at the vulgarness of your demand. He watched you kneel just feet away from him, observed the way your chest was heaving up and down, the locket he gifted you, the one you never took off, moving with it. He noticed the way your breasts looked heavier, nipples puffier. He noticed your arousal dripping down your thigh, he had never seen you so wet. And lastly, he noticed the way your hands guarded your stomach, as if they were guarding your precious womb until he came around to mark it.

“Get on your back,” he barked, climbing over to you swiftly, not giving you time to follow his directions on your own as he had you laid down against the carpet in seconds. He licked his lips as he watched you draw your bitten lips into your mouth, waiting for him to do something.

“Tonight I am going to fucking worship you,” he growled, smashing his lips to yours, jamming his tongue down your throat and licking you everywhere unholy. His lips trailed down your breasts, your stomach, and he stopped above your thighs, leaving bite marks all the way down. He blew a puff of air onto your sticky heat, before teasing you with a small lick. The second your thighs flew upwards his hands held them down, gripping onto the fat like they were lifesavers. He stuck his tongue in your folds, firmly tracing circles around your clit and following the patterns of your vulva.

“Toji!” You screamed, almost as if you wanted him to stop. But that couldn’t be further from the truth, you needed him to keep going. One of your hands tangled in his hair as the other held onto his, your body writhing like a fish out of water as he continued to suck and pull at your core, groaning into you every time you rode your hips against his face.

“I-I can’t, please I’m-” You gasped for air, desperately moving your body up and down with his mouth, riding out the waves of pleasure he was giving you. Your body was still sensitive from your orgasm just moments ago, you felt like you could burst at any moment. But Toji didn’t stop, he kept blowing air onto your clit, fucking you with his tongue and biting the soft skin around your mound. He reached up to grab hold of one of your breasts, squeezing and pinching as he himself ground into the carpet he laid upon. Your moans and your taste were his jet fuel, and he was getting off to every second of it. You watched his ass flex as he repeated his movements, drawing circles into the carpet with his cock. The sight of him desperately humping nothing sent you over the edge, screaming as you pulled at his hair, your thighs closing around his head.

“TojiohmygodI’mcummingfuck!” Your words came out a sloppy mess, unable to do anything but praise him for being so good to you. He continued to place kisses on your inner thighs until you were done riding out your high, your body finally falling back to the floor.

“Feel okay?” He asked calmly, rising to his knees as your body occasionally twitched in your post-orgasmic euphoria. He ran his hands up and down your torso, gently massaging once he got down to your pelvic bones, working out the knots and work you had just put in to getting off on his face. He knelt down to kiss you deeply, tenderly this time, inhaling your scent and running his hand over your head.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. His eyes searching for answers in yours, “I’m sorry,” he uttered, digging his forehead into the crook of your neck. “I’m sorry I tried to run away, you don’t deserve that.”

“Toji… I- I love you.” He kissed your forehead, his hand hitching themselves underneath your thighs, watching your eyebrows furrow together while he inched your knees up slowly.

“This comfortable?” He asked you for reassurance again and you nodded, and he pushed a little further, until your knees nearly touched your shoulders, you winced a little at the stretch of it, inhaling and exhaling deeply as he waited for you to adjust. When you open your eyes he’s looking down at you, kissing the insides of your calves and massaging them.

“It hurts a little?” He asks again gently and you nod. He chuckles quietly as he leans down to kiss you, you inhale sharply as he puts pressure on your legs, stretching your hamstrings even more than intended.

“If I’m gonna put a baby in you, this is the best way, princess.”

His words ran straight to your core, and you nodded frantically, feeling like a teenager having sex for the first time. So eager to feel him. This time with Toji felt different, call it- fucking with intention. Both of you felt the thickness of the air, you knew how much this meant. He placed a chaste kiss to your lips before whispering against them, “Let me know if you need me to stop.”

Your eyes nearly crossed at the suggestion of him fucking you so hard you’d need to call it in, you just wanted to feel him already, “Mhm… Toji, please.”

His head dropped to your chest as you wrapped your arms around his neck, gripping him tighter when you felt his tip prop itself at your entrance. He laid his body flat against yours, you screamed at the burning in your legs, folded back against you with the weight of his body, but you wanted more. His arms caged your head in on either side and that was when you felt it. Toji watched the way your face contorted, your mouth dropping and eyes squeezing shut as he filled you at an angle he never had.

“Fuuuck,” he exhaled, inching his length into you further and further. He felt you claw at his back, skin sticking under your fingernails as you groaned with him, two animals fucking to conceive. The most primitive state of the human, fucking to reproduce, to bear offspring, to grow a family.

“Toji-”

“Yes, princess,” he cut you off, “Oh fuck,” he gasped, bottoming out inside you, before hoisting your waist up to his and slinging your legs over his shoulders.

“T-Toji I’m so full!” You whined, grabbing onto his thighs folded on the floor as he knelt before you, buried deep in your cunt.

“I know, baby, I know… be good and let me put a baby in you, okay?” He asked, placing kisses to your calves once again. You panted, nodding up at him while he made his first move. You groaned as he pulled himself out, before splitting you back open and bottoming out once again, “Fuck Toji, I need-”

You felt it snap inside you again, whatever it was that made you feral, foaming at the mouth for the feeling of him inside you. “Toji I need you to fuck me…” You ground your hips into his, grasping at anything to give you leverage on his length. He looked down at you wearily, always so delicate, so fragile, “I don’t know if I should-”

“Fuck, Toji! Stop treating me like I’m glass and fuck me!” His eyes grew dark at your words, but still a glint of remorse held him back. You smacked at his chest, then looked down to remember that he was balls deep inside you, he seemed to remember at the same time because his stare turned wicked, “Look at me, Toji... I need you to fuck me baby.”

You felt him begin to pick up his pace, slowly but surely rutting into you, fucking you deeper and deeper with every thrust. “F-uck, Toji!” Your mouth dropped as you watched a string of spit leave his mouth and drip on to where his cock and your cunt met, you gasped for air when he reached down to spread it around, lubing you up and preparing to go deeper, “T-oji, TojiTojiTojiii, please baby.”

“Yes, pretty girl. Fuck yes.” He gritted through his teeth, groaning at the way your tits bounced with every thrust, he reached out and cupped one in his hand, “Fuck, your tits are gonna be so full in a few months…” Your eyes rolled back at the way he groped it, playing with your nipple. Then your eyes fell to where you two connected and his gaze followed, the two of you watching Toji reappear and disappear inside of you, your wetness covering his cock, and his arousal being shoveled deeper and deeper inside of you.

You squealed as he thrusted harder, laying on top of you and rutting down into your heat. “Go ahead and touch yourself for me,” Toji instructed, and so you did. And a familiar feeling began to bubble up in your stomach, and for the third time that night Toji would ruin you.

“Toji, please oh fuck-” He brought a hand up to your sweaty forehead, blowing air on it to cool you down, he then took your hand and placed it on your stomach, smirking as your eyes widened at what you felt.

“Feel that? Feel me inside of you?” He whispered, kissing you swiftly, feeling himself come close. You were a mess of moans and whines and you couldn’t even begin to explain the things that Toji was making you feel.

“Y-yes… yesyesyesdaddyIfeelit!” You cried as you circled your clit faster and pulled him closer, “Fuck yes! Right there baby, fuck me right there!”

Toji growled, his hands now clawing at your thighs, the picture of two animals fucking wildly. Something sent him tipping past sanity as he pushed your legs all the way back, your ass up in the air as he thrusted down into you.

“Call me that again…” He seethed, grinning cynically at the way your eyes glazed over, his hand wrapped itself around your throat, enough to let you breathe. The sensation was overbearing, you started writhing underneath him, squirming and twitching while he kept his pace.

“F-uck,” you choked out, cracking what smile you could with Toji’s hand restricting you, “I want you to fill me up, Daddy.” Toji saw red, and blue, and every color that you helped him see in the past two years, and he fucked them all back into you. He kissed you with tenacity, lips tangled with lips and limbs tangled with limbs.

“I’m close,” he seethed.

“Me too,” you whispered.

“Boy or girl, tell me and I’ll fill you,” he whispered against your lips, saliva, snot and sweat mixing as you two breathed heavily into each other's mouths. Toji’s neck turned red the longer he held in his orgasm, the veins of his arms popping as he held you tightly, maneuvering you so you were in the perfect position to receive him.

“I told you I don’t care,” you whispered back, feeling yourself close to the brink, tears forming in your eyes, “I told you I d-don’t care as long as I raise them with you.”

He smiled, “Pick a wild card.”

You smiled back.

“Girl,” you whispered. With your arms holding him closely against you, Toji began to writhe, his abdomen jerking in and out as he tried to control the strength of his orgasm.

“Fuck!” He screamed, fucking his seed into you, filling you up with himself. You pulled his face to yours and kissed him tenderly while you felt yourself clench around his length, milking him and riding out another orgasm of your own.

“Yes,Toji! Yesyesyes!” You wrapped your legs around his torso and held him there, feeling his body twitch as he continued to shoot loads of himself into you. Your body shook as you took everything he had to give you, placing your hands atop his as he held your legs back, the two of you watching him push every drop that fell out back in.

To think that you and Toji would end up here, there was a time when he was nothing but a fuck buddy to you, and you to him, now you desired something so intimate, so binding to his being. You couldn’t help but laugh breathlessly in his arms, and with that he looked down at you, smiling. Toji admittedly never smiled a lot before he met you, but as he looked down at you, he couldn’t be happier to smile in your presence.

“Do you think we… got it?” You asked him, out of breath.

He raised his eyebrows, “You would doubt my work?” You smacked his chest and pushed him off of you, attempting to stand up but finding yourself weak in the knees. Toji approached you from behind and lifted you up slowly, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you into him.

“I think we should try the bed out next,” he whispered, “See if it’s still any good?”

You looked up at him in disbelief, “You want to do that again?”

“You don’t?” He smirked.

“Well I-” You thought for a second while you melted into his hold, “I don’t not want to do that again.” He emitted a dark sound, while kissing the top of your head, and leading you step by step over to the old mattress.

“Remember the first time we had sex here? I think I tied you to the headboard,” he suggested casually. Your hands tensed around his before you spun yourself around to face him, wanting to smack him, grin and all. He pushed himself into you and grabbed handfuls of your ass, lifting you up into him and taking in the sight.

“For old times sake, princess,” he persisted. Your tongue pushed at the inside of your cheek as you considered the idea. You supposed mother’s had to have fun too.

“...Just this once, asshole.”

“God, I love it when you call me that.”

871 notes · View notes

kamaluhkhan · 9 months

Text

we were wild and fluorescent (come home to my heart)

pairing: conrad fisher x fem!reader

summary: you come back to cousins beach after a few years away. conrad is not particularly happy that you're back - and you aren't particularly thrilled, either. too bad there's a history (chemistry?) neither of you can deny.

warnings: nostalgia + fluff + a bit of a *steamy* ending ; mentions of sex; swearing; conrad and reader drink alcohol; reader is a competitive swimmer + deals with a lot of pressure; complicated family dynamics (reader has two younger siblings + is eldest daughter); pop culture references (it book/movie, percy jackson series), this chapter is very long + ending is a little cheesy !!

tags: @stargirlsirius-recs, @ifilwtmfc, @qwertyb2577, @allnrsnz, @baconeggndcheez, @peanutbelley, @imogen-skye, @geekinthefuschiahair, @tvije, @drikawinchester, @maybankslover, @junnniiieee07, @elcpsstuff, @fangirl-kimora, @redbierd, @starkeylover, @serrendiipty, @jackierose902109, @lonelywitchv2, @c4rpediem-s, @teensyflowur, @peteronesgf, @percysaidnever

a/n: i literally cannot express how much it means to me that people are reading + enjoying my work!! thank you endlessly for following this story. this chapter is mostly fluff with a lot of banter between the reader and conrad + nostalgia. i'm thinking this will be the last part (....unless?) so i hope you enjoy it :)

part one | part two | part three

on a summer afternoon / i get to thinkin' 'bout the hazy days / under august shade that i used to spend with you (khai dreams, “sunkissed”)

now — summer age 18

you’re already frustrated when you walk over to the beck house, and when the person you least want to answer the door opens it, your mood goes from bad to worse.

"hey. is jere home?" you ask, peering behind conrad to see if someone else, anyone else is there. this is the first time since your argument that you and he were alone together, and you really don't want to look him in the eye. he doesn't look too thrilled to see you standing on his porch, either. he looks at you with tired eyes, wearing a black, short-sleeved rashguard and hair dripping wet.

"no, sorry."

"how about steven?"

conrad shakes his head and droplets of water go flying. he says something about prep for the debutante ball.

you exhale sharply, upset that your backup plan just fell through. "okay, bye."

you start walking away, but conrad calls your name.

"everything okay?"

you're surprised by his follow-up question — suspicious, even. given the harsh words you'd exchanged the last time you were together, you assumed that conrad didn't very much care to prolong a conversation with you, much less whether or not you were okay. whatever his intentions are, you don't really have time to go down this road.

"everything's fine," you answer loudly, still forging ahead.

"come on, y/n. i know you."

your hands clench into fists at his words and you finally stop in your tracks.

"conrad," you huff, turning around to face him. "i really don't have time for this."

"look, i'm not…." conrad sighs, running a hand through his wet hair. "i'm not trying to start anything. you seem a little stressed, and if there's anything i can do….just, let me be there for you."

conrad used to always be there for you in situations like these, and you ignored the sharp pain in your heart earlier when you decided he couldn't be this time. you really, really, really want to stay mad at him — you certainly have enough reasons to be for several lifetimes — but the gentleness of conrad's tone calms you down as much as it throws you off. instinctively, you feel your hands unclench, your heartbeat slow down.

“so, what’s wrong?”

you sigh. your siblings had planned an overnight trip with their friends at a campground about 3 hours away. they were meant to leave this afternoon, but the chaperones just cancelled — one had car trouble and the other a work emergency. now, they didn’t have a ride or adult supervision, which left you to come up with an alternative, lest you want to spend the rest of your summer drying your siblings’ tears and dealing with a lengthy guilt trip from your mother (who, conveniently, has plans this weekend and can’t reschedule). you left that last part out of your story to conrad, explaining only the basic components of your dilemma.

“but, it’s fine. i’ll sort something out.” as you wait for conrad to respond, you’re already running through a few other alternatives in your mind. you’re just in the middle of estimating the amount of money you would spend on gas when conrad says:

"well, i can come with you."

you quirk your eyebrow at him. “yeah, you don’t need —”

“you’ll need two cars — and two drivers — to get them there, right? i'm not doing anything right now, or tomorrow.”

“it’s not your problem, conrad. i’ll figure something out —”

“look, you have three options," he interrupts, tilting his head at you. "one, you take two trips yourself to get them all there, which means you’d spend around 10 hours driving each way and waste a ton of money on gas.”

you stiffen.

you hate that he knows exactly how your brain works….

“two, the twins have to cancel their trip, and you spend the rest of the summer with your siblings upset at you and your mom suggesting that you’re a bad sister, which is not true.”

you hate that he understands exactly the situation you’re in….

“three, you let me help you.”

….and you hate that he always insists on being helpful.

that was the real reason that you didn’t want to ask conrad — because you suspected that he might offer to help regardless of the tension between you two. the conrad you remember was always concerned with doing the right thing, no matter what, and despite how different he’s acting this summer, you knew that caring boy was still there, deep down.

sometimes, you hate being right — it can get a bit tedious.

conrad waits for you to answer, but he obviously knows you well enough to guess your decision. you don’t find the prospect of camping with conrad particularly appealing, but you’re desperate.

you tell conrad to be ready to leave in an hour, before walking back to your place to tell your siblings the good news.

a little over an hour later, your siblings, their friends — devi, khadija, kai, and leo — and all the camping supplies are split in between your and conrad’s cars. you decided to divide the group into threes: you’d drive your sister, khadija and leo; and conrad would drive your brother, devi, and kai. once everyone’s buckled in, you and conrad close the trunk of your respective cars and turn to each other.

“so, we’ve got a spot booked at stardust falls, but the plan is to stop halfway —”

“at sophie’s for a bite to eat,” conrad finishes, a smile creeping on his face. “i know the drill.”

you bite back a smile yourself before nodding at him and getting in the driver's seat.

as your sister cues up a playlist — you had just made her watch lemonade mouth so she was currently obsessed with hayley kiyoko and her music — you get lost in memories of summers past.

it was a tradition, many years ago: your siblings were too young to join, so for one weekend in late august it was you, conrad, jeremiah, belly, and steven with susannah and laurel, the seven of you piled into a minivan for an overnight camping trip. you spent the drive blasting music and singing along, playing ‘i spy’ while gorging on goldfish crackers and sunny d. about halfway through, there would be a pit stop to refill the gas tank, stock up on snacks, and get something to eat from the nearby diner. you would always get waffles with extra whipped cream and conrad would get chocolate chip pancakes, and you’d always split the food between you. once you got to stardust falls, you’d spend the afternoon swimming and sunbathing, and the night roasting hot dogs and marshmallows, stargazing and whispering until sunrise.

as much as you loved laurel and susannah, you and conrad would dream of getting your driver’s licence and being able to continue the tradition with just the kids. you never got the chance; it was only five years ago, when you were the same age as your siblings now, that you had gone on your last camping trip to the same location.

it seems your dreams were finally coming true — just not in the way you expected.

when you get to sophie’s diner, you’re relieved to have a chance to stretch your legs. the eight of you get a familiar booth in the right corner and you find yourself squeezed between devi and the window. the waiter distributes menus to everyone, and it isn’t until you look down that you see it: your initials next to ‘CF’. last time you were here, the five of you all carved your initials onto the table when the moms weren’t looking. you forgot that you’d placed yours right next to conrad’s; to be fair, you were always sitting next to each other. now he’s at the other end of the table on the opposite side, examining the menu carefully even after being here so many times.

this time, you just get a coffee and steal some bacon from your brother; conrad doesn’t get anything, claiming he isn’t hungry, until your sister offers him the rest of her french toast, which he practically inhales. after, you and conrad fill up on gas while your siblings and their friends go into the store for some snacks.

“hey, can you get me some sour patch kids?” you ask your brother, handing him a $5 bill. your brother nods and starts walking away; you glance at conrad, then add: “and some m&m’s, too!” to which your brother offers a thumbs up.

“thanks,” conrad says. he removes the nozzle and sticks it into the gas tank; you do the same, and for a few moments, there’s nothing but silence between you.

“does listening to the lightning thief musical on repeat make your brother a theatre kid?”

you turn to face conrad, who’s already looking at you with a lopsided smile.

“i think it makes him more of a percy jackson kid,” you decide.

“well, he has good taste. i didn’t even know there was a percy jackson musical,” conrad adds.

“i know, right?” you gush. “my brother and kai went to see it off broadway, and of course i had to chaperone, but i’m so glad i did because how, in the name of all the gods, did we not know this existed?”

conrad laughs. “we would have been obsessed,” he agrees.

you smile, feeling yourself hit by another wave of nostalgia.

when you were younger, you, conrad, jeremiah, steven, and belly loved the percy jackson series, rotating the books between the five of you until everyone had read them, the covers well-worn and sand stuck between the pages. so, for belly’s 9th birthday, laurel wrote out a prophecy with an elaborate quest for the five of you to go on - something about searching for poseidon's missing trident - while susannah used the time to fashion the backyard into your very own camp half-blood. you each got ‘assigned’ a godly parent: apollo for jeremiah, ever the sunshine boy; hermes for steven, the trickster of the group; aphrodite for belly, who looked at the world with rose coloured glasses; poseidon for you, because you loved the water; and athena for conrad, wise beyond his years.

yes, your heart did skip a beat, because of what a perfect coincidence — that conrad was essentially the annabeth to your percy. when would the two of you share the best underwater kiss of all time?

after a fun-filled afternoon, you each took home a necklace filled with clay beads, as was tradition at the fictional camp half-blood. even after summer ended, you would always wear yours in between swim competitions and practice. somewhere along the way, you misplaced it; it was probably left on the chlorine soaked floor of a locker room. you wondered if the others still had theirs, if conrad even remembered.

he’s looking at you now with such wistfulness, you have a feeling he does. when he looks at you like that, it’s easy to forget that you’re mad at him and he broke your heart. scratch that: you’re mad at him because he broke your heart.

and, not that it solves everything between you, but he’s here and didn’t have to be, and that maybe possibly heals something inside you.

before you can continue the conversation, a sudden click indicates that the gas tanks are full, just in time for your siblings and their friends to exit the convenience store, carrying a significant haul of snacks and drinks.

your brother hands you the sour patch kids and m&m’s, and you toss the bag of m&m’s at conrad, which he catches effortlessly. you rip open the package with your teeth and stuff a few of the sour candies in your mouth as everyone piles back into their respective cars.

you open the door to get in the driver’s seat, but the passenger side is empty. that’s when you notice that your sister and devi were still walking back from the store, taking their time. your sister laughs a little louder than usual, her smile a bit brighter when devi bends down to steal a sip of her drink. she’s wearing a jacket that you’ve never seen and probably belongs to devi, and your sister’s pair of sunglasses now rests on devi’s head. technically the sunglasses were yours, before you passed them down to your sister, but still — it’s adorable. devi winks at your sister before slipping into the backseat of conrad's car. your sister sighs contently before freezing at the realisation that you witnessed the moment between them.

"what?" she asks, a little flustered.

something makes you glance over your shoulder at conrad, who you now realise had seen the interaction between your sister and devi as well. beside him, the door to the driver’s side is also open, but he doesn’t get in. instead, conrad raises his eyebrows at you and smiles knowingly.

“nothing,” you say, smiling back at conrad, then at your sister. “but hurry up, if you want to make it to the falls before sundown.”

your sister mumbles something and gets in the car, while you check the route one more time. you tell conrad which one has the least amount of traffic, and soon enough, you’re on the road again.

conrad follows closely behind you, never allowing more than a car between before catching up. you glance in the rearview mirror and see your brother belting the words to what you assume is the percy jackson musical, and conrad is even bopping his head along. in your car, your sister is busy reading the song of achilles while the others in the back are relatively quiet.

“so what’s going on with you and discount james dean?” your sister suddenly asks. she puts her book down, reaches over into the cupholder to grab a few sour patch kids.

you laugh at the nickname, even if the answer disappoints you, just a bit.

“nothing.”

out of the corner of your eye, you can glimpse your sister roll her eyes.

“that seems to be your favourite word today,” she notes.

“fine, how about this for a change of pace….there was definitely something earlier between you and devi.”

your sister’s jaw drops and she turns around to see if her friends heard, but khadija is asleep and leo has his headphones on, looking down at his phone.

“y/n!”

“what!” you mock her incredulous tone. “you’re not fooling anyone.”

“i’m not…we’re not…” your sister stumbles over her words, turning her head sharply to face out the window. she plays with the sleeve of devi’s jacket, which she’s still wearing despite it almost being 85 degrees. the same music as before fills the space, and hayley kiyoko sings about girls liking girls as you wait for your sister to answer.

she finally sighs when the song ends. “i like her, okay? but we’re just friends.”

at her words, you’re overwhelmed by an eerie sense of deja vu. if you could have done things differently, maybe you would have. and maybe, just maybe, you can help your sister have a better outcome — whatever that means for her.

“look, kid, i know it feels like the end of the world, but you have options,” you promise. “one, you tell her and she doesn’t feel the same way; your relationship is forever ruined and your other friends have to choose sides —”

“y/n! seriously?”

“i’m just preparing you for the worst case scenario,” you defend, exiting the highway. “the best case scenario is that you tell her how you feel, or she feels the same way and beats you to it, and it all works out. and there is, of course, the secret third option.”

“what’s that?”

you shrug. “easy. you never cross that line.” you follow the signs that lead you to your destination.

“and bottle up my feelings forever,” your sister grumbles. “is that what you and conrad did?”

you make a right into the campground and put the car in park; conrad’s car pulls up next to you a few seconds later. you turn off the engine.

“not exactly.”

_________________________________________

you and conrad unpack the trunks as your siblings and their friends set up their tents. you hear their giddy banter as they plan how to spend the rest of the afternoon, as well as the sleeping arrangements. you smile to yourself when you hear devi suggest that she and your sister share a tent. the cars are pretty much empty except for some food to keep away animals, but you notice that not everything made the trip.

you double check your car, then conrad’s, before calling over your brother.

“yo, what happened to my bag?” you ask him.

“i thought it was your swim stuff, so i took it out of the trunk,” he explains. “did you need it?”

“oh no, no. it just had all my clothes, my sleeping bag and my tent,” you say sarcastically. “no big deal.”

your brother gives you a thumbs up, clearly not getting the message. he seems more interested in kai, who's currently unpacking his guitar.

“cool,” he says before walking back to his friends.

you huff and close your trunk. at least there is some balance in the universe: the mosquito repellant was in your bag, and your brother is usually their favourite meal. you always have afterbite, or you would have, if you had your stuff with you.

thankfully, you had your bathing suit underneath your clothes, and you could sleep in the backseat, even if it wasn’t the most comfortable…

“everything okay?” conrad sneaks up behind you.

“turns out none of my stuff is here.” you shrug. “but it’s fine.”

“i mean, we could share my stuff,” conrad offers, lifting up his bag. knowing him, he’s probably overprepared and carefully packed, even with only an hour’s notice.

you look at him for a second.

“let’s sort that out later, yeah?” you decide, ignoring how the prospect of wearing his clothes, sharing a tent with him, makes your heart beat faster. “i’m itching to go for a swim.”

taking advantage of the late afternoon sun, you all slather on sunscreen, throw on colourful swimsuits with sunglasses, and relax near the water. it’s only a short walk away from where you’d set up camp, and all your tents (well, except yours) are still in view. your brother, leo, and khadija are sitting down on their towels while playing cards. kai has borrowed your sister’s copy of the song of achilles to read. your sister and devi are, splashing each other in the water. conrad is reading a worn of stephen king’s it, a bottle of lemonade resting next to him.

khadija brought her wireless speaker, and out of all your siblings’ friends, you’re thankful that she has the best taste in music. “this is the day” by the the plays in the background of everyone’s laughter and playful banter. you swim idly in the water, let your skin absorb the sunlight, and take it all in.

as much as you were stressed this morning, you’re practically floating with joy now. you feel like a kid again — and it finally feels like summer.

your eyes land on conrad once more. he sits in the shade and you’re craving a sip of his drink, so you get out of the water and settle down next to him like it’s the most natural thing for you to do. you’re dripping on his towel, but he doesn’t seem to care; he hands you the bottle of lemonade without a word. you take a sip, surprised that it’s slightly bitter.

“does this have vodka in it?” you cough.

“yeah,” conrad answers, putting his book down. he takes off his sunglasses and rests them on his head. “i can get you something else, if you want.”

you shake your head and take another sip. “it’s fine. just don’t let the kids drink any alcohol, okay?”

“i won’t.” he offer you a wry smile. “but you know they’re not kids, right? they’re teenagers.”

“it feels weird calling them teenagers,” you say. he’s sitting up with his knees bent, and you lay down next to him, but not before stealing his sunglasses to shield your eyes. the sun moved slightly, and starts to peek through the leaves of the tree that was providing shade.

“just because we grew up, doesn’t mean they have to," you add once you're comfortable.

conrad hums. you tilt your head to look at him and notice his eyes lingering on the tattoo below the band of your lime green bikini top. you smile — he blushes, then looks away. conrad takes the lemonade bottle back from you and swallows a mouthful. you close your eyes, let the sun wash over you.

“my mom told me you got into stanford,” he says suddenly. “that’s really cool that you get to go to california. just like you wanted, right?”

“i thought you hated horror,” you say, referencing the book you saw him reading earlier. you desperately want to change the subject — your father is still pushing princeton because of their swim team rankings, and your mother is too busy spending her free time in bars to really care. needless to say, where you’re going to college isn’t a topic you want to discuss, unless you’re looking to ruin this perfect sunny afternoon.

conrad just looks at you for a second before playing along.

“i usually do, but this guy on my football team wouldn’t shut up about stephen king, so i thought i’d give it a try. you’ve read it?”

“no, but i saw the movies. i cried so much in it: chapter two, like i was practically choking on tears in the middle of this dark theatre. my ex had no idea why i was crying so much.”

“why did you cry so much?”

you open your eyes. it takes you a beat to respond, because you never really thought about it that deeply. by now, the song has changed to david bowie’s ‘heroes,’ and watching your siblings and their friends goof off in the middle of summer makes you feel like a background character in a coming of age movie, when five years ago you would have been one of the main characters. you miss those days, almost as much as you miss what you had with the boy next to you.

“because it reminded me of this,” you admit.

conrad lets out a small chuckle. “did i miss the summer where we fought a killer clown?”

“no, smart ass,” you shove his leg playfully. “but there were other things that were just as intimidating. like, parents who were jerks with soul-crushing expectations, and younger siblings who needed to be taken care of. drinking problems, cancer diagnoses, divorces. just…everything, you know? it was summer, we were kids, and things were just scary sometimes, but we always faced it together. and, then…”

“we grew up,” conrad finishes.

“yeah,” you muse. you lift the sunglasses off your face to look at conrad, and he’s already gazing down at you. if you closed your eyes again, you could imagine laurel and susannah sitting by the water and gossiping, steven and jeremiah diving underwater to try and catch a fish with their bare hands, and belly laying in the sun while reading a romance novel she's probably too young to read. but all you see now is conrad, smiling at you softly with the golden sunlight shining behind him, and it makes your heart ache.

belly mentioned that they hadn't been back here since you stopped coming to cousins. because it wasn't the same.

your voice drops to a whisper. “i'm sorry i ruined it."

"don't give yourself so much credit." his smile at you sadly. "we both made things messy; i should be sorry, too."

"are you?"

he hesitates, finishes off the bottle of lemonade.

"yeah," he finally says. "i'm sorry."

and it doesn’t feel like enough, but instead of worrying about what would happen tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after, you just focus on today. you relax back down on the towel next to conrad, and let the sunshine and sounds of summer fun wash over you.

the afternoon fades into the evening, and once everyone's dry, you get started on dinner, then dessert.

it's so familiar: the warm glow of the campfire, the smell of burnt marshmallows, the slight itch on your skin from where a mosquito must have bitten you, the pressure of conrad's knee pressed against yours.

you get up for more graham crackers, and your sister follows you.

"so, i hear you and conrad are sharing a tent," she teases. "you're welcome."

"why would i thank you?" you wonder, biting into a graham cracker.

a wicked smile appears on your sister's face. "well, i was the one who told our dear brother that you wouldn't need your bag. i figured your boyfriend would have everything you need."

"conrad's not my boyfriend," you remind her, a little annoyed. you and conrad made nice earlier, but the peace between you is precarious. you aren't particularly thrilled to be in a situation where you're confined to close quarters together — much less now that you know it's been fabricated by your own sister.

"so then why are you and conrad sleeping together in a one person tent?" she challenges, crossing her arms.

"do you want me to sleep outside and get eaten by werewolves?"

your sister rolls her eyes, but you notice how she shudders just a little bit.

"those don't exist," she declares, her voice a little shaky. your sister is old enough to know that monsters aren't real, but you still get a kick out of scaring her - especially when she's done something to frustrate you.

"oh, sure they do," you reply easily. conrad arrives at the table next to you just in time, probably to check on those graham crackers you'd promised to get. "stardust falls is crawling with werewolves, right con?"

"no," he answers. your sister sighs with relief too soon, because conrad continues. "only on the full moon…." he makes a big show of pulling down his sleeve and checking his watch. "which is tonight, if i remember correctly."

"but, don't worry," you wink at your sister. "devi will protect you."

there's a moment of silence between the three of you, before you and conrad burst out laughing.

"you guys are the worst!" your sister groans. you and conrad are still laughing as she grabs an unopened bag of marshmallows and snatches the pack of graham crackers from you before storming away.

"thanks,” you say once you’ve both calmed down.

he grins at you, reaching over to grab an orange. “my pleasure.”

you smile back at him before walking back to the campfire, already feeling warmth spread through your chest.

_________________________________________

when the night is at its darkest, everyone decides that it’s probably time for bed. you triple check to make sure the fire is out and all the food is away, and then everyone goes into their tent — with you as the exception.

you and conrad never circled back to whether or not you’d be staying in the tent with him, so you end up staying out by the water.

there’s still some rustling and whispers from the tents behind you, but mostly you’re left with the soft trill of crickets, and what sounds like an owl in the distance. you’re still wearing your bikini top and cutoff shorts, even though there’s a cool breeze near the water, because you didn’t really have another option. conrad was right earlier — it’s a full moon, and you’re thankful that it provides some light. the sky is clear enough that you can also see the stars. you’re so lost in looking for constellations that you’re startled by the sudden appearance of shadow right next to you.

“shit, conrad. you gave me a heart attack!” you exclaim, just loud enough for conrad to hear and quiet enough to not wake the others.

“sorry,” he whispers back, sitting down next to you with a lantern. “i couldn’t sleep.” conrad tilts his head up. “but, i come bearing gifts.”

conrad hands you one of the mugs he’s holding — not the usual thermos you’d bring for camping, but ones that you’d find in the kitchen back at the beach house.

in the dim light, you see that it’s your favorite mug, the same mug you’d dropped during your argument a few weeks ago. the cracked porcelain is so carefully repaired, you wouldn’t have known it was broken.

“thanks,” you whisper. you take a sip of the lukewarm hot chocolate, but the warmth that spreads through your body is from conrad’s gesture more than anything.

conrad nods and points up at the stars. “find anything good?”

you launch into a detailed explanation of what constellations you’ve found so far — and, when that’s over, you continue making up stories like you’re david attenborough narrating a nature documentary. sure, it’s ridiculous to use a very serious british accent to suggest that king kong and godzilla are immortalised in the night sky, but it makes conrad chuckle, and you decide that’s worth all the stars in the universe.

in between stories, conrad asks: "are you cold?"

conrad already knows the answer, because he passes you a light jacket without you saying a word. you shrug it on, and practically sink into the familiar fabric.

"so you're the one who had my varsity jacket," you realize. it smells like him now: lemon and sandalwood.

conrad smiles sheepishly and shrugs. "it's a good jacket — what was i supposed to do, not wear it? you left it last summer."

last summer.

the words hang heavy between you.

“y/n —”

“con —”

you both stop, waiting for the other to continue. there have been enough moments this summer where you’ve cut your heart open and conrad just watched you bleed. a part of you wanted him to do the same, even though you know how much it hurts.

“why did you come back that night?” he asks. conrad is usually confident, sturdy, reliable; right now, though, he’s the most timid you’ve ever seen him.

“i needed to.”

“why?” he presses.

you bite the inside of your cheek, remembering yourself a year ago and all the pressure you felt, from your parents and coaches. you used to love swimming, and you realized too late how much competing took over your life. things weren’t perfect at home, either, but you were trying your best to guard that truth from your siblings. ironically, that was part of the reason you had distanced yourself from conrad in the months prior: you knew he would worry, and you didn't want to burden him.

you tell bits and pieces of this to conrad, cutting yourself open once more.

“i felt like i was drowning,” you admit. “i tried so hard to hide it — just keep swimming, right? but it got to be too much. so last summer, when i had a meet nearby, i just had to see you, because i knew that you were the one person in the world who would jump in and save me.”

“i didn’t know.” is all conrad says for a moment. you don’t add anything, because you find yourself in the same position as always: vulnerable, pouring your heart out.

“what you said on the fourth — you were right,” conrad sighs. “when you came last summer, i was already mad at you for not coming back to cousins for so long, and then you were leaving again and i was hurt. and - it’s fucked up, but i wanted to hurt you, too.”

“mission accomplished,” you laugh sadly.

“i shouldn’t have said what i said that morning last summer, and i shouldn’t have ignored you after.”

“you shouldn’t have ignored me this summer, either” you add. you can’t help calling him out for his shitty behaviour lately as well.

“hey, you ignored me, too,” he points out. “and, yeah, maybe i deserved it. there’s just a lot going on and….” conrad trails off, his gaze fixed on something in the distance, where a sliver of golden sunlight peeks through the horizon. you and conrad must have been talking for hours because morning is now just around the corner. “i know i was a jerk. just please know how sorry i am — for everything.”

you’re about to say something, but you can’t seem to find the right words. i'm sorry too didn't feel like enough. instead, you reach out and grab conrad’s hand. it’s cold in yours, but you don’t care.

“i can’t lose you,” conrad whispers, almost choking on the words. he squeezes your hand. “i can’t lose you, too.”

“i’m here, connie,” you whisper back. with your other hand, you brush some hair out of his eyes before using your thumb to wipe a stray tear from his cheek. “and i’m really glad you’re here, too.”

throughout the entire conversation, you and conrad had moved closer together — now, your shoulders are touching and your left leg is bent over his right one.

“did you mean what you said on the fourth?” conrad asks, his eyes searching yours. “do you regret that night?”

“i’m guessing you mean the us-having-sex part?” you reply, a gentle smirk on your face.

conrad nods. he’s blinking faster than usual, and you can tell he’s anxious to hear your answer.

“if it ruined things between us, then i would,” you admit. you realize then that your hand is still on his cheek; you remove it, but keep the other intertwined with his. “tell me it didn’t ruin things between us, and maybe i’ll change my mind. i mean, do you regret it?”

conrad smiles at you, his shoulders relaxing. “no. that’s one thing i don’t think i’ll ever regret. that’s another thing you were right about — that night meant something to me. it meant everything.”

your heart skips a beat at the way he looks at you, tenderly, waiting for you to say something.

"yeah, me too. or, me neither. i mean, i’m sorry -” now, it’s your turn to stumble over your words, nerves getting the better of you - you take a deep breath to calm yourself. “i’m sorry for not being here; i’m sorry for hurting you; and i’m sorry for making you feel like i didn’t care, because that’s further from the truth.”

“i appreciate it,” conrad replies sincerely. “but i think we’ve apologized to each other enough for one night.”

you laugh. “yeah, i guess you’re right about that one. have any alternatives, fisher?”

conrad reaches up to caress your cheek, a gentle gesture that contrasts the mischievous smirk on his face. his eyes fall to your lips, then back to yours. “i can think of a few —”

you kiss him before he finishes his sentence.

maybe you'd never shared an underwater kiss, but kissing conrad feels as dynamic and unpredictable as the ocean.

when you kissed last summer, it was like a wave breaking onto the shore: the built up anticipation finally coming to fruition.

earlier this summer, at nicole’s party, kissing him felt dangerous, like swimming out into the turbulent water and realizing you’re in too deep.

right now, his lips on yours feel like floating in water on a warm summer day.

conrad slips his hand underneath your jacket, and you shiver when he touches your bare skin, right under the band of your bikini top where your tattoo is. you shift ever so slightly and suddenly you're tangled in his lap, feeling him strong and sturdy beneath you. one of your hands is on his thigh, while the other tangles into his hair. you tug the strands just the way you remember him liking it; he groans and kisses you with more intensity, a calm sea gradually becoming more rough.

once you’ve run out of air, you pull apart ever-so-slightly, appreciating his swollen lips, pink cheeks, and tousled hair in the early morning sunlight. you could do this for hours — drowning in him — and you're about to do it again, too, before you’re shocked back into reality.

“i knew it!” you hear your sister yell in the distance. she then adds something about your brother owing her ten dollars. you make a mental note to get them back later for betting on your love life.

conrad laughs against your lips, then pulls away. you get up and offer him your hand, which he accepts with a smile.

“you might wanna…” you gesture towards his messy hair, and he blushes even more despite how much he enjoyed it earlier.

“right.” he clears his throat, runs a hand through his hair to tame it.

“i’m gonna go get started on breakfast,” you say before walking a few steps closer to the campsite.

you turn back around to conrad, who was frozen in place, looking at you carefully. his posture is stiffer than before, and it takes you a second to realize why: he’d been here before. he’d watched you leave one too many times.

not this time, though. this time, you reach out your hand — a peace offering, a promise.

summer will end soon, and maybe you aren’t quite sure what the future holds once it does.

“so, are you coming with me or not?”

but you do know this: when you get back to the beach house, you’ll go surfing with the fisher boys, watch movies and eat sour candy with belly, play video games with steven and jere. you’ll sneak out to meet conrad, then watch the sunrise together. the five of you will have bonfires on the beach, maybe even inviting your siblings and their friends, and roast marshmallows. susannah will host another pool party and you’ll feel conrad’s arm wrapped around your waist; he’ll kiss your cheek, sitting on the edge of the pool, and you'll jump in the water, bringing him under with you, before kissing him back.

you'll spend one particular night in conrad's bedroom, hands and lips all over each other, trying to keep quiet, and when you search his drawers for a condom, you'll find the same necklace that you, jeremiah, steven, and belly were gifted. it holds faded clay beads painted with various symbols - a turquoise trident, a crashing wave, a rainbow, a starfish. you'll think back to how the tradition started at belly's percy jackson themed birthday, when you and conrad were 11, and susannah would give one to each of you at the end of each summer. there will be a sharp pain in your heart when you notice that some beads are missing, the years don't add up, but you'll realize, prompted by conrad's deep voice calling you back to bed, that you might be able to make up for lost time.

you'll soak up as much sunshine as you can. you’ll squeeze out every ounce of summer, and then some. you'll dust off old traditions, and make some new ones, too. you'll fill those necklaces with more clay beads.

and you'll always - always - come back home.

#i had to include percy jackson references im not sorry #please enjoy :))#the summer i turned pretty fic #conrad fisher x reader #tsitp conrad #conrad fisher fanfic #conrad fisher #conrad fisher imagine #conrad fisher x y/n #conrad fisher x you #conrad fisher x fem!reader #tsitp fanfic #tsitp #the summer i turned pretty #saf writes

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dranna · 7 months

Text

Doubt

AO3 / Commissions / Links /

Ryan Gosling!Ken x Gender neural reader

Warnings: fluff, angst, emotional hurt/comfort, feeling excluded, sobbing, not beta read

Summary: you always loved Ken, his silly, all so excited personality, wondering over every tiny thing. But recently you noticed something strange. He started to get nervous, fidgety and sad (?) around you.

a/n: lineart is mine🧡 / It was inspired by this quote from Sense and Sensibility-- “Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace. “

tags my beloveds: @ken-dom (let me know if you would like to be tagged:) )

It’s impossible to describe,

How much you adored this Sunshine,

He is the sneaky little Smile,

That bless your face,

During the cold and boring weekdays.

He is loud, jumpy and silly,

Excitement and wonder are part of his personality,

There is not a single day,

That goes without him discovering everyday things,

However he does it with such delight,

It bewitches your heart every time.

Yet recently,

You noticed something unnerving,

His whole demeanor changed,

Self-forgetting disappeared,

And anxious guarded took it’s place,

He become reserved and fidgety,

Not in the way you loved him to be,

His beautiful eyes became glossy,

And sadness was clouding their vision.

You didn’t understand,

What caused this distress,

So one day in Baribeland,

After a 3 days long suspense,

You decided to put an end,

To this gloominess,

“Ken, what’s been going on?”

“B-been going on?— n-noting! Haha..”

“Ken.. “

— you sighed,

While looking at him,

Questions in your eyes.

It was a dreamy day in Barbieland,

Just like every other beforehand,

The sun was throwing his warmth,

The mermaids were singing to its charm,

The beach was hot and comfy,

Kens and Barbies were playing gleely,

Alan was standing alone and cheering,

Even Weird Barbie was joining,

There was nothing out of the ordinary,

So what caused his misery?

You two were sitting under a palm tree,

Away from the loud team.

You glanced at him again,

He looked nervous and uncertain,

He was staring at the other Kens,

With eyes filled with fear and tears.

Yes, you had no idea what's happened,

But how would you?

He hid this knowledge deep,

Sealed with secrecy,

Sooner or later you will see it too,

And you will realise,

How pathetic I am compared to the others,

He thought,

Rocking back and forth.

It was an other perfect morning,

As he was ‘beaching’ on the beach,

Looking perfect and sun-kissed,

While he was drawing something for you,

Lost in concentration,

To make it perfect for you.

He was a cowboy today,

Wearing his black jacket and pink scarf,

Decorated with the most magnificent hat,

And a rope lasso at the belt.

“I have no idea what They see in Him!

He is such a loser at everything”

— Ken heard the voice of his ‘archenemy’,

The Other Ken,

While he was sunbathing.

He was surrounded with other Kens,

Listening to him intensely,

“What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you noticed?!

It doesn’t matter what he tries,

He fails miserably every time.

Also,

Y/N is so beautiful and confident,

Lovely and intelligent,

I have no idea what they see,

In such a loser as him.

He is always jumping around,

Being the loudest—“

“It’s not nice to talk about someone,

Behind their backs like that!”

“Yes, you shouldn’t say such meannes!”

— Joined the others,

So this conversation lines ceased,

But Ken froze in place,

Only heard the Other Ken’s words.

He gazed down the drawing,

He was working on,

So endlessly and proudly before,

But the warmth escaped from his heart,

Leaving icy marks.

“ … Ken ? Ken??”

— Your worried voice pulled him back,

Into the sunny present,

You two were still sitting under the shade,

Covered by anxious silence.

“Ken, please talk to me.”

He looked at you with huge tear filled eyes,

Streams flowing down both sides,

“I-I’m n-nothing-g.”

— His voice was so quiet and broken,

If you didn’t see him in front of you on the sand,

You wouldn’t believe it was him.

“What is it about?

What do you mean?!”

“I-I’m a loser aren’t I?!

I’m a failure in every task,

I’m always the one in the back,

Who the others laughing at,

Doesn’t matter what I try,

I’m just never enough—..

S-so I understand,

If you decide,

I-if yo-u w-want to leave me b-beh-inde.”

“How can you say that,

It’s not true!

I don’t understand where it is coming from?”

“Yes it is!”

—At this point he was sobbing hard,

An ocean forming in his eyes,

Hugging his knees to tight,

His hands went white,

You couldn’t bare to see him like that,

So you gently touched,

His shaking shoulders,

“Who told you these things love?

“H-hear-d it from t-the O-other Ken.”

— At the word ‘love’,

His head shot up,

Silent pleading in those blue eyes.

“You.. you still want..us to be,

Boyfriend and girlfriend..?”

“Of course I do!”

“B-but..”

“I love you silly!”

— With these words,

You pulled him close,

Holding his shaking form.

“Whatever you heard it's not true,

I adore you,

I love your enthusiasm, your awe,

Your never ending shiny self,

Your astonishment of tiny things,

And the babbling facts coming from within,

I love you the way you are,

Please never change,

And question my heart."

– Taking off his hat you held his face,

Hinting it with kisses,

Which bloomed in teras,

“And what if you fail?

Do you know what's more important?”

“What?”

–Suffocating pain was replaced,

With soft tenderness,

In his voice.

He looked at you,

Like you hanged the Moon on that perfect sky,

Admiring you beauty in the dark,

“You stand up,

Holding your head high,

Smiling to the sky,

It doesn't break your spirit,

In fact,

You try again!

– You placed a kiss on his forehead,

“And again”

– Now a smooch on his pretty nose,

“And again.”

– And kisses on his cheeks,

Which were now burning red.

You two sat there,

In your quiet spot,

Holding each other close.

The sun started to set,

Yet you stayed,

Whispering sweet truths in his ear,

His sobs started to stop then disappear,

Leaving behind dried up rivers,

Which you pet better.

Doting started to bloom,

In his plastic heart,

With a newfound passion and warmth.

He shuffled closer,

If that's possible,

Gently hugging you more,

“I was making something for you,

When I heard them speak..”

– You heard them whisper quietly,

You looked down to see worry rising,

So with a gentle tap,

You encouraged him to continue.

After a little shuffling and careful moves,

He took out a paper from his clothes,

Then gently placed it in your palm,

Nervously waiting for your reply.

You glanced down to see,

A drawing of a happy horsie,

It looked like a child drawing,

But you can't help but smile,

At the thought of him drawing this.

“I like it so much!

I–”

“Really?!”

–Instead of a reply,

You just pulled him close,

Praising every tiny detail of it.

The glow worms' light were in sync,

With the music of yours heartstrings,

From Ken’s mind,

Disappeared everything blue,

His chest was filled with comfort and heat,

With the lovely words,

From your pretty lips,

The night dragged on,

But your pair didn't mind,

Your soul were set in a feeling so sublime.

Probably his drawing would look something like that:

75 notes · View notes

sassyfrassboss · 3 months

Note

So in 2019 Catherine invited Pippa.

Im so embarrassed on H&M’s behalf that they really believe everybody is jealous of them and are rude towards them.

I get their hatred towards K, but they have even had a grudge against Pippa, Harold shade her wedding somehow on his book.

The gossip between Catherine and Pippa should be delicious about those two (I don’t think they talked a lot about them, but when they had, you bet those two mock the Harkles endlessly)

Harry is such an asshole.

Can you imagine Pippa's life? Harry complaining for hundreds of pages about how he felt growing up the spare and living in William's shadow.

Does he honestly think Pippa, for as much as she loves Catherine, didn't ever feel the same way. I mean Catherine was called "Perfect Kate" and "Beautiful Kate" through school and university where she then goes and bags the #1 Bachelor in the WORLD.

Pippa is smart, gorgeous, education, caring, etc., all the things Catherine is but it could not have been easy for her. Harry was making it out to be like he has been the only one to grow up with the attractive, perfect, beloved older sibling.

Now here is Pippa. Finally marrying the man she loves and getting her HEA. Finally getting a day about HER and Harry makes it all about him and Meghan.

Meghan pap walked before the wedding and we got the article about "The Battle of the Bums" or some nonsense like that. It was comparing who had the better ass, Meghan or Pippa. Like 2 days before Meghan's wedding.

But yet here is Harry, demanding Meghan be invited and then throwing a fit about how Meghan was being treated and how unfair it was.

Just totally zero awareness of others and their feelings.

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flowersandbigteeth · 1 year

Text

Your demon pirate boyfriend takes you on a date

General Plot: It's a hot day in a new city, so your demon pirate boyfriend offers to take you out!

Word Count: 1.5K

Demon Pirate (Harland) x gn reader

💕 SFW MASTERPOST 💕

W: sfw pirate fluff, a stolen kiss

You stood on the deck of the Lucky Loner, Harland’s ship in a completely inappropriate and humiliating fluffy pink outfit. He had trimmed your hair into a style he liked that had a tendency to fluff up and decorated you with ribbons.

Your face was on fire as the salty sailors whistled at you when they passed.

“Is this really necessary?” you huffed, grabbing a handful of the obnoxious outfit and glaring at Harland.

He smiled down at you and pinched your cheek.

“You look like a doll,” he cooed, winking at you.

You crossed your arms and huffed, twisting your lips, choosing to look out over the city you’d sailed into instead of your awful owner.

You'd spent a week on the ship with him and his raucous crew and despite your demeanor you were looking forward to solid land.

“Come on, brighten up, butter cup,” he said with his easy attitude, “let me take you out on the town. We’ll have a great time!”

You did not want to be traipsed around town dressed like a cupcake, but you really had no choice in the matter so you followed the unnecessarily large demon off of his ship and into the city.

“You’re not going to bet me in another card game, are you?” you snapped as he held your hand and pulled you against him so that you wouldn’t be jostled in the busy crowd.

“Of course not,” he chuckled, “I’m not as foolish as my men. I’d never bet something so precious in cards. What could I even hope to win that would be more valuable than you?”

You blushed but refused to look at him and scowled. Flattering words from a pirate should mean nothing to you.

“You know you’re cute, even with that scowl on your lips,” he said, handing you a ladies’ fan he’d stolen off of a cart as you’d passed.

You snatched it out of his hand with a huff and started fanning yourself. Not because his flirting was doing anything for you or you liked the fan, but because it was hot in the high collared, frilly outfit you were wearing.

“You're glowing, are you feeling okay?” he asked.

“I’m hot,” you pouted, aware that sweat had started to bead on your brow.

He beamed, pleased he could do something to fill one of your needs. Harland was a sea-faring demon at heart, but the long boat ride watching you pout had made him eager to get to shore and find things to do to amuse you.

“There’s a tea house in this city,” he said, pulling you along, “let’s get a seat in the shade and relax.”

When you weren’t walking fast enough he scooped you up and carried you princess style, to your utter embarrassment, all the way there finally putting you down when you reached the door.

“Greetings, valued customer!” the waiter, a very good looking fairy with violet hair, said smiling at you and glancing at Harland briefly with a bit of disgust, “are you expecting anyone else this afternoon or will it be just you, my dear? There’s a bar next door for your...bodyguard.”

“We’ll take a table for two,” the pirate snapped, throwing his arm around you possessively, “somewhere in the shade!”

The fairy frowned and cleared his throat.

“Excuse me, this way,” he muttered, turning and leading you through the small interior to the real jewel, the lovely walled garden stretching out behind it.

Delicate tables made of wires woven into lace magically by elves dotted the many alcoves and islands filling the space. Much of it was a beautiful lake with fountains that endlessly spilled upwards into the sky until they disappeared into the clouds criss-crossed with iron bridges. The gentle mist they released created lovely rainbows drifting over the water and cooled the air, while mysterious water flowers grew vertically up them as if they were columns holding up the sky.

The waiter led you to an island as far back near the far wall as he could get the two of you, out of sight of the other upstanding customers, but under the cover of some trees as Harland had requested.

“Is this sufficient?” he murmured tightly at the pirate.

“This’ll do. You’re a real gem, you know that?” Harland snorted, plopping down and pulling you into his lap.

The annoyed waiter turned his attention to you.

“What can I get for you, love? You look a bit warm. Something cool?” he asked, his lavender eyes twinkling at you.

“Oh, um, what’s good?” you asked.

He beamed at you.

“I would recommend the rose tea,” he said, “it’s excellent chilled and very soothing…ideal for dealing with challenging situations.”

You nodded at him and he flashed a smile, turning to walk away.

“What about me?” Harland snapped.

“I’ll give you some more time to think, sir,” he snipped and marched off.

“Snotty bastard,” Harland grumbled under his breath as he fussed with the ends of your hair.

He examined your pouting face as you fanned yourself absently.

“What’s got you so down, pet?” he asked, “isn’t this place beautiful? I thought you’d love it.”

You glanced to the side.

“It’s not that,” you pouted.

The lake garden was indeed beautiful. You'd never seen anything like it in your small town, still your mood was sour.

“Come on, tell me,” he coaxed.

“There’s nothing to tell,” you muttered.

“If you don’t tell me I’ll tie you naked to the mast until we get to the next city,” he growled, losing his patience.

You huffed.

“Fine!” you hissed, “if you must know, i’m just a little depressed. It might surprise you to know my life goal wasn’t to be a lap dog for a pirate! but…I’ll adjust. It’ll just take some time to let go of all of my hopes and dreams, settle into the reality that my life is utterly meaningless.”

He frowned at you.

“Meaningless…?” he said, “how can you say that?”

You glared at him.

“I read books to you,” you snapped, “the waiter could do that…anyone could do that! It’s not like you even chose me, you won me at a game of chance. I might as well be a chest of drawers or a magnifying glass.”

Harland’s heart sank in his chest. He’d never once in his life considered anyone else or their feelings. It wasn’t a quality that a pirate needed or wanted, but for some reason he cared that you were unhappy and he wasn’t quite sure what to do about it.

“(Y/N) you’re not a-”

“Here you are lovely,” the waiter interrupted, placing a cold glass of a pink liquid down in front of you along with a slice of cake, “and a slice of our specialty cake just for you, on me.”

“Oh…uh, thank you,” you said, your cheeks pinkening just a little. You were usually the waiter at the tavern, you weren’t used to being looked after or treated. He turned to walk away before Harland stopped him.

“Helloooo?” he barked, “can I order?”

The waiter took the heaviest breath you’ve ever heard.

“Of course sir, what can I get for you?”

“Do you have booze?”

The waiter’s head dropped to the side and he frowned.

“Sir, this is a tea house…we do not serve alcohol,” he gritted out.

“Fine, whatever, give me something cold,” Harland snapped back, wanting the waiter to go away so he could be alone with you again.

You took a sip of your cold tea and the sweet smell of roses enveloped you. The waiter was right, it was soothing and you did feel a bit better after a few sips.

“(Y/N), what I was going to say is…you’re not a-”

You waved your hand, turning your attention to the cake and taking a bite.

“Don’t worry about it,” you sighed, cutting him off and giving him a small smile and swallowing, “I’m just in my feelings, I’ll get over it. Do you want to visit a book shop while we’re in town? We’ve read everything you have on the ship.”

Harland glared at you, not because he was angry at you, per say, but because he was feeling things he wasn’t used to feeling. The first one, flaming jealousy, that the tea and cake the waiter had brought you had been the thing to soothe your mood and not him. The second was helplessness and the third rejection. He was just your jailor. Even after a week sharing one small cabin with him, you seemed no closer to being captivated with him like every other sweet young thing he’d ever encountered.

He snatched the drink out of your hand and picked up the cake up ending them both, the tea hitting the ground with a splash and the cake with a splat. Your wide eyes stared up at him with confusion.

“What the-mphhh!” your eyebrows shot up as his lips covered yours.

They were warm and soft, his fingers holding your chin in place so you couldn’t pull away. Your cheeks sizzled and you felt sparks dance over your body as he curled his much larger one over you.

His big fingers squeezed your hips, while a hand moved around and clutched your neck. Thoughts flew from your mind. It was one of those kisses, heavy and filled with sweetness. One you’d never forget. Your hands came to his cheeks and you pulled him to you.

The waiter cleared his throat loudly.

“Excuse me, sir,” he snapped, smacking Harland’s drink on the table, “please have some discretion. This is a high quality establishment.”

Harland, his eyes locked on yours, reading your expression, smirked at what he saw.

“We’ll order one of everything,” he said to the waiter, without looking at him.

“I’m sorry sir?” the waiter asked.

Harland looked up at him and smiled, squeezing you a bit in his arms.

“You heard me, my little lover wants to try everything on the menu, bring it all at once and don’t come back until it’s done. We want some privacy...oh and they dropped their cake.”

The waiter didn’t move, so he waved a hand at him.

“Hurry up.”

He finally frowned and stomped away.

“Harland,” you asked, “what are we going to do with all that food?”

He laughed, picking you up.

“Wh-what are you doing?!” you squealed as he started scaling the back wall with you in one arm, easily hopping from the ledges the decorative planters made to the top and leaping over the side.

“B-but we didn't pay for any of that and we aren’t even going to be there to eat it!” you said when you were firmly back on the ground and he was marching down the street.

“Yeah well fuck ‘em,” he chuckled, “I heard they have an elven treat in this city that keeps itself cold want to try it? We can try all the flavors if you want.”

You just looked at him and chuckled lightly, realizing you’d committed your very first crime.

“I mean…I guess so…” you said, an odd half-smile on your lips and he grinned, toting you off.

#pirate romance #monster romance #pirate #pirate oc #demon #demon oc #monster human #monster x human #monster fluff #fluff #pirate fluff #sfw fluff #oneshot #my fic post #my fic #monster x gender neutral reader

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mrschwartz · 2 years

Text

Alex Turner for OOR Magazine (October 2022)

Conducted in August 20th 2022 by Willem Bemboom

Alex in the sun on a terrace. Leather jacket, classic shades, a big head of hair in desperate need of a handful of Brylcreem. He almost looks like a time-traveller, someone from another dimension, unmoved by the sounds of the city in the distance and the swelling lunch crowd around us.

He talks slowly and dragging, as if the battery is almost flat. His pauses in thought are numerous and stretched out, sometimes to determine what he DOES want to say, more often to think about what he does NOT want to say. Apparently he is so used to intelligent or difficult questions, that the easy ones throw him off. What are you listening to? What has changed? What do you think yourself is the most beautiful lyric? Endless silences, you can almost hear the brain cracking. But they are by no means painful. The lesson taken from previous interviews - and in fact the essence of Arctic Monkeys: just let Alex Turner meditate, that's where eventually the best things come from.

The sunglasses meanwhile are being taken on and off every minute. With wide eyes full of wonder Turner turns the casual things lying on the table into a journey of discovery. OOR's old trusted dictaphone for example. 'Reliable stuff', he judges. ‘At worst eats your tape one time, but such a device will not betray you. Two buttons, on, off, record, play. You don't need more options. I want to start working with these things a bit more.”

He weighs the device for a moment, as if he is testing a peach or tomato at the local fruit & veg. A mysterious short laugh follows. Who knows what goes on in that head.

The Car as a record makes an analogous impression, either way in terms of technique and instrumentation.

Right? Texture wise for sure. Old instruments, string arrangements. The ideas are kneaded to songs with human hands. Although this time we also have a Moog.

And the subjects as well seem to come from a different time. Classic Hollywood, faded glory, but also Cold War stuff. In various songs there are spying elements sneaking around.

That’s for sure what I’m doing in the new songs. Think of Gene Hackman in The Conversation, you have to search in circle of people as such.Vague surveillance stuff, listening devices [focuses on the recorder again]. A bit like how this conversation is also being recorded, haha.

Social media seems completely absent, you are far from sketching a contemporary time frame. People talk on the phone together.

Good point. I imagine that phone in Big Ideas like that, on the wall, with a turntable. It is indeed an analog world, there is no apping or anything like that. On the first song on our first record I sing about a phone that is being unlocked [The View From The Afternoon]. You had to press the asterisk key to avoid accidentally turning on your cell phone. We still play that song every night, I’ve now sang it so often that I’m not thinking about those lyrics at all. A few days ago I did have a clear mind and suddenly I realised: gosh, this is not how phones are any more! Back in the days I was more up-to-date with my technological references, on AM there are still text messages and such. That's gone now. I have gone back in time, it seems.

Your previous album took place at the moon. Where - and especially when - is The Car set?

Hm. [long silence] You know what, I really don't have any idea whatsoever. Even for Tranquility Base I now wonder if it all took place at the moon. That sort of thing reveals itself only later, sometimes even a lot later. The music triggers something in me, I build on the atmosphere and the sound, and I just let The Idea run wild - though I refine the lyrics endlessly after they get into shape. But the source? Dunno, that can't be guided or be explained. I did try to steer away a bit more from the sci-fi idiom than on the previous one. Whether it succeeded is question number two. For some reason there’s somehow always science fiction seeping through.

You now refer in several numbers to old movies and showbiz, like the musical Anything Goes, 1930s Broadway, with music by Cole Porter. New fascination?

Hmmm, no. By the way, it is indeed lifted from a movie. Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom begins with the song Anything Goes, from that musical, sung in Chinese. Nice opening, although I’m certainly not the biggest Indiana Jones fan. I suddenly thought about it, so it ended up in that song. That's how it goes with most things. Who knows where it comes from and what it means. It's suddenly there.

Is Sculptures Of Anything Goes a New York song? Apart from the Broadway link you sing about 'city life 09', the period you lived in Brooklyn, and ‘Village coffee mornings, with not long since retired spies’.

As in: written in New York? No, I haven't been to New York in ages. The Village is in there…. I think this is another of those science fiction things. You've been nervously playing around with that empty cassette box for 15 minutes now, and I’m now imagining that it contains City Life 09. I’m fond of the idea there will be a city life cartridge in the future, a simulation that you can board. I’m imagining a full box of those cartridges, from 1929 to 1959 to 1969 to 1979 to 1989 and so on. That’s because I think there should be intervals of ten years to notice a substantial difference in such a huge city. And the 2009 one is missing from that lyric, it's inside the machine because it's used most often. Whether it's also refers to my time in New York… No idea. It's purely a bit of fantasy.

Let’s swap the fantasy for the facts for a little bit: where and when did you start making this record?

Even before the lockdowns, right away after the Tranquility Base tour in South America. In April and May 2019 I wrote the first attempts of new songs, we already recorded some bits in late 2019, but that attempt led to nothing. Only after the lockdowns we came back together again, last summer, in Butley Priory, an old monastery at the coast of Suffolk. No one knew we were there, it was a remote place. It reminded me of our first record, when we went from the madhouse to the countryside for a while as well. We never did that again ever since, until now. Recording a record in England also was a while ago, same counts for a summer album. So there we were again, at the English countryside, as a rrrrock band! [big eyes and a rolling rrrrr] No distractions, like in the city. Extra focus, no prying eyes. All in the same zone. Good morning, you know.

We will come back at that ‘rock band’ part for a bit later. What did a day in Suffolk look like for the rest?

Oh, every morning we got trumpeted out of our beds with a reveille. And a while after a bell was ringing: go to work, lazy bastards! Thereafter a Powerpoint presentation with schedules and tactics. No, just joking, it was the opposite. Very calm and relaxed, everything in our own tempo. These days I find it essential to take the time. That’s because every project has to search and find its own way. As a maker you also have to let a piece of work go its own way. During the summer of 2019 I read a book about movie editing, In The Blink Of An Eye by Walter Murch. Although movie editing is not my discipline, I did get interesting things out of it anyway, there are parallels with how I put together a record these days. Editing usually involves cutting out bad bits. The question that immediately arises: what is a bad bit? Are there bad bits at all? This Sir Murch calls the process of editing the discovery of a path through all the available material. The more you shot, the more possible paths there are. And because I had quite a lot of ideas, more than ever actually, which all wanted to exist, it was extra important to especially follow the feeling. Sometimes I got a direction in mind, and then the piece itself drags you in the opposite direction anyway. It has other ideas. It lives, it is an entity. Let it go. That’s how it went now as well.

You keep on avoiding the meaning of your lyrics. Is the writing of it not a conscious process then?

Hmmm, that always comes last anyway. I am endlessly adjusting and rewriting. When we were working on the music in Suffolk, I hardly sang on top of it. I do believe that at this moment in time I write down what I am experiencing more directly. I'm a bit more open, more honest, apparently inspired by four guys who are just standing together in a room making music.

What do you consider your favourite find on The Car?

Oh… I forgot to bring my cheat sheet. I’ve got a folder with notes, which I planned on bringing with me. But it also feels a little know-it-all and self-conscious to start giving a lecture from my own notes here. My best line… I wouldn’t know! I simply don’t know all the lyrics by heart yet. [long pause] I think ‘Big Ideas’ as a whole is a very accomplished song.

Ah, with the ‘hysterical scenes’ that are reminiscent of a band just breaking through. ‘We had ‘em out of their seats, waving their arms and stomping their feet’ – that’s where the echo of Monkeymania is audible.

Strange times.

Or just The Beatles. ‘Clap your hands and stomp your feet’, is what Lennon sometimes shouted from the stage…

Hm, yeah. No. Here I imagine sort of more like a movie producer giving someone a call. Or something like that.

Big Ideas is full of melancholy – and that counts for more songs in general.

It’s not just in the words, you know. Yes, so that’s how it works for me: the words arise from the feeling the music evokes. The melody supplies the words and ideally they complement each other. In that way, the things it makes you say are indeed not conscious. It purely revolves around what the music allows you to say.

“Over and out, it’s been a thrill”, you sing on Big Ideas. Hello You, Jet Skis On The Moat and Perfect Sense also contain “goodbyes” and “goodnights”. Are you saying goodbye to something?

Yeah, I think that’s fair. That all has to do with where I arrived in life at the moment. I’m 36, the band exists for about twenty years, including the whole run-up. So I’ve been in the band for more than half of my life. You leave things behind, while the clock keeps ticking. People, places, your younger self. Time. Though that’s not necessarily a bad thing, you get new things in return. But it’s human nature to sometimes look back on what has been, what’s behind you. Though I’m pretty good at leaving things behind.

Like loud guitar music for example.

[big eyes] Ha!

The rrrrrrrrock band you just mentioned is not the same as the one from 2006 anymore.

Haha, not on the record, no! But on stage we just keep on rocking, that all co-exists. But you know what’s the funny thing? We could very well still have made a loud guitar record after all. If the music had asked for it, I think I would have obediently followed. When we finished touring in 2019, everything pointed in that direction. Much louder than Tranquility Hotel, in any case. But that started to shift towards a different direction and that’s why we took a break from it at the time. I was afraid I would start forcing things. And sometimes you just have to accept the fact you can’t go back to the riffs from ten years ago. At the end of the tour I knew what kind of songs I wanted to do, with the lights of the stage still in my eyes and the thundering roars of the audience in my ears. Big, loud guitars should have been part of that. That’s what I’m gonna do! I even put on my motorcycle boots to get a hold of that mood. But that didn’t feel right in the end, as said. You’re not that person anymore, your music wants to go in a different direction. Then I can only follow that.

Put the Arctic Monkeys who were recording at the English countryside in 2006 next to the band working at Suffolk last summer. Not to see what has changed, but what hasn’t changed?

Well, everything has changed. [2 minutes of silence while you can almost hear a movie playing in his head] … except for the countryside and England, haha! I did find it more fun this time though. Maybe because right now we finally know what we’re doing. Yes, that has remained the same. The only reason we now can not make a loud guitar record in all peace and comfort, is because we’re still Arctic Monkeys. Everyone has grown up, the essence of the band has grown with us. The faces are a bit more round, the boys call their children instead of their parents, but the feeling remains the same. Life itself happened – and not in an unpleasant way. It’s all good, everything. Yes, it’s fine.

Why did you have more fun now than back then? Did that 20 year old kid that recorded ‘Whatever People Say I Am…’ not know what he was doing?

Not what happened to him, no. It was a great time, but oh dear, so much stress! Now I’m completely relaxed in everything I do. Looking back at 2006, everything was so… tight! My guitar was hanging just below my chin, the strap was almost pinched around my back. That example alone. I let the guitar nicely hang nowadays. And sometimes I even leave it in its stand. The schedules are looser, the people are looser, the music is looser. Less heavy, not as frenetic and whaaaargh! It’s fitting better in its own skin. Just like ourselves. The jacket is hanging loosely unbuttoned. I’m sitting behind a grand piano in the corner. And still it feels like Arctic Monkeys, because we’re still walking the same path, however strange the path winds. The same timeline and the same principles. The path, following the music, is the constant factor. 15 years ago we followed our instinct as young lads and The Record is what resulted from it. Now we’re still doing that, and this time that record is The Car.

Oh yeah, The Car. What kind of car is it?

Just a car.

Does it stand for anything?

No, it’s standing on a roof. The cover photo was taken by Matthew Helders, our drummer. When I saw that photo a few years ago, I immediately knew it had the potential to be an album cover for the band. There’s not just spies and goodbyes in the lyrics, if you listen closely you can hear a few cars. And after [raises voice] Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino the temptation to call something ‘The Car’ is simply too big. It is what it is.

So just a car.

Yep. And that car on the cover in particular.

Where was the photo taken?

If I’m not mistaken, in Los Angeles.

Ah, Los Angeles. There you’re nothing without a car. What kind do you drive?

I don’t own a car. I’m back in London now and it’s just not practical there. No car…

Where did you used to go on holidays as a kid?

Oh, eh, Eastbourne, on the south shore. With my grandparents on the Dotto Train, one of those tourist carts along the beach. But how did we suddenly end up here?

I wondered about this when I heard The Car, the song. Nicely melancholic, you sing about past holidays, falling asleep at the back seat.

But that doesn’t take place in Eastbourne [rolls his eyes]. But where does it take place, I can hear you think… In a parallel universe full of espionage and science fiction, haha!

Sounds exciting. Have you ever tried writing a script yourself?

No. The kind of stories I tell are mostly… based on the music and the melodical ideas, as I already explained. Those bring forth the story. If I wouldn’t have that, I would struggle. I would like to learn this though, sometime, one day. But I’m not working on it now, it’s a whole different skill to the one I’ve currently got on board. Never say never, we’ll see. But definitely not tomorrow [thinks for a bit, laughs]. Tomorrow’s Pukkelpop. There’s no time for drafting scripts. Although it is a world I would like to roam about, one I’d like to explore. At the Priory I had an old 16mm camera with me, one that fits in the palm of your hand and you have to crank up yourself. Still not even close to Hollywood. But ah well, that’s a hobby.

What music are you listening to yourself at the moment?

[two minutes of silence] I used to be able to always draw a straight line from what I was listening to right to the new record, that’s different now, I think. No more adding this, this, this and this and you’ve got the new Monkeys. It’s not as clear what those things are this time, not even for me.

If you could go to Record Palace at the opposite of Paradiso with 50 euros right now, what would you pick from there?

Oh wow, that place is amazing! I actually should stop by there later. We’ve been so busy fine-tuning the show, this morning I only took a walk in the park for a bit… Lovely morning.

But at the moment you’re listening to…

Oh man… After finishing the record, nothing for a while, for a few months. Now it’s starting up again a bit. Headphones on… listening to things. What do I want to share here right now?

I’ll just write down Nookie by Limp Bizkit.

Oh no. Is that a threat? Alright, in that case do… Nat King Cole! The song ‘Where Did Everybody Go’. Why? That’s why.

At There’d Better Be A Mirrorball you actually sound a bit like Nat King Cole. Coincidence?

Ha, that’s nice! Eh, yes, coincidence. On the other hand: what’s a coincidence?

You sing a lot in falsetto, you croon, sometimes you’re channelling Bowie. Are you still looking for your voice or are you finally coming close?

Always in search of! You look for a manner of singing that guides the music the easiest way. A way that’s in tune with the feeling you wanna convey. That’s the hardest part… no, that’s what you’re aiming for, that connection.

Connection with?

With what you can’t really grasp. And can’t understand. Or can’t express into words. How you as a normal little person can become part of that wonder, the music. There’s a technical component to it, by practicing a lot I can reach a higher pitch or hold a note better. Those are means. The purpose is something bigger though. There’s this great song on Sinatra at the Sands, 'Don’t Worry About Me', that he introduces as one of the best songs ever. In one part of a verse he sings a step-up note, bigger and bigger, that fills all gaps in the notes just to get to the next step. It’s off, but because of that it’s actually perfectly right. It stands out. That’s why I call magic. That’s what it’s about. Getting completely lost in that feeling and getting to a place where everything is right. Even when it’s not right. Even more so when it’s not right. Then you know it’s right.

#arctic monkeys #alex turner #the car #interview #this was veryyy interesting so many good bits here #2 MINUTES of silence?????????????????? 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 no fucking way oh my god #''just a car. and that car on the cover in particular''#''the boys call their children instead of their parents'' 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 oh...#he interviewer threatening to put that limp biskit song as his choice if he didn't give his own vnjdnfjvnjgnjgb #what a power move more interviewers should do that it actually got an answer from him jnfjgngvjbngjbng #but also like #god like. he really is a true Artist with a capital a huh. he talks about music with such reverence and respect #it's so emotive and inspiring to see

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delusional-cryptid · 1 year

Text

What The Thunder Said: Chapter 5 Deleted scene

So, since chapter 5 was getting really long and this scene has very little plot significance, i cut it out. I still finished it tho, so here y’all go!

Same warnings as CH5: “concussion” symptoms, negative self talk, and fainting.

Keep yourselves safe, chapter is under the cut!

The next day was Cole’s turn to babysit, and they’d decided to just play videogames because it couldn't hurt, right? Well, not quite. As soon as the level had started, Jay got so dizzy he nearly threw up. So, with a tasteless joke about jumping off the Bounty, Jay was banned from videogames for the time being. And also from being above deck alone, but Cole didn't tell him that part.

Afterwards, Jay had sprawled across the entire length of the couch, havint tossed his legs over Cole’s to achieve this. Other than the surprise symptoms, it was surprisingly easy to keep Jay from hurting himself, considering how Jay seemed to lack any of his usual energy. And although it worried Cole to see Jay nearly despondent, instead of his usual bouncy, chatty self, he knew that the Blue Ninja had every reason to act this way. Especially since, from what Cole understood, he had some mystic brain damage or something.

So suffice to say that it wasn't too odd for him to be staring up at the ceiling from where he lay on the couch. Though he seemed perfectly content, Cole still worried endlessly about him, and this worry prompted Cole to check in with his friend for perhaps the millionth time.

“Are you sure youre alright? We can always do something else, if…” the Black Ninja trailed off, unsure how to continue.

“Yes, Cole,” Jay snickered, “I'm fine. Just tired, and you're fun enough just to listen to anyways,”

“Hey!” Cole scoffed in fake offense as a smile tugged at his lips, “what’s that supposed to mean?!”

“It means that you’re throwing shade to video game characters who can’t hear you, which makes you look deranged. It’s funny though, so keep it up.” Jay waved his hand for emphasis.

Cole shook his head with a laugh and turned back to the screen.

Truth be told, the light and noise was giving Jay a headache. He had thrown an arm over his eyes to block the light, but it only served as a burning reminder of Jay's time in the departed realm. So he settled to remove his arm and just squeeze his eyes closed to try and shut out the horrible flashing light.

Eyes still fixed on the screen, Cole’s voice arose to suggest “hey, after this level we should head to the kitchen, it’s almost lunch!”

Jay distractedly hummed an assent and moved his legs off of Cole's lap and onto the floor before using one arm to push himself up into a standing position. As soon as he moved, so did that now familiar dizziness. All of the blood rushed away from his head and black splotches crowded his vision and Jay reached out for the arm of the couch.

His fingertips brushed the worn fabric, and he pitched forward.

Cole briefly glanced up, eye caught by the motion. His muscles seized with terror as Jay fell, and Cole didn’t have to think before his body moved. The controller clattered to the ground, discarded, as the Earth Ninja practically threw himself off the couch to stop Jay from hitting the ground face first.

The man lunged, half tackling Jay before scooping the Blue Ninja into his arms and righting them both. Cole gingerly laid his partially-conscious friend back on the couch. Even though the Black Ninja was terrified, and way out of his depth, he knew he had to handle this. There was no use shouting for help, the other occupants of the bounty were either out running various errands, or much too far away to hear. So it was all on him… no pressure.

“Jay? Jay! Hey, you okay?” Cole asked, nudging Jay’s shoulder. The Blue Ninja only groaned in response, which did nothing for the buzzing anxiety in Cole’s heart. “Buddy I need you to talk to me, okay? Whats goin’ on?” As much as the Black Ninja tried to force down the panic invading his voice, there remained a small twinge of fear within his otherwise calm words.

“Hnng-” Jay whined incohesively, “Itsuhnubefine…”

Cole couldn't help but laugh at that, Jay was trying so hard to comfort him, even if Cole could barely understand a single word that fell from his friend’s lips.

“Blue- come on, I’m not the one who’s barely conscious. Just-” Cole let out a relieved sigh, “yeah, you'll be okay…”

You have to be.

The last bit went unsaid, leaving an empty space hanging in the air. Cole doubted that Jay noticed, hell, he kind of hoped Jay hadn’t. The Lightning Elemental showed no sign that he had understood, instead taking Cole’s silence as an opportunity. It only took another short moment before Jay was trying, not for the first time and certainly not the last, to get up.

Cole, on the other hand, was having absolutely none of that. As soon as Jay moved to prop himself up on one arm, Cole shoved him back down onto the couch. He didn't do it roughly, he hadn't needed to, all it really took was a light push to the shoulder to knock Jay back down.

By then, the Master of Earth could barely think through the heavy fog of worry that clouded his mind.

“Yeah. no.” was all Cole could think to say, it seemed to suffice, though, because Jay stayed down.

He didn't stay quiet though.

“But Cole! Im fine!” Jay whined, batting away his friend’s hand as it appeared by his wrist, seeking a pulse.

“No, you’re not! What's your deal, man? You need- no- Jay!” Cole finished with a frustrated groan.

This time, through pure stupid luck, Jay did manage to push himself up, just enough so that he could lean against the arm of the couch.

“No worries!” Jay grinned, tone laced with misplaced calmness, “see? I’m okay!”

Cole deadpanned, “bullshit. I'm gonna call Zane-”

Waving his hands around, Jay laughed tersely “No! No, no, no, theres no need for that! Like I said, totally fine!”

“Jay.” Cole scolded. His tone was firm, but not unkind. Not even anger could twist his cold fear into anything more than increasingly-potent distress, born purely of care.

Jay broke, then. At the audible anguish in his friend’s voice, he couldn't stand to dismiss this anymore. It was his fault that Cole was so upset, so worried, so sad sounding.

“Okay… its- It really isn't a big deal, it's not like I haven’t passed out before-”

“WHAT?” Cole shouted desperately.

Jay winced at the volume, “I said it's no big deal!”

He tried his best to placate the Earth Ninja, and failed miserably. There was a long silence where Cole refused to meet his eyes, and with every passing second that they sat there in a horribly tense silence, the dreadful sense that Jay had royally fucked up grew more and more.

Cole broke the silence, “How many times?”

Jays mind stuttered, “only… well, three, now.”

“Jay, its only been three days.”

He laughed awkwardly and averted his gaze, “yeah, I- yeah…”

Cole sighed and placed his head in his hands.

Ohh boy, I am soo screwed… Jay thought grimly. Someone, maybe not Cole, but someone, was gonna kill him for this.

When Cole spoke next, Jay could hardly stop himself from curling in on himself and hiding away from the world.

The man had sounded so heartbroken, and completely helpless when he asked; “Why didn't you tell us?”

With one breath, Jay considered lying again.

With the next, he let go and allowed the truth to all but rush out from his lips.

“I… I’ve already been so… useless, lately, and I didn’t want you guys to worry any more than you already have to, cause I know needing to take care of me sucks and I’m trying to get better so you guys don't have to keep babying me, cause, like, I know I’m the weakest of everyone but its not fair for you all to need to pull that extra weight, especially now that i'm even more useless than before and I just hate burdening you all so much and I just figured that if you didn't know about it then it would all turn out okay!”

Upon seeing Cole’s crestfallen expression, Jay tried to fix it. “Uh... or, something like that…”

This one moment of true honesty was never going to unfurl years and years of subtle white lies that have only spun a thin cocoon to protect Jay, his true feelings and fears, and keep them far away from anyone he could hurt. Jay knew that well, but at least he could do this. Even if it seemed like a mistake, even if it seemed like it had only hurt the ones he loved most.

Right as Jay was about to laugh it off, make some joke, completely invalidate everything he just admitted to, he was hit by a wall of warmth and smothered in a crushing embrace. After a moment of stunned hesitation, Jay returned the hug. He buried his face into Cole’s shoulder to try and force back the tears that burned behind his eyes. He didnt know why he was crying. He shouldn’t be. Neither man moved for a long moment, the stillness only broken by Cole’s soft words.

“Youre not useless, or weak, or a burden. You never were. We- I would take care of you for as long as you need, so long as you're here. Alive.”

The genuine worry-laced compassion in his friend’s voice tore Jay's heart and his careful facade finally shattered.

Before he could stop it, tears were falling from Jay's eyes like rain in a thunderstorm and soaking invisibly into the black fabric of Cole’s shirt. The same fabric that Jay twisted in his tight grasp as silent, stuttering sobs shook his newly fragile body.

Jay couldn't do it, couldnt do this. How was he meant to live with all his friends telling him how worried they were, how happy they were that he was alive, and how much they cared for him, only to leave them so soon. And leave them without any idea why, too. Maybe it’d make it easier for them if they knew the stakes. If they knew Jay had chosen this. Something told him that they'd suffer all the same. There was no good option, and it wasn't fair.

Jay curled further into the embrace as a fresh wave of tears fell.

Cole kindly indulged him until Jay was ready to let go. It took a while, even after Jay's tears dried and his breathing steadied, he couldn't make himself move away from the warm heartbeat that calmed his mind.

But once Jay finally did pull away, Cole didn’t fully let him go. He held the Blue Ninja at arms length and even though Jay refused to meet his eyes, he knew Cole was basically studying him.

Cautiously, the other man started, “when everyone gets back, I’m gonna tell Lloyd and Zane-“

“Cole-“

“No one else has to know unless you want them to. But Lloyd and Zane need to know.” The Black Ninja elaborated firmly, “Lloyd’s our leader, and whether you like it or not, it’s on him if you get hurt. Zane’s our acting medic now that you’re out of commission, so he needs to know too. Sound good?”

“No. But fine, tell them.”

“I will. Now, are you okay?”

“Everyone keeps asking that. Yes, Cole, I’m fine.”

“I still don’t believe you, but okay. Wanna put on something stupid and take a nap?”

Jay nodded, so Cole retook his spot on the couch and found some old movie for them to watch.

—

When the other three ninja returned from their weekly grocery run, Zane broke away for a moment to check in with the two who had stayed home. only to find Cole in the living room pinned beneath a sleeping Jay with a hand buried in the his friend’s hair. Zane softly laughed at the glare Cole shot him at the click of his camera.

The look didn't stick, because Cole waved him over and whispered for him to get Lloyd, which Zane did. Once they’d both returned, Cole launched into his hushed explanation of the day's events. He told them that Jay had passed out trying to stand up, and that it wasn’t the first time.

“I’m really worried about him, he kept talking about not wanting to be useless and weak and… I didn’t know what to do.” Cole frowned at his sleeping friend, “I can't believe he didn’t tell us…”

“It’s not too unexpected for Jay to have fainting spells, however, I agree. It’s quite worrying that he didn’t say anything about it.”

Lloyd just nodded along, worry etched into lines on his face as he tried to come up with some way to help Jay.

He drew a blank, “I really don’t know what to do if he won’t let us help him…”

“Oh! That’s another thing, he doesn’t want anyone else to know. He- he said he feels guilty about burdening us, but he didn't really listen when I tried to tell him otherwise…”

“And if he managed to hide this, it’s possible that there are other things that he’s not telling us.” Zane added thoughtfully, he didn’t mean for it to cause any more anxiety in the other two (waking) ninja, but they exchanged a mirrored look of cold fear at the possibility of some devastating unknown.

“I think we just need to keep a close eye on him for now.” Zane amended.

Lloyd and Cole both assented, already fixing their minds on ways to help their loved one. It’d be difficult to take care of him, especially when he fought them every step of the way, but they could all be just as stubborn when they wanted to be.

Maybe everything would turn out fine. Besides, once he was healed, everything could finally go back to normal!

#what the thunder said ninjago #remy rambles #ninjago #remy writes #ninjago fanfiction #jay walker #cole brookstone #yk what this could totally be implied bruiseshipping #huh. take that how you will

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atlantablack · 1 year

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hiii<3 for the siken ask game, 12. you were drinking sangria and i was throwing oranges at you.

Prompt 12 - you were drinking sangria and i was throwing oranges at you. (which is from I Had a Dream About You, if anyone was wondering)

Heyyy bestieee, pls enjoy this, quite frankly, strangely soft fic my brain gave me for you <3 for the song lyric additions, this is also on Ao3

•

The first year is the worst. Steve had expected that though, so it’s okay. Of course, the first year would be the worst. How could it not be when Bucky had spent so long in Hydra’s grasp, unable to even remember that he’d once had his own life.

Unable to remember Steve.

This is of course the part that stings the most, even if, in the grand scheme of things, it is the least important part.

•

The second year Bucky disappears, again, and Steve punches a hole in the wall of Tony’s gym. He doesn’t follow, as much as he wishes to. He knows Bucky, even if Bucky doesn’t know him. Which means, that he knows Bucky needs the space even if kills Steve to give it to him.

So, instead of following, he fixes the hole in the wall, goes on missions with Natasha, lets Tony teach him how to, properly, navigate the internet, and goes running with Sam. He breathes in, breathes through, receives a postcard from India seven months later, breathes deep, and breathes out.

•

The third year, Bucky comes back, and for the first time since 1945, Steve and Bucky hug. It goes on for far longer than they ever used to allow themselves to indulge. But Steve’s hands have forgotten how to unclench and Bucky is shaking apart underneath his fingertips.

The sky could collapse and he thinks he would stay standing right here, content to die if it meant forever in Bucky’s arms.

They let go eventually. Of course. But Bucky stays close and Steve does his best to stay steady.

•

The third year is hard. Easier than the first, but a challenge in and of itself.

For all that he’d thought to himself, I know him, he does in fact, know very little about this new version of Bucky. And as it turns out, Bucky knows very little of Steve, even with a large portion of his memories once again intact.

They’d both lived and died and lived again, their personalities shifting, mercurial things that no longer match up quite the same.

It doesn’t stop them from clinging to each other but it forces them to, in a way, start again. It feels a little like a curse and a lot like a second chance. A fresh sheet of paper, free of charcoal smudges and dirty fingerprints, just waiting for a masterpiece to be painted in bright, vivid watercolors.

•

The fourth year is the easiest so far, both of them settled into their skin and more confident of where they stand, both, with each other, and in this new time.

Steve had woken up in 2012 and had thought, I will never belong to this era, I will never learn to enjoy this. He’d also thought that he was alone, and maybe the absence of that loneliness is what makes all the difference. Or maybe it is simply that he’s finally accepted that he’s here to stay.

What is the point of being miserable when he can build a home and finally live? What is the point of courting tragedy when some higher power allowed Bucky to find his way back to Steve?

He thinks life is offering him a gift. He would be a fool to not grab it with both hands.

•

The fifth year they leave Stark Tower and return to their roots. A three bedroom brownstone in the heart of Brooklyn, the cobblestone signing beneath their feet, welcome home, welcome home.

Bucky kisses him in the archway and he smiles into it, throws his keys at Natasha when she snickers, and throws rice over them, making a mess all over their brand new floor. He can’t stop smiling, and thinks maybe one day, she’ll have a chance to throw the rice for real. Somewhere green, somewhere warm, both of them endlessly tired of the cold.

They turn their home into an oasis of warmth. A burgundy couch and sunset pillows. A rug shaded like the sunrise and kitchen walls like sunshine. The plants take up every window and Bucky spends hours tending to them, talking in a low voice to them as if they can drag the darkness from him. Maybe they can, he always seems lighter afterward, flushed bright with life.

There’s fresh fruit on the counter and warm bread in the oven. Coffee in the cupboard despite how little it does for either of them.

Bucky takes to making sangria, despite alcohol doing nothing at all for him. Says, I like the taste, I like the colors, what other reason do I need?

Steve bites into an orange, the taste bursting across his tongue, and watches a drop of sangria roll bright red down the column of Bucky’s throat. He throws a second orange across the table, laughs when Bucky catches it too hard and ends up with orange juice sticky in his hair.

“I’ll help you wash it out,” he says, like that hadn’t been his plan from the start.

Bucky grumbles about it, but he still leans in when Steve leans across the table to kiss him. He tastes like sunshine and the ocean and a thousand nights of longing. Which is to say, he tastes like the only religion that Steve has never lost faith in.

fin.

#stucky #tag meme #eva tag #atlanta writes #i don't go here #except i guess when it comes to emotionally harming friends I do go here

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c-is-for-circinate · 3 years

Text

As promised: let's talk Hades, and how acts of abuse can create toxic environments for everyone around them, and also how people react to those environments--and to them being disrupted.

(For reference, I have just kicked Theseus's ass for the first time, it was exactly as satisfying as it was intended to be, and then I got predictably slaughtered a couple of chambers into Styx. Spoilers for everything through that point, but please no spoilers in reblogs/comments for anything after that!) Also, TW for a whole lot of discussion of abuse, particularly verbal and emotional abuse, and abusive familyworkplace dynamics.

Okay, so. To start out with, Hades is an abusive parent. He engages in innumerable acts of verbal and emotional abuse towards his son, because yep, that's what you call it when a parent constantly berates and belittles their kid for every perceived failure, including the ones the parent themselves could have prevented. Sometimes especially the ones the parent could have prevented. Zagreus failed at his office clerk job because Hades refused to teach him how to do it and then blamed him for not already knowing how. Cerberus tore up the lounge because Hades, who was actually there, chose not to stop him. Hades created, possibly deliberately, and then took full advantage of every opportunity he saw to insult and demean his kid, and the clerk job flashback shows us that he was doing so even before the escape attempts started. I'm pretty sure we're all on the same page here, but: yep, that all constitutes abuse, even if they're gods. Even if Hades has reasons for Being Like That. Even if you think Zagreus seems okay and unharmed by it (which: repeatedly throwing yourself into a gauntlet of violence that inevitably ends in your own pain and death because you're so desperate to escape home, not actually an indicator of someone who's okay). We all good on that?

Cool. Because I'm not really here to talk about how Hades' abuse directly impacts Zagreus right now (although there's for sure an essay in that too). I'm thinking about how it impacts everybody else.

Hades isn't as obviously unreasonable with anybody else in his kingdom the way he is with his kid. When we see him lecture somebody else, it's usually for an actual failure to do their job: Hypnos for literally falling asleep on the job and not doing anything that was assigned to him, Megaera for letting us past her so many time, Orpheus for being a court bard who refuses to sing. His attitude is super confrontational and unpleasant, but on the surface it doesn't necessarily look as fucked-up. Thing is, though, whether any individual act of aggression towards an employee/family member is justified or not (I would generally argue 'not', because aggression towards employees/family members is, y'know, not justifiable)--it's not about the individual acts. It's about the entire cultivated atmosphere of toxicity and abuse.

One of the very first things Meg ever says to us is, "I'd rather be on your bad side than his." Up until that point, we've got no reason to believe Meg has any history whatsoever of fucking up at her job. In fact, we've got plenty of reason to believe she's good at it. She's fiercely proud of it, she's frequently Employee Of The [Time Period], and we've apparently never even met her sisters because she handles her shit herself. But she's still scared of Hades. Dusa, who is an anxious wreck at all times because oh god what if she gets fired what if she gets fired what if she gets fired, in spite of apparently being absolutely exemplary at her job, is scared of Hades. Every single shade in the Hall is clearly terrified of Hades, and it's not because of what he's done to each of them. It's what they've seen him do to other people.

Which is how toxic environments work, whether they're work environments or families. The Court of Hades is of course both, always, with the bonus hell layer of you can't quit even if you DIE. An abuser in authority doesn't have to target you in order to make you feel scared, cowed, and desperate to please them. Humans (and gods who are basically extra-powerful humans) are good at learning by example. The residents of the Court get the picture.

So this Court is a minefield--and everyone except Zagreus is very good at tiptoeing around mines. We see it in Meg, so desperate to do her job well. We see that Hypnos very clearly does not give a shit about anything, but he still makes sure to have a list of excuses ready if/when Hades ever confronts him about failure to do his job, just in case. We see it when Achilles tells us that my ability to help you is constrained by the authority your father gives me, or whatever the line was sixty runs ago when he couldn't let me into locked chambers. The system, such as it is, works, and if Nyx talks to Hades as little as possible, if Thanatos avoids the Court entirely, if Achilles treads very carefully and knows how to keep his head down--well that's just the system, right? That's just how things are.

Even Zagreus seems to have had a role in that system as the court fuckup. He's the kid who didn't have a real job or purpose. He could take the focus of Hades' generalized, day-to-day ire off of everyone else, without triggering some of the more direct and violent ire because the work he was doing didn't really matter (a LOT of Hades' rage-triggers seem to be related to job performance, which means that the people with real jobs are of course the most at risk). And he could do so "safely" (big emphasis on the quotation marks there) because he alone of the court is Hades' actual kid, who's Prince of the Underworld no matter how much he fucks up. If one of Nyx's other kids gets something really really wrong, she might be able to protect them from some consequences, but Hades doesn't have any layer of supposed parental affection holding him back from getting violently furious about it. Zagreus gets a nice bedroom and the abuse is limited to words rather than divine power, and Hades is a dick to everyone but he only occasionally condemns people to eternities of torture, and only for good reasons like refusing to sing when your job is to be court bard, so it's fine, everybody's fine, everything's totally fine, right?

Except it's not fine when everybody is so clearly worried about anything going wrong. And it's especially not fine for Zagreus, who's the person to finally say no. He's leaving, for his own sake, because he deserves better and he's finally convinced he can have it. And that turns the whole system into disarray.

I am endlessly fascinated by the ways this game portrays different characters reacting to this upheaval in their carefully-mapped minefield. It's different for authority figures and peers and servants, different based on how people are positioned in the house under Hades' rule, and it's so spot-on and I love it.

Nyx, for instance, is absolutely calm about the whole thing, because Nyx has power. Hades can't hurt her. Hades can't even really do much against her children, not when Hypnos and Thanatos are gods in their own right. Yes, Hades rules the kingdom, but Nyx owns the land, and she gives no shits about his rages. And it's interesting, too, to see the lines she doesn't draw. The deal seems to be that Hades doesn't fuck with her, and doesn't outright threaten her kids (because Hypnos is bad at his job, demonstrably so, and Hades hasn't ruined him yet), and she doesn't interfere with the way he treats the people around him. She gives Zagreus advice and support and the mirror, but she also doesn't take a direct stand against Hades. He can't hurt her, but he could make life...difficult. She's protected, her position in the minefield is more of a safe viewing platform than slogging through the middle of it, but the mines are still there.

And then we have Achilles, who is one of my favorite characters in the whole game because of how he reacts to this whole situation. Achilles, like Nyx, is so supportive. Every single time you see him he has something encouraging to say. He gives us his Codex, secretly finds us weapons, trained us for years, clearly wants us to succeed. And still he's limited, not necessarily out of fear for himself (though he has to be scared for himself, he knows what Hades does to people who anger him), but out of concern that if he gives Zagreus too much help in one way, he won't be able to provide help at all later. He's still so careful.

Achilles and Nyx are so fucking important to this story because they're the only authority figures Zagreus really has in his life except for his father, and they are so supportive. They're what keep this story from being a nightmare of psychological horror and depression. They can't stop the pressure from Hades and this life in his house being miserable for Zag, but they can give us hope, remind us that Zagreus is still loved. And they have such an incredibly important role when it comes to guilt, which is one of the biggest ways toxic systems maintain themselves.

If Zagreus leaves, what happens to everybody else? Who takes Hades' wrath then? Who becomes court scapegoat if he's not there, and also, who gets punished for his escape? These questions matter, and we see him worry about it! He asks Nyx and Achilles both, is it going to be okay that you're helping me, are you going to be alright, will my father hurt you for this? And they are both so firm about telling him no. No, I will be fine. See, here's the list of reasons about why I'm going to be fine, why my position in this minefield is secure. They make a point of telling us that it's fine, that we do not need to hold ourself back from getting out of this abusive situation for their sake. That is instrumental in Zagreus's ability to keep making these escape attempts without feeling too guilty and worried and selfish to go on. (Another thing that's actually really important in setting up that dynamic--we see that Hades cares about Cerberus, even if he's using him as a pawn against us, and Cerberus seems to be the one figure in court who Hades doesn't get mad at. The dog isn't at risk, and that is really essential in keeping the story from getting too grim.) These people who we care about refuse to let themselves be held hostage to secure our good behavior.

It's also really useful for raising the stakes later in the story--we see Hades arguing with Nyx once or twice, and we see Zagreus feeling guilty about it, but it's also a sign that we're making enough progress to piss him off. After I finally made it out of Elysium on my last run, I came home to find him furious with Achilles in a way that actually makes me nervous, because Achilles does not have nearly as much security in his position as he says he does. (Achilles is such a good teacher/authority figure, because he knows goddamn well what Hades could do to him, and still refuses to let fear for his own situation stop him from helping the abused kid under his care escape his. And no, not everybody has the capacity to do that, but it matters so much coming from the guy who helped raise us. It matters so much. I do not even have the words for how much.)

It's also no mistake that many of the people we find supporting us along our journey are either the people with the most power in their immediate environment, or the least. Sisyphus helps us because what more could they do to me than this? Orpheus is a little wild around the eyes and somewhat disconnected from reality, and he wishes us the best because someone should get what they want and also he no longer gives a single fuck what happens to him. Eurydice has her own cozy little corner of Asphodel, as safe from Hades' rage as anybody anywhere in his realm because she's tucked in such an out-of-the-way middle place she's outside his notice. Dusa is so scared of everything anyway that, crush aside, she isn't any more threatened by us escaping than she is just by her everyday life here. Charon is unfathomable and unstoppable; Skelly literally exists to be a punching bag, and yet he also seems basically immune to pain, no matter what we do to him. There's no threat from Hades there.

So the people most at risk when I flip the world on its ear are the ones who have so much standing that they have something to lose, but not enough to protect them from losing it. Which of course brings us to Than and Meg--who are, of course, the two people who also seem by far the most upset by my attempts to leave.

As authority figures, Nyx and Achilles are constantly reinforcing the message that it's Hades' fault, not ours, if they or anybody else get caught in the crossfire of his wrath. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and it's not my guilt to bear. From Megaera and Thanatos, we get the opposite message--I am fucking with things, I am hurting people, and I need to stop. Zagreus isn't just abandoning them, as a friend or brother or lover or all of the above they're Greek gods who even knows. He's betraying them. They were in this together, as friends or lovers or whatever, but now Zagreus is sending earthquakes through the minefield they both still have to stand in. He is about to capsize this boat in the middle of a thunderstorm, he is fucking with the system, and they're the ones who are going to get most hurt.

I'm so curious how this is going to work for Than, who out of everyone we meet holds the closest role to Nyx's in terms of being sheltered from Hades' wrath. He's the guy who gets to leave, after all, even though he always has to come back. I've seen the least of him out of anybody so far because it took forever for me to get to Elysium, but two things really stand out and I'm so interested to see where they go. One, he really genuinely does care about Zagreus. He wants us safe, he wants us unhurt, the accessory he gives us only grants its bonus if we clear a room without taking injury, he keeps showing up to help. And two, he wants us to give up and go back and recognize how good we had it. Which is SO fucking interesting, considering how miserable Zagreus so clearly was, and how legitimate his reasons for being miserable were.

It makes me wonder so much about Than's standards for comparison. Does he know something we don't about what's waiting for us on the surface, something that might theoretically hurt Zagreus even more than staying down below? Has his life, which apparently allows him more freedom than anybody else in the Court, sucked horribly in ways we haven't seen, and that's why he spends so little time there in the first place? Either of those things is plausible, both of those things are plausible, and yet either one leads to this sense of patronizing, because he refuses to simply tell us. If something terrible is awaiting us, don't give us vague warnings, tell us what it is and let us decide for ourself! If you're fucking jealous because we might get out entirely and you're still stuck coming back here, say so. If you're worried about your mom--and he does bring her up, how could Zagreus turn his back on her like that, does seem to worry for her--then let's have an actual conversation about how many times she has insisted I do this and also how much I love her.

And, right, it's clear that a lot of Thanatos being upset is simply, you were going to leave me without even saying goodbye, you want to leave ME, which is understandable! But, like, he is demonstrably the one god who gets to visit the surface. He's the one person we actually COULD expect to see again. And he is absolutely also upset because there's an Order To Things, and we're fucking it up. We used to be his careless callow reckless friend who could talk back to Hades and get away with it, and now we're not, and everything is changing and we might leave him altogether, and we might leave him alone in that court without us, and he hates it.

Is it a short-sighted, selfish fear on his part? Yes, absolutely. Even if he's not scared of Hades on his own behalf, he is still frightened by what happens if we upset this system--and maybe it's the sanctity of a much bigger system than the Underworld that he's worried about! Maybe it's the whole divine and cosmic order. Whatever system he wants so badly to protect is enabling the abuse Zagreus has been dealing with for however-long he's been alive. Whatever system he wants so badly to protect OUGHT to be overturned, or at least shaken up. But this is what toxic systems DO. They convince the people within them that they have to be maintained, that a broken system that hurts the people within it is far better than no system at all, that changing the world is too scary and too dangerous. And Thanatos wants his whatever-Zagreus-is-to-him to be there, because he loves him and also because that's how the world works, and those things are all tangled up in one another, and that is how relationships are in a messed-up family like this so therefore I love it.

And Meg. Meg, the best for last, my dear, beautiful, furious, bitter, scared angry tired girl. I adore her. I am absolutely never going to date her, because the thing Zagreus needs most in his life hurts her, more directly than anybody else in the story, and that sucks, and it's not Zag's fault but they still shouldn't be together. Meg has taken more injury from this situation than anyone, quite literally as well as metaphorically, and it's not her fault any more than it's ours, but oh boy it has made her lash out and it's awful and it's perfect.

Meg's place in the Court of Hades is unique because she's not dead, not a mortal, not anything other than a god--but she's also not family. Nyx is not her mother. She's very much part of this system, she and her two sisters belong to Hades-the-realm and therefore also Hades-the-king, she can't leave, but she also doesn't have that protection of Nyx watching out for her in the same way. She's not royalty. She and her sisters (if you ask Hesiod instead of Virgil, which seems to be the interpretation the game's going with here) sprang from the blood of maimed Uranus at the same time as Aphrodite, but fuck knows Aphrodite isn't claiming them as siblings. And she can't be fired, exactly, but she sure can be demoted, and she sure can be made miserable in her job. Meg is vulnerable in a way very few people in Hades' employ are. She's a lot harder to do away with than any one random shade, but she's also a lot harder to miss blending in with a crowd.

What's more, she's the one person in this whole mess who is specifically tasked with stopping us from leaving. Hypnos isn't ordered to put us to sleep and keep us in our room. Thanatos can't be compelled or punished if he doesn't hunt us down. Achilles isn't told to lock us up and keep the keys. Meg is the one stationed at the doorway to Tartarus to keep us in. Meg is the one who gets in trouble when we leave. Meg (who Hades knows goddamn well Zagreus cares for, or cared for, who he absolutely knows we used to date) is the one who has to fight us again and again and again. And she's the one who keeps dying.

Again, it's this incredibly fucked-up guilt/hostage situation deliberately designed to keep people from fleeing abusive situations. Meg's insistence on fighting us now puts Zagreus in the position of having to hurt her himself again and again. Now suddenly we're the ones sticking a sword in our ex-girlfriend. Now suddenly someone can point to our desire to leave, to flee, to escape, and say, how selfish. How cruel. How terrible of us to want to go, when we're even willing to hurt the people we love to do it.

Except, right: Hades is the one who demands Meg stand there and stop us. Hades is the one who puts both of us in that position. Meg is also in an abusive situation, and she's willing to hurt us to protect herself. "I'd rather be on your bad side than your father's." It's easy to blame her at the start for being complicit, for being a tool of our father's abuse, for being on his side. It gets harder as the game goes on. I've killed her so many times. There's no way for her to beat me. She knows at this point that she can't beat me. She still fights, every single time, still throws herself upon that spike, not because she thinks she has any chance of stopping me but because she is so damn scared of what will happen if she doesn't try.

In fact, Meg's the one person we have actually seen face consequences for our actions so far, instead of just facing the threat of them. Her sisters are here. Her sisters, who she clearly does not want here, who are wild and violent and who she does not want in her life or anywhere near her, let alone near the job she takes so much pride in. She gets to deal with them now. (Hades doesn't have to deal with them. They're still not allowed in his court. But Meg does.) She gets stabbed, and bludgeoned, and shot, and lightning-struck, and poisoned, and every other thing we do to her. Thanatos doesn't. Nyx and Achilles and Hypnos don't. Bug Meg? Oh yes. Meg pays.

And yes, ok, she is complicit in this system. Everybody is complicit in this system. Zagreus who's trying to escape on his own behalf instead of overthrowing his father for the sake of everyone he'd otherwise be leaving behind is complicit in this system. Pointing fingers and pulling strings of who's more at fault? and who do we blame for this? is exactly how this sort of system perpetuates itself. Your sister always talked back at the dinner table and put everyone in an even worse and more violent mood. Your coworker refuses to work more than forty hours a week so now you have to take overtime to pick up their slack. You're enabling your dad by asking your sister to shut up, you're enabling your employer by working as hard as you do so you don't get fired, everyone's at fault, everyone's to blame, everyone is--

It's not everyone. It's Hades. It's Hades at the root of everything, and probably something big and institutional and fucked-up even beyond him. But even if everyone down in this Underworld does have to be trapped here forever, even if he's trapped here forever, Hades is neither challenging the system that put them here nor trying to make that fate better for anyone else stuck with him. He's just created an entire kingdom of backbiting and misery and people who can either go along with his whims or suffer the consequences.

At this point in the game, Meg is so fucking tired. Every time we run into her in the lounge, hunched over a table, the venom in her voice when she tells us "Do I look like I have anything to say to you?" is so bitter and so exhausted. There was a system, and she knew her place in the system, and it was a system divinely ordered by the gods themselves, and sure it was cruel but that's the literal will of the universe as far as she knows it. She had a role, and her role was vengeance and punishment and violence against those who'd committed the most egregious of sins in life, and there was a point to it, she was the divine deterrent to convince people not to do those things, and that was just, and that was right. The GODS THEMSELVES said so. How do you argue with that? You can't possibly argue with that!

And Zagreus is arguing with that. In trying to leave, he's questioning the unbreakable rule that nothing in the Underworld ever gets to leave it. In disobeying his father to do so, he's questioning the unbreakable rule that what the gods say is LAW. He's breaking everything.

And of course he's not trying to do any of that. He's not trying to destabilize the system at all. He's just trying to get himself out of it, to a place where he feels like he belongs and maybe a parent who's slightly nicer to him than this one. But toxic systems like this one break when the people within them have access to another option. When the kids find a way to actually leave, and not answer the phone, and not come home for holidays, and not deal with it any more. When the employees have the economic freedom to quit. When opportunities granted by education, money, social support, etc etc etc, show up and give people a choice. Even if the option is only ever for Zagreus--he's demonstrating that an option exists. Which is, of course, the one thing the system cannot ever allow.

I really like this game.

#hades game #hades spoilers #C plays stuff #driveby meta attack

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yetdevout · 2 years

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babe has a LOT of tattoos. like... all over their body. the designs range from ones they've designed themself, to one's friends designed for them. they've always enjoyed the idea of their body being a "walking mural", as asher once so elegantly described it. most of their tats got meanings behind them, symbolisms that resonate into the deepest places of their being. but, they never thought those meanings, symbolisms, and stories... would become a source of comfort for their boyfriend.

tw mentions of body insecurity.

babe didn't use to sleep shirtless, at all. their insecurities about their body have kinda... distanced themself from sleeping without any kind of clothing. always a loose shirt (asher's), loose shorts (also asher's), sweatpants (you guessed it – asher's). but, that night of lulling their beloved boyfriend to sleep, being held close as they prayed to whatever intangible higher power to whisk his nightmares away... something changed.

a barely-there brush of his fingers danced artlessly across the expanse of babe's exposed skin. shapes, patterns, lines and curves. the directions his fingers took were familiar, babe belatedly realized as sleep washed over them. he was tracing their tattoos. he only began to fall asleep after tracing their tattoos.

the next morning, they listened to asher ramble endlessly about his dreams improving – how instead of shades, tragedy, and loss; he sees gentle sceneries, stars that decorate the universe above. he sees cranes, flowers, rams grazing in fields of a green that can't exist. and babe would listen, they'd always listen. especially since asher hasn't smiled quite like that in an amount of time that seems criminal. after finding out how relaxed their tattoos made asher, how much it helps him, babe can't help but throw (almost) all of that insecurity out the window. they begin to leave their shirt off for some nights and doze off underneath asher's tender scrutiny.

they felt helpless in their attempts to aid their mate during times like this. but... if the ink adorning their skin is relaxing the person they love with everything they've got? if he's sleeping peacefully, even if it's just for one night amongst a sea of shitty ones? they'll let asher trace and create all the stories he wants, the ones he'll be dreaming about.

#redacted asmr #r.thoughts #my r.hcs #redacted asher #redacted babe

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atinysunbaby · 3 years

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⏳Ateez entering your room while you're changing⏳

Warning : Suggestive

💖Park Seonghwa💖

"Hey Y/-" His first reaction is to turn around in shock while hiding his face. He apologizes endlessly and tries to calm his fastening heartbeat. From behind, you can see his ears turning a deep shade of red. He clearly is flustered and it makes you giggle. "I'm so sorry- I didn't mean to.." He sighs nervously. "Seonghwa~ It's fine, I don't mind" You say while hurriedly putting the rest of your clothes on. "A-Are you dressed n-now?"

After this day, everytime he looks into your eyes, his face heats up. The image of you naked, gives him not so innocent thoughts.

💙Kim Hongjoong💙

He barges into your room while angrily rambling about Woosan pranking him. He didn't notice your current state. That is until you scream at him. "HONGJOONG!?" He jumps from his seat and turns to you for the first time since entering. His jaw drops open. His gaze stays fixed on your boobs and you quickly throw a pillow at his head. "Get out now!"

A few hours later you're watching a movie with all of the members. You feel eyes on you so you look around, only to find Hongjoong looking at your body while biting is lips. Then you notice the bulge in his pants and gasp quietly. Feeling your eyes on him, he lifts his gaze. You raise an eyebrow and he starts panicking. Quickly he reaches for a cushion to hide himself while blushing furiously.

💛Jeong Yunho💛

He acts like he isn't affected by it, but his ears betray him. You keep getting dressed while he waits on your bed. Your back is facing him, so he thinks you won't see him steal a few glances. Unfortunately for him, your can see him perfectly in your mirror. Amused, you turn around and smirk at his reaction.

His eyes widen and he gasp. Tries to pretend he was looking somewhere else. You just laugh and tell him to stop being so obvious.

💜Kang Yeosang💜

He's someone really shy and quiet. You never saw him talk to a girl other then you. Your friendship is a bit complicated. You love to show your affection to people. He does too, but with the members. It's just that he's too shy to do it with you.

So, to say that he's extremely embarrassed to have walked in on you changing, is an understatement. You try to reassure him that everything's fine, but he still can't get over it. He'll blush and stutter every time you get too close to him.

🖤Choi San🖤

Satan himself. This little shit enjoys it and doesn't even bother to hide it. He enters your room and once he sees you, his eyes darken. He smirks and sit on your bed, watching you. You're shocked at first, but it's quickly replaced by amusement.

Instead of shouting at him to get out. Why not tease him a little? You slowly put on your clothes while locking your gaze with his in the mirror. Just when you're about to put on your jeans, you "accidentally" drop them on the floor. Bending down to grab them you can hear San groaning from his seat.

It might have ended with you two becoming friends with benefits.

💚Song Mingi💚

He doesn't even realise you're changing. You roll your eyes and keep on putting your clothes while watching him. He looks around your room while telling you about the crazy day he had. When you're done, you join him and you guys keep talking for hours.

"Wait wait!" He interrupts you from talking. You look at him confused. "What is it?" You ask him, annoyed that he cut you off. "It's just- Were you changing earlier?" You look at him dumbfounded. Then you close your eyes and breathe deeply before reopening them and smacking his forehead softly.

❤Jung Wooyoung❤

"Beautiful~ You won't believe what I-" He stops dead in his tracks. His expression isn't one of shock, but lust. You try covering yourself with your blanket, getting nervous about his change in attitude. Slowly, he walks towards you. When he reaches you, he lifts his hand and grips yours that's hiding your body.

"Can I?" Hesitant, you nod nervously. He brings your cover down, exposing your naked body. For a few seconds, he admires you making you flustered. Then he laughs softly and takes his shirt off. "You can look too~" He takes your wrists and bring them to his chest. Your fingers slide down to his stomach. It doesn't go any further, he gives you his shirt and you put your underwear on. Then you both cuddle and fall asleep.

🧡Choi Jongho🧡

You hear the sound of your door open, then close immediately. Confused you look behind you, but there's no one. You shrug it off, knowing someone must have seen you. You can't do anything about it, but you'll try to find out who.

You exit your room and make your way to the kitchen, where everyone is. It's dinner time, Seonghwa's preparing it with Wooyoung and Yunho. San and Mingi are biting each other, Hongjoong and Yeosang sleeping on the couch. Everything's normal, ecxept for one person. Jongho. He's sitting at the table, with pink cheeks and avoiding your gaze. "Don't you have something to tell me?" You bend over the table, moving your face close to his. He stands up and run away, living you there to laugh your ass off.

#ateez #ateez reactions #ateez scenarios #ateez imagines #atiny #fanfic #park seonghwa #kim hongjoong #jeong yunho #kang yeosang #choi san #song mingi #jung wooyoung #choi jongho

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vidalinav · 3 years

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Nessian Week Day 2: Gifts (Part 2)

Summary: Cassian likes Nesta’s night gowns... and buying her things. Swear this is not a sugarbaby AU. It just sounds like it.

You can thank @arinbelle and @simpingfornestaarcheron for this. They threatened me with knives.

Nesta’s on the armchair when he gives her his gift. She’s already reading a book, and he can tell she’s surprised to see another one resting on his palm.

“What’s this?” She asks, “It’s not my birthday.”

Cassian only smirks, looking to wear she traces the cover, and where she traces his hands holding the book as if his skin is more precious than paper. “Does it need to be your birthday for me to give you gifts?”

Nesta raises a too heavy shoulder for him gifting her a book. But he’s long since heard this argument she gives. He knows her all too well.

“I haven’t gotten you anything,” she says as if the words might make it take him back. There’s disdain in her voice and Cassian knows it’s for herself. For the lack of love she thinks he’ll find by her actions.

Cassian thinks no such thing. Nesta loves with her whole heart, so achingly overflowing. She rubs at his wrist without so much as a thought, as if it might soothe some pain in him. But the pain is in her, and so Cassian rushes to absolve her of her misguided guilt. “I don’t give you things, expecting anything in return. I get you thinks because I want to.”

"But you’ve gotten me so many things lately.”

Nesta’s right about that. Cassian is endlessly giving her gifts. He can’t stop, it seems. He goes into the city and they pass by a window, and something about that bag reminds him of Nesta. Something about that bike seems like Nesta. Something about that candle smells like Nesta. He passes restaurants and bakeries, and all around he sees food Nesta might try. He goes walks through the city, and he thinks of all the places Nesta would like.

She never leaves his mind and when he’s spent the day with his friends, meetings turning into dinner, Cassian thinks of Nesta then, too. He stops by the bookstore, because what else screams Nesta Archeron, but a smutty book? He peruses the titles and finds the raunchiest he can find. Cover and all.

That’s what he gives her to absolve himself of his guilt. For being away for so long, for not asking if she wants to come with, or go somewhere else. That’s what she holds in her lap. Something to ease them both.

She sets the other book on the side table, and Cassian recognizes the title. One of her favorites she keeps re-reading. Nesta takes the book, flipping to the inside cover. Even the description is tantalizing. Cassian flips to some random page in the store and it has him wanting to read the words to her, or... have her read the words to him. He can only imagine what they can do with all that description.

“You brought me a romance?” Nesta only looks up at him, blinking those long lashes and furrowing her neat brows. “How did you know which one to choose?”

She purses her lips and Cassian focuses on the color. A dark shade of pink from where she bites. Nesta always bites them when she reads. A bad habit of hers.

But it’s the color that Cassian holds on to. How nicely it contrasts with her skin, the sweet freckles dotted across her shoulders from when she trains. Her shoulders are bare, except for two tiny straps. Such flimsy things to pull and tug. Still he wants to kiss at them like he does every night. Such an engrained, important routine.

“You think I don’t know your tastes?” Cassian snorts. “I picked the one with the male that looked most like me. See.” He points to the cover, where there’s indeed a muscled male, with long dark hair. Cassian’s hair is shorter and his ears aren’t pointy and his muscles are much more defined, but it’ll do for Nesta’s fantasies.

Nesta scrunches her nose and Cassian wants to kiss their too. Everything about her is tooth-rotting sweet.

“You’re full of yourself,” she says.

“And you haven’t said thank you,” he taunts. He uses the voice he knows annoys her. Casually chastising. A voice he knows also makes her blush. Maybe that makes her irritated, too, how much he affects her without trying. Cassian uses that tone well, and he uses it often.

Cassian raises a brow, waiting for her response, but his mate waves a hand, half-dismissive, half-haughty. All manners of insecurity tucked away. This is the Nesta he knows so well. He knows the other parts of her, too. But this is the one he fans the flames to, the one who makes him light up with mischief. “I didn’t ask for the gift.”

Cassian almost tuts, shaking his head. “But you like it. Page 103 has something in there we should try.” He tucks a stray piece of hair that falls forward, and he makes sure to brush his hands across her neck. “He takes his whole fist and he--”

“Stop!” Nesta calls. “Fine, I like the gift. Please don’t give me anymore details.”

Cassian smiles, a wide victorious grin. “And that means?”

Nesta scoffs, “thank you, Cassian.”

“A please and a thank you, what will the world do?” He kisses her head, suddenly serious. He can smell lavender and peppermint tea and just her scent alone makes him want to hold her close. “You’re welcome, sweetheart.

Cassian moves to sit on the side of the armchair. His plan is for Nesta to move, to make room for him as she so often does. Another part of their routine. The chair is big enough for them both. Perhaps they can read the book to each other, exchange word for every smoldering word.

Nesta doesn’t budge from the seat. She begins to read and Cassian coughs, shuffling on the tiny arm space. He nudges against her shoulder, but Nesta simply continues. She doesn’t even smile up at his antics, give him a glare because he irritates her. She reads and she ignores him.

“You haven’t gotten me anything,” Cassian complains.

Nesta huffs, “you just said you didn’t give me things to receive anything back.”

She barely lifts her eyes off the page as she tells him that and something about the way she looks at the book annoys him, has him wanting to reach for it and take it back, throw it out the window if he has to.

“I can think of more than a few ways to thank me,” he goads.

Nesta rolls her eyes, “All you think about is sex.”

Cassian doesn’t disagree. Especially not when she begins biting at her lip as she reads. “Yes, but that’s all you think about, too.”

He gestures to the book in her lap as proof and Nesta squints at him as if he needs to come up with better evidence.

“No,” she argues, “I’m currently thinking about how long it will take me to read this... I might be up all night.” She flips to another page. “You just got me something new to read and you were just going on about manners, I’d think it rude to not first enjoy my gift.”

“And what of my gift?” He sings.

Nesta raises a brow, and it’s that expression that has him burning at the seams. Her hair is down and he wants to comb his fingers through it, pull at it, feel how soft it is... and she’s wearing one of those nightgowns again.

She always wearing one, even if Nesta will hardly keep it on throughout the night. Cassian never knows what to do with his hands while she’s wearing it and he thinks that Nesta must know. She wears it to entice him. To make him want her more like that’s even possible.

It’s possible, Cassian finds.

Her nightgown today is the richest green and her skin glows pale in the moonlight. He aches to trace the sweet swell of her breasts with his tongue. They look so inviting in that silk dress of hers and there’s a bow right at the center. His present to unwrap.

“I’m very satisfied with you being my present.” He says, his voice so low he can hardly recognize himself. With his thumb, he traces the little ribbon. “Look, you even have the bow.”

Cassian watches as the blush rises at her chest and he wants to kiss there. He aches to do so, but first he moves to tug the ribbon with his teeth. And when Nesta straightens, her book lowering even further, he nips at her nipples that peak through the fabric. Just how she likes. A little bite and a tug, a little pain to entice her. To make her breath catch in her throat.

He takes his time with them. Nesta’s breasts are gods given. They deserve his attention. Large enough to fit in his palms.

But Nesta’s impatient as she always is.

Cassian leans forward, until he’s practically towering over his mate. She’s so small on that couch and she looks lonely there, all tucked in dark blue. The book lays open where the fabric billows between her legs, but Nesta pays no mind.

“Now will you let me unwrap my gift?” Cassian grasps her neck, and Nesta gasps but he merely rubs his thumb at her pulse. He can hear it hammering away as Nesta blinks, her eyes so wide and her cheeks so pink and he’s just at the edge of her mouth.

He thinks he’ll kiss her there, but first...

Cassian snatches the book from her lap. He holds it above his head as she leaps from the chair. Irate and just a tad too slow.

“Hey!” She scowls, “You overgrown bat! You just got me that book and now you’re bending the pages!”

“It seems you get distracted easily, sweetheart. We should work on that,” He says.

But Nesta’s been working on many things and so she lunges for him, wrapping her legs around his waist as she reaches for her book. Cassian merely holds it higher.

“I mean why read smut when you can experience the real thing?” He offers. Nesta reaches even further, pulling at his shoulders. Cassian moves the book to the other hand, just out of her reach. “I’m always willing.”

“You’re a horrible person and I hate you.”

Cassian gasps at that, holding his other hand to his chest.

“I don’t even want your gifts,” she adds, her eyes burning with fury.

“Now you’re just asking to be spanked,” Cassian says, shaking his head, “Is that what you want, Nes? I think that was on page 50. It’s a shame you never got to it.”

“You just like to hear yourself talk!” But Nesta looks at him as she blushes, and when he smirks, she wacks him in the chest. “Give me back my book!”

Cassian merely wraps his arms around her, keeping her steady in his arms. The book is tucked behind her back and Nesta twists to no avail. “How about you read it to me?”

She hits at his chest again and Cassian laughs. “Fine, I can read it to you, but you should know I’m going to make voices for the characters.”

“I hate you,” she seethes.

Cassian only smiles and kisses at her nose. “I love you, too, Nes.”

@arinbelle @my-fan-side @sophilightwood @nestaarcher0n @duskandstarlight @soitsgorgeous @swankii-art-teacher @lordof-bloodshed @thewhelk @daisy-in-danger @highqueenevankhell @lovelynesta @sirendeepity @champanheandluxxury @ladynestaarcheron @moodymelanist @teagoddess99 @spoilersteph @angelic-voice-1997 @bo0kmaster69 @drielecarla @generalnesta @cozycomfyliving08

Two fics in one day? So unlike me.

#nessian #nesta archeron #cassian #nessian week #nessianweek2021 #nessianweek #vidalinav writes

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sharkbait77 · 3 years

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The Sun Sets With You

Chapter One: The Season Begins

Summary: A simple yet despondent farm life suddenly sparks with new hope when an unusual traveler makes your town his latest stop and brings with him intriguing and promising viewpoints and no one to share them with. Until he meets you.

Pairing: Ezra Prospect x f!Reader

Rating: M

Warnings: Despondency, depressive undertones, death of a parent, grief, unsolicited advances, age old sexism, strained parent relationship, nosy neighbors, food, lmk if I missed any pls!

W/C: 3.2k

A/N: And here we go! The first chapter! Welcome & thank you for tuning in, it means the world, truly! As I mentioned before, this story may not be the best for some, so please heed the warnings & proceed with caution. The sadness will not consistently be in each chapter, that much I promise, but we have to get through it right away so we can understand our dear Reader’s mindset as of right now. NO EZRA YET, SORRY! And like I said before, this is probably not totally historically accurate, so take everything with a grain of salt pleeease. Other than that, enjoy!

Tags: @the-ginger-hedge-witch @asta-lily @honeymandos @pascalpanic @aliwritesfic @mandocrasis @hnt-escape @winter-fox-queen @barbossa2319 @sarahjkl82-blog @day-off-inkyoto @pedrocentric @astoryisaloveaffair @ezrasbirdie @danniburgh @foli-vora @lucrezia-thoughts @djarinsbeskar @chasingdreamer @quica-quica-quica @meesterblack @amandalovess @hunterofartem1s @pedro4ever @mishasminion360

Let me know if you’d like to be added or removed!

Series Masterlist || Main Masterlist

Chapter Two

~APRIL FIFTEENTH OF EIGHTEEN SIXTY-SEVEN~

Your eyes flutter open on instinct as the sun rises against the pale blue of the sky, its ochre rays peering from behind the grassy hills and across the wheat fields while waking the birds. They start their day with a song, shaking their feathers and stretching their wings as they merrily fly through the air in search of their morning meal. The hens that found solace in their coops from the stark chill of night chatter amongst themselves as they roam around their pen and the lone rooster releases its shrill call, a signal for the day to begin. Beat you again, you think.

The sun rises a little higher now, the bright of day in full effect as it fills your room with its intense luminosity. You lie in bed a moment longer, watching the dust mites float through the air and dance in front of your nose with each exhale of breath you release. Signs of life all around you, from the dew drops that formed on your window in the early morning to the muscles within your very skin twitching as you climb out of bed. Every little thing teasing and taunting you of significance, of meaning just on the horizon, yet so far out of your reach.

This is your life. Each and every morning, day, and night is as repetitive as the last. Wake up before the rooster crows and stare into the minute cracks rippling through the ceiling, envious of the pollen that manages to escape through and longing for you to shrink microscopic enough to hide away as well. Fill your basin with cold water you had gathered the night before to wash yourself quickly before your father wakes. Clothe yourself in your underdress, long sleeved, blue work dress layered on top with the sleeves rolled up, an apron cinched at your waist, and dirty and worn, black boots laced up tight enough to prevent you from minding the ache they feel as the day progresses.

You look at your reflection in the hazy mirror as you braid your hair; the drabness of the glass only accentuates exactly how you perceive yourself. The girl staring back at you was but a shell of the one you knew before. Before, when you still had ambitions that would have led you far from this town. To a place you could live anew. Now, just an empty being as one day fades into the next. Eyes that no longer gleam, hair that no longer shines, skin that no longer glows.

You had given up long ago of any hope and dream of something more, surrendering to the bleakness and repetitiveness of this life when your mother passed. A promise on her death bed to help care for your father any way he needs. And this is what he needs. You, here on the farm, helping tend to the chickens and the cows and the small shop he owned in town. The one your mother ran that was unceremoniously thrust onto your lap. The organ within your chest beats solely to pump the blood through your veins and keep you breathing, if only for the promise you made to your mother.

You fasten the gold chain around your neck, a locket with a faded photograph of your mother hidden within hanging to your breast. You tuck it into your blouse to keep her close to your heart and head down the ladder, stepping lightly as to not awaken Pa any earlier than necessary. Your Pa, an old man now with hair white as snow, only having turned the shade since Ma left.

Wrinkles crease deeper into his skin and the bags under his eyes droop slightly to his cheeks now on his once chiseled face. His strength has dwindled within the last year, and with no other siblings to share the burden of the farm, you knew you could not leave your Pa to deal with it by himself. So your own dreams and goals were swiftly thrown into the dirt to be rained on and turned to mush, impossible to be picked up again.

As you finish grounding the coffee beans and throw them into the pot of already boiling water resting on the range, Pa begins to stir and soon after wakes up, the aroma of caffeine acting as his own signal to wake. Leaving the house to give your father privacy to dress, you head to the hen coop to gather a few eggs for breakfast.

You take a deep breath of the crisp morning air, the smell of apple trees at the front of the house, then the smell of grass with fresh dew, to the smell of hay and chicken feed as you get closer to the pen they are corralled in. As you head back into the house, Pa is already seated at the small, round table with his tin of coffee.

“Good morning, Pa,” you greet softly.

“Good morning daughter. Thank you for the coffee.”

“Grace to our health, Pa,” you say, as you always do when he gives you his thanks.

Financially, you and Pa were well off enough; you still couldn’t afford luxuries like sugar, but you were able to live comfortably with only the necessities and the occasional new pair of boots. You were grateful to have the farm and the shop, both reliable sources of income for your small family, and you were blessed that Pa was still able to work the fields, but you know as time passes and his joints weaken, you would then need to take over the labor. There was truly no path for you to leave this life.

The older women around town had begun to whisper about you, not necessarily trying to keep their gossip from reaching your ears. They were just as bad as the hens that cluck around their pen all day. A never ending chatter of you being stuck in the house or the farm or the shop, working as an old maid for the rest of your life.

You’re still fairly young, just over two decades of life in you; sure, the girls you once played in the streams with as children were all married women now and on their third, fourth, fifth child, but you didn’t feel the desire to find a husband just to bend to the simple mold of life this society has cast. If you were to still have any control of your life, it would, at the least, be that.

You crack the eggs into the beaten and tired pan over the range, letting them cook to completion before removing and plating them, along with a roll of bread and the butter you had just churned the day prior. You walk over to Pa and place his portion down before working on your own. Pa sends up a quick prayer and starts to eat. His prayers turned to letters to Ma, but he never failed to speak them before every meal or before bed, sometimes even when a sudden abundance of eggs were laid or vegetables had sprouted during the night.

“The season is nigh for corn and potatoes,” Pa mumbles and you feel your heart sink to your feet.

You had forgotten about the season, when Ma and Pa would work the fields together endlessly, sweating through their work attire to be washed every evening. You still feel the creak in your elbows to this day. It is the busiest season, bringing in the most coinage for the year, but now that it was only you two, you worry about juggling between the shop and the farm.

“Pa, how will we manage?” You voice your concern. Pa takes a deep breath.

“You will hang a notice in the shop when you go today,” he says matter of factly. “Ask Mr. Williams if you are able to hang one on his window at the post as well.”

“And what shall it say?”

“‘Seasonal laborer wanted – will provide lodging with pay’.”

“Where will he stay?” You inquire.

“The barn; we will provide him blankets and he will be free to use our wash basins when needed and we will offer him meals.”

“It will be a lot of money expended, Pa; will we be all right?” You ask as you sit at the table with your plate and coffee tin.

“We will make do, daughter,” he says, the finality in his voice signaling for this conversation to cease. “We will not be able to pay handsomely or feed him much, but we require the extra hand if we are to pass the season.”

“Yes, Pa.”

You lower your head and eat your eggs in silence. You don’t pray anymore, not necessarily feeling the need since your Ma was taken, as well as your aspirations. Pa finishes his coffee, leaving the dishes in the wash basin and grabbing his hat, walking outside into the fields to begin preparations for the season. You sigh; the tears that have long hidden in your ducts refuse to spill out to bless you with relief.

The last time you properly cried was for Ma; every day you feel them there, the pressure building in the corners of your eyes, but nothing ever falls. A mind trick, you suppose, to force you to focus on the more important things. You don’t have the time to spare to release them; your mind and body are now slaves to the farm and the shop.

After your breakfast, you walk to the wash basin with your dishes, hand pumping the water from the pipe just off the side and using the homemade lye soap you learned to make from your mother. Once the dishes are washed, dried, and put away, you walk over to the black safe in the corner of the room, turning the dial to its correct numbers and pulling out the metal lockbox from the inside.

It carried within it the sales ledger for the shop and the velvet bag for the coins. Pa empties the bag every day as he looks over the ledger, placing the coins into another metal box that only he has the key to. He gives you coin anytime you ask, as long as it is needed for the shop or food for the house and, occasionally, on special days.

You pick it up and take it with you to the front door, pulling your bonnet and fabric bag from the hook they hung on. You stick the lockbox inside your bag, as well as the key assigned to it, and head outside. Pa is already far into the fields, hacking away at the dirt and smoothing it out for the new growth. You don’t bother saying goodbye; he knows where you’ll be. Where you’ll always be.

Living alone with Pa became quite challenging, you were disheartened to learn. You’ve always had a loving bond with him since you were a child; maybe he expected the same from you as he did from Ma, but he still managed to make his lessons on the farm enjoyable, doting upon you as any loving father would. Now? The anguish you both have felt since losing the feathery soft and caring love of your mother strained the relationship between you two.

What was once a thick belt of leather that connected you now pulled further and further apart until it became as frail as rubber, threatening to snap at a moment’s notice. You love your Pa; of course you do, and you know he loves you too. If only you could grieve together.

Upon entering the town, the people are going about their normal routines. The baker stacking the fresh loaves of bread in his window, the shoe shiners along the streets working tediously on men’s boots, the hens clucking – the older women gossiping away passionately about whomever they desire. As long as it isn’t you today.

You reach the shop, key in hand as you unlock the brass keyhole and turn the knob, the small bell dinging above you as you enter. You flip the sign in the window from the side that reads ‘Closed’ to the side that reads ‘Open’ and you pull back the shut curtains, allowing the light of day to flow into the small room.

Heading back to behind the counter, you remove the lockbox from your bag and set it on the shelf underneath in its usual resting place. You barely have a moment to remove your bonnet when the bell dings and you look up to greet the person who has walked in. Wonderful.

“Hello, my sweet,” the man husks and you find it difficult to choke back the bile rising in your throat.

“Hello Silas,” you say flatly. “Is there anything I can help you with today?”

“Darlin’, you know exactly how you may be of service to me.”

Silas Taylor, a boorish man of thirty-eight years, has desperately been attempting to attract your affection for the past two years. He had the decency to respect you and Pa after your mother passed, halting his advances for all of one week. Considering his age, he did not show any signs of maturing, both in his looks and his brain. One might even label him handsome, were he not such a crude and overbearing personality.

Ma and Pa had bid you to consider his proposal, but in time came to understand he was not the best man you could have as a husband. Pa despises Silas, has even told him so to his face, yet it did not cause Silas to stray from pursuing you. Disrespectful, despicable, a generally awful person, Silas is.

Why he had you locked on to his sights, you weren’t sure. You never gave him the opportunity to court; staying cordial as to not make an outright enemy of him, yes, but never once have you made it apparent you enjoyed his attention. Nevertheless, he continued.

“Silas, please. I must ask you to leave my shop if you are not interested in a purchase,” you implore, hoping he will understand your position and take his leave.

“But, little one, I am very interested in a purchase. What must I do to make you my wife?” He grins, as charming as the manure out in the fields. In a flash, your vision goes red as you replay his statement in your mind.

“I am not for sale, Silas. That is the most offensive remark you have said to me yet,” you declare harshly, the acidic bile in your stomach turning into a burning rage.

“There must be something that can be done, my sweet. You name it; the most lavish jewels and dresses your pretty, little mind can dream of,” he presses on with a smile only found on masks to scare the children with.

‘Pretty’ and ‘little’, amongst his unwelcome endearments, are the words to send your mind into a downward spiral to declarations that you’d rather not say unless you were alone, lest he take offense and decide to wreak havoc on you and Pa. You put your foot down and grab his arm roughly, pulling him with you to the front door. He only laughs at the scene unfolding, rather pleased with himself that he’s ruffled your feathers so.

“Silas, I am no longer asking. Please leave,” you say as plainly as you can, doing your best to keep the tremble of anger out of your voice.

“Fine, fine,” he chuckles satirically. “Until our next meeting, my love.”

He pulls your hand to his lips, his strength surpassing yours and his thick, wiry mustache rubs harshly against the tender skin of your hand. You furl your lip and flare your nostrils, unable to contain the look of disgust on your face as he glares at you perversely with his black eyes. You tug your hand away and the bristly hair under his villainous nose scrapes you with the motion.

You stand with your jaw clenched and hands balled up in tight fists at your sides, your fingernails digging into the skin of your palm as you watch him walk away, leaving puffs of dirt trailing behind with each cocksure step he takes. If you were to only be allowed one person to despise in your lifetime, it would be Silas Taylor.

“Dear, are you well?”

A gentle, aged voice calls out to you from behind. You whip around quickly, your skirts twirling as you face the elderly woman that has hailed you.

“Mrs. Williams,” you greet, willing your fury from the unpleasant interaction to rest for the time being.

“Was that Silas Taylor you were speaking with?” She asks.

“Yes,” you exhale. “Yes, it was.”

“He’s a quite handsome lad, dear. It is known all over town how you have bewitched him. Why do you not accept his proposal?”

Adelaide Williams; the sweetest among the hens, but still a hen nonetheless. You sigh deeply to yourself, deciding not to engage in the conversation with the one woman who treats you with any shred of respect and kindness, even if her ideals still match those with the others in town.

“Mrs. Williams, while I have you in my presence, may I ask a favor?” You appeal.

“Why, of course, my dear!” She smiles, all thoughts of your personal affairs exiting her imagination.

“Do you suppose it would be alright to leave a notice at the post office? We are asking for help on the farm for the season.”

“Yes, dear, it’s quite alright,” she smiles, her wrinkly skin creasing along her cheeks and eyes.

“Thank you; will you wait a moment while I draft it?”

She nods and follows you inside the shop, slow in her old age. You quickly grab a sheet of paper and a fountain pen, inscribing the words your Pa informed you to write in large enough letters.

“I imagine this season will be most difficult without your mother. I am so very sorry, dear,” Mrs. Williams says as you write and your hand quakes slightly at her comment. “How have you and your father been managing?” Cluck, cluck, cluck.

“Not without difficulty, Mrs. Williams, but we manage nonetheless,” you say courteously, not wanting to relay any information that could be the next piece of news to travel through the grapevine. You finish the notice and hand it to her.

“Shall I direct him here or to the farm?” She inquires as she reads the note, perhaps looking for anything contradicting what you already stated would be written.

“The farm, more suitably, so he can speak directly to my father,” you reply. “Many thanks to you and Mr. Williams,” you end with a sweet smile.

“No thanks are required, my dear. Anything to help you and your father. Your mother was a wonderful being. I was proud to have known her.”

Another quake. You nod politely, letting her hold your forearm as you walk to the front door. The bell dings as it opens and you watch her while she walks down the wooden pathway to the post office. Once you’re sure she’s well on her way, you turn back inside and draft another notice for the shop window before you begin arranging the merchandise for the day, taking inventory of goods that are depleting, and checking order forms belonging to families around town for produce off your farm.

A most provincial and forlorn life, indeed, that you will have to bear until the end of your time here on Earth.

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Chapter Two

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