#every version of themselves are meant to be together

[theoldsports]

Spontaneous.

Art Donaldson x Reader

oops. it’s gonna be a series. i’m developing Lore. let me know what you think and where to go next.

warnings: 18+ please, drug use mention, drinking (underage), kinda sexual content.

Fancy parties were loathsome. [Y/N] thought so, at least. She hated being told to stop calling them fancy parties and shindigs and to call them by their proper names: galas, benefits, balls, whatever. It was exhausting. Her feet weren’t meant to be elegantly jammed into spike heels. [Y/N] liked the height she was, thank you very much.

Did supporting charitable causes have to feel so degrading?

Capitalism at its finest.

[Y/N] had been attending these things since she was a little girl. Seven or eight years old. So young, in fact, that she now can’t remember what demographic or ailment-research, or political party this goddamn yearly spring shindig was for. Mr. and Mrs. Zweig were always nice to her when she was a child. She wasn’t just a family-friend, she (and her parents) felt like friends that were family.

What made the lavish Zweig parties tolerable was Patrick Zweig. She had known Patrick as long as there had been parties to get dressed up for. He had scraped her off a marbled staircase step as a little girl when her polished pleather mary janes didn’t have the traction to keep her upright. She had cried when she fell. He had said: “you’re really loud, you know that?” And she had laughed. So they were doomed to spend eternity hiding in coat rooms and getting tipsy together at these things.

Patrick was never one of those boys that felt the need to turn his back on [Y/N] during the cooties years, or the so-she’s-your-girlfriend? years. The pair of them always managed to be simply themselves and that was enough. He was merciless and unapologetic, but he made a hell of a best friend.

[Y/N] was two months older than Patrick, and had been taller for their first two years of friendship. When his shift in stature occurred, it happened fast.

Patrick went away to boarding school and came back a gangly beast. [Y/N], though they hadn’t spent every waking moment (weekends and school days) together since he had left her for a racket and a tennis ball, was always pleased to see Patrick was still himself every time he came home. Louder and stupider each time, but still Patrick.

Though, one spring break was different. Eleventh grade, if [Y/N] recalled correctly. Patrick came home, tall and stupid as ever, toting a boy named Art Donaldson.

Art Donaldson was considerably smaller, and debatably less stupid than Patrick Zweig. [Y/N] understood that day why all the girls in her grade giggled about boys. [Y/N] could never tell Patrick that. He would have been insufferable about it.

Actually, [Y/N] felt jealous. That was also a secret. Because Art, unlike she and Patrick, was nice. Everybody liked him. Nobody ever talked shit about him. Adults loved him and his small-town boy manners. He actually was a rambunctious little jerk, but nobody else saw that. Everyone else got yes sir, yes ma’am, I’m well, how are you? He could turn that charm on and off like a faucet. Infuriating, right?

[Y/N] was also jealous because it was clear she had been replaced.

Patrick lit up like a Christmas tree when he was with Art. He never looked at her like that. Art must have been a better friend to him then she was. Patrick called her once a week to talk for years, but Art slept, like, six feet away from him. It simply wasn’t fair.

Because of that, [Y/N] remembers spring break was really hard. [Y/N] was acutely aware she had lost something she didn’t know she could lose to the human version of a fucking beagle.

[Y/N] couldn’t remember the grade they were in exactly, but she did remember the dress she wore to the Zweigs’ party that year. It was light green and had spaghetti straps. It was longer and more form-fitting than what she was used. Most of the girls her age had settled for lots of tulle and cheetah-print so [Y/N] looked more mature by comparison. It was the first time [Y/N] remembered feeling grown up at all.

To think she thought that all her excitement and contentment was wasted. [Y/N] sat in a plastic pool chair in the backyard curled up with her cork wedge platforms resting dangerously close to the water. She nursed a bottle of vodka she had swiped two months ago from her parents liquor cabinet to surprise Patrick. Meticulously, she had waited for them to be out of town and found the key to the liquor cabinet. A whole bottle just for [Y/N] and her best friend. [Y/N] had barely managed to keep it a secret that she had taken it. She had been so proud of herself and thought Patrick would be too.

Now, she was the only one around to drink it.

Patrick had put his warm, familiar hands on her shoulders and told [Y/N] to wait right there and that he and Art would be back in a sec. The two boys had vanished upstairs presumably to Patrick’s room with laughter spilling from their mouths. [Y/N] sat at the base of the stairs alone for twenty minutes.

According to the garish clock on the wall, at twenty-one minutes, [Y/N] disappeared to the pool. She officially hated Patrick too. He had left her alone at parties plenty of times, and she him. They’d dance with others, or sneak off for a makeout session with a pretty stranger. It had never been a big deal either way. This felt like deliberate abandonment for no good reason. That was a first.

“Whoa, save some for the rest of us.” A reedy voice called out. Art Donaldson. [Y/N]’s head glanced over her shoulder so fast at the sound that she almost made herself dizzy. It took little time to realize there was no Patrick with him.

[Y/N] pulled the bottle closer. “That was a really long one sec,” She replied. She planned to say that eventually in the wasted minutes she waited, but it sounded less cool now than it did in her head. [Y/N] sounded plain mopey and that was a shame. “What’d you guys do anyway? Where’s Patrick?”

Art shrugged and walked further into view. He looked a bit sheepish. “Being Patrick,” He didn’t answer the first question she asked. There was a half-smile tugging at his lips. Art looked nice. Brown dress shoes, navy jacket, white shirt. No tie. She could have sworn that had been a tie at some point earlier. His shaggy blonde hair was mussed, but she had yet to observe it being neat. It was fustrating how effortlessly nice he looked. [Y/N] thought that everyday from day one. “It’s getting kinda cold. You wanna head back inside? I was looking for you—“

“I’m alright here, but thanks,” she slurred slightly. “You head in. I’m not here to ruin your fun.” It had sounded bitter. She hadn’t meant for it to.

Art sighed and glanced away from her. He paused a moment and sighed. “I’m not here to ruin yours either, y’know.”

“You don’t have to make this into a thing. It’s fine.”

“Well, too late. Patrick’s being an ass. I don’t want you out here feeling like I’m some homewrecker. I’ve been on the receiving end of shit like this from him, too. He’s not trying to be nasty to you, ‘promise. Come on, I’m not gonna let you freeze out here.” Art said, stepping in a bit. The glow from the pool left green and white wiggly lines across his cheeks.

“It’s spring, It’ll warm up. Get back up to that party, man. Patrick’s waiting for you.”

“You’re being impossible.”

[Y/N] set the half-empty bottle down beneath her chair. “Nuh-uh.”

“Jesus… if you’re gonna be a jerk about it, at least take this.” Art frowned, shrugging out of his suit jacket. He seemed disappointed.

“Oh, Art, please—“

“No, no! You made your choice. Don’t let me spoil your fun with you and the… the vodka,” Art said, making a show of taking the jacket off and throwing it over to [Y/N]. The balled up lump of fabric landed in her lap with a soft thud. Her stomach churned. “All hunky dory now,” He said, holding his hands out to show he was no threat. Art’s brows were lowered protectively close to his eyes in what [Y/N] thought was an effort to mask slight hurt or rejection. He turned to walk away as [Y/N] clutched the fabric of his jacket between her fingers. Art turned back to to look at her for a moment. [Y/N] didn’t know what that expression was meant to mean. “Be careful, okay? For what it’s worth, you—you look lovely tonight. It would be a shame for such a, uh, such a pretty girl in a pretty dress to end up face down, stuck in the pool drain. ‘Night [Y/N].”

[Y/N] was glad for the dark because she felt her face heat up and dopey smile start to form at the compliment. Maybe she was drunk, but that had to be flirting. In the most fucked up way possible, but still. Why? Art Donaldson didn’t even like her.

Art had only managed to take a few steps into the dewy grass when [Y/N] begrudgingly called out: “Art, wait!”

She hated that she liked the smirk on his face when he turned around. He could tell what she wanted by her tone. What kind of fucker takes no for answer happily and still sets himself up for a yes in the end. “Yes?” He asked, trying not to smile.

“Listen, you’re right—“ [Y/N] stood up confidently, sliding Art’s jacket around her shoulders. And she stood up too fast and knocked her sandals into the pool. “Shit!” She cursed. She was still an age where cursing felt cool and unfamiliar. [Y/N] stood on her unsteady feet and watched her sandals bob out to the middle of the pool, propelled by her kick. She was embarrassed now as well. The stakes of everything felt so much higher than sandals in the pool of her best friend’s backyard. Booze will do that to the sanest of folks. [Y/N] dropped her face heavily into her hands. Great.

Quickly, Art cut his eyes between her and the shoes and back again. “Where do they keep the pool net?” Art asked calmly, without missing a beat.

“The shed.” [Y/N] said miserably and pointed a few feet away. Art bounded across the pavement around the pool to the shed. He tugged once, then twice.

“Fuck,” he said under his breath. “It’s locked,” He reported to [Y/N] from practically halfway in the pruned hedges. Art started the walk back to her. Once he was beside her, Art placed a hand gently at her elbow. “Come back inside with me. Please. Patrick may be able to get us a key and we can…”

But [Y/N] looked so sad from behind her hands. Even though all of this was so childish. She was also wearing Art’s jacket now and that did things to his brain. Her dress wasn’t not low cut and he froze for a second. All he could do was stare.

“Just do what I would do,” Patrick said. “It’ll be fine, man. She’s already into you, I can tell.”

“Well, if she’s into me, why would I do what you would do? That’s an awful suggestion, Patrick.” Art protested.

Patrick spun around in his desk chair to face Art as he rolled a joint. “I’ve known her since before I knew you. Just, like, be spontaneous. That’s what I mean. Spontaneous. She’s into that because she’s like that too. And she’s… wicked mean, so don’t start shit. She’ll surprise you, but like, in a good way. What I said before makes me sound like a jackass,” Patrick paused to laugh. “Be in the moment. Don’t get in your head about it. Which you’re doing right now— I can tell, Arthur…” Patrick drew out Art’s full name (which he hated) to get under his skin.

Art stood up from the floor in frustration. He glanced at his watch. Too much time had passed. The window was metaphorically closing. Hastily, Art dashed to the door. “I’m going down there. Poor girl’s been waiting all this time because you, my friend, are a shitty advice-giver.”

“Spontaneous!” Patrick called after him with a grin.

Art stared at [Y/N]. Then he blinked. Then tilted his head to the side. Spontaneous. Before he knew it, he was tugging his shoes and socks off and diving into the pool. Art had been right, it was getting decisively cold and the pool water reflected that. Art swam out to where the wedges had floated too, which had actually been fairly far. He wasn’t sure if the net would have gotten them that easily. Art nicked the shoes by the ankle straps and shook his wet hair out of his face. As he paddled back, he glanced at [Y/N]’s expression. She smiled wide with joy and surprise at Art’s sacrifice.

“Art! Thank you so much!” She said when he flopped the waterlogged shoes onto the concrete. Art looked up at her from the water and he only looked up her skirt a little bit.

“It’s no trouble. Repayment’s in order, though.”

“Repayment…? What do you—“

Art wrapped his wet, callused hands around both of [Y/N] ankles and flipped her into the pool. She screamed as she splashed into the pool. Then laughed hard. Art wanted to hear that laugh for the rest of his life.

“Wait, fuck, you can swim, right?”

Fortunately, [Y/N] could, and that’s the move that won Art Donaldson his wife.

—

“Honey, you have to get up so you can get ready…” Art’s mouth moved against the shell of [Y/N]’s left ear. His arm was tossed over her middle. Normally, it was Art that dreaded getting out of bed, but clearly they enjoyed switching roles once in a while.

A nap had turned into two-and-a-half hours of [Y/N]’s soft snores while Art held her. He couldn’t sleep much, but luckily he had something beautiful to look at. She ripped into him about his staring problem all the time. Art couldn’t be bothered to give a damn. “No.” She mumbled.

“Please…” Art’s hand trailed under her shirt and climbed up, up, up.

“No,” she sighed. Art’s hands groped her left breast and [Y/N] didn’t particularly mind. She shivered at the contact. Art had known every inch of her body over years. Neither was bored yet, though.

“It’s one night. One party. We don’t have to stay all night… He’s not going to be there, Lenora told me when I RSVP’d.”

They had an unspoken rule. They did not name Patrick in conversation when sober. The wound was too fresh still.

“Don’t talk about him, or his fucking mom when you’re touching me like that,” [Y/N] all but moaned as Art’s left thumb circled her nipple. “‘Thought we had to get up…”

Art smirked. “We do. At least you’re awake now.” He teasingly withdrew his hand entirely from out of her shirt and scampered out of bed in one agile zip of a motion.

“Art!”

She groaned. Rolling on her back to look at the ceiling, she glanced over at Art walking through the master bathroom doorway in his briefs. What an incredible ass that man has. “Motivation to leave the party early.” Art said and popped off into the shower.

Maybe it was selfish. Patrick and [Y/N] and Art hadn’t spoken in almost a year. It was no surprise to the Donaldsons that Patrick was an addict. He had been addicted to almost everything and everyone that crossed his path. What they hadn’t expected was him becoming so out of control that he missed the wedding of his two best friends and was sent into rehab once he was declared medically stable. The one person that both Donaldsons had fought to have in their own personal half of the wedding party. And he wasn’t there. And the wedding was expensive enough to go through with it amid all the bad feelings over Patrick.

Still, they were invited to the Zweig family’s charity or whatever gala. They would go like they always had, too. But it would be their first time alone, so to speak.

[Y/N] regretfully got out of bed while Art showered. She moved to the closet and unzipped her paper thin dress bag. The gown itself was beautiful, but not all too expensive. The year had been tight in terms of money. The wedding and the honeymoon were pricey enough before you added in rackets and competition entry fees and coaching. Art was an expensive husband to have. He made up for it. He was playing at his best too, so [Y/N] hardly cared. Who could put a price on seeing Art smile like that?

[Y/N] cringed if she had to pay more than two-hundred dollars for shoes or a dress anyway.

The dress was green. She’d worn a lot of green since she met Art. [Y/N] dreaded wiggling into shapewear and spending too long on her hair. Art had it easy. A tie, a jacket and trading his nasty watch for his nicer one. It wasn’t fair. It never was with Art.

She got ready all the same. The straps rested on her shoulders, thicker than the early 2000s straps she had been dumped into the pool in. It was longer than that dress. Almost floor length instead of mid calf. It was elegant for its price tag.

Once the dress was on, [Y/N] tumbled into the bathroom to do her makeup. The shared counter was way too small for both of their shit to sit nicely on. She would complain about that when there was more money in the bank account to do something about it. Art was taking longer than normal in the shower. Boner, [Y/N] thought.

As she started to put her face on, she could see Art’s face in the foggy mirror behind her. The sound of the water stopping and the shower curtain being tossed back had gone unnoticed. He was smiling slightly. “You look nice.” He said softly. Art toweled off his shaggy hair harshly behind her. He kept looking at her.

This is how Art was. He made these remarkable heart eyes at her every time he saw her. [Y/N] could be wearing a potato sack and she would feel beautiful. That look, that staring problem, was worse a hundredfold when she was dressed up. He kept glancing at her. She could see him in the mirror. He wanted [Y/N] to see. The blue and brown of his eyes cast further and further down her body.

“Staring.” [Y/N] said simply. She didn’t even look away from her own face in the mirror.

“Yeah. And?” Art smiled cheekily. His face was bright red not from the warm shower water. He wrapped his towel around his slim waist. [Y/N] applied too much concealer and less blush. “I, of all people, am allowed.”

“Idiot.” [Y/N] said. Art dried his hands profusely on his towel, knowing she would squawk at him if he left wet handprints behind on her dress.

Art’s hands wrapped around her waist. Great pains were taken to prevent other wet spots from splopping up her dress. So, so gently, he kissed the left side of her neck from behind. “I was thinking—” Art was always gentle in his own way.

“Ooh, dangerous.”

“Shut up. Y’know, this is the first Zweig party where your placecard is going to say Donaldson on it…”

[Y/N] nodded softly. “Huh. Yeah. That’s true.” She said, smiling a bit.

“I’m really, really excited about that. On the seating chart, we’re the Donaldsons. Isn’t that so crazy…?” Art whispered into her plush skin. “Plural. Two of us.”

Teasingly, she nudged him back with her elbow. The smile was still wide on her lips. “You’re being such a girl about it.”

Art didn’t let go or relent. He pressed feather-light kisses between [Y/N]’s ear and collarbone. “Am I? Hadn’t noticed.”

“We’re going to be late to this thing you want to go to so bad, Mr. Donaldson, if you don’t stop.” [Y/N] whispered, incapable of doing more. She did set down her makeup sponge and pot of foundation with a clack.

“Would that be such a bad thing? Only a couple minutes, right? We could-we could cut out some of the boring small talk and…” Art said, daring boldly to drag his tongue up her throat as the steamed up mirror cleared some. He never finished his sentence verbally.

[Y/N] gasped at the feeling. That was a brave move for Art. “You drag me out of bed early so we can be late anyway. You don’t make any s-sense, babe.”

He huffed impishly. Art spun [Y/N] around to face him. His face and shoulders were damp from the water collected in his hair, which desperately needed a trim. Carefully, Art brushed [Y/N]’s hair away from her face. “You’re right… I’m sorry. Please let me make it up to you?”

“How?”

Then, Art’s mouth quirked into that crooked smile she loved so much.

“Please.” Art said in a hushed voice and boosted [Y/N] smoothly onto their rickety counter. “Give me ten minutes.”

“You can do better than ten.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Clock’s ticking.” When she said it, she heard Art’s knees hit the tile in front of her.

#art donaldson x reader #art donaldson x you #art donaldson imagine #art donaldson #challengers movie #challengers #patrick zweig #tashi duncan

[fatally-addicted-to-fiction]

Something annoys me about people calling Cas and Dean soulmates:

Don't get me wrong, i ship destiel, but the whole point of them being together is that it defied the story Chuck wanted to tell.

That was the ONLY universe Cas stayed. That was the ONLY version of Dean that made Cas want to love the world. That was the only version of Cas that confessed his love for Dean.

They are not soulmates, they defied their fates and chose each other.

#i guess this is only because i have a really solidified idea of what soulmates are #because my definition is that in every universe #every life #every version of themselves are meant to be together #and that just isnt them imo #supernatural #spn #dean winchester #dean supernatural #castiel #castiel novak #castiel winchester #destiel #deancas #casdean #deastiel

[lilystyles]

style.

written by @lilystyles

my masterlist xx & style masterlist

authors note inspired by a dream i had about this boy HAHAHA so filthy but that's just him. (also i'm sorry if ur names emma! if it is it's still cute to be best friends w ur name twin :3) ALSO it's also inspired by style (taylor's version)!

brief description y/n has had a crush on harry since they were kids but he’s off-limits. him being her best friend’s brother and all she has never made a move, knowing emma wouldn’t approve. but lines are blurred one night and she doesn’t know if she can follow the rules like a good girl.

warnings! slight age gap, SMUT (m!receiving, fingering, daddy kink, choking, missionary, doggy) sexual tension, mentions of drugs and alcohol abuse. wordcount: [around 11.4k words, also unedited sorry:(]

fratboy!older!bffsbrother!harry x younger!innocent!reader

* * * * *

Y/n wished she didn’t fancy him. Oh, she wished it so badly.

On every shooting star or eyelash, she had to decide whether she would wish to forget him or for him to finally notice her, it was a constant tug of war between the two.

Honestly, there were so many things going against him. He was completely unavailable to her and she wondered if that’s why she wanted him most. People always say you want what you can’t have. He was older than her by a few years, he was hardly much wiser but liked to act as if he was. 

Or maybe was it just that he was a total prick most of the time, like seriously, so mean? 

She couldn’t pinpoint what exactly attracted her to Harry the most. She knew why others liked him, it was because he was so fucking pretty you just wanted to cry. He was that kind of person. And obviously, she had noticed that slight minor detail. 

She could agree that was one of the many reasons she had a massive crush on him. But she’d known him for years before he was this fuckboy fratboy who wore backward caps with the body of a Greek god and the filthiest mouth you’d ever heard. She knew him before it all. She knew him when he was just her best friend’s goofy older brother, and she’d liked him then too. Before he was smooth and his words had a sting, when he was just this little giggly loud guy.

She thinks to herself often that a piece of her would always belong to him, even if he didn’t know that. She had tried to like other boys, many many times, and though she did like them she didn’t feel even a smidge like how she felt when she saw Harry. The best way for her to describe being with someone who wasn’t Harry was like being in a state of complete darkness, only this dull twinkle of stars without any moon, and then suddenly the sun came up, all these colours painting the sky as it rose. Harry was the sun for her and those boys were just the stars.

Nearly all the time she wished for a distraction from him but that was hard considering he was always around, Y/n saw him every time she went to their house it was like totally unavoidable. They ran into each other at parties even though he was a few years older, it didn’t matter now they that all went to Uni together. She saw him everywhere! Even when she closed her eyes at night.

So tonight when she went out with Emma she was relieved and sad all at once that he wasn’t at the party, it meant she let loose more than she usually did, completely free of the worry of his judgments. She had a few shots but not enough to get her as wasted as Emma was. They danced and sang, and enjoyed themselves. Exams had been stressful and they needed a fun night, they’d spent months cooped up in the library using flashcards and reading the big textbooks. Y/n needed some time away from her laptop screen and desk. She needed to wear a tight dress, get flirted with, have some drinks and relax. She needed to fucking let loose. 

She worked so hard and she was enjoying just forgetting all her worries, Harry included, for a few hours. Sweating and dancing to trashy music was something she had been dreaming of since the start of exam season.

However, the night had taken a slightly sour turn later in the evening when Emma took a few too many tequila shots in a row and spewed down herself, covering her pink dress and shoes and some of Y/n’s shoes too, in sick. She wished she could say this wasn’t a recurring thing but Emma always took it a little too hard on nights out especially when her brooding older brother wasn’t there to help team with Y/n and wrangle her home.

It wasn’t too late probably only midnight, which usually meant they were only just getting started on their drunken shenanigans. But Y/n had to admit she was okay with going home, home being Emma’s place she was roommates with Harry, they were fairly close siblings and their parents felt better knowing they were together. Y/n desperately wanted some water, maybe a snack and to lie down in Emma’s comfortable bed.

As she was trying to find an Uber during the busiest time and hold Emma up from collapsing onto the floor a familiar Irish voice filled Y/n’s ears. She snapped her head around. Oh, thank god.

“Babe! Where are you two off to?” 

Y/n turned, “Niall! Hey, we are going home. Emma isn’t feeling too well.”

Y/n had managed to clean most of the spew off in one of the bathrooms at the Uni share house the party was being thrown at, but Emma was all wet from being wiped down and Y/n knew she needed to get her home like now. She was fading and needed her bed and a bottle of water in her, she wasn’t particularly worried but she would feel better if Harry was with her in case something happened.

“D’ya want a lift? I haven’t drunk anything I’m on my way to Paddy’s place,” He said. He looked very sober.

Paddy was his most recent fling. 

“You are a gem, I could kiss you!” Y/n said squeezing his bicep in thanks.

Y/n was eternally grateful for him being her saviour, she slid Emma into the backseat and clipped her into the seatbelt, brushing the hair from her eyes. Even with sick all over she was still pretty, Y/n envied that the Styles family had such good genes it was ridiculous. They always looked gorgeous, Anne had created three beautiful children.

Niall knew where to go since he was friends with Harry too and Emma and Y/n of course.

Y/n kept checking through the mirror to make sure she was okay and when she saw the familiar home she sighed in relief at the sight. It was this fairly small duplex but their neighbours were nice and the house was one of Harry’s parent’s properties. So they had it pretty good for Uni students. Y/n was living in a big share-house with a bunch of other people. She wished she was this lucky.

She grabbed all their purses, jackets and keys before she kissed Niall on the cheek in thanks. 

“Love you, Babe. Have fun with Paddy!” She winked, knowing Niall really liked this new guy.

Niall blushed a nice rosy colour. “Need any help getting her in?” He asked diverting the conversation.

Y/n shook her head and the two girls stumbled to the front door. Emma was slightly more awake now, her arms slinging around Y/n’s shoulders making the straps of her dress fall as Y/n hunted for the keys in Emma’s little clutch. Y/n had a key to their house for emergencies and she knew where they hid a spare, but she wasn’t going to hunt around in the dark for it.

The door opened before she found them in the clutch which had ten lipsticks that she was rummaging through.

His eyes were so green she felt like they were glowing in the dark. He didn’t say anything he just grabbed Emma and helped her inside. Whispering something to her kindly as Y/n made her way inside behind them. She toed her shoes off before she entered, not wanting to bring Emma’s sick in any more than it already would be. 

Y/n sighed shutting the door behind her as she placed all their things in Emma’s room down the hall. Harry had put her on the bed and was taking her heels off for her. He was a good brother. He was protective over both his sisters even though Gemma was the oldest.

“She always goes to fucking far,” He muttered more to himself than Y/n. Who was finding Emma’s sleep clothes in her bedside drawers, knowing she couldn’t sleep in the sick-covered ones. 

He didn’t sound annoyed at her or angry, just worried. He was a prick sure, but he cared about his family and friends. His small circle is what mattered most to him. Y/n knew his gruff and broody presence was the exterior of a very gentle soul. When he was at home drinking tea in pyjamas that was the real Harry, not some douchebag.

But she knew that he had a reputation for being a heartbreaker and a lot of people would warn you of him. But Y/n didn’t think that was the real him.

Y/n nodded in agreement, tiredly pushing the hair from her eyes she wanted to tie it up it was sweaty from dancing. 

“It’s okay, Niall helped me,” Y/n spoke softly as he stood up from the floor where he’d sat to take her shoes off. He was so much taller than Y/n, his face finally looking at hers now. She felt heat prickle up her back, and the hairs stand on her neck. 

He had such an intense stare.

“I knew I should’ve come,” He said. “I worry when you two are alone.”

Two? She thought. He’d never really shown much protectiveness on his end over her, except when guys were being gross at bars or parties. Then he would give them a stern look and tell them to fuck off. But he did that for anyone, Y/n knew that she wasn’t special. She always felt like Emma was his priority always and he didn’t care what she did as long as Y/n got Emma home safe.

It was almost like he could hear her thoughts. “I don’t like when either of you go without me. The stories Emma has told me about what they say to you Y/n, makes me feel sick honestly.”

She despised the way her stomach flipped. She was about to say that she managed okay without him. But his hand slid onto her shoulder pulling the little spaghetti strap back up over her shoulder. 

She felt breathless but tried to snap back into her usual self. Feeling more pink than usual, Harry always seemed to have that effect on her.

“I- do your frat friends know how much of a softie you are deep down? Be careful now, Styles, I might go around telling them how nice you secretly are. Ruin that scary reputation of yours.”

He smirked in amusement, Y/n had this ability to melt away that hard shell, stripping him bare to his true self. He hated and loved it all at once, he felt like she saw right through him. Even when people said mean things about him, Y/n never wavered and sometimes even defended him. The only thing she didn’t approve of was his restlessness towards women. He felt one was never enough, and was quite open about that with his hookups. Maybe he just didn’t have the right one.

He left after that so Y/n could get Emma ready for bed. He was pottering about in the kitchen and making tea, she assumed. That was his late-night ritual usually.

Y/n shook Emma awake enough so she could help Y/n a little to get her into some pyjamas. She even got her make-up wipes out and removed all the makeup on Emma’s face and tucked her into bed.

Y/n sighed tiredly at the effort of it all and felt sobered up almost completely now. Emma had the downstairs bathroom to herself usually, it was very clean in there. Y/n decided to take a shower and wash the sick smell off her skin and the sweat from the clubs and the dirty Uni sharehouse. 

She washed her hair, face and body. Emma had a lot of really sweet expensive-smelling products, but Y/n had her own little section for when she stayed over. It was all coconut-scented. She felt herself begin to droop in fatigue when she finished cleaning herself. She got the last of the makeup the water hadn’t washed off and changed into a random shirt from Emma’s drawer and some fresh knickers from Y/n’s things she’d left here.

Y/n was here more than she was at her own house. Emma always said she’d kick Harry out and let Y/n take his place, but Y/n knew the siblings actually got on rather well. When Y/n was dressed for sleep she blow-dried her hair on the lowest setting so she wouldn’t wake Emma up, but Emma could probably sleep through an earthquake she was a really deep sleeper. Then she plugged both their phones in and slid in beside Emma tiredly. She shut her eyes and turned off the fairy lights Emma had kept on, ready to lull off.

Y/n had been friends with Emma since they were little they’d all grown up together in Holmes Chapel and it was the kind of place you were just friends with everyone because it was so small but Y/n had always been closest with the Styles family. They lived down the street from each other and Emma and Y/n were never seen without each other. So Harry was used to having Y/n around a lot too. 

Growing up he had to make sure nothing happened to them, he was in charge but it was usually Emma giving him trouble Y/n was always a sweetheart, but she had a quick mouth with one-liners that almost knocked him over. He liked that about her, she was sweet but could challenge him feistily without much thought. He’d met his match when it came to arguments.

Often when the parents went away Y/n would be over and Gemma and Harry would have to make sure neither of them got up to anything wild. But it was usually just a sleepover that consisted of them laughing until dawn. Harry was a much lighter sleeper so he would always tell them to shut up. 

Harry woke up to the sound of a pin dropping rooms away, he didn’t know how his sister could snore like a freight train and sleep through herself. He also didn’t know how Y/n could share a bed with her. Sometimes he’d get up in the middle of the night for a wee or some water and would find Y/n on the couch with a pillow over her face trying to block out the noise of Emma’s snoring. 

So when he heard Y/n roaming about in the kitchen (he knew it was her because he could still hear Emma snoring) he pretended to need some water, wanting to see her. It was probably around 3 AM but he had been unable to sleep. And they hadn’t talked much when she got home. He had wanted to tell her how beautiful she looked, but he knew better. She had worn a dress that hugged all her features, it was black and simple. Hair done naturally, and makeup that was subtle but just made her that tiny bit more pretty. She always looked pretty though.

He came down the stairs from his room and walked into the kitchen. Y/n was using the fridge as a light to find things. She was making tea by the looks of things. She found some of the chamomile that she used every night, in turn, Harry added it to the weekly grocery list in case she slept the night there, and hadn’t heard him creep downstairs. 

She was in a big baggy dusty blue shirt that Harry actually thought was one Emma had stolen from him, and a pair of soft pink cotton knickers that were very small. Socks covered her feet making her practically silent. He stepped closer into the kitchen waiting for her to turn around and notice him. 

She was trying to be very quiet in every step, knowing Harry was a very light sleeper, and not wanting to wake him. When she finally did look over her shoulder her body jolted in fright dropping the box of teabags onto the floor and a hand falling to her chest. 

“Jesus, H.” She whispered, raspily. 

He let out a breathy laugh. “Sorry, Lovie.”

She squinted in the dark trying to see him. His hair looked messy like he’d been sleeping and he was just in some boxers as PJs. He ran hot in the night.

“Did I wake you?” She asked a guilty look crossing her face. Her eyes softened as she nibbled on her bottom lip.

He shook his head. “Nah. ‘Aven’t been sleeping well.”

She frowned, not liking the sound of that. She didn’t know why she cared, but she did. “Do you want a tea?”

He smiled, dimples showing. “Yes please.”

She brewed two as he whispered the truth about why he didn’t come out with them tonight. He was originally supposed to, and honestly, she had been slightly disappointed about it. Knowing she’d have to handle Emma alone.

But he told her why, in a soft hushed voice. A few guys in his friendship group had said some really mean things to Harry. Not realising he would feel them so deeply, she thought, they must think he was as mean as he seems. He told the story like he wasn’t phased by the mean comments, but Y/n could tell they had gotten to him. She knew better than his cold stone face.

“Alex said ‘I was a homewrecking prick and womanizer’.” He explained when Y/n asked what the boys had said about him. He heard a hint of protectiveness in her voice when she asked with a pinched face, and he felt a tug in his lower tummy. Why did she care?

Y/n looked up from the mugs at him. The dim lighting of the fridge meant she could only see the outline of his body and the shadows of his features. She saw a glimpse of his eyes, and she could see the look in his eyes. He believed them, he believed those comments. They were glassy with discontentment.

Her eyebrows were pinched in empathy, and she was about to speak but he cut her off. “I know I’m a total prick sometimes, but—”

She interrupted him, “—You are a prick sometimes, but people who really know you know what you're like.” She tried to reason with him. Because she wasn’t going to deny sometimes he would be just plain rude to her, and to others as well. But she also knew he did a lot of nice things too. He had a hard exterior and shied off people easily, if you didn’t know him well he would seem rude. But all his close friends and family knew that he was just standoffish with new people. And loved to tease, and was brutally honest, which Y/n had to admit sometimes that hurt more than the teasing comments. 

But he did nice things. Wonderful things, that he went out of his way to do. Like helped his sister when she was drunk, drove people home so they wouldn’t have to walk in the dark after parties, picked Y/n up from the library at midnight if she was too scared to walk home, bought chamomile tea in case Y/n spent the night, made enough dinner in case Y/n was hungry, visited the girls when they were studying with snacks and coffee, and he even helped sometimes if they were confused on work. He called his Mum every day without fail and sent his Grandma photos of birds when he saw them. 

He baked a new type of cookie recipe every Sunday and gave it to his friends. He adopted stray cats and played Scrabble with his grandparents every few weekends.

Yes, he was a prick, he said mean things and made fun of Y/n when she went on dates with idiots, and he called her names, filthy ones. And sometimes he would barely acknowledge her. But she knew there was a different reason for that, something she didn’t understand. Something between just the two of them. She thought maybe it was just a way for him to protect his sensitive side from people. From her too, hide himself away.

And yes, he did have sex with lots of people, but he did always tell people the truth before getting involved with anyone. He was honest, and open when it came to his boundaries. Y/n thought that was better than lying and acting like you wanted a relationship just so you can fuck someone. She wasn’t saying she approved of Harry’s constant line of girls coming over, maybe that was her jealousy talking, but she wasn’t going to judge him for doing what lots of people did and owning that he did it. He would never kiss and tell, he was respectful and clear with his intentions. What more could you ask of a fuck buddy or one-night stand? If you wanted a good shag no strings attached Harry was your guy, and surely most people knew from the rumours? She just didn’t understand why people put themself in that position if they knew what they were getting into with him.

He wasn’t a devious person who hid behind a mask of fake sincerity to get in your pants. He was blunt, he asked if you wanted to fuck and if you didn’t that was fine. He wasn’t picky with it either he just liked to have a good time.

She felt differently about being with a person. She usually only wanted to be with someone she had an emotional connection with. But she had a smaller level of experience than Harry, so she thought that maybe she was coming from the point of view of a less experienced person. But the point remained, Harry had his flaws, like anyone but he was good at his core. His intentions remained good. No one is perfect, and she knew Harry was far from it but so was everyone she knew!

She knew her flaws too. Flaws made people human. And she appreciated him despite it all.

“And what is that?” He was standing closer now and she felt suddenly very aware of the fact she was only in knickers and a shirt her nipples could be seen through. The way he was staring her down made her aware of her appearance, he looked almost hungry.

“Well as someone who’s known you for as long as I can remember. You’re kind, honest, open, and a good person with a rotten mouth.” She looked away from him as she spoke, flushed by his close presence. She tried not to stumble on her words but was struggling and honestly felt her hands tremble when she felt his breath hit her neck.

“Kind?” He scoffed eyes trained on her face, it was free of makeup. Her lips looked pouty and her eyes droopy in tiredness. She looked perfect. She always did. Even that one week during the bleak middle of winter when she had been sick as a dog; red nose, glassy eyes, snotty and nasally, hair unwashed, skin red, she’d looked beautiful.

“Harry,” She said his name meaning she was serious, she usually called him anything but, “these fucking friends of yours clearly don’t see you like we do.”

“We?”

She leaned back against the drawers sighing, “We. Me, Emma, Niall, Gem, Anne. People who know you, people who love you.”

“You love me?” He teased. 

She rolled her eyes. Of course, that’s what he got from that. He was so annoying.  

“You’re alright.” She replied, they both knew she did, handing him the tea. He said a quiet thanks.

He placed it back down, where Y/n was letting hers cool. The face she had made smile only seconds prior melted back to a stoic look, more serious.

He hugged her and Y/n was surprised, but she wrapped her arms around him. He pulled back when he started to get intoxicated on her sweet scent, her skin smelt edible and her hair was soft against his cheek.

“I’m sorry if I’m a prick to you.”

Y/n didn’t mean to but she laughed. A giggle bubbled from her tummy out of her mouth her as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“What?” He said, fighting back the smile that threatened to tug on his lips. It was contagious. He was trying to keep his attention very far from her chest.

She didn’t know what made her say it but, but she told him the truth. “I like it. It's like a game we have. A Harry and Y/n one. I tease you, you tease me. You act like I don’t exist most of the time and I act like I don’t care. You’re mean to me and I let you be.”

Hearing her say it out loud was kind of like being winded. It had always been their game, a game neither mentioned, some sort of unspoken thing they shared. 

She could tell he was kind of speechless. 

“I don’t know why I let you.” Now that was a lie. She was trying to backtrack. 

“I do.” He said stepping closer. His bare legs were pressing into hers. She didn’t say anything, waiting for him to tell her. But he didn’t.

“You gonna tell me?” She said quietly, eyes widely looking up into his, as his hands rested on either side of her on the bench. He leaned in closely. So they were eye to eye.

She was trapped in his arms and had nowhere to look but at him, she squirmed under his smouldering eyes.

“You know why too.”

She didn’t speak. What did any of this mean? She had waited a long time to hear him apologise for being a dick to her, and he just did and she’d told him that she liked him treating her that way. What she meant was, that she liked him, she let him treat her that way because for Harry she would do anything. She didn’t care if that made her pathetic, at least she knew it was, at least she could admit it. I mean, wouldn’t you let him treat you like shit under his shoe if it meant he was at least looking at you with those gorgeous eyes? Could hardly blame the girl.

“Why did you have to meet Emma before you met me?” He almost whined with a soft scoff. As if complaining at fate’s hands for dealing them these cards.

She felt her heart rate speed up. 

“What do you mean?” She asked, playing dumb. He was talking so much and she was practically drunk on his sultry voice. It was so deep and she just wanted to hold onto the sound forever and feel it melt into her spine like it was now, and listen when she wanted to sink into a state of lust.

He lifted one of his arms and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, “Then she’d be the one who has to follow my rules, and stay away from you. I could be the one in control. Have you all to myself. No sharing.”

Y/n licked her drying lips, as she processed his words. He wanted her all to himself? “Wait, wait, she has a rule to stay away from me?”

Y/n knew Emma didn’t like it when her friends slept with Harry, it was just weird and they would always complain about how mean he was after, or even try and talk about how good he was in bed. She just didn’t like her friends dating or having anything to do with Harry period. But she assumed it was different for Y/n since she knew Harry pretty well and would consider him someone in her close circle. Even if he did ignore her a lot. She assumed she was fine with Harry and Y/n at least being friends. Y/n had bottled all her feelings away for years, she didn’t think that would ever change. Even if Harry liked her back, she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise their friendship.

“You’re her friend, not mine.” He said, mocking Emma’s tone, making his voice all squeaky and high-pitched.

Y/n frowned. Emma had always been weird about this. She could understand to some extent, but sometimes Y/n wished she could just have a normal conversation with Harry. “Why can’t we be friends? I’ve known you my whole life, and haven’t slept with you. I think I should be allowed to have a conversation with you. I think I can handle that without pulling my pants down.”

Harry’s lips kicked up in a smirk, “You aren’t wearin’ any pants.”

“Oh shut up.” She replied cheeks bleeding pink.

“She trusts you.” Harry said trying to make Y/n feel better, “She just doesn’t trust me.”

Y/n smiled at that, trying to lighten the mood once again. “Who would? I mean this with respect, but you are a bit of a slut.” Her hand came up to play with the cross on his neck.

He giggled, “I simply enjoy myself openly. You should try, Y/n, it’s fun bein’ bad.”

She felt her cheeks warm further, “I can be bad,” Y/n argued but it was no use.

“Oh thas’ such a lie, Baby.” He laughed at her statement rolling his eyes, and Y/n’s heart skipped a beat at the nickname. He’d never called her that before and it brought a rose colour to her cheeks that Harry adored on her. She was so easy to make nervous. But he didn’t think anyone was as good at it as he was.

“It’s not,” She pouted. 

He cocked his head in challenge. “Name one naughty thing you’ve done then. Bet y’cant.”

She tried to think, that growing up she was relatively good and even now she hardly participated in much other than seeing Emma or Niall and studying. But she felt this urge to impress him, make him proud almost. Or at least shock him.

“I stole a lolly once.”

Harry found a smile slipping onto his face, he’d always seen Y/n as a fairly innocent person. And she was, for the most part. Soft and sweet in real life, like a bunny or puppy. So soft, and you just want to pick her up and put her in your arms and tell her how cute she is. But she had some mischievousness to her, like all people. Something buried underneath her innocent aura, Harry thought of that side of her often pondering what she was like when she wasn’t hiding and she’d been cracked open raw and teased beyond return.

“Oh yeah? Anything else?”

She tried to think of what would shock him but she fell flat. Until—but no she couldn’t say that, it way was too personal. 

“I can see you thinking very hard, c’mon tell me.” He whispered. Y/n shut her eyes. His voice sent shivers down her spine.

Fuck it. It was like she had no control over her mouth, the filth just slipped right out of her pouty lips. She wanted to blame the alcohol, but it was probably just his voice that had her feeling intoxicated.

“Sometimes when I touch myself I think of you.”

Harry practically froze, his lips opening to show he was indeed very surprised to hear that. There was a beat and Y/n didn’t know if she regretted it or not. She was about to tell him it was a joke and run for her life. Change her name, and move to Mexico. Her Duolingo lessons weren’t going to be enough to get by, she’d have to start really learning how to speak properly now.

Until. 

“What do you think about, Y/n?”

She felt herself getting hot, she’d really fucked herself here. He would never let this go. Call it the tequila but Y/n wasn’t lying. Truthfully the only thing that got her off was Harry, she couldn’t cum unless his green eyes flashed in her vision. Which she did feel bad about like she was a pervert. But believe that she’d tried to think of others, or watching porn. But she could only ever think of him. Otherwise, it wasn’t as good, and she didn’t get the release she was chasing.

“A lot of filthy things, H.”

He bit his lip, “Like what?”

He could sense her getting shy once more as she crossed her arms and looked at her feet, cheeks all pink and pinchable. “Don’t get all shy on me now, Baby, whatever you’ve touched your lil’ clit too I’ve probably stroked m’cock too.”

Y/n was surprised, head snapping up at his words, and though he was normally very honest even he seemed a bit more nervous to admit it. He was just as bad as her. And he had such a filthy mouth, but that was not a surprise to her. She was just surprised he thought of her, she never saw herself as particularly desirable. She always imagined Harry to like those people who look good running in slow motion.

It took a lot of courage as she began to speak. “I usually think about you…fucking my throat, using my mouth however you like. I like the idea of those hands pulling on m’hair.”

Harry felt his pants twitch. His expression and dark eyes egged her on to continue. He didn’t know she was such a little minx. He’d always imagine her to like soft, gentle caresses. Which wouldn’t have bothered him, though he was fairly kinky, but he would’ve done whatever she liked.

She didn’t know if he would like this but she felt brave, “Like the idea of calling you Daddy….Want to be good f’you, Daddy.”

That’s what made Harry unable to keep his hands by his sides. He grabbed her face forcing her to look into his eyes. 

“Wanna be good?”

She nodded coyly, eyes wide. His hands were warm and she practically melted into them.

“Sleep upstairs tonight then.” He didn’t ask her, he simply instructed her. And who was she to say no? 

She nodded once again and he patted her lower back as if to say off you go then. She listened and walked slowly in front of him. She felt his presence close by, the sweet citrus and woodsy scent that followed him was right by her nose and she could hear his slow calm breaths.

Her beating heart was thumping against her chest and she wondered how it didn’t fill the quiet house (besides Emma’s window-rattling snores).

He noticed her shaky and anxious energy and his hand slipped onto her waist. “I jus’ wanna hear about y’dreams somewhere comfier, Petal, if thas’ all yeh’ want that’s all we’ll do. Plus I’m saving y’from m’lumpy couch.”

She couldn’t complain about that. 

As they walked inside she was welcomed to the scent of Harry, she’d only been in Harry’s room a few times, but never properly. He ushered her to the bed and she sat down tucking her knees to her chest and resting her chin. Examining the walls of famous singers and art that covered it. In the corner by his desk where the only source of light in his room was a glowing lamp, other than some fairy lights above his bed, was a little picture wall.

In the mess of polaroids and film, she saw one of Y/n, Emma and Harry when the two girls had graduated school. He was between them arms around their shoulders and looking to his left at Y/n who was laughing happily with Emma at Gemma who made some joke about something. Y/n knew the picture instantly because it was one of her favourites of him.

“What else, Baby?” He said softly sitting in front of her, interrupting her thoughts of that day when he’d driven home to visit them for it, and looked over to see him leaning against the headboard, arms interlocked behind his head. 

“You go.” She said, which made Harry laugh.

“I’m pretty filthy Honey, you know me. I don’t know if it’ll be something you like.”

She looked at him stubbornly. “Try me.”

He shut his eyes and only now did she see he was nervous too, “I often find myself thinking about you on your tummy, underneath me, letting me stuff you full while my hands pin yours to your back so that you’re at my mercy.”

She liked that, her tummy twisted in yerning. “I’d like you to be in charge. Help me forget.”

He was looking at her like she was the sweetest most edible thing. “Can I kiss you?”

She nodded and he placed his hands in her hair, kissing her softly at first just a whisper of a touch of two mouths moulding into one. She leaned in further into the warmth of him and hugged her arms around his broad shoulders as the kiss began to deepen, he tasted like a hint of beer and minty toothpaste. Her chest burned with what only could be described as Harry. 

He moaned into her mouth softly, sighing at the taste of her sweet tea-soaked lips. The warmth of her curves pressing into him was comforting, and though he had a desire to completely ruin her until she was crying his name, he liked taking it slow and enjoying this first kiss with her. Exploring her mouth, teasing his tongue against hers, and soft hands roaming up and down her back. 

He rubbed her back under the soft shirt, no bra strap blocking his gentle scratches. She arched into his touch.

After all, he’d been dreaming of it for years and he wanted to take his time, even though he was crazy for her and felt this deep animalistic desire, he was gentle with her. Like she could break if he was too rough.

The kiss began to pick up as she slid into his lap, and he encouraged her to rub against his bare thigh. She ground against his tiger tattoo and he could feel the wetness between her thighs leaking onto him already. She moved slowly and uncertainly, his hands moved from her shoulders down to her hips forcefully moving her against him creating friction that made her create a soft whiney noise in the back of her throat. He swallowed the sounds eagerly.

He pulled his lips away breathlessly and dragged his mouth down the column of her throat, kissing sucking and biting wherever he could. Her skin was soft and she smelt like coconuts and something that was just her. He would’ve eaten her whole if he could. She let out soft breaths and sighs, her hips had stopped moving — too distracted by his magical lips. 

He stopped to look at her. Really looking.

Her lips were more red, almost like she’d been nibbling on them, and they were all swollen from his kissing. Her cheeks were dusted in a warm pink. Eyes wild and doe-eyed looking up at him. She was picturesque. He wanted to remember her like this forever and be able to come back to this moment at any time. He soaked it in, hoping to remember.

“You seriously are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.” He said softly running his big hands through her messy hair. His rings were cool on her skin.

“Harry, don’t.” She said bringing her hands to cover her blushing face.

He sighed. “I’m sorry for not telling you every second of every day.”

“Don’t lie, H. I’ve seen the girls you fancy.”

“Only ever fancied you.” He said his hands grabbing hers and moving them away she looked at him, shocked. “Only ever look for your face in a crowd, Baby.”

She didn’t know what to say so she kissed him and he moaned softly when she rubbed herself against him. He was getting harder and harder with each movement until eventually she stopped and moved away. 

“Can I suck you off?” She asked, and the filth was shocking to hear from her soft voice and lips.

He nodded hand stroking her cheek. “Yeah, ‘course.”

She moved down to her tummy between his thighs and looked up at him. “I don’t really know what I’m doing.” She whispered. 

He laughed softly, there she was, there was his Y/n. “Thas’ okay, Love, I’ll teach you.”

She slid her hand up his thigh and her fingers found their way into the waistband of his boxers and began to tug them down when he gave her a nod of approval. His stiff dick sprung out against his tummy, and he was completely naked for her. The head of his cock was oozing precum and it dripped down to his balls. Even his dick was pretty. Which she should’ve expected.

It had a blush-coloured tip similar to the shade of his lips, he was veiny and long. So long that he reached his belly button. He was girthy too and as she moved her hand to wrap around it, he hissed at the contact, and she almost dropped her jaw at the fact her fingers weren’t touching. He smirked down at her.

Her reaction was boosting his ego in just the right way.

“You alright down there, Petal?”

She nodded, her lips grazing against his now throbbing cock. He ached for her. The sight of the swell of her ass and plush thighs was making him very needy. 

And to the surprise of them both she pursed her lips and spat down onto his dick. She was basically drooling all over him, it leaked down over the length of him coating his prick and he practically whimpered at the sight — it was one of his dreams. She then took him into her mouth and began to suck and lick, slowly taking him deeper and deeper. 

His hands had slipped into her hair holding it back from her face and he was letting out loud gravelly moans and sighs of pleasure. He was trying to stop his hips from rolling up into her throat. Her mouth was so deliciously warm and tight against him, he felt like a man deprived of water near a watering hole. Her tongue glided around swirling and sucking and teasing the tip of him. When she began to fondle his balls as well, gently massaging them, he let out a particularly loud whiney noise. She popped out off of him. 

“Shh, don’t wanna wake Emma up.” She said before dripping another trickle of spit onto him and continuing her fast and merciless pace on him. 

“Can’t help it, when you take me like that. S’fucking good.” He said, as his hips jutted into her throat roughly, without realising. “Shit, fuck, sorry,” He said hearing her throat gag on him.

She just went deeper onto him, until her nose was tickled by the snail trail on his tummy. Pulling back when all her breath had gone. She hardly needed to be taught.

She took deep breaths of air and stroked him slowly in her hand, he was panting at her touch. 

“You can use my throat however y’like, Daddy.” She said, voice all raw from his cock having stuffed it just seconds ago, before going back down onto him.

“Just tap m’leg if you need me to stop,” He said and she nodded making a noise around him. His hands pulled her hair up away from her eyes. “sucha’ good fuckin’ girl.” He said pushing her head down once more. Again and again, until he was close to cumming. Which had happened fast, and he didn’t have it in him to be embarrassed.

His balls ached for release and her teasing little hands that twisted and stroked him, along with her tongue, had him so loud he’d taken to biting his lip in an attempt to keep his sounds from slipping out. He pulled her off him stroking her cheek gently, swiping some tears away. Her eyes had begun to leak with tears from how deep she was taking him, and it made him throb.

“Gonna’ cum soon, Baby.”

She nodded. “Let me have it please, want your cum. Want it all.”

He stuffed her mouth once more at her words, rutting into her throat until she was gagging and coughing around him. His eyes squeezed shut, “Oh fuck, cummin’,” he hissed. Opening his eyes to watch the sight below him.

Her eyes looked up at him, and that’s what sent him over the edge. With one last thrust, he was cumming, hard, so hard his eyes saw white spots and he shuddered into her. She pulled back coughing, she’d swallowed as much as she could but some of it made its way out and dribbled down her chin. She swiped the rest with her thumb and licked it up.

She was just perfect.

He pulled her up by her chin and kissed her. 

“That was the best blowjob I’ve ever had.” He kissed her again before asking her, “Let Daddy take care of ya’ now, is that what y’want sweet girl?”

She nodded. “Yes please.”

“Good girl. So polite.” He said kissing her forehead. His hand slipped into her underwear circling her clit, which was slick with arousal. “So wet for me.”

She sighed leaning closer to his shoulder, pressing her forehead into him to cover her whines. He started to circle her clit faster, and her hips squirmed against his hand he then started teasing her weeping hole. She moaned deliciously into his neck. Felt so good.

“Come rest against me, my love.” She shifted her body at his command and turned to face away from him. Pushing her back into his chest, her bum tucked right against his stiffy. His legs spread open for her to sit in front of him and he grabbed the waistband of her undies pushing her undies down and she threw them to the side with her ankle. She leaned into his shoulder head tipped back and he watched from over her shoulder. Just like the rest of her, her pussy was beautiful. It was glistening in slick and begging for his attention. Beautiful and spread for him like a flower, her swollen bud was puffy and eager to be sucked, licked, and teased.

His hand slipped past her tummy and began to rub her softly coating his finger in her slick, preparing her for him to slip his fingers in. She sighed breathlessly. 

“Please, Daddy.” She whispered which made his cock twitch from behind her, she felt against her back.

He slowly slipped one in and her mouth opened but no sound came out until he was all the way inside, knuckle deep, which made her let out a broken cry. “Oh fuck, Harry.”

He began to thrust and curl his finger, moving faster and faster. Her tight pussy clamped down onto him, pulsing every few seconds, as she cried out softly into the room. Her cheeks bloomed with warmth and her body squirmed in pleasure as his other hand kept her legs spread for him. His thumb drew lazy circles on her puffy clit which had her pussy leaking even more onto his finger.

“Like when Daddy takes you like this?”

She nodded. “Mm.”

“Say it, Baby, tell me you like it.”

“I lov-love it when you take me like this.” Her voice was so soft and airy.

He began kissing her neck and shoulder, sucking a mark near her ear. She was too distracted to care about it leaving a mark tomorrow. “My pretty Baby, likes when I tease her little pussy?”

She made a whiney noise and her legs twitched almost shutting.

“So sensitive f’me.”

He slipped another finger inside her and she dripped out even more onto him, crying out softly into the hand she’d brought to her mouth, her slick trickled down her thighs too now and he didn’t slow his movements only went harder and faster into her. Loving the way she melted into his touch.

“Gunna’ cum for Daddy?”

She nodded biting her lip. “‘Feels so good. I’m goin’ ta’ cum soon, Daddy.”

He kept going kissing her skin and massaging her thighs and breasts and eventually her legs shook hard, and shut on his hand and she cried out and pulsed rapidly around his fingers, and he could only imagine how good he’d feel with her cumming on his cock like that. She looked so beautiful he felt like he might cum then and there on her back without having even touched himself. As the peak of her orgasm washed over her he slid his fingers out of her and brought them to her lips, giving her just the middle finger.

“Suck,” He told her.

She obeyed sucking dazedly still trying to calm down from her orgasm, when he pulled it out he brought the other one to his lips.

“Mm.” He said softly, she tasted tangy and sweet. 

She took some deep breaths as he held her close. “Thank you.” She whispered softly, shutting her eyes and catching her breath, she can’t remember the last time she came like that. So hard that she felt it in her entire body, so hard she saw stars and couldn’t contain her noises.

“Sucha’ good girl, you’re welcome my sweet girl.” She turned her head to the side and kissed him, very softly and slowly. Nothing feverish and rushed like their previous actions and his hands massaged her bare hips, kneading her plush flesh contently. God, she was just so soft, so warm, so wet, and so perfect. It was like he’d dreamt but better, if that was even possible. He was drunk on her touch.

When she pulled away she looked up at him. “I want your cock, please, I need it.” Her little pleads made his balls ache, and he wouldn’t have to be asked twice by her.

“Okay, Baby.” He said running a hand through his hair. She lifted her shirt over her head and threw it aside, completely bare, so perfect to him. Her nipples harden at the cool air, and her skin pimpled. Her body was perfect, every scar, mole, mark, and spot he’d have happily kissed and run his over for hours if she’d allow it.

He grabbed a pillow from the top of the bed and placed it down in the middle of the bed right in front of her. “Why don’t you lie on your tummy f’me, Petal? Rest on the pillow.”

She nodded and put her hips in line with the pillow, her bum sticking in the air ready for him. His hands rubbed her softly, her skin was so smooth under his hands and he wanted to sink his teeth into her plush flesh. She was so fucking perfect, and the way their bodies knew exactly what to do to the other was just magic like they were made for one another. Just like a pair of contrasting colours splashed on a canvas together, it just worked.

“One sec,” He said leaning over to his bedside table pulling out a condom and ripping it open. He slid it over his leaking prick that was already standing tall at the sound of Y/n’s soft moans and perfect, wet, pussy that was waiting to be stuffed full of him. 

Before he slid himself inside her she turned to look over her shoulder. “I ‘aven’t in a while. Be gentle please, Harry.”

He kissed her forehead, “‘Course, Gorgeous.”

He held her hand in his reassuringly as he slowly dipped the tip inside of her, feeling her begin to stretch for him. She was tight, from nerves and the fact he was just so fucking large. She wasn’t nervous because of anything being wrong, she just wanted Harry to like her. She didn’t know how, but he had this incredible talent of making her nervous always. He was just so much more experienced, older, and had much more sex than her. She just worried she wouldn’t be up to his standards.

But when he began to coo her gently and rubbed her back and bum with his hands to relax her, she began to feel less nervous. Harry, though a prick with a filthy mouth and a bit of an attitude problem, would never want anything bad to happen to her and liked her for who she was, as she was. They’d been around each other for years after all, and with that sort of time, you just understand each other. He was a mean prick who had sex with just about anyone and she was a naive good girl who strayed from any attention. But they could still appreciate their differences. She was pleasantly surprised at how well their bodies understood each other too. His cock was the perfect fit for her, and she melted into the pain.

Her thoughts of nervousness were lost when he had stuffed her completely full of him, she could feel the tip of him teasing that spot inside her that she could only ever reach with toys, she let out a whimper. “Fuck, Harry.”

It was millions of times better than anything she’d ever experienced.

He hissed throwing his head back, feeling her stretch around him. “So tight, Love.”

He began to move, keeping true to his word, slow and gentle thrusts. Remaining as shallow with his movements as someone could with a cock that big.

Y/n’s eyes watered in a mix of pain and pleasure. Her hand flew back again to grab his wrist. “S’big, Daddy.”

He moaned at the name, it was just so fucking cute coming from her. He wanted to take care of her when she acted all needy like that, “Yeah? Feels big inside your little pussy, doesn’t it?”

God, he was filthy, he made her stomach curl with desire. She never thought she’d like dirty talk all that much, before this she’d felt it was corny coming from boys but coming from his lips it was the closest thing to heaven she’d ever heard.

She nodded into the bed and took her hand back to grip the sheets but he grabbed her hands and held them behind her back. He used them as leverage to push her back onto him, pinning her hands back, just like he said.

“Feeling alright, Baby?” He asked. 

And she nodded once more. 

“Tell me.” He told her.

“Feels fuckin’ amazing.” She said struggling to find the words, her orgasm had made her foggy and his cock bottoming out made it difficult to think of anything else.

“Feel so good on m’cock, fucking made to take it, Y/n.”

That made her shiver, the pain had started to subside turning into just pleasure now. “Can go faster, H.” She said just above a whisper. 

As he began to go faster and deeper like he’d been desperate to, she got louder and louder, and her pussy made these filthy noises against his cock. He was ruining her completely and she was enjoying every moment. Her eyes turned glossy in pleasure.

He let go of her hands to grab her hips and push her back harder, she began to move her hips to meet his, and he cried out. 

“Fuck,” He swore, tossing his head back stray curlings falling over his eyes when he looked back down at her.

He squeezed the flesh of her ass and moved his hand forward onto her hair gently tugging it backward, as he began to pound into her even harder. 

“Such a pretty little thing, letting me ruin you, what a good girl.” He said his voice all rough and coarse.

She keened clawing at the bed, “Feels so fucking good, Daddy, I love it thank you.”

Even in bed, she was so polite and obedient, that he wondered what she would be like after being edged for a while. Would her obedience turn to brattiness? He would have to try another time. Made him speed up even more at the thought.

“Wanna see tha’ pretty face while y’taking m’cock,” He said deciding to turn her onto her back he got rid of the pillow, flipping her to face him. Her cheeks were flushed rosy pink, her hair a mess from his pulling, and her eyes were practically black her pupils had gotten so big. She was perfect, his perfect good girl, and so beautiful he could’ve cum just looking at her.

He leaned down kissing her lips, as he continued his thrusts. He dragged his lips down along her jaw and down until he had one of her breasts in his mouth. Her nipples were sensitive to his tongue and her hands moved from his hair to his shoulders, scratching along the peaks of his back. She felt so close, she couldn’t control any part of herself.

He moved his attention across to the other nipple, massaging the one that had just been marked with his mouth. She was moaning breathily, back arching up into him. She was so sensitive to his touch, so much so that every brush of skin that he dared to touch felt like it was on fire. 

“I’m getting close, Daddy.” She said and he began going even deeper, he could tell by the way her pussy was clamping down onto his prick harder and harder and more often that she was on the brink. It made his stomach turn.

“Atta girl, cum on Daddy’s cock.” Her legs were shaking and she screwed her eyes shut at his words. 

“Don’t stop, please.” She said, clawing his back. 

He didn’t dare change anything he was doing, he stayed hitting that spot deep inside her that made her scream out and claw him extra tightly. She pulled him closer so his mouth was hovering over hers, her legs wrapped around his back and she clawed his arms desperate for her release. She felt her stomach unravelling in the familiar feeling of her orgasm. 

“Gonna- fuck, gonna cum!” 

He felt her pulse rapidly on his cock and whined into her lips at the feeling. She made guttural moaning noise, all loud and high, as her legs squirmed and she shook around him. He helped her through her orgasm, stroking her cheek with his hands pecking her lips until she came down from it.

It was even more intense than her first and his cock greedily continued pounding her hardly giving her a chance to rest. He moved her leg up a bit higher against his hip and began to hit that spot even harder than before. 

She whined hands reaching up to his hair, tugging it, and he moaned. He loved it when she did that

“Can you handle another, sweet girl?” He asked he had no shame in wanting to watch her cum once more. It was too beautiful of a sight you couldn’t blame him, he was greedy for more.

And she nodded tiredly. “Think so. Might have to make me take it though, Daddy.”

Her voice drove him up the wall. “Fuck, so fucking perfect f’me. Love this pussy.” He moved his hand down to rub her clit, he wanted to speed up this next orgasm to be in time with his, and he knew he wouldn’t last much longer. Watching his cock disappear in her was a sight he hoped to hold onto in his mind. It made his eyes roll back in his head. 

He kept throwing his head back and grunting as he continued the final stretch before his orgasm.

“Can you choke me, please? Wanna cum with your hand around m’throat, please.” She asked and it took him by surprise. Little innocent Y/n liked being choked too? God, this really was his idea of heaven. 

“Please, what?” He asked sternly.

“Please, Daddy.”

He smirked, and Y/n knew she was done for. He slipped his free hand around her throat, rings cold to her neck as squeezed the sides, he watched her become dizzy with pleasure and she start to show signs of cumming again, which was good because he didn’t know if he’d last much longer.

“Cum for me please, Princess, milk me with that perfect pussy.” He said his voice all rough and slurring, his pussy had him losing his mind. He was so far gone.

With a few more circles on her clit, and deep thrusts she was squirting all over his cock with an intense grip on his prick. He felt her drip down him around his cock making creating more friction for him to continue his merciless pace.

“Cumming,” She cried out loudly lifting a hand to her mouth to cover it, and Harry had honestly forgotten they were supposed to be quiet. The only thing on his mind was filling her with his cum. She was still feeling the wave of her orgasm wash over her and was loose-lipped and limp as Harry started to feel the knot in his tummy unravel in a familiar feeling of complete pleasure.

Her pulsing pussy was squeezing his cock so hard he couldn’t wait any longer. “Getting close, Baby.”

“Cum for me Daddy, please want your cum so bad,” She pleaded. He released his grip from her throat and let his forehead press into her shoulder as she pulled him closer. Hands scratching his hair and hugging him close to her body. Craving him. 

“Fuck, cummin’ Y/n, cummin’.” He said as his cock twitched hard while he bottom out of her, when his loud moans began to spill from his lips she brought their mouths together and he moaned against her swollen lips. 

Even after cumming he stayed inside her for a moment, absolutely spent, head resting on her shoulder. She gently rubbed his back with her hands and didn’t mind him staying close. Eventually, he lifted off of her and kissed her forehead before pulling out, she winced at the feeling of him pulling out of her ruined pussy.

“One sec, Love.”

She nodded. And shifted her hips knowing tomorrow morning she’d struggle to sit. Her hips would probably be bruised and her body would ache, but she did not care one bit. She wouldn’t change what had just happened. She had the best orgasms of her entire life, and Harry seemed pretty content too. And it had been with Harry, of all people it had been with the one person she wasn't supposed to get with.

He tied off the condom and threw it in a little bin by his desk. He walked inside the en suite in his room (he’d won the coin toss), and wet a flannel. He came back with a warm cloth to wipe her down. She squirmed at his touch, feeling very sore and sensitive. “Sorry, Love, I know, but can’t have ya’ all sticky before bed can I?”

She just nodded once again. He put the flannel back in the sink and switched the light off coming back out to find Y/n limp and star-fished in the middle of his bed on the mess of his sheets. She looked completely spent, her three orgasms had tired her out so much. 

“Y’ want something to wear?” He asked. 

She nodded. “Thanks, Styles.”

He smiled at her usual name for him. “What happened to Daddy?”

“Oh, shut up.” She said blushing, he was probably going to keep bringing that up whenever he could, just to tease her. 

He grabbed a big baggy black shirt and some plaid boxers for from his drawer.

“Y’so cute when you blush, you know?”

She frowned hands moving to her face. “Stoppp!” She whispered loudly.

He handed her the clothes and helped her slide into them, and she half expected to be sent back to the couch downstairs and told thanks for the shag, but he pulled the duvet down the bed and patted the middle of the bed for her to sleep there. She moved to lay in the spot and Harry placed the duvet over her. 

Sliding back on his boxers from before, and running a hand through his messy sweaty hair he looked over at her. “I’ll get us some water, be right back.”

She nodded. “Alright.”

When he came back with two glasses of water he placed them on the bedside table and sighed before rolling in beside her. She turned to face him. “Hi,” she said with a giggle.

“Hi.” He replied with a small laugh too. 

“Your bed's very comfy, Styles.”

“Better than m’couch.” He replied sliding a hand onto her waist to rub her side, soothing her into a restful sleep.

“Much better, should’ve shagged you sooner if it meant bed privileges.”

He scoffed playfully, “Only using me for my cock and the comfy bed, aye?”

She laughed back. “Yeah, obviously, why else?”

He pulled her even closer and turned the tone more serious. “Thank you for before,”

She frowned confusedly. “The blowjob?”

He laughed softly. “No, in the kitchen.”

She laughed at herself. “Oh right,” She said lifting her hand to stroke his cheek which he leaned into. “Well, I like your rotten mouth and shocking brutal honesty and all the rest of you. Don’t worry about those guys.”

He leaned closer, a teasing expression lighting up his face. “You like me?”

She just rolled her eyes, shoving his shoulder playfully. 

“I like you too.”

This made her blush. “Go to sleep.”

“C’mere then,” 

She got even closer and fell asleep to the beat of his heart and gentle caress on her back.

The following morning, she woke up early, which was very unlike her, and in a total panic, that Emma might have noticed she was missing from the couch. Harry groaned grabbing her, “Don’t go.”

“Have to, Em’s gonna notice, she’d kill us both.” She said, voice all raspy and eyes bleary. 

He whined not letting go. “Stupid Emma.”

“Shh. I’ll see you later.” She was about to leave back downstairs, but he grabbed her and she watched him waiting for what else wanted from her. 

“Kiss?”

She leaned down and pecked his lips which he smiled at shutting his eyes to go back to sleep, and she left sneaking back downstairs. Sluggishly wrapping the blanket around her and shutting her eyes, even though she was much too giddy to sleep. 

When Emma woke up with a throbbing head she smiled at Y/n and she started making coffee quietly since her head couldn’t handle anything loud. This made Y/n stir, sitting up and turning the telly on sleepily. A re-run of Friends was on and she wrapped herself up in the blanket and sat back watching.

Emma wordlessly passed her a coffee and sat beside her, stealing some of the blanket. They spent the rest of the episode in silence just huddling together for warmth and sipping away tiredly, until Harry’s footsteps could be heard creaking down the stairs.

“Want some pancakes, children?”

The pair nodded. 

Y/n looked over at him smiling to herself, he’d changed into a loose navy crewneck and some pyjama pants. He looked gorgeous, and she was reminded of last night. She'd liked him for years, and now she'd done filthy things with him, would she ever recover?

When the pancakes were ready they all sat together at the table. Harry was a wonderful cook, he made a variety of pancakes.

Blueberry, chocolate chip, plain, some with strawberries and cream. He'd brought out lemon and sugar too because that's what Y/n liked on her pancakes, and lots of fruit for Emma. He'd brought out two big jugs of juice for them and a coffee pot.

“Sleep well, Em?” Asked Harry, with a mouthful of blueberry pancake chewing lazily. How did he even look sexy eating?

She nodded. “Yeah,”

“Me too.” He replied before turning to Y/n, who was mid-sip on some juice, it was a mix of berries and tasted sweet. “Y/n?”

She coughed, choking on her juice, and Harry smirked knowingly. Emma patted her back, “You alright, mate?”

“Yeah, just wrong hole. I slept fine.” Y/n said.

“Hate when that happens.” Harry teased, and she wanted to kick his shin but Emma definitely would’ve noticed.

They all finished their pancakes and after the big breakfast, Emma had an aspirin and told them both she was going back to bed for a nap.

“I might head off then,” Y/n said, she wanted to go home and nap herself. Harry had kept her awake for a good portion of the night after all, and her body was very sore. “I’ll get an Uber.”

“Alright, Babe,” She said hugging her. Y/n kissed her cheek and hugged her back.

“Bye, Babe,” Y/n said with a soft smile.

“Thanks for taking care of me. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Y/n nodded. “Of course, we have to do our monthly movie marathon rain, hail, or shine!”

Emma smiled. “Perfect, get home safe.”

They parted, and Emma went back to her room to sleep. Y/n’s Uber arrived moments later and Harry watched Y/n leave waving with a big devilish grin.

She waved back hopping in the Uber tiredly, as the car pulled away and Harry shut the door, her phone buzzed with a text.

Harry Styles🍒

Can I come over tonight?

Y/n felt a big grin overtake her face. 

what on earth for mr. styles?

Harry Styles🍒

Didn’t get to give a you proper goodbye, did I?

Y/n blushed with a small laugh as she typed back. 

see u at eight

Harry Styles🍒

See you then Baby X

Y/n bit her lip. What had she gotten herself into?

oh and bring snacks 

and that new film u were raving about to niall

Harry Styles🍒

Ok, done. See you tonight. XX

Y/n felt her cheeks heat up similar to last in the kitchen. This was not the Harry she knew, but she didn’t have it in her to complain. She saw flashes of last night of them together and squirmed in her seat.

‘💗💗’ She replied.

When she put her phone down in her lap and stared out at the window she sighed to herself, knowing she was completely done for. Harry had ruined her, she'd never be able to stop thinking about him and last night. However, she had very few complaints about it. Her phone buzzed yet again. She checked it.

Harry Styles🍒 hearted your message.

She smiled even more and shut her eyes, head resting against the leather seat, as she wondered if he was smiling this big too.

#writing #harry #harry styles #harry styles one shot #harry styles blurb #harry styles imagine #harry styles au #harry styles fanfiction #harry one shot #harry blurb #harry imagine #harry au #harry fanfiction #harry prompt #harry styles prompt #one direction #1d #harry styles album #meet me in the hallway #sign of the times #carolina #two ghosts #sweet creature #only angel #kiwi #ever since new york #woman #from the dining table #dunkirk #harrys house

[ohbo-ohno]

I’m feral and need more of your a/b/o thoughts. Like I need to know your thoughts on alpha!141 snatching omega reader to keep for themselves

yknow i was gonna say that i haven't touched abo in forever, but then i remembered the gaz thing i just posted the other day lmao

(btw i wrote alpha 141 here but i think abo poly 141 would have alphas price/ghost and betas soap/gaz. probably. maybe. idfk.)

cw for noncon and kidnapping below the cut

i find poly 141 x reader really difficult to write outside of porn, since there's already so many interesting dynamics in regular poly 141. i have a hard time adding in a FIFTH element, yk? especially when that fifth element has to be a reader insert instead of some sorta OC or smth

anyway, i think the best dark poly 141 x reader idea is basically reader being used as a sex toy for the guys. like, she's there for them to relieve their stress in. but in an abo au i could totally see them using her as an element of softness in their lives. with 4 alphas in one home, you need an omega to soften things up a bit

and there you are. soft and sweet and small (compared to them at least) and just so perfect. you're the unlucky bastard who happens to smell appealing to all of them, and you're whisked away before you really even know it

they'd have to be sneaky, probably. you'd have a positive reaction to their scents too, so maybe johnny or gaz gets you to go on a date with one or both of them and then kidnaps you. maybe price or ghost just grabs you one day. something like that, i think, but there's much higher angst potential is kyle and/or johnny lulls you into a false sense of security first (and you know i love a good betrayal)

they'd push and prod at your instincts to force you into a heat before anything else. lock you in their den (soon to be their nest) and surround you in their scents, make low purrs to convince your instincts that you're safe

and as terrified as you are - and oh boy, are you - there's only so much you can actually fight your instincts. lets say you're either not on heat blockers, or maybe the blockers are weak, but for whatever reason you're very susceptible to all of their little pushes

they've got you knotted and mated by the end of the week

it's odd, coming up from that heat. your neck aches all the way around, to the point that it's painful to even turn your head. despite the unfamiliar room, your brain screams at you that you're safe, that you're in your nest.

it doesn't take long to put together the pieces. it also doesn't take long to become very very upset

thing is, it's too late to do anything now. you can't break a bond, and they're not giving you any opportunities to get away. you're stuck with these alphas who have performed the greatest invasion possible on your body and soul. it's crushing

cue lots of attempted comfort. soap and gaz would be the softest with you, always trying to tempt you into realizing how good it is to be with them. soap is rougher when he fucks you, but they're both equally soft outside of that. they bring you nesting materials, constantly make sure you're covered in their scents, and bicker over who gets to cuddle you on the couch

ghost isn't willing to coddle you. he's sweet (in his own right) but he's not nice. he doesn't try to make you feel better - you're meant to be with them, why should he apologize for making it happen? all they did was skip the courting process, this is always where you were going to end up. he refuses to apologize for that. but he also doesn't want you miserable. he holds you close at night, soaks with you for long hours in the tub, and is always making sure you clear your plate

price is... weird. i'm never sure if i should make him the meanest or a softer kidnapper. because i could absolutely see a version of price whipping your ass raw every time you scream at them and call them names, but i can also see a version of price who just levels you with a disapproving stare and locks you in a small dark space when you get like that

regardless, they all smother you. you help balance out their dynamics a bit more, but they're always fighting each other for your attention. especially with the bond making it so they always know what you're feeling. and your instincts scream to trust them (and you can feel their emotions too, know that they really meant for the best, as sick and twisted as it is).

#abo au #poly 141 x reader #bo writes #asks and answers

[wingzie]

Jikook and the Importance of Photos

Photographs are special. They map out our lives through precious memories. They leave a footprint in time that can forever be part of our history. These glimpses of our past, make us who we are and show what or who is important to us. They are full of so much love and emotions, even more so when they are shared with those most trusted to us. This goes for every photo shared by the members.

 I personally think it’s amazing that we can tell when a photo of Jimin is taken by Jungkook, there’s a certain style to it and it comes across even at a glance. One of my favourite photos of Jimin by Jungkook is this one:

This photo was taken from the behinds of Life Goes On. Each MV was beautifully directed by Jungkook, and it’s hard to miss the references made from within their old dorm. I know Jungkook isn’t keen on photos but, just like during GCFT, Jimin is looking at Jungkook and not the camera here with that smile. With that one look, that we are so familiar with, we can trace every single moment within their history which has that same shining expression. It tells a story over time, but also that one photo itself is so telling in the way that it was captured. One of my favourite photos of Jungkook by Jimin is this one:

There’s something raw and delicate in this photo.You can see it in Jungkook’s eyes. Each item in the photo tells its own little story, from the Birthday cake to the polaroid photos on the table that we never saw. This photo is all we saw from the night of Jungkook’s Birthday in 2019 and sometimes I am reminded that with these glimpses into their lives, there are still so many moments of theirs that we are unaware of. For example, Jungkook had a hickey on his neck during MOTS:Online and none of us had any idea until the DVD Behinds came out. 

For every selca or video that Jikook has shared with us, it shows a part of them that we are so lucky to witness. To be able to watch their growth over the years is magical and something I will always cherish. Why am I going on about photos and memories though?  Because they give so much of themselves to us and I will never take it for granted, nor expect them to give more to us than they want to. Some of their memories are for them only, but we can still hold dear what we know already…

Some of you know this already, but I have been caring for my Mother lately. Over the last few months, her memory has worsened. In an attempt to help, we play memory games and repeat simple tasks together. However, her memory is something that cannot be simply fixed with such methods. I had the idea to get out family photos, until I realised that we had stopped taking them when my parents divorced. It’s made me more proactive in archiving things that I do each day. Every little thing I see or hear, I note it down or save the song. In a way, it’s also how I associate with BTS or Jikook. When the BTS World soundtrack came out, I was having a really bad day and it gave me a lot of comfort. I smile whenever I hear Pied Piper because it’s one of my friends favourite songs. Any time I hear “Jungkookie” or “Jimin-ssi”, a barrage of memories come to the front of my mind and I grasp onto all of them whilst I still can. 

I'm sure it's not just me who does this either, Jimin and Jungkook probably do this themselves. You could see that when Jungkook was watching Jimin’s compilation with us. He was recollecting the same memories as us, but he also has access to an entirely different set of memories that we don’t know of. We also saw that with the way Jimin and Jungkook both explained the Rainy Day Fight. During the Festa video, Jungkook mentioned “rainy day” and expected Jimin to understand what he meant. Later on, Jimin and Jungkook gave their own versions of what happened in their separate lives. They both more or less experienced the same thing, but blamed themselves for their actions and not the other. 

They love adding to their own collections of memories. Every single time that Jimin watched Jungkook rehearse and the other way around, enough so that they could probably be a backup dancer. All the clips they have but haven’t shared. The moments we don’t find out until later, the inside jokes they have without context. We don’t understand, but that doesn’t matter. Only they have to and we just watch and smile. Their memories are a huge part of them, it’s what makes their bond so special.  

#jikook #wingzie #jikookmemories #jikookphotos

[sednas]

['CAUSE HE'S A F×CK BOY ─ s. gojo]

꒰ ͜͡➸ sorry what did you say? oh you want a virginkiller!gojo fic? with enemies to lovers vibes? yeah I might have this one in store for you. smut will be in the second part tho! (which will be posted in one week or five months, who knows! :))

pairing: virginkiller!gojo x virgin!fem!reader

tw: college!au, suggestive themes, virginity kink, (dub-con) make out session, gojo is annoying but hey what's new, sexual tension, light fem masturbation at the end

gojo satoru was the golden boy. the most intelligent student of his class, the most talented sports player of the school, the most popular guy of the campus, maybe even of the whole city. he was excellent at everything. people were too amazed by his talent to notice his arrogance and his condescending smile, too blinded by his bright blue eyes and his snowy white hair.

gojo was the best at everything, and it included fucking. hell, fucking was actually on top of the list. he had a cheerleader waiting for him every night in his room, sometimes he could just wink at a girl and she was already spreading her legs for him in the bathroom a few minutes later. he could have literally everyone, but what he liked best was virgins. he loved them, such good girls who managed to keep their innocence until college. they were always so easy, so pliant.

and the thing he mostly liked to do with them was fucking them so hard that nobody could ever compare after that. he wanted them to think about him every time they would fuck someone else, he wanted them to rub their thighs together while thinking about him years later, this is what he liked to do with them. of course, the thought of ruining them for their first time was also appealing, they were usually so shy and reserved, he liked to take them apart piece by piece, make them drool, and then cry, and then forcing them to look at themselves in the mirror, letting them see how the filthiest version of themselves looked like. and in the end, when they were too fucked to think, he made them say thanks.

and this was exactly what he wanted to do with you.

you were way more difficult than the others, doing your best to ignore his piercing blue eyes, answering by a simple nod of your head every time he was trying to start a conversation, leaving the room every time he was in.

yeah you were difficult, but satoru always got what he wanted.

“all by yourself uh?”

he startled you a bit, and he could see that you were already looking for a way out by the way your eyes were looking at everything but him.

he moved his body to be at the same height as you, looking at you through his glasses, and then he said your name in a sweet voice, smiling when he saw how easily he got you looking back at him, your face obviously flushed.

“finally paying attention to me mh? it's a shame that you don't look at me often, I really like your eyes, they're pretty.”

and he really meant it, you were telling him everything with those eyes, the way you were constantly daydreaming about him, how you were humping your pillow at night, imagining it was his thigh instead. yeah, very pretty eyes.

“I want to get to know ya.” he said with a smile, and he got closer.

he kept himself from laughing when he saw you taking a few steps back and then he stopped, not wanting to make you panic too much.

“here, gimme your phone.”

you obeyed after barely a few seconds, and it only confirmed what he was already thinking; you were wrapped around his finger even though you were trying to hide it.

“mmh cute wallpaper… alright I'm just gonna add my number to your contacts annnnnd… done!” he finally said, his relaxed smile still on his face, handing you over your phone.

he didn't let go of it immediately, making sure your hands brushed against one another, noticing the way your breath got stuck in your throat.

“call me okay?”

one month passed by and you never called, or even texted. gojo felt frustration for the first time in his life, and because of that he was rougher than usual when he was fucking a cheerleader, his thoughts always coming back to you, and the way you were still ignoring him even though you were fucking yourself with your fingers every night while thinking about him. he was starting to get tired of his own game, but still, he wasn't planning on giving up. and so when he saw you standing in the kitchen during that halloween party, a devilish grin appeared on his pale face...

it's already too late when you spot him across the room, his blue eyes are on you. you can barely think of an escape that he's already in front of you, wearing a black tuxedo, a white collar wrapped around his neck and long white victorian sleeves hugging his arms, and making the rings on his fingers look elegant.

“you didn't call me.“ gojo whispers against your ear, his long arms trapping you between his body and the kitchen counter.

you open your mouth but no sound comes out, your eyes try to escape his teasing gaze as you're sure he can see every little detail on your face by standing so close.

“I thought… I thought you weren't serious when you gave me your number.”

he chuckles, noticing how you're even more embarrassed to look him in the eyes when he hasn't his glasses on.

“I like your costume, it suits your body.”

you feel your skin grows hot, his voice so soft and intimate, his eyes trailing on your body from up and down. it feels like you're alone in the whole house with only him. and your heart is racing with fear and anticipation, as you bring your thighs together. gojo notices it, placing his knee between them before you can fully close them, making you gasp.

“so tell me something baby…” he starts speaking in a honeyed voice, his lips coming closer to your ear.

you blink at the nickname, his body weighting a little more on your own, your back uncomfortably pressed against the kitchen counter as your body slowly bent to accommodate to the awkward position.

“are you scared of me or something?”

a nervous laugh comes out of your mouth, turning your head to escape from his warm gaze.

“I'm not scared of you.”

he can tell you're sincere, but it only makes him want to know more.

“then why are you avoiding me all the time uh?”

he tilts his head to the side, eyes burning with curiosity and his teeth flashing at you when you finally look back at him.

“i'm avoiding you because… you're so annoying, and you fuck everyone you know and you're so arrogant, always thinking you're better than anyone else. I don't like you, at all.”

a few seconds of silence pass by while both of you just look at eachother, until a smirk slowly appears on gojo's face.

“I didn't know you were so mean.” he laughed. “but if you hate me so much why aren't you pushing me away right now?” his sultry voice keeps sliding on you like honey, his mouth so close to your skin, breath fanning over your neck.

he's right, and he knows it, smiling even wider when he sees you looking at the ground in defeat.

“that's what I thought.” he smiles, one of his hand sliding along the side of your jaw, the sudden touch making your heart skips a beat.

his pale hand looks good on your skin, you can feel his fingers squeezing lightly your throat and the atmosphere becomes more tense than before, he still has this grin, like he knows everything about you, especially how much you want him to touch you more.

you're a few seconds away from giving up, your body almost falling on the counter to let gojo fully rest on you. somehow his smirk grows wider when he sees you closing your eyes. you let out a little whine when you feel him pressing all of his body weight against you.

“that was a sweet sound baby, mind if you make some more for me?”

despite shaking your head no, you pressed your body against him, hungry for more, finding a new pleasure in being the center of his attention. his slender fingers find their way to squeeze your chest, drawing another whine out of your mouth.

“more…” he orders, the sound of his voice muffled against your skin.

you try to close your lips, in a poor attempt not to give in so easily, but your legs turn to jelly as soon as he puts his soft lips on your neck. one of your hands flew through his white hair as you gasped at this new sensation.

his hot tongue tracing kisses along your neck, he grabbed your hips, bringing you even closer, letting you feel his boner. you feel dirty, intoxicated, but the heat coming out of his body is addictive. you let out another sound and your fingers are now grabbing his shirt in a needy way, trying to get him even closer to you. you want more. you need more.

you suddenly open your eyes when you feel his warmth vanish from your trembling body. you watch him walk away in disbelief while he's wearing a wicked smile on his face.

“I think my friends are waiting for me… it was fun, you should call me later okay?” he winked at you before exiting the room without letting you have any time to react.

you're left here, breathless, blood pumping into your veins, eyes clouded with desire, a pool of arousal between your legs. your hands clench into fists, of course he did it on purpose.

your eyes are fixated on your phone as breathless sighs keep coming out of your mouth.

"fuck!" you let out an exasperated groan, throwing your head back into the soft pillows.

your fingers are still trying to reach that spongy spot inside you, you arch your back, lifting your hips in the air, hoping it will allow your fingers to touch deeper parts. but you're left unsatisfied again, your legs twitching in frustration. your head hit your pillow and your eyes go back to your phone.

"he would fuck me right." you mumble to yourself.

part two

jjk masterlist

a lovely reminder that reblogs and comments are highly appreciated ♡

#jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen headcanons #jjk headcanons #jujutsu kaisen smut #jjk smut #gojo satoru smut #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x reader #gojo smut #gojou satoru x reader #gojou satoru smut

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Podcasting "Microincentives and Enshittification"

Tomorrow (Oct 25) at 10hPT/18hUK, I'm livestreaming an event called "Seizing the Means of Computation" for the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

This week on my podcast, I read my recent Medium column, "Microincentives and Enshittification," about the way that monopoly drives mediocrity, with Google's declining quality as Exhibit A:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

It's not your imagination: Google used to be better – in every way. Search used to be better, sure, but Google used to be better as a company. It treated its workers better (for example, not laying off 12,000 workers months after a stock buyback that would have paid their salaries for the next 27 years). It had its users' backs in policy fights – standing up for Net Neutrality and the right to use encryption to keep your private data private. Even when the company made ghastly mistakes, it repented of them and reversed them, like the time it pulled out of China after it learned that Chinese state hackers had broken into Gmail in order to discover which dissidents to round up and imprison.

None of this is to say that Google used to be perfect, or even, most of the time, good. Just that things got worse. To understand why, we have to think about how decisions get made in large organizations, or, more to the point, how arguments get resolved in these organizations.

We give Google a lot of shit for its "Don't Be Evil" motto, but it's worth thinking through what that meant for the organization's outcomes over the years. Through most of Google's history, the tech labor market was incredibly tight, and skilled engineers and other technical people had a lot of choice as to where they worked. "Don't Be Evil" motivated some – many – of those workers to take a job at Google, rather than one of its rivals.

Within Google, that meant that decisions that could colorably be accused of being "evil" would face some internal pushback. Imagine a product design meeting where one faction proposes something that is bad for users, but good for the company's bottom line. Think of another faction that says, "But if we do that, we'll be 'evil.'"

I think it's safe to assume that in any high-stakes version of this argument, the profit side will prevail over the don't be evil side. Money talks and bullshit walks. But what if there were also monetary costs to being evil? Like, what if Google has to worry about users or business customers defecting to a rival? Or what if there's a credible reason to worry that a regulator will fine Google, or Congress will slap around some executives at a televised hearing?

That lets the no-evil side field a more robust counterargument: "Doing that would be evil, and we'll lose money, or face a whopping fine, or suffer reputational harms." Even if these downsides are potentially smaller than the upsides, they still help the no-evil side win the argument. That's doubly true if the downsides could depress the company's share-price, because Googlers themselves are disproportionately likely to hold Google stock, since tech companies are able to get a discount on their wage-bills by paying employees in abundant stock they print for free, rather than the scarce dollars that only come through hard graft.

When the share-price is on the line, the counterargument goes, "That would be evil, we will lose money, and you will personally be much poorer as a result." Again, this isn't dispositive – it won't win every argument – but it is influential. A counterargument that braids together ideology, institutional imperatives, and personal material consequences is pretty robust.

Which is where monopoly comes in. When companies grow to dominate their industries, they are less subject to all forms of discipline. Monopolists don't have to worry about losing disgusted employees, because they exert so much gravity on the labor market that they find it easy to replace them.

They don't have to worry about losing customers, because they have eliminated credible alternatives. They don't have to worry about losing users, because rivals steer clear of their core business out of fear of being bigfooted through exclusive distribution deals, predatory pricing, etc. Investors have a name for the parts of the industry dominated by Big Tech: they call it "the kill zone" and they won't back companies seeking to enter it.

When companies dominate their industries, they find it easier to capture their regulators and outspend public prosecutors who hope to hold them to account. When they lose regulatory fights, they can fund endless appeals. If they lose those appeals, they can still afford the fines, especially if they can use an army of lawyers to make sure that the fine is less than the profit realized through the bad conduct. A fine is a price.

In other words, the more dominant a company is, the harder it is for the good people within the company to win arguments about unethical and harmful proposals, and the worse the company gets. The internal culture of the company changes, and its products and services decline, but meaningful alternatives remain scarce or nonexistent.

Back to Google. Google owns more than 90% of the search market. Google can't grow by adding more Search users. The 10% of non-Google searchers are extremely familiar with Google's actions. To switch to a rival search engine, they have had to take many affirmative, technically complex steps to override the defaults in their devices and tools. It's not like an ad extolling the virtues of Google Search will bring in new customers.

Having saturated the search market, Google can only increase its Search revenues by shifting value from searchers or web publishers to itself – that is, the only path to Search growth is enshittification. They have to make things worse for end users or business customers in order to make things better for themselves:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

This means that each executive in the Search division is forever seeking out ways to shift value to Google and away from searchers and/or publishers. When they propose a enshittificatory tactic, Google's market dominance makes it easy for them to win arguments with their teammates: "this may make you feel ashamed for making our product worse, but it will not make me poorer, it will not make the company poorer, and it won't chase off business customers or end users, therefore, we're gonna do it. Fuck your feelings."

After all, each microenshittification represents only a single Jenga block removed from the gigantic tower that is Google Search. No big deal. Some Google exec made the call to make it easier for merchants to buy space overtop searches for their rivals. That's not necessarily a bad thing: "Thinking of taking a vacation in Florida? Why not try Puerto Rico – it's a US-based Caribbean vacation without the transphobia and racism!"

But this kind of advertising also opens up lots of avenues for fraud. Scammers clone local restaurants' websites, jack up their prices by 15%, take your order, and transmit it to the real restaurant, pocketing the 15%. They get clicks by using some of that rake to buy an ad based on searches for the restaurant's name, so they show up overtop of it and rip off inattentive users:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

This is something Google could head off; they already verify local merchants by mailing them postcards with unique passwords that they key into a web-form. They could ban ads for websites that clone existing known merchants, but that would incur costs (engineer time) and reduce profits, both from scammers and from legit websites that trip a false positive.

The decision to sell this kind of ad, configured this way, is a direct shift of value from business customers (restaurants) and end-users (searchers) to Google. Not only that, but it's negative sum. The money Google gets from this tradeoff is less than the cost to both the restaurant (loss of goodwill from regulars who are affronted because of a sudden price rise) and searchers (who lose 15% on their dinner orders). This trade-off makes everyone except Google worse off, and it's only possible when Google is the only game in town.

It's also small potatoes. Last summer, scammers figured out how to switch out the toll-free numbers that Google displayed for every airline, redirecting people to boiler-rooms where con-artists collected their credit-card numbers and sensitive personal information (passports, etc):

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/phone-numbers-airlines-listed-google-directed-scammers-rcna94766

Here again, we see a series of small compromises that lead to a massive harm. Google decided to show users 800 numbers rather than links to the airlines' websites, but failed to fortify the process for assigning phone numbers to prevent this absolutely foreseeable type of fraud. It's not that Google wanted to enable fraud – it's that they created the conditions for the fraud to occur and failed to devote the resources necessary to defend against it.

Each of these compromises indicates a belief among Google decision-makers that the consequences for making their product worse will be outweighed by the value the company will generate by exposing us to harm. One reason for this belief is on display in the DOJ's antitrust case against Google:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1328941/download

The case accuses Google of spending tens of billions of dollars to buy out the default search position on every platform where an internet user might conceivably perform a search. The company is lighting multiple Twitters worth of dollars on fire to keep you from ever trying another search engine.

Spraying all those dollars around doesn't just keep you from discovering a better search engine – it also prevents investors from funding that search engine in the first place. Why fund a startup in the kill-zone if no one will ever discover that it exists?

https://www.theverge.com/23802382/search-engine-google-neeva-android

Of course, Google doesn't have to grow Search to grow its revenue. Hypothetically, Google could pursue new lines of business and grow that way. This is a tried-and-true strategy for tech giants: Apple figured out how to outsource its manufacturing to the Pacific Rim; Amazon created a cloud service, Microsoft figured out how to transform itself into a cloud business.

Look hard at these success stories and you discover another reason that Google – and other large companies – struggle to grow by moving into adjacent lines of business. In each case – Apple, Microsoft, Amazon – the exec who led the charge into the new line of business became the company's next CEO.

In other words: if you are an exec at a large firm and one of your rivals successfully expands the business into a new line, they become the CEO – and you don't. That ripples out within the whole org-chart: every VP who becomes an SVP, every SVP who becomes an EVP, and every EVP who becomes a president occupies a scarce spot that it worth millions of dollars to the people who lost it.

The one thing that execs reliably collaborate on is knifing their ambitious rivals in the back. They may not agree on much, but they all agree that that guy shouldn't be in charge of this lucrative new line of business.

This "curse of bigness" is why major shifts in big companies are often attended by the return of the founder – think of Gates going back to Microsoft or Brin returning to Google to oversee their AI projects. They are the only execs that other execs can't knife in the back.

This is the real "innovator's dilemma." The internal politics of large companies make Machiavelli look like an optimist.

When your company attains a certain scale, any exec's most important rival isn't the company's competitor – it's other execs at the same company. Their success is your failure, and vice-versa.

This makes the business of removing Jenga blocks from products like Search even more fraught. These quality-degrading, profit-goosing tactics aren't coordinated among the business's princelings. When you're eating your seed-corn, you do so in private. This secrecy means that it's hard for different product-degradation strategists to realize that they are removing safeguards that someone else is relying on, or that they're adding stress to a safety measure that someone else just doubled the load on.

It's not just Google, either. All of tech is undergoing a Great Enshittening, and that's due to how intertwined all these tech companies. Think of how Google shifts value from app makers to itself, with a 30% rake on every dollar spent in an app. Google is half of the mobile duopoly, with the other half owned by Apple. But they're not competitors – they're co-managers of a cartel. The single largest deal that Google or Apple does every year is the bribe Google pays Apple to be the default search for iOS and Safari – $15-20b, every year.

If Apple and Google were mobile competitors, you'd expect them to differentiate their products, but instead, they've converged – both Apple and Google charge sky-high 30% payment processing fees to app makers.

Same goes for Google/Facebook, the adtech duopoly: not only do both companies charge advertisers and publishers sky-high commissions, clawing 51 cents out of every ad dollar, but they also illegally colluded to rig the market and pay themselves more, at advertisers' and publishers' expense:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

It's not just tech, either – every sector from athletic shoes to international sea-freight is concentrated into anti-competitive, value-annihilating cartels and monopolies:

https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/learn/monopoly-by-the-numbers

As our friends on the right are forever reminding us: "incentives matter." When a company runs out of lands to conquer, the incentives all run one direction: downhill, into a pit of enshittification. Google got worse, not because the people in it are worse (or better) than they were before – but because the constraints that discipline the company and contain its worst impulses got weaker as the company got bigger.

Here's the podcast episode:

https://craphound.com/news/2023/10/23/microincentives-and-enshittification/

And here's a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the Internet Archive; they'll host your stuff for free, forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_452/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_452_-_Microincentives_and_Enshittification.mp3

And here's my podcast's RSS feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

#pluralistic #podcasts #enshittification #google #microincentives #monopoly #incentives matter #trustbusting #the curse of bigness

[demigoddessqueens]

fearless (sweet) leader

An A-Z sfw fluff alphabet for Miguel

A/N - companion piece to my NSFW work here on ao3

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

Miguel is not the most overly affectionate, mostly because of his past, but he slowly melts into it because he’s denied himself for so long

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

Pretty awkward start 😆 he’s a closed off person so it may be a bit patchy to try and be his personal friend

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

Entirely touch starved and sometimes Miguel feels a bit embarrassed that he gets flustered by such gestures. Once he gets used to it, Miguel is a needy cuddle bug, refuses to let you go

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

The idea of having such a life seems unattainable to Miguel, but after the highs and lows, he comes around to it and sees the quiet moments as treasured memories

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

Oh if he had to, he’d chalk it up to some “save the world greater good” BS but it would be killing him inside

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

Oh he’s scared out of his mind!! Is this meant to be for him, too good to be true, or can he truly be happy? If he gets over his fears and accepts his feelings, Miguel is wasting no time with you

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

He tries to be, knowing how distant he is. It took a lot of patience, sometimes you or sometimes him, but he craves gentle now. It makes him slow down for once

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

Not a hugger person (at first), but he gets used to them over time. The first time you hugged him, he was stiff before slowly patting your back and then melting into it

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

Oh he wants to say it sooner than intended, but it takes an one man army to get over himself and his fears! But when he says it, his heart is racking through his chest like crazy

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

When does Miguel NOT get jealous? He knows you won’t leave him but still, he feels a bit “neglected” when affections aren’t always for him

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Starts off slow, but his lips mold perfectly around yours

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

Given what’s canon, he’s apprehensive and hesitant because he doesn’t want something as beautiful as starting a family to slip away again

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

He’s horrible at mornings, moody and whiny and keeping you locked in his arms

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

Also moody but he has trouble sleeping and holding you soothes him until his eyes grow heavy

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

It’s slow, sometimes painfully slow, but being patient is a plus here because Miguel respects that about you and that you care for his space as well

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

Is that rhetorical?

If he’s ever “mad” at you, it’s mostly from a place of frustration and worry because he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to you

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

Considering he’s most likely seen other Earth versions of you, Miguel knows more about you than he lets on

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

He remembers your first mission together because it was the moment he realized you can take care of yourself, and that you are unstoppable together

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

Extremely protective! If you’re not buzzing or calling in for a report, he’s coming down there himself

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

He tries, bit by bit. And the more he does, the more you fall in love with him all over again.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

Arrogance, withholding secrets from you, closed off from you and others

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

It’s canon Miguel is insecure by his claws and fangs so you staring at him in admiration and complimenting him is unfamiliar territory

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

Without a doubt 🥺🥹 even if he tries to deny it. Man’s is LONELY, he needs love

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

As he dates you more, he likes to open up more with some surprise dates but still keep it subtle between you two

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

Ironically he doesn’t like it when you hold secrets out on him

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?)

Atrocious! You practically have to drag him away from his work panels to get him to sleep to which he collapses on top of you

#astv #spider verse #across the spiderverse #miguel o'hara #spiderverse #miguel o’hara x reader #spiderman: across the spiderverse #spiderman 2099 x reader #spiderman 2099 #across the spider verse spoilers #istv #spiderman: into the spiderverse #spider man: across the spider verse #miguel x you #spider man across the spiderverse spoilers #miguel x reader #spider man across the spider verse #miguel x y/n #spiderman across the spiderverse #miguel ohara #across the spiderverse spoilers #miguel o’hara #across the spider verse #miguel o hara #sfw alphabet #my writing #headcanons #miguel o'hara spider man

[from-the-clouds]

texas sun - joel miller x f!reader - vol. xi

series masterlist | series playlist | writing masterlist | previous chapter |

chapter summary: I'm not even gonna be poetic about this: Joel and reader lie to themselves and others about their feelings for 5.6k words. pairing: joel miller x f!reader words: 5.6k chapter warnings: ANGST. Description of panic attacks/anxiety. Referenced death of family members/romantic partners. Implied bisexual reader. Alcohol consumption, hangovers. smoking. Canon-typical suffering. As always please dm if you have questions. a/n: Wanted to give game Joel a little love with the gif choice, ya feel me? I've been excited to write this chapter for months and I ultimately feel like it flopped so hard, it just did not come together the way I envisioned. It's also my last week of work for awhile I'm honestly feeling very burnt out so I'm in a 'fuck it, i don't have the energy to make it perfect' mood, BUT - It’s a lot of backstory/development that I do think is necessary. Next chapter shit will go down tho so get ready.

**ALSO! I got rid of my taglist. Please follow @ftcwriting and turn on notifs if you would like to be notified when I update my works :) **

-April 10, 2024-

Joel reaches out to clutch the patio railing. His chest is tight, like someone’s stitched his ribs together so they won’t expand fully every time he tries to inhale. Each breath wheezes in and out of him, and his head spins. 

None of this feels real. It can’t be real. And if he’s asleep, he can’t decide if he’s in a dream or a nightmare.

That’s until he hears his name. 

“Joel!” 

Her voice is like a jolt of electricity, shocking his body back into equilibrium. He finds Ellie standing behind him when he looks over his shoulder, Tommy walking up the pathway to the front door, brow furrowed. 

“We literally only got here like one week ago, you can’t die already,” Ellie scolds him, and he knows that the jab is meant to be playful. “Woah, are you okay?” she asks when they lock eyes. 

Joel straightens, squaring up with Tommy, fully prepared to give him a piece of his mind, for throwing him into the deep end with nothing to stay afloat. 

“Who was that?” Ellie is completely oblivious. 

Even if he wanted to answer the question, he still probably couldn’t. It had taken him a moment to even recognize who you were, that’s how long it’s been. And he hadn’t even really gotten a good look. It only clicked when you’d taken off your glasses, and when it’d registered, and then he’d seen the kid next to you, he’d panicked. Joel brushes past Ellie, shoving his brother with one hand in the center of his chest.

“What the hell were you thinking?” 

Tommy recoils at the contact, something pained and confused crossing his expression. “I…. I thought you’d be happy to see that she’s still alive.” 

Joel doesn’t answer, just glowers at him. He’s still unable to make sense of the questions swirling around in his mind, each one seemingly more important than the last. 

Of course it’s good that you're alive. At one point, he had tried to find you. It was after Sarah, after he’d tried to- he can’t even think about how foolish that had been. At the time, the thought of seeing you again was the only thing that provided him with even the slightest bit of hope for the future. But the search had been fruitless. 

After a while, Joel decided that you were dead. It didn’t matter whether or not you were. He’d seen the unspeakable pain humans were capable of inflicting on each other and then when he’d gotten involved with some hunters, became the cause of all that pain. If you were alive…it meant those horrible things were happening to you. You were better off dead. 

It also kept his conscience clear. After he’d done what he had done, he knew if he ever saw you again, he wouldn’t even be able to look you in the eyes. And he was right. You knew a version of him that no longer existed. 

“Joel,” Ellie interjects. He’d nearly forgotten she was there, still lost in his shock and rage. 

“Ellie, go inside,” he quips. 

“Can’t I just-”

“Inside. Right now. ” Joel hasn’t used such an aggressive snarl with her since they first left for the Boston QZ, and he turns to look at her just in time to see her face crumple, before she turns and marches up the stairs. He immediately feels bad, but unfortunately, this is just how things go with every person he cares about these days. He hurts them, then they hurt him, and it equals out, only ending when one of them decides to leave. 

“Jesus, Joel,” Tommy scolds, but he doesn’t care. 

“How long?” 

“What?”

“How long have you known she’s alive? That she has a fuckin’.....” Joel feels something get caught in his throat. “...a fuckin’ kid.”

“That’s her nephew,” Tommy says matter-of-factly, as if it was supposed to be obvious. As if Joel wasn’t just grappling with the idea that he had a twenty year old son he’d never known about, and feeling guilty that you’d been alone with him this whole time. “But I guess I can see where you’d think that.” 

Now that you’re on Joel’s mind, he does recall you mentioning your nephew a few times. Maybe you even had a picture of him hanging on your fridge, and he had pegged how you had the same smile. He’s a little embarrassed for jumping to conclusions, but it doesn’t mean he’s done being angry. 

“Shit,” Tommy rubs his beard. “They’ve been here for like three years. It’s been awhile.”

“Three years?” Joel asks, a whole new wave of anger reappearing. “And you didn’t think to fuckin’ tell me all this time?”

“You know the rules. We aren’t allowed to use the radio.” 

“What about when I was here in the winter?” Joel asks stiffly. 

“I just…figured it’d be a shock-

“And why would you think that, Tommy?” Joel raises his voice. 

Tommy holds out his hands, lowering them slightly as if to tell Joel to settle down. Then he nods towards the house. Ellie. “You had a lot going on with that whole situation. I didn’t want to distract you.”

Joel would never admit it, but that was probably a smart decision for Tommy to make. He remembers how uncertain and scared he’d been when he first stopped in Jackson. But Joel still tries to think of a way to keep the argument going, because he doesn’t want to give Tommy any sort of props for how he’s chosen to break this news to him.

“I thought you’d be happy she’s alive, really, I mean you both-”

Joel holds up his hand. “Enough, Tommy. It was so long ago…I barely remember.”

Tommy frowns, gives him a knowing look. “Really?” 

Joel sniffs, crosses his arms. 

“Well, I remember,” Tommy says. “And she was always good to you.”

Joel doesn’t answer, because he doesn’t have anything else to say, and at this point, he just wants Tommy to leave.

“Work through whatever you have to,” Tommy says. “But don’t be an asshole. You should work on that, in general. Or else I’ll have to keep explaining your behavior.”

“Glad I’ve got you looking out for me,” Joel says dryly.  “Don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Fine.” Tommy shakes his head, backs away.

His brother doesn’t say goodbye as he stuffs his hands in his coat pocket and walks down the street. Joel stays in place, alone on the front porch, until his hands relax from the fists they are clenched in and his anger turns to shame. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

-April 19, 2024-

You close the locket and place it back inside the old lunch pail full of tchotchkes and other memorabilia. It’s a fairly empty box, over the years you’ve found that the things you hold onto are either lost or left behind, not unlike the people you’ve met. You swipe away the tears in your eyes. 

Bea had always said it was important to give yourself the space to grieve, to let yourself feel whatever it was that you needed to. It’s advice that you don’t want to take from her right now because you’re pissed at her for being gone. Not that it had been her fault. And also because you know if you don’t stick to a routine it’s very easy to backslide. 

In the bathroom, you hurry to splash cold water on your face, taking a look at yourself in the mirror. Before the outbreak, there was nothing more terrifying than getting old. Now, as you study the new lines and wrinkles on your face, the scar on your bottom lip, the gray strands in your hair, it doesn’t scare you at all. It seemed frivolous that looks were something you’d been so concerned about when you were younger. But you suppose you didn’t have much else to worry about. There was something pretty freeing about being older, that you can be content without being concerned about whether or not someone will find you attractive. And really, getting old means you’re still alive. That’s all that matters. 

You are concerned with the red in the whites of your eyes, but hope they’ll fade by the time you get to Maria’s. 

Grappling with the fact that Joel is still alive has dredged up a lot. Since it had been about a week since your reunion – if you could even call it that – on your front porch, and you’d seen him one other time. The first time, you’d sort of understood why he’d ran off. But you guessed you kind of expected him to come around eventually. He didn’t. 

Just a few days earlier you’d been walking through the town square, and he’d been headed your direction with that teenage girl who Tommy has since told you is named Ellie. She was giggling at something, and Joel even had a slight smile on his face, but when he saw you, it disappeared, and he pulled Ellie to the opposite side of the street. It was clear now that he was intentionally trying to avoid you, which….didn’t feel great. 

That was an understatement. Having Joel back made you realize just how lonely you were. It had taken some time after arriving in Jackson for you to grieve your partner of nearly ten years, so it hadn’t really dawned on you that at some point you might crave a deeper level of intimacy that your friendships couldn’t offer. But you had already had it twice, so you supposed that was better than nothing at all. Plus, your number one priority had been, and always would be making sure Ethan was provided for. 

So what exactly were you expecting from Joel? Not that, of course. But maybe some kind of closure after all those years spent apart. Some kind of acknowledgement of your time spent together. 

When the outbreak first happened, you had spent a lot of time being angry. With Joel and Sarah, the possibility of being normal had been dangled in front of you. You realized you had wanted to be loved after being convinced by your father – and yourself – that you didn’t deserve it. Then, the second you acknowledged that you wanted it anyways, the world had literally ended. It was a little egocentric, but it sort of felt like a sign that your dad had been right all along. Some women aren’t meant to be part of a family.

Of course, Bea had proved that wrong. But losing the people you loved became a pattern. And you even to this day, you alternated between believing that it was the unfortunate reality of life, or that it was your destiny to never get what you wanted. 

Regardless, even if the way Joel is acting has caused you more turmoil than you are willing to admit, you’re not going to follow him around and beg to get back into his good graces. That’s never been your style. 

You’re tidying up the kitchen, getting ready to leave, when Ethan shuffles into the room. It’s nearly noon. 

“Hey, sleepyhead,” you say to him as drags his socked feet across the hardwood.

He grumbles his greeting and tilts his head at the bag you’re adjusting over your shoulder, as if to ask where you’re headed.

“I’m going to Maria’s,” you say. “Then I have to meet with Eugene.” 

He makes a noise of affirmation, still half-asleep, and slumps into a kitchen chair. When you look at him closely, you see the dark circles beneath his glassy eyes, his face pale. 

“You alright, honey?” you ask, putting your bag back on the countertop and approaching him. “Do you have a fever?” when you reach to press the back of your hand to his cheek he swats it away weakly. He doesn’t feel warm.

“I’m fine,” he says, crossing his arms on the countertop and burying his face in them. “I just have a headache.”

“Yeah?” you say. “You were out late last night.”

“Derek and I went to the Tipsy Bison,” his voice is muffled. 

Everything clicks into place. “Oh. Were you overserved?” 

He turns his head, but doesn’t lift it. With how long his hair has gotten, most of his face is obscured. “Maybe. But before I get a lecture, don’t worry – I’m never drinking again.”

“I’m not gonna lecture you,” you’re almost offended. “Is this really your first hangover?”

“I mean….probably not. But it’s definitely the worst.” 

“Well now you know your limits,” you say, crossing the room to pour him a glass of water and get some ibuprofen from the long-expired bottle you keep in a cabinet.

“Maybe if we were allowed to drink when we were with Bea, I would’ve learned that sooner.”

You let Ethan’s get his dig in at the last community you’d lived with before Jackson. The more time you’d spent here, the more time he’d had to convince himself that what you’d gotten yourselves into was terrible. Because you had more of a complex perspective on it, it was the one subject you avoided speaking to each other about. 

Ethan is similar to Vincent in that while he’s very sensitive, he also seems to enjoy being an instigator. Of course, spending all of his life fighting to survive in a world that wants him dead has only intensified that. Bea had been good at helping him manage his temper when he was a teenager and it became too much for you to handle. But besides that, he doesn't get into much trouble, so you aren’t going to chastise him. 

“Drink this, and take these.”

He groans, but reaches out for the aspirin and water, nursing it down with small sips. You bite back a smile. The both of you have endured much worse than a hangover, but there’s something cathartic about seeing him experience the plights of a normal twenty-something. 

“Are you hungry?”

“If I eat anything, I think I will vomit,” he lays his head back down. 

You consider asking him if he wants you to stay so you can look after him, but decide that you don’t want to encourage the habit too much. Instead, you reach out and brush a strand of hair off his cheek so you can see him more clearly, and he closes his eyes. “I bet you’ll feel better in a couple hours. Drink water. It’ll help.”

He blinks up at you, seemingly unconvinced. “I saw that guy yesterday. The weird one.” 

“What guy?”

“Tommy’s brother. What’s his name?”

“Joel?” you ask, and pretend that saying his name doesn’t almost make you shiver. 

“Yeah,” he says. “He was with Tommy at the stables. Guess they’re making him a ranger.”

“Hm.”

“I know you knew him before or whatever, but he’s definitely a weirdo. And I’m not just saying that to make you feel better.”

The whatever in his sentence is doing a lot of heavy lifting. You roll your eyes, but not maliciously. “Well, he did just get here.” You definitely don’t owe Joel anything, so you surprise yourself by defending him. 

Ethan almost ignores your response, winces, turns his head back into his arms and grumbles something to the effect of I’m dying. 

“Rest up,” you ruffle his hair and kiss the top of his head, like you’ve been doing since before he could walk, and it’s hard to stop even though sometimes it annoys him. Right now, he doesn’t protest. “I’ll bring you home some soup from the mess hall. Take it easy.” 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

It’s Tommy who lets you in once you arrive at Maria’s. She’s upstairs with the baby, he says, and tells you to wait in the living room, before you hear her frantic voice calling out for him to come help her. 

His footsteps retreat up the stairs, and you hover in the entrance to the living room, your eyes inexplicably drawn to the chalkboard with 

You glance at the little memorial that Tommy had made for Sarah and Kevin, Maria’s son. Even though you’ve seen it a million times at this point, the sight of her name, the date of her passing – the same day as Joel’s birthday – makes your stomach sink. 

That’s when you notice that you’re not alone. Sitting in a chair in the corner is the girl that you’d seen accompanying Joel. You hadn’t actually been properly introduced, you realized, and she’s staring at you like she doesn’t know what to do. She’s a cute kid, a teenager if you had to guess, her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. 

Based on how he’s been acting, you can’t imagine what Joel has told her about you. Probably nothing good. So you give her a nod and a small smile, before crossing your arms and leaning against the doorframe. 

Surprisingly, the bit of sincerity seems to warm her up a little. “I’m Ellie,” she says.

You nod again, and give her your first name. “It’s nice to meet you, Ellie. Sorry I didn’t get the chance the other day.”

She shrugs. “It didn’t seem like that was your fault.”

You let your arms drop to your sides, straighten up. “Did you uh…come to see the baby or something?” 

Ellie shakes her head no. “I’m waiting for Tommy. He’s gonna take me to see the school.” 

“Oh, that’s nice.” 

“Not really,” she says. “I think school is fucking stupid. But everyone says I have to go, because all the other kids in town do, too.”

Ethan was grown when you arrived in Jackson, and you didn’t have children of your own, so it was the one place you didn’t really frequent. “Well, you probably should but….I hear you.”

There’s an almost imperceptible smile that crosses her features. You turn your head back to stare at the staircase, waiting for the sound of Maria’s footsteps, but all you can hear is her and Tommy whispering with frantic energy as they try to put their son down for a nap. 

“You know Joel won’t tell me anything about you,” Ellie’s voice cuts in, and you turn back towards her. “But you knew him before, didn’t you?”

You’re not sure how to take this information, or…how to respond to it. So you keep your response simple. “I mean, we were neighbors.” But even that feels like a lie, and a useless one to tell. Maybe it’s a little petty, but you don’t owe it to Joel to keep his secrets, especially not after he’s treated you so poorly. So you tell her the truth. “I guess he was also…my boyfriend for a little while.”

Ellie seems taken aback by this. “What happened? Did you break his heart or something?”

“No,” you snort. “We got separated before the outbreak.” 

“Oh.” She ponders for a moment. “So then why is he so mad?”

You shrug. “I’ll let you know if I find out.” 

“Well, he’s an asshole. But I bet you already know that,” Ellie says. 

Based on the time you actually spent with Joel, you would’ve never described him that way. So if that’s really how he’s perceived, even by the people who care about him, it makes you a little sad. Losing Sarah must have changed him more than you could imagine. 

You’re already sick of thinking about him so much, so you change the subject to something that’s at least a little lighter. “How did the two of you end up together, anyways?” 

“Long story,” she answers, and you get the sense there’s something she’s holding back. Because you just met, you don’t press her any further. 

“As I’d imagine.” 

You hear boots coming down the stairs, and Tommy rounds the corner, holding a stack of photos. “I’ve been meaning to show these to you, I went home a couple years back…to Joel’s old place and mine. There wasn’t much left, but I found these.”

He passes the pictures to you, and you look down at them. You don’t think much about your old house at all. It was another thing you lost, but almost everyone did, so it didn’t really make you feel special. Still, sometimes you thought of your cozy back patio and your old friend Martini, and had accepted you’d never see them again.

The first photo in the stack is a photo of Joel and Sarah at one of his soccer games. As sweet as the gesture is, you are pretty sure you can only confront so much of your past at once, and with Joel being back in town it’s starting to get suffocating. Also, when you study the picture and realize that your memory has gotten some of Sarah’s features wrong, you’re overwhelmed with guilt. 

Hesitantly, you place the pictures down on the coffee table, and Ellie reaches for them immediately, flipping through him. “Woah,” she says. “He looks so different without all the grey hair,” she flips to a photo of him and Tommy, and glances up at him. “You look pretty much the same.” 

When you agree with her, Tommy grins, playfully tucking a piece of hair behind his ear bashfully before growing serious. “You better not tell him I showed you these.” 

“I won’t,” Ellie assures him. 

“Look at this one.” Tommy pushes another photo across the table towards you, and you peer down to look at it. “He fucking adored you.”

You remember taking the picture vividly while on vacation with Joel and Sarah, and at one point you’d had your own copy framed on your dresser. There are flowers peppered in his hair, and you both look so young, and so happy, and so oblivious, his arms around you, his lips pressed against your cheek. At the time, you really had no idea that everything you knew was about to be destroyed. 

“Nice,” you say flatly, and in an effort to keep from getting emotional, push it back across the table, and retreat to sit in a chair across the room. 

After some time, and some convincing, Tommy and Ellie leave to go on their tour of the school. When the door closes behind them, you swipe the photo from you and Joel off the table and slide it into your back pocket. You tell yourself it’s so Tommy can’t show it to Joel, but really it’s because it’s one of the only memories you have of yourself before the outbreak, when everything felt perfect. 

Just as you back away from the pictures, Maria appears at the bottom of the steps. She looks exhausted, and before either of you can speak, you wrap her in a hug. Partly because it looks like she needs it, but also because you just want to feel close to someone you trust, even if it’s only for a few seconds. “How are you holding up?” you ask. 

“I finally get some peace and I’m using it to work,” she says, leading you into the dining room, where all the paperwork is spread out. Your plan had been to write a new amendment to the town’s constitution, which then had to be approved by the council. 

Maria hadn’t stayed away from her job as the leader of the community for very long after having their son, despite your encouragement for her to take it easy. She had experience with her previous son, Kevin, but you imagined it didn’t make life with a newborn any easier. So you tried to help her out with any chance you got, especially because you knew she’d do the same for you. it was just how things between you worked. She knew even more about you than Tommy did, and you told each other everything. Well, almost everything….

“You should take a nap or something.” 

“Don’t tempt me.”

“I’m serious,” you insist. “I can write a draft while you sleep and then you and I can do the revisions together. 

She seems reluctant, but after making you swear you’d wake her if the baby starts fussing, she lies down on the couch and you begin working. 

Like your old job, you don’t really like doing this. The only job you have in Jackson that actually excites you is the work you do with Eugene, and going on patrol. But this work makes you feel the most useful. And despite the fact that you had always been skeptical of authority – you believed in her ability to keep things in Jackson running smoothly. 

About an hour later, you’d drawn up the draft and Maria stirs from her nap. The revisions don’t take very long, since you both are usually on the same page, but when you start packing your things up to go, she seems surprised. 

“Are you hanging around until dinner?” 

“No, I have to meet up with Eugene,” you say. “Plus, Ethan’s at home hungover so I told him I’d make him soup. 

“Do you think he’ll be up for dinner tomorrow night?” she asks. “Tommy keeps pestering me.”

“Well he’s still too young for his hangovers to last two days,” you smirk. “So yeah, I think he will.”

“He invited…..Joel, and Ellie,” Maria says hesitantly, watching your face. “Is that okay?”

“I mean….it’s not my dinner party.”

“You can say no. Or not come,” she offers. She hadn’t been there the day you’d seen Joel again for the first time, but it sounds like Tommy has given her the rundown. 

You shrug. As much as you don’t want to admit it, being forced into the same room as Joel is a little exciting. “I’ll go.” 

“Are you doing okay with that?” she asks. “I told Tommy not to surprise you, but he didn’t listen.”

“It’s all fine,” you say, which isn’t entirely a lie. At the end of the day, everything would be fine. The stakes weren’t life and death. When Maria seems unconvinced, you continue. “I mean, it feels like he’s being a little rude…but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

Maria lowers her eyes, pauses. “Has Tommy’s ever told you about any of the stuff Joel got him into when they were on their own?”

“Not really,” you say. “But I know they were on bad terms.” 

“I didn’t know you back then,” Maria begins. “So I don’t know what you saw in him, or what he was like. But….I don’t think he’s….I don’t know if it’s worth getting emotionally invested again.”

“Oh, bummer. As you know, reconnecting with an ex is my main priority right now.” you deflect with a smirk, but Maria doesn’t seem as amused.

“Fair,” she says. “But be careful. I saw what he did to his own brother. I don’t want it to happen to you.” 

“You don’t have to worry about me,” you assure her. “Whatever he’s done, I’ve dealt with worse.” 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

-April 20, 2024-

When Joel and Ellie arrive at Tommy’s, it’s clear immediately they aren’t the only people that were invited. 

Seeing the life that Tommy had built for himself here – a thriving community, a wife, a son – fills him with a certain level of envy. But mostly….he’s ashamed. Back when they were hunters, Joel was adamant that it was the only way they could survive, despite the horrible things they were doing. The worst part was, Joel really believed it. Now, the nightmares still chasing both of them, he realizes he was wrong. Even if Tommy won’t say it out loud, Joel knows he resents him for those days, how he’d been forced to trade away so much of his humanity. For Joel, violence came easily – shockingly so – an outlet for all his anger after losing Sarah.  But Tommy had always struggled. And even though there will always be love between them, the tension was still there. 

He’s still adjusting to life in Jackson, only leaving the house when Ellie drags him out, and when Tommy trains him to go out on patrol. It’s hard to accept that he’s not on the run anymore after the chaotic nature of the last year. Only Tommy knows his darkest secret, and he intends to keep it that way. 

While Ellie does seem somewhat hesitant to leave him alone, she does seem a lot more enthusiastic about life in Jackson. Joel knows it’s a good thing, and once again, he feels like he’s let her down by not leading by example. 

Tommy greets them both once they step inside, and Joel is polite — something he’s been trying to do more of lately. Maria gives him a tight-lipped smile, one that tells him she’s trying to be civil despite her reservations. God only knows what Tommy has told her about their time together. At least he can understand where she’s coming from. Had they met twenty years ago in Austin, they probably would’ve gotten along. Nowadays, he’s not surprised when people don’t like him, because he hates himself, too. 

But Maria still entertains them with general pleasantries and questions about how they are settling in, despite looking incredibly flustered. Ellie is more apt to answer them then he is, Joel standing by with his thumbs in his belt loops. 

Over their shoulder, Joel sees you, standing in the corner of the front room with your back turned to him, deep in conversation with your nephew. He’s smiling and telling a very animated story, at one point clapping his palms on your shoulders and shaking them violently while you giggle. It makes him think of you and Sarah. Therein lies the problem. He’s become a little more comfortable discussing his past with Ellie, but there’s a limit to what he’s capable of, especially after repressing so much for so long. 

The oven goes off, and Maria excuses herself to the kitchen, inviting Ellie to follow along. Joel and Tommy are left standing in the entryway together.

“You invited her?” Joel asks, not bothering to hide the venom in his voice. 

Tommy steps back, giving him incredulous once-over. “It’s my house, isn’t it?” 

“I don’t know what game you’re trying to-“

Tommy shoves Joel into the dining room before he can finish his thought, out of eyesight from the rest of the people in the house. “I’m not playing games, Joel. She’s family. Maybe not to you, but definitely to Maria and I. And she’s never shown you anything but kindness. So grow the fuck up.” 

Before Joel can think of another objection, the sound of a baby crying cuts through the air. Tommy freezes at the sound, until you call out from the other room. “I got him.” 

“Come on,” he says. “Maybe you can muster up the courage to hold your nephew.” 

He wants to tell Tommy that he’s trying, even if it doesn’t look like it. But it almost feels better to allow himself to be the black sheep. It makes things easier. If he keeps that door closed, he’ll never need to worry about the problems that lie on the other side. Still, he begrudgingly follows his brother in the other room. 

When he enters the front room, you’re holding Maria and Tommy’s son in your arms.  

After Joel had learned that Ethan was your nephew, he was unsurprisingly relieved. What did surprise him, however, is that some small part of himself was disappointed. Sure, if you actually had his child while you were separated it would have been devastating. But before all this, all he had wanted was a future with you, would’ve gladly given you children….really, anything you wanted.

He tries not to let his eyes linger on you too long, lost in the daydream of what could’ve been, but you meet his eyes and give him such a sterile, polite nod that it’s almost painful.

Dinner is uneventful. Joel ends up seated directly across from you, Tommy’s doing, no doubt, but you do a good enough job of engaging in conversation that you don’t spend much time looking in Joel’s direction, and when you do, he doesn’t recognize your expression. It does give him the chance to study you up close, which he hadn’t done yet, and immediately regrets. 

He’s still just as attracted to you as he’d always been. Sure, you’ve aged, but so has he – although you wear it much more gracefully. When Tommy offers to pour some bourbon into Ethan’s glass, he refuses, and for whatever reason, you stifle a laugh, the wrinkles around your eyes more prominent than they used to be. 

After dinner, when the plates have been cleared, you disappear. He can feel himself growing overwhelmed, so he steps outside onto the back patio for some air. You’re sitting on a porch step looking out at the yard, but when he steps outside, you turn.

When you register that it’s him, you return your eyes forward again, and Joel remains silent, even considers walking back inside without a word. But he stays there so long, contemplating, that you’re the first to speak up. 

“You know, if you stay here….at some point, you are gonna have to acknowledge me.” 

Joel knows he’s the antagonist right now. He’s well aware. But he can’t help himself. Despite that, there’s no malice, and no bitterness in your voice. But you are direct. 

And, because he’s never been good at refusing you, he gives you something in return. “I guess I’m just surprised to see you here….” He recalls a conversation you’d had long ago, curled against his chest, staring up at the stars together. “Being a city girl and everything.” 

You turn to look over your shoulder, gaze making him feel warm, a small smile on your face. For a split second, you’re looking at him how you used to, and then it’s gone. “It is sort of a miracle, isn’t it?” 

He ponders this, and you continue. 

“It’s good to see you, Joel,” you say softly. He wonders how you can make general pleasantries sound so sweet, and is surprised at how easily you betray yourself with the words. Though he had noticed a pattern at dinner. You weren’t nearly as guarded as you used to be. He wonders how that’s possible, if you’ve made it this far. 

“You too.”

-

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#they are getting there #eventually #anyways #but strap in #joel miller x reader #joel miller #joel miller series #joel miller imagine #joel miller fanfic #joel miller x you #the last of us #the last of us writing #tlou #tlou writing #pedro pascal #troy baker #tommy miller #pre-outbreak! joel miller x reader #joel miller fluff #joel miller x f!reader #the last of us hbo #tlou hbo #ellie williams

[bubblybloob]

Whoop I finished my reverse Damsel idea. I briefly discussed her in two other posts but I’m going to go further into her here with a better grasp on what she’s about

Pretty long ramble below, so watch out.

Basically, instead of warning her/resisting the Narrator in chapter 1, you, thinking you can’t overpower him, attempt to slay yourself. The Princesses stares at you in horror as you cut into your own neck (this is the route where you don’t initially bring the knife so she’s the more sympathetic version).

She attempts to wrench the blade from you because she has no idea why you’re doing this and doesn’t want you to die. Whether or not she gets the knife though doesn’t matter, because it’s too late and you die.

(Still am stuck on what sort of voice I want. Had a lot of suggestions on stuff like a Martyr sort of voice or one similar to the old Meek voice but the problem mostly stems from characterizing them in a different way to the other voices, which is something I can’t figure out given the situation).

Chapter 2 is titled “The Fae”.

The main room is primarily made of stone, with many unidentifiable chiseled metals and rock, but you don’t stay here for long, nor get given the option of taking the blade, as choosing to approach the blade or the basement will activate a trapdoor that will send you falling to your death. Just as you’re about to meet your demise, something grabs your palm. Looking up, you see the princess, swinging from the ceiling with you in hand.

The Fae is strange, originally she was going to be similarly shallow in nature like the Damsel, but I would compare her uncanniness more to the Razor, with a constant smile, eerie stare, and maybe an off putting voice.

She’s pretty blunt on what she wants, the satisfaction of saving you from this awful cabin and leaving together! Despite her more than ginger attitude towards you (she acts like you are made of glass), she’s actually quite egotistical, with her occasionally praising herself and puffing up whenever she receives applause from you.

She makes unintentional jabs at your incompetency and reminds you “it’s not your fault you’re not cut out for this, really! I’ll get us out of here my handsome corvid!” and sort of talks down to you and always acts like she’s the smartest in the room (and she probably is depending on what voice I make up for the route). She’s also weirdly fixated on your safety and goes above and beyond to protect you from even the smallest splinter, she’d act like you were dying if you got so much as a scratch.

(All of her traits are exacerbated to a worse degree in chapter 3).

Edit: I forgot to mention all of her behavior is inspired by the fae. I forgot that some people aren’t as well versed in fae lore. Fae are, from what I have heard, pretty selfish, manipulative, and possessive all while being downright ethereal, so I gave her a dose of all of those traits and toned it down a smidge.

Her appearance is also meant to be slightly unnerving. She has long elf like ears and eyes that are surrounded by shadow, with large black pits in the center of her eye that are impossible to tell if they are part of her pupil or not. She also gives off a very faint, white light, it’s almost imperceptible but it’s there.

Her dress is more of a skirt than anything with a sash that has long ribbon like ends that are every length all at once at any given time. They easily wrap themselves around objects even if it shouldn’t be physically possible, and she uses them to swing from the ceiling (spider princesses). Her “crown” is made up of a few translucent butterflies that seem attracted to her like magnets, occasionally they flutter about but usually they sit on her head.

I like to think that there are hints to the fact her butterflies aren’t real, just extensions of herself. They might flicker in and out of existence if she’s upset with you or stressed about something.

Another thing of note, like with some other princesses like Nightmare or Thorn or something, she has no chain. (Maybe there’s some creepy dialogue option where she reveals she broke it with her teeth or something more crazy).

Anyway, the princesses states that everything is fine and that this time around she’s going to be the one to rescue you. She fully intends for both of you to escape, and for you to just follow her lead, because she’s going to make sure you’re alright and that nothing will hurt you.

If you follow along she will save you from the dangers ahead, the basement of the cabin has been increased in size and there are rooms with rolling boulders, pits of spikes, etc. These sections aren’t too long, there’s probably like five explore options along with two or three choices you can make per room and there’s only like three of said rooms.

At the end she literally carries you out of the cabin and swings you around all like “We did it! I’m out and you’re safe! Not even a scratch on you, didn’t I do a good job?” Before mentioning how cold it is and getting taken to Ohio by the Shifting Mound.

There is another way this can end however. There are two potential ways to get to this I think.

If you keep questioning her when shes says something’s wrong at some point you get killed by some random trap while you’re distracted. You get killed and probably end up with the Skeptic.

If you don’t let her do the work and instead try to do too many things yourself you also eventually get killed by a trap and probably end up with Stubborn or Contrarian depending on your actions.

There might be a different third chapter that you can get to from another princess but idk what it would be so I’m sticking with the more direct continuation chapter.

You still don’t get the knife here and fall through another trapdoor. This time she doesn’t catch you and instead has already prepared something beneath where you fall to catch you. It’s probably just a plush room, somewhat reminiscent of the Stranger route’s soft stairs, but less existentially horrifying.

Here the princess thinks that maybe leaving the cabin with her is why you keep dying and so tries to convince you staying is the only option and that something bigger is trying to kill you off when you try to leave with her (she’s not wrong that there’s something bigger at play but she isn’t exactly right either). She’s too selfish to just let you leave without her even if her weird logic states that you’d be fine as long as she doesn’t leave with you, so all protests are shut down and she tries to force you if you complain.

If you got Skeptic there is the option of actually convincing her and that no matter what you’ll listen to her every word and you’ll escape together. She’ll listen and similar events to last time will play out, only this time the traps are deadlier but are made much more traversable due to the fact that she gives no fucks and will destroy every obstacle with ease. This time you actually leave and once again Ohio comes and gets her (I like to imagine The Narrator pulls the locked basement door trick and here she just punches through it and stares expectantly at you to turn handle from the other side with the newly created hole).

If you have Stubborn you can attempt to fight her. It probably won’t work at first because she’s the literal fae. But the Narrator, knowing you’re trying to fight now, will make the blade magically fall from the same trapdoor you fell from. And its iron touch can sizzle faerie skin. She doesn’t necessarily want to fight you, but if she has to rough you up some to get you to see things her way, she’ll do it. If you fuck up you’ll probably break something that you need to move or attack with and lose the fight, and she gets taken. If you don’t fuck up and win, same result except she’s got a knife in her chest when the mound comes and nabs her.

With Contrarian you choose to stay with her because funny boy wants to mess with the Narrator. I think maybe one of the traps somehow ends up infiltrating whatever “safe room” you’re in (probably because you’re thoughts spiraling on the thought of not actually being safe and dying again because that’s all you’ve done so far, so your perception kills you. Not sure what trap would kill you, maybe the rolling boulder crashes through the roof or something idk) and ends up fatally wounding you, making it the third time she couldn’t protect you, she stands over your body because “I had this planned, you should’ve been safe, how could this happen???” Before Ohio comes.

Whatever ending you get, she will make for a courageous heart.

I like to think you can kill her with Contrarian and get stuck with her with Stubborn, it’s just that they’d prefer and encourage you to do the opposite. The Skeptic is the only one where you can actually try to leave with her, again you can do the other options but having him is the only path where you can try to escape in the 3rd chapter.

I do have a 3rd chapter design in mind, but I’ll probably need to work on it some.

#slay the princess #stp the princess #art #my art #The Fae #this was a long one wow #I took well over an hour typing all of that #because I’m insane

[rayshippouuchiha]

TBH the lack of Real Respect Tsuna and Skull both get makes me wanna see ‘em just… Vanish. They aren’t hurt, or in trouble, but they both end up tired as hell and want like. One (1) year to themselves, without being called shit like useless or lackey or weak. So they fuck off and onto some whimsical journey across the world, probably running into the fair folk or some shit (because Tsuna’s Super Anxiety would make him a damn hard target for them, and I feel like they’d just Vibe with Skull. Immortal and all that).

Meanwhile, everyone back in Namimori is losing. their. shit. Trying to find their two dumbasses, flipping every damn stone over because they’ve Clearly been kidnapped. No One notices the note Tsuna and Skull left, because Skull still isn’t the best at writing and Tsuna’s Super Anxiety kicked in and said that if he wrote it he’d never get his goddamn vacation.

To clarify, this is meant to be (mostly) humorous, but I’m curious to see where you’d go with an idea like this. I just want Skull and Tsuna to travel the world together TBH. Feel like they’d make good brothers.

Oh oh yes. Obviously there'll be humor but, well, it's me and we all know how these things eat my brain and I have to give them some bite so:

Skull isn't really one of Arcobaleno that Tsuna generally spends much time with.

When it comes to the Strongest, the ones Tsuna's found himself spending the most time with has always been Reborn and, surprisingly enough, Fon.

Reborn is around more often than not, content to keep torturing Tsuna even if his official title has shifted from Demon Tutor to Demon Tutor/Advisor.

And Fon's tendency to stop by frequently can be chalked up to I-pin and the fact that, for some reason, the Storm seems to be under the impression that hanging around Tsuna will, somehow, help him grow closer to Hibari.

Which is something that doesn't really make much sense to Tsuna. Even after years of being dragged into and out of various ridiculous shenanigans together, and despite recent Hibari's tendency to commandeer Tsuna's bed or floor or balcony at random times to nap, Tsuna's still not convinced that Hibari actually remembers he exists whenever they're not in the same room together.

And sometimes not even then.

A part of Tsuna also suspects that the "Small Animal" title he carries now might just be Hibari's way of getting around the fact that he doesn't remember Tsuna's actual name anymore.

It is, much like most everything else involving Hibari and Tsuna's thoughts about him, confusing and difficult for Tsuna to make up his mind about.

So, besides Reborn's continued sadism and Fon regularly attempting to use Tsuna as some kind of emotional Switzerland and/or human sacrifice to Hibari, Tsuna tends to see the other Arcobaleno on a bit of a floating schedule.

Viper, as Reborn has taken to insisting everyone outside of the Varia call the Mist, tends to blip in and out every once in a while. Often bringing news from Xanxus and leaving with anything strawberry flavored in Tsuna's house and whatever money he might have in his wallet at the moment.

Lal Mirch and Colonello tend to arrive and depart together, attached at the hip now no matter how much they bicker.

Verde's version of checking in seems to come in the form of sending whatever new robot or nightmare construct he's thought of to attack Tsuna and "gather data".

But Skull?

Tsuna rarely sees Skull.

The Cloud floats in and out of town only rarely and never stays longer than absolutely necessary. Often times he's gone within the hour.

Which is, in Tsuna's opinion, actually kind of a shame.

Because the thing is, Tsuna actually likes Skull.

Oh, he hadn't a few years ago when they'd first come across each other.

No back then Tsuna had hated each new and increasingly ridiculous trap/trick/shenanigan and situation Reborn had managed to push him into.

Skull had just been another irritation on a rapidly increasing list of things Tsuna hadn't wanted to deal with.

But ,,,

Well, it hadn't taken Tsuna long to realize that Skull and he were much more alike than he'd ever thought possible back at the beginning.

And now, with a few years of Reborn and this mafia headache under his belt?

Now Skull's someone that Tsuna wouldn't actually mind seeing more of.

Even though he knows it's not likely to happen.

Mainly because Tsuna's not actually a complete idiot no matter what some people still seem to think.

Tsuna's seen enough interactions between Reborn and Skull to have a pretty good idea about where some of the chips in that relationship fall.

Plus Hyper Intuition is helpful for more than just life-or-death battles these days even if Tsuna's not made that fact as openly obvious as he might once have.

It's yet another area in which Tsuna's found he can sympathize with Skull.

Because Tsuna also has a hyper-violent sadist he half wishes he could care less about sometimes.

Which is why Tsuna's so surprised to see a familiar pair of leather-clad legs dangling over the edge of the roof when he steps out onto his balcony, desperate to escape the screaming and general chaos that has once again taken over his house.

Tsuna goes to call out only for that familiar flare of warning heat to snap his mouth closed.

Instead Tsuna does something that he wouldn't have been able to a few short years ago.

He reaches up, grabs the edge of his roof in one hand, and pulls himself up onto the tiles above him.

When he's kneeling on the roof a few seconds later Tsuna finds himself glad that he didn't make too much noise, glad that he didn't draw any attention to Skull.

Because Skull's currently laid out on Tsuna's roof, legs dangling over the side but arms pillowed behind his head, helmet settled at his hip and eyes trained on the night sky and face almost eerily blank.

It is, Tsuna can't help but think, the quietest he's ever seen Skull.

It's honestly a little unsettling.

But, worst of all somehow in Tsuna's opinion, is the fact that Skull looks ,,, tired.

He doesn't even bother to greet Tsuna beyond flicking those vibrant violet eyes in his direction before going back to his star gazing.

To Tsuna, Skull has never looked more like everything he was taught a Cloud is supposed to be than in this moment.

Cold.

Illusive.

Bound to drift away.

The thought sends a shiver of premonition down Tsuna's spine.

Tsuna finds himself laying down on the roof beside him, legs dangling over the edge and arms folded behind his head.

Their elbows are just barely brushing.

And all the while a flickering whisper in the back of Tsuna's mind sings.

"I'm tired," Tsuna finds himself saying some silent drawn-out minutes later.

A beat of silence.

"Yeah," Skull sighs, voice lower and smoother than Tsuna has ever heard it before, "me too."

"I," Tsuna pauses, swallows, feels his Intuition surge and sharpen, "I love my friends and I know they care too but sometimes I just ,,,"

Tsuna trails off because he knows that Skull understands without him ever having to finish.

"Wish you could go to sleep and wake up on the opposite end of the world so that maybe you could get some rest and peace before they inevitably find you again?" Skull offers.

"Yes," The answer practically bursts out of Tsuna.

Another beat of silence.

"I've got an airship," Skull announces.

Tsuna hears it for the offer it is.

"They'd find us," Tsuna points out softly, twisting just a bit so he's looking Skull in the face. "They'd hunt us down and drag us both back."

The smirk Skull sends him in return is far darker and slyer than any expression Tsuna's ever seen on his face before.

"Oh, malysh nebo," Skull practically purrs, "they could certainly try."

#RayRambles #KHR #Katekyo Hitman Reborn #Tsuna And Skull's Excellent Adventure AU

[fandom-chic]

Please Please Please: Chapter 9

Summary: Y/N is only a child when she and Tommy Shelby meet. The two quickly become best friends as they grow up in Small Heath. As the years go by, Y/N and Tommy realize there may be more to their friendship than they originally thought.

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Y/N

Previous chapter

Days turned into weeks that turned into a month, and suddenly, it was August. Y/N didn't care what day it was, though; all she knew was Tommy was gone.

He had been taken from her before she could say stop, before she could rationalize with him. And then, with one fatal swoop, he was gone from her life. So she did the only thing she could think to do: rest.

She lay in repose once she got back from the hospital. Her father would check on her, bring her some soup, and even attempt a conversation, but he knew his attempts were useless. She would come to him when she was ready.

She thought a summer of supposed rest and relaxation would take her mind away from the fact that her one love was heading to his death, but it did the opposite. It gave her more time to ponder, to consider the future that could have been. She imagined every part of their future together.

The wedding was meant to be perfect, and they were going to promise themselves to each other forever. The honeymoon was going to be in a small cottage in the countryside where they would eat breakfast in bed and make love under the stars. Tommy would work in his company, moving more toward the legitimate, and Y/N would teach at the school down the road. Their home would be filled with little Shelby children who would have her husband's blue eyes and her warm heart.

This was a life that could be looked upon with pride. It was not one of excess or luxury, but it was her version of perfection. She had the love of her life, her babies, and a roof over her head. It was a version of happily ever after. But now, it was over. If only she hadn't been at the lake that day, if only Tommy had been there, if only she could've talked him down, maybe they would be getting this life.

She felt like she needed someone to blame, and her immediate thought was herself. What kind of woman goes alone to a deserted location, she would wonder. She would say it was all on her, but deep down, she knew that was not true. Tommy didn't have to kill that man, but he did. And now, everything was dead. These thoughts would make her stomach squeeze itself, as if punishing her for blaming her fiance for his evil action.

She would pull her blankets up to her nose and push that thought to the depths of her mind because it meant one thing that seemed to be certain: Tommy may no longer be in her life. France was dangerous, and his life may end before it has truly even begun. That made the squeeze of her stomach turn into a pit. She knew that was the worst possibility.

These thoughts swirled in her mind until August was almost coming to a close. The sun was setting earlier, and the air was beginning to cool as fall began to wade into the town of Small Heath. Y/N spent these days trying to distract herself with literature from the likes of Jane Austen and Mary Shelley. That was what she was doing when she heard a knock at her door.

She pretended not to notice her father pop his head into the room, saying, "You have a visitor." But that made her perk up.

"Who?" She asked. Her question was quickly answered by the presence of Polly Gray. She felt like a child compared to her. Polly was truly an elegant woman, even in the peril that was Small Heath.

"It's been a while, Y/N," Polly greeted as Y/N's father shut the bedroom door. Y/N sat up and straightened her back, trying to seem as graceful as she could sprawled across her twin bed.

"It has," she responded, staring at the older woman. The seconds of silence were deafening. Y/N scooted over on the small bed, giving room for Polly to take a seat. She obliged, sitting beside the younger woman. Y/N stared at her toes as Polly stared straight ahead, both of them searching for words to say. Polly broke the silence first.

"You're probably wondering why I'm here," she said, abstaining from looking at Y/N.

"You could say that," Y/N murmured under her breath.

With a sigh, Polly continued, "Tommy leaves at the end of this week," Y/N's eyes left her feet and went to the older woman's face, "He's shipping off to France with his brothers."

There were so many things to say to this, but all Y/N could say was, "Oh," as her mind raced. He's leaving. He's leaving her. He's going into a warzone. He can only kill more men there. But he's leaving her.

"I know the last month has been," Polly thought of her words, attempting to find a way to continue, "trying. But, I know you would regret it if you didn't say a proper goodbye. Both of you would." Y/N nodded her head.

"I know, I know I should," Y/N said, moving her gaze back to her toes, "but… I don't think I know him anymore." She didn't want to look at Polly for the next part, "He killed someone, Pol."

"I know, dear." Y/N felt a hand on her back as it began to rub circles.

"I don't know how we come back from that." The words came out before Y/N could stop them. She knew she meant them as much as she loved Tommy. He would never again be that sweet boy asking her to play ball with him. That boy was long gone.

"You don't," Polly began, "but that's okay. It's a new chapter of your life, and you read along." Y/N didn't know what to say as she finally looked at Polly.

"What if I don't like what comes next?" Y/N pondered as Polly looked at the younger girl.

"How will you know what comes if you don't try?" At that, Polly rose and began to make her way to the bedroom door. Before exiting, she pulled a slip of paper out of her coat pocket and laid it on Y/N's desk.

"Here is the address and time the boys are off," Polly said, "It's up to you what to do, but I know you don't want Tommy's last memory of you to be laying in a hospital bed." She then closed the bedroom door and was gone. Y/N waited until she heard the front door shut before falling back on her bed. She traced the cracks in the ceiling with her eyes, knowing exactly what she had to do.

That Friday, she wandered to the docks. It wasn't far from her home; nothing in Small Heath was that far, to be frank. The first thing she noticed was the sniffles and tears. They came from not only the women bidding farewell to their loves but also from the soldiers too.

She watched from afar at first, watching these bitter goodbyes. She knew for many, this may be the final goodbye. She took a breath, held it in her chest, and let it out before she wandered into the crowds. Her eyes wandered, looking for a set of blue eyes.

She was surprised when she first noticed Arthur. He looked handsome in his uniform, done up in a way she had rarely seen him before. Then she noticed John, holding his wife close to him as small children grabbed at his legs. It wasn't until the final man there turned around, and she saw him, Tommy. Her Tommy. His hat rested on his head, replacing the cap that usually was there. His uniform fit him nicely, hugging his slim body.

She saw him before he saw her, but she could see his eyes wandering the crowd. He was looking for someone. He was looking for her. When he saw her, his eyes brightened. That was all she needed to see to go to her love. She felt her feet pick up and rush her across the dock. The distance quickly shortened until she flung herself into his arms. She wrapped them around his neck, squeezing him tight against her chest. His arms were resting around her waist, holding her in place against him. She placed her head on his chest as he rested his chin on top of her.

"You came," the words were a whisper, but she could hear the hint of joy there.

"Of course I did," she replied, looking up at Tommy, "I had to say goodbye." She felt his hand run through her tresses as he pulled her back to his chest.

"Thank you." The words struggled to come out of his throat as he held her tight. His arms felt stronger than before. Not exactly larger than before but more toned. She knew why and it made her shudder at the thought of what training must have been like.

"I'm sorry I didn't visit you," she murmured, knowing it was a little too late to apologize.

"I know." His words were curt; he didn't want to discuss this part of their goodbye.

"I was scared, Tommy." She felt his hands rest on her cheeks and position her face to look up at him.

"I know, Y/N. Please don't apologize for anything; you have nothing to apologize for." She knew he meant it.

"I don't know if I can forgive you for what you did to that man," his eyes shifted away from hers, "but I can learn to." Tommy didn't look back at her, and she continued, "I will wait for you, Thomas. I can't live my life without you." That was when his hands fell from her face to his sides. She let her eyes wander, and she noticed Arthur and John watching the two of them, caution in their eyes. Her gaze returned to Tommy, who finally looked back into her eyes. She didn't know what to expect. Maybe a declaration of everlasting love or a promise to wed as soon as he returned. But she didn't expect this:

"Please don't wait for a dead man," his words hit her like a brick wall. "Y/N, I'm tunneling underground. That's a death sentence."

"But, Tommy—"

"I don't think you understand, Y/N," his voice rose, "I'm not coming back." A beat passed before she raised her hands to his cheeks.

"But you will, Tommy, and I will be waiting, and we can—"

"I'm a dead man—"

"No, you're not. Stop saying that!" She yelled, matching his pitch.

"It's fucking true!" He screamed back. The silence after the storm was deafening as the lovers stared each other down. Tommy broke the gaze first, looking down at his new military boots. A tear fell down Y/N's cheek as she let her eyes rise to the sky, trying to keep the tears inside.

"Please don't say that." The words were a whisper now. She felt a pair of hands slide into hers. She looked down to see her hands in Tommy's.

"Y/N, I'm not coming back, and I think that's the best thing for you." She couldn't respond, so he continued, "You can marry a nice man, one who has no criminal record. You can have that quiet life that you deserve."

"Tommy, I don't want any life without you," she whispered; he rested his forehead against hers.

"I know, but you will learn to live. I know you will." She couldn't respond but instead held him close to her. She knew this would be the last time.

"You're breaking my heart, Tommy." He pulled her into his chest as the tears spilled over onto her cheeks. He doesn't say anything as they embrace one another, knowing it was the end. The end of something amazing. He didn't say anything when the bell rang, signaling the soldiers to say their final goodbyes. All he did was kiss her cheek before heading in the direction of the crowd. He didn't say anything when she crumbled to the ground, letting her emotions take her over as he sailed off.

She wasn't sure if this was the last time she would see Tommy Shelby. She wasn't ready to accept that. She didn't accept it until 1919, when she did see his face again.

Next chapter

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[duchess7878]

Part 1/2

I saw this request from tumblr user lelandswife and wanted to deliver for you! I hope it’s to your liking :) If it’s too short let me know and I’ll try and write you a longer version :)

Warnings: murder, kidnapping, Stockholm syndrome

The family could only watch as Johnny tore apart the house-shouting and screaming about you. When Johnny had gone to go fetch you for supper, you were nowhere to be found. Not in the house, the barn, the shed, the car graveyard. Anywhere. Johnny at first tried to think rationally, but it didn’t last long. Within 10 minutes of searching, it didn’t take much to piece together what has happened. You left. No-you left him. The rage Johnny felt was like no other. People had gotten away before and it only ever excites him, especially for the chase, but this time was different. He was panting heavily, his chest rising and falling with every breath.

“Nobody escapes me.” He growled and immediately headed out the door in search of you. To Johnny, you were weak and he figured that you wouldn’t make it far before you’d had enough.

Johnny checked around the property for any sign of your footprints. Out by the front driveway, Johnny spotted a small indent in the dirt; one he knew wasn’t there before. He bent down to the print, swiping two fingers across the tracks before smelling it and standing back up.

“I know you’re close my little bunny.” He grinned, bloodlust and lust filling his body simultaneously.

“Why don’t you just come on out and we’ll forget this ever happened?” He lied, but hoping it would work anyway.

He wasn’t going to let you forget. When he got a hold of you, he would make sure that you knew who you belong to and you don’t get to leave. He would tie you down and fuck you for hours until you were begging for him to stop and then he’d fuck you some more. Once he was done, he planned on where he’d be carving his name onto you. Your chest? Your stomach? Leg? Arm? Neck maybe if he was careful? Either way, you’d never forget. Ever. He would make sure of that.

You were crouched down in the shed about 30 feet from where Johnny was standing. You didn’t even make it off of the property before Johnny realized you were gone. You should’ve known better, but you had fallen for him like a complete idiot. He kidnapped you and originally meant to kill you.

This wasn’t a normal relationship by any means. Johnny is dangerous and deadly, but for some reason-you didn’t care. You fell for Johnny not long into your disappearance and for the longest, you didn’t even think about leaving. You were so badly wrapped up in the fantasy world in your head, you didn’t realize you had been gone for almost a year. But it was hard to ignore that part of Johnny when he had come home the night before carrying a corpse, drenched in blood, and wearing the most sadistic smile you had ever seen. The corpse he was holding was another girl your age and it immediately hit you like a train. That was going to be you at first, but something about you was different. However, it didn’t change the fact of what Johnny was-a killer and that’s it. The year that you had spent with him shouldn’t have happened.

You were so wrapped up in your thoughts you hadn’t even noticed the jean-clad legs that had planted themselves in front of you.

“Aw, you leaving’ so soon?” He asked, leaning down and grabbing your hair, yanking you to your feet.

“Johnny wait, please.” You begged, tears streaming down my face in fear of what he had planned.

“Oh no sweet pea, we’re going back home right now.” He ordered and continued to pull you by your hair back to the house. Once there, he dragged you inside and up to his room. He wasted no time and shoved you towards the bed and you stumbled back falling onto it. He stalked towards you and crawled on top of you looking down and studying your face.

“You’re gonna be taught a lesson, one that you’ll never forget.” He leaned down and kissed me harshly biting my lip and panting heavily. You felt his hands viciously roaming your torso, touching and squeezing anything he could reach. You heard his bedside drawer open before you felt something heavy and cold being put around your wrists. He brought your hands above your head and chained you to the bed post.

“Get comfortable darlin’. It’s going to be a long night.” He warned, sitting up to begin disrobing.

Here’s part two if you’re interested :)

#johnny slaughter x reader #johnny slaughter #johnny tcm #texas chainsaw massacre #texas chainsaw game

[ohbo-ohno]

happy new year's eve @luminousbeings-crudematter, here's another version of the purge au (4k) that i forgot i finished in the process of trying to get the first one done lol

(also when i said "it's essentially the same thing but with different smut" i meant... no smut. i didn't post this one bc i couldn't figure out what to do with the smut. but this has some kidnapping and overall rough creepiness!)

cw: noncon touching, kidnapping, graphic murder, blood & violence, unedited bc im lazy

The soles of your feet burn against the hot asphalt, even though the sun’s been set for hours. The flames roaring from the burning high school alongside you are enough to heat the ground, enough to leave you wincing with every step and trying your best to walk on your toes.

You’re not sure if the wetness on your cheeks is tears or blood, or some sick combination of both. You’d wipe it off to see, but your hands are covered in red, and you don’t want to smear it across your face.

It’s impossible not to flinch at the sudden sound of cackling laughter, some indeterminate distance away but clear as a bell. The laugh cuts off abruptly, followed by a high-pitched scream that makes you wince. You speed up as much as you can, breath shuddering in your chest. You feel a few tears slip down your cheeks, just adding to the tacky mixture already covering your face.

The street is crowded with Purgers, people wearing all sorts of different gear to make themselves seem as terrifying as possible. You’d feel lacking in your black pants and shirt, if you wanted any attention like them. Instead you pray that whoever’s looking for fun won’t focus on you, that you’ll disappear with so many other distractions out tonight.

The sound of a chainsaw revving makes you shudder, and you tuck your arms close to your chest. 

You can’t believe you were stupid enough to come out on Purge night, but there’s no use dwelling on that now, not when you’re still blocks away from home with absolutely no way to defend yourself.

You should’ve known your friend - your now very dead friend - didn’t have good intentions. She’d invited you out with her to vandalize your most recent ex’s house, and like an idiot you’d agreed and walked yourself right into a trap. Your only defense is that you’d had a few drinks before leaving your perfectly safe apartment, in hopes of forgetting all the screams you’d hear outside. It’s the only reason you can think that you were so quick to agree when you’ve got absolutely no way of defending yourself.

Her blood is still wet on your hands. You don’t feel bad about her death, and that makes you feel sick. You’d never thought you’d be the kind of person to actually partake in the Purge, let alone kill during it, but here you are - stumbling home covered in blood with two deaths on your hands. The fact that it was self-defense isn’t nearly as much of a comfort as you need to make your heart beat less erratically, to make the blood stop burning against your skin.

The quick flashes of their deaths won’t stop playing on repeat in your mind - you would’ve died if you’d been any less lucky, and you doubt your piece of shit ex would have made it quick. 

If you hadn’t caught them together - your friend fucking him in the bed you used to sleep in, that fucking bitch - you might not have had the anger necessary to kill them. Might not have had the rage, the energy, to stab them both until they stopped screaming.

Your arms already ache from the force you’d used. You can’t stop seeing your friend’s face, torn to shreds beneath you, blood splattering up onto your own face and neck while your ex’s corpse cooled beside you. You’re not sure if you’re hearing her screams still, or if someone nearby is suffering just like she had.

The only thing you can bring yourself to regret is leaving behind the knife. It would come in handy now, as you walk alone down one of the poorest neighborhoods in your city.

It would come in especially handy as a hand grabs your shoulder, yanking you to the side and into an alleyway, shoving you against rough bricks and ignoring your yelp.

“Well, well, look’it you…” the man drawls, his face hidden by a bright red skull and a black hood covering the rest of his head. “Wha’s a bonnie lass like you doin’ out tonight, all alone?”

You can’t speak, heart thudding painfully at your ribcage as you blink up at him. He’s all you can see, just a bright red skull floating in place.

“Please,” you manage to gasp, hands shakily raised in front of your chest.

“Please? Please what?” His words are sharp, almost bitten off, and he leans closer. “Haven’t even threatened ye yet, pretty thing. What’re you beggin’ for?”

You whimper as he leans closer, hardly inches away from your face, and a loud boom from somewhere nearby shakes the wall at your back. You still can’t tell if it’s blood or tears dripping down your face. You jump at the sound, and your chest hits his. Before you can move back, his hands are on your shoulders, keeping you pressed to him.

“Oh, did that scare you?” He coos, patronizing and mean. “You a little scaredy cat, all alone and afraid?”

You sob, hands pushing at his chest, and he makes a sound somewhere between a hum and a laugh, pushes you against the wall without pulling even an inch away.

“No, no, you’re not goin’ anywhere. ‘S not safe out there for you, kitty. It was so easy to grab you, you want someone else to get a hold of you? They won’t be as nice as me, I can tell you that.” 

“Get- get off!”

He laughs, loud and rough, right in your face. “Oh, I’ll be gettin’ off, kitty. Might take some teamwork, huh? A good way to get to know my new friend-”

He cuts himself off with a sharp Oh! as your knee jerks up into his crotch, the man doubling over in pain and groaning as his head comes to rest against the wall by your face. You barely have enough sense left in you to duck out of his way before his body goes limp against the wall, hand cupping your target.

“Fuckin’ bitch,” you hear him hiss, right before you stumble away, legs weak as you put all your energy into not tripping over your own feet. Your only thought is getting out of the alley, even though being more exposed is probably riskier than just taking your chances with the man in the red skull. Still, there’s some instinct at the back of your mind telling you go, run, and you’re not stupid enough to ignore it.

You hardly make it five steps away before you hit a wall - no, not a wall, a person. 

It’s almost comical, the way you bounce off of him and stumble backwards, losing your balance on weak knees and sending yourself straight to the ground. He’s a monolith above you, a massive figure clothed in all black, the light from the flames behind him almost making him glow. He’s all black cloth and white mask, a skull hovering well past six feet in the air.

The sight of him makes your heart stutter, brings everything into acute focus around you, slowing the world down to a near stop. That same instinct at the back of your mind tells you this man is worse than the last, that you should’ve taken your chances with the red skull. 

You’re jerked back and to the side, shoved roughly against the brick wall. Your face scrunches up at the rough texture against your cheek, your torso flush against the wall and the first man flush against your back. You manage to open one eye and track the new man, your other forced shut from the way your head is angled.

The white skull tilts, and its wearer steps closer. You can’t help the small cry you let out, the way you flinch back into the first man like he’ll do anything but expose you more. His hands are rough on you, one hand locked around the back of your neck and the other harsh on your hip.

The body behind you laughs, push further into the wall regardless of the stinging pain as the white skull steps closer. He stops hardly a foot away, when your vision is eclipsed by only him. You try to struggle against the hands holding you, whimpering when they dig in more harshly.

“You got her?” A voice asks, and it takes a minute for you to realize it’s the new man in front of you.

“Yeah,” the first man pants, holding you close and alleviating some of the pressure against your cheek. “Woulda caught her without you, y’know. She just caught me off guard.”

The white skull rumbles low in his chest, a rejection. You’re not sure if he’s got faith in your ability to escape, or doesn’t trust his partner’s ability to chase. He’s close enough that you can only see the black of his chest, close enough that you can watch him breathe.

“I’m sure. You got a good hold on her?”

The hands squeeze, you can’t help but make a sound disturbingly close to a squeal, and- “Yeah, course, got her tight to me, Ghost. She’s not goin’ anywhere.” There’s an air of desperation in Red’s voice, a strained tension underlying every word. He’s almost eager, but it’s all directed towards the man in front of you - Ghost - instead of towards the prospect of hurting you.

Ghost doesn’t respond, but he steps close enough to press his chest against your shoulder. The three of you are all less than a foot apart, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to get away. Another tear slips down your cheek.

You can feel Red’s chest heaving behind you, and at first you can’t understand why - he hasn’t had to chase you, hasn’t had to fight, there’s no reason for him to be out of breath.

It hits you when you feel the hard plastic of his mask press into the top of your head. He’s eager, and it’s making him pant like a dog. You’d bet he’s drooling behind the mask and the thought makes you shiver.

You flinch when a gloved hand cups your chin, tugging your face up so you’re staring into the eye sockets of the mask.

His eyes are dark brown, so dark that you almost can’t see them past the shadows and the paint over his skin. The flames roar behind him, giving him a monstrous glow.

“Pretty thing,” he hums, chest rumbling against your side. You try to push away from him, but there’s nowhere to go. “You’re gonna be our little toy for the night. Things’ll get worse for you if you try to run. You hearin’ me?”

It’s pure instinct to nod, to give this man what he wants, but you know you’ll still try to run the second they look away. 

“Alright then. Let’s get you home. Johnny,” the man steps away, jerking his head in clear instruction for Johnny to follow and turning away. “Come.”

“Right behind ye,” Red - Johnny - assures, that same eagerness in his tone as he tugs you away from the wall, trotting behind his partner. “It’s gonna be a great night, lass. You and I are gonna have fun.”

You can’t help but whimper at that, letting your body go nearly limp as the man drags you by the elbow. You can’t even fathom the horrors they’ve got in store for you, what fun is to two men hunting for lone girls on Purge night. 

You try to let your feet drag, but they hurt too much for that to last long. You consider going limp, making them carry you, but you’re too scared that they’ll just drag you across the concrete and let you bleed. 

You only manage to keep up with Johnny because he doesn’t give you another choice. You’re practically hobbling from the pain in your feet, forced to walk on the balls of your feet and lean your weight into his hand where it’s wrapped tight around your arm. He doesn’t give you any slack, doesn’t even seem to notice when you struggle to match his pace.

The three of you have walked several blocks - you can’t quite focus enough to count - keeping to the sides of buildings and dodging other people, when you’re tackled to the ground out of nowhere.

It’s impossible to stop the blood-curdling shriek from leaving your throat. Your bare arms feel torn to shreds as you slide across the ground, head bouncing off the ground and leaving you with black spots dancing across your vision.

You’re hardly able to blink, body alight with pain, and the heavy weight over you only serves to make your panic worse. You moan as you roll your neck, staring wide-eyed up at the dark sky and praying the ringing in your ears isn’t permanent.

Your vision is just starting to clear when the man on top of you - and he’s definitely a man, he’s not even wearing a mask and his expression is mean and you find yourself glad you can’t hear what he’s saying - jerks back, his head pulled back until all you can see is his bared throat. 

You can hardly even register what’s happening in the next few seconds. Some distant, detached part of you can recognize that someone slits the man’s throat, that his blood comes gushing out and covers your face.

The first sound you can hear again is your own screaming - it’s an ear splitting sound that melts from the ringing in your ears. When you gasp underneath the man, the corpse, you can feel his blood falling into your mouth. Every breath tastes like iron, and the world is tinted pink from the drops of it falling from your brows.

You can do nothing but pant and shake when the corpse is thrown off of you, replaced immediately by Johnny. You can hardly focus on him, are only really aware enough to know he’s there.

“Hush, bonnie, yer fine,” he scolds, one big hand coming up to cover your mouth, pinky and ring finger holding your jaw shut. “Wanna draw people over? Ye wanna see me and Ghost kill someone else for you, ‘s that it?”

You shake your head on instinct, tears running down your temples, dampening your hair. Your chest aches with the force of your breaths, nose congested from all the crying. 

“Then hush,” he hisses, face so close that you can feel the breaths from his nostrils. You flinch at the loud sound of gunshots disturbingly nearby, desperately pushing against his body to try and see what’s going on. You can hear grunts and moans, the sound of something heavy hitting the ground, and your heart races.

Then, the sounds stop. It doesn’t go silent - not with other Purgers still out, still killing - but the area you’re trapped in is quiet again. Johnny drops a little more of his weight onto you, making it even harder to breathe. 

You have to focus on every breath, deliberately making sure you get enough air so that your lungs stop aching. You only notice the movement on top of you after nearly a minute of slow breathing.

Johnny’s hips grind slow and steady against your stomach, and it makes you sick to realize you can feel his erection through his pants. His chest rises and falls with harsh breaths, and his movements are just harsh enough to force your body to move with his.

There’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. Not with shock settling in, his weight holding you pinned to the ground, and the pain in your head shifting to something closer to a migraine. All you can do is focus on your breathing and stare up at the stars.

“Johnny,” Ghost eventually calls, and you can hear him kick what you can only assume to be a corpse out of the way. You can’t help but whimper when he crouches nearby, his boots splattered with blood. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Need-” Johnny gasps, hips stuttering against you before working even more quickly. “Needed to feel her, fuck, Ghost, she’s so fuckin’ soft. Can’t wait to be inside, to fuck her full, feel her squeeze-”

You whine against the hand over your mouth, trying to pull your face away from his grip and only succeeding in dragging your sensitive head across the harsh concrete.

“You’re gonna fuck her out here, where anyone can see? Doubt you’ll be able to keep her safe when you’re pussydrunk.”

Johnny moans above you, dropping more of his weight on each thrust. “Tha’s why you’re here, yeah? To keep me and the lass safe?”

Ghost grunts, fisting a hand in the strip of hair left revealed by Johnny’s mask. “Don’t be a fuckin’ brat, Johnny. You know I don’t have to do shit for you - either of you. Maybe I want to see my mutt get all defensive, growlin’ over his girl. You ever think about that?”

The whine that slips from Johnny’s throat is nothing less than pathetic, his pace becoming uneven as his eyes screw shut behind the mask. “C’mon, Ghost, I’m close, just let me… just watch for another minute, yeah?”

The scoff from Ghost is mean, and even you feel the absurd desire to try and placate the man. He stands abruptly, stepping away from where you’re pinned and leaving you staring at the cooling corpse of a man you don’t recognize.

“You do whatever you want, puppy. Stay here and get yourself off or behave and heel. You know what you’ll get either way.”

You can’t help but furrow your eyebrows as Johnny hisses out shit above you, hips working desperately against you for a few long moments before he drops his entire body weight onto you, knocking the air out of you.

“Okay,” he whispers, seemingly to himself. “Okay, alright, it’s fine. It’s fine.”

He pulls himself away from you with a long oan, pushing up until there’s no place the two of you are touching but you’re still entirely caged in by him. He takes his hand off your mouth to hold himself up and you wince at the string of blood between his hand and your lips.

“Not gonna fuck ye yet, kitty,” he tells you, staring into your eyes with an intensity you don’t quite know what to do with. “Ghost’ll make the both of us regret it, and ye don’t deserve that on your first night home.”

You hardly manage to bite back a whimper. “Please…”

His eyes crease, like he’s smiling beneath the mask. “God, yer so scared, aren’t ye? I can fucking taste it in the air, kitty. It’s delicious. Cannae fuckin’ wait to have you on my tongue.” You shudder, eyes dropping to his neck when his gaze becomes too heavy.

He forces you to stand before you’re ready, leaving you to lean on him if only to avoid crumbling to the ground like a ragdoll. You ite your tongue against a sob at the sight of three corpses around you, a twisted sense of appreciation and disgust warring in your mind.

Johnny herds you like a dog, pushing you by the small of your back and your shoulders as he tries to catch back up with his partner. You’re left stumbling in front of him, unsure and terrified, not quite strong enough to think running away would be a good idea. It doesn’t take long for you to spot Ghost’s large back on the street in front of you, and a part of you resents the fact that he’s already so recognizable. 

He’s an overeager shadow, unable to decide if he wants to tug you forward or chase you from behind. He ends up almost circling you, shifting from your back to your side to your front and back again, always moving, always rushing. It leaves you unstable and nervous, unable to predict what he'll do next.

Chills run down your spine at the thought of this man… taking you. If you’re this terrified of him fully clothed, you’re loath to think of how you’ll react when he gets you where he wants you.

The two of you only manage to catch up to Ghost because he stops for a cigarette. His pale jaw is exposed when he tugs the mask up enough, and you try your best to memorize the scars covering his face, telling yourself that you’ll remember him, that you’ll never let him near you again once this night is over.

The look he sends Johnny is approving, the look he sends you is distinctly smug. It makes your teeth grind, makes you really wish you still had that knife so you could lurch forward, thrust the blade into the solid center of him and twist, pull out again and aim a little higher, then again, then again, then again-

“Made your choice, then?”

“Yes, sir. Wanna be good.”

Ghost hums, flicking the butt of his cig then dropping it to the ground, the cherry still glowing. “Settin’ a good example for your girl, huh? That’s my boy.”

The sound Johnny makes is animalistic, and despite the harsh grip he’s got on your arm you try to lean as far away as possible. There’s a building energy under his skin, a twitch in his fingers, that unnerves the animal part of your brain in ways Ghost doesn’t. 

“‘Course. Gonna teach her how to be good, too, gonna keep her perfect for us.”

Ghost is completely stoic with the mask tugged back over his face, nothing but his heavy gaze as he stares you down. It’s hard not to jerk away from Johnny and run, no matter how futile you know the effort would be. 

He reaches out a big, gloved hand towards your face, moving quickly enough that you can’t fully flinch away and hide your face in your shoulder or chest. His thumb strokes across your cheekbone, smearing the sticky mess of liquid across your face and huffing a sound just loud enough for you to hear.

“Cat got your tongue, girl?” He rumbles, a faint note of something in his voice lost in the sounds of anarchy behind you.

You try to shake your head, unable to manage anything more than a, “Please.”

Johnny scoffs beside you, wrapping both of his massive arms around your shoulders and holding you close. “Broken record, this one. Hasn’t said much else since we nicked her.”

“That’s alright,” Ghost rumbles, give Johnny one firm stroke over his mohawk. “I’m sure you’ll drag all sorts of pretty sounds out of her tonight. Now, let’s get goin’. Don’t want your little toy gettin’ her nerve up and earnin’ herself a punishment so early in the night. Come, now.”

Johnny laughs, loud and harsh as he tugs you to follow him and Ghost. You know you should be upset about what he’s said, know he should be doing exactly what he warns against and try to get away.

But you’ve got no energy left to fight. Everything hurts, your system is overrun by fear and just the tiniest drop of adrenaline, and your best chance of making it through this night is passing out and forgetting any of it ever happened.  

A few tears, stragglers, drip down your cheeks when Johnny tugs you beside him. The places his fingertips squeeze against your arm have gone numb, and your feet feel like they’re on fire. Your arms are sluggishly bleeding and you’re not convinced you don’t have a concussion.

It’s hard to hold back sobs when you think of how much worse it’s going to get. Staring at the broad back of Ghost, feeling the feral energy of Johnny hardly contained by your side, all you can hope is that they let you survive the night.

You close your eyes as Johnny guides you, take a deep, steadying breath, and pray for your own strength. You tell yourself that maybe next year you can seek them out, find them at the very start of the Purge and get your revenge.

It’s a comforting enough daydream to lessen the aches of your body, to shine a spot of light after the hurricane of your future. 

#this might very well be incomprehensible #when i say unedited i mean i haven't read this since i originally gave up on it #i just remember liking the way i wrote johnny and being said i wouldnt get to post it LMAO #anyways. no one say anything mean about it to me if it sucks #remember that this is not the first version i posted lmao #ghoap x reader #bo writes #dark fic #also sorry for the random tag lumi lmk if you want me to untag you lol

[kess-in-the-perthchimzone]

I actually am not going to have much to say about this episode because to me it is perfect in every single way.

We had to see that Kang was still scared. He still felt like he had to choose loyalty to his father. Because in his mind, Sailom’s brother hurt Kang’s family and that meant they had no future together.

This was important because it makes the weight of what comes later that much more significant.

And we had to see that Sailom was still further and further isolating himself.

Everything that happened in part 1 was very hard to watch!! It was the worst of both their personalities, dialed up to ten! Even I (briefly) doubted that they could win me back over to Kang.

But when it broke, it broke beautifully!! And THIS TIME, unlike in the escort scene, they were able to shape themselves into better versions of themselves, together.

After the shooting, Sailom let Kang lead. Let him make the decisions for him at a time when he couldn’t process anything, let alone make a plan.

He let himself be taken care of.

And he let himself CRY — openly, even knowing Kang could see through the glass door. He let himself grieve their relationship for the very first time.

And Kang!! Kang finally realized the true weight of his words. He understood fully how he had failed and how he needed to be better.

And he spent Every Single Minute after that making up for it. Holding Sailom while he slept.

Protecting Sailom.

Truly listening to Sailom and putting his faith in him.

Protecting him some more!!!

Reassuring him.

And THEN in the moment when it most mattered, Kang risked his life to save Sailom’s. He literally took a bullet for him.

This completely unspoken exchange means everything. This is Sailom CHOOSING TO BELIEVE that despite everything that’s happened Kang loves him.

This is Kang saying, I am always always going to take care of you. Even when it’s hard. Even when it physically hurts to do so

This is Sailom finding true peace in that. Him knowing his life will be easier moving forward because he has someone who can share the load.

I love them so much. I’m so grateful for this beautiful love story we’ve gotten to experience.

#kanghansailom #dangerous romance #dangerous romance the series #kess babbles about dangerous romance

[hermesmyplatonicbeloved]

Annabeth and Percy/Annabeth Content (Critical)

DO NOT INTERACT if you like Annabeth, or if you like Percy/Annabeth.

If some of the things Annabeth says or does to Percy makes you uncomfortable, or if you're just questioning some of it (unsure about following mainstream Percabeth shipping) then this is for you.

This is part thirteen of my masterpost (that had too many links so I had to break it up lol).

Anyways, this section is all criticisms about the Percy/Annabeth ship, and some of Annabeth's behavior in the book series. Beware; this is not Annabeth friendly. I'm constantly editing and adding new links and content so please check out the original post on my blog for the updated version.

Enjoy!

Percy/Annabeth in PJO:

Double standards for Percy/Annabeth with paying respect to the other's immortal parent

Percabeth was only possible because Rachel and Luke took themselves out of the competition

Many of Percabeth’s scenes feel so much like foreshadowing for a realization from Percy that he’s in an abusive relationship (someone else's post but I agree 100%)

Percy is Annabeth’s rebound because her first love turned into an evil overlord and died.

Every time Annabeth is mean to Percy in PJO + Staff of Hermes (not mine, idk if I agree with all of these but it's an interesting list).

Annabeth is Percy's rebound from Rachel; and Percy is Annabeth's rebound from Luke.

Percy/Annabeth in HoO+:

Trust and Vulnerability in Percy/Annabeth's Relationship + Someone else's thoughts why Percy rarely opens up

Tartarus made Percy and Annabeth into the worst version of themselves

The judo flip + Percy's mortal spot: A Murder Attempt?!

A poll I conducted to see what Percabeth fans thought of the flip, and how/if that affected their shipping of Percabeth

Commentary on the Judo Flip by Piper Mcclean

Commentary on how well Percy and Annabeth know each other's backstories by Piper Mcclean

Comparison: Annabeth seeing Percy at his most powerful vs. Nico seeing Percy at his most powerful.

Percy/Annabeth fans claim everything Percy does is about Annabeth - Disproved

A poll I conducted to see what Percabeth fans thought of the "some things [poison] aren't meant to be controlled" scene

Discussions on Percy being scared of Annabeth, fans romantizing that and the effects of Rick's shitty, shitty writing

Commentary: Percy commenting on Annabeth's victim blaming tendencies

General: Percy deserves better (not mine but I agree)

Moment in the KC crossover where Percy admits he fears Annabeth

Percy's unaddressed trauma + Annabeth's tendency to get mad at/make fun of/insult Percy (not mine but I agree)

The judo-flip was done out of anger and as a (unrightful) punishment (not mine but I agree)

Percabeth stans are Annabeth stans and anti-Percabeth ppl are Percy stans: a theory

Percy/Annabeth in CoTG:

An Analysis of Percy/Annabeth's life together as adults

Criticism of Percy and Annabeth's relationship "Perc@beth is the gold standard and no-one is doing it like them."

Top tier analysis of what Percy/Annabeth's relationship outside of trauma bonding and wartime (and a few other topics like emotional vulnerability and jealously/insecurities). (not mine but I agree with it)

Annabeth (Critical) Content:

Fans give Annabeth credit for things she didn't do

Is Annabeth as badass, formidable in battle strategy and leadership as her fans claims she is? Evidence from the books.

Annabeth views Percy as a replacement for Luke (not mine, but I agree)

Annabeth stalks Percy with her invisibility cap while he's changing his clothes (pre-relationship).

Poll: What type of Annabeth Chase fan are you?

Anon ask: Annabeth's pattern of turning Percy's female friends against him (in the sense that they're still friends but they insult him jokingly to appease Annabeth)

Annabeth called Percy the coward when in reality she was the coward for never communicating (not mine but I agree).

Annabeth stans like to distract everyone from Annabeth's embarrassing crush on Luke & her Luke apologism by pointing at Luke and unjustly saying pedo.

A short spiel about general redemption arcs that I think would apply to Annabeth - no actual analysis relating it to PJO tho.

Annabeth stans really be out there saying that she has the most tragic backstory in PJO like no other character exists

Annabeth is incredibly aggressive to anyone who challenges her or doesn't fit into her perfect worldview/plan.

Annabeth stans may like her because they see themselves in her? (the aggression, entitlement, jealously etc.)

Poll: Does Annabeth acknowledge that Percy is smart?

Annabeth's worst crime is how she treated Tyson

#anti annabeth #anti annabeth chase #anti percabeth #anti percy/annabeth #percy jackson #pjo #hoo #heroes of olympus #cotg #chalice of the gods #navigation #masterpost #masterlist #mine