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kitten4sannie · 4 months

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pairing: ex! san x fem! reader feat. wingman seonghwa and instigator mingi

genres: omg actual plot ??, exes to lovers, romance, angst with a happy ending, fluff, an attempt at humor, smut finale

summary: during a winter getaway with your friends, you end up having to come face to face with Choi San, the man who broke your heart in two just last christmas.

w.c: 8.2k

tags: features the unholy trinity: misunderstandings/miscommunication/messiness, drama (i bring drama-ma-ma-ma~), alcohol use, mutual jealousy, mutual pining, lots of banter, third parties, poor sannie and reader are just two big dummies with even bigger hearts </3,, like 20 flashbacks (okay it’s like 2 but i like being dramatic sue me), too many winter analogies, insecurities, confessions, l bombs, tears, all that jazz

warnings: soft dom! san (literally the softest dom to ever exist IM SICK), subby! reader, pussydrunk san and cockdrunk reader (like these mfs are so desperate for each other it’s actually disgusting), dirty talk, pet names, praise, possessiveness, kissing, a lot of spit (leave me alone!!!), tit play, grinding, body worship, oral (receiving), passionate condomless lovemaking by the fire baybeeeee, breeding kink, bulge kink, creampies

a/n: so i listen to last christmas religiously every year and while i was jamming my hamster brain was like “WRITE WRITE WRITE” so i diddd and yeahh this happened??? lmao but fr this was the most fun i’ve ever had writing since feb filth fest…. like wtf. i gotta write plot forward fics more often this shit’s like a drug man. anyways i hope you enjoy my dear lovelies <33

*shoutout to my sweetheart bunbun @cottoncandy-girl for beta reading and hyping this fic up during the writing process. i would’ve second guessed myself twice as much if not for you. you’re a lifesaver!! mwah mwah ~~

song rec for the general vibe: last christmas by wham obv <3, fool by frankie cosmos, snowfall (slowed and reverb) by oneheart, know me by gemini, easily by bruno major, flowers and chocolate by eyedress

angst: pleaser by the wallows, do me right by gemini, homesick by wave to earth, cherie by hojean

smut: mice city by hotel ugly, between your thighs by jimmy brown, lock me in by hojean, touch by keshi, your love by brb

Masterlist

“Hey, Y/N,” your best friend began, walking around the side of your beat-up car to the trunk where you were busy shoving various suitcases and bags into the small space and trying to make them fit. “So, don’t get mad, but–”

With a case of wine bottles in hand, you slowly set it down on the lip of the trunk, side-eyeing your friend with the intensity of a thousand suns. It was so powerful, it’d probably melt the snow that had been falling around your feet for the past thirty minutes. “Why would I be mad? What’s going on?”

“Just breathe for me, okay?” she sighed, bringing a hand up to play with a few strands of her hair. “So, you know how Seonghwa’s coming up to the cabin with us?”

“Um, yeah…? I don’t care about you bringing your boyfriend with us, you know. Just let me know if you’re gonna fuck so I can put my headphones on,” you replied, lifting the case up and pushing it inside the empty space of the trunk, satisfied that your long game of tetris was finally complete.

She quickly waved her hands, shaking her head. “No, that’s not…” she started, taking in a deep inhale, before letting it out, a wave of condensation hitting the cold air between the two of you. “He invited…someone. Someone you know.”

You bent down into the trunk to move a few items around, making sure they wouldn’t collapse on each other. “Okay? I only know you and a few other people, bestie. Who could it possibly be–”

“It’s San,” she finally blurted out, her face scrunching up in anticipation of your reaction.

Once your ex was spoken into existence again, a flood of memories from the previous year bombarded your defenseless brain and heart, causing you to stand up so quickly, you hit your head on the edge of the trunk lid.

“Oh my god, Y/N, are you okay?” your friend gasped, already at your side, helping you stand up straight and placing her hand on the one you had held against the back of your head.

“Oh, yeah, I’m good. I think that just knocked all the bad memories out of my brain. Ready to head out?” you chimed, giving her a thumbs up with your keys in hand, stumbling a bit in place, your vision fading out slightly.

Sighing, your friend reached for the keys. “Yeah, I’m driving.”

❆ ❆ ❆

Your friend pulled her keys out of the ignition once she parked in a free space near the cabin you’d both be staying at, turning her head to observe the way you were playing with the drawstrings of your joggers with a pout on your sullen face. “Y/N, are you sure you’re okay? You know, we’re visiting everyone else later, so you can always stay at their cabin, if you’d like. It’s much bigger and has wifi, and definitely won’t have S–”

“I’m not a little bitch,” you suddenly whined, your eyebrows furrowed, your pout growing. “I can handle being in the same cabin with my dumbass ex, okay? I don’t even care that he’s here, actually.”

She nodded her head knowingly, giving you a gentle smile. “Just let me know if you’re uncomfortable, please. And if he starts up with one of his…unique personalities, tell me or Seonghwa, alright? He knows how to handle him.”

“I can handle him myself. There’s plenty of snow for me to toss him into, or some flames if our cabin has a fireplace,” you muttered, too stubborn to admit that your heart would most likely explode as soon as you had the displeasure of witnessing his disgustingly handsome face and charming dimpled smile.

Your friend shook her head slightly, unable to keep from smiling in your direction. “There is a fireplace, yeah.”

You sighed contentedly, admiring the expanse of dense snow, the sundry of oversized pine trees, the far away mountains covered in white, and the cluster of cozy-looking cabins beyond the frosted windshield. “Finally, some good news.”

Once you both got to the front steps of the cabin you’d be staying at, your arms full of the items that you could bring from the car, the front door swung open, almost giving you a heart attack on the spot.

“Baby, you’re here!” Seonghwa gasped, pulling your friend into his arms when she set her stuff down on the porch and spinning her around in a small circle, his eyes twinkling with pure adoration.

Once Seonghwa acknowledged your presence with a warm greeting, you stood off to the side while your friend and Seonghwa kissed and giggled with each other, your arms beginning to feel like jelly, wishing someone would just stamp the words “third wheel” on your forehead already.

“That looks heavy,” you heard someone say in a deeply familiar baritone voice, causing you to whip your head towards the origin, your wide eyes meeting San’s concerned coffee brown ones. “Do you want me to carry it in for you?”

“San,” you automatically blurted out, alarm bells going off, the mini versions of you running around in panic inside your head, your fingers clasping tighter around your things.

“Y/N,” he parroted back in the same cadence, already moving closer to you, his arms sliding underneath your belongings and holding them up with ease, his navy sweater doing nothing to conceal the solid mass of his arm muscles. “Is it like, misogynistic for me to carry your things?”

You opened and closed your hands, trying your get rid of the pins and needles. “No, I’d say it’s progressive since it’s a big dumb caveman carrying my things, so women: 1, patriarchy: 0.”

San offered you a dimpled smile, his wide shoulders scrunching up slightly, as a hearty laugh emanated from his throat. “Caveman, I like that. Should I go find a cave to explore?” He tilted his head, his eyes flitting between yours and your pleasing body line. “Maybe try to start a fire?”

Your heart leapt into your throat, forcing you to gulp it down. You sneered, already beginning to push past him to enter the cabin, only turning your head back to tell him, “Start a fire and jump inside, caveman.”

San smiled at you, seeing right past your act, watching you walk away, before turning his head to look at the two lovebirds still hugging on each other. “See that? She already gave me a pet name.”

❆ ❆ ❆

“Fuck,” you groaned, dropping yourself down onto the surprisingly comfy mattress in the cozy guest room you were occupying, finally done with putting your clothes and toiletries away in their respective places, for the most part, also noticing that the violent hammering inside your chest had subsided.

And then your door opened.

“Yo, this cabin is pretty sick, right? It’s got a nice, cabin-ey feeling to it,” San announced, walking into your room and looking around like he owned the place. Typical San behavior. Whistling casually, he eventually headed over to your side of the bed, picking up a few skincare products that were sitting on your bedside table to study them. “Does this retinol shit really work?”

“Excuse me, but are you lost? This is my room,” you combated, not bothering to get up from the bed you were currently sinking into, simply turning on your back and lifting your head up slightly to glare at him.

“Bro.” San clutched his chest like you had just emptied a clip right in between his tits, his eyebrows turning upwards, his bottom lip jutting out in a pout. “Why do you act like we haven’t been inside each other?” He climbed onto the bed, looking down at you past his black bangs. “Matter of fact, I know you better than your little friend downstairs.”

You stared up at him, cursing yourself for wanting nothing more than to grab him by his stupid face and kiss him — but you wouldn’t, not after what he did. “You’re so gross.”

“Like in a sexy way, right?” he quipped, chuckling when you just shook your head. San slowly laid himself down beside you, looking up at the ceiling, reaching up behind his head and cupping the back of it to get more comfortable. “You didn’t argue against the fact that I know you better than your own self proclaimed ‘bestie’, you know.”

You let out a small sigh, resting your hands down at your sides, gripping the quilted blanket underneath you, your heart pounding inside your chest just like it did last Christmas. Did you ever fall out of love with him? Was that why your heart felt so stuck? Frozen in place? Like it was waiting for San to make it beat again? “Well, for once, you’re not wrong. I…let you in back then, obviously, so yeah, you know me better than she does. You know me better than anyone.”

San began to reach for your hand, hesitating for a second, not even realizing his walls were just as high. If only he could gather the courage to bring them down. “Y/N…”

You turned to look at San just as he turned his whole body towards yours, giving you one of his infamous gazes, his eyes closed ever so slightly, his lips parted, drawing in a breath. He lowered his hand, touching the top of yours, rubbing it with his thumb. “You know what else I know?”

Why did he have to do this to you? Just what the fuck was his problem?

“What, San?” you questioned underneath your breath, seconds away from losing it completely.

His eyes lost their playful twinkle, instead displaying sorrow. “Y/N, I–”

Seonghwa popped his head into the room. “Y/N, have you seen– Oh,” he deadpanned, displaying an oddly delighted smile for a split second, before his lips evened out. “We’re heading to the hang out now. It’s gonna snow pretty hard in a bit so it’s now or never.”

You both sat up from the bed, your cheeks burning like you had just been caught, well, inside of each other.

Seonghwa was about to say something when your friend walked up behind him and pulled him into whisper something, causing him to whisper back, the both of them nodding at each other.

You and San exchanged glances, before all four of you looked at one another. “Are you hiding things from me, pookie?” you playfully asked your friend, pouting.

“No, I’d never hide anything from you, pookie wookie baby bear!” she cried dramatically, running into the room and tackling you back down onto the bed.

San looked to Seonghwa, making grabby hands at him. “Where’s my hug?”

Seonghwa clicked his tongue, pointing at San’s thin sweater as it rose past his hips. “You better put on some more layers before we go, pookie bear. It’s cold as balls outside.”

❆ ❆ ❆

Instead of hanging out inside your friend’s friends’ cabin where the party was at, you loitered outside in the snow, building yourself a snowman. Maybe he’d stay by your side longer than the last one.

“Hey, what are you doing out here by yourself, ba–” San started, standing with his arm just barely pressing into yours, immediately clearing his throat, sticking his hands into his coat pockets. “Y/N, I mean, heh, sorry I’ve had a few drinks.”

You almost broke the empty beer bottle you were using as the snowman’s nose inside your hands from hearing San almost address you as baby, turning your head to look at the adorably goofy smile he had on his stupidly cute face. You bit your lip, wishing he would just say it, the layers of ice around your heart starting to crack. “I figured. Well, how come you’re out here with me, instead of shotgunning a beer or something with your caveman friends?”

Amused, San nodded his head, impressed by your ability to keep up with your shtick. “They’re too busy hanging around the fireplace, you know. The fire’s so pretty, they got distracted.” He grinned at you, grinning harder when you began to smile back at him, his heart skipping a beat at the sound of the giggle that escaped your lips. “I missed your giggle…missed you…” he murmured absentmindedly, pretending to stay busy by helping you round out the head of the snowman, while you stuck a rock into it where one of the eyes would be.

You dropped the other rock, standing still, feeling your mouth go dry. You racked your brain over his words, wanting to ask him why he didn’t stay with you in the first place if he was just going to miss you so much. You missed him too. You wanted him to know.

By the time you had made up your mind, San had picked up the rock and stuck it into the snow, completing the snowman’s face. “There we go. Mr. Snowman’s looking real nice.” He waited for a second, before turning to look at you with a concerned pout. “He’s not cuter than me, right?” When you didn’t respond, he blinked, leaning in. “Y/N?”

Instead of responding, you found yourself wrapping your arms around San’s neck, pulling him into a hug. You didn’t even say anything — you just focused on feeling his warm body against yours, recalling what it felt like to be his. His baby. If only he would just say it.

“Baby…” he whispered just under his breath, so carefully, like he risked the chance of causing an avalanche if he spoke any louder, gently rubbing your back in circles, automatically resting his head on the top of yours like he did last year. “What’s this about?”

“I don’t know, I just–” you murmured into his chest, your own about to collapse in on itself from hearing what he said, hugging onto him a little tighter than before, wishing things were different. “I…I think I’m drunk…”

“Oh…” San replied, swallowing harshly, only pulling away once you started to. He tucked a bit of hair behind your ear, giving you a concerned look. “You should come back inside and drink some water, then. Seonghwa was right to tell me to check up on you.”

Your face fell slightly, the bottle that was stuck inside the snowman drooping inside the melting snow as if it was mirroring your disappointment. “You…only came out here because Seonghwa told you to?”

“Well, I mean, he was the one that noticed you were gone, so he just thought I should make sure you were okay, yeah…” San explained, rubbing his arm.

You nodded your head, a soft smile returning to your face, not wanting San to see the hurt you felt, not yet, anyway. You were still able to hide it as of late. “That’s nice of him.”

“Yeah, Hwa’s a sweetie,” San mused, noticing the sad snowman, reaching out to fix the position of the beer bottle. “Too bad he’s taken, otherwise I’d be wifing him up and giving him the exclusive Choi San Caveman Experience. There’s a trademark on that, by the way.”He gave you another goofy smile, his smile growing when you offered him a few small giggles.

“I think you need water more than I do,” you mentioned, gently punching his arm.

San chuckled, his smile softening, wanting to say so much more than just, “You might be right.”

After a few seconds of too much silence, and too much yearning for an important conversation to take place, you instead pointed to the lively cabin behind you. “You should go get some. I’ll be back inside soon.”

“Okay, sounds good.” He put his hands back into his pockets, lingering there for a moment, before heading back inside.

You stood there for a while, watching the makeshift nose of the snowman begin to droop again, before you reeled your foot back and kicked into the base of the snowman, watching it topple over and fall apart.

❆ ❆ ❆

You lingered near the spiked punch bowl that sat inside the corner of the cabin’s empty kitchen, drinking down a solo cup’s worth of the fruity beverage and tossing the cup into the sink, not noticing another person’s presence until you turned to the side and bumped your nose into their broad chest. “Oh, shit– I’m sorry,” you apologized, backing up a bit to see that you had ran into no one other than Song Mingi, the man you had trauma dumped and cried to for an hour before having mindless rebound sex with after San dumped you. “Min, hey. Long time, no see.”

“Y/N. It’s nice to see you again. Very nice,” Mingi mused, taking a long sip of his drink, just studying you with his amused, half-closed eyes, pointing upwards with his finger. “What are the odds of this?”

“Hm?” Your eyes followed where he was pointing until your gaze settled on the mistletoe that hung from the doorway above the two of you, a memory of the past immediately lighting up the insides of your brain like the flash of a camera, the snapshot still fresh in your subconscious as though it had never faded in the first place, much like your feelings for San — but who were you to admit that to yourself?

“Jesus, what is with people and mistletoe?” you grumbled, crossing your arms over your itchy christmas sweater, ready to shield your eyes so you didn’t have to look at the two people vigorously making out underneath the red berries that were hung from the ceiling of the crowded cabin.

San hovered near you, running a hand through his hair, his eyes studying your scrunched up, flushed face, wondering how you could be so cute. “The origin of mistletoe is actually really romantic, y’know.” Once you met his gaze, his lips curled into a smile, his dimples making an appearance.

You gripped onto your sweater sleeve, smiling softly back at him, your annoyance fading. “Tell me about it then, Mr. Historian.”

San’s eyes sparkled at your reaction, his shoulder gently pressing into yours as he brought his drink up to his mouth. “Mistletoe has always been able to survive in the harshest of winters. Even when everything’s frozen…” When he lowered his hand, the side of his pinky touched yours, sending warmth into the both of your bodies. “….it still finds a way to bloom.”

You took in a quick breath, having to look down at your feet before your heart burst out of your chest as an unintentional ode to Alien and ruined the annual christmas party. “I didn’t peg you as a hopeless romantic, San.”

“I’m full of surprises, baby.” San hummed, gently taking your chin in his grasp and pressing a kiss to your lips, giggling delightedly as you buried your scorching face into his chest, his heart pounding, wanting nothing more than to show you just how hopelessly in love he was with you, but too afraid to grant you access to the very intense, very full extent of it, let alone himself.

He was full of surprises, so full of them that he was able to show such a meaningful display of love to you and still break up with you on the very same night, with little to no explanation, just a simple ‘I’m sorry.’ Choi San was truly an enigma — one you cursed yourself for still wanting to grasp, to hold, to forgive.

You looked down at Mingi’s drink only for him to motion for you to take it, immediately downing the punch until you were sucking on an ice cube and crunching it between your teeth, satisfied with the buzz coursing through your body, bitterness still seeping its way in your veins. You knew that what you were about to do wouldn’t make you feel any better, but you did it anyway, grabbing Mingi by the collar of his ugly Christmas sweater and smashing your lips against his. What you didn’t know, however, was that San was standing at the end of the hallway, with his hand in his coat pocket, there to witness how Mingi pressed you into the wall.

❆ ❆ ❆

Your friend slowly inched her way towards you from across the brightly lit, festively decorated living room full of your boisterous acquaintances having a battle with each other to determine who could be the loudest, drunkest individual in the room. Currently, it was San, unsurprisingly, who had a beer in one hand while hugging onto the obscenely large Christmas tree in the middle of the room. You couldn’t tell exactly what song he was singing, but you were pretty sure it was a romantic, mostly cheesy pop ballad from the 80s.

“Having fun?” your friend gauged softly, sitting down on the sofa in the corner beside you, clinking her glass beer bottle against yours.

You shrugged, taking a few sips of the chilled beer, crossing one leg over the other. “I made out with Mingi earlier, so that was cool, I guess.”

“You what?” she gasped, pressing closer to you, grabbing your arm and shaking you. “Y/N, oh my god, that’s so —” Her gossipy tone turned into one of concern. “But what about San?”

“What about San?” you grumbled, internally annoyed that all you could think about was San when Mingi’s tongue was down your throat. “He probably already did the same thing, considering how torched he is.”

She sighed, sinking into the couch, very well aware of how San truly felt about you, last Christmas, and how much he wanted to turn things around. Of course she would know. She had to hear it from Seonghwa, who in turn heard it from San off and on for the entire year, but she wasn’t about to speak for him. He would have to do that himself.

“Are you going to play truth, dare, or drink with us?” Mingi suddenly asked you, leaning his hip against the side of the couch, causing you and your friend to look up at him.

“Ehh.” You shrugged your shoulders at him.

He put a hand on your shoulder, squeezing it, feeling someone’s eyes burning holes into the back of his head, figuring San was watching the both of you from the tree, who indeed was, his hands tightening around his beer and the scratchy pine needles he was holding onto. “It’ll be more fun if you join in, Y/N. How bout it?”

You sucked on your teeth for a second, your eyes moving past Mingi to gaze at San across the room, who was now talking to a girl who had came up to him, your stomach sinking at the clear appearance of his dimples. Stupid caveman.

You stood up, fingers squeezing around your poor beer bottle. “Fuck it, I’m in.”

“Good, good,” Mingi replied, smiling absentmindedly, bringing his own drink up to his lips, as if he wasn’t aware of the disaster he was about to bring into fruition — and all for the chance that he could recreate the events of last year’s Christmas party. It led to him having a pretty, teary-eyed girl in his bed to take care of, after all.

❆ ❆ ❆

“Yo, I can’t believe — he actually — I can’t breathe,” someone gasped out in between soundless laughs, falling back into their chair along with their other friends, pointing at San as he trudged back into the cabin past the sliding door, clad in only a form-fitting pair of Christmas themed boxers, wiping some snow off of his shoulders, before immediately going for his mixed drink and tossing it back victoriously, one hand on his hip.

“You bitches really thought I wouldn’t do it,” San chuckled self-righteously, taking another sip, before letting out a low ‘aaah’. “Someone owes me 20 bucks. Which one of you was it?” He held up an accusative finger to one of the girls nearby, who giggled and held her hands up defensively. “It was you, wasn’t it? Give it up!”

The rest of the group laughed in response, drunkenly leaning into each other, gleeful smiles plastered on their flushed faces.

“San’s pretty lively tonight,” Seonghwa said near you, nudging you gently with his elbow. “It’s almost kind of cute, huh?” Poor man was out of the loop, but he was trying, bless his heart.

“Cute?” you muttered, raising an eyebrow at him. “He’s butt-ass naked at a Christmas party. He’s a grown man wearing boxers with candy canes on it. What on earth is cute about that?”

Seonghwa pursed his lips, side-eyeing you. “I don’t know, I just thought you’d agree with the way you’ve been staring at him all night.“

You almost choked on your spit, bringing a hand up to your hair to smooth it out. “Well, it’s hard to keep my eyes off of him when he’s being an annoying ass pick-me like that.”

“But you picked…him.”

“I did. Ages ago, Seonghwa,” you corrected him, watching San out of the corner of your eye, unable to believe that he was letting the girl slip a twenty directly into the waistline of his boxers. As soon as you looked down, San’s eyes were on you, his lips turning into a frown, immediately pushing the girl’s hand away when it lingered a bit too long, his eyes filled with bitter determination. “You know what he did to me. He spent all that time getting my hopes up all year long, only to hit me with the ‘i’m bad with commitment’ card before he left the party last year. That’s bullshit and we both know it.”

Seonghwa sighed in defeat, sinking back into his seat, biting at his lip. “I get what you’re saying, Y/N, I really do. It was unbelievably shitty for him to do that to you, but San…I think he really regrets it. All he talks about is you, Y/N.” Seonghwa turned to face you, gently touching your wrist. “He’s always loved you. He just doesn’t know how to verbalize it.”

You started biting at your lip too, simply listening to your friend’s words, wondering if there was any truth to them. It’s not like you were hearing them from San himself. That would be a different story — though you didn’t know if he was even capable of that kind of vulnerability. “I’d like to believe that, Hwa. I just…”

“Oh my god! With tongue? My virgin eyes!” someone gasped loudly at something, covering their eyes, their friends laughing at his dramatic performance.

“At least someone’s getting some,” Mingi chuckled, while eyeing you, currently holding up the same piece of mistletoe you had encountered together earlier, only this time someone else was under it. Someone that made you wish you had never even came up to the cabin in the first place.

“There’s no way…” you whispered to yourself, unable to take your eyes off of San, who was holding that same girl against him, his hands clutching her hips, his tongue halfway into her mouth by the time you got up from the couch and grabbed a water cup from the coffee table, determined to keep your tears inside your body before you stormed out, but you had to answer to your demons first.

“Y/N, he’s just drunk! He’s trying to make you jealous, okay? He’s being an idiot! Y/N, listen–” Seonghwa tried fruitlessly to reason with you, reaching for your wrist, only for it to slip out of his grasp as you made your way up to San and the unsuspecting woman.

Your bitter, frozen heart quelled you to toss the water at San, watching it splash onto the side of his reddened face, the shock of it sobering him up almost instantaneously, causing him to pull away from the woman and look at you, the weight of his faulty decisions hitting him square into the chest when he saw the tears in your eyes. “Y/N…I…I didn’t mean….I just…” Tears began to form inside his own eyes. “I just wanted you to see me.”

“I see you, San,” you whispered, your voice cracking underneath the weight of your emotional turmoil. “I’ve seen enough, actually.”

San froze in place, while what felt like cement sink to the bottom of his stomach, unable to get himself to stop you from grabbing a freshly opened bottle of booze from someone’s hands and walking away from him.

Your friend tried in vain to reason with you, getting hit with a death glare, before you stormed out. She turned to Seonghwa, whispering “Do something,” encouraging him to run over to San, grabbing him by the shoulders and temporarily keeping him upright.

“San, listen to me.”

San sniffled, his nose sporting a pink hue, as hot tears began to drip down his clammy face, sinking down to his knees, watching as Seonghwa sank down with him. “Seonghwa, I fucked up. I just wanted her to want me. I wanted her to get jealous and take what’s hers. I didn’t know how– a-and her, and Mingi– I just thought maybe if I–”

Seonghwa shook San a bit, his nostrils flaring, his fingers squeezing into his friend’s trembling shoulders. “Get a grip and listen to me!” As soon as San took in a shaky breath and let it out, Seonghwa cleared his throat. “You’re going to put some fucking clothes on, nut up, and go after her. It’s now or never.”

San wiped his eyes, trying to control his breathing. “B-but what do I say, Seonghwa? How can I possibly–”

Seonghwa suddenly pulled him into a hug, clutching the back of his head, feeling San slowly begin to relax against him. “You’re going be honest with her, San. Tell her what you’ve always wanted her to know. The world isn’t going to end after you do. She’ll still be there, and you’ll be safe.”

San clutched Seonghwa’s back, blinking away a few remaining tears. “You promise?”

Seonghwa pulled away, curling his pinky finger around his best friend’s, giving him a firm nod. “Promise.” Seeing the trust inside San’s sparkling eyes, Seonghwa reached up to ruffle his hair, smiling softly. “Oh, and give her that Christmas present you’ve been waiting for her to open.”

A small smile slowly apread across his splotchy face, before he gave Seonghwa a stern nod back, reaching his hand inside the pocket of his coat to feel what had been sitting inside and collecting dust for the entire year. It was time. Things weren’t going to end up like last Christmas. It would be different this time. He would make sure of it.

❆ ❆ ❆

With each passing minute, you sank a little further into the abyss of your memories, as well as the freshly fallen layers of snow that surrounded you, splashes of alcohol melting into it whenever you took a lazy swig and dropped the bottle back down at your side. “You dummy…” you mumbled to yourself, sniffling, your warm tears and body doing its best to combat the chilly environment around you.

Once you reached a street lamp, the warm light glowing onto your damp clothes, the memories of last year, that had once been frozen over suddenly flooded into your mind so quickly, you had to lower yourself onto the gravel beneath you, resting your back against the metal of the large buzzing lamp. “Shit…” You brought your wrist to your eyes, smearing a fresh wave of tears into your slightly damp hair, realizing you had been there before, the deja vu hitting you harder than the icy night wind hit your flushed face.

“San, what’s wrong?” You stood next to your boyfriend, watching him simply stare at the Christmas tree in front of him, his hands in his coat pockets.

San clutched onto the present he had spent weeks waiting to be custom-made and even longer just staring at it inside his apartment, wondering if it was enough, if he was enough, for someone like you.

San slowly shook his head, taking his hand out of his pocket to gently grab your wrist, leaning in to ask, “Can we talk?”

“No, we’re not doing this right now,” you told yourself out loud, smacking the side of your head and shaking it back and forth to hopefully send the memory packing, but it persisted, much like the snowfall around you.

“I don’t understand, San, we were fine! We’re okay. Why are you doing this?” you cried, trying and failing to keep San from leaving the cabin, unable to catch the corner of his coat sleeve until you were both under a street lamp, the light blinking occasionally.

San slowly turned around to face you for a moment, shaking his head, keeping his tears at bay. He didn’t know what he was thinking. How would he be enough for someone like you? Poor San simply couldn’t see the beauty he saw in you in his own self. “I just can’t, Y/N. I’m so sorry. I really am.”

“Can’t what? Can you just talk to me, San? I want to understand, San, please, talk to me,” you begged him, your heart sinking further with each step you took towards him as he continued to walk away. You stopped eventually, in the front of his car, your breath caught in your throat. “So, that’s it? You’re just going to leave? Just like that?”

San stroked his hair with a shaky hand in an unconscious act of self-soathing, tears pricking the corners of his eyes, looking off to the side, before gripping the door handle of his car, as well as the felt box inside his pocket with his other hand, only seeing a blurry version of you by the time he looked back up. How could he explain how afraid he was of you and the love you offered him? How his many walls, like ice, were impenetrable, until you melted them away? It frightened him, so much so that all he could say was, “I’m so sorry, Y/N,” before he got into the car and shut the door.

“You…dummy…” you repeated, this time in a whisper, taking another swig from the bottle and choking down the strong liquor, about to force yourself to down it when you heard what sounded like a set of boots quickly shuffling through the snow.

“Y/N,” San gasped, almost completely out of breath from running through the rough winter terrain, bending forward slightly with his hands on his knees to catch his breath, sending puffs of condensation into the air around you. “I have to – tell you something–”

“Oh, now you have something to say? After all this time? That’s rich,” you scoffed, wobbling a bit as you stood up, trying to put up a front like you had done earlier, though your facade had since melted away, your quivering lips and red, teary eyes on full display. “…Go on, San…”

San finally caught his breath, his heart still hammering away inside his chest, reaching up to his head to stroke his somewhat damp raven hair, trying to swallow the growing lump inside his throat. “Y/N, I…I should’ve said this a long time ago, instead of just leaving you the way I did…”

The longer you stared at him, the longer he felt his walls crumbling around him, figuring that he had no choice but to tell you what had always been lingering on his tongue, buzzing in his heart and mind, and swimming inside his thoughts each night when he was alone. He realized it was worth the risk of having to return to a cold, silent heart, a bitter soul, and even higher walls that he could box himself inside of. To him, you were worth anything.

Your anger slowly subsided at the sight of his serious gaze, his warm coffee-brown eyes studying you like nothing else existed besides you. In fact, nothing did, inside his world, except for you. “San…” you murmured, reaching out to touch his hand, but he already beat you to it, interlacing your cold fingers together.

“I love you, Y/N,” he admitted in the softest, most convicting voice you’ve ever heard from him, slowly pulling out the box he kept inside his coat, opening it to reveal a small gold ring with a jewel shaped like mistletoe, gently sliding it onto your finger when you held your hand out. “I love you so much, baby. So much it terrifies me.”

“Oh, San…” you sighed, breathless, bringing your hand to your chest from being so overwhelmed with emotion. After a moment, you reached for his hand, squeezing it, moving closer to him, his confession and gift warming you up more than a raging, crackling fire ever could. “San–”

“If I had just told you how I felt back then, I wouldn’t have hurt you the way I did.” He squeezed your hand back, his chapped, lower lip quivering. “I wish I could take it all back. It’s all I’ve been able to think about– How I wish I could just turn back time and–”

You silenced San’s words with a gentle kiss, letting go of his hand to wrap your arms around his neck, his arms following suit, closing around your waist. You broke the kiss after a moment to whisper, “I love you too, San. Always have.” You caressed his face, making sure he felt the love pouring out of your words when you promised, “Always will.”

San let out a trapped breath of air, hugging you against him, protectively clutching the back of your head, unable to stop everything he had held inside from spilling out of him all at once.

You simply held him in your arms and stroked the back of his head, not noticing when the light above you had flickered once and went out for a split second, only to shine brighter than it did before, the light warming the exposed skin of your flushed cheeks.

❆ ❆ ❆

San sat on his knees beside the crackling fire, adjusting a piece of firewood, watching the flame catch onto it and travel along the cedar, enjoying the warmth on his skin, eventually turning his head back to admire the sight of you bundled up on the couch with a plush blanket on your lap, your hands clasped around a cup of tea, your eyes admiring your twinkling ring, before you noticed his loving gaze.

“Sannie, come here, love,” you spoke softly, taking one finger off of the cup to beckon him to you, sliding the blanket off and putting the cup down after one more sip.

“Coming, baby.” Eyes sparkling, San inched his way over to you, still on his knees, fitting himself in between yours so that he could wrap his arms around your middle, resting his head against your chest. “Mm, you’re so warm.”

You ran your fingers through his soft, still slightly damp hair, waiting till he looked up at you to caress his cheek, a small sigh leaving your lips. “I’m sorry for what I did to you earlier. I really shouldn’t have reacted like that. It was hypocritical of me.” You ran your fingers gently along his jaw, noticing the way he leaned into your touch.

“No, baby, I’m sorry,” he replied, rubbing his hands up and down your sides, pouting. “I did…that to you in front of everyone…It was really shitty…I just couldn’t think straight after I saw you with Mingi.”

Your face fell, your fingers sliding back into San’s hair to play with it. “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t…I want you to know that there was no meaning behind it, love. I was just bitter. And drunk.”

“I know, Y/N. It’s all forgiven, I promise you.” San reassured softly, responding well to your light touches, nuzzling your hand when it came back to his cheek, his fingers sliding underneath your sweater to squeeze into your sides, sending a light shiver up your spine. “But, you know what, baby?”

“What, Sannie?” Your body temperature started to increase as San brought himself up higher so that you were face to face, body to body, his palms settling onto your bare back.

“There’s meaning behind this,” he whispered, bringing his hands up to cup your face, before gently pressing his lips onto yours. You shared a few firm, passionate kisses, your lips moving against one another’s, hearing San whisper something else that sent a wave straight into your core. “Can you feel it, baby? My love?”

“Yeah, show me more, Sannie,” you murmured against his lips, his mouth slotting back onto yours, almost making you forget to breathe when his tongue began to explore the inside of your mouth.

San sucked lightly on your tongue, before moving down to kiss on your neck, his hands moving further up to unclasp your bra from underneath your sweater. “Can I please touch you, baby?” he asked with a desperation that made his deep voice go up an octave higher.

“Yes, please, touch me,” you responded with just as much desperation, arching your back into his touch when he slipped his hands up the front of your sweater, moving your tits in slow, gentle circles, his lips and teeth attacking your neck and collarbone.

“You feel so good in my hands, baby, fuck, I missed you so much,” San exhaled into your neck, squeezing the roundness of your tits in between his fingers, squishing them together, and lifting them up, only to drop them back down into his palms, groaning all the while. He pulled back slightly, rolling the hem of your sweater up a bit, his hooded, dilated eyes focused solely on yours. “Can I take this off?”

A quick nod was all it took for him to lift your sweater up over your head, your bra falling to the floor. Not wanting you to be alone, he reached behind his head and pulled his own sweater off, his sculpted, muscular upper body bathed in glowing, orange light from the fire blazing away behind him. “You’re so beautiful, Y/N…” he sighed, admiring your body like he did the very first time he saw you bare in front of him.

“So are you,” you replied, slowly running your hands up along his abdomen and back down, his muscles flexing slightly underneath your touch, his eyes following your fingers as they unbuckled his belt, pulling his pants down to reveal his cute custom briefs. “My Sannie, so precious.”

San blushed, his goofy smile slowly disappearing as he unbuttoned your pants, biting hard into his bottom lip once he got them off of you. “Baby…” Unable to just sit there and admire you, he reached forward to cup your tits, running his thumbs back and forth over your stiff nipples, lust clearly running rampant in his head and body by the way he was looking at you with such clear hunger in his eyes, his cock hard and stiff against your core. “Can I taste you?”

“Baby, you don’t have to ask, okay? You can have me, in any way–” you started breathily, feeling San’s cock beginning to pulse against you. “–Every way, Sannie. Please, take care of me.”

San suddenly clutched your hips, slowly grinding his clothed cock into your heat, while his mouth closed around one of your nipples to suck on it, his hooded eyes looking up into yours, his tongue darting out to lap at your tit.

“Feels so good, your mouth on me,” you breathed out, running your fingers through his hair, clutching it tight when he swapped your tit for the other, his jaw lowering so that he could fit more of your squishy globe into his mouth, sucking on it desperately. “Sannie…please…”

Knowing what you wanted, San pulled back to spit onto your tits, watching it drip down, before leaning back in to lick it up, his tongue cascading up and down your now slick skin, still guiding your hips against him, your legs already hooked around his slim waist. Your whiny moans were like music to his ears, taking a break from sucking and licking you to say, “You like it messy, don’t you, baby girl? Makes you so wet for me, doesn’t it?”

“Uh-huh, now come here,” you could barely get out, before you grabbed his face and slammed your lips against his, your mouths and tongues working in tandem, strands of spit dripping down your chins, San’s hands squeezing tightly into your hips, grinding against you so quick, so desperately, you were both about to reach your highs just from that.

“Sannie,” you sighed against his lips, caressing his jaw, his cock rubbing against your cunt in just the right way, your body pulsing with the need to be filled.

“Y/N,” he sighed back, pressing his forehead onto yours, the both of you breathing in the same air, the thick, throbbing length of his cock rubbing deliciously along your clothed slit until your lower halves began to jolt, your moans and gasps crescendoing in unison. “Cumming? Are you cumming for me, baby?”

“Y–esss, Sannie, m’ cumming for you,” you cried out, holding onto him as tightly as you could, your nails digging lightly into his back, feeling his muscles contracting. “Cum for me too, please, baby, let me see you.”

San let out a choked, whiny moan, panting heavily, losing his quick, focused thrusts, opting for sloppy, abrupt movements, barely about to get out the word, “B–abyyy…”

You both fell apart in each other’s arms, your eyes never breaking contact, your combined arousal soaking through your respective undergarments.

Once you both caught your breath, San reached down to rub your pussy with two thick fingers, able to see your slit through your shiny, see-through panties, his cum-covered cock already twitching back to life. “Fuck, baby, look at that…you’re completely soaked.”

“Just for you,” you nodded, spreading your thighs open further, pulling the hem of your panties up a bit to emphasize your puffy cunt, your clit pressing into the soft cloth material.

“Oh my god, baby, I need to taste you,” San suddenly whined, squeezing his fingers into the softness of your thighs, lowering himself down to take a deep inhale of your arousal, his head going completely fuzzy, unable to keep himself from drooling onto your cunt.

You slipped your fingers into his soft hair, bringing his face against your heat, sighing at the feeling of his nose bumping against your clit as he took another deep breath, shuddering when he began to tongue your cunt through your panties. “That’s it, Sannie, feels so good,” you moaned, your praise going straight to San’s cock, causing it to strain against his stained briefs.

“Mmmn,” San moaned against your pussy, licking one slow, long strip up your slit to your clit, filled with so much need for you that he couldn’t keep himself from tearing your panties off of you with one quick tug, making you gasp and release more slick, his mouth already on you to lap it right up, his other hand shoving his briefs down so that his cock could spring out against his abdomen, pre-cum smearing across his tan skin. “This pussy is all mine, baby…mine to eat, mine to fuck….mine to fill, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Sannie, all yours, it’s all yours,” you answered, clutching his hair, desperately grinding your cunt against his tongue when he held it out, looking deep into his eyes that never left yours for a second, suddenly gasping out when San spread your hole open, sending a wad of spit inside before his agile tongue slipped inside of you.

San grabbed the undersides of your thighs and lifted your lower half up so that he could tongue fuck you as deep as humanly possible, letting out a pleased moan each time his tongue entered your soaked, pulsing hole. He kept going until you saw stars, going ‘uh-huhhh, uh-huhhh’ as soon as you began to shudder, your arousal squirting out and soaking his flushed face.

“My pretty baby came so hard for me,” San sighed, licking your wetness up from your sensitive cunt and his lips, before he brought you in for another sloppy kiss, letting you taste yourself.

The longer you kissed, the more you wanted him inside you, needed him to fuck his love into you until you couldn’t remember your own name. You needed him so badly, you didnt even realize what you were doing until you had found yourself pushing San down onto the fur carpet below and straddling him, sitting on his lap in a way that showed the both of you exactly where his long, veiny cock would reach inside of you once he filled you up. “Need you, Sannie. Need you now.”

“You can have me, baby.” San’s cock twitched against your abdomen, his hands rubbing your thighs, eventually lifting you up and down onto his cock, groaning at the feeling of your pussy swallowing his length inch by inch. “Fuck, princess, have all of me.”

Instinctively, San began to buck his hips up into you, filling you up so well, you felt a bit dizzy, encouraging you to hold onto his chest, still taking his cock deep inside your cunt like you were made for him.

San must’ve agreed too because he couldn’t keep from groaning out, “Look at you, babygirl, look at the way you’re taking me, taking my cock so deep–” He pressed one hand to your abdomen, feeling the bulge his cock made each time he fucked into you, driving the both of you crazy. “Your pretty pussy was made for me, baby. Made just for me. You’re mine, babygirl.”

“Yours.” You quickly lowered yourself down to kiss him, his hands sliding up and down along your body to feel your warm skin underneath his touch, eventually settling his hands on your cheeks, wiping a few of your tears away when you began to cry from the overwhelming pleasure.

“Cum for me, Y/N…You can do it…Fall apart for me, baby, ” San encouraged in between heavy breaths, slowing the movements of his hips down, instead filling you up in a slow and meticulous manner, drawing your intense orgasm out of you. “Yes, baby, that’s it, that’s it…”

“Sannnn, oh my god, San.” The longer you fell apart, the tighter your pussy constricted around San’s cock, causing him to throw his head back, sweat dripping down along his straining neck, his veins growing more visible when he gripped your thighs tightly. “Fill me up, Sannie. Need your cum inside.”

“Cumminggg, princess, oh my god, baby girl,” San groaned heavily, lifting you up and down on his throbbing length, before fully sheathing himself inside you, coating your walls with white.

Panting, you both gazed at each other’s sweat-covered faces and bodies, knowing internally that it wasn’t enough. Not nearly.

“Again?”

“Again.”

San didn’t waste any time gently pulling you off of him and climbing on top of you instead, spreading you open and filling you back up, sighing at the sight of your mixed arousal forming a ring around the base of his cock each time he pounded himself into you. “You’re so full of my cum, baby…so full of my cock, aren’t you, pretty girl?”

“So full for you, Sannie, don’t stop,” you gasped, hardly able to breathe with the way he had you folded up, your legs over his shoulders, his cock slamming so deep inside you that you swore he was hitting your womb.

“Wasn’t gonna,” San exhaled, chuckling softly, his lips curling up to give you a smile, his eyes creasing with amusement. “Need to show you my love.”

“Show me, baby,” you sighed affectionately, smiling back at him, giggling at the sight of his eyes lighting up, before you pressed a kiss to his lips.

The wet, sloppy sound of your bodies joining together over and over filled up the otherwise quiet cabin, along with your harmonious moans, the remaining pieces of firewood still crackling away beside you. Time seemed to stop completely. It was just you and him, coming undone together for what seemed like a lifetime.

You both ended up back on the couch, your limbs and bodies entangled, snuggling together underneath the cozy blanket, talking with each other about anything and everything until your eyelids grew heavy, leading you to drift off, your fingers clasped together.

Before you could fully fall asleep, you nuzzled your cheek against San’s chest, gently inhaling his comforting scent. He smelled like aftershave, warm cedar wood, and spiced cinnamon. It reminded you of your time there at the cabin, the memories you spent together, both good and bad, swirling together to form a comfortingly bittersweet concoction, one that you would consume in every lifetime.

“San,” you whispered softly into the darkness, the fire beside the both of you now ashes and smoke.

“Yes, Y/N?” he whispered back, his arms closing around you protectively.

You sighed against his skin, your body and heart melting like the snow would begin to do as well, once the sun came up. “I love you so much, San…” You lifted your head up, hovering above him so that you could look down at him, your fingers clutching his jaw, your expression so soft San thought you might cry. “I want to show you how to share some of that love with yourself one day.”

San smiled up at you, his eyes full of so much adoration for you, it threatened to spill out of him, his fingers running through your hair. “You showed me, Y/N. Through it all, behind every word, every action, I still saw it there. That’s why I put myself first and confessed to you.” He smiled softly, tears pricking the corners of his eyes. “I’m…not nearly as put together as I seem. I just love you so much, it makes me want to be strong. For you. And…for me.”

You didn’t realize you were crying too until you saw your teardrops land on his face and slide down his cheek, wondering if your icy heart had finally melted, and that was why there were so many tears escaping from your blurry eyes. “Oh, San, my sweet San, I’ll be here to watch you grow, I promise,” you murmured, hugging onto him and laying back down to rest your head on his chest, gently rolling the ring around your finger.

San’s hand came up from underneath the blanket to rest on top of yours. He squeezed your hand and you squeezed right back. “Promise?”

“Promise,” you repeated softly, closing your eyes, your heart at peace. “As long as you promise to watch me too.”

San closed his eyes too, a few more happy tears dripping past his cheeks, squeezing you just a little tighter than before. San felt safe. Whole. “I’d love nothing more, Y/N.”

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fuckyeahdindjarin · 1 year

Text

II ║ Threads

Joel Miller x F!Reader

{ Part I: Seams | Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist }

Rating: M

Summary: When Joel revisits Main Street Outfitters two weeks later, he finds you on your knees. Again.

Warnings: Very spicy thoughts but not explicit, sexual tension, sexual innuendos, some language, shy!reader, reader has a nickname related to her job, soft!Joel, no use of Y/N

Word count: 4.3k

Notes: This crept up on me and happened just as I was finishing up edits. I am so grateful, and I hope Threads is a fitting thank you gift to you all 😘 I’m thinking about doing a sleepover celebration, we shall see!

Joel and Pin are back ❤️ They're back because you guys have been so generous with your love, sending me so many ideas and hyping me up - I can't thank you all enough! This chapter is all thanks to Singer machine anon who bravely (affectionate 😉) shared their story of getting stuck under a sewing machine table. I hope you enjoy this one!

A treadle sewing machine is powered mechanically by a foot pedal that is pushed back and forth by the operator's foot.

If you're not familiar, here is a classic Singer treadle cabinet, which is no way big enough for the purposes of this story, so please exercise your imagination 😉

Joel hovers outside the Jackson Grocer’s, arms crossed, trying to make himself look as inconspicuous as possible in front of the leafy display of butter lettuce heads.

It’s been a few months since he’s settled in, but sometimes he can’t get over how fucking nuts this place is. Looking at the shelves brimming with fresh fruits and vegetables outside, canned food and home goods inside, he could easily be standing outside the 24/7 mart in his old neighbourhood. There are even shopping baskets, for crying out loud - stacked neatly one on top of the other by the door.

A voice pipes up from his left. ‘Didn’t know you ate greens.’

Joel scowls. ‘I don’t.’

‘Why are you loiterin’, then?’ asks Tommy, picking up a couple of apples and examining them with exaggerated care.

‘I’m not loiterin’,’ he spits out the last word as if he’s above it, turning his gaze to the high street.

Tommy tosses him a cocky grin, head tilted at a knowing angle. ‘Yeah, you are. And now you’re makin’ eyes at Bob. It’s disturbin’.’

Glancing across the main thoroughfare at the welder’s shop, where the said proprietor is cutting up wooden planks on the porch, Joel grumbles sarcastically, ‘That’s right. Bob is just my type.’

At that very moment, right next to Bob's, the door of Main Street Outfitters creaks open, and Joel recognises Lucy instantly as she sneaks out on tiptoes. She skips down the stairs and wanders up the street in what appears to be another impromptu work break.

Joel’s already taken two steps towards the shop before he remembers that he’s not alone. Braking abruptly and bringing up one hand to scratch the back of his neck, he feels Tommy’s eyes on him.

He half-turns, and snaps, ‘What?’

The younger Miller brother shrugs, pursing his lips thoughtfully. ‘Why are you going to the Outfitters again? Didn’t you just get those new jeans a couple of weeks ago?’

‘Thought I’d get a new shirt for your stupid baby shower.’

‘Joel -’

‘Sorry, sorry.’ He throws his hands up in capitulation. ‘Baby showers are not stupid. Especially in the middle of an apocalypse.’

Taking another two steps forward, a thought stops him dead in his tracks again. He can practically feel Tommy smiling smugly at his back.

For fuck’s sake.

He doesn’t turn around this time, jamming his hands into his pockets and asks, ‘Can I bring someone? To the party?’

‘We know Ellie’s comin’.’

Whipping around, he growls, ‘Tommy -’

He laughs. ‘Well, I’ll be damned. Joel Miller makin’ friends in town? Maria’s right - you’re fittin’ right in, big brother.’

Rolling his eyes, Joel flips him off and stomps his way across the street.

Tommy calls out at his retreating back. ‘Say hello to Pin and tell her we’d love to have her come over on Sunday!’

When he steps inside, the shop is as empty as it was a fortnight ago. Joel shuts the door firmly, making sure the bell jingles, so his entry doesn’t go unnoticed.

Your voice, though muffled, comes promptly. ‘Lucy! Is that you?’

He heads towards the doorway that leads to the workshop. ‘It’s Joel, actually.’

‘Oh, shit!’

His eyebrows reach for his hairline - you don’t seem to be the type to curse. Concerned, he asks, ‘You alright back there?’

There’s a touch of panic in your reply, ‘Don’t come back here. Did Lucy sneak out again?’

On your instruction, Joel hesitates in the middle of the room, talking to air. ‘Yeah, saw her leave a couple of minutes ago.’

‘Goddamnit, Lucy!’

He shuffles his feet awkwardly. ‘Uh, you sure you’re ok? Should I come back later?’

There’s a resigned sigh, then a pause. ‘Promise you won’t laugh.’

One end of his lips tugs upwards in a smile. ‘Why would I?’

‘Promise.’

At your insistence, he humours you, ‘Alright, I promise, sweetheart.’

‘Come on back.’

When he steps into the workshop, he doesn’t spot you immediately. The space is seemingly empty, everything standing still and in order. He sweeps his eyes across the room, starting with the shelving unit and the desk along the near wall, then trailing over the large timber work table in the middle, where a stack of folded shirts stands neatly.

His throat isn’t the only thing that tightens when he glances at the rug under the skylight -

‘Joel?’

Your voice draws his attention to the far corner of the room, where a sewing station is tucked into a little alcove.

Joel doesn’t know much about sewing machines, but he can recognise a vintage Singer anywhere even without the name blazoned across its elegant body. His grandmother had one in her drawing room by a sunny bay window, and he used to watch her work on it when he visited every other weekend. For a disorienting second, he can almost smell homemade cinnamon rolls and black tea.

Little did he know that things were about to get a lot more disorienting than a pleasant childhood memory.

As he steps around the work table, the rest of the sewing station comes into view, fronted by a big window, the light streaming through the glass glancing off the black sewing machine on top of a classic treadle cabinet. What looks like a half-finished dress lies on the wooden work surface, which stands on quintessential wrought metal legs, and between them - his throat constricts with a slow swallow when he realises what - or rather, who - he’s looking at.

The words barely come out, as if his tongue is suddenly too big for his mouth, as he makes his presence known. ‘I’m here, sweetheart.’

To be fair, you’re not making things easy by any means. All he can see is your backside hovering in mid-air, the rest of you out of sight under the desk. It has built-in cabinets on each end, the right side of it backed up against the far wall, and a chair is pushed to the side.

Joel stops two measured paces away, staring down at the curve of your ass and the way your top rides up, baring the small of your back. His eyes linger on the soft skin between the shirt’s hem and the waistband of your very tight jeans.

Jesus Christ. Do you always have to be on your fucking knees in this workshop?

Your small voice jolts him from his daze. ‘Well, at least you’re not laughing.’

He has to bite his tongue to stop himself from scoffing. If only you knew how laughing is the furthest thing on his mind right now. ‘What happened?’

‘A spool rolled off and I went down to get it, but I fell on the treadle accidentally - I think my shirt is snagged in the band wheel. I can’t move at all, and this Singer is an antique - I can't risk breaking it.’

Unfamiliar with what you’re talking about, he probes, ‘And where’s the band wheel?’

‘Under the table, on my right.’

You wriggle your hips, perhaps to help him locate where you’re stuck, unaware that you’re not helping. At all.

He swallows thickly and implores you, ‘Stay still, sweetheart. I’ll take a look.’

It’s been two whole weeks since Joel Miller came into the shop. You’ve caught glimpses of him in between - Jackson is tiny, after all. He catches your eye as he ambles down the high street with Ellie, his gruff Southern accent carrying even in the mid-afternoon bustle, too preoccupied arguing with the teenager to notice you on the other side of the road. He’s in the cafeteria a couple of times when you arrive for a late dinner, nodding at you from a few tables over, while you work up the nerve to smile back.

Every time, he’s wearing the jeans you handpicked for him, which makes your chest swell and constrict at the same time with something like - pride.

You picked out the pair for him. You assured him that he looks good. And by the way he’s wearing his confidence on his sleeve, he’s certainly taken your words to heart.

Whenever you see other women eyeing him as he struts about town - which is entirely too often - it awakens an ugly possessiveness in you, one that twists your insides into grotesque balloon animals.

Fourteen damn days. Even in the privacy of your workshop, you can’t escape that man. The simple touch of denim provokes a visceral reaction from you, heat chases beneath your skin every time you pick up the tailor’s scissors. It doesn’t help that most of your daily tasks are not exactly cerebral, which gives this man all the more leeway to lay claim to your subconscious.

If you believed in magic, you would've thought you summoned him with the sheer energy you’ve spent thinking about him. But what kind of witchcraft conjured him up at the precise moment you get trapped like the bumbling idiot that you are?

One minute you’re reaching for the stupid thread, the next thing you know, you’re stuck, unable to move without the mechanisms of the antique Singer groaning ominously at your attempts to free yourself.

But maybe, it’s still better than Lucy finding you. She’d take a hammer to the sewing machine to get you out, no question - patience is not her strong suit - and she’d be laughing at you for days.

You hear the floorboards give behind you as Joel moves into the space, which isn’t much - when you’re sat down at the treadle cabinet, the wall is barely two steps behind.

The wooden table creaks above you as he braces one hand on the surface, and you startle at what sounds like the vicious crack of a vertebra.

‘Um - you okay?’

Joel grunts. ‘I’ll live.’

So you wait, thinking absent-mindedly how your elbows are starting to get numb. There’s a scruff of boots and what sounds like a brief struggle, before Joel sighs. ‘Back’s too stiff ‘mfraid. Gotta get on the floor to see underneath.’

Before you can squeak out a reply, there’s a boney click of what you presume is his knees as he crouches down, and an unexpected brush of denim on your left ankle surprises you. Forgetting where you are, you jump in reflex, hitting the underside of the table so hard that you screech in pain.

‘Shit!’ Joel cusses behind you, one warm hand landing on the side of your hip to steady you. ‘You ok?’

Up until this point, you’ve been too consumed with embarrassment by your predicament to even think about the position Joel found you in. But once the warm imprint of his palm registers through the denim, it hits you like one of those interstate trucks that you used to see out of your window.

You’re leaning on your forearms, ass in the air, and now - he’s behind you, getting onto his knees. You can’t decide if the back of your head or your pussy is throbbing harder as you stutter, ‘I’m fine, just - get me out, please.’

‘Alright, hang on, sweetheart.’

You swallow the childish urge to stamp your foot. He has no right going around dropping sweethearts all over the place.

There’s a throaty exhale as Joel lowers himself onto the floor, his knees bracketing yours to shift closer to you. You know he feels the shudder that chases down your spine when soft flannel grazes your bare back, heat spilling from his solid frame as he looms over you.

‘You say you’re stuck in the band wheel?’

Somehow, you manage to answer, ‘Yeah, to my right.’

He clears his throat. ‘I - uh - I’ll have to lean down pretty close to you to take a look, is that ok?’

You feel all the air leave your body, which is probably why your reply comes out far breathier than you intend it to. ‘Yes, Joel.’

And with those two words, Joel has a problem with his jeans. Again.

They’re too tight. Again.

There’s nothing he can do as his mouth goes dry and his cock hardens with a vengeance, his self-control slipping like sand between his fingers.

He was doing so good - well, he was more or less holding it together, as much as he could be expected to while kneeling behind you. And of course, his damn knees hurt, but so does his bottom lip which is caught in his teeth, trying to regulate his breathing when his heart threatens to beat right out of his chest.

He already has one hand on you, and goddamnit, it’s taking him all he’s got to hold back from gripping you with his other, to grasp the swell of your ass between his palms, to trace your curves up to the dip of your exposed waist, to bow his head and run his tongue along the arc of your spine -

And the jeans you’re wearing - fuck, they’re tight. He wonders idly if you wore them for him. His eyes follow the seam that runs down the cleft of your ass, the way the pockets stretch over your backside has his fingers twitching, thinking about how well you will fill his hands, and how the slow rub of denim will burn his skin.

He wants to hook his thumbs into the belt loops and pull you flush against the zipper of his jeans, where his cock is straining against - rub himself on you, grind on you, his thighs plastered to the back of yours -

‘Joel?’

Fuck.

He sways as he snaps out of his stupor, dangerously close to knocking into you, light-headed from the lack of blood to his brain. He chokes out, ‘Yeah, I got you, sweetheart.’

Get it together, you dirty bastard.

He’s careful to leave a couple of inches between his front and your ass when he bends his elbows and ducks so he can peer beneath the desk. His chest pressed flat against your lower back, he can see the bunched fabric of your shirt where it’s caught.

‘Yup, you’re right, your shirt is snagged tight in there.’

‘Can you untangle it?’

‘Think so, but I’ll need both hands.’ He pauses. ‘I’d better get on my back under you.’

You swear you’re going to black out.

‘Pin?’ he prompts when you’ve been quiet a beat too long.

‘I - um, what do you mean by going under me?’

‘If I’m on my back, I can use both my hands, like a mechanic under a car,’ he explains. ‘If you’re uncomfortable, I can find another way -’

‘No!’ you blurt out, wincing at the desperation in your tone. ‘I mean - whatever is easiest for you. You’re the one doing me a favour here.’

‘Alright,’ he says, placated by your reassurance. ‘On your hands and knees then, sweetheart.’

Your eyes nearly roll to the back of your head. Oh, come on. Can he hear himself?

Scraping together your last vestiges of control, you push up on your palms to make space underneath you. You have to consciously lock your elbows - your joints suddenly feel like barely set pudding.

‘Move as far to your right as possible so I can slide in.’

Shuffling on your hands and knees until you’re pressed up against the band wheel, you hear the brush of fabric on wood - must be his back against the floorboards as he slides in. To say it’s a squeeze is an understatement. His broad shoulders brush the front of your thighs as he inches in, and then, his face appears under yours, head between your hands.

His lips quirk. ‘Hi, sweetheart.’

Your breath hitches at his proximity, your wrists brushing the soft red flannel he’s wearing today. ‘Hi.’

‘You ok?’ he asks.

You’re this close to pouting. What does he think? There’s a telltale stickiness between your legs that you’re frantically trying to push to the back of your mind while you mmhmm noncommittally, hoping that he doesn’t smell your want in the tiny, claustrophobic space you’re now both caught in.

You can only assume that he’s none the wiser, since the next thing that comes of his mouth is -

‘Climb on top of me so I can slide in closer to the band wheel.’

Someone might as well say your last rites. This is the end.

You’re taken aback when your limbs start to move on autopilot, because your faculties have well and truly abandoned ship. One trembling leg attempts to swing itself over the solid breadth of his body, but it wobbles like jelly, and your knee ends up connecting firmly with his stomach instead of landing clear on his other side.

At his grunted oomph, you panic and bang your head on the underside of the table again, which sends your whole weight sprawling onto his front with a yelp.

Joel cradles the back of your scalp with one hand. ‘Shit, you ok, sweetheart?’

The seams of your lashes sting, your head smarting with the impact, and you blink drily as your gaze focuses on Joel under you. He’s so close that you can see flecks of gold in his brown eyes, his breath hitting your face in warm puffs. Your glance at his lips, and with that one little motion, all goes quiet.

He watches you back, neither of you breathing, and in the stillness you realise that you’re fully straddling him, your palms pressing into the hard floor on either side of his ears. Your tits are crushed up against his ribs, his soft tummy warmly cushioned under you. Lower still, where your hips are nestled into the spread of his thick thighs, something stiff and long and insistent presses into you -

Your jaw goes slack when it dawns on you.

Oh god.

He’s hard.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Joel breaks the silence, a pained frown on his brow as he shakes his head. ‘This is embarrassin’. Couldn’t fuckin’ help it, seein’ you in those jeans -’

Tongue-tied, you can only stare at him, wishing you were brave enough to say something. Tell him that you pulled extra shifts to buy this particular pair of jeans, knowing that they flatter your figure. That you’ve worn them almost every day these two weeks, hoping that he’d swing by again.

But you can’t.

So you pray that he can see what you can’t say by the way you’re looking at him, by the way your heart races wildly in your ribcage against his chest.

His voice cracks. ‘I understand if you want me to go -’

You unstick your tongue from the roof of your mouth and cut in, ‘Don’t.’

His warm eyes widen, something like hopefulness in the way he looks up at you. ‘You don’t want me to go?’

You press your body closer into his, filling in the gaps. ‘No. Please don’t, Joel.’

He leans forward, so close that you can feel the phantom burn of his silvered beard, his palms finding the meat of your legs, blunt nails biting into the denim.

He really should be ashamed of himself, at the way his cock pulses unabashedly, nudged right between your thighs as you stare down at him, lips parted. He’s hard enough that he worries if there’s a wet spot of precum on the front of his jeans - he can feel himself leaking through his boxers.

The wicked tip of your tongue traces a wet trail on your bottom lip, and he almost chokes on a half-buried groan deep in his chest. He knows that you don’t even know you’re doing it - and in turn, what that does to him.

It would be easy to close the two-inch gap between you. To kiss you, taste you, lick into your sweet mouth. All he needs to do is to cup the back of your head and pull you down, or crane his neck and press his lips to yours -

And Joel is someone who always follows the path of least resistance.

But - he wants to do right by you. He knows you deserve more than a quick fumble under a table.

Sucking in a shaky breath, Joel steels himself and brushes a chaste thumb over your cheekbone. ‘Let’s get you out of here, and then we can talk, ok?’

It’s almost perverse the way his chest warms at the flicker of disappointment in your eyes as you give a reluctant nod, ‘Ok. Please be careful, the Singer’s really delicate.’

It’s hard to focus - his attention keeps drifting to how snugly you fit into his chest, between his arms, and it’s not a stretch to imagine a soft mattress underneath his back. It's funny how quickly his body has adjusted to creature comforts after months of sleeping on the cold winter ground.

Joel’s mindful that an antique sewing machine will be a pain in the ass to repair without the requisite parts, so he moves carefully, gently coaxing the band wheel back and forth to see how he can extract you. It doesn’t take long to loosen the grip of the metal teeth on your shirt, but he has to reach up and untangle the threads snagged into the mechanisms one by one.

He muses idly that this is not his method. These hands of his, with crooked knuckles that never healed right, where many a dagger, knife, gun, rifle have found a home - they break things, people.

When was the last time someone asked gentleness of him?

He wants to scoff. That’s not what he’s good for.

Despite himself, his throat rumbles with a hum of satisfaction when the band wheel finally lets go of your shirt, the Singer whirring to life as it spins freely. He gives you a lopsided smile. ‘There you go, sweetheart.’

You smile, but don’t seem to be in a hurry to move, which pleases him. He likes looking at you from this angle, relishing in your weight on him. He takes his time running his eyes over your face, his palms coming to rest on your knees.

You duck your head prettily. ‘Thank you, Joel.'

He gives you a playful shrug. ‘Well, I owed you one for these jeans.’

You roll your eyes in good humour. ‘Actually, I told you specifically that you didn’t.’

Joel basks in the lighthearted turn in the conversation, egging you on, ‘Well, in that case, you owe me one for this instead.’

‘That’s hardly fair -’ you chide him, punching him in the shoulder in a half-hearted rebuke.

Taking the opportunity, he grabs you by the wrist, the contact prompting a bodily shudder from you that he doesn’t miss. He smirks, ‘M’fraid I don’t play fair, sweetheart.’

You glare at him in mock sternness, bold enough to demand, ‘Fine - what do you want then, Joel Miller?’

For a split second, he hesitates, woefully out of practice at whatever it is that he’s about to do. Swallowing his self-doubt, he asks, ‘Tommy and Maria are throwing a baby shower on Sunday at their house - do you want to come?’

Your shoulders stiffen. Now, that you were not expecting. Your social anxiety bubbles between your ribs and looms over you like a spector. You sputter, ‘Um, I -’

You start when his fingers draw soothing circles on the top of your knees, as if seeing straight through the source of your apprehension. He reassures you, ‘Lucy is welcome to join too. The more the merrier.’

Your eyes soften. ‘Ok. I’d love to.’

The endearing way the corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles has you swaying towards him, his nose just brushing the side of yours - when the doorbell rings, cutting through the loaded silence.

In your haste to sit up, you knock your head against the table for a third time.

‘Ow!’ you cry. Even Joel flinches at the hard hit.

Lucy calls out, sounding dangerously close. ‘Pin? You ok, hon?’

‘Shit!’ You start scrambling backwards, bent over awkwardly, convinced that you’re one more blow away from a concussion. You’ve barely scrambled onto your feet when Lucy steps into the workshop, the world tilting on its axis for a moment as blood rushes to your brain.

She watches in amusement as Joel drags himself from under the sewing station, head cocked to one side. ‘Hi again, stranger. You really like our shop, don’t you?’

His shirt is rumpled from where you sat on him, bits of his curls sticking up. He rubs the back of his neck, as if caught with his hand in the cookie jar. ‘I just swung by to, uh, invite you and Pin to the baby shower. Tommy and Maria’s. This Sunday.’

Lucy crosses her arms, arching an eyebrow. ‘And it’s a tradition where you’re from to talk about weekend plans under a table?’

You narrow your eyes at her. ‘Luce -’

She winks. ‘You know what? I don’t need to know the gory details - but I’m in. See you Sunday, Miller!’

Joel huffs a chuckle as Lucy disappears into the front of the shop, leaving you two alone. You smile, suddenly shy for no reason, twining your fingers to stop from fidgeting. ‘Thanks again, Joel.’

He shrugs it off, a touch of boldness in the way he stands, hands in pockets, hips cocked. ‘Pleasure was all mine, sweetheart.’

Instead of heading in the direction of the door, he takes two long strides towards you, leaning down to murmur in your ear, ‘Wear those jeans for me again on Sunday?’

Stunned, you gape at him as he turns with a crooked grin and walks off, dispatching a two-fingered salute at Lucy as he goes. Pausing by the threshold, Joel gives you one last wink that has your breath stuttering - but you only allow yourself to sag against the wall when the door closes behind him, your knees giving.

Lucy wastes no time skipping back into the workshop, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet in excitement. ‘Alright, time to raid the party clothes rack, girl!’

You laugh - Sunday can’t come fast enough.

Notes: I had the best time writing this chapter - it was fun to flip the tables on Pin, not that Joel comes out completely unscathed!

I definitely have ✨ideas✨ for these two, but I'm enjoying keeping things loose, so I have no plans to turn this into a full-blown series just yet. I hope you enjoyed this instalment, comments/reblogs/asks are so so appreciated as always ❤️

#fuckyeahseams #tlou fanfiction #the last of us fanfiction #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x fem!reader #joel miller imagine #joel miller fic #joel miller x female reader

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musicforastylesrestaurant · 10 months

Note

I have an ideaaa so maybe you like to write about it. Imagine harry having a long term girlfriend or even wife but they are so private and harry protects her so much that nobody in the general public really knows anything about her or their relationship and the fans eat up every single information or content they can get about her and their relationship.

Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh Mysterious Girl.

masterlist || ask me anything <3

authors note - this is my first time doing an instagram concept of sorts and i wanted to make it easy on myself and use manips of harry with someone who i chose queen selena, please don’t be harsh on me and enjoy. 🫶

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2013.

liked by username, username and 413 others

harryupdates, Harry spotted going on a park walk with a mystery girl in London today!

tagged, harrystyles

view all comments,

username, who is she?

username, sorry but no

username, she’s actually so pretty!!

username, right?

username, his little beany 👉👈

username, they legit look like they could be siblings

username, they look so beautiful together

username, what part of London is this?

username, it was Hyde park!

username, if they’re dating then they make such a hot couple

username, PAPA

username, her names (Y/N) I’m not sure how old she is or what her job is but she’s from London

username, (Y/N) is such a cute name!

2015.

liked by username, username and 673 others

harryupdates, Harry and (Y/N) spotted at Louis’s mums wedding today!!

tagged, harrystyles, yourinstagram

view all comments

username, power couple right there!!

username, they attended her wedding together?

username, I mean they are dating so it would explain things 🤷‍♀️

username, it’s never been confirmed that they’re dating

username, his outfit is making me feel so many different thoughts

username, I don’t get what the hype of them is, she’s not even that pretty

username, don’t be so rude!

username, just because your jealous doesn’t mean that he can’t be happy

username, we better get the photo that she took on her phone

username, her Instagram accounts private so I highly doubt we will

username, I actually love them

username, she’s so gorgeous for literally no reason

username, imagine they got married as well

username, my life would officially end

username, if they got married they wouldn’t last, she’s probably a gold digger or something

liked by username, username and 1,381 others

harryupdates, Harry and (Y/N) arriving at the last ever one direction performance today!

tagged, harrystyles, yourinstagram

view all comments

username, we love a supportive gf

username, her smile is actually adorable

username, I spoke to her when they were arriving and she was actually one of the nicest people I’d ever spoken to

username, what did you say to her?! we need details!!

username, I said that her and Harry make a really cute couple and she said thank you and we have each other a hug

username, I need to meet both of them one day!

username, I can’t believe it’s the last show already

username, there outfits are actually so pretty!

username, I love the fact that we haven’t seen them together in almost five months and they just suddenly app at together out of no where

username, every time I see a notification that you’ve posted I hope that it’s something ti do with them

username, sometimes I just Google both there names and scroll through pictures of them

username, I don’t get why they get so much hate, I love them together !!

2017.

liked by username, username and 4,319 others

harryandynupdates, A photo montage of (Y/N) supporting Harry at the Dunkirk Premiere.

tagged, harrystyles, yourinstagram

view all comments

username, her red dress is so cute !!

username, her head resting on his shoulder is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life

username, it’s officially confirmed that they’re dating

username, they look so in love

username, if they ever broke up I don’t think I’d be able to live

username, the kiss on the lips is making me feel a multitude of different things

username, I’m having heart palpitations over here

username, can they adopt me?

username, CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT

yourinstagram, thank you so much for creating this, I’m putting this as my lock screen as we speak. ❤️

username, (Y/N)!

username, the queen has spoken!

username, she commented, I repeat she commented !

username, she basically confirmed that they were dating

username, it’s been confirmed for ages we just never wanted to believe it.

liked by yourinstagram, jeffazof and 542,108 others

annetwist, Merry Christmas from my family to yours!🎄🎅

view all comments

username, I want to be part of there family Christmas so badly

username, seeing photos of (Y/N) actually make me so happy!

username, she’s so pretty for literally no reason

yourinstagram, thank you so much lovelies, it means a lot ❤️

username, I want there roast dinner

username, (Y/N) CONTENT (Y/N) CONTENT

username, isn’t Harry pescatarian?

username, doesn’t mean that the others can’t have turkey?

username, all the stockings on the fire place 🥹🥹

gemmastyles, one of the best Christmases ever! x

username, gem!

username, the better styles right there!

username, (Y/N) and Harry are legit couple goals

username, you and Gemma are mother and daughter goals

yourinstagram, one of the best Christmases I’ve ever had, thank you for having me. ❤️❤️

username, she’s so cute, I love it!

annetwist, it was my pleasure, darling. x

username, she’s part of the family, omds I’m sobbing 😭

username, the photo of (Y/N) and Harry in the snow!

username, CONTENT, MAMA YOUR FEEDING US

username, (Y/N)s officially part of the annual Christmas photo

username, she’s winning at life right now

username, (Y/N) OUR QUEEN! 👸 👸

2019.

liked by username, username and 6,310 others

harryupdates, Harry speaking about (Y/N) in his recent interview with Zane Lowe!

“I met my fiancé when we were just eighteen and didn’t officially start dating until I gained the courage to ask her out at a mutual friends party, she’s my best friend and always will be, she’s my biggest inspiration and honestly don’t know what I’d be doing if I hadn’t of met her…I didn’t really think I’d ever be in love, not in this degree anyway. My whole family adore her just as much as me and that’s all I could ever ask for.

she knew what she was getting into when we started dating and that’s what I think made us want to keep our relationship so private, I don’t want her exposed to all the paparazzi knowing the cruel things that they can say, I like to think I’m an open book and seeing how she is with my life styles, and my fans makes me love her even more, which I didn’t think was at all possible.”

tagged, harrystyles

view all comments.

username, FIANCE?

username, you kept that one quiet mister!

username, (Y/N)s not even that pretty, he deserves better

username, literally stfu pls and thx

username, get a life

username, he’s so happy

username, I love that his family love her as well, that makes her even more special!

nicolasgrimshaw, Its' me! I'm the friend!!

username, NICK!

username, LOVE THAT <3

username, nick the match maker

username, his biggest inspiration, sobbing on the floor

username, currently digging my own grave as we speak

username, he deserves to be with someone who can deal with his celebrity status, she’s obviously to weak if he has to say that about her in an interview

username, keyboard warrior

username, if she had an issue with his life she would have left a long time ago

liked by gemmastyles, nicolasgrimshaw and 431,481 others

annetwist, Happy Birthday sweet heart, here’s to 25! 🥂

tagged, yourinstagram

view all comments

username, she calls her sweet heart, I'm sobbing!

username, hey Anne, I was wondering if you could adopt me, <3

username, don't ask me why this made me so emotional its literally just a picture

username, her smile 😭😭

username, shes legit so pretty for real 💗

username, we finally found out her age!

username, was she smiling at harry when this photo was being taken?

yourinstgram, ❤️️❤️️❤️️

username, QUEEN!

username, this so so sweet!

username, this family is actually so sweet

username, Sorry everyone I'm new and don't know who she is can someone tell me?

username, she's Harry's fiancé, her names (Y/N)

username, thank you !

username, sorry Anne she's not your sweetheart, she's our sweetheart!

username, she still exists?

username, she always has and always will

gemmastyles, 👑

username, my heart hearts please this is too much

username, YN CONTENT MY LIFE IS NOW A HAPPY ONE

username, that's literally my reaction every time I see a new picture of her

2020.

liked by username, username and 8,917 others

harryupdates, LEAKED PHOTOS OF (Y/N) AND HARRY. SOMEONE HACKED ANNE'S ICLOUD AGAIN!

tagged, harrystyles, yourinstagram

view all comments.

username, no wtf?

username, who hacked Anne tf?

username, these photos are cute and all but i think the family would really appreciate if you didn't repost them everywhere

username, as much as I hate the fact anne got hacked, these photos are actually adorable

username, the fifth photo

username, they're so in love it actually hurts my chest☹️

username, delete these right now!

username, unfollow!

username, the photo of them laying in the grass

username, knowing she was with him the day that photoshoot took place is actually so freakin cute!

username, this is the one time i'm not happy i got a picture of (Y/N)

username, who hacked anne like get a fucking life

username, (Y/N) content has never made me feel so sad

username, in the fourth photo, you can see Anne just wanted a photo with her son but she just had to photo bomb it.

username, the smile on Anne's face tells me she doesn't care.

username, this is actually sickening

username, as much as I hate what's happened and the fact there privacy's been exposed, this drama is eating me up

username, take these down right now

2023.

liked by username, username and 4,194 others

harryandynupdates, (Y/N) was spotted in the crowd at Harry's Cardiff Show today supporting him!

tagged, yourinstagram

view all comments.

username, I LOVE HOW SUPPORTIVE SHE IS

username, she's so happy to be there omds

username, having major fomo over here

username, I knew she was at all his other shows but no one ever got a photo, so thank you to whoever for blessing us with this <3

username, it was me, I was with my sister and she recognised her straight away, she was in the private pit with Jeff and Glenne.

username, I need to party with her so bad

username, like legit it's on my bucket list

username, god blessed us with her

username, she seems so care free like it's actually adorable

username, the man on the left of the photo looks like gino d'acampo

username, I CAN SEE IT!

username, YOUR ACTUALLY RIGHT!!

username, she's his biggest supporter

username, she's just like me!

username, she's his biggest hype women!

username, why is she pulling that face?

username, I've never been more in love with her like wtaf?

username, making me cry seeing how happy and carefree she is being

username, seeing her so happy makes me so happy

liked by username, username and 9,104 others

harryupdates, "I CAME HERE HOPING THAT I WOULD SEE (Y/N) BUT I GOT YOU INSTEAD!" Harry reading a sign at the concert tonight and answering with:

"You came here to see my wife? Hate to break it to you sista but she's not here tonight, she's got a stomach bug and was crushed when the medic told her not to leave the bed, so sorry but you'll have to put up with me instead!"

tagged, harrystyles

view all comments.

username, WIFE?!

username, nah he got married?

username, IM ACTUALLY SOBBING LIKE WTF?!

username, I KNEW THEY WERE ENGAGED AND ALL BUT WHEN THE FUCK DID THEY GET MARRIED?!

username, now they can finally adopt me?

username, this content of him and (Y/N) was not something I thought I'd be seeing in 2023.

username, I'm actually so happy for them right now

username, Harry deserves to be happy, and (Y/N) is the perfect person for him

username, literally no one likes her its probably a publicity stunt

username, a publicity stunt that's lasted ten years?!

username, CONGRATS

username, she's in it all for the money

username, CONTENT I REPEAT CONTENT

username, how long do you think they've been married for?

username, I'm thinking some time between Christmas and when tour started up again

username, is this just another way for him to make money?

username, he has a wife?

username, the next thing for him to achieve is becoming a dilf

username, the world would officially end when that happens

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1K notes · View notes

hussyknee · 9 months

Text

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Another thread by Senator Ben Ray Luján here.

A book on the subject (haven't read it myself):

One of the sources in another one of Alisa's furiously impassioned twitter threads have been debunked, so I didn't include that. But she claims that her own family was caught in the fallout zone when her mother was a baby, which eventually led to her and large numbers of her community developing cancer. It's human for that kind of grief to be caught up in inaccuracies. People are already being ghastly and racist to Hispanos and Indigenous people criticizing the hype for the movie. They're not attacking Oppenheimer for being Jewish, they're criticising the erasure of the human cost of these bombs and the continued valorisation of the U.S military's actions in World War II as some kind of moral saviourism.

While Oppenheimer himself believed that the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were morally justified (they had planned to drop them on Germany except they surrendered before they could), he also felt had blood on his hands and regretted his role as the "Father of the Atomic Bomb". He spent the rest of his career vehemently opposing further development of thermonuclear weapons and the hydrogen bomb accurately predicting the concept of mutually assured destruction. This eventually made him a victim of Senator McCarthy's Red Scare and his clearance was revoked. I haven't seen the movie (Christopher Nolan is the kind of casual white racist I avoid on principle) but people who have seen it say that it doesn't glorify nuclear weapons and depicts the man himself with the complex moral nuance that seems to be accurately reflective of his real life.

The backlash to Indigenous and Hispanos people's criticisms and to people pointing out that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were genocides is also frustrating because...both world wars were a clash of genocidal empires. The reason they were world wars is because the countries colonized by Japan, China, the European powers and the US were all dragged into it, whether they wanted to or not. Jews were one of the many colonized peoples that suffered in that time, who were left to die by everyone until they could be used to frame the Allied powers as moral saviours, establishing a revisionist nostalgia for heroism that powers the US military industrial complex to this day.

As early as May 1942, and again in June, the BBC reported the mass murder of Polish Jews by the Nazis. Although both US President, Franklin Roosevelt, and British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, warned the Germans that they would be held to account after the war, privately they agreed to prioritise and to turn their attention and efforts to winning the war. Therefore, all pleas to the Allies to destroy the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau were ignored. The Allies argued that not only would such an operation shift the focus away from winning the war, but it could provoke even worse treatment of the Jews. In June 1944 the Americans had aerial photographs of the Auschwitz complex. The Allies bombed a nearby factory in August, but the gas chambers, crematoria and train tracks used to transport Jewish civilians to their deaths were not targeted.

(Source)

Uncritical consumption of World War II media is the reinforcement of imperialist propaganda, more so when one group of colonized people is used to silence other colonized peoples. Pitting white Jewry against BIPOC is to do the work of white supremacy for imperialist colonizers, and victimizes Jews of colour twice over.

Edit: friends, there's been some doubt cast on the veracity of Alisa's claims. The human cost to the Hispanos population caught downwind of the nuclear tests is very real, as was land seizure without adequate compensation. However, there's no record I can yet find about Los Alamos killing livestock and Hispanos being forced to work for Los Alamos without PPE. There is a separate issue about human testing in the development of said PPE that's not covered here. I'm turning off reblogs until I can find out more. Meanwhile, here's another more legitimate article you can boost instead:

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drawnfamiliarfaces · 6 months

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Okay so assuming there is absolutely nothing going on come Halloween night, no ancient threats or out of nowhere invasions or anything, which of the HoM would be up for trick-or-trwating, from most to least hyped?

These 6 would be especially excited for trick-or-treat out of the lot!

Their trick-or-treating would probably consist of them crashing people's homes (enemies and friends alike) to play some harmless (or not) pranks in the spirit of Halloween.

Randy just in general enjoys Halloween and dressing up. Danny is more excited to have Halloween fun with people not from Amity Park (or more like fun to mess with people who are actually afraid/get scared of ghosts unlike most of Amity citizens). Ben and Jun just likes any excuse to mess with people. While Zak and Rex are all up to have some relatively 'normal' fun with a group of friends (something they didnt have many opportunities for when they were younger).

The other three wouldn't mind joining them, but they would be more excited about hosting a big Halloween Party!

Kim, Jake and Jenny always sought out more social forms of holiday celebration, and they really would enjoy hosting a big party, open to all of their friends, be they magical, alien or human. Rex would also be incredibly excited (if not to actually host but to participate in it) because it is another 'normal' experience he never had a chance to get before.

Also can you imagine how rad the party would be???

There is also another thing two of them would be very excited about...

Haunted House/Maze.

Danny and Ben would get into a contest of who could make a better Haunted House/Maze for the party (with some assistance from Randy and Rex).

As I said before, Danny, with all his ghostly powers and expertese would be excited to make a Haunted House for people outside of Amity Park. While Ben would probably rise the challenge to Danny's efforts, saying that he could make a scarier maze.

And the truth is, despite all the ghostly things Danny can do, Ben would make a very decent opposition (and for why, you really need to only refer to Ben 10:AF episode Above and Beyond, that kid can be very sinister lol).

So the party would end up with two haunted mazes, one themed around ghost /spirits /magic, and the other themed around horror movies/sci-fi/aliens, which would fit really well, considering the diversity of their friends. ;D

also i dressed them up like that because

Danny as Phantom, dressed as Fright Knight because i just keep thinking about the dude. Danny as Fenton, a low effort t-shirt because he would be spending more time as Phantom.

Randy as Sorcerer, because despite defeating him, Randy can admit that he was pretty freaking spooky.

Zak as Francis (agent clone boy), because they planned to crash their agency HQ and Zak knew it would annoy Francis.

Jun as Loki of Marvel Variety, because she knows it would annoy Taylor (their universe Loki's demigod son) and it just amuses her in general how popular and different a Marvel Loki is, compared to that Loki she knows and is imprisoned.

Kim as Warmonga, mostly because i wanted to dress her as one of her enemies, but didn't want to go easy way of dressing her up as Shego or Dr. Krakken.

Jenny as Vexus, because Vexus design slaps and i wanted to.

Ben, Rex and Jake went the low-effort easy route (because they are like that), with Jake just freely walking around as Dragon (and people complimenting him on his scaly suit lol), and Ben and Rex transforming freely and whenever the want.

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portgasdwrld · 7 months

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Remember those og youtube challenges where beauty gurus had their s/os doing their makeup? Ok so maybe the crew were invited to some luxurious island or something and reader injured their arm prior to this event, so entrusted their beauty routine to the strawhats? I know nami & robin won’t let us down, but I’m so ready for the guys to mess us up. 💄 - 🩵

Hii love, how are you!!? Love the idea once again🫶🏻🫶🏻

📂Strawhats doing your make-up for an event

Luffy

He was so excited to learn about what make up was and how to help you with it!

He was listening to your explanation with big eyes and attentive ears

When it came to actually do it, he tried his best to focus, but it ended up looking goofy asf 💀

The eyebrows were overdrawn, the eyeshadow was not blended at all, the eyeliner wing was wonky

You looked like a fun experience of make up that’s for sure, a kid drawing at best

You didn’t want to hurt his feeling telling him it looked bad, so you said it was fine

He left satisfied proud of himself

It looked better done by you even with your handicap 😭

He tried tho 😭🫶🏻

Usopp

He was hella confident, saying he knew some skills from Kaya, so he totallyyyy got it.

The moment he got his hand on your make-up your brushes, he totally freaked out and didn’t know where to start. He forgot everything she taught him.

He admitted he was lost with embarrassment, but instantly relaxed when you chuckled reassuring him and helped him through it.

He actually really did a great job. Well expected from the artist and snipper of the crew, his abilities for details didn’t disappoint.

You ask him to help you from now on, when you’re having a bad make-up day🚶🏻‍♀️

Zoro

Man was lost lost. He glared at you like “why the fuck are you asking me?”

He said no and walked away, but you whined telling him the others were busy getting ready and he was already done so it was the least he could do.

He stayed firm on his position, but only agreed when you brought up, you could bribe Nami into reducing his debts towards her.

Kinda worked?

He did a horrible job :/

We love you Zoro but make up isn’t quite for you😔

Sanji

He was sooooo down for it. He was smiling so hard and was lowkey dreaming about being able to help you with your make-up routine.

When you asked, he accepted immediately, even cutting you off mid-sentence

He was already on his way to prepare some snacks for you while he helps you out.

He was listening to you very carefully, not wanting to miss out on any of your indications and ruin it.

He was so good and gentle with it?? He was blushing like crazy, being so close to your face, but he got the job done.

He would softly ask you if this was alright and if you liked it. Always asking for feedback so it’s at your liking. Never felt annoyed when you asked to redo something. He was so nice and cool about it which made the experience so enjoyable.

You loved it sm & gave him a big hug that got him on a good mood for the rest of the day☹️💕

Nami

When you asked her, she totally understood on the spot and sat you on a chair close to her.

Before she started, she asked you what was your vision and what you wanted basically.

She gave you advice on what would look best on your facial features, and what would go along with your outfit.

It felt like a professional session, she super focused

Y'all spoke about fashion the whole time and she was so enthusiastic and hyped about the whole thing

She gossiped about who could possibly be there at the event and if there was gonna be anything worth doing, stealing

the end result was so good, it was even better than you imagined it

10/10 would recommend again

Robin

She nodded and asked you to sit somewhere

After she got a general idea of what you wanted she started to work on your make-up at first silently, trying to build the base

As she saw time was running out, she used her devil fruit power to make it quicker and do both side at the same time.

You made a joke about her power being useful and she chuckled before agreeing

she started to speak about her DF and how as she grew up, she kept finding uses to it

It was really a nice and almost healing time

Robin felt like an older sister doing your make up as Nami had more of that best friend vibe

She even fixed your hair to make sure your look was completed and proposed you look through her accessories if you wanted

love her !!!

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fantastic-nonsense · 4 months

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I wouldn't mind the heavy focus on warrior Amazons so much if they were allowed to be competent instead of just being used as red shirt cannon fodder. But it seems DC only hypes up the Amazons as deadly fighters so other characters can look more impressive when they take them down.

Oh and Happy New Year.

Happy New Year! Forgive me if I use your ask to talk about a piece of the Wonder Woman mythos I've wanted to discuss for some time, because your complaints offered me the perfect segue to write a nice, in-depth meta on it and I couldn't pass up the opportunity.

Honestly, I think a lot of people (both creatives and readers) either don't know, forget, or fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the Amazons' warrior status. So they often get reduced to "deadly warriors who strike first," "supposedly deadly but generally incompetent warriors when outside of their own books," or "militant man-haters" by a lot of people. None of which are true.

The Amazons are incredibly competent warriors and have been since Marston's first portrayal of them in the 1940s, so I don't inherently mind them being shown as such. However, where people get bogged down is insisting that they be shown as deadly and trigger-happy offensive fighters who are happy to strike first and hard, which fundamentally goes against the philosophy and thematic messaging built into Amazonian lore.

DC's Amazonia, lore-wise, is traditionally framed as an Aphrodite vs. Ares "peace and love vs. violence and war" story. In Marston's original rendition of the Amazon's backstory Aphrodite is not only their patron goddess but also their sole creator; it was only after Crisis on Infinite Earths and George Perez's long-overdue lore expansions that the rest of the goddesses became co-creators and co-patrons of the Amazons. Regardless, Ares and his domain are consistently invoked as what the Amazons don't want to be like or engage in. That behavior is the antithesis of what Amazons are supposed to be. This lore informs literally everything about how the Amazons view both their combat abilities and their duty to the goddesses.

The contemporary Amazons are, for the most part, women who died in terrible and traumatic ways at the hands of men (usually through domestic violence, murder, or as conquests of war). When the goddesses created the Amazons by reincarnating these women via the Well of Souls, they specifically charged them to become their champions. And what did these goddesses want? They explicitly wanted justice and protection for women in a violently patriarchial world. The Amazons being warriors is thus specifically tied to an understanding of necessary self-defense and protection (both of themselves and other women), not offense.

Which of course is what lands the Amazons on Themyscira in the first place: invoking the goddesses' ire by not obeying these commands after their rebellion against their enslavement by Heracles and his men crosses the line from the necessary battle to achieve their liberation into wanton violence and revenge:

"The battered Hippolyta prayed to her goddesses and found the courage and inspiration to free herself. Athena had reminded Hippolyta of the Amazons' purpose and mission—but not all of the Amazons remembered. Or cared. They yearned for vengeance. For retribution against those who violated them...and under Antiope, many found it." -Wonder Woman: Our Worlds at War (2001)

And as Hippolyta and Menalippe tell Antiope:

"No, Antiope. Never vengeance; never again!" /// "That is Ares' way, Antiope. We achieve no glory by embracing the Dark God's power!" -Wonder Woman (1987) #1

The Amazon way is promoting a society based on love, equality, truth, and peaceful conflict resolution, not vengeance and violent combat. It's a philosophy that defines Diana's mission in Man's World as an ambassador, teacher, and living example of her peoples' way of life:

Enraptured, they listen to her dissertation on equality between the sexes, tolerance, peaceful coexistence. Social Philosophy 101, Amazon Style. -Wonder Woman (1987) #170

Diana's gods-given mission was to spread the Amazonian ideals of conciliation—to give those living in the World of Man the proper tools to peacefully coexist with each other. It was her life's purpose to teach the possibilities of respect and love by being a living example of an upbringing founded in those ideals.

Truth-seeking, diplomacy, and peace are the Amazonian way of dealing with conflict, not violence. And when you are forced to engage in combat (and you should be prepared for that eventuality because sometimes it will happen), your goal should be self-defense and de-escalation, not offense and prolonging the conflict longer than necessary.

This is also, as an aside, why Diana (and specifically Diana in her capacity as Wonder Woman) does not usually carry offensive weapons like a sword and why her primary "weapons" are the Lasso of Truth and protective bracelets. She's the official representative of her peoples' culture and personally deeply believes in that cultural philosophy. Other Amazons have different views on the matter, including her mother, but Diana grew up completely separated from the World of Man and fully immersed in that belief system, which deeply informs how she views her mission as Wonder Woman.

Personally, I think many (but not all) of the problems re: depicting the Amazons in the modern era come from various writers attempting to solve contradictions that don't exist. They see "kickass trained warriors living peacefully on an island" and see that as a contradiction they have to solve: why do they train if they're pacifists? Why do they fight if they're peaceful? In reality, it's not a contradiction: their status as warriors and champions is specifically tied to self-defense and protection (both of themselves and others), but given the choice they don't want to have to take up arms to protect people because that goes against their fundamental cultural philosophy. Outsiders and meddlesome gods are the ones who force them to do that! What they want is for everyone to be treated with love, respect, and understanding so they don't have to!

And there's a lot of problematic elements built into the concept's execution, but this is the core thesis behind the split between Hippolyta's Themyscirans and Antiope's Bana-Mighdall. The Themysciran Amazons have had their fill of violence and war; they just want to live in peace. But a) they were specifically tasked with guarding Doom's Doorway when they were taken to the island, a duty which necessitates perfect combat readiness, and b) their history is littered with examples of people refusing to leave them alone. So they train, in case someone decides to take shots at them, but otherwise live in peaceful isolation. Meanwhile, the Banas looked at that same shared history and went "we need to take the fight to the outside world. Offense is the best defense, and the only way to protect ourselves and the other women of the world is to actively seek vengeance for the violence women face." So they chose to actively intervene in Man's World, fighting constant battles and exacting revenge for any women mistreated at the hands of men.

...which is also why Artemis was such a necessary and interesting addition to the Wonder Woman mythos (even if she's often handled...poorly), because she and Diana represent two diametrically opposed views of how to protect and represent both their cultures and the women of Man's World, but that's a rant for a different time.

Anyway, the Themysciran Amazons' martial pacifism as a cultural value isn't a contradiction; it's one way of looking at a history filled with violence and victimization and saying "no more." And it's a pretty subversive way of doing so, which (well-written) comics tend to note!

So yes, the "Amazons are warriors" mentality has always been there and has been solidly emphasized at various points throughout Wonder Woman's history, and it should be acknowledged and shown that they're all incredibly competent in battle when they're forced to engage in it. But the way in which it gets emphasized is what defines whether a writer has a solid understanding of the history and baggage that comes with depicting the Amazonian struggle and the socio-political issues embedded in their lore. And unfortunately...many writers just don't seem to get it.

#sorry for just ranting about this but I HAVE to correct the narrative every time this comes up. it's not a want. it's a need.#someone hire me to write a political history of Amazonia #I could do SO MUCH with the recurring themes of isolationism vs. interventionalism as a method of self-defense #dc comics #wonder woman #wonder woman meta #diana of themiscyra #artemis of bana mighdall #queen hippolyta #dc amazons #dc meta #long post #asks

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hazelnut-u-out · 2 months

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Rick and Morty does an awesome job at highlighting generational trauma cycles. The fact that Beth adopted Rick’s parenting style and approach to marriage (and even IDOLIZED him/the abuse) without realizing that her biggest character flaws come directly from him is super interesting.

I honestly think splitting her into two different versions of herself— one who chooses to be more like her mother and one more like her father; one who stays and one who leaves— was a good choice. As someone who relates a lot to sentiments like ‘my parent idolizes their parents/I’m angry with my parents for what their parents did to them/when I’m angry with my mother, but then I remember she’s just a girl’, the Beths are a powerful representation of not only what I see in myself, but also an experience of motherhood I have little insight into on my own.

With all of their parallels, I like to think Beth has moments where she— like her father— says to herself, ‘Holy shit… I’m a terrible mother.’

I’ve never thought about it before, but Beth truly resents feeling ‘trapped’ in motherhood. She views it as something Jerry did to her instead of something she also partook in. I’m not saying that Jerry didn’t do that intentionally, but I am saying that Beth made choices there, too, and it’s unfair of her to hold contempt for her children (mainly Morty) because of that.

It makes me wonder what her relationship with Diane was like. Diane might have felt like Rick trapped her into motherhood and then took a backseat, too. Did Diane resent Beth for taking away what her life could’ve been? Did Diane blame Beth for her decision to be a mother?

On the other side of the coin, we have Morty. He’s like his dad in a lot of innocent ways, but that concept terrifies him because he’s seen the malice behind that harmless facade.

Part of him hates his mom for never wanting him— for never caring for him or protecting him— but that’s a part of himself he buries. He knows, at the end of the day, his mom is just a girl who desperately wanted her dad to love her.

‘I love Daddy!’

People talk about how much Morty is like Jerry all the time, but I’ve NEVER seen a post about how similar he is to Beth. (Please tag me if you have, so I can hype it up!) He spends all day everyday cripplingly aware of just how little his parents want him. He feels their rejection and neglect. He buries those feelings to protect them; or maybe because he’s so aware of their disdain for him that he believes they just might discard him if he’s too much work.

…Sound familiar?

Sometimes I wonder how much of Morty’s efforts to protect Beth from Rick’s actions and people pleasing to make Beth and Rick’s relationship just a bit easier comes from a certain relatedness he feels to his mother’s experience of rejection/abandonment.

‘Rick, I can handle it if you go, but you’ll break Mom’s heart, and I won’t forgive you for that.’

He loves who some may consider unlovable.

But, holy shit, is that kid angry.

Angry at people he can’t justify holding accountable because… Fuck, they’ve been through a lot, too, haven’t they? How could he possibly justify hating someone he could so easily become?

I can only hope we get some more of Rick’s relationship with his parents. I’m dying to know about it.

#rick and morty #rick sanchez #morty smith #beth smith #sorry i��m having a moment #back on my constant analysis bullshit

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bomber-grl · 3 months

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General Mob dating hcs

Pairing(s): Shigeo Kageyama x Gn!Reader

He’s so cute

And really really awkward, almost painfully so

I mean when he first confesses to you it was done two ways

The first was after being continuously hyped by dimple, reigen, and his brother so he decides to buy a bouquet of flowers and go from there

That or it was all spontaneous and you had accidently confessed to him, it was all overwhelming for him and he almost went to ???

But you quickly comforted him and reassured him of how u really felt (although a downside was having to say the truth of your embarrassing feelings)

You were most likely friends with mob or were similar to teruhashi

I’ll go with the first route to start

Since the two of you were friends, he probably had never thought of liking you in that way

Until he did

In this scenario you’d have to be an esper along with mob since you’d have to be close enough to work alongside him with reigen

Anyway, because you’re both esters (especially if you’re a powerful one) then he’d feel really connected to you

I mean, you’re one of the few people who could possibly understand how he feels

If you’re one of the popular kids and are constantly getting love letters then he’d look at you from afar

He really admires and likes you so once you guys get together in this scenario he’s more than pumped and obviously ends up telling anyone he can

More into the relationship hcs-

He’s really cute, which is more than obvious

He’s pretty awkward and if you’d wanna ask him anything you’ll have to give him a few seconds before he manages to say anything

He’s pretty slow on hand holding too

If you were to ever hold his hand he’d have to let go instantly before his powers make it a negative memory

He’ll even go to reigen and his brother for help with gifts and advice too

(Yknow, after reigens character development)

A specific scenario would be like for Valentine’s Day or just to gift you something

He decides to go to reigen then his brother, and even tome

He’d ultimately decide to get you a little basket full with your fav snacks and even a little bouquet

When it comes to finally giving it you he gets so flustered 😭

He gives them to you despite his nervousness and when you decide to hug or give him a kiss on the cheek-

He nearly explodes on the spot

Mob exe has stopped working

Please just give him some space afterwards 😭

(He severely needs it)

If you ever gift him anything back like this, or even milk from the vending machine at school-

He’ll definitely fluster and even thank you formally 😭

You’ll have to tell him to stop because people are staring but also because the two of you are literally dating

When you first hug him he’s so stiff

He’s just stiff in your arms and when he returns it, he just snuggles into your neck to try and hide his face from passerby’s

When you start being more open about your relationship and start openly holding hands the body improvement club/ telepathy club really congratulate him

+ tome just getting mad at mob for not letting her know of your relationship sooner

And just the rest are shenanigans of her trying to convince you to join the club

If you guys were to ever have a sleepover it’s most definitely at your house

Ain’t no way it’s gonna be at his

Anyway, you’ll probably watch a movie and when you feel mob lean on you you decide to just lay him down and go to bed which ends in the two of you cuddling

Of course dimple had to be there for “supervision “ he says

But anyway when you decide to hold mob in your arms you feel him moving and starts mumbling incoherently

Then he gets up abruptly and totally freaks out when he realizes how close you two were

He gets teased endlessly by dimple 😭

Now, speaking of ritsu

He’s really supportive of mobs relationship with you, he was just a lil worried about the confession if he’s gonna be real

He was more worried that you wouldn’t like mob back and even worse, how he’d react

So when the two of you start going out he’s really happy for his older brother

And surprisingly, he thinks good of you before you even meet

(Surprisingly because of how emo he is)

If you ever get in a situation where you can’t defend yourself then he’ll definitely be there

He’d go “???” And go absolute ham on whoever hurt you

He gets seriously upset that he became that way infront of you and needs serious reassurance from you

Eventually you’re introduced to ritsu and it’s goes as best as it could

It’s pretty awkward but atleast ritsu thinks ur good enough lmao

Of course he eventually becomes more open

Especially with his emotions

But things between you, things stay pretty much the same

#gn reader #male reader #female reader #fanfic #fluff #fanfic fluff #fluff headcanons #mob psycho 100 #mob pyscho #mob psycho shigeo #mob psycho mob #mob psycho anime #shigeo kageyama #mp100 shigeo #mob shigeo #mob x reader #shigeo kageyama x reader #Shigeo x reader #kageyama x reader

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hells-wasabii · 3 months

Note

Request: Velvette x sycophantic female demon personal assistant

A/N: This one, oh it was really fun to write. I don't touch on stuff like this often so I was pretty hyped to get to dabble in it! I decided to make it seem like the reader is looking to gain from the vee's or even velvette specifically but didn't wanna specify which because drama. like can you imagine the romance that could bloom from a situation like that? talk about a whirlwind! anywho, I hope you enjoy this one!

Character: Velvette

Type: Headcanons (Velvette x sycophantic assistant fem!reader, General)

Velvette is cunning, perceptive. There was no doubt about that. She didn't get this far by not being able to pick up on people's intentions, after all. In all honesty. the two of you were similar in that aspect. This meant that you had been perfect for the position. You had the work experience, having been working your way up the ladder.

The fashionista knew that you were out to gain something, but whether it be power by association of some kind or a personal vendetta, she wasn't entirely sure.

She's gotta admire the hustle, though, you did make it all the way to the top, the highest that you could make it in her department. Her personal assistant. But that wasn't a smart move on your part, now was it? Being in this position meant that you were under constant surveillance, constantly on call for any little thing that Velvette may need or want. It certainly helped that you could step in for a model should a certain demon decide to ruin any of her employees.

Admittedly she enjoyed the power dynamic. She loved making it seem as if she was onto you, loved watching you get nervous. She just couldn't help but get a kick out of the way you squirmed.

She would absolutely know that you were up to something, but she didn't particularly care enough to actively do anything about it. After all, you hadn't done anything quite yet, at least nothing for her or the Vee's to worry about. For the time being, however, she'll watch your movements like a hawk.

Now don't be mistaken, if you prove to be a genuine threat to what she and the Vee's have going on, she will personally be the one to see to it that the situation is handled, whether it be a simple reprimand or something more. After all, you were her little assistant, what kind of overlord would she be if she let you get away with it?

The youngest overlord would be lying if she said that she wasn't looking forward to seeing what you might have up your sleeve. If things continued on the way they were, it was bound to get exciting with you around.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin headcanons #hazbin imagine #velvette x reader #hazbin hotel x reader

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dido-main · 9 months

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♡♡bf!txt and things you can do for them♡♡

synopsis: small or big things/gestures to show your love for them or things they would love in their partner and their reaction based on my observations and astrology /seperate

genre: pure fluff and nothing else i swear

wanings: delulu headcanons, might come across cringe to some, is fluff a warning? imo it is! fight me about it if you want, kissing?

i love my tubatu boys so much, i want to cry~

let him what he needs to do show love

i think yeonjun would get very upset if you were to say stuff like how overwhelmed you are with his gifts since you can't do the same for him or judge him for wanting to show pda

so he is most likely to settle for bare minimum in this case. he has high standarts in everything else but this one in particular restricts him and his love for you. so just let him love you however he wants~

listen to his advices

he no means to control you but let's just say you made changes in your style just because yeonjun suggested you to do that particular thing, he would be so happy. this may include lots of variations of advice but like i said not in a controlling way.

wear matching clothes/accessories with him

not cringe ones like "his/hers" or "look at my bf/gf" but like waering the same necklace he bought for you or same themed clothes that do not necessarily scream couple clothes.

tumbling down his walls

i don't think yeonjun likes showing weakness. i have similar placements with him, i would know. so when you be the person he can truly feel comfortable around to show his real self, he is considering you love of his life.

encourage him in what he does

although this may apply to everything he is passionate about, his job in particular is where he needs you to be hyping him up. call him "4th gen it boy" or compliment his lyricism and him being all rounder. yeah almost everyone does that but he also needs you to do that, too.

let him take care of you

soobin has this great parental energy that traditionally falls under father figure roles. what i mean is for example if you have a problem you are facing, just let him be the one who helps you solve it. i am not saying he wants to be your savior but he cares so much and this is his way of showing.

cook/bake together

soobin likes to cook/bake even though he is not the best at it. he tries. but he loves to cook/bake with you. especially if you are excellent cook. he feels like this is your love project together and also a fun activity on top of it. what's not the like?

be his equal

i don't think soobin would enjoy an obvious power imbalance in a relationship. of course there is some places he is better or worse than you but they balance each other out. and i mean this also in a way that no one in the relationship should hold the power, it would make him so uncomfortable.

get along with his friens

he is the introvert that has lots of friends for an unexplained and mysterious reason but he loves them and you so you getting along with them genuinely makes him happy. just like the one of the biggest hit there is: spice girls - wannabe. lyrics are just so soobin.

enjoy the things he enjoys

you get a joke he made and laugh at it, he is happy. you like the date idea he suggested and excited to do it, he is happy. you watch him play video games with his friends, he is happy.

basically he is happy to be understood and seen. many more examples can be given

not be boring

always stimulate his brain. play hard to get. (not too much tho) be cool in general. get his jokes. at least try to enjoy things he loves.

may seem a lot but he doesn't like the idea of being bored in general. (this i can relate) but it heavily influences his love life the most.

listen to his worries

beomgyu is also a human being. he needs nurtiring just like everyone else. no matter how small the problem is, show that you care. and also beomgyu deserves it. most people deserve this but beomgyu deserves it more than the rest.

be his star crossed lover

he wants to believe that it is more than his and your choice. he wants to believe that some powerful being or universe wants you to be together. call it soulmates, call it twinflame. doesn't matter. just be his true love.

validate him

he doesn't nor necessarily seek for validation from others,he does but not in the unhealthy way, but his s/o is a different story. so when you are proud of him, he is proud of himself. don't make him feel untalented or stupid or useless or someone who is trying or some- one who is not really nice.

open up to him

he feels uneasy with someone who doesn't share. it feels like you don't trust him. he talks about his problems, right? so why don't you. like i genuinely think he wants you to trauma dump. he wants to learn why you are the way you are.

be different

he doesn't want to commit to someone who is just like everyone else you can find on the street. maybe it is your style, maybe it is your personality, maybe it is your taste, maybe it is your dislike of pop culture... but don't be a poser and don't make this all of your personality.

take care of him when he is sick

idk why but i think tyun would show his vulnerability to his s/o but would also make sure that he has borders. but it changes when he is sick. he is a baby, okay? so take care of him!!!!!! (he lowkey likes the motherly/parental vibe you are giving, too)

let him take control

i am talking about your relationship. he likes independent people who take care of themselves but he would prefer leading the relationship. not in the toxic way i swear, he asks for your opinion of course.

kiss him a lot

some of you guys may know my taehyun the expert french kisser theory... and if you don't, here it is again. he is a expert french kisser. loves kissing so much. doesn't need to be mouth to mouth action. just kiss him or let him kiss you.

work out with him

i know some people make working out tyun's whole personality but i mean this in a way that be a part of his routine and also take care of yourself. two birds one stone, you know. he likes this activity so even you watching him do it is enough sometimes.

get along with his members and family

we all know hyuka doesn't let anyone to be in his life. he has his members and family. so if you are blessed enough to be in it, you should get along with them. he also values family so much. he seems to have very healthy relationships with his family and members so it is unavoidable that he wants his s/o to be part of it.

be a geek with him

i don't think hyuka is geek btw but he would love it when you play mario kart with him or watch batman the animated series with him. you know traditionally geeky stuff. also make commentary and jokes while engaging with the media. and react his commentary and jokes, too.

be nostalgic with him

this is why i think he would want someone his age or close to his age or older than him since they can experience his childhood memerioes. kinda related to the one above but if you enjoy the things he enjoyed when he was younger, that would make him happy.

cook for him

he would really appreciate this one. may want to help but the thoughtfulness of you makes his heart flutter. definitely loves your cooking even if you are not the best. also he may want to try different foods so when you cook something he wanted to try, he is in love. the experience is definitely better than a fancy restaurant.

beautify yourself

i am not saying fit in the beauty standart. i am saying be fashionable and confident. like if he likes your aesthetic, you are beautiful to him. so try to have your own style and aesthetic. if you put an effort, he would also put an effort. he likes to adorn himself for his s/o and expects you to do same.

a/n: i had this on my notes for so long. i am just glad that i finally got to share. i also tried to do moodboards. though i think i failed a little, it was fun to do it.

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koolades-world · 28 days

Note

Hi :) is hug deprived anon no longer anon, back with another request (if you want to write it obv! No pressure, as always!)

So, this MC is pretty strong as humans go. A bit above average in height, isn’t chiseled and buff like Beel but does have a lot of functional muscle strength. The sort of person who was always the one people back in the human world would call on to lift heavy things, move furniture, carry boxes, etc.

Likewise, their personality is kinda like Beel’s—in that they’re generally helpful and protective, mild mannered, about as talkative as he is. MC grew up a bit too fast though. They were too helpful, given responsibilities before they were ready, put in charge of others because they’re reliable. Their peers and adults alike would confide in them about their issues when they were still too young to handle them well, which they took with the same gentle, old-soul competence that makes it easy for people to rely on them as always.

They’re used to carrying heavy things (including people) both physically and emotionally. Good at it, too.

But then, they arrive in the Devildom and make friends with the bros, helping them like in canon as this MC would instinctively do, but also… these demons are bigger and stronger than them. As much as MC still falls into the babysitter/therapist role emotionally for them, the demons protect MC physically.

This is a huge, life affirming relief to MC! It’s so nice to have other people to take over being the protective strong one for once! It’s so nice to have help! It’s nice to feel cared for.

So, how do you think the bros would react to this MC leaning into their demons babying them? Maybe eventually getting a bit clingy with them? Mc being like, oh, you want to help me? You’re protecting me, you’re carrying stuff for me, you’re genuinely asking how I’m feeling?? Thank fuck! Yes, I am babie, pls carry me

If all the bros are too much/impractical for this one, it’s also totally good if you’d rather write this with just Beel and/or Mammon. Lucifer could work well for this too, now that I think of him. Do whatever you like! Have fun! :)

hi!! great to hear from you :) thanks for always being sweet, it always makes my day to see you <3

decided to do beel, mammon, and asmo because I figured he could be fun to write and felt like he's almost an unlikely pick

enjoy <3

Strong Mc who enjoys being babied

Mammon

when he's around, which is basically all the time since you're attached at the hip, he doesn't want you to lift a finger

he's absolutely determined to make you feel special and treat you like gold

would give you the world if you stared at it for even a second too long

he doesn't care that you're taller or more buff than him, you're baby

you work so hard and he wants you to know that

please he'd stop a moving car or an angry satan if you asked

while he knows he's not helpful academically, he is willing to help you in any other way possible

you want to go shopping? take goldie from him you can carry her

you need someone to carry the bags? that's what he's here for

you need someone to tell you how your outfits are? he's got you

he's so whipped

Asmo

this seems unlikely but i think people tend to forget that he's pretty strong too

he's more powerful than beel and it's so funny to me to think that the little twink is more powerful than the body builder work out brother

he would take full advantage of this to catch you by surprise with hugs from behind that lift you off the ground

is overjoyed when you say you love them and that he can hug you whenever he wants

expect lots of surprise hugs

when the two of you are out in public, and someone is trying to both you for whatever reason, he won't hesitate to sock them in the face

while he hates to talk about his own feelings because of the implications that holds for him, he's very emotionally available for you

he will be your ultimate hype man

if you want, he will literally just carry you around while you nap, mindlessly scroll, or do whatever

he will continue on with his day as normal as if he isn't carrying you around like a baby

he's just underrated in general

Beel

to be honest, this is new for him too

it's rare for him to meet someone cut from the same cloth as him but he doesn't mind, and actually likes it

because of this, he knows exactly what he can do to help you, or ease your burdens

he knows how tough it can be to carry around something emotionally

always there to talk things out with you

or, he can be your shoulder to lean on

honestly whatever you need him to be, he can be

he's always willing to help and lets you know that

will give the best piggyback ride you've ever had, and will give them whenever

he understands how you feel and is glad he's able to give you the solace you deserve <3

#adhara!#obey me #obey me!#obey me x reader #obey me asmo #obey me mammon #obey me beel #omswd #obey me shall we date #obey me! shall we date #obey me satan

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animehideout · 4 months

Text

Haikyuu Boys X Fem! Volleyball Player Reader.

a/n : I've always imagined y/n joining Karasuno's team as a female player.. and the general dynamics between her and teammates <3

Pure fluff 🍰

Characters: Kageyama - Nishinoya - Oikawa - Kuroo.

PLOT: Y/n transferred to karasuno High school as a second year student. She couldn't find a girls volleyball team in Karasuno, so she did everything she could to join the boys volleyball team. Proving her skills and abilities, she's now the only female Wing Spiker in Karasuno's boys volleyball team.

Kageyama Tobio:

Basically you're like fire and ice, constantly bickering.

Would find a difficulty to adjust to you at first concerning his tosses.

Both of you would fight a lot.

You always end up getting scolded by Daichi.

When the two of you are angry with each other he refuses to toss the ball to you and toss it to the others instead.

Tsukki always calls Kageyma king of the court and he calls you queen of the court, in am offensive way of course.

“It's not that high y/n, you're just short”

“Ugh boke y/n boke”

“KAGYEMA I'M YOUR SENPAI”.

It makes you fuel with anger, you would hit him with a ball.

When you finally perfected your harmony on the court, you became a powerful duo, unbeatable literally beating the shit out of your opponents.

Enjoying the art of playing together. Spending a lot of time practicing together he developed a subtle crush on you.

But hell no he won't admit it.

The tsundere in him fiercely guarded his actions towards you.

He couldn't help the small cute gestures towards you, leaking his feelings out.

He enjoys drinking milk so so he would buy you some before or after practice.

Makes sure you're eating well when the coach treats you to lunch/ dinner.

“Eat more rice y/n”.

Everyone else in your team noticed his shift in action towards you, and how he softens when he talks to you.

When one of your opponents hits on you he'd give them his famous death glare.

Scares them away with his strong, terrifying aura.

Watches you with a smirk and heart eyes when you jump in the air and forcefully hit the ball over the net.

Would look at you proudly, whenever you score, he's always secretly admired your volleyball skills.

Would attempt to compliment you “nn-nff-nice”.

Starts a fight with Oikawa if he flirts with you, getting a lot of teasing in return.

Nishinoya Yū:

Aside from being teammates, both of you are classmates as well.

You have the best dynamics in the whole team.

Always sitting next to each other in class.

You end up in detention because you can't shut up in class and always has something to laugh or talk about.

Treats you to ice cream every single day after practice turning you into a sweet tooth.

Bestfriends for life, literally inseparable.

Teaches you the Rolling Thunder move.

Helps you master your receives, if you help him with school work.

Your number one supporter, literally in everything.

Comes over to your house a lot, mainly because he's struggling with homework or exam revision.

You joke around a lot, and laugh really loudly, Daichi gets mad at you all the time.

Hypes you up the most on court when you score.

“THATS MY BESTIE”.

Offers a lot of high fives and big hugs to celebrate your victory.

Very protective over you, especially during tournaments.

Along side with Ryu, they would literally jump on anyone who tries to get your number or flirts with you.

Him and Ryu are your protectors, personal bodyguards.

Has all of your secrets ( knows about the crush you have on Kags).

He's the type to be very obvious when your crush is around.

He's the type to look at person in the eyes right after you said “don't look”.

Oikawa Tooru:

The moment he saw you walking his direction he thought you were one of his obsessed fangirls.

Puts on a flirty expression

“Wanna take a picture with me cutie? wanna take my sign- huh?”.

But you'd walk past him, totally ignoring him.

“come on don't be shy.. are you a fan of the best setter in the world?”

“Yeah right, I'm a fan of Sugawara- senpai and Kageyama”.

Boy's face would drop, you did not just casually mention that Kageyama is the best setter in front of Oikawa Tooru.

In court, he would be left dumbfounded when he saw you in Karasuno's uniform.

Couldn't believe his eyes when he saw you're the only girl in Karasuno's boys team.

“YOU?”

His eyes would be glued on you the whole game and even between sets.

Shows off his strong serves

“This is for you y/n!”

You'd totally crush his ego when you perfectly received his powerful serve.

Would praise you shamelessly “Sugoi”.

Astonished when the ball passed inches away from his head but he couldn't stop it, too stunned by your spike.

“I won't lose next time y/n, put that in mind” .

A tension grows between him and Kageyama over you.

Seeing you a power duo with Kageyama stirred jealousy inside him.

Very flirty at any given opportunity resulting in him getting smacked by Iwaizumi.

“I'll teach you how to serve, even though you're already serving- Ack! what the hell Iwa-chan?!”.

Tries to analyze all the techniques and moves you use while playing.

You impress him every time.

Kuroo Tetsuroo:

He saw you for the first time when Karasuno went to Tokyo for the practice match against Nekoma.

He thought you were a manager so he didn't give it any importance.

He's not the type to go crazy over a girl.

Would say hi to your team, including you.

He would be extremely polite and welcoming.

Chuckles to himself when you and Noya screamed “IS THAT SKYTREE?!” to a normal power transmitter.

He thought it was funny, cute and adorable how you're all excited and happy to be in Tokyo.

The moment he saw you in the court in Karasuno's shirt and shorts, stretching before the match his jaw would drop.

His coach told him that you're a wing spiker and it hooked him up.

“A w-wing spiker?”

His surprise would quickly shift into respect, on how being the only girl in a boys' team didn't stop you or bother you as long as you're achieving your dream.

He became very curious as he watched your tricks and the quicks you did with Kageyama.

“Impressive!!”.

Your agility, accuracy and strategic plays made him take an interest in you.

During breaks, between sets he acknowledges your skills in front of his team.

Warning his teammates and pointing out that you're a formidable opponent and they should watch your moves.

Loves challenges, he would ask you for another practice match just to get to play against you again.

When you have time, he would practice spikes and blocks with you and Bokuto.

“Damn, you're really good at spiking”.

You would become good friends quickly and even exchange phone numbers so you can text each other when you go back to Miyagi.

Would introduce you to Kenma, his bestfriend.

Would surprise you and take you to Skytree and spoils you for the rest of the day.

Since he's the captain he would give you a lot of advice.

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7-wonders · 11 months

Text

To the world we dream about (and the one we live in now)

Calliope & Reader, Morpheus/Dream of the Endless & Reader

Summary: Being in the right place at the right time turns everything you thought you knew on its head when a woman, imprisoned and battered, is literally thrown into your life. Left with no choice but to do the obvious, you offer her shelter and support in her time of need.

Unbeknownst to you, said woman is a powerful and ancient being who now belongs to you in accordance with the old laws. This situation definitely won’t become complicated, right?

Word Count: 14.5k

Author's Note: A couple of months ago, I received an ask, seen below, and have not been able to stop thinking about it since. After a lot of brainstorming with the wonderful sender of the ask (not sure if they want to be named!), I finally sat down to write it.

So, here we are! This story took on a mind of its own the longer I wrote (perhaps the Muse Calliope paid me a visit haha), and it's genuinely something that I'm so proud to have produced. It's not necessarily an x reader fic—right now, though depending on reader reaction there may be future parts (including a Calliope/Morpheus POV of these events)—so I absolutely understand if you choose not to read, but I hope that you do. In the end, this is truly Calliope's story.

A story of empowerment, friendship, freedom, and self-discovery.

Content warnings for this work include allusions to sexual assault, general trauma, Richard Madoc, vomiting, kidnapping, realizations of inadvertent kidnapping, mentions of death, and Nightmare!Morpheus. Reader discretion is advised.

The man standing at the front of the room taps his fingers along the edge of his lectern, savoring the enraptured faces that stare back at him. For those in his class, this is expected of him—he always gets a dramatic air about him when he’s on the verge of making the point that he had been working towards for the entire lecture and looping it back to the thesis statement from the beginning of the hour. Though it was routine by now, practically tradition, the students still ate it up every time.

“The theme between all of these authors–the Fitzgeralds and the Hemingways, the Tolkeins and the Orwells–is that their words carry power and strength. While they may look like mere letters strung together on a sheet of paper, when read together, these words have a weight behind them. They can conjure up worlds, inspire the masses, make readers think critically; it’s a type of magic when you really think about it.”

He checks his watch before clapping his hands together in finality and smiling out at the room.

“Well, my friends, I’m afraid that’s all the time we have today. Thank you very much for joining me, and please make sure that you have your essays on the influences of World War One and its aftermath on the literature of the time ready for our next class. See you then!”

When your university announced that world-renowned author Ric Madoc would be a visiting professor for the semester, you immediately jumped on the long list of students interested in taking one of the three classes that were going to be taught by him. You had absolutely no hope that you would get into the class, not when it seemed like half the student body was also signed up, but you had to at least try. The Spirit Who Had Half of Everything was one of your favorite books of all time, and you’d be remiss not to attempt to learn from the master himself.

Somehow, much to your surprise, you had received an email informing you that you earned a spot in Madoc’s “Great Works of the 20th Century” class. The class had lived up to the hype so far and you were thoroughly enjoying it, even though it wasn’t exactly related to your field of study. In fact, you enjoyed it so much that you normally stayed behind with a group of students to continue having a discussion with Madoc about the aforementioned great works. Today, unfortunately, you couldn’t, having to rush out immediately after class was over to make it to your group project meeting in the library on time.

Of course, it’s difficult to get any sort of work done when one happens to be randomly paired with their best friend, but you’re trying your hardest.

“Psst.” You don’t look up, choosing instead to try and finish the sentence you’re writing, but a balled-up gum wrapper hits you smack in the center of the forehead. “Hey!”

After you’ve finished typing, you look across the table at Evie, your best friend. “Can I help you?” you ask.

“Do you wanna come out with me and a couple of others tonight?”

“It’s Thursday.”

She shrugs. “So?”

Points were made, and who are you to resist a good argument? “Convincing. I’m in! I just have to run home real quick and get changed.”

As you search through your bag, you start to feel your heart plummeting in your chest as you realize that you can’t find your keys. Digging through the contents furiously in the hopes that they’ll turn up yields no results, and neither does patting at the pockets you know are empty. With horror in your eyes and fear in your heart, you look back up at her.

“Fuck, I lost my keys.”

“Shit, dude. Do you remember where you last had them?”

“Um.”

You have to think for a moment, mentally retracing your steps until you can definitively pinpoint the last time you saw your keys. They were with you in the parking lot, because you remember locking your car twice just to be sure that you did. From there, you would have been holding them in your hand as you walked to Madoc’s class. Considering you went straight from class to the library, there are limited options for where they could be. Either you left them in the lecture hall or you dropped them somewhere on campus. For your sake, you hope it’s the former.

On the syllabus, Madoc had given the class his work cell phone number in case of emergencies like being unable to make it to class or an act of God destroying your homework. Though you doubted you would need it at the time, you still saved it in your phone to be on the safe side. Now, as you pull up his contact and start a new conversation, you thank past-you for having such good foresight.

You: Hey, great class today! Did you happen to find a set of keys left behind in the lecture hall? I’m missing mine.

After a second of contemplation, you send another text with your first and last name when you realize he probably doesn’t know who it is texting him. It only takes a couple of anxious minutes before your phone chimes.

Richard Madoc: Hello! Would these happen to be the keys in question?

Richard Madoc: Attachment

The keys are immediately recognizable as yours, thanks to the keychain of a possum wearing a cowboy hat that’s attached to them. You sigh in immense relief before glancing up at Evie, who’s been watching with bated breath the entire time. “I left them in Madoc’s class.”

“Oh thank god!”

You: They are! Any chance you’re still on campus so I can swing by and grab them?

Richard Madoc: I’m afraid I’ve already left for the day, but I live pretty close to the uni if you’d be willing to pick them up from my flat.

He sends an address in the following text, which you promptly input in your maps app so you can see where said address is located. It’s maybe a five-minute drive from campus and conveniently located in the direction of your apartment.

You: Will be there in a bit! Thank you :)

“He already left, I’d have to pick them up from his place,” you explain.

Evie immediately fixes you with a look, one that says she’s seen this particular move before (and she didn’t like the ending). “Do you want me to come with you?”

The unspoken words hang in the air between you: Do you feel safe going to an unfamiliar man’s house alone? Should I come to make sure nothing bad happens? It’s very thoughtful of her, and you consider saying yes for a moment.

But Evie lives in the opposite direction of you, and she doesn’t have a car. While you don’t know Madoc well, you’re also not expecting him to try anything on you, especially when it’s still light out.

“I should be okay,” you say.

“You’re sure?” Evie double-checks, and you nod. “Call me before you get there, okay? Just…have me on the line, in your back pocket. It’d make me feel better about letting you go on your own.”

How did you get so lucky to have such a great friend like Evie? Of course, you would do the same for Evie in a heartbeat, but it’s so nice to have found a kindred spirit, someone who truly understands you and all your little quirks, so early in your adulthood.

“You’re not letting me do anything,” you tease. “But yeah, I’ll call you when I get there.”

“Thank you,” she says sincerely, sliding her papers and her laptop into her backpack. “Now let’s go. The sooner you get your keys, the sooner we can go and get drunk.”

It feels a little dumb to be driving such a short distance, from the campus to the address that Madoc had given you. You’re exactly the type of person that’s killing the planet with unnecessary carbon emissions when you could just as easily walk, you chastise yourself on the way over.

But you had driven to class this morning, that being a distance actually too far to walk, and it would be stupid to walk to Madoc’s, get your keys, walk back to campus, and then drive home. So here you are, beating yourself up over something stupid and inconsequential while you try your best to parallel park in a respectable manner in front of Madoc’s little townhouse.

It’s exactly the type of lodgings you’d expect a university professor to have, yet almost the opposite of what you envisioned as a successful author’s home; a small, yet stately, townhouse with a little fenced-in front yard. Plants try their hardest to survive in the patch of dirt that’s probably supposed to be a garden, and there’s a small chair and table perfect for Sunday mornings sitting on the front stoop.

The gate creaks when you open it, and even more when you close it behind you. At the last second, you remember that you promised to call Evie, so you pull out your phone and do just that.

“Hey, you there?” Evie answers her phone.

“Yeah, just got here. Putting you in my pocket now.”

Even though the idea felt a little like an overreaction, you can’t deny that you feel safer now knowing that Evie’s listening on the phone.

You knock on the dark blue front door once, twice, three times before taking a step back and waiting patiently. After about thirty seconds, you start to worry that Madoc’s not home. But no, that wouldn’t make sense; you talked to him maybe half an hour ago, and he knew that you were on your way to pick up your keys. Frowning, you knock again, followed by holding your ear to the door to see if you can hear anything.

He’s definitely inside. Though the sound is muffled, you can hear what sounds like him yelling at somebody through the door. Who the source of his ire is, you can’t say, because there’s nobody saying anything back to him. Maybe he’s having a really heated conversation on the phone? If that’s the case, it’s a pretty inconvenient time to launch into a virtual argument.

You don’t want to be rude and knock for a third separate time, but you really do need your keys, and you’d prefer to not be kept standing out here waiting. Begrudgingly, you knock yet again, putting a considerable amount of force behind it this time.

“Mr. Madoc?” you call through the door, raising your voice enough that you’re sure he’s heard you. By the way that he suddenly falls silent, you’re assuming that you’ve been successful. Pulling back from your position right up against the door, you wait for him to appear.

When the door is yanked open, you’re shocked at what you see. Gone is the confident lecturer who stood at the front of your class this afternoon. The man in front of you looks positively haggard. His eyes are bloodshot and red-rimmed, and his bottom lip quivers almost as furiously as his hands shake. His hair is a mess, as though he’s been pulling at it, and his shirt is weirdly rumpled like he fell asleep in it.

You take a big step back when his eyes land wildly on you without really seeing you. Your hand goes to your back pocket, hovering just above your phone in case this encounter goes south and you need to have Evie do…something. Call the cops? Yell at Madoc through the phone? Scream? Whatever it is, though, she’ll do it for you.

“Hi. Um, you–”

Madoc shakes his head back and forth and begins to mumble something, completely ignoring you and your presence. He reaches one of his hands further inside the house, grabbing at something unseen. Your body tenses, preparing to fight this man that, up until two minutes ago, you had believed to be completely sane and rational.

His hand comes back into view, tightly gripping a woman’s upper arm. She’s barefoot and clad only in a thin silk nightgown, and you can see the goosebumps already appearing on her skin.

“A city in which the streets are paved with time,” he mumbles a little louder, allowing you to hear what he’s rambling about. “A train full of silent women, plowing forever through the twilight. Heads made of light. A small piece of blue cardboard. A plum, sweet and tart and cold.”

“Mr. Madoc, are you alright?”

Instead of answering you, Madoc throws the woman across the threshold and towards you. You catch her in your arms, both of you stumbling backward, but you let go when you notice how she immediately tenses at your touch.

“She’s your problem now, I can’t do this anymore!” Madoc begins to pull at his hair, so hard that you think he might end up pulling it out of his head. “I refuse to be tortured any longer!”

“What are you talking about?”

He’s lost his damn mind, you think to yourself as he continues to spout the most random of ideas. You thought that you had properly calculated the risks of coming over here on your own, but apparently, you’re bad at math.

“A were-goldfish who transforms into a wolf at full moon. Griffins shouldn’t marry. Vampires don’t dance.” Madoc shakes and smacks himself multiple times as if to try and snap himself out of whatever he’s gotten into. “A man who inherits a library card to the library in Alexandria. A rose bush, a nightingale, and a black rubber dog collar!”

You’re so thrown off by what you’re witnessing that you don’t even realize he’s closing the door until the sound of it hitting the doorframe reminds you why you’re here. You bang your fist against the door and yell at him, “Hey! Give me my fucking keys!”

Madoc opens the door just enough to throw your keys at you, which you fumble and nearly drop until catching them by the stupid cowboy possum keychain, before slamming it shut again. From within, you can hear several locks clicking shut loudly in quick succession.

The speed with which this entire interaction has occurred leaves your head spinning, and you have to take a moment to realize that yes, what you just experienced was real. Even then, you stare at the door bemusedly. “What the fuck?”

“I do not believe he will be coming back,” an accented voice says from behind you.

You can’t stop the little scream of surprise that leaves you when you whip around to face the woman who, until this moment, you forgot had been kicked out of Madoc’s house. She stares at you, just as warily as you’re probably staring at her.

She’s otherworldly beautiful, with olive skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. But what stands out the most is just how visibly scared she is. She watches you like you’re a predator readying to attack. You hate it because you’d never do anything like that to anybody, but especially her. What had Madoc done to cause her to have this reaction to a stranger?

Evie’s voice rises tinnily from the phone in your back pocket, loud and panicked, and you remember that she’s been on the phone this whole time. You pull your phone out and hold it up to your ear, having to put a little distance between it due to how she’s yelling.

“—I swear, I’m two seconds away from calling the cops! Please just let me know you’re okay!”

“Evie, hey, I’m here,” you say, making her cry out in relief.

“Oh my god, are you okay? I was scared when I heard yelling!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m alright. Pretty sure I just watched Madoc have a mental breakdown?” Is that what that was? You can’t say for certain, considering this is your first such occasion.

“Seriously? Well, did you get your keys, at least?”

“After he finished rambling about were-goldfish and plums.”

“Jesus Christ. Are you going to call somebody?”

“Who would I call? And anyway, maybe this is normal for him.”

“If that’s normal, I’d hate to see what abnormal is.” She sighs. “So, I’ll see you soon?”

“Um,” you trail off, looking at the woman. “Y’know, I might take a rain check, if that’s okay. I’m a little shaken up by everything that just happened.”

“I bet, that sounds like it was really scary. We’ll miss you, but take care of yourself. If you do decide to come out, just text me and I’ll tell you where we’re at.”

“Thanks, Ev. I’ll, uh, talk to you soon.”

You hang up the phone, and now you and the woman are left awkwardly staring at each other. How are you supposed to approach a situation like this? Sliding your phone back into your pocket, you hold your hands with the palms facing out so that she can see you’re not holding any weapons and decide to just start from the beginning.

“Hi.”

She nods back in greeting, trying to hold herself with as much dignity as she can in this situation. The chill of the night and her lack of proper clothing leave her trembling in front of you, though some of that is likely from fear too, and you can see bruises in various shades of healing up and down her arms. Worse, there are visible fingerprint-shaped bruises ringing her neck. Though you’ve never been particularly violent, you’re tempted to break down Madoc’s door and do unto him what he’s obviously done to this woman.

“Are you cold? I have a spare jacket if you want it.” You point the hundred or so feet to where your car sits. “Here, let’s go over to my car, I’m just parked on the street right there.”

The woman attempts to gauge you and, presumably, your intentions. Though this is her decision to make, you give her a friendly smile in the hopes of convincing her that you have no ill will toward her. After a moment, she nods hesitantly.

You take the lead as you walk down the front path to your car, mainly to show that she holds the power here. There will be nobody sneaking up on this woman or trying anything, and she’s free to run far away from you if that’s what she chooses.

Still, she follows you, and waits patiently while you dig around in your back seat until you finally come up with the light jacket that you had tossed back there after an outdoor movie night. You hand it to her and she shrugs it on, holding it tightly around her and trying to hide within the cotton fabric.

You don’t want to ask the question that’s on your mind, but you know that you have to. You need some sort of context for the situation. “Was…Madoc keeping you locked up in there?” She nods, and you feel your stomach roil with sick nausea. “Okay. We need to call the cops, so they can come and arrest him.”

“No!” she says firmly, a departure from how soft-spoken she previously was. “Please, I beg you, no authorities.”

“But…”

Maybe he hadn’t kidnapped her like you found yourself assuming at first. Perhaps this is a severe case of domestic violence? Regardless, she looks like the poster child for abused women, and you’re not about to disrespect her wishes when this is probably the first choice she’s been able to make for herself in a long time.

“Okay,” you agree. “No cops.”

“Thank you.” She sounds so relieved that it makes you want to cry.

An idea begins to form in your head, but one that you’re not sure how to begin to broach. After all, the woman in front of you has absolutely no reason to trust you. “I’m guessing you don’t have anywhere to go?”

She shakes her head. “No, I have…nowhere, and nobody.”

That settles it. You’re not about to leave a battered, formerly-trapped woman to fend for herself on the streets. “So listen. I have a spare room at my place, and you’re completely welcome to it for as long as you need.”

“Oh, I could not impose.”

“You wouldn’t be!” you assure her. “Please, it’s the least I can do. At least until you get back on your feet.”

She studies you again. Though you don’t know what she’s looking for, you can tell that she’s the kind of intuitive person that sees beyond that which is only skin-deep. Finally, she says, “Alright.”

You grin and open the passenger side door, gesturing for her to get in. “Alright.”

After getting the car started and the heat turned up all the way, you watch as the woman fiddles with the airflow of the heater until it’s blowing directly on her delicate hands, which she holds in front of her to warm up. She looks at you as if realizing for the first time that you could betray her trust much in the same way as Ric Madoc had. To prove to her that you won’t, you unlock the doors when they try to lock automatically in response to you putting the car in ‘drive’.

You tell her your name, and for the first time, she smiles. It’s a small thing, barely a quirk of the lips, but it’s there. “I am Calliope.”

“Oh cool, like the Muse!” Her smile widens until she’s actually smiling, leaving you delighted. “Your parents were into Greek mythology, then?”

“Something like that, yes.”

As you drive to your apartment, Calliope turns in her seat and watches as Madoc’s apartment grows smaller and smaller behind your car. Even after it’s disappeared behind turns and other buildings, she still watches, perhaps waiting for him to come back to his senses and come after her. But there will be none of that tonight, or ever again. Not as long as you have anything to do about it.

When you get home, you continue the routine of taking the lead and allowing Calliope to decide whether or not she wants to follow you. Calliope lingers in the entryway of your apartment, taking her time carefully cataloging everything that she can see as you work at getting the lights turned on and trying to clean up a little bit—after all, you hadn’t exactly expected a houseguest when you left for class this morning.

She runs her fingers along the walls and the frames of artwork that you’ve acquired at festivals and flea markets. She feels the coats on your coat rack, and her dark, inquisitive eyes scan over the battered toaster and soft fruit in your kitchen. As she walks further into your home, she takes care to take up as little space as possible until she reaches where you stand in front of a closed door.

“My old roommate moved in with their girlfriend a couple of months ago, and they don’t know what they want to do with her furniture, so they’re just storing it here until they can figure it out,” you explain as you open the door and flick on the light switch to reveal a bare bedroom. It’s sparsely furnished, with just a full bed, a nightstand, a dresser, and a desk and chair. “Now, it’s yours.”

“Mine?”

“For as long as you need it,” you repeat.

Hesitantly stepping inside, Calliope looks over the room before nodding in satisfaction. You can only hope that she had a space of her own in Madoc’s house, but by the way that she looks around like she’s never seen something so wonderful as an empty bedroom before, you’re left with a sinking feeling that this wasn’t the case.

“So! I’ll grab some sheets and a blanket from the linen closet and get the bed made up for you. Um, all of the doors lock on the inside, so feel free to keep yourself and your space private. Do you want to take a shower? Because you definitely can. Avery—that’s my old roommate—left some of the clothes they didn’t want behind, and they’re about your size, I think.” You’re rambling, but you just want to make her feel as welcome as possible.

“A shower would be…nice,” Calliope decides.

“Awesome! The bathroom’s right through here, c’mon.”

In the bathroom, Calliope watches as you grab a couple of towels from the closet, along with the sheets and blanket you mentioned earlier. You set the towels down on the closed toilet lid next to the shower.

“Feel free to use any of my stuff here, it’s totally fine,” you explain, pulling back the shower curtain so Calliope can see your haircare products and body wash.

Instead of looking over that array, she simply stares at the chrome of the shower faucet in confusion.

“Oh yeah, the shower’s a little weird here. All you have to do is turn the handle, and then pull the plug on the faucet for the shower.” You show her as you explain it. “Turn the handle left for hot water, and right for cold. Got it?”

“I believe so.”

“Alright, I’ll leave you to it, then. Just yell if you need anything from me.”

You close the bathroom door behind you and after a long moment, you finally hear the lock turn.

Good. In the meantime, you’ll make a quick meal for her, in case she’s hungry. Plus, you need to keep your hands busy. It will help take your mind off of the horrors you’re trying desperately to forget that you witnessed.

•••

Four days later, Evie runs up to you on campus when she sees you and wraps both of her hands around your upper arm before pulling you towards her. “Did you hear?”

“What?” You’re more focused on not falling over your feet at the sudden change of pace you’ve been forced into than you are wondering what you did or didn’t hear.

“You were right. Mr. Madoc had a complete mental breakdown! Somebody called in a welfare check on him, and the cops found him curled up in a ball mumbling gibberish. He hadn’t moved for days. You know the worst part, though?”

You shake your head.

“He covered every single wall of his house with the most random words and phrases, and they were all written in his own blood.”

You reel back. “Jesus!”

“I know, totally gory.” By her laugh, you can tell that she enjoys the gore.

It’s at this moment that you realize that you haven’t told Evie anything about what happened after you hung up with her that night. It certainly wasn’t deliberate; you’ve just been so caught up in the sudden change in your living arrangements that you haven’t had the time to text or call her about what you went through.

With that in mind, you say, “I have something to tell you.”

Evie’s eyes immediately light up at the prospect of gossip. “You do?”

You nod. “That night, when I went to his house? He grabbed this woman from inside his house and just threw her at me, saying that she was my problem now. She was all bruised and wearing nothing but a nightgown, and he treated her like she was his property. Evie, she said he kept her trapped there.”

“What the fuck.” Evie stares at you in horror. “Is she okay now?”

“Physically, yeah. She’s staying with me.”

“At your apartment?”

“Where else? Her name’s Calliope. I’m letting her stay in Avery’s old room until she gets back on her feet again.”

Evie whistles lowly. “I can’t tell if that’s kind of you or stupid of you.”

“Probably both.”

“Yeah, probably.”

As you walk, an astute observation comes to your mind. “Y’know, it makes sense that he’s such a piece of shit. Now that I think about it, the only authors we ever discussed in class were white guys.”

“Hmm, typical white man.” Evie rolls her eyes before she grins. “Hey, can I meet her?”

“Calliope?”

“Who else?”

You have to think about that for a minute. Would she be comfortable with meeting new people and putting herself out there? While you think that your friends are great, especially Evie, you just don’t want to force her into anything before she’s ready.

Evie seems to sense this hesitation, and explains, “She just seems like she needs some friends. A support system might be good for her while she tries to get her life back!”

“I can’t make any promises, but I’ll ask her if she wants to do something like that.”

“That’s all I ask,” Evie says. “In the meantime, is there anything that I can do to help? Like, does she need clothes? Kiara’s aunt owns that boutique, and she would probably be willing to help out.”

That’s a good idea and one that you hadn’t even considered. Obviously, Calliope’s going to want some clothes of her own instead of Avery’s hand-me-downs. It’ll probably help her to feel more like a human being, one with choice and agency over herself.

“Oh, would you ask her to talk to her aunt?” you ask. “That’d be great.”

Evie nods. “Definitely. I feel like that’s, like, the least I can do.”

“I wish there was more that I could do,” you admit.

“You’re doing what you can, and that’s what matters. Hell, most people wouldn’t have even offered to let a woman in Calliope’s situation stay with them. You’re a good person, you know that?”

“Thanks.”

“Eh, what are friends for, if not to reassure you that taking in a random woman on a whim is the right idea?” You huff in mock anger, and Evie laughs. “Anyways, you’ll never guess what the university is trying to do about the whole Madoc situation now…”

•••

Calliope doesn’t come out of her room when you’re around, not that you blame her. If you had gone through even an ounce of what you suspect she had, you’d want to be safe and alone for a long time, no matter how nice your new roommate is (and you like to think you’re pretty nice). You hear her sneak around when she knows that you’re in your own bedroom, as quiet as a mouse, and every night without fail, she takes a long shower. Other than that, it feels like you’re still living alone.

Since you don’t know how often she’s eating, and she doesn’t leave dishes or any sort of indication that she’s getting food for herself, you leave meals out in front of her door for her, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Sticky notes accompany them, because you have things that you want her to know and this is the only way to communicate with her right now.

“Feel free to grab food from the kitchen whenever you want!”

“I have great books, and you’re more than welcome to them.”

“If you find yourself wanting to watch TV, the remote is on the coffee table!”

Each message is signed with a smiley face, and each one is gone when the empty tray is returned outside her door.

The empty trays and, eventually, the books that go missing from your bookshelf are the only signs of life that you receive from Calliope.

When Calliope finally emerges while you’re home and not in your room, it’s six days after Ric Madoc threw her into your arms. You’re sitting on your couch reading fanfiction, a random YouTube video playing in the background when Calliope’s door creaks open and she peeks her head out hesitantly. Immediately you pause the video, smiling brightly when she notices you looking at her.

“Hi!” you greet.

“Hello.” She slowly exits her room clutching the book she’s been reading, as skittish as a feral kitten, and you slide over on the couch before patting the now-empty other side in invitation.

“You can come sit if you want. I’m just reading.”

“What are you reading?” Calliope asks, perching on the edge of the cushion as though she’s preparing for escape at any moment.

The smile freezes on your face. Just because you’re happy your new roommate is here doesn’t mean you’re about to out yourself as a fanfiction reader. “Oh, just a fantasy book.”

“Why do you have that…television on, then?” Calliope says this as though she’s still unfamiliar with the concept of television.

“I like the background noise of putting on shows that I’ve already seen. Helps me focus.”

She looks at you like that’s one of the oddest things she’s ever heard. Maybe it is, but it’s your little habit, and it has been for so long that it’s normal now. You hit play again, and Calliope starts a bit as sound comes through the speakers on the TV. Funnily, even though she seems to not understand your reasoning, the sound itself helps her to relax enough that she’s sitting on the couch with you instead of hovering like she’s preparing to bolt at any moment.

You don’t say anything, not wanting to make her think that you’re dictating what she can and cannot do. Eventually, Calliope decides to follow your lead and open her book, though she keeps getting distracted by the TV and eventually forgoes the book entirely in favor of watching the show.

“The tall one does not believe in ghosts, but the little one does?” Calliope asks out of the blue. You swallow down your laugh at her description of the hosts and nod.

“Mhm, and that’s what makes the show so good, is that dichotomy between the two hosts. One is so serious about everything they do, every noise that they hear, and the other is just dancing around and begging the demons to possess him or whatever because he thinks they’re not real and so saying this stuff can’t hurt him.”

She watches silently for another few minutes before asking, “Why are they searching for ghosts in the first place?”

“Well, because people love trying to solve the unsolved. And I think ghosts and the question of their existence is one of the ultimate unsolved mysteries.” She nods in satisfaction and turns back to the show, and you decide to turn off your phone and join her.

Calliope, as it turns out, enjoys television, if only for the strange concepts of some of the shows. You’re more than happy to show her all of the strangest and best shows, with the bonus of getting to see them anew through her eyes, which seem to be watching everything for the very first time.

•••

It’s mid-afternoon, and instead of being outside on what’s turning out to be a beautiful day, you’re stuck doing homework.

Everybody had assumed that Ric Madoc’s classes would be canceled after his abrupt admission into the Saint Dymphna Mental Health Hospital. The university, however, not wanting to just give out automatic passing grades without merit, had scrambled to try and find professors to teach Madoc’s classes. Somehow, they had succeeded, and you were now once again immersed in the world of 20th-century authors. Though your new professor didn’t have the ability to truly capture a room in the same way Madoc had, she was a fine replacement, and she devoted a good chunk of class time to women authors.

It’s too nice of a day to not take advantage of, though. That first true spring day after a long, harsh winter has finally arrived, and you won’t let it pass you by. All of the windows are open to allow the stale air of the apartment to dissipate, and as you write, you listen to the birds chirping and people doing yard work. Maybe, if you finish quickly enough, you’ll be able to take a walk yourself.

Calliope would probably enjoy that as well, you think.

The woman in question knocks on your open bedroom door, and you look up at her with a smile from your desk. She clocks the computer and the notes spread around you and grows sheepish.

“I’m sorry, you are busy. I’ll–”

“No, don’t worry! Just finishing up an essay for a class. Got a crazy burst of motivation for it, and ended up knocking it out in a couple of hours. It’ll be good to look away from the screen.”

Calliope gets that funny little smile on her face, the one that says that she has found something amusing but is going to keep it to herself. She waits patiently as you stretch, wincing when she hears the way that your shoulders pop and crack after hours of stagnancy.

“What’s up?” you ask. “You seem like you want to ask me something.”

Calliope points out of your bedroom. “What is out there?”

You stand so that you can see what it is she’s referencing, and find that she’s pointing to your sliding door.

“Oh, it’s a little balcony. I don’t go out there much right now, still a little too chilly, but it’ll be nice to sit out there once summer comes. Here, I’ll show you.”

It’s the first time this season that it’s been nice enough to have the door open, which is probably why she’s only just now realized it’s there. You open the screen door and lead her out onto your balcony. It’s small, but you spent last summer adding to it and making it a comforting place to relax. Now, there are lights strung up above your heads, and there are two chairs with a table in between them. Planters sit lined up along the iron of the balcony railing, ready to be filled when planting season comes around.

Calliope gasps, and you’re about to ask what’s wrong (part of you is worried that a snake managed to find its way up to the third floor), when she tilts her face up to the sun, leaning over the railing to try and get as much of the light on her as possible. She looks like a painting come to life, probably with a name like “Muse Bathed in the Sun”, because truly, Calliope seems like the type of person to inspire every person lucky enough to make her acquaintance.

“Helios,” you hear Calliope whisper reverently.

It’s obvious that she isn’t aware that she said that out loud, and you start to feel embarrassed before she turns back to you with a true smile and tears running down her face.

“I have not been outside in the sun in so long.”

She explains this simply and factually, as if she’s talking about why the sun is where it is and not about all that she was deprived of during her captivity. Madoc didn’t even let her go outside. It’s a good thing that he’s under secure watch 24/7, because there have been many times over the almost-three weeks that Calliope has lived with you that you have wished to be able to go and inflict upon him a modicum of that which he did to Calliope.

Now tears are running down your face too, and you wipe at them harshly with the backs of your hands. This is Calliope’s moment, Calliope’s joy, and you won’t have her feeling sorry for making you experience such happiness and broken-heartedness by watching her.

“It’s here no matter what. Even if it’s a little cold, bring a blanket out and sit whenever you want. Soon, we’ll be able to plant some stuff. You can help me if you want!”

Calliope’s back to facing the sun directly, but she still nods to let you know that it’s a good idea. Quietly, you back up into the apartment and close the screen door behind you, letting her have this time of reconnection to herself.

Most mornings after this rediscovery, you find Calliope already sitting on the balcony by the time you wake up, a blanket around her shoulders, a mug of something hot in her hands, a book on her lap, and the sun bathing her skin.

•••

“Y’know what, I’m gonna give that one a three.”

“A three?” Calliope tuts. “That is cruel. His performance was at least a six.”

“C’mon Cal, you’re just saying that because you see the best in everybody! The rest of us saw a douchey frat bro drunkenly singing ‘SexyBack,’ which earned him a three. And that’s me being generous.”

Calliope and your friend Ethan are, of course, judging the karaoke performances of the bar patrons brave (or stupid) enough to sing in front of others. They, along with your friend Kiara, take this tradition very seriously. For every performance, the three of them have detailed notes and a rating out of ten to go along with it.

You had finally given in to Evie’s pleadings and decided to broach the subject of going out in public to Calliope. Much to your surprise, she accepted when you first invited her to karaoke night with your friends at the group’s favorite bar. She accepted when you offered to bring her to trivia, and she accepted when your friends finally got around to doing a book club meeting—which was mainly just drinking and eating appetizers while you talked about the books you’d read, but it still counted.

(Taking Calliope to her first drag show quickly became one of your favorite and most cherished memories)

She took to your friend group like a duck to water, and in return, they embraced her wholeheartedly. Now, none of you could imagine a life without her in it.

And slowly, it seemed as though Calliope began to start to heal. With every bar meetup, movie night, or random coffee date, you saw a bit more light return back to Calliope. Flashes of the woman that she once was, vibrant and funny and elegant and wise, begin to become more frequent as the days pass. Every time she allows for a hug or every time she smirks into her glass after saying something that has the group erupting in laughter, she becomes more and more herself.

“Oh my god, it’s our turn!” Ethan yells suddenly after the karaoke emcee calls his and Evie’s names. He stands and holds his hand out to Evie, who happily takes it and jumps up with him. “Let’s go knock some socks off.”

This will either go one of two ways. They’ll either perform their serious song, “Bennie and the Jets,” which they’re surprisingly good at, or they’ll go funny and perform the Sharpay and Ryan version of “What I’ve Been Lookin’ For” from High School Musical, which they’re also really good at. By their tipsy giggles, you’re guessing it’s the latter.

The second they both start doing the Sharpay and Ryan hype-up routine, Kiara sighs and grabs her drink and phone.

“I promised these dumbasses I’d film them the next time they performed this,” she explains before going to work as an unpaid videographer.

Throughout their entire routine, Calliope’s enthralled, as she should be. It’s a good performance, of course, but Evie and Ethan together are a true comedic duo. The matching jazz squares during the instrumentals truly bring the whole piece together, and you’re in tears from laughter by the end of their routine. When they return to the table after a rousing standing ovation from the patrons of the bar, Calliope gives them her own round of applause and beams.

Naturally, she bestows upon them the highest ranking one can receive during karaoke nights. “Now that was a ten.”

Ethan bows as Evie kisses Calliope’s cheek. “Thank you, m’lady,” he says proudly.

“When do you get the time to practice this?”

“Nights like this, usually,” Evie explains before Ethan interrupts.

“Though we have been known to skip a class or two when we were trying to work out the kinks in our performance.” Ethan picks up his drink before frowning when he sees there’s nothing but melting ice cubes in the glass. “Well, apparently I need another drink. Anybody else?”

Everyone at the table shakes their head, but Kiara reaches into her jacket. “No, but I am gonna go hit my pen.”

“Ooh, I’ll come with you,” Evie volunteers cheerfully.

“Weed thief,” Kiara teases.

“Are you telling me no?”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“That’s not a no!”

Your friends go their separate ways, leaving you and Calliope to sit alone at the table. The next singer has already started, and you grin when you hear what it is.

“Oh, I love this song,” you tell Calliope before singing along. “‘Cause I’m dreaming of you tonight, ‘til tomorrow I’ll be holding you tight!”

Beside you, Calliope grows a little gloomy. She’s frowning a bit; even if it’s barely there, you can always tell because it completely transforms her beautiful face into something so sad. You stop humming and look over at her, watching as she slowly swirls her straw in her drink repeatedly to give her something to do.

“Having fun?” you ask, slightly worried at the sudden melancholy that seems to have draped over her like a shroud.

“Yes,” she tries to assure you, but it sounds clipped, like she’s holding back.

“You know you don’t have to come just because I invited you, right? You can do whatever you want.” You never want her to feel as though you’re forcing her to do anything, and even though she’s been having fun up until now, there’s still that anxiety that tells you that she’s just going along with it because she feels like she owes you.

“I know,” Calliope assures. “But I enjoy you and your group of friends. You make me feel…welcomed, and accepted, in a way that I have not felt in a long time.”

“They’re your friends now too. Pretty sure they decided that the second they met you.”

“I consider them friends as well. I consider you a friend as well, though I hope you know that by now.” She smiles down at her drink. “Besides, I quite like the karaoke nights.”

“I can tell. You never sing with us, though.”

“I don’t need to, I just enjoy listening. The people singing, and enjoying themselves, it reminds me of my son. He, too, loved to sing, and he was gifted with such a beautiful voice.”

“You have a son?” This takes you by surprise. Though Calliope seems to be very maternal, she’s never mentioned anything about a child until now. The fact that she talks about him in the past tense has your heart sinking into your stomach from the implications.

Calliope nods. “My sweet boy, my Orpheus. He was beautiful, and heartbreakingly sweet. He had a voice that could bring even the gods themselves to tears. He was taken from me…far too soon, and I miss him every day, with every fiber of my being. Being here, among so many people happy and making music—I see his face in all of theirs, and it brings me some sense of peace, to know that I can find pieces of him here, in the most unlikely of places..”

It’s sweet that she kept the Greek mythology theme going with her own son, you think, though it’s tragic that he suffered the same fate as his namesake.

“He was so lucky to have a mom like you, Calliope. Any child would be.” You lick your lips and taste the sweetness of alcohol on them as you ponder what to say next. “His life might have ended too soon, but he knew that he was completely and truly loved until the very end, which is such a gift.”

Tears well up in Calliope’s eyes, and she dabs at them with a napkin grabbed hastily from the table. “Thank you,” she chokes out. “You have no idea how much that means to me.”

“Ah, now you’re gonna go and make me cry too. Can I hug you?”

You always, always ask for permission before hugging her or touching her. She doesn’t seem to mind anymore when friends do it without asking, but you can’t break yourself of the habit.

Not after seeing what you saw the night that you met her.

She doesn’t give you an answer in the form of words. Instead, she simply falls into your arms, both of you clinging to the other.

From behind you, Ethan whispers, “Uh, are we interrupting something?”

•••

Evie has a date tonight and is naturally freaking out about it. She doesn’t know what to wear, she doesn’t know what she’s going to say, she doesn’t know if she’s even going to like the girl. Though you can provide her with all of the moral support in the world, there’s only one problem that you can currently help her with, which is how she ends up rifling furiously through your closet on a random Wednesday night.

You and Calliope sit on your bed, watching as Evie grabs different outfits and either critiques them herself or holds them up for you to do so. This is a tried-and-true routine for you, but Calliope’s experiencing the joys of helping a friend in need pick out a first date outfit for the first time. As a result, she puts far more thought into her responses when Evie asks for an opinion.

“You know, I believe I may have just the shirt for you in my room,” Calliope says after the outfit rejections have reached double digits. “Come.”

Calliope has truly made her room her own in the almost two months that she’s lived here, which makes you so happy to see. She’s decorated with items found antiquing (Calliope always manages to come out of an antique store with a haul—you think it's her superpower), and her room has an actual personality now.

She goes to her closet and begins searching through it before finding what she’s looking for; a white blouse with bell sleeves and delicate embroidering along the cuffs and collar. It’s beautiful, and exactly what Evie was looking for. Her attention, however, is drawn to something else in the closet, and she grabs at one of the hangers after approving Calliope’s choice. To your surprise, Evie comes up holding a cream-colored, silk nightgown.

“Wait, Cal, you still have the nightgown you were wearing the night you got away?” you ask.

It would be cruel to say anything more than the most vague descriptions regarding Calliope’s imprisonment. Nobody particularly wanted to remind her of that dark time in her life, so great care was taken to make it the least bit triggering as possible when it needed to be brought up.

She nods.

“Why?”

Calliope thinks about that for a moment. “I am not sure, to be honest. I certainly do not want to keep a relic of such a terrible time, but throwing it away does not feel…right.”

Evie perks up. “Ooh, y’know what we should do? We should burn that bitch!”

Calliope looks perturbed. “I thought you said that he is still in a mental hospital? Besides, I believe that immolation is still a crime.”

You and Evie both laugh when you realize that Calliope thought she was talking about Madoc.

“Not that bitch, though you’re giving me great ideas. I meant that we should burn the dress. I saw it on TikTok; these friends did a ‘burn and release’ ritual. They had a fire going in their backyard, and they all wrote down and talked about things that they wanted to release before burning it and physically releasing themselves of that. It looks like it’s super empowering, and it might give you the closure that it seems like you’re looking for.”

She doesn’t say anything, but you can tell that she’s intrigued.

“We’d participate, too,” you chime in, Evie nodding along with you. “I think we all have things we want to burn so that we can give ourselves permission to move on.”

“I would like that, I think.”

Evie smiles. “Perfect. Leave it to me.”

It only takes Evie a couple of days to coordinate everything. Her parents live just outside of town, and they happily offer up their backyard to their daughter and her group of friends. When you and Calliope arrive, there’s already a fire pit set up with a ring of camping chairs surrounding it. Kiara waves from one of the chairs, a bag of marshmallows sitting in her lap, as Evie works at getting the fire going.

“Yay, you made it!” she says when she can finally trust the fire to not go out the moment she looks away from it.

Calliope nods graciously. “Thank you for hosting us this evening.”

“You’re so formal sometimes! If anything, I should be the one thanking you for going along with my crazy idea.”

“I do not think it is crazy at all,” Calliope assures.

“We’ll see, won’t we? Anyways, pens and paper are over in the empty chair next to Kiara, and there will be drinks and snacks momentarily.” Evie turns to you. “Wanna help me grab said drinks and snacks? I need an extra set of hands.”

After helping Evie with procuring and setting out a few bottles of wine, plastic cups, and a bunch of different snacks, the four of you each pick up a pen and paper and begin to write. Calliope writes furiously, her pen seeming to fly over the paper as she jots down her thoughts, and is done first as a result. The rest of you take a bit longer to write, needing to stop and think about what you want to put down before you do so.

In a group chat, you, Kiara, and Evie had decided that one of you would automatically go first, to make Calliope feel comfortable about participating. When you’ve all finished writing, Kiara stands and clears her throat.

“Well, guess I’m first up,” she says.

In hindsight, you should have guessed how emotional a night of talking about things that you need to release and then burning them as a physical manifestation would be. Still, the teary eyes from everybody when Kiara finishes reading her letter to her ex-best friend and tosses it, along with a small box of mementos, into the fire catch you off-guard. Though you said that everybody had things that they needed to release the night that Evie first brought this up, you just didn’t realize that everyone was carrying their own burdens that, to them, are just as heavy as Calliope’s is to her.

You volunteer to go next, reading about how you release all of the expectations that you’ve had about your life and where it’s meant to go. Even before Calliope arrived in your life, you struggled with the idea that your life was not going according to the plan that you had in mind. You weren’t hitting milestones that you had plotted out, and your life “schedule” kept imploding time and time again. Now, you hope to be rid of that, and the constant feeling that you’re failing yourself and your life.

As you watch the paper burn in the flames, you try to convince yourself that all of those feelings are burning along with it.

Evie follows, with a big “fuck you” to her biological dad, who she recently found out only tried to form a relationship with her so that he could get money from her. It’s such a terrible situation, and though she’s handled it with her classic brand of humor, you can all see the hurt that she carries with her. Her letter is funny and biting and makes you all laugh, but she’s openly crying by the time she tosses it into the fire, and she gets a long hug from each of you after.

Finally, it’s Calliope’s turn, and she takes a long moment to stand. She’s been holding your hand since you finished reading her letter, and you give her a comforting squeeze before letting go so she can properly hold the letter. After taking a deep breath, she looks around the fire at the encouraging faces before her before she begins.

“I have often lived my life in the service of others, though most of the time, it was something that I willingly and happily did. That choice was removed from me when I was stolen from my home and bound to a truly vile and horrid man. He took everything from me. My thoughts, my inspiration, my—” Calliope’s voice breaks. “My body. Nothing was mine anymore, and I was told that that was how it should be, that it was the natural order of the world. He beat me down, physically and emotionally, to the point where I started to believe it.

“Though I had long since lost hope, I prayed for some sort of salvation, and I prayed to whomever I could think of. Nobody answered, either because they could not or would not, and I believed myself truly alone. Eventually, my former lover, Morpheus, was the only one who could, or would, help me, and even then, there was only so much that he could do. I do not fault him for that, because he did the most that was possible for him to do.

“And then one day, somebody knocked on the door of my prison and demanded their keys back.” She looks at you with a wobbly smile, and you sniffle in an attempt to hold back tears. “I know not why that was the tipping point for my captor, and frankly, nor do I care. He threw me out like trash, but I was not really in a place to question a gift such as this. And it truly has been a gift for me. In the two months since I escaped captivity, I have been able to heal, slowly but surely, even though I did not think such a thing was possible. I have found my laugh once more. I am free to do whatever I want, whenever I want. To sit in the sun, or read a book, or be with my friends.”

Calliope picks up the nightgown from where it sat next to her chair. “With this, I release every last hold that my captivity has had on me. From now on, when I think about that time, I shall think about survival, and how I refused to be kept down. I am free, and I shall remain forever free.”

She tosses the dress and the letter into the fire, watching intently as the flames catch the fabric and begin to work through it. Then, she laughs. Her laugh is beautiful and like the peals of bells, and it’s infectious too. Soon you’re all laughing, and you all have the same idea to hug Calliope. It turns into a group hug, the four of you laughing and hugging and watching as the smoke of the fire carries away that which you do not want to carry with you any longer.

•••

Calliope takes her time getting out of the car when you arrive back home, still basking in the euphoria of emotional release. When she turns to look at you, you already know what she’s going to say.

“Go in without me.” She sighs happily and looks up at the moon. “I wish to remain outside for a moment longer.”

You squeeze her shoulder before letting go. “Alright. The door’ll be unlocked whenever you decide you’re finished.”

You hum while unlocking the door, kicking your shoes off and hearing them thump against the wall of the entryway. Fumbling, you curse under your breath as you try to find the light switch—really, you’d think that after living here for almost a year, you’d be able to turn the lights on on the first try.

Light finally floods the room, and your humming resumes as you head into the kitchen to grab a drink. There’s a chill in the air, more figurative than literal, that causes goosebumps to rise on your skin. Your heartbeat quickens as you remove a glass from the cabinet, like your reflexes are trying to warn you of some unseen danger. Nervously, you hum a little louder while filling your glass up in the hopes that you’ll feel better.

You don’t. How could you, when you look over the kitchen island into the living room and see a figure standing silhouetted against the back door? In fact, you feel much worse than nervous; now, you’re scared out of your wits, enough so that you scream upon realizing that there’s actually a man in your home, a man who is most definitely not supposed to be here.

You scream.

“Hello.”

The man’s voice is deep, deeper than you think you’ve ever heard before. If he wasn’t currently in the act of breaking into your home, you’d think about how nice of a voice it is. Right now, it’s simply disturbing.

His eyes seem to twinkle in the darkness before he takes a step toward you, thus putting himself in the light. He’s paler than any living being you’ve ever seen, with long, unkempt black hair and cold blue eyes that seem like they can tell everything about you just from looking at you. He’s dressed in all black, with a long black coat completing his ensemble.

He’s not human, that much you’re sure of. You’ve spent enough time around Calliope in the past couple of months to guess that she is something more, and this stranger is the same. Power radiates off of him in waves, the same as it does with Calliope. Both are ethereally, sharply beautiful, in a way that lets lesser beings know that these are the true apex predators.

Even though it probably won’t help (now that you have the barest idea of what you’re dealing with), you pick up a kitchen knife from the dish rack and brandish it in front of you, thankful that you had cut up an apple last night and thus had needed your largest knife to do so.

“Get the fuck out of my apartment!”

He doesn’t move, choosing instead to just keep staring at you with those piercing eyes. You come out from behind the island, still holding the knife towards him.

“Seriously, leave or I’m calling the cops,” you threaten, pulling your phone out of your pocket with your free hand.

This decision quickly has the situation going from bad to worse. The man seems to cross the entire room in a single step before slamming you against the wall, one hand wrapped dangerously tight around your throat. You gasp at the sudden violence, as well as the strength that he possesses under his lean figure, and both the knife and the phone fall from your hands as you try to figure out what to do.

“Be quiet, mortal,” he spits venomously, his hand flexing around your throat. You attempt to grab at his hand to get him off of you, but he doesn’t budge. When you try to kick at him, he just leans more of his weight against you and renders you virtually immobile. “You are keeping a woman here, against her will. You will release her immediately, or suffer the most dire of consequences.”

“What? No, I’m not!” you argue.

Is he talking about Calliope? If so, he’s about two months too late in coming to her rescue. The only one that was holding her against her will was Ric Madoc, and he’s facing his own set of consequences for what he did.

Speak of the devil. Calliope chooses this moment to come in from her nighttime sojourn. You and your attacker both stare at the door as Calliope enters the apartment. She’s humming, much as you had when you first came in, completely in her own little world.

“Cal!” you cry out helplessly in an attempt to warn her, the only sound you can make before the man’s hand tightens again and cuts off all but a bit of your air supply. If given the chance, you’re not sure if you would tell her to run or ask for her help.

She takes stock of the situation before her with calculated eyes. Instead of surprise, shock, or fear, Calliope just looks…angry. Her bag drops to the floor next to her feet, and she makes sure to shut and lock the door behind her.

“Let her go, Oneiros,” Calliope commands, her hand landing on his shoulder.

Wait, Calliope knows him? Internally, you chastise yourself; obviously, she knows him, she called him by name! Still, you find yourself confused. She hasn’t mentioned having any contacts in the area. In fact, you distinctly remember her saying that she had “nobody” that first night you met her.

The intruder—Oneiros, apparently—does as Calliope asks, and you slide to the floor without his interference keeping you upright. Calliope slides down with you, landing on her knees in front of you as she looks you over with her big, brown eyes.

“Are you alright?” she asks, using her thumbs to wipe away your tears, tears that you weren’t aware you were shedding.

You nod. “I–I think so.”

Despite your reassurance, your hand goes to your throat, and you try to rub away the soreness that’s already settling beneath the skin. When she begins to rub her hands up and down your arms, you realize that you’re shaking violently. Calliope stands and briefly leaves the room, leaving you and Oneiros in awkward silence until she returns with a blanket, which she gently wraps around you.

After she’s completed this task, Calliope wheels around to point accusingly at the man. “You are a fool, and you allow yourself to act without first thinking far too often.”

“Calliope–” he tries to interrupt, but Calliope shakes her head.

“What are you doing here?” she demands.

He scowls. “You called for me again, did you not?”

“I did no such thing!”

“Really?” he questions with a raised eyebrow. “You did not write my name down prior to burning it?”

Calliope falls silent, because apparently that’s exactly what she did.

“I thought that what I had done to Richard Madoc worked, Calliope. Why did you not come to me sooner to tell me that he had sold you off instead?”

“Nothing of the sort has happened!”

“Then how did you end up bound to yet another mortal?”

“It is not what it looks like, Morpheus.”

“Explain it to me, then,” he pleads.

As the two continue to bicker above you, you feel increasingly like you’re interrupting in your own home. You shift uncomfortably, and Oneiros—Morpheus? Seriously, how many names does this guy have?—turns his sharp gaze upon you.

“You. How did you come to bind the Muse Calliope? What spell have you used to bewitch her?” He demands answers that you don’t have, and your shaking becomes worse under the full brunt of his stare.

“What?” You scramble to your feet so that you can at least pretend to be on the same ground as the two others here. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Please, let us sit down and discuss this civilly,” Calliope interrupts, gesturing both of you towards the living room.

After a moment of consideration, Oneiros/Morpheus nods tersely and walks in the direction that Calliope had pointed as though this is his home and not yours. You try to get your legs to move, but they steadfastly remain stuck to the spot you’re standing in. Calliope notices this and loops her arm through yours before gently guiding you into the living room.

“Why did he call you a Muse?” you whisper to her.

She presses her lips together in a thin line. “I will give you answers, I promise. It is…complicated.”

Though you’re not exactly satisfied by this answer, you trust Calliope, so you nod and silently agree to wait.

You don’t have to wait for long. Once everybody is seated (you in the chair perpendicular to the couch, with Oneiros/Morpheus on the couch and Calliope sitting next to him while simultaneously acting as a buffer between you), Calliope takes a deep breath and begins to explain everything. About who, and what, she is, how she came to be bound by a writer named Erasmus Fry, and how she was basically bartered for by Ric Madoc. She explains what they wanted from her, and she explains, unflinchingly, what they did to her to get it. Though it’s horrific, you listen to all of it. After all, if she’s willing to give, it’s only fair that you be open to receiving.

Calliope’s words seem to hang in the air long after she’s finished. The three of you sit in silence; Oneiros/Morpheus with a stony expression, you crying (you think you’ve cried more today than you’ve cried in a long, long time), and Calliope waiting calmly for you both to digest what she’s said.

In the end, it’s you who speaks first. “So you’re a goddess?” you ask.

“A Muse, yes,” she says.

“Like, of the Greek variety.” You need to confirm this for some reason, even though you already know the answer.

She laughs. “Yes.”

“A literal Muse is my best friend and roommate?”

You think that you might be going into shock right now

Oneiros/Morpheus scoffs, and you glare at him. “You have something to say?”

“You say that Calliope is your best friend. Then why do you not set her free?”

“Set her free? She’s a person, she’s free to do whatever she wants.”

“No, she is not. Calliope is bound to you, by the old laws.”

“Morpheus,” Calliope says sharply, a warning, but the man continues.

“You are enslaving a goddess and calling it friendship.” The disgust is clear on his face. “How can there be any sort of friendship when she is unable to leave, to do anything, without your say? You have complete and utter control over her, and you force her to pretend that it isn’t so. This farce that you’ve concocted must end now. I implore you to free her before I am left with no choice but to take further action against you.”

The room begins to tilt, and you shake your head in disbelief. “No…”

“They don’t know, Morpheus!” Calliope snaps.

“Cal, you—”

You feel sick, and you genuinely think that you’re about to throw up. All this time, you thought you had helped to free her from her prison. Instead, she’s remained trapped, bound to you just like she was bound to Madoc and, as you’ve now learned, Erasmus Fry. These men took everything from an unwilling goddess, a Muse, and you’re basically no better than them.

Swallowing down the bile that rises in your throat does nothing, so you close your eyes to take a couple of deep, shaky breaths in an attempt to calm down. That doesn’t work either, and you rise shakily to your feet before rushing over to the trash can in the kitchen and throwing up the wine and snacks that you had eagerly partaken in at Evie’s.

It’s humiliating, doing something as base and human as retching in the presence of two godly creatures. Everything about this situation is humiliating, if you’re being honest with yourself. You’ve unknowingly extended Calliope’s incarceration and deluded both of you into believing that it was friendship. How could you be a part of such a heinous act? Truly, are you no better than Madoc?

When you’ve finally thrown up everything in your stomach and then some, you’re full-on sobbing as you clutch at the trash can. Your knees give out, but Calliope catches you as you fall to the ground and wraps you in her embrace. She soothes you and murmurs words of comfort as she runs a hand through your hair, letting you cry in her arms when it should be the other way around. You don’t deserve her comfort, you think to yourself.

Once you finally have enough breath in your lungs to be able to talk, you gasp out between hyperventilating, “I’m so sorry. I–I didn’t know, and if I did, I would have never–”

“Shh,” she hushes you, grabbing your hands in hers. “My sweet friend, you have done nothing wrong.”

“But I–”

“I am the one who chose not to tell you. I trusted you in the beginning, and I trust you now. You have not failed me or abused me, or been a captor to me. Do you hear me?” She holds your face in her hands to make you look at her, and she waits until you nod to hug you once more.

“How do I free you?” you ask her. “Please, let me free you.”

“You must say that she is free,” your uninvited guest speaks up, making you remember that there’s a whole other person here. “And mean it.”

“Calliope, you’re free. You’ve always been free,” you say immediately, looking at her earnestly and hoping that she can see in your eyes how sorry you are.

Nothing physically changes. No burst of light envelops her, and she doesn’t undergo any sort of transformation. Yet, something in the air changes and becomes lighter. That inner glow that Calliope’s always carried seems to beam brighter now. Her shoulders look less weighed down now, no longer burdened by her forced captivity.

“Thank you,” Calliope says profusely.

“Don’t do that,” you say, feeling sick all over again. “Don’t thank me for something I should have done the second that Madoc threw you at me. I should have been smarter, more observant than I was. God, you deserve so much more than anything I can ever begin to give you.”

She’s not happy about your self-deprecation, but you will not be the source of her rage tonight. No, as she helps you once more to stand, her anger lands squarely on the man who barged in here and turned everything on its head.

“Apologize. Now,” Calliope demands. “What you have done here tonight is completely unacceptable and a new low, even for you.”

After thinking for a moment, perhaps to consider if he did transgress against you, he nods and stands like some sort of gentleman to properly address you. “The lady Calliope is right. I have acted deplorably towards you this evening, when you have done nothing but offer shelter and companionship to one needing it. I sincerely apologize for the pain and anguish that I have caused you.”

You nod warily, still tucked into Calliope’s side. “Thank you,” you say quietly.

Truthfully, you do appreciate the apology. If he’s as powerful as you think he is, then he could have just as easily decided that you weren’t worth the breath it would take to form words, and that would be well within his right.

“Well, now that we’re all close to being on the same page here.” Calliope gestures to the man. “Allow me to introduce you to Lord Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, King of Dreams and Ruler of the Nightmare Realms, et cetera, et cetera.”

“You’re a god too?” you ask.

“Not a god. I am Endless, one of seven anthropomorphic personifications of natural forces. I am far older, and far more powerful, than any god, and will remain long after all of your gods are dead and gone,” Morpheus explains.

You try to ignore the fact that one of the most powerful beings in the universe is currently sitting in your living room, lest you start to have an existential crisis in front of him. Now that Calliope’s told you his name, it rings a bell. “Wait, is he your ex?”

Morpheus looks at you both in surprise. “You’ve told her about me?”

“Only tonight,” Calliope assures him. “When I…accidentally summoned you.”

The longer that you can think clearly without the threat of bodily harm, the more the puzzle pieces keep clicking into place for you. “He’s Orpheus’s dad, isn’t he?”

Calliope nods, and so does Morpheus, though he’s far more reluctant than she is. You don’t notice that, though, too caught up in your thoughts.

“Ha, Morpheus and Orpheus.” Maybe all of the crying has made you dehydrated, which in turn has left you a little delirious. That’s the only reason why you say this train of thought out loud. “What, if you had a daughter were you going to name her Alliope?”

Calliope snickers at that, though Morpheus doesn’t share her amusement. “His name fit him perfectly, even though it was quite the coincidence that it was one letter off from that of his father’s.”

“God, I’m so stupid,” you bemoan. “How did I not know you were a goddess? I literally said, ‘Oh cool, like the muse’ when you introduced yourself! You must have thought I was an idiot.”

“It is difficult for the mortal mind to comprehend that which it believes to be fake. To you, that was the only connection that you subconsciously deemed possible,” Morpheus explains. Though he does it to make you feel better, it feels a little patronizing when it comes from someone as powerful as him.

“I wish you would have told me. Did you think that I wouldn’t have freed you? Because I would have!”

“I know that,” Calliope says. “Truthfully, I…forgot to tell you.”

“You forgot?” Morpheus says in disbelief.

At the same time, you ask, “How the fuck do you forget to tell someone that you’re accidentally bound to them?”

“At first, I was scared. That it was a trap, that you would be worse than Madoc. Of course, that lasted about twenty minutes.”

“What made you realize I was different?”

She smiles. “When you told me that the doors only locked from the inside. You cared about my privacy and that I was feeling safe, and I figured that you had no clue about anything that had happened, or about who I was. From there, it just wasn’t something that I thought to bring up. I was too frightened to leave the apartment, and I had been cut off from the world for over sixty years. Frankly, the idea of going out without you terrified me. As I began to regain control of my life and heal, it just became something that I thought about less and less. You are my best and dearest friend, and we do everything together, so why would I think about a bond other than the one that formed naturally?”

It’s very sweet of her to say, but you still have questions. “So you were just going to continue to live like this?”

“I did not have a plan, but I suppose so. I was happy here, with you.”

“Okay, but what happened if I got married one day, or like, had kids?”

“I would just be the fun aunt that lived with you and your family?”

“Jesus Christ,” you groan before sitting up suddenly. “Wait, is Jesus Christ real too?”

Calliope and Morpheus share a look, and you’re suddenly frightened of the answer.

“No wait, don’t tell me, I don’t wanna know.”

You really, really don’t want to have an existential crisis until you can be alone in the comfort of your room.

Thankfully, Calliope and Morpheus take over the conversation from there, because you don’t think you have the mental capacity to try and further any conversation right now. They obviously have a lot to catch up on, since it seems like the last time they saw each other was when Calliope broke down and asked him for help escaping Madoc.

Instead, while they converse, you take a moment to zone out and try to process just what has happened in the past hour. The stranger that broke into your apartment turned out to be the powerful, eldritch nightmare king ex-husband to your roommate, who’s actually a goddess that was unintentionally bound to you. For reasons beyond your comprehension, he thought that she needed rescuing, and that you were the one that she needed rescuing from.

Your thoughts chase each other like a cyclone, and you try not to panic as you think about all of this. God, you need a drink right now.

When Morpheus and Calliope both rise, with Morpheus saying that he really must return to his kingdom, you rise with them. After all, how will you ever feel at ease if you don’t ask him what’s on your mind?

“Are we good now?” you ask. “Like, you’re not gonna hurt me or curse me? I promise I had no idea about any of this.”

“Yes, I know that now,” Morpheus says. “I will not harm you. If anything, I should be offering you a boon, for being such an immense help to one such as Calliope.”

“You owe me nothing. Neither of you do.”

Calliope leans in and kisses Morpheus on the cheek, so gently that you wonder if she even made contact. “Fare you well, Morpheus.”

He bows his head. “Goodbye.”

Between one blink and the next, he’s gone as though he was never here at all.

•••

That night, you dream, and for the first time, you’re aware of the fact that you’re dreaming.

You don’t know where you are, but it’s the greenest, lushest meadow you’ve ever seen. Wildflowers dance lazily in the breeze, and you can hear the low rush of a river behind the treeline. You’re tempted to lie down in the impossibly soft-looking grass and watch the clouds drift overhead, but before you can, you see them standing next to you.

Morpheus looks just as he did when you saw him in your apartment, only a lot less like he’s ready to murder you. The main difference is that he now sports robes fit for a king instead of his coat. His eyes, you also notice, are black pools of stars.

On the other hand, the Calliope you see before you is a complete departure from the Calliope you know and love. She’s wearing a white chiton that’s belted at the waist and her hair, which normally falls in curly waves, is braided back intricately. She shines, in a way that you’ve never seen, looking every bit the goddess that she is.

“Is this real, or am I dreaming?” you ask.

“Dreams are real,” Morpheus says with the slightest of smiles.

“Of course, my bad.”

Though it’s a picturesque dream, it’s stained with strokes of melancholy. On some level, you know what’s going to happen, and what Morpheus has brought you here for.

“You’re gonna leave, aren’t you?” you ask Calliope.

Selfishly, you’re hoping that she’ll say no. That she’ll tell you that your home is her home and where she’s meant to be. Yet even as you foolishly hope, you know that your ordinary apartment, your ordinary life, is no place for a goddess. No, she deserves far greater than that.

She smiles sadly, and that’s all the confirmation you need. “I think I must, at least temporarily. There is…much for me to do, back home on Olympus. I wish to reconnect with my sisters, for one. And though it is lofty of me, I wish to change the old laws so that we may never be enslaved on the whims of mortals ever again.”

“If anyone can change laws that are thousands of years old, it’s you.”

“Thank you…for everything these past two months. Truly, I do not know how I can ever properly thank you for what you have done for me.”

“You don’t have to do anything; just knowing that you’re safe and happy is enough for me. I’m so proud of you for taking your life back after everything you went through. You deserve all of the happiness and goodness that the world has to offer you.”

“I would not have been able to do it without you, you know. No matter how we came to know each other, I am glad that we did. You saved me.” She says it so earnestly, needing you to truly understand your impact on her recovery.

“You did that yourself, Cal. I was just along for the ride.”

“You have my utmost respect,” Morpheus says. “Not many would have taken in a stranger needing help from off the streets with nothing but the purest of intentions, and fewer still would have offered them friendship. Your bravery and kind heart shall not be forgotten.”

“You have my respect too, for what it’s worth.”

He looks at you in surprise. “Why?”

“Calliope told me that you didn’t end things on the best of terms. But still, when she called for help, you answered with barely a second thought, and did all you could to help.”

He stares for a moment before nodding and turning to gaze out across the meadow. To your unabashed delight, his cheeks tint a light lavender in embarrassment, unsure of how to take your compliment. You bite your lip to stifle your laugh and decide to not tease the King of Dreams…for now.

Though you’ve been putting it off, some sixth sense tells you that your time here is nearing an end. You turn to Calliope again, who already is trying desperately to keep her tears unshed. When you meet her eyes, she holds out her arms to hug you, and you gladly accept.

“I’ll miss you,” you mumble.

Calliope kisses your forehead before pressing hers to yours affectionately. “I shall miss you as well, more than you can even imagine.”

“Call me if you need anything, okay? If–if your sisters are ganging up on you, or if you need someone to watch the best movies of the two-thousands with you, or if you’re missing going to karaoke with the gang. I’ll drop everything and go to Greece, just say the word.”

She laughs, the sound uninhibited and joyful. “I know you will.”

“Goodbye, Calliope." You have no choice but to finally, reluctantly say the words you've been dreading to say. If you weren't to do it now, you know you'd never let go of her.

Calliope pulls away just enough so that she can look you in the eye. “May fortune go with you, my sweetest friend.”

•••

Calliope’s gone when you wake up, her belongings the only sign that she even existed here in the first place. Though you cry, they’re not tears of sadness; rather, they’re happy tears, because how could you not be happy for Calliope? She’s found her freedom and the strength to return home, to try and make a better world for herself and her fellow gods and goddesses. Truly, this is all that you ever wanted for her.

On her nightstand sits a folded-up note, your name written on the front in Calliope’s ornate script. You open it up to read it, and when you finish, you hold it to your heart.

I will always be close by in your heart, as you will always be in mine. No distance can change that. Should you need me, you need only pray to me, and I shall hear you. Continue to make the world as bright as you.

-Calliope

#dream of the endless x reader #dream of the endless imagine #dream of the endless #the sandman imagine #the sandman #morpheus x reader #morpheus imagine #morpheus #calliope the sandman #calliope the sandman imagine

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