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bellaxgiornata · 1 year

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All These Years [Part 2: "Of Drinking and Dishonesty"]

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader

Summary: You met Matthew Murdock unexpectedly at Columbia University and you couldn't deny that there was an instant attraction–for you. But for Matt, you became as close of a friend to him as Foggy did. As the years pass by, your feelings only grow for your best friend, but all you can do is watch as he dates and sleeps with every other woman on campus and eventually in New York City but you.

Warnings/tags: 18+ for this series; contains emotional hurt with no comfort until the final installments, angst, pining, friends to lovers, slowburn, and eventually smut

Word Count: 3.9k

a/n: Enjoy the next little angsty installment for this series! I've been having fun writing a bit more about the college period than expected and our next installment gets angstier. Because who does Matt date in college? Yup. She's here. You can find the entire list of installments for this series here. Feedback is always appreciated if you're enjoying the series as well!

Tag list: @theetherealbloom @rotscinema

“Okay, okay, so I took Punjabi and didn’t learn anything. Big deal!” Foggy said, waving a dismissive hand. “At least I got to talk to that really hot chick in class.”

“But that’s all you did,” Matt pointed out. “You never even managed to get her number.”

Foggy let out a sigh, a faraway look on his face as he gazed just past Matt’s shoulder. You giggled at the sight; you’d heard the story about the girl Fog had taken Punjabi just to talk to many times before, but it never failed to amuse you how little he’d actually learned because he’d been distracted by her instead.

“So what about you?” Matt asked.

He turned in your direction, leaning his elbows along the table and drawing himself closer to you. Your fingers were fiddling nervously with the beer bottle on the table in front of you, absently peeling the label from it. The way Matt was focused on you with that little grin on his mouth in the dimly lit bar had sent your heart racing, the weight of his sightless gaze on you behind his dark glasses making you nervous. For a moment your eyes lingered on his lips, wondering just how great of a kisser he might be. How it might feel if he just leaned a bit closer towards you and connected his mouth to yours. Or what it would be like to curl up with him in your bed after this, feel his tongue in your mouth and his hands roaming your body instead of someone else’s…

You cleared your throat, shoving those thoughts quickly away. You flushed when you realized you’d been staring silently at Matt, his brows having started to rise curiously onto his forehead at you.

“What about me?” you asked awkwardly.

“I never hear you talk about going on dates or taking classes just to meet a guy,” Matt said, that grin still on his mouth. “I think it’s your turn to spill some embarrassing stories.”

You met Foggy’s eyes on your other side, his smile faltering at Matt’s question. Swallowing hard, your gaze quickly dropped down as you focused on your beer bottle in front of you again. You shrugged in response.

“Guess no one’s caught my eye,” you lied.

Out of the corner of your eye you saw Matt shaking his head. Looking back up at him, you noticed his grin had widened on his perfect mouth. Immediately you frowned at the sight.

“Come on, be honest here,” Matt pressed, leaning even closer to you as one of his dark brows rose up onto his forehead. “You’ve never taken a class just to talk to someone? Or anything like that?”

You exhaled slowly, eyes falling away from Matt. It’s not like you could be entirely truthful here. Maybe you hadn’t taken a class to get to know someone you’d had a crush on like Foggy, or asked for assistance to intentionally get some one-on-one time with someone like Matt had often done. But you had become best friends with the guy you had a thing for. Rearranged your entire schedule to fit his so you could see him almost every day despite how utterly pathetic it often made you feel.

But you certainly couldn’t admit that .

“Don’t tell me there’s no one you have a thing for,” Matt urged after a moment. “I won’t believe you.”

His arm slid across the table to nudge yours in a friendly, playful gesture. Your eyes instantly dropped down to where he’d touched you, your arm feeling like that single, brief touch had sent a burning fire through your entire body. But when your eyes darted back up to Matt’s face, your attention was drawn to just over his shoulder. There was a young woman in a group of a few others back at the bar, and it was obvious how her attention kept shifting back to Matt, checking him out.

Shoulders slumping, your head dropped low as you focused back on your beer bottle. That jealous, dejected feeling washed over you. It was one you’d become familiar with lately, feeling it whenever Matt was flirting, or being checked out, or out on a date, or clearly out having sex with someone.

“Not anyone who’d ever notice me,” you muttered.

“Oh well now I’m sure that’s not true,” Matt said good-naturedly. “How could someone not notice you? You’re amazing. Right, Fog?”

Your head flew up, eyes going wide at Matt’s compliment. He’d called you amazing. Matt had never said anything like that before about you. Your mind suddenly was spiraling in a different direction for once, thoughts quickly running through your mind one after another.

Could Foggy have been right? Was it possible Matt maybe did have an interest in you? Maybe all this time all you’d needed to do was just tell him how you felt. Maybe he’d never asked you on a date before because you weren’t forward with your feelings like all of the other women who’d very openly flirted with him.

Maybe it was just as simple as that.

“I tell her that all the time,” Foggy agreed easily. “And I’m sure whoever this guy is sees it, too.”

He shot you a pointed look before his eyes darted meaningfully across the table to Matt. Slowly your gaze followed where Foggy’s had, attention returning back to Matt. He had focused back on you as well, that beautiful charming smile of his on his mouth. Biting your lip, you contemplated thinking up some way to just tell Matt how you felt here and now and put everything out there in the open. Especially before the girl making eyes at him could come over and steal him away for the night. But before you could open your mouth, Matt was continuing on.

“You should really give yourself more credit,” he told you. “Any guy would be lucky to take you on a date.”

Hope was quickly rising in your chest, your body suddenly feeling weightless. “You–you think so?” you asked him cautiously.

“Absolutely,” he answered, one hand coming up to readjust his dark glasses on his nose. “You’re a sweet, intelligent girl. And you’re funny as hell. Honestly, I was not expecting you to be as hilarious as you are.”

“Yeah?” you asked.

Beside you, you noticed the way Foggy’s wide eyes were darting back and forth between you and Matt like he was just waiting for the moment one of you admitted feelings or something. It felt like your stomach was filling with hundreds of anxious butterflies all flapping about inside of you as that hope only bloomed further in you.

“Oh, definitely,” Matt said with a nod. “You’re like a female Foggy. Which is high praise, because Foggy is the absolute best friend anyone could ask for.”

Instantly you deflated as if Matt had just punched you in the gut.

You’re like a female Foggy.

…the absolute best friend anyone could ask for.

Mouth dropping open, you sat there dumbfounded and hurt. Every ounce of hope that maybe you’d misread the situation–maybe he didn’t see you as just a friend–immediately dropped into your half finished bottle of beer and drowned. Your chest felt hollow as Matt’s smile briefly faltered before you.

Attention returning back towards Foggy on your left, you saw him shooting you that all-too-familiar sad smile again. You wanted to crawl under the table and cry at the sight of it.

“You’re both suddenly really quiet,” Matt pointed out, his tone a bit nervous. “Did I–I say something wrong?”

You couldn’t look at him, your gaze dropping yet again to the table before you. Tears pricked at your eyes as you tried to fight them back, clearing your throat as you blinked hard a few times.

“No,” you answered softly. “Thanks, Matt.”

“You–you sound upset,” he pointed out. “What’d I say wrong?”

“Dude,” Foggy began immediately, “you just told her she was best friend material when you were supposed to be giving her encouragement that she is more than that.”

“What? No,” Matt said quickly.

Your eyes caught sight of how fast his head turned in your direction out of your peripheral. That hollow feeling felt like it was only growing in your chest the longer you sat here. Maybe you should just call it a night and head back to your dorm before it swallowed you whole.

“That’s not what I meant,” Matt said earnestly.

He said your name, his hand reaching out and feeling along the table before it eventually landed on your wrist. Your eyes snapped shut, your jaw clenching at the contact of his skin on yours when his fingers encircled your wrist. It wasn’t helping.

“Hey, I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to say you were just friend material,” he continued. “That’s not what I meant. It came out wrong.”

“It’s fine, Matt, I get it,” you whispered, your voice breaking slightly.

“No, hey, I’m sorry. I’m an idiot,” he said in a rush, his hand holding tighter to your wrist. “Please don’t get upset. I just meant you’re a really great person, one of the best I’ve ever met. I’m sorry, I didn't mean it like that.”

“Yeah, alright,” you said with a nod, desperate for him to just stop.

“How about this,” Matt said, his tone picking up to something brighter, “you bring me with to meet this guy, and I’ll be the best wingman ever."

You slipped your wrist out from Matt’s hold, no longer interested in sitting here and finishing your beer. Walking home in the cool evening and crying sounded vastly more appealing. Abruptly shoving your chair out, the legs of it making an irritating screech along the floor that was audible over the pop music playing, you slipped out of your seat.

“You heading back already?” Foggy asked, that knowing look on his face.

“Yeah, early class tomorrow,” you answered.

“Wait, hang on,” Matt said, pushing his own chair back as he turned in his seat towards you. “If you’re leaving because I upset you, I’m sorry.”

You sighed, pushing your chair back into the table so he wouldn’t end up tripping over it when he inevitably got up. “I’m leaving because I have an early class in the morning, Matt,” you deadpanned.

Your eyes caught the brief twitch of his eyebrows on his forehead as if he somehow knew you were lying. He opened his mouth to speak but you cut him off before he could try to apologize yet again. That, too, wasn’t helping.

“I’ll see you guys later,” you said quickly, shooting Foggy a wave as you took a step back.

“Dining hall for lunch tomorrow?” Fog asked hopefully.

“Sure,” you answered, shooting him a tight smile. Turning, you muttered under your breath, “If I even have an appetite by then.”

Weaving your way through the fairly busy bar, you eventually made it to the exit. You pushed the door open, stepping out into the chilly late spring evening. You felt a bit of the tension easing from your body already, the street noise of the city vastly preferable to you than being in Matt’s proximity right now. You couldn’t sit there any longer listening to him apologize to you for viewing you as only a best friend.

You were an idiot to have thought there was hope for something more between you both. Of course he was only saying nice things that a friend would say to another friend to make them feel better and build them up. It was the same thing he’d probably say to Foggy if he was interested in a girl. How stupid you were to think of it as anything else.

Any guy would be lucky to take you on a date.

You laughed bitterly at his comment, your arms hugging tight to your chest as you made the short trek back to campus and towards your dorm. Any guy except for Matt would be lucky to take you on a date, that’s basically what you gathered this evening. Matt was probably going to be hit on by that girl at the bar in a matter of minutes. You were positive he’d end up in either her dorm or his shortly afterwards. But you were not someone Matt would take on a date.

A frown twisted your mouth downwards, tears stinging at your eyes. You didn’t want to think about yet another conquest for Matt. It felt shitty that Matt would sleep with almost any girl on campus except for you. Not that that’s all you wanted from him–because you wanted vastly more than to just fuck him–but it made you feel like there was something wrong with you.

Why weren’t you good enough? What was so different about you that Matt didn’t want you like he did with those other girls?

A tear slipped down your cheek and you reached a hand up, wiping it away. Seconds later you heard your phone ringing in your pocket and your frown deepened. You reached down, pulling it out and looking at the caller ID. Matt’s name was on the screen. Your eyes closed as you came to a stop on the sidewalk. You didn’t want to talk to him, why the hell was he calling you?

For a minute you considered letting his call go to your voicemail and ignoring it. You could always just tell him later that you’d had it on silent and didn’t realize he’d called until the next morning. How would he know you were lying?

But you felt guilty at the thought of ignoring him just because he’d unintentionally hurt you. It’s not like Matt could control who he was or wasn’t attracted to. That wasn’t his fault. With a sigh you flipped the phone open, bringing it to your ear.

“Hey, Matt,” you answered, trying to keep the waver out of your voice.

He greeted you with your name, his voice sounding a little out of breath. You frowned.

“What’s going on? Something happen at the bar?” you asked, brows furrowing.

“No, not exactly,” he answered quickly. “Fog saw this girl he likes there. I think her name is Marci? Figured I’d leave him to it and check on you, actually. Which is why I called. How far from the bar did you get? I was trying to catch up.”

Biting your lip, you turned on the spot, stepping out of the way of a small group of college kids walking past you. A little ways back you could make out Matt’s form heading down the sidewalk towards you, his cane tapping away in one hand, his other hand holding his phone to his ear. Shoulders dropping, you realized you were going to have to walk back with him. Which was the last thing you’d been wanting to do right now.

“You didn’t need to leave on my account, Matt,” you told him.

“You seemed upset, I didn’t want you to walk back alone like that,” he replied. “So how far away did you get?”

Sighing, you began walking back the way you’d come. “I can see you, I’ll just turn back around and meet you in a minute,” you said.

Both of you exchanged goodbyes before you hung up, slipping your phone into your pant’s pocket before you once again uncomfortably wrapped your arms around your chest. It took you about a minute to reach Matt and you greeted him once you did, watching as his head darted in your direction. That damn charming smile slipped onto his face instantly and you hated the way it made you feel.

“Was hoping I’d manage to find you,” he greeted you back.

“Congrats,” you muttered. “I can walk you back to your dorm, if you want.”

“Well now that defeats the purpose of me walking you back to your dorm,” Matt countered cheekily.

You rolled your eyes, unable to fight the small smile snaking its way onto your lips. Reaching out, you placed Matt’s outstretched hand in the crook of your arm. His warm fingers curled around you, that hollow pit in your chest suddenly growing larger as you began to guide him back towards campus.

For a little bit neither of you spoke, your body tense as Matt held onto you while the pair of you walked back towards your dorms. His cane tapping along the pavement mixed with the noises of the city, the sound lingering heavily over the pair of you.

“Are you okay?” Matt asked, eventually breaking the silence.

His question caught you off guard, your lips pressing together as Columbia came into view. Once again, it’s not like you could be truthful with Matt. You couldn't tell him you had feelings for him–had them for months–and that him calling you a female Foggy had deeply hurt you. You’d only embarrass yourself and ruin your friendship with him.

“Yeah,” you answered.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw his head turn swiftly in your direction. Your teeth ground together under the weight of his attention.

“Can you be honest with me this evening?” he asked.

“Who says I’m not?” you countered.

“Because I know you,” he answered immediately. “You sounded close to tears earlier before you left the bar. You’re not telling your usual jokes or laughing. You’ve been pretty quiet most of this evening, especially during this walk. You’re just giving brief responses when I know you love to talk.”

Your eyes remained fixed on the sidewalk before you as you led the pair of you down a different path, one that would bring you towards the residence halls. Internally you cursed Matt and his astute observations.

“Was it what I said at the bar?” he pried. “Because I didn’t mean it like that, I swear.”

“Can we please stop talking about that already?” you snapped.

Heat flooded your cheeks immediately after your outburst. You hadn’t meant to snap at him, but you were tired of hearing his apology. And you certainly didn’t need to hear him offer to be your wingman again.

“So it was what I said,” he replied.

His head turned, his attention once again on you as you both continued to walk. Your gaze remained fixed ahead of you, though.

“Why did that bother you so much?” he asked gently.

“Because I–” you stopped instantly, unsure of how to navigate this conversation without giving everything away. You sighed, shaking your head. “Because I’m always the friend,” you admitted weakly, tears stinging at your eyes again. “And I don’t understand what’s wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Matt said earnestly. “Why would you even think that?”

You shook your head, glad when you saw your building coming into view. You were desperate for an excuse to get out of this conversation. Especially because you felt the threat of tears growing stronger.

"It doesn't matter, forget I said that," you replied.

Matt pulled you to a stop on the sidewalk instantly. Surprised, you turned towards him, beginning to blink back the tears threatening to spill forth.

"It does matter if it's got you this upset," he pushed. "I meant what I said earlier. Any guy would be lucky to take you on a date. And if whoever this guy is has got you feeling this down on yourself, he's probably an asshole."

You couldn't help the humorless laugh that fell out of you. Little did he know he'd just called himself an asshole and you couldn't help but see the humor in it. The sound of your laugh only caused Matt’s brows to furrow though, his fingers tightening their hold on your arm.

"What?" he asked. "Why is that funny?"

Because it's you, you idiot.

"It's not funny," you answered instead. "I just feel stupid."

He said your name softly, shaking his head. "Hey, you're not stupid" he assured you.

You couldn't stop the tears that fell, that ache in your chest only deepening with every nice word from his mouth that didn't mean what you desperately wanted it to. Matt's head tilted to the side at your silence, but the moment you couldn't fight back a choked sob, he was quickly pulling you in towards him.

One of his arms wrapped around your back, the other gently drawing your head towards his solid chest, cradling you carefully against him as his fingers lightly stroked their way through your hair. Your own hands easily wrapped around him, holding tight to him as you cried into his shirt. His hand along your back began rubbing a soothing pattern, managing it somehow even with the cane still held in his hand. His comforting presence only had you fisting his shirt tighter in your hands as you became overwhelmed with your emotions, crying harder when you felt him rest his chin along the top of your head. Somehow his hands held you even closer to himself.

You'd often imagined what it would feel like to be in Matt's embrace so many times before; what it would feel like to be in his arms, breathing in that warm, familiar scent of him. But you’d never pictured it like this. Never because you were crying over not being able to be with him while he unknowingly comforted you for it.

"Maybe he's not the right guy," Matt whispered. "If he can't see how great you are, maybe he's not the one worth feeling like this about."

"He's not an asshole though," you choked out, voice muffled against his chest. "That's the thing."

"You'll find someone," he assured you. "Someone who will see every wonderful thing about you. Someone who won't make you feel like this about yourself."

"He usually doesn't," you muttered.

"Usually doesn't what?" he asked softly.

"Make me feel like this," you said, turning to rest your cheek against his chest. "Usually he makes me feel good. Happy." Your fingers tightened their hold around his shirt as you sniffled. "Special. But–but he doesn't know how I feel and I am positive he doesn't feel that way in return. And that's what hurts."

"How do you know if you don't tell him?" Matt asked.

Matt’s words at the bar ran through your mind again and your eyes snapped shut.

You’re like a female Foggy.

…the absolute best friend anyone could ask for.

"Believe me, I know," you answered stiffly.

Forcing yourself to release your hold on Matt, you stepped back as he untangled his hold on you in return. You wrapped your arms uncomfortably around yourself yet again, your attention on your feet.

"Sorry, this was stupid," you mumbled. "I can finish walking to my dorm myself, Matt. But thanks for uh, trying to help."

He took a step towards you, concern clearly written on his face. "I can walk you the rest of the way. It's not–"

"I want to be alone," you told him firmly.

He stared at you in silence for a moment before he finally nodded. "Okay," he replied. "I'll see you tomorrow though, right?"

You sighed heavily, eventually nodding. Because you knew you were too weak to give Matt up. You knew that despite how much it hurt to see him with other women all the time, the thought of him permanently missing from your life hurt worse.

"Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow, Matty," you whispered.

Turning, you made your way down the path towards your hall, tears still silently streaming down your cheeks. You ignored the stares of passing students, wiping away the dampness on your cheeks with the back of your hand as you walked.

These feelings would eventually fade. They had to.

#matt murdock x reader #matt murdock x you #matt murdock angst #matt murdock x f!reader #matt murdock x fem reader #matt murdock series #matt murdock fic #matt murdock fanfic #matt murdock

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royalberryriku · 4 months

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Some Thoughts on the 'Writing Process'™

So I see a lot of writers struggle with these very specific things, AKA:

The Staring at the Blank Page Thing where you struggle to come up with ideas, words, etc

The Word Counting Counting where you cannot stop counting your word count

The 'Can Someone ELSE Proofread This Because I Don't Want to Read It' dilemma

The 'How Do I STOP Hating Everything I Write' issue which also leads into the 'How Do I Stop Scrapping Everything' issue

And finally the 'I DONT WANT TO WRITE I WANT TO IMAGINE IT INSTEAD' problem

There are various things that can make writing hard, but I have had some thoughts! And maybe they might just be useful.

So for Issue Number 1, I've found that, if you want to write, NEVER do it before you already have the ideas. Looking at a blank page just makes it harder. You get bored and that makes writing feel boring. Of course, this is all just my opinion, maybe this actually works for you. BUT! In my own personal experience, I find that actually LIMITING how often I open my document helps a bunch. No matter how much you wanna write, there's no point torturing yourself over how little you're doing and shaming or pressuring yourself to get it done. Punishing yourself is just gonna kill your inspiration and, obviously, you're not going to want to write if you now associate it with punishment for not writing. It's a cycle of just being mean to yourself. Well, don't wanna be unproductive? As silly and counterproductive as it sounds; self care is the answer which I've found that actually works.

This actually leads into Issue Number 2. I think these probably stem from the same issue; punishing yourself for not producing. Again, punishing yourself and shaming yourself into just staring at a blank screen or staring at how little the word count is or how much you have to go until your goal is just going to kill your inspiration and make you bored. Shaming doesn't get you to write more, or faster or suddenly become more productive. Believe it or not? Self care and making it fun is what makes a fun story come to life. You're not just writing a block of text that's a recount to sell in this capitalist hellhole (I mean you are but that doesn't mean the process has to be bound by capitalism because FUCK CAPITALISM), you're writing a story you wanna tell; focus on the story before the method and don't punish yourself for it not just magically appearing. These things take time, they take trial, error, mistakes and various drafts, but FIRST? They take those little moments where you just daydream scenes and the imagination you have to exist at all. Focus first on the story and your own health and the rest will come, slowly but surely. Anyway that was a lot of words to essentially just say; don't look at the word count, focus on the story and the length will follow regardless. It's fine to check and obviously, you'll just have to at some point. But please please try and do what you can to avoid checking, even use a different method. I use page count because it's so varied and inaccurate that it actually doesn't matter and just tricks my brain into using that to see my very general progress and makes it seem bigger than it actually is. It also can just be easier to check at a glance if I want to make sure the structure of each chapter is more or less consistent enough.

Issue Number 3 is tricky, mostly because once you've made something, it can be legitimately very boring to reread everything you JUST wrote. For me, I'm sort of chaotic in that I reread as I go or do it very randomly and rewrite as I come up with things. The good thing is though that what you write isn't set in stone. It's malleable and fluid. I always have a cut and paste section on my computer where I just... cut and page and rearrange things as I think of it. I don't worry about "oh but what if I mess up" because you're ALWAYS gonna mess up! That's actually one of the cool things about writing, you CAN mess up and go back and reread it eventually to make it work a bit better after all the other chaotic going-back-and-fixing-things. Which brings me to my main point (especially if you don't want to replicate my chaoticness) I try to leave proofreading itself as much as I can for the end of it all. As in, I just let myself write, yes rearranging and going back whenever I want, but never throwing anything OUT, never scrapping the whole document because it's gonna have bits you might reuse. And more to the point, it gives you a lose skeleton to base your next draft on. It's more work but I find it really reassuring in that you don't judge every little thing as you go, but just say "meh, fuck it!" and write whatever works, then rewrite it in a separate document all over again, never deleting the last one so you can copy and page whatever you liked from the first draft, or second, or third, and use each mistake and flaw. Recycling is good folks, even just in writing. Or... at least it is for me. If this doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you, but this is just what helps me so maybe it might help you too.

This also goes into Issue Number 4. Honestly, you're never gonna not be your biggest critic. But! You can at least make your work feel a bit more positive and go in with a "eh who cares?" mindset into writing. It may not erase the "wow this is hot garbage" feeling, but it'll feel a bit more like "well this is MY hot garbage and I don't care if it's bad or good, because at least it was fun". Plus, like I said; recycling is very good. The best way to force yourself not to hate something is to get really damn used to it, AKA, never getting rid of it. Which is hard, I know. Especially if you just really freaking hate it. And, well, it's not like I'm saying you should keep absolutely every little thing, I don't want you all to get clutter and folders upon folders of stuff you won't use...buuut I am saying it helps to keep things and get comfortable in your own messiness and imperfection. It starts to feel normal at least, or for me it does, and slowly you kind of just...accept it. Also, making fun little things to enjoy your ideas away from your writing itself. If you draw? Make fanart. Maybe even make AUs in your head. Maybe make some mood boards. HYPE YOURSELF UP! Or as best you can at least, and never force things. If you aren't feeling this particular story right now? Move on to another project and yes having WIPs can be annoying but sometimes it's necessary. Again, these are all just my opinions and stuff I do when I struggle with these; I'm not commanding anyone to do anything and as always, maybe this won't work for you personally. But hey, doesn't hurt to give it a try first and see if it works, or maybe something else will. Whatever the case, this is just my own two cents.

And finally, Number 5. Honestly? This isn't so much as issue in and of itself as much as just an issue of prioritisation. Imagination is the most important part of even coming up with a story to begin with and, honestly, imagining scenes can really help build a mental image of what you want to describe and how things look and feel. One thing, a little cheat code you could say, that I've found is melding daydreaming with research. Which makes absolutely no sense since this is the most funnest part with the most boring part of writing, but hey, it works surprisingly well I assure you. So here's the setup I have; no doc (except for if I really need to jot down some notes), then images that remind me of my work (Pinterest boards maybe, a few mood boards, etc), then the research. I go between each of these; daydreaming. The result? I imagine scenes with the research I want; motifs that work with themes, imagery to use in scenes, what architecture works, what the weapons look like. Then, before I even write, I go back and still daydream WITH what I've researched and it sticks in my mind way better than even the notes I've made. Speaking of, with notes, I like to doodle in the margins of them, make them fun, highlight with fun colours. Sometimes? Research, note taking and writing doesn't have to be work in and of itself, sometimes it can be fun and a little quest of your own. Sometimes making writing and research feel like you're daydreaming can make all the difference between begrudgingly slugging through a chapter, or just having fun writing a new scene you just imagined and that starts to form into something new and exciting.

TLDR: Make writing fun! Like Mary Poppins once said; "a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down". Sometimes it's actually better to make the work into a treat instead of using a treat as a bribe or punishing yourself. In fact, making any part of the process into a punishment for not working just makes everything harder.

ALSO! Just in general, take breaks! It's easy to forget what you're doing (especially once it becomes fun) and forget to take care of yourself both physically and mentally. Too much time looking at a screen (or even just a page) can be straining! Remember to eat! Remember to drink water and sleep! Get up and walk around if you can, go to the bathroom and maybe even go for a little walk outside and get some Vitamin D if you're able to. Remember to maybe take a few days away from writing so you can come at it again with a refreshed mind and new perspective, sometimes you can get boggled down and start getting too focused on one little thing. It's good to let yourself have half an hour, an hour or even a few days to just refresh and go out and get new inspiration just from living. Sometimes the key to writing and ideas is to just stop writing for a bit and to just take a breath.

#writing #writers on tumblr #creative writing #writing community #writeblr #novel writing #writers and readers #tumblr writers #tumblr writing community #writerscommunity #writerblr #writers and poets #writing advice #long post #also some swearing oops #writing resources

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zombeebunnie · 4 months

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Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hi guys and welcome new followers! I am here with another update about the game, this one will be fairly short as well! :]

In good news, both of my play testers were able to replay the game and go through everything I've written up so far. Listening to their advice has really helped me progress the game/story and revisit a couple of things from Day 3 that would fit later on in the game. It goes into spoiler territory so I can't explain too much but it mainly has to do with pacing the story. :]

As for the routes, both play testers gave the green light for them and there were only a few things that needed fixing.

There were about 2 situations where the conversation between Noah and the player(Y/N) happened out of order that needed fixing. I cleaned up some of the dialog and rearranged some of the talking points to make it easier to understand, once I showed both of them the results they said it was easier to follow! :]

A reoccurring SFX that happens in the game was suggested to be replaced with something else. I was fine with this since it was something in the back of my mind that I wasn't too about adjusting so this really gave me the go ahead to do so. I'm still looking for one that fits but hopefully I find one soon! :]

They also ran into a a couple grammatical issues I still missed (e.x.: Brake instead of Break) and I'm very grateful these were caught because I'm still surprised some were left around. I also did more dialogue fixing too since some descriptions were too clunky. :,]

Also, here's a new CG! This was originally going to be used to replace the old living room window but my play testers and I agreed on liking the dated version a lot more. This was going to be scrapped but I found a better place for it! :,]

I'm still brainstorming how this area will look but maybe sometime next week it'll all be figured out!

I don't really have too much else to report on this time around. I've mainly been fixing a lot of the things my play testers have mentioned and doing a few tests here and there.

Thank you guys for all of your kind words and support, especially from the OC x Buckshot roulette drawings I did, I didn't expect the sudden boost with those. All of this is greatly appreciated! :,]

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em-dash-press · 9 months

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hi, i've been following your blog for quite a while now and i've been getting inspiration lately but starting the story itself is giving me a hard time. there this worry like "should i straight up start in the moment where everything changed then add some flashback" or "should i start w them crossing eo paths but there's no interaction typa thing then the momentum they finally meet" or "should i start in the end then tell the story in reverse"?

Hey there! Thanks for the follow 🩵 I've felt this same pressure. It doesn't even matter if I'm starting a short story or a novel. How you open it feels so intensely important that it can make me not write anything at all.

I have a few ideas you can try to see what works best with your writing process!

Try a Quick Outline

Instead of writing a long-form outline, start a bullet point list. Write 3-5 things that will happen in your story.

Next, add a general transition idea. What makes your story move from one bullet point to the next?

Once you have this quick outline written down, you can rearrange the plot points like the ideas you've mentioned in your message. If you can't fit the transition details easily between the points, you might feel more confident about one outline versus another.

Write a One-Paragraph Summary

If you don't usually outline your stories, a summary might feel more natural. Write what happens in your story. Make it a paragraph or up to one page long. The point isn't to go into detail—you should basically write this like you're explaining the story to a friend.

Let's say I'm writing the Little Red Riding Hood story. This would be my first summary:

Little Red Riding Hood is a young girl who walks through the woods to visit her grandma. On the way, she meets a wolf. The wolf beats her to her grandmother's house and poses as her grandma, successfully tricking Little Red Riding Hood so he gets to eat them both.

Now I want to summarize a different version that uses flashbacks. It's important to note why the flashback is important for the reader. If you can't think of a reason, it might be better to use a different flashback or not include them. This summary would look like this:

The story begins with a charming flashback of five-year-old Little Red Riding Hood making cookies with her grandma. The reader learns how close they are. When the story starts, Little Red Riding Hood is on her way to her grandma's house. The reader is already excited for them to join back up again because they're emotionally invested from the flashback. On the way, she meets a wolf. The wolf beats her to her grandmother's house and poses as her grandma, successfully tricking Little Red Riding Hood so he gets to eat them both.

The third summary would be a version of what you mentioned. I'd write it in reverse. Here's how I'd write it:

The story starts with a blood-splattered crime scene at Little Red Riding Hood's grandma's house. Something has gone very wrong. A wolf watches the crime scene investigators from outside the bedroom window. There's a page break symbol, followed by the start of the story. Little Red Riding Hood is a young who walks through the woods to visit her grandma. On the way, she meets a wolf. The wolf beats her to her grandmother's house and poses as her grandma, successfully tricking Little Red Riding Hood so he gets to eat them both.

Each of these provides different perspectives by rearranging how the story happens. It doesn't take very long to make these and it's more stream-of-consciousness than bullet points.

Write a No-Rules Draft

You can always write a no-rules draft if you'd rather skip those first two plotting options. Think of this like turning your brain upside down and seeing what falls onto your paper.

Write the story without any expectations of keeping it. Ignore the typos and don't worry about structural stuff like subplots or character arcs.

This exercise gives you a bare-bones draft that you can read over once you give your brain a break. It's also better for short stories, as you may not want to devote the time and energy to writing a bare-bones novel.

You might realize it's an awesome overall structure and write a second draft that's more intentional. You could also read it and realize some flashbacks could add more tension at the beginning to grip the reader compared to starting at the end and working your way back.

-----

There's really no straightforward answer to your question, unfortunately. I wish there was—I'd use it in my writing practice too!

You're the only person who can tell what version of your story feels right in your creative gut. I hope these suggestions help you get there!

Here's an article that could help you find a way to integrate your ideas too. It goes over multiple types of narrative structures that might inspire you for this story.

Best of luck with your writing! Give yourself time and the space to get creatively messy. You'll always find your way to your final draft!

#story structure #outlining #writing advice #writing tips #writers of tumblr #plotting #writing tips and tricks #writing tools #writing inspiration #writing community #writeblr #creative writing

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13leaguestories · 1 year

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OH SHIT wait WAIT *rearranges birthday speech notes* goddamn it I didn't know exactly when your birthday was so I didn't know when to send this, omg sorry I was freaking out over this and still missed it but here it goes anyway 😂

happy birthday Tierra!! I've been reading everything you put out since Dragon Racer days, and though Superstition is my favourite, it's probably just my personal preference for more serious and sober writings, and bc we have a lot of stuff from that one specific IF out already so I feel like I can sink my teeth into it, but that doesn't mean I haven't read literally every other IF of yours and even your patreon stuff when I occasionally can support you, and they all stick with me for different reasons!

anyway, I'm just here to wish you an amazing day/week/month, and hoping you feel better soon, bc in your monthly forecasts you told us you've been having a tough time with your writing lately... well, you should know many of us genuinely care bc you're an actual talented and proficient writer, not to mention a fun and kind person - I love reading through the actually interesting and insightful asks you get sometimes, and I die with the unhinged funny ones and how you understand where some of us are coming from in our unhingedness that ain't a word OH and I admire the patience you have with some people asking the same stuff you've already answered thousands of times before bc I could NEVER 😂 and even when you burn some rude people too for being way too comfortable with their asks 🤣 love that

like, I'm just thankful for your hard work, you have no idea how happy your writing makes many of us - as one of the most beautiful forms of art, for me, the main objective of writing is to take the reader somewhere else entirely, like, just grab them and pull them away from real life, bc sometimes life can suck, and even if it doesn't, the feeling of living other lives, being someone else, somewhere else, it's just amazing and unique to experience... and you do all of that amazingly well?

let's take Superstition as an example but this applies to all of your works: how many times have I laughed, or cried or gone feral while reading it? genuinely excited? it doesn't feel like I'm reading through a story on some fictional land far away from our own (even when sometimes it is), or about a character far removed from here, it feels like me, like I am literally there instead? when my character has to fight, or help, or argue, push, or hug, or love, or hate any of the others, or when they cry, or get hurt, or reunite, or get head over heels... that's me, not Roe, (or the Apprentice, or Phoenix, etc) right there, going through it? so it feels kinda personal? like, sometimes it's even hard to come back to my own reality, but not because it's boring/sucks, but because I was just enjoying being there in that book/IF, in that particular storyline, and having so much fun I feel like I could actually live there for some time and enjoy every second of that adventure I was participating in... it's refreshing, and it feels like wandering through fantasy, and that's extremely amazing, and very hard to accomplish I would think, because not every IF or even traditional writing captures that? so yeah, just wanted to say thank you, I guess? 😂 don't ever forget your writing literally brightens many of our days - like how whenever a new episode of Superstition comes out it's always like a holiday for me 😂

so hey take your time and don't stress over it bc art takes time, and it always has to run its course, sometimes it feels like it has a mind of its own - I know that bc I write too and it can be overwhelming... so take care of your mind so it can do its thing, and also don't forget that all of us have stayed here for this long and enjoy your writing because it truly is a special little part of our days, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!😂🥳🎉

Thank you so much! And it's understandable I only said the month lol. But thank you so much and thank you for taking the time to write and send this in. Ugh, cheeks, be calm. This was so sweet of you and so motivating as well. Ugh, nope, I can't. I refuse to get emotional while eating a bagel. Damn you!

But again, thank you so much, I don't think thank you really encapsulates how grateful I am.

#general asks

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tealenko · 5 months

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The Three Letters (Chapter 9)

Chapter 9: Close Enough to Touch

Holy shit, I've made it. yayyyyy~~~ You're gonna love this one (I do, at least XD) next chapter won't be so long, so it will take less than usual (sorry... I know, I been writing this for 2 years and I'm only halfway there... You can blame my job XDDD) Go to AO3 for more footnotes, I'll tell you more there! ~tea

Summary: Lara and Jacob spend some time alone while everyone else is asleep, having to navigate their own expectations after being apart for almost 4 years.

Words: 6226 Rating: Teens and Up (Mature~ish) Warnings: smooches and lots of tension (we're here for the slow burn)

All Chapters -> [link] Read in AO3 -> [link]

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The orange-lit valley of Lara’s memories fades little by little to become the present, thanks in part to the crackling sound of the bonfires as their lives come to an end, finding in them a similar tone of color to the sky she was remembering so vividly only a few seconds ago.

Once her journey is done, she realizes that most of the people have disappeared, already back to their cabins to get some sleep before the sun is up again, and the few left, are way too busy to pay attention to the fact that she’s been frozen in the same spot for a while now.

Her mind had also been too occupied, filling every little fragment of Jacob’s story with the unspoken details only known by the two of them, to realize that he was no longer there either.

Lara’s eyes search for him for a few more seconds but, instead, they find Sofia, who has already finished redistributing tasks and is eager to go rest a little.

“Here everything is taken care of, Lara, stop looking for things to do or people to help.”

“What…?” She’s confused for a moment until she understands what she’s implaying. “Ah, yeah… You know me.” She replies, hiding her true motives to be scouring the area. “I cannot stay still and do nothing.”

“Well, I think you should really go and rest… But something tells me you won’t take my advice.”

“Is that so?” She asks, not really paying much attention to her, still trying to see if she’s able to find Jacob among the people that are cleaning and rearranging the whole place back to normal.

“Yes, I’m an expert in the matter. I grew up with my father, afterall.” Sofia laughs a little at her own thoughts. “You two are too much alike when it comes to things like this.”

Lara’s head turns quickly to look back at her, instantly regaining all her interest in record time.

“Perhaps… I don’t see him helping now, though.” She tries her best to hide the true meaning of her words, hoping that Sofia will answer her question without having to ask directly.

And so she does.

“Ah yeah, he offered, of course, but Levi insisted on taking care of everything and extinguishing the bonfires in his place.” She replies, unaware she’s about to tell Lara what she was too afraid to ask. “After some hesitation he agreed. Told us he was going to take a walk, that he needed to reflect on today’s events or something of sorts.”

“I see…” Lara smiles softly at her, with her mind working as fast as usual, as she tries her best to come up with an excuse that helps her to go see Jacob without having to explain it to anyone, especially to Sofia.

For once, despite what she thinks at the beginning, the universe seems to agree with her wishes and, before she’s able to come up with something on her own, grants her the perfect opportunity she was looking for.

“Lara…” Levi yells from afar, cutting her line of thoughts with the sudden interruption. “Need some help here, mind to lend a hand?”

She curses her luck for a second, knowing it’s more important to aid the village than to go look for Jacob but, just as she’s about to comply with his request, she sees Sofia’s expression out of the corner of her eye.

Interesting. Lara thinks, surprised at her own perception abilities, which usually don’t help her too much when it comes to processing other people's feelings.

“One sec!” She decides to yell at Levi, raising her index finger in the air to accompany her answer.

She then spends the next three looking for a way to approach the situation as gently as possible but, to her surprise, Sofia decides to take the first step.

“Erm… Lara…” There’s hesitation on her voice and, for the first time ever, Lara seems to notice her friend’s cheeks blushing a little. “Would you mind if I… I…”

She doesn’t need more than that to be sure of what she's trying to do and, seeing that both of their goals can be achieved at the same time, she decides to spare her friend’s agony and give her exactly what she wants while pretending she is unaware of her feelings.

“Sorry, Sofia.” Lara cuts her mid sentence. “It’s been a long day… And I know it’s too much to ask…” She takes a small pause, giving her the opportunity to understand what she’s trying to do. “But, would you mind taking my place to help Levi? I… I really need to put my thoughts into order.”

Sofia smiles from ear to ear and nods, giving a hug to her friend while mumbling something about her last statement and how it confirms yet again how similar Lara and her father truly are.

She is gone before Lara can add anything else, so she takes a deep breath and starts walking without a set course.

Her original plan to search for Jacob dilutes with the first few steps, knowing it will be close to impossible to find him in the valley without having any hint of his whereabouts.

So, instead, she engages in what, at the beginning, was only an excuse and starts to reflect on everything that’s happened to her in just one day, letting her feet guide her without a fixed route.

And there goes another thing that she shares with Jacob.

Completely unaware, her body follows the same path he did, finding herself near the peak of the mountain in record time.

She takes the right trail once the observatory is on sight, not even remembering it’s the one that ends at the top of the waterfall, the one that he took only a few minutes ago, the one he takes almost every night.

“...”

Lara is a bit surprised, at first, to find him there.

With the darkness of the night enveloping them, the stars and the moon are the only sources of light illuminating the enchanted scenery. However, the sound of water flowing to crash in the distance, quickly lets her know where both Jacob’s and her own feet had decided to lead them, and suddenly, she understands.

I think it may be my favorite place in the entire world.

His words echo in her mind as she gazes at him, tracing his features as the light of the moon unveils every single detail on his face.

“Should’ve known you’d be here…” She smiles a little when she observes him getting startled, snappin back from his inner thoughts in record time before standing up to face her.

“Lara…” Jacob blinks a couple of times, almost as if he’s making sure that her presence there isn’t just a figment of his own imagination.

“Sorry,” she’s still smiling as she says this, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Oh, please, don’t worry about it.” He’s the one smiling now, pleased to see her now that he’s sure she’s real. “Come, sit with me.”

Jacob offers her a hand and Lara takes it without hesitation, walking next to him for a few steps before they sit right where he was a few seconds ago, letting their legs hang on the cliff as they face the dark view of the waterfall.

They shouldn’t be able to see it, with the sun gone for many hours now, but the water cascades so swiftly and tumultuously that it’s able to trap the subtle glow of the night sky and create a light of its own.

“Long day?”

The subtle roar of the water fills the background of their conversation, creating a soothing melody to accompany their words.

“Yeah…” She laughs a little. “In a good way… But yes.”

She lowers her head a little, moving her upper body forward just an inch, to have a better view of how the water splashes against the river so many feet below them.

“Almost seems like this morning started a couple years ago…” Lara stares at the distant riverscape, starting to understand the love that Jacob holds in his heart for this place. “But, somehow, it also feels like the day has gone by in just a second.”

Her head moves slowly before she shrugs her shoulders.

“I’m not making any sense, right?”

Lara chuckles, and he follows her right away, letting their eyes meet each other in the process.

“More than you can imagine, believe me.”

The gentle light of the crescent moon may not be strong enough to illuminate the whole valley, nor even the small section they find themselves sitting at, but it lets them see each other and, whatever is left, is rebuild in their minds using both their hearing and memory to fill whatever their eyes cannot picture on their own.

Jacob scoots closer to her and points at something, she doesn’t recall what, too busy taming her heart, which seems to want to exit her chest, completely overwhelmed by the sudden proximity between them.

Thankfully, there’s no need to hear him for, what she assumes must be the depiction of something that cannot be witnessed in the dark of the night, turns out to be a mere excuse his mind has found to get closer to her.

Their arms are now glued, one next to the other and, with a cold air flow coming from her left, Lara shivers and, despite not knowing if the cause of it it’s the temperature or having Jacob right next to her, this one doesn’t let the opportunity pass, quickly grabbing her hand to shelter it in between his own.

The clear difference in their temperature alarms him for a moment and, what usually would’ve cost him a lot of fortitude and hesitation, suddenly comes out as a gesture of endearment, quickly moving even closer to grab her left hand to keep it right next to the other.

“You’re freezing, Lara.”

“Just a bit…” She glances at what she's wearing for a second. “This type of clothing worked just fine last time I was here. Then again, I guess I never stopped and sat down… Kinda spent most of my time here running, which would explain a lot, actually.”

Jacob looks at her clothes too, shaking his head a couple of times.

“It also doesn’t help that your coat it’s worn-out to the point where every inch of it is either paper thin and about to be torn into pieces or already stitched back together.”

Lara blushes a little, regaining the control of her hands before hugging herself and the jacket in question, almost as if she's trying to protect it both from the air and from his comments.

“Well, I happen to like it.” She tells him using a tone of voice that’s very close to defensive.

“I can tell.” He adds in between giggles, finding her reaction very endearing, teasing her about the whole topic.

She frowns but is unable to hold her smile and, with her right arm, she nudges him with her elbow, punching him a little to the side.

“Shut up.”

Jacob breaks instantly into laughter, scooting back a little after recovering his initial posture, and bringing her back to sit on top of him, using his arms to embrace her whole body before covering her hands once again.

His initial movement is born from a place of concern, wanting to shelter her from the cold air as much as possible but, no matter what his motives were at the beginning, once his pose is locked in, his mind starts to travel to other places, almost forgetting the chivalry that brought him to that posture on the first place.

Lara starts talking, but he’s unable to hear her.

Despite trying his best, his whole body is way too focused on his own selfish reasons to hear what she says, for almost a minute.

“... and it has kept me warm in countless situations.” That’s the only piece of her sentence that manages to win back his attention, regaining his focus on what she’s telling him. “And… And…”

Jacob laughs and relaxes a little, letting a deep breath out before resting his head on top of her shoulder.

“And…?”

“Well…” She looks up for a few seconds before setting her eyes back again on the dark valley, letting a big breath out in the process. “And I guess… I like it too much to get rid of it.”

Lara lets her weight rest onto him even more, getting comfortable in his arms.

“There, I said it.” She adds, a bit amused by her own shyness. “Happy now?”

He smiles, indeed happy, not only about her comment, but also because of their current situation and her overall presence back in his life.

“Quite a lot…”

His arms strengthen their hold around her even more and he plants a soft kiss on the top of her head, lowering his head right after to whisper next to her ear.

“You have no idea… How happy I am right now.”

Jacob’s voice hits her neck in a way that it almost seems like a caress, a shiver slithering through her entire body all the way down to her feet.

His right hand betrays his will and, before he’s even aware that it's moving, quickly wraps around her waist, holding her close to him.

By the time he realizes where his hand it’s placed, Lara has already taken the movement as an invitation, turning around, still on top of him, while moving her hands to the back of his neck, staring at his eyes while her fingers entertaining themselves with his hair.

“I…” He doesn’t even know what he wants to say when he starts talking, but it doesn’t really matter, for “I” is the only word he’s able to portray before his lips are quickly sealed by hers.

There’s a second of hesitation on his part, followed by another one of inner fight. But, after the third, he knows he’s completely lost to her.

The night is at its darkest now, letting the stars glow brighter than ever, becoming the sole witness to the scenery displayed below them, as the only two people that remain awake are way too busy to focus on anything other than each other.

Despite the darkness, and having his eyes closed, he can feel her smiling as she kisses him, way too happy to control the corner of her lips as she lets all her weight rest against him.

Jacob mimics her expression as he allows gravity to do its job little by little, until his back is in full contact with the ground, tangling his arms around Lara to keep her glued to him.

There’s a giggle or two before the kisses resume again.

Nothing desperate or out of control. There aren’t rushed hands, scratches nor sultry words.

Neither of them knew what would really happen the first time they were alone like this but, what they had pictured in their heads over the years, looked way too different from the unfolding reality of their current situation.

Or at least it is for Lara.

She always thought there would be an element of desperation, after being apart for so long before they even had the chance to formalize their feelings, but instead, everything seems quite the opposite of what she pictured.

Kind kisses and soft smiles, tender and unhurried, interrupted now and then by deep breaths, not the ones where you come back to the surface for some air, but the ones where you have to stop so your whole being can process everything it’s feeling.

There are light touches here and there, but they aren’t rushed either, a nice walk to warm up to their relationship instead of a full-on sprint and, being completely alone for the first time ever, except for said the shimmering stars above, they continue traveling through that path for longer than any of them can really recall, taking their time to taste the waters with the distant waterfall splashes as their main background music.

The rhythm of their exchange seems to stay the same for a long time but, little by little, the pace accelerates to something closer to the level of intimacy that she had imagined for the many years they spent apart.

Lara’s hands, feeling a sense of security after the extended warm up, start to travel under his coat, looking for a way to get in contact with his skin.

They seem to be welcomed at first, sending a shiver through Jacob’s body before he lets out a subtle giggle. Nevertheless, the moment she starts to move them, aiming to trace little by little his upper body, the cheerful expression disappears right away.

“Lara…”

She freezes and, after looking at his face for a second, retreats to a safe position, with her heart twisting inside of her for letting the whole situation reach a point where she did something she shouldn't have.

“Sorry.” She states, trying her best to get out a smile before planting a soft kiss on his forehead.

Lara turns to her left and lays next to him, thanking the night for being able to conceal all the blush of her face with its darkness.

Jacob, on the other side, remains silent for a few seconds, with his eyes glued to the glowing stars as his breathing comes back to normal.

The silence doesn’t last for long but for Lara seems closer to an eternity, waiting patiently as she traces his features in search for a clue that tells her what she should say next.

Said clue is not needed.

Before her mind can overanalyze everything that’s happened, he rises right arm and points upwards, quickly gaining all her attention as he rescues her from her internal downward spiral.

“See that group of stars there?” Jacob moves his hands, indicating the area of the sky he’s talking about. “Three whites in a triangle form, next to one that glows somewhat bluer…”

Lara does her best to locate the stars he’s talking about.

“Errmm… ” She frowns for a second until she finally sees them. “Oh, I think I got it. In between Orion and Hydra?”

His mouth opens a little but words don’t come up. Instead, he just turns his head and stares at her, half fascinated, half enchanted, and gives her the most discernible sound he’s able to produce to confirm her statement.

“Hum…”

For a moment she forgets about everything, happy to have found the set of stars and proud of her memory for remembering something she wasn’t sure was still stored in her mind.

“So you know astronomy too.” Jacob can’t avoid laughing a little as he says this, wondering how it’s possible for someone like Lara to exist.

“Roth insisted, so I could guide myself at night if something ever happened… And I came to like it.” She replies, with a warm smile on her face. “Never used it for that purpose, but I must admit that it came in handy last time I was here though.”

She makes a spinning motion with her hand.

“Ah, yeah… The orrery.” He completes the thought for her, letting out a sight.

“Seems you like astronomy too.”

“Yeah.”

Jacob is now feeling a bit embarrassed, picturing what she must really think of everything she discovered about him years ago in the buried lost city, but his line of thoughts is quickly cut by her next comment.

“What about them?” He is confused for a second until she specifies her question. “The stars you pointed at.”

“Ah.” Jacob replies with a tired tone of voice. “Nothing important. Some elaborated comment meant to ease your mind while you were preoccupied about the way our, erm, exchange, ended, I guess.”

Lara turns on her side to look at him, sensing, only after an instant, that he may be now the one in need of saving.

“I should’ve said it directly…” He sighs, with his eyes still lost in the sky. “But I tend to overcomplicate everything: my actions, my words… Even my past is way too tangled and surreal to be remotely believable.”

“Neither is mine.” She replies right away, winning his attention back from the heavens. “And sure, I’m not gonna say that having someone build you a gigantic orrery is something normal people do every tuesday...”

Lara laughs at her own comment, taking the opportunity to scoot a little closer to him in the meantime.

“But…” She puts emphasis on the word, letting him know her previous comment was just there to ease the tension and that she’s about to talk about what really matters to her. “You see… I happen to love the way you, how did you say it?” Lara makes a humming noise as she thinks. “Ah, yeah, the way you overcomplicate your words.”

Her words strike against his heart with accuracy. The little hesitation left, is quickly vanished as she quickly proves her point.

“Your smile, your mind, your soul… Every single part of your being seems to be designed to allure me, to control me. To leave me out of breath. Every little part of you enchants me out of reason, making the silence my only partner when, in reality, all of my heart squeals whenever you are near me and weeps upon the idea of you going away.”

Jacob listens with care to his own words from the past as she recites them, feeling his soul twisting inside his body with every metaphor that comes out of her mouth.

Once she finishes, she gets even closer to him, leaving no room left in between them.

“Cannot believe you know that from memory…”

She clears her throat to interrupt him, not needing to put into words the correction of his comment.

“I see.” He’s now the one smiling a little. “You really do know the entire thing, right?”

She nods, seeing his smile and deeping hers even more.

“So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to hear what you were going to say.” She turns to lie on her back, fixing her eyes back to the group of stars he pinpointed before, not giving him the chance to refuse her petition. “Go ahead.”

He laughs a little before giving up, planting a soft kiss on her cheek before mirroring her position to have a clear sight of the sky.

“You win…”

His right hand rises once again, to aid him with the explanation, while the left one moves with great care to grab hers as he begins to talk.

“You can tell, just by their colors, that those nine stars, in between the two constellations you mentioned before, have always been there.” His right arm moves a little, as he points at one of them. “Nevertheless, that one, more blue than white, right in the middle, has not been visible for most of my existence.”

Lara waits patiently, as she lets the information sink, looking for a deeper meaning to his facts until it suddenly hits her.

“Wait… Without the middle one, you would not group that as a constellation, right?”

“Right.” He laughs a little at the thought of it. “Imagine it. Spent hundreds of years learning about the webbed starry sky and one day, or better said night, I looked up and a never seen before figure was there. As if that had always been its place, for it really was… I just couldn’t see it until then.”

He readjusts his hand to let his fingers tangle in between hers.

“I see.” Lara’s eyes are now glued to the star in question, imagining what it was like for him to discover its presence. “Made you wait a long time…”

“Best things in life… Are the ones you have to wait for.”

Her eyes travel slowly away from the topic of their conversation in search of his own, allowing his last sentence to melt into the air as she processes the true meaning behind it.

Lara smiles a little at him, comprehending now why he wanted to tell her that story in the first place.

“I loved studying the stars.” He starts saying to her, using the same tone of voice she pictured for years to reread his letter. “Knew every single constellation as if the night sky were a burned map inside my memory.”

Jacob makes a pause there, analyzing his own past before exposing the obvious conclusion.

“Without that knowledge, well… Who would’ve noticed a new light amidst the sea of glowing creatures that inhabit our darkest hours?”

He smiles a little, still surprised with the hundreds of things that had to happen to reach this point in his life.

“But it took its time. It waited until my passion and knowledge were at their highest and, after more than seven hundred years of life, when there wasn’t anything else to learn, there it was, finally visible to my eyes, challenging everything that I considered true throughout my existence.”

The grip on her hand tightens even more, fingers pressing firmly around hers.

“Just as today, the night needed to be at its darkest, and the sky had to be completely clear for the entire system to be visible. It’s almost as if, for the first time in many centuries, everything in existence had decided to work in perfect harmony just to bewitch me with a new marvel.”

Jacob takes a moment to breathe but, instead of continuing to talk, he decides to turn to his side, facing her, waiting patiently for a few seconds until she follows his movement and mirrors it.

“You can imagine my glee, witnessing what felt so close to a miracle, after so many years of thinking that I already knew everything there is to see about the universe.”

Lara tries to pretend that she doesn’t understand the hidden meaning behind his words, but her blood doesn’t waste time to betray her, rushing in record time to conquer her face, painting her cheeks with so much blush that, this time around, the darkness of the night is not enough to be able to conceal it.

She hides her face in his chest for a few seconds, depleted of any strength to meet his eyes, and he isn’t surprised when it takes her way longer than usual to muster the courage to resurface.

When she eventually raises her head, in a very slow and controlled motion, her sight is quickly welcomed with a deep and radiant smile, powerful enough to dispel most of her shyness away.

Jacob’s mind scours a few new topics of conversation in an attempt to find something to ease her way back into their almost whispered dialogue but, to his surprise, she’s the one to break the silence first, making a triumphant recovery in no time.

“And you wanted to keep all that to yourself…” Lara half-mumbles as she levels the playing field a bit, making Jacob blush a little too. “Shameful.”

He laughs at her comment, nodding his head a couple of times as he surrenders to her argument.

“Thanks…” He adds, almost a murmur, seeing right through her joke to treasure the true meaning of the words inside his heart. “Thanks.”

“It’s okay.” She adds, laying on her back once again to have another look at the constellation. “More than okay…”

Jacob sits up a bit, propping himself up on his elbows and looking up too to gaze at the sky.

“Mesmerizing, if you ask me.” He starts saying, eyes still glued to the stars, oblivious to anything else as she turns her head a little to look at him. “They don’t glow as much as many of their companions in this starry night, but I find them way more magical than any of them.”

“Oh, of course.” She lets out a couple of giggles, anticipating the effect of her next words on her target. “But I was actually talking about the analogy, not the constellation in question.”

Jacob’s smile freezes momentarily.

He does his best to control his expectations, desperately trying to avoid disappointment, wondering if he hasn’t fully grasped the true meaning of her words.

Nevertheless, he has, and far from being disappointing, they’re the exact ones he wanted to hear all this time.

He wasn’t even aware and he didn’t know how much he needed to hear them, but the moment those few words leave her mouth, he finds himself mesmerized by the effect they cast upon him.

“I meant about waiting.” Lara confirms, letting her hand travel a little and interlocking her pinky finger with his. “I’m more than okay with it.”

“Are you sure…?”

If there was any fear in his voice, it vanishes right away, for her reply is fast and decisive, and with no hint of hesitation on sight.

“Of course.”

Jacob finds himself lost for words, as he has many times before, but somehow manages to mouth a thank you before looking away for a moment, attempting to compose himself as he’s still not used to experiencing these levels of happiness.

“Also, it makes sense…” Lara sits up, waiting until his eyes are back on her, concluding her argument by echoing his initial metaphor. “One should learn everything there is to know about the exposed sky before venturing into exploring the unseen.”

His silence lingers, but she doesn’t need to hear it out loud to understand how he feels.

“Besides, there’s plenty of time and…. The stars aren’t going anywhere”

It takes him a couple more seconds but, after processing everything, he’s finally able to, at least, come up with something to say.

“Right… Right.” He’s so overwhelmed with feelings that his mind acts on its own, deciding to steer the conversation away from emotions for the time being. “Wish I knew the name of those ones, though.”

“Name?”

“Yeah, your scholars have surely come up with a name for the constellation.” He fully sits, legs crossed, spending a couple seconds thanking her, in silence, for allowing him to steer their conversation to a more comfortable topic. “They’re often based on mythical creatures, animals… I’ve been wondering what it must be for many years now.”

Lara makes an effort, scouring her memory as she tries to picture her old astronomy book, knowing perfectly which chapter contains the information she needs, but unable to recollect much of the content.

“I’m sorry…” She huffs, a bit mad at herself. “Can’t seem to recall the scientific name of that constellation, wish I did.”

“Oh, it’s okay, I was mostly thinking out l…”

“But I do know it is a unicorn.”

Jacob's eyes open wide, all hesitation and emotions put on hold with this new information, needing to hear her say that last sentence one more time before he fully assimilates it.

“What?”

“The figure it creates.” She confirms, looking up for a second. “It’s supposed to be a unicorn.”

“I… See…” A smile forms little by little on his face, extremely subtle at the beginning, taking its time to eventually develop into a full grin as he stares into the sky. “A unicorn.”

She looks at him for a few seconds, treasuring his happiness deep inside her heart, before starting to sense the weight of her eyelids, realizing how tired she really is now that their conversation has reached an enjoyable conclusion.

“Glad I could help.” Lara stands up, stretching a little before turning to look at Jacob, offering him a hand to follow her. “But I’m afraid It’s getting late…”

“Or better said, it’s getting too soon, if you think about it... But yeah.” He agrees with the overall meaning, accepting the offer and standing next to her. “Depends on the point of view, I suppose.”

She laughs while shaking her head a couple times and, still smiling at his comment, Lara locks her arm around Jacob’s and they start walking towards the village.

With the sun about to rise, there’s now light enough to see the path, but they still take their time to get there, walking way slower than usual, none of them really wanting this day to be over.

She almost complains when he insists on walking her to her cabin, but that gives them an extra minute together and that’s more than enough to shift her initial response.

They arrive in no time, his hand holding hers as they get ready to part their ways.

They’ve talked so much through the night that there seem to be no words left. Instead, Jacob just leans forwards, cupping her face with his free hand, and plants a soft kiss on her lips, spending a few seconds there before returning to his initial posture.

“Good night…” She whispers as a goodbye, smiling from ear to ear.

He returns the smile, vowing a bit to say farewell.

“Good morning.”

His last comment gets a tiny laugh out of her, but Lara manages to suppress it fast enough to avoid waking anyone, and heads decisively through the door before she has the chance to change her mind about it.

She enters her cabin with an unseen stealth, which is saying a lot given her background, recalling everything to perfection despite the lack of light and finding her cot in record time, but unfortunately, all her efforts fall in bane, for Sofia it’s not sleeping.

Lara has changed her clothes and is already in bed when her friend decides to speak up.

“Everything okay?” Sofia half whispers from her bed. “Seems quite late.”

Her comment makes her sigh, turning a little in her bed to face the other side of the room, almost as an instinct, despite not being able to see anything in the full darkness of the cabin.

“Yeah…” She replies, choosing her words with care, not ready to share everything yet, but not wanting to lie to her either. “The walk took longer than expected. Got distracted by the views.”

“Views?”

Lara smiles, grateful once again for the lack of light as this one conceals her true feelings.

“Got lost into the stars…” She admits, letting her back rest now against the bed as she stares at the ceiling, painting lights onto it with her imagination for a few seconds. “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”

She hears a subtle laugh from the other side of the room, almost a sound of resignation.

“Oh, don’t worry, it wasn’t your fault… I’ve been awake for a while.” Sofia sighs, moving a little as she tries to find a better posture. “Perhaps I should’ve taken a walk too…”

“Too many things in your mind?”

There’s a few seconds of silence, but after a while, her voice finally forms an answer to Lara’s question.

“Yeah… For too long.” Sofia admits, taking a moment to give another thought to that statement. “Though I think some things will get better now that you’re here.”

“Anything in particular you want to talk about?” Sensing her hesitation Lara decides to step forward. “I can act surprised when you tell me about Levi, if you want to.”

Sofia manages to limit her chuckles to a subtle laughter, a bit surprised that her friend realized her feelings so quickly, needing only one day to understand her situation.

“Aren’t you quick witted.”

“Perks of solving so many puzzles, I guess.” Lara laughs a bit too, happy to see her friends' reactions but understanding way too well why she doesn’t want to talk about it yet. “If you ever need to…”

“I will, don’t worry”. She replies right away, moved by the offering. “And thank you, not only for this, but everything.”

“I thought we agreed four years ago that you’d stop thanking me about what happened…”

“I meant about my father…”

Before the panic takes over Lara’s body, her friend finishes her sentence, quickly sending a sense of relief though all her body.

“He hasn’t been the same for way too long and… Well…”

Sofia takes a second, recalling images of Jacob throughout the entire day, almost unrecognizable to the men he’s been since the Divine Source was destroyed.

“For a while now, he almost felt like broken, lost...” Lara’s eyes water a bit, but she is able to control most of her emotions, remaining silent as Sofia finishes her sentence. “But I think your presence does him good.”

“Really?” She manages to ask with a thin voice.

“Yeah…”

“Then I’m glad I’m back.” Her words choke a little on her throat but the emotions are filtered by the whispers and, what would be noticeable in any other contest, is rendered imperceptible.

“Still don’t know for how long?”

“No, there’s no plans…” She smiles, moving her hand slowly to clean a silent tear as it starts streaming down her face. “Just many things to figure out.”

“Well, you can do that here, and stay as much as you like, take your time.”

“I like that.”

Her mind gets flooded by Jacob’s words as she smiles, picturing their constellation on the ceiling one last time before her eyes succumb to the tiredness.

“Yes… Yes.” Lara smiles one last time before the darkness surrounds her to guide her into her dreams.“I'm… I’m…”

She starts to sink into the deep, only one more sentence is said, escaping her mouth almost as a murmur.

“I’m just gonna take my time.”

-----------------------------------------

So... Here we are!!! Let me apollogize one more time, I should've written this one a month ago, but thanks to Tumblr I discovered Game Changer and, in a day, I had already developed a quite healthy obsession with Brennan Lee Mulligan (That still lasts to this day lol, just finished watching MaM), so yeah... Spent most of my free time watching dropout shows (upssss~~) Anyways, glad to be back, and... Idk, let me know if you're liking the fic, i guess XDDDDD

#tomb raider #fanfic #jacob lara croft #lara croft #jalara #lara x jacob #lara croft x jacob #jacob x lara #jacob x lara croft #rise of the tomb raider #RotTR

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rayshippouuchiha · 2 years

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I'm writing an aged up class 1-A (and supporting characters) where Izuku didn't go to UA instead he went into Ketsubusu support division because it was the better choice for analysis. The league doesn't take katsuki during the training camp, but they do still attack there.

The next time Katsuki meet is at the provision exam (they'll be 17, cause it'll be their first year of actually training like heroes for hero training) and Katsuki is an ass, while Izuku is there to analyze his schools hero hopefuls to give them ideas on how to improve.

My problem though, is that I'm still at the beginning of the story, and that scene just keeps popping into my head and I need to figure out how to get there. Does that happen to you? Or do you think linearly? I'm a bit scatter brained so maybe that's why I'm hoping around my story like a rabbit on crack...

I wrote the scene down so I wouldn't forget it, cause I do that too. But do you have any writing tips for those of us that can't write in a straight timeliness? Much appreciated! I love your works!!!

Oh yeah that kind of thing happens all the time. I've started entire fics just for one scene that won't leave me alone but takes like 50k of backstory to get there.

For me taking notes helps a lot, writing down scenes or ideas or points for the future of the fic so I don't lose or forget them etc etc.

Maybe try to figure out some of the points you want to hit between Point A (the beginning of the fic) and Point ? (the scene you have in mind) and then write them down as like bullet points that you can later expand on/flesh out. You don't have to write those points in order either, you can always go back and rearrange what you wrote to fit together correctly.

#RayRambles

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marcholasmoth · 2 years

Text

OSRR: 3016

bad time. tw description of a meltdown, self-harm, emergency rooms.

woke up late, stayed long with the kids, stopped for lunch, went home.

so i wanted to take a nap.

but my mother has been so fucking wound up about setting up the house for thanksgiving and trying to get everything done in advance. she refuses to take my advice or even listen to me when i tell her it'll be fine, that everything will fit and it'll be okay.

no. of course not.

so instead of leaving me the fuck alone and letting me nap, she started rearranging the pictures on the photo walk in the living room and roped me into doing the thing for her.

but i was fucking tired. i had already told her i wanted to take a nap. i was already grumpy. but her complete lack of awareness of how i was feeling added to the frustration of being forced to do a project or be yelled at for a week on top of not being able to get nails in or out of the wall.

i snapped. rather, i had a meltdown.

i punched the wall. i put a dent in it. decided that wouldn't be good, so i stepped down and some pictures fell. flare. i stopped and screeched quietly to try to vent it but it just didn't go away. i was shaking. so i punched the wall by the window, where it's stronger and won't dent if it takes a few punches. then i turned away from that, still angry and frustrated and fully overwhelmed. so i turned around and i hit myself, instead. i got myself in the head probably half a dozen times, and as i fell to my knees i hit the floor, too.

and i cried.

i cried not because it hurt, but because i was overwhelmed and frustrated. i cried because i was embarrassed. angry. fucking mad that i couldn't be fucking normal about anything, ever.

mom finally came back in the room after looking for a picture hanging kit to help me. but the damage had been done.

i couldn't use my words, obviously. so being told to use my words wasn't going to fucking work. i told her to not touch me as she walked close to me to sit down. i got up.

"are you hurt?"

"of course i'm hurt."

"what did you hit?"

"i hit the wall, i hit the floor, i hit myself."

i tearfully bumbled my way to the freezer to find some peas or whatever to put on my hand, but i couldn't focus on it through the tears and the pain. so i left my glasses on the table and went to the other living room. i grabbed some tissues from my desk in the order room and then i laid down on the floor.

i stopped crying briefly and started crying again because i was so mad that i could never be fucking normal about getting upset. i tried straightening out my hand. nah. something was definitely broken. first time i've done that, though, broken my hand from punching something.

mom finally got over herself and came to find me. i had to tell her twice that i needed some time because she apparently doesn't fucking get it, that i'm not okay ever and i will not be okay.

she took me to the urgent care in town, but i had to check if my insurance covered them first. thankfully, they did. good news is that when it comes to physical pain i'm usually pretty good with it. i have a very high pain threshold and a high tolerance for pain.

besides the throbbing pain in my hand, i was perfectly fine.

i was able to talk to the doctors clearly and levelheaded and i'm pretty proud of myself that i managed to keep it together until the x-rays. those were miserable. i couldn't move my hand that way. and then she kept needing to move my hands on the pad and that fucking hurt. more than just doing the pose would have hurt. just position my hand and leave it. don't fix it thirty times. christ almighty.

anyway, my knuckle appears fractured in those x-rays, which, yknow, is a break. so the nurse splinted my hand and wrapped it and told me to make an appointment with orthopedics for a few days from now when the swelling goes down so i can get a cast on it.

great.

anyway, the moral of the story is that i need to learn to punch properly.

also chelsea brought over ice cream for me which i was grateful for.

but also? the immense hypocrisy at coming home and mom lying down to rest.

bitch??? you couldn't have let me take a nap earlier, huh??? and now you want to take a nap because you're tired?????

i'm the one with the broken hand because you wouldn't fucking leave me alone.

christ almighty.

i fucking hate this.

oh! and??? she expects me to be thankful for doing the bare minimum?????? absolutely the fuck not.

it's your goddamn fault my hand is broken.

fuck.

typing is so fucking hard.

i just got back my research and writing functionality and i broke my fucking hand. my classmates are going to think i'm a fucking basketcase.

the wont be wrong, but i already feel like a failure. so that sucks.

i just want joel.

#molly rambles #operation srr #osrr #3000s #3010s #sunshine boy #tw self-harm #self harm tw

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robotslenderman · 2 years

Text

So I've had a couple of friends say that they wished they could edit like I do, so I thought I'd write stuff on how, exactly, I write. This is just a basic overview but I might go into more detail later about some of the stuff, especially if anyone is interested.

(This is not me saying that my way of writing is the One True Way. Personally I've never heard of anyone else writing first drafts in dot points like I do.)

A lot of people think editing is the same thing as proofreading, so instead of taking a step back and looking at their novel in a zoomed out state, they're going through getting rid of typos and rewriting sentences instead. Which is a vital part of editing, but is actually a very minor part of it.

The core of my editing method is this: you need to be able to summarise your story and its themes in less space than you have available to you in a tweet. Learn to boil your story down and only then can you zoom out.

Is that hard? Yes, if you never learned how to do it.

Will it absolutely transform your ability to make your stories what you want them to be? Also yes. Much like an artist doesn’t spend the whole time zoomed in to their piece, a writer shouldn’t either.

My process:

I (usually) write the first draft in dot points. Nothing more than cursory research, lots of [notes in bolded brackets], it’s all a rush.

I let it sit for several months.

I come back and, before rereading, make at least two summaries -- a sentence-long summary, and a paragraph-long summary.

I write down what themes I can remember.

I reread the story. For every scene I read, I write a summary of it on a note card and jot down any themes I see in the scene. I also copy-paste each scene into a separate Scrivener sub-file, for easy rearranging later. I do not edit; I write notes to myself in the actual writing so that future me can see my ideas and do the actual editing for me. This includes continuity notes/errors, places where I need to do research, etc.

I lay out the note cards in chronological order and essentially make them justify their place in my story. This is where I rearrange scenes, make notes on continuity or adjustments I have to make due to the rearranging, and also write notes on what potential the scene has in relation to my summaries/themes for later.

The second draft is a complete rewrite, and what most people would consider a first draft. Even when I don’t write my actual first draft in dot points, I still do this step.

Let it sit again. (Up until recently I’d write the second draft, do the proofreading immediately afterwards, then publish immediately afterwards. No longer doing that.)

Now is time for the classic editing as people know it — this is where I polish sentences, flesh out the bits I’ve been procrastinating up until now that I can’t justify removing entirely, and get rid of typos. This third draft is the one I send off to the beta; this is the stage where I start publishing as I go along.

LET IT SIT. AGAIN.

Final edit & proofreading. This edit focuses on cutting and condensing as much as possible, because I never shut the fuck up. This streamlines the story, makes it easy for people to follow and maintain their attention, and stops it from dragging. (I have written doorstoppers before. If you fuck them up they ABSOLUTELY drag.)

BOOM THERE'S A FIC!

Can go into detail about more of these points if anyone wants/if I feel like it. For now I'm just leaving this overview here.

#Dusty writes

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ren-shonen · 5 months

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M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

And

P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an “architect” or a “gardener”? (How much do you plan in advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?)

I’m so curious! Hope your day is going well!

M: Back burner premises

I've definitely got a number of UFOs (unfinished objects) floating around. One is a particularly longstanding premise — the first BNHA fic idea I ever had! In it, Todoroki ends up on a somewhat convoluted quest to make soup for Kirishima, who came down with a cold after accidentally getting caught in one of Shouto's ice walls. It's background/ambiguous KrTdBkDk — I intend for it to be part of my pro heroes continuity, call it any name you need.

P: Architect or gardener?

This is kind of a tough question. I really flounder if I have no outline at all, but at the same time, if I make the outline too detailed, I lose all motivation to actually write it (because, emotionally/mentally, I've already created the story). Conversely, while I rely somewhat on the process of discovery-as-I-write on the detail level, at the same time I haaate making structural edits. I can't hold big chunks of things in my head, so once a story is in prose form, I really struggle to rearrange or alter larger pieces without getting lost in the dependency trees (:p).

I guess in that sense I'm a gardener who needs to put some thought into what to plant where, because nothing I'm "growing" takes well to being transplanted. I can prune and thin all I like once it's planted (paragraph and line edits), but I better make sure I know where I want all the paths and planter boxes first before I go putting anything in the ground, even if I can then be more freehand with how things are arranged within each area, and of course make adjustments to the larger plan as it unfolds. And, yeah, sometimes i end up with some volunteer plants and have to decide if I'm keeping them; sometimes a tray of seedling thoughts end up in the compost pile, instead. So, often the final shape of a story stems from (hah) some happy accident where I needed to adapt to/make full use of some unanticipated detail. Usually, that ends up feeling richer than if I'd stuck rigidly to the plan.

Taking it all together, I'm definitely not an architect who plans the final shape of things in detail. As those who work organically with stories go, however, I think that I'm definitely a gardener, and not, say, a forester — someone who is managing some living thing that has its broad placements already determined, and which then needs to be pruned and coppiced into a final, functional shape.

So does that make me, like... a landscaper? 🤔

In any case, this is all a bit theoretical given that I haven't yet tackled any projects much larger than, say, a windowbox...

...maybe I got a little lost in that metaphor.

#meme #answers #fanfic ask meme #n r chatter #samisnotlegend #thanks for the ask Sam!

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veebs-hates-video-games · 6 months

Text

I was expecting to try to figure out what to say about The House in Fata Morgana today because I finally made it through it after basically an entire year (which is still pretty impressive for me considering the best estimates I could find for it's length are in the 300-400k words range, and there are entire years where I don't even read 100k words total combined across everything), but instead I was tired and couldn't get my brain to focus on any of the things I wanted to.

Solution? Play Unpacking instead.

Unpacking is now easily in my top five games I've played this year and also unexpectedly the saddest game I've played this year. No seriously, let me explain.

There have been plenty of other games or moments in them that I had strong feelings about or that made me cry. Unpacking didn't, but it did make me feel something totally different from what anything else has this year: strongly relating to a fictional character (which is a neat trick because you never meet her or are told anything about her other than the contents of the boxes she packs when she moves) and feeling happy for the progress she makes through different stages of her life, but also simultaneously an overwhelming sense of having lost something I probably never could've had in the first place and nostalgia for things that were never real.

At first it was just fun seeing what would come out of the boxes next and rearranging things in ways that made more sense or looked better, and I was impressed by how much of a story they were able to tell with no dialogue and technically not even any characters other than the ones implied by the environment. Just through the environment and gameplay they got me to feel so sorry for her moving in with that guy, like look how much of yourself you had to leave behind to try to fit yourself in somewhere that hardly has anything in common with you and doesn't want to make space for you. And I can't say I ever expected a game to capture the feeling of "crap, I hope this drawer is big enough to fit all my bras in", but here we are.

But here's some context I guess. I'm fairly close in age to the main character. A few years older, but similar enough to know and remember the same kinds of things from around the same ages. It starts out similar enough that I can relate all of it to my own experiences or my friends at the time. Sure I never lived in a dorm because I was too busy dropping out of school for various reasons, but I spent plenty of time in my friends', and then everything got back on track with the shared apartment with friends. Look at all the fun people you've found who share your interests! I could've been happy with something like that for the rest of my life.

I skipped the moving in with some guy (or person of any other gender) phase entirely though and went directly to moving back in with my parents, and that's what most of my life has consisted of. The apartment living on her own actually reminded me of my most recent attempt to live away from home a few years ago, even though that was with other people. It was amazing in some ways and terrible in others. For all practical purposes I started the pandemic with three particularly close friendships/relationships and "ended" it (as if it's actually over) with zero and a lot of things a lot more difficult for all of us. But in the game I see that table up against the brick wall in the kitchen with a menorah on it, and...yeah.

And for me that's functionally where my life ended in a lot of ways, going back to my parents' house yet again after that with my health continuing to decline at worst and not improve at best.

But the game keeps going, through more stages of life I've never really made it to and probably never will. Not in that way. Is that even what I would want from my life if it were an option? At one point I thought so and expected that to be what would happen, but even if I might want something different now it would be nice for a change to not do something because I choose not to, not because the choice has already been made for me by my circumstances.

Great game though, but I'm going to go be existentially sad for a while about the consequences of being disabled in a society that doesn't care what happens to me as long as they don't have to see it.

#unpacking

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littlewalken · 2 years

Text

Oct 17

Some times it's just easier to delete the post then deal with all the adult content bots that want to like it. But check out the music made from the Heironymous Bosch Garden of Earthly Delights painting because one of the mixes sound so Depeche.

Tried again to get the roadie story going by typing it in to the tablet. Didn't get to reading past incarnations I might not in favor of reading interviews with the inspiration and ingesting other related media.

As much as I want to delete what I wrote out of thoughts it's still not working I think I'll try and finish out this draft of further fleshing out the notes. I can always go back, dull can always be livened up. Right now its at the telling myself the story stage and our hero is currently doing laundry in the middle of northern nowhere.

Some of my writing reaches a stage where it feels like the first few paragraphs are set in stone and no matter when or how the rest gets written that is how it needs to be.

For example the Gashir story with the good doctor falling asleep in his dress uniform and waking up in a bed where one side is still warm.

Got to take the time to enjoy some of the things I've squirreld away. I know my brain is starving for happy brain chemicals and what I'm doing is non toxic and non destructive. I could really use some positive human interaction.

On other topics did I mention I was able to rearrange the units in that giant patch quilt to make it more rectangular? The math is in 8s not 6s, to my defense I survived a traumatic brain injury when I was finally getting proper math tutoring so it's still fucked up, but one row of units come off a side and went to the bottom and the left over was quartered and reattached to the side.

Why didn't you... The patches were assembled in unit blocks of 16 patches each and it was easier to only have to deconstruct and then have to resew one. Once the top is resewn again I will try it on a twin bed and if the size is good take it to the store to purchase a boarder, batting, and backing and go from there.

I want a boarder so that will get touched and dirty instead of the squares. This quilt is being made to sleep under. I have slept under the food and space quilts. It was nice.

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delaber · 3 years

Text

Three-Point Perspective (Part 2)

Rafael Casal x Reader x Daveed Diggs

Note: Guys! When I wrote Three-Point Perspective, I wasn’t planning on adding a second part to it but the amount of support was so overwhelming that I just had to do a sequel ...And let me tell you; I am so glad you guys wanted it because this was so much fun! I have never been more challenged with a story-line, portraying emotions, changing perspectives, and just the plot in general. I have never never never changed a story-line as much as I did for this one, haha! Crazy amounts of shout-outs and thanks to my amazing mate @einfachniemand for listening to countless of ideas, for feedback on several snippets, for being supportive af, and for telling me “yeah, no, that doesn’t work. Back to the drawing board.” Thank you boo! You are amazing! A huge thanks to @theatrenerd86 for starting off this sequel by providing the settings - and for just being the most supportive human being ever! Mwah! Also a huge thanks to the rest of you for your endless support! I love this community! (Oh, and anon; thanks for the (quite old, sorry) prompt but I didn’t do it for Rafa (sorry once again)). Let me know what you guys think!

Words: 13.8K

Warnings: Oh my goodness, I don’t even wanna get started... Blood, heartbreak, angst (my three tropes)

Rafael

Rafa almost tripped over his own two feet as he stumbled over to the bar and desperately ordered a large whiskey shooter. He was having a hard time keeping calm; his heart was beating fast in his chest, his throat closing in on itself, his hairline soaked in panic-sweat. He needed to put what had just happened in the very seat he was standing in front of at a distance. His hands were still itching to punch something! He needed the fucking drink!

The bartender had barely stopped pouring Maker's Mark into a small glass before Rafa quickly grabbed it and chugged its contents down his throat, desperately trying to block out what he had just witnessed.

Your tongue in his best friend's ear.

Diggs' hand sliding up your thigh.

The sensual smile you'd worn as Diggs had whispered promising words in your ear.

"Oh god," Rafa groaned as he recalled your excited smile as his best friend had escorted you out of the bar, his hand dipping uncomfortably low on your hips.

Desperately clutching the now empty whiskey glass, Rafa tried relentlessly to push away the image of what you and Diggs probably were in the midst of doing right now. Oh shit, oh no... His chest was stinging, his stomach aching horribly at the thought of you and Diggs fucking. Oh god. He tried to shift his focus to the burning sensation down his esophagus instead and quickly ordered another shooter.

It didn't take long before the bartender had placed another glass of golden-brown liquid in front of him that he quickly downed in one go, thinking about how stupid he was for not having acted on his feelings for you earlier. He had had eight fucking years to do so after all?! Why the fuck hadn't he just pulled himself together and called you up?! He wanted to punch something! He wanted to get fucked up! He wanted to call someone and get them to deliver a big fucking bag of blow - but he settled on a third shooter.

He gulped down the whiskey as the aggression subsided and was replaced by the same type of jealousy-induced heartburn that he had felt earlier that night. Fucking Daveed Diggs and the way he always seemed to be able to wrap women around his little finger! In eight minutes, he had managed to do to you what Rafa hadn't managed to do for eight years. Fuck him!

A fourth whiskey went down Rafa's throat as the jealousy was replaced by hurtful pangs in his chest; shit it hurt to think about you and Diggs together. Rafa knew that you had had a few men in your life since the summer in the taco truck, and even though it had stung to see pictures of your romances on Instagram, it didn't hurt half as much as seeing his best friend escort you out of the bar.

He ordered another whiskey. And another one after that. And then an entire bottle of Jameson just to recall the taste of your lips that night on top of the skate ramps all those years ago. Quickly, Rafa gulped down most of the bottle, his eyes watering from the sharp taste of alcohol on his tongue, but no matter how much he drank, he still wasn't able to get image of you and Diggs out of his head. It had etched itself on the back of his eyelids, somehow becoming clearer and clearer with every gulp of fiery liquid.

It didn't take long before he had reached the half-way mark on the bottle of Jameson, completely lost in constantly checking his phone to see if you had tried to contact him to tell him that Diggs by some miracle had blown his shot. You hadn't. And even though Rafa doubted that you would, he still couldn't put the phone away.

He was fumbling about on the screen as he accidentally found Diggs' name on the list of contacts. Completely lost in contemplating whether or not he should call him up and tell him to stay the fuck away from you, he jumped a little when he suddenly felt a soft hand on his shoulder. For about a mili-second, Rafa believed that the soft touch belonged to you, but as soon as he had whipped around in his seat, he felt the disappointment cloud his mind as he was met by his make-up artist Janelle instead. "Oh, hey," he spoke in an uninterested tone of voice, his words a little slurred from the amount of whiskey he'd been drinking.

"Rafa, honey, are you okay?" She looked at him with kind eyes, "you seem a little out of it."

"I'm great," he slurred into his whiskey glass before emptying it for what felt like the 100th time that night, "I'm fucking perfect! This night's just absolutely fucking perfect."

Janelle furrowed her brows and pushed the bottle of Jameson out of Rafa's reach, "is it because of Daveed and -"

"- DON'T say her name," Rafa warned, his voice turning to a low drunk growl afterwards, "I don't want to think about it."

Janelle sat down on the empty barstool next to him and sent him a slow nod, "yeah, I was afraid this might happen..." she sighed and sent him a pitiful look.

"That what might happen?" Rafa drunkenly mumbled, trying to avoid her gaze.

"Honey... I've seen the way you look at her," Janelle whispered and reassuringly put her hand on Rafa's arm as she searched his face for any kind of affirmation. Rafa groaned and met her eyes shortly before she softly added, "- and I've seen the way Daveed looks at her too."

Rafa gulped to keep the slowly forming lump in this throat at bay, "...so you don't think it's just a one-night thing?" He croaked in a small whisper, the pain in his chest suddenly twice as hurtful as before.

Janelle shook her head slowly, shooting Rafa a careful look.

"And - uhm," Rafa cleared his throat "- do you think that - uh - she's into him as well?" He added in a whisper, his face involuntarily screwed up as he was afraid to hear the answer.

"I don't know, honey," Janelle said diplomatically and pulled him in for a tight hug, inaudibly giving away that she definitely thought so. Rafa appreciated Janelle's attempt to salvage the situation and let her comfort him for a couple of seconds before she slowly let go of him again, sending him a heartfelt look in the process. "Do you want to talk about it?" She asked.

"No..." Rafa mumbled and reached for the bottle that Janelle had pushed away moments before.

She grabbed his arm and forced it down in his lap instead, "why don't you leave the bottle and instead call it a night, boo? You've been drinking quite a lot already."

Rafa gulped a little and realised that she was right. Nothing good would come from sitting at the bar, drowning his sorrows in cheap whiskey. "Yeah," he groaned as he ran a hand through his damp hair, "yeah... You're right. Might be a good idea..."

"Go grab your jacket. I'll call you a cab, okay?"

"Thanks," Rafa mumbled before scrambling to his feet, swaying a little from side to side. He managed to balance himself and stagger over to the coat check where he retrieved his leather jacket and slowly pulled it on with great difficulty.

"I got you," Janelle was suddenly behind him, helping him pull the jacket up his arms.

"Thanks," Rafa mumbled as he pulled on the collar to rearrange the leather over his shoulders.

"You wanna say bye to the rest of the crew?" Janelle piped from behind him.

He shot a quick glance across the room and towards the table that his friends were occupying. "I better set an example," he mumbled even though he'd rather be sitting in a cab on his way home right now.

With his arm around Janelle, and her hand on his chest to steady him, Rafa walked over to his co-stars, putting up his best attempt at a cheerful smile, "I'm off guys. Have a lovely evening," he slurred drunkenly.

He thought to himself that he was doing a tremendous job of hiding away his hurt feelings until he noticed their stiff smiles. Suddenly, he realised by the sympathetic looks they were all shooting him from their seats, that they were well-aware of what was going on. Rafa quickly scanned their silent, pained faces one by one until Alessandro - one of the leads - finally spoke up, "see you Monday boss!"

Annoyed with their pitiful eyes, Rafa mumbled a, "see you Monday, bruh," and turned around, facing Janelle again as the others awkwardly looked away. It made him feel stupid.

"Cab's outside," Janelle tried to smile and pulled him in for a hug, "are you going to be okay, boo?"

"I don't know," Rafa croaked truthfully against her neck and let her pull him just a little closer.

"Call me tomorrow, okay?" She let go of him, "We'll do something fun."

"Okay," Rafa slurred, his eyes stinging as he turned away from her and towards the exit.

Slowly, he stumbled out of the bar and hopped into the yellow cab outside, closing his eyes desperately in the backseat, trying to block out any thought of you and Diggs but failing horribly. The ride home was the longest drive of Rafa's life, his thoughts sporadic and unorganised but all centred around the same thing: what would he come home to? Had you and Diggs gone to your place? Or to Diggs' place that he just happened to share with Rafa? Fuck, he almost couldn't bear the thought of coming home to meet Diggs balls deep in you on the couch. Rafa would never purposely punch Diggs, but if he came home to face that, he wasn't sure he'd be able to hold back his itching fist.

"He's your best friend," Rafa mumbled to himself as a reminder, hoping to calm himself down, "he's your best friend. He didn't know. He's innocent... - well apart from fucking your girl..."

Everything inside him was on fire.

"You alright back there, mate?" The cab driver shot Rafa a look in the rear-view mirror, apparently concerned about the whispered words, he'd heard coming from the backseat.

"Yeah," Rafa replied unenthusiastically, a little annoyed that everybody seemed to be so concerned with him - but he eventually stopped thinking out loud.

For the remainder of the trip, the driver kept his mouth shut too but annoyingly enough constantly checked in on Rafa in the rear-view mirror.

Rafa was relieved when the driver finally pulled over outside his home and paid him quickly, slamming the car door shut with much force, hoping to alleviate some of the all-consuming itch that he felt deep in his bones. Little did it help. He still wanted to punch something.

Rafa turned his attention towards the house and gave out a short sigh before he started swaying up the paved pathway in the small yard, briefly stopping before he reached the front door. He prayed that you had taken Diggs to your place and not the other way around. He couldn't handle being faced with his worst nightmare - and especially not after having had so much to drink. Right now, he couldn't account for how he'd react.

He stood with his key in hand for a while, scared of what might come, but eventually realised that he would have to go inside at some point. With a deep sigh, he slowly slid his key in the lock and turned it around, his palms sweating terribly. He felt his heart sinking down to the bottom of his stomach when the key didn't meet any kind of resistance, and he realised that the door was already unlocked.

Fuck... Diggs had taken you here.

With a burning sensation in his chest, Rafa quietly pushed open the front door and stepped inside the small hallway, closing the door behind him with a small thump. He closed his eyes and threw his head up against the wooden door, forcing himself to relax by taking three deep breaths - a technique he had learned from his mother when he had been nervous about doing spoken words for the first time at fifteen.

He focused on his breathing for a few seconds and after having exhaled a third time - already more relaxed than before - he opened his eyes and took in the room. He immediately saw that the floor of the narrow hallway was decorated with several pieces of discarded garments strewn randomly about on the stone floor.

Diggs' pants. Your dress. Your bra.

"No..." Rafa groaned quietly as he took in the pieces of clothes with a hard gulp, the tears stinging in his eyes when he realised what he was being confronted with. "No, no, no!" he buried his face in his hands and took a deep breath to get himself under control again. His entire chest was on fire, the taste of stomach acid thick on his tongue. Everything around him went quiet as he heaved in a big gulp of air, wishing that he had stayed sober tonight. This was all getting too much; he couldn't control it. He was too drunk.

He took another big gulp of air, and was just about to slowly exhale when a soft sound hit his ear canal... It was coming from the other room.

A moan.

A sweet, heartfelt, sensual moan.

From a woman - from you...

It was the result of a sincere reaction to something that had brought you immense pleasure. A moan that someone else had brought to your lips. A moan that Rafa's best friend had brought to your lips.

Fuck! The itch in his hands that he had felt for quite some time now suddenly became too much and he punched the wall hard, causing an old, framed picture of him and Diggs to fall down, the frame shattering in several pieces on the cold stone floor. He stared at the broken shards of glass for a few seconds, torturing himself by carefully listening for more of your sweet moans echoing throughout the house.

They didn't come, however. The entire house was suddenly completely silent. Thank god.

Slowly, Rafa squatted down to brush the glass-dust off your dress, the silky fabric soft between his fingertips as he pulled the dress to his chest, thinking about what it would feel like to be the one to pull it off you.

Without warning, however, the silence in the hallway was broken by another loud moan coming from Diggs' personal space and Rafa was quickly brought out of his trance. He had to get out of there! He would go to a hotel or something! Anything to get away from the sounds you were making for another man!

Slightly panicked, Rafa shuffled to get to his feet, but overbalanced and fell forwards, his left hand immediately softening the blow as a reflex. From the moment his palm hit the floor, Rafa felt a sharp pain in his hand, but didn't realise that he had cut himself before he rotated his elbow and saw the huge piece of broken glass that was prodding out of his palm. "You're kidding me," he groaned as he tried to focus on the glass shard before he grabbed it tightly and forcefully pulled it out of his skin, the warm blood immediately running down his hand as a terribly sharp pain started pulling at his fingers. "OH FUCK!" he exclaimed a little louder than he had intended to, unable to hold back in his inebriated state.

Pressing in on the wound to try and get it to stop bleeding, he hurried to the bathroom and quickly located an old towel that he wrapped tightly around his bloody hand. "Shit! Oh fuck that hurts!" He groaned loudly and slid down the wall, his ass hitting the cold floor with a small thump. He could hear hushed voices coming from Diggs' personal space next door, and he realised that he had no idea what hurt the most; the thought of you lying in there wearing nothing but your panties, or his throbbing hand that had already bled through the old towel.

"Shit," he mumbled to himself as he replaced the old piece of cloth with a clean one, "ah fuck it hurts!" He hissed and tried to push the wound shut to get it to stop bleeding. It helped for a few seconds before the gash opened back up, fresh blood spilling out again. Just looking at it made him dizzy, and he realised that he couldn't handle this on his own. He was too drunk. He needed help. Embarrassed by himself and the situation he had put himself in, he took a deep breath before calling out the name of the last person on earth he wanted to see right now, "DIGGS!"

The hushed voices from the other side of the wall died down completely. They'd heard him. Still, there was no response to his cry for help. Meanwhile, the second towel around his hand was soaked through as well. What if he was about to bleed out? What if he was spending his last moments, pathetically heartbroken on his own bathroom floor?

"DIGGS!" he tried again, this time a little more panic to his voice.

The entire house was quiet still, and Rafa listened intently for few seconds before he finally heard an angry voice calling from the other side of the wall. "WHAT?"

"Diggs, I need your help!" Rafa called back, embarrassment flooding his voice.

"I'm kind of busy in here, Rafa!" Diggs bellowed back. Rafa had never heard him sound so annoyed before.

"Come on, man... I'm serious," Rafa let out a loud groan as he took in the bloody rag that was wrapped around his hand.

He heard cursing and shuffling on the other side of the wall and a few seconds later, the door to the bathroom finally swung open, revealing a very annoyed Daveed Diggs who was trying to hide away his boxer-clad erection with the palm of his hand.

Upon seeing how Diggs was already hard and ready to fuck Rafa's girl, there was no doubt: The pain in Rafa's chest definitely exceeded the pain in his hand.

Daveed

Daveed could not believe how lucky he was! He had barely closed the front door behind him before you had pulled him in for a string of sensual kisses in the dark. His lips were moving fiercely against your warm skin, your head lolling backwards as you panted and let him press you up against the wall in the hallway. He loved the sensation of your fingers tangled in his long hair as he attacked your neck and jawline with rough, affectionate kisses. You let out a small impatient pant as he untied the bow at the side of your dress, giving himself easier access to your beautiful build underneath as the dress opened up completely.

"Fuck, you look absolutely amazing," he cupped your ass and pressed his pelvis closer to you with a groan.

Your small fingers desperately undid the buttons of his shirt and Daveed quickly shrugged it off, finally standing in front of you in nothing but his dark blue slacks. His lips quickly resumed their positions on your neck where he immediately started sucking and nibbling at the sensitive skin while running his hands all over your torso.

Your fingers desperately found the button of his slacks and Daveed felt the tight sensation of his pants against his crotch disappearing slightly as you brought down the zipper and slid the slacks over his hips. Your small hand was palming him through the cotton of his boxers, and he couldn't stop the groan that fought its way all the way from his stomach and up his throat. He heard you chuckling incredulously above him as you let your dress fall to the ground before you dropped down to your knees in front of him, determinedly pulling his boxers down over his thighs.

Daveed's mind went completely blank when he felt your hand cup his balls while your wet mouth found the tip of his straining erection. Your warm breath against him had him let out an involuntary groan, and when your plump lips kissed his engorged head, the sensation sent a shiver all the way up his spine. He pulled your hair away from your face and held it in a loose ponytail on the back of your head, your eyes interlocking with his in the process. Even though you had him between your teeth, the submissive look you sent him had him feeling incredibly in control! Without giving up eye contact, you kissed his head twice before placing a long, wet lick at the tip of his erection, immediately sending hard vibrations throughout his entire body. "Fuck," he groaned and caressed the side of your face when you wrapped your lips tightly around his head, sucking a bit at the tip.

"Mmmh, pull my hair!" you panted around him and he immediately tugged on the ponytail, buckling his hips closer to your face, desperate to feel the ecstasy of warm, wet, tightness around him again. To Daveed's relief you immediately obliged and slid your lips almost all the way down to his base and back up again, releasing him with a small pop.

"Oh fuck!" He let out a groan as he looked down into your huge, submissive eyes, slowly stroking your cheek. You repeated your motions, your tongue wet and soft against him as you bopped your mouth along his length, his hips meeting you half-way, "yeah, that's it, baby, just like that," he panted softly as you kept gazing up at him, upping the tempo and bringing him all the way down your throat with a slight gag, reminding him of how big he was.

Daveed had received many blowjobs over the years but never in his life had he felt more worshipped and desired! You were massaging his balls lovingly as you brought his length down your throat, hollowing your cheeks and making him feel completely taken care of as you focused solely on his pleasure and enjoyment.

He was just about to let go and cum down your tight throat before he reminded himself that he'd have to take it easy if he wanted to last long enough to fuck you. And holy shit, how he wanted to fuck you! He knew he was very good with his hips and hands and he wanted to bring you pleasures that you'd never even dared dreaming of before.

It was hard to do, but eventually he managed to pull himself out of your wet mouth and you to your feet with a gruff, "come here!". He unclasped your bra and tossed it aside before he pushed you up against the wall, took your nipple in his mouth, and ran his fingers along your lace-covered folds. You let out a soft gasp and he repeated the motions of his fingers while attacking your neck and throat with toothy kisses. You were panting and moaning underneath him, your hand still stroking his erection lovingly.

"Okay, okay, okay, you gotta stop," he licked the shell of your ear with a low chuckle, "I still have so many things I want to do to you," he smacked your ass and you let out a small whimper when his palm came in to contact with your skin.

Slowly, you let go of him and carefully caressed his abs instead as he re-claimed your lips. The kiss was deep and soft, and it made the straining sensation in Daveed's erection even more unbearable, but he was patient enough to not touch himself.

After a few minutes of intense, passionate kissing, you pulled your face away from his and looked up at him with a dark look in your eyes, "well, are you going to do something about it? Or are you going to just leave it at talking?" You chuckled against his skin.

"Don't get cocky with me," Daveed smiled and hoisted you up in his arms. You let out a small yelp, but still threw your legs around his waist and let him carry you to his bedroom while licking his ear. He carefully positioned you with your back against the mattress of his bed and hovered above you as he put his lips to your collarbone, slowly kissing his way down between your breasts, over your stomach, and stopping when he reached the top of your panties. He sat himself down on his knees in front of you, sending you a hungry look as he ran his fingers over your body. You looked him square in the eye and raked a hand through his curls, pulling his head back slightly. The anticipating look you were sending him made his erection twitch between his legs, but he still didn't touch it. Instead, he licked his lips and kissed the laces between your legs. "I love this colour on you," he growled against the thin fabric. He could feel you shiver underneath him as he pulled the red laces down your well-shaped legs, caressing your inner thighs lovingly. "Mmh," he hummed as you spread your legs for him, your fingers still tangled in his hair. Your chest was heaving up and down in a slow, steady rhythm as he placed small kisses on your skin, his tongue just barely grazing you. He enjoyed the way you closed your eyes and dipped your head low as he repeated this motion a few times.

Slowly, he slipped his tongue inside your folds, your lips gently spreading for him as he tasted you. You gasped slightly when he reached your clit and gave it a small flick before he slowly ran his tongue over you again. You were panting above him, your fingers caressing his scalp as your face was screwed up in pleasure. Daveed couldn't look away even if he wanted to!

He caressed the back of your legs with his hands before he had his fingers join his tongue at your core. Slowly, he inserted a finger into your wet heat and was rewarded with a deep moan escaping your lips. Desperate to hear you again, he inserted yet another finger, letting his digits and tongue work in unison until you finally let out another deep moan.

He could tell you were close to letting go completely, and it was all working out so nicely, your chest heaving up and down faster and faster as you moaned loudly for him, your nails finding their way to his scalp, pulling his face closer to you - when clash!

Out of nowhere, a loud shatter was heard from somewhere in the house. It sounded like glass breaking, but Daveed was used to Rafa's clumsy ass, so he ignored what he assumed was his best friend returning home after his night out.

Daveed did, however, feel you freeze slightly underneath him, and you pulled back the moan that had been just about to escape your lips and replaced it with a, "what was that?!" a slight panic to your voice.

"Relax, it's probably just Rafa," Daveed whispered and resumed his movements.

"What's he doing here?" You panted slightly but not as sensually as before.

"He lives here," Daveed growled against your skin, annoyed by the fact that your attention was suddenly directed at his best friend instead of the very pleasurable things he knew he was doing. To make sure that you forgot about Rafa, Daveed brought out the big guns and put his lips around your clit, vibrating them while his fingers worked their way in and out of you. It worked expertly, and it didn't take him long before he'd earned himself another loud moan coming from you. You looked as if you were completely lost in the sensations, he was causing you - but not for long, because suddenly a loud "OH FUCK!" from Rafa rang throughout the house. It was followed by hurried footsteps as Rafa ran to the bathroom that was located next to Daveed's personal space.

Daveed felt you shuffle underneath him as you put your weight on your elbows and closed your legs slightly, craning your neck as you looked towards the wall that Daveed's personal space shared with the bathroom. You had a concerned look in your eyes that Daveed chose to ignore. Instead, he kept going with his fingers and tongue, but you weren't moaning anymore.

"Shit! Oh fuck that hurts!" Rafa exclaimed loudly from the other side of the wall.

"Don't you think you should go check on him?" You asked quietly, your eyes still glued to the wall.

"No," Daveed said curtly, and tried to get you to lie back down again so he could continue. You didn't budge, however. You were more interested in the loud groan that was escaping Rafa. You let out a nervous laugh as you once again heard him cuss and groan from the next room.

"Ignore him," Daveed panted as he spread your legs apart again, his tongue immediately finding your core, and he was rewarded with a gasp from you. He had just started moving his fingers inside you again when he heard Rafa call his name loudly from the other side of the wall.

"DIGGS!"

Daveed froze for about a mili-second before deciding to ignore Rafa and continue moving his fingers inside you instead.

"Go talk to him," you chuckled and raked a hand through his hair, suddenly totally unaffected by his movements,

"He can wait. I'm far too busy," Daveed let his tongue run over you again, once more losing himself in your wonderful wetness.

Rafa however, pulled him back to reality by yelling out his name a second time, "DIGGS!!" causing you to slightly close your legs one more time.

"You're kidding me..." Daveed muttered under his breath as his face was forced away from your wet centre. "WHAT?" he ended up bellowing back to his best friend on the other side of the wall.

"Diggs, I need your help!" Rafa kept calling.

"I'm kind of busy in here, Rafa!" Daveed bellowed while looking into your amused eyes.

You were chuckling slightly, "he needs you. Don't you think you better...?" You sent Daveed a charming grin while nodding towards the door, "he sounds quite drunk..."

Daveed shot you a pained look.

"Go," you chuckled, "I'll still be ready for you in here when you come back. Don't worry."

"Come on man... I'm serious," Rafa bellowed through the wall.

"I'm going to murder him for this!" Daveed groaned in an annoyed tone of voice and got up on his feet with a loud groan. He quickly located a pair of boxers and packed away his erection before storming out of the room, closing the door to his personal space shut behind him.

He found Rafa sitting up against the wall in the bathroom, his eyes swimming with alcohol. "What, bruh?!" Daveed demanded as he locked eyes with him, "what's so important that it couldn't wait until morning?"

"...Were you sleeping?" Rafa slurred while looking like a total fucking idiot as his drunk eyes scanned Daveed from head to toe.

"Of course I wasn't sleeping! I was in the middle of eating pussy when you ruined it!"

Rafa looked as if he was about to throw up, "...you're about to fuck her?" He slurred.

"Yes?! So make whatever you want to say quick, 'cause I got a soaking wet woman waiting for me on my bed!"

Rafa looked up at Daveed with a pained expression but kept his silence.

"I swear to god, if you don't speak up now and tell me what the hell made you call me out here, I'll kick your ass!"

Rafa sighed heavily, looking as if he was about to tell Daveed someone else's secret but eventually croaked, "I hurt myself," while holding up his left hand that was wrapped sloppily in a blood-soaked towel.

First then, did Daveed notice that there were several splodges of blood on the bathroom floor. It made him drop the attitude slightly, "Jesus fuck Rafa, what the hell did you do?" He groaned and crouched down next to him on the floor.

"I knocked down the frame in the hallway," Rafa slurred and let Daveed examine the deep cut in the palm of his hand, "cut myself on the glass."

"You did a thorough job," Daveed mumbled with a sigh as he lifted the towel to check out the gash that was still bleeding heavily, "come here, run some water on it. I'll find some bandages." Daveed turned on the faucet and helped Rafa find his balance as he quickly pulled him to his feet. He could tell that Rafa was struggling to stand still as he swayed back and forth while leaning in over the sink, playing a bit with the jet of water. Daveed sent him an annoyed glance; he did not have time for this! "How much did you have to drink after I left?" he asked, the irritation practically oozing out of him as he looked for the first-aid kit in one of the cabinets.

"I dunno," Rafa mumbled sleepily as he watched the water clean the blood away from his hand, "a lot?"

"Yeah, so I'd guessed," Daveed mumbled to himself as he located the first aid kit and quickly pulled out a couple of rolls of gauze. "Come over here," he urged Rafa to sit down on the edge of the tub next to him.

Rafa gave out a small grunt and turned off the water, before turning towards Daveed with lazy movements. Daveed had to bite his tongue to avoid telling Rafa to hurry the fuck up!

Rafa's ass had barely touched the white ceramic of the tub's edge before he lost his balance and vigorously swayed back and forth a few times, finally catching himself by throwing his hand up against the sink, leaving bloody handprints all over the bathroom in the process.

"Jesus Christ, Rafa!" Daveed groaned, he did not want to deal with Rafa's drunk ass right now, "look, I'll help you with your hand but I'm not cleaning up out here!" He said harshly.

"Then don't!" Rafa muttered as he slowly slid down to the floor with a loud groan, sending Daveed and irritated look in the process.

"Come on; give me your hand," Daveed demanded, determined to be done as fast as possible so he could get back to you.

Rafa held out his arm and Daveed rotated it to look for more injuries and noticed that Rafa had bruised his knuckles quite badly too, "...have you been in a fight?" He furrowed his brows.

"Just fix my hand, okay?!" Rafa shot Daveed an annoyed look, "Make it stop bleeding!" He slurred and gestured to the blood that was already dripping from his fingertips again.

Daveed gave out an irritated grunt as he started wrapping Rafa's bloody hand in gauze, "sit still!!"

"Oh fuck," Rafa groaned as Daveed slowly draped the gauze over the sensitive wound, "fuck it hurts."

"Quit your whining!"

There was a knock on the bathroom door and Daveed slowly looked up from Rafa's bloody hand and towards the door instead. You were poking in your head, looking curiously at what the two men were doing, your hair a big mess. "Is everything alright in here?" You asked carefully as you stepped inside, tugging on the oversized shirt you'd put on to cover up your naked body.

"Rafa cut himself - and apparently he's too drunk to handle it alone," Daveed rolled his eyes so Rafa couldn't see. He registered your amused smile just before he turned back to the hand in his lap, immediately noticing the small change in Rafa's flexibility as opposed to before you had stepped in. His fingers had somehow gone weirdly stiff, and by further inspection, Daveed realised that Rafa's entire body was suddenly tense, the muscles in his jaw continuously flexing and relaxing, flexing and relaxing. Still, Rafa didn't bat an eyelid, he didn't even emit a single sound. He was just silently staring at you, his eyes going up and down your front, his breathing hard and heavy. Daveed shot him a weird look out the corner of his eye. What the fuck was going on with him? He had definitely had too much to drink...

"'s that my shirt?" Rafa slurred to you as he took in your attire.

Daveed briefly looked up at you and realised that the oversized t-shirt you were wearing were indeed Rafa's favourite Raiders shirt that Daveed had borrowed the other day. Rafa had a weird look on his face, and it looked as if he was about the say something crude to you, so to diffuse the situation, Daveed spoke: "let it go, bruh," he said in an uninterested tone of voice before he quietly turned back to wrapping the bleeding hand. Why the fuck would Rafa care if you were wearing his t-shirt or not?? He didn't mind Daveed wearing it.

"Oh..." he heard you say softly from the doorframe, "Raiders... I'm sorry. I didn't realise."

"Yeah, no. Don't be," Rafa said softly and Daveed was just about to give his best friend a mental pad on the back for having enough sense to bring his attitude around so quickly, but then he added an "- it looks good on you!" in a flirty voice that vexed Daveed so much that he felt a slow anger bubble in his chest. He let go of the bleeding hand and straightened his back as he looked over at Rafa with a hard look. He could not believe that Rafa had the nerve - the audacity! - to act so disrespectfully! What the fuck had gotten into him?! He had been a huge cock-block to you and Daveed and now he found it suitable to be flirting with you???

Daveed had to take a deep breath to calm himself down, in the meantime reminding himself that Rafa was drunk as fuck and probably not even aware that his words could be misinterpreted as more than just friendly... Therefore, he purposely ignored his best friend's impudent behaviour and instead made sure to keep his eyes down low so he could concentrate fully on wrapping up the bleeding hand, determined get the fuck out of there as fast as possible so he could get back to slipping you his famous techniques.

The wound in the palm of Rafa's hand was still bleeding quite heavily, and it didn't take Daveed long to realise that he needed more gauze to make the blood stop dripping onto the floor. "Shit," he muttered under his breath and looked over at you, "baby, can you get me more gauze out of the cabinet?"

You whipped your gaze away from Rafa's face, your eyes immediately finding Daveed's. The look in your eyes instantly shifted from something that Daveed couldn't quite place to soft and cute, a small goofy smile slowly erupting on your lips as you scanned his face. You didn't say anything, just sent him a curt nod before you quietly turned to the cabinet, looking for the first-aid kit on the bottom shelf. As you bent over in front of him, your t-shirt rode up high and Daveed got a beautiful glimpse of the red laces under the hem of the t-shirt you were wearing. Your panties were hugging your ass nicely, and for a moment, he forgot about the bleeding limb in his hand - all he could think about was touching you again! He wanted to snap the useless piece of fabric between your legs in two and delve his tongue into your wet heat, bringing you untold pleasu- ...he suddenly felt Rafa's fingers do a small involuntary twitch in his lap and he realised that his best friend was checking you out too, his mouth hanging slightly open, his eyes glued to your ass.

What the fuck was the matter with him? Had the roles been reversed, Daveed would never have checked out Rafa's girl!

Angry with his best friend, Daveed gave Rafa's arm a small smack while sending him a threatening look, daring him to keep staring at your ass. When his and Rafa's eyes interlocked, Rafa's face curled up in a sour expression but he quickly fixated his gaze on the floor in front of him instead, probably realising that Daveed could knock him out easily.

Meanwhile, completely innocent and oblivious to what had just happened behind your back, you stood up straight and handed Daveed two extra rolls of gauze before resuming your position in the doorway.

Apparently, Rafa had learnt absolutely nothing from Daveed's silent threats and immediately went back to staring at you again. Daveed contemplated shooting Rafa a verbal threat as well but decided against it when he realised how absolutely pathetic his best friend looked. He was drunk as fuck, his eyes all foggy and glossy. Daveed would confront him about his disrespectful behaviour tomorrow.

Still, the fact that Rafa was staring intensely at you while you were only wearing the slightly oversized t-shirt and your beautiful, beautiful panties underneath, made Daveed uncomfortable as fuck, so he worked double speed on Rafa's hand to get you away from the bathroom faster. Luckily, with the fresh supply of gauze from you, it only took him a few more minutes before he was done with the wrapping, a sigh of relief travelling through his body as he finally let go of Rafa's injured hand.

The tension in the bathroom could be cut with a knife and Daveed took a deep breath to calm himself down before breaking the silence by saying, "Look, I can bandage this to keep it from bleeding all over, but you need to go to the hospital for stitches or something."

"Mmh," Rafa grunted beside him, clearly not pleased with the situation. His eyes were glued to you, and he was wearing a certain hungry look on his face as he drank you in - and Daveed realised that Rafa definitely was aware of what signals he was sending.

What the hell was going on inside his pea-sized, idiot brain? Did he want Daveed to punch him? Daveed was just about to grab him by the collar when he heard you piping from the doorframe, "...I can take you."

...what? Daveed immediately turned his attention to you and saw the soft look you were sending Rafa as you continued, "I can drive. I almost didn't drink tonight."

What?! You liked Rafas stares?!

"You'd - you'd do that?" he heard Rafa whisper from beside him, a soft smile erupting on his best friend's lips.

Daveed didn't like it. He thought to himself that it looked as if the two of you had developed a secret language in the time it had taken him to wrap Rafa's hand. What the hell had he missed out on?

"Of course," you nodded slowly, your eyes still interlocking with Rafa's, "Let me just grab some pants, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Rafa whispered, a hopeful look on his face, "thanks."

What the fuck was going on between you two?

Daveed watched you send Rafa a small smile, your face flushed. The sexual tension was thick between the two of you, and Daveed felt the jealousy burn in his chest as neither of you were looking away from the other. How the fuck dare Rafa flirt with the girl that he had brought home?! How dare he send you those hungry looks?! It was itching in Daveed's hands to do something about the long, continuous gaze between you and in his frustration, he curled his fingers and accidentally pressed on Rafa's wound, making him hiss in pain as he shot back an angry look. Daveed was far too busy looking over at you, however. You finally had your attention directed at him - and not Rafa - your eyes huge and doe-like, looking as if you'd just woken up from a trance. He shot you a look as if to say 'what the fuck is going on?' and you gulped guiltily.

Suddenly realising that he finally had the full attention of both you and Rafa, Daveed spoke up in a voice that was much more strained than he had intended, "Nope! Not gonna happen! Uh-uh, absolutely no fucking way," he shot his best friend a hard look, "Rafa you can take a cab!" he turned his attention back to you, "Baby go back to bed, I'll be there in a second!"

He noticed your eyes skating between his own face and Rafa's and he sternly let out a "he'll take the cab, okay!" He didn't like the way you were looking at each other, and he still very much intended on fucking you tonight no matter how big of a cock-block Rafa was being!

He was trying to catch your eye, but you had your gaze firmly placed on Rafa again, seemingly unable to look away. Daveed noticed how you let out a small gulp as Rafa shot you a careful nod as if giving you permission to leave.

What the hell was going on????

He also noticed the long glance the two of you shared before you gently closed the door behind you as you exited the bathroom.

What! The! Fuck!

Daveed felt his chest bubbling over. He had never felt this way towards Rafa before, but his best friend had never looked more punchable! Automatically, his fingers once more pressed in hard on Rafa's wound.

"Ah! Dude what the fuck!" Rafa yelped loudly.

"What the fuck was that all about?" Daveed spat, "you're flirting with my girl!"

"She's not your girl just because you brought her home for one night, Diggs!" Rafa hissed angrily through gritted teeth.

"What the hell are you talking about?!" Daveed felt as if his eyes were bulging out of his skull, "She's crazy about me! You should've seen the way she was begging for it at the bar!"

"Yeah, I saw everything," Rafa said slowly with anger in his eyes, a low growl to his voice as he drunkenly staggered to his feet, "I saw exactly how you swooped in and thought you could erase eight years of history between me and her!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Daveed hissed before his voice turned to frustrated yelling, "Rafa, you have no history with her!" he too stood up, so they were eye to eye, "you made out with her once eight years ago and now no one else is allowed to touch her?! If you wanted a shot with her, you should have done something ages ago!"

"I did do something ages ago! I kissed her!"

"Yeah! And then you had eight years of nothing! You didn't even talk to her! How the fuck was I supposed to know that you wanted to kiss her again???"

"You could have asked me!" Rafa yelled frustratedly.

"I could have asked you?! Come on, man!! You're thirty-three years old for fucks sake! If you wanted something to happen with her, you should've engaged yourself!"

"I was planning on doing so tonight!" Rafa hissed angrily, "and she would've said yes if it hadn't been for you!"

"No she wouldn't!" Daveed was minutes away from pulling out his own hair. How could Rafa be so thick?! "Don't you think that something would've happened by now if you both wanted it so badly?"

"Did you not see how she was eye-fucking me just now?" Rafa yelled angrily, sending Daveed a hard look.

Daveed let out a low growl, "yeah, meanwhile I was minutes away from actually fucking her! If she really wanted you, don't you think she would've given you more signals than a few pitiful looks because you're drunk and hurt? She doesn't want you, man!!"

"Fuck you!!!" Rafa spat angrily and shoved Daveed in the chest causing him to stagger backwards as he was pushed out of balance.

"What the fuck's the matter with you!" Daveed spat as he took a step closer to Rafa, balling up his fists and sending him a threatening look, "you really want me to beat you up?"

"Do whatever the fuck you want with me as long as you stay away from her!" Rafa yelled and gave Daveed another hard shove in the chest. His eyes were bloodshot and Daveed had never seen him this angry before.

"What the fuck's gone into you?" He yelled louder than before, "she clearly doesn't want you! Why can't you just let her go?!"

"Because I'm in love with her!" Rafa yelled loudly, spit flying everywhere. His eyes were huge and aggressive.

Daveed took a step backwards and stared at his panting best friend as his angry words sank in. Rafa's nostrils were flared, and it looked as if he was about to punch Daveed in the face.

...Rafa was in love with you? Daveed could punch himself! Why hadn't he seen it before? Of course Rafa was in love with you... He took a deep breath to calm himself down before he quietly spoke: "Yes - well I'm crazy about her too..."

Rafa was still panting heavily, his nostrils still flared as he shot Daveed a hard look - but he didn't say anything.

They had feelings for the same girl... Daveed frustratedly pinched the bridge of his nose as the realisation sank in; a girl had come between them. How high school... "Shit," he said quietly, "what do we do now?"

Rafa shot him a dark look and answered immediately: "you back down!" he said harshly but not as aggressively as before.

"I'm not going to back down, Rafa," Daveed answered him quietly. He full-on intended on making you his no matter what Rafa's feelings were.

"I've been in love with her for eight years!" Rafa spat angrily but he had stopped yelling, "You have for eight minutes! Don't you think it's more fair that you let me have a shot?!"

Daveed was getting more and more frustrated by the second but was happy that Rafa had chosen to use those exact words: "Exactly Rafa! You had eight years! You sat on your hands for eight years and you expect her to come running to you now? You expect me to let you have a shot? You've had millions of opportunities to do something!"

Rafa's face was still wild but his tone of voice was quiet and determined: "you saw the look she just sent me!" he said darkly.

Daveed had to give it to him; the way you'd been staring at Rafa had confused him too: "Listen, I don't know what the fuck that was, but if she had any feelings for you at all, why would she go home with me?" He said quietly, "why would she take off her clothes for me and not you?"

Rafa shook his head back and forth as if refusing to believe the argument, "No..." he croaked, "please don't say it like that, man..."

"Bruh..." Daveed sighed, "I'm sorry it is this way, but I don't know what else to tell you." He felt bad for Rafa but he wasn't going to back down. No chance.

"Please don't fuck her," Rafa pleaded quietly. His heart obviously broken.

"You know I'm not going to guarantee you that..."

"Just... Let me talk to her first."

"What do you expect to gain from that?"

"She wants to talk to me too..."

"Maybe - but it won't go your way. She's lying naked in my bed right now! She made her decision, bruh."

Rafa looked pained. He was clutching his chest with his eyes screwed shut, a small tear rolling down his cheek, "fuck!" he quietly worded before he fell to his knees in front of the toilet and threw up.

You

"I'm going to murder him for this!" Daveed pulled himself away from you and on to his feet, desperately looking around the room for something to wear. He finally pulled out a pair of clean boxers from his closet, pulled them on, and hurried out of the bedroom to see what was going on with Rafa. He had sounded very drunk and even though you had been slightly amused by his constant swearing throughout the house, the sound of glass smashing combined with his drunk cries for help, had also left you a bit nervous that something serious might've happened to him. What if he had cut himself badly and Daveed couldn't handle it alone? Rafa was your friend too after all. You had to make sure everything was all right with him.

Quickly, you jumped from Daveed's bed, pulled on your panties, and looked around the room for something to wear that could cover your body as your own dress had been discarded during the make-out session in the hallway. You quickly located a black t-shirt that was casually thrown over a chair in the corner of the room and pulled it over your head, grateful that it covered you all the way down to the top of your thighs. Ready to leave Daveed's bedroom, and with your hand already on the doorknob, you took a brief look at yourself in the mirror to make sure you were decent. You tried padding down your messy sex-hair but the sound of Rafa hissing in pain from the other room had you abandon any thought of trying to fix your looks - Rafa's injuries seemed much more urgent. Forcing your eyes away from your own reflection, you opened the door to the hallway instead and listened for their voices.

"Just fix my hand, okay?! Make it stop bleeding!" you heard Rafa slur from the room next door. He was clearly very drunk.

"Sit still!!" Daveed growled.

It sounded as if they had the situation under control and you were just about to go back to Daveed's bed and wait for him there when you heard Rafa exclaim, "Oh fuck! Fuck it hurts!"

It made you do a U-turn on your heel and you decided to check in on the two men to see if they were in need of any extra help. Softly, you knocked on the door but didn't listen for an answer as you immediately poked in your head and took in the scene in the small bathroom: the two men were sitting next to each other; Daveed on the edge of the bathtub with Rafa's bloody hand in his lap while Rafa was splayed on the floor looking very drunk. Both of them were looking directly up at you with equally soft expressions on their faces. Daveed's eyes were loving as he silently apologised for having to help his best friend clean up. Rafa, on the other hand, was staring up at you with a sorrowful look on his pale face, his eyes huge and red-rimmed, his Adam's apple bouncing up and down in his throat as he gulped hard.

The tension between them was thick, the air cold. Both of them clearly equally annoyed with the other.

"Is everything alright in here?" You asked quietly as you pushed open the door and stepped inside, tugging on your t-shirt to prevent it from riding up.

"Rafa cut himself..." Daveed rolled his eyes so only you could see before he continued, "- and apparently he's too drunk to handle it alone," he shot Rafa an annoyed sideway-glance before he turned his attention to the gauze and Rafa's blood-covered hand in his lap.

You watched Rafa send Daveed an equally irritated glance, looking as if he was biting his tongue to keep himself from retorting something nasty. He had probably already realised that he needed Daveed's help to get the wound to stop bleeding and that he wouldn't get it by being crass. So instead, Rafa silently let Daveed wrap his hand as his eyes slowly found yours, his expression immediately changing from annoyed to soft.

You sent him a small reassuring smile and a goofy expression emerged on his drunk face when he happily reciprocated it. You let out a small laugh at his expression and he blinked a few times, looking as if he was saving the sound on his mental hard drive. His foggy eyes were softly gazing up at you with a soulful look, and he looked drunk but cute as he took you in, a weird undertone in his gaze that you couldn't quite place. It was a look that you recognised from somewhere, but not from him - from someone else. You scanned his face one more time, raking your brain to find out from where you knew the gaze, he was sending you, but it wasn't immediately clear. Suddenly however, you realised that it was the same look that Daveed had sent you several times over the last couple of weeks. It was a look of longing.

Softly, you cocked your head at him, and he sent you a small, sad smile in return, his green eyes kindly taking in your face before they travelled down your body, ultimately landing on your chest. You immediately folded your arms, and he looked back up into your eyes, your eyebrows now arched in an unimpressed manner, silently tell him that he'd been caught staring red-handed. His face screwed up in a painful expression and he paled a bit before he quietly slurred, "'s that my shirt?".

Unaware of what he was talking about, you looked towards the mirror above the sink on the opposite side of the bathroom wall, and when you caught your own reflection, you realised that he hadn't been staring at your chest. He'd been staring at the logo on the t-shirt. The Raiders logo - his football team. You weren't wearing Daveed's shirt. You were wearing Rafa's.

You'd seen him in it multiple times - hell, he'd even worn it the night you'd kissed on top of the skate ramps. You remembered because every so often your mind wandered back to that night. Played it on repeat. Rafa's hand on your thigh as Stevie Nicks' voice rang in the background. Your tongues intertwining. The stubble on his chin soft between your fingertips. The scent of his warm cologne. The thought of your passionate kiss that summer night eight years ago was enough to make a warm feeling appear in your stomach.

Still looking at yourself in the mirror, you let your arms drop to the side and took in your own reflection. The t-shirt was a few sizes too big for you and it covered you like a short dress, just barely reaching below the red panties you were wearing underneath. The Raiders logo took up most of the front of the shirt and the logo curved nicely along your breasts and waistline, making the oversized men's shirt actually look as if it'd been tailored to you. You liked this look. You actually looked good in Rafa's t-shirt.

From far away you heard Daveed's voice, "let it go, bruh," and it pulled you back to reality.

"Oh... Raiders..." you said quietly, unable to pry your eyes away from the way the t-shirt was hugging your curves. No wonder Rafa was staring at you. You had gone home with his roomie, yet you'd put on his shirt - and you even looked good in it. "I'm sorry. I didn't realise," you croaked.

Rafa was looking as if he was thinking about the same thing as you, and for a second you were afraid that he might get angry about the fact that Daveed's flirt was wearing his beloved Raiders t-shirt, but he just softly said, "yeah, no. Don't be. It looks good on you..."

You didn't react to his words but merely stared at yourself in the mirror as the memories of your Tacos Locos summer once more flooded your mind - and you slowly felt a dull ache in your chest when you looked back at Rafa's pained expression and realised that maybe there was a reason for his look of longing, his quiet, pained reaction to seeing you half-naked in his shirt when you'd gone home with his best friend. He probably wasn't as cool with you and Daveed as Daveed had let on. Maybe your suspicion about why Rafa had invited you to join his production was right after all...

Oh no.

The thought of kissing Rafa again had grazed your mind several times in the period of time between his phone call offering you the job, and your first day on set where you'd been introduced to his best friend for the first time. Daveed, however, had immediately pushed every sensual thought of Rafa out of your head and had instead replaced them with unholy thoughts about himself. The sexual attraction that you had felt towards Daveed for the past month was insane and you were definitely crazy about him! ...Still, you wondered if he was the type of man, you'd still fantasise about eight years after having shared a passionate kiss in the dark. The same way you so often had found yourself fantasising about Rafa.

...had you just made a huge mistake?

Rafa's cheeks paled considerably as his gaze constantly shifted between your face and the Raiders logo. He was clearly affected by the fact that you were wearing his shirt and nothing else, and it looked as if he was having a hard time sitting still. The tender yet hurtful look he sent you made you feel horrible about yourself and all the decisions that had led to this exact moment. What if things had been different back in the taco truck eight years ago? What if he had actually taken you home after one of your late nights out? And what if Daveed hadn't been so persistent in hooking up with you over the last couple of weeks? If he hadn't been so smooth and charming, would he still have been able to swoop in right before Rafa? Or would you eventually have gone home with Rafa instead?

Would it feel more right to be sleeping in Rafa's bed tonight?

Oh no...

"Shit!" Daveed's voice brought you back from your panicky train of thought. You looked over at him, his face sweet and innocent as he was helping his best friend recover, and you realised: no, it wouldn't feel more right to be sleeping in Rafa's bed tonight. But it would feel just as right as sleeping in Daveed's.

"Baby, can you get me more gauze out of the cabinet?" he continued.

Baby. It had slipped out of him. He hadn't even realised it... The caring, handsome man in front of you had called you baby and you couldn't help but send him a small smile as it had made you soft. You were baby to him.

Rafa had a reaction to the pet name too: he looked as if he was about to murder Daveed.

Desperately trying to untangle yourself from the situation you had put yourself in, you turned over to the cabinets and pulled out more gauze, promptly handing it over to Daveed before resuming your position in the doorframe.

Immediately, you and Rafa went back to staring at each other again, both unable to look away. The looks he was sending you were deep and longing, his eyes pained as he grew more and more tense with each passing second. He looked as if he wanted to touch you, to kiss you, to hold you tight. Shit.

Your eyes were flickering fast between the two men: both of them sweet and handsome. Both of them crazy about you. You couldn't decide whether or not you had made a mistake by choosing to go home with Daveed tonight.

Daveed broke the tension in the small bathroom when he in an irritated tone of voice said, "Look, I can bandage this to keep it from bleeding all over, but you need to go to the hospital for stitches or something."

Rafa let out a small grunt without looking away from you. It looked as if he wanted to tell you something but was unable to with Daveed being present. It was heart-breaking.

You liked Daveed very much but realised that you had to talk to Rafa as well. You had to hear what he had to say, "...I can take you," you piped up in a voice that was weirdly nervous, "I can drive. I almost didn't drink tonight."

"You'd - you'd do that?" Rafa said in a whisper and sent you a warm look.

"Of course," you nodded slowly, suddenly desperate to talk to him, to hear his thoughts, "Let me just grab some pants, okay?"

"Yeah, okay. Thanks," Rafa said quietly, his pained expression now completely replaced by a hopeful one.

Daveed had definitely noticed that something was going on with you because the annoyance was practically seeping out of him though he was trying his best to keep calm. He did something to Rafa's hand that had Rafa hissing in pain and shooting Daveed an angry look with his lips pressed together in a thin, white line.

Your eyes whipped over to Daveed as well. He was sending you a hurt look that said 'what the fuck are you doing?' and you gulped guiltily. Had he realised that you were unsure about what to do with the two men in front of you?

"Nope!" Daveed said loudly, shaking his head vigorously, "Not gonna happen. Uh-uh, absolutely no fucking way. Rafa you can take a cab!" he shot Rafa a hard look before he turned back to you, his eyes soft, but his voice full of irritation, "Baby, go back to bed, I'll be there in a second!"

There it was again. Baby. You looked into Daveed's soft brown eyes that were looking pleadingly back at you, your knees immediately weak. Slowly, you let your gaze wander a bit to the left and met Rafa's huge green eyes too. They also made you feel incredibly soft.

Daveed noticed your gaze drifting over to Rafa and harshly interjected, "he'll take a cab, okay!"

Rafa sent you a slight nod as if to say that it was alright for you to leave, and that he could handle Daveed and his bleeding hand on his own. Meanwhile Daveed was staring at his best friend with a murderous look in his eyes. You realised that they had to resolve some stuff too, so even though it hurt in your chest, you slowly turned away from the two men, and walked back to Daveed's bedroom. Just before the door to the bathroom closed behind you, you heard the beginning of an argument between the two friends: "Ah! Dude what the fuck!" Rafa yelped loudly.

To which Daveed angrily responded with a "What the fuck was that all about? You're flirting with my girl!" It was more a statement than a question.

You sat awkwardly on Daveed's bed, unsure of what to do now. Daveed had noticed the long looks between you and Rafa. Shit. Even though you hadn't intended it, you had still managed to turn them against each other.

You could hear their angry voices from the other side of the wall, but you didn't want to listen in on their private conversation, so you put your fingers in your ears. Their shouted words were not meant for you. It was a desperate conversation between two best friends, and even though you could've easily followed their screaming match, it didn't seem right to do so. Desperately, you pressed in on your ear canal and started humming softly to tune out most of their angry words. Still, snippets of their loud conversation penetrated your ears.

"Rafa, you have no history with her!" Daveed was yelling before Rafa's voice was heard a few seconds later: "Did you not see how she was eye-fucking me just now?" followed a little while later by a loud "Fuck you!" from Rafa and an angry "you really want me to beat you up?" from Daveed. They kept yelling loudly at each other, but you tried not to decipher their angry words as you found them private. There was a reason why they had sent you out of the bathroom after all.

After a few minutes, their angry yells finally died down completely and were instead replaced by muffled words in normal voices that you couldn't make out even if you tried. You slowly removed your fingers from your ears, instead burying your face in your hands, angry with yourself for having let it come to this.

Their muffled voices could be heard for a few seconds before the sound was disrupted by someone retching.

One of them was throwing up, the other completely silent. You listened intently for a few seconds to see if you could make out who was throwing up, hoping that the other would say some words of comfort, but neither of them spoke, and after about a minute of silence, you heard footsteps approaching the room you were lying in. The doorknob twisted and Daveed entered the room slowly, his eyes full of pain as he took you in. He sat down on the bed next to you, panting hard, obviously very upset about the entire situation. It hurt seeing him like this. And it hurt thinking about Rafa lying alone in the bathroom. You dried an annoying tear away from your cheek and just barely managed to reset your face before Daveed looked up at you with a sad smile. You did your best to look casual as if you hadn't got the faintest idea of what their screaming match had been about. You acted as if wearing Rafa's shirt meant nothing. Seeing his pained expression had done nothing. Hearing him sob in the bathroom made you feel no ways.

"Everything okay?" You asked Daveed carefully.

"Yeah," he grunted.

"How about Rafa?" you said quietly. Even the sound of his name hurt in your chest.

"He's..." Daveed's words died in his throat as he frustratedly buried his face in his hands with a deep sigh.

You gulped, "is he okay alone out there?"

"Can we please not talk about Rafa right now?" he said slowly.

"Yeah..." you nodded quietly, "come here," you folded your arms around his chest, hugging him tight. He pulled you on top of him and hugged you back, his strong arms squeezing you, bringing you comfort as if he knew what you were going through as well. You sat like this for a few seconds, your arms wrapped tightly around each other comforting the broken feeling you both felt in your chests until his lips slowly found their way to your neck, leaving sweet, sensual kisses to the side of your throat.

"Look," you said quietly, pulling yourself away from him and looking into his chocolate brown eyes, "it's not that I don't enjoy this, but I just think it's for the best if I go home."

"What? No?" Daveed looked up at you with a pained expression, "come on, we can't let Rafa ruin our night," he groaned and moved closer to you but suddenly paused, "unless you don't want to of course. I don't want to force you into anything," he looked carefully at you and you understood why. He wanted to make sure that you were comfortable with the decision you were making. Comfortable with him.

It made you realise that the fact that you were lying in Daveed's bedroom half-naked, meant that you had made your choice long ago. You needed to stick with it.

"Yeah, okay," you said and moved your lips close to his, kissing him softly.

"You have no idea how happy that makes me," he groaned against your lips and you felt him breathe a sigh of relief as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He quickly pulled Rafa's t-shirt over your head, and harshly threw it onto the ground next to the bed. You couldn't help but think of the symbolics in his heated gesture.

His warm hands immediately found your breasts and he started running his fingers over your nipples with a low growl. You enjoyed the confident, hungry look he sent you as you were once again bare-chested in front of him. He moved his face closer to yours, "I still fully intent on making you feel good and make you let loose a little," he repeated his words from earlier that evening with a smile and carefully pushed you down on the bed, a warm shiver travelling up your spine with his words and movements. He hovered above you before his lips started pressing small, peppered kisses to the side of your throat, his one hand running down your stomach and dipping down between your legs, making you gasp softly. His lips moved over your collarbone and down between the valley of your breasts, taking one of your nipples in his mouth, and making you arch your back against him, as you felt his erection pressed up between your legs. He groaned as he pushed his boxer-clad erection closer to you, looking down at you with an erotic spark in his eye. Your fingers found his soft hair and you raked a hand through his curls and reciprocated the look he was sending you; dark and sensual.

You were both getting lost in the sensations you were causing each other when you were interrupted by the sound of Rafa retching and his heart-breaking sobs from the next room. It made your stomach ache horribly and you interrupted the kiss with Daveed, looking towards the wall to the bathroom instead. "I'm sorry, I can't just leave him alone with that..."

"What? You're not serious?" He looked at you with a disappointed look on his face.

"Listen to him," you said softly, as Rafa let out another heartbroken sob.

"He'll be fine," Daveed responded harshly before he resumed kissing your throat.

You pulled your face away from him, raking a hand through his hair one more time, "he's your best friend. Do you really want him to be alone right now? He sounds so heartbroken."

"Trust me - you do not want to deal with him right now."

Rafa retched loudly.

"I'm sorry," you kissed Daveed briefly, "but I have to make sure he's okay. I'll be back in a second."

Daveed let out an irritated grunt but eventually let go of you so you could crawl down from his lap. You quickly found the Raiders t-shirt on the floor and pulled it over your head, exiting the bedroom in a swift motion.

You knocked quietly on the door to the bathroom and found Rafa lying on the floor next to the toilet sobbing quietly. "Rafa, honey, are you okay?" you said softly as you sat down next to him and carefully put your hand on his chest.

He took a deep breath and looked up at you with wet eyes. The gaze he sent you was bloodshot, but he wasn't as pale as before. Throwing up some of the alcohol had definitely done him some good. "Hey," he whispered in a raspy voice as he put his good hand on top of yours, closing his eyes again taking three deep breaths. You noticed that he didn't answer your question.

As you pulled your hand away from his chest to fix him a glass of water, he groaned at the lack of touch and sat up straight, sleepily resting his head on the edge of the tub, looking at you with tired, sad eyes.

"Are you done throwing up?" you asked him as you handed him the glass.

He took a big gulp and nodded "I think so... Listen, can we talk?"

You sent him a small smile, "tomorrow, okay?" you didn't want to cause him anymore heartbreak tonight, "let's get you to bed," you held out your hand.

"Yeah, okay..." he took your hand and let you pull him to his feet. He was still very drunk, so you had to help him with his balance, your arm tightly wrapped around his waist, "come here," you chuckled and walked him to his room with his arm draped over your shoulder. As soon as you entered his personal space, he threw himself down on the bed with a loud groan.

"You're not going to disrobe?" you chuckled at him.

"Yeah, no... I don't care right now," he said and closed his eyes, "I just want to sleep... Let this absolute shit night be over."

You guiltily shook your head and forcefully pulled off his Chelsea boots and socks.

"Are you trying to get me naked?" He joked sleepily from the bed; his eyes closed.

"I'm trying to get you comfortable," you chuckled, "you have to take off your shirt and pants yourself."

Rafa groaned but sat up straight before he pulled his shirt over his head. His eyes were still closed, and his long hair was falling in unruly strands around his face. He looked exhausted as he undid the button on his pants and slid them off himself, plumping down on the bed afterwards.

"You don't think I'll bleed to death, do you?" he groaned and lifted his bandaged hand a little.

"I'm absolutely positive you won't," you chuckled at him, "if it's still bleeding tomorrow, I'll take you to the hospital, okay?"

"Okay, can't wait," he smiled sleepily and gave out a quiet snore as if he'd briefly fallen asleep. He was lying flat on his back which gave you time to study the tattoos he had on his chest and forearms. Some of them you didn't like, others were beautiful. He had one on his pec that you'd never seen before.

"If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don't see," you read out loud, looking at his chest.

Even though Rafa had his eyes closed and looked as if he was just about to fall asleep again, he knew what you were talking about and softly tapped the tattoo he had on his pec, "that's right," he slurred with a small smile. For the first time since he'd cut himself, he looked as if he was peaceful, and you tugged one of his long strands of blonde hair away from his eyes and behind his ear instead. Your fingers lingered on his cheek for a second and he kissed your palm with a small hum, "that means that I have to make you conscious of the things you don't see," he whispered before he drifted off completely.

"Alright Rafa," you chuckled quietly as you ran your fingers through his soft hair. He had started breathing heavily, already fast asleep, "thanks for explaining the words of your tattoo with the exact same words!" You got up from the bed and quietly closed the door behind you as you walked out into the hallway.

You'd only walked a few steps towards Daveed's room when the meaning behind Rafa's sentence hit you and you froze in place. Inside your head, the written words of the tattoo and Rafa's whispered words played on repeat. He hadn't explained the tattoo to you. He had told you that he loved you.

He loved you. Rafa was in love with you.

And you were walking towards the bedroom of his best friend. You turned your head slightly, looking towards Rafa's room. Should you go back to him? Or continue to Daveed? You were completely frozen in time, desperately looking between the two bedroom doors on either side of the bathroom in the hallway, realising that even though you might have been lying naked in Daveed's arms only minutes before, Rafa's words hurt so much in your chest that your decision-making was far from over.

Rafa's room was to the left. He had just confessed his feelings for you. Or, he didn't just have feelings for you; he was in love with you. Probably had been since your summer together in the taco truck. You wouldn't say that you were in love with him, but there was definitely raw, heated attraction towards him on your part as well, or you wouldn't still be thinking about your drunk kiss in the dark eight years ago, the way he was always able to make you laugh, his soft, green eyes. It hurt in your chest to think about how you'd potentially wasted eight years without him by your side. If you went to him, you'd either finally be able to stop thinking of him as 'the one who got away' and actually engage in something romantic with him - or you'd see that eight years of absence might have grown the heart so fond that you had put him on a pedestal that he couldn't live up to.

Daveed's room was to the right. He was waiting for you in there, probably ready to fuck you so good that you wouldn't be able to remember your own name. The preview he'd given you earlier tonight had definitely shown you that he was able to bring all your sexual fantasies to life! And you had craved his touch for so long, to feel his strong hands on your body as he slid into you while whispering sweet words in your ear. You and him definitely had some insane potential - not to mention the fact that he was already calling you baby! He was so crazy about you that you were baby to him! - but did you feel the same emotional attraction to him? Or was the warm feeling in your stomach whenever you looked at him all due to sexual attraction? Could you and he ever become more than raw passion?

No matter what, you'd have to choose between them. You couldn't have both. With whomever you chose, you'd never be able to have the other.

Carefully, you weighed both your options; left or right? Rafa or Daveed?

You started at both of their doors, unsure about where to go, but eventually made a decision. With a deep breath, you stepped closer to the wooden door, grabbed door handle and stepped inside, softly closing the door behind you as you took in the handsome man on the bed.

Tagging: @exrthangel @theatrenerd86 @lonelydance @ohsoverykeri @summerofsnowflakes @ramp-it-up @alexander-hamilhoe @honeysucklechocolatedrippin @riiyy @mysearchforgratification @janthony-stan @sillyteecup @biafbunny @einfachniemand @cashskid @namelesslosers @simpinforu @diggsbeatriz (Imma keep tagging you unless you say something lol).

....No spoilers in the comments please :-)

#rafael casal x reader #rafael casal #daveed diggs #blindspotting #battle of the bay boys #rafael casal imagine #rafael casal fanfiction #bay boys #they gon fight #sorry rafa #sorry diggs #sorry reader

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evafrechette · 3 years

Text

It’s a Match

↠ yoongi x jimin | smut | hookup au | 18+ | 3.4K

↠ Summary: Loneliness can make you do questionable things. Like signing up to a dating app to suck the cock of a stranger.

↠ Warnings: deep throating, public blowjobs, cum sharing, kind of a social media au - but not, drunk Yoongi, flirting, masturbation, gagging.

Yoongi never thought he'd be desperate enough to download the app on his phone, but here he was at 11:37 on a Friday night, finger hovering over the install button.

"Ahhh fuck it.."

He clicked and watched as the app downloaded and installed on his phone. He never thought it would get to this point. He'd been single for years. Preferring his own company, he never found it necessary to date. People annoyed him, too loud, too intrusive, too manipulative. So he remained alone. But 4 years is a long time to be on your own and he was starting to grow tired of his own hand. Plus he'd watched evey fucking video there was on his favourite porn site a year ago. That should have been the sign he needed to get laid, but his dumb ass wallowed in misery for another 12 months and that's why he's here now, creating a profile in the hopes of getting fucked this weekend.

A frown formed on Yoongi's face, he had been scrolling through profiles for the last 30 minutes and hadn't matched with anyone. He knew it was because he was being incredibly picky, swiping left on nearly every single profile he'd come across. He wasn't gonna get his dick sucked carrying on like this. He swiped left on a profile of a man in his 40s - already starting to bald, arms wrapped around a girl half his age - when his eyes landed upon the profile of a young man.

Yoongi was intrigued. The man had the prettiest face Yoongi had ever seen, beautiful plush lips pulled into a seductive smile, with his blond bangs hanging over his eyes. Yoongi clicked to view the profile in full, Jimin - the beautiful man's name was Jimin. He used emojis in his profile, which made Yoongi let out a frustrated groan. He hated emojis, too childish. He continued to read the profile and decided that the two of them were too different and even though the man was beautiful he would swipe left, like he had been all night. Maybe it was an accident or maybe Yoongi's subconscious wanted those plush lips around his cock, because instead of swiping left he swiped right.

He put the phone down and got up to make a drink. He shouldn't have a coffee this late, but apparently he was living recklessly tonight. With the steaming hot drink in his hand he climbed back onto his bed. He took a sip of the dark hot liquid when he heard the ding of a notification. He cautiously leaned over and grabbed the phone, swiping away his lock screen. He could see that he had been notified of a match, so he quickly opened the app, curious as to which one of the very small pool of men he'd swiped right on that would like him back. Yoongi could feel his cheeks starting to heat up. He didn't expect to match with the blond with the lips to die for. Not only that, but the man had messaged him too.

Yoongi couldn't tell him the truth, he WAS going to swipe left, what the fuck happened with that anyway.

Yoongi choked on his coffee, Jimin looked like an angel, but an angel wouldn't talk that way. How the hell does he respond to that? Does he even want to respond to that? He placed his coffee on the side table and dragged his hand through his hair. If he didn't take this opportunity his blue balls would actually kill him. Well fuck, his response just made him sound like the world's most pathetic asshole.

Yoongi checked the time, it was quite early in the morning now. The coffee had helped wake him up, but the prospect of meeting with the cute man had him feeling even more awake than what was humanly possible. The two of them talked for the next few hours. Sharing stories of their worst dates, childhood pets, who was more powerful Superman or Ironman and their favourite songs. Yoongi finally said goodnight and put his phone on the charger. They had agreed to met at Jimin's favourite bar the 'Hit List' at 8pm that night. Seventeen hours for Yoongi to work himself up into a worried hot ass mess. Fucking great. And yet as he stared up at the ceiling a small smile broke out on his face.

Yoongi spent his Saturday doing everything he possibly could to distract himself from his date that evening. Was it a date? Do you call meeting some random off the internet to possibly fuck a date? He was too old for this shit. He rearranged his vinyl collection, read a decent chunk of his new book and practiced a few new songs on his guitar. Once the sky had turned a beautiful shade of orange and pink Yoongi knew he had to stop stalling and get his ass ready. He took an extra long shower, debating on whether to do some manscaping (since all the young kids do it these days) before deciding not to. He liked his bush, and if pretty boy wasn't a fan well tough shit for him.

He teamed his black and white shirt with a pair of black jeans ripped at the knee, a leather jacket and finished it off with a few pieces of jewellery. With one last look in the mirror Yoongi slid his phone and wallet into the pocket of his jeans and left his apartment. Just as he stepped into the lift his phone pinged. It was a message from Jimin.

*******************

Jimin is sitting at the bar when Yoongi arrives. He's deep in conversation with the bartender, so Yoongi stands by the entrance awkwardly looking around. It's a nice place, very quiet and intimate. It's dark, a few low hanging lights scattered around and tealight candles sitting in a whisky glass on each table. To his right is a large floor to ceiling window, surrounded by a mix match of old leather chairs. There is a faint smell of smoke in the air. Oddly this smell starts to calm Yoongi down, it reminds him of his grandfather. Okay, now he's nervous again. Thinking of his grandfather at a time like this?

"I'm a fucking mess." he mutters to himself as he walks over to the bar.

"Uhh sorry to interrupt, Jimin right?"

The blond turns his head and smiles, he is really more beautiful in real life Yoongi thinks to himself. He's wearing a black shirt with one too many buttons undone, his hair parted in the middle falling gracefully to each side framing his angelic looking face.

"Mmm that's right and you are?"

Um what?! Fuck, Yoongi knew he made a mistake by coming here. Ahh fuck, why did he have to make that stupid profile? He loved Amateur Bareback 3-Way #2, he could have easily watched it 100 more times.

"Relax cutie, I'm just playing, you should have seen your face," a giggle escaped from Jimin's lips. "Nice to meet you Yoongi." he stood up and extended his hand out to shake. Yoongi quickly wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans and returned the handshake. Jimin's hand was engulfed in Yoongi's. He looked down and couldn't help but smile at the scene. Jimin's hands were so petite compared to his. It was a rather lovely sight.

"Order yourself a drink and we'll go sit over there." he pointed to the leather chairs Yoongi has been eyeing up earlier. He ordered an Irish Mule for himself and a Negroni for Jimin. He carried the drinks to the table, while Jimin followed closely behind. A little too close Yoongi thought. He could smell his perfume starting to mix with the smoke smell. It was a delicious combination.

The first half an hour was straight up torture for Yoongi. Even though the two of them had spent the night messaging each other it was different once he was sitting face to face with the most stunning man in all of Seoul. Yoongi avoided eye contact, mumbled and laughed dryly at Jimin's jokes. He was well and truly fucking this entire thing up.

Jimin huffed "You don't have to stick around you know, you can leave whenever you want."

Yep. He had fucked this up.

"Uhh it's not that," Yoongi starts to bite at his thumb nail "Jimin, I'm terrible at this. People stress me the fuck out, I haven't been laid in four years, I don't like leaving my apartment, you are lovely, fantastic even and that's making me even more nervous."

Jimin played with the hoop in his ear while looking directly at Yoongi, he tilted his head to the side "How can I help you relax? I thought we clicked last night?"

They did

"I'm sorry I make you nervous, I can't help it that I'm so cute." Yoongi finally looked into Jimin's eyes and they burst into laughter.

"It's not your fault. Fuck it, I need another drink . . or five that will help." he rolled his eyes before waking back to the bar.

With a few more drinks in him Yoongi was relaxed, he could feel the whiskey warming up his body. The heat in his stomach though, he was sure that was because of the attractive man sitting in front of him. The discomfort had finally vanished and instead a mellowness had fallen over the two.

"I've always liked older men." Jimin purred, his delicate small fingers, adorned with multiple silver rings, brushing against the now half empty glass.

"Aiisshh I'm only two years older than you!" Yoongi huffed, folding his arms across his chest.

"Yeah, but you act like you're nearly 60.” Jimin let out a hearty laugh, his eyes turning into crescents, cheeks plump and slightly pink. He slapped the table causing their glasses to shake. Yoongi quickly grabbed his to prevent it from spilling.

"It's not that funny." he didn't want to admit it, but the blond's laugh was hypnotic, he could watch Jimin laugh for hours and never tire of it.

Jimin straightened up, fingers now tracing the rim of the glass "I bet you don't fuck like an old man though."

Yoongi gulped and looked directly into Jimin's brown eyes, gone was the playful light, it was now replaced with desperate firey lust. He knew what the outcome of this date could be, and yet he was still nervous. He could feel his heart starting to race, his breath becoming faster. "Aaahh shit" Yoongi thought to himself as his left hand started to twitch, the blond's smell - a mix of orange blossom and patchouli was becoming overwhelming, he needed to calm down, he'd cum within seconds if he didn't get his shit under control.

"Heh, well I guess you'll find out later huh?"

Jimin reached over and ran his soft fingers over Yoongi's hand, playing with the bracelets that sat around his wrist.

"Why don't I find out now?"

Yoongi's friends love roasting him for his personality change when drunk. All of a sudden the quiet reserved man becomes giggly and loud. Cracking terrible jokes and singing at the top of his lungs. Sober Yoongi would never dare dream of taking a stranger to the bathroom to jerk off. Drunk Yoongi though? Try to stop him.

"Mmm Jiminshi are you sure?”

Jimin giggled at this "You are SO cute" he continued to draw his fingers over Yoongis hands "Of course I'm sure, do you wanna go back to mine? Or we could go to yours if you're more comfortable with that..."

Without thinking Yoongi stood, grabbed the blonds arm and pulled him up. They walked towards the exit, but before descending the stairs they took a left and made their way into the restroom. Once inside Yoongi pushed Jimin against the door and started kissing at his neck. "Fuck! Jimin, there is no way in hell I can wait to get back to my place, I need to feel you now." Yoongi whispered between kisses.

Yoongi leaned down and kissed his exposed chest, thank fuck Jimin had left those top buttons open. They had been torturing Yoongi all night long, but now he was thankful for it. Jimin's skin was so soft and it faintly smelled like cherry blossom lotion but he wanted more. He was desperate for more. Jimin ran his hands through Yoongi's hair and grabbed hard. Small moans escaped his lips, which drew Yoongi even crazier. He undid the buttons on his shirt and stood back. Jimin had the body of a god. Perfectly sculptured, with beautiful brown nipples begging to be sucked on. Who was Yoongi to deny god his wish?

Jimin let out a squeak when Yoongi ran his tongue over his nipples, hungrily licking and sucking at them. His right hand found it's way to the bulge in Jimin's pants and he pressed his palm down onto it. Jimin was now starting to get louder which made Yoongi smirk, he lightly nipped on Jimin's nipple before standing up and leaning in to sloppily kiss Jimin on those perfect, perfect lips, the taste of spice and bitterness still lingering.

"Uuuhhh Hyung, please touch me."

"That's what I'm doing Jimin."

"No you asshole, I want to feel you properly, get my fucking dick out." Yoongi stopped and looked at Jimin, slightly taken back by the tone of his voice. But he just smiled back - a wicked smile.

Yoongi got onto his knees and began undoing the zip of Jimin's pants. He pulled them down to his ankles, he then drew his hands up Jimin's legs, enjoying how smooth they were. He palmed Jimin's cock through his underwear eliciting a moan from the man above him. Yoongi pressed his face into Jimin's clothed cock. He took a deep breath, Jimin smelled wicked, his arousal mixed with body lotion was rousing. He alternated between sucking and licking on the cock trapped behind Calvin Klein underwear. He repeated this action a few more times before finally removing the now very damp briefs.

Jimin wasn't the biggest cock Yoongi had ever seen, but he was thick and absolutely smooth. He stroked his long fingers over his chiseled abs, along Jimin's length and then down to his balls which he cupped in his hand, massaging back and forth. He let go and brought his hand to his mouth, running his tongue over his entire palm. It was so fucking dirty and Jimin shuddered at the sight. He reached back up and gripped Jimin's cock in his now saliva covered hand. He drew his hand up and down at a frantic pace. He was too worked up to go any slower, but Jimin didn't seem to mind by the noises he was making. Oh shit, he was being too loud now. They'd get caught and thrown out or even worse the cops called.

"Shit Jimin, you need to be quiet or someone will hear us.”

“Mmm Yoongi I don't think I can cutie, why do you think I said we should get out of here."

Yoongi huffed and slowed his hand down. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jimin's briefs, so he picked them up, stood and shoved them in Jimin's mouth.

"That should shut you up.... Is that okay? I can take them out if you don't like it.”

Jimin shook his head and moaned around the underwear. His mouth was stretched open and drool already starting to pool at the corners. What a fucking beautiful thing to witness. Pleased with himself Yoongi got back on his knees and kissed the tip of Jimin's cock. His tongue played with the slit, circling it before he slowly kissed down each side of his shaft. He then licked the base to tip, never taking his eyes off Jimin's. They both looked so fucked already, pupils blown out, flushed cheeks and lips swollen from the rough kissing earlier.

He started pumping slowly, wanting to tease Jimin a little, the blond was impatient though and bucked his hips into Yoongi's fist, letting him know he wanted and desperately needed it faster. Yoongi let out a small chuckle and started to move his hand at a pace the gorgeous man would enjoy. Muffled moans of pleasure let Yoongi know he had found the magic speed. He continued like this for a few minutes before letting go and taking Jimin's cock in his mouth. Oh he tasted good - of course he did he was perfect in every way why would this be any different? Yoongi hollowed his cheeks as he bobbed up and down on Jimin's length, taking it deep before pulling up and letting go with a 'pop'.

He took hold of Jimin's cock and rubbed his lips all over the head, spreading precum all over his lips and chin. He felt like such a slut, but he was loving every moment of it. Yoongi closed his eyes and slowly buried Jimin's entire cock in his mouth until it hit the back of his throat. He moaned around the feeling, this was what he had needed. To feel stuffed by a pretty cock attached to a pretty man. Jimin was squirming above him, his panting and moans muffled by the briefs in his mouth, but there was no doubt he was in ecstasy just like the cock starved brunette. Yoongi felt petite hands fist into his hair and start pulling and pushing trying to take some control of the situation, Yoongi slowed down and allowed Jimin to start fucking into his mouth.

With each of Jimin's thrusts his grunts became louder as he was getting closer to his orgasm. Jimin wasn't the only one getting close, after having practically become a born again virgin, Yoongi's head was dizzy with arousal and he wasn't sure how much longer he would last, his grip on Jimin's thighs tightening, bound to leave light marks the next morning. He closed his eyes and could feel the heat from his stomach rise throughout his body, his muscles tensing as he felt his release. The wet patch in Yoongi's pants made him feel absolutely filthy. He came just from sucking someone's cock? Before he had too much time to start mulling over how much of a slut he is, Jimin spills his load inside Yoongi's hot mouth. He thrusts hard a few times causing the cum to spill out of Yoongi's mouth and dribble down his chin, landing on the floor.

Jimin hisses as he slowly removes himself from Yoongi's mouth, he leans down and Yoongi yanks the underwear out of his mouth before smashing his lips against the blonds. He doesn't care that his mouth is still full of Jimin's cum, he tastes so good he wants him to experience the intoxicating taste too. When their lips part Jimin stands to put his softening cock away. Yoongi stands with him and looks around the room, avoiding eye contact.

"Umm thanks for that, that was .. uhh really good."

Jimin's bewitching smile returns "Yeah, that was amazing cutie can't say I've ever had my underwear shoved into my mouth though, but there is a first time for everything. Come here and I'll treat you good too."

"Well um, no it's okay. Honestly. I may have cum already." he sheepishly replies, still avoiding any damn eye contact.

A small "oh" left his pouty lips "well I'm glad I could have been of assistance."

The two stood awkwardly for a while before Jimin held Yoongi's hand and walked him over to the sink. He made the older man sit on the bench while he cleaned up all the mess he had made. Yoongi's heart couldn't stop beating. There was no need for Jimin to be so nice after what they had just done, but here he was doing something Yoongi actually felt was more intimate than painting the walls of his throat with his cum.

"Ah there ya go, now you can go back into the real world without anyone suspecting a thing.”

They walked outside together in silence, Yoongi had never had a hook up before. Do you crack jokes? Profess your love? Or just act like what happened never did? His mind was a million miles away when soft fingers were suddenly stroking his cheek.

"Please message me anytime you want to see each other again, and I'll be the one doing all the dirty work okay?"

This made Yoongi blush "Yeah okay. Thank you Jimin, truly I had a great night."

And it was the truth, he had so much fun he could relive the moment in his head for the next four years. Amateur Bareback 3-Way #2 wouldn't be needed when the memory of small hands, captivating moans and cum drizzling down his chin was enough to get him hard again. It had been less than 20 minutes. God dammit!

#Bts smut #yoonmin smut #yoongi smut #Jimin smut #bts fanfction #bts fanfic #yoonmin #yoongi x jimin #yoongi #jimin #bts #bts imagines #suga #bts social au #bts social media au #bts fic #bts suga #armywriterssupport

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