#like my standards for how people treat me have gotten so high from where they used to be

[blue-bujo]

Bowled Over (Roy Kent x Reader): Chapter Eight

You work at a bowling alley and a young girl named Phoebe has a birthday party there. You catch her uncle's eye.

Roy Kent x female reader

Will try to update roughly every two weeks

Chapter Eight: Roy Kent, Baby Whisperer

(7.2k words)

Warnings: Roy Kent-level language (you know what you're in for), insecurity, mentions of sex, tooth-rotting fluff

Summary: Roy takes a big step and asks you to come to a team dinner at Ola’s, where you get to properly meet the greyhounds and their families.

Author's note: Buckle in for a long one! This is to tide you over, because I probably won't be posting a new chapter in January; we've got family birthdays three out of the four weekends, so I don't want to stress about getting something out in time. Happy New Year, and I'll see you with a new chapter in a month!

You had great fun driving Roy’s SUV for the next few weeks. It was large and expensive, so people tended to give it a wide berth. And since you didn’t have to walk to work, you were getting to sleep a bit later, which was doing wonders for you.

It was amazing that Roy let you use the Beast without any hesitation, that he trusted you that much. That he wanted to spend time with you, and keep you around, and know you deeper. Things were going very well between the two of you.

Lettie was completely invested. She wanted to know every single detail, and had done her homework on Roy once you’d revealed that he was a public figure. She’d questioned every single text and phone call that made you smile during a shift, demanding to know exactly how Roy was treating you right. You’d even caught her telling the other members of staff that you were dating “a football legend.”

Roy had gotten a kick out of that when you’d told him one date night. It was at your favorite restaurant, a little hole-in-the-wall Italian place where he was unlikely to be spotted by paparazzi. Rumors were starting to swirl that he had a “mystery girl,” which both thrilled and terrified you, but thankfully no pictures had been sneakily snapped. Yet. You were still able to enjoy your anonymity, laughing and twirling pasta with the man you’d been lucky enough to meet while you worked his niece’s birthday party.

“So let me understand this, she tried to tell Snack Bar James that he’d forever missed out on catching you because now your standards are too high for the likes of him?” Roy’s eyes were crinkled at the edges as he tried not to grin.

“Pretty much,” you laughed. “I think we were both relieved. Lettie’s been trying to set us up for the entire year he’s worked with us, but he’s obviously more interested in Ashley in the pro shop.”

“Still, that Lettie’s a fuckin’ savage,” said Roy, respect heavy in his gruff voice. Then he took a bite of his chicken parmesan and sighed happily, looking at you.

“What?” you asked.

“Nothing. Just- this is nice. Us. I’ve been enjoying myself.”

“That’s good to know, considering we haven’t really done anything. What with your knee and everything.”

You both glanced down to the offending appendage in its articulating brace. Roy would hopefully get the okay from physio the following week to begin putting weight back onto it and using it more normally, but you were enjoying being the chauffer for now. It leant itself to quiet days in, calm conversations and movie nights snuggled on the couch, sometimes with Phoebe as well. It was hardly any different from your quiet existence before, except you weren’t lonely anymore.

“You’re kidding about doing nothing, right?” The man put down his fork and trained his gaze on you. It was one of the things about him that you loved best; he made sure that those around him felt seen. “This isn’t nothing, it’s fucking everything. I get to be a normal bloke with you, hearing the petty gossip of normal people. I haven’t had this in pretty much my entire adult life. I love this.”

He paused, his mouth open like he wanted to continue the thought. Like he might want to say that he loved you, but he didn’t say anything more. It disappointed you more than you expected; you realized that you maybe cared more deeply for him than you thought. Maybe you loved him.

A grunt jolted you out of your thoughts. Roy was looking at you tensely.

“I just fucked that up. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

And it was you were confused by your own feelings, so it was okay that he was taking responsibility for acting on his. He reached for your hand and held it tight.

“I’m an idiot. I know. Can I make it up to you?”

Your attention piqued, you nodded. “Yes, you can. How are you making it up to me?”

You watched as he took a breath, sat up a little taller, and asked, “Come to a family dinner with me?”

“A family dinner?”

“Well, we call them family dinners. Sam started it. It’s really a team dinner.”

Up to now, Roy had kept his football life separate from his dating life. You were excited that he seemed ready for his circles to start converging.

“Are you really sure you want me to come?” you asked. “That’s a big step, Roy.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. The boys have a pool going on why my mood’s been so abnormal, and I’d love to prove them all wrong. They think it’s because I’m on painkillers or some shit.”

“Didn’t you tell them that you’re not taking anything stronger than Tylenol?”

“Of course I fucking did, but they didn’t believe me. What do you say? Want to help me prove them wrong?”

“I would love to help you prove them wrong, but only if I get a cut of the pool,” you giggled. “Considering I’m the cause of it, I deserve it.”

Roy rolled his eyes. “Fine, you get a cut of the winnings if you can convince any of those idiots to share with you. Happy?”

“Yes, very.”

“Fuckin’ right.”

The two of you smiled at each other over your pastas. You were happy, even more so that he wanted you to start meeting his team. He’d been very protective of them, and of you, and you suspected of himself in keeping his worlds apart. You could understand it; it was always more comfortable keeping things in their separate placed. But you were pretty excited that he deemed you worthy of introducing into another part of his life.

“What are team dinners like?” you inquired. Then you took a large bite of your dinner so he’d have to say more than two words.

“They’re fine,” grumbled the man in response. “Once a month we all go to Ola’s, and Sam has us try some new Nigerian dish he’s thinking about putting on the menu. Richard brings wine, because he’s fucking French, and the lads destroy a week’s worth of training with how much they eat. It’s nothing fancy. People bring dates if they’ve got any.”

“But not Roy Kent,” you pointed out. “The day he brings a date will be one for the books.”

“Hmm.”

If it was possible for a man to look nervous while eating chicken parm, Roy was doing it as he thought about bringing a girl to a team function. You smiled reassuringly at him and tapped his foot under the table with yours.

“It’ll be great. I’ve already met them anyway, so now it will just be a reintroduction, which is much less awkward,” you promised. “I’ve been meaning to catch Jamie for a few weeks now.”

“Why?”

“To thank him for chauffeuring you around on the days I work! He must really like you for him to do that, and I need to thank him for being good to you.”

Roy could obviously tell that you were trying to push his buttons, but took the bait all the same. “The only thing he is to me is a prick. Please don’t encourage him. He’s been trying to corner me in the car park for the past two weeks to see who’s been dropping me off. I’m trying to protect you from him for as long as possible.”

His logic made no sense. “By inviting me to meet him and the rest of your idiots?”

“Beat ‘em to the punch,” he said. “We do it on my terms instead of theirs, so I control the conversation. It’s tactics, just like on the pitch.”

You threw one last jab. “I thought Nate was the tactics man?”

Those expressive eyebrows scrunched down. “Fuck you, babe.”

You finished your meals, ordered dessert, and ended your date night. After dropping Roy off at his house, you went home to your flat. You fell asleep thinking about the team dinner, three nights away, and how lucky you felt to be getting more serious with the man who insisted he didn’t care about it but obviously wanted you to go with him. The man who wanted you.

The day of the team dinner, you pulled up to Nelson Road early. You and Roy had decided that it would be easier for both of you to be the first to the restaurant and have the attention spread out, rather than arrive together later and be bombarded by the entire team at once. You’d thought you’d timed it so that nobody would see you idling in the parking lot, but after a moment, you realized there was someone in the Aston Martin parked next to you.

It was Jamie Tartt, and he was sitting in the passenger seat of his own car waiting for you to notice him. Once you did, he hopped out and motioned for you to roll down the window.

“And what are you doin’ in Coach’s car?”

“Driving,” you quipped.

“Driving Coach’s car?” the man probed. “When Coach just so happens to have someone driving him around while his knee is unusable? And when there are rumors that he’s got a girl?”

You did your best to keep your face neutral. “I know, it’s quite a coincidence, but stranger things have happened. Coach Kent and I just happen to have the same taste in cars.”

It wasn’t a lie, just not wholly the truth. Now that you had driven the Beast for a while, you loved it. Jamie eyed you good naturedly and didn’t say anything else, content to lean in the window. You could see why Roy found him annoying at times, but also why he would probably die for him. His manner was so casual that he was completely disarming.

“What are you doing here, Jamie?” you questioned. “No one else is here, so training can’t be done yet.”

“Me? Nothin’. Just forgot me headband.”

Your eyes darted to the elastic currently holding back his floppy hair. Strands were flying away; it had obviously been there for a while. You raised an eyebrow to let him know you weren’t fooled by his lie.

He shrugged. “All right, you caught meh. I’ve been trying to catch Coach’s driver for weeks, but haven’t managed it until today. I was hoping the rumors were true about our old man finding a girlfriend, and I’m really glad it’s you.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Because it’s right, innit? He hasn’t looked at anybody the way he looked at you at the bowling alley. Not since Keeley, and that look was different.”

Keeley. The model, and previous girlfriend. You felt extremely insecure every time you thought about her with Roy, despite his insistence that you didn’t need to. “I don’t know about that. Keeley’s famous.”

With a scoff, Jamie challenged, “And do you think that matters to Granddad? He only does what he’s sure of. Anyways, he’ll be out soon, and I don’t want him to see me out here. I told him I were being sick so he wouldn’t ask any questions. Are you coming to family dinner tonight?”

Nodding, you replied, “Yes, but it’s a secret. You can’t tell the team. It’s going to be a surprise.”

“I won’t tell, swear down.” He started bouncing back and forth between both feet. “I better get back inside. I’ll see you tonight!”

“You sure will. Oh, and Jamie!” you called as he jogged away.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for driving Roy on the days I can’t. We both appreciate it, even if he’s too tough to say anything.”

Jamie grew two inches taller under your praise. He pointed at you and smiled. “Oh, he definitely needs to keep you around. See yah, Splits!”

The young man bounced back into the stadium, leaving you to wait for Roy. You didn’t see the prick in Jamie the way Roy had described him to you, but then, you weren’t in charge of him. You supposed somebody that chipper could be a bit of a handful. But you were pleased; the first interaction with somebody know you were the girlfriend had gone well, and the information hadn’t even been a surprise. It boded well for tonight.

Roy was upstairs; you could hear the steady thumping of his crutches as he got ready for the dinner. He’d finally mastered navigating the stairs, thank goodness, so you didn’t feel the need to run back and forth grabbing clothes and toiletries for him. This gave you time to do your makeup. Admittedly, you didn’t need long, as you were pretty minimal when it came to painting your face, but you were nervous, and kept messing it up.

It wasn’t like you hadn’t met the team before, and your conversation with Jamie had gone well earlier today, but tonight was your public debut as Roy Kent’s girlfriend. After tonight, there was no going back. There would probably even be press hiding somewhere, waiting to be the first to confirm the news that Roy was seeing somebody new.

“What’re you doing? You’re staring into space?”

Roy’s gruff voice startled you, and you almost stabbed yourself with your mascara wand. You hadn’t heard him come downstairs, but his reflection in the mirror was leaning on the doorframe, like he’d been watching you for a little bit, his face soft.

“You are so quiet when you want to be, it’s scary,” you scolded, turning to face him. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“Sorry. I don’t mean to be scary; it just happens.” He looked at you, a small smile curving his lips. “You look great.”

With a scoff, you told him “I look okay at best. I’m not done yet.”

Roy stepped closer and looked you up and down carefully. “No, you look done and you look incredible. Don’t change one thing. What the fuck has you so freaked out?”

“After tonight, there’s no hiding,” you said in a small voice. “If I make a bad first impression, or a photographer gets a picture of me mid-sneeze, or choking on my food or something, that’s it. I will forever be the idiot that you took pity on.”

“No, you’ll be the young and beautiful date of a washed-up old has-been.” Roy kissed the top of your head. “The team will go easy on you. Its me they’ll be fucking with.”

You looked up at him, hovering above your hair. “Do you promise?”

“I promise. Now finish up, so we can get going. I want to beat everyone there.”

“Okay. I’ll be out in a minute,” you said, turning back to the bathroom mirror. Roy’s reflection swung away on its crutches, and you quickly put on the rest of your mascara before pulling the green sweater over your head and doing your hair. When you walked into the living room a few minutes later, Roy was gazing up at you with the look that Phoebe called his heart eyes.

“Is that the same jumper you wore on our first date?” he asked.

“Yeah. I remember you liked it, but I don’t have to wear it if it’s not right.”

“It’s perfect,” said Roy fondly. “They’ll all love you.”

You both walked to the car, and Roy put on his cheesy pump-up playlist for you. It only got through a few songs before you arrived at Ola’s, but it had the desired effect, and you were less anxious about the impending ordeal.

Roy was looking around as you parked the Beast. “I don’t see any of their cards,” he grunted. “Let’s get inside while we’re still in the fucking clear.” He reached toward you and squeezed your hand. “Ready?”

Squeezing back, you braced yourself and hopped out. Sam Obisanya’s restaurant, Ola’s, was a cute little corner unit deeper than it was wide. Airy curtains obscured most of the dining room from outside view, but you could see inside enough to know that you and Roy were the first ones there, as planned. Two people were bustling in the back when you opened the door for Roy, and while one ducked into the kitchen, the other approached.

“Coach!” called Sam, smiling widely. “Welcome! I’m so glad you could make it, although we’re not quite ready for everyone yet.”

Roy was obscuring you from Sam’s view while you followed him in. “Wanted to make sure that the close parking spots would be open, so we came early.” Your boyfriend stepped to the side as he said “we,” and pulled you to him.

Only for a moment, Sam faltered, then his eyes lit up as he recognized you, and realized the rumor about his coach was true.

“You’re the lady from the bowling alley!”

“Guity,” you chuckled, extending a hand to properly introduce yourself, but before you could do that, Sam took it in both of his and shook it warmly.

“I am so very glad that you are here, and that you are with Roy! What is your name?”

Roy introduced you before you could respond, and the sheer amount of pride in his voice made your heart melt a bit. He was acting like he didn’t deserve to be on your arm, not the other way around. And he was smiling, unashamedly.

“I am so glad to officially meet you,” beamed Sam, “and so glad that Coach gets to be with someone so lovely. I do hope that you enjoy yourself tonight.”

“I’m sure I will. Thank you, Sam. If the food is as good as the restaurant looks, I’m in for a treat.”

“Do you want to sit down, babe?” Roy gestured to a table in the corner, out of view of the door.

After a last smile at Sam, you joined Roy. He practically threw himself into a chair, and then carefully stretched his knee out onto one of the extra seats.

“That didn’t go so badly, as far as introductions go,” you told him.

The man grunted. “Sam is the golden child of the team. I wasn’t worried about him. It’s the other ones that’ll be idiots about it.”

The other ones showed up shortly thereafter. From your corner, you and Roy watched the team slowly trickle in. Coach Shelley and his fiancée were the earliest, and both lit up when their gazes settled on you. Jade planted herself next to you and told you how happy she was that there would be another girl there to talk to when Roy and Nate inevitably started talking tactics. You liked Jade; she could hold her own.

Some of the second team came in next. They all greeted you warmly, and heaped verbal abuse on Roy for taking so long to settle down. One of them, Paul, was the oldest on the team since Roy’s retirement, and promised you a few stories of their time playing together before his daughter pulled him away.

The defenders and midfielders arrived together, minus Jan Maas, who was apparently late to everything. Isaac McAdoo shook your hand seriously.

“He’s good to you, yeah?” he asked.

“Of course I’m fucking good to her!” Roy spluttered. “You’ve known me for years!”

“It’s always the ones you think you know,” Isaac said darkly. He looked you in the eye, still holding your hand. “If he ever stops being good to you, you call me and I’ll fuck him up for you. You’re at a family dinner, so you’re one of us now.”

“I’ll let you know if that ever happens,” you promised, trying your hardest not to laugh at how Roy was gripping one of his crutches like he was going to hit Isaac with it. The captain wisely moved out of reach before that could happen.

Most of the team didn’t seem all that surprised to see you. You saw a few bank notes changing hands throughout the course of the night, but everyone was more or less calm about you being there. Roy even halfway relaxed, until Jamie came in with Jan Maas in tow.

“The dinner can start now, ‘cos the party’s arrived!” he called as he came in, arms wide. “Splits! What are you doing here?”

Jamie was acting like your parking lot conversation had never happened. He plopped down next to Roy and stared at him cheekily. “Coach, I’m surprised at yah. Keeping a lovely lady all to yourself? Not cool.”

“And why should I have to share every fucking detail of my life with a prick like you? You’d only make a huge deal out of it and lord it over the whole team that you knew something about me that no one else did, and then no one would leave me the fuck alone.”

“Roy,” you interrupted, sensing that the rant would have been a long one, “Jamie already knows. He saw me driving your car when I came to pick you up.”

Eyes narrowing, Roy could only growl. You and Jamie grinned at each other.

“I think it’s great, man. You needed some happiness in your life, and she seems to be giving it to you. We all knew something was going right for you, and it definitely wasn’t your knee.”

Your boyfriend’s nostrils flared once, but then he looked at you and softened, just the slightest bit.

“All right, fair enough,” he admitted. “Life isn’t terrible right now, even with my shit knee.”

“She must be special, to make you that happy. You aren’t having any sex right now with your knee like that,” deadpanned Jan Maas.

There were shouts. Half the team jumped out of their chairs anticipating a fight. You reached out to grab Roy’s shoulder, as did Jamie, you noticed. Bad knee or not, you wouldn’t put it past Roy to lunge at the taller man after a comment like that. He had already grabbed one of his crutches and was brandishing it like a club.

Coach Shelley was talking the team, and the dutchman, down. “That was uncalled-for, even for you, Jan. There are ladies present.”

“You don’t need to worry about me, Coach. I can handle it,” Colin Hughes joked. It made everyone else relax, but Roy was still furious.

“I’ll kill him. I swear to God, I’ll fucking kill him.” His growl certainly sounded murderous. “Embarrassing you like that.”

“I’m not embarrassed,” you liked. “You told me he could be rude.”

Jamie shook his head disapprovingly. “Rude and Dutch. That was mental. He’s lucky our old man here is laid up.”

“I could still kick his ass, just let go of me!”

“How about some dinner?” Sam shouted over the din in his dining room. “Simi and I have some new dishes for you all to try.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for the Beards?” someone from second team asked.

“Who knows when they’ll show up?” someone else called sarcastically. “Queenie probably pitched another fir, and they’re never on time anyway.”

You looked to Roy. “Queenie?”

A growl; Roy seemed incapable of speech as he glared at Jan Maas. Jamie answered your question.

“Coach Beard’s daughter. They named her after the chess piece. Poor babeh hasn’t forgiven them for it. She’s always screaming.”

A few of the men loudly agreed that dinner should be served before Coach Beard and his family arrived so everyone else would be able to eat in peace. You weren’t sure that any team function could be considered “peaceful,” but agreed that dinner shouldn’t wait. Sam and his chef Simi – you couldn’t figure out whether they were dating or not – brought out countless platters of delicious food, and you all dug in. With every bite, you found yourself falling in love with Nigerian cuisine. Even Roy’s bad mood couldn’t stand up to it, and soon he was listening intently to the conversations around him, his hand on your knee under the table.

You quickly learned that not many people kept to one seat. Higgins and O’Brien found their way to your table to learn more about bowling from you, and you spent an enjoyable few minutes talking strategies, moreso for O’Brien’s benefit than Higgins’. The reserve keeper had enjoyed the team bowling night so much that he was considering joining a league. You would have been happy gushing about your sport all night, since everybody at work had already heard everything you had to say, and O’Brien was willing to listen. Higgins, too; you learned that he was registered for a tournament that you were also competing in at your alley, and he wanted to know which oil patterns were going to be laid. But your conversation was cut short when the door to the restaurant opened, and a screaming toddler was dragged in by her parents.

You recognized Coach Beard; he was often shown next to Roy during match broadcasts. The woman with him must be his wife Jane, who Roy had told you was slightly insane, but in a different way than Beard was. The two-year-old looked more like Jane, and was crying as only an unhappy toddler could. Half of the team looked sympathetically at Beard, Roy included, and the other half looked annoyed. Queenie didn’t seem to be popular.

She didn’t stop crying and whining. For twenty minutes, the Beards, and eventually everybody else, tried to cheer her up while they ate, but it was useless. People started scooping her up and passing her around, just trying to keep her occupied long enough for her to forget she was upset.

It didn’t work.

People were starting to get antsy, looking at the exit as if contemplating how quickly they could reach it. Wives and girlfriends were still trying to soothe Queenie, while Beard and Jane scarfed down a meal. Jade reached out for a turn, and put her purse in front of the girl to distract her. You would be the next victim if Jade couldn’t calm her down.

Unfortunately, digging through a purse wasn’t what Queenie wanted. She looked like she was gearing up for another fit. The adults at your table exchanged glances.

“Does anybody have a better idea?” challenged Jade.

You could only shrug. The only children you had in your life were the kids in the youth league, and they were older. Toddlers didn’t make any sense to you. Nate also seemed to be at a loss. After waiting a moment, Roy let out a sigh and rolled his eyes.

“All right, give her here,” he grumbled, holding out his hands. “Don’t any of you know any kids? Fucking amateurs, all of you.”

Once he had Queenie, Roy stood her up in his lap, holding her up by her hands. They looked at each other seriously, as if acknowledging each other’s existence. Roy did the same thing with you, you realized; every time he spent time with you, he ignored his surroundings to focus on you. Then Roy lowered her hands, and rather than stand on him, the toddler chose to snuggle up on him, her front pressed against his chest. He wrapped an arm around her and tucked his chin into her curls, which she’d wedged under his head.

Ola’s was silent. Mouths hung open in shock, eyes stared at the manager. He glared at everybody.

“What are you all staring at?”

“She stopped,” Beard said, awestruck. “She hasn’t stopped in days.”

“You’re the fuckin’ baby whisperer,” chuckled Jamie.

“You’re forgetting about Phoebe. She was small once. I learned with her.”

Roy was speaking to the room, but he was looking at Queenie burrowed into his chest. There was something so gentle in the way that he was with her; you hadn’t even seen it with Phoebe, maybe because she was older. It was like he was marveling at her, or in her willingness to trust him. Seeing this gruff man melt made you fall a little deeper for him.

The team was stunned at this peaceful side of their coach. Across the dining room, Beard and Jame were having a hushed conversation. Roy was choosing to ignore all of them; he was focusing on Queenie, who was starting to look like she was going to fall asleep as he rubber her back.

“Incredible,” Nate murmured. “I didn’t know you had this in you, Roy.”

“No reason to let it out at Nelson Road,” he grunted. “Now shut up. She’s not going to stay quiet if you idiots wake her up.”

Rather than say anything else, the assistant coach went to another table with Jade. Jamie followed suit, leaving you with Roy and Queenie.

“She really trusts you, Roy,” you observed quietly.

“Hmm.”

“Any reason why? Have you babysat her before?”

“No. I think she can tell that I’m just as scared of the world as she is, and she takes some comfort in that.”

“Roy Kent is scared? What does Roy Kent have to be scared of?”

Your boyfriend finally tore his eyes from Queenie to look at you.

“Roy Kent the footballer wasn’t scared of anything. But Just Roy… He’s effing terrified of life after football, and how great it’s turning out to be, and how much could be lost if he effs it up.”

It was startlingly honest. You’d never heard Roy that open before, even when it was just the two of you. Kids were apparently his weakness, which kind of made sense. He was fiercely protective and took care of everybody he cared about; children needed caring for more than adults did, so he probably felt even more himself while he had someone small to protect. Plus, he apparently related to how he thought kids viewed the world, which probably contributed even more to his being comfortable enough to share.

Your thoughts were moving too fast and with too much emotion for you to articulate anything, so you reached out to gently play with Queenie’s hair. Roy, his chin still in those curls, snuck a quick kiss onto your hand and smiled contentedly at you. It would have been a tender moment, had Jane and Coach Beard not chosen it as their moment to approach. Some of the usual grumpiness settled back onto your boyfriend’s face once he noticed them.

“Roy,” Jane began in what could only be described as a wheedling tone.

“What do you want?”

“We were hoping we could ask you to watch Queenie for a bit. You’re so good with her, and she’s been so difficult the past few weeks…”

Beard interrupted. “We’ve got to do some stuff around the apartment, and it will be a whole lot easier without a 25-month-old screaming the entire time.”

“It will only be about an hour,” continued Jane. “We’ll be quick.”

They looked pleadingly at Roy, who rolled his eyes. He didn’t have to think for long.

“Fine, but only because she’s effing asleep, and because I’m still injured, which are two very good reasons for me not to move.”

“Thanks, Roy,” said Beard. “We’ll be quick.”

“Effin’ hope so. If you’re not back in an hour, like you said, I won’t be doing the training reports for the rest of the month, you will. That’s my condition.”

“Deal.” Coach Beard took his wife’s hand. “We appreciate this, Roy.”

There was a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “You’re wasting valuable time. Now scram.”

You heard something that could almost be a laugh come from Roy as he watched the could run off.

“What are you laughing about?”

“I just got out of a month’s worth of reports,” he chuckled smugly. “It’s a ten minute trip to their flat, if they run the whole way, and they won’t. They can’t keep their hands off each other.”

“So you just agreed to babysit a difficult toddler for who knows how long, just to get out of doing some paperwork, because you know your coworker would be distracted by his wife?”

“Pretty effing smart, right?”

Roy was quite pleased with himself. He even kept conversation up for a few minutes more than usual before he let it die, and by then, Sam and Simi were bringing out the next course. Yor table was given a wide berth – nobody wanted to risk waking Queenie – but you and Roy were fin with that, and enjoyed having a break from everyone’s attention.

Until Dani Rojas walked over.

“Hola, Roy! Have you seen Coach Beard?”

At this point, it had been well over an hour since he and Jane had left.

“No, they went home to get some things done without Queenie in the way.”

“Oh. So you are babysitting, yes?”

With a suspicious look at you, Roy answered, “Yeah. Why are you fu- effing asking?”

“No reason, really. Mostly, I wanted to tell you how good it is to see you and Señora Splits here together. You look like a real familia, sitting here with the little Queen.”

You felt some color rise to your cheeks, and saw how Roy shifted his weight uncomfortably. First Jan Maas bringing up the sex thing, and now Dani Rojas bringing up a family, kids! This team definitely wasn’t shy.

“Oh! I apologize, you just started dating. These topics are probably uncomfortable, yes?” Dani glanced between you and Roy apologetically, reacting to your reactions. “I’m sorry. Please, forgive me.”

“Dani,” growled your boyfriend as he put his hands over Queenie’s little ears, “fuck off. Now, please.”

The striker retreated back to his original seat, which left you and Roy alone again. You subconsciously started twisting a ring you always wore, your mind racing as you contemplated everything. Did you want kids? You’d never really had the urge, unlike the girls you’d grown up around, who’d had baby names picked out by the age of twelve. Nothing specifically bothered you about kids, but you’d never been in a hurry to have any. But seeing Roy in front of you, murmuring softly to Queenie…

Maybe, with the right person, domestic bliss wasn’t unattainable.

“What’re you thinking about? You’re doing your ring twisting thing.”

You weren’t ready to have this conversation yet. Not here, where a footballer could interrupt at any second. You chose to ask your own question instead.

“What were you saying to Queenie just now?”

“I was saying sorry for swearing, just in case she heard me tell Dani to eff off.” The corners of his mouth were threatening to turn upwards. “I’ve been trying so hard all night not to corrupt this baby the way I’ve corrupted Phoebe, but at some point, you have to say it.”

“I was wondering why you were censoring yourself,” you smiled. “It’s been strange.”

“Yeah. Not how I expected my night to go, but it’s been all right. My knee’s killing me from having this one in my lap all night, and I need to use the toilet, but other than that.”

“Where are the Beards? It’s been closer to two hours. You should try to get two month’s worth of reports out of it.”

The twinkle returned to Roy’s eyes as he realized the genius of your suggestion. Then he shifted Queenie higher, probably to relieve some pressure from his knee.

“Knowing those two, they’re probably all over each other. Hopefully not making another of these little gremlins, because they don’t give enough attention to the one they already have.”

“Do you think it’s an attention issue?” you asked. “She’s had attention all night.”

Before he answered you, Roy let out an aggravated sigh. “No, she’s been handled all night. None of that lot actually interacted with her, they just passed her around trying to distract her. Kids are people, too, you know. They want to feel included the same way adults do. Honestly, babe, you coach youth bowling, how do you not know this?”

“I guess I’m just good at seeing them in the context of bowling, where it’s my job to watch after them,” you mused. “But I may not be a natural like you.”

You expected the man to respond with something sarcastic, but he looked thoughtfully at Queenie once more. As did you. As much as you didn’t want to have the conversation here in the open, seeing him so comfortable with her felt like it might be a small glimpse at a future. The two of you hadn’t been together long – only six weeks – but it was serious, and future wasn’t out of the question for you.

Gradually, you felt Roy’s gaze on you. All harshness was dissolved from his face.

“I know you don’t want to talk about this in public, and I’m with you on that, but I want you to know… I don’t hate this. I think I’ve known since Phoebe was born, but I hadn’t really thought about it until my career went up in flames and I had to effing retire. I think I want a family to take care of. Kids. Or just one, I don’t know. But I need you to know that before we fu- effing go any further. We can talk about it later, when you’re ready. If you’re ready. You don’t have to be, and if it was too early to say, I’m really sorry. I can be –“

“Roy, stop.” His voice was getting high and strained, and he had yet to take a breath; you had to make him stop to breathe. “I think it may be something I want, too. It’s okay.”

And it was, you realized. The man in front of you, holding the toddler that wasn’t yours, could be something very serious. He’d taken a chance on you, somebody decidedly outside his world, and brought you in. He’d given you his trust and his weakness, and become a steward of yours. He was the baby whisperer. He could be the endgame.

It was all so simple. He could be it. And he seemed to think that you might be it, too.

“Oi, take Queenie for a second.” Always abrupt, Roy seemed to be switching topics. “I can’t stand it anymore; I have to get up before I piss myself, and before my good knee locks up.”

You held your hands out, and Roy passed you a drowsy toddler. You made sure to acknowledge her before she settled, as he had, and she didn’t fuss as she nestled into you, using one of your boobs as a pillow. Roy was already stumping away towards the back of the restaurant, and the team was busy passing around a dessert, so you were alone with your thoughts. It may have just been biology, or attraction, or the fact that sex had been reference more than once tonight, but cradling a sleepy little kid that had been handed off to you by the man you were currently seeing was doing something to your insides. A yearning was suddenly there. You could imagine a tiny, foul-mouthed menace running amuck.

Roy was it.

Roy was so distracted that he hadn’t noticed he was washing his hands with sanitizer until it found a paper cut. He swore and corrected his mistake, then looked his reflection dead in the eye in the mirror.

The man hadn’t seen himself wear this expression before. In the press, he’d always looked angry, all hard angles and glares. Having Queenie all night had melted it all away, and Just Roy, staring back at him looked… Fond? He wasn’t sure. It was something soft.

He reached for a paper towel to dry his hands, his mind spinning. Taking care of Queenie all night had ignited something warm in his chest, which felt suspiciously like his heart. But it wasn’t really about Queenie, was it?

No, it wasn’t. It was about the woman who’d been beside him, who hadn’t flinched through this whole night. And its many twists, turns, and blunt footballers. Splits had exuded grace all night, and he hadn’t consciously noticed until this moment how peaceful his normally-raging thoughts were whenever he was with her.

Just Roy was wearing heart eyes when he looked back in the mirror.

“Fuck. She’s the one.”

As he hobbled out of the toilets and back to the table, Roy knew with more certainty than he’d ever had in his life. He wanted to serve her, to protect her, to have her, to love her. For her to hold his kids as gently and tenderly as she was holding Queenie right now, who hadn’t even noticed the return of her parents.

Fuck being Roy Kent. He wanted to be Just Roy with her. Splits was it.

She smiled up at him when he got closer.

“Better?”

Why was she asking if he was better? Oh, right, his quick retreat to the toilets, which had been a bit of a lie because he’d needed to get his emotions in check more than he’d actually needed to go.

“Yeah, much better, thanks. How was Queenie?”

“An angel,” Splits answered. “You’re onto something with this whole acknowledgement thing. I was just telling the Beards.”

Jane was wearing an irritated expression, probably mad that other people were telling her how to manage her own child. Beard just looked thankful that said child wasn’t currently screaming. They both looked red and puffy around the mouth. Roy was pretty sure that they’d been making another fucking gremlin, and to his surprise, was insanely jealous.

Fuck, he was falling hard. It scared him how intensely sure he was that Splits was the one.

He had to get out. It was too much, being around his team, his family.

“Are you ready to go?” he questioned, more harshly than he’d meant to.

She shrugged. “Yeah, we can go. Is your knee bothering you?”

“Something like that. Beard, you were gone for two hours, not one, so I’m expecting two months of training reports.”

Coach Beard was nothing if not fair. As he took his daughter from Splits, he nodded stoically. “Fine. You held up your end.”

“Well said.”

Roy pulled out his girlfriend’s chair and turned for the exit. He’d wanted to sneak out, but the whole team saw them leaving and called out goodbyes. Sam, of course, thanked them for coming. Jamie, less predictably, shouted, “Good night, Kents!”

In his peripheral, the manager could see Splits was stifling a smile and waiting for his reaction. Roy didn’t correct Jamie, only flipped him off without turning around. He ushered his girl out of Ola’s to the Beast, then turned on one of his playlists. He texted his father as she drove them home.

Me: Need to talk. Call tomorrow?

Dad: About fucking time. Your mother’s upset you haven’t told us.

Me: ???

Dad: typing…

After a moment, his father sent a link to a post on The Sun’s social media. It was a photo, sniped through the window of the restaurant, of him in profile holding Queenie and kissing Splits’ hand as she played with the little girl’s hair. They’d been caught, but he fought down the anger rising in his throat. He typed out one last message.

Me: It’s new, but she’s fucking amazing. Do you still have Nan’s stuff?

With that, he closed his texts and pocketed his phone. He reached over for Splits’ hand, resting on the center console while she waited for the light to change, and took it.

It was missing a vital piece of jewelry. He needed to fix that.

Tag list: @preciousbabypeter @harry-bowie-mercury @amieinghigh @onceuponaoneshot @chewymoustachio @my-neurodivergent-world

#roy kent bowled over #roy kent #roy kent x reader #ted lasso #ted lasso fanfiction #mutual pining #slowish burn #reader is a bowler #because I was a bowler #hence the terrible pun title #my writing #no editing we die like men

[just-a-carrot]

Not a question, but thought I’d write this out here ‘cause I didn’t know where else to put it. Did it anonymously because it’s kinda personal, but my writing style’s possibly unique enough that you’ll know who I am anyways sooo… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I started playing Our Wonderland around January/February of this year, at a time in my life where a lot of my real world friends had either gotten too busy or abandoned me for another clique. Senior year of high school, ya know?

Basically, mentally I was a bit wack, and even before that I had had the habit of turning to dating sims in order to get my fix of “attention.” I didn’t care how mentally fucked up the character ended up being, as long as he treated me nice, I was over the moon. One of the games I played was basically a gore fest with a small amount of romance moments if you “played your cards right”, and I ended up getting hugely attached to one of those characters. It became a favorite game of mine, and I probably could’ve missed stop lights with the level of rose-tinted glasses I was wearing.

So, when I saw a friend of mine on Discord playing a visual novel that had really gory death scenes and possible romance aspects, my ears immediately perked up. I thought it would be similar to that dating sim I had gotten so attached to, and since my mental health was still doing tHiNgS, I thought I’d give it a try.

WOW THAT TURNED OUT A LOT DIFFERENT THAN I EXPECTED. Not only did I end up reevaluating my whole psyche along the way, but I also view Our Wonderland as one of my favorite comfort games now! Ironic, I know, but it’s true. On those days where life just feels too difficult, I open the game and have Genzou tell me to get my shit together and all is okay. Because someone, somewhere cares about me as a person. (Yes he’s saying it to Iggy, BUT IM PLAYING IN THAT MAN’S SHOES OKAY-)

That was legitimately all I needed from someone, and the fact it was this absolute horror fest of a game that gave it to me was something I never could’ve expected.

Basically, I went from having the equivalent of “someone like Gidget would be okay (like Arcs 1-4 version) as long as they treated me nice sometimes” to actually having standards! Kinda. I still like the character from that game I mentioned prior, but I know what healthy standards are SUPPOSED to be now. Progress!

I’m in a better mental place now, I think, and I’m super excited to see whatever else you put out! Can’t wait for Arc 5.15!

(Also good job being added to the list of 48 dating sims I currently own lolol)

oh my gosh... my heart... 😭💕

this honestly nearly brought me to tears reading this. thank you so much for taking the time to write up so many of these (really personal) thoughts. and i'm genuinely both touched and honored that my game and chars could have this much impact on you?? sometimes it does just happen that we can find something to connect to at a time when we need it. i have certainly had many pieces of media throughout my life that have been the same. the things that have gotten me through rough patches. the times where i've just been a mess. the times i've been been barely able to function because of my anxiety. or things like huge life changes like moving countries. i feel like in every one of those moments in my life, i've had something there to ground me and keep me tethered and get me through it, and it's always been one of the things i was hyperfixated on at the time that formed that core rock (and sometimes also the people online that i met because of that hyperfixation)

right now for me getting through the rough patches in recent years it's been making this game itself LMAO so i'm glad it can also be there and provide a place of comfort for others.

i'm really glad you're in a better mental place now, though i'm sorry you've had such rough periods this year. i hope that your next year will prove much better and give you some peace 💕

#ow: asks

[a-tale-never-told]

So how did you enjoy the prologue? Any favorite characters or least favorite yet?

//Well, there is a lot to cover with this, so I guess I'll share what I like and what I thought could have been done better. Spoilers ahead for those who did not see the game//

//So one of the things I did like in the prologue is the characters and how they interact. Well, almost all of them since the entirety of them is supposed to be a new cast of characters that we have never seen and heard before, and I have to admit and give credit where it's due, the cast is almost near great for me, with a few exceptions//

//I think my favorite character so far has to be either Yoruko or Hibiki because those two are the ones I can relate to the most honestly. Yoruko is your resident tsundere, except she's more than that, and also the most realistic person here, especially during the beach scene. I honestly find her pretty compelling as a character so far and her crush on Sora is honestly pretty heartwarming to see//

// Hibiki is actually a better Hiyoko in my opinion. Yeah, I just said that. I get that she's supposed to be the "mean girl" of this game, but honestly, she's surprisingly tame compared to people like Hiyoko or Celeste. I know that people are not the biggest of fans about how she treats Kanade, but it never really bothered me or annoyed me because most of the time, she isn't really saying anything truly harsh, except for one time when she went overboard, and that Kanade is such a bland and boring character that I couldn't care less//

//Also, I have heard and said much worse than Hibiki, so. I can definitely see why Mod Bubbles likes her a whole lot, and I'm super happy she got the character development she should have gotten in the game. Runner-ups are Setsuka, Shinji, Iroha, Sora, and Hajime for me, mostly because they are the most chill people there for the most part//

//The island setting is also neat, and considering that this is on both the island and the cruise, I would find myself enjoying this. Monocrow is an okay host. Obviously, he's inferior to the quirky, sadistic Monokuma. But I do like how Monocrow at least has some standards for the most part, like how he criticized Syobai for stabbing Sora//

//But sadly, when there are the joyful things in life, there are, of course, the cursed things that are meant to suffer and this prologue has a few of them. So let's talk about them.

//First is Yuki's voice acting. I'm dearly sorry to whoever voiced him, but what is that voice coming from that character's mouth?! You have a high school-aged teen, why does he sound like a 12-year-old boy?! I know that this is rather nitpicky, but I will argue that Yuki is supposed to be the same age as these guys, perhaps even older considering the events of the last game. So why does he sound like that? It makes no sense! Other than Yuki's, the voice acting is pretty damm great for this game, and props to those that gave it their best effort//

//Second is Yuri, good lord Yuri. Where do I even start with this piece of perverted shit? Y'all thought that Teruteru was awful? Oh, he doesn't got anything when compared to Mr. Cosmonaut over there. I'm not kidding when I say that half of his dialogue and the entirety of his character is mostly him simping over women like a Mineta-esque clone of him, and shitting on Yuki and the dudes for.... being dudes. What the hell is this?//

// I believe Linjulij (Linjulij? I don't know how you spell his name correctly) lost a bet with some Russian men in Saint Petersburg and got so enraged about losing 200 bucks to these pricks, and decide to write and make Yuri into this perverted, man-hating asshole just to spite them. At least that's my theory, I have zero idea of what Yuri's character was supposed to be. He's so bad that he might be one of my most hated characters in this franchise, to the point that when he opened his mouth, I told him to shut the fuck up every. single. time. That's how bad he is to me//

// I think we all need to stop classifying Teruteru as the resident pervert in this franchise because there are characters that are significantly far worse than him. And people still think he's the main pervert? What? What the hell are you smoking, guys?//

//But the worst aspect to me of this prologue, was the early reveal of Mikado as the Mastermind so early on. I don't about you guys, but I am personally not a fan of this kind of writing when they reveal things far too early in the overall plot or story. We just got into the prolouge and already, we know he's the mastermind. Why don't they just kill him already when he's there? It would have been so much easier for Mikado as a character if the reveal that he was the mastermind came during or at the end of the first trial. That way, it's revealed semi-normal and feels natural. Have Mikado try to gain the trust of the students a bit by acting as their protector and savior, manipulating them untill he's revealed in the first trial. That way, the fear of being with the mastermind feel more deep as they thought this guy was going to protect them, only for him to be the person behind the whole operation//

//Don't get me wrong, this sort of twist is unique and can work, it's just that the overall execution of it was just bad and not really satisfying to me at all. It could've been handled far better than it had originally played out. It was unnecessary to reveal it like that, and it was completely unnecessary to have Rei and Teruya here just to show up and warn them, and then get their ass kicked by Mikado. That's it. What was even the fucking point of them being there aside from warning them and then just disappearing?! God, this frustrates me looking back//

//Other than that, I will say that the concept itself is at least unique and far different from any Fanganronpa I've seen or heard of before. And the decision of Mikado being a contestant is again, while flawed, a pretty great twist in all honesty. It just sucks of how the execution of it could've have been handled better than it did. That's just my thoughts though//

//Overall, despite those massive fuck ups, I did really like the prologue and it serves as a decent opening to the game in general. I was originally going to bring up Syobai and his character in this, but he's a topic for another time. The verdict? Not a bad start for this game. Let's just pray to god that the rest of the game is better going forward.//

#mod talks #asks #freezethunder #sdra2

[peppertaemint]

Ooooh Shinee world is a mess today and for once it's not taemints fault 🥲

An article about fans asking for a Taemin would tour and "shawols" in the quotes going "no shinee" "shinee first" "wait until Jinki comes back so shinee can have a world first"

Like, I too would love a Shinee world tour, I want all of them both solo and as a group to go everywhere(in particular where I am but I won't hold my breath) but that wasn't what it was about. It was fans of Taemin's solo music asking for a tour.

It baffles me cause you never see this kind of thing with the other members. No ot5 shawol will ever expect another member to put their work on hold but, when it comes to Taemin it's like some people can't stand to see him spread his wings.

People never expect Key to put his variety work second, or for Minho to not take acting job, shawols have actively gotten mad if they think Minho had to turn down acting stuff due to his schedule. All Taemin does is music. That is his thing but some fans just cannot seem to respect his career. And all the baby talking in the quotes "we love our cutsey wootsy little taeminnie *but*..."

It's getting really irritating. I used to think some of what taemints say is exaggerated and I still believe that a bit. People were getting angry that the Shinee account didn't post Taemin's hanteo artist of the year nomination and only posted Shinee's, but it makes sense to me. They don't want to split votes and a win for Shinee is a win for all of them. But at the same time some of the disrespect I've seen towards him from supposedly ot5 shawols has been eye-opening.

I dunno, this fandom has been a mess lately and it's only the 4th. 2024 is off the quite the start.

Lol, I sort of find it funny when it's not Taemin fans being the mess-makers. Like they are the worst-behaved, though I would say each solo fandom has their unique flavor. But, what you're highlighting is the biggest open secret in shawol-dom.

Let's have sexy photos in this post for no reason.

Like, shawols are for the most part chill. I've been around these parts for a long time, and a bad day in shinee world is miles and miles better than a bad day in BTS fandom and similar. There isn't violent language or a huge level of harassment. I just want to acknowledge that because the complaints I'll make next are from the privileged shinee world perspective where there is a higher behavior standard. That is the case, even when Taemin fans are being stupid. Like, not once did I see the Golden Disc Awards violently harassed.

So, the open secret: it's all yay Taemin until he gets too much attention. And you noticed it's still very much "our baby taemin" even tho man's been out there trying to fuck the stage for a decade, lol. I see these as two sides of the same coin. They want him in his place as perpetual baby to uwu over, and daring solo work is fine as long as it doesn't outshine everything.

I think with Key it's easier for people to compartmentalise because he's super super successful outside of SHINee when it comes to TV and sponsorships (istg he IS Olive Young, lol; his face was all over Seoul), but those things don't directly compete with SHINee's work. These are complementary endeavours. Key's solo work is now having its career high since Bad Love, and it's only growing, so this condescending solo situation may repeat itself. But, Key's also not the group's little baby. I can't see him being treated the same. The fandom's most egregious behavior towards him has always been rooted in stereotypes. I mean, look how quickly and comfortably people slotted him into this squabbling "marriage" dynamic with Minho. Their arguing is funny, despite how played up for the camera it can be, but I see a lot of "iykyk" weird posts about him and Minho. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked.

There is always going to be an element of competition when it comes to solo work. Onew's Circle just got named Billboard's #1 kpop album of 2023. Guilty didn't even make their best of list. Now, I think Guilty was overlooked but Onew deserved #1. It's an extraordinary album. Minho is cultivating this very sexy and mature solo repertoire. This competition will grow, but I think Taemin will always be the target of condescension, minimizing and infantilizing.

He's the perpetual baby who will be put in the obedient baby box. And those fans will be incised when/if Taemin gets to do something they find meaningful before SHINee, even if it's a clear matter of logistics. There is a definite attitude present, and you might notice there is a certain superiority fans have over his solo work. I've been in situations where people have quite literally said they think X member's solo concerts are better than Taemin's with their whole chests. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but when it comes to him, people are wayyyyy to comfortable putting him down.

Anyway, it will always be a bigger "but not him" with Taemin because he was given solo first and has built this legacy of work and has a lot of influence within the industry. Stolid group fans take pride in that when it suits them, but want him to be sidelined when it interferes with their desires.

#this attitude has been around for a very very long time #i mean when he first went solo and even the year before #fans didn't like how he was changing and maturing #he gets treated like a possession or a prop in some ways #taemin #that's the only tag I will add #there is def a thing where he's sort of just a stupid weirdo baby to large swathe of shawols lol #idk how else to put it

[unlimitedhorsepower]

Published my ryankeith fic (as a treat for doing responsible adult things so that I could reply to comments I had gotten) without the usual polish because I was like no...I'll become powerful and post anything. It's some funny anime guys, so how serious is it, especially when it's purposefully funny.

Ryan asks what gender insulin is because he (canonically) dropped out of high school and (to me) extra flunked biology in his life and probably knows more about iguanas than humans and learns other things from nature docs only and (to me) he lacks common sense about things and (to me) he only knows what hormones are because he's ofc doing all bulking and cutting at the gym where he (canonically) stays for 4hours every day and drinks 3 raw eggs for breakfast

^ this happens and I'm so ashamed of my lack of polish bc I wrote the missing scenes bridging my favourite scenes together yesterday and didn't even deliberate then for a month and I left in scenes I would've deleted for narrative cohesion bc its For Fun and Light-hearted (and no.....the insulin gender isn't one of them.its essential.) And not that serious

But it is that serious. Its 10am after I stayed up till 5am almost writing some purposefully cringefail fanfic and the lack of DELIBERATION and the MESSY narrative and the lack of WEIRD PURPLE PROSE where I would've usually put it from me holding myself back bc I wanted to finish it and post and show people my thoughts even if it's not UP TO QUALITY STANDARDS because I should be trying to get rid of my perfectionism and my life would be easier...

I'm so ashamed and anxious that I have STOMACH CRAMPS. I feel NAUSEOUS. My world is SPINNING!!!

R3ddit ask me anything thread: guy who is sooooo normal and wrote about some ugly blonde asking what gender insulin is and is this fucked up about the Integrity of the Narrative. Of the fic that contains that

#fellas ans felladettes i have a disease of some kind and its incurable i fear.......... #there are no words to describe what im feeling right naow....... #girl help............ #im coughing up blood... im bleeding out. im getting trampled by a thousand horses with hooves of gold. #my dead horse is prolly disappointed in me w/o even having the biological capacity for that in life.i cant make eye contact with her urn #she didnt even think it was funny or laugh. if she was alive she would be eating hay w/o a care and prolly farting too. #she doesnt even know men are real plus shes dead and she thought the fanfic is cringe...

[alyjojo]

Love Reading 🦥 - September 2023 - Pisces

Singles:

Overall energy: 2 Wands

How you will meet: The High Priestess

How they will treat you: 8 Pentacles rev

Long-term Potential: Ace of Cups

Oracle:

Date 🥂

- Get back out there

- Meeting someone new

- Setting a date

- Date online

Poker Face ♦️

- Taking a chance

- Risks & options

- Not showing hand

- Gambling

You meet this person under mysterious circumstances, could be online flirting or something unusual initially. They want you to be an option, not their main person, probably because they already have a family per the messages. You’re not looking to entertain anyone like this, you’ve just gotten out of something toxic and are taking it extremely slow when this person even comes around. You’ve learned a valuable lesson from the last experience, and this Devil rev. You’re enjoying your independence, maybe looking to just casually date, when here comes King/Queen fkboy/girl wanting you to indulge their needs and keep it on the low. The HA you’re probably HA-ing is loud and clear, right before you ghost them 👻 for probably a good period of time.

So long as they have a family, or some other thing going on, you’re not having anything to do with this, Hanged Man. Long term, idk how, but you’re going to be very glad you HA’d this person. Either they’re going to leave whatever they’re in, and come back genuine, or your refusal of the fkboy/girl standard will manifest an amazing person you may not have gotten had you gotten involved with this one. They have so much Leo energy idk how it could be anything else, or those qualities are what will stand out the most - King of Wands. Very charming, attractive, forward, all you have to do is tell them no, or tell an obviously not worth your time “offer” no first. That may be pretty difficult for you to do, because your messages show you being crazy for this unavailable person. Say NO, and be rewarded. Our manifestations don’t always show up how we intend them, because Spirit knows a thing or two about what we need…not just what we want. I’m getting this person is BOTH & to keep an open mind. After you tell them to kick rocks. Boundaries 💯

Messages -

Their side:

- Indecisive

- I won’t leave my family for you.

Your side:

- There’s no one else for me.

- You are my path.

Signs you may be dealing with:

Leo very strong, Aries, Scorpio & Virgo

Couples:

Overall energy: 9 Swords

Current: The High Priestess & King of Cups

Challenge: 3 Wands

How they feel about you: The Moon, The Star, Knight of Cups

How you feel about them: Knight of Pentacles rev

Outcome: 3 Pentacles

This reading was intense with just the initial cards, and one of the few where I clarified everything before even starting, because that’s necessary in a tricky situation such as this relationship. Your oracles show this person as a karmic soulmate - that means they’re a lesson, you’re meant to learn something from them, and they from you. Can people marry karmics, absolutely, and often do. Can karmics last a lifetime, sure can. This one? You also have Healing Heart which is literal at best, and also possibly toxic, addictive, or even abusive. I won’t jump to conclusions because that’s unnecessary, not all stories are the same, but I will say if your red flag 🚩 meter were a siren, it’s blaring loudly, your intuition is tuned in, you’re noticing a toxic pattern with this person (it’s the challenge), and their messages show they can’t change. Not won’t, can’t. As in does not possess the mental or emotional capacity to understand what changes are needed, their own patterns, that would require taking accountability for a problem, and the only thing you’re feeling for this person right now is that they’ve made NO movement or progress towards apologizing for a Tower they’ve caused. A freakin’ Tower, that’s the very foundation you stand on, crumbling to pieces.

You’re in 9 Swords when it comes to this person, understandably, and they are too, because you are stone cold silent right now. 5 Swords indicates a nasty conflict being a heavy weight on your shoulders and the cause of all of this. Is it the first time? Or is this a cycle, because The Devil is in the challenge showing a cycle. 9 Swords is constant anxiety, worry, fear, upset, playing things in your mind over and over, you can’t sleep, you can’t think straight, because you don’t know WTF that was or what you should do about it. The current energy shows you being silent, especially with your family members, and one of your messages shows you care deeply how others think and how you’re judged by them.

The challenge is not just waiting, but expecting, a new beginning, a repeat of toxic cycles or behaviors, and 10 Swords. You expect it, it’s only a matter of time. How bad is next time going to be? How they feel is The Moon first and foremost. They are unconscious to ANYTHING being their fault, probably a lot of things…they don’t understand this even is a cycle, they don’t see anything clearly, and they operate in illusions and fear based thinking. They hope to take romantic actions towards you, they want to heal this connection, they’re wanting you to talk to them so they can make it right again. Some of you are dealing with a situation that isn’t the worst case scenario, and in that case, the person is trying to learn more about this toxic behavior and do better. Within their level of understanding anyway. At worst, they’re just stalking you and acting as if they had no part in any of this, everything is your problem.

The outcome for this mid-Oct is teamwork, collaboration, appreciating each other’s efforts and working together to come back to this situation. Probably them, and quite aggressively even when being nice, they’re charging in with truths to speak, 5 Wands following is a direct challenge to your plans, which is working on yourself, your career, your own goals, your own plans. This is not what they want. If you’re traveling alone, or that’s the plan, any goals that are in the interest of *you*, they don’t want. Whatever your plan is, they’re not going to just apologize or come towards you nicely, they’re going to stay quiet and wait on you, until you make a decision - they don’t like, and come charging in, swords drawn, ready to argue. For the less toxic individuals, a situation at work for either of you could be used as a distraction to open the channels of communication without actually addressing the situation, and “helping” appears like healing, at least to this person, you must be over it now. Are you?

Take that how you will. Sending you lots of love, hugs and asking for extra protection for those of you that need it. When your gut says something isn’t right, fk what other people think 💯 There are many interesting and informative teachers and resources on YouTube to help teach or advise you about situations like this, at worst, and they’re a lot more qualified than me. I can tell you if it gets better or not. Yes, sort of, for now, but not for the reasons it should be, and not with any level of accountability ❤️ No accountability = no real change.

Messages -

Their side:

- Makes you laugh 😂

- I can’t CHANGE

Your side:

- What other people say matters too much to me.

- Don’t underestimate my potential.

Oracles -

Healing Heart ❤️‍🩹

- Healing heartbreak

- Toxicity or addiction

- Abusive relationship

Karmic Relationship 🪐

- Resentments & triggers

- Perception

- Intensity & letting go

- Turmoil & fleeting

Signs you may be dealing with:

Pisces, Aquarius, Gemini, Virgo, Aries, Cancer, Scorpio & Capricorn

#bzbz weekend 😊 #Pisces tarot reading #love tarot #singles tarot #couples tarot #September 2023 #Pisces #tarot

[jamesandmatthew]

Chapter 13. Socialising

Matthew took James' shoes off as he sipped his measured standard drink wine.

"We have to go out tonight," he told him. "So I hope you've gotten out of this mornings mood or im going to leave you at home."

"Yes, Sir."

"Very grumpy thing lately. You still have your collar on. You can take it off now. You're definitely not wearing it out."

Matthew looked disappointed.

"People will see."

Matthew sighed.

James grunted and leaned forward, unfastening and removing it himself. He threw it on the coffee table.

Matthew rubbed the bare skin on his neck.

"Matthew, listen," James started. Matthew sat on his heels looking up at him. "The other mornings discussion.. when you told me what you wanted …I've been thinking about it all day." 

Matthew smirked at him.

"What was it really about?" James asked. "The violence stuff?"

"Nothing."

"I think it was. I think you like hurting yourself to punish yourself. What are you hurting yourself for?"

"I'm not. I like it," Matthew said bowing his head.

"You want me to hurt you? You cut yourself. You've told me you wanted to kill yourself. I think there might be a connection."

"It's not like that..."

He looked at Matthews bowed head, his hair in his face. He put his hand on Matthew's shoulder squeezing it comfortingly.

"Is there a connection, Matthew?"

"…No! They're completely different things. Two very separate things!"

"Do you want to hurt yourself? Be treated badly."

"Just when I'm stressed."

"Tell me why, Matthew."

Matthew looked up at him. "It makes the stress go away. It feels good to hurt. It cuts out the fog and I like the rush of it. It clears my head, like a brain reset. Bruising feels nice. You know all this!"

"..Is that all?"

"Yes I like it," Matthew said defensively. "A lot."

"I don't think this is just you being a masochist. I think this is…do you like all this because you like punishing yourself for something?"

Matthew shrugged. "Maybe. But I do really like it."

"Do you feel happy after you get hurt? Or do you feel a bit shitty?"

Matthew looked over at his collar.

"A bit of both but I do like feeling pain during sex. it makes everything… More. The high…the loss of self. The exhaustion. "

"Apart from that, What else do you like?"

"You know what I like!"

"I want you to say it. A review of sorts."

"Um…I like being helpful. I like being useful to you. I really like being useful to you. I like you patting me as you read. I love that. Those sorts of things. I like you taking control of me. I like you being rough."

"...But you like me being nice to you more, right?"

Matthew thought for a while. "…some times. But not when we're fucking. When you're doing something else, I like you stroking my hair. I like being a comfort. Like I'm your pet. I have a purpose and a place. Those things. It's soothing."

"Do you really want me to do all those other things to you?"

"Yes! Pain feels good. I like having control taken away from me. I being molested and held tight while you do it. It's relaxing. My mind goes away. Life goes away. It's a complete break from my brain. A little holiday where I don't have think about anything at all, just react without thinking. Automatic. Im not in charge of anything, not even my movements or my own body. Nothing. Everything taken away. Its so freeing. It's wonderful."

"Because you get pleasure out of it or…something bad."

"Pleasure. I like the intenseness of it. The adrenaline rush. It feels like what I imagine like running a marathon for 12 hours would be like. It shuts my brain off from all different rushes. .All that matters is how I feel. Reality goes away. and I'm exhausted afterwards. And happy."

"But you cry. Because you want to be hurt?"

Matthew sniffed.  "It's not like that. I do like it. I like you hurting me. I like suffering under you. I cried because it was intense and release. Real release."

"I'm not going to do it if it's just so you feel bad about yourself. I cant do that. I care about you, Matthew…you know that…right?"

Matthew shrugged. James brought his hand to his neck stroking him tenderly.

"I don't want to be responsible for you being miserable. Im not going to anything that makes you feel bad afterwards. I couldn't do that."

Matthew stared glumly ahead.

"Don't use me against yourself. I'm not going to be involved in any part of your self-destructive behaviour. All this was supposed to be a little bit of fun."

"You're not listening to me. I do like it." Matthew said quietly, leaning his head against his knee.

"I am listening,"James told him. "i'm also connecting dots."

"And ignoring what I'm saying," he mumbled. 

"As long as it's for pleasure," James told him. "I'm not going to do it if you're being horrible to yourself. You cried so much when we did that. It was hard to watch afterwards. It seemed traumatic...it felt traumatic. "

"It was from relief. It was good. I needed it."

"I don't think I could do that again."

James ran his hands through Matthew hair.

"I care for you, Matthew."

Matthew covered his face hearing that. James leaned forward and pulled Matthew up to sit on his lap. He saw there were tears. He wiped Matthews cheeks but Matthew hid his face from him with his hands.

"I know you don't care for yourself...but I do."

"Don't…"

Matthew wriggled in discomfort. James pulled his hands away from his face with difficulty. He kissed his forehead while holding his wrists.

"How about tonight we got to this thing with my friends, and we enjoy it. Just two people together. No Sir or boy, nothing like that. just two people, alright?"

Matthew nodded and smiled very unconvincingly.

"Come on, get cleaned up and dressed. We'll have some dinner then we'll go."

Matthew felt a rush of overwelming anxiety thinking about the party. Tears prickling.

James tried to kiss his lips but Matthew pushed away from him.

"Ok...I cant having you look like a disgrace in front of my friends. I want to show you off," James said, wiping stray hair away from Matthews face and then the tears that spilled. "So we better be happy and look nice to make people jealous, right? New shirt and trousers, ok?

Matthew smiled nodding knowing it was what James wanted.

"Hop off me and we'll get ready."

Matthew grabbed his shirt.

"Can you give me a flogging?"

James looked at him.

"Stress relief," Matthew explained.

James sighed.

Matthew's hands gripped his shirt tighter.

"This party, I don't want to go, I know you want me to, but it's stressing me out. I need…its so stressful. All those strangers. I need a clear head. Stress relief."

"I can't flog you at the party, you know."

"You could. Or spank me. I'm sure we slip outside in the dark…" Matthew's eyes bright. "Or you could discretely slap my face."

James ran his hands down his arms.

"Pinch yourself."

Matthew looked at him.

"If you really need to, you could pinch yourself at the party," James told him. "I give you permission just for the night. Just tonight. Not blood drawing hard, but it might help."

"Would you?"

"Pinch you?"

"Yes."

James stroked his arms. "I'll think about it. Now, Shower."

"Spanking."

"Shower."

"Spanking."

"Shower. Now"

Matthew got off his lap and threw himself over James' legs, getting himself comfortable and raising his bottom.

"Spanking. Now." Matthew demanded cheekily, wiggling his bottom.

James sighed, smiling. "So demanding and needy!"

Matthew wiggled his bottom again.

"Spanking now, please Sir!" Matthew called.

James chuckled. "Very demanding."

"Hard please. Not one of your light little smacks and it's over either. I want a proper spanking. Hard."

"Oh I see," James murmured, shuffling himself and Matthew into a comfortable position and putting his hand firmly on his back. "Needy, demanding and bratty."

He smacked his bottom.

*

Matthew watched James talking to his friends, talking about things he didn't understand and know of.

He felt invisible but completely exposed at the same time. He felt stupid, out of place, insecure, and unsafe around so many people at the party. He scraped his fingernails over his wrist.

He watched in wonder, James mixing with other people with an air of confidence, and a little bit of arrogance that he liked so much. He drank a lot, argued a lot, and smiled very little around other people. 

Matthew took great glee from the grumpy, serious, piercing stares James gave people as they spoke to him. Giving them all of his attention while silently judging them.

He knew that look, he loved that look. That look made him do whatever James wanted of him immediately. That look took his breath away. He kind of missed seeing that look all the time. He smiled more lately.

Matthew would have thought James had forgotten he was there if it weren't for the hand on his back constantly. Matthews anchor. His fingers spreading wide across his spine when he was talking to someone or urging him to walk with him, offering him another drink or passing appetisers but generally letting him be silent by his side. A little shadow. He liked feeling invisible but felt inferior around his friends. He pinched himself.

That was until Iris arrived to greet James. They kissed each other cheeks, James removing his hand from Matthew's back to place it on Iris' shoulder. They whispered into each other ears for a long time before James chuckled.

Iris eyed James suspiciously before smiling at Matthew.

"Matthew, hello."

Matthew tried to be friendly and smiled. "Hello."

"You remember Iris don't you?" James asked him. "It's her birthday."

Matthew nodded trying not to think about his condesending tone.

They continued talking without including Matthew anymore before Iris was ushered away to receive a present.

James looked at Matthew before draining his champagne glass, looking around.

All night James didn't speak to him much, just smiling in a strange way to him and touching his back. Matthew was rarely spoken to and when he was, he felt spoken down to.

Donald arrived, saw Matthew and shaking his hand, looking him in the eyes warmly. Matthew felt for the first time of the night a little relaxed.

"How are you, Matthew? Everything ok?"

"Everythings fine," James said for him.

"It's nice to see you here," he said to Matthew. "I hope you've been well?" Matthew nodded, not sure what to say back.

"He's not making you work behind the bar?"

Matthew shook his head a little embaressed.

Donald and James began speaking about people and subjects he didn't know about and Matthew was forgotten about again.

It was towards the end of the night, when they were stand at the back of a crowd while there were speeches that James grasped his hand and really looked at him.

"Are you having a good time?"James asked him.

"I feel like a child at an adults party."

"...maybe you are?"

Matthew scowled at him which made James smile.

"We'll go home soon."

Matthew wrapped both his hands around James' arm. "Please?"

Matthew leaned his head against his arm, wrapped his hands around his elbow, pressing his face into him. James ruffled his hair watching everyone clap at the end of the speech before another speech started.

James stood watching everyone until a stranger came up to them.

"James…"

"Harry."

James untangled Matthew from his arm to shake Harry's hand.

"Been a long time."

"...yes. yes "

Harry pointed at Matthew.

"...and who's this here?"

"Matthew…he's.. He's a friend of mine."

"Hmm... Well..."

Harry raised his brow at him. Matthew moved a little behind James again, one hand gripping his own wrist that was holding the back of James suit jacket.

"You've been solo at these things for a while."

"...yes."

"Where's that lovely young dark haired girl you used to turn up with?  Where is she?"

"We broke up a few years ago, as you know."

"Oh... that's a shame…She was lovely…"

"Yes, she was."

"Still, it's nice to see you despite being solo. Though… with… erm… a friend."

Iris appeared poking Harry in the ribs.

"Matthew arrived one night out of the blue when Duckie and I were at James' house. He seemed to have adopted him."

"...Oh really?"

"I'm looking after him,"James explained pained.

"He looks old enough to look after himself, how old are you, son?"

"Twenty two," Matthew replied quietly.

"Twenty two?" Harry's brows went nearly to the height of his toupee. "oh dear…well…that's...that's…"

"Its nice to see James with someone though, right?" iris said jabbing Harry again.

"With a boy?" Harry asked surprised turning to her. She smiled forcefully at him.

"People our age shouldn't be picky, Harry. If only we could all…experiment."

"I didn't realise you were…you know…you never seemed..."

"James here? Oh you don't know James then!"

James rolled his eyes. "Enough."

Iris put her hand on Matthew's shoulder. "he's a lucky man. If only I was your age again."

"Its not stopping James," someone else said behind their backs.

James turned around and eyed them, as hr reached around pulling Matthew to his side protectively, an arm around his middle. Matthew held James tightly wanting to burrow into him to leave the situation.

"You're joking with me, James," Harry whispered to him.

James shook his head slowly.

"You're…you're…with?"

James looked him straight in the eye angrily.

"You've never...you'd never…it's a bit…"Harry started. "its not really…oh, James…"

"What?" James asked sharply.

"James its all a bit…"Harry wrinkled his face up. Matthew shrunk behind James to avoid Harry's sight again. Matthew ran his fingernails on his neck under his ear scratching.

"Its all a bit what?"

"He's only…and hes a …."

"Hes a man, yes."

"Oh james that's… that's just…"

"Ugh Harry, enough."

"But you never were…like this…were you? All that living alone…maybe you could have…?"

"How's your sex life, Harold? How many times do you and the missus do it per a week?"

"James," Donald warned him as he joined Iris.

"No. He questions my sex life, I have a right to question his! You cheered me on with Samantha but Matthew is considered wrong?"

Harry held his hands up. "Samantha was a lovely lady-"

"She wasn't much older than Matthew."

"But James, it's the…"

"Times have changed, Harold."

"He's a boy!"

"He's not a boy. He's a man. And yes, men, males, cock. sucking dick and anal sex."

Harold wrinkled his face up at the vulgarity. James pulled Matthew infront of him, holding him tight against him. Matthew's fingers went to his own throat. He dug his fingernails into his skin. It was too much tension. He wanted to run but James held him tightly by his shoulder and waist. His hand on his shoulder pulling Matthews hand away to stop him scratching his neck, holding it to stop it going back to his skin.

"It doesn't matter to me, Harold. Matthew is wonderful company. I happen to think he's quite attractive, and there's no doubt about him keeping me occupied in bed." He gripped Matthew's chin, turning him and forced a long passionate kiss on Matthew's lips.

"Oh stop it, both of you" Iris told him. "Every time you talk to each other you both find something to get into an argument about," Donald commented. "Harry, remember he has eyes and ears. Mind what you are saying infront of Matthew."

Harold walked away giving them a look of disgust.

James smeared his lips over Matthew's stubble on his cheek and ran his hand through Matthew's hair, holding him close to him. Matthew looked worried and uncomfortable. James stroked his neck tenderly as he stared at Harolds back.

"Awful fucking bastard,"James muttered.

"You're upsetting Matthew, James. Stop it," Donald told him as he looked apologetically at Matthew distraught face.

"Harry was the one that started it."

"And now you're acting like you're younger than Matthew."

"I'm going to go now."

"You don't have to go-"

"No, I think its best that I do. I've had enough. Duckie. Bye Iris, happy birthday "James fumed and pulled Matthew away with him.

"James!"Donald called exasperated turning to Iris waving his hands in annoyance.

"I'll call you!"

"I'm sorry," Matthew told him as they walked away.

"It wasn't your fault. It was mine. I'm sorry"

"I didn't mean to make things awkward for you."

James stopped at the door way and turned to him. "It's not your fault," he stressed.

"If you didn't bring me-"

"I'll bring who I want to, where I want to."

"But if you didn't-"

"You didn't - and I didn't - do anything wrong."

James glanced over at the party guests before taking Matthews face in his hands.

"I'm sorry I brought you. But not for what you're thinking, alright? I didn't mean to stress you. I'm sorry about that. I apologise."

Matthew nodded a bit unnerved with the soft look on james' face.

"Some of my friends are prudes. They always have been and they always will be. That's not your fault," he said quietly.

Matthew nodded.

James darted forward and kissed him. The kiss was surprisingly soft and tender this time. James kept his face close to his for a moment for lingering kisses, holding his cheeks gently.

"You are wonderful," James murmured. "I really care for you, Matthew. I really do."

Matthew blinked furiously at him, his fingernails digging into his own wrists.

"I'm sorry I didn't give you that nice evening I promised you. I know you didn't want to come with me in the first place and I made you. And it was awkward for you. I simply thought socialising would be good for you. This was the wrong place. I'm sorry about that. We'll go home."

He ushered him out of the building and hailed a taxi, pushing him in before getting in myself.

James stared at the driver through the rear vision mirror.

"You're not a homophobe, are you driver?" James asked.

The driver looked around confused for a second before turning back to the road.

"What?"

"I asked if you were a homophobe," James asked taking Matthew hand, pulling him closer to him.

"Sir…"Matthew pleaded.

James pulled Matthew to him by his tie kissing him again, with a hand to the back of his head.

"I want you to know I'm not ashamed of you," he whispered before kissing him again with need.

Matthew put a hand to James chest pushing him away while James ran his tongue across his lower lip. "You're drunk," Matthew told him. "And this isn't appropriate." James tried to kiss him again but Matthew pulled away.

James gave him an annoyed look before looking out the window.

"No one has the right to tell me what I can and cant do."

"I wasn't telling you-"

"Im furious with Harold. How dare he?"

Matthew stayed silent, James gripping his hand tight as they were driven through the streets.

The taxi parked outside of his address and he pushed money into the driver's hand before pulling Matthew out of the taxi to the door. He unlocked the house door, never letting go of Matthew's hand.

"Im sorry for my friends, that must have made you feel awful," James said putting his hand on his shoulders. "I didn't mean for that to happen. I just wanted you to have a good night."

"Its ok, Sir."

"...Call me James?"

Matthew blinked back at him. "James," he said slowly. James' face changed for a moment, softer again, as he stroked his temples before turning away from him.

James walked away to the kitchen and opened a bottle of wine and poured himself a glass.

"Some of the people I know are arseholes," James explained before he downed the glass.

Matthew watched him drink nervously. He was drunk before he left and now he seemed intent on drinking a lot more.

James saw the look and wiggled the bottle in front of him. "Do you want one?"

Matthew shook his head. "I think I might go to bed."

"You don't want to sit up with me?"

"No, its ok."

"It's not about what stupid old Harold said was it?"

"I'm just tired."

"You exhausted yourself this morning," James told him. "Why don't you come and sit with me instead?"

Matthew shook his head. "You can put your head on my lap and have a sleep? Come on, Matthew, please?"

James took the bottle and his empty glass into the lounge room, then took Matthew's hand and led him to the lounge. He sat down and patted his lap but Matthew sat down beside him nervously.

James poured himself another glass and sat back.

"It's been some eventful few days," James sighed.

"...yep."

"I'm exhausted."

James silently drank while Matthew watched.

Matthew could see James was ruminating and angry. He looked like he'd never seen him - genuinely upset. The words he said tonight felt like a stranger. It unnerved him. He didn't like it.

"I've been alone for a long time," James finally said. "I feel like an old broken man, living alone with only my friends who tolerate me."

"You're not old. You're nowhere near old. Or broken." Matthew touched James' hand.

"I feel like it sometimes," he said licking his lips. "My friends make me feel old and broken. People respect Donald. They like him. They like Iris too. Not so much me... But that suits me fine. You know I don't socialise much."

James took a deep loud breath in and out.

"Donalds a bit older than me. His children are just a bit younger than you, you know. Had them young. I didn't go to his oldest kids 18th birthday a fortnight ago. Duckie and I had a fight. I think he's angry at me…for fucking you. I mean, he quite likes you…very protective of you infact. but... he's unhappy with me."

Matthew thinned his lips as James drank another glass and continued rambling, mot looking at Matthew.

"Iris is ok about it, but that's because she's found a few boytoys in her day since her husband left.  She can't tell me off for anything. But Harold…Harolds just a stupid twat. I've hated him since university days but Iris and Donald love him. I cant stand him. Did you hear what he said?"

"...Yes."

"How dare he judge me? How dare he feel like he can comment on you?"

"Its ok. I've heard much worse."

"You shouldn't. You shouldn't have to." James grimaced. "You shouldn't have to deal with people saying those sorts of things to you. It's unfair."

James looked at Matthew with glassy eyes. "People are arseholes. That's why I live alone. I keep to myself so I don't have to deal with them. I'm quite happy to do that…was happy…"

"What changed?" Matthew asked.

"…You."

Matthew blinked, unnerved, regretting he asked the question.

"Would you like to move in with me?" James blurted out.

"…um…"

"You're practically living here already."

"…I don't know…"

"I can look after you. I'd like to have you…as…as…ahhh...I have feelings for-"

"Maybe we should talk about this when you're sober. I sure you wouldn't ask me then."

"I'm asking you now. You wanted someone to look after. Have me."

James looked earnestly at Matthew.

"Have me until I'm dead. I'm going to get decrepit and senile soon."

"You will not. Stop acting like you're 80 and bound for a nursing home. You're nowhere near it. You're just middle aged."

"Do you think im attractive? I used to look much better when I was younger without these wrinkles and greys."

"I do."

James smiled briefly at him.

"Donald told me a old friend of mine died recently. I missed the funeral. What if that happens to me?"

"Maybe if you gave your liver a rest one night?"

"Are you calling me a drunk?"

Matthew gave him an unapologetic shrug. "Yes."

"Then i'm a grumpy drunk old man. Im going to die alone. I can just hear what they say at my funeral."

"What do you think they would say?"

James sighed. "here lies James Schmidl, a misanthrope and a drunk who never had a kind word to say to anyone. He was survived by his library of books and wine collection."

Matthew smiled. "You forgot about your brief case and suit collection."

"And my briefcase and suit collection."

James pondered over his glass.

"I don't have a partner, I don't have children, I don't have any legacy. I have my job. That's it. That's all there is "

"You're a long way off before dying."

"What if I'm not?"

"You're not sick are you?"

"No."

"Then you have nothing to worry about."

"Adam didn't have anything to worry about either. Then he died…"

There was silence between them. James was deep in thought. James started swaying a little, getting a little emotional.

"I think its time for bed," Matthew told him.

James closing his eyes before nodding. He put the glass down on the coffee table.

Matthew stood up and held his hand up for James. He took it and stood up staggering a little.

"See? Im old, I can't walk properly."

Matthew laughed. "You're very drunk."

"You'll come to bed with me?" James asked him.

"Only if you keep your hands to yourself."

James smiled slyly.

[etheraltimelessbeautybouquet]

i don’t talk much to others about the best parts of my relationship because they feel intimate and personal. like he writes these sweet and beautiful poems for me but i would never share them with anyone because it’s too close to my heart. (if he showed other people or published them or whatever i wouldn’t mind, but i won’t be the one doing that.) but at the beginning when our relationship wasn’t “serious” then we had some major disagreements and on/off moments and my friends know all about that. i really regret ever speaking about it and i wish i had kept it to myself. if i could turn back time i would. but obviously i can’t now.. there’s a few of my friends who still treat him with suspicion as if he needs to “prove” himself to them. he’s already “proved” himself to me a hundred times over but it’s hard to articulate when they ask me “what changed?”. i say that we’ve communicated better, we’re on the same page now, he makes a huge effort to come visit me, gets me gifts, etc but it’s a lot less dramatic than the bad times and it sounds kind of dull and boring to an outsider. ultimately i think if my friends continue to treat him poorly then they won’t be my friends for very long. but women are taught not to “throw away” friendships over men and i have a lot of grief and heartbreak from my former best friend of a decade who dropped me with no warning due to being in an abusive relationship where he socially isolated her from most of her friends. this is getting long but i just don’t really know how to deal with it. i’ve always felt like the odd one out in my social relationships with women, like they know more about things than i do and that if they question my judgement, i’m the one who must be doing something wrong. of course the people who are most rude to him are single and can’t find a man they actually want a relationship with. that’s not meant to shit on them but just to say that it’s different when you want to build a future with someone, you can’t hold them to some impossibly high standard and the whole course of your relationship involves conflict and resolution and forgiveness and vulnerability and intimacy which is stuff you don’t really get into on the first 3 dates.

idk. i dont even know if anyone will read this, lol. just a lot of thoughts i have that i haven’t gotten off my chest yet. i have therapy this friday so maybe i can talk about it then but we have a long list of things we need to talk about so i don’t know if we’ll get to it…

has anyone been in a similar situation before?

[violetlilysunshine]

Plenty of Times

Boyfriend Chris Evans x Female Reader

Requested - Anon: Hey! Is it all right to request for Chris Evans where reader comes in after a girls night and just dotes on him and loves on him and its sickeningly fluffy and he’s like what’s gotten into you? and reader breaks down because one of her friends vented that her husband is abusive and neglectful and she sees how important it is to have a good man in her life 🤍

WC: 1,619

Warnings: Pet names [bubba, babe, honey], talk of a bad relationship [neglectful husband - but not about Chris/reader], mention of phone sex [but it doesn’t happen here]

A/N: I’m so so so so sorry this took so long, I’m working on clearing out my inbox though! 

IF YOUR NAME IS SCRATCHED OUT I CAN’T TAG YOU - I’VE STARTED REMOVING PEOPLE, SO IF IT’S NOT WORKING AND YOU WANT TO BE TAGGED SHOOT ME A MESSAGE AND WE’LL FIGURE IT OUT

MASTERLIST - Join my TAGLIST

You haven't gone out with your friends in so long. You’re all busy with your own stuff - work and relationships, some with kids to care for. So, when the opportunity arises, Chris encourages you to take advantage of it. 

The night was pretty simple, dinner, a couple of glasses of wine, and a few shared desserts before everyone was ready to head home. Most of your friends were not night owls like you by any standard, so when dinner wrapped up early, it was no surprise. At least that meant you got to go home to your man. 

“Bubba?” you called as you walked through the front door.

“In here,” he answered.

You followed his voice to the living room, finding him lounging on the chaise sofa, Dodger soundly asleep next to him. Some movie played on the screen; you hadn’t paid attention to it long enough to know what it was.

You headed to the connected kitchen, dropping your keys and purse on the island, hanging your jacket on the back of one of the barstools, and slipping out of your boots before hurrying back to Chris. 

He paused the movie when he heard you approach him from behind. You wrapped your arms around his shoulders, your hands splayed across his chest, as you pressed a long kiss to his temple. 

He hummed at the contact, placing one hand over the top of both of yours, before turning his neck to meet your lips with his. 

The kiss was sweet and simple, you could feel him smile against your lips as you lingered longer and longer into it. 

He chuckled when you finally pulled away, a big smile etched across his face and a glimmer in his eyes. 

You unraveled from his neck and stepped around the sofa. Dodger finally perked up when he heard you walking and you greeted him of course. 

“Hey, bub,” you whispered, scratching Dodger’s head for a second before turning to Chris, “can we cuddle?” you asked quietly. 

“Sure, babe, we can always cuddle,” he answered with a small smile, opening the blanket for you. 

You slipped under, resting between his legs with your back on his chest. He wrapped the blanket and his arms around you, splaying his palms over your upper chest and rubbing gently, just as you had done to him. You ran your nails over his arm as light as a feather with one hand, the other rested on top of his clasped hands, tangling your fingers with one set of his as best you could in this position. 

You tugged on his hand, pulling his arm further over your shoulder so you could place kisses on his bicep. 

“How was girl’s night?” he asked, placing a light kiss to the top of your head.

“Fine,” you whispered, squeezing his hands for a second, “was nice to see everyone. They all seemed to need a good vent,” you ended with a breathy chuckle.

You felt his laugh rumble through your body, “don’t they always?” he asked, another kiss being placed on top of your head as he looped his legs around yours.

“Seems like,” you giggled, stroking his calf with your foot. 

“Well I hope it was nice either way,” he said, “I’m glad you got to see them.” 

“Mm, yeah, me too,” you answered quietly.

He slipped one hand from your grasp to grab the remote, causing a whine to leave your lips, disappearing into his skin as you had your lips placed on his bicep again. 

He chuckled at the noise, “want me to start it over?” he nodded, making reference to the movie.

“No, it’s okay,” you whisper, pressing another lingering kiss to his arm. 

“You sure? I’m not that far into it...” 

“I’m sure, I won’t really be paying attention anyway.” 

“Why’s that?” he asked, you could hear the smirk in his voice.

“Can’t focus with you wrapped around me,” you giggled.

“Mm, yeah, sorry not sorry,” he laughed, playing the movie again.

You giggled, bringing his hand up to your lips to give it a kiss.

He gave his other hand back to you and you entwined your fingers with it as well, giving both of his hands small squeezes every once in a while. 

You placed random kisses on his arms, pulling his hands up every now and again to press kisses to them as well. You didn’t want to do it too often, so you wouldn’t annoy him, but you couldn’t help but give him a few. 

You tilted your head to look up at him, his eyes focused on the movie before he looked down at you. 

“What’s up?” he asked, his voice sounding a little tired. 

“Nothing,” you whispered, passing him a small smile. 

“You’re lying,” he said, placing a kiss on your forehead, “what’s on your mind?” 

You sighed deeply, “have I told you how much I love you?” 

He reached over and paused the movie, quickly tangling his hand with yours again: “all the time,” he smiled. 

“And how great you are?” 

“Plenty of times,” he chuckled. 

“And how thankful I am for you?” 

“More than once,” he answered, a sense of questioning coming into his voice. 

“And how kind and good you are to me?”

“Never in those words, but you deserve it more than anything,” he said, “where’s this coming from?” 

“Jenn was really upset tonight,” you started. 

“And that has to do with me, how?” 

“She was talking about how rough her marriage is. And I know everyone says the first year is the hardest, but he doesn’t prioritize her, and never really has, and if I’m being honest I always thought she could do better; and she feels so disconnected from him and he’s so distant and she’s just not happy,” you rambled, tears pricking at your eyes, “and of course the whole time she was talking I felt so bad for her, but I couldn’t help thinking that I’m so lucky to have a guy like you and that made me feel even worse. Ya know? Like guilty because I was sitting there thinking ‘well at least I’m not in her shoes,’ and, god, you’re so good to me and I appreciate and love you so much. Don’t feel like I tell you that enough, but, you’re the best,” you finished, taking a deep breath. 

“Honey,” Chris soothed, “you have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about, first off. It’s not your fault he treats her like crap, and all you can do is support her with whatever she chooses to do about it. She can leave, or they could go to therapy, or she might just ignore it all together, but the only thing you can and should do is listen to her vent and offer support, or sometimes advice if she asks for it.”

You smile, “I know, but it’s just a shitty situation. Like I wish she wasn’t going through it, because she’s great, and I wish he was as good to her as you are to me.” 

“Well no one’s as good as me,” Chris joked, trying to lift your spirits.

You laughed lightly in response, turning over a little bit and scooting up so you could lay face to face with him. 

“Second,” he continued, “I’m only giving you what you deserve. Wish I could do a lot more sometimes, if I’m honest,” he said almost under his breath as he wrapped his arms around your back.

“Chris, you do more than enough! I should be doing more for you!” 

“Babe, you give me everything I could ever want,” he smiles, “you’re amazing. Wish I could do more, like I wish I wasn’t away from you so much. Don’t like leaving you, ever.”

“You’re the best,” you lean forward, placing a kiss on the corner of his mouth, “you do plenty for me even when you’re away.”

“Not nearly enough,” he says, “gotta come up with something new for us.” 

“We’ve done plenty of new things while you’re away.” 

“Yeah? You think?” he asks, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Hey, without you, I never would’ve tried phone sex,” you giggle, “love trying new things as long as it’s with you. Especially that thing...” 

He lets out a breathy laugh at that, “I love you too,” he says, referring back to your ramble but also your willingness to try anything for and with him.

You giggle, this time pecking his lips, “I don’t deserve you,” you whisper against his mouth. 

“No, you don’t,” he says shortly. 

You pull away from him, not expecting that to come out of his mouth. 

“You deserve better,” he smiles, a glimmer in his eye again.

“You’re so corny!” you laugh loudly, causing Dodger to grumble next to Chris. 

“Sorry, bub,” you laugh at Dodge.

“Let’s go to bed, yeah?” Chris suggests.

“What about the movie?” you ask, tipping your head towards the TV.

“Eh, won’t be able to pay attention now anyway, and I’ve lost the flow,” he shrugs. 

“Sorry to interrupt,” you whisper, stroking a few fingers across his cheekbone. 

“‘S alright,” he whispers, “like you better anyway.” 

“Thank you,” you whisper, eyelids heavy as they start to flutter closed for a kiss. 

Chris closes the distance between the two of you, pressing a sweet kiss to your lips, “I love you,” he whispers into your mouth. 

“I love you too,” you whisper back.

Your lips seal in a gentle kiss, and he brings a hand up to rest on your cheek before pulling back: “you can always make it up to me anyway,” he says, a smile giving away his attempt at being serious.

You laugh at him, “alright, bubba, let’s get you to bed.”

TAGLIST: @hogwartsmarvelmommy @tulipholland @cupids-crystals @sunwardsss @mrspeacem1nusone @elishi03 @golden-hoax  @patzammit @serrendiipty @katiew1973 @princess-evans-addict @high-on-darren-criss @gnemgn @amelia-song-pond @scorpiowidow @multixfandomwriter @wildxwidow @na-nou83 @fdl305 @gotbangtan @dumbhead1 @evansxchalamet

#chris evans #chris evans fluff #chris evans x reader #chris evans x female reader #chris evans x fem reader #chris evans imagine #chris evans oneshot #chris evans fanfiction #Chris Evans fanfic #cevans fluff #cevans #cevans x reader #cevans x female reader #violetlilysunshine #violetwrites

[ggukjinn]

Hiya! I came across your tumblr page, and I have to say that I love your writing! I saw you do Lookism, and I wasn’t sure if you were taking requests as of this moment.. but if by any chance you do them. Do you think you could possibly do a husband!Euntae Lee x pregnant reader story? +the Burn Knuckle squad’s reactions to hearing the news hehe, thought that would be interesting to see. I’ve never seen anyone do him, if any it’s rare to find. I really appreciate it if you do this! 🥺

Webtoon Masterlist | Masterlist/Rules

CHARACTER :: Euntae Lee / Vasco

GENRE :: Fluffy, slight nsfw

WARNING :: Mentions of teenage pregnancy, mentions of alcohol, mentions of gangs, mentions of unprotected sex (stay safe kids), mentions of fighting

NOTE :: omomg, after like a whole year and back n forth emails with tumblr I FINALLY got my account back after someone changed the password. I do hope that this request satisfies you and is to your liking! after I finish all the requests I am going to focus on my smau! I have aged the characters to be both 19 in their final year of high school, since in Korea that is the common age to graduate. I will do a part two to this, in a more in depth story for this.

Yours and Vasco’s little surprise happened out of nowhere.

It was just like a little “hi how are ya? I’m here now.” Kind of moment.

The Knuckle crew knew that you, Vasco, and Jace all knew each other since childhood. So you know them on a personal level.

So they were there when Vasco asked you out, took you on dates, when you attended school field trips, everything.

Some of the other students knew how close you were to the two boys.

The Knuckle crew did warn you that he was a little light weight with alcohol. Of course your shrugged it off making them believe that you could handle him and all.

But in a matter of minutes Vasco became drunk and that’s when he became clingy. At first you thought it was adorable to see him like that. Him wanting to stay close with you at all times. But of course while he was being clingy curiosity caught the cat and then you started drinking (of course in the comfort of your home)

And when two intoxicated people come together many different possibilities comes to play. But with the both of you it came to be the both of you creating your little angel.

You took notice of your pregnancy when you were hanging out with Mira.

You did not like the taste of pickles, even the smell of pickle juice made you gag and everyone who you were friends with knew this, and the moment that you ordered a small side of pickles for your burger Mira immediately got confused with that was going on.

She asked you if you were feeling alright, at first you told her you were okay, but then she mentioned that you were eating pickles, the very same thing that made you gag.

This made you stop and think for a second. Thinking about the amount of times where you'd eat pickles at random times, where your boobs suddenly started hurting, your sudden change of emotions. This made you look at Mira who already knew what was going on in your mind.

The moment that you finished eating you rushed to your nearest pharmacy to buy a pregnancy test. From there is where you knew about your little angel inside of your stomach.

Your parents did not approve of your pregnancy at first with Vasco, mainly because they believed that he was a gangster, which devastated you because during that time you didn't tell Vasco about your little discovery.

You were too scared to tell Vasco that you were pregnant, you weren't sure if he was ready for this responsibility.

But everything went out through the window when you told him. Vasco was supportive of your pregnancy.

He had made you cry when you guys had your conversation, making everything more bearable.

"Creating a child doesn't take one person, it takes two people. Don't ever be ashamed. For this, I will always support you and help you with whatever you may need."

"Are you sure you still want to be with me? Even though this is now a huge responsibility put on the both of us.?"

"You are my everything. I never regretted meeting you, even from when we were children. I knew there was something special about you, but I never knew what that was. On my life, I will protect you both from whatever danger there may be."

It was no lie that he didn't make you cry.

The way that he reassured you made you feel special.

You both decided to keep this a secret seeing how Korea's standards would be judgmental for the both of you.

Of course Vasco wanted to tell the burn knuckles. He treated them as apart of the family.

So trust and believe that they were shocked when they found out about your little angel. They were shocked that his boss would participate in night activities with you. And because they all saw that Vasco was slowly growing up.

Of course you also told some of your friends who were supportive of you as well and your decision.

One of the few things is that you'd have the burn knuckles protecting you when Vasco wasn't there, some sitting you with lunch and some away, some who were in your class watching to make sure that nothing happened to you. Even some accompanying you when you went somewhere. You had body guards everywhere you went.

And when Vasco was with you just know that it was worse, he'd watch everything like a hawk and make sure anyone who seemed threatening would not approach you at all.

When you got near your 7 months is when you felt the heat of the eyes, the school now knew that you and Vasco were parents and everyone had nasty things to say, but you didn't let that get to you, especially since you had your parents and your friends supporting you.

But that didn't mean the stress wasn't there. During the runaway time, you were stressed, especially when you found out you gotten hurt, even to the point where you gotten kidnapped, and it didn't help that during that time you were going to give birth soon.

Trust and believe when Vasco found this out he went feral. They needed the burn knuckles and everyone else who was in that group had to stop him from making irrational decisions.

Of course they had gotten you back. And just right on time. You started your labour.

Vasco was scared he thought they had did something to you that made you enter your labour early. But never less did rush you to the hospital.

The doctors were too afraid to say anything to Vasco seeing as he had tattoos and thought he was a gang member. But of course he was there for you through the whole process, just like how he promised.

And once your son/daughter came to light, he held her through all the night, even letting you sleep while watching her.

Even the burn knuckles were submitted to your sweet angel.

She was spoiled rotten by everyone you knew.

There was nothing that would stop you and your family from living together.

And everyone knew that

#lookism #lookism webtoon #lookism x reader #vasco #lookism vasco #vasco lookism #vasco x reader #reader x vasco #lookism vasco x reader #reader x vasco lookism #euntae lee x reader #reader x euntae lee #euntae #euntae lee #lookism euntae lee #euntae lee lookism #reader x euntae lee lookism #lookism euntae lee x reader #webtoon #webtoon x reader #oneshot #anime #pregancy #fanfic #fanfiction #lookism oneshot #lookism euntae oneshot #lookism euntae lee oneshot

[randomrosewrites]

I would like to request Xiao getting sick and the reader has to take care of him! uwu thank you in advance <33

a/n: You can! Sick fics are my guilty pleasure, I hope I did Xiao justice <3

Under the weather

Pairing: Xiao x GN reader Summary: Xiao falls sick, and tries very hard to not let a certain someone help him out. Words: 1.5K Tags: Sickfic, fluff, comfort, Xiao acting tough when he's really a huge softie <3

Xiao is a person who rarely gets sick. Him being an adeptus contributes to that greatly.

…key word being rarely.

There are times, where despite eons of fighting and surviving the worst wounds, his immune system fails him, and he falls sick. He detests it. It makes him feel weak. His body feels miserable and his senses are dulled for a couple of weeks afterwards. Worst of all, it brings out that sympathetic, woeful look from others, which he despises. The last thing Xiao wants is for mortals to take pity on him.

So, when he wakes up with a sore throat and a persistent cough that refuses to go away, he continues with his day as normal, refusing to let some minor bug affect his job. He eats a quick breakfast, grunts a good morning to Ver Goldet at the front, and heads to the balcony to get to work.

The rain that pours from the sky stops him dead in his tracks. Of all the days to rain, when he’s feeling bad enough as is. He glares at the sky, dark clouds showing no sign of stopping. The last thing he wants to do today is to spend the day fighting monsters in the torrent, but duty calls.

Sighing deeply, he tightens his grip on his jade polearm, grits his teeth, and steps out onto the marsh.

---

Eight hours later, when he returns, dripping water, shivering, and exhausted, he knows he’s overdone it.

He barely makes it past the threshold of the inn and into his room, collapsing onto his bed wet clothes and all. He feels awful and his cough is so bad that it steals all the breath from his lungs.

He knows he should get up, at least to strip himself of his clothes, but he just can’t find the strength to do so. It’s like his limbs are made of stone, weighed down and heavy.

Rain continues pattering against the roof, and below, Xiao can almost make out the sounds of guests talking. It’s comforting. Background noise that puts him at ease. He’s never been fond of complete silence, nor an excessive amount of noise. Xiao closes his eyes, curling himself up in a ball on his bed. Sleep pulls at his mind, making his ragged breathing steady.

He’s so out of it, he doesn’t notice another presence in his room until he feels a pressure on his head.

Terror shoots through his veins and Xiao leaps up, clumsily drawing his polearm into his hands. Too slow. He hisses to himself. He’s right. A hand wraps around his wrists, easily twisting the weapon out of harm's way. He’s considering kicking the intruder in the chest when a familiar voice grounds him to a halt.

“Woah! It’s just me, Xiao,” your eyes are wide with shock, maybe even a hint of fear.

He blinks up at you. There are no enemies. His weapon disappears in a flash of light. “What the hell. You shouldn’t sneak into other people’s rooms.”

“The door was open,” you defend, letting go of his wrists after a moment. “And the carpet was soaked all the way from outside. What happened? You sound awful.”

“I got wet.” He coughs, squeezing his eyes shut. “Agh – do you need anything? Or can I be alone?”

You frown, starting at him so intently that he averts his gaze. “You’re sick.”

“And what if I am? That’s not your concern-”

You’re already turning away before he’s finished his sentence. He wonders if you’re just going to go out the front door and leave, until you turn into the bathroom, your voice calling from inside, “I’ll run you a bath.”

What.

“What?” he asks. “Why?”

“Because you’re sick. Just stay right there, it’ll be ready in a second.”

“I don’t need you to run me a bath like I’m some…” his skin heats with anger. (Or maybe that’s just his fever.) “Child.”

“You’re not. I don’t think you are. I’m just helping you out,” you say simply.

Xiao releases a breath, clinging to his stubbornness. “I don’t need your help,” With his nose plugged, it doesn’t sound half as intimidating as he wants to be.

Your response is light and tender, almost understanding. It makes Xiao’s throat tighten. “I know, Xiao.”

He doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he sits on the edge of his bed, listening to your shuffling. The water runs and after a few minutes, you exit, sleeves rolled up to your elbows.

“It’s all set, go in whenever you feel ready.”

Xiao gets up, clearing his throat. “Alright.”

He probably should say something else, but he doesn’t know what else to say. So, he awkwardly shuffles into the bathroom, feeling his cheeks burn as he closes the door behind him. The bath is fancier than anything he’s ever taken. A few bubbles foam in the water, and if his nose weren’t plugged, he’d be able to smell the fresh scent of Fontaine bath salts.

He strips quickly and carefully lowers himself into the water, sighing as the knots in his muscles unravel. He lets himself soak for a bit longer than necessary, slowly scrubbing his skin, only getting out once the bath starts to lose its heat. The steam does wonders for his breathing. By the time he dries himself with a towel and changes into a fresh set of clothes, he can breathe through one nostril again.

When he exits, you’ve gotten the blankets changed and are sitting in a chair by the side of the bed. A magazine is open on your lap, one of the ones that came with the room that he’s never read. You close it when you see him.

“Why are you still here?”

“Because you’re sick and need someone to care for you,” you turn, digging around in your bag by your feet. “I also want to take your temperature.”

He folds his arms and does his best to seem imposing. “I’ve survived for eons without the need for anyone else, what makes you think I’ll let you take care of me now?”

“I’m not asking,” you sit up, and with all the patience (or stubbornness) Xiao’s ever seen, pat the bed. “Come here, Xiao.”

He hesitates a minute more before ultimately giving in, planting himself in front of you. A thermometer is placed in his mouth, which he begrudgingly accepts. The chills start to return, so he picks up one of the blankets carefully folded at the edge of the bed and wraps himself in it.

His nose isn’t working, so it comes to a shock when he sees the steaming bowl of miso soup on his bedside dresser, boiled bits of soft tofu floating in the broth.

“Is that…mine…?” It sounds silly the moment he says it out loud, and curses himself for it.

“Mhm. I had the staff bring it up when you were in the bathroom. It’s plain, so it won’t upset your stomach, but I want to get some medicine in you before you have any.”

A bath…food…medicine…he almost feels sick with how much care you’re treating him with.

“This is stupid…” he murmurs as you pour a vile of red liquid into a small medicine cup. He has half the mind to tell you mortal medicine won’t work but knowing your stubbornness, he wouldn’t doubt that you’d gone ahead and purchased special medicine from the pharmacy in Liyue Harbor.

“Stupid is going out into the rain and catching a cold,” you quip back. There’s no aggression to your words, he almost feels bad when he responds with a snarky comment.

“I was already sick before I went out.”

You stop to stare at him, narrowing your eyes in a way that makes Xiao’s insides turn, before sighing. “Stupid is going out into the rain when you were already sick. Give me the thermometer, please.”

His temperature is high, by both mortal and adeptal standards. You force him to swallow two tablespoons of medicine that tastes like ashes and he manages a few spoonfuls of the soup before his stomach protests. He wraps the blankets around him, frowning when you get up and tuck the sheets around his body.

“I didn’t need your help.”

You brush the bangs from his forehead. Xiao’s eyes flutter for a brief moment. He doesn’t push you away. “Whatever you say, Xiao.”

“Let me finish,” he snaps, before collecting himself. He really needs to stop doing that. “I didn’t need your help, but…I appreciate it.”

Your eyes widen a smidge before a small smile spreads across your face, making Xiao’s temperature rise even more.

“You’re welcome, Xiao. Sweet dreams.”

You sit by his bedside until he falls asleep, feeling the safest and more comfortable than he’s ever been in a while. Xiao doesn’t dream anymore, but if he did, he knows it would have been a peaceful one.

#genshin impact #xiao #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact scenarios #genshin impact fiction #genshin impact fanfiction #xiao x reader #xiao imagines #xiao x you #xiao x y/n #genshin impact headcanons #xiao scenarios #my writing

[shining-magically]

so I’ve wondered this since the trailer came out years and years ago and Chloe defended the movie - was the red shoes teaser written by the same team that made the movie? were they forced to market it like that, was that based on an earlier draft, etc?? not sure if you know but you seem like the leading expert!

Sorry, this is gonna be an absolute novel because you know I’m an animation fan and the history and production of Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs is SO interesting and insane. Like, Tangled levels of insane. Thanks for calling me an expert, no one else was gonna do it so I just kind of took up the helm lol.

Here’s the low-down... The timeline of the movie’s production is an absolute mess and kind of an extremely wild ride. It was in production for ten years, went through a lot of different crew members, and went through at least two other major versions of the story before landing on the final version.

Since there’s not a ton of info on the movie’s production, a lot of this is pieced together from different interviews and context clues, and also a lot of what I’ve read and what I am quoting has been translated from Korean, sometimes pretty roughly. But yeah.

Here’s the story of why the Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs teasers and poster were so, so bad and fatshame-y and the actual movie was so, so good and body-positive. (With pictures and production artwork!)

(This is a beast of a post so I’m putting it under a cut.)

All right, so. After its conception originally as a short story by the South Korean studio Locus Creative in 2009-2010-ish, Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs was being worked on and was set to come out in Summer 2017, as evidenced by this poster at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, featuring a different logo and very different character designs for most of the dwarfs.

In early-mid 2016, the first teaser (in which we see Snow White undress and then two dwarfs recoil in horror at her fatness when she takes her magic shoes off) was released, after the film had kind of been slowly chugging along for 6 or so years. (I am having such trouble pinpointing when the second teaser was released (in which one of the dwarfs basically attacks Snow while she is sleeping to steal her shoes), but I believe it was around the same time.) The teasers didn’t get that much traction because this was a small film from a small indie studio in South Korea.

None of the final actors had been cast yet. At this point in the production, the story was different, one of the many versions that the movie went through. As in the final movie, the dwarfs were actually cursed knights/princes and Snow White switched back and forth between two body types due to her magic shoes, but in this version, the dwarfs needed to steal the shoes from her in order to break their curse (rather than needing “a kiss from the most beautiful woman in the world” like in the final movie).

The weird thing is, I believe they had JUST changed the movie’s story when the teaser came out. I’m almost positive it was released more as a proof of concept than as an actual trailer for the movie. They had just recently combined two separate characters (seen above), a typical pretty, skinny princess character (Snow White) and a cute chubby girl character (’Bonnie’), into one single character that switches back and forth between the two appearances when she wears the magic shoes (also they had just dropped literally half of the movie taking place in the real world, with a magic mirror portal, it was a whole thing). 

They didn’t have the details of this aspect of the new story hammered out yet, and the first pass at presenting Snow’s magically changing body type, was, yeah, not good and super offensive. This was a really inexperienced indie studio making their first film on a low budget, so even the animation and voice acting wasn’t great. I think they just wanted to get SOMETHING out there because it had been 6 years and they wanted to have something to show for it.

But here’s the thing. Despite how the teasers make it seem, this was always supposed to be a movie about body positivity, letting go of appearance-based prejudices, and loving yourself and others for who you are and for who they are, which we see in the final film.

I like to think of our film as a kindhearted one. Our intentions are nice.

- Director Sung-ho Hong

It’s important to keep in mind that this movie was made in South Korea by a 99% Korean crew, and, as I understand it anyway, in Korean culture, ‘fatshaming’ is not really a thing that is seen as overtly offensive. Also, children’s media there seems to have more adult things in it than in the US, which probably accounts for the more risque parts of the teasers. That said, I really believe that at this point in the timeline, the movie was on-track to be bad (or at least not very good) when it was released, and it would have ended up bad IF a few key players hadn’t signed on (which I’ll get to in a moment).

Interestingly, the movie’s producer, Sujin Hwang, said in a 2017 interview:

“[Both teasers] were solely produced to induce curiosity. They’re completely irrelevant to the actual story.”

- Producer Sujin Hwang

I think what she was trying to convey was that neither one is a scene in the actual movie, because while the teasers didn’t reflect the revamped story as it existed in summer 2017 (the time of the interview), they DID reflect the earlier version of the story where the dwarfs wanted her shoes, which is what the story was at the time they were made.

Now that we’re in post-teaser 2016, HERE’S where things start to turn around. After the teasers were released, my guy Disney veteran and native Korean Jin Kim joined the project. He and Red Shoes director Sung-ho Hong had been buddies for about eight years and Sung-ho had been trying to get Jin to come to Seoul and work with him at Locus for a long time, and he finally succeeded.

Jin and his twenty years of Disney experience as an animator and senior designer on films like Tangled, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, and Moana, had a HUGE HUGE HUGE influence on the movie. He redesigned almost all the characters, oversaw all the visual development from the moment he signed on, and heavily (HEAVILY) supervised the animation, literally going frame-by-frame through preliminary animations and drawing over them, teaching the inexperienced animators at Locus everything he knew. (Literally almost everyone except him either only had TV experience or had no professional experience because they just gotten out of school.)

From an outsider’s perspective, it really seems as though Jin joining the project (and his gargantuan effort) made the quality SKYROCKET. Not just in character design and animation, but also in things like effects animation, story, etc. After he joined, Locus really started pushing HARD to make a good, high-quality movie, and his influence and experience from being a prominent figure at Disney was absolutely key. The studio also began to really study Disney films and other well-made animated films from other studios to really try and pinpoint what the DNA of a good animated movie really is.

I don’t have any solid evidence, but I’m pretty sure that Tony Bancroft (an animator and the co-director of Mulan) then joined the project because he’s good friends with Jin Kim. He is only credited as the voice director (the movie was recorded in English and the characters were animated to the English dialogue), but I am SURE that he probably also had a pretty big influence on the movie, because like... How could he not? I really really think there was more to his role than his title would have you believe, even though there’s almost no info out there about it.

So now the movie goes through a gigantic metamorphosis. Character designs, visual development, and animation quality are all rapidly improving, the story is tightening, and the themes of the movie (which, again, were always the same and intended to be positive) are being presented in a more sincere way. The movie is becoming the sweet, self-love-encouraging and body-positive movie that was eventually released.

I’m putting a gif from the credits of the final movie here. As we move into 2017, when the giant eruption of backlash occurred, please keep in mind that the story was finalized at this point and that THIS was the movie people were so mad about:

Chloe Grace Moretz accepted the role of Snow White immediately after she read the script and she recorded her lines (I think) in early-ish 2017. Her co-star Sam Claflin also immediately accepted the role of the romantic interest, Merlin, after reading the script and recorded his lines in (I believe) July 2017.

In the summer of 2017, the story and script were more or less the same as in the final movie. Promotional images from that time show that most of dwarfs had been completely redesigned by this point and didn’t have their teaser designs anymore.

They also released a few screenshots that look exactly like the final film. The movie was advertised as coming out in ‘2018′ at this point. Here’s a promo image from 2017 that is MUCH more tactfully worded than the infamous Cannes poster:

So now we’re in summer 2017. The Cannes Film Festival. The movie’s script and story have been basically nailed down, animation is underway, and the Korean film company Finecut is beginning to market and sell the movie to worldwide audiences. They are planning on showing some footage to potential buyers at the festival, and they make a poster to advertise the film there.

Unfortunately, it’s THIS POSTER:

Now here’s where there are some unknowns. By this point, the movie is basically in its final form, which is an adorable, body-positive story about loving people for who they are, loving yourself for who YOU are, and that provides commentary on society’s standards of beauty and how they affect how people are treated/viewed. So why this poster??? All I can really tell is that someone (I think Finecut) really, REALLY messed up and either horribly mistranslated the tagline, or didn’t do enough research to know that this kind of thing is REALLY NOT OKAY in western culture.

The above picture is shared and the internet backlash begins, fueled by tweets from prominent body-positivity activists like Tess Holliday. Even Chloe Grace Moretz speaks out against it, because she of all people KNOWS that that’s not what the movie is about. The internet then finds the old teasers from before the movie was revamped and it makes things worse. Producer Sujin Hwang profusely apologizes and says that that is NOT the message of the movie. Locus pulls the advertising campaign, and takes down the two old teasers.

“Our film, a family comedy, carries a message designed to challenge social prejudices related to standards of physical beauty in society by emphasizing the importance of inner beauty.”

- Producer Sujin Hwang

Voice director Tony Bancroft also tried to explain the situation:

“The truth is the film has a body-positive message as its core theme–it’s the opposite of what reports are saying. The problem is one poorly translated movie poster that has been taken dramatically out of context.” 

- Voice Director Tony Bancroft

And then... There was nothing for a while. The movie didn’t come out in 2018 and was delayed. From what I can tell, I DON’T believe this delay was related to the Cannes backlash. I think it was mostly due to Locus’s limited budget and resources, because as we know, animation is difficult, time-consuming, expensive, and easy to do badly but hard to do well. Also, probably with Jin Kim and Tony Bancroft’s influence, they REALLY wanted to make sure to do a good job with the animation because they now had a great story and they really wanted the movie to be a quality, worldwide hit that would kind of put South Korean feature animation on the map. Just take a look at how nice the final animation was:

The movie was released in South Korea on July 25th, 2019. Unfortunately, the damage was done in the English-speaking markets and it was not released to an English-speaking audience until June 22, 2020, when it was released digitally in the UK. At the time of this post, there is no set US release date, but the distribution rights were recently bought by Lionsgate and the MPAA gave the film an official PG rating.

So who’s to blame? There’s no good answer. You could blame Locus for making those old teasers. You could blame Finecut for the competely tonedeaf Cannes poster. You could even blame cancel culture for raging against the movie based on one poster and two old teaser trailers without researching what the movie was actually about.

All I know is, it’s a damn shame.

#mooncactus #red shoes and the seven dwarfs #red shoes and the 7 dwarfs #animation #animation production #animation history #red shoes movie #redshoes #jin kim #tony bancroft

[fatliberation]

I’m Abandoning Body Positivity and Here’s Why

In short: it’s fatphobic.

“A rallying cry for a shift in societal norms has now become the skinny girl’s reassurance that she isn’t really fat. Fatness, through this lens of ‘body positivity’, remains the worst thing a person can be.” (Kayleigh Donaldson)

•  •  •

I have always had a lot of conflicting opinions about the body positivity movement, but it’s much more widely known (and accepted, go figure) than the fat liberation movement, so I often used the two terms interchangeably in conversation about anti-fatness. But the longer I’ve been following the body positivity movement, the more I’ve realized how much it has strayed from its fat lib origins. It has been hijacked; deluded to center thin, able, white, socially acceptable bodies.

Bopo’s origins are undoubtedly grounded in fat liberation. The fat activists of the 1960s paved the way for the shred of size acceptance we see in media today, initially protesting the discrimination and lack of access to equal opportunities for fat people specifically. This early movement highlighted the abuse, mental health struggles, malpractice in the medical field, and called for equal pay, equal access, equal respect, an end to fatphobic structures and ideas. It saddens me that it hasn’t made much progress in those regards. 

Today, the #bopo movement encapsulates more the idea of loving your own body versus ensuring that individuals regardless of their weight and appearance are given equal opportunities in the workplace, schools, fashion and media. Somehow those demands never made it outside of the ‘taboo’ category, and privileged people would much more readily accept the warm and fuzzy, sugar-coated message of “love yourself!” But as @yrfatfriend once said, this idea reduces fat people’s struggles to a problem of mindset, rather than a product of external oppressors that need to be abolished in order for fat people to live freely.

That generalized statement, “love yourself,” is how a movement started by fat people for the rights of fat people was diluted so much, it now serves a thin model on Instagram posting about how she has a tummy roll and cellulite on her thighs - then getting praised for loving her body despite *gasp!* its minor resemblance to a fat body. 

Look. Pretty much everyone has insecurities about their bodies, especially those of us who belong to marginalized groups. If you don’t have body issues, you’re a privileged miracle, but our beauty-obsessed society has conditioned us to want to look a certain way, and if we have any features that the western beauty standard considers as “flaws,” yeah! We feel bad about it! So it’s not surprising that people who feel bad about themselves would want to hop on a movement that says ‘hey, you’re beautiful as you are!’ That’s a message everyone would like to hear. Any person who has once thought of themselves as less than beautiful now feels that this movement is theirs. And everyone has insecurities, so everyone feels entitled to the safe space. And when a space made for a minority includes the majority, the cycle happens again and the majority oppresses the minority. What I’m trying to explain here is that thin people now feel a sense of ownership over body positive spaces. 

Regardless of how badly thin people feel about their bodies, they still experience thin privilege. They can sit down in a theater or an airplane without even thinking about it, they can eat in front of others without judgement, they can go the doctor with a problem and actually have it fixed right away, they can find cute clothes in their size with ease, they do not suffer from assumptions of laziness/failure based on stereotype, they see their body type represented everywhere in media, the list goes on and on. They do not face discrimination based off of the size of their body. 

Yet diet culture and fatphobia affects everyone, and of course thin people do still feel bad about the little fat they have on their bodies. But the failure to examine WHY they feel bad about it, is what perpetuates fatphobia within the bopo movement. They’re labeled “brave” for showing a pinch of chub, yet fail to address what makes it so acceptably daring, and how damaging it is to people who are shamed for living in fat bodies. Much like the rest of society, thin body positivity is still driven by the fear of fat, and does nothing to dismantle fatphobia within structures or within themselves.

Evette Dionne sums it up perfectly in her article, “The Fragility of Body Positivity: How a Radical Movement Lost Its Way.”

“The body-positive media economy centers these affirming, empowering, let-me-pinch-a-fat-roll-to-show-how-much-I-love-myself stories while failing to actually challenge institutions to stop discriminating against fat people. More importantly, most of those stories center thin, white, cisgender, heterosexual women who have co-opted the movement to build their brands. Rutter has labeled this erasure ‘Socially Acceptable Body Positivity.’

“On social media, it actually gets worse for fat bodies: We’re not just being erased from body positivity, fat women are being actively vilified. Health has become the stick with which to beat fat people with [sic], and the benchmark for whether body positivity should include someone” (Dionne).

Ah, yes. The medicalization of fat bodies, and the moralization of health. I’ve ranted about this before. Countless comments on posts of big women that say stuff like “I’m all for body positivity, but this is just unhealthy and it shouldn’t be celebrated.” I’ve heard writer/activist Aubrey Gordon once say that body positivity has become something like a shield for anti-fatness. It’s anti-fatness that has been repackaged as empowerment. It’s a striking double-standard. Fat people are told to be comfortable in their bodies (as if that’s what’s going to fix things) but in turn are punished when they’re okay with being fat. Make it make sense.

Since thin people feel a sense of ownership over body positive spaces, and they get to hide behind “health” when they are picking and choosing who can and cannot be body positive, they base it off of who looks the most socially acceptable. And I’m sure they aren’t consciously picking and choosing, it comes from implicit bias. But the socially acceptable bodies they center are small to medium fat, with an hourglass shape. They have shaped a new beauty standard specifically FOR FAT PEOPLE. (Have you ever seen a plus sized model with neck fat?? I’m genuinely asking because I have yet to find one!) The bopo movement works to exclude and silence people who are on the largest end of the weight spectrum. 

Speaking of exclusion, let’s talk about fashion for a minute.

For some reason, (COUGH COUGH CAPITALISM) body positivity is largely centered around fashion. And surprise surprise, it’s still not inclusive to fat people. Fashion companies get a pat on the back for expanding their sizing two sizes up from what they previously offered, when they are still leaving out larger fat people completely. In general, clothing companies charge more for clothes with more fabric, so people who need the largest sizes are left high and dry. It’s next to impossible to find affordable clothes that also look nice. Fashion piggybacks on the bopo movement as a marketing tactic, and exploits the very bodies it claims to be serving. (Need I mention the time Urban Outfitters used a "curvy” model to sell a size it doesn’t even carry?)

The movement also works to exclude and silence fat Black activists.

In her article, “The Body Positivity Movement Both Takes From and Erases Fat Black Women” Donyae Coles explains how both white people and thin celebrities such as Jameela Jamil profit from the movement that Black women built.

“Since long before blogging was a thing, fat Black women have been vocal about body acceptance, with women like Sharon Quinn and Marie Denee, or the work of Sonya Renee Taylor with The Body Is Not An Apology. We’ve been out here, and we’re still here, but the overwhelming face of the movement is white and thin because the mainstream still craves it, and white and thin people have no problem with profiting off the work of fat, non-white bodies.”

“There is a persistent belief that when thin and/or white people enter the body positive realm and begin to repeat the messages that Black women have been saying for years in some cases, when they imitate the labor that Black women have already put in that we should be thankful that they are “boosting” our message. This completely ignores the fact that in doing so they are profiting off of that labor. They are gaining the notoriety, the mark of an expert in something they learned from an ignored Black woman” (Coles).

My next essay will go into detail about this and illuminate key figures who paved the way for body acceptance in communities of color. 

The true purpose of this movement has gotten completely lost. So where the fuck do we go from here? 

We break up with it, and run back to the faithful ex our parents disapproved of. We go back to the roots of the fat liberation movement, carved out for us by the fat feminists, the queer fat activists, the fat Black community, and the allies it began with. Everything they have preached since the 1960s and 70s is one hundred percent applicable today. We get educated. We examine diet culture through a capitalist lens. We tackle thin, white-supremacist systems and weight based discrimination, as well as internalized bias. We challenge our healthcare workers to unlearn their bias, treat, and support fat patients accordingly. We make our homes and spaces accessible and welcoming to people of any size, or any (dis)ability. “We must first protect and uplift people in marginalized bodies, only then can we mandate self-love” (Gordon).

Think about it. In the face of discrimination, mistreatment, and emotional abuse, we as a society are telling fat people to love their bodies, when we should be putting our energy toward removing those fatphobic ideas and structures so that fat people can live in a world that doesn’t require them to feel bad about their bodies. It’s like hitting someone with a rock and telling them not to bruise!

While learning to love and care for the body that you’re in is important, I think that body positivity also fails in teaching that because it puts even more emphasis on beauty. Instead of saying, “you don’t have to be ‘beautiful’ to be loved and appreciated,” its main lesson is that “all bodies are beautiful.” We live in a society obsessed with appearance, and it is irresponsible to ignore the hierarchy of beauty standards that exist in every space. Although it should be relative, “beautiful” has been given a meaning. And that meaning is thin, abled, symmetric, and eurocentric. 

Beauty and ugliness are irrelevant, made-up constructs. People will always be drawn to you no matter what, so you deserve to exist in your body without struggling to conform to an impossible and bigoted standard. Love and accept your body for YOURSELF AND NO ONE ELSE, because you do not exist to please the eyes of other people. That’s what I wish we were teaching instead. Radical self acceptance!

As of today, the ultimate message of the body positivity movement is: Love your body “despite its imperfections.” Or people with “perfect and imperfect bodies both deserve love.” As long as we are upholding the notion that there IS a perfect body that looks a certain way, and every body that falls outside of that category is imperfect, we are upholding white supremacy, eugenics, anti-fatness, and ableism.

#body positivity #bopo #body posi #body positive #body acceptance #fat acceptance #fat activism #fat liberation #anti fatness #anti blackness #anti fat bias #lookism #beauty standards #self acceptance

[candyflosstoxicity]

Wanna Be Your Setting Lotion

Endeavor x Black!Reader

Warnings: 18+, minors DNI. Power imbalance. Unsafe sex. Creampie. Breeding kink. Breath play. Pain play.

Despite the sizable uptick in his popularity after triumphing over the High-End Nomu, Enji still felt that his ability to relate to the everyday civilians was sorely lacking. There was still some doubt amongst the masses that he could be a suitable replacement for All Might. As much as that stung his ego, Enji knew that their misgivings weren’t unfounded.

He had promised his son that he would become a hero that he could be proud to call his father, and that meant more than just saving lives. Enji had to work to build a relationship with the public, and be a hero that was not only powerful, but approachable and relatable.

So, with his secretary’s assistance, Enji reached out to the most highly recommended media relations agency in Musutafu and requested that they pair him with a very particular type of publicist. He made sure to specify that they had to be thick-skinned and prepared to undertake all the work that would come with being the publicist to the number one hero. Though he had certainly made some important changes within himself, he still didn’t know how to talk to people and didn’t want to send the publicist running for the hills.

That was how you ended up standing outside the Endeavor Hero Agency. The glass skyscraper gleamed brightly under the sun, and really impressed upon you that this was happening. You had been assigned your first hero, but not just any run of the mill hero and it honestly had you feeling nervous in a way that you never had before. It’s not as if you doubted your ability to manage and improve the Flame Hero’s public image, but this was a major assignment that could either launch your career into the stratosphere or sink it like a stone.

After taking a few deep breaths to steady yourself, you walked briskly through the front entrance and into the main lobby, where you were greeted by the receptionist. You explained who you were and what you were there for, and she immediately hopped up from her desk in a panic and hastily led you to the elevator. It did nothing to quell your anxiety, because if his receptionist was losing her cool, what chance did you have against the man?

Upon reaching the top floor, the receptionist all but shoved you out of the elevator, giving you a hasty “good luck” while frantically pushing the button to close the door. You stumbled forward and were faced with a large, hardwood door. Having decided that you simply could not delay your assignment any further, you squared your shoulders, took decisive steps forward, and knocked on the door.

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

That was several months ago, and you could say with hindsight that you were right to be anxious. While working for Endeavor was the best way to cut your teeth as a publicist, the man himself was...something fucking else.

It wasn’t just that he was physically intimidating, with his towering height and mountains of muscle. Honestly, you were able to quickly get past that and start working towards building a friendly, yet professional relationship with your boss. Except, he was the most tight-lipped, awkward person you had ever dealt with when he wasn’t in the process of saving lives. And when he was actually somewhat talkative, he was so intense that it left you flustered.

However, Enji always treated you with respect and courtesy, and when you did well, he told you as much. Heat would crawl its way from the top of your head to the tips of your toes whenever he would tell you, “You’ve done excellent work this week, (L/N)-san. Your efforts are appreciated.”

To anyone else and coming from anyone else, it might not mean much, but Todoroki Enji wasn’t just anyone. He had high standards for all of his employees, and you were no exception. Praise from him was hard to come by, and when it was directed at you, it made you feel some type of way.

It was obvious to everyone with a pulse that Enji was an incredibly attractive man. Indeed, every interview you scheduled for him with a female journalist found him being inundated with coy smiles, flirting, and pointed questions about his relationship status.

To be fair, you had asked him the same question, but only because it was important for you to know as the person who handled all of his public relations. It definitely wasn’t because you were lusting after your client and hoping that he was free to maybe, someday, knock your walls down.

Still, you had always prided yourself on being the consummate professional, so you refrained from asking any questions that were too personal. Even though you were so often alone with Enji in his penthouse office, with little to no interruption, and a lot of plush furniture he could fuck you on…

You shook your head sharply, your dark, curly hair moving with the motion. ‘Focus, bitch. Don’t be a goofy and try to fuck your boss. He would probably fire your ass before you could ask for a crumb of dick.’

It didn’t matter if you hadn’t gotten laid since you started working as his publicist; you were NOT going to fuck Todoroki Enji.

Little did you know, Enji was enduring his own share of suffering and sexual frustration. And he had no intentions of denying himself. For him, it was simply a matter of opportunity.

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

It was finally Friday evening, and Enji was more than ready for the weekend. After a solid week of double patrols, while squeezing in PR appearances that you had set up for him, he just wanted to sit down in his recliner at home and have a stiff drink. He was sitting at his desk with his laptop open, finishing up some last minute paperwork on a report he needed to submit to the Hero Public Safety Commission by Monday.

Just as he put the final signature on the last page, you came bursting through his office door, without knocking, of course. Not that he minded; it was always a treat to see you, even if you were a bit...distracting. Your shapely legs carried you briskly towards his desk and he couldn’t help but admire how enticing they looked sheathed in your sheer stockings. He almost missed what you were trying to tell him, too busy imagining them wrapped around his waist.

“Endeavor-san, I’m sorry to disturb you right before quittin’ time, but I just finalized the details of your appearance on Present Mic’s late night radio show for next weekend,” you chirped with no small amount of satisfaction. Ah, right; Enji had agreed to make time for that, considering Mic was very popular with the young crowd and an appearance on his show would do wonders for his popularity with that demographic.

“He promised to keep it light and casual, and most of the time block will be spent playing some music that you both enjoy. I cross-referenced his playlist with the list you compiled, and y’all have some bangers in common. We’ll need to go over your note cards again, but I’m sure you’ve got that part covered by now.”

Your eyes were focused on the folder in your hands, flipping through the papers there as you went over the last minute details. Enji’s eyes were watching you, though, and he found himself struggling to give a damn about Present Mic or his radio show. Not when you were standing before him, a radiant vision of smooth brown skin and a halo of curls. How badly he wanted to sink his fingers into them and tug your head back, make you submit to him…

“Endeavor-san, are you listening?”

The question coming from your pretty lips, in that sweet, but sharp voice, was enough to finally get his attention. He tore his gaze from your petite frame and looked up to see your dark brown eyes staring at him sternly. Enji coughed and shifted in his chair, trying to subtly adjust his now rock hard dick.

“My apologies, (Y/N), I’m a bit worn out from this week,” he hastily assured you. “If you wouldn’t mind emailing those notes to me, I will look over them again this weekend.”

Your expression softened and you tossed the folder onto his desk before walking around to the side and perching yourself on the edge. Enji could practically feel the blood rush to his dick with you sitting so close to him, the scent of your perfume immediately clouding his mind. Your already short skirt rode up even higher and he had to force himself to look you in the eye, which he regretted shortly after.

“Have I been riding you too hard, sir?”

Enji’s eyes narrowed slightly at you, thinking that you must be toying with him. But, your face was devoid of cunning, and you seemed genuinely concerned for his well-being. He wasn’t used to that kind of consideration from really anyone, especially not one of his employees.

“No, far from it. You probably take it a bit too easy on me, but you still produce amazing results. I would be completely clueless about this public relations crap if I didn’t have someone as bright and clever in my corner,” Enji rumbled, almost bashfully, the tips of his ears still pink from your accidental innuendo.

He had no way of knowing, but the feeling that Enji’s praise gave you was like a shot of adrenaline to you. Warmth bloomed in your cheeks, and you quickly began stuttering and trying to downplay your contribution. However, Enji was having none of it and reached out to grab your anxiously fluttering hands, which had the desired effect of shutting you up.

But, Enji didn’t stop there. He was tired of you not giving yourself enough credit. More than that, he was tired of only being able to show his gratitude in words. So, he took advantage of your size difference and tugged you into his arms and then settled you on his right thigh, forcing you to straddle the muscular appendage.

“E-Endeavor-san?!” you squeaked out. Your tiny hands were encased in his much larger ones and even that small bit of skin to skin contact was enough to set a fire low in your belly.

“Please, call me Enji. It seems a bit formal considering the things I want to do to you.”

“And what exactly do you want to do to me, Enji?” Your voice was low and breathless, but he could see the excitement clearly in your deep brown eyes.

He released your hands and let his own wander down the curve of your sides to settle on your hips. Still maintaining eye contact with you, he engulfed the soft flesh there with a gentle, but firm squeeze. You gasped softly and instinctually ground down against the flexing muscles of his thigh.

Enji growled lowly in his throat and took one hand off your hip, and reached up to bury it in the soft curls that framed your gorgeous face. At first, he gently massaged the scalp with his fingertips, but when he felt you relax, Enji used the curls at your nape to tug your head back.

He loved how small you were in his arms, how easily he towered over you and controlled your movements. And there you were, gasping and squirming in his lap, letting him touch you in such a dominating way. It stoked a fire within him that he hadn’t felt in a long while, urging him to make you fall apart under his touch.

“There are so many things that I want to do to this tight, little body,” Enji whispered against your throat. He placed a heated kiss there, followed by a gentle nip before continuing, “But, for now, I want you to ride my thigh.”

To his delight, you didn’t hesitate to start meekly rolling your hips forward, your skirt bunching up around your waist with the motions. Still, you seemed to be holding yourself back, and he was having none of that. Using the hand that was still gripping your hip, Enji forced you to press down harder and move faster. Getting the message, you braced your palms against his broad, solid chest and began grinding against him in earnest.

The filthy moans you let spill from your plump lips were music to Enji’s ears, and he struggled to refrain from just ripping your stockings off and sliding your down onto his aching dick. There would be plenty of time for that later, but in that moment, he wanted to make you felt just how appreciated you were.

“Come on, little sparrow, I know you’re close. I can feel you soaking my pants leg.”

The desperation and desire in his voice drove your lust even higher. That, combined with the friction of your nylon stockings against your bare pussy, had you teetering on the edge of release.

“Please, sir!” You didn’t know what you were asking for, but he seemed to. And he was going to make you beg for it.

“Please what?”

“I...I want you to fuck me, sir! Please let me cum on your dick,” you pleaded with a breathless whine, never ceasing your wanton grinding.

“Oh, you will be cumming on my dick. But, first, you’re going to make yourself nice and sloppy for me.”

Enji gripped your hair tighter and pulled your head back until your spine arched. Now, your nails were digging into the skin of his pectorals, but he didn’t care because the end result was you humping against him with reckless abandon. No longer needing to guide your movements, he reached up and wrapped his other hand around your delicate throat, squeezing just enough to make the blood rush to your head. That was just enough to tip you right over the edge.

“Oh, oh!” Your hips began to stutter slightly in their movements as your orgasm crept up on you. A scream that surprised you, but made Enji growl in triumph, was ripped from your throat as you bucked wildly through the peak of your release. Letting go of your tresses and throat, Enji pulled you gently into his chest and ran his hands soothingly down your back. As your body trembled and quaked through the vestiges of your orgasm, he murmured soft praises into the crown of your hair.

“You did such a good job for me, baby girl. I’m so proud of you and all your hard work. Are you ready for your reward now?”

Despite the fact that you had just cum your brains out, his words of praise had you moaning wantonly, your head bobbing lazily in consent. Enji wasted no time in standing you up between his legs, supporting your weight effortlessly as he slid his hands up your inner thighs towards the crotch of your stockings. A brief, but loud ripping sound echoed in the spacious office, and then you felt a cool breeze against your soaked lips. Enji took a moment to run a thick finger through your dainty folds, making you shudder and moan.

Enji considered having you ride him again, but a glance at the large sectional he had in the corner of the room gave him other ideas. Picking you up as if you weighed nothing, he carried you to the luxurious piece of furniture and laid you down on your back. He immediately covered your body with his own and locked his lips with yours, the kiss quickly turning heated. While your lips moved together with unrestrained passion, he busied himself with undoing his belt and slacks. Once he got them undone, he freed his aching length from the confines of his underwear, hissing at the sensation of the cool air hitting the too hot skin.

Pulling away from your soft warmth, Enji made you look him in the eye before he asked, “It seems a bit late to ask, but are you sure this is what you want?”

Thinking he was just being considerate, you smiled softly up at him and nodded in affirmation. He kissed you hard, one more time, before looking down to guide his more than impressive dick to your dripping entrance. As soon as he pressed the head in, you knew what he was really asking you before, which was whether you could handle being stretched to your absolute limit.

You threw your head back, pressing into the soft cushion underneath you, and struggled to breathe around the sensation of his girth splitting you open. It was a good thing he made sure you were wet enough beforehand, otherwise, you were sure that you wouldn’t have been able to take all of him.

Enji made sure to take his time pressing in and withdrawing, inch by inch, enraptured by the sight of your pretty pussy stretching around him. It was a couple minutes more before he was fully seated inside you, the head of his dick pressed snugly against your cervix. He paused his movements to press sweet, but rough kisses along your jaw and collarbones. You reached up and buried your fingers in his hair, applying the barest pressure to bring his face closer to yours so you could press your foreheads together.

“I’d really like for you to move now,” you panted softly. Sure, it was quite the stretch having him inside you, but it didn’t hurt and you were still filled with a burning desire to be wrecked by the giant hovering over you.

Withdrawing slowly, so slowly, Enji paused again to watch your face as he gave a quick, experimental thrust. The cry of pleasure you let out snapped his resolve to continue taking it slow, and he began to fuck into you with a vigor. All you could do is tighten your grip on his red locks and hold on for the ride.

“God, you feel so good wrapped around me. Do you have any idea how long I have wanted this? How many times I’ve fantasized about fucking into you like this, making you my little cumdump?”

Enji was actually caught off guard with how visceral your reaction was to his dirty talk. He didn’t think it possible, but you became even tighter around his dick, nails biting into his scalp, as well. You began trying to thrust back up against him, but he was having none of that. Enji pulled back just enough to take your legs and throw them over his shoulders so he could put you in a mating press.

“Oh gods, yes, just like this, Daddy!” you wailed loudly, tears gathering in the corners of your eyes. You were overwhelmed with the pleasure from his rigid member rubbing against your velvet walls with the new angle.

A groan that sounded like a snarl rumbled in Enji’s chest at the sound of your fucked out voice calling him ‘Daddy’. It made him want to grind his dick deeper into you, until all you could see, feel, or taste was him and the pleasure he was giving to you.

“Fuck, if you call me that again, I’m going to fucking cum and I’m not going to pull out.” He expected you to object, or something but instead, you attempted to pull him in closer with the strength of your legs alone.

“Please, please, please fill me up, Daddy! I want it all, please, give it to me!”

Pace quickening at your filthy words, Enji leaned forward until you were practically pressed in half and his thrusts had the tip of his dick bumping your womb with every plunge deeper. You were unable to even scream, the air knocked from your lungs and your brain foggy with thought-warping ecstasy.

“Goddammit, you’re gonna make me cum, baby. I’m gonna fill you up to the brim. Gonna make you round with my child. Is that what you want?”

All you could do was nod frantically, incoherent pleas and his name spilling from your drooling mouth in an endless stream. You would do anything, say anything, just to feel his hot cum paint your walls.

From the way you were clenching and pulsing around him, Enji knew that you were close to the precipice again already, and he was ready to tumble over right along with you. Letting go of the last bit of restraint holding him back, Enji captured your lips in a searing kiss and swallowed your cries of passion as he began to piston into your tight heat, chasing his orgasm and hurtling you towards yours.

A shrill scream muffled by his lips and the sharp tightening of your walls around him signaled to Enji that you were cumming, and he quickly followed after you. His powerful hips stuttered once, twice before he drove his entire length fully inside you and stilled, his head pressed to the opening of your womb. Much hotter than you were expecting it to be, spurts of cum that seemed endless gushed deep inside you, prolonging both of your orgasms to the point of over-sensitivity.

When you both finally came down and got your breathing under control, Enji slowly pulled out from you and gently eased your legs off his shoulders. He gathered you up in an embrace and flipped the two of you over so that you were laid on top of him, head resting against his chest. Again, he stroked your back and sides soothingly, murmuring words of praise and comfort.

For your part, you were fucking wiped, your heart still racing and brown skin dewed with sweat. You could feel cum leaking out of your abused hole, but could hardly be bothered to care with exhaustion and satiation weighing so heavily on your eyes.

With strong arms wrapped around you and every bone in your body feeling like marshmallow, you snuggled closer to Enji and fell asleep to the steady pulse of his heart in your ear.

#todoroki enji x reader #endeavor x reader #bnha smut #endeavor smut #todoroki enji smut #black reader

[maybe-theres-hope]

Tarlos ficlet - “You Like My Costume?”

For all y'all firefighter!Carlos babes :) 

@howtosingit @pragmaticoptimist34 and anyone else who likes this kind of thing <3

1.6k | ao3

TK is actually kind of bummed to be working on Halloween.

Sure, it’s not like he has to work Thanksgiving this year--he somehow finagled the day off and he has yet to tell Carlos that he will be making a surprise visit to the ranch for dinner and he absolutely can’t wait to see his fiancé’s face when he walks in--but he was kind of looking forward to doing the cutesy couple’s costume thing. He’s a sucker for that kind of thing, and he’s bummed, okay?

They’re out on a call that’s frankly more of a time waster than anything else since the fourteen year old in question wasn’t actually suffering from alcohol poisoning but rather he’d yarfed because his friends had dared him to drink a teaspoon of dish soap--honestly, kids these days--so things are looking pretty mellow so far for the evening. He half expected full-moon level type calls tonight but in all honesty he’s been kind of bored. Which really makes it doubly crappy to be working. There’s not even any excitement. 

“At least we’re off at 11, you’ll get to see the last of the trick-or-treaters,” Nancy says with a smirk. 

“Who trick-or-treats at 11 p.m.?” he asks. “By then it’ll just be the dumb teenagers TP-ing old people’s houses and that’s if anyone actually does that anymore.”

“What, you’re too old and married for those kinds of shenanigans?”

“Screw you, I’m not old, and I’m not married yet,” he quips back at her.

“Mmmhmm. Coulda fooled me.” She’s smiling her mischievous smile, the one she gets when she’s contemplating how to jump-scare him in the bunk room in the middle of the night because one time he yelped in such a high-pitch that she nearly peed herself laughing, and she’s been trying to recreate it ever since. 

“Hey, the thrill is not gone, I can promise you that.” Now it’s his turn to smirk back at her.

“Ugh ugh, okay, don’t wanna hear about it.” She waves her hands in front of her face like she’s shooing away fog. “And TK? I mean that. Whatever it is you’re going to be doing tonight, I never wanna hear about it, okay? Just...please. Keep it in the bedroom. Everyone’s going to be making enough assumptions as it is.”

He turns to look at her from the driver’s seat, puzzled. “What do you mean, tonight? What’s so special about tonight and why are people making assumptions? Carlos had to work until half an hour ago anyway, so we’re probably both going to just pass out when I get home. Also, what do you mean ‘assumptions’?”

She just smiles at him again. “Just drive, Strand.”

When he pulls the rig into the bay at ten minutes past eleven, TK just wants to shower and collapse. Boredom held out for only so long before giving into three separate calls where the patient coded on the backboard. He’s tired, he’s hungry, and he feels like he will never be clean of all the sweat. His fingers are aching and his shoulders are sore. He’s never been more ready to just slip into their sheets at home and pass into blissful oblivion. He can’t even make himself look up from the floor as he walks toward the locker room. 

“Hey TK! Why don’t you say hi to the new probie?” Mateo’s voice is nearly a giggle, and it actually causes TK to lift his head. With great effort. 

“Huh? We have a new probie? Whose first shift is on Halloween? Who did he piss off to manage that?” TK asks, following Mateo through the kitchen.

It’s Paul who answers from where he’s leaning against the archway leading back into the bay where the ladder truck is parked. “No one. You might be a little peeved that he took your old turnout gear, but I really, really doubt that.”

“What?” Now TK is just thoroughly confused. 

“Yeah,” Marjan says when he rounds the corner, “and it doesn’t fit him all that well, but I also highly doubt you’ll be upset about that either.” She’s practically glowing with mirth. 

“Okaaaay...what’s with everyone? Is this some kind of Halloween prank? Is someone going to jump out and scare me?”

“Trust me, it won’t scare you. Just...don’t scar the rest of us once you see it. Behave yourself until you get home,” is Nancy’s last line before she turns and practically runs up the stairs. 

TK darts his gaze around to the rest of them, brow furrowing. 

“Just go, man. We’ve been keeping this from you for like a week and we want to see the fruits of our labor,” Mateo says, shoving at TK’s shoulder so that he walks toward the ladder truck.

Still confused and slightly nervous, TK rounds the back of the truck and looks around to see what it is they’ve conjured up to prank him with. He scans the floor, wondering if someone in a scary mask will slide out from under the truck. He moves around to the other side while still in the team’s line of sight, looking back at them for some kind of indication that he’s on the right track. Marjan points subtly up and he follows with his gaze. 

His mouth goes instantly dry and his breath stops. He might gasp, but he can’t be sure.

“Hi babe. Happy Halloween,” Carlos croons in a low voice, though he’s blushing slightly which removes some of the effect. 

TK can only stare. His old turnout gear, indeed.

His fiancé his perched on top of the truck, casually leaned against the ladder and looking down on him. His hips, clad in baggy pants only held up by bright suspenders are slipped forward just so, inviting TK’s eyes to travel up the long line of his glorious body. The AFD t-shirt is straining at the seams, defining every muscle in his abs and pecs, the suspenders caressing against the hard planes of his chest, peeking out from the turnout coat hanging open. 

When Carlos notices where TK’s eyes have gone, he lifts himself out of his ridiculously sexy lean to stand and shrug out of the coat. How on earth anyone can make the removing of standard-issue PPE look so goddamned alluring, TK will never know. The movement causes Carlos’ shoulders to flex, and the cotton of the t-shirt nearly gives out. TK catches a peek of his own name in bright orange lettering across the back of the coat before it’s casually flipped over one massive shoulder, clinging to one finger. 

“I...holy shit,” is all he can say. He has been robbed of his entire vocabulary. He can hear his team snickering at him from the kitchen, but he pays them no mind. The view from here is much better. 

Carlos blushes a bit more, and tosses the coat down to TK, who catches it dazedly. Then, he watches as his absolutely gorgeous fiancé nimbly climbs down the footholds on the side of the truck like he’s done it a thousand times before, and between drooling and sucking in subtle breaths of air TK’s eyes are drawn directly to his ass. It’s a marvelous sight. 

Dropping down lightly onto the floor with a tiny bounce in his step, Carlos turns to face TK in all his glory. TK’s gaze once again runs the gambit from his shoulders down his torso, right down to his own spare pair of boots. 

Carlos saunters closer, knowing full well what he’s doing and loving every minute of it, the bastard. “So, babe,” he says in that same low voice, closer this time. “You like my costume?”

TK still can’t really form words. He might stutter a bit, but he’ll deny it later.

Carlos leans in close--presumably to deter their audience from hearing his next words, which are whispered directly into TK’s ear. 

“I chose to dress up as your secret fantasy,” he says, his lips caressing the shell of TK’s ear. He shivers, though from the words or the touch or the outfit or all of the above, TK can’t say. The next words he hears don’t help matters much.

“What do you say I rescue you from work? Take you home and give you some mouth-to-mouth?” 

TK can hear the desire behind the words, but he can also hear the tiniest giggle at the blatant dirty talk that Carlos actually doesn’t do that much of, and it makes his heart melt. This man is everything.

When he regains some coherency, TK decides to give back as much as he’s gotten. He runs his hands down Carlos’ torso, nearly dropping one suspender completely off his shoulder with his vigor in grabbing a handful of pectoral muscle. 

He leans back in and says into Carlos’ ear, “Well, have you still got your uniform in your car? It might be a bit big on me, but I think I’d look good in nothing but your utility belt. Should I handcuff you to the bed, firefighter Reyes?”

He leans back just enough to catch Carlos scrunching his eyes shut and biting his lip--desire written into every line of his face--and suddenly remembers their audience. This is not a free show, no matter how much help they provided Carlos in surprising TK with this. “Take me home, now.”

“You got it, babe.” With that, Carlos bends down, grabs TK by the waist, and lifts him like he weighs nothing. TK is thrown over his shoulder in a full fireman’s carry to the tune of his team, his friends, whistling and catcalling as he’s carried off to Carlos’ car. 

Yeah, this is a good Halloween. Maybe the best one yet. 

#tarlos #tarlos fic #911 lone star #tk strand #carlos reyes #halloween fic #brooke writes #I was gonna include the actual smut but I am Tired