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fizzydrink698 · 2 years

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pink carnations | jungkook

kinktober day 4: flower shop/tattoo parlour au

pairing: jeon jungkook x reader

word-count: 3.4K

genre: friends-to-lovers, fluff

warnings: swearing, making out, almost tooth-rottingly sweet, the tamest kinktober fic you’ve ever read probably, my inability to give min yoongi anything but the snarkiest of dialogue as he deserves

summary:

“They’re not,” Jungkook hurried to say, swallowing. There was the faintest hint of pink in his cheeks, almost but not quite unnoticeable. “They’re just…I thought they looked cool. That’s all.”

…Bullshit.

You tried not to let it show on your face, but you absolutely knew Jungkook was lying. Every single tattoo of his was steeped in meaning. He thought over each and every single one - and paid ridiculous amounts of money for each little section, compared to the far cheaper option of just getting the whole arm done in one go.

He wouldn’t spend so much time choosing these flowers just because they looked cool.

It was nearly six o’clock on a Tuesday evening. The parlour had been quiet for most of the day, save for a client here or there that needed a touch-up. You were in the backroom, half-listening to the Van Halen song playing over the speakers, noting down the inks you needed to add to the next stock order.

One client last week had drained almost your entire supply of orange in the pursuit of a tiger back piece, but was it worth restocking so much? Maybe you should consult with Yoongi, he had a knack for–

“Your boyfriend’s here.”

“Jesus,” you yelped, jolting almost out of your skin, fumbling with the stock take sheet. You spun around on your heel to find Yoongi in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe.

“Not quite,” he remarked, deadpan as always.

“You almost gave me a heart attack,” you complained, pressing a hand over your chest. “How are you so quiet?”

“You’re just unobservant,” Yoongi noted. “Case in point. Boyfriend. Here. Five minutes before closing.”

You frowned and, for what must have been at least the seventh time you’d had this exact conversation with Yoongi, you reminded him, “Kookie’s just a friend.”

A good friend. A good, attractive friend. And that was all. That was fine.

Like, OK, had you maybe imagined what it would be like to date Jungkook? Sure. Had you sometimes pictured him standing in your kitchen, making you breakfast, pressing a kiss to your cheek in the soft morning light? Perhaps. Had you eyed the way he fidgeted with his hands when he was nervous, watched the way his fingers traced the edges of his nails, and pictured what else those hands could maybe do?

…No comment.

“Mm-hm,” Yoongi replied, snapping you back to reality. “What’s he doing here so close to closing time?”

“Uh, I’m not sure…” you trailed off, trying your best to recall if you’d made any plans. It couldn’t be a work-related thing, but you knew never to schedule appointments this late. “I didn’t book anything with him–”

“If you did schedule anything five minutes before closing, I think I’d lock you out of the booking system forever.”

“–so I’m not sure, maybe…oh! Oh, right,” you said, laughing to yourself. “I totally forgot I said I’d meet him after my shift. He’s here early.”

Yoongi stared at you for a second, blinking slowly. “Uh-huh. Totally.”

You pouted, putting your hand on your hip. “I thought we had a deal. You don’t make fun of the way I talk, I don’t make fun of the way you dress.”

“How I…” Yoongi repeated, incredulous for a second as he looked down at himself. “…What is there to even make fun of? I’m literally just wearing a t-shirt and jeans.”

“Are you sure you want to ask me that question?”

He hesitated, just for a moment, before shaking his head. “What am I even…just head home, I’ll handle the stock.”

“You’re the best,” you declared, beaming, and handed over the stocktake sheet. He took it with a roll of his eyes, but no further complaints.

Coming out of the backroom, you headed straight onto the shop floor. The parlour hadn’t changed in all the years you’d been working here, and you found a strange comfort in it. The red-brick walls, the framed photographs of the parlour’s best work, the black leather seating, the…just the ambience, really.

Standing in the centre of it all, looking deep in thought as he studied a framed picture of a shoulder piece you’d worked on last year, was Jungkook.

It was strange how well he fit here. You could imagine him at a tattoo station, talking with clients, going over design choices. He was tall and broad, and the delicate features he had were offset by the gleam of silver studs in his eyebrow, and the thin ring on his bottom lip. In the last year, he’d grown out his black hair, and now kept it in a loose bun whenever he needed it out of his face.

In short, from a visual perspective at least, he was perfectly suited to work here.

Of course, Jungkook did not, in fact, work here.

He worked just across the street, at the most adorable little florist’s shop that you’d ever seen in your whole life.

“Hi,” you greeted brightly, wandering over to him. “You’re early.”

He turned, a soft smile pulling at the corner of his lips at the sight of you. “Yeah, is that…is that OK? We had to close up a little earlier than usual today, and I felt a little weird standing around outside.”

“No worries, I’m basically done here,” you said. “Let me just grab my stuff and we can go.”

He nodded, and waited patiently for you to gather your things. Jungkook was a quiet soul, someone that complimented your own more…vivacious personality. You’d met him just a few weeks after starting here, when he came in to get some more work done on his developing sleeve, and the two of you had formed an unlikely, but very close, friendship.

“I finally decided on the flowers,” Jungkook told you when you returned, “for that next part of my sleeve.”

You beamed, excited, eager to know more. Jungkook’s sleeve tattoo was so interesting, at least in your eyes – it was like a timeline of his life, little elements added to represent different phases of his life, different memories, different people. Starting from the left wrist, it had grown up to around his bicep, and he’d talked about how eager he was to see the tattoo extend as his life went on, having it wind along his shoulders and chest and back onto the next arm.

Very cool, and a lifelong project, basically.

And Jungkook had asked you to help add to it a few weeks ago.

“Tell me, tell me,” you pestered, delighted. “I can start looking at reference photos, maybe hopefully not leave you with some weird misshapen blob.”

Jungkook laughed a little, falling into step beside you. “I settled on five. Ivy, lilac, blue salvia, bluebell, pink carnation.”

“Pink carnation?” You repeated, surprised. “Huh. Maybe that could work. I’d have to play around with the colour a little, just to make sure it doesn’t clash too much with the blue and green. Are you sure it has to be pink?”

“Yes,” Jungkook replied without hesitation. “Yes, it does.”

“I couldn’t sway you on, like, a white carnation maybe?”

“Has to be pink,” he reiterated, but his smile was just a touch sheepish. “It…uh, yeah. Just…has to be pink.”

“OK,” you nodded, and dropped the subject. You’d spent your entire adult life listening to people as they explained their reasons behind a tattoo, its meaning, its significance. You knew how important tattoos could be to someone, even down to the tiniest of details. “Pink it is.”

It was that night, as you scrolled through Google for reference photos, a little cup of peppermint tea in your hands, that you realised why Jungkook had been so insistent on pink carnations.

You sat there, staring at the screen, eyes darting around the page as it detailed flower language, and you felt as if you had stumbled across something private, something you weren’t meant to see.

“So, I have a question.”

Jungkook was finally in your chair, his eyes closed and his breathing very slow and very measured. You were approximately halfway through the session, letting Jungkook take a little break to settle down and readjust while you changed needles. He’d been impressively stoic this whole time, perfectly still and unflinching as you did the linework of the tattoo.

Jungkook cracked open one eye, curious. “Yeah?”

“I’m guessing the flowers represent the shop, right?” You asked.

Jungkook closed his eyes again, not replying immediately. His hand - the left one, the one not connecting to the arm you were currently working on - began to fidget, the edge of his thumbnail picking at his cuticles. “…Yeah, they do. I thought it would be, like, a cool time capsule thing of where my life is right now. Flowers for my store, done at the studio across the street, by one of my favourite people.”

You turned your head to look at him, blindsided by this sudden compliment. Not that Jungkook wasn’t usually nice, but this was…

You were more than flattered by his words, you were touched.

“…Thank you,” you said, quietly, checking the gun one last time before taking your seat again next to him. You cleared your throat, trying to scramble back to your normal carefree persona, before things got too mushy and heavy. “I don’t know, I was thinking they were for a girlfriend or something.”

At this, Jungkook’s eyes shot open. He stared at you, wide-eyed. “Girlfriend? What?”

So, not a girlfriend, then.

“When I was Googling the flowers for reference pictures, I found a website talking about flower language and all their different meanings,” you said with a shrug. “I’ve gotten a few customers who come in for flowers with special meanings. One guy wanted an orange lilies for his ex-wife. Not exactly sure why, it was probably a catharsis thing. But, uh…yeah. Some of these seemed kind of…romantic-y.”

…Bullshit.

He wouldn’t spend so much time choosing these flowers just because they looked cool.

“Fair enough,” you said, but inside, your mind was working overtime.

It’s definitely a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. Some kind of romantic significant other.

It was the pink carnation that had tipped you off, his insistence that it had to be pink. You couldn’t help but search it up when you stumbled across that flower language website.

Carnation, pink: I’ll never forget you.

Coupled with the blue salvia (I think of you) and you were 99% certain that this was about someone. The rest were a little less clear - ivy was affection, which you could nudge over to the side of ‘this is about someone specific’, but lilac and bluebell were a little vaguer in concept. ‘Joy of youth’ and ‘humility’ probably had more to do with Jungkook himself than any mysterious other.

But he’d never talked about anyone with you - and for him to include them on his sleeve, they had to be a big deal, right? Someone important enough to discuss with a friend?

Maybe you were wrong about all this. The pink carnation could be for someone he lost, someone he was mourning for.

…But why deny it? He’d talked to you about losses before - he had a section on his forearm dedicated to a childhood friend who had passed away in high school, and he’d even been the one to initiate the conversation about it.

And he didn’t seem upset when you’d brought up the flower meanings, he’d been embarrassed. He had blushed. This had to be about something romantic, right?

Who could it be?

You racked your brain, trying to think of anyone he spent time with. Someone at work? No, you knew his co-workers, they were decades older than him and happily married. They teased him for bringing in all the youths, and asked him for help with the store computer.

Who else did he even talk to? The baristas at Starbucks? The cashier at the grocery store? He didn’t really doanything outside of work, he just hung out with you, and—

Oh.

You stared down at the tattoo gun, at Jungkook’s arm, at the outlines of the flowers that you had done.

They were…

Were they about you?

Your eyes fixed on that carnation, proudly taking centre-stage in the design, soon to be filled with that telltale pink.

I’ll never forget you.

Jungkook liked you.

You were certain of it.

Almost.

You didn’t know what to do. Who did you go to about this? Jungkook was always the one you called in a crisis, and he wasn’t exactly the ideal candidate to discuss this revelation with.

You’d made the questionable decision to mention it to Yoongi - well, by ‘mention’, maybe it was more accurate to say ‘mumbled to him about whether Jungkook could maybe like you while moving inventory around’.

Yoongi’s response, a silent eye-roll and a reminder to restock your dressings at your station, didn’t really help much.

So, now, you found yourself stood outside of Jungkook’s flower shop, trying to work up the courage to execute the half-formed plan in your head.

This was dumb. This was very dumb. You needed to just turn around and walk away and think more about this.

You pushed open the door, gulping as the little bell above it rang.

The shop itself was gorgeous. It was difficult to describe just what about it you liked. Maybe it was the way it was arranged - the shelves of different sizes, scattered around the store, storing flowers of all different types and colours. It reminded you of an old antique store, if every antique was instead a delicate, beautiful bunch of flowers.

Jungkook’s voice came floating from some unseen part of the store, and you heard approaching footsteps. “Hello?”

You readied yourself, taking a deep breath.

“Hey!” You called, moving forward, trying to find him. Soon enough, you rounded a corner and found him between shelves, in his dark green store apron, sleeves rolled up and wearing thick gardening gloves on his hands. His hair was tied back, in what must have been a tight bun this morning, but was now loose from the hassles of the day. One particular lock of hair had escaped, and you briefly pictured tucking it back behind his ear for him.

He smiled, and something fluttered in the pit of your stomach. “Are you here to see me?”

Oh boy, weren’t you just.

“Yeah. Well, technically,” you added, nervously. “I’m…uh, I’m actually here to buy a thing. Flowers. I’m here to buy flowers.”

Smooth. Nailed it.

Jungkook blinked at you, surprised. “…Oh, OK. What did you have in mind?”

You reached into your back pocket, trying your best to stay calm. Unruffled. “Uh, a bouquet. I’ve got a list.”

Still undoubtedly a little confused, Jungkook’s face brightened as you pulled out your list. You supposed that made sense - if Jungkook was half as much a nerd for his profession as you were for yours, the excitement of getting to share it with you was powerful enough to override any potential misgivings.

“Great!” Jungkook said. “What’s on the list?”

You looked down, trying your best to keep cool, and willing the butterflies in your stomach to calm the fuck down.

“Borage,” you read aloud. “White chrysanthemums. Daisies. Calla lilies–”

“Wow, that’s quite a lo–”

“Heliotrope,” you continued, and finally plucked up the courage to look him in the eye. “Red chrysanthemums. And pink carnations.”

Jungkook stilled.

You could feel the silence settle over the two of you, almost tangible as you watched the cogs in his head turn, as you watched realisation flicker in his eyes.

“…Who’s the bouquet for?” Jungkook asked. His voice was low, but his tone spoke volumes.

You swallowed. “…You.”

Another moment of silence – one that seemed to stretch on for an age – and your stomach dropped. Fearing the worst, you quickly shoved the list back into your pocket. “Unless, like, I totally misread the situation and you don’t–”

You didn’t get to finish your sentence, as Jungkook rushed towards you, ducking his head to press his lips to yours.

The kiss was short, gentle – and when you broke apart, Jungkook’s face was beginning to flush.

“You didn’t misread anything,” he admitted. “I…I really like you. A lot.”

Your breath left you in one long, relieved, ecstatic whoosh. “Me too. I like you a lot. Have done for a while, honestly.”

He blinked, and the shy smile he’d been wearing for most of this interaction began to change, twisting into something just a little more smug. “Really? How long?”

“Long enough,” you deflected, embarrassed and increasingly eager to turn the tables back on him. “Now, take off the gloves.”

“What?”

“Take off the gloves,” you repeated, and began to smirk. “Because when I kiss you in the next ten seconds, I expect you to hold me.”

He did.

In fact, the second Jungkook got his hands on you, he seemed to get addicted. They seemed to roam almost everywhere – around your waist, sliding up your back, cupping your cheek, resting on the back of your head.

His grip only tightened when you may or may not have pushed him up against the shelves, your eyes closed, your face buried into the crook of his neck, planting open-mouthed kisses along the soft skin there. The two of you were pressed flush against each other, and every time you shifted your hips just slightly, Jungkook made the tiniest little breathy noise in your ear.

“We…” he murmured, sounding as if he were struggling to do even that. “We probably…shouldn’t, ah…”

“Shouldn’t what?” You asked, pulling away from his neck to grin up at him.

He stared back, eyes dark, that silver lip ring contrasting starkly with the red of his kiss-swollen mouth.

“Shouldn’t what?” You repeated. “What are you thinking about doing with me, hmm?”

You never imagined Jungkook – sweet little flower-shop Kookie – to even be capable of the look he was giving you in that moment, and it sent a delicious shiver down your spine.

“I–”

Whatever he was about to say, it froze on the tip of his tongue as you heard the shop door swing open – complete with the ringing of that little fucking bell. “Hello? Jungkook, dear? I’m back from the suppliers!”

You both tensed, unable to do anything more than stare at each other in shock for a split-second, before springing apart so violently that it made the shelves behind Jungkook wobble. Thankfully, Jungkook managed to reach out and steady it before it could topple over, just as a little old lady rounded the corner and came into view.

“Oh,” she said, gaze flickering between you, Jungkook, and the shelf. “I thought I heard a bit of commotion. Is everything OK?”

“Everything’s fine,” you declared, just a touch too quickly, turning to Jungkook with wide eyes. “I was, uh…I was just placing an order.”

Jungkook met your gaze and nodded fiercely. “Y-yeah. A bouquet.”

“A big one,” you added, turning back towards the old lady. “Lots of…different flowers.”

The old lady took one long, slow look at you, and you were fairly certain you could burst into flames from embarrassment at any given moment.

Jungkook chimed in, straightening his shoulders and smoothing down his apron. “So, with such a big order, I’m going to check all the items you requested were in stock. I can…I’ll get in touch as soon as I do that.”

You glanced back to him, nodding eagerly. “Yes! Please, yeah, get in touch with me soon.”

Jungkook caught your eye, holding your gaze, and gave you the most tentative smile. “I will, I promise.”

From behind you, you heard the faintest scoff of amusement. The old lady ambled by you, without a care in the world, and patted Jungkook on the shoulder as she continued on. Pausing only to throw a pointed glance towards you, she raised an eyebrow at Jungkook. “Why don’t you take a few minutes’ break, dear? You’re so red, you’re outshining our camellias.”

Jungkook only flushed harder, but he took her up on the offer with a quick bow of the head, and walked you back to the door.

“Call me the second your shift ends,” you asked, trying and failing to keep from smiling at him like a dork.

“Absolutely,” Jungkook swore, returning your dorky grin with his own. “And I’ll check on those flowers for you.”

“Oh, you don’t really have t–”

“I know,” Jungkook said, before leaning in and pecking you on the cheek. “See you soon.”

The next morning, you come into work to find Yoongi grumbling about pollen, and a vase of pink carnations sat on the reception desk.

(Note: flower language allows for a lot of open interpretation of the particular meanings of flowers, which meant researching this fic was a fun ride. Here are the meanings I decided to work off of, all taken from my research, in case you were curious:

Pink carnation: I’ll never forget you.

Blue salvia: I think of you

Ivy: affection

Lilac: joy of youth

Bluebell: humility

Borage: bluntness, directness

White chrysanthemums: truth

Daisies: loyal love

Calla lilies: beauty

Heliotrope: devotion

Red chrysanthemums: requited feelings)

#kinktober #bts fanfiction #jeon jungkook fanfiction #jeon jungkook fanfic #jeon jungkook fic #jeon jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook imagines #jeon jungkook scenarios #bts fanfic #bts fic #bts x reader #bts imagines #bts x y/n #bts fluff #jungkook fanfiction #jungkook fanfic #jungkook fluff #jungkook x reader #jungkook x y/n

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angelgoeslewd · 11 months

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is she the other girl? (Raphael’s Part)

🔮 summary: inspired by this post, Raphael is rumored to be seen getting cozy with another women. you, though not officially dating him, get a bit jealous and confront him about it.

🎧 listening pairing: ava. natalie jane.

⚠️ warnings: heavy angst, some language, bad coping skills.

[BARBATOS, DIAVOLO, SIMEON, AND SOLOMON COMING SOON!]

Raphael was not known for his social personality. there were definitely a lot of rumors and gossip going around about him, but many of them had to do with his sarcastic demeanor, his cold shoulder, and blank face. all of it was pretty much bullshit and you easily tuned most of it out. except the day you were in the library, sorting through books to find a specific one he had recommended reading alongside the other he gave you, a touching gesture to you, though to some it may have seemed like he was trying to look down on you, like you wouldn’t understand his book unless you read its companion. but to you? you cherished the fact that he shared something with you, something you knew he liked. he simply wanted you to see it from his eyes. and that’s when it happened.

two fellow students came around the corner to your side of the library, hushed whispers in between the rows of book. it wasn’t unusual, but the minute you caught whiff of Raphael’s name being dropped, you felt you owed some sort of defensiveness to the angel who had so kindly gave you his reading recommendation, straight from his own shelf, and instantly turned to jump in, a decision you usually chose not to make. and did you ever regret it.

“-I know! Who’d ever thought it? Mr. Holier-Than-Thou, neva seen a smile a day in his life got game!”

“You’re sure it was her? She’s so pretty! What does she see in him??”

“I know!! That’s what I said- but, and get this, apparently she was wrapped around his arm the whole time! They went to a bunch’a places! This fancy restaurant on Main, some sort of jewelry shop… like a ridiculous amount of money had to have been spent on her! I dunno what it is, but Raphael’s got it!”

they both laugh and being to walk away, the sound of their voices fading as they do. you standing there with your raised hand, pointed into a wagging finger, and let it drops to your side as you blinked at their words. Raphael… had a girlfriend? He had a girlfriend? That you didn’t know about? He was a very private person, but he didn’t seem like the type to lead you on. Especially when he was treating you so special now… the way he beelined to sit next to you, how he shared his things with you, asked you to spend time with him more… you thought he was the type who would only do things like that when he was interested in someone. did you misjudge his feelings? he… couldn’t have misjudged yours, however. you thought you made it quite obvious you had a thing for the angel. he… should’ve said something. he just let you go on this impossible quest that you would never win and embarrass yourself? so you could be the silly human trying to win the heart of an angel? it hurt.

it hurt so much — the confusion, the embarrassment, how much emphasis you put on feeling like your affections were shared — that you had to completely separate yourself from him for a while. you couldn’t face any of the angels, in fact, knowing they would try to help on behalf of their brother and you just couldn’t deal with it. you completely rearranged your schedule, choosing to nap with Belphie one day, be late to classes with Mammon so you could sit in the back with him, eat lunch out with Beel, all so you could avoid the angels. your heart hurt whenever you saw Luke worriedly glancing your way, but the idea of him bringing up whatever happened with Raphael had you turning the other direction. Simeon and Raphael both stared at you whenever you had classes together, even if it meant them getting admonished by the teacher. you kept your gaze to your paper or the board, pretending not to see them in the corner of your eye. you were packed and out the door before they ever had time to approach you.

it was hard, having the piercing gaze of the angels always on you, trying to avoid them when they always seem to know where you were, but whenever you thought back to what happened in the library, your heart throbbed painfully and you continued to mute their texts, leave your phone in your room and go on whatever outing the demon brothers had planned for that day.

an entire week goes by like this.

surprisingly, it was Solomon who ended up approaching you. he had tactfully avoided the whole thing, never mentioning it to you and therefore still was allowed contact with you, but you still kept him on thin ice and were positive he knew that. you suppose that’s why he trapped you. Solomon asked you to help him study a new spell, avoiding any outing that seemed to suggest small talk, instead offering to go to the human world, where you knew it would be nearly impossible for the angels to follow, as they almost always needed permission from Michael to go on such a field trip. you agreed and when you got there, he immediately started working on the spell, to his defense. but… it was much too easy. you got it after 30 minutes. he shrugged and pushed it off, saying it seemed more difficult in theory. he offered you tea and again, you agreed, disarmed by the convincing lies.

and that’s when he dropped it on you. “I think you should talk to Raphael.” you stopped, cup half raised to your mouth, looking at him, seething.

“Is that why you invited me here?” you spat, slapping down the teacup a little harder than you should have. “Just to talk about him?”

Solomon considered you for a moment. Then shook his head and asked, “What happened? Apparently, according to him, everything was going just fine and then you started avoiding all of them.”

“Just fine? Yeah, he would say that.” you scoffed. “He has a girlfriend.”

Solomon blinked, “No, he doesn’t.”

“Yes, he does!”

“I’ve never seen her.”

“Me neither!”

“Then how do you even know he has one?”

“These things come out, Solomon! You can’t just hide it forever! But you also just can’t ignore a girlfriend! She was on his arm — he took her to all these nice places! Everyone saw it!”

the sorcerer leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes, hand on his chin, frowning as he thought. you grit your teething, cursing him, Raphael, those students, with every breath you took. sadly, you can’t do mental spells just yet, and it doesn’t work.

after a while, he shook his head. his eyes blinked open, but the frown stayed in place. “I… really don’t think so. It’s not my place to say but… you mean something to him. He’s completely insufferable right now, you know? He’s been that way since you’ve started ignoring him; snapping at all of us, hiding out in his room for almost the entire day. No one can get him out. It’s a train wreck, really.” He sits forward, leaning over the table to drive his words home, “Please. You don’t have to forgive him, you don’t even have to be nice. Just. Talk to him. If not for him, then for Luke. Raphael made him cry yesterday.”

and that’s where you sit currently. Back at the House of Lamentation, on your bed, glaring at your phone. You haven’t even opened the chat, dreading doing so, but you have to get this over with. you pick up the phone. you open the chat.

it is filled with over 200 messages of him pleading with you to talk him, asking what happened. 29 missed calls. you take a breath, asking Michael to have mercy on you and let Raphael be asleep, and begin to type,

‘we need to talk.’

the green online light is instant, like he’s been waiting by his phone.

‘Yes. Please. Where can we meet?’

‘no. here.’

‘Why do you not want to meet me? What happened?’

another text quickly follows that one.

‘I miss you so much.’

it’s something that makes tears hop to your eyes, his honeyed sweetness — his absolute honesty of his feelings when you know he hates it. it means so much and feels like a stab to the chest all at once. all the feelings you’ve been avoiding hit you over and over, the undertow of your sea of emotions pulling you out, anger and betrayal and pain washing over you again and again, and you can’t stop yourself from hastily typing out a response.

‘you had a girlfriend?? this whole time?? i thiught i meant something to you. i thought we were i dont know connecting!? i felt so close to you, i wanted to share everything you did, i paid attention to everything you said, every little thing i could learn about you. it hurts so much to have you do this to me. i wanted to be with you every single second i could, you mean so much to me. did it mean anything to you? was i just a plaything? a human you could toy with to amuse yourself??’

‘…’

your anxiety spikes when the dots indicating he’s writing pop up. they disappear. they return. they linger. it happens a couple times and you so badly want to throw your phone across the room, but you’re so invested in what he has to say, how he could excuse himself for this, when one line pops up.

‘I don’t have a girlfriend.’

you do end up throwing your phone.

you end up crying into your pillow for a while, completely ignoring the sound of your phone vibrating with message alerts. but when your ringtone goes off, you decide to pick yourself up and answer it.

Raphael calls your name from the speaker.

it crackles like he’s outside, wind blowing into the microphone, but you still can hear him. “What are you talking about? I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Raph,” you say, exhausted from all your emotions. “People saw you. The- the girl! Hanging off of your arm!”

“Girl… ? Ah. You must mean that one.”

“That one? You have others?” you deadpan.

“No. No, that’s not what I’m trying to say. The blonde one, yes?”

“I- I don’t know! I didn’t ask for details! I was too busy being hurt by — ”

“The jewelry store? Yes, I can see how that might have looked.” He sighs, barely audible above the wind. “That’s why I was trying so hard to get rid of that witch. I knew something like this could happen.”

to say you’re shocked would be an understatement, his words make you second guess everything you’ve done in the past week. “The… witch?” you ask meekly.

“Yes. The drunk one. She kept grabbing my arm and following me while I was doing errands for Michael. I couldn’t get her off and Michael needed those things urgently. They couldn’t wait. I understand how looked from the outside. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

you’re on the verge of crying again. he didn’t… have a girlfriend? you’re so embarrassed, yet relieved, and you feel so stupid for even believing those damn rumors, but you were so hurt by such a believable story-

Raphael calls your name again, this time, despite it sounding identical, is tinged with worry. “You’re whimpering into the phone. Are you ok?”

“I- I’m ok. I just… feel so stupid right now,” you whispered, voice cracking as you force yourself through the sentence. “Raphael, I’m so sorry, I- I should’ve-” you can’t finish. you have to cover your mouth as the tears win, flowing over your hot cheeks, hoping he doesn’t make fun of you too much.

you expect some sort of sarcastic response, a comment that slices you when it points out how ridiculous and over the top you’ve made this scenario. but it doesn’t come. Raphael doesn’t do any of that. All he asks is, “Can I come over?”

“Yes,” you choke, breaking down even harder.

and then he’s there, you don’t know how, but his arms wrap around you, his cold jacket catching on your soft pajama top. he clutches you to his chest as you cry, taking the phone from you and setting it down on your desk so you don’t have to clutch it tightly and hurt your fingers.

“Raph… Raph.”

“I’m here. Come on, let’s get you to the bed.”

You twist your fingers in his jacket, a silent plea for him not to let go, but it never even looks like he plans to, awkwardly steering you to the bed as his legs teeter to the side of yours. he falls down with you in his arms, stroking your hair. when your cries taper off, he hands you tissues and wipes your face with his the top of his shirt.

you can feel how puffy your face is, as you sit up, straddling him. he lies there, his blue eyes taking you in as he lets his hands hesitantly rest on your hips. “Raph, I’m- I’m so sorry. I should’ve come to you about it. I made everyone miserable.”

He gives you one of his rare, warm smiles, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just happy we’re ok now.” A nervous look crosses his face and he looks away from you. “Did… did you mean what you said earlier? You want to be with me?”

“I- yeah. I did- do! I do. Very much so.”

“Next time, I’m taking you on errands with me.”

#obey me #🍩 of obey me #obey me nb #om nb #obey me nightbringer #raphael x reader #raphael x mc #raphael x you #obey me swd #THIS GOT TOO LONG AND I HAD TO SPLIT IT #will i edit this? mmmmmmaybe

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stories-and-chaos · 30 days

Text

Tarnished pt 22

[Helluva Boss AU where Blitzø’s childhood theft from Stolas’ palace is discovered and major consequences ensue for everyone involved.]

[Part 22/?? Word count: 1236 Cw: drug use, addiction, language]

—————

Barb sorted through Fizzarolli’s fan mail in her tiny office. Ostensibly, she was her friend’s bodyguard whenever he was in Greed; she was also acting as his assistant. Mammon didn't want anyone on his payroll wasting time. Technically, she worked for Fizz, which meant she could refuse the Sin. But doing administrative tasks when Fizz wasn’t surrounded by fans kept Mammon from grumbling at his brand face.

And he needed help with the mail. The Fizzies had launched in full two weeks before the fifth annual clown pageant. Fizzarolli had won that as well; his upgraded extendable limbs added to his already impressive act.

Barb had to give some credit to Mammon, he knew how to market people and products. Fizz’s second win in a row and his comeback story with the launch of Fizzy robots for every occasion, all of Hell knew the imp’s face. And they were willing to pay Mammon’s prices for merchandise.

All that exposure meant fans and fans meant all sorts of messages. Letters, forum messages, Sinstagram posts, fanart both wholesome and lewd. Mammon had a PR team for all the digital content, since that was public. The physical mail also went through the PR team before being sent to Fizz. There was still a massive amount needing replies, which Barb was helping with.

“Jesus H. Christ,” she muttered, sorting through the day's pile. There wasn’t anything dangerous in the envelopes, Mammon’s people saw to that. But the amount of requests for feet pics, pictures of Fizz without his prosthetics, offers for ‘a good time’ and straight up pornographic fanart was ridiculous. Barb felt like her eyes needed bleach some days, but she didn’t want her friend dealing with this nonsense alone. “I keep telling the assholes to not send the skeevy shit but do they listen? Noooooo, it’s ‘not their job to moderate content.’ Bullshit, you’re a PR team, it is your fucking job.”

The rejected pile steadily rose and the accepted pile gradually had a few letters added. Then she saw a name that made her want to scream. More than fan mail sorting usually did.

Blitzø.

Her fucking traitor twin. The scumbag who left- who abandoned his family and friends to be a royal pet. And now he was sending Fizzarolli fan mail?!

“What the fuck are you pulling Blitzo?” she hissed at the envelope in her claws. Nothing from him for years and once Fizz is successful and famous he tries to contact them? Not even ‘them,’ the envelope was addressed to Fizz.

Barb could tell from the feel of the envelope there were several pages in the letter. She wasn’t going to read it and she sure as shit wasn’t going to send it Fizz’s way. Most of the rejected mail was just shredded. She scrawled ‘RETURN TO SENDER’ in bold red marker. Hopefully the asshat would get the hint.

Later that day, as she and Fizz were finishing up the handful of responses to fans (mostly to kids) she debated on whether to tell him about the letter. Barb decided she’d better, in case the traitor tried to get in touch another way.

“You got another letter that went into the reject pile.” Fizz quirked an eyebrow. She usually didn’t mention the mail she filtered out unless it was important or particularly hilarious. “It was from Blitzo.”

Fizz gripped the pen he was using. His mechanical fingers twitched and the plastic tube snapped in half, creating a spray of ink. Ichor drained from his face, then his cheeks flushed again in anger. “The fuck does that asshole want?”

Barb shrugged. “Dunno. Didn’t read it, I just sent it back. Figured it can’t be that important, coming from a traitorous dickhead only when you’re famous.” He looked at her, anger at Blitzo warring with gratitude for her in his expression. “If he sends any more, I’ll send ‘em right back. Should probably tell the PR guys he might contact you another way though.”

He dumped the ruined gel pen in the trash bin and grabbed a tissue to clean his hand. “Fuck, Ozzie’s gonna be pissed if this gets in the joints. Thanks for looking out for me Barb.”

“Course Fizz. We look out for each other, right?” She decided to ignore his mention of Asmodeus. He’d been spending more time with the Sin of Lust, even now that the Fizzy robot development was done for the time being. What the fuck is it with royal demons and imp guys? she thought to herself.

Fizzarolli gave her a shaky smile and tossed the ink covered tissue into the trash. “Well I’m not up for answering more mail. Wanna call it a day and grab something terrible for us?”

Barb stood up and stretched, popping vertebrae down her spine and tail. “Thought you had a dinner meeting with Asmodeus.” She knew he did, she had to know his schedule. If he was going to be with a Deadly Sin, he really didn’t need her acting as bodyguard.

“Shit, I almost forgot. It’s not business though, if you wanna join u-“

“I’ll pass. Don’t wanna be a third wheel and all that shit.” She’d tagged along with Fizz and Ozzie once before and swore never again. Not unless she had her own date. No matter how much the two men denied it, she could see where things were headed.

Fizz stammered, “We-we’re not an item Barb! I keep telling you, it’s just business and the occasional fuck.”

“So if tonight isn’t business it’s the ‘occasional’ fuck.” She made air quotes as she walked out of the room with him. “Still don’t wanna be around for that Fizz. Have fun, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Fizz waved as she headed out the building; he had to text Ozzie to send a car up to Greed and wait for his ride.

Getting something terrible to eat sounded amazing though, so she got cheap Chinese food on the way home. The staff knew her usual order and she soon had a takeout bag in one hand and an extra egg roll to snack on as she walked.

Her studio apartment, decorated haphazardly in rock music paraphernalia, was unsurprisingly empty. She managed to keep most of her emotions at bay as she watched a hellanovella and devoured her fried rice. But there was an end to the episode and comfort food.

Anger and confusion and loneliness bubbled up. She chucked an empty takeout box at the wall and gripped the sides of her head. “Goddammit Blitzo! You’re not even here and you’re fucking up my life.” Just the reminder that he existed sent her spiraling into the worst memories.

Her brother abandoning them. Her mom covering bruises. Her dad’s rising anger towards her and Fizz. Straining to match Fizz as a partner. Fighting creeps and stalkers. The fire. Finding Fizz. Finding…her mom.

“FUCK!” she yelled, throwing a wooden chopstick after the box. She didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to think about anything. Barb had promised herself she wouldn’t use again; she’d been clean the past four months. But Barb four months ago hadn’t expected Blitzo to resurface. So today’s Barb unblocked her dealer’s number to see if she could hook her up fast.

As it turned out, her dealer could. And she got a second ‘something terrible’ that let her not think about anything until the high wore off.

—————

<<First <Prev Next>

#helluva fanfiction #helluva blitzo #helluva boss #helluva au #helluva fizzarolli #fizzarolli #blitzø #blitzo #barbie wire #cw addiction #cw drugs

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singtomemylove · 4 months

Text

ᴀʟʟ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ɢʟɪᴛᴛᴇʀꜱ ɪꜱ ɢᴏʟᴅ (ᴏɴʟʏ ꜱʜᴏᴏᴛɪɴɢ ꜱᴛᴀʀꜱ ʙʀᴇᴀᴋ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴏʟᴅ)

Pairing: Klance

Summary: He’d never been in Miami before. Hell, he’d never left New York before. But maybe it wasn’t all bad. Shiro seemed like a cool guy; he was friendly and welcoming and didn’t seem to mind the fact that Keith was now sharing his room with him. He was even going to introduce Keith to his friends. The thought made Keith slightly anxious. Then again, why should it? He was going right back to New York at the end of August. If it all went to shit tomorrow, at least he’d only have to spend three months with no friends. And in those three months, he wasn’t at school or any other place that required having friends to be tolerable. Yeah, maybe it wasn’t all bad.

Warnings: cursing, let me know if there’s anything I missed.

“A whole summer.” Keith groaned over the phone. “Yes, that’s what Krolia said. Just because she thought she could waltz back into my life again does not make her my damn mother.”

“Are you sure you’re not just being over-dramatic?” Luka, his best and only friend since the eighth grade, asks.

“Positive.” Keith grits his teeth. “It’s a three hour flight. To Miami. From New fuckin’ York. This is bullshit.”

“I live in Miami, dipshit.” Luka reminds. Keith feels his eyebrows furrow. He forgot about that part.

He’d met Luka over an online game, which, okay, maybe wasn’t the most trustworthy way of getting to know people. That never stopped Keith, though. He bounced from foster home to foster home for a while, from the ages five to seventeen. Maybe internet weirdos weren’t his biggest worry.

His Dad was a firefighter, back in Texas. His Mom, though she’d never actually been a mother, left when he was born. Until now, that is. She finally decided she wanted a kid, when Keith was seventeen.

“When are you leaving?” Luka snapped him from his thoughts. She was good at that.

“Tomorrow.” Keith admitted.

“And you’re only packing now? What the fuck, Keith?”

“I was in denial, okay?!” He tried to justify, but she was right.

“Jesus Christ—a whole summer and you’re only packing now? Do—are—can you—what the fuck.” He could imagine her face palming right now.

“I have most of it done!”

“Where are you even staying?”

“With her best friend from high school, and their family. They have a son, who’s like, twenty something. He’s also going to stay with them for the summer. Pretty sure he grew up there, or something. I don’t know, I stopped listening.”

“Okay. That’s..rough, but manageable.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Hey! I’m trying to help you out here, dickhead.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Keith stuffed more clothes into a suitcase.

“What’s the family like?”

“I don’t know. A woman and her wife and their adopted son. The son’s the son I was talking about—“

“No, really?”

“Bitch.”

“Dumbass.”

They were in a comfortable silence after that as Keith packed.

“At least there’s no time difference.” Luka broke the silence.

“Yeah. I don’t have anything against the beach or anything, but I’d really prefer to deal with a ridiculous amount of sun in a way that’s not against my will, so…” He trailed off.

“I get it. How bad can it really be, though?”

Bad. It can be really bad, and Keith should’ve known it. After the chaos that was walking through an airport, Keith was entirely sure that he’d lost his phone somewhere between leaving the house and getting to where he needed to be. He thanked God or whoever’s up there when he’d realized it was in his back pocket.

The plane ride had been boring at best, but that was the least of Keith’s worries.

His main worry, which could be deemed a pretty important one, was that he had no clue what Krolia’s friend looked like.

He waited anxiously at baggage claim after grabbing his luggage. He looked around, trying to spot a family of two or three looking around for an eighteen year old boy.

He didn’t find one.

Shit, he thought. What the fuck am I supposed to do?

He nearly jumped out of his own skin when he felt someone tap his shoulder.

“Sorry!” A woman, with dyed blonde highlights on her shoulder length brown hair, apologized. “Are you Keith? Kogane?” She asked, staring up at him. She was pretty short, maybe 5’1 or 5’2.

“Er—Yeah. I am.”

“You’re Krolia and Texas’s kid! You look just like them.” She smiled, as if remembering something.

“Texas?” Who the hell was Texas?

“It’s what we used to call your dad. We all went to high school together, and he had his heavy accent, so we all called him Texas.” She explained, seemingly able to understand what he was thinking. “I’m Mary. My wife’s name is Hana. She’s in the car with Shiro. You’ll like him, he’s not too far from your age.” She introduced herself. He assumed Shiro was her son.

She lead him to their car, and he quickly put his suitcase and duffel in the trunk before getting into the backseat.

A man, with black hair—minus a section in the front, which was pure white—was sitting there. He smiled warmly as Keith buckled his seatbelt.

“Hiya there, Keith.” Hana said from the driver’s seat. “How’s your mom been recently?”

“She’s fine.” He said awkwardly as he stared at his shoes. They were completely white, minus rainbow stripes on the midsoles of them.

“Have you ever been to Miami?” She asked.

“No.” He shook his head. He didn’t miss how Mary lightly smacked Hana’s arm, giving her a look. Hana didn’t ask anymore questions.

It was a quiet ride, minus the soft sound of the radio playing the 2010’s pop music.

When he got to his new home for the summer, Shiro grabbed his duffel for him.

“Thanks.” He murmured, and Shiro replied with: “You’re welcome.”

They walked up the porch steps and into the house.

“You don’t mind sharing a room, do you?” Hana asked after a moment.

He shook his head.

“Perfect. You’ll be staying up in Shiro’s room. I know you boys will get along.” She shot him a large grin. “You’re not too far off in age. You’re eighteen, right? Shiro’s twenty-two. It’s not too far off.”

And she was right; it wasn’t.

He walked up the creaky stairs and followed Shiro to his room.

It wasn’t a small room, and maybe even a bit bigger than average. There were two beds in the room, and he could tell that the room was basically divided in two.

“Hello,” Shiro introduced himself. “I’m Shiro. You’re from New York, right?”

He gave a small nod, feeling awkward already.

“Nice to meet you, Keith. There’s space for your clothes in the dresser; I moved all my stuff into the closet.” He gestured towards a dresser against the wall.

“Thanks.” Keith responded.

“No problem. Did you eat dinner yet?” He asked.

“Yeah. Before my flight.” Keith replied. It was true, he had eaten.

“Great. Do you wanna go to the beach tomorrow? I’m meeting my friends there at 11:00. I think you’ll like them, they’re pretty cool.”

Keith didn’t like the idea. He could barely handle this, how was Shiro expecting him to meet a whole group of people?

Nevertheless, he nodded slowly. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Shiro smiled again.

Keith checked the time on his phone. 8:42 PM. Not too far from nine. He normally didn’t go to sleep this early, but he didn’t know what else to do. He could unpack, but he didn’t want help from Shiro and it would be awkward to just have him watch.

“I’m gonna head downstairs. You okay to unpack?” Shiro asked. Keith gave him a quick nod, and Shiro walked out of the room. Keith mentally thanked him.

He surveyed the room for the first time. The walls are white, with a popcorn ceiling and a fan in the middle of the ceiling.

The left side of the room, seemingly now Shiro’s side of the room, had a bed with a black duvet and gray pillows. Next to the bed was a dark brown wooden nightstand. There was another white door, which seemingly led to a closet.

On the right side of the room, which was now seemingly Keith’s, had an identical twin sized bed, this one with red duvets and black pillows. Keith pulls back the duvet, nodding to himself as he proves that the sheets are also black. His side of the room also had a dresser and a nightstand. Against the wall that separated the room from the hallway was a bookshelf, filled with a bunch of books.

Keith sets his suitcase and duffel back on the bed, opening both of them. He unpacked his clothes, organizing them in the dresser. He set his toiletry bag on top of the dresser, the dark gray coloring looking not too bad against the dark wood of the dresser.

He plugs his phone charger into the outlet in between his bed and nightstand, plugging in his phone and setting it on said nightstand.

He kneeled on his bed, looking out of the blinds of the window that his bed was next to.

The window faces the road, and there’s several more houses on the street.

The sound of the door opening took all of his attention as he turned to look. But instead of Shiro or his Moms, it was two cats instead. One black cat and one cat was a deep orange. Both cats padded into the room, and he got off the bed and kneeled down. The two cats rushed to him, sniffing his fingers before letting him pet them. The orange cat looked almost red due to the setting sun shining on its’ coat.

He vaguely remembered Krolia telling him about two cats. He looked at their collars, the tags on them reading their names. The orange-red cat was named ‘Red’. Keith chuckled at that. Even better, the black cat was named ‘Black’.

Original, Keith thought to himself.

He sat down fully, letting the two cats crawl into his lap. He liked them. They didn’t talk or demand any kind of social interaction from him. They wanted pets and cuddles and that was it.

After a few minutes, they both pad out into the hallway, Red following Black. Keith crawled into bed, checking his phone one final time. Seeing no new notifications, he set his phone down on the nightstand before rolling over and falling asleep.

He’d never been in Miami before. Hell, he’d never left New York before. But maybe it wasn’t all bad. Shiro seemed like a cool guy; he was friendly and welcoming and didn’t seem to mind the fact that Keith was now sharing his room with him. He was even going to introduce Keith to his friends. The thought made Keith slightly anxious.

Then again, why should it? He was going right back to New York at the end of August. If it all went to shit tomorrow, at least he’d only have to spend three months with no friends. And in those three months, he wasn’t at school or any other place that required having friends to be tolerable. Yeah, maybe it wasn’t all bad.

A/n: going crazy with a new series

#klance fic #Klance au #Klance #vld #voltron legendary defender #voltron #keith kogane #lance mcclain

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dragonmuse · 2 years

Text

Get your fresh au of the au!

Prompt found! @weirdnatasha asked what would happen ifLucius met Izzy and Eddy in the Hornigold era! Ages are adjusted here, we start with Lucius at 21, Izzy at 23, Eddy at 24. This bulleted list is known as ‘find a place to make a stand and take it easy’:

-There’s a job. There’s always a job. Izzy hasn’t done time in his crapbox apartment in weeks, isn’t sure he can reliably remember the color of the drapes. He has a deep gouge of a scratch from one shoulder to the middle of his back where Eddy had dug in and every time he shifted his wait, it reminds of the way she’d half-moaned his name. It’s distracting.

-”Witness protection?” Eddy asks, bemused.

“It’s a blackmail play. The kid was somewhere he shouldn’t, saw something he shouldn’t and he’d make a good witness. Linus wants us to hold him until he makes a business deal, hold it over his the guy’s head.”

“We liquidating at the end?” Izzy frowned. Killing other people with weapons was one thing. He hadn’t killed a bystander before and he wasn’t planning on starting now.

“No,” Hornigold shook his head. “We’re not assassins.”

“Just babysitters,” Eddy made a face. “A wait and see, really? Can’t we stick O’Brien or Mark on it?”

“It’s a top dollar, client,” Hornigold said with the kind of patience that let you know it was almost at an end. “He asked for round the clock security. I laid out specifications for a location and he’s provided a very nice place for you to cool your heels. Consider it a vacation.”

Eddy and Izzy exchanged a very brief look. Whatever this was going to be, vacation would not be in the top ten words they’d put to it.

-They pack bags and go though. Not a lot of choice there. The building is definitely upscale, the apartment when they step into it, is fucking ridiculous. Huge living space with big windows, a kitchen that’s clearly never been cooked in and bathrooms that echoed with marble.

“Windows are a problem,” Izzy says right away as Eddy drapes themselves over a big couch with a sigh.

“Nah, they’re tinted to hell and back. Checked before we came in.”

-They sweep for bugs, for cameras, disable existing systems, put in their own. Then there’s a knock. Izzy checks the door, gun out, but there’s their package with Hornigold behind him.

Eddy opens the door, Izzy falls back.

-The guy isn’t an actual child, thank fuck. He’s apparently in college, some bullshit art program. His clothes are oversized, but in a way that suggest intention rather than second hand. His dark hair is mussed and he eyes up Izzy and Eddy with about the same amount of suspicion Izzy is giving him.

“Lucius, these two will be your loyal guards,” Hornigold gave them both heavy looks. “They’ll be making sure no one kills you.”

“Thanks,” Lucius gritted out. “I’ll be...in a room. Where am I sleeping?”

“Right this way,” Eddy gives a little bow with a laugh that usually makes people back up slowly from them.

Lucius looks wide-eyed, but didn’t give up ground. Points to him.

Hornigold gives Izzy a slap on the back. “I’ll probably call Eddy in now and again, but you’re my boots on the ground. Don’t fuck it up.”

“Yes, sir,” Izzy has his eye on Lucius’ retreating back. Eddy puts him in the middle bedroom which happens to also be the biggest. Smart. Farthest from the windows, centered him between the two of them.

-The first few days are just what Izzy expected. Lucius sticks to the bedroom, barely speaks to them and responds to inquiries about meal as shortly and clearly as possible. He’s eating, no one’s tried to kill him, all is well. Eddy climbs the fucking walls, but on day four, Hornigold blessedly calls her in and leaves Izzy to read a book in peace for fuck’s sake.

Not that he doesn’t enjoy Eddy’s boredom to some extent, but he needs some time to recoup.

-Lucius takes that exact moment to decide “I cannot spend another fucking second in that room. Please tell me there is something to do in this monument to Linus’ wallet.”

“There’s books,” Izzy says vaguely.

“I’ve been reading and sketching for the last three days. Please. Anything. Say human words to me, I know that’s not your thing, but I’m going to need you to try.”

“What do you mean it’s not my thing?” Izzy’s attention drawn away from his book unwillingly.

“You let the other one do most of the talking. You mostly say swears and gesture from what I can tell.”

“I talk,” Izzy says, annoyed at this entirely accurate description.

“Prove it.”

“I’m talking to you right the fuck now.”

“About something. About...I don’t know. How the hell are you passing the time here?”

“Guarding you.”

“Thrill a minute, but I know you’re doing other shit, the walls aren’t that insulated.”

Has Lucius heard them? That is...troubling. Izzy shoves that to the back of his head. They were usually pretty quiet, considering how intense things got, so probably not. Probably he’s heard them doing the thousand other things they did to keep from going stir crazy. Cooking, playing cards, talking over movies and sparring in the clear space by the windows.

Most of that wasn’t going to fly with Lucius, who looks like fighting was beneath him or at least something that took place very far away from him if he has any say in it.

“Hungry?”

“I could eat.”

-Izzy teaches Lucius the few basic recipes he knows. Meat and potato kinds of dishes. Izzy likes cooking, but there's rarely time and he doesn't own anything half as nice as what gets stocked in a posh place like this. Lucius seems happy enough to chatter about college at Izzy while they cooked like Izzy knew shit about it. Only stops occasionally to prod a response out of him.

“Guess that’s all over now though,” Lucius realizes as they put everything into the oven.

“Why?”

“You guys will leave me alone eventually and what then?” Lucius stares blankly at the oven. “Wolkski won’t let the same trick work twice. I’ll be dead, won’t I?”

“Nah,” Izzy says, but he’s not actually sure of that. He doesn’t know what Lucius saw. Doesn't know how time sensitive it is. Doesn’t know how Wolkski from a hole in the wall. “Killing someone is a good way to make more blackmail. He’ll probably just buy you off.”

“You think?” That actually perks him up and Izzy has a small treacherous thought. Hope I’m not lying to him.

-Eddy comes back and finds them both on the couch watching some weird comedy reruns that hasn’t made Izzy laugh once, but he’s laughing anyway because Lucius is a catty asshole and has a lot to say about the leaden acting.

“You two are getting on,” Eddy glances between them warily. Like they’re up to something.

“Come sit with us,” Lucius scoots over. “Do you think they put her in that shade of pink because they hate her? I bet she’s a pill to work with.”

“What’s wrong with the pink?” Eddy frowns, but drifts over and sits down between them.

“Washes her out completely,” Lucius tsks. “Pastels in general would. She needs jewel tones.”

And as Izzy watched, Lucius gathers Eddy’s complete attention, gets an arm around the back of the couch, circling them in and more than once gently touched their knee. Eddy let him do all that, apparently enthralled.

Almost one touches Eddy casually anymore, except for Jack. Sometimes Izzy did, but it's less and less welcome if it ever had been at all. Maybe it was Lucius' whole affect which yells ‘I’m not a threat, but don’t try anything anyway’.

“What got you out of your room?” Eddy asks at last as the commercials rattled at them,

“Izzy’s cooking,” Lucius grins over at him. Like they're sharing a joke. Like Izzy had had anything to do with it besides the food bits.

“Oh yeah?” Eddy glanced over at Izzy. “Is that so?”

“Everyone’s got to eat,” Izzy shrugged. “Left you a plate if you want it.”

“What is it?”

“Meatloaf. Mashed potatoes.”

“With a pound of butter,” Lucius puts in. “It’s sitting in me like a brick, but it was great.”

-Eddy does eat her plate. That’s fifty-fifty when Izzy presents her with food, so he’ll take the win. Lucius goes on loosely flirting with Eddy, who’s not giving it back the way she would if she was totally sold, but isn’t running away either. It’s weird to watch. Unsettling.

-They sleep in shifts, one of them always awake, just in case. At 2 AM, Eddy comes out of her room to relieve him and they rut on the couch, her hand over his mouth, his teeth worrying at the meat at the base of her thumb.

It’s almost gentle. When she comes, she presses her other hand to the mark on his cheek.

Izzy wants to ask questions about that, but he’s never managed before and he apparently won’t be starting tonight. Instead he says,

“Lucius is worried about being murdered once we’re done with him.”

“Yeah,” Eddy drops her full weight on him. Just for a moment, just for two breaths. It feels like Heaven. She doesn’t offer anything further, and then she’s gone and Izzy goes to bed.

-Lucius stops hiding in his room altogether. It should be annoying. He’s full of questions, teasing and prodding.

“Wait, you’re how old?” Lucius asks Izzy as they wash dishes. It feels bizarre, domestic.

“Twenty-three. Why?”

“Because I thought for sure you were in your thirties or something. Not a looks thing, just the way you both carry yourselves. Eddy too?”

“Year older.”

“But you said you’ve been doing work like this for a while.”

“Four years. Eddy is longer, five or six.”

“Huh,” Lucius gives him a long look over. “Looks good on you.”

Izzy has no idea what to do with that. He just scrubs harder at the dish.

-Eddy and Lucius disappear for a few hours into Lucius’ bedroom at one point and come out, flushed and giggling like children. Izzy doesn’t ask. Won’t give them the satisfaction. Either of them.

-”What’s with the ring?” Lucius sits so close that Izzy can make out the places he’s dotted concealer to cover a zit. Like anyone here gives a damn. Where did he even have the damn stuff? It’s right along his jaw and Izzy’s filled with a dark temptation to rub it off with his thumb. To feel the prickle of stubble against his fingers. His palm.

“What ring?” He mumbles, distracted.

“The one around your neck.”

Izzy reached up and yeah, it slipped out of his shirt. He tucks it back, tries to keep it casual, but Lucius watches him sharp-eyed. Izzy’s been slipping. Acting like this place is his own instead of a job. Wearing t-shirts instead of the crisp button-ups that he’d adapted in the last two years to make people take him more seriously.

“Just a ring.”

“Uh huh,” Lucius lifted his brows. “Your mom’s or something?”

“No,” he snorted.

“Oookay, So mystery girl? Or very fine-boned boy?”

“What’s it matter?”

“Just curious,” Lucius drew a single finger over the back of Izzy’s hand where it lay between them on the couch. “You’re a bit of a closed book, you know.”

“I don’t need to share shit.”

“There’s not much any of us need to do,” Lucius sighed. “But it’s so much more interesting when we do the things we want.”

“You used to getting the things you want?”

“Less often than you might imagine.”

-Eddy brings home booze, bottle of vodka, bottle of rum.

“Oh thank fuck,” says Lucius so Izzy doesn’t have to.

They all get beautifully, completely stinking drunk. It’s bad protocol, but this job has gone on for tedious weeks. Lucius and Izzy are practically prisoners, Eddy only a step better, released occasionally to fetch and carry for Hornigold or check in. There’s a half empty container of orange juice in the fridge and they just pour the vodka entirely into it and pass it around. Izzy though Lucius would object to such a delivery, but he keeps up with them for a good long while without complaint.

“I’m going to die,” Lucius announces to the ceiling. “And I won’t even have had a hot threesome with my guard dogs.”

“Is that what you’ve been gunning for?” Eddy laughs over the container, now mostly empty.

“Yes. I think I’ve been pretty obvious. I know you two are banging it out. Please tone it down for my delicate sensibilities. Walked in on some hellicious shit the other night. I don’t do blood.”

“What do you say, Iz?” Eddy glances over at him, impossible to read like this. Especially when Izzy was flush and woozy.

They didn’t do this. It wasn’t something they shared with anybody. No one knew. No one even really suspected. If anything, it's talk about how pathetic he is for trailing after hoping for leftovers. Eddy never put words to what they did. Izzy never dared.

This is words. This is someone else. Is it a test? He can’t fucking think.

Only Lucius is pretty, pink lips even pinker when he’s drunk and he has touched Izzy so many small times. Asks him things. Tries to pry him open. He’s so...interested. Interesting. He draws these real looking things, art that Izzy understands. He’s drawn Eddy a dozen times already, beautiful Eddy with her hair spread out behind her, doing her morning routine of situps and pushups or just sleeping.

Lucius silently gave him one of those loose sketches and Izzy hadn’t even protested. Taken the few lines that conjured Eddy stretched over the couch and tucked it safely away.

Lucius is all the things they aren’t and more besides. He’s going to be someone, probably. He’s beautiful and not theirs. Certainly not Izzy’s.

Izzy loves stealing.

“Yeah,” he says roughly. “Okay.”

Lucius crawls over to him. To him and not to Eddy. Why not to Eddy? He levers himself up, then captures Izzy’s face in both hands.

“Oh, we’re going to have fun,” Lucius informs him and then kisses him with intent, keeping him right where he wants him.

-Eddy watches for a long time. That’s what Izzy remembers the most, her eyes on them, silent, and intense. Then suddenly they’re everywhere. Lucius gasps into their kiss, Izzy writhes under their touch. Everything oozes together.

-When it’s over, Eddy claims the couch and falls into a deep sleep. Lucius stands and holds his hands out to Izzy.

“Come on.”

Izzy takes them, bemused. Lucius leads him into the bedroom, doesn’t turn on the lights.

“What’re we doing?” Izzy mumbles.

“Sleep. Come on.”

Distrustful of even the thought, Izzy goes slowly, but Lucius really does just curl up on his side. The bed looks good and has the advantage of being right there. He feels a little unsteady still. He gets in. He closes his eyes. Lucius turns and he tenses, but it’s just a hand landing on his arm, not even holding, just resting.

Fuck.

Izzy falls asleep.

-It becomes a problem quickly. Lucius enjoys sex quite a bit and shares neither of their reservations in discussing it. Eddy, always quick to learn something new, takes to this readily. Izzy feels like he’s under attack as they discuss positions and things to attempt, but when he tries to get away from it, they turn their eyes to him like he’s the one exhibiting bizarre behavior.

He doesn’t add anything, but he stops trying to leave. He has quite a lot of sex.

-”You’re getting so good at that,” Lucius praises him once. “Anyone would think you’d had a lot of practice.”

“Of course he has,” Eddy says off-handedly.

Lucius glances down at Izzy, “That true?”

And Izzy wasn’t in a lying position.

“No,” he admits and at least he was already flushed, not betraying himself even more by turning scarlet.

“No?” Eddy sits up a little.

“Go on,” Lucius says gently. “You can tell them.”

“Fuck off,” he tosses his arm over his face. Fuck the both of them. Maybe he could flip Lucius off him and make it to the bedroom, bar the door before someone caught up with him.

“Tell me what?” Eddy asks, a growl in her voice which means no one is going anywhere. Goddamnit.

“There wasn’t anyone else,” he grinds out. “Just you.”

“Oh,” Lucius says. “I didn’t think it was that hard line. I guessed maybe something close, but uh... sorry, Iz.”

“That was your first time?” Eddy’s voice is raw.

Fuck it. Izzy does get up though he just nudges Lucius aside and he goes. Lucius is easy like that, rolling away without complaint. Giving him the space he needs. Soft little punk.

Izzy walks away and no one stops him as he quietly closes the door to ‘his’ bedroom. The one he hasn’t used in days because somehow Lucius has convinced him to share.

He sits down against it, presses his back to it. He holds onto the ring for dear life and thinks about nothing at all.

-Eddy comes for him in the end. He expects Lucius, but later he’s not sure why. She doesn’t try to get in. Doesn’t even knock. He just hears her sit down on the other side of the door.

“You let me in when you’re ready, Hands. But then we gotta talk.”

He can’t remember a time either of them waited for each other. It’s not what they do. There’s no time to wait. There’s never any fucking time for anything. But right now it’s endless days. Ticking down until Lucius is free. Until they’re all released from this prison that’s also been a cradle to something Izzy doesn’t know how to name.

He doesn’t mean to make her wait long, but the minutes tick by until he feels even halfway to ready. He stands up, walks to the bed and sits on the end. Rubs his palms over his jeans.

“Yeah,” he says, not sure if it’s loud enough to carry. “Come in.”

-She stands for a second in the doorway, blocking out the light, and she’s so beautiful it makes his chest clench. The space between them yawns, but she closes it with a few long strides, sits down beside him. They sit like this often, pressed thigh to shoulder. There’s barely any room where they have to go sometimes. Barely any way to stay quiet unless you’re whispering right into each other’s ears.

“Do you think we’re broken?” she asks him. “Not us as in me and you, us as in whatever we have between us.”

Izzy wants to say no. He wants to believe that this is what should be. Wants to practically kill Lucius himself for proving them both wrong.

“Yeah,” he says roughly instead. “I think we are. A little.”

She nods vaguely, “He is going to get killed, you know that?”

The longer this goes on, the more likely that seemed. “Yeah.”

“I think you should take him and go,” Eddy says.

“What?” Izzy stares at her.

“He needs a guard dog, we need to stop.”

“The job is all I’ve got,” Izzy blurts. “If we’re not...I don’t have anything else, Eddy.”

“You do,” Eddy says firmly. “You’re smart, you’re fast. He’ll be with you. You run.”

“No,” Izzy reaches out, hesitates and then decides that if she’s knocking down walls, he can too. He takes her hand in his. When she doesn’t resist, he holds on, probably a shade too tight. “Eddy, if we go, Hornigold will know you were in on it. You can’t just walk back in there.”

“I’ll say you knocked me out while I was sleeping or something.”

“He’ll never believe it.”

“You make him believe shit like that all the time.”

“You don’t,” Izzy says. “You’re a great liar, but it’s different with him.”

“It is,” Eddy concedes. “He always knows.”

“So come with us.”

“Maybe.”

-Lucius, does not like any versions of the plan.

“I’m not leaving my life behind.”

“Then you can stay here and get picked off later.”

“Izzy said they might not kill me. That it would be too messy.”

“He was being...optimistic,” Eddy settles on, giving Izzy a look. He shrugs.

“What are the odds?”

“I’m not a computer,” Eddy rolls their eyes. “You can stay here and take your chances or go and take your chances.”

“With one of you with me,” Lucius looks between them. “So...what? You give up everything for someone you met a few weeks ago? What are you getting out of it?”

Izzy scrubs a hand over his face. He waits for Eddy to put words to it. She doesn’t. Hung out to dry.

“We get to not be the kind of people that let innocents get murdered over rich people’s business deals,” he says.

“You care about that?”

“Yeah, Luc,” Eddy says softly. “We care.”

“I don’t actually, in general,” Izzy amends. “But I care about you and I don’t want you to fucking die.”

“Yeah, I don’t want to die either. But I also don’t want to give up on college.”

“You can finish college. Somewhere else,” Eddy says. “We’ll figure it out.”

Lucius does not agree. Does not agree as they argue, does not agree as they eat dinner in sullen silence. Does not agree as Eddy stomps out to report to Hornigold.

Izzy has no wiles, no charisma to speak of. He’s not Eddy, who can spin castles in the clouds. He can only sit down next to Lucius and pick up his hand because that works a little, apparently, and say,

“The ring belongs to a dead girl. I don't want another one."

“Yeah,” Lucius drops his head onto Izzy’s shoulder. “Yeah, all right.”

-They take their time. Three days of planning. Eddy gets them fresh papers, Izzy finds a clean place and siphons money off the accounts he’d just started keeping for Hornigold. That part is dangerous, but he hides his tracks, only taking enough to give them a head start. Doesn’t get greedy over the horde of dragon’s gold.

-They leave all at once, crossing the threshold that Izzy hasn’t stepped over in weeks without fanfare. It’s a gray day, the air oppressive. Lucius has a hood pulled up over his hair, a ridiculous pair of sunglasses on. He keeps them on until they’re so far away it barely matters.

-They go south because Eddy wants warmth. Izzy drives the car (stolen, plates switched, abandoned and replaced before the settle). Eddy stares out the window, fingers drumming on her thigh. Lucius lays down in the backseat. None of them talk much.

-They find a place in a different city. It’s familiar and unfamiliar all at once and Izzy spends a lot of time walking around and around, mapping the streets with his feet. Their apartment is small, two bedrooms. Eddy claims one. Izzy hangs outside both doors until Lucius puts a hand on the small of his back and guides him into the other.

That feels like that. The end of something. The start of something.

-Eddy makes good on their promise. 'Luke Spangler' goes to art school, finds a bar gig after work. Izzy figures he’ll find something too, he knows grocery stores if nothing else, but Eddy just turns up and hands him a book on week two of their escape.

“CPA. You were doing half this shit anyway. I can cook a fake degree up for you, but you’ll need to pass the exam.”

“What about you?”

“It’s a port town. I know some shit about boats.”

Izzy hadn’t known that, but isn’t surprised. Eddy is always pulling out new skills like it just occurred to them they could do something, so they could.

-It takes a long time for them to relax. Months go by. Lucius draws and draws, talks about his day, takes Izzy to bed and figures out how to manage Eddy’s hair, brushing it out at night until she’s practically a puddle. He’s nervous, ill at ease, but the never complains about it. He’ll complain about a lot of things, but not about them. Not about the life he’s come to lead.

“I’m taking off the beard,” Eddy announces, eyes a little wild. “Too recognizable.”

Izzy finds a place to be while that happens. He can’t watch.

When he comes back, she’s transformed. The beard is gone and she’s in Lucius’ things. Softer things. Lucius is brushing out her hair and she doesn’t look wild at all.

“What do you think?” she asks without opening her eyes.

The wall is down. It may never go back up. He cups her jaw. The skin is perfectly smooth beneath it.

“You look yourself.”

She smiles against his palm and what the hell is he supposed to do with that? Lucius beams at him too like he got a hundred on a quiz. Fuck the both of them.

He makes them dinner.

-A knot comes undone between Izzy’s neck after a year. A year is a long time. Long enough for someone to find them if they were looking hard enough. Long enough for Izzy to build some clientele, unsavory types maybe who don’t care so much about his credentials and more what magic he can do with their taxes. He works out of the apartment, mostly sitting at the kitchen counter. Eddy leaves behind the boats, then a security gig, then finally settles in at a florist shop. She seems pleased by the flowers, bringing the wilting unsellable ones back with her, settling them in the vases that seem to multiply.

Lucius draws her over and over surrounded by flowers.

-She and Lucius still fuck sometimes, Izzy’s fairly sure. He misses it. Misses Eddy’s body beside his. Lucius is good though, and Izzy knows he’s changing under Lucius’ influence. Becoming something new and he’s not sure what.

-At two years, it’s becoming clear that no one is coming for them. They can’t go back, that’s just ludicrous, but they can maybe unwind a little here.

“I could get my own place,” Eddy ventures.

“Oh,” Lucius frowns, then looks to Izzy. “No, right?”

“I-” He doesn’t want to trap her there. Not anymore. Not really. But...”Do you still think we’re broken?”

She gives him a long even look. He makes her dinner most nights when she gets home. Lucius is home too late for that. He otherwise stands back, watches her do everything on her own unless she asks deliberately for his assistance, which is rare. She manages her own moods, she figures out her own schedule. She remembers Lucius’ birthday.

Eddy never needed him. Not really. It hurt in a way he couldn’t describe, didn’t even try, not even to Lucius, who held all his other secrets.

“No,” she decides.

“Then you should stay. If you want to.”

“Agreed,” Lucius says with some relief. “Stay with us.”

Eddy stays. Or rather, she goes, but they go with her. First to another apartment with more room for them to spread out. Then another when they start what becomes an incremental migration back North. They follow jobs, Lucius learns to work on the road, taking commissions and picking up bartending gigs. Eddy finds work as easy as breathing and Izzy’s business moves online too.

-After the third move, Eddy arrives unceremoniously at Izzy’s side of the bed.

“My mattress sucks donkey dick, move over.”

They start fucking again within two nights of that. Lucius, precious dictator that he could be, straightens out any misunderstanding with a careful,

“He’s mine now. Break him and you owe me.”

Eddy doesn’t glare or laugh, she just nods. Izzy apparently has no say in that and he’s grateful for it.

-They make it home a full decade after they left. Lucius may look a little the same, but he moves through the world differently. He’s picked up their wariness and some of their menace and can even back it up if push comes to knife. Eddy has not only left behind the trappings of her former self, but she moves through the world like it can be kind and smiles easily. No one would recognize her.

It’s Izzy that could be a problem. His changes are seismic, but internal. For the first time, he lets his beard grow in, itchy at first, but then just another thing about his face. He lets his hair grow out too, catches it back in a ponytail that Lucius is forever picking out to run his fingers through.

-Eddy walks into a new flower shop, walks out a manager because that’s how it goes. Izzy finds new clients, slowly slowly. Lucius draws beautiful things, beautiful people and makes drinks at a bar by their new place. Izzy goes down there after dinner, sometimes Eddy comes with him. They sit at the bar and he flirts with them, with everyone really, but dotes on them especially and they tip him as a joke and he always takes their cash, then uses it to buy them little gifts.

-They don’t know why they’ve come back, except that this was their home. The city belongs to them, even if only Izzy was born in its limits. They will not be driven off forever.

Maybe Izzy, very late one Saturday night, slips out of the apartment. He ghosts across the city. He finds one old man in his bed. Then another. Maybe they would’ve never come looking. Maybe he could’ve kept his hands forever clean. He prefers not to live with maybes. He prefers certainty.

He comes back to bed, freshly showered and still damp. Eddy grabs his wrist, holds him there. Accesses him. Then scoots over, lets himself fold down into their arms and doesn’t ask a follow up question.

-Lucius gets a new job at a new bar.

-Izzy watches Eddy fall in love and it’s new and beautiful and he hates it and he can’t look away.

“You going to be okay?” Lucius asks him, holding his hand in the dark of the bar. The Revenge is kind in the dark. It kills you with glitter and song, instead of a bullet.

“Yeah,” he says with no confidence. “I always knew-” he stops dead with realization. “Wait. Will you be okay?”

Because Eddy has been in their bed. Not just Izzy’s, not for long years. Lucius and Eddy have their own thing, their own dance that Lucius relishes. They spar verbally a lot, make out like it’s breathing and no one has graced Lucius’ sketchbooks more.

Eddy is Lucius’ muse, if not a million other things.

“I don’t know,” Lucius confesses, tiredly. “But I don’t know that we can stop whatevers happening either.”

They both watch Eddy talk to Stede, her entire body straining towards him. It’s not how Eddy treats either of them. It’s another new side to her, another face catching the light.

But she’s a diamond. She’s a jewel and they have a lot of angles.

“We don’t have to stop it,” Izzy decides. “We just...we talk about it.”

“You want to talk?” Lucius asks incredulously.

“No,” he sighs. “But I don’t see a way around it.”

-The conversation is scheduled. No one is ambushed, but Eddy still looks hunted when she sits down.

“We want you to be happy,” Lucius says.

“We want you to go where you want,” Izzy agrees.

“But we’d miss you terribly if you left.”

“Where am I meant to be going?”

“Don’t do that,” Izzy shakes his head. “Stede is...okay he’s not fine, he’s awful, but not in a bad way. So. If you want him, you should go after him.”

“Just maybe come home after,” Lucius says softly. “Please.”

“Like you do?” Eddy gives Lucius a soft smile.

“Yeah, sure. Or less often if that’s what you want. Never got a taste for sleeping over,” Lucius shrugs. “But you do you.”

Eddy does go. But she also comes back. Lucius actually makes friends with Stede, so Izzy is forced to socialize with the man and...he’s so fucking weird and off-putting and goddamnit, Izzy winds up liking him too.

The kids are unexpected, but interesting.

-They’re moving again, closer to the Revenge since two-thirds of their party works there and Izzy might as well for how often he’s there.

“Hey, look at this,” Lucius stops packing one of his boxes. He holds out a sketchbook to Izzy.

“What is it?”

“It’s from when we started. Haven’t looked at it in ages.”

Izzy sets it aside. There’s no time just then, but he thinks about it some, makes sure to tuck it on the top of one of the easy to reach boxes.

When they’re all in the new place, furniture mostly where it’s going to be and wiped out, Izzy plucks it back out and hands it to Eddy. She opens it at random, stares, then flips back to the beginning and takes it slower, tilting the pages to Izzy.

“Ugh,” Lucius says as he sees it. “Look at that linework. Awful.”

“It’s not awful,” Eddy counters.

The pages are full of them. Not just Eddy like Izzy always thinks of those books, but both of them. Together, sometimes. There’s one close to the end, Izzy lending over the back of the couch, looking down at Eddy with a hunger in his expression. Eddy is talking, her hands waving wildly in the air, a fraction of a smile on her face. Her hand is almost cupping Izzy’s face, just a bare fingertip away.

“Maybe we weren’t broken,” Eddy says softly. “Maybe we were lost.”

Izzy leans against their arm and looked at younger faces, at those strangers. “Yeah. Think we’re found now?”

Eddy took the hint, wrapped that arm around him and drew him close, kissed his temple.

“Yeah. I know exactly where we are.”

#leda house and the kraken verse #ficlet #au of the au #find a place to make a stand and take it easy #lucius black #izzy hands #eddy teach bonnet

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moody-b1tch · 6 months

Note

Just wanna say I absolutely love your fanfics. FugoNara is my favorite JJBA ship of all time and your fics give me so much comfort.

On that note given you’re profic, how do you deal with backlash from antis if you receive any? I’d love to indulge in writing FugoNara smut but I’m concerned about getting shat on by antis.

First: Thank you 🥺 Knowing that someone else likes my fics makes my days 1000 times better. I'm glad to hear you can find comfort in them the same way I find comfort in my bookmarks.

About the blacklash... I've got like 10 call out posts on Twitter lol. I try to ignore them, report the accounts for harassment and block them. Also, I have a ridiculous amount of accounts preventively blocked.

But more than blocking, I think is important to be surrounded by people that will support you in case you receive harassment. One time, I was dogpiled for making a NSFW joke. If my mutuals hadn't been there to laugh it off with me and call the harassers ridiculous, it might've been overwhelming.

If you can't , or just don't want to deal with any kinds of anti bullshit, you can always post anonymously, too.

If your current account has a significant amount of antis following you, you can also make an alternative account.

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enbycrip · 1 year

Text

Stuff I am finding difficult about the nurse’s strike:

There is a huge outpouring of stuff about “our NHS” and “our nurses” which is both brilliant, and unfortunately also currently being used to really beat and dogpile with abuse anyone who speaks up about shitty treatment, including medical disableism, they’ve received from nurses and other NHS staff.

Medical disableism is *incredibly* prevalent and leads to serious issues for a huge number of (I’d say likely most) disabled people. This partially reflects the disableism rife in the UK public - nurses and other healthcare workers are not immune to the barrage of right wing political messaging - and partially some serious structural issues in medical education.

I 100% support the nurse’s strike - because they are workers, and people, who deserve decent pay and conditions in their working life. It is a very difficult job, not only due to the emotional labour required in a caring role, but because they are dealing with an enormous amount of politically-motivated chaos as the Tories systematically underfund the NHS in an attempt to destroy it. I 100% support and approve their action to fight that bullshit and improve their situation.

However; this does not make nurses either “angels” or above reproach. It makes them humans suffering difficult conditions who deserve support to better those conditions - like other workers facing capitalist bullshit and exploitation.

It does not change that nurses, like other healthcare workers, and other carers, are in a power relationship with their patients which puts them in a position uniquely capable of abusing those patients. Particularly when those patients are already physically and/or emotionally vulnerable due to illness and/or injury, and/or they belong to already marginalised groups such as BIPOC, queer folk, and/or disabled folk.

It takes a lot of care and awareness not to abuse those power relations, and plenty of nurses, other healthcare workers, and other carers, don’t. They often perpetuate the systemic abuses marginalised people face, and sometimes they abuse vulnerable people on an individual basis too.

All these facts exist *together*. *All* of these things are true.

I’ve seen a *lot* of people raising abuses and disableism they’ve suffer be hit with “what, you want us to be the US?” This is such a fallacy in so many ways - notably 1) the issue of medical disableism is systemic, and fucking *hell* it exists in the US 2) disabled people tend to live in poverty and thus are in an even worse position in the US.

But most of all, it’s a fallacy because *exposing abuses within and criticising a system does not mean wanting to destroy it*. It’s about *wanting to improve it*.

It’s an example of the same issue that constantly arises with climate change protestors being screamed at if they ever use a car. It is entirely possible, indeed, essential to live within a system and yet *desperately* attempt to improve it.

I’m asking everyone who sees this to:

1) support the nurse’s strike, because it’s *essential* to support a large group of low-paid workers fighting to improve their working conditions

2) speak about the fact that it is possible to do this *and* want to improve how nurses treat patients, especially marginalised ones

3) actively go in to support any marginalised folks you see being dogpiled and abused for speaking up about medical disableism and medical and caregiver abuse.

Part of how systemic disableism operates on a social level is to treat anyone caring for disabled folks as “angels”, above reproach. Whether they’re paid to do so or not.

What this perpetuates is

1) disabled people being conditioned to accept any abuse they receive. The message is “be grateful you’re not just being left for dead”. Which is ridiculous. Disabled people are people. We deserve decent lives free from abuse like every other person.

2) people in those professions being conditioned to accept low pay and shitty working conditions. Because they’re “vocations” you do because “you’re an angel” who doesn’t think about money. Which is also ridiculous. Workers in every profession deserve decent pay and conditions for the work they do, and carers, systemically, don’t. Carers, systemically, are abused - they work long hours, for crap pay, and often in shitty conditions.

As a disabled person, I *want* carers to be paid and treated well. Because I’m a decent human being who wants other humans to live decent lives, AND because I think carers who are paid and treated well do their jobs of caring for vulnerable and marginalised people better.

Also: FFS, if you have any ability to do so, put pressure on Labour to actively support the strikes or change their bloody name.

#nhs strike #nurses #unions #unionise #disabled #disableism #medical discrimination #uk labour party #labour organising #medical #medical disableism #nurses strike #systemic disableism

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storiesofsvu · 2 years

Text

Escape Ch 13

Warnings: Language

When you’d knocked on Hailey’s door, she’d obviously immediately let you, figuring you were there to just hangout. It was only after a few hours of mindless television accompanied by the greasiest room service you could find that she spoke.

“Did you sleep with her?”

“What?” Your head rolled to face her, “No!”

“Mkay.” She shrugged, “I just figured if you were sleeping here that you guys were fighting, or that he was mad at you.”

“No..” You gave a weary sigh, “Pete just..gave me an ultimatum.”

“And?”

“He’s worried about going back home and me not being able to get over her. He doesn’t think he can deal with it.”

“Please. He would put up with a world war if it meant being with you.” She rolled her eyes, “Your marriage is sickly cute.”

“Yeah well, I don’t wanna put him through that…” Hailey gave a brief sigh, jumping off the bed, headed to the mini fridge.

“Fuck this. City’s paying for it anyways.” She tugged a handful of the tiny bottles from the mini bar out of the fridge, tossing you a few as she climbed back on the bed, “Let’s just, drink it away for tonight?” You laughed, dumping one into the can of sprite you had.

“What would you do?”

“If I was you?” You nodded, “To be honest, I’d definitely fuck her.”

“Hailey!”

“I mean it! Bring back some memories, give it a little last time if that’s where you want to go. Then…compare and examine…”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Hey, don’t get me wrong, I love your relationship with Peter, but….this whole little gay sidebar thing, I am here for it.”

“I promised Pete I wouldn’t do anything else with her this trip.”

“Anything else?”

“We…we kissed earlier…” You took a hefty swig of your drink, not quite ready to deal with the situation at hand.

“He mad about that?”

“Wasn’t exactly happy…” You gave a frustrated groan, “I just need to not think about it for the rest of the night. I’ll deal with it tomorrow, try and figure things out.”

“Okay.” She replied, tossing a bottle of gin over to your bed, “Let’s get drunk and forget the bullshit then.”

“Thank you.” You gave her a brief smile, you were so incredibly thankful that your partner was one of your best friends, she understood you in a way the rest of the squad didn’t. She had your back no matter what, and was always blunt and to the point with you where others would usually beat around the bush. You ended up spending a couple of nights in her hotel room while your brain attempted to figure out the situation. Though you were still loving and affectionate towards Peter, you still shared little moments, you just knew if you buried yourself in his arms at night, you’d be a sucker for him, and you needed some amount of clarity right now. Casey and you had a few more talks, trying to work through your emotions, an attempt for her to fully get to know the real you throughout the process of working the trial. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

The trial ended up wrapping before you’d thought, enough deals were made, and there were enough witness testimonies to bury every perp possible. Hailey was down at the tombs with the two perps you needed to extradite back to Chicago while you finished up watching the trial. You’d been quick to promise a couple of victims that you’d be there for them no matter what, not surprised at their emotions over the guilty verdicts. You spent a few minutes talking to them as you left the courtroom, bidding them farewell, happy that they found the justice they needed. Halfway down the stairs you fell into pace with Casey, a smile on your face as you greeted her,

“You really crushed it in there y’know.”

“Thanks.” She smiled back, “You’re probably the best detective I’ve ever had take the stand.”

“Been under enough I’d hope I’d be good at it by now.” You half laughed, feet meeting the sidewalk at the bottom of the stairs. There was a brief pause as you turned towards each other, you could both feel the tears fighting their way into your eyes. You couldn’t resist the urge to wrap your arms around her neck, pulling her into a deep hug, sighing at the relief of her body against yours, “Thank you…for being so patient…for everything. Know that I love you Casey.”

“But you love him more.” She pulled away slightly, hand briefly caressing your cheek, “Y/N, you made the right choice. He loves you so unconditionally I can barely believe it. I could never love you like that. I don’t know if I could actually ever fully forgive you for everything that happened, if I could ever fully trust you again, but he understands, so please, love him with all of your heart. Forget about me.”

“I don’t know if I could ever forget you…but…I hope to finally get over you? Friends?” She gave you a soft smile, begging the tears in her eyes to not fall.

“Friends.” She pulled you into a gentle hug.

“If…if you’re ever in Chicago?” You tugged a business card from your pocket, handing it to her. Casey appreciated the sentiment, knowing that you were leaving the control in her hands. You didn’t have her phone number anymore, you were meant to be with your husband, and you wanted to make that continue to work, but you didn’t want her to completely vanish out of her life.

“I’ll know where to find you.” She gave your hand a soft squeeze, her head nodding further down the street, “He’s waiting, you should go.”

“Thank you…for everything…” You felt her fingertips slide down to your wrist, squeezing against the sun tattoo, the look in her eye all you needed to know it was time to go. You gave a shaky sigh as you turned, thankfully able to keep the tears inside as you moved over to Peter, interlocking your fingers with his. He softly kissed the side of your head, giving Casey a gentle nod as you each turned on your separate ways.

Everyone’s path in life seemed to have one that was absolutely made for them, and once you started to throw in made up storylines, fake people, things always seemed to throw off the balance of the universe. They brought people into your life who you never would have crossed paths with otherwise, sometimes it was absolutely devastating and painful, sometimes it brightened your life like no tomorrow. Casey had been your little escape in the dark world of being undercover, something familiar that you were used to. You had been her escape from the legal world, her little ray of sunshine amongst the dreariness. You’d been each other’s way to escape the bleak lives that you lived every day.

It took a while, but you and Casey slowly got over each other, you deleted the messages, any photos that you deemed romantic, she got rid of everything you left in her apartment. She slowly started to branch out, eventually seeing someone, meanwhile you were more than happy with Peter, his whole reaction to everything you’d gone through was simply incredible. You thanked him for being so understanding, for being so incredible, and he was quick to remind you just how much he loved you, how scared he was to let you go. A few months into your life back in Chicago you admitted you could never imagine a life without him, as much as you had loved Casey, he was always your number one. Thankfully, she was more than happy in her own little bubble in New York, her life moving on in a way she barely remembered your time together, until of course, her eyes fell to the sun tattoo she’d gotten on her wrist.

#casey novak #escape #casey novak x reader #peter stone x reader #law and order svu #svu #law and order

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therapardalis · 1 year

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[Munday Meme from @empatheticagent.] ------------

How long have you been roleplaying?

Let’s just say that there’s a reason I have this crusty old bugger as my mun avatar!

Online, I started in email groups and then LJ in the early 2000s, and I was doing tabletop before then.

What do you consider your strengths as a writer?

I ... have no idea. Words have always been my friends, putting them together, making stories with them. One of the few places they fail me is in talking about where I’m strongest or what I do right XD!

What do you enjoy the most about creating ocs?

Cut for negativity!

In a nutshell - I don’t. I hate it. This is why I’ve only had this one for the last 10 years, and (counts on fingers) four others in the past (pre-Tumblr). The amount of work you have to do and the amount of utter bullshit you have to deal with when you’re writing a female OC on Tumblr is ridiculous, and I’m not inclined to do it over again another time. So ... new AUs for the Girl is about as far as it’s gonna go.

#EmpatheticAgent #Munday answers #Thanks :)

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your-favorite-roommate · 1 year

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OC Interview: Mickey and Abraham

based off of [this] amazing template by @marnie-mixs-meteors (please let me know if you want me to untag)

What would you put on your burger?

Mickey: I’m a sucker for any good burger with an egg on it

Mickey: What?

Abraham: I- what?

Abraham: Why would you…ruin a perfectly good burger?

Mickey: Alright I know what we’re eating tonight.

Abraham: NO anyway, I like… I don’t know, normal stuff. Pickles?

Mickey: He’s my designated pickle eater.

Abraham: If it makes you happy, sure.

How much junk food do you eat? Has it affected your health?

Abraham: Oh god, the amount of junk food Mickey eats is ridiculous!

Mickey: You say that as if you’re any better…

Abraham: Hey, I didn’t grow up on Earth, so I need to catch up on all the foods I never got to eat. Besides, I’m your guardian angel. I’ve got to make sure you stay alive, and you can’t exactly do that with cotton candy stuffing your arteries.

Mickey: Oh so that makes it okay for you, though?

How good are you at sharing? How do you share something if there's not enough supply?

Abraham: Obviously!

Abraham: Mickey has the kindest heart of any creature I’ve ever met, hands down. And I know so many angels! But Mickey would bend over backwards to give everything to anyone around him.

Mickey: …Are you just saying that because you’ve got to keep up the perfect angel image?

Abraham: Oh, god no. That’s long gone. But I’m supposed to be taking care of you, and you’ve only taken care of me since day one. You gave me your spare bedroom and put up with my bullshit when I was at my lowest, and have been helping me ever since.

Where do you work? How much are you paid, and would you prefer a different job? Why?

Mickey: I have a job at the local library, I’ve been there for a couple years. It’s minimum wage, but I don’t mind cuz I enjoy the work I do.

Abraham: Well, usually you do...

Mickey: Obviously there’s awful customers everywhere. Bitchy moms who are so confused as to why I can’t loan a book out to their kid when we don’t even have the book in our system. But for the most part, everyone’s wonderful.

Abraham: People could stand to be nicer, though… I don’t see why I can’t just stay with you, make sure people are being nice.

Mickey: Because you’d scare them by pretending to knock them out over my shoulder! Besides, we need the extra income from the coffee shop.

Abraham: I work part-time at the coffee shop in the library and it’s alright. The owners are pretty nice, the pay is kinda garbage but I make tips, so that helps. But I’ll be honest, some customers are not helping my opinion of them when they come in looking for trouble.

Mickey: They’re probably tired, you do serve coffee after all…

Abraham: No excuse to be yelling at service workers at 8am.

What's your favorite flavor of edible thing (e.g., strawberry)?

Abraham: Vanilla, Mickey thinks it’s a basic bitch choice, but I like it.

Mickey: I never said that! I just think that salted caramel is better, that’s all.

How do you compose yourself in stressful situations?

Abraham: Is “I don’t” an answer?

Mickey: You know, you’d think for someone whose purpose is to protect others, you’d be better at keeping your cool in situations.

Abraham: I must’ve missed that class in school.

Mickey: That’s alright, I’ve got enough cool for both of us.

Abraham: God help us if you’re the cool one in this relationship…

What is your biggest flaw? How do you deal with it? Do you deal with it?

Abraham: Ha, bold of you to assume I have flaws!

Abraham: Alright you didn’t have to say that, dude.

Mickey: …Yeah alright, Mr “you could never comprehend what I’m going through”

Mickey: Don’t “dude” me, bro!

Abraham: Don’t “bro” me, dude! In my defense, that conversation we had was really eye-opening, and I’ve been working on my selfish tendencies a lot since then.

Mickey: Wait, what’s my biggest flaw….

Abraham: Probably that you suck dick or something.

Mickey: You’re right, that must be it.

Abraham: And you deal with it by suc-

Mickey: And on to the next question!

Do you prefer things simple or extravagant?

Mickey: I prefer simple things, extravagant stuff is just too much usually.

Abraham: I’m gonna have to agree. I always thought I wanted big grand things, but I think that’s just what my uncle wanted for me. I’m happier with the smaller stuff in life.

How do you celebrate your birthday? With who, and where?

Abraham: Angels actually don’t have birthdays, or at least they’re not kept track of like humans.

Mickey: Which I still think is so weird…

Abraham: I think I had been living with Mickey for a month already before he asked. So he took it upon himself to come up with my birthday for me.

Mickey: It’s important to me! What kind of awful friend would I be if I didn’t know your birthday?

Abraham: Not an awful friend, on account of I don’t even have a birthday to know!

Mickey: Anyway, my birthday is April 30th, and Abraham’s honorary birthday is January 29th.

Abraham: Isn’t that….

Mickey: The day you fell from the sky? Yeah, that was intentional.

Abraham: How have I never noticed that before…

How does your partner change as you get to know them?

Mickey: Delicious character development in this one.

Abraham: Gross, don’t ever say that again.

Mickey: Scrumptious.

Abraham: Ew.

Mickey: Abraham’s gotten a lot more accustomed to life here, and also has just become a more adjusted person living in the real world.

Abraham: Just because I can’t go back home doesn’t mean it’s not real….

Mickey: Hmm, I'm gonna need some proof there.

Abraham: Mickey hasn’t changed much, except that he feels more outgoing now. Maybe I just didn’t see this side of him though.

Mickey: No, you’re right. I was definitely way more reserved before you came crashing into my life like a bull in a china shop. For as much chaos as you’ve caused me, it’s been good chaos.

Abraham: Ew don’t be sweet about it, go back to your gross adjectives.

If you had to describe your partner using flavors, how would you (e.g., 'they're very sweet')?

Abraham: …Vanilla.

Mickey: I can’t tell if you mean that you love me like you love vanilla, or that you think I’m a basic bitch.

Abraham: Who’s to say!

Mickey: Alright then, well I think he’s like a sour patch kid.

Abraham: Salty, sweet, gone?

Mickey: Wrong commercial.

What's the longest journey you have gone on? What was it for? Did you succeed?

Abraham: I mean, leaving my home and coming to Earth, though it didn’t feel like that long of a journey…

Mickey: Maybe the journey was the friends you made along the way.

Abraham: Maybe shut the fuck up.

What can't you ever quit?

Abraham: I’ve been raised to protect a human, that is my life’s purpose; if I can’t protect my human, what good am I as a Guardian Angel? I must always stay vigilant, ready to protect Mickey at a moment’s notice.

Mickey: Alright all powerful guardian angel, where were you yesterday when I burned my hand on the toaster?

Abraham: I can’t protect against one’s own stupidity.

What would you like to receive for Valentine's Day/as a token of love?

Mickey: A big old kiss!

Abraham: That’s so untrue, last time I tried to kiss you I thought you were gonna rip my lips off.

Mickey: Okay, maybe not at ass o’clock in the morning.

Abraham: What other time is there?

Abraham: I like cuddling, that’s all I want. Or comfy clothes.

Mickey: So many time…. Many other time….

Would you ever share food with someone?

Mickey: What do you think I did when Abraham first moved in? You think I starved the guy?

Abraham: This is true, Mickey has never shared food in his life and I did in fact starve.

Mickey: Shut up, you ate so much of my food. You still eat so much of my food.

Abraham: Yeah, and I replenish it when I can!

Mickey: Getting me fresh coffee everyday doesn’t count as buying me food.

Abraham: What, you want me to stop?

Mickey: No! Please don’t take away my free coffee…

Expensive restaurants or cheap store-brand microwave meals?

Mickey: Cheap microwave meals all the way!

Abraham: Hell yeah!

Mickey: And when we’re feeling bougie, we buy the branded shit too.

Abraham: Goodbye Kroger brand mac and cheese, hello Kraft!

Mickey: We don’t have the money for expensive restaurants, to be honest.

Abraham: Fanciest we get is Olive Garden. But by god are their breadsticks good… Who needs the expensive shit, honestly!

At what point does someone seem sickly sweet to you?

Abraham: Oh god, yeah no thanks. I don’t think I’ve met anyone like that so far? Maybe some of the angels I used to know, but I can’t hold it against them.

Mickey: Anyone who acts fake, I guess? I’ve got a couple old coworkers who would pretend to be everyone’s friend just to shit talk them behind their back. I hated those girls…

#oc interview #interview: mickey and abraham #angel au

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thebonerpit · 1 year

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I need to talk about Dragon Age Absolution because yeah I’m late to the party but I finally watched it...

First of all, I can’t get over the utter ridiculousness of Hawke failing to kill not one but TWO villains. Like. what the FUCK lmfao. This poor man/woman. And poor Varric too, holy shit. But I am a bit confused because Varric was viscount of Kirkwall at the end of DAI right? Was this already happening and he somehow just didn’t notice?? (There was also some weird timeline fuckery with Hira saying her family was killed by Venatori when she was a small child but now she’s at least 20 and the Venatori didn’t even exist until DAI. DA4 cannot be 15+ years later, that would be bananas.)

I was kind of spoiled for the Meredith reveal but I didn’t know she was fully aware and talking and controlling red lyrium templars?!?!?! I thought she was just gonna be the red crystal and that artifact was going to wake her up but I guess she’s already awake, so maybe it’s to give her a body again? IDK IDK.

Unfortunately I didn’t love Miriam. She’s just the type of character I don’t generally like... kinda 2edgy4u y’know? I mean she’s basically a female Fenris but the difference is we had a whole-ass game to get to know him and see his personality emerge and see him work through his trauma but this entire series was over SO fast that I never felt like I knew her at all. I knew Hira was going to betray them because there was absolutely no fucking way Fairbanks was the real traitor and if you played Inquisition you probably knew that too. It sucks he died but at least he wasn’t a bastard. Oh and speaking of Hira I just find it so funny that she was like “yeah I asked the Inquisition to go WAR with Tevinter and they said NO can you believe?!” and I’m like YES I can believe, what the fuck? Are you kidding me?? You think the Inquisition - who are already being scrutinized and accused of being power hungry and are dealing with mountains of other things - are going to start a war with one of the most powerful nations in Thedas? I have to laugh.

Rezaren had the personality of a piece of wet bread and I was zero percent interested in his whiny shenanigans. Although I do appreciate how he thought that keeping the reanimated corpse of his dead slave around to chat to every now and then was NORMAL. Horrific. I actually really liked Tassia though! Because for almost the entirety of DA we’ve sort of been told that Tevinter templars are weak as kittens and are basically pointless, but Tassia was a certified boss swinging that hammer around. It was weird that we never saw her use any templar abilities though (unless I missed it?) so maybe that is sort of frowned upon in Tevinter.

The real winners here are OBVIOUSLY Lacklon and Roland omg babessssss. Roland was by far my fave character. Optimistic and heroic with just the right amount of sass so he wasn’t boring. Qwydion was... ugh ok I am on the fence with her. There were a lot of parts where I really did like her but imho they just made her a BIT too silly. Like running away screaming from the demons... girl... you’re a badass mage, what the hell was that?!

Anyway overall I give it a solid 7/10. I think I was just so excited to see something new in the DA world again /sobs, so I can overlook some of the faults. I am both terrified and excited for DA4 because I thought we would be mostly dealing with Solas and his bullshit but now we have Meredith + red templars invading Tevinter which is already struggling to repel constant Qunari invasions?? Things are not looking good for Tevinter tbh and if that means something bad happens to Dorian I will RIOT.

#dragon age absolution #tbptalks #this is a massive braindump lol #also me seeing .2 seconds of cullen in the background of one scene: A CRUMB

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seennombre3 · 6 months

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Seen Nombre,

Feb 6

A dear friend reached out to me telling me how brilliant my IG handle was. I had changed it for the hundredth time and I told him I think I finally landed on something that I actually liked and something that reflected me and my artwork, which then spiraled down a rabbit hole of self-reflection and some “ah-ha” moments (TK, sorry to have bombarded you with an essay through IG DM’s, you’re a real one I love you so much my friend).

My IG art-handle is: seen.nombre (a play on the saying “sin nombre”, which means “nameless” in Spanish). “Sin nombre” was already taken on the platform, but I wanted the name so I had to get playful with it, but I think it has a deeper meaning that I originally meant it to have, much like my art. In the end, it’s working out for me. It feels right.

Throughout my whole life I have struggled with my name. Don’t get me wrong, I love my name, but its history and my culture and the society I live in that makes things a bit complicated. For example, I didn’t learn that my real name is actually “Maria” and “Lupita” was just a nickname until I was in Kindergarten. It was a whole thing and it was devastating. Every time I started a new school or entered a new class I had to explain my name to my teacher and my friends. Same thing with jobs. And checking in at the airport. Or signing a new lease. For some this wasn’t a big deal, for others it was ridiculous. At my first job my boss told me that trying to remember to call me Lupita instead of Maria was going to be hard for her to remember and she wasn’t going to do it. I had a few professors in college mix my names up in front of everyone in class and I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed for them. Like why the fuck did she just call me Maria when she called me Lupita 2 minutes before? I could go on and on. In every situation I couldn’t help but feel this nervousness creep up inside me. I felt like explaining my name was complicated and it makes me almost start to feel bad about my name and the confusion it can cause people which is total bullshit. But that’s what it’s been like. “Lupita” directly translated is “little Lupe” and is derived from “Maria Guadalupe”, my legal name. This is the name of la Virgen Maria, la Virgen de Guadalupe, otherwise known as Mother Mary, an icon and symbol of strength in Mexican culture. It’s pretty badass. It’s old school. It’s hella common in Mexico.

So with the trauma I carry with explaining and defending my name came debilitating anxiousness when trying to find a name for myself as an artist. Naturally, using Lupita Gonzalez felt like a problem. 1) I feel like it doesn’t reflect who I am as an artist accurately and 2) the amount of Lupita Gonzalez’s there are in the world is insane and I find it hard to make a name for myself because of everything I’ve talked about so far. Let’s unpack this together shall we. This may be my own insecurity talking, but my name is Mexican as fuck. I know it’s messed up to think that my name is “too Mexican” for me and if I think about it long enough I feel ashamed, but I can’t help but feel like it is! Yes I grew up speaking Spanish and in a family with strong Mexican-Catholic values, but we’re also pretty Americanized. When my family moved to the states, when my grandparents raised my mom in Redwood City, and when my parents settled down in the Bay Area, they tried to fit in by learning how to cook Thanksgiving dinners and meatloaf and other foods that are absolutely not in our culture. They began picking up English and teaching us that as our first language. We celebrated the American holidays more than we celebrated the Mexican holidays. I didn’t even know the significance of Día de los Muertos or our Independence Day til later in life. Sure we’d watch telenovelas and Spanish cartoons, listened to reggaeton and banda every now and then, but in the end we’re pretty Americanized. I didn’t even have a quince because my mom said that’s “too Mexican” for us. So I feel like when people see my name they’ll expect something out of me. Or, they’ll label me as “Mexican” and maybe pass me up because it doesn’t fit their “aesthetic” or what’s trending. Then they’ll miss my art entirely. Maybe I’m just overthinking it.

But this is how I feel as an artist. The art community, while beginning to uplift the voices of women, femme, and POC artists, is still hella white. A majority of the spaces that hold art are white-dominant. The art that sells the most or get the most likes fits this “white aesthetic”. Sure it’s pretty and clean cut and modern and nice to look at, but it’s everywhere and it’s exhausting and it’s becoming so basic. So when thinking of what my IG handle or website or brand will be named or look like, I felt this pressure of fitting the mould and be succumbed to this white, perfect aesthetic, and that doesn’t feel right at all. Even when I tried to give in, something pulled me back and was like nah, this isn’t it. Naturally, I go against the mould and march to the beat of my own drum (can you guess what sign I am?). And through my practice I don’t follow many rules, I value imperfection, I keep it real. I don’t really care about fitting in or following the trends. I just want to paint.

So let’s make it more confusing. I am Seen Nombre. Seen Nombre is by me, Lupita Gonzalez. I want to be seen in my own way and I don’t want to be labeled as hella Mexican or not Mexican enough or not being trendy or whatever. I just want to put my art out there because I like sharing it and I like making things and it makes people happy. It makes me happy. My art evolves, the world evolves, we all evolve, and I am constantly evolving, so it’s no use being tied to something like a name or a brand or an aesthetic or a trend. I just want to be me. Now that I’m an adult I’m putting in the work to learn more about my culture and the symbols that I feel connected to and who I am as a Mexican-American female artist, which is beginning to become reflected in my art more and more.

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mythicaldemonart · 1 year

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You know, I like playing Risk on Steam... But holy shit the AI, even on expert, are terrible at the game.

And when I say they are terrible, I mean, not only are they pretty easy to out maneuver if you understand even a little bit of what you’re doing. They also make decisions that don’t make any sense.

And weirdly enough it seems almost like different bot players have different “personalities”. Some will be sensible and actually make some smart plays to try and disrupt opponents by taking key areas and breaking continents. And some of the bot players will be hyper-aggressive and fixated on killing you/another player/another bot for the entire fucking game, like a complete moron.

And it’s really the second bot that makes bot matches just deeply frustrating... Not just cause they are annoying to deal with, but also because in precarious situations where a player is about to snowball straight into the endgame, they will literally throw the entire game.

The amount of games that I have lost because a bot player decided to ignore the player in the lead, who they were absolutely in a good position to disrupt and keep the game going, and instead go after me. Letting the player in the lead snowball and kill us all, well it’s becoming more frequent and I hate it. Sometimes it takes a couple turns. But I also had a game today where the fucking blue bot decided to go all in on killing me from the very first fucking turn instead of trying to claim the continent that it nearly controlled. (When I say it went all in, it decided to stack 19 fucking troops on a single territory next to me.) I still won that game and I made sure to kill blue myself, but I was also very lucky that the other two bots were essentially just fighting each other for most of the game, and didn’t bother looking in my direction until I was already prepared to take them out. Because my other least favourite thing is that sometimes, and I mean very rarely, the bot players ignore each other and coordinate to take me out, even when I’m barely even a threat. And I mean like, it’s one thing if one player decides to try and take me out, it another thing entirely when all the bots ignore each other for a turn specifically to focus on taking out all of my territories... Not to mention some of the bot players are only even remotely a threat because their dicerolls are absolute bullshit. I’ve seen them win 8v6 battles and only losing 2 troops, on multiple occasions... And yet I would absolutely bet that if I tried that I would almost always lose like half of my troops, if it even succeeds at all, because my dicerolls are always terrible. The “expert” AI in this game are a complete joke, they constantly throw games and make ridiculously stupid decisions, and in general it just feels like they just troll, rather than actually play with a hint of strategy.

#please ignore #I'm just rambling because I don't know where else to put this rant #but I need to get it out of my head

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thememphislee · 1 year

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“Unhealthy Healthcare”

It’s hard to get sick these days if you can’t afford it, however not having the money doesn’t stop you from paying for it, both figuratively and literally. I think of healthcare in the same way as our prison system in the sense that were going to get what the government wants to give us without giving us a seat at the table nor an opportunity to advocate the “want versus need” aspect. For example, our health insurance covers us if we stay healthy and it isn’t necessarily set up to keep us well just as the criminal justice system only allows our innocence if we can pay for it. You can be convicted of a crime even if you’re innocent if you are unable to spend the right amount of money to defend yourself. Just like if you can’t finance an illness, you’re stuck with it.

Remember prohibition? Alcohol was illegal to manufacture, sale or possess. Can you even imagine that today? Yet there are still laws that dictate what time of day or night that you can buy it or sell it, you can drink it anytime, just not publicly. Alcohol is the single most dangerous product for people that don’t even use it. Drugs like cocaine, heroin or meth typically only kill the user, and although their effects on others is minimal, yet all are illegal, even though booze has the majority of deaths from use, or victims of those under its influence, but you can get it anywhere, it really blows my mind.

Let’s talk about dental insurance, most plans don’t cover the saving or replacing of teeth or their repair. Coverage is often limited to the equivalent of “brush your own teeth or else!” What sense does that make? The overwhelming majority of people that need dental work are the ones that don’t take care of their smile, absolutely ridiculous. Take junk food or fast food, the number one killer and culprit of almost every form of disease or health problem, yet it’s sale or purchase isn’t restricted in the least. If you have to be 21 to buy beer, you should have to also have a weight limit on an unhealthy diet. But that would make too much sense. Childhood obesity is a problem, but selling the candy is ok? I feel like something is missing in translation with this whole program.

This is a true personal story, an actual situation that I’m dealing with. I’ve been trying to find a psychiatrist to help me work on myself, no joke or punchline, this is reality. My health insurance covers the cost of my visit and allows for me to receive a discount on any medication I’m prescribed. You’re going to think that I’m bullshitting you, but with absolute sincerity, the only places that I have been able to get in do not have any psychiatrists on staff. I know, crazy right?! They have “psychiatric nurses” that prescribe medications, however they are not doctors themselves, so any problem that I need to work through, they don’t do that. The one medication that I have found to be beneficial has been Ambien, which is used to help me sleep. My current primary care doctor doesn’t want to prescribe it because she said she doesn’t want to be responsible for keeping checks on it, she referred me to a psychiatrist within my medical network, but guess what, they’re not taking any new patients. I couldn’t even make this up if I wanted to. The most recent “medical professional,” and I’m using this term loosely, doesn’t want to prescribe the one thing that has helped, which they have the ability to approve and their reason; “This medication has the tendency to be abused.” Not even joking. I guess that I can always just pick up some alcohol, anyways. I’m sick of writing this, pun intended. Any thoughts…

The Memphis Lee speaks, now ya’ heard!

That’s how I roll.!!!

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emmyhem · 3 years

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everything you’re missing (c.t.h)

a/n: hi everybody, i’m back with another post. this is my first calum piece and i’m so excited to finally get it up. this is once again unedited, i’m way too tired rn. it’s also the second smut i’ve posted so that’s pretty exciting as well. yeah i don’t really have much to say right now because i’m literally exhausted, my classes are really kicking my ass. anyway i hope you all enjoy this bff!calum piece. feedback and comments are always appreciated. hope you all are doing well and are being safe. thank you - emmy <33

pairing: bff!calum hood x fem!reader

summary: a drunken text meant for your ex shows up on calum’s phone and leaves him questioning everything he’s missing out on with his best friend.

warning(s): talk of a previous bad relationship, y/n’s ex body shamed her, mentions of alcohol, insecurity, smut, cursing

word count: 4.7k

You’ve decided that 3 glasses of wine is your happy medium, but even a sip into the 4th and there’s no telling what you’ll do.

So, naturally you were finishing up your 5th glass on Friday night while angrily scrolling through your exes instagram when you got what seemed to be an incredible idea. It was simply too tempting not to, your mind was feeling hazy which made your confidence skyrocket, and you truly did just look good.

A day of pampering had left you in a black floor length silk robe with nothing but your favorite deep cherry red lingerie set underneath. Your face was bare and glowing after a refreshing and illuminating face mask, and your lips were left glossy and plump from a new scrub.

You had posed in front of the floor length mirror in your living room, giggling between snaps until you had taken the perfect shot. It was classy but provocative, the dressing gown slipping from your shoulders exposing the lace of your bra and a tasteful amount of cleavage. You had also left the bottom open, allowing a clear shot of your thighs and the curve of your ass from where you sat on your knees.

With a mischievous glint in your eyes you selected the picture into a message, typing a cheeky, “take a good look at everything you’re missing” and sending it off to your ex (or so you thought).

But you really couldn’t be blamed for your mistake, Cam and Cal were far too similar for your drunk brain to decipher the difference. You also couldn’t be blamed for the fact that you dozed off on the couch immediately after sending it, before you even had a chance to recognize your humiliating mistake.

You were awoken by the ringing of your phone at around 9:00 am, way too early for your liking. Before even registering who it was, you brought the phone to your ear and groaned a sleepy, “hello,”

“At your door.” a voice you recognized as your best friend responded.

“M’coming” you said, scooting off the couch. On your way to the door you registered that you were still scantily covered, the robe falling off of you as you walked. You clutched it around you as you swung the door open to a wide eyed, Calum Hood.

“G’morning.” he smirked, looking you up and down.

“Shh” you hushed, pulling him in by the arm. “Why in the world are you here so early?”

He lightly laughed while taking a seat at the kitchen table, eyes following you while you moped over to the fridge and pulled out two water bottles.

“Well,” he sighed as you handed him one. “I got a very interesting text last night and I figured I just had to come over and see, y’know everything I was missing.” he spoke in a teasing tone as he gestured a hand down your body.

You tugged your eyebrows together in confusion. There was something familiar about what he was saying, but not familiar enough for you to put the pieces together.

“What are you talking about?” you questioned bringing the water bottle to your lips.

Calum shrugged his shoulders, a smirk still glued to his face as he took out his phone and began looking for something. After a few seconds he extended his arm to hand you his phone. You accepted it and glanced down absentmindedly as your body slumped against the counter.

The second your eyes hit the screen it all came back to you, your mouth fell open and you straightened out, suddenly very awake, not to mention very mortified.

Calum on the other hand was buzzing. Actually, he had been ever since his phone dinged last night awakening him from his sleep. Well, buzzing and extremely, extremely sexually frustrated.

When he first opened your message and saw the picture that would now be making a regular appearance in his wet dreams, he had nearly choked on his own breath. He knew that it was most likely a drunken mistake, and while that slightly saddened him it didn’t stop his dick from plumping up at the sight, straining uncomfortably against his boxers. He seriously debated wanking to the tempting image but decided against it, thinking it would be a gross violation of your privacy since it wasn’t even meant for him. Oh how he wished it was. Unfortunately that meant he had been sporting an exceptionally sensitive halfie since then.

“Oh my god.” you groaned, sitting the phone down on the counter and covering your eyes in humiliation. “Cal I’m soooo sorry, I was drunk, and overly confident, and I meant to send this to Cam and now I’m just, I’m sorry.” you reiterated.

‘Hey, don’t apologize on my account.” he countered. “Plus, you should be thrilled you sent it to me and not that asshole, doesn’t deserve ya.”

“I know, you’re right. Doesn’t change the fact that I’m mortified though. S’bit ridiculous, get a little alcohol in my system and I have a god complex all of a sudden” you rambled, running your hands through your hair nervously.

Calum stood and pulled you into his arms, resting his chin on the top of your head.

“You think too much, y’know that?” he quipped.

You turned your head, pressing a cheek against his sweater clad chest and mumbled, “Yea I’ve been known for that.”

Calum softly chuckled at your words before pressing a chaste kiss to the top of your head and pulling apart.

“S’really no big deal, y/n.” a teasing grin plastered on his face. “Besides I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it.”

“Calum!” you scolded, swatting a hand at his arm.

He dodged your hit just in time and held his hands up in surrender before taking his seat again.

“Why'd you let that dick bother you anyway? Y’know you’re way out of his league.”

Your jaw clenched at the question, your mind wandering to every time you had come to Calum crying after your ex had done something to hurt you. Everytime he commented on your “stomach pudge” as he liked to call it, when you wore a tight dress to go out. Or when he would ask if you were really “that” hungry, even if you hadn’t eaten much at all. And each time you would feel absolutely wretched and end up sobbing in Calum’s arms, but refusing to tell him why you were so, so sad.

“He texted me the other day y’know?” you muttered under your breath, while fiddling with the coffee machine.

“Really? What’d he say?” Calum responded, watching your back with narrowed eyes.

“Uh, he saw me the other night, when we were at that bar with the guys.” you said, shaky fingers pulling out a mug.

“And?” he spoke flatly.

“It’s stupid really,” you sniffled, willing your voice not to break. “He said I put on a few pounds, that he was glad he got out when he did.” your bottom lip traitorously jutted out as you turned to face him.

“Fucking dick.” he hissed.

Calum wasn’t necessarily proud of the violent images that flashed through his mind at the thought of that asshole finding yet another way to hurt you but, the sad little quiver of your lip allowed him to reason without a doubt that they were fair.

Before you could even blink he was holding you again, arms impossibly tight around you. .

“He’s wrong, y/n. Fuck, I don’t know how to even...he’s just so wrong.” he said softly, his hand rubbing your back reassuringly.

“I know.” you whimpered, holding tears back.

He pulled back enough to look you in the eyes, arms still firm around your waist.

“No you don’t. It’s...It really fucking pisses me off that he makes you feel like this. It’s like-fuck you’re just like-” he moved his hands to cup your cheeks. “You really are gorgeous.”

Your heart fluttered at his words, and your whole body felt warm as you stared at his big brown eyes. His words felt sincere, everything about him felt so sincere.

“Thank you, Cal.”

He pulled you back into his chest, “Really wish I could just, like hug away all his bullshit.”

“M’used to it.” you mumbled.

“You don’t deserve any of it.”

“Yea, well what can you do.” you sighed, moving out of his embrace.

Calum’s eyes were still glued to you as you stirred a spoonful of sugar in your coffee.

“I hope you don’t let anything he says get to you.”

You let out a breath of exhaustion.

Confidence wasn’t something that you used to struggle with. I mean sure, there were spouts of insecurity here and there but you knew your worth, and you considered yourself pretty, hot even. That had all changed a few months into your latest relationship. First it was the backhanded compliments which quickly turned into passive comments, and then outright cruel insults. People really underestimate the toll their words take on others, especially when the person that’s making you feel so ugly and worthless, is one that you adore and who’s supposed to adore you right back, no matter what.

“I try but, he can’t just be making it all up.” you were ashamed. When did you become the girl that lets a guy affect how she sees herself? That just wasn’t you.

“He is. He’s insecure and a douche. He was probably trying to destroy your confidence to the point that you felt like you couldn’t leave him.” Calum assured. “But you’re way too strong for him, dumped his sorry ass anyway.”

You smiled gratefully at his words, taking a seat next to him.

“Yea, so strong I tried to send him half naked pictures for reassurance.”

Calum shook his head, “I wish you could see how hot you are.”

Your eyes widened at the compliment, your head dropping to avoid his stare as blood rushed to your cheeks.

“I’d be happy to reassure you whenever you want.” he continued, bumping his knee against yours under the table.

“Doesn’t count.” you dismissed, before sipping your coffee. “You're my best friend, you’re obligated to tell me I’m pretty.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t mean it.” he muttered back quietly, his expression dropping slightly. He hated when you deflected his compliments. All he ever wanted to do was make you feel good, and you made it very difficult for him when you blocked every swing he took at the wall of insecurity that Cam had built around you. He would kill Cam if he could.

You let out an apologetic sigh, wrapping your arms around his neck and burying your face in his shoulder.

“M’sorry, you’re right. I love you for that, the only thing keeping me sane.”

Your heart squeezed as he hugged you back.

Calum was perfect, he was sweet, and funny, and quite literally your favorite person on earth. Not to mention you had been hopelessly in love with him since practically the beginning of your friendship. But as his best friend you had heard over and over just how uninterested he was in a relationship. Everytime you would ask about his love life he would just respond,

“I’m just not the boyfriend type, m’not cut out for it.” shrugging nonchalantly.

Which you thought was laughable because anyone would be lucky to have him as a boyfriend, in fact sometimes you would let yourself pretend he was yours.

Like,in a busy club with his hands on your hips, guiding you through the crowds. So close behind, you could feel each exhale on the back of your neck, as his eyes darted around the room to ensure there weren’t any potential threats to your safety, in the form of drunk overzealous flirts. Or after a night out when he got cuddly and clingy, and would find his way from the couch into your bed. You’d wake up with his cheek pressed against your chest and his arms snaked around your torso as he released soft breaths that caused goosebumps to rise on your exposed skin. You’d let yourself imagine that you had this every morning and that he would wake up any minute to smother your face in kisses and tell you he loved you. And of course, here he was again this morning being so thoughtful and kind and everything you wanted in a boyfriend. And here you were again swimming in his praises and physically having to restrain yourself from kissing him.

Begrudgingly, you pulled away and stood up.

“Gonna get changed.” you spoke.

“I’m making us breakfast.” Calum called as you walked away. You hummed in response and slipped into your room.

Once in the privacy of your own room you quickly pulled on a pair of leggings and a hoodie before scurrying to the bathroom sink and splashing cold water on your face in hopes of ridding yourself of any romantic thoughts towards your best friend.

Although you weren’t aware, Calum was doing the very same thing just a few feet away. Internally reminding himself repeatedly that it was never gonna happen with you. He wasn’t good enough to be anyone’s boyfriend, let alone yours. You didn’t want him that way and he could almost trick himself into believing that he was okay with that.

You hastily finished brushing your teeth before returning to the kitchen. You were greeted with the sight of Calum’s back, he stood over the toaster cutting an avocado and humming a song you didn’t recognize quietly to himself. He looked over his shoulder as your footsteps approached.

“Hungry?” he questioned.

“You have no idea.” you affirmed, as he fixed a plate for you both.

“Good. I was thinking we could watch something while we eat,”

“Fine with me.” you responded, hoping he wouldn’t notice the distraction laced in your voice. Your focus had easily been stolen from the conversation to how easy it was to see his back muscles flex through the thin material of his jumper.

But of course he did, it was Calum after all.

“Y’alright?” he said, handing you a plate.

“Uh, yep.” you rushed out.

“Not still thinking about Cam, are you?”

“No, not at all.” you answered honestly, walking to the couch, Calum trailing closely behind you.

“Then what’s got you all flustered?”

“You” you thought, taking a seat in the furthest corner.

“I’m not flustered.”

“Bullshit” he countered, sitting practically on top of you.

You let out a huff, and motioned to the other completely empty side of the couch.

“Is there a reason we aren’t practicing personal space right now?”

He laughed softly at your question and nuzzled closer into your side.

“Yea, you’re all pouty, looks like you need a cuddle.”

“I’m really fine Cal.” you shoved him lightly but saw no results, he just scooched in even closer and bit into his toast.

The two of you sat in silence while some newly released action movie played on your TV. Calum’s arm was wrapped around your shoulders keeping you tight to his side, and although you could’ve sworn that you had been in this exact same position hundreds of times, you felt as if this were the very first time. Every single one of your nerves were on fire and the warmth that had flooded your body was making you antsy.

Feeling overwhelmed by your senses, you allowed your eyes to flutter close with a deep inhale.

“You okay?” Calum whispered, dipping his head down slightly to reach your ear.

You opened your mouth to respond but didn’t trust your voice to protrude through your shaky exhales, settling for a subdued nod instead.

“You sure?” his words were long and drawled out, despite your eyes being closed you knew his proximity from the feeling of his breath just behind your ear.

Before you could speak up his hand secured itself just above your knee, and your muscles flexed involuntarily at the contact.

“Relax, y/n” he continued, his thumb beginning to run repeatedly over a spot on your inner knee.

Everything in your brain was screaming at you to excuse yourself, maybe even kick him out, anything to gain some space and hopefully some clarity from the cloud of sexual tension that was looming over the two of you and blurring boundaries at lightning speed. But you were essentially frozen in place, petrified that any movement would alert Calum to the way he was affecting you.

Your head lolled back to rest on his forearm which was lying behind you on the couch and finally peeled your eyes open, staring up at the ceiling.

He watched you from the corner of his eye, taking note of every rise and fall of your chest, every thick swallow of your throat.

If there was one thing Calum was well versed in, it was his ability to read you, he liked to think he knew you better than anyone else in the world. He could tell exactly how you were feeling just by watching you, your face, your breathing and he was more than shocked when he started getting the feeling you were no longer upset but something far more appealing.

Were you turned on? Right here in his presence? The thought made blood rush to his dick, which twitched in his pants when another breathy sigh passed your lips.

“What’re you thinking about, love?”

Everything in you urged you to answer honestly, just tell him the truth. “You, I’m thinking about you. I’m always thinking about you.” But you couldn’t do that, so instead you deflected.

“What’re you thinking about?” you countered, meeting his eyes.

Calum questioned his next words very carefully, debating whether or not he could recover if he was wrong about what you were feeling and you shut him down. It was pointless though, he knew he would never recover from your rejection. He also knew that spontaneous combustion wouldn’t look very good on his tombstone and that’s exactly what would happen if he spent one more minute not kissing you.

Fuck it.

“That pretty little set you had on last night.” he confessed.

That you weren’t expecting.

A quiet whine rang from your throat and you were far too affected to feel embarrassed.

And that did it, Calum was now impossibly hard in his pants, no doubt leaking precum onto his boxer briefs. He needed to get his hands on you, now.

His hand started to slowly travel up your thigh, goosebumps rising on every centimeter they passed.

“So gorgeous in red, aren’t ya y/n?”

“Cal,” you hissed when his thumb brushed the sensitivity of your inner thigh.

“Mm.” he hummed. “It’d be pretty hard fo’me to stop right now, but I will if that’s what you want. Is that what you want, love?”

He was sure he’d cry if he had to let go of you now, but he needed to hear you say it.

“No, don’t wanna stop.” you whined, turning your body flush to his.

“Whaddya want then, baby? Hm?” You could feel his every word on the flushed skin of your neck as he leaned into the crook.

“Want you.”

He could’ve came then and there.

“Then I’m all yours.” he admitted before crashing his lips on yours.

Your heart was in your stomach as his tongue entered your mouth, explorative and eager. He was too busy memorizing your taste to notice your fingers tugging at his sweater. You attempted to push it up desperate to feel his skin under your hands. You were able to pull the fabric up about halfway before they were blocked by his arms that were holding you close against him.

Calum laughed when you pulled apart from the kiss, giving him a disappointed look.

“Want it off?” he teased.

You couldn’t bother to be embarrassed when you nodded eagerly in response. He didn’t waste any time peeling the fabric off of his skin, and you were quick to lightly run a finger across the ink feather just below his collarbone.

Now it was his turn to tug on your clothes, “Level the playing field?”

You nodded, lifting your arms and allowing him to lift the sweatshirt over your head leaving your chest completely bare. Calum groaned at the sight of your tits, his hands quickly finding your waist and tugging you down to lay on your back in one swift motion.

Once you were laid out in front of him he took the opportunity to explore the new skin. His hands left a lingering warmth as they dragged across your stomach and despite the kind words and endearing demeanor that he always upheld with you, you found yourself shying under his gaze, wanting to curl away from him. As your hands began to wrap around your stomach in an attempt to cover yourself up he quickly pushed them away, locking them in place on either side of you.

“Wanna see everything baby, all of you.” he cooed in your ear before nipping at the lobe.

His kisses began to travel down your neck, sucking a few marks to your collar bones and the surrounding areas. When his fingers grazed over a fresh bruise in the dip just between your neck and shoulders you hissed lightly.

“You look so pretty marked up for me. All mine, aren’t you baby? Not Cam’s, mine. Say it.”

“Yours, Cal.” you admitted, feeling your body sink further into the couch. You had never felt drunk off of someone’s words before and the experience was leaving you sputtering, completely compliant to your best friend.

He hummed contently at your confession, his large hands gripping at your hips, before slowly peeling your leggings off.

“Y’feel so good in my hands, like you were made for me.” his thumbs poking at the soft skin, just beneath your panties.

The feeling of his hands so close to where you needed them, but not quite there was driving you crazy.

“Cal, please.” you begged.

He groaned before tugging at the cotton covering you. “Cam’s a fucking idiot, y’know that? He had the prettiest girl in the world and treated her like shit. I’d never do that, wanna worship you baby.”

It was ridiculous how overwhelmed his words were leaving you, all desperate and squirming. As his fingers met the soaked expanse of your cunt you couldn’t hold back the throaty moan it elicited.

A pornographic sigh followed close behind, one that made Calum want to pinch himself to ensure he wasn’t in the midst of a haunting dream.

“Soaked f’me darling.” he mused, running his fingers up and down your folds to completely coat you in your arousal. You whimpered at the feeling, bucking your hips up desperate for friction.

Tutting while shaking his head, he used one hand on your lower stomach to press you back down to the couch.

“Stay still for me won’t you, love?” he cooed, continuing to run his fingers over your core lightly.

When you bobbed your head up and down in agreement he lifted your leg to his mouth, pressing a kiss to your calf.

“Hm, good girl.” he praised, softly laying your leg back down.

Calum hovered above you, dipping his head down every so often to peck at your chest, his fingers still unrelenting. The knot in your lower stomach tightened every second that passed and you felt like you could scream at any second, yearning to be full.

Calum felt like he could burst any minute himself but was determined to make this experience the best of your life. He wanted to give you something to remember, a reason to want more.

Your soft moans and frustrated grunts alerted him to your neediness and he was just about ready to give in for the both of you.

“What do you need from me, baby?” he said against your shoulder before peppering kisses across your collar bones.

You could only respond with an airy moan when his fingers found your clit.

“Hm? My fingers?” You shook your head aggressively. He knew exactly what you wanted, the tease.

“No? Want my mouth?” he teased further, leaving an opened mouth kiss in between your tits.

“Cal,” you sighed. “Fuck me, please.”

He groaned at your words, nipping lightly at the skin before ridding himself of his pants.

“You’re a fucking dream, y’know that?” he praised, desperately searching for a condom in his pants. When he finally located one he held it up to you as if it were a prized possession, smiling proudly at his own preparedness.

He hastily freed himself from the constraints of his boxers and rolled the condom on, never once taking his eyes off of the blissful expression on your face.

“Ready?” he questioned, his tip lightly pressing at your entrance. You nodded and sucked in a breath, bracing yourself for the stretch, your eyes falling closed in the process.

When a few seconds went by and nothing happened you opened your eyes to find Calum staring down at you in awe.

“Cal,” you whined. “what’re you doing?”

Your words seemed to break him from his trance, he shook his head and muttered an apology to you.

“Sorry, fuck you’re pretty. You’ve got no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this.”

“Then stop waiti-” your words were cut off by a sharp hiss that couldn’t have been prevented as his length finally pressed into you.

“Fuck.” Calum groaned his head falling back. You felt too good around him, seriously he was fucked, completely ruined for you.

You felt the exact same as your silky moans filled the room. You had never been filled this good and you questioned how you had gone so long without this.

“M-move” you sighed, clenching around him.

You could hear his breath catch at the feeling and he grunted out a strained, “Need a minute.”

He held himself in place for a few more seconds until his breaths began to even out once again before pulling nearly all the way out and slamming back in.

You yelped, pulling your lip between your teeth in hopes to drown the sound.

He continued slamming into you at an unrelenting pace, taking notice of each time your eyes would roll back when he brushed against your g-spot. He could write a book about how good you looked all fucked for him.

As his thrusts grew closer together you could feel your release creeping up on you.

“Cal, need’ta cum.” you stuttered out.

His hands tightened around your hips, pulling you even closer to him as his head poked at that spot again.

“Go on baby, let go.” he encouraged, willing himself to hold out a little longer as your walls fluttered around him.

Once you had came it only took him about three more thrusts before he was painting the condom with his release, groaning your name as his hand searched for yours to intertwine them as he came down from his own high.

His body flopped next to yours on the couch, both of you struggling to fit next to each other in such a small space, not that either of you minded the close quarters.

Your fingers remained laced together as you caught your breath, Calum peppering kisses to your shoulder and mumbling praises into your skin.

“You’re an angel. God, I just- I love you.” he said, causing your head to snap in his direction.

He looked like a deer in headlights when you asked for him to repeat himself.

“I love you?” he obliged.

“Is it a question?”

“No, I’m just not used to saying it.” he admitted, vulnerability clear in his eyes.

You wanted to kiss away the worried crease in his forehead but instead pressed your lips to his, pulling apart a fraction of an inch to speak after a few seconds.

“I love you too.” you ensured.

Calum eyes widened, not expecting you to say it back, at least not so soon. He had so much he wanted to say to you but figured all of it could be summed up by another kiss to your soft lips. So he closed the distance once again, using a bit more force this time in hopes it would convey the strength of his feelings for you.

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